ΑΝ
ΕΙΎΜΟΙ ΟΟΙΟΑΙ,
(DICTIONARY
OF THE
ENGLISH
LANGUAGE.
FOURTH EDITION
REVISED, ENLARGED, AND RESET (1910)
WALTER W. SKEAT
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2007 with funding from
Microsoft Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/etymologicaldictOOskea
ΝΕ ΜΙ ΘΙ ΟΘΊΘΑΙ,. DICTIONARY
OF THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
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OF THE
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BY THE
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ELRINGTON AND BOSWORTH PROFESSOR OF ANGLO-SAXON IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
AND FELLOW OF CHRIST'S COLLEGE
NEW EDITION REVISED AND ENLARGED
‘Step after step the ladder is ascended.’
GEORGE HERBERT, Jaceula Prudentum.
‘Labour with what zeal we will,
Something still remains undone,
LONGFELLOW, Birds of Passage.
OXFORD
Aoi Eee LAREN DON ERE Ss
Oxford University Press, Amen House, London E.C.4
GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON
BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI LAHORE DACCA
CAPE TOWN SALISBURY NAIROBI IBADAN ACCRA
KUALA LUMPUR HONG KONG
IMPRESSION OF 1963
FIRST EDITION 1879-1882
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, OXFORD
BY VIVIAN RIDLER, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
CONTENTS:
PAGE
PREFACE TO THE NEW AND REVISED EDITION . : ᾿ : ὃ vil
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION . : Ξ 5 A 5 . δ viii
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. : ὃ A δ ὦ . ° xvi
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION . ἕ : : 5 : Ε 6 xvii
BRIEF NOTES (REVISED) UPON THE LANGUAGES CITED IN THE DICTIONARY . . ΧΥΠΙ
CANONS FOR ETYMOLOGY . 3 ξ : 5 : 5 4 Ἔ XXVili
LIST OF BOOKS CONSULTED . ὃ Ε 5 : ὃ . . . ΧΧΧ
KEY TO THE GENERAL PLAN ; : A ° δ . . ΧΙ
DICTIONARY OF ETYMOLOGIES. : . δ δ . : 1
APPENDIX: I. LIST OF PREFIXES : s . . - . . 722
II. SUFFIXES : ᾿ ᾿ : . . 736
III. List oF HoMONYMS . i : A 4 ; . 731
IV. List oF DOUBLETS . : : ς ὃ : 3 748
V. LIST OF INDOGERMANIC KOOTS ὦ : : δ : 751
VI. DISTRIBUTION OF WORDS ACCORPING TO THE LANGUAGES FROM
WHICH THEY ARE DERIVED : : A : 761
SUPPLEMENT . ° ° . ° » 2 ° ° ° 777
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SURELY CRE ΤΠ 8 DR AAS
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PTO OA NAAR AL τ TLD τον
CP Pee be ΠῚ oN μια a Cee τι ΠΟ ΠΗ Βα, PY
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COPEL ΤΕ ΡΝ
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1:
PREPACE ΤΟΥ ΠΕ NEW AND) REVISED-EDITION
IT is now more than a quarter of a century since the first edition of the present work was
published. It was hardly possible for me to ascertain, at that date, that the time of its publication
was not a very favourable one; it would, perhaps, have been better to have deferred its appearance for
a few years, owing to the great advances that were being made, just at that period, in the methods
of comparative philology. The whole system of estimating the vowel-sounds has since been com-
pletely reconsidered, and the history of their phonetic values, in particular, is now regarded in a very
different light.
The chief writers on philology of that period, notably Curtius, Fick, Schleicher, and Vaniéek
agreed in the view, now known to be erroneous, that the primitive Indogermanic language had but
three short primary vowels, viz. a, 7, and γι. This strange theory (for such we should now consider it)
arose from the fact that the short primary vowels really were reduced to these three both in Gothic,
which was justly regarded as being, fou the whole, the most primitive of the Teutonic (or Germanic)
languages, and in Sanskrit, which was likewise known to possess many characteristics of extreme
antiquity. But it is now recognized that more than half of the Indogermanic languages retain
a primitive ¢, whilst just half of them retain a primitive 0; so that the number of primary short vowels
was really five, viz. a, ¢, 7,0, «“. The primitive form corresponding to the Gk. -re, L. -qgue, Skt. cha,
signifying ‘and, must have been *gwe, rather than *gaa, because the Skt. ch is a palatal sound, due to
the palatal vowel e, which once followed it. In other words, the Skt. cha was once *che.
The advance due to the following up of this discovery (for it was nothing less) has been very
considerable. The whole subject has been thoroughly revised, and the results are fully exhibited in
the Comparative Grammar of the Indogermanic Languages by Karl Brugmann; as well as in the
special German, Dutch, and Danish Etymological Dictionaries by Kluge, Franck, and Falk and Torp
respectively. It is needless to add that the same correct principles have been adopted in the
New English Dictionary.
Owing to the large number of corrections which the use of the newer method renders imperative,
I took the opportunity, in 1901, of printing an entirely new edition of my Concise Etymological
Dictionary, first issued in 1882, and partially corrected in four later editions ; the result being that the
edition of 1901 entirely supersedes all that preceded it.
The time has now arrived when it has become absolutely necessary, in the same way, to reprint
my larger Dictionary also. Alterations have now been made, more or less, in almost every article
except such as are of the simplest character.
Not only have the methods of comparative philology been greatly improved, but many valuable
works on special subjects have appeared in recent years, as, for example, those by Kluge, Franck,
Falk, Prellwitz, Bréal, Walde, Uhlenbeck, Godefroy, Hatzfeld, and others ; not one of these was avail-
able in 1879-82. Above all, I have been much assisted by the admirable articles in the New English
Dictionary, from the beginning of A down to Ph. For the latter part of the alphabet, I have mainly
consulted the Century Dictionary, the editors of which, by the way, of course had access to the second
edition of the present work.
vill PREFACE TO THE NEW AND REVISED EDITION
The number of words dealt with has been considerably increased, and (exclusive of cross-references
and the like) stands approximately thus:—A, 882; B, 865; C, 1434; D, 845; E, 575; F, 639;
Ge Brsg Jal ΠῚ: I OVS 1: τῆν; ὶ τοῦ, ILA Pye Μ' hoe Ν “Ὁ; 0, 3γ6; len 1251 (ὦ: τοῖς
R, 648; S, 1555; T, 821; U, 92; V, 265; W, 319; X, 2; Y, 45; Z, 25. The greatest number of
these begins with S ; after which follow, in order, Ὁ, P, A, B, D, T, M,1I, R, F, E, L, G, H, O, W, V,
N, J, K, QO, U, Y, Z, X- Total number, 14,286.
I beg leave to refer the reader, for further information, to the former Prefaces here reprinted, the
Brief Notes at p. xviii, the List of Books consulted, and the Key to the General Plan.
I am under obligation to a large number of correspondents and friends. In particular, I desire to
mention the names of the Rev. A. L. Mayhew, of Oxford, who gave me so much assistance when
revising my Concise Dictionary, and of P. Giles, M.A., of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, University
Reader in Comparative Philology. My second daughter, Clara L. Skeat, has verified nearly all the
references given in the third edition, and has in many ways rendered me efficient help.
CAMBRIDGE, Agril 30, 1909.
PREP ACE LO “THE “FIRST (EDITION
THE present work was undertaken with the intention of furnishing students with materials for
a more scientific study of English etymology than is commonly to be found in previous works upon
the subject. It is not intended to be always authoritative, nor are the conclusions arrived at to be
accepted as final. It is rather intended as a guide to future writers, showing them in some cases what
ought certainly to be accepted, and in other cases, it may be, what to avoid. The idea of it arose out
of my own wants. I could find no single book containing the facts about a given word which it most
concerns a student to know, whilst, at the same time, there exist numerous books containing informa-
tion too important to be omitted. Thus Richardson’s Dictionary is an admirable store-house of
quotations illustrating such words as are of no great antiquity in the language, and his selected
examples are the more valuable from the fact that he in general adds the exact reference’, Todd’s
Johnson likewise contains numerous well-chosen quotations, but perhaps no greater mistake was ever
made than that of citing from authors like ‘Dryden’ or ‘Addison’ at large, without the slightest hint
as to the whereabouts of the context. But in both of these works the etymology is commonly of the
poorest description ; and it would probably be difficult to finda worse philologist than Richardson, who
adopted many suggestions from Horne Tooke without inquiry, and was capable of saying that od is
‘perhaps hoved, hov'd, hod, past part. of heafan to heave.’ It is easily ascertained that the AS. for
heave is hebban, and that, being a strong verb, its past participle did not originally end in -ed.
It would be tedious to mention the numerous other books which help to throw such light on the
history of words as is necessary for the right investigation of their etymology. The great defect of
most of them is that they do not carry back that history far enough, and are very weak in the highly
important Middle-English period. But the publications of the Camden Society, of the Early English
4 1 have verified a large number of these. Where I could not Chaucer are often utterly wrong, the numbers being frequently
conveniently do so, I have added ‘(R.)’ in parentheses at the end _ misprinted.
of the reference. I found, to my surprise, that the references to
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION ix
Text Society, and of many other printing clubs, have lately materially advanced our knowledge, and
have rendered possible such excellent books of reference as are exemplified in Stratmann’s Old
English Dictionary and in the still more admirable but (as yet) incomplete ‘ Woérterbuch’ by Eduard
Matzner. In particular, the study of phonetics, as applied to Early English pronunciation by Mr. Ellis
and Mr. Sweet, and carefully carried out by nearly all students of Early English in Germany, has
almost revolutionized the study of etymology as hitherto pursued in England. We can no longer
consent to disregard vowel-sounds as if they formed no essential part of the word, which seems to have
been the old doctrine ; indeed, the idea is by no means yet discarded even by those who ought to
know better.
On the other hand, we have, in Eduard Miiller’s Etymologisches Wérterbuch der Englischen
Sprache !, an excellent collection of etymologies and cognate words, but without any illustrations
of the use or history of words, or any indication of the period when they first came into use. We
have also Webster’s Dictionary, with the etymologies as revised by Dr. Mahn, a very useful and
comprehensive volume; but the plan of the work does not allow of much explanation of a purely
philological character.
It is many years since a new and comprehensive dictionary was first planned by the Philological
Society, and we have now good hope that, under the able editorship of Dr. Murray, some portion of
this great work may ere long see the light. For the illustration of the A7story of words, this will be
all-important, and the etymologies will, I believe, be briefly but sufficiently indicated. It was chiefly
with the hope of assisting in this national work, that, many years ago, I began collecting materials and
making notes upon points relating to etymology. The result of such work, in a modified form,
and with very large additions, is here offered to the reader. My object has been to clear the way for
the improvement of the etymologies by a previous discussion of all the more important words,
executed on a plan so far differing from that which will be adopted by Dr. Murray as not to interfere
with his labours, but rather, as far as possible, to assist them. It will, accordingly, be found that
I have studied brevity by refraining from any detailed account of the changes of meaning of words,
except where absolutely necessary for purely etymological purposes. The numerous very curious and
highly interesting examples of words which, especially in later times, took up new meanings will not,
in general, be found here ; and the definitions of words are only given in a very brief and bald manner,
only the more usual senses being indicated. On the other hand, I have sometimes permitted myself
to indulge in comments, discussions, and even suggestions and speculations, which would be out of
place in a dictionary of the usual character. Some of these, where the results are right, will, I hope,
save much future discussion and investigation ; whilst others, where the results prove to be wrong, can
be avoided and rejected. In one respect I have attempted considerably more than is usually done by
the writers of works upon English etymology. I have endeavoured, where possible, to trace back
words to their Aryan roots, by availing myself of the latest works upon comparative philology. In
doing this, I have especially endeavoured to link one word with another, and the reader will find
a perfect network of cross-references enabling him to collect all the forms of any given word of which
various forms exist; so that many of the principal words in the Aryan languages can be thus traced.
Instead of considering English as an isolated language, as is sometimes actually done, I endeavour, in
every case, to exhibit its relation to cognate tongues; and as, by this process, considerable light is
thrown upon English by Latin and Greek, so also, at the same time, considerable light is thrown upon
Latin and Greek by Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic. Thus, whilst under the word dz¢te will be found
1 It is surprising that this book is not better known, If the E. Miiller for their guide, they might have doubled their accuracy
writers of some of the current ‘ Etymological’ Dictionaries had taken —_ and halved their labour.
x PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
a mention of the cognate Latin fizdere, conversely, under the word fissure, is given a cross-reference to
bite. In both cases, reference is also made to the root BHID; and, by referring to this root (no. 240,
on p. 738), some further account of it will be found, with further examples of allied words. It is only
by thus comparing all the Aryan languages together, and by considering them as one harmonious
whole, that we can get a clear conception of the original forms ; a conception which must precede all
theory as to how those forms came to be invented?. Another great advantage of the comparative
method is that, though the present work is nominally one on Exglish etymology, it is equally explicit,
as far as it has occasion to deal with them, with regard to the related words in other languages; and
may be taken as a guide to the etymology of many of the leading words in Latin and Greek, and to
all the more important words in the various Scandinavian and Teutonic tongues.
I have chiefly been guided throughout by the results of my own experience. Much use of many
dictionaries has shown me the exact points where an inquirer is often baffled, and I have especially
addressed myself to the task of solving difficulties and passing beyond obstacles. Not inconsiderable
has been the trouble of verifying references. A few examples will put this in a clear light.
Richardson has numerous references (to take a single case) to the Romaunt of the Rose. He
probably used some edition in which the lines are not numbered ; at any rate, he never gives an exact
reference to it. The few references to it in Tyrwhitt’s Glossary and in Stratmann do not help us very
greatly. To find a particular word in this poem of 7,700 lines is often troublesome ; but, in every case
where I wanted the quotation, I have found and noted it. I can recall several half-hours spent in this
particular work.
Another not very hopeful book in which to find one’s place, is the Faerie Queene. References to
this are usually given to the book and canto, and of these one or other is (in Richardson) occasionally
incorrect ; in every case, I have added the number of the stanza.
One very remarkable fact about Richardson’s dictionary is that, in many cases, references are
given only to obscure and late authors, when all the while the word occurs in Shakespeare. By
keeping Dr. Schmidt’s comprehensive Shakespeare Lexicon® always open before me, this fault has
been easily remedied.
To pass on to matters more purely etymological. I have constantly been troubled with the
vagueness and inaccuracy of words quoted, in various books, as specimens of Old English or foreign
languages. The spelling of ‘ Anglo-Saxon’ in some books is often simply outrageous. Accents are
put in or left out at pleasure ; impossible combinations of letters are given ; the number of syllables is
disregarded ; and grammatical terminations have to take their chance. Words taken from Ettmiilles
are spelt with @ and @; words taken from Bosworth are spelt with @ and ὦ, without any hint that
the @ and @ of the former answer to @ and @ in the latter. I do not wish to give examples of these
things ; they are so abundant that they may easily be found by the curious. In many cases, writers
of ‘etymological’ dictionaries do not trouble to learn even the alphabets of the languages cited from,
or the most elementary grammatical facts. I have met with supposed Welsh words spelt with a z,
with Swedish words spelt with @, with Danish infinitives ending in -a*, with Icelandic infinitives in
-an, and so on; the only languages correctly spelt being Latin and Greek, and commonly French
and German. It is clearly assumed, and probably with safety, that most readers will not detect
misspellings beyond this limited range.
‘T refrain from discussing theories of language in this work, 5. Sic; printers often make ὦ do duty for ώ. I suspect that ώ is
contenting myself with providing materials for aiding in such seldom provided for.
discussion, * Todd’s Johnson, s.v. Boll, has ‘Su. Goth. bulna, Dan. bulner.’
* To save time, I have seldom verified Dr. Schmidt’s references, Here bulna is the Swedish infinitive, whilst bulner is the first person
believing them to be, in general, correct. I have seldom so trusted of the present tense. Similar jumbles abound.
any other book.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION xl
But this was not a matter which troubled me long. At a very early stage of my studies, I per-
ceived clearly enough, that the spelling given by some authorities is not necessarily to be taken as
the true one ; and it was then easy to make allowances for possible errors, and to refer to some book
with reasonable spellings, such as E. Miiller, or Mahn’s Webster, or Wedgwood. A little research
revealed far more curious pieces of information than the citing of words in impossible or mistaken
spellings. Statements abound which it is difficult to account for except on the supposition that it
must once have been usual to manufacture words for the express purpose of deriving others from them.
To take an example, I open Todd’s Johnson at random, and find that under do/ster is cited ‘ Gothic
bolster, a heap of hay.’ Now the fragments of Gothic that have reached us are very precious but very
insufficient, and they certainly contain no such word as dolster. Neither is do/ster a Gothic spelling.
Holster is represented in Gothic by /alistr, so that bolster might, possibly, be du/istr. In any case, as
the word certainly does not occur, it can only be a pure invention, due to some blunder ; the explana-
tion ‘a heap of hay’ is a happy and graphic touch, regarded in the light of a fiction, but is out of place
in a work of reference.
A mistake of this nature would not greatly matter if such instances were rare; but the extra-
ordinary part of the matter is that they are extremely common, owing probably to the trust reposed
by former writers in such etymologists as Skinner and Junius, men who did good work in their day,
but whose statements require careful verification in this nineteenth century. What Skinner was
capable of, I have shown in my introduction to the reprint of Ray’s Glossary published for the English
Dialect Society. It is sufficient to say that the net result is this ; that words cited in etymological
dictionaries (with very few exceptions) cannot be accepted without verification. Not only do we find
puzzling misspellings, but we find actual fictions ; words are said to be ‘ Anglo-Saxon’ that are not to
be found in the existing texts ; ‘Gothic’ words are constructed for the mere purpose of ‘ etymology ;’
Icelandic words have meanings assigned to them which are incredible or misleading ; and so on
of the rest.
Another source of trouble is that, when real words are cited, they are wrongly explained. Thus,
in Todd’s Johnson, we find a derivation of ord from AS. ‘ bond, bound.’ Now éond is not strictly
Anglo-Saxon, but an Early English form, signifying ‘a band,’ and is not a past participle at all; the
AS. for ‘bound’ being gebunden. The error is easily traced; Dr. Bosworth cites ‘dond, bound,
ligatus’ from Somner’s Dictionary,whence it was also copied into Lye’s Dictionary in the form: ‘ond,
ligatus, obligatus, dowud.’ Where Somner found it, is a mystery indeed, as it is absurd on the face of
it. We should take a man to be a very poor German scholar who imagined that dad, in German, is
a past participle; but when the same mistake is made by Somner, we find that it is copied by Lye,
copied by Bosworth (who, however, marks it as Somner’s), copied into Todd’s Johnson, amplified by
Richardson into the misleading statement that ‘ dozd is the past tense! and past participle of the verb
to bind, and has doubtless been copied by numerous other writers who have wished to come at their
etymologies with the least trouble to themselves. It is precisely this continual reproduction of errors
which so disgraces many English works, and renders investigation so difficult.
But when I had grasped the facts that spellings are often false, that words can be invented,
and that explanations are often wrong, I found that worse remained behind. The science of phi-
lology is comparatively modern, so that our earlier writers had no means of ascertaining principles
that are now well established, and, instead of proceeding by rule, had to go blindly by guesswork, thus
sowing crops of errors which have sprung up and multiplied till it requires very careful investigation
1 Bond is a form of the past tense in Middle English, and indeed the sb, bond is itself derived from the ‘second grade’ found in the
AS, pt. τ. band ; but bond is certainly not ‘the past participle.’
xii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
to enable a modern writer to avoid all the pitfalls prepared for him by the false suggestions which he
meets with at every turn. Many derivations that have been long current and are even generally
accepted will not be found in this volume, for the plain reason that I have found them to be false;
I think I may at any rate believe myself to be profoundly versed in most of the old fables of this
character, and I shall only say, briefly, that the reader need not assume me to be ignorant of them
because I do not mention them. The most extraordinary fact about comparative philology is that,
whilst its principles are well understood by numerous students in Germany and America, they are far
from being well known in England, so that it is easy to meet even with classical scholars who have
no notion what ‘Grimm’s law’ really means, and who are entirely at a loss to understand why the
English care has no connexion with the Latin cara, nor the English zwo/e with the Greek ὅλος, nor
the French charvi¢é with the Greek χάρις. Yet for the understanding of these things nothing more is
needed than a knowledge of the relative values of the letters of the English, Latin, and Greek
alphabets. A knowledge of these alphabets is strangely neglected at our public schools ; whereas
a few hours carefully devoted to each would save scholars from innumerable blunders, and a boy of
sixteen who understood them would be far more than a match, in matters of etymology, for a man
of fifty who did not. In particular, some knowledge of the vowel-sounds is essential. Modern
philology will, in future, turn more and more upon phonetics ; and the truth now confined to a very
few will at last become general, that the vowel is commonly the very life, the most essential part of the
word, and that, just as pre-scientific etymologists frequently went wrong because they considered the
consonants as being of small consequence and the vowels of none at all, the scientific student of
the present day may hope to go right, if he considers the consonants as being of great consequence
and the vowels as all-important.
The foregoing remarks are, I think, sufficient to show my reasons for undertaking the work, and
the nature of some of the difficulties which I have endeavoured to encounter or remove. I now
proceed to state explicitly what the reader may expect to find.
Each article begins with a word, the etymology of which is to be sought. When there are one or
more words with the same spelling, a number is added, for the sake of distinction in the case of future
reference. This is a great convenience when such words are cited in the ‘ List of Aryan Roots’ and in
the various indexes at the end of the volume, besides saving trouble in making cross-references.
After the word comes a brief definition, merely as a mark whereby to identify the word.
Next follows an exact statement of the actual (or probable) language whence the word is taken,
with an account of the channel or channels through which it reached us. Thus the word ‘ Canopy ’ is
marked ‘(F.—Ital._-L.—Gk.), to be read as ‘French, from Italian, from Latin, from Greek ;’
that is to say, the word is ultimately Greek, whence it was borrowed, first by Latin, secondly by
Italian (from the Latin), thirdly by French (from the Italian), and lastly by English (from French).
The endeavour to distinguish the exact history of each word in this manner conduces greatly to care
and attention, and does much to render the etymology correct. I am not aware that any attempt of
the kind has previously been made, except very partially ; the usual method, of offering a heap of
more or less related words in one confused jumble, is much to be deprecated, and is often misleading '.
After the exact statement of the source, follow a few quotations. These are intended to indicate
the period at which the word was borrowed, or else the usual Middle-English forms. When the word
is not a very old one, I have given one or two of the earliest quotations which I have been able to
find, though I have here preferred quotations from well-known authors to somewhat earlier ones from
1 In Webster’s dictionary, the etymology of canopy is well and Span. and Port, curso, Lat. cursus,’ &c. Here the Latin form
sufficiently given, but many articles are very confused. Thus Course should have followed the French. With the Prov., Ital., Span.,
is derived from ‘ Ἐς, cours, course, Prov. cors, corsa, Ital. corso, corsa, and Port. forms we have absolutely nothing to do.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION xiii
more obscure writers. These quotations are intended to exemplify the history of the form of the
word, and are frequently of great chronological utility ; though it is commonly sufficient to indicate
the period of the world’s first use within half a century. By way of example, I may observe that
canon is not derived from F. cazon, but appears in King A¢lfred, and was taken immediately from the
Latin. I give the reference under’ Canon, to Alfred’s translation of Beda, b. iv. c. 24, adding ‘ Bos-
worth’ at the end. This means that I took the reference from Bosworth’s Dictionary, and had not, at
the moment, the means of verifying the quotation (I now find it is quite correct, occurring on p. 598
of Smith’s edition, at 1. 13). When no indication of the authority for the quotation is given, it com-
monly means that I have verified it myself; except in the case of Shakespeare, where I have
usually trusted to Dr. Schmidt.
A chief feature of the present work, and one which has entailed enormous labour, is that, when-
ever I cite old forms or foreign words, from which any given English word is derived or with which it
is connected, I have actually verified the spellings and significations of these words by help of the
dictionaries of which a list is given in the ‘Key to the General Plan’ immediately preceding the letter
A. Ihave done this in order to avoid two common errors; (1) that of misspelling the words cited 1,
and (2) that of misinterpreting them. The exact source or edition whence every word is copied is,
in every case, precisely indicated, it being understood that, when no author is specified, the word
is taken from the book mentioned in the ‘Key.’ Thus every statement made may be easily verified,
and I can assure those who have had no experience in such investigations that this is no small matter.
I have frequently found that some authors manipulate the meanings of words to suit their own con-
venience, when not tied down in this manner; and, not wishing to commit the like mistake, which
approaches too nearly to dishonesty to be wittingly indulged in, I have endeavoured by this means to
remove the temptation of being led to swerve from the truth in this particular. Yet it may easily be
that fancy has sometimes led me astray in places where there is room for some speculation, and
I must therefore beg the reader, whenever he has any doubts, to verify the statements for himself (as,
in general, he easily may), and he will then see the nature of the premises from which the conclusions
have been drawn. In many instances it will be found that the meanings are given, for the sake
of brevity, less fully than they might have been, and that the arguments for a particular view are often
far stronger than they are represented to be..
The materials collected by the Philological Society will doubtless decide many debatable points,
and will definitely confirm or refute, in many cases, the results here arrived at. It is, perhaps, proper
to point out that French words are more often cited from Cotgrave than in their modern forms.
Very few good words have been borrowed by us from French at a late period, so that modern French
is not of much use to an English etymologist. In particular, I have intentionally disregarded the
modern French accentuation. To derive our word recreation from the F. récréation gives a false
impression ; for it was certainly borrowed from French before the accents were added.
In the case of verbs and substantives (or other mutually related words), considerable pains have
been taken to ascertain and to point out whether the verb has been formed from the substantive,
or whether, conversely, the substantive is derived from the verb. This often makes a good deal
of difference to the etymology. Thus, when Richardson derives the adj. γε] from the verb to fill,
he reverses the fact, and shows that he was entirely innocent of any knowledge of the relative value
of the Anglo-Saxon vowels. Similar mistakes are common even in treating of Greek and Latin.
Thus, when Richardson says that the Latin /adorare is ‘ of uncertain etymology,’ he must have meant
the remark to apply to the sb. /ador. The etymology of /adorare is obvious, viz. from that substantive.
1 With all this care, mistakes creep in; see the Errata, But I feel sure that they are not very numerovs.
xiv PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
The numerous cross-references will enable the student, in many cases, to trace back words to
the Aryan root, and will frequently lead to additional information. Whenever a word has a ‘doublet,
i.e. appears in a varying form,a note is made of the fact at the end of the article ; and a complete
list of these will be found in the Appendix.
The Appendix contains a list of Prefixes, a general account of Suffixes, a List of Aryan Roots,
and Lists of Homonyms and Doublets. Besides these, I have attempted to give lists showing the
Distribution of the Sources of English. As these lists are far more comprehensive than any which
I have been able to find in other books, and are subdivided into classes in a much stricter manner than
has ever yet been attempted, I may crave some indulgence for the errors in them.
From the nature of the work, I have been unable to obtain much assistance in it. The
mechanical process of preparing the copy for press, and the subsequent revision of proofs, have
entailed upon me no inconsiderable amount of labour; and the constant shifting from one language
to another has required patience and attention. The result is that a few annoying oversights have
occasionally crept in, due mostly to a brief lack of attention on the part of eye or brain. In again
going over the whole work for the purpose of making an epitome of it, I have noticed some of
these errors, and a list of them is given in the Errata. Other errors have been kindly pointed
out to me, which are also noted in the Addenda; and I beg leave to thank those who have rendered
me such good service. I may also remark that letters have reached me which cannot be turned
to any good account, and it is sometimes surprising that a few correspondents should be so eager
to manifest their entire ignorance of all philological principles. Such cases are, however, exceptional,
and Iam very anxious to receive, and to make use of, all reasonable suggestions. The experience
gained in writing the first ‘part’ of the book, from A—D, proved of much service; and I believe
that errors are fewer near the end than near the beginning. Whereas I was at first inclined to
trust too much to Brachet’s Etymological French Dictionary, I now believe that Scheler is a better
guide, and that I might have consulted Littré even more frequently than I have done. Near the
beginning of the work, I had no copy of Littré of my own, nor of Palsgrave, nor of some other
very useful books ; but experience soon showed what books were most necessary to be added to
my very limited collection. In the study of English etymology, it often happens that instantaneous
reference to some rather unexpected source is almost an absolute necessity, and it is somewhat
difficult to make provision for such a call within the space of one small room. This is the real
reason why some references to what may, to some students, be very familiar works, have been
taken at second-hand. I have merely made the best use I could of the materials nearest at hand.
But for this, the work would have been more often interrupted, and time would have been wasted
which could ill be spared.
It is also proper to state that with many articles Iam not satisfied. Those that presented no
difficulty, and took up but little time, are probably the best and most certain. In very difficult cases,
my usual rule has been not to spend more than three hours over one word. During that time, I made
the best I could of it, and then let it go'. I hope it may be understood that my object in making
this and other similar statements regarding my difficulties is merely to enable the reader to consult the
book with the greater safety, and to enable him to form his own opinion as to how far it is to be
trusted. My honest opinion is that those whose philological knowledge is but small may safely
accept the results here given, since they may else do worse; whilst advanced students will receive
them with that caution which so difficult a study soon renders habitual.
One remark concerning the printing of the book is worth making. It is common for writers to
[' This refers to the first preparation of the copy for the first edition. There has been much verification and further research since then. ]
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION KV
throw the blame of errors upon the printers, and there is in this a certain amount of truth in some
instances. But illegible writing should also receive its fair portion of blame; and it is only just to
place the fact on record, that I have frequently received from the press a first rough proof of a sheet
of this work, abounding in words taken from a great many languages, in which not a single printer's
error occurred of any kind whatever; and many others in which the errors were very trivial and
unimportant, and seldom extended to the actual spelling.
Iam particularly obliged to those who have kindly given me hints or corrections ; Mr. Sweet’s
account of the word /eft, and his correction for the word d/ess, have been very acceptable, and I much
regret that his extremely valuable collection of the ear/est English vocabularies and other records is
not yet published, as it will certainly yield valuable information. I am also indebted for some useful
hints to Professor Cowell, and to the late Mr. Henry Nicol, whose knowledge of early French
phonology was almost unrivalled. Also to Dr. Stratmann, and the Rev. A. L. Mayhew, of Oxford,
for several corrections ; to Professor Potwin, of Hudson, Ohio ; to Dr. J. N. Gronland, of Stockholm,
for some notes upon Swedish; to Dr. Murray, the Rev. O. W. Tancock, and the Rev. D. Silvan
Evans, for various notes; and to several other correspondents who have kindly taken a practical
interest in the work.
In some portions of the Appendix I have received very acceptable assistance. The preparation
of the lists showing the Distribution of Words was entirely the work of others ; I have done little
more than revise them. For the word-lists from A—Literature, I am indebted to Miss Mantle, of
Girton College; and for the lists from Litharge—Reduplicate, to A. P. Allsopp, Esq., of Trinity
College, Cambridge. The rest was prepared by my eldest daughter, who also prepared the numerous
examples of English words given in the List of Aryan Roots, and the List of Doublets. To Miss F.
Whitehead I am indebted for the List of Homonyms.
To all the above-named and to other well-wishers I express my sincere thanks.
But I cannot take leave of a work which has closely occupied my time during the past four years
without expressing the hope that it may prove of service, not only to students of comparative
philology and of early English, but to all who are interested in the origin, history, and development
of the noble language which is the common inheritance of all English-speaking peoples. It is to be
expected that, owing to the increased attention which of late years has been given to the study of
languages, many of the conclusions at which I have arrived may require important modification
or even entire change ; but I nevertheless trust that the use of this volume may tend, on the whole,
to the suppression of such guesswork as entirely ignores all rules. I trust that it may, at the same
time, tend to strengthen the belief that, as in all other studies, true results are only to be obtained by
reasonable inferences from careful observations, and that the laws which regulate the development
of language, though frequently complicated by the interference of one word with another, often
present the most surprising examples of regularity. The speech of man is, in fact, influenced by
physical laws, or in other words, by the working of divine power. It is therefore possible to pursue the
study of language in a spirit of reverence similar to that in which we study what are called the works
of nature ; and by aid of that spirit we may gladly perceive a new meaning in the sublime line of our
poet Coleridge, that
‘Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.’
CAMBRIDGE, Sept. 29, 1881.
PREBACE (EO .THE SECOND. EDITION
IN a work which, like the present undertaking, covers so much ground and deals with so many
languages, it is very difficult to secure complete accuracy ; it can, perhaps, at best be only aimed at.
Several errors have been detected by myself, and kind friends have pointed out others. New facts are
continually being brought to light ; for the science of philology is, at this time, still rapidly progressive.
Fortunately, everything tends in the direction of closer accuracy and greater certainty, and we may
hope that the number of doubtful points will steadily diminish.
In particular, I am obliged to Mr. H. Wedgwood for his publication entitled “Contested
Etymologies in the Dictionary of the Rev. W. W. Skeat ; London, Triibner and Co., 1882.’ I have
carefully read this book, and have taken from it several useful hints. In reconsidering the etymo-
logies of the words which he treats, I have, in some cases, adopted his views either wholly or in
part. In a few instances, he does not really contest what I have said, but notices something that
Thave left unsaid. For example, I omitted to state that he was the first person to point out the
etymology of wanion ; unfortunately, I did not observe his article on the subject, and had to redis-
cover the etymology for myself, with the same result. Hence the number of points on which we differ
is now considerably reduced ; and I think a further reduction might have been made if he could have
seen his way, in like manner, to adopting views from me. I think that some of the etymologies
of which he treats cannot fairly be said to be ‘ contested’ ; for there are cases in which he is opposed,
not only to myself, but to every one else. Thus, with regard to the word avoid, he would have us
derive the F. vide (or vide), empty, from OHG. wit rather than from the Lat. widuus; to which
I would reply that, in a matter of /rench etymology, most scholars are quite content to accept the
etymology given by Littré, Scheler, and Diez, in a case wherein they are all agreed and see no
difficulty in the matter !.
The List of Errata and Addenda, as given in the first edition, has been almost entirely
rewritten. Most of the Errata (especially where they arose from misprints) have been corrected in
the body of the work ; and I am particularly obliged to Mr. C. E. Doble for several minute cor-
rections, and for his kindness in closely regarding the accentuation of Greek words. The number
of Additional Words in the present Addenda is about Ζεῦ hundred, whereas the list of Additional
Words’ in the first edition is little more than fifty. I am much obliged to Mr. Charles Sweet for
suggesting several useful additions, and especially for sending me some explanations of several
legal terms, such as assart, barrator, escrow, essotr, and the like. I think that some of the best
etymologies in the volume may be found in these additional atticles, and I hope the reader will
kindly remember to consult this supplement, commencing at p. 777, before concluding that he has
seen all that I have to say upon any word he may be seeking for. - Of course this supplement
remains incomplete ; there are literally no bounds to the English language.
I also gladly take the opportunity of gratefully acknowledging the assistance of the Rev. A. L.
Mayhew, who not only sent me a large number of suggestions, but has much assisted me by
reading the proof-sheets of the Addenda. I also beg leave to thank here the numerous correspon-
dents who have kindly corrected individual words.
[* But δοέλ solutions are now rejected. |
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xvii
I have also made some use of the curious book on Folk-Etymology by the Rev. A. S. Palmer,
which is full of erudition and contains a large number of most useful and exact references, The
author is not quite sound as to the quantity of the Anglo-Saxon vowels, and has, in some instances,
attempted to connect words that are really unrelated ; thus, under Hatter, he connects AS. hdd,
hot, with Goth. /azis, hate. In many places I think the plan of his book has led him into multi-
plying unduly the number of ‘ corruptions’ ;
)
so that caution is needful in consulting the book.
At the time of writing this, we are anxiously expecting the issue of the first part of Dr. Murray’s
great and comprehensive English Dictionary, founded on the materials collected. by the Philological
Society ; and I suppose it is hardly necessary to add that, if any of my results as to the etymology of
such words as he has discussed are found not to agree with his, I at once submit to his careful
induction from better materials and to the results of the assistance his work has received from many
scholars. I have already had the benefit of some kindly assistance from him, as for example, in the
case of the words adjust, admiral, agnail, allay, alloy, almanack, and almond.
Every day’s experience helps to show how great and how difficult is the task of presenting
results in a form such as modern scientific criticism will accept. Every slip is a lesson in humility,
showing how much remains to be learnt. At the same time, I cannot close these few words of preface
without hearty thanks to the many students, in many parts of the world, who have chcered:me with
kindly words and have found my endeavours helpful.
CAMBRIDGE, December 21, 1883,
PREFACE *TO" THE’ THIRD: EDITION
In this Third Edition a few changes have been made in cases where the etymology previously
given was certainly wrong. More might have been made if the spare time at my disposal had
sufficed for making a more careful revision of the work.
CAMBRIDGE, November 18, 1897.
ΒΒ ΝΘΕΞ UPON ΤΗΝ LANGUAGES + Chip, IN
LHe ; DICTIONARY,
ENGLISH. Words marked (E.) are pure English, and form the true basis of the language. They can
commonly be traced back for about a thousand years, but their true origin is altogether pre-historic and of
great antiquity. Many of them, such as /asher, mother, &c., have corresponding cognate forms in Sanskrit,
Greek, and Latin. These forms are collateral, and the true method of comparison is by placing them side by
side. Thus /fa/her is no more ‘derived’ from the Sanskrit 2714 than the Skt. pz/a is ‘derived’ from the
English fa/‘her. Both are descended from a common Indo-germanic type, and that is all. Sometimes Sanskrit
is said to be an ‘elder sister’ to English; the word ‘elder’ would be better omitted. Sanskrit has doubtless
suffered less change, but even twin sisters are not always precisely alike, and, in the course of many years, one may
come to look younger than the other. The symbol + is particularly used to call attention to collateral descent,
as distinct from borrowing or derivation. English forms belonging to the ‘Middle-English’ period are marked
“ΜΕ. This period extends, roughly speaking, from about 1200 to 1460, both these dates being arbitrarily
chosen. Middle-English consisted of three dialects, Northern, Midland, and Southern; the dialect depends
upon the author cited. The spellings of the ‘ME.’ words are usually given in the actual forms found in the
editions referred to, not always in the theoretical forms as given by Stratmann, though these are, etymologically,
more correct. Those who possess Stratmann’s Dictionary will do well to consult it.
Words belonging to English of an earlier date than about 1150 or 1200 are marked ‘ AS’, i.e. Anglo-
Saxon. Some have asked why they have not been marked as ‘OE.’, i.e. Oldest English. Against this,
there are two reasons. ‘The first is, that ‘OE.’ would be read as ‘Old English,’ and this term has been used
so vaguely, and has so often been made to include ‘ME.’ as well, that it has ceased to be distinctive, and
has become comparatively useless. ‘The second and more important reason is that, unfortunately, Oldest English
and Anglo-Saxon are not coextensive. The former consisted, in all probability, of three main dialects, but the
remains of two of these are very scanty. Of Old Northern, we have little left beyond the Northumbrian
versions of the Gospels and the glosses in the Durham Ritual: of Old Midland (or Mercian) we possess the Rush-
worth gloss to St. Matthew’s Gospel, the important ‘ Corpus Glossary,’ and the glosses to the ‘ Vespasian Psalter’
(see Sweet’s Oldest English Texts); but of Old Southern, or, strictly, of the old dialect of Wessex, the remains are
fairly abundant, and these are commonly called Anglo-Saxon. It is therefore proper to use ‘ AS.’ to denote this
definite dialect, which, after all, represents only the speech of a particular for/ion of England. The term is well
established and may therefore be kept ; else it is not a particularly happy one, since the Wessex dialect was distinct
from the Northern or Anglian dialect, and ‘ Anglo-Saxon’ must, for philological purposes, be taken to mean Old
English in which Anglian is not necessarily included. Our modern English is mainly Mercian.
Anglo-Saxon cannot be properly understood without some knowledge of its phonology, and English etymology
cannot be fairly made out without some notion of the gradations of the Anglo-Saxon vowel-system. For these
things, the student must consult Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader and the Grammars by Sievers and Wright. Only
a few brief hints can be given here.
SHORT VOWELS: @, 86, ¢, 7, 0, u, γ.
Lone vowELs: 4, &, @, 1, 0, ἢ, J.
ῬΙΡΗΤΗΟΝΟΒ: δα, answering to Goth. az; é, Goth. 7; also (in early MSS.) ze and ie.
Breaxincs. The vowel @ commonly becomes ea when preceded by g, ¢, or sc, or when followed by
Z, r, ἢ, succeeded by a consonant, or by x. Similarly e or 7 may become co. The most usual vowel-change is that
produced by the occurrence of 7 (which often disappeared afierwards) in the following syllable. This ‘mutation ’
changes the vowels in row (1) below to the corresponding vowels in row (2) below.
(i) asec; us Σά, εὖ, ἃ, δ,', Ψ τῶ; ὅο.
(5 τὸν. τὰν ἄν Ὁ τ rena.
These two rows should be learnt by heart, as a knowledge of them is required at almost every turn. Note
that @ usually arises from an original Idg. (Indo-germanic) οἱ or αὐ; éo from Idg. ew; and éa from an Idg. ov or au.
BRIEF NOTES UPON THE LANGUAGES CITED IN THE DICTIONARY xix
Modern E. /, is represented by AS. p or 6, used indifferently in the MSS.; see note to Th (p. 638).
Strong verbs are of great importance, and originated many derivatives ; these derivatives can be compared
with the form of the past tense singular, of the past tense plural, or of the past participle, as well as with that of the
infinitive mood. It is therefore necessary to ascertain all these leading forms or ‘ gradations.’ Ex.: dindan,to bind;
pt. t. s. band, pl. dundon, pp. bunden. The sb. band or bond exhibits the same‘ grade’ as the pt. t. s.; whilst the sb.
bund-le exhibits that of the pp.
Examples of the ‘principal parts’ of the seven Strong Conjugations are these.
1. Scinan, to shine ; pt. t. scan, pl. scznon, pp. scinen. Base skxt.
. Béodan, to bid; pt. t. déad, pl. budon, pp. boden. Base nrup = / BHEUDH.
. Bindan, to bind; pt. t. dand, pl. dundon; pp. dunden. Base nenp = / BHENDH.
. Beran, to bear; pt. t. ber, pl. béron; pp. doren. Base Βὲκ = BHER.
. Metan, to mete; pt. t. me, pl. mélon; pp. meen. Base mer = / MED.
. Faran, to fare; pt. t. for, pl. foron, pp. faren. Base rar = por, from “ PER.
4. Feallan, to fall; pt. t. féoll, pl. féollon ; pp. feallen. Base rat = V SPHAL.
Strong verbs are often attended by secondary or causal verbs; other secondary verbs are formed from sub-
stantives, Many of these ended originally in -jan ; the 7 of this suffix often disappears, causing gemination of the
preceding consonant. Thus we have eccan, to thatch (for *Aacyjan); brddan, to pray (for *bed-jan); secgan, to say
(for *sag-jan) ; sellan, to give, sell (for *sal/-jan); dyppan, to dip (for *dup-jan); setian, to set (for *safjan). With
a few exceptions, these are weak verbs, with pt. t. in -ode, -de (-/e), and pp. in -od, -d (-ἢ.
Authorities: Grein, Ettmiiller, Somner, Bosworth, Leo, Clark Hall, Sweet, Wright’s Vocabularies, Napier’s
Glosses ; also the grammars by Sievers and Wright, and Mayhew’s Old English Phonology. For many particulars
concerning the ‘native element’ in English, see my Principles of English Etymology, Series I.
OLD LOW GERMAN. Denoted by ‘OLowG,.’ This is a term which I have employed for want of
a better. It is meant to include a not very large class of words, the preczse origin of which is wrapped in some
obscurity. If not precisely English, they come very near it. The chief difficulty about them is that the time
of their introduction into English is uncertain. Either they belong to Old Friesian, and were introduced by
the Friesians who came over to England with the Saxons, or to some form of Old Dutch or Old Saxon, and
may have been introduced from Holland, possibly even in the fourteenth century, when it was not uncommon for
Flemings to come here; or indeed, directly, from Hamburg and the other Hanseatic towns. Some of them
may yet be found in Anglo-Saxon. I call them Old Low German because they clearly belong to some Old Low German
dialect ; and I put them in a class together in order to call attention to them, in the hope that their early history
non wR WN
may receive further elucidation,
DUTCH. The introduction into English of Dutch words is somewhat important, yet seems to have received
but little attention. I am convinced that the influence of Dutch upon English has been much underrated,
and a closer attention to this question might throw some light even upon English history. I think I may
take the credit of being the first to point this out with sufficient distinctness. History tells us that our
relations with the Netherlands have often been rather close. We read of Flemish mercenary soldiers being
employed by the Normans, and of Flemish settlements in Wales, ‘where (says old Fabyan, I know not with
what truth) they remayned a longe whyle, but after, they sprad all Englande ouer.’ We may recall the
alliance between Edward III and the free towns of Flanders; and the importation by Edward of Flemish
weavers. The wool used by the cloth-workers of the Low Countries grew on the backs of English sheep ;
and other close relations between us and our nearly related neighbours grew out of the brewing-trade, the
invention of printing, and the reformation of religion. Caxton spent thirty years in Flanders (where the first
English book was printed), and translated the Low German version of Reynard the Fox. Tyndale settled at
Antwerp to print his New Testament, and was strangled at Vilvorde. But there was a still closer contact in
the time of Elizabeth. Very instructive is Gascoigne’s poem on the Fruits of War, where he describes his
experiences in Holland; and every one knows that Zutphen saw the death of the beloved Sir Philip Sidney.
As to the introduction of cant words from Holland, see Beaumont and Fletcher’s play entitled ‘The Beggar’s
Bush.’ After Antwerp had been captured by the Duke of Parma, ‘a third of the merchants and manufacturers
of the ruined city,’ says Mr. Green, ‘are said to have found a refuge on the banks of the Thames.’ All this
cannot but have affected our language, and it ought to be accepted, as tolerably certain, that during the
fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, particularly the last, several Dutch and Low German words were
b2
xx BRIEF NOTES UPON THE LANGUAGES CITED IN THE DICTIONARY
introduced into England; and it would be curious to enquire whether, during the same period, several -English
words did not, in like manner, find currency in the Netherlands. The words which I have collected, as being
presumably Dutch, are deserving of special attention.
For the pronunciation of Dutch, see Sweet’s Handbook of Phonetics. It is to be noted that the English
oo in boor exactly represents the Dutch oe in doer (the same word), Also, that the Dutch sch is very different
from the German sound, and is Englished by sc or sf, as in landscape, formerly landskip. The audacity with
which English has turned the Dutch we in éruzz (brown) into éroo-i7 is an amazing instance of the influence
of spelling upon speech. V and gz are common, where English has / and s. The symbol 7 is used for
double 7, and was formerly written y; it is now pronounced like E. 7 in wme. The standard Old Low
German /h appears as d; thus, whilst /Aafch is English, deck is Dutch. ΟἿ appears as ow, as in oud, old,
goud, gold, houden, to hold. D between two vowels sometimes disappears, as in weer (for *weder), a wether.
The language abounds with frequentative verbs in -eren and -e/en, and with diminutive substantives in -e (also
-te, -pje, -eyje), a suffix which has been substituted for the obsolete diminutive suffix -/en.
Authorities : Oudemans, Kilian, Hexham, Sewel, Ten Kate, Calisch; dictionary printed by Tauchnitz.
For some account of the Dutch element in English, see my Principles of English Etymology, Series I,
ch. xxiv.
OLD FRIESIC. Closely allied to Anglo-Saxon; some English words are rather Friesian than Saxon.
Authorities: Richthofen; also (for modern North Friesic) Outzen ; (for modern East Friesic) Koolman.
OLD SAXON. The old dialect of Westphalia, and closely allied to Old Dutch. Authority: Heyne.
LOW GERMAN. This name is here especially given to an excellent vocabulary of a Low German dialect,
in the work commonly known as the Bremen Worterbuch. Other authorities: Liibben, Berghaus, Woeste, &c.
SCANDINAVIAN. By this name I denote the Old Norse, introduced into England by the Danes
and Northmen who, in the early period of our history, came over to England in great numbers. Often driven
back, they continually returned, and on many occasions made good their footing and remained here. Their
language is now best represented by Icelandic, owing to the curious fact that, ever since the first colonisation
of Iceland by the Northmen about a.p. 874, the language of the settlers has been preserved with but slight
changes. Hence, instead of its appearing strange that English words should be borrowed from Icelandic,
it must be remembered that this name represents, for philological purposes, the language of those Northmen,
who, settling in England, became ancestors of some of the very best men amongst us; and as they settled
chiefly in Northumbria and East Anglia, parts of England not strictly represented by Anglo-Saxon, ‘ Icelandic’
or ‘Old Norse’ (as it is also called) has come to be, it may almost be said, English of the English. In
some cases, I derive ‘Scandinavian’ words from Swedish, Danish, or Norwegian; but no more is meant
by this than that the Swedish, Danish, or Norwegian words are the best representatives of the ‘Old Norse’
that I could find. The number of words actually borrowed from what (in the modern sense) is strictly Swedish
or strictly Danish is but small, and they have been duly noted.
Icelandic. Vowels, as in Anglo-Saxon, are both short and long, the long vowels being here marked
with a mark of length, as ὦ, ὦ, &c. To the usual vowels are added 6, and the diphthongs az, ey, οὐ; also x,
which is written both for x and a, strictly of different origin; also ja, γᾶ. 70, 75, ja. Among the consonants are 4,
the voiced /h (as in E. shou), and p, the voiceless /2 (as in Ἐς hin). D was at one time written both for d and 6.
P, x, and 6 come at the end of the alphabet. There is now no w. The AS. τὸ and Aw appear as v and
hv. The most usual vowel-change is that which is caused by the occurrence of 7 (expressed or understood) in
the following syllable; this changes the vowels in row (1) below into the corresponding vowels in row (2) below.
(Mas esr, Ὁ a7, (cay th05 12 ev Oneness
ΣῊ ΡΠ L/ Pua Ν
Assimilation is common; thus dd stands for δώ, or for Goth. zd (= AS. rd); ἀκ, for nk; Ul, for lr or UP ;
nn, for np, nd, or nr; tt, for di, ht, kt, nt, ndt, tb, Initial sk should be particularly noticed, as many Εἰ. words
beginning with sc or sk are of Scand. origin; the AS. sc being represented by E. sh. Very remarkable is
the loss of v in initial vy = AS. wz; the same loss occurring in modern English. Infinitives end in -a or
ja; verbs in ~ja, with very few exceptions, are weak, with pp. ending in -d, -d7, -/, -/7, &c.; whereas strong
verbs have the pp. in -777.
I subjoin examples of the ‘ principal parts’ of the seven Strong Conjugations.
1. Shina, to shine ; pt. t. 5. skezn, pl. φάγητε; pp. skininn,
BRIEF NOTES UPON THE LANGUAGES CITED IN THE DICTIONARY Xxi
. Bjoda, to bid; pt. t. 5. daud, pl. dudu; pp. bodinn.
. Binda, to bind; pt. t. 5. daé/[ for *band], pl. bundu; pp. bundinn,
. Bera, to bear; pt. t. s. dar, pl. baru; pp. borin,
. Meta, to value [mete out]; pt.t. s. για, pl. mate; pp. mefinn.
. Fara, to fare; pt. ἴ. 5. for, pl. forw; pp. farinn.
7. Falla, to fall; pt. t. si fel/, pl. fellu; pp. fallinn.
Authorities: Cleasby and Vigfusson, Egilsson, Mébius, Noreen; also (for Norwegian), Aasen, Ross.
Swedish. To the usual vowels add ἅ, ὦ, 0, which are placed at the end of the alphabet. Diphthongs
do not occur, except in foreign words. (Ὁ occurs where English has gw. The Old Swedish w (= AS. w)
is now v. The Icelandic and AS. initial p (=) is replaced by 2. as in Danish, not by αὖ, as in Dutch;
and our language bears some traces of this peculiarity, as, e.g. in the word Austngs (for husthings), and again
in the word “ght or faut (Icel. Aétir).
Assimilation occurs in some words, as in fiwna (for *finda), to find, dricka (for *drinka), to drink; but
it is less common than in Icelandic.
Infinitives end in -a; past participles of strong verbs in -ew; weak verbs make the p. t. in -ade, -de, or
τε, and the pp. in -ad, -d, or -¢.
Authorities : Ihre (Middle Swedish, also called Suio-Gothic, with explanations in Latin); Widegren; Oman;
Bjorkman ; Tauchnitz dictionary; Rietz (Swedish dialects, a valuable book, written in Swedish).
For some account of the Scandinavian element in English, see my Principles of English Etymology,
Series I, ch. xxiii.
Danish. ΤῸ the usual vowels add δ and δ, which are placed at the end of the alphabet. The symbol
6:78 also written and printed as o with a slanting stroke drawn through it; thus ¢. ν᾽ is used by Ferrall
where English has gz; but is replaced by ἀφ in Larsen, and in Aasen’s Norwegian dictionary. V is used
where English has w. The Icelandic and AS. initial p (¢2) is replaced by /, as in Swedish; not by @, as in
Dutch. Assimilation occurs in some words, as in d@rzkke, to drink, but is still less common than in Swedish.
Thus the Icel. jimna, Swed. finna, to find, is finde in Danish. J/and (for *mann), a man, is a remarkable
form. We should particularly notice that final ἀ, 2. 2, and f sometimes becomes g, αἱ, 4, and v respectively ;
as in dog, a book, rag-e, to rake, /ag-e, to take; ged, a goat, dzd-e, to bite, grad-e, to weep (Lowland Scotch
greet); reb, a rope, grib-e, to grip or gripe, knzb-e, to nip; “2, life, kniv, knife, vzv, wife. Infinitives end in -e; the
past participles of strong verbs once ended in -ew, but these old forms are not common, being replaced by
Non - W N
later forms in -e/ or -/, throughout the active voice.
Authorities: Ferrall and Repp’s Dictionary; Larsen’s Dictionary; Molbech (dialects); Kalkar (Middle
Danish); Falk and Torp (etymological).
Norwegian. Closely allied to Danish.
Authority: Aasen’s Dictionary of Norwegian dialects (written in Danish), with Ross’s supplement.
GOTHIC. The Gothic alphabet, chiefly borrowed from Greek, has been variously transliterated into
Roman characters. I have followed the system used in my Meceso-Gothic Dictionary, which I still prefer.
It is the same as that used by Massmann, except that I put τὺ for his τ, Aw for his kv, and Aw for his Av,
thus turning all his v’s into w’s, as every true Englishman ought to do. Stamm has the same system as Mass-
mann, with the addition of p for Δ) (needless), and g for 4w, which is not pleasant to the eye; so that he
writes φαῤ for kwath (i.e. quoth). corresponds to the E. y. One peculiarity of Gothic must be particularly
noted. As the alphabet was partly imitated from Greek, its author used gg and gh (like Gk. yy, yx) to repre-
sent mg and wk; as in /uggo, tongue, drigkan, to drink. The Gothic vowel-system is particularly simple and
clear, and deserving of special attention, as being the best standard with which to compare the vowel-systems
of other Teutonic languages. The primary vowels are a, 7, 2, always short, and δ) 0, always long. Original
Germanic é usually appears as 7 (or as az before 7, 4, hw), and Germanic ὅ as w (or as au before r, Δ); thus
AS. efan, to eat, is Goth. zfan; AS. deran, to bear, is Goth. datran:; AS. geoc, a yoke, is Goth. yuk; and AS.
word, a word, is Goth. waurd. The diphthongs are az, au, εἴ, and 7; the two former being distinguished,
theoretically, into αὐ and az, au and au.
I subjoin examples-of-the ‘principal parts’ of the seven Strong Conjugations.
1. Skernan, to shine ; pt. t. 5. skazn, pl. (1 p.) skenum ; pp. skenans.
2. Brudan, to bid; pt. t. s. auth, pl. budum; pp. budans.
ΧΧῚ BRIEF NOTES UPON THE LANGUAGES CITED IN THE DICTIONARY
. Bindan, to bind; pt. t. s. dand, pl. bundum ; pp. dundans.
. Batran, to bear ; pt. t. s. dar, pl. bérum; pp. daurans.
. Dhan, to mete ; pt. t. s. mat, pl. mélum; pp. mifans.
. Faran, to fare; pt. t. s. for, pl. forum ; pp. farans.
4. Haldan, to hold; pt. t. 5. Aazhald, pl. hathaldum ; pp. haldans.
OLD HIGH GERMAN. Some remarks upon Old High German are given in the next paragraph
(concerning German), but I shall here subjoin, for comparison, examples of the ‘principal parts’ of the OHG.
Strong Verbs.
1. Scinan, to shine; pt. t. s. scezn, pl. scemun; pp. giscrnan.
. Brotan, to bid, offer; pt. t.s. δ, pl. ducun; pp. gzbotan.
. Bintan, to bind ; pt. t. s. dant, pl. duntun ; pp. gzbuntan.
. Beran, to bear; pt. t.s. dar, pl. darun; pp. geboran.
. Mezzan, to mete; pt. t. s. maz, pl. mazun; pp. gimezzan.
. Faran, to go; pt.t. s. fuor, pl. fuorun; pp. gifaran.
. Fallan, to fall; pt. t. s. fal, pl. fallun; pp. gifallan.
If we now compare all the examples of the vowel-gradations as exhibited in the principal parts of the strong
verbs, as seen in Anglo-Saxon, Icelandic, Gothic, and Old High German, respectively, it becomes easy to
compile a list of the comparative values of their vowels and diphthongs. In the following table, the first
column exhibits the (theoretical) values of the original Teutonic vowels, the second column the Gothic, and
so on. Lines 1, 2, 3 are due to the firs/ conjugation, by omitting the gradation of the pt. t. plural ; lines
4, 5, 6 are similarly due to the second conjugation; lines 7, 8, 9 to the 2λ)γα; 10, 11, 12, to the fourth;
13, 14, to the first two grades of the fi//h; and 15, 16, to the first two grades of the s7v¢h. Line 17 is due
to comparing the past tense plurals in conjugations 4 and 5. Line 18 depends upon such instances as that
of the AS. /éwan, to bloom as a flower, in which the ὅ is an original Indo-germanic long vowel, as shown by
the cognate Latin florére, to flourish.
No se Ww
TAN PW DN
TABLE OF THE uUsUAL EQuivALENCE OF VowEL-Sounpbs.
TEvtT. Gotu. | Icer. | OHG. AS. Graf Lead, 116:
I (EI) I ei i i I ει I EI
2 Al ai el el a οι cen ἃ SOL
3 Ι i i i i ι i I
4 EU iu jo io éo εὖ ir
5 AU au au Ο éa ov au, 6
6 O (VU) u, au ο ο ο (u) υ
7. | (EN), IN in in in in εν | en, in
8. AN an *an an an ov on
9. UN un un un un av, a en
TO. ER air er er er (eor) ep er
11. AR ar ar ar eer (ear) op or
12. | OR (UR) aur or or or (ur) | ap,pa| or
13. E i e e e ε e
14. Α a a a 88, a ο ο (υ)
15. A a a a a (8, ea) a a A
τό. [9 6 fo) uo 6 a, ἡ a A
τῇ. v0) é a a & ἢ é E
18. O δ δ uo δ ω δ O
BRIEF NOTES UPON THE LANGUAGES CITED IN THE DICTIONARY © xxiii
It will be noticed that Greek and Latin equivalents are given in the above scheme. Corresponding to the
‘gradations’ in the six Teutonic conjugations of strong verbs we may note similar examples in Greek; viz. as
follows.
1. πείθω: perf. t. πέ-ποιθα ; 2 aorist ἔ-πιθον.
2. ἐ-λεύσομαι ; perf. t. εἰςλήτλουθα ; 2 aorist ἤ-λυθον.
3. Teva, future tense ; τόνος, sb.; perf. pass. τέτγαμαι.
4. δέρκομαι ; perf. t. δέτδορκα ; 2 aorist ἔ-δρακον.
5. πέτομαι ; morn, sb. Cf. L. segui, v., soczus, sb.
6. ἄγω; whence orpar-nyds, sb. Cf. L. agere; whence ambdages, sb.
It is interesting to note that the E. words ear, hear, Jerry, are the same as Goth. ausd, hausjan, bast, showing
that in such words the E. 7 is due to original s.
Authorities for Gothic: Gabelentz and Lobe, Diefenbach, Schulze, Massmann, Stamm, Uhlenbeck.
For examples of English words cognate with Greek and Latin, see my Primer of Classical and English
Philology.
For an account of the phonology of Gothic, see Prof. Wright’s Primer of the Gothic language.
GERMAN. Properly called High-German, to distinguish it from the other Teutonic dialects, which belong
to Low-German. This, of all Teutonic languages, is the furthest removed from English, and the one from
which fewest words are directly borrowed, though there is a very general popular notion (due to the utter want
of philological training so common amongst us) that the contrary is the case. A knowledge of German is
often the sole idea by which an Englishman regulates his ‘derivations’ of Teutonic words; and he is better
pleased if he can find the German equivalent of an English word than by any /rue account of the same
word, however clearly expressed. Yet it is well established, by Grimm’s law of sound-shiftings, that the German
and English consonantal systems are very different. Owing to the replacement of the Old High German 2 by
the Mod. G. 4, and other changes, English and German now approach each other more nearly than Grimm’s
law suggests ; but we may still observe the following very striking differences in the dental consonants.
English, d@ / th.
German. / 2(ss) d.
These changes are best remembered by help of the words day, sooth, fool, thorn, German /ag, zahn, fuss, dorn ;
and the further comparison of these with the other Teutonic forms is not a little instructive.
Teutonic type pDacoz TANTH FOT THORNOZ, THORNUZ.
Anglo-Saxon dxg 16d Soa porn,
Old Friesic det toth Sot thorn.
Old Saxon dag tand Sot thorn.
Low German = dag lin Soot dorn.
Dutch dag fand voet doorn.
Icelandic dag-r finn Sot-r porn.
Swedish dag fand Sot lorne.
Danish dag fand fod torn.
Gothic dag-s funthu-s Sotu-s thaurnu-s.
German lag zahn Juss dorn.
The number of words in English that are borrowed directly from German is quite insignificant, and they
are nearly all of late introduction. It is more to the purpose to remember that there are, nevertheless, a con-
siderable number of German words that were borrowed zmdirec/ly, viz. through the French.
Authorities: Schade, Kluge, Fliigel, E. Miiller. There is a good MHG. Dictionary by Lexer, another
by Benecke, Miiller, and Zarncke ; and many more. For an account of the phonology, see Prof. Wright’s
Old High German Primer, and his German Grammar.
FRENCH. The influence of French upon English is too well known to require comment. But the method
of derivation of French words from Latin or German is often very difficult, and requires the greatest care.
There are numerous French words in quite common use, such as avse, ease, ‘rancher, to cut, which have never
yet been clearly solved; and the solution of many others is highly doubtful. Latin words often undergo the
most curious transformations, as may be seen by consulting Brachet’s or Darmesteter’s or Schwan’s Historical
xxiv BRIEF NOTES UPON THE LANGUAGES CITED IN THE DICTIONARY
Grammar. What are called ‘learned’ words, such as modzle, which is merely a Latin word with a French
ending, present no difficulty; but the ‘popular’ words in use since the first formation of the language, are
distinguished by three peculiarities: (1) the continuance of the tonic accent, (2) the suppression of the short
vowel, (3) the loss of the medial consonant. The last two peculiarities tend to disguise the origin, and require
much attention. Thus, in the Latin Jomc/a/em, the short vowel 7, near the middle of the word, is suppressed ;
whence F. donté, E. bounty. And again, in the Latin /zga@re, to bind, the medial consonant g, standing between
two vowels, is lost, producing the F. der, whence E. sade.
The result is a great tendency to compression, of which an extraordinary but well-known example is the
Late Latin sx/atcum, reduced to edage by the suppression of the short vowel 7, and again to eage, aage by
the loss of the medial consonant d; hence F. dge, E. age.
One other peculiarity is too important to be passed over. With rare exceptions, the substantives (as ἴῃ
all the Romance languages) are formed from the accusative case of the Latin, so that it is commonly a mere
absurdity to cite the Latin nominative, when the form of the accusative is absolutely necessary to show how
the French word arose. On this account, the form of the accusative is usually given, as in the case of cau/zon,
from L. cautzonem, and in numberless other instances.
French -may be considered as being a wholly unoriginal language, founded on debased Latin; but it must
at the same time be remembered that, as history teaches us, a certain part of the language is necessarily of Celtic
origin; and another part is necessarily Frankish, that is, Old High German, It has also borrowed words freely
from Old Low German dialects, from Scandinavian (due to the Normans), and in later times, from Italian,
Spanish; &c., and even from English and many entirely foreign languages.
Authorities: Cotgrave, Palsgrave, Littré, Scheler, Diez, Hatzfeld, Brachet, Burguy, Roquefort, Bartsch, &c.
See also my Principles of English Etymology, Series I]; especially chapter vi, for the phonology of Anglo-
French, and chapters x and xi for the phonology of Central (or Parisian) French.
OTHER ROMANCE LANGUAGES. The other Romance languages, i.e. languages of Latin origin,
are Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Provengal, Romansch, and Wallachian. English contains words borrowed from
the first four of these, but there is not much in them that needs special remark. The Italian and Spanish forms
are often useful for comparison with (and consequent restoration of) the crushed and abbreviated Old French
forms. Italian is remarkable for assimilation, as in ammzrare (for admzrare), to admire, dis/o (for dic/o), a saying,
whence FE. d/o. Spanish, on the other hand, dislikes assimilation, and carefuily avoids double consonants ;
the only consonants that can be doubled are c, x, 7, besides //, which is sounded as E. 7 followed by_y consonant,
and is not considered as a double letter. The Spanish 7 is sounded as E. 2 followed by_y consonant, and occurs
in duefa, Englished as duenna. Spanish is also remarkable as containing many Arabic (Moorish) words, some
of which have found their way into English. The Italian infinitives commonly end in -are, -ere, -zre, with
corresponding past participles in -a/o, -w/o, -z/o. Spanish infinitives commonly end in -ar, -er, -zr, with corre-
sponding past participles in -ado, -7do, -7do. In all the Romance languages, substantives are most commonly
formed, as in French, from the Latin accusative. See further in my Principles of English Etymology, Series II;
ch. xiv (on the Italian element); ch. xv (on the Spanish element) ; and ch. xvi (on the Portuguese element).
CELTIC. Words of Celtic origin are marked ‘(C.)’. This was formerly a particularly slippery subject
to deal with, for want of definite information as to its older forms in a conveniently accessible arrangement; but
the contribution by Whitley Stokes to the 4th edition of Fick’s Vergleichende Wé6rterbuch is now of great
assistance, and Macbain’s Etymological Dictionary of Gaelic is also very useful. That English has borrowed
a few words from Celtic cannot be doubted, but we must take care not to multiply the number of these
unduly. Again, ‘Celtic’ is merely a general term, and in itself means nothing definite, just as ‘Teutonic’ and
‘Romance’ are general terms. ‘To prove that a word is Celtic, we must first show that the word is borrowed from
one of the Celtic languages, as Irish, Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish, or Breton, or that it is of a form which, by the help
of these languages, can be fairly presumed to have existed in the Celtic of an early period. The chief difficulty
lies in the fact that Welsh, Irish, Cornish, and Gaelic have all borrowed English words at various periods, and
Gaelic has certainly also borrowed some words from Scandinavian, as history tells us must have been the case.
We gain, however, some assistance by comparing all the languages of this class together, and again, by comparing
them with Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, &c., since the Celtic consonants often agree with these, and at the same time
differ from "Teutonic. Thus the word dard is Celtic, since it only appears in Welsh, Irish, and Gaelic; and
again, the word dow (2), a fortified hill, is Celtic, because it may be compared with the AS. sim, a Celtic d answer-
BRIEF NOTES UPON THE LANGUAGES CITED IN THE DICTIONARY XXV
ing to AS. 4 On the other hand, the W. Aofio, to hover, is nothing but the common ME. oven, to tarry, to
hover, which appears to be of native Εἰ. origin. ‘The Lectures on Welsh Philology by Prof. Sir John Rhys give a clear
and satisfactory account of the values of Irish and Welsh letters as compared with other Indo-germanic languages.
Some Celtic words have come to us through French, for which assistance is commonly to be had from Breton.
A few words in other Teutonic languages besides English are probably of Celtic origin.
‘RUSSIAN. This language belongs to the Slavonic branch of the Aryan languages, and, though the words
borrowed from it are very few, it is frequently of assistance in comparative philology, as exhibiting a modern form
of language allied to the Old Church Slavonic. My principal business here is to explain the system of translitera-
tion which I have adopted, as it is one which I made out for my own convenience, with the object of avoiding the
use of diacritical marks. The following is the Russian alphabet, with the Roman letters which I use to represent
it. It is sufficient to give the small letters only.
Russian Letters: a Bi Tt Ty. 0), [8). τὸ he To aM) HO ep ὁ Tt Yb 4 πὶ πὶ ἀπ
6
Romanthotters a 15. Die avec αἱ εἰ a ye 2 ae eee hy τὸ π᾿ 00 pe τὸ οἰ τ ὸπ| wt ΚΠ its: sche 9}
b
Russian Letters: ΠῚ ἘΠῚ pb ee 0. a Se δὲ τὴν
Roman Letters: shch mi, .(6)ijep, ἐπ in): das. pho τῇ
This transliteration is not the best possible, but it will suffice to enable any one to verify the words cited in this work
by comparing them with a Russian dictionary. It is necessary to add one or two remarks.
The symbol % only occurs at the end of a word or syllable, and only when that word or syllable ends in a con-
sonant; it is not sounded, but throws a greater stress upon the consonant, much as if it were doubled; I denote
it therefore merely by an apostrophe. The symbol 5 most commonly occurs at the end of a word or syllable, and
may be treated, in general, as a mute letter, like the finale in French. 9 only occurs at the beginning of words,
and is not common. 6 may be represented by ὁ at the beginning of a word, or otherwise by δ, if necessary, since
it cannot then be confused with 9. It is to be particularly noted that 7 is to have its /rench value, not the English;
seeing that ax has just the sound of the French 7, it is here so written. m and 1 are distinguished by the way in which
they occur ; ie can be written 7%, to distinguish it from ze=%. 9, which is rare, can be written pf, to distinguish
it from ᾧ, orf; the sound is all one. By 42, Russ. x, I mean the German guttural ch, which comes very near to
the sound of the letter; but the combinations /s, ch, sh, shch are all as in English. 1, or wz, somewhat resembles
the French ow. The combinations ze, iu, za, are to be read with zas English y, i.e. yea, you, yaa. V, or y,
pronounced as E. ee, is of slight consequence, being rare. I do not recommend the scheme for general use,
but only give it as the one which I have used.
The Russian and Slavonic consonants agree with Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin rather than with Teutonic. The
same may be said of Lithuanian, which is a very well preserved language, and often of great use in comparative
philology. The infinitive mood of Russian regular verbs ends in -a/e, -7a/e, -dele, -7te, -ole, -ute, all with final
mute ¢; that of some irregular verbs in -che, or -#. In Lithuanian, the characteristic suffix of the infinitive is -/.
The best authority is the Comparative Etymological Dictionary of the Slavonic Languages by Εν, Miklosich.
SANSKRIT. In transliterating Sanskrit words, I follow the scheme given in Benfey’s Dictionary, with
slight modifications. For Wf, I print ¢, as in Benfey and Uhlenbeck, instead of f, as in Monier Williams’s Grammar.
There is this advantage about the symbol ¢, viz. that it reminds the student that this sibilant is due to an original &.
I also follow Uhlenbeck in printing 7 (instead of 77, as in Benfey) for 3%; but retain sh for 58, which Uhlenbeck
denotes by s. I also follow him in writing # for 51 (Benfey’s 7). He also employs ¢ and ch for Benfey’s ch and
chh ; but I have not adopted these two changes.
Thus the complete alphabet is represented by a, ἃ, 7,7, u, ἥ, 7,7, ὦ, ὃ, at, 6, au; gutturals, k, kh, g, gh, ἢ;
palatals, ch, chh, 7, yh, #; cerebrals, ἃ th, d, dh, κι; dentals, 4, th, ὦ, dh, τι; labials, 2, ph, 6, bh, μι; semivowels,
y, r, 1, Ὁ; sibilants, ¢, sh, s; aspirate, 2. Add the nasal symbol 32, and the final aspirate, 2.
It is sometimes objected that the symbols ch, chh, are rather clumsy, especially when occurring as chchh ;
but as they are perfectly definite and cannot be mistaken, the mere appearance to the eye cannot much matter.
Some write ¢ and ch, and consequently cch instead of chchh; but what is gained in appearance is lost in
distinctness ; since 4 is certainly our ch, whilst ¢ gives the notion of E. ¢ in can.
The scientific order in which the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet is arranged should be observed.
There are a few points about the values of the Sanskrit letters too important to be omitted. The following
short notes will be found useful.
XXVI BRIEF NOTES UPON THE LANGUAGES CITED IN THE DICTIONARY
The Skt. γ is a sonant, and is perfectly distinct from 7. ‘Thus 7ch, to shine, is distinct from rich, to leave,
Other languages sometimes preserve a better form than Skt.; thus the ν΄ AG, to drive, gives Lat. ag-ere, Gk. dy-ew,
and (by regular change from g to 4) Icelandic ak-a; but the Skt. is αὐ, a weakened form in which the g has been
palatalised.
The chief difficulty in comparing the values of the consonants in different Indo-germanic languages lies in
dealing with the guttural sounds. It has been ascertained that there are actually /Aree distinct sets of gutturals, dis-
tinguished by difference of treatment in some of the languages belonging to the family. They are called by Brugmann
the palatals, the pure velars, and the /abio-velars ; and by others the pala/al, middle, and /abzalised velar gutturals. I dis-
tinguish the first set by the symbols GH, G, K ; the second, by G(w)H, G(w), Q ; and the third, by GwH, αν, Qw.
It is not a little remarkable that, in Greek, Latin, and Celtic (all of which keep the original £-sound in the word
for ‘hundred,’ as Greek ἑκατόν, L. cenfum, Welsh can/) the middle gutturals are treated exactly like the palatals;
whilst, on the contrary, in Sanskrit, Persian, Lithuanian, and Slavonic (all of which have an s-sound in the same
word, as Skt. ¢a/am, Pers. sad, Lith. szzmtas, Russ. s/o) the middle gutturals are treated like the labialised velars.
Teutonic belongs to the former set, and goes with Greek, Latin, and Celtic. We may roughly characterise the two
sets as Western and Eastern respectively.
Dental Series. The easiest series to deal with is that of the dentals; so it will be taken first. It will
be noticed that the Germanic languages οὐ an original DH, D, or T to D, T, and TH respectively. This
is called ‘ consonantal sound-shifting,’ or simply ‘sound-shifting’ ; otherwise known as ‘ Grimm’s Law.’
Labial Series. In the same way, the Germanic languages shift an original BH, B, or P, to B, P, F
respectively ; by the same Law. The following table exhibits the results.
UsuaL CorrEsSPONDENCES OF DentTat and LapiaL Sounps.
{ ες Σ
1 Sk Suav. | Lirn. | Gr. ar: TRISH. Goth. AS. Terur.
DG. ΚΤ.
DH dh d d θ f (d, b) d d d D
D d d d ὃ d, 1 d t t a
we t t t τ t t, th Ἐπ} | b[d] | TH
BH |: bh f,h(b) 1 ὃ (m) b
b
b B
B b b p Ρ P
P p p p Sas f [b] f F |
The Skt. d answers to Lat. finitially ; the ¢, ὦ only occur medially. The Irish // is an aspirated 2, not the
E. “4. The AS. pis only a symbol for the sound of //, as in E. ¢horn. The appearance of L. / for dis remarkable ;
thus L. “gua represents an older dngua; and as L. d corresponds to AS. 2 it is cognate with E. /ongue. The
Skt. 54 corresponds to L. / or 2 initially; medially, to ὁ. The Gothic [6] and Gothic and AS. [4] within square
brackets are due to what is known as ‘ Verner’s Law’; the 2 became ὦ, and the # became ὁ whenever the vowel
next preceding these consonants did mo/, according to the original Indo-germanic system of accentuation, bear the
principal accent of the word. See Wright’s Gothic Primer, § 110.
Guttural Series. The usual correspondence of guttural sounds in the principal Indo-germanic languages is
here given. It has been explained above that there are three sets of gutturals. Observe the identity of treatment in
the second and third sets of rows to the left of the dark line, and in the first and second sets to the right of it.
σσ
ΠΣ Θ.
ἢ ae
1 ΑΥ. © Lat. ΙΚΙΞΗ. Gorn. | AS; Τευτ.
h, g 8 8 8 G
8 g k c K
¢ ς " [8] hie κι
8, h, 5 8 8 8 G
ξ: 8 ie; k c K
2 ς ο h [8] h [6] Η
g: ,guru,g| g 8 g Gw
8g) gu,u,g b kw, k cw, c Q
k, qu, c ς hw, ἢ [5] | hw, ἢ [6] Hw
BRIEF NOTES UPON THE LANGUAGES CITED IN THE DICTIONARY = xxvii
Authorities : Benfey, Macdonell, Uhlenbeck, for Sanskrit; Prellwitz, Vaniéek, Liddell and Scott, for Greek ;
Walde, Bréal, VaniGek, Lewis and Short, for Latin; Miklosich, for Slavonic; and for comparative philology,
Brugmann, Fick, Stokes-Fick, Uhlenbeck, Kluge, Franck, and others. Cf. Giles, Manual of Comparative
Philology, 2nd ed., rgor.
NON-ARYAN LANGUAGES: HEBREW. The Hebrew words in English are not very numerous,
whilst at the same time they are tolerably well known, and the corresponding Hebrew words can, in general,
be easily found. I have therefore contented myself with denoting the alphabet beth, gimel, daleth, &c. by
b, g,d,h, v, 2, kh, t, y, &, ἢ, m,n, 5, ἵν ἢ, 8,9, 7, sh or s,¢. This gives the same symbol for samech and szn, but
this difficulty is avoided by making a note of the few instances in which samech occurs; in other cases, sz
is meant. So also with Δ) and /aw; unless the contrary is said, fav is meant. This might have been avoided,
had the words been more numerous, by the use of s and / for samech and μά. I put kh for chefh, to denote that the
sound is guttural, not E. ch. I denote ayzm by the mark‘. The other letters can be readily understood. The
vowels are denoted by 4a, ¢, 7, 0, τι, ὦ, é, 1, 0, u.
ARABIC. The Arabic alphabet is important, being also used for Persian, Turkish, Hindustani, and
Malay. But as the letters are variously transliterated in various works, it seemed to be the simplest plan to use
the spellings given in Richardson’s Arabic and Persian Dictionary (with very slight modifications), or in Marsden’s
Malay Dictionary; and, in order to prevent any mistake, to give, in every instance, the number of the page
in Richardson or Marsden, or the number of the column in Palmer’s Persian Dictionary; so that, if in any
instance, it is desired to verify the word cited, it can readily be done. Richardson’s system is rather vague,
as he uses / to represent Ὁ» and b (and also the occasional i); alsos to represent 4 CG» and (»; also ὦ for
c and 3; 2 for 3; Us and b; & for G and w; and he denotes ayzz by the Arabic character. I have got
rid of one ambiguity by using g (instead of 4) for 3; and for ayiz I have put the mark ‘, as in Palmer’s
Persian Dictionary. In other cases, the reader can easily tell which 4 5, 4, or zg is meant, if it happens
to be an /nztial letter (when it is the most important), by observing the umber of the page (or column) given
in the reference to Richardson’s or Palmer’s Dictionary. Thus in Richardson’s Dictionary, pp. 349-477 contain
3 pp. 960-981 contain b; pp. 477-487 contain «Ὁ; pp. 795-868 contain |; pp. 924-948 contain (yo ;
pp- 548-588 contain ¢ ; pp. 1660-1700 contain κυ; pp. 705-712 contain 3; pp. 764-794 contain 5; pp. 949-960
contain (2; and pp. 981-984 contain b. In Palmer’s Dictionary, the same letters are distinguished as /
(coll. 121-159); ὦ (coll. 408-416); § (coll. 160, 161); s (coll. 331-371); s (coll. 396-405); & (coll. 191-207);
ὦ (coll. 692-712); 2 (coll. 283-287); 2 (coll. 314-330); 5. (coll. 405-408); and g (coll. 416-418). Palmer
gives the complete alphabet in the form a [, 7, &c.], ὁ, 2, 4, 5, , ch, h, hh, d, ὁ, r, 2, 2h, 5, Sh, $, 2, 4, 3,°, 8h, f, &
[which I have written as Φ], 4, g, 1, m,n, τὸ, ὦ, y. It deserves to be added that Turkish has an additional letter
saghir niin, which I denote by #, occurring in the word _ye/z, which helps to form the E. word janzsary.
In words derived from Hindi, Hindustani, Chinese, &c., I give the page of the dictionary where the
word may be found, or a reference to some authority. See, in particular, the List of Books referred to, at
p- XXX.
CANONS ‘FOR ETYMOLOGY ἘΠ
In the course of the work, I have been led to adopt the following ‘canons, which merely express
well-known principles, and are nothing new. Still, in the form’ of definite statements, they are worth giving.
- 1. Before attempting an etymology, ascertain the earliest form and use of the word ; and observe chronology. '
. Observe history and geography ; borrowings are due to actual contact.
3. Observe phonetic laws, especially those which regulate the mutual relation of consonants in IS various
Indogermanic languages, at the same time comparing the vowel-sounds. 5
4. In comparing two words, A and B, belonging to the same language, of which A ‘contains she lesser
number of syllables, A must be taken to be the more original word, unless we have evidence of contraction
or other corruption. j
5. In comparing two words, A and B, belonging to the same language and consisting of the same
number of syllables, the older form can usually be distinguished by observing the sound of the principal. vowel.
6. Strong verbs, in the Teutonic languages, and the so-called ‘irregular verbs’ in Latin, are commonly
to be considered as primary, other related forms being taken from them. 7
7. The whole of a word, and not a portion only, ought to be reasonably accounted for; and, in
tracing changes of form, any infringement of phonetic laws. is to be regarded with suspicion.
8. Mere resemblances of form and apparent connexion in sense between languages which have different
phonetic laws or no necessary connexion are commonly a delusion, and are not to be regarded,
9. When words in two different languages are more nearly alike than the ordinary phonetic laws. would
allow, there is a strong probability that one language has borrowed the word from the other. RE cognate
words ought not to be 100 much alike.
ro. It is useless to offer an explanation of an English word which will not a/so explain all the cognate forms.
These principles, and other similar ones well known to comparative philologists, I have tried to observe.
Where I have not done so, there is a chance of a mistake. Corrections can only be made by a more strict
observance of the above canons. ;
A few examples will make the matter clearer.
τ. The word sxrloin or sirloin is often said to be derived from the fact that the J/o’a was knighted as
Sir Loin by Charles I, or (according to Richardson) by James I. Chronology: makes short work of this
statement ; the word being in use long before James I was born. It is one of those unscrupulous inventions
with which English ‘etymology’ abounds, and which many people admire because they are ‘so clever.” The
number of those who literally prefer a story about a word to a more prosaic account of it, is only too large.
As to the necessity for ascertaining the oldest form and‘use of a word, there cannot be two opinions.
-Yet this primary and all-important rule is continually disrezarded, and men are found to rush into ‘ etymologies’
without the slightest attempt at investigation or any knowledge of the history of the language, and ‘think
nothing of deriving words which exist in Anglo-Saxon from German or Italian. They merely ‘think it
over, and take up with the first fancy that comes to hand, which they expect to be ‘obvious’ to others because
they were themselves incapable of doing better; which is a poor argument indeed. It would be easy to cite
some specimens which I have noted, but it is hardly necessary4. I will rather relate my experience, viz. that
I have frequently set out to find the etymology of a word without any preconceived ideas about it, and usually found
that, by the time its earliest use and sense had been fairly traced, the etymology presented itself unasked.
2. The history of a nation generally accounts for the constituent parts of its language. When an early
English word is compared with Hebrew or Coptic, as used to be done in the o/d editions of Webster’s
dictionary, history is set at defiance; and it was a good deed to clear the later editions of all such rubbish.
As to geography, there must always be an intelligible geographical contact between races that are supposed
to have borrowed words from one another; and this is particularly true of olden times, when travelling
was less common. Old French did not borrow words from Portugal, nor did Old English borrow words
from Prussia, much less from Finnish or Esthonian or Coptic, &c., &c. Yet there are people who still
remain persuaded that Wztsunday is derived, of all things, from the German Pfings/en.
3. Few delusions are more common than the comparison of L. ci#ra with E. care, of Gk. ὅλος with
1 I cite a few of these in my Principles of English Etymology, Series ΤΥ, ch. xxv—‘On some False Etymologies.’
CANONS FOR ETYMOLOGY Sex:
E. whole, and of Gk. χάρις with E. charity. I dare say I myself believed in these things for many years,
owing to that utter want of any approach to any philological training, for which England in general has
long been so remarkable. - Yet a very slight (but honest) attempt. at understanding the English, the Latin,
and the Greek alphabets soon shows these notions to be untenable. The E: care, AS. cearu, meant
originally sorrow, which is only a secondary meaning of the Latin word; it never meant, originally, attention
or painstaking. But this’is not the point at present under consideration... Phonetically, the AS. ¢ and: the
L. c, when used initially, do not correspond ; for where Latin writes ¢ at the beginning of ἃ word, AS. has ὦ, as in
L. célare, related’ to AS. hel-an, to hide. Again, the AS. ea, before r following, stands for original a, cearu,
-answering to-an older caru. But the 1,. εὔγα, Old Latin cocra, is spelt with a long @, originally a diphthong,
which cannot answer exactly to an original a. It remains that these words both contain the letter 7 in common,
which is not denied; but this is a slight ground for the supposed equivalence of words of which the primary’
senses were different. The fact of the equivalence of L. ¢ to AS. Δ, is commonly known as being due
“to Grimm’s~ law. “The popular’ notions « about ‘Grimm’s law’ are extremely vague... Many imagine
that Grimm made’ the law: not many years. ago, since which time Latin and Anglo-Saxon have been bound
to obey. it. . But the word /aw is then strangely misapprehended; it is only a law in the sense of az
observed fact, Latin and Anglo-Saxon were thus differentiated in times preceding the earliest record of the
latter, and the difference might have been observed in the eighth century if any one had had the wits to
observe it. “When the difference has once been perceived, «and all other AS. and Latin equivalent words
are seen to follow it, we cannot consent’ to establish an exception to the rule in order to compare a single (supposed)
pair of words-which do not agree. in the vowel-sound, and did not originally mean the same thing.
As to the Gk. ὅλος, the aspirate (as usual) represents an originals, so that ὅλος answers to Skt. sarva-, all,
L. saluus, safe, unhurt. But the AS. λα} (which is the old spelling of zw/o/e) has for its initial letter an A, answering
to Gk. x. As to χάρις, the initial Jeter is x, a guttural sound answering to Lat. 4 or 7, and it is, in fact, allied
“to L. hortar?. - But in charity, the ch is French, due to a peculiar pronunciation of the Latin c, and the F. chariié is
of course due to the L. ace.:car/a/em, whence algo Ital. carz/afe or cartfa, Span. carzdad, all from L: ca@rus, with
long a. When we put χάρις and carus side by side, we find that the initial letters are different, that the vowels are
different, and that, just as in the case of cearu and cira, the-sole resemblance is, that they-both contain the letter |
{tis not worth while to pursue the subject further. Those who are confirmed in their prejudices and have
no guide but the ear (which they neglect to train), will remain of the same opinion still; but some-beginners
may perhaps take heed, and if they do, will see matters in a new light. To all who have acquired any philological
knowledge, these things are wearisome. i
4. Suppose we take two Latin words such as carilas and carus. The former has a stem car-?-/a/-'; the latter
has a stem cdr-o-, which may very easily turn into c@r-z-, We are perfectly confident that the adjective came first
into existence, and that the sb. was made out of it by adding a suffix; and this we can tell by a glance at the words,
by the very form of them. It is a rule in all Indogermanic languages that words started from monosyllabic roots or
bases, and were built up by supplying new suffixes at the end; and, the greater the number of suffixes, ‘the later the
formation.. When apparent exceptions to this law present themselves, they require especial attention ; , but as long
as the law is followed, it is all in the natural course of things. Simple as this canon seems, it is. frequently not
observed ; the consequence being that ἃ word A is said to be derived from B, whereas B is its own offspring.
i
The reste is @ reasoning in a ere as it is called ; we go round and round, but there is no progress upward and
backward, which is the direction in which we should 1 travel: Thus Richardson derives chine from ‘F. ‘echine} and
this from ‘F. echiner, to chine, divide, or Bréak the back of (Cotgrave), probably from. the AS. é/naz, to chine,
chink, or rive.’ From the absurdity of deriving the *F, echzmer’ from the ‘AS. ccnan’ he might have been saved
at the outset, by remembering that, instead of echime being derived from the verb echiner, it is obvious that echzner,
to break the back of, is derived from echrne; the’ back, as Cotgrave certainly meant us to understand ; ‘see eschine,
eschiner in Cotgrave’s Dictionary. Putting eschzne and eschiner side by side, the shorter form is the more original.
5. This canon, requiring us to compare vowel-sounds, is a little more difficult, but it is extremely important.
In‘many dictionaries it is utterly neglected, whereas the information to be obtained from vowels is ‘often extremely
certain ; and few things are more beautifully regular than the occasionally-complex, yet often decisive manner in
which, especially in the Teutonic languages, one vowel-sound is educed from another. “The very fact’ that the
AS. @is a modification of δ tells us at once that fedan, to feed, is a derivation of fod, food; and that to derive food
from feed is simply impossible. In the same way the vowel ὁ in the verb to sef owes’ its veryexistence to the
vowel a in the past tense of the verb to sz#; and so'on in countless instances.
The other canons require no particular comment.
BOOKS REFERRED: TO IN
Tie wie TIlONARY.
Tue following is a list of the principal books referred to in the Dictionary, with a statement, in most instances,
of the editions which I have actually used.
The abbreviation ‘E.E.T.S.’ signifies the Early English Text Society ; and ‘E.D.S.,’
the English Dialect Society.
The date within square brackets at the end of a notice refers to the probable date of composztion of a poem
or other work ; or to its first appearance in print.
Aasen; see Norwegian.
Abbott’s Shakespearian Grammar. Third Edition, 1870.
Acosta, Joseph d’, The Naturall and Morall Historie of the East
and West Indies; tr. by E. G[rimstone]; London, 1604. 4to.
Ady, T., Discovery of Witches. 1661.
fElfred, King, tr. of Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae, ed.
S. Fox, 1864. [ab. 880-goo.]
— tr. of Beda’s Ecclesiastical History, ed. Whelock, 1644.
—— tr. of Beda’s Ecclesiastical History, ed. J. Smith, 1722.
ed. T. Miller, E.E.T.S., 1890, 1898.
—— tr. of Gregory’s Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet ; E.E.T.S., 1871.
Version of the history of the world by Orosius ; ed. J. Bosworth,
Also
London, 1859. [ab. 880-g00.] Also ed. Sweet, E.E.T.S., 1883.
fElfred’s Metres; see Grein.
ZElfric, Lives of Saints; ed. W. W. Skeat; 2 vols.; E.E.T.S., 1881-
1900.
Elfric on the Old Testament ; see Grein, Bibliothek der A. Prosa.
Allfric’s Glossary, pr. in Wright’s Vocabularies; see Wright, T.
[ab. 975.] Also, in Somner’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary.
fElfric’s Grammar; ed. J. Zupitza, Berlin, 1880. [ab. 975.]
fElfric’s Homilies ; ed. Thorpe (A¢lfric Society). [ab. 975.]
Alexander and Dindimus ; ed. Skeat. E.E.T.S., extra series, 1878.
{ab. 1350. ]
Alexander, The Wars of; ed. W. W. Skeat. E.E.T.S.,
Ty mama Lexique de la langue Algonquine.
1886.
Alisaunder, Kyng; see Weber's Metrical Romances. [after 1300.]
1886.
Montreal,
Alliterative Poems; ed. Morris; E.E.T.S., 1864; reprinted, 1869.
(ab. 1360.]
Altenglische Dichtungen des MS. Harl. 2253; ed. Dr. K. Biddeker.
Berlin, 1878. 8vo.
Altenglische Legenden ; ed. Dr. Carl Horstmann.
Altmark, dialect of; see Low German dialects.
Amadas, Sir; see Robson.
Ancren Riwle; ed. Jas. Morton. Camden Soc., 1873. [ab. 1230.]
Anglia; Zeitschrift” fiir Englische Philologie; herausg. von R. P.
Wiilcker. Halle a/S. “87 8 and following years.
Anglo-French.—A Rough List of English Words found in
Anglo-French; by the Rev. W. W. Skeat. (Phil. Soc. Trans-
actions, 1883.) Reprinted, with many additions, in Notes on
Eng. Etymology, by W. W. Skeat, 1901 ; pp. 353-470.
Annals of Burton ; pr. in Annales Monastici, ed. Luard (Record
Series), 1864, pp. 446- 453. [1258.]
—— Edw. Conf. =Life of Edward the Confessor, ed. Luard (Record
Series), 1858. [12th century. ]
—— French Chronicle of London, ed.
London, 1844. [ab. 1350. ]
—— Geoffrey Gaimar’s Chronicle, ed. T. Wright (Caxton Soc.),
1850. [ab. 1150.]
Havelok.—Lai d’Havelok ; pr. in the same vol. as the preceding.
{12th century. ]
—— Langtoft’s Chronicle, ed. T. Wright (Record Series), 2 vols.
London, 1866-8. [ab. 1307.]
— Waws of William I; pr. in Ancient Laws and Institutes of
England, ed. Bb. Thorpe; vol. i. p. 466.
Liber Albus, ed. H. T. Riley (Record Series), 1859.
1419. |
—— Liber Custumarum, pr. in Munimenta Gildhalliz, vol. ii; ed.
H. T. Riley (Record Series), 1860. [1270 to 1400.]
St. Nicholas, by Maistre Wace; ed. Delius; Bonn, 1850.
century. ]
Paderborn, 1875.
Aungier (Camden Soc.),
[Before
{r2th
Anglo-French.—Philippe de Thaun, Bestiary and Livre des
Creatures; pr. in Wright’s Popular Treatises on Science, 1841.
{12th century. |
—— Political Songs of England, ed. T. Wright (Camden Soc.),
London, 1839.
—— Royal W tis, ed. J. Nichols; 1780. See Nichols, J.
Statutes of the Realm, pr. by command of Geo, III in 1810.
First Volume.
Vie de St. Auban, ed. R. Atkinson ; London, 1876.
Year-Books of Edward I, ed. A. J. Horwood (Record Series).
Vols. 1 to 3. Dates: vol. i, 1292-3; vol. 11, 1302-3; vol. iii,
1304-5. ,
A much fuller list of A.F. works is given in Notes on Eng.
Etymology (as above).
Anglo-Saxon.—Ettmiiller, L., Lexicon Anglo-Saxonicum ; Qued-
linburg and Leipzig, 1851. See also Bosworth, Grein, Leo, Loth,
Lye, March, Somner, Sweet, Wright.
Anglo-Saxon and Early English Psalter ; ed. J. Stevenson.
Soc., 1843-7. 2 vols.
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ; ed. B. Thorpe; 2 vols. 1861. (Rolls Series.)
ed. C. Plummer and J. Earle. Oxford, 1892-9. 2 vols.
Anglo-Saxon Glosses ; see Voc. ; and see O.E. Texts.
Anglo-Saxon Gospels. The Gospel of St. Matthew, in Anglo-
Saxon and Northumbrian Versions, ed. W. W. Skeat, Cambridge,
1887.—St. Mark, 1871.—St. Luke, 1874.—St. John, 1878.
Annual Register ; commenced in 1758. London. ὅνο.
Anstey, C.; The New Bath Guide. (First ed. in 1766.)
Surtees
Antiquarian Repertory; a Miscellany. London, 1775-84. 4to.
4 vols.
Anturs of Arthur; see Robson. [ab. 1440.]
Arabic.—A Dictionary, Persian, Arabic, and English. by
J. Richardson ; new edition, by F. Johnson. London, 1829.
Arber.—English Reprints, ed. E. Arber ; various dates.
Arber, E., An English Garner, vols. i to vii; 1877-1883.
Amold’s ‘Chronicle; reprinted from the First Edition, with the
additions included in the Second. London, 1811. [1 02. ]
Ascham, Roger; Toxophilus, ed. Arber, 1868. (1545-]
The Scholemaster, ed. Arber, 1870. [1570.]
Ash, J., Dictionary of the English Language; 2 vols., 1775.
Assumption of Mary; see Horn.
Atkinson, Rey. J. C., Glossary of the Cleveland Dialect.
1868.
Austin, T.; Two fifteenth-century Cookery Books (ab. 1430 and
1450). E.E.T.S., 1888.
Australian English ; A Dictionary of Australasian Words, Phrases,
and Usages ; by Prof. E. E. Morris. London, 1898.
A. Vi= Authorized Version ; see Bible.
Avowing of Arthur; see Robson.
Awdelay’s Fraternity of Vagabonds,ed. Viles and Furnivall; E.E.T.S.,
1869 ; see Harman’s Caveat. {1560-1565.]
Awntyrs of Arthure; see Scottish Alliterative Poems, and Three
Metrical Romances.
Ayenbite of Inwyt, or Remorse of Conscience, by Dan Michel of
Northgate; ed. R. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1866. [1340.
Babees Book; ed. F. J. Furnivall, E.E.T.S., 1868. [15th cent. ]
Bacon, Lord, Advancement of Learning, ed. W. Aldis Wright ;
Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1869. [1605.] An early edition by
G. Wats, Oxford; 1640, folio.
Essays; ed. 5. W. Singer, London, 1857. Also (including
Colours of Good and Evil), ed. W. Aldis Wright, London, 1871.
[1597-]
London,
BOOKS REFERRED TO IN
Bacon, Lord, Life of Henry VII, ed. J. R. Lumby, 1876. [1621.]
Natural History, or Sylva Sylvarum, Fifth Ed., 1639. [1627.]
Bailey, N., Universal Etymological English Dictionary, Seventh
Edition, 1735.
English Dictionary, Vol. ii, Second Edition, 1731.
Bale, John, Kynge Johan, a Play; Camden Soc., 1838. [ab. 1552.]
Barbour’s Bruce; ed. W. W. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1870-1877. [1375-]
Barclay’s Ship of Fools, ed. Jamieson; Edinburgh, 1874. 2 vols.
1509.]
Bea Surnames.—Our English Surnames, by C. W. Bardsley;
London, n.d. Third edition, 1884.
Baret, John, Alvearie or Quadruple Dictionary, London, 1580.
Barnes, R., Workes of, pr. by John Day; see Tyndall.
Bartsch, K., Chrestomathie Provengale; Elberfeld, 1875.
Chrestomathie de l’Ancien Frangais; Leipzig, 1875.
— La Langue et la Littérature Francaises . . . précédés d’une
Grammaire de |’ Ancien Francais, par A. Horning. Paris, 1887.
Basilicon Doron, by King JamesI; repr. in A Miscellany, ed. H.
Morley; London, 1888. [1603.]
Basque.—Larramendi, M. de, Diccionario trilingue Castellano,
Bascuence, y Latin. San Sebastian, 1853.
Bavarian.—Bayerisches Worterbuch, yon J. A. Schmeller, Four
Parts, Stuttgart, 1827-1837.
Beaumont and Fletcher, Works of; ed. G. Darley. 2 vols.
(1606-1616. ]
Beckmann, J., History of Inventions ; tr. by W. Johnston.
London, 1846. 2 vols.
Becon, T., Works; ed. Rev. J. Ayre, M.A. Parker Soc.
First collected ed. 1563-4.
Beda; see AElfred.
—— De Temporibus Rationum; see Wright, T.
Be Domes Dege, ed. J. R. Lumby, E.E.T.S., 1876.
Beket, Thomas, Life of; by Robert of Gloucester ; ed. W. H. Black.
Percy Soc. 1845. [ab. 1300.]
Benfey ; see Sanskrit.
Beowulf; ed. B. Thorpe, Oxford and London, 1855.
1857. Ed. A. J. Wyatt, 1894.
Berghaus, H.; see Low German dialects (Saxon).
Berners; see Froissart.
Beryn, The Tale of, ed. F. J. Furnivall; Chaucer Society, 1876.
Bestiary ; see Old English Miscellany. [ab. 1250-1300. |
Beves of Hamtoun, ed. Turnbull, Edinburgh, 1838 (cited by Strat-
mann.) [ab. 1320-13307] Also,ed. Prof. E. Kolbing. E.E.T.S.,
extra series, 1885-6, 1894.
Bevis.—Der Anglonormannische Boeve de Haumtone; ed. A.
Stimming. 1899.
Bewick, T.; History of Quadrupeds. (First ed., 1790.)
Bible, English; Authorized Version, 1611.
Imprinted at London by Jhon Day, 1551.
Biblesworth (for Bibbesworth), Walter de, the treatise of; pr. in
Wright’s Vocabularies, First Series, pp. 142-174. [ab. 1300.]
Biblia Sacra Vulgate Editionis. Auctoritate edita. Parisiis,
1872.
Birch, W. de Gray; Cartularium Saxonicum (Charters relating to
Anglo-Saxon History). London, 1885-93. 3 vols. ὅνο.
Black Book of the Admiralty; ed. Sir T. Twiss. Vols.
1871-6. (Rolls Series.)
Blackstone’s Commentaries (cited in Richardson, and Todd’s John-
son). [1764-1768.]
Blickling Homilies; ed. R. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1874-6. [τοί cent. ]
Blount’s Law Dictionary.—Nomo-Aefikon; a Law-Dictionary, by
Tho. Blount. Second Edition. London, 1691
Blount, T., Glossographia., 1674.
Body and Soul, the Debate of the; printed in the Latin Poems of
Walter Mapes, ed. T. Wright; Camden Soc., London, 1841.
(See also the reprint in Matzner’s Altenglische Sprachproben, pp.
go-103.) [13th century.]
Boethius, Chaucer’s translation of, ed. R. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1878.
{ab. 1380.] And see Aélfred and Chaucer.
Bohn’s Lowndes.—The Bibliographer’s Manual of English Litera-
ture, by W. T. Lowndes; New Edition, by H. G. Bohn, 1857.
Boke of St. Albans; first printed in 1486. [Fac-simile reprint, 1881.]
Contains a Book on Hawking, a Book on Hunting (by Dame
Julians Barnes), and a Book on Coat-Armour.
Book of Quintessence; ed. F. J. Furnivall.
(1460-70. ]
Borde, Andrew, The Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge,
᾿ &c. [1547.] Also, A Dyetary of Helth. [1542.] Ed. F. J.
Furmivall, E.E.T.S., extra series, 1870.
Breviarie of Health. (First ed. 1547.)
Boswell, J., Life of Johnson; ed. J. W. Croker, 1876.
1859.
New ed.,
1843-4.
Ed. Grein,
I-4.
E.E.T.S. 1866.
[1791.]
THE DICTIONARY Xxxi
Bosworth and Toller.—An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary based on the
MS. collections of the late J. Bosworth, D.D.; edited and en-
larged by T. Northcote Toller, M.A. Oxford, 1882, &c.
Boutell’s Heraldry; ed. S. T. Aveling. London, 1873.
Boyle, Robert, Works. First ed. 1744; 5 vols.
Richardson. )
Bozon.—Les Contes Moralisés de N. Bozon; ed. Miss L. Toulmin
Smith and P. Meyer; Paris, 1889. (Anglo-French.)
Brachet, A., Etymological French Dictionary, tr. by G. W. Kitchin,
1873.
—— Historical Grammar of the French Language; enlarged by
P. Toynbee, M.A. Oxford, 1896. 8vo.
Brand, John, M.A.—Observations on Popular Antiquities. Arranged
and revised, with additions, by H. Ellis. Republished, in Bohn’s
Antiquarian Library, post 8vo, 1848. 3 vols.
Bray.—See French dialects.
Brazil.—Historia Naturalis Brasiliz; by Piso, Marcgraf, and de
Laet. Amsterdam, 1648.
Brazilian.—Cf. Vocabulario Rioplatense razonado, por D. D.
Granada. Montevideo, 1890.
Brazilian Language, The; by A. Cavalcanti, Rio Janeiro, 1883.
Bréal ; see Latin.
Bremen Worterbuch.—Versuch eines bremisch-niedersachsischen W6r-
terbuchs, herausgegeben von der bremischen deutschen Gesellschaft,
5 vols. Bremen, 1767.
Brende, J., tr. of Quintius Curtius, 1561 (cited by Richardson).
Breton.—Dictionnaire Breton-Frangais, par J.F.M.M.A. Le Goni-
dec; Angouléme, 1821.
Breton, Nicholas (1545 ?-1626?); Works, ed. Grosart (Chertsey
Library), 1877.
Britten and Holland.—A Dictionary of English Plant-names; by
J. Britten and R. Holland. E.D.S. 1886.
Britton; the French Text, with an E. translation, introduction and
notes; by F. M. Nichols, M.A. Oxford, 1865. 2 vols. 8vo.
(Anglo-French.)
3rockett, J. T., A Glossary of North Country Words, Third Edition.
2 vols. Newcastle, 1846.
Browne, Sir Thomas, Works of, ed. S. Wilkin, 4 vols., 1852.
Bohn’s Standard Library.) [ 1640-1680. ]
Browne, W., Britannia’s Pastorals, see English Poets. [1613-1616. ]
Bruce: see Barbour.
Brugmann.—Elements of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-
Germanic Languages. Vol. i, tr. by Joseph Wright, Ph.D.
London, 1888. Vols. 2-4, with Index ; tr. by R. 5. Conway and
W. 4H. D. Rouse. London, 1891-5.
Brugmann, K.; Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der indo-
germanischen Sprachen. Strassburg, 1886-1900. 5 vols.
Brugmann, K., and B. Delbriick; Grundriss der vergleichenden
Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen. Zweite Bearbeitung.
Vol. 1. Strassburg, 1897.
Brunne, Robert of, Handlyng Synne; ed. F. J. Furnivall; Rox-
burghe Club, 1862. [1303.]
Buffon’s Natural History abridged. London, 1792. 2 vols.
Bullein’s Dialogue against the Fever Pestilence; ed. M. and A. H.
Bullen. E.E.T\S., extra series, 1888. [1578.]
Bullinger, H., Works; ed. Rev. T. Harding. Parker Soc., 1849-
52. 4vols. 8vo.
Burguy’s Glossaire.—In tome iii. of Grammaire de la Langue D’Oil,
par G. F. Burguy; 2me édition, Berlin and Paris, 1870.
Burke, Select Works, ed. E. J. Payne, vol. i, 1876. [1774-1776.]
Burne, Charlotte S., Shropshire Folk-lore. London, 1883.
Burnet, Bp., History of his own time. London, 1724-34, folio.
2 vols. (Several editions. Cited by Richardson.)
Burns, R., Poems, Songs, and Letters, the Globe Edition, 1868.
[1786-1796.]
Burton, Robert, Anatomy of Melancholy (cited in Richardson, and
Todd’s Johnson). [1621.]
Bury Wills, ed. 5, Tymms, Camden Soc. 1850. [15th cent.]
Butler, Jos., Bp. of Durham; The Analogy of Religion. (Works,
in 1807.)
Butler’s Poems (including Hudibras), ed. Robert Bell.
London, 1855. [Hudibras, 1663-1678.]
Hudibras ; parts 1 and 2; ed. A. Milnes. London, 1881.
Byron, Poems, Dramas, &c. 8 vols. London: J. Murray, 1853.
Cedmon, ed. B. Thorpe. Published by the Society of Antiquaries,
London, 1832.
Campbell, T., Poetical Works of. A new ed. London, 1853.
Carey, H., Chrononhotonthologos; repr. in Burlesque Plays, ed. H.
Morley. London, 1885.
Caribbean.—Dictionnaire Caraibe-Francois; par le R. P. Raymond
Breton, Auxerre, 1665.
(Cited by
(In
3 vols.
BOOKS REFERRED TO
Castle off Loue,. An Early English Translation of an Old French Ϊ
Poem, by Robert Grosseteste, bp. of Lincoln; ed. R. F. Wey-
mouth. (Published for the Philological Society.) [1370?]
Catholicon Anglicum; ed. S. J. Herrtage; E.E.T.S.
{1483.]
ον G., Life of Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal; ed. F. 5. Ellis.
London, 1893 (Kelmscott Press). Written in 1557.
Caxton, W., tr. of Reynard the Fox, ed. Arber, 1878. [1481.]
Caxton’s Blanchardyn and Eglantine; ed. Dr. Leon Kellner.
E.E.T.S., extra series. 1890. [ab. 1489.]
Dictes and Sayengis of Philosophirs, by Lord Rivers ; pr. by
Caxton in 1477. ([Fac-simile edition. ]
Eneydos; ed. W. T. Culley and F. J. Furnivall.
extra series. 1890. [1490.]
Godeffroy of Boloyne; ed. Mary N. Colvin, Ph.D. E.E.T.S.,
extra series. 1893. [1481.]
XXX
1881.
E-E.T.S.,
— The Golden Legend; pr. in 1483.
W. Morris. London, 1892. 3 vols.
—— The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye.
H. O. Sommer, Ph.D. London, 1894. 2 vols.
Centlivre, Mrs. S.; Plays. 1761. ,12m0, 3 vols.
Century Dictionary of the English Language, The.
and London, 1889-91. In six vols.
Chalmers; see English Poets.
Chambers’s Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, ed.
J. Donald, 1871.
Chambers, R.; The Book of Days, A Miscellany of Popular Anti-
quities. 2 vols. London and Edinburgh, 1864.
Chanson de Roland, La; Texte, &c., par L. Gautier.
(Early 11th cent.)
Reprint by Ε΄ S. Ellis and
Exact reprint by
Lab. 1474]
New York
Tours, 1881.
Chapman, George, Plays, ed. R. H. Shepherd, 1874. [1ρ98--
1634-]
Translation of Homer, ed. R. H. Shepherd, 1875. (In this
edition the lines are not numbered; a far better edition is that by
Hooper.) [1598.]
Chaucer.—The Workes of Geffray Chaucer.
Edition by W. Thynne, 1532.) Facsimile reproduction.
(1904). Second.ed. 1542. Third ed. (ab. 1550).
—— Chaucers Woorkes, with diners Addicions; newlie prynted by
Jhon Kyngston, 1561. [Fourth ed., by J. Stowe.] Contains the
first edition of the Court of Love; also the Testament of Love.
- The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. by the Rev.
_ W. W. Skeat, Litt.D. Oxford, 1894. Six vols. 8vo.
—— Chaucer Society, publications of the.
—— Canterbury Tales: Six-text edition, ed. Εις J. Furnivall.
(Chaucer Society.)
ed. Tyrwhitt.—A reprint of Tyrwhitt’s edition of the Canter-
bury Tales, with his notes and glossary; to which were added
(by the publisher) reprints of Chaucer’s Minor Poems, &c. Lon-
don, E. Moxon, 1855; first printed, 1843. _[1369-1400. ]
tr. of Boethius; ed. Morris, E.E.T.S., extra series, 1868.
[ab. 1380. ]
Treatise on the Astrolabe; ed. Skeat, Chaucer Society and
E.E.T\S., extra series, 1872. [1391.]
Chaucer’s Dream. A late poem, not by Chaucer ; printed by Moxon
with Chaucer’s Works. [15th cent. ]
Chaucerian and Other Pieces. Ed. by the Rev. W. W. Skeat, Litt.D.
Oxford, 1897.
Chester Whitsun Plays; ed. T. Wright.
and 35; 1843 and 1847.
Chinese.—A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language.
S. W. Williams. Shanghai, 1874.
-—— Chinese-English Dictionary of the Amoy vernacular.
Rev. C. Douglas, 1873.
Christ’s Own Complaint ; see Political, Religious, and Love Poems.
Churchill’s Collection of Voyages and Travels. London, 1704,
(First collected
Oxford
Shakespeare Soc. nos. 17
By
By the
folio. 4 vols. (Another ed. 1732.)
Clare, John; Poems. Second edition, London, 1820. Another ed.
1821. 2 vols.
Clarendon, Earl of. History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in
England. Oxford, 1826. ὅνο. 8 vols. (Many other editions.)
Clavigero’s History of Mexico; tr. by C. Cullen. London, 1787.
4to. 2 vols.
Cockayne, O., Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early
England. (Record Series.) 1864-1866. 3 vols.
—- The Shrine. London, 1864. (Contains several pieces in
Anglo-Saxon. )
Cockeram, H.—The English Dictionarie.
London, 1642. 8vo. (First ed. 1632.)
Codex Diplomaticus ; see Kemble.
Coles, E., an English Dictionary, 1684.
By H.C. Gent. 7th ed.
IN THE DICTIONARY
Collins, W.; Poems. See English Poets.
Complaynte of Scotlande. e-edited by James A. H. Murray,
E.E.T.S., extra series, 1872, 1873. [1549.]
Congreve, W., Plays; see Wycherley. [Died 1729.]
Cookery Books; see Austin.
Cooper, T., Thesaurus Linguze Romane et Britannicz, 1565.
Cooper’s Report on Rymer’s Foedera. Appendix A (first vol.).
Appendix B. Ὁ, D, (second vol.). App. B contains the AS.
Glosses to Prudentius.
Coptic.—Lexicon Linguze Copticee. By A. Peyron.
Turin, 1835.
Corblet ; see French dialects (Picard).
Cornish.—Lexicon Cornu-Britannicum; by R. Williams, Llan-
dovery and London, 1865.
Coryat, T.—Coryat’s Crudities hastily gobled vp, &c. London,
1611. 4to.
Cotgrave-—A French and English Dictionary, composed by Mr.
Randle Cotgrave; with another in English and French; ed. J.
Howell. London, pr. by Wm. Hunt, in Pye-corner, 1660.
Cotton, C., Poems; see English Poets.
Court of Loye; a late poem first printed with Chaucer’s Works,
1561. [15th or 16th cent.) See Chaucerian Pieces.
Coyentry Mysteries, ed. J. O. Halliwell. Shakespeare Society,
1841. [ab. 1460.]
Cowel, Dr., The Interpreter of Words and Terms. Augmented
and improved. London, 1701.
Cowley, A., Works of, London, 1688. [1633-1667.] And see
English Poets.
Cowley’s Prose Works; ed. Rev. J. R. Lumby. Cambridge, 1887.
(For Poems, see English Poets.)
Cowper, W., the Poetical Works of ; ed. R. A. Wilmott.
1866. [1782-1799.]
Cranmer, T., Works. Parker Soc. 1844-6. 2 vols.
Cursor Mundi: ed. Dr. R. Morris, E.E.T.S., Parts i-vi, 1874-92.
[ab. 1300. ]
Curtius, G., Greek Etymology; tr. by Wilkins and England. 2 vols.
1876.
Dahnert ; see Low German dialects (Pomeranian).
Dampier’s Voyages, an. 1681 (cited by Richardson).
Voyage, 1699; 2 vols.
Daniel, S., Civil Wars; see English Poets. [1595.]
Danish.—Molbech, C., Dansk Ordbog ; Kiobenhavyn, 1859.
— Ferrall og Repps dansk-engelske Ordbog, gjennemseet og
rettet af W. Mariboe ; Kjobenhayn, 1861. (When ‘Dan.’ alone
is cited, this book or the next is meant.)
A Dictionary of the Dano-Norwegian and English Languages,
by A. Larsen. 3rd ed. Copenhagen, 1897.
A New Practical and Easy method of Learning the Danish
Language; by H. Lund. Second Edition, London, 1860.
Danish, Midd!e.—Ordbog til det zldre Danske Sprog (1300-
1700) af Otto Kalkar. Kcebenhavn. 1881-1907. (In 4 vols.)
Danish dialects.—Det Danske Folkesprog i Sonderjylland
{South Jutland]; ved Johannes Kok. K6benhavn, 1863-7.
2 vols.
-——- Bidrag til en Ordbog over Jyske Almuesmal ; af H. F. Feil-
London,
A New
berg. Kjobenhavn, 1886—. Vol. 1; A-H. Vol.’ 2; I-P.
Parts 24-31; R-St. ;
Dansk Dialect-Lexicon; ved C. Molbech. Kidbennavn,
1841.
Etymological Dictionary ; see Falk.
Davenant, Sir W., Poems; see English Poets.
Davies, J., Antique .. Wallice et Latins Dictionarium Duplex.
A Welsh-Latin Dict. London, 1632. Fol.
Davies, T. Lewis O., M.A.; A Supplementary English Glossary.
London, 1881. 8vo.
De Bo; see Flemish.
Decorde ; see French dialects (Bray).
Degrevant, Sir; see Thornton Romances.
Dekker, T., The Dramatic Works of. London, 1873. 4 vols.
S8vo.
The Seven Deadly Sins of London (1606); ed. Arber,
1879.
—— Five Plays; ed. E. Rhys.
Delfortrie; see Flemish.
Denham, Sir John; see English Poets.
Derby, Earl of, Expeditions to Prussia and the Holy Land in 1390-1
and 1392-3; ed. Lucy Toulmin Smith. Camden Soc. 1894.
Derham, W., Physico-Theology. First ed. 1713; best ed. 1798.
8vo. 2 vols.
Destruction of Troy; see Gest Hystoriale.
Devic, M., Dictionnaire étymologique de tous les mots d’origine
Orientale; in the Supplement to Littré’s French Dictionary.
London, 1887. (Mermaid Series.)
BOOKS REFERRED TO IN THE DICTIONARY
D’Hombres ; see French dialects (Languedoc).
Dictes of the Philosophirs ; see Caxton.
Dictionary of the Bible, ed. W. Smith. Concise edition, by W. Aldis
Wright, 1865.
Dictionary of National Biography. London, 1885-. 8vo.
Diez, F., Etymologisches Worterbuch der Romanischen Sprachen.
Fourth Edition. Bonn, 1878.
Digby Mysteries.—Ancient Mysteries from the Digby MSS.; Edin-
burgh, 1835 (cited by Stratmann). [ab. 1430?] Also, The
Digby Plays, ed. F. J. Furnivall, E.E.T.S., extra series.
1896.
Dodsley, Robert. A Select Collection of Old English Plays, ori-
ginally published by Κα. Ὁ. Fourth Edition. By W. Carew
Hazlitt. London, 1374-6. 8yo. 15 vols. [16th cent. |
Donne, J., Poems; see English Poets.
Douglas, Gavin, Works of; ed. J. Small. 4 vols.
(1501-1513. ]
Drama, The Ancient British ; (containing many of the plays in
Dodsley’s Collection). London, 1810. royal 8vo. 3 vols.
—— The Modem British; containing plays by Beaumont and
Fletcher, Mrs. Centlivre, Congreve, Dryden, Farquhar, Fielding,
Foote, Ford, Garrick, Jonson, Lillo, Massinger, Otway, Steele,
Vanbrugh, Wycherley, Young, &c. London, 1811. royal ὅνο.
5 vols.
Drant, T.; translations from Horace.
Epistles, and Satires, 1567.
Drayton.—Poems of Michael Drayton; see English Poets.
Drummond, W., Poems; see English Poets.
Dryden, J., Poetical Works, London, 1851. [Died 1701.]
—— The Works of; ed. W. Scott. London, 1808. 18 vols.
tr. of Virgil; reprint by F. Warne and Co.; n.d.
Du Bois; see French dialects (Norman).
Ducange.—Glossarium Mediz et Infimz Latinitatis, conditum a
Carolo du Fresne Domino Du Cange.. cum Supplementis ...
Editio Nova .. aL. Favre. Niort et Londres. 1884-7. In ten
vols.
-— Lexicon Manuale ad Scriptores Mediz et Infimz Latinitatis,
ex glossariis C. Τὴ. D. Ducangii et aliorum in compendium
accuratissime redactum. Par W.-H. Maigne D’Arnis. Publié
par M. L’Abbé Migne. Paris, 1866. (A compendium in one
volume.)
Dumeéril; see French dialects (Norman).
Dunbar, W., Poems; ed. J. Small and W. Gregor. In 5 parts.
Scottish Text Soc. 1883-93.
Durham Ritual.—Rituale Ecclesia Dunelmensis, Ed. J. Stevenson.
Surtees Soc. 1840. (I give a large number of corrections in my
Collation with the MS. ; in Phil. Soc. Trans. 1877-9; pp. 49*-72*.
Dutch.—A Large Dictionary, English and Dutch, by W. Sewel.
Fifth Edition, Amsterdam, 1754.
A large Netherdutch and English Dictionarie, by H. Hexham.
Rotterdam, 1658.
Kilian, C., Old Dutch Dictionary. Utrecht, 1777.
Oudemans, A. C., Old Dutch Dictionary, 7 parts, 1869-80.
—— Ten Kate, L., Aenleiding tot de Kennisse van het verheyene
Deel der Nederduitsche Sprake. 2 vols. Amsterdam, 1723.
A New Pocket-Dictionary of the English and Dutch Lan-
guages. Leipzig; C. Tauchnitz. (When only ‘ Du.’ is cited, this
book or the next is meant. )
— Nederlandsch-Engelsch en Engelsch-Nederlandsch Woorden-
boek; door I. M. Calisch. Tiel, 1875. 2 vols.
—— Etymological Dictionary ; see Franck.
Dutch dialect.—Worterbuch der Groningeschen Mundart; by
H. Molema. Norden and Leipzig, 1888.
Du Wes, An Introductorie for to lerne to rede, to pronounce, and
to speke French trewly; by Giles Du Wes. Printed together
with Palsgrave’s French Dictionary. See Palsgrave.
Dyer, J., Poems; see English Poets.
E.D.D.—English Dialect Dictionary, ed. Prof. Wright.
1898-1905. 6 vols.
Earl of Derby’s Accounts; see Derby.
Earle, J.; Handbook to the Land Charters and other Saxonic Docu-
ments. Oxford. 1888.
—— Micro-cosmographie; 1628. (In Arber’s Reprints.)
—— Two Saxon Chronicles; see Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
Earliest English Prose Psalter ; ed. Dr. K. D. Buelbring. E.E.T.S.
1891.
Early English Homilies ; ed. Dr. Richard Morris;
Series, 1867 ; Second Series, 1873.
Early English Poems and Lives of Saints; ed. Ἐς J. Furnivall.
Phil. Soc. 1862.
Early English Popular Poetry.—Remains of the Early Popular
Edinburgh, 1874.
Satires, 1566; Art of Poetry,
Svo.
Oxford,
BLESS. 42st
[13th century.]
XXXili
Poetry of England; by W. Carew Hazlitt.
4 vols.
Early English Psalter—Anglo-Saxon and Early English Psalter,
ed. J. Stevenson. 2 vols. (Surtees Society.) 1843-1847.
Early E, Wills—The Fifty Earliest English Wills; ed. F. ye
Furnivall, E.E.T.S, 1882. [1387-1454.]
Eastwood and Wright’s Bible Wordbook.—A Glossary of Old
English Bible Words, by J. Eastwood and W. Aldis Wright.
London, 1866.
Eden, R., The First Three English Books on America ; ed. E. Arber.
Birmingham, 1885. [151 2-1555.]
Edmondston, T., Glossary of the Shetland and Orkney Dialect.
Phil. Soc. 1866.
E.D.S.=English Dialect Society, publications of the. (Including
Ray’s Collections, Pegge’s Kenticisms and Derbicisms, Whitby
Glossary, Mid-Yorkshire Glossary, Holderness Glossary, Glossaries
of words in use in Cheshire, Cumberland, Hants, Lancs., Leics.,
Lincs., Northumberland, Somersets., Surrey, Swaledale, War-
wicks., Wilts., Wores., &c., Bird-names, Plant-names, Old
Farming Words, Turner’s Names of Plants, Fitzherbert’s Hus-
bandry, Tusser’s Husbandry, &c.)
E.E.T.S.—Early English Text Society’s publications. See fElfred,
fElfric, Alexander, Alliterative Poems, Ayenbite, Barbour, Be
Domes Dege, Blickling Homilies, Bullein, Catholicon, Caxton,
Chaucer, Complaint of Scotland, Cursor Mundi, Early English
Homilies, Ellis, English Gilds, Fisher, Floriz, Gawayn, Genesis,
Gregory, Hali Meidenhad, Havelok, Joseph, King Horn, Knight
of la Tour, Lancelot, Legends of the Holy Rood, Levins, Lynde-
say, Morte Arthure, Myrc, Myrour of Our Lady, Old Eng. Mis-
cellany, Palladius, Partenay, Piers Plowman, Political, St. Juliana,
Seinte Marbarete, Troybook, Will. of Palerne, &c.
Egilsson; see Icelandic.
Eglamour, Sir; see Thornton Romances.
Ellis, A, J., Early English Pronunciation, E.E.T.S., extra series,
1867, 1869, 1871, 1874, 1889.
Ellis, Sir H.; Original Letters illustrative of English History.
Three Series. London, 1824-46. cr. 8vo. 11 vols.
Elyot, Sir T., The Castel of Helthe; ed. 1539. (1533. ]
—— The Gouermor. (Black-letter Edition ; no title-page.) [1531.]
The Boke named The Gonernour; from the first ed. of 1531;
ed. H. H. S. Croft, M.A. London, 1883. 2 vols.
Emaré, Romance of; see Ritson.
ed. Edith Rickert, Ph.D, E.E.T.S. 1906.
Engelmann et Dozy, Glossaire des mots Espagnols et Portugais
tirés de ’Arabe. Second Edition, Paris, 1869.
Englische Studien. Heilbronn; from 1877 onwards.
English Cyclopzedia, conducted by Charles Knight. 22 vols., with
Three Supplements and Index.
English Dialect Society’s publications. (References to these are
marked E.D.S.) See E.D.S. and E.D.D. above.
English Garner, An; ed. E. Arber. Birmingham, 1877-83.
1-7.
English Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith. E.E.T.S., 1870. [1389-1450. |
English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper, ed. A. Chalmers. London,
1810. 21 vols,
Epinal Glossary; see O.E. Texts.
Etheredge, Sir G., Works of; ed. A. W. Verity. London, 1888.
8vo.
Ettmiiller ; see Anglo-Saxon.
Evans, A. B. and S.; Leicestershire Words. E.D.S. 1881.
Evelyn, John, Diary of; ed. W. Bray. (Reprint by F. Warne; n. d.)
(1620-1706.]
Parallel of Ancient and Moder Architecture.
Sylva. First ed. 1664. 4to. (Many editions.)
Excerpta Historica. London, 1831. 8vo.
London, 1864-6.
Vols.
1669.
Exeter Book.—Codex Exoniensis ; a Collection of AS. Poetry. "ἘΔ.
B. Thorpe. London, 1842. (And see Grein.)
Exmoor Scolding and Courtship; E.D.S. 1870.
Fabyan’s Chronicles of England and France, ed. Henry Ellis.
London, 1811. 4to. [1516.]
Faire Em., a play; see Shakespeare Apocrypha.
Fairfax, tr. of Tasso; ed. R. A. Willmott, 1858.
spoilt in the editing.) [1600.]
Fairholt, Ἐς W., Costume in England.
Dillon, F.S.A. London, 1885. 8vo.
Falconer’s Shipwreck ; see English Poets.
Falk, H. og A. Torp; Etymologisk Ordbog over det Norske og det
Danske Sprog. Kristiania, 1903-6. 2 vols.
Farquhar, G., Plays; see Drama, The Modern British ; also in the
Mermaid Series ; and see Wycherley.
Feilberg ; see Danish dialects.
(Modernized and
3rd ed. ; by the Hon. H. A.
2 vols.
ΧΧΧΙ͂Ν BOOKS REFERRED TO
Ferrex and Porrex ;. see Sackville ; and Drama, Ancient British.
Ferumbras, Sir; ed. S. J. Herrtage. E.E.T.S., extra series, 1879.
Fick, A., Vergleichendes Worterbuch der Indogermanischen Sprachen,
sprachgeschichtlich angeordnet. ‘Third Edition. 3 vols. Οδι-
tingen, 1874. And see Stokes-Fick.
Fisher, Bp. J., English Works of; ed. J. E. B. Mayor. E. E. T.S.,
' ‘extra series. 1876. [Died 1535.]
Fitzherbert, Book of Husbandry ; ed. W. W.Skeat. E.D.S. 1882.
[1534.] (Written by John F., not by Sir Anthony, as stated in the
Preface.)
Flemish.—Mémoire sur les Analogies des Langues Flamande,
Allemande, et Anglaise; par E.-J. Delfortrie. Bruxelles, 1858.
West-Flemish Dictionary ; by L.—L. De Bo. Gent, 1892.
Fletcher, John, Plays ; see Beaumont.
—— Phineas, Poems of; see English Poets. [1633.]
Florio; see Italian.
Floriz and Blancheflour; ed. J. R. Lumby. E. E. T. S,, 1866. [End
- of 13th cent.]
Flower and the Leaf; see Chaucerian Pieces.
Fliigel ; see German.
Foote, Sam., Dramatic Works of.
Drama, Modern British, vol. v.
Forby.—The Vocabulary of East Anglia, by the late Rev. Robert
Forby. 2 vols. London, 1830.
Ford, John, Plays; ed. W. Gifford. London, 1827. 8vo. 2 vols.
Foxe, John, Acts and Monuments of these latter and perillous
Dayes, touching Matters of the Church, &c.; first ed. in 1563,
folio. Generally known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.
Frampton, J., Ioyfull Newes out of the newe founde worlde. 1577.
London. 4to. Tr. from the Spanish of Monardes.
Franck, Dr. J.; Etymologisch Woordenboek der Nederlandsche
Taal. ’s—Gravenhage, 1892.
French; see Bartsch, Brachet, Burguy, Cotgrave, Roquefort,
Schwan, Vie de Seint Auban. (When only ‘ F.’ is cited, the refer-
ence is either to Hatzfeld, or to Hamilton and Legros.) ‘MF,
refers to Cotgrave.
Dictionnaire International Frangais-Anglais, par MM. H.
Hamilton et E. Legros. Paris, 1872.
Dictionnaire Général de la Langue Frangaise; par MM. A.
Hatzfeld, A. Darmesteter, et A. Thomas. Paris (undated;
commenced in 1871). 2 vols. (Referred to as ‘ Hatzfeld ’.)
Littré, E., Dictionnaire de la Langue Frangaise. 4 vols. ; with
supplement (see Devic). Paris, 1877.
Scheler, A., Dictionnaire d’Etymologie Francaise; par A.
Scheler. Nouvelle édition. Bruxelles et Londres, 1873.
French, Old.—Dictionnaire de L’Ancienne Langue Frangaise et de
London, n.d. 2 vols. And see
tous ses Dialectes du 1x® au Xv° siecle; par F, Godefroy. Paris,
1881-1902. 10 vols. (with Supplement).
French dialects.—Berry: Vocabulaire du Berry; par un
amateur du vieux Langage. Paris, 1842.
Bourgogne: Vocabulaire . . du dialecte .. de la Province de
Bourgogne; par Mignard. Paris, 1870.
Bray: Dictionnaire du Patois du Pays de Bray; par Abbé
J.-E. Decorde. Paris, 1852.
Gascon: Dictionnaire Gascon-Frangais; par C. Moncant.
Paris, 1863.
—— Hant-Maine: Vocabulaire du Haut-Maine; par C. R. de
M[ontesson]. Paris, 1859.
—-— Ille-et-Vilaine: Glossaire Patois du département d’Ille-et-
Vilaine ; par Ad. Orain. Paris, 1886.
—— Languedoc: Dictionnaire du patois du Bas-Limousin (Corréze)
et des environs de Tulle; par M. Nic. Béronie. Tulle, n. d.
: Dictionnaire Languedocien-Frangais par M. D’Hombres
et G. Charvet. Alais, 1884.
— Lyons: Dictionnaire du Patois Forézien; par L.-P. Graz.
Lyon, 1863.
— —— Dictionnaire étymologique du patois Lyonnais; par N.
du Puitspelu. Lyon, 1887-90.
la Meuse: Glossaire abrégé du Patois de la Meuse; par H.
Labourasse. Arcis-sur-l’Aube, 1887.
—— Norman: Glossaire du Patois Normand; par M. Louis du
Bois. Caen, 1856.
-- - : Glossaire du Normand; par le Heéricher.
date). 2 vols. ᾿
— : Glossaire du Patois Normand ; par MM. Edélestand et
Alfred Dumeril. Caen, 1849.
Dictionnaire de Patois Normand; par Henri Moisy.
Paris (no
Caen 1887.
Glossaire comparatif Anglo-Normand; par Henri
Caen, 1895.
Dictionnaire du Patois Normand en usage dans le
Moisy.
IN THE DICTIONARY
département de l’Eure ; par MM. Robin, Le Prevost, A. Passy, et
de Blosseville. Evreux, 1879.
French dialects.—Guemsey: Dictionnaire Franco-Normand ; ou
recueil des Mots particuliers au dialecte de Guernesey; par
G. Métivier. London, 1870.
—- Picard; Glossaire Etymologique et Comparatif du Patois
Picard, ancien et moderne; par l’Abbé Jules Corblet. Paris,
1851.
Rouchi: Dictionnaire Rouchi-Frangais ; par G. A. I. Hécart.
(Troisieme édition.) Valenciennes, 1834.
—— Verdun.—Dictionnaire du langage populaire Verduno-Chalon-
nais (Saéne-et-Loire) ; par F. Fertiault. Paris, 1896.
Walloon: Dictionnaire de la langue Wallonne; par Grand-
gagnage. Liége, 1847.
: Dictionnaire Wallon-Frangais; par L. Remacle.
ieme édition. Liege, 1843. 2 vols.
Dictionnaire du Wallon du Mons; par J. Sigart.
(Denxieme édition.) Paris, 1870.
Friesic.—Altfriesisches Worterbuch, von K, von Richthofen; Got-
lingen, 1840,
Glossarium der friesischen Sprache, besonders in nordfriesischer
Mundart, von N. Outzen. Kopenhagen, 1837.
—— Koolman, J., ten Doorkaat, Worterbuch der Ostfriesischen
Sprache. Norden, 1879-84. 3 vols.
Frith: see Tyndall.
Froissart, tr. by Lord Berners.
Deux-
(Cited by Richardson.) [1523-25.]
Fryer, John. A New Account of East India, &c. London,
1698. fol.
Fuller, T., A Pisgah Light of Palestine. (Reprint.) London,
1869. 8vo. [1650.]}
(First ed. 1655-6.)
(First ed. 1662.)
London, 1841. 8vo.
—— The Church History of Britain.
—— The History of the Worthies of England.
Holy and Profane State. New edition.
{1642.]
Gaelic.—A Dictionary of the Gaelic Language, by Macleod and
Dewar; Glasgow, 1839.
— An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language.
A. Macbain, M.A. Inverness, 1896.
Gallée; see Low German, Old ; under Low German dialects,
Gamelyn, the Tale of. In Wright’s edition of Chaucer’s Canterbury
ney Also ed. ΝΥ. W. Skeat. 2nd ed. Oxford, 1893. [14th
cent.
Gamester, The Compleat.
1680,
Gammer Gurton’s Needle; see Drama, Ancient British, vol. 1.
Garcilasso de la Vega ; Royal Commentaries of Peru; tr. by Sir P.
Rycaut. London, 1688. [0].
Garlande, John de, Dictionarius; pr. in Wright’s Vocabularies, First
Series, pp. 120-138. [13th cent.]
Garrick, D., Plays ; see Drama, Modern British.
Gascoigne, G., Works of; ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1869. [Died 1577.]
Gawayn and the Green Knight ; an alliterative Romance-Poem, ed.
Dr. Richard Morris, E.E.T.S., 1864; reprinted, 1869. [ab. 1360. ]
Gay, J., Poems of ; see English Poets. [Died 1732.]
Gazophylacium Anglicanum. London, 1689. ὅνο.
Generydes, A Romance ; ed. W. Aldis Wright. E.E.T.S., 1873 and
1878. [ab. 1440.]
Genesis and Exodus, The Story of; ed. Dr. Richard Morris,
E.E.T.S., 1865. [1250-1300 ?)
Gentleman’s Magazine. London, 1731-1858. 8vo.
Gerarde, J.; The Herbal, or general History of Plants.
in 1507.)
German.—Altdeutsches Worterbuch ; von Oskar Schade. (2nd ed.)
Halle a. S. 1872-82.
Dictionary, by Fliigel; ed. Feiling, Heimann, and Oxenford.
London, 1861... (When only ‘ G.’ is cited, this book is meant.)
—— F. L. K. Weigand, Deutsches Worterbuch. Third ed. 2 vols.
Giessen, 1878.
—— F. Kluge, Etymologisches Worterbuch der deutschen Sprache.
(Fifth ed.) Strassburg, 1894.
German dialects.—Thiiringer Sprachschatz; yon Dr. L. Hertel.
Weimar, 1895. (Central Germany.)
Westerwald: Westerwaldisches Idiotikon; von K. C. L.
Schmidt. Hadamar und Herborn, 1800. (Nassau.)
Gest Hystoriale of the Destruction of Troy ; an alliterative Romance,
ed. G. A. Panton and D. Donaldson, E.E.T.S., 1869 and 1874.
[ab. 1390.]
Gesta Romanorum, English Version of ; ed. S. J. Herrtage, E.E.T.S.,
extra series, 1879. [15th cent.]}
Gibbon, E,; The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire, Illustrated Edition, London, n.d. 2 vols.
By
London, 1674. 12mo. And London,
205 vols.
(First ed.
BOOKS REFERRED TO IN
Gifford, G., A Dialogue of Witches and Witchcraft. London, 1603;
ed. T. Wright, Percy Soc., 1842.
Glossary of Architecture. Oxford, 1840.
Glossary to Prudentius ; see Cooper.
Glossographia Anglicana Nova. London, 1719.
Godefroy ; see French, Old.
Golden Booke (cited by Richardson). This is the Life of Marcus
Aurelius, tr. by Lord Berners ; of which I have a black-letter copy,
without a title-page. [First ed. 1534.]
Golding, Arthur, tr. of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
(First complete ed. in 1567.)
Goldsmith, O., Works of; ed. P. Cunningham. London, 1855.
8vo. 4 vols.
Gosson, Stephen, The Schoole of Abuse ; ed. E. Arber, 1868. [1579.]
Gothic.—A Mceso-Gothic Glossary; by W.W.Skeat. London, 1868.
— Ulfilas; Text, Grammatik und Worterbuch; ed. Dr. M. Heyne.
(7th ed.) Paderborn, 1878.
—— Etymological Dictionary ; see Uhlenbeck.
Gower, John, The Complete Works of (English, French, and Latin) ;
ed. G. C. Macaulay, M.A. Oxford, 1899-1902. 8vo. 4 vols.
Gower’s Confessio Amantis; ed. Dr. Reinhold Pauli, London,
1857. 3 vols. [1393.]
Granada; see Brazilian.
Gray, T., Poems of; see English Poets.
Greek.—Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon, 1849.
Etymological Dictionary; see Prellwitz.
Greene, R.—The Dramatic and Poetical Works of Rob. Greene and
Geo. Peele; ed. Rev. A. Dyce. London, 1883. 8vo.
Gregor, Rev. W., The Dialect of Banffshire. Phil. Soc., 1866.
Gregory’s Pastoral Care, King Alfred’s West-Saxon Version of; ed.
H. Sweet, M.A. E.E.T.S., 1871-2.
Grein, C. W. M., Bibliothek der Angelsichsischen Poesie. Gottingen,
1857, 1858. 2 vols.
—— Sprachschatz der Angelsiichsischen Dichter. Cassel and Got-
tingen, 1861. 2 vols. (A concordance to Anglo-Saxon poetry. )
—— Bibliothek der Angelsachsischen Prosa, 1872. (Contains the
Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, fob, in Anglo-Saxon. )
Grey, Life of Lord; ed.SirP.de M. Grey Egerton. Camden Soc., 1847.
Grimm, J., Deutsche Grammatik. In 4 parts. Second edition.
Gottingen, 1822-37. (Witha Register Index) by kK. ἃ, Andresen,
1865.)
Grindal, E., Remains; ed. Rev. W. Nicholson, M.A. Parker Soc., 1843.
Grose, F., A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. [Slang
Dictionary.] London, 1785. 8vo.
— A Provincial Glossary. London, 1790. 8vo. (First ed. in 1787.)
Guillim, John, 4 Display of Heraldry. 4th ed. London, 1660.
Guthlac.—The ‘Anglo-Saxon version of the Life of St. Guthlac; ed.
C. W. Goodwin, M.A. London, 1848.
Guy of Warwick; ed. Prof. J. Zupitza. E.E.T.S., 1883, 1887, 1891.
Hakluyt, R., The Principal Navigations, Voiages, &c. of the English
Nation. London, 1588, 1589, 1600. fol. 3 vols. in 2.
Haldeman, S. S., Affixes of English Words. Philadelphia, 1865.
Hales, J. W., Longer English Poems. London, 1872.
Hali Meidenhad, an Alliterative Homily of the 12th century; ed.
O. Cockayne, M.A. E.E.T.S., 1866. [ab. 1220.]
Hall, Fitzedward, Modern Engiish. London, 1873. 8vo.
—on English Adjectives in -able, with special reference to
Reliable. London, 1877. 8vo.
Hall, J. (Bp.), Satires in Six Books. Oxford, 1753. [1597, 1598.]
Contemplations on the Old and New Testaments. Reprint.
1860. [1612-15.
Halle, Edw. ; Hall’s Chronicle; reprinted. London, 1809. royal
4to. (1548, 1550.]
Halliwell, J. O., A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words.
“ΕἸΠΕ edition. London, 1865. 2 vols.
Hamilton; see French.
Hampole, Richard Rolle de, English Prose.Treatises; ed. Geo. G.
Perry, M.A. E.E.T.S., 1866. [ab. 1340.
— Pricke of Conscience; a Northumbrian Poem; ed. R. Morris
(Philological Society), London, 1863. [1340.]
—— The Psalter; with a translation and exposition in English by
R. Rolle of Hampole; ed. Rey. H.R. Bramley. Oxford, 1884.
Hardyng’s Chronicle; ed. H. Ellis. London, 1812. royal 4to. [1543.]
Harington, Sir J., tr. of Ariosto; see English Poets. ἡ
Harman’s Caveat; printed with the Fraternitye of Vacabondes, by
John Awdeley ; ed. E. Viles and F. J, Furnivall. E.E-T.S., extra
series, 1869. [1567.] d
Harrison, W., A Description of England (Second and Third Books) ;
ed. F. 1. Furnivall. (New Shakspere Society), 1878. [1577.
Hatton Correspondence (1601-1704); ed. E. M. Thompson, (Cam-
den Soc.) 1878. 2 vols.
8vo.
London, 1603.
THE DICTIONARY
Havelok the Dane; ed. W. W. Skeat and Sir F. Madden. E.E.T.S.,
extra series, 1868. [ab. 1280.]
Hawes, Stephen, The Pastime of Pleasure; reprinted from the
edition of 1555 ; ed. T. Wright. Percy Soc., 1845.
Hawkesworth, J., An Account of the Voyages. . by Commodore
Byron, Capt. Wallis, Capt. Carteret, and Capt. Cook. London,
1773- 4to. 3 vols.
Haydn’s Dictionary of Dates; Thirteenth Edition, by B. Vincent.
London, 1868.
Hazlitt ; see Early English Popular Poetry ; and see Gascoigne.
Hazlitt, W. C.; reprint of Dodsley’s Collection of Old Plays.
1874-76. 15 vols. [16th cent. ]
Hearne, Th. ; see his glossary to Kob. of Gloucester.
Hebrew.—Lexicon Hebraicum et Chaldaicum; edidit E. F. Leo-
pold, Lipsize, 1872.
—— Hebraisches und Chaldaisches Handworterbuch tiber das Alte
Testament ; von W. Gesenius. Leipzig, 1883. (Ninth edition.)
Hécart; see French dialects (Rouchi).
Héliand ; see Old Saxon.
Henry VII, The Statutes of; in exact facsimile, from the very rare
original, printed by Caxton in 1489; ed. J. Rae. London, 1869.
Henrysoun, R., Complaint and Testament of Creseide; pr. with
Chaucer’s Works. [15th cent.) See Chaucerian Pieces; also
Ancient Scottish Poems, Edinburgh, 1770; and Sibbald’s Scottish
Poetry.
Henslow, G.; see Medical Works.
Herbert, George, Poems of; ed. R. A. Willmott.
[Died 1633. ]
Herbert, Sir T., Travels. Third edition. London, 1665.
Hericher, le; see French dialects (Norman).
Herrick, R., Poetical Works of; ed. W. Carew Hazlitt.
1869. 2 vols. 8vo.
Hertel, L.; see German dialects (Thiiringen).
Hexham ; see Dutch.
Heyne, M. See Old Saxon and Gothic.
Heywood, T., The Dramatic Works of. London, 1874. 6 vols.
Hickes, G., Linguarum veterum Septentrionalium Thesaurus. Oxford,
1703-5. 3vols.
Higden.—Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, with Trevisa’s transla-
tion. (Rolls Series.) Vols. i and ii ed. by Churchill Babington,
B.D. Vols. iii-ix by the Rev. J. Rawson Lumby, 1865-86.
See Trevisa.
Hindi, Hindustani.—Bate, J. D., A Dictionary of the Hindee
Language. Benares, 1875.
Fallon, S. W., Hindustani and English Dictionary.
1879.
XXXV
London, 1859.
London,
Benares,
— Forbes, D., Hindustani Dictionary. London, 1848. New
edition, 1859.
Hist. Nat. Brasiliz ; see Brazil.
Hoccleve, T., Minor Poems; ed. Ἐς. J. Fumiyall. E.E.T.S.,
extra series, 1892.
—— Letter of Cupid; see Chaucerian Pieces.
—— Regement of Princes; ed. F. J. Furnivall.
1412.]
: To the Lordes and Knightes of the Garter; see Chaucerian
Pieces.
Hole, C., A Brief Biographical Dictionary, 1865.
Holinshed, Ralph, Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
London, 1807-8. 4to. 6 vols. (Reprint; first ed., 1577-87.)
Holland, Philemon, tr. of Pliny’s Natural History. London, 1634.
fol. 2 vols,
tr. of Ammianus Marcellinus; 1609. (Cited by Richardson.)
tr. of Plutarch’s Morals; 1603. (Cited by Richardson.)
Holland, Sir R., The Buke of the Howlat ; see Scottish Alliterative
Poems.
Homilies appointed to be read in Churches.
London, 1852.
Hone, Wm., Every-Day Book. London, 1825-7.
Hooker, R., The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.
(First ed. in 1594.)
Horn.—Kyng Horn, Floriz and Blancheflour, &c. ; ed. Rev. J. Raw-
son Lumby. E.E.T.S., 1866.
Horn, Paul; see Persian.
Horne Tooke; see Tooke.
Horstmann, Dr. C., Altenglische Legenden.
Neue Folge. Heilbronn, 1881.
Sammlung Altenglischer Legenden. Heilbronn, 1878.
Howard, Sir k., The Committee; a play (1665); see Drama, mod,
British ; vol. 3.
Howell, J., Epistole Ho-Eliane, Familiar Letters.
4 vols, in one. 1678,
[1402.]
E. E. T..S., 1897:
(Reprint.) S.P.C.K.,
8vo. 2 vols.
Eight Bookes.
Paderborn, 1875. -
Fifth edition,
c2
XXXVI
Howell, J., Instructions for Forreine Travell (1642) ; ed. Arber, 1868.
Huloet, R., Abecedarium Anglo-Latinum. London, 1552.
Hungarian.—Dankovsky, G., Magyrice Lingue Lexicon. Pres-
burg, 1833.
Icelandic.—An Icelandic-English Dictionary, based on the MS.
collections of the late R. Cleasby; by G. Vigfusson. Oxford,
1874. With an Appendix containing a list of words etymologi-
cally connected with Icelandic, by W. W. Skeat, 1876.
Egilsson, S., Lexicon Poeticum antique Linguze Septentriona-
Hafnize, 1860.
Mobius, T., Altnordisches Glossar.
Thre ; see Swedish.
Irish.—An Irish-English Dictionary, by E. O'Reilly ; with a sup-
ptement by J. O'Donovan. Dublin, 1864.
Irische Texte mit Worterbuch; von E, Windisch. Leipzig, 1880.
(Old Irish.)
Isidore, St., Works of; in Migne’s Cursus Patrologicus.
Isumbras, Romance of; see Thornton Romances.
Italian.—Florio, John. A Worlde of Wordes, or most copious and
exact Dictionarie in Italian and English. London, 1598. (First
edition. )
— Florio, J. Queen Anna’s New Worlde of Wordes, or Dictionarie
of the Italian and English tongues. London, 1611.
Italian and English Dictionary, by J. Florio; and English and
Italian Dictionary, by G. Torriano ; ed. J. D[avies], M.D. London,
1088,
Italian-English and English-Italian Dictionary, by Jos. Baretti.
Eighth edition. London, 1831. 2 vols.
Italian and English Dictionary, by F. C. Meadows; Fifteenth
edition. London, 1857. [When ‘Ital.’ is cited without further
notice, this book is meant. ]
Iwain (or Ywaine) and Gawin; see Ritson.
Jackson, Georgina F., Shropshire Word-book. London, 1879-81.
Jago, R., Poems of; see English Poets.
Jamieson’s Scottish Dictionary. A new edition, ed. J. Longmuir
and D. Donaldson. Paisley, 1879-87. 4to. 4 vols. and Supplement.
Johns, Rey. C. A., Flowers of the Field. Fourth edition. London,
S-B:G.K., n: d.
Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language; ed. by the Rev. H. J.
Todd. London, 1827. 4to. 3 vols.
Johnson, Dr. Sam.,; A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland,
1775- Included (as a Tour to the Hebrides) in Boswell’s Life of
Johnson, ed, Right Hon. J. W. Croker, new ed., 1876.
Johnson, S., the Rambler. (Cited by Richardson.) [1750-2 ;
2vols. 1767 and 1779; 4 vols.] And see Boswell.
Jonson, Ben, Works of; ed. W. Gifford. (Reprint.) London, 1860.
[Died 1637. ]
τὸ Man in his Humour; ed. H. B. Wheatley, 1877. [ab.
1598.
Joseph of Arimathie, or the Holy Grail ; ed. W. W. Skeat. E.E.T.S.,
1871. [ab. 1350.]
Joye, G., The Exposicion of Daniel the Prophete.
(two editions). 16mo. (First pr. at Geneva, 1545.)
ee St. ; ed. Cockayne and Brock. E.E.T.S., 1872. [Early 13th
cent.
Kalkar ; see Danish, Middle.
Kemble, J. M.,Codex Diplomaticus A2viSaxonici. English Historical
Soc. 1839-48. 5 vols.
Salomon and Saturn. AE lfric Soc., 1848.
Kersey, J., English Dictionary. 1715.
Kilian ; see Dutch.
King Hom; ed. J. R. Lumby. E.E.T.S., 1866.
King, W., Poems of ; see English Poets.
King of Tars; see Ritson.
Kingis Quair, The; by King James I of Scotland; ed. Rev. W. W.
Skeat. S.T.S., 1884.
Kluge ; see German.
Knight of Ja Tour-Landry, The Book of the; ed. T.
E.E.T.S., 1868. [ab. 1440.]
Knox, J., The Works of; ed. D. Laing.
8vo. 6 vols.
Koch, C. F., Historische Grammatik der Englischen Sprache.
Weimar, 1863 ; Cassel and Gottingen, 1865, 1869. 3 vols.
Kok ; see Danish dialects.
Koolman ; see Friesic.
Korting, G., Lateinisch-Romanisches Worterbuch. Second edition.
Paderbom, 1901.
Kotzebue, Otto von, A New Voyage round the World.
1830. 2vols. I2mo.
La Belle Dame sans Merci; see Chaucerian Pieces.
Labourasse ; see French dialects, la Meuse.
lis.
Leipzig, 1866,
London, 1550
[Before 1300. ]
Wright.
Edinburgh, 1846-56.
London,
BOOKS REFERRED TO IN
THE DICTIONARY
Lady Alimony ; in Dodsley’s Old Plays, vol. 14.
Lai le Freine ; see Weber.
Laing, D., Select Remains of the Ancient Popular Poetry of Scotland.
New ed. by J. Small. Edinburgh, 1885. 8vo.
Lancelot of the Laik; ed. W. W. Skeat. E.E.T.S., 1865.
century. ]
Lanfrank’s Science of Cirurgie; ed. R. ν. Fleischhacker, Ph.D.
Part 1; text. E.E.T.S., 1894. [Ab. 1400.]
Langtoft.—Peter Langtoft’s Chronicle, as illustrated and improved
by Robert of Brunne ; ed. Thomas Hearme, M.A. Oxford, 1725.
2 vols. Reprinted, London, 1810. [ab. 1338. ]
Languedoc; see French dialects.
Larramendi; see Basque.
Larsen ; see Danish,
Latimer, H., Seven Sermons before Edward VI; ed. E. Arber, 1869.
(1549. ]
Latin.—A Latin-English Dictionary, by J. T. White and J. E.
Riddle. Fifth edition. London, 1876.
—— A Latin Dictionary, by Ὁ. T. Lewis and C. Short.
1880.
Dictionnaire étymologique latin, par MM. Bréal et A. Bailly.
Paris, 1885.
Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch, von Dr. Alois Walde.
Heidelberg, 1906.
Laws of Ina; see Thorpe, Ancient Laws.
Layamon’s Brut; ed. Sir F. Madden.
1847. 3 vols. [ab. 1200. ]
Lee, F.G., Glossary of Liturgical and Ecclesiastical Terms. London,
1877. 8vo.
Leechdoms, &c. ; see Cockayne.
Legend of St. Catherine; The Life of St. Catherine, ed. Dr. Einenkel.
E.E.T.S., 1884.
Legend of St. Christopher ; see Early E. Poems,
Legendary, The Early South-English, or Lives of Saints; ed. Dr. C.
Horstmann. E.1.T.S., 1887.
Legends of the Holy Rood; ed. Dr. Richard Morris. E.E.T.S., 1871.
Legends of the Saints in the Scottish Dialect; ed. W. M. Metcalfe.
Parts I-V. S.T.S., 1887-95.
Le Gonidec ; see Breton.
Leo, H., Angelsachsisches Glossar ; Halle, 1872.
Leslie’s History of Scotland, tr. by Father J. Dalrymple; ed. Rev.
Father E. G. Cody, O.S.B. S.1T.S., 1884-95. In 4 parts.
Levins, Manipulus Vocabulorum; ed. H. B. Wheatley. E.E.T.S.,
1867. [1570.]
Lewis, or Lewis and Short ; see Latin.
Lex Salica, the ten texts; ed. J. H. Hessels; with notes on the
Frankish words by Prof. H. Kern. London, 1880. 4to.
Libell of Englishe Policye; ed. R. Pauli. Leipzig, 1878. [1436.]
Liber Albus; ed. H. Τ᾿ Riley, vol. i. Rolls Series, 1859.
Liber Cure Cocorum ; ed. R. Morris. Phil. Soc., 1862.
Liber Custumarum ; ed. H. T. Riley. In two parts.
1860.
Liber Scintillarum; ed. E. Rhodes, B.A. E.E.T.S., 1889.
Liddell and Scott ; see Greek.
Liden, E., Studien zur altindischen und vergleichenden Sprach-
geschichte. Upsala, 1897.
Lindisfame MS.; see Anglo-Saxon Gospels.
Lithuanian.—W orterbuch der Littauischen Sprache, von G. H. Ἐς
Nesselmann. Konigsberg, 1851.
Littré ; see French.
Locke, J., An Essay concerning the human Understanding.
complete ed., 1694. (Many editions. )
Longfellow, H. W., Poems of. London, 1855.
Loth, J., Etymologische angelseechsisch-englische Grammatik.
Elberfeld, 1870.
Low German.—See Bremen Worterbuch ; and see below.
Low German dialects.—Altmark : Worterbuch der altmiarkisch-
plattdeutschen Mundart; von J. F. Danneil. Salzwedel, 1859.
(N. of Prussian Saxony.)
——— Bremen: see under Bremen.
Gottingen: Worterbuch der niederdeutschen Mundart der
Fiirstenthtimer Gottingen und Grubenhagen ; von G. Schambach.
Hannover, 1858.
Hamburg: Idioticon Hamburgense; by Mich. Richey.
burgi, 1743.
Kurhessen : Idiotikon von Kurhessen ; von Dr. A. F. C. Vilmar.
Marburg, 1868.
Pomeranian: Platt-deutsches Wo6rterbuch nach der alten und
neuen Pommerschen und Riigischen Mundart ; yon J. C. Dahnert.
Stralsund, 1781.
Saxon: Der Sprachschatz der Sassen; von Dr. H. Berghaus.
[151
Oxford,
(Society of Antiquaries.)
Rolls Series,
First
Ham-
BOOKS REFERRED TO IN THE DICTIONARY
Voltnt;A=H.4 Vol. 2. ἘΝ.
Brandenburg, 1880.
Low German dialects.—Strassburg: Worterbuch der Strass-
burger Mundart; von C. Schmidt. Strassburg, 1596.
Westphalian: Worterbuch der Westfalischen Mundart ; von F.
Woeste. Norden und Leipzig, 1882.
-- Middle Low German. Mittelniederdeutsches Handworter-
buch, von A. Liibben. Norden und Leipzig, 1888.
— Old Low German.—Vorstudien zu einem Altniederdeutschen
Worterbuche, von J. H. Gallée. Leiden, 1903.
Low Latin.—See Ducange.
Lowndes ; see Bohn’s Lowndes.
Liibben ; see Low German, Middle.
Lybeaus Disconus ; see Ritson.
Lydgate, J., The Storie of Thebes; printed at the end of Chaucer’s
Woorkes, with diuers Addicions. London, 1561. [ab. 1430.]
—— Assembly (or Banquet) of Gods; ed. Prof. O. L. Triggs, M.A.
E.E.T.S., 1896.
Complaint of the Black Knight, The Flour of Curtesye, &c.;
see Chaucerian Pieces.
Fall of Princes ; entitled (by Pynson, in 1494) The Boke called
de John Bochas descriuinge the Falle of Princis, &c. London;
pr. by J. Wayland. 1558.
Sege of Troye; pr. with the title—The Auncient Historie...
of the warres betwixte the Grecians and the Troyans, &c.;...
newly imprinted, 1555. [First pr. by Pynson, 1513, fol. ]
Temple of Glass; ed. Dr. J. Schick. E.E.T.S.; extra series,
1891.
Seas Poems; ed. J. O. Halliwell. Percy Soc., 1840.
Lye, E., and O. Manning; Dictionarium Saxonico-et-Gothico-
Latinum. London, 1772. 2 vols.
Lyly, J., Euphues; ed. E. Arber, 1868. [1579, 1580.]
Lyly, or Lilly, Dramatic Works of; ed. F, W. Fairholt.
1856. 2 vols.
Lyndesay, Sir D., Works of. E.E.T.S., 1865, 1866, 1868. [1552, &c. |
Lyte’s Dodoens, A Niewe Herball, or Historie of Plantes, translated
{from Rembert Dodoens] by Hy. Lyte. First ed., 1578, fol.
Also 1586, 4to; 1595, 4to.
Macbain; see Gaelic.
Macdonell; see Sanskrit.
Macklin, C., Love ἃ la Mode ; see Drama, Modern British. [1760.]
Mahn, K. A. F., Etymologische Untersuchungen, &c. Berlin, 1863.
Malay.—Marsden, W.; A Dictionary of the Malayan Language.
London, 1812.
—— Pijnappel, J., Maleisch-HollandschWoordenboek. Amsterdam,
1875.
The Malayan Words in English; by C. P. G. Scott.
Haven, Ct., U.S.A., 1897.
Malayalim.—Bailey, kev. B., A Dictionary of Malayalim and
English; Cottayam, 1846. Another by Rev. H. Gundert ;
Mangalore, 1871-2.
Malory, Sir T., Le Morte Darthur; pr. by Caxton.
by H. O. Sommer, Ph.D. London, 1889-91. 2 vols.
Morte Darthur. The Globe Edition, London, 1868.
And see Morte Arthure.
Mandeville; see Maundeville.
Manlove, E., The Liberties and Customes of the Lead Mines, Kc. ;
apoem. E.D.S., Ser. B, Gloss. VII, 1874. [1653.]
Manwood, J., Treatise and Discourse of the Lawes of the Forest.
(First ed., London, 1744.)
Mapes, Walter, The Latin Poems attributed to; ed. T. Wright.
Camden Soc., 1841.
March, F. A., A Comparative Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon
Language. London, 1870.
Marco Polo.—The Book of Ser Marco Polo, newly translated and
ed. by Col. H. Yule, C.B. London, 1871. 2 vols.
Marharete; see Seinte.
Marie de France; Die Lais der Marie de France, herausgegeben von
K. Wamke. Halle, 1885. (In Norman French.)
Marlowe’s Works; ed. Lt.-Col. F. Cunningham,
[Died 1593.]
Marsden ; see Malay.
Marsh, G. P., Lectures on the English Language; ed. Dr. W. Smith.
London, 1862. [The Student’s Manual of the English Language. ]
Marston, J., Works of ; ed. J. O. Halliwell. London, 1856. 3 vols.
8vo.
Mason, W., Poems of; see English Poets.
Massinger.—The Plays of Philip Massinger ; ed. Lt.-Col. Ἐς Cunning-
ham. London, 1868. [Died 1640.]
Mather, I., Remarkable Providences, &c.
London, 1856. (Orig. edition, 1684.)
Vol. 3 (unfinished), O-Paddeln.
London,
New
Exact reprint
[1485-]
[1469.]
London, 1870.
With pref. by G. Offor.
XXXVil
Matzner.—Englische Grammatik, von E. Matzner. 3 parts. Berlin,
1860-5.
—— Altenglische Sprachproben, nebst einem Worterbuche ; ed. E.
Matzner. Erster Band, Sprachproben; Berlin, 1867-9. Zweiter
Band [unfinished] ; Berlin, 1872-6.
Maundeville—The Voiage and Travaile of Sir John Maundeville,
Knt.; London, E. Lumley, 1839; reprinted by J. O. Halliwell in
1866. [1356.]
Meadows ; see Italian and Spanish.
Medical Works of the Fourteenth Century; by the Rev. Prof. G.
Henslow, M.A., F.L.S. London, 1899. 8vo.
Merlin, The Romance of; ed. H. B. Wheatley.
Metcalfe; see Legends of the Saints.
Métivier ; see French dialects (Guernsey).
Metres of Boethius; pr. with Ailfred, tr. of Boethius, q. v. ; and by Grein.
Metrical Homilies; Eng. Met. Homilies, ed. J. Small, Μ. ἃ. Edin-
burgh, 1862.
Mexican.—Clavigero’s History of Mexico; tr. from the Italian by
C. Cullen. London, 1787. 2 vols.
—— Dictionnaire de la langue Nahuatl ou Mexicaine; par Rémi
Siméon. Paris, 1885.
— Grammaire de la langue Nahuatl ou Mexicaine ; ed. Rémi
Siméon. Paris, 1875. [Written by Olmos in 1547.]
Middleton, T., Plays; ed. H. Ellis, 2 vols. 1887-90.
Series.)
Miklosich ; see Slavonic.
Milton.—The Poetical Works of John Milton, with a life of the
author, and Verbal Index by C. Dexter Cleveland. New edition,
London, 1865. [Died 1674.]
Areopagitica; ed. J. W. Hales. Oxford, 1874. [1644.]
Minot, L., poems of; pr. in Political Poems and Songs relating to
E.E.T.S., 1865-99.
(Mermaid
English History, vol. i.; ed. Τὶ Wright (Rolls Series). London,
1859. [1352.] Also ed. J. Hall; Oxford, 1887.
Minsheu, J., The Guide into the Tongues. Second edition. London,
1627. And see Spanish.
Mirror for Magistrates, in five parts; ed. Jos. Hazlewood. London,
1815. 4to. 3 vols. [First ed. 1559.]
Mobius; see Icelandic.
Molbech; see Danish dialects.
Molema, H.; see Dutch dialect.
Moller; see Swedish dialects.
Moncaut; see French dialects (Gascon).
Mone, B., Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte der teutschen
Literatur und Sprache. Leipzig, 1830. 8vo.
Monk of Evesham, The Revelation to the. Reprint by E. Arber;
no. 18, [1482.]
Monlan, Dr. E. P. F.; Diccionario Etimologico de la Lengua
Castellana. Segunda edicion. Madrid, 1881.
Montgomerie, A., The Poems of; ed. J. Cranstoun, LL.D. S.T.S.,
1885-7.
Moore, T., Poetical Works of. London, 1854.
More, Sir T., Works of; printed in 1557. [Died 1535. ]
— tr. of Sir T. More's Utopia, by K. Robinson, 1551; Second
edition, 1556; ed. E. Arber, 1869. [1551.]
Morris, E. E. ; see Australian.
Morris, R., Historical Outlines of English Accidence. London, 1872.
Morte Arthure (an alliterative poem) ; ed. E. Brock. E.E.T.S, Re-
print, 1871. [ab. 1440.] The First edition, by the Rev. G. ἃ.
Perry, appeared in 1865. And see Malory.
Moryson, Fynes, An Itinerary. London, 1617. [0].
Miiller, E., Etymologisches Worterbuch der englischen Sprache.
In two parts. Second edition. Cothen, 1879.
Miiller, F. Max, Lectures on the Science of Language.
edition, London, 1875, 2 vols.
Selected Essays. London, 1881. 2 vols.
Murphy, A., Plays; see Drama, Modern British. [1756-76.]
Murray, [Sir] J. A. H.; see Complaynte.
Myrc’s Duties of a Parish Priest ; ed. E. Peacock. E.E.T-S., 1868.
[ab. 1420.]
Myrour of Our Lady; ed. J. H. Blunt. E.E.T\S., extra series, 1873.
[1530.]
Napier’s Glosses; Old English Glosses, ed. A. S. Napier, M.A.,
Ph.D. Oxford, 1900.
Nares, R.; A Glossary to the Works of English Authors, particularly
Shakespeare and his contemporaries. New edition, by Halliwell
and Wright. London, 1859. 2 vols.
Naval Accounts and Inventories; ed. M. Oppenheim. Pr. for the
Navy Records Soc., 1896. [1485-8 and 1495-7. ]
N.E.D.—A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; ed.
(Sir] J. A. H. Murray, H. Bradley, and W. A. Craigie. 1884-.
A-Piper ; Q-Rib.
93
Eighth
XXXVill
Neckam, A., De Utensilibus; pr. in Wright’s Vocabularies, First
Series, pp. 96-119. [12th cent. ]
Nesselmann; see Lithuanian.
Neuman ; see Spanish.
Newton’s Birds; A Dictionary of Birds, by Prof. A. Newton.
London, 1893-6.
Nichols, J., A Collection of all the Wills, now known to be extant,
of the kings and queens of England, to that of Henry VII. exclu-
sive. London, 1780. (Cited as ‘Royal Wills’.)
Nicolas; see Testamenta Vetusta.
Noreen, Altislandische und altnorwegische Grammatik, von A. Noreen.
(and ed.) Halle, 1892.
Norman; see French dialects.
North, R., Examen. London, 1740.
North, Sir T., tr. of Plutarch, 1612.
Northumberland Household Book; see Antiquarian Repertory.
Worwegian.—Aasen, Ivar; Norsk Ordbog med Dansk Forklaring.
Christiania, 1873.
Norsk Ordbog, af H. Ross. Christiania, 1895.
Notes on English Etymology, by the Rev. W. W. Skeat, Litt.D.
Oxford, 1901.
Notes and Queries (published weekly). First Series, 1850-5;
second, 1856-61; third, 1862-67 ; fourth, 1868-73; fifth, 1874-9 ;
&e.
Nottingham Records; Records of the Borough of Nottingham; ed.
W. H. Stevenson. London, 1882-1900. 5 vols. {Vol. τ;
1155-1399-]
Occleve ; see Hoccleve.
Octavian, the Emperor; ed. J. O. Halliwell.
Octovian ; see Weber.
O. E. Texts.—The Oldest English Texts; ed. H. Sweet, M.A.
E.E.T.S. London, 1885.
Ogilvie, The Imperial Dictionary of the English Language, by
J. Ogilvie, LL.D. New ed., by C. Annandale. London, 1883.
8vo. 4 vols.
O'Hara; Midas, a play; see Drama, Mod. British. [{1764.]
Old English Homilies ; see Early English Homilies.
Old English Miscellany; ed. Dr. R. Morris. E.E.T.S., 1872.
Old English Plays; see Dodsley.
Old Saxon.—HeEliand; mit ausfiihrlichem Glossar herausgegeben ;
von M. Heyne. Paderborn, 1866.
— Kleinere altniederdeutsche Denkmaler; mit ausfiihrlichem
Glossar herausgegeben ; von M. Heyne. Paderborn, 1866.
Oliphant, T. L. K., Old and Middle English. London, 1878.
Oman; Swedish-English Dictionary, 1897.
Ordinances and Regulations, &c.; A Collection of Ordinances and
Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household, made
in divers Reigns. 1790. 4to. (Cited in Halliwell’s Dict. ; see
P+ 956.)
O’Reilly ; see Irish.
Original Letters, &c.; see Ellis.
(Cited at second-hand.)
Percy Soc., 1844.
Ormulum ; ed. R. M. White. Oxford, 1852. 2 vols. [1220-50.]
Orosius ; see Alfred.
Otway, T., The Works of. London, 1768. 3 vols.
Oudemans; see Dutch.
Ontzen ; see Friesic.
Owl and Nightingale, ed. Thos. Wright; Percy Soc., 1843.
by Dr. F. H. Stratmann ; Krefeld, 1868. [ab. 1300.]
Oxford Helps to the Study of the Bible.—Helps to the Study of the
Bible. Oxford, n. d.
Palladius on Husbandrie; in English; ed. B, Lodge. E.E.T.S.,1872,
1877. [ab. 1420.
Palmer, E. H.; see Persian.
Palmer, Rev. A. Smythe, Folk-etymology. London, 1882. 8vo.
Leaves from a Word-hunter’s Notebook. London, 1876.
Palmer, Rev. W., Origines Liturgicee. Oxford, 1832. 8vo. 2 vols.
Palsgrave.—Lesclaircissement de la Langue Francoyse, par Maistre
Jehan Palsgrave, 1530. Together with An Introductorie for to
lerne to speke French trewly ; by G. Du Wes. [Reprint, Paris, 1852.]
Pardonere and Tapster; introducing the Tale of Beryn. See Beryn.
Parker Society Publications. (The excellent Index has been of much
service. )
Parlement of the Thre Ages, The; also Winnere and Wastoure ;
ed. I. Gollancz, M.A. LKoxburge Club, 1897.
Parliament Rolls; Parliamentorum Rotuli. (Edw. I—Hen. VII.)
Re-ed.
1765. fol. 6 vols.
Partenay, Romance of; ed. W. W. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1866. [ab.
1500-20. |
Paston Letters; ed. J. Gairdner. London, 1872-5. ~3 vols.
[1422-15009. |
Peacham, H., The Gentleman’s Exercise. London, 1634. 4ἴο.
BOOKS REFERRED TO IN THE DICTIONARY
Peacock, E., A Glossary of Words used in the Wapentakes of
Manley and Corringham, Lincolnshire. E.D.S., 1877.
Peele, G.; see Greene.
Pegge, S., LL.D., An Alphabet of Kenticisms; printed in Series C,
Part IIT, of the E.D.S, publications, ed. W. W. Skeat, 1876.
Anonymiana. London, 1809. 8vo.
—- Derbicisms; ed. W.W. Skeat. E.D.S. 1896.
Pegge, S., Jun., Curialia, or an Historical Account of some Branches
of the Royal Household. London, 1782. 4ἴο.
Pepys, S., Memoirs of, comprising his Diary, &c.; ed. Richard Lord
Braybrooke. (Reprint.) London, Ἐς Warne, n. 4. [1659-69.]
Perceval, Sir; see Thornton Romances. {ab. 1440. ]
Percy Folio MS.; ed. J. W. Hales and F. J. Furnivall. London,
1867-8. 3 vols.
Perey, T.; Reliques of Ancient English Poetry; reprint, ed. R. A.
Willmott. London, 1857.
Persian.—A Concise Dictionary of the Persian Language; by
E. H. Palmer. London, 1876.
A Dictionary, Persian, Arabic, and English. By J. Richardson ;
new edition, by F. Johnson. London, 1829.
Grundriss der neupersischen Etymologie; von Paul Horn.
Strassburg, 1893. ἢ
Vullers, J. A., Lexicon Persico-Latinum. Bonn, 1855-67.
2 vols.
Old.—Die altpersischen Keilinschriften.
Leipzig, 1862.
Peruvian.—Vocabulario de la lengua de Peru; by D. Gongalez.
La Ciudad de los Reyes. [Lima ?] 1608.
Phaer, T., and Twyne, T.; tr. of Virgil’s Atneid. London, 1553.
4to. (The first edition.)
Philip de Thaun ; see Wright, T., Popular Treatises.
Philips, J., Cider, and other Poems ; see English Poets.
Phillips, E., The New World of Words. London, 1706. fol.
Phil. Soc.—Transactions of the Philological Society.
Picard.—Glossaire du Patois Picard, par ?Abbé Jules Corblet.
Paris, 1851.
Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede, about 1394 a.D.; ed. W. W. Skeat.
E.E.T.S., 1867. [1394.]
Piers Plowman. ‘The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plow-
man; ed. W. W. Skeat. A-text (earliest version); B-text (second
version); C-text (latest version). E.E.T.S., 1867, 1869, 1873.
Notes and Glossary, 1877-84. [1362-1400. ]
Pilgrim’s Sea Voyage; ed. F. J. Furnivall (with the Stacions of
Rome). E.E.T.S., 1867.
Pineda; see Spanish.
Pistyll of Susan; see Scottish Alliterative Poems.
Poems and Lives of Saints; ed. F. J. Furnivall. Phil. Soc. Berlin,
1862. [ab. 1300.]
Polish.—Nouveau Dictionnaire Portatif Frangais-Polonais et Polo-
nais-Francais; par J. A. E. Schmidt. Leipzig, 1847.
Political Poems and Songs relating to English History; ed. Thos.
Wright. (Rolls Series.) 1851-61. 2 vols.
Political, Religious, and Love Poems; ed. Ἐς J. Furnivall. E.E.T.S.,
1866.
Political Songs; ed. T. Wright. Camden Soc.,1839. [1264-1327.]
Pope, A., Works of; ed. H. F. Cary. London, 1849. [Died 1744. |
Concordance to the Works of; by E. Abbott. London,
1875.
Portuguese.—Noyo Diccionario Portatil das linguas Portugueza
e Ingleza, resumido do diccionario de Vieyra; nova edic¢ao por
J. P. Aillaud. Paris, 1857. 2 vols.
——A Grammar of the Portuguese Language; by. A. Vieyra.
Twelfth edition. London, 1858.
Prellwitz, Dr. W., Etymologisches Worterbuch der Griechischen
Sprache. (2nd ed.) Gottingen, 1905.
Prescott, W. H., History of the Conquest of Peru.
1854. Svo.
--- - History of the Conquest of Mexico.
1854. ὅνο.
Pricke of Conscience ; see Hampole.
Prior, R. C. A., On the Popular Names of British Plants.
edition. London, 1879.
Prior, M., Poems of; see English Poets. [Died 1721. ]
Prompt. Pary.=Promptorium Parvulorum sive Clericorum Dictiona-
rius Anglo-Latinus Princeps, auctore fratre Galfrido Grammatico
dicto, circa A.D, MCCCCXL. Ed. A. Way, Camden Soc., 1843, 1853,
and 1865. [1440.]
Proveneal.—Lexique Roman, by M. Raynouard. Paris, 1836.
vols.
3 Dictionnaire Provencal-Frangais.
Provence, n.d. 2 vols.
By F. Spiegel.
7th ed. London,
7th ed. London,
Third
Par F. Mistral. Aix-en-
BOOKS REFERRED TO IN THE DICTIONARY
Proverbs of Hendyng ; see Altenglische Dichtungen.
Prynne, W., Histriomastix. London, 1633. 4ἴο.
The Soveraigne Power of Parliaments. London, 1643.
Puitspelu ; see French dialects (Lyonnais).
Purchas, S., His Pilgrimage. ... Third ed., 1617.
Puttenham, G., The Arte of English Poesie, 1589.
prints. London, 1869.
Queene Elizabethes Achademy, &c.; ed. F. J. Fumivall, E.E.T.S.,
extra series, 1869.
Ramsay’s Poems (cited by Jamieson).
Ratis Raving; ed. Rey. J. R. Lumby, M.A.
Ranf Coilyear; see Scottish Allit. Poems.
Ray, John; A Collection of English Words not generally used, Ed.
W. W, Skeat. E.D.S., 1874. [1674-91.]
Raynouard ; see Provencal.
4to.
fol.
In Arber’s Re-
E.E.T.S., 1870.
Red Book of the Exchequer ; ed. W. D. Selby. (Rolls Series.)
Reliquize Antique; ed. Wright and Halliwell. 1841-3. 2 vols.
Remacle ; see French dialects (Walloon).
Return from Parnassus; ed. E. Arber. 1870. [1606.]
Reynard the Fox.— Willems Gedicht van den vos Reinaerde ; ed.
E. Martin. Paderborn, 1874. 8vo.
Rhys, J., Lectures in Welsh Philology. London, 1877.
Richard Coer de Lion; see Weber.
Richardson; see Arabic; and see Persian.
Richardson, C., A Dictionary of the English Language.
1863. 4to. 2 vols.
Richard the Redeles; printed with the C-text of Piers the Plowman,
pp- 469-521. See Preface iv, in the same volume, pp. ciii-cxxiv.
Richey ; see Low German dialects (Hamburg).
Kichthofen ; see Friesic.
Rietz ; see Swedish.
Riley.—Liber Albus: The White Book of the city of London ; tr.
by H. T. Riley, M.A. London, 1861.
Riley’s Memorials of London. London, 1868.
Ritson’s Metrical Romances.—Ancient Engleish (sic) Metrical Roman-
ceés (sic); ed. by Joseph Ritson. London, 1802. 3 vols. Vol.i
contains Ywaine and Gawin; Launfal. Vol. ii contains Lybeaus
Disconus; King Horn; King of Tars; Emare; Sir Orpheo;
Chronicle of England. Vol. iii contains Le bone Florence ; Erle
of Tolous ; Squyre of Lowe Degre; Knight of Curtesy.
Robert of Brunne, Handlyng Synne; ed. Εἰ. J. Fumivall (Roxburghe
Club), 1862. [1303.] And see Langtoft.
Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle ; ed. T. Hearne.
2vols. Reprinted, London, 1810. [ab. 1298.]
- ed. W. Aldis Wright. (Rolls Series.) 1887.
Robin ; see French dialects (Norman).
Robinson, F. K:, A Glossary of Words used in the neighbourhood
of Whitby. E.D.S., 1875-6.
Robson, J.—Three Early English Metrical Romances ; ed. J. R.
Camden Soc., 1842.
Rochester, Earl of; see English Poets.
Rock, D., The Church of our Fathers.
Roland ; see Chanson.
Rolland’s Court of Venus; ed. Rev. W. Gregor. S.T.S., 1883-4.
Romance of Partenay; ed. Rev. W. W. Skeat. E.E.T.S., 1866.
Roman de la Rose; ed. M. Méon. Paris, 1813. 4 vols.
Romania (for Romance Philology); ed. P. Meyer and ἃ. Paris.
From 1872.
Romaunsch.—Retoromanisches W6rterbuch, Surselvisch-Deutsch ;
von Ρ. B. Carigiet. Bonn and Chur, 1882.
Romaunt of the Rose.—An English translation of the French Roman
de La Rose ; Part A, ll. 1-1705, by Chaucer. Part B, in Northern
dialect. Part C, from 1. 5811 to end.
Roquefort, J. B. B., Glossaire de la Langue Romane.
2 vols. With Supplement, 1820.
Roy, W., Rede Me and be not Wrothe; ed. E. Arber, 1871. [1528.]
Royal Wills ; see Nichols, J.
Rule of St. Benet.—Die Winteney-Version der Regula S. Benedicti ;
von Dr. M. M. A. Schroer. Halle a. S., 1888.
Rushworth MS.; see Anglo-Saxon Gospels.
Russell, J., Book of Nurture; see Babees Book.
Russian.—New parallel Dictionaries of the Russian, French, Ger-
man, and English Languages, in four parts; ed. Ch. Ph. Reiff.
First Part, Russian-English; Fourth Part, English-Russian.
Third edition. Carlsruhe, St. Petersburg, Leipzig, and Paris, 1876.
Sackville, Th., Works of; ed. R. W. Sackville-West. London,
1859. 8vo.
St. Benet, Rule of; ed. Schréer. Halle a. S., 1888.
St. Brandan ; ed. T. Wright. Percy Soc., 1844.
St. Catherine ; see Legend. .
St. Christopher ; see Legend,
London,
Oxford, 1724.
2 vols.
London, 1849-52. 3 vols.
Paris, 1808.
XXxix
St. Cuthbert ; ed. Rev. J. T. Fowler. Surtees Soc., 1889-91. [1450.]
St. Erkenwald ; see Horstmann, Altengl. Legenden, Neue Folge.
St. Juliana; ed. Cockayne and Brock. E.E.T.S., 1872. [1200-50?]
St. Margaret ; see Seinte.
St. Veronica; ed. C. W. Goodwin. 1851. (With St. Andrew.)
Salomon and Saturn.—Anglo-Saxon Dialogues of Salomon and
Saturn; ed. J. M. Kemble. (A£lfric Society), 1845, 1847, 1848.
Sandys, G., A Relation of a Journey an. dom. 1610. Third edition.
1632.
Sanskrit. — Sanskrit-English Dictionary; by T. Benfey, 1866.
[When ‘Skt.’ only is cited, this book is meant.]
Sanskrit Dictionary; by Bohtlingk and Roth, 7 parts. St. Petersburg,
1855-75.
Sanskrit-English Dictionary; by A. A, Macdonell, M.A., Ph.D.
London, 1893.
Schade; see German.
Schambach ; see Low German dialects (Gottingen).
Scheler; see French.
Schleicher, A., Indogermanische Chrestomathie,
Schmeller ; see Bavarian Dictionary.
Schmid, Dr. R., Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen. Leipzig, 1858.
Schmidt, A. ; see Shakespeare.
Schwan, Dr. E., Grammatik des Altfranzésischen.
1898.
Scott.—The Select Poetry of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. 6 vols. Edin-
burgh, 1849. Waverley Novels; Edinburgh, 1854-63. 25 vols.
[Died 1832.]
Scott, C. P. G.; see Malay.
Scottish Alliterative Poems; ed. F. J. Amours. Part 1, S.T.S.,
1891-2.
Seinte Marharete; ed. O. Cockayne. E.E.T.S., 1866. [1200-50.]
Selden, J., Table-talk ; ed. Ε΄ Arber. London, 1868. [1689.]
Selden’s Notes on Drayton; see Drayton, in English Poets, vol. iv.
Select Charters, &c. By W. Stubbs, M.A. Oxford.
Seven Sages.—The Seven Sages, in English Verse ; ed. Thos. Wright.
London (Percy Society), 1845. [ab. 1420. ]
—— The Seuyn Sages(another copy). Printed in vol. iii of Weber’s
Metrical Romances. See Weber.
Sewel; see Dutch.
Shadwell, T., Dramatic Works. London, 1720. 12mo. 4 yols,
Shakespeare.—The Globe Edition; ed. by W. G. Clark and W. Aldis
Weimar, 1869.
ard ed. Leipzig,
Wright. Cambridge and London, 1864. [Died 1616.]
—— Shakespeare Lexicon; by A. Schmidt. Berlin and London,
1875.
Shakespeare Apocrypha; ed. C. F. Tucker Brooke. Oxford, 1908.
Shakespeare’s Plutarch; being a selection from North’s Plutarch,
By W. W. Skeat. London, 1875.
Sharp, T., A Dissertation on Pageants. Coventry, 1825. 4to.
Shelley, P. B., Poetical Works. London, 1840.
Shenstone ; see English Poets.
Sheridan, R. B., Works. London, 1875. 8vo.
Sherwood, index to Cotgrave’s F. Dict.; see French.
Shirley, J., Dramatic Works and Poems; ed. A. Dyce.
1833. 8vo. 6 vols.
Shoreham, W., Poems of; ed. T. Wright. Percy Soc., 1849. Also
ed. Dr. M. Konrath. E.E.T\S., extra series, 1902-3.
Shrine, The; see Cockayne.
Sidney, Sir P., Apology for Poetrie; ed. E. Arber, 1868. [1595.]
Sievers, E., Angelsachsische Grammatik. 3rd ed. Halle, 1898.
Sigart; see French dialects (Wallocn).
Sinonima Bartolomei; ed. J. L. G. Mowat.
Sir Bevis, &c.; see Bevis, &c.
Skeat, W. W., Notes on English Etymology. Oxford, tgor.
Principles of English Etymology. Series I, 2nd ed, | Series I.
Oxford, 1891-2.
Skelton’s Poetical Works ; ed. Rey. A. Dyce. London, 1843. 2 vols.
[Died 1529.]
Skinner, S., Etymologicon Lingnz Anglican. London,1671. [The
chief source of the etymologies in Johnson’s Dictionary. |
Slang Dictionary ; London, 1874.
Slavonic.—Etymologisches Worterbuch der Slavischen Sprachen,
von Franz Miklosich. Wien, 1886. S8vo.
Smith, Capt. John, Works; ed. Arber.
[1608-31.]
Smith, W.—A Concise Bible Dictionary ; ed. by Wm. Smith, B.D.
London, 1865.
Smith, Toulmin,. English Gilds. E.E.T.S., 1870. [1389-1450.]
Somervile, W. ; see English Poets.
Somner, W., Dictionarium Saxonico-Latino-Anglicum. Oxford, 1659.
Songs and Carols; ed. T. Wright. London, 1847. [ab. 1470.]
South-English Legendary; ed. Ο, Horstmann, #,E.T.S,, 1887.
London,
Oxford, 1882. 4to.
Birmingham, 1884.
Χ]
Sowdone of Babylone; ed. Dr. Hausknecht.
1881.
Spanish.—Minsheu, J., A Dictionary in Spanish and English.
London, 1623.
Pineda, P., A New Dictionary, Spanish and English, and
English and Spanish. London, 1740. [0].
Spanish and English Dictionary; by F.C. Meadows.
edition. London, 1856.
Spanish and English Dictionary, originally compiled by
Neuman and Baretti; by M.Seoane, M.D. New edition. London,
1862. 2 vols. And see Monlau.
Specimens of Early English, Part I, a.p. 1150-1300; by the
Rey. R. Morris, LL.D. 2nd ed. Oxford, 1885.
—— Part II, a.p. 1298-1393; by Dr. Morris and the Rev. W. W.
Skeat. New edition, revised for the third time. Oxford, 1894.
Specimens of English Literature, A.D. 1394-1579; by the Rev.
W. W. Skeat. Oxford, 1871. Fifth edition, 1890.
Specimens of Lyric Poetry written in England in the reign of
Edward I; ed. T. Wright. (Percy Society), 1842.
Spectator, The; ed. H. Morley, n.d. (1711-14. ]
E.E.T.S., extra series,
Eighth
Spelman, J., Psalterium Davidis Latino-Saxonicum vetus. London,
1640. [A Latin Psalter, with A.S. glosses. |
Spenser.—The Complete Works of Edmund Spenser. The Globe
Edition, ed. by R. Morris, with memoir by J. W. Hales. London,
1869. (Shep. Kal., 1579; Fairy Queen, 1590-6. }
Spiegel, F.; see Persian, Old
Spurrell ; see Welsh.
Squyre of Low Degree ; see Ritson.
Stacions of Rome, &c. ; ed. F. J. Furnivall. E.E.T.S., 1867.
Stanford Dictionary (The) of Anglicised Words and Phrases ; ed.
C. A. M. Fennell, D.Litt. Cambridge, 1892.
Stanyhurst, R., tr. of Virgil’s Atneid, books i-iv, 1582; ed. E. Arber,
1880. [1582.]
Statutes of Henry VII. In exact facsimile; ed. J. Rae.
1869. [Pr. by Caxton in 1489.]
Statutes of the Realm; vol. i.
1810. [0].
Stedman, Capt. J. G., Narrative . . .
4to. 2 vols.
Sterne, L., Works of. London, 1802. 7 vols. [Died 1768.]
Stokes-Fick, Vergleichendes Worterbuch der indog. Sprachen, von
August Fick. 4thed. Part 2 (by Whitley Stokes). Gottingen,
1894.
Stowe Ie A Survey of London, written in the year 1598.
edition, by W. J. Thoms, London, 1842.
Stratmann.—A Middle-English Dictionary, by F. H. Stratmann.
New ed., by H. Bradley. Oxford, 1891.
Streitberg, Dr. W., Urgermanische Grammatik. Heidelberg, 1896.
Strutt, J., Manners, &c., of the Inhabitants of England. London,
1774-6. 4to. 3 vols.
—— The Sports and Pastimes, &c.
S.T.S.—Scottish Text Society.
Surrey, Lord; see Tottel. Also, ed. R. Bell. London, πη. d.
Swainson, Rey. C., Provincial Names of British Birds. E.D.S., 1885.
Swedish.—Pocket-dictionary of the English and Swedish languages.
Leipzig, C. Tauchnitz, n.d. And see Oman.
—— Ihre, J., Glossarium Suiogothicum. 2 vols., folio. Upsal. 1769.
Svenskt och Engelskt Lexicon, af G. Widegren. Stockholm,
1788.
Swedish dialects.—Ordbok éfver Halliindska Landskaps-MaAlet,
samlad af F. Moller. Lund, 1858. (South Sweden.)
—— Svenskt Dialekt-Lexicon ; Ordbok ofver Svenska allmoge-
spraket, af J. E. Rietz. Lund, 1867.
Sweet, H., An Anglo-Saxon Reader. Oxford, 1876. 7th ed. 1894.
— A History of English Sounds. Oxford, 1888. Svo. And see
ZElfred and Oldest English Texts.
Swift, Jonathan; see English Poets.
Swinburme, H., Travels through Spain in 1775 and 1776. London,
1779-
Tatar.—Courteille, P. de, Dictionnaire Turk-Oriental.
London,
Pr. by command of Geo. III in
of Surinam, London, 1796.
New
(Reprint.) London, 1876.
Paris, 1870.
Tatler.—The Tatler and Guardian ; complete in one volume. [Re-
print.] London, 1877. [1709-13.]
Taylor, Bp. Jeremy; A Course of Sermons. London, 1828. S8vo.
2 vols.
Taylor, I., Words and Places.
Ten Kate; see Dutch.
Tennyson, Alfred Lord, Works of. London, 1892. 8vo.
Testamenta Eboracensia. Surtees Soc., 1836, 1855. 2 vols.
Testamenta Vetusta; ed. Sir N. H. Nicolas. London, 1826. Royal
8yo. 2 vols.
Testament of Love; by Th. Usk. See Chaucerian Pieces. [ab. 1387.]
Third edition. London, 1873.
BOOKS REFERRED TO IN THE DICTIONARY
Thomson, Jas. ; see English Poets.
Thornton Romances; ed. J. O. Halliwell. (Contains the romances
of Perceval, Isumbras, Eglamour, and Degrevant.) Camden Soc.
London, 1844. [ab. 1440. |
Thorpe, B., Ancient Laws and Institutes of England. London, 1840.
2 vols.
Codex Exoniensis. A Collection of A. S. Poetry; ed. by
B. Thorpe. London, 1842.
— Diplomatarium A®vi Saxonici. A Collection of English
Charters, from A.D. 605 to the reign of William the Conqueror.
London, 1865.
Liber Psalmorum; cum paraphrasi Anglo-Saxonica.
1835. 8vo.
Three Early English Metrical Romances; see Robson.
Thurneysen, R., Keltoromanisches. (On Celtic Etymologies in
Diez.) Halle, 1884.
Thwaites, E., Heptateuchus, Liber Job, et Evangelium Nicodemi,
Anglo-Saxonice, &c. London, 1698. (See Grein.)
Toller; see Bosworth.
Tooke, John Horne, Diversions of Purley; ed. R. Taylor, 1857.
Torrent of Portugal; ed. Halliwell, London, 1842 ; re-ed. E. Adam,
Ph.D. E.E.T.S., 1887.
Torriano; see Italian.
Tottel’s Miscellany. Songs and Sonettes by Henry Howard, Earl
of Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyatt, the elder, &c.; ed. E. Arber,
London, 1870. [First printed in 1557.]
Tourneur, Cyril, The Plays and Poems of; ed. J. Churton Collins.
London, 1878. 8vo. 2 vols.
Towneley Mysteries ; printed for the Surtees Society. London, 1836.
[ab. 1450.] Also ed. G. England and A. W. Pollard. E.E.T.S.,
extra series, 1897.
Toynbee; see Brachet.
Trench, R. C., English Past and Present. Fourth edition. London,
1859. Ninth edition, 1875.
On the Study of Words.
Mayhew. London, 1888.
A Select Glossary. Fourth edition. London, 1873.
Trevisa, John of, tr. of Higden’s Polychronicon; printed in the
Oxford,
Twentieth edition; ed. Rev. A. L.
edition of Higden’s Polychronicon in the Rolls Series. [1387.]
See Higden.
Tristan; ed. F. Michel. Londres, 1835. 2 vols.
Tristrem, Sir; ed. G. B. M¢Neill. S.T.S., 1885-6.
Troy-book ; see Gest Historiale.
Turbervile’s Poems; see English Poets. [Died 1594 ?]
Turkish.—Zenker, J. T., Dictionnaire Turc-Arabe-Persan. 2 vols.
Leipzig, 1866-76.
Turner, W., The Names of Herbes; ed. J. Britten. E.D.S., 1881.
[1548.]
Tusser, T., Fiue hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie; the edition
of 1580, collated with those of 1573 and 1577; ed. W. Payne and
S. J. Herrtage. E.D.S. London, 1878.
Two Fifteenth-century Cookery Books; ed. T. Austin.
1888.
Two Noble Kinsmen ; by Shakespeare (?) and Fletcher; ed. Skeat.
Cambridge, 1875.
Tyndall.—The Whole Workes of W. Tyndall, John Frith, and
Doctor Barnes, pr. by John Daye, 1572. [Tyndall died in 1536. ]
Udall, N., Roister Doister (a play); ed. E. Arber, 1869. [ab. 1553. ]
-—— tr. of the Paraphrase of Erasmus vpon the newe Testamente.
London, 1548-9.
tr. of the Apophthegmes of Erasmus. Boston, 1877. [1532.]
Uhlenbeck, Dr. C. C., Etymologisches Worterbuch der altindischen
Sprache. Amsterdam, 1898-9.
—— Etymologisches Worterbuch der Gotischen Sprache.
Amsterdam, 1900.
Unton Inventories; ed. J. G. Nichols.
Society. 1841. sm. 4to.
Utopia; see More.
Vanbrugh’s Plays ; see Wycherley.
Vanitek, A., Griechisch-Lateinisches Etymologisches Worterbuch.
Leipzig, 1877. 2 vols.
Vespasian Psalter. (A Latin Psalter with an Old Mercian Gloss ;
in O.E. Texts, q.v.)
Vie de Saint Gile, La; ed. G. Paris. Paris, 1881.
Vie de Seint Auban; a poem in Norman French; ed. R. Atkinson.
London, 1876.
Vieyra; see Portuguese.
Vigfusson ; see Icelandic.
Voc.—Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vocabularies, by T. Wright.
and ed.; ed. R. P. Wiilcker. London, 1884. 2 vols.
Vulgate, the ; see Biblia.
BE Ss
2nd ed.
Berkshire Ashmolean
BOOKS REFERRED TO IN THE DICTIONARY
Vullers; see Persian.
Wadington, Wm. of, Manuel des Pechiez ; ed. F. J. Furnivall, 1862.
Walde, Dr. A., Lateinisches Etymologisches Worterbuch. Heidel-
berg, 19¢6.
Wallace.—The Wallace, by Henry the Minstrel ; ed. J. Jamieson, D.D.
Edinburgh, 1820. Also, ed. J. Moir. S.T.S., 1884-9. [ab.
1460.
ΠΝ Sarina ctedcace Worterbuch ; von A. Isser.
Kronstadt, 1850. (The same as Roumanian.)
Dictionnaire d’étymologie Daco-Romane; par A. de Cihac.
Frankfort, 1870.
Waller, E., Poems ; ed. R. Bell.
Poets.
Walloon; see French dialects.
Wanley, H., Catalogue of A. S. MSS.; pr. in vol. iii of Hickes’s
Thesaurus ; see Hickes.
Warburton, W., The Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated.
(First ed. 1737-8. Cited by Richardson.)
Warner, W., Albion’s England; see English Poets.
Wars of Alexander; see Alexander.
London, n.d. And see English
Warton, T., History of English Poetry. London, 1840. 8vo.
3 vols. Also ed. W. C. Hazlitt, London, 1871. 8vo. 4 vols.
Way ; see Prompt. Parv.
Webbe, E., Travels; ed. E. Arber. 1868. [1590.]
Weber’s Metrical Romances. 3 vols. London, 1810. Vol. i
contains King Alisaunder; Sir Cleges; Lai le Freine. Vol. ii
contains Richard Coer de Lion; Ipomydon; Amis and Amiloun.
Vol. iii contains Seuyn Sages ; Octouian; Sir Amadas; Hunting
of the Hare.
Webster, J., Works of ; ed. A. Dyce ; new edition.
[1607-61. ]
Webster, N., International Dictionary of the English Language; ed.
N. Porter. Springfield, Mass., 1898.
Wedgwood, H., A Dictionary of English Etymology.
edition, London, 1872. Third edition, London, i878.
Contested Etymologies in the Dictionary of the Rey. W. W.
Skeat. London, 1882.
Weigand ; see German.
Welsh.—A Dictionary of the Welsh Language, by W. Spurrell.
Second edition. Carmarthen, 1859.
Whitby Glossary; see E.D.S.
Whitehead, W., Poems; see English Poets.
Wiat, Sir T. ; see Tottel’s Miscellany.
Widegren ; see Swedish.
William of Palerne ; ed. W. W. Skeat.
[ab. 1360.]
William of Shoreham, The Religious Poems of; ed. Thos. Wright.
(Percy Society.) 1849. [ab. 1325]. And see Shoreham.
Williams ; see Cornish.
Wills and Inventories . .
1835.
London, 1857.
Second
E.E.T.S., extra series, 1867.
of the Northern Counties. Surtees Soc.,
ΧΙ
Wilson, H. H., A Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms, from
various Indian languages. London, 1855.
Windisch; see Irish.
Winner and Wastoure ; see Parlement.
Winzet’s [Winyet’s] Works; ed. Rev. J. K. Hewison. S.T.S.,
1887-8, 1890-1.
Woeste ; see Low German dialects (Westphalian).
Worcester, J. E., A Dictionary of the English Language.
(1859).
Wordsworth, W., Poetical Works. ‘London, 1354.
Wotton, Sir H., Reliquise Wottoniane. 4th ed.
[First ed. 1651.]
Wright, T., Homes of Other Days. London, 1871.
Popular Treatises on Science. London, 1841. Contains
ZElfric’s tr. of Beda, De Temporibus Rationum ; Philip de Thaun,
Livre des Créatures and Bestiary ; and M. E. Fragment on Popular
Science.
—— Specimens of Lyric Poetry (temp. Edw. 1).
1842.
— Vocabularies. (First Series.) Liverpool, 1857.
Series.) Liverpool, 1873. And see Voc.
Wiilcker’s Glossaries ; see Voc.
Wulfstan; ed. A. Napier. Part I. Berlin, 1883.
Wyatt, Sir T.; see Tottel’s Miscellany.
Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar, Dramatic Works
of. London, 1840. 8vo.
Wyclif, English Works of, hitherto unprinted ; ed, F. D. Matthew.
E.E.T.S., 1880.
Select English Works of John Wyclif; ed. T. Arnold. Oxford,
1869-71. 3 vols. [Died 1384.]
-- The Holy Bible, in the earliest English Versions made by
John Wycliffe and his followers; ed. Rev. J. Forshall and
Sir F. Madden. Oxford, 1850. 4 vols. (With a Glossary.) [ab.
1382-8.
Wycliffite Glossary.—A Glossary to the Wycliffite Versions of the
Bible (above). (Sometimes met with separately.)
Wyntown, Andrew of, The Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland; ed. D.
Laing. Edinburgh, 1872-9. 3 vols.
York Plays; ed. Lucy Toulmin Smith. Oxford, 1885. ὅνο.
York Wills.—Wills and Inventories . . . of the counties of York,
Westmoreland, and Lancashire; ed. Rev. J. Raine. Surtees Soc.,
1853.
Young, E., The Complaint, or Night Thoughts. London, 1817.
[Died 1765.] And see English Poets.
Yule, Col. H., and A. C. Burnell; Hobson-Jobson; being a
London
London, 1685.
Percy’ Soc.,
(Second
Glossary of Anglo-Indian Colloquial Words and Phrases. Lon-
don, 1886. ὅνο.
Zambaldi, F., Vocabolario Etimologico Italiano. Citta di Castello,
1889.
Zenker; see Turkish.
REY TO THE GENERAL “PLAN OF ΤΉ ah TY MOLOGIGCAL
DICTIONARY
Eacu article is arranged, as far as seemed advisable, according to a uniform scheme, and the following details
will explain the nature of the information to be found in this work.
δι. The words selected. The Word-list contains all the primary words of most frequent occurrence in
modern literature; and, when their derivatives are included, supplies a tolerably complete vocabulary of the
language. I have been largely guided in the choice by the work known as the Student’s English Dictionary,
by John Ogilvie, as edited by Charles Annandale (£895). A few unusual words have been included, on account
of their occurrence in familiar passages of standard authors.
§ 2. The Definitions. These are given in the briefest possible form, chiefly for the purpose of identifying
the word and showing the part of speech.
§ 3. The Language. The language to which each word belongs is distinctly marked in every case by
means of letters within marks of parenthesis immediately following the definition, In the case of words derived
from French, a note is (in general) also made as to whether the French word is of Latin, Celtic, German, or Scan-
dinavian origin. The symbol ‘—’ signifies ‘derived from.’ Thus the remark ‘(F.—L.)’ signifies ‘a word
introduced into English from /vench, the French word itself being of Zafn origin.’ The letters used are to
be read as follows.
Arab. = Arabic. AF. = Anglo-French. C. = Celtic, used as a general /erm for Irish, Gaelic, Welsh,
Breton, Cornish, &c. EB. = English. ¥F. = French. G. = German. Gk. = Greek. L. or Lat. =
Latin. Scand. = Scandinavian, used as a general term for Icelandic, Swedish, Danish, &c. Skt. =Sanskrit.
W. = Welsh.
For other abbreviations, see ὃ 8 below.
§ 4. The History. Next follows a brief account of the history of the word, showing (approximately) the time
of its introduction into the language ; or, if a native word, the Middle-English form or forms of it, with a few quo-
tations and references. ‘This is an important feature of the work, and (I believe) to some extent a new one. In
attempting thus, as it were, to da/e each word, I must premise that I often cite Shakespeare in preference to a
slightly ear/zer writer whose writings are less familiar; that an attempt has nevertheless been made to indicate the
date within (at least) a century; and lastly, that in some cases I may have failed to do this, owing to imperfect
information or knowledge. In general, sufficient is said, in a very brief space, to es/aé/ish the earlier uses of each
word, so as to clear the way for a correct notion of its origin.
§ 5. The References. A large number of the references are from Richardson’s Dictionary, denoted by the
symbol ‘(R.).’ Some from Todd’s Johnson, sometimes cited merely as ‘Todd.’ Many from Stratmann’s Old
English Dictionary, or the still better (but unfinished) work by Matzner; these are all ‘ ME.,’ i.e. Middle-»
English forms. Many others are due to my own reading. I have, in very many instances, given exac/ references,
often at the expenditure of much time and trouble. Thus Richardson cites ‘The Romaunt of the Rose’ at large,
but I have given, in almost every case, the exact number of the line. Similarly, he cites the Fairy Queen merely
by the Jook and canfo, omitting the sfamza. Inexact quotations are comparatively valueless, as they cannot be
verified, and may be false.
For a complete list of authorities, with dates, see p. xxx (above).
ὁ 6. The Etymology. [Except in a few cases where the etymology is verbally described, the account of it
begins with the symbol —, which is always to be read as ‘ directly derived from,’ or ‘borrowed from,’ wherever
it occurs. A succession of these symbols occurs whenever the etymology is traced back through another lan-
guage. The order is always backward, from old to still older forms.
§ 7. Cognate Forms. Cognate forms are frequently introduced by way of /urther illustration, though
they form, strictly speaking, no part of the direct history of the etymology. But they frequently throw so much
light upon the word that it has always been usual to cite them; though no error is more common than to mis-
take a word that is merely cognate with, or alized to, the English one for the very orzg?nal of it! For example,
KEY TO THE GENERAL PLAN OF THE ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY χιπὶ
many people will quote the German word acker as if it accounted for, or is the ortgznal of the English. acre,
whereas it is (like the Lat. ager, or the Icelandic g&r) merely a parallel form. It is remarkable that many
beginners are accustomed to cite German words in particular (probably as being the only continental-Teutonic
idiom with which they are acquainted) in order to account for English words; the fact being that no Teutonic
language has contributed so. little to our own tongue, which is, in the main, a Zow-German dialect. as dis-
tinguished from that Hgh-German one to which the specific name ‘German’ is commonly applied. _ In order
to guard the learner from this error of confusing cogua/e words with such as are immediately concerned with the
etymology, the symbol 4+ is used to mark off such words. This symbol is, in every case, to be read as ‘not
derived from, but cognate with. The symbol has, in fact, its usual algebraical value, i.e. plus, or additional ;
and indicates additional information to be obtained from the comparison of cognate forms.
§ 8. Symbols and Etymological References. The symbols used are such as to furnish, 7” every. case,
an exact reference to some authority. ‘Thus the symbol ‘Ital.’ does not mean merely Italian, but that the word
has actually been verified by myself (and may be verified by any one else) as occurring in Meadows’s Italian
Dictionary. This is an important point, as it is common to cite foreign words at random, without the slightest
hint as to where they may be found; a habit which leads to false spellings and even to gross blunders. And, in
order that the student may the more easily verify these words (as well as to curb myself from citing words of
unusual occurrence), I have expressly preferred to use common and cheap dictionaries, or such as came most
readily to hand, except where I refer dy name to such excellent books as Rietz’s Svenskt Dialekt-Lexicon. The
following is a list of these symbols, with their exact significations.
AS.—Anglo-Saxon, or Wessex English in its earliest form. The references are to Grein, Bosworth, or Lye,
as cited; or to some AS. work, as cited, All these words are aushorized, unless the given form is marked by an
asterisk preceding it, to denote that it is theoretical.
Bret.—Breton ; as in Le Gonidec’s Dictionary, ed. 1821.
Corn.—Cornish ; as in Williams’s Dictionary, ed. 1865.
Dan.—Danish; as in Ferrall and Repp’s Dictionary, ed. 1861, or in Larsen (1897).
Du.—Dutch; as in the Tauchnitz stereotyped edition, or in Calisch (1875).
E.—Modern English ; see Webster’s English Dictionary, ed. Goodrich and Porter ; or the Century Dictionary ;
and see N.E.D.
ME.— Middle English; i.e. English from about a.p. 1200 to about a.p. 1500. See ὃ 5 above.
F.—French, as in the Dict. by Hamilton and Legros. The reference ‘ Cot.’ is to Cotgrave’s French Dic-
tionary, ed. 1660; also denoted by MF. (Middle French). Wherever OF. (= Old French) occurs, the reference is
to Burguy’s Glossaire, unless the contrary be expressly stated, in which case it is (in general) to Godefroy, or to
Roquefort.
Gael.—Gaelic; as in Macleod and Dewar’s Dictionary, ed. 1839.
G.—German; as in Fliigel’s Dictionary, ed. 1861.
Gk.—Greek ; as in Liddell and Scott’s Lexicon, ed. 1849-
Goth.—Moeso-Gothic ; as in Stamm’s Ulfilas, ed. 1878.
Heb.—Hebrew ; as in Leopold’s small Hebrew Dictionary, ed. 1872; or in Gesenius (1883).
Icel.—Icelandic ; as in Cleasby and Vigfusson’s Icelandic Dictionary, ed. 1874.
Ir. or Irish.—Irish; as in O’Reilly’s Dictionary, ed. 1864.
Ital.—Italian; as in Meadows’s Dictionary, ed. 1857.
L. or Lat.—Latin ; as in Lewis and Short’s Dictionary, ed. 1880.
Low Lat.—Low Latin; as in Ducange, ed. Favre; 1884.
ME.—Middle-English; see the line following ἘΠ. above.
MHG.— Middle High German ; as in Wackernagel’s Worterbuch, ed. 1861; or Schade ; see OHG. below.
N.E.D.—A New English Dictionary, on Historical Principles ; Oxford, 1888-.
OF.—Old French; as in Godefroy, or in Burguy’s Glossaire, ed. 1870.
OHG.—Old High German ; chiefly from Schade, 2nd ed., 1872-82.
Pers.—Persian ; as in Palmer’s Persian Dictionary, ed. 1876.
Port.—Portuguese ; as in Vieyra’s Dictionary, ed. 1857.
Prov.—Proveng¢al ; as in Raynouard’s Lexique Roman (so called).
Russ.—Russian ; as in Reiff’s Dict. of Russian, German, English, and French, ed. 1876.
xliv KEY TO THE GENERAL PLAN OF THE ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY
Skt.—Sanskrit; as in Benfey’s Dictionary, ed. 1866.
Span.—Spanish ; as in Meadows’s Dictionary, ed. 1856 ; or in Neuman, 1862.
Swed.—Swedish; as in the Tauchnitz stereotyped edition; or in Oman, 1897; or Widegren, 1788.
W.—Welsh ; as in Spurrell’s Dictionary, ed. 186.
For a complete list of authorities, see p. xxx. | The above includes only such as have been used too
frequently to admit of special reference to them by name.
Other abbreviations.— Such abbreviations as ‘adj.’ = adjective, ‘pl.’ = plural, and the like, will be readily
understood. I may particularly mention the following. Cf. = confer, i.e. compare. pt. t. = past tense.
pp. = past participle. q. Vv. = quod vide, i.e. which see. s. V. = sub verbo, i. e. under the word in question.
tr. = translation, or translated. b.(or bk.) = book. ς. (or ch., or cap.) = chapter; somef?mes = canto. 1, = line
s. = section. st. = stanza, A.V. = Authorized Version of the Bible (1611).
§9. The Roots. In some cases, the words have been traced back to their original Indogermanic roots.
This has only been attempted, for the most part, in cases where the subject scarcely admits of a doubt ; it being
unadvisable to hazard too many guesses, in the present state of our knowledge. ‘The root is denoted by the
symbol ¥, to be read as ‘root.’ I have here most often referred to Brugmann, Uhlenbeck, Prellwitz, or Kluge.
§ 10. Derivatives. The symbol ‘Der.,’ i.e. Derivatives, is used to introduce forms derived from the primary
word, or from the same source. For an account of the various suffixes, see Morris’s Historical Outlines of
English Accidence, and Haldemann’s Affixes to English Words; or, for the purpose of comparative philology,
consult Brugmann.
§ 11. Cross-references. These frequently afford additional information, and are mostly introduced to save
repetition of an explanation.
CORRIGENDA
BAROUCHE, |. τ. For (G.—Ital.) read (G.—Ital.—L.)
DEFIN®, |. γ. Insert a comma after dé.
EDUCATE, |. τ. Insert a comma after to cultivate.
FLOTSAM, 1.1. For (AF.—E.) and L.) read (ΔῈ, -- Ἐς and L.)
JAUNT; at the end ofl. 5. For id. read Rom,
TRACK (1), 1.9. For *¢ractiare read *tractiare.
WARE (1) ; at the end. For Weir (1) and Worth read Weir and Worth (2).
*,* For some other corrections see the Supplement ; pp. 777-780.
A
A
A, the indef. article; see An.
A-, prefix, has at least twelve different values in English. a. Repre-
sentative words are (1) adown; (2) afoot; (3) along; (4) arise;
(5) achieve; (6) avert; (7) amend; (8) alas; (9) abyss; (10) ado;
(11) aware; (12) avast. β. The full form of these values may be
represented by of-, on-, and-, d-, ad-, ab-, ex-, he-, an-, at-, ge-, houd.
y. This may be illustrated by means of the examples given; cf. (1)
AS. ofdiine; (2) on foot; (3) AS. andlang ; (4) AS. d-risan; (5) verb
fromF. ἃ chef, L.ad caput; (6) L.duertere, for abuertere; (7) .amender,
from L. émendare, for exmenddre; (8) F. helas, where he is inter-
jectional; (9) Gk. ἄβυσσος, for av-Bvacos; (10) for at do, i.e. to do;
(11) for ME. ywar, AS. gewer; (12) avast, Dutch houd vast, hold
fast. These prefixes are discussed at greater length under the head-
ings Of, On, Along, Arise, Ad-, Ab- (1), Ex-, Alas, Un- (1),
At, Aware, Avast; each being given in its proper place in this
Dictionary. 4 Prefix a (5) really has two values: (@) French, as in
avalanche; (b) Latin, asin astringent; but the source is the same, viz.
L. ad. Similarly, prefix a (6) really has two values ; (a) French, as
in ME. a-soilen, now spelt asso: ; (δ) Latin, as in avert, avocation; the
source being L. ab. > In words discussed below, the prefix has its
numberassigned inaccordance with theabove scheme, where necessary.
AARDVARK, the S. African ground-hog. (Cape Du.) Lit.
‘earth-hog.’ From Du. aard-, for aarde, earth; and verk, for varken,
ahog. See Earth and Farrow.
AB,, prefix. (L.) L.ab, short form a-; sometimes extended to abs-.
Cognate with Skt. apa, away, from; Gk. ἀπό; Goth. af; AS. of; G.
ab; seeOf. Hence numerous compounds, as ab-nse, a-vert, abs-tract,
&c. In French, it becomes a- or av-; see Assoil, Advantage.
ABACK, backwards. (E.) ΜΕ. abak; as in ‘And worthi to
be put abak;’ Gower, C. A. i. 295 (bk. ili. 481). For on bak, as in
‘Sir Thopas drough on bak ful fast ;’ Chaucer, C. T., B 2017, in
the Harleian MS., where other MSS. have abak. — AS. onbac; Matt.iv.
1o. Thus the prefix is a- (2); foron. See On and Back.
ABACUS, a calculating frame; upper member of the capital of
acolumn. (L.—Gk.) See Trevisa, tr. of Higden, vii. 69. L. abacus.
=Gk. aBag (gen. aBaxos), a slab for reckoning on.
ABAFT, onthe aft, behind. (E.) a. From the prefix a- (2), for on,
and -baft, which is contracted from bi-aft, i.e. by aft. ‘Thus abaft is
for on by aft, i.e. in that which lies towards the after part. B. -baft
is ME. baft, Allit. Poems, C. 148 ; the fuller form is daft, with which
cf. ‘He let biaften the more del’=he left behind the greater part ;
Genesis and Exodus, 3277. ME. biaften is from AS. bee/tan, com-
pounded of be, by, and @ftan, behind; Grein,i.53. See By and Aft.
ABANDON, to forsake, give up. (F.—Low L.—OHG.) ME.
abandounen. ‘Bot thai, that can thame abandowne Till ded’=
but they, that gave themselves up to death; Barbour’s Bruce, ed.
Skeat, xvii. 642.—F.abandonner,to give up. —F. ἃ bandon, at liberty,
at one’s disposal; orig. ‘in the power of;’ discussed in Brachet,
Etym. F. Dict. =F. a, prep., and bandon, control, jurisdiction. = L, ad,
to; and Low L. bandum, a feudal term (also spelt bannum) signify-
ing an order, decree; see Ban. @ The F. ἃ bandonis lit.‘ by procla-
mation,’ and thus has the double sense (1) ‘ under control,’ and (2) ‘at
one’s discretion, by permission.’ The former is obsolete in modern
English; but occurs frequently in ME. See Glossary to the Bruce;
and cf. ‘habben abandun,’ to have at one’s will, O. Eng. Homilies, ed.
Morris, i. 189,1. 24. Der. abandon-ed, lit. given up; abandon-ment.
ABASKE, to bring low. (F.—L.) Shak. has ‘ abase our sight so
low;’ 2 Hen. VI, i. 2.15. Cf.‘So to abesse his realte;’ Gower,
C. A. i. t11 (bk. 1. 2063). From a- (5), for F.a-, L. ad, and Base;
in imitation of OF. abaissier, abessier, MF. abaisser, abbaisser, ‘to
debase, abase, abate, humble;’ Cotgrave.—Late L. abassare, to
lower.—L. ad, to; and Late L. bassare, to lower, from Late L.
bassus, low. See Base. Der. abase-ment, A. V., Ecclus. xx. τι.
q It is extremely probable that some confusion has taken place
between this word and to abash; for in Middle E. (in the Northern
dialect) we find abaist with the sense of abashed or dismayed... See
examples under abasen in Matzner’s Worterbuch; and see N. E. 1).
ABASH, to confuse with shame. (F.) ME. abaschen, abaischen,
abaissen, abasen, &c. ‘1 abasshe, or am amased of any thynge;’ Pals-
grave. *Thei weren abaischid with a greet stonying :᾿ Wyclif, Mk. ν.
ABDICATE
| 42. ‘He was abasched and agast ;’ K. Alisaunder, cd. Weber, 1. 224. —
OF. esbaiss-, stem of pres. part. of esbair, to astonish (see note below);
mod. Ε΄. ébahir.— OF. es- (L. ex, out, extremely); and bair, bahir, to
express astonishment, an imitative verb formed from the interjection
bah! of astonishment. Cf. prov. E. bo, boh, interj., a sudden cry to
cause fright; Gk. Boaew, L. boare, to shout out. ΑΕ The final -sk
is to be thus accounted for. French verbs in -ir are of two forms,
those which (like venir) follow the Latin inflexions, and those which
(like fleurir) sometimes add -iss- to the root. See Brachet’s Hist.
French Grammar, ed. Toynbee, § 581. ‘This -iss- is imitated from
the L. -esc-, -isc-, seen in ‘inchoative’ verbs, such as flor-esco, tren:-
isco, and appears in many parts of the French verb, which is con-
jugated to a great degree as if its infinitive were *flewrissir instead of
fleurir. B. An excellent example is seen in dbetr, to obey, which
would similarly have, as it were, a secondary form *obeissir; and,
corresponding to these forms, we have in English not only to obey,
but the obsolete form obeysche, obesche, as in ‘the wynd and the see
obeschen to hym;’ Wyclif, Mk. iv. 40. y. Easier examples appear
in E, abolish, banish, cherish, demolish, embellish, establish, finish, flour-
ish, furbish, furnish, garnish, languish, nourish, polish, punish, all from
French verbs in-ir. δ. We also have examples like admonish, dimin-
ish, replenish, evidently from French sources, in which the termination
is due to analogy; these are discussed in their proper places. J It
is probable that the word to abash has been to some extent confused
with to abase. See Abase. Der. bash-ful (for abashful) ; abash-ment.
ABATE, to beat down. (F.—L.) ME. abaten. ‘To abate the
bost of that breme duke ;’ Will. of Palerne, 1141. ‘Thow.. . abatest
alle tyranne;’ Καὶ. Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1. 7499.—OF. abatre, to
beat down. = Late L. abbattere; see Brachet.—L. ad, to; and battere,
popular form of battuere, to beat. Der. abate-men’, Hamlet, iv. 7.
121; abai-is (below), and F. abatt-oir, a public slaughter-house.
Often contracted to bate, q.v.
ABATIS, ABATTIS, a military defence made of felled trees.
(F.—L.) Spelt abatis in Todd’s Johnson.—F. abatis; OF. abateis
(Hatzfeld). OF. abatre, to beat Gown (above).
ABBESS, fem. of abbot. (F.—L.—Gk.—Syriac.) ME. abbesse, Rob.
of Glouc. p. 370, 1. 7624; Early E. Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 70, 1. 165.
= AF. abbesse; earlier OF. abaesse; see abbesse in Hatzteld.—L. ab-
batissa, fem. in -issa from abbat-, stem of abbas, an abbot. See Abbot.
ABBEY, a religious house. (F.—L.—Gk.—Syriac.) ME, ab-
beye, abbaye. ‘Abbeye, abbatia’ [misprinted abbacia]; Prompt. Pary.
Spelt abbei in the Metrical Life of St. Dunstan, 1]. 39.—AF. abbeie,
abeie, f.; OF. abeie, abaie; Bartsch’s Chrestomathie.—Late L. ab-
batia. — Late L. abbat-, stem of abbas. See Abbot.
ABBOT, the father (or head) of an abbey. (L.—Gk.—Syriac.)
ME. abbot, abbod. ‘ Abbott, abbas;’ Prompt. Pary. Spelt abbod,
Ancren Riwle, p. 314. AS. abbod, abbad; Elfric’s homily on the
Old Test. begins with the words ‘AElfric abbod.’ = L. abbdtem, abbadem,
acc. of abbas, father. — Late Gr. dBBas (gen. ἀββάτ-ος, dBBa5-os) ; see
Ducange.=—Syriac abba, father ; see Romans, vili. 15; Galat. iv. 6.
@ The restoration of the ¢ (for d in AS.) was due to a knowledge of
the L. form; cf. OF. abez ( =abets, pl.), Chanson de Roland, 2955.
ABBREVIATE, to shorten. (L.) Fabyan has abrenyatyd in the
sense of abridged; Henry III, an. 26, ed. 1811, p. 333. Elyot has
‘an abbreuiate, called of the Grekes and Latines epitoma;’ The
Governor, b. iii. c. 25.—L. abbreuidre (pp. abbrenidtus), to shorten,
in Rom. ix. 28 (Vulgate). —L. ad, to; and brewis, short. See
Brief and Abridge. Der. abbrevat-ion, τοῦ. Doublet, abridge.
@ Were adbreuiire would at once become abbreuiare ; cf. Ital. abbo-
nare, to improve, abbassare, to lower, abbellare, to embellish, where
the prefix is plainly ad. @sy The formation of verbs in -a¢e in Eng-
lish is curious; a good example is create, equivalent to L. creare ;
but it does not follow that create was necessarily formed {rom the pp.
creatus, Such verbs in -ate can be formed directly from L. verbs in
-are, by mere analogy with others. All that was necessary was to
initiate such a habit of formation. This habit began with words like ad-
vocate, which was originally a pp. used as a sb., and, secondarily, was
used as a verb by the common English habit of creating verbs from sbs.
ABDICATE, lit.to renounce. (L.) In Levins, Α. Ὁ. 1570; and
used by Bishop Hall, in his Contemplations, N.T., b. iv. cont. 6.
B
2 ABDOMEN
§ 2.—L. abdicat-us, pp. of abdicire (see note to Abbreviate). --
L. ab, from; and dicare, to proclaim. Dicare is allied to dicere, to
say; see Diction. Der. abiicat-ion.
ABDOMEN, the lower part of the belly. (L.) Defined as ‘the
fat which is about the belly ;’ Coles, ed. 1684. Der. abdomin-al.
ABDUCE, to lead away. (L.) Not old, and not usual. Used
by Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 20. § 4; where some edd.
have adduce. More common is the derivative abduction, used by
Blackstone, Comment. b. iv. c. 15, and a common law-term.=—L.
abdicere, to lead away. —L. ab, from, away; and dacere, to lead. See
Duke. Der. abduct, abduct-ion, abduct-or ; cf. the pp. abductus,
ABED, in bed. (Ii.) Shakespeare has abed, As You Like It, ii.
2. 6, and elsewhere; ME. a-bedde, Chaucer, Troil.i.915. The prefix
a- stands foron. ‘Thu restest the on bedde’ = thou restest thee abed ;
Layamon, ii. 372.
ABELE, the white poplar. (Du. —F.—I.) In Kersey (1708). Du.
abeel. OF. abel, aubel (anbel in Godefroy).—Late L. albellum, acc.
of albelius, white poplar; Duc. =L. alb-us, white. See Alb.
ABERRATION, a wandering. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674.—L. aberratidnem, acc. of aberratio.—L. aberrare, to wander
from. =—L. ab, away; and errare, to wander. See Err.
ABET, to incite. (F.—Scand.) Used by Shak. Com. of Errors,
ii. 2. 172. ME, abetten, Sir Ferumbras, 1. 5816 (ab. 1380). [Cf
ME. abet, sb., meaning ‘instigation;” Chaucer, Troilus, ii. 357.]
— OF. abeter, to deceive, also to incite (Godefroy); AF. and OF.
abet, instigation, deceit.—OF. a- <L. ad, to; and beter, to bait.
Cf. ‘Nus ours, quant il est bien betes’=No bear, when he is well
baited; Rom. Rose, 10168. OF. beter is from Icel. beita, to bait,
chase with dogs, set dogs on; lit. ‘to make to bite;’ causal verb
from bita, to bite. See Bait; and see Bet. Der. abetment, AF.
abettement ; abett-or, Shak. Lucrece, 886.
ABEYANCE, expectation, suspension. (F.—L.) A law term;
used by Littleton, and in Blackstone's Commentaries; see Cowel’s
Law Dict., and Todd’s Johnson.—A.F. abéiance, as in the phrase
‘droit ex abéiance,’ a right in abeyance, or which is suspended ; OF.
abeance, expectation; see Godefroy.—F. prefix a- (<L. ad); and
beance, expectation (Godefroy) ; allied to OF. béant, gaping, pres. pt.
of obs. verb béer (mod. F. bayer), to gape, to expect anxiously. = L. ad;
and badére, to gape, to open the mouth, used by Isidore of Seville ;
see Brachet, s.v. bayer. The word badare is probably imitative.
ABHOR, to shrink from with terror. (L.) Shak. has it frequently.
It occurs in Lord Surrey’s translation of Virgil, b. ii. 1. 16; cf. ‘quan-
quam animus meminisse horref;’ Aen. ii. 12. Caxton has abhorryng,
Troy Book, leaf 20, 1. 11.—L. abhorrére, to shrink from.—L, ab,
from; and horrére, to bristle (with fear). See Horrid. Der.
abhorr-ent, abhorr-ence.
ABIDE (1), to wait for. (E.) ME. abiden, Chaucer, C. T.,
E 757, 1106; and in common use. AS. abidan, Grein, i. 12.— AS.
prefix @-; and bidan, to bide. Cf Goth. usbeidan, to expect. See Bide.
Der. abid-ing ; abode, formed by gradation, from the 2nd grade bad.
ABIDE (2), to suffer for a thing. (E.) a. We find in Shak.
‘lest thou abide it deare;’ Mids. Nt. Dream, iii. 2. 175 ; where the first
quarto has aby. The latter is correct ; the verb in the phrase ‘to abide
it’ being a mere corruption, due to confusion with abide (1). B. The
ME. form is abyen, as in ‘ That thou shalt with this launcegay Abyen
it ful soure;’ Chaucer, C.T., B 2orr (1. 13751). This verb abyen is
also spelt abuggen and abiggen, and is common in Middle E.; see
examples in Matzner and Stratmann. Its pt. tense is aboughite, and
we still preserve it, in a reversed form, in the modem ἕο buy off
y-. Hence ‘lest thou abide it dear’ signifies ‘lest thou have to buy it
off dearly,’ i.e. lest thou have to pay dearly for it.— AS. abyegan, to
pay for. ‘Gif friman wid fries mannes wif geliged, his wergelde
abicge’=If a free man lie with a freeman’s wife, let him pay for it
with his wergeld ; Laws of King A‘thelbirht, 31; in-Thorpe’s Ancient
Laws, i. 10.—AS. a-, prefix; and AS. bycgan, to buy. See Buy.
ABIGAIL, a waiting-woman. (Heb.) See T.L.O. Davies, Suppl.
Glossary. From the character Abigail in Beaumont and Fletcher's
Scornful Woman. See 1 Sam, xxv.
ABILITY ; see Able.
ABJECT, mean; lit. cast away. (L.) Shak. has it several times,
and once the subst. abjécts; Rich. II, i. 1. 106. It was formerly used
also asaverb. ‘ Almightie God abiected Saul, that he shulde no more
reigne ouer Israhel;’ Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b. ii. c. 1. § 3.—L.
abiectus, cast away, pp. of abicere, to cast away. —L. ab, from, away;
and facere, to cast. Cf. Jet (1). Der. abject-ly, abject-ion, abject-ness,
abjects (pl. sb.).
ABJURE, to forswear. (L.) Sir T. More has abiure, Works,
p- 214b. Cotgrave has ‘abjurer, to abjure, forswear, deny with
an oath.’ = L. abitirare, to deny. —L. ab, from; and iarare, to swear,
from tvs (gen. furis), law, right. ἀφ In several words of this kind,
it is almost impossible to say whether they were derived from Lat.
| around the mountain, Exod. xix. 12.
ABOUT
immediately, or through the French. It makes no ultimate difference.
Der. abjur-a‘-ion.
ABLATIVE, takingaway. (F.—L.) ME. ablaty/e, Relig. Ant. ii.
14,1. 19.—F. ablavif, ‘the ablative case,’ Cot.=—L. ablatiuus, the name
of a case.—L. ab, from ; and /atum, to bear, used as active supine of
fero, but from a different root. ζάλην is from an older form datum,
supine of /ollere, to lift, take away. Co-radicate words are ‘olerate and
the ME, ¢hole, to endure. See Tolerate. 4 ‘ We learn from a
fragment of Czsar’s work, De Analogii, that he was the inventor of
the term ablative in Latin. The word never occurs before ;’ Max
Miiller, Lectures, i. 118 (Sth edit.).
ABLAZE, on fire. (E.) For on blaze, i.e. in a blaze. ‘Al on
blase ;’ Gower, C. A. ii, 244 (bk. v. 3510). ‘The AS. and ΜΕ. on
commonly has the sense of in, See Abed and Blaze.
ABLE, having power; skilful. (F.—L.) ME. able, Chaucer,
Prol. 584.— OF. able (Godefroy), able; F. habile, ‘able, . . active ;’
Cot. = L. habilis, easy to handle, active. —L. habére, to have, to hold.
B. The spelling able is also found, as, e.g. in Sir Thomas More,
Dialogue concerning Heresies, b. ili.c.16; Works, p. 2452; habilitie,
R. Ascham, The Schoolmaster, ed. 1570, leaf 19 (ed. Arber, p. 63).
Der. abl-y, abil-i-ty (from L. acc. Aabilitatem, from kabilitits).
ABLUTION, a washing. (F.—L.) Used by Bp. Taylor (R.)
ME. ablucioun, Chaucer, C.T., G 856. — Εἰ ablution, = L.acc. ablitionem.
= L. abluere, to wash away.—L. ab, away; and luere, to wash. Cf.
L, /audre, to wash; see Lave.
ABNEGATE, to deny. (L.) Used by Dr. Johnson, 5. v. abjure.
Minsheu (1627) has abnegation.=L. abnegit-us, pp. of abnegare, to
deny.—L. ab, from, away; and negare, to deny. See Negation.
Der. abnega'-ion.
ABNORMAL, irregular. (F.—L.—Gk.) Modern; and very
corrupt (N.E.D.). Made by popular etymology, as if from L. αὐ,
from, and norma, rule (see Normal); but really from F. anormal
(Hatzfeld). — Med. L. anxormalis, by-form of anormalus (Duc.), a cor-
ruption of andmalus (whence Εἰ, anxomal).— Gk. ἀνώμαλος, uneven ; see
Anomaly. § An axom lous word.
ABOARD, on board. (E.) For on board. ‘And stood ox horde
baroun and knyght To help kyng Rychard for to fyght;’ Richard
Coer de Lion, 2543; in Weber, Met. Romances.
ABODE, a dwelling. (E.) The ME. abood almost always has
the sense of ‘delay’ or ‘abiding;” see Chaucer, C. T. 967 (A 965).
Also North E. aba@d, Barbour’s Bruce, i. 142. A verbal sb. from
abide, with the same stem-vowel as abad, the pt. t. of that verb. See
Abide (1). For the modern sense, see John, xiv. 23.
ABOLISG, to annul. (F.—L.) Caxton has the pp. abolysshed,
Eneydos, ch. xxvi (p. 92,1]. 32). Hall, Henry VIII, an. 28. § 8, has
the unnecessary spelling abholish, just as abominate was once written
abhominate. = Ἐς, aboliss-, from inf, abolir; (for the ending -sh see re-
marks on Abash.)—L. abole:c-ere, inceptive form of abolére, to annul.
41 The etymology of abolére is not clear; Fick (ii. 47) compares it
with Gk. ἀπόλλυναι, to destroy; see Prellwitz, s.v. ὄλεθρος. Bréal
derives ab-olére from ab and *vlére as in ad-olére, as if it meant ‘to
check the growth.” See Adolescent. Der. abol-it-ion, abol-it-ion-ist.
ABOMINATE, to hate. (L.) The verb is in Levins, A.D. 1570;
spelt abhominate, p. 41, 1. 30 [not noted in N.E.D. before 1644).
Wyclif has abkominable, Titus i. 16; abhominable, Gower, C. A. 1.
203; ili. 204 (bk. 11, 3107; bk. vii. 3337).—L. abdminat-us, pp. of
abominari, to dislike; lit. to turn away from a thing that is of ill
omen; (forthe ending -ave, see note to Abbreviate.)—L. ab, from;
and Omin-, for Omen, a portent. See Omen. Der. abomun-able,
abomin-al-ton.
ABORIGINES, indigenous inhabitants. (L.) ‘Calling them
aborigines and αὐτόχθονες ;’ Selden’s notes to Drayton’s Polyolbion,
song 8, note 2.—L. aborigines, the ancestors of the Romans, the
nation which, previous to historical record, drove out the Siculi
(Lewis and Short). Coined from L. ab origine, where origine is the
abl. of L. origo; see Origin. Cf. Virgil, Ain. i. 642: Der.
abortgin-al,
ABORTION, an untimely birth. (L.) Abortion occurs in Min-
sheu, ed. 1627; and in Hakewill’s Apology, p. 317 (R.). Shak. has
abortive, L. L. L. 1. 1. 104.—L. ace. abortidnem, from abortio; cf.
abortus, pp. of aboriri, to fail.=L. ab, from, away; and oriri, to
arise, grow. See Orient. From the same stem. abort-ive, -ly, -ness.
ABOUND, to overflow, to be plentiful. (F.—L.) ME. abounden,
Wyclif, 2 Cor. ix. 8. Also spelt habounden, as in Chaucer’s tr. of
Boethius, b. ii. pr. 4, 1. 62.—OF. (and F.) abonder.=L. abundare,
to overflow.—L. ab; and unddre, to flow in waves, from unda, a
wave. See Undulate. Der. abund-ance, q.v.; abund-ant (habundant
in Ch, C. T., E59); abund-ani-ly.
ABOUT, around, concerning. (E.) ME. abuten, Ormulum, 4087 ;
later, abouten, aboute. AS. abitan; as in ‘ abitan pone munt’=
a. Here the prefix a- is short
ABOVE
for ans, another form of on; and we accordingly find also the form
onbiitan, Genesis ii. 11. [A commoner AS. form was ymbiitan, but
here the prefix is different, viz. ymb, about, corres onding to G. um. ]
B. The word biaéan is itself a compound of be, by, and aan, outward.
Thus the word is resolved into on-be-iitan, on (that which is) by (the)
outside. y. Again aan, outward, outside, is an adverb formed from
the prep. a, out. See On, By, and Out. The words abaft and
above have been similarly resolved into on-by-a/t and on-by-ove(r).
See Abaft, Above. 4 Similar forms are found in Old Friesic,
where abefta is deducible from an-bi-efta ; abuppa (above), from an-
bi-uppa; and abuta (about), from an-bi-aita.
ABOVE, over. (E.) ME. abufen, Ormulum, 6438; later, aboven,
above. AS, abifan, AS. Chron. an. 1090. — AS. an, on; be, by; and
ufan, upward; the full form be-wfan actually occurs in the Laws of
Aéthelstan, iv. 4; in Thorpe, i. 224. See About. The word wfan
is equivalent to the cognate G. oben, which is allied to E. over. See
On, By, and Over. Cf. Du. boven, above.
ABRADE,to scrape off. (L.) In Bailey, vol.ii.ed. 1731 (an earlier
notice in N.E.D. under 1677).—L. abradere, to scrape off, pp. abra-
sus. L,. ab, off; and radere, to scrape. See Rase. Der. abrase,
pp- in Ben Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, Act v. sc. 3, descr. of Apheleia ;
abras-ion, in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
ABREAST, side by side. (E.) In Shak. Hen. V, iv. 6.17.
prefix is for an, ME, form of on; cf. abed, asleep, &c.
ABRIDGE, to shorten. (F.—L.) ME. abrege, Hampole, Pricke
of Conscience, 4571; also abregge, Chaucer, C. T. 3001 (A 2999).
“ΟΕ. abrevier (Godefroy) ; also abregier, abrigier.— L. abbreuiare, to
shorten. Der. abridge-ment, Lucrece, 1198. Doublet, abbreviate, q.v.
ABROACH, TO SET, to broach. (Hybrid; E. and F.) ME.
sette abroche, Gower, C. A. ii. 183; (bk. v. 1677). For setten on
broche; cf. the phrase ‘to set on fire.’ From E. ox; and OF, broche,
a spit, spigot. See Broach. S2t abroach is a translation of AF. mis
abroche, Liber Custumarum, p. 304.
ABROAD, spread out. (E.) ME. abrood, Chaucer, C. T., F 441;
abrod, Rob. of Glouc. p. 542,1. 11228, For ox brood, or on brod. ‘'Vhe
bavme thurghe his brayn all on brod ran;’ Destruction of Troy, 8780.
ME. brod, brood is the mod. E. broad, See Broad.
ABROGATE, to repeal. (L.) In Shak. L. L. L. iv. 2. 55.
Earlier, in Hall, Ed. IV, an. 9. § 23. —L. abrogat-us, pp. of abrogare,
to repeal a law; (for the ending -ave, see note on Abbreviate.) —L.
ab, off, away ; and rogare, to ask, to proposealaw. See Rogation.
Der. abrogat-ion, from Εἰ, abrogation, Cot.
ABRUPT, broken off, short, rough. (L.) Shak. 1 Hen. VI, ii. 3.
30.—L. abruptus, broken off, pp. of ebrumpere, to break off. —L. ab;
and rumpere,to break. See Rupture. Der. abrupt-ly, abrupt-ness ;
abrupt, sb., as in Milton, P. L. ii. 409.
ABS., prefix ; sometimes used instead of ab before c and ¢; as in abs-
cond, abs-tain.=L, abs-, prefix. Cf. Gk. ay, allied to ἀπό, trom.
ABSCESS, a sore. (L.) In Kersey, ed. 1715.—L. abscessus, a
going away, a gathering of humours into one.—L. abscédere, to go
away; pp. abscessus.—L. abs, away; cédere, to go. See Cede.
ABSCIND, to cut off. (L.) Bp. Taylor has the sb. abscission,
Sermons, series ii. 5,13. 8 12. The verb occurs in Johnson’s Rambler,
no. 90. § 9. -- L. abscindere, to cut off. —L. ab, off; and scindere, to cut.
Scindere is allied to Gk. σχίζειν, Skt. chhid, to cut; see Schism.
Der. absciss-a, from the L. fem. pp.; absciss-ion, from the pp.
absctssus.
ABSCOND, to hide from, go into hiding. (L.) In Blackstone,
Comment. b. iv. c. 24.—L. abscondere, to hide. —L. abs, away; and
condere, to lay up, to hide, which is from L. con-=cum, together,
and -dere, to put; from the weak grade (dha) of 4/DHE, to put,
place; Brugm. i. § 589. See Do.
ABSENT, being away. (F.—L.) In Wyclif, Philip. i. 27; where
it is taken directly from L.; but the later examples represent F.
absent. L. absentem, acc. case of absens, absent, pres. pt. of abesse, to
be away.=L. ab, away, and *sens, being, which is a better division
of the word than abs-ens; cf. pre-sens, present. See Present. Der.
absence, in Chaucer, C. T., A 1239, from F. absence, L. absentia; absent,
v., absent-er, absent-ee, absent-ly.
ABSOLUTE, unrestrained, complete. (L.) Chaucer has absolut ;
tr. of Boethius, b. iii. pr. 10, 1. 20.—L. absoliitus, pp. of absoluere, to
set free. See Absolve.
ABSOLVE, to set free. (L.) In Shak. Henry VUIL, iii. τ. 50.
The sb. absoluciun is in the Ancren Riwle, p. 346. [The ME. form
of the verb was assoile, taken from the OF .] = L. absoluere, to set free. =
L. ab; and soluere, to loosen. See Solve. Der. absolute, from the
pp. absolitus; whence absolut-ion, absolut-ory.
ABSORB, to suck up, imbibe. (L.) Sir T. More has absorpt as
a past participle, Works, p. 267 c. Caxton has absorbed, Eneydos,
ch. xxvil. (p. 104, 1. 31). —L. absorbére, to suck up. —L. ab, off, away;
and sorbére, to suck up. +Gk. ῥοφέειν, to sup up. Brugm, ii. § 801.
The
ACANTHUS 3
Der. absorb-able, absorb-ent; also absorpt-ion, absorpt-ive ; cf, the
p- absorptus.
ABSTAIN, to refrain from. (F.=L.) ME. absteynen; Wyclif,
1 Tim.iv. 3. The sb. abstinence occurs in the Ancren Riwle, p. 340.
From abstien-, tonic stem of MF, abstenir, variant used in place of
OF. astenir, to abstain; cf, mod. F.abstenir, = L.abstinére, to abstain. =
L. abs, from; and tenére, to hold. See Tenable. Der. abstin-ent,
abstin-ence, from L., abstin-ére; and abstent-ion ; cf. the pp. abstent-us.
ABSTEMIOUS, temperate. (L.) In Shak. Temp. iv. 53. The
suffix -ous is formed on a F. model. = L. ahstémius, temperate, refrain-
ing from strong drink.—L. abs, from; and *témum, strong drink,
a word only preserved in its derivatives ¢émétum, strong drink, and
témulentus, drunken. Cf. Skt. tam, to be breathless, originally, to
choke; ¢amyati, he is exhausted, is beside himself. Der. abstemious-
ness, alstemious-ly.
ABSTENTION;; see under Abstain.
ABSTRACT, a summary; as a verb, to separate, draw away
from. (L.) Shak. has the sb. abstract, All’s Well, iv. 3. 99. The
pp: abstracted is in Milton, P. L. ix. 463. A still older form is
abstracte used as a pp., in the later translation of Higden, Polychron.
vol. i. p. 21, lower text (ab. 1450), 1. g; misdated 1387 in N.E.D.
= L. abstractus, withdrawn, separated, pp. of abstrahere, to draw away.
=L. abs, from; and (rakere, to draw. See Trace, Tract. Der.
abstract-ed, ahstract-ton, absiract-ive.
ABSTRUSE, difficult, out of the way. (L.) In Minsheu, ed.
1627; and Milton, P. L. viii. 40.—L. abstrasus, concealed, difficult,
pp. of abstridere, to thrust aside, to conceal. —L. abs, away; and
tridere, to thrust. Cf. Intrude; and see Threaten. Der. ab-
struse-ly, abstruse-ness,
ABSURD, ridiculous. (L.) In Shak. 1 Hen. VI, v. 4. 137.—L.
absurdus, contrary to reason, inharmonious.—L. ab, away; and
surdus, indistinct, harsh-sounding ; also, deaf. Perhaps absurdus was,
originally, a mere intensive of surdus, in the sense of harsh-sounding.
See Surd. Der. absurd-ity, Ἐς absurdite, Cot.; absurd-ness.
ABUNDANCE, plenty. (F.—L.) ME. aboundance, Wyclif,
Luke xii. 15.— OF. abondance, — L. abundantia, plenty. L. abundant-,
stem of the pres. pt. of abundare, to abound. See Abound.
ABUSE, to use amiss. (F.—L.) ME. abusen; the pp. abused,
spelt abwsy/, occurs in the Scottish romance of Lancelot of the Laik,
1.1207. “1 abuse or misse order a thing;’ Palsgrave. Chaucer has
the sb. abusion, Troilus, iv. 990.— OF. abuser, to use amiss.— L.
abisus, pp. of abiti, to abuse, mis-use.L. ab, from (here, amiss) ;
and wi,touse. See Use. Der. abus-ive, Ἐς, abusif, Cot.; abus-ive-
ness.
ABUT, to project towards, to border on, be close upon. (F.—G.)
Shak. speaks of England and France as being ‘two mighty monarchies
Whose high, uprearéd, and abutting fronts The perilous narrow ocean
parts asunder;’ Prol. to Hen. V, 1.21. ‘The southe hede therof
abuttyth vppon the wey ;’ Bury Wills, p. 52; an. 1479. “5 ΟΕ, abouter
(Godefroy), to fix bounds, to abut upon, also spelt abuter; mod. F.
abouter, to join end to end. OF. a, prefix < L. ad, to, at ; and bout,
an end, allied to F. bowter, OF. bouter, buter, to push, thrust, but, also
to place ; see Butt (1). Der. abut-ment, which is that which bears
the ‘thrust’ of an arch; cf. bu/tress, a support; but see Buttress.
ABY, to pay for; see Abide (2).
ABYSS, a bottomless gulf. (L.—Gk.) Very frequent in Milton,
P. L.i. 21, &c. Spenser has abysse, Teares of the Muses, 1. 260. —
L. abyssus, a bottomless gulf, borrowed from Gk.—Gk. ἄβυσσος,
bottomless.—Gk. d-, negative prefix; and βυσσός, depth, akin to
βυθός and βάθος, depth; and βαθύς, deep. Cf. Bathos. Der.
abys-m, Temp. i. 2. 50; abys-m-al. J The etymology of abysm 15
traced by Brachet, s.v. abime. It is from OF. abisme; from a Late
L. *abyssimus, a superlative form, denoting the lowest depth.
ACACTA, a kind of tree. (Gk.) ‘The Egyptian thorne acacia ;’
Holland, tr. of Pliny, bk. xiii. c.g. Described by Dioscorides as a
useful astringent thorn, yielding a white transparent gum; a descrip-
tion which applies to the gum-arabic trees of Egypt.—L. acacia,
borrowed from Gk.—Gk. ἀκακία, the thorny Egyptian acacia. Gk.
axis, a point, thorn. See Acute. LBrugm. li. § 52. 4.
ACADEMY, a school, a society. (F.—L.—Gk.) Shak. has
academe, L. L. L. i. 1.133 pl. academes, iv. 3. 303; and Milton speaks
of ‘the olive grove of Academe, Plato’s retirement ;’ P. R. iv. 244.
[This form is more directly from the Latin.) Greene has académy,
Friar Bacon, sc. ii. 37. Burton says ‘affliction is a school or academy ;’
Anat. of Melancholy, p. 717 (Todd’s Johnson). =F. académie.=—L.
académia, borrowed from Gk.=—Gk. ἀκαδήμεια, a gymnasium near
Athens where Plato taught, so named from the hero Akadémus.
Der. academ-ic, academ-ic-al, academ-ic-ian.
ACAJOU, the cashew-nut; see Cashew-nut.
ACANTHUS, a plant famous in Greece for its elegant leaves.
(L.—Gk.) In Milton, P. L. iv. 696.—L. acanthus. —Gk. axavOos, the
B2
4 ACATALECTIC
plant brank-ursine. = Gk. ἄκανθα, a thorn, prickle.—Gk. ἀκ-, in axis,
a point, barb. See Acuts.
ACATALECTIC, not catalectic. (Gk.) Formed with Gk. prefix
ἀ-, not, from Catalectie, q. v.
ACCEDE, to come to terms, agree to. (L.) The verb is rare in
early use; but the sb. access is common in Shak. and Milton. In
ME. we have accesse in the sense of a sudden accession of fever or
ague, a fever-fit; as in Lydgate’s Complaint of the Black Knight,
1,136; Chaucer, Troil. ii.1315. This isa French use of the word. =L.
accédere, to come towards, assent to; also spelt adcédere; PP-accessus, =
L. ad, to; and cédere, to come, go, yield. See Cede. Der. access,
access-ary, access-ible, access-ion, acce s-or-y; all from the pp. accessus.
ACCELERATE, to hasten. (L.) ‘To accelerate and spede his
iorney ;’ Hall, Hen. VI, an. 31, 1. 29.—L. accelerare, to hasten; (for
the ending-a/e, seenote on Abbreviate. )=L. ac-(=ad); andcelerare,
to hasten, from celer, quick. See Celerity. Der. accelerat-ion,
accelerat-ive, -or.
ACCENT, a tone. (F.—L.) Shak. L. L. L. iv. 2. 124; and in
Sidney, Apol. for Poetrie, ed. Arber, p. 71, 1. 2.—F. accent, Cot. =
L. accentum, acc. of accentus, an accent. = L. ac-, forad, to; and cantus,
a singing, from caxere, to sing (pp. cantus). See Canorous. Der.
accent-u-al, accent-u-ate, accent-u-at-ion.
ACCEPT, to receive. (F.—L.) ME. accepten, Wyclif, Rom. iv.6. =
F. accepter.— L, acceptare, to receive; a frequentative form. = L. accept-
us, pp. of accipere, to receive.—L. ac-, for ad, to; and capere, to take.
See Capable. Der. accept-able, accept-able-ness, accept-at-ton, accepi-
ance, accept-er.
ACCESS, ACCESSARY ; sce Accede.
ACCIDENT, a chance event. (F.—L.) In Chaucer, C. T. 8483
(E607).—F. accident, —L. accident-, stem of accidens, happening, pres.
pt.of accidere,tohappen. = τι. ac-,for ad; andcadere,to fall. SeeChance.
Der. acct./ent-al; also accidence (French; from L. accident-ia).
ACCLAIM, to shout at. (L.) In Milton four times, but only as
a sb.; Pik. ii...520; iii. 3973 x0455; P.R. ii. 235. The word
acclaiming is used by Bishop Hall, Contemplations, N.T., b. iv. c. 25.
8.4. [The word is formed on a French model (cf. claim from OF,
clarmer), but from the Latin.]—L. acclamdre, to cry out at.—L. ac-,
for ad, at; and clamdare, to cry out, exclaim. See Claim. Der.
acclam-a'-ion; cf. acclimiat-us, pp. of L. acclamare.
ACCLIMATIZE, to adapt to a new climate. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Modern. Formed with suffix -ize (F. -iser, Gk. -c¢eev) from F. ac-
climat-er, to adapt to a climate.—F. a- (L. ad), to; and climat, a
climate; see Climate.
ACCLIVITY, an upward slope. (L.) Used by Ray, On the
Creation (R.) —L. ace. accliu:tatem, from nom. accliuitas, a steepness ;
whence ace/ivity is formed in imitation of a F. model: the suffix -/y
answers to F. -/é, from L, -tatem.—L. ac-, for ad, at; and -clini/as,
a slope, a word which does not occur except in compounds; from L.
cliuus, a hill, sloping ground; properly, sloping. From 4/KLEI, to
lean, slope; whence also L. inclindre, to incline, Gk. κλίνειν, to lean,
and E. Jean. 8.6 Lean (1), Incline, Declivity.
ACCOLADE, thedubbing ofaknight. (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘Accollade,
a clipping about the neck, which was formerly the way of dubbing
knights;’ Phillips (1658). =F. accollade (Cot.), an embrace round the
neck; then a salutation, light tap with a sword in dubbing a knight.
= Ital. accollata, fem. of pp. of accollare, to embrace about the neck
(Florio). —L. ac-, for ad, to, about; and collum, the neck ; see Collar.
ACCOMMODATE, to adapt, suit, provide with. (L.) Shak.
Lear, iv. 6. 81. Spelt accomodate in Palsgrave. = L. accommodare, to
fit, adapt; (for the ending -a/e, see note on Abbreviate.) = L. ac-, for
ad, to; and commodare, to fit, from commodus, fit, commodious. See
Commodious and Mode. Der. accommod-at-ion, accommod-at-ing.
ACCOMPANY, to attend. (F.—L.) Caxton has the pt. t.
acompanyed in his Troy-book, leaf 104, ]. 11.— OF. acompaigner, to
associate with. =F. a, for L. ad, to, beside; and OF. compaignier,
compaigner, cumpagner, to associate with, from compaing, a com-
panion. See Company. Der. accompani-ment.
ACCOMPLICH, an associate, esp. in crime. (F.—L.) Shak.
τ Hen. VI, v. 2. 9. An extension (by prefixing either F. a or L. ac-
=ad, or the E. indef. article) of the older form compiice, which occurs
in Baret (1580).—F. complice, ‘a complice, confederate, companion in
a lewd action;’ Cot.—L. acc. complicem, from nom. complex, an
accomplice, lit. interwoven. —L.com-, for cum, together; and plicare,
to fold. See Complex.
ACCOMPLISH, to complete. (F.—L.) ME. accomplicen, in
Chaucer's Tale of Melibeus (B 2322).—OF. acomplis-, a stem of
acomplir, to complete ; (for the ending -isk, see note to Abash.) =
L. ad, to; and complére, to fulfil, complete. See Complete. Der.
accomplish-able, accomplish-ed, accomplish-ment.
ACCOMPT, an archaic form of Account, q. v.
ACCORD, to grant; to agree. (F.—L.) ME. acorden, to agree;
ACCUSTOM
Chaucer, C, T., B 2137; and still earlier, viz. in Rob. of Glouc. p. 209,
1. 6319; K. Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1. 148.—OF. acorder, to agree.
— Late L. accordare, to agree, used in much the same way as L. con-
cordare, and similarly formed. —L. ac-, for ad, to, i.e. in agreement
with ; and cord-, stem of cor, the heart. Cf. E. concord, discord. The
L. cor is cognate with E. Heart, q.v. Der. accord, sb., Chaucer,
C. T., C 25; accord-ance, accord-ing, according-ly, accord-ant, accord-
ant-ly ; also accord-ion, from its pleasing sound; invented in 1829.
ACCOST, to address. (F.—L.) Shak. Tw. Nt. i. 3. 52, which
see. Spenser has accoste,i.e. border upon; F. Ὁ. ν. 11. 42. —F. ac-
coster, ‘to accoast, or join side to side;’ Cot.—Late L. accostare,
which occurs in the Acta Sanctorum, 111. Apr. 523 (Brachet).—L.ac-,
for ad; and costa, a rib; so that accos/are means to join side to side,
in accordance with Cotgrave’s explanation. See Coast.
ACCOUNT, to reckon, value. (F.—L.) ME. acompten, acounten.
In Gower, C. A. iii. 298 (bk. vili. 701), we find acompteth written,
but it rhymes with svrmonieth. The pl. sb. acountes, i.e. accounts,
occurs in Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 135.—OF. aconter or
acompter (Godefroy); the two forms being still preserved in F.
compter and confer, which are doublets. =F. a, prefix, for L. ad; and
conter, or compler, to count, from L. computare, to compute, count. Sce
Count. Der. account, sb., account-able, account-able-ness, account-ant.
ACCOUTRE, to equip. (F.—L.?) Shak. has accoutred, Jul.
Cees. i. 2. 105.— MF. accoutrer, accoustrer. Cotgrave gives both forms,
and explains accowstrer by ‘to cloath, dress, apparell, attire, array,
deck, trim.’ Marked by Brachet ‘origin unknown.’ β. But a likely
guess is that which connects it with the OF. costre, coustre, nom. case
of OF. costor, coustor (Godefroy), the sacristan of a church. One of
the sacristan’s duties was to have charge of the sacred vestments,
whence the notion of dressing may have arisen. The OF. costre
represents the Late L. cxstor, just as OF. costor represents the acc.
custorem, Ducange (ed. Favre) quotes the Late L. eustor, glossed by
edituus; and it isa yariant of L. eus/és, which was also used in the
same sense of ‘sacristan.’ See Custody. 4 Cf. G. kiister, a sa-
cristan, vestry-keeper; from the same Late L. custor, Der. accou‘re-
ment, Merry Wives, iv. 2. 5.
ACCREDIT, to give credit to. (F.—L.) Not in early use;
added by Todd to Johnson’s Dict. In Cowper, Letter 43 (R.)=—F.
accréditer, to accredit; formed from F. ἃ, to, and the sb. crédit,
credit. See Credit, Creed.
ACCRETION, an increase. (L.) In Sir T. Browne, Vulgar
Errors, b. ii. c. 1. § 13.—L. acc. accrétidnem, from nom. accrétio; cf.
L. accrét-us, pp. of accrescere, to grow, increase. —L. ac- for ad, to;
and crescere, to grow. See Crescent. Der. accret-ive ; and see accrue.
ACCRUE, to grow to, to come to in the way of increase.
(F.—L.) Spenser, F. Ὁ. iv. 6, 18, has both decrewed, decreased,
and accrewed, increased or gathered. Holinshed, Chron, iii. 1135, has
“new accrewes of soldiers,’ where accrew is a sb. MF. accrue, f., ‘a
growth, increase, augmentation ;’ Cot. Orig. fem. of MF. “ accreu,
growne, increased, enlarged, augmented, amplified ;’ (οι. [The E.
word must have been borrowed from the sb., and turned into a verb. ] =
MF. accroistre (Cotgrave), now accroitre, to increase, enlarge; of
which accreu (accru) is the pp.—L. accrescere, to enlarge.—L. ac-, for
ad, to; and crescere, to grow. Seeabove. @ The AF. acru, accrued,
pp-, occurs in the Year-books of Edw. I, ili. 415. Der. crew, q. v.
ACCUMULATE, to amass. (L.) In Othello, iii. 3. 370; Hall
has accumulated; Hen. VII, an. 16. § 1.—L. accumulit-us, pp. of
accumulare, to amass ; (for the ending -aée, see note to Abbreviate.)
=L. ac-, forad, to; and cumulare, to heap up, from cumulus, a heap.
See Cumulate. Der. accumulat-ion, accumulat-ive, -or.
ACCURATE, exact. (L.) In Sherwood’s index to Cotgrave.
Used by Bishop Taylor, Artificial Handsomeness, p. 19; Todd. =—L.
acciratus, studied ; pp. of acctrare, to take pains with. = L. ac-, for ad ;
and curare, to take care, from ciira, care. See Cure. Der. accura‘e-
ness, accurate-ly ; also accur-acy, answering (nearly) to L. accuratio.
ACCURSED, cursed, wicked. (E.) The spelling with a double
c is false, and due to the frequency of the use of ac-=L. ad as a
prefix. ME. acorsien, acursien. ‘Ye schule .. . acursi alle fiztinge ;’
Owl and Nightingale, 1703; acorce, Kob. of Glouc. p. 296, 1. 5993.
- AS. @-, intens. prehix; and curstan, to curse. See Curse.
ACCUSE, to lay to one’s charge. (F.—L.) Chaucer has accused,
accusinge, and accusors, all in the same passage ; sce his tr. of Boe-
thius, Ὁ. i. pr. 4, ll, 80-84. The pt. t. acusede is in the Life of
Beket, 1. 369.—OF. acuser, F. accuser. —L. acciisire, to criminate, lay
to one’s charge. = L. ac-, for ad, to; and cawussa, a suit at law, a cause.
See Cause. Der. accus-able, accus-at-ion, accus-at-ory, accus-er, accus-
at-ive (the name of the case expressing the subject governed by a trans-
itive verb).
ACCUSTOM, to render familiar. (F.—L.) ‘He was ener ac-
customed ;’ Hall, Hen. V, an. 5. 8 6. [The sb. acustomaunce, custom,
occurs in Chaucer's Hous of Fame, 1. 28.]—OF. acostumer (1°. ac-
ACE
coutumer), to accustom.=—F. prefix a, for L. ad; and OF. costume,
coustume, coustome, a custom, Late L. costima, custom, from L. con-
suétiudinem (> costudne, costumne), acc. of consuétido, custom. See
Custom.
ACE, the ‘ one’ of cards or dice. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. as, Chaucer,
C. T. 14579 (B 3851). —OF. as, an ace.—L. as, a unit.—Gk. ἄς,
said to be the Tarentine form of Gk. εἷς, one.
ACEPHALOUS, without a head. (Gk.) In Bailey’s Dict., ed.
1731.—Gk. ἀκέφαλ-ος, without a head; with suffix -ous.—Gk. d-,
privative ; and κεφαλή, the head.
ACERBITY, bitterness. (F.—L.) Used by Bacon, On Amend-
ing the Laws; Works, vol. ii. p. 542 (R.) =F. acerbité, ¢ acerbitie,
sharpnesse, sourenesse ;᾿ Cot.—L. acerbitatem, acc. of acerbitis, bit-
terness. = L. acerbus, bitter.—L. acer, sharp, acrid. See Acrid.
ACETOUS, of the nature of vinegar, sour. (F.—L.) Used by
Boyle; quoted in Johnson.—F. acéteux, ‘sourish;’ Cot.—Late L.
ace‘dsus, vinegar-like. — τς acé¢wm, vinegar. = L. acére, to be sour; cf.
acidus, sour. See Acid. Der. (from L. acét-wm) acet-ic, acet-ate.
ACHE, to throb with pain; as a sb.,a severe pain. (E.) The
spelling ache is non-phonetic, and chiefly due to the attempt to
connect it with the Gk. ἄχος, which is wholly unconnected with it.
In old authors the spelling ake is common both for the verb and the
sb. Strictly, ake represented the verb only, whilst ache (pronounced
nearly as mod. E. archer) represented the form of the sb. in the
Southern and Midland dialects of Middle English. Hence Shak. has
‘When your head did but ake,’ K. John, iv. 1. 41; and ‘ Fill all thy
bones with ach-es, make thee roar,’ Temp. i. 2. 370. The sb. form
is really obsolete, and the verbal form is used both for sb. and verb.
Cf. ‘Ake, or ache, or akynge, dolor;’ Prompt. Parv. B. The ME.
aken, to ache, was a strong verb, forming its past tense as ook, ok,
pl. ooke, oke, oken. ‘She saide her hede oke’ [better spelt ook, pron.
awk]; The Knight of La Tour, ed. Wright, p. 8. ‘Thauh alle my
fyngres oken;’ P. Plowman, C. xx. 159. From AS. acan (pt. τ. dc),
strong verb, to ache; from the same root as L. ag-ere, to drive; see
Agent. Cf. Icel. aka (pt. τ. 6%), to drive. 41 The ME. ache, sb.,
a pain, is regularly formed from AS. @&ce, sb., a pain; which is
derived from the strong verb acan.
ACHIEVE, to accomplish. (F.—L.) ME. acheuen=acheven.
Chaucer has ‘ achewed and performed ;’ tr. of Boethius, b. i. pr. 4,
1. 141. —OF. ac! ever, to accomplish. Formed from the phrase venir
a chef or venir a chief, to come to the end or arrive at one’s object. -
Late L. ad caput wenire, to come to a head (Brachet). See Chief.
Der. achi-vement, Hen. V, iii. 5. 60; also hatchment, q. v.
ACHROMATIC, colourless. (Gk.) Modern and scientific.
Formed with suffix -ic from Gk. ἀχρώματ-ος, colourless. —Gk. a-, pri-
vative ; and χρώματ-, stem of χρῶμα, colour. See Chromatic.
ACID, sour, sharp. (L.) Bacon speaks of ‘a cold and acide
Tuyce;’ Nat. Hist. § 644.—L. acidus, sour.—4/AK, to pierce; cf.
Skt. ag, to pervade; E. to egg on. See Egg, verb. Der. acid-ity,
acid-ify, acid-ul-ate (from L. acid-ul-us, subacid), acid-ul-at-ed,
acid-ul-ous.
ACKNOWLEDGE, to confess, own the knowledge of. (E.)
Common in Shakespeare; cf. ME. knowlechen, to acknowledge.
a, The prefixed a- is due to the curious fact that there was a ME.
verb aknowen with the same sense; ex. ‘To mee wold shee neuer
aknow That any man for any meede Neighed her body,’ Merline, gor,
in Percy Folio MS., i. 450. This aknowen is the AS. oncnaiwan, to
perceive. Hence the prefixed a- stands for AS. on. B. The verb
knowlechen is common, as e.g. in Wyclif; ‘he knouelechide and denyede
not, and he Anoulechide for 1 am not Christ ;” John,i. 20. It appears
early in the thirteenth century, in Hali Meidenhad, p. 9; Legend of
St. Katharine, 1.1352. And hence was formed the sb. knowleche, now
spelt knowledge. See Knowledge. Der. acknowledg-ment, a hybrid
form, with F. suffix; in Hen. V, iv. 8. 124.
ACME, the highest point. (Gk.) Altogether a Greek word, and
written in Gk. characters by Ben Jonson, Discoveries, sect. headed
Scriptorum Catalogus, = Gk. ἀκμή, edge. —4/ AK, to pierce.
ACOLYTE, a servitor. (F.—Late L.—Gk.) ME. acolite, Polit.
Songs, ed. Wright, p. 329; AF. acolyte. Cotgrave has ‘ Acolyre,
Accolite, he that ministers to the priest while he sacrifices or saies
mass.’ = Late L. acoly/hus, borrowed from Gk. = Gk. ἀκόλουθος,
a follower.—Gk. ἀ-, with (akin to Skt. sa-, with); and κέλευθος, a
road, way (with gradation of ev to ov); so that ἀκόλουθος meant
originally ‘a travelling companion.’ The Gk. κέλευθος is cognate
with L. callis, a path; see Prellwitz.
ACONITE, monk’s hood; poison. (F.—L.—Gk.) Occurs in
Ben Jonson, Sejanus, Act iii. sc. 3.1.29. {It may have been borrowed
from the Latin, or through the French.] = F. aconit, aconi/um, ‘a most
venemots herb, of two principall kinds, viz, Libbards-bane and Wolf-
bane ;’ Cot.—L. aconitum.=—Gk. dxévtrov, a plant like monk’s-hood ;
Pliny, Nat. Hist. bk. xxvii.c.3. 4] Pliny says it is so called because
ACROSTIC 5
it grew ἐν ἀκόναις, on ‘steep sharp rocks’ (Liddell and Scott). —Gk.
dxovn, a whetstone, hone. —4/AK, to pierce; Prellwitz.
ACORN, the fruit of the oak. (E.) Chaucer speaks of ‘ acornes
of okes;’ tr. of Boethius, b. ii. met. 5, 1.6. AS. @cern, @cirn; pl.
@cernu, which occurs in the AS. version of Gen. xliii. 11, where the
exact meaning is not clear, though it is applied to some kind of fruit.
Lit. ‘fruit of the field;’ from AS, @cer, a field; see Acre. + Icel.
akarn, an acorn; Dan. agern; Goth. akrana-, fruit, in the comp.
akrana-laus, fruitless. @] The suffix -ern has been changed to -orn,
from a notion that @cern meant an oak-corn; but it is remarkable
that acorn is related, etymologically, neither to oak nor to corn. B.
If it be remembered that acre should rather be spelt acer or aker (the
latter is common in ME.), and that acorn should rather be acern or
akern, it will be seen that akern is derived from aker much in the
same way as silvern from silver, or wooden from wood. Ὑ. The cognate
languages help here. The Icel. akarn is derived from akr, a field, not
from ek, oak, Danish has agern, an acorn, from ager, a field; Goth.
akrana-, fruit, is from akrs, a field. δ. Thus the original sense of
the AS. neut. pl. @cirnu or @cernu was simply ‘fruits of the field,’
understanding ‘field’ in the sense of wild open country; cf. Gk. ἀγρύς,
a field, the country, and ἄγριος, wild. ε. Hence Chaucer's expression
‘acornes of okes’ is correct, not tautological.
ACOTYLEDON, without a seed-lobe. (Gk.)
negative prefix; and Cotyledon, q. v.
ACOUSTIC, relating tosound. (Gk.) In Coles’s Dict., ed. 1684.
“- Gk. ἀκουστικός, relating to hearing (or sound).—Gk. ἀκούειν, to
hear. Der. acoustic-al, acoustic-s.
ACQUAINT, to render known, to make aware. (F.—L.) ME.
aqueynten, earlier acoin'en, akointen. ‘Aqueyntyn, or to make know-
leche, noJifico ;) Prompt. Pary. ‘ Wel akointed mid ou’= well ac-
quainted with you; Ancren Riwle, p. 218.—OF. acointer, acotntier,
to acquaint with, to advise. Late L. adcogni/are, to make known;
see Brachet.— L. adcognitum, accognitum, pp. of accognoscere, to recog-
nise (Tertullian). L. ad, to; and cognitus, known, pp. of cognoscere, to
know, which is compounded of co-, for cum, with, and gnoscere (com-
monly spelt noscere), to know, cognate with E. know. See Quaint and
Know. Der. acquaint-ance, in Chaucer, C. T., A 245; acguaint-
ance-ship.
ACQUIESCEH, to rest satisfied. (L.) Used by Ben Jonson, New
Inn, Act iv.sc. 3 (Lady F.) — L. acguiescere, to rest, repose in. = L. ac-, for
ad ; and quiescere, to rest, from qués, rest. See Quiet. Der. acquiesc-
ence, acqutesc-ent.
ACQUIRE, to get, obtain. (L.) Used by Hall, Hen. VIII, an.
37-§ 18.—L. acguirere, to obtain. = L. ac-, for ad; and querere, to seek.
See Query. Der. acquir-able, acquire-ment ; also acquisit-ion (Temp.
iv. I. 13), acgutsit-ive, acquisit-ive-ness ; cf. acquisitus, pp. of acquirere.
ACQUIT, to set at rest, set free, &c. (F.—L.) ME. acwiten,
aquy/en, to set free, perform a promise. ‘ Uorto acwiven ut his fere’=
to release his companion, Ancren Kiwle, p. 394; ‘wan it agquited be’
= when it shall be repaid; Rob. of Glouc. p. 565, 1. 11881.—OF.
aquiter, to settle a claim. Late L. acqguié/are, to settle a claim; see
Brachet. = L. ac-, for ad; and quiétire, a verb formed from L. quiétus,
discharged, free. See Quit. Der. acquitt-al, acquttt-ance.
ACRE, a field. (E.) ME. aker. The pl. akres occurs in Rob. of
Brunne’s tr. of P. Langtoft, ed. Hearne, p.115. AS. @cer, a field.
OF ries. ekker ; OSax. akkar; Du. akker; Icel. akr; Swed. dker ; Dan.
ager; Goth. akrs; OHG. achar, ἃ. acker. + L. ager ; Gk. ἀγρός; Skt.
ajra-s, Teut. type *akroz; Idg. type *agros. Brugm. i. § 175.
Perhaps originally ‘a chase’ or hunting-ground (cf. Gk. dypa, the
chase) ; later sense ‘a pasture;’ from 4/AG, to drive; L. ag-ere, Gk.
ἄγ-ειν, Skt. aj, to drive. See Act. @ The spelling acre is AF.;
see Year-books of Edw. I. Der. acre-age.
ACRID, bitter, pungent, tart. (L.) Not in early use. Bacon has
acrimony, Nat. Hist. sect. 639. There is no good authority for the
form acrid, which has been made (apparently in imitation of acid)
by adding -d to dcri-, stem of L. acer, sharp; from 4/AK, to pierce.
Der. acrid-ness; acri-mony, acri-moni-ous, trom L. acrimdnia, sharp-
ness. Co-radicate words are acid, acerbity, and many others.
ACROBAT, a tumbler. (F.—Gk.) Modern. Borrowed from F.
acrobate.— Gk. ἀκρόβατος, lit. walking on tip-toe. — Gk. ἄκρο-ν, a point,
neut. of ἄκρος, pointed; and Bards, verbal adj. of βαίνειν, to walk,
which is cognate with E.come. See Acrid and Come. Der. acrobat-ic.
ACROPOLIS, a citadel. (Gk.) Borrowed from Gk. ἀκρόπολις,
a citadel, lit. the upper city.—Gk. dxpo-s, pointed, highest, upper;
and mAs, a city. For ἄκρος, see Acrid. For πόλις, see Police.
ACROSS, cross-wise. (ΕἸ. and Scand.) Surrey, in his Complaint
of Absence, ]. 22, has ‘armes acrosse.’ Formed from the common
prefix a (short for az,a later form of AS. on), and cross; so that
across is for on-cross, like abed for on bed. Thus the prefix is English;
but cross isScand. See Cross.
ACROSTIC, a short poem in which the letters beginning the lines
From Gk. a-,
6 ACT
spell a word. (Gk.) Better acrostich; cf. distich. Ben Jonson has
Acrostichs ; Underwoods, lxi. 39. From Gk. ἀκροστιχίς, an acrostic. =
Gk. dxpo-s, pointed, also first ; and στίχος, a row, order, line. —4/AK,
to pierce; and *stigh, weak grade of 4/STEIGH, to climb, march,
whence Gk. verb στείχειν, to march in order. See Acrid and
Stirrup.
ACT, a deed. (F.—L.) ME. act, pl. actes, The pl. actes occurs
in Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Tale, C. T. 12508 (Ὁ 574).—F. acte.=—L.
ac'a, pl. of actum, an act, thing done, neut. of pp. actus, done. —L.
agere, to do, lit. to drive. + Gk. ἄγειν, to drive; Icel. aka, to drive;
Skt. aj, to drive. —4/AG, to drive; Brugm.i. § 175. Der. act, verb,
whence acet-ing; also act-ion, act-ion-able, act-ive, act-iv-ity, aci-or,
act-r-ess; also act-ual (L. actudlis), act-ual-ity; also act-uary (L.
actudrius) ; also act-u-ate (from Late L. aetuare, to perform, put in
action). From the same root are exact, react, and a large number of
other words, such as acre, &c. See Agent.
ACTINIC, pertaining to the sun-rays. (Gk.) Modern, From
Gk, ἀκτῖν-, stem of ἀκτίς, a ray; with suffix -ic. So also actin-ism,
actino-meter.
ACUMEN, keenness of perception. (L.) It occurs in Selden’s
Table-Talk, art. Liturgy. Borrowed from L. aciimen, sharpness. =
4 AK, to pierce; whence the verb ac-u-ere, to sharpen, ac-i-men,
sharpness, ac-u-s, a needle, with added wu. Brugm. i. § 177. Der.
acumin-ated, i.e. pointed, from the stem acimin-.
ACUTE, sharp. (L.) Shak. L. L. L. iii. 67.— L. acittus, sharp ;
properly pp. of verb acuere, to sharpen. From the stem ac-u-; from
7 AK, to pierce. See Acumen. Der. acute-ly, acute-ness.
AD.-., prefix ; corresponding to L. ad, to, cognate with E. at. See
At. 4 The L. ad often changes its last letter by assimilation;
becoming ac- before c, af- before f, ag- before g, al- before /, an- before
n, ap- before p, ar- before r, as- before s, at- before ἡ. Ex. ac-cord,
af-fect, ag-gregate, al-lude, an-nex, ap-pear, ar-rest, as-stst, at-test.
ADAGE, a saying, proverb. (F.—L.) Used by Hall, Edw. IV,
an. 9. § 17; and in Macb. i. 7. 45. -- F. adage, ‘an adage, proverb, old-
said saw, witty saying ;’ Cot.—L. adagium, a proverb. —L. ad, to;
and -agium, a saying, related to the verb dio, I say.
ADAGIO, slowly; in music. (Ital.). Ital. ad agio, at leisure; lit.
“at ease.
ADAMANT, a diamond. (F.—L.—Gk.) Adamaunt in Wyclif,
Iezek. ili. 9 ; adamant, Chaucer, C. T. 1992 (A 1090). [It first occurs
in the phrase ‘adamantines stan ;” Hali Meidenhad, p. 37. The sense
in Mid.E. is both ‘diamond’ and ‘magnet.’] = OF. adamant (a ‘learned’
form).—L. adamanta, acc. of adamas, a very hard stone or metal. =
Gk, ἀδάμας, gen. ἀδάμαντος, a very hard metal, lit. ‘ unconquerable.’ =
Gk. a-, privative; and δαμάειν, to conquer, tame, cognate with E.
tame. See Tame. Der. adamant-ine, Jer. xvii. 1; from L. ada-
mantinus, Gk. ἀδαμάντινος. Doublet, diamond.
ADAPT, to fit, make suitable. (L.) In Ben Jonson’s Discoveries;
§ exxvill, 4.—L. adap/are, to fit to.—L. ad, to; and apéare, to fit, from
apt-us, fit. See Apt. Der. adapt-able, adapt-at-ion (F. adaptation,
Cot.) ; adapt-abil-ity.
ADD, to put together, sum up. (L.) ME. adden. Wyclif has
addide, Luke, xix. 11, Chaucer has added, Prol. to C. T. 501 (A 499).
“τις addere, to add.=L. ad, to; and -dere, to put, place; see Ab-
scond. Der. add-endum, pl. add-enda, neut. of add-endus, fut. part.
pass. of L. addere; also addit-ion, Antony, v. 2. 164; addit-ion-al;
cf. the pp. addit-us.
ADDER, a viper. (E.) ME. addere, P. Plowman, B. xviii. 352;
and again, in P. Plowman, C. xxi. 381, we find ‘in persone of an addere,’
where other MSS. have a naddere and a neddere. The word addere is
identical with naddere, and the two forms are used interchangeably
in ME. [There are several similar instances of the loss of initial 2 in
English, as in the case of auger, umpire, orange, &c.; see note on N. |
AS, nédre, néddre, an adder, snake; Grein, ii. 275. + Du. adder, ἃ
viper, OS. nadra; G. natter, OUG. natara. Teut. type n@dron-, fem. ;
Sievers, § 276. Allied (by gradation) to Icel. xadr, Goth. nadrs, masc.
Also to Olr. nathir, W. neidr, a snake; and perhaps to L. ndtrix, a
water-snake. See Stokes-Fick, p. 18y. @ Wholly unconnected
with AS. a/for, ator, poison.
ADDICT, to give oneself up to. (L.) Addicted occurs in Grafton’s
Chronicles, Hen, VII, an. 5 (R.).—L. addict-us, pp. of addicere, to
adjudge, assign. L. ad, to; and dicere, to say, proclaim. See Dic-
tion. Der. addict-ed-ness.
ADDLE, ADDLED, rotten, unproductive; unsound. (E.) Shak.
has ‘an addle egg ;’ Troilus, i. 2.145. Here addle was afterwards
lengthened to addled, which occurs in Cowper, Pairing-time Antici-
pated. We find ade eye, i.e. ‘ addle egg,’ in The Owl and Nightin-
gale, 133. Here adel is due to an attributive use of the ME. sb. adel,
filth; so that adel-ey was lit. ‘filth-egg,’= Late L. dvvm arina, urine-
egg, mistaken form of L. duum tirinum, wind-egg ; which was due to
Gk. οὔριον dov, wind-egg, unproductive egg. ME, adel orig. meant
ADJUTANT
‘mud,’ or ‘filth;’ from AS. adela, mud (Grein).
a puddle. See N.E.D.
ADDRESS, to direct oneself to. (F.—L.) ME. adressen. ‘And
therupon him hath adresced;’ Gower, C. A. ii. 295 (bk. v. 5021), —
Ἐς adresser, to address. F.a-, for L, ad; and dresser, to direct, dress.
See Dress. Der. address, sb., Samson Agonistes, 731.
ADDUCE, to bring forward, cite. (L.) Bp. Taylor has adduction
and adductive; Of the Reai Presence, ὃ 11. 37; cf. L. adduct-us, pp. of
addicere, to lead to.—L, ad, to; and dicere, to lead. See Duke.
Der. adduc-ible; also adduct-ion, adduct-ive.
ADEPT, a proficient. (L.) ‘Adepts, or Adeptists, the obtaining
sons of art, who are said to have found out the grand elixir, com-
monly called the philosopher's stone ;’ Kersey’s Dict, ed. 1715.—L,
adeptus, one who has attained proficiency; properly pp. of adipisc?,
to attain, reach to.—L. ad, to; and apisci, to reach. The form ap-isci
is related to apere, to fasten, join, whence aptus, fit. See Apt.
ADEQUATE, equal to, sufficient. (L.) It occurs in Coles’s Dict.
(1684); and in Johnson’s Rambler, No. 17. § 3.—L. adaeguatus, made
equal to, pp. of adaequare, to make equal to. —L. ad, to; and aequare,
to make equal, from aeguus, equal. See Equal. Der. adeqguate-ly,
adequacy.
ADHERE, to stick fast to. (L.) The phrase be adherand to occurs
in The Test. of Love, bk. i. c. 9. 103; and Sir T. More has adherentes,
Works, p. 222 d.—L. adhaerére, to stick to.—L. ad, to; and haerére,
to stick, pp. haesus.—4/GHAIS, to stick; whence also Lith. gaisz-4,
to linger. Brugm. i. ὃ 627 (1). Der. adher-ence, adher-ent; also
adhes-ive, adhes-ton, from pp. adhaesus.
ADIEU, farewell. (F.—L.) Written a dieu, Gower, C. A.i. 251 (bk.
li, 2739).—F. ἃ diex, (I commit you) to God.=L, ad deum, to God.
ADIPOSKH,, fatty. (L.) Bailey (1735) has adipous. — Late L. adi-
posus, fatty. —L. adip-, stem of adeps, sb., fat.
ADIT, access to a mine. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss, (1681).—L,
adit-us, approach.—L adiéum, supine of adire, to go to.—L. ad, to;
and ire, to go.
ADJACENT, near to. (L.) It occurs in Lydgate’s Siege of
Thebes, pt. 1 (R.); see Chaucer’s Works, ed. 1561, fol. 360 back,
col. 1: ‘Adiacent ynto this countree.’=L. adiacent-, base of adiacens,
pres. pt. of adiacére, to lie near.—L. ad, to, near; and iacére, to lie.
Lacére is allied to iacere, to throw. See Jet (1). Der. adjacenc-y.
ADJECT, to add to. (L.) Unusual. Fuller has adjecting ;
General Worthies, c. 24. [Lhe derivative adjective (F. adjectif) is
common as a grammatical term, and occurs in P. Plowman, C. iv.
338.) —L. adiectus, pp. of adicere, to lay or put near.—L. ad, near;
and tacere, to throw, put. See Jet. Der. adject-ton, adject-ive, -iv-al.
ADJOIN, to lie next to. (F.—L.) Occurs in Sir Τὶ More’s Works,
p. 40b. ME. aioynen; the pp. aioynet occurs in The Destruction of
‘Troy, 1135.— OF. ajoin-, a stem of ajoindre, to adjoin. = L. aciungere,
tojointo; pp. adinnc‘us.—L.ad,to; and iungere,tojoin. See Join.
Der. adjunct, adjunct-ive ; both trom pp. adiunctus,
ADJOURN, to postpone till another day. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. aiornen
(ajornen), to fix a day, Kob. of Brunne’s tr. of P. Langtoft, p. 309. —
OF. ajorner, ajurner, properly to draw near to day, to dawn; cf.
Late L. adiorndre, to appoint a day, to adjourn (Ducange). = OF. a-,
for L, ad; and Late L. jurnus (Ital. giorno), a day, from L. diurnus,
adj., daily, a derivative of diés,a day. See jour in brachet ; and see
Journey, Journal. Der. adjourn-ment,
ADJUDGE, to decide with respect to, assign. (F.—L.) ME.
adiugen (=adjugen), or better aiugen( = ajugen); Kabyan,an. 1211-12,
p- 319; Grafton, Hen. II,an.9(R.). Chaucer has aiuged, tr. of Boethius,
bk. 1. pr. 4, 1. 72.—OF. ajuger, to decide. OF. a-, for L. ad; and
juger, to judge. See Judge. 4 Since the F. juger is from the
L. itdicare, this word has its doublet in adjudicate.
ADJU DICATE, to adjudge. (L.) See above. Der. adjudicat-
ion, which occurs in Blount’s Law Dict., ed. 1691.
ADJUNCT, an attendant; Shak. L. L.L. iv. 3. 314. See Adjoin.
ADJUREH, to charge on oath. (L.) It occurs in the bible of
1539, 1 Sam. xiv. 28. Chaucer, Pers. Tale, De Ira (I 603), has ‘thilke
horrible swering of adturacton and coniuracion. = L. adiirare, to
swear to; in Late L., to put to an oath.—L, ad, to; and firare, to
swear. See Abjure. Der. adjurai-ion.
ADJUST, to settle, make right. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave; who
has ‘ajuster, to adjust, place justly ;’ as if from L. ad, to, and tustus,
exact. See Just. But this use was due to a misunderstanding of
MF. adjouster, ‘to adjoine or put unto, also, as ajuster ;’ (οἵ, “ΟΕ,
ajoster, ajuster, ajouster (mod. I*. ajouter), to arrange, lit. to put side
by side. — Late L, adiuxtare, to put side by side, arrange. = L. ad, to,
by; and iuxta, near to. See Joust. Der. adjust-able; adjust-ment.
ADJUTANT, lit. assistant. (L.) Richardson cites a passage
from Shaw’s translation of Bacon, Of Julius Czesar. Adjutors occurs
in Drayton’s Barons’ Wars, bk. iv. st. 11; and ‘Adjuting to his com-
panee’ in Ben Jonson, King’s Entertainment at Welbeck. =—L. adiat-
Cf. Low G, adel,
ADMINISTER
antem, acc. of adiiitans, assisting, pres. pt. of adiiitare, to assist ; fre-
quentative form of adiuudre, to assist.—L. ad, to; and iuuare, to
assist, pp. iétus. See Aid. Der. adjutanc-y; and (from the vb.
adiitare) adjut-or, adjute.
ADMINISTER, to minister to. (F.—L.) Administred occurs in
The Testament of Love, bk. i. 8. 81; and adminis/racion in the same,
bk. ii. 10. 43. ME. aministren, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. iv. pr.6. 62.
“ΟἿ. aministrer.—L. administrire, to minister to.—L. ad, to; and
ministrare, to minister. See Minister. Der. administrat-ion, ad-
ministrat-ive, administrat-or ; all from L. administrare.
ADMIRAL, the commander of a fleet. (F.— Arabic.) See
Trench’s Select Glossary, which shows that the term was often ap-
plied to the leading vessel in a fleet, called in North’s Plutarch the
“admiral-galley,’ i.e. galley of the admiral. Thus Milton speaks of
‘the mast Of some great ammiral;’ P. L. i. 294. ME. admiral, ad-
m'rel, admirail (Layamon, iii. 103), also amircl, amirail. Rob. of
Glouc. has amirail, p. 429, 1. 8460. -- OF. amirai!, amiral; also found
as amiré.= Arabic amir, a prince, an ‘emir;’” see Kich. Dict., p. 171.
The suffix -al (as if from L. -alis) was really due to the frequent use
of the Arab. al in phrases, such as @mir-w’l umara, prince of princes
(Rich. Dict.), amir-al-bahr, prince of the sea, &c., see N.E.D. And
see Emir. Popular etymology confused the am- with F. am- from L,
adm-, and thus produced forms with adm-; it also turned the Arab,
al into Late L. -ald-ns, OF. -ald, -aud. In King Horn, ]. 89, admirald
rhymes with bald, bold ; and in numerous passages in ME., amiral or
amirail means no more than ἡ prince,’ or ‘chief.’ Der. admiral-ty.
ADMIRE, to wonder at. (F.—L.) Shak. has ‘admir’d disorder ;’
Maeb. iii. 4. 110.—F. admirer, ‘to wonder, admire, marvel at ;” Cot.
=L. admirari, to wonder at.—L. ad, at; and mirari, to wonder.
Mirari is from the adj. mi-rus, wonderful; from 4/SMETI, to smile
at; whence also Gk. μειδάειν, to smile, Skt. sm, to smile, smera,
smiling, and E. smirk and smile; Brugm. i. § 389; Prellwitz. Sec
Smile. Der. admir-able, admir-at-ton, admir-er, admir-ing-ly.
ADMIT, to permit to enter. (L.) Fabyan has admytted, atmys-
syon; Hen. III,an. 260-1, p.347; cf. Palsgrave, p. 417.—L. admitiere,
lit. to send to.—L. ad, to; and mittere, to send, pp. missus. See
Missile. Der. admitl-ance, admitt-able; also admiss-ion, admiss-tble,
admtss-thil-ity, from pp. admissus.
ADMONISH, to warn. (F.—L.) ME. amonesten, so that cd-
monish has taken the place of the older form amonest. “1 amoneste,
or warne;’ Wyclif, 1 Cor. iv. 14 (earlier text). ‘ This figure amon-
esteth thee ;’ Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. v. met. 5.1. 14. ‘ He amonesteth
[advises] pees;’ Chaucer, Tale of Melibeus (B 2484). The sb.
amonestement is in an Old Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 28.—OF.
amonester (F. admonester), ‘to admonish, Cot. = Late L. admonestare,
anew formation from L. admonére, to advise. — L. ad, to; and monére,
to advise. See Monition. Der. admonit-ion, admonit-ive, admonit-
ory; cf. the pp. admonitus.
A-DO, to-do, trouble. (E.) ME, at do, todo. ‘ We have othere
thinges at do ;’ ‘Towneley Mysteries (Surtees Soc.), p. 181; and again,
‘With that prynce ... Must we have αὐ do;’ id. p. 227. In course
of time the phrase at do was shortened to ado, in one word, and
regarded as a substantive. ‘Ado, or grete bysynesse, sollicitudo ;’
Prompt. Parv. p. 7. Δ The prep. αἱ is found thus prefixed to other
infinitives, as αὐ ga, to go; Seuyn Sages, ed. Weber, 3017; ‘That es
at say,’ that is to say; Halliwell’s Dict. s.v. af. See Matzner, Engl.
Gram. ii. 2. 58. This idiom was properly peculiar to Northern
English, and is of Scandinavian origin; for the sign of the infinitive
is at in Icelandic, and aft in Swedish.
ADOBE, an unburnt brick dried in the sun. (Span.) Modern. =
Span. adobe, an unbaked brick ; Minshea (1623) has: adobe de barro,
mortar, clay.=Span. adobar, ‘to mend, to botch, to daube;” Min-
sheu. —Span. a, for L. ad; and -dober = OF .douber,todub, See Dub.
ADOLESCENT, growing up. (L.) Rich. quotes adolescence
from Howell, bk. iii. letter 9 (dated 1647); and adolescencie occurs in
Sir T. Elyot’s Govemour, b. ii. c. 4. § 1.—L. adolescentem, acc. of
adolescens, pres. pt. of adolescere, to grow up.=—L. ad, to, up; and
*olescere, to grow, the inceptive form of *olére, to grow; which is allied
to alere, to nourish.—4/AL, to nourish; whence also Icel. a/a, to
produce, nourish, and Goth. alan, to nourish. See Aliment. Der.
adolescence; and see adult,
ADOPT, to choose or take to oneself. (L.) Adopt occurs in Hall,
Hen, VII, an. 7. § 6; and Othello, i. 3. 191. The sb. adopcioun 1s in
Wyclif, Romans, viii. 15; and in the Ayenbite of Inwyt, pp. 101,
102, 146,—L. adop‘aire, to adopt, choose. —L. ad, to; and optare, to
wish, See Option. Der. adopt-ive, adopt-ion.
ADORE, to worship. (L.) See Levins, Manip. Vocabulorum,
Ῥ- 174; adored is in Surrey’s Virgil, tr. of Afn. ii. 7-0; 1. 922 of the
E, version. [The ME. adouren in The Legends of the Holy Rood,
p- 163, was probably taken from the OF. aowrer, with an insertion of d. |
-L. adorare, lit. to pray to.—L.ad,to; and drare, to pray, from ds,
ADVERB i
gen. ris, the mouth; cf. Skt. dsya-, the mouth. See Oral. Der.
udor-at-ion, ador-er, ador-able, ador-able-ness, ador-ing-ly.
ADORN, to deck. (L.) Chaucer has adorneth, Troilus, iii. 2.—
L. adornare, to deck. —L.ad, to, on; and ornare, to deck. See Orna-
ment. Der. adorn-ing, adorn-ment.
ADOWN, downwards. (E.) ME. adune, Havelok, 2735; very
common. AS. of-diine, lit. off the down or hill. — AS. of, off, from ;
and dine, dat. of din,a down, hill. See Down; and A- (1), prefix.
ADRIFT, floating at random. (E.) In Milton, P. L. x1. 832
For on drift; as afloat for on float, ashore for on shore. See Afloat
and Drift.
ADROIT, dexterous. (F.—L.) Used by Evelyn, The State of
France (R.); Butler, Hudibras, iti. 1. 365.—F. adroit, ‘handsome,
nimble, wheem, ready or quick about;’ Cotgrave.—F. ἃ droit, lit.
rightfully, rightly; from ἃ, to, towards (L. ad); and droit, right.
The F. droit is from L. directum, right, justice (in Late L.), neut. of
directus, direct. See Direct. Der. adroit-ly, adrott-ness.
ADSCITITIOUS; see Ascititious.
ADULATION, flattery. (F.—L.) In Shak. Henry V, iv. 1. 271.
ME. adulacioun, Lydgate, Ballad of Good Counsel, 61. - Ἐς adulation,
‘adulation, flattery, fawning,’ &c.; Cotgrave. —L. adilationem, acc. of
adilatio, flattery. —L.adular?, to flatter, fawn, pp. adulatus. Hence
also adulate, adulator.
ADULT, one grown up. (L.; or F.—L.) Spelt adulte in Sir T.
Elyot, the Governour, b. ii. c. 1. 8.2. [Perhaps through the French,
as Cotgrave has ‘ Adulte, grown to full age.’ ]—L. adultus, grown up,
pp- of adolescere, to grow up. See Adolescent.
ADULTERATE, to corrupt. (L.) SirT. More, Works, p.636 ἢ,
has adul/erate asa past participle; Shak. has it both as adj. and verb;
Hamlet, i. v. 42; K. John, iil. 1. 56.—L. adulterdt-us, pp. of adul-
terare, to commit adultery, to corrupt, falsify; cf. L. adulter, an adul-
terer, a debaser of money. B. L. ad-ulterdre was orig. ‘ to change ;’
fiom L, prefix ad, and alterare, to alter; see Alter. (Bréal.) Der.
adulterat-ion ; also (from L., adulterium) the words adulter-y, Winter’s
Tale, ili. 2.15; adul/er-er, adulter-ess; and (from 1.. adulter) adulter-
ous, adulter-ine. The AF. adulterie occurs in the Year-books of
Edw, I, 1292-2, p. 183.
ADUMBRATE, to shadow forth. (L.) Adumbrations occurs in
Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, book iii. c. 26. § 2.—L.adumbrare, to
cast shadow over. =—L. ad, to, towards, over; and umbrare, to cast
a shadow, from umbra,a shadow. Der. adumbrant (from pres. pt.
adumbrans), adumbrat-ion.
ADVANCE, to go forward. (F.—L.) [The modern spelling is
not good; the inserted d is due to the odd mistake of supposing that,
in the old form avance, the prefix is a- and represents the L. ad. The
truth is, that the prefix is av-, and represents the L.ab. The inserted
d came in about A.D. 1500, and is found in the Works of Sir T. More,
who has aduauncement, p. 1369 g. The older spelling is invariably
without the d.] ME. avancen, avauncen. Chaucer has ‘avaunsed and
forthered,’ tr. of Boethius, b. ii. pr. 4, 1. 48. The word is common,
and occurs in the Ancren Riwle, p. 156.—OF. avancer (F. avancer),
to go before.— OF. and F. avant, before. — Late L. ab ante, also writ-
ten abante, before (Brachet).—L. ab, from; ante, before. See Ante-,
and Van. Der. advance-ment, ME. auauncement, Rob. of Glouc.
p- 312, 1.6388; and see below.
ADVANTAGE, profit. (F.—L.) Properly a state of forward-
ness or advance. [The d is a mistaken insertion, as in advance (see
above); and the ME. form is avantage or avauntage.| ‘ Avantage,
proventus, emolumentum ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 17. Hampole has avan-
tage, Pricke of Conscience, 1. 1012; and it 1s common. = OF. and F.
avantage, formed with suffix -age from prep. avant, before. See Ad-
vance. Der. advantage-ous, advantage-ous-ness.
ADVENT, approach. (L.) ME. aduent, Rob. of Glouc. p. 463,
1.9510; Ancren Riwle, p. 70.—L. aduentus, a coming to, approach.
=-L. aduent-us, pp. of aduenire, to come to.—L. ad, to; and nenire, to
come, cognate with E. come. See Come. Der. advent-u-al, advent-
it-i-ous; adventure (below).
ADVENTURE, an accident, enterprise. (F.—L.) [The older
spelling is aven/ure, the F. prefix a- having been afterwards replaced
by the corresponding L. prefix ad-.] Sir ‘. More, Works, p. 761 e,
has adueniure as averb. ‘The old form aventure is often cut down to
auntre. Rob. of Glouc. has the sb. aunter at p. 65 (1. 1482). The
sb. auenture, i.e. occurrence, is in the Ancren Riwle, p. 340.—OF.
aventure, fem., an adventure. = Late L. adwentira, fem. sb., analogous
to L. sbs. in -/ira; see Roby’s Lat. Gram., 3rd ed., pt. i. § 893.
Formed as if from L. aduentir-us, fut. part. of aduenire, to come to,
happen. =L. ad, to; and uenire, to come, cognate with E. come, See
Come. Der. adventure, vb., adventur-er, adventur-ous, adventur-ous-
ness; also per-adventure.
ADVERB, a part of speech. (F.—L.) In Ben Jonson, Eng.
Grammar, ch. xxi; and in Palsgrave, p. 798. Used to qualify a verb;
8 ADVERSE
and adapted from F. adverbe (in Sherwood’s index to Cotgrave).=L.
aduerbium,=—L. ad, to; and werbum,a verb, a word. See Verb. Der.
adverb-ial, adverb-ial-ly.
ADVERSE, opposed to. (F.—L.) ME. aduerse. Gower has
‘Whan he fortune fint [finds] adverse ;’ C. A. ii. 116 (bk. iv. 3403).
Aduersite, i.e. adversity, occurs in the Ancren Riwle, p. 194. Chaucer
has aduersarie, an adversary, C. T. 14596 (B 3868). “ΟΕ, acvers,
generally avers, adverse to. L. aduersus, turned towards, contrary,
opposed to; pp. of aduer’ere, to turn towards. = L. ad, to; and ner:-
re, to turn. See Verse. Der. advers-ary, advers-a'-ive, adverse-ness,
advers-ity. See below.
ADVERT, to turn to, regard. (L.) Aduert occurs in Lydgate,
Beware of Doubleness, l. 45; and in The Court of Love, 1]. 150, writ-
ten after A.D. 1500. —L. aduertere, to turn towards; see above. Der.
advert-ent, advertence, advert-enc-y.
ADVERTISE, to inform, warn. (F.—L.) Fabyan has advert-
ysed, Hist. c. 84. § 2.—MF-. advertiss-, lengthened stem of adv-rtir
(OF. avertir). Cotgrave has ‘ Advertir, to inform, certifie, advertise,
warn, admonish.’ = Late L. aduvertire, used in place of L. aduertere, to
turn towards, advert to. See Advert. [Thus advertise is really a
doublet of advert.] Der. advertis-er, advertis-ing ; also adver‘ise-ment,
in Caxton, Troy-book, leaf 122,1. 8, from MF. advertissement, which
see in Cotgrave,
ADVICE, counsei. (F.—L.) Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 11 a, has
aduisedly. ‘abyan has aduyce, Hen. III, an. 46. § 5. Cotgrave has
‘ Advis, m., advise, opinion, counsell, sentence, judgment,’ &c. B.
But in ME. and OF. there is generally no d. Rob. of Glouc. has auys,
p- 144 (1. 3042).—OF. avis, an opinion ; really a compounded word,
standing for a vis, lit. according to my opinion, or ‘as it seems’ to me;
which would correspond to a L. form ad uiswm. —L. ad, according to;
and xisum, that which has seemed best, pp. neuter of uidére, to see;
from 4/ WEID, to know. See Wit. Der. advise (MF. adviser) ;
advis-able, advis-able-ness, advis-ed, advis-ed-ness, advis-er. See below.
ADVISE, to counsel. (F.—L.) The form advise is from MF.
adviser, a form given by Cotgrave, and explained to mean ‘ to advise,
marke, heed, consider of,’ &c. B. But in ME., as in OF., the usual
form is without the d; avised occurs in Gower, C, A. i. 5 (prol. 65).
The pt. t. avisede occurs in Rob. of Glouc. p. 558 (1. 11694); and the
sb. auys (i.e. advice) in the same, p. 144 (1. 3042). “ΟἿ, aviser, to
have an opinion. = OF. avis, opinion; see above.
ADVOCATE, one called on to plead. (L.) ‘ Be myn aduocat in
that heyé place ;’ Chaucer, Sec. Nun’s Ta., ἃ 68.—L. aduocitus, a
common forensic term for a pleader, advocate, one ‘called to’ the bar.
[Cf. also MF. aduocat, ‘an aduocate,’ Cot.]—L.ad,to ; uocatus, called,
pp- of uocdre, to call. See Voice. Der. advocate, verb; advocace-
ship; advocac-y (MF. advocat-ie, which see in Cotgrave) ; also advowee,
advowson, for which see below.
ADVOWSON, the right of presentation to a benefice. (F.—L.)
Occurs in the Statute of Westminster, an. 13 Edw. I,c. 5; see Blount’s
Law Dictionary. From AF. advoeson, older form avoeson, Stat. of
Realm, i. 293; and see Godefroy. The sense is patronage, and the
corresponding term in Law L. is aduocatio (see Blount), because the
patron was called aduocatus, or in OF. avoue, MF. advoué (Cotgrave),
now spelt avowee or advowee in English. Hence advowson is derived
from L. aduocdtidnem, acc. of aduocitio, and advowee is derived from
L. aduocatus. See Advocate.
ADZE, a cooper’s axe. (E.) ME. adse; the pl. adses occurs in
Palladius on Husbandrie, bk. i. 1. 1161; adese, Wyclif, Isaiah xliv.
13. AS. adesa, an axe or hatchet; Alfric’s Glossary, Voc. 141. 29;
Leda, Hist. Eccl. iv. 3; Grein, p. I.
4EDILE, a magistrate in Rome, a municipal officer. (L.) In
Shak. Cor. iii. 1. 173. —L. edilis, a magistrate who had the charge
of temples, &c.—L. @dés, aedés, a building. See Edify.
f@GIS, a shield. (L.—Gk.) First used by Rowe in 1704 (N.E.D.).
-L. egis, aegis.—Gk. aiyis, the shield of Zeus or Pallas.
AERIAL, airy, high, lofty. (L.—Gk.) Milton has aérial, also
written aéreal, P. L. iii. 445, v. 548, vii. 442; also aery, P. L. i. 430,
775. Formed, apparently in imitation of ethereal (P. L. i. 45, 285,
&c.), from 1,. aérius, dwelling in the air.—L. aér, the air.—Gk. ἀήρ,
air. See Air. Der. From the same L. sb. we have aer-a/e, aer-'fy.
@ From Gk. d7p we have the Gk. prefix depo-, relative to air, appear-
ing in English as aero-. Hence aero-life,an air-stone, from Gk. λίθος.
a stone; aero-naut, I’. aéronaute, a sailer or sailor in the air, from
Gk. ναύτης (L. nauta) a sailor, which is from Gk. ναῦς, a ship ; aero-
static, for which see Static, &c.; aer-ale.
4ERUGINOUS, rusty, as copper. (L.) In Phillips (1658). —
L. @riiginosus, rusty. L. e@riigo (gen. erigin-is), verdigris. = L. @er-,
from @s, aes, brass (L. ae, rather than @).
AERY, lit. an eagle’s nest; also, a brood of eagles or hawks. (F.)
‘And like an eagle o’er his aery (orig. ayerie) towers τ᾿ K. John, v. 2.
149. ‘ There is an aery (orig. cyrie) of young children; Hamlet. ii. |
| Door.
AFFIANCE
2.354. From Med. L. aeria, aria, Latinised form of F. aire ; Cotgrave
has ‘Aire, m. an airie or nest of hawkes.’ Cf. Late L. Grea, a nest of
a bird of prey; of which we find an example in Ducange. ‘ Aues
rapaces ... exspectant se inuicem aliquando prope xidum suum con-
suetum, qui a quibusdam area dicitur ;’ Fridericus II, de Venat. lib.
11: 03: B. The word aire is marked as masculine in Cotgrave,
whereas F. aire, L. Grea, in the ordinary sense of ‘ floor,’ is feminine.
Tt is probable that the Late L. Grea is quite a distinct word from the
classical L. Grea; and some derive F. aire from L. @érium,a hall, a
court, or from agrum, acc. of ager, a field. See Korting, § 828. The
OF, aire was both m. and f.; the former would correspond to L.
atrium, the latter to Gria, pl. taken as fem. sing. The mod. Εἰ, airer,
to make a nest, represents OF. aairier, adaircer; see Godefroy. J The
E. word was sometimes connected with ME. ey, an egg, as if the word
meant an egg-ery; hence it came to be spelt eyrie or eyry, and to be
misinterpreted accordingly.
AESTHETIC, tasteful, refined; relating to perception. (Gk.)
Modern. Formed from Gk. αἰσθητικός, perceptive. —Gk. αἰσθέσθαι,
to perceive. —4/AW ; see Brugmann, ii. § 841. =@ The word was
really introduced from German, the G. word being formed from Greek.
“His Vorschule der /Esthetik (Introduction to A#sthetics);’ Carlyle,
Issay on Richter, in Edinb. Rev., June, 1827, p. 183; Essays, i. 8
(pop. edition). Cf. Baumgarten’s sthetica, 1750. Der. e@sthetic-s,
asthetic-al.
AFAR, at a distance. (E.) For on far or of far. Either expres-
sion would become o far, and then a-far; and both are found; but,
by analogy, the former corresponds better with the modern use; cf.
abed, asleep, &c. Stratmann gives of feor, O. E. Homilies, i. 247 ;
a fer, Gower, C. A. i. 314 (bk. ili. 1039); on ferum, Gawain, 1575 ;
o ferrum, Minot, vii. jo. See Far. f Apparently, of feor became
ofer, and was refashioned as on fer, which became a fer.
AFFABLE, easy to be addressed. (F.—L.) Milton has affable,
P.L. vii. 41; viii.648. =F. affable, ‘affable, gentle, curteous, gracious in
words, of a friendly conversation, easily spoken to by, willingly giving
ear to others ;’ Cot. —L. affabilis, easy to be spoken to.—L. af-, for
ad, to; and fari, to speak. See Fable. Der. affabl-y, affabil-ity,
in Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, bk. i. c. 3. § 3 (F. affabilite = L.
affibilitatem, acc. of affabilitas).
AFFAIR, business. (F.—L.) ME. affere, afere, effer; the pl.
afferes is in P. Plowman, C. vii. 152. Commonest in Northern Eng-
lish; spelt effér in Barbour’s Bruce, vii. 30.— OF. afaire, afeire (and
properly so written with one 7), business; merely the phrase a faire,
to do, used as a substantive, like ado in English for at do; see Ado.
OF. faire=L. facere; see below.
AFFECT, to act upon. (F.—L.) In Shak. it means to love,
to like; Gent. of Ver. iii. 1.82; Antony, i. 3. 71, &c. The sb. affection
(formerly affeccioun) is in much earlier use, and common in Chaucer.
= MF. affecter, ‘to affect, fancy ;’ Cot. —L. affectire, to apply oneself
to; frequentative form of afficere, to aim at, treat.—L. af-, for ad;
and facere,todo,act. See Fact. Der. affect-e1, affect-ed-ness, affect-
ing, affect-at-ion, affect-ion, affect-ion-ate, affec'-ton-ate-ly. Of these,
affectation occurs in Ben Jonson, Discoveries, sect. cxx. headed
Periodi, &c. Also dis-affect.
AFFEER, to assess, confirm. (F.—L.) Rare; but it occurs in
Macbeth, iv. 3. 34; ‘the title is affeer'd.’ Blount, in his Law
Dictionary, explains Affeerers as ‘those that are appointed in court-
leets upon oath, to setéle and moderate the fines of such as have com-
mitted faults arbitrarily punishable. β. Blount first suggests an
impossible derivation from F. affier, but afterwards adds the right one,
saving, ‘I find in the Customary of Normandy, cap. 20, this word
ajfeurer, which the Latin interpreter expresseth by ¢axare, that is, to
set the price of a thing, which etymology seems to me the best.’ =
AF. aferer, OF. afeurer, to fix the price of things officially; Godefroy
(s. v. aforer).— Late L. afforare, to fix the price of a thing; Ducange.
-L. af-, for ad; and forum, or forus, both of which are used synony-
mously in Late L. in the sense of ‘ price;’ the OF. form of the sb.
being fuer or feur, which see in Godefroy. The classical L. is forum,
meaning ‘a market-place,’ also ‘an assize;’ and is also (rarely) written
forus. Allied to L. forés, and E. door; Brugmann, i. § 360. See
¢@s~ The change from L.o to AF. and E. ee is clearly seen
in L. bovem, OF. buef, AF. bef, E. beef The Late L. equivalent of
ajfeerer is affordtor.
AFFIANCE, trust, marriage-contract. (F.—L.) [The verb affy
is perhaps obsolete. It means to trust, confide, Titus Andron. 1.1. 47 ;
also to betroth, Tam. of Shrew, iv. 4. 49.] Both affie and affiance
occur in Rob. of Brunne’s tr. of P. Langtoft, pp. 87, 155. 1, The
verb is from OF. affier, to trust in, also spelt afier; which is from a-,
for L. ad, and jier, formed from Late L. fidare, a late form from L.
fidus, faithful, allied to fides, faith, and fidere, to trust. 2. The sb.
is from OF. afiance, which is compounded of a-, for L. ad, and fiance,
formed from Late L. fidantia, a pledge, security; which is from the
AFFIDAVIT
same fiddre, pres. pt. fidans, of which the stem is fidant-. Thus both
are allied to L. fidere, to trust. See Faith. Der. affiance, verb;
affianc-ed.
AFFIDAVIT, an oath. (L.) Properly the Late L. affidavit =
he made oath, 3 p.s. perf. of affidare, to make oath, pledge. =L. af-,
for ad; and Late L. fiddare, to pledge, from fidus, faithful. See above.
AFFILIATION, assignment of a child to its father. (F.—L.)
The verb affiliate seems to be later than the sb., and the sb. does not
appear to be in early use, though the corresponding terms in French
and Latin may long have been in use in the law courts. = F. affiliation,
explained by Cotgrave as ‘adoption, or an adopting.’ = Law L. affilia-
tidnem, acc. of affiliatio, ‘an assigning a son to;’ Ducange.—LateL.
affiliare, to adopt; cf. the pp. affiliaius. —L. af-, for ad, to; and filius,
ason. See Filial.
AFFINITY, nearess of kin, connexion. (F.—L.) Fabyan has
affynite, c. 134; affynyte is in Rob. of Brunne, Handling Synne,
1. 7379. -- Εἰ affinite, ‘ affinity, kindred, allyance, nearness;’ Cot. =—L.
affinitatem, acc. οἵ affinitas, nearness. = L. aff inis, near, bordering upon.
=L. af-, for ad, near; and finis,a boundary. See Final.
AFFIRM, to assert strongly. (F.—L.) ME. affermen; Chaucer
has affermed; C.T. 2351 (A 2349). It occurs earlier, in Rob, of
Brunne's tr. of P. Langtoft, p. 316.—OF. afermer, to fix, secure. =
OF. a-, for L. ad; and L. firmare, to make firm, from firmus, firm. See
Firm. The word has been assimilated to the L. spelling, but
was not taken immediately from L. Der. affirm-able, affirm-at-ion,
affirm-at-ive, affirm-at-tve-ly.
AFFIX, to fasten, join on to. (F.—L.) ‘To affyxe the desyres;’
Caxton, Golden Legend; The Ascension, § 6. [Not from L, directly,
but from French, the spelling being afterwards accommodated to 1,7
ME. affichen. Gower has ‘Ther wol thei al here love affiche,’
thyming with riche; C. A. ii. 211 (bk. ν. 2520). Wyclif has afficchede
(printed affitchede), 4 Kings, xviii. 16.—OF. ajicher, to fix to.—OF.
a-, for L. ad; and jicher, to fix, from Late L. *figicare (an unauthenti-
cated form) developed from L. figere, to fix. See Fix. Der. affix, sb.
AFFLICT, to harass. (L.) Sir T. More has afflicteth, Works,
p- 1080 g. [The pp. aflyght occurs in Octovian, ]. 191; and the
pt. t. affihte in Gower, C. A. i. 327 (bk. iii. 1422); these are from OF.
aflit (fem. affite), pp. of affire, to afflict. The sb. affliction occurs
early, in Rob. of Brunne’s tr. of Langtoft, p. 202.) —L. afflictus, pp.
of affligere, to strike to the ground.=L. af-, for ad, to, i.e. to the
ground ; and fligere, to dash, strike, pp. flictus. From the same root
arecon-flict, inflict, pro-flig-ate. Der. afflict-1on (L. acc. afflict-idnem,
from pp affiictus) ; also afffict-ive.
AFFLUENCEH, profusion, wealth. (F.—L.) It occurs in Wot-
ton’s Reliquiz, art. A Parallel ; and in his Life of Buckingham in the
same collection (R.). Also in Caxton’s Eneydos, ch. vi. p. 26.—F.
affluence, ‘ affluence, plenty, store, flowing, fulness, abundance ;’ Cot.
σαὶ affluentia, abundance. =L. afflvere, to flow to, abound. =L. af-,
for ad; and fluere, to flow. See Fluent. Der. affluent (from L.
affluentem, acc. of affluens, pres. pt. of affluere) ; afflux, given by Cot-
grave as being also a French word (from L. afffuxus, pp. of affluere).
AFFORD, to supply, produce. (E.) This word should have but
one f. The double f/ is due to a supposed analogy with words that
begin with ας in Latin, where aff is for adf-; but the word is not
Latin, and the prefix is not ad-. Besides this, the pronunciation has
been changed at the end. Rightly, it should be aforth, but the th
has changed as in other words; cf. murther, now murder, further,
provincially furder. From ME. aforthen, to afford, suffice, provide.
‘And here and there, as that my Jitell witte Aforthe may [i. e. may
suffice}, I thinké translate it;’ Hoccleve, Regement of Princes, 1.
2113. ‘And thereof was Peres proude, and put hem to werke, And
yaf hem mete as he myghte aforth [i.e. could afford or provide], and
mesurable huyre ’ [hire]; P. Plowman, B. vi. 200. B. In this word,
as in aware, q.v., the prefix a- is substituted for the AS. prehx ge-,
which in ME. became ye-, later y- or i-, and iforth easily passed into
aforth, owing to the atonic nature of the syllable. We find the forms
yeforthian and sforthien in the 12th century. Ex. ‘thenne he iseye
thet he ne mahte na mare yeforthian’=when he saw that he could
afford no more; Old Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, 1st series, p. 31;
“do thine elmesse of thon thet thu maht iforthiex’ =do thine alms of
that which thou mayest afford, id. p. 37.— AS. ge-fordian (where the
ge- is a mere prefix that is often dropped), or fordian, to further,
promote, accomplish, provide, afford. ‘Hwilc man swa haued be-
haten to faren to Rome, and he ne muge hit fordian’ = whatever man
has promised [vowed] to go to Rome, and may not accomplish it;
AS. Chron. ed. Thorpe, an. 675, later interpolation; see footnote on
p- 58. ‘pa wes gefordad pin fegere weorc’=then was accomplished
thy fair work (Grein) ; ‘ hzefde gefordod, pzet hé his fréan gehét’ =had
performed that which he promised his lord; Grein, i. 401.—AS. ge-,
prefix (of slight value); and fordian, to promote, forward, produce,
cause to come forth, from AS. ford, forth, forward. See Forth.
AFTERMOST 9
AFFRAY, to frighten; AFRAID, frightened. (F.—L. and
Teut.) Shak. has the verb, Romeo, 111. 5. 33. It occurs early. Rob.
of Brunne, in his translation of Ρ. Langtoft, p. 174, has ‘it affraied
the Sarazins’=it frightened the Saracens; and ‘ther-of had many
affray’ = thereof many had terror, where affray is a 50. -- OF. effreier,
effraier, esfreer, to frighten. —Late L. ex-fridire, to break the king’s
peace, to cause an affray or fray ; hence, to disturb, frighten. —L. ex,
intensive prefix; and OHG. fridu (G. friede), peace. See Romania,
1875, vii. 121. Der. affray, sb., also shortened to fray ; afraid, orig.
affrayed, pp. of affray.
AFFREIGHTMENT, the act of hiring a ship for the trans-
portation of goods. (F.—L. and G.) Still in use. Blount gives
affrettamentum, with a reference to Pat. 11 Hen. IV. par. 1. m. 12,
which represents an OF. affretement, the same word as mod. F.
affretement, the hiring of a ship (Littré). Formed with suffix -ment
from OF. affreter (mod. F. affréter), to hire a ship (Littré). =L. af-,
for ad, prefix; and I’, fret, ‘the fraught or fraight of a ship, also the
hire that’s paid for a ship, or for the fraught thereof ;’ Cotgrave.
This fret is of G. origin; see further under Fraught, Freight.
AFFRIGHT, to frighten. (E.) The double / is modern, and a
mistake. The prefix is AS. a-. A transitive verb in Shak. Mids. Nt.
Dream, v. 142, &c. A late formation; from ME. afright, which was
really a pp., and was lengthened to affright-ed by mistake, as in
Othello, v. 2.99. Cf. ME. afright, in Chaucer, Nun’s Priest's Tale,
1.75. AS. Gyrkt (contracted form of d/yrht-ed), pp. of afyrhtan, to
terrify; Grein,i. 19. Cf. ‘pa weardas w@ron d/yrhte, the guards
were affright (frightened) ; Matt. xxviii. 4.—AS. a-, prefix, with in-
tensive force; and fyrhtan, to terrify, from AS. /yrhto, fright, terror.
See Fright. Der. affright-ed-ly.
AFFRONT, to insult, lit. to stand front to front. (F.—L.) The
double f was originally a single one, the prefix beins the F.a. ME.
afronten, afrounten, to insult. ‘ That afrontede me foule’=who foully
insulted me; P. Plowman, C. xxui. 5. The inf. afrounti occurs in
the Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 229.—OF. afronter, to confront, oppose
face to face; also, to slap in the face.— OF. a, to, against; and front,
the front; so that a front answers to L. ad frontem; ct. Late L. af-
frontare, to strike ayainst.—L. ad; and frontem, acc, case of frons, the
forehead. See Front. Der. affront, sb.
AFFY, to trust in; see Affiance.
AFLOAT, for on float. (E.) ‘Now er alle on flote’ =now are all
afloat; Rob. of Brunne’s tr. of P. Langtoft, p. 169. So also on flot,
afloat, in Barbour’s Bruce, ed. Skeat, xiv. 359.
AFOOT, for on foot. (13.) ‘ The way-ferande frekez on fote and on
hors’ =the wayfaring men, afoot and on horse; Allit. Poems, ed.
Morris, B. 79. We still say ‘to go on foot,’
AFORE, before, in front; for ox fore. (E.) ME. afore, aforn.
‘As it is afore seid,’ Book of Quinte Essence, ed. Furnivall, p. 12;
aforn, Kom. Rose, 3952. AS. onforan, ady. in front, Grein, 11. 344.
There is also an AS. form @//oran, prep., Grein, 1.61. See Fore.
Der. afore-said, afore-hand, afore-‘ime.
AFRAID; for affrayed, pp. of affray; see Affray.
AFREET, AFRIT, an evil demon. (Arab.) In Southey, Tha-
laba, bk. xii. st. 19.—Arab. ‘ifrit, a giant, demon, spectre; Rich.
Dict. p. 1016.
AFRESH, anew. (E.) Sir T. More, Works, p. 1390 c; Shak.
Tam. Shrew, i. 1. 143. Either for on fresh or of fresh. Perhaps the
latter, by analogy with anew, q. v.
AFT, AFTER, behind. (E.) Comparison with abaft shows
that aft is shortened from AS. eftan, adv., behind. After answers to
AS. @fler, both prep. and ady.; Grein, i. 53, 54.-I cel. apan (pron.
afvan), ady. and prep. behind; aptr, aftr, aplan, backwards; aftr,
back, in composition; Dan. and Swed. efter, prep. and adv. behind,
after; Du. ackter, prep. and adv. behind; OHG. aftar, prep. and
adv. behind. @ In English, there has, no doubt, been a feeling that
after was formed from aft; but we can only compare the AS. forms
ἰοῦ and eftan. B. Of these, eftan is cognate with Goth. aftana,
from behind, from af/a, behind; and af-ta is from Goth. af, off, away,
with an orig. superl. suffix -ta (Idg. -/o), as in Gk. πρῶ-το-ς, first. y.
Ajter is a comparative form, to be divided as af-ter. The -ter is the
suffix which appears in the Gk. comparative form ἀπω-τέρ-ω, further
off. The positive form af- corresponds to Skt. apa, Gk. ἀπό, L. ab,
Goth. af, AS. of, E. of and off. See Of. Der. after-crop, after-most
(q.v.), after-noon ,after-piece,after-ward,after-wards (q.v.),ab-af! (q.v.).
AFTERMATH, a second crop of mown grass. (E.) In Hol-
land, tr. of Pliny, b.xvil.c.8, Math= AS. méd, amowing; Kemble,
Cod. Dipl. ii. 400; allied to Mow and to Mead (2), q.v. Cf. G.
mahd, a mowing ; nachmahd, aftermath.
AFTERMOST, hindmost. (E.) ‘The suffix -mos¢ in such words
as u/most is a double superlative ending, and not the word most;’
Morris, Outlines of Eng. Accidence, p. 110. ME. eftemeste, Early
Eng. Homilies, ed. Morns, ii. 25. AS. eftemest, eftemyst, last, used
10 AFTERWARD
by lfric and Alfred (Bosworth). Goth. aftumists, the last; also
aftuma, the last, which is a shorter form, showing that aftum-ists is
formed regularly by the use of the suffix -ists (E. -est). @] The division
of aftuma is into af and -tu-ma (see explanation of aft), where af is the
Goth. af, E. of, and -tu-ma is the same as the L. -tw-mus in OL, op-tu-
mus, best, and the Skt. -ta-ma-, a double superl. termination. Thus
aftermost is for aftemest, i.e. af-e-m-est, superl. of af = of, off. See Aft.
AFTERWARD, AFTERWARDS, subsequently. (E.)
ME. afterward, Ormulum, 14793; efter-ward, Ayenbite of Inwyt,
p- 24. The adverbial suffix -s, ME. -es (originally a gen. sing. suffix)
was added at a later time. Shakespeare has both forms; ane the
earliest example of the lengthened form occurs about A.D. 1300, in
the form afterwardes; St. Brandan,1. 10 (N.E.D.). AS. e@fterweard, adj.
behind, Grein, i. 55.— AS. efier, behind; and weard, answering to E.
-ward, towards. See After and Towards.
AGA, AGHA, a chief officer; in Turkey. (Turk.) ‘Tanizaries
... commanded by their Aga;’ Sandys, Travels, 1632, p. 48.— Turk.
agha, master.
AGAIN, a second time; AGAINST, in opposition to. (E.) ME.
(North.) ogain, again ; (South.) ayein, ayen, aye, onyain, generally
written with 3 for y, and very common both as an adverb and prepo-
sition. Also in the (North.) forms ogaines, againes; (South.) ayaines,
ayens, ony@nes, generally written with 3 for y. B. At a later period
an excrescent ¢ (common after s) was added to the latter, as in
whilst from the older form whiles, or in the provincial Eng. wunst for
once; and in betwix-t, amongs-t. Ayenst occurs in Maundeville’s
Travels, p. 220; and ayeynest in Chaucer’s Boethius, bk. i. pr. 3. 51
(MS. Addit. 1034c); it is hardly older than A.D. 1350. γ. The final -es
in ayaines is the adverbial suffix -es, originally marking a gen. singu-
lar. The form ayemmes occurs in Old Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 7 ;
onyenes is in the Ormulum, 1. 249; it is hardly older than A. Ὁ. 1200,
though the word /d-gegnes or togénes is common at an early period.
AS, ongegn, ongéan, against, again, prep. and adv. Grein, il. 344.
OSax. angegin, prep. and ady. again, against; Icel.z gegn, against ;
Dan. igen, adv. again; Swed. igen, ady. again; OHG. ingagene, inge-
gine (mod. Ὁ. entgegen, where the tf appears to be merely excrescent).
4 Hence the prefix is plainly the AS. and mod. E. ox, generally used
in the sense of in, The simple form géan occurs in Cxedmon, ed.
Thorpe, p. 62, 1. 5 (ed. Grein, 1009); ‘he him géan pingade’=he
addressed him again, or in return; cf. Icel. gegn, G. gegen, contrary
to. AS. orgéan seems thus to mean ‘in opposition to.” The orig.
sense seems to have been ‘ina direct line with;’ hence, over against,
opposite; cf. prov. E. gain, direct, straight, Icel. gegn, direct (said
of a path); the orig. Teut. type being apparently *vaginoz, adj. Cf.
Gk. κιχάνω, Ἐκίχημι, Llight upon, I meet with. f The prefix again-
is very common in Mid. Eng., and enters into numerous compounds
in which it frequently answers to L. re- or red-; ex. ayenbile=again-
biting, i.e. re-morse; ayenbuyen, = buy back, i.e. red-eem. Nearly all
these compounds are obsolete. The chief remaining one is ME.
ay-in-seien, now shortened to gain-say.
AGALLOCHUM: see Aloes-wood, under Aloe.
AG APE, on the gape. (E.) In Milton, P.L. v. 357; for on gape;
cf. ‘on the broad grin.’ See Abed; and see Gape.
AGARIC, a kind of fungus. (F.—L.—Gk.) Turner has agarike;
Names of Herbes, p. 9.—F. agaric, ‘agarick, a white and soft mush-
rome;’ (οἵ. «Το, agaricum.—Gk. ἀγαρικόν, a tree-fungus.
AGATS, a kind of stone. (F.—L.-Gk.) Shak. L.L. L. ii. 236.
[Perhaps confused with gagate or gagates, i.e. jet, in Middle English;
see Spec. of Eng., ed. Morris and Skeat, sect. xviii. A. 30, and gagate
in Halliwell.]—MF. agate, spelt agathe in Cotgrave. =—L. achaes, an
agate (see Gower, C. A. iii. 130, bk. vii. 1362) ; borrowed from Gk.
ἀχάτης, an agate; which, according to Pliny, 37. 10, was so called
because first found near the river Achates in Sicily, For the ME.
gagate, see Jet.
AGE, period of time, maturity of life. (F.—L.) ‘A gode clerk
wele in age;’ Rob. of Brunne, tr, of P. Langtoft, p. 114.—OF. aage,
age; fuller form, edage (11th century).—Late L. *etaticum, a form
which is not found, but the ending -a@icum is very common ; for the
changes, see age in Brachet.—L. etd/em, acc. of etas, age; which is
a contraction from an older form evitdis, formed by suffixing -tas to
the stem exi-; from @uum, life, period, age.4+Gk. αἰών (for aifav),
a period; Goth. aiws, a period, time, age; Skt. dyus, life. Brugm.
ii. § 112. Der. age, v.; ag-ed. (See Max Miiller, Lectures, i. 337,
ii. 274, 8th ed.) And see Aye.
AGENT, one who performs or does, a factor. (L.) Shak. Macb.
iii. 2. 53.—L. agentem, acc. of agens, pres. pt. of agere, to do, drive,
conduct; pp. actus.+Gk. ἄγειν, to conduct; Icel. aka, to drive; Skt.
aj, to drive. —4/AG, to drive, conduct. See Brugm. i.175. Der.
agency, from Late L. agentia, a faculty of doing, cf. F. agencer, to
arrange, which see in Brachet; also (from L. pp. acéus) act, act-ton,
ὅτε. See Act. Also, from the same root, ag-ile, ag-ility; see Agile.
AGILE
Also, from the same root, ag-itate, ag-i/alion, ag-ilator; see Agitate.
Also, from the same root, ag-ony, ant-ag-onist; see Agony. Also
amb-ig-uous, q.v.; as well as co-ag-ulate, co-g-ent, co-g-itate, counter-
act, en-act, essay, ex-act, examine, ex-ig-ent, prod-ig-al, trans-act,
AGGLOMERATE, to mass together. (L.) In Coles’s Dict.
(1684). Used by ‘Thomson, Autumn, 766.—L. agglomeratus, pp. of
agglomerare, to form into a mass, to wind into a ball.—L. ad, to,
together (which becomes ag- before g); and glomerdre, to wind into
a ball, from glomer-, decl. stem of glomus, a clue of thread (for
winding), a thick bush, orig. a mass; related to L. globus, a globe,
a ball. See Globe. Der. agglomeration.
AGGLUTINATEH, to glue tovether. (L.) Agglulinated occurs
in Sir T. Browne, Vulgar Errors, b. 11. c. 1. § 14.—L. agglitinalus,
pp. of agglitinare, to glue together. = L. ad (> ag- before g); gluti-
nare, to fasten with glue, from g/iten (decl. stem gliitin-), glue. See
Glue. Der. agglutinat-ion, agglutinat-ive.
AGGRANDISE, to make great. (F.—L.) Young has aggrand-
tze, Night Thoughts, Nt. 6, 1. 111.—F. aggrandiss-, extended stem
of aggrandir, which Cotgrave explains by ‘to greaten, augment, en-
large,’ &c. The older form of the verb was agrandir, with one ρ΄, as in
mod. F.; the double gis due to analogy with L. words beginning with
agg-.—OF.a,to (for L. ad); and grandir, L. grandire, to increase, from
grandis, great, See Grand. Der. aggrandise-ment, in Blount’s
Gloss.
AGGRAVATE, lit. to make heavy, to burden. (L.) Shak.
Rich, 11,1. 1. 43. Spelt agravate in Palsgrave, p. 418.—L. aggra-
udtus, pp. of aggrauire, to add to a load. —L. ad (> ag- before g’) ;
grauare, to load, make heavy, from grauis, heavy. See Grave.
Der. aggravat-ion. @ Nearly a doublet of aggrieve.
AGGREGATE, to collect together. (L.) Aggregate occurs in
Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b. iii. c. 23. § 7. [ΜΕ΄ has the
form aggreggen, from the Ε΄. agréger (which see in Brachet); it
occurs in Chaucer's Melibeus (B 2477).]—L aggregat-us, pp.of aggre-
gare, to collect into a flock.=L. ad (> ag- before σὺ; gregare, to
collect a flock, from grex (stem greg-), a flock. See Gregarious.
Der. aggregate, pp. as adj. or sb.; aggregate-'y, aggregat-ion.
AGGRESS, to attack. (F.—L.) Prior has ‘aggressing France;’
Ode to Qu. Anne, st. 14.—F. aggresser, ‘to assail, assault, set on ;’
Cot.—Late L. aggressdre.— L. aggressus, pp. of aggredior, Lassail. =
L. ad (> ag- before g); gradior, I walk, go, from gradus, a step.
See Grade. Der.aggress-ion, ag gress-tve, aggress-ive-ness, aggress-or.
AGGRIEVE, to bear heavily upon. (F.—L.) ME. agreuen;
whence agreued, Chaucer, C. T. 2059 (A 2057); Rob. of Brunne, tr.
of Langtoft, p. 323.—OF. agrever, to overwhelm.—OF. a, to; and
grever, to burden, injure. =—L. ad, to; graudre, to weigh down, from
grauis, heavy. See Grave. 8] Aggrieve is thus nearly a doublet of
aggravate,
AGHAST, struck with horror, (E.) Misspelt, and often misin-
terpreted. Rightly spelt agast. [Appearing as agazed in Shak.
1 Hen. VI, i. 1. 126, ‘ All the whole army stood agazed ‘on him;’
evidently with the notion that it is connected with gaze.] Shake-
speare did not write this line, as he rightly has gasted for ‘frightened’
in Lear, ii. 1. 57; a word which is often now misspelt ghasted. 1.
ME. agasten, to terrify, of which the pp. is both agasted and agast ;
and examples of the latter are numerous. See Matzner, Altenglische
Sprachproben (Worterbuch), ii. 41. In Wyclif's Bible, Luke xxiv.
37, we have ‘ Thei, troublid and agast, where one MS. has agasted.
‘He was abasched and agast;’ K. Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1. 224.
“So sore agast was Emelye;’ Chaucer, C. T. 2343 (A 2241). ‘ What
may hit be That me agas/eck in mydreme?’ Leg. of Good Wom. Dido,
248. ‘The deouel schal 3et ages/ex ham’ =the devil shall yet terrify
them; Ancren Riwle, p. 212. 2. The simple form gasten also occurs.
“Gaste crowen from his com’=to frighten crows from his corn;
P. Plowman, A. vii. 129. —AS. intensive prefix @-; and g@stan, to ter-
rify, hence, to frighten by torture, torment; ‘hie géeston godes cempan
garé and ligé’ = they tortured God’s champions with spear and flame ;
Juliana, 17; Grein, i. 374. The vowel-change in AS. géstan, EE.
gesten, later ga:ten, is just parallel to that in AS. /éstan, EE. lesten,
mod. E. Jast. The firal ¢in the base gés-t- answers to Idg. -d-, which
appears to be an addition to the root. B. Hence the root is an AS.
g@s-, answering to Goth. gais-, to terrify, which appears in the com-
pound ws-gaiyan, to make afraid. See Brugmann, i. ὃ 816 (2); and
see Ghastly. With the form agazed compare: ‘the were so sore
agased’=they were so sorely terrified ; Chester Plays, ed. T. Wright,
ii. 85.
AGILBF, active. (F.—L.) Shak. has agile once; Romeo, iii. 1.
171.—F. agile, which Cotgrave explains by ‘nimble, agile, active,’
&c.—L, agilis, nimble, lit. moveable, easily driven about; formed
with suffix -és from agere, to drive. —4/AG, to drive. See Agent.
Der. agil-ity, from F. agilité (Cotgrave); from L. agilita/em, acc.
of agilitas,
AGIO
AGIO, difference of value in exchanging money. (Ital.) In Bailey,
vol. ii (1731). Ital. agio, ease, convenience.
AGISTMENT, the pasturage of cattle by agreement. (F.—L.)
See Halliwell; Blount gives a reference for the word, anno 6 Hen. VI.
cap. 5, and instances the verb to agist and the 505. agistor, agistage.
All the terms are Law French. The F. verb agister occurs in the
Year-Books of Edw. I, vol. iii. 231; agistement in the same, iii. 23 ;
and agistours, pl. in the Statutes of the Realm, vol. i. p. 161, an. 1311.
The sbs. are from the vb. agister, lit. to assign a resting-place or
lodging. — F. a (L. ad), to; and OF. giste, ‘a bed, couch, lodging,
place to lie on or to rest in,’ Cotgrave. This OF. giste=mod. kK.
joist; see Joist.
AGITATEH, to stir violently. (L.) Shak. has agitation, Macb. v.
1.12. Agitate is used by Cotgrave to translate F. agiter.—L. agit-
Gus, pp. of agitire, to agitate; which is the frequentative of agere,
to drive. See Agent. Der. agitat-ton, agitat-or.
AGLET, a tag of a lace; a spangle. (F.—L.) Spenser has avgu-
let, Ἐς Q. ii. 3.26. Sir T. More aglet, Works, p. 675 h. ‘A gglot, or an
aglet to lace wyth-alle;’ Prompt. Parv.— F. aigwillet/e, a point (Cot-
grave), dimin. of amguille, a needle; formed by adding the dimin.
fem. suffix -etfe.— Late L. aciicula, for actcu’a, dimin. of L. acus, a
needle. —4/AK, to pierce. See Acid, Acme.
AGNAIL, acorn on the foot(obsole.e); a ‘hang-nail.’ (E.) Much
turns on the definition. In Ash’s Dictionary, we find it to be ‘the
disease called a witlow (sic)’; but in Todd's Johnson it 15 ‘a disease
of the nails ; a whitlow; an inflammation round the nails ;’ without
any citation or authority. The latter definition proves that the de-
finer was thinking of the provincial E. hangnails, more correctly ang-
nails, explained by Halliwell to be ‘small pieces of partially separated
skin about the roots of the finger-nails ;’ an explanation due to a per-
verted meaning (by popular etymology) of AS. anqnegl, of which
the orig. sense seems to have been a corn on the foot, a compressed,
painful, round-headed excrescence fixed in the flesh like an iron nail ;
see E.D. 1). and N.E.D., s.v. agnail. Cf. A.S. Leechdoms, ii. 81,
§ 34. B. The old word agnail really meant a swelling ora corn. It
means ‘a corn’ in Rider's Dictionary, A.D. 1640 (Webster); especially
used of a corn on the foot. Palsgrave has ‘agnayle upon ones too;’
and in MS. Med. Line. fol. 300 is a receipt ‘for agnayls one [on]
mans fete or womans’ (Haliiwell). The fuller form is angnail; see
E.D.D. γ. The sense was much perverted; partly (perhaps) by
confusion with MF. axgonailles, which Cotgrave explains by ‘ botches,
pockie bumps, or sores ;’ partly by comparison with late Gk. mapo-
vuxia, late L. paronychia (Pliny, xxi. 20), as 1f the reference were to
a sore beside the finger-nail ; but chiefly by losing sight of the original
sense of ‘iron nail’ or ‘spike.’ The etymology is from AS, ang-,
painful, compressed, as in ang-sum, narrow, hard ; and negl, an (iron)
nail,spike. See Anzer, Anguish, and Nail. E. Miiller cites, as
cognate words, OHG., ungnagel, prov. (ἃ. anneglen, emnneglen, O. ries,
ongnetl, ognetl.
AGNATEH, allied; as sb.,a kinsman. (L.) ‘ Agnation, kindred;’
Phillips (1658).—L. agnat-us, allied; pp. of agnasci=ad-gnasci.—L.
ad, to; nasci, earlier form guasci, to be born. See Natal.
AGNOSTIC, one who disclaims knowledge of what 1s behind
material phenomena. (Gk.) First used in 1869 (N. E.D.). From
Gk. a-, negative prefix; and Gnostic.
AGO, AGONE, gone away, past. (E.) [Distinct from ygo, the
old pp. of go.] ME.ago, agon, agoon; common, and used by Chaucer,
C.T., A1782. nis is the pp. of the verb agén, to go away, pass
by. Thus we find ‘ pis worldes wele al agoth’ =this world’s wealth
all passes away; Reliquiz Antique, i. 160.—AS. agin, to pass away
(not uncommon) ; Grein, i. 20.—AS. @-, prefix, away; and gan, to
go. See Go. Cf. G. ergehen, to come to pass; Goth. us-gaggan,
to go forth.
AGOG,, in eagerness; hence, eager. (F.) Well known as occur-
ting 1n Cowper’s John Gilpin; ‘all agog, i.e. alleager. Gog signi-
fies eagerness, desire; and is so used by Beaumont and Fletcher:
‘you have put me into such a goz of going, I would not stay for all
the world;” Wit Without Money, iii. 1; near theend. To ‘set agog’
is to put in eagerness, to make one eager or anxious to do a thing.
A-gog, for on gog, is an adaptation of the F. phrase en gogues (Littré),
lit. ‘in mirth.’ Cotgrave has es/re en ses gogues, ‘to be frolick, ... in
a veine of mirth.’ Cf, Norm. dial. ex gogue, mirthful, goguer, to be
mirthful (Moisy). The origin of OF. gogue, mirth, diversion, is un-
known. (Perhaps cf. Breton gézé, trickery, raillery.)
AGONY, great pain. (F.—L.—Gk.) The use of agonie by
Gower, C. A. 1. 74 (bk. i. 968) shows that the word was not derived
directly from Gk., but from French. Wyclif employs agonye in Luke
xxli. 43, where the Vulgate has ‘factus in agonia.’—F. agonie (Cot-
grave).—L. agdnia, borrowed from Gk. ἀγωνία, agony; orig. a con-
test, wrestling, struggle.— Gk. ἀγών, (1) an assembly, (2) an arena
for combatants, (3) a contest, wrestle. — Gk. ἄγειν, to drive, lead. =
AIL 11
WAG, to drive. See Agent. Der. agonise, from F. agoniser, ‘to
grieve extreamly, to be much perplexed’ (Cotgrave) ; whence agonis-
ing, agonts-ing-ly; Agonistes, directly from Gk. ἀγωνιστής, a champion,
Also ant-ayon-ist, ant-agon-tstic, ant-agon-ism.
AGOUTI, a rodent animal, of the guinea-pig family. (F.—Span.
—Brazil.) Spelt agouty in Bailey, vol. ii. (1731).—F. agouti. — Span.
agutt.— Brazil. acuti, agutt; Hist. Nat. Brasiliz, ii. 224.
AGRAFFE, a kind of clasp. (F.—OHG.} In Scott, Ivanhoe,
ch. 8.—F. agrafe, also agraphe (Cot.), a hook, clasp; agrafer, to
clasp. The verb is from F. a, for L. ad, to; and MHG. krap’e, OHG.
crapo, chrapfo, a hook, which is allied to E. cramp.
AGRARIAN, pertaining to land. (L.) ‘The Agrarian Law;’
Phillips (1658).—L. agrart-us, pertaining to land; with suffix -an
(L. -anus). —L. agr-, for ager, field; with suffix -arius. See Acre,
AGREE, to accord. (F.—L). ΜΕ. agreén, to assent. ‘ That
... Ye wolde somtyme freendly on me see And thanne agreén that I
may ben he ;’ Chaucer, Troilus, iii. 131. Chaucer also has agreablely,
graciously, tr. of Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 4. 92, whence mod. E. agree-
ably. —OF. agreer, to receive favourably ; a verb made up from the
phiase ἃ gre.—OF. a gre, favourably, according to one’s pleasure ;
composed of prep. ἃ, according to (L. ad), and gre, also gret, greit,
pleasure, from L. neuter gratum, an obligation, favour; from grdatus,
pleasing. See Grateful. Der. agree-able (F.), agree-able-ness,
agree-ment; also dty-agree, dis-agree-able, dis-agree-ment,
AGRICULTURE, the art of cultivating fields. (L.) Used by
Sir T, Browne, Vulg. Errors, bk. vi.c. 3. § 7.—L. agricultira (Cicero).
-L. agri, gen. of ager,a field; cultura, culture. Ager is cognate
with E. acre; cultira is from L. colere, to till, pp. cult-us. See Acre
and Culture. Der. agricultur-al, agricultur-tst.
AGRIMONY, a plant. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. agremoine, egre-
motne, Chaucer, C.T. 16268 (G 800).—MF. agrimoine. aigremotne,
“agrimony, or egrimony ;’ Cot. Late L. agrimonia, corruption of L.
argemoma, a plant, Pliny, xxv. 9 (Lewis). We also find L. argeméné,
Pliny, xxvi. 9, answering to a Gk. ἀργεμώνη.
AGROUND, on the ground. (E.) For on ground. ‘On grounde
and on lofte,’ i.e. aground and aloft; Piers Plowman, A. i. 88; the
B-text reads ‘ agrounde and aloft,’ i. go.
AGUE, a fever-fit, (F.—L.) ME. agu, ague. Spelt agu in Rich.
Coer de Lion, ed. Weber, 1. 3046. “ Brennyng agues,’ P. Plowman,
B. xx. 83. ‘Agwe, sekenes, acuta, querquera;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 8.
‘A fever terciane Or an agu;’ Chaucer, C. T. 14965 (B 4149). = OF.
ague, sharp, acute, fem. of agu (mod. F. aign).—L. aciita, fem. of
actitus, acute. The explanation 1s found in Ducange, who speaks
of ‘febris acava,’ a violent tever; the Prompt. Parv. gives L. acuta as
the equivalent of ME. agwe. 4/AK, to be sharp. See Acute.
AH! an interjection. (.—L.) Not in AS.‘ He bleynte and eryde
a! As though he stongen were unto the herte,’ Chaucer, C. T. 1080
(A 1078). In the r2th century we find awak or a wey, i.e. ah! woe!
See Old Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 25,29. —OF. a, interjection. = L.
ah, interjection. Gr. a, int.; Skt. ἃ, i.t.; Icel. ὦ, az, int.; OHG.a,
int.; Lithuanian a, da, int. See Fick,i. 4. We also find ME.a ha!
asin Towneley Myst. p. 214. ‘This is formed by combining a with
ha! Matzner remarks that aha! in Mid. English denotes satisfaction
orirony. See Ha!
AHEAD, in front. (E.) Prob. for on head, where on signifies in,
as common in ΜΕ. ; cf. afoot, abed, &c. Used by Milton, on the
Doctrine of Divorce (R.); and Dryden, Ain., bk. v. 1. 206. See Head.
AHOY, interj. esp. used in hailing a boat. (E.) The prefixed a-
is here a mere interjectional addition, to give the word more force;
and Aoy! 15 a natural exclamation, which occurs in P. Plowman, C. 1x.
123; where the B-text has Aow! and the A-text has key! Cf.mod. E. A: /
AIT, a three-toed sloth. (Biazil.) Brazil. αἱ, a kind of sloth; Hist.
Nat. Brasiliz, ii. 221. Named from its cry.
AID, to help. (F.—L.) Palsgraye has ; ‘I ayde orhelpe;’ p. 410.
= OF, ader, to aid.—L. adiiitare, to aid, in Late L. atitare, after-
wards shortened to aitare; see Brachet. Aditare is the frequent.
form of adiuudre, to assist. —L.ad, to; and inuare, to help, pp. :afus.
Cf. Brugm. ii. § 583. See Adjutant. Der. a:d,sb.; also F. aide-
de-camp, lit. one who aids in the field. From the same root, adjutant.
AIGRETTE, a tuft of feathers (ong. those of the egret) ; a spray
of gems. (F.-OHG.) ‘ Aigrettes by Omrahs worn, Wrought of rare
gems ;’ Scott, Vision of Don Roderick, 1i. 31.— F. aigretée, the lesser
white heron; see Egret.
AIL, to feel pain; to give pain. (E.) ME. eilen, rarely ailen. ‘ What
eyleth thee?’ Chaucer,C.T., A 1081. Spelt e3/en, Ormulum, 4767. AS.
eg/an, to trouble, pain; Grein, i. 222. From AS. egle, troublesome,
hostile.-- Goth. ag/jan, only in the comp. ws-ag/jan, to distress, to weary
out, Luke, xviii. 5 ; from aglus, difficult, hard ; cf.ag/6,anguish ; aglitha,
tribulation. Froma stem ag-, with Idg. adj. suffix -Ju- ; see Brugmann,
i. § 107. The stem ag- appears in Icel. ag-z, mod. E.awe, and in AS.
eg-esa, awe, terror, distress, eg-sia, to frighten; also in Goth. ag-ts,
12 AIM
fright, af-ag-jan, to terrify; also in Gk. ay-os, distress, pain. See Awe.
Der. ail-ment, in Kersey, a hybrid compound, with F. suffix.
AIM, to endeavour after. (F.—L.) ME. amen, aimen, eimen, to
guess at, to estimate, to intend. ‘No mon vpon mold might ayme
thenumber ;’ Will. of Palerne, 1596, 3819, 3875. Wyclif has eymeth,
Levit. xxvii. 8. ‘Gessyn or amyn, estimo, arbitror;’ Prompt. Parv.
p. 190. ‘I ayme, I mente or gesse to hyt a thynge;’ Palsgrave.
“After the mesure and eymyng [L.aestimationem ] of the synne;’ Wycl.
Levit. v. 18; cf. xxvii. 2, 8.—OF. aesmer, to estimate; prob. confused
with esmer (without a-, prefix). (Cotgrave has ‘esmer, to aime, or
levell at; to make an offer to strike, to purpose, determine, intend ;”
also ‘ esme, an aime, or levell taken; also, a purpose, intention, deter-
mination.’] The s was dropped in English befoze m just as in blame,
from OF. blasmer, emerald from OF. esmeralde, ammell (i.e. en-ame!)
from OF. esmail (translated by Cotgrave, ‘ammell or enammell’), &c.
The OF. esmer=L. @stimare, but OF. aesmer = L. ad@estimare ; yet
they may have been confused. There wasalso a form eesmer, by-form
of aesmer. See examples in Godefroy. - L. ad-; and estimare, to esti-
mate. See Estimate. Der. aim, sb., aim-less.
AIR (1), the atmosphere, &c. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. air, eir. Spelt
ayr in Mandeville’s Travels, p. 312; eyre in Chaucer, C. T., G 767
(Can. Yeom. Tale). —F. air, air.»»L. der, air.—Gk. ἀήρ, air, mist ;
allied to ἄημι, 1 blow; see Prellwitz. Cf. Skt. va, to blow, and E.
wind, q.v. Der. air, verb, air-y, air-less, air-gun, &c.
AIR (2), demeanour; tune; anaffected manner. (F.—L.—Gk.)
As in the phrase ‘to give oneself airs,’ &c. ‘ His very air ;’ Shak.
Wint. Tale, v. 1. 128.—F. air, mien, tune (see Cot.). Affected by
Ital. aria, ‘a looke, .. . a tune;’ Florio.—L. deria, fem. of derius,
adj. formed from aér.—Gk. ἀήρ, air. See Air (1).
ATRT, a point of the compass. (Gael.) In Burns, I love my Jean,
1.1; ME. art, Blind Harry, Wallace, i. 309. — Gael. aird, a quarter or
point of the compass. Cf. O. Irish aird, a point, limit. Some com-
pare Gk. ἄρδις, a point.
AISLE, the wing of a church. (F.—L.) Spelt aisle in Gray’s
Elegy and by Addison; see Richardson. Spelt ele in 1370; ell in
1410; also ile, isle.m Ἐς aile,a wing.—L. ala,a wing ; the longa being
due to contraction. It is no doubt contracted from *ax/a or *acsla,
whence the dimin, axi//a,a wing; see Cicero, Orat. 45.153; Brugm.
i. § 490. The proper meaning of *acs/d is rather ‘ shoulder-blade’ or
‘shoulder;’ cf. G. achsel. It is a diminutive of L. axis, a word bor-
rowed by us from that language. See Axisand Axle. (Max Miiller
quotes the passage from Cicero; see his Lectures, ii. 309, 8th ed.)
@ The word ais/e was confused with Late L. ascella, a form of axilla ;
with ἘΝ isle (L. insula), to which word it owes its present pronunciation ;
and even with E. alley; see N.E.D. Thespelling is a cross between
aile and isle.
AIT, a small island. (E.) ME. eit, eit; Layamon, 1117, 23873.
From *éget, by-form of yget, AF. form of AS. iggad, igeod, an island,
from AS. ig, O.Merc. ég, island; see Byotand Island. The form
yget occurs in Kemble, Cod. Dipl. v. 17, 1. 30.
AITCH-BONE, the rump-bone. (Hybrid; F.—L. and E.)
Miss Baker, in her Northamp. Gloss., gives ‘ aitch-bone, the extreme
end of a rump of beef, cut obliquely.’ It also appears as edge-bone
(Webster), ice-bone (Forby), nache-bone (Carr’s Craven Glossary). All!
the forms are corruptions of nache-bone, i.e. rump-bone. The nache
is ‘the point of the rump;’ Old Country Words, E. D.S.,p.97. We
find nache also in Fitzherbert’s Husbandry (Glossary); and zach ir
G. Markham’s Husbandry (Of Oxen). The earliest example I have
found is hach-boon, Book of St. Albans, leaf f 3, back, 1.8; A.D. 1486.
= OF. nacke, sing. of naches, the buttocks (Godefroy). — Late L. nati-
cas, acc. of natice, buttocks; not in Ducange, but cited by Roquefort.
Dimin, of L. natés, pl. of natis, the rump. Allied to Gk. νῶτον, the
back. Dr. Murray draws my attention to the fact that Mr. Nicol
obtained this etymology (independently) in 1878; see Minutes of
Meetings of Phil. Soc. Feb. 1, 1878.
AJAR, on the turn; only used of a door or window. (E.) A cor-
tuption of a-char, which again stands for on char, i.e. on the turn;
from ME. char, a turn.
“Quhairby the day was dawin, weil I knew;...
Ane schot-wyndo vnschet a lytill on char,
Persawit the mornyng bla, wan, and har.’
G. Douglas, tr. of Virgil; Prol. to Book vii. 129.
It means ‘I undid a shot-window, a little ajar... The ME. char was
earlier spelt cherre, as in the Ancren Riwle, pp. 36, 408; it is not
uncommon; see Stratmann.—AS. on cerre, on cyrre, on the turn;
where cerre is the dat. case of cerr, a turn, turning, time, period; cf. AS.
cerran, cirran, cyrran, to turn; Grein, i. 156,161, 180.4-OHG., chérren
(G. kehren), to turn.
AKIMBO, ina bent position. (Scand.?) Inthe Tale of Beryn,ed.Fur-
nivall, oddly spelt in kenebowe ; ‘The host .. set his hond in kenebowe ;’
1, 1838 (1. 1105 in Urry). Cotgrave, s.v. Arcade, has ‘to set his hands
ALB
a-kenbow. Dryden uses kimbo as an adj. in the sense of ‘bent,’
‘curved.’ ‘The kimbo handles seem with bears-foot carved;’ Virgil,
Ecl. 3. a. It is clear that in kenebowe, lit. in a sharp curve, is a cor-
ruption, because kene in ME. is not used to denote ‘sharp’ in such
a context. Also i is here a translation of the older form oz, of which
ais a shortened form (through the intermediate form az). B. Cf. prov.
Ε΄ a-kingbow, akimbow, in E. D. D., s. v. kingbow, which suggests
that it arose from Icel. ὃ keng, ‘into a crook;’ with the E. bow need-
lessly added. Here keng is the acc. of kengr, a crook, twist, kink. Cf.
Icel. kKengboginn, bent into a crook. See Kink.
AKIN, ofkin. (E.) For ofkin; ‘near of kin’ and ‘near akin’ are
equivalent expressions. A- for of occurs in Adown, q.v.
ALABASTER, a kind of soft marble. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘ Ala-
baster,a stone;’ Prompt. Parv. p. ὃ. Wyclif has ‘a boxe of alabastre’
in Mark xiv. 3, borrowed from the Vulgate word alabastrum. —OF.
alabastre (Ἐς albdire).—L. alabastrum, alabaster, alabaster. — Gk. ἀλά-
Baorpos, ἀλάβαστρον, alabaster, more properly written ἀλάβαστος.
Said to be derived from AJabastron, the name of a town in Egypt ;
see Pliny, Nat. Hist. 36. 8, 37. 10. Another suggestion is to derive
the Gk. forms from Arab. al-basraa; where basrah means ‘ whitish
stones, earth out of which they dig stones, also the city of Bassora ;’
Rich. Dict. p. 275. (Zeitschrift der deutschen Morgenlandischen
Gesellschaft, xxv. 528.)
ALACK, interjection. (E.) Very common in Shakespeare; Temp.
i. 2. 151; L.L. L. ii. 186, &c. From ME. a, ah! interjection;
and Jak, signifying loss, failure, defect, misfortune. ‘God in the
gospel grymly repreueth Alle that Jakken any lyf, and lakkes han
hem-selue’ = God grimly reproves all that blame anybody, and
have faults themselves; P. Plowman, B. x. 262. Thus alack
would mean ‘ah! failure’ or ‘ah! a loss;’ and alackaday would
stand for ‘ah! lack on (the) day,’ i.e. ah! a loss to-day! It is
almost always used to express failure. Cf. alack the day! Shak.
Pass. Pilgrim, 227. In modern English Jack seldom has this sense,
but merely expresses ‘ want.’
ALACRITY, briskness. (L.) Sir T. More has alacritie, Works,
p- 75 Ὁ. [lhe word must have been borrowed directly from the Latin,
the termination being determined by analogy with such words as
bounty (from OF. bonte, bontet, L. acc. bonitatem). Vhis we know be-
cause the MF. form was alaigreté, which see in Cotgrave; the form
alacrité being modermn.)—L. acc. alacritatem, from nom. alacritds,
briskness.—L. alacer, brisk. Perhaps from 4/EL, to drive, Fick, i.
500; he compares Gk. ἐλαύνειν, ἐλάειν, to drive. @ The Ital. allegro
is likewise from L. alacer.
ALARM, a call to arms. (F.—Ital.—L.) ME. alarme, used in-
terjectionaily, to call men to arms. ‘ Alarme! Alarme! quath that
lord;’ P. Plowman, C. xxiii. 92. —F. alarme, a call to arms. Cot-
grave gives ‘Alarme, an alarum.’ Brachet says that the word alarme
was first introduced into French in the 16th century, but this must be
a mistake, as it occurs in the Glossary to Bartsch’s Crestomathie, and
came to England before 1400. The form, however, is not French, as
the OF. form was as armes; and we actually find as armesin Alisaunder,
ed. Weber, 3674. It was obviously borrowed from Italian, and may
have become generally known in the crusades. = Ital. al/’arme,to arms!
acontracted form of alle arme, where alle stands for a ἰδ, lit. ‘ to the,’
and arme is the pl. of arma, a weapon, not now used in the singular.
The corresponding Latin words would be ad illa arma, but it is re-
markable that the L. pl. arma is neuter, whilst the Ital. pl. arme is
feminine. Ducange, however,notes a Late L.sing. arma, ofthe feminine
gender ; and thus Ital. all’arme answers to Late L. ad illas armas. See
Arms. Der.alarm-ist. Φ{ Alarm isa doublet of alarum, q.v.
ALARUM, acall toarms; aloudsound. (F.—Ital.—L.) ME.
alarom; mention is made of a ‘loude alarom’ in Allit. Poems, ed.
Morris, B. 1207. The o is no real part of the word, but due to the
strong trilling of the preceding r. Similarly in Havelok the Dane,
the word arm is twice written arum, 1]. 1982, 2408; harm is written
harum, and corn is written koren. Thus alarom is really the word
alarm, which see above.
ALAS, an interjection, expressing sorrow. (F.—L.) ME. alas,
allas. Occursin Rob. of Glouc. p. 125, 1. 2670; Havelok, 1]. 1878.—
OF. alas, interjection. [The mod. F. has only hélas, formed with
interj. Aé in place of the interj. a, the second member /as being
often used as an interjection in OF. without either prefix. |= OF. a, ah!
and Jas/ wretched (that I am)! Cf. Ital. aki lasso (or lassa), ah!
wretched (that lam)!—L. ak! interj. and Jassus, fatigued, miserable.
See Brugm. i. § 197, where he supposes /assus to stand for *ad-tus, and
compares it with Goth. dats, which is the E. date. See Late.
ALB, a white priestly vestment. (F.—L.) ME. albe, Rob. of
Brunne’s tr. of Langtoft, p. 319; and inO, Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris,
ii. 163. —OF. albe, an alb.— Late L. alba, an alb; fem. of L. albus,
white. Cf. Gk. ἀλφός, a white rash; OHG. elbiz, a swan; see
Brugm. i. ὃ 481. Cf. album, albumen,
ALBACORE
ALBACORE, a kind oftunny. (Port.—Arab.?) ‘The fish which
is called aldocore ;’ Hakluyt, Voy. ii. pt. 2. p. 100.— Port. albacor,
albacora (Span. albacora). Said to be of Arab. origin (N. E. D.).
ALBATROSS, a large sea-bird. (Port.—Span.—Arab.~Gk.)
The word occurs in Hawkesworth’s Voyages, a.D. 1773 (Todd's
Johnson). ‘The name albatross is a word apparently corrupted by
Dampier [died 1712] from the Portuguese alcatraz, which was applied
by the early navigators of that nation to cormorants and other sea-
birds ;’ Eng. Cyclopedia. (Dampier, Voy. i. 531, has algatrosses;
N. E.D.] And Drayton has alcatraz, in his poem named The Owl. =
Portuguese alcatraz, asea fowl; Span. alcatraz,a pelican. Variant of
Port. alcatruz, a bucket, Span. arcaduz, M.Span. alcadvz (Minsheu),
a bucket on a water-wheel. = Arab. al-gadiis, the same (Dozy). (Simi-
larly, Arab. sagg@, a water-carrier, a pelican, because it carries water in
its pouch (Devic; supp. to Littré).) Finally, Arab. gadis is from
Gk. κάδος, a jar, cask.
ALBEIT, although it may be. (E.) ME. al be it, Cursor Mundi,
4978. From ME. al, in the sense ‘although;’ be, subj. mood, pres.
t.: and it,
ALBINO,a human being with skin and hair abnormally white, and
pink eyes. (Span.—L.) Applied to some negroes by the Portuguese
(1777; N.E.D.); but the word is rather Spanish. Span. albino,
‘born with very white hair and a white skin;’ Pineda. =—L. alb-us,
white ; with suffix -inwvs. See Alb.
ALBUM, a white book. (L.) L. album, a tablet, neuter of
albus, white. See Alb.
ALBUMEN, white of eggs. (L.) Merely borrowed from L.
albumen Oui, the white of an egg, rarely used. More commonly
album dui. From L. albus, white (whence albii-men, lit. whiteness).
See Alb. Der. albumin-ous.
ALCAYDE, a judge. See Cadi.
ALCHEMY, the science of transmutation of metals. (F.—Arab.
—Gk.) Chaucer has alkamistre, an alchemist; C. T.,G1204. The
usual ME. forms of the word are alkenamye and alconomye; P. Plow-
man, A. xi. 157; Gower, C.A. ii. 89 (bk. iv. 2612); where the mistaken
suffix -onomye is imitated from that of astr-onomye. —OF. alchemie, ar-
quemie; see arquemie in Roquefort.— Arab. al-kimia; in Freytag, iv.
75 Ὁ, Rich. Dict. p. 1224; a word fromno Arabic root, but composed
of the Arabic def. article αἱ, prefixed to the late Gk. χημεῖα, i.e. ‘trans-
mutation’ of gold and silver, occurring about A.D. 300 (N.E. D.).
-Late Gk. χημεῖα, transmutation of metals, alchemy, chemistry,
a word of uncertain origin, which was confused with Gk. χυμεία, a
mingling, from Gk. χέειν, to pour (root xev), cognate with fundere.
See Chemist. See N.K.D.; and Devic.
ALCOHOL, pure spirit. (Low L.— Arabic.) From Low L. alco-
hol, the original signification of which is a fine, impalpable powder.
“If the same salt shall be reduced into alcohol, as the chymists speak,
or an impalpable powder, the particles and intercepted spaces will be
extremely lessened ;’ Boyle (in Todd’s Johnson). — Arab. alko/l, com-
pounded of αἱ, the definite article, and ko//, the (very fine) powder of
antimony, used to paint the eyebrows with; from sa/ala, to stain the
eyes; cf. Heb. kakhal (the same), Gesenius, p.376. And see T.L.O.
Davies, Supplementary Glossary. See Richardson’s Dict. p.1173; cf.
kuhl,collyrium ; Palmer's Pers. Dict. col. 484. The extension of mean-
ing from ‘ fine powder’ to ‘ rectified spirit’ is European, not Arabic.
Der. alcnhol-ic, alcohol-ize.
ALCORAN; see KORAN. (Al is the Arabic def. article.)
ALCOVE, a recess, anarbour. (F.—Span.— Arabic.) ‘The Ladies
stood within the alcove ;’ Burnet, Hist. of His Own Time, an. 1688
(R.) =F. aledve, a word introduced in the 16th century from Spanish.
=Span. alcoba, a recess ina room ; ‘a close room for a bed;’ Minsheu
(1623).—Arab. al, def. article, and gobbak, a vaulted space or tent;
Freytag, iii. 388 a; gubbah, a vault, arch, dome; Palmer’s Pers. Dict.
col. 467. See Alcova in Diez, whose explanation is quite satisfactory.
Not to be confused with E. cove.
ALDER, a kind of tree. (E.) Chaucer has alder, C.T. 2923 (Kn.
Ta. 2063). ‘A/dyr-tre or oryelle tre, alzus;’ Prompt. Parv. p.g. {The
letter d is, however, excrescent, as in alder-first for aller-first, i.e. first of
all; or asin alder-liefest, used by Shakespeare for aller-lizfest. Hence
the older form is aller.} ‘Coupet de aunne, of allerne;’? Wright’s
Vocabularies, i. 171; 13th century. = AS. alr, an alder-tree=L. alnus;
fElfric’s Glossary, Nomina Arborum ; also alor, aler.4- Du. els, alder;
elzen, aldern ; elzen-boom, alder tree; Icel. olr, an alder; Swed. al;
Dan, elle, el; OHG. elira, erila, erla; ΜΉΘ. erle; G.erle; prov. G.
eller, else; Span. aliso (from Gothic). Teut.types *aluz-, *aliz-. Allied
to L. alnus; Lithuanian alksnis (with excrescent #), an alder-tree;
Church-Slavonic jelikha, an alder-tree; Russian o/ékha. Perhaps allied
to Elm.
ALDER., prefix, of all. (E.) As in alder-liefest, dearest of all,
2 Hen. VI,i. 1. 28. For ME. aller, alre, O. Merc. alra, AS. ealra, gen.
pl. of al, eal, all; see All.
ALIGHT 13
ALDERMAN, a chief officer in the corporation of atown. (E.)
ME. aldermon, alderman. ‘Princeps, aldermon;’ Wright’s Vocabu-
laries, 538; 12th century. Spelt a/dermon in Layamon, i. 60. —
O. Merc.and Northumbrian aldormon, used to explain centurio in Mark,
xv. 39, and occurring in many other passages in the Northumbrian
glosses; West-Saxon ealdor-man, a chief. See Turner’s Hist. of
the Anglo-Saxons, bk. viii. c. 7.— AS. ealdor, aldor, a chief (Grein, i.
241); and max,aman. Allied to O. Fries. aldirmon, a chief; alder,
aparent; G.eltern, parents; L. al-tor, a bringer up, from alere, to
nourish, E, old is from the same root; see Old.
ALE, a kind of beer. (E.) ME. ale, Reliquiz Antique, i. 177;
Layamon, ii. 604. AS. ealv, Grein, i. 244 (gen. alop) ; stem *alut.Icel.
al; Swed. 6l; Dan. ol; Lithuanian alus, a kind of beer; Church-Sla-
vonic olu, beer. @ See Fick, iii. 57. [The nature of the connexion
with Gaelic and Inish ol, drink, is not clear.) Der. brid-al, i.e. bride-
ale; ale-stake (Chaucer), ale-house, ale-wife, ale-conner (see Con).
ALEMBIC, a vessel formerly used for distilling. (F.—Span.—
Arab.—Gk.) Also limbeck, as in Shak. Macb. i. 7. 67, but that is a
docked form. Chaucer has the pl. alembykes, C.T., G794.—F. alam-
bique, ‘a limbeck, a stillatory ;’ Cot.—Span. alambique.— Arab. al-
anbig; where al is the defnite article, and anbig (pron. ambiq) is
“a still,’ adapted from the Greek. —Gk. dufix-, stem of ἄμβτξ, a cup,
goblet, used by Dioscorides to mean the cap of a still.
ALERT, on the watch. (F.—Ital.—L.) Alertness, Spectator, no.
566. ‘The prince, finding his rutters [knights] alert, as the Italians
say,’ &c.; Sir R. Williams, Actions of the Low Countries, 1618, p. 27
(R.).—F. alerte, formerly allerte, and in Montaigne and Rabelais
a Verte, ἃ Vherte, on the watch; originally a military term, borrowed
from Italian in the 16th century (Brachet).—Ital. adl’erta, on the
watch; properly in the phrase stare all’erta, to be on one’s guard. =
Ital. alla (for a Ja), at the, on the; and er‘a, fem. of adj. erto, erect. =
L. ad, prep., at; i/lam, fem. accus. of ille, he ; and érectam, fem. accus.
of érectus, erect. See Erect. @ The phrase ‘on the alert’ contains
a reduplication; it means ‘ on-the-at-the-erect.’ Der. alert-ness.
ALGEBRA, calculation by symbols, (Low L.—Arab.) It occurs
in Ben Jonson, ‘The Alchemist, i. 1. 38. Buachet (s.v. algébre) terms
algebra a medieval scientific Latin form; and Prof. De Morgan, in
Notes and Queries, 3 S. ii. 319, cites a Latin poem of the 13th century
in which ‘ computation’ is oddly called ‘ ludus algebre almucgrabale-
que.’ B. This phrase is a corruption of Arab. al jabr wa al mcqabalah,
lit. the putting-together-of-parts and the equation, to which the near-
est equivalent English phrase is ‘ restoration and reduction.” y. In
Palmer’s Pers. Dictionary, col. 165, we find ‘ Arabic jabr, power, vio-
lence; restoration, setting a bone; reducing fractions to integers in
Arithmetic ; aljabr wa’ lmugqabalah, algebra.’ — Arab. jabara, to set or
re-unite a bone, to bind together, to consolidate. Mugabalah is lit.
‘comparison ;’ from the root gabala, he approached; Rich. Dict., pp.
494, 1114, 1465. Der. algebra-ic, algebra-ic-al, algebra-ist.
ALGUAZIL, a police-officer. (Span.— Arab.) In Beaum. and
Fletcher, Span. Curate, v. 2.—Span. alguacil, a police-officer ; spelt
alguazil in Minsheu’s Dict., 1623. — Arab. al, def.art., the; and wazir,
a vizier, officer, lieutenant. Cf. Port. alvastl. See Vizier.
ALGUM, the name ofatree; sandal-wood. (Heb.—Skt.) Called
algum in 2 Chron, il. 8, ix. 10, 11; corrupted to a/mug in 1 Kings, x.
11, 12.—Heb. algummim; or (transposed) almugim. A foreign word
in Hebrew, and borrowed from some Indo-germanic source, being
found in Sanskrit as valguka, sandal-wood. ‘This valguka, which
points back to a more original form valgu [for the syllable -ka is a
suffix], might easily have been corrupted by Phenician and Jewish
sailors into algum,a form, as we know, still further corrupted, at least
in one passage of the Old Testament, into almug. Sandal-wood is
found indigenous in India only, and there chiefly on the coast of
Malabar;’ Max Miiller, Lectures, i. 232, 8th ed.
ALIAS, otherwise. (L.) Law Latin; alias, otherwise; from alius,
another. From the same root as E. else. See Alien and Else.
ALIBI, in another place. (L.) Law Latin alibi, in another
place, elsewhere. —L. ali-us, another; for the suffix, cf. L. :-bi, there,
u-bi, where. See above.
ALIEN, strange; a stranger. (F.—L.) We find ‘an aliene
knyght ;’ K. Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1. 3919. Wyclif has alyens, i.e.
strangers, Matt. xvii. 24; also ‘an alien womman,’ Ecclus. xi. 36.
‘Aliens suid sone fond our heritage to wynne;’ Rob. of Brunne, tr. of
Langtoft, p.141.—OF. alien, allien, astranger( Roquefort). = L.aliénus,
a stranger; or as adj., strange. —L. alius, another (stem ali-, whence
ali-énus is formed). + Gk, ἄλλος, another; Goth. aljis (stem aljo-),
other; Old Irish az/e, another. Brugm.i. § 175. See Else. Der.
alien-able, alen-ate, alten-a!-ton ; cf. al-ter, al-ter-nate, al-ter-c-at-ion.
ALIGHT, (1) to descend from; (2) to light upon. (E.) 1. ME.
alighten, al:hten, particularly used of getting offa horse. ‘ Heo letten
alle tha horsmen i than wude alihten’ = they caused all the horsemen
to alight in the wood; Layamon, iii. 58,59. 2. Also ME. alighten,
ALIGN
alihten ; as in ‘ur louerd an erthe alighte her’ = our Lord alighted
here upon earth; Rob. of Glouc., p.1.468,1.9589. B. The two senses of
the word seem at first to show that the prefix a- has not the same force
in both cases ; but both go back to AS. alih/an, to get down,in Atlfric’s
Grammar, De Quarta Conj. ὃ iii; where we find ‘ Disstlto, of alibte ;’
so that the prefix is the AS. intensive prefix @-; see A- (4). The
simple form /ihtan, to alight (from horseback), occurs in the Death of
Byrhtnoth, ed. Giein, 1. 23. [The radical sense of /ihtan is to render
light, to remove a burden from.]—O. Merc. iht, Northumbrian /éht,
West-Saxon /éoht, light (i.e. unheavy) ; see AS. Gospels, Matt. xi. 30.
See Light (3).
ALIGN; see Aline.
ALIKE, similar. (E.) ME. alike, alyke, adj. and ady. ‘ Alyke or
euynlyke, equalis; alyke, or lyke yn lykenes, stmilis;’ Prompt. Parv.
p-10. Also oltke, Gen. and Exodus, ed. Morris, 1. 2024. a. The forms
alike, olike, are short for anlike, onlike; the adverbial form retains the
final e, but the adj. is properly without it. B. The adj. form avlik is
also written anlich, as in ‘ thet is him anlich” =that is like him; Ayen-
bite of Inwyt, p. 186. -y. The prefix is therefore a- or o-, short for an-
or on-, and corresponding to AS. on-.— AS. onlic, adj. like, Grein, ii.
348; also written anlic, Grein, i. 8.—AS. on, prep. on, upon ; and ἤϊε,
like. Cf. also Icel. a@-Jikr, the form cognate with AS. on-lic; which was
doubtless confused with it (N. E. D.). 4 The fullest form appears in
the Gothic adv. analeikd, in like manner. See Like and On.
ALIMENT, food. (F.—L.) Milton has alimenial, P. L. v. 424;
Bacon has ‘medicine and aliment,’ Nat. Hist. sect. 66. -α Εἰς aliment,
“food, sustenance, nourishment ;’ Cot. —L. alimentum, food ; formed
with suffix -mentum from alere, to nowish. {This suffix is due toa com-
bination of the Idg. suffixes -men and -¢o, on which see Brugmann. | =
L. alere, to nourish.+Goth. alan, to nourish; Icel. ala, to nourish,
support. Cf. Old Irish aléram, nourishment. —4/AL, to nourish. See
Brugm.i. § 490. Der. aliment-al, aliment-ary, aliment-at-ion ; cf. also
alimony (from L. alimonia, sustenance, which from stem ali-, with
suffixes -mdn- and -j@). 47 From the same root al- we have also
adolescent, ad-ult, old, elder, alder; also altitude, alto, coalesce, exalt,
haughty, hautbois, proletarian.
ALINE, ALIGN, torangeinaline. (F.—L.) First usedin 1693
(N.E.D.). From F. aligner, to range in a line. =F. ἃ ligne, into line.
=L. ad, to; linea,a line. See Line. 81] Aline is the better spell-
ing for the E. word.
ALIQUOT, proportionate. (F.—L.) Borrowed from F. aliquote, as
in partie aliquote, a proportional part. = Late L. aliguota, fem. of aliquo-
tus, an adj. made from L. aliquot, indef. indecl. numeral, ‘several ;’
which is from ali-us, other, some, and guof, how many.
ALIVE, in life. (E.) A contraction of the ME. phrase on dive, in
life, where on signifies iz, and live or lyue (livé, lyvé) is the dat. case of
lyf, life. ‘Vf he haue wyt and his on lyve’=if he has wit, and is alive ;
Seven Sages, ed. Wright, 1.56. — AS. on life, alive, Grein, ii. 184; where
eas the preposition, and /ife is dat. case of Jif, life. See On and
116.
ALKALI, ἃ salt. (Arabic.) Chaucer has alkaly, C. T., G 810.—
Arab. al gali; where al is the def. article, and gali is the name given
to the ‘calcined ashes’ of the plant glass-wort (Salicornia), which
abounds insoda. By some, gali is derived from the Ar. verb galay,
to fry, hence, to calcine (Rich. Dict. p. 1146); Palmer’s Pers. Dict.
gives ‘gali, alkali,’ and ‘ galiyah, a fricassee, curry;’ col. 474. Der.
alkali-ne, alkal-escent, alkal-oid, alkali-fy.
ALL, every one οἵ, (E.) ME. al, in the singular, and alle (disyl-
labic) in the plural; the mod. Εἰ, is the latter, with the loss of final e.
Chaucer has al a, i.e. the whole of, in the phrase ‘al acompanye,’ C. T.,
G 996; also at al, i.e. wholly, C. T., C 633. The plural alle is very
common.= AS. eal, sing., ealle, plural; but the mod. E. follows the
O.Merc. form alle; see Matt. v.15 (Rushworth gloss).+Icel.ad/r,sing.,
allir, pl.; Swed. all, pl. alle; Dan. al, pl. alle; Du.al, alle; OHG. al,
aller ; Goth. alls, allat. Teut. type *alnoz. Allied to Irish and Gael.uile,
all, every, whole; fromIdg.type*oljos ; Stokes-Fick, p.52. Brugmann
(ii. § 66) takes Teut. *alnoz as from Teut. *alan- (Goth. alan), to grow
up, to increase; allied to L. a/-ere, to nourish. As if al/=full, com-
plete. 4 When all is used as a prefix, it was formerly spelt with
only one /, a habit still preserved in a few words. The AS. form of
the prefix is eal-, O.Merc. al-, Icel. al-, Gothic ala-. Hence al-mighty,
al-most, al-one, al-so, al-though, al-together, al-ways; and ME. al-gates,
i.e. always. This prefix is now written αἰ in later formations, as all-
powerful, δες. In all-hallows, i.e.all saints, the donble / is correct, as de-
noting the plural. @ In the phrase αἱ] to-brake, Judges, ix. 53, there
isan ambiguity. The proper spelling, in earlier English, would be al
tobrak, where al is an adverb, signifying ‘utterly,’ and ¢obrak the 3 p.s.
pt. t. of the verb ¢obreken, to break in pieces; so that αἱ tobrak mean
‘utterly brake in pieces.’ The verb fobreken is common; ef. ‘AZ is ¢o-
broken thilke regioun;’ Chaucer, C.T..A 2757 (Harl. MS.). B. There
was a large number of similar verbs, such as fobresten,to burst in twain,
14
ALLEY
tocleouen, to cleave in twain, ¢odelen, to divide in twain, &c.; see
Stratmann’s OE. Dict. pp. 611-616, γ. Again, al was used before
other prefixes besides 40; as ‘he was al awondred ;’ Will. of Palerne,
1.872; and again ‘al biweped forwo;’ id.661. δ. But about A.D. 1500,
this idiom became misunderstood, so that the ¢o was often joined to al
(misspelt αἰ), producing a form all-to, which was used as an intensive
prefix to verbs, yet written apart from them, as in ‘we be fallen into
the dirt, and be a/l-to dirtied ;’ Latimer, Remains, p. 397. See the
article on all to in Kastwood and Wright's Bible Wordbook. B. The
gen. pl. of AS. ea/ was ealra, in later English written aller, and some-
times alder, with an inserted excrescent d. Hence Shakespeare's
alderlie‘est is for allerliefest, i.e. dearest of all; 2 Hen. VI, i. 1. 28.
See Almighty, Almost, Alone, Already, Also, Although,
Altogether, Always, As, Withal; also Hallowmass.
ALLAY, to assuage. (E.) The history of this word proves that
the orig. E. verb has been confused with four other verbs of Romance
origin ; for the full history, see N. E.D. The orig. source is seen in
ME, aleyen, alaien, to put down ; as in ‘ unbileue, pat is aiware aleid,’
unbelief, that is everywhere put down; OE. Homilies, ii. 11. The
stem of ME. aleyen is due to AS. dleg-,stem of the 2nd and 3rd persons
sing. pres. of AS. alecgan, to put down, which also produced ME. aleg-
gen, 10 lay aside. AS. ἄς, prefix ; and lecgan, to lay; see A- (4) and
Lay (1). @ But confused with ME, aleggen, to alleviate, which is
really no more than a (French) doublet of (the Latin) alleviate, q.v.
Cf. ‘ Aleggyn, or to softe, or relese peyne, allevio;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 9.
And further confused with an obs. vb. aleye, to allege, and with old
forms of Εἰ alloy.
ALLEGE, toaffirm. (F.—L.) ME. aleggen, alegen, to affirm. ‘A-
leggynawtowrs, allego ;’ Prompt. Parv. p.g. ‘Thei wol alleggen also,
and by the gospel preuen;’ P. Plowman, B. xi. 88, In form, the ME.
alegen answers to AF’. alegier, aligier = OF. esligier, ‘to clear’ at law
(see Godefroy) ; from AF. a-=OF. es- (L. ex-), and ligier, to contend,
from L, lisigare, to contend, to litigate; see Litigate. B. This AF.
alegier was Latinised (wrongly) as adlégiare (Ducange), and was
treated as if allied to MF. alleguer, ‘ to alleadge, to urge, or produce
reasons;’ Cot.; from L. allégare, to send, despatch; also to bring
forward, mention.—L. al-, for ad; and légare, to send, appoint ;
from /ég-, stem of lex, law. See Legal. @ The MF, alleguer (if
uninfluenced by the AF. alegrer) would have produced an E. form
alleague. Der. alleg-at-ion, from Εἰ, allégation, L. acc. allégationem
(correctly).
ALLEGIANCE, the duty of a subject to his lord. (F.—OHG.)
Fabyan has allegeaunce, cap. 207. § 5. The older form is with one /.
“Of alegeaunce now lerneth a lesson other tweyne;’ Richard the
Redeles, i. 9. Spelt alegeawns in Wyntown, vii. 8.14. Formed by pre-
fixing a- (=F. a-, L. ad-) to the word legeaunce, borrowed from the
OF, ligeance, ligance, homage. Of these forms, ligance was due to an
imaginary connexion with L. ligdre, to bind ; but ligeance was derived
from OF, lige, liege; with suffix -ance (=L. -antia). Of Germanic
origin; see Liege.
ALLEGORY, akind of parable. (L.—Gk.) The pl. allegories
occurs in Tyndal’s Prol. to Leviticus, and Sir T. More’s Works, p.
togia. ΜΕ. allegorie, Wyclif, Gal.iv. 24 (earlier version). [Cf MI.
allegorie, anallegory ; Cot.] —L.allégoria, borrowed from Greek, in the
Vulgate version of Galat. iv. 24.—Gk. dAAnyopia, a description of one
thing under the image of another; cf. ἀλληγορεῖν, to speak so as to
imply something else. = Gk. @AAo-, stem of ἄλλος, another; and dyop-,
as 1n ἀγορεύειν, to speak, ἀγορά, a public assembly, allied to ἀγείρειν,
to assemble. The prefix a appears to answer to Skt. sa, together, and
-γείρειν implies a base yep-, with which L. grex, a flock, is connected ;
Brugmann, i. § 633. Der. allegor-ic, allegor-ic-al, allegor-ic-al-ly, alle-
gor-ise, allegor-ist.
ALLEGRO, lively, brisk. (Ital.—L.) In Milton’s L’Allegro,
I’ = lo, the Ital. def. article, from L. ille, he (acc. i//um). The Ital. alle-
gro, brisk, is from L. *alécrum, substituted for alacrem, acc. of alacer,
brisk. See Alacrity. Der. allegr-etto.
ALLELUIA, ALLELUJAG, an expression of praise. (L.—
Gk.—Heb.) L. alleliia; Rev. xix. 6.—Gk. ἀλληλούϊα; Rev. xix. 6.
Better hallelujah. — Heb. halelu jah, praise ye Jehovah. — Heb. haleli,
praise ye, from halal, to shine, which in one ‘ voice’ signifies ‘ praise; ’
and jah, Jah, Jehovah,
ALLEVIATE, to lighten. (L.) Used by Bp. Hall, Balm of
Gilead, c. 1. § 2. Formed as if from alleuiatus, pp. of Late L. alle-
uidre, toalleviate ; seenote on Abbreviate. = L.alleudre, to lighten,
which passed into the occasional form alleuare, as in Isaiah, ix. 1
(Vulgate).—L. al-, for ad; and leuare, to lift up, to lighten, from
Jeuis, light, cognate with Gk. ἐλαχύς, small. Der. alleviat-ion.
ALLEY, a walk. (F.—L.) ME. aley, alley. ‘So longe aboute
the aleyes is he goon;’ Chaucer, C. Τὶ 10198 (E 2324).—OF. alee, a
gallery; a participial substantive. OF. alee, pp. fem. of aler, to go;
mod. F. aller. The etymology of F. aller, much and long dis-
ALLIANCE
cussed, remains unknown. The Prov. equivalent is anar, allied to
Ital. andare, to go.
ALLIANCE, ALLIES. See Ally.
ALLIGATION, a rule in arithmetic. (L.) Phillips (ed. 1658)
has ‘Alligation, a binding unto.’ The verb alligate, to bind together,
is hardly in use; Rich, shows that it occurs in Hale’s Origin of Man-
kind (1677), pp. 305, 334. The sb. is formed, with suffix -/fon (F’. -dion,
L. ace. -t0nem) from L. alligare, to bind together.—L. al-, for ad;
and ligdre, to bind. See Ligament.
ALLIGATOR, a crocodile. (Span.—L.) Properly it merely means
‘the lizard! In Shak. Romeo, v. 1. 43. A mere corruption from the
Spanish. Called ‘a monstrous legarto or crocodile’ by J. Hortop in
1591; Eng. Gamer, ed. Arber, v. 314. [The Εἰ alligator is borrowed
from English.] —Span. el /agarto, the lizard, a name esp. given to the
American crocodile, or cayman. ‘In Hawkins’s Voyage, he speaks of
these under the name of alagar/oes ;’ Wedgwood. =L. ille, he (whence
Ital. #2, Span, εἰ, the); and /acertus (more commonly lacerta), a lizard.
See Lizard.
ALLITERATION, repetition of initial letters. (L.) The well-
known line ‘ For apt alli‘eradion’s artful aid’ occurs in Churchill’s
Prophecy of Famine; 1.86. The stem alliterat- is formed as if from
the pp. of a L. verb *alli/terf@re, which, however, did not exist. This
verb is put together as if from L. ad lit‘eram, i.e. according to the
letter. Thus the word is a mere modern invention. See Letter.
Der. A verb, to alliterate (found in 1816), and an adj., alliterat-ive
(found in 1764), have been invented to match the sb.
ALLOCATES, to place or set aside. (L.) Burke, On the Popery
Laws, uses a/loca¢e in the sense of ‘ to set aside,’ by way of maintenance
for children. [On the suffix -are, see Abbreviate. |= Late L, allo-
catus, pp. of allocdre, to allot; see Ducange. = L. al-, for ad; and lo-
care, to place, from /ocus, a place. See Locus. Der. allocat-ion.
Allocate is a doublet of allow, to assign. See Allow (1).
ALLOCUTION, an address. (L.) Spelt adlocution by Sir G.
Wheler in 1689 (R.). Borrowed from Latin; with F. suffix -ion< L.
acc. ending -idnem.—L, allocitio, adlociitio, an address.—L. ad, to;
and Jociitio, a speaking, allied to locu/us, pp. of Icqui, to speak; see
Loquacious.
ALLODIAL, not held of a superior; used of land. (L.—Teut.)
Englished from Late L. allddialis, an adj. connected with the sb.
allodium. ‘The writers on this subject define al/ddium to be every
man’s own land, which he possesseth merely in his own right, without
owing any rent or service to any superior ;’ Blackstone, Comment.
b. il. c. 7. a. The word allédium is ‘Merovingian Latin ;’ Brachet
(8. v. adlew). It is also spelt alaudum, alaudium, alddium, alidum,
alodis (Lex Salica), and means a free inheritance, as distinguished
from benesicium, a grant for the owner's life-time only. β. The word
appears as alleu in French, which Brachet derives from O. Frankish
alod (see Schade), meaning ‘entire property,’ or ‘entirely one’s pro-
perty;” where a/- is related to E. all, and od signifies ‘ property’ or
‘wealth.’ This O, Frank. dd is cognate with OHG. δι AS. éad, Icel.
audr, wealth ; originally ‘a thing granted,’ as it is derived from a strong
verb of which the Teut. type is *audan-, to grant, represented by AS.
éadan (pt. t. éod), to grant. Cf. Goth. anda-hafts, blessed.
ALLOPATHY, an employment of medicines to produce an effect
different to those produced by disease; as opposed to homeopathy,
q.v. (Gk.) Modern, Formed from Gk. ἄλλο-, for ἄλλος, another;
and -πάθεια, allied to πάθος, suffering, from παθεῖν, πάσχειν, to suffer.
See Pathos. Der. allopath-ic, allopath-ist.
ALLOT, to assign a portion or lot to. (Hybrid; AF.—L. and E.)
A-bybrid compound; formed by prefixing the AF. or OF. a- (for L. ad)
to the English word Jot. AF, aloter, Year-book of Edw. 1 (1304-5),
p:337- Cotgrave gives MF. ‘Allotir, to divide or part, to allot ;’ also
‘Allotement, a parting, dividing ; an allotting, or laying out, unto every
one his part.’ [It is likely that the F. word was borrowed from the
English in this case.] Shak. not only has allot, but even allottery, As
You Like It, i. 1.77; and allotted occurs much earlier, viz. in Lord
Surrey’s translation of the 2nd bk. of the Aneid, 1. 554 (or ]. 722 of
the E. version). See Lot. Der. allot-men/, allott-ery.
ALLOW (1), to assign, grant as a portion or allowance. (F.—L.)
1. Properly distinct from allow in the sense of ‘to approve of,’ ‘to
praise,’ which is the common sense in old writers ; see Luke, xi. 48.
Shakespeare has both verbs, and the senses run into one another so
that it is not always easy to distinguish between them in every case;
indeed, they were often confused, which produced new senses; see
N.E.D. Perhaps a good instance is in the Merch. of Ven. iv. r. 303,
‘the law allows it, i.e. assigns itto you. 2. This verb is rare in early
use, and Shakespeare is an early authority for it when it was becoming
very ΘΟΠΊΠΊΟΗ. -- Εἰ, allover, formerly alouer, ‘to let out to hire, to
appoint or set down a proportion for expence, or for any other em-
ployment ;’ Cot.—Law L. allocdre, to admit a thing as proved, to
place, to use, expend, constime; see Ducange. { Blount, in his Law |
ALMOST 15
Dict., gives allocation as a term used in the exchequer to signify ‘an
allowance made upon an account.’] See Allocate. Der. allow-able,
allow-able-ness, allow-abl-y, allow-ance. Doublet, allocate.
ALLOW (2), to praise, highly approve of. (F.—L.) Sometimes
confused with the preceding; now nearly obsolete, though common
in early authors, and in earlier use than the former. See Luke, xi. 48.
ME. alouen. Chaucer rhymes ‘I allow the’ =| praise thee, with the sb.
youthé, youth; C. Τὶ 10988 (F 676).—OF. alouer, later allouer, ‘to
allow, advow [i.e. advocate], to approve, like well of;’ Cot.=<L.
allaudare, adlaudire, to applaud. —L. ad, to; and laudare, to praise.
See Laud.
ALLOY, a due proportion in mixing metals. (F.—L.) [The verb
to alloy is made from the substantive, which was formerly spelt alay
or allay, though wholly unconnected with the verb allay, to assuage. |
ME. sb, alay; Chaucer has the pl. alayes, C.T. 9043 (E1167). ‘The
sing. alay is in P. Plowman, B. xv. 342; the pp. alayed, alloyed, is in
P. Plowman, C. xviii. 79. —AF. and OF. αἰαὶ, αἰεὶ, admixture or com-
bination (of metals); a sb. due to the v. aleier, to combine. = L. alli-
gare, to combine or join together. —L, al-, for ad, to; and ligare, to
bind. See Ligament. In later Central F., the forms αἰεὶ, aleter,
became a/oi, aloter, and were then confused with the phrase a loi, from
L. adlégem, according to law; and this false etymology was commonly
accepted. The form alay, sb., occurs in the Statutes of the Realm,
i. 140 (A.D. 1300). Cf. Span. and Port. ligar, to tie, bind, to allay
or alloy; from L. ligare.
ALLUDE, to hint at. (L.) Used by Sir T. More, Works, p. 860 a.
=-L. allidere, to laugh at, allude to.—L. αἷς, for ad; and lidere, to
play, pp. liisus. See Ludicrous. Der. allus-ion, allus-ive, allus-
ive-ly; from pp. allisus.
ALLURE, to tempt bya bait. (F.—L.andG.) Sir T. More has
alewre, \Vorks, p. 1276 ο [marked 1274].—AF. alurer (Wright's
Vocab, i. 151), OF. aleurrer, to entice to a lure (Godefroy). From
F, ἃ leurre, to the lure or bait; a word of Germanic origin. See Lure.
Der. allure-ment.
ALLUSION, ALLUSIVE, See Allude.
ALLUVIAL, washed down; applied to soil. (L.) Not in early
use; the sb. now used in connexion with it is alluvium, prop. the
neuter of the L.adj. a//uuius, alluvial. In older works the sb. is alluvion,
as in Blackstone, Comment. Ὁ. il. c. 16, and in three other quotations
in Richardson. - ΜΕ, and Ἐς alluvion, a washing up, an inundation ;
Cot.=—L, alluuidnem, acc. case of alluuio, a washing up of earth, an
alluvial formation.—L, al-, for ad, to, in addition; and luere, to
wash. From the same root, ab-lu-tion, di-luv-ial.
ALLY, to bind together. (F.—L.) ME. alien, with one 1. ‘Alied
to the emperour;’ Rob. of Glouc. p. 65, 1. 1400. [The sb. aliance,
alliance, occurs at p. 89, 1. 1985. It is spelt al/:aunce in Gower, C. A.
i. 199 (bk. ii. 1184).] “ΟΝ, alter, to bindto. —OF. a, to; and lier, to
bind. —L. ad; and ligare,to bind. See Ligament. Der. ally, sb.,
one bound, pl. allies; alli-ance. From the same root, allig-ation, q. v.
ALMANAC, ALMANACK, a calendar. (F.—LateL.) Spelt
almanac by Blackstone, Comment. b, iii. c. 22; almenak in Chaucer.
On the Astrolabe, prol. 1. 67.—F. almanach, ‘an almanack, or pro-
gnostication ;᾿ Cot.—Late L. almanach, almanac. ‘The form almanac
occurs in Roger Bacon, Opus Majus, xv (A.D. 1267). The origin of
the word is wholly unknown; Dozy decides that it is not Arabic, as
is often said; and the Gk. and L. origins sometimes assigned to it have
to be manipulated and misspelt in order to suit the case; see N. E. D.
ALMIGHTY, all-powerful. (E.) In very early use. O. Merc.
almehtig; AS, ealmihtig, Grein, i. 244; @lmihiig, id. 57. See Might.
On the spelling with one 1, see All. Der. almighti-ness.
ALMOND, akind of fruit. (6. —L.—Gk.) ‘As for almonds, they
are of the nature of nuts;” Holland’s Pliny, bk.xv.c. 22. Wyclif has
almaundis, almonds, Gen. xliii. 11; almaunder, an almond-tree, Eccles.
xii. 5 (where the Vulgate has amygdalus). {The/ is an inserted letter,
owing to confusion of initial a with the Arab. def. art. al in the Span,
forms.] —OF. almandre, almande; also amandele, amendéle (nearer to
the Latin). Cf. Span. a/mendra. Cotgrave has ‘Amande, an almond.’
=— L.amygdala, amygdalum,an almond; whence (as traced by Brachet)
the forms *amygdala, *amy’dala, *amyndala (with excrescent 2 before
| d), and next OF. amendele, amende, later amande.— Gk. ἀμυγδάλη,
ἀμύγδαλον. an almond, Origin unknown.
ALMONER, a distributer of alms. (F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt a/-
moygners by Sir T. More, Works, p. 235 hb. ME. aumoner, Cursor
Mundi, 15219. — OF. almosnier, aumosnier, a distributer of alms; forms
in which the s was soon dropped, as in F. auméne from OF, almosne,
alms.=—OF. almosne, alms; with the suffix -ier of the agent. — Folk-
L, *a’imosina, for L. eleémosyna; see Alms,
ALMOST, nearly. (E.) Chaucer has almost, C. T. 9275 (E1401).
Also ME. almast, almest; the latter is especially common. ‘He is
almest dead ;’ Layamon, ii. 387 (later text). AS. ealmést, elm@st ;
thus in the AS. Chron. an. rogt, we have ‘seo scipfyrde .. . elmést
16 ALMS
earmlice forfor’= the fleet for the most part (or nearly all of it)
miserably perished. — AS. eal-, prefix, completely; and més¢, the most.
@ The sense is, accordingly, ‘quite the greatest part,’ or in other
words ‘nearly all.’ Hence it came to mean ‘ nearly,’ in a more general
use and sense. For the spelling with one J, see All.
ALMS, relief given to the poor. (L.—Gk.) ME. almesse, later
almes. Wyclif has almes, Luke, xi. 41. For almesse, see OE. Homilies,
ii. 29,1. 35. Still earlier, we have the AS. forms elme@sse and @lmesse,
a word of three syllables. [Thus e/mes-se first became almes-se ; and
then, dropping the final syllable (-se), appeared as a/mes, in two sylla-
bles ; still later, it became alms. The AS, elmasse is from the Folk-L.
*alimosina (whence OF. almosne, Ital. limostna) ; for the eccles. Latin
cleemosyna, borrowed from Greek ; the result being that the word has
been reduced from six syllables to one.) — Gk. ἐλεημοσύνη, compassion,
and hence, alms. =Gk. ἐλεήμων, pitiful. Gk. ἐλεεῖν, to pity; from
ἔλεος, pity. Der. alms-house. From the same root, almoner, q.v.
q The word alms is properly singular; hence the expression ‘asked
an alms;’ Acts, iii. 3.
ALMUG, the name of a tree; see Algum.
ALOB, the name of a plant. (L.—Gk.) ‘Aloe is an herbe which
hath the resemblance of the sea-onion,’ &c.; Holland’s Pliny, bk. xxvii.
c. 4. Cotgrave has ‘A/oes, the herb aloes, sea-houseleeke, sea-aigreen ;
also, the bitter juyce thereof congealed, and used in purgations.’ In
like manner we still speak of ‘ bitter aloes ;’ and Wyclif has aloes,
John, xix. 39, where the Vulgate has aloes, really the gen. case of the
L. aloé, used by Pliny, and borrowed from the Gk. ἀλόη, the name of
the plant, used by Plutarch, and in John, xix. 39; where the AS.
version has alewan. 4] Der. aloes-wood ; a name given to a totally
different plant, the agallochum, because one kind (the Aguiaria
Agallocha, natural order of Thymeleacee) yields a bitter secretion. The
word agallochum is of Skt. origin; cf. Skt. aguru, aloes-wood ; whence
also Heb. masc. pl. ahalim, ahaldth, aloes-wood or ‘lign-aloes,’ Numb.
xxiv. 6. See Aloes and Eaglewood in Yule.
ALOFT, in the air. (Scand.) 1. For on lofte. In P. Plowman,
B. i. 90, we find ‘ agrounde and aloft ;’ but in the same poem, A. i. 88,
the reading is ‘ on grounde and ox /o/te.” 2. On lofte signifies ‘in the
air, i.e. on high. The AS. prep. on frequently means ‘in ;’ and is
here used to translate the Icel. ἃ, which is really the same word.
3. The phrase is, strictly, Scandinavian, viz. Icel. ἃ lopt, aloft, in the
air (the Icel. -p¢ being sounded like the E. -/t, to which it answers).
The Icel. Jopt = AS. /yft, the air; whence ME. 1:7έ, the air, still pre-
served in prov. E. and used by Burns in his Winter Night, 1. 4. Cf.
G, luft, the air; Goth. lu/tus, the air. See Loft, Lift.
ALONE, quite by oneself. (E.) ME. al one, written apart, and
even with a word intervening between them. Ex. ‘al himself one’ =
himself alone; Will. of Palerne, 3316. [The al is also frequently
omitted. Ex. ‘left was he one,’ he was left alone, id. 211.] The ME.
alis mod. Εἰ. ali; but the spelling with oneZ is correct. See All and
One. Cf. Du. all-een, G. all-ein, alone. 4 The word oxe was (in
late ME.) pronounced own, rhyming with bone; and was frequently
spelt oon. The ME. one was disyllabic (pron. awn-y, later own), the
ὁ representing AS. -a in the word aa, a secondary form from AS. az,
one ; see examples of ἄνα in the sense of ‘alone’ in Grein, i. 31, 32.
The pronunciation as own is retained in al-one, at-one, on-ly. Der.
Tone (with loss of a-); lonely.
ALONG (1), lengthwise of. (E.) [The prefix here is very un-
usual, as the a-in this case arose from the AS. and-; see A- (3), pre-
fix; andsee Answer.] ME. along, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 769;
earlier anlong, Layamon, i. 7. AS. andlang, along, prep. governing
a genitive; ‘and/ang pws westenes’=along the waste, Joshua, viii.
16.40. Fries. ondlinga, prep. with gen. case; as in ‘ondlinga thes
reggis’ =along the back (Richtofen) ; G. ent/ang, prep. with gen. or
dat. when preceding its substantive. B. The AS. prefix and- is cog-
nate with O. Fries. ond-, OHG. ant- (G. ent-), Goth. and-, anda-, L.
ante, Gk. ἀντί, Skt. anti, over against, close to. The 2nd syllable is
the AS. ad). lang, long. The sense is ‘ over against in length.’ See
Anti- and Long.
ALONG (2), in the phr. along of or along on. (E.) This is not
quite the same word as along (1), but differs in the prefix. We find
“It’s all "long on you,’ Prol. to the Return to Parnassus (1606).
Chaucer has: ‘wheron it was long ;’ C.T. 16398 (G 930); and again:
‘Som seide it was Jong on the fyr-making,’ id. 16390. Gower has:
‘How al is on miself along ;’ C. A. ii, 22 (bk. iv. 624). Here along
is a corruption of τον, and Jong is slong without the initial 7. This
prefix ἐ- is the usual ME. form of the AS. prefix ge-, and along an-
swers, accordingly, to AS. gelang, as pointed out by Todd in his ed.
of Johnson's Dict. Moreover, the very form zJong (used with ov)
occurs in Layamon, 15502.—AS. gelang, gelong, as in on 0am ge-
long, along of that, because of that, AZlfred, tr. of Orosius, bk. iv.
c. 10, ὃ 9.—AS. ge-, prefix; and lang, long. @ Precisely the same
corruption of the prefix occurs in Aware, q.v.
ALTERCATION
ALOOFP, away, at a distance. (E. and Du.) 1. Spelt aloofe in
Surrey’s Virgil, bk. iv, 1. go of E. version; alowfe in Sir T. More’s
Works, p. 759g. The latter says, ‘ But surely this anker lyeth too
farre aloufe fro thys shyppe, and hath neuer a cable to fasten her to
it’ This suggests a nautical origin for the phrase. 2. The diphthong
ow signifies the ow in soup, pronounced like the Du. oe, so that louf
at once suggests Du. /oef, and as many nautical terms are borrowed
from that language, we may the more readily accept this. Cf. E.
sloop from Du. sloep. 3. The prefix a- stands for on, by analogy with
a large number of other words, such as abed, afoot, asleep, aground ;
so that aloof is for on loof, and had originally the same sense as the
equivalent Du. phrase ¢e loef, i.e. to windward. Compare also loef
houden, to keep the luff or weather-gage; de loef afwinnen, to gain the
luff, &c. So too, Danish holde luven, to keep the luff or the wind;
have luven, to have the weather-gage ; tage luven fra en, to take the
luff from one, to get to windward of one. Our phrase ‘to hold aloof’
is equivalent to the Du. loef howden (Dan. holde luven), and signifies
lit. ‘to keep to the windward.’ @ The tendency of the ship being to
drift on to the leeward vessel or rock, the steersman can only hold
aloof (i.e. keep or remain so) by keeping the head of the ship away.
Hence to hold aloof came to signify, generally, to keep away from,
or not to approach. ‘The quotation from Sir T. More {furnishes a
good example. He is speaking of aship which has drifted to leeward
of its anchorage, so that the said place of anchorage lies ‘ too farre
aloufe,’ i.e. too much /o windward; so that the ship cannot easily re-
turn to it. Similar phrases occur in Swedish; so that the term is of
Scandinavian as well as of Dutch use; but it came to us from the
Dutch more immediately. See further under Luff.
ALOUD, loudly. (E.) Chiefly in the phrase ‘to cry aloud.’ ME.
aloude, P. Plowm. C. vii. 23. By analogy with abed, asleep, afoot, &c.,
the prefix must be oz; and Joude is the adj. Joud, used as a sb.; cf.
alow, ahigh. See Loud.
ALP, ahigh mountain. (L.) Milton has alp, P.L. ii.620; Samson,
628. ME. Alpes, Trevisa, tr. of Higden, i. 173. We generally say
‘the Alps.’ Milton merely borrowea from Latin. —L. Alpes, pl. the
Alps; said to be of Celtic origin. ‘Gallorum lingua alti montes Alpes
uocantur ;’ Servius, ad Verg. Georg. iii. 474; cited by Curtius, i. 364.
B. Even granting it to be Celtic, it may still be true that L. Alpes is
connected with L. albus, white, spelt alpus in the Sabine form, with
reference to the snowy tops of such mountains. See Stokes-Fick,
». 21. Der. alp-ine.
ALPACA, the Peruvian sheep. (Span.— Peruvian.) Borrowed by
us from Span. alpaca, a Span. rendering of the Peruvian name ; made by
prefixing al- (for Arab. al, def. article) to thenative Peruvian name paco.
ALPHABET, the letters of a language. (Late L.—Gk.—Phee-
nician.) Used by Shak. Titus And. iii. 2. 44.—Late L. alphabétum.
—Gk. ἄλφα, βῆτα, the names of aand β (aand δ), the first two letters
of the Gk. alphabet. From Phcenician names represented by Heb.
@leph, an ox, also the name of the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet ;
and béh, a house, also the name of the second letter of the same.
Der. alphabet-ic, alphabet-ic-al, alphabet-ic-al-ly.
ALREADY, quite ready; hence, sooner than expected. (E.)
Rich, shows that Udal (on Luke, c. 1. v. 13) uses ‘already looked
for’ in the modern sense; but Gower, Prol. to C. A. i. 18 (1. 424) has
al redy [badly spelt all ready in Richardson] as separate words. Al
as an adverb, with the sense of ‘quite,’ is common in Mid. English.
[So al clene=quite entirely, wholly, Rob. of Glouc. p. 407 (1. 8410):
see Matzner’s Altengl. Worterbuch, p. 57.] The spelling with one ὦ
is correct; see All. And see Ready.
ALSO, in like manner. (E.) Formerly frequently written αἱ so,
separately ; where αἱ isan adverb, meaning ‘entirely ;’ see Already,
and All. —OMerce. al swi, AS. eal swa, ealswa, just so, likewise, Matt.
xxi. 30, where the later Hatton MS. has allswa. See So. As is
a contracted form of also; see As.
ALTAR, a place for sacrifices. (L.) [Frequently written awter in
Mid. Eng., from the O. French auter; so spelt in Wyclif, Acts, xvii.
23, Gen. viii. 20.) Rob. of Brunne, p. 79, has the spelling altere; it
occurs much earlier, in the Ormulum, 1. 1061. AS. aliar; dat.
altare, Matt. v. 24.—L. altare, an altar, a high place. —L. altus, high.
See Altitude.
ALTER, to make otherwise. (L.) Altered occurs in Tyndall’s
Works, ed. 1572, p- 456, col. 1; and in Chaucer, Troil. iii. 1778.
{Perhaps through the F. alerer, given by Cotgrave, and explained by
“to alter, change, vary ;” but it may have been taken directly from
Late L.]—Late L. al/erare, to make otherwise, to change; Ducange.
=L. alter, other. = L. al-, of the same source with alins, another, and
Gk. ἄλλος, other; with suffix -fer (as in u-ter, neu-ter), an old com-
parative ending answering to E, -ther, Gk, -repo-, Skt. -/ara-, Idg.
-tero-. See Alien. Der. alier-able, alter-at-ion, alter-at-ive.
ALTERCATION, a dispute. (F.—L.) ME. allercacioun ;
Chaucer, C. T. 9347 (Ε 1473).— OF. altercation, for which see Littré.
ALTERNATE
It is also given by Cotgrave, and explained by ‘al/ercation, brabling,
brawling,’ &c.—L. altercdlidnem, acc. of altercdtio, a dispute. —L.
altercari, to dispute.— L. alter, another ; from the notion of speaking
alternately. See above, and see below.
ALTERNATE, adj. by turns. (L.) Milton has alternate,
P.L. v.657; and even coins alvern, P. L. vii. 348. —L. alternatus, pp.
of alternare, to do by turns. —L. alternus, alternate, reciprocal. —L.
alter, another; with suffix -πο- (Brugm. ii. § 66). See Alter. Der.
alterna’-ion, alternat-ive; also the vb. to alternate (Levins).
ALTHOUGH, however. (E.) ME. al thagh, al thah, al though;
Mandeville’s Travels, p. 266; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, A. 878.
From al, adverb, in the sense of ‘even;’ and ‘hough. B. We even
find al used alone with the sense ‘although,’ as in ‘A/ telle I noght as
now his observances ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 2266 (A 2264). y. On the
spelling with one ἢ, see All. And see Though.
ALTITUDE, height. (F.—L.) It occurs frequently near the end
of Chaucer’s Treatise on the Astrolabe, to translate L. altititdo. = OF.
(and F.) altitude.—L. altitudo, height.—L. alius, high. Altus was
originally the pp. of al-ere, to nourish, and meant ‘ well nourished ;’
hence, grown up, tall, high.
ALTO, a high voice. (Ital.—L.) Modern.=Ital. aléo, high. =
L. a’tus, high. Der. alto-relievo, high relief; Ital. alto rilievo; see
Relief.
ALTOGETHER, completely. (E.) Used by Sir T. More, Works,
p- 914.b. ΜΕ. al togedere, Ancren Riwle, p. 320.. Formed by pre-
fixing ΜΕ. al, adv. ‘ wholly,’ to together. See All and Together.
ALTRUISM, regard for others. (F.—Ital.—L.; with Gk. suffix.)
F. altruisme, a word due to A. Comte (d. 1857). Coined (with the
Greek suffix -ism) from Ital. alérui, another, others. = Ital. alérui; from
altro, nom. sing. masc. ; alira,nom., sing. fem, ; aléri,nom. pl. ; which,
when preceded by any preposition, is changed into alérui for both
genders and numbers (Meadows). = L. alteri huic, to this other; where
alteri is the dat. of alter, another. See Alter. Der. altru-ist-ic, adj.
ALUM, a mineral salt. (F.—L.) ME. alum, Allit. Poems, ed.
Morris, B. 1035; alom, Mandeville’s Travels, p. 99; and used by
Chaucer, C. T. 16281 (ἃ 813).—OF. alum (mod. F. alun), alum;
Roquefort.—L. alimen, alum, used by Vitruvius and others; of un-
known origin. Der. alumin-a, alumin-ous, alumin-ium; all directly
from L. alumin-, the stem of alumen.
ALVEOLAR, pertaining to the sockets of the teeth. (L.) Modern.
— L. alugolvs, a small channel; dimin. of alveus, a cavity, a channel.
ALWAY, ALWAYS, for ever. (E.) Chaucer has alway, al-
ways, Prol. 275 ; sometimes written al way. .1. In O. Eng. Misc., ed.
Morris, p. 148, l. 54, we find alne way, where alne is the accus. case
masc., AS, ealne. The usual AS. form is ealne weg, where both words
are in the acc. sing.; Grein, ii.63=. This form became successively
alne way, al way, and alway. 2. In Hali Meidenhad, p. 27, 1. 22, we
find alles weis, where both words are in the gen. sing. This occa-
sional use of the gen.sing., and thecommon habit of using the gen. sing.
suffix -es as an adverbial suffix, have produced the second form always.
Both forms are thus accounted for. See All and Way.
AM, the first pers. sing. pres. of the verb fo be. (E.) O.Northum-
brian am, O. Merc. eam, AS. eom, Iam. The full form of the word
is shown by the Idg. type *es-mi, whence also Skt. asmi, Gk. εἰμί, Goth.
im, Icel. em, 1 am; compounded of the 4/ ES, to be, and the suffix
-mi, perhaps related to FE. me. See further under Are.
AMADAVAT, a bird; see Avadavat.
AMADOU, a tinder prepared from a fungus. (F.—Prov.—L.)
Modern, = F. amadou. — Prov. amadou, O. Prov. amador, lit. ‘ a lover ;’
also tinder, from its catching fire quickly.—L. amdtorem, acc. of
amitor, a lover; from amire, to love (Hatzfeld; Mistral).
AMAITIN, with full power. (E.) Used by Turberville, To his Ab-
sent Friend, st. 7. Asin other words, such as abe, afoot, aground,
asleep, the prefix is the AS; ox, later an, latest a, signifying ‘in’ or
‘with,’ prefixed to the dat. case of the sb. The usual AS. phrase is,
however, not on megene, but ealle megene, with all strength; Grein,
ii. 217. See On, and Main, sb. strength.
AMALGAM, a compound of mercury with another metal, a mix-
ture. (F.—Gk.) [The restriction in sense to a mixture containing
mercury is perhaps unoriginal ; it is probable that the word properly
meant ‘a pasty mixture,’ and at last ‘a mixture of a metal with mer-
cury.’] Chaucer has amalgaming,C.T., G 771. - Ἐς amalgame, which
Cotgrave explains by ‘a mixture, or incorporation of quicksilver with
other metals ;’ Late L. amalgama. B. Generally taken to be a per-
version (perhaps with prefixed a-, for Arab. al, def. art.) of L. malag-
ma, a mollifying poultice or plaster. —Gk. μάλαγμα, an emollient;
also a poultice, plaster, or any. soft material. —Gk.. μαλάσσειν, to
soften (for *pyaddx-yev).—Gk. μαλακός, soft; cf. Mallow. Der.
amalgam-ate. amalgam-at-ion.
AMANUENSIS, one who writes to dictation. (L.) In Burton’s
Anat. of Melancholy; Dem. to the Reader; ed. 1827, i. 17. Bor-
27>
AMBIDEXTROUS 17
rowed from L. dmanuensis, a scribe who writes to dictation, used by
Suetonius.—L. ὦ mani, by hand; with suffix -ensis, signifying ‘ be-
longing to,’ as in castrensis, belonging to the camp, from castra, a
camp. See Manual.
AMARANTH, an everlasting flower. (L.—Gk.) An error for
amarant; perhaps by confusion with -anthus, Gk. ἄνθος, a flower.
Milton has amarant, P.L. iii. 352; and amarantine, P. L. xi. 78. The
pl. amaraunz (with z=¢s) is in Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 1470; in
which case it is not from the Gk. directly, but from L. amarantus, =
Gk. ἀμάραντος, unfading ; or, as sb., the unfading flower, amaranth.
(Cf. Gk. ἀμαράντινος, made of amaranth. |—Gk. d-, privative; and
μαραίνειν (for *papav-yev), to wither.—4/MER, to grind down.
Der. amaranth-ine. Perhaps allied to Mar,
AMASS, to heap up. (F.—L.—Gk.) Used by Surrey, on Eccles.
c. 3; 1. 3 from end. F. amasser, ‘to pile, heap, gather ;’ Cot. = F.
ἃ masse, to a mass; 50 that amasser is ‘to put into a mass.’ =L, ad,
to; and massam, acc. of massa,a mass. [Curtius remarks concerning
this word (ii. 326) that the Latin ss in the middle of a word answers
to Gk. ¢.)=—Gk. μᾶζα, μάζα, a barley-cake ; lit. a kneaded lump. —Gk.
μάσσειν (base pay-), toknead. Cf. pay-is, acake. See Mass (1).
AMATORY, loving. (L.) Milton has amatorious, Answer to Eikon
Basilike ; amatory is used by Bp. Bramhall (died 1663) in a work
against Hobbes (Todd).—L. amatérius, loving. —L. amator, a lover
(acc. amatorem, whence the F. amateur, now used in English). —L.
amare, to love, with suffix -tor denoting the agent. Der. from the
same L,. verb, ama-teur (above), amat-ive, amat-ive-ness. Amatory is
practically a doublet of Amorous, q. v.
AMAZE, to astound. (E.) Formerly written amase. The word
amased, meaning ‘ bewildered, infatuated,’ occurs three times in the
Ancren Riwle, pp. 270, 284, 288. - AS. amasian, pp. amasod’; Wulf-
stan’s Hom. p. 137, 1. 23. The prefix is the intensive AS. ἃ; thus
to amase is ‘to confound utterly,’ We also find the compound form
bimased, Ancren Riwle, p. 270. See Maze, Der. amaz-ed, amaz-ed-
ness, amaz-ing, amaz-ing-ly, amaze-ment.
AMAZON, a female warrior. (Gk.) They were said to cut off the
right breast in order to use the bow more efficiently ; a story due toa
popular etymology of a foreign word. Shak. has Amazon, Mids. N.D.
ii. 1. 70; and Amazonian, Cor. ii. 2. 95.—Gk. ἀμαζών, pl. ἀμαζόνες,
one of a warlike nation of women in Scythia. Explained as if from
Gk. a-, privative; and pads, the breast. Der. Amazon-ian.
AMBASSADOR, a messenger. (F.—Ital. —Late L.—C.) Udal,
on Math. c. 28, v. 19, has ambassadcur. Also written embassadour ;
Chaucer, Troil. iv. 145... Chaucer has embassadrye, an embassy, C.T.
4053 (B 2322). - Ἐς ambassadeur, ‘embassadour ;’ Cot. —F. ambassade,
anembassy. a. Of this word I'rachet says: ‘not found in French be-
fore the 14th century, and shown to be foreign by its ending -ade (un-
known in OF., which has -¢e for -ade).’ Hatzfeld derives it from Ital.
ambasciata; cf. Late L. ambassiata (Ducange). From Late L. am-
baxiare, ambactiare [to relate, announce], formed from ambactia, a
very common term in the Salic Law, meaning ‘a mission, embassy.’
= Late L. ambactus, a servant, especially one who is sent ona mes-
sage; used once by Cesar, de Bello Gallico, vi. 15. B. This is ex-
pressly said, by Festus, to be a word of Gaulish origin ; and it is now
accepted as Celtic, with the lit. sense of ‘one driven about,’ a slave ;
a pp. formation from the prefix embi, or ambi, about; and the Celtic
root ag-, to drive, cognate with L. agere,to drive. The verb appears
in O. Irish as imm-agim, I drive about, I send about ; and the derived
sb. is represented in Welsh by amaeth, a husbandman. See Brug-
mann, ii. § 79; Stokes-Fick, p.34. 4 The OHG. ambaht, a servant,
whence G. amt, is merely borrowed from Celtic (Kluge). Der. am-
bassadr-ess. See Embassy.
AMBER, a fossil resin; ambergris. (F.—Span.— Arab.) The resin
is named from its resemblance to ambergris, a waxlike substance due
to the sperm-whale, also called amber in early writers. — ME. aumbre,
Prompt. Pary. 1. In Holland’s Pliny, b. xxxvii. c. 3, the word means
the fossil amber. 2. When Beaumont and Fletcher use the word
amber’d in the sense of ‘scented’ (Custom of the Country, iii. 2. 6),
they must refer to ambergris. — F.ambre, ‘amber,’ Cot.=—Span.ambar.
= Arab. ‘amber, ambergris,a perfume; Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 433;
‘ambar, ambergris, a rich perfume and cordial; Rich. Dict. p. 1031.
4 Ambergris is the same word, with addition of F. gris, signifying
‘gray.’ In Milton, P.R. ii. 344, it is called gris amber. The F. grts
is a word of German origin, from OHG. gris, gray, used of the hair ;
cf. G. greis, hoary.
AMBI-, AMB., prefix. (L.) L. ambi-, about; cf. Gk. ἀμφί, on
both sides, whence E. amphi-, prefix. Related to L. ambo, Gk. ἄμφω,
both. Cf. AS. ymb, Irish im, about; Skt. abhi, towards.
AMBIDEXTROUS, using both hands. (L.) Sir T. Browne,
Vulg. Errors, b. iv. c. 5, § 10, has ‘ ambidexterous, or right-handed on
beth sides.’ He also uses ambidexters as a plural sb. = L. ambidexter,
using both hands equally ; not used in classical Latin, and only given
σ
18 AMBIENT
by Ducange with a metaphorical sense, viz. as applied to one who is
equally ready to deal with spiritual and temporal business. —L.
ambi-, generally shortened to amb-; and dexter, the right hand. See
Ambi- and Dexterous.
AMBIENT, going about. (L.) Used by Milton, P. L. vi. 481.—
L. ambient-, going about. — L. amb- (shortened form of ambi-), about ;
and iens, going, pres. pt. of ire, to go. 1. On the prefix see Ambi-.
2. The verb ire is from +/ EI, to go; ef. Skt. and Zend j, to go.
AMBIGUOUS, doubtful. (L.) Sir T. Elyot has ambiguous, The
Governour, bk. iii. c. 4, § 4. The sb. ambiguite (printed anbiguite)
occurs in the Tale of Beryn, ed. Furnivall, 2577. | The adj. is formed
with the suffix -ovs, which properly represents the F. -evx, and L.
-dsus, but is also frequently used in place of L. -us merely; cf. pious,
sonorous, &c., from L. pius, sondrus.J—L. ambiguus, doubtful; lit.
driving about.—L. ambigere, to drive about, go round about.=L.
amb-=ambi-, about ; and agere, to drive. On the prefix,see Ambi-.
Andsee Agent, Der. ambiguous-ly; also ambigu-it-y, from L. acc.
ambiguititem, nom. ambiguitas, doubt.
AMBITION, seeking for preferment. (F.—L.) Spelt ambition by
Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, Ὁ. iii. c, 16. § 1; ambicioun in Wyclif,
Acts, xxv. 23 (earlier version). Ambicion also occurs in the Ayenbite
of Inwyt, pp. 17, 22.—F. ambition, given by Cotgrave.=—L. ambi-
tidnem, acc. of ambitio, a going round; esp, used of the canvassing
for votes at Rome.=L. ambire, supine ambtium, to go round, solicit.
[Note that L. ambisio and ambitus retain the short 7 of the supine i/wm
of ire, the simple verb.|=—L. ambi-, amb-, prefix, about; and γε, to
go. See Ambi-and Ambient. Der. ambiti-ous, ambiti-ous-ly.
AMBULE,to go ata pace between a walk anda trot. (F.—L.) We
find ‘fat palfray amblant,’ i.e. ambling ; King Alisaunder, ed. Weber,
1. 3462; and see Gower, C. A. i. 210 (bk. 11. 1506). Chaucer has
‘wel ambling,’ C. T. 8265 (E 388); and ‘it gooth an ambel’ = it goes
at an easy pace, said of a horse, C. Τὶ 13815 (B 2075); and he calls
a lady’s horse an ambler, Prol. to C. T. 471 (A 469).—O.F. ambler,
to go at an easy pace. —L. ambulare, to walk. See Ambulation.
Der. ambl-er, pre-amble,
AMBROSIA, food of the gods. (Gk.) In Milton, P. L. v. 57;
he frequently uses the adj. ambrosial.— Gk. ἀμβροσία, the food of the
gods; fem, of adj. ἀμβρόσιος. — Gk. ἀμβρύσιος, a lengthened form (with
suffix -yo) of dB pot-os, immortal. — Gk. ἄμβροτος, where ἀ- is the nega-
tive prefix, and μβροτός is for ἕμροτός, lit. ‘dead,’ earlier form of tie
word which was afterwards spelt βροτός. See Mortal, 4 The Gk.
ἄμβροτος has its exact counterpart in Skt. a-myta-s, immortal, used in
the neuter to denote the beverage of the gods. Southey misspells this
word amreeta; see his Curse of Kehama, canto xxiv. 9, and note on
‘the amreeta, or drink of immortality.’ Der. ambrosi-al, ambrosi-an.
AMBRY, AUMBRY, a cupboard. (F.—L.) a. Nares re-
marks that ambry is a corruption of almoxry, but this remark only
applies to a particular street in Westminster so called. The word in
the sense of ‘ cupboard’ has a different origin, B. The word is now
almost obsolete, except provincially ; it is spelt aumbrie by Tusser,
Five Hundred Points, E. D. S., § 75. 2 (p. 167). ME. awmery, awme-
bry, Prompt. Parv. Earlier almary, P. Plowman, C. xvii.88. Clearly
a corruption of OF. armarie, a repository for arms (Burguy), which
easily passed into almarie (as in Roman de Ron, 4565), a’m’rie, and
thence into ambry, with the usual excrescent ὁ after m. The OF .armarie
became later armaire, armoire; Cotgrave gives both these forms, and
explains them by ‘a cupboord, ambrie, little press ; any hole, box con-
trived in, or against, a wall,’ ἄς. Hence ambry is a doublet of armory;
and both are to be referred to Late L. armdaria, a chest or cupboard,
esp. a bookcase. Another form is armdrium, esp. used to denote a
repository for arms, which is plainly the original sense, = L.arma,arms.
SeeArms. It is remarkable that, as the ambry ina church was
sometimes used asa place of deposit for alms, itwas popularly connected
with alms instead of arms, and looked upon as convertible with almonry.
AMBULATION, walking about. (L.) Used by Sir Τὶ Browne,
Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. iii. c. 1. § 4; but uncommon. Of the adj. ambulatory
Rich. gives five examples, one from Bp, Taylor's Great Exemplar,
pt. iii. s. 13. Formed with F. suffix -tion, but really directly from
Latin. =L. acc. ambulationem, from nom. ambulatio, a walking about ;
from ambuldre, to walk about.—L. amb-, about (see Ambi-); and
-ulare, allied to Gk. ἀλ-άομαι, I wander, roam; ἄλ-η, a wandering
(Prellwitz). Der. ambula-tory (from L. ambulare, with suffix -tdr-ius).
From the same root, amble, per-ambulate, pre-amble. See Amble.
Also F. ambul-ance, a movable hospital, now adopted into English.
AMBUSCADBH, an ambush. (Span.—Late L.) Often spelt am-
buscado ; see Ben Jonson, Every Man in his Humour, ed. Wheatley,
ii. 4.16, and the note. Dryden has ambuscade, tr. of AZneid, vi. 698 ;
Richardson, by a misprint, attributes the word to Spenser.—Span.
emboscada, an ambuscade. = Span. embuscado, placed in ambush, pp. of
emboscar, to set in ambush. — Late L. imboscare ; see Ambush.
AMBUSH, a hiding in a wood. (F.—Late L.) In Shakespeare,
AMETHYST
Meas. for Meas. i. 3. 41. A corruption of an older embush or enbush,
which was originally a verb, signifying ‘to set in ambush.’ Rob. of
Brunne, in his tr. of P. Langtoft, has enbussement, p. 187, bussement,
p- 242; also the pp. ezbussed, set in ambush, p. 187, as well as the
shortened form dussed on the same page. In all these cases, ss stands
for sk, as in Rob. of Gloucester. Gower has embuisshed, embuisschement,
C. A. 1. 260, iii. 208 (bk. ii, 3007, bk. vii. 3476).—OF. embuscher,
embuisster, to set in ambush. = Late L. tmboscare, to set in ambush, lit.
“to set in a bush,’ still preserved in Ital. zmboscare, = L. in-, in (which
becomes im- before 6); and Late L. boseus, a bush, wood, thicket,
whence OF, bos, mod. I°. boi. See Bush. Der. ambush-ment; and
see above.
AMEER, a commander; see Emir.
AMELIORATEH, to better. (F.—L.) Notinearlyuse. Formed
with sufix -ate; on which see Abbreviate.—MF. ameliorer, to
better, improve ; see Cotgrave.=—F. prefix a- = L. ad; and MF. me-
ltorer, to make better, also given by Cotgrave. — L. ad, to ; and Late L.
meliorare, to make better (Ducange), from melior, better. See Me-
liorate. Der. amelisrat-ion.
AMEN, so be it. (L.—Gk.—Heb.) Used in the Vulgate version
of Matt. vi. 13, &c.—Gk. ἀμήν, verily. Heb. amén, adv. verily, so
be it; from adj. dmén, firm, true, faithful; from vb. aman, to sustain,
support, found, fix, orig. ‘to be firm.’
AMENABLE, easy to lead. (F.—L.) Spelt amesnable by Spenser,
View of the State of Ireland (R.); but the s is superfluous; printed
ameanable in the Globe edition, p. 622, col. 2,1. 1. Formed, with
the common F. suffix -able, from the F. verb. - Ἐς amener, ‘ to bring or
lead unto;’ Cot. Burguy gives the OF. spellings as amener and
amenier.—F. a-, prefix (L. ad); and Ἐς. mener, to conduct, to drive,
Late L. minare, to conduct, to lead from place to place ; also, to expel,
drive out, chase away; Ducange. The Late L. minare is from L.
minari, to threaten, from L. mine, threats. See Menace. Der.
amen-abl-y. From the same root, de-mean (1), q. v-
AMEND, to free from faults. (F.—L.) ME. amenden, to better,
repair; Chaucer, C. Τ᾿ 10511 (F 197); Ancren Riwle, p. 420. Hence
amendement, Gower, C. A. ii. 373 (bk. v. 7153). — OF. amender (mod.
EF. amender), to amend, better. —L. émendare, to free from fault,
correct. [For the unusual change trom e to a, see Brachet’s Hist.
Grammar, sect. 685. xi.]—L. €=ex, out, away from; and mendum,
or menda, a blemish, fault. On the prefix ex, see Ex-. Der. amend-
able, amend-ment; also amends, q.v. And see Mend.
AMENDS, reparation. (F.—L.) ME. pl. amendes, amendis,
common in the phr. /o maken amendes, to make amends; Will. of
Palerne, 3919 ; Ayenbite of Inwyt, pp. 113, 148. —AF. amendes, Liber
Custumarum, p. 223; pl. of OF. amende, reparation, satisfaction, a
penalty by way of recompense.— OF. amender, to amend. See
Amend.
AMENITY, pleasantness. (F.—L.) The adj. amen, pleasant,
occurs in Lancelot of the Laik, ed. Skeat, 1. 999; spelt amene in a
quotation from Lydgate in Halliwell. Sir T. Browne has amenity,
Vulg. Errors, b. vii. c. 6. § 3.— MF. amenité, ‘ amenity, pleasantness ;’
Cot.—L. acc. amoenitatem, from nom. amoenitds, pleasantness. = L.
amoenus, pleasant ; allied to amare, to love. See AMorous.
AMERCEH, to fine. (F.—L.) ME. amercien, amercen, to fine,
mulct. ‘And thowgh ye mowe amercy hem, late [let] mercy be tax-
oure ;’ P. Plowman, B. vi. 40. ‘Amercyn in a corte or lete, amercio ;’
Prompt. Pary. p. 11.—AF. amercier, to fine; not used in OF.; see
Year-books of Edw. I, 1338-9, Ὁ. 5. The Late L. form is amerciare,
to fine (Ducange) ; observe the citation of amercio above. Due to
the OF. phrase a merci, at the mercy of (the court); whence es/re a
merci, to be at the mercy of, and esire amercié, to be at the mercy of,
to be fined ; and hence amercier, actively, to fine; see Britton. —L. ad
mercédem, orig. ‘for areward;’ but L. mercés had acquired many other
senses ; as, hire, wages; also reward, in the sense of punishment; also
detriment, cost, trouble, pains. In late times, it acquired also the
sense of ‘ mercy, pity,’ as noted by Ducange, 5. v. Merces. See further
under Mercy, @| The etymology has been confused by Blount,
in his Law Dictionary, s. v. Amerciament, and by other writers, who
have supposed the F. merci to be connected with L. misericordia (with
which it has no connexion whatever), and who have strained their
definitions and explanations accordingly. Der. amerce-ment, amercia-
ment; the latter being a Latinised form.
AMETHYST, a precious stone. (L.—Gk.) ‘As for the amethyst,
as well the herb as the stone of that name, they who think that both
the one and the otheris (sic) so called because they withstand drunken-
nesse, miscount themselves, and are deceived ;’ Holland, tr.of Plutarch’s
Morals, p. 560. Boyle, Works, vol. i. p. 513, uses the adj. amethystine.
—L. amethystus, used by Pliny, 37.9. [Note : directly from the Latin,
the F. form being ametiste in Cotgrave. However, the form amatiste,
from the Old French, is found in the 13th century; OE. Miscellany,
ed. Morris, p. 98, 1. 171.J—Gk. ἀμέθυστος, sb. a remedy against
AMIABLE
drunkenness ; an amethyst, from its supposed virtue in that way. =
Gk. ἀμέθυστος, adj. not drunken. —Gk. ἀ-, privative; and μεθύειν, to
be drunken, from μέθυ, strong drink, wine, cognate with I. mead.
See Mead (1). Der. amethyst-ine.
AMIABLE, friendly; worthy of love. (F.—L.) ‘She was so ami-
able and free ;’ Kom, Rose, 1226. ‘The amiable tonge is the tree of ly!;’
Chaucer, Pers. Tale, De Ira (I 629).—OF. amiadle, friendly; also
lovable, by confusion with aimable (L. amabilis).—L. amicabili.,
friendly, amicable. = L. amica-re, to make friendly; with suffix -4rZi ,
used in forming adjectives from verbs. L. amicus, a friend ; prop. an
adj., friendly, loving. —L. amare, to love. See Amorous. Der.
amiable-ness, amiabl-y; am abil-i-ty, formed by analogy with amicabiliiy,
&e. Amicabili y and amiability are doublets.
AMICABLE, friendly. (L.) In Levins, ed. 1570. Used by
Bp. Taylor, Peacemaker (.<.); he uses amicableness in the same work.
{Formed with svffix -b/e as if French, but really from Latin.]=—L.
amicabilts, friendly; whence the OF. amiable. Thus amicable and
amiable are doublets. See AMiable. Der. amicabl-y, amicable-ness.
AMICK (1), a rectangular piece of white linen, variously worn by
pniests. (F.—L.) ME. amyse, Wyclif, Isa. xxii. 17 (where the Latin
has amictum) ; also amyle, Wyclif, Heb. i. 12 (earlier version). —OF.
amis, amt (Burguy).=—L. amictus, a covering (amit being from the
acc. amiclum).=—L. amic/us, pp. of amicire, to throw round. =L. am-
(amb-), around; and iacere, to cast. Cf. MF. amuct, ‘an amict, or
amice; part of a massing priest’s habit ;’ Cot.
AMICE (2), a hood for pilgrims, &c. (F.—Span.—Tent.?) ‘Came
forth, with prlgrim steps, in amice gray;’ Milton, P. R. iv. 427.
Contused with amice (1), but really from OF. awmuce (F. aumusse),
‘an ornament of furre worne by canons,’ Cot.; also ‘a furred hood ;’
see Fairholt’s Glossary, 5. v. almuce.—Span. almucio, ‘an ornament
of furrs, worn by canons,’ Pineda ; where αἱ is the Arab. def. article. =
6. mise, a cap (cf. Lowl. Sc. mutch). @ But some think that G.
mitse is from Late L.almucia. Cf. Ital. mozzetta, a rochet (Tornano);
Port. murga, a garment lined with fur worn by canons.’
AMID, AMIDST, in the middle of. (E.) Amidst is common in
Milton, 1. L. i. 791; &c. He also uses amid. Shak. also has both
forms. a. Amidst is not found in earlier English, and the final ¢ is
merely excrescent (as often afters), as in whtlst, amongst, from the
older forms whiles, amonges. B. The ME, forms are amiddes, P. Plow-
man, B. xii. 82; in middes, Pricke of Conscience, 2938; amidde,
Ayenbyte of Inwyt, p. 143; on midden, OF. Homilies,i.87. y. Of
these, the correct type is the earliest, viz. on midden; whence on-midde,
a-midde were formed by the usual loss of final x, and the change of
on to a, as in abed, afoot,a:lep. δ. The form amiddes was produced
by adding the adverbial suffix -s, properly the sign of a gen. case, but
commonly used to form adverbs. = AS. on middan, in the middle; see
examples in Grein, il. 249, 5. v. mele. Here on is the prep. (mod.
E. on), used, as often elsewhere, with the sense of ‘in ;’? and middan
is the dat. case of midde, sb. the middle, orig. the nom. fem. of the
adj. mid or midd, middle, cognate with L. medius. See Middle.
AMISS, adv. wrongly. (Scand.) α. In later authors awkwardly
used as asb.; thus ‘urge not my amiss ;’ Shak. Sonn. 151. But pro-
perly an adverb, as in ‘That he ne dooth or seith somtyme amis ;’
Chaucer, C.T. 11092 (F 780). The mistake was due to the fact
that misse, without a-, meant ‘an error’ in early times, as will appear.
B. Amiss stands for ME, on misse, lit. in error, where on (from AS. on)
has the usual sense of ‘in,’ and passes into the form a-, as in so many
other cases; cf. abed, afoot, asleep. yy. ME. amis or on misse may
have been taken immediately from the Icel. phrase ἃ mis, amiss ; from
Icel. ἃ (=AS. ov) and mis, adv., wrongly. Or we may explain misse
as the dat. case from nom. musse, a disyilabic word, not used as a sb.
in AS., but borrowed from the Icel. missa, a loss; also used with the
notion of ‘error’ in composition, as in Icel. mis-¢aka, to take in error,
whence E. mistake. The ME, misse hence acquired the sense of
‘guilt,’ ‘offence,’ as in ‘to mende my misse,’ to repair my error;
Will. of Palerne, 532. See Miss.
AMITY, friendship. (F.—L.) Udal, Pref. to St. Marke (near the
end), has amytie. Skelton has amyte, Why Come Ye Nat to Courte, 371.
— F.. amit, explained by Cotgrave to mean ‘ amity, friendship,’ &c. ;
OF. amiste, amisied, amistied | =Span. amistad, Ital. amista (for amis-
tate) |.— Late L. *amicilatem, acc. of *amicitas, friendship, a vulgar
form, not recorded by Ducange, but formed by analogy with mendi-
cilds from mendicus, antiguitas from antiquus. = L. amicus, friendly. —
L. amdre, to love. See Amiable, Amorous. It is impossible
to derive the old Romance forms from L. amicitia.
AMMONTA, an alkali. (L.—Gk.—Egypt.) A modem word,
adopted as a contraction of sal ammoniac, L. sal amméniacum, rock-
salt; common in old chemical treatises, and still more so in treatises
on alchemy. (Chaucer speaks of sal armoniak, C.T., G 798, 824;
but this is a false form.]—Gk. ἀμμωνιακόν, 5181 ammoniac, rock-salt ;
Dioscorides. = Gk. ἀμμωνιάς, Libyan. Gk. ἄμμων, the Libyan Zeus-
AMPHIBRACH 19
Ammon ; known to be an Egyptian word; Herodotus, ii. 42; and
Smith, Dict. of the Bible, s.v. Amon. It is said that sal ammoniac was
first obtained near the temple of Jupiter Ammon,
AMMONITE, a kind of fossil shell. (Gk.—Egypt.) Modern;
first in 1758. Formed by adding the suffix -i¢e to the name Ammon.
The fossil is sometimes called by the L. name of cornu Ammonis, the
horn of Ammon, because it much resembles a closely twisted ram's
horn, and was fancifully likened to the horns of Jupiter Ammon, who
was represented as a man with the horns of aram. See above.
AMMUNITION, store for defence. (f.—L.) Used by Bacon,
Advice to Sir G, Villiers (&.); and by Milton, Samson, 1277. Krom
MEF. amunition,asoldiers’ corruption of munition,‘ victuals for an army,’
Cot.; due to substituting /’amunition for la munition (Littré). = L. acc.
minitonem, from miinitio, a defence, a defending. —L. miinire, to de-
feod. See Munition.
AMNESTY, a pardon of offenders; lit. a forgetting of offences.
(F.-—L.—Gk.) Used in the L. form ammesiia by Howell, b. iii.
letter 6 (1647). Barrow has amnesty, vol. iil. serm. 41. =F. amnestie,
which Cotgrave explains by ‘forgetfulness of things past.’—L. am-
né.tia, ἃ Latinised form of the Gk. word. [Ducange gives ammescra,
but this is an error; for ¢ is constantly mistaken for c in MSS., and
frequently so printed.] — Gk. ἀμνηστία, a forgetfulness, esp. of wrong;
hence, an amnesty.—Gk. ἄμνηστος, forgotten, unremembered. = Gk.
ἀ-, privative; and μνάομαι, 1 remember; from a stem muna, by grada-
tion from a root men; cf. 1, me-min-1, | remember. =—4/MEN, to think;
ef. Skt. nan, to think.
AMONG, AMONGST, amidst. (E.) a. The form amongst, like
amidst, is not very old, and has assumed an additional final ¢, such as
is often added after s; cf. whilst, amidst, from the older forms whiles,
amiddes, Amongi:¢ occurs in Torrent of Portugal, 1. 2027 [2127];
but I suppose it does not occur earlier than the fifteenth century.
B. The usual form is amonges, as in P. Plowman, B. v. 129; amonge
is also common, id. v. 169. Earlier, the commonest form is among,
Ancren Riwle, p. 158... y. Amonges is formed by adding the usual
adverbial suffix -es, properly a genitive form, and amonge by adding
the adverbial suffix -e, also common, properly a dative form.=—AS.
onmang, prep. among, Levit. xxiv. 10; the forms on gemang (John, iv.
31) and gemaxg (Mark, iii. 3) also occur, the last of the three being
commonest. B. ‘hus the prefix is AS. ov, and the full form onmang,
used as a preposition. Like most prepositions, it originated with a
substantive, viz. AS. (ge) mang, a crowd, assembly, lit. a mixture; so
that on mang(e) or ox gemang(e) meant ‘in a crowd.’ Allied to AS.
mengan, mengan, to mix; Grein, ii. 231. See Mingle.
AMOROUS, full of love. (¥.—L.) Gower has amorous, C. A.
i. 89 (bk. i. 1414); it also occurs in the Romaunt of the Rose, 83. —
OF. amoros, mod. Εἰ, amoureux. = Late L. amdérésus, full of love; Du-
cange. Formed with the common L. suffix -dsus from amér-, stem of
amor, love. = L.amare,tolove. Der. amorous-ly, amorous-ness. Alsol’.
amour, love (now used in Eng.), from L. amdrem, acc. case of amor, love.
AMORPHOUS, formless. (Gk.) In Bailey (1731). Formed
from Gk. ἀ-, privative ; and Gk. μορφή, shape, form.
AMORT, inanimate, spiritless. (F.—L.) * What, all amort?’ Shak.
1 Hen. VI, iii. 2.124. From Ἐς. ὦ da mort,to the death; turned into
E. all amort, as if amort were the Ἐς ἃ mort. —L. ad, to; illam, acc.
fem. of ille, he; mortem, acc. of mors, death. See Mortal.
AMOUNT, to mount upto. (F.—L.) ME. amounten, to mount
up to, come up to, esp. in reckoning, Chaucer, C. T. 3899, 4989
(A 3901, Β 569); Rob. of Glouc. p. 497, 1. 10214. Amuntet, ascends,
Old Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 28. —OF. amonter, to amount to.
— OF. a mont, towards or toa mountain, to a large heap. {The adv.
amont is also common, in the sense of ‘uphill,’ ‘upward,’ and is formed
by joining a with mont.|—L. ad montem, lit. to a mountain: where
montem is the acc. case of mons, a mountain. See Mount, Moun-
tain. Der. amount, sb.
AMPERSAND, a corruption of ‘ and per se, and,’ the old way of
spelling and naming the character & ; i.e. ‘& byitself =and.’ (Hybrid;
E., L.,and E.) Common in E. dialects. So,in ME., we have A per
se, A by itself; Henrysoun, Test. of Creseide, 78.
AMPHI-, prefix. (Gk.) The strict sense is ‘on both sides.’ = Gk.
ἀμφί, on both sides; also, around.-L. ambi, amb-, on both sides,
around; see Ambi-, where other cognate forms are given. Der.
amphi-bious, amphi-brach, amphi-theatre.
AMPHIBIOUS, living both on land and in water. (Gk.) In
Sir T. Browne’s Vulg. Errors, bk. iii, c. 13. § 8. From amphibi-a,
pl., amphibious animals; with suffix -ovs.—Gk. ἀμφίβιος, living a
double life, 1.e. both on land and water. —Gk. ἀμφί, here used in the
sense of ‘double ;’ and Bios, life. See Amphi-.and Biology.
AMPHIBRACH, a foot in prosody. (Gk.) Puttenham has
amphibrachus; Eng. Poesie, bk. 11. c..13 (14). A name given, in
prosody, to a foot composed ofa short syllable on each side of a long
one (u—v).—Gk. ἀμφίβραχυς, the same.—Gk. ἀμφί, on both sides;
C2
20 AMPHISBANA
and βραχύς, short; cognate with L. breuis, short, whence E. brief.
See Amphi- and Brief.
AMPHISBZENA, a fabled serpent, with a head at each end, and
able to proceed in either direction. (L.—Gk.) In Milton, P. L. x.
524.—L. amphisbena, — Gk. ἀμφίσβαινα. — Gk. ἀμφίς, both ways; and
βαίνειν, to go.
AMPHITHEATRE, an oval theatre. (Gk.) Puttenham has the
pl. amphitheaters; Eng. Poesie, bk. i. c. 17. From Gk. ἀμφιθέατρον,
a theatre with seats all round the arena. [Properly neuter from
ἀμφιθέατρος, i.e. seeing all round.|—Gk. ἀμφί, on both sides; and
θέατρον, a theatre, place for seeing shows, from Gk. θεάομαι, I see.
AMPHORA, a two-handled jar. (L.—Gk.) ‘A glas clepid am-
phora;’ Book of Quinte Essence, ab, 1465, ed. Furmivall, p. 5.1. 4.—
L. amphora. = Gk. aupopeds, short for ἀμφιφορεύς, a two-handled jar.
—Gk. ἀμφί, on both sides; φορεύς, a bearer, from φέρειν, to bear.
See Amphi- and Bear (1).
. AMPLE, full, large. (F.—L.) Used by Hall, Hen. VIII, an. 31.
§ 23; Shak. K. Lear, i. 1. 82. [Fox and Udal use the obsolete de-
rivative ampliate, and Burnet has ampliation ; from L. ampliare, to
augment. ] - F. ample, which Cotgrave explains by ‘ full, ample, wide,
large,’ &c.—L. amplus, large, spacious. bréal derives L. amplus from
am-, amb-, prefix, ‘about ;’ aud -p/us, as in du-plus, double (Gk. &-
mAds). See Ambi- and Double. Der. ampli-tude; ampli-fy, K.
Lear, v. 3. 206 (F. amplifier, from L. amplificare) ; ampli-fic-at-ion ;
see anplifier and amplifica ion in Cotgrave. Also ampl-y, ample-ness.
AMPUTATE, to cut off round about, prune. (L.) Sir Τὶ Browne
has amputat on, Vulg. Errors, b. iv. c. 5. § 1. On the suffix -ate, see
Abbreviate. —L. amputdre, to cut off round about, pp. amputatus.
=L. am-, short for amb-, ambi-, round about (see AMbi-) ; and L.
putare, to cleanse, also to lop or prune trees, from L. putus, pure,
clean; from the same root as Pure, q.v. Der. amputat-ion.
AMUCK, AMOK, a term applied to mad rage. (Malay.) Only
in phr. ‘to run amuck,’ where amuck is all one word; yet Dryden has
‘runs an Indian muck,’ Hind and Panther, iii. 1188. To run amuck=
to run about in a mad rage. — Malay a@muq, ‘rushing ina state of frenzy
to the commission of indiscriminate murder ;’ Marsden, Malay Dict.
AMULET, a charm against evil. (F.—L.) Used by Sir T. Browne,
Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. ii. c. 5, part 3. —F. amulette, ‘a counter-charm ;’ Cot.
= L. amulétum, a talisman, esp. one hung round the neck (Pliny). The
suggestion that this is a word of Arabic origin is now commonly
abandoned.
AMUSE, to engage, divert. (F.—L.) Miltonhasamus’d,P.L.vi.581,
623 ; and see Cowley, To the Royal Soc., 1. 20. — F. amuser, ‘to amuse,
to make to muse or think of; wonder or gaze at; to put intoa dump;
to stay, hold, or delay from going forward by discourse, questions, or
any other amusements ;’ Cot. =F. a-, prefix (L. ad), at; and OF. muser,
to stare, gaze fixedly, like a simpleton, whence E. muse, verb, used by
Chaucer, C. T., B 1033. See Muse, v. Der. amus-ing, amus-ing-ly,
amn-e-ment ; also amus-ive, used in Thomson's Seasons, Spring, 216.
AMYGDALOID, almond-shaped. (Gk.) See Almond.
AN, A, the indef. article. (E.) The final 2 is occasionally pre-
served betore a consonant in Layamon’s Brut, which begins with the
words ‘An preost wes on leoden, where the later text has ‘A prest
was in londe.’? This shows that the loss of x before a consonant was
taking place about A.D. 1200.—AS. an, often used as the indef.
article ; see examples in Grein, i. 30; but properly having the sense
of ‘ one,’ being the very word from which mod. E. one is derived. An
and a represent the unstressed forms of one. See One.
AN-, A-, negative prefix. (Gk.) Gk. ἀν-, d-, negative prefix.
Cognate with the Skt. an-, a-, L. in-, G. and E. un-, Olrish an-, all
negative prefixes. Brugm. i. § 432. See Un-. The form an- occurs
in several words in English, 6. g. an-archy, an-ecdole, an-erotd, an-odyne,
an-omaly, an-onymous. The form a- is still commoner; 6. g. a-byss,
a-chromatic, a-maranth, a-sylum, a-symplote, a-tom.
AN, if. (E.) See And.
AWNA-, AN., prefix. (Gk.) It appears as an- in an-eurism, a kind
of tumour. The usual form is ana-, as in ana-logy, ana-baptist. From
Gk. ἀνά, upon, on, up; also back, again; it has the same form ana
in Gothic, and is cognate with E. on, See On.
ANA, ANNA, the sixteenth part ofa rupee. (Hindustani.) Hind.
ana (written ana in Skt.), the sixteenth of a rupee, commonly, but
incorrectly, written anna, Also used as a measure, to express a
sixteenth part of a thing; H. H. Wilson, Gloss. of Indian Terms, p. 24.
Given as ana; Forbes, Hind. Dict.
ANABAPTIST, one who baptises again. (Gk.) Used by Sir T.
More, Works, p. 656g. Formed by pretixing the Gk. ἀνά, again, to
baptist. See Ana-and Baptist. So also ana-baptism. q The
sect of Anabaptists arose in Germany about 1521 (Haydn).
ANACHRONISM, an error in chronology. (Gk.) Used by
Walpole; Anecd. of Painting, vol. i. c. 2. 8. 32. From Gk. ἀναχρονισμός,
an anachronism. = Gk. ἀναχρονίζειν, to refer to a wrong time. —Gk.
| to cut.
ANATOMY
ἀνα, up, sometimes used in composition in the sense of ‘ backwards;
and χρόνος. time. See Ana- and Chronic.
ANACONDA, a Jarge serpent. (Cingalese.) Now used of a S.
American boa, but previously applied to a large snake in Ceylon; see
the account in Yule; whose etymology, however, is incorrect. The
true Sinhalese (Cingalese) word is henakandayd, a name at first applied
to the whip-snake, and transferred to some large serpents by mistake.
From hena, ‘lightning,’ and kanda, ‘stem;’ with suffix -ya. See N.
and Q., 8 S. xii. 123; 9 S. viii. 80.
AN AEMTA, bloodlessness. (L.—Gk.) Modern. A Latinised form
of Gk ἀ- auia,want of blood, = Gk.dv-, negative prefix; andafya, blood.
AN ASSTHETIC, adj., rendering persons insensible to pain.
(Gk.) Mo:ern. Formed by prefixing the Gk. dv-, cognate with E.
un-, negative prefix, to Gk. αἰσθητικός, perceptive, full of perception.
See Aisthetics, Also used asa sb.
ANAGRAM, a change in a word due to transposition of letters.
(F.-L.—Gk.) Ben Jonson, in his Masque of Hymen, speaks of
‘IUNO, whose great name Is UNIO in the anagram, =F. anagramme
(Cotgrave). - L. *axagramma, borrowed from Gk. = Gk. ἀνάγραμμα, an
anagram. = Gk. ava, up, which is also used in a distributive sense ; and
γράμμα, a written character, letter, from Gk. γράφειν, to write, origin-
ally to cut, scratch marks; allied to E. carve. See Graphic. Der.
anagramm-at-ic-al, axagramm-at-ic-al-ly, anagramm-at-ist. 4 Ex-
amples of anagrams. Gk, ᾿Αρσινίη, Arsinoe, transposed to tov Ἥρας,
Hera's violet. L. Galenus, Galen, transposed to angelus, an angel.
E. Fokn Bunyan, who transposed his name to Nu hony in a B!
ANALOGY, proportion, correspondence. (F.—L.—Gk.) Tyndal
has analogie, Works, p. 4733 so in Elyot, The Governour, b. ii. c. 4.
§ 2.—F.analogie; Cot. — L.analogia. — Gk. ἀναλογία, equality of ratios,
correspondence, analogy. = Gk.dava, up, upon, throughout; and -Aoyia,
made by adding the suffix -ya@ (= Gk. -ca) to the stem of Ady-os, a word,
a statement, account, proportion, from the second grade (Aoy-) of Ck.
λέγ-ειν, to speak. See Logie. Der. analog-ic-al, analog-ic-al-ly,
analog-ise, analog-ism, analog-ist, analog-ous ; also analogue (F. ana-
logue, prop. an adj. signifying analogous, from Gk. adj. dvadoyos,
proportionate, conformabie).
ANALYSE, to resolve into parts. (F.—Gk.) Sir T. Browne,
Hydriotaphia, c. 3. ὃ 18, says, ‘what the sun compoundeth, fire ana-
lyzei‘h, not transmuteth.’ Ben Jonson has analytic, Poetaster, A. v.
sc. I. 134. Analysis occurs in Kirke’s Argument to Spenser’s Shep.
Kal. § 2. Cotgrave gives no related word in French, and perhaps
the F. analyser is later. Most likely the word analytic was borrowed
directly from the Gk. ἀναλυτικός, and the verb to analyse may easily
have been formed directly from the F. sb. analyse, or Late L. analysis,
i.e. Gk. ἀνάλυσις, a loosening, resolving. Gk. ἀναλύειν, to loosen,
undo, resolve. = Gk. ἀνα, back; and λύειν, to loosen. See Lose.
Der. analys-¢; also (from analy/ic) analytic-al, analytic-al-ly.
ANANAS, the pine-apple. (Port.—Brazil.) Thomson has anana,
with wrong form and accent; Summer, 685.— Port. ananas; Vieyra,
p- 284 (Span. ananas, Pineda). Guarani anand, the name of the fruit ;
that of the plant is nana; in La Plata, both fruit and plant are called
anand (Granada). 4 ‘The Peruy. name was achupalla.
ANAPEST, ANAPASST, the name of a foot in prosody. (L.—
Gk.) In Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, bk. ii. c.13 (14).—L. anapestus. — Gk.
dvanaoros, struck back, rebounding ; because the foot is the reverse of
a dactyl. = Gk. ἀναπαίειν, to strike back or again. — Gk.dva; and παίειν,
tostrike. @ An anapest is marked uw -, the reverse of the dactyl,
Or -ὐυὐ.
ANARCHY, want of government in a state. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Milton has anarch, P. L. it. 988; and anarchy, P. L. ii. 896.—F.
anarchie, ‘an anarchy, a commonwealth without a head or governour;’
Cot.=—L. anarchia.=—Gk. ἀναρχία, a being avapyos, without head or
chief; from Gk. ἀν- (E. ux-) and ἀρχός, a ruler, from Gk. ἄρχειν, to
tule, to be the first. See Arch-. Der. anarch-ic, anarch-ic-al,
anarch-1sm, anarch-tst.
ANATHEMA, a curse. (L.—Gk.) Bacon, Essay on Goodness,
refers to anathema as used by St. Paul. = L. anathema, in the Vulgate
version of Rom. ix. 3.—Gk. ἀνάθεμα, lit. a thing devoted; hence, a
thing devoted to evil, accursed. —Gk. ἀνατίθημι, I devote. — Gk. ἀνά,
up; and τίθημι, I lay, place, put. Cf. Theme. Der. anathemat-tse
(from stem ἀναθεματ- of sb. ἀνάθεμα) in Sir T. Herbert's Travels, ed.
1665, p. 248: from MF. anathematiser, Cot. ἢ
ANATOMY, the art of dissection. (F.—L.—Gk.) Anatomy, in
old writers, commonly means ‘a skeleton,’ as being a thing on which
anatomy has been performed ; see Shak. Com. Errors, v. 238. Gas-
coigne has a poem on The Anatomye of a Lover. =F. anatomie, ‘ana-
tomy ; a section of, and looking into, all parts of the body; also, an
anatomy, or carkass cut up;’ Cot.—L. anatomia.=—Gk. ἀνατομία, of
which a more classical form is ἀνατομή, dissection. — Gk. ἀνατέμνειν,
to cut up, cut open. —Gk. ἀνά, up; and τέμνειν (second grade top-),
See Tome. Der. anatom-ic-al, anatom-ise, anatom-ist.
ANCESTOR
ANCESTOR, a predecessor, forefather. (F.—L.) ME. ancessour,
ancestre, auncestre. Chaucer has auncestres, C. T. 6742 (D 1160).
Ancestree, Rob. of Brunne’s tr. of Langtoft, p. 9; ancessoure, id. p. 1773
from OF. ancestre, nom. and ancessour, acc.,ofthesame sb. β. Thus
OF. ancestre represents L. antecessor,nom.; and OF. ancessour is from
antecessorem, acc. case of anteces or, a fore-goer. = L. ante, before ; and
cédere, pp.cessus, to go. See Cede. Der. ancestr-al, ancestr-y, ancestr-ess,
ANCHOR, a hooked iron instrument for holding a ship in its place.
(L.—Gk.) ΜΕ. anker, Havelok, 521. AS. ancor, Grein, i. 3.—L.
ancora; sometimes illspelt axchora, which is imitated in the mod. E.
form. = Gk. ἄγκυρα, an anchor; Max Miiller, Lectures, i. 108, note;
8thed. Orig.a bent hook, and allied to Gk. ἀγκών, α bend; also to
Skt. avch, to bend. From 4/ANQ, to bend, curve; Brugm. i. § 633.
See Angle, a hook. Der. anchor, verb, anchor-age.
ANCdHORET, ANCHORITEH, a recluse, hermit. (F.—Late
L.—Gk.) The former is the better spelling. ME. has the form acre,
which is rather common, and used by Wyclif, Langland, and others;
esp. in the phrase Ancren Riwle, i.e. the rule of (female) anchorets,
the title of a work written early in the 13th century. Shak. has anchor,
Hamlet, iii. 2. 229. This ME. word is modified from AS. ancra, or
ancer, a hermit. B. The AS. ancer-lif, i.e. ‘hermit-life,’ is used to
translate the L. ita anachérética in Beda's Eccl. Hist. iv. 28; and the
word ancer is no native word, but a mere adaptation of Late L. ana-
choréta,ahermit,reclase. γ. The more modern form anchoret, which
occurs in Burton’s Anat. of Melan., pt. 1. s. 2. τῇ. 2. subs. 6. § 3, is
from the French. — MF. anachorete, m. ‘the hermit called an ankrosse
[corruption of axkress, a female anker or anchoret | or anchorite ;’ Cot.
— Late L. anachéréta, a recluse. = Gk. ἀναχωρητής, a recluse, lit. one
who has retired from the world. — Gk. ἀναχωρεῖν, to retire. — Gk. ἀνά,
back; and χωρέειν, χωρεῖν, to withdraw, make room, from χῶρος,
space, room; related to χωρίς, asunder, apart, and to χῆρος, bereft.
‘Lhe form of the root is GHE, GHO. See Prellwitz.
ANCHOVY, a small fish. (Span.)' Formerly written anchove.
Shak. has anchoves, 1 Hen, IV, ii. 4. 588 (qu. of 1596). Burton,
Anatomy of Melancholy, speaks of ‘ sausages, anchoves, tobacco, ca-
veare ;’ p. 106, ed. 1827.—Span. (and Port.) anchova. Φ| Remoter
origin uncertain. Mahn (in Webster) says ‘a word of Iberian origin,
lit. a dried or pickled fish, from Biscayan antzua, anchua, anchuva,
dry.’ I find the Basque forms anchéa, anchua, anchova, signifying
‘anchovy,’ in the Dict. Francois-Basque by M.-H.-L. Fabre. Again,
in the Diccionaria Trilingue del padre Manuel de Larramendi, in
Spanish, Basque, and Latin, I find: ‘Seco, aplicado a los pechos de
la muger, antzua, antzutua, Τ᾿. siccus,’ i.e. dry, applied to a woman’s
breasts; Basque antzua, antzutua, L, siccus. Perhaps Mahn’s suggestion
is correct.
ANCIENT (1), old. (F.—L.) Skelton has aunciently, Works, ed.
Dyce, i. 7. The ΜΕ. form is auncyen, Mandeville, p. 93; thus the
final ¢ is excrescent, as in tyrant.—OF. ancien (mod. F. ancien), old;
cognate with Ital. anziano, Span. anciano.—Late L. antianus, old;
Ducange. Formed, with L. suffix -anus, from L. ante, before. See
A>-te-. Der. ancient-ly, ancient-ness.
ANCIENT (2), a banner, standard-bearer. (F.—L.) In Shak.
1 Hen. 1V, iv. 2. 34; cf. Oth. i. 1. 33. The form of the word is due
to confusion with ancrent (1), but it really represents the MF. enseigne,
m. ‘an ensigne, auncient, standard-bearer,’ Cot.; closely related to
ME. enseigne, f., an ensign, standard. This explains the twofold
sense. See Ensign.
ANCILLARY, subservient. (L.) In Blackstone,Comment. iii. 7.
§ 19.—L. ancillar-is, belonging to a maid-servant. = L. ancilla, a maid,
dimin. of ancula, a fem. dimin. of early L. ancus (f. anca), a servant.
ANCLE; see Ankle.
AND, copulative conjunction. (E.) Common from the earliest
times. AS. and, also written ond; by-form, end.+O. Fries. ande, and,
an; end, en; Du. en; Icel. enda, if, even if, moreover (rather differently
used, but the same word or closely related); OHG. anti, enti, inti, untt;
mod. G. und. Teut. types, *andi, conj., *anda, prep.; see N.E.D.
The latter is the same as the AS. prefix avd- (occurring in along
and answer) and the Gothic prefix and-, which answer to the Gk.
ἄντα, over against, and are clearly related to the L. an/e, before,
Gk. ἀντί, over against, Skt. ants, a Vedic form, equivalent to Gk.
ἀντί, over against ; (see antika, vicinity, in Benfey’s Skt. Dict. p. 28.)
This sense of ‘ over against’ is fairly well preserved in G. entgegen,
and in the AS. andswarian, E. an-swer; and from this sense to
its use as a copulative conjunction is an easy step. See Answer. 2.
The use of and to mean ‘if’ arose from a peculiar use of the conjunc-
tion, and is prob. independent of Icel. enda, if, but parallel in develop-
ment. It occurs in Havelok ; as: ‘Andthou wile my conseyl tro, Ful
wel shal ich with the do;” i.e. if you will trust my counsel, I willdo
very well by you; 1. 2862. 3. In order to differentiate the senses, i.e.
to mark off the two meanings of and more readily, it became at last
usual to drop the final d when the word was used in the sense of ‘if;’
ANGEL 21
a use very common in Skakespeare. Thus Shakespeare's az is nothing
but another use of the common word and. When the force of an grew
misty, it was reduplicated by the addition of ‘if;’ so that av if, really
meaning ‘if-if,’ is of common occurrence. Neither is there anything
remarkable in the use of and if as another spelling of an if; and it has
been preserved in this form in a well-known passage in the Bible:
‘But and if, Matt. xxiv. 48. 4. Ifthe Skt. anti is allied to anta-s,
‘end,’ there is an etymological connexion with end. See End.
ANDANTE, slow, slowly. (Ital.) A musicalterm. Borrowed from
Ital. andante, adj. going; sb. a moderate movement. It is properly
the pres. part. of the verb andare, to go; which is of unknown origin.
ANDIRON, a kitchen fire-dog. (F.—L.?) The ME. forms are
numerous, as anderne, aunderne, aundirne, aundire,awndyern, &c. Inthe
Prompt. Parv. p.19, we have ‘ Awnderne, awndyryn, awndyrn, andena,
ipoporgium.’ In Wright's Vocabularies, vol. i. p. 171, we have
Auudyrne:, les chenes;’ and at p. 197, ‘Awndyren, andena.’ [It is
clear that the ending -iron is a corruption, upon English soil, in order
to give the word some sort of sense.} The form aundyre comes very
near to the original French. — OF. andier (mod. F. landter, i.e. l'andier,
the article being prefixed as in /erre, ivy, from L. Aedera), a fire-dog.
4 The remoter origin is obscure ; but it may be noted that the Late L.
forms are numerous, viz. andasium, a fire-dog, prop for supporting the
logs, and, with the same sense, andedus, andena (quoted above in the
extract from the Prompt. Parv.), anderius. The F. form corresponds
with the last of these; with andena cf. OF. andein and the mod.
Burgundian andain, an andiron (Mignard). The form andasium
corresponds to Span, andas, a frame or bier on which to carry a
person; cf. Portuguese azxdas, ‘a bier, or rather, the two poles be-
longing to it,’ Vieyra; also Port. andor, ‘a bier to carry images in
a procession, a sort ofsedan;” id. Possibly related to L. amitem, acc.
of ames, a pole, esp. a pole for bearing a litter (Lewis). See Kérting,
§ 595. 2. No certain origin of this word has been given. We may,
however, easily see that the E. iron formed, originally, no part of it.
We can guess, perhaps, how it came to be added, viz. by confusion
with the AS. brand-isen, lit. ‘a brand-iron,’ which had the same mean-
ing, and became, at a later time, not only broudiron but brondyre.
ANECDOTE, a story in private life. (F.—L.—Gk.) Used by
Sterne, Serm. 5. § 24. ‘ Anecdots, treatises or pieces that never were pub-
lished ;’ Glossographia Anglicana Nova, ed. 1719.—F. anecdo’e, f.,
not in Cotgrave.—Gk. ἀνέκδοτα, neut. pl. (used as fem. sing.), from
ἀνέκδοτος, unpublished ; so that our word means properly ‘an unpub-
lished story,’ ‘a piece of gossip among friends.’ =—Gk. ἀν- (E. un-);
and ἔκδοτος, given out, from ἐκ, out, and δίδωμι, 1 give; from the
same root as E. Donation, q.v. Der. anecdot-al, anecdot-ic-al.
ANEMONE, the name ofa flower. (Gk.) In Thomson, Spring,
536. Itmeans the ‘ wind-flower ;’ in Greek ἀνεμώνη, the accent in-E.
being now placed on e instead of 0.—Gk. ἄνεμος, the wind. krom
the same rout as Animate, q.v. Cf. anemo-meter, an instrument for
measuring the winds velocity.
ANENT, regarding, near to, beside. (E.) Nearly obsolete, except
in Northern English. ME. anent, anende, anendes, anentis, &c. [The
forms anendes, anentis, were made by adding the suffix -es, -zs, orig.
the sign of a gen. case, but frequently used as an adverbial suffix; for
anentes, see Cursor Mundi,1.26957.] Anent is a contraction of anefent,
or onefent, which occurs in the Ancren Riwle, p. 164, as another read-
ing for anonde. In this form, the ¢ is excrescent, as commonly after x
(cf. tyrant, ancient), and the true form is anefen or onefen. — AS. on-efen,
prep. near; sometimes written on-emn, by c6ntraction; Grein, i. 218,
225.—AS. on, prep. in, and e/en, even, equal ; so that on-e/en meant
originally ‘onan equality with,’ or ‘even with. See Even. @f The
cognate G. neben, beside, is similarly derived from (ἃ. in, in, and eben,
even; and, to complete the analogy, was sometimes spelt nebent. See
Matzner, Worterbuch; Stratmann, s. v. anefen; Koch, Engl. Gramm.
v. ii. p. 389.
ANEROID, dry; without liquid mercury; applied to a baro-
meter. (Gk.) Modern. = Gk. 4-, privative; vnpd-s, wet; and εἶδ-ος, form.
Gk. vnpes is from νάειν, to flow.
ANEURICM, ANEURYSM, a morbid dilatation of the coats
of an artery. (Gk.) Formed as if from aneurisma, false form of anen-
rysma, a Latinised form of Gk. ἀνεύρυσμα, a widening. —Gk. ἀν-, for
ἀνά, up; and εὐρύνειν, to widen, from εὐρύς, wide. Skt. uru-s, large,
wide. Cf. MF. aneurzsme in Cotgrave.
ANEW, newly. (E.) A shortening of ME. of-newe, used by Chau-
cer, C. T., E 938. Cf. adown for AS. ofdiine. Here cfis the AS. of,
prep., and newe is our mod. E. new; the final -e being an adverbial
suffix, as usual.
ANGEL, a divine messenger. (F.—L.—Gk.) [In very early use.
AS. engel, engel, an angel ; Grein, i. 227; borrowed from L. angelu:.]
But the modern pronunciation is due to the OF. angele, from L. acc.
angelum. =—Gk. ἄγγελος, lit. a messenger; hence, an angel. Cf. ἀγ-
γαρος, a mounted courier, which is an old Persian word; also Skt.
22 ANGER
ajgira-s, a messenger from the gods to men (Macdonell). Der. angel-
ic, angel-ic-al, angel-ic-al-ly; also angelic-a, a plant.
ANGER, hot displeasure due to a sense of injury. (Scand.) In
ME. the word is more passive in its use, and denotes ‘affliction,’
‘trouble,’ ‘sore vexation.’ ‘If he thole here anger and wa’=if he
suffer here affliction and woe ; Hampole’s Pricke of Conscience, 3517.
-Icel. angr, grief, sorrow; Dan. anger, compunction, regret ; Swed.
anger, compunction, regret.--Lat. angor, a strangling, bodily torture;
also mental torture, anguish; from azgere, to strangle. Cf. AS. ange,
oppressed, sad; Gk. ἄγχειν, to strangle ; Skt. avvkas, pain ; all from
WANGH, to choke, oppress. See brngm,i. § 178. Der. azgr-y,
angr-i-ly ; from the same root, cugwish, anxious ; also quinsy, q.v.;
and L. anvina.
ANGINA, severe suffering. (1,.). Borrowed from L. angina,
quinsy, lit. ‘a choking,’ from angere, to strangle. See above.
ANGLE (1), a bend, a comer. (F.—L.) Chaucer has angles, C.T.,
F 230; also angle, asa term of astrology (L. augulus), id. 263. -- Οὐ,
angle (mod. F. angle), anangle. — L. angulum, acc. of angulus,an angle.
Cf. Gk. ἀγκύλος, crooked. From the same root as the next word.
Der. angul-ar, angul-ar-ly, angul-ar-i-ty ; all from the L. axgul-aris,
adj., from angulus.
ANGLE (2), a fishing-hook. (E.) In very early use. AS. angel,
a fish-hook, Matt. xvii. 27 ; spelt ongud in the Northumbrian version.
+lcel. éngull, Dan. angel, a fishing-hook; G. angel, dimin. ot
OHG. anzgo, a prickle, fish-hook. Cf. L. uneus, a hook, Gk. ὄγκος;
ἀγκών, a bend; ἄγκυρα, a bent hook, whence E. anchor; Skt. avich,
to bend. —4/ANQ, to bend, curve; Fick, i. 6. From the same root
comes the word above ; also Anchor, q.v. Der. angle, vb., angl-er,
anol-ing.
ANGRY, i-c. anger-y; Chaucer, C.T.. 12893 (C 959); see Anger.
ANGUiSH, oppression; great pain. (F.—L.) MEE. auguis, an-
guise, angoise, &c.
guisse, Rob. of Glouc. p. 177, 1. 3687 5 auguise, Ancren Riwle, p. 178.
= OF, anguisse, angoisse, mod. I. angoisse, f., anguish. —L. angustia,
narrowness, poverty, perplexity. —L. axgustus, narrow. —L. angere,
to stifle, choke, strangle.+-Gk. ἄγχειν, to strangle. —4/ANGH, to
choke. See Anger, from the same root.
AN-HUNGERED, very hungry. (E.) In Matt. xii. 1. Itisa
variast of a-hungred, aud this, of a/yngred; see P. Plowman, B. x. 59.
All from AS. of-hyngred, very hungry, pp. of of-hyngrian, to be very
hungry. AS. of-, very; and hyngrian, to hunger, {rom hungor, hunger.
See Of, Off, and Hunger.
ANHYDROUS, waterless. (Gk.) Modern. — Gk, ἄνυδρος, water-
less. — Gk. ἀν-, neg. prefix; and ὕδωρ, water; with suffix -ous added.
See Hydra.
ANILE, old-woman-like. (L.) Used by Walpole, Catalogue of
Engravers ; Sterne, Serm. 21. § 19, has anii/y. Notin early use. = L.
anilis, like an old woman. =—L,. anus, an old woman. Cf. OHG., ana,
a grandmother.
ANILINE, a liquid which furnishes a number of dyes. (F.—
Span. — Arab. — Pers. —Skt.) Modern. Formed with suffix -ine (Εἰ. -ine,
L. -inus) from anil, ashrub from which the W. Indian indigo is made.
‘Anil ..is a kind of thing to dye blue withal ;’ Eng. Garner, ed. Arber,
vi. 18 (ab. 1586).—F. anil, anil. —Span. ail, ‘azure, skie ‘colour;’
Minsheu, p. 25, 1. 12.—Arab. an-nil, for αἱ nil; where al is the def.
art., and vil is borrowed from Pers. xi/, the indigo plant. = Skt. mili,
the indigo plant; from nila-s, blue. See Lilac, Nylghau.
ANIMADVERT, to criticise, censure. (L.) Lit. ‘to turn the
mind to.’ In Glossographia Anglicana Nova, ed. 1719. —L. anim-
aduertere, to turn the mind to, pp. animaduersus.— L. anim-us, the
mind; ad, to; and wertere, to turn. For roots, see Animate and
Verse. Der. animaducrs-ion, in Ben Jonson’s Discoveries, sect. 123.
ANIMAL, a living creature. (L.) In Hamlet, ii. 2. 320; used
as an adj., Chaucer, C. T., A 2749.—L. animal, a breathing creature.
“αν atina, brath. See below. Der. animal-ism, animal-cule.
_ ANIMATE, to eadue with life. (L.) Used by Hall, Edw. IV,
an. 8. § 5.—L. animatus, pp. of avimdre, to give life to.—L. anima,
breath, life. —4/AN, to breathe; which appears not only in the Skt.
an, to breathe, blow, live; Gk. ἄνεμος, wind; but also in Goth.
us-anan, to breathe out, expire, Mark xv. 37, 393 and in Icel. anda,
to breathe, oud, breath, whence Lowland Scotch aynd, breath. Der.
animat-ed, animat-ton.
ANIMOSITY, vehemence of passion, hostility. (F.—L.) Bp.
Hall, Letter of Apology, has the pl. animosities; so in Bacon, Adv.
of Learning, ii, xxili, 48.— F. azimosité, ‘animosity, stoutness ;’ Cot. =
L. acc. animosi/fitem, from nom. animdsi/as, ardour, vehemence. = L.
animosus, full of spirit. — L.animus,mind ,courage.+ Gk.dvepos, breath,
wind. =4/AN, to breathe. See Animate. g The L. animus is
now used as an E. word.
ANISH, a medicinal herb. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Matt. xxiii. 23, the
Wycliffite versions have both aneseand anete. In Wright's Lyric Poetry,
Spelt auguys in Pricke of Conscience, 2240 ; az- }
pe guy, » 224
ANNIVERSARY
p- 26, we find anys; and in Wright's Vocabularies, i. 227, is: ‘Hoc
anisium, anys.’ = F ants, anise; see Cotgrave. — L.anisum, also anéthum
(whence Wyclif’s anefe).— Gk. ἄνισον, ἄνησον, usually ἄνηθον, anise,
dill. Perhaps named from its scent; cf. ἄν-εμος, a breath of air
(Prellwitz). Der. aniseed (for anise-seed).
ANKER, a liquid measure of 8 to 10 gallons. (Du.—Late L.)
Mentioned in Bailey’s Dict., vol. 11. ed. 1731, as in use at Amsterdam.
— Du. anker, the same ; cf. Swed. ankare; G. anxker, Probably from
Late L. anceria, a keg, a small vat.
ANKLE, the joint between leg and foot. (E.) ME. ancle, Chaucer,
C. T. 1662 (A 1660). [Also anclowe, Ellis's Specimens, i. 279. AS.
ancléow, ankle, A®lfric’s Gloss., Voc. 160. 21; which is the origin of
ME. anclowe.| lout the mod, E. form answers to OF ries. ankel; Dan.
and Swed. ankel; Icel. 6kkla (for 6nkla); Du. enkel; OHG. anchala,
anella, enchila, the ankle; mod. ἃ. enkel. {On the other hand, the
AS. ancléow answers to OF ries. anklef, Du. enklaauw. The Du. klaawu
means ‘ claw,’ and the AS. e/éow seems to point to the same word,
but these endings are probably mere adaptations in the respective
languages, to give the words a more obvious etymology. | B. The
word is clearly a diminutive, formed with suffix - οἰ from a stem ank-.
Indeed, the OHG. has the shorter form ancha, meaning leg, ankle.
The root is the same as that of Skt. avguli-s, a finger, aizga-m, a limb.
Der. anklejoin’, ankl-et (ornament for the ankle).
ΑΝΝΑ; see Ana.
ANNALS, a relation of events year by year. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Cor.v. 6.114. Grafton speaks of ‘short notes in maner of annales ;’
Ep. to SirW. Cecil. = F.annales,s. pl.fem.‘annales, annual chronicles ;’
Cot. = L. annilés, pl. adj.; for libri annalés, yearly books or chronicles ;
from nom. sing. ann-dalis, yearly. — L. annus, a year. Prob. allied to
Goth. athn, n., a year; Brugm. ii. § 66. Perhaps from AT, to
move on; ef. Skt. at, to go, wander. Der. annal-ist.
ANNATEHES, first-fruits paid to the pope. (F.—L.) ‘ These
cardinals .. have the Anna? of Benefices to support their greatness; ’
Howell, Famil. Letters, 1678, vol. i. let. 38 (Sept., 1621). — Εἰ annate,
‘the first-fruits of a benefice; the profit of a whole year after the re-
move, or death, of the incumbent;’ Cot.—Late L. anata; Duc. =L.
ANNUS, ἃ year.
ANNEAL, to temper by heat. ((1) E.; (2) F.—L.) Two distinet
words seem to have been confused. 1. The word was originally
applied to metals, in which case it was English, and denoted rather
the fusing of metals than the tempering process by giadual cooling.
This is the ME, avelen, to inflame, kindle, heat, melt, burn. Gower,
C. A. iii. οὐ (bk. vii. 337), speaks of a meteoric stone, which the fire
‘hath aneled | melted} Lich unto slym, which is congeled.’ Wyelif,
Isa. xvi. 7 has ‘anelid tyil’ as a translation of L, cocts Ja/eris. It also
means simply ‘to burn’ or ‘inflame.’ Thus, in OE. Homilies, ed.
Morris, i. 219, the word seraphim is explained to mean ‘ birninde other
ankelend’ (better spelt anelerd| = burning or kindling; and again, at
p- 97, it is said that the Holy Ghost ‘ onealde eorthlichen monnan
heortan’ = inflamed earthly men’s hearts. — AS. on@lan, to burn, kindle,
Grein, ii. 339 3 a compound verb. — AS. on, prefix (answering to mod,
E. prep. ox); and @lan, to burn, Grein, i. 55. Cf Icel. eldr, Swed.
eld, Dan. ild, fire ; corresponding to AS. Zed, fire, a derivative of @lan,
to burn. 2. But in the fifteenth century, a similar word was intro-
duced from the French, having particular reference to the fixing of
colours upon glass by means of heat. This is the late ME. anelen, to
enamel glass. ‘Thus Palsgrave has ‘T avee/ a potte of erthe or suche
lyke with a coloure, je plomme.’ [The word was also applied to the
enamelling of metal, and is perhaps meant in the entry in the Prompt.
Parv. at p. 11; ‘Anelyn or enelyx metalle, or other lyke.’| The initial
a- is either the French prefix a- (L. ad). or may have been merely due
to the influence of the native word. OF. nee/er, to enamel; orig. to
paint in black upon gold or silver. = Late L. mgellare, to blacken. =
L. nigellus, blackish; dimin. of niger, black. See Diez, 5. ν. niello.
@ There is yet a ¢hird word ποῖ unlike these two, which appears in
‘unaneled,’ i.e. not having received extreme unction: Hamlet, 1.5. 77.
This is from AS. onelan, to put oil upon; from AS. on, prefix, and
ele, oil; see Oil.
ANNEX, to fasten or unite to. (F.—L.) The pp. annexed occurs
in the Romaunt of the Rose, 48rt.— Ἐς annexer, ‘to annex, knit, hnke,
joyn;’ Cot.—L. annexus, pp. of annectere, to knit or bind to.—L. ad,
to (> an- before x); and nectere, to bind. Der. annex-al-ion.
ANNIHILATE, to reduce to nothing. (L.) Mall, Edw.1V,an.r,
has adnikelate ; Bacon, Nat. Hist. sect. 100, has annihilated. Formed
with suffix -a/e, on which see Abbreviate. =—L. annihilatus, pp. of
annihilare, to reduce to nothing. = L. ad, to (>an- before x); and nihil,
nthilum, nothing. Der. annzhila/-ion.
ANNIVERSARY, the annual commemoration ofan event. (L.)
Fabyan,an. 1368-9, speaks of ‘an annyuersarye yerely to be kept.’ ‘Phe
pl. anniuersaries occurs in the Ancren Riwle, p. 22. It is properly an
adjective, and so used by Bp, Hall, On the Obser., of Christ’s Nativity,
ANNOTATE
where he speaks of an ‘anniversary memorial.’=L. anniuersdrius,
returning yearly. = L. auni-, for anno-, from annus, a year ; and uertere,
to turn, pp. versus. See Annals and Verse.
ANNOTATE, to make notes upon. (L.) Richardson remarks that
the verb is very rare; Foxe uses annotations in his Life of Tyndal, in
Tyndal'’s Works (1572), fol. Bi, last line. Formed with the suffix -ave,
on which see Abbreviate. — L. annotatus, pp. of annotare, to make
notes. —L. ad, to (> an- before 2); and notare, to mark, from ποία, a
mark. See Note. Der. annotat-or, annotat-ion.
ANNOUNCE, to make known to. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave. Milton
has announc’t, P. K. iv. 504. [Chaucer has annunciat, C. T. 14021
(B 3205); but this is directly from L. pp. annuncidtus. | —F. annoncer,
‘to announce;” Cot.—L, annunctare, annuntiare, to announce; pp.
annuntiitus.—L, ad (> an- before n); and nuntiire, to report, give a
message, from nuntius, a messenger. See Nuncio. Der. announce-
ment; and, directly from L., annunctate ; also annunctat-ion.
ANNOY, to hurt, vex, trouble. (F.—L.) ME. anoien, anuien (with
one 2, correctly), to vex, trouble. See King Alisaunder, ed. Weber,
I. 876, 1287, 4158; Havelok, 1735; Chaucer (Glossary). {The sb.
anoi, anoy was also in very common use; see Romaunt of the Rose,
4404; Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 267, &c.; but is now obsolete, and its
place to some extent supplied by aznoyance and the F. ennui.]—OF,
anoter, anuier, to annoy, trouble; from the OF. sb. anoi, anui (mod,
F, ennui), annoyance, vexation, chagrin; cognate with mod. Prov. enodi,
Span. enojo, OVenetian inodio.—L. in odid, lit. in hatred, which was
used in the phrase iz odid habui, lit. I had in hatred, i.e. I was sick
and tired of, occurring in the Glosses of Cassel temp. Charles the Great ;
see Brachet and Diez. Other phrases were L. in odid esse and in odio
uenire, both meaning to incur hatred, and used by Cicero; see Att. ii.
21. 2. Odid is the abl. of odium, hatred. See the account in Diez.
See Odium and Noisome. Der. annoy-ance (Chaucer); from OF.
anoiance, a derivative of vb. anoier.
ANNUAL, yearly. (F.—L.) ME. annuel, an anniversary mass
for the dead, is a special use of the word; see P. Plowman’s Crede,
}. 414; Chaucer, C.T., G1012, on which see my note, or that to
Tyrwhitt’s Chaucer, C.T. 16480.—F. annuel, annual, yearly ; Cot.
= L. annudlis, yearly ; formed with suffix -alis from stem annu-. = L.
annus,a year. See Annal,- 67 It will be observed that the spelling
was changed from annuel to annual to bring it nearer to the Latin;
but the word really came to us through French. Der. annual-ly.
From the same source : annu-i-ty, ME. annuitee, Hoccleve, de Regim.
Princ. 821, from AF. annxité (unknown in OF.; but see Year-books
of Edw. I, 1304-5, p. 179); and the more modern annu-it-ant.
ANNUL, to nullify, abolish. (F.—L.) The pp. anulled occurs
in T. Usk, Test. of Love, iii. 2. 81. —AF. annuller, Stat. Realm, i.
367 (1361); OF. anuller, MF. annuller, given by Cotgrave. —L. an-
nullire, to annul.=L. ad (>an- before x); and L. nullus, none, a
contraction from ne wllus, not any. See Null. Der. annul-ment,
ANNULAR, like a ring. (L.) Ray, On the Creation, p. 2, has
both annular and annulary (R.)—L. annularis, like a ring ; formed
with suffix -aris from stem annul- (for annulo-).—L. annulus, a ring ;
earlier form Gxulus, dimin. of Gnus, a rounding, a circular form, an
tron ring (Lewis). Cf. Olrish anne, a little ring; Stokes-Fick, p. 16.
Also Skt. akna-s, bent; avch, to bend. From the same source (L.
annulus) we have annul-at-ed, annul-et, annul-ose.
ANNUNCIATION, ANNUNCIATE; see Announce.
ANODYNE, a drug to allay pain. (L.—Gk.) Used by Bp.
Taylor, Epistle Dedicatory to Serm. to the Irish Parl., 1661 (R.)
Also in Pope, Moral Essays, ii. rrr. Cotgrave gives ‘ remedes ano-
dins, medicines which, by procuring sleep, take from a patient all
sence of pain.’ But the spelling anxodyze is Latin. - Late L. anddynus,
a drug relieving pain ; Ducange. — Gk. ἀνώδυνος, adj. free from pain ;
whence φάρμακον ἀνώδυνον, a drug to relieve pain. —Gk. ἀν-, nega-
tive prefix; and ὀδύνη, pain. Curtius, i. 300, refers ὀδύνη to the verb
ἔδ-ειν, to eat, as if it were ‘a gnawing ;’ rightly. See Hat.
ANOINT, to smear with ointment. (F.—L.) Wyclif has anoyz-
tidist, Acts, iv. 27, from ME. verb anointen or anoynten; see Prompt.
Parv. p. 12. Chaucer has anoint as a past participle, Prol. 199. It
is clear that anoint was orig. a past-participial form, but was after-
wards lengthened into anointed, thus suggesting the infin. anointen.
Both forms, azoynt and anoynted, occur in the Wycliffite Bible, Gen. 1.
3; Numb. vi. 15. All the forms are also written with initial e, viz.
enoint, enointed, enointen.—OF. enoint, anointed, pp. of enoindre, to
anoint. - OF, en- (L. in-, upon, on); and oindre, to smear, anoint, from
L. uxgere, to smear, pp. uncius. See Ointment, Unction.
ANOMALY, deviation from rule. (Gk.) Used by SirT. Browne,
Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. iii. c. 15. § 5. Cotgrave’s French Dict. gives only the
adj. anomal, inequal; so that the sb. was taken from L. andmalia, or
directly from the Gk.—Gk. ἀνωμαλία, irregularity, unevenness. =
Gk. ἀνώμαλος, uneven. Gk. ἀν-, negative prefix, and ὅμαλός, even.
The Gk. ὅμαλός is formed with suffix -αλ- from du-, base of duds,
ANTEPENULTIMA 23
one and the same, joint, common; closely related to E. same. See
Same. Der. anomal-ous.
ANON, immediately. (E.) In early use. ME. anon, anoon, onan,
anan. Rob, of Glouc. has anon, p.6; 1.134. The earliest ME. forms
are anon, Ancren Riwle, p. 14; anan, Ormulum, 225. The a is con-
vertible with o in either syllable; but in the latter syllable the vowel
was long.— AS. on dn, lit. in one moment (answering to. MHG. in
ein), but in AS. generally signifying ‘once for all;’ see examples in
Grein, i. 31, sect. 8.— AS. on (mod. Εἰ. on), often used with the sense
of ‘in;’ and AS. @, old form of ‘one.’ See On and One.
ANONYMOUS, nameless. (Gk.) In Phillips’ Dict. (1658).
Formed directly from Gk., by substituting -ows for Gk. suffix -os, just
as it is often substituted for the L. suffix -ws.— Gk. ἀνώνυμος, name-
less. —Gk. dv-, neg. prefix; and ὄνομα, AZolic ὄνυμα, a name. See
Onomatopeceia. Der. anonymous-ly.
ANOTHER, i.e. one another. (E.) Merely the words ax and
other written together. In Mid. Eng. they were written apart.
‘ Hauelok thouthe al az other,’ Havelok thought quite another thing ;
Havelok, 1395. See An and Other.
ANSERINE, goose-like. (L.) Not in early use; first in 1839
(N.E.D.).—L. anserinus, belonging to a goose. —L. anser, a goose,
cognate with E. goose. See Goose.
ANSWER, to reply to. (E.) The verb is from the sb. The lit.
sense is ‘to make a (sworn) reply in opposition to,’ orig. used, no
doubt, in trials by law. ME. andswerien, Layamon, ii. 518. AS. and-
swarian, andswerian, to reply to; from andswaru, sb., a reply.— AS.
and-, in opposition to, cognate with Gk. ἀντί (see Anti-) ; and swar-,
base of swerian, to swear; see Swear. Der. answer-able, answer-
abl-y. @ The prefix ant- in G. antworten, to answer, is cognate with
the AS. prefix and- in the E. word.
ANT, a small insect; the emmet. (E.) Ant is a contraction from
AS. @mette (L. formica), an emmet; /AZIf, Gloss., Nomina Insecto-
rum; so that ant and emmet are doublets. The form @mette became,
by the ordinary phonetic changes in English, ametle, amte, ante, ant;
of these amte occurs in Wyclif, Prov. vi. 6. @] Examples of the
change of m to x before ¢ occur in Hants as a shortened form of
Hamptonshire (see Matzner, Eng]. Gram. i. 123); also in E. aunt from
L. amita. See Hmmet. Der. avnt-hill, -eater.
ANTAGONIST, an opponent. (Late L.—Gk.) Ben Jonson
has antagonistic, Magnetic Lady, iii. 4 (Compass, 1oth speech);
Milton has antagonist, P. L. ii. 509. — Late L. antagénista (or directly
from the Gk.).—Gk. ἀνταγωνιστής, an adversary, opponent. — Gk.
ἀνταγωνίζομαι, I struggle against. — Gk. ἀντ-, for ἀντί, against; and
ἀγωνίζομαι, I struggle, from aywv,astruggle. See Agony. Der.
antagonist-ic, antagonist-ic-al-ly ; also antagonism, from Gk. avrayw-
νισμα, a struggle with another.
ANTARCTIC, southern; opposite to the arctic. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Marlowe, Faustus, i. 3. 3; Milton, P. L. ix. 79. ME. antartik,
Chaucer, Astrolabe, ii. 25. 7.—OF. antartique ; Cotgrave has.‘ Antar-
tique, the circle in the sphere called the South, or Antartick pole.’ =—L.
antarcticus, southern. = Gk. ἀνταρκτικός, southern. — Gk. ἀντ- for ἀντί,
against ; and ἀρκτικός, arctic, northern. See Arctic.
ANTE,, prefix, before. (L.) Occurs in words taken from Latin,
e.g. ante-cedent, ante-date, ante-diluvian, &c.—L. ante, before; of
which an older form seems to have been anti, as in anti-cipare; Brugm.
i. § 84. The prefix anti- is cognate; see Anti-, prefix.
ANTECEDENT, going before. (L.) Used by Sir T. More,
Works, p. 1115, last line. Used as a (Latin) logical term by T. Usk,
Test. of Love, ii. 5. 12.—L. antecédentem, acc. case of antecédens, going
before. —L. ante, before ; and cédens, going, pres. pt. of cédere, to go;
see Cede. Der. antecedent-ly; also antecedence (with F. suffix -ence).
And see Ancestor.
ANTEDATE, to date before. (L.) Used by Massinger in the
sense of ‘anticipate ;? Duke of Milan, i. 3 (Sforza, speech 9). Formed
by prefixing L. ante, before, to date, q.v.
ANTEDILUVIAN, before the flood. (L.) Used by Sir T.
Browne, Vulg. Errors, bk. vii.c.3. § 2. A coined word; from L. ante,
before, and diluxi-um, a deluge ; with adj. suffix-an. See Deluge.
ANTELOPE, a deer-like quadruped.. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Spenser,
F.Q. i. 6. 26. Pl. antelopis, Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 6, 1. 1.—OF.
antelop (Godefroy; Hatzfeld). = Late L.antalopus. — Late Gk. ἀνθάλοπ-,
stem of ἀνθάλωψ (gen. ἀνθάλοποξῚ, used by Eustathius (flor. circa 330),
Hexaém., p. 36 (Webster’s Dict.). The‘ antelope’ was orig. a fabulous
and nondescript animal; so that the orig. meaning of ἀνθάλωψ is not
known ; neither do we know whence Eustathius took it. See N. E. Ὁ.
4 Mod. F. antilope (from E.); AF. antelope (1415), Riley, Mem. of
London, p. 613.
ANTENNA, the feelers of insects. (L.) Modern and scientific;
see N.E. D. Borrowed from L. antenna, pl. of antenna, properly ‘the
yard of a sail.” Remoter origin uncertain.
ANTEPENULTIMA, the last syllable but two. (L.) Used
“4 ANTERIOR
in prosody; sometimes shortened to antepennul!.—L. aniepénultima,
also antepaenultima, fem. adj. (with sy/laéa understood), the last
syllable but two. —L. ante, before ; and paenultima, fem. adj., the last
syllable but one: from paene, almost, and wltima, fem. of ultimus,
last. See Ultimate. Der. antepenultim-ate.
ANTERIOR, before, more in front. (L.) Sir T. Browne, Vulg.
Errors, b. iii. c. 15. § 3, has avteriour (better anterior) ; Cotgrave has
anterior, s.v. Anterieur. The word is borrowed directly from L.
anterior, more in front, compar. adj. from ante, before. See Ante-.
ANTHEM, a musical composition, sung responsively. (L. —Gk.)
In very early use. ME. antem, antym; οἵ, ‘antym, antiphona;’
Prompt. Parv. p. 12. Chaucer has antem, C.T., B 1850. Aniem is
a contraction from an older form antefn ; ‘ biginneth thesne antefne' =
begin this anthem, Ancren Riwle, p. 34. AS. antefn, an anthem;
AS. tr. of Beda, Eccl. Hist. i. 25, ed. Smith ; spelt ontemn, ed. Miller.
This AS. antefn is a mere reduction from the Latin. Late L. anti-
phona, an anthem; see Ducange. This form arose from considering
the Gk. neut. pl. to be a fem. sing. —Gk. ἀντίφωνα, pl. of ἀντίφωνον,
an anthem; properly neut. of adj. ἀντέφωνος, sounding in response
to. Aristotle has ἀντίφωνον, ‘an accord in the octave ;’ so that ἀντί-
φωνα meant ‘musicalaccords.’ [Thus there is no need for the asser-
tion that the anthem was named from its being sung by choristers
alternately, half the choir on one side responding to the half on the
other side. ]—Gk. ἀντί, over against; and φωνή, voice. Anthem is a
doublet of antiphon, q.v.
ANTHER, the part of the stamen of a flower which contains the
pollen. (F.—L.—Gk.) Phillips(1706)has: ‘Anthera,the yellow seeds
in the middle of a rose.’ = MF. anthere, ‘the yellow tuft in the middle of
arose;’ Cot. Adapted from L. anthéra,a medicine composed of flowers
(Lewis). Borrowed from Gk. ἀνθηρά, fem. of ἀνθηρός, adj. flowery,
blooming. = Gk. ἀνθεῖν, to bloom ; ἄνθος, a young bud or sprout. The
Gk. ἄνθος is cognate with Skt. axdhas, n., herb, sacrificial food. See
Prellwitz.
ANTHOLOGY, a collection of choice poems. (Gk.) Several
Gk. collections of poems were so called; hence the extension of the
name, Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iv. c. 9. § 2, refers to ‘the
Greek Anthology.’ = Gk, ἀνθολογία, a flower-gathering, a collection of
choice poems. — Gk, ἀνθολόγος, adj. flower-gathering. — Gk, ἄνθο-, for
ἄνθος, a flower; and λέγειν, to collect. See Anth2r and Legend.
ANTHRACITE, akind of hard coal. (Gk.) Modern; first in
1812. Suggested by Gk. ἀνθρακίτης, adj. resembling coals; formed
with suffix -ἰτῆς, expressing resemblance, from av@pax-, stem of Gk.
ἄνθραξ, coal, charcoal, also a carbuncle, precious stone. Cf. L. anthra-
citis, a kind of carbuncle, Pliny, bk. xxxvii. c. 7 (see Holland’s
translation).
ANTHROPOLOGY, the natural history of man. (Gk.) ‘An-
thropology, a speaking or discoursing of men ;’ Blount's Gloss. —Gk.
ἄνθρωπο-, for ἄνθρωπος, a man; and -Aoyia, a discourse, from λέγτ-ειν,
to speak. Der. (from anthropo-), anthropo-id, from Gk. εἶδ-ος, form ;
anthropo-morphic, from Gk. μορφ-ἤ, form. And see below.
ANTHROPOPH AGI, cannibals. (L.—Gk.) Used by Shak.
Oth. i. 3. 144. . Lit. ‘men-eaters.’ A Latinised plural of Gk. ἀνθρω-
ποφάγος, adj. man-eating. — Gk. ἄνθρωπο-ς, ἃ man; and φαγεῖν, to eat.
The-form ἄνθρωπος is of doubtful origin; φαγεῖν is from 4/BHAG,
to distribute (as a portion) ; cf. Skt. bhaksh, to eat, devour. Brugm.
i. § 183. Der. anthropophag-y.
ANTI-, ANT., prefix, against. (Gk.) Occurs in words taken from
Gk.,) as antidote, antipathy, &c. In anticipate, the prefix is for the
L. ante. In ant-agonist, ant-arctic, it is shortened to ant-. —Gk. ἀντί,
against, over against.-Skt. anti, over against ; a Vedic form and
perhaps allied to Skt. anfa-s, end, boundary, also proximity, cognate
with E. end, q.v. @ This Gk. prefix is cognate with the AS. and-,
appearing in mod. Εἰ, along and answer, q.v. Also with Goth. and-;
and with (ἃ. an/-, as seen in antworten, to answer.
ANTIC, fanciful, odd; as sb., a trick. (Ital.—L.) Orig. an ad-
jective, and used with the sense of ‘grotesque.’ Hall, HenryVIII, an. 12.
812, has: ‘a fountayne..ingrayled with anticke woorkes.’ Floriohas:
‘ Grottesca, a kinde of rugged vnpolished painters worke, anticke worke.’
Cotgrave gives, s.v. Antique, ‘taillé ἃ antiques, cut with anticks, or
with antick-works; but this usage is from Italian. = Ital, antico, ‘an-
cient, anticke, old ;’ Florio. —L. antiguus, old, See Antique (which
is the F. form).
ANTICHRIST, the great opponent of Christ. (L.—Gk.) L.An-
tichristus. = Gk. ἀντίχριστος ; 1 John, ii. 18. From Gk. ἀντί, against ;
and xploros, Christ. See Anti- and Christ. Der. antichrist-ian.
ANTICIPATH, to take before the time, forestall. (L.) Used by
Hall, Henry VI, an. 38. § 4; Shak. Oth. ii. 1.76. Formed with suffix
-ate (on which see Abbreviate), from L, anticipare, to take before-
hand, prevent; pp. antictpatus. = L. anti -, old form of ante, beforehand;
and capere, totake. See Ante-and Capable. Der. anticipat-ion,
anticipat-ory.
ANTITYPE
ANTICLIMAX, the opposite of a climax. (Gk.) Compounded
of Anti-, against ; and Climax.
ANTIDOTE, a medicine given asa remedy. (F.—L.—Gk.) Used
by Shak. Macb. v. 3. 43.—F. antidote, m., given by Cotgrave. = L. an-
tidotum, neut. (and antidotus, fem.), an antidote, remedy.— Gk, ἀντί-
δοτος, adj. given asa remedy ; whence, as sb., ἀντίδοτον, neut., an anti-
dote, and ἀντίδοτος, fem., the same (Liddell and Scott).—Gk. ἀντί,
against ; and δοτός, given, from weak grade δο- allied to δίδωμι, 1 give;
with suffix -ros. See Anti- and Dose. Der. antidot-al, antidot-ic-al.
ANTIMONY, the name of a metal. (Late L.—Arab.) In Sir T.
Herbert’s Travels, ed. 1665, p. 317; first known in 1477 (N.E. D.).
Knglished from Late L, antimouium (11th cent.) ; Ducange. Origin
uncertain; but Devic traces it to Arab. ithmid, uthmud, ‘a stone from
which antimony is prepared ;’ Rich, Dict., p. 21, col. 1. Der. anti-
mon-ial,
ANTINOMIAN, one who denies the obligation of moral law.
(Gk.) Tillotson, vol. ii. ser. 50, speaks of ‘the Antinomian doctrine.’
Milton, Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, b, ii. c. 3, uses the sb.
antinomie. The suffix -an is adjectival, from L. -aaus. The word is
from Gk, ἀντινομία, an ambiguity in the law, explained as if from Gk.
ἀντί, against, and νόμος, law, which is from the verb νέμειν, to deal
out, also to pasture. See Anti- and Nomad.
ANTIPATHY, a feeling against another. (L.—Gk.) Used by
Bacon, Nat. Hist. sect. 479. Fuller has antipathetical, Worthies of
Lincolnshire. Either from Εἰ, anti¢ath‘e, explained as‘ antipathy’ by
Cotgrave ; or directly from L. antipathia (Pliny).—Gk. ἀντιπάθεια,
an antipathy, lit. ‘a suffering against.’— Gk. ἀντί, against ; and παθ-
civ, to suffer. See Anti-and Pathos. Dar. antspath-et-ic, antipath-
el-ic-al,
ANTIPHON, an anthem. (L.—Gk.) Milton has the pl. anti-
phones, Areopagitica, ed. Hales, p. 12. The book containing the
antiphons was called an antiphoner, a word used by Chaucer, C. T.,
B 1709. — Late L. antiphona, representing a fem. sing. instead ofa neut.
plural. — Gk. ἀντίφωνα, pl. of ἀντίφωνον, an anthem ; properly neut. of
adj. ἀντίφωνος, sounding in response to; but Aristotle used ἀντίφωνον
to mean ‘an accord in the octave,’ whence the sense of concord. -
Gk, ἀντί, contrary, over against (see Anti-); and φωνή, voice, allied
to φημί, I speak, say. See Phonetic. Antiphon is a doublet of
anthem, q. Vv.
ANTIPHRASIS, the use of words in a sense opposed to their
meaning. (L.—Gk.) In Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, bk. ili.c. 18; p. 201,
sidenote, ed. Arber. = Late L. antiphrasis. — Gk. ἀντίφρασις, lit.a contra-
diction; also the use of words in a sense opposed to their literal
meaning, = Gk. ἀντιφράζειν,ἴο express by negation (in sarcasm). Gk.
ἀντί, against, contrary; and φράζειν, to speak. See Anti- and
Phrase. Der. antiphras-t-ic-al.
ANTIPODES, men whose feet are opposite to ours. (L.—Gk.)
Shak. Mid. Nt. Dr. iii. 2. 55 ; Holland’s tr. of Pliny, b.ii.c.65. Also
in Trevisa, tr. of Higden, 1i. 205. —L, antipodes; a borrowed word. =
Gk. ἀντίποδες, pl., men with feet opposite to us; from nom. sing.
ἀντίπους. -- Gk, ἀντί, opposite to, against; and πούς, a foot, cognate
with E. foot. See Anti- and Foot. Der. antipod-al.
ANTIQUE, old. (F.—L.) | Shak. has ‘the antique world;’ As
You Like It, ii. 3. 57. =F. antique; Cot.—Lat. antiguus, old; also
written anficus, and formed with suffix -cus from anti, old form of ante,
before, just as L, posticns, behind, is formed from fost, after. Brugm.
ii. § 86. See Ante-. Der. antigu-it-y (Hamlet, iv.5.104), antiqu-ate,
antiqu-at-ed, ant'qu-ar-y, antiqu-ar-i-an, anliqu-ar-i-an-ism, J Antique
isa doublet of antic, which follows the Italian spelling. See Antic.
ANTISEPTIC, counteracting putrefaction. (Gk.) Modem.
Formed from Gk. ἀντί, against; and σηπτικ-ός, putrefying, from
onmr-ds, decayed, rotten, verbal adj. from σήπειν, to make rotten.
ANTISTROPHE, a kind of choral song. (L.—Gk.) In Milton,
Introd. to Samson. = L. antistrophé.— Gk. ἀντιστροφή, a return of a
chorus, answering to a preceding στροφή, or strophe.— Gk. ἀντί, over
against; and στροφή, a verse or stanza, lit..‘a turning,’ from the
movement ofthe chorus ; from the verb στρέφειν, to turn. See Anti-
and Strophe.
ANTITHESIS, a contrast, opposition. (Gk.) Used by Bp.
Taylor, Dissuasive from Popery, bk. i. pt.ii.s. 1 (R.) — Gk. ἀντίθεσις,
an opposition, a setting opposite. — Gk. ἀντί, over against ; and θέσις,
a setting, placing, from θε-, weak grade allied to τίθημι, 1 place. See
Anti- and Thesis. Der. antithet-ic, antithel-ic-al, antithet-ic-al-ly;
from Gk. ἀντιθετικός, adj.
ANTITYPEH, that which answers to the type. (Gk.) Bp. Taylor,
Of the Real Presence, s. 12. § 28, speaks of ‘type and antitype.’ The
word is due to the occurrence of the Gk. ἀντίτυπον (A.V. ‘figure’)
in I Pet. iii. 21, and the pl. ἀντίτυπα (A. V. ‘ figures’) in Heb. ix. 24.
This sb. ἀντίτυπον is the neut. of adj. ἀντίτυπος, formed according to
a model, responding as an impression to a blow given to a stamp. =
Gk. ἀντί, over against; and τύπος, a blow, also a stamp, pattern,
ANTLER
type, allied to τύπτειν, to strike. See Auti- and Type. Der.
antityp-ic-al.
ANTLER, the branch ofastag’s horn. (F.—L.) Like most terms
of the chase, this is of F. origin. The oldest Εἰ. form is auntelere, occur-
ring in Twety’s treatise on Hunting, pr. in Reliquiae Antique, i. 151.
= OF. antoillier (Dict. de Trévoux), an antler. — Folk-L. acc. *ani(e)-
ocularem (ramum), branch placed before the eye; cf. G. augen-sprosse,
a brow-antler (lit. eye-sprout).—L. ante, before ; and ocu/lus, the eye.
See Hatzfeld, s.v. andouillier (the mod. F. form); and see Romania,
iv. 3240.
ANUS, the lower orifice of the bowels. (L.)
(1706). Borrowed from L. anus.
ANVIL, an iron block on which smiths hammer their work into
shape. (E.) Anvil is for anvild or anvilt, a final d (for ¢) having
dropped off. We find anvelde in Palsgrave (1530). In Wright's
Vocabularies, i. 180, is the entry ‘anfeld, incus.’. In Chaucer’s Book
of the Duchess, 1165, we find anvel'.— AS. anfilte, explained by L.
incus, ALlf. Glos., Voc. 141. 23; OMerc. onfilti, Corpus Gloss. 1072
(Sweet). — AS. on-, prefix, often written az-, answeringto mod. E. on;
and (probably) *feltax (see below), causal of *fealtan, to infix, redu-
plicating verb cognate with OHG. *falzan, MHG. valzen, to infix,
inlay, whence G. falz,a groove. @ Some derive it from on and fealdan,
to fold; however, the OHG. anafalz, an anvil, is not derived from
ana, on, and faldan, to fold, but from ana and the MHG., valzen
(above), which is allied to L. pellere, to drive. Cf. L. inciis, an anvil,
from in, on, and ciidere, to strike; and note the AS. gloss: ‘Cudo,
percutio, anfilte,, Voc. 217. 5; which authorises the form *feltan
(filtan) as postulated above. See Felt. @ In Napier’s glosses, rr.
67, we find anfealte onsmédre, showing the by-form anfealt, fem. sb.,
an anvil, with the same gradation as the OHG. anafalz, and strongly
confirming the above etymology. See Kluge, s.v. Falz; Schade,
bis
PANXIOUS, distressed, oppressed, much troubled. (L.) In Milton,
P. L. viii. 185. Sir T. More, Works, p. 197 e, has anxyete. {The sb.
was perhaps taken from F. anxieté, given by Cotgrave, and explained
by ‘anxietie ;’ but the adj. must have been taken directly from Latin,
with the change of -us into -ows as in other cases, e. g. pious, amphibious,
barbarous.] — L. anxius, anxious, distressed.— L. angere, to choke,
strangle. + Gk. ἄγχειν, to strangle. —4/ANGH, to choke, oppress ;
Brugm. i. § 178. Der. anxious-ly, anxious-ness ; also anxi-e-ty, from
F. anxiete, L. acc. anxietatem. From the same root we have anger,
anguish, L. angina, and even quinsy.
ANY, indef. pronoun; some one. (E.) An indeterminate deriva-
tive of one. The ME. forms are numerous, as @ni}, @ni, ani, oni,
ἐπὶ, &c.; enig is in OE. Homilies, i. 219. AS. @xig, formed with
suffix -ig (cf. greed-y from AS. gr@d-ig) from the numeral dz, one.+
Du. eenig, any; from een,one. Cf. G. einiger, any one; from ern, one.
See One. Der. any-thing, any-wise.
AORIST, a name for two of the past tenses of a Greek verb. (Gk.)
In Phillips (1658). — Gk. ἀόριστος, lit. ‘indefinite.’ — Gk. d-, neg. prefix;
and ὁρίζειν, to define, limit; see Horizon.
AORTA, the great artery rising up from the left ventricle of the
heart. (Late L.—Gk.) In Burton, Anat. of Melancholy, i. 1. 2. 3;
ed. 1827, p. 26. Late L. aorta; borrowed directly from Gk. ἀορτῇ,
the aorta. — Gk. ἀείρειν, to raise up; pass. ἀείρεσθαι, to rise up. See
Prellwitz, p. 4.
APACEH, at a great pace. (Hybrid; E.and F.) Marlow has ‘gallop
apace ;’ Edw. II, A. iv. sc. 3, 1.12. At an earlier period the word was
written as two words, a pas, as in Chaucer, C. T., F 388: ‘And forth
she walketh esily a pas.’ [It is also to be remarked that the phrase
has partly changed its meaning. In Chaucer, both here and in other
passages, it means ‘at a foot-pace,’ and was originally used of men
or horses when proceeding at no great speed.}_ The phrase is com-
posed of a, for on, i.e. at; and the ME. pas, mod. E. pace, a word of
F. origin. See A- (2) and Pace.
APART, aside. (F.—L.) T. Usk speaks of the ‘fyve sondrye wittes,
eueriche apart to his own doing;’ Testament of Love, iii.6.51. The
phrase is borrowed from the F. ἃ part, which Cotgrave gives, and
explains by ‘ apart, alone, singly.’ = L. ad partem, to the one part or
side, apart. — L.ad, to: and partem, acc. case of pars,a part. See Part,
APARTMENT, a separate room. (F.—Ital.—L.) In Dryden,
tr. of Virgil, Ain. 11. 675.—F. appartement.—=Ital. appartamento, a
separation, Florio; an apartment, Torriano. —Ital. appartare, to with-
ce apart, id.; also (formerly) apartare. = Ital. a parte, apart. See
above.
APATHY, want offeeling. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Holland’s Plutarch,
p. 62, we have the pl. apathies; he seems to use it as if it were a new
word in English. Pope has apathy, Essay on Man, ii. 101.—F. apathie
(Hatzfeld). —L. apathia (Gellius). = ΟΚ, ἀπάθεια, apathy, insensibility.
=-Gk. d-, neg. prefix; and παθεῖν, to suffer. See Pathos. Der.
apath-et-ic.
In Phillips’ Dict.
APOLOGY 25
APE, a kind of monkey. (E.) ME. apfe, King Alisaunder, ed. Weber,
4344; Ancren Riwle, p. 248. AS. apa, A‘lf. Glos., Nomina Ferarum.
+ Du. aap; Icel. api; Swed. apa; G. affe; Teut. type *apon-, τη.
Prob. borrowed from a non-Teut. source. ORuss. opica (Miklo-
sich), is borrowed from Teut. Der. ap-ish, ap-ish-ly, ap-ish-ness.
APEPSIA, lack of digestion. (Gk.) Phillips (1658) has apepsie.
- Gk. ἀπεψία, indigestion. = Gk. d-, neg. prefix; and πέπτειν, to digest,
allied to Gk. πεπ-τός, cooked, and πέσσειν, to cook. See Cook.
APERIENT, a purgative. (L.) The word signifies, literally,
‘opening.’ Used by Bacon, Nat. Hist. sect. 961.—L. aperient-, stem
of aperiens, pres. pt. of aperire, to cpen. (Perhaps from ap-, old form
of ab-, away; and -wer- = Lith. wer- in werti, to move (to or fro) ;
whence Lith. at-werti, to open. See Brugm. i. § 361.) From same
source, aperture, L. apertira, from aperire (pp. apert-us).
APEX, the summit, top. (L.) Used by Ben Jonson, King James's
Entertainment; description of a Flamen.—L. apex, summit. Origin
uncertain.
APH., prefix. See Apo-, prefix.
APHASRESIS, the taking away ofa letter or syllable from the
beginning of a word. (L.—Gk.) In Cotgrave, s. v. Aphairese. = Late
L. aphearesis.— Gk. ἀφαίρεσις, a taking away.—Gk. ἀφαιρεῖν, to take
away. = Gk. ἀπό, from (> ἀφ- before an aspirate) ; and αἱρεῖν, to take.
See Heresy.
APHELION, the point in a planet’s orbit furthest from the sun.
(Gk.) Scientific. Spelt aphelium in Blount’s Gloss. (1681). Coined
from Gk. ἀφ-, for ἀπό, from; and ἥλιος, the sun, See Solar.
APHIS, one of a family of minute and destructive insects. (Gk.?)
A name due to Linnzeus; with pl. apiides. Of unknown etymology;
but probably the pl. apkides represents Gk. ἀφειδεῖς, pl. of ἀφειδής,
‘unsparing,’ hence voracious ; from which a sing. apis was evolved.
From Gk. ἀ-, neg. prefix; and φείδομαι, I spare.
APHORISM, a definition, brief saying. (F.—Gk.) Aphorisms is
in Bacon, Ady. of Learning, i. 5. 4; spelt aphorismes, Sir Τὶ Elyot,
Castel of Helth, b. iii. c. 1; p.54. Perhaps mediately, through the
French. Cf. ‘A phorisme, m., aphorisme or generall rule in physick ;’
Cot. «ΑΚ. ἀφορισμός, a definition, a short pithy sentence. Gk. ἀφο-
picew, to define, mark off. = Gk. ἀπό, from, off (> ἀφ- before an aspi-
rate); and ὁρίζειν, to divide, limit; from ὅρος, a boundary. See
Horizon, Der. aphoris-t-ic, aphoris-t-ic-al, aphoris-t-ic-al-ly.
APIARY,a place for keeping bees. (L.) Used by Evelyn; Diary,
July 13, 1654. Formed, with suffix -y for -ivm, from L. apiarium, a
place for bees, neut. of apiarius, of or belonging to bees. The masc.
apidrius means ‘a keeper of bees.’ =—L. apis, a bee.
APIECE, in aseparate share. (Hybrid; E.and F.) Often written
a-piece; Shak. Merry Wives, i. 1. 160. For a piece (two words) ;
meaning ‘ for one piece.’ Here a is the indef. article. See Piece.
APO., prefix, off. (Gk.) Gk. ἀπό, off, from. Cognate with E. of,
off. See Of, Off. Der. apo-calypse, &c.; see below. 4 Since
ἀπό becomes ἀφ- before an aspirate, it appears also in aph-e@resis,
aph-(h)elion, and aph-orism.
APOCALYPSE, a revelation. (L.—Gk.) A name given to the
last book of the Bible. ME. apocalips, used by Wyclif. —L. apocalypsis,
Rey. i. 1 (Vulgate version). —Gk. ἀποκάλυψις, Rev. i. 1 5 lit. ‘an un-
covering.’ = Gk. ἀποκαλύπτειν, to uncover. = Gk. ἀπό, off (cognate with
E. off); and καλύπτειν, to cover. Cf. Gk. καλύβη, a hut, cabin, cell,
cover; καλιά, ἃ cot. Allied to Calyx and Cell. Der. apocalyp-t-ic,
apocalyp-t-ic-al.
APOCOPEH, a cutting off of a letter or syllable at the end of a
word. (L.—Gk.) In Palsgrave, p. 402, 1.1. A grammatical term ;
L. apocopé, borrowed from Gk. ἀποκοπή, a cutting off.—Gk. ἀπό, off
(see Apo-); and κόπτειν, to hew, cut. Brugm. i. ὃ 645.
APOCRYPHA, certain books of the Old Testament. (Gk.) ‘ The
other [bookes] folowynge, which are called apocripha (because they
were wont to be reade, not openly and in common, but as it were in
secrete and aparte) are neytherfounde in the Hebrue norin the Chalde;’
Bible, 1539; Pref. to Apocrypha. The word means ‘things hidden;’
hence, unauthentic. = Gk. ἀπόκρυφα, things hidden, neut. pl. of ἀπό-
κρυφος, hidden. — Gk, ἀποκρύπτειν, to hide away. —Gk. ἀπό, off, away
(see Apo-) ; and κρύπτειν, to hide. See Crypt. Der. apocryph-al.
APOGEE, the point in the moon’s orbit furthest from the earth.
(F.—L.—Gk.) Scientific. Apoge in Cockeram (1624). F. apogée
(Cot.).—Late L. apogaum.=—Gk. ἀπύγαιον, neut. of ἀπόγαιος, adj.,
away from earth.—Gk. ἀπό, away; and γῆ, earth.
APOLOGUE, a fable, story. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Minsheu, ed.
1627. Used by Bp. Taylor, vol. i. ser. 25. § 9. =F. apologue, m., which
Cotgrave.explains by ‘a pretty and significant fable or tale, wherein
bruit beasts, or dumb things, are famed to speak.’ = L. apologum, acc.
of apologus. =Gk. ἀπόλογος, a story, fable. Gk. ἀπό, off; and λογ-,
second grade of λέγειν, to speak. See Apo- and Logic.
APOLOGY, a defence, excuse. (L.—Gk.) SirT. More, Works,
Ῥ. 932 a, speaks of ‘the booke that is called mine. apology.’ [He
APOPHTHEGM
probably Englished it from the L. apologia, used by St. Jerome, rather
than from the Gk. immediately.]|—Gk. ἀπολογία, a speech made in
one’s defence. = Gk. ἀπό, off (see Apo-) ; and λέγειν, to speak; see
Logie. Der. apolog-ise, apolog-ist ; apolog-et-ic (Gk. ἀπολογητικός,
fit for a defence), apologet-ic-al, apolog-et-ic-al-ly. And see above.
APOPHTHEGM, APOTHEGM, a terse saying. (Gk.) Bacon
wrote a collection of apophthegms, so entitled. Udall’s tr. of Erasmus’
Apophthegmes is dated 1542. The word is sometimes shortened to
apothegm. = Gk. ἀπόφθεγμα, a thing uttered ; also, a terse saying, apo-
phthegm.=—Gk. ἀποφθέγγομαι, I speak out my mind plainly. —Gk.
ἀπό, off, out (see Apo-); and φθέγγομαι, I cry out, cry aloud, utter.
From the same root are di-phthong, mono-phthong.
APOPLEXY, ἃ sudden deprivation of motion by a shock to the
system. (I’.—LateL.—Gk.) Chaucer, in 1. 21 of The Nun’s Priest’s
Tale, has the form poplexye ; like his potecarie for apothecary.— Ἐς apo-
plexie (Cot.).— Late L. apopléxia, also spelt popléxia; see the latter in
Ducange.—Gk. ἀποπληξία, stupor, apoplexy.—Gk. ἀποπλήσσειν, to
cripple by a stroke. — Gk. ἀπό, off (see Apo-); and πλήσσειν, to strike.
See Plague. Der. apoflec-t-ic.
APOSTASY, APOSTACY, a desertion of one’s principles
or line of conduct. (F.—Late L.—Gk.) In rather early use. ME.
apostasie, Wyclif's Works, ii. 51.—F. apostasie, ‘an apostasie;’ Cot.
—Late L. apostasia; Ducange.—Gk. ἀποστασία, a later form of ἀπό-
στασις, a defection, revolt, lit. ‘a standing away from.’ —Gk. ἀπό, off,
from (see Apo-); and στάσις, a standing, from o7a-, base allied to
ἵστημι, Τ place, set. See Statics. And see below.
APOSTATE, one who renounces his belief. (F. — Late L. —Gk.)
The sb. apostate occurs in the Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 19, and is often
spelt apostata (the Late L. form), as in P. Plowman, B. i. 104, and
indeed. very much later, viz. in Massinger’s Virgin Martyr, A. iv.
sc. 3. 1. 62.—OF. apostate, later apostat, as given by Cotgrave, and
explained ‘an apostata.’—Late L. apostata (also a common form in
English).—Gk. ἀποστάτης, a deserter, apostate. — Gk. ἀπό; and o7a-,
base allied to ἔστην, I placed myself, ἵστημι, I place, set; see above.
Der. apostat-ise. 4 The L. form apostata occurs even in AS.
APOSTEME, an abscess ; now Imposthume, q.v-.
APOSTLE, one sent to preach the gospel ; especially applied to
the earliest disciples of Chnst. (L.—Gk.) Wyclif has aposle, Rom.
i.1. The initial α was often dropped in ME.,as in posteles, P. Plowman,
B. vi. 151. The earlier writers use apostel, as in OE. Homilies,
1. 117. The AS. form was apostol, Matt. x. 2.—L. apos/olus.— Gk.
ἀπόστολος, an apostle; Matt. x. 2, &c. Lit. ‘one who is sent away.’
— Gk. ἀποστέλλειν, to send away.—Gk. ἀπό (see Apo-); and στέλ-
Aev, tosend. See Stole. Der. afostle-ship ; also apostol-ic, apostol-
ic-al, apostol-ic-al-ly, apostol-ate ; from L. apostolus.
APOSTROPHE, a mark showing that a word is contracted ;
also an address to the dead or absent. (L.—Gk.) Ben Jonson, Engl.
Gram, b. ii. c. 1, calls the mark an aposirophus ; Shak. apostropha,
L.L.L. iv. 2.123. These are Latinised forms; the usual L. form
is apostrophé. Palsgrave has: ‘the fygure called Apostrophe ;’ p. xix.
1, 2.—Gk. ἀποστροφή, a turning away ; ἀπόστροφος, the maik called
an apostrophe; [from which the mod. E. form should have been
apostroph.) ᾿Αποστροφή also signifies a figure in rhetoric, in which
the orator turns away from the rest to address one only, or from all
present to address the absent-—Gk. ἀπό, away (see Apo-) ; and
στρέφειν, toturn. See Strophe. Der. apostroph-ise.
APOTHECARY, a seller of drugs. (F.—Late L.—Gk.) Lit.
‘the keeper of astore-house or repository.”. ME. apothecarie, Chaucer,
C. T., Prol. 425 ; sometimes shortened to pothecarie or potecarie, id.,
C 852.—OF. apotecaire.— Late L. apothécdrius, apotécarius ; Wright's
Vocabularies, i. 129-—L. apothéca, a storehouse.— Gk. ἀποθήκη, 2
storehouse, in which anything is laid up or put away. —Gk. ἀπό, away
(see Apo-) ; and τί-θη-μι, I place, put. See Thesis.
APOTHEGM. See Apophthegm.
APOTHEOSIS, deification. (L.—Gk.) Quotations (without re-
ferences) from South and Garth occur in Todd’s Johnson. Bacon has
it, Adv. of Learning, i. vii. 1.—L. apothedsis. — Gk. ἀποθέωσις, deifica-
tion. — Gk. ἀποθεόω, I deify; lit. ‘set aside as a god.’—=Gk. ἀπό (see
Apo-); and θέος, a god. See Theism.
APPAL, to terrify, dismay. (F.—L.) The present sense is modem.
The ME. appallen meant ‘to become pale,’ or ‘to make pale’ or
‘feeble. Thus Palsgrave has: ‘I appale ones colour, Ie appalis ;’
and ‘I appalle, as drinke dothe or wyne, whan it leseth his colour
or ale whan it hath stande longe, 76 appalys.’ Chaucer has appalled,
made pale, C. T., F 365 (10679). Gower has ‘ myn hed appalleth,
my head becomes pale, C. A. li. 107; bk. iv. 3160.—OF. apallir,
apalir, appalir, to wax pale; also, to make pale (Cot.). = OF.a-, prefix;
pale, palle, pale. = L. ad,to; and pallidus, pale. See Pale (2), Pall (2).
APPANAGE, APANAGE, provision for a dependent ; esp.
used of lands set apart as a provision for younger sons. (F.—L.) A
French law term. Cotgrave gives ‘ Appanage, Appennage, the portion
26
APPLAUD
of a younger brother in France; the lands, dukedomes, counties, or
countries assigned by the king unto his younger sons, or brethren, for
their entertainment; also, any portion of land or money delivered
unto a sonne, daughter, or kinsman, in lieu of his future right of
succession to the whole, which he renounces upon the receit thereof ;
or, the lands and lordships given by a father unto his younger sonne,
and to his heires for ever, a child’s part.’ [Mod. F. apanage, which
in feudal law meant any pension or alimentation; Brachet. The
Late L. forms apanagium, appanagium are merely Latinised from the
French.] β. Formed with F. suffix -age (L. -dticum), from OF.
apaner, to nourish, lit. to supply with bread, written apandre in Late
L.; Ducange. = L. ap- (for ad), to, for; and pan-is, bread. See Pantry.
APPARATUS, preparation, provision, gear. (L.) Used by Hale,
Origin of Mankind, p. 366. Borrowed from L. apparatus, prepara-
tion; cf. apparatus, pp. of appariire, to prepare for.—L. ad, to, for
(>ap- before p) ; and parare, to make ready. See Prepare.
APPAREL, to clothe, dress. (F.—L.) The ME. aparailen, to
make ready, occurs in An Old Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 26.
[The sb. is ME. apparel, uppareil; Wyclif, 1 Macc. ix. 35,52; 2 Macc.
xii. 14.=OF. aparail, apareil, apparel, dress.}— OF. aparailler, to
dress, to apparel. — OF. a, prefix (L. ad) ; and pareiller, parailler, to
assort, to put like things together with like, to arrange, from pareil,
parail, like, similar; mod. Εἰ, pareil B. The adj. pared is from
Late L. pariculum, acc. of pariculus, like, similar, found in old
medieval documents: ‘hoc sunt pariculas cosas,’ Lex Salica;
Brachet.—L. pari-, stem of par, equal; with suffixes -cw- and -lo-,
both diminutive. See Par, Pair, Peer. Der. apparel, sb.
APPARENT, APPARITION; see Appear.
APPEAL, to call upon, have recourse to. ('.—L.) ME. appelen,
apelen, Gower, C. A. ili. 192, has appele as a verb, and appeel asa
sb. (bk. vil. 3171, 3175). The sb. apel, appeal, occurs in Rob. of
Gloue., p. 473, 1. 9705.—OF. apeler, to invoke, call upon, accuse ;
spelt with one p because the prefix was a, the OF. form of L. ad. —L.
appellire, to address, call upon; also spelt adpelldre; a secondary
form from L, appellere, adpellere, to drive to, bring to, incline towards.
κ , ad, to; and pellere, to drive. See Impel. Der. appeal, sb.,
appeal-able; appell-ant, MF. appell-ant, pres. pt. of appeller; and
(from L. appellare), appell-ate, appell-at-ion, appell-at-ive.
APPEAR, to become visible, come forth visibly. (F.—L.) ME.
apperen, aperen ; spelt appiere, P. Plowman, B, 111. 113 ; pt. t. aperede,
O. Eng. Misc., ed. Morris, p. 27.-—OF. aper-, tonic. stem (as in pres.
subj. apere) of aparoir, to appear. = L. apparére, to appear. = L. ad, to
(which becomes ap- before p); and parére, to appear, come in sight,
which is also written parrére. Der. appear-ance; and (from L.
apparére) appar-ent, appar-ent-ly, appar-ent-ness, appar-it-ion, appar-
it-or. The phrase heir apparaunt = heir apparent, is in Gower, C. A.
i. 203 (bk. ii. 1320).
APPEASE, to pacify, quiet. (F.—L.) ME. apaisen, apesen,
appesen. ‘Cacus apaysede the wratthes of Evander;’ Chaucer, tr. of
Boethius, b. iv. met. 7, 1. 36. Gower has appesed, C. A. i.,341 (bk.
iii. 1849).—AF. apeser, apeiser, OF. apeser, mod. F. apaiser, to pacify,
bring to a peace. OF. a δεῖς, a pais, toa peace.—L. ad pacem, to a
peace.=L. ad, to; and pacem, acc. of pax, peace. See Peace and
Pacify. Der. appeas-able.
APPELLANT, &c.; see Appeal.
APPEND, to add afterwards. (F.—L.) Now used in the sense
‘to hang one thing on to another;" from I’. appendre, the same. = L.
appendere, to suspend on.=L. ap-, for ad, to; and pendere, to hang.
B. But formerly intransitive, and lit. ‘to hang on to something else,’
to depend upon, belong to; the ME. appenden, apenden always has
this intransitive sense. ‘Telle me to whom, madame, that tresore
appendeth,’ i.e. belongs; P. Plowman, B.i.45.— OF, apendre, to depend
on, belong to, be attached to, lit. ‘hang on to.’ = Late L. appendere, for
L. appendére, to hang to or upon.—L. ap-, for ad, to; and pendére,
tohang. See Pendant. Der. append-age (F.), append-ix (L.).
APPERTATIN, to belong to. (F.—L.) ME. apertenen, aperteinen ;
Chaucer, C. Τ᾿, G 785; tr. of Boethius, b. iii. pr. 4. 25.—OF.
apartein-, a stem of the verb apartenir (mod. I’. appartenir), to pertain
to.—OF. a, prefix (L. ad); and OF. partenir, to pertain, from L.
pertinére, to pertain, a compound of L. per, through, thoroughly, and
tenére, to hold. See Pertain. Der. appurten-ance (OF. apurten-
aunse, apartenance), appurten-ant.
APPETITE, strong natural desire for a thing. (F.—L.) ME.
appetyt, Chaucer, C. T., B 3390; Maundevile’s Travels, p. 157.—
OF, appetit.—L. appetitus, an appetite, lit. ‘a flying upon,’ or ‘ assault
upon,’ = L. appetere, to fly to, to attack. = L. ad-, to (> ap- before p);
and petere, to fly, rush swiftly, seek swiftly. —4/PET, to fall, fly. Cf.
Gk, πέτ-ομαι, I fly; Brugm.i.§ 116. See Petition. Der. appet-ise;
Milton appet-ence, desire, P. L. xi. 619.
APPLAUD, to praise by clapping hands. (L.) Shak. Macb.
ν. 3. 53. Directly from L. applaudere, pp. applausus. The L. applau-
APPLE
dere means ‘to clap the hands together.’=L. ad, to, together (>ap-
before 2}; and plaudere, to strike, clap, also spelt plotere (whence
E. ex-plode). See Explode. Der. .applause, Shak. Cor. i. 9. 64;
applaus-ive, from L. pp. a*plausus.
APPLE, the fruit of the apple-tree. (E.) The apple of the eye
(Dent. xxxil. To) is properly the pupil (see N. E. D.); but was some-
times used of the eye-ball, from its round suape; see Catholicon
Anglicum, p. 11, note 5. ME. appel, appil; spelt appell in the Or-
mulum, 8118. AS. @pl, eppel; Grein, i. 58. OFries. appel. + Du.
appel, apple, ball, eye-ball ; Icel. epli; Swed. dple, apple; Dan. able;
OHG. aphol, aphul, G. apfel; Irish abhal, Gael. ubhal, W. afal, Bret.
aval. Cf.also Russ. jabloko, Lithuanian obolys, &c. Origin unknown.
Some connect it with Abella in Campania; cf. Verg. Amn. vii. 740.
This is not satisfactory.
APPLY, to fix the mind on; to appropriate to. (F.—L.) ME.
applyex. ‘Applyyn, applico, oppono ;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 13. It occurs
in the Wyel. Bible, Numb. xvi. 5, &c. = OF. aplier (s.v. aploier, Goce-
froy).—L, applicire, to join to, attach; turn or direct towards, apply
to; pp. applicatus. — L. ad, to (>ap- before p) ; and plicare, to fold or
lay together, twine together. See Ply. Der. appli-able, appli-ance ;
and (from L. applicare), applica-ble, applic-ant, applic-at-ion.
APPOGGIATURA, a grace-note or passing tone prefixed as a
support to an essential note of a melody. (Ital.—L.and Gk.) Modem;
in music. = Ital. appoggiatura, lit. a support. = Ital. appoggiare, to lean
upon. =—L. ap-, for ad, to, upon; poggio, a place to lean on. —L. ad,
to; podiun:, an elevated place, balcony, from Gk. πόδιον, lit. ‘little
foot,’ a footstool, gallery to sit in, &c.; from Gk. ποδ-, as in πόδ-α,
acc. of πούς, foot. See Foot and Pew.
APPOINT, to fix, settle, equip. (.—L.) ME. appointen, apointen;
‘apointed in the newe mone ;’ Gower, C. A. ii. 265 (bk. v. 4115). —
OF. apointer, to prepare, arrange, settle, fix. Late L. appunctare, to
Tepair, appoint, settle a dispute ; Ducange. = L. ad-, to (> ap- before
p); and Late L. punctare, to mark by a prick, from punc/us, pp. of
pungere, to prick, pt. t. pupugi; the orig. L. root pug- being preserved
in the reduplicated perfect tense. See Point. @ In some senses,
OF. apointer was from the phrase a point, L. ad punctum. Der. appoin:-
ment; Merry Wives, ii. 2. 272.
APPORTION, to portion out. (F.—L.) Used by Bp. Taylor,
Of Repentance, c. 3. 5. 6 (R.) =F. apportianer, ‘to apportion, to give
a portion, or child’s part ;’ Cot. Formed by prefixing F. a- (which
in later times was written ap- before p, in imitation of the L. prefix
ap-, the form taken by ad- before p) to the F. verb portionner, ‘to
apportion, part, share, deal,’ Cot.; from F. portion, a portion, from
L. portionem, acc. of portio, a portion, share. See Portion. Der.
apportion-ment.
APPOSITH, suitable. (L.) [The ME. verb. apfosen was used in
the special sense of ‘to put questions to,’ ‘to examine by questions ;’
but this was really another form of οδ΄ ο΄ ον, ‘to argue against,’ and is
preserved as pose; see Pose (2).] Bacon speaks of ‘ready and apposite
answers ;’ Life of Henry VII, ed. Lumby, p. 111, 1. 22.—L. appositus,
adj. suitable ;-orig. pp. of apponere, to place or put to, join, annex
to.—L. ad, to (>ap- before p); and ponere, to place, put. See
Position. Der. apposite-ly, apposite-ness, apposit-ion.
APPRAISE, to set a price on, to value. (F.—L.) Sometimes spelt
apprize, as in Bp. Hall’s Account of Himself, quoted by Richardson.
The ME. forms (with one 2) apreisen, apraisen, signify to value, to
esteem highly, as in ‘ Hur enparel was afraysut with princes of my3te’
= her apparel was highly prized by mighty princes; Anturs of Arthur,
st. 29. In P. Plowman, B. v. 334, the simple verb freised occurs with
the sense of ‘ appraised.’—OF. a, prefix (L.ad); and presser, preisier,
prisier, to appreciate, value, set a price on; the compound being
suggested by OF. aprister, to appraise, appreciate (Godefroy). The
verb preiser is from OF. preis, a price, value, L. pretium, a price. See
Price. @ The E. words price and praise being doublets, the words
apprize,in the sense of to ‘ value,’ and appraise are also doublets. To
apprize in the sense ‘to inform’ is a different word; see Apprize.
Der. a*prais-er, appraise-ment, And see below.
APPRECIATE, to set a just value on. (L.) Richardson gives
a quotation from Bp. Hall containing the sb. appreeiatiox, Fuller has
italso; Pisgah Sight, b.ii.c. 12. § 47. Gibbon uses appreciate, Rom.
Empire, c. 44. § 5 (from end). Formed from L. appretidtus, pp. of
appretiare, to value at a price. [The spelling with ¢ instead of ¢ is
due to the fact that the sb. appreciation seems to have heen in earlier
use than the verb, and was borrowed directly from F. appreciation,
which Cotgrave explains by ‘a praising or prizing; a rating, valuation,
or estimation.of.’}_ The L. appretiaire is a made up word, from L. ad
(becoming ap- before 2) and pretium, a price. See Price; and see
Appraise above. Der. appreciat-ion; apprecia-ble, apprecia-bly.
APPREHEND, to lay hold of, to understand ; to fear. (L.) Hall,
Tenry IV, an. 1. § £2, has apprehended in the sense of attached, taken
prisoner. — L. apprehendere, to lay hold of, seize. — L. ad, to (becoming
‘cious.
APRICOT 20
ap- before p) ; and prehendere, to seize, pp. prehensus. See Prehen-
sile. Der. apprehens-ion, apprehens-ible, apprehens-ive, apprehens-ive-
ness; from L. pp. apprehensus. And see below.
APPRENTICE, a learner of a trade. (F.—L.) ‘Apparailled
hym as apprentice ;’ P. Plowman, B. ii. 214, in MS. W.; see the foot-
note; other MSS. read a grentice in this passage. [The forms apprentice
and prentice were used indifferently in ME., and can be so used still ;
the syllable a- was easily confused with the indef. article.]—OF.
aprentis, nom. case of aprentif; see Supp. to Godefroy, p. 156. The
forms aprentis, aprentif represent Folk-L. types *apprenditivus, nom.,
and *apprenditivum, acc.; from a Late L. *apprenditus, used as a new
pp. of L. apprendere, short form of apprehendere, to lay hold of. See
Apprehend. See F. apprenti in Hatzfeld; cf. Gascon aprentis,
Span. and Port. aprendiz. Der. apprentice-ship.
APPRIZE, APPRISE, to inform, teach. (F.—L.) ‘Youmust
be extremely well apprized, that,’ &c.; Spectator, no. 518 (1712).
Formed from MF. apprendre (Palsgrave, p. 606, s.v. lerne), pp. appris,
‘taught, instructed,’ Cot.; by analogy with comprise, surprise, from F.
comprendre, surprendre. From Late L. apprendere, to learn; contr.
form of apprehendere, to apprehend, lay hold of. See Apprehend.
APPROACH, to draw near to. (F.—L.) ME. approchen, apro-
chen; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 8; Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, Ὁ. i.
pr. I, 1. 31. OF. aprochier, to approach, draw near to. = L. appropiare,
to draw near to; in the Vulgate version of Exod. iii. 5.—L. ad, to
(becoming ap- before p); and propius, comp. of prope, near, which
appears again in Εἰ. prop-ingutty. Der. approach-able.
APPROBATION; see Approve.
APPROPRIATE, adj. fit, suitable; ν. to take to oneself as one’s
own. (L.) The sb. apropriacioun is in Gower, C. A. i. 240; bk. ii.
2396. The pp. appropria/ed is in the Bible of 1539, 3rd Esdras, c. 6
(Richardson). Tyndal, Works, p. 66, col. 1, has appropriate as an
adjective, adopted from L. pp. appropridatus. [This is how most of
our verbs in -ate were formed ; first came the pp. form in -ate, used as
an adj., from L. pp. in -dws ; also used with the sense of a pp., which
at once suggested a verb in -ave. - L. appropriatus, pp. of appropriare,
to make one’s own. = L. ad, to (becoming ap- before 2); and proprius,
one’s own; whence E. Proper, q.v. Der. appropriate-ly, appropriate-
ness, appropriat-ion.
APPROVE, to commend ; sometimes, to prove. (F.—L.) ME.
approuen, appreuen (with wu for v). Chaucer has ‘approved in coun-
seilling τ᾿ C. T., B 2345.—OF. aprover, to approve of (Godefroy);
mod. I. approuver. —L. approbare, to commend; pp. approbatus. = L.
ad, to (becoming ap- before p); and probdre, to test, try; to approve,
esteem as good, from probus, good. See Prove. Der. approv-ing-ly,
approv-able, approv-al; also approbat-ian, ME. approbac-ion (Gower,
C. A. ii. 86 : bk. iv. 2519), from L. approbatio.
APPROXIMATE, adj. near to; v. to bring or comenearto. (L.)
Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iii..c. 21. § 9, has approximate as an
adjective ; hence was formed the verb; see note on Appropriate. =
L. approximatus, pp. of approximare, to draw near to. —L. ad, to (be-
coming ap- before p); and proximus, very near, superlative adj. formed
from profe,near. See Approach. Der.approximate-ly,approximat-ion.
APPURTENANCEH, in P. Plowman, B. 1i. 103 (MS. W); see
Appertain.
APRICOT, a kind of plum. (F.—Port.—Arab.—Gk.—L.)
[Formerly spelt apricock, Shak. Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 1. 169; Rich. II, iii.
4. 29; from the Port. albricoque, an apricot.}] Cotgrave has abricot, of
which apricot is a corruption. We also find abrico¢ in Phillips’ Dict.,
1658. - Ε΄ abricot, which Cotgrave explains by ‘the abricot, or apricock
plum.’ = Port. albricogue, an apricot; the F. word having been intro~
duced from Portuguese; see Brachet. Cf. Span. albaricoque, Ital. alber-
cocca. PB. These words are traced, in Webs‘er and Littré, back to the
Arabic al-bargug (Rich. Dict. p. 263), where al is the Arabic def.
article, and the word bargi7 is no true Arabic word, but a corruption
of the Mid. Gk. πραικόκιον, Dioscorides, i. 165 (see Sophocles’ Lexicon) ;
pl. πραικόύκια, borrowed from the L. precogua, apricots, neut. pl. of
precoquus, another form of precox, lit. precocions, early-ripe. {They
were also called armenia, i.e. Armenian fruit.} They were considered
as a kind of peach (peaches were called persica in Latin) which ripened
sooner than other peaches ; and hencethe name. ‘ Maturescunt estate
precocia intra triginta annos reperta et primo denariis singulis uenun-
data ;’ Pliny, Nat. Hist. xv. 12 ; which Holland translates: ‘the abri-
cocfs are ready to be eaten in summer; these have not bin known full
30 yeares, and at their first comming up, were sold for Roman deniers
apeece.’ ‘ Vilia maternis fueramus precogva ramis Nunc in adoptiuis
persica cara sumus;” Martial, 13. 46. The L. precox, early-ripe, is
from pre, beforehand, and coguere, to ripen, to cook. See Preco-
@ The word thus came to us in a very roundabout way,
viz. from L. to Gk.; then to Arab.; then to Port.; then to French,
whence we borrowed apricot, having previously borrowed the older
form apricock {from the Portuguese directly.
28 APRIL
APRIL, the name of the fourth month. (F.—L.) ME. Aprile,
April ; Chaucer, C. T. Prol. 1; also Aueril [Averil], Rob. of Glouc.
p- 506; 1. τοφτο. This oider form is I'rench; the word was after-
wards conformed to Latin spelling. — OF. Avril. —L. Aprilis, April ;
said to be so called because the earth then opens to produce new
fruits. —L. aperire, to open. See Aperient.
APRON, a cloth worn in front to protect the dress. (F.—L.) In
the Bible of 1539, Gen. iii. 7. Formerly spelt napron or naprun, so
that an initial 2 has been lost. ‘ Naprun or barm-clothe, Jimas ;’
Prompt. Parv. p. 351. ‘ Hir xapron feir and white i-wassh ;’ Prol.
to Tale of Beryn, |. 33.—OF. naperon, a large cloth (Roquefort) ;
naperon, napron, a napkin (Godefroy). Formed with suffix -r-
(appearing in OF. nape-r-ie, a place for keeping cloths), and suffix
-on (answering to Ital. -one), from OF. nape, a cloth; mod. F. nappe,
a cloth, table-cloth.—L. mappa, a cloth; with change of m to 2, as
in L. matta, F. natte, L. mespilum, Ἐς nefle. See Map. 4 On the
loss of x in napron, see remarks prefixed to the letter N.
APROPOS, to the purpose. (f.—L.) Mere French; viz. ἃ propos,
to the purpose, lit. with reference to what is proposed. = L. ad
propositum, to the purpose.=L. ad, to; and prdpositum, a thing pro-
posed, neut. of propositus, proposed, pp. of prdpdnere, to propose. See
Propose and Purpose.
APSE, an arched recess at the E. end of a church. (L.—Gk.)
Modern and architectural; a corruption of apsis, which has been
longer in use in astronomy, in which it is applied to the turning-
points of a planet’s orbit, when it is nearest to or farthest from the
sun. The astronomical term is also now often written apse. —L.
apsis, gen. written absis, a bow, turn; pl. apsides.— Gk. ἀψίς, apis, a
fastening, felloe of a wheel, curve, bow, arch, vault. —Gk. amrev, to
fasten, bind.
APT, fit, liable, ready. (L.) ‘Flowring today, tomorowe apt to
faile;’ Lord Surrey, Frailtie of Beautie. First used in 1398 (N.E. D.)
=L. aptus, fit, fitted; properly pp. of obsolete verb apere, to fasten,
join together, but used in L. as the pp. of apisci, to reach, seize, get.
Der. apt-ly, apt-ness, apt-i-tude; also ad-apt, q.v., ad-ept, q.v.
APTERYX, a New Zealand bird; the kiwi. (Gk.) Lit. ‘ wing-
less;’ because it has only rudimentary wings. —Gk. a-, neg. prefix;
and πτέρυξ, a wing, from mr-, weak grade of πέτ-ομαι, I fly.
AQUATIC, pertaining to water. (L.) Used by Ray, On the
Creation. Spelt aguatygue, Caxton, Eneydos, c. xxiv, p. 90, 1. 2.
Holland has agwaticall, Plutarch, p. 692 (R.). [Sir T. Browne has
aqueous, Vulgar Errors, bk. ii. c. 1.§ 6. Cotgrave has aqueduct, both
as F. and E.|—L. aquaticus, pertaining to water.—L. aqua, water.
Goth. akwa, water; OHG. aha, MIIG. ahe, water (obsolete) ;
AS. δα, a stream ; Icel. @, Dan. aa, Swed. a, stream. From L. aqua
are also derived aqua-fortis, i.e. strong water, by the addition of fortis,
strong ; agud-rium, Aqua-rius, aque-ous ; aque-duct, from aque, gen.
of aqua, water, and ductus, a duct.
AQUILINE, pertaining to or like an eagle. (L.; or F.—L.)
‘His nose was aguiline;’ Dryden, Palamon and Arcite, 1. 1350.
Perhaps from L. direct ; but Cotgrave gives F. aquilin, of an eagle,
like an eagle, with the example ‘ nez aguilin, a hawkenose, a nose
like an eagle.’—L. aguilinus, belonging to an eagle.—L. aguila, an
eagle. See Bagle.
ARABESQUE, Arabic, applied to designs. (F.—Ital.— Arab.)
In Swinburne’s Travels through Spain, lett. 31, qu.in Todd’s Johnson,
we find ‘interwoven with the arabesque foliages.’ — F. Arabe:que, which
Cotgrave explains by ‘ Arabian-like ; also sb. f., rebest-worke, a small
and curious flourishing ;’ where rebesk is a corruption of the very word
in question. Ital. Arabesco, Arabian. — Arab. ‘arab, Arabia; Rich.
Dict., p. 1000, The ending -esco in Italian answers to E. -ish. Der. From
the name of the same country we have also Arab, Arab-ian, Arab-ic.
ARABLE, fit for tillage. (F.—L.) North speaks of ‘arable
land;’ Plutarch, p. 189 (K.). ‘Land arable;’ ‘Tusser, Januaries
Husbandrie, st. 52.—F. arable, explained by Cotgrave as ‘ earable,
ploughable, tillable.’—L. arabilis, that can be ploughed. = L. arare, to
plough. See Ear (3).
ARAUCARIA, a genus of coniferous trees. (S. America.) So
called from Arauco, the name of a province to the S. of Chili.
ARBALEST, another form of Arblast, q. v.
ARBITER, an umpire, judge of a dispute. (L.) In Milton, P. L.
ii. gog. ‘As arbiter of war and peace;’ Ben Jonson, The Gipsies
(Captain). [Some derivatives, borrowed from the French, are in
much earlier use, viz. the fem. form arbytres (i.e. arbitress), Ayenbite
of Inwyt, p. 154; arbitrour, Wyclif, 3 Esdras, viii. 26 3 arbitre, arbi-
tree (L. arbitrium, choice), Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. v. pr. 3. 1. 12;
arbitracion, Chaucer’s Tale of Melibeus (B 2943) ; arbitratour, Hall,
Henry VI, an. 4; arbitrement, Shak. Tw. Nt. iii. 4. 286.] —L. arbiter,
a witness, judge, umpire; lit.‘ one who comes to look on. B. This
curious word is compounded of ar-and-biter. Here ar- is a dialectal
variation of L. ad, to, as in ar-cessere (Corssen, Ausspr. i. 2. 239);
ARCH
and -biter means ‘a comer, from the weak grade of bétere (also
baetere and bitere), to come, used by Pacuvius and Plautus. - The root
of béfere is perhaps *g(w)é- (cf. Lettish gai-ta, a going) ; see Brugm.
i. §§ 587 (7), 663. Der. arbitr-ess; see also below.
ARBITRARY, depending on the will; despotic. (L.) In Mil-
ton, P. L. ii. 334.—L. arbitrarius, arbitrary, uncertain ; lit. ‘what is
done by arbitration,’ with reference to the discretion of the umpire. =
L. arbitrfire, to act as umpire. = L. arbitro-, stem of arbiter, an umpire.
See further under Arbiter. Der. arbitrari-ly, arbitrari-ness; and see
below.
ARBITRATE, to act as umpire. (L.) Shak. Macb. v. 4. 20.
He also has arbitrator, Troilus, iv. 5. 225; which appears as arbi-
tratour (Εἰ. arbitrateur, Cotgrave) in Hall, Henry VI, an. 4; Chaucer
has arbitracioun (F. arbitration), Tale of Melibeus, C. T., B 2943.
Formed with suffix -a‘e (see App-opriate) from L. arbitrar2, to
act as arbiter, to be umpire (above). Der. arbitrat-or, arbiirat-ion ;
also arbitra-ment (F., from L. arbitrare). And see above.
ARBLAST, ARBALEST, a steel cross-bow. (F.—L.and Gk.)
Obsolete. ME. arblaste, dat., Rob. of Glouc. p. 377, 1. 7735; AS.
Chron. (MS. D.), an. 1079.— AF. arblast, OF. arbaleste (F. arbaléte).
=L. arcuballisia, a ‘ ballista’ furnished with a bow.=L. areu-, for
arcus, a bow ; and ballista, a machine for throwing stones, from Gk.
βάλλ-ειν, to throw, with suffix -is/a, Gk. -ἰστης.
ARBOREOUS, belonging to trees. (L.) Used by Sir T. Browne,
Vulg. Errors, b. ii. c. 6, § 20. [Milton has arborets, i.e. groves (L. ar-
borétum, a place planted with trees), P. L. ix. 437; and the same
word occurs in Spenser, F. Ὁ. ii. 6. 12; but we now use the L. ar-
boréium in full.]—L. arboreus, of or belonging to trees, with the
change of -us into -ous, as in pious, strenuous. —L. arbor, a tree. Der.
(from the same source) arbor-e/, arbor-etum, arbor-escent ; also arbori-
culture, arbori-cultur-ist.
ARBOUR, a bower made of branches of trees. (F.—L.; but
altered.) Milton hasarbour, P. L. v. 378, ix. 216; arbours,iv. 626. Shak.
refers to an arbor within an orchard; 2 Hen. 1V, v. 3.2. In Sidney’s
Arcadia, bk. i, is described ‘a fine close arbor, [made] of trees whose
branches so lovingly interbraced one the other.’ In Sir T. More’s
Works, p. 177 6, we read οἵ " sitting in an arber,’ which was in ‘the
gardine.”’ a. There is no doubt that this word is, however, a later
form of herber, or erber, a small lawn or herb-garden, which lost its
initial k quite regularly ; it is the ME. herbere, erbere, a garden of
herbs or flowers, OF. herbier, L. herbarium. B. This latter word,
being of F. origin, had the initial A weak, and sometimes silent, so
that it was also spelt erbare, as in the Prompt. Parv. p. 140, where we
find ‘ Erbare, herbarium, viridarium, viridale.’ Cf. ‘ Herbes he tok
in an herb-r;” K. Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 331. ‘I entred in that
erber grene;’ Allit. Poems, A 38. And see P. Plowman, B. xvi. 13-15.
y. This occasioned a loss of ᾧ in herbere, and at the same time sug-
gested a connexion with L. arbor, a tree; the result being further
forced on by the fact that the ME. herbere was used not only to signify
‘a garden of herbs,’ but also ‘a garden of fruit-trees’ or orchard.
ὃ. The L. herbarium is from herba,aherb. See Herb. J See this
explained in the Romance of Thomas of Erceldoune, ed. J. A. H.
Murray, note tol. 177; and see N.E.D. Mr. Way, in his note to
the Prompt. Parv., p. 140, is incorrect as to the certainty of arbour
being a corruption of harbour, with which it has no connexion.
ARG, a segment of a circle. (F.—L.) Chaucer has ark, Man of
Law’s Prologue, ]. 2; and frequently in his Treatise on the Astrolabe.
In the latter, pt. ii. sect. 9, 1. 2, it is also spelt arch, with ch for k;
see Arch (1); cf. ditch, dyke. —OF. arc, an arc.—L. arcum, acc. of
arcus, an arc, a bow. See Arrow. Der. arc-ade, q.v.; and see
Arch, Archer.
ARCADB, awalk arched over. (F.—Ital. —L.) Popehasarcades,
Moral Essays, Ep. iv. 35.—F. arcade, which Cotgrave explains by
“an arch, an half circle.’—Ital. arcata, lit. arched; fem. of pp. of
arcare, to bend, arch. Ital. arco, a bow. —L. arcum, acc. of arcus, a
bow. See Are. (See Hatzfeld, Etym. Dict. pref. p. 22.)
ARCANA: see Ark.
ARCH (1), a construction of stone or wood, &c., in a curved or
vaultedform. (F.—L.) ‘Arch yna walle, arcus;’ Prompt. Parv. p.14
“An arche of marbel ;’ Trevisa, tr. of Higden, i. 215.— OF. arche, fem.
sb. an arch, arcade (Godefroy). — Late L. arca, an ark, chest ; but also
improperly used with the sense of ¢ arch,’ by confusion with L. areus,
a bow (Ducange). See Are. @ Hence the Court of Arches, ‘ origin-
ally held in the arches of Bow Church—St. Mary de Arcubus—the
crypt of which was used by Wren to supportthe present superstructure ;?
I. Taylor, Words and Places. And see Todd’s Johnson. Der. arch-
ing, arch-ed.
ARCH (2), chief; in later use, clever, cunning, roguish, waggish,
sly. (L.—Gk.) ‘Dogget .. . spoke his request with so arch a leer ;’
Tatler, no. 193 (1710). ‘The most arch act of piteous massacre ;’
Rich. III, iv. 3. 2. ‘An heretic, an arch one,’ i.e. an arch-heretic ;
ARCH
Hen. VIII, iii. 2.102.‘ Byends. . . a very arch fellow, a downright
hypocrite ;’ Bunyan, Pilg. Progress (Greatheart, in part ii). his
curious adj. arose solely out of the use of the prenx arch-, which came
to be used as a separate word. See Arch-. Der. arch-ly, arch-ness.
ARCH, chief; almost solely used as.a prefix. (L.—Gk.) Shak.
has ‘ my worthy arch and patron,’ Lear, ii. τ. 61; whence the use of
arch, adj.,as above. In arch-bishop, we have a word in very early use;
AS. erce-bisceop, arce-bisceop (Bosworth). B. Thus arch- is to be
rightly regarded as descended from AS. arce-, erce-, erce-, which was
borrowed from L. archi- (in archi-episcopus), and this again from Gk.
ἀρχι- in ἀρχιεπίσκοπος, an archbishop. = Gk. ἀρχύς, chiet; ἄρχειν, to be
first ; οὗ. ἀρχή, beginning. 4 The form of the prefix being once fixed, it
was used for other words; it occurs also in OF ., as in OF. arche-diacre,
archdeacon. Der. arch-bishop, arch-deacon, arch-duke, arch-duchy, &c.
tt In the word arch-angel, the ch remained hard (as) in the Romance
languages, on account of the a following ; cf. Ital. arcangelo, Span.
arcangel,
ARCH AIOLOGY, the science of antiquities. (Gk.) See
archaiology in Todd’s Johnson. Made up from Gk. dpyxavo-s, ancient,
and suffix -logy (Gk. -Aoyia), from Gk. λόγος, discourse; cf. Aoy-,
second grade of Aeyev, tospeak. See Archaic. Der. archeolog-ist.
ARCHAIC, old, antique, primitive. (Gk.) Spelt archaick ;
added by Todd to Johnson’s Dict. (1827). From Gk. ἀρχαϊκός,
primitive, antique. —Gk. ἀρχαῖος, old, ancient, lit. ‘from the begin-
ning.’ = Gk. ἀρχή. beginning.
ARCHAISM, an antiquated phrase. (Gk.) In Todd’s Johnson,
with a quotation dated 1643. From Gk. ἀρχαϊσμός, an archaism, =
Gk. ἀρχαΐζειν, to speak antiquatedly.— Gk. ἀρχαῖος, old. Gk. ἀρχή,
beginning. See above.
ARCHER, a bowman. (F.—L.) In early use. Used by Rob. of
Glouc., p. 199 (1. 4096); and still earlier, in King Alisaunder, ed.
Weber, 1. 6344.—AF. archer, Gaimar, 2814; OF. archier, an archer.
— Late L. arcarius. Formed with L. suffix -arius from L. arc-us, a bow.
See Are. Der. arch-er-y.
ARCHETYPE, the original type. (F.—Late L.—Gk.) Used by
Dp. Hall, The Peacemaker, 5. 23. —F. archetype, ‘a principall type,
figure, forme; the chief pattern, mould, modell, example, or sample,
whereby a thing is framed ;’ Cot. = L. archetypum, the original pattern.
— Gk. ἀρχέτυπον, a pattern, model; neut. of ἀρχέτυπος. stamped as a
model. = Gk. dpye-, another form of ἀρχι-, prefix (see Archi-); and
tut-, as in τύπτειν, to beat, stamp. See Type. Der. archetyp-al.
ARCHI,, chief; used as a prefix. (L.—Gk.) The older E. form
is arch-, which (as explained under Arch-) was a modification of AS.
arce-, from L. archi-. The form archi- is of later use, and borrowed
from the L. directly. Gk. dpyi-, prefix. See Arch-. Der. archi-
episcopal, archi-episcopy, archi-diaconal. @ In the word arch-angel,
the final z of the prefix is dropped before the vowel following. In the
word arche-type, the prefix takes the form arche-; see Archetype.
The same prefix also forms part of the words archi-mandrite, archi-
pelago, archi-tect, archi-trave, which see below.
ARCHIMANDRITE, the superior of a monastery or convent,
in the Greek Church. (L.—Gk.) ‘Archimandrite, an abbot, prior,
or chief of an hermitage ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—Late L. archi-
mandrita, a chief or principal of monks, an abbot; Apollinaris
Sidonius, Ep. 8. 14 (Lewis).—Late Gk. ἀρχιμανδρίτης, the same. =
Gk. ἀρχι-, chief (see Archi-); μάνδρα, an enclosed space, fold, (in
late Gk.) a monastery; see Madrigal.
ARCHIPELAGO, chief sea, i.e. A7gean Sea. (Ital.—Gk.)
‘Archipelagus, or Archipelago;’ Phillips (1706). — Ital. arcipelago,
modified to archipelago by the substitution of the more familiar Gk.
prefix archi-(see Archi-) for the Ital. form arci-.— Gk. ἀρχι-, prefix,
signifying ‘ chief;’ and πέλαγος, ἃ sea. @ The Ital. arcipelago occurs
as early as 1268; see N. E. D.
ARCHITECT, a designer of buildings. (F.—L.—Gk.) Lit.
‘a chief builder.” Used by Shak. Tit. Andr. v. 3.122; Milton, P. L.i.
732.—F. architecte, an architect; Cotgrave.—L. architectus, a form
in use as well as architecton, which is the older and more correct one,
and borrowed from Gk.—Gk. ἀρχιτέκτων, a chief builder or chief
artificer. Gk, dpx:-, chief (see Archi-); and τέκτων, α builder, closely
allied to τέχνη, art. See Technical, Texture. Der. architect-ure,
architect-ur-al.
ARCHITRAVE, the part of an entablature resting immediately
on the column. (F.—Ital.—Hybrid of Gk. and L.) Used by Milton,
P.L. i. 715 ; and by Ben Jonson, The New Inn, iii. 2 (Lovel). Evelyn,
On Architecture, remarks: ‘the Greeks named that epistilium which
we from a mungril compound of two languages (dpx7-trabs, or rather
from arcus and ¢rabs) called architrave.” His second derivation is wrong;
the first is nearly right. His observation that it is ‘a mungril com-
pound’ is just. Lit.it means ‘chief beam.’ = F. architrave, ‘the archi-
trave (of pillars, or stonework) ; the reason-peece or master-beam (in
buildings of timber);’ Cot.—Ital. architrave (Torriano) ; arcotrave
AREFACTION 29
(Florio), chief beam. =—Gk. dpxi-, prefix, chief, adopted into L, as
archi-; and L. acc. trabem, a beam, from the nom. trabs,a beam, Cf.
Gk. τράφηξ, a spear-shaft, a beam.
ARCHIVES, s. pl. (1) the place where public records are kept;
2) the public records. (F.—L.—Gk.) The former is the true sense.
The sing. is rare, but Holland has ‘archive or register ;’ Plutarch,
p- 116 (R.).—F. archives, archifs, ‘a place wherein all the records, &c.
[are] kept in chests and boxes ;’ Cot.—L. archiuum (archivum), also
archium, the archives.=Gk. ἀρχεῖον, a public building, residence of
the magistrates. — Gk. ἀρχή, a beginning, a magistracy.
ARCTIC, northern. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Marlowe's Edw. II, A. i.
sc. I, 1. 16. Milton has aretick, P. L. ii. 710. Chaucer has artik,
Astrolabe, i. 14. 6.—F. arctique, northern, northerly; Cot. —L. arcticus,
northern. = Gk. dpxtixds, near ‘ the bear,’ northern. = Gk. ἄρκτος,α bear;
esp. the Great Bear, a constellation situate not far from the northern
pole of the heavens. + L. ursus, a bear; Irish art, W. arth; Skt.
rksha-s; Pers. khirs,a bear. See Brugm.i. § 920. Allied to Ursine.
Der. ant-arctic, q.v.
ARDENT, burning, fiery. (F.—L.) Chaucer has ‘the most ar-
daunt love of his wyf;’ tr. of Boethius, b. iii. met. 12. 1. το. The
spelling has, at a later time, been conformed to Latin. —OF. ardant,
burning, pres. pt. of ardoir, to burn. = L. ardére, to burn. Allied to ari-
dus, dry (Bréal); see Arid. Der.ardent-ly, ardenc-y; ardour, Tempest,
iv. 56 (OF. ardor, L. acc. ardérem, from nom. ardor, a burning).
ARDUOUS, difficult to perform. (L.) In Pope, Essay on Criti-
cism, 1. 95. Not in early use. Formed by change of L. -us into -ous,
by analogy with pious, &c.—L. arduus, steep, difficult, high. 4 Irish,
Gaelic, Cornish, and Manx ard, high, lofty; Icel. 6rdugr, erect. Brugm.
i. § 360. Der. arduous-ly, arduous-ness.
ARE, the pres. pl. of the verb substantive. (Northern E.) The
whole of the present tense of the verb substantive is from the same
root, viz. 155, to be. I here discuss each person separately. The
singular is I am, thou art, he is; pl. we, ye, they are.
AM is found in the Northumbrian glosses of the Gospels, Luke, xxii.
33, and frequently elsewhere. ‘The Wessex form is eom. These stand
for es-m, the s having been assimilated to m, and then dropped. Here
es is the root, and -m is short for -mz; the Idg. type being *es-mi. [The
Northumbrian retains this -m in other instances, as in ges@o-m, I see,
Mark, viii. 24; dda-m, I do, Mark, xi. 33; bé0-m, I be, Mark, ix. 19.]
B. The original Idg. type *esmz is further represented by the Skt. as-mi,
Zend ah-mi, Gk. ei-pi, L. s-u-m (for *es-()-mt), Lithuan, es-mi, Goth.
i-m, Icel. e-m, Swed. dr (fores, dropping the suffix), Dan.er, OIrish a-m.
It is the only word in English in which the old suffix -m: appears.
See Brugm. li. § 976.
ART. This is the OMerc. eard, er; cf. ONorthumbrian ard (Luke,
iv. 34), and the AS. (Wessex) eart (with ¢ due to the -¢ in scea/-t, shalt,
&c.). The Icel. form is er-t, OIcel. es-t; and E. and Icel. are the only
languages which haye this -r. B. The orig. Idg. types were *es-1,
*es-si; cf. Skt. as-i, Zend a-hi, Doric Gk. ἐσ-σί (Attic εἶν, L. és,
Lithuan. es-si, Goth. i-s (or ss), Swed. dr, Dan. er. See Brugm. ii. § 984.
IS. This is the same in Northumbrian and Wessex, viz. is, as at
present. β. The orig. Idg. type was *es-1i; cf. Skt. as-t2, Zend ash-ti,
Gk. ἐσ-τί, L. es-t, Lith. es-t2, Goth. is-, Icel. er, Swed. dr, Dan. er,
G. is-t. The English form has lost the suffix, preserving only is, as
a weakened form of 4/ES. So also Olrish is.
ARE. This is the OMerc. earun, ONorthumbrian aron (Matt. v. 14)
as distinguished from AS. (Wessex) sindon ; but the forms sindon and
sint are also found in Northumbrian. All three persons are alike in
Old English; but the Icel. has er-um, er-u6, er-u. β. The gen. Idg.
type of the 3rd pers. plu. was *es-enti; whence Skt. s-anti, Gk. eia-iv,
L. s-unt, Goth. s-ind, G. s-ind, Icel. er-u (for *es-u), Swed. dr-e (for
*fis-e), Dan. er-2 (for *es-e), ONorthumb. ar-on (for *as-on), ME. ar-en,
later are, AS. s-ind(on). In the AS. s-indon, the -on is a later suffix,
peculiar to English. y. Thus E. are is short for aren, and stands
for the *es-ex of the primitive *es-enti, whilst the AS. sind stands for
the *s-ent of the same primitive form. See Brugm. ii. § 1017.
The /ES, to be, appears in Skt. as, to be, Gk. ἐσ- of Doric ἐσ-σι,
L. es-se, to be, G. s-ein, to be, and in various parts of the verb im
various languages, but chiefly in the present tense. 4 For other
parts of the verb, see Be, Was.
AREA, a large space. (L.) Used by Dryden, Ded. to Span.
Fryar (R.).—L. area, an open space, piece of level ground.
ARECA, a genus of palms, of which one species produces the
areca-nut, which the natives roll up with a little lime in the leaves of
the betel, and chew. (Port.—Canarese.) Port. areca. From the
Karnata (Canarese) adtke, areca-nut; Wilson, Indian Terms, p. 7.
Cf. Malayalam adekka, Tamil adaikay ; from adai, denoting close
arrangement of the cluster, and Ady, nut, fruit. The accent 15 on the
initial ain all the languages; see N. E. ἢ, The cerebral d has been
replaced by r.
AREFACTION, a drying, making dry. (L.) Used by Bacon,
90 ARENA
Adv. of Learning, Ὁ. ii. 8.3; ed. Wright, p. 124, ]. 14. A coined
word, from L, drefacere, to make dry. = L. dre-re, to be dry (cf. aridus,
dry); and facere, to make. See Arid. Der. By adding -fy (F.
-fier) to make, to the stem are-, dry, the verb arefy has also been
made; it is used by Bacon, Nat. Hist. sect. 294.
ARENA, a space for disputants or combatants. (L.) It occurs in
Hakewill, Apologie (1630), p. 396. ‘The arena or pit;’ Gibbon,
Hist. c. Ixxi. ὃ 10.—L. ἀγῶνα, sand; hence, a sanded space for
gladiators in the amphitheatre. Older form haréna; cf. Sabine
Jaséna, sand... Dear. arena-ce-ous, i.e. sandy.
AREOPAGUS, Mars’ hill; the supreme court at Athens. (L.—
Gk.) From L, aréopagus, which occurs in the Vulgate version of
Acts, xvii. 22, where the A. V. has ‘ Mars’ hill.’ = Gk.’Apedmuyos, a
form which occurs in no good author (Liddell and Scott) ; more
commonly “Apeios πάγος, which is the form used in Acts, xvii, 22.—
Gk. ”Apecos, of or belonging to”Apys, the Gk. god of war; and mayor,
arock, mountain peak, hill. Der. Areopag-ite, Areopag-it-ic-a (Milton’s
treatise).
ARETE, a sharp ascending ridge of a rock. (F.—L.) Chiefly with
reference to French Switzerland. - Εἰς aréfe; OF. aresfe.— L. arista, an
ear of corn, fishbone or spine; hence (in F.) a ridge, sharp edge.
See Arris.
ARGENT, white, in heraldry; silvery. (F.—L.) In Marlowe,
Massacre at Paris, i. 6. 23 as an heraldic term, much earlier. =F.
argent, silver ; also, ‘argent in blason ;’ Cot.—L. argentum, silver ;
of which the old Oscan form was aragetom; connected with argilla,
white clay. Cf. Gk. ἄργυρος, silver; connected with ἀργός, white ;
Skt. arjuna-s, white; Olrish argat, W. ariant, silver.—4/ARG, to
shine. Brugm. i. §§ 529, 604. Der. argent-ine (F. argentin, Cotgrave ;
Late L. argentinus).
ARGILLACEOUS, clayey. (L.) In Bailey (1731). =—L. argil-
laceus, clayey; With -ous for -us.— L. argilla, white clay.4+Gk. ἄργιλος,
white clay.—4/ARG, to shine. See Argent.
ARGONAUT, one who sailed in the ship Argo. (L.—Gk.) In
Spenser, F’.Q. iv. 1.23; and see Trevisa, tr. of Higden, ii. 405. L.argo-
nauta, one who sailed in the Argo.—Gk. ᾿Αργοναύτης, an Argonaut.
= Gk. ’Apyw, the name of Jason’s ship (meaning ‘ the swift ;’ from
ἀργός, swift) ; and ναύτης, a ship-man, sailor, from ναῦς, ἃ ΞΒῃῖρ. Der.
Argonaut-ic.
ARGOSY, a merchant-vessel. (Dalmatian.) In Shak. Mer. of
Ven, i. 1. 9; on which Clark and Wright note: ‘ Argosy denotes a
large vessel, gen. a merchant-ship, more rarely a ship of war. The
word has been supposed to bea corruption of Ragosie, ‘‘a ship of
Ragusa ;”’’ and this is correct. B. The etymology of this word has
been set at rest by Mr. Tancock, in N. and Ὁ. 6. 5. iv. 490. See The
Present State of the Ottoman Empire, by Sir Paul Ricaut, 1675, c. 14,
p- 119 ; Lewis Roberts’s Marchants Map of Commerce, 1638, c. 237,
where he speaks of the great ships ‘ vulgarly called Argoses, properly
Rhaguses;’ and especially the earlier quotation about ‘ Ragusyes,
Hulks, Caravels, and other foreign rich laden ships,’ in The Petty Navy
Royal, by Dr. John Dee, 1577, pr. in Arber’s English Garner, ii. 67.
See also Wedgwood (Contested Etymologies) ; Palmer (Folk-Etymo-
logy). [The OF. argousin is unrelated ; see Palmer, Brachet.] Ragusa
is a port in Dalmatia, on the E. coast of the Gulf of Venice.
ARGUE, to make clear, prove by argument. (F.—L.) ‘ Aristotle
and other moo to argue I taughte;’ P. Plowman, B. x. 174.—OF.
arguer.— Late L. argutare (L. argitari), frequentative of arguere, to
prove, make clear; cf. argiitus, clear. Perhaps allied to Gk. ἀργός,
white, bright. See Argent. Der. argu-ment, Chaucer, C.T, 11198
(F 886}; argument-al-ion, argument-at-ive, argument-a!-ive-ly, argu-
ment-at-'ve-ness,
ARID, dry, parched. (L.) Not in early use; Rich. quotes from
Swift’s Battle of the Books, and Cowper’s Homer's Iliad, bk. xii.
Aridity is in Phillips (1658). It was probably taken immediately
from L. aridus, dry.—L. arére, to bedry. Cf. Skt. Gsa-s, dust. Der.
arid-it-y, arid-ness; and see Arefaction, Ashes.
ARIGHT, in the right way. (E.) We find in Layamon, 1. 17631,
‘er he mihte fusen a riht,’ i.e. ere he might proceed aright. The a
is (as usual) for an, ME. form of AS. on, often used in the sense of
‘in.’ Thus aright is for ‘on right, ice. in right; right being a
substantive. Cf. abed, asleep, afoot, &c. See Right.
ARISH, to rise up. (Ε.) ME. arisen, Old Eng. Homilies, i. 49;
very common. AS. drisan, to arise; Grein, 1. 38.—AS. a-, and
risan, to rise. @] Cf. Goth. wr-reisan, to arise, Matt. viii. 15, where
ur- is the prefix which commonly appears in Gothic as us-, but be-
comes wr- before a following r. But we cannot equate the AS. prefix
a- to Goth. ws, which is related to G. wr-, er-, AS. or-. See Rise.
ARISTOCRACY, a government of the best men; a government
by a privileged order ; the nobility. (Gk.) In Ben Jonson, The Fox,
iv. 1 (Lady P.). Holland speaks of ‘ an aristocracy, or regiment [i.e.
government] of wise and noble senate;’” Plutarch, p. 276 (R.). Cf.
ARMS
F. aristocratie, ‘an aristocracy ; the government of nobles, or of some
few of the greatest men in a state ;’ Cot. [But the word may have
been taken directly from Gk.]—Gk. ἀριστοκρατία, the rule of the best-
born or nobles.—Gk. ἄριστο-, for ἄριστος, best ; and κρατεῖν, to be
strong, to rule, govern. B. The Gk. ἄριστος, best, is a superlative
from a form dp-, proper, good, which appears in ἀρ-ετή, excellence.
The Gk. κρατεῖν, to be strong, is from «parts, strong, cognate with
E.hard. See Arm (1) and Hard. Der. aristccrat-ic, aristocrat-ic-al,
aristocrat-ic-al-ly, ancl even ari.tocra¢ (not a very good form) ; all from
the Gk. stem dp:oroxpat-.
ARITHMETIC, the science of numbers. (F.—L.—Gk.) [In
ME. we find the OF. form arsmet:ke, Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris,
792; further altered to arsmei/rik, Chaucer, C.T. 1900 (A. 1898) ;
these are from OF. arismetigue (see Hatzfeld); adapted from Proy.
arismetica, from L. arithméca. At a later period the word was
conformed to the Gk.] We find arithmetick in Holland’s Pliny (con-
cerning Pamphilius), b. xxxv. c. 10 (ii. 537); and in Shak. Troil. i.
2.123.—F. arithmeétique, explained as ‘ arithmetick’ by Cotgrave. =
L. arithmética.—Gk. ἀριθμητική, the science of numbers, fem. of
ἀριθμητικύς, belonging to numbers. = Gk. ἀριθμέ-ειν, to number. — Gk.
ἀριθμός, number, reckoning. See Prellwitz. @ The ME. arsmetrik
was popularly supposed to represent L. ars meirica, metrical art !
Der. arithmetic-al, arithmetic-al-ly, arithmetic-ian.
ARK, a chest, or box ; a large floating vessel. (L.) In very early
useasa Bible word. In the AS. version of Gen. vi.15, it is spelt arc.
cf. Goth, arka, Ice). 6rk (from Latin). —L. arca, Gen. vi. 15 (Vulgate) ;
cf. L. arcére, to keep..4-Gk. ἀρκεῖν, to keep off, suffice ; ἄρκιος, safe,
certain. Der. arcana, L. neut. pl., things kept secret, secrets; from
L. arcanus, hidden, from arcére, to keep, enclose.
ARM (1), sb., the limb extending from the shoulder to the hand.
(E.) ME. arm, Layamon, iii. 207; also earm, erm. O. Northum-
brian arm, Luke i. 513; AS. earm, Grein i, 248.4-Du. arm; Icel.
armr; Dan. and Swed. arm; Goth. arms; G. arm. Cf, also L.
armus, the shoulder; artus, a limb; Gk. dppos, joint, shoulder ;
Kuss. ramo, shoulder; Pers. arm, upper arm; Skt. irma-s, arm ;
cf. Gk. ἄρθρον, a joint, limb. All from o/AR, to fit, join; ex-
pressive of the articulation of the limb, and its motion from the joint.
See Curtius, i. 424; Prellwitz, p. 29; Bragm. i. § 524. Der. arm-
let, arm-ful, arm-less, arm-pit. From the same root are ar-tstocracy,
ar-ithmetic, ar-ticle, ar-t, q.V-
ARM (2), vb., to furnish with weapons. (F.—L.) ME. armen, to
arm; Rob. of Glouc. p. 63 (1. 1446); Layamon, 1. 15313.—OF.
armer, to arm.=—L,. armare, to furnish with weapons.—L. arma,
weapons. See Arms. Der. arma-da, arma-dillo, arma-ment,armour,
army; all from L. arma-re; see these words. Armistice is from L.
arma, s. pl.; see below.
ARMADA, an ‘armed’ fleet ; a large fleet. (Span.—L.) Well
known in the time of Elizabeth. Camden speaks of the ‘ great ar-
mada ;’ Elizabeth, an. 1588. Often ill written armado, as in Shak.
K. John, iii. 4. 2. —Span. armada, a fleet ; fem. of armado, armed,
pp- of armar, to arm, equip.—L. armare, to arm. See Arm (2).
Doublet, army, q.v.
ARMADILLO, an animal with a bony shell. (Span.—L.) ‘A
beast called by the Spaniards armadilla ;’ Hakluyt, Voy. iii. 650. A
Brazilian quadruped ; lit. ‘the little armed one,’ because of its pro-
tecting shell. —Span. armadillo, dimin. with suffix -z//o, from armado,
armed, pp. of armar, to arm. —L. armare, toarm. See Arm (2).
ARMAMENT, armed forces; equipment. (L.) In Pope's
Tliad, xx. 152. Direct from L. armamentum, gen. used in pl.
armimenta, tackling. = L. armdre, to arm; with sutfix -mentum. See
Arm (2).
ARMATURE, formerly used in the sense of armour, now
chiefly of a ‘protector’ fora magnet. (F.—L.) ‘Armature, armour;
also, skill in arms;’ Bailey (1735).—F. armature (Hatzfeld).—L.
armailira; see Armour. Doublet, armour.
ARMISTICE, a short cessation of hostilities. (F.—L.) In
Glossographia Anglica Nova (1707) ; and in Smollet’s Hist. of Eng-
land, an. 1748.—F. armusiice, a cessation of hostilities.—Late L.
*armistitium, a coined word, not in the dictionaries; but the right form
for producing Εἰ. armistice, Ital. armistizio, and Span. armuisticto ; cf.
L. solstitium, whence E. solstice. L. armi-, for arma, arms, weapons ;
and -stitium, for -statium (as in sol-stitinm) from statum, supine of stare,
to stand, cognate with E. stand. See Arms and Stand.
ARMOUR, defensive arms or dress. (F.—L.) ME. armour, cor-
rupt form of the earlier armure. Pl. armures, K. Alisaunder, 937.
Rob. of Glouc. has armure, Ὁ. 397 (1. 8105). “ΟἿ. armure, armeire.
= L. armatira, armour; from arméare,to arm. See Arm (2). Der.
armour-er, armour-y; also armorial (F. armorial, belonging to arms;
Cotgrave). Doublet, armature.
ARMS, sb. pl., weapons. (F.—L.) ME. armes, Havelok, 2925;
Ancren Riwle, p. 60.—OF. armes, pl.; sing. arme.—L. arma, neut.
ARMY
pl., arms, weapons, lit. ‘fittings,’ equipments. Cf. Gk. ἄρμενα, the
tackling of a ship, tools of a workman.—4/AR, to fit, join. See
Arm (1). Der. arm (1), verb; also arm-i-siice, q. v.
ARMY, a large armed body of men. (I°.—L.) In Chaucer's
C. T. Prol. 60, many MSS. read armee, but the word is very rare
at so early a time. It is spelt army in Fabyan’s Chron. c. 42.—
OF. armee, fem. of arme, pp. of armer, to arm. —L. armare, to arm,
of which the fem. pp. is armdata, whence Span. armada. Doublet,
armada, q.V.
ARNICA, a medicine prepared from Arnica montana, or Mountain
Tobacco. (L.—Gk.?) Mod. L. arnica; of uncertain origin. First
used in 1753 (N.E. D.); ef. F. arnica, also arnique (1752). Supposed
to be a corruption of L. prarmica, Gk. πταρμική, a plant that caused
sneezing : from πτάρνυμαι, I sneeze (Hatzfeld).
AROINT THEE! begone! (E.) ‘Aroin¢ thee, witch!’ Macbeth,
i, 3.6. Usually explained by ‘avaunt!’ ‘The lit. sense seems to be
‘make room,’ or ‘get out of the way.’ The prefix is the AS. ge-, as
in Aware, q.v. Prov. E. roynt ta (North), rynt thee, roynt thee, get
out of the way (Cheshire) ; rynt you, witch, yet out of the way, witch
(Ray). AS. rym δᾶ, gerym di, make thou room; see Luke, xiv. 9;
from ryman, or geryman, to make room; from rim, adj. roomy, wide.
See E. Ὁ. D., s.v. roint, rim, rime; E. Dial. Gram. § 178.
AROMA, a sweet smell. (L.—Gk.) The sb. is modern in the
sense of ‘scent ;” but ME. aromat (from OF. aromat, F. aromate) was
in early use, meaning ‘spice ;’ see Ancren Riwle, p. 376, where the
pl. is aromaz (=:aromats). The adj. aromatic is found rather early.
Maundevile has ‘ aromazyk thinges ;’ c. xvi. p. 174.— Late L. ardma,
borrowed from Gk. — Gk. ἄρωμα, aspice,a sweet herb, Der. aroma-
t-tc, aroma-t-ise, from the Gk. stem ἀρωματ-.
AROUND, prep. and acy., on all sides of, on every side. (Hybrid;
E. and F.) Spenser has arownd, F.Q. i. 10. 54. ME. around, Life
of Beket, ed. Black, 1. 2052, The prefix is the E.a-, in its commonest
use as short for av, the ME, form of AS. prep. oz; so that a-rownd is
for on round, i.e. in a round or circle. Round is from OF. roond, rond,
L. rotundus. Cf. abed, asleep. See Round.
AROUSKE, to rouse up. (Hybrid; E.and Scand.) In Shak. 2 Hen.
VI, iv. 1.3. The prefix is a needless addition; no doubt meant to be
intensive, and imitated from that in arise, which is from the AS. ἄ-;
see Arise. And see Rouse.
ARPEGGIO, the employment of notes of a chord in rapid suc-
cession instead of simultaneously. (Ital.—Teut.) In Bailey (1735).
— Ital. arpeggiare, to play upon the harp, = Ital. arpa, a harp; a word
of Teut. origin. See Harp.
ARQUEBUS, HARQUEBUS, a kind of gun. (F.—MDu.)
Used by Nicholas Breton, an Elizabethan poet, in A Farewell to
Town (R.). Spelt hkargabushe, Tottell’s Misc., ed. Arber, p. 173
(1557).—F. arquebuse, ‘an harquebuse, caleever, or hand-gun ;’ Cot.
He also gives the spelling Aarguebuse; cf. Walloon harkibuse, in Dict.
de la langue Wallonne, by Grandgagnage, i. 266, 278, qu. by Diez,
who traces the word. [A corrupt form; cf. Ital. archibuso (Torriano),
variant of archibugio, ‘a harquebuse,’ Florio; also written arcobugio
(id.). The Ital. form is doubly corrupt, being due to a popular ety-
mology from arco, a bow, and bugio, a hole (referring to the barrel). |
= MDnu. *hakebusse, haeckbusse, ‘an arquebusse,’ Hexham; Du. daak-
buss. — MDu. hake, kaeck, Du. haak, a hook,clasp,and M Du. busse, Du.
bus, a gun-barrel, gun ; exactly parallel to G. hakenbichse, an arque-
buse, from Aaken, a hook, and biichse, a gun-barrel, gun. B. The word
means ‘ gun with a hook,’ alluding to the hook which was cast with
the piece, by which it was fastened to the ‘ carriage:’ but the name
was afterwards applied to other kinds of portable fire-arms, so that
the original kind was renamed arguebuse ἃ croc, arquebus with a hook,
as in Cotgrave. Other E. forms were kackbush and hackbut. See
Hackbut; also Hook and Bush (2).
ARRACK, an ardent spirit used in the East. (F.—Arab.) Better
spelt arak or arac, as in Sir T. Herbert's Travels, ed. 1665, pp. 45,
241, 328.—OF. arack (Supp. to Godefroy); A.D. 1519.— Arab. ‘arag,
juice, the more literal signification being ‘ sweat ;’ in allusion to its
production by distillation. In Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 425, is the
entry; ‘Arab. ‘araq, Juice, essence, sweat; distilled spirit.’ Arab.
‘araqa, he sweated. See Arrackin Yule. 4 Sometimes shortened
to Rack.
ARRAIGN, to call to account, put on one’s trial. (F.—L.) ME.
arainen, areinen, arenen (withoner). ‘He arayned hym ful runyschly,
what raysoun he hade,’ &c.; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, C. 191. —AF.
aresner, arener, arreiner; Ol. araisnier, arainier, araignier, to speak
to, discourse with ; also, to cite, arraign. = OF. a-, prefix (L. ad); and
raisnier, resnier, rainier, to reason, speak, plead, from raison, reson,
teason, advice, account; from L. acc. ratidnem, from nom. ratio,
reason. See Reason. 4 The Late L. form of arraign is arration-
are; similarly the Late L. dérationare, to reason out, decide, pro-
duced the now obsolete darraign, to decide, esp. used of deciding by
ARRIVE 31
combat or fighting out a quarrel ; see Chaucer, Kn. Ta. 773; C. T.,
A 1631. Der. arraign-ment.
ARRANGE, to range, set ina rank. (F.-OHG.) ME. arayn-
gen, as in‘ he araynged his men ;’ Lerners, Froissart, c. 325; orig.
spelt with one r.—OF. arengier, to put into arank, arrange. OF. a-,
prefix (L. ad, to): and rengier, renger, to range, put in a rank (F.
ranger, Littré); from OF. renc, mod. F. rang, a rank, file, orig. a
ring or circle of people; from OHG. hrinc, mod. G. ring, a ring,
esp. a ring or circle of people; cognate with 10. ring. See Rank,
Ring. Der. arrangement,
ARRANT, knavish, mischievous, notoriously bad. (F.—L.) Ar-
rant is a laterspelling of errant, and was first used in the phrase ¢heef
erraunt, a roving outlaw or notorious robber, which occurs in Chaucer :
“an outlawe or a theef erraunt;’ C.T. 17173 (H 224). Hence it
was extened to other ill-doers, with the sense of ‘notorious,’ or
“out-and-out.” ‘An erraunt usurer;’ P. Plowman, C. vii. 307;
‘errant traytours,’ Orig, Letters, ed. Ellis, il. 105 (A. Ὁ. 1539); ‘ er-
rant theues’ and ‘erraunt theefe;’ Lever, Sermons (1550), ed. Arber,
p- 66. In Holinshed’s (really Stanihurst’s) Desc. of Ireland, repr.
1808, p. 68, we find: ‘{they] gad and range from house to house like
arrant knights of the round table;’ where ‘ arrant knights’ = knights
errant; cf. ‘knight errawnz’ in Malory’s Morte Arthur, bk. iv. c. 25,
Ἰ. 23. Chapman, in Byron’s Tragedy, A. v. sc. 1 (Byron) has:
‘As this extravagant and errant rogue.’ =OF. errant, pres. pt. of
errer, etrer, to wander, = Late L. i/erare, to travel. —L. iter, a journey.
@ It sometimes represents the pres. pt. of L. errdre, to wander. See
Errant, Err.
ARRAS, tapestry. (F.—L.—C.) InShak. Haml.iv.1.9. ‘Riche
Aresse or tapestrie ;’ Elyot, The Governor, bk. iil. c. 2. § 3. The
AF. arras occurs in 1376, Royal Wills, p. 72; and in 1392, id.
p- 1323 cf. ‘ peces of arras,’ in 1447, id. p. 283. So named from Arras,
in Artois, N. of France, where it was first made.—L. *Atrabates, for
Atrebates, a people of Artois; Caesar, B. G., il. 4. Of Celtic origin.
— Celtic *atreb-, whence W. athref, a domain, district. Celt. prefix
ad- (OIrish ad-), at (cognate with L. ad, E. at) ; and OWelsh treb, W.
tref, ahouse. Stokes-Fick, pp. 10, 137.
ARRAY, to set in order, get ready. (F.—L. and Scand.) ME.
arraien, araien, to array ; Chaucer, Kn. Ta. 1188 (A 2046); Rob. of
Glouc. p. 36 (1. 841, note). — AF. arayer, OF. araier, aroier (areér in
Godelroy), to array, prepare, arrange. — Romanic type *arrédare (=
Ital. arredare), to array, prepare. B. Formed by prefixing ar- (imita-
tion of the L. prefix ar-, the form assumed by ad, to, before a follow-
ing r) to the Low G. réde, ready (Bremen Wort. iii. 452), OFries.
rede, ready; cf. AS. réde, OHG. rei, ready. See further under
Ready. 4 Note also Scottish graithe, tomake ready, gra:th, ready,
graith, apparatus, words directly boriowed from Icel. greida, to equip,
greidr, ready, and greidi, arrangement ; in which g- (=ge-) is a prefix.
Hence to array, to graithe, and to make ready, are three equivalent
expressions containing the same root. Der. array, sb.; the same
root occurs in curry, vb.; see Curry (1).
ARREARS, debts unpaid and still due. (F.—L.) The ME. arere
is mostly an adverb, signifying backward, in the rear; e.g. ‘Somme
tyme aséde, and somme tyme arrere’=sometimes on one side, and
sometimes backward; P. Plowman, B. v. 354. It is more commonly
spelt arere (with one r), or a rere (in two words), id.C. vii. 405.—OF.
arere, ariere (arrere in Godefroy), backward.—L. ad, towards ; and
retro, behind. {Similarly OF. deriere (mod. Εἰ, derriére) is from L. dé,
from, and retro, backward; and we ourselves use the word rear still. |
See Rear ; and see arritre in Hatzfeld. 4[ What we now express
by arrears is expressed in ME. by arrerages or arerages, a sb. pl.
formed from ME. arere by the addition of the F. suffix -age. For
examples of arrearages, see N.E. 1). ; and cf. P. Plowman, C. xii.
207. The mod. E. arrear, sb., arose from the ME. phrase in arere, by
dropping in.
ARREST, to stop, to seize. (F.—L.) ME, arresten, or commonly
aresten ; Chaucer, Prol. 829 (A 827).—OF. arester, to stay (mod. F.
arréter). “οἴ. ad, to (which becomes a in OF.) ; and restare, to stay,
remain, stop, compounded of re-, back, and stare, to stand, remain,
cognate with E. stand. See Re- and Stand; and see Rest (2).
ARRIS, a ridge, the edge formed by the angular contact of two
plane (or curved) surfaces. (F.—L.) ‘Burford stone . . carries a
finer arris than that at Heddington;’ Plot’s Oxfordsh. (1677),p.75-—
OF. areste; Ἐς aréte. See Aréte.
ARRIVE, to come to a place, reach it. (F.—L.) Gen. followed
by atin modern E.; but see Milton, P. L. ii. 4oo; Shak. Jul. Ces. i.
2. 110. ME. aryuen, ariuen (τι for v); Rob. of Glouc. p. 18,1. 415.
“- OF, ariver, arriver,— Late L. *adripare, to come to the shore, spelt
arripare in a gth cent. text, and arribare in an 11th cent. chartulary;
Brachet. See the note also in Brachet, showing that it was originally
a seaman’s term.—L. ad ripam, towards the shore.—L. ad, to; and
ripa, shore, bank. The orig. sense of L. ripa was ‘a rift, a break ;’
32 ARENA
cf. Gi. ἐρίπνη, a broken cliff; Icel. rifa, whence E. rive. See Rive.
Der. arriv-al, spelt arivaile in Gower, C. A. ii. 4; bk. iv. 94.
ARROGATE, to lay claim to, assume. (L.) Used by Barnes,
Works, Ρ. 371, col. 1. The sb. arrogance is much older; Chaucer,
C. T. 6694 (Ὁ 1112) ; so isthe adj. arrogant, C. T. Persones Tale, De
Superbia (I 396). Formed with suff. -ate (see Abbreviate) from
L. arrogare, to ask of, to adopt, attribute to, add to; pp. arrogdtus.
—-L. ad, to (>ar- before r); and rogare, toask. See Rogation.
Der. arrogat-ion; also (from L. arroga-re, pres. pt. acc. arrogant-em)
arrogant, arrogant-ly, arrogance, arroganc-y.
ARROW, amissile shot from a bow. (E.) ME. arewe, arwe (with
one r); Chaucer, Prol. 107; Ancren Riwle, pp. 60, 62. AS. arewe,
AS. Chron. an. 1083 (Laud MS.); older form arwe, Thorpe’s Anc.
Laws, ii. 212, § 28. Teut. type *arhwon-, weak fem. Another form
is earh, Grein, i. 248; Teut. type *arhwom, neut.+Icel. dr, an arrow,
pl. orvar ; Teut. type *arhwa, strong fem. Cf. also Goth. arhwazna,
“f., an arrow, a dart, Eph. vi. 16; allied to L. arcus, a bow; Brugm.
i. § 241 (b). Der. arrow-y, arrow-root. See Arc.
ARROW-ROOT, a farinaceous substance, made from the
tubers of the Maranta Arundinacea, and other plants. (E.) From
arrow and root. ‘ The E. name of this preparation is derived from
the use to which the Indians of S. America were accustomed to apply
the juice extracted from another species of Maranta—the Maranta
galanga, which was employed as an antidote to the poison in which
the arrows of hostile tribes were dipped ;” Eng. Cyclopedia, Arts and
Sciences, 5. ν. Arrow-root. Observe the L. name, ‘Maranta arundi-
nacea. @ The account in N.E. D. is similar, with a reference to Sir
Hans Sloane, Catal. Plant. Jamaica, 122.
ARSE, the buttocks. (E.) ME. ars, ers; P. Plowman, B.v. 175,
and footnote. AS. ers, ears; Bosworth.4Du. aars; Icel. ars, Swed.
and Dan. ars; MHG. ars; mod. G. arsch. Teut. type *arsoz.4-Gk.
éppos, the rump ; Idg. type *orsos (Prellwitz).
ARSENAL, a magazine for naval stores, &c. (Ital.—Span. —
Arab.) Holland speaks of ‘ that very place where now the arsenall
and shipdocks are ;’ Livy, p. 106; and see Ben Jonson, The Fox, iv.
1 (Sir P.); Milton, P.R, iv. 270. [Rather from Ital. than from F.
arcenal, which Cotgrave, following the F. spelling, explains by ‘an
Arcenall.’|—MItal. arsenale, ‘a storehouse for munition’ (Florio); ef.
Ital. arzana, an arsenal, darsena, a wet dock. = MSpan. ataragana, ‘a
dock where ships are made or amended ; a storehouse for munition,’
Minsheu ; Span. atarazana, atarazanal. [The varying forms are due
to the word being foreign, viz. Arabic. The final -ἰ is merely formative,
and no part of the original word. The Span. atarazana (with a- for
Arab. al, the, def. art.) and Ital. darsena are the best forms. ]— Arab.
dir ag-gina‘ah, house of construction. — Arab. dar, house; ας-, for al,
the; gina‘ah, art, trade, construction. See Devic; and Rich. Dict. 646,
943- Thetwo words together signify ‘a house of art or construction,’
“a place for making things.’ Mr. Wedgwood says: ‘Ibn Khaldoun
quotes an order of the Caliph Abdalmelic to build at Tunis a dar-
cina‘a for the construction of everything necessary for the equipment
and armament of vessels. Pedro de Alcala translates atarazana by the
Arab. dar a-cina‘a; see Engelmann and Dozy.’
ARSENIC, a poisonous mineral. (Gk. —Arab.—Pers.) Chaucer
speaks of arsenik, C. T., G 798. It was one of the four ‘spirits’ in
alchemy. =L. arscenicum. = Gk. ἀρσενικόν, orpiment, yellow arsenic, a
name occurring in Dioscorides, 5. 121. [This Gk. word lit. means
‘male;’ in allusion to the extraordinary alchemical fancy that some
metals were of different sexes. Gold, e.g. also called Sol, the sun,
was masculine, whilst silver, also called Juna, the moon, was feminine.
But these fables arose out of popular etymology, the Gk. name being
really borrowed. ]— Arab. az-zernikh; from az-, for al, the, def. art.,
and zernikh, orpiment, borrowed from Pers. zerni, orpiment, yellow
arsenic, which is from Pers. zar, gold. See Devic, p. 4; Rich. Dict.,
p- 774. And see Gold. Der. arsenic-al.
ARSIS, the place of a stressed syllable in English verse. (Gk.)
The sense has varied ; see N.E.D. ‘Arsis, a raising or lifting up ;’
Phillips (1706). — Gk. ἄρσις, a raising. Gk. αἴρειν, to raise.
ARSON, the crime of burning houses. (F.—L.) Old Law French;
see Blackstone’s Comment. b. iv. c. 16.—OF. arson, arsun, incen-
diarism ; Late L. acc. type *arsidn-em.=—L. ardére, to burn; pp. arsus.
See Ardent.
ART (1), 2 p.s. pres. of the verb substantive. (E.) OMerc. eard,
erd; ONorthumbrian ard, later art; AS. eart. The ar- stands for
es-, from 4/ES, to be; and the -ἡ, ONorthumb. -d, is a suffix. See
further under Are.
ART (2), skill, contrivance, method. (F.—L.) ME. art; Rob. of
Brunne, tr. of P. Langtoft, p. 336; and in Floriz and Blauncheflur, ed.
Lumby, 1. 521.—OF. art, skill.=L. acc. artem; from nom. ars, skill.
Perhaps from +/AR, to fit (Bréal). See Article. Der. art-ful,
art-ful-ness, art-ist, art-tst-ic, art-ist-ic-al, art-ist-ic-al-ly, art-less, art-
Jess-ly, art-less-ness ; also art-ifice, art-illery, art-isan, which see.
AS
ARTERY, a tube or pipe conveying blood from the heart. (L.—
Gk.) Shak. L. L. L. iv. 3. 306. ME. arterie, Lanfrank, Cirurgie,
li. 5; p. 162, 1. 17.—L. artéria, the windpipe ; also, an artery. [The
F. form is artere, which is shorter than the E., and consequently the
E. word is not from French.] - ΟΚ. ἀρτηρία, an artery; but orig. the
windpipe. Perhaps connected with ἀορτή, the aorta (Prellwitz). See
Aorta. Der. arteri-al, arteri-al-ise.
ARTESIAN, adj., applied to a well. (F.—L.—C.) These wells
are made by boring till the water is found; and the adj. is properly
applied to such as are produced by boring through an impermeable
stratum, in such a way that the water, when found, overflows at the
outlet. Englished from F. Artésien, of or belonging to Artois,a pro-
vince in the N. of France, where the wells were in use in the eighteenth
century and earlier. Artois is from L. Atrebatensem, acc. of Atreba-
tensis, adj. formed from L. Atrebat-es; see further under Arras. See
Eng. Cycl. s.v. Artesian well.
ARTHRITIS, pain in the joints, gout. (Gk.) In Kersey (1708).
— Gk, ap§pitis.— Gk. ἄρθρον, a joint ; allied to L. artus, a joint; see
Article.
ARTICHOKE, an esculent plant; Cynara Scolymus. (Ital.—
Span.—Arab.) ‘A artochocke, cynara;’ Levins, 159. 5. Holland
has the odd spelling artichoux for the plural; Pliny, b. xx. c. 23. [He
seems to have been thinking of F. choux, cabbage.] The pl. artichokes
occurs in 1537, in the Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary, ed.
Madden, p. 33. —Ital. articiocco, an artichoke (Diez) ; cf. F. artichaut,
spelt artichault by Cotgrave, and explained by him as ‘an artichock.’
A corrupt form. Florio gives the spellings archiciocco, archicioffo ;
also carciocco, carcioffo. = MSpan. alcarchofa (Minsheu) ; whence Span.
alcachofa, Port. alcachofra.— Arab. al harshaf, an artichoke; Rich.
Pers. Dict. p. 5662. @ The pretended Arab. ar‘gi shauki, cited by
Diez, is a mere modern corruption from Italian.
ARTICLE, asmall item ; a part of speech. (F.—L.) ME. article,
Ayenbite of Inwyt, pp. 11,12.—F. article, ‘an article; a head, prin-
cipall clause, title or point of a matter; . . also, a joint or knuckle;’
Cot.<L. articulum, ace. of articulus, a joint, knuckle, member of a
sentence, an article in grammar; the lit. sense being ‘a little joint.’
Formed, by help of suffixes -cu-/o-, from L. artus, a joint, a limb. =
WAR, to fit; Prellwitz (5. v. ἀραρίσκω). See Max Miiller, Lect. i.
104 (8thed.). See Arm. Der. article, verb. And see below.
ARTICULATE, adj., jointed, fitted; also, distinct, clear. (L.)
Speech is articulate when distinctly divided into joints, i.e. into words
and syllables ; not jumbled together. = L. articulatus, distinct, articu-
late; pp. of articulare, to supply with joints, or divide by joints,
chiefly applied to articulate speaking.<L. articulus, a little joint
(above). Der. articulate, verb ; articulate-ly, articulat-ion.
ARTIFICE, a contrivance. (F.—L.) Gower has artificiers, C. A.
iii. 1423; bk. vii. 1691. Shak. has artificer, K. John, iv. 2. 201; and
artificial, Romeo,i. 1.146. Artifice is in Milton, P. L. ix. 39.—F.
artifice, skill, cunning, workmanship; Cot. = L. artificium,a craft, handi-
craft. L. artific-, stem of artifex,a workman. =L. arti-, for ars, art;
and facere, to make, the stem fac- being altered to fc- in compounds.
See Art and Fact. Der. artifici-al, artifici-al-ly ; also artific-er.
ARTILLERY, gunnery; great weapons of war. (F.—L.)
Milton, P. L. ii. 715 ; Shak. K. John, ii. 403. Chaucer, C. T., B 2523,
in his Tale of Melibeus, speaks of ‘castelles, and other maner edifices,
and armure, and artelleries.’ = OF. artillerie, machines or equipment
of war; see quotation in Roquefort 5. v. artillement. The word was
used to include crossbows, bows, &c., before the invention of gun-
powder. = OF. artiller,to fortify, equip; Roquefort. = Late L. *artillare,
to make machines; a verb inferred from the word artillator, a maker
of machines, given by Ducange.—L. art-, stem of ars, art. See Art.
We also find Late L. artilliator, answering to an older form *articu-
lator, from Late L. articula, articulum, art, artifice, derivatives of ars,
art (not from artus, a joint); see Ducange. Der. artiller-ist.
ARTISAN, a workman. (F.—Ital.—L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674; and in Marlowe, Faustus, i. 1. 53.—F. artisan, an artisan,
mechanic. = Ital. artigiano, a workman ; whence it was introduced into
F. in the 16th century ; Brachet. B. This corresponds, according
to Diez, to a late L. form *artitia@nus (not found), formed in its turn
from L. arfitus, cunning, artful (see Ducange), which is from arti-,
decl.stem ofars,art. See Art. δ] Rabelais has artizan (Hatzfeld) ;
if here the z=¢s, the F. word may have been taken immediately from
L., and not through Italian.
ARUM, the cuckoo-pint, or wake-robin. (L.—Gk.) In Turner,
Names of Herbes,1548 (E.D.S.),p.15. —L.arum,aron, —Gk.dpoy,arum.
AS, adverb and conjunction. (E.) ME. as, als, alse, also, alswa; and
al so, al swa, written separately. That these are all one and the same
word has been proved by Sir F. Madden, in remarks upon Havelok,and
is a familiar fact to all who are acquainted with Middle English. In
other words, as is a contracted form of also. B. The successive
spellings are: AS. eal swa, Grein, i. 239; al swa, Layamon, 1. 70; al
ASAFCETIDA, ASSAFCETIDA
so, Seven Sages, 569, ed. Weber; alse, P. Plowman, A. v. 144; als,
id. Β. y. 230 (where als means ‘also’); als manye as = as many as,
Mandeyille’s Travels, p. 209. The AS. eal swa& means both ‘ just so’
and ‘just as.’ See Also.
ASAFCETIDA, ASSAFGSTIDA, a medicinal gum. (Hybrid ;
Pers, and L.) Spelt azafedida, Arnold’s Chron. (1502), ed.1811, p.234.
A juice made chiefly from the Feru/a Narthex, an umbelliferous plant,
growing inPersia, The Persian name is aza, ‘mastic,’ Rich. Dict. p.65.
The L. fetida, stinking, refers to its offensive smell. See Fetid.
ASBESTOS, a fibrous mineral. (Gk.) In Holland’s Pliny, b.xxxvii.
c. 10; 11. 624. Written asbeston, Trevisa, tr. of Higden, i. 187. So
called because it is incombustible. = Gk. ἄσβεστος, incombustible ; lit.
“unquenchable,’ = Gk, d-, negative prefix; and -σβεστός, quenchable,
from σβέννυμι, I quench, extinguish. See Brugm. i, § 653, and Prell-
witz, as to this curious yerb. Der. asbest-ine, adj.
ASCEND, to climb, mount up. (L.) Chaucer has ascensioun and
ascended, C.'T. 14861, 14863 (B 4045, 4047). [There is a F. sb.
ascension, but the OF. ascendre is rare and obsolete; the E. verb was
probably suggested by the Vulgate.]—L. ascendere, to climb up to,
ascend ; pp. ascensus,— L. ad-, to (reduced to a- before se) ; and scan-
dere, to climb. See Scan. Der. ascendent, Chaucer, Prol. 417, from
L. pres. pt.; also ascendant, as in Drayton, Legend of T. Cromwell,
1. 399, from F. pres. pt.; ascendenc-y; ascens-ion, cf, L. pp. ascensus ;
ascent (Shak.), coined to pair off with descent, the latter being a true
Ἐς word.
ASCERTAIN, to make certain, determine, (F.—L.) Thesis an
idle addition to the word, and should never have been inserted. Yet
the spelling ascertayn occurs in Fabyan, c.177, § 6. Bale has assar-
tened; Image, pt. 1. ME. acertainen; ‘For now I am acértainéd
throughly ;’ Flower and Leaf, 568.=OF. acertainer, variant of acer-
tener (Godefroy). Cotgrave has ‘ acertener, to certifie, ascer/aine, as-
sure.’ B. Acertener is a coined word, made up of F. prefix a- (L. ad),
and the adj. cer/ain, certain, sure. See Certain. Der. ascertain-able.
ASCETIC, adj. often used as sb., one who is rigidly self-denying
in religious observances ; a strict hermit. (Gk.) Gibbon speaks of
‘the ascetics ;’ Hist. c. 37, § 2. In the Life of Bp. Burnet, c, 13, we
find: ‘he entered into such an ascetic course.’ The adjective was
“applied by the Greek fathers to those who exercised themselves in,
who employed themselves in, who devoted themselves to, the contem-
plation of divine things: and for that purpose, separated themselves
from all interconrse with the world ;’ Richardson. = Gk. ἀσκητικός, in-
dustrious, lit. given to exercise ; applied to hermits, who strictly exer-
cised themselves in religious deyotion.=Gk.do«nrt7s, one who exercises
an art, esp. applied to an athlete. — Gk. ἀσκεῖν, to work, adom, practise,
exercise; also, to mortify the body, in Ecclesiastical writers. Root
unknown, Der. ascetic-ism.
ASCIDIAN, a term applied to some tunicate molluscs; and to
pitcher-shaped leafy appendages, in botany. (Gk.) Modern; lit.
‘pitcher-like.’ - Gk. ἀσκίδιον, dimin. of ἀσκός,α leathern bag,wine-skin.
ASCITITIOUS, ADSCITITIOUS, supplemental, incidental.
(L.) Littleused. ‘A dscititious, added, borrowed;’ Kersey’s Dict. ‘Homer
has been reckoned an ascititious name, from some accident of his life ;’
Pope, qu. in Todd’s Johnson, Coined, as if from L. *asei/itius (not
used), from ascitus, received, derived from others, not innate; pp. of
asciscere, to take in, admit, receive from without, also written adsciscere.
=L. ad, to; and sciscere, to learn, find out, accept, which is formed
from sci-re, to know, by the addition of the ending -scere, common in
forming ‘inchoative’ or ‘inceptive’ verbs in Latin. See Science.
ASCRIBE, to attribute, impute. (L.) It occurs in the Lamenta-
tion of Mary Magdeleine, ]. 254; a poem later than Chaucer, but some-
times printed with his works. = L. ascribere, to write down to one’s
account ; pp. ascriptus.— L.ad, to (which becomes a- before sc) ; and
scribere, to write. See Scribe. Der. ascrib-able, ascript-ion.
ASH, the name of a tree. (E.) ME. aseh, esch, assch; Chaucer,
C. T. 2924 (A 2922). ‘Esche, tre, fraxinus ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 143.
AS. esc, Grein, i. 58.4 Du. esch; Icel. askr; Dan.and Swed. ask;
OHG. asc; MHG. asch; G. esche.. Tent. type *askiz. Cf. Russ. iasene,
Lith. zésis, ash. Der. ash-en, adj.
ASHAMED, pp. as adj., affected by shame: (E.) ME. aschamed,
often written a-schamed. ‘Aschamyd,or made ashamyd, verecundatus;’
Prompt. Pary. p. 15. But we also find ΜΕ. ofschamed, ashamed ;
Shoreham’s Poems, p. 160; of-chamed,'Owl and Nightingale, 1. 932.
Hence, in this instance, we may consider the prefix a+ as equivalent
to of-, as it is in the case of the word adown, q.v. This would point
back to the AS. form ofsceamod, which occurs in Ailfric, Lives of Saints,
2.178. B. Orit may represent AS. dsceamod, with prefix ἅτ; whilst
sceamod is the ppi of sceamian, to shame, from sceamu, shame, See
Shame. ;
ASHES, the dust or relics of what is burnt. (E.) The pl. of ash,
which is little used. MIE. asche, axe, aske,a disyllabic word, the usual
pl. being aschen, axen, asken, but in Northern and Midland E, askes,
ASP, ASPIC 38
axes. See asken, in the (Southern) Ancren Riwie, p. 214; and askes
in Hampole’s Pricke of Conscience, 424. AS. @sce, axe, asce; pl.
@scan, axan, Grein, i. 10, 11, 58.4-Du. asch; Icel. aska; Swed. aska;
Dan. aske; Goth. ας, sing., asgon, pl.; Luke, x. 13; ΟἹ IG, asga, asca,,
MUG. asche, esche; G. asche. ‘Teut. types *askon-, *azgon-, fem. ;
perhaps for *as(¢)kon-, *az(d)gon-; and allied to Gk. a¢-ev, to dry
up, parch, L. ar-ére, to be dry, Skt. dsa-s, ashes, dust (Macdonell).
Der. ash-y; Ash-Wednesday,so called from the sprinkling of ashes on
the heads of penitents, the L. name being diés cinerum.
ASHLAR, ASHLER, a facing made of squared stones. (F. —L.)
‘In countries where stone is scarce, ashler principally consists of thin
slabs of stone used to face the brick and rubble walls of buildings ;’
Eng. Cycl. 5. vy. Ashler. Again, Ashlering is used in masonry to
signify ‘the act of bedding in mortar the ashler above described ;’ id.
It is also used in carpentry ‘to signify the short upright pieces of wood
placed in the roof of a house to cut off the acute angle between the
Joists of the floor and the rafters; almost all the garrets in London
are built in this way;’ id. β. The clue to understanding the word
is to remember that the use of wood preceded that of stone. From
OF. aiseler, Livre des Rois, iii. 6 (see aisselier in Hatzfeld), a cross-
piece used to bind together two pieces of timber; extended from OF.
aiselle, aissele (aisselle in Cotgrave), f., ‘a little boord, or shingle of
wood ;” Cotgrave. = L. axilla, dimin, of ax’s, an axis, also a board, a
plank. See Axis. 4] The thin square slabs of stone were likened
to the wooden shingles that preceded them. ‘The Scot. spellings are
estler, aislair. Jamieson quotes ‘houses biggit a’ with e:t/er stane’ =
houses all built with squared stone, from Ramsay’s Poems, i. 69.. And
again, he quotes from Abp. Hamilton’s Catechism, fol. 5a: ‘A mason
can nocht hew ane euin aislair without directioun of his rewill’ = cannot
hew a straight ashlarwithout drawing a line with his rule to guide him.
ASHORE, on shore. (E.) Shak. has on shore, Temp. y. 219,
where we might say ashore, Thus a- is short for an, ME. form of on.
So also in a-bed, a-sleep, &c. ,
ASIDE, to one side, on one s'de, (E.) For on side. Wyelif has
asydis-hond in Gal. ii. 2, but on sidis hond in Mark, iv. 34 (earlier ver-
sion), ‘he expounyde to his disciplis alle thingis on sidis hond, or by
hem-self.’ See above.
ASININE; see Ass. :
ASK, to seek an answer, to request. (E.) ME. asken, aschen, axien,
&c. Askenis in Ancren Riwle, p. 338. Ax‘en in Layamon, i. 307.
AS. dscian, ahsian, dcsian, Grein, i. 14,24, 49. ‘The form desiaw is
not uncommon; whence mod. prov. Εἰ, ax, as a variant of ask. The
AS. dscian produced ME. ashen, now lost ; the surviving form ask was
orig. Northern. Du. eischen, to demand, require ; Swed. dska, to ask,
demand ; Dan. @eske,todemand; ΟἿΣ. εἰ εὔρη, eisgon; MHG. eischen ;
mod. G. heischen,to ask. ‘Teut. types *aiskon, *aiskqjan. All related
to Skt. ichchha, a wish, desire, éshara-, a wish, ésh, to search; Gk.térns,
wish, will; Lith. jészkov:, Russ. iskate,to seek. The root is seen in Skt.
ish, to desire, wish; from 4/ EIS, to seek, wish; Brugm.1. § 619, ii. § 676;
Prellwitz. 4 The Icel. eskja does not mean ‘to ask,’ but ‘to wish ;’
and is not related to ask, but to wish; see Wish.
ASKANCE, obliquely. (Ital.—L.?) Sir ‘I’. Wyatt, in his Satire
Of the Meane and Sure Estate, 1. 52, says: ‘For, as she lookta scance,
Under a stole she spied two stemyng eyes;’ &c. Wealso find a scanche,
explained by de travers, en lor gnant, i.e. obliquely ; Palsgrave’s French
Dict. p. 831. Origin uncertain; but perhaps related to Ital, scansare,
‘to go aslope or a-sconce or askew, to go sidelin;’ Florio.. This verb
is derived from Ital. s- (for L, ex), and (according to Diez) L. campsare,
to turn round a place, bend round it; cf. Gk. κάμπτειν, to bend.
Baretti’s Ital. Dict. (1831) has di scancio, adv. slanting, aslope; scancio,
adj. oblique; but this appears in Torriano (1688) 45 schiancio,
‘athwart ;’ apparently from a Teut. source allied to E. slant.
ASKEW, awry. (OLow G.) ‘Lut he on it lookt scornefully
askew ;’ Spenser, F.Q. iii. 10. 29. As usual, the prefix a- stands for
an, ME. form of on, and askew means ‘on the skew,’ Hexham ex-
plains MDu. scheef by ‘askew, awry.’ See Skew.
ASLANT, on the slant, obliquely. (Scand.) A-slonte occurs in the
Prompt. Parv. p. 6, as equivalent to acyde (aside) and to the L. obligué,
obliquely. It stands for on s/onte, on the slant, a form which occurs
in the Anturs of Arthur, st. xlviii. 6; cf. abed, afoot, asleep. It appears
as o slante in the Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 2254. Cf. Swed. dial.
adj. slant, slippery (Rietz). See Slant.
ASLEBSP, ina sleep. (E.) For ‘on sleep;’ a- being short for an,
ME, form of on, ‘ David .. fell on sleep;’ Acts, xiii. 36. See Sleep.
ASLOPE, on a slope, slopingly. (E.) For ‘on slope,’ as in many
other instances; see above, In the Komaunt of the Kose, 1. 4464, α
slope occurs in the sense of ‘awry.’ See Slope.
ASP, ASPIC, a venomous serpent. (F.—L.—Gk.) Shak. has
aspick, Antony, v. 2. 296, 354; and Palsgrave has aspycke. Gower
speaks of ‘A serpent, which that aspidis Is cleped;’ C, A. i. 573 bk.i.
463. The form aspic is French; Cotgrave gives: ‘Aspic, the sérpent
D
84 ASPARAGUS
called an aspfe.’ The form asp is also French ; see Brachet, who notes,
s. v. aspic, that there was an OF. form aspe, which existed as a doublet
of the Provencal aspic ; both of them being from L. acc. aspidem, from
nom. aspis, The false form in Gower is due to his supposing that, as
aspides is the nom. pl., it would follow that aspidis would be the nom.
singular. = Gk. ἀσπίς, gen. ἀσπίδος, an asp. 4 Hatzfeld gives the
Prov. form as aspit, which might easily be misread aspic. The mod.
Proy. form is aspit, from 1... acc. aspidem.
ASPARAGUS, a garden vegetable. (L.—Gk.—Pers.?) For-
merly written sperage; Holland’s Pliny, bk. xix. c. 8; ii, 27 ¢. Also
sparage or sparagus; thus Cotgrave explains F. asperge by ‘the herb
sparage or sparagus.’ But these are mere corruptions of the L. word.
= L.asparagus. — Gk.donapayos, Atticdopapayos, asparagus. Curtius,
ii. 110, compares it with the Zend ¢paregha, a prong, and the Lith.
spurgas, a shoot, sprout, and thinks it was a word borrowed from the
Persian. If so, the orig. sense was ‘sprout.’ Brugm. i. § 52:
ASPECT, view, appearance, look. (L.) In old authors, often as-
péct: ‘In thin aspéct ben alle liche ;? Gower, Ὁ. A. i. 143; bk. i. 3009.
Chaucer, Treatise on the Astrolabe, pt. ii. 4. 31, uses aspectes in the
old astrological sense, of the ‘aspects’ of planets. [Probably from L.
directly. Whilst known in English in the 14th century, the F. aspect
does not seem to be older than the 15th; see Littré. | —L. aspectus,
look. =—L. aspectus, pp. of aspicere, to behold, see. = L. ad, to, at (> a-
before sp); and specere, to look, cognate with E. spy. See Spy.
ASPEN, ASP, a kind of poplar, with tremulous leaves. (E.) The
form aspen (more usual) is properly adjectival, like gold-en, wood-en,
and the sb. is asp. The tree is still called the asp in Herefordshire,
and in the 5. and W. of England it is called aps. The phrase ‘lyk an
aspen leef,’ in Chaucer, C. 1. 7249 (D 1667), is correct, as aspen is there
anadjective. ME.asp,aspe,espe. Chaucerhasasp,C. T. 2923 (A 2921).
‘Aspe tre, Espe tre;’ Prompt. Parv. pp. 15,143. AS. espe, also eps;
Bosworth. Du. esp, sb., espen, adj.; Icel. dsp; Dan. and Swed. asp;
G, espe, dspe (OHG., aspa; MUG. aspe). See Fick, iii. 29, who adds
Lettish apsa, Lithuanian apuszis; Polish and Russ. osina. Origin un-
known.
ASPERITY, roughness, harshness. (F.—L.) Asperite,SirT. More,
Works, p. 1218¢. Chaucer has asprenesse, tr. of Boethius, b. iv. pr. 4,
1,106, The contracted OF. form asprete. occurs in Ancren Riwle,
Ῥ- 354, as an E. word. =OF, asperitei/, later asperité, roughness. =—L.
acc. asferitatem; nom. asperitds, roughness.—L. asper, rough. See
Brugm. i. § 760.
ASPERSE, to cast calumny upon. (L.) Milton, P. L. ix. 296.
Formed from L. aspersus, the pp. of aspergere, to besprinkle; also,
to bespatter.—L. ad, to (> a- before sp); and spargere, to sprinkle,
scatter. See Sparse. Der. aspers-ion, Tempest, iv. 1. 18.
ASPHALT, ASPHALTUM, a bituminous substance. (Late L.
—-Gk.) ‘Blazing cressets fed Withnaphthaandasphaltus;’ Milton, P. L.
1.728,729. Aspalt occurs in Mandeville’s Travels, p. 100, and aspaltoun
in Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 1038.— Late L. asphaléum; Higden,
Polychron., i. 116.—Gk. ἄσφαλτος, ἄσφαλτον, asphalt, bitumen, Of
foreign origin. Der. asfhal/-ic; Milton, P. L. i. 411,
ASPHODEL, a plant of the lily kind. (Gk.) In Milton, P. L.
ix. 1040,— Gk. ἀσφόδελος, a plant of the lily kind. In English, the
word has been corrupted into daffodil ; see Daffodil.
ASPHYXTIA, suspended animation, suffocation. (Gk.) In Kersey,
ed. 1708. —Gk. ἀσφυξία, a stopping of the pulse; ef. ἄσφυκτος, with-
out pulsation. — Gk. d-, privative; and σφύζειν, to throb, pulsate; cf.
σφυγμός, pulsation; G. pocken, to throb. Der. asphyxi-ate.
ASPIRE, to pant after,toaimateagerly.(F. — L.) Generally followed
by to or unto. ‘If we shal. . desyrously aspyre vnto that countreye
of heauen with all our whole heartes ;᾿ Udal, 1 Peter, c. 3. vv. 21, 22.
“- Εἰ aspirer, ‘to breathe, . . also to desire, covet, aime at, aspire unto;’
Cot.—L. aspirare, to breathe towards, to seek to attain.—L. ad, to,
towards (> a- before <p) ; and spirare, to breathe, blow. Cf. E. spirit.
Der. aspir-ing, aspir-ing-ly, aspir-ant, aspir-ate (vb., to pronounce with
a full breathing), asfirate, sb., aspirat-ion.
ASS, a well-known quadruped of the genus Equus; a dolt. (C.-L.
—Semitic.) ME. asse; Ancren Riwle, p. 32. AS. assa, Grein, i. 10.
The origin of the word is uncertain; and the extent to which one
language has borrowed it from another is not clear; the Icel. asni,
e.g., is merely the L. asinus contracted. The AS. assa was probably
borrowed from Olzish assan (Stokes, p. 24); and this from L. asinas.
The Celtic languages have W. asyn, Corn. asen, Bret. azen, Irish and
Gael. asal, Manx essyl (Williams) ; all probably from Latin. Cf. Du.
ezel, an ass, also, a dolt, blockhead, G.esel, Dan. esel, esel, Goth. asilus,
Lith. asilas, Polish osiel, Icel. asni, Swed. dsna; all from L. astaus or
asellus. Cf.also Gk. ὄνος, Most likely the word is of Semitic origin ;
cf. Arab. a/an, Heb. athon, she-ass. Der. asin-:ne, from Latin.
ASSAFCSTIDA: sce Asafoetida.
ASSAGAT, ASSEGAI. (Port.— Moorish.)
Sir Τὶ Herbert, Travels (1665), p. 23.
525.
Spelt azaguay in
A word (like fetish) introduced
ASSESS
into Africa by the Portuguese. — Port. azagaia, a dart, javelin. For
az-zaghayah; from az-,fora/, the Arab.def. article, and Berber zaghayah,
the native name of a Berber weapon adopted by the Moors (whence
F. zagaie) ; see Devic. See Lancegay.
ASSAIL, to leap or spring upon, to attack. (F.—L.) In early use.
ME. assailen, asailen; Ancren Riwle, pp. 246, 252,362. —OF. assaillir,
asaillir (Chanson de Roland), to attack; cf. L. assilire.— OF, a-,
prefix (L.ad, > as- before 5); and saillir, sallir, to leap, rush forward,
from L. salire, to leap, rush forth. See Salient. Der. assail-able,
assail-ant ; also assault (OF. asalt (Littré), from L. ad, to, and saltus,
a leap; from saltus, pp. of salire, to leap); whence assault, verb.
ASSART, the offence of grubbing up trees, and so destroying the
coverts of a forest, (F.—L.) See Blount, Nomo-Lexicon; Manwood,
Forest Laws, &c. ‘The word is due to AF. assartir (Britton), F. es-
sarter, to make glades in a wood, to grub up, or clear a ground of
bushes, shrubs, thorns, &c.;’ Cot.—Late L. exsartare, to grub up,
occurring an. 1233 (Ducange); also spelt exartare.—L. ex, out,
thoroughly; and Late L. sartare, to grub up, occurring an. 1202
(Ducange). Sartare (=*saritare) is the frequentative of L. sarrire,
sarire, to weed, grub up weeds (whence also sar-culum, a hoe); see
essartin Diez. Cf. Gk. caipew, to sweep, oipos,a besom. The L.
pl. exsarta, weeded lands, occurs in Liber Custumarum, p. 660.
ASSASSIN, a secret murderer. (F.—Arabic.) Milton has as-
sassin-like, P. L. xi, 219; and assassinated, Sams. Agon. 1109.—F.
assassin, given by Cotgrave, who also gives assassiner, to slay, kill,
and assassinat, sb., a murther. [‘ Assassin, which is assacis in Join-
ville, in the 13th cent., and in late L. Aassessin, is the name of a well-
known sect in Palestine which flourished in the 13th century, the Has-
chischin, drinkers ofhaschisch, an intoxicating drink, a decoction ofhemp.
The Scheik Haschischin, known by the name of the Old Man of the
Mountain, roused his followers’ spirits by help of this drink, and sent
them to stab his enemies, esp. the leading Crusaders ;’ Brachet.. See
the whole account.]— Arab. Aashish, an intoxicating preparation of
Cannabis indict; Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 199; Rich. Dict. p. 569;
whence the adj. hashishi, hashashi; pl. hashashin, i.e. ‘hashish-eaters ;”
so that assassin is a pl. form (Devic). Der. assassin-ate, assassin-at-ion,
Macb. i. 7. 2.
ASSAULT; see under Assail.
ASSAY, sb., examination, test, trial; chiefly used of the trial of
metal or of weights. (F.—L.) In the sense of ‘attempt’ it is gene-
rally spelt essay in mod. E.; see Acts, ix. 26, xvi. 7; Heb. x1. 29.
Chaucer uses assay to denote the ‘trial of an experiment; ’ C. T., ἃ
1249, 1338. Gower uses assay for ‘an attempt,’ C. A. 1. 68; bk. 1.
791. [The form assay came in through the use of the OF. verb asater
as another spelling of essaier, to judge of a thing, derived from the sb.
essai, a trial.) OF. essai, a trial. L. exagivm, a weighing, a trial of
exact weight. See Essay, a better spelling. Cf. amend =emend.
Der. assay, verb; assay-er.
ASSEMBLE, to bring together, collect. (F.—L.) ME. assemblen,
asemblen; Will. of Palerne, 1120, 1288. Chaucer has ‘to asemble
moneye;’ tr. of Boethius, Ὁ. iii. pr. 8.1.5. The sb. asemblaye, as-
sembly, is in K. Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1. 3473-— OF. assembler,
asembler, to assemble, approach, come together, often with.the sense
of ‘ to engage in battle,’ as frequently in Barbour’s Bruce. Late L.
assimulare, to collect, bring together into one place ; different from
classical L. assimulare, to pretend, feign.—L. ad, to; and simul, to-
gether; so that Late L. assimulare is ‘to bring together ;’ the L.ad
becoming as- before 5, as usual. [The class. L. assimulare is from ad,
to, and similis, like; and similis is from the same source.as simul. |
B. The L. simul and similis are from the same source as E. same, Gk.
ἅμα, at the same time, Skt. sam, with, together with. See Similar.
Der. assembl-y, assembl-age. Krom the same source are stmilar, simu-
late, assimilate.
ASSENT, to comply, agree, yield. (F.—L.) ME. assenten ; Chau-
cer, C. T., 4761, 8052 (B 342, 176). ‘They assentyn, by on assent,’
i.e. they assent with one consent; Κα. Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1.1480. —
OF. assentir, to consent, acquiesce. — L. assentire, to assent to, approve,
consent. = L,. ad, to (> as- before s).; and sentire, to feel; pp. sensus.
See Sense. Der. assent, sb., in early use; Hampole, Pricke of
Conscience, 8391 ; assent-at-ion.
ASSERT, to affirm, declare positively. (L.) In Milton, Ρ. 1,. 1. 25.
Sir T. More has assertation, Works, p. 141 εἰ; and assercion, p. 473 6.
The E. word is formed from the L. pp. assertns.—L. asserere, to'add
to, take to one’s self, claim, assert. —L. ad, to (> as- before 5); and
serere, to join or bind together, connect, to range in a row. See
Series. Der. assert-ion, -ive.
ASSESS, to fix a rate or tax. (F.—L.) ‘I will make such satis-
faction, as it shall please you to assess it at ;? North’s Plutarch, p. 12;
repr. in ‘ Shakespeare’s Plutarch,’ ed. Skeat, p. 289. Hall has assesse-
ment, Hen. VIII, an. 24 (end). —OF. assesser (Godefroy).—Late L.
assessare; cf. Law L, assessor, one whose duty it was to assess, i.e. to
ASSETS
adjust and fix the amount of, the public taxes; ‘qui tributa peraequat
vel imponit ;’ Ducange. [The title of assessor was also given to a
judge’s assistant, in accordance with the etymological meaning, viz.
‘one who sits beside’ another. ] —L. assessus, pp. of assidére, to sit be-
side, to be assessor to a judge. = L. ad, to, near (> as- before s) ; and
sedére, to sit, cognate with E. sit, See Sit. Der. assess-ment; assessor
(above). And see assize.
ASSETS, effects of a deceased or insolvent debtor, &c. (F.—L.)
So called because sufficient ‘to discharge that burden, which is cast
upon the heir, in satisfying the testator’s debts or legacies;’ Blount’s
Law Dict. In early use in a different form. ‘ And if it sufficith not
for aseth;’ P. Plowman, C, xx. 203, where another reading is asse/z,
B. xvii. 237; see my note on the passage, Notes to P. Plowman, p. 390.
In the Romaunt of the Rose, 5600, the E. asseth is used to translate the
F. assez. B. The final -¢s is an orthographical device for representing
the sound of OF. z, which was sounded as ¢s; cf. F. avez with L. habétis,
shortened to 'abe?’s, and cf. F. assez with L. ad satis, shortened to a’ sat’s.
“αὶ ad satis, up to what is enough; from ad, to, and sa/is, enough.
See Satisfy, Satiate. It will be observed that assets was ori-
ginally an adverb, then used adjectively, and lastly a substantive. It
is, etymologically, in the singular, like alms, riches, eaves, &c.; but
it was treated as a plural, and in modern use has a sing. asset.
ASSEVERATE, to declare seriously, affirm. (L.) Bp. Jewell
has asseveration, Defence of the Apology, p. 61. The verb to assever
was sometimes used. The verb asseverate is formed, like others in -ave,
from the pp. of the L. verb. —L. assenératus, pp. of asseuérire, to speak
in earnest. L. ad. to (> as- before s); and seuérus, adj., earnest,
serious. See Severe. Der. asseverat-ion.
ASSIBILATION, pronunciation with a hissing sound. (L.)
Modern. Formed from the L. vb. asstbilare; from as- (for ad), to,
and sibildre, to hiss; see Sibilant.
ASSIDUOUS, constant in application, diligent. (L.) In Milton,
P.L, xi. 310. Dryden has ‘ assiduous care ;’ tr. of Virgil, Georg. iii.
463. Englished by putting -ous for L. -ws, as in abstemious, &c. - L.
assiduus, sitting down to, applying closely to, constant, unremitted.
= L. assidére, to sit at or near. —L. ad, to, near (> as- before s) ; and
sedére, to sit, cognate with Εἰ. si/. See Sit. Der. asstduous-ly, assidu-
ous-ness; also assidu-i-ty, from L. acc. assiduild'em, nom. assiduitas,
formed from the adj. assiduus.
ASSIGN, to mark out to one, to allot, &c. (F.—L.) ME. assignen,
asignen; Rob. of Glouc. p. 502, 1. 10321.— OF. assigner, to assign. =
L. assignare, to affix a seal to, to appoint, ascribe, attribute, consign.
=L. ad, to (> as- before 5); and signare, to mark.—L. signum, a
mark. See Sign. Der. assign-able, assign-al-ion, assign-er, assign-
ment (spelt assignement, Gower, C. A. ii. 373, bk. v. 7354); assign-ee
(from Law French assigné, pp. of assigner).
ASSIMILATE, to make similar to, to become similar to. (L.)
Bacon has assimilating and assimilateth; Nat. Hist. sect. 899. Sir T.
Browne has asstmilable and assimilation ; Vulg. Errors, bk. vii. c. 19.
8 last; bk. 111. c. 21. § 9. Formed, like other verbs in -ate, from the
pp. of the L. verb. = L.assimilare, also assimulire, to make like. = L. ad,
to (> as- before s) ; and similis, like. See Similar. Der. assimil-
at-ion, assimilat-ive. And see assemble.
ASSIST, to stand by, to help. (F.—L.) ‘Be at our hand, and
frendly vs assis¢;’ Surrey, Virgil, fn. bk. iv. 1. 772.—F. assister, to
assist, help, defend; Cot.—L. assistere, tostep to, approach, stand at,
stand by, assist.—L. ad, to (> as- before s) ; and sistere, to place, to
stand, from sare, to stand, which is cognate with E. stand. See
Stand. Der. assist-ant, adj., Hamlet, i. 3. 3; sb., id. ii. 2. 166; assést-
ance, Macbeth, ili. 1. 124.
ASSIZE, (1) a session of a court of justice; (2) a fixed quantity
or dimension. (F.—L.) In mod. E. mostly in the pl. assézes; the use
in the second sense is almost obsolete, but in ME. we read of ‘the
asstse of bread,’ &c. It is still, however, preserved in the contracted
form size; cf. sizings. See Size. ME. assise, in both senses. (1)
‘For to loke domes and asise;’ Rob. of Glouc. p. 53, 1. 1230. (2)
“Τὸ don trewleche the assys to the sellere and to the byggere [buyer |;
Eng. Guilds, ed. T. Smith, p. 359. [We also find ME. verb assisen,
to appoint ; Gower, C. A. i. 181; bk. 11. 636. But the verb is derived
from the sb.]—OF. asise, assise, sitting at table ; also, a tax, impost ;
see Godefroy. Orig. the pp. fem. of the OF. verb asseoir, to sit at
table, also to place, provide. —L. assidére, to sit at or near, to act as
assessor to a judge (in Late L., to impose a tax) ; pp. assessus. — L. ad,
to, near (> as- before s); and sedére, to sit, cognate with E. sit. See
Sit. Der. assize, verb, to assess; assiz-er. And see assess.
ASSOCIATES, a companion. (L.) _Properly a past participle.
Cf. ‘yf he intend to be associate with me in blisse ;᾿ Udal, 5. Mark,
vill. 34 ; where we should now rather use associa/ed. A mere sb. in
Shak. Hamlet, iv. 3. 47.—L. associdtus, joined with in company; pp.
of associare, to join, unite.—L. ad, to (> as- before s); and socidre, to
join, associate, from socius, a companion, lit. a follower, from segui, to
ASTERN 35
follow ; cf. coga, cloak, from ¢egere, to cover, procus, a wooer, from
precari, to pray. See Sequence. Der. associate, verb; associat-ion.
ASSOIL, to absolve, acquit. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F.Q. i. το.
52, li. 5. 19, &c. Lowland Sc. assoilyze, often miswritten assoilzie
(with z for 3=y). ME. assolen, P. Plowman, B. prol. 70, 3. 40, &c.;
and the pp. asor/ed in OEng. Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 32, 1. 4.
We find Anglo-French assorle, pres. sing. subj. Liber Custumarum,
199; but the pp. is spelt assolz, Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 275.
- OF. assole, asoile, pres. 5. subj. of assoudre (Godefroy) ; the same
as absouldre, ‘to absolve,’ Cot.—L. absoluere, to absolve. See Ab-
solve, of which assoi is merely a doublet. 4 Especially common
in the pres. subj. or imperative, as in the phrase ‘God assoil you,’
and the like; hence the form.
ASSONANT, adj., applied to a (certain) resemblance of sounds.
(Span. —L.) (Chiefly used in prosody, esp.in discussing Spanish poetry,
in which assonance, or a correspondence of vowel-sounds only, is a
marked feature. Thus the words beholding, rosebud, boldly, are said
to be assonant, all having the accented vowel o in common in the
penultimate syllable. So, in Spanish, are the words crueles, tienes,
fuerte, teme,|—Span. assonante, ‘an assonant, in Span. verse ;’ Pineda
(1740); now spelt asonanfe. = L. assonantem, acc. of assonans, sounding
like. Assonans is the pres. pt. of assonare, to respond to. —L. ad, to
(> as- before s); and sonare, to sound, from sonus, sound. See
Sound. Der. assonance.
ASSORT, to sort, dispose, arrange; to be companion with.
(F.—L.) Not much used formerly. =F. assortir, ‘ to sort, assort, suit,
match, equall ;’ Cot. ; occurring as early as 1457 (Hatzfeld) ; cf. Late
L. assortare.—F. prefix as-, imitated from L. as- (the form assumed
by ad, to, before 5); and sb. sorte, ‘sort, manner, form, fashion,
kind ;᾿ Cot. Thus assor/ir is to put together things of like kind.
The sb. sorte (like Ital. sor¢a, a sort, kind, species) represents a Folk-L.
*sorta, from L. sort-, stem of sors, a lot. See Fort. Der. assort-
ment (cf. Ἐς, assortiment).
ASSUAGE, to soften, allay, abate, subside. (F.—L.) ME.
assuagen, asuagen, aswagen. ‘His wrath forto asuage;’ Rob. of
Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 300.—OF. assouagier, asoagier, to soften,
appease, assuage, console ; a word of which the Provencal forms are
assuaviar, asuaviar. Formed (as if from a L. verb *assuduidre, to
sweeten) from the OF. prefix a- \L. ad), and L. suduis, sweet. See
Suave. Der. assvage-ment.
ASSUASIVE, softening, soothing. (L.) Pope, in his Ode on
St. Cecilia’s day, 1. 25, has the line: ‘ Music her soft, assuastve voice
applies ;’ and the word has been used also by Johnson and Warton
in a similar way; see Todd’s Johnson. This queer word seems to
have been meant to be connected with the verb to assuage, and to have
been confused with persuasive at the same time. It is a mis‘aken
formation, as if from a non-existent L. *assuadére, from ad and suadére.
See Persuasive.
ASSUME, to take to one’s self, to appropriate; take for granted.
(L.) The derived sb. assumption was in use in the 13th century as
applied to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. ΤῈ is spelt asswmciun
in the Ancren Riwle, p. 412. The use of the verb is later. It is used
by Hall, Hen. VII, an. 2. § 5; and in Hamlet, i. 2. 244. —L. assimere,
to take to one’s self; pp. assumptus. — L.ad, to (>as- before s) ; and
stimere, to take. B. The L. siimere is a compound verb, from
some prefix connected with sub, and emere, totake, buy. See Brugm.
i. § 240. The same root occurs in Redeem. Der. assum-ing,
assumpt-ion, assumpt-tve, assumpt-ive-ly.
ASSURE, to make sure, insure, make confident. (F.—L.) Chau-
cer has ‘ assureth vs,’ C. T. 7969 (E 93), and assurance, C. T. 4761
(B 431). OF. aseiirer, asseiirer, to make secure, assure, warrant. =
OF. prefix a- (L. ad, to); and adj. seiir, secure, from L. sécirus,
secure, sure. See Sure. Der. assur-ed, assur-ed-ly, assur-ed-ness,
assur-ance.
ASTER, the name of a genus of flowers. (L.—Gk.) In Kersey
(1708). A botanical name, from L. aster, Gk. ἀστήρ, a star; from the
star-like shape of the flowers. See Asterisk, Asterism, Asteroid.
ASTERISK, a little star used in printing, thus *. (L.—Gk.)
Spelt asterisgue in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. asteriscus. — Gk.
ἀστερίσκος, a little star, also an asterisk *, used for distinguishing
fine passages in MSS. (Liddell and Scott). Formed, with dimin.
suffix -ἰσκος, from ἀστερ-, base of ἀστήρ, a star, a word cognate with
E. star. See Star. ἐξ An asterisk is sometimes called a star.
ASTERISM, a constellation, a cluster of stars. (Gk.) In Dray-
ton, Barons’ Wars, b. vi. st. 31. A coined word, made by adding
the Gk. suffix -ἰσμος (E. -ism) to the stem ἀστέρ- of the Gk. ἀστήρ,
a star.
ASTERN, on the stern, behind. (E.) Sir F. Drake, in The
World Encompassed, 1578, has: ‘ Having left this strait a stern.’ It
stands for on stern; see abed, afoot, asteep, and other words in which
the prefix a- stands for an, ME. form of on.
D2
86 ASTEROID
ASTEROID, aterm applied to the minor planets situate between
the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. (Gk.) Modern, and astronomical.
Properly an adj., signifying ‘star-like,’ or ‘star-shaped.’ = Gk. ἀστερο-
ειδής, star-like. —Gk. dorepo-, for ἀστήρ, a star (cognate with E.
Star, q,v.); and εἶδ-ος, form, figure. Der, asteroid-al.
ASTHMA, a difficulty in breathing. (Gk.) In Phillips (1658).
— Gk. ἄσθμα, short-drawn breath, panting. — Gk. da¢ew, to breathe
out, breathe through the mouth; allied to ἄημι, 1 blow.4+Goth.
waian, to blow; Skt. va, to blow. See Wind. Der. asthmat-ic,
asthmat-ic-al, from Gk. adj. ἀσθματικός.
ASTIR, on the stir. (E.) Foron stir. ‘The host wes all on steir’
=the army was all astir; Barbour’s Bruce, ed. Skeat, vii. 344. * Var
on steir, i.e. they were on the move, id. xix. 577. See Stir.
ASTONISG, to astound, amaze. (F.—L.) The addition of the
suffix -ish (as in extinguish) is due to analogy. Rich. quotes ‘ Be
astonyshed, O ye heauens,’ from the Bible of 1539, Jerem. ii, 12; and
“astonishment hathe taken me,’ from the Geneva Bible, 1540-57,
Jerem. viii. 21. Palsgrave has: “1 astonisshe, I amase one, Ies/onne.’
2. The suffix -ish is here added to the ME, aston-, for astonen, as in:
‘uour strokes of thondre, that astone‘h thane zeneyere,’ four strokes
of thunder that astound the sinner; Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 130. The
same ME. astonen was the origin of mod. E. astound. See further
under Astound. Der. astonish-ment, astonish-ing.
ASTOUND, to astonish, amaze. (F.—L.) Astound and astonish
are both deducible from the ME. astonen, also found as astonien (whence
a later form fo as/ony). Astonish. occurs in Shakespeare, and as. early
as in Palsgrave (1530). Astound is in Milton, Comus, 210, and
a tounded in the same, P. L, i. 281. It is remarkable that Milton also
uses both as/onish’d, P. L. i. 266, and asfonied, P, L. ix. 8go. Cf.
‘Astonynge or asioynynge, Stupefactio ;’ also ‘Astoynyn, or brese werkys,
quatio, quasso;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 16. ‘Hit asfonieth yit my thought;’
Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, 1174. ‘The folc that stod theraboute ful adoun
for drede, And leye [misprinted seye } ther as hi were astoned and as hi
were dede;’ St. Margarete, 291, 292. ‘Yif he be slowe and astoned and
lache, he liveth as an asse;” Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. iv. pr. 3. 1. 82.
B. The form astound probably arose from ME. as‘oned, pp. of astonen;
for which see under Astonish.=—OF. es/oner (mod. F. étonner), to
amaze.= Late L. type *extondre, to thunder out.—L. ex, out; and
tondre,to thunder. Cf. L. a/éondre, to thunder at, astound; with prefix
at- for L. ad, at. See Ex-, prefix, and Thunder, 4 The
word may have been influenced by the native verb 20 stun. See
Stun.
ASTRAL, belonging to the stars; starry. (L.—Gk.) Seldom used.
Rich. quotes from Boyle’s Works, vol. v. p. τότ. = L.asfrdalis, belonging
to the stars. —L. astrum, a star.— Gk. ἄστρον, a star.
ASTRAY, out of the right way. (E. and F.—L.) ‘His poeple
goth aboute as/ray ;’ Gower, C. A. iii. 175; bk. vii. 2679. ‘They goa
s/raye and speake lyes;’ Bible, 1539, Ps. lviii. 3. For ov stray (cf. abed,
asleep), ‘Mony a steid Fleand on stray ;’ Barbour’s Bruce, 13. 195.
See Stray.
ASTRICTION, abinding or constriction. (L.) It occursin Bacon,
Nat. Hist. sect. 342; and as‘rimge in the same, sect. 714, The verb
to astrict is in Hall, Hen. VI, an. 37.—L. acc. astrictidnem, from nom.
astrictio, a drawing together, contracting; cf. as/rictus, pp. of astrin-
gere, to bind or draw closely together. See Astringe.
ASTRIDE, on the stride. (E.) In Butler, Hudibras, pt. i. c. ii.
1. 390. For ow s‘ride, tike afoot for on foot.
ASTRINGE, to draw closely together. (L.) In Bacon (see
Astriction); now almost obsolete; we should say ‘acts as an as-
tringent.’ Astringent is in Holland’s Pliny, bk. xxiv. c. 13. § 2.—L.
astringere, pp. astric/us, to bind or draw closely together. — L. ad, to,
closely (> a- before st); anu séringere, to bind closely. See Strin-
gent. Der. astring-ent, asiring-enc-y ; astriciion, q. Vv.
ASTROLOGY, the knowledge ofthe stars. (F. —L.—Gk.) Orig.
practical astronomy; later, astromancy, a pretended and exploded
science. In Chaucer, Treat. on the Astrolabe, Prol. 1. 70 (or 75).—
F. astrologie. = L. astrologia, used to denote ‘astronomy’ also.—Gk.
ἀστρολογία, astronomy. = Gk. ἄστρο-, for ἄστρον, a star, cognate with
E. Star, q.v.; and λέγειν, to speak about, whence -Aoyia, allied to
λόγος, a discourse. Der. astrolog-ic-al, astrolog-ic-al-ly, astrologer.
ASTRONOMY, the science of the stars. (F,—L.—Gk.) In
early use. ME. astronomie, Layamon, ii. 598.—OF. as/ronomie.—L.
as/ronomia. = Gk, ἀστρονομία. = Gk. darpo-, for ἄστρον, a star, cognate
with E. Star, q.v.; and νέμειν, to distribute, dispense, whence -vopia,
allied to νόμος, law. See Nomad. Der. as/ronom-ic-al, astronom-
ic-al-ly, as‘ronomi-er,.... .
ASTUTE, crafty, sagacious. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
[Cotgrave has MF. astué, ‘astute, crafty.’] = L. assi/us, crafty, cunning.
— Le astus, craft, craftiness. Der. astute-ly, astute-ness.
ASUNDER, apart. (E.) For on sunder, a form which occurs in
Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 1. 3909; in 1. 116, we have the form
ATOMY
o sunder. AS. onsundran, adv. * And ledde hi sylfe onsundran’ =
and led them apart by themselves; Mark, ix. 2. See Sunder.
ASYLUM, a place of refuge. (L.—Gk.) ‘A sanctuarie... asylum;’
Holland’s Livy, p. 7.—L. asylum, a sanctuary, place of refuge.— Gk.
ἄσυλον, an asylum; neut. of δα]. ἄσυλος, safe from violence, unharmed. —
Gk. ἀ-, negative prefix ; and σύλη, a right of seizure, συλάω, I despoil
an enemy.
ASYMPTOTE, a line which, though continually approaching a
curve, never meets it within a finite distance. (Gk.) Geometrical.
In Phillips, ed..1706. Barrow, in his Math. Lectures, lect. 9, has
‘asymptotical lines.’ = Gk. ἀσύμπτωτος, not falling together. Gk, d-,
negative prefix; σύν, together (> συμ before 7) ; and πτωτός, falling,
apt to fall, a derivative of πίπτειν, to fall (perf. tense πέ-πτωκα). The
Gk. πίπτειν (Dor. aorist é-mer-ov), is from 4/PET, to fly, to fall. Cf.
L. im-pei-us. Brugm, i. § 116. Der. asymptot-ic-al.
AT, prep. denoting nearness. (E.) In earliest use. AS. ef, Grein,
i. 59.4 Icel. at; Dan. ad; Swed. at; Goth. at; OHG. az (obsolete) ;
L. ad, which enters largely into English. See Ad-.
ATABALTL,, a kettle-drum. (Span.—Arab.) In Dryden, Don Se-
bastian, ActI.sc. 3. Cf. ‘attabalies, which are a kind of drummes;’
Hakluyt, Voy. ili, 480. —Span.a¢abal, a kettle-drum. = Arab, af-, for
al, the; ¢abl,a drum. See Tabour.
ATAGHAN. See Yataghan.
ATAXY, ATAXTA, irregularity of the animal functions. (Gk.)
Ataxia in Kersey (1708). -- Gk. ἀταξία, want of order. — Gk. d-, neg.
prefix; and τάξις, order, from τάσσειν, to arrange. See Tactics.
ATHEISM, disbelief in the existence of God. (Gk.) Bacon has
an essay ‘Of Atheism.’ Milton has atheist, P. L. i. 495 3, and atheous,
P. R. i. “87. All are coined words from the Gk. ἄθεος, denying the
gods, a word introduced into Latin by Cicero in the form atheos, = Gk.
d-, neg. prefix; and θεός, ἃ god. See Theism. Der. atheous, athe-
ism, athe-ist, athe-ist-ic, athe-ist-ic-al. P
ATHIRST, very thirsty. (E.) ‘Achirst, now an adj., is properly a
pp-; and the prefix a- was originally οὐ. The ME. formsare o/thurst,
ofthyrst, corrupted sometimes to a‘hurst, and sometimes to afurst. See
P. Plowman, B. x. 59; also King Horn, ed. Lumby, 1120, Ancren
Riwle, p. 240, where the form is o/ffurst. This form 15. contracted
from ofthursted = made exceedingly thirsty. AS. offyrsted, very
thirsty, Grein, ii. 321; pp. of offyrstan.—AS. of-, intensive prefix,
signifying ‘very;’ and fyrs¢an, to thirst; Grein, ii.614.. See Thirst.
ATHLETE, a contender for victory ina contest; a vigorous person.
(Gk.) Bacon speaks of the ‘art of activity, which is called achletic;’
Ady. of Learning, 11. 10. 1; ed. Wright, p. 133. δῆ should now say
athletics. The L.form athleta occurs in 1528 (N.E.D.).— L. αἰλί δία. =
Gk. ἀθλητής, a combatant, contender in athletic games. — Gk. ἀθχεῖν, to
contend. Gk. ἄθλος, a contest, contracted from ἄεθλος ; ἄθλον, the
prize of a contest, contracted from ἄεθλον. See Wed. Der. aihlet-ic,
athlet-ics.
ATHW ART, across. (E. and Scand.) Orig. an adverb, as in Shak.
Meas, i. 3. 30; later a prep., asin L. L. L.iv. 3.135. Avhirt, across,
occurs in the Romance of Partenay, ed. Skeat, 1. 109. . It stands for
on thirt, on thwert; see Thwart. Ν
ATLAS, a collection of maps. (Gk.) Named after Atlas, a Greek
demi-god who was said to bear the world on his shoulders, and whose
figure used to be given on the title-page of atlases. Cf. Shak. 3 Hen.
VI, v. 1. 36. “AtAas (gen. “AtAavTos) probably means ‘ bearer” or
‘sustainer,’ from the 4/ TEL, to bear, sustain, which appears in Gk.
τλῆναι, to endure, L, ¢odlere, to lift, and ¢olerare, to endure; see Prell-
witz, See Tolerate. Der. Aiélantes, in arch., figures of men used
instead of columns or pilasters (Phillips, ed. 1706), from the Gk. form
for the pl. of A/Jas; also Aélant-ic, the name of the ocean (Milton,
Comus, 97), with reference to Mount Atlas, in the N.W., of Africa.
ATMOSPHERE, the sphere of air round the earth. (Gk.) In
Phillips (1658); and in Pope’s Dunciad, iv. 423. A coined word ;
from Gk. ἀτμο- for ἀτμός, vapour; and opatpa, a sphere. See
Sphere. Der. atmospher-wc, atmospher-ic-al.
ATOLL, a group of coral islands forming a ring. (Maldive Islands.)
‘We derive the expression from the Maldive Islands . . where the
form of the word is atolw. It is prob. connected with the Singhalese
prep. a/ul, inside ;’ Yule.
ATOM, a very small particle. (F.—L.—Gk.) Cudworth, in his
Intellectual System, p. 26, speaks of a‘oms, atomists, and ‘ atomical
physiology.’ Milton has atom, P. L. viii. 18.—F. afome, a mote in
the sun; Cotgrave. = L. atomum, acc. of atomus, an atom. = Gk, ἄτομος,
sb. fem., an indivisible particle; ἄτομος, adj., indivisible. —Gk. ἀ-,
neg. prefix; and τομ-, 2nd grade of τέμνειν, to cut, divide. See Tome.
Der. atom-ic, atom-ic-al, atom-ist.
ATOMY (1), an atom. (L.—Gk.) Shak. has: ‘it is as easy to
count atomies, As You Like It, iii. 2.245. From L. atomi, pl. of
atomus, an atom; by adding the E. pl. suffix -es. See Atom.
ATOMY (2), a skeleton, (F.—L.—Gk.) Short for anatomy,
ATONE.
a9
vu
which was resolved into ax afomy; 2 Hen. IV, v. 4. And see
E. 1). D. See Anatomy.
“ATONE, to set at one; to reconcile. (E.) Made up of the two
words at and one; so that atone means to ‘set at one.’ a. The in-
feresting point is that an old pronunciation of one is here preserved ;
and there are at least two other similar instances, viz. in alone (ME. al
oon), and on-ly (ME. oon-ly). B. The use of atonearose from the frequent
use of ME. at oon (also wnitten at on) inthe phrases ‘ be at oon’ = to
agree, and ‘set at oon,’ i.e. to set at one, to make to agree, to recon-
cile. Examples are: ‘Hii made certein couenaunt that hii were
al at on’ = were all agreed; Rob. of Glouc. p. 113 (1. 2451). ‘Sone
they were at one, with wille αὐ on assent’= they were soon agreed,
with will in one concord; Rob. of Brunne, tr. of P. Langtoft, p. 220.
“If gentil men, or othere of hir contree Were wrothe, she wolde bringen
hem atoon ;’ Chaucer, C. T., E 437, where the two words are run into
one in the Ellesmere MS., as printed. They are similatly run together
in ἃ much earlier passage: ‘A‘on he was wip pe king;’ King Horn,
ed. Lumby, 925. Ὑ-. Particularly note the following from Tyndal:
‘Where thou seest bate or strife betwen person and person, . . leaue
nothing vnsought, to’set them αἱ one ;” Works, p. 193, col. 2. ‘One
God, one Mediatour, that is to say, aduocate, intercessor, or an atone-
maker, between God and man;* Works, p. 158. ‘One mediatour
Christ, . . and by that word vnderstand an ‘at/onemaker, a peacemaker;’
id. p. 431 (Remarks on the Testament of M. W. Tracie). ‘ Hauyng
more regarde to their olde variaunce then their newe atfonement ;’
Sir T. More, Works, p. 41 c (written in 1513, pr. in 1557). See
also the same, p. 40 f (qu. in Richardson), ‘And like as he made
the Jewes and the Gentiles at one betwene themselfes, euen so he
made them bothe a¢ one with God, that there should be nothing to
breake the astonement, but that the thynges in heauen and the thinges
in earth, should be ioined together as it wer into one body;’ Udal,
Eph. ii. 16. ‘Adtonement, a louing againe after a breache or falling
ont ;” Baret, Alvearie,s.v. ‘So beene they both at one;’ Spenser,
F: ΟΣ 101: 29. See also Shak. Rich. II, i. 1. 202; Oth. iv. 1. 244;
Ant. 11. 2, 102; Cymb. i. 4. 42; Timon, v. 4.58; As You Like It,
v. 4. 116; Cor. iv. 6. 725 also’ atonement, Merry Wives, i. 1. 33;
2 Hen. IV, iv. τ. 221; Rich. III, i. 3. 36. Also Ben Jonson, Epiccene,
Act iv. sc. 2 (Truewit to La Foole) ; Massinger, Duke of Milan, Act
iv. sc. 3 (Pescara); Milton, P. L. iii. 234.
set such discord ’twixt agreeing parts Which never can be sef at one-
ment more ;’ Sat. iii. 7. And Dryden: ‘If not atton’d, yet seemingly
at peace ;’ Aurungzebe, Act iii. ‘The word atonement came into use
soon after A.D. 1500. 5. The simple verb oxen, to unite, pp. oned,
occurs in Chaucer, C. T. 7550 (B 1968). N.B. This E. idiom was
perhaps translated from AF. 1] πε peusent estre a un,’ they could not
be at one, could not agree; Le Livre de Reis de Angleterre (Rolls
Series), p. 220. 47 It is to be added that the phrase at once was for
a long period written as one word, spelt atones, or quite as often attones,
attonis, or attonys. See examples in Gloss. to Specimens of English
from 1394 to 1579, ed. Skeat. By introducing the sound of w into once
(wunce), we have again made at once into two words. Der. atone-
ment.
ATRABILIOUS, melancholy. (L.) Kersey (1708) has: ‘ Afra
bilis, black choler;’ a L. translation of Gk. μελαγχολία, black bile.
=L. atra bili-s, black bile; with suffix -ous.
ATROCITY, extreme cruelty. (F.—L.) The adj. atrocious, an
ill-formed word, apparently founded on the F. adj. atroce, heinous, is
not known before 1669. It occurs in Thomson’s Liberty, ii. 305. But
atrocity is much older, and occurs, spelt atrocyée, in Sir T. More’s
Works, p. 1294f (N.E.D.).—F. atrocité, ‘atrocity, great cruelty ;” Cot-
grave.=—L. acc. atrdcitatem, from nom. atrocitas, cruelty. = L. atrécr-,
from atrox, cruel; more lit. horrible, frightful. Root unknown; cf.
ater, black, dark, malicious. From the same source, atroct-ous,
atroct-ous-ly, atroct-ous-ness,
ATROPHY, a wasting away ofthe body. (F.—L.—Gk.) Medi-
cal. It means lit. ‘want of nourishment.’ Milton has: ‘ pining atro-
phy;’ P.L. xi. 486. Holland writes of ‘ no benefit or nutriment of
meat, which they call in Greek atropha;’ Pliny, bk. xxii.c. 25; ii. 143, c.
=F. atrophie; Cot.<L. atrophia. — Gk. arpopia, want of food, hunger,
atrophy.—Gk. d-, neg. prefix; and τρέφειν, to nourish (perf. t. τέ-
tpop-a); allied to Gk. θρέμμα, a nursling.
ATTACH, to take and hold fast; to apprehend. (F.—Teut.)
ME. attachen, to take prisoner, arrest, much in use as a law term.
‘ Attache tho tyrauntz,’ apprehend those cruel men; P. Plowman, B.
ii. 199. — OF. atachier, F. attacher, to attach, fasten; cf. F. détacker,
to detach, unfasten, which is obviously from the same root. B. As
Diez remarks, the root is to be found in the word which appears in
English as tack, with the signification of ‘ peg’ or ‘small nail ;’ so that
to attach is to fasten with a tack or nail, whilst to de¢ach is to unfasten
what has been but loosely held together by such a nail. The prefix is
the OF. prep. a,to=L. ad; and -tacher is probably from the Low G.
| convict.’
ΒΡ: Hall says? ‘Ye . .' |
ATTIRE 37
takk, or E-Frics. takke; see Tack.
attach-é (F. pp.). Doublet, attack.
ATTACK, to assault. (F.—Ital.—Teut.) Rich. remarks that
it is not an-old word in the language. The verb occurs in Milton,
Sams. Agonistes, 1113.—F. attaguer, explained by Cotgrave as ‘to
assault, or set on;’ he does not use the work attack. Attaquer was
borrowed from Ital. atéaccare, ‘to fasten, to ioyne; at/accar batiaglia,
to ioyne battell;’ Florio. —L. ad, to (>at- before δ); and Low G.
takk, a tine, pointed thing; see Tack and Attach. Hence attack
and attach sre doublets. Der. attack, sb.
ATTAIN, to reach to, obtain. (F.—L.) ME. attainen,, atteinen;
“they wenen to afeine to thilke good that they desiren ;’ Chaucer, tr.
of Boethius, b. iv. pr. 2. 1. 192. OF. ateign-, pres. stem of ateindre,
Der. -attach-able, attach-ment,
| ataindre, to reach to, attain; also to punish, accuse, convict (ataindre
in Godefroy). —Folk-L. *attangere ; for L. attingere, to touch upon,
‘to attain.= LL. ad, to(>at- before δ; and tangere, to touch. See
Tangent. Der. attain-able, attain-able-ness, attain-ment; also attainder,
from asubstantival use of OF. infin. ateindre (above), in the sense ‘to
Also attaint (below).
ATTAINT, to convict. (F.—L.) The similarity in sound be-
| tween atiaint and taint has led, probably, to some false law; see the
| remarks about it in Blount’s Law Dictionary.
But etymologically,
and without regard to imported senses, to aftaint is to convict, and
attainder is conviction. As a fact, attaint is a verb that has been
made out of a past participle, viz. the pp. of the verb to attain, used
in a technical sense inlaw. The Prompt. Parv. has: ‘ Atteyntyn, con-
vinco;’ p.16. Palsgrave even has ‘ I at/eynt, I hyt or touche a thyng,’
i.e. atfain it. In the r4th century, we find ME. aéteynt, atternt, ateynt
in the sense of ‘convicted,’ and the verb aé/eyn in the sense of ‘con-
vict.” ¢ And justise of the lond of falsnes was atfeynt’ =and the justice
administered in the land was convicted of falseness; Rob. of Brunne,
tr. of Langtoft, p. 246. ‘To reprove tham at the last day, And to
atteyntham,’i.e. to convict them; Hampole, Prick of Conscience, 5331.
Cf. P. Plowman, C. xxiii. 162.—OF. ateint, afaint, pp. of ateindre, to
attain (above). @[ The sense was affected by confusion with faint
(N. E.D.).
ATTAR OF ROSES, perfumed oil ofroses. (Arabic.) Often
called, less correctly, ‘ofto of roses.’ Byron has ‘atar-gul, ottar of
roses ;’ note to Bryde of Abydos, i. ro. From Arab. ‘i/r, perfume ;
from ‘afira, he smelt sweetly. See Richardson’s Arab. Dict. p. 1014;
and ofto in Yule.
ATTEMPER, to temper, qualify. (F.—L.) Now little used. ME.
attempren, atempren. ‘ Atempreth the lusty houres of the firste somer
sesoun ;’ Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. i. met. 2. OF. atemprer (F. at-
tremper), to modify. = OF. a, to (L.ad); and ¢emprer, to temper, from
L. temperare, to moderate, control. See Temper.
ATTEMPT, to try, endeavour. (F.—L.) ‘For to attempt his
fansie by request ;’ Surrey, tr. of AEneid, bk. iv. 1.142. [Nor in Gower,
C.A. i. 287.] = OF. atempter, to undertake ; Roquefort. The simple
verb tempter was also spelt tenter, canter; Burguy. Hence atempier
is a Latinised form of an older atenter, which appears as attenter in
the Supp. to Godefroy. = L. attentare, often a/temptare, to attempt. —
L. ad (becoming at- before ¢); and dentare, to try, endeavour ; so that
‘attempt’ is to ‘try at.” See Tempt. Der. aitempt, sb.
ATTEND, to wait upon, to heed. (F.—L.) ‘The Carthage lords
did on the quene at/end;” Surrey, Virgil, Ain. b. iv.1.171. The sbs.
attencioun and attendance occut in Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. ii. pr.
1,123; C. T. 6515 (Ὁ 933).—OF. atendre, to wait. = L. attendere, pp.
attentus, to stretch towards, think upon, give heed to.—L. at-, for ad,
to; and fendere, to stretch. See Tend (1). Der. attend-ance, attend-
ant; and, from L. pp. attentus, we have attent, adj. (2 Chron. v1. 40, vii.
15); cf. attent-ion, attent-ive, attent-ive-ly, attent-ive-ness.
ATTENUATEH, to make thin. (L.) It occurs in Elyot, Castel of
Health, bk. ii.c. 7. § 6; Bacon, Nat. Hist. sect. 299. Formed, like
other words in -a’e, from a past participle. L. attenudtus, thin, pp.
of attenuiire, to make thin. = L. ad- ( >at- before 2) ; and tenuare, to
make thin, from ¢evzis, thin. See Thin. Der. attenuat-ion.
ATTEST, to bear witness to. (L.) In Shak. Hen. V, iii. 1. 22.—
L. attestar?, to bear witness to; pp. aitest@tus.— L. ad (> at- before #);
and festari, to be witness, from /esfis, a witness. See Testify. Der.
attest-at-ion,
ATTIC, a low-built top story of a house, or a room in the same.
(F.—L.—Gk.) ‘A term in architecture, comprehending the whole of
a plain or decorated parapet wall, terminating the upper part of the
facade of an edifice;’ Eng. Cyclopedia, s.v. ‘ A7tick, in arch., a kind
of order, after the manner of the city of Athens; in our buildings, a
small order placed upon another that is much greater;’ Kersey’s Dict.,
ed, 1708. —F. attique, upper part of a building ; so called as belonging
to the Attic order of architecture. —L. Atficus.— Gk. ’Artixds, Attic,
Athenian. Σὲ
ATTIRE, apparel,’dress; vb., to adorn, dress. (F.) In early
38 ATTITUDE
use. a. Thesb. is ME. atyr, atir (with one 2), and is derived from
the verb. ‘ Mid his fourti cnihtes and hire hors and hire atyr’ =with
his forty knights and their horses and their apparel; Layamon, |. 3275
(later text). In William of Palerne, 1. 1725, it is spelt tyr; in 1.1147,
it is atir. B. The verb is ME. atyren, atiren (mostly with one 2).
“Hii . . . newe knightes made And armede and atired hem’ = they
made new knights and armed and equipped them; Rob. of Glouc.
p- 547, 1.11370. The sb. appears as atir, atyr in AF. (Godefroy), but
not, apparently, in continental French. y. From OF. atzrier, atierer
(atirer in Godefroy), to arrange, set in order, equip, adorn. —OF. a
(from L. ad, to) and tiere, fire (tire in Godefroy), f., a row, rank,
order ; cognate with OProv. tiera, a row (Bartsch). Whether this is
the same word as mod. E. ¢ier, is doubtful; and the remoter origin
of this OF. tiere still remains undecided. See Tier. Diez would
connect it with OHG. ziar7, (ἃ. zier, ornament; see Diez, ed. 1878,
p- 687; Korting, § 9464. 47 As the prefix a- was unaccented, it was
often thrown off in English, as in the well-known text: ‘she painted
her face, and tired her head ;’ 2 Kings, ix. 30. The sb. tire, a head-
dress, is common in the Bible (Isaiah, iii. 18; Ezek. xxiv. 17, 23;
Judith, x. 3, xvi. 8). See Tire (2) and (3).
ATTITUDE, position, posture. (Ital.—L.) ‘’Tis the business
ofa painter in his choice of attitudes to foresee the effect and harmony
of the lights and shadows;’ Dryden, Dufresnoy, sect. 4. This, being
aword connected with the painter’s art, came from Italy. = Ital. αὐδὶ-
tudine, aptness, skill, attitude. = L. aptitidinem, acc. of aptitido, apti-
tude. See Apt. @ Ital. assimilates 22 into 2. Der. attitud-in-al,
attitud-in-ise. Doublet, aptitude.
ATTORNEY, an agent appointed to act in the ‘turn’ of another.
(F.—L. and Gk.) ME. attourné, aturneye, ‘ Aturneye, suffectus, at-
turnatus ;” Prompt. Parv. p.17. ‘ Attourneis in cuntre thei geten silver
fornoht;’ Polit. Songs, p. 339. —OF. a/orné, pp. of atorner, to direct,
turn, prepare, arrange or ordain. OF. a, to (L. ad); and torner, to
turn, from /ornare, to turn, esp. to turn in a lathe (of Gk. origin).
See Turn. Der. atiorney-ship.
ATTRACT, to draw to, allure. (L.) Used by Grafton, Rich. III,
an. 2. Shak. has attract, Tw. Nt. ii. 4. 89; attraction, Timon, iv. 3.
439; atlractive, Haml.iii. 2.117. Formed, like convict, from a past
participle. - L. attractus, pp. of atirahere, to draw to, attract. —L. ad
(Sat- before ὃ ; and ¢rahere,todraw. See Trace (1). Der. attract-
able, atiract-ib-il-it-y, attract-ion, attract-ive, attract-ive-ly, attract-ive-
ness.
ATTRIBUTE, a quality ascribed to a person or thing; as vb., to
assign, ascribe. (L.) Formed, like attract, from a past participle. The
sb. is in Shak. Merch. iv. 1. 191; the verb in Sir T. More, Works,
p-1121d.—L. attributus, pp. of attribuere, to assign. = L. ad, to (>at-
before 2); and /ribuere, to give, bestow. See Tribute. Der.
at‘ribut-able, attribut-ion, attribut-ive.
ATTRITION, a wearing by friction. (F.—L.) Formerly in use
in a theological sense, as expressing sorrow for sin without shrift; after
shrift, such sorrow became contrition; see Tyndal, Works, p. 148,
col. 2; Chaucer, Troil. i. 557. [Perhaps from Latin directly.] =F.
attrition, ‘a rubbing, fretting, wearing;’ Cotgrave.=L. acc. atiri-
tidnem, from nom. attritio, a rubbing, wearing away; allied to L.
attritus, rubbed away, pp. of atterere.—L. ad (> at- before δ) ; and
terere, torub. See Trite.
ATTUNE, to make to harmonise, put in tune. (Hybrid; L. and
Gk.) A coined word. In Spenser, F.Q. i.12.7. Made by prefixing
L. ad (which in composition becomes at- before 2) to the sb. tune, so
that attune is to ‘ bring to a like tune or tone.’ See Tune.
AUBURN, reddish brown. (F.—L.) ME. auburne, awburne. ‘Aw-
burne coloure, citrinus ;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 17. Thus the old sense
was ‘citron-coloured’ or light yellow. The modern meaning was
probably due to some confusion in the popular mind with the word
brown; indeed Hall, in his Satires, bk. iii. Sat. 5, speaks of ‘abron
locks,’ which perhaps suggested this. —OF. alborne, auborne, blond
(Godefroy). (Cf. Ital. alburno, of which one of the old meanings,
given by Torriano, is ‘ that whitish colour of women’s hair called an
aburn colour.’|—Late L. alburnus, whitish, light-coloured; Du-
cange. Cf. L. alburnum, the sap-wood, or inner bark of trees (Pliny).
=L. albus, white. See Alb.
AUCTION, a public sale to the highest bidder. (L.) A ‘sale
by auction’ is a sale by ‘increase of price,’ till the article is knocked
down to the highest bidder. Auction occurs in Kersey (1708); and
in Pope, Moral Essays, iii, 119.—L. auctidnem, acc. of auctio, a sale
by auction, lit. an ‘increase ;’ allied to L. auctus, pp. of augére, to
increase. See Eke. Der. auction-eer.
AUDACIOUS, bold, impudent. (F.—L.) Ben Jonson has
“audacious ornaments ;’ The Silent Woman, A. ii. se. 5. Bacon has
audacitie, Nat. Hist. sect. 943.—F. audacieux, ‘bold, stout, hardy,
. audacious,’ &c.; Cot. Formed as if froma L. form *auddcidsus,
which again is from L, axdaci-, from audax, bold, daring. = L. audére,
AURICULAR
to be bold, to dare. Der. audacious-ly, audacious-ness ; also audacity,
from L. ace. auddcitatem, nom. audaci/as, boldness.
AUDIENCE, hearing, an assembly of listeners. (F.—L.) In
Chaucer, C. T. 5093 (B 673); and tr. of Boethius, b. ii. pr. 7, 1. So.
Sir Τὶ More has audible, Works, p. 1259c.—F. audience, ‘an audi-
ence or hearing ;’ Cot. = L. audientia, attention, hearing. = L. audire,
pp- auditus, to hear. For *auiz-dire; cf. Gk. αἰσθέσθαι, to perceive
(for *afio-0€c0a) ; Brugm. i. § 240. Der. From L. audire, to hear,
we have also audi-ble, audi-ble-ness, audi-bly, From the pp. axditus,
we have audit (Keisey, 1708, cf. L. auditus, sb., a hearing); cf. also
audit-or (spelt auditour in Gower, C. A. ii. 191, bk. v. 1919), audit-or-y,
audit-or-ship.
AUGER, a centre-bit,a tool for boring holes. (E.) ‘An axgoure,
terebrum ;’ Levins, 222. 38. A corruption of nauger. Like adder,
and some other words, it has lost an initial x, It is spelt nauger in
Wright’s Vol. of Vocabularies, 1st Series, p. 170. In Halliwell’s
Dict. we find; ‘ Navegor, an auger, a carpenter’s too!. This word
occurs in an inventory dated A.D. 1301, and in Nominale MS.’ AS.
nafugar, nafogar, an auger, ‘foratorium uel terebellum ;’ Wright’s
γος. 408. 39 ; early spelling nabogar, id. 44.11. It means, literally,
a nave-piercer, being used for boring the hole in the centre of a wheel
for the axle to pass through.—AS. nafu, nabu, the nave of a wheel
(see Nave (1)); and gar, a piercer, that which gores (see Gore
(3))-4-Du. avegaar (for navegaar) ; Icel. nafarr; Dan. naver ; Swed.
nafvare; OHG. nabager. Cf. Du. naafboor, an auger, from πααΐ,
nave, and boren, to bore,
AUGHT, a whit, anything. (E.) Very variously spelt in ME.,
which has awiht, eawiht, eawt, ewt, aht, aght, aught, ouht, ought, out,
oht, oght. ‘ Yif he awiht delan wule’=if he will give aught; O. Eng.
Homilies, i. 103, AS. Gwiht, aught, Grein, i. 48; lit. ‘e’er a whit,’
or ‘anything whatever.’—AS. d, ever; and wiht, a wight, creature,
thing, whit. See Aye and Whit.
AUGMENT, to increase. (F.—L.) ‘My sorowes to augment;’
Remedie of Love (15th cent.), anon. poem in old editions of Chaucer’s
Works, st. 13; and see Rom. Rose, 5597.—F. augmenter, ‘to aug-
ment, increase ;’ Cot.—L. augmentare, to enlarge, pp. augmentatus.
— L. augmentum, an increase, augment. = L. aug-ére, to increase; with
suffix -mentum. See Auction. Der. augment-able, augment-at-ion,
augment-at-ive. The sb. augment is (etymologically) more original
than the verb.
AUGUR, a soothsayer, a diviner by the flight and cries of birds.
(L.) Gower has augurre, C. A. ii. 82; bk. iv. 2404. Chaucer has
augurie, Troil. v. 380.—L. augur, a priest at Rome, who foretold
eyents, and interpreted the will of the gods from the flight and sing-
ing of birds. Hence it is usual to derive augur from auis,a bird. li
it be right, the etym. is from awi-, forauis,a bird, and -gur, telling, ‘ gur
being connected with garrire, garrulus, and the Skt. gar or gr, to
shout ;᾿ Max Miiller, Lect. on Science of Lang. ii. 266 (8th ed.). Cf.
L. au-ceps, a bird-catcher. Der. augur-y (OF. augurie, L. augur-ium),
augur-al, augur-ship; also in-augurate,q.v. And see Auspice.
AUGUST, adj., venerable. (L.) Dryden, Virgil, Aen. i: 825, has:
‘Augtist in visage, and serenely bright.—L. augustus, honoured,
venerable. Cf. Skt. djas, strength; Brugm. i. § 213. Allied to
Auction. Der. August, the 8th month, named after Augustus (i.e.
the honoured) Cxsar; Augus!-an, august-ly, august-ness.
AUK, a sea-bird. (Scand.) Given by Edmondston as an Orkney
word, and by Ray as Northern.—Swed. alka, an auk: Icel. alka,
alka: Dan. alke (see Falk and Torp). Hence L. alca, a Latinised
form.
AUNT, a father’s or mother’s sister. (F.—L.) ME. aunte, Rob.
of Gloue. p. 37,1. 871.—OF. ante, aunte (mod. Norman ante, corrupted
to ‘awe in mod. F.).—L. amita,a father’s sister. Cf. Icel. amma,
a grandmother, OHG. amma, mother, mamma; the mod. G. amme
means ‘nurse.’ @J For the change of m to x before ¢, see Ant.
AUREATE, golden. (L.) Formerly aureat, a word first used by
Lydgate, as in A Balade in Commendation of Our Lady, ]. 13; and
common in some of the older Scotch poets. ‘The awreat fanys,’ the
golden streamers; G. Douglas, Prol. to Ain. bk. xii. 1. 47.—Late L.
auredtus, golden; a corrupted form due to confusion with aure-
us, golden, adj. The correct form is L. auratus, gilded, pp. of
aurare, to gild,a verb not in use. =L. aurum, gold; old form, ausum.
Cf. Lith. auksas, gold. Der. From L. aurum we have aur-elia (Ital.
aurelia), the gold-coloured chrysalis of an insect ; aur-e-ola, aur-e-ole,
the halo of golden glory in paintings (spelt auriole in Hali Meidenhad,
p- 23, from L. cordéna aureola, Exod. xxv. 25, Vulgate); aur-ic,
golden; aur-iferous, gold-producing, from L. ferre, to produce,
cognate with Εἰς, bear; also or (3), oryflamme, oriole, dory.
AURICULAR, told in the ear, secret. (L.) Well known in the
phrase ‘ auricular confession.’ Udal speaks of it, Reuel. of St. John,
c. 21. vy. 21-27; and Grafton, K. John, an. 14; cf. Shak. K. Lear,
i. 2. 99.— Late L. auricularis, in the phr. aurtcularis confessio, secret
AUROCHS
confession. = L. awricula, the lobe of the ear; double dimin. from the
stem auri- of L. auris, the ear. See Har (1). Der. From L. auricula
we have auricle, the outer ear; pl. auricles, two ear-like cavities of
the heart ; awricula, the ‘ bear's ear,’ a kind of primrose, named from
the shape of its leaves, Thomson, Spring, 536; awricul-ar, auricul-
ar-ly, auricul-ate. From L. auris we have auri-form, aur-ist.
AUROCHS, the European bison. (G.) Properly the name of an
extinct wild ox.=—G. auwrochs; MHG. irokse.mMUHG. ar, cognate
with AS. a, an aurochs (whence L. arus) ; and OHG. ohso, G. ochse,
cognate with E. Ox.
AURORA, the dawn. (L.). In Shak. Romeo, i. 1. 142.—L.
aurora, the dawn, the goddess of the dawn; which stands for an older
form *dusdsa.4-Gk. ἠώς, AEolic atws, Attic ἕως, dawn, fcr pre-
historic *avcws ; Skt. ushas, dawn. Brugmann, i. § 930. See Hast.
Cf. Aurora-borealis, i.e. northern dawn or dawn-like halo; from L.
Boreas, the North wind.
AUSCULTATION, a listening. (L.) First used in 1634
(N. E. D.); now chiefly medical, applied to the use of the stetho-
scope. = L. auscul/ationem, acc. of auscultatio, a listening; from auscul-
ἄγε, to listen. =—L. *aus-, base of aurts (for *ausis), the ear ; and
-cultare, as in oc-cultare, to hide; see Occult. See Auricular and
Ear (1).
AUSPICEH, a prognostic, prosperous lead, favour, patronage.
(F.—L.) Used by Dryden in the sense of ‘patronage;’ Annus
Mirabilis, st. 288; and see ‘ The Auspices’ in Introd. to Ben Jonson's
Masque of Hymen. Shak. has auspicious, Temp. i. 2.1825 ν. 314.—
F. auspice, ‘a sign, token... of things by the flight of birds; also,
fortune, lucke, or a luckie beginning of matters;’ Cote— L. ausficium,
a watching of birds for the purpose of augury. A contraction of
*auispicium, = L. aui-, stem of auis, a bird; and spicere, specere, to spy,
look into, cognate with E. spy. See Aviary and Species. Der.
pl. auspices; and (from L. auspicium), auspici-ous, ausptci-ous-ly, aus-
pict-ous-ness.
AUSTERE, harsh, rough, severe. (F.—L.—Gk.) In early use.
‘He was fulle axstere;’ Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 54.-
OF. austere, which Cotgrave explains by ‘austere, severe, stern,’ &c.
= L. austérus, harsh, tart, sour to the taste; also, severe, rigorous.
=-Gk. αὐστηρός, making the tongue dry, harsh.—Gk. αὖος, dry,
withered, parched, sere; avery, Attic avew,to parch,dry. See Sere.
Der. austere-ly, austere-ness, auster-i-ly.
AUSTRAL, southern. (L.; or F.—L.) The use of L. Auster
for the South wind occurs in Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. ii. met. 3,
1.9. Theadj. australe isin Cockeram (1642); ME. austral (N.E.D.).
(Perhaps directly from Latin.]—F. australe, southerly ; Cot.—L.
Australis, southerly.—L. Auster, the South wind. It probably meant
‘burning.’ See Aurora. Der. Austral-ia, Austral-ian, Austral-asia
(from Asia), Austral-asian.
AUTHENTIC, original, genuine. (F.-L.—Gk.) In early use.
ME. autentik, autentique, auctentyke. Spelt auctentyke in Hampole,
Pricke of Conscience, 7116.—OF. autentique, auctentique, later au-
thentique, which is the form in Cotgrave, who explains it by ‘ authen-
tick, authenticall, of good authority ;’ the E. and F. words having
been alike modified by reference to the original Greek. —L. authen-
ticus, original, written by the author’s own hand. =—Gk. αὐθεντικός,
authentic, vouched for, warranted.—Gk. αὐθέντης, one who does
things with his own hand; the same as αὐτο-έντης, a murderer
(Sophocles). — Gk. αὐτό-ς, himself, which became αὐθ- before an as-
pirate; and év7-, connected (by gradation) with L. sont-, stem of
sons, guilty, and with E. sin; sce Sin. Der. authentic-al, authentic-
al-ly, authentic-ate, authentic-at-ton, authentic-t-ty. Cf. effendi.
AUTHOR, the originator of a book or work. (F.—L.) ME.
autor, autour, auctor, auciour; Chaucer, C. T. 9017 (E1141). The
pl. autors is in K. Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 4519. For the spelling
authour, see Rom. Rose, l. 7.— OF. auteur, auctcr, auctour (Supp. to
Godefroy, p. 241).—L. auctorem, acc. of auctor, an originator, lit.
‘one who makes a thing to grow.’=L. augére, pp. auct-us, to make
to grow. See Auction. Der. author-ess, author-ship, author-i-ly,
author-i-tal-ive, author-t-tat-ive-ly, author-ise (spelt auctorize in Gower,
C. A. ili. 134, bk. vii. 1480) ; author-is-at-ion. @ The form au/hour,
for autour, was at first a mere scribal variant; but this newer spelling
affected the pronunciation, and at last established the present sound.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY, a life ofa man written by himself. (Gk.)
Modern. Made by prefixing aufo-, from Gk. αὐτο-, stem of αὐτός,
self, to biography, q. v. Der. autobiograph-ic, -graph-ic-al, -graph-er.
AUTOCRACY, self-derived power, absolute and despotic govern-
ment by one man. (Gk.) Spelt aufocrasie in Phillips (1658) ; axto-
crasy in South’s Sermons, vol. viii. ser. 10 (R.) ; see Todd.—Gk. av-
τοκράτεια, absolute government. — Gk. αὐτο-, stem of αὐτός, self; and
-κράτεια (in compounds), from «paréev, to rule, which is from «parus,
strong, cognate with E. Hard. Der. autocrat (Gk. attoxpatns), auto-
crat-ic-al.
AVARICE
AUTO-DA-FE, a judgment of the Inquisition ; also, the execution
of such judgment, when the decree or sentence is read to the victims.
(Port.—L.) Lit. ‘act of faith.’— Port. auto, action, decree; da, for
de a, of the; fé, faith. [The Span. form is auto de μὲ: without the
Span. art. Ja = Port. art. a.]—L. actum, ace. of actus, act, deed; dé, pre-
position ; il/a, fem. of ille, he ; idem, acc. of fides, faith. See Act
and Faith. Worcester’s Dict. has the following note: ‘as the details
οἵ an Guto-da-fe were first made familiar to the English public in an
account of the Inquisition at Goa (a Port. colony in the E. Indies),
published in the 17th [18th] century, the Port. form of the phrase has
generally prevailed in E. literature.’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates, has:
“20 persons perish at an auto-da-fe, at Goa, A.D. 1717; Malagrida,
a Jesuit, burnt at Lisbon, 176r.’
AUTOGRAPH, something in one’s own handwriting. (F.—L.—
Gk.) Used by Anthony ἃ Wood to cenote an original MS. ; see the
quotation in Kichardson from his Athencze Oxonienses.—Spelt auto-
grapkum in Kersey (1708).—F. autographe, ‘written with his own
hand;’ Cot.=—L. autographus, adj.; autographum, sb.— Gk. αὐτύγρα-
«pos, written with one’s ownhand; airéypapor,an original. - Gk. αὐτο-,
stem of adrds, self; and γράφειν, to write. Der. autograph-ic, auto-
graph-y.
AUTOMATON, ἃ self-moving machine. (Gk.) In Beaum, and
Fletcher, Lloody Brother, iv. 1 (Latorch); and in Boyle’s Works,
vol. v. p. 251. Browne, inhis Vulg. Errors, b. v. c. 18, § 1, uses the
adj. automatous.— Gk. αὐτόματον, neut. of αὐτόματος, self-moving. =
Gk. αὐτο-, stem of αὐτός, self; and -patds, allied to Skt. matas,
thought, considered, known, pp. of man, to think; see Benfey, s. v.
man.=— 4/MEN, to think. Brugm. i. § 387. See Mind. Der. pl.
automatons or automata; automat-ic, automat-ic-al, automat-ic-al-ly.
AUTONOMY, self-government. (Gk.) In Cockeram (1623).—
Gk. αὐτονομία, independence. — Gk. αὐτόνομος, free, living by one’s
own laws.=—Gk. αὐτο-, stem of αὐτός, self; and νομ-, 2nd grade of
νέμομαι, | sway, middle voice of νέμω, I distribute. See Nomad.
Der. avionom-ous, from Gk. αὐτόνομος.
AUTOPSY, personal inspection. (Gk.) Used by Ray, On the
Creation; and by Cudworth, Intellectual System, p. 160 (R.)— Gk.
αὐτοψία, a seeing with one’s own eyes.—Gk. αὐτο-, stem of αὐτός,
self; and cys, sight. See Optic. Der. autoptic-al (Phillips, 1658).
AUTUMN, the harvest time of the year. (F.—L.) Spelt antompne
in Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. i. met. 2, 1. 17. — OF. autompne (Hatz-
feld).=—L. autumnum, acc. of avtumnus, auctumnus, autumn. By some
connected with augére (pp. actus), to increase, as being the season of
produce. Der. autumn-al.
AUXILIARY, adj., helping; sb., a helper. (L.) Holland, Livy,
P- 433) Speaks of ‘ auxiliarie or aid souldiers lightly armed.’ = L. auxt-
liarius, auxiliaris, assisting, aiding. = L. awxilinm, help, assistance. =
L. augére, to increase. See Auction.
AVADAVAT, a finch-like FE. Indian bird. (Arab. and Pers.) ‘A
corruption of amaduvad, the name by which the bird is known to
Anglo-Indians, and under which it was figured, in 1735, by Albin,
Suppl. Nat. Hist. Birds, pl. 77, p.72. Jerdon (Birds of India, ii. 361)
says that Blyth has shown that this word took its origin from the city
of Ahmedabad, whence the bird used to be imported into Europe in
numbers.’—A. Newton, in N. and Ὁ. 6S. ii. 198. Ahmedabad is near
the Gulf of Cambay, on the W. coast of Hindostan ; and its name is
derived from Ahmed, a proper name, and the Pers. abad, city. Ahmed
is from Arab. akmad, very laudable, Rich. Dict. p. 33; from the root
hamada, he praised; see Mohammedan. For Pers. abad, see
Horn, § 4.
AVAIL, to be of value or use. (F.—L.) ME. auailen (x for v).
‘Avaylyn or profytyn;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 17. Spelt auail, Cursor
Mundi, 1. 90. Hampole has avai/es, Pricke of Conscience, ]. 3587.
The compound verb was not used in the French of the continent ; it
was made by prefixing the OF. a (=L. ad, to) to the OF, vail, 1 p.
pr. 5. of valoir, to be of use, from L. walére, to be strong. Der. avail-
able, avail-abl-v. The simple form appears in valiant, q.v.
AVALANCHE, a fall of snow. (F.—L.) Modern. In Cole-
ridge’s Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni, and in Byron’s Manfred, Act
isc. 2.1.77. =F. avalanche, a descent of snow into the valley; given
by Cotgrave in the form avallanche, ‘a great falling or sinking down,
as of earth, &c.’ =F. avaler, which in mod. F. means ‘ to swallow,’ but
Cotgrave also gives, 5.ν. avaller, the senses ‘ to let, put, cast, lay, fell
down, to let fall down,’=F. aval, downward; common in OF.as opposed
to amont, upward (L. ad montem, towards the hill). = OF. a val, from
L. ad uallem, towards the valley; hence, downward. See Valley.
AVARICE, greediness after wealth. (F.—L.) ME. auarice (vas
v); used by Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. ii. pr. 5,1. 11; Wyclif,
1 Kings, vili. 3.— OF. avanisce, avarice.—L. anaritia, avarice. - L.
auarus, greedy ; cf. L. auidus, greedy. = L. auére, to wish, desire. Cf.
Skt. av, to be pleased, to desire. Der. avarici-ous, avarici-cus-ly,
avarict-OUseNess,
39
40 AVAST
AVAST, hold fast, stop. (Dutch or Span.) ‘Avast, stop, hold, or
stay;’ Kersey (1708). It occurs in Poor Jack, a sea-song by C. Dib-
din, died A.D. 1814. 1. Perhaps from Du. hou vast, hold fast. How,
short for zoud, is the imp. 5. of Auden, cognate with E. hold. Vast is
cognate with E. fast. 2. Otherwise it may be from Span. abasto, ‘as
much as need, enough, sufficiently,’ Minsheu; the Span. ὃ being taken
asan E.v. Pineda, in his Eng.-Span. vocabulary, has: ‘ Avast, basta.’
Cf. Port. abasta, it is enough; mod. Prov. abasto (sea-term), it is
enough (Mistral); Ital. bas¢a, it is enough.
AVATAR, the descent of a Hindu deity in an incarnate form.
(Sanskrit.) Modern. ‘ The Irish Avatar ;’ a poem by Byron. An
English modification of Skt. avatara-s, m., descent. = Skt. ava, down ;
and “γ΄, tar, to pass over.
AVAUNT, begone! (F.—L.) In Shak. Mer. Wives, i. 3. 90, &c.;
Skelton, against Garnesche, iv. 112.— AF. avaunt, OF. avant, forward !
on!=—L. ab ante. See Advance.
AVS, hail! (L.) As mostly used, it is short for Avé, Maria, i.e.
hail, Mary! alluding to St. Luke, i. 28, where the Vulgate version
has: ‘ Ave gratia plena.’ Spenser Englishes the phrase by Ave-Mary,
F. Q.i. 1.35. Cf Chaucer, ABC, 104.—L. aué! hail! imp. sing. of
auére, to fare well.
AVENGE, to take vengeance for an injury. (F.—L.) ‘This
sinne of ire...is wikked wil to be auenged by word or by dede;’
Chaucer, Pers. Tale, De Ira (I 535).—OF. avengier, to avenge (Bur-
guy). — OF. a, prefix (L. ad, to); and vengier, to revenge, take ven-
geance, from L. windicare, to lay claim to; also, to punish, revenge.
See Vindicate. ὲ
AVENS, name of a flower. (F.) AF. avence, explained by λαγε-
fot, hare-foot; Voc. 555. 6. Also OF. avence; med. L. avencia,
avantia. Origin unknown.
AVENUE, an approach, esp. an alley shaded by trees forming
the approach to a house. (F.—L.) Spelt advenue in Holland's Livy,
p- 413, but avenue at p. 657 (R.)—F. avenue, also spelt advennue by
Cotgrave, and explained by ‘an access, passage, or entry unto a
place.’ It is the fem. pp. of the verb avenir or advenir (Cotgrave),
used in the Latin sense of ‘to come to.’—L. aduenire, to come to. =
L. ad; and uenire, to come, cognate with E. come, q.v.
AVER, to affirm to be true. (F.—L.) In Shak. Cymb.y. 5. 203.
=F. averer, ‘to aver, avouch, verifie, witness ;’ Cotgrave. — Late L.
duérare, aduéraire, to prove a thing to be true; Ducange. A coined
word, from L. ad, prep. to, and uérum, truth, a true thing, neut. of
uerus, true. See Verity. Der. aver-ment; in Blackstone, Comment.
θεῖν, Ὁ, 20»:
AVERAGE, a medial or equalised estimate of a series or number
of things; an arithmetical mean. (F.) See the N.E.D. for the
numerous senses at different dates. Thus it meant (1) a duty, tax,
impost; (2) an extra charge on goods above the freight; (3) expense
or loss to owners, due to damage at sea; (4) the mode of incidence
of such loss, estimated proportionally ; (5) the distribution of the
aggregate inequalities of a number of things, with a view to equalise
them, a medial estimate; (6) the arithmetical mean thus obtained.
B. It first occurs, with the sense of duty, tax, or custom, in Arnold’s
Chron. (1502), p. 180: ‘ And ouer that alle manere of grauntis . . .
of your custumes or subsidyes or average.’ And, in sense 2, in the
same, p. 112: ‘And ouer that to pai or doo pay all maner anerays ;’
with a somewhat different spelling. γ. The spelling average seems
to be English only, and substituted for avaries, a pl. formed from F.
avarie (below); and perhaps Arnold’s spelling averays points back to
the same form.—F. avarie, damage, injury to goods, extraordinary
expenses for goods (see Hatzfeld) ; Cot. has avaris (for avaries, pl.?),
“decay of wares or merchandise; . . the charges of the carriage . .
thereof.’ Cognate forms are Span. averia, haberia, ‘the custom paid
for goods that are exported’ (Pineda); Port. avaria; Ital. averia,
‘an account made by the crew of a ship of the loss they have had at
sea’ (Baretti); Late L. avaria, averia. Orig. a Mediterranean mari-
time term, signifying ‘duty charged on goods’ (G. P. Marsh, in
N. E.D.). Origin unknown; but perhaps from MSpan. averes, haveres,
‘goods, wealth, substance’ (Minsheu), haberes, ‘ substance, wealth,
or riches’ (Pineda) ; which is from the infin. aver, to have, spelt haber
(Pineda), used substantively, like F. avoir, and Ital. hauere, ‘to have...
also wealth, riches, goods’ (Florio), @ Not from Arab. ‘avar,
damage, which is merely borrowed from Ital. avaria, in a late sense.
N.B. The form average may very well have been due to confusion
with another E. word average, now usually represented by arriage in
the phrase " arriage and carriage,’ the sense of which was some kind
of service due by tenants to the feudal superior, and derived from OF.
average, an ill-coined term due, apparently, to OF. ovre, work (L.
opera), and confused with aver, which meant property or cattle. See
the whole account in N.E.D., where this dificult word is fully
discussed.
AVERT, to turn aside. (L.) “1 averte, I tourne away a thyng ;’
AVOUCH
Palsgrave, French Dict. (1530).—L. dauertere, to turn away. =L. a,
short form of ab, abs, away, from; and wertere,totum. See Verse.
Der. (From L. aversus, pp. of avertere) averse, Milton, P. L. ii. 763,
averse-ly, averse-ness, avers-ion, @ The F. avertir=L. aduertere, and
is therefore a different word.
AVIARY, a place for keeping birds. (L.) ‘ For aviaries, I like
them not ;’ Bacon, Essay 46; Of Gardens, = Το. auidrium, a place for
birds; neut. of adj. auiarius, belonging to birds. —L. aui-, stem of
auis, abird. Cf. Gk. ἀετός, αἰετός (for *aiferés), an eagle; Brugm.
i. § 205 (3).
AVIDITY, greediness, eagerness. (F.—L.) In Phillips (1658).
The pl. avidities is in Boyle’s Works, ii. 317.—F. avidité, ‘ greedi-
nesse, covetousnesse, extreame lust, ardent affection, eager desire ;’
Cotgrave (who has not ‘ avidity’ as an English word). =—L. ace. aui-
dititem, from nom. auiditas, eagerness. — L. auidus, greedy, desirous.
=L. auére, to crave. See Avarice.
AVOCATION, pursuit, employment, business. (L.) ‘Avocation,
a calling away;’” Phillips(1658). Used by Dryden (‘Todd’s Johnson);
also in Boyle, Occas. Reflections, 5. 2, med.6. Not found in French,
but formed with the common F, suffix -tion (L. acc. -tidnem), from L.
auocatio, a calling away. of the attention, a diverting of the thoughts;
hence, a diversion, amusement. It is in this sense that Boyle uses it.
He says: ‘In the time of health, visits, businesses, cards, and I know
not how many other avocations, which they justly stile diversions, do
succeed one another so thick, that in the day there is no time left for
the distracted person to converse with his own thoughts.’ Dryden (in
Todd’s Johnson) speaks of the ‘avocations of business.’ — L. duocare, to
call away; pp. Guocatus, = L. ὦ, for ab, away; and wocare, to call. See
Vocal, β. The word has gradually changed its meaning from ‘di-
versions’ to ‘necessary employments,’ by confusion with OF. avocation,
advocation, which sometimes meant a profession (Godetroy), and is
derived from L. aduocatio, with prefix ad-.
AVOCET, AVOSET, a wading bird. (F.—Ital.) In a tr. of
Buffon, 1792; il. 120.—F. avocette. Ital. avosetta, ‘a fowle like a
storke;’ Florio. Prof. Newton (Dict. of Birds) says it is Ferrarese,
and by some is considered to be a derivative of L. auis, a bird (un-
likely). The Ital. word is also spelt avoserta (Florio).
AVOID, to get out of the way of, to shun. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. auoiden
(ὦ for v), auoyden. ‘Auoyden, evacuo, devacuo; avoydyd, evacuatus;’
Promp. Pary. p. 19. In ME. it-is generally transitive, meaning (1) to
empty, (2) to remove, (3) to go away from; but also intransitive,
meaning (1) to go away, (2) to flee, escape. Of these, the true original
sense is ‘to empty,’ as in ‘avoyd thou thi trencheze’ = empty your plate,
Babees Book, p. 23. In Eccles. xiii. 6 (xiii. 5 in A. V.) the Vulgate
version has: ‘Si habes, conuiuet tecum, et euacuabit te;’ where the
A.V. has: ‘Ifthou have anything, he will live with thee, yea, Ae will
make thee bare;’ but Wyclif has: ‘ He shal lyue with thee and anoide
thee out,’ equivalent to the modern slang expression ‘ he will clean you
out. B. It is obvious that the word is closely connected with. the
adj. void, empty, as stated in I’. Miiller. Often used like the F. éviter,
with which it cannot, etymologically, have any connexion; though it
gradually acquired a similar sense. Thus Cotgrave gives: ‘Eviter, to
avoid, eschew, shun, shrink from.’ And Shak., though he has ‘ avord
the house’ (Cor. iv. 5. 25), and ‘ how may | avoid [get rid of] the wife
I chose’ (Troil. ii. 265), often uses it in the sense of ‘shun’ (Merry
Wives, ii. 2. 289, &c.). In Palsgrave’s French Dict., we have: ‘ Never
have to do with hym, if thou mayst avoyde hym (escheuer or euiter).’
y. Chaucer uses only the simple form vo/den, and in senses that are all
connected with the adj. void. δ. The prefix a- (in AF. avoider, Gode-
froy) is a corruption of OF, es- (L. ex, out), as in abash, q.v.; this
prefix was extremely common in OF., and Godefroy gives the forms
esvuidier, esveudier, evuider, to empty out ; compounded of es-, prefix,
and vuidier, voidier, to empty, make void, from OF .wuit,vurde (F. vide),
empty. See Void. Der. avoid-able, avoid-ance. 4 In a word,
avoid = evoid; just.as amend = emend,
AVOIRDUPOIS, a particular way of estimating weights, viz. by
a pound of τό οζ. (F.—L.) Shak. uses avoirdupois (spelt haber-de-pois
in old edd.) in 2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 277 simply with the sense of ‘weight.’
His use of de (for du) is correct; we find avoir de pois, lit. ‘ goods of
weight,’ in the Statutes of the Realm, i. 159 (1311); aver de poys
in the same, 156 (1309); avoir de peise in Early E. Poems, ed. Furni-
vall, p. 154, St. If (ab. 1308). From AF. aveir de peis, ‘ goods of
weight,’ i.e. heavy articles.—L. zabére, to have, whence F. avoir, to
have, also as sb., wealth, goods; ἐδ, of; and L. pensum, that which
is weighed out, from pensus, pp. of pendere, to weigh. ‘The spelling
poisis correct; the word is misspelt po/ds in mod. F. from a false notion
of a connexion with L. pondus, weight ; see Poise.
AVOUCH, to declare; confess. (F.—L.) ME. avouchen, Gower,
C. A. i. 295, in Pauli’s edition; but the right reading is vouche; bk.
iii. 486. Sometimes in the sense ‘to make good,’ ‘maintain,’ or
‘answer for it,’ as in Macb. iii. 1.120. Grafton has avouchment in the
AVOW
sense of ‘maintenance,’ Kk. John, an. 14. Cf. ME. vouchen, used by
Chaucer in the phrase vouchen sauf, to vouchsafe, C. T. 11355, 11885
(F 1043, 1581).—OF. avochier, to call upon (Godefroy); a more
‘learned’ form of the popular OF. avoer, avouer, representing L, ad-
uocare, to call to, or summon (a witness).—L. ad, to; and uocdre, to
call. See Avow (1) and Vouchsafe. Doublets, advocate, avow (1).
AVOW (1), to acknowledge, affirm, vouch for, declare oneself.
(F.—L.) ME. avouen, avowen, Gower, iii. 191; bk. vii. 3163*; Chaucer,
C. T., G 642. “1 avowe, 1 warrant or make good;’ Palsgrave. Shak.
Troil.i. 3. 271. = OF. avoer, avouer.— L. aduocare, to call upon; Late L.
to call on as patron or client, to acknowledge, recognise. — L. ad, to;
vocare, to call. See Avouch, Advocate. Der. avow-ry.
AVOW (2), to bind with a vow, to vow. (F.—L.) Obsolete; but
easily confused with avow (1); the sb. avow, vow, occurs in “1 make
mine avow,’ Sir W. Scott, Fair Maid of Perth, iii. 45 (N. E. D.); ch..25
(near the end). “1 avowe, 1 make God a vowe;’ Palsgrave. ME.
avowen, Chaucer, Anelida, 355.— OF. avouer.— OF. a (for L. ad, to);
and vouer, from Late L. vdtare, to vow, from L. uétwm, a vow. See
Vow.
AVULSION, a forcible tearing away. (L.) In Phillips(1658).—
L. auulsion-em, acc. of duulsio,a tearing away ; cf. L. auuls-us, pp. of
auellere, to pluck away.—L. ὦ, from; and uellere, to pluck.
AWAIT, to wait for. (F.—OHG.) In early use. ME. awaiten,
to wait for; also, to lie in wait for. ‘Me awaiteth ou’= people
lie in wait for you; Ancren Riwle, p. 174. — OF. awaitier, an
older and Northern form of OF. aga:ter, to lie in wait for, watch for
(Godefroy). —OF. prefix a-(L. ad); and OF. waitier, gaitier (mod. F.
guetter) to watch, from OHG. waktén, to watch (mod. (ἃ. wachten).
This is a denominative verb from the sb. wahta,a watch, whence OF.
waite, a sentinel, preserved in the E. wait, as used in the phrase ‘ the
Christmas waits.’ See Wait.
AWAKE, to rouse from sleep; to cease sleeping. (E.) In ME.
we find both awaken, strong verb, answering to mod. Εἰ. awake, strong
verb; and awakien, a weak verb, which accounts for the pt. t. and pp.
awaked as used by Shakespeare (Timon, 11. 2. 21) and others. ‘The
awoc Brutus’ = then Brutus awoke, Layamon, i. 53. Two AS. verbs
are here confused ; dwacian, weak verb, and onw@cnan, with a weak
pres. t., but strong pt.t. ontwdc, pp.onwacen, The prefix is AS. d- or on-.
See Wake. Cf. G. erwachen, OHG. irwachén, weak verb, to awake.
Der. awake, adj., as used in Milton, ‘ere well awake, P. L. i. 334.
This was originally a past participle, viz. the ME. awake, short for
awaken, AS. onwacen, pp. of onwaecnan (above). And see below.
AWAKEN, to awake. (E.) Strictly speaking, this is an intran-
sitive verb only, and never used transitively till after 1500; itis thus
distinguished from awake, which was used in both senses; and it is
slightly different in origin. ME. awakenen, awaknen. ‘1 awakned there-
with;’ P. Plowman, B. xix. 478.— AS. dwacnan, Gwacnian, to awake:
Grein, i. 46, 47; also onwacnian, id. ii. 353 ; easily confused with on-
wecnan, which was a strong verb. In the suffix, the former 7 is forma-
tive, and conspicuous in both Mceso-Gothic and Scandinavian, in which
languages it is used to form verbs that are intransitive or reflexive.
Thus the verb awaken is essentially intransitive, and should be so used;
but the ME. suffix -7-en, -ne was easily confused with the late transitive
suffix -en in such words as s/rengthen.
AWARD, to adjudge, determine, grant, assign. (F.—OLowG.)
‘This I awarde’= thus I decide, Chaucer, C. T. 12136 (C 202). —AF.
awarder, OF .eswarder, esgarder, to examine, to adjudge after examina
tion; see esgarder in Godefroy. OF. prefix es-, from L. ex, out; and
OF. warder, old spelling of garder, to observe, regard, guard. [The
word is thus a hybrid; for, while the prefix is Latin, the rest is OLow G. ]
From OLow G. *wardén (OSax. wardon, G. warten), to regard, look
at, guard. See Ward. Der. award, sb., Chaucer, C. T., I 483.
AWARE, adj., informed of, in a watchful state. (E.) In this parti-
cular word, the prefix a- has an unusual origin; it is a corruption
of ME. prefix :-, or y-, which again is a reduction of AS. ge-. The
spelling aware occurs in Early E. Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 16,1. 9,
but is very rare, the usual spelling being iwar, ywar, or iwer; see
Layamon, 1], 261, 7581; Ancren Riwle, p. 104; Owl and Nightin-
gale, 1.147; P. Plowman, B. i. 42; Rob. of Glouc. p- 168, 1. 3503;
Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 100. AS. gewer, aware; AS. Chron. 914 (MS.
D.), 1095 (Laud MS.) ; in which the addition of AS. ge- as a prefix
makes no appreciable difference. Gewer is thus equivalent to wer,
aware, cautious, Grein, ii. 649; where we find ‘wes thu wer’= be
thou aware. Cf. also (ἃ. gewahr werden, to be aware; where gewahr
is from. OHG. grwar, gawar, from the prefix gi- (AS, ge-) and war,
cognate with AS. wer. See Wary.
AWAY, out of the way, absent. (E.). The proper sense is ‘ on
the way,’ though now often used as if it meant ‘off (or out of) the
way.’ Τὸ ‘go away.’ meant ‘to go on one’s way.” ME. awei, owet,
O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 21; spelt oway in Hampole, Pricke
of Conscience, 2269.—AS. onweg, away, Grein, ii. 354; from AS.
AWNING
on, on, and weg, way. See Way. It was sometimes spelt aweg,
Grein, i. 47; but the prefix a- is probably the same as on.
AWE, fear. (Scand.) ME. a3é, azhé, awe, properly a disyllabic
word; Ormulum, 7185. [Another form is ME. e3é, eghé, eyé, also
disyllabic, Ormulum, 4481; from AS. ege. We also meet with AS.
ὅσα, fear, dread. Both words occur in the same passage: ‘ And béo
cower ege and ὅρα ofer ealle nitenu’ =and let the fear of youand the
dread of you be over all animals, Gen. ix. 2. Both can be referred
to a common base ag-, to dread.]—Icel. agi, awe, terror; Dan. ave,
check, control, restraint ; ave, to control.4-OHG, egiso, terror; Goth.
agis, fear, anguish. Further related to Irish eagal, fear, terror; Gk.
ἄχος, anguish, affliction. Brugm. i, § 124 (3). Der. aw-ful, awful-ly,
aw-ful-ness. @ The final e in awe, now quite unnecessary, records
the fact that the word was once disyllabic.
AWKWARD, clumsy. (Hybrid; Scand. and E.) a. The modern
sense of ‘clumsy’ is seldom found in old authors; though it means
this or something very near it in ‘ridiculous and awkward action ;’
Shak. Troil. i. 3. 149. We also find: ‘’tis no sinister nor no awkward
claim,’ Hen. V, ii. 4. 85 ; and again, ‘ by awkward wind,’ i.e. by an
adverse wind, 2 Hen. VI, iii. 2.83; and again, ‘ awkward casualties,’
i.e. adverse chances, Per. v. 1. 94. β. In tracing the word back-
wards, its use as an adjective disappears; it was, originally, an ad-
verb, like forward, backward, onward. Its sense was ‘transversely,’
‘sideways,’ especially used with regard toa back-handed stroke with
asword. ‘Ashe glaid by, axkwart he couth hym ta’=as he glided
by, he took hima back-handed stroke; Wallace, iii. 175. ‘The world
thai all awkeward sett’ =they turn the world topsy-turvy, Hampole,
Pricke of Conscience, 1541. sy. The suffix -ward, as in onward,
forward, means ‘in the direction of,’ ‘ towards,’ like the cognate L.
uersus. ‘The prefix awk is the ME, awk, auk, adj., signifying ‘ con-
trary,’ hence ‘wrong.’ ‘Awke or angry, contrarius, bilosus, per-
versus. Awke or wronge, sinister. Awkely or wrawely [angrily],
perverse, contrarie, bilose;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 18. Palsgrave has:
‘auke stroke, revers.” Auk isa contraction of Icel. d/ug-, like hawk
from AS. hafoc.—Icel. éfigr, dfugr, afigr, often contracted to éfgu,
ofgir in old wniters, adj. turning the wrong way, back foremost; as
in ‘ éfgum vapnum,’ with the butt-end of a weapon ; ‘ vid hendi dfgri,’
with the back of the hand; see examples in Cleasby and Vigfusson.
Cf. the expression afu-lic geflit, gloss to L. peruersa contentio, in
Prol. to St. Matthew, p. 2, 1. 12 (Lindisfarne MS.), δ. Here af
stands for af, from; and -wg- is a suffix. Cognate forms appear in
Swed. a/vig, cross, wrong, O. Sax. aduh, perverse, evil (from af, from,
and suffix -wh); in OHG. apuk, MHG. ebich, turned away, perverse,
evil (from OHG. ap=G. ab, off, from, and suffix -~h, or from OHG.
apa, off, and suffix -hk, cognate with L. que). ‘Thus the sense of awk is
‘turned away ;’ from Icel. af, cognate with E. of, off, Gk. ἄπο.
Cf. Skt. apika-s, adj., coming from afar; from apa, off. Der. awk-
ward-ly, awkward-ness.
AWL, a pointed instrument for piercing holes in leather. (E.)
Spelt aule in Shak, Jul. Cesar, i. 1. 25; Exod. xxi. 6 (1611). ME.
an alle; Wyclif, Exod. xxi.6; later version, a nal. Also εἰ, Ancren
Riwle, p. 324.. AS. αἰ, al; dat. ele, Exod. xxi. 6; ale, Levit. xxv. Io.
«ἜΤΕΙ. alr, anawl; OHG. ala, G. ahle; Du.aal. Teut. types *aloz,
ala, Cf. Skt. Gra, anawl. J Distinct from ME. aule, flesh-hook,
Ancren Riwle, 212; AS. awel, grappling-hook, trident, Voc. 7. 6;
awul, Voc. 127.10. (W. A. Craigie, Phil. Soc. Trans. 1906; p. 261).
AWN, abeard of corn or grass. (Scand.) ME. awn. ‘ Hecarista,
anawn, i.e. anawn;’ Wright’s Vocabularies, i. 233. An older (13th-
century) form agune appears at p. 155 of the same volume. [AS.
egnan, pl., awns; Corpus Glos. ; whence prov. E, ain, awn.] = Icel.
ogn, chaff, a husk; Dan. aune, chaff; Swed. agn, pl. agnar, husks.-+
Goth. ahana, chaff; Luke, i. 17; OHG. agana, MHG. agene, agen,
chaff. Cf. Gk. ἄχναι, pl, chaff; OL. agna, a straw. Brugm. 1.
§ 729. 4 Finnish atana, awn, is borrowed from O. Teutonic (Streit-
berg). In some parts of England (e.g, Essex) beards of barley are
called ails; here ail is from AS. eg/, a beard of corn, a prickle, mote,
Luke, vi. 41,423; which is allied to Har (2).
AWNING, a cover spread ont, usually of canvas, to defend those
under it from the sun. (OF.? or Low G.?) The earliest quotation
is dated 1630, from Capt. Smith’s Works, ed. Arber, p. 957: ‘ Wee
did hang an awning (which is an old saile) to. . trees to shadow us
from thesunne;’ N. E.D. Italso occurs in Sir Τὶ Herbert’s Travels,
p- 7, in Todd’s Johnson: ‘Our ship became sulphureous, no decks,
no awnings, nor invention possible, being able to refresh us.’ Four
editions of this work appeared, viz. in 1634, 1638, 1665, and 1667 ;
in the ed. of 1665, the ref, is to p. 8. The proper sense seems to be
‘a sail or tarpauling spread above the deck of a ship, to keep off the
heat of the sun.’ Origin doubtful; perhaps suggested by OF. axvan,
auvant, mod. F. auvent, which Cotgrave explains by ‘a penthouse of
cloth before a shop-window.’ Cf. Prov. anvan, Late L. antevanaa,
auvanna, avanna; which seems to be from L. ante, before, and
41
42 AWORK
uannus, f.,a fan. Or from Low G. havenung,ashelter (Brem. Wort.,
p- 607) ; also spelt havening (Berghaus) ; cf. Dan. havne, to put into
harbour, from kavn, a haven. See prov. E. haun, a haven (E. D. D.).
So also Liibben gives Low G. havenen, to seek a haven, and haveninge,
a haven ; but the connexion is not made out.
AWORK, at work. (E.) Used by Shak., only in the phr. “ to set
a-work ;’ 2 Hen. IV, iv. 3. 124; Troil. v. 10. 38; Haml. ii. 2. 510;
K. Lear, iii. 5. 8. Also in Chaucer: ‘I sette hem so a werke, by my
fay ;’ C. T. 5797 (Ὁ 215). Here a probably stands for ax, ME
form of AS. 023 as in so many other instances. Cf. abed, asleep, &c.
The phrase ‘ he fell on sleep’ is similar in construction. See Work.
AWRY, obliquely, distortedly, sideways. (E.) In Shak. Tam.
Shr. iv. 1.150. ME. awrie (better awry), Komaunt of the Kose, 291.
Awry is properly an adverb, and compounded of on and wry ; cf. abed,
asleep, &c. ‘ Owthir all evin, or on wry’ =cither all even or awry;
Barbour’s Bruce, 4. 705. B. The lit. sense is ‘on the twist; and
thus wry is, in this phrase, asb., though no instance of its use as a sb.
occurs elsewhere. We may conclude that it is the adj. wry (cf. ‘ wry
nose,’ ‘ wry neck’) used substantively to form the phrase. See Wry.
AXE, AX, an implement for cutting trees. (E.) ME. ax, eax,
ex; also axe, exe. Spelt ax, Havelok, 1894; Layamon, i. 196.
AS. eax, ex; older forms acus, @cus (Sweet). In Luke, iii. 9, the
AS, version has ex, where the Northumbrian glosses have the fuller
forms acasa, acase.Icel. 6x, xi; Swed. yxa; Dan. dxe; Goth. akwisi;
OHG. acchus, MHG. ackes, mod. G. axt (with excrescent 2); OSax.
acus, Du. aaks. Cf. also L, ascia (for acsta?), an axe, mattock, trowel;
Gk. ἀξίνη, an axe. Brugmann, i. § 992.
AXIL, the upper angle between a leaf or petiole and the stem. (L.)
First in 1794 (N. Εἰ D.)=L. axilla, lit. armpit; dimin. of *acsla >
ala, a wing; see Aisle. Der. axill-ary.
AXIOM, a self-evident truth. (L.—Gk.) In Burton, Anat. of
Melan. ed. £827, i. 316; and in Locke, On the Human Understanding,
bk. iv. c. 7. Spelt axtomaes, pl., Lyly, Euphues, ed. Arber, p. 1co,—
L. axidma.= Gk. ἀξίωμα, gen, ἀξιώματος, worth, quality, resolve, deci-
sion ; im science, that which is assumed as the basis of demonstration,
an assumption. = Gk. dg.dw, I deem worthy, esteem. — Gk. ἄξιος, worthy,
lit. ‘weighing as much as,’ = Gk. ἄγειν, to lead, drive, also ‘to weigh
as much.’ — 4/AG, to drive. See Agent. Der. From the stem
ἀξιωματ-, axiomat-ic, -ic-al, -ic-al-ly.
AXIS, the axle on which a body revolves. (L.) In Pope, Essay
on Man, iii. 313. Also in Complaint of Scotland, ed. Murray, c. vi;
p- 48, 1. 27. [In earlier writers, the word used is generally axle, or
axletree, as in Marlowe's Faustus, A. ii. sc. 2.]—L. axis, an axletree,
axis.+Gk. ἄξων, an axle; Skt. aksha-s, an axle, wheel, cart. Cf. also
OHG. ahsa, G. achse, an axle; AS. eax, an axle, Grein, i. 250; Du.
as; Russ. os’; Lith. aszis. [Curtius, i. 479, considers the Gk. stem
ag- as a secondary form from ay-, to drive. Benfey likewise connects
Skt. aksha-s with Skt. aj, to drive.}—4/AG, to drive. Der. axi-al.
tyr Axle is the diminutive form, but a Scand. word; see Axle.
AXLE, the axis on which a wheel turns. (Scand.) ME. axel,exel,
which is common in the compound axe/tree; the latter is in Gower,
C. A. i. 320 (bk. iii. 1209), and see Prompt. Pary. p. 20. [The simple
word axel generally means ‘shoulder’ in early writers. ‘He hit ber’
on his eaxlun’= he bears it on his shoulders; OE. Homilies, ed.
Morris, i. 245. ‘On his ex/e’= on his shoulder; Layamon, i. 96.
This is an allied native word; from AS. eax/, the shoulder,
Grein, i. 250.]=—Icel. dxu/l, an axis; Swed. and Dan. axel, axle,
axle-tree. The Icel. dxu/2, m., answers to Teut. type *ahsuloz, m.,
dimin. of *ahsd@, f., as in AS. eax, f., axis; see Axis. Cf. W. echel,
axle. β. Cf. Icel. dxl, shoulder-joint, AS. eaxl, f., shoulder, G.
achsel, f., Teut. type *ahsula, f.; from base *ahs-, as in *ahsi (above).
The explanation is, no doubt, that the shoulder-joint is the axis on
which the arm turns. Der. axle-tree, Icel. dxul-tré; where tree has
the meaning of ‘ block,’ or ‘ piece of wood.’
AXOLOTL, a Mexican batrachian reptile. (Mex.) From Mex.
axolotl, lit. ‘servant of the water.’—Mex. a-, for ail, water; and
xolotl, a servant. From a story in Mex. mythology; see my Notes
on Etymology, p. 333-
AY! interjection of surprise. (E.) Distinct from aye, yes; see
below. ME. ey, interjection. ‘Why ryse ye so rathe? ey! ben’-
dic’te;’ Chaucer, C. T. 3766 (A 3768); cf. 1. 10165 (E 2291). A
natural exclamation. 4 The phrase ‘ay me!’ is certainly French,
viz. the OF. aymi, ah! forme; Burguy. Cf. Ital. akimé, alas for me!
Span. ay di mi! alas for me! Gk. οἴμοι, woe’s me! See also Ah!
AY, AYE, yea, yes. (E.) In Shak. frequently; Temp. i. 2. 268,
&c.; always spelt J in old editions. The use of ay, aye, or 1 with
the above sense is not found in early authors. We may conclude
that aye is a peculiar use of aye, ever; used affirmatively. See Aye.
Perhaps influenced by Yea. @ Orit may be a peculiar use of
the pers. pron. 7, as the old edd. indicate.
AYAH, a native waiting-maid, in India.
(Port) — 1) the
BABE
spelling answers more nearly to the Span. aya, a governess, fem. of
ayo, a tutor, but the word was certainly introduced into India by the
Portuguese ; the final ἃ is an E. addition. = Port. aia, a nurse, gover-
ness; fem. of aio, a tutor of a young nobleman. Origin uncertain;
Diez imagines it to be of Germanic origin; Wackernagel (with greater
probability) suggests L. auia, by-form of awa, a grandmother, allied
to auus, a grandfather. See Uncle. Minsheu’s Span. Dict. (1623)
has aya, ‘a nurse, schoolmistresse.’
AYE, adv., ever, always. (Scand.) The phr. ‘for ay’ occurs in
Iwain and Gawain, 1. 1510; in Ritson’s Met. Romances, vol. i. We
also find ‘ay withouten ende,’ Li Beaus Disconns, 1. 531, in Ritson’s
M. R., vol. ii. [Also ‘a buten ende,’ Ancren Riwle, p. 396; where
a= AS. a@.|—Icel. εἰ, ever. AS. a, aye, ever, always; Grein, i. 11;
used in various phrases, such as ἃ ford, ἃ on worlda f.r8, ἃ 16 worulde,
&c. Italso appears in the longer forms awa, adwo, Grein, i. 46, of
which @ is merely a contraction. It is an adverbial use of a substan-
tive which meant ‘a long time,’ as shown by Goth. a‘w, ever, an
adverb formed from the sb, aizs, time, an age, a long period, eternity,
Luke, i. 7o. Cf. L. auum, an age; Gk. αἰών, an age, αἰεί, dei, ever,
always, aye; Skt. éva-s, course, conduct. See Age.
AYE-AY#, a squirrel-like nocturnal animal. (F.— Malagasy.) F.
aye-aye; Supp. to Littré.— Malagasy ai’ay’; supposed to be named
from its cry; Richardson's Malag. Dict.
AZALEA, a genus of shrubby plants. (Gk.) From Gk. ἀζαλέα,
fem, of ἀζαλέος, dry, parched ; perhaps from growing in dry places. =
Gk. ἀξ ειν, to dry up.
AZIMUTH, an arc of the horizon intercepted between the meridian
of the place and a vertical circle passing through any celestial body.
(Arabic.) Briefly, azimuthal circles are great circles passing through
the zenith; whereas circles of declination pass through the poles.
‘These same strykes {strokes} or diuisiouns ben cleped | called] Azi-
muthz; and they deuyden the Orisonte of thyn astrolabie in 24 deui-
siouns ;’ Chaucer, tr. on Astrolabe, ed. Skeat, pt. i. sect. 19. Properly,
azimuth is a plural form, being equivalent to Arabic assamit, i.e. ways,
or points (or quarters) of the horizon; from al samt, sing., the way,
or point (or quarter) of the horizon, or the arc from a particular
point in the horizon to the zenith; cf. Arab. ‘samt, a road, way,
quarter, direction ;’ Palmer's Pers. Dict. col. 360. Cf. samt, ‘ travel-
ling, a way, tract, quarter; sam¢u’r'ras, the zenith ; as-samt, the azi-
muth;’ Rich, Dict. p. 848. From the same Arabic word is derived
the ΕἸ. zenith. See Zenith.
AZOTE, nitrogen. (F.—Gk.) The name given by Lavoisier (d.
1794) to nitrogen gas; because destructive to animal life.—F. azote
(an ill-coined word; Littré).— Gk. d-, negative prefix; and ζωτ-, as
in ζωτικός, fit for preserving life. — Gk. (w-1, life; (aw, I live. From
the same root we have Gk. βίος, life, L. uinere, to live; also E. quick,
vivid, vital, &c.; as also zoo-logy. See Zoology.
AZUREH, adj., of a bright blue colour. (F.—Arab.—Pers.) ME.
asur, Joseph of Arimathie, ed. Skeat, ll. 195, 198. ‘Clad in asure;’
Chaucer, Queen Anelida, 1. 330. —AF. asur; OF. azur, azure; a cor-
rupted form. [80 also Ital. azzurro, Span. azul, azur, Port. azul.) —
Late L. asur, azurum; also /azur, an azure-coloured stone, known
also as lapis lazuli; also, the colour itself. = Arab, /ajward, lapis lazuli,
azure; Palmer's Pers. Dict. col. 509.— Pers. /ajuward, ‘lapis lazuli,
a blue colour;’ Rich. Dict. p. 1251. So called from the mines of
Lajward, situate in Turkestan; see Marco Polo’s Travels, ed. Yule.
The initial 7 was no doubt dropped, because it was supposed to be the
def. article (F. 7’, Span. εἰ, Ital. i/, Arab. al), So Diez and Devic.
B
BAA, to bleat like a sheep. (E.) Chapman uses baaing in his tr.
of Homer, Iliad, bk. iv. 1. 463; see quotation in Richardson 5. ν. bleat.
Shak. has the verb to ba, Cor. ii. 1. 12, and the sb. baa, Two Gent. i. 1.
98. An imitative word, and may be considered as English. Cf. G. δᾶ,
the bleating of sheep. Der. baa, s.
BABBLE, to gossip, prate. (E.) ME. babelen, to prate; Ancren
Riwle, p. 100 (ab, 1230); to mumble, say repeatedly, P. Plowman,
B, v. 8. Though not recorded in A.-S. MSS., it may be considered as
an English word; cf. EFries. babbelen, babbeln, to babble. 4 Du. bab-
belen, to chatter; Dan. bable, to babble; Icel. babbla; G. pappeln ; also
bappeln, bappern, to babble; Grimm’s Dict. β. The suffix -le is
frequentative, and the verb means ‘ to keep on saying ba ba,’ syllables
imitative of the efforts ofa child to speak. Cf. Εἰ, babiller, to chatter.
Der. babble, sb., babble-ment, babbl-ing, babbl-er, A. V. Acts, xvii. 18.
Palsgrave has ‘ Babler, babillart,
BABE, an infant; (formerly) a doll. (E.) ME. babe, Gower, C. A.
BABIRUSA, BABIROUSSA
i. 290; bk. iii. 320; bab, Towneley Myst. p. 149; the full form being
baban, Ancren Riwle, p. 234 (ab. 1230); and even Levins has: ‘Bab-
bon, pupus,’ 163. 12. Probably formed from the infantine sound ba,
rath r than borrowed from Celtic. The similar forms in Celtic, viz.
Welsh, Gael., Irish, Corn. baban are all late, and some may even have
been borrowed from English. Cf. Mid. Swed. and Swed. dial. babe,
little one. Cf. babble (above). Baby isa diminutive form; like Jassie
from lass. Der. bab-y, baby-ish, baby-hood.
BABIRUSA, BABIROUSSA, a kind of wild hog. (Malay.)
‘The Babiroussa, or Indian hog;’ tr. of Buffon (1792). — Malay babi
risa, hog like a deer; from risa, deer, and babi, hog (Yule).
BABOON, a large ape. (F. or Late L.) Probably borrowed, in
its present form, from F. babouin, OF. babouin (H.). The form bavian
in the Two Noble Kinsmen, ili. 5, is from Du. baviaan. Other spell-
ings, bab:on, babian, may be modifications of ME. babewin; Mandeville’s
Travels, ed. Halliwell, p. 210; Prompt. Parv. p. 20; cf. Chaucer,
H.F. 1189. The last is either from OF. babouin or represents the Late
L. babewynus. ‘In an English inventory of 1295, in Ducange, we
read—“‘ Imago B. V. . . . cum pede quadrato stante super quatuor
paruosbabewynos;” and the verb bebuinare signified, in the 13th century,
to paint grotesque figures in MSS.;’ Brachet. Remoter origin un-
certain; but Hatzfeld regards babouin as formed from Εἰ. baboue, MF.
babou ; Cot. has faire la babou, ‘to make a mow at,’ to grimace.
Cf. mod, Prov. babau, a bugbear. Allied to F. babine, ‘the lip ofa
beast,’ Cot. Prob. of Germ. origin; from bab, or ba ba, the root of
babble. See Babe, Babble; of imitative origin.
BACCHANATL, a worshipper of Bacchus. (L.—Gk.) Properly,
an adjective. ‘Unto whom [Bacchus] we yearely celebrated the feast
bacchanal;’ Nicolls, Thucydides, p. 50 (R.) ‘The Egyptian Baccha-
nals,’ i.e. revels, Shak. Ant. ii. 7. 110. ‘ The tipsy Bacchanals,’ i.e.
revellers, Mids. Nt. Dr. v. 48.—L. Bacchandlis, adj., devoted to Bac-
chus. = L. Bacchus, the god of wine.—Gk. Βάκχος, the god of wine.
Also named Ἴακχος, and said to be so named from the shouting of
worshippers at his festival. Gk. ἰάχειν, to shout ; a verb apparently
formed by onomatopeeia, to express an interjectional iayx! Cf. Hecho.
Der. Bacchanal-ian.
BACHELOR, a young knight, a young unmarried man. (F.—
Late L.) ME. bacheler, Chaucer, Prol. 80; Rob. of Glouc. (1297) pp.
77, 228, 453.— OF. bacheler.— Late L. baccaliris, allied to baccalarius,
a farm-servant. Etym. unknown, and much disputed. For con-
jectures, see Diez, s.v. baccalare; Godefroy, 5. ν. bachelle; Korting,
§ 1134. Not from Celtic type *bekkos, small (Thurneysen).
BACILLUS, a genus of microscopic vegetable or anisms. (L.)
First in 1883; pl. bacilli.—Late L. bacillus, a little rod (from the
shape); dimin. of baculus, variant of baculum, a stick. See Bacte-
rium.
BACK, a part of the body. (E.) ME. bat, Ch. Book Duch. 957.
AS. bec (in common use).--OSax. and Icel. bak. Teut. type *bak-om,
neut. B. ME. derivatives are: bachon, backbone ; bacbiten, to back-
bite (P. Plowman, B. ii. 80); bacward, backward (Layamon, ii. 578).
Der. back-bite, back-bit-er, back-bit-ing, back-bone, back-side, back-slide,
back-slid-er, back-slid-ing, back-ward, back-wards, back-ward-ness.
BACKGAMMON, a kind of game. (E.) Spelt baggammon
in Howell's Letters, vol. ii. letter 68, dated Nov. 30, 1635. A quota-
tion from Swift in Johnson’s Dict. has the spelling backgammon. It
is backgammon in Butler’s Hudibras, c. iii. pt. 2, 1. 1062. The game
seems to have been much the same as that formerly called ‘tables.’
B. The etym. given by Strutt (Sports and Pastimes, b. iv. c. 2. § 16)
is probably correct. ‘The words are perfectly Saxon, as bec, and
gamen, that is, Back-Game ; because the pieces are sometimes taken
up and obliged to go back, i.e. re-enter.” See Back and Gam-
mon (2). Cf. Du. verkeeren, to turn, change; verkeerd, reverse ;
verkeer-bord, a backgammon-board.
BACON, swine’s flesh, cured for eating. (F.-OHG.) ME.
bacoun, bacon, Chaucer, C.T. 5799 (Ὁ 217).—OF. bacon. — Low L.
acc. bacdnem, from nom. baco; from a Teutonic source.—OHG.
bahho, bacho, MHG. bache, hinder part or piece, ham, bacon. Teut.
type *bakon-, m.; allied to Teut. *bakom, the back; see Back.
BACTERIUM, a genus of microscopic vegetable organisms, a
disease-germ. (L.—Gk.) Pl. bacteria. First in 1847.—L. *bacéé-
rium; L. form of Gk. βακτήριον, a little rod (from the shape) ;
dimin. of βάκτρον, a stick. Allied to L. baculum, a stick. See
Bacillus.
BAD, evil, wicked. (E.) ME. badde, Ch. C. T., A 3155; Chaucer
also has badder, i.e. worse, C. T. 10538 (F 224). Not in use
much earlier in English. Rob. of Glouc. (in 1297) has badde, evil,
p- 108, 1.17; and we find never on badde, not one bad, King Allis.
2118; this is perhaps the earliest instance. [The Pers. bad, wicked,
has a remarkable resemblance to the Eng. word, but was unknown to
Rob. of Glouc. The Pehlevi form vat (Horn, § 187) shows that the
words are unrelated.] Most scholars now believe the word to be
BAIL
English. Zupitza explains the ME. badde as shortened from AS.
beddel, an hermaphrodite, used contemptuously, like its derivative
bedling, an effeminate fellow ; whence prov. E, badling, a worthless
person. Sarrasin refers it to AS. béded, constrained, gebéded, op-
pressed (cf. mad, from AS. (ge)mé@ded) ; allied to Lith. béda, ill-luck,
sorrow. Der. bad-ly, bad-ness.
BADGE, a mark of distinction. (F.) It occurs in Spenser,
Ε΄ Ὁ. 1.1.2. The Prompt. Parv. has: ‘Bage, or bagge, or badge,
of armys, banidium.’ = AF. bage, Royal Wills, p. 68 (A.D. 1376) ;
OF. bage, a badge (Godefroy), A.D. 1465; cf. Late L. bagea, bagia,
‘signum, insigne quoddam;’ Ducange. Of unknown origin.
BADGER, the name of an animal. (F.) Formerly bageard, as
in Sir ΤῸ More, Works, p. 1183 ¢; but the final d is there excrescent.
In ME., the animal had three familiar names, viz. the brock, the gray,
and the bawson, but was not called the badger till the 16th century ;
cf. “ἃ bauson or a badger ;’ Fitzherbert’s Husbandry, § 71. β. The
name is a sort of nickname, the true sense being the animal marked
with a badge, in allusion to the white mark on its face ; so also bauson
is from the OF. bausan, pie-bald (N. E. D.).
BADINAGE,, jesting talk. (F.—Prov.—L.) In Coles’s Dict.
(1984); also in Phillips, ed, 1658.—F. badinage, jesting talk. =F.
badiner, to jest.—F. badin, sportive, orig. foolish, silly, * gaping.’ =
Prov. badar, to gape. = Late L. badare, to gape (Isidore). Probably
an imitative word; from the syllable δα, denoting the opening of the
mouth. Cf. babble, 4. v.
BAFFLE, to foil, disgrace. (F.—MHG.) See Spenser, F.Q. v.
3.37. The history ofthe word is recorded by Hall, Chron. Hen. VIII,
anno 5. Richardson and N.E.D. quote the passage to show
that to baffull is ‘a great reproche among the Scottes, and is used
when a man is openly periured, and then they make of hym an image
paynted reuersed, with hys heles vpwarde, with hys name, wonderyng,
cryenge, and blowing out of [i.e. at] hym with hornes, in the moost
despitefull manner they can.’ The word is here confused with
Lowland Scotch baxchle, to treat contemptuously ; see the poem of
Wallace, ed. Jamieson, viii. 724. For change of ch to ff, cf. tough,
rough, &c. B. Bauchleis a verb, formed by suffix -le, from adj. bauch,
weak, poor, jaded, &c. This was probably borrowed from Icel. bagr,
uneasy, poor, or the related sb. bagr,astruggle; from which is formed,
in Icelandic, the vb. begja, to push, or metaphorically, to treat harshly.
Fick (iii. 198) connects this Icel. bagr, a struggle, with MHG,
bagen, OHG. pagan, to strive, to brawl. y. But the E. baffle seems to
be more directly derived from F. beffler, to deceive, mock (Cot.), or
F. bafouer, MF, baffouer, ‘ to bafile, revile, disgrace; ” which are allied
to Ital. beffare, ‘to flout, scoffe’ (Florio), from beffa, a scoff; and to
Norman F. baffer, to slap in the face, Prov. bafa, a scoff. Prob. from
MHG. beffen, to scold ; cf. G. baffen, Du. baffen, to bark, yelp; of
imitative origin, like Du. paf, a pop, a box on the ear. Cf. further
Prov. E. baff, a blow, a suppressed bark (of a dog); baff, to strike ;
baff, adj., useless, worthless ; baffle, to annoy; &c.
BAG, a flexible case. (Scand.) ME. bagge, P. Plowman, B. prol.
41; Ancren Riwle, p. 168 (ab. 1230). —Icel. bagg!, a bag; Norw.
and MSwed. bagge. Kemoter originunknown. Der. bag, vb., bag-gy,
bag-pipe (Chaucer, C. Τὶ 567, A 565), bag-piper.
BAGATELLE, a trifle; a game. (F.—Ital.—Teut.) ‘Trifles
and bagavels;’ Howell, vol. ii.letter 21, dated Aug.1, 1633. —F. baga-
telle,a trifle ; introduced in the 16th cent. from Ital. bagatel/a, a trifle
(Brachet). Diez thinks it is from the same root as baggage. Baga-
tella he takes to be the dimin. of Parmesan bagata, a little property ;
and this to be formed from the Lombard baga, a wine-skin, allied to
E. bag. See Baggage (1), Bag.
BAGGAGE (1), travellers’ luggage. (F.—Scand.) ME. bag-
gage, bagage; occurring in Lydgate’s Hors, Sheep, and Goose, 1. 109;
in Chaucer’s Dream, by an anonymous author, 1.1555; and in Hall,
Chron. Rich. III, an. 3. § 4 from end.—OF. bagage, a collection of
bundles, from OF. bague, a bundle. = Norw. bagge, Icel. baggi, a bag;
see Bag. And cf. Lombard baga, a wine-skin, a bag.
BAGGAGE (2), a worthless woman. (F.—Scand.) A peculiar
use of the word above (see N.E.D.); but probably influenced by
F. bagasse. Cotgrave explains bagasse by ‘a baggage, quean, jyll,
punke, flirt.’ Burguy gives the forms baiasse, bajasse, bagasse, a
chambermaid, light woman. Cf. Ital. bagascia, a worthless woman.
B. Etym. doubtful, but probably derived, like baggage (1), from OF.
bague, a bundle.
BAIL (1), security; to secure. (F.—L.) Shak. has both sb. and
verb; Meas. iii. 2.77, 85. a. Bail asa verb is from the AF. bailler,
introduced as a law-term, occurring in the Statutes of the Realm,
p- 132 (1299).— OF. bailler, to keep in custody. = L. batulare, to carry
about or take charge of a child. —L. baiu/us, a porter, a carrier.
Root bad-; cf. Gk. βαστάζειν, to carry. Brugm. i. § 759. B. Bail
asa substantive is the OF. bai/, safe keeping, security; whence ‘to be
bail? This is the verbal sb. from OF. bailler.
43
44 BAIL
BAIL (2), a bucket. (F.—Late L.) See Bale (3).
BAILIFF, a deputy, one entrusted with control. (F.—L.)
Chaucer has bailif; Prol. 603; also in Polit. Songs, ed. Wright,
p- 149, 1. 16 (temp. Edw. 11). = OF. baillif; AF. baillif, Stat. of Realm,
p- 27 (1275). - Late L. baiulivum, acc.—L. baiulare. See Bail (1).
BAILIWICK, the jurisdiction ofa bailiff. (F.and E.) Fabyan
speaks of ‘ the offyce of ballywycke ;’ Rich. 11, p. 528, ed. 1811. A
hybrid word; from OF. baillie, government; and ME. τοῖχο, AS. wice,
an office, duty, function; see wike (2) in Stratmann. See Bail (1).
2. Also used to denote the district under his jurisdiction ; apparently
from AS. wic, an abode; see Wick (2).
BAILS, small cross-bars used in the game of cricket. (F.—L.?)
The history of the word is obscure. Roquefort gives OF. bailles, in
the sense of barricade, palisade, with a quotation from Froissart : “1]
fit charpenter des bail/es et les asseoir au travers de la rne;’ which I
suppose to mean, he caused sticks to be cut and set across the street.
Godefroy says that ‘in the arrondissement of Vervains and of
Avesnes, bail is the name of a horizontal piece of wood fixed upon
two stakes.’ Perhaps from L. acc. baculum, a stick, rod (baille<
bacula, Ὁ]. form), used in many senses.
BAIRN, a child. (E.) ΜΕ. barn, P. Plowman, A. ii. 3. AS.
bearn, Grein, i. 103.+4-Icel. barn, a child; Swed. and Dan. barn ;
Goth. barn. Teut. type *bar-nom, neut. sb.; lit. ‘that which is born;’
from har, 2nd grade of beran, to bear, with suffix -zo-. See Bear (1).
BAIT, to make to bite, to feed. (Scand.) ME. baiten, to feed,
Chaucer, Troilus, i. 192. ‘And shoten on him, so don on bere
Dogges, that wolden him to-tere, Thanne men doth the bere beyte’=
and rushed upon him like dogs at a bear, that would tear him in
twain, when people cause the bear to be baited ; Havelok, 1838. To
bait a bear is to make the dogs bitehim. To bait a horse is to make
him eat.—TIcel. beita, to make to bite, the causal of Icel. bita (pt. t.
beit), to bite; Swed. beta, to pasture; Dan. bede. See Bite. Der.
bait, sb., i.e. an enticement to bite.
BAIZE, a coarse woollen stuff. (F.—L.) Spelt bays, Arnold’s
Chron. (1502), ed. 1811, p. 235. An error for bayes, which is a
plural form ; viz. the pl. fem. of the MF. baye.— MF. ‘baye, a lie, fib,
- + . acozening trick, or tale; also, a berry; also, the cloth called
bayes,’ &c.; Cotgrave (who here confuses three distinct words) ; cf.
Ἐς bai, bay-coloured. B. That the -ze is no part of the original
word, and that the word is closely connected with bay, i.e. bay-
coloured, reddish brown, is clear by comparison. Cf. Du. baai,
baize ; Swed. bot, bays, baize (Tauchnitz) ; Dan. bai, baize. Also
Span. bayo, bay, bayeta, baize; Port. bato, bay, baeta, baize; Ital.
bajo, bay, chesnut-coloured ; bajetta, baize. See Bay (1).
BAKE, to cook by heat. (E.) ME. baken, Chaucer, Prol. 384.
AS. bacan, pt. t. bdc, pp. bacen ; Levit. xxvi. 26; Exod. xii. 39.4+Du.
bakken; Icel. baka; Swed. baka; Dan. hage; OHG. pachan, MHG.
bachen, G. backen. Allied to Gk. φώγειν, to roast; see Brugm. i.
§ 165.—4/BHOG, toroast. @ Notconnected with Skt. pach, which
is allied to E. cook,q.v. Der. bak-er, bak-ing, bak-er-y, bake-house.
BAKSHISH, BACKSHEESH, a present, small gratuity.
(Pers.) Pers. bakhshish, a present, gratuity, drink-money; Rich. Dict.
p- 247 ; also bakhshish, id., and in Palmer, Pers. Dict. col. 72. Cf.
Pers. baksh, part, share, bakhshidan, to give, bestow; bakhshah, bakhshi,
a portion. From Zend bakksh, to distribute ; Horn, § 186. Cf. Skt.
bhaj, to divide; Fick, i. 381.
BALANCE, a weighing-machine. (F.—L.) Shak. has balance,
Mids. Nt. Dr. v. 324; the pl. form used by him is also balance,
Merch. iv. 1.255. ME. balance, Ayenbite of Inwyt, pp. 30, οἱ (1340).
=F. balance, fem. ‘a ballance, a pair of weights or ballances ;’ Cot.
-L. type *blancia; from L. ace. bilancem, nom. bilanx, having two
scales; see Brachet.—L. δὲς, double (for bis, twice); and lanx, a
platter, dish, scale of a balance. See Fick, i. 748. Der. balance,
verb.
BALAS-RUBY, a variety of ruby, of a pale rose-red colour.
(F.—Low L.—Arab.—Pers.) Formerly also balais, balays; spelt
baleys in the Expeditions of Henry, Earl of Derby (Camden Soc.
1894), p- 287, 1.25. Palsgrave has ‘ balays, a precious stone, δα δ.
Cotgrave explains MF. balay as ‘a balleis ruby.’ =F. balais, a balas-
ruby (Littré) ; OF. balais, balai (id.); MF. balay, balé, as above. =
Low L. balascius, balascus, balasius, balassus, balagius, a balas-ruby
(Ducange). Cf. Ital. balascio, Span. balax.— Arab. balakhsh, a ruby
(given by Devic, Supp. to Littré, q.v.)—Pers. badakhshi, a ruby ; so
called because found at Badakthsh, or Badakhshan, ‘the name of a
country between India and Khurasan from whence they bring rubies ;’
Rich. Dict. p. 249. Badakhshan lies to the N. of the river Amoo
(Oxus), and to the E. ofa line drawn from Samarcand to Cabul; see
Black’s Atlas. The change from d to / is precisely the change found
in L. lacrima for *dacrima, Cf. Malagasy with Madagascar.
BALCONY, a platform outside a window. (Ital.—Teuat.) Milton
has balcone’s (sic) as a plural; Areopagitica (1644), ed. Hales,
BALE
p- 24. ‘The penult is long with Sherburne (1618-1702), and with
Jenyns (1704-87), and in Cowper’s John Gilpin; Swift has it short ;
see Richardson;’ Hales.— Ital. balcone, an outjutting corner of a
house, also spelt balco (Florio). Ital. palco or palcone, a stage, scaf-
fold, also occurs. B. Hence Diez well suggests a derivation from
OHG., balcho, palcho, a scaffold, cognate with Eng. balk, a beam,
rafter. See Balk (1). The term. -ove is the usual Ital. augmentative
suffix ; cf. balloon.
BALD, deprived of hair. (C.) ME. balled. ballid, a disyllable ;
P. Plowman, B. xx. 183. Chaucer has: ‘ His heed was balled, that
schoon as any glas;’ Prol. 198. The final -d thus stands for -ed, like
the -ed in spotted, and serves to form an adj, fromasb. ‘ The original
meaning seems to have been (1) shining (2) white, as a bald-faced
stag;’ note in Morris’s Glossary. <A bald-faced stag is one with a
white streak on its face; cf. Welsh bal, adj , having a white streak on
the forehead, said of a horse; bali, whiteness in the forehead of a
horse. Cf. also Gk. φαλακρός, bald-headed ; φαλαρός, having a spot
of white, said of a dog, φαλιός, white, padnpes, shining. = Gael. and
Irish bal or ball, a spot, mark, speckle (whence the adj. ballach,
spotted, speckled) ; Bret. ba’, a white mark on an animal’s face ; cf.
Welsh dali, whiteness in a horse’s forehead. β. Cf. also Lith. baltas,
white, bal#, to be white; Gk. padtds, white (as above), Skt. bhala-m,
lustre. See Prellwitz, and Stokes-Fick, p. 164. @ We also find
MDan. and Dan. dial. beldet, bald, Swed. dial. balloter, billet, bald.
Der. bald-ness (ME. ballednesse or ballidnesse, \Wyclif, Levit. xili. 42) ;
bald-head-ed.
BALDACHIN (with bal- as in bald or as in balcony, and ch as k),
a canopy over an altar, throne, &c. (F.—Ital.—Arab.) Orig. the
name of the stuff employed.<F. baldaquin.—Ital. baldacchino, a
canopy, tester; orig. hangings or tapestry made at Bagdad. = Ital.
Baldacco, Bagdad. — Arab. Baghdad, Bagdad.
BALDERDASH, poor stuff. (Scand. ?) Generally used now to
signify weak talk, poor poetry, &c. But it was formerly used also of
adulterated or thin potations, or of frothy water; and, as a verb, to
adulterate drink so as to weaken it. ‘It is against my freehold, my
inheritance, . . To drink such balderdash, or bonny-clabber;’ Ben
Jonson, New Inn, Act i; see the whole passage. ‘ Mine is such a
drench of balderdash ;’ Beaum. and Fletcher, Woman’s Prize, iv. 5.
‘What have you filled us here, balderdash?’ Chapman, May-day,
iii. 4. ‘Can wine or brandy receive any sanction by being balder-
dashed with two or three sorts of simple waters?’ Mandeville, on
Hypochond. Dis. 1730, p. 279 (Todd's Johnson). . To dash is, in
one sense, to mix wine with water (see N.E.D.), and this accounts for
the latter part of the word. Dash is Scandinavian; and we may
therefore look to Scandinavian for the other part of the word. We
find Dan. balder, noise, clatter; Norw. bjaldra, to speak indistinctly
(Ross) ; Icel. baldrast, ballrast, to make aclatter. The Dan. daske is
toslap, to flap; and dask is a slap, a dash. Hence balderdash may
have been compounded (like slap-dask) to express a hasty or un-
meaning noise, a confused sound ; secondarily, a ‘ hodge-podge,’ as
in Halliwell; and generally, any mixture. Cf. prov. E. balder, to
use coarse language; balderdash, filthy talk, weak drink; see
Ε. Ὁ. Ὁ. (Uncertain.)
BALDRIC, BALDRICK, a girdle, belt. (F.—MHG.—L.)
ME. bandrik, bawdrik, Chaucer, Prol. 116; bawderyke, Prompt. Pary.
p. 27; also baudry (ab. 1300), King Alis. 4698. An/Z appears in
Palsgrave’s baldrike ; and Shak. has baldrick, Much Ado, i. 1. 244.—
OF. *baldric, not found; cf. OF. baldred, baldret, given by Godefroy;
and cf. Low L. baldringus in Ducange.— MUG. balderich, a girdle
(Schade) ; formed with suffixes -er and -7k, from bald-, for OHG.
balz, palz, a belt. L. balieus, a belt. See Belt.
BALE (1), a package. (F.—MHG.) ‘ Bale of spycery, or other
lyke, bu’ga;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 22. Also spelt baile, as in ‘a balle
bokrom,’ a bale of buckram, Arnold's Chron, ed. 1811, p. 206. Cf.
AF. bale, a bale, Stat. Realm, i. 218 (ab. 1284).—OF.and MF. bale,
a ball; also, a pack, as of merchandise ; Cot. Low L. bala, a round
bundle, package. Merely an adaptation of MHG. baile, a ball,
sphere, round body. See Ball (2).
BALE (2), evil. (E.) Shak. has baile (1st folio), Cor. i. 1. 167 ;
and baleful, Romeo, ii. 3. 8. ME. bale, Havelok, 327 (and very
common); balu, Layamon, 1455, 2597. AS. balu, beaiu, bealo,
Grein, i. Tot.--OSax. balu, Icel. bé/, misfortune; OHG. balo, de-
struction; lost in mod. G. The gen. of OMerc. balu (neut.) is
balwes; and the Tent. type is *bal-wom, neuter; orig. neuter of Teut.
*balwoz, adj., evil (like L. malum from malus). Cf. Goth. balwa-
wesei, wickedness. Allied to Russ. bole, pain, sorrow, OCh. Slav.
boli, sickness, Der. bale-ful, bale-ful-ly.
BALK (3), to empty water out of a ship. (F.—Late L.) Not in
ME. A better spelling is bail. We find: ‘having freed our ship
thereof [of water} with baling ;’ Hackluyt’s Voyages, v. ii. pt-ii. p. 109,
It means to empty by means of bails, 1. 6. buckets. = F. baille (naut.),
BALE-FIRE
a bucket; whence also Du. balie, a tub. Late L. *bacula, dimin. of
baca, bacca, a vessel for water, also a small boat (whence also Du.
bak, a bowl, pail); see Basin. Korting, § 1136.
BALE-FIRH, a blazing fire; esp. of a funeral pyre. (E.) From
bale and fire. ME. bale meant ‘a blazing fire,’ or burning pile; also,
a funeral pyre. ‘Ina bale of fijr;” P. Plowman’s Crede, 667. AS.
bél, fire, Beowulf, 2323; bél-fyr, id. 3144.4-Icel. bal, a great fire; cf.
Gk. φαλός, shining, bright, Lith. balas, white; Skt. bkala-m, lustre.
4 Distinct from Baal, which is Semitic.
BALK (1), a beam; a ridge, a division of land. (E.) Not much
in use except in prov. E.; common in old authors. ME, balke.
‘Balke in a howse, trabs ;’ ‘Balke of a londe eryd, porca;’ Prompt.
Parv. p. 22; balkes, rafters, Chaucer, C. T. 3626; ‘ baulke of lond,
separaison ;’ Palsgrave. AS. balca, a heap; in the phr. ‘on balcan
lecgan’=to lay in heaps, Boeth. xvi. 2; which explains Shak.
‘balked,’ laid in heaps, 1 Hen. IV, i. 1. 61.4-OSaxon balko, a beam,
Heliand, 1. 1708; Du. balk, a beam, rafter, bar ; Icel. balkr, a parti-
tion; Swed. balk, a beam, partition; (ἃ. balken, a beam, rafter;
OHG. balcho. Teut. type *ba/kon-; a bar, weak masc. β. Further
allied to Icel. bjalki, Swed. bjalke, Dan. bjalte, a beam, Teut. type
*belkon-; and to AS. bolca, a plank for a ship's gany-way, Teut. type
*balkon-. Verhaps further allied to Gk. φάλαγξ, a round bar of wood.
See Phalanx.
BALK (2), to hinder. (E.) Shak. has balked, Tw. Nt. iii. 2. 26.
‘Balkyn or ouerskyppyn, omitto;’ Prompt. Parv. And again, ‘ Balkyn,
or to make a balke yn a londe, porco;’ Prompt. Parv. Ρ. 22. A balk
also means.a bar, a beam, see above; and to balk means to bar one’s
way, hence to foil; cf. Icel. balkr, a beam of wood, also a piece of
wood laid across a door; also, a fence, Hence the vb. is derived
from Balk (1).
BALL (1), a dance. (F.—Late L.) Used by Dryden, tr. of Lucre-
tius, Ὁ. ii, 1.29. Chapman and Shirley wrote a play called 7e Ball,
licensed in 1032. - Εἰ, bal, a dance; from OF. baler, to dance. — Late
L. balldre, to dance (Lewis). Prob. suggested by Gk. βαλλίζειν, to
dance; which is possibly connected with Gk. βάλλειν, to throw. See
Ballet, Ballad.
BALL (2), aspherical body. (Scand.) ME. balle, King Alisaun-
der, 6481; Layamon, ii. 307, 616.—Icel. béllr, a ball, globe, gen.
bailar; Swed. ball, Dan, bold. Teut. type *balluz.4-MHG. baile,
OHG. pallo, a ball, sphere. Perhaps allied to L. follis, an inflated
ball. From the same source, ball-oon, ball-ot.
BALLAD, a sort of song. (F.—Prov.—Low L.) ME. badade,
Ch., L. G. W. 270; Gower, C. A. i. 134.— OF. balade, F. ballade, of
which Brachet says that it ‘came, in the 14th century, from the Pro-
vencal balada.’ Balada seems to have meant a dancing song, and is
clearly derived from Late L. (and Ital.) balla@re,todance. See Ball (1).
4 In some authors the form ballat or ballet occurs ; in this case, the
word follows the Ital. spelling balla/a, ‘a dancing song,’ from Ital.
ballare, to dance. See ballats and ballatry in Milton’s Areopagitica;
ed. Hales, pp. 8, 24.
- BALLAST, a load to steady a ship. (Dutch—Scand.?) Bal-
lasting occurs in Cymbeline, iii. 6. 78 ; balast or ballast in Hackluyt’s
Voyages, i. 5943 il. pt. ii. 173; Palsgrave (1530) has balast.— Du.
ballast, ballast; ballasten, to ballast. (Many of our sea-terms are
Dutch.) Cf. also Dan. ballast, ballast; ballaste, to ballast; also spelt
baglast, baglaste; Swed, barlast; MDan. barlast, B. The latter
syllable is, as. all agree, the Du., Dan., and Swed. Jas¢, a burden, a
word also used in English in the phr. ‘a Jast of herrings ;” see Last
(4). The former syllable is disputed; but perhaps we tay rely upon
the Swed. and MDan. form bar-last, i. e. ‘bare (mere) load; whence
ballast by assimilation. In this view, the first syllable is cognate with
Lv bare, |The Dan. bag means ‘ behind, at the back, in the rear;’
and we may conclude that baglas¢t was so called because stowed more
.in the after part of the ship than in front, so as to tilt up the bows;
seeBack. But this form was probably due to popular etymology. |
C. Another etymology is given in the Worterbuch der Ostfriesischen
Sprache, by J. ten D. Koolman, The EFriesic word is also bal-
last, and may be explained as compounded of bal (the same word
with E. bale, evil), and Jast,a load. In this case ballast = bale-load,
i.e. useless load, unprofitable lading. This view is possible, yet not
convincing ; it does not account for the MDan. barlast, which is prob.
the oldest and most correct form, And it is not clear that EFries.
bal can mean ‘useless’; it is rather ‘evil’ or ‘harmful.’
BALLET, a sort of dance. (F.—Ital.—Late L.) First used by
Dryden, Essay on Dram. Poesie (1668); ed. T. Arnold, p. 61.—F.
bailet, a little dance. = Ital. balletto, dimin. of ballo, a dance. Ital.
ballare, to dance. See Ball (1).
BALLOON, a large spherical bag. (F.-OHG.) Formerly
balowne, baloon: see quotations in Richardson from Burton, Anat. of
Melancholy, pt. ii. sec. 2, πὶ: 4, and Eastward Ho, Acti. sc. 1. In both
instances it means a ball used in a game resembling football ; and this
BANANA 45
form was borrowed from the Ital. ballone, ‘a great ball, a ballone, a
footeball,’ Florio; augment. of balla, a ball. The modern E. word
is from Εἰ. ballon, augment. of F. baile, a ball. See Ball (2).
és The game of baloon is better known by the Italian name pal/one,
which Diez says is from the OHG. form palla, pallo, an earlier form
of G, ball,a ball.
BALLOT, a mode of voting, for which little balls were used ; also,
to vote by ballot. (Ital. -OHG.) ¢ They would never take their balls
to ballot [vote] against him;’ North's Plutarch, p. 927 (R.) = Ital. bal-
lotta, a little ball used in voting ; whence bal/ottare, ‘to cast lots with
bullets, as they vse in Venice ;’ Florio. Ballotéa is a dimin. of balla,
a ball. [Ilence also F. ballotter, to cast lots (Cotgrave) ; ballote,
balotte, a little ball used in voting (Cotgrave), a word used by Mon-
taigne (Brachet).] See Ball (2).
BALM, an aromatic plant, (F.—L.—Gk.—Arab.) The spelling
has been modified so as to bring it nearer to balsam; the spelling
balm occurs in Chapman’s Homer, Iliad, b. xvi. 624, but the
ME. form is baume or bawme; Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, 1686 ; spelt
bame, Ancren Kiwle (ab. 1230), p. 164; spelt balsme, Gower, C. A.
ili. 315. ‘The derivative exbawmen occurs in P, Plowman, B, xvii. 70.
- OF. basme.— L. balsamum.=—Gk. βάλσαμον, the fragrant resin of
the balsam-tree; cf. βάλσαμος, a balsam-tree. Of Semitic origin;
from Arab. basham, the name ofa fragrant shrub; Kich. Dict. p. 273 ;
cf. Heb. basam, balsam; see Gesenius. Der. balm-y. Doublet,
balsam.
_ BALSAM, an aromatic plant (Timon, ili. 5.110). See Balm.
BALUSTER, a rail of a staircase, a small column. (F.—Ital. —
L.—Gk.) Evelyn (Of Architecture) speaks of ‘rails and balusters ;’
Dryden has ballustred, i. e. provided with balusters, Art of Poetry,
canto i. 1. 54; Mason has balustrade, English Garden, Ὁ. ii. 351.—F.
balustre; Cotgrave has: ‘Balustres, ballisters, little, round, and short
pillars, ranked on the outside of cloisters, terraces ;’ &c, Healso has:
‘Balustre, Balauste, the blossome, or flower of the wild pomgranet
tree.’ = Ital. ba/austro, a baluster, small pillar; so called from a fancied
similarity in form to that of the calyx of the pomegranate flower. =
Ital. balausto, balausta, balaustra, the flower of the wild pomegranate
tree. = L. balaustium.= Gk. βαλαύστιον, the flower of the wild pome-
granate ; Dioscorides.
BALUSTRADE, a rowof balusters. (F.—Ital.—L.—Gk.) In
Evelyn’s Diary, Noy. 19,1644. Borrowed from Εἰ. balustrade, = Ital.
balaustrata, furnished with balusters, as if pp. of a verb balaustrare, to
furnish with balusters. See Baluster.
BAMBOO, a sort of woody Indian reed. (Malay —Canarese.)
© They raise their houses upon arches or posts of bamboos, that be
large reeds ;’ Sir T. Herbert, Travels (166), p. 378.— Malay bambi,
the name of the plant ; Marsden’s Malay Dict., p. 47; but not ori-
ginal. H.H. Wilson thinks it is from the Canarese banbu. See
bamboo in Yule.
BAMBOOZLE, to trick, cajole. (F.?—Ital.?) The quotations
point to the original sense as being to cajole by confusing the senses,
to confuse, to obfuscate. It occurs in Arbuthnot, Hist. of John Bull,
part iii. ch. 6, who talks of ‘a sort of fellows that they call banterers
and bamboozlers, that play such tricks.’ Inthe Tatler, no. 31 (1709), is
the remark: ‘ But, sir, I perceive this is to you all bamboozling,’ i.e.
unintelligible trickery; and in no. 230, bamboozle is noted as a new
word. ‘The word to bam, i. e. to cheat, is, apparently, a contraction
of it, and not the original. ‘The statement that it is a Gipsy word
wants proof;’ N.E.D. But it may well have been suggested by F.
bambocher, ‘to be on the lark, to play pranks ;” Hamilton. =F. bam-
boche, ‘a puppet . . . spree, pranks ;” id.—Ital. bamboccio, a child,
simpleton ; augment. of bambo, ‘a foolish fellow,’ Florio; which is
prob. of imitative origin, Cf. E. babble, and Gk. βαμβαίνειν, to
stammer.
BAN, a proclamation; pl. BANS, (E.) ME. ban, Rob. of
Glouc. p. 188, 1. 3881. Cf. ME. bannien, bannen, to prohibit, curse ;
Layamon, i. 344; Gower, C. A. 11. 96; bk. iv. 2834. [Though the
Low L. bannum and OF, ban are found (both being derived from the
OHG. strong vb. bannan, or pannan, tosummon) the word may well be
E., the G. word being cognate; the influence of OF. bax was only
partial.] AS. gebann,a proclamation, in A¢lfric’s Hom. i. 30. Cf. ‘pa
hét se cyng dbannan iit ealne péodscipe’ =then the king commanded to
order out (assemble) all the population ; AS. Chron. A.D. 1006.4-Du.
ban, excommunication; bannen, to exile; Icel. and Swed. bann, a ban ;
banna, to chide; Dan. band,a ban; bande,to curse. All froma Teut.
strong verb *baxnan- (conj. 7), to proclaim. B. Brugmann (i. § 559)
connects ban with L. fama, fari, from 4/BHA, to speak. Cf. Skt.
bhan, to speak, related to bhash, to speak; Gk. φημί, I say. See
Bandit, Banish, Abandon. {4 [lence pl. banns, spelt banes in
Sir T. More, Works, p. 434 δ; cf. ‘Bane of mariage,’ Prompt. Parv.
BANANA, the plantain tree, of the genus Musa. (Port.—W.
African.) Noticed by Dampier in 1686; Voyages, i, 316 (Yule).
46 BAND
The pl. bonanas occurs as early as 1599 in J. Davis, Voyages (Hak-
luyt Soc.), p. 138. Borrowed from Port. (or Span.) banana, the fruit
of the plantain or banana-tree ; the tree itself is called in Spanish
banano. The name is said by early Port. writers to have come from
Guinea ; see Yule. So also in Voyages (1745), ii. 336.
BAND (1), also BOND, a fastening, ligature. (Scand.) ME.
bond, band, Prompt. Parv. p. 43; Ormulum, 19821.—Icel. band;
Swed. band; Dan. baand.+OFriesic band; Du. band, a bond, tie;
α. band; OHG. pant. ‘Teut. type *bandom, neut.; from band, 2nd
grade of bind-an-, to bind. Further allied to AS. bend, Goth. bandi,
a band. Also to Skt. bandha-s, a binding, tie, fetter; from Skt. bhand,
to bind. See Bind. But orig. unconnected with bondage, q.v. Der.
band-age, band-box. N.13. The band-box was orig. made for the bands
or ruffs of the 17th cent. ; see Fairholt, Gloss., p. 26, 1. τ.
BAND (2), a company of men. (F.—G.) Not found in this
sense in ME. Shak. has: ‘the sergeant of the band;’ Com. of
Errors, iv. 3. 30; also banding as a pres. pt., 1 Hen. VI, iii. 1. 81.—
F. ‘bande, a band; also, a band, a company of souldiers, a troop, or
crue ;’ Cot. [whence mod. (ἃ. bande, a gang, set.]—G. band, a band,
tie; cf. Low L. banda, a gang. Allied to Low L. bandum, a banner.
See further under Banner. Der. band, vb.; band-ed, band-ing,
band-master; and see bandy.
BANDANNA, asilk handkerchief with white spots. (Hind. —
Skt.) ‘ Waving his yellow bandanna;’ Thackeray, Newcomes, ch.
4.— Hind. bandhna, ‘a mode of dyeing, in which the cloth is tied in
various places, to prevent the parts tied from receiving the dye...
a kind of silk cloth;’ Forbes. Cf. Hind. bandhna, to tie, bind. =
Skt. bandh, to bind.
BANDICOOT, a large Indian rat. (Telugu.) Telugu pandi-
kokku, lit. pig-rat (Yule).—Tel. pandi, hog; kokku, rat (Brown).
BANDIT, a robber; prop. an outlaw. (Ital.—Teut.) Bandite
occurs in Comus, l. 426, and bandit‘o in Shak. 2 Hen. VI, iv. 1.135.
Borrowed from Ital. bandito, outlawed, pp. of bandire, to proscribe.
“ἴον L. bandire, to proclaim; formed (with excrescent d) from
bannire, with the same sense. Low L. bannum, a proclamation; of
Teut. origin. See Ban, Banish.
BANDOG, a large dog, held ina band or tied up. (Scand. and
E.) For band-dog. Sir T. More, Works, p. 586 c, has bandedogges.
Prompt. Parv. p. 43, has ‘ Bondogge, or bonde dogge, Molosus;’ and
Way, in a note, quotes ‘A bande doge, Molosus;’ Cath. Angl. So
also: ‘Hic molosus, a banddogge, Wright’s Vocab. i. 187; also spelt
bonddoge, id. p. 251. ‘A bandogge, canis catenarius’=a chained
dog ; Levins, Manip. Vocab. col. 157. Hexham has: ‘een bandt-
hondt, a banndogge.’ See Band (1) and Dog.
BANDOLEER, BANDOLIER, a shoulder-belt; now used
for cartridges. (F.—Span.—Teut.) ‘Six musketts with bandileares;’
Unton Invent. (1596); p. 3. From MF. bandowillere, ‘a musketiers
bandoleer, Cot. ; F. bandouliére. —Span. bandolera, a bandoleer ; from
banda, a sash, band. Of Teat. origin; see Band (1).
BANDY, to beat to and fro, to contend. (F.—G.) Shak. has
bandy, to contend, Tit. And. i. 312; but the older sense is to beat to
and fro, as in Romeo, 11. 5.14. It was a term used at tennis, and
was formerly also spelt band, as in ‘To band the ball;’ G. Turbervile,
To his Friend P., Of Courting and Tenys (ab. 1570?). The chief
difficulty is to account for the final -y, though we have a similar
suffix in parley, One sense of bandy was a particular stroke at tennis,
perhaps from MF. band‘, lit. ‘struck.’ = MF. ‘ bander, to bind, fasten
with strings ; also, to bandie, at tennis;’ Cotgrave. He also gives:
“Jouer a bander et a racler contre, to bandy against, at tennis; and,
by metaphor, to pursue with all insolency, rigour, extremity.’ Also:
‘Se bander contre, to bandie or oppose himselfe against, with his
whole power ; or to joine in league with others against.’ Also: ¢ Ils
se bandent a faire un entreprise, they are plot(t}ing a conspiracy to-
gether.’ B. The word is therefore the same as that which appears as
band, in the phrase ‘to band together.’ The F. bander is derived
from bande, sb.: from the G, band, a band, tie; see Band (2).
BANDY-LEGGED, crook-legged. (F. and E.) Swift (in
1727) has: ‘Your bandy leg, or crooked nose ;’ Furniture of a
Woman’s Mind, ]. 22. The prefix bandy is merely borrowed from
the MF. bande, bent, spoken ota bow. Bande is the pp. of F. bander,
explained by Cotgrave as ‘to bend a bow; also, to bind,.. . tie with
bands. He has here inverted the order; the right sense is (1) to
string a bow; and (2) to bend it in stringing it. — G. band, a band. =
G. band, 2nd grade of binden, to bind. See Bind. 4 Observe that
bande is the F. equivalent of bent, because bend is also derived from
bind. See Bend.
BANE, harm, destruction. (E.) ME. bane, Chaucer, C. T. 1099
(A 1097). AS. bana, a murderer. I cel. bani, death, a slayer; Dan.
and Swed. bane, death. Teut. type *banon-, masc. Cf. Goth. banja,
a wound. Perhaps allied to Olrish ben-im, I strike, Bret. ben-a, to
cut, Stokes-Fick, p.167. Der. bane-ful, bane-ful-ly.
BANNERET
BANG (1), to beat violently. (Scand.) Shak. has bang’d, Tw.
Night, iii. 2. 24.—Icel. banga, Dan. banke, to beat; cf. Icel. bang, a
hammering ; Dan. bank, a beating. Note also MSwed. bengel, G.
bengel, a cudgel (lit. ‘bang-er’); MDan. bange, to make a noise,
bang, noise, uproar,
BANG (2), BHANG, a narcotic drug. (Port.—Hind.—Skt.)
Formerly bangue (see Yule). — Port. bangue; cf. ‘they call it in
Portuguese banga ;” Capt. Knox (A.D. 1681), in Arber’s Eng. Garner,
1.402. — Hind. bhang, hemp (Cannabis sativus) ; Forbes; cf. Pers. bang,
an inebriating draught, hashish ; Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 93.—Skt.
bharea, hemp; the drug being made from the wild hemp.
BANGLE, a kind of bracelet. (Hind.) ‘The ankles and wrists
ornamented with large rings or bangles ;’ Archzeologia, vol. viii. p. 256,
an. 1787 (Davies). From Hindustani baxgyi, fem. ‘a bracelet, an
ornament for the wrist ; corruptly, a bangle ;’ Wilson, Gloss. of Indian
Terms, p. &9; Forbes, p. 88.
BANIAN, a tree; see Banyan.
BANISH, to outlaw, proscribe. (F.-OHG.) ME. banishen,
Chaucer, Kn. Tale, 1727 (A 1725).—OF. ban-ir, bann-ir (with suffix
-ish due to the -iss- which occurs in conjugating a F. verb of that form;
answering to the L. inchoative suffix -2sc-, -esc-).— Low L. bannire,
to proscribe; from a Teutonic source.—OHG, bannan, pannan, to
summon; a strong verb. See Ban. Der. banish-ment.
BANISTERS, staircase railings. (F.—Ital.—L.—Gk.) ‘Thump-
ing the banisters all the way ;’ Sheridan, The Rivals, ii. 1 (Fag). A
corruption of balusters; see Baluster.
BANJO, ἃ six-stringed musical instrument. (Ital.—Gk.) A negro
corruption of bandore, which occurs in Minsheu’s Dict. (1627). Again,
bandore is for bandora, described in Queene Elizabethes Achademy, ed.
Furnivall, p. 111; Chappell’s Popular Music, i. 224, ii. 776. Also
written pandore: ‘The cythron, the pandore, and the theorbo strike ;’
Drayton, Polyolbion, song 4.—Ital. pandora, pandura, ‘a musical
instrument with three strings, a kit, a croude, a rebecke;’ Florio. =
Gk. πανδοῦρα, πανδουρίς, also φάνδουρα, a musical instrument with three
strings (Liddell and Scott). Notatrue Gk. word; Chappell says the
Greeks borrowed it from the ancient Egyptians. 4 Mandolin, q.v.,
is from the same source.
BANK (1), a mound of earth. (Scand.) ME. banke, P. Plowman,
B. v. 5213 bankes in Ormulum, 9210. —OScand. *banke, orig. form of
Teel. bakki, ridge, eminence, bank of a river; cf. Jutland banke (Feil-
berg) ,Dan. bakke, Swed. backe, bank ; whence also Norman F, banque,
a bank. Teut. stem *bankon-, m.--OLIG. panch, a bank; also, a
bench. Note also AS, d-banca, lit. “ heel-bench,’ as a gloss to sponda ;
Voc. 280. 12. Oldest sense ridge or shelf; hence bench, table. See
Bench.
BANK (2), a place for depositing money. (F.—Ital.—G.) Bank
is in Udall, on Luke, c. xix. 23.—F. banque, a money-changer’s table
or bench; Cot. —Ital. banca, f., a bench; also banco, m. ‘a bench, a
marchants banke,’ Florio. = MHG. banc, a bench, table. See Bench;
and see above. Der. bank-er, q.v.; bank-rupt, q.v.; bank-rupt-cy.
BANKER, a money-changer. (F.; with E. suffix.) Banker
occurs in Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 1385 ἢ. It is formed from bank,
with E. suffix -er. Cf. F. banquier, ‘a banker ;’ Cot.
BANKRUPT, one unable to pay just debts. (F.—Ital.) ME.
bankeronpte, Sir Ὃς More, Works, p. 881 f. An earlier sense was
‘bankruptcy;’ N. E.D., The word has been modified by a know-
ledge of its relation to the L. rupius, but was originally French rather
than Latin, The true French word, too, was banquerouttier (Cotgrave),
formed from bangueroutte, f., which properly meant ‘a breaking or
becoming bankrupt;’ i.e, bankruptcy. The latter was introduced
into French in the 16th cent. from Ital. banca rotta (Brachet).— Ital.
banca, a bank, bench; rot/a, broken. —MHG. banc, a bench; and L.
rupta, f. of ruptus, broken, pp. of rumpere, to break. See Bank (2),
and Bench; alsoRupture. 4 The usual account, that a bank-
rupt person had his bench (i.e. money-table) broken, is unauthorized
and needless. Cf. Late L. rugtus,a bankrupt (A. Ὁ. 1334) in Ducange.
It was the man that was ‘ broken.’
BANNER, a flag, ensign. (F.—Teut.) ME. banere, Ancren
Riwle (1230), p. 300; AF. banere, Stat. Realm, i. 185 (1322).—OF.
banere, baniere; ct. Prov. bandiera.— Low L. type *bandarta, f. (the
form bandéria occurs), a banner. — Low L. bandum, a standard; with
sufhx -adria. From a Teut. (Langobardic) source; ‘uexillum, quod
bandum appellant ;’ Paulus, De gestis Langob. i. 20; cf. Goth, bandwa,
bandwé, a sign, token, = Teut. *band, 2nd grade of *bindan-, to bind.
See Bind.
BANNERET, a knight of a higher class, under the tank of
abaron. (F.—Teut.) AF. baneret, Le Prince Noir, |. 193 (ab. 1386) ;
F. banneret, which Cotgrave explains as ‘a Banneret, or Knight ban-
neret, a title, the priviledge whereof was to have a banner of his own
for his people to march and serve under,’ &c. Spelt banret by Stani-
hurst, in Holinshed’s Desc. of Ireland, ed. 1808; vi. 57. From a
BANNOCK
Lat. type *baneratus, i.e. provided with a banner. =—OF. banere, a
banner: see above.
BANNOCEK, a kind of flat cake. (C.—L.?) Lowland Sc. ban-
nock; AS. bannuc; Napier, OE. Glosses. — Gael. bonnack, a cake.
Prob. not a Celtic word, but due to L. panicium, a baked cake. —L.
panis, bread. Cf. Pantry.
BANNS,a proclamation of marriage. (E.) The plural of Ban, αν.
BANQUET, a feast. (F.—Ital.—G.) Banquet, vb., occurs in
Hall’s Chron. Henry V, an. 2 (1809), p. 57. The more usual old
form is banket; as in Fisher’s Works, ed. Mayor (E. E. T.S.), p. 294.
“- Εἰ banquet, which Cotgrave explains as ‘a banket; also a feast,’ &c.
The word has reference to the table on which the feast is spread. =
Ital. banchetio, dimin. of banco, orig. a bench. (Florio has banchettare,
‘to banquet.’)—=MHG. banc, a bench, a table. See Bank (1),
Bench.
BANSHEE, a female spirit supposed to warn families of a death.
(Irish.) ‘In certain places the death of people is supposed to be fore-
told by the cries and shrieks of benshi, or the Fairies wife ;’ Pennant,
Tour in Scotland, 1769, p. 205 (Jamieson). — Gael. beanshith, a ban-
shee ; lit. fairy-woman (Macleod, p. 627) ; from Irish bean sidhe, OIr.
ben side, * woman of the fairies;’ see Macbain, p. 293. The Gael. and
Ir. bean = Olrish ben, is cognate with E. quean. Windisch has ΟἹ".
ban-side ; where ban- is for ben (in composition) ; and side is a pl.
form, meaning " fairies.’
BANTAM, a kind of fowl. (Java.) The bantam fowl is said to
have been brought from Bantam, the name of a place in Java, at the
western extremity of the island.
BANTER, to mock or jeer at; mockery. (E.?) ‘When wit
hath any mixture of raillery, it is but calling it baxter, and the work
isdone. This polite word of theirs was first borrowed from the bullies
in White Friars, then fell among the footmen, and at last retired to
the pedants; but if this bantering, as they call it, be so despicable a
thing,’ &c.; Swift, Tale ofa Tub; Author’s Apology. Banterer occurs
A.D. 1709, in the Tatler, no, 12. Origin unknown; apparently slang.
Davies (Supplem. Gloss.) gives an earlier quotation: ‘ Occasions given
to all men to talk what they please, especially the banterers of Oxford
(a set of scholars so called, some M.A.), who make it their employ-
ment to talk at a venture, lye, and prate what nonsense they please ;’
A. Wood, Life, Sept. 6, 1678. Prob. picked up from some E. dia-
lect ; cf. prov. E. bant, vigour; bant, to conquer, haggle; ban/er, to
cheapen, haggle, tease, taunt (E.D.D.) Perhaps we may compare
Schmeller’s Bavarian Dict. (col. 248) : ‘ béindeln (pron. banteln), used
jocularly or ironically, to be busy about a bandage (called bant/), fig.
to intrigue ;’ see the whole article.
BANTLING, aninfant,a brat. (G.) Occurs in Drayton’s Pasto-
rals, ες]. 7, st. 17; where Cupid is called the ‘ wanton banéling’ of
Venus. Apparently confused with band, as if forband-ling, one wrapped
in swaddling-bands; but really an adaptation of G. bankling (with the
same sense as Low G. bankert), an illegitimate child; from G. bank,
a bench; i.e. ‘a child begotten on a bench, not in the marriage-bed;’
see Bankert in Brem. Worterbuch. And see Bastard.
BANYAN, a kind of tree. (Port.—Skt.) Sir T. Herbert, in de-
scribing the religion of ‘the Bannyans’ of India, proceeds to speak of
‘the bannyan trees,’ which were esteemed as sacred; ed. 1665, p. 51;
see also p. 123. The bannyans were merchants, and the bannyan-trees
(an English, not a native, term) were used as a sort of market-place,
and are (Iam told) stillso used. At first applied to a particular tree ;
see Yule. = Port. banian, a trader.—Gujarati vinnio, one of the trading
ane ca H. Wilson, p. 541). —Skt. vay, banij, a merchant (Venfey,
p- 625).
BAOBAB, a kind of large tree. (W. African.) In Arber’s Eng.
Garner, i. 441. The native name; in Senegal.
BAPTIZE, v. to christen by dipping. (F.—L.—Gk.) Formerly
baptise was the commoner form; it occurs in Rob. of Glouc., p. 86;
1.1918. (The sb. baptiste occurs in the Ancren Riwle, p. 160;
and baptisme in Gower, C. A.i. 189; bk. ii. 899.] = OF. baptiser. = L.
baptizare.— Gk. βαπτίζειν; from βάπτειν, to dip. From a root
GwEBH ; whence also Icel. Awefja, to dip, quench. Brugm. i. § 677;
Prellwitz. Der. baptist (Gk. βαπτιστής, a dipper); baptism (Gk.
βάπτισμα, a dipping); and baptist-er-y.
BAR, a rail, a stiff rod. (F.) ME. barre, Chaucer, C.T., A 1075;
Havelok, 1794. — OF. barre. = Late L. barra, a bar (of unknown origin;
whence also Port., Span., and Ital. barra). A connexion with Bret.
barr, a branch, seems possible. Cf. Stokes-Fick, pp. 172-3. Der.
barricade, q.v., barrier, a.v.; barrister, q-v.; prob. barrel, q.v.; and
see embarrass,
BARB (1), the hook on the point of an arrow. (F.—L.) Merely
an adaptation of the L. barba, a beard. Cotgrave has: ‘ Barbele,
bearded ; also, full of snags, snips, jags, notches ; whence flesche bar-
belée, a bearded or barbed arrow. =F. barbe.=L. barba, the beard.
See Barbel, Barber, and Beard.
BARD
BARB (2), a Barbary horse. (F.—Barbary). So in Glossographia
Anglicana; 1719. Cotgrave has: ‘Barbe, a Barbery horse.’ Named
from the country.
BARBAROUS, uncivilized. (L.—Gk.) ME. barbar, barbarik, a
barbarian ; Wyclif’s carlier version, Col. iii. 11, 1 Cor. xiv.11. After-
wards barbarous, in closer imitation of the Latin. = L. barbarus. —Gk.
βάρβαρος, foreign; cf. L: balbus, stammering. B. The name was
applied by Greeks to foreigners to express the strange sound of their
language; see Curtius,i. 362; Fick,i.684. Der. barbar-1an, barbar-ic,
barbar-it-y, barbar-ise, barbar-ism, barbar-ous-ness.
BARBECUE, a frame-work of sticks supported on posts; orig.
used for sleeping on or for meat meant to be smoke-dried. (Span. —
Hayti.) Hence the verb barbecue, to smoke-dry, to broil. ‘They...
barbacue their game and fish in the smoke ;’ Stedman, Surinam, i. 406.
= Span. barbacoa,a scaffold raised above the ground; Pineda. — Hayti
barbacoa, a raised wooden framework ; Notes on E. Etym. p. 347.
BARBED, accoutred; said of a horse. (F. —Scand. ?) Shak. has:
‘barbed steeds ;’ Rich. III,i. 1.10. Also spelt barded, the older form;
it occurs in Berners’ tr. of Froissart, vol. i. c. 41. Cotgrave has:
‘Bardé, m. -ée, f. barbed, or trapped as a great horse.’=F. barde,
horse-armour ; but explained in Cot. as ‘a long saddle for an ass or
moyle’ [mule]. Referred by Diez to Icel. bard, a brim of a helmet;
also, the beak or armed prow of a ship of war; from which sense it
might have been transferred so as to be used of horses furnished with
spiked plates on their foreheads. Cf. also Icel. bard’, a shield. β.
But Devic refers F. barde, pack-saddle, Span. albarda, to Arab. bar-
da‘at, a pack-saddle. However, this may be a different word. See
Korting, § 1237. (Uncertain.)
BARBEL, a kind of fish. (F.—L.) ‘Barbylle fysche, barbell fisshe,
barbyllus;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 24.—OF. barbel, F. barbeau, Cotgrave
has both forms, and defines barbeau as ‘the river barbell. . . also, a
little beard.’—L. acc. barbellum, from barbellus, dimin. of barbus, a
barbel; cf. barbula, a little beard, dimin. of barba, a beard. @ The
fish is so called because it is furnished, near the mouth, with four
barbels or beard-like appendages (Webster). See Barb (1).
BARBER, one who shaves the beard. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. barbour,
Chaucer, C. T., A 2025 (Kn. Ta.) —OF. barbeor, barbier, a barber. =
Ἐς barbe, the beard, with suffix of agent.—L. barba. the beard ; which
is cognate with E. beard; Brugm.i. § 972. See Beard. β. ME.
and AF. barbour, OF. barbeor, answer to a L. type *barbatorem, acc. ;
OF. barbier to Late L. type barbarium, acc.
BARBERRY, BERBERRY, a shrub. (F.—L.) Cotgrave
has: ‘ Berberis, the barbarie-tree.’, The Eng. word is borrowed from
French, which accounts for the loss of final s. The ME. barbaryn
(Prompt. Parv.) is adjectival. = Late L. berberis, the name of the shrub,
also spelt barbaris, as in Prompt. Pary. Origin wholly unknown; the
Arab. barbaris (often cited) is not a true Arab. word. The name bar-
baryn-tre (Prompt. Parv.) answers to OF. barbarin, ‘ foreign ;’ and an
ultimate derivation from Gk. BapBapixds or βάρβαρος, foreign, does not
seem impossible. The Span. berberis, Ital. berberi, afford no help.
Mandeville has barbarynes (to translate F. berberis); c. ii. p. 14. ‘ Ber-
beri, fructus, berberynes ;” Wright, Voc. 568. 4. @ This is an ex-
cellent example of accommodated spelling; the change of the two final
syllables into berry makes them significant ; but the word cannot claim
three r’s.
BARBICAN, an outwork of a fort. (F.—Arab. and Pers.) ME.
barbicvan, King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1. 1591; Gawain and the Grene
Knight, ed. Morris, 1.793. John de Garlande has ‘ antemuralia, bar-
bycons ;’ and ‘propugnacula, Gallice barbaquenne ;’ Wright’s Voc. i.
pp- 130, 131.—OF. barbacan; also barbecan, barbicant, barbechant ;
*Antemuralia, barbechant ;’ also ‘ Les creneaux ou barbicants ;’ Gode-
froy. Cf. Low L. barbacana, an outwork; a word of unknown origin.
{Not AS.] 4 Brachet says that it was adopted from Arabic barbak-
khanek, a rampart, a word which is not in Richardson’s Arab. and Pers.
Dict., and which appears to have been coined for the occasion. Diez
derives it from Pers. bala-khanah, wpper chamber, which is far from
satisfactory. For conjectures, see Devic, and Korting, § 1168. B.
L. barba cana, ‘gray beard,’ is exactly the mod. Prov. barbocano, a
barbican; and this may very well be a ‘ popular etymology,’ due to
trying to make sense of the Eastern name bab-khanah, ‘ gate-house,’
a term written on a barbican at Cawnpore; see Yule’s account. If
this be right, the derivation is from Arab. bab, a gate, and Pers.
khanah, a house.
BARCAROLLE, a boatman’s song. (F.—Ital.—Late L.) In
Moore, National Airs, no. 10, 1]. 17.—F. barcarolle. — Venetian bar-
carola; fem. of barcarolo, a waterman (Baretti), Ital. barcaruo/o.—
Ital. barca, a boat ; see Bark (1).
BARD (1), a poet. (C.) | Bard occurs in Sir R. Holland’s Houlate,
11. 795,822,825. Selden speaks of ‘bardishk impostures;’ On Drayton’s
Polyolbion ; Introduction. Borrowed from the Celtic; Irish bard,
47
\ Gael. bard, a poet; so too W. bardd, Corn. bardh, Bret. barz.
48 BARD
Celtic type *bardos, which probably meant ‘ speaker ;’ cf. Gk. φράζειν
(for φράδ- γειν), to speak. Der. bard-ic.
BARD (2), armour for a horse ; see Barbed.
BARE, naked. (E.) ΜΕ. bar, bare, Owl and Nightingale, 547.
AS. ber, bare, Grein, i. 77. +Icel. berr, bare, naked; OHG. par (G.
bar), bare; Du. baar. ‘leut.type *bazoz; allied to Lith. basas, bare-
footed; OSlav. bosz, Russ. bosoi, barefooted. Idg. type *bhosos. Der.
bare-ness, bare-faced, bare-headed, bare-footed.
BARGAIN, to chaffer. (F.) ME. bargayn, sb., Chaucer, Prol.
282; Robert of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 270.—OF. bargaigner, to
chaffer. — Late L, barcanidre, to change about, shift, shuffle. Origin
uncertain; Diez and Burguy refer the Late L. form, without hesita-
tion, to Late L. barca, a barque or boat for merchandise, but fail to
explain the latter portion of the word. See below.
BARGE, a sort of boat. (F.—Late L.) ME. barge, Chaucer, Prol.
410; Robert of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p, 169. = OF. barge. = Late L.
barga, apparently a variant of barca, for which see Bark (1). β. Diez
derives barge from a Late Lat. type *barica, a supposed dimin. from
L. baris, a flat Egyptian row-boat (Propertius).—Gk, βᾶρις, a flat
Egyptian row-boat ; perhaps of Egyptian origin; Mahn cites a Coptic
bari, a small boat. given by Peyron. See below.
BARK (1), BARQUE, a sort of ship. (F.—TItai.—Late L.)
These are probably varieties of the same word as the above. Hackluyt
has ‘small barkes,’ Voyages, vol. ii, part i. p. 227; and Fabyan’s
Chronicles, ed. 1811, p. 286, has ‘smalle caruyles [caravels] and
barkys ;’ clearly borrowed from F. bargue. Cotgrave has ‘ Bargue, a
barke, little ship, great boat.’ = Ital. barca, ‘a boat, a lighter3;’ Florio.
— Late L. barca, a small ship or boat (Paulinus Nolanus, ab. 400).
47 Thurneysen thinks that L. barca may be of Celtic origin, from
Olrish barc; but the borrowing was more probably in the other
direction.
BARK (2), the rind of a tree. (Scand.) ME. barke, P. Plowman,
B. xi. 251; bark, Legends of Holy Rood, p. 68. —Swed. bark, rind;
Dan. bark; Icel. borkr (stem bark-).4-MDnu. borcke, barcke, ‘ the bark
of a tree, or a crust,’ Hexham; Low ἃ. borke. Teut. type *barkuz.
BARK (3), to yelp as a dog. (E.) ME. berke, Will. of Palerne,
ed. Skeat, 1. 35; the pp. borken is in Ch., tr. of Boethius, b. i. pr. 5,
1. 1. AS. beorcan, Grein, i. 106; strong verb, pt. t. bearc, pp. borcen;
cf. Icel. weak verb berkja, to bark, to bluster. B. Prob. of imita-
tive origin; and somewhat similar to AS. brecan, to break, to crack,
to snap, used of a sudden noise; cf. the cognate L. fragor, a crash.
We find AS. brecan in the sense of ‘ to roar,’ Grein, i. 1373 ef. Icel.
braka, to creak as timberdoes. See Break. Similarly Skt. bark, to
roar as an elephart; Swed. bréka, to bleat.
BARLEY, akind ofgrain, (1.) ME. barlich, barli, Wycl. Exod.
ix. 313 barli3, Ormulum, 15511. AS. berlic, AS. Chron., an. 1124;
‘to berlice croite,’ to the barley-croft; Cod. Dipl. vi. 79, an. 966.
Ber- may be compared with Icel. barr, n., barley, and is allied to AS.
bere, cognate with Goth, *baris, only found in the adj. bariz-eins,
made of barley. The suffix -Jic signifies ‘like ;’ so that barley orig.
meant ‘ of the dear-kind,’ where bear is the Low]. Scotch form of AS.
bere,m. The AS. ber-, bere, are further allied to L. far, corn; and
even to OSlav. brashino, food, Servian brashno, meal; see Miklosich,
p. 19, col. 1, s.v. borshino; Uhlenbeck, Goth. Wort.; Brugm, i. § 180.
See Farina.
BARM (1), yeast. (E.) ME. berm, Chaucer, C.T. 16281 (G 813).
AS. beorma, m., Luke, xiii. 21. + Swed. barma; Dan. barme, dregs,
lees; G. barme, yeast. Teut. type *bermon-; cf. L. fermenium, yeast;
from feruére, to boil. See Ferment.
BARM (2), the lap. (E.) Nearly obsolete; ME. barm, barme,
Prompt. Parv. p. 25. AS. bearm, m., the lap, bosom; Grein, i. 103.-++
Icel. barmr; Swed. and Dan. barm; Goth. barms; ΟὟ. barm, parm.
Teut. type *barmoz, m.; from bar, 2nd grade of ber-an-, to bear; whence
also Finnish parmas, barm., See Bear.
BARN, a place for storing grain. (E.) ME. berne, Chaucer, C. T.
12996 (B 1256). ΑΒ. bern, Luke, iii. 17; a contracted form of ber-ern,
which occurs in the Old Northumbrian version of the same passage;
which glosses L, ‘aream’ by ‘ber-ern vel bere-flor... A compound
word; from AS. bere, barley, and ern, ern, a house or place for storing,
which enters into many other compounds; see Grein, i. 228. The
form ern stands, by metathesis, for *ran(7), and is cognate with Icel.
rann, Goth. razn, Teut. type *raznom, n.a house, abode. See Ran-
sack, Barton, Barley. Der. barn-door.
BARNACLE (1), a species of goose. (F,—LateL.) ‘A barnacle,
bird, chelonalops ;’ Levins, 6. 2. Dimin. of ME. bernake; ‘bernakes,
foules liche to wylde gees ;’ Trevisa, tr. of Higden, i. 335; where
Caxton’s version has bernacles.— MF. bernaque, ‘the fowle called a
barnacle ;’ Cot. = Late L. berndaca, in Giraldus Cambrensis (ab. 1175).
Ducange has ‘ Bernacae, aves aucis palustribus similes,’ with by-forms
bernecela, bernecha, berneste, and berniche, B. The history of the
word is very obscure ; but see the account in Max Miiller’s Lectures
BARREL
on the Science of Language, 8th ed. ii. 602. His theory.is that the
birds were Irish ones, i.e. aves Hibernice or Hibernicule ; that the first
syllable was dropped, as in Low L. bernagium for hybernagium, &c. ;
and that the word was afterwards applied to the shell-fish from which
the barnacle-goose was imagined to be produced. See Barnacle (2).
BARNACLE (2), a sort of small shell-fish. (F.—Late L.)
Spelt bernacles by Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, bk. iii.c. 28. §17. The
same word as the aboye, according to an extraordinary popular belief.
Hence it would appear to be beside the question to explain the word
as from the L. pernacula, dimin. of perna; see this discussed in Max
Miller, Lect. on the Science of Language, 8th ed. ii. 584. (Cf. Lat.
perna, used by Pliny, Nat. Hist. 32. 55: ‘Appellantur et perne conch-
arum generis, circa Pontias insulas frequentissimz. Stant velut suillo
crure longe in arena defixze, hiantesque, qua limpitudo est, pedali non
minus spatio, cibum venantur.’ From Gk. πέρνα, lit. a ham.) β.
The Gael. and Irish bairneach, a limpet, W. brenig, are perhaps from
ME, bernake (Macbain). But Stokes (p. 162) derives these from a
form barenn (?), a rock.
BARNACLES, spectacles; orig. irons put on the noses of horses
to keep them quiet. (F.) ‘ Barnacles, an instrument set on the nose
of unruly horses,’ Baret ; and see Levins. Hence the more modern
jocular use in the sense of spectacles; first in 1571 (N. E.D.) Bar-
nacle (which occurs in Trevisa, tr. of Higden, i. 353) is a dimin. of
ME. bernak, explained by L. ‘chamus’ in Prompt. Parv. = OF. bernac,
gloss to camum, in A. Neckam (ab, 1200); Wright, Voc. i. oo, 1. 3.
Origin unknown. Sce the word discussed in Max Miiller, Lect. on the
Science of Language, 8th ed. ii. 583; but the solution there offered is
untenable. See notes in the Eng. Dial. Dict.
BAROMETER, an instrument for measuring the weight of the
air. (Gk.) Not in early use. Due to Boyle, in 1665 (N. E.D.) It
occurs also in Glanvill, Ess. 3(R.) Boyle (in 1665) has baromeirical ;
Works, vol. ii. p. 798; and so Johnson, Rambler, no. 117. Coined
from the Gk.— Gk. Bapo-, for βάρος, weight ; and μέτρον, a measure.
The Gk. βαρύς, heavy, is allied to L. grauis, heavy ; Curtius, i. 77;
Brugm. i. 8 665, See Grave and Metre. Der. barometr-ic-al.
BARON, a title of dignity. (F.—L.) ME. baron, Rob. of Glouc.
p- 125,1. 2669 (see Koch, Eng. Gram. iii. 154); barunx, Old Eng, Homi-
lies, ed. Morris, ii. 35.—F, baron (AF. barun, Vie de St. Auban, ed.
Atkinson, 1.134, and note to 1. 301). B. The final -ox is the accus.
suffix, and the nom. form is OF. ber; both ber and baron meaning,
originally, merely ‘man’ or ‘husband.’ Diez quotes from Ray-
nouard the Orrovencal phrase—‘lo bar non es creat per la femna,
mas la femna per lo baro’ = the man was not created for the woman,
but the woman for the man. —Late L. baro (gen. bardnis),a man; the
same word as L. baro,a simpleton (Cicero). Korting says that suff-
cient proof of this identification is given by Settegast, in Roman.
Forschungen, i. 240. Hence also Prov. bar (acc. bard); Span.
varon, Port. vardon, a man. Der. baron-age, baron-y, baron-et,
baron-et-cy.
BAROUCHE, a sort of carriage. (G.—Ital.) The word is not
properly French; but Ὁ. barutsche modified so as to present a French
appearance. The German word is borrowed from Ital. baroccio, com-
monly (and more correctly) spelt biroccio,a chariot. β. Originally,
biroccio meant a two-wheeled car, from L, burotus, two-wheeled ; with
the ending modified so as to resemble Ital. carroccio, a carriage. from
carro,a car. = L, bi-, double; and rota,a wheel; see Rotary. 4 The
F. form is browette, a dimin. of *beroue, standing for L. birotum. “Ὁ
BARRACKS, soldiers’ lodgings. (F.—Ital.) A modern word;
Rich. quotes from Swift’s Letters and Blackstone, Comment. bk. i.
c.13. The earliest quotation in N. E. D. is dated 1685 ; but it occurs
at least seven years earlier. ‘Monmouth writes from Ostend in 1678:
“Many men ill . . . which they attribute to. . . damp lodging of men
in the Barragues;”’ Sir S. D. Scott, The British Army, ili. 399.—F.
baraque, a barrack, spelt barrague in Supp. to Godefroy ; introduced
in the 16th century from Ital. baracca, f., a tent (Brachet), which
Torriano (1688) explains as ‘a shed made of boards.’ Diez derives
baracca from Ital. barra, a bar. See Bar.
BARRATOR, one who excites to quarrels and suits-at-law. - (F.)
Spelt barrator,barater,in Blount’s Nomo-Lexicon ; baratowrein Frompt.
Parv. p. 1153; see Way’s note. The pl. barratours, deceivers, is in the
F. text of Mandeville, Tray. p. 160, note Α. From ME. barat, fraud,
Ayenbite of Inwyt, pp. 39, 61, 82; barete, strife, R. Manning, tr. of
Langtoft, p. 274; bare‘, Ancren Riwle, p.172. The AF. pl. barettours
occurs in the Stat. of the Realm, i. 364, an. 1361; and AF, barat, de-
ceit, in Life of Edw. Confessor, ed, Luard, 1. 36, —F-. barat, ‘cheating,
deceit, guile, also a barter ;? Cotgrave. See Barter. But the sense
has certainly been influenced by Icel. baratta, strife.
BARREL, a wooden cask. (F.) ME. barel, Chaucer, C, T.,
B 3083 (ed. Tyrw. 13899). Spelt barell, King Alisaunder, ed. Weber,
1. 28. —OF. bari, a barrel. B. Brachet says ‘origin unknown;’
Diez and Scheler suppose the derivation to be from OF, barre, a bar;
BARREN
as if the barrel were looked upon as composed of bars or staves. [The
Celtic forms are borrowed from English.] Cf Barricade.
BARREN, sterile. (F.) ME. bareyn, Chaucer, C. T., A 19773
barain, Ancren Riwle, p. 158.—OF. baraine, baraigne, brehaigne (F.
bréhaigne, all fem. forms), barren. q Etym. unknown ; the usual
guess is, from Breton brec’han, sterile ; but this is merely borrowed
from French (Thurneysen).
BARRICADE, a hastily made fortification; also, as a verb, to
fortify hastily. (F.—Span.) ‘The bridge, the further end whereof
was barricaded with barrells ;’ Hackluyt, Voyages, vol. ii. pt. il. p. 142.
=F. barricade, f., in Cotgrave barriquade, which he explains as ‘a barri-
cado, a defence of barrels, timber, pales, earth, or stones, heaped up,
or closed together,’ &c. B. The F. verb was barriquer, formed
directly from barrique, a large barrel, But the F. sb. is clearly a mere
borrowing from the Span. barricada, f., wrongly Englished as barri-
cado; and this (supposed) Span. form appears. in English also; e.g.
‘they . . . baricadoed up their way ;’ Hackluyt, Voyages, iii. 568.
The Span. barricada is formed as a pp. from avb. barricare, which is
from barrica, a barrel. Probably from Span. barra, a bar. See Bar;
and cf. Barrel.
BARRIER, a boundary. (F.—Late L.) ME. barrere, in Lydgate,
Siege of Thebes, pt. iii. 1. 223; barere in Εἰ. E. Allit. Poems, Β 1239.
-OF. barrere, Godefroy (s.v. bassein) ; F. barriére, a barrier. = OF.
barrer, to bar up.—OF. barre, a bar. See Bar. ἕ
BARRISTER, one who pleads at the bar. (F.; with E. suffix.)
In Holland, Plutarch, p. 138. First found as barrester ab. 1545
(N.E.D.). Formed from the sb. bar, with suffixes -ist- and -er; or,
more probably, from ME. barre with suffix -sfer. Spelman cites a 16th
cent. L. barrasterins, prob. from E, See Bar.
BARROW (1), a burial-mound. (E.) Sherwood, in his index to
Cotgrave, has: ‘A barrow, a hillock, monceaw de terre” ME. bergh
(v. τ. berwe), a hill, P. Plowman, C. viii. 227.‘ Haul vel beoruh,’ i.e.
a hill or barrow, Wright’s Vocab. i. 92.—AS. beorge (OMerc. berge),
dat. of beork, beorg, (1) a hill, (2) a grave-mound; Grein, i. 106. -+
OSax., Du., G. berg, a hill. Teut. type *bergoz, m. Further allied
to Skt. brhant-, great, Pers. burz, high, Irish rt, W. bre, a hill; and
to Borough.
BARROW (2), awheelbarrow. (E.) ME. barow, barowe, Prompt.
Pary. pp. 25, 105; barewe, Beket, 1. 899 (ab. 1300). AS. bearte, in
comp. meox-bearwe, manure-barrow ; Voc, 330. 8. — AS. bar- (bar),
2nd grade of the verb beran, to bear, carry; so that the signification
is ‘a vehicle.’ Cf. EFries. barfe, a barrow; Low G., barve (Berghaus).
See Bear, Beir.
BARTER, to traffic. (F.—C.?) ME. bartryn, to chaffer; Prompt.
Parv. = OF. bareter, barater; Cotgrave has ‘ Barater, to cheat, couzen,
beguile . . . also, to truck, scourse, bar¢er, exchange ;’ and Godefroy
records the contracted form ‘on baréa,’ with the sense ‘ barter,’ in
1373-— OF. sb. barat, which Cotgrave explains by ἡ cheating, deceit;
also a barter, &c.’ Prob. of Celtic origin; cf. Olrish mrath, brath,
treachery, W. brad, treachery, Gael. brath, betrayal; Irish and Gael.
bradach, thievish ; Stokes-Fick, p.220. - B. The suggestion of Diez,
connecting barat with the Gk. πράσσειν, to do, is valueless. { Another
meaning of baret in ME. is “ strife ;’ from Icel. barata, strife. ]
BARTISAN, a battlemented parapet. (F.—Teut.) A mistaken
form due to Sir W. Scott. In Marmion, vi. 2.21; ὅς. Due to ME.
bretasing; the Catholicon Anglicum has: ‘Bretasynge, propugnaculum,’
This is the mod. E. brattic-ing ; see Brattice.
BARTON, a courtyard, manor; used in provincial English and in
place-names and surnames. (E.) A compound word; from AS. bere-
tun, which occurs as a gloss for L. aream in the Lindisfarne MS.,
Matt. iii. 12. From AS. bere, barley; and ‘an, a town, enclosure.
See Barley, Barn, and Town.
BARYTES, older form of baryia, protoxide of barium, a heavy
earth. (Gk.) Modern. So named from its weight. Gk. βαρύτης,
weight.—Gk. Bapv-s, heavy; cognate with L. grauis. See Grave.
Der. baryt-a, protoxide of barium, baryées being then used to mean
sulphate of barium; bari-wm, a newer coinage from Gk. βαρύς
(NLE. D:).
BARYTONE, a grave tone, a deep tone ; used of a male voice.
(Ital.—Gk.) Also spelt baritone. An Italian musical term. = Ital.
baritono, a baritone. = Gk. Bapv-s, heavy (hence deep); and τόνος, tone.
See above; andsee Grave and Tone.
BASALT, a kind ofrock. (L.) Formerly basaiées, as in Holland’s
Pliny (1634), Ὁ. xxxvi.c. 7.—L. basaltes, a dark and very hard species
of marble in Ethiopia; an African word. Pliny, Nat. Hist. 36.75 cf.
Strabo, 17, p. 818 (Lewis).
BASE (1), low, humble. (F.—L.) ME. bass, Gower, C. A, i. 98
(bk. i. 1.1678); base, Sir T. More, Works, p. 361 d. =F. bas, m., basse,
fem.= Late L. bassus. B. Diez regards bassus as a genuine Latin
word, meaning ‘stout, fat’ rather than ‘short, low;’ he says, and truly,
that Bassus was a L. personal name at an early period. Der. base-ness,
BASKET 49
base-minded, &c.; a-base, a-base-ment ; de-base; base-ment (Τῆς sou-basse-
ment, Ital. bassamenio, lit. abasement), And see Bass (1).
BASE (2),a foundation. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. bas, baas; Chaucer,
on the Astrolabie, ed. Skeat, ii. 41. 2; il. 43. 2.—F. bave. = L. basis, =
Gk. βάσις, a going, a pedestal. For *Ba-ris ; cf. Skt. ga-dt-s, a going.
From Gk. §a-, allied to Bay- in βαίνειν (for *Bav-yew), to go; from
the same root as E. come. See Come. Der. base-less, base-line.
Doublet, basis.
BASEMENT, lowest floor ofa building. (F.—Ital.—L.) Appears
in Ἐς as soubassement, formerly sousbassement; a word made in the
16th cent., from sous, under, and bassement, borrowed from Ital, bas-
samento, of which the lit. sense is ‘abasement’ (Brachet, Torriano).
Thus it belongs to the adj. base, not to the sb. See Base (1).
BASENET, a light helmet; see Basnet. ls
BASHAW, the same as Pasha, which see. (Pers.). Marlowe has
basso, 1 Tamerlane, iii. 1.1. Cf. Ε΄ bachat, ‘a Bassa, a chief com-
mander under the great Turk ;’ Cot.
BASHFUL, shy. (F. azd E.) In Tempest, iii. 1. 81. From
the verb ἐο bask (Nares, ed. 1876), to be ashamed, which is short for
abash; with the suffix -ful. See Abash. ;
BASIL (1), ἃ kind of plant. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘Basil; herb, basilica ;?
Levins, 124. 7. Spelt basil in Cotgrave. It is short for basilic, the
last syllable being dropped. —F. basilic, ‘the herb basill;’ Cot.=—L.
basilicum, neut. of bastlicus, royal. Gk. βασιλικός, royal; from Gk.
βασιλεύς, a king. 4 The G. name honigskraut, i.e. king’s, wort,
records the same notion.
BASIL (2), a bevelled edge; see Bezel.
BASIL (3), the hide of a sheep tanned. (F.—Span.— Arab.)
Halliwell gives bassell Je‘her, mentioned in the Brit. Bibliographer, by
Sir E. Bridges (1810), ii. 399. The form is corrupt, ὁ being put for » ;
Johnson observes that a better spelling is basen. The Anglo-French
form is bazene, bazeyne, Liber Custumarum, pp. 83, 84; also bazain,
bazein, Gloss. to Liber Albus. = OF. basanne, given by Palsgrave as
the equivalent of a ‘schepskynne towed,’ i.e. a tawed sheep-skin;
bazane, Cotgrave; mod. F. basane, f.— Span. badana, a dressed sheep-
skin. = Arab. bifanat, the [inner] lining of a garment; Rich. Dict.
p. 276; because basil-leather was used for lining leathern garments. =
Arab, root batana, to cover, hide (Freytag). Cf. Arab. batn, the belly;
interior part, Rich. Dict. p. 277; Heb. beten (spelt with εκ), the belly.
See Littré; also Devic, Supplement to Littré; and Engelmann.
BASILICA,a palace,a large hall. (L.—Gk.) L. basilica (sc.domus,
house), royal; fem. of basilicus, royal. = Gk. βασιλική (sc.o7oa),a public
building with colonnades, a church; fem. of βασιλικός, royal. Gk.
βασιλεύς, aking. See below. ‘
BASILISK, a kind of lizard or snake. (L.—Gk.) ‘The serpent
called a bastliske;? Holland’s Pliny, bk. viii. c. 21. Also in E.-E.
Psalter (ab. 1300), Ps. xc. (xci.) 13.—L. basiliscus; same ref.— Gk.
βασιλίσκος, royal; from a white spot, resembling a crown, on the head
(Pliny).— Gk. βασιλεύς, a king ; of doubtful origin.
BASIN, a hollow circular vessel. (F.—Late L.) ME. bacin, basin;
Seven Sages, ed. Weber, 1. 2242; (used in the sense of helmet) King
Alisaunder, 1. 2333. —OF. bacin (F. bassin, m.) ; alluded to by Gregory
of Tours, who cites it as a word of rustic use; ‘ paterze quas vulgo
bacchinon vocant.” Romanic type *baccinum (whence also Ital. bacino,
Span. bacin) ; from Late L. bacca, a water-vessel (Isidore). Hence
also Dn. bak, a tray, trough, Dan. bakke, a tray. Der. basn-et, q.v.
BASIS, a foundation. (L.—Gk.) In Shak. Macb. iv. 3. 32;
Beaum. and Fletcher, Valentinian, iv. 4. See Base (2).
BASK, to lie exposed to warmth. (Scand.) ME. baske. Pals-
grave has—‘I baske, 1 bathe in water or any lycour. β. It is
certainly formed, like dusk, from an Old Scand. source, the -sk being
reflexive. The only question is whether it means ‘ to bake oneself”
or ‘to bathe oneself.’ All evidence shows that it is certainly the
latter. -y. Chaucer uses bathe hire, i.e. bathe herself, in the sense of
bask ; Nonne Prestes Tale, 1. 447; and see Gower, C, A. i. 290 (bk.
iii. 11. 312-15); andthe quotation above. 8. The derivation is then
from an OScand. *badask (for bada stk), to bathe oneself, now re-
presented by Icel. badast, to bathe oneself, with the common change
of final -sk to -st. For loss of 3, cf. or for other. See Bath, and
Busk.
BASKET, a vessel made of flexible materials. (F.) ME. baskec;
Chaucer, C. T., 12379 (C. 445). Sometimes said to be Celtic ; but
W. basged, a basket, Corn. basced, Irish basceid, Gael. bascaid, are
merely borrowed from English; and the oft-quoted Celto-L.
bascauda (Martial, Juvenal) gave rise to OF. bachoe, bachoue, a basket
(Godefroy, Cotgrave), which greatly differs in form. B. Certainly
French; the AF. form basket (with the characteristic AF. pl. baskes)
appears in A. Neckam (ab. 1200); see Wright’s Voc. i. 98, 6; 111, 2.
The suffix -ef is also usually French. But no such word has been
recorded in O. French of the continent; unless we may consider the
OF. baste, a basket, noted by Godefroy, to be allied to it. γ. The
K
50 BASNET
AF, word may have been suggested by E. bast; cf. prov. E. bass, bast,
also a mat, hassock, basket made of matting; bastik, a basket.
BASNET, BASSENET, BASSINET, a kind oflight helmet.
(F.—Late L.) Spelt bassexet in Halliwell, who gives several ex-
amples; basenet in Spenser, F. Q. vi. 1. 31. ME. basinet, Rich.
Cuer de Lion, 403; bacynet, id. 5266; basnet, King Alisaunder,
2234.—OF. bacinet (Burguy, Koquefort) ; spelt bassinet in Cot., who
explains it by ‘a small bason, also a head-peece.’ Dimin. of OF.
bacin, a basin; see Basin.
BASS (1), the lowest part in a musical composition. (F.—L.)
Shak. has base, generally printed bass; Tam. of Shrew, iii. 1. 46.
Cotgrave has: ‘ Basse, contre, the base part in music.’ Sherwood has:
© The base in musick, basse, basse-contre. =F. basse, fem. of bas, low;
cf. Ital. basso, which has influenced the spelling, but not the sound.
See Base (1). Der. bass-relief (Ital. bassorilievo).
BASS (2), BARSE; names ofa fish. (E.) These are, radically,
thesame word. We make little real difference in sound between words
like pass and parse. ‘A barse, fishe, tincha ;’ Levins, 33. 13. ΜΕ.
bace, a fish; Prompt. Parv. p. 20; see Way’s note. AS. bers, lupus
vel scardo; Voc. 180. 26.4Du. baars, a perch; G. bars, barsch, a
perch. Orig. applied to the perch, and named from its prickles.
From *bars, 2nd grade of Teut. root *bers, whence also Bristle,
q.v. Cf. Skt. bhrshti-, pointed.
BASSOON, a deep-toned musical instrument. (F.—L.) Not in
early use. In Bailey’s Dict., ed. 1735. Borrowed from F. basson, a
bassoon; formed, with augmentative suffix -on, from basse, bass.
See Bass (1), Base (1).
BAST, the inner bark of the lime-tree, or matting made of it. (E.)
ME. bast; ‘ Hectilia, baste-tre,’ Vocab. 647. 11. AS. best, a lime-
tree; Vocab. 51. 2. Cf. Icel., Swed., Dan., Du., G. bast, bast.
7 Sometimes corrupted to bass ; see Basket.
BASTARD, a child of parents not married; illegitimate, false.
(F.—LateL.) ‘ Willam bastard,’ i.e. William the Conqueror; Rob.
of Glouc. p. 295 (1. 5970). —OF. bastard, bastart, of which the ety-
mology has been much disputed. B. The ending -ard is common in
OF. (and even in English, cf. cow-ard, drunk-ard, the E. suffix having
been borrowed from French), This suffix is certainly OHG.,, viz.
the OHG. -hart, hard, first used as a suffix in proper names, such
as Regin-hart (whence Εἰς reynard), Eber-hart (whence E. Everard).
In French words this suffix assumed first an intensive, and secondly,
a sinister sense ; see examples in Pref. to Brachet’s Etym. F. Dict.
sect. 196. sy. It is now ascertained that OF. bastard meant ‘a son
of a bast’ (not of a bed), where bas? is the mod. F. bat, a pack-saddle,
from Late L. bastwm, a pack-saddle. See Ducange, who quotes:
*Sagma, sella quam vulgus bastum vocat, super quo componuntur
sarcine.’ Brachet refers to M. G. Paris, Histoire poétique de Charle-
magne, p. 441, for furtherinformation. The phrase fils de bast, ‘pack-
saddle child,’ was quite common; see Bast in Godefroy. Cf. ‘thei
[though] he were abast ibore,’ i.e.. born on bast; Rob. of Glouc.
p- 516 (1. 10629). 4 The word was very widely spread after the
time of William I, on account of his exploits, and found its way into
nearly all the Celtic dialects, and into Icelandic. Scheler quotes
OF. cottr-art, a bastard, lit. ‘son of a coitre or quilt,’ and G. bank-art,
‘son of a bench;’ see Bantling.
BASTE (1), vb., to beat, strike. (Scand.) We find ‘ basting and
bear-baiting;’ Hudibras, pt. ii. c. 1,1. 36. Also ‘he has basted me;’
Ben Jonson, Every Man, iv. 4.—Swed. dial. basta, to strike, to beat
(Rietz, p. 25, col. 2); cf. basta, a beating (ibid.), MDan. bastig, adj.,
beating, striking; perhaps an extension from Swed. basa, to strike,
beat, flog. Cf. Dan. baske, prov. E. bash, to beat.
BASTE (2), to pour fat over meat. (F.—Late L.) It occurs in
Palsgrave, p. 442; in Gammer Gurton’s Needle, i. 1; and in Shak.,
Com. Errors, ii. 2. 59. ‘To baste, linire;’ Levins, 36. 22. It
appears to be only a particular use of OF. bastiv, to build ; for in Du
Wez, Supp. to Palsgrave, p. 938, we find these entries: ‘To buylde,
baatir (sic; for bastir); ‘To cast butter upon rost, bastir.’ See
Bastile.
BASTE (3), to sew slightly. (F.-OHG.) ME. basten, bastyn;
Prompt. Parv. p. 26; Rom. of the Rose, 1. 104. OF. bastir, F. batir,
to baste, which is distinct (according to Littré and Hatzfeld) from
batir, to build. —MHG. bestan (for *bastjan), to bind. —OHG. bast,
the inner bark of the lime-tree. So also Dan. basre, to tie, to bind
with bast, to pinion; from Dan. bas/, bast. See Bast.
BASTILE, a fortress. (F.—Provy.—LateL.) Chielly used of the
bastile in Paris. = OF. bastille, a building. —Prov. bastida, the same,
with change of suffix (Hatzfeld).— Late Lat. bastire, to build ; whence
OF. bastir, to build. Usually referred to the same root as Baton, αν.
BASTINADO, a sound beating; to beat. (Span.—Late L.)
Shak, has bastinado as a sb. ; K. John, ii. 463.—Span. bastonada, a
beating with a stick. =Span. baston, a stick, staff, baton. See Baton.
BASTION, part of a fortification. (F.—Ital.—Proy. —Late L.)
BATTER
In Howell, bk. i. letter 42 ; and in Goldsmith, Citizen of the World
(R.)—F. bastion, introduced in the 16th century from Ital. bastione
(Brachet) ; which is the augmentative of Ital. bastia, a building, fort,
rampart. = Proy. bastia, bastida, the same. = Late L. bastire, to build.
See Bastile.
BAT (1), ashort cudgel. (E.) ME. ba‘te, Prompt. Parv. p. 26:
botte, Ancren Kiwle, p. 366; Layamon, 21593. AS. batt; in Napier’s
Glosses. Cf. Irish bata, bat, a staff. Prob. allied to Batter (1).
Der. bat-let (with dimin. suffix -Jet = -el-et), a small bat for beating
washed clothes; Shak., As You Like It, ii. 4. 49. Also bat, verb;
Prompt. Parv.
BAT (2), a winged mammal. (Scand.) Corrupted from ME,
bakke. ‘The Prompt. Parv. has ‘ Bakke, flyinge best [beast], vesper-
ulio.’ Wyclif (in some MSS.) has backe, Levit. xi. 19. — Dan. bakke,
only used in the comp. aftenbakke, evening-bat. For change ofk to,
cf. apricot for apricock. B. There is also an older form blakke, seen in
Icel. ledrblaka =a ‘leather-flapper,’ a bat.—Jcel. blaka, to flutter,
flap. The equivalence of the forms is clearly shown by MSwed.
natt-backa, lit. ‘night-bat;’ as compared with Swed. dial. natt-blakka
and natt-batta. The form blak, a bat, occurs even in ME., viz. in Rob.
Brunne, Handl. Synne, 1. 11863, but is recorded neither by Strat-
mann nor in the N.E.D. Cf. also MDan. natbakka, a bat. 4 The
AS. word is hréremiis, whence prov. Eng. reremouse, rearmouse.
BATCH, a quantity of bread. (E.) A batch is what is baked at
once; hence, generally, a quantity, a collection. ME. bacche;
‘bahche, or bakynge, or batche, pistura;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 21. Here
batche is a Jater substitution for an older bacche, due to an AS, form
*bacce ; clearly a derivative of AS. bac-an, to bake. See Bake.
BATE (1), to abate, diminish. (F.—L.) Shak. has bate, to beat
down, diminish, remit, &c.; in many passages. We find too: ‘Batyn,
or abaten of weyte or mesure, subtraho;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 26. ME.
bate, R. Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 338. Merely a contraction of
abate, horrowed from OF. abaire, to beat down. See Abate.
BATE (2), strife. (F.—L.) Shak. has ‘breeds no bate;’ 2 Hen.
IV, ii. 4. 2713 also bate-breeding, Ven, and Adonis, 655. ‘ Batyn,
or make debate, jurgor;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 26. ME. bat, bate, Cov.
Myst. p. 12; Gawain and the Grene Knight, 1. 1461. It is agreed
that ba/e is a mere contraction of the common old word deba’e, used
in precisely the same sense; borrowed from the OF. debat, strife;
a derivative of battre, to beat. See Batter (1).
BATH, a place for washing in. (E.) ME. baZ, Ormulum, 18044.
AS. bad (Grein). + Icel. bad; OHG. bad, pad; MSwed, bad (Ihre) ;
Du., Dan. bad. Teut. type *ba-dom, neut. The OHG, appears to
have a still older source in the OHG. vb. *bajan, bahen, to warm
(ἃ, bithen, to foment).
BATHE, to use a bath. (E.) The AS. badsan, to bathe, is a
derivative from bad, a bath; not vice versa. Der. bask.
BATHOS, lit. depth. (Gk.) Ludicrously applied to a descent
from the elevated to the mean in poetry or oratory. See the allusion,
in a note to Appendix I to Pope’s Dunciad, to A Treatise of the
Bathos, or Art of Sinking in Poetry. —Gk. βάθος, depth; cf. Gk.
βαθύς, deep.
BATON, BATOON, a cudgel. (F.—Late L.) Spelt battoon in
Sir T. Herbert’s Travels, ed. 1665, p. 149; batune in Phillips’ Dict.,
ed. 1658 ; battoone in Davenant, Long Vacation in London, |. 9.“ Ε΄.
bdton, acudgel. = OF. basion, — Late L. acc. bastonem, from basto, astick;
of unknown origin. Diez suggests a connexion with Gk. βαστάζειν,
to support. Doublet, baéten (2).
BATTALION, a body of armed men. (F.—Ital.—Late L)
Milton has it; P.L. i. 569.—F. bataillon, introduced, says Brachet,
in the 16th cent. from Ital. battaglione ; which was formed from Ital.
battaglia, a battle, by adding the augment. suffix -one. See Battle.
BATTEN (1), to grow fat; to fatten. (Scand.) Shak. has batten,
to feed gluttonously (intransitive), Hamlet, iii. 4.67; but Milton has
‘battening our flocks,’ Lycidas, 1. 29. Strictly, it is intransitive. =
Tcel. batna, to grow better, recover; as distinguished fiom beta,
trans.,.to improve, make better.4+Goth. gabatnan, to profit, avail,
Mark, vii. 11, intrans.; as distinguished from bé¢jan, trans., to avail,
Mark, viii. 36. Both Icel. batna and Goth. gabatnan are formed
from the Teut. base LAT, good, preserved in the E. better and best.
See Better. @ Cf. also Du. baten, to yield profit; baat, profit.
BATTEN (2), a wooden rod. (F.—LateL.) ‘ Batten, a scantling
of wood, 2, 3, or 4 in. [or 7] broad, seldom above 1 thick, and the
length unlimited ;” Moxon; in Todd’s Johnson. Hence, to batten
down, to fasten down with battens. A mere variant of batton or batox.
See Baton.
BATTER (1), to beat. (F.—L.) ME. bateren, batren, P. Plow-
man, B. iii. 198; formed with frequentative suffix -er from a base
bat-.—F, batire, to beat.—L. battere, a popular form of battuere, to
beat. See Battle. Der. bat/er (2), baiter-y, batler-ing-ram.
BATTER (2), a compound of eggs, flour, and milk. (F:—L.)
BATTERY
ME. batowre, Prompt. Parv., p. 27 ; bature, Catholicon. - OF. bature,
a beating. = OF. batire, to beat. See above. So called from being
bea‘en up together ; Wedgwood. So, too, Span. batido, batter, is the
pp. of batir, to beat.
BATTERY, a beating; a place for cannon; a number of
cannon in position. (F.—L.) See Twelfth Night, iv. 1. 36; Hen. V,
iii. 3.7. Cotgrave has : ‘ Baterie (also Batferte), a beating ; a battery ;
a platform for battery.’ =F. battre, to beat. See Batter (1). @ The
AF. baterie (legal term) occurs in the Stat. of the Realm, i. 48 (an.
1278).
RATTLE, a combat. (F.—L.) ME. bataille, bataile, Chaucer,
Leg. of Good Wom. 1631 ; King Horn, 574.— OF. bataille, meaning
both (1) a fight, (2) a battalion. — Folk-L. bat/alia, neut. pl. (turned
into a fem. sing.), fights; Late L. batralia, neut. pl. of adj. baitualis,
fighting. = L. batruere, to beat. Der. battal-ion, q. v.
BATTLEDOOR, a bat with a thin handle. (South F.—
1.) ‘Batyldoure, a wasshynge betylle,’ i.e. a bat for beating
clothes whilst being washed, Prompt. Ῥαγν. p. 27. a. A corrupted
form ; borrowed from the Provengal (South French) batedor, meaning
exactly a washing-beetle, a bat for clothes; cf. Span, batidor, the
same. [The English held Bordeaux till 1451.] Once imported into
English, the first two syllables were easily corrupted into batile, a
dimin. of bat, leaving -door meaningless. Cf. crayfish. Note prov.
E. batiling-stone, a stone on which wet linen was beaten to cleanse it ;
battling-stick or bailet, a battledoor for washing. β. Formed from
Prov. batre, Span. batir, to beat; the suffix -dor in Span. and Prov.
answers to the 1,. acc. suffix -/drem, as in ama-torem, acc. of ama-tor,
a lover. Sce Batter (1).
BATTLEMENT, a parapet for fortification. (F.) ΜΕ. batel-
ment, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 1459. ‘ Batylment of a walle, pro-
pugnaculum;’ Promp. Parv. p. 27. As if from an OF. *bavaillement,
formed from the verb bataillier, bateillier, to fortify, to furnish with
battlements, called in OF. bata:lles, a peculiar use of the pl. of bataille,
a battle (Godefroy) ; see Battle. Thus ‘ mur bataille,’ an embattled
wall, occurs in the Rom. dela Rose, 1. 131; cf. Chaucer’s translation,
1.139. But probably confused with a later OF. batillement (Godefroy),
a redoubt, formed from OF. basuller, to fortify. See Battle and
Bastile; and see Embattle.
BAUBLES (1), a fool’s mace. (F.) This seems to be the same as
bauble, a plaything. Palsgrave has: ‘ Bable for a foole, marotte.’
‘As he that with his babi pleide ;’ Gower, C. A. iii. 224: bk, vii.
3055.- OF. baubel, babel, a child’s plaything (Godefroy) ; perhaps
connected with MItal. babbola, a toy (Florio), and with L. babulus, a
fool. Cf. E. Babble. β. Prob. a distinct word from ME. babulle,
bable, ‘ Librilla, pegma,’ in Prompt. Parv. p. 20. As to this bable,
see Way’s note in Prompt. Parv., showing that /ébrilla means a stick
with a thong, for weighing meat, or for use asa sling; and peg'ma
means a stick with a weight suspended from it, for inflicting blows
with. Perhaps so called from the wagging or swinging motion with
which it was employed ; from the verb‘ bablyx, or babelyn, or waveryn,
librillo;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 20. We also find, at the same reference,
‘ babelynge, or wauerynge, vacillacio, librillacto.” Were this verb still
in use, we might equate it to prov. E. bobble, to bob up and down,
formed, as many frequentatives are, by adding the suffix -le. It is
prob. imitative. See Bob.
BAUBLE (2), a plaything. (F.) Shak. has bavble in the sense
of a trifle, a useless plaything, Tam. Shrew, iv. 3. 82.—OF. baubel,
a plaything (Godefroy) ; also spelt babel. See Bauble (1) above.
BAVIN, a faggot. (F.) Prov. E. bavin, a faggot, brushwood ;
hence, as adj., soon kindled and burnt out, τ Hen. IV, iii. 2. 61.
‘Bauen, great fagottes;’ Palsgrave (1530).—OF. baffe, a faggot,
bundle (Godefroy, Roquefort). Remoter origin unknown.
BAWD, a lewd person. (F.—G.) ME. bande, Chaucer, C. T.
6936 (D 1354); P. Plowman, B. 111. 128. But itis a contracted form ;
the full form being bawdstrot, P. Plowm. A. iii. 42 (another MS. has
bawde).— OF, *baldestrot, *baudestrot, found only in the later form
baudetrot, as a gloss to L. pronuba, a bride-woman. —OHG. bald,
bold, gay, lively (cognate with E. bold); and MHG. strolzen, to
strut about, to be puffed up (cognate with Εἰ. sfrut). See Bold.
Der. bawd-y, bawd-i-ness ; baud-r-y [distinct from OF. baxderie, balde-
rie, vivacity]; see below.
BAWDY, lewd. (F.—G.) Merely formed as an adj. from
bawd; seeabove. @ But the ME. baudy, dirty, used of clothes, in
Chaucer and P. Plowman, is a different word, and may be of Celtic
origin. Cf. W. bawaidd, dirty; baw, dirt. The two words, having
something of the same meaning, were easily assimilated in form,
BAWL, to shout. (Scand.) Sir T. More has ‘ yalping [yelping]
and balling ;? Works, p. 1254 c. Cf. ‘Baffynge or bawlynge of
howndys ; ἡ Prompt. Pary. p. 20. Swed. bola, tolow ; MDan. Sole,
to low; mod. Icel. baula, to low; Icel. δαιτὶ, a cow. Of imitative
origin.-+Low G. bolen, to baw! (Berghaus).
BE- 51
BAY (1), a reddish brown. (F.—L.) ME. bay; ‘a stede bay,’
a bay horse; Chaucer, C. T. 2159 (A 2157). —OF. bai.—L. badius,
bay-coloured, in Varro. Cf. Gael. and Irish buidhe, OIrish buide,
yellow. Der. bay-ard (a bay-horse) ; baize, q.v.
BAY (2), a kind of laurel-tree; prop. a berry-tree. (F.—L.) ‘The
roiall lawrel is a very tal and big tree, with leaues also as large in
proportion, and the baves or berries (bacce) that it beareth are nothing
{not at all] sharp, biting, and ynpleasant in tast ;” Holland’s Pliny,
b. xv.c.30. ‘Bay, frute, bacca;’ Prompt. Parv.—F. bate, a berry. =
L, baca (less correctly bacca), a berry. @ Cf. AF.‘ bayes de lorer =
bacce lauri;’ Alphita.
BAY (3), an inlet of the sea. (F.—L.) Bay occurs in Surrey, tr.
of the Afneid, bk. ii. 31; ME. baye, Trevisa, tr. of Higden, i. 57.—
F. baie, an inlet.—L. bata, in Isidore of Seville; see Brachet and
Ducange. Der. bay-salt.
BAY (4), an opening in a wall, esp. the space between two
columns ; a division in a barn. (F.—L. In Meas. for Meas, ii. 1.
255. ‘Heye houses withinne the halle. ... So brod bilde in a bay;”
Allit. Poems, B.1392.—F. baie (for baée) ; AF. baee,a gap in a wall,
P. de Thaun, Livre des Creatures, 38; pp. fem. of OF. baer, MF.
bayer, to gape. Cf. Ital. badare, ‘to delay, to gape idly,’ Florio. =
Late L. badare, to gape. Sometimes contused with Bay (3).
BAY (5), to bark as a dog. (F.—L.) ‘The dogge wolde bay ;’
Berners’ Froissart, vol. ii. c. 171. ‘ Braches bayed,’ hounds bayed ;
Gawain and Grene Knight, 1142. [Also common in the derived
form; ME. abayen, K. Alisaunder, 3882; from OF. abaier, MF.
‘abbayer, to bark or bay at ;’ Cot.; F. aboyer.]}—OF. a (L. ad), and
baier, to yelp (Godefroy); cf. MItal. baiare, ‘to barke,’: Florio ;
answering to a Late L. type *badiare, (Hatzleld), prob. from badare,
to gape. See Bay (4).
BAY (6), in phr. at day. (F.—L.) ‘He folowed the chace ofan
hert, and... broughte hym toa bay ;’ Fabyan, Chron. c. 127. Here
‘to a bay’ is really a corruption of ‘to abay;’ cf. ‘Wher hy hym
myghte, so hound adaye, . . . bygile” = where they might, like a hound
at bay, beguile him; King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 3882; see also
abay in N. E. D.; and see further below. — OF. abai, pl. abais ; F. abois,
abbois. Cotgrave says—‘a stag is said rendre les abbois when, weary
of running, he turns upon the hounds, and holds them at, or puts them
to, a bay.’ The same is also expressed by the phrase étre aux αδοῖς ;
see aboi in Brachet. The original sense of OF. αδαὲ is the bark of a
dog. Cotgrave has ‘ Abbay, the barking or baying of dogs ;’ ‘ Abbois,
barkings, bayings ;” forthe OF. abai, abaier, see aboi, aboyer in Littré.
See Bay (5), to bark.
BAYADERE, a Hindoo dancing-girl. (F.—Port.—Late L.)
Spelt balliadera (1598); bayadere (1826). - Εἰς, dayadére. — Port. batla-
deira, a dancing girl.= Port. bailar, to dance. See Ball (2).
BAYARD, a horse; orig.a bay horse. (F.—L.) See Bay (1).
BAYONET, a dagger at the end of a gun. (F.) Used by Burke;
Select Works, ed. E. J. Payne, i. r11, 1.15. Introduced in the 17th
century, from F. bavonneite, formerly bayonette, which at first meant
a short flat dagger. So called from Bayonne, in France, where such
daggers were first made; see bayonette in Cotgrave, and see Hatz-
feld. The bayonet was used at Killiecrankie in 1689, and at Mar-
saglia by the French, in 1693. See Haydn, Dict. of Dates.
BAY-WINDOW, a window within a recess. (Hybrid; F. and
Scand.) ‘Within a bay-window;’ Court of Love, 1058; ‘With
bay-windowes ;’ Assembly of Ladies, 163. From Bay (4) and
Window. The modern bow-window, 1.6. window with a curved
or bowed outline, is an independent word.
BAZAAR, a market. (Pers.) Spelt buzzar by Sir T. Herbert, in
his Travels, where he speaks of ‘the great buzzar or market;’ ed.
1665, p. 41.— Pers. bizar, a market. See Palmer's Pers. Dict. col.
65; Horn, ἃ 164,
BDELLIUM, a precious substance. (L.—Gk.—Skt.?) In Gen.
ii. 12, it is joined with ‘gold’ and ‘ onyx-stone;” in Numb. xi. 7,
manna is likened to it in colour, In Holland’s Pliny, xii. 9, it is the
gum of a tree, or the palm-tree that yiclds it, Borassus flabelliformis
(Lewis) ; and Pliny also calls it maldacon. — L. bdellium.— Gk. βδέλ-
λιον ; also βδέλλα. Other forms are βδολχόν, μάδελκον (whence L.
maldacon) ; which Lassen derives from a supposed Skt. *madalaka,
from Skt. mada-s, m., musk. The Gk. βδολχόν corresponds to the
Heb. béddlakh, which see in Gesenius, Heb. Lex. 8th ed., p. 93.
BE., prefix. (E.) AS. be-, prefix; in very common use. It some-
times implies ‘to make,’ as in be-foxl, to make foul. ‘It some-
times serves to locate the act, and sometimes intensifies ;’ Affixes of
English Words, by 5. S. Haldeman, p. 49. Behead means to deprive.
of the head; beset, to set upon, attack ; besfeve, to sit by or around,
to invest with an army; bemrre, to cover with mire. Cf. becalm, be-
dim, bedeck, bedrop; also become, befall, i.e. to come upon, to fall
upon. Also used as a prefix of prepositions; as in before, between.
Beside=by the side of. Below =by low, on the lower side of; so also
E 2
52 BE
beneath, on the nether side of. The AS. be- or bi- (ME, be-, bi-) is a
weak or unstressed form of the prep. bi, E. by. See By.
BE, to exist. (E.) ME. been, Prompt. Parv. 30. AS. béon, to be
(passun).4-Du. ben, I am; G. bin, 1 am; Irish bu, was; Russian
buite, to be; bu-du, I shall be; L. fore, pt. t. μά; Gk. φύειν, aor.
ἔφυν ; Skt. bhi, to be. —4/BHEU, to exist. See also Are, Was.
BEACH, a shore; esp. of the sea. (E.) Orig. a ridge of shingle,
or shingle. Not found in early authors. ‘ The pibbles on the hungry
beach’ Cor. v. 3. 58. ‘A barre of beach or peeble-stones ;’ Hack-
luyt, Voyages, i. 355. Etym. doubtful, but perhaps the same as prov.
E. bache, a viver, also a sandbank or ridge by a river (E. 1). D.);
ME. bache. From AS. bece, dat. of bec, a valley; cf. ‘of pam diopan
bace;’ Birch, Cart. Sax. iii. 344, 646; to pam bece, id. ili, 52; to
gisles bece, id. ii. 167. Der. beach, verb; beach-y, 2 Hen. IV, iii. 1. 50.
BEACON, a sign, signal. (E.) ME. bekene, P. Plowman, B. xvii.
262. AS. béacen, a sign, signal, standard (Grein); also spelt δδονι.
OSax. bokan; MHG,. bouchen: OHG. poukhan, a sign. Teut. type
*bauknom, neut. See Beck, Beckon.
BEAD, a perforated ball, used for counting prayers. (E.) The
old sense is ‘a prayer;’ and the bead was so called because used for
counting prayers; and not vice versi. ME. bede, a bead; Chaucer,
Prol. 159. ‘Thanne he hauede his bede seyd’= when he had sa.d his
prayer; Havelok, 1385. AS. byd-, in comp., a prayer; gen. used in
the form gebed (cf. G. gebet), Grein, i. 376.4 Du. bede, an entreaty,
request ; gebed,a prayer; G. bitie,a request; gebet,a prayer, request.
These are derived words from the verb; viz. AS. biddan, Du. Lidden,
OHG. pit‘an (G. bilten), to pray. Cf. Goth. dida, a prayer; bidjan,
to pray. See Bid (1). Der. bead-roll, spelt beadrowe in Tyndal’s
Works, p. 102, col. 2, ed. 15723 beads-man, Two Gent. of Verona,
i. 1.18,
BEADLE, properly, one who proclaims. (F.—Teut.) ME. bedel,
P. Plowman, b. ii. 109; bedele, Cursor Mundi, 11006.—OF. bedel, a
herald; F. bedeau, ‘a beadle,’ Cot. MHG., biitel, OHG. butil, a pro-
claimer ; but Latinised as bidellus (E. bedell), as if from OHG, bitel,
one who asks. —OHG. but-, weak grade of biofan, to proclaim,
cognate with AS, béodan, whence AS, bydel, a herald; see Bid (2).
BEAGLE, a small dog, for hunting hares. (F.—L.?) ME. be-
gele; Hall’s Chron. Hen. VI, an. 28. § 3; begle, Squire of Low
Degree, 771. Of uncertain origin. The index to Cotgrave has
‘Beagle, petite chienne. Cf. ‘Begle, canicula;’ Levins, 53, 43- It
would seem to bean AF. fem.sb. Dr. Murray compares it with OF.
beegueulle, a noisy importunate person, lit. ‘open mouth;’ Late L.
badata gula; see Bay (4).
BEAK, a bill, point. (F.—C.) ΜΕ. beke, Chaucer, Leg. of Good
Wom., 148; bec, Bestiary, 58 (ab. 1220).—F. bec.—Low L. beccus,
quoted by Suetonius as of Ganlish origin (Brachet) ; and Thurneysen
suggests a connexion with Irish bacc, W. bach, a crook, a hook.
BEAKER, a sort of cup. (Scand.—L.— Gk.) ME. byker, biker ;
Prompt. Parv. p. 35. Way notes that the word occurs as early as
A.D. 1348. —Icel. brkarr, a cup.+ Du. beker ; G. becher; Ital. bicchiere.
B. It appears in Late L. as bicdrium, a wine-cup ; a word formed from
Gk. βῦκος, an earthen wine-vessel, whence also the dimin. forms Aixiov,
βικίδιον. — y. The Gk. βᾶκος is of Eastern origin (Liddell). Doublet,
pitcher.
BEAM (1), a piece of timber. (E.) ME. beem, bem, beam; Ch.
C. T., B 4362 (1.15178); Layamon, 2848. AS. béam, a tree ; Grein,
p- 105. + OHG, boum, G. baum, a tree; Du. boom. Cf. also Icel.
badmr, a tree; Goth. bagms, a tree.
BEAM (2), a ray of light. (E.) A particular use of the word
above. The ‘pillar of fre’ mentioned in Exodus is called in AS.
poetry byrnende béam, the burning beam; Grein, p. 105. Der. beam-y,
beam-less.
BEAN, a kind of plant. (E.) ME. bene, Chaucer, C. T. 3770
(A3772). AS. béan (Lye, Bosworth).4 Du. boon ; Icel. baun; OHG.
pona; G. bohne. Teut. type *bauna, fem.
BEAR (1), to carry. (E.) ME. beren, bere, P. Plowman, B. ii. So.
AS. beran (Grein). + Goth. bairan; ΟἿ. beran; cognate with L.
ferre; Gk. pepew; Skt. bhy, to bear; Olrish ber-im, I bear; Russ.
brate, to take, carry; Pers. burdan, to bear. —4/BHER, to carry.
Der. bear-able, bear-er, bear-ing; barrow (2), bier, birth, bore (3),
burden (1); and cf. berth.
BEAR (2), an animal. (E.) ME. bere, Chaucer, C. T., A 1640.
AS. bera, ursus (Grein). + Du. beer; Icel. bera, bjorn; OHG. pero,
bero, ας bir. Teut. type *beron-, masc. Further allied to Russ. ber-
in ber-loga, a bear’s lair or den; Skt. bhallas (for *bhar-las), a bear.
Named from its colour. Cf Lith. béras, brown ( Kluge).
BEARD, hair on the chin. (E.) ΜΕ. berde, berd; Chaucer, Prol.
322. AS. beard, Grein, i. 102.4 Du. baard; G, bart. Teut. type
*bardoz, m. Allied to Russ. boroda; Lith. barz7a; L. barba, the
beard ; from Idg. type *bhardha, fem. Brugm.i. ὃ 972. Der. beard-
ed, beard-less.
BECKON
BEAST, an animal. (F.—L.) ME. beste, Chaucer, C. T. 1978 (A
1976); beaste, Old Eng. Homilies, i. 277.—OF. beste (F. béte).—L.
bestia, an animal. Der. beast-like, beast-ly, ME. beestli, Wyclif, 1 Cor.
xv. 44, to tr. L. animale; beast-li-ness, best-i-al (L. bestialis), best-i-al-
i-ty, best-i-al-ise.
BEAT, to strike. (E.) ME. befen, δείε, P. Plowman, B. xiv. 19.
AS. béatan, to beat; Grein, i. 106.4Icel. bauta, to beat; OHG. pozan,
MHG, bozen, to beat. Teut. type *bau/an-. Der. beai, sb., beat-er,
beetle (2). @ The resemblance to F. battre, L. batuere, is accidental.
BEATIF'Y, to make blessed. (F.—L.) Bp. Taylor has ‘ beatified
spirits ;’ vol. i. ser. 8.— MF. beatifier, ‘to beatifie; to make blessed,
sacred, or happy ;’ Cot.—L. bedtificare, to make happy.=L. beaii-,
for beatus, happy; and facere, to make, the stem fac- becoming /ic- in
composition. Beatus is a pp. of δεᾶγε, to make happy, to bless. Der.
beatisic, Milton, P. L. i. 684, beatific-al, beatific-al-ly, beatific-at-ion.
BEATITUDE, happiness. (¥.—L.) Used by Ben Jonson,
Eupheme, ix. 137 ; Milton, P. L. ili. 62. - MF. beatitude, ‘ beatitude,
happiness ;’ Cot.=—L, bedtitidinem, acc. from nom. beatitiido, happi-
ness. = L. bed/us, happy.—L. beare, to bless. See Beatify.
BEAU, a fine, dressy man, (F.—L.) Sir Cloudesley Shovel is re-
presented on his tomb ‘by the figure of a beaw ;’ Spectator, no. 26; cf.
ME, beau, adj., as in beau sir, Ch., H. Fame, 643.—F. beau, comely
(Cotgrave) ; OF. bel. L. bellum, acc. of bellus, fine, fair; supposed to
bea contracted form of *bendus, dimin, of *benzs, related by gradation
to bonus, good; cf. L. bene, well. See Bounty. Der. From the F.
fem. form belle (L. bella) we have E. belle.
BEAUTY, fairness. (F.—L.) ME. beauté, Chaucer, C. T. 2387
(A 2385).—OF. biaute, beltet.— Late L. acc. bellitatem; from nom.
bellitas, fairness. "Ὁ L, belli-, for bellus, fair, with suffix -sat-, signifying
state or condition. See Beau. Der. beaute-ous (bewfeous in Sir T.
More, Works, p. 2 g), beawte-ous-ly, beaute-ous-ness, beauti-ful, Shak.
Sonnet 106, beauti-ful-ly, beauti-fy.
BEAVER (1), an animal. (E.) ΜΕ. bever, in comp. bever-hat,
Chaucer, Prol. 272. AS. befer, gloss to fiber; Aélfric’s Gloss. (Nomina
Ferarum).+ Du. bever; Icel. bjérr; Dan. bever; Swed. bafver; ἃ.
biber; Russian bobr’; Lith, bebrus; L. fiber. Cf. Skt. babhru-s, (1)
brown, (2) a large ichneumon. Teut. type *bebruz, m.; Idg. type
*bhebhrus, reduplicated derivative of *bkru-s, brown, tawny. Brugm.
i. § 566. See Brown.
BEAVER (2), the lower (movable) part of ahelmet. (F.) Shak.
has beaver, \lamlet, i. 2.230. Spelt baviere before 1490 (N. E. D.).
-F. baviére, meaning ‘the bever of an helmet ;” and, primarily, a
child’s ‘bib, mocket, or mocketer, to put before the bosome of a slaver-
ing child ;’ Cot. Thus, the lower part of the helmet was named from
a fancied resemblance to a child’s bib. = F. baver, to foam, froth, slaver;
Cot.—F, bave, foam, froth, slaver, drivell; Cot. Perhaps imitative ;
from the movement of the lips; cf. Bret. babouz, slaver. q The
derivation fiom Ital. bevere, to drink, is quite unfounded. The spelling
beaver is due to confusion with ‘ beaver hat.
BEAVER (3), BEVER, a potation, short intermediate repast.
(F.—L.) ‘Arete. What, at your bever, gallants?” Ben Jonson, Cynthia’s
Revels, Act iv. ME. bewer (= bever), ‘drinkinge tyme, Biberrium ; ’
Prompt. Parv.— AF. beivre, a drink, Gaimar’s Chron. 1. 5868; pl.
beveres, id. 1. 5994. Merely the substantival use of OF. bevre, to
drink. “τ, bibere, to drink. See Beverage. For similar examples
of infin. moods as sbs., cf. leisure, pleasure, attainder, remainder.
Quite distinct from beaver (2). It is still in use; Clare speaks of
“the bevering hour, in his Harvest Morning, st. 7.
BECALM, to make calm. (Hybrid; E. and ΕΝ) Becalmed is in
Hackluyt’s Voyages, vol. ii. pt. 2. p. 168; and in Mirror for Magis-
trates, p. 196 (R.) Formed by prefixing E. be- to calm, a word of
F. origin. See Be- and Calm,
BECAUSE, for the reason that. (Hybrid; E. and F.) Formerly
written bi cause, P. Plowman, B. ili. 99; also be cause and by cause.
Be, bi, and by are all early forms of the prep. by. Cause is of F. origin.
See By and Cause.
BECHANCE, to befall, happen. (Hybrid; E.andF.) In Shak.
Merch. 1. 1. 38. From @e-, prefix, 4. v., and chance, q. v.
BECK (1), a nod or sign; and, as a vb. to make a sign. (E.) The
ME. δεῖ, sb., is not common in early writers; beck occurs in Surrey’s
tr. of Virgil, AEneid, iv. 346; and bek in Wyclif, Job, xxvi. 11 (1st
version). It is clearly formed from the verb, which is older, and occurs
in Chaucer, C. T. 12330 (C 396). The verb, again, is not an original
word, but was suggested by the bek- of ME. beknen, to beckon; cf.
‘beknynge, or a bek;’ Prompt. Parv. See Beckon.
BECK (2), a stream. (Scand.) ME. bek, Prompt. Parv. p. 293
Legends of Holy Rood, p. 82,1. 742. [Not E., but Scandinavian. ] =
Icel. bekkr, a stream, brook; Swed. back, a brook; Dan. beak. Teut.
type *bakkiz,m.; allied to Teut. type *bakiz, whence Du. beek, G. bach.
BECKON, to makea sign. (E.) ME.becnen,Ormulum, 223. AS.
beécnian, béacnian (also biecnan), to signify by a sign. AS. béacen, a
BECOME
sign, with the addition of the suffix -éan, used to form verbs from sbs,
See Beacon and Beck.
BECOME, to attain to a state; to suit. (E.) ME. becumen,
bicumen; as, ‘and bicomen hise men” =and became his servants, Have-
lok, }. 22573 ‘it brewmeth him swithe wel’= it becomes (suits) him
very well, O. Eng. Bestiary, ed. Morris, 1. 738. See the large collection
of examples in Matzner, p. 224,5. v. bicumen. AS. becuman, to arrive,
happen, turn out, befal (whence the sense of ‘suit’ was later developed),
Grein, i. 813 bicuman, i. 113. + Goth, bikwiman, to come upon one,
to befal; 1 Thes. v. 3; OHG. piguéman, MHG. bekomen, to happen,
befal, reach, &c.; whence mod. G. beguem, fit, apt, suitable, con-
venient. B. A compound of prefix be-, and AS. cuman, to come.
See Come. Der. becom-ing, becom-tug-ly.
BED, a couch to sleep on. (E.) ME. bed, Chaucer, Prol. 295 (A
293). AS. bed, betd.4 Du. bed; Goth. bad, a bed; OHG. petits, G.
bett, a bed. Teut. type *badjom,n. Der. bed, verb ; bedd-ing, Ch.,
C. T., A 1616; bed-ridden, q.v.; bed-stead, q. v.; bed-chamber (Shak.
Cymb. i. 6. 195), bed-clothes (All's Well, iv. 3. 287), bed-fellow (Temp.
ii. 2. 42), bed-hangings (2 Hen. IV, ii. 1.158), bed-presser (1 Hen. 1V,
ii 4. 268), bed-right (Temp. iv. 96), bed-room ( Mids. Nt. Dr. ii. 2.51),
bed-time (Mids. Nt. Dr. v. 34), bed-work (Troil. i. 3. 205%.
BEDABBLE, BEDAUB, BEDAZZLE. From the E. prefix
be-, and dabble, daub, dazzle,q.v. Shak. has bedabbled, Mids. Nt. Dr.
+ dil. 2. 4433 bedanbed, Rom. ili. 2. 55; bedazzled, ‘am. Shrew, iv. 5. 46.
BEDELL; see remarks upon Beadle (above).
BEDEW, to cover with dew. (E.) Spenser has bedeawd, F. Q.
1.12. 16. It occurs in the Ayenbite of Inwyt: ‘bedeaweth the herte;’
p- 416. From be-, prefix, q.v.; and dew, ἢ. v.
BEDIGHT, to array. (E.) ‘That derely were bydy3th;’ Sir
Degrevint, 648. From be-, prefix, q.v.; and dight, q.v.
BEDIM, to make dim. (E.) In Shak. ‘Temp. v.1. 41. From be-,
prefix, 4. v.; and dim, q.v.
BEDIZEN, to deck out. (E.) Not in early use. The quotations
in Richardson and N. E. D, show that the earlier word was the simple
form dizen, from which bed:zen was formed by help of the common
prefix be-, like bedeck from deck. See Dizen.
BEDLAM,a hospital for lunatics. (Place-name; Heb.) A corrup-
tion of Bethlehem. “ Bethlehem hospital, so called from having been
originally [in 1247] the hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem, {a hospital
for lunatics in 1402, and} a royal foundation for the reception of
lunatics, incorporated by Henry VIIT in 1547;’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates.
ME. bedlem, as in the phrase ‘in bedlem and in babiloyne’= in Beth-
Jehem and Babylon; P. Plowman, B. v. 534; according to three MSS.,
where other MSS. read bethleem. Cf. Cursor Mundi, 11561.. The
literal sense is ‘house of bread.’ Der. bedlam-ite.
BEDOUIN, a wandering Arab. (F.—Arab.) Modern; yet we
find 2 ME, bedoyne, Mandeville, ch. 5, p. 35. Borrowed from F.
bédouin, properly a pl. form, answering to Arab. badawin, pl. of
badawiy, wild, rude, wandering, as the Arabs in the desert. - Arab.
badw, a desert; also, departing for the desert, leading a wandering
life. — Arab. root badawa, he went into the desert; see Rich. Dict.,
p. 251, 252: and Devic.
BEDRIDDEN, connned to one’s bed. (E.) ME. bedreden, used
in the plural; P. Plowman, A. viii. 85 ; bedrede, sing. Chaucer, C. T.
7351 (D 1769). AS. bedrida, bedreda, glossed by paraliticus; Voc.
162. 7, 541. 29, and see AElfric’s Hom. i. 472. —AS. bed, a bed, and
rida, a knight, a rider; thus the sense is a bed-rider, a term for a
disabled man. The AS. rid-a, a rider, is from rid-, weak grade of
ridan, to ride. The ME. form was shortened to bedred, bedrid ; after
which -den was added, under the impression that the form ought to
representa pp. We find the sing. bedreden as early as in Hampole,
Prick of Conse. 808. β. There is a term of similar import, spelt
bedderedig in the Bremen Worterbuch, i. 65; from Low-G, bedde, a
bed, and redig, riding. We find also ME. bedlaw-r for ‘one who hes
in bed,’ which is said, in the Prompt. Parv. p. 28, to be a synonym
for bedridden. See Prompt. Parv. p. 28, note 4.
BEDSTEAD, the frame of a bed. (E.) ME. bedstede, Prompt.
Parv. p. 28.—AS. bed, a bed ; and séede, a place, stead, station. So
called from its firmness and stability; cf. ME. svede-fast, i.e. stead-
fast. See Bed and Stead.
BEE, an insect. (E.) ME. bee, pl. bees and been, both of which
occur in Chaucer, C. T. 10518, 10296 (F 204, E 2422). AS. béo, δὲ,
Grein, p. 1c9; early form, bio.4-Du. bij; OHG. pia. Cf. Ὁ. diene,
Trish beach, a bee.
BEECH, a kind of tree. (E.) ME. beech, Chaucer, C. T. 2925
(A. 2923). AS. béce, gloss to fagus, Voc. 268. 36. Earlier béece ;
Sweet, O. E. Texts. Cf. AS. béc-tréow, beech-tree; Napier'’s Glosses,
23. 30; also the adj. bécex, E. beechen, as in ‘ Faginus, bécen,’ Voc.
137. 22. The AS. béce, weak fem., represents a Teut. type *bok-jon
(with mutation of 6 to δ); allied to Teut. type *bok-a, str. fem.,
whence AS, bac, a beech-tree; see Book. Further allied to Du.
BEFALL 53
beuk; (ἃς, buche (OHG. puohha); L. fagus; Gk. φηγός. These
forms point to an orig. Idg. type *bhkagos, meaning a tree with escu-
lent fruit ; cf. Gk. φαγεῖν, to eat. Der. beech-en, adj. ( = AS. bécen).
BEEF, an ox; the flesh of an ox. (F.—L.) ME. beof, Polit.
Songs, p- 334,1. 235 (temp. Edw. II); beef, Chaucer, C. T. 7335
(Ὁ 1753).— AF. bef, an ox, Year-books of Edw. I, 1292-3, p. 245 3
OF. boef, buef.—L. acc. bouvem, an ox; nom. dds; an Oscan form. +
Gael. b6,a cow; AS. ct, a cow. Thus the word beef is co-radtecate
with cow. See Cow. Der. beef-ealer, q.v-
BEEF-EATER, a yeoman of the guard. (Hybrid; F. and E.)
‘Pensioners and beefeaters’ [of Charles II.], Argument against a
Standing Army, ed. 1697, p. 16; qu. in N. and Ὁ. 5 S. vill. 398.
Also in The Spectator, no. 625 (1714); and as early as 1610, in
Histriomastix, ili. 1. 99. An eaver of beef; but why this designation
was given them is not recorded. 4 In Todd’s Johnson is the follow-
ing notable passage. ‘ From beef and ea/, because the commons is
beef when on waiting. Mr. Steevens derives it thus. Beefeater may
come from beanfetier, one who attends at the side-board, which was
anciently placed in a beaufet. The business of the beefeaters was,
and perhaps is still, to attend the king at meals. ‘This derivation is
corroborated by the circumstance of the beefeaters having a hasp
suspended to their belts forthe reception of keys.’ This extraordinary
guess has met with extraordinary favour, having been quoted in
Mrs. Markham’s History of England, and thus taught to young
children. It is also quoted in Max Miiller’s Lectures, 8th ed. it. 582,
but with the substitution of buffetier for beaufetier, and buffet is ex-
plained as ‘a table near the door of the dining-hall.’ There 1s not
the faintest tittle of evidence for the derivation beyond the ‘hasp
suspended to their belts.” Ido not find beaufetier or buffetier, but I
find in Cotgrave that buffeteurs de vin were ‘such carmen or boatmen
as steal wine out of the vessels they have in charge, and afterwards
fill them up with water.’ Mr. Steevens does not tell us what a
beaufet is, nor how a sideboard was ‘anciently placed in’ it. On
this point, see Buffet, sb. When the F. buffetier can be found, with
the sense of ‘ waiter at a side-board’ in reasonably old French, or
when the E. beefeater can be found spelt differently from its present
spelling in a book earlier than the time of Mr. Steevens, it will be
sufficient time to discuss the question further, Meanwhile, we may
note that Ben Jonson uses ea¢er in the sense of ‘servant,’ as in
‘Where are all my eaters?’ Silent Woman, iii. 2. Also, that the
expression ‘ powderbeef lubber’ occurs in the sense of ‘ man-servant,’
where powder-beef certainly means sal/-beef; see ‘ Powder, to salt,” in
Nares. A rich man is spoken of as having ‘ confidence of [in] so
many powdrebeefe lubbers as he fedde at home;’ Chaloner, transla-
tion of Prayse of Follie, 2nd edit. 1577, G v. (1st ed. in 1549). See
Notes and Queries, 5 5. viii. 57; 6S. vi. 401. Cf. bread-winner, a
sb, of similar formation ; and particularly, AS. klaf-é.a, a domestic
servant, lit. ‘loaf-eater ;’ so that the ideais very old. Also pie-crust-
eater, in Dekker’s Shoemaker’s Holiday, in Works (1873), i. 62;
beef-eating slaves, Eng. Garner, ed, Arber, i. 339 (1681); and see
Tatler, no. 148.
BEER, a kind of drink. (E.) ME. bere, Prompt. Parv. p. 31:
ber, King Horn, ed. Lumby, 1. 1112. ΑΘ. béor, beer, Grein, 1. 112.
+Du. bier; Icel. barr; G. bier (OHG. bor). Origin unknown.
BEESTINGS; sce Biestings.
BEET, a plant. (L.) ME. bee, in a vol. of Vocabularies, ed.
T. Wright, p. 190. AS. bée, gen. bétan, fem. sb., in Cockayne’s
Leechdoms ; but certainly borrowed trom L. δόξα, used by Pliny.
BEETLE (1), an insect. (£.) Prov. E. bettle. ME. bityl, Prompt.
Parv. p. 37. AS. bitela, bitula; as in ‘ Mordiculus, bitela,” Voc. 122.
8; ‘Blattis, bitwlum, Sweet, O. E. Texts.— AS. bit-, weak grade of
bitan, to bite; with suffix -el of the agent. Thns beetle means ‘the
biting insect ;’ cf. ‘ Mordiculus, bitela,’ showing that the word was
understood in that sense. See Bite and Bitter.
BEETLE (2), a heavy mallet. (E.) ME. δὲν], Prompt. Parv.
Ῥ. 343 bett/es, pl. Ancren Riwle, p. 188. AS, byte/, bytl ; Judges, iv.
21; answering to OWessex *biefel, OMerc. *bérel; cf. Low G.
botel. ‘Veut. type *bautiloz, ‘a beater,’ from *bautan- (AS, béatan),
to beat; with regular mutation. See Beat. Der. beetle-headed,
Tam. Shrew, iv. 1. 161, i.e. with a head like a log, like a block-
head, dull.
BEETLE (3), to jut out and hang over. (E.) ‘The summit of
the cliff That beetles o’er his base into the sea;’ Hamlet, i. 4. 71.
Apparently coined by Shakespeare. By whomsoever coined, the idea
was adopted from the ME. bitelbrowed, beetle-browed, having pro-
minent brows, as in P. Plowman, B. v. 190; also spelt bitterbrowed,
id., footnote. The reference seems to be to the beetle (N.E.D.). Cf.
F. sourcils de hanneton (Hatzfeld). See Beetle (1). Der. beetl-ing ;
cf. beetle-browed, which is really the older expression.
BEFALL, to happen. (E.) ME. befallen, bifallen, in common
use; Havelok, 2981. AS. befeallan, Grein, i. 83.4+OSax. bifallan
54 BEFOOL
OF ries. bifalla; Du. bevallen, to please; OHG. bifallan. From be-,
prefix, and fall; see Be- and Fall. @ This is one of the original
verbs on which so many others beginning with be- were modelled.
BEFOOL, to make a fool of. (E. and F.) ME, befolen, Gower,
C. A. iii. 236 (b. vii. 4293). —E. prefix be-, and ME. fol, a fool ; see
Fool.
BEFORE, prep., in front of; ady., in front. (E.) ME. bifore,
before, biforen, beforen ; in common use ; spelt biforen, Layamon, iii.
131. AS. beforan, biforan, prep. and adv., Grein, i. 83, 84, 115.—
AS. be-, bi-, prefix, see Be- or By; and foran, before, prep. and adv.,
Grein, i. 315. AS. foran is a longer form (-an being a suffix) from
fore, prep. and adv., before, for; Grein, i. 321. See Fore, For.
Cf. OSax. biforan, before; MHG. bevor, bevore ; OHG. bifora, before.
See below.
BEFOREHAND, previously. (E.) In early use as an adverb
ME. binorenhond, Ancren Riwle, p. 212; from ME, binoren, before,
and hond, hand. Sce Before and Hand.
BEG, to ask for alms. (F.) Cf. ME. beggar, beggere, a beggar.
In the Ancren Riwle, p. 168, we read: ‘ Hit is beggares rihte uorte
{ for to] beren bagge on bac.’ The word is French, or rather Anglo-
French. The AF. begger, to beg, occurs in Peter Langtoft, ed.
Wright, i. 248. It was evolved from the sb. beggare, found in the
Ancren Riwle, as above; or from the equivalent OF. begard, begart,
a name given to an order of lay brothers in the Low Countries in the
13th century ; and it was soon adopted by many who were mere idle
mendicants. The masc. form Begard seems to have imitated that of
the female order of Beguines; the suffix -ard, -art, being masculine,
as in dot-ard. See the examples of Begger in the Rom. of the Rose,
C. 7256, 7282, and the note. See Beguine. @ The derivative
beguigner likewise meant to beg; Britton, i. 22. § 15 (vol. i. p. 93).
Der. (from beggar), beg, verb ; also beggar-ly, beggar-li-ness, beggar-y.
BEGET, to generate, produce. (E.) ME. bigiten, begeten, (1) to
obtain, acquire; (2) to beget. ‘To biziten mine rihte’=to obtain
my right; Layamon, i. 405. ‘Thus wes Marlin bijeten’=thus was
Merlin begotten ; Layamon, ii. 237. AS. begitan, bigitan, to acquire;
Grein, i. δύ, 115.— AS. be-, bi-, prefix; and gitan, to get. The
Southern form would have been beyet ; see Get. So too OSax. bigetan,
to seize, get; and Goth. bigitan, to find. Der. begett-er.
BEGIN, to commence. (E.) ME. beginnen, biginnen, in common
use. AS. beginnan, Grein, i. 86 (though the form orginnan, with the
same signification, is far more common). From the prefix be-, and
AS. ginnan, to begin. Cf. Du. and (ἃ. beginnen, to begin. See
Gin (1). Der. beginn-er, beginn-ing.
BEGONH, pp. beset. (E.) In phr. woe-begone, i.e. affected or
oppressed with woe, beset with grief. ‘The orig. phrase was him
was wo begon,i.e. to him woe had closed round; but already in
Chaucer we find the later construction in He was wo begon;’ Ν. 1", 7).
Wel bigon occurs in the Rom. of the Rose, 1. 58c, apparently in the
sense of ‘ glad ;’ lit. well surrounded or beset. It is the pp. of ME.
begon, to beset ; cf. ‘wo pe bigo,’ woe come upon thee, Reliq. Antiq.
ii, 273.— AS. bigiin, began, orig. to go about, Grein, i. 115. From
prefix be-, bi-, and AS. gan, to go. Cf. Du. begaan, concerned,
affected. 4 In the phrase ‘ begone!’ we really use ¢wo words; it
should be written ‘be gone!’ See Go.
BEGONTA, a plant. (F.) Named by Plumier, a French bota-
nist (1646-1704), after Michel Begon, a French promoter of botany
(1638-1710). See N.E. Ὁ.
BEGUILE, to deceive, amuse. (Hybrid; E. and F.) ME.
bigtlen, to beguile, Ancren Riwle, p. 330. - Ἐς prefix be-, bi- (AS. be-,
bi-) ; and ME. gylen, gilen, to deceive. ‘As theigh he gyled were’
=as if he were beguiled; Will. of Palerne, 689.—OF. guiler, to
deceive. OF. guile, guile, deceit. See Guile. Der. beguil-ing,
beguil-ing-ly, beguil-er.
BEGUINE, one of a class of religious devotees. (F.) The word
is rather French than English; and, thouvh we find a Low-Latin
form beguinus, it was chiefly used as a feminine noun, viz. F. béguine,
Low L. beghina. The béguines belonged to a religious order in
Flanders, who, without taking regular vows of obedience, lived a
somewhat similar life to that of the begging friars, and dwelt together
in houses called béguinages. They were ‘first established at Liége,
and afterwards at Nivelle, in 1207, some say 1226. The Grand
Beguinage of Bruges was the most extensive ;’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates.
B. Another set of ‘ religious’ were called Begardi; and it has been
clearly ascertained that both names were derived from the surname
(or nickname) of a certain Lambert Bégue or le Bigue (the stammerer),
a priest of Liege, who founded the order of Beguines in the rath
century. See Ducange, who quotes an annal of 1180, s.v. Beghardi.
Cf. Walloon bégui, to stammer, in the dialect of Namur; Picard
béguer ; equivalent to F. bégayer. With the fem. form Beguine cf.
hero-ine; with the masc. form Beghard, Begard, cf. reyn-ard. See also
Beggar and Biggen.
BEHOLD
BEGUM, in the E. Indies, a lady of the highest rank. (Pers. =
Turk. and Arab.) Rich. Pers. Dict. p. 284, gives Pers. begum, a
queen, lady of rank ; also queen-mother, respectable matron; spelt
bigamatp. 310. ‘(Queen mother’ seems to be the orig. sense, as Devic
thinks that the word is compounded of Turk. beg or bey, a bey, gover-
nor, and Arab. wm or umm, mother ; hence ‘ governor's mother.’ The
Arab. umm, mother, is in Rich. Dict. p. 162. And see Bey. Yule
(p. 59) explains it from Eastern Turki bigam, a fem. formation from
beg. @ Another derivative of bey is the title beglerbeg, given to the
governor of a province ; see Massinger, Renegado, iii. 4. In Sandys’
Travels (1632), we read of ‘the Beglerbegs, the name signifying a lord
of lords;’ p. 47. This explanation is correct; beglér or beylér
signifying lords, and beg or bey, a lord. See Bey.
BEHALF, interest, benefit. (E.) In ME., only in the phrase ix,
on (or uppon) brhalue, or behalue, Chaucer has: ‘on my bihalue’
(w=v), Troil. and Cress. ii. 1458. So also; ‘in themperours bihelue’
=on the emperor’s behalf; Seven Sages, ed. Weber, 325. Here on
my bihalue is a substitution for the AS. on healfe, on the side of (see
exx. in Grein, i. 53), blended with a second common phrase be healfe,
by the side of (same ref.). B. The AS. healf, lit. half, is constantly
used in the sense of ‘side;’ and even now the best paraphrase of " in
my behalf’ is ‘on my side.” That this explanation is correct can
easily be traced by the examples in Matzner’s Old Eng. Dict., which
shows that b:halven was in common use as a prep. and adv. before the
sb. behalf came into use at all. See Layamon, vol. i. p. 349; ii. 58;
ili, 65, 114, &c. The prefix be- is the unstressed form of the prep.
by. See Half.
BEHAVE, to conduct oneself. (E.) Shak. has behave, refl., to
conduct oneself, 2 Hen. VI, iv. 3. 5; and intr. but not refl., Oth. iv.
2.108. Kare in early authors, but the phr. ‘ to lerne hur to behave
Aur among men’ =to teach her to behave herself amongst men, occurs
in Le Bone Florence of Rome, 1. 1567, in Ritson’s Metrical Romances,
vol. iii, It is a mere compound of the verb ¢o have with the AS. and
ME. prefix be-. [There was an AS. behebban, to detain; but behave
was formed independently of it.] ΦΠ E. behave oneself answers to
G, sich behaben,
BEHAVIOUR, conduct. (E., with F. suffix.) Spelt behavoure,
Levins, 222. 45. Formed, abnormally, from the verb /o behave, q.v.
The curious suffix is best accounted for by supposing a confusion with
the Tudor E. havour, haviour, due to AF. aveir, F. avoir, used sub-
stantively, a word which not only meant ‘wealth’ or ‘ possessions,’
but also ‘ability ;’ see Cotgrave. And see Haviour in Croft’s Gloss.
to Elyot’s Governour, It must be remembered (1) that behaviour was
often shortened to haviour, as in Shakespeare; and (2) that havings,
at leastin Lowland Scotch, had the double meaning of (a) possessions,
and (6) carriage, behaviour. See Jamieson’s Scot. Dict.
BEHEAD, to cut off the head. (E.) ΜΕ. bihefden, biheafden,
bihafden. ‘Heo us wulle bikafdi’=they will behead us, Layamon,
iii. 45. Later, spelt bikeden; ‘he bihedide Joon,’ he beheaded John;
Wyclif, Matt. xiv. 10. AS. behéajfdian, to behead; Matt. xiv. 10.—
AS. be-, prefix, lit. ‘ by,’ with a privative force; and héafod, head,
See Head. Cf. Du. onthoofden, (ἃ. enthaupten, to behead.
BEHEMOTH, a hippopotamus. (Heb.—Egypt.) See Job, xl.
15.—Heb. bexémoth, apparently a plural, signilying ‘beasts ;’ but
here used to denote ‘great beast;’ as if from sing. béhémah, a
beast. But it is thought that this is merely a Heb. popular etymo-
logy ; and that the word is really adapted from the Egypt. p-ehe-mau,
*water-ox,’ a hippopotamus; see Gesenius, Sth ed. p. 94.
BEHEST, a command. (E.) ME. beheste, biheste, commonly used
in the sense of ‘a promise;’ Chaucer, C. T. 4461 (B 41); and con-
nected with the verb bhote, behote, to promise, Chaucer, C. T. 185¢
(A 1854). From be-, prefix, and hest. Cf. AS. beh@s, a vow, behat,
a promise, behatan, to promise. ‘He fela behxsa behét,’ he made
many promises; AS, Chron., anno 1093. The final ¢ is excrescent.
See Hest.
BEHIND, after. (E.) ME. hehinde, bihinde. bihinden, after, at the
back of, afterwards; Chaucer, C. T. 4847 (B 427). AS. behindan,
ady. and prep., afterwards, after, Grein, i. 87. From AS. prefix be-;
and hindan, ady., behind, at the back, Grein, ii. 76. Cf. OSax. bi-
hindan, ady., behind; Heliand, 1. 3660. See Hind. Der. bekind-
hand, not in early use; made in imitation of before-hand, q.v. It
occurs in Shak. Winter’s Tale, v. 1. 151.
BEHOLD, to see, watch, observe. (E.) ME. biholden, beholden,
biholde, beholde, to see, observe, to bind by obligation ; in common
use. [The last sense appears only in the pp. beholden; “ beholdyn, or
bowndyn, obligor, texeor ;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 28. Shak. wrongly has
beholding for the pp. beholden, as in Merry Wives, i. 1. 283.] AS.
behealdan, to hold, possess, guard, observe, see ; Grein, i. 87.--OF ries,
bihalda, to keep; OSax. bihaldan, tokeep; Du. behouden, to preserve,
keep; G. behalten, to keep. From AS. prefix be-, and healdan, to
| hold. See Be- and Hold, (Cf. 1. tweor, I see, keep; E. guard,
BEHOOF
as compared with regard, &c.| Der. behold-er ; also pp. behold-en,
corrupted to behold-ing.
BEHOOF, advantage. (E.) Almost invariably found in ME. in
the dat. case behoue, bihoue [τὶ written for v], with the prep. το pre-
ceding it; as in ‘/o ancren bihoue,’ for the use of anchoresses, Ancren
Riwle, p. 90. AS. behdf, advantage, in Napier’s Glosses; also in the
comp. behdjlic ; see bihdflic is, gloss to L. oportet in Luke, xviii. 1, in
the Lindisfarne MS. (Northumbrian dialect). Cf, OFries. behdf,
bihof.4+-Du. behoef, commonly in the phr. ten behoeve van, for the ad-
vantage of; Swed. behof, want, need; Dan. behov, need; G. behuf,
behoof. B. The be- is a prefix; cf. Swed. Adfvas, to beseem. All
from Teut. type *hdf, second grade of *haf-,as in Goth, haf-jan, AS.
hebban, to heave; see Heave. From the KAP, to hold, contain ;
cf. L. capax, containing, capere, to seize, orig. to contain, hold, grasp.
See Brugm. i. § 635. γ. The development of ideas is accordingly
(1) to seize, hold fast, retain, (2) to fit for one’s use, to make
serviceable. Der. behove (below).
BEHOVE, to become, befit. (E.) ME. dihoven, behoven (writ-
ten bihouen, behouen in MSS.) ; commonly as impers. verb, bihoveth,
behoveth, Chaucer, Troil. iv. 1004; pt. t. bihouede, Ancren Riwle,
p- 394. AS. bihdfian, behdfian, to need, be necessary ; Grein, i. 87, 116.
Cf, OFries. bihovia, to behove.4 Du. behoeven, to be necessary, to be-
hove; Swed. behifva; Dan. behive. B. The forms of these verbs
show that they are derivatives from the sb. (above). Also, the be- is
a mere prefix. The simple verb appears only in the Icel. A@fa, to
behove; Swed. hifvas, to beseem. See Behoof.
BELABOUR, to ply vigorously, beat soundly. (Hybrid; Ἐς and
F.—L.) ‘He.. belaboured Jubellius with a cudgel ;’ North’s Plutarch,
p- 964.— Εἰ. prefix be-, q.v.; and labour, q. v.
BELAY, to fasten a rope. (Du.) Τὸ belay is to fasten a rope by
laying it round and round a couple of pins. This use was prob. sug-
gested by Du. beleggen, to cover, to overlay, to border, to lace,
garnish with fringe, &c.; and, as a naut. term, to belay. From prefix
be- (the same as E. prefix be-), and leggen, to lay, place, cognate with
E. lay. See Lay (1). 4 There was also a native E. wort to belay,
a compound of be- and /ay, but it meant ‘ to besiege’ or ‘ beleaguer’
a castle; see Spenser, Sonnet 14. See Beleaguer.
BELCHG, to eructate. (E.) | ME. belken, belke, Towneley Myst.
p- 314+ The sb. bolke is found, in the dat. case, in P. Plowman, b.
v. 3973 and the vb. bolken, Prompt. Parv. p. 43. AS. bealcan, Ps.
xviii. 2; commoner in the derived form bealcettan, Ps. xliv. 1; Ps.
exvili. 171; also belcan, belcettan (Grein). Cf. Du, balken, to bray,
Du, bulken, Low G, bolken, to low, bellow, roar ; Hamburg bolcken,
to low}; opbolcken, to belch up (Richey). Allied to Bellow.
BELDAM, an old woman. (F.—L.) Ironically used for beldame,
i. 6. fair lady, in which sense it occurs in Spenser, F. Q. ili. 2.43. Cf.
“beldame, meregrant ;’ Palsgrave. =F. belle, fair; dame, lady.=L.
bella, fair; domina, lady, ence beldam is a doublet of belladonna,
BELEAGUER, to besiege. (Du.) ‘In defence of beleaguer’d
truth ;’ Milton, Areop. ed. Hales, p. 46. We also find the verb #o
beleague; as in ‘beseiging and beleaguing of cities;’ Holland’s
Plutarch, p. 319 (R.); but this is a less correct form. = Du. belegeren,
to besiege ; from prefix be- (as in E.), and Jeger, a bed, a camp, army
in encampment; which is from Jeggen, to lay, place, cognate with
E. lay. (Thus the true Ἐς word is belay ; see Note to belay. The Du.
leger is E. lair. 4G. belagern, to besiege; lager, a camp; legen, to
lay; Swed, beliigra, to besiege; Jager, a camp ; lagga, to lay. See
Lair, Lay (1).
BELEMNITE, a kind of fossil. (Gk.) In Sir T. Browne, Vulg.
Errors, Ὁ. ii. c. 5. 5. 10. So called because shaped like the head of
a dart. — Gk. βελεμνίτης, a kind of stone, belemnite. —Gk. βέλεμνον,
a dart, missile. - Gk, βάλλειν, to cast, throw ; also to fall.Skt. gal,
to drop, distil, fall; Brugm. i. § 653.
BELFRY, properly, a guard-tower. (F.—G.) Owing to a cor-
ruption, the word is now only used for ‘a tower for bells.’ Spelt
belfroy, Caxton, Godefroy of Boloyne, ch. 153 (p. 227, 1. 12). Cor-
rupted from ME. berfray, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 1187 ; berfrey,
King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 2777.—ONorth Ἐς berfrei, berfreit ; OF.
berfroi, berfroit (also belefroi) ; cf. Guernsey belfré (Meétivier).—MHG,
bercfrit, berchfrit, a protecting tower. —MHG. bere, protection (from
bergen, to protect); and MHG. fride, OHG. fridu (G. friede), a
place of security (allied to OHG, fri, cognate with E. free). B. The
mod. G, friede means only ‘ peace,’ but OHG. fridu meant also ‘a
place of security,’ and even ‘a tower;’ so that bercfrit meant ‘a
protecting tower’ or ‘guard-tower.’ @ The term was first applied
to the towers upon wheels, so much used in the siege of towns.
Even the OF. bierfrois is used with the sense of ‘belfry;” as in
‘campanile, quod bierfrois dicitur;’ (dated 1226); in Pertz, Monu-
menta Germaniae, Legg. ii. 257.
. BELIE, to tell liesabout. (E.) Much Ado, iv. 1.148. “Τὸ belye
the truth;’ Tyndal, Works, p. 105, 1. 2. ME, bilien, bilizen; the
BELTANE 55
pp. bilowen occurs in P, Plowman, B. ii. 22,and in the Ancren Riwle,
>. O8.— AS. be-, prefix; and léogan, to lie. See Lie (2).
BELIEVE, to have faith in. (E.) ME. heleve, Ayenbite of Inwyt,
p- 150; EE, bilefde, pt. t. of bilefen, Layamon, 2856*. The prefix is
AS. be- or bi-, substituted for the earlier prefix ge-.—OMerc. geléfan,
AS. ge-lyfan, gelifan (Grein, i. 424), to believe.+Goth. galaubjan, to
believe, to esteem as valuable; from galaubs, valuable, allied to Goth,
linbs, dear, equivalent to AS. léof, Eng, lief: OHG. galaupjan, to
believe ; whence G. glauben. See Lief. Ilere AS. léof represents
a Teut. type */ewb-oz; and from the 2nd grade (απ) we have the
verb */aubjan- ; which gives (by mutation) the AS, -liefan, -lyfan,
OMere. -léfan. Der. belief (ME. bileue, O. Eng. Lomilies, i. 187),
belicv-able, believ-er.
BELL, a hollow metallic vessel for making a loud noise. (E.)
ME. belle, a bell; Prompt. Parv. p. 30; Layamon, 29441. AS.
belle; Voc. 198. 8. Cf. EF ries. belle, a bell, Du. bel.— AS. bellan, to
bellow, make a loud sound (Grein). From Idg. 4/BHELS, to
resound; whence also Skt. bhashk, to bark, Lith. balsas, voice, ἃ.
bellen, to bark (Uhlenbeck). See Bellow.
BELLADONNA, deadly nightshade. (Ital.—L.) Various rea-
sons have been given for the name; perhaps due to the use of it by
ladies to give expression to the eyes, the pupils of which it expands,
— Ital. belladonna, a fair lady. - τις bella domina, a fair lady. Bella is
the fem. of δείλης, handsome; see Beau. Dontina is the fem. of
dominus, a lord; see Don, 50. Doublet, beldam.
BELLE, a fair lady. (l'.—L.) In Pope, Rape of the Lock, i.
8; Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, iv. 4.—F. belle, fem. of beau, fair, goodly,
See Beldam and Beau.
BELLIGERENT, carrying on war. (L.) For belligerant, In
Sterne, Tristram Shandy, vol. vi. c. 31.—L. belligerant-, stem of
belligerans, waging war.—L. belli-, for bello-, stem of bellum, war;
and gerere, to carry. (1) L. bellum stands for OL. duellum; see
Duel. (2) L. gerere, pp. gestus, appears in Εἰ jest; see Jest.
BELLOW, to make a loud noise. (E.) Gower uses belwinge with
reference to the noise made by a bull; Ὁ. A. iii. 203 (b. vil. 3322).
From ME, belwen. ‘As loude as belweth wind in helle;’ Chaucer,
Ho. of Fame, iii. 713. We also find ME. bellen ; as in ‘ hellyng as
a bole’ [bull], Will. of Palerne, 1891 ; from AS. bellan, to make a
loud noise, Grein, i. 89.44-OHG. pellan, bellan, to make a loud noise.
Of imitative origin. B. The suffix -ow is due to the g in the derived
AS. form bylgean, to bellow, Martyr. 17 Jan. (in Cockayne’s Shrine,
. 52); cf. Icel. belja, to bellow. And see Bell.
BELLOWS, an implement for blowing. (Scand.) ME. below, a
bag, used in the special sense of ‘bellows.’ ‘The pl. belowes was also
used in the same sense. ‘ Belowe, or belows, follis;’ Prompt. Parv.
Ρ- 30. The numerous examples in Matzner, s.y. bali, show that
bellows is the pl. of below, a bag, from Icel. belgr, a bag. Another
ME. form is deli, δεῖν, bellows, as in Ch. C. T., 1351; where Tyr-
whitt reads belous. This ME. beli is from AS. halig,a bag. Cf. G.
blasebalg =a blow-bag, a pair of bellows. See Belly.
BELLY, the lower part of the human trunk. (E.) ME. δεῖν,
pl. belies; also bali, pl. balies; P. Plowman, B. prol. 41, A. prol. 41,
AS. balg, belig, a bag, used, e.g. in the comp. béan-belgas, husks or
shells of beans, Luke xv. τό (Lindisfarne text); Ad beligas, the bags,
Matt. ix. 17 (Rushworth text).4-Du. balg, the belly ; Swed. balg,
belly, bellows; Dan. belg, shell, husk, belly; Icel. belgr, a bag;
Goth. balgs, a bag. Teut. type *balgiz,m. From balg, 2nd grade of
the Teut. root *belg-,as in AS. belg-an, orig. ‘to swell out.’ Cf. Irish
bolg, bag, belly; bolgaim, I swell; W. 4o/, belly. From 4/BHELGH,
to swell. @ Bellows is from the pl. of the cognate Scand. form.
BELONG, to pertain to. (E.) ME. belongen, Gower, C. A. i.
12, 121, ii. 251 (prol. 259, i. 2345, v- 6624); Ayenbite of Inwyt,
ed, Morris, p. 12, 1. 15. Not found in AS., which has only the
simple verb Jangian, to long after, to crave for; Grein, ii. 157.
But cf. Du. belangen, to concern; wat belangt, as far as concerns, as
for; belangende, concerning ; EFries. belangen, to reach, attain to.
See Long (1).
BELOVED, much loved. (E.) ME. beloved, Gower, C. A. i. 106
(i. 1920). Itis the pp. of ME. bilujien, biluvien, to love greatly ; spelt
biluuien in Layamon, i. 39.— AS. prefix be-, bi-, here used intensively ;
and AS. lufian, to love. See Love. @ The ME. biluven also
means ‘to please;’ O. Eng. Homilies, i. 257; cf. Du. believen, to please.
BELOW, beneath. (E.) ΜΕ. bilooghe, adv., beneath, Allit.
Poems, ed. Morris, B. 116. Compounded of prep. δὲ, be, by; and
loogh, low, low. See Low (1).
BELT, a girdle. (L.) ME. belt; Chaucer, C. T. 3927 (A 3929).
AS. belt, Voc. 192. 153 ef. Icel. helti; Irish and Gaelic balt, a belt,
aborder. All from L. balteus, a belt.
BELTANE, the first of May ; old May-day. (C.)_ ‘At Beltane;’
Peblis to the Play (ab.'1550).—Gael. bealliuinn, May-day ; Irish
bealteine, Olrish bel-tene (Windisch). Lit. ‘ blaze-kindling ;’ from an
56 BELV EDERE
old custom. Celtic type *belo-te(p)nia ; where belo- is allied to AS.
bél, a blaze, and -/e(p)nia is from */epnos, type of Olrish en, fire.
B. The AS. bél is further allied to Lith. bal-tas, white, Gk. paaA-cos,
bright, Skt. bkala(m), lustre. The Olrish cen is allied to L. sep-ére,
to be warm. ‘Two need-fires were lighted on Beltaxe among the
Gael, between which they drove their cattle for purification and good
luck τ᾿ Macbain. See Stokes-Fick, pp. 125, 164.
BELVEDERE, BELVIDERE, a prospect-tower. (F.—Ital.
wL.) ‘Palaces and belvederes ;’ Webster, Devil’s Law-case, i. 1. 9.
w F. beluédére (Hatzfeld). = Ital. belvedere, ‘a place of a faire prospect ;’
Florio. = L. bellus, fair; uidére, to see.
BEMOAN, to moan for, sorrow for. (E.) The latter vowel has
been changed, as in moan. ME. bimenen, to bemoan ; O. E. Homilies,
3.13. AS. bim@nan; Grein, i. 117.— AS. δὲς, prefix; and ménan, to
moan. See Moan.
BENCH, a long seat or table. (E.) ME. benche, Chaucer, C.T.,
7355 (Ὁ 1773). AS. benc (Grein).4Du. bank, a bench, form, pew,
shelf; also, a bank for money; Icel. bekkr (for *benkr), a bench ;
Swed. bank, Dan. bank, a bench, form, pew ; G. bank, a bench; a bank
for money; Pomeran. benk. Teut. type *bankiz. See Bank, of
which hench is a doublet. Der. bench-er.
BEND (1), to bow, curve. (E.) ME. benden, bende ; ‘ bende bowys,
tendo,” Prompt. Parv. p. 30. AS. hendan, to bend ; Grein, i. 90;
allied to AS. bend, a bond (Teut. type *bandiz). From band, 2nd
grade of AS. bindan, to bind. See Bind.+Icel. benda ; Swed. banda,
to stretch, to strain. 4 Bend means to strain a bow by fastening the
band or string. The vowel eis a mutation of a; so that bendan is
for *bandjan. Cf. bend=a band; Gower, C. A. iii. 11; bk. vi. 296;
F. bander un arc, to bend a bow, to string it.
BEND (2), a slanting band, in heraldry; one of the nine ordi-
naries. (F.—G.) Spelt bende in Book of St. Albans (1486), pt. il,
leafe r. Perhaps orig. E. (see above), but modified by OF. bende,
which was a modification of bande. The Anglo-French bende, in the
heraldic sense, occurs in Langtoft’s Chron. il. 434. Cotgrave gives
bende, the same as bande; and assigns ‘a bend in armory’ as being
one meaning of bande; see Band (2). The ME. bende also meant
a fillets see Cath. Anglicum, p. 27, note 7.
BENBATH, below. (15.)ὺ ME. benethe, Gower, C. A. i. 35;
prol. 931; bineoden, Ancren Riwle, p. 390. AS. beneodan, prep.,
below; Grein, i. gt.4+Du. beneden, adv. and prep. From AS. prefix
be-, by; and meodan, adv., below; Grein, ii. 290. Here -an is an
adverbial suffix, and neod-=ni)-, seen in AS. nider, adv., below, and
nidera, nether, lower. See Nether.
BENEDICTION, blessing. (F.—L.) Shak. has both benedic-
tion and benison 3 tae former is really a ‘learned’ or Latin form, and
the latter was in earlier use in English. See Benison. Caxton has
benediction, Golden Legend, St. Nicholas, § 7.
BENEFACTOR, a doer of good to another. (L.) Benefactor
in North’s Plutarch, p. 735 3 benefactowr in Tyndal’s Works, p. 216,
col. 1; but the word was not French. = L. benefactor, a doer of good.
=L. bene, well; and facfor, a doer, from facere, pp. faetus, to do.
Der. benefact-ion, benefact-ress.
BENEFICE, a church preferment. (F.—L.) ME. benefice,
Chaucer, Prol. 201..- Ἐς benefice (Cot.)—Late L. beneficium, a grant
of an estate; L. benefictum, a kindness, lit. well-doing. = L. benefacere,
to benefit.—L. bene, well; and facere, to do. See Beneficium in
Ducange. From L. benefacere we have also benejfie-ence, benefre-ent,
benefic-i-al, benefic-i-al-ly, benefic-i-ay ; and see benefit.
BENEFIT, a favour. (F.—L.) Rich. quotes from Elyot's
Governour, bk. ii. c. 8. § 2: ‘And that vertue {benevolence} . . is
called: than beneficence; and the deed, vulgarly named a good tourne,
may be called a benefite.” ME. bienfet, which occurs with the sense of
*good action’ in P. Plowman, B. v. 621; Gower,C. A, iii. 187 ; bk. vii.
3029. —OF, bienfait (Εἰς bienfait), a benefit. —L. benefactum, a kind-
ness conferred. —L. bene, well ; and factum, done, pp. of facere, to do.
@ The word has been modified so as to make it more like Latin,
with the odd result that bene- is Latin, and -7it (for -fait) is French!
The spelling benefet occurs in Wyclif’s Bible, Ecclus. xxix. 9.
BENEVOLENCE, an act of kindness, charity. (F.-L.) In
Hoccleve, Orison to the Virgin, 1. 10. ‘He reysed therby notable
summes of money, the whiche way of the leuyinge of this money was
after named a benyuolence ;’? Fabyan, Edw. IV, an. 1475. =F. bene-
volence, ‘a well-willing, or good will; a favour, kindnesse, benevolence ;’
Cot.— L. beneuolentia, kindness. — L. beneuolus, kind; alsa spelt
beniuolus; cf. wolent-, stem of uolens, willing. —L. bent-, from benus,
by-form of bonus, good ; and wolo, [wish See Voluntary. Der.
From the same source, benevolent, benevolent-ly.
BENIGHTED, overtaken by nightfall. (E.) In Dryden’s
Eleonora, 1.57. Pp. of the verb benight. ‘ Now jealousie no more
benights her face ;’ Davenant, Gondibert, bk. iii. c. 5.st. 16. Coined
by prefixing the verbal prefix be- to the sb. night.
BERTH
BENIGN, affable, kind. (F.—1L.) Chaucer has benigne, C.'T.
4599 (B 179).—OF. bengne (F. benin).—L. benignus, kind, a con-
tracted form of *benigenus ; from’ beni-, for benus, by-form of bonus,
good; and -genus, born (as in indigenus), from the verb genere, old
form of gignere, to beget: from 4/GEN, to beget. Der. benign-ly,
benign-ant, benign-ant-ly, benign-i-ly.
BENISON, blessing. (F.—L.) Shak. has benison, Mach. ii. 4.
40 ; Chaucer has it also,C. T. 9239(E 1365). Spelt beneysun, Haveltok,
1723.—OF. beneison, beneigon (Godefroy).—L. acc. benedictiénem,
from nom. benedictio; cf. benedictus, pp. of benedicere, (1) to use words
of good omen, (2) to bless.—L. bene, well; and dicere, to. speak.
Doublet, benediction.
BENT-GRASS, a coarse kind of grass. (E.) ‘Hoc gramen,
bent;* Wright’s Vocabularies, i. 191. AS. beonet, as in Beonet-léah,
mod. Ἐς, Bevt-ley, in Kemble’s Index. Cf. prov. E. bennet (E. D. D.)
EFries. bente. -OHG. binuz, pinuz, ΜΉ. binez, binz, G. binse, bent-
grass, coarse grass growing in wet places. δα. type *binut.
BENUMB, to make numb. (E.) Written berwm by Turberville ;
Pyndara’s Answere, st. 40. Benum is properly not an infin., but a past
part. of the verb benim ; and hence Gowerhas: ‘ But altogedre him is
benome The pouer bothe of hond and fot’ =he is deprived of the power ;
C. A. iil. 2; bk. vi. 36. And Palsgrave has: ‘benombe of ones
lymbes;’ p. 306. Lit. ‘taken away;’ from AS. be-, bi-, prefix,
“away τ᾿ and numen, pp. of niman, to take. See Numb.
BENZOIN, a resinous substance. (F.—Span.—Ital. — Arab.)
Spelt benzoine in Lingua, iv. 3, in Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, ix. 419
(1607). Called also gum benzoin, and (by a singular popular etymo-
logy) gum Benjamin. Phillips (1706) calls it ‘benjamin or benzoir.’ =
F. benjoin, ‘the aromaticall gumme, called benjamin or benzoin ;’
Cotgrave. The πὶ seems to be a F. addition; Cotgrave also notes
that benjoin Francais meant ‘the hearbe maisterwort, or false pelli-
tory of Spain;’ showing that benjoim was not a F. word, but Spanish,
=Span. benjui, ‘benjamin or benzoin, gum-resin ;’ Neuman. = Ital.
bengivi (Torriano) ; also benzoino. Shown by Engelmann and Dozy
(and approved by Devic) to be a corruption (dropping the first syl-
lable) of the Arab, name for benzoin, which was /ubax jaw, lit. Javanese
frankincense. Perhaps Zu- was confused with the Ital. def. art./o. ‘The
Arab. lubain means frankincense, benzoin; Rich. Dict. p. 1256;
whilst ja@w7 means belonging to Java, Javanese. Benzoin really.comes
from Sumatra, but Devic says that the Arabs regarded Java ast name
for that island also; and it is called ‘ Java minor’ by Marco Polo.
With Arab. luban, cf. Heb. levdnah, frankincense, from the root
lavan, to be white (whence Gk. AiBavos).
BEQUEATH, to dispose of property by will. (E.) ME. lygquethe,
Chaucer, C. T. 2770 (A 2768). AS. be-cwedan, bi-cwedan, to say,
declare, affirm; Grein, i. 82, 113. From prefix be- or δὲ-, and AS.
cwedan, to say. See Quoth.
BEQUEST, a bequeathing ; a thing bequeathed. (E.) ME.
biqueste, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 86; but very rave. The
usual form is biquidé, byguidé, bequidé (trisyllabic), as in Rob. of
| Glouc., pp. 381, 384, ll. 7826, 7887; which is from prefix be-, and AS.
| cwide, a saying, opinion, declaration, Grein, i. 176; cf. AS, bicwedan,
to declare. See Bequeath. B. But bigueste is a by-form of biguiste
(P. Plowman, C. ix. 94); formed with added -4, -/e, from AS. be-,
| prefix, and cwiss (in ge-cwis), a saying. This sb. ewiss represents. a
ῃ g ;
Teut. type *hwessiz, ldg. *g(w)ettis, formed (with suffix -@-) from Idg.
base *g(w)et, whence AS. cwed-an, to say (Sievers, A. S. Gr. § 232);
and becwiss is thus a regular derivative of becwedan, to bequeath.
BEREAVE, to deprive of. (E.) ME. bireue, bereue (u for v),
Chaucer, C. T. 7653 (D2071). AS. biréafian, beréagian; Grein, 1. 92,
118.— AS. be-, prefix; and réafian, to rob. See Reave. Der.
bereft, short for bireved (πε for v), the pp. of bireuen; bereave-ment.
BERGAMOT, a variety of pear. (F.—Ital-—Turk.) F. berga-
motte, in Cotgrave, explained. as ‘a yellow peare, with a hard rind,
good for perry; also, the delicate Italian small peare, called the
Bergamotte peare.’ = Ital. ber gamotta, bergamot pear, ‘a kind of excel-
lent pears, come out of Turky;’ Torriano.—Turk. beg-armudi,
“prince's pear.’ = Turk. bey, a prince; armud,a pear. @f Another
bergamot, the name of an essence, is from the Ital. place-name, Ber-
gamo, in Lombardy.
BERGOMASK, rustic.
(Ital.) ‘A bergomask dance ;’ Shak.
| Mid. Nt. Dr. v. 360. Explained by Nares as a rustic dance by the
clownish people of Bergamo. More correctly Bergamask. = Ital. ber-
gamasca, ‘a kind of dance ;’ Baretti.= Ital. Bergamo (in Lombardy).
BERRY, a small round or ovate fruit. (E.) ME. berye, berie
(with one r), Chaucer, prol. 207. AS. berige, berge, Deut. xxili. 24 5
where the stem of the word is ber-, for bes-, which is for bas-.4- Du.
bes, bezie, a berry ; Icel. ber; Swed. bar, Dan. ber; (ὦ. beere, OHG.
| peri; Goth. bast, a berry. Cf. Skt. bhas, to eat ; the sense seems to
have been ‘edible fruit.’ Der. goose-berry, &c. :
BERTH, « secure position. (E.) ΤῈ 15 applied (1) to convenient!
BERYL
sea-room, or the place where a ship lies when at anchor or at a
wharf; (2) to a place in a ship to stow things in, or to sleep in; (3)
to a comfortable official position. B. The orig. sense was perhaps
“suitable position;’ cf. prov. E. berth, a good foothold, a secure
grasp. Better spelt burth (but cf. E. stern from AS. styrne, &c.) ;
formed with suffix -¢4 (as in bir-th, dear-th) from AS. byr-, as in ge-
byrian, to suit, ge-byr-e, opportunity, exde-byrd, arrangement, order.
From Teut. *bur-, weak grade of ber-an, to bear. Cognate with
EFries. bort, good time or position, Du. beurt, Norw. byrt. Swed. bord,
a course, turn; Low G. bdrt, as in in der bort liggen, to lie in.a good
berth (as a ship). Cf. ἃ. gebiihren, to suit; &c.
BERYL, a precious stone. (L.—Gk.—Skt.) In the Bible(A.V.),
Rey. xxi. 20. Spelt beriJ in An Old English Miscellany, ed. Morris,
p- 98, 1.174. — L. béryllus, a beryl. = Gk. βήρυλλος ; cf. Arab. billaur or
balliir, crystal; a word given in Palmer's Pers. Dict. col. gt.—Skt.
vaidarya (Prakrit veliriya), orig. beryl, brought from Vidittra in 5.
India. See Yule, and Max Miiller, Selected Essays, 1881, ii. 352;
Bohtlingk, Dict. p. 1392.
BESANT, BEZANT, a golden circular figure, in heraldry.
(F.—L.—Gk.) Intended to represent a golden coin of Byzantium.
ME. besant, Gower, C. A. ii. 191; bk. v. 1930; Wycliffe, Matt. xxv.
24.—AF. besant, Roll of Caerlaverock, p. 27; MF. and F. besant,
‘an ancient gold coin;’ Cot.—Late L. byzantium, acc. of byzantius, a
besant, coin of Byzantium.=—L. Ayzantium.—Gk. Βυζάντιον, the old
name of Constantinople.
BESEECH, to ask. (E.) ME. biseche, beseche, Gower, Ὁ. Α. 1.
115; bk. i. 2174; but also biseke, beseke, biseken, Chaucer, Knightes
Tale, 1. 60. From the prefix be-, and ME. sechen, seken, to seek
(seken being, usually, the Northern form, and sechenx Southern). Cf.
Du. bezoeken, (ἃ. besuchen, to visit ; Swed. beséka, Dan. besoge, to visit,
gotosee. See Seek.
BESEEM, to be becoming. (E.) ME. bisemen, besemen. ‘ Be-
cemyn, decet ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 27. ‘ Wel bisemed’ pe’ =it well be-
seems thee; St. Juliana, p. 55. From the prefix be-, bi-; and the
ME. semen, to seem. See Seem.
BESET, to set about, surround, perplex. (E.) ME. bisetten, be-
setten, especially used of surrounding crowns, &c. with precious
stones. ‘ With gold and riche stones Beset;’ Gower, C. A. i. 127;
bk. i. 2537. Biset, i.e. surrounded, Ancren Riwle, p. 378. AS. bise¢-
tan, to surround; Grein, i. 119.-4-Du. bezetlen, to occupy, invest (a
town); Dan. beseite, to fill, occupy ; Swed. besdtta, to beset, plant,
hedge about, people, garrison (a fort); Goth. bisatjan, to set round
(a thing); Ὁ. besetzen, to occupy, garrison, trim, beset. From prefix
be-, bi-, and AS. se/tan, to set. See Be- and Set.
BESHREW,, to imprecate a curse on. (E.) ME. bischrewen ;
Chaucer, Ὁ. T. 6426, 6427 (D 844, 845). Wyclif uses beshrewith to
translate L. deprauat, Prov. x. 9; A.V.‘ perverteth. Formed by
prefixing be- to the sb. shrew; cf. bestow. See Be- and Shrew.
BESIDE, prep., by the side of; BESIDES, adv., moreover. (E.)
ME. bisrde, brsiden, bistdes, all three forms being used both as prep. and
adverb. ‘His daungers him bisydes;’ Chaucer, C. T. prol. 402. ‘ Bi-
sides Scotlonde ’ = towards Scotland, said of the Roman wall built as
a defence against the Scots; Layamon, 11.6. AS. be sidan, used as
two distinct words ; where be means ‘ by,’ and sidan is the dat. sing.
of side, a side. The more correct form is beside; bestdes is a later
development, due to the habit of using the suffix -es to form adverbs ;
the use of besides as a preposition is, strictly, incorrect, but is as old as
the 13th century.
BESIEGE, to lay siege to. (Hybrid; E. andF.) ΜΕ. bisegen,
besegen. ‘To biseg? pis castel;’ Rob. of Glouc. p. 399; 1. 8242.
Formed by prefixing be- or bi- to the ME. verb segen, formed from
the ME. sb. sege,a siege. See Be- and Siege. Der. besieg-er.
BESOM, a broom. (E.) ME. besum; as in‘ Hee scopa,a besum ;”
Wright's Vocabularies, i. 235, 276. Also besme, besowme, Prompt.
Parv. p. 33. AS. besma; Luke, xi. 25; Mat. xii. 44.4+-MDnu. bessem,
Oudemans; Du. bezem, a broom ; OHG. pisamo, MHG. béseme, G.
besen, a broom, arod. Teut. type *bes-mon-, m.
BESOT, to make sottish. (E.) Shak. has besotted, infatuated,
Troil. it. 2. 143. From verbal prefix be-, and sof, q. v.
BESPEAK, to speak to; to order or engage for a future time.
(E.) Shak. has bespoke, Errors, ili. 2.176. ΜΕ. bispeken. ‘And
byspekith al his deth ;’ King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 94. AS. besprecan,
to speak to, tell, complain, accuse; Orosius, t. 10; ed. Sweet, p. 48,
1.18. [For the dropping of r, see Speak.]—AS. be-, prefix ; and
sprecan, to speak. Cf. OHG. bispracha, detraction.
BEST : see Better.
BESTEAD (1), to assist, avail. (E.) ‘ How little you bested, Or
fill the fixed mind;’ Milton, Η Penseroso, 3. A late formation;
from AS. and ME. be-, and stead, a verb due to stead, sb., a place;
see Shak. Temp. i. 2. 165. See Stead.
BESTEAD (2), situated, beset. (Scand.) A verb only used in
BETRAY 57
the past participle. ‘Restead, or wytheholdyn yn wele or wo, de-
tentus ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 332. ME. brstad, bestad, pp. of a verb δέ-
steden, besteden, to situate, to place under certain circumstances.
Spelt bis/adez in St. Marherete, p.3- Of Scand. origin. Cf. especially
Dan. bestede, to place, to inter, to bury ; with pp. besteds, used as our
E. bestead, as in vere ilde bestedt, to be ill bestead, to be badly off;
vere bestedt i Nad, to be in distress, to be badly off. Similarly is used
Tcel. staddr, circumstanced, the pp. of stedja, to stop, fix, appomt;
also Swed. stadd, circumstanced ; vara stadd z fara, to be in danger;
whence ME. bestad, Cursor Mundi, 5254; ‘sore bestad,” Spenser,
F. Q. vi. 1. 4. The Icel. s¢edja is from stadr, a place. See Be- and
Stead.
BESTIAL, beast-like. (F.—L.) In Rom. of the Rose, 6716.—F.
bestial.= L. bestials, beast-like.— L. bestia, a beast. See Beast.
BESTOW, to place, locate, &c. (E.) ME. bistowen, bestowen,
to place, occupy, employ, give in marriage; Chaucer, Troilus, i.
967 ; Ὁ. T. 3979, 5695 (A 3981, D113). From the prefix be-, and
ME. stowe, a place; hence it means ‘to put into a place.’ See Be-
and Stow. Der. bes/ow-er, bestow-al.
BESTREW, to strew over. (E.) In Temp. iv. 1. 20. ME.
bistrewen, Old Eng. Homilies, p. 5.—AS. be- or bi-, prefix; and
streowian, to strew. See Strew.
BESTRIDKE, to stride over. (E.) In Shak. Cor. iv. 5.124. ME.
bistriden, Layamon, iii. 118. AS. bestridan; /Elfric, Hom, ii. 136.—
AS. be-, prefix; and stridan, to stride. See Stride.
BET, a wager; to wager. (F.—Scand.) Shak. has it both as sb.
and verb; Hen. V, it. 1.99; Haml. v. 2.170. It is a mere contraction
of abet, formerly used both as a sb. and a verb. See Abet.. Phillips
(1706) has: ‘Aber, to encourage, egg, or set on; to maintain, up-
hold, or back.’ Cf. ‘The meede of thy mischalenge and aber;’
Spenser, F. Q. iv. 3.11. The verb occurs as early as in Ascham,
Toxophilus, 1545, ed. Arber, p. 19: ‘ready to laye and bet with
{against } him.’
BETAKE, to enter on, take to. (Hybrid; E. and Scand.) ME,
bitaken, which was chiefly used in the sense of ‘to entrust, deliver,
hand over to.’ ‘Heo sculled eow pat lond bztaken -- ΤΠ ΕΥ̓ shall give
you the land; Layamon, i. 266. Hence ‘to commit.’ as in: ‘ Ich
bitake min soule God’ =I commit my soul to God; Rob. of Gloue.
Ρ. 47453 1. 9772. From AS. prefix be- or bi-; and ME. /aken, which
is a Scand. word, from Icel. saka, to take, deliver. No doubt the
sense was influenced by the (really different) AS. be/€can, to assign,
Grein, i. 95. See Be-, Take, and Teach.
BETEEM,, to think fit, grant, permit. (E.) In the sense of
‘grant ;’ Shak. M.N.D.i.1.131; οἵ“ permit,’ Hamlet, 1. 2.141. From
an AS. form *be/eman, *betiman, to befit, to suit; cf. Friesie by/ema
(Hettema), to befit, Low G. betemen (Liibben). From E. prefix be-,
and AS. *teman, OSax. teman, EFries. temen, (ἃ. ziemen, to suit.
BETEL, a species of pepper. (Port.— Malayalam.) Menttoned in
1681; see Arber’s Eng. Garner, i. 414; and in 1585 (N.E. Ὁ... .-
Port. betel, betele.= Malayal. vettila, i.e. veru + ila, ‘simple or mere
leaf’ (Yule). 4 Used of the leaf (i/a) which is chewed with the
dried areca-nut.
BETHINK, to think on, call to mind. (E.) ME, bithenchen,
bithenken, bithinken; Layamon, ii. 531. AS. bifencan, to consider,
think about; Grein, i, 121.—AS. bi-, prefix; and fencan, to think ;
see Think.4+Du. and G. bedenken, to consider; Dan. betenke, to
consider ; Swed. betanka, to consider.
BETIDE, to happen to, befall. (E.) ME. bitiden, Ancren Riwle,
p. 278.—ME. prehx δὲ- or be-, and ME. tiden, to happen; which
is from AS. ¢idan, to happen (Bosworth), from ἐξά, a tide, time, hour.
See Tide.
BETIMES, in good time. (E.) Formerly betime ; the final s is
due to the habit of adding s or -es to form adverbs ; cf. whiles from
while, afterwards lengthened to whilst ; besides from beside; ἅς. ‘Bi
so thow go bifyme’ = provided that thou go betimes; P. Plowman,
B. v. 647.—AS. be or bi, by; and tima, time. See Time.
BETOKEN, to signify. (E.) ME. bitacnen, bitocnen, bitokenen ;
Ormulum, 1717. Just as in the case of believe, q. v., the prefix be-
has been substituted for the original prefix ge-. AS. getacnian, to
betoken, signify; Grein, i. 462.—AS. ge-, prehx ; and /dcn, a token 5
Grein, ii. 520. See Token. 4 Observe that the final -ew is for -x,
where the x is a real part of the word, not the ME. infinitive ending.
Cf. Du. beteeken-en, Dan. betegn-e, Swed. beteckn-a, G. bezeichn-en, to
denote.
BETONY, 2 plant. (F.—Late L.) Spelt betayne, Voc. 568. 13 ;
betony, id. 711. 19; the AF. form was beteine, id. 554. 13.— OF. be-
toine (Supp. to Godefroy). —Late L. be/onia, Voc. 711. 19; for vetto-
nica, betonica, a plant discovered by a Spanish tribe named Veétones;
Pliny, bk. xxv..c. 8.
BETRAY, to act as traitor. (E. and F.) ME, bitraien, betraten,
Chaucer, Troil. v. 1247. It appears early, e.g. in Rob. of Glouc.
58 BETROTH
p- 454, 1. 9325; in King Horn, ed. Lumby, 1271; and in O. Eng.
Misc., ed. Morris, p. 40, 1. 104. From the E. prefix be-; and the
ME. ¢raien, to betray, of F. origin. [This hybrid compound may
have been suggested by bewray, q.v.] β. The ME. ¢raien is from
OF. ταῖν (Ε΄ trahir); which is from L. tradere, to deliver. See
Tradition. Der. betray-er, betray-al.
BETROTH, to affiance. (E.) ME. hitreuthien, to betroth ;
occurs thrice in Shoreham’s Poems, ed. Wright (Percy Society), pp.
66, 70. Subsequently assimilated to Troth. Made by prefixing
the verbal prefix bi- or be- to the sb. treuthe, or treowthe; which 15
from AS. fréowd, troth, truth; Grein, ii. 552. See Troth, Truth.
Der. betroth-al, betroth-ment.
BETTER, BEST. (Ε.) 1. The ME. forms are, for the com-
parative, both bet (Chaucer, prol. 242) and bettre (Chaucer, prol. 256).
The former is commonly adverbial, like L, melius; the latter ad-
jectival, L. melior. AS, bet, adv.; betera, adj.; Grein, i. 95.4-Goth.
batiza, adj., better; froma base BAT, good. 2. Again, best is short for
AS. betst (Grein, i. 96), which is an obvious contraction of bet-ist.-
Goth. batista, best ; from the same base BAT. Some compare it
with Skt. bhadra-s, excellent; bhand, to be fortunate, or to make
fortunate; but wrongly (Uhienbeck). The Gothic forms have
been given above, as being the clearest. The other forms of better
are: Du. beter, adj. and adv.; Icel. betri, adj., betr, adv. ; Dan. bedre;
Swed. battre; (ἃ. besser. Other forms of best are: Du. and (ἃ. best;
Icel. beztr, adj., δεξί, adv.; Dan. bedst; Swed. bast. See also
Batten (1), Boot (1).
BETWEEN, inthe middle of. (E.) ME. bituene, Rob. of Glouc.
p- 371, 1. 7654; Gower, C, A. i. 9; prol. 189; AS. be-twéonan,
earlier be-twéonum, Grein, i. 96.— AS. be, prep., by; and twéonum,
dat. pl. of ¢wéon, double, twain, as in ‘bi sm tweonum,’ between two
seas; Grein, li. 557. B. Twéon is an adj. allied to AS. twa, two;
and twéonum answers to Goth. sweihnaim, dat. pl. of tweihnai, two
each. Cf. L. bini; also (ἃ. zwischen, between, from zwei, two.
See Two.
BETWIXT, between. (E.) Formed (with excrescent ¢) from
ME. betwixe, bitwixe, Chaucer, C. T., A 2132. AS. betweox, betweohs,
betweoh, Grein, i. 96. ‘From be, by; and *:wik, answering to ‘weth-
in Goth, fweth-nai, twoeach; alliedto AS. ava,two. A similar word
is OFriesic bitwischa, for bitwiska, between; from bi, by, and twisk,
twiska, between, which is allied to twa, two. Cf. G. zwischen, be-
tween, from OHG. zwisc, zwiski, two-fold; allied to OHG. zwis,
twice and G,. zwei, two. See Two.
BEVEL, sloping ; to slope, slant. (F.) Shak. has: ‘I may be
straight, though they themselves be bevel,’ i.e. crooked ; Sonnet 121.
Cotgrave has: ‘ Buveau, m.a kind of squire [carpenter’s rule] or
squire-like instrument, having moveable and compasse branches; or,
the one branch compasse and the other straight: some callit a bevell.’
Now, as F, -eaw stands for OF, -el, it is clear that E. bevel represents
an OF, *buvel, or more probably *bevel, which is not, however, to be
found; though beveau, buveax occur in Hatzfeld,s.v. biveau. Godefroy
cites a verb bever, ‘biaiser,’ to slope. We find, too, the Span, barvel,
a bevel, accented on the e. The etym. of the OF, word is unknown,
BEVER, a potation ; see Beaver (3) above.
BEVERAGE, drink. (F.—L.) Shak. has beverage, Winter’s
Tale, i. 2. 346; and see Mandeville’s Travels, ch. xii. p. 141. Cot-
grave has: ‘ Bruvage, Breuvage, drinke, beverage.’ = OF. bevrage,
drink (Supp. to Godefroy) ; with which cf. OF. beverie, the action
of drinking. — OF. bevre, boivre (see beivre in Supp. to Godefroy), to
drink ; with OF, suffix -age, equiv. to L. -aticum. - L. bibere, to drink.
q Cf. Ital. beveraggio, drink ; Span. brebage, drink.
BEVY, a2 company, esp. of ladies. (F.—L.) Spenser has:
‘this bevie of Ladies bright;’ Shep. Kal. April, 118. On which
E. K. has the note: ‘ Bevie; a beavie of ladyes is spoken figuratively
for a company or troupe ; the terme is taken of larkes. For they say
a bevie of larkes, even as a covey of partridge, or an eye of pheasaunts.’
Spelt beue (=beve) in Skelton, Garl. of Laurel, 771 ; and in the Book
of St. Albans (1486), leaf £6: ‘A beuy of Ladies, A δεῖν of Roos
(toes), A beuy of Quaylis.’—F. bevée, which Mr. Wedgwood cites,
and explains as ‘a brood, flock, of quails, larks, roebucks, thence
applied to a company of ladies generally ;’ cf. ‘ Bevee des heyrouns,’
a bevy of herons ; Wright’s Vocab. i. 151. Florio’s Ital. Dict. has:
‘Beva, a beauie’ [bevy]; and mod. Ital. beva means ‘a drink.’
B. Origin uncertain; but the Ital. points to the original sense as
being a company for drinking, from OF. bevre, Ital. bevere, to drink.
Cf. Ital. beverare, to water cattle (Torriano). See Beverage.
BEW AIL, to wail for, lament. (E. axd Scand.) ME. biweilen,
bewailen ; K. Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 4395. From the prefix be-; and
ME. wailen, to wail, of Scand. origin. See Wail.
BEWARE, to be wary, to be cautious. (E.) This is now written
as one word, and considered as a verb; yet it is nothing but the two
words be ware run together; the word ware being here an adjective,
BEZOAR
viz. the ME, war, for which the longer term wary has been substituted
in mod. E, ‘Be war therfor’=therefore be wary, Chaucer, C.T.
4539 (B19). ‘Aha! felawes! beth ware of swiche ἃ lape!’=aha!
sirs, beware (lit. be ye wary) of such a jest; Chaucer, C. T., 13369
(B 1629). The latter phrase cannot be mistaken; since beth is the
imperative plural of the verb. So also: ‘ Whi nolden hii be war?’
Polit. Songs, p. 217. Cf. AS. wer,adj., wary, cautious. See Wary.
BEWILDER, to perplex. (E.) Dryden has the pp. bew:dder'd ;
tr. of Lucretius, bk. ii. ]. 11. Made by prefixing be- to the prov. Eng.
wildern, a wilderness, shortened to wilder by the influence of the
longer form wilderness, which would naturally be supposed as com-
pounded of wilder- and -ness, whereas it is rather compounded of
wildern- and -ness, and should, etymologically, be spelt with double x.
For examples of wildern, a wilderness, see Halliwell’s Dictionary,
and Layamon’s Brut, 1.1238. B. Thus bewi/der (for bewildern) is ‘to
lead into a wilderness,’ which is just the way in which it was first
used. Dryden has: ‘ Bewilder’d in the maze of life’ (as above) ; and
Addison, Cato, i. 1. 49, has: ‘ Puzzled in mazes, ... Lost and be-
wildered in the fruitless search.’ y. There is thus no reason for
supposing it other than a purely native word, though other languages
possess words somewhat similar. Cf. Du. verwilderen, to grow wild,
verwilderd, uncultivated ; Dan. forvilde, to lead astray, bewilder, per-
plex; passive forvildes, to go astray, lose one’s way ; Swed. forvilla,
to puzzle, confound; Icel. villr, bewildered, astray; villa, to bewilder.
@ The Scandinavian words show that the peculiar sense of Εἰ. bewilder
has a trace of Scandinavian influence. See Wilderness. Der.
bewilder-ment (modem).
BEWITCH, to charm with witchcraft. (E.) ME. biwicchen,
bewicchen; spelt biwucched (unusual) in Layamon, ii. 597, where the
later MS. has «wicched. From prefix be- or bi-; and AS. wiccian, to
be a witch, to use witchcraft, in Thorpe’s Ancient Laws of England,
ii. 274, sect. 39, from AS, wicce, f.,a witch. See Witch. Der. be-
witch-ment, bewitch-er-y.
BEWRAY, to disclose ; prope rieta tates (E.)- In A.V.
Matt. xxvi. 73; and, for numerous examples, see Eastwood and
Wright's Bible Wordbook. ME. bewraten, biwreyen; Chaucer has
biwreye, to disclose, reveal, C. T. 6530 (D 948), and also the simple
verb wreye in the same sense, C, T. 3503. — Prefix be-, and AS. wrégan
(for *wrdg-ian), to accuse; ‘agunnon hine wrégan,’ they began to
accuse him, Luke, xxiii. 2. So also OFries. biwrdgia, to accuse.
Cf. Icel. regja (orig. vregja), to slander, defame ; Swed. roja, to dis-
cover, betray; Goth. wrdhjan, to accuse ; G. riigen, to censure. ‘These
are denom. verbs, formed fromasb. which appears as Goth. wrohs, an
accusation; Icel. rdg,a slander; cf. G.ruge, censure. Fick, ili. 310.
Perhaps allied to AS. wearg, a criminal, Goth. gawargjan, to
condemn.
BEY, a governor. (Turkish.) ‘The By... in their language a
Duke;’ Hakluyt, Voy. ii. pt. i. p. 168.— Turk. bég (pron, nearly as
E. bay), a lord, a prince; Rich, Dict., p. 310. Cf. Persian ‘bag, a
lord ; a Mogul title ;’ Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 102.
BEYOND, on the farther side of. (E.) ME. beyonde, biyonde,
beyeonden ; Maundeville’s Travels, pp. 1, 142, 314. AS. begeondan,
Matt. iv. 25.—AS. be-, and geond, giond, prep., across, beyond; with
ady. suffix ταῦ. See geond in Grein, i. 497; and cf. AS. be-geonan,
beyond; Sweet, O. E. Texts, p. 535. And see Yon, Yonder.
BEZEL, the sloping edge ofa chisel; the sloping facets of a cut
gem; the part of a ring in which the stone is set, and which holds it
in. (F.—L.?) Also spelt basi?. It occurs in Cotgrave's Dict., who
explains F. biseau by ‘a bezle, bezling, or scuing [i. 6. skewing] ; such
a slopenesse, or slope forme, as is in the point of an iron leaver,
chizle, &c.’ The E. basil is generally used of the sloping edge to
which a chisel is ground; the application to the ring relates to the
sloping edge or rim of metal round the stone. The F. biseaw had an
older spelling bisel (noted by Roquefort), from which E, bezel and
basil are corruptions. = OF. bisel, which Roquefort explains by ‘en
pente; angle imperceptible ;’ the true sense being, apparently, ‘a
sloping edge;’ cf. Span, bisel (accented on e), a basil, bezel; the
edge of a looking-glass, or crystal plate. [Looking-glasses some-
times have a slanted border, so as to be thin at the edge.} β. Origin
unknown ; perhaps (as Diez remarks) it contains the L. bis, double.
Korting, § 1356, Supp., suggests *biais-el ; see Bias.
BEZIQUE, a game at cards, (F.—Pers.?) Spelt bazigue in
Macmillan’s Mag., Dec. 1861, p. 138. An error for F. besigue, also
spelt bésy (Littré), The former is prob. from Pers. bazichah, sport, a
game ; the latter may be the Pers. baz?, play. = Pers. bazidan, to play.
Cf. Pers. bazigar, a juggler, which perhaps suggested the form be-
sigue. (Doubtful.)
BEZOAR, a kind of stone. (F.—Port.—Arab.—Pers.) Bezoar-
stone is in Ben Jonson, Every Man out of his Humour, vy. 4. MF.
bezoar, 16th cent. spelling of F. bézoard, according to Brachet. Cot-
grave has: ‘ Bezoard, a Beazar stone.'= Port. bezoar ; see Brachet,
BEZONIAN
who remarks that the word was introduced from India by the Portu-
guese; and cf. Span. bezaar in Pineda. = Arab. badzahr (with 6 for p).
— Pers. pad-zahkr, the bezoar-stone, also called zahr-dara; Palmer's
Pers. Dict. coll. 105, 328. So called because it was a supposed anti-
dote against poison. = Pers, pad, expelling ; and zakr, poison; Rich.
Dict. pp. 228, 315, 790. And see Yule; and Hom, § 273.
BEZONIAN, a beggarly fellow. (F.—Ital.) In 2 Hen. IV, v.
3.118. Formerly bi:onian; formed with suffix -(7)an from F. bisogzne,
spelt bisongne in Cotgrave, ‘a filthie knave .. . bisonian.’ = Ital.
bisogni, pl., ‘new-levied souldiers such as come... needy to the
wars;’ Torriano.=Ital. bisogno, want ; of doubtful origin.
Β1-, prefix. (L.) Generally Latin ; in bias, it is F., but still from
L. =L. bi-, prefix =dui-; cf. L. bellum for duellum.=L. duo, two. Cf.
Gk. &:-, prefix, from δύω, two; Skt. dvi-, prefix, from ἄνα, two; AS. twi-,
prefix, from ‘wa, two, See Fick, i. 625. See Two. In L. bi-ni,
two each, bi- is for bis, twice. @3> In ΜῈ, the prefix bi- occurs as
another spelling of the prefix be-; see Be-.
BIAS, an inclination to one side, a slope. (F.—L.) Spelt biais in
Holland’s Pliny, bk. xxvii. c. 4 (on the Aloe, |. 2.) —F. biais, a slant,
a slope.=L. acc. bifacem, used by Isidore of Seville in the sense of
squinting, of one who looks sidelong. 4 This is not wholly satis-
f .ctory ; but see P. Toynbee, Hist. Gr. § 273.
BIB, a cloth on an infant's breast. (L.) Used by Beaum, and
Fletcher, The Captain, iii. 5. It must have meant a cloth for im-
b'bing moisture, borrowed, half jocularly, from the ME. bibben, to
tipple, imbibe, used by Chaucer, C. T. 4160 (A 4162): ‘This miller
hath so wisly bibbed ale.’ This, again, must have been borrowed
cirectly from L. bibere, to drink, and may be imagined to have been
also used jocularly by those familiar with a little monkish Latin.
Hence wine-bibber, Luke, vii. 34, where the Vulgate has bibens uinum.
+Skt. pibami, I drink; Olrish ibim, for *pibim, I drink. Der. from
the same source; bibb-er, brb-ul-ous.
BIBLE, the sacred book. (F.—L.—Gk.—Egypt.) ME. bible,
byble; Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, iii. 244; P. Plowman, B. x. 318. =F.
bible. Late L. biblia, fem. sing.; for L. biblia, neut. pl. = Gk. βιβλία,
a collection of writings, pl. of βιβλίον, alittle book ; dimin. of βίβλος,
a book.= Gk. βύβλος, the Egyptian papyrus, whence paper was first
made; hence a book. Of Egypt. origin; cf. Paper. Der. bibl-ic-al.
BIBLIOGRAPHY, the description of books. (Gk.) Modern.
From Gk. βιβλίο-, for βιβλίον, a book; and γράφειν, to write. See
Bible.. Der. bibliograph-ic-al ; and from the same source, biblio-
graph-er.
BIBLIOLATRY, boox-worship. (Gk.) Used by Byrom,
Upon the Bp. of Gloucester’s Doctrine of Grace (R.) From Gk.
βιβλίο-, for βιβλίον, a book; and λατρεία, service; see Idolatry.
BIBLIOMANTIA, ἃ passion for books. (Gk.) Modern, From
Gk. βιβλίο-, for βιβλίον, a book ; and E. mania, also of Gk. origin:
see Mania. Der. bibliomania-c.
BICH, a pale blue colour; green bice isa pale green. (F.) The
true sense is ‘grayish.’ Borrowed from F. bis, fem. bise, which
Cotgrave explains as ‘brown, duskie, blackish.’ He gives too:
‘Roche bise, a hard, and b/ewish rocke, or quarrey, of stone.” Cf. F.
bis blanc, whitey-brown; OF. azur bis, grayish blue; vert bis, grayish
green. Spelt byse in Skelton, Garlande of Laurell, 1. 1158. The
word is found also in Italian as bigio, grayish. Origin unknown ;
see Diez.
B_CKER, to skirmish. (E. ον F.) ME. bikere, P. Plowman, B.
xx. 783 biker, sb., a skirmish, Rob. of Glouc. p. 538; 1.11147 ; but
it is most commonly a verb. Apparently formed, with frequentative
suffix -er, from the verb biken, to thrust with a pointed weapon, King
Alisaunder, 2337; which may be a variant of ME. beken, to peck ;
from OF. bequer, to strike with the beak (see Beak), or from AS.
becca, a pickaxe. Cf. Du. dikken, to notch a mill-stone; EFries.
bikkern, to hack, gnaw, from bikken, to hack, bikke, a pickaxe.
BICYCLE, a two-wheeled velocipede. (Hybrid; L. and Gk.) A
hybrid substitute for ‘wo-wheel; in use since 1868. Coined from Bi-
and Cycle.
BID (1), to pray. (E.) [Bid, to pray, is nearly obsolete; but used
in what is really a reduplicated phrase, viz. ‘a bidding prayer. To
“bid beads’ was, originally, to ‘pray prayers.’ See Bead.|] ME.
bidden, to pray, P. Plowman, B. vii. 81. AS. biddan, to pray (in
common use) of conj. §; pt. t. bed, pp. beden.4-Du. bidden, to pray ;
OHG. pittan, G. bitten, to pray, request. These are strong verbs, and
so are Icel. bidja, Swed. bedja, Dan. bede, to pray, beg, and Goth.
bidjan, to pray, ask, notwithstanding the weak form of the infinitive.
Teut. type *bedjan-. @ It has been suggested that the Teut. *bed-
jan- (2nd grade *bad) was a new strong verb substituted for *beidan-
(2nd grade *baid), from the Idg. root BHEIDH, to which we may
tefer Gk. πείθειν, and L. fides, but not bid (2). Brugm. i. § 589;
li. § 890. See Bide.
BID (2), to command. (E.) [Closely connected as this word
BIGOT
appears to be with E. bid, to pray, it is certainly from a different root,
and can be traced more easily. It has been assimilated to bd in
spelling, but should rather have taken the form bede.] ME. bede,
Chaucer, C. Τ' 8236 (E360). AS. béodan, to command (common) of
conj. 2; pt. t. béad, pp. boden.4-Du. bieden, to offer; Icel. bjada; G.
bieten; Goth. biudan, only in comp. ana-biudan, to command, faur-
bindan, to forbid. Allied to Skt. bodhaya, to cause to know, in-
form, causal of budh, to awake, understand; Gk. πεύθομαι, πυν-
θάνομαι, 1 enquire, learn, understand. ‘Teut. type *bexdan-; from the
root BHEUDH, to awake, observe; Fick, i, 162; Brugm. i. § 213.
@ Confused in E, with bid (1). Der. bidd-er, bidd-ing.
BIDE, to await, wait. (E.) ΜΕ. bide, P. Plowman, B. xviii. 307.
AS. bidan, Grein, i, 122; of conj. 1; pt. t. bad, pp. biden.4Du.
beiden ; Icel. bida; Swed. bida; Dan. bie; Goth. betdan; OHG. pitan
(prov. G, beiten). Teut. type *beidan-; from the root BHEIDH ; cf.
L. fid-ere, to trust. Brugm.i. § 202. See also Abide.
BIENNIAL, lasting two years. (L.) ‘The Duke is there but
biennial ;’ Howell, Letters, vol. i. let. 41 (1621). —L. biennalis, the
same as biennis, adj., for two years. [The second # in biennial is due
to confusion with the sb. biennium, a space of two years.]—L, bi-,
two, double; and annéalis, lasting fora year, which becomes -ennalis
in composition. L, annus, a year. See Annual. Der. biennial-ly.
BIER, a frame on which a dead body is borne. (E.) ME. beere,
Prompt. Pary. p. 32; bere, Layamon, 19481. AS. δῶν, Grein, i. 78.
- AS. bér-, 3rd grade of beran, to bear.4-Du. baar; OHG. bara (G.
bahre)3 allied to Icel. barar, fem. pl.; and to L. fer-e-trum; Gk.
φέρετρον. See Bear (1). The present spelling is due to Εἰ, biere, a bier.
BIESTINGS, BEESTINGS, the first milk given by a cow
after calving. (E.) Very common in provincial English, in a great
number of differing forms, such as biskins, bistins, &c. AS. bysting,
byst (for *biest), thick milk ; from AS, béost, first milk after calving.
We find, in Voc. 127. 35, and 129. 2, ‘ byst, bysting’, picce meolc ’ = biest,
biestings, thick milk.-Du. biest, biestings ; G. biestmilch, biestings.
All from a Teut. base *beust-.
BIFFIN, a large rosy winter apple. (F.—L.; with E. suffix.)
Prov. E. beefin; Suffolk. Ihave also heard them called beefing apples
(correctly). ‘As red as a beefen from her own orchard ;’ Godwin,
Caleb Williams (1794), p.63. Leefing refers to the beef-like colour,
From beef; with suffix -ing (N.E.D.). See Beef.
BIFURCATED, two-pronged. (L.) Pennant, British Zoology,
has ‘a large bifurcated tooth;’ Richardson, Sir Τὶ Browne, Vulg,
Errors, b. ii. c. 6. § 2, has the sb. bifurcation. Late L. bifurcaitus, pp.
of bifurcari, to part in two directions. = L. bifurcus, two-pronged.=L.
bi-, double ; and furca, a fork, prong. See Fork.
BIG, large. (Scand.) ME. big, Chaucer, Prol. 546; Havelok,
17743 bigg, ‘rich, well-furnished,’ Prick of Conscience, ed. Morris,
1460; see also Minot’s Poems, Edward at La Hogue, 1. 83. Being
used by Minot and Hampole, it was probably at first a Northern
word, and of Scandinavian origin; cf. A2gelric Bigga, Kemble, C. D.,
vi. το. B. Allied to prov. E. bug, fine, bog, boastful; so that the
base is byg-, mutated from bug-, weak grade of Teut. *beugan-, to
bow or bend; see Bow (1); from the notion of swelling out. Cf.
Norw. bugge, a strong man (proy. E. a big bug); Dan, bugne, to
bulge; also Swed. dial. δορί, (1) a bend, (2) strength.
BIGAMY, a double marriage. (F.—L. and Gk.) ‘ Bigamie is
. « twie-wifing ;᾿ Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, i. 449.—F. biga-
mie. = L. bigamia. ‘ Bigamy (bigamia),..is used for an impediment
to be a clerk, Anno 4 Edw. 1. 5;’ Blount’s Law Dictionary. A hybria
compound ; from L. prefix di-, twice, q.v., and Gk. -yayia, from
γάμος, marriage; imitated from Gk. διγαμία, a double marriage,
which is from Gk. &-, twice, and a form - γαμία, derived from γάμος,
marriage. The Gk. γάμος, marriage, is from ya-, weak grade or
GEN, to beget. Brugm. i. § 437 (2). Der. bigam-ist.
BIGGIN, BIGGEN, a night-cap. (F.) In Shak. 2 Hen. IV,
iv. 5. 27.—MF. beguin, ‘a biggin for a child;’ Cot. He also gives
beguiner, to put on a biggin. Palsgrave has: ‘ Biggayne, a woman
that lyveth chaste;’ and ‘Byggen, for a chyldes heed;’ for both
words he gives F. beguine. Doubtless named from a resemblance to
the caps worn by the nuns called Béguines, who, as Cotgrave remarks,
‘commonly be all old, or well in years.’ See Beguine. Q Biggin
also occurs as a spelling of piggin.
BIGHT, a coil ofa rope; a bay. (E.) ME. byght, a bend ; Gawain
and the Grene Knight, l. 1349. AS. byht,as in weteres byht, a bight
(bay) οἵ water; Grein, i. 151. Cf. Dan, and Swed. bugt, used in
both senses, viz. (1) the bight of a rope; and (2) a bay; also G. bucht,
abay. β. The AS, byhe (for *buhtiz) is from AS. bug-, weakest
grade of big-an, to bend; with mutation of τὶ to y. See Bow (1).
BIGOT, an obstinate devotee to a particular creed, a hypocrite.
(F.) In Blount’s Gloss. (1636) we find: ‘Bigot, an hypocrite, &c.:”
as in Cotgrave.=F. bigot, which Cotgrave explains thus: ‘An old
Norman word (signifying as much as de par Dieu, or our for God’s
59
60 BIJOU
sake [he means by God} and signifying) an hypoerite, or one that
seemeth much more holy than he is; also, a scrupulous or supersti-
tious fellow.” α. The word occurs in Wace’s Roman du Rou, ii. 71,
where we find: ‘Mult ont Franceis Normanz laidiz E de mefaiz ede
mediz, Sovent lor dient reproviers, E claiment bigoz e draschiers,’ i.e.
the French have much insulted the Normans, both with evil deeds
and evil words, and often speak reproaches of them, and call them
bigots and dreg-drinkers (Diez); see Drachier in Godefroy. Roque-
fort quotes further from the Roman du Rou, fol. 228, in which the
word occurs again: ‘Sovent dient, Sire, por coi Ne tolez Ja terre as
bigos τ᾿ i.e. they often said, Sire, wherefore do you not take away
the land from these barbarians? . The origin of the word is un-
known. The old supposition that it isa corruption of by God, which
is an English phrase, is mere ‘ popular etymology,’ and inconsistent
with the facts. Bigof occurs already in the 12th century, ‘in the
romance of Girart de Roussillon, as the proper name of some people,
apparently of the south of δὰ]; N.E.D. It is not, however, a
corruption of Visigorh, as has been absurdly suggested. ‘ Hue le
Bigot’ occurs in Wace, Roman de Rou, 1. 8571. Mr. Wedgwood’s
guess that it arose in the 13th century is disproved at once by the fact
that Wace died before A.D. 1200. y. At the same time, it is very
likely that this old term of derision may have been confused with the
term beguin, which was especially used of religious devotees. See
Beguin. And it is a fact that the name was applied to some of
these orders; some Begutt@ of the order of St. Augustine are men-
tioned in a charter of A.D. 1518; and in another document, given by
Ducange, we find: ‘ Beghardus et Beguina et Begutia sunt viri et
mulieres tertii ordinis;’ and again Biguit@ are mentioned, in a charter
of A.D. 1499. This transference of the nickname to members of these
religious orders explains the modern use of the term. Der. bigot-ry.
BIJOU, a trinket, jewel. (F.—C.) Modern; and mere French. =
F. bijou. Perhaps of Celtic origin; cf. Breton bizow (Corn, bison), a
ring with a stone. = Bret. biz, W. bys, a finger ; Stokes-Fick, p. 175.
BILATERAL, having two sides. (L.) From L. bi-, double:
and lateralis, adj., lateral. L. later-, decl. stem of latus, a side.
BILBERRY, a whortleberry. (Scand. and E.) ‘ As blue as bil-
berry ;’ Shak. Merry Wives, v.5. 49. This formis due to the Jutland
bylleber (Feilberg), Dan. bélleber, the bilberry ; where ber isa berry.
Cf, MDan. bélle, a boss, protuberance (Kalkar) ; perhaps allied to
Boil (2); from *bwl-, weak grade of Teut. *beul-, toswell; ef. Goth.
uf-bauljan, to swell up. We also find Swed. dial. béljon, baljen, balen,
pl. bilberries. 4 In the North of England we find bleaberry or
blaeberry, i.e. ἃ berry of a dark, livid colour ; ef. our phrase ‘to beat
black and blue.’ Blae is the Icel. blar, dark, livid, Dan. blaa, Swed.
bld, dark-blue; whence Icel. blaber, Dan. blaaber, Swed. bldbar, a
blaeberry. See Blue. Hence both διὶ- and blae- are Scandinavian ;
but -berry is English.
BILBO, a sword; BILBOES, fetters. (Span.) Shak. has both
bilbo, Merry Wives, i. 1. 165, and bilboes, Hamlet, ν. 2.6. Both
words are derived from Bilboa or Bilbao in Spain, ‘which was famous,
as early as the time of Pliny, for the manufacture of iron and steel.’
Several bilboes (fetters) were found among the spoils of the Spanish
Armada, and are still to be seen in the Tower of London. Scenote
by Clark and Wright to Hamlet, v. 2. 6.
BILE (1), ἃ secretion from the liver. (F.—L.) In Kersey’s Dict.,
ed. £708. —F. bile, which Cotgrave explains by ‘choller, gall,’ &c. τα
L. bilis, bile, anger. L. bilis is for *bislis; Brugm. i. § 877 ; ef. W.
bustl, Bret. best, bile; Stokes-Fick, p.175. Der. bili-ar-y, bili-ous.
BILE (2), a boil; Shak. Cor. i. 4. 31. (E.) ME. byle, Prompt.
Parv. See Boil (2).
BILGE, the belly of a ship or cask. (F.=C.) It means the pro-
tuberant part of a cask or of a ship’s bottom, i.e. the belly, and is
merely another form of bulge, adapted from OF. bonlge, mod. F.
bouge, which still means ‘bilge’ of acask, &c. β. Hence the vb. so
bilge, said of a ship, which begins to leak ; but it occurs still earlier
in a transitive sense, to stave in a ship's bottom. ‘This verb 20 bilge
is also written to bulge ; see examples in Richardson, s. v. bulge; and
Kersey’s Dict., s.v. bilged. y. Bilge-water is water which enters
a ship when lying on her bilge, and becomes offensive. See Bulge.
BILL (1), a chopper; a halberd; sword. (E.) ME. bil, sword,
halberd, Layamon, i. 74; ‘Bylle of a mattoke, igo, marra;’
Prompt. Parv. p. 36. AS. bil, bill, a sword, axe, Grein, i. 116.
OSax. bil, OHG, bill,n. Teut. type *biljom, neut. Cf. G. bille, fem.
a pick-axe. Cf. Skt. bil, bil, to break, to divide, Benfey, p- 6333
which is probably related to Skt. bhid, to cleave. See Bite.
BILL (2), a bird's beak. (E.) ΜΕ. bile, Owl and Nightingale,
79. ΑΘ. bile; Voc. 318. 13. ‘Feut. type *hiiz? Allied to Bill (1).
BILL (3), a writing, account. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. bille, a letter,
writing; Chaucer, C. T. 9811 (E 1937).—AF. bille, Polit. Songs,
p- 231, 1. 11 ; foundin F. in the dimin. bidet. — Late L. billa, a writing,
with dimin. billéta; bulléta is also found, with the same meaning,
BINOMIAL
and is the dimin. of L. bulia. B. It is certain that bil/ais a corruption
of L. bulla, meaning ‘a writing,’ ‘a schedule’ in medieval times; but
esp. and properly ‘a sealed writing ;’ from the classical L. bulla, a stud,
knob; later, a round seal. See Bull (2), Bullet, Bulletin.
BILLET (1), a note, ticket. (F.—L.) Shak. has the vb. ¢o
billet, to direct to one’s quarters by means of a ticket; to quarter;
Cor. iv. 3. 48. Spelt bylet, Prompt. Parv.—AF. billette, f., Stat.
Realm, i. 338 (1353); cf. F. billet, m.; dimin. of AF. brlle, a ticket,
note, writing. See Bill (3). We sometimes use bille!-doux for
‘love-letter;’ see Pope, Rape of the Lock, i. 118, 138. It is mere
French, and means, literally, ‘sweet letter ;’ from F. billet, letter, and
doux (L. dulcis), sweet.
BILLET (2), a log of wood, block. (F.) In Shak. Measure,
iy. 3. 58. Spelt bylet, Prompt. Parv.=—F. billette, ‘a billet of wood;
also, a litcle bowle;* Cot. Cf. F. billot, ‘a billet, block, or log of
wood;’ id. Dimin. of F. bille,.a log of wood; in Cotgrave, ‘a
young stock of atree to graft on.’ This F. bille corresponds to Med.
L. bila, billus, a branch, trunk of a tree; of unknown origin.
BILLIARDS, a game with balls. (F.) | Shak. has billiards,
Ant. and Cleop. ii. 5. 3.—F. billard, billart, ‘a short and thick trun-
cheon, or cudgell, . . a billard, or the stick wherewith we touch the
ball at billyards ;’ Cot. He also has: ‘Biller, to play at billyards;’
and ‘bile, a small bowl or billyard ball; also, a young stock of
a tree to graft on τ᾿ but these may be two distinct words. Formed, by
suffix -ard, from Εἰ. bille, signifying a ‘ billyard ball,’ as explained by
Cotgrave, and answering to Ital. biglia, ‘a billiard ball’ (Baretti);
which Diez derives from ΜΗ. bickel, a pick-axe, also a die to play
with; which is doubtful. Korting, § 1367.
BILLION, a million of millions. (F.—L.) From F. billion, a
million of millions;’ Cot. A coined word, to express ‘a double mil-
lion; from L. δι-, double; and -ill:on, the latter part of the word
million. So also (rillion, to express ‘a treble million,’ or a million
times a billion, The mod. Εἰ. billion now means ‘a thousand
millions.’
BILLOW, a wave. (Scand.) Not in very early use. It occurs in
Gascoigne’s Jocasta, Act iii. chorus, 1. 24.—Icel. bylgja, a billow ;
Swed. bolja; Dan, bilge. +-+MUG., bilge, a billow,alsoa bag; OHG,
pulga. The Icel. bylgja has mutation of τὲ to y; and is derived from
bulg-, weak stem of the root which appears in AS, belgan, to swell,
esp. to swell with anger; a bilow means ‘a swell,’ ‘a swelling
wave.’ Cf. Prov. G. (Hamburg) bulgen, a billow (Richey). From
“ BHELGH, to swell; see Belly. Der. billow-y.
BIN, a chest for wine, corn, ἄς. (C.) ME. binne, bynne, Chaucer,
C. T. 595 (A 593). AS. binn, a manger, Luke, ii. 7, 16.4-Du. ben,
a basket; ἃ. benne,a sort of basket. Said to be ultimately of Celtic
origin; cf. F. banue, a tilt of a cart, from L. bexna, a car of osier,
body of a cart, noticed by Festus as a word of Gaulish origin. And
cf. ΝΥ. ben, a cart. Celtic type *benn@: Stokes-Fick, p. 168.
Sometimes confused with bing, which is a distinct word.
BINARY, twofold. (L.) In Holland’s Plutarch, p, 665.—L.
bindrus, consisting oftwo things. = L. bin?, two each, = L, bi-, double,
for bis, twice. See Bi-, prefix.
BIND, to fasten, tie. (E.) ME. binden, Chaucer, C. T. 4082.
AS. bindan, pt. τ. band, pp. bunden; Grein,i.117.4-Du. binden; Icel.
and Swed. binda; Dan. binde; OHG. pintan, G. binder; Goth.
bindan. Teut. type *bindan-, for *bendan-; cf. Skt. bandh, to bind ;
AY BHENDH. brugm.i. § 124. Der. bind-ing, binder, book-binder,
bind-weed ; also bundle, bend.
BING, a heap of corn; provincial. (Scand.) Surrey has ‘ bing of
corn’ for ‘ keap of corn,’ in his translation of Virgil, Book iv. 1. 529.
e-Icel. bingr, a heap; Swed. binge, a heap. Alhed to Bunk.
@ Distinct from E. bin, though sometimes confused with it. Dan.
bing came to mean ‘bin.’ See Bin.
BINNACLE, a box for a ship's compass. (MSpan.—L.)
Modern; a singular corruption of the older form bittacle, due to con-
fusion with bin, a chest. Only the form bit/acle appears in Todd’s
Johnson, as copied from Kersey’s Dict., viz. ‘a frame of timber in the
steerage of a ship where the compass is placed.’ . Spelt bittakle in
Phillips (1658).—MSpan, bitacula (Minsheu) ; Port. bitacola ; Span.
bitacora. Cf. F. habitacle,a binnacle; prop. an abode.—L. habiti-
culum, a little dwelling, whence the Port. and Span. are derived by
loss of the initial syllable.—L. kabilare, to dwell; frequentative of
habére, to have. See Hakit. 4 The ‘habitaculum’ seems to have
been originally a sheltered place for the steersman. The earliest FE.
quotation has the spelling b:takie; Naval Accounts for 1485,ed. A. Op-
penheim, p. 56. :
BINOCULAR, suited for two eyes; having two eyes. (L.)
‘Most animals are binocular ;’ Derham, Phys. Theol. (713), bk. viil.
c. 3, note a. Coined from bin-for L. bini, two each; and eculs, an
eye. See Binary and Ocular.
BINOMIAL, consisting of two ‘terms’ or parts. (L.) Mathe-
BIOGRAPHY
matical. —Late L. bindmi-us, for L. bindminis, having two names. - L.
bi-, prefix, double; and xdmen, a name, denomination. It should
tather have been b:nominal.
BIOGRAPHY, an account of a life. (Gk.) In Johnson’s Ram-
bler, no. 60. Langhorne, in the Life of Plutarch, has biographer and
biographical. — Late Gk. βιογραφία. ἃ writing of lives; Duc. = Gk. Bio-,
for Bios, life; and γράφειν, to write. Gk. Bios is allied to E. quick,
living; see Quick. And see Carve. Der. biograph-er, bio-
graph-tc-al.
BIOLOGY, the science of life. (Gk.) Modern. Lit. a ‘discourse
on life.’ = Gk. Bio-, for Bios, life ; and-Aoyia, from λόγος, a discourse.
See above ; and see Logic. Der. biolog-ic-al.
BIPARTIT#, divided in two parts. (L.) Used by Cudworth,
Intellectual System; Pref. p. 1.—L. bipartitus, pp. of bipartire, to
divide into two parts.—L. δὲ, double; and partire, to divide, from
part-, stem of pars, a part. See Bi- and Part.
BIPED, two-footed; an animal with two feet. (L.) ‘A... biped
beast ;’ Byrom, an Epistle. Also in Sir Τὶ. Browne’s Vulg. Errors,
b. iii. c. 4. 5. 8. The adj. is sometimes bipedal.—L. biped-, stem of
bipés, having two feet ; from δί-, double, and pés, a foot. 47 So too
Gk. δίπους, two-footed, from δι-, double, and ποῦς, a foot. See Bi-
and Foot, with which pés is cognate.
BIRCH, a tree. (E.) In North of England, birk ; which is Scan-
dinavian. ME. birche, Chaucer, C.T. 2921. AS. birce, wk. f. (Bos-
worth) ; also beore, str. f.4-Du. berk ; Icel. bjork ; Swed. bjork ; Dan.
birk; G. birke. Teut. types *berkjon-, f.; and *berka, f. Cf. Lith.
berzas; Russ. bereza; Skt. bhiirja-s, a kind of birch, the leaves or
bark of which were used for writing on (Benfey). Allied to Skt.
bhrij, to shine ; with reference to the whiteness of the bark. Cf. L.
fraxinus, ash. See Bright. Der. birch-en, adj.; cf. gold-en.
BIRD, a feathered flying animal. (E.) ME. brid; very rarely
byrde, which has been formed from brid by shifting the letter r; pl.
briddes, Chaucer, C. T. 2931 (A 2929). AS. brid, bridd, a bird; but
especially the young of birds; as in earnes brid, the young one of an
eagle, Grein, i, 142. The manner in which it is used in early
writers suggests the idea that it was considered as ‘a thing bred ;’ but
it can hardly be connected with AS. brédan, to breed, as the Teut. type
would be *bridjoz or *bredjoz. Der. bird-bolt, bird-cage, bird-call,
bird-catcher, bird-lime, bird’s-eye, &c.
BIRETTA, a clerical cap. (Ital.—L.—Gk.) Spelt berretta in
Hall’s Sat. iv. 7. 52, ed. 1598. -- Ital. berretta (Baretti) ; beretta (‘Tor-
tiano), a cap; cf. Late L. birrétum, orig. a scarlet cap.—Late L.
birrus, burrus, reddish; see Bureau.
BIRTH, a being born. (Scand.) ME. birthe, Chaucer, C. T. 4612
(B 192). Of Scand. origin. —Olcel. byrd, fem., quoted by Noreen,
Gr. § 327 (cognate with Dan. byrd) ; the usual Icel. form is bdr, m.
Tent. type burdiz, f.; from *bur-, weak grade of *beran- (AS. beran),
to bear, Cf. also AS. ge-byrd; OHG. kapurt, G. geburt ; Goth. ga-
baurths, a birth; Skt. bhytis, f., nourishment; Irish breith, birth.
7 BHER, to bear. Der. birth-day, -place, -mark, -right,
BISCUIT, a kind of cake, baked hard. (F.—L.) In Shak., As
You Like It, ii. 7. 39. ‘ Byscute brede, bis coctus ;’ Prompt. Parv. =
F, biscuit, a bisket, bisket-bread;’ Cot.—F. dis, twice; and cuit,
cooked; because formerly prepared by being twice baked. (Custis the
pp: of cuire, to cook.) —L. bis coctus, where coctus is the pp. of coguere,
to cook. See Cook.
BISECT, to divide into two equal parts. (L.) In Barrow’s Math.
Lectures, Lect.15. Coined from L. δὲς, twice, and sectum, supine of
secare, to cut. See Bi- and Section. Der. bisect-ion.
BISHOP, an ecclesiastical overseer. (L.—Gk.) ME. bisshop,
Chaucer, C. T., B253. AS. biscop, in common use ; borrowed from
L. episcopus.— Gk. ἐπίσκοπος, an overseer, overlooker. = Gk. ἐπί, upon ;
and σκοπός, one that watches, from σκοπ-, 2nd grade of oxen-, as in
σκέπ-τομαι, I spy, overlook. Brugm. i. ὃ 1000. Der. bishop-ric ;
where -ric is AS. rice, dominion, Grein, ii. 376; cf. G. reich,a kingdom;
and see Rich.
BISMUTH, « reddish-white metal. (G.) In Kersey’s Dict., ed.
1708. Coles (1684) has Bismutum or Wismuth, Spelt wisemute,
Harrison's Hist. of England, bk. ii. ch. 11; ed. Furnivall, p.76. It
is chiefly found at Schneeburg in Saxony. The F. bismuth, like the
E. word, is borrowed from German; and this word is one of the
very few German words in English.—G. bismuth, bismuth; more
commonly wismut, also spelt wissmut, wissmuth; of these, wissmut
first occurs, in Georg Agricola (died in 1555), who also has the L.
form bisemutum (Weigand). Orgin unknown.
BISON, a large quadruped. (Εἰ. ον L.—Gk.—Teut.) In Minsheu,
ed. 1627. Also in Cotgrave, q.v. Either from F. bison (Cot.) or
from L. bison (Pliny).—Gk. Bicwy, the wild bull, bison; Pausanias,
ed. Bekker, ro. 13 (about A.D. 160). Borrowed from Teutonic ; cf.
AS. wesend, a wild ox, Bosworth; Icel. visundr, the bison-ox; OHG.
wisunt, (ἃ. wisent, a bison. @] The word is Teutonic rather than
BITTS
Greek, and only borrowed by the latter.
Schade.
BISSEXTILE, a name for leap-year. (L.) In Holland’s Pliny,
bk. xviii. c. 25.— Late L. bissextilis annus, the bissextile year, leap-
year.— L. bissextus, in phr. bissextus digs, an intercalary day, so called
because the intercalated day (formerly an extra day after Feb. 24)
was likewise called the sixth day before the calends of March
(March 1); so that there were two days of the same name.=L. bis,
twice; and sex, six.
BISSON, purblind. (E.) Shak. has bisson, Cor. ii. 1. 70; and, in
the sense of ‘ blinding,’ Hamlet, ii. 2. 529. ME. bisen, bisne, purblind,
blind ; Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, ll. 472, 2822. OE. bisene,
pl., blind, Matt. ix. 27, in the Northumb. version, as a gloss upon
L. caeci.. B. Perhaps derived from the prefix bi-, be-, witha privative
sense, as in Ε΄. be-head, and the AS. sb. sien, sy2, sin, power of seeing,
sight, allied to Geth, stuns, OSax. sun, Icel. sjon, syn, Dan. syn, sight ;
so that bi-séne might mean ‘ sightless.’
BISTREH, adark brown colour. (F.—G.?) ‘ Bister, Bistre, a colour
made of the soot of chimneys boiled;’ Bailey’s Dict., vol. ii. ed. 1731.
=F, bistre; of uncertain origin. Perhaps from G. biester, meaning
(1) bistre, (2) dark, dismal, gloomy (in proy. G,); Fliigel. It seems
reasonable to connect these. Cf. also Du. byster, confused, troubled,
at a loss; Pomeran. biister, bewildered, dark. [Dan. bister, grim,
fierce, Swed. bister, fierce, angry, grim, Icel. bistr, angry, knitting
the brows, may be unrelated. }
BIT (1), a small piece, a mouthful. (E.) ME. bite, in phr. bite
bredess =a bit of bread, Ormulum, 8640. AS. dita, weak m., a bit, a
morsel, John, xiii. 27 ; from AS. bit-, weak grade of bitan, to bite.
Du. beet, a bite, also, a bit, morsel; Iccl. biti, a bit; Swed. bit;
Dan. bid; G, bissen, a bit. Teut. type *biton-,m. See Bite.
BIT (2), a curb for a horse. (E.) ME. bitt, bytt, ‘ Bytt of a
brydyile, Zupatum;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 37. AS. bite, strong m.,a bite.
Teut. type *bitiz, m.; closely allied to the preceding, Cf. AS. biol,
dimin., as a gloss to frenum in Ps. xxxi. 12 (Spelman).+-Du. gedit ;
Icel. brtill (dimin.); Swed. belt; Dan. bid; G. gebiss. Compare
these forms with those in the article above.
BITCH, a female dog. (E.) ΜΕ. biche, bieche, Wright's Vocab.
i. 187. AS. bicce (Bosworth).+Icel. bikkja; MDan., bikke ; allied to
Icel. grey-baka, a bitch (Noreen).
BITS, to cleave, chiefly with the teeth. (E.) ME. bite, biten, pt. t.
bot, boot, P. Plowman, b. v. 84. AS. bitan; pt. τ, bat, pp. biten.
Grein, i. 123.4+Du. bijten, to bite; Icel. bita; Swed. bita ; Dan. bide ;
OHG., pizan; G. beissen; Goth. beitan. Teut. type *beitan-, pt. t.
*bait, pp. *bitanoz. Allied to L. findere, pt. t. fidi, to cleave; Skt.
bhid, to break, divide, cleave. —4/BHEID, tocleave. Der. bite, sb. ;
bit, bit-er, bit-ing ; bitt-er, q.v.; bait, q.v-
BITTER, obnoxious to the taste. (E.) ME. biter, Ayenbite of
Inwyt, p.82. AS. biter, bitor, bitter, Grein, i. 120.4Du. bitter ; Icel.
bitr; Swed. and Dan. bitter; OHG. pittar (G. bitter) ; Goth, baitrs
(rather an exceptional form). B. The word orig. meant ‘ sharp”
or ‘biting ;’ and is derived from AS. bit-, weak grade of bitan, to
bite. Goth. baitrs is from bait-, second grade of bitax. See Bite.
Der. bitter-ly, bitter-ness, bitter-s; also bitter-sweet, Prompt. Parvy.
61
See OHG. wisunt in
Ρ. 37-
BITTERN, a bird of the heron tribe. (F.—Late L.) ME. bitore,
bytoure, Chaucer, C. T. 6554 (D 972).—F. butor, ‘a bittor ;’ Cot. ;
whence Low L. butdrius, a bittern. Prob. named from its cry ; οἵ.
L. biitire, bubere, to cry like a bittern ; whence also L. butio, said to
mean a bittern, though it is a variant of biiteo, a buzzard. See
Boom (1). B. The mod. L. name bo’aurus is due to a fanciful
derivation from L. bds taurus; taurus being used by Pliny, b. x. c. 42,
fora bird that bellows like an ox, which is supposed to be the bittern.
@ On the suffixed -x see Matzner, i. 177; and see Marten. We
actually find wiserne for visor; Three Met. Romances, ed. Robson,
sale
BITTS, a naval term. (Scand.) The dités are two strong posts
standing up on deck to which cables are fastened. [The F. term is
bitdes, but this may have been taken from English.] ‘The word is pro-
perly Scand., and the E. form contracted ; in fact, the oldest form is
beetes (1593) 3 in Arber’s Eng. Garner, v. 509. Prob. suggested by
Swed. beting, a bitt (naut. term); cf. betingsbult, a bitt-pin; Dan,
beding, a slip, bitts; bedingsbolt, a bitt-bolt; bedingskne, a bitt-knee;
&e. {It has found its way into Dn. and G.; cf. Du, beting,
betinghout, a bitt; G. bating, a bitt; batingholzer, bitts.} β. The
word probably arose from the use of a noose or tether for pasturing
horses, or, in other words, for baiting them. Cf. Swed, beta, to pasture
a horse ; whence betingsbult, as if a pin for tethering a horse while at
pasture. Cf. Icel. betting, grazing; beita, to graze cattle, also, to
yoke horses to a vehicle. See Bait. @ The word bait is Scand.,
showing that the Du. and G. words are borrowed. The E. word, on
the other hand, may be native; cf. AS. ge-bete, a bridle, betan, to
62 BITUMEN
tein in; b#&ting, a rope for fastening; all from δέ-, mutation of bat-,
2nd stem of bitan, to bite.
BITUMEN, mineral pitch. (L.) Milton has bituminous; P. L.
x. 562. [Shak. has the pp. bitwmed, Peric, iii. 1. 72.—F. bitume (Cot-
grave).]= L. bitimen, gen. bittmin-is, mineral pitch ; used by Virgil,
Geor. iii. 451. Der. bitumin-ous, bitumin: ate.
BIVALVE, a shell or seed- vessel with two valves. (Ge) 2 in
Johnson’s Dict.—F. bivalve, bivalve; both. adj. and sb.—L. δὲς,
double ; and walua, the leaf of a folding-door; gen. used in the pl.
ualu@, folding-doors. See Valve.
BIVOUAG, a watch, guard; especially, an encampment for the
night without tents. (F.—G.) Oddly spelt ‘bouac or bihovac,’ in
Phillips, ed. 1706. Borrowed from F. bivowac, also spelt bihouac,
biouac, in Richelieu (1680); see Hatzfeld. —G. betwache, a guard, a
keeping watch ; introduced into F. at the time of the Thirty Years’
War, 1618-1648 (Brachet).—G. bei, by, near ; and wachen, to watch;
words cognate with E. by and watch respectively. B. Or rather, from
the Swiss beiwacht (in Stalder, ed. 1812, ii. 426), a term ‘ used in
Aargau and Zurich to denote the patrol of citizens (Schaar-wache)
added (bei-gegeben) to assist the ordinary town-watch by night at any
time of special commotion. This remaining of a large body of men
under arms all night explains the original sense of bivouac;” N. E. D.
Cf. Diez, 5. v. δίνας, p. 525.
BIZARRE, odd, strange. (F.—Span.) In Dryden, Pref. to
Maiden Queen. Merely borrowed from F. bizarre, strange, capri-
cious. ‘It originally meant valiant, intrepid; then angry, headlong;
lastly strange, capricious ;’ Brachet. Span. bizarro, valiant, gallant,
high-spirited. In Mahn’s Webster, the word is said to be ‘ of Basque-
Iberian origin ;’ i. e. from Basque bizarra,abeard. The transference
of sense would be like that in Span. hombre de bigote, a man of spirit,
usually referred. to bigote,a moustache. But this is certainly risky.
4 Hatzfeld notes that F. bizarre was also spelt bigearre (see Cot-
grave), and that its sense was influenced by F. bigarrer, to diversify.
See Korting, § 1446.
BLAB, to tell tales. (E.) Often a sb.; Milton has: ‘avoided as
a blab;’ Sams. Agon. 495; but also blabbing ; Comus, 138. ME.
blabbe, a tell-tale; see Prompt. Parv. p. 37, and Chaucer, Troil. iii.
300 (v.r. Jabbe). The verb more often occurs in early authors in the
form blabber, ME. blaberen; see Prompt. Parv. p. 37. “1 blaber, as a
chylde dothe or [ere] he can speke;’ Palsgrave. ‘I blaberde;’ P.
Plowman, A.v. 8. All are (like babble) imitative verbs, and may be
considered as E. - Similar are Dan. blabbre, to babble, to gabble; an
Old Norse form blabbra is cited by Rietz ; Swed. dial. bladdra, blaffra,
to prattle, Rietz ; G. plappern, to blab, babble, prate; Gael. blabaran,
a stammerer, stutterer ; blabhdach, babbling, garrulous ; plabair, a
babbler; MDu. labben, to babble; Dan. “dial. blaffre, to babble.
See Bleb, Blob, Blubber.
BLACK, swarthy, dark. (E.) ΜΕ. blak, Chaucer, C. T. 2132
(A 2130). AS. blac, blec, black, Grein, i. 124. Cf. AS. blec, Icel.
blek, ink; Dan. blek, sb., ink ; Swed. black, ink, bldcka, to smear with
ink; Swed. dial. blaga, to smear with smut (Rietz). So also OHG.
blach, ink. 4 Origin obscure; connexion with Du. blaken, to burn,
scorch, is uncertain ; so also that with L. fagrare, Gk. φλέγειν, Con-
nexion with bleak is probable; see N. E. D., and Noreen, Gr. § 149
(2); and OHG. blah in Schade. Der. black, sb. ; black-ly, black-ish,
black-ness, black-en ; also blackamoor (spelt blackmoor in Beaum, and
Fletcher, Mons. Thomas, v. 2), black-ball, black-berry, black-bird,
black-cock, black-friar, black-guard, q.v., black-ing, black-lead, black-
letter, black-mail, black-rod, black-smith, black-thorn, &c.
BLACKGUARD, a term of reproach. (Hybrid; E. and F.)
From black and guard, q.v. A name given to scullions, turnspits,
and the lowest kitchen menials, from the dirty work done by them.
In the Accounts of St. Margaret, Westminster, p. 10, under the date
1532, we find: ‘item, received for 111]. torches of the black guard,
viijd.;” see Brand’s Popular Antiquities, ed. Ellis, ii. 316. In Like
Will to Like (1568), pr. in Dodsley’s Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, iii. 323,
we find: ‘Thou art served as Harry Hangman, captain of the black
guard. ‘ They are taken for no better than rakehells, or the devil’s
blacke guarde ;’ Stanihurst, Descr. of Ireland, ed. 1808, vi. 68. ‘A
lamentable case, that the devil’s black guard should be God's
soldiers ;’ Fuller, Holy War, bk. i. c. 12. ‘Close unto the front
of the chariot marcheth all the sort of weavers and embroderers; next
unto whom goeth the black guard and kitchenry;’ Holland, Am-
mianus, p. 12. ‘A lousy slave, that within this twenty years rode
with the black guard in the Duke’s carriage, ’mongst spits and
dripping-pans ;’ Webster, The White Devil, A.i. See Trench’s Select
Glossary.
BLADDER, a vesicle in animals. (E.) ΜΕ. bladdre, Chaucer,
C.T. 15907 (ἃ 230). AS. blédre, f., a blister; Orosius, i. 7;
bléddre,a bladder, A. 5. Leechdoms,i. 360. Teut. type bl#-drén-, f.,
from the verbal root *b/é-, to blow out, and suffix -drdn- cognate with
BLATANT
Gk. -τρᾶ, -tpov.+Icel. bladra, a bladder, a watery swelling ; Swed.
bldddra, a bubble, blister, bladder; Dan. blere, a bladder, blister ;
Du. dlaar, a bladder, blister; cf. Du. blaas, a bladder, bubble, lit. a
thing blown, from blazen, to blow ; OHG. blatara (6. blatter), a
bladder. ‘Cf. AS. blawan, to blow; it, Jiare, to blow. See Blow (1).
Der. bladder-y.
BLADE, a leaf; flat part of a sword. (E.) ME. blade (of asword),
Chaucer, Prol. 620 (A 618). AS. bled, n., a leaf ; Grein, i. 125.4
Tcel. blad, a leaf; Swed., Dan., and Du. blad, a leaf, blade; OHG.
plat, G. blatt. B. Teut. type *bla-dom, neut., with the sense of ‘ full
blown,’ ‘ flourishing ;’ a pp. form (with suffix -dé- = Idg. -éd-) from
the weak grade of 4/BHLO. See Blow (2).
BLAEBERRY, BLEABERRY, a bilberry. (Scand. and E.)
‘A blabery ;’ Catholicon Angl. (1483). From North E, blae, livid,
dark ; and berry. The form dlae is from Icel. b/a-r, livid ; see under
Blue. Cf. Icel. blaber, a blaeberry ; Swed. blabur ; Dan. blaaber.
BLAIN, a pustule. (E.) ΜΕ. blern, bleyn; Promp. Parv. p. 39 ;
Wyclif, Job, ii. 7. AS. blegen, a boil, pustule; Liber Medicinalis,
i. 58, in A. S. Leechdoms, ii. 128.4Du. blein; Dan. blegn, a blain,
pimple.
BLAME, to censure. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. blame, Chaucer, C. T.,
E 76; blamen, Ancren Riwle, p. 64. —OF. blasmer, to blame. = L.
blasphémare, used in the sense ‘to blame’ by Gregory of Tours
(Brachet).—Gk. βλασφημεῖν, to speak ill. Blame is a doublet of
blaspheme; see Blaspheme. Der. blam-able, blam-abl-y, blam-able-
ness; blame, sb.; blame-less, blame-less-ly, blame-less-ness.
BLANCH (1), vb., to whiten. (F.—OHG.) Sir T. Elyot has
blanched, whitened; Castle of Helth, bk. ii. ο. 7 (Of Wallnuttes) ;
and see Prompt. Parv. From ME. blanche, white, Gower, C. A. iii. 9 ;
bk. vi. 239. —F. blanchir, to whiten, from blanc, white. See Blank.
BLANCH (2), vb., to blench. (E.) Sometimes used for blench.
See Blench.
BLAND, gentle, mild, affable. (L.) [The ME. verb blanden, to
flatter (Shoreham’s Poems, p. 59), is obsolete ; we now use blandish. |
The adj. blandis in Milton, P. L. v. 5; taken rather from L. directly
than from F., which only used the verb; see Cotgrave.—L. blandus,
caressing, agreeable, pleasing. Brugm. i. § 413 (9). Der. bland-ly,
bland-ness ; also blandish, q.v.
BLANDISH, to flatter. (F.—L.) In rather early use. ME.
blandisen, to flatter ; Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, bk. ii, pr. 1, 1. 20.—
OF. blandir, to flatter, pres. part. blandis-ant (whence also the sb.
blandissement).—L. blandiri, to caress.—L. blandus, gentle. See
Bland. Der. blandish-ment.
BLANK, void; orig. pale. (F.—OHG.) Milton has ‘the blanc
moon ;’ P. L. x. 656. ME. blanke, Prompt. Pary. 1°. blanc, white.
“ΗΟ. blanch, planch, shining. Nasalised from OHG. blah, shining ;
cf. Gk. φλόγ-εος, flaming, shining, from Aéy-ew, to shine. See
Blink. Der. blank-ness; also blanch, q.v.; and blank-et, q.v.
BLANKET, a coarse woollen cover. (K.—-OHG.) Originally
of a white colour. ME. blanket, as in ‘whit blanket,’ Life, of Beket,
ed. W. H. Black, 1. 1167; and see Prompt. Parv. p. 38.—AF.
blanket (F. blanchet), Stat. Realm, i. 381 (1363); formed by adding
the dimin. suffix -ef to F. blanc, white. —OHG. blanch planch white.
See Blank. Der. blanket-ing.
BLARE, to roar, make a loud noise. (E.) Generally used of a
trumpet ; ‘the trumpet b/ared;’ or, ‘the trumpet’s blare. Cf. ME.
blorien, bloren, to weep; prov. E. blare, to make a loud noise (bleat,
bray). Of imitative origin. Cf. Du. blaren, Low G. blarren, to bleat;
MHG, bléren (G, pliirren), to bleat, to blubber. Cf. MDu. dlaser,
a trumpeter; Oudemans. See further under Blaze (2).
BLASON ; sce Blazon (1) and (2).
BLASPHEME, to speak injuriously. (L.—Gk.) Shak. has blas-
pheme, Meas. for Meas.i. 4.38. ME. blasfemen ; Wyclif, Mark, ii. 7.
—L. blasphémare.— Gk. βλασφημεῖν, to speak ill of. -- Gk. βλάσφημος,
adj., evil-speaking. B. The first syllable is supposed to be for*BAaBes-,
i.e. hurtful, allied to BAaB-n, hurt; the latter syllables are due to
φημί, I say. Blaspheme is a doublet of blame. See Blame and
Fame. Der. Llasphem-y (ME. blasphemie, Ancren Riwle, p. 198 ;
a F. form of L. blasphémia, from Gk. βλασφημία) ; blasphem-er,
blasphem-ous, blasphem-ous-ly. Brugm. i. § 744.
BLAST, a blowing. (E.) ME. blast, Chaucer, Troilus, ii. 1387 ;
King Alisaander, ed. Ww eber, 257 AS. blést, m., a blowing, Grein,
1b 126; (distinct from blest, a Blaze, a flame.)+Icel. blastr,a breath,
blast of a trumpet ; OHG. blast. Formed with Idg. suffix -to- from
the Teut. base of Blaze (2). So also Swed. b/ast, wind, from δ]ᾶς-α,
to blow. Cf. OMerc. bles-belg, bellows; Corp. Glos. 910. Der.
blast, vb.
BLATANT, noisy, roaring. (E.) Best known from Spenser’s
“blatant beast ;’ F.Q. vi. 12 (heading); also blattant, id. vi. 1. 7.
The suffix -an¢ is a fanciful imitation of the pres. part. suffix in French.
Cf. prov. E. blate, to bellow, to roar; blate, noise (E.D.D.). Of
BLAY
imitative origin. Cf. bleat; and Gk. παφλάζειν (base φλαδ-), to
bluster, splutter.
BLAY, a bleak (small fish). (E.) Cotgrave has F. able, ‘a blay,
or bleak, fish.” AS. bl#@ge.4-Du. blei; G. blethe. Allied to Bleak (2).
BLAZE (1), a flame; to flame. (E.) ME. blase, a flame, P.
Plowman, B. xvii. 212; blasex, to blaze, id. B. xvii. 232. AS. blese,
blase, a torch, John, xviii. 3; also a flame; in comp. bel-blese, a
bright light, Grein, i. 77. Teut. type *blason-, f. We also find
AS. δίας; ‘ facula, bles,’ Mone, Quellen, 402. 61. Cf. MHG. δίας,
a torch; also G. dldsse, Icel. blest, Swed. ὑϊᾶς, a ‘ blaze’ or white
mark on a horse (orin E., on a tree). See Notes on I. Etym., p. 9.
BLAZE (2), to spread far and wide; to proclaim. (Scand.) ‘Began
to blaze abroad the matter;’ Mark, i. 45. ME. blasen, used by
Chaucer to express the loud sounding of a trumpet; Ho. of Fame,
iii. 711.—Icel. bldsa, to blow, to blow a trumpet, to sound an alarm;
Swed. blasa, to blow, to sound; Dan. bidse, to blow a trumpet; Du.
blazen, to blow, to blow a trumpet; G. dlasen. Teut. type *blésan-;
as also in Goth. uf-blésan, to puff up. Extended from *bla-, as in
G. blahen, to puff up, and in AS. bla-wan, to blow. See Blow (1),
Blast. Cf. Blazon (1) and Blare.
BLAZON (1),a proclamation ; to proclaim. (Scand.) Shak. has
blason, a proclamation, Hamlet, i. 5. 21 ; atrumpeting forth, Sonnet
106; also, to trumpet forth, to praise, Romeo, ii. 6. 26. This word
is a corruption of b/aze, in the sense of to blaze abroad, to proclaim.
The final πὶ is due to confusion with b/azon in the purely heraldic
sense; see below. 4 Blazon, to proclaim, from ME. dlasen, is from
a Scand. source, see Blaze (2); whilst the heraldic word is French,
but from a Teutonic source ; see below.
BLAZON (2), to pourtray armorial bearings; an heraldic term.
(F.—Teut.?) ME. blason, blasoun, a shield; Gawain and Grene
Knight, 1. 828. —F. blason, ‘a coat of arms; in the 11th century a
buckler,.a shield; then a shield with a coat of arms of a knight
painted on it; lastly, towards the fifteenth century, the coats of arms
themselves ;’ Brachet (who gives it as of Teutonic origin). B. [ Burguy
remarks that the Provencal blezd had at an early period the sense of
glory, fame; just as the Span. b/ason means honour, glory, as well as
blazonry ; cf. Span. blasonar, to blazon, also, to boast, brag of.| But
the earliest sense, both in F. and I., 1s simply ‘shield ;” and the re-
ference may be to its brightness or to bright marks on it; cf. Icel. bles?,
Swed. blas, a ‘blaze’ or white mark on a horse. There is thus,
perhaps, a connexion with Blaze (1). Korting, ὃ 1460. 47 Notice
*blasyn, or dyscry armys, describo;’ and ‘blasynge of armys, de-
seripcio;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 38. Shields probably bore distinctive
marks of some kind or other at a very early period. Der. blazon-ry.
BLEABERRY, a bilberry; see Blaeberry.
BLEACH, vb., to whiten. (E.) ME. blechen, to bleach, Ancren
Riwle, p. 324, 1.1. AS. bl#can; /Elfred, tr. of Beda, ed. Smith, i.
1.1. 20.—AS. blac; see Bleak (1).4Icel. bleikja; Dan. blege ; Swed.
bleka ; Du. bleeken; G. bleichen. Teut. type *blatkjan-. From the
adj. bleak, wan, pale (below). Der. bleach-er, bleach-er-y, bleach-ing.
BLEAK (1), pale, exposed. (Scand.) ME. bleyke, ‘ pallidus;’
Prompt. Parv. p. 39; bleik, Havelok, 470. —Icel. bleikr, pale, wan ;
Dan. bleg; Swed. blek, pale, wan.4AS. blac; Du. bleek, pale; OHG.
pleth, pale; G. bleich. Teut. type *blaikoz ; from *bla:k, 2nd grade
of *blerkan- (AS. blican), to shine. Cf. Slavonic base *blig-, as in
blisk-, for *blig-sk-, to shine ; Miklosich. Der. bleak, sb., see below;
bleach, q.v.
BLEAK (2), a kind of fish. (Scand.) Spelt bleek about A.D.
1613; Eng. Garner, ed. Arber, i. 157; bleke in Palsgrave (1530).
Named from its bleak or pale colour. See above. Cf. Low G. bleken,
a bleak. Cf. Blay.
BLEAR ONE’S EYE, to deceive. (E.) This is closely con-
nected with dlear-eyed. Shak. has ‘ bleared thine eye’ =dimmed thine
eye, deceived ; Tam. Shrew, v. 1. 120. So too in Chaucer, and in
P. Plowman, B. prol. 74. B. The sense of blear here is to ‘dim,’ as
with weeping. See Blear-eyed.
BLEAR-EYED, dim-sighted. (E.) ME. ‘ blereyed, lippus ;’
Prompt. Parv. p. 39; blere-nyed, P. Plowman, B. xvii. 324.
Cognate with Low G. bleer-oged, having weak and inflamed eyes,
variant of blarr-oged, the same; from blarrenx (Pomeran. blaren), to
blubber. See Blare.
BLEAT, to make a noise like asheep. (E.) ME. bleten, used also
ofa kid; Wyclif, Tobit, ii. 21. AS. bl#¢an, to bleat, said of a sheep,
/Elfric’s Gram., ed. Zupitza, p. 129; OMerc. blétan, Corp. Glos.
282.4-Du. dlaten, to bleat; OHG. plizan, to bleat. Teut. type
*blétan-. Cf. Russ. blejate, to bleat; L. flére, to weep.
BLEB, a small bubble or blister. (E.) We also find the form
blob, in the same sense. Rich. quotes blebs from More, Songs of the
Soul, conclusion. Jamieson gives: ‘Brukis, bylis, blobbis, and
blisteris ;’ qu. from Roul’s Cursing, Gl. Compl. p. 330. The more
usual form is blubber, ME. blober ; ‘blober upon water, boutetllis,
BLINDMAN’S BUFF 63
Palsgrave. ‘ Blobure, blobyr, burbulium, Prompt. Parv. p. 40. ‘ At
his mouthe a blubber stode of fome’ [foam]; Test. of Creseide, by
R. Henrysoun, 1. 192 (Thynne’s edition), B. By comparing blobber,
or blubber, with bubble, having the same meaning, we see the pro-
bability that they are imitative, from the action of forming a bubble
with the lips. See also Blubber, Bla», Blob.
BLEED, to lose blood. (E.) ME. blede, P. Plowman, B. xix. 103.
AS, blédan, to bleed (Grein).— AS, bldd, blood. See Blood. 4 The
change of vowel is regular; the AS. δ is the mutation of 6. Cf. feet,
geese, from foot, goose ; also deem from doom.
BLEMISH, a stain; to stain. (F.—Scand.?) ME, bdlemisshen ;
Prompt. Pary. ‘I blemysshe, I hynder or hurte the beautye of a per-
son;’ Palsgrave.—OF. blesmir, blem'r, pres. part. blemis-ant, to
wound, soil, stain; with suffix -7sh, as usual in E. verbs from F. verbs
in -ir,—OF. blesme, bleme, wan, pale. Origin uncertain; if the s in
blesme is unoriginal, it may be (as Diez says) from Icel. blami, a bluish
or livid colour. = Icel. lar, livid, bluish ; cognate with E. blue. The
orig. sense, in that case, may have been to render livid, to beat black
and blue. See Blue. J ‘The Icel. blami is in the Supp. to Vigfusson ;
Aasen gives Norw. blaame, a bluish colour, and Kalkar has MDan.
blam, the mark of a bruise, p. 230.
BLENCG, to shrink from, start from, flinch. (E.) [Sometimes
spelt blanch in old authors; though a different word from blanch, to
whiten.] ME. blenche, to turn aside, P. Plowman, B. v. 589. AS.
blencan, to deceive; Grein, i. 127.4-Icel. blekkja (for *blenkja), to im-
pose upon. Origin doubtful; but apparently a causal form of blink ;
thus to blench meant originally to ‘ make to blink,’ to impose upon ;
but it was confused with dlink, as if it meant to wink, and hence to
flinch. See Blink. 47] Cf. drench, the causal of drink.
BLEND, to mix together. (Scand.) ME. blenden, Towneley Mys-
teries, p. 2253 pp. blent, Sir Gawain and the Grene Knight, 1. 1610.
From the stem of the pres. t. (1 p. blend, 3 p. blendr) of Icel. blanda,
to mix; Swed. blanda; Dan. blande.4Goth. blandan sik, to mix one-
self with, communicate with; OHG. plantan, blantan, to mix. B. The
Goth. blandan is a str. vb. of the 7th conjugation. @ The AS.
blendan means to make blind, Grein, i. 127. See Blind.
BLESS, orig. to consecrate. (E.) ΜΕ. dlessen, Chaucer, C. Τὸ,
E 553, 1240; bletserzen, Layamon, 32157. AS, blétsian, to bless
(Gre.n) ; blédsian, Vespasian Psalter, iii. 9, v. 13; ONorthumb.
bloedsia, Matt. xxiii. 39, Jo. viii. 48; Durham Ritual, p. 117. These
forms point to a Teut. type *blddison, to redden with blood, from blod,
blood. See Blood. ‘In heathen time it was no doubt primarily
used in the sense of consecrating the altar by sprinkling it with the
blood of the sacrifice ;? H. Sweet, in Anglia, ili. r. 156 (whose solu-
tion I here give). This is generally accepted. Der. bless-ing,
bles -ed, blessed-ness.
BLIGHT, to blast ; mildew. (E.) The history of the word is very
obscure; as a verb, blight occurs in The Spectator, no. 457. Cot-
grave has: ‘Brulure, blight, brant-comm (an herb) ;’ where ‘ blight’
means ‘smut in wheat ;’ though it seems to be confused with the
herb named dlite. β, The word has not been traced, and can only
be guessed at. Perhaps it answers to an AS. *bliht, OMerc. *bleht,
and so to Icel. blettr, a spot, stain; just as I. right answers to AS.
riht, OMerc. reht, and Icel. réitr (for *rettr). If so, we may
refer it to »BHLEG, Gk. φλέγ-ειν, to burn; just as right
is from 4/REG. 47 Comparison with AS. blecda, in Sweet's O. E.
Texts, p. 548, is not quite safe, because blecdaisa gloss to L. uitiligo;
and though this L. word is by Sweet translated by ‘blight,’ the
proper sense of it is a tetter, or cutaneous eruption (Lewis).
BLIND, deprived of sight. (E.) ME. blind, blynd, Prompt. Parv.
p- 40. AS. blind, Grein, i. 128.4Du. blind; Icel. blindr ; Swed. and
Dan. blind; OUG. plint, G. blind. Teut. type *blindoz ; from an Idg.
base *bhlendh-; whence also Lith. blesti-s, to become dim (as the sun).
Brugm. i. § 493. Der. blind-fold.
BLINDFOLD, to make blind. (E.) From ME. verb blind-
folden, Tyndale’s tr. of Lu. xxii. 64, This ME. blindfolden is a cor-
ruption of blindfelden, to blindfold, whence blyndefelde, used by Pals-
grave; and, again, blindfelden (with excrescent @) is for an earlier
form blindfellen, Ancren Riwle, p. 106.— AS. blind, blind; and fyllan,
to fell, to strike. Thus it meant ‘to strike blind.’ See Fell (1).
4 The popular form had reference to folding a bandage over the eyes.
BLINDMAN’S BUFF. (E.) ‘To play at blindman-buff;’
Randolph, Works, p. 394 (1651), ed. Hazlitt (cited by Palmer). 1115
mentioned earlier, in the Prol. to The Return from Parnassus (1606).
And, in 1598, Florio explains Ital. minda by ‘a play called hoodman
blind, blind hob, or blindman buffe.’ Here buff is the F. buffe, ‘a
buffet, blow, cuffe, box, whirret, on the eare,’ &c.; Cotgrave. From
OF. διε (a word widely spread) ; see further under Buff (2), The
explanation is given by Wedgwood as follows:—‘ In West Flanders
buf is a thump ; buffen, to thump, buf spelen, a game which is essen-
tially blindman’s buff without the bandaging of the eyes. One
θ4 BLINK
player is made the butt of all the others, whose aim is to strike him
on the back without his catching them. When he catches the boy
who gave him the last buffet, he is released and the other takes his
place. See De Bo, West-Flemish Dict.’ See also Koolman, East-
Frisian Dict., who quotes the phrase dat ged up'n blinden buf, that is
done (lit. goes) at hap-hazard (lit. at blind buff), And see buf in
Diez.
BLINK, to wink, glance; a glance. (Scand.) Shak. has ‘a blinking
idiot;’ M. of Ven. ii. 9. 54; also ‘to blink (look) through;’ Mid.
Nt. Dr. v. 178. Probably of Scand. origin; cf. Norw. blinka, to
blink with the eyes, blink, a glimpse ; MDan. blinkojet, with blinking
eyes (Kalkar). ME. blenten, commonly ‘to shine, to glance ;’
Gawain and the Grene Knight, ed. Morris, 799, 2315. The AS.
blencan meant ‘ to deceive’ (perhaps ‘to cause to blink’). Allied to
AS. blanc, white (as in blanca, a white horse) ; see Blank. Cf. also
Du. blinken, Low G. blenken, to shine.
BLISS, happiness. (E.) ME. dlis, Chaucer, C. T. Group B, 33.
AS. blis, bliss (Grein) ; a contraction from AS. lids or b/ids, happiness,
Grein, 1. 130.—AS. lide, happy. See Blithe.4+OSax. blizza, blid-
sea, happiness. Teut. type *b/2dsid, f., for *b1i0-na; the suffix being
-tia,as in L. leti-tia. The sense was influenced by bless, which is
unrelated. Der. bliss-ful, bliss-ful-ly, bliss-ful-ness.
BLITE, a plant-name. (L.—Gk.) In Turmer’s Herbal (1551).—
L. blitum.— Gk. βλίτον, a kind of pot-herb.
BLISTER, a little bladder on the skin. (F.—Teut.) ME. bliszer,
in The Flower and The Leaf, wrongly ascribed to Chaucer, 1. 408.
Also blester, as in Cursor Mundi, 6011.—OF. blestre, ‘tumeur ;’
Godefroy. Of Teut. origin ; from Icel. blastr (dat. b/@str:), the blast
of atrumpet, the blowing of a bellows; also, aswelling, mortification
(in a medical sense). So also Norw. blaaster, a blast, a kind of
tumour ; cf. Swed. bldsa, a bladder, a blister. The root appears in
Du. blazen, Icel. blasa, Swed. blasa,to blow. See Blast, Blaze (2).
Der. blister, verb.
BLITHE, adj., happy. (E.) ME. blithe, Chaucer, Prol. 846;
Havelok, 651. AS. blide, sweet, happy; Grein, i. 130.+Icel. blidr ;
Swed., Dan. blid; Du. blijde; OSax. bid, bright (said of the sky),
glad, happy; Goth. blecths, merciful, kind ; OHG. blidi, glad. Teut.
types *bleithoz, *bleithjoz. Der. blithe-ly, blithe-ness, blithe-some, blithe-
some-ness.
BLOAT, to swell. (Scand.) Not in early authors. The history
of the word is obscure. ‘The bloat king’ in Hamlet, iil. 4. 182, is
an editorial alteration of ‘the blow? king;’ it means ‘ effeminate’
rather than bloated. We find “ bloat him up with praise’ in the Prol.
to Dryden’s Circe; 1. 25 ; but it is not certain that the word is correctly
used. However, bloated is now taken to mean ‘ puffed out,’ ‘swollen,
perhaps owing to a fancied connexion with blow; but the ME. form
was blout, soft (hence puffy, swollen), Havelok, 1910. β. The word
is connected with the Icel. blotna, to become soft, to Jose courage;
blautr, soft, effeminate, imbecile ; cf. Swed. blit, soft, pulpy; also
Swed. b/dta, to steep, macerate, sop; Dan. dlod, soft, mellow.
{ These words are not to be confused with Du. boot, naked, G. bloss.]
The Swedish also has the phrases lagga 1 blot, to lay in a sop, to
soak ; blotna, to soften, melt, relent; blotfisk,a soaked fish. The last
is connected with E. bloater. See Bloater. y. Further allied
to Icel. blandr, soft; AS. bléap, (ἃ. blode, weak. Cf. Gk. φλυδ-άω,
I become soft or flabby. See Fluid.
BLOATER, a prepared herring. (Scand.) ‘I have more smoke
in my mouth than Would blote a hundred herrings ;’? Beaum, and
Fletcher, Isl. Princess, ii.5. ‘ Why, you stink like so many bloat-
herrings, newly taken out of the chimney ;’ Ben Jonson, Masque of
Augurs, 17th speech. There can hardly be a doubt that Mr. Wedg-
wood’s suggestion is correct. He compares Swed. blot-fisk, soaked
fish, from blota, to soak, steep. Cf. also Icel. blautr fiskr, fresh fish,
as opposed to hardr γεν, hard, or dried fish; whereon Mr. Vigfusson
notes that the Swedish usage is different, blo¢fisk meaning ‘ soaked
fish.’ Thus a bloater is a cured fish, a prepared fish. They were
formerly ‘steeped for a time in brine before smoking ;’ Ν, Ε, Ὁ.
See Bloat.
BLOB, a bubble (Levins) ; see Bleb.
BLOCK, a large piece of wood. (F.—G.) ME. blok, Legends of
the Holy Rood, ed. Morris, p. 141, 1. 314. [W. ploc,a block; Gael.
ploc, a round mass, large clod, bludgeon with a large head, block,
stump of a tree; Irish floc, a plug, bung; are all borrowed froin E.;
Macbain.|=—F. bloc, ‘a gross, great, or generality; the whole of, or
a heap of divers wares hudled together ; also, a block or log;’ Cot-
grave. -- MHG, bloch,a block. The word is widely spread ; we find
Du. blok, Dan. blok, Swed. block, OF ries. block. Perhaps related to
balk (Kluge). Der. block-ade, block-house, block-head, block-tin.
BLOND, fair of complexion. (F.) In Evelyn’s Diary, July 25,
1683. Caxton has blounde (N. E.D.). Not in Johnson. Blonde-lace
is a fine kind of silken lace, formerly of the colour of raw silk; a
florére, Fick, ili, 222; thus flowshk is co-radicate with blow,
BLOW
blonde is a beautiful girl of light complexion. = F. ‘blond, m:, blonde, f.,
light yellow, straw-coloured, flaxen; also, in hawkes or stags, bright
tawney, or deer-coloured;’ Cot. Origin unknown. 8. Referred
by Diez to Icel. blandinn, mixed; cf. AS. blonden-feax, with hair of
mingled colour, gray-haired. But the Late L. form is blundus (whence
also Span. blondo, Ital. biondo), prob. of Teut. origin, and allied to
Skt. bradh-na-s, reddish, pale yellow (Kluge). Cf. OSlav.: broni,
white.
BLOOD, gore. (E.) ME. dblod, blood, Chaucer, C.T. 1548 (A
1546). AS, tldd(Grein).4+ Du. bloed; Icel. 6100; Swed. blod; Goth,
blath; OHG, pluot; G. blut. ‘Teut. type *blé-dom, neut. Doubtfully
referred to the root of Blow (2), blood being considered as the symbol
of flourishing life; cf. L. florére, to flourish; see Curtius, i. 375.
Der. blood-hound, blood-shed, blood-sione, blood-y, blood-i-ly, blood-i-
ness; also bleed, q.v.
BLOOM, 2 flower, blossom. (Scand.) ME. blome, Havelok, 63;
but not found in AS.—Icel. blam, n., blomi, m., a blossom, flower;
Swed. blomma; Dan. blomme. Cf. OSax. blémo (Heliand); Du.
lloem; OUG, blnomo, m., bluoma (G. blume),f.; Goth. bloma, a
flower. Teut. type *b/d-mon-, m., from *b1d-, to blow, flourish; cf.
L. flo-s, a flower, fld-rére, to flourish. The E. form of the root is
blow; see Blow (2). @ The truly E. word is blossom, q.v.; the
corresponding AS. bloma, ‘a bloom,’ is mod. E. bloom, but only in the
secondary sense of a mass of hammered iron,’
BLOSSOM, a bud, small flower. (E.) ΜΕ. blosme, blossum ;
Prompt. Parv. p. 41. But the older form is blostme, Owl and Night-
ingale, 437; so that a ¢ has been dropped. AS. 6l0s¢ma [misprinted
bosima], Grein, i. 131.4-Du. dloesem, a blossom; cf. ΜΗ. bluost, a
blossom. B. Formed, by adding the suffixes -f and -ma, to the base
blos- (cf. L. flor-ére, for *flds-ére) ; extended from δ]δ- in AS. blowan,
to flourish, bloom. 4 When the Idg. suffix -mon- (>AS. -ma,
Icel. -mz) alone is added, we have the Icel. bldmi, E. bloom. When
the suffix -¢ alone is added, we have the MHG. bluost. See Blow,
to flourish; and see Bloom.
BLOT (1), aspot, to spot. (F.—Teut.) ME. alot, blotte, sb., blotten,
vb. ‘Blotte vpon a boke, oblitum: Blottyn bokys, oblitero;’ Prompt.
Parv. p. 41.—MF. bloiter, ‘to blot, stain, blemish, defile ;’ Cot.
Apparently from MF. blotte, also bloutre, ‘a clod, or clot of earth τ᾿
Cot. The sameas OF. bloustre, blotte, bloutre, a clot of earth turned
up by the plough-share, Roquefort; see bloste in Godefroy. See
Blotch.
BLOT (2), at backgammon. (Du.) A d/ot at backgammon is an
exposed piece. The expression ‘ made a blot,’ with reference to the
game of /ables, occurs in Dryden, Wild Gallant, i. 3. It corresponds,
as Mr. Wedgwood well points out, tothe Dan. d/ot, bare, naked; cf.
the phrase give sig blot, to lay oneself open, to commit or expose one-
self. Cf. Swed. blott, naked ; blo/ta, to lay oneself open. — Du, bloot,
naked ; bloofstellen, to expose. Calisch, in his Du. Dict., has: ik
kan niet spelen zonder mij bloot te geven (at chess, draughts, &c.),
I cannot play without unguarding myself? The word is Dutchs
from which the Dan. and Swed. forms were perhaps borrowed; the
coenate G. word is bloss ; which see in Kluge.
BLOTCH, a pustule, a blot. (.—Teut.) The sense ‘ pustule’
is the older. Drayton has: ‘their blotch’d and blister'd bodies ;*
Moses, bk. ii. 328.—OF. dbloche, ‘tumeur;’ Godefroy, 5. v. bloste,
also bloustre. Prob. of Teut. origin; cf. MDu. bluyster, a blister;
Hexham. See Diez.
BLOUSE, a loose outer garment. (F.) Modern. =F, blouse, a
smock-frock. Of unknown origin.
BLOW (1), to puff. (E.) ME. blowex; in Norther wniters,
blaw ; very common; Chaucer, Prol. 567 (A 565). AS. blawan,
Grein.-OHG, blakan, G. blahen, to puff up, to swell.++-L. flare, to
blow.—4/BHLE, to blow; Brugmann, ii. § 664. | @ The number
of connected words in various languages is large. In English we have
bladder, blast, blaze (to proclaim), blazon, blare (of a trumpet), blister,
&c.; also flatulent, inflate.
BLOW (2), to bloom, flourish as a flower. (E.) ME. blowe, Rob.
of Glouc. ed Hearne, p. 352, 1.7232. AS. bldwan, to bloom, Grein,
i. 131.-4-Du. dloejen, to bloom; OHG. bluojan (G,. blichen). ne
ee
Bloom, Blossom, Blood, Blade. From the same root BHLO,
to flourish, are flourish, flour, flower.
BLOW (3), a stroke, hit. (E.) ME. blowe; ‘blowe on the cheke,
jouee; blowe with ones fyst, szfflet ;’ Palsgrave. The AS. form does
not appear ; but we find MDu. dlauwen, pt. τ. blau, to strike, Kilian ;
and Du. blouwen, to dress flax. [The MDu. word is native and
genuine, as the strong pt. t. blau, i.e. struck, occurs in a quotation
given by Oudemans. |G. blauen, to beat with a beetle; cf. blauel, a
beetle; OHG. bliuwen, to beat ; Goth. bliggwan,to beat. Teut. type
*bliwwan-, or *bleuwan-, to strike. The history of the word is
obscure. Almost the earliest quotation is ‘He gat a blaw,’ Wallace,
BLUBBER
i, 348-(ab. 1470). It looks as if the Du. word had been borrowed,
and made to coincide in form with Blow (1).
BLUBBER, a bubble; fat; to bubble or swell up; to weep
copiously. (E.) Of imitative origin ; thus (1) blubber, ME. blober, a
bubble, spelt blobure in Prompt. Parv., is an extension of bleb or blob,
a blister ; see extracts 5. v. bleb. (2) The fat of the whale consists of
bladder-like cells filled with oil. (3) A blubber-lipped person is one
with swollen lips; also spelt blobber-lipped,and in the Digby Mysteries,
p- 107 (ed. Furnivall, p. go), blabyrlypped ; so that it was probably
more or less confused with blabber, 4. ν. (4) To blubber, to weep, 15
ΜΕ. bloberen. Palsgrave has: “1 blober, 1 wepe, je pleure.’ But the
older meaning is to bubble, as in: ‘The borne [bourn] blubred
therinne, as hit boyled hade ;’ Gawain and the Green Knight, 1. 2174.
Cf. EF ries. blubber, a bubble, a blob of fat; blubbern, to bubble. See
Bleb, Blob.
BLUDGEON, a thick cudgel. (F.?) Rarely used ; but given in
Johnson’s Dictionary. It has a short-history ; the N.E. D. says it
occurs in Bailey’s Dict., ed. 1730; but it is not in ed. 1731. The
Corn. blogon (with g asj),a bludgeon, occurs in the Corn. miracle-play
De Origine Mundi, 1. 2709 (14th cent.?); see Phil. Soc. Trans. 1869,
p. 148; prob. taken from E. It is prob. of F. origin. Godefroy has
bloquet, bloichet, as dimin. of bloc, a block of wood. This suggests a
form *blochon as a possible source, likewise from bloc.
BLUE, a colour. (F.—OHG.) | ME. blew, bleu; Chaucer, C. T.,
F 644; Rom. Rose, 1578.— AF. blu, bleu, blew; OF. bleu, blue.—
OHG., blao, blue, livid; G. blau.4Icel. blair, Swed. bla, Dan. blaa,
livid [Whence ME. blo, livid, P. Plowm. B. iii. 97]; also AS. blaw
(O. E. Texts, p. 588). Teut..type *bl@woz. Cognate with L. flduus,
yellow.. With the sense ‘livid’ compare the phr. ‘to beat black and
blue’ See Notes on E. Etym., p. εἰ. Der. blu-ish, blue-bell, blue-
bottle.
BLUFF (1), downright, rude. (Dutch?) Not in early authors.
Rich. cites ‘a remarkable bluffness of face’ from ‘The World, no. 58;
and the phrase ‘a bluff point,’ i.e. a steep headland, now shortened
to ‘a bluff, from Cook’s Voyages, bk. iv. c. 6. B. Origin uncertain;
but a sailor’s word, and prob. corrupted from Dutch. Cf. MDnu. dlaf,
flat, broad; blaffaert, one having a flat broad face; also, a boaster,
a libertine; Oudemans. And Mr. Wedgwood quotes from Kilian
the phrases ‘ blaf aensight, facies plana et ampla; blaf van voorhooft,
fronto,’ i.e. having a broad forehead, though Hexham says ‘the flat
of a forehead.’ y. If the MDu. dlaffaert, having a flat broad face, is
the same word as when it has the sense of ‘ boaster.’ we can tell the
root. The mod. Du. blaffer, a boaster, signifies literally a barker,
yelper, noisy fellow; from blaffen, to bark, to yelp. See below.
BLUFF (2), to impose upon by a boastful demeanour, to cow by
bragging. (Low G.) Modern; and partly a cant word. Perhaps the
same as ‘bluffe, to blind-fold,’ in Ray's N. Country Words (1691).
Cf. Low G. bluffen, to bluff ; verbluffen, to confuse; Bremen Wort.
(1767); EFries. bluffen, to bellow, also to bluff; allied to MDu.
blaffen, to mock (Hexham); EFries. blaffen, to bark, yelp. Of
imitative origin. See Bluff (1).
BLUNDER, to flounder, to act stupidly. (Scand.) ME. blondren,
to pore. over a thing, as in ‘ we blondren ever and pouren in the fyr,’
Chaucer, C. T. 16138 (G670). ‘ Blondrynge and hasty ;᾿ Trevisa, ii.
169. ‘Iblonder, je perturbe;’ Palsgrave’s F. Dict. — Norw, blunxdra, to
close the eyes. Formed, with frequentative suffix -ra (for -era),
from Icel. blunda, to doze, slumber; so that it meant ‘to keep
dozing,’ to be sleepy and stupid. Cf. Swed. bluxda, to shut the eyes ;
Dan, blunde, to nap; Jutland blunde, to doze, to blink. We find also
Icel. blundr, Dan. and Swed. blund, a doze, a nap. The sense of
‘confusion’ suggests a relationship to Blend, Blind.
BLUNDERBUSS, a short gun. (Hybrid; F.—L. and Du.)
Used by Pope, Dunciad, iii. 150. For blanterbuss ; see quot. (dated
1617) for ‘ harquesbusse, plantier-busse, alias blanter-busse, and mus-
quettoon ;’ Sir Ὁ). Scott, The Brit. Army, i. 405. This is from Du.
planten, as in het geschut flanten, ‘to plant ordnance,’ Hexham; and
Du. bus (below). Plantenis from F. planter, L. plantare; see Plant.
B. But doubtless confused with Du. donderbus, a blunderbuss ; which
should rather have been turned into thunderbuss.— Du. donder, thun-
der; and bus, a gun, orig. a box, a gun-barrel ; cf. G. donnerbiichse,
a blunderbuss; from donner, thunder, and biichse, a box, gun-barrel,
gun, Thus it meant ‘ thunder-box;’ see Thunder and Box (1).
See Palmer, Folk-Etymology.
BLUNT, not sharp. (E.) ME. blunt (of edge), Prompt. Parv.
“p. 41; ‘ blont, nat sharpe;’ Palsgrave’s F. Dict. ‘ Unnwis mann iss
blunnt and blind;’? Ormulum, 16954. Cf. also ‘ Blunderer, or blunt
warkere [worker], hebefactor, hebeficus;’ Prompt. Pary. Origin
unknown; but perhaps for *blund, from the weak grade allied to
Goth. blandan, to mix ; which see in Uhlenbeck. Allied, perhaps, to
Icel, blunda, to doze; so that the orig. sense is ‘sleepy, dull.’ See
-Blunder, Blend, Blind. Der. blunt-ly, blunt-ness.
BOAT
BLUR, to stain; a stain. (Scand.) Shak. has both sb, and verb ;
Lucrece, 222, 522. Levins has both: ‘ A dlirre, deceptio;’ and ‘to
blirre, fallere.’ Blur is (1) to dim; (2) metaphorically, to delude.
Of uncertain origin; ef. Swed. dial. blura, to blink, partially close the
eyes; Swed. dial. blira, to blink; blirra fojr augu, to quiver (be dim)
before the eyes, as in a haze caused by heat; Bavar. plerr, a mist
before the eyes. Distinct from blear, but perhaps confused with it.
BLURT, to utter rashly. (E.) Shak. has blurt at, to deride, Per.
iv. 3.34. We commonly say ‘to blurt out,’ to utter suddenly and
inconsiderately. The Scot. form is blirt, meaning ‘ to make a noise
in weeping,’ esp. in the phr. to bliré and greet, i.e. to burst out crying;
Jamieson. This shows that it is of imitative origin, and allied to
blare, to make a loud noise. Cf. Swed. dial. blurra, to speak fast
and confusedly. See ‘Bloryyn or wepyn, or bleren, floro, fleo,’ in
Prompt. Parv. p. 40. The orig. sense of blurt is to blow violently.
See Blare, Bluster.
BLUSH, to grow red in the face. (E.) ME. bluschen, blusshen, to
glow ; ‘blusshit the sun,’ the sun shone out ; Destruction of Troy, ed.
Panton and Donaldson, 1. 4665. AS. blyscanx, only found in the gloss:
‘Rutilare, blyscan,’ Mone, Quellen, p. 3553 cf. ablisian (=4a-blysian),
to blush, Levit. xxvi. 41. Allied to Du. bJozex, to blush ; Hamburg
bliisen, to blush (Richey); Dan. blusse, to blaze, flame, burn in the
face; Swed. blossa, to blaze. β. All these are verbs formed from a
sb., viz. AS. blys, in comp. bél-blys, a fire-blaze (whence blysige, a
torch); Du. δίος, a blush; Dan, blus,a blaze, a torch ; Swed. bloss,
atorch. All from *blus-, weak grade ofa Teut. root *bleus, to glow,
Hence also Low G. bleustern, to glow.
BLUSTER, to blow noisily; to swagger. (E.) Shak. has bluster-
ing, tempestuous, said of weather, Lucrece, 115. Palsgrave has: "
bluster, Ze souffle ;’ and ‘This wynde blustereth.’ lt was doubtless
associated with blast, but is probably a native word, as blusterous,
blusterly, &c., are found in many dialects. Cf. EFries. blustern, to
be tempestuous (esp. of wind) ; blitster, bliser, a breeze ; bliisen, to
blow hard; Uliise, a wind ; Hamburg dleuster, a roaring fire (Richey).
Of imitative origin; cf. Blurt.
BOA, a large snake. (L.) A term borrowed from Latin. In
Cockeram’s Dict., pt. iii. (1623). ‘Lhe pl. bog occurs in Pliny, Nat.
Hist. viii. 14, where it means serpents of immense size. Prob. allied
to L. /ds, an ox, in allusion to the size of the reptile.
BOAR, a quadruped. (E) ME. bore, boor, P, Plowman, B. xi.
333. AS. bar, AElfric’s Glossary, Nomina Ferarum. + Du, beer;
OHG. per, MHG. bér, a boar. ‘Veut. type *bairoz, m,
BOARD (1), a table, a plank. (E.) ME. bord, a table, Chaucer,
C.T., E 3. AS. bord, a board, the side of a ship, a shield (Grein).-+;
Du. bord, board, shelf; Icel. bord, plank, side of a ship; Goth,
-baurd, in comp. fotu-baurd, foot-board, footstool. Allied to AS.
bred, Du. berd, G. brett,a board. Teut. types *bard-om,n. ; *bred-om, τι.
@ In the phrases ‘ star-board,’ lar-board,’ ‘ over board,’ and perhaps
in ‘on board,’ the sense of ‘side of a ship’ is intended; but it is
merely a different use of the same word; and not derived from F.
bord, although this has reinforced the E. usage. ‘The F. bord itself
is of Teut. origin. We also find bord in Gaelic, Irish, Welsh, and
Cornish; all borrowed from E. Der. board, to live at table;
board-ing-house, board-ing-school ; also board-ing,a covering of boards.
BOARD (2), vb., to go on board a ship; also to accost. (F.—
Teut.) Though the sb. board is E., the verb is borrowed from F.,
and does not appear in ME. It is common in Shak. in both senses ;
bord, to accost, is in Spenser, Εἰ. Ὁ. ii. 2. 5, il. 4. 24, &c.; see boord
in Nares. ‘At length herself bordeth ASneas thus;’ Surrey, tr. of
Aneid, iv. 304 (1. 395 of the E.version). “1 bordeashyppe or suche
lyke, Jaborde une nauire, Palsgrave. Short for abord, which occurs
in Cotgrave.—F. aborder, ‘to approach, accoast, abboord, boord, or
lay aboord ;’ Cot.=—F.a, to (< L. ad); and bord, edge, brim, side
of a ship, from Icel. bord, Du. boord, board, side of a ship; see
Board (1).
BOAST, a vaunt. (F.—Scand.) ME. bost, vain-glory ; Will. of
Palerne, ed. Skeat, 1141. The oldest sense is, ‘ clamour, noise.’
© Now ariseth cry and boost;’ King Alisaunder, 5290. [The phonology
shows (see N.E.D.) that boast represents AF. bost].—AF. bost, a
boast ; Wright’s Vocab. i. 161, 1. 12; as is more clearly shown in
MS. Gg. 1. 1, fol. 287, back, col. 1, in the Camb. Univ. Library. Of
Scand: origin ; froma Norw. base baust-, represented by Norw. bausta,
to act with violence (Ross). Cf. bausten, bold and reckless (id.) ;
baus, proud, blustering (id.) ; allied to Norw. baust, boastfully, bausa,
to bounce out, &c.; further allied to EFries. bisex, to be boisterous;
see Boisterous. Der. boast-er, boast-ful, boast-ful-ly, boast-ful-ness,
boast-ing, boast-ing-ly. ,
BOAT, a small ship. (E.) ME. boot, Wyclif, Mark, iv. 1. AS.
bat, Grein, p. 76.. Tent. type *bailoz,m. A word peculiar to E.;
whence Icel. batv, Swed. bat, Du. boot, are directly or indirectly
borrowed. Der. boat-swain (below).
65
BR
66 BOAT-SWAIN
BOAT-SWALIN, an officerin a ship who has charge of thesails,
rigging, &c. (E. and Scand.) The earliest quotation in the N. E. 1).
gives the spelling bote-swayn (ab. 1450). But it occurs as bat-swegen in
late AS., in the Leofric Missal, fol. 1, back; see Harle, A.S. Charters,
p. 254, 1.5. Here bat is the AS. form of boat; but swegen represents
ONorse *sweinn, Icel. sveinn, a servant, a lad; the AS. cognate form
being swan. See Swain.
BOB, to jerk about, to knock. (E.) ‘ Against her lips I bob ;’
Mids. Nt. Dr. ii. 1. 49; ‘beaten, bobbed, and thumped ;’ Rich. III,
ν. 3. 334. Bobet, a cuff, a blow, occurs in the Prompt. Parv, Usually
assumed to be of imitative origin. Cf. Swed. dial. bobba, to knock
against. 4 ‘ A bob of cherys,’ i.e. a cluster of cherries, Towneley
Mysteries, p. 118, may be explained from Gael. babag, a cluster; or
from the verb Lob, to move like a thing hanging down.
BOBBIN, a wooden pin on which thread is wound; round tape.
(F.) Holland has ‘spindles or bobins ;” Plutarch, p. 994.—F. ‘ bo-
bine, a quil for a spinning wheele; also, a skane or hanke of gold or
silver thread ;’ Cot. Origin unknown.
BOBOLINK, an American singing bird. (Imitative.) At first
called Bob Lincoln, or Bob o'Lincoln; see N.E.D, <A free imitation
of the bird’s cry.
BODE, to foreshow, announce. (E.) ME. boden, Gower, C.A. 1.
153; bk. i. 3282. bodtenx, Layamon, 23290. AS. bodian, to announce,
Grein, i. 131.— AS. bod, a message, Grein; cf. boda, a messenger, id.
Cf. Icel. boda, to announce; bo), a bid. From AS. bod-, weak grade
of AS. béodan, to command, bid. See Bid (2).
BODICH,, stays for women. (E.) Bodice is a corruption of bodies,
like pence for pennies ; it was orig. used asa pl. Hence, in Johnson’s
Life of Pope: ‘he was invested in bodice made of stiff canvass ;’ ed.
18543 ili. 46. Marston has ‘a pair of bodies toa woman's petticote;’
Malcontent, iii. 1. And Mr. Wedgwood quotes, from Sherwood’s
Dictionary (appended to Cotgrave, edd. 1632, 1660): ‘A woman’s
bodies, or a pair of bodies; corset, corpset.’ See Body.
BODKIN, orig. a small dagger. (F.?—Du.?) ME. boydekin
(trisyllable), a dagger; Chaucer, C. T., B 3892, 3897. In Chaucer,
C. T., A 3960, MS. Cm. has boytekyx. Origin unknown. I merely
suggest that it may come from an OF. form *borteqguin (AF. *beite-
quin). Cf. MDu. beytelken, ‘a small beetle,’ Hexham. For the
MDnu. bey/el also meant ‘a punce to engrave with,’ Hexham ; the
same as mod. Du. beitel, a chisel; so that beytelken also meant ‘a
small chisel’ or ‘small punch.’ See beitel in Franck. Cf. Low G.
botel, a kind of chisel, Berghaus; Norw. beitel, a chisel.
BODY, the material frame of man oranyanimal. (E.) ME. bodi,
Owl and Nightingale, 73; Layamon, 4908. AS. bodig, body.4
OHG. potah; MUG. botech, Of unknown origin. @] The Gael.
bodhaig is unrelated (Macbain). Der. bodi-ly, bodi-less, bodice.
BOER, a Dutch colonist in S. Africa. (Du.) Du. boer, cognate
with E. boor ; see Boor.
BOG, a piece of soft ground; a quagmire. (C.) ‘A great bog or
marish ;’ North’s Plutarch, p. 480. Also in Dunbar, Of James Dog,
1. 15 (1505). ‘Nouther busk ne bog;’ Henrysoun, Wolf and
Wedder, 1. 77.—Irish bogach, a morass; lit. softish ; -ach being the
adjectival termination, so that bogach is formed from bog, soft, tender,
penetrable; Olrish bocc, soft. Gael. bogan, a quagmire; cf. Gael.
bog, soft, moist, tender, From Celtic type *bukkos, soft; for *bug-
nos, allied to Skt. bhug-nas, bent, pp. of bhuj, to bow, bend. From
the weak grade *bhug of 4/BHEUG or BHEUGH. See Bow (1).
See Stokes-Fick, p. 180.
BOGGARD, BOGGART, a spectre. (C.; with F. suffix.)
Levins has: ‘A boggarde, spectrum.’ From bog, variant of Bug (1) ;
with suffix -art, -ard (F. -ard as in OF. bastard). See below.
BOGGLE, to start aside, swerve for fear. (C.?) Shak. has it,
All’s Well, v. 3. 232. Origin unknown ; but there is a presumption
that it is connected with Prov. Eng. boggle, a ghost, Scotch bogle, a
spectre ; from the notion of scaring or terrifying, and then, passively,
of being scared. Cf. W. bwg, a goblin; bwgwl, a threat; bwgwth, to
scare ; bygylu, to threaten; bygylus, intimidating, scaring. Cf. bug
in bug-bear. See Bug (1).
BOHEA, a kind of tea. (Chinese.) In Somervile, The Incurious
Bencher, 1. 28; Pope, Rape of the Lock, 1. 620. So named from the
Bohea hills. ‘The Bou-y tcha (Bohea tea) takes its name from a
mountain called Bou-y, situated in the province of Fo-kien;’ Engl.
Cycl. s.v. Tea. Also called Wau-i Hills, or Bu-i in the Fo-kien
dialect. Cf. bi-i-té, Bohea tea; Douglas, Dict. of Amoy dialect.
Fo-kien is Fukian in Black’s Atlas, on the S. E. coast of China.
BOIL (1), vb., to bubble up. (F.—L.). ME. boile, boilen; also
* boyle, buyle, to break forth or boil, Exod. xvi. 20, Hab. iii. 16;
Wyclif’s Bible (Glossary). — OF. boillir, to boil. = L. bullire, to bubble.
“αι bulla, a bubble. See Bull (2). Der. boil-er.
BOI (2), a small tumour. (E.) Spelt byle in Shak. Cor. i. 4. 31
(1623). ΜΕ. bile, byle, buile, P. Plowman, B. xx. 832. AS. byl, Voc.
BOMBARD
245. 153 pl. bylas, Voc. 199. 25. Cf. Du. buil,a boil; G. beule,
ΜΗ. biule, OHG. billa. All from Teut. base *bal-, weakened
grade of Teut. root *beu/-, to swell ; whence also Goth. uf-bauljan,
to puff up, Icel. beyla, a hump. Orig. sense ‘a swelling.’
BOISTEROUS, wild, unruly, rough. (F.—Scand.) Shak. has
boisterous, frequently. But it is an extended form. ME. boistous,
Chaucer, C. T. 17160 (H 211); also boystows =rudis ; Prompt. Parv.
p. 42. The forms are numerous, and the senses various; see N.E.D.
Just as E. cloister is from L. claustrum, so the AF. boist- is from
Norw. baust-; for which see under Boast. From the weaker grade
bist- we have EFries. busterig, boisterous (as wind), bister, a storm,
from biisen, to be noisy or stormy; Jutland busten, harsh.
BOLD, daring. (E.) ME, bold, bald; P. Plowman, A. iv. 94;
B. iv. 107. AS. beald, bald, Grein, i. 101 ; also balJ- (in comp.; O. E.
Texts, p. 293).-Icel. ballr; MDu. bald (Oudemans), whence Du.
bout ; Goth. balths, bold, in derived adv. balthaba, boldly; OHG.
pald. Teut. type *balthoz. Der. bold-ly, bold-ness ; also bawd, q.v.
BOLE, the stem of a tree. (Scand.) ME. bole, Allit. Poems, ed.
Morris, B. 622.—Icel. bolr, bulr, the trunk of a tree; Swed. bal, a
trunk, body; Dan. bl, trunk, stump, log; G. bohkle, a plank, board.
Prob, allied to Gk. φάλ-αγξ, a log, trunk (Kluge). See Balk (1).
Der. bul-wark,
BOLERO, a lively Spanish dance, (Span.—L.?) ‘She mingles
in the gay bolero;’ Byron, orig. draught of Song to Inez; Childe
Harold, c. 1 (notes).—Span. bolero, a lively dance ; also, the dancer
of it. Applied as anadj. toa child who runs from school ; and prob.
allied to bola, a bowl, the game of bowls; cf. escurrir la bola, to run
away. = L. bulla, a bubble, a ball; see Bowl (1).
BOLLED, swollen. (Scand.) In the A. V.; Exod. ix. 31. Pp. of
ME. bollen, to swell ; which occurs in bolle}, P. Plowman, A. v. 99;
and in the sb. bolling, swelling, P. Plowman, B. vi. 218, A. vii. 204.
A more orig. form of the pp. is bolned, whence the various readings
boln'f, bolnyth, for bollef, in the first passage. Dan. bulne, to swell ;
Swed. bulna, to swell; Icel. bolgna; inchoative forms from bolg-,
weak grade of Teut. *belgan-, to swell, whence Icel. belgja, to inflate.
Cf. AS. belg-an (pp. bolgen), to swell with anger. See Bellows,
Billow.
BOLSTER, a sort of pillow. (E.) ΜΕ. bolster, Prompt. Pary.
p- 43. AS. bolster; Grein.+Icel. bolstr; OHG. polstar (Stratmann,
Schade). In Dutch, bolster is both a pillow, anda shell or husk. B. The
sufix may be compared with that in hol-ster; see it discussed in
Koch, Engl. Grammatik, iii. 46. Teut. type *bul-stroz, from Teut.
*bul-, weak grade of *beul-, to puff up; see Boil (2). See Franck.
BOLT, a stout pin, of iron, &c. ; an arrow for a cross-bow. (E.)
ME. bolt, a straight rod, Chaucer, C. T. 3264. AS. bolt, a cross-bow
bolt ; cf. “ Catapultas, speru, boltas;’ Voc. 508. 14 (Late L. cata-
pulta meant a bolt as well as a catapult).--MDu. bol¢, a bolt for
shooting, a kind of arrow (Oudemans), whence Du. bout, a bolt,
in all senses; OHG., folz, whence (Ὁ. bolzen, a bolt; MSwed. bult.
Teut, type *sol/oz,m. Origin unknown.
BOLT, BOULT, to sift meal. (F.—L.—Gk.) . Shak. has bolt,
Winter’s Tale, iv. 4. 375; also bolter, a sieve, 1 Henry IV, iii. 3. 81.
ME. bulted (written bulliedd) occurs in the Ormulum, 1. 992. Pals-
grave has: ‘I boulte meale in a boulter, Te bulte.’—OF. buleter
(Supp. to Godefroy) ; later bulter (Palsgrave) ; bluter, to boult meal
(Cotgrave) ; mod. F. bluter. Ββ. In OF. we also find buletel, a sieve
(Supp. to Godefroy), also spelt buretel (Littré), showing that bule/er
isa corruption of *burefer; cf. Ital. burattello, a bolter ; see proofs in
Burguy and Brachet. *Burefer meant ‘to sift through a kind of
cloth ;’ Florio has Ital. burattino, ‘a kinde of stuffe called Burato ;
also a boulter; buratto, a boulter or sieve.’ -y. The OF. *bureter is
thus derivable from OF. (and F.) bure, a coarse woollen cloth; Late
L. burra (the same).—L. burrus, reddish (from its colour).—Gk.
πυρρός, reddish. — Gk. πῦρ, fire. See Bureau.
BOLUS, a large pill. (L.—Gk.) In Phillips, ed. 1706; and
Coles (1684). Phillips also explains it as a clod of earth, lump of
metal, &c.—Late L. balus (not L. bolus), which is merely a Latinised
form of Gk. βῶλος, a clod, lump of earth, a lump (generally).
4 Cotgrave has bolus as a F. word.
BOMB, a shell for cannon. (F.—Span.—L.—Gk.) In Kersey’s
Dict., ed. 1708; and in Evelyn’s Diary, Mar. 16, 1687. In older
writers, it is called a bumbard or bombard. See Bombard.=F.
bombe, a bomb.=— Span. bomba ; Minsheu (1623) has ‘ bomba de fuego,
a ball of wilde-fire—L. bombus, a humming noise.—Gk. βόμ-
Bos, a humming or buzzing noise; perhaps onomatopoetic. See
Boom (1).
BOMBARD, to attack with bombs. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘To
Bombard or Bomb, to shoot bombs into a place ;’ also ‘ Bombard, a
kind of great gun ;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715. In older authors, it is
a sb., meaning a cannon or great gun (as in Caxton, tr. of Reynard,
c. 25), and, jocularly, a large drinking vessel ; see Shak. Temp, ii. 2.
BOMBARDIER
21. “Ε΄ bombarde, ‘a bumbard, or murthering piece;’ Cot.— Late L.
bombarda, orig. a kind of catapult.—L. bombus, a humming noise
(above). @ Cf. ME. bombard, a trumpet ; Gower, C. A, iil. 358;
bk. viii. 2482. Der. bombard-ment, bombard-ier, q. v.
BOMBARDIER. (F.—L.—Gk.) Cotgrave has: ‘ Bombardier,
a bumbardier, or gunner that useth to discharge murthering peeces "
and, more generally, any gunner.’ See Bombard.
BOMBAST, originally, cotton-wadding ; hence padding, affecred
language. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘ Bombast, the cotton-plant growing in
Asia ; also, a sort of cotton or fustian; also, affected language ;’
Kersey’s Dict. (1708). ‘ White Bumbas¢ [cotton] cloth ;’ Hakluyt,
Voy. ii. pt. 1. 222. —OF. bombace, cotton (Godefroy) ; with added ¢.
—Late L. bombacem, acc. of bombax, cotton; a corruption of L.
bombyx.— Gk. βόμβυξ, silk, cotton; orig. a silkworm. Cf, ‘to talk
fustian.’ Der. bombast-ic; and see below.
BOMBAZINE, BOMBASINE, a fabric, of silk and
worsted. (F.—L.—Gk.) Borrowed from F. bombastz, which Cot-
grave explains by ‘the stuffe bumbasine, or any kind of stuffe that’s
made of cotton, or of cotton and linnen.’ = Late L. bombacinus, made
of the stuff called ‘ bombax.’= Late L. bombax, cotton ; a corruption
of L. bombyx, a silk-worm, silk, fine cotton. = Gk. βόμβυξ, a silk-worm,
silk, cotton. See above.
BOND, atie. (Scand.) In Chaucer, C. T. 3096 (A 3094), where it
thymes with hond= hand. A mere variation of band; just as Chaucer
has lond, hond, for land, hand. See Band (1). Der. bond-ed, bonds-
man; but not (in the first instance) bond-man, nor bond-age ; see
Bondage.
BONDAGE, tenure ofa cottar; service of a cottar; servitude. (F.
—Scand.) ME. bondage, servitude, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p.
71.—AF.tondage, explained by Roquefort as‘ vilaine tenue,’i.e.a tenure
of a lower character= Low L. bondagium, a kind of tenure, as in ‘de
toto tenemento, quod de ipso tenet in boxdagio ;’ Monast. Anglic.
2 par. fol. 609 a, qu. in Blount’s Nomo-lexicon. A holder under
this tenure was called a bodman, or in earlier times bonde [AF.
bunde, as in Statutes of the Realm, i. 211], AS. bonda, which merely
meant a boor, a householder. B. That the word bondage has been
connected from early times with the word bond, and the verb to bind,
is certain ; hence its sinister sense of ‘servitude.’ y. It is equally
certain that this etymology is wholly false, the AS. bonda having
been borrowed from Icel. béndi, a husbandman, a short form of παραὶ,
a tiller of the soil; from Icel. bua, totill; so that AS. bonda is allied
in sense and origin to E. boor. See Boor.
BONE, a separate part of the skeleton. (E.) ME. boon, Chaucer,
Prol. 546. AS. ban, Grein.4Du. been; Icel. bein; Swed. ben ; Dan.
been; OHG. pein, bein. Teut. type *bainom, neut. Der. bon-y;
bon-fire, q. Vv.
BONFIRE, a fire to celebrate festivals, ὅς. (E.) Fabyan
(continued) has: ‘ they sang Te Deum, and made bonefires ;’ Queene
Marie, an. 1555. Several other quotations in R. show the same
spelling. β. The origin, from bone and fire, is certain, but was ob-
scured by the regular shortening of the stressed vowel, as in know-
ledge, Monday, &c.; whence arose numerous futile guesses. γ. The
Lowland Scotch is banefire, in Acts of James VI (Jamieson) ; and
the Catholicon Anglicum (1483) has: ‘ A banefire, ignis ossium.’
This makes it ‘bone-fire,’ as being the only form that agrees with the
evidence; and this explanation leaves the whole word native English,
instead of making it a clumsy hybrid. 4 Note the following pas-
sage. ‘The English nuns at Lisbon do pretend that they have both
the arms of Thomas Becket; and yet Pope Paul the Third .. . piti-
fully complains of the cruelty of K. Hen. 8 for causing all the bones
of Becket to be burnt, and the ashes scattered in the winds; . . . and
how his arms should escape that bone-fire is very strange;” The
Komish Horseleech, 1674, p. 82. See also my Notes on E. Etymo-
logy, p. 13. It is remarkable that the Picard equivalent of bonfire is
Ju dos (Corblet). Cf. bonefire in E. D. D.
BONITO, a fish of the tunny kind. (Span. or Port.—L.) De-
scribed in Eng. Garner, ed. Arber, v. 133 (ab. 1565). ‘A bonitoe-fish;’
Minsheu (1627).—Span. boni/o, ‘a fish called a tunnie ;᾿ Minsheu’s
Span. Dict. (1623); whence, probably, Arab. baynis, ‘the fish called
bonito;’ Rich. Dict. p. 312. [Here the final s of baynis is not the
usual 5, but the 4th letter of the alphabet which, according to Palmer,
is properly sounded as E. ἐὰ in both.] B. Yule says the name is
Portuguese ; from Port. boni/o, fine. The Span. boni/o also means
‘fine;’ dimin. of Span. bueno, good.=L. bonum, acc. of bonus, good ;
see Bounty. @ The Arab. name is adapted from Spanish or
Portuguese.
BONNET, a cap. (F.—Low L.—Hind.?) ‘Lynnen bonnettes
vpon their heades;’ Bible, 1551, Ezek. xliv. 18; and so in A. V.
ME, bonet; written bonat in Barbour, Bruce, ix. 506 (but rhyming
with se?).— OF. bonet, bonnet, the name of a stuff, of which caps were
made (stressed on the latter syllable); F. bonnet, a cap; Cot.
BOOR 67
[Brachct says it was originally the name of a stuff; ‘there were robes
de bonnet ; the phrase chapel de bonnet [cap of stuff] is several times
found ; this was abridged into ux bonnet.’ Cf. E. ‘a beaver’ for ‘a
beaver hat.’]= Low L, bonnéta, the name of a stuff, mentioned a. p.
1300. Origin unknown. Perhaps of Indian origin; cf. Hind. banat,
woollen cloth, broad cloth (Forbes).
BONNY, handsome, fair; blithe. (F.—L.?) Shak. has ‘blithe
and bonny;’ Much Ado, ii. 3. 69; also, ‘the bonny beast;’ 2 Hen. VI,
y. 2.12. Levins has: ‘ Bonye, scitus, facetus,’ 102. 32. A compari-
son of the word with such others as bellibone, bontbell, bonilasse (all
in Spenser, Shep. Kal. August), suggests 2 connexion with Εἰ, bonne,
fair, fem. of bon, good; from L. bonus, good. The ME. bonie (in
King Alisaunder, 1. 3903) is less easily connected with OF. bone, fem.
of bon; but the suffix is prob. Ἐς -y (AS. -ig). Cf. jolly, in which
F. final -¢ is written as E. -y. Der. bonni-ly. See Bounty.
BONZE, a Japanese priest. (Port.—Japanese—Chinese.) Spelt
bonzee in Sir T. Herbert’s Travels, pp. 393, 394 (directly from
Jap. bonzi).—Port. bonzo, a bonze.— Japan. bonzi or bonzé.—Chin.
fan seng, ‘a religious person;’ Yule. (Sir Τὶ Wade also regards it
as the Japan. form of fa seng.)
BOOBY, a stupid fellow. (Span.—L.) In Beaum. and Fletcher,
Hum. Lieutenant, iii. 7. 9. In Sir T. Herbert’s Travels, ed. 1665, p.
11, we find: ‘ At which time some boobyes pearcht upon the yard-arm
of our ship, and suffered our men to take them, an animal so very
simple as becomes a proverb.” (The F. boubie, in the Supplement to
the Dict. de l’ Académie, is only used of the bird, and may have been
borrowed from English. The name probably arose among the Spanish
sailors. ] Span. bobo, a blockhead, dolt ; a word in very common use,
with numerous derivatives, such as bobon, a great blockhead, bobote,
a simpleton, &c.; cf. Port. bobo, a mimic, buffoon. [Related to F.
baube, stuttering (Cotgrave), and to OF, baubi, foolish, orig. pp. of
baubir, to mock at.]—L. balbus, stammering, lisping, inarticulate.
(Cf. Span. bobear, to talk foolishly, bobada, silly speech.]-++Gk. Bap-
Bapos, lit. inarticulate. See Barbarous.
BOOK, a volume; a written composition. (E.) ME. book, Chau-
cer, C. T., B 190. AS, bdc, Grein, i. 134.44Du. boek; Icel. bak;
Swed. bok; Dan, bog; OHG. buoh, MHG,. buoch, G, buch. B. A
peculiar use of AS. bdc, a beech-tree (Grein, i. 134); because the
original books were written on beechen boards or bark. The Icel.
bokstafr properly meant ‘a beech-twig,’ but afterwards ‘a letter.’ So,
in German, we have OHG. puocha, buocha, MHG. buoche, a beech-
tree, as compared with OHG, buok, MHG. buoch, a book. The mod.
G. forms are buche, beech; buch, a book. Cf. Goth. bdka, a letter;
pl. bdkds, a writing. AS, bdc, a ‘charter,’ occurs A.D. 808 (O.E.
Texts). See Beech. Der. book-ish, book-keeping, book-case, book-worm.
BOOM (1), vb., to hum, buzz. (E.) ME. bommen, to hum, ‘I
bomme as a bombyll bee [i.e. bumble-bee] dothe or any flye;' Pals-
grave. Not recorded in A.S.; cf. Du. bommen, to give out a hollow
sound, to sound likean empty barrel. The MDu. bommen meant ‘to
sound a drum or tabor;’ and MDu. bom meant ‘a tabor,’ Oudemans.
Allied to bump, to make a noise like a bittern, which is the Welsh
form; see Bump (2). @f That the word begins with 6 both in O.
Low α. and in Latin (which has the form bombus, a humming), is
due to the fact that it is imitative. See Bomb.
BOOM (2), a beam or pole. (Dutch.) Boom occurs in Kersey
(1708) ; and in North’s Examen (R.) = Du. boom, a beam, pole, tree.
+E. beam, See Beam. Many of our sea-terms are Dutch. Der.
jth-boom, spanker-boom.
BOOMERANG, an Australian missile weapon. (Australian.)
See quotations in 15, FE. Morris, Austral English. Given as the native
name at Port Jackson in 1827; derived from buma, to strike (with
suffix -arang), by J. Fraser, Aborigines of New S. Wales, p. 69.
BOON, a petition, favour. (Scand.) ME. bone, boone, Chaucer,
C. T. 2271 (A 2269); and in the Ancren Riwle, p. 28.—Icel. ban, a
petition; Dan. and Swed. bén, a petition. AS. bén, a petition; whence
bene in Wordsworth. [Note that the vowel shows the word to be
Scandinavian in form, not Α. 5.1 Teut. type *bdniz, f. B. Fick
connects it with the root bax, appearing in our E. ban ; iii. 201. See
Ban. y. The sense of ‘ favour’ is somewhat late, and points toa
confusion with F. bon, L. bonus, good. δι In the phrase ‘a boon
companion,’ the word is wholly the F. bon.
BOOR, 2 peasant, tiller of the soil. (Dutch.) In Shak. Merry
Wives, iv. 5.1; and Beaum. and Fletcher, Beggars’ Bush, iii. 1.—
Du. boer (pronounced boor), a peasant, lit. ‘a tiller of the soil;’ see
the quotations in R., esp. the quotation from Sir W. Temple. = Du.
bouwen, totill. B. In Mid. Eng. the term is very rare, but it is found,
spelt boueer, in Lydgate, Chorle and Bird, st. 51; and it forms a part
of the word neigh-bour, showing that it was once an English word as
well as a Dutch one.. Cf. AS, gebiir (rare, but found in the Laws of
Ine, § 6), a tiller of the soil; AS. δῖαν, to till, cultivate; OHG.
biwwan, to cultivate (whence G. bauer, a peasant, a boor); Goth.
F2
68 BOOT
bauan, to cultivate; all closcly related to the word be. From 4/BHEU,
to dwell; Fick, i. 161; Benfey, s.v. bhi; Streitberg, §90. See Be.
Der. boor-ish, boor-ish-ly, boor-ish-ness.
BOOT (1), a covering for the leg and foot. (F,— Late L.) Chaucer
has bofes, Prol. 203, 275.—OF. bote, botte, a boot. Late L. botta, a
boot ; also spelt bo/a; cf. Span. and Port. bofa. [In Eng. the word
is even extended to mean the Iuggage-box of a coach; cf. F. botle (5)
in Littré, and see N.E.D.] The old boots were often large and
ample, covering the whole of the lower part of the leg. @ A con-
nexion between boot and du/t is sometimes assumed, but they are now
known to be distinct ; boot = Late L. botta; buit=Late L. butia.
BOOT (2), advantage, profit. (E.) Chiefly preserved in the adj.
bootless, profitless. ME. bofe, boofe, common in early authors ; the phr.
zo bole is in Langtoft, p. 163, &c. AS. bot, Grein,i. 135 ; whence AS.
bétan, toamend, help. Du. boete, penitence ; boeéen, to mend, kindle,
atone for; Icel. bd¢ (badi), advantage, cure, beta, to mend, improve;
Dan. bod, amendment, bide, to mend; Swed. bot, remedy, cure, δόϊα,
to fine, mulct ; Goth. bd/a, profit, bdtjan, to profit; OHG,. puoza,
buoza, G. busse, atonement, G. biissen, to atone for. (In all these the
sb. is older than the verb.) ‘Teut. type *0ta, fem.; from *bd¢-,
second grade of *bat-; cf. Iccl. batz, advantage; and see Better.
Der. boot-less, boot-less-ly, boot-less-ness. @. The phrase ¢o boot means
‘in addition,’ lit. ‘for an advantage;’ it is not a verb, as Bailey
oddly supposes ; and, in fact, the allied verb takes the form /o beet,
still used in Scotland in the sense of ‘to mend a fire’ (AS. bé/an, to
help, to kindle).
BOOTH, a slight building. (Scand.) ME. bothe, in comp. 7ο]-
bothe, a toll-house, Wyclif, St. Matt. ix. 9 ; also boJe, which seems to
occur first in the Ormulum, 1. 15817.—MDan. both (Kalkar);
Jutland bod (locally pronounced buwa0d), Feilberg ; Dan. bod ; cf. Icel.
bud, a booth, shop; Swed. bod.4-G. bude, a booth, stall. Teut. type
*bu-tha, fem.; from *bi-, to dwell, as in Icel. bi-a; see Boor.
B. Further related to Irish and Gael. both, bothan, a hut, W. béd,
a residence; Lith. buéa, butias, a house. [But W. bwth, a booth,
Gael. buth, a shop, are from E.] Cf. Skt. bhavana-m, a house,
a place to be in, from bhi, to dwell, be.
BOOTY, prey, spoil. (F.—Low G.) Not in very early use. One
of the earlier examples is in Hall’s Chron. Henry VIII, an. 14. § 49,
where it is spelt botie. Palsgrave has boty, to translate F. butin.
Caxton has both bofye and butyz in his Boke of Chesse, bk. ii. ch. 4;
‘Alle the butyn and gayne,’ Troy-book, If. 277, back. Formed (with
loss of x, as in haughty) from F. butin, ‘a booty, prey, or spoyle
taken ;’ Cot. [The E. oo is due to the influence of boot (2).)—MDu.
bile, Du. buit, booty, spoil, prize ; buit maken, to get booty, take in
war; cf. Icel. byti, Swed. byfe, Dan. bytte, exchange, barter, booty,
spoil. Allied to Celtic *boudi-, as in Irish buaid, victory, W. budd,
gain, profit. Stokes-Fick, p.175. [The G. beute, booty, is merely
borrowed from Low G., as shown by its unaltered form.| ΦῚ Cot-
grave’s explanation of butiner'as ‘to prey, get booty, make spoil of,
to bootehale,’ clearly shows how the Eng. spelling was affected by
confusion with boot, advantage, profit.
BORAGE, a plant with rough leaves. (F.—Arab.) ME. borage,
Liber Cure Cocorum, ed. Morris, p. 47; also bourage, as in Cot-
grave, who gives: ‘Bourroche, Bourrache, bourage.’ =F. bourrache;
OF. borrace (Haizfeld); cf. Late L. borraigo, a name supposed to
refer to its rough leaves, as if fiom Late L. borra, burra, rough hair,
whence F. bourre, Ital. borra. But now (as in Hatzfeld) thought to
be from (unauthorised) Arab. abit rashh, a sudorific plant; from aba,
a father (hence, producing), and raskk, sweating, as in Rich. Dict.,
p: 734. Cf. Span. borraja, ‘bourage;’ Minsheu. (Littré; who
thinks the Low L. borrago to be taken from the F.)
BORAX, biborate of soda; of a whitish colour. (Low L.— Arab.
—Pers.) Cotgrave gives borax, borrais, and boras as the French
spellings, with the sense ‘ borax, or green earth ; a hard and shining
minerall.’ Borax is a Low Latin spelling ; Ducange also gives the
form boracum. The Jatter is the more correct form, and taken directly
from the Arabic. Arab. barag (better barag), borax; Rich. Arab.
Dict. p. 295.— Pers. birah, borax (Vullers). See Devic.
BORDER, an edge. (F.—Low L.—Teut.) ME. bordure, Chaucer,
tr. of Boethius, bk. i. pr. 1, 1. 22.—F. bordure (Cotgrave); OF.
bordeiire (Supp. to Godefroy) ; cf. Span. bordadura, = Low L. borda-
tira, an edging. —Low L. bordare (Ital. bordare, Span. bordar, F.
border), to edge. Du. boord, border, edge, brim, bank; which is
cognate with AS, bord in some of its senses. See Board. Der.
border, vb.; border-er.
BORE (1), to perforate. (E.) ME. borien, Ayenbite of Inwyt,
Ρ. 66. AS. borian, Bosworth, with a ref. to A&lfric’s Glossary; he
also quotes ‘ wyrm pe lorad treow,’ a worm that perforates wood.-+-
Du. boren, to bore, pierce; Icel. bora; Swed. borra; Dan. bore;
OHG., porén (G. bohren). Teut. Type *bordn, to perforate; from
*boroz, sb., a bore, gimlet, as seen in AS. bor, Icel. borr, Swed. borr,
BOTCH
Dan. bor, a bore, gimlet.4-L. forare, to bore; Gk. pap-, in pap-ayé,
a ravine, pap-vyé, the pharynx, gullet; Brugm. i. § 510.—4/BHER,
to cut. Thus bore is co-radicate with perforate and pharynx. Der.
bor-er.
BORE (2), to worry, vex. (E.) Merely a metaphorical use of
bore, to perforate. Shak. has it in the sense, to overreach, trip up:
“at this instant He bores me with some trick ;” Hen. VIII, i. 1. 128.
Cf. ¢ Baffled and bored ;’ Beaum. and Fletcher, Span. Curate, iv. 5.
BORK (3), a tidal surge in ariver. (Scand.) Used by Burke, On
a Regicide Peace, letters 3 and 4 (R.). An old prov. E. word, of
Scand. origin. ME. se-bare, sea-billow, surge ; E. Metr. Hom., ed.
Small, p. 135, 1. 24.—Icel. bara, a billow caused by wind; Norw.
baara, a billow, swell in the sea; Du. baar, a billow, also a bier;
EFnies. bar; Low ἃ. bare. Lit. ‘a thing borne along;’ all from
Teut. *bér-, 3rd grade of beran-, to bear. See Bier. Doublet, bier.
BOREAS, the north wind. (L.—Gk.) In Shak. Troil. i. 3. 38.
-L. Boreas, the north wind.—Gk. Βορέας, Boppas, the north wind.
B. Perhaps it meant, originally, the ‘mountain-wind ;’ cf. Ital. tra-
montana, mountain-wind. Cf. OSlav. and Russ. gora, Skt. giri-s, a
mountain ; Curtius, i. 434. Der. borea-l.
BOROUGH, a town. (E.) ME. burgh, borgh, P. Plowman,
Β. vi. 308 ; also borwe, in the sense ‘ a place of shelter’ (cf. Ἐς burrow),
Will. of Palerne, 1. 1889; burje, burie, borwe, borewe, Layamon, 2168,
3553, 9888. AS. burh, burg, Grein, i. 147; forming byrig in the
gen. and dat. sing., whence the. mod. E. bury in the sense ‘town.’
Ἔα. burg; Icel. borg, a fort, castle; Swed. and Dan. borg, a fort,
castle; Goth. baurgs, a town; OHG, pure (G. burg), a castle.
B. Teut. type *burgs, f.; from *burg-, weak grade of *bergan-, AS,
beorgan, to defend, protect, Grein, i. 107; Goth. bairgan, to hide,
preserve, keep. —4/BHERGH, to protect. Benfey (p. 635) suggests
a connexion with Skt. bykan, large. See below; and see Burgess,
Barrow (1).
BORROW, to receive money on trust. (E.) ME. borwen,
Chaucer, C. T. 4525 (B 105). AS. borgian, to borrow, Matt. v. 42
(by usual change of AS..g to ME. w); the lit. meaning being ‘to
give a pledge.’=AS. borg, a pledge, more frequently spelt bork in
the nom. case; common in the AS. laws.4 Du. borg, a pledge, bail,
security; MHG. and ἃ. borg, security. (Merely a borrowed word
in Icelandic, and perhaps also in Swed. and Danish.) From borg-
=*burg-, weak grade of *bergan-, to protect; cf. AS, borgen, pp. of
AS. beorgan, to protect, secure. See Borough. Der. borrow-er.
BOSH, nonsense; foolish talk. (Turkish.) From Turk. bosh,
empty, worthless ; introduced by Jas. Morier, in his novel of Ayesha,
1834; where he explains bosk by ‘ nothing.’
BOSKY, bushy. (Late L.) In Milton, Comus, 313.
L. boscus, a bush; see Bush.
BOSOM, a part of the body. (E.) ME. bosom, Chaucer, C. T.
7575 (Ὁ 1993). AS. bdsm, Grein, i. 134.4 Du. boezem; OHG. puos-
am; G. busen, Origin unknown. The Teut. type is bds-moz, Τῇ.»
from Idg. root *bkass Hence it may mean ‘ swelling,’ from Skt. root
*bhas, to puff, swell, whence bhas-/ra, bag, sack, pouch; see babhasti
(2) in Uhlenbeck.
BOSS, a knob. (F.-OHG.) ΜΕ. ‘bos(se) of a bocler’ (buckler) ;
Chaucer, C. T. 3266.—F. bosse, a hump; OF. boce; cf. Prov. bossa ;
Ital. bozza, a swelling. B. It has been supposed that (just as E.
bump means (1) to strike, and (2) a hump, a swelling, with other
similar instances) the root of the word is to be found in the OHG.
bozan, to strike, beat; cognate with E. beat. See Beat, and see
further under Botch (2). Doublet, boich (2).
BOTANY, the science that treats of plants. (F.—Gk.) ‘ Botanical,
belonging to herbs;’ Coles(1682). The sb. bo/anyis formed by analogy,
being derived from the F. adj. botanique, a form which appears in
Cotgrave, and is explained by ‘ herball, of, or belonging to herbs, or
skill in herbs.’ The mod. F. botanique is both adj. and sb. Thus
botany is short for ‘ botanic science.’ = Gk. βοτανικός, botanical, adj.,
formed from Boravy,a herb, plant. Gk. βόσκειν, to feed (stem Bo-) ;
cf, βοτόν, a grazing animal. Der. botanic, botanic-al, botanic-al-ly,
botan-ist, bo/an-ise.
BOTARGO, a cake made of the roe of the sea-mullet. (Ital.—
Arab.) ‘Sturgion, mullit, caviare, and bu//argo;’ Capt. Smith,
Works, ed. Arber, p. 240 (1614-15). -- 114]. botargo, ‘a kind of salt
meate made of fish vsed in Italy in Lent ;’? Florio. Arab. butarkhah ;
the same (Devic). The Arab. word is thought to be composed of the
Coptic indef. art. bu, and the Gk. τάριχος, dried fish (Journal des
Savants, Jan. 1848, p. 45). 3
BOTCH (1), to patch; a patch. (E.) Wyclif has bocchyn, to
mend, 2 Chron. xxxiv. lo. Prob. a native word, but not found in
A.S. Oudemans gives a parallel. form botsen (mod. Du. bofser), to
strike; with its variant bw/sex, meaning both (1) to strike or beat,
and (2) to repair. The notion of repairing in a rough manner
follows from that of fastening by beating. So also MDu, butsen,
From Late
ΒΟΤΟΗ
botsen, ‘to push or to smite;’ bofsen, boetsen, ‘to clout or patch ;’
Hexham. Der. botch-er, botch-y.
BOTCH (2), a swelling. (F.—G.) Used by Milton, ‘bofches and
blains ;? P. L. xii. 180. The Prompt. Parv. has: ‘ Bohche, botche,
sore; ulcus.’ Here tch is for cch or ch. The spelling bocches is in
P. Plowman, B. xx. 83.—0O. North F. boche, a botch, a boil; Norm.
dial. Goche (Moisy); Picard boche; for OF. boce, a swelling; thus
botch is a doublet of boss. See Boss. 4 Oudemans gives butse as
M. Du. for a boil, or a swelling, with the excellent example in an old
proverb : ‘ Naar den val de buése’ =as is the tumble, so is the botch.
BOTH, two together. (Scand.) Not formed from AS, ba Ja, lit.
‘both the,’ but borrowed from the Scandinavian; cf. Lowland Scotch
baith ; spelt bae and befe in Havelok, 1680, 25.43. —Icel. badir (ba-0ir),
adj. pron. dual; neut. bedi, badi; Swed. bada; Dan, baade; cf. G.
beide,both. β. AS.has only the shorter form ba, both ; cognate with
Goth. bai, both; cf. -bo in L. am-bo; -pw in Gk. ἄμ-φω; and -bhau
in Skt. u-bkaiu, both. See Fick, i. 18. sy. The Icel. -dir is for Jeir,
they, the ; so that bo-th (= bo the) was orig. two words; cf. Goth. ba
20 skipa, both the ships; Luke, v. 7. See Noreen, Gr. § 122. For
numerous examples of various forms of the word, see Koch, Engl.
Gram. ii. 197.
BOTHER, to harass; an embarrassment. (E.?) There is no
proof that the word is of any great antiquity in English. It first
occurs in the writings of Irishmen, viz. T. Sheridan, Swift, and Sterne
(N.E.D.). It may be a mere variant of pother, which is, at any rate,
an older word. See further under Pother.
BOTS, BOTTS, small worms found in the intestines of horses.
(E.?) Shak. has bots, 1 Hen. IV, 11. 1. 11. Fitzherbert has boftes
(Husbandry, § 102) ; whence Gael. δοίης, a belly-worm, is borrowed,
The Sc form is bats, pl. Cf. WFlem. botse, a thick worm (De Bo).
BOTTLE (1), a hollow vessel. (F.—LateL.) ME. botel; Chaucer,
C. T. 7513 (Ὁ 1931).—OF. boteille, botele (Supp. to Godefroy) ; cf.
AF. buiuille, a bottle (note to Vie de Seint Auban, ed. Atkinson,
1. 677).—Late L, budicula, butticula, double dimin. of Late L. buttis,
δια, a cask, butt. See Butt (2).
BOTTLE (2), a bundle of hay. (F.-OHG.) ME. botel, Chaucer,
C.T. 16963 (H 14). “ΟἹ: botel; cf. ‘botelle, botte de foin ou de
paille;’ Roquefort. A dimin. of F. botte, a bundle of hay, &c.—
OHG., bézo, pozo, a bundle of flax.—OHG, bizan, pozan, to beat,
cognate with E. beat; perhaps from the beating of flax. See Beat.
BOTTOM, the lower part, foundation. (E.) ME. botym, botum,
lotun, bottome; also bothome; see Prompt. Pary. p. 45; bothem,
Gawain and the Grene Knight, ed. Morris, ].2145. AS. botm, Grein,
p- 133-4+Du. bodem; Icel. botn; Swed. botfen; Dan. bund; OHG.
podam (G. boden).-L. fundus; Gk. πυθμήν ; Skt. (Vedic) budhna-s,
depth, ground; Benfey, p. 634; Fick, iii. 214; Brugm. i. §§ 103,
+o4. B. The word appears also in Celtic; cf. Irish bonn, the sole of
the foot ;, Gaelic bonn, sole, foundation, bottom ; W. box, stem, base,
stock. Der. bottom-less, bottom-ry. From the same root, fund-ament.
BOUDOTIR, a small private room, esp. foralady. (F.) Moder,
and mere French. =F. boudoir, lit. a place to sulk in,—F. bouder, to
sulk. Root uncertain; but perhaps from the same source as E, pout,
verb. Cf. Limousin fa Jas boudos, to pout; fa de pots, to grimace
(Mistral).
BOUGH, a branch of a tree. (E.) ΜΕ. bough, Chaucer, C. T.
1982 (A 1980). AS. bog, bah, Grein, i. 134. [The sense is peculiar
to English ; the original sense of AS. bag was ‘an arm;’ esp. the
“shoulder of an animal.’]4Icel. bagr, the shoulder of an animal;
Dan. boug, bov, the shoulder of a quadruped; also, the bow of a
ship; Swed: bog, shoulder, bow of a ship; OHG. puac, buog (G. bug’),
the shoulder of an animal ; bow of a ship.4-Gk. πῆχυς, the fore-arm ;
Skt. bakus, the arm. Tent. type *boguz; Idg. type *bhaghus. Brugm.
i. § 184. See Bow (4).
BOUGHT, s., the bight of a rope, &c.; see Bout, Bight.
BOULDER, a large round stone. (Scand.) Marked by Jamieson
as a Perthshire word ; chiefly used in Scotland and the N. of England.
ME, bulder-ston, Havelok, 1790. Mr. Wedgwood says: ‘Swed. dial.
bullersien, the larger kind of pebbles, in contrast to Alappersteen, the
small ones. From Swed. bul/ra, E. dial. bolder, to make a loud noise,
to thunder.’ Klappersteen means ‘a stone that claps or rattles.” See
his article ; and see Rietz. B. But I may add that the excrescent d
occurs in Danish; cf. Dan. buldre, to roar, to rattle ; bulder, crash,
uproar, turmoil. (Danish puts /d for 1], as in falde, to fall.) So also
E.Fries. bullern, to rumble; buller-wagen, 2 waggon that rumbles
through the streets; Du. bulderen, to roar (as cannon), All these
verbs are frequentative ; from bud/- (asin MHG. ballen, to roar), weak
grade of Teut. *bellan-, to roar. See Bell, Bellow, Bull (1).
BOULEVARD, a promenade, with rows of trees. (F.—Teut.)
Well known in Paris; orig. a promenade laid out on a demolished
fortification. — MF. boulevert, bouleverd, boulever, ‘a bulwark ;’ Cot.
— Du. bolwerk ; see Bulwark.
BOUSE, BOOSE, BOUZE, BOOZE 69
BOULT, to sift meal ; see Bolt (2).
BOUNCE, to jump up quickly. (E.) ME. bunsen, bounsen, to
strike suddenly, beat ; Ancren Riwle, p. 188. Soalso Low G. bunsex,
to beat, knock, esp. used of knocking ata door; Bremen Worterbuch,
i. 164; Du. bonzen, to bounce, throw; Norw. bunsa, to bounce up
(Ross), B. The word is clearly connected with bounce, a blow, bump,
used also as an interjection, as in 2 Hen. IV, iii. 2. 304. Cf. Du.
bons, a bounce, thump ; Swed. dial. bums, immediately (Rietz); G.
bumps, bounce, as in bumps ging die Thiir=bounce went the door;
Icel. bops, bump! imitating the sound ofa fall. The word is-pro-
bably imitative, and intended to represent the sound of a blow. See
Bump (1).
BOUND (1), to leap. (F.—L.—Gk.) Shak. has bound, All's
Well, ii. 3. 314.—F. bondir, to bound, rebound, &c.; but orig, to
resound, make a loud resounding noise; see Brachet. —L. bombitare,
to resound, hum, buzz; whence Folk-L. *bombitire.—L. bombus, a
humming sound. Gk, βόμβος, a humming sound. See Boom (1).
BOUND (2), a boundary, limit. (F.—C.?) ME. bounde, Chaucer,
C.'T. 7922 (E 46); earliest form bunne, Layamon, 1313.—OF. bonne,
a limit, boundary, also spelt boxde; AF. bounde; also sometimes
spelt bodne (which see in Burguy and in the Supp. to Godefroy).—
Late L. bodina, bonna, a bound, limit. Origin uncertain; some
suggest a Celtic origin; from Bret. béden, a clump of trees (which
might mark a boundary); cf. Bret. béd,a tuft. The Late L. bonna
answers well to Bret. bonn, a boundary, occurring in the compound
men-bonn, a boundary-stone; but this would separate bodina from
bonna (yet the OF. bodne meant ‘ boundary-stone ;’ Godefroy, Supp.).
The suggestion of Thurneysen (p. 91) does not help us. @ We may
note that bound is a doublet of bourn, a boundary. See Bourn (1).
Der. bound, vb., bound-ary, bound-less.
BOUND (3), ready to go. (Scand.) In-the particular phrase ‘the
ship is bound for Cadiz,’ the word bound means ‘ ready to go;’ formed,
by excrescent d, from ME. boun, ready to go. ‘She was boun to go;’
Chaucer, C. T. 11807 (F 1503). ‘The maister schipman made him
boun And goth him out ;’ Gower, C.A, iii. 322; bk. viii. 1407.
‘Whan he sauh that Roberd ... to wend was alle bone;’ Langtoft,
p- 99.—Icel, buinn, prepared, ready, pp. of vb. baa, to till, to get
ready; Norw. buen; from the same root as Boor, q. v.
BOUNDEN, pp., as in ‘ bounden duty.’ (E.) The old pp. of the
verb to bind. See Bind.
BOUNTY, goodness, liberality. (F.—L.) Chaucer has bountee,
C. T., B 1647, E157, 415.—OF. bonté, bonteit, goodness, —L. acc.
bonitatem, from nom. -bonitas, goodness. L. bonus, good; Old L.
duonus, good; perhaps allied to Vedic Skt. duvas, honour; Brugmann,
ii. § 67. Der. bountiful, bounti-ful-ness, bounte-ous, bounte-ous-ness,
BOUQUET, a nosegay. (F.—Late L.) In Todd's Johnson
(1831). Mere French. = F. bonguet, ‘a nosegay or posie of flowers ;”
Cotgrave. — OF. (Norm. and Picard) bosquet, properly ‘ a little wood’
(Supp. to Godefroy) ; the dimin. of OF. bos, Ἐς bois, a wood ; Brachet
quotes from Mme. de Sevigné, who uses bouquet in the old sense, =
Late L. boscum, buscum, ace. of boscus, buscus,a wood. See Bush.
ΕΠ The lit. sense of ‘little bush’ makes sense still.
BOURD, a jest; to jest; obsolete. (F.) Used by Holinshed,
Drayton, &c.; see Ναγεβ. ΜΕ. bourde, boorde. ‘ Boorde, or game,
ludus, jocus ;” Prompt. Parv. p. 44. The verb is used by Chaucer,
C.T. 12712 (C 778).—OF. bourde, a game; bourder, to play. Of
unknown origin. Diez took OF. bourder to be a contraction of
OF. bohorder, to tourney, joust with lances, hence to amuse oneself;
but this is no longer accepted.
BOURGEON ; see Burgeon.
BOURN (1),a boundary. (F.) Well known from Shak. Hamlet,
ili, 1.79; K. Lear, iv. 6. 57.—F. ‘borne, a bound, limit, meere,
march; the end or furthest compass of a thing ;’ Cot. From OF.
bodne, a bourn, limit, bound, boundary (Supp. to Godefroy). Thus
bourn is a doublet of bound. See Bound (2).
BOURN, BURN (2), a stream. (E.) ‘Come o’er the bourn,
Bessy, to me;’ K. Lear, iii. 6. 27. ME, bourne, P. Plowman, prol.
1. 8. AS. burna, a stream, fountain; Grein, i. 149.-4-Du. bron, a
spring ; Icel. brunnr, a spring, fountain, well; Swed. brunn, a well;
Dan. brénd; Goth. brunna, a spring, well; OHG. prunno (G.brunnen),
a spring, well. Some think the Goth. brunna is from brinnan, to
burn; see Uhlenbeck, and Stokes-Fick, p. 172. The connexion is
seen in the comparison of a bubbling well to boiling water; and is
remarkably exemplified in the words well and torrent, q.v. See
Burn.
BOUSE, BOOSE, BOUZE, BOOZE, todrink deeply. (Dutch.)
ME. bousen, Satire on Kildare, 1. 45; in E. E. Poems, ed. Furnivall,
p- 154. Spenser has: ‘a bowzing-can’=a drinking vessel; F. Ὁ, i.
4.22. Cotgrave uses bouse to translate F. boire.—ODu. *biisen, MDu.
buisen, buysen, to drink deeply ; Oudemans. Cf. MDu. buize, buyse,
a drinking-yessel with two handles (Oudemans) ; clearly the same
70 BOUT
word as the modern Du. buis, a tube, pipe, conduit, channel. Cf.
also OF, buse, buise, a conduit ; G. bausen, to bouse.
BOUT, a spell (of work), &c.; properly, a turn, turning, bending.
(Low G.) Formerly bought; Milton has bout, L’Allegro, 139;
Spenser has bough/, F.Q.i.1.15; i. 11.11. Palsgrave (1530) has:
‘Bought of the arme.’ Levins has: ‘ Bought, plica, ambages,’ 217.
31.—Low.G. bugt, a bend, turn; also, a gulf, bay, bight (as a naut.
term); Norw. bug?, EFries. bugt, bucht,a turn; cf.Icel. bugda,a bend,a
serpent’s coil (the sense in which Spenser uses bought), All from Teut.
*bug-, weaker grade of *bagan-, to bow. See Bow (1) and Bight.
4 Wedgwood suggests the possibility that ‘in the expressions of
a drinking-bout, a bout of fair or foul weather, we have to do
with a different word. Cotgrave gives: ‘par boutées, by fits,
or pushes, not all at once, eltsoons, now and then;’ which just
answers to E. by bouts. As boutée is merely the fem. pp. of bowter,
to thrust, to διέ, it would seem that such a bout is a bu/t, 1.6. ἃ thrust.
Cf. Span. bofe, a thrust, Ital. bot/a, ‘a blowe, a stroake, a time,’
Florio. Wedgwood further remarks that ‘the Du. bot or bofte, a
stroke or blow (ictus, impulsus—Kilian), as well as the nasalised
bonte, is used in the dialect of West Flanders exactly as E. bout. Een
bot regen, eene botte wind, vorst: a bout of rain, wind, frost. By
botlen; by bouts or intervals. Eene botte, or bonte goed, nat, droog,
weder : a bout of good, wet, dry weather. De kinkhoest ts bij bonten:
the chincough comes in fits;’ see De Bo, West Flem. Dict. So also
Koolman, in his East Fries. Dict., gives the form bof, as in elk bot
wen't ragend, every time that it rains. But this is accidental, and
only accounts for a form bof, not bout (which means a turn).
BOW (1), vb., to bend. (E.) ME. bugen, buwen, bogen, bowen.
* Bowyn, flecto, curvo;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 46. Very common. AS.
δῆσαν, to bend (gen. intransitive), Grein, i. 149.4+Du. buigen, to bend
(both trans. and intrans.). Teut. *bigan-, to bow; also *beugan-, as
in Goth. bingan (tr. and intr.); OHG. piogan, G. beugen. Allied to
L. fugere, to turn to flight, give way ; Gk. φεύγειν, to flee ; Skt. bhuj, to
bend.—4/BHEUGH, to bend, to turn aside. Also in the form
BHEUG; Brugm. i. §§ 658, 701. Der. bow (a weapon), bow-man,
bow-yer (=bow-er, bow-maker), bow-s/ring, bow-window, &c.; also
bight, bought, bout.
BOW (2), a bend. (E.) ‘From the owe [bend] of the ryuer of
Humber anon to the ryuer of Teyse ’ [Tees]; ‘Trevisa, tr. of Higden,
ii. 87. From the verb above.
BOW (3). a weapon to shoot with. (E.) Chaucer has bowe,
Prol. 108. AS. boga; Grein, i. 132.44Du. boog; Icel. bogi; Swed.
bage; Dan, bue; OHG, pogo, bogo; G. bogen. Teut. type *bug-on-,
m.; from *bug-, weak grade of *beugan-, to bend; see Bow (1).
Der. bow-yer (Palsgrave, and Prompt. Parv.).
BOW (4), as a naut. term, the ‘bow’ of a ship. (Scand.) In
Kersey (1658); and see quotation under Bowline.=Icel. bégr ;
Dan. δου, Swed. bog; the ‘shoulder’ of a ship; the same word as
the bough, or ‘arm’ of a tree. So also MDu. boech, Low G, boog.
See Bough. 4 Not from Bow (1). Der. bow-line, bow-sprit.
BOWEL, intestine. (F.—L.) ME. bouele, Gower, C. A, ii. 265 ;
bk. v. 4137-— OF. boele, f., Godefroy; and boel, m., Godef. Supp.,
mod. F. boyau,=—L. botellum, acc. of botellus, a sausage, also, intes-
tine; dimin. of bofulus, a sausage.
BOWER, an arbour. (E.) ME. bour, Chaucer, C. T. 3367.
AS. bar, a chamber; often, a lady’s apartment; Grein, i. 150.4Icel.
bir, a chamber, also, a larder, pantry, store-room; Swed, bur, a
cage; Dan. buur, a cage; MHG. bir, a house, a chamber, a cage
(see quotation in E, Miiller). f. The orig. sense is a dwelling-place,
a place to be in; from AS. bian, to dwell. Teut. types *bu-rom, n.,
*bu-roz,m. See Boor. Der. bower-y; bur-ly, q.v.; byre, q.v-
BOWIE-KNIFE, a large knife, esp. in America. (Personal
name.) Mentioned by Dickens, in 1842; Amer. Notes, ed. 1850,
p- 32. Named from Col. Jas. Bowie.
BOWL (1), a round ball of wood for a game. (F.—L.) The
Prompt. Parv. has : ‘ Bowle, bolus;’ p. 46; and again: ‘ Bowlyn, or
pley wythe bowlys, bolo.’ Spelt boule in Lydgate and Hoccleve. The
spelling with ow points to the old sound of ox (as in soup), and
shows that, in ¢his sense, the word is French.—F. ‘boule, a bowle, to
play with ;’ Cot.—L. bulla, a bubble, a stud ; later, a metal ball affixed
toa papal bull, &c. See Bowl (2), Bull (2), and Boil (1). Der.
bowl, vb.; bowl-er, bowl-ing-green.
BOWL (2), adrinking-vessel. (E.) The spelling has been assimi-
lated to that of Bowl, a ball to play with; but the word is English.
ME. bolle, P. Plowman, B. v. 369; pl. bollen, Layamon, ii. 406. AS.
bolla, abowl; Grein, i. 132.4Icel. bolli, a bowl ; OHG, bolla, MHG.
bolle, a bowl. B. Teut. type *bullon-, for *bul-non-, m.; from *bul-,
weak grade of *beul-, to swell; cf. Goth. u/bauljan, to puff up.
Called bowl from its rounded shape. See Bolster.
BOWLDER;; see Boulder.
BOWLINE, nant. term. (E.)
BRACH
N.E. D. So called because it fastens the weather-edge of a square
sail to the ship’s bow; but the word is now usually wrongly pro-
nounced, and associated with bow (1). So also in the case of bow-
sprit. ME, boulyne, Rob. of Brunne, in notes to Layamon, iii. 395.
‘Hale the bowelyne!’ Pilgrim’s Sea Voyage, ed. Turnivall, 1. 25.
From bow (4) and line; cf. Norw. and Swed. boglina, bowline, from
bog, bow of a ship; Du. boeglijn, from boeg, bow of a ship. See
Bow (4) and Line.
BOW-WINDOW, a bowed window. (E.) At one time dis-
credited in literature, because it was often asserted to be an incorrect
form of bay-window, a word used by Shak. Yet it isa distinct word, and
not a mere corruption of it. (1) A bay-window is a window forming
a recess in the room ; see Bay (3). (2) A bow-window is a specific
kind of bay-window, viz. one of semi-circular form. The etymology
is from bow (2), a bend.
BOX (1), the name of a tree. (L.—Gk.) ME. box-tree, Chaucer,
C, T. 1304 (A 1302). AS. box, Cockayne’s Leechdoms, iii. 315.
(Not a native word.) —L. buxus, a box-tree. — Gk. migos, the box-tree.
See below.
BOX (2), a case to put things in, a chest. (L.—Gk.) ΜΕ. box,
Chaucer, C. T. 4392 (Α 4390). AS. box; Matt. xxvii. 7. (Not a native
word,)=L. buxum, anything made of box-wood; Late L. buxis, a
box.=—L. buxus, box-tree; trom Gk. πύξος (above); cf. Gk. mugis, a
case of box-wood. See Box (1). Thus box is closely allied to pyx,
q.v. @f Hence flow a great many meanings in English; such as (1)
achest; (2) abox atthe theatre ; (3) ἃ shooting-box ; (4) a Christmas
box ; (5) a seat in the front of a coach (with a box under it formerly) ;
&c. N.B. The orig. Christmas-box was an actual box of earthen-
ware, in which apprentices collected pence from customers at
Christmas; it was then broken to get at the contents; Brand, Pop.
Antiq. ed. Ellis, i. 494.
BOX (3). (L.—Gk.) In the phr. ‘ to box the compass,’ the word
is applied to going round the compass-box, naming all the points in
order, From Box (2).
BOX (4), to fight with fists; a blow. (E.) ‘ Box, or buffet;
alapa, Prompt. Parv. p. 46; ‘many a blody box ;’ Chaucer, Good
Women, 1388. The vb. is from the sb., which seems to have been
imitative of the sound ofa blow. Cf. Low (ἃ. baaks, a beating,
a blow; baaksenx, to strike. Also NFries. bakke, Silt bokke, a
blow (Outzen); MHG. buc, a blow; EFries. baken, biken, Du.
beuken, Low G. boken (Liibben), to beat ; WFlem. bokken, to hit
hard. [Du. and (Ὁ. boxen are from E.] Der. box-er.
BOY, a youngster. (E.) ME. boy, Havelok, 1899; sometimes
used in a derogatory sense, like knave. Not in AS.; but preserved
in East Friesic boi, boy, a boy; Koolman, p. 215. Cf. Du. boef, a
knave, a villain; MDu. boe/, a boy, youngling (Oudemans) ; Icel.
bof, aknave, a rogue.AMHG, buobe (G. bube); Bavarian bueb, bua,
bui, a boy. Cf. AS. Bdfa, a personal name ; Pomeran. bowe, a boy.
Der. boy-ish, boy-ish-ly, boy-ish-ness, boy-hood. 4 The Gael. boban, a
term of affection for a boy, bobug, a fellow, a boy, a term of affection
or familiarity, are words that have no relation here, but belong to
E. babe. See Babe.
BOYCOTT, to combine with others in refusing to have dealings
with a certain person. (E.) From the treatment accorded to Capt.
Boycott, of Lough Mask House, co. Mayo, Ireland, in Dec. 1880.
BRABBLE, to quarrel; a quarrel. (E.) Shak. has brabble,
a quarrel, Tw. Nt. v.68; and brabbler, a quarrelsome fellow, K. John,
y. 2.162. An imitative word, like babble, blab. Cf. Du. brabbelen,
to confound, to stammer; whence brabbelaar, a stammerer, brabbel-
taal, nonsensical discourse; brabbeling, stammering, confusion.
Compare Blab, and Babble. Der. brabbl-er.
BRACEH, that which holds firmly, a clasp, cramp; to hold firmly.
(F.—L.—Gk.) ‘A drum is ready brac’d;’ K. John, ν. 2. 169.
‘ Brace of a balke, uncus;’ Prompt. Parv.—OF. brace, brasse, fem.,
originally the twoarms (Bartsch) ; then a measure of five feet, formed
by the extended arms; see Godefroy and Cotgrave. = L. brachia, pl.
of brachinm, the arm; treated as a fem. sing.=Gk. βραχίων, the
arm, See below. Der. brace, vb., to tighten, orig. to hold fast ;
brace-let, em-brace.
BRACELET, an ornament for the wrist or arm. (F.—L.—Gk.)
‘Tspie a bracelet bounde about mine arme;’ Gascoigne, Dan Bartholo-
mewe’s Dolorous Discourses, 1. 237 (p. 117).—F. bracelet (Cot.) ;
dimin. of OF. bracel, an armlet (Godefroy). —L. brachiale, an armlet
(see Brachet, s.v. bracele/).—L. brachium, the arm.=—Gk. βραχίων,
thearm. Cf. Irish brac, W. braich, Bret. bréach, the arm; from L,
BRACH, a kind ofhunting-dog. (F.—G.) Shak. has brack, Lear,
ili. 6. 72, &c. ΜΕ. brache, Gawain and the Grene Knight, ed.
Morris, 1. 1142; shortened from AF. bracket (Supp. to Godefroy) ;
OF, braguet. Dimin. of OF. brac (acc. bracon ; see Littré), a hunting-
dog, hound.=OHG. bracco, ΜΗ. bracke (G. bracke), a dog who
Often wrongly defined; see | hunts by the scent. B. The origin of OHG, bracco is unknown ;
BRACK, BRACKISH
some take it to be from the root seen in L. fragrare, to emit an
odour; but this is only a guess. y. There isaremarkable similarity
in sound and sense to ME. rache, akind of dog; cf. Icel. rakki, a dog,
a lapdog ; MSwed. racka, a bitch, which can hardly be disconnected
from MSwed. racka, to run; but the resemblance seems to be acci-
dental.
BRACK, BRACKISH, somewhat salt, said of water. (Dutch.)
‘Water... so salt and brackish as no man can drink it;’ North’s
Plutarch, p. 471 (R.) ; cf. brackishness in the same work, p. 610.
Gawain Donglas (ed. Small, ii. 237) has brake = brackish, to translate
salsos, Eneid v. 237.— Du. brak, brackish, briny ; no doubt the same
word that Kilian spells brack, and explains as ‘fit to be thrown
away ;’ Oudemans, i. 802. According to Franck, it may well be
a later spelling of MDu. wrack ; Hexham has: ‘ wrack, or brack,
brack, or saltish ;” also “ wracke, shipwrack ;’ and cf. Du. wraken, to
reject, blame. = Du. wrak, orig. 2nd grade of wreken, to wreak, orig.
to drive. See Wreck, Wreak. [So also Du. wrang, sour, is
allied to wringen, to wring; Franck.) Der. brackish-ness.
BRACKEN, fern. (E.) ΜΕ. braken, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris,
B.1675. ‘A brakan, filix; a brakanbuske, filicarium;” Cath. Angl.
AS. braccan, pl.; Kemble, C.D. v. 277 ; Cockayne, Leechdoms, 111. 315.
Cf. Swed. dial. brakne (Rietz); Swed. britken, fern; Dan. bregne, fern.
Cf. also Icel. burkni, fern. Compare the shorter form brake, often
used as synonymous with fern; thus, in the Prompt. Parv. p. 47, we
have ‘ Brake, herbe, or ferme (sic; for ferne), Filix;’ also ‘Brakebushe,
or fernebrake, Filicetum, filicarium ;’ and see Way’s note. See also
Brake (2).
BRACKET, a kind of corbel, a support consisting of two pieces
of wood or iron joined at anangle; &c. (F.—Span.—C.) A technical
word. Earliest spelling bragget. Baret (1580) has: ‘a bragget orstaie
cut out of stone or timber. . to beare up the sommer [bearr | or other
part.’ Coles (1684) has: ‘ brackets, braggets, pieces supporting the
ship’s gallery.’ Minsheu (1627) has: ‘ bragget, a corbell.’ Cotgrave
has: ‘ Brague, a kind of mortaise, or joining of peeces together ;’ and
‘ Braguette,‘a cod-piece,’ i.e. the front part of a pair of breeches.
= Span. bragueta, the same; also, ‘a projecting mould in architecture.’
Cf. MF. bragues, breeches; Span. bragas, breeches; from the notion
of a fork.—L. brace, breeches; said ta be of Celtic origin. Cf. OF.
bracon, branch or fork of a tree, also a bracket, support, joist ; allied
to MItal. bragoni, ‘ great breeches ;’ Florio.
BRACKISH;; see Brack (above).
BRACT, a small leaf or scale on a flower-stalk. (L.) A modern
botanical term.—L. bractea, a thin plate or leaf of metal. Der.
bractea-l, immediately from the L. form.
BRAD, a thin, long nail. (Scand.) ME. brod, spelt brode in
Prompt. Parv. p. 53, where it is explained as ‘a hedlese nayle.’ = Icel.
broddr, a spike ; Swed. brodd, a frost-nail; Dan. brodde, a frost-nail.
+AS. brord, a spike or spire or blade of grass, which see in Bosworth;
and the second r in brord stands for an older z. Teut. type *brozdoz,
aspike. Further allied to O. Irish brot, Irish and Gael. brod, W. brath,
a sting. (Stokes-Fick, p. 173.) And see Broider.
BRAB, a steep bank, lit. ‘brow’ of a hill. (Scand.) ‘Ye banks
and braes 0’ bonie Doon;’ Burns, Songs. ‘Under ane bra;’ Barbour,
Bruce, iv. 372.—Icel. bra, f., an eye-lid; whence the sense ‘ brow,’
and brow of a hill.-OSax. brawa, braha, f., OHG. brawa, f., G.
augenbraue, eye-brow. Cf. also AS. bréw, bréaw, m., eye-lid;
MDu. branwen, eye-brows, brauwe, ‘the edge of any thing;’ Hexham.
Distinct from Brow (1), q.v.
BRAG, to boast; a boast. (Scand.) [The sb. braggart in Shak.
(Much Ado, ν. 1. 91, 189, &c.) =F. ‘ bragard, gay, gallant,... brag-
gard ;’ Cotgrave. But the older form is braggere, P. Plowman, A. vii.
142 (B. vi. 156), and the vb. to brag is to be regarded rather as
Scand. than French.]—MDan. brage, to crack, also to speak great
words (Kalkar); Norw. braka, to snap, also to prate, chatter (Ross) ;
Icel. braka, to creak. Cf. Jutland brag, a noise (Feilberg); AS.
gebrec, a crash, noise. From Tent. *brak-, 2nd stem of *brekan-, to
break; cf.L.frag-or,noise. Hence also MF. braguer, ‘to flaunt, brag;’
Cot. Soalso to crack is‘to boast;’ Jamieson’s Scot. Dict. SeeBreak
and Bray (2). Der.bragg-er, bragg-art, bragg-adocio (a word coined
by Spenser; see F. Q. ii. 3).
BRAGGET, a kind of mead. (Welsh.) ME. bragat, braget,
Chaucer, C. T. 3261.—W. bragot, a kind of mead; Corn. bregaud,
bragot, a liquor made of ale, honey, and spices; receipts for making
it are given in Wright’s Prov. E. Dict.; Irish braca/, malt liquor. β.
From W. brag, malt ; Gael. braich, malt, lit. fermented grain; Trish
braich, Oltish mraich, malt. See Stokes-Fick, p. 220. q The
Lowland Scottish bragwort is a corrupt form, due to an attempt to
explain the Welsh suffix -o?.
BRAHMIN, BRAHMAN, a person of the upper caste among
Hindoos. (Skt.) Spelt brachman in Ben Jonson, The Fortunate
Isles. But the word appears early in Middle English. ‘We were
BRAND 71
in Bragmanie bred,’ we were born in Brahman-land; Romance of
Alexander and Dindimus, 175. In the Latin original, the men are
called Bragmanni,i.e. Brahmans. The country is called ‘ Bramande;’
King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 5916.—Skt. brakman-, base of brahma,
m., a brahman, holy man; cf. also Skt. brahman-, base of brahma, n.,
I. a prayer; 2. the practice of austere devotion... . 7. the brahmanical
caste; 8. the divine cause and essence of the world, the unknown god.
BRAID (1), to weave, entwine. (E.) ME. breiden, braiden.
‘ Breyde lacys, necto, iorqueo;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 49. AS. bregdan,
brédan, to brandish, weave; Grein, i. 138.+Icel. bregda, to brandish,
turn about, change, braid, start, cease, &c.; EFries. breiden, to
knit; OHG, bretan, MHG. bretten, to draw, weave, braid. Teut.
type *bregdan-, pt.t. *bragd. Der. broided, q.v.
BRAID (2), full of deceit. (E.) In All’s Well, iv. 2. 73, braid
is used in the sense of braided, i.e. full of braids or tricks. From
ME. braid, trick, deceit; AS. bregd, deceit. From Tent. *bragd,
2nd grade of *bregdan- (above).
BRAIL, a kind of ligature. (F.—C.) ‘Hale in the brayles ;’
Reliq. Antiq. i. 2; 1. 33. A brail was a thong of leather to tie up
ahawk’swing. Used asa nautical term, brails are small ropes fastened
to the edges of sails, to assist in furling them. Borrowed from OF.
braiel, a cincture, orig.a cincture for fastening up breeches. = Late L.
bracale, a breech-girdle.—L. brace, breeches. See Breeches.
BRAIN, the convoluted mass of nervous substance within the skull.
(E.) ME. brayne, Prompt. Parv. p. 47; brain, Layamon, 1468. AS.
bregen, bregen (Bosworth). + Du. breim; OF ries. brein; Low G.
briigen. Some connect it with Gk. βρεχμός, βρέγμα, the upper part
of the head; see Prellwitz. Der. brain-pan, AS. bregenpanne, in
Napier’s Glosses ; brainless.
BRAISE, to stew in a closed pan. (F.—Scand.) First in 1797.
Properly, to stew with a charcoal fire above and below. =F. braiser ;
from braise, live cinders; see Breeze (3).
BRAKE (1), a machine for breaking hemp; a name for various
mechanical contrivances. (MDu.) ΜΕ, brake, explained by ‘pinsella,
vibra, rastellum;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 47, note 3. Cf. ‘bowes of brake,’
cross-bows worked with a winch, P. Plowman, C. xxi. 293. One of
the meanings is ‘a contrivance for confining refractory horses ;”’ con-
necting it at once with MDu. brake, a clog or fetter for the neck;
braecke, ‘a brake to beate flax,’ Hexham; braake, an instrument for
holding by the nose (Oudemans). Cf. Low G. brake, an instrument
for breaking flax; braken, to break flax; Bremen Worterbuch, i. 132.
Thus the word is MDu., from which source also comes the F.
‘ braquer, to brake hempe ;” Cotgrave. Comparison of Du. braak, a
breach, breaking, with Du. vlasbraak, a flax-brake, shows that braken,
to break flax, is from brak, 2nd grade of Du. breken, to break.
See Break.
BRAKE (2), a bush, thicket; esp. of fern. (E.) Shak. has ‘haw-
thom-brake;’ M. Nt. Dr. iii. 1.4, and 77.‘ Brakebushe or fernebrake,
filicetum ;’ Prompt. Parv. AS. brac (1), f. (?); we find fearnbraca, acc.
pl. (?), in Birch, Cart. Saxon. ii. 295. Cf. EFries. brik, thick bush,
underwood. 4 Low G. ‘ Brake, weidenbusch’ = willow-bush, in the
Bremen Worterbuch, i. 131. The notion seems to be allied to that
of ‘ broken’ ground, with the over-growth that springs from it. Cf.
OHG. bracha, MHG. brache, land broken up, but unsown. It may
then be referred to the prolific 4/BHREG, to break. See Break,
Brook. See also Bracken.
BRAMBLB, a rough prickly shrub. (E.) ME. brembil, Wyclif,
Ecclus. xliii. 21. AS. brémel, brembel; Gloss. to Cockayne’s Leech-
doms, vol. iii. The second ὦ is excrescent, and the vowel has been
shortened. Tent. type *br#miloz, m., dimin, of Teut. type *brémoz,
m., whence mod. E. broom. Cf. Du. braam, a blackberry; braambosch,
a bramble-bush; Swed. brom-bir, a blackberry ; Dan. bramber, a
blackberry ; G. brombeere, a blackberry; brombeerstrauch, a bramble-
bush. Here G. bram- answers to OHG. brama, f., a bramble; Tent.
type *br#émon-; closely allied to the type above. And see Broom.
BRAN, the husk of a grain of wheat. (F.—C.) ME. bran,
Wright’s Vocab. i. 201; brenx, Chaucer, C. T., A 4053.—OF. bran,
bren. — Bret. brenn, bran. Soin Thurneysen; and Stokes-Fick, p. 172;
cf. MItal. brenna, ‘branne,’ Florio; also Norm. dial. bran, bran
(Duméril).. 4] W. bran, Irish bran, are from E.; but the Bret. word
may be of true Celtic origin.
BRANCH, a bough of a tree. (F.—Late L.) ME. branche, Rob.
of Glouc., p. 193, 1. 3985.—F. branche, a branch. Late L. branca,
the claw ofa bird or paw ofa beast of prey. δ] See Diez, who suggests
that the Late L. branca is probably a very old word in vulgar Latin,
as shown by the Ital. derivatives brancare, to grip, brancicare, to
grope; and by the Wallachian form brdncd, a forefoot; cf. also
MSpan. branca, a paw (Minsheu) ; OProv. branca, a branch; Walloon
branke, a branch. Der. branch, vb., branch-let, branch-y, branch-less.
BRAND, a burning piece of wood; 2 mark made by fire; a sword.
(E.) ME. brond, burning wood, Chaucer, C. T., A 2338; a sword,
72 BRAND-
Will. of Palerne, 1. 1244. AS. brand, brond,a burning, a sword; Grein,
i. 135.4-Icel. brandr, a fire-brand, a sword-blade (from its flashing) ;
Du. brand, a burning, fuel (cf. MDu. brand, a sword; Oudemans) ;
Swed. and Dan. brand, a fire-brand, fire; OHG. brant, a brand, asword.
[The sense is (1) a burning; (2) a fire-brand; (3) a sword-blade, from
its brightness.] B. From Teut. *brann, 2nd grade of *brennan-, to
burn. See Burn.
BRAND- or BRANT-, asa prefix. (Scand.) Inbrant-fox, a
kind of Swedish fox, for which the Swedish name is brandraf. Also in
brentgoose or brandgoose, Swed. brandgds. The names were probably
at first conferred from some notion of redness or brownness, or the
colour of burnt wood, &c. The word seems to be the same as
Brand, q. ν. B. The redstart (i.e. red-tail) is sometimes called the
brantail, i.e. the burnt tail; where the colour meant is of course red.
y- The prefix is probably of Scandinavian origin. See Brindled.
BRANDISH, to shake a sword, &c. (F.—Scand.) In Shak.
Macb. i. 2.17; ἄς. ME. braundisen, to brandish a sword; Will. of
Palerne, 3294, 2322.— I. brandir (pres. pt. brandissant), to cast or
hurl with violence, to shake, to brandish; Cot. AF. brand, a sword,
properly a Norman F. form; it occurs in Vie de St. Auban, ed. At-
kinson, Il. 1234, 1303, 1499, 1828. Of Scandinavian origin; from
Icel. brandr; see Brand. B. The more usual OF. brant answers to
the OHG. form.
BRANDY, an ardent spirit. (Dutch.) Formerly called brandy-
wine, brand-wine, from the former of which brandy was formed by
dropping the last syllable. Brand-wine occurs in Beaum. and fletcher,
Beggar's Bush, 111. 1. — Du. brandewijn, brandy ; lit. burnt wine ; some-
times written brandiwijn.— Du. brandt, gebrandt (full form gebrandet),
burnt; and wijz, wine. B. The Dutch branden, lit. to burn, also
means to distil, whence Du. brander, a distiller, branderij, a distillery ;
hence the sense is really ‘distilled wine,’ brandy having been originally
obtained from wine by distillation.
BRAWKS, an iron instrument used for the punishment of scolds,
fastened in the mouth. (E.) Described in Jamieson’s Dict.; hence the
Lowland Sc. brank means to bridle, restrain. From the E. branks
were borrowed Gael. brangus, brangas (formerly spelt brancas), an
instrument used for punishing petty offenders, a sort of pillory ; Gael.
brang, a horse’s halter; Irish brancas,a halter. The form brank is
probably due to a Celtic pron. of the E. word, of which the original
form must have been prang (pl. prangs) ; whence both mod. E. prong
and mod. Εἰ. pang, which see.+4-Du. pranger, pinchers, barnacle, iron
collar; G. pranger, a pillory. B. The root appears in Du. prangen,
to pinch; cf. Goth. axa-praggan, to harass, worry (with gg sounded
asng). 4 For the Gaelic br<E. pr in some cases, cf. Gael. brodail,
proud, from E. proud (Macbain) ; and see Brass.
BRAN-NEW, new from the fire. (E.) A corruption of brand-
new, which occurs in Ross’s Helenore, in Jamieson and Richardson.
The variation brent-new occurs in Burns’s Tam O’Shanter: ‘ Nae co-
tillon brent-new frae France.’ Kilian gives Mid. Dutch brandnieuw,
and we still find Du. vorkelnienw, lit. spark-new, from vonkel, a spark
of fire. ‘The brand is the fire, and trand-new, equivalent to fire-new
(Shak.), is that which is fresh and bright, as being newly come from
the forge and fire ;’ Trench, English Past and Present, Lect. viii. See
Brand.
BRANT,., prefix; see Brand-.
BRASIER, BRAZIER, a pan.to hold coals. (F.—Scand.)
The former spelling is better; see Johnson's Dict. [Evidently formed
from F. braise, live coals, embers. Cotgrave gives braisier, but only
in the same sense as mod. F. braise.|—¥. braisier, a vessel for receiv-
ing braise when quenched (Littré). = Εἰ braise, live coals. = Swed. brasa,
fire; Norw. bras, flame. See Brass and Braze (1).
BRASS, a mixed metal. (E.) ME. bras (L. es), Prompt. Parv.
p- 47; Chaucer, Prol. 366. AS. bres, A&lfric’s Grammar, ed. Zupitza,
p- 15--+Icel. bras, solder (cited by Wedgwood, but not in Cleasby and
Vigfusson’s Dictionary). Cf. Gael. priis, brass, pot-metal ; Irish pras,
brass ;, W. pres, brass; all borrowed words. Perhaps allied to Icel.
brasa,.to harden by fize; Swed. brasa, to flame; Dan. brase, to fry;
Norw. brasa, to flame, also to solder. Cf. Swed. brasa, fire. Der.
brass-y, braz-en (ME. brasen, P, Plowman, C. xxi. 293 = AS. bresen,
“ἘΠΕ. Gram., as above), braz-ier; also braze (2), verb, q.v.; and cf.
brasier (above).
BRASSART, the piece of armour on the upper part of the arm.
(F.—L.—Gk.) Also brassard. -α Ἐς brassart (Cot.); brassard (Littré) ;
also brassal (Cot.). Formed with suffix -ard (-art) from F. bras, arm.
= L. brachium, arm.—Gk. βραχίων, arm.
BRAT (1), a cloak, rough mantle. (C.) Usually a rag, clout, also,
a-child’s apron or pinafore. Chaucer has brat for a coarse cloak, a
ragged mantle, C. Τὶ 16349 (ed. Tyrwhitt); some MSS. have bak,
meaning a cloth to cover the back, as in P. Plowman.— Gael. brat, a
mantle, cloak, apron, rag; brat-spelidh, a swaddling-cloth; Irish brat,
acloak, mantle, veil; bratog, a rag; Olrish brat, a rough cloak; cf.
BRAZE
W. brethyn, woollen cloth. (W. brat is from E.) See Stokes-Fick,
p- 182. @ The O. Northumbrian bratt, a cloak, a gloss to pallium
in Matt. v. 49, was borrowed from the Celtic.
BRAT (2), a child; esp. ‘a beggar’s brat.’ (C.2) In Shak. Com.
Errors, iv. 4. 39. Perhaps ‘a rag;’ and the same as Brat (1).
BRATTICE, a fence of boards in a mine. (F.—Teut.?) ME.
bretage, bretasce, brutaske (with numerous other spellings), a parapet,
battlement, outwork, &c.; Rob. of Glouc., p. 536; 1. 11095. ‘Betrax,
bretasce, bretays of a walle, propugnaculum ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. .50.<
OF. bretesche, a small wooden outwork, &c.; Proy. bertresca, Ital.
bertesca. A difficult word; prob, formed from G, brett, a plank.
Korting, § 1564. See Board (1).
BRAVADO, a vain boast. (Span.) It occurs in Burton, Anat. of
Melancholy, To the Reader; ed. 1845, p.35 (see Todd). An E.-sub-
stitution for bravada, —Span, bravada, a bravado, boast, vain ostenta-
tion, «Span. bravo, brave, valiant ; also, fierce ; cognate with F. brave.
See Brave. : :
BRAVE, showy, valiant. (F.—Ital.) Shak. has brave, valiant,
splendid ; brave, vb., to defy, make fine; brave, sb., defiance ; bravery,
display of valour, finery; see Schmidt’s Shak. Lexicon. =F. ‘ brave,
brave, gay, fine, .. proud, braggard, .. . valiant, hardy, &c.; Cot.
— Ital. bravo, brave, fine, also a boaster (Florio). Cf. Span, and Port.
bravo; Proy. brax. Of unknown origin; for unsatisfactory sugges-
tions, see Korting, § 1226. The Lowland Scottish form is braw.
Der. brav-ery ; also bravo, bravado, which see below and above,
BRAVO, a daring villain, a bandit. (Ital.) ‘No: bravoes
here profess the bloody trade ;’ Gay, Trivia, bk. iii. 1. 151.— Ital.
bravo, brave, valiant; as a sb., a cut-throat, villain; whence also the
F. brave. See Brave. B. The word bravo! well done! is the same
word, used in the vocative case.
BRAV'L (1), to quarrel, roar, (E.?).. ME. braw/e, to quarrel.
‘ Brawler., litigator ; brawlyn, litigo, jurgo;’ Prompt. Parv, p. 48.
Braulyng, P. Plowman, B. xv. 233. Apparently a native word, of
imitative origin; cf. prov. G, (Kurhessen) brallen, to cry out lustily ;
Du. brallen, to brag, boast; Dan. bralle, to jabber, chatter; G. prahlen,
to boast, brag, bluster; EFries. pralex, to talk loudly, boast ; NFries.
prale (the same). Even G, briillen, to roar, bellow, is of a similar
character. Der. brawl-er, brawl-ing.
BRAWL (2), a sort of dance. (f.—Scand.) In Shak. Love's La.
Lo. iii. 9, we have a French brawl.’ Sir T. Elyot mentions ‘the
braule;’ The Governour, bk. i. c. 22. § 43 see the dance described
in the note in Croft’s ed., i. 242. It is a corruption of the Εἰ branle,
MF. bransle, explained by Cot. as ‘a totter, swing, shake, shocke,
&c.; also a brawle or daunce, wherein many men and women, hold-
ing by the hands, sometimes in a ring, and otherwhiles at length, move
all together. =F. bransler, to totter, shake, reel, stagger, waver,
tremble (Cot.); now spelt branler. Contracted from GF. brandeler, to
shake, agitate; and Cotgrave gives brandiller, to wag, shake, swing,
totter; as well as brandif, brandishing, shaking, flourishing, lively.
All from OF. brandir, to totter, tremble (Godefroy); a neuter use of
brandir, to shake, brandish. Korting, ὃ 1545. See Brandish.
BRAWN, muscle ; boar’s flesh. (F.-OHG.) ME. braun, muscle,
Chaucer, Prol. 546; braun, boar’s flesh, P. Plowman, Β. xiii. 63, 91.
— OF. braon, a slice of flesh (Provencal bradon). —OHG. brato, prato,
braton, acc. of MHG, braze, a piece of flesh (for roasting), —-OHG.,
praian (G. braten), to roast, broil.4-AS. brédan, to roast. Teut.
root *br#d-. @ The restriction of the word to the flesh of the
boar is accidental; the original sense is merely ‘muscle,’ as seen:in
the derived adj. Der. brawn-y, muscular; Shak. Venus, 625. Cf.
Breath.
BRAY (1), to bruise, pound, (F.—Teut.) ME. brayen, brayin;
“brayyn, or stampyn in a mortere, ¢ero;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 47, =OF,
breier (1°. broyer); Roquefort.—OSax. brekan, to break; cognate with
AS. brecan, to break. See Break,
BRAY (2), to make a loud noise, as an ass. (F.—C.) ΜΕ. brayen,
brayin; ‘brayyn in sownde, barrio;’ Prompt. Pary, p. 47... Palsgrave
has: ‘I braye as deere doth, or any other beest, Ze brays.’—OF.
brare. — Low L. bragire, to bray, bragdare, to cry as a child, squall.
From a Celtic root; cf. Gael. bragh, a burst, explosion ; cognate with
L. frag-or, noise, crash; and thus related to L.frangere and E. break
(Thurneysen, p. 92). See Break.
BRAZE (1), to harden, (F.—Scand.) Shak. has brazed, hard-
ened, Hamlet, ili. 4.37; Leat, i. 1.11. Generally explained to mean
‘hardened like brass;’ but it may mean simply ‘hardened.’ Cotgrave
says that ‘ braser l'argent’ is to re-pass silver a little over hot embers
(sur la braise).— OF. braser, to burn, pass through fire (Godefroy) ;
IF. braser, to solder; Roquefort has; ‘ Braser, souder le fer.’ = Icel.
brasa, to harden by fire; Norw. brasa, to solder; Dan. brase, to
fry; Jutland brase, to roast. See Brass, and see below.
BRAZE (2), to ornament with brass. (E.) Used by Chapman,
Homer’s Odys. xv. 113. In this sense, the verb is a mere derivative
BREACH
of the sb. brass. We find: ‘aero, ic brasige;’ /Elfric’s Gr., ed.
Zupitza, p. 215, 1. 17.
BREACH, a fracture. (E.) ME. oreche, a fracture, Gower, C. A.
ii. 138; bk. v. 332. AS. brece, which appears in the compound hla/-
gebrece, a fragment of a loaf, bit of bread; Grein, ii. 80. The more
usual form is AS. brice= bryce, breaking; in the phr. ‘on hlafes brice,’
in the breaking of bread, Luke xxiv. 35; where bryce represents a
Teut. type *brukiz, from the weak grade of *brekan-, to break (AS.
brecan). Cf.OFries. breke,a breaking (a common word); EFries. brek,
a breaking: 41 ME. breche is also partly from OF. breche (I. bréche),
a fracture. —G. brechen, to break. See Break.
‘BREAD, food made from grain. (E.) ME. breed, bred, Chaucer,
Prol. 343. AS. bréad, Grein, i. 140.4+Du. brood; Icel. braud; Swed.
and Dan. bréd; OHG. prot (Ὁ. brod). B. Not found in Gothic. The
orig. name for ‘bread’ was-loaf (AS. hlaf) ; the sense of bread was
orig. ‘a fragment,’ bit, or broken piece; cf. ONorthumb. bréad, a
bit, morsel, John xiii. 27; pl. bréadru, ‘ frusta panis,’ in the Blickling
Glosses. Tent. type *braudos, neut. (-os-stem). Cf. L. fru-s-tum,
a fragment.
BREADTH, wideness. (E.) Thisisamodern form. It occurs in
Lord Berners’ tr. of Froissart, spelt bredethe, vol. i. c. 131 (R.). B. In
older authors the form is brede, as in Chaucer, C. T. 1972 (A 1970).
AS. brédu; Grein,i.137. y. Other languages agree with the old, not
with the modern form; cf. Goth. braider, Icel. breidd, G. breite ; all
from Teut. *braidoz, broad. The Dutch is breedte. See Broad.
BREAK, to fracture, snap. (E.) ME. breke, Chaucer, Prol. 551.
AS. brecan; Grein, i. 137.-4+Du. breken; Goth. brikan; OHG. prechan
(G. brechen).+L. frangere, to break. Tent. type *brekan-, strong vb.;
pt. τι *brak, pp. *brokanoz. From the 2nd grade we have Icel.
braka, to creak ; Swed. braka, to crack. Idg. 4/BHREG, to break
with a noise. [ The original sense is ‘to break with a snap; Pick
L. fragor, a crash; Gael. bragh, a burst, explosion. Der. breach,
q.v. ; break-age, break-er, break-fast, break-water, brake (1).
BREAM, a fish. (F.—OHG.) ME. breem, Chaucer, Prol. 350.—
OF. bresme (Ἐς bréme).—MHG. brahsem, G. brassen, a bream (Kluge).
Ἔα. brasem,a bream. Perhaps related to MHG. breh-en, to glitter.
4 E. brasse, a kind of perch, is not from Du. or Low G., but from
AS. bers; see Bass (2).
BREAST, the upper part of the front of the body. (E.) ME. brest,
Chaucer, Prol. 115. AS. bréost; Grein, i. 141.-4Icel. brjdst; Swed.
brost; Dan. bryst; Tent. type *breustom, τι. Goth. brusts, pl. ; G. brust;
Du. borst; Teut. stem *brust- (with weak grade). Origin unknown.
Der. breast, verb ; breast-plate, breast-work; bressomer.
BREATH, air respired. (E.) ME. breeth, breth; dat. case breethe,
brethe, Chaucer, Prol. 5. AS. br#d, breath, odour; Genesis, vili. 21.
OHG. pradam; G. brodem, broden, brodel, steam, vapour, exhalation;
Fliigel’s G. Dict. Breath may have been likened to steam; prob.
from the Teut. root *br#-, to heat; see Brawn and Brood. Further
relations uncertain. Der. breathe, breath-less.
BREECH, the hinder part of the body. (E.) ME. brech, breech,
properly the breeches or breeks, or covering of the breech; in
Chaucer, C. T. 12882 (C 948), the word breeck means the breeches,
not the breech. Thus the present word is a mere development of
AS. bréc, the breeches, pl. of brdc. Phillips (1658) notes: ‘ Breetch
(a term in Gunnery) the aftermost part of a gun.’ -See Breeches.
BREECHES, BREEKS, a garment for the thighs. (E.)
ME. ‘breche, or breke, braccz, plur.;’ Prompt. Parv. Ὁ. 48; and see
Way’s note. Breeches is a double plural, the form breek being itself
plural; as feet from foot, so is breek from brook. AS. brdc, sing., brée,
plural (Bosworth).4Du. broek, a pair of breeches; Icel. brak, pl.
brekr, breeches; MHG. bruock, breeches. ΑἹ] from a Teut. base
*brok- (pl. *brokiz). Cf. L. brace, clothing for the legs, said to be of
Celtic origin; prob. from Celtic *brag-n-, and cognate with the Teut.
form. See Brogues.
BREED, to produce, engender. (E.) ΜΕ. breden, P. Plowman,
B. xi. 339. AS. brédan, to nourish, cherish, keep warm (= L. fouére),
in a gloss; Voc. 403. 39. /Elfric, Hom. 1i. 10, has: ‘hi brédad heora
bréd, they nourish their brood.—AS. bréd, a brood (with mutation
of 6 to 2). Du. broeden, to hatch, from broed, a brood; G. briiten,
to hatch, from bru/,a brood. See Brood. Der. breed-er, breed-ing.
BREEZE (1), a gadfly. (E.) Well known in Shak. Troil. i. 3. 48;
Ant. and Cleop. iii. 10.14. Cotgrave has : ‘ Oestre Iunonique, a gad-
bee, horse-fly, dun-fly, brimsey, brizze.’ ME. brese; Prompt. Parv.
p- 49. AS. briosa; Voc. 7. 20; 49.42. 41 The form brimsey is a dis-
tinct word; from: Norw. brims, Dan. brems, a gadfly; cf. MDu.
bremme, bremse, G. bremse, OHG. bremo; all from Teut. *brem-, as
‘in OHG. breman- (pt. τ. bram), to hum, cognate with L. fremere, to
murmur.+Skt. bhramara-s, 2 large black bee; from Skt. bhram, to
whirl, applied originally to ‘the flying about and humming of insects;’
Benfey, p. 670. See Fick, i. 702.
BREEZE (2), a strong wind. (F.) Brachet says that the F. brese,
BRIDAL 73
a breeze, was introduced into French from English towards the end
of the 17th century. This can hardly be the case. The quotations
in N.E.D. show that the E. word was at first spelt brize or brise, as in
Hakluyt’s Voyages, iii, 661; and in Sir F. Drake’s The Worlde
Encompassed. The earliest is ab. 1565, in Arber’s Eng. Garner, v.
121: ‘the brise.. which is the north-east wind.’ This shows that
the E. word was borrowed from French, since brize is a French spell-
ing. B. Again, Cotgrave notes that brize is used by Rabelais (died
1553) instead of bise or bize, sigmifying the north wind.4-Span. brisa,
the N. E. wind; Port. briza, the N.E. wind; Ital. brezza, a cold wind,
Remoter origin unknown. Der. breez-y.
BREEZE (3), cinders. (F.—Scand.) Breeze is a name given, in
London, to ashes and cinders used instead of coal for brick-burning.
In Ash’s Dict. 1775. Also spelt braize (N.E.D.).—MF, breze (Cot.) ;
F. braise, live cinders. —Swed. brasa, fire; see Brasier.
BRENT-GOOSE, the same as BRANT-GOOSE;
Brand-.
BRESSOMER, for BREAST-SUMMER, a ‘summer’ or
beam extending horizontally over a wide opening, to support a wall
above. (Hybrid; E, and F.—Late L.—Gk.) Cotgrave has: ‘ Contre-
frontail, the brow-piece, or upmost post of a door; a haunse, or breast-
summer. See Breast.and Summer (2).
BREVE, a short note, in music. (F.—L.) [Asa fact, it is now
a long note; and, the old long note being now disused, has become
the longest note now used.] Formerly also brief; Florio has: ‘breve,
a briefe in musike. —MF. brief (F. bref), brief, short.—L. breuts,
short. Breve is a doublet of brief, q.v. Der. From the L. breuis
we also have brev-er, lit. a short document, which passed into English
from F, brevet, which Cotgrave explains by ‘a briefe, note, breviate,
little writing,’ ὅς. Also brev-i-ar-y, brev-i-er, brev-i-ly ; semt-breve.
See Brief.
BREW, to concoct. (E.) ME. brew, pt. t., P. Plowman, B. v. 219 ;
brewe, infin., Seven Sages, ed. Wright, 1. 1490. AS. bréowan; of
which the pp. gebrowen occurs in Alfred's Orosius, ed. Sweet, p. 20,
1. 19.4-Du. brouwen; OHG. brinwan (G. brauen); Icel. brugga;
Swed. brygga; Dan. brygge. [Cf. L. défrutum, new wine fermented
or boiled down; Thracian βρῦτον, a kind of beer.}—4/BHREU, to
decoct. Brugm. i. §§ 373, 727. Der. brew-er, brew-house, brew-er-y.
BREWIS, BROWIS, pottage; see Brose.
BRIAR, BRIER, a prickly shrub. (E.) ME. brere, Chaucer, C. T.
9699 (E1825). OMerc. brér, Grein, i. 140; AS. brembel-brer, Voc.
269. 38. 4] ME. brere has become briar just as ME. frere has become
friar. Der. briar-y.
BRIAR-ROOT, for pipes. (Hybrid; F.and E.) The root is that
of the white heath; and briar is here a popular corruption of F.
bruyére, heath. See N.E.D.
BRIBE, an undue present, for corrupt purposes. (F.) ME. bribe,
brybe ; Chaucer. C. T. 6960 (D 1378).— OF. bribe, a present, gift, but
esp. a peece, lumpe, or cantill of bread, given unto a begger;’ Cot.
(Cf. bribours, i.e. vagabonds, rascals, spoilers of the dead, P. Plow-
man, C. xxiii. 263.] Allied to OF. briber, to beg; Span. briba, idle-
ness, bribar, to loiter about; Ital. birba, fraud ; b:rbante, a vagabond.
Origin unknown ; not Celtic (Thurneysen). Der. bribe, verb; brib-er,
brib-er-y.
BRICK, a lump of baked clay. (F.—O. Low G.) In Fabyan’s
Chron. Edw. IV, an. 1476-7; and in the Bible of 1551, Exod. cap. v.
Spelt brigue, Nicoll’s Thucydides, p. 64 (R.).— F. brigue, a brick ; also
a fragment, a bit, as in prov. F. brique de pain, a bit of bread (Brachet).
=MDnu. brick, bricke, a bit, fragment, piece; whence also Walloon
briquet, a large slice of bread. = Du. breken, to break, cognate with E,
break. See Break. Der. brick-bat, q. v.; brick-kiln, brick-lay-er.
BRICKBAT, a piece of a broken brick, (F.and E.) Used by
Bacon; see Todd’s Johnson, From brick and bat. Here bat is a
rough lump; it is merely the ordinary word bat peculiarly used.
See Bat. Σ
BRIDE, a woman newly married. (E.) ME. bride, bryde, Prompt.
Parv. p. 50. Older spelling, brude; Layamon, 1. 294. AS. bryd;
Grein, i. 147.4 Du. braid; Icel. bridr; Swed. and Dan. brud; Goth.
bruths; OHG. prit (G. braut). Teutonic type *bridiz, f. Perhaps
from an Idg. type *mri-ti-, bespoken, promised; cf. Zend. mraomi,
Skt. bravimi, I speak; Uhlenbeck,s.v. bruchs; Brugm. i. §§ 387, 401;
and cf. Celtic root *mri, I say; Stokes-Fick, p. 221. Der. brid-al,
.v., bride-groom, ἢ. V.
BRIDAL, a wedding; lit.a bride-ale, or bride-feast. (E.) ME.
bridale, bruydale, P. Plowman, B. ii. 43; bridale, Ormulum, 14003.
Composed of bride and ale; the latter being a common name for a
feast. (There were leet-ales, scot-ales, church-ales, clerk-ales, bid-ales,
and bride-ales. See Brand’s Pop. Antiquities.) The comp. bryd-ealo
occurs in the A.S. Chron. (MS. D.), under the date 1076. 41 It is
spelt bride-ale in Ben Jonson, Silent Woman, ii. 4; but bridall in
Shak, Oth. ili. 4.151. See Bride and Ale,
see
74 BRIDEGROOM
BRIDEGROOM, a man newly married. (E.) Tyndal has
bridegrome ; John, iii. 29. But the form is corrupt, due to confusion
of grome, a groom, with gome, a man. In older authors, the spelling
is without the r; we find bredgome in the Ayenbite of Inwyt, ed.
Morris, p. 233, written A.D.1340; so that the change took place be-
tween that time and A.D. 1525. AS. bryd-guma; Grein, i. 147.44Du.
bruidegom; Icel. brid gumi; Swed. brudgum; Dan. brudgom; OHG.
briitigomo (G. brautigam). B. The latter part of the word appears
also in Goth. guma, a man, cognate with L. homo, a man. See Bride,
Homage.
BRIDGS#, a structure built across a river. (E.) ME. brigge,
Chaucer, C. T. 3920 (A 3922); brig, Minot’s Poems, vii. 78; brugge,
Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 1187; brugg, Rob. of Glouc, p. 401
(1.8285). AS. brycg, bricg (acc. bricge) ; τοίη, i. 145 ;+I cel. bryggja,
Swed. brygga, Dan. brygge, a pier; Du. brug; OHG. prucca, G.
briické. Teut. type *brugja, fem. Further allied to Icel. bri, a bridge;
Dan. bro, a bridge, pavement ; MSwed. bro, a bridge, a paved way.
Perhaps allied to Russ. brevno, a beam, joist. Stokes-Fick, p. 184.
BRIDLE, a restraint for horses. (E.) ME. bridel, Ancren Riwle,
p. 74. AS. bridel, Grein, i. 142; for an earlier *brigdel; cf. AS.
brigdils, a bridle, O. E. Texts, p. 44, 1.127. The stem is *bregd-tl-s-,
from bregd-an, to pull, to twitch; see Braid. Parallel to G. ziig-el,
from zieh-en, to draw.4+Du..breidel; OHG. priddel, bridel, brittil ;
ΜΗ. britel; the F. bride being borrowed from this MHG. bridel.
“1 Similarly, the OHG. brittil is from OHG. brettan, cognate with
AS. bregdan, to puli, weave, braid.
BRIEF (1), short. (F.—L.) Spelt briefin Barnes’ Works, p. 347,
col. 1, last line. In older English we find bref, breef, P. Plowman,
Ὁ. xxii. 327; with the dimin. brewet (brevet), sb., P. Plowman, C. i.
72.—OF. brief (so spelt in Cotgrave); mod. F. bref.—L. breuis, short.
+Gk. βραχύς. short. Der. briefly. And see below.
BRIEF (2), a letter, &c. (F.—L.) Cotgrave has: ‘ Brief, m.
a’writ, or brief; a short mandamus, injunction, commission, &c.’
From the adj. above. Der. brie/-/ess.
BRIER;; see Briar.
BRIG, «ship. See Brigantine.
BRIGADE, a body of troops. (F.—Ital.) Milton has brigads,
P. L. ii. 532.—F. ‘ brigade, a troop, crue, or company ;’ Cot. = Ital.
brigata, a troop, band, company.=Ital. brigare, to quarrel, fight.
See Brigand. Der. brigad-ier.
BRIGAND, a robber, pirate. (F.—Ital.) ME. bregaund, Morte
Arthure, 2096. Borrowed from F. brigand, an armed foot-soldier,
which see in Cotgrave; who also gives ‘ Brigander, to rob;’ and
‘Brigandage, a robbing, theeverie.’—Ital. brigante, a busybody,
intriguer ; and, in a bad sense, a robber, pirate. = Ital. brigante, pres.
part. of the verb brigare, to strive after.— Ital. briga, strife, quarrel,
trouble, business; which see in Diez. “Ἴ No connexion with W.
brigant, a highlander, from brig, a hill-top. Der. brigand-age ; and
see below.
BRIGANDINE, a kind of armour. (F.—Ital.) Brigandine,
a kind of coat of mail, occurs in Jerem.xlvi. 4, li. 3, A.V.; see Wright’s
Bible Word-book. =F. brigandine, ‘a fashion of ancient armour, con-
sisting of many jointed and skale-like plates;’ Cot. So called be-
cause worn by brigands or robbers; see Brigand. | The Ital.
form is brigantina, a coat of mail.
BRIGANTINE, BRIG, a two-masted ship. (F.—Ital.) Brig
is merely short for brigantine. Cotgrave has the latter, to translate
the F. brigantin, which he describes, = F. brigantin. Ital. brigantino,
a pirate-ship. —Ital. brigante, an industrious, intriguing man; also,
a robber, brigand. See Brigand.
BRIGHT, clear, shining. (E.) ME. bright, Chaucer, C. T. 1064
(A 1062). AS. berht, beorht (in common use).FOS. berht, beraht
(Heliand) ; Goth, bairhts ; Icel. bjartr ; OHG, péraht, MHG. berht,
shining. Teut. type *berh-toz, shining. Cf. W. berth, fair; Gk. φορκ-ός,
white; Skt. bhargas, light. Der. bright-ly, bright-ness, bright-en,
BRILL, a fish ; Rhombus vulgaris. (E.) Spelt prylle and brell in
1481-90 (N.E.D.). Of unknown origin; but Kalkar, in his M. Dan.
Dict., s.v. butte, cites the G. pl. pfellen or pfrillen, showing that the
Low G. form was prob. prille. Cf. Bavar. pfrille, a very small fish
(Schmeller). Other E. forms were pearl, perl. Kalkar gives prille-
mad, dainty meat, allied to prille, to poke, apparently with reference
to its firmness; cf. Low (ἃ. prall, firm and fleshy, as e.g., a man’s
calf. The prill may have been named from the firmness of the flesh.
4 Quite distinct from the Cornish brilli, mackerel; where bril- stands
for brithel, a mackerel, formed by the dimin. suffix - οἰ from Corn.
brith, streaked, variegated, pied, speckled. [So in Irish and Gaelic,
breac means both ‘spotted’ and ‘a trout;’ and in Manx, brack means
both ‘trout’ and ‘ mackerel.’]
BRILLIANT, shining. (F.—L.—Gk.—Skt.) Not in early use.
Dryden has brilliant, sb., meaning ‘a gem;’ Character of a Good
Parson, last line but one. =F. brillant, glittering, pres. pt. of briller,
BRITTLE
to glitter, sparkle.—Late L. *beryllare (an unauthorised form), to
sparkle like a precious stone or beryl (Brachet). —Late L. berillus,
beryllus, a gem, an eye-glass; see Diefenbach, Glossarium Latino-
Germanicum ; cf. berillus, an eye-glass, brillum, an eye-glass, in Du-
cange. J This etymology is rendered certain by the fact that the
Ὁ. brille, spectacles, is clearly a corruption of berydlus, a beryl; see
Max Miiller, Lectures on the Science of Language, ii. 583; 8th ed.
1875. See Beryl.
BRIM, edge, margin. (E.) ME. brim, brym, brimme, margin of
a river, lake, or sea; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, A. rort, B. 365. AS.
brymme (for *brimme?), a brim, border, margin. [The AS. brim,
surf, sea, is prob. a different word.) Allied to Swed. bram, border,
edge; MDan. breamme, bremme (Kalkar); Dan. brem; MDu. breme;
G. gebrame, border, verbraimen, to border. Cf. Icel. barmr, brim. Per-
haps related to Barm (2). Cf. Brink. Der. brim-ful, brimm-er.
BRIMSTONE, sulphur. (E.) Lit. ‘burn-stone.’ ME, brimston,
brymston; bremstoon, brimstoon, Chaucer, Prol. 631 (A 629); also bren-
stoon, Wyclif, Gen. xix. 24; Deut. xxix. 23; cf. Icel. brennisteinn,
brimstone. — ME. bren-, burning (from the vb. brennen, to burn); and
stoon,a stone. B. So also the Icel. brennisteinn is from Icel. brenna, to
burn, and steinn, a stone. See Burn and Stone.
BRINDLED, BRINDED, streaked, spotted. (Scand.) Shak.
has ‘brinded cat;’ Mach. iv. 1. 1; brindled being an extended quasi-
diminutive form. ME. érended; as in ‘a grete brended flye,’ in the
Book of St. Albans, ed. 1496, p. 28; see N.E.D. Formed from brend,
the pp. of brennen, to burn, the sense being ‘ branded.’ Cf. prov. E.
branded, brindled; also Icel. brénd-, in the comp. brondéttr, brindled,
said of a cow, Cleasby and Vigfusson’s Dict. App. p. 772. We also
find Icel. brand-krosdttr, brindled-brown with a white cross on the
forehead ; brandr, a brand, flame, firebrand, sword; brenna, to burn.
4] Thus brinded is little more than another form of branded; the letter i
appears again in Brimstone, q.v. And see Brand and Burn.
BRINE, pickle, salt water. (K.) ME. brine, bryne, Prompt. Pary.
p- 51. AS. bryne (for brine), salt liquor, AEIf. Gloss.; Voc. 128. 40.
+MDu. brijn, brijne, pickle, sea-water (Oudemans); whence Du.
brijn, brine, pickle. Der. brin-y.
BRING, to fetch. (E.) ME. bringen (common) ; pt. t. broughte.
AS. bringan, pp. brungen (rare), Grein, i. 143; brengan, pt. t.
brohte, pp. broht; the former being the strong and original form.
+ Du. brengen; Goth. briggan (with gg sounded as ng), pt. t. brakta;
OHG. pringan (G. bringen). Teut. type *brangjan-, pt. τ. *branx-ta>
*brah-ta (whence AS. brengan); from a strong type *brengan- (whence
AS. bringan).
BRINK, margin; but properly, a slope. (Scand.) ME. brink,
edge of a pit, Chaucer, C. T. 9275 (E 1401) ; brenk, a shore, Wyclif,
John, xxi. 4. ‘ Bi the se-brinke;’ King Horn, 141,—ONorse *brenka,
Icel. brekka, a slope, also a crest of a hill,a hill; allied to Low G, brink,
sward at the edge of a field; a grassy hill (Liibben); Westphal.
brink, edge of a hill. Cf. Brim.
BRIONY ; a variant of Bryony, q.v.
BRISK, nimble, lively, smart, trim. (F.—Ital.) Not in early
authors; used by Shak. and Milton. Apparently the same as Lowl.
Sc. bruisk, brisk (ab. 1560) ; N.E.D. =F. brusque, ‘ brisk, lively, quick,
rash, harsh ;’ Cot.— Ital. brusco, tart, harsh. See Brusque. Der.
brisk-ly, brisk-ness. Doublet, brusque.
BRISKET, part of the breast-piece of meat. (F.—Scand.) Ben
Jonson has brisket-bone ; Sad Shepherd, i. 2: ‘ The brisket-bone, upon
the spoon Of which a little gristle grows.’ ME. brusket, Voc, 704. 8.
= OF. brischet, a form given by Brachet, s. v. brechet, but bruschet in
Littré; however, Cotgrave has: ‘ Brichet, m. the brisket, or breast-
piece ;’ also ‘ Bruchet, m. the craw-bone, or merry-thought of a bird;’
F. brechet. [Bret. bruched, the breast, is from OF. bruchet.| The
Guernsey briaquet (Meétivier) gives *brusket as the oldest type, as in
ME. = Dan. brusk, Swed. brosk, MSwed. bryske (Ihre, s. v. brusk), Icel.
brjosk, gristle; cf. Norw. brjosk, gristle, brjoskutt, gristly. See Ben
Jonson (as above). So Kluge, s.v. brausche; but the connexion with
brausche is dark. With Dan. brus-k cf. AS. brysan, to bruise, hence,
to crush. See Bruise.
BRISTLE, a stiff hair. (E.) ME. bristle, berséle, Chaucer, Prol.
556. AS. byrst,a bristle, Herbarium, 52; in A.S. Leechdoms, i. 156;
with dimin. suffix -e/.-Du. borsfel, a bristle. Cf. Icel. burst, a bristle;
Swed. borst, a bristle ; G. borste, a bristle. The AS. byrst, fem,, and
Icel. burst, answer to Teut. types from the base *burs-t-; from Teut.
*burs-, weak grade of *bers-= Idg. *bhers-, to bristle; cf. Skt. sahasra-
bhrshti, having a thousand points; Benfey, p. 666. Cf. Stokes-Fick,
p- 172-3. Der. bristle, verb; bristl-y, bristl-i-ness.
BRITTLE, fragile. (E.) ME. dritel, brotel, brutel; Chaucer has
brotel, Leg. of Good Women, Lucr. 206. Answering to an AS. type
*brytel =Teut. *brut-iloz, adj.; from brut-, weak grade of AS. bréotan,
to break; Grein, i. 142.4FIcel. byjdta, to break, destroy ; Swed. bryta,
Dan. bryde, to break. So that the sense was ‘fragile.’ 41 Cf. the
BRITZKA, BRITSKA
form brickle, used by Spenser, F. Q. iv. 10. 39, obviously from AS.
brecan, to break; the L. fragilis (1. fragile, frail) being from the
same root as brickle.
BRITZKA, BRITSKA, a kind of open carriage. (Polish.)
First in 1832. — Pol. bryczka (with cz=E. ch), ‘a light long travelling
wagon ;’ dimin. of bryka, a goods-wagon (N.E.D.).
BROACG, to tap liquor. (F.—L.) The ME. phrase is setten on
broche, to set a-broach, to tap, Babees Boke, ed. Furnivall, p. 266.
Imitated from the F. mettre en broche, to tap a barrel, viz. by piercing
it; cf. F. ‘brocher, to broach, to spit;’ (οἵ. - Εἰς ‘broche, a broach,
spit;’ Cot. See Brooch, Abroach.
BROAD, adj., wide. (E.) ME. brod, brood, Chaucer, Prol. 155.
AS. brad, Grein, i. 136.4Du. breed; Icel. breidr; Swed. and Dan.
bred; Goth. braids; OHG. preit (G. breit). Teut.type *braidoz. Der.
broad-ly, broad-ness, broad-en, broad-side ; also breadth, q. v.
BROCADE, a variegated silk stuff. (Span.—L.) ‘Brocado, a cloth
of gold or silver ;’ Blount. A ‘brocade waistcoat’ is mentioned in the
Spectator, no. 15.—Span. brocado, sb., brocade; also pp., brocaded,
embroidered with gold; which explains the use of brocade as an
adjective. Brocado is properly the pp. of a verb *brocar, which no
doubt meant ‘ to embroider,’ answering to Εἰ, brocher, which Cotgrave
explains by ‘ to broach, to spit ; also, to stitch grossely, to set or sowe
with great stitches,’ der. from F. broche, explained by ‘a broach, or
spit; also, a great stitch.’ {The Span. broca, a reel for silk, adrill, has
lost the required sense.] See Brooch. Der. brocade, verb; brocad-ed.
BROCCOLI, BROCOLT, a vegetable resembling cauliflower.
(Ital.—L.) Pope has brocoli, Horace’s Sat., ii. 2. 138. Properly,
the word is plural, and means ‘ sprouts.’= Ital. broccol’, sprouts, pl. of
broccolo, a sprout ; dimin. from brocco, a skewer, also, a shoot, stalk.
Brocco is allied to F. brocke, a spit, also a brooch. See Brooch.
BROCHURE, a pamphlet. (F.—L.) Mere French. F. brochure,
a few printed leaves stitched together.—F. brocher, to stitch. See
Brocade.
BROCK, a badger. (C.) Used by Ben Jonson, The Fox, i. 1;
Sad Shepherd, Act ii. sc. 1. ME. brock, P. Plowman, B. vi. 31; cf.
Prompt. Parv. p. 53. AS. broc, a badger (Bosworth), but the word is of
slight authority, and borrowed from Celtic. = W. broch ; Corn. broch ;
Bret. broch; Irish, Gaelic, and Manx broc, a badger. β. It is most
probable, as Mr. Wedgwood suggests, that the animal was named
from his white-streaked face; just as a trout is, in Gaelic, called
breac, i.e. spotted, and a mackerel is, in Cornish, called brithill, 1.6.
variegated ; see note under Brill. If so, cf. Gk. φορκός, white, gray ;
and E. gray, a badger. Hence also Gael. brocach, speckled in the
face, grayish, as a badger ; brucack, spotted, freckled, speckled, parti-
cularly in the face. See Stokes-Fick, p. 185.
BROCKET, a red deer two years old. (F.—L.) ‘The hert . . the
secunde yere [is] a broket;” Relig. Antique, i. 151. A corruption of
F. brocart. Cotgrave has; ‘ Brocart, m.a two year old deere ; which
if it be a red deere, we call a brocket; if a fallow, a pricket; also a
kinde of swift stagge, which hath but one small branch growing out
of the stemme of his horne.’. So named from having but one tine to
his horn. =F. broche, ‘a broach, spit ;” also, a tusk of a wild boar;
hence, a tine of a stag’s horn; see Cotgrave. See Brooch.
BROGUES, stout, coarse shoes. (C.—E.) In Shak. Cymb. iv.
2. 214.—Gael. and Irish brog, a shoe; MIrish brdcc.— AS. bréc,
breeches; or from Icel. brék. (Not really Celtic.) See Breeches.
BROIDER, to adorn with needlework. (F.—Teut.) In the Bible,
A.V., Ezek. xvi. 10. This form of the word was due to confusion
with the totally different word 10 broid, a variant of braid, due to AS.
brogden, pp. of bregdan; see Braid. And note that AS. brogden
regularly became brouden in ME., but was altered to broiden by con-
fusion with braid (ME. breiden). In 1 Tim. ii. 19, broidered is actually
used with the sense of braided! See Broider in Eastwood and Wright’s
Bible Wordbook. An older spelling of brotder is broder ; thus we find
“a spoyle of dyuerse coloures with brodered workes’ in the Bible of
1551, Judges, v. 30. It is also spelt browdered or browdered; Henry-
soun, Test. of Cresseid, 417.—F. ‘border, to imbroyder,’ Cotgrave [ἃ
word wholly distinct from border, also in Cotgrave with the ex-
planation ‘to border, gard, welt,’ &c.]. The same as OF. brosder,
brouder, to embroider (Godefroy, and Supp.); cf. Late L. brosdus,
brusdus, embroidered work (Ducange). Apparently from Teut.*brozd-,
a point, whence AS. brord, Icel. broddr, a spike. See Brad.
BROIL (1), to fry, roast over hot coals. (F.—Teut. ?) ME. broilen.
‘ Brolyyn, or broylyn, ustulo, ustillo, torreo;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 53.
See Chaucer, Prol. 385. [Cf. also brulen, E. E. Prose Psalter, cxx.
(cxxi.) 5; before 1350.) —AF. broiller (Bozon) ; OF. bruillir, to broil,
intrans. (in Godefroy). Of unknown origin; cf. OF. bruir, to roast;
perhaps from ΜΉ. briiejen, to scald; see Brood.
BROIL (2), a disturbance, tumult. (F.) Occurs in Shak. 1 Hen.
VI, i. 1.53; ili. 1.92. Spelt breud/ in Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol.
ii.c. 140. =F. brouiller, explained by Cotgrave by ‘to jumble, trouble,
BROOK-LIME 75
disorder, confound, marre by mingling together ; to huddle, tumble,
shuffle things ill-favouredly ; to make a troublesome hotch-potch ; to
make a hurry, or great hurbyburly.’ Allied to Ital. brogliare, to dis-
turb, broglio, confusion ; whence E. imbroglio. Of unknown origin.
BROKER, an agent, a middle-man in transactions of trade. (F.—
L.) ME. broker, brocour, P. Plowman, B. v. 130, 248. We also find
brocage =commission ona sale, P. Plowman, Bb. ii. 87. The oath of
the brokers in London is given in Liber Albus, ed. Riley, p. 315. Their
business was ‘to bring the buyer and seller together, and lawfully
witness the bargain between them;’ for which they were allowed a
commission on the sale, called a brocage, or, in later times, brokerage.
The ME. brocour also meant a retail-dealer, cf. P. Plowman, C. vii.
95, and answers to AF. brocour, a broker, Liber Albus, p. 400; and to
ONorth F. brokeor, accus. cf brokiere, which Godefroy (5. v. brocheor)
explains by ‘celui qui vend du vin aw broc,’ i.e. by the jugful. = Late L.
broccator, one who broaches wine. —Late L. broccare, to broach. — Late
L. brocca, broca, a pointed stick, a spike. See Broach, Brooch.
Hence also AF. abrocour, a broker, Stat. Realm, i. 103 (1285);
Late L. abrocarius, Liber Albus, p. 269. And cf. Walloon abroki, to
set abroach.
BROMINE, a non-metallic chemical element.
since 1826. Named from its ill odour.
from Gk. βρῶμ-ος, a stink.
BRONCHIAL, relating to the bronchie or bronchia. (Gk.) The
bronchie are the ramifications of the windpipe, passing into the lungs.
Bronchi@ is in use; but the more correct form is bronchia, neut.
plural. —Gk. βρόγχια, neut. pl., the bronchia, or ramifications of the
windpipe.=—Gk. βρόγχος, the windpipe, trachea. Cf. Gk. βράγχια,
neut. pl., the gills of fishes; Bpayxos, a gill, also, a sore throat, and
(as an adjective) hoarse.
BRONCHITIS, inflammation of the bronchial membrane. (L.
—Gk.) A coined L.. form bronchitis, made from Gk. βρόγχος, the
windpipe. See above.
BRONZB, an alloy of copper with tin, &c. (F.—Ital.—L.) Not
in early use. In Pope, Dunciad, ii. 10; 1.1. 199.— Τῆς bronze, introd.
in 16th cent. from Ital. bronzo (Brachet). Ital. bronzo, bronze ; bron-
zino, made of bronze (z=dz). It has been shown, by M. Berthelot
(Introduction ἃ la Chimie des Anciens, pp. 275-9), that the Ital.
bronzino=L. Brundusinum, i.e. belonging to Brundustum (Brindisi),
in S. Italy, where bronze mirrors were made. Pliny has es Brundu-
sinum, Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 9, xxxiv. 17 (Athenzeum, Dec. 30, 1893).
See Notes on E. Etym., p. 18.
BROOCH, an ornament fastened with a pin. (F.—L.) So named
from its being fastened with a pin. ME. broche, a pin, peg, spit,
Prompt. Parv. p. 52; also a jewel, ornament, id.; cf. Chaucer, Prol.
160; Ancren Riwle, p. 420.—OF. broche, F. broche, a spit; also the
tusk of a boar (Cotgrave).—Late L. brocca, a pointed stick ; broca,
a tooth, sharp point; from L. broceus, projecting, like teeth (Plautus).
BROOD, progeny, offspring, young; a family. (E.) ME. bred,
Owl and Nightingale, 518, 1631; Rob. of Glouc. p. 70; 1. 1595.
AS. brad, a brood (rare); ‘hi brédad heora bréd,’ they nourish their
brood; AE£lfric, Hom. ii. 10.44Du. broed, a brood, hatch; MHG.
bruot, that which is hatched, also heat; whence G. brut, a brood.
Tent. stem *brd-3-. B. The primary meaning is that which is hatched,
or produced by means of warmth ; from the verbal base *brd-, pre-
served in G. bri-hen, to scald (orig. to heat), Du. broe-ien, to brood,
to hatch. This base *brd- is related by gradation to *bré-(br#-), to
roast ; for which see Brawn. Der. brood, vb.; breed, q.v.
BROOK (1), to endure, put up with. (E.) ME. brouke, which
almost invariably had the sense of ‘to use,’ or ‘to enjoy ;” Chaucer,
C. T. 10182 (E 2308), P. Plowman, B. xi. 117; Havelok, 1743.
AS. brican, to use, enjoy, Grein, i. 144.44 Du. gebruiken, to use; Icel.
briika, to use; Goth. brutjan, to make use of; OHG. prithhan (G.
brauchen), to use, enjoy. Allied to L. frui, to enjoy; cf. L. friges,
fructus, {ruit; Skt. bkuj, to eat and drink, to enjoy, which probably
stands for an older form bhruj; Benfey, p. 656.—4/BHREUG, to
enjoy, use. Brugmann, i. § 111. Brook is co-racicate with frit, q.v.
BROOK (2), a small stream. (E.) ME. brook, Chaucer, C. T.
3920 (A. 3922). AS. brac, brooc, Grein, i. 144.4 Du. broek, a marsh,
a pool; Low Ὁ. brook, low land, broken up by marshes; OHG. pruoch
(ἃ. bruch), a marsh, bog. B. Even in prov. Eng. we find: ‘ Brooks,
low, marshy, or moory ground;’ Pegge’s Kenticisms (E. D.S.); at
Cambridge, we have Brook-lands, i.e. low-lying, marshy ground. The
G. bruch also means ‘rupture;’ and the notion in brook is that of
broken ground or of water breaking up or forcing its way to the sur-
face; from Teut. *brdk-, a variant (by gradation) of *brek-, the root
of break, q.v. Der. brook-let.
BROOK-LIME, a plant. (E.) ME. brok-lemke, Med. Wks.
of the fourteenth century, ed. Henslow, p. 29, 1. 2.—AS. bréc, a
brook; and hleomoc, brook-lime. Cf. Low G. lémek, lémke, brook-
lime (Schambach).
(Gk.) Modern ;
Formed, with the suffix -zne,
76 BROOM
BROOM, the name ofa plant; a besom. (E.) ME, brom, broom, the
plant; Wyclif, Jerem. xvii. 6. AS. brdm, broom, Gloss. to Cockayne’s
Leechdoms.+Du. brem, broom, furze; Low G. braam, broom; G.
brom-, in brom-beere, a bramble-berry. Teut. type *br#moz. B. The
confusion in old names of plants is very great; broom and bramble
are closely related, the latter being, etymologically, the diminutive of
broom; cf. Du. braam-bosch, a bramble-bush. See Bramble.
BROSE, BREWIS, a kind of broth or pottage. (F.—MHG.)
Brose is a later form of browis or brewis, for which see Nares and
Richardson. In Prompt. Parv. we find: ‘ Browesse, browes, Adipatum;’
and see Way’s note, where browyce is cited from Lydgate. — OF. brouez,
broez, nom. case of brovet, broet, soup made with broth of meat (see
Supp. to Godefroy) ; dimin. of OF. bro (Hatzfeld, s.v. browet), also
spelt brex, pottage (Roquefort), Late L. brodum, gravy, broth.=
MHG. brod, broth; cognate with E. broth, J It is no doubt because
brewis sounded like a plural, and because it has been confused with
broth, that in prov. Eng. (e.g. Cambs.) broth is often alluded to as
‘they’ or ‘them.’ See Broth and Brew.
BROTH, a kind of soup. (E.) ME. broth, Rob. of Glouc. p. 528,
1. 10857. AS. brod (to translate L. its), Bosworth. cel. brod; OHG.
prod, brod. Teut. type *brodom, n.; from *bro-, *bru-, weak grade
of *breu-, as in AS. bréowan, to brew. And see Stokes-Fick, p. 172.
See Brew and Brose.
BROTHEL, a house of ill fame. (E.; confused with F.—Teut.)
(Originally quite distinct from ME. bordel (= Ital. bordello).] The
quotations from Bale (Votaries, pt. ii), and Dryden (Mac Flecknoe,
1. 70) in Richardson, show that the old term was brothel-house (as in
Much Ado, i. 1. 256), i.e. a house for brothels or prostitutes; for the
ΜΕ. brothel was a person, not a flace. Thus Gower speaks of ‘A
brothel, which Micheas hihte’ =a brothel, whose name was Micheas;
C. A, iii, 173 (bk. vii. 2595); and see P. Plowman, Crede, 772. Cf.
‘A brothelrie, lenocinium ;’ Levins, 103, 34.. We also find ΜΕ.
brethel, a wretch, bretheling, a beggarly fellow. From the same root
are the AS. abroden, degenerate, base; and the past tense a@brudon,
they failed, A.S. Chron. an. 1004, The last forms are from AS. brod-,
brud-, weak grade of -bréodan, to ruin, destroy, occurring in the comp.
abréodan, with the same sense. Thus brots-el orig. meant ‘a lost’
creature; like L. perditus. B. But, of course, a confusion between
brothel-house and the ME. bordel, used in the same sense, was ineyit-
able. Chaucer has bordel in his Persones Tale, § 885; and Wyclif
even has bordelhous, Ezek. xvi. 24, showing that the confusion was
already then completed; though he also has borde/rie=a brothel, in
Num. xxv. 8, which is a French form. OF. bordel, a hut; dimin. of
borde, a hut, cot, shed made of boards; Cot. MDu. (and Du.) bord,
a plank. See Board.
BROTHER, a son of the same parents. (E.) ME, brother,
Chaucer, Prol. 529. AS. brddor, Grein, p. 144.4+Du. broeder ; Icel.
brodir; Goth. bréthar; Swed. broder; Dan. broder; OHG. pruoder
(G. bruder).4-Gael. and Irish brathair; W. brawd, pl. brodyr; Russian
brat’; L. frater; Gk. ppatnp; Church-Slavonie bratru; Zend brata;
Pers. biradar ; Skt. bhratr; Teut. type *brother ; Idg. type *bhrdter.
Brugmann, i. § 555. Der. brother-hood, brother-like, brother-ly.
BROUGHAM, a kind of carriage. (Personal name.) Date 1839.
Named after the first Lord Brougham, born 1778.
BROW, the eye-brow; edge of a hill. (E.) ME. browe, Prompt.
Parv. p. 53. AS. bri, pl. briia, Grein, i. 144. I cel. briin, eye-brow;
Dan, bryn; Lith. bruwis; Russian brove; Gk. ὀφρύς, eye-brow; Pers.
αὐγὰ; Skt. bhra, eye-brow. J Quite a distinct word from AS. bréw,
Du. braauw (in comp. wenk-braauw, an eye-brow), G. brave. Der.
brow-beat, to beat by frowning; Holland’s Plutarch, p. 107.
BROWN, the name of a darkish colour. (E.) ME. broun,
Chaucer, Prol. 207. AS. bran, Grein, i. 145.44Du. bruin, brown,
bay; Icel. briinn; Swed. brun; Dan. bruun; G. braun; Lith. brunas.
Cf. Gk. φρῦνος, a toad; Skt. ba-bhru(s), tawny. Brugmann, i. § 109.
Der. brown-tsh, brun-ette, burn-el, burn-ish. Doublet, bruin.
BROW2ZE, to nibble; said of cattle. (F.—MHG.) Occurs in
Shak. Wint. Tale, iii. 3. 69; Antony, i. 4. 66; Cymb. iii. 6. 38;
spelt brouze in Spenser, Shep. Kal. May, 179; brouse, Fitzherbert,
Husb., § 131.—MF. brouser, ‘to brouze, knap, nibble off leaves, buds,
&c.’ A by-form of MF, brouster, also brouter, explained by Cotgrave
by ‘to brouze, to nip, or nibble off the sprigs, buds, barke, &c. of
plants ;’ a sense still retained in prov. Eng. brut (Kent, Surrey),
which keeps the ¢ whilst dropping the s.— MF. ‘ browst, a sprig, ten-
drell, bud, a yong branch or shoot;” Cot.—MHG. broz, a bud
(Graff, iii. 369); Bavarian bross, brosst, a bud (Schmeller).=OHG.
broz-, bruz-, weak grade of briozan, to break, also, to break into bud ;
which is cognate with AS, bréofan, to break; see Brittle.
BRUIN, a bear, (Dutch.) In the old epic poem of Reynard the
Fox, the bear is named ‘brown,’ from his colour; the Dutch version
spells it bran, which is the Dutch form of the word ‘brown.’ The
proper pronunciation of the word involves a peculiar diphthong ap-
BUBBLE
proaching the broad romic (au) ; but we always pronounce it broo-in,
disregarding the Dutch pronunciation. See Brown.
BRUISE, to pound, crush, injure. (E.; partly F.) ME. brusen,
Joseph of Arimathie, ed. Skeat, 1. 501; but more commonly spelt
brissen or brisen, Wyclif’s Bible, Deut. ix. 3; also brosen, id. Num-
bers, xxii. 25. In the S. Eng. Legendary, 295. 58, we find the pt. t.
to-bruysde, representing AS. /0-brysde, pt. of 10-brysan ; which shows
that E. bruise represents AS. brysan, to bruise, occurring in Be
Domes Dzege, ed. Lumby, 1. 49; cf. Matt. xxi. 44. B. But it seems
to have been confused with OF, bruiser, bruser, brisier, to break;
forms which Diez would separate ; but wrongly, as Matzner says.
See brister in Supp. to Godefroy, Of uncertain origin; cf. Olrish
briss-im, I break, allied to AS. berstan, to burst.
BRUIT, a rumour; to announce noisily. (F.—L.) Occurs in
Shak. Macb. v. 7.22. ‘The kinge herde the bruyt,’ Caxton, Hist. of
Troye, leaf 112, 1. 6.—F. ‘bruit, a bruit, a great sound or noise, a
rumbling, clamor,’ &c.; Cot.—F. bruire, to make a noise, roar,
Scheler derives F. bruire from L. riigire, to roar ; the prefixed ὁ may
have been due to imitative alteration ; cf. G. bridlen, to roar. And
Ἐς bruit =Late L. brigitus, a clamour (Ducange); cf. L. rugitus, a
roaring.
BRUNETTE, a girl witha dark complexion. (F.—G.) Mere
French; but it occurs in the Spectator, No. 396. [The older E.
equivalent is ‘nut-brown,’ asin the Ballad of The Nut-brown Maid.]
=F. brunette, explained by Cotgrave as ‘a nut-browne girle.’ =F,
brunet, masc. adj., brunette, fem. adj., brownish ; Cot. Formed, with
dimin. suffix - οὐ, from Εἰ, brun, brown. ΜΗ. bran, brown; cognate
with E, brown, 4. v.
BRUNT, the shock of an onset. (Scand.) Chiefly used in the
phr, brunt of battle, the shock of battle, as in Shak. Cor. ii, 2. 104.
However, Butler has : ‘the heavy brunt of cannon-ball ;’ Hudibras,
pt. i. c. 2, 1. 872. ME. brunt, bront. ‘ Brunt, insultus, impetus ;.’
Prompt. Parv. p. 54. The oldest sense is ‘ smart blow,’ as in E. E,
Allit. Poems, A. 174. Partly imitative; cf. dint, prov. E. dunt,
a blow, thump. Partly suggested by M Dan. brund, heat, lust, Norw.
brund, Just, heat (of animals in pairing-time). Allied to Icel. bruna,
to advance with the speed of fire, said of a standard in the heat of
battle, of ships advancing under full sail, &c.; Icel. bruni, burning,
heat, passion, from brenna, to burn; cognate with ΕΔ burn. See
Burn.
BRUSH, an implement for cleaning clothes ; cf. brushwood, under-
wood. (F.—Teut.?) ME, brusshe, in the phrase ‘ wyped it with a
brusshe ;’ P. Plowman, B. xiii. 460; also: ‘ Brusche, bruscus,’ i.e.
brush-wood, Prompt. Parv.—OF. broce, brosse, brushwood, small
wood; F. brosse, a bush, bushy ground, brush (Cotgrave) ; cf. Ital.
brusca ‘ling or heath to make brushes with:’ klorio.—Late L.
bruscia, a thicket. Derived by Diez from OHG. bursta, G. borste, a
bristle; but perhaps influenced by Celtic (Thurneysen, p. 51). Cf. F.
broussarlles, brush-wood, and note the double sense of E. broom. Der.
brush-wood.
BRUSQUEH, rough in manner. (F.—Ital.) Spelt brusk by Sir
Henry Wotton, ἃ. 1639 (R.). He speaks of giving ‘a brusk welcome’
=a rough one; Reliq. Wotton., p. 582.—F. brusque, rude ; intro-
duced in 16th cent. from Ital. brusco (Brachet). Ital. brusco, sharp,
tart, sour, applied to fruits and wine. B. Of unknown origin ; Diez
suggests a corruption of OHG. bruftise, brutish, brutal, which is un-
convincing. Ferrari (says Diez) derives it from the L. /abruscus, the
Ital. dropping the first syllable. This is ingenious; the L. abruscus
was an adj. applied to a wild vine and wild grape. @ The notion of
connecting brisk with brusque appears in Cotgrave; it seems to be
right; see Brisk.
BRUTE, a dumbanimal. (F.—L.) Shak. has brute as an adj.,
Hamlet, ili. 2. 110; and other quotations in Richardson show that
it was at first an adj., as in the phr. ‘a brute beast.’ Cf. ‘alle brute
beestis ;’ Look of Quinte Essence, ed. Furuivall, p. 11 (ab. 1460-70).
=F. brut, masc., brute, fem. adj., in Cotgrave, signifying ‘ foul,
ragged, shapeless,’ &c.— L. brutus, stupid. Der. brut-al, brut-al-i-ty,
brut-al-ise, brut-ish, brut-tsh-ness.
BRYONY, a kind of plant. (L.—Gk.) In Levins; also in Ben
Jonson, Masques ; The Vision of Delight. —L. brydnia.—Gk. βρυωνία,
also Bpvwyn.— Gk. βρύειν, to teem, swell, grow luxuriantly.
BUBBLE, a small bladder of water. (E.) Shak. has the sb.,
As You Like It, ii. 7. 152; also as a vb., ‘to rise in bubbles,’ Macb.
iv. 1. 11. Spelt boble, Castel of Helth, leaf 84, back. Not found much
earlier in English. Cf. EFries. bubbel, a bubble. [Palsgrave has:
‘ Burble in the water, bubette, and the same form occurs in the Prompt.
Ῥατν. p. 56; but this is probably a somewhat different word, and from
a different source; cf. Du. borre/, a bubble. ] + Swed. bubbla,a bubble;
Dan. boble, a bubble; to bubble; Du. bobbe/, a bubble ; bobbelen, to
bubble; Low G. bubbel, sb. ; bubbeln, vb. B. The form of the word
is clearly a diminutive; and it is to be regarded as the dimin. of a
BUCCANIER
form bob or bub, of imitative origin ; cf. prov. E. bob, a knob ; parallel
to blob, a bubble. See Blob, Bleb.
BUCCANIER, a pirate. (F.—West-Indian.) Modern. Bor-
rowed from F. boucanier, a buccanier, pirate. —F. boucaner, to smoke-
dry ; or, according to Cotgrave, ‘ to broyle or scorch on a woodden
gridiron.’=F. boucan, ‘a woodden gridiron, whereon the cannibals
broile pieces of men, and other flesh;’ Cot. β. The word boucan is
said to be a F. spelling of a Tupi (Brazilian) word, and to mean ‘a
frame on which meat is smoke-dried.’. Mr. Wedgwood says: ‘ The
natives of Florida, says Laudonniere (Hist. de la Floride, Pref. a.p.
1586, in Marsh), ‘‘ mangent leurs viandes rosties sur les charbons et
boucanées, c’est a dire quasi cuictes a la fumée.” In Hakluyt’s trans-
lation, ‘dressed in the smoake, which in their language they call
boucaned ;”” Voyages, iii. 307. Hence those who established them-
selves in the islands for the purpose of smoking meat were called
buccaniers.’ Mr. Trumbull says :—‘ Jean de Lery (Voyage fait en la
Terre du Brésil, 1578, p. 153) describes the construction and use, by
the Tupinambas, of ‘‘ the great wooden grilles, called in their language
boucan, garnished with meats . . . drying slowly over fire.” ἢ
BUCK (1), a male deer, goat, ὅς. (E.) ME. bukke, Chaucer,
C. T. 3387. AS. bucca, a he-goat, Levit. iv. 23. - Du. bok, a he-
goat; Icel. bukkr ; Swed. bock, a buck, a he-goat ; Dan. buk, a he-
goat, ram, buck; OHG, pock (G. bock), a buck, he-goat, battering-
ram. Cf. also ΝΥ. bwch, a buck; bwek gafr, a he-goat; Gael. boc,
a buck, he-goat; Irish boc, a he-goat. Brugmann, i. § 800. The
Celtic type is *bukkos ; Stokes-Fick, p. 179.
BUCK (2), to wash linen, to steep clothes in lye. (E.) Shak. has
buck-basket, a basket for washing linen, Merry Wives, iil. 3.2. ME.
bouken,to wash linen; P. Plowman, B. xiv. 19; as if from anAS. *biician,
not found; but regularly formed from AS. bic, a pitcher (prov. E.
bouk, a pail, tub). The ME. bouken had the special sense of ‘to steep
in lye,’ to buck-wash; so also Swed, byka, Dan. byge, MDu. butken,
G. beuchen, OF. buer, to buck-wash. See Bucket. Der. buck-
basket.
BUCKET, a kind of pail. (E.) ME. boket, Chaucer, Kn. Tale,
675 (A 1533); AF. boket (Bozon) ; cf. Guernsey bouquet (Meétivier).
Formed with AF. dimin, suffix -e¢ from AS. bic, a pitcher, glossed
by ‘lagena,’ and occurring also in Judges, vii. 20 (Bosworth). Cf.
Trish butcead, a bucket, Gael. bucaid, a bucket; both borrowed from E,
BUCKLE, a kind of fastening; to fasten. (F.—L.) The sb.
bokeling occurs in Chaucer, C. T. 2505 (A 2503). “ΟΕ, bocle (F.
boucle), the boss of a shield, a ring; from the latter of which senses
‘buckle’ has been evolved. Late L. buccu/a, meaning (1) a part of
the helmet covering the cheek, a visor; (2) a shield; (3) a boss of
a shield; (4) a buckle, The original sense of L. buccula was the
cheek; dimin. of bucca, the cheek.
BUCKLER, a kind of shield. (F.—L.) Chaucer has bokeler,
Prol. 112; the pl. boceleris occurs in King Alisaunder, ed. Weber,
1190. — OF. bucler (F. bouclier); so named from the bocle, bucle, or
boss in the centre. See Buckle.
BUCKRAM, a coarse cloth. (F.) ME. bokeram, cloth; Prompt.
Pary. p. 42; also in 1326 (N. and Q. 8S. i. 128.)—OF. boucaran (Εἰ.
bougran), a coarse kind of cloth (Roquefort) ; boguerant (Hatzfeld) ;
Late L. boguerannus, buckram ; also (in Italy) Late L. bachiranus, for
Ital. buchirano, late Ital. bucherame, Origin uncertain; perhaps from
Bokhara, in Tartary (Hatzfeld).
BUCKWHEAT, the name of a plant. (E.) In Coles’s Dict.
(1684); Turner, Names of Herbes, p. 35, E.D.S. (1548). The P ly-
gonum fagopyrum. ‘The word buckwheat means beech-wheat, so called
from the resemblance in shape between its seeds and the mast. of the
beech-tree. ‘The same resemblance is hinted at in the term fago-
pyrum, from L. fagus, the beech-tree. The form buck for beech is E.
Anglian, from AS. bdc, beech. See Tusser’s Husbandry. Du. boek-
weit; G. buchweizen. See Beech, Book.
BUCOLIC, pastoral. (L.—Gk.) Elyot has bucolickes; the Govern-
our, bk. i. c. 10 § 8. Skelton has ‘bucolycall relations ;’ Garlande of
Laurell, 1. 327.—L. bicolicus, pastoral. — Gk. βουκολικός, pastoral, =
Gk. βουκόλος, a cow-herd.—Gk. Bov-, for Bots, an ox; KoA-, second
grade of κελ-, in κέλλειν, to drive.+Olrish and Gael. buachaill, W.
bugail, cow-herd ; Stokes-Fick, p. 178.
BUD, a germ; to sprout. (E.) The Prompt. Parv., p. 54, has:
‘ Budde οἵ ἃ tre, Gemma,’ and: ‘ Buddun as trees, Gemmo.’ The word
does not appear earlier in ME.; but. may have been an E. word.
The corresponding AS. form is *budda, m., or *budde, f.; the latter
exactly answers to MHG. butte, prov. (ἃ, (Strassburg) butt, Bavar.
butte, mod. G. hage-butte, fruit of the dog-rose, taken as the type ofa
bud from its shape and bright colour. Hence Du. bot, a bud, eye,
shoot; botten, to bud, sprout out; OF. botox, a button, a bud; AF.
boton, a hip (Vocab. 556.7); Norm. dial. bout, a bud, bouter, to bud
(Robin) ; the F. words being of Teutonic origin. Cf. also Swed. dial.
bodda opp, to become leafy (as trees or bushes), boddoter, full of
BUFFOON 77
leaves. See Notes on E. Etymology, pp. 20, 476. See Button and
Butt (1).
BUDGE (1), to stir, move from one’s place. (F.—L.) Shak. has
budge, to stir, Haml. ili. 4. 18.—F. bouger, to stir ; cf. Prov. bolegar,
to disturb oneself; answering to Ital. bulicare, to bubble up. Formed,
as a frequentative, from L. bullire, to boil. See Boil. B. This deriva-
tion is made clearer by the facts that the Span. budlir means not only
‘to boil,’ but ‘to be busy, to bestir oneself,’ also ‘ to move from place
to place ;’ whilst the deriv. adj. bullicioso means ‘ brisk, active, busy.’
So also Port. bulir, to move, stir, be active; bulicoso, restless.
BUDGE (2),a kind of fur. (F.) Milton has: ‘those budge doctors
of the Stoic fur;’ Comus, 707; alluding to the lambskin fur worn by
some who took degrees, and still worn at Cambridge by bachelors of
arts. Halliwell has: ‘budge, lambskin with the wool dressed out-
wards; often worn on the edges of capes, as gowns of bachelors of
arts are still made. See Fairholt’s Pageants, 1. 66; Strutt, ii. 102 ;
Thynne’s Debate, p. 32; Pierce Penniless, p. 11. Cotgrave has:
‘ Agnelin, lambs-fur, budge.’ Palsgrave has bouge furre. Cf. AF.
boge, fur; Stat. Realm, i. 380 (1363). Apparently from OF. boge,
(Burguy), bouge, a bag made of skin. Another sense of budge is ‘a
bag or sack;’ and a third, ‘a kind of water-cask;’ Halliwell. These
ideas are connected by the idea of ‘skin of an animal;’ which served
for a bag, a water-skin, or for ornamental purposes. When budge has
the sense of ‘bag,’ its dimin. is budget. See further under Budget,
below. @ The connexion is not quite certain, Dr. Murray suggests
OF. bochet, bouchet, a young kid.
BUDGET, a leathern bag. (F.—C.) Shak. has budget (old edd.
bowget), Wint. Tale, iv. 3. 20. Palsgrave has bougette.— τὸς ‘ bougetie,
a little coffer, or trunk of wood, covered with leather; ... also, a
little male, pouch, or budget;’ Cot. A dimin., of F. ‘ bouge, a budget,
wallet, or great pouch;’ id.; cf. OF. boulge (Roquefort).—L. bulga,
a little (skin) bag; according to Festus, a word of Gaulish origin
(Brachet).—Olrish bolg, bolc,a bag; W. bol, the belly. Allied to
Belly.
BUFF (1), in Blindman’s buff. (F.—Teut.) Formerly blind-
man-buff, a game; in which boys used to buffet one (who was blinded)
on the back, without being caught, if possible. From OF, bufe, F.
buffe, a buffet, blow. = Low G, buff, puf, a blow (Liibben) ; EFries,
buf, buff, a blow. See Buffet (1).
BUFF (2), the skin of a buffalo; a pale yellow colour. (F.—L.—
Gk.) Buff is a contraction of buffe, or buffle, from F. buffle, a buffalo.
‘ Buff, a sort of thick tanned leather;’ Kersey. ‘Buff, Buffle, or
Buffalo, a wild beast like an ox;’ id. ‘The term was applied to
the skin of the buffalo dressed soft, buff-leather, and then to the
yellowish colour of leather so dressed ;” Wedgwood. See Buffalo.
BUFFALO, a kind of wild ox. (Port. or Ital. —L.—Gk.) The
pl. buffollos occurs in Sir T. Herbert’s Travels, ed. 1665, p. 43. The
sing. buffalo is in Ben Jonson, Discoveries, Of the magnitude of any
fable; § 133. Borrowed from Port, bufalo, or Ital. buffalo; in early
books of travel. [But the term was not really new in English; the
Tudor Eng. already had the form διε, borrowed from the French.
Cotgrave has: ‘ Buffle, m. the buffe, bugle, bugle, or wild oxe; also,
the skin or neck of a buffe.’]—L. biyalus, used by Fortunatus, a
secondary form of bibalus, a buffalo.—Gk. βούβαλος, a buffalo ;
Polyb. xii. 3, 5. Not a true Gk. word; apparently suggested by Skt.
gavala-s, a buffalo (Macdonell); which is allied to Skt. gas, a cow,
and to Gk. βοῦς, E. cow. See Cow (1).
BUFFER (1), a foolish fellow. (F.) Jamieson has ‘ buffer, a
foolish fellow.’ The ME. buffer means ‘a stutterer.’ ‘The tunge of
bufferes (Lat. balborum ] swiftli shal speke and pleynly;’ Wycl., Isaiah,
xxxii. 4. Lydgate has buffard, a foolish fellow; Minor Poems, p. 32.
From ME. bujfen, to stammer.—OF, bufer, to puff out the cheeks,
&c. See Buffet (1), Buffoon. B. The word is, no doubt, partly
imitative ; to represent indistinct talk; cf. Babble.
BUFFER (2), a cushion, with springs, used to deaden con-
cussion. (F.) Buffer is lit. a striker; from ME. buffen, to strike;
prov. Eng. buff, to strike, used by Ben Jonson (see Nares). OF. bufer,
buffer, to strike. See Buffet (1).
BUFFET (1), a blow; tostrike. (F.) ME. buffet, boffet, a blow;
esp. a blow on the cheek or face; Wycl., John, xix. 3. Also buffeten,
bofeten, translated by L. colaphizo, Prompt. Parv. p. 41. Also bufetung,
a buffeting, Old Eng. Homilies, 1. 207.— OF. bufet, a blow, esp. on
the cheek.—OF. dufe, a blow, esp. on the cheek; bufer, buffer, to
strike; also, to puff out the cheeks.—Low G. buff, puf, a blow
(Liibben) ; of imitative origin; like EFries. buf, buff, puf, a blow,
Du. bof, G. puff, MUG. buf, puf. From the sound; see Buff (1).
BUFFET (2), a side-board. (F.) Used by Pope, Moral Essays
(Ep. to Boyle), 1. 153; Sat. ii, 5.—F. ‘ buffet, a court cupboord, or
high-standing cupboord ; also, a cupboord of plate;’ Cot. Origin
unknown.
BUFFOON, a jester. (F.) Holland speaks of ‘buffoons, pleasants,
78 BUG, BUGBEAR
and gesters;’ tr. of Plutarch, p. 487. Pronounced biffon, Ben Jonson,
Ivery Man, ii. 3. 8. For the suffix, cf. ball-oon.—¥. bouffon, which
Cotgrave explains as ‘a buffoon, jester, sycophant,’ &c. =F. bouffer, to
puff. Cf. Span. bufa, a scoffing, laughing at; equiv. to Ital. buffa, a
trick, jest; which is connected with Ital. buffare, to joke, jest; orig.
to puff out the cheeks, in allusion to the grimacing of jesters, which
was a principal part of their business. Of imitative origin. See
Buffer (1). Der. buffoon-ery.
BUG (1), BUGBEAR, a terrifying spectre. (C.) Fairfax speaks
of children being frightened by ‘strange bug-beares;’ tr. of Tasso,
Gier. Lib. bk. xiii. st. 18. Here bug-bear means a spectre in the
shape of a bear. The word bug was used alone, as in Shak. Tam.
Shrew, i. 2. 211; and Wyclif has bugge in the sense of ‘ scare-crow,’
L.formido, Baruch,vi.69. Shak. himself also has bugbear,Troil. iv. 2. 34.
=- W. bwg, a hobgoblin, spectre; bwgan,a spectre; Gael. (and Irish)
bocan, a spectre, apparition, terrifying object. B. Probably connected
further with Lithuanian baugis, terrific, frightful, bugti, to frighten,
which Fick further connects with L. fuga, flight, fugare, to put to
flight, and Skt. bhuj, to bow, bend, turn aside, cognate with E. bow,
to bend. See Bow (1). Brugmann, i. § yor. And see below.
BUG (2), an insect. (E.) Apparently a particular application of
the Tudor-English bwg, an apparition, scarecrow, object of terror; as
if equivalent to ‘ disgusting creature.’ But rather, a modification, due
to association with bug (1), of AS, budda, a beetle; cf. AS. scearn-
budda, a dung-beetle, Voc. 543. 10, prov. E. sharn-bug (Kent).
BUGABOO, a spectre. (C.) In Lloyd's Chit-chat (R.). It is
the word bug, with the addition of W.6w, an interjection of threaten-
ing, Gael. bo, an interjection used to frighten children, our ‘boh!’
BUGLE (1), a wild ox; a horn. (F.—L.) Bugle in the sense of
‘horn’ is an abbreviation of bugle-horn, used by Chaucer, C. T. 11565
(F 1253). It means the horn of the bugle, or wild ox. Halliwell
has: ‘ Bugle, a buffalo; see King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 5112:
Maundeville’s Travels, p. 269; Topsell’s Beasts, p. 54; Holinshed,
Hist. of Scotland, p. 16.’ Perhaps bugle was confused with duffle or
buffalo (see Buffalo), but etymologically it is a different word. =
OF. bugle, a wild ox (whence, by the way, F. bexgler, to bellow). =
L. buculum, acc. of biiculus, a bullock, young ox (Columella); a dimin.
of L. δός, cognate with E. cow. See Cow.
BUGLE (2), a kind of ornament. (F.—L.?) ‘A gyrdle.. Embost
with buegle;” Spenser, Shep. Kal. Feb. 66. Bugiles are tube-shaped
glass beads, or fine glass pipes, sewn on to a woman's dress by way
of ornament. [Mr. Wedgwood quotes from Muratori, showing that
some sort of ornaments, called in Low Latin bugoli, were worn in the
hair by the ladies of Piacenza in A.D. 1388. These were pads, to
support the hair, and have nothing to do with the present word.]
From a fancied resemblance to a bugle-horn; see N.E.D., s.v. bugle,
a horn, where a quotation is given dated:1615, in which bugle seems
to mean ‘a tube.’ Cf. ‘ Bugle, a little blacke horne;’ Cockeram (1623).
BUGLE (3), a plant; Aimga reptans. (F.—Late L.) ME. bugle,
Medical Werkes of 14th Cent., ed. Henslow, p. 172.=F. bugle.
— Late L. bagula (Hatzteld); cf. L. bigillo, (perhaps) bugle. 4] We
find AF. bucle as a plant-name, Wright's Voce. i. 162 (spelt bugle in
MS. Camb. Gg. 1.1); this suggests Late L. bicula, ‘ pascua,’ in
Ducange; as if ‘ pasture-flower.’
BUGLOSS, a plant. (F.—L.—Gk.) Mentioned in Sir T. Elyot’s
Castle of Helth, Ὁ. ili. ch. 12; p. 70.—F. buglosse.— L. biiglossa ;
also bigldssus.— Gk, βούγλωσσος, ox-tongue; from the shape and
roughness of theleaves. = Gk. Bov-s, ox; γχῶσσ-α, tongue. See Cow (1).
BUILD, to construct a house. (E.) ME. bulden, Layamon, 2656;
bilden, Coventry Mysteries, p. 20; also buylden, P. Plowman, B. xii.
228; and belden, P. Plowman, Crede, 706. The spellings bielde,
beelde, in Wyclit’s Bible, Gen. xi. 8, 3 Kings, xi. 7, show that the
ME. vowel was long; and, in fact, wi is the regular representative
(in Southern E.- of the 13th c.) of AS. y. The vowel was again
shortened by the influence of the final dentals.in builded and built,
pt. τ. and pp.=—Late AS. by/dan, lengthened to byldax in Norman
pronunciation (cf. E. mild from AS. mild, &c.). — AS. bold, a dwelling;
with regular mutation from o (Teut. x) toy. ‘pé wes bold gebyld,’
for thee was a dwelling built; The Grave (in- Thorpe, Analecta,
p- 142). ° Sievers shows that bold is for *bol-p-, altered form of *bop-l
>botl, a dwelling; from Teut. *bu-Jlo- (*bu-fro-); from Teut. *bu-,
weaker grade of ba- in biian, to dwell, and Idg. suffix *-tro. Closely
allied to Booth, q.v. {1 The vowel was still long in the 16th
century. We find beelde rhyming with /eelde (field) in Higgins, Mirror
for Magistrates, Severus, st. 21. Ὁ
BULB, a round root, &c. (F.—L.—Gk.) Not in early use. In
Holland’s Plutarch, p. 5773 and bulbous is in Holland’s Pliny, bk.
xix. c. 43 Vol. ii. p. 13; also budbes in the same, p. 18 (last line). =
Ἐς bulbe. L. bulbus.— Gk. βολβός, a bulbous root, an onion. Der.
bulb, verb; bulb-ed, bulb-ous.
BULBUL, a nightingale. (Pers.) In Byron, Bride of Abydos,
BULLETIN
i. to.— Pers. bulbu/, a bird with a melodious voice, resembling the
nightingale. Of imitative origin: bul-bul,
BULGE, to swell out. (F.—C.) This word, in the sense of ‘to
swell out,’ is rare except in modern writers. The earlier sense was
to stave in the bulge (or bilge), i.e. the bottom of a ship. Blount
has; ‘ Bulged (or Bilged), a Sea-Term: a ship is said to be bulged
when she strikes on a rock, anchor, or the like,’ &c. From E. bulge,
(1) a wallet, obs.; (2) a hump, obs.; (3) a protuberance; (4) the
bottom of a ship's hull. —OF. boulge, bouge, f.,a budget, wallet, Cot.;
m. a swelling, boss, belly, Cot.=—L. bulga, a skin-bag (Gaulish). See
Budget and Belly. Der. bilge, sb., bilge-water. 4] The F. change
of gender raises a difficulty; but see Scheler.
BULK (1), magnitude, size. (Scand.) ME. bolke,a heap, Prompt.
Parv. p. 43. = Icel. balki,a heap (earlier bulki, Noreen, § 196); biilkast,
to be bulky; Dan, bulk, a lump, clod; bulket, lumpy; Swed. dial.
bullk, a knob, bunch; budlkug, bunchy, protuberant (Rietz) ; MSwed.
bolk, a heap (Ihre); Norw. bulk, a boss, B. The Swed. dial. words
are connected with Swed. dial. buljna, to bulge; Swed. bulna, to
swell. The original idea in bu/k is ‘a swelling;’ cf. the adj. bulky.
See Bolled. Der. bulk-y, bulk-i-ness.
BULK (2), the trunk of the body. (Du.) Used by Shak. Hamlet,
ii. 1. 95.—MDu. bulcke, thorax; Kilian. (Prob. confused with Icel.
bukr, the trunk of the body; Swed. buk, the belly; Dan. bug, the
belly; Du. buck, G. bauch, the belly.) Perhaps allied to Bulk (1).
BULK (3),.a stall of a shop, a projecting frame for the display of
goods. (Scand.) In Shak. Cor. 11. 1. 226; Oth. v. 1. 1. Halliwell
has: ‘ Bulk, the stall of a shop;’ with references. He also notes
that the Lincolnshire bulkar means (1) a beam; and (2) the front of
a butcher’s shop where meat is laid. Dan. dial. buk, a half-wall, a
partition ; MDan. bulk, a balk (Kalkar) ; NFries. bulk, balk. A form,
with the weak grade (w), parallel to E. balk, Icel. balkr, a beam,
tafter, also a partition. The native E. word balk generally means
arafter, and does not give the right vowel. Florio translates the Ital.
balco or balcone (from OHG., balcho) as * the bulk or stall of a shop.’
BULK-HEAD, a partition in a ship made with boards, form-
ing apartments, (Scand. and E.) Nautical. Spelt bulke-hedde in
1496; Naval Accounts, ed. Oppenheim, p. 168. Had it been of
native origin, the form would have been balk-head, from balk, a beam.
The change of vowel points to the MDan. bulk (above).
BULL (1), a male bovine quadruped. (E.) ME, bole, bule,
Chaucer, C. T. 2141 (A 2139); bule, Ormulum, 990. Not found in
AS., though occurring in the Ormulum, and in Layamon in comp.
bule-hude, bull-hide; yet the dimin. bul/uc, a bull-ock, little bull,
really occurs (Bosworth) ; and AS, Bulan, as if from a nom. bula,
occurs in place-names (Kemble’s Index). Cf. EFries. bulle.4+MDu.
bolle, a bull (Kilian); Du. bul; Icel. boli, a bull; Westphal. and G.
bulle; Lith. bullus. Prob. ‘the bellower;’ from *bul-, weak grade of
AS. bellan, to bellow. Cf. MHG, bullen, to roar. See Bellow.
Der. bull-dog, bull-finch, &c.; dimin. bull-ock, AS. bulluc.
BULL (2), a papaledict. (L.) In early use. ME. budle, a papal
bull; P. Plowman, B. prol. 69 ; Rob. of Glouc. p. 473; 1. 9719. —L.
bulla, a stud, knob ; later, a leaden seal, such as was affixed to an edict ;
hence the name was transferred to the edict itself. See Bowl (1).
Der. From the same source: bull-et, q. v., bull-et-in, q.v. QJ The
use of δ in the sense of ‘blunder’ is a different word; from OF.
boler, bouler, to deceive (Godefroy).
BULLACE, wild plum. (F.—L.) Bacon has the pl. bullises;
Essay on Gardens. ‘ Bolas frute, pepulum ;” and ‘ Bolas tre, pepu-
lus;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 42; bolds (accented on a), Rom. Rose, 1377.
=OF. beldce, blosse, a bullace (Supp. to Godefroy); also written
pelosse (pl. pelosses) in Cotgrave. — Romanic type *f:lottja, for Late L.
*pilottea, lit. ¢ pellet-like.’— Late L. pilota, a pellet, ball.—L. pila, a
ball. See Pellet, and Pill (1). Notes on E. Etym. p. 23. B. The
OF, beloce, belloce, ‘espece de prunes,’ is given by Roquefort ; and
Cotgrave has: ‘ Bellocier, a bullace-tree, or wilde plum-tree. Cf.
Breton bolos (from OF. beloce), also polos (from OF. *peloce, plosse ;
Gael. bulaistear, from ME. bolas-ire, a bullace-tree. Also Walloon
bilok, bulok, a bullace; from North F. Puitspelu (on the patois of
Lyons) has : ‘ Pelossi, pelosse, OF. beloce, Suisse belossa, Norm. beloche,
Jura pelosse, pelousse, all meaning ‘ bullace.’
BULLET, a ball for a gun, (F.—L.) In Shak. K. John, ii. 227,
412.—F. boulet, a bullet;’ Cot. A dimin. of F, boule, a ball. “ἴα
bulla, a stud, knob; a bubble. See Bull (2).
BULLETIN, a brief public announcement. (F.—Ital.—L.)
Burke speaks of ‘ the pithy and sententious brevity of these bulletins ;”
Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (R.)=—F. bulletin, ‘a bill,
ticket, a billet in a lottery;” Cot.—Ital. bulletino, a safe conduct,
pass, ticket. Formed, with the dimin. suffix -ino, from bulletta,a
passport, a lottery-ticket ; which again is formed, with the dimin,
suffix -et/a, from bulla, a seal, a pope's letter. = L. bulla, a seal ; later,
a pope’s letter. See Bull (2).
BULLION
BULLION, uncoined metal. (F.—L.) . Spelt bolion in Amold’s
Chron., ed. 1811, p. 229; bollyon in 1586, in Orig. Letters, ed. Ellis,
11. 305.—F. bouillon, a boiling ; also a certain measure or weight
(Godefroy, and Supp.). Late L. bullidnem, acc. of bullio, a mass of
gold or silver ; also written bullidna.—L. bullire, to boil; see Boil
(1). For the history, see N. E.D. 4 The mod. F. word is dillon;
which Littré derives from F. bille, a log; and Εἰ. billon seems to have
been confused to some extent with the E. word.
BULLY, a noisy rough fellow; to bluster. (Du.)
bully for ‘a brisk dashing fellow;’ Merry Wives, i. 3.
Schmidt. Also bully-rook in a similar sense, Merry Wives, i. 3. 2;
li. 1. 200. But the earliest sense was ‘ sweet-heart;’ see N.E.D.
Cf. Hen. V, iv. 1.48. Apparently from Du. boel, a lover ; borrowed
from G.—MHG., buole, a lover; G. buhle. The later sense wasa
swaggering gallant ; lastly, a tyrannical coward who intimidates the
weak. Perhaps influenced by Du. bu/, a bull, also a clown, insolent
fellow ; Du. bulderen, Low ἃ. bullern, to bluster.
BULRUSH, a tall rush. (E.) ME. bolroysche, Voc. 786. 40;
bulrysche, Prompt. Parv., p. 244, col. 2. Perhaps from its stout
stem ; cf. Shetland bulwand, a bulrush. = Dan. bul, stem, trunk; and
E. rush. See Bole and Rush (2) ; also Bulwark (below). B. Or
bull may mean ‘large,’ with reference to a bull; cf. bull-daisy, δὲς.
(Britten).
BULW ARK, a rampart. (Scand.) In Shak. Hamlet, iii. 4. 38.
“Fagottes for bolewerckes:” Excerpta Historica, p. 52 (anno 1419) ;
nearly the earliest quotation known. ‘ Barbycans and also bulworkes
huge ;’ Lydgate, Siege of Troy, b.ii. ch. 11 ; ed. 1555, fol. F 5, col.
2.—MDan. bulvirke,a bulwark; Swed. bolverk. Cf. Du. bolwerk,whence
G. bollwerk. Corrupted in F. to boulevarde, from the Du. or G. form.
Kilian explains bol-werck, or block-werck by ‘ propugnaculum, agger,
vallum ;’ showing that bol is equivalent to block, i.e. a log of wood.
{The Dan, bulverk is commonly said to have been borrowed from Du.;
but Kalkar gives MDan. bulvirke as known in 1461, and the Scand.
languages explain the word better; the Du. bol is not commonly
used for ‘ log,’ nor is G. béh/e anything more than ‘a board, plank.’ |
B. From Dan. bul,a stem, stump, log of a tree; MDan. virke, work ;
cf. Icel. bulr, bolr, the bole or trunk of a tree, and virki, work. γ. Thus
the word stands for bole-work, and means a fort made of the stumps
of felled trees. See Bole. The 6. bollwerk, as formerly used in
the sense of ‘mangonel,’ is a different word; from MHG. bol, to
throw ; see Kluge.
BUM, buttocks, (E.) Used by Shak. Mids. Nt. Dr. ii. 1. 53. A
word probably meaning ‘ protuberance,’ and connected with such
words as bump, a swelling, bumb, a pimple (Florio, 5. v. quosi).
BUM-BAILIFF, an under bailiff. (Εἰ and F.) In Shak.
Twelfth Nt. iii. 4. 194. Blackstone (bk. i. c. 9) says it is a corruption
of bound-batliff, which is a guess; for there is no such word. B. Todd
quotes from a Tract at the end of Fulke’s Defence of the English
translations of the Bible, 1583, p. 33: ‘ These quarrels . . are more
meet for the bum-courts than for the schools of divinity. In this say-
ing, ifthe term of bumcourts seem too light, I yield unto the censure
of grave and godly men.’ He also quotes the expression ‘ constables,
tithing-men, bailiffs, bumme or shoulder-marshals’ from Gayton’s
Notes. on Don Quixote, bk. ii. c. 2. He accordingly suggests that
the term arose from the bailiff or pursuer catching a man ‘ by the
hinder part of his garment ;’ and he is probably right.
BUMBLE-BEE, a bee that hums. (E.) The verb bumble isa
frequentative of boom, Cf. MDu. bommelen, to buzz, hum (Oude-
mans); Bremen bummeln, to sound; EFries. bummen, to resound ;
Du. bommen, to sound hollow (like an empty barrel). See Boom (1)
and Bump (2). ἐξ" As both boom and hum signify ‘to buzz,’ the
insect is called, indifferently, a bumble-bee or a humble-bee.
BUMBOAT, a boat used for taking out provisions to a ship. (EF.
From bum and boat; for the orig. sense was a scavenger’s boat, em-
ployed to remove ‘filth’ from ships lying in the Thames, as pre-
scribed by the Trinity House Bye Laws of 1685, See N. E. D.
BUMP (1), to thump, beat; a blow, bunch, knob. (E.) Cotgrave
has: ‘ Adot, a blow, bumpe, or thump;’ also: ‘ Baculer, to bump ..
with a bat.’ . Shak. has bump, a knob, Rom. i. 3. 33. Of imitative
origin ; cf. MDan. bumpe, to strike with the fist. So also W. pwmp,
around mass, a lump; pwmpio, to thump, bang. Φ In this case, and
some other similar ones, the original word is the verb, signifying ‘ to
strike ;’ next, the sb. signifying ‘ blow;’ and lastly, the visible effect
of the blow, the ‘ bump’ raised by it. Allied to Bunch, q.v.
_ BUMP (2), to make a noise like a bittem. (E.) ‘And as a bittour
bumps within a reed:’ Dryden, Wife of Bath’s Tale, 1. 194; where
Chaucer has bumbleth, C. T. 6554 (D 972). Imitative; a variant of
Boom (1); and cf. Bumblebee. So also .W. bwmp, a hollow
sound ; aderyn y bwmp, a bittern; Gk. βόμβος, a humming, buzzing.
BUMPER, a full glass, esp. when drunk asa toast. (E.) Dryden
has bumpers in his Epistle to Sir G. Etherege, 1. 46.. Apparently
Shak. has
6, 11, &c.;
BUNION 79
suggested by bump, a swelling, with the notion of fulness, so that
a bumper generally means ‘a glass filled to the brim.’ Cf, thumping,
with the sense of ‘ large.’
BUMPKIN, a thick-headed fellow. (Du.) Used by Dryden,
who talks of ‘the country bumpkin, Juvenal, Sat. 3, 1. 295. The
index to Cotgrave says that the F. for bumkin. is chicambault; and
Cot. has: ‘Chicambault, τα. The luffe-block, a long and thick piece
of wood, whereunto the fore-saile and sprit-saile are fastencd, when
a ship goes by the wind.’ I think it probable that bumsin (then pro-
nounced nearly as boomkin) is the dimin. of boom, formed by adding
to boom (a Dutch word) the Dutch dimin. ending -ken ; so that the
form boomken, explained by Hexham as ‘a little tree,’ might also signify
‘a small boom,’ or ‘ luff-block;” and metaphorically, a blockhead,
a wooden-pated fellow; perhaps originally a piece of nautical slang.
The Dutch suffix -ken is hardly used now, but was once in use freely,
particularly in Brabant; see Ten Kate, ii. 73 ; it answers exactly to
the E, suffix -4in, which took its place.
BUN, a sort of cake. (F.—Scand.) Skelton has bun in the sense
of a kind of loaf given to horses ; ed. Dyce, i. 15. ME. bunne, Prompt.
Parv. =O. prov. F. bugne, a name given at Lyons to a kind of fritters
(Burguy, Puitspelu) ; a variation of F. bigne, a swelling rising from a
blow (Burguy). B. These F. words are represented by the mod. F,
dimin. betgnet, a fritter; the connexion is established by Cotgrave,
who gives the dimin. forms as bugnet and bignet, with this explana-
tion : ‘ Bignets, little round loaves, or lumps made of fine meale, oile,
or butter, and raisons; buns, Lenten loaves; also, flat fritters made
like small pancakes.’ So also Minsheu’s Span. Dict. has: ‘ bu/tuelos,
pancakes, cobloaves, buns.’ And Torriano has Ital. ‘bugna, bugno,
bugnone, any round knob or bunch, a bile or blain.’ The word pro-
bably came to us from the S. of France; cf. Prov. bougno, a swelling,
bougneto, also buegno, a fritter. See Notes on E. Etymol. p. 25. y.
Perhaps of Scandinavian origin; see Bunion.
BUNCH, a knob, a cluster. (E.?) ME. bunche, Debate of the
Body and Soul, Vernon MS., 1. 344; where the copy printed in Matz-
ner has bulche, 1. 370. From ME. bunchen, to beat; P. Plowman, A.
prol. 71; B. prol. 74. Of imitative origin; a parallel formation to
Bump; cf. Low G. bunk, a bone that sticks out, a bump; Du. bonk,
a mass of flesh. And cf. Bunk, Bungle. 8. The notion of ‘ bunch-
ing out’ is due to ‘striking,’ as in other cases, the swelling being
caused by the blow; see Bump (1). Cf. Du. bonken, to beat, be-
labour. Der. bunch-y.
BUNDLE, something bound up, a package. (E.) ME. bundel
(ill-spelt busdelle), Prompt. Parv. p. 55. A dimin., by adding suffix
-el, of bund, a bundle, a thing bound up; the plural bunda, bundles,
occurs as a gloss of L. fasciculos in the Lind. MS. in Matt. xiii. 30.-
Du. bondel, a bundle; G. bundel, a dimin. of bund, a bundle, bunch,
truss. From bund-, weak grade of AS. bindan, to bind. See Bind.
BUNG, a plug for a hole in a cask. (Du.—L.) ME. bunge,
Prompt. Pary. p. 55. ‘ Bung of a tonne or pype, δον εἰ ;’ Palsgrave.
=MDu. bonge, ‘the bung of a barrill,’ Hexham; a dialectal
variant of MDu. *bonde, whence MDu. bonne, a bung, stopple, for
which Oudemans gives two quotations; hence mod. Du. bom, a bung
(Franck). Hence also F. bonde, of which Palsgrave has the dimin.
bondel, cited above. . Cotgrave explains bonde by ‘a bung or stopple ;
also, a sluice, a floodgate.’ B. This MDu. *bonde (preserved in F.
bonde) is cognate with Alsatian bunde, Swiss punt (see Weigand, s. v.
Spund, ii. 785). —L. puncta, an orifice; orig. fem. of functus, pp. of
pungere, to prick. Cf, W. bwng, an orifice, also a bung; from FE.
bung, which also means ‘bung-hole.’ See G. Spund, a bung, an
orifice, in Kluge; in which the s (from F. es-, L. ex) was prefixed.
BUNGALOW, a Bengal thatched house. (Hind.) Spelt bunglo,
Murphy, he Upholsterer, ii. 3 (1758). In Rich. Pers. Dict., p.-293,
we find: ‘ Pers. bangalah, of or belonging to Bengal; a bungalow.’
From the name Bengal. Forbes gives Hind. bangla, τὰ. a kind of
thatched house (p.88) ; Wilson gives the Bengali form as bangla (p. 59).
BUNGLE, to mend clumsily. (Scand.) Shak. has bungle, Hen. V,
ii. 2. 115; Sir T. More has bungler, Works, p. 1089 c. Prob. from
bung-, weak grade of an old Teut. str. vb. *bing-an-, to strike, pt. t.
*bang ; cf. MDu. bing-el, ‘a cudgill,’ Hexham; prov. 15. bang, a strong
pole, and bang, to beat; G. bengel, a cudgel; see EFries. bingeln in
Koolman. B. This is rendered probable by comparison with Swed.
dial. bangla, to work ineffectually (Rietz); Norw. bunka, to, work by
fits and starts (Ross). Ihre gives MSwed. bunga, to strike, and Rietz
gives bonka and bunka as variants of Swed. dial. banka, to strike. See
Bang. Der. bungl-er.
BUNION, 2 painful swelling on the foot. (Ital.—Teut.) Not in
early use. Rich. quotes bunians from Rowe's Imitations of Horace,
bk. iii, ode 9; written, perhaps, about A.D. 1718; the footnote
(in Eng. Poets, ix. 472) says that it was ‘ Jacob’s term for his corns,’
so that we owe the word to J. Tonson, the book-seller, who may very
well have known the Ital. form. Ital. bugnone, bugno, any round
80 BUNK
knob or bunch, a boil or blain; cf. OF. bugne, bune, buigne, a swell-
ing (Burguy); F. bigne, a bump, knob, rising, or swelling after a
knock (Cotgrave).—Icel. bunga, an elevation, convexity; Norw.
bunga, a round swelling, a bump (Ross) ; OHG. bungo, a lump (cited
by Diez). Allied to Skt. bakw-s, thick, Gk. παχύς; Brugmann, Kurze
Vergl. Gram. ὃ 194. B. The prov. Eng. bunny, a swelling after a
blow, in Forby’s East-Anglian Dialect, is from the OF. bugne. See
Bun. The Ital. bugnone is from Ital. bugno, the same as the OF.
bugne; with the addition of the Ital. augmentative suffix -one.
BUNK, a wooden case or box, serving for a seat by day and a bed
by night; one of a series of berths arranged in tiers. (Scand.) A
nautical term; and to be compared with the MSwed. bunke, which
Thre defines as ‘tabulatum navis, quo celi injuriz defenduntur a
vectoribus et mercibus.’ He adds a quotation, viz. ‘Gretter giorde sier
στοῦ under bunka’ = Gretter made for himself a bed under the board-
ing or planking [if that be the right rendering of ‘sub tabulato’]. The
ordinary sense of MSwed. bunke is a pile, a heap, orig. something pro-
minent; Icel. bunk; allied to E. bunch. Cf. M Dan. bunke, room for cargo.
BUNT, the belly or hollow of a sail; a nautical term. (Scand. —
MHG.) ‘ Bunt, the hollowness allowed in making sails ;’ Coles (1684).
Also in Kersey’s Dict. a. Wedgwood explains it from Dan. bundt,
Swed. bunt, a bundle, a bunch; and so Webster; cf. EFries. bund,
bunt, a bundle, packing. If so, the root is the verb to bind. Cf.
Norw. bunta, to pack, pack tight (Ross). From MHG., bunt, a
bundle. =OHG. bunt-, weak grade of bintan, to bind. β, But the
sense agrees better with that of a different Scand. word, answering
to E. bow, a bend; cf. Dan. bug, a belly; bug paa Seil, a bunt; bug-
gaarding, a bunt-line ; bug-line, bowline ; bug-spryd, bowsprit ; bugne,
to bend; de bugnende Seul, the bellying sails or canvas; Swed. buk pa
ett segel, the bunt of asail; bugning, flexure.
BUNTING (1), the name of a bird. (Scand. ?) ME. bunting, bount-
ing; also buntyle, badly written for buntel. ‘ Buntynge, byrde, pratellus;’
Prompt. Parv. p. 56. ‘A bounting ;’ Lyric Poems, ed. Wright, p. 40.
‘Hic pratellus, a buntyle;’ Wright’s Vocab. i. 221. Cf. Lowland
Scotch buntlin, a bunting. Originunknown. As the bird has ‘a clumsy
figure’ (Newton), we may compare Lowl. Sc. buntin, short and thick,
plump, prov. E. bunty, short and stout; perhaps from Norw. bunta,
stout and compact (Ross).
BUNTING (2), a thin woollen stuff, of which ships’ flags are
made. (E.?) In Johnson’s Dict. ; and first found in 1742 (N.E.D.). [The
suggestion of a connexion with High G. bunt, variegated, is unlikely,
though the word is now found in Dutch as δορί. Mr. Wedgwood says:
‘To bunt in Somerset is to bolt meal, whence bunding, bolting-cloth,
the loose open cloth used for sifting flour, and now more generally
known as the material of which flags are made.’ And he has noted
that F. eramine means (1) a bolting-cloth, (2) bunting. The E. D.D.
has bunt, to sift, to bolt, and bunting, a kind of cloth of which sieves
are made (which seems decisive). The verb bunt, to bolt flour, is
ME. bonten, to sift, and occurs in the Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 93.
BUOY, a floating piece of wood fastened down. (Du. —L.) It occurs
(spelt bwoy) in Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. iii. p. 411, Spelt boy in Pals-
grave. Borrowed, as many sea-terms are, from the Dutch. = Du. boei,
a buoy; also, a shackle, fetter. [The same word as OF. boie, buie, a
fetter; Godetroy.}— Late L. bosa, a fetter, a clog. .[‘Raynouard, Lex.
Rom. ii. 232, quotes ‘“‘jubet compedibus constringi, quos rustica lingua
boias vocat.” Plautus has it in a pun, Capt. iv. 2. 109, ““.. Boius est;
boiam terit;””’ note to Vie de Seint Auban, ]. 680, ed. Atkinson; q. v. |
=L. boi, pl. a collar for the neck, orig. made of leather. Sometimes
derived from L, δῦς, an ox, and said to have meant orig. ‘a collar made
of leather ;’ like Gk. Boevs, βόειος from βοῦς. 47 A buoy is so called
because chained to its place, like a clog chained to a prisoner's ley.
Cf. ‘In presoune, fetterit with boyis, sittand;’ Barbour’s Bruce, ed.
Skeat, x. 763. The mod. F. bouée, a buoy, is a modification of MF.
boyée, ‘a boy,’ in Palsgrave, and means ‘chained down,’ being the f. pp.
of a verb borer, to chain. Der. buoy-ant (Span. boyante); buoy-anc-y.
BUR, BURDOCK; see Burr.
BURBOT, a fish of the genus Lota. (F.—L.—Gk.) The pl. borbattus
occurs in Relig. Antique, i. 85 (ab. 1475). =F. bourbotte (also barbote).
=F. bourbetter, ‘to wallow in mud;’ Cot. =F. bourbe, mud. = Late L.
borba, mud (Ducange).=— Gk. βόρβορος, mud.
BURDEN (1), BURTHEN, a load carried. (E.) ME. birbene,
Havelok, 807; altered to birdex by Norman influence; spelt dirdin
in Cursor Mundi, 6830 (Cotton MS.). AS. byrden, a load (Grein).
+0OSax. burdinnia. Teut. type *burthinnja, extension of *bur-th- with
suffix -innja. Allied to Icel. byrdr, byrdi; Swed. bérda; Dan. byrde;
Goth. baurthei ; OHG. burdi, burdin; ΜΉ. and G. biirde. All from
Teut. *bur-, weak grade of *ber-an-, to bear; with varying suffixes.
Further allied to Gk. φόρτος, a burden.—4/BHER, to bear. See
Bear. Drr. burden-some.
BURDEN (2), the refrain of asong. (F.—Late L.) The same word
as bourdon, the drone of a bagpipe or the bass in music. ME. burdoun,
BURIAL
Chaucer, Prol. 673.—F. bourdon, ‘a drone or dorre-bee; also, the
humming or buzzing of bees; also, the drone of a bagpipe ;’ (οί. -
Late L. burdénem, acc. of burdo, a drone or non-working bee, which
is probably an imitative word, from the buzzing sound made by the
insect; bur- being another form of buzz, q.v.; cf. Lowl. Sc. birr, to
whiz. 4 The ME. bourdon also means a pilgrim’s staff, which is
another meaning of the F. bourdox. The Late L. burdo also means
(1) anass, mule, (2) a long organ-pipe. Diez thinks the ‘organ-pipe’
Was so named from resembling a ‘staff,’ which he derives from burdo
in the sense of ‘mule,’ But burdo, an ass, may be a distinct word.
BURDOCK ; see Burr.
BUREAU, an office for business. (F.—L.—Gk. ?) Used by Swift
and Burke; see Richardson.—F. bureau, a desk,. writing-table, so
called because covered with baize. Cotgrave has: ‘ Bureau, a thick
and course cloath, of a brown russet or darke-mingled colour; also,
the table that’s within a court of audit or of audience (belike, because
it is usually covered with a carpet of that cloth) ; also the court itself.’
And see Brachet, who quotes from Boileau, vétw de simple bureau.—
OF. burel, coarse woollen stuff, russet-coloured. —OF. buire (F. bure),
reddish-brown.—L. burrus, fiery-red (Fick, ii. 154).—Gk. πυρρός,
flame-coloured.Gk. πῦρ, fire. See Fire. 4 Chaucer has ‘borel
men,’ i.e. men roughly clad, men of small account (C.T. B 3145) ;
where borel is from the OF. burel above. Der. bureau-cracy; see
Aristocracy.
BURGANET, BURGONET, a helmet. (F.—Late L.) See
Shak. Ant. and Cleop. i. 5. 24. “- Εὶ bourguignotte,‘a Burganet, Hufkin,
or Spanish Murrion’ [morion, helmet]; Cot. So called because first
used by the Burgundians, =F. Bourgogne, Burgundy. = Late L. Bur-
gundia; cf. ‘Bourguignon, a Burgonian, one of Burgundy ;’ Cot. B. So,
in Spanish, we have borgovto‘a, a sort of helmet ; a /a Burgoztola, after
the Burgundy fashion ; Borgova, Burgundy wine. And, in Italian,
borrognone, borgognotta, a burganet, helmet.
BURGEON, a bud; to bud. (F.— Teut.) ME. borioune (printed
borjoune),a bud ; Arthur and Merlin, p.65 (Halliwell’s Dict.) ; burton
(printed burjor), Cursor Mundi, 10735. ‘Gramino, to borioune (printed
borionne) or kyrnell;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 276, note 3.—F. bourgeon,
a young bud; Cot.; OF. borion=borjon (Hatzfeld). B. Diez cites a
shorter form in the Languedoc boure, a bud, the eye of a shoot (mod.
Prov. bourro, bouro, a bud) ; and he supposes the word to have been
formed from the MHG, buren, OHG. purjan, to raise, push up. If so,
we are at once led to MHG. bor, OHG. por, an elevation, whence is
formed the word ix-pfor, upwards, in common use as G. empor; cf. G.
emporung, an insurrection, i.e. a breaking forth. Allied to Du. beuren,
to liftup. From Teut. *bur-, weak grade of *beran-, to bear.
BURGESS, a citizen. (F.—-MHG.) ME. burgeys, Chaucer, Prol.
369; Havelok, 1328; pl.burgeises, Ancren Riwle, p.168.=— OF .burgeis,
a citizen. — Late L. burgensis, adj., belonging to a city. — Late L. burgus,
a small fort (Vegetius).— MHG. bure, a fort (G. burg); cognate with
Ε΄ borough, See Borough.
BURGHER, a citizen. (Du.) In Gascoigne, Fruites of Warre,
st. 14.—Du. burger, a citizen. Du. burg, a city; cognate with E.
borough. See Borough.
BURGLAR, a housebreaker, thief. (AF.—E.) Dogberry mis-
uses burglary, Much Ado, iv. 2.52. Florio [ed. 1680, not in ed. 1611]
interprets Ital. grancelli by ‘roguing beggars, bourglairs.’ Burglar is
an AF. law term; spelt burgler in Fitzherbert’s Graunde Abridgement,
268 b; burglour in a tr. of Fitzherbert’s New Bk. Justyces, 125 b. The
Late L. forms are burgulator, burglitor, burgator, all with the sense of
house-breaker. All are founded on AS. burh, a borough, whence ME.
bur gh-breche, ‘ breach of a borough. See N.E.D. Der. burglar-y,
bur glar-i-ous.
BURGOMASTER, a chief magistrate of a town. (Du.) -In
τ Hen. IV, ii. 1.84. ‘Euery of the foresayd-cities sent one of their
burgomasters vnto the towne of Hage in Holland;’ Hakluyt, Voyages,
i, 157.— Du. burgemeester, a burgomaster; whence it has been cor-
tupted by assimilating burge- to burgo-, for Late L. burgus, a town
(Latinised form of borough or burgh), whilst meester is spelt in the E.
fashion. — Du. burg, a borough, cognate with E. borough, q.v.; and
meester, a master (OF. meistre), for which see Master.
BURGONET, a helmet ; see Burganet.
BURIAL, a grave; the act of burying. (E.) ME. buriel, a grave;
Trevisa, ii. 27 ; biriel,a tomb, Wycl., Matt.xxvii. 60. But the form is
corrupt; the older Eng. has buriels, which is a singular, not a plural
substantive, in spite of its apparent plural form. ‘ Beryels, sepulchrum;?
Wright’s Vocab. i. 178. ‘An buryels,’ i.e. a tomb; Rob. of Glouc.,
p: 204; 1. 4184. AS. byrgels, a sepulchre; Gen. xxiii. 9 ; the com-
moner form being byrgen, Gen. xxiii. 3. Formed, with suffix -els, from
AS. byrg-an,to bury. See Bury. 4] Other examples of the suffix -els
or -else occur in AS.; e.g. fetels, a bag, Josh. ix. 4; rédelse, a-riddle,
Numb. xii. 8.. The suffix -a/ in Εἰ buri-al is due to association with
Suner-al, &c.
BURIN
“BUREN, an engraver’s tool. (F.—Ital.—G.) In Bailey, vol. ii.
(1731). Borrowed Jrom F. burin; a word borrowed irom Ital. borino
(Brachet). Probably formed from MHG, boren (OHG, poron, G.
bohren), to bore; cognate with Εἰ, bore. See Bore (1).
BURKE, to murder by suffocation, to stifle. (E.) From the name
of Burke, an Irishman who committed murders by suffocation; exe-
cuted at Edinburgh, Jan. 28, 1829. The name Burke (L. de Burgo)
is due.to an AF. pronunciation of AS. burh, a borough.
BURL, to pick knots and loose threads from cloth; in cloth-making.
(F.—Late L.) To burl is to pick off burls or knots in cloth, the word
being properly a sb. Halliwell has: ‘Burle, a knot, or bump; see
Topsell’s Hist. Beasts, p. 250 [220, ed. 1658]. Also, to take away the
knots or impure parts fromwool or cloth. ‘‘ Desquamare vestes, to burle
clothe ;” Elyot. Cf. Herrick’s Works, ii. 15.’ ME. burle, a knot in
cloth; see Prompt. Parv. p. 56.—OF. bourle, a tuft of wool, dimin. of
bourre (Godefroy); cf. Proy. F. bouril, bourril, a flock or end of thread
which disfigures cloth, cited by Mr. Wedgwood as a Languedoc word;
spelt bourr:, bourril in Mistral. =F. bourre, expl. by Cotgrave as ‘flocks,
or locks of wool, hair, &c, serving to stuff saddles, balls, and such like
things.’ = Late L. burra, a woollen pad (Ducange); cf. L. burr, trifles;
Late L. reburrus, rough.
BURLESQUE, comic, ironical. (F.—Ital.—L.) Dryden
speaks of ‘the dull burlesque ;’ Art of Poetry, canto i. 1, 81. It is
properly an adjective, as in Blount’s Gloss. =F, burlesque, introd. in
16th cent. from the Ital. (Brachet).—Ital. burlesco, ludicrous. = Ital.
burla, a trick, waggery, fun, banter. B. Diez suggests that burla is a
dimin. from L, burra, used by Ausonius in the sense of a jest, though
the proper sense is rough hair. This supposition seems to explain
also the Span. borla, a tassel, tuft, as compared with Span. borra,
goat's hair. See Burl,
BURLY, large, corpulent, huge. (E.) ME, burely, Perceval, 269 ;
borlic, large, ample, Bestiary, 605 ; burliche, Morte Arthur, ed. Brock,
586, 2190. The same as Shetland boor/y, stout; Prov. E. bowerly,
comely, well made, stout. Cf,‘ great and bowerly images,’ in Udall’s
tr. of Erasmus’ Apophthegmes (1542), p. 184 Ὁ. This shows clearly
that the AS. form must have been *bur-lic, in which the τὸ was
shortened before rl, as in mod. E, Dunstan, AS. Din-stan. Thus the
orig. sense. was ‘suitable for a bower’ or lady’s chamber; hence
handsome, goodly, &c. Cf. ME. burmaiden, a‘ bower-maid.’ (Athe-
num, Mar. 24, 1894, p. 250; Notes on E. Etym. p. 26.) See
Bower.
BURN (1), toseton fire. (E.) ME. bernen, Ancren Riwle, p. 306;
allied to brennen, Chaucer, C. T. 2333 (A 2331). There are two
types... a, intrans. AS. byrnan, to burn; Grein, i. 153; also beornan,
p- 109; a strong yerb, pt. t. bearn, bran, pp. bornen.4-Olcel. brinna ;
Goth. brinnan; Teut. type *brenn-an-; cf. AS. bryn-e, flame. β. trans.
AS, bernan, weak verb (Grein, i. 77).-4-Icel. brenna, Dan. brende,
Swed. branna; G. brennen; Teut. type *brannjan-, causal of the former.
BURN (2), a brook. See Bourn (2).
BURNET, a plant. (F.-OHG.) A name given chiefly to the
Poterium Sanguisorba and Sanguisorba officinalis; see E.D.S. Plant-
Names, and Prior. Prior says the name was given to the Poterium
because of its brown flowers. The flowers of the Sanguisorba are of
a deep purple-brown colour. The word occurs in MS. Sloane 2457,
fol. 6 (see Halliwell) as synonymous with pimpernel, but Mr. Britten
remarks that the foferiwm is meant. It also occurs in Late L. as
burneta, Reliq. Antiq. i. 37, so that it is doubtless French. Cf. ME.
burnet, dark brown; O. E. Hom. ii. 163. Also AF. burnete, burnet
(Alphita). OF. brunete, given by Godetroy as the name of a flower,
now unknown; but it is clearly our burnet. Also spelt brunette, and
the same word with OF. brunette, also burnette, a kind of dark brown
cloth, also a brunette. See further under Brunette.
BURNISH, to polish. (F.—OHG.) Shak. has burnished,
Merch, Ven. ii. 1. 2; ME. burnist, Gawain and Grene Knight, ed.
Morris, 212; cf. burned, Chaucer, C. T. 1985 (A 1983).—OF.
burnir, brunir, to embrown, to polish; pres. pt. burnis-ant (whence
the E. suffix -isk). —OHG. briinen (<*brunjan), to embrown, also to
make bright, to polish. —OHG., brain, brown; cognate with AS. brin,
brown. See Brown. Der. burnish-er.
BURNOUSE, an upper cloak worm by Arabs. (F.—Arab.) In
G. Eliot, Daniel Deronda, ch. xi. Dryden describes Almeyda as
having ‘ her face veiled with a barnus;’ Don Sebastian, A. i.—F.
burnous. = Arab. burnus, a kind of high-crowned cap, worn formerly
in Barbary and Spain; whence Span, albornoz, a kind of cloak with
a hood; Rich. Dict. p. 265; Devic.
BURR, BUR, a rough envelope of the seeds of plants, as in the
burdock. (E.) ME. burre, tr. by ‘lappa, glis;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 56;
ef. borre, a hoarseness or roughuess in the throat, P. Plowman, C, xx.
306. In Cockayne’s A. S. Leechdoms, iii. 316, we find: ‘ Burr, pl.
burres, burr, burrs, Arctium lappa; Gl. Rawlinson, c. 607; Gl.
Sloane, 5... NFriesic burre, borre, a burr. τ Swed. borre, a sea-
BUSKIN 81
hedgehog, sea-urchin ; kardborre, a burdock; Dan. borre, burdock,
From Teut. base *burz-, for *burs-, weak grade of Teut. root *bers-,
to bristle. See Bristle. Der. burr (or perhaps of imitative origin),
a roughness in the throat, hoarseness; bur-dock. ]
BURROW, a shelter for rabbits. (E.) ME. borwgh, a den, cave,
lurking-place ; ‘Fast byside the borwgh there the barn was inne’=
close beside the burrow where the child was; William of Palerne,
1.9. Inthe Prompt. Parv. p. 56, we find: ‘ Burwhe, burwth [burwch?]
burwe, burrowe, town; burzu:. Thus burrow is a mere variation of
borough. B. The provincial Eng. burrow, a shelter, is the same word;
from burg-, weak grade of AS. beorgan, to protect. See Borough.
Der. burrow, verb.
BURSAR, a purse-keeper, treasurer. (Late L.—Gk.) Wood, in
his Athenze Oxonienses, says that Hales was ‘bursar of his college’
(R.).. The pl. bursers is in Harrison, Descr. of England, b. 11. ch. 3;
ed. Furnivall, p. 82.— Late L. bursarius, a treasurer. Late L. bursa,
a purse, with suffix -drivs, denoting the agent. =Gk. βύρσα, a hide,
skin; of which purses were made. See Purse. Der. bursar-ship.
BURST, to break asunder, break forth. (E.) ME. bersten, bresten,
Chaucer, C. Τ᾿ 1982 (A 1980) ; P. Plowman, A. vii. 165. AS. berstan,
pt. t. berst, pp. borsten; Grein, i.92.4+Du. bersten, to burst asunder ;
Icel. bres‘a; Swed. brista; Dan. briste; OHG. préstan, MHG. bresten
(G. bersten).4-Gael. bris, to break; Irish brisaim, Olrish briss-im,
I break. Teut. type *brest-an-, pt. τ, *brasé.
BURTHEN;; see Burden (1).
BURY (1), to hide in the ground, to inter. (E.) ME. buryen,
P. Plowman, B, xi. 66. AS. byrgan, byrigan, Grein, i. 152; from
*burg-, weak grade of AS. beorgan, to protect, to hide; for which
see Borough, Der. buri-al, q.v.
BURY (2), atown; asin Canterbury. (E.) A variant of borough,
due to the peculiar declension of AS. burh, which changes to the form
byrig in the dat. sing., after the prep. δῷ at. See Borough.
BUS, a shortened form of omnibus (ab. 1832). (L.) The pl.
émnibtisses, with the third syllable more stressed than at present, was
shortened to “busses; whence the sing. buss or bus. See Omnibus.
BUSH (1), a thicket. (Late L.) a Busk answers to an AS,
*bysc, whence Warde-busc, widi-busce, Birch, Cart. Sax. ili. 638, 1.35;
cf, Bissey, Bussey, old forms of Bushey, Herts. ME. bask, Chaucer,
C. T. 1519 (A. 1517); busch, busk, P. Plowman, B. xi. 336; busk, Will.
of Palerne, 3069; Gen. and Exodus, 2779. B. The form busk is of
Scand. origin; cf. Dan. busk, a bush, shrub; Swed. buske, a bush.
Cf. also Du. bosch, a wood, forest; OHG. buse (G. busch). All from
Late L. boseus, a bush; a word of unknown origin ; whence also Ital.
bosco, F. bois. Boscus occurs in the Laws of Cnut, De Foresta, § 28.
Der. bush-y, bush-i-ness.
BUSH (2), the metal box in which an axle of a machine works.
(Dutch—L.—Gk.) Technical. Miss Jacksou (Shropsh, Word-book)
quotes ‘one paire of bushes’ from an inventory of 1625.—MDu,
busse; Du. bus, a box; here the equivalent of the E. box, which is
similarly used. Late L. buxis, a box.—Gk. mufis, a box. = ΑΚ. πύξος,
box-wood, box-tree. See Box (1). Doublet, pyx.
BUSHEL, a measure. (I'.—L.—Gk.) ME. bushel, Chaucer,
C. T. 4091 (A 4093) ; Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 331, 1. 165, p.
341, 1. 393 (ab. 1330). —AF. dussel; Britton, i, 189; OF. boissel ;
Lurguy, 5. v. boiste ; Godefroy, Supp. = Late L. boissellus, buscellus, a
bushel ; also spelt bustel/us.— Late L. buxida (>OF. boiste, F. boite),
the acc. case of buxis, a box.—Gk. mugis, a box. See above.
BUSK (1), to get oneself ready. (Scand.) ME. buske, busken,
P. Plowman, B. ix. 133 ; Cursor Mundi, 11585.—Icel. biask, to get
oneself ready ; see Cleasby and Vigfusson’s Icel. Dict. pp. §7, col. 1,
and 88, col. 1; Dasent,“Burnt Njal, pref. xvi, note. It stands for
bia-sk, where bia is to prepare, and -sk is for sik (cf. G. sich), oneself.
The neut. sense of bia is to live, dwell ; from 4/ BHEU, to be. See
Boor, and cf. Bask.
BUSK (2), a support for a woman’s stays. (F.) Bwsk now means
a piece of whalebone or stiffening for the front of a pair of stays;
but was originally applied to the whole of the stays. —MF. busgue ;
Cotgrave has: ‘ Busque, ...a buske, or buste ;’ mod. F. busc. Of
uncertain origin; cf. also MF. buc, ‘a buske, plated body, or other
quilted thing, worn to make, or keep, the body straight ;’ Cot. Cf.
Ἐς busc in Supp. to Godefroy.
BUSKIN, a kind of legging. (F.—Ital.—L.—Gk.) Shak. has
buskin’d, Mids, Nt. Dr.ii. 1.71. Cotgrave has: ‘ Brodequin, a buskin,’
Palsgrave has: ‘ Buskyng, brodeguin;’ and (at p. 907, col. 3), we
find; ‘The buskyns, Zes brousequins ;” among the articles’of women’s
attire. —OF. bowsequin, occurring in 1483 (Godefroy, Supp., 5. v-
brodequin), also brousequin, brosequin, brosquin (id.). [The form brode-
quin may have arisen from confusion with F. broder, OF. brosdir
(Hatzfeld).] Origin disputed; but xof from Dutch, the MDu. brose-
ken (Sewel) having been borrowed from F, (Franck). ° Perhaps from
Mital. borzachino, pl. borzachini, ‘buskins, fine bootes,’ Florio ;. who
G
82 BUSS
also gives borzachinetti, ‘little buskins, little cheuerell [i.e. kid]
purses.’ The last sense suggests a possible derivation from MItal.
borza, variant of borsa, a purse, a bag (F. bourse) ; see Purse. Hence
we might also derive Span. borcegui, a buskin, the γι reappearing in
borceguin-ero, a buskin-maker. 4 The Ital. borsa (like MF. bourse)
may have had the sense of leather case; cf. Gk. βύρσα, a hide. Cf.
i. tunicam de buskyns, et i. togam viridem;’ York Wills (1471);
iii. 188.
BUSS (1), a kiss; to kiss. (E.) Used by Shak. K. John, iii. 4.
35. Thesb. busse is inSpenser, F. Ὁ. ili. 10. 46. Buss is of imitative
origin; cf. Lith. bucz-oti, to kiss; Bavarian bussen, to kiss; Schmeller.
Webster refers to Luther as an authority for bus in the sense of a kiss;
cf. Swed. dial. pussa, to kiss; puss, a kiss (Rietz), Also Span, buz,
a kiss; Gael. bus, W. bus, mouth, lip, snout. 4 In ME., the form
is bass, Cf. ‘ Thus they kiss and bass;’ Calisto and Melibcea, in Old
Plays, ed. Hazlitt, i. 74; basse, a kiss, Court of Love, 1. 797 ; “1 basse
or kysse a person;’ Palsgrave. ‘This is from Εἰ, baiser, to kiss ; or
from L. bastare, to kiss, basium, a kiss.
BUSS (2), a herring-boat. (F.) In Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Lang-
toft, pp. 149, 153, 158, 169.—OF. busse, buse, buce, a sort of barge ;
cf. also Du. buis, a herring-boat ; Late L. bussa, a kind of a larger
boat. In the A.S. Chron. an. 1066, we find butse-carlas, barge-men.
The origin of the word is unknown.
BUST, the upper part of the human figure. (F.—Ital.) Used by
Cotgrave; who explains buste by ‘a bust, the... quilted body of
a doublet ; also, the whole bulk or body of a man from his face to
his middle.’ -- Ἐς buste, introduced in 16th century from Ital. (Brachet).
= Ital. busto, bust, human body, stays; cf. bustino, bodice, corset,
slight stays. — Late L. bustum, the trunk of the body, the body with-
out the head. β. Etym. uncertain. Diez connects it with Late L.
busta, a small box, from L. acc. buxida; see Box (2). Compare the
E. names chest and trunk. Others connect it with Late L. busta, or
busca, a log of wood, OF. busche, F. biche, allied to Late L. boscus ;
for which see Bush (1). See Korting, §§ 1602, 1666.
BUSTARD, a kind of bird. (F.—L.) ‘A bustard, buteo, picus;’
Levins, 30. 12. Used by Cotgrave, who has: ‘ Bistarde, a bustard.’
Spelt bustarde, Book of St. Alban’s, fol. ἃ 3, back. [Sherwood's
Eng. and Fr. Dictionary, appended to Cotgrave, has : ‘ A bustard, or
bistard, bistard, outarde, houtarde, oustarde, houstarde, hostarde;’
whence houstarde has been copied into Todd’s Johnson as boustarde !}
We thus see that it is a corruption of OF. bistarde, possibly due to
confusion with the OF. variant oustarde.—L. auis tarda, a slow bird.
Pliny has: ‘ proxime iis sunt, quas Hispania awes tardas appellat,
Grecia ὠτίδας ;’ Nat. Hist. x. 22. β. Thus bistarde is for avis-tarde
with the a dropped ; so in Portuguese the bird is called both abetarda
and betarda. ‘The mod. F. has made avis tarda into outarde ; cf. the
form oustarde quoted above; also Prov. austarda, Span. avutarda,
Ital. ottarda. Thus Diez, who is clearly right. At the same time,
the L. avis tarda is an absurd name, as the bird is very swift. It
looks like a popular perversion of Gk. wri5-, stem of ὠτίς (above),
which is a true Gk. word.
BUSTLE (1), to stir about quickly, to scurry. (Scand.) Shak.
has bustle, to be active, Rich. I], i. 1. 152. ‘ Bustelyng forth as
bestes,’ wandering blindly like beasts; Piers Plowman, A. vi. 4. A
frequentative ; cf. Icel. bustla, to splash about as a fish. — Norw. busta,
to be violent ; bisa, to rush forward headlong (Ross). Cf. EFries.
bisen, to be noisy or violent ; Swed. busa fd en, to rush upon one.
Also Low G. buus, bounce! biistern, to wander about ; er bistert wat
herum, he bustles about (Bremen) ; Swed. bésta, to bustle, work
(Bjorkman); Low G. (Kurhessen) bosseln, busseln, to bustle about
(Vilmar).
BUSTLE (2), a pad beneath a woman’s skirt. (Scand.) Probably
from buskle, vb., in its earliest sense ‘to prepare, equip ;’ so that the
sense is ‘equipment.’ Cf. busk, to attire, accoutre, dress, of which it is
the frequentative. The N.E.D. quotes—‘ Buskel thyself [prepare
thyself] and make thee bowne’ [ready]; Bradford, Wks., p. 445.
BUSY, active. (E.) ME. bisy, Chaucer, Prol. 321. AS. bisig,
bysig, busy, Grein, i. 153; cf. bisgu, byseu, labour, bisgian, to employ,
fatigue. Du. bezig, busy, active ; bezigheid, business, occupation ;
bezigen, to use, employ; Low G. besich (Liibben) ; EFries. basig,
busy. Cf. Norw. base, to toil (Larsen). Der. busi-ness, busy-body.
4 We find ONorthumb. bisignesse, solicitude, anxiety, in the Lindis-
farne MS.; Table of Contents of St. Matthew, no. xx; ed. Skeat,
p. 17, 1.10. The AS. form is bisig rather than bysig.
BUT (1), adv., prep. and conj., except. (E.) ME. bute, Havelok,
85; buten, Layamon, 1. 23. AS. biitan, conj. except: prep. besides,
without; contr. from be-utan, Grein, i. 150. The full form diifan is
frequently found in the Heliand, e.g. in 1. 2188; and even biitan
that, unless, 1. 2775. B. Be=by; wtan=outward, outside; biitan=
“by the outside,’ and so ‘ beyond,’ ‘ except.’ The form wan is ad-
verbial ; from ii/, out.4-Du. bziten, except. @] All the uses of but
BUTTON
are from the same source; the distinction attempted by Horne
Tooke is unfounded. The form δὲ for by is also seen in the word
be-yond, a word of similar formation. See further under Out.
BUT (2), tostrike; a but-end; acask. See Butt (1) and Butt (2).
BUTCHER, a slaughterer of animals. (F.—OHG.) ME. bocher,
P. Plowman, B. prol. 218; King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1. 2832.—
OF, bocher, originally one who kills he-goats. —OF. boc (F. bouc), a
he-goat.—mOHG, bok (G. bock), a he-goat; allied to E. buck. See
Buck. Der. butcher, verb; butcher-y.
BUTLER, one who attends to bottles. (F.—Late L.) ME.
boteler, botler, Wyclif, Gen. xl. 1, 2 ; boteler (3 syll.), Chaucer, C. T.
15140 (B 4324).—AF. butuiller, a butler, Vie de St. Auban, ed.
Atkinson, ]. 677 ; and see note. AF. butuille, a bottle; OF. botetlle.
See Bottle. Der. buttery, a corrupted word; q. v.
BUTT (1), a push, a thrust; to thrust. (F.—O. Low G.) [The
senses of the sb. may be referred back to the verb, just as the F. bout
depends on bouter (Brachet).} ME. butten, to push, strike, Ormulum,
1. 2810; Havelok, 1916, 2322.—OF. boler, to push, butt, thrust,
strike ; of which the AF. form was buter, Vie de Saint Auban, 534.
-OFrankish *bd/an, corresponding to MDu. booten, to beat,
ΜΗ. bézen, to strike, beat ; cognate with AS. béatax. See Beat.
Der. In the sense of ‘a butt to shoot at,’ or ‘a rising ground, a knoll,’
we have borrowed the Εἰ, butte, which see in Cotgrave and Hatzfeld.
Cf. Ἐς but, a mark; buter, to strike ; from the same root as before.
BUTT (2), a large barrel. (F.—Late L.) In Levins, 195. 13. ‘A
Butie of Malmesey ;’ Sir T. More, Hist. Rich, III. § 4. Not E. [The
AS. byt (Voc. 123. 29), occurring in the pl. byéta in Matt. ix. 17, and
the dat. sing. bytte, Psalm xxxii. 7, produced an ME. bitte, for which
see bit (3), sb., in N.E.D.; cf. Icel. dytta, a pail, asmall tub.] Our
modern word is really French. OF. boute; Εἰ, botte, which Cotgrave
explains as ‘ the vessel which we calla butt.’ Cf. also OF. bote, in the
Supp. to Godefroy. = Late L. butis, buttis,a cask. See Bottle.
BUTT (3), athick end, as ofa gun. (E.) Prob. an E. word, though
not found early; see Buttock. ME. but; ‘the but of his spere ;’
Malory, Morte Arthur, bk. x. ch. 2; leaf 208,1.25. Cf. EFries. but,
NFries. butt, thick, stumpy. Also Icel. butir, short, butr, a log;
Dan. but, Swed. butt, stumpy, surly ; Low G, butt, stump, butt, a thick
end; Du. bof, blunt, dull; prov. (ἃ. butzig, stumpy; Swed. but,
ΜΗ. buize, a lump, clod.
BUTT (4), a kind of flat fish. (E.) ΜΕ. butte, Havelok, 759.
EFries. but, Allied to Swed. butta, a turbot ; MDan. butte, Low G.
butt, Du. bot, a butt, flounder. Prob. allied to Butt (3).
BUTTER, a substance obtained from milk by churning, (L.—
Gk.) ME. botere, Wyclif, Gen, xviii. 8 ; butere, Havelok, 643. AS.
butere (Bosworth) ; a borrowed word. = L. bityrum.—Gk. βούτυρον ;
as if from βου-, for βοῦς, an ox, and τυρός, cheese ; but it is perhaps of
Scythian origin ; cf. Herodotus, iv. 2. @ The similarity of E. butter
to G. butter is simply due to the word being borrowed, not native.
Der. butter-cup ; also butter-fly, q. v.
BUTTERFLY, an insect. (Hybrid; Gk. and E.) AS. buttor-
flzoge, in /Elfric’s Glossary, ed. Somner, Nomina Insectorum.= AS,
buter-, butter; and flzoge, a fly.4-Du. botervlieg; G. butterfliege,
a butterfly; cf. butter-vogel (butter-fowl, i.e. butter-bird), a large
white moth. β. It has amused many to devise guesses to explain the
name. Kilian gives a M. Du. name of the insect as boter-schijte,
showing that its excrement was regarded as resembling butter ; and
this guess is better than others in so far as it rests on some evidence.
It was also a popular belief that butterflies stole milk and cream; cf.
G. molken-dieb, milk-thief, butterfly, and see Schmetterling in Kluge.
BUTTERY, a place for provisions, esp. liquors. (F.—Late L.)
Shak. has buttery, Tam. Shrew, Ind. i. 102; ‘ bring your hand to the
buttery-bar, and let it drink;” Tw. Night, i. 3. 74. [The principal
thing given out at the buttery-bar was (and is) beer; the buttery-bar is
a small ledge on the top of the half-door (or buttery-hatch) on which
to rest tankards. But as butter was (and is) also kept in butteries, the
word was easily corrupted into its present form.] β. It is, however,
from ME. boterye (Prompt. Parv.), shortened from ME. botelerie, i.e.
a butlery, or place for bottles. In Rob. of Glouc. p. 191, we read that
‘Bedwer the boteler’ (i.e. Bedivere the butler) took some men to
serve in ‘the botelery.? So, too, we find: ‘ Hec botelaria, botelary ;’
Voc. 670, 16.—OF. boteillerie (Supp. to Godefroy); F. bouteillerie,
‘a cupboord, or table to set bottles on; also, a cupboord or house to
keep bottles in ;” Cotgrave. = OF. boteille, a bottle. See Bottle.
BUTTOCK, therump. (E.) Chaucer has buttok, C. Τὶ 3801 (A
3803). It is also spelt bot/oke, and botok; Voc. 677.17; 750. 7. Itis
adimin. of butt, an end ; with the Εἰ suffix -ock, properly expressing
diminution, as in bull-ock. See Butt (3).
BUTTON, a small round knob, (F.—O. Low G.?) ME. boton,
P. Plowman, B. xv. 121; botoun, Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 239
(ab. 1325); corrupted to bothum, a bud, Romaunt of the Rose,
1. 1721,.—OF, bofon, a bud, a button; F. bouton, ‘a button, a bud;’
BUTTRESS
Cot.— OF, boter, Ἐς bouter, ‘to thrust, push forward; also, to bud ;’
Cot. See Butt (1). But Isuspect that OF. bowter, to bud, may
have been different in origin from OF. boter, bouter, to thrust ; and
may have been suggested by MHG. butte; for which see Bud.
BUTTRESS, a support; in architecture. (F.—LowG.) Bale uses
butrasse to mean a support; Apology, p.155. ME. boteras, Prompt.
Parv.; whence boterased, buttressed, P. Plowman, B. v. 598. Orig.
a pl. form, as if for *boterets. — OF. bouterez (with z=/s), pl. of boutere?,
a prop, support (Godefroy). — OF. bowler, to thrust, push; see Butt
(1). Cotgrave also has: ‘ Boutant, m. a buttress, or shorepost,’ from
the same verb. Der. buttress, vb.
BUTTY, a companion or partner in any work. (I’.—Low G.)
This is a prov. E. word, used in several dialects (Halliwell). A butty-
gang is ‘a gang of men to whom a portion of the work in the con-
struction of railways, &c., is let, the proceeds of the work being
equally divided amongst them, something extra being allowed to the
head man ;’ Ogilvie’s Dict. I make a note here that the etymology
is clearly pointed out in Palsgrave, who gives: ‘ Boty-felowe, parsom-
ner, for which read parsonnier, i.e. partner. Just below he has:
~ Boty, that man [read men] of warre take, butin.’ Hence boty-felowe
is booty-fellow, a partner or sharer in booty taken, and butty-gang is a
gang of men who share equally. The shortening of the vowel 00 to
u is familiar to us in the words blood, flood; the use of butty for
butty-fellow easily followed, when the etymology was lost sight of.
See Booty.
BUXOM, healthy; formerly, good-humoured, gracious; orig.
obedient. (E.) Shak. has buxom, lively, brisk, Hen. V, iil. 6. 27.
Gower has boxom, buxom, obedient, C. A. ii. 221 (bk. v. 1. 2807). In
the Ancren Riwle, p. 356, it is spelt buhsum.— AS. bigan, to bow,
bend, whence a stem dah- (for biug-) ; with the suffix -swm, like, asin
E. win-some, i.e. joy-like, joyous ; see March’s A. S. Grammar, sect.
229. The actual word bakswm does not appear in A.S. (as far as we
know), but iscommon in Early English, occurring in O.E. Homilies
i. 57 (ab. 1175); and there is no doubt about the etymology. Hence
the original sense is ‘pliable, obedient.’4Du. buigzaam, flexible,
tractable, submissive; similarly formed from buigen, to bow, bend;
G. biegsam, flexible ; from biegen, to bend. See Bow (1).
BUY, to purchase. (E.) ΜΕ. buggen, biggen, beyen, byen; also
(S. Western) buyen, E. Eng. Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 120, 1. 6;
whence the mod. E. spelling. The stem buy- is from byg-, a stem
occurring in the 3 p.s. present and in the imper. sing. of the A.S.
verb. See Sweet, N. E. Gr. § 1293. The ME. infin. is commonly
bug gen, asin the Ancren Riwle, p. 362. AS. bycgan, to buy, Grein, 1.
151.4-Goth. bugjan, to buy; OSax. buggean. Root unknown. Der.
ME. abyen, whence abide (2). Der. buy-er.
BUZZ, to hum. (E.) Shak. has bvzz, to hum, Merch. Ven. iii. 2.
182; also buzz, a whisper, K. Lear, i. 4. 348. Sir Τὶ More speaks of
the buzzyng of bees; Works, p. 208 g. It is a directly imitative word;
and much the sameas the Lowland Sc. birr, to make a whirring noise,
used by Douglas, and occurring in Burns, Tam Samson’s Elegy,
st. 7. Cf. also Sc. bysse, to hiss like hot iron in water (Douglas's
Virgil), and b:zz, to hiss, Ferguson’s Poems, ii. 16. So also Ital.
buzzreare, to whisper, buzz, hum,
BUZZARD, an inferior kind of falcon, (F.—L.) Spelt bosarde in
the Romaunt of the Rose, 1. 4033; also busard, K. Alisaunder,
1. 3049.— OF. busard, ‘a buzzard ;’ Cotgrave.—OF, buse, a buzzard,
with suffix -ard ; on which see N.E.D. B. The OF. buse (Supp. to
Godefroy) represents a Low L. type *busia, representing L. buteo, used
by Pliny for a sparrow-hawk. Cf. Gascon busoc, a buzzard (Mon-
caut); mod. Prov. buso, busac, Limousin busard (Mistral). ] The
buzzard still retains its old Latin name; the common buzzard is
Buteo vulgaris,
BY, beside, near; by means of, ἄς. (E.) ME. bi, AS. bi, big;
Grein, i. 121, 122. [The form big even appears in composition, as
in big-leofa, sustenance, something to live by; but the usual form in
composition is be, as in beset.| 4 OFries. and OSax. bi; Du. bij;
OHG. bi, pi; MHG. bi; G. bei; Goth. bi. Related to L. am-bi-,
Gk. ἀμ-φί, Skt. a-bhi. Der. by-name, by-word, by-way. (But not
by-law, q.v.) From by, prep. (as in by twos) came the phr. by and by,
in order, hence, directly, soon, in due course ; also bye, as in cricket.
BY-LAW, a law affecting a township. (Scand.) Often explained
as being derived from the prep. by, as if the law were ‘a subordinate
law ;’ a definition which suits late usages of the word, and probably
expresses a common mistake. Bacon has: ‘ ty/aws, or ordinances of
corporations ;’ Hen. VII, p. 215 (R.), or ed, Lumby, p. 196, 1. 10.
B. Blount, in his Law Dict., shows that the word was formerly
written birlaw or burlaw; and Jamieson, s. v. burlaw, shows that a
birlaw-court was one in which every proprietor ot a freedom had
a vote, and was got up amongst neighbours. ‘Laws of burlaw ar
maid and determined be consent of neichtbors ;’ Skene (in Jamieson).
There were also burlaw-men, whose name was corrupted into barley-
CABOOSE 83
men.—Icel. be-r, Ly-r, a village (gen. bajar, byjar, whence bir-); cf.
bejar-log, a town-law (Icel. Dict. s.v. ber); MSwed. bylag; from
by, a village, and Jaz, law; Dan. bylov, municipal law; from by, a
town, and Jov, law. y. The Icel. ber or byr, a town, village, is allied
to bua, to dwell, co-radicate with AS, baan, to till, cultivate, whence
E. bower. See Bower. 4 The prefix by- in this word is identical
with the suffix -by so common in Eng. place-names, esp. in Yorkshire
and Lincolnshire, such as Whitby, Grimsby, Scrooby, Derby. The
ME. bi, a town, occurs in the Cursor Mundi, ed. Morris, pp. 1210,1216.
BYRE, a cow-house. (E.) It is Lowland Scotch and North. E.
Jamieson quotes ‘ of bern [barn] or of byre,’ from Gawain and Gola-
gros, i. 3. The word is explained by AS. byre,a hut; Voc. 32. 11;
185.15. This is a derivative (with mutation of ἃ to y) from AS. bar,
a bower. The allied E. bower came to be restricted to the sense of a
‘lady’s chamber’ in most ME. writers. See Bower.
Ὁ
CAB (1), an abbreviation of cabriolet, α. ν. (F.—Ital.—L.)
CAB (2), a Hebrew measure; 2 Kings, vi. 25. (Heb.) From Heb.
gab, the 18th part of an ephah, The hit. sense is ‘hollow’ or ‘concave;’
Concise Dict. of the Bible; s.v. Weights. Cf. Heb. gabab, to form
in the shape of a vault. See Alcove.
CABAL, a party of conspirators; also, a plot. (F.—Late L.—
Heb.) Ben Jonson uses it to mean ‘a secret :’ ‘The measuring of the
temple ; a cabal Found out but lately ;’ Staple of News, iti. 1. Bp.
Bull, vol. i. ser. 3, speaks of the ‘ancient caba/a or tradition ;’ here he
uses the Hebrew form. Dryden has: ‘When each, by curs'd cabals of
women, strove To draw th’ indulgent king to partial love;” Aureng-
zebe, i. 1.19. He also uses cabailing, i.e. conspiring, as a present
participle; Art of Poetry, canto iv. 1. 972.—F. cabale, ‘the Jewes
Caball, or a hidden science of divine mysteries which, the Kabbies
affirme, was revealed and delivered together with the [divine] law ;’
Cotgrave.—Late L. cabbala.— Heb. gabbilah, reception, mysterious
doctrine received ; from the verb gabal, to take or receive ; (in Piel)
gibbel, to adopt a doctrine. 4] The cabinet of 1671 was called the
cabal, because the initial letters of the names of its members formed
the word, viz. Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, Lauderdale ;
but the word was in use earlier, and this was a mere coincidence.
Der. cabal, verb; cabal-ist, a mystic, cabal-ist-ic.
CABBAGE (1), a vegetable with a large head. (F.—L.) In
Shak. Merry Wives, i. 1.124. Spelt cabages in Ben Jonson, The
Fox, ii. 1; cabbages in Holland's Pliny, bk. xix. c. 4. ME. caboge,
caboche ; Two Cookery-Books, ed. Austin, pp. 6, 69.—F. (Picard)
caboche, lit.‘ great head;’ cf. Picard cabus, F. ‘choux cabus,a cabbidge ν᾿
Cot. He also gives‘ Cabusser,to cabbidge; to growto ahead.’ Formed,
with an augmentative suffix, from L. cap-ut, a head; cf. Ital. capocchia,
head of a nail, capoccia, a large head; also capuccio, a little head.
See Capital (1).
CABBAGE (2), to steal. (F.—Prov.—Late L.—L.) In Johnson’s
Dict. =F. cabasser, to put into a basket; see Cot.—F. cabas, a basket.
So also Norman Ἐς cabasser, to steal, from cabas, deceit; and see Supp.
to Godefroy. — Prov. cabas.—Late L. cabatium, a basket (Ducange ;
an, 1243).—L. type *capaceum, for L. capacem, containing; see
Capacious. So Hatzfeld.
CABER, a pole, spar. (C.—L.) ‘A cabyr or a spar;’ Douglas,
tr. of Virgil (cf. Ain. xii. 293).—Gael. cabar.—L. type *caprio, a
rafter; Late L. capro; see Chevron. (Macbain.)
CABIN, a little room, a hut. (F.—Prov.—Late L.) ME. caban,
cabane. ‘Caban, lytylle howse ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 57. ‘Creptest into
a caban;’ P. Plowman, A. iii. 184.—F. cabane.— Prov. cabana. —
Late L. capanna, a hut (Isidore). @ The W. caban is from ME.
cabane. Der. cabin-et, from the French.
CABLE, astrong rope. (F.—L.) In early use. ME. cable, cabel,
kabel; pl. kablen, Layamon, i. 57; where the later text has cables. —
OF. cable (F. cable), given in Cotgrave; but it must have been in
early use, having found its way into Swedish, Danish, &c. = Late L.
caplum, a cable, in Isidore of Seville; also spelt capulum. Lit. a strong
(holding) rope; a halter (for cattle). —L. capere, to take hold of; cf.
L. capulus, a handle, haft, hilt of a sword. See Capable.
CABOOSE, the cook’s cabin on board ship. (Dutch.) First given
by Falconer, in 1769. Sometimes spelt camboose, which is from the
Εἰ. form cambuse. Like many sea-teris, it is Dutch.—MDu. kabuys,
‘the cooking, or kitchin-roome in a ship;’ Hexham (1658); Du.
kombuis, a cook’s room, caboose ; or ‘the chimney in a ship,’ Sewel.
Hence also Dan. kabys, Swed. kabysa, a caboose. Of unknown origin;
perhaps short for *kaban-huys, ‘ cabin-house ;’ from MDu. kaban, a
cabin, and huys, a house. This would also give cambuse.
G2
84 CABRIOLET
CABRIOLET, a one-horse carriage, better known by the abbre-
viation cab. (F.—L.) Mere French. Εἰ cabriclet, a cab; dimin. of
cabriole, a caper,a leap of a goat; named from the supposed lightness
of the carriage. The older spelling of cabriole is capriole, used by
Montaigne (Brachet).—Ital.-capriola, a caper, the leap of a kid. =
Ital. caprio, the wild-goat.—L. caprum, acc. of caper, a goat; cf.
L. caprea, a kind of wild she-geat. See Caper. ‘Cabrioleis were,
in honour of his Majesty’s birthday, introduced to the public [of
London] this morning;’ Gent. Maga. 1823, April 23; p. 463.
George IV (b. Aug. 12) kept his birthday on St. George’s day.
CACAO, the name of a tree. (Span.—Mexican.) In Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674, we find: ‘Chocolate, a kind of compound drink,
which we have from the Indians;
called cacao, which is about the bigness of a great black fig. See a
Treatise of it, printed by Jo. Okes, 1640.’ ‘[They] lade backe againe
the cacao;’ Hakluyt, Voy. iii. 457 (at bottom). —Span. cacao. — Mexican
cacauail, the name of the tree whence chocolate is made. See Notes on
E. Etym., p. 331. 4 The cacao-tree, Theobroma cacao, is a totally
different tree from the cocoa-nut tree, though the accidental similarity
of the names has caused great confusion. See Cocoa.
CACHALOT, a genus of whales, having teeth in the lower jaw.
(Ε.) Spelt cachelot in 1747.—F. cachalot (the same). Supposed to
be connected with Gascon cachaou, a large tooth (Moncaut). ). Mistral
compares the ending -alo¢ with mod. Prov. alot, a kind of tunny.
@ Korting, § 2022, gives a different etymology, ultimately from L.
catulus, a whelp.
CACHINNATION, loud laughter. (L.) In Bishop Gauden’s
Anti-Baal-Berith, 1661, p. 68 (Todd’s Johnson). And in Cockeram
(1623). Borrowed from Latin, with the F. suffix -tion.—L. cachinna-
tidnem, acc. of cachinnatio, loud laughter.—L. cachinnare, to laugh
aloud; an imitative word. The Gk. form is καχάζειν. See Cackle.
CACHUCHA, a lively Spanish dance. (Span.) Span. cachucha;
whence Εἰ. cachucha in Hatzfeld.
CACIQUE, CAZIQUE, a W. Indian prince or chief. (Span.
—W. Indian.) A name given to a chief of some W. Indian tribes.
In Minsheu, ed. 1627. First in R. Eden, Books on America, ed.
Arber, p. 223 (1555).—Span. cacigue, ‘an Indian prince;’ Minsheu,
Span. Dict. (1623). From the old language of Hayti; see Notes on
E. Etym., p. 346.
CACK, to goto stool. (L.} ME. cakken. ‘Cakken, or fyystyn,
caco;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 588. Found also in Dutch and Danish, but
all are borrowed from the Latin. —L. cacdre.4Gk. κακκᾷν ; which
is from the sb. κάκκη, dung. Cf. W. cack, Olrish cace, Skt. cakam, dung.
CACKLE, to make a noise like'a goose. (E.) In early use. ‘The
hen....ne con buten sakelen,’ the hen can only cackle; Ancren Riwle,
p- 66. A frequentative of a primitive cakken; ‘the goose may cakke’
(pr. calke); Polit. Poems, ed.Furnivall, p. τό. "See Notes on E, Etym.
Ἔα. kakelen, to chatter, gabble; Swed. kackla, to cackle, gaggle;
Dan. kagle; (ἃ. gackeln, gakeln, gackern, to cackle, gaggle, chatter.
B. The termination -Je has a frequentative force. ‘The stem cack-
(1. 6. kak) is imitative, like quack; cf. gag- in prov..E. gaggle, to
cackle, and gob- or gab- in gobble, to make a noise like a turkey, and
gabble, Cf. AS. ceahhetan, to laugh loudly, Beda, v. 12; G. Kichern,
to giggle. From the Teutonic base KAK, to laugh, cackle ; Fick,
iii. 39. 4 Observe the three varieties of this imitative root, viz.
(1) KAK, as in cackle; (2) KIK, as in the nasalised chink in chin-
cough, i.e. kink-cough or chink-cough; and (3) KUK, as in cough
and chuckle. All refer to convulsive movements of the throat.
CACOETHES, an ill habit. (L.—Gk.) Chiefly in the phrase
cacoethes scribendi (Juvenal, Sat. vii. 52); cited by Addison, Spec-
tator, no. 582.—L. cacoé:hes. — Gk. κακόηθες, an evil habit, neut. of
κακοήθης, ill-disposed. = Gk. κακό-, for κακός, evil; and ἦθος, charac-
ter, habit; see Ethic.
CACOPHOWNY, a harsh, disagreeable sound. (Gk.) “ Caco-
phonies of all kinds ;? Pope, To Swift, April 2, 1733 (R.)—Gk. κακο-
φωνία, a disagreeable sound. —Gk. κακόφωνος, harsh.=Gk. κακό-,
for κακός, bad; and φων-ή, sound, voice. Der. cacopkonous ; from
the Gk. adj. κακόφωνος directly.
CACTUS, a prickly plant.
Beasts (1607), p. 10o2.—L.
found in Sicily.
CAD, a low fellow. (F.—Gascon.—Late L.—L.) Short for Sc.
cadie, an errand boy; also, alow fellow ; Burns, Author's Earnest Cry
and Prayer, st. 19. See Jamieson ; and Notes on E. Etym.; also caddie
in E. D. D., which shows that caddie is for cadet. See Cadet.
CADAVEROUS, corpse-like. (L.) In piel 2 Works, vol.
iv. p. 529; Sir Τὶ Browne, Rel. Medici, i. § 38.—L. cadauerdsus,
corpse-like. = L. cadauer, a corpse. = L. cadere, to fall, fall as a dead
man. Similarly, Gk. πτῶμα, a corpse, is connected with πίπτειν,
to fall. See Cadence.
CADDIS, a kind of worsted lace or tape.
cactus, Gk. κάκτος, a
(Ε In Winter's
the principal ingredient is a fruit |
(L.—Gk.) In Topsell, Fourfooted
prickly plant |
| cadargo, a coarse silk. Origin unknown ; pethaps Eastern.
CADUCOUS
Tale, iv. 4. 208) “ΜΕ. cadas, * bombicinium ;’ Prompt. Parv.=—AF.
cadace, Langtoft’s Chron., ii. 428; MF. nadiirce, ‘the coursest part
of silke, whereof sleave is made ;’ Cot.; also OF. cadis (Froissart,
in Godefroy}. Cf. Span. cadarzo, coarse, entangled silk; Port.
Der.
caddis-worm ; perhaps from the appearance of the case of the larva.
CADDY, a small box for holding tea. (Malay.) ‘The key of
the caddy;’ Letter from Cowper to Lady Hesketh, Jan. 19, 1793.
The sense has somewhat changed, and the spelling also. It properly
means ‘a packet of tea of a certain weight, and the better spelling
is caffy. ‘An original package of tea, less than a half-chest, is
called in the trade a ‘‘ box,” “caddy,” or “ catty.” This latter is a
Malay word ; “" kati, a catty or weight, equal to 13 1b. avoirdupois.”
In many dictionaries, catty is described as the Chinese pound;’
R. W. W., in Notes and Queries, 3 5. x. 323. At the same reference
I myself gave the following information. ‘ The following curious
passage in a lately-published work is worth notice. ‘‘ The standard
currency of Borneo is brass guns, This is not a figure of speech, nor
do I mean small pistols, or blunderbusses, but real cannon, five to ten
feet long, and heavy in proportion. The metal is estimated at so
much a picu/, and articles are bought and sold, and change given, by
means of this awkward coinage. The picul contains 100 catties, each
of which weighs about 1} English pounds. There is one advantage
about this currency ; it is not easily stolen.’—F. Boyle, Adventures
among the Dyaks, p. 100. To the word catties the author subjoins a
footnote as follows: ‘‘Tea purchased in small quantities is frequently
enclosed in boxes containing one catty. I offer a diffident suggestion:
that this may possibly be the derivation of our familiar tea-caddy.”
I may add that the use of this weight is not confined to Borneo ; it
is used also in China, and is (as I am informed) the only weight in
use in Japan.’— Malay £a¢z, a catty, or weight of which one hundred
make a pikul of 1334 pounds avoirdupois, and therefore equal to 21}
oz. or 1} pound; it contains 16 ail; Marsden’s Malay Dict. p. 253.
See Catty.
CADE, a barrel or cask. (L.—Gk.—Heb.) ‘A cade of herrings ;
2 Hen. VI, iv. 2. 36. ‘Cade of herynge, or othyr lyke, cada, lacista;’
Prompt. Parv. p. 57.—L. cadus, a barrel, wine-vessel, cask; cf. F.
cade, app. a late word.—Gk. κάδος, a pail, jar, cask, wine-vessel. =
Heb. kad, a pail (Prellwitz).
CADENCE, a falling; a fall of the voice. (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘The
golden cadence of poesy;” Shak. L. L. L. iv. 2. 126. ‘In ryme, or
elles in cadence ;’? Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, ii. 115. =F. cadence, ‘a ca-
dence, a just falling, round going, of words ;’ Cot.—TItal. cadenza. =
Late L..cadentia, a falling. L. cadere (pres. part. cadens, gen. caden-
tis), to fall.+Skt. gad, to fall. Der. from the same source ; cadent,
K. Lear, i. 4. 307; cadenza, Ital. form of F. cadence. -Doublet,
chance, q. Vv.
CADET, a younger son, young military student. (F.—Gascon.—
Late L.—L.) ‘The cadet of an antient and noble family ;’ Wood's
Athenz Oxonienses (R.). ‘The cade¢ of a very ancient family ;’
Tatler, no. 256 [not 265].—F. cadet, ‘a younger brother among
gentlemen;’ a Poitou word; Cot. The Gascon form is capdet (Hatz-
feld) corresponding to Prov: capdel, formed from Late L. capitellum,
‘a little head.’ The eldest son was called caput, the ‘head’ of the
family; the second, the capitellum, or ‘lesser head.’ —L. caput, the
head. See Capital. Der. cad, q. v.; cadet-ship.
CADGER, an itinerant dealer, a hawker. (F.?) Henrysoun has
cadgear, Moral Fables, p. 66 (N.E.D.) From ME. caggen, to bind,
to fasten, to carry a pack, to hawk; see Stratmann, N. E. D., and
E.D. D. Prob. from ME. cachen, to seize, fasten ; 3 see Catch.
CADI, a judge. (Arab.) ‘The graunde Cady ;? E. Webbe, Travels
(1590), ed. Arber, p. 33.—Arab. gad, gazi, a cadi or cazi, a judge,
civil, criminal, and ecclesiastic; Rich. Dict. p. 1109; Palmer, p. 464.
The third letter is _.2, which Devic transliterates by d. B. Hence
was formed (by prefixing the Arab. article αἱ, and inserting 1) the
Span. alcalde, a judge, which appears occasionally i in Ἐς literature ; 5
it is spelt alcade in An Eng. Garner, vi. 14 (ab. 1586). The inserted
1, can Devic, arose from an emphatic pronunciation of the Arabic
CADMIUM, a blueish white metal. (L.—Gk.) From cadmia,
cadmia. = Gk. καδμία, καδμεία, calamine, cadmia ; lit. ‘Cadmean earth.’
Cadmea was the citadel of the Beotian Thebes.
CADUCRUS, the herald’s wand of Mercury: (L.—Gk.) In Shak.
Troil. ii. 3. 14. car caduceus; also cadiiceum, orig. neut. adj. (sc.
scéptrum).=— Gk. (Doric) καρύκιον, (Attic) κηρύκειον, a herald’s wand,
as borne by Hermes.—Gk. κήρυκ-, for κῆρυξ, a herald. 4+5Skt. karu-s,
a singer ; cf. L. car-men, a song.
CADUCOUS, falling early, said of leaves or flowers. (L.) Fisher
even uses the adj. caduke, i.e. transitory; Seven Psalms, Ps. cii.
p- 196 (E.E. T.S.); which is also in an E. version of Palladius on
“CHSURA
Husbandry, bk. xii. st. 20. —L, cadiic-us, easily falling; with suffix
-ous.—L. cadere, to fall. See Cadence.
CASSURA, a pause in a verse. (L.) In Phillips (1678).=—L.
ce@sira, a pause ina verse; lit. a cutting off.—L. cesus, pp. of cedere,
to cut.
CAFTAN, a Turkish garment. (Turk.) ‘A caftan or a close
coat;’ Hakluyt, Voy. i. 497 (1598).— Turk. qaftan, a dress.
CAGE, an enclosure for keeping birds and animals. (F.—L.) In
early use. ‘Ase untowe brid ine cage ’=like an untrained bird in a
cage; Ancren Riwle, p. 102.—OF. cage (F. cage), a cage. — Late L.
cavea, for L. cauea, a hollow place, den, cave, cage for birds. [See
the letter-changes explained in Schwan].—L. cauzs, hollow. See
Cave.
CAIMAN, the same as Cayman, q. v.
CAIQUE, a kind of boat. (F.—Turk.) ‘ Many a light caique ;’
Byron, Childe Harold, ς. ii. st. 81.—F. caique. = Turk. gai, a boat.
CAIRN, a pile of stones. (C.) In Scott, Lady of the Lake, c. v.
st. 14, where it rhymes with ‘stern.’ . Spelt cairne, Montgomerie, Fly-
ting, 1. gor. Particularly used of a pile of stones raised on the top
of a hill, or set up as a landmark ; applied by us to a pile raised by
artificial means. It seemsto have come to us from the Gaelic in par-
ticular.. B. ‘The form carz (a rock) is common to Gaelic, Irish,
Welsh, Manx, Cornish, and Breton; the sense is, in general, ‘a pile
of stones,’ and it was chiefly used of a pile of stones raised over a
grave. Cf. Gk. κραναός, rocky. Der. cairn-gorm, a yellow gem;
from Cairn-gorm (blue cairn), in the Scot. Highlands. See Crag.
CAISSON, a large chest or case. (F.—Prov.—L.) In Bailey
(1721).—F. caisson, augmentative of caisse, a case. = Prov. caissa.— L.
capsa; see Case (2).
CAITIFF, a mean fellow, wretch. (F:—L.) It formerly meant
‘a captive. ME. caitif, a captive, a miserable wretch. ‘ Cayzif to
cruel king Agamemnon’=captive to the cruel king A. ; Chaucer,
Troil. iii. 382.—ONorth. F. caitif, a captive, a poor or wretched man;
OF. chaitif, now spelt chétif, which see in Hatzfeld.—Late L. acc.
captivum, from L. captiuus, a captive, prisoner; but used in Late L.
in the sense of ‘mean,’ or ‘poor-looking.’=L. captus, pp. of capere, to
take, seize. See Capable. Doublet, captive.
CAJOLE, to allure, coax, deceive by flattery. (F.) In Burnet,
Hist. Reformation, an. 1522; and in Pepys, Diary, Mar. 17, 1662-3.
=F. cajoler, MF. cageoler, ‘ to prattle or jangle, like a jay in a cage;
to babble or prate much, to little purpose ;” Cot. Prob. of imitative
origin; cf. F. cagueter, ‘to prattle;’ Cot. Der. cajol-er, cajol-er-y.
CAJUPUT, CAJEPUT (with 7 as y), a tree yielding an oil.
(Malay.) ‘On hinges oil’d with cajeput;’ Hood, Ode to Mr. Mal-
thus (1. 9 from end).— Malay kayu pitzh, lit. ‘ white wood.’ = Malay
kaiyn, wood ; pitih, white.
CAKE, a small mass of dough baked, δες. (Scand.) In prov. E.
cake means ‘ a small round loaf;” see Chaucer, C. T. 4092 (A 4094).
In early use, Spelt cake in Hali Meidenhad, ed. Cockayne, p. 37,
last line. —Icel. and Swed. kaka,.a cake; found in MSwedish; see
Thre; Dan. kage; NFries. Aak, kag. Teut. stem *kakon-, fem. ; from
Tent. base *kak-, of which the strong grade is *kok-, whence prov. E.
cookie, Du. koek, a cake, dumpling, G. kuchen, a cake, tart.
CALABASH, a vessel made of the shell of adried gourd. (F.—
Span.—Arab.—Pers.) ‘Calabash, a species of cucurbita;’ Ash’s
Dict. 1775. ‘Calabashes, or Gourd-shells;’ Dampier, A New Voy-
age, i. 153. In Arber’s Eng. Gartner, vii. 359 (1689). =F. calebasse.
Cotgrave has: ‘ Callabasse,a great gourd ; also, a bottle made there-
of. =Span. calabaza, a pumpion, calabash ; cf. Span. calabaza vina-
tera, a bottle-gourd for wine.—Arab.-Pers. kharbuz, a melon, a
cucumber; lit. ‘ass-gourd,’ i.e. coarse gourd.—Pers. khar, ass
(hence, coarse); buzahk, odoriferous fruit. Cf. Skt. khara-s, an ass ;
Pers. ba, odour. See Richardson’s Arab. Dict. ed.1829, pp. 603, 270.
Der. ca/abash-tree, a tree whence dried shells of fruit are procured.
CALAMANCO, a woollen stuff. (Late L.) Florio (1598) ex-
plains Ital. fesserino by “ calimanco.’ We also find Du. kalamink, F.
calmande, MF. calamande, G. kalmank (Weigand), mod. Span. cala-
maco. From Late L.; see the forms in Ducange, 5. v. camelaucum,
Of unknown origin. :
-CALAMINT, a herb. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. calament (N.E.D.);
also calamynt, Prompt. Parv.= MF. calament.—Late L. calamenium,
Voc. 557. 17; also calamintha, Gk. cadapiv6n, calamint.
CALAMITY, a great misfortune. (F.—L.) In Shak. K. John,
iii. 4. 60. And earlier, in Calvin, Four Godly Sermons, ser. 2.» F.
calamité, calamity ; Cot.=—L. acc. calamitatem, from nom, calamitas,
a calamity, misfortune. Cf. iz-columisy unharmed. Der. calamit-ous.
CALASH, a sort of travelling carriage. (F.—G.—Slavonic.)
‘From ladies hurried in caleches ;’. Hudibras, pt. 111. c. 2. 871. —F.
caléche, 2 barouche, carriage. - α. kalesche, a calash. = Polish kolaska,
a small carriage, dimin. of kolasa,a carriage. Cf. Russ. koliaska, a
calash, carriage. So called from being furnished with wheels ; from
CALENTURE 85
Russ. folo,a wheel. From Idg. *gol, 2nd grade of 4/QEL, to drive ;
see Pole (2). Brugmann, i. ὃ 652. B. The same word calash also
came to mean (1) the hood of a carriage, and (2) a hood for a lady’s
head, of similar shape.
CALCAREOUS, like or containing chalk or lime. (L.) Better
spelt calcarious, as in a quotation from Swinburne, Spain, Let. 29, in
Richardson. = L. calc@ri-us, pertaining to lime; with suffix τοῖς. τος
calc-, stem of calx, lime. See Calx. Der. (from caéc-) calc-ium, a
chemical element, the basis of lime.
CALCEOLARTIA, a flower; a genus of Scrophulariacee. (L.)
Coined from L. calceolus, a small shoe, dimin. of calceus, a shoe. = L.
calc-, stem of calx, the heel. So called because the flower has some
resemblance to a broad-toed slipper.
CALCINE, to reduce to a calx or chalky powder by heat. (F.—
L.) Chaucer has calcening, C. T., Group G, 771. Better spelt cal-
cining ; we find calcinacioun in C. T., G804. (Perhaps from Latin
directly.] =F. calciner, ‘ to calcinate, burne to dust by fire any metall
or minerall ;? Cot. — Late L. calcinifre, to reduce to a calx; common
in medieval treatises on alchemy. = L. calc-, stem of calx, stone, lime;
used in alchemy of the remains of minerals after being subjected to
great heat. See Calx. Der. ca/cin-at-ton, from the Late L. vb.
CALCULATE, to reckon. (L.) In Shak. 2 Hen. VI, iv. 1. 34.
This is a Latin form, from the L. pp. calculi‘usf [The older form is
the Geestates: see Chaucer, C. T. 11596 (F 1284).—F. calculer,
to reckon.J=L. calculare, to reckon by help of small pebbles;
pp. calculatus. = L. calculus, a pebble ; dimin. of calx (stem calc-),a
stone; whence also E. chalk. See Calx. Der. calcula-ble, calculat-
ion, calculat-ive, calculat-or; also calculus, from the L. sb.
CALDRON, CAULDRON, a large kettle. (F.—L.) ME.
caldron; Gower, C. A. ii. 266; bk. v. 4141. But more commonly
caudron ; Seven Sages, ed. Wright, 1. 1231; Legends of the Holy
Rood, ed. Morris, p. 60.—North F. (Picard) cauderon, for OF.
cnauderon ; mod. F. chaudron. The OF. word caldaru, a cauldron,
occurs in the very old Glossaire de Cassel; Bartsch, Chrestomathie
Francaise, col. 2, 1. 19. Cf. Ital. calderone, a vessel for hot water,
Formed, with an augmentative suffix -on (Ital. -one) from L. caldar-,
as in caldaria,a hot bath, also a caldron (1 Sam, ii. 14, Vulgate) ;
cf. L. caldirium, a cauldron, properly neuter of caldartus, adj., that
serves for heating ; caldaria being the feminine. —L. caldus, hot; con-
tracted form of calidus, hot.=L. calére, to be hot. See Caloric,
Chaldron. 4 The Span. form calderon gave name to the great
Spanish author.
CALEFACTION, a making warm. (L.) In Cockeram (1642).
=L. acc. calefaction-em; nom. calefactio, a making warm.=L. cale-
facere, to warm (pp. calefactus). = L. cale- (as in-calére, to glow); and
facere, to make; cf. L. calidus, hot. See Caldron. Der. (from
calefact-us), calefact-or, -or-y.
CALENDAR, an almanac. (L.) In early use; spelt kalender in
Layamon, i. 308.—L. calendarium, an account-book of interest kept
by money-changers, so called because interest became due on the
calends (or first day) of each month ; in later times, a calendar.=—L.
calenda, sb. pl., a name given to the first day of each month. The
origin of the name is. obscure; but it is agreed that the verbal root is
the old verb calare, to proclaim. See Bréal. It is cognate with Gk.
καλεῖν, to summon.—4/ KAL, to shout; see Prellwitz. Allied to
Hale (2).
CALENDER (1), machine for pressing and smoothing cloth.
(F.—Late L.—Gk.) Best known from the occurrence of the word in
Cowper's John Gilpin, where it is applied to a ‘calender-er, or
person who calenders cloth, and where a more correct form would be
calendrer. In Bailey’s Dict., ed. 1731, vol. ii, I find: ‘ To calender,
to press, smooth, and set a gloss upon linnen, &c. ; also the engine
itself.’ B. The word is French. ‘The verb appears in Cotgrave, who
has: ‘ Calendrer, to sleeke, smooth, plane, or polish linnen cloth, &c.’
The F. sb. (from which the verb was formed) is calandre ; of which
Godefroy’s Supp. gives an example in 1483.—Late L. celendra, ex-
plained in Ducange by: ‘instramentum quo poliuntur panni;
{French] calandre.’ Ὑ. This Late L. celendra is, probably, a corrup-
tion of L. cylindrus, a cylinder, roller; the name being given to the
machine because a roller was contained in it, and (probably later)
sometimes two rollers in contact.—Gk. κύλινδρος, a cylinder. See
Cylinder. Der. calender, verb; calendr-er, or calend-er, sb.
CALENDER (2), a kind of wandering monk. (F.—Pers.) ‘In
the habit of falenders or friars ;’ Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (1665), p. 63.
=F. calender. Pers. galandar, a kind of Muhammadan monk, who
abandons everything and retires from the world; Rich. Dict. p. 1145.
CALENDS, the first day of the month in the Roman calendar;
see Calendar. (L.). Inearly use. AS. calend; Grein, i. 154.
CALENTURE, a feverous madness. (F.—Span.—L.) In Mas-
singer, Fatal Dowry, iii. 1 (Charalois).—F. calenture.—Span. calen-
tura.=—L. calent-, stem of pr. pt. of calére, to be hot. See Caldron.
86 CALF
CALF, the young of the cow, &c. (E.) ME. kalf, calf; some-
times ke/f. Spelt ke/fin Ancren Riwle, p. 136; the pl. calveren is in
Maundeville’s Travels, p. 105. AS. cealf: pl. cealfas, calfru, or cal-
feru; Grein, i. 158.4+Du. half; Icel. kalfr; Swed. kalf; Dan. kalv;
Goth. kalbd ; G. kalb. B. Probably related to Skt. garbha-s, a fcetus,
embryo; see Brugmann, i. § 656. Der. calve,q.v. @ The calf of
the leg, Icel. 4a/fi (whence also Ir. and Gael. calpa) is closely
related; being likened to the foetus. Cf. Gaulish L. galba, great-
bellied; and Swed. ben-kalf, calf of the leg, from ben, leg. See notes
on E. Etym.; and see Cave in.
CALIBER, CALIBRE, the size of the bore ofa gun. (F.—Ital.
—Arab.) The form calibre is closer to the French, and more usual.
Caliber occurs in Reid’s Inquiry, c. 6. s.19 (R.) Neither form ap-
pears to be old; calibre occurs in 1567 and 1588 (N.E.D.). Wealso
find the spellings caliver and caliper in Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715.—F.
calibre, occurring in 1478, is said to have been introduced from Ital.
calibro; Hatzfeld. Cotgrave has: ‘Calibre, a quality, state, or
degree ;’ also: ‘ Qualibre, the bore of a gun, or size of the bore, &c.
Il west pas de mon qualibre, he is not of my quality, ranke, or humour,
he is not a fit companion for me.’ =Ital. calibro, colibro, ‘an instru-
ment that gunners vse, to measure the heighth of any piece or bullet;
also, the heighth or bore of any piece;’ Florio (ed. 1611). B. Of
uncertain origin. Mahn suggests L. gua libra, of what weight, applied
to the bore of a gun as determined by the weight (and consequent size)
of the bullet. See Librate. γ. Diez suggests a more likely origin,
viz. Arab. kalib, a form, mould, model; cf. Pers. ka/ab, a mould from
which anything is made; Rich. Dict. pp. 1110, 1111, So Devic.
Der. calipers, q.v. ; also caliver, q. v.
CALICO, cotton-cloth. (East Indian.) Spelt callico in Drayton,
Edw. ΙΝ to Mrs, Shore ; callicoe in Robinson Crusoe, ed. J. W. Clark,
1866, p. 124; pl. callicoes, Spectator, no. 292. Hakluyt speaks of
Calicut cloth (N.E.D.).. Named from Calicut, on the Malabar coast,
whence it was first imported.
CALIF, CALIPH, atitle assumed by the successors of Mahomet.
(F.—Arab.) Spelt caliphe in Gower, C.A. i. 245; b. ii. 2549; califfe,
Maundeville’s Trav. p. 36.—F. calife, a successor of the prophet. =
Arab. khalifak, lit. a successor; Richardson, p. 626.— Arab. khalafa,
to succeed; id. p. 622, 5. v. khilafat, succeeding. Der. caliph-ship,
caliph-ate.
CALIGRAPHY, CALLIGRAPHY, good hand-writing.
(Gk.) Wood, in his Athenze Oxonienses, uses the word when re-
ferring to the works of Peter Bales (not Bale, as in Richardson).
Spelt calligraphy; Priceaux, Connection, pt. i. b. v.s. 5; kalligraphy,
Ben Jonson, Magnetic Lady, iii. 4.—Gk. καλλιγραφία, beautiful writ-
ing. Gk. καλλι-, for κάλλε-ος, beauty, from καλός, beautiful, fair;
and γράφειν, to write. For Gk. γράφειν, see Carve.
CALIPASH, the upper shell or carapace ofa turtle. (F.—Span.)
‘The calapatch and calapee, i. e. the back and breast shells’ [of a turtle] ;
Arber's Eng. Garner, vii. 358. Prob. a variant of Carapace, q. v.
CALIPEE, the lower shell of the turtle; see above. Only
known in English; apparently coined to match calipash; ending
perhaps suggested by cap-a-pee, in which pee means ‘ foot.’ Spelt
callapee by \V. Dampier, A New Voyage, i. 106.
CALIPERS, compasses of a certain kind. (F.—Ital.—Arab.)
Compasses for measuring the diameter of cylindrical bodies are called
calipers; a contraction of caliber-compasses. See Callipers in Kersey’s
Dict. ed. 1715. From caliber, the size of a bore; q.v.
CALISTHENICS, CALLISTHENICS, graceful exercises.
(Gk.) Modern. A coined word.—Gk. καλλισθενής, adorned with
strength.—Gk. καλλι-, for κάλλ-ος, beauty, from καλός, beautiful,
fair ; and σθένος, strength, allied to Icel. stinar, AS. stid, stiff, strong
(Prellwitz). Der. calisthenic, adj.
CALIVER, a sort of musket. (F.—Ital.—Arab.) In Shak.
1 Hen. IV, iv. 2. 21. The name was given from some peculiarity in
the size of the bore. It is a mere corruption of caliber,q.v. ‘ Caliver
or Caiiper, the bigness, or rather the diameter of a piece of ordinance
or any other firearms at the bore or mouth; ’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715.
CALK, CAULK, to stop up the seams of a ship. (F.—L.) The
sb. calkers occurs in the A.V. Ezek. xxvii. g; the marg. note has:
‘strengtheners, or stoppers of chinks.’ The ME. cauken signifies ‘to
tread ;’ P. Plowman, C. xv. 162; xiv. 171. The spelling with 7 was
probably adopted to assimilate the word more closely to the orig.
Ταῦ, ΟἿΟΝ cauguer, to tread; also, to tent a wound, i.e. to insert
a roll of lint in it, to prevent its healing too quickly; Cotgrave.=L.
calcare, to tread, trample, press grapes, tread down, tread in, press
close. (The notion in ca/k is that of forcing in by great pressure.) =
L. calx (stem calc-), the heel.
CALKIN, the turned down end of a horse-shoe. (F.—L.) The
pl. calkins occurs in The Two Noble Kinsmen, ν. 4.55. ‘Cawkons of
horse-shone;’ Relig. Antique, i. 83.—OF. calcain, the heel; Gode-
froy. = L.calcaneum, the heel. = L. calc-,forcalx, heel; with suffix-aneum.
CALTHROP, CALTRAP
CALL, to cry aloud. (Scand.) ME. callenx, Havelok, 2899. AS.
ceallian, to call, Grein, i. 158; OMerc. callian, as in hilde-calla, a
herald, lit. a ‘ war-caller,’ Grein, ii. 73. Borrowed from Icel. and
Swed. kalla, to call, Cf. Dan. kalde, to call; Du. hallen, to talk,
chatter; OLG, challdn, MHG, kallen. Teut. type *kallén or *kallo-
jan, weak verb; cf. W. galw, to call, Russ. golos’, voice, sound. See
Prugm. i. § 639; Benfey, p. 270; Fick,i.72. Der. call-er ; call-ing,
sb., an occupation, that to which one is called.
CALLET, CALLAT, a worthless woman. (F.—Low L.—
Low ἃ.) In Oth. iv. 2,121. Origin doubtful ; but it fairly answers
to F. caille‘te, a gossip, chatterer ; ‘ personne qui a du babil et point
de consistance,’ Supp. to Godefroy, Lit. ‘little quail ;’ dimin. of
caille, a quail, also a woman. Littré gives calle coiffée, femme
galante. See Quail.
CALLIGRAPHY;; see Caligraphy.
CALLIPERS; see Calipers.
CALLISTHENICS; see Calisthenics.
CALLOUS, hard, indurated. (F.—L.) Callous occurs in Hol-
land’s Pliny, bk. xvi. c. 31; and callosity in the same, bk. xvi. c. 7.—
Ἐς calleux, ‘hard, or thick-skinned, by much labouring ;’ Cot,—L.
callésus, hard or thick-skinned, callous. = L. callus, callum, hard skin ;
callére, to have a hard skin. Der. callos-ity (from L. acc. callds-
itaitem, hardness of skin) ; also callous-ly, callows-ness,
CALLOW, unfledged, said of young birds; also bald. (L.) See
Milton, P. L. vii. 420. ME, calu, calugh, calewe, ‘ Calugh was his
heuede [head] ;’ King Alisaunder, 5950. AS. calu, bald; Grein, i.
155.+ Du. kaal, bald, bare, naked, leafless; Swed. kal, bald, bare ;
G. kahl; cf. MDu. kaluwe, Teut. type *kalwoz; an early borrowing
from L. caluus, bald. Brugmann, i. § 529 (3).
CALM, tranquil, quiet; as sb., repose. (F.—Late L.—Gk.) ME.
calm, Gower, C. A. iii. 230; b. vii. 4113. —F. calme, ‘calm, still;”’ Cot.
He does not give it as a substantive, but in mod. F. it 1s both adj.
and sb., and the sb. calme is found as early as 1529 (Hatzfeld),
as if borrowed from Ital. calma. B. The / is no real part of the
word, though appearing in Ital., Span., and Portuguese ; it seems to
have been inserted, as Diez suggests, through the influence of the L.
calor, heat, the notions of ‘ heat’ and ‘rest’ being easily brought to-
gether. y. The mod. Provengal chaume signifies ‘ the time when
the flocks rest ;’ cf. F. chémer, formerly chaumer, to rest, to be with-
out work ; see chémer in Hatzfeld. δ. Derived from Late L. cauma,
the heat of the sun (Job, xxx. 30; Vulgate); on which Maigne
D’Arnis remarks, in his epitome of Ducange, that it answers to the
Languedoc caumas or calimas, excessive heat. — Gk. καῦμα, great heat.
=Gk. καίειν, ἴο bum. See Korting, § 2032. Der. calm-ly, calm-ness.
CALOMEL, a preparation of mercury. (Gk.) Explained in
Chambers’s Dict. as ‘the white sublimate of mercury, got by the
application of heat to a mixture of mercury and corrosive sublimate,
which is black.’ The sense is ‘a fair product from a black substance ;’
and the word is coined from xado-, for Gk. καλός, fair, and μέλ-ας,
black, for which see Melancholy. 4 The etymology seems cer-
tain; but the reasons for it are unsatisfactory. See Littré and Hatzfeld.
CALORIC, the supposed principle of heat. (F.—L.) A modern
word, but now obsolescent ; formed from the 1,. calor, heat, by the
addition of the suffix-ic. The F. form is calorique (an. 1792), and
we borrowed it from them in that form ; but it comes to the same
thing. See Caldron.
CALORIFIC, having the power to heat. (L.) Boyle speaks
of ‘calorifick agents ;? Works, vol. ii. p. 594.—L. calorificus, making
hot, heating. = L. caléré-, for calor, heat; and -fic-us, a suffix due to
the verb facere, to make. Der. calorific-at-ion.
CALOYER, a Greek monk. (F.—Ital.—Gk.) ‘How name ye
yon lone caloyer ?’? Byron, The Giaour, 1. 786. - Εἰ. caloyer (Hatzfeld).
=TItal. caloiero (N.E.D.)—Mod. Gk. καλόγηρος, venerable.—Gk.
καλό-, for καλός, fair ; and -ynpos, aged, allied to γῆρας, old age.
CALTHROP, CALTRAP, a star-thistle, a ball with spikes
for annoying cavalry. (L. and Teut.) Calthrop is gen. used to
denote a ball stuck with four spikes, so arranged that one of them
points upwards while the other three rest on the ground. ‘ Cal-
trappe, chaussetrappe ;’ Palsgrave. ‘ Tribulus marinus, calketrappe,
sea-pistel;’ Reliq. Antiq. i. 37. ME. kalketrappe, P. Plowman, C.
xxi. 296. AS. calcetreppe, star-thistle, A.S. Leechdoms, iii. 316 ;
cf. calcatrippe, Voc. 298. 30. The most likely solution of this diffi-
cult word is to derive it from L. calci-, decl. stem of calx, the heel,
anda Latinised form of the Teutonic word ¢rap. Florio gives MItal.
calcatrippa, star-thistle, where calca- is plainly supposed to be allied
to calcare, to tread, the form of the Ital. word being slightly altered
in order to suggest this sense. See further under Calk and Trap.
Hatzfeld derives F. chausse- (in F. chausse-(rape) from L. calceare, to
shoe, from calceus, ashoe; but this also goes backto L. calx. It either
meant ‘heel-trap,’ or ‘trap whereon one treads.’ See my note to
P. Plowman, C. xxi. 296; also Catholicon Anglicum, p. 52, note 3.
CALUMET
CALUMET, a kind of pipe for tobacco. (F.—L.= Gk.) ‘Smoked
the calumet, the Peace-pipe;’ Longfellow, Song of Hiawatha, c. 1.—
Norman F. calumet, the stem of a herb, a pipe (Littré); a dimin.
form, allied to OF. chalemel, F. chalumeau, ‘ the stem of an herbe, also
a wheaten or oaten straw, or a pipe made thereof;’ Cot. These
words, like E. shawm, are from L. calamus; see Shawm.
CALUMNY, slander, false accusation. (F.—L.) Shak. has
calumny, Meas. ii. 4. 159; also calumniate, Troil. iii. 3. 174; and
calumnious, All's Well, 1. 3. 61.—F. calomnie, ‘a calumnie ;’ Cot. =
L. calumnia, false accusation.—L,. calui, caluere, to deceive. Der.
calumni-ous, calumni-ous-ly; also calumniate (from L. calumniitus,
pp: of calumniari, to slander) ; whence calumniat-or, calumniat-ion.
Doublet, challenge, q. v.
CALVE, to produce a calf. (E.) ME. caluen (u for v); ‘the cow
caluyde;’ Wyclif, Job, xxi. το. AS. cealfian, /Elfric, Hom. ii. 300.
= AS. cealf, a calf. See Calf. The verb appears in the Du. kalvex,
Dan. kalve, Swed. kalfva, G. kalben, to calve; all derivatives from
the sb. And see Cave in.
CALX, the substance left after a metal has been subjected to great
heat. (L.) In Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715. A word used in the old
treatises on alchemy; now nearly superseded by the term oxide. Cf.
‘With the calce of egg-shells ;’ Ben Jonson, Alchemist, A. ii. (Face).
Merely borrowed from Latin. L. calx, stone, limestone, lime (stem
calc-), Cf. Gk. χάλιξ, rubble. Der. calc-ine, 4. v.; calc-areous,
4. v.; calc-ium; calc-ul-us ; cal-cul-ate, q. v.
CALYX, the outer envelope in which the flower is enclosed while
yetin the bud. (L.—Gk.) A botanical term, ‘ Calyx, the cup of the
flower in any plant;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715; showing that he con-
fused it (as usual) with L. calix, a cup; for which see Chalice. =L.
calyx, a case or covering, bud, calyx of a flower.—Gk. κάλυξ, a case,
covering, calyx of a flower.4Skt. kalika,.a bud.—4/ KEL, to cover,
hide, conceal (L. cél-are) ; from which come, in English, the words
helm (2), q.v., hell, hole, and helmet.
CAM, a projecting part of a wheel, cog. (Du.) A technical term;
fully explained in Webster’s Dict. and in N.E.D.—Du. kam, a comb,
alsoa cog; see Calisch and Kilian. Cf. Low G. kamm, Dan. kam, a
comb, ridge; hence a ridge on a wheel; Dan. kamhjul, a cog-wheel;
G, kamm, a comb, a cog of a wheel. See Comb.
CAMBRIC, a kind of fine white linen. (Flanders.) In Shak.
Wint. Tale, iv. 4. 208. Cotgrave gives: ‘Cambray, ou Toile de Cam-
bray, cambricke.’ From Kamerijk (F. Cambray), a town in Flanders,
where it was first made. Sewel has: ‘ Kameriks-doek, chambric,
lawn.”
CAMEL, the name of a quadruped. (F.—L.—Gk.—Heb.) Spelt
camaille in Chaucer, C. T. 9072 (E1196). The pl. camelis is in King
Alisaunder, 854. The ME. forms are camel, cameil, camail, chamel,
chamail, &c. (The form camel, in the Old Northumbrian glosses of
S. Mark, i. 6, is directly from L. camélus.]—OF. chamel, ONorth.
F. camel. — L. camélus.— Gk. kapndos.— Heb. gimdal.4Arab. jamal;
Palmer’s Pers. Dict., col. 172. Der. camelo-pard, q. v.
CAMELLIA, a genus of plants. (Personal name.) The Camellia
‘Japonica is sometimes called the ‘ Japan rose.’ The name was given by
Linnzus (died 1778), in honour of George Joseph Kamel (or Camel-
lus), a Moravian Jesuit, who travelled in Asia and wrote a history of
plants of the island of Luzon; Encycl. Brit. gth ed.
CAMELOPARD, the giraffe. (L.—Heb. and Gk.) Spelt camelo-
pardalis and camelopardus in Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715, and in Bailey,
vol. ii,ed. 1731. Shortened to resemble F. camélopard, the giraffe. τα
L. camélopardalis.—Gk. καμηλοπάρδαλις, a giraffe. Gk. κάμηλο-,
for κάμηλος, a camel; πάρδαλις, a pard. See Camel and Pard.
CAMEO, a precious stone, carved in relief. (Ital.) The word
occurs as caméo in Darwin’s Botanical Garden, canto ii. 310. [The
F. spelling camaieu is sometimes found in Eng. books, and occurs in
Bailey’s Dict. vol. ii. ed. 1731. The extraordinary form kaadmau
occurs in Matthew Paris, vi. 387 (Rec. Ser.).]—Ital. cammeo, a
cameo; Late L. cammeus, a cameo; also spelt camahutus; cf. F.
camaieu. B. Etym. unknown; see the discussion of it in Diez, s. v.
cammeo; and in Mahn, Etymologische Untersuchungen, Berlin,
1863, p. 73. Mahn suggests that cammeus is an adj. from camma,
a Late L. version of a G.*camme, a form due to G, pronunciation of
OF. game, a gem (Lat. gemma), for which Roquefort gives a quota-
tion. In the same way camahutus might be due to a German form
of the same F. game and to F. haute, high. But the Span. is camafeo.
See Korting, § 2359; Schade, OHG. Dict. p. 1341.
CAMERA, a box, chamber, &c. (L.—Gk.) Chiefly used as an
abbreviation of L. camera obsciira, i.e. dark chamber, the name of
what was once an optical toy, but now of great service in photography.
See Chamber, of which it is the orig. form. Der. camerated, from
a L. form camerdatus, formed into chambers; aterm in architecture.
CAMLET, asort of cloth. (F.—Arab.) Camlet is short for came-
Jot, which occurs in Sir Τὶ Browne's Vulg. Errors, bk. v. c. 15. § 3.—F.
CAN 87
camelot, which Cotgrave explains by ‘ chamlet, also Lisle grogram.’
It seems to have been popularly understood as being made of camel’s
hair. Cf. ‘For camelot, the camel ful of hare’ [hair]; King James I,
King’s Quair, st. 157. But it doubtless represents the Arab. khamlat,
khamelat, explained as ‘ camelot, silk and camel’s hair; also, all silk
or velvet ;” Rich. Dict. p.628. Cf. khaml, ‘the skirts or laps of a gar-
ment, a carpet with a long pile, a cushion on a saddle ;’ ibid. It thus
appears that camel’s hair was sometimes used for making it, so that
confusion was easy. See Marco Polo, ed. Yule, i. 248.
CAMOMILE; see Chamomile.
CAMP, the ground occupied by an army; the army itself. (F.—L.)
Common in Shakespeare. Also used as a verb; All’s Well, iii. 4.
14; and in the Bible of 1561, Exod. xix. 2. The proper sense is
‘the field’ which is occupied by the army; as in ‘the gate of the
camp was open;’ North’s Plutarch, Life of M. Brutus; see Shake-
speare’s Plutarch, ed. Skeat, p. 147 ; cf. Antony and Cleopatra, iv. 8.
33. [Perhaps taken directly from Latin.}—F. camp, ‘a camp; an
hoast, or army lodged; a field;” Cot.—L. campus, a field. See
Brugm. i. § 563. Der. camp, verb, en-camp-ment, camp-estr-al, q.v.,
camp-aign, q.v. J It is remarkable that camp in Middle English
never has the modern sense, but is only used in the sense of ‘ fight’
or ‘battle.’ Cf. ‘alle the kene mene [men] of kampe,’ i.e. all the
keen fighting-men; Allit. Morte Arthure, 3702; cf.1. 3671. And see
Layamon, i. 180, 185, 336; ii. 162. This is the AS. camp, a battle ;
camp-sted, a battle-ground. Allied words are the Du., Dan.and Swed.
kamp, Icel. kapp, G. kampf, all signifying ‘ battle.’ Teut. type * Aampoz.
Notwithstanding the wide spread of the word in this sense, it is cer-
tainly non-Teutonic, and borrowed from L. campus, in Late L.
‘a battle.’ See also Champion and Campaign.
CAMPAGNOL, the short-tailed field-mouse. (F.—L.)
Modern; from F. campagne, country; see below. And see Vole.
CAMPAIGN, a large field; the period during which an army
keeps the field. (F.—Ital.—L.) The word occurs in Burnet, Hist.
of his Own Time, an. 1666. And see Campaign in Blount’s Gloss.
= MF. campaigne, an open field given in Cotgrave as a variation of
campagne, which he explains by ‘a plaine field, large plain.’ = Ital.
campagna, a field, a campaign. L. campania, a plain, preserved in
the name Campania, formerly given to the level country near Naples.
=L. campus, a field. See Camp. Der. campaign-er. J Shak.
uses champaign (old edd. champion), K. Lear, i. 1. 65, for ‘a large
tract of land.’ This is from the OF. champagne, the standard form ;
the form campagne having been borrowed (as above).
CAMPANIFORY,, bell-shaped. (Late L.) ‘ Campaniformis,
a term apply’d by herbalists, to any flower that is shap’d like a bell;’
Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715. From Late L. campdna, a bell; and L.
forma, form. Der. From the same Late L. campana are Ital. cam-
panile, a bell-tower ; also campan-ul-a, campan-ul-ate, campan-o-logy.
CAMPESTRAL, growing in fields. (L.) Modern, and rare,
The form campestrian is in Bailey’s Dict. vol. ii. ed. 1731. Formed
from L. campestr-is, growing in a field, or belonging to a field, by
adding the suffix -al.—L. campus, a field. See Camp.
CAMPHOR, a whitish crystalline substance, mostly obtained
from some kinds of laurel. (F.—Late L.—Arab.—Malay.) Spelt
camphire in the Song of Solomon, i. 14 (A. V.); and camfor in 1392-3
in the Earl of Derby’s Expeditions, ed. Lucy T. Smith, p. 164.
Massinger speaks of camphire-balls; The Guardian, iii. I.—F.
camphre, ‘the gumme tearmed camphire ;’ Cot. [The seems to have
been inserted to make the word easier to pronounce in English. ]
= Late L. camphora, camphor; to the form of which the mod. E.
camphor has been assimilated. B.A word of Eastern origin. Cf.
Skt. karpiira-m, camphor (Benfey, p. 164); Arabic kafar, camphor,
Palmer's Pers. Dict. col. 480. γ. All from Malay kapir, lit. chalk ;
the full form being Bariis kapiir, i.e. chalk of Barous, a place on the
W. coast of Sumatra; see J. Pijnappel’s Malay-Dutch Dict. p. 74.
‘Kapir barus, the camphor of Sumatra and Java, called also native
camphor, as distinguished from that of Japan or kapiir tohdri, which
undergoes a process before it is brought to our shops; Marsden,
Malay Dict. p. 249; where we also find ‘ kapiir, lime.’
CAMPION, a flower of the genus Lychnis, (F.—L.) First in
1576. Lyte describes the rose campion, and the white campion; tr. of
Dodoens, bk. ii. ch. 9. and ch. 10. Origin uncertain; but prob. a
variant of North F. campagne, just as champion is of champaign.
Tusser has ‘ the champion or open countrie’ in the title to his book on
Husbandry (1380). Thus campion = field flower. - L. camp-us, a plain.
CAN (1),Iam able. (E.) a, The AS. cunnan, to know, to know
how to do, to be able, forms its present tense thus: ic can (or cann),
pz canst (or const), he can (or cann) ; plural, for all persons, cunnon.
The Mceso-Goth. kunnan, to know, forms its present tense thus: ἐξ
kann, thu kant, is kann; pl. weis kunnum, jus kunnuth, eis kunnun.
B. The verb is one of those which (like the Gk. οἶδα, I know) use as
a present tense what is really an old preterite form, from which again
88 CAN
a second weak preterite is formed. The same peculiarity is common
to all the cognate Teutonic verbs, viz. Du. kunnen, to be able; Icel.
hunna, to know, to be able ; Swed. kunna, to know, to be able; Dan.
kunde, to know, to be able; OHG. chunnan, MHG. kunnen, G.
hénnen, to be able. γ. The past tense is Could. Here the / is in-
serted in modern English by analogy with would and should, in which
the 7 is radical. The ME. form is coudé, a disyllable; the AS. form
is cade. The lengthened w occasioned loss of τι; cide stands for
*cunde (pronounced koonthe, with oo as in foot, and ¢has in breathe). The
loss of the x has obscured the relation to can. The x reappears in
Gothic, where the past tense is kuntha ; cf. Du. konde, I could; Icel.
kunna (for kunda, by assimilation) ; Swed. and Dan. kunde; OHG.
konda, (ἃ. konnte. Whence it appears that the English alone has lost
the x.y. The past participle is Couth. This is only preserved, in
mod. Eng., in the form uncouth, of which the original sense was
‘unknown.’ The AS. form is cad, for *cund, the x being preserved
in the Goth. Aunths, known. See Uncouth. Allied to ken (Icel.
kenna)-and know (AS. cnawan). The Idg. form of the root is GEN ;
Brugmann, i. § 600. See Know and Ken.
CAN (2), a drinking-vessel. (E.) ME. canne. ‘ There weren set
sixe stonun cannes;’ Wyclif, John, ii. 6. AS. caune, as a gloss to L.
crater ; AE\f. Gloss. ed. Somner, p. 60; Voc. 122. 32.4-Du. kan,
a pot, mug; Icel. kanna, a can, tankard, mug; also, a measure ;
Swed. kanna, a tankard, a measure of about 3 quarts; Dan. hande;
OHG., chann, MHG. and ἃ. kanne, a can, tankard, mug, jug, pot.
4 It thus appears to bea true Teutonic word ; Teut. type *kannon, f.
Some think that it was borrowed from L. canna, Gk. κάννη, a reed;
but the sense is hardly close enough ; whilst can/harus differs in form.
Der. cannikin, dimin. ; spelt canykyn, Barclay, Ship of Fools, ii. 261;
canakin, Oth. ii. 3. 71.
CANAL, a conduit for water. (F.—L.) ‘The walls, the woods,
and long canals reply ;’ Pope, Rape of the Lock, iii. 100. And in
Bacon, Nat. Hist. §§ 30, 138.—F. canal, ‘a channell, kennell, furrow,
gutter ;* Cot.—L. candlis, a channel, trench, canal, conduit; also,
a splint, reed-pipe. 861 Perhaps the accent on the latter syllable in
E. was partly due to a familiarity with Du. anaai, itself borrowed
from French. See also Channel, Kennel.
CANARY, a bird; a wine; a dance. (Span.—L.) The dance
is mentioned in Shak. All’s Well, ii. τ. 77; so is the wine, Merry
Wives, ili. 2. 89. Gascoigne speaks of ‘ Canara birds ; ᾿ Complaint of
Philomene, |. 33. All are named from the Canaries or Canary
Islands. These take their name from Canaria, which is the largest
island of the group. ‘ Grand Canary is almost as broad as long, the
diameter being about fifty miles ;’ Sir T. Herbert, Travels, ed. 1665,
p- 3.—Span. (Gran) Canaria. = L. Canaria (insula), isle abounding in
large dogs (Pliny, vi. 32).—L. candria, fem. of canarius, pertaining to
dogs. —L. can-is, a dog; see Canine.
CANCEL, to obliterate. (F.—L.) Originally, to obliterate
a deed by drawing lines over it in the form of lattice-work (L. can-
celli) ; afterwards, to obliterate in any way. Spelt cancell in the
Mirrour for Magistrates, p. 632 (R.).—F. canceler, ‘to cancell, cross,
raze ;’ Cot.—Law L. cancellare. to draw lines across a deed.= L. can-
cellus,a grating ; gen. in pl. cancelli, railings, lattice-work ; dimin. of
cancer, pl. cancri, in the sense of ‘lattice-work.’ Der. cancell-at-ed,
marked with cross-lines, from L. pp. cancellaius; from the same
source, chancel, chancery, chancellor, which see.
CANCER, a crab, a corroding tumour. (L.) The tumour was
named from the notion that the swollen veins round it were like a
crab’s limbs (Galen). Cancer occurs as the name of a zodiacal sign
in Chancer, Merchant's Tale, 1. 643.—L. cancer, a crab; gen. cancri.
+Gk. καρκίνος, a crab; Skt. karkafa-s,a crab; also the sign Cancer
of the zodiac. β. So named from its hard shell; cf. Skt. karkara-s,
hard. Brugmann, i. ὃ 464. Der. cancer-ous, cancri-form, cancer-ate,
cancer-at-ion ; and see Canker.
CANDELABRUM; see under Candle.
CANDID, lit. white; fair; sincere. (F.—L.) Dryden uses candid
to mean ‘white;’ tr. of Ovid, Metam. xv. 1.60. Camden has candidly;
Elizabeth, an. 1598 (R.). Shak. has candidatus for cavdidate; Titus
Andron. i. 185. Ben Jonson has candor, Epigram 123.—F. candide,
‘white, fair, bright, orient, &c.; also, upright, sincere, innocent ;”
Cot.=—L, candidus, lit. shining, bright. —L. candére, to shine, be bright.
=L. *candere, to set on fire; only in ac-cendere, in-cendere.4-Skt. chand,
to shine.—4/SQEND, to shine. Brugm.i. §§ 456, 818 (2). Der.
candidate, q. V.; candour, lit. brightness, from F. candeur, which from
L.candodrem, acc. case of candor, brightness; also candid-ly, candid-ness.
From L. candére we also have candle, incense, incendiary, which see.
CANDIDATE, one who offers himself to be elected to an office.
(L.} Shak. has: ‘ Be candidatus then and put it on;’ Titus, i. 185;
where the allusion is to the white robe worn by a candidate for office
among the Romans. = L. candidatus, white-robed ; a candidate for an
office. — L. candidus, white. See Candid.
CANNIBAL
CANDLE, a kind of artificial light. (L.) In very early use.
AS. candel, a candle, Grein, i. 155.—L. candéla, a candle, taper.—
L. candére, to glow.—L. *candere, to set on fire; see further under
Candid. Der. Candle-mas (Feb. 2), A.S. Chron., an. 1014, with
which cf. Christ-mas,q.v.; candlestick (Trevisa, i. 223), AS. candel-sticca,
Birch, Cart. Saxon., ili. 366; candélabrum, a L. word, from L. candéla;
also chandel-ier, q. v.; chandl-er, q. v.; cannel-coal, q. v.
CANDOUR:; see under Candid.
CANDY, crystallised sugar; as a verb, to sugar, to crystallise.
(F.—Ital.—Arab.—Skt.) In old authors, it is usually a verb. Shak.
has both sb. and verb, 1 Hen. IV, i.3. 251; Hamlet, iii. 2. 65; Temp.
il. 1.279. The comp. sugar-candy is the oldest form; see Liber Cure
Cocorum, p. 7.—F. sucre candi, sugar-candy; whence se candir, ‘to
candie, or grow candide, as sugar after boyling;’ Cotgrave. [Here
Cotgrave should rather have written candied; there is no. connexion
with L. candidus, white, as he easily might have imagined.]~— Ital.
candire, to candy; candi, candy; zucchero candi, sugar-candy.= Arabic
and Persian gand, sugar, sugar-candy ; Richardson’s Arab. Dict. p. 1149;
Arab. gandat, sugar-candy, id.; gandi, sugared, made of sugar; id.
p- 1150.—Skt. khanda-s, a piece, part; also, powdered sugar
(Macdonell); cf. Ahadava-s, a kind of sweetmeat.
CANDYTUFT, a plant, of the genus Iberis. (Hybrid.) First in
Evelyn (1664). From Candy and tuft; where Candy refers to the
island of Candia (or Crete), whence the plant came; and see Tuft.
CANE, a reed, a stick. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME.cane,canne. ‘Reedes,
that ben cannes ;’ Maundeville, p. 189; see also pp. 190,199. ‘Cane,
canna ;’ Wright’s Vocab. i. 191.—F. cane, a cane. =—L. canna, a cane,
reed. = Gk. κάννα, κάννη, a cane,reed. . Perhaps cane is an Oriental
word ultimately; cf. Heb. ganehk, a reed; Arab. ganah, a cane;
Richardson’s Dict. p. 1148. If so, the L. and Gk. words are both
borrowed ones. Der. cane, verb; can-y, Milton, P. L. iii. 439; can-
ister, 4. V.; also cann-on, 4. V.; can-on, q. Vv.
CANINE, pertaining to a dog. (L.) In the Spectator, no. 209;
and in Cockeram (1623).—L. caninus, canine.= L. canis, a dog; cog-
nate with E. hound. See Hound.
CANISTER, a case, or box, often of tin. (L.—Gk.) Originally,
a basket made of reed or caxe. Spelt cannisters in Dryden's Virgil,
bk. i. 981, to translate ‘ Cereremque canistris Expediunt ;’ AEn. i. 7ol.
= L. canistrum, a basket made of twisted reed. = Gk. κάναστρον, a
wicker-basket ; properly, a basket of teed. —Gk. κάνη, a rarer form
of κάννη, kavva, a reed, cane. See Cane.
CANKER, something that corrodes. (F.—L.) ‘ Canker, sekeness,
cancer ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 60; it occurs very early, in Ancren Riwle,
p- 330, where it is spelt cancre, as in ONorth. F. [AS. cancer,
Leechdoms, ii. 110.]—ONorth. F. cancre (F. chancre).—L. cancrum,
ace. of cancer, a crab, a cancer. See Cancer. Der. canker-ous,
canker-worm (A. V.).
CANNEL-COAL, a coal that burns brightly. (L.and E.) First
in 1538 (N.E.D.). Provincial Eng. cannel,a candle,and coal. ‘Canale,
a candle; cannie-coal, or kennle-coal, so called because it burns with-
out smoke like a candle;? F. K. Robinson, Whitby Glossary. And
see E. D. Ὁ.
CANNIBAL, one who eats human-flesh. (Span.—W. Indian.)
A corrupt form; it should rather be cartbal. ‘The Caribes I learned
to be man-eaters or canibals, and great enemies to the islanders of
Trinidad;’ Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. iii. p. 576; a passage imitated
in Robinson Crusoe, ed. J. W. Clark, 1866, p. 126. See Shak.
Oth. i. 3. 143.—Span. canibal, a cannibal, savage ; a variant of Caridal,
a Carib, a form used by Columbus; see Trench, Study of Words.
B. This word being ill understood, the spelling camibal prevailed in
Spanish, from the notion that the cannibals had appetites like a dog;
cf. Span. canino, canine, voracious, greedy. As the word canibal was
unmeaning in English, a second 2 was introduced to make the first
vowel short, either owing to stress, or from some notion that it
ought to be shortened. y. The word Canibal occurs in the following
quotation from Herrera’s Descripcion de Jas Indias Occidentales,
vol. i. p. 11. col. 1, given in Todd’s Johnson. ‘Las Islas qui estan
desde la Isla de San Juan de Porto rico al oriente de ella, para la costa
de Tierra-Firme, se llamaron los Canibales por los muchos Caribes,
comedores de carne humana, que truvo en ellas, i segun se interpreta
en su lengua Canibal, quiere decir “hombre valiente,” porque por
tales eran tenidos de los otros Indios.’ 1. 6. ‘the islands lying next:
to the island of San Juan de Porto-rico [now called Porto Rico]:to
the East of it, and extending towards the coast of the continent
{of South America] are called Canibales because of the many Caribs,
eaters of human flesh, that are found in them, and according to the
interpretation of their language Canzbal is as much as to say “ valiant
man,” because they were held to be such by the other Indians.’ This
hardly sufficiently recognises the fact that Canibal and Carib (as
well as Caliban) are mere variants of one and the same word; but we
lear that the West Indian word Carib meant, in the language of the
CANNON
natives, ‘a valiant man.’ Other testimony is to the same effect; and
itis well ascertained that cannibal is equivalent to Carib or Caribbean,
and that the native sense of the word is ‘a valiant man,’ widely difler-
ent from that which Europeans have given it. The tamiliar expression
‘king of the cannibal islands’ really means ‘king of the Caribbean
islands.’ Der. cannibal-ism.
CANNON (1), a large gun. (F.—Ital.—L.—Gk.) Frequent
in Shak.; K. John, ii. 210, &c. And in Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. iii.
p- 217.—F. canon, ‘a law, rule, decree, ordnance, canon of the law; . ..
also, the gunne tearmed a cinnon; also, the barrell of any gunne,’
&c. ; Cot.—Ital. cannone, ‘a canon or piece or ordnance, the barrell
of any gun, . - acanon, arule;’ Florio. Thus caznon is a doublet
of canon, q.v. See Trench, Study of Words. B. The spelling with
two n's may-have been adopted to create a distinction between the two
uses of the word, the present word taking the double x of Ital. cannone.
The sense ‘ gun-barrel’ is older than that of ‘gun,’ and the Ital.
cannone is the augmentative of Ital. canna, a pipe, a cane. —L. canna;
see Cane. Der. cannon-ade, cannon-eer.
CANNON (2), «ἃ particular stroke at billiards. (F.—Span.) A
perversion of carrom or carom, shortened form of carambole; see
Hoyle’s Games, Billiards, law 9 (1779).—F. carambole, the red ball
at billiards; cf. F. caramboler, (1) to touch the red ball, (2) to touch
two other balls with one’s own.—Span. carambola, a manner of
playing at billiards, a device, trick. Origin unknown.
CANOE, a boat made ofa trunk of a tree; &c. (Span.— W. Indian.)
Formerly canoa, as spelt in Hakluyt’s Voyages, iii. 646. —Span. canoa,
an Indian boat. It is ascertained to be a native West Indian term for
‘boat ;* and properly, a word belonging to the old language of Hayti.
See R. Eden, Books on America, ed. Arber, p.66; Noteson E. Etym.
Ρ- 346. Spelt canaca by R. Breton, in his Dict. Caraibe-Frangois (1665).
CANON (1), a rule, ordinance. (L.—Gk.) ME. canon, canoun;
Chaucer, Treatise oa the Astrolabe, ed. Skeat, prol. 68; C. T., Group
C, 890. AS. canon; Beda, Eccl. Hist. (A. S. version), iv. 24; Bos-
worth. L. canon, a rule.=Gk. κανών, a straight rod, a rule in the
sense of ‘carpenter’s rule;’ also, a rule or‘model, a standard of
right. = Gk. κάνη, ararer form of κάννῃ, a (straight) cane, reed. See
Cane. Dor. canon (2), one who lives according to a canon, 4. v.;
canon-ic, canon-ic-al, canon-ic-al-ly, canon-ist, canon-tc-ity, canon-ise
(Gower, C. A. i. 254; b. ii. 2821), canon-is-at-ion, canon-ry. Doublet,
cannon (1), q. Vv.
CANON (2), dignitary of the church. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME.
canun, Layamon, il. 598, 1. 24289; canoun, id. (later text), 1. 24288.
—ONorthF. canonze (Littré, s. v. chanoine) ; the pl. canunies occurs
in the Chanson du Roland, 2956. = Late L. canonicum, ace. of canonicus,
adj., one on the church-roll or list, and so in receipt of church-
funds. = L. canon, the church-roll or list. See Hatch, Bampton Lec-
tures, p. 202. See Canon (1). N.B. The Span. cafon, a deep
ravine, lit. a tube, is the same word as F. canon; see Cannon (1).
CANOPY, a covering overhead. (F.—Ital.—L.—Gk.) Should
be: conopy ; but the spelling canopé occurs in Italian, whence it found
its way into French as canapé, a form cited by Diez, and thence into
English ; the proper OF. form is conopé. In Shak. Sonn. 125. In
Bible of 1551, Judith, xiii. 9; retained in the A. V. Spelt canopé in
Wyclif. Cf. MF. conopée, ‘a canopy, a tent, or pavilion;’ Cot.—L,
condpéum, used in Judith, xiii. τὸ (Vulgate). Gk. κωνωπεών, κωνω-
πεῖον, an Egyptian bed with musquito-curtains. —Gk. κώνωπ-, stem of
κώνωψ, a gnat, mosquito.; lit. ‘ cone-faced,’ or a creature witha cone-
shaped head, from the shape of its head. Gk. «@v-os, a cone; and
wy, face, appearance, from Gk. 4/ ΟΠ, to see=Idg. 4/ OQ, to see.
See Cone and Optic. Der. canopy, verb.
CANOROUS, tuneful. (L.) In Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors,
b. vil. c. 14. § 5.—L. candrus, singing, musical.—L. canere, to sing.
See Cant (1).
CANT (1), to sing in a whining way ; to talk hypocritically.
(L.) Applied at first, probably, to the whining tone of beggars, with
some allusion to chanting ; used derisively. ‘ Drinking, lying, cog-
ging, canting ;’? Ford, The Sun’s Darling, Act i. sc.1. ‘ A rogue, A
very canter I, sir, one that maunds Upon the pad;’ Ben Jonson,
Staple of News, Act ii. = L. cantare, to sing (whence Picard and Wal-
loon canter, to sing) ; frequentative of canere, to sing; from the same
root as E. hen, q.v.—4/KAN, to sound. Brugmann, i. § 181.
Der. cant, sb.; cant-er. From the same source, can-orous, q. Vv. ;
cant-tcle, q. v.; cant-o, q.v. 861 ‘What was it, prose or ryme, metre
or verse? I trowe it was cantum, for I herde you synge;’ Caxton,
Reynard the Fox, c. 27; ed. Arber, p. 63. In Harman’s Caveat,
p- 84, to cante, i. e. to speak, is given as a cant word. Cf. Walloon
canter, to sing (Sigart); and see Cant in the E.D.D. Der. cant-er,
cant-ing ; also cant-ata, Ital. cantata, a poetical composition set to
music; from the fem. of the pp. of L. cantare, to sing.
CANT (2), an edge, corner ; as verb, to tilt or incline. (Duteh—
L.—Gk.) The sb. is nearly obsolete; we find ‘in a cant’=‘in a
CAOUTCHOUC 89
corner, in Ben Jonson, Coronation Entertainment; Works, ed.
Gifford, vi. 445 (Nares); see the description of Irene in the same,
ed. 1860, p. 531. The verb means ‘to turn upon an edge,’ hence,
to tilt, incline ; said of a cask. The verb is derived from the sb. —
Du. kant, a border, edge, side, brink, margin, corner.4--Dan. and
Swed. kant, a border, edge, margin; cf. Dan. kantre, to cant, upset,
capsize; G. kante,a comer. All from LateL. cantus, a corner ; which
is prob. from L. canthus (pronounced. as cantus) <Gk. κάνθος, the
corner of the eye, felloe of a wheel. Korting, § 1851. Der. cant-een,
ον; de-cant-er.
CANTEEN, a vessel for liquors used by soldiers. (F.—Ital. —
L.—Gk.) Firstin1744(N.E.D.). The spelling is phonetic, imitating
the F. i by the mod. E. ee.—F. cantine, a canteen ; introduced from
Ital. in the 17th century; Hatzfeld.—Ital. cantina, a cellar, cave,
grotto, cavern; cf. Ital. canéinetéa, a small cellar, ice-pail, cooler. =
Ital. canto, a side, part, corner, angle ; whence cantina as a diminu-
tive, i. e. “a little corner.’ —Late L. canfus, a corner. See Cant (2).
CANTER, an easy gallop. (Εἰ place-name.) An abbreviation for
Canterbury gallop, a name given to an easy gallop; from the ambling
pace at which pilgrims rode to Canterbury. ‘In Sampson’s Fair
Maid of Clifton (1633), he who personates the hobby-horse speaks
of his smooth ambles and Canterbury paces;*’ Todd’s Johnson.
‘Boileau’s Pegasus has all his paces. The Pegasus of Pope, like
a Kentish post-horse, is always on the Canterbury;’ Dennis on the
Prelim. to the Dunciad (Nares). We also have ‘ Canterbury bells.’
Der. canter, verb.
CANTICLE, a little song. (L.). ‘And wrot an canticle,’ said of
Moses; Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 1. 4124.—L. canticulum,
a little song; dimin. of L. canticum, a song.—L. cantus, a song; cf.
cantus, pp. of canere, to sing. See Cant (1).
CANTILEVER, a kind of bracket, projecting from a wall to
support a balcony or the like. (F.) Pineda’s Span. Dict., 5. v. can,
a dog, adds: ‘in architecture, the end of timber or stone jutting out
of a wall, on which in old buildings the beams used to rest, called
cantilevers.’ Possibly from canfle, a corner, and lever. The sup-
port could be obtained by letting one end of a lever into a cantle
(projection or nook) in a wall, and the other into a notch in a hori-
zontal beam above. The MDu. kanteel-hout, ‘a roofe-beame,’ in
Hexham (lit. cantle-wood) is parallel. See below.
CANTLE, a small piece. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. 1 Hen. IV,
iii. 1. 100, ME. cantel, Chaucer,C. T., 3010 (A 3008).—ONorthF.
cantel (mod. F. chanteax), a piece, corner, bit; see Littré, 5. v.
chanteau. The same as Late L. cantellus, a piece ; formed with dimin.
suffix -ells from Late L. cantus, a corner. See Cant (2).
CANTO, a division of a poem. (Ital.—L.) Shak. has cantons,
Tw. Nt. i. 5. 289, which is a difficult form to account for. The
more correct form cantion (directly from L. cantio, a ballad) occurs
near the beginning of the Glosse to Spenser’s Shep. Kal., October. =
Ital. canio, a singing, chant, section of a poem.=L. acc. cantum,
asong. See Canticle.
CANTON, a small division of a country. (F.—Ital.—L.—Gk.)
Sir T. Browne uses cantons for ‘ corners ;’ Religio Medici, pt. i. 5. 15.
In Heraldry, a canton is a small division in the corner of a shield ; so
used in Ben Jonson, Staple of News, A. iv. (Piedmantle). And see
Cotgrave.—F. canton, ‘a corner or crosseway, in a street; also, a
canton, or hundred ;’ Cot. [Cf. Span. canton, a corner, part of an
escutcheon, canton. |= Ital. canéone, a nook, angle; also,a corporation,
township (Torriano).—Late L. canténum, canto, a region, province.
Origin doubtful; the heraldic canton, F. canton, Ital. cantone, is from
Ttal. canto, an edge. See Cant (2). Der. canton, verb; canton-al,
canton-ment. Cf. se cantonner, ‘to sever themselves from the rest of
their fellowes ;’ Cotgrave.
CANVAS, a coarse hempen cloth. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. canevas ;
a trisyllable in Chaucer, C. Τὶ 16407 (G 939).—ONorthF. canevas.
- Late L. canabicius, hempen cloth, canvas. L. cannabis, hemp. =
Gk. κάνναβις, hemp, cognate with E. hemp, q.v. J It is supposed
that the Greek word was borrowed from the East; Curtius, 1. 173.
Cf. Pers. kaxab, hemp; Rich. Dict. p. 1208; Skt. gaya-m, hemp.
Der. canvass, verb; q. Vv.
CANVASS, to discuss, solicit votes. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak.
‘to take to task ;” 1 Hen. VI, i. 3. 36. Spelt kanvas in Palsgrave.
Merely derived from the sb. canvas, the orig. meaning being ‘to sift
through canvas.’ Similarly, Cotgrave explains the MI. canabasser by
‘to canvas, or curiously to examine, search or sift out the depth of
a matter.’ See above.
CANZONET, alittle song. (Ital.—L.) In Shak. L.L.L.iv.2.124.
=Ital. canzonetta, a little song ; dimin. of canzone, a hymn; cf. can-
zona, a song, ballad.=L. cantidnem, acc. of cantio, a song; whence
also F. chanson, a song, used by Shak. Hamlet, ii. 2. 438.— L. cantare,
to sing; frequentative of canere, to sing. See Cant (1).
CAOUTCHOUGC, india rubber. (F.—Caribbean.)
Modern.
90 CAP
Borrowed from F. caoutchouc, from a Caribbean word which is spelt
cauchuc in the Cyclop. Metropolitana, 4. v. This word, used at Quito,
belongs to the idiom of the Indians of the province of Mainas, and
signifies ‘juice of a tree.’ La Condamine calls it cahuchu. See Notes
on E. Etym. pp. 30, 31.
CAP, a covering for the head; a cover. (Late L.) In early use.
AS. ceppe, as a gloss to Late L. planéta, a chasuble; AE£lfric’s Glos-
sary; Voc. 124. 31.—Late L. cappa,a cape,a cope; see capparius in
Ducange. [The words cap, cape, cope were all the same originally. |
This Late L. cappa, a cap, occurs in a document of the year 660
(Diez) ; and is spelt cappa by Isidore of Seville, 19. 31. 3, who says:
© Cappa, quia capitis ornamentum est;’ a popular etymology. But
the true origin is unknown. Perhaps the derivation from L. capere,
to contain, suggested by Papias, may be right. See Cape, Cope.
4 For cap-a-pie, cap-a-pee, i.e. from head to foot (from F. cap, head,
a, to, and OF. pie, AF. pee, foot) see Cape (2).
CAPABLE, having ability. (F.—L.) In Shak. Troil. iii. 3. 310.
=F. capable, ‘capable, sufficient ;’ Cot.—Late L. capabilis, lit. com-
prehensible, a word used in the Arian controversy. B. The meaning
afterwards shifted to ‘able to hold, one of the senses assigned by
Cotgrave to F.capable. This would be due to the influence of L. capax,
capacious, the word to which capabilis was probably indebted for its
second a and its irregular formation from capere.—L. capere, to hold,
contain. —/ QAP, to hold; Brugm.i. § 635. Der. capabil-ity. See
Heave.
CAPACIOUS, able to hold or contain. (L.) Used by Sir W.
Ralegh, Hist. of the World, bk. i.c.6. Shak. expresses the same idea
by capable. II formed, as if from a F. capacieux or L. capactdsus; but
there are no such words, and the real source is the declensional stem
capact- of the L. adj. capax, able to contain. —L. cafere, to contain,
hold; cognate with E. heave, 4. v. Der. capacious-ly, capacious-ness ;
and (from L. capax, gen. capdci-s) capact-t-ale, capaci-ty. From the
L. capere we also have cap-adle, cat-er. Also concetve, deceive, receive,
&c. Also cattious, captivate, captive, captor, capture; anticipate, eman-
cipate, participate; acceptable, conception, deception, except, intercept. pre-
cept, receipt, receptacle, susceptible; incipient, recipient; occupy; prince,
principal; and all words nearly related to these.
CAPARISON, the trappings of a horse. (F.—Span. —Late L.)
In Shak. Cor. i. 9. 12. MF. caparasson, ‘a caparison ;’ Cot. Span.
caparazon, a caparison, a cover for a saddle or coach; formed as an
augmentative from Med. L. caparo, a cowl (cf. E. chaperon), = Late L.
capa,acloak, cape. See Cape (1). Der. caparison, verb; Rich. III,
y. 3. 280.
CAPE (1), a covering for the shoulders. (F.—Span. —Late L.)
In Shak. Tam. Shrew, iv. 3. 140. [ME. cape, in Layamon, ii. 122, is
the modern copve.]— MF. cape, ‘a short and sleevelesse cloake ;’ Cot.
—Span. capa, a cape, cloak. = Late L. capa, for which see Ducange ;
see also Cap and Cope. Baret, s.v. Cape, has: ‘a Spanishe
cape. ] The word, being an ecclesiastical one, has spread widely ;
from the Late L. caga are derived not only OF. cape, but also Prov.,
Span., and Port. capa, Icel. Rapa (whence E. cope), Swed. kdpa, Dan.
kaabe. Der. cap-arison, q. v.; and see chapel, chaperon, chaplet.
CAPE (2), a headland. (I*.—Ital.—L.) In Shak. Oth. 11. 1. 1;
Chaucer, Prol. 408.—F. cap, ‘a promontory, cape;’ Cot. —Ital. capo,
ahead; a headland, cape. —L. caput, a head. 4] In the phr. cap-d-pieé,
i.e. head to foot, the ‘cap’ is the F. cap here spoken οἵ.
CAPER (1), to dance about. (Ital.—L.) In Shak. Temp. ν. 238.
The word was merely shortened from the older form capreoll, used by
Sir P. Sidney in his translation of Ps. 114, quoted by Richardson:
‘Hillocks, why capreold ye, as wanton by their dammes We capreoll
see the lusty lambs?’ = Ital. capriolare, to caper, leap about as goats
or kids. = Ital. capriola, ‘a caperin dancing;’ Florio; from Ital. capra,
a she-goat.—L. capra, a she-goat; caper (stem capro-), a he-goat.
Cf. Gk. κάπρος, a boar; Curtius, i. 174.44 AS. hefer, a he-goat; Icel.
hafr. Der. caper, sb.; capriole, q.v., and cf. cabriolet, cab.
CAPER (2), the fower-bud of the caper-bush, used for pickling.
(F.—L.—Gk.) There is a quibble on the word in Shak. Tw. Nt.
i, 3. 129. Sir T. Elyot has capers; Castel of Helth, b. ii. c. 7.
- MF. capre, cappre, a caper, Cot.; mod. F. capre. —L. capparis. =
Gk. κάππαρις, the caper-plant; also its fruit. Perhaps Eastern; cf.
Arab. kabar, capers; Richardson’s Arab, Dict. p. 1167.
CAPERCAILZIE, a species of grouse. (Gael.) The z is here
no z, but a modern printer’s way of representing the old 3, much better
represented by y; thus the word is really capercatlyie, [Similarly
Menzies stands for Menyies, and Dalziel for Dalyiel.| ‘ The capercal3e,
. - horse of the forest ;’ J. Dalrymple, tr. of Leslie’s Hist. Scot. p. 39.
See Newton, Dict. of Birds; and the article on the capercali, capercally,
or capercailyie, in the Engl. Cycl., div. Nat. History. Gael. capuil-
coille, the great cock of the wood; more literally, the horse of the
wood. = Gael. capzll, a horse, from L. caballus (cf. E. cavalier); and
coille or coll, 2 wood, a forest, cognate with I. Holt.
CAPRIOLE
CAPIBARA, a large rodent quadruped. (Brazil.) The native
name in Brazil. ‘ Capy-bara ... Porcus est fluviatilis;’ Hist. Nat.
Brasiliz, 1648 ; vol. ii. p. 230. See Cavy.
CAPILLARY, relating to or like hair. (L.) ‘Capillary fila-
ments ;’ Derham, Physico-Theology, b. iv.c. 12 (R.); and in Blount
(1656). —L. capillaris, relating to hair.—L. capillus, hair; but esp. the
hair of the head; from the same source as L. caput, the head; the
base cap- being common to both words (Bréal).
CAPITAL (1), relating to the head; chief. (F.—L.) ‘Eddren
capitalen ’ = veins in the head, where capitalen is used as a pl. adj.;
Ancren Riwle, p. 258.—F. capital, ‘ chiefe, capitall;’ Cotgrave (and
in early use).—L. capitalis, relating to the head.—L. caput (stem
capit-), the head. Allied to Skt. kapala(m), skull; AS, hafela, head.
Brugm. i. § 641. Der. capital, sb., which see below. And see
Capitol.
CAPITAL (2), wealth, stock of money. (F.—L.) Not in early
use; later than 1600 (N.E. D.). = F. capital, ‘ wealth, worth, a stocke,
a man’s principal, or chiefe substance ;᾿ Cotgrave.— Late L. capitale,
wealth, stock; properly neuter of adj. capitalis, chief; see above.
Der. capital-ist, capital-ise. See Cattle.
CAPITAL (3), the head of a pillar. (LateL.,orF.—L.) ‘The
pilers . . With harlas and capitale’=with fillet and capital; Land
of Cokayne, 1. 69. -- Late L. capitellum, the head of a column or pillar;
a dimin. from L. caput (stem capit-),a head. Or from ONorthF.
capitel (Picard capiteau, Ἐς chapiteau); the same. Doublets, chapiter,
chapter.
CAPITATION, a tax on every head. (F.—L.) In Sir T.
Browne, Vulg. Errors, bk. vii.c. 11. § 1.—F. capitation, ‘ head-silver,
pole-money ; a subsidy, tax, or tribute paid by the pole’ [i.e. poll];
Cot. = Late L. capitatidnem, acc. of capitatio, a capitation-tax. = L. caput
(stem capit-), a head.
CAPITOL, the temple of Jupiter, at Rome. (L.) The temple
was situate on the Mons Capitolinus, named from the Capitélium, or
temple of Jupiter, whence E. capitol is derived. In Shak. Cor. i. 1.
49, &c. ‘The temple is said to have been called the Capitolium,
because a human head (capu/) was discovered in digging the founda-
tions ;’ Smith’s Classical Dictionary. For whatever reason, the
etymology seems to be from the L. caput, gen. capit-is (above).
CAPITULAR, relating to a cathedral chapter. (L.) Properly
an adj., but gen. used as a sb., meaning ‘the body of the statutes of
a chapter.’ ‘The capitular of Charles the Great joyns dicing and
drunkenness together ;’ Bp. Taylor, Rule of Conscience, bk. iy. c. 1
(R.). — Late L. capitularis, relating to a capitulum, in its various senses ;
whence neut. capztuldre, a writing divided into chapters; capitulare
instititum, ἃ monastic rule; and sb. capitularium, a book of decrees,
whence the Εἰ capitulary, a more correct form, as a sb., than capitular.
— Late L. capitulum, a chapter of a book; a cathedral chapter; dimin,
from L. caput, the head. See Chapter.
CAPITULATEH, to submit upon certain conditions. (L.) See
Trench, Select Glossary. It properly means, to arrange conditions,
and esp. of surrender; as in ‘to capitulate and conferre wyth them
touchynge the estate of the cytie, the beste that they could, so that
their parsones [persons] might be saued;’ Nicolls, tr. of Thucydides,
p- 219 (R.). SeeShak. Cor. v. 3.82. - Late L. capitulatus, pp. of capi-
tulare, to divide into chapters, hence, to propose terms.—Late L.
capitulum, a chapter (above), Der. capitulat-ion.
CAPON,a young cock castrated. (L.—Gk.) Inveryearly use. AS.
capun,as a gloss to ‘ gallinaceus;’ A‘lfric’s Glossary, ed. Somner,
Nomina Avium. = L. caponem,acc. of capo, acapon, = Gk. «amwv,acapon.
CAPOTE, a long cloak or mantle. (F.—Late L.) ‘In our rough
capote;’ Byron, Siege of Corinth, ]. 10.—F. capote, f.; from capot, m.,
a mantle. =F. cape, a cape; see Cape (1).
CAPRICE, a whim, sudden leap of the mind. (F.—Ital.—L.) The
word is now always spelt like the F. caprice, but we often find, in
earlier writers, the Italian form. Thus Shak. has capriccio, All’s
Well, ii. 3.310; and Butler has the pl. capriches to rhyme with witches ;
Hudibras, pt. ii. c. 1, 1. 18.—F. caprice, ‘humour, caprichio, giddy
thought ;’ Cot.—Ital. capriccio, a caprice, whim; whence the word
was introduced into French in the 16th century (Brachet). B. De-
rived by Diez from Ital. caprio,a goat, as if it were ‘a frisk of a
kid;’ but this is not quite sure. Cf. capriole (below), which seems to
be an analogous formation. Karting, § 1891. See Caper (1).
CAPRICORN, the name of a zodiacal sign. (L.) Lit. fa
horned goat.’ In Chaucer, Treatise on the Astrolabe, pt. 1. sect. 17.
πιο capricornus, in the Norman-French treatise of P. de Thaun, in
Pop. Treatises on Science, ed. Wright, ]. 196.—L, capri-, for capro-,
stem of caper, a goat; and cornu,a horn. See Caper (1) and Horn.
CAPRIOLE, a peculiar frisk of a horse. (F.—Ital.—L.) Not
common. Merely F. capriole, ‘a caper in dancing ; also the capriole,
sault, or goats leap, done by a horse ;’ Cot. Ital. capriola, the leap
of akid.—L. capra, a she-goat. See Caper (1).
CAPSICUM
CAPSICUM, a genus of tropical plants, with hot pungent cap-
sules and seeds. (L.) ‘The Indian capsicum;* Bradley, Fam. Dict.
Il. 5. v. sall:¢ (1725); N.E.D. A coined word, and incorrect. Prob.
formed from L. capsa, a case ; with reference to the capsules.
CAPSIZE, to upset, overturn. (Span.?—L.) First in Dibdin
(1788). Perhaps a nautical corruption of Span. capuzar, to sink; as
in capuzar un bajel, to sink a ship by the head; or of mod. Prov, cabus-
sado, the act of diving, an upset (Mistral); apparently derivatives of
L. caput, the head. (A guess.)
CAPSTAN, a machine for winding upa cable. (Prov.—L.) ME.
capstan, Allit. Poems, B. 418. ‘The weighing of anchors by the
capstan is also new;’ Ralegh, Essays (in ‘Todd's Jolinson). = Prov.
cabe tan (whence MF, cabestan, ‘ the capstane of a ship ;’ Cot.) ; cog-
nate with Span. cabrestante, a capstan, engine to raise weights ; also
spelt cabestrante.—L. capistrare, to fasten with a halter, muzzle, tie
up; pres. part. capistrans (stem cap/strant-), whence the Span. cabe-
strante. Cf. also Span. cabestrage, cattle-drivers’ money, also a halter,
answering to Low L. capistragiwm, money for halters. —L. capistrum
(Span. cabestro), a halter.—L. capere, to hold. See Capacious.
@ Sometimes derived from cabra, a goat, engine to cast stones, and
stante, explained by ‘standing,’ i,e. upright; but the conjecture
though adopted by Korting) is untenable and needless; the shifting
of r appears plainly in Port. cabresfo, a halter, also (as a nautical
term) cables belonging to the bowsprit, allied to cabrestante, capstan.
So also Prov. cabestran (as well as cabestan), from cabestre, a halter.
See N. E. D.
CAPSULE, a seed-vessel of a plant. (F.—L.) ‘The little
cases or capsules which contain the seed ;’ Derham, Physico-Theology,
bk. x. note r (R.). Sir T. Browne has capsulary ; Vulg. Errors, b.
iii, c.27. § 3.—F. capsule, ‘a little chest or coffer ;’ Cot. —L. capsula,
a small chest; dimin. of capsa, a chest, repository. See Case (2).
Der. capsul-ar, capsul-ar-y.
CAPTAIN, a head officer. (F.—L.) ME. capitain, capitein,
captain, Spelt cap‘tein, Gower, C. A. i. 360 (ili. 2421) ; capitain,
Chaucer, C. T., Η 230.— OF. capitaine (14th cent., Supp. to Godefroy).
= Late L. captaneus, capitinus, aleader of soldiers, captain ; formed,
by help of suffix -@eus, -Gnus, from stem capit- of L. caput, the head ;
Der. captain-cy. Doublet, chieftain, q. v.
CAPTIOUS, critical, disposed to cavil. (F.—L.) ‘They...
moued unto Him this capcious question; why (quoth they) do Johns
disciples and the Phariseis ofttimes fast, and thy disciples not fast at
alle ?’ Udal, on S. Mark, cap. ii. v. 18.—F. captiewx, ‘ captious, cavil-
ling, too curious ; Cot. = τος captidsus, sophistical, critical. = L. captio,
a taking, sophistical argument; allied to capt-us, pp. of capere, to hold.
See Capacious. Der. captious-ness.
CAPTIVE, a prisoner. (K.—L.) In Hakluyt, Voyages, i.
149; as a verb, to capture, in Sir T. More’s Works, p. 279 Ὁ:
Generally expressed by its doublet caitif in Middle-English, =F.
captif (f. captive). —L. captiuus, a captive. —L. captus, pp. of capere, to
hold, take, catch, seize.—4/ QAP, to hold. See Caitiff. Der.
captiv-i-ty, captiv-ate, captiv-at-ing; and from L. capt-, capt-or, capt-ure,
capt-tous.
CAPUCHIN, a hooded friar; a hood. (F.—Ital.—Late L.)
Order established in 1525-8. Cotgrave has capicin in his explanation
of F. capucin, but this is, no doubt, a misprint, since the spelling
capucine occurs twice immediately below.—MF, capuchin (I. capucin),
‘a capicin [read capucin | frier ; of S. Frances order; weares neither
shirt, nor breeches;’ Cot. [He also has: ‘ Capuchon,a capuche,
a monk’s cowle, or hood ; also, the hood of a cloake.’] —Ital. cappu-
cino, a capuchin monk, small cowl; the monk being named from the
‘small cowl’ which he wore. Dimin. of Ital. cappuccio, acowl, hood
worn over the head. —Ital.cappa,acape. See Cape(1),Cap. 4 The
form is capuchin both in Picard (Corblet) and in Walloon (Sigart).
CAPYBARA; see Capibara (above).
CAR, a wheeled vehicle. (F.—C.) In Shak. Sonnet 7, ἄς. He
also has carman, Meas. ii. 1. 269. ME. carre, Maundeville’s Travels,
p- 130.—ONorthF. carre; in Ducange, s. v. Marcellum.—Late L.
carra; allied to carrus, a kind of four-wheeled carriage, which Ceesar
first saw in Gaul; a Celtic word.—Bret. karr, a chariot; W. car,
a raft, frame, drag; OGael. car, a cart, car, or raft for carrying
things on; Irish carr, a cart, dray, waggon. [Whencealso G. karre,
acart, barrow.] . Allied to L. currus, a chariot, and currere, to
run; the L. and Celt. c being the same letter etymologically.
Brugm. i. ὃ 516; Stokes-Fick, p. 72. Der. There are numerous
derivatives ; see career, cargo, cark, carry, cart, charge, chariot.
CARABINE;; sce Carbine.
CARACAL, a feline quadruped resembling a lynx. (F.—Turk.)
In a tr. of Buffon (1792), i. 195.—F. caracal. — Turk. gara(h), black ;
qulaq, ear. Named from its black ears.
CARACOLE, a half-turn made by a horseman. (F.—Span.)
“Caracol, with horsemen, is an oblique piste, or tread, traced out in
CARBON 91
semi-rounds, changing from one hand to another, without observing
a regular ground;’ Bailey’s Dict. ed. 2 (1731), vol. ii. Also in
Blount (165 ).—F. caracol, ‘a snail; whence, faire le caracol, {for}
souldiers to cast themselves into a round or ring;’ Cot. Mod, F.
caracole, a gambol; introduced from Span. in the 16th cent.
(Brachet).—Span. caracol, a snail, a winding stair-case, a wheeling
about; caracol marino, a periwinkle. Applied to a snail-shell from
its spiral shape. B. Perhaps Celtic. Cf. Gael. carach, meandering,
whirling, circling, winding, turning; car, a twist, turn, revolution ;
Irish car, a twist, turn, cor, circular motion. Korting, § 1918.
CARAFE, a glass water-bottle. (F.—Span.—Arab.) Modern. =
F. carafe. — Span. garrafa, a cooler, vessel to cool wines ἴῃ. -- Arab.
ghiraf, draughts of water; Arab. root gharafa, to draw water. (So
Dozy and Devic; some identify it with carboy ; see Carboy.)
CARAPACE, the upper shell of a tortoise. (F.—Span.) Modern.
=F. carapace.—Span. carapacho (Hatzfeld). But the Span. Dict.
has only carapuza, variant of caperuza, a hood.
CARAT, a certain light weight. (F.—Ital.—Arab.—Gk.) Gene-
rally aweight of 4 grains. In Shak. Com. Err, iv. 1. 28.—F. carat,‘a
carrat ; among goldsmiths and mintmen is the third part of an ounce,
among jewellers or stone-cutters, but the 19 part ;’ Cot.—TItal. carato.
(Cf. O. Port. guirate, a small weight, a carat; cited by Diez. ]— Arab.
girrat, a carat, the 24th part of an ounce, 4 barley-corns; also, a
bean or pea-shell, a pod, husk; Richardson’s Arab. Dict. p. 1122.—
Gk. κεράτιον, the fruit of the locust tree ; also (like L. seliqua), a
weight, the carat; the lit. sense being ‘a little horn.’—Gk. κέρας,
(stem xepat-),ahorn; alliedtoE. Horn. @ The locust-tree, carob-
tree, or St. John’s-bread-tree is the Cera/onia siligua; ‘The seeds,
which are nearly of the weight of a carat, have been thought to have
been the origin of that ancient money-weight ;’ Engl. Cycl., div. Nat.
Hist. 5. ν. Ceratonia ; a name which preserves the two former syllables
of the Gk. κεράτ-ιον. See Carob, which is, however, unrelated.
CARAVAN, a company of traders or travellers. (F.—Pers.) In
Milton, P. L. vii. 428. Spelt carovan in Hakluyt, Voy. il. pt. 1. 203.
=F. caravane, ‘a convoy of souldiers, for the safety of merchants
that travell by land ;” Cot.— Pers. Karwan, a caravan; Richardson’s
Arab. Dict. p. 1182.
CARAVANSARY, an inn for travellers. (Pers.) Occurs in
the Spectator, no. 289.—Pers. karwin-sardy, a public building for
caravans ; Richardson's Arab. Dict. p. 1182. — Pers. karwan, a cara-
van ; and saray, a palace, public edifice, inn; id. p. 821 (Horn, § 727).
CARAVEL, CARVEL, a kind of ship. (F.—Ital.—Gk.)
R. Eden, Three Books on America, ed. Arber, p. 45, has: ‘A
Carauel or Caruel, a kynde of shyppes.’ =F. caravelle, ‘ a carvell ae
Cot. =Ital. caravella, ‘a kynde of ship called a caravell;’ Florio.
Dimin. from Gk. κάραβος, a kind of light ship (Liddell). Cf. also
Span. carabela, dimin. of caraba, f., formerly carabo, m., in Minshen ;
from Late L. carabus; from Gk. κάραβος, as before.
CARAWAY, CARRAWAY, an umbelliferous plant. (Span.
—Arab.) ME. carawey, E. of Derby’s Expeditions, ed. L. T. Smith,
p- 19, 1. 7 (1390). Spelt caroway in Cotgrave, 5. v. carvt,—Span.
alcarahueya, a caraway ; where al is merely the Arab. def. article. =
Arab. karwiyi-a, karawiya-a, karawiyi-a, carraway-seeds or plant ;
Richardson’s Arab. Dict. p. 1183. Cf. Gk. κάρον, κάρος, cumin; L.
careum, MItal. caro, Ἐν carvi (i.e. caraway); Liddell and Scott.
4 The Arabic word may be ultimately derived from the Greek one;
it is so with carat,
CARBINE, a short light musket. (F.) Also spelt carabine or
carabin; and, in Tudor English, it means (not a gun, but) a man
armed with a carbine, a musketeer. In this sense, the pl. carabins is
in Knolles’ Hist. of Turks, 1186, K (Nares) ; and carbine in Beaum.
and Fletcher, Wit without Money, v. 1.—F. carabin, m., ‘a carbine,
or curbeene ; an arquebuzier, armed with a murrian and breast-plate
and serving on horse-back ;’ Cot. [Mod.F. carabine, fem., intro-
duced from Ital. carabina, a small gun, in the 16th century (Brachet),
is derived from carabin as used by Cotgrave.] Corrupted from OF,
calabrien, calabrin, a carbineer, a sort of light-armed soldier; Roque-
fort, Ducange. B. Of uncertain origin ; Ducange derives it from Late
L. Calabrinus, a Calabrian; from Calabria in SE. Italy. γ. Diez
derives OF. calabrin from Prov. calabre, a war-engine used in besieg-
ing towns.—Late L, chadabula, a war-engine for throwing stones;
whence calabre is derived by the change of d into 1 (as in OLatin
dingua, whence L. lingua) and by the common change of final -Za to
-re.—Gk. καταβολή, overthrow, destruction. —Gk. καταβάλλειν, to
throw down, strike down, esp. used of striking down with missiles. =
Gk. κατά, down; βάλλειν, to cast. But the unborrowed OF. form
corresponding to Prov. calabre is chaable, derived immediately from
chadabula. (Orting, § 2004. Der. carbin-eer.
CARBON, charcoal. (F.—L.) A modern chemical word.=—F.
carbone; first in 1787.—L.acc.carbonem, from nom. carbo, a coal. Der,
carbon-i-fer-ous, carbon-ac-e-ous, carbon-ic, carbon-ise ; and see below.
CARBOLIC
CARBOLICG, in carbolic acid, an alcohol containing carbon.
(L.) A coined word; from carb-, for carbon, with the suffix -ol- of
alcoh-ol; and the suffix -ic.
CARBONADO, broiled meat. (Span.—L.) Properly ‘a rasher.’
Cotgrave, s.v. carbonade, explains it by ‘a carbonadoe, a rasher on the
coales.’ Used by Shak. Cor. iv. 5. 199.—Span. carbonada, meat
broiled on a gridiron; as if a fem. pp. from a verb *carbonar, to
broil. — Span. carbon, charcoal, coal. —L. acc. carbonem, coal (above).
Der. carbonado, verb.; K. Lear, ii. 2. 41.
CARBOY, a large globular bottle of glass, protected by basket-
work. (Pers.) Modern; in Webster, Worcester, and Brande. = Pers.
garabah, a large flagon; Rich. Dict. p. 1121, which is perhaps of
Arab. origin. Cf. Pers. and Arab. girbah, a water-skin, water-bottle,
Rich. Dict. p. 1123; Palmer’s Dict. col. 469; and Yule.
CARBUNCLE, a gem, a boil; a live coal. (L.) ME. carbuncle,
Gower, C. A. i. 57; bk. i. 466. [Also charbucle, Havelok, 2145 ;
from OF. charboucle.} The sense is, properly, ‘a glowing coal ;’
hence ‘an inflamed sore, or boil;’ ‘a bright glowing gem.’ =L. car-
bunculus, 1.a small coal; 2. ἃ gem; 3.a boil. For *carbdni-c-ul-us,
double dimin. from L. carbo (stem carbdn-), a coal, sometimes, a live
coal. See Carbon. Der. carbuncul-ar, carbuncl-ed.
CARBURET, a compound containing carbon. (L.) Coined from
carb-, shortened form of carbon; see Carbon,
CARCAJOU, the American wolverene. (F.—N. Amer. Indian.)
F. carcajou; supposed to be of N. American Indian origin.
CARCANET, a collar of jewels. (F.—G.) In Shak. Com.
Errors, ili. 1. 4. Formed as a dim., with suffix -et, from F. carcan,
‘a carkanet, or collar of gold, &c.;’ Cot.; OF. carcan, carchant, a
collar, esp. of jewels; Supp. to Godefroy. - ΟΗ 6. querca, the throat ;
ef. Icel. Averka-, in composition, the throat, kverk, s.f., the angle
under the chin. So also OFris. kwerka, querka, to choke, throttle;
and. cf. Lith. ger#le, the throat. Brugm. i. ὃ 653. 4 The dimin.
form carcan-et does not appear in OF rench, as we should expect.
CARCASE, CARCASS, a dead body. (F.—Ital.) [ME. car-
cays, carkeys. Spelt carcays in Hampole, Pricke of Conscience, 874.
© Carkeys, corpus, cadaver ;’ Prompt. Parv. p.62. AF. carcois. — Late
L. carcosium.| The mod.E. form is from MF. carguasse, in Cotgrave,
who explains it by ‘a carkasse, or dead corps.” Mod.F. carcasse, intro-
duced from Ital. in the 16th cent. (Brachet). - Ital. carcassa, a kind of
bomb, a shell (a carcase being a shell); cf. Port. carcassa, a carcase.
Of unknown otigin. The suggestions in Diez are unsatisfactory.
CARD (1), a piece of pasteboard. (F.—Ital.—Gk.) Used by
Shak. in the sense of chart; Macb.i. 3.17; alsoa playing-card, Tam.
Shrew, ii. 407. In the latter sense it is in Sir T. Elyot, The Go-
vernour, bk. i. c. 26; and in the Paston Letters, ili. 314 (ab. 1484).
A corruption of carte; cf. chart.—F. carte, ‘a paper, a card ;’ Cot. --
Ital. carta. —L. (late) carta, earlier charta, paper, a piece of paper. —
Gk. χάρτη, also χάρτης, a leaf of papyrus. Doublet, chart, q.v.
Der. card-board.
CARD (2), an instrument for combing wool; as verb, to comb
wool. (F.—L.) The sb. is the original word, but is rare. ME. carde,
sb.; carden, vb. ‘Carde, wommanys instrument, cardus, discerpi-
culum ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 62. ‘Cardyn wolle, carpo;’ ibid. The pp.
carded occurs in P. Plowman, B. x. 18.—F. carde; Cotgrave gives
the pl. ‘cardes, cards for wooll.’ He also gives ‘Carder de laine, to
card wooll.’=— Late L. cardus, L. carduus, a thistle, used for carding
wool.
CARDAMOM, a kind of spice. (L.—Gk.) R. Eden, Three
Books on America (ed. Arber), at p. 15, 1. 5, has: ‘spyces..as
ginger, . . cardamome, &c.—L. cardamodmum.=—Gk. καρδάμωμον. --
Gk. κάρδαμ-ον, cress ; and ἄμωμον, an Indian spice-plant. (Short for
cardamamomum, like idolatry for idololatry.)
CARDIAC, pertaining to the heart. (F.—L.—Gk.) Holland
speaks of ‘the cardiacke passion,’ i.e. palpitation of the heart ; tr. of
Pliny, bk. xxiii. c. 1 (vol. ii. p.153).—F. cardiaque.— L. cardiacus. =
Gk. καρδιακός, adj. from καρδία, heart; see Heart.
CARDINAL, adj., principal, chief; sb., a dignitary of the church.
(L.) As adj. we find ‘cardinale vertues;’ P. Plowman, B. xix. 313.
The sb. is much older in E., and occurs in Layamon, iii. 182.—L.
cardinalis, principal, chief, cardinal; orig. ‘relating to the hinge of
a door.’=L. cardin-, stem of cardo, a hinge.
CARDOON, a plant like an artichoke. (F.—Prov.—L.) In Cot-
grave, to translate F. cardon.— Prov. cardon (Hatzfeld); Gascon
cardoun (Moncaut). Formed, with augmentative suffix, from Med.
L. card-us, for L, carduus, a thistle.
CARE, anxiety, heedfulness. (E.) ME. care, Layamon, iii. 145.
The usual sense is ‘anxiety, sorrow.’ AS. caru, cearu, sorrow, care,
Grein, i. 158; whence AS. cearian, to care for.4--OSax. kara, sorrow ;
karon, to sorrow, lament; Goth. kara, sorrow; hkardn, to sorrow;
OHG. chara, lament; OHG. charén, to lament. ‘Teut. type, *kara,
fem., sorrow. Der. care-ful, care-ful-ly, care-ful-ness, care-less, care-
92
CARK
less-ly, care-less-ness; also char-y, q.v. Wholly unconnected with
L. ciira, with which it is often confounded.
CAREEN, to lay a ship on her side. (F.—L.) ‘A crazy rotten
vessel, ... as it were new careened;’ Sir T. Herbert,. Travels, 1665,
p- 244. Used absolutely, as in ‘we careen’d at the Marias;’ in
Dampier, Voyages, vol. ii. c. 13 (R.). Cook uses it with an accusative
case, as ‘in order to careen her ;’ First Voyage, b. ii. c.6 (R.). It
was once written carine. ‘To lie aside until carined;’ Otia Sacra
(Poems, 1648), p. 162; Todd’s Johnson. Lit. ‘ to clean the keel.’ =
MF. carine,‘ the keele of a ship ;’ Cot.; also spelt caréne.— L, carina,
the keel of a ship; also, a nut-shell. From 4/ KAR, implying
‘hardness ;’ cf. Gk. κάρυον, a nut, kernel; Skt. Aaraka-s, a cocoa-
nut (Curtius). See Cancer. Der. careen-age.
CAREER, a race, race-course. (F.—Late L.—C.) Shak. Much
Ado, ii. 3. 250. — Ἐς carriere, ‘an highway, rode, or streete (Languedoc) ;
also, a careere on horseback; and, more generally, any exercise or place
for exercise on horse-backe; as an horse-race, or a place for horses
to run in; and their course, running, or full speed therein ;’ Cot. =
Late L. carraria (via), a road for cars. — Late L. carra,a car; see Car.
CARESS, to fondle, embrace. (F.—Ital.—L.) The sb. is in
Milton, P. L. viii. 56. The verb is in Burnet, Own Time, an. 1671
(R.).— F. caresse, ‘s.f. a cheering, cherishing;’ and caresser, ‘to
cherish, hug, make much of;’ Cot. The sb. is the original, and in-
troduced from Ital. in the 16th cent. (Brachet).—Ital. carezza, a
caress, endearment, fondness. — Late L. cdritia, dearness, value. = L.
carus, dear, worthy, beloved. Cf. Irish cara, a friend ; caraim, I love;
W. caru, to love. From the same root, charity, q.v.
CARFAX, a place where four ways meet. (F.—L.) 1 enter this
because of the well-known example of carfax at Oxford, which has
puzzled many. ME. carfoukes, a place where four streets met; it
occurs in this sense in the Romance of Partenay, ed. Skeat, 1. 1819,
where the French original has carrefourg. The form carfax occurs
in the Prompt. Pary. p, 62, col. 2,1. 1, as the Eng. of L. guadrivium ;
quarfoxe is in Caxton’s Golden Legend, St. Nicholas, ὃ 12.—AF,
carfeux, Liber Albus, p. 465; OF. carrefourgs, pl. of carrefourg ;
cf. ‘compitum, carfourc;’ Catholicon Abbreviatum (1497).— Late
L. quadrifurcum, acc. of quadrifurcus, adj., four-forked.—L. guadri-,
from guatuor, four; and furca,a fork. See Four and Fork.
CARGO, a freight. (Span.—Late L.—C.) ‘With a good cargo
of Latin and Greek ;’ Spectator, no. 494.—Span. cargo, also carga,
a burthen, freight, load; cf. Span. cargare, to load, freight.— Late L.
carricare, to load, lade. See Charge. 4 Perhaps a Gascon form;
as Gasc. cargo, f.=Span. carga.
CARIBOU, the N. American reindeer. (F.—American Indian).
From Canadian F. caribou; of Amer. Indian origin.
CARICATURE, an exaggerated drawing. (Ital.—Late L.—C.)
‘Those burlesque pictures, which the Italians call caracatura’s ;’
Spectator no. 537. — Ital. caricatura, a satirical picture; so called from
being overloaded or ‘ overcharged’ with exaggeration. = Ital. caricare,
to load, burden, charge, blame. — Late L.carricare,toloadacar. See
Cargo. Der. caricature, verb; caricatur-ist.
CARIES, rottenness of a bone. (L.) Modern and medical.
Merely L. cariés, rottenness. Cf. Gk. «npaivey, to harm, Der.
cari-Ous,
CARILLON, a set of bells, or the melody played upon them.
(F.—L.). In Rees, Cyclopzdia (1803, 1819). —F. carillon, a chime ;
OF. careignon, quarreignon, quarignon (Godefroy).—Late L. type
*quatrinionem, from nom. *quatrinio, orig. a chime on four bells; like
Proy. ¢rinho, from Late L. “τίμιο, a chime on three bells (Hatzfeld).
From L, quattuor, four; see Four. (See ¢rinion in Ducange.)
CARK, solicitude, anxiety. (F.—L.—C.) In Spenser, F. Q.i. 1.
44. ME. cark (spelt carke), Monk of Evesham, ed. Arber, p. 78, l. 12;
Cursor Mundi, l. 20790 (Northern dialect ; another MS. has charge) ;
Gamelyn, 1. 760. [Somner gives AS. carc, care, but it is wholly
unauthorised; the word being really French.] The true solution
of this word (first given by myself in 1882) is to be found in the
Anglo-French word kark, a burden, weight, cargo, which is nothing
but the Norman form of F. charge, as is also evident from the
Cursor Mundi, ll. 20790, 23994, 24233. This form kark occurs
in the Liber Albus, ed. H. T. Riley, p. 224; and is corroborated
by the occurrence of the verb sorkarker for sorcharger in the Sta-
tutes of the Realm, vol. i. p. 26, A.D. 1275; 50 also descarkere,
to unload, Lib. Albus (Gloss.). Hence cark meant, originally, a
weight, load; but came to be used particularly of a load of care.’
The W. carc, anxiety, solicitude, is the E. word borrowed; cf. Bret.
karg,a load, burden (from French) ; though the ultimate root is Cel-
tic. The Late L. carcare, to load, occurs in the Liber Albus (ili.
380). Cark is thus a doublet of charge; see Charge. Cotgrave
gives F. charge, sb., ‘a load, burthen, fardle, also a charge, hinder-
ance, or cause of extraordinary expence ;’ &c. I may add that we
even find kark or karke, a load, in English; for in Arnold’s Chron.,
CARLINE
1502 (ed. 1811), p. 99, we find mention of ‘a karke of peper’ and a
‘hark of gynger.’ Der. cark, verb, spelt carke in Palsgrave, whence
the phr. ‘cark-ing care ;’ in the Cursor Mundi, we find ‘ carkid (also
charked) wit care,’ ll. 23994, 24870.
CARLINE, usually carline thistle, a kind of thistle. (1. —Late
L.—G.) In Lyte, tr. of Dodoens, bk. iv. c.67; he says: ‘now they
call it Carlina or Carolina, bicause of Charlemaine emperor of the
Romanes, vnto whom an angell first shewed this thistle, as they say,
when his armie was striken with the pestilence.’ (So also in Du-
cange).<F. carline.—L. Carolina, fem. of Carolinus, pertaining to
Carolus. —G. Karl, name of the emperor.
CARMINATIVE, expelling wind from the body. (F.—L.) In
the Tatler, no. 224, ὃ 8 (Sept. 14, 1710).—F. carminati/, *‘ wind-void-
ing ;’ Cot.—L. carmindat-us, pp. of carminare, to card wool; hence, to
expel. = L. carmin-, stem of carmen, a card for wool. = L. carere, to card.
4] Not from L. carmen, a song; see Notes on E, Etym., p. 31.
CARMINE, a crimson colour, obtained from the cochineal insect
originally. (Span. — Arab. —Skt.) ‘ Carmine, a red colour, very vivid,
made of the cochineal mastique;’ Bailey’s Dict. vol. ii; 2nd ed. 1731.
=F. carmin (Hatzfeld); or from Span. carminx, carmine, a contracted
form of Span. carmesin, crimson, carmine. —Span. carmesé, adj., crim-
son; sb. cochineal powder. — Arab. girmizi, crimson ; girmiz, crimson ;
qirmiz i firengi, cochineal; Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 470. - 5 κε, kymi(s),
a worm, the cochineal insect. Brugm.i. § 418. See Crimson.
CARNAGE, slaughter. (F.—L.) In Holland’s Plutarch, p. 371
(R.); Milton, P. L. x. 268.—F. carnage, ‘flesh-time, the season
wherein it is lawfull to eate flesh (Picardy) ; also, a slaughter, butch-
erie;’ Cot.—Late L. carniticum, a kind of tribute of animals; cf.
carndlum, the time when it is lawful to eat flesh (whence the notion
of a great slaughter of animals easily arose).—L. caro (stem carn-),
flesh. Brugm. i. § 515.
CARNAL, fleshly. (L.) See Coventry Mysteries, p. 194; Sir
T. More’s Works, p. 1 d; Sir T. Elyot, the Governour, bk. ili. c. 185
Henry's Wallace, b. xi. 1.1348. —L. carndlis, fleshly, carnal. —L.carn-,
base of caro, flesh (above). Der. carnal-ly, carnal-ist, carnal-i-iy; and
see carnage, carnation, carnival, carnivorous, also incarnation, carrion.
CARNATION (1), flesh colour, pink. (F.—L.) See Hen. V,
ii. 3. 35; Wint. Ta. iv. 4. 82.—F. carnation, carnation colour; omitted
by Cotgrave, but noted in Supp. to Godefroy. Cf. Ital. carnagione,
“the hew of ones skin and flesh, also fleshinesse’ (Florio). L. car-
nationem, acc. of carnatio, fleshiness.—L. carn-, base of caro, flesh.
See Carnal,
CARNATION (2),the name ofa flower. (F.—L.) The orig. name
seems to have been coronation, as in Spenser, Sheph. Cal., April, 138 ;
from the flowers being ‘ dented or toothed like to a littall crownet’
(Lyte), See the account in N.E.D. It was then contracted to
cornation, and confused with carnation. See Coronation and
Carnation (1).
CARNELIAN, another form of Cornelian, gq. v.
CARNIVAL, the feast held just before Lent. (F.—Ital.—L.) The
spelling is a mistaken one; it should rather be carnaval, carneval, or
carnoval, ‘Our carnivals and Shrove-Tuesdays;’ Hobbes, Of the
kingdom of darkness, c. 45 (R.). ‘The carnival of Venice;’ Addison,
On Italy, Venice (R.). It is rightly spelt carnaval in Blount’s Glosso-
graphia, ed. 1674.—F. carnaval, Shrovetide; Cot. Introduced from
Ital. in the 16th cent. (Brachet). = Ital. carnovale, carnevale, orig. the
eve of Ash Wednesday; later, the last three days before Lent. - Late L.
carnelevamen, carnelevarium, carnilevarta, a removal of meat, Shrove-
tide; also spelt carnelevale in a document dated 1130, in Carpentier’s
supplement to Ducange. Afterwards shortened from carnelevale to
carnevale, a change promoted by a popular etymology which resolved
the word into Ital. carne, flesh, and vale, farewell, as if the sense were
‘farewell! O flesh.’ [Not ‘ farewell fo flesh,’ as Lord Byron attempts
to explain it.]}—L. carne-m, acc. of caro, flesh and Jevare, to remove,
whence -levar-ium, a removal, taking away, -levdle, i.e. removing,
taking away, and lJevdmen; the latter being the true L. form, with a
difference of sense. See Carnal and Lever. 51 As carnelevimen
might also mean.‘ solace of the flesh,’ the word was often completely
misunderstood and misapplied; and the sense was altered from ‘a
time of fasting’ to ‘a time of feasting.’ Hence the word is often
wrongly explained; see N.E.D.
CARNIVOROUS, flesh-eating. (L,) In Ray, On the Crea-
tion, pt.i. Also in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. carninor-us, feeding
on flesh ; with suffix-ows.—L. carni-, declensional stem of caro, flesh ;
and uorare, to devour. See Carnal and Voracious.
CAROB-TREE, the locust-tree. (F.—Arab.) ‘A carobe tree ;’
Turner, Names of Herbes, s. v. Siliqgua (1548).— MF. carobe, carrobe,
‘the carob; also a small weight (among mintmen and goldsmiths)
making but the 24 part of an ounce;’ Cot.—Arab. xharrab, Pers.
kharnub, bean-pods; see Richardson's Arab. Dict. p. 608. Cf.
Carat.
CARP 93
CAROCHE, a kind of coach. (F.—Ital.—Late L.—C.) Obso-
lete; but the present sense of carriage was brought about by confu-
sion with it, ‘The great caroch,’ Ben Jonson, Devil is an Ass, iv. 1
(Lady T.). Stow, in his Annals, 1615 ; p. 857, says that the ‘ordinary
use of caroches’ began about A.D. 1605; Dekker, in his Seven Deadly
Sinnes, 1606, ed. Arber, p. 20, mentions ‘the Grand Signiors Caroach,’
=F. carroche, ‘a caroache;’ Cot.; given as a variant of carosse or
carozze, ‘a carosse or caroach;’ Cot. Caroche is a Walloon form
(Sigart),—Ital. carroccia, carrozza, ‘a caroce,a coche, a chariot ;’
Florio. Extended from Ital. carro, ‘a cart, chariot,’ Florio. —L.
carrus, a car; which is of Celtic origin. See Car.
CAROL, a kind of song; orig. a dance. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘Faire is
carole of maide gent ;” King Alisaunder, 1. 1845.—=OF. carole, orig.
a sort of dance; later carolle, ‘a sort of dance wherein many dance
together; also, a carroll, or Christmas song;’ Cot. Godefroy (s. v.
carole) cites Swiss Rom, coraula, a round dance ; also, a dance-song. =
L. choraula, by-form of choraulés (Gk. xopavans), a flute-player, who
accompanied with a flute the chorus-dance.—Gk. xop-ds, a chorus,
round-dance; and αὐλύς, a flute, from ἄημι, 1 blow. See Chorus.
So Korting, § 2145.
CAROTID, related to the two great arteries of the neck. (Gk.)
‘ The carotid, vertebral, and splenick arteries ;’ Kay, On the Creation
(Todd). “ Carotid Arteries, certain arteries belonging to the brain;
so called because, when stopt, they immediately incline the person to
sleep;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715 =—Gk. xapwrides, 5. pl. the two great
arteries of the neck ; with respect to which the ancients believed that
compression of them would cause drowsiness.— Gk. xapéw, I plunge
into heavy sleep, I stupefy.—Gk. κάρος, heavy sleep, torpor.
CAROUSE, a drinking-bout. (F.—G.) Orig. an adverb meaning
‘completely,’ or ‘all out,’ 1.6. ‘to the bottom,’ used of drinking.
Whence the phrase, ‘to quaff carouse,’ to drink deeply, ‘Robin, here’s
a carouse to good king l:dward’s self;’ George a Greene, Old Plays,
ili. 51 (Nares) ; see Peele’s Works, ed. Dyce, p. 267. ‘ The tippling
sottes at midnight which ¢o quaffe carowse do use, Wil hate thee if at
any time to pledge them thou reluse ;’ Drant’s Horace, ep. to Lollius,
(See Horat. Epist. i. 18. 91. Drant died A.D. 1578.) ‘He in that
forrest did death’s cup carowse, i.e. drink up; Mirror for Magistrates,
Ρ. 646. ‘Then drink they all around, both men and women; and
sometimes they carowse for the victory very filthily and drunkenly ;’
Hakluyt, Voyages, i. 96, Also spelt garouse. ‘Some of our captains
garoused of his wine till they were reasonably pliant ;’ also, ‘And are
themselves . . . the greatest garousers and drunkards of the world ;’
Raleigh, Discovery of Guiana; Hakluyt Soc., p. 64; cf. Hakluyt,
Voy. iii. 648, where the form is karousers. =F, carous, ‘a carousse of
drinke ;᾿ Cotgrave. He also gives: ‘Carousser, to quaffe, swill,
carousse it.’ —G. garaus, ady., also used as a sb. to mean ‘ finishing
stroke ;” as in ‘einer Sache das garaus machen, to put an end toa
thing ;’ Fliigel’s Dict. The ἃ. garaus signifies literally ‘right out,’
and was specially used of emptying a bumper to any one’s health,
a custom which became so notorious that the word made its way not
only into French and English, but even into Spanish; ef. Span. caraos,
‘drinking a full bumper to one’s health ;’ Meadows. =G. gar, adv.
completely (OHG, karo, allied to E. yare, which see); and aus,
prep. out, cognate with E. owt, @ Similarly, the phr. al/aus was some.
times used, from the (ἃ. all aus, i.e. all out, in exactly the same cor-
nexion; and this phrase likewise found its way into French. Cotgrave
gives: ‘Alluz, all out; ora carouse fully drunk up.’ It even found
its way into English. Thus Beaum. and Fletcher: ‘Why, give’s some
wine then, this will fit us all; Here’s to you still, my captain’s friend !
All out!’ Beggar’s Bush, Act ii. sc. 3. Der. carouse, verb; also
carous-al, in one sense of it, but not always; see below.
CAROUSAL, a drinking-bout; Carousel, a pageant. (1. F.—
G.; 2. F.—Ital.) 1. The form carousal is now generally under-
stood as being a mere derivative of the verb /o carouse, and would
be so used. 2. But in old authors we find carousél (generally so
accented and spelt) used to mean a sort of pageant in which some
form of chariot-race formed a principal part. ‘This game, these
carousels Ascanius taught, And, building Alba, to the Latins brought;’
Dryden’s Virgil, 4En. v. 777, where the Latin text (v. 596) has certa-
mina. And see the long quotation from Dryden's pref. to Albian and
Albanius in Richardson. =F, carrousel, a tilt, carousel, tilting-match,
=Ital. carosello (variant garose/lo), a festival, a tournament. The
form carosello is not given in Baretti, but is cited by Diez and Tor-
riano. Torriano gives caroselle or caleselle, which he explains by ‘a
kind of sport or game used in Italy at Shroyetide.’ Diez connects
carosello with Ital. carrozza (s.v.carriera); see Caroche. So Korting,
§ 1973.
CARP (1), a fresh-water fish. (F.—Late L.—Teut,?) ‘Carpe,
fysche, carpus.’ Prompt. Pary, p. 62.—F. carpe. = Late L. carpa;
which occurs as early as the fifth century, being found in Cassiodorus,
lib. xii. ep. 4; ‘Destinet carpam Danubius;’ quoted by Brachet.
94 CARP
Hence also Span. carpa, Ital. carpione. B. But prob. of Teut. origin,
being found in most Teut. languages; cf. Du. karper; Icel. karfi (?) ;
Dan. karpe; Swed. karp; G. karpfen; OHG. charpho. Whence also
Russ. karp’, Lith. karpa.
CARP (2), to cavil at. (Scand.) In Shak. Much Ado, iii. 1. 71;
K. Lear, i. 4.222. a. There can be little doubt that the peculiar use
of carp, in a bad sense, is due to its supposed connexion with the L.
carpere, to pluck, to calumniate. At the same time, it is equally cer-
tain that the ME. carpen is frequently used, as noted by Trench in
his Select Glossary, without any such sinister sense. Very frequently,
it merely means ‘to say,’ as in to karpe the sothe, to tell the truth;
Will. of Palerne, 503, 655, 2804. It occurs rather early. ‘ Hwen
thou art on eise, carpe toward Ihesu, and seie thise wordes’ = when
thou art at ease, speak to Jesus, and say these words; Old Eng.
Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 287. B. The word is Scandinavian, and had
originally somewhat of a sinister sense, but rather significant of
‘boasting’ or ‘ prattling’ than implying any malicious intent, a use
of the word which is remarkably absent from Middle English; see the
26 examples of it in Matzner’s Worterbuch.—Icel. karpa, to boast,
brag; Swed. dial. karpa, to brag, boast, clatter, wrangle, rant;
more frequently spelt garpa (Rietz) ; cf. garper, a contentious man, a
prattler, great talker. γ. We may also note Swed. dial. harper, brisk,
eager, industrious (Rietz); Icel. garpr, a warlike man, a bravo, a
virago; MSwed. garp, a warlike, active man; also, a boaster
(Ihre). Der. carp-er.
CARPEL, the cell of a pistil or fruit. (F.—Gk.) First used
by Lindley in 1835.—F. carpelle; a dimin. form coined from Gk.
xapr-os, fruit. See Harvest.
CARPENTER, a maker of wooden articles. (F.—L.—C.) In
early use. ME. carpenter, Chaucer, C.T. 3189; Rob. of Glouc. p. 537,
1. 11103; Legends of the Holy Rood, ed. Morris, p. 30, 1. 155.—
ONorthF. carpentier (mod. F. charpentier), a worker in timber. - Late
L. carpentarius, a carpenter. — Late L. carpentare, to work in timber;
with especial reference to the making of carriages. —L. carpentum, a
carriage, chariot, used by Livy; a word (like car) of Celtic origin.
Cf. Gael. and Irish carbad, Olrish carpat, a carriage, chariot, litter,
bier; W. cerbyd, a chariot; OBret. cerpit. Stokes-Fick, p. 71.
Probably allied to L. corbis, a basket, with reference to ‘the basket
character of the body of these chariots;’ Macbain. Der. carpentr-y.
CARPET, a thick covering for floors. (F.—L.) ‘A carpet, tapes,
-etis;’ Levins (A.D. 1570). ‘A ladyes carpet;’ Hall, Edw. IV,
an. xiv. § 6. ‘A carpet, an. 1284; J.E.T. Rogers, Hist. of Prices,
ii. 536; N. and Ὁ. 7S. iii. 152.—OF. carpile, a carpet, sort of cloth ;
Supp. to Godefroy. — Late L. carpita, a kind of thick cloth or anything
made of such cloth; allied to Late L. carpia, lint; cf. mod. F.
charpie, lint.=L. carpere, to pluck, pull in pieces (lint being made
from rags pulled to pieces, and carpet (probably) from shreds); also
to crop, gather. Cf.Gk. καρπός, what is gathered, fruit; also E. harvest,
.v. Brugm. i. § 631.
CARPUS, the wrist. (L.—Gk.) In Phillips (1706).—L. carpus.
—Gk. καρπός, the wrist ; allied to E. whirl. See Whirl.
CARRACK, a ship of burden. (F.) In Shak. Oth.i. 2.50. ME.
caracke, Squyr of Low Degre, 1. 819. [We also find carryk (Voc.
570. 35), which comes nearer to Late L. carrica, a ship of burden.] -
OF. carraque (Roquefort); spelt carrake by Froissart (Godefroy,
Supp. p. 427).—Late L. carraca,a ship of burden; also spelt carrica.
B. Etym. unknown; but perhaps connected with carricare, to lade a
car.—L. carrus,a car. See Car. q The Du. sraak, a carrack,
is merely borrowed from F. (Franck).
CARRIOLE,a small open car for one person. (F. —Ital.—L.—C.)
Modern. = F.carriole, = Ital. carriola,also carriuola, ‘a wheele-barrow,
. .a kinde of chair couered, vsed in Italie for to carrie men vp and
downe by porters ;’ Florio. —Ital. carro, ‘a cart ;’ Florio.=L. carrus,
acar; see Car.
CARRION, putrefying flesh, a carcase. (F.—L.) In early use.
ME. caroigne, careyne, a carcase ; Chaucer, C. T. 2015 (A 2013);
spelt charoime, Ancren Riwle, p. 84.—OF. caroigne, charoigne, a car-
case; mod, Norm. dial. carogne.—Late L. cardnia, a carcase.—L.
caro, flesh. See Carnal.
CARRONADEH, a sort of cannon. (Scotland.) So called from
Carron, in Stirlingshire, Scotland, where there are some celebrated
iron works. ‘The articles [there] manufactured are machinery, agri-
cultural implements, cannon, carronades, which take their name from
this place, &c.;’ Engl. Cycl. s.v. Stirlingshire.
CARROT, an edible root. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘A carote, pastinaca ;"
Levins (A.D, 1570). ‘ Their savoury parsnip next, and carrot, pleasing
food ;’ Drayton's Polyolbion, s. 20, 1. 49.—MF. carote, carrote, the
carrot, Cot.; mod. F. carot/e.—L. caréta, used by Apicius. (Apicius
is probably an assumed name, and the date of the author's treatise
uncertain.) —Gk. καρωτόν, a carrot (Liddell). —Gk. κάρα, a head ; cf.
κεφαλωτόν, headed, said of garlic, &c. Der. carrot-y.
CASCADE
CARROUSEL; see under Carousal (2).
CARRY, to convey on a car. (F.—Late L.—C.) ME. carien,
with one r; Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, iil. 190.—ONorthF. carier, to
carry, transport in a car, Picard carrier (Late L. carricdre). OF. car,
a cart, car (L, carrus). See Car. Der. carri-age, formerly cariage,
with oner, Prompt. Pary. p.62; see Trench, Select Glossary. @] A
modern sense of carriage, viz. vehicle, is prob. partly due to associa-
tion with Caroche, q.v.
CART, a two-wheeled vehicle. (Scand.) In early use. ME.
karte, care; Ormulum, 54. Chaucer has carter, C. Τὶ 7122 (D 1540).
(AS. cret, by the common metathesis of r; pl. cratu, chariots, A. 5.
version of Gen. 1. 9. Cf. ‘ veredus, cr@te-hors,’ i.e. catt-horse; Elf.
Gloss.; Voc. 108. 24.) From Icel. kartr, a cart; whence, probably,
Picard car/i, a cart. @ The W. cart, Gael. and Irish cairt, are
from E. Der. cart, v.; carl-age, cart-er.
CARTE, a paper, a card, bill of fare. (F.—L.—Gk.) Modern,
and mere French. Compare the phrase carte blanche. ‘ Carte blanche,
a blank paper, seldom used but in this phrase, to send one a carte
blanche, signed, to fill up with what conditions he pleases ;’ Bailey’s
Dict. vol. 11. ed. 1731.—F. carte, a card. See further under Card (1),
of which car/e isa doublet. Der. cart-el (F. cartel, from Ital. carte/lo),
the dimin. form; cart-oon (F.carton, from Ital. cartone), the augmenta-
tive form; also cartridge, cartulary, which see. Cartel is spelt chartel
in Ben Jonson, Every Man in his Humour, i. 5. Cartoon is spelt carton
in the Spectator, no. 226. For cartouche, see Cartridge.
CARTILAGE, gristle. (F.—L.) In Boyle’s Works, vi. 735, and
in Blount’s Gloss.; Ray has the adj. cart:lagineous (sic), On the
Creation, pt. i. (R.)—F. cartilage, gristle; Cot.—L. cartilaginem,
ace. of cartilago, gristle; of unknown origin. (Perhaps cf. E. hard.)
Der. cartilag-in-ous.
CARTOON ; see under Carte.
CARTRIDGE, CARTOUCHE, a paper case for the charge of
a gun. (F.—Ital.—L.—Gk.) Cartridge is a corruption of cartrage,
a form which appears in Dryden's Annus Mirabilis, st. 149 (altered to
cartridge in the Clar. Press ed. of Selections from Dryden). A still
older form was cartage, itself a corruption of cartouche, the true F.
form. Cf. ‘their carfrage or ca{r]touche boxes;’ Dampier, A New
Voyage (1699) ; i. 231.—F. cartouche, ‘the cornet of paper whereinto
Apothecaries and Grocers put the parcels they retail; also, a cartouch,
or full charge for a pistoll, put up within a little paper, to be the
readier for use;’ Cot. 2. A tablet for an ornament, or to receive an
inscription, formed like a scroll, was also called a cartouche, in archi-
tecture; and Cot. also gives: ‘Cartoche, [the same] as Cartouche;
also, a cartridge or roll, in architecture.’ This shows that the cor-
rupt form cartridge (apparently made up, by popular etymology,
from the I. carte, a card, and the E. ridge, used for edge or projec-
tion) was then already in use. = Ital. cartoccio, a roll of paper, a cart-
ridge. = Ital. carta, paper.—L. charia (Late L. carta), paper. —Gk.
xaptn, χάρτης, a leaf of papyrus. See Carte, Card.
CARTULARY, a register-book of a monastery. (Late L.—
Gk.) ‘1 may, by this one, show my reader the form of all those car-
tularies, by which such devout Saxon princes endowed their sacred
structures ;’ Weever, Anc. Fun. Mon., xiv. 99 (in Todd's Johnson).
Also in Bailey’s Dict. vol. ii. ed. 1731.—Late L. cartuldrium, also
chartularium, a register.— Late L. chartula, a document; dimin. of
L. charta, a paper, charter (above). See Charter.
CARUCATE, a measure of land. (L.—C.) It varied according to
the soil; properly, as much as could be tilled with one plough (and
a team of 8 oxen) in a year. Englished from Late L. carticata, car-
ricata, in Domesday Book; a fem, pp. from carriicare, to plough. =
Late L. carriica, a plough; L. carriica, a four-wheeled travelling
coach; (later, a wheel-plough, in the Salic Law).—L. carrus, a car;
see Car.
CARVE, to cut. (E.) ME. herven, keruen (u for v); Layamon,
i. 250. AS. ceorfan, Grein, i. 179.4-Du. kerven; G. kerben, to notch,
jag, indent. Teut. type *serfan, pt. τ. *karf, pt. pl. *kurbum, pp.
*korbanoz. From the 2nd stem are Dan. karva, Swed. karfva, to
notch. B. The word is co-radicate with Gk. γράφειν. See Graphic.
Brugmann, i. § 791. Der. carv-er.
CARVEL; the same as Caravel, q.v.
CARYATIDES, female figures in architecture, used instead of
columns as supporters. (Gk.) In Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715. Some-
times written Caryates, which is the Latin form, being the pl. of adj.
Carydatis, i.e. belonging to the village of Caryz in Laconia. Cary-
Gitides is the Gk. form, signifying the same thing. —Gk. Καρυάτιδες,
s. pl., women of Carye.
CASCADE, a waterfall. (F.—Ital.—L.) Not given in Cotgrave.
Used by Addison, in describing the Teverone (Todd’s Johnson) ; and
in Anson’s Voyages, bk. ii.c. 1. ‘Artificial cascades;’ Evelyn, Diary,
Oct. 8, 1641.—F. cascade, introduced from Ital. in the 16th century,
according to Brachet; but perhaps later. —Ital. cascata, a waterfall ;
CASE
formed as a regular fem. pp. from cascare, to fall; which is formed
from L. casare, to totter, to be about to fall, by help of the suffix -ic-, so
that cascare is for *casicare. B. L. casare is a secondary verb; from
casum, supine of cadere, to fall. See Chance.
CASE (1), that which happens; an event, &c. (F.—L.) In
early use. ME. cas, seldom case; it often means ‘ circumstance,’ as
in Rob. of Glouc. p. 9, 1. 205; also ‘chance,’ id. p. 528, 1. 10871.
=—OF. cas, mod.F. cas.—L. casum, acc. of casus, a fall, accident,
case.—L,. casus, pp. of cadere, to fall. See Chance. Der. casu-al,
casu-al-ly, casu-ist, casu-ist-ic, casu-tst-ic-al, casu-ist-ry; all from the
declensional stem casu- of L. cass. Casual occurs in Chaucer, Tro.
and Cress. iv. 419. Casuist is in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
CASE (2), a receptacle, cover. (F.—L.) ME. cass, kace; spelt
cass, Barbour, Bruce, xx. 304. ‘ Kace, or casse for pynnys, capcella ;’”
Prompt. Parv. p. 269.—ONorthF. casse, ‘a box, case, or chest ;’
Cot. (mod. Εἰ. chasse). L. capsa, a receptacle, chest, box, cover. = L.
capere, to receive, contain, hold. See Capable. Der. case, verb;
cash, q.v.; also en-case, casement. Doublet, chase (3), q.v.
CASEMATE, a bomb-proof chamber. (F.—Ital.) Originally, a
bomb-proof chamber, furnished with embrazures; later, an embrazure.
‘Casemate, a loop-hole in a fortified wall to shoot out at; or, in for-
tification, a place in a ditch, out of which to plague the assailants ;’
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. ‘Secure your casamates;’ Ben Jonson,
Staple of News, i. 1.—F. casemate, ‘a casemate, a loop, or loop-hole,
in a fortified wall;’ Cot. — Ital. casamatta, ‘a casamat, or a slaughter-
house, and is a place built low vnder the wall or bulwarcke, not
arriuing vnto the height of the ditch, seruing to skoure the ditch,
annoying the enemie when he entreth into the ditch to skale the wall;’
Florio. = Ital. casa, a house; and matta, fem. of adj. matto, mad, fool-
ish, but also used nearly in the sense of E. ‘dummy ;’ whilst the
Sicilian mattu, according to Diez, means dim, dark. Hence the
sense is dummy-chamber, or dark chamber. Cf. Ital. carromatvo,
‘a block carriage, sometimes used to spare field-carriages ;’ Torriano.
=L. casa, a cottage; and Late L. mattus, sad, foolish, dull, lit.
check-mated, for the origin of which see Checkmate. See Korting,
§§ 1979, 5996. And see Casino.
CASEMENT, a frame of a window. (F.—L.) A casement is a
small part of an old-fashioned window, opening by hinges, the rest of
the window being fixed; also applied to the whole window. It occurs
in Shak. Merry Wives, i. 4.2. We also find ‘casement, a concave
moulding,’ in Halliwell’s Dict.; cf. Gwilt’s Architecture, § 2531.
B. In the latter case, the word is equivalent to exchasement, from the
verb to enchase ; cf. the verb to chase, in the sense ‘to engrave, adorn,’
which is short for enchase. Observe, too, that enchase is a doublet of
encase; see Enchase. y. The difference is merely one of dialect ;
ONorthF. casse being the same as OF. chasse, mod.F. chasse; from L.
capsa; see Case (2) ; and, just as casement in the sense of ‘moulding’ is
connected with enchase, so casement in the sense of window, or rather
‘window-frame,’ is connected with encase. δ. In other words, case-
ment is short for encasement ; and was formed from the MF. encasser,
“to case, or inchest, to make up in, or put up into, a case or chest ;’
Cot. Cf. MF. enchassiller, ‘to set in, to enclose, compass, bind, hold
in with a wooden frame ;’ id. Also enchasser en or, ‘to enchace, or
set in gold;’ also ‘enchassement, an enchacing or enchacement ;’ and
“enchasseure, an enchacement, an enchacing, or setting in;’ id. ε. Gode-
fray has OF. enchassement, enchacement, a frame; and the ONorthF.
form of enchassement would have been encassement, from which casement
followed easily by the loss of the prefix. Similarly, Shak. has case for
encase, Com. Err. ii. 1.85. Both case and the suffix -ment are of L.
origin. See Encase and Case (2). 41 The Ital. casamento, a large
house, is quite a different word. Observe a similar loss of the first
syllable in fence, for defence, censer for incenser, &c.
CASERN,a lodging for soldiers, barrack. (F.—Prov.—L.) Phillips
(1706) has casern, a lodgment raised between the rampart and houses
of a fortified town, for the soldiers. —F. caserne.— Prov. cazerna.
Perhaps from L. quaterna, a lodging or watch-house for four sol-
diers.—L. guattuor, four; see Four. See Korting, § 7647; and
Hatzfeld.
CASH (1), coin or money. (F.—Ital.—L.) Soin Shak. Hen. V,ii. 1.
120. But the original sense is ‘a chest,’ or ‘a till,’ i.e. the box in
which the ready money was kept; afterwards transferred to the money
itself. ‘So as this bank is properly a general cash [i.e. till, money-
box], where every man lodges his money ;’ Sir W. Temple, On the
United Provinces, c. 2 (R.). And see the quotation from Cotgrave
below. = F. casse, ‘a box, case, or chest, to carry or keep weares [wares ]
in; also,a merchant’s cash or counter ;’ &c.—Ital. cassa, ‘a chest...
a merchant’s cash or counter ;’ Florio.—L.capsa,a chest. Thus cash
is a doublet of Case (2), q.v. Der. cash-ier, sb.; but see cashier,
vb., below.
CASH (2),a coin of low valuein India and China. (Tamil—Skt.)
Spelt cask (1699), Dampier, Voy. II. 1. 4. 72 (N.E.D.).—Tamil
CASSOCK 95
kasu, a small coin, money. =—Skt. karsha-s, a weight, abt. 180 grains
Troy. See Yule, and H. H. Wilson's Glossary.
CASHEW-NUT, the nut of a W. and E. Indian tree. (F.—
Brazil.) In Dampier’s Voyages, iii. 68 (1703). Cashew is an E. form
of acajou. = T°. acajou. = Brazil. acaju (Yule, s.v. Cashew) or acait, in
the Hist. Nat. Brasilize (1648), vol. ii. p. 94; which is the fruit of the
tree named acaiaba (F. acajaba).
CASHIER, v., to dismiss from service. (Du.—F.—L.) [Quite
unconnected with cashier, sb., which is simply formed from cash.| In
Shak. Merry Wives, i. 3.6. [Occasionally also written cash; from
F. casser, directly. ‘He cashed the old souldiers and supplied their
roumes with yong beginners ;’ Golding, Justine, fol. 63 (R.). And
the pp. cashed, for cashiered, occurs in a Letter of The Earl of Leicester,
dated 1585; Nares, ed. Wright and Halliwell. Also spelt cass. ‘But
when the Lacedzemonians saw their armies cassed ;’ North’s Plutarch,
180 E; quoted in Nares, s. v. casse, q. v.] — Du. cusséren, ‘to casheere ;’
Hexham. =F. casser, ‘to breake, burst, .. . quash asunder, also to casse,
casseere, discharge ;’ (οἵ. “Το. quassare, to shatter, frequentative of
quatere, to shake (which in Late L. annexed the senses of L. cassare,
to bring to nothing, to annul, discharge; used by Sidonius and Cas-
siodorus ; from L. cassus, empty, void; of uncertain origin), Korting,
§§ 1988, 7645. 4 It is easy to explain the suffix. The form casseere
has been already quoted from Cotgrave; this is really the Du. casseren,
to cast off, break, discard. This Du. cass-eren is nothing but the F.
casser with the Du. suffix -eren, used in forming Du. verbs from Ro-
mance ones. So also G. -iren, as in isoliren, to isolate, from F. isoler.
CASHMERE, a soft wool. (India.) Esp. applied to a rich kind
of soft woollen shawl; so called from the country of Cashmere, which
lies close under the Himalayan Mountains, on the S. side of them.
Also a name given to the stuff of which they are made, and to imita-
tions of it. See Cassimere.
CASINO, a public room for music or dancing. (Ital.—L.) Modern.
—Ital. casino, a summer-house, country-box ; dimin. of casa, a house.
=-L. casa, a cottage.
CASK, a barrel or tub for wine, &c. (Span.—L.) ‘The caske will
haue a taste for evermore With that wherewith it seasoned was before ;’
Mirror for Magistrates, p. 193 (R.).—Span. casco, a skull, sherd, coat
(of an onion) ; a cask; helmet; casque; cf. Span. cascara, peel, rind,
hull; Port. casca, rind. See Casque, of which cask is a doublet.
41 Imported from Spain, together with the wine.
CASKET, alittle chest or coffer. (F.—L.) In Shak. Mer. of Ven. i.
2.100. Earlier; ‘the two shyrtys that wer in my casket;’ Paston
Letters, iii. 7 (1471); and as early as 1467. It looks like a dimin. of
cask, in the sense of ‘chest ;’ asin ‘A jewel, locked into the wofullest
cask ;’ 2 Hen, VI, iii. 2. 409; but this cask is not found before 1593.
The form is anomalous, and must be regarded as a corrupt substitu-
tion for F. cassette, ‘a small casket, chest, cabinet,’ &c.; Cot. A dimin.
form. = F. casse,a box, case, or chest. L.capsa,a chest. See Case (2).
41 The objection in N.E. D. that F. cassette dates from the 16th century
is founded on a mistake. See Supp. to Godefroy, who gives the form
quacete in 1348; much earlier than examples of E. casket.
CASQUE, a helmet. (F.—Span.—L.) In Shak. Rich. I, i. 3. 81.
—F. casque, ‘the head-piece tearmed a casque, or casket ;” Cot.=—
Span. casco, ‘a caske or burganet, a tile-shard ;’ Minsheu. The Span.
has also cascara, peel, rind, shell (cf. Port. casca, bark, rind of trees) ;
and these words, with numerous others, appear to be all derivatives
from the very common Span. verb cascar, to burst, break open, crush ;
formed (as if from L. *guass-ic-dre) from an extension of L. quassare,
which also gives F.casser,to break. See Quash. Doublet, cask, q. v.
CASSATION, abrogation. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave.—F. cassation,
“a cassation, a quashing, cassing, breaking ;᾿ Cot.—Late L. acc. cas-
sa@tionem. = Late L. cassare, for L. quassare, to quash; see Quash.
CASSAVA, a plant; also called mandioc. (Hayti.) In Eden’s
First Three Books on America, ed. Arber, pp. 159, 168, 175, 215, the
Hayti name is given as cazabbi. In the tr. of Acosta by E. G., bk. iv.
c. 17, it is cagavi.
CASSIA, a species of laurel. (L.—Gk.—Heb.) Exod. xxx. 24;
Psalm xlv. 8 (A.V.), where the Vulgate has casia.—L. casta, cassia, =
Gk. «asia, a spice of the nature of cinnamon. = Heb. getst'6¢h, in Ps.
xlv. 8, a pl. form from a fem. getsi‘dh, cassia-bark ; from the root
qatsa‘, to cut away; because the bark is cut or peeled off. See Gesenius.
CASSIMERE, a twilled cloth of fine wool. (India.) Also spelt
hkerseymere in \Vebster. These terms are nothing but corruptions of
Cashmere, q.v.; and distinct from Kersey, q.v. Cashmere is
spelt Cassimer in Herbert’s Travels, 1665, p. 70.
CASSINO, a game at cards; the same word as Casino.
CASSOCK, a kind of vestment. (F.—Ital.—L.) Sometimes ‘a
military cloak ;’ All’s Well, iv. 3. 192.—F. casaqgue, ‘a cassock, long
coat ;’ Cot.—TItal. casacca, a great coat, surtout. Apparently formed
from Ital. casa, properly ‘a house ;’ hence ‘a covering,’ used in a half
jocular sense. Cf. Ital. casaccia, a large ugly old house. Indeed, Florio
96 CASSOLET
gives casacca as meaning ‘an habitation or dwelling ; also, a cassocke
or long coate ;’ as if from L. casa, a cottage. See Casino. And see
Chasuble, a word of similar origin; which renders this account of
cassock probable. Cf. Korting, § 1978.
CASSOLET, CASSOLETTH, a vessel in which perfumes are
burnt. (F.—Span.—Arab.) ‘In cassolets and silver urns;’ Moore,
Lalla Rookh, Tale 1, pt. 2, 1. 67.—F. cassolette.—Span. cazoleta, a
pan; dimin. of cazwela, an earthen pan; from cazo, a sauce-pan, an
iron ladle (Hatzfeld).—Arab, 4as, a cup, a bowl; kasa(h), a cup,
plate, saucer (Devic).
CASSOWARY, a bird like an ostrich. (Malay.) ‘ Cassowary
or Emeu, a large fowl, with feathers resembling camel’s hair;’ Ker-
sey’s Dict. ed. 1715. First in 1611; Ν, E. D.— Malay hasuwari; also
suwart; C. P.G. Scott, p. 125. ‘The cassowary is a bird which was
first brought into Europe by the Dutch, from Java, in the East Indies,
in which part of the world it is only to be found;’ Eng. tr. of Buf-
fon’s Nat. Hist., ii. 9; London, 1792.
CAST, to throw. (Scand.) In early use, and one of the most
characteristic of the Scand. words in English. ME. caster, hesten ;
St. Marharete, ed. Cockayne, pp. 4, 7; Havelok, ll. 1784, 2101.—
Icel. hasta, to throw; Swed. kas‘a; Dan. kaste. B. The orig. sense
was probably to ‘throw into a heap,’ or ‘heap up;’ cf. Swed. dial.
kas, Icel. kistr, kos, a pile, heap; L. con-gerere, to heap together, pp.
con-gestus. Der. cast, sb.; cast-er, cast-ing, cast-away, out-cast. Also
castor, as 1n pepper-castor ; a variant of caster.
CASTANETS, instruments composed of two small, concave
shells. of ivory or hard wood, loosely fastened together by a ribbon
passing over the thumb, and made to snap together by beating one
of them with the middle finger. (F,—Span.—L.—Gk.) In Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674. Spelt caséanéetas in Dryden, Ind. Emperor, iv. 3.—
Ε΄ castagnettes, pl., ‘finger-knackers, wherewith players make a pretty
noise in some kind of daunces ;’ Cot.—Span. caslafevas, castanets ;
pl. of castaveta ; so called (according to Pineda and Monlau) because
the castanet is shaped like a piece of the shell of a chestnut. (Some
think the sound of the castanet resembled the cracking of roasted
chestnuts.) — Span. castafia, a chestnut. L. castanea, the chestout-
tree. — Gk. κάστανον, a chestnut; see Chestnut.
CASTE, a breed, race. (Port.—L.) ‘Of two castes;’ Hakluyt,
Voy. ili. 659. Sir T. Herbert, speaking of men of various occupa-
tions in India, says; ‘These never marry out of their own casts ;’
Travels, ed. 1665, p. 53. ‘ Four casts or sorts of men;’ Lord’s Dis-
covery of the Banians [οἵ India], 1630, p. 3 (Todd). Chiefly used
in speaking of classes of men in India, = Port. casta, a race, stock;
a name given by the Portuguese to classes of men in India, — Port.
casta, adj. fem., chaste, pure, in allusion to purity of breed; from
masc, casto,.—L. castum, acc. of castus, chaste. See Chaste.
CASTIGATE, to chastise, chasten. (L.) In Shak. Timon, iv.
3. 240.—L. castigaius, pp. of castagare, to chasten. The lit. sense is
‘to keep chaste’ or ‘keep pure.’ = L. cas/us, chaste, pure. See Chaste.
Der, castigat-ion, castigat-or, Doublet, chastise.
CASTLE, a fortified house. (L.; also F.—L.) In very early
use. AS. castel, used to render L. castellum in Matt. xxi. 2.—L. cas-
tellum, dimin, of castrum, a camp, fortified place. 2. ME. castel ;
Chaucer, C. T., 11159 (F 847).—ONorthF. castel (OF. chastel,
F. chateau), a fort.—L. castellum, a fort. Brugmann,i. § 754. Der.
castell-at-ed, castell-an.
CASTOR, a beaver; a hat. (L.—Gk.) ‘Castor, the beaver; or
a fine sort of hat made of its fur;’ Kersey’s Dict. 1715. In Dray-
ton’s Polyolbion, 5. vi. 1. 4. Mere Latin. - L. cas/or.— Gk. κάστωρ,
a beaver. β. Of Eastern origin. Cf. Skt. kastari, musk; Fers.
khaz, a beaver. Der. castor-o:l, q. v.
CASTOR-OIL, a medicinal oil. (L.—Gk. ; and F.—L.—Gk.)
Named from some confusion with casforeum. ‘ Castoreum, a medicine
made of the liquor contained in the little bags that are next the
beaver’s groin;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715. See above. q But
really a vegetable production. The castor-oil plant, or palma-Christi,
is Ricinus communis.
CASTRATE, to geld, to cut so as to render imperfect. (L.) ‘Ye
castrate [mortify] the desires of the flesh;’ Martin, Marriage of Priests,
1554, Y i, b (Todd's Johnson). See also the Spectator, no. 179.—L.
castratus, pp. of castrare. Cf. Skt. ¢astri, a knife; Gk. κεάζειν, to
cleave (Prellwitz). Der. castrat-ion.
CASUAL, CASUIST; see Case (1).
CAT, a domestic animal. (E.) ME. kat, cat, Ancren Riwle, p.
102; AS. cat, catt, Wright’s Vocab. i. 23, 78. + Du. kat; Icel. hover ;
Dan. kat; Swed. katt; G. kater, katze. + WW. cath; Irish and Gael.
cat; Bret. kaz; Late L. caéus. + Russian hot’, koshka. 4 Arab. gilt;
Richardson's Dict. p. 1136; Turkish kedi. B. Origin and history
of the spread of the word alike obscure. Der. cat-call ; cat-hin, q.v-;
hitt-en, g.v.; cat-er-waul, 4. v.; also caterpillar, q. Vv.
CATA., prefix; generally ‘down.’ (Gk.) Gk, κατα-, prefix; Gk.
CATECHISE
κατά, prep.,down, downward; hence, incomposition, also ‘thoroughly,’
or ‘completely.’ Der. cata-clysm, cata-comb, &c.
CATACLYSM, a deluge. (Gk.) In Hale, Origin of Mankind,
p- 217 (R.). And in Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674.—Gk. κατακλυσμός,
a dashing over, a flood, deluge. —Gk. κατακλύζειν, to dash over, to
deluge. = Gk. κατά, downward; and κλύζειν, to wash or dash (said
of waves). Cf. L. cluere, to cleanse; Goth. hlitrs, pure. —4/KLEU
to wash; see Prellwitz; Brugm. i. § 400. i
CATACOMB, a grotto for burial. (F.—Ital.—Late L.) In Ad-
dison’s Italy, on Naples; and in the Tatler, no. 129. And in Ker-
sey’s Dict.,1715.—F. catacombe. = Ital. catacomba, a sepulchral vault.
=—Late L. catacumba, chiefly applied to the Catacombs at Rome;
where catacumba is a nom. evolved out of an older catacumbas, an
unexplained place-name. Cf. ‘In loco qui dicitur catacumbas;’ St.
Gregory. See early references in N. Εἰς D. ‘On pere stOwe cata-
cumbe ;’ The Shrine, ed. Cockayne, p. 55.
CATAFALQUE, a stage or platform, chiefly used at funerals.
(F.—Ital.) Evelyn has the Ital. form catafalco, Diary, Oct. 8, 1641.
=F, catafalque.— Ital. catafalco ; of unknown origin, See Scaffold.
CATALEPSY, a sudden seizure. (Gk.) Spelt catalepsis in Kersey,
ed. 1715; catalepsie in Phillips, ed. 1658. A medical term.—Gk.
κατάληψις, a grasping, seizing. —Gk. κατά, down; and λαμβάνειν,
to seize.
CATALOGUE, a list set down in order. (F.—Late L.—Gk.)
In Shak. All’s Well, i. 3.149. —F. catalogue, ‘a catalogue, list, rowl,
register,’ &c,; Cot. Late L. catalogus.— Gk. κατάλογος, a counting
up, enrolment. —Gk. κατά, down, fully; and Aoy-, second. grade of
λέγειν, to say, tell. See Logic.
CATAMARAN, a sort of raft made of logs. (Tamil.) ‘They
call them ca/amarans;’ Dampier, A New Voyage (1699), i. 143.
Given asa Deccan word in Forbes’ Hindustani Dict. ed. 1859, p. 280;
‘katmaran, a raft, a float, commonly called a catamaran. The word
is originally Tamul, and signifies in that language ted logs. = Tamil
katlu, binding ; maram, wood (Yule); see H. H. Wilson, pp. 270, 331.
CATAPLASM, a kind of poultice. (F.—Late L.—Gk.) In
Hamlet, iv. 7. 144.—F. cataplasme, ‘a cataplasme, or poultis; a soft,
or moyst plaister ;’ Cot. —L. cataplasma.— Gk. κατάπλασμα, a plaster,
poultice. — Gk. καταπλάσσειν, to spread over. — Gk. κατά, down, over ;
and πλάσσειν, to mould, bring into shape. See Plaster,
CATAPULT, a machine for throwing stones. (Late L.—Gk.)
In Holland’s Pliny, bk. vii. c. 56 (R.).—Late L. catapulta, a war-
engine for throwing stones. Gk. καταπέλτης, the same.—Gk. κατά,
down; and πάλλειν, to brandish, swing, also, to hurl a missile.
CATARACT, a waterfall. (L.—Gk.) In King Lear, iii. 2. 2.
ME. cateracte (rare), Towneley Mysteries, pp. 29, 32-—L. cataracta,
in Gen. vii. 11 (Vulgate). Gk. καταρράκτης, as sb., a waterfall ; as
adj., broken, rushing down. B. Wedgwood derives this from Gk.
καταράσσειν, to dash down, fall down headlong; but this is not
quite clear. Littré takes the same view. y. Others connect it with
καταρρήγνυμι (root Fpay), 1 break down; of which the. aorist pass.
κατερράγην was esp. used of waterfalls or storms, in the sense of
‘rushing down.’ The latter verb is a comp. from κατά, down, and
ῥήγνυμι, I break.
CATARRH, a fluid discharge from the mucous membrane; a
cold. (Gk.) In Shak. Troilus, ν. 1. 22. Spelt catarre, Sir T. Elyot,
Castel of Helth, Ὁ. ii. c. 17. Late L. catarrhus, a Latinised form
from the Gk. «arappoos, a catarrh, lit. a flowing down.—Gk,. κατά,
down; and few, I flow. See Rheum.
CATASTROPHE, an upset, great calamity, end. (Gk.) In
Shak. L. L. L. iv. 1. 77.—Gk. καταστροφή, an oveithrowing, sudden
turn.= Gk. κατά, down, over; and στρέφειν, to turn. See Strophe.
CATCH, to lay holdof, seize. (F.—L.) ME. cachen, cacchen, in
very common and early use. In Layamon, ii. 266.—ONorthF.
cachier,a (Picard) variant of OF. chacier, to chase. [Cf. Ital. cacciare,
to hunt, chase; Span. cazar, to chase, hunt.]—Late L. *captidre, an
assumed late form of capiare, to catch; the sb. captsa, a chase, is
given in Ducange.—L. capédre, to try to catch, chase ; a frequentative
form from L. capere, to take, lay hold of, hold, contain. See
Capacious. 4] The ME. pt. τ. cau3te (E. caught) imitated lau3te,
pt. t. of ME. lacchen, to catch. Der. ca/ch-word, catch-penny, catch-
poll. Doublet, chase,
CATCHPOLE, a sheriff's officer. (F.—L.) ME. cachepol,
Old Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, 1. 97, 1. 30; Late L. chassipullus, lit,
“chase-fowl.’=ONorthl. cachier, to catch (above); and OF. pol,
poul, fowl, cock; see Poult.
CATCHUP, CATSUP, the same as Ketchup, q. v.
CATE, a dainty; see Cates.
CATECHISE, to instruct by questions. (L.—Gk.) Used of oral
instruction, because it means ‘to din into one’s ears.’ In Shak. Much
Ado, iv. 1. 79.—Late L. catéchizare, to catechise ; an ecclesiastical
word. =—Gk. κατηχίζειν, to catechise, to instruct; a lengthened form
CATECHU
of κατηχέειν, to din into one’s ears, impress upon one; lit. ‘to din
down.’ =Gk. κατ-ά, down; and ἠχεῖν, to sound, ἦχος, a ringing in
the ears. See Echo. Der. catechis-er; catechism (Late L. caté-
chismus); catechist(Gk.natnxia77s) ; catechist-ic, catechist-ic-al ; ca!echet-
ic (from Gk. karnxyT7s, an instructor), catechet-ic-al, catechet-ic-al-ly ;
catechumen (Gk. κατηχούμενος, one who is being instructed).
CATECHU, an astringent extract from the wood of several
species of acacia, &c. (Malay.) See Yule.—Malay kachu, Also
called cachou (F. cachou) and cutch; Canarese kachu, ‘Tamil kashu.
CATEGORY, a leading class or order. (Gk.) ‘ The distribution
of things into certain tribes, which we call categories or predicaments ;’
Bacon, Ady. of Learning, bk. ii. sect. xiv. subject 7.— Gk. κατηγορία,
an accusation; but in logic, a predicament, class.—Gk. κατηγορεῖν,
to accuse.— Gk. κατά, down, against; and *d-yopetv, with the sense of
d-yopevew,to declaim, to address an assembly, from ἀγορά, an assembly.
Cf. Gk. dyeipe (for *ayép-yerv), to assemble; allied to L. grex, a
flock. See Gregarious. Brugm. i. § 633. Der. categor-ic-al,
categor-ic-al-ly.
CATENARY, belonging toa chain. (L.) Chiefly in the math.
phr. a catenary curve, which is the curve in which a chain hangs when
supported only at the ends. J ormed from L, caté-a, a chain, with
suffix -Grius. See Chain.
CATER, to buy provisions, provide food. (F.—L.) Originally a
sb. and used as we now use the word caterer, wherein the ending -er
of the agent is unnecessarily reduplicated. So used by Sir T. Wyat,
Satire i. 1. 26. To ca’er means ‘to act as a cater,’ i.e. a buyer. The
old spelling of the sb. is catow, ‘I am oure catour, and bere oure
aller purs’=I am ¢he buyer for us, and bear the purse for us all;
Gamelyn, 1. 321. ‘Catour of a gentylmans house, despensier ;’
Palsgrave. β. Again, cafour isa shortened form of acatour, by loss
of initial a. Acatour is formed (by adding the OF. suffix -our of the
agent) from ONorthF, acater (OF. achater, F. acheter), to buy. (Cf.
acat, achat, a buying, a purchase; a word used by Chaucer, Prol. 571. |
= Late L. accaptdre, to purchase, in a charter of A.D. 1000 (Brachet,
s.v. acheter). A frequentative of accipere, to receive, but sometimes
‘to buy.’=L. ad, to (> ac- before c); and capere, to take. See
Capacious. Der. ca‘er-er; see above.
CATERAN, a Highland soldier or robber. (Gaelic.) In
Waverley, c. xv, Sir W. Scott defines caterans as being ‘robbers from
the Highlands ;’ see also Jamieson. = Late L. cateranus, due to Gael.
ceathairne, yeomanry, lit. ‘common people.’ From Gael. ceatharn,
Trish cethern, Olrish ceithern, a troop; allied to L. caterua, a troop ;
Macbain. See Kern.
CATER-COUSIN, a remote relation, good friend. (F.—L.) We
find ‘ Cafer-cousin, quatre-cousin, remote relation, misapplied by Gobbo
to persons who peaceably feed together; Merch. Ven. ii. 2. 1393”
Schmidt, Shak. Lexicon. ‘ Quazer-cosins, fourth or last cosins, good
friends;’ Coles (1684). But the form quater-cousin (with the ex-
planation) seems to have been invented by Skinner (1671); and turns
out to be baseless. It is more probable that cater is from cater, to
provide food (as above) ; and that cater-cousins are cousins who feed
(or are catered for) together. So N.E.D. And so Nares, who has:
« Cater-cousins, friends so familiar that they eat together.’ See Cater
and Cousin.
CATERPILLAR, a kind of grub. (F.) In Shak. Rich. II, ii. 3.
166. Used also by Sir Jo. Cheeke, Hurt of Sedition (R.) Spelt
catyrpel, Prompt. Parv. p. 63; to which the suffix -ar or -er of the
agent was afterwards added ; so as to assimilate it to piller, i.e. one
who pills, or robs or spoils. Palsgrave has: ‘caterpyllar worme,
chattepeleuse.’ The ME. catyrpel is a corruption of ONorthF. catepelose ;
cf. chatepeloce in Godefroy ; and Norm. dial. carpleuse, catepleuse, a
caterpillar (Robin). Cotgrave has: ‘ Chatepeleuse, a corne-devouring
mite, or weevell.’ B. A fanciful name, meaning literally ‘hairy she-
cat,’ applied primarily to the hairy caterpillar. —OF. chate, a she-cat,
fem. of chat (Cotgrave) ; and felose, orig. equivalent to Ital. peloso,
hairy, from L. pildsus, hairy, which again is from L. pilus, a hair. See
Cat and Pile (4).
CATERWAUL, tocryasacat.(E.) ME. caterwawen. Chaucer
has ‘ gon a caterwawed’=go a-caterwauling (the pp. -ed being used
with the force of the -ing of the (so-called) verbal substantive, by an
idiom explained in my note on blakeberyed in Chaucer); C. T., 5936
(D 354). Formed from cat, and the verb waw, to make a noise like
a cat, with the addition of -2 to give the verb a frequentative ferce.
‘Where cats do waule;’ Return from Parnassus, v. 4. Cf. Low G.
katterwaulen, to caterwaul (Schambach). The word waw is imitative ;
cf. warl, q.v.
CATES, provisions. (F.—-L.) In Baret’s Alveary, 1580, we find:
*A Cater, a steward, a manciple, a provider of cates,...qui emit
opsonia.’” Again: ‘the Cater buyeth very dere cates;’ Horman’s
Vulgaria. Thus the cates were the provisions bought by the cater,
or, as we now say, the ca¢erer, and were thence so called. Cate is
CAUL 97
a shortened form of acate, sb.; just as cater is of acater or acatour ;
see Chaucer, Prol. 568 (Camb. MS.). See further under Cater. We
may note that Ben Jonson uses the full form acates, Staple of News,
Act ii, sc. 1,1. 16; Sad Shepherd, Act i, sc. 2,1. 40. Shak. has cates,
Tam. Shrew., ii. I. 190.
CATGUT, the dried and twisted intestines (chiefly of sheep) used
for the strings of violins, &c. (E.) Lit. ‘gut of acat;’ though it is
not known that such were used. ‘ Tunes played upon cat’s guts;’
Middleton, Women beware Women, iii. 2. Cf. Du. kattedarm, cat-
gut ; from darm, gut. See Notes on E. Etymology.
CATHARTIC, purgative, lit. cleansing. (Gk.) Cathartical and
catharticks occur in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. ‘ Cathartics or purga-
tives of the soul,’ Spectator, no. 507.—Gk. καθαρτικός, purgative.
=- Gk. καθαίρειν, fut. καθαρ-ῶ, to cleanse, purify. Gk. καθαρός, clean,
ure. Der. cathartic, sb. ; cathartic-al.
CATHEDRAL, a church with a bishop’s throne. (L.—Gk.)
Properly an adj., being an abbreviation for cathedral church. ‘In
the cathedral church of Westminster ;’ 2 Hen. VI,i. 2.37. ‘Chyrche
cathedral ;’ Rob. of Glouc., p. 282, 1. 5715.—Late L. cathedrilis,
adj.; whence cathedralis ecclésia, a cathedral church.—L. cathedra, 2
raised seat; with adj. suffix -Glis. — Gk. καθέδρα, a seat, bench, pulpit. =
Gk. κατά, down (> καθ- before an aspirate), and ἕδρα, a seat, chair ;
cf. ἕδος, a seat.—=Gk. ἕζομαι (root €5), 1 sit. The Gk. root hed is
cognate with E. sit. See Sit.
CATHOLIC, universal. (F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt catholyke; Sir
T. Elyot, The Governour, bk. ili. c. 23. § 2.—F. catholique, ‘catholick,
universall;’ Cot. —L. catholicus, used by Tertullian, adv. Marc. ii. 17.
=Gk. καθολικός, universal, general; formed with suffix -i-«- from
Gk. καθόλ-ου, adv., on the whole, in general. —Gk. καθ᾽ ὅλου, where
καθ᾽ is for κατά (on account of the following aspirate), and ὅλου is the
gen. case of ὅλος, whole, governed by the prep. xara, according to;
lit. ‘according to the whole,’ or ‘on the whole.’ The Gk. ὅλος is
cognate with Skt. sarva-s, all. Der. catholic-i-ty, catholic-ism.
CATKIN, a loose spike of flowers resembling a cat’s tail. (Du.)
Used in botany ; and borrowed by Lyte from Dutch; see Lyte, tr. of
Dodoens, b. vi. c. 58: ‘ catkens of Hasell.’ Cotgrave has: ‘Chattons,
the catkins, cat-tailes, aglet-like blowings, or bloomings of nut-trees,
&e. Called kattekens in MDutch; see katten, kattekens, the blossom
of the spikes of nuts and hazels, Oudemans; katteken, a young cat,
Hexham. =MDnu. katte, cat; with dim. suffix -ken. See Cat.
CATOPTRIC, relating to optical reflexion. (Gk.) A scientific
term; spelt cafoptrick in Phillips (1658). Bailey has ‘ catoptrical
telescope’ for reflecting telescope ; vol. ii. ed. 1731. —Gk. κατοπτρικός,
reflexive. —Gk. κάτοπτρον, a mirror. Gk. «at-a, downward, inward ;
and ὄπ-το-μαι, I see ; with suffix -τρον, of the instrument. See Optics.
Der. catop-trics, sb. pl.
CATTLE, live stock; collectively. (F.—L.) Inearly use. Properly
‘capital,’ or ‘chattel,’ i.e. property, without necessary reference to
live stock. The ME. words catel and chatel are mere variants of one
and the same word, and alike mean ‘ property.’ Spelt cate?, Havelok,
225; Layamon, iii. 232, later text. Spelt chate/, Old Eng. Homilies,
i. 271; chetel, Ancren Riwle, p. 224.—ONorthF, catel, OF. chatel. =
Late L. capitale, also captale, capital, property, goods; neut. sb.
formed from adj. capitalis. [Whence Late L. uzuum capitale, i.e. live
stock, cattle. Capitale also meant the ‘capital’ or principal of a
debt.]=—L. capitalis, excellent, capital ; lit. belonging to the head. =
L. caput (decl. stem capit-), the head; see Capital (2). 4 Hence it
appears that capital is the Latin form, and cattle, chattel are the
North and Central French forms, of the same word. From chatlel
is formed a pl. chattels, in more common use than the singular.
CATTY, a weight; see under Caddy.
CAUCUS, a name applied to a private meeting of the representa-
tives of a political party. (American Indian?) We first hear of
a caucus-club in 1763. The origin of the name is obscure; but
Dr. Trumbull (Proc. Amer. Philol. Association, 1872) shows the
probability of its being an adaptation of an Algonkin word meaning
to speak, counsel, incite; whence kaw-kaw-asu, a counsellor. * Their
elders, called cawcawwassoughes*” Capt. Smith’s Works, ed. Arber,
Ρ. 3473 οἵ. p. 377.
CAUDAL, belonging to the tail. (L.) ‘The caudal fin;’ Pen-
nant’s Zoology, The Cuvier Ray (R.) Cf. ‘ caudate stars,’ i.e. tailed
stars, comets ; Fairfax’s Tasso, xiv. 44. Formed by suffix -al (as if
from a L. *caudalis), from L. caud-a, a tail.
CAUDLE, a warm drink for the sick. (F.—L.) In Shak. L.L. L.
iv. 3. 174. ‘A caudel, potio;’ Levins, col. 56 (A.D. 1570). But
found much earlier, viz. in Rob. of Glouc. p. 561, 1. 11767.—
ONorthF. caudel, OF. chaudel, a sort of warm drink.—OF. chaud,
formerly chald, hot; with adj. suffix -el, properly dimin., as in L.
-ellus.= Late L. caldus, hot, a contr. form of calidus; Quinctilian,
1 6. 10:
CAUL, a net, covering, esp. for the head. (F.) ΜΕ. calle, halle.
H
98 CAULDRON
‘Reticula, a lytell nette or ka/le;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 270, note 1.
Chaucer, C. T. 6600 (Ὁ 1018). And see Polit. Songs, ed. Wright,
Ρ- 258 (1327).—OF. cale, ‘a kinde of little cap;’ Cot. Of unknown
origin. Cf. ‘kelle, reticulum ;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 270.
CAULDRON; see Caldron.
CAULIFLOWER, a variety of the cabbage. (F.—L.) Spelt
collyflory in Cotgrave, who gives: ‘Cho, the herb cole, or coleworts.
Chou fleuris, fleurs, et floris, the collyflory, or Cypres colewort.’
Thus the word is made up of the ONorthF. col (OF. chol), whence
colly; and flory, for OF. flori, pp. of OF. florir (F. fleurir), to
flourish; the sense being ‘flowered cabbage,’ 1. The ONorthF.
col (OF. chol, in Supp. to Godefroy) is from L. caulem, acc. of caulis,
a cabbage, orig. the stalk or stem of a plant, cognate with Gk. καυλός,
a stalk, stem, cabbage; see Cole. {From the L. cau/is was thus
formed OF. chol, whence mod. Κ΄. chou, a cabbage. The corruption
of col to colly was probably due to an attempt to bring the word
nearer to the original L. cawlis, an attempt which has been fully
carried out in the modern spelling cauli-.| 2, The F. flcris or fleuris
is the pl. of flewri, the pp. of the verb fleurir, to flourish; from L.
florére, to flourish. See Flourish. We have also modified this
element so as to substitute the sb. feur (Εἰ, flower) for the pp. pl. of
the verb, The spelling colliflower occurs in Sir T. Herbert’s ‘Travels,
1665, p. 400.
CAULK; see Calk.
CAUSE, that which produces an effect, (F.—L,) In early use.
So spelt in the Ancren Riwle, p. 316.—OF. and F. cause.—L. causa,
a cause; better spelt caussa. Der. caus-al, caus-al-i-ty, caus-at-ion,
caus-at-ive, cause-less, And see ac-cuse, ex-cuse, re-cus-ant,
CAUSEWAY, a raised way, a paved way. (F.—L.) A compound
word; formerly caxsey-way; the word way being added to ME.
cause, causie; later causey, asin Milton, P. L. x. 415; and in Berners’ tr.
of Froissart, vol. i. c. 413 (R.) Still earlier, cawsé occurs in Barbour’s
Bruce, ed. Skeat, xviii. 128,140; spelt cawsee, xviii. 146. —ONorthF.
caucié, OF, chaucié (mod. F. chaussée, Prov. causada, Span. calzada).
=— Late L. calciata, short forcalciata uia, a causeway. = Late L. calcidtus,
pp- of calciare, to make a roadway by treading it down; from L.
calefire, to tread. L, calx (stem calc-), the heel. See Caulk,
CAUSTIC, burning, corrosive, severe. (L.—Gk.) Properly an
adjective ; often used as a sb, as in ‘your hottest causticks;’ Ben
Jonson, Elegy on Lady Pawlet, 1. 54.—L. causticus, burning. = Gk.
καυστικός, burning. Gk, καίειν, fut. καύσ-ω, to burn. Der. caustic,
sb. ; caustic-i-/y; and see caulerise.
CAUTERISB, to burn with caustic, (F,—Late L.—Gk.) The
Pp- cawterized is in Holland's Pliny, bk. xxxvi. c. 7-—MF. cau-
terizer, ‘to cauterize, seare, burne;’ Cotgrave.—Late L. cautérizare,
also found as caiiteridre, to cauterise, sear. — Gk. καυτηριάζειν, to sear,
= Gk. καυτήριον, cavrnp,a branding-iron. = Gk. καίειν, ἴο burn (above).
Der. canteris-at-ion, cauteris-m; also cautery (from Gk. καυτήριον).
CAUTION, carefulness, heed. (F.—L.) ME. caucion, Rob. of
Glouc. p. 506, 1, 10418. Spelt kaucyon, K. Alisaunder, 2811.—
OF. caution.—L, cautidnem, acc, of cautio, a security; occurring in
Luke, xvi. 6 (Vulgate) where Wyclif has caucioun; cf. cautus, ΤῊΣ οἵ
cauére, ἴο take heed. Allied to Skt. λαυΐ-5, wise. And see Show.
Brugm, i, § 635. Der. caution-ar-y; also cautious (expanded from
L. cautus, heedful), cautious-ly, cautious-ness; and see caveat.
CAVALCADE, a train of men on horseback. (F.—Ital.—L.)
In Dryden, Palamon and Arcite, 1. 1817.—F. cavalcade, ‘a riding of
horse ;’ Cotgrave. Introduced from Ital. in the 16th century. = Ital.
cavalcata, a troop of horsemen. = Ital. cavalcave (pp. cavalcato, fem. pp.
cavalcata), to ride, Ital. cavallo, a horse.—L. caballus, ahorse. Cf.
Gk. καβάλλης, a horse, nag; also W. ceffyl, a horse, Gael. capull, a
mare, Icel. tapall, a nag; all from Latin. See below.
CAVALIER, a knight, horseman. (F.—Ital.—L.) In Shak.
Hen. V, iii. chor. 2.4. —F. cavalier, ‘a horseman, cavalier ;’ Cotgrave. =
Ital. cavaliere,a horseman.=L. caballarium, acc. of caballarius, the
same. = L. caballus, a horse (above). Der. cavalier, adj. ; cavalier-ly,
Doublet, chevalier, q. v.
CAVALRY, a troop of horse. (F.—Ital.—L.) Spelt cavallerie
in Holland’s Ammianus, p. 181 (R.)—MF. cavallerie, in Cotgrave,
who explains it by ‘horsemanship, also, horsemen.’ = Ital. cavadlerta,
knighthood; also cavalry. = Ital. cavaliere,a chevalier, knight (above).
Doublet, chivalry, q. v.
CAVE, a hollow place, den. (F.—L.) In early use; see Genesis
and Exodus, ed. Morris, 1137. —OF. cave, a cave; Folk-L. cava.—
L. cauus, hollow. Cf. Gk. κύαρ, a cavity, a hollow.—4/KEU, to
swell, to hollow out. Der. cav-i-ty; cav-ern (L. cauerna), cavern-ous.
From the same root, con-cave, ex-cav-ate ; cage, q. V.
CAVE IN. (E.) First noted, as a literary phrase, in America, in
1796; but borrowed from prov. E. calve, or calve ix, found in many
dialects, esp. in Linc. and East Anglia; see E. 1). D. Influenced by
association with cave, as if the ground were hollow. Wedgwood
CEIL, CIEL
shows that cave is here a corruption of calve (the pronunciation of
cave being formerly much the same as that of the modern pronuncia-
tion of calve). ‘Properly to calve in, as it is still pronounced in
Lincolnshire, It is said of a steep bank of earth at which men are
digging, when a portion of the wall of earth separates and falls in
upon them, the falling portion being compared to a cow dropping
her calf” He then cites ‘the rock calved in upon him;’ N. and Q.
45S. xii. 166; also ‘ Tak heed, lads, there’s a cax:fa-comin’ ;’ Peacock’s
Line. Gloss. E. 1). S.s.v. cauf. He suggests that the word was
introduced by Dutch navvies (which is unnecessary, as it may well
be native), and adds: ‘ This explanation of the express:on is rendered
certain by the W. Flanders inkalven, used in exactly the same sense.
De gracht kal/t in, the ditch caves in.—De Bo, W. lem. Dict.’ But
the phrase also occurs in E, Friesic; and Koolman cites kalfen, to
calve as a cow, also to fall in, asin de slotskante kalfd in, the brink
of the ditch caves in; and further, kalferen in E. Friesic means (1) to
cave in, (2) to skip like a calf. Cf. Du. uit-kalven, to fall or shoot
out, said of the sides of a cutting or the like. In Northamptonsh.,
when the earth is expected to fall, it is commonly said, ‘we shall
have a calf;’ Εἰ. D. D., s.v. Calve. See Calf.
CAVEAT, a notice given, a caution. (L.) ‘And gave him also
a special caveat ;’ Bacon’s life of Hen. VII, ed. Lumby, p. 85. From
the L. caveat, let him bewa:e. = L. cauére, to beware, take heed. See
Caution.
CAVIARE, the roe of the sturgeon, pressed and salted; as a
relish. (F.—Ital.) In Shak. Hamlet, ii. 2. 457; see the article on it
in Nares.=F. caviar, formerly also spelt cavial (Hatzfeld).—Ital.
caviaro, in Florio, who explains it by ‘a kinde of salt meate made of
the roes of fishes, vsed in Italie;’ also spelt caviale. Of unknown
origin; the Turk. khavyar, given as the equivalent of E. caviare in
Redhouse’s Eng.-Turkish Dictionary, is borrowed from Italian. [It
is made in Russia; but the Russian name is ikra. }
CAVIL, to raise empty objections. (F.—L.) Spelt cauyll (u for
v), in Udal, on St. Mark, c. 2. vv. 6-12; cauil, Levins, 126. 47.
The sb. cavillation occurs early ; spelt cavillacioun (u for v), Chaucer,
C. T. 7718 (Ὁ 2136).—MF. caviller, ‘to cayill, wrangle, reason
crossely;’ Cot.—L,. cauilldri, to banter.—L. cauilla a jeering,
cavilling. Der. cavill-er.
CAVY, CAVEY, a rodent quadruped. (F.—Carib.) ‘The
long-nosed cavy;’ Stedman's Surinam, ii. 153.—F. cavié (Littré) ;
a modification of cabiait, the Caribbean name in French Guiana
(N.E.D.) ; allied to Brazil. capibara, q.v. Cf. cavia cobaya, a kind
of rabbit ; Hist. Brasilize, p. 224.
CAW, to make a noise like a crow. (E.) Shak. Mid. Nt. Dr.
ili. 2. 22. The word is merely imitative, and may be classed as
English. Cf. Du, kaauw,a jackdaw, Dan. kaa, Swed. kaja, a jack-
daw ; all from imitation of the cry of the bird. See Chough.
CAYENNE, the name of a pepper. (Brazil.) Cayenne is a later
spelling, due to a popular etymology ; early spellings are cayan, kidn,
chian, &c. ‘Tis Chian pepper indeed; ’ Garrick, A Peep behind the
Curtain, A.i(1767). From the Tupi (Brazilian) kyynha; Ν, E.D.
CAYMAN, CAIMAN, an American alligator. (Caribbean. )
‘Lezards or Caymans;’ E. G., tr. of Acosta (1604), bk. iii. c. 15,
p- 165. (There are three islands called Cayman to the 5. of Cuba.)
Span. cayman, caiman; F. caiman. = Galibi (Mainland Carib) cayman,
in Martini’s Dict.; Carib. acdyowman, Dict. F.-Carib by P. R.
Breton (1661), p. 13, col. 1. Not acayotiman, as in Littré.
CEASE, to give over, stop, end. (F.—L.) ME. cessen, P. Plowman,
B. vi. 1815 vii. 1173 iv. 1.“ Εν cesser, — L, cessiire, to loiter, go slowly,
cease; frequent. of cédere (pp. cessus), to go away, yield, give place.
See Cede. Der. cease-less, cease-less-ly; also cessat-ion (from L.
cessiitione, acc, of cessatio, a tarrying; cf. cess@’us, pp. Of cessare).
CEDAR, a large fine tree. (L.—Gk.) In very early use. AS.
ceder-béam, a cedar-tree; /Elfric’s Homilies, ed. Thorpe, ii. 578. —
L. cedrus.— Gk. κέδρος. Der. cedar-n; Milton, Comus, 990.
CEDKH,, to give up, to yield. (L.) A late word, in the transitive
use; not in Pope’s poems. It occursin Drummond’s Travels (1754),
Ρ. 256 (Todd). [Probably directly from the L. rather than from F.
céder. |= L. cédere, pp. cessus, to yield. Der. cess-ion. @[ From the
L. cédere we have many derivatives; such as cease, accede, concede,
exceed, intercede, precede, proceed, recede, se-ed*, succeed,and their deriva-
tives. Also antecedent, decease, abscess, ancestor, predecessor, &c.
CEDILLA, a mark under the letter ¢ (¢), to indicate that it
has the sound of 5, z, or th, not &. (Span,—Ital.—Gk.) In Minsheu,
Span. Gram. (1623), p. 6. The symbol was derived from the sign
for z.—Span. cedilla (Pineda). = Ital. zediglia (Diez). —Gk. ζῆτα, z.
CHIL, CIEL, to line the inner roof of a room. (F.—L.) Older
form syle. ‘And the greater house he syled with fyre-tree ;’ Bible,
1551, 2 Chron. iii. 5 (R.) Also spelt seile (Minsheu) ; and ciel, as in
most modern Bibles. ME. ceelen; as in ‘ Ceelyn wythe syllure, celo ;°
Prompt. Pary, p. 65; and see p. 452. The sb. is seeling in North’s
CELANDINE
Plutarch, p. 36; and ceeling in Milton, P. L. xi. 743 (R.) See cieled,
cieling in the Bible Wordbook, by Eastwood and Wright. B. The
verb to ciel, seile, or syle is closely connected with the sbs. celure or
selure, and syle or cyll, a canopy, as in: ‘The chammer was hanged
of [with] red and of blew, and in it was a cyl of state of cloth of
gold;’ Fyancells of Margaret, dau. of Καὶ, Hen. VII, to Jas. of
Scotland (R.) The verb fo syle meant to canopy, to hang with
canopies, as in: ‘ All the tente within was sy/ed wyth clothe of gold
and blewe veluet;’ Hall, Hen. VIII, an.5, § 30. y. The word was
afterwards extended so as to include the notion of covering with
side-hangings, and even to that of providing with wainscoting.
Cotgrave has: ‘ Plancher, a boorded floor; also,a seeling of boords.’
It seems to be connected with the idea of canopy, and with L.
caelum, used in the sense of cieling in the 13th century; Way’s note
to Prompt. Parv. p.65.—MF. ciel, pl. ciels, which Cotgrave explains
by : ‘a canopy for. .a bed; also, the canopie that is carried over a
prince as he walks in state; also, the inner roofe [i.e. ceiling] of
a room of state.’ [This word is precisely the same as the F. ciel,
heaven, pl. ciewx; though there is a difference of usage. The Ital.
cielo also means (1) heaven, (2) a canopy, (3) a cieling; see Florio;
and Minsheu explains Span. cielo as ‘the heaven, the skie, the tester
of a bed.’ ]—L. caelum, heaven, a vault; a ‘genuine Lat. word, not
to be written with oe;’ Curtius, i. 193. @ The derivation appears
to be tolerably certain, but many efforts have been made to render it
confused. The word has no connexion with E. si/l; nor with E. seal ;
nor with F, siller, to seel up the eyes of a hawk (from L. cilium, an
eyelid) ; nor with L. céla@re, to hide; nor with AS. pil,a plank. Yet
all these have been needlessly mixed up with it by various writers.
It has, however, certainly been influenced by the L. cedare, to emboss,
which is the word intended by the entry ‘celo’ in the Prompt.
Parvulorum; and it was confused with the sb. celure (selure, syllure),
from a F. form due to the Late L. c@/atira, a vaulted roof, a
derivative of that verb. And perhaps, in Late L., celare was meant
to be a derivative of celum. See celum in Ducange, misspelt caelum
in the latest edition (1883). The other words are not at all to
be considered. Der. ceil-ing.
CELANDINE, a plant; swallow-wort. (F.—LateL.—Gk.) Orig.
the greater celandine. It occurs in Cotgrave. It is spelt cel/andyne in
Palsgrave. But Gower has celidoine, C. A. ili. 131, bk. vii. 1. 1370.
=F. celidoine, ‘the herbe celandine, tetter-wort, swallow-wort ;’ also
spelt chelidoine by Cotgrave.—Late L. chelidonium (the botanical
name).= Gk. χελιδόνιον, swallow-wort ; neut. from χελιδόνιος, adj.,
relating to swallows.—Gk. χελιδών (stem χελιδον-), a swallow.
@ The x before d is intrusive, like x before g in messenger, for
messager.
CELEBRATE, to render famous, honour. (L.) In Shak. Temp.
iv. 84. Chaucer has the adj. celebrable, noted, in his tr. of Boethius,
b. iii. pr. 9. 48; b. iv. met. 7. 20.—L. celebratus, pp. of celebrare, to
frequent ; also, to solemnise, honour. = L. celeber, frequented, popu-
lous; also written celebris. Der. celebrat-ion; celebri-ty (from L.
celebri-tas, sb., from the adj. celebris).
CELERITY, quickness, speed. (F.—L.) In Shak. Meas. v.
399.—F. celerité, 4 celerity, speedinesse ;’ Cotgrave.—L. celeritatem,
acc. of celeritas, speed.—L. celer, quick. + Gk. «éAns, a run-
ner.=4/QEL, to drive; Brugm. i. § 633; cf. Skt. kal, to drive,
urge on.
CELERY, a vegetable; regarded as a kind of parsley. (F.—TItal.
—L.—Gk.) In Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715.— F, celeri, introduced from
prov. Ital. se/er?, a Piedmontese word (Brachet) ; where r must stand
for an older x; cf. MItal. seleni, pl. of seleno, parsley (Florio). —L.
selinon, parsley.—Gk. σέλινον, a kind of parsley. See Parsley.
@ Wild celery was formerly called smallage (for small ache); from
F. ache, representing apia, pl. form of L. apium, parsley. The form
seleno is Venetian (Diez); mod. Ital. sedano.
CELESTIAL, heavenly. (F.—L.) In Shak. Temp. ii. 2. 122;
and in Gower, C. A. iii. 301, b. viii. 780.—OF. celestiel, ‘ celestial,
heavenly ;’ Cot. Formed with suffix -el (as if from a L. form in
-alis), from caelesti-, the declensional stem of L. caelestis, heavenly. =
L. caelum, heaven. See Ceil.
CELIBATHE, pertaining to a single life. (L.) Now sometimes
as sb., ‘one who is single ;’ formerly an adj. ‘ pertaining to a single
life” And, when first used, a sb. signifying ‘the single state,’ which
is the true sense. Bp. Taylor speaks of ‘ the purities of celibate,’ i.e.
of asingle life; Rule of Conscience, bk. iii. c. 4 (R.) = L. caelibaitus, sb.
celibacy. L. caelebs (stem caelib-), adj. single, unmarried. Der.
celibac-y (as if for *caelibatia).
ELL, a small room, small dwelling-place. (L.) In early use.
ME. celle, Ancren Riwle, p. 152.—L. ced/a, a cell, small room, hut.
Cf. Gk. καλιά, a hut; L. célaire, to hide; and E. hel-m; see Helm
(2).—4/KEL, to hide. Der. cell-ul-ar; also cell-ar (ME. celer,
Wyclif, Luke, xii. 24, from OF. celier, L. cellarium), cell-ar-age,
CENTENNIAL 99
CELT (1), a name orig. given to the Gauls. (C.) From L. p).
Celte, Celts. The word prob. means ‘ warriors ;’ cf. Lith. kalti, to
strike, L. per-cellere, to strike through, AS. hild, Icel. hildr, war
(Rhys).
CELT (2), 2 primitive chisel or axe. (Late L.) Not used before
1700; and due to Late L. *celtis, the assumed nom. of the abl. celte
(with a chisel) in the Vulgate version of Job, xix. 24. But this
reading seems to be due to some error, and no such word is known
in good Latin. Cf. celtem, glossed chisel ; Wright's Vocab. i. 118.
CEMENT, a strong kind of mortar, or glue. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Cor. iv. 6. 85; and Tyndal’s Works (1572), p. 6, col. 2. Chaucer
has cementinge, C.T., 16285 (ἃ 817).—OF. cement, ‘cement ;’ Cot-
grave.—L. caementum, a rough stone, rubble, chippings of stone;
apparently for *caedmentum.=—L,. caedere,to cut. Brugm. 1, § 587.
Der. cement, vb. ; cement-at-ion.
CEMETERY, a burial-ground. (L.—Gk.) In Bp. Taylor’s Holy
Dying, s. 8. § 6 (R.) Spelt cemitory, Will of Hen. VI; Royal Wills,
p- 298.—Late L. cemelérium.—Gk. κοιμητήριον, a sleeping-room,
sleeping-place, cemetery.—Gk. κοιμάω, 1 lull to sleep; in pass.,
to fall asleep, sleep. The lit. sense is ‘I put to bed, the verb being
the causal from κεῖμαι, I lie down.
CENOBITE, CGZNOBITE, a monk who lives socially. (L.—
Gk.) ‘The monks were divided into two classes, the cenobites, who
lived under a common, and regular, discipline; and the anachorets
({anchorites], who indulged their unsocial independent fanaticism ;’
Gibbon, History, c. 37. § 13. Bp. Taylor has the adj. cenobitick ;
Lib. of Prophesying, 5. 5 (R.) —L. cenobita, a member of a (social) .
fraternity ; used by St. Jerome.—L. c@nobium, a convent, monastery
(St. Jerome). — Gk. κοινόβιον, a convent; neut. of adj. κοινόβιος, living
socially.—Gk. κοινο-, for κοινός, common; and βίος, life.
CENOTAPH, an empty memorial tomb. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘An
honorarie tomb, which the Greeks call ceno/aphium ;’ Holland’s Sue-
tonius, p. 153 (R.) Dryden has cenoraph, tr. of Ovid, Metam. bk. xii.
1. 3.—MF. cenotaphe; Cotgrave.—L. cenotaphium.— Gk. κενοτάφιον,
an empty tomb.—Gk. xevo-, for κενός, empty ; and τάφ-ος, a tomb.
CENSER, a vase for burning incense in. (I’.—L.) Chaucer has
sencer, and pres. pt. sensing, C. T. 3342, 3343 (A 3340, 3341). In
P. Plowman, C. xxii. 86, the word sense occurs (in some MSS. cense),
with the meaning ‘incense.”? The word is a familiar contraction
for ‘incenser,’ and is taken from the French.—OF. censier, senser
(Godefroy) ; shortened from OF. encensier, F. encensoir, ‘a censer, or
perfuming-pan ;” Cot. Late L. incensarium, incensorium, a censer. =
Late L. incensum, incense, lit. ‘that which is burnt.’ = L. incensus, pp.
of incendere, to kindle, burn. = L. iz, in, upon; and *candere, to bum;
cf. candére, to glow. See Candle.
CENSOR, one who revises or censures. (L.) In Shak. Cor. ii.
3. 252; and North’s Plutarch, Life of Paulus A’milius, ed. 1631, p.
265 (Rich. says p. 221).—L. censor, a taxer, valuer, assessor, censor,
critic. — L. censére, to give an opinion or account, to tax, appraise.
Cf. Skt. gams, to praise, report, say; Benfey, p. 924. Der. censor-i-
al, censor-ship, censor-i-ous, censor-i-ous-ly, censor-t-ous-ness. From L.
censere are also derived census (L. census, a register); and censure (L.
censiura, an opinion), used by Shak. As You Like It, iv. 1. 7; whence
censure, verb, censur-a-ble, censur-a-ble-ness, censur-a-bl-y.
CENT, a: hundred, as in ‘per cent.’ (L.) In America, the hun-
dredth part of a dollar. Gascoigne has ‘ por cento,’ Steel Glas,
1. 783; an odd phrase, since for is Spanish, and cenfo Italian. The
phrase per cent stands for L. per centum, i.e. ‘for a hundred;’ from
L. per, for, and centum, a hundred, cognate with AS. hund, a
hundred. See Hundred. Der. cent-age, in phr. per centage;
and see centenary, centennial, centesimal, centigrade, centipede, centuple,
centurion, century,
CENTAUR, a monster, half man, half horse. (L.—Gk.) Spelt
Centauros in Chaucer, C. T., Group B, 3289 ; where he is translating
from Boethius, who wrote: ‘ Ille Centauros domuit superbos;” De
Cons. Phil. lib. iv. met. 7. And see Mid. Nt. Dream, v. 44.—L.
Centaurus. = Gk. Κένταυρος, a Centaur; which some compare with
Skt. gandharvas, a demi-god. Der. centaur-y, q.v.
CENTAURY, the name of a plant. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME.
centaurie, Chaucer, C. T. 14969 (B 4153); cenlorye (Alphita).—AF,
centorye, id.=L. centauréa, centauréum, centaury.— Gk. κενταύρειον,
centaury; neut. of Κενταύρειος, belonging to the Centaurs; said to
be named from the Centaur Chiron.
CENTENARY, relating to a hundred. (L.) ‘ Centenary, that
which contains a hundred years, or a hundred pound weight ;’
Blount’s Gloss., 1674. Often used for centennial, but by mistake. =
L. centénarius, relating to a hundred, containing a hundred (of what-
ever kind). —L. cen/énus, a hundred (used distributively).—L. centum,
a hundred. See Cent. Der. cen-tenari-an.
CENTENNIAL, happening once in a century. (L.) Modern.
©On her centennial day ;’? Mason, Palinodia, x. (R.) A coined word,
H 2
100 CENTESIMAL
made in imitation of biennial, &c., from L. cent-um, a hundred, and
annus, a year; with change of a to e as in biernial.
CENTESIMAL,, hundredth. (L.) Modern; in phr. ¢ cen/esimal
part,’ &c.=—L. cextésim-us, hundredth, with suffix -al (L. -dlis).—L.
centum, a hundred. See Cent.
CENTIGRADBS, having one hundred degrees. (L.) Chiefly
used of the ‘centigrade thermometer,’ invented by Celsius, who died
A.D. 1744.—L. centi-, for centum, a hundred ; and grad-us, a degree.
CENTIPEDE, CENTIPED, with a hundred feet. (F.—L.)
Used as sb., ‘an insect with a hundred (i.e. numerous) feet.” In
Bailey’s Dict., ed. 1731, vol. ii. =F. centipede. —L. centipeda, a many-
footed insect. —L. censi-, for centum, a hundred; and pés (stem ped-),
a foot. See Cent and Foot.
CENTO, ‘a composition formed by joining scraps from other
authors;’ Johnson. (L.) In Camden’s Remains, 1614, p. 14.—L.
cento, a patch-work garment, a cento. Cf. Gk. κέντρων, patch-work,
Skt. kantha, a patched cloth.
CENTRE, CENTER, the middle point, middle. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Chaucer has the pl. centres, C. T. 11589 (F 1277).—F. centre. —L.
centrum.—Gk. κέντρον, a spike, prick, goad, centre.—Gk. KevTéw,
I prick, goad on. Cf. W. cethr, a spike. Der. centr-al, centr-al-ly,
centr-al-ise, centr-al-is-at-ton, centr-ic-al, centr-ic-al-ly.
CENTRIFUGAL, flying from the centre. (L.) Maclaurin, in
his Philosophical Discoveries of Newton, bk, ii. c. 1, uses both centri-
fugal and centripetal. L. centri-, for centro-, stem of centrum, the
centre; and fug-ere, to fly from, See Centre and Fugitive.
CENTRIPETAL, tending to a centre. (L.) See above.—L.
centri-, from centrum, a centre ; and per-ere, to seek, fly to.
CENTUPLE, hundred-fold. (F.—L.) In Massinger, Unnatural
Combat, Act i. sc. I (near the end), we have: ‘I wish his strength
were cextuple, his skill equal,’ &c. =F. centuple (Hatzfeld).—Late L.
centuplum, acc. of centuplus (Luke, viii. 8).—L. centu-, for centum, a
hundred ; and suffix -plus, for which sce Double. And see Cent.
CENTURION, a captain of a hundred. (L.) In Wyclif, Matt.
viii. 8, where the Vulgate version has centurio.—L. centurio, a
centurion ; the γι being added to assimilate the word to others in -ion
(from French). — L. centuria (below).
CENTURY, a sum of a hundred; a hundred years. (F.—L.)
In Shak. Cymb. iv. 2. 391.—F. centurie, ‘a century, or hundred of;’
Cot.—L. centuria, a body of a hundred men, &c.—L. centum, a
hundred. See Cont.
CEPHALICG, relating to the head. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘ Cephalique,
belonging to, or good for the head;’ Blount’s Gloss., 1674.—MF.
cep.al-que, of, or belonging to the head; Cot. = L. cephalic-us, relating
to the head. = Gk. κεφαλικός, for the head. — Gk. xedad-n, the head ;
with suffix -.-«-os, Brugm. i. § 740.
CERAMIC, relating to pottery. (Gk.) Modern.
Johnson. Gk. κεραμικ-ὁς, adj.—Gk. κέραμ-ος, potter's earth.
κερώννυμι (Lut. κεράσων, I mix.
CERE, to cover with wax. (L.) Chiefly used of dipping linen
cloth in melted wax, to be used as a shroud. The shroud was called
a cerecloth or cerement. The former was often written searc/oth,
wrongly. ‘ Then was the bodye bowelled [i.e. disembowelled], em-
bawmed [enbalmed], and cered,’ i.e. shrouded in cerecloth; Hall,
Hen. VIII, an. 5; with reference to King James IV of Scotland.
‘To ceare, cerare;’ Levins, 209. 33. ‘She sered that body with
specery, With wyrgin waxe;’ Squire of Lowe Degree, 1. 687. ‘A bag
of a cerecloth;’ Wyatt, To the King, 7 Jan. 1540. Shak. has cerecloth,
Merch. ii. 7. 515; cerements, Hamlet, i. 4. 48.—L. cérare, to wax.—L.
céra, wax; whence W. cwyr, Com. coir, Irish and Gael. ceir, wax.-+
Gk. «npés, wax; Curtius, i. 183. Der. cere-cloth, cere-ment.
CEREAL, relating to corn. (L.) Relating to Ceres, the goddess
of com and tillage. ‘Cereal, pertaining to Ceres or bread-corn,
to sustenance or food;’ Bailey’s Dict. ed. 1731, vol. ii. Sir T.
Browne has ‘ cerealious grains;’ Misc. ‘Tracts (1686), vol. i. p. 16.—L.
cerealis, relating to corn, L. Ceres, the goddess of corn and produce.
Der. cereals, 5. pl.
CEREBRAL, relating to the brain. (F.—L.) Modern; not in
Johnson, but added by Todd.—F, cérebral; coined by suffixing -al
to stem of L. cerebr-um, the brain. The former part of cerebrum (for
*ceres-rom) is allied to Gk. κάρα, the head; cf. Skt. géra-s, Pers. sar,
the head; also ME. dernes, brains, Havelok, 1. 1808 ; Lowland Scotch
hairns or harns, brains. Brugm. i. §§ 619, 875.
CERECLOTH, CEREMENT, waxed cloth; see Cere.
CEREMONY, an outward rite. (F.—L.) ME. ceremonie,
Chaucer, C. T. 10829 (F 515).—OF. ceremonie, ‘a ceremony, a rite ;’
Cot.—L. caerimonia, a ceremony; also cérimdnia. Cf. Skt. harman,
action, work, a religious action, arite. Der. ceremoni-al, ceremoni-al~
ly, ceremoni-ous, ceremoni-ous-ly, ceremoni-ous-ness.
CERIPH, the same as Serif, q.v.
CERTAIN, sure, settled, fixed. (F.—L.)
Not in Todd's
Cf
ME.
certein, certeyn ;
CHAFER, COCK-CHAFER
Chaucer, C. T. 3494; Rob. of Glouc. p. 52, 1. 1207.—OF. certein,
certain,=L. cert-us, determined; with suffix -auus (F. -ain).
B. Closely connected with L. cernere, to silt, discriminate; Gk. κρίνειν,
to separate, decide, κριτός, select; Irish ceart, right; Prellwitz. Der.
certain-ly, certain-ty; also certi-fy, q. ν.
CERTIFY, to assure, make certain. (F.—L.) ME. cerlifien,
Hampole, Pr. of Conscience, 6546; Gower, C. A. i. 192; Ὁ. ii. 963. —
OF. certefier, certifier.— Late L. certificire, pp. certificatus, to certify.
—L. certi-, for certus, certain; and facere, to make, where fac- becomes
jic- in forming derivatives. See Certain and Fact. Der. certificate,
Arnold’s Chron., p. 230; certificat-ion (cf. L. pp. certificatus).
CERULEAN, azure, blue. (L.) Spenser has ‘ceruJe stream ;’ tr.
of Virgil’s Gnat, ]. 163. The term, -ax seems to be a later E, adaition
We also find: ‘ Ceruleous, of a blue, azure colour, like the sky;’
Bailey’s Dict. vol. ii (1731).—L. caeruleus, caerulus, blue, bluish; als
sea-green. B. Probably caerulus is for *caelulus, i.e. sky-coloure. ;
from L. caelum, the sky; Brugm. i. § 483 b; see Celestial.
CERUSE, white!ead. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Chaucer, C.T. prol. 630
— OF. ceruse (Supp. to Godefroy) ; ‘ceruse, or white lead ;’ Cot. =
L. cérussa, white lead; connected with L. céra, wax; but represent-
ing Gk. *«npovoca, contracted from *«npéeooa, fem. of *cnpdes, waxy.
—Gk. κηρός, wax. See Cere.
CERVICAL, belonging to the neck. (F.—L.) In Kersey’s Dict.,
ond ed. 1715.—F. cervical, ‘belonging to the nape;’ Cot.—L. ceruix
(stem ceruic-), the neck, with suffix -al; cf. L. ceruical, a bolster.
CERVINE, relating to a hart. (L.) ‘ Cervine, belonging to an
hart, of the colour of an hart, tawny;’ Blount’s Glossographia, 1674.
= L. ceruinus, belonging to a hart. —L. ceruus, a hart; see Hart.
CESS, an assessment, levy; also measure. (F.—L.) Spelt cesse by
Spenser, View of the State of Ireland, Globe ed. p. 643, col. 2. He
also has cessors, id. p. 648, col. 1. Cf. out of all cesse,’ i.e. measure;
1 Hen. IV, ii. 1. 8. These are mere abbreviations of assess and
assessors. See Assess.
CESSATION, discontinuance. (F.—L.) ‘ Withowte cessacion ;’
Coventry Myst. p. 107. =F. cessation, ‘cessation, ceasing ;’ Cotgrave.
=—L. cessatidnem, acc. of cessdtio, a ceasing. See Cease.
CESSION, a yielding up. (F.—L.) ‘By the cession of
Maestricht ;” Sir W. Temple, ‘lo the Lord Treasurer, Sept. 1678
(R.) ME. cessyone; Prompt. Parv. =F. cession, ‘ yeelding up;’ Cot. -
L. cessionem, acc. of cessio, a ceding; cf. L. cessus, pp. of cédere, to cede.
See Cede.
CESS-POOL, a pool for drains to drain into. (Hybrid; L. and E.)
Also spelt sess-poo/; both forms are in Halliwell, and in Webster. In
Brockett’s Glossary of North-Country Words, ed. 1846, we find: ‘ Sess-
pool, an excavation in the ground for receiving foul water. Ido not
find the word in any dictionary, though it is in use by architects; see
Laing’s Custom-house Plans. Sws-pool occurs in Forster on Atmo-
spheric Phenomena.’ Cess-pocl occurs in 1782, in Phil. Soc. Trans.
Ixxii. 364 (Ν. Ε. 1).). B. Origin uncertain; N. E. D. suggests secess-
pool; from L, sécessus, ‘the draught,’ Matt. xv. 17 (Vulgate); cf.
sécessus, ‘latrina;’ Ducange. Cf. Ital. cesso,a privy (Torriano), from
the same L. sécessus, which is formed from sécess-um, supine of sécédere,
lit. to secede, hence, to retire; see Secede. y. But rather, for
recess-pool, as the following quotation suggests :—‘ 1 have, in my yard,
what you usually see in most farmers’ yards, two recesses or pools, as
reservoirs of dung and water;’ Museum Rusticum (1764) ; li. 73.
CESURA; see CASSURA.
CETACEOUS, of the whale kind. (L.—Gk.) ‘ Cetaceous fishes;’
Ray, On the Creation, pt. i. A coined word, from L, cétus, a large
fish, a whale. Gk. κῆτος, a sea-monster, large fish.
CH
CHABLIS, a white wine. (F.) From Chablis, 12 mi. E, of Auxerre,
dep. Yonne, France. Mentioned in Oldham, Paraphrase of Horace,
bk. i, ode 31 (ab. 1678).
CHAFEH, to warm by friction, to vex. (F.—L.) The orig. sense was
simply ‘ to warm;’ secondly, to inflame, fret, vex; and, intransitively,
to rage; see Schmidt, Shak. Lex. ME. chaufen,to warm. ‘Charcole
to chaufen the kny3te,’ Anturs of Arthur, st. 35. ‘He... was chaujid
with win’ (incaluisset mero); Wyclif, Esther, i. 10.—OF. chaufer
(F. chauffer), to warm; cf. Prov. calfar, to warm; answering to Folk-
L. *calefare (Hatzfeld); for L. calefacere, to make warm. =L. cale-,
from calére,to glow; and facere, to make. See Caldron. Der. chafe-
wax, chaff-wax, an officer who prepared wax for sealing documents;
also chaf-er, chaf-ing-cish, both in Palsgrave.
CHAFER, COCK-CHAFER, a kind of beetle. (E.) In
CHAFF
Trevisa, tr. of Higden, ii. 211 (where the text has harnettes, and the
Lat. has scarabei), MS. a has cheaffers,and Caxton has chawers. AS.
cefer (O. Eng. Texts, ed. Sweet); also ceafor. ‘ Bruchus, ceafor ;’
/Elfric’s Gloss. (De Nominibus Insectorum). And again, ceafar is
a gloss to bruchus in Ps. civ. 34 (Vulgate), where the A. V. has
‘caterpillars;’ Ps. cv. 34. [The AS. cea- becomes cha-, as in AS. cealc,
E. chalk.]4Du. kever; G. kafer. Prob. from Teut. *kaf, 2nd grade
of Teut. *kef-, to gnaw; see Jowl.
CHAFF, the husk of grain. (E.) ME. chaf, Layamon, iii. 172; caf,
chaf, Cursor Mundi, 25248. AS. ceaf (later version chef), Luke, ili.
17.4Du. kaf; Low G. haf The vulgar English ‘to chaff’ is
a mere corruption of the verb to chafe, q.v. The spelling chaff keeps
up an old pronunciation of the verb. So also chaff-wax, for chafe-wax.
CHAFFER, to buy, to haggle, bargain. (E.) The verb is formed
from the sb., which originally meant ‘a bargaining.’ The verb is ME.
chaffare, Chaucer, C. T. 4559 (B 139). The sb. is ME. chaffare,
Gower, C. A. ii. 278 (b. v. 4522); and this is a later form of the older
chapfare, occurring in the Ayenbite of Inwyt, ed. Morris, pp. 35, 44»
45. B. Chapfare is a compound of chap and fare, i.e. of AS. céap,
a bargain, a price, Gen. xli. 56; and AS. faru, a journey (Grein),
afterwards used in the sense of ‘ procedure, business.’ Thus the word
meant ‘a price-business.’. See Cheap, Chapman, and Fare.
CHAFFINCHG, the name of a bird. (E.) ‘ Chaffinch, a bird so
called because it delights in chaff ;’ Kersey’s Dict. 2nd ed. 1715. This
is quite correct ; the word is simply compounded of chaff and finch.
It often ‘ frequents our barndoors and homesteads ;’ Eng. Cycl. s.v.
Chaffinch. Spelt cafinche, Levins, 134. 42; chaffinch, Baret (1580) ;
caffynche, Prompt. Parv.
CHAGRIN, vexation, ill-humour. (F.) ‘Chagrin, care, melan-
choly;’” Coles’ Dict. (1684). In Pope, Rape of the Lock, c. iv. 1.77.
=F. chagrin, ‘carke, melancholy, care, thought ;’ Cotgrave. Origin
unknown; Hatzfeld. β. Diez, however, connects it with F. chagrin,
answering to E. skagreen, a rough substance sometimes usec for
rasping wood; hence taken as the type of corroding care. [Cf. Ital.
‘limare, to file; to fret or gnaw;’ Florio.] Diez also cites the
Genoese sagrina, to gnaw; sagrindse, to consume oneself with anger.
See Shagreen, which is spelt chagriz in Bailey’s Dict. vol. ii. ed.
1731. From Turk. saghri, shagreen; given as ‘ Pers.’ in Rich. Dict.,
p- 833. See Korting, § 8265. 4 In North’s Examen, 1740, p. 394,
he tells us that certain plotters ‘take into familiarity thoughts which,
before, had made their skin run into a chagrin.’
CHAIN, a series of links. (F.—L.) Inearly use. ME. chaine,
cheine; Chaucer, C. T. 2990 (A 2988); Wyclif, Acts, xii. 6.—OF.
chaéne, chaine. = L. caténa (by the loss of 2). Der. chain, verb, chign-on
=chain-on) ; and see catenary.
CHAIR, a movable seat. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. chaiere, chaere,
chai-r, chaire; spelt chaiere, Gower, C. A. ii. 201 (b. v. 2214) ; chaere,
King Horn, ed. Lumby, 1. 1261; Rob. of Glouc. p. 321, 1. 6559.—
OF. chaiere, chaere, a chair (Εἰ. chaire, a pulpit, modified to chaise, a
chair). —L. cathedra, a raised seat, bishop’s throne (by loss of th, and
chance of dr to r; see Brachet).—Gk. καθέδρα, a seat, chair, pulpit.
See Cathedral. Der. chaise, q.v.; and note that cathedral is pro-
perly an adj., belong'ng to the sb. chair.
CHAISE, a light carriage. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Cook’s Voyages,
yol. ii. bk. ii. c. 10.‘ Chaise, a kind of light open chariot with one
horse ;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715. -- Ἐς chai.e, a Parisian corruption of
Ἐς chatre, orig. a seat, pulpit. ‘They of Parys..saye.. chaize for
chayre;’ Palsgrave,p. 34. Thus chaise is a doublet of chair; for the
change of sense, cf. sedan-chair. See Chair. Der. chay,a chaise; as
if σ᾽ aise were plural; Foote, The Maid of Bath, A. i. Sc. 1. 1. 13.
CHALCEDONY, a variety of quartz. (L.—Gk.) [ME. calsy-
doyne, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, A. 1003; with reference to Rey.
xxi. 19. Also calcydone, An Old Eng. Misc., ed. Morris, p. 98, 1.171.
These are French forms, but our mod. Εἰ. word is from the Latin.] =
L. chalcédonius, in Rev. xxi. 19 (Vulgate). — Gk. χαλκηδών, Kev.
xxi. τὸ. Of doubtful origin; see Schade, O. H. G. Dict., p. 1363.
CHALDRON, a coal-measure; 36 bushels. (Ff.—L.) Spelt
chaldron in Phillips, 1658 ; chaldron and chalder in Coles, 1684.—F.
chaudron, a caldron; with restored 7. B. The word merely expresses
a vessel of a large size, and hence, a capacious measure. From OF.
chaldron; see Caldron.
CHALET, a Swiss hut. (F.—L.) In Byron, Manfred, A.i. sc. 2
(near the end).—F. chalet (a Swiss word). Prob. from Late L. *casa-
letia, dimin. of casella, a little house (Ducange). This is a dimin. of
L. casa, acottage. Cf. Casino.
CHALICE, a cup; a communion-cup. (F.—L.) ‘And stele the
chalice ;’ Chaucer, Pers. Tal2, De Luxuria (1 879). Spelt calice in
O. Eng. Homilies, 2nd Ser. p.gt; and caliz in Havelok, 1.187. [We
also find AS, calic, Matt. xxv.. 28; taken directly from the Latin.] =
OF. chalice (Marie de France, Yonec, 192); usually calice. = L. calicem,
acc. of calix, a cup, goblet (stem calic-).4-Gk, κύλιξ, a drinking-cup;
CHAMP 101
Skt. halaga-s, a cup, water-pot. Allied to calyx, but not the same
word. Der. chalic-ed; Cymb. ii. 3. 24.
CHALK, carbonate of lime. (L.) ME. chalk, Chaucer, C. T.
Group G, 1222. AS. cealc, Orosius, vi. 32.—L. calx (stem calc-),
lime. [The 6. kalk, Du., Dan. and Swed. kalk are all borrowed from
Latin.] See Calx. Der. chalk-y, chalk-i-ness,
CHALLENGE, a claim; a defiance. (F.—L.) ME. chalenge,
calenge; often in the sense of ‘aclaim.’ ‘Chalaunge, or cleyme, vendi-
cacio;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 68. It also means ‘accusation ;’ Wyclif,
Gen. xliii. 18; Cursor Mundi, 6714. [The verb, though derived
from the sb., was really in earlier use in English; as in ‘to calangy
ον the kinedom’=to claim the kingdom; Rob. of Glouc. p. 451,
1. 9247; and in ‘hwar of kalenges tu me’=for what do you reprove
me; Ancren Riwle, p. 54. Cf. Exod. xxii. 9 (A.V.).] — AF. chalenge,
OF. chalonge, calonge, calenge, a dispute; properly ‘an accusation.’
= L. calumnia, a false accusation. - L. calui, caluere, to deceive. Der.
chal'enge, verb. Doublet, calumny, q. v.
CHALY BEATE, water containing iron. (L.—Gk.) Properly
an adj. signifying ‘ belonging to steel,’ as explained in Kersey’s Dict.
and ed. 1715; headds that ‘ chalybeate medicines are medicines pre-
pared with steel.’ ‘ Chalybeaze, of the quality ofsteel ;’ Phillips (1658).
A coined word, formed from L. chalybs (stem chalyb-), steel. — Gk.
χάλυψ (stem χάλυβ-ν, steel ; so called from Gk. Χάλυβες, the nation
of the Chalybes in Pontus, who prepared it. Milton has: ‘ Chalybean-
tempered steel;’ Sams. Agonistes, ]. 133.
CHAMADEH, a summons to a parley. (F.—Port.—L.) Not com-
mon. In the phr. ‘to beat a chamade;’ i.e. on the drum. First in
1684.—F. chan:ade.— Port. chamada, a parley; from chamar, to sum-
mon, call. —L. climare, to call.
CHAMBER, a room,a hall. (F.—L.—Gk.) The dis excrescent.
In early use. ME. chaumbre, chambre, camber; ‘i chaumbre’ =in the
chamber, O. Eng. Homilies, i. 285.—OF. chambre; cf. Prov. cambra.
=-L.camera,a chamber, a vault; older spelling camara. —Gk. καμάρα,
a vault, covered wagon. Cf. Skt. Amar, to be crooked. =—4/ KAM, to
cover over; cf. Icel. hamr, a covering, Goth. af-kamon, to unclothe.
Der. chamber-ed, chamber-ing (Rom. xili. 13) ; also chamber-lain, q.v.
CHAMBERLAIN, one who has the care of rooms. (F.—
L.—Gk.; with G. suffix.) ME. chaumberlein, Floriz and Blauncheflur,
ed. Lumby, 1. 18. [The form chaumberling in the Ancren Riwle,
p- 410, is an accommodation, yet comes nearer the O.H.G. form.] =
OF. chambrelenc, later chamberlain; a hybrid word, made up from
OF. chambre, a chamber, and the termination of the OHG. chamer-
ling, MUG. kemerlinc. B. This OHG. word is composed of OHG.
chamera, a chamber, merely borrowed from L. camera; and the suffix
-ling or -linc, answering to the E. suffix -Jing in hireling. Der.
chamber-larn-ship.
CHAMELEON, a kind of lizard. (L.—Gk.) In Shak. Two
Gent. of Ver. ii. 1. 178. ΜΕ. camelion, Gower, C. A. i. 1333 b. 1.
2698. = L. chamaleon. = Gk. χαμαιλέων, a chameleon, lit. ground-lion
or earth-lion, i.e. dwarf lion.=—Gk. yayai, on the ground (a word
related to L. zumi, on the ground, and to L. humilis, humble); and
λέων, α lion. The prefix χαμαι-, when used of plants, signifies ‘ creep-
ing ;’ also ‘low,’ or ‘dwarf ;’ see Chamomile. And see Humble
and Lion.
CHAMFER, a slight furrow cut in wood or stone, for ornament ;
a bevelling off of a square edge. (F.—L.) The former use is per-
haps obsolete. Holland, tr. of Pliny, bk. xv. c. 18 (p. 442 i) has
©a white rift or chamfre.’=—¥. chanfrein; MF. chanfrain, ‘a chanfer-
ing, or a channell, furrow;” Cot.—OF. chanfraindre, to bevel off ; in
the pp. chanfraint (Godefroy). —OF. chant, an edge, corner (Supp. to
Godefroy, and Hatzfeld); and OF. fraindre, to break ; hence ‘ to re-
move the corner or edge.’ - Late L. canthum, acc. of canthus, the corner
of the eye (Gk. κάνθος) ; and L. frangere, to break. See Cant (2);
and see Chan/rein in Scheler. Der. chamfer, vb.
CHAMOIS, a kind of goat. (F.—G.) See Deut. xiv. 5, where
it translates the Heb. zemer. =F. chamois, ‘a wilde goat, or shamois ;
also, the skin thereof dressed, and called ordinarily Shamois leather ;”
Cot. A word of Swiss origin (Brachet) ; cf. Ital. camoscio (Baretti),
camoceia, camozza, ‘a chamoy or chamoise,’ Florio; Romaunsch
camutsch (Carigiet). Corrupted from some dialectal pronunciation of
MHG. gamz, or *gamuz, a chamois (mod.G. gemse). Korting, § 4148.
CHAMOMILE, CAMOMILE,a kind of plant. (F.—Late L.—
Gk.) In Shak. 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4.441. ME. camamyle; Prompt. Parv.
— AF. camamille (Alphita).—Late L. camomilla,— Gk. χαμαίμηλον,
lit. earth-apple; so called from the apple-like scent of its flower;
Pliny, xxii. 21.—Gk. χαμαί, on the earth (answering to L. humi,
whence humilis, humble); and μῆλον, an apple, L. malum. See
Humble; and see Chameleon.
CHAMP, to eat noisily. (E.)
of golde with teeth he champes;’ Phaer’s Virgil, bk. iv. 146.
older form is cham for chamm, and the p is merely excrescent.
‘The palfrey .. on the fomy bit
The
“lt
CHAMPAGNE
must be chammed, i.e. chewed till soft ; Sir T. More, Works, p. 241 h.
© Chamming or drinking ;’? Tyndal’s Works, p. 316, col. 2. Palsgrave
has both chamme and champe. Prob. of imitative origin; cf. Swed.
dial. kamsa, to chew with difficulty, champ (Rietz); Norw. £jamsa,
to chew. Note also Gk. γαμφαί, jaws; Skt. jambha-s, a jaw, tooth.
CHAMPAGNE, a kind of wine. (F.—L.) So named from
Champa7ne in France, which, lit., signifies ‘a plain ;’ see below.
CHAMPAIGN, open country. (F.—L.) In Shak. King Lear,
i. 1.65; Deut. xi. 30 (A. V.); also spelt champion (corruptly), Spenser,
F. Q. vi. 4. 26; but champain, id. vii. 6. 54.—F. champaigne, Picard
campaigne, ‘a plaine field;’ Cot.—L. campinia,a plain. For the
rest, see Campaign, of which it is a doublet.
CHAMPION, a warrior, fighting man. (F.—L.) In very early
use. Spelt champiun, Ancren Riwle, p. 236.—OF. champiun, champion,
North Εἰ. campion, a champion. = Late L. campidnem, acc. of campio,
a champion, combatant in a duel. —Late L. campus, a duel, battle,
war, combat; a peculiar use of L. campus, a field, esp. a field of
battle. See Camp. @ We still have Champion and Campion as
proper names; we also have Kemp, from AS. cempa, a champion.
Der. champion-ship.
CHAMPAK, 2 tree. (Hind.—Skt.) ‘The champak odours fail ;’
Shelley, Lines to an Indian Air, 11. — Hind. champak. =—Skt.champaka-s,
a tree, the Michelia champaca of Linnzus (Benfey).
CHANCE, what befals, an event. (F.—L.} ME. chaunce. ‘ That
swych a chaunce myght bym befalle;? Rob. of Brunne, Handlyng
Synne, 1. 5632 (A.D. 1303).—OF. chaance (Roquefort); more
commonly cheance, chance. — Late L. cadentia, that which falls out,
esp. that which falls out favourably, as used in dice-playing (Brachet).
—L. cadens (stem cadent-), falling, pres. part. of cadere, to fall. See
Cadence, of which chance is a doublet. Der. chance, verb (1 Cor.
XV. 37) ; mis-chance, chance-comer, &c.
CHANCEL, the east end ofa church. (F.—L.) So called, be-
cause formerly fenced off by a latticed screen. ME. chancell, chanser ;
Barbour’s Bruce, ed. Skeat, v. 348, 356.—OF. chancel, an enclosure ;
esp. one defended by a screen of lattice-work. Late L. cancellus, a
latticed window; a screen of lattice-work ; a chancel; L. cancellus, a
grating ; chiefly used in pl. cancelli, lattice-work. See further under
Cancel. Der. chanceil-or, q.v.; chance-ry (for chancel-ry), q. v-
CHANCELLOR, a director of chancery. (F.—L.) In early
use. ΜΕ. chaunceler, chaunseler; spelt chaunselere, King Alisaunder,
1. 1810.— OF. chancelier, North F. cancelier.— Late L. cancellarius, a
chancellor; orig. an officer who had care of records, and who stood
near the screen of lattice-work or of cross-bars which fenced off the
judgment-seat ; whence his name.=L. cancellus, a grating; pl. can-
cellt, lattice-work. See Chancel and Cancel. { For a full
account, see cancellarius in Ducange. Der. chancery, q.v.
CHANCERY, a high court of judicature. (F.—L.) ME.
chancerye, P. Plowman, B. prol. 93. An older and fuller spelling is
chancelerie or chancellerie, as in Gower, C. A. ii. 191, b. v. 1921;
Life of Beket, ed. Black, 359. [Hence chancery is short for chancelry. |
= OF. chancelerie (Supp. to Godefroy), ‘a chancery court, the chan-
cery, seale office, or court of every parliament ;’ Cot. = Late L. cancel-
laria, orig. 2 place where public records were kept; the record-room
of a chancellor. - Late L. cancellarius, a chancellor (above).
CHANDLER, a candle-seller; CHANDELIER, a candle-
holder. (F.—L.) Doublets; i.e. two forms of one word, made
different in appearance in order to denote different things. The
former is the older sense, and came at last to mean ‘dealer;? whence
corn-chandler, a dealer in com; see N.E.D. See Candelere in
Prompt. Parv. p. 60, explained by (1) L. candelarius, a candle-maker,
and by (2) L. candelabra, a candle-holder; also ‘ Chawndelere, céra-
rius, id. p. 71; chaundeler, a chandler; Eng. Gilds, p. 18; chandler,
Levins. = OF. chandelier, a chandler, a candlestick. = Late L. candéla-
rius, a chandler; *candélarium, for candélaria, a candle-stick. = L.
candéla, a candle. See Candle.
CHANGE, to alter, make different. (F.—L.) ME. chaungen,
changen. The pt. t. changede occurs in the later text of Layamon’s
Brut, 1. 3791. Chaungen, Ancren Riwle, p. 6.—OF. changier, to
change; later, changer. —Late L. caméiare, to change, in the Lex
Salica. = L. cambire, to exchange; Charisius. Cf. Late L. cambium,
an exchange. Remoter origin unknown; cf. Korting, § 1777;
Stokes-Fick, p. 79. Der. change, sb., change-able, change-abl-y,
change-able-ness, change-ful, change-less ; change-ling (a hybrid word,
with E. suffix), Mids. Nt. Dream, ii. 1. 230.
CHANNEL, the bed of astream. (F.—L.) ME. chanel, canel,
chanelle. ‘ Canel, or chanelle, canalis ;’ Prompt. Parv. p.60. Chanel,
Trevisa, i. 133, 135; canel, Wyclif’s Works, ed. Amold, ii. 335.—
OF. chanel, North F. canel, a canal; see Supp. to Godefroy. =—L.
canalem, acc. of canalis, a canal. See Canal, of which it is a
doublet. Also Kennel (2).
CHANT, to intone, recite in song. (F.—L.)
102
ME. chaunten,
CHAPS, CHOPS
chanter, Chaucer, C. T. 9724 (E i850).—OF. (and mod. F.) chanter,
to sing.—L. cantare, to sing; frequentative of canere, to sing. See
Cant (1), of which it is a doublet; and see Hen. Der. chant-er,
in early use= ME. chawntour, Trevisa, ii. 349 ; chant-ry= ME. chaun-
terie, Chaucer, C. T. prol. 510; chant-i-cleer, i.e. clear-singing = ME.
chaunte-cleer ; Chaucer, Nun's Pres. Tale, 1. 20.
CHAOS, a confused mass. (L.—Gk.) See Chaos in Trench, Select
Glossary. In Shak. Romeo, i. 1.185; Spenser, F. Q. iv. 9. 23.—L.
chaos.—Gk. xaos, empty space, chaos, abyss; lit. ‘a cleft.’ =Gk.
4/XA, to gape; whence χάσκειν, το gape. SeeChasm. Der. chao-
t-ic, a coined adj., arbitrarily formed ; in Bailey’s Dict. vol. ii (1731).
CHAP (1), to cleave, crack. (E.) ME. chappen, to cut; hence,
intransitively, to gape open like a wound made by a cut. See
Jer. xiv. 4 (A. V.) ‘Anon her hedes wer off chappyd’=at once
their heads were chopped off; Rich. Cuer de Lion, ed. Weber,
4550. Cf. EFries. kappen, to cut; NFries. kappe, to cut, lop. Not
found in AS. + MDu. kappen, to chop, cut, hew, mince; Low G.
kappen, to cut off; Swed. kappa, to cut; Dan. kappe,to cut. Cf. Chop.
Der. chap, a cleft; cf. ‘it cureth clifts and chaps ;’ Holland, tr. of Pliny,
bk. xxiii. c. 4 (p. 161 d).
CHAP (2), a fellow; CHAPMAN, a merchant. (E.) Chap is
merely a familiar abbreviation of chapman, orig. a merchant, later a
pedlar, higgler; explained by Kersey (1715) as ‘a buyer,a customer.’
See 2 Chron. ix. 14. ΜΕ. chapman, a merchant, Chaucer, Man of
Law’s Tale, 1. 2; P. Plowman, B. v. 34, 233, 331. AS. céapman, a
merchant ; spelt ciepe-mon, Laws of Ine, sect. 25; Ancient Laws, ed.
Thorpe, i. 118.— AS, céap, trade; and mann, a man; Grein, i. 159.
Cf. Icel. kaupmadr, G. kaufmann, a merchant. See Cheap.
CHAPE, a metal plate protecting the point of a scabbard, &c.
(F.—Late L.) ‘ Chape of a schethe;’ Prompt. Parv.—F. chape, ‘a
cope, also the chape, or locket of a scabbard ;’ Cot.—Late L. capa,
a cope, cape; hence a cover, chape. See Cape (1).
CHAPEL, a sanctuary; an oratory; a lesser church. (F.—L.)
ME. chapele, chapelle ; Layamon’s Brut, 1. 26140 (later text) ; St. Mar-
herete, p. 20.—OF. chapele, F. chapelle.— Late L. cappella, ‘which
from the 7th cent. has had the sense of a chapel; orig. a (cappella,
less correctly] capella was the sanctuary in which was preserved the
capa or cope of St. Martin, and thence it was expanded to mean any
sanctuary containing relics;’ Brachet. Late L. cappa, capa, a cope;
a hooded cloak, in Isidore of Seville. See Cape, Cap. Der. chapel-
ry; chapl-ain=ME. chapelein (fem. chapeleyne, Chaucer, C. ‘I. prol.
164), from Late L. cappellanus; chapl-ain-cy. @ The pp appears in
Ital. cappella, and is required by the F. form, since L. pp > F. p, but
L. p> F.v. In Late Latin, cappa, a cap, and capa, a cape, were soon
confused.
CHAPERON, lit. a kind of hood or cap. (F.—L.) Chiefly used
in the secondary sense of ‘ protector,’ esp. one who protects a young
lady. Modern; first in 1720; though ME. chaperon occurs, with
the sense of ‘hood.’ ‘To chaperon, an affected word, of very recent
introduction into our language, to denote a gentleman attending a
lady in a publick assembly ;’ Todd’s Johnson. Seldom now applied
to a gentleman. =F. chaperon, ‘a hood, or French hood for a woman ;
also, any hood, bonnet, or letice cap;’ Cot. An augmentative form
from Ἐς. chape, a cope. See Chaplet.
CHAPITER, the capital of a column. (F.—L.) See Exod. xxxvi.
38; 1 Kings, vii. 16; Amos, ix. 1; Zeph. ii. 14(A.V.) ‘ The chapiter
of the piller;’ Holinshed’s Chron. p. 1006, col. 2. ‘ Capitulum,
chapytur;” Voc. 670. 4.—OF. chapitre, usually a chapter of a
book, but representing L. capitulum, which also means ‘a chapiter’
(Vitruvius). Dimin. from L. caput (stem capit-), the head.
CHAPLAIN; see under Chapel.
CHAPLET, a garland, wreath; rosary. (F.—L.) ME. chapelet,
a garland, wreath; Gower, C. A. ii. 370; b. v. 7066. OF. chapelet,
a little head-dress, a wreath. ‘The chapelet de roses, a chaplet of
roses placed on the statues of the Virgin (shortly called a rosaire, or
rosary), came later to mean a sort of chain, intended for counting
prayers, made of threaded beads, which at first were made to re-
semble the roses in the Madonna's chaplets;’ Brachet.—OF. chapel,
a head-dress, hat ; with dimin. suffix -e/. OF. chape, a cope, hooded
cloak ; with dimin. suffix -/ (for -el). = Late L. capa, a hooded cloak.
See Cape (1).
CHAPMAN;; see under Chap (2).
CHAPS, CHOPS, the jaws. (E.) In Shak. Macb. i. 2. 22. The
sing. appears in the compounds chapfallen, i.e. with shrunken jaw,
or dropped jaw, Hamlet, v. 1. 212; chapless, without the (lower) jaw.
Hamlet, v. 1.97. Of disputed origin; but the double form, and the
late appearance of the sb., show that it is a mere derivative of the
verb chap, chop, to cut, hack. Cf. prov. E. chap, to mash; chapper,
an instrument for mashing potatoes; chop, to break small, pulverise,
chop, sb., food for horses, of chopped hay, ὅς. See Chap (1).
4 Possibly suggested by prov. E. chaff, chaft, the jaw ; which is from
CHAPTER
Icel. Ljapir (pron. kjaftr), Swed. kéift, the jaw ; but this supposition is
not necessary.
CHAPTER, a division of a book; a synod or corporation of the
clergy of a cathedral church. (F.—L.) Short for chapiter, q.v.
ME. chapitre, in very early use. The pl. cheapitres, in the sense of
chapters of a book, occurs in the Ancren Riwle, p.14. The comp.
chapitre-hous (spelt chaptire-hous) occurs in Piers Ploughman’s Crede,
ed. Skeat, 1. 199; and (spelt chapitelhous) in P. Plowman, B. v. 174;
the sense being ‘ chapter-house.’ OF. chapitre (mod. F. chapitre), a
variant of an older form chapitle; Brachet.—L. capitulum,a chapter
of a book, section ; in late L., a synod. <A dimin. (with suffix -al-) of
L. caput (stem capit-), the head.
CHAR (1), to turn to charceal. (E.) In Boyle’s Works, vy. ii.
p- 141, we read: ‘ His profession . . did put him upon finding a way
of charring sea-coal, wherein it is in about three hours. . brought
to charcoal ; of which having . . made him take out some pieces, . . I
found them upon breaking to appear well charr’d’ (R.) First found
in 1679, in Plot’s Staffordsh., p. 128 (ed. 1686) : ‘ They have a way
of charring it [coal], if 1 may so speak without a solecisme, in all
particulars the same as they doe wood.’ It thus appears to be a
back-formation from char-coal, which is in much earlier use; see
Charcoal.
CHAR (2), a turn of work. (E.) Also chare; ‘and does the
meanest chares;’ Ant. and Cleop.iv. 15. 75; cf. v. 2. 231. Also
chewre, as in: ‘Here’s two chewres chewr'd, i.e. two jobs done,
Beaumont and Fletcher, Love’s Cure, iii. 2. Also chore, a prov. E.
form which is also a modern Americanism. Cf. mod. E. ‘to go
a-charing ;’ and see my note to The Two Noble Kinsmen, iii. 2. 21;
and see Nares. ME. cherr, chearr, cher, char; of which Ma4tzner
gives abundant examples. It means: (1) a time or turn; Ancren
Riwle, p. 408 ; (2) a turning about, Bestiary, 643 (in Old Eng. Misc.
ed. Morris); (3) amovement; Body and Soule, 158 (in Matzner’s
Sprachproben); (4) a piece or turn of work, Polit. Songs, ed. Wright,
p- 341; Towneley Myst. p. 106. AS. cierr, cyrr, a turn, space of
time, period; Grein, i. 180; whence cierran, cyrran, to turn; id.
AS. cierr (also cerr) answers to a Teut. type * karriz, * karziz. Hence
it is difficult to connect it with Du. eer, a turn, time, circuit, or
with G, kehren, to turn, which seem to be from an unrelated stem
*kair-; see Franck. Der. char-woman.
CHAR (3), a kind of fish. (C.) The belly is of a red colour;
whence its name. ‘Chare,a kind of fish;” Kersey’s Dict. 2nd ed.,
1715. ‘Chare, a kinde of fish, which breeds most peculiarly in
Winandermere in Lancashire ;’ Phillips, World of Words, ed. 1658.
[The W. name is ¢orgoch, i.e. red-bellied ; from for, belly, and coch,
red.] Of Celtic origin; cf. (obsolete) Gael. ceara, red, blood-
coloured, from cear, blood; Irish cear, sb., blood, adj. red, ruddy.
(Doubtful).
CHARACTER, an engraved mark, sign, letter. (L.—Gk.) In
Shak. Meas. iv. 2. 208; and, as a verb, As You Like It, iii. 2. 6.
(Shak. also has charact, Meas. ν. 56; which answers to the common
ME. caraet, carect, Wyclif, Rev. xx. 4; from OF. caracte, recorded
in Godefroy as a variant of characte. This is merely a clipped form
of the same word.]=—L. charactér, a sign or mark engraven.=—Gk.
χαρκατήρ, an engraved or stamped mark.=—Gk. χαράσσειν ( -- χαράκ-
yew), to furrow, to scratch, engrave. Brugmann, i. ὃ 605 (3). Der.
character-ise, character-ist-ic, character-ist-ic-al-ly.
CHARADBE, a sort of riddle. (F.—Prov.) Modern; and bor-
rowed from F. charade, a word introduced into French from Provengal
in the 18th century; Brachet. Hatzfeld gives the Prov. form as
charrado, orig. ‘talk ;’ from the verb charra, to talk. Cf. Languedoc
charado, grumbling, from chara, to grumble (D’Hombres). Cf. also
Span. charrada, ‘a speech or action of a clown;’ from Span. (and
Port.) charro, a churl, peasant. See also KGrting, § 1919.
CHARCOAL, the solid residue obtained from the imperfect
combustion of wood, &c. (E.) ME. charcole, Gawain and Gr. Knt.,
76,875; and Prompt. Parv. B. The mod. vb. char, to burn partially,
is evolved from the comp. char-coal; but this is not against a prob.
derivation of the comp. from the old verb char, to turn; as no other
origin seems possible. For the sense, cf. ‘Then Nestor broiled
them on the cole-turn’d wood;’ Chapman’s Odyssey, b. iii. 621.
And: ‘ Though the whole world ¢urn to coal ;’ G. Herbert's Poems;
Vertue. ME. cherren, to turn, represents AS. cierran, to turn; see
Char (2). And see Coal. f The spelling charecole occurs ab.
1400, in Henslow’s Med. Werkes, p. 135. 20.
CHARGE, lit. to load, burden. (F.—L.—C.) ME. chargen,
to load, to impose a command. ‘The folk of the contree taken
camayles [camels], . . . and chargen hem,’ i.e. lade them; Maunde-
ville’s Travels, p. 301. ‘Chargede thre hondred ssipes;’ Rob. of
Glouc. p.13, 1. 294.=— OF. (and F.) charger, to load. = Late L. carricare,
to load a car, used by St. Jerome; later, carcare (Brachet).—L.
carrus,acar. See Car. Der. charge, sb.; charge-able, charge-able-
CHASE
ness, charge-abl-y, charg-er (that which bears a load, a dish, Mat. xiv.
8; also a horse for making an onset). See Charge, Charger in the
Bible Word-book. Also cark, cargo.
CHARIOT, a sort of carriage. (F.—L.—C.) In Shak. Hen. V,
iii. 5. 54; and in Trevisa, tr. of Higden, ii. 341. Cf. ME. charett,
Maundeville’s Travels, p. 241. And in Exod. xiv. 6, the A.V. of
1611 has claret. Ἐς chariot, ‘a chariot, or waggon;’ also charette,
‘a chariot, or waggon;’ Cot. Extended from OF. char, a car.=L.
carrus,acar. See Car. Der. chariot-eer.
CHARITY, love, almsgiving. (F.—L.) In early use. ME.
charité, Old Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 57, 1. 41.—OF. charitet,
chariteit, =. carititem, acc. of caritais, dearness.—L. carus, dear.
See Caress. Der. charit-able, charit-abl-y, charit-able-ness. @ The
Gk. χάρις, favour, is wholly unconnected with this word.
CHARLATAN, a pretender, a quack. (F.—Ital.) ‘Quacks and
charlatans ;’ Tatler, no. 240; and in Sir Τὶ Browne, Vulg. Errors,
i. 3. § 11.—F. charlatan, ‘a mountebank, a cousening drug-seller,.. a
tatler, babler, foolish prater;’ Cot. Introduced from Ital. in the
16th century; Brachet.—Ital. ciar/atano, ‘a mountibanke, pratler,
babler;’ Florio.—Ital. ciarlare, to prattle.—Ital. ciarla, ‘a tittle-
tattle;’ Florio. An onomatopeeic word ; cf. E. chirp. Der. charlatan-
ry, charlatan-ism.
CHARLOCEK, a kind of wild mustard. (E.) Provincial E. kerlock,
corrupted to kedlock, kellock, ὅς. ME. carlok. ‘Carlok, herbe,
eruca;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 62 ; and see Wright’s Vocab. i. 265. AS.
cerlic, Gloss. to Cockayne’s Leechdoms, vol. iii; also cyrlic. Of un-
known origin.
CHARM (1), a song,a spell. (F.—L.) ME. charme; King Alis-
aunder, ed. Weber, 1. 81; charmen, verb; id. 1. 342.—OF. charme,
an enchantment.—L. carmen, a song. Cf. Gk. κήρυξ, a herald.
Brugm. i. § 633. Der. charm, verb; charm-ing, charm-ing-ly;
charm-er.
CHARM (2),2 blended noise of voices. (E.) ‘With charm of earliest
birds;’ Milton, P. L. iv. 642. Earlier cherme; Palsgrave, p. 617.
ME. chirm; AS. cirm, Matt. xxv. 6 (Rushworth MS.) ; Corpus Gloss.
925. Of imitative origin; cf. Irish and Gael. gairm, W. garm, an
outcry. See Slogan.
CHARNEL, containing carcases. (F.—L.) Milton has: ‘ charnel
vaults and sepulchres;? Comus, 471. Usually in comp. charnel-
house (Macb. ili. 4. 71), where charnel is properly an adj.; but we
also find ME. charnel as a sb., in the sense of ‘ charnel-house.’
‘Undre the cloystre of the chirche . . is the charnel of the Innocentes,
where here [their] bones ly3n’ [lie]; Maundeville’s Trav. p. 70.—
OF. charnel, adj. carnal ; charnel, sb. a cemetery. L. ραν παῖς, carnal ;
Late L. carndle, a grave-yard. See Carnal.
CHARQULJ, jerked beef; see Jerked Beef.
CHART, a paper, card, map. (L.—Gk.) Richardson quotes
from Skelton, Garl. of Laurell, 1. 503, for this word; but the word
is hardly so old; chart in that passage is a misreading for charter ;
see Dyce’s edition. However ‘charts and maps’ is in North’s
Plutarch (1580), p. 307 (R.); and ‘ figures and chartis, i.e. drawings
and maps, occurs in I:lyot’s Governour (1531), bk. i. ch. 8. § 3.—F.
charte, a paper, card; Cot.—L. charta, a paper.— Gk. χώρτη, χάρτης,
a sheet of paper. See Card (1). Der. chart-er, q.v.; also chart-ist,
chart-ism, words much in use A.D. 1838 and 1848.
CHARTER, a document granting privileges. (F.—L.—Gk.)
In early use. ME. chartre; see Rob. of Glouc. p. 277, 1. 5603; also
cartre, id. p. 77, 1.1736. Chartre in Havelok, 1. 676.—OF. chartre,
cartre, a charter. = Late L. chartwla, dimin. of charta (above).
CHARTULARY, aset of charters. (Late L.—Gk.) The pl.
chartularies is in Wood, Athen. Oxonienses, ii. 697 (1691).—Late L.
chartularium, a collection of charters. = Late L. chartula (above).
CHARWOMAN;; see under Char (1).
CHARY, careful, cautious. (1..) See Nares. ME. chari, full of
care; hence (sometimes) sad. ‘ For turrtle ledeth chari3 lif’ = for the
turtle leads a mournful life; Ormulum, 1. 1274. (Not often used.}
AS. cearig, full of care, sad; Grein, i. 158.—AS. cearu, caru, care;
id.4+G, karg, sparing; OHG. charag, from chara, care; MDu.
karigh, niggardly; EFries. karig, sparing. @ Thus chary is the
adj. ot care, and partakes of its double sense, viz. (1) sorrow, (2)
heedfulness ; the former of these being the older sense. See Care.
Der. chari-ly, chari-ness.
CHASS (1), to hunt after, pursue. (F.—L.) ME. chasen, chacen ;
Will. of Palerne, 1207; Maundeville’s Tray. p. 3.—OF. chacier,
Picard cachier, to chase. Chase is a doublet of catch; see further
under Catch. Der. chase, sb.
CHASE (2), to enchase, emboss. (F.—L.) ‘A cuppe, chased
with rosys;’ Fifty E. E. Wills, ed. Furnivall, p. 110. 16. Chase is
short for exchase, q.v.
CHASH (3), a printer's frame for type. (F.—L.) Merely a doublet
of case. Ἐς chasse, a shrine. —L. capsa, a box, case. See Case (2).
103
104 CHASE
CHASSE (4), the cavity of a gun-barrel ; a groove. (F.—L.) ‘ Chase
of a gun, the whole bore ;’ Todd's Johnson. = F. chas, a needle’s eye ;
orig. an enclosure.—Late L. capsum, n. an enclosure; parallel form
to capsa, f. a case. See Case (2).
CHASM, a yawning gulf. (L.—Gk.) ‘The chasms of thought ;’
Spectator, no. 471.—L. chasma, an opening. Gk. χάσμα,απ opening,
yawning ; cf. χάσκειν, to gape. See Chaos,
CHASTE, clean, pure, modest. (F.—L.) In early use. Chaste
and chasteté (chastity) both occur at p. 368 of the Ancren Riwle. =
OF. chaste, caste.—L. casius, chaste, pure.+4Skt. gishfa-s, disciplined ;
pp- of ¢as, to teach, govern, punish, Brugmann, i. § 193. Der.
chaste-ness, chaste-ly; chast-i-ty; also chast-en, chast-ise; see below.
And see caste.
CHASTEN, to make pure, to correct. (F.—L.) ME. chastien,
chasten, often written chasty in the infinitive (Southern dialect). [The
final -ex may have been suggested by the free use of the old disyl-
labic form chasty.]}—OF. chastier, castier, to chasten, castigate. — L.
castigare, to castigate, make pure.—L. castus, chaste. Der. chasten-
ing; also chast-ise. Doublet, castigate, q.v.; and see chastise.
CHASTISE, to castigate, punish. (F.—L.) ME. chastisen.
‘To chas/ysen shrewes ;’ Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, bk. iv. pr. 4. 59.
“God hath me chastyst;’ An Old Eng. Miscellany, p. 222. An
extension of ΜΕ. chastien, to chasten, by the addition of the ME.
suffix -isen, L. -izare. See Chasten. Der. chastise-ment, Ayenb.
of Inwyt, p. 17; formed from chastise in imitation of ME. chastiement
(Ancren Kiwle, p. 72), chastiment (Cursor Mundi, 26004), which is
a derivative of ME. chastien, to chasten.
CHASUBLE, an upper priestly vestment. (F.—L.) ME. chesible,
P. Plowman, B. vi. 12.—F. chasuble, which Cotgrave explains as
“a chasuble.’ [The ME. chesible points to an OF. chasible.|—Late L.
*casupula, later casubla, casubula, Ducange; also casibula; dimin.
forms equivalent to Late L. caswla, used by Isidore of Seville to mean
‘a mantle,’ and explained by Ducange to mean ‘a chasuble.? The
L. casula means properly a little cottage or house; being a dimin. of
casa, a house, cottage. Cf. Ital. casipola, casupola, a little house.
CHAT, CHATTER, to talk, talk idly. (E.) The form chat
(though really nearer the primitive) is rare in Middle English, and
came into modern use only as a familiar abbreviation of ME. chateren
(with one ¢). It first occurs in the York Mysteries, xxxiil. 3 (ab. 1440).
ME. chateren, cheateren, to chatter; with a dimin. form chiteren, in
very early use. ‘Sparuwe is a cheaterinde brid, cheatered euer ant
chirmed ’=the sparrow is a chattering bird; it ever chatters and
chirps; Ancren Riwle, p. 152. ‘As δὴν swalwe chitering in a berne’
{barn}; Chaucer, C. T. 3258 (Harl. MS.). The word is imitative,
and the ending -er (ME. -eren) has a frequentative force. The form
chatter is parallel to EFries. kwattern, Du. kwetteren, to chatter, to
warble; and chiferen to Scot. quhitter, to twitter, Dan. kvidre,
Swed. quitira, to chirp. Der. chatter-er, chatter-ing ; chatt-y.
CHATEAU, acastle. (F.—L.) ‘Fine chateaux in air ;’ Cowper,
Sonnet to W. Hayley (1793).— Mod. F. chateau; OF. chastel.—L.
casiellum, A doublet of Castle, q.v.
CHATELAINE. (F.—L.) A derivative of F. chateau is
chdtelaine, used instead of chaine chatelaine,a chain to which keys, &c.
are suspended, orig. a chain to which a castellan’s keys were fastened
(Hatzfeld). Here chdtelaine is fem. of chatelain, adj.; from Late L.
castellanus, adj.—L. castellum, a castle.
CHATTELS, goods, property. (F.—L.) Used also in the
singular in old authors. ME. chatel (with one ¢),a mere variant of
ME. catel, cattle, goods, property. ‘Aihwer with chatel mon mai
luue cheape’ = everywhere with chattels may one buy love; Old Eng.
Homilies, i. 271. See further under Cattle, its doublet.
CHATTER; see Chat.
CHAW, verb, to chew; see Chew.
CHAWDROVN, entrails of a beast. (F.—L.) In Macb. iv. 1. 33.
The r is intrusive, and due to confusion with F. chaudron, a caldron.
ME. chaudoun, a dish containing entrails; see N. E.D.=—OF. chaudun,
also caudun, caldun (Godefroy).—Late L. *caldinum, variant of
caldiina, entrails. (Cf. (ἃ. kaldaunen, entrails.| Probably from L.
caldus, for calidus, warm (F. chaud). See Caldron.
CHAWS, s.pl., another spelling of jaws; in the A. V.of the Bible,
1 εὶς. xxix. 4; xxxvili. 4. So also in Udal's Erasmus, John, fol. 73;
Holland’s Pliny, b. xxiii. c. 2 (end). A by-form of jaw, due to asso-
ciation with the verb to chew or chaw. See Jaw.
CHEAP, at a low price. (E.) Never used as an adj. in the earlier
periods. The ME. chep, cheap, cheep was a sb., signifying ‘ barter,’
or price.’ Hence the expression god chep or good cheap, a good price ;
used to mean cheap, in imitation of the F. phr. box marché. ‘ Trico-
lonius .... Makth the corn good chep or dere;’ Gower, C. A. ii.
168, 169; b.v. 1239. A similar phrase is so liht cheap,’ i.e. so
small a price; Ancren Riwle, p. 398. We have the simple sb. in the
phrase ‘hire cheap wes the wrse,’ i.e. her value was the worse [less] ;
CHECKER, CHEQUER
Layamon, i. 17. AS. céap, price; Grein, i. 159; whence the verb
ceapian, to cheapen, to buy.+ Du. koop, a bargain, purchase; goed-
koop, cheap, lit. ‘ good cheap ;’ koopen, to buy ; Icel. Aaup, a bargain ;
illt kaup, a bad bargain; gott kaup, a good bargain; kaupa, to buy;
Swed. kop, a bargain, price, purchase; kopa, to buy; Dan. ktob, a
purchase ; 46be, to buy ; Goth. Aaupon, to traffic, trade, Lu. xix. 13;
OHG. choufon, ΜΗ. koufen, G. kaufen, to buy; G. kauf,a purchase.
@ Curtius (i. 174) holds that all these words, however widely spread
in the Teutonic tongues, must be borrowed from Latin; so that OHG.
choufo, a huckster, is merely the L. caupo, a huckster. But this is
now held to be unlikely (Kluge, Franck). Der. cheap-/y, cheap-ness,
cheap-en ; also chap-man, 4. v.
CHEAT, to defraud, deceive. (F.—L.) The verb is formed from
the ME. chete, an escheat; to cheat was to seize upon a thing as
escheated. ‘The want of scruple on the part of the escheator, and the
feelings with which his proceedings were regarded, may be readily
imagined. ‘The verb, in the modern sense, first occurs in Shakespeare,
who uses it several times, esp. with the prep. of, with relation to the
thing of which the speaker is defrauded. ‘We are merely cheated cf
our lives ;’ Temp. i. 1. 593; ‘hath cheated me of the island,’ id. iii. 2.
40; ‘cheats the poor maid of that;* K. John, ii. 572; ‘cheated of
feature ;’ Rich. 1II, i. 1.19. In Merry Wives, i. 3. 77, Shak. uses
cheaters in the very sense of ‘escheators,’ but he probably rather in-
tended a quibble than was conscious of the etymology. B. The ME.
chete, as a contraction of achete, variant of eschete, was in rather early
use. ‘Chete for the lorde, caducum, confiscarium, fisca ;’ Prompt.
Parv. p. 73. ‘The kynge...seide..I lese many chetes,’ i.e. I lose
many escheats; P. Plowman, B. iv. 175, where some MSS. have
eschetes. Hence were formed the verb cheten, to confiscate, and the
sb. cheting, confiscation. ‘Chetyx, confiscor, fisco ;’ Prompt. Parv.
p- 73. ‘ Chetynge, confiscacio ;’ id. For further information see Es-
cheat, of which cheat is adoublet. The intermediate form appears
in ‘ Achetyn, confiscor;’ Prompt. Parv. p.6. @ See further remarks
on the word in Trench’s Select Glossary. He gives a clear example
of the serious use of cheater with the sense of escheatour. We also
find a description of some rogues called cheatours in Awdelay’s Fra-
ternitye of Vacabonds, ed. Furnivall, pp. 7, 8; but there is nothing
to connect these with the cant word chee, a thing, of which so many
examples occur in Harman’s Caveat, and which Mr, Wedgwood
guesses to be the origin of our word cheat. On the contrary, the
word cheat seems to have descended in the world; see the extract
from Greene’s Michel Mumchance, his Discoverie of the Art of
Cheating, quoted in Todd’s Johnson, where he says that gamesters
call themselves cheaters ; ‘ borrowing the term from our lawyers, with
whom all such casuals as fall to the lord at the holding of his leets,
as waifes, straies, and such like, be called chetes, and are accustumably
said to be escheated to the lord’s use.’
CHECK, a sudden stop, a repulse. (F.— Arab.— Pers.) ME. chek,
found (perhaps for the first time, but in a transferred sense) in Rob.
of Brunne’s tr. of Peter Langtoft. He has: ‘ for they did that chek’ =
because they occasioned that delay, p. 151; see also pp. 100, 225.
Chaucer has chek as an interjection, meaning ‘check!’ as used in
the game of chess: ‘Therwith Fortune seyde ‘‘chek here!’ And
“‘mate” in myd poynt of the chekkere,’ i.e. thereupon Fortune said
“check! here!’ and ‘mate’ in the middle of the chessboard; Book
of the Duchesse, 658. B. The word was clearly taken from the
game of chess, according to the received opinion. [The game is
mentioned earlier, in the Romance of King Alisaunder, ed. Weber,
1. 2096.] The orig. sense of the inter}. check! was ‘king!’ i.e. mind
your king, your king is in danger. = OF. eschec, eschac, which Cotgrave
explains by ‘a check at chess-play;’ pl. esches, the game of chess.
[The initial e is dropped in English, as in stable from OF. estable,
and in chess, q.v.]—Arab. shag, lit. ‘king;’ which is merely an
Arab. pron. of Pers. shah (Devic).— Pers. shah, a king, the principal
piece in the game of chess; Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 374; whence
also shah mat, check-mate, from shah, the king, and mat, he is dead,
id. col. 518; the sense of check-ma/e being ‘ the king is dead.’ Der.
check, verb; check-mate; check-er, q.V.; chess, q.V.; exchequer, q.v.;
cheque, for check. 4 The Arab. pron. of the Pers. word gave rise to
Late L. scaccus ; whence Ital. seacco; Span. jaque; Port. xaque, check!
(also shah); Icel. skak, G. schach; &c. The game was denoted
by the pl.; Late L. scacci, Ital. scacchi, F. echecs, OF. esches. See
Chess.
CHECKER, CHEQUER, to mark with squares. (F.—
Arab.—Pers.) The term checky in heraldry means that the shield
is marked out into squares like a chess-board. To checker in like
manner is ‘to mark out like a chessboard ;’ hence, to mark with
cross-lines ; and, generally, to variegate. The verb is derived from
the ME. chekker, cheker, or chekere, a chess-board; used by Rob. of
Glouc. p. 192, 1. 3965; Chaucer, Book of the Duchesse, 660. The
word is still used in the plural form The Checkers, not uncommon as
CHECKERS, CHEQUERS
the name of an inn; see below. = OF. eschekier, a chess-board; also
an exchequer. = Late L. scaccarium, orig. a chess-board ; from scacci,
chess. See Check, and Exchequer.
CHECKERS, CHEQUERS, the game of draughts. (F.—
Arab.—Pers.) Sometimes so called, because played on a checkered
board, or chessboard. As the sign of an inn, we find mention of
the ‘Cheker of the hope,’ i.e. the chequers on [or with] the hoop,
in the Prologue to the Tale of Beryn, ]. 14; and Canning, in his
Needy Knife-grinder, makes mention of ‘The Chequers.’ See Lar-
wood, Hist. of Sign-boards, p. 488 ; and see above.
CHECKMATE;; see Check.
CHEEK, the side of the face. (E.) ME. cheke; also cheoke,
as spelt in the Ancren Riwle, pp. 70, 106, 156. OMerc. céce (O. E.
Texts); AS. céace, the cheek; of which the pl. céacan occurs as a
gloss to maxillds, Ps. xxxi. 12. We also find the Northumb. and
Midland forms ceica, ceke, as glosses to maxilla in Matt. v. 39.4-Du.
kaak, the jaw, the cheek; Swed. kak, jaw, kakben, cheek-bone,
MSwed. and OFries. keke; N¥Fries. keek; EFries. kake. Teut. type
*kehon-, f.
CHEEP, to twitter shrilly, like young birds or mice. (E.) Levins
(1570) has: ‘To cheepe, pipilare.’ Of imitative origin; cf. pipe.
CHEER, mien; entertainment. (F.—L.—Gk.?) ME. chere, com-
monly meaning ‘the face;’ hence, mien, look, demeanour; cf. the
phr. ‘be of good cheer,’ and ‘look cheerful.’ ‘With glad chere’ =
with pleasant mien ; Hali Meidenhad, ed. Cockayne, p. 33. ‘ Maketh
drupie chere’ = makes drooping cheer, looks sad; Ancren Kiwle, p. 88.
= OF. chere, chiere, the face, look. = Late L. cara, a face, countenance,
used by Corippus, a 6th-cent. poet, in his Paneg. ad Justinum
(Brachet). Cf. Span. and Port. cara, face (not Ital.). Relationship
to Gk. «apa, head, is doubtful. Der. cheer-ful, cheer-ful-ly, cheer-ful-
ness; cheer-less, cheer-less-ness; cheer-y, cheer-i-ness.
CHEESE, the curd of milk, coagulated. (L.) ME. chese,
Havelok, 643; O.Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 53. OMere. cése,
AS. cyse (for earlier *ciese< *céasi, with i-mutation) ; prehistoric OF.
*c@si- << *cisioz. The pl. césas (cysas in some MSS.) occurs in the
Laws of Ine, sect. 70; in Thorpe’s Ancient Laws, i. 146.—L. casens,
cheese; whence also Irish cais, Gael. caise, W. caws, Corn. caus, cés ;
Du. kaas, G. kiise. Der. chees-y.
CHEETAH, CHEETA, a leopard used for the chase.
(Hind.—Skt.) Spelt chittah in 1781; Phil. Trans., lxxi. 2 (N.E.D.).=—
Hind. chita, τὰ. a leopard or panther (Forbes).—Skt. chitraka(s),
m. the cheeta (Benfey).=—Skt. chitra(s), spotted, variegated; orig.
visible. —Skt. chit, to perceive. Cf. Chintz.
CHEMISE, a lady’s shift. (F.—Late L.) ‘ Hire chemise smal
and hwit ;’ Reliquize Antiquee, ed. Halliwell and Wright, i. 129 ; also
in O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, 2nd Ser. p. 162. =F. chemise. = Late
L. camisia, a shirt, a thin dress; whence also Olrish caimmse, shirt ;
Arab. gamis, shirt. Of unknown origin; hardly from Teutonic,
but rather of classical origin, and allied to Chamber; cf. AS. ham,
a shirt (O. E. Texts), G. hemd; Goth. af-hamon, to unclothe. Der.
chemis-e/te.
CHEMIST, CHYMIST, a moder ‘ alchemist.’ (F.—L. —Gk.)
The double spelling (chemist, chymist) is due to the double spell-
ing alchemy, alchymy. ‘ Alchymist (alchymista) one that useth or
is skilled in that art, a chymist;’ Blount’s Glossographia, 1681.
Chymist is merely short for alchymist, and chemist for alchemist ; see
quotations in Trench’s Select Glossary. ‘For she a chymist was and
Nature’s secrets knew And from amongst the lead she antimony drew ;’
Drayton’s Polyolbion, 5. 26, 1. 374. [Antimony was a substance
used in alchemy.] Dropping the a/-, which is the Arabic article, we
have reverted to the Gk. χημεία, chemistry. Cf. Span. guimista, for
alquimista. See further under Alchemy. Der. chemistry; and,
from the same source, chem-ic, chem-ic-al.
CHEQUE. A modern spelling of check, from a connexion (which
is real) with the word exchequer. For the etymology, see Check.
CHEQUER, CHEQUERS; sce Checker, Checkers.
CHERISH, to fondle, take care of. (F.—L.) ME. cherischen,
chericen ; whence the sb. cherissing, cherishing, P. Plowman, B. iv. 117.
Spelt cherisch, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 128.—OF. cheris-, stem
of pres. pt. of cherir (mod. F. cherir, pres. pt. chériss-ant), to hold dear,
cherish. — OF. (and F.) cher, dear. = L. carus, dear. See Caress.
CHEROOT, a kind of cigar. (Tamil.) Spelt cheroot in 1750
(Yule). — Tamil shuruftu, a roll (of tobacco).
CHERRY, a well-known stone-fruit. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. chery,
chiri (with one r). ‘Ripe chiries manye ;’ P. Plowman, B. vi. 296;
A. vii, 281, Cheri or chiri was a mistake for cheris or chiris, the
final s being mistaken for the pl. inflection ; the same error occurs in
several other words, notably in fea as shortened from pease (L. pisum).
Cherise is a NorthF. modification of OF. cerise; representing a
Folk-L. *ceresia, *ceresea. = L. cerasus, a cherry-tree ; whence also the
AS. cyrs. [We find the entry ‘Cerasus, cyrs-treow,’ in /Elfric’s
CHEVIN, CHEVEN 105
Glossary, Nomina Arborum.]=—Gk. κέρασος, a cherry-tree; see
Curtius, i. 181, who ignores the usual story that the tree came from
Cerasos, a city in Pontus; cf. Pliny, bk. xv.c. 25. Prellwitz connects
κέρασος with κράνεια, a cornel-tree, and L. cornus; see Cornel.
CHERT, a kind of quartz, also called horn-stone. (E.?) ‘Flint
is most commonly found in form of nodules; but ’tis sometimes found
in thin strate, when ’tis called chert;’ Woodward, qu. in Todd’s
Johnson (no reference). Woodward the geologist died a.p. 1728.
First in Plot’s Staffordshire (1679) ; ‘beds of chirts’ p. 124 (1686).
The word was probably taken up from provincial English. ‘ Churty,
[of] rocky soil; mineral; Kent;’ Halliwell’s Dict. ‘ Chirt, sb.
(Durh. Derb. Nott.) a hard, flinty, stratified white or black substance ;’
E.D.D. Of unknown origin. Cf. Swed. dial. kart, a pebble; Irish
ceart, a pebble.
CHERUB, a celestial spirit. (Heb.) ‘And he stegh ouer
Cherubin, and flegh thar’ =and He ascended over the cherubim, and
flew there; Metrical English Psalter (ab. A.D. 1300), Ps. xviii. 11,
where the Vulgate has: ‘et ascendit super cherubim.’ The Heb. pl.
is cherubim, but our Bibles wrongly have cherubims in many passages.
The usual ME. form was cherubin, sing., as in Chaucer, Prol. 624;
with pl. cherubins.—Teb. k'riib, Mri, pl. k’riivim (the initial letter
being kaph), a mystic figure. Origin unknown; see Cherub in
Smith’s Concise Dict. of the Bible. 4 Discussed by Cheyne,
Isaiah (1881), ii. 272, who connects Heb. #riiv with the Assyrian
kirubu, a synonym for the steer-god [winged human-headed bull), the
winged guardian at the entrance of the Assyrian palaces. Of non-
Semitic, perhaps Accadian origin; see Encycl. Brit. s.v. Babylon, —
A.L.M. Der. cherub-ic.
CHERVIL, the name of a plant. (L.—Gk.) ME. cherwelle.
The pl. cheruelles is in P. Plowman, B. vi. 296. AS. cerfille. The
entry ‘ cerefolium, cerfille’ is in A‘lfric’s Glossary (Nomina Herba-
rum). = L. cherephylla, pl. of cherephyllum (Columella) ; cf. cerefolium
(Pliny, 19. 8. 54).—Gk. χαιρέφυλλον, chervil ; lit. ‘pleasant leaf.’ —
Gk. χαίρ-ειν, to rejoice ; and φύλλον, aleaf. The Gk. χαίρειν is from
A GHER, whence also E. yearn; and φύλλον is cognate with L.
folium. See Yearn (1) and Foliage.
CHESS, the game of the kings. (F.—Arab.—Pers.) ME. ches,
King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1. 2096; Chaucer, Book of the
Duchesse, 1.652. Equivalent to checks, i.e. ‘kings.’ Grammatically,
chess is the pl. of check. OF. esches, chess, pl. of eschec, check! lit.
‘a king’ (c being dropped before final ς ; Godefroy, ili. 380). See
further under Check.
CHEST, a box; upper part of the trunk of the body. (L.—Gk.)
ME. cheste, chiste. Spelt chiste, Havelok, 222; also kiste, Havelok,
2018. Also found without the final e, in the forms chest, chist, hist.
AS. cest (O. E. Texts) ; cyste, as a tr. of Lat. Joculum in Luke vii. 14.
The Northumb. gloss has ceiste; the later AS. version has cheste.—
L. cista, a chest, box. Gk. κίστη, a chest, a box. @f The G. hisre,
Du. hist, &c. are all borrowed forms.
CHESTNUT, CHESNUT, thename of atree. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Chesnut is short for chestnut, and the latter is short for chesten-nut.
The tree is properly chester simply, the fruit being the chesten-nut.
ME. chestein, chesten, chastein, castany, δια. ‘Medlers, ploumes,
peres, chesteynes;’ Rom. of the Rose, 1375. ‘Grete forestes of
chesteynes ;’ Maundeville’s Trav. p. 307; chasteyn, Chaucer, C. T.
2924 (A 2922).—OF. chastaigne (Ε΄. chdtaigne).—L. castanea, the
chestnut-tree. — Gk. κάστανον, ἃ chestnut; gen. in pl. κάστανα, chest-
nuts; also called κάρυα Kaoravaia, from Kaorava [Castana] or
Κασθαναία, the name of a city in Pontus where they abounded. © Or
from Armen. kaskeni, a chestnut-tree ; from kask, a chestnut (Kluge) ;
in which case the place was named from the tree.
CHEVAL-DE-FRISE, an obstruction with spikes. (F.) Gen.
in pl. chevaux-de-frise. First in 1688. The word is a military
term, and mere French.=—F. cheval de Frise, lit.a horse of Friesland,
a jocular name for the contrivance; employed by Frisians in the
17th century. The form ‘Chevaux de Frise’ is given in Kersey’s
Dict. ed. 1715. See below.
CHEVALIER, a knight, cavalier. (F.—L.) <A doublet of
cavalier, In Shak. K. John, ii. 287.—F. chevalier, a horseman;
Cotgrave.—F. cheval, a horse.—L. caballus, a horse, nag. See
Cavalier, and Chivalry.
CHEVERIL, kid leather. (F.—L.) ‘ Cheveril, roebuck-leather,
symbol of flexibility, Tw. Nt. iii, 1. 13; Hen. VIII. ii. 3.
Komeo, ii. 4. 87;” Schmidt, Shak. Lex. ‘ Cheuerell lether, cheuer-
otin;’ Palsgrave. AF. cheveril, cheverel; Liber Custumarum, 83,
326. «ΟἿ᾽. chevrel (F. chevreau), a kid; cf. char de chevrel, kid-skin,
in Supp. to Godefroy. Dimin. of OF. chevre, F. chévre, fem., a goat,
kid. =—L. capram, acc. of capra, a she-goat. See Caper (1).
CHEVIN, CHEVEN, the fish usually called a chub. (F.—L.)
The Book of St. Albans (1486) mentions the cheuen; fol. £7, back.
=F. chevanne (Hatzfeld); (MF. cheviniau, Cot.); OF. chevesne,
33;
106 CHEVRON
chevinel, chevenel (Godefroy). Of uncertain form; but clearly con-
nected with F. chef, head; from its broad blunt head; cf. L. capito, the
name of a similar fish; also Ital. cavedine, ‘the chieven,’ Torriano.
See Chief.
CHEVROJ, an honourable ordinary in heraldry, in the shape of
a reversed V. (F.—L.) ME. cheueron, Book of St. Albans, pt. ii.
fol.f 1, back. Usually said to represent two rafters of the roof of
a house; I think it must, in heraldry, rather have had reference to
the (gable-like) peak of a saddle, as there is nothing highly honour-
able in a house-roof.—OF. chevron, ‘a kid, a chevron of timber in
building, a rafter, or sparre ;’ Cot. Augmentative form of OF. chevre,
‘a she-goat,’ id.—L. capra,a she-goat; see Caper (1). In the
same way the L. capreolus meant a prop or support of timber.
CHEW, CHAW, to bruise with the teeth. (E.) Spelt chawe
in Levins. ME. chewen; Chaucer, C. T. 3690; Ormulum, |]. 1241.
AS. céowan, Levit. xi. 3; pt. t. céaw, pp. cowen. + Du. kaauwen, to
chew, masticate, OHG. kinwan, MHG., khiuwen, (ἃ. kauen, to chew.
Teut. type *kewwan-. Cf. Russ. yevate, to chew. See Brngmann,
i. § 312.
CHIBOUK, a Turkish pipe, for smoking. (F.—Turk.) Spelt
chibouque, Byron, Corsair, ii. 2; Bride of Abydos, i. 8. =F. chibouque. =
Turk. chibiiq, a stick, tube, pipe; Devic (Supp. to Littré); chybak,
chubiik, a pipe; Zenker’s Turk. Dict. p. 340.
CHICANERY, mean deception. (F.) We formerly find also
chicane, both as sb. and verb. ‘ That spirit of chicane and injustice ;’
Burnet, Hist. of Own Time, an. 1696. ‘Many who choose to chi-
cane ;* Burke, on Economical Reform. Of F. origin. Cotgrave has:
‘Chicanerie, wrangling, pettifogging;’ also ‘ Chicaner, to wrangle,
or pettifog it.’ B. Brachet says: ‘Before being used for sharp
practice in lawsuits, it meant a dispute in games, particularly in the
game of the mall; and, originally, it meant the game of the mall: in
this sense chicane represents a form *zicanum, which is from the me-
dieval Gk. τζυκάνιον, a word of Byzantine origin.’ y. This Late Gk.
word is apparently borrowed from Pers. chaugiin, a club used in the
game of ‘ polo;’ Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 189; Rich. Dict. p. 545,
col. 2. @ Diez supposes the word to be connected with OF. chic,
little (cf. ‘de chic ἃ chic, from little to little’? in Cotgrave) ; and
derives it from L. ciccum, that which is of little worth, whence mod.
Ἐς chiche, niggardly. See an article on Chic in N. and Q. 5 S. viii. 261;
and see Chigo. Devic declares in favour of the Pers. origin.
CHICKEN, the young of the fowl. (E.) The form chick is a
mere abbreviation of chicken, not the older form. ME. chiken, sing.
‘Chekyn, pullus ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 74. The pl. chiknes is in Chau-
cer, Prol. 382 (A 380). AS. cicen ; of which the pl. cicenz, chickens,
occurs in Matt. xxiii. 37. This form is from an earlier *cixctn. 4 Du.
kieken, huiken, a chicken; Low αι. hitken ; cf. G. kiichlein, a chicken,
Icel. kyuklingr, Swed. kyckling ; related to Cock, which is from the
weak grade *kuk-; see Cock (1). Sievers, 2nd ed. § 165 ; Noreen,
§§ 143, 252. Der. chick-ling, dimin. (cf. Icel. kjuklingr); chicken-
hearted, chicken-pox ; chick-weed (Levins).
CHICORY, a plant; succory. (F.—L.—Gk.) Not in very
early use. Formerly cicorie; Sir T. Elyot has ‘ cykorie or suckorie ;’
Castel of Helth, b. 11. c. 8; fol. 23.— FV. chichorée, cichorée, ‘ succorie ;”
Cot.=—L. cichorium, succory.—Gk. κειχώριον ; also κιχώρη; also as
neut. pl. myopia, κιχορεία, succory. The form succory is more corrupt.
See Succory.
CHIDE, to scold; also, to quarrel. (E.) ME. chiden; in Old
Eng. Homilies, i. 113. AS. cidan, to chide, brawl, Exod. xxi. 18;
Luke, iv. 35, where the pt. t. cidde occurs. ΑἹ There do not seem to
be cognate forms, ‘The verbis weak; the pt. t. ckode (Gen. xxxi. 30)
is a new formation, by analogy with rode.
CHIEF, adj. head, principal; sb.a leader. (F.—L.) Properly
asb., but early used as an adj. ME. chef, chief. Rob. of Glouc.
has chef, sb., p. 212, 1. 4316; chef, adj., p. 231, 1. 4758. —OF. chef,
chief, the head. = L. type *capum (cf. Ital. capo). —L. caput, the head.
Der. chief-ly; chief-tain, q.v.; also ker-chief, q.v.; cf. cape (2),
capital, &c.
CHIEFTAIN, a head man; leader. (F.—L.) <A doublet of
captain. In early use. ME. cheuetein, chiftain, &c. Spelt cheuetein,
Layamon, i. 251 (later text).—OF. chevetain; also chevetaine, a
chieftain. — Late L. capitinus, capitaneus, a captain. L. caput (stem
capit-), the head. See above; and see Captain. Der. chieftain-ship.
CHIFFONTER, an omamental cupboard. (F.) Modern; first
in 1806. Lit. ‘a place to put rags in.’ =F. chiffonnier, a rag-picker ;
also, a piece of furniture, a chiffonier (Hamilton and Legros).=—F.
chiffon, ἃ rag; an augmentative form (with suffix -ov) from chiffe,
a rag, a piece of flimsy stuff ; explained by Cotgrave as ‘a clout, old
ragge, over-worn or off-cast piece of stuffe.’, (Origin unknown. Cf.
Korting, § 2133.)
CHIGNON, an arrangement of hair in a large coil at the back
of the head. (F.—L.) First in 1783.—F. chignon, properly the
CHIMPANZEE
back of the neck, lit. a little chain, from the projections of the verte-
brae (Littré); variant of I’. cha/non, der. from chafne, chain, with
suffix -on; see Chain. See Cotgrave, s.v. chainon.
CHIGO, CHiGOKH, a kind of small flea; also called jigger.
(Span.—L.—Gk.) In the W. Indies and S. America. Prob.
a negro corruption of Span. chico, small; since the F. name chique is
also deducible from the same form. = L. ciccum, acc. of ciccus, the thin
membrane round the grains of a pomegranate, something worthless,
a trifle. —Gk. κίκκος, a fruit-husk.
CHILBLAIN, a blain caused by cold. (E.) Lit. ‘ chill-blain,’
i.e. cold-sore, sore caused by cold. In Holland's Pliny, ii. 76, 1. 6
(Ὁ. xx. ς. 22). See Chill and Blain.
CHILD, a son or daughter, a descendant. (E.) ME. child, very
early; also cild. Spelt child, Layamon, i. 13; cild, O. Eng.
Homilies, i. 227. ΑΒ. cild; Grein, i. 160. Teut. type *kilthom, n.
Allied to Goth. kilthei, the womb, ix-kilthd, a pregnant woman.
q Distinct from Du. and G. kind,a child. But Skt. jathara- (for
*jalthara-) may be related; so also Dan. kuld, Swed. kull, a litter
(of animals), Cf. Kilt. Der. child-ish, child-ish-ness, child-like,
child-less ; child-bed; child-hood = AS. cild-had, Grein, i. 160.
CHILIAD, the number 1000. (Gk.) Used by H. More to mean
“a period of a thousand years ;’ Defence of Moral Cabbala, c. 2 (R.) =
Gk. χιλιάς (stem χιλιαδ-), a thousand, in the aggregate. - Gk. χίλιοι, pl.
a thousand ; Lesbian χέλλιοι, which is an older form (see Prellwitz).
CHILL, a sudden coldness; cold. (K.) Properly a sb.‘ Chil,
cold, algidus, and ‘To chil with cold, algere’ occur in Levins, col.
123, ll. 46, 28. Earlier than this, it is commonly a sb. only; but the
pp. child (i.e. chilled) occurs in P. Plowman, C. xviii. 490. ME. chil
sb., Trevisa, i. 51; but more commonly che/e, Ὁ. Eng. Homilies, i.
33; Layamon, iii. 237. AS. cele, great cold; O. E. Texts; Grein,
i.157. Alsociele; ‘Frigus, ciele,’ Voc. 495.28. Teut. type *kaliz;
from *kalan-, to be cold, as in AS. calan, Icel. kala, to freeze. See
Cool. Cf. also Du. kil, chilly; Aillen, to be chilled; L. gedu,
frost; gelidus, cold. Der. chill-y, chill-ness, chill-i-ness, chil-blain ;
and see gelid.
CHILLI, red pepper. (Span.—Mex.) Spelt chili in Thackeray,
Vanity Fair, c, iii. Span. chile, red pepper. — Mex. chilli, red pepper.
4 Not from Cluli, in S. America.
CHIME, a harmonious sound, (F.—L.—Gk.) Palsgrave has:
“chyme of belles.’ ‘Vhe word has lost ab; itstands for chimbe. ME.
chimbe, chymbe. ‘ His chymibe-belle [i.e. chime-bell] he doth rynge;’
Κ. Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1852. The true old sense is ‘cymbal.’ In
the Cursor Mundi, ed. Morris, 1. 12193, the Trin. MS, has: ‘As a
chymbe or a brasen belle’ (with evident reference to I Cor. xiii. 1) ;
where the Gottingen MS. has chime, and the Cotton MS. has chim.
Chimbe or chymbe is from OF. chimble or chymble, a dialectic form of
OF. cimble, cymble, or from a form without the 7; Godefroy gives
both cymble and cymbe with the sense of ‘cymbal ;’ also chinbe (for
chimbe) withthe same sense. = L. cymbalum, a cymbal. —Gk. κύμβαλον,
acymbal. SeefurtherunderCymbal. € Perhaps the ME. chyme-
belle was a popular form for chymbale, a variant of cymbale in
Cotgrave; yet we actually find a Late L. cimba, a dinner-bell, in
the Chronicle of Abingdon, ed. Stevenson ; doubtless from L. cym-
balum. Der. chime, verb.
CHIMA®RA, CHIMERA, a fabulous monster. (L.—Gk.)
In Milton, P.L. ii. 628. Spelt chimera in Trevisa, tr. of Higden, 1].
371.—L. chimera, a monster.—Gk. χίμαιρα, a she-goat; also, a
monster, with lion’s head, serpent’s tail, and goat’s body; Iliad, vi.
181.—Gk. χίμαρος, a he-goat.+Icel. gymbr, a ewe-lamb of a year
old; whence prov. Eng. gimmer or gimmer-lamb; Curtius, i, 249.
Der. chimer-ic-al, chim-r-ic-al-ly.
CHIMER, CHIMERE, a long loose robe. (F.—Span.)
Variously used; Barbour has chemer, chemeir, of a bishop’s coat-
armour; Bruce, xvi. 580. Dryden has ‘a slight cymar,’ of a woman’s
robe; Cymon, 100.—F. chamarre, ‘a loose and light gowne ;’ Cot.
=Span. ckamarra, zamarra, a shepherd’s dress, of sheepskin. Of
unknown origin (of Basque). ‘The Sardinian acciamarra (in Diez),
if for *al-ciamarra, suggests an Arabic origin.
CHIMNEY, a fire-place, a flue. (F.—L.—Gk.) Formerly, ‘a
fire-place ;? see Shak. Cymb. ii. 4.80. ‘A chambre with a chymneye ;’
P. Plowman, B. x. 98.—AF. chimenee, Liber Albus, p. 333; OF.
cheminée, ‘a chimney ;’ Cotgrave.—Late L. caminata, lit. * provided
with a chimney;’ hence ‘a room with a chimney ;’ and, later, the
chimney itselfi—L. caminus, a hearth, furnace, forge, stove, flue. =
Gk. κάμινος, an oven, furnace. Perhaps allied to καμάρα, a vaulted
chamber; see Chamber. Der. chimney-piece, chimney-shaft.
CHIMPANZEE, a kind of ape. (African.) In a translation
of Buffon’s Nat. Hist., published in London in 1792, vol. i. p. 324,
there is a mention of ‘ the orang-outangs, which he [ M. de la Brosse]
calls guimpeazes.’ [La Broess has quimpezé.| From the native name
in Angola, W. Africa; see N. E. D. The Bantu form is kampenzi ;
CHIN
N. and Q., 9 S. viii. 341. I am informed that the Fantee name of
the animal is akatsia or akatshia.
CHIN, part of the lower jaw. (E.) ME. chin, Layamon, i. 348;
1. 8148. AS. cin; we find ‘mentum, ciz’ in A®lfric’s Gloss. ed.
Somner, p. 70, col. 2.4-Du. #in; Icel. kinn, the cheek; Dan. kind;
Swed. kind, the cheek, kindbdge, cheekbone, but also jawbone;
Goth. kinnus, the cheek; Matt. v. 39; O. H.G. chinni, G. kinn, the
cheek.L. gena, the cheek; Gk. γένυς, the chin, the jaw; Skt. hanu-s,
the jaw; Olrish gin, mouth; W. gén, jaw, chin.
CHINA, porcelain-ware. (China.) Shak. has ‘china dishes ;*
Meas. ii. 1. 97; see Pope, Moral Essays, ii. 265; Rape of the Lock,
ii, 106. ‘China, or China-ware, a fine sort of earthen ware made in
those parts’ [i.e. in China]; Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715. Named from
the country. Der. Chinese, a native of China. Milton, P. L. iii. 438,
has the pl. Chineses, correctly. The final -se has come to be regarded
as a plural; and we now say Chinese in the plural. Hence, as a
singular’ development, the phrase ‘ that heathen Chinee.’ Cf. cherry,
pea, sherry, shay (for chaise), &c.
CHINCHILLA, asmall rodent quadruped. (Span.—L.) ‘ Chin-
chilles, like squirrels ;’ E.G., tr. of Acosta, bk. iv. c. 38. —Span, chin-
chilla; dimin. of chinche, a bug, from an erroneous notion that it had
a fetid smell.—L. cimicem, acc. of cimex, a bug.
CHINCHONA. See Cinchona below.
CHINCOUGH, the whooping-cough. (E.) ‘No, it shall ne’er
be said in our country Thou diedst οὐ the chin-cough ;’ Beaum, and
Fletcher; Bonduca, 1. 2. It stands for chink-cough, a form found in
W. Yorkshire; prov. Eng. and Scot. kink-cough or kink-host, where
host means ‘a cough.’ Cf. Scot. kink, to labour for breath in a severe
fit of coughing; Jamieson. It is an E. word, as shown by ‘cincung,
cachinnatio’ in a Glossary, pr.in Wright’s Vocab. i. 50, col. 2; which
shows that kink was also used of a loud fit of laughter. Kink is a
nasalised form of a root *kik-, appearing in (ἃ. keich-en, to gasp,
pant. Cf. Du. kinkhoest, the chincough, whooping-cough; M.
Du. kiechhoest, kickhoest, the same (Kilian); Swed. kikhosta, the
chincough; &ik-na, to gasp, to pant; Dan. kighoste, the whooping-
cough. See Chink (2).
CHINE, the spine, backbone. (F.—O.H.G.) ‘Me byhynde, at
my chyne, Smotest me with thy spere;’ K. Alisaunder, 1. 3977.—
OF. eschine (mod. F. échine), the spine. —OHG., skina, a needle,
a prickle (>G. schiene, a splint); see Diez. B. A similar change (or
rather extension) of meaning is seen in the L. spina, a thorn, spine,
back-bone. Kérting, § 8783. Cf. Shin.
CHINK (1),a cleft, crevice, split. (E.) ‘May shine through every
chinke ;’ Ben Jonson; Ode to James, Earl of Desmond, 1.16. And
see Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 1.66. Formed, with an added ἀν, probably
expressive of diminution (as in prov. E. chin-kie, the chin), from the
base of ME. chine, a chink; cf. prov. Eng. chine, a rift in a cliff
(Isle of Wight). ‘In the chyne of a ston-wal;’ Wyclif, Song of
Solomon, ii. 14.—AS. cinu, a chink, crack; /Elfric’s Hom. ii. 154. —
AS. cin-, weak grade of cinan, to split, crack (intransitively), to
chap ; ‘eal fécinen,’ i.e. chapped all over, Elfric’s Hom. i. 336.4 Du.
keen, a cleft; also, a germ; MDu. kene, a split, rift; kenen, to shoot
up, asa plant, bud. Cf. G. keimen, to germinate; keim,a bud. B.
The notion is that a chine signified originally a crack in the ground
caused by the germination of seeds; and the connexion is clear
between the AS. cinu, a rift, cleft, crack, and the Goth. keinan, to
spring up as a plant, Mark, iv. 27; uskeinan, to spring up, Luke, viii.
8; uskeian, to produce, Luke, viii. 6. Teut. root *ket-, whence also
AS. ci-3,a germ, shoot. See Chit (2).
CHINK (2), to jingle; a jingling sound; money. (E.) In Shak.
chinks means ‘money,’ jocularly; Romeo,i. 5. 119. Cf. ‘he chinks
his purse;’ Pope, Dunciad, ii. 197. An imitative word, of which
jingle may be said to be the frequentative. See Jingle. Cf. EFries.
hkinken, to ring (astrong verb). A similar word is Clink, q. v.
CHINTZ, parti-coloured cotton cloth. (Hind.—Skt.) In Pope,
Moral Essays, i. 248 ; ii. 170. Formerly chints, pl. of chint (N.E. D.).
“Two new pieces of chints ;” W. Dampier, New Voy. i. 517. — Hind.
chhint, spotted cotton cloth; cf. chhinfa, a spot ; chhintnd, to sprinkle.
More elementary forms appear in ckhif, chintz, also, a spot; chhitki,
a small spot, speck; chhifna, to scatter, sprinkle. Cyintz is accord-
ingly so named from the variegated patterns which appear upon it.
For the above words, see Duncan Forbes, Hindustani-Eng. Dict.,
p- 120. The simpler form chhif appears in Du. sits, G. zitz, chintz;
and is derived from Skt. chi/ra-s, spotted, orig. visible, clear; from
chit, to perceive. Sce Cheeta.
CHIP, to chop a little at a time. (E.) The dimin. of chop. ME.
chippen, chyppen. ‘I chyppe breed, je chappelle du payn; I chyppe
wodde, je coepelle;’ Palsgrave. The sb. chip is a derivative from
the verb, yet it happens to occur rather earlier; ME. chippe, a chip,
Chaucer, C. T. 3746 (A 3748); spelt chip, Rob. of Brunne’s tr. of
Langtoft, p.g1. For the change of vowel from chop (older form chap),
CHLORINE 107
cf, clink with clank, click with clack. Lye cites for-cyppud (presumably
for for-cippod) from a gloss to Canticum Ezechis, where another
gloss (in Sweet, O. E. Texts, p. 402, last line) has forcorfen as a gloss
to praecisa. EFries. hippen, to cut. B. Cf. G. kippen, to clip money ;
Low G. kippen, to cut away; MDu. kippen, to hatch chickens (1.8.
to chip eggs) Hexham; MSwed. #ippa, as a variant of MSwed.
kappa, to chop; Ihre (5. ν. kappa). See Chop. Der. chip, sb.
CHIROGRAPHY, handwriting. (Gk.) ‘ Chirograph (chiro-
graphum), a sign manual, a bill of ones hand, an obligation or hand-
writing ;” Blount’s Glossographia, ed. 1674. [The term chirography
is, however, rather formed directly from the Gk. than from the Late
L. chirographum, a contract, indenture, or deed.) — Gk. χειρογραφεῖν,
to write with the hand. = Gk. χείρο-, for χείρ, the hand ; and γράφειν,
to write. The Gk, χείρ is cognate with O. Lat. hir, the hand ; cf.
Skt. hv, to seize; Curtius, i. 247. Der. chirograph-er, chirograph-ic,
chirograph-ist; from the same Gk. χείρο- we have also chiro-logy,
chiro-mancy, chiro-podist; also chir-urgeon, q. Vv.
CHIRP, to make a noise as a bird. (.) Sometimes extended to
chirrup, by the trilling of ther. ME. chirpen, whence the sb. chirp-
inge. ‘Chyrpynge, or claterynge, chirkinge or chaterynge of byrdys,
garritus;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 76. ‘To churpe, pipilare;’ Levins,
p-191. This ME. chirpen 15 ἃ mere variant of ME. chirken. Chaucer
has: ‘And chirketh as asparwe;’ C.T.7386(D 1804). Wealso find
the form chirmen. ‘Sparuwe cheatered euer ant chirmed’ = the sparrow
ever chatters and chirms; Ancren Riwle, p. 152. B. These forms,
chir-p, chir-k, chir-m, are connected with the form chir-, or rather kir,
which is an imitative word, intended to express the continual chatter-
ing and chirping of birds; cf. Du. kirren, to coo.
CHIRURGEON, asurgeon. (F.—L.—Gk.) Now always written
surgeon, q.v. Shak, has chirurgeon-ly, surgeon-like, Temp. li. 1. 140.
ME. cirurgian, Rob. of Glouc. p. 566; 1. 11925.—OF. cirurgien;
F. chirurgien, ‘asurgeon;’ Cotgrave. = OF. cirurgie; Ἐς chirurgie, sur-
gery.— Late L. chirurgia. = Gk.xepoupyia, a working with the hands,
handicraft, art ; esp. the art of surgery (to which it is now restricted).
=Gk. χείρο-, for χείρ, the hand; and épyev, to work, cognate with
E. work, q. v. On Gk. χείρ, see Chirography. Fiom the same
source we have chirurg-ic, chirurg-ic-al, words now superseded by
surgical. @ The vowel is due to Gk. ov, and this again to the
coalescence of o and ε.
CHISEL, a sharp cutting tool. (F.—L.) ME. chisel, chysel;
Prompt. Pary. p. 76; Shoreham’s Poems, p.137. Other spellings are
scheselle, sceselle, in Wright’s Vocab. i. 276.— AF. chisel, A. Neckam,
in Wrt. Vocab. i. 118, 1. 8; ONorthF. chisel, OF. cisel, mod. F.
ciseau. Cotgrave gives the verb ciseler, ‘to carve, or grave with a
chisell ; also, to clip or cut with sizars.’—Late L. cisellum, acc. of
cisellus, forceps (Ducange) ; but lit. ‘a cutting instrument;’ cf. Ital.
cesello, chisel, answering to L. type *ca@sellum; also L. cis-drinm, a
cutting instrument. =—L., -cis-wm, for ces-um, supine of cedere, to cut
(cf. E. con-cise, pre-cise). See Ceesura. And see Scissors. Der.
chisel, verb.
CHIT (1), young of a beast, whelp, cub; also a child, brat. (E.)
‘There hadde diches the yrchoun, and nurshede out litle chi/tes ;’
Wyclif, Isa. xxxiv. 15, where the Vulgate has: ‘ibi habuit foueam
ericius, et enutriuit catulos ;’ so that chit here means ‘ the young one’
of ahedgehog. In modern times associated with Chit (2), as when
applied to ‘a slip’ of a girl, and the like. Another form of kif,
whence kitten. Cf. ΕἸ. hit-ling. Icel. het-lingr, a kitten; prov. E.
chit, a cat (E.D.D.). See Kitten.
CHIT (2), a shoot or sprout. (.) Halliwell gives: ‘Chit, to
germinate; the first sprouts of anything are called ch:ts.’ Holland,
tr. of Pliny, bk. xiii. ch. 4, has ‘the root or chit beginneth first to put
forth.’ Apparently a later substitute for ME. chithe, from AS. cid, a
germ, sprig, sprout; Grein, i. 161. Cf. Goth. uskeian, to produce as
a shoot, from a Tent. root * kei-, to sprout, whence * 4i-¢xoz, m., as
in AS. cid, OSax. kid, OHG. kidi, Bavarian herd (Schmeller), a
young shoot. See Chink (1).
CHITTERLINGS, small intestines. (E.) Levins (1570) has
chitterling, chyttering, ‘omasum.’ See E.D.D. Cf. Low G. kut,G.
kuttel, entrails; Du. kuit, spawn.
CHIVALRY, knighthood. (F.—L.) ME. chivatrie, chivalerye.
In K. Alisaunder, 1. 1496, we have ‘ with al his faire chivalrie’=with
all his fair company of knights; such being commonly the older
meaning. OF. chevalerie, horsemanship, knighthood.—OF. cheval,
a horse.—L. caballus, a horse. See Cavalry. Der. chivalr-ic,
chivalr-ous (ME. chivalerous, Gower, C. A. i. 89), chivalr-ous-ly.
CHIVE, a small onion. (F.—L.) Palsgrave has: ‘Chyve, an
herbe, cive.’ = Norm. dial. chive (Moisy) ; F. εἶνε, ‘a scallion, or unset
leek ;’ Cot.—L. cepa, an onion.
CHLORINE, a pale green gas. (Gk.) Modern. Named from
its colour. The gas was discovered in 1774; the name was conferred
on it by Sir H. Davy in 1810; Engl. Cyclopzdia, From Gk. χλωρός,
108 CHOCOLATE
pale green; cf. Gk. χλόη, verdure, grass ; xAdos, green colour; Skt.
hari-, green, yellow. Allicd to Yellow, q. v. Der. chlor-ic,
chlor-ide, chlor-ite; also chloro-form, where the latter element has
reference to formic acid, an acid originally obtained from red ants ;
from L. formica, an ant.
CHOCOLATE, a paste made from cacao. (Span.— Mexican.)
First in E. G., tr. of Acosta, 1604, p. 271 (bk. iv.c. 22); also in Pope,
Rape of the Lock, ii. 135 ; Spectator, no. 54. R. also quotes from
Dampier’s Voyages, an, 1082 [ed. 1699, i. 60] about the Spaniards
making chocolate from the cacao-nut. Todd says that it was also
called chocolata at first, and termed ‘an Indian drink;’ for which he
refers to Anthony Wood’s Athenz Oxonienses, ed. 1692, vol. ii.
col. 416.—Span. chocolate, chocolate.— Mexican chocolatl, chocolate
(Simeon). Wholly unconnected with the word cacao, of which the
Mex. name is cacauatl, Prescott confuses them.
CHOICE, a selection. (F.—Teut.) Not English, so that the
connexion with the verb to choose is but remote. ME. chots, choys,
Rob. of Glouc. p. 111, 1. 17; 1. 2415.—OF. chois, choice.—OF.
choisir, to choose; ONorthF. coisir, B. Of Teut. origin. = Goth.
kausjan, to prove, test ; causal of kiusan, to choose. See Choose.
CHOIR, a band of singers; part ofachurch. (F.—L.—Gk.) Also
spelt guire. he choir of a church is so called because the choir of
singers usually sat there. In the former sense, we find the spellings
queir, quer ; Barbour's Bruce, xx. 293 (1. 287 in Pinkerton’s edition).
We also find ‘Queere, chorus ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 420. Quire is in
Shak. Hen. VIII, iv. 1. 90; but it is altered to choir in modern re-
prints. The spellings guere, quire resemble those of frere, frier (friar) ;
choir is pedantic, and our prayer-books have quire still. OF. cuer
(Littré); MF. choeur, ‘the quire of a church; also, a round, ring, or
troop of singers;” Cotgrave.—L. chorum, acc. of chorus,a band of
singers. — Gk. χορός, a dance in a ring, a band of dancers and singers;
see Prellwitz. Doublet, chorus; whence chor-al, chor-al-ly, chor-i-ster.
See Chorus.
CHOKE, to throttle, strangle. (E.) ‘Thus doth S. Ambrose
choke our sophisters ;’ Frith’s Works, p. 130, col. 1.‘ Chekenyd or
qwerkenyd, chowked or querkened, suffocatus, strangulatus ;’ Prompt.
Parv., p. 72. The form cheke, to choke, occurs in Rob. of Brunne,
Handling Synne, 1. 3192; see Stratmann, s. v. cheoken, p. 114. (Cf.
chese as another form of choose.) An E. word; Somner gives ‘ aceo-
cod, suffocatus,’ but without a reference; yet d-céocod occurs in
Eliric, Hom. i. 216. We also find AS. d-céocung, to translate L.
raminatio, which the glossator hardly seems to have understood;
see Voc. 179. 1. Thus the AS. form was céocian, whence ME. chéken,
regularly; also (by change of céo- to ced-, as in the case of E. choose}
an ME, choken, later choken (with short 0, as in chock-ful) and subse-
quent regular lengthening. ‘The Teut. base is *kewk. Perhaps chuck-le
and Icei. kok, ‘ the gullet,’ may be related. Der. choke-ful.
CHOLER, the bile; anger. (F.—L.—Gk.) The ἃ is a 16th
century insertion, due to a knowledge of the source of the word.
ME. colere, bile; Gower, C. A. iii. 100; bk. vii. 1. 459. The adj.
colerik is in Chaucer's Prol. 587.—OF. colere, which in Cotgrave is
also written cholere, and explained by ‘choler, anger, . . also the
complexion or humour tearmed choler.’=L. cholera, bile; also,
cholera, or a bilious complaint (Pliny). Gk. χολέρα, cholera; χολή,
bile ; χόλος, bile, also wrath, anger. The Gk. χολή is cognate with
L. fel, and E. gall. See Gall (1). Der. choler-ic. Doublet, cholera,
as shown.
CHOOSE, to pick out, select. (E.) ME. cheosen, chesen, chusen ;
of which chesex is the most usual. Spelt chus in the imperative, St.
Marharete, 1. 103; cheosen, Layamon, ii. 210. AS. céosan (pt. t
céas), later form cedsan, to choose; Grein, i. 160, AS. cécsan gave
ME. chésen regularly; the E. choose is from cedsan (with ed for 0).
Du. kiezen; G. kiesen; Icel. kjdsa; Goth. kiusan, to choose, also to
prove, test. Teut. type *keusan-, pt. τ, *kaus. Further allied to L.
gus-lare, to taste; Gk. γεύομαι, I taste; Skt. jush, to relish, enjoy
- GEUS, to choose, taste. Brugmann, i. ὃ 602. From the same
root, choice, q. v.; also gust (2), dis-gust.
CHOP (1), to cut suddenly, strike off. (E.) ME. choppen, to cut
up, strike off. ‘ Thei choppen alle the body in smale peces ;᾿ Maunde-
ville's Travels, p. 201. The imperative chop occurs in P. Plowman,
A. iii. 253. A later form of Chap (1), 4. v. Der. chop, sb.; chopp-er.
CHOP (2), to barter, exchange. (K.) A variant of chap, to
barter; due to the fact that chap, to cut, was also pronounced as
chop. Further, this verb fo chap seems to have been made out of
chap-man, sb., a merchant. See Chapman. Hence also the phr.
“to chop and change ;’ we say also, ‘ the wind chops,’ i.e. changes,
yeers.
CHOPIN, a high-heeled shoe. (F.—Span.—L.) In Hamlet,
ii. 2. 447. An error for chapine. -- MF. chopine, chappin; Cotgrave has
‘chappins, choppins, a kinde of high slippers for low women ;’ OF.
chapin, Godefroy. — Span. chapin, a clog with a cork sole; and see
CHROME
chapin in Minsheu. —Span. chapa, the same as E. chape ; see Chane.
See Notes on king. Etym., p. 36.
CHOPS, the jaws, cheeks; see Chaps.
CHORD, astring of a musical instrument. (L.—Gk.) The same
word as cord, which spelling is generally reserved for the sense ‘a
thin rope.’ Milton has chords, P. L. xi. 561. In old edd. of Shak.,
it is spelt cord.—L. chorda.=— Gk. χορδή, the string of a musical in-
strument. See further under Cord.
CHORUS, a company of singers. (L.—Gk.) In Milton, P. L.
vil. 275.—L. chorus. Gk. χορός. See further under Choir.
CHOUGH, a bird of the crow family. (E.) ME. chough, in
Chaucer, Parl. Foules, 345. ‘ The crowesand the choughes ;’ Maunde-
ville, p. 59. The pl. choghen occurs about 1305, in E. E. Poems, ed.
Furnivall, p. 76,1. 185. Not found in AS., which has the form ced;
we find ‘ Gracculus vel monedula, ceo ;᾿ AEIf. Gloss., Nomina Avium ;
and in O. E. Texts we find the strange forms ciae, chyae. The various
names imitate its cry; somewhat similar are NFries. kauke,a chough;
Du. kaaxw, a chough, jackdaw ; Dan. kaa, a jackdaw; Swed. kaja, a
jackdaw. We also find AF. chowwe, a chough, in Wright’s Vocab.
1.145, 1. 16; and even OF. choe, choue, kauwe (Godefroy).
CHOUSKH, to cheat; orig. a cheat. (Ital.—Turkish.) Now a
slang word ; but 1.5 history is known. It was orig. a sb. Ben Jonson
has chiaxus in the sense of a Turk,’ with the implied sense of ‘a cheat.’
In his Alchemist, Act i. sc. 1, Dapper says: ‘ What do you think of
me, That I am a chiaus? Face. What's that? Dapper. The Turk
was [i.e. who was] here: As one would say, do you think I am a
Turk?’ The allusion is to a Turkish chiaus, or interpreter, who, in
1609, defrauded some Turkish merchants resident in England of
£4000; a fraud which was notorious at the time. See Kichard-
son, Trench’s Select Glossary, and Gifford’s Ben Jonson, iv. 27. Gif-
ford copied the story (without acknowledgment) from W. αὶ. Chet-
wood, Memoirs of Ben Jonson, 1756; p. 15 (N. & Ὁ. 9 5. v. 25).
The pl. chowses occurs in Ford’s Lady's Trial, ii. 2; and the pp.
chous’'d in Butler’s Hudibras, pt. ii. c. 3. 1. 1010 (ed. Bell, ii. 53). —
Ital. ciaus, an officer of the great Turk (Florio, 1611).— Turk. chawush,
explained as meaning ‘a sergeant, a lictor; any officer that precedes
a magistrate or other great man ; a herald, a pursuivant, a messenger ;
the head ofa caravan ;’ Richardson’s Pers. Dict. p. 534.
CHRISM, holy unction, holy oil. (F.—L.—Gk.) £ Anoynted
with the holye crisme ;’ Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 377 c. It occurs also
in Gen. and Exodus, ed. Morris, 1. 2458. Hence chrisome-child, a
child wearing a chrisome-cloth, or cloth with which a child, after bap-
tism and holy unction, was covered. [The o is merely inserted for
facility of pronunciation.] The spelling crisme or chrisme is due to
a knowledge of the Greek source. It was formerly also spelt creme
or creyme, as in William of Shoreham’s Poems, De Baptismo, 1. 144 (in
Spec. of Eng., ed. Morris and Skeat). - OF. cresme, chresme, explained
by Cotgrave as ‘the crisome, or oyle wherewith a baptised child is
annointed.’ = Late L. chrisma, sacred oil.—Gk. χρῖσμα, an unguent.
=Gk. ypiw, I graze, rub, besmear, anoint. Der. chrism-al ;_ chrisome-
cloth, chrisome-child.
CHRIST, theanointedone. (L.—Gk.) L. Christus. — Gk. Χριστός,
anointed. Gk. χρίω, I rub, anoint. See Chrism. Hence AS.
crist, Christ; AS. cristen, a Christian (Boethius, cap. i), afterwards
altered to Christian to agree with L. Christianus ; also AS. cristnian,
to christen, where the suffix -ian is active, so that the word is equiva-
lent to cristen-ian, i.e. to make a Christian; also AS. cristen-ddm,
cristenan-dom, Christendom, Christianity, the Christian world; Boe-
thius, cap. i. These words were introduced in very early times, and
were always spelt without any h after the c. The ἃ is now inserted,
to agree with the Greek. Der. Christ-ran (formerly cristen, as ex-
plained above) ; Chyisten-dom (i.e. Christian-dom, as shown) ; Chris-
tian-like, Christian-ly, Christian-ity, Christian-ise; christen (AS. crist-
nian, explained above) ; Christ-mas, for which see below. The mod.
E. long ἢ is due to F. influence.
CHRISTMAS, the birth-day of Christ. (Hybrid; Gk. and L.)
ME. cristesmesse, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 213; cristenmas, Gawain,
1. 985; cristemasse, Chaucer, C. T., Group B, 1. 126. AS. cristes
messe, Chron. an. 1021 (MS. D). From AS, crist, i.e. Christ ; and
AS. masse (ME. messe), a mass, festival. See Mass (2). Der.
Christmas-box ; see Box (2).
CHROMATIC, lit. relating to colours. (Gk.) Holland has the
expression ‘never yet to this day did the tragedy use chromatick
music nor rhyme ;’ Plutarch, p. 1022, And Dryden speaks of ‘ the
third part of painting, which is chromatique or colouring ;’ Parallel
bet. Poetry and Painting (near the end).—Gk. χρωματικός, suited for
colour. Gk. ypwpar-, stem of χρῶμα, colour: closely related to Gk.
χρώς, skin, covering, xpora, surface; and allicd to χρίειν, to rub over.
Der. chromatics.
CHROME, the same as Chromium,a metal. (Gk.) Its com-
pounds are remarkable for the beauty of their colours; hence the
CHRONICLE
name, given in 1797 (N. E. D.). The word is coined from Gk.
χρῶμα, colour. See above. Der. chrom-ic.
CHRONICLE, a record of the times. (F.— L.—Gk.) ME. cronicle
(always without ἃ after c); Trevisa, ii. 77; Prompt. Parv. p. 104.
The pp. cronyculd, i.e. chronicled, occurs in Sir Eglamour, 1339.
The sb. cronicler also occurs, Prompt. Parv.—AF. cronicle, Gaimar,
954; with unoriginal 7; we also find ME. cronique or cronike,a word
frequently used by Gower in his C. A., Il. ror, 817, &c. —OF. cron-
igue, pl. cronigues, ‘ chronicles, annals ;’ Cotgrave.— Late L. chronica,
a catalogue, description (Ducange) ; asing. sb., formed (mistakenly)
from the Gk. plural.—Gk. χρονικά, sb. pl. annals.—Gk. χρονικός,
relating to time (mod. E. chronic).—Gk. χρόνος, time. Der.
chronicl-er ; from the same source, chron-ic, chron-ic-al ; also chrono-
logy, chrono-meter, for which see below.
CHRONOLOGY, the science of dates. (Gk.) Raleigh speaks
of ‘a chronological table;’ Hist. of the World, b. ii. c. 22. s. 11.
Kither from F. chronologie (Cotgrave), or directly from the Gk.
xpovodroyia, chronology.=Gk. xpovo-, for χρόνος, time; and -Aoyia,
from λόγος, discourse, from λέγειν, to speak. Der. chronolog-ic,
chronolog-ic-al, chronolog-ic-al-ly, chronolog-er, chronolog-ist.
CHRONOMETER, an instrument for measuring time. (Gk.)
“Chronometrum or Chronoscopium perpendiculum, a pendulum to mea-
sure time with ;’ Kersey’s Dict. 2nd ed. 1715.—Gk. xpdvo-, stem of
xpévos, time; and μέτρον, a measure.
CHRYSALIS, a form taken by some insects. (Gk.) Given in
Bailey’s Dict., vol. ii. ed. 1731.—Gk. χρυσαλλίς, the gold-coloured
sheath of butter-flies, a chrysalis; called in Late L. aurélia (from
aurum, gold). Gk. χρυσ-ός, gold. Prob. of Semitic origin; cf. Heb.
harits, gold. The pl. is properly chrysalides.
CHRYSANTHEMUM, a flower. (L.—Gk.) In Lyte’s
Dodoens, bk. ii. c. 30.—L. chrjsanthemum.—Gk. χρυσάνθεμον,
a marigold.—Gk. ypua-ds, gold; ἄνθεμον, a bloom, from ἀνθεῖν, to
bloom. related to ἄνθος, a flower, a bud.
CHRYSOLITE, a stone of a yellow colour, (F.—L.—Gk.)
ME. crysolyt, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, A. 1009; with ref. to
Rev. xxi. 20.—OF. crisolit.—L. chrysolithus (Vulgate). Gk.
χρυσόλιθος, Rev. xxi. 20; lit. ‘a gold stone.’—Gk. χρυσό-, for
χρυσός. gold; and λίθος, a stone.
CHRYSOPRASE, a kind of stone. (L.—Gk.) ME. cryso-
pase [sic], Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, A. 1013; crisopace [sic], An
Old Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morr‘s, p. 98, 1. 174; with ref. to Rev. xxi.
20.—L. chrysoprasus (Vulgate).—Gk. χρυσόπρασος, Rev. xxi. 20;
a precious stone of a yellow-green colour, and named, with reference
to its colour, from Gk. χρυσό-ς, gold, and πράσον, a leek.
CHUB, a small but fat fish. (E.) ‘ A chubbe, bruscum ;’ Levins,
Manip. Vocab. col. 181, 1. 29. [Sometimes said to be named from
its large head, but it is rather its body which is thick and fat.
Besides, the resemblance to AS. cop, which signifies ‘top, summit’
rather than ‘head,’ is but slight.] B. Not to be separated from the
adj. chubby, i.e. fat; nor (perhaps) from the ME. chuffy, fat and
fleshy ; see Prompt. Pary. p. 77, note 1. Marston even speaks of a
“ chub-faced fop ;’ Antonio’s Revenge, A. iv. sc. 1. y. The word is,
doubtless, English, though the characteristic ch has not been ex-
plained. The prov. E. chub, a log of wood (E. D.D.), may be com-
pared with prov. Swed. (and Swed.) 4ubb, a block, log of a tree;
cel. tré-kumbr, tré-kubbr, a log of a tree, a chump; Norw. kubbe, a
log. These words are further allied to prov. Swed. kabba, kubba, to
lop, Norw. kubba, to lop. Even more remarkable are Swed. dial.
kubbug, chubby, fat, plump; Norw. kubben, stumpy. See Chump.
4 The word chub does not appear to have been in early use; we
commonly find the fish described as ‘ the chevin,’ which is a French
term. Cotgrave gives ‘Cheviniau, a chevin,’ a word apparently
derived from chef, the head, and properly applied rather to the ‘ bull-
head’ or ‘ miller’s-thumb,’ by which names Florio explains the Ital.
capitone, derived from L. capito, large-headed, from L. caput, the
head. Der. chubb-y (see explanation above) ; chubb-i-ness.
CHUCK (1), to strike gently; to toss. (F.—O. Low Ger.) We
use the phrase ‘to chuck under the chin.’ Sherwood, in his Index to
Cotgrave, writes ‘a chocke under the chinne.’? Chuck, to toss, was
also formerly chock, as shown by a quotation from Turberville’s
Epitaph on Master Win Drowned (R., s.v. Chock). Imitative; but
prob. suggested by F. choguer, ‘to give a shock ;’ Cotgrave. = Du.
schokken, to jolt, shake ; schok, a shock, bounce, jolt; allied to E. shock
and shake. See Shock. Der. chuck-farthing, i.e. toss-farthing ;
Sterne, Tristr. Shandy, c. ro. :
CHUCK (2), to cluck asa hen. (K.) A variant of cluck, Chaucer
has chuk for the sound made by a cock, when he had found a grain
of corn; Ὁ. T. 15180 (B 4364). The word is clearly imitative, like
Cluck. Der. chuck-le, in the sense of ‘cluck;’ also in the sense
“to fondle ;’ both of which senses appear in Dryden, as cited by Todd.
Cf. Norw. kukla, to chuckle, to cluck as a hen (Ross).
CICATRICE
CHUCK (3), achicken; Shak. L. L. L.v.1, 117, &c. (E.) Merely
a variant of chicken, q.v. Cf. Icel. Ayaklingr, a chicken.
CHUCKLE, to laugh in the throat. (.) “ Chuckle, to laugh by
fits ;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715. The suffix -/e gives it a frequentative
force. The sense now refers to suppressed laughter; as if related to
choke more immediately than to chuck. See Choke, Cauck (2).
CHUM, a familiar companion. (F.—L.) The N.E.D. quotes
“my chum Mr. Hody’ from Creech, Dedication to tr. of Theocritus,
in 1684. This is the earliest instance. Origin uncertain. [Some say
it is a ‘ corruption’ of chamber-fellow, which seems incredible ; and
the Bremen Worterb. identifies it with Low G. kumpaan, (often short-
ened to kump), a familiar companion (from French), which does not
seem to be possible.] Cf. prov. E. chummy, a chimney-sweep (which
is from chimney); E.D.D. Surely for chimney-fellow, i.e. fireside
companion (chimney = fireplace). Cf. Brand, Pop. Antiq. il. 452; i. 232;
and see Phil. Soc. Trans., 1902, p. 656.
CHUMP, a log of wood. (E.) ‘ Chump, a thick and short log, or
block of wood;’ Phi.lips, ed. 1706. A late formation; prob.
affected by chop, clump, &c. Common in dialects. Cf. Norw.
hump, a round eminence, a lump (Ross) ; also Icel. kumbr, as seen
in ¢re-kumbr,a tree-chump,alog. Cf. Icel. kumbr, equivalent to kubbr,
a chopping; from kubba, to chop. See Chub. Der. chump-end,
i.e. thick end.
CHURCH, the Lord’s house. (Gk.) In very early use. ME. chirche,
chireche, cherche ; also (in Northern dialects), kirk, kirke. ‘ Chireche is
holi godes hus, . . . and is cleped on boc kiriaka i, dominicalis ;’ the
church is God’s holy house, and is called in the book kiriaka, i.e.
dominical; O. Eng. Hom. ii. 23. AS. cirice, circe ; the pl. ciricean
occurs in Gregory’s Liber Pastoralis, tr. by “ἘΠ τε ; ed. Sweet, p. 5 ;
and see O. E. Texts. Cf. OSaxskerika, kirtka; Du. kerk; Dan. kirke ;
Swed. kyrka; Icel. hirkja; OHG. chiricha, MHG. kirche, G. kirche.
B. But all these are borrowed from Gk. κυριακόν, a church; neut. of
adj. κυριακός, belonging to the Lord, from Gk. κύριος, the Lord; cr
(rather) from Gk. κυριακά, pl., treated as a fem. sing. (as in other
109
cases). Κύριος orig. signified ‘mighty;’ from Gk. κῦρος, might,
strength. Cf. Skt. ¢ira-s, a hero; Zend gura, strong. Brugm.i.
§ 474. 4 The ctym. has been doubted, on account of the rareness
of the Gk. word κυριακόν ; but see the discussion in N. E. Ὁ. ; and
consider the high probability that the word must be Greek. Der.
church-man ; church-warden (see warden) ; church-yard (see yard).
CHURL, a countryman, clown. (E.) ME. cherl, cheorl ; spelt
cherl, Ormulum, 14788. AS. ceorl, a churl; also ‘ husband,” as in
John, iv. 18. + Du. kerel, a clown, fellow ; Dan. and Swed. ζαγὶ, ἃ
man; Icel. karl, amale, man (whence Scot. carle, a fellow) ; OHG.
charal, G. karl, a man,a male (whence Charles). Teut. type *kariloz ;
whence Finnish karilas, an old man ; Streitberg, § 97. Cf. Gk. yép-ov,
anold man. Der. churl-i h, churl-ish-ly.
CHURN, a vessel for making butter. (E.) ME. chirne, chyrne.
“ Chyrne, vesselle, cimbia, cumbia. Chyrne botyr, cumo ;’ Prompt.
Parv. p. 76. AS. cyrin; earlier form cirin (printed cirm), Corpus
Gloss., 1. 1866. ‘Sinum, cyrin;’ Voc. 280, 32. 4 Icel. kirna, a churn ;
Swed. kiirna, M. Swed. kerna, Dan. kierne,a churn. Further rela-
tions doubtful. Der. churn, verb ; cf. Swed. karna, M. Swed. kerna,
Dan. kierne, Du. kernen, to churn.
CHUTNEY, CHUTNY, a kind of hot relish. (Hind.) In
Thackeray, Vanity Fair, c. lix. § 6.—Hind. cha‘ni (Forbes, Yule).
CHYULE, juice, milky fluid. (F.—L.—Gk.) <A white fluid, due
to a mixture of food with intestinal juices; a medical term. In
Sherwood’s Index to Cotgrave we have: ‘the Chylus, chyle, chile ;’
50 that it was at first called by the Latin name, which was afterwards
shortened to the F. form chyle (given by Cotgrave), for convenience.
Both F. chyle and L. chylus are {rom the Gk. χυλόώς, juice, moisture. =
Gk. xéw (for yéF-w), 1 pour.—4/GHEU, to pour; whence also FE.
gush, q.v. Der. chyl-ous, chyl-ac-e-ous.
CHYME, juice, liquid pulp. (L.—Gk.) ‘Chymus, any kind
of juice, esp. that of meat after the second digestion ;’ Kersey’s Dict.,
and ed. 1715. Afterwards shortened to chyme, for convenience ;
chymus being the L. form.—Gk. χυμός, juice, liquid, chyme. — Gk.
xéw, I pour. See Chyle. Der. chym-ous.
CHYMIST, CHYMISTRY ; sce Chemist.
Care
CICATRICKH, the scar of a wound. (F.—L.) In Shak. Haml.
iv. 3. 62. - Εἰ, cicatrice, ‘a cicatrice, a skarre;’ Cot.—L. cicdtricem,
acc. of cicdirix,a scar. Der. cicatrise, verb; from MF. cicatrizer,
“to cicatrize ;’ Cot.
110 CICERONE
CICERONE, a guide who explains. (Ital.—L.) Used by Shen-
stone, died 1763 (Todd). First found in 1726.—Ital. cicerone, a
guide, lit. a Cicero.—L. Cicerdnem, acc. of Cicero, the celebrated
orator. Der. From the same name, Ciceron-ian,
CID, a title of Ruy Diaz, the national hero of Spain. (Span. — Arab.)
Span. Cid. — Arab. sayyid, a lord, prince; Rich. Dict. p. 864.
CIDER, a drink made from apples. (F.—L.—Gk.—Heb.) There
is no reason why it should have been restricted to apples, as it merely
means ‘strong drink.’ ME. sicer, cyder, syder. In Chaucer, C. T.,
Group B, 3245, some MSS. have ciser, others siser, sythir, cyder ; the
allusion is to Judges, xiii. 7: ‘cave ne uinum bibas, nec siceram.’
Sicer is here the L. form, and cider the F. form. =F. cidre, cider; OF.
sisre, sisdre, cisdre (Supp. to Godefroy, s.v. Cidre).—L. sicera, strong
drink. = Gk. σίκερα, strong drink. - Heb. shékar, strong drink. = Heb.
shakar, to be intoxicated. Cf. Arab. sukr, sakr, drunkenness ; Rich.
Dict. p. 838. 4 L. sicera became sis’ra; whence OF. sisre, later
sisdre, with excrescent d; later c?dre (with loss of s). The Walla-
chian /zighir, cider, preserves the guttural.
CIELING, CIEL; see Ceil.
CIGAR, a small roll of tobacco. (Span.) ‘Give me a cigar!’
Byron, The Island, c. ii. st. 19. Spelt segar in Twiss’s Travels
through Spain, A.D. 1773 (Todd),=—Span. cigarro, a cigar. Com-
monly supposed to be derived from cigarra, a grass-hopper; from a
fanciful resemblance to the insect’s body. (Monlau.)
CILIARY, pertaining to the eyelids or eyelashes. (L.) In
Johnson’s Dict., with a quotation from Ray. Formed as if from
L. *cilitiris, adj. ; from cilium, the eyelid.
CIMETER: see Scimetar.
CINCHONA, Peruvian bark. (Spanish.) Named by Linneus,
in 1742, after the countess of Chinchon, wife of the governor of Peru,
cured by it A.D. 1638. Hence the name should have been Chinchona.
Chinchon is a small town in New Castile (Pineda); and lies to the
E.S.E. of Madrid. f Distinct from quinine, q.v.
CINCTUREH, a girdle, belt. (L.) In Milton, P. L. ix. 1117.
{Not in Shakespeare, though sometimes inserted in K. John, iv. 3.
155.]—L. cinctiira, a girdle. —L. cingere, pp. cinctus, to gird.
CINDER, the refuse of a burnt coal. (E.) ME. sinder, sindyr,
cyndir, cyndyr. ‘Syndyr of smythys colys, casma;’ Prompt. Parv.
p- 456; ‘Cyndyr of the smythys fyre, casuma;’ id. p. 78. AS. sinder,
scoria, dross of iron; cf. ‘Scorium, syrzder;’ Wright’s Vocab. i. 86;
“scoria, sinder;’ O.E. Texts, Ρ. 95,1. 1808. NFries. sizder, slag.
+lcel. sindr, slag or dross from a forge; Dan. sinder, sinner, a spark
of ignited iron; also, a cinder; Swed. sinder, slag, dross; (ἃ. sinfer,
dross of iron, scale. [The Icel. verb sindra, to glow or throw out
sparks, is a derivative from sizdr, not vice versa; and therefore does
not help forward the etymology.} 4 The spelling cinder has super-
seded sinder, through confusion with the F. cendre (with excrescent d),
which is a wholly unconnected word, from the L. acc. cinerem, accus.
of cinis, dust. The F. cendre would have given us cender, just as
F. genre has given us gender. See below. The correct spelling
sinder (in use from the 8th century to the 16th) is not likely to be
restored. Der. cinder-y.
CINERARY, relating to the ashes of the dead. (L.) Not in
Johnson. Modern; seldom used except in the expression ‘ cinerary
urn,’ i.e. an urn for enclosing the ashes of the dead. {The word is
wholly unconnected with cinder (see above), and never used with
reference to common cinders.]—L. cinerdrius, relating to the ashes
of the dead. —L. cinis (decl. stem ciner-), dust or ashes of the dead.
+Gk. κόνις, dust. Brugm. i. § 84. Der. cinerar-ia, a flower; so
named from the ash-coloured down on the leaves.
CINNABAR, CINOPER, red sulphuret of mercury. (L.—
Gk.—Pers.) Spelt cynoper; Wyclif, Jerem. xxii. ry.‘ Cinnaber or
Cinoper (cinnabaris), vermillion, or red lead, is either natural or
artificial;” Llount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—Late L. cinnabaris, the
Latinised name. —Gk. κιννάβαρι, cinnabar, vermilion; a dye called
‘dragon’s blood’ (Liddell and Scott). Of oriental origin. Cf. Pers.
zinjarf, zingifrah, zinjafr, red lead, vermilion, cinnabar; Richard-
son’s Dict. p. 784. @ Distinct from sinople, q. v.
CINNAMON, the name of a spice. (L.—Gk.—Heb.) In the
Bible, Exod. xxx. 23, where the Vulgate has ciznamdémum. Also in
Rey. xviii. 13, where the Gk. has κινάμωμον. Both are from the
Heb. ginndmon, cinnamon; a word of non-Semitic origin; cf. Malay
kayu manis, sweet wood, cinnamon; from kiayu, wood, mdnis, sweet
(Gesenius). @ In ME., cinnamon was called canel, from the OF.
canelle, which Cotgrave explains by ‘our modern cannell or canna-
mon;’ where ‘cannamon’ is a misprint for ‘cinnamon,’ This canelle
is a dimin. of OF. cane, cane. . See Cane.
CINQUE, the number five. (F.—L.) Formerly used in dice-
play. See cing in Chaucer, C. T., Group C, 1. 653.—F. cing. =L.
quingue, five; cognate with Εἰ. five, q.v. Der. cingue-foil (see foil) ;
cinque-face, Much Ado, ii. 1. 773 see Nares.
LES.
CIRCUMSCRIBE
CIPHER, the figure o in arithmetic. (F.—Span.—Arab.) ME.
siphre, Richard the Redeles, ed. Skeat, iv. 53.—OF. cifre (mod. F.
chiffre, which see in Brachet), — Span. ci/ra, denoting ‘nothing.’ = Arab.
sifr, a cipher; Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 402 (the initial letter being
sad); lit. ‘an empty thing;’ from Arab. sifr, adj. empty. — Arab.
root safara, to beempty; Rich. Dict. p. 937. (A translation of Skt.
gunyam, a cipher, neut. of ganya-, empty.) Cipher is a doublet of
zero,q.V. Der. cipher, verb; de-cipher, from L. dé, in the verbal sense
of un-; cf. MF. dechiffrer, ‘to decypher ;’ Cot.
CIRCENSIAN;; see under Cireus.
CIRCLE, a ring, in various senses. (F.—L.) In very early use.
‘Feower circulas;’ i.e. four circles, A. 5. Chron. A.D. 1104; where
circulas is the pl. of AS. circul. [The spelling circle is due to the
influence of AF. and F. cercle.)—L. circulus, a circle, small ring,
dimin. of circus, a circle, a ring; cognate with E. ring, q.v.4-Gk.
κρίκος, κίρκος, a ring; AS. hring, a ring, circle. See Ring (1).
Der. circle, verb; circl-et, circul-ar, circul-ar-ly, circul-ar-i-ty, circul-ate,
circul-at-ton, circul-at-or, circul-at-or-y; and see circuit, circum-, circus.
CIRCUIT, a revolving, revolution, orbit. (F.—L.) Spelt cir-
cuite, Golden Boke, c. 36 (R.); circuit, Chaucer, C. T., 1889 (A 1887).
—F. circuit, ‘a circuit, compasse, going about ;’ Cot.—L. circuitus,
a going about.—L. cireuitus, circumitus, pp. of circumire, to go round,
go about. =—L. circum, around (see Cireum-); and ire, to go. = EI,
to go; cf. Skt. 7, to go. Der. circuit-ous, circuit-ous-ly.
CIRCUM., prefix, around, round about. (L.) Found in ME.
circum-stance, Ancren RKiwle, p. 316; and in other words. =L. cir-
cum, around, about. Orig. the accus. of circus, a circle. See Circus,
Cirele. For compounds, see below.
CIRCUMAMBIENT, going round about. (L.) In Blount’s
Gloss. (1681). Sir Τὶ Browne has circumambiency, Vulg. Errors, b. ii.
c. 1. § 13.—L. circum, around; and ambientem, acc. of ambiens, sur-
rounding. See Ambient.
CIRCUMAMBULATE, to walk round. (L.) In Blount's
Gloss. (1674).—L. circum, around; and ambulatus, pp. of ambulare,
to walk. See Ambdulation,
CIRCUMCISE, to cut around. (L.) ‘ Circumcised he was;’
Gen. and Exodus, ed. Morris, 1200. The ME. also used the form
circumcide, Wyclif, Gen. xvii. 11; Josh. v. 2. The latter is, strictly,
the more correct form.=—L. circumcidere, to cut around; pp. cir-
cumcisus.—L, circum, around; and cedere (pt. t. ce-cid-i), to cut.
See Cesura. Der. circumcis-ion ; from the pp. stem.
CIRCUMFERENCEH, the boundary of a circle. (L.) ‘The
cercle and the circumference ;’ Gower, C. A. iil. go; b. vil. 188.—
L. circumferentia, the boundary of a circle; by substituting the F.
suffix -ce for the L. -tia.— L. circumferent-, stem of circum/erens, pres.
pt. of circumferre, to carry round. =—L. circum, around; and ferre, to
carry, bear, cognate with E. bear, q.v. Der. circum/ferenti-al.
CIRCUMFLEX, lit.a bending round. (L.) ‘ Accent circonflex,
a circumflex accent ;” Sherwood’s Index to Cotgrave. Cotgrave him-
self explains the F. accent circonflex by ‘ the bowed accent.’ =—L. syllaba
circumflexa, a syllable marked with a circumflex. = L. circumflexus, pp.
of circumflectere, to bend round. =L. circum, around; and flectere, to
bend. See Flexible. Der. From the same source, circumflect, vb.
CIRCUMFLUENT, flowing around. (L.) In Pope’s tr. of
the Odyssey, i. 230. [Milton has circumfluous, P. L. vii. 270; from
L. adj. circumfluns, flowing around.]=L. circumfluent-, stem of cir-
cumfluens, pres. pt. of circumfluere, to flow round. = L. circum, around;
and fluere, to ow. See Fluid.
CIRCUMFUSE, to pour around. (L.) Ben Jonson has $cir-
cumfused light,’ in An Elegy on Lady Jane Pawlet; and see Milton,
P. L. vi. 778. —L. circumfisus, pp. of circumfundere, to pour around
(the L. pp. being made, as often, into an E. infinitive mood).=—L.
circum, around; and fundere, to pour. See Fuse (1).
CIRCUMJACENT, lying round or near. (L.) In Sir T. Browne,
Vulg. Errors, b. ii. c. 1. § 3.—L. circumiacent-, stem of circumiacens,
pres. pt. of circumiacére, to lie near or round. =L. circum, around ;
and iacére, to lie, properly ‘to lie where thrown,’ a secondary verb
formed from iacere, to throw. See Jet (1).
CIRCUMLOCUTION, round-about speech. (L.) In Udal,
prol. to Ephesians, fol. 125; and Wilson’s Arte of Rhetorique,
p- 178 (R.)=L. cireumloctitidnem, acc. of circumlocitio, a periphrasis.
Cf. L. circumlociitus, pp. of circumloqui, to speak in a round-about way.
=L. circum, around; and Jogui, to speak. See Loquacious.
Der. circumlocut-or-y.
CIRCUMNAVIGATE, to sail round. (L.) In Fuller’s
Worthies of Suffolk (R.)—L. circumnauigare, pp. -gatus, to sail
round. =L. circum, around ; and nauigare, to sail, from naui-s, a ship.
See Navigab'e. Der. circumnavigat-or, -ion.
CIRCUMSCRIBE, to draw a line round. (L.) Sir Τὶ More
has circumscribed, Works, p. 121 ἢ. Chaucer has the form circun:-
| scrive, Troil. and Cres. ν. 1865.—L. circumscribere, pp. -scriptus, to
CIRCUMSPECT
write or draw around, to confine, limit.—L. circum, around; and
scribere, to write. See Scribe. Der. circumscript-ion.
CIRCUMSPECT, prudent, wise. (L.) ‘Ful circumspecte and
wise ;’ Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 15. Sir T. Elyot has ctreum-
spection, The Governour, b. i. c. 24.—L. circumspectus, prudent ; orig.
the pp. of circumspicere, to look around.=—L. circum, around; and
specere, to look. See Spy. Der. circumspect-ly, -ness, -ion.
CIRCUMSTANCH, detail, event. (F.—L.) Inearlyuse. ME.
cireumstaunce, Ancren Riwle, p. 316.— AF. circumstance, Will. Wading-
ton, 1. 10359. =—L. circumstantia, lit. ‘a standing around,’ a surround-
ing; also, a circumstance, attribute, quality. (But the L. word was
assimilated to F.; the F. form is circonstance.) — L. circumstant-, stem
of circumstans, pres. pt. of circumstare, to stand round, surround. = L.
circum, around; and stare, to stand, cognate with E. stand. See
Stand. Der. circum:tant-i-al, -i-al-ly, -i-ate.
CIRCUMVALLATION, a continuous rampart. (L.) ‘The
lines of circumvallation;’ Evelyn's Diary, Aug. 3,1641; Tatler,no. 175.
Formed from a L. ace.*circumuallationem, from asupposed sb. *circum-
uallatio, regularly formed from the verb circumuallare (pp. -uallatus),
to surround witha rampart. —L. circum, around ; and uallare, to make
arampart, from uallum, arampart; whence also E. wall. See Wall.
CIRCUMVENT, to delude, deceive. (L.) ‘ I was thereby cir-
cumuented ;’ Barnes’ Works, p. 222; col. 2. Formed, like verbs in
-ate, from the pp. of the L. verb.—L. circumuentus, pp. of circum-
uenire, to come round, surround, encompass, deceive, delude. - L.
circum, around; and uenire, to come, cognate with E. come, q. v.
Der. circumvent-ion, -ive.
CIRCUMVOLVE, to surround. (L.) ‘All these [spheres] cér-
cumvolve one another like pearls or onyons ;” Herbert’s Travels, 1665,
P- 345-—L. circumuoluere, to surround; lit. to roll round.—L. cir-
cum, around; and xoluere, to roll. See Revolve, and Volute.
Der. circumvolut-ion, like pp. uoliitus.
CIRCUS, a circular theatre. (L.) ‘ Cireus, a circle, or rundle, a
ring; also a sort of large building, rais’d by the ancient Romans, for
shews, games, &c.;’ Kersey’s Dict. 2nd ed.1715. Also in Dryden,
tr. of Ovid’s Art of Love, b. i. 1. 159.—L. circus, a place for games,
lit. a ring, circle.4+Gk. «pixos, κίρκος, α ring; AS. hring,a ring. See
Ring, Circle. Der. circ-le, q.v.; also circensian, with reference to
games held in the Circus maximus at Kome, from circ-ensis, adj.
CIRRUS, a tuft of hair; fleecy cloud; tendril. (L.) In Kersey’s
Dict. 2nd ed. 1715; explained as ‘a tuft or lock of hair curled ;’ he
also explains cirri as having the sense of tendrils, but without using
the term ‘tendril.’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, has the adj. cirrous,
‘belonging to curled hair.’ = L. cirrus, curled hair.
CISSOID, a certain curve of the second order. (Gk.) Lit. ‘ivy-
like;’ because the cusp resembles the re-entrant angles of an ivy-leaf.
= Gk. κισσοειδ-ἧής, ivy-like. —Gk. κισσό-ς, ivy ; and εἶδ-ος, form.
CIST, a chest, a sort of tomb. (L.—Gk.) Sometimes used in
modern works on antiquities, to describe a kind of stone tomb. The
true E. word is chest, which is a doublet of cist.—L. cista, a chest. =
Gk. xiotn,a chest. See Chest; and see below.
CISTERN, a reservoir for water. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. cisterne ;
Maundeville’s Trav. pp. 47, 106; Wyclif, Gen. xxxvii. 24, Deut. vi.
11.—OF. cisterne.— L. cisterna, a reservoir for water; extended from
L. cista, a chest, box; see above. Cf. cav-ern.
CISTUS, a flower; the rock-rose. (L.—Gk.) Spelt céisthus in
Tumer’s Names of Herbes (1548). =—L. cistus.— Gk. κίστος, κίσθος.
CIT, short for ‘citizen,’q.v. (F.—L.) Used by Dryden, Prologue
to Albion and Albanius, 1. 43; Pope, Sat. of Donne, iv. 144.
CITADEL, a fortress in a city. (F.—Ital.—L.) In Milton,
P.L.i. 773; Shak. Oth. ii. 1.94, 211.—F. citadelle, ‘a citadell, strong
fort;’ Cot.—Ital. cittadella, a small town; dimin. of cittade, cittate
(mod. Ital. οὐδ ἃ) a city. L. cinitatem, acc. of ciuitas, a city.—L.
cini-, for ciuis, a citizen; with suffix -tas. See City.
CITE, to summon, to quote. (F.—L.) The sb. citation (ME.
citacion) is in early use, and occurs in Rob. of Glouc. p. 473; 1.9718.
The pp. cited is in Sir T. More, Works, p. 254 ἢ. -- Ε᾿ citer, ‘to cite,
summon,...to alledge as a text;’ Cot.—L. citare, pp. citdtus, to
cause to move, excite, summon; frequentative of ciére, cire, to rouse,
excite.+Gk. «iw, I go; κίνυμαι, I hasten. Der. citat-ion; also ex-
cite, in-cite, re-cite.
CITHERN, CITTERN, a sort of guitar. (L.—Gk.) Spelt
cithern, 1 Mace. iv. 54 (A. V.); cittern, Shak. L. L. L. v. 2.614. The
same as ME. gyterne, P. Plowman, B. xiii. 233; from OF. guiterne.
The x is merely excrescent, as in ME. gyter-ne. It is even found in
AS. in the form cytere, as a gloss to L. cithara in Ps. lvi. 11; Spel-
man’s A.S. Psalter. =—L, cithara.— Gk. κιθάρα, a kind of lyre or lute.
Doublet, guitar, q- V-
CITIZEN, an iahabitant of a city. (F.—L.) ME. citesein, citizein,
citesain. ‘A Koman citeseyn;’ Wyclif, Acts, xxii. 28 ; citezein, Chaucer,
Ho. of Fame, ii. 422. The forms citesein, citezein are Anglo-French ;
CLAM ill
the introduction of s or z was perhaps suggested by denizen. The
AF. pl. citezeins occurs in Liber Albus, p. 268. Hence citizen stands
for the AF. citizein. — OF. citeain (cf. mod. F. cifoyen), formed from
sb. cite, a city, by help of the suffix -ain < L. -Gnus.— OF. cite, F. cité,
acity. See City.
CITRON, the name of a fruit. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Milton, P. L.
v.22. Palsgrave has: ‘ Citron frute, citron; Citron tree, citronnier ; ἢ
Ρ. 205. [Cf. ME. citir, Prompt. Parv. p. 78, directly from L. citrus. ]
“-Εἰ citron, ‘a citron, pome-citron;’ Cot. Late L. citrénem, acc. of
citro, a citron; an augmentative form.—L. citrus, an orange-tree,
citron-tree ; whence Gk. κίτρον, a citron. Apparently a variant of
L. cedrus, a cedar, and thence transferred to denote an African tree
(citrus) with wood fragrant like that of the cedar; and finally to
the citron-tree.—= Gk. κέδρος, a cedar; see Cedar. Brugmann, i.
§ 764. Der. citr-ine, Chaucer, C. T., 2169 (A 2167); cttr-ic; citr-in-
at-ion, id., C. T. 16284 (ἃ 816). 4] Sitron-ade, a conserve of citrons,
occurs in the Earl of Derby’s Expeditions (C.S.), p. 228; an. 1393.
CITY, a state, town, community. (F.—L.) In early use. ME.
cité, Ancren Riwle, p. 228. —OF. cite, Εἰ, cité, a city. — Late L. czv’tatem,
an abbreviated form of L. ciuitatem, acc. of czuitas, a community, orig.
the quality of citizenship. —L. cZui-s, a citizen. B. Closely related to
Goth. heiwa-, a house; see Brugm. i. ὃ 609. See Hind (2), Der.
citizen, q.v., citadel, q.v.; and see civic, civil.
CIVE, CHIVE, a sort of garlic or leek. (F.—L.) ‘ Chives, or
Cives, a small sort of onion ;’ also ‘ Cives, a sort of wild leeks, whose
leaves are us’d for sallet-furniture;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715. The
pl. of cive.—F. εἶνε, ‘a scallion, or unset leek ;’ Cot. L. caepa, cépa,
céfe,an onion. 4 The form chive represents an ONorthF. chive.
CIVET, a perfume obtained from the civet-cat. (F.— Late Gk. —
Arab.) In Shak. Much Ado, iii. 2. 50; As You Like It, iii. 2. 66,
69. -- Εἰ civette, ‘civet, also the beast that breeds it, a civet-cat;’ Cot.
Cf. Ital. zébetto; from the medieval Gk. (απέτιον. τ Arab. zabad, as
in Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 317; or zubad, as in Rich. Dict. p. 767.
(The initial letter is zain.)
CIVIC, belonging to a citizen. (L.) ‘A civick chaplet ;᾽ Holland’s
Pliny, b. xvi. c. 4.—L. ciuicus, belonging to a citizen.—L. ciuss,
a citizen. See City.
CIVIL, relating to a community. (L.) ‘ Ciutle warre;’ Udal,
Matt. c. 10, fol. 66; ciuilytye is in Sir T. More’s Works, p. 951 h.=
L. ciuilis, belonging to citizens. —L. ciuis, a citizen. Der. civil-ly,
civil-i-ty ; civil-ise, Dryden, Stanzas on Oliver Cromwell, st. 17 5 e/vil-
is-at-ion ; civil-i-an, Wyclif’s Works, ed. Amold, i. 32, 1. 22, And
see City.
CLACHAN, a small village with a church. (Gael.) In Leslie’s
Hist. of Scotland (1595), i. 14, 1. 22 (S.T.S.).— Gael. clachan, (1) a
circle of stones; (2) a small rude church; (3) a small village with
achurch. So also Irish clachan, a hamlet, from Olrish clock, a stone.
CLACK, to make a sudden, sharp noise. (13.) ME. clacken, clakken.
‘ Thi bile [bill of an owl] is stif and scharp and hoked ., Tharmid
[therewith ] thu clackes oft and longe;’ Ow! and Nightingale, Il. 79-81.
Of AS. origin, though only represented by the pt. t. cleacode, with the
sense ‘he hurried ;’ A£lfric, Saints’ Lives, xxiii. 493. EFries. klakken.
Ἔα. kak, a crack; slakken, to clack, to crack (cf. Du, klakkebos, a
cracker, a popgun) ; Icel. kaka, to twitter as a swallow, to chatter as
apie, to wrangle; MHG. lac, a crack, break, noise; cf. also F. claguer.
B. Evidently a variant of Crack, q.v. ; cf. also Swed, knaka, to crack,
make a noise. Note the analogies; as clink: clank:: click: clack; and
again, as clack: crack τ: κλάζειν : κράζειν. Cf. clap, clatter; also Gk.
γλάζειν, to sing aloud, Irish glag-an, the clapper of a mill.
CLAD, a form of the pp. of the verb to Clothe, q.v.
CLAIM, to call out for, demand. (F.—L.) ME. clamen, claimen,
cleimen, to call for; Will. of Palerne, 4481; P. Plowman, B. xviii.
327.— OF. claim-, accented stem of clamer (claimer) to call for, cry
out. —L. clamare, to call out; a secondary verb, formed from the base
cal- appearing in L. calare, to cry out, publish, and in the Gk. καλεῖν,
to convoke, summon. Similarly, in Greek, we have κλῆσις, a call,
κλητεύω, Isummon.=—4/KAL, to make a noise, cry out; whence also
Trish cailech, W.ce‘liog,a cock; Stokes-Fick, p. 73. Der. claim-able,
claim-ant; and, from the same source, clam-our, clam-or-ous, &c.; see
clamour.
CLAM (1), to adhere, as a viscovs substance. (E.) Dryden has:
‘A chilling sweat, a damp of jealousy Hangs on my brows, and clams
upon my limbs;’ Amphitryon, Act iii (R.) [This word is not to be
confused with clem, to pinch, starve, as in Richardson, See clam and
clem distinguished in Atkinson’s Cleveland Glossary ; and see Clamp. |
The verb is due to confusion of ME: clam, sticky (see Clammy) with
ME. clemen, AS.cléman, to smear, from AS, clam, clay (also a plaster),
Exod. i. 14; cf. prov. Eng. cloam, earthenware, clomer, a potter. The
AS. claim corresponds to a West Germanic form *4lai-moz, m., from
a Teutonic root *klei, which is also the base of clay. See Clay.
CLAM (3), 4 kind ofclamp or vice. (E.) Closely allied to clamp.
112 CLAMBER
AS. clamm, clomm, a bond, fetter; Grein, i. 161. Hence applied to
various bivalve shell-fish, which shut tightly together.
CLAMBER, to climb with hands and feet. (Scand.) In Shak.
Cor. ii. 1. 226. The 6 is sometimes absent, giving a form clamer.
The form clamer’d up occurs in Harrington's Orlando, b. xix. st. 20
(R.); also in Palsgrave’s Dict.; for quotation, see Clasp. ME.
clameren ; ‘clameryn, repto;’ Prompt. Paty. p. 79; but we find clam-
brede up in Altenglische Legenden, ed. Horstmann, 1875; p. 194,
1, 400 (about 1300). [Another ME. clambren meant ‘to mass closely
together ;7 see examples in Matzner, e.g. Gawain and the Grene
Knight, ll. 801, 1722; from Icel. #/ambra, to pinch closely together, to
clamp, Dan. klamre, to grasp, grip firmly ; cf. G.4lammern, to clamp,
clasp, fasten together.] B. But in the sense of ‘climb,’ clamb-er is a
frequentative formed from clamb, pt.t.stem of AS. climban, to climb.
Similar formations are Low (ἃ. (Bremen) Alempern, to clamber, Low
G. klemmern (Berghaus), NFries. klemre, to clamber. See Climb.
CLAMMY, moist and sticky, viscous. (E.) ‘ Clammy as breed is,
nat through baken;’ Palsgrave. Earliest form claymy (see N. E. D.),
perhaps from AS. clam, clay (prov. E. cloam); but confused with an
adj. clam, sticky, with which cf. EFries. and Du. klam, Dan. klam,
Westphal. AZamm, clammy, moist. And see Clam (1), Clamp.
CLAMOUR, an outcry, calling out. (F.—L.) ME. clamowr,
Chaucer, C. T. 6471 (Ὁ) 889).—OF. clamur, clamowr. =. clamérem,
acc. of clamor, an outcry. L. clamdre, to cry out. See Claim. Der.
clamor-ous, clamor-ous-ly, clamor-ous-ness.
CLAMP, to fasten tightly; a clasp. (Du.) ‘And they were
ioyned close both beneth, and also aboue, with clampes ;’ Bible, ed.
1551, Exod. xxxvi. 29. ‘ Clamp, in joyners work, a particular manner
of letting boards one into another;’ Kersey. [Not in early use,
though the AS. clom, a bond, is a related word.|— Du. klamp, a clamp,
cleat, heap; Alampen, to clamp, grapple. Cf. Dan. k/ampe, to clamp,
to cleat; klamme, a clamp, a cramp, cramp-iron; Swed. klamp, a cleat;
Icel. klémbr, a smith’s vice, a clamp; G. klampe,a clamp. β. All
from Teut. *klamp, 2nd grade of *klempan-, *klimpan-, as seen in the
MHG. &limpfen, to press tightly together. Related on the one hand,
to E. clip, and on the other, to E. cramp; also to E. climb and clamber.
y. Compare also the form clam, signifying ‘a bond,’ represented by
AS. clom, a bond, which occurs in the AS. Chron. an. 942. Hence, by
vowel-change, Swed. &/amma, to squeeze, wring, Dan. klemme, to pinch,
Du. and G. klemmen, to pinch, prov. Eng. clem, to pinch with hunger.
CLAN, a tribe of families. (Gaelic.) Milton has clans, pl., P. L.
ii. got. -And see Leslie, Hist. of Scotland, i. 56, 1. 2 (5. T. S.).—
Gael. clann, offspring, children, descendants. 4 Irish cland, clann, chil-
dren, descendants; a tribe, clan; W. plant, children. ] Usually
regarded as borrowed from L. planta, a sprout ; but perhaps Celtic.
See Macbain; and Stokes-Fick, p. 63. Der. clann-ish, -ly, -ness;
clan-ship, clans-man.
CLANDESTINE, concealed, secret, sly. (F.—L.) Fuller speaks
of a ‘clandestine marriage ;’ Holy State, b. iii. c. 22, maxim 2.—F.
clandestin, ‘clandestine, close ;’ Cot.=—L. clandestinus, secret. Allied
to clam, secretly; see Vanitek, p. 1093. From the weak grade of
wv KEL, to hide; see Helm (1). Der. clandestine-ly.
CLANG, to make a sharp, ringing sound. (L.) As sb., the sound
of a trumpet; Shak. Tam. Shrew, i. 2. 207. We also find clangor,
3 Hen. VI, ii. 3. 18. The vb. clang occurs in ‘the clanging horns ;’
Somervile, The Chase, ii. 187. —L. clangere, to make a loud sound, to
resound; whence sb. clangor, a loud noise. + Gk. κλαγγῆ, a clang,
twang, scream, loud noise; allied to κλάζειν (fut. eAdyéw), to clash,
clang, make a din. An imitative word. See Fick, i. 534,538, 540.
Der. clang-or ; and see clank.
CLANK, to make a ringing sound. (E.) ‘He falls! his armour
clanks against the ground ;’ Cowley, Davideis, b. iv. 590. ‘ What
clanks were heard, in German skies afar ;? Dryden, tr. of Virgil, Georg.
bk. i. 638 (where the original has ‘armorum sonitum,’ 1. 474). The
word is prob. E., and related to clink ; see E.D. D., and cf. clack with
click, B, Otherwise,it was borrowed from Du. dank, a ringing sound ;
ef. Du. klonk, pt. τ. of klinken, to clink. Cf. Pomer. Aank, a ringing
sound; and see Clang. The word is imitative; see Clink.
CLAP, to strike together rather noisily. (E.) Very common in
Shak. L.L.L. vy. 2. 107, &c.; and in Chaucer, C. T., 7163, 7166,
(D 1581, 1584), ὅς. ‘He... clapte him on the crune’ (crown of
the head); Havelok, 1.1814. |The AS. clepp-etan, to palpitate, is a
secondary form; Voc. 473. EFries. klappen. + Icel. klappa, to pat,
stroke, clap the hands; Swed. Alappa, to clap, knock, stroke, pat;
Dan. klappe, to clap, pat, throb; Du. dlappen, to clap, smack, prate,
blab; MHG. dlaffen, to clap, strike together, prate, babble. Cf. Gael.
clabar, a mill-clapper, clack; clabaire, a loud talker (from E.). An
imitative word, allied to clatter, 4. v., and clack, q.v. Der. clapp-er,
clap-trap, clap-dish.
CLARET, orig. a light red wine.
or ‘clarified’ wine, but used rather vaguely.
(F.—L.) Properly a ‘clear’
ME. claret; with a by-
CLAVICLE
form claré, clarry (from L. claratum). ‘Claret, wyne, claretum ;’
Prompt. Parv. p. 79. Spelt claret, Allit. Morte Arthur, ed. Brock,
1. 200; [also claré, Havelok, 1. 1728; clarré, Chaucer, C. T., 1473
(A 1471).]—AF, claret, Charlemagne, ]. 585 ; OF. clairet, claret ; see
Cotgrave ; Late L. clarétum, a sweet mixed wine, clarified with honey,
&c.—L. clirus, clear, clarified, bright. See Clear.
CLARIFY, to make clear and bright. (f.—L.) ΜΕ. clar:-
Jien, sometimes ‘to glorify,’ as in Wyclif, John, xii. 28, where the
Vulgate has clarifica. OF. clarifier, to make bright. —L. clarificare,
to make clear or bright, to render famous, glorify.—L. clari-, for
clarus, clear, bright, glorious; and -ficdre, to make, for facere, to
make, in forming compounds. See Clear and Fact. Der. clarifi-
er, clarific-at-ton. See below.
CLARION, a clear-sounding horn. (F.—L.) ME. clarioun,
claryoun ; Chaucer, Ho, of Fame, iil. 150. — OF. claron, clairon (Supp.
to Godefroy) ; and prob. *clarion; the mod. F. is clairon, —Late L.
claridnem, acc. of clario, a clarion; so named from its c’ear ringing
sound. = L, clari- = cliro-, for clarus, clear. See Clear. Der. clarion-
et, clarin-etie, dimin. forms.
CLARY, a labiate plant; wild sage. (Late L.) Turner, Names
of Herbes (1548), explains Orminum as clarie, and gives the L. name
as sclarea; which Lyte (tr. of Dodoens), bk. ii. c. 79, spells scarlea.
The AS. form is slarige, slarege; see Cockayne’s A.S. Leechdoms,
ili. 345. From the Late L. sclarea, in Turner (as above) ; this form
being supported by AS. slarige. Little is known as to this obscure
word, which lost its initial sin E. Cf. Gk. σκληρός, dry.
CLASH, a loud noise; to make a loud noise. (E.) This seems
to be an Eng. variant of clack; cf. EFries. klatsen, to crack a whip;
and compare smash with smack; crash with crack; hash with hack.
‘He let the speare fall, . . . and the heed of the speare made a great
classhe on the bright chapewe [hat] of steel ;’ Berners, tr. of Froissart,
vol. ii. c. 186. See Clack. The word is imitative; cf. Dan. slash,
a smack (Larsen). Also Low G. lattsch (Berghaus), Du. lets, G.
klatsch, a clash; from the base ἀϊαέ in Clatter, q.v.
CLASP, to grasp firmly, fasten together. (I.) ME. claspen,
clapsen (the ps and sp being convertible as in other words ; cf. prov. E.
waps,a wasp). Spelt clapsed, clapsud, clasped in Chaucer, C. T. prol.
275 (Six-text print). ‘I clamer [clamber] or clymme up upon a tree
...that I may claspe bytwene my legges and myn armes;’ Palsgrave,
s.v. clamer. The form clap-s-en is an extension of a base claf-, to
embrace, of which we find traces in prov. Εἰ. clep, a clasp (E.D.D.),
G. klaf-ter, a fathom, Lith. gléb-ys, an armful; cf. also AS. clyppan,
to embrace, grasp, ME. cluppen, clippen, to embrace; and the form
may have been influenced by that of grasp. Cf. also clamp, to hold
tightly. See Clip, Camp; and observe the connexion of grasp
with grab, graptle.4Low G. and Pomeran. klaspe,a clamp. Der.
clasp-cr, clasp-knife.
CLASS, a rank or order, assembly. (F.—L.) Bp. Hall speaks of
‘classes and synods;’ Episcopacy by Divine Right, s. 6 (R.); Blount
has classe, Gloss. (1681); also in ed. 1656, s.v. Classical. Milton has
classick, Poem on the New Forcers of Conscience, 1. 7.—F. classe,
‘a rank, order;’ Cot. =L. classem, acc. of classis, a class, assembly of
people, an army, fleet. τ ΚΑῚ, to cry out, convoke, seen in L. calare,
climare; as explained above, 5.ν. Claim. 41 Bréal regards classis as
borrowed from Gk. κλῆσις, Dor. κλᾶσις ; from the same root. Der.
class-ic, class-ic-al, class-ic-al-ly, class-ic-al-ness, class-ic-al-i-ty, class-ics ;
also class-i-fy, class-i-fic-at-ion (for the ending -ify see Clarify).
CLATTER, to make repeated sounds; a rattling noise. (E.) As
sb.; ME. clater, Towneley Mysteries, p. 190. As verb; ME. clateren,
Chaucer, C. T., 2361 (A 2359). A frequentative of clat-, a by-form
of clak- (Εἰ. clack); formed by adding the frequentative suffix -er; hence
clat-er-en, to rattle. Found in AS. in the word clatrung, a clattering,
a rattle, glossed by crepitaculum (Bosworth). Cf. also AS. clador, a
rattle (O. E. Texts); EFries. Alattern, to clatter. Du. dlater, a rattle;
klateren, to rattle; Low G. dla/ern, to rattle. See Clack, Clap.
CLAUSE, a sentence, part of a writing. (F.—L.) In very early
use. ΜΕ. clause, Chaucer, Tr. and Cres. ii. 728; Ancren Riwle, p. 46.
=F. clause, ‘a clause, period ;’ Cot.—L. clausa, fem. of pp. clausus,
used in the phr. dratio clausa, a flowing speech, an eloquent period ;
hence clausa was used alone to mean ‘a period, a clause.’ Clausus is
| the pp. of claudere, to shut, enclose, close. OFries. sklita, to shut.
Brugm. i. § 795 g. See Close, and Slot (1). Doublet, close, sb.
CLAVICLE, the collar-bone. (F.—L.) Sir T. Browne has
‘clavicles or collar-bones;’ Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 1. § 8.—F. clavi-
cules, ‘the kannel-bones, channel-bones, neck-bones, craw-bones, ex-
tending on each side from the bottome of the throat unto the top of
the shoulder; Cot.—L. clauicula, lit. a small key, a tendril of a vine;
dimin. of L. clauis, a key, which is allied to Gk. «Anis, a key, κλείω, I
shut; and to Irish clo, a nail, peg, W. eloi, to shut. Stokes-Fick,
p- 103; Brugmann, i. § 633. Der. clavicul-ar; and see clef, con-clave;
also clav-ier, the key-board of a piano or organ.
CLAW
CLAW, the talon of a beast or bird. (E.) ME. claw, clau, clow ;
also εἶδε, cley (from AS. cléa). ‘Claw, or cle of a beste, ungula ;’
Prompt. Parv. p. 806. ‘ Oxé gap o clofenn fot and shedepp [divides]
hisé clawwes;’ Ormulum, 1224. AS. clawu, Voc. 307. 35; cla, Grein,
i. 162; pl. clawa, clawe, as in ‘clawe todé&lede,’ i.e. divided hoofs,
Levit. xi. 3; also εἶδα (O.E. Texts) ; cléo, Grein, 1. 163.4-Du. klaauw,
a paw, claw, clutch, talon, weeding-hook ; klaauwen, to claw, scratch.
(Cf. Icel. 416, a claw; Ala, to scratch; Dan. klo,aclaw; k/é, to scratch ;
Swed. klo, a claw; ld, to scratch; G. slaue, a claw, talon.] B. Claw is
related to clew, a ball of thread, q.v.; from a base *klau-, 2nd grade
of *kleu, to draw together ; cf. OHG. kluwi, forceps. See Clew.
CLAY, a tenacious earth. (E.) ME. clai, clei, clay, εἶεν. ‘ What
es man bot herth [earth] and clay;’ Hampole, Pricke of Conscience,
l.4t1. AS. cleg,in AElfric’s Gloss.; Voc. 146. 19.4-Dan. ἀΐων, kleg,
clay; Du. klet; G. klei. B. Teut. type *klat-ja, fem.; from *klai, 2nd
grade of Teut. root *kle?, to stick; cf. AS. clam (for *klai-moz), earthen-
ware; Gk. γλοι-ός, sticky matter. See Cleave (2) and Glue. Der.
clay-ey.
CLAYMORE, a Scottish broadsword. (Gaelic.) Spelt glaymore
by Dr. Johnson, Journey to the Western Islands (Todd) ; but better
claymore, as in Jamieson’s Sc. Dict. — Gael. claidheamh mor, a broad-
sword, lit. ‘sword-great ;’ where the dk is no longer sounded, and
the mh is ἄν. The sound somewhat resembles that of cli- in cli-ent,
followed by the sound of F. env- in environ. B. The Gael. claidheamh,
a sword, is cognate with W. cleddyf, a sword, Olrish claideb; cf. also
L. clad-es, slaughter, per-cellere, 10 strike. The Gael. mor, great, is
cognate with W. mawr, great, Irish mor, Corn. maur, Breton meéur,
great, AS. m#re, illustrious.
CLEAN, pure, free from stain. (E.) ME. clené, clené (disyllabic),
Layamon, i. 376. AS. cline, cléne, clear, pure, chaste, bright ; Grein,
i. 162.4-OSax. cléni, cleini; OF ries. klén; Du. klein, small; OHG.
chleint, ΜῊ Ὁ. deine, fine, excellent, small; mod. G. klein, small. B.
The original sense seems to have been ‘bright’ or ‘shining’; cf. Irish
glé, shining, pure, clean; Stokes-Fick, p. 119; Brugmann, § τού.
Der. clean-ness, clean-ly, clean-li-ness, cleanse (AS. clénsian, Grein,
1 163).
CLEAR, loud, distinct, shrill, pure. (F.—L.) ME. cler, cleer.
‘On morwe, whan the day was clere;’ King Alisaunder, ed. Weber,
1. 1978; ef. Florizand Blauncheflur, 280. —OF. cler, cleir, clair, pure,
bright. = L. clarus, illustrious, clear, loud. B. Curtius remarks that the
r belongs to the suffix, as in mi-rus, so that the word is cla-rus. It is
probably related to clamdre, to cry aloud; see Claim. Cf. Gk.
κλη-τός, called, chosen; from καλεῖν, to call. Der. clear, verb; clear-
ness, clear-ance, clear-ing, clear-ly ; cf. claret, clarify, clarion.
CLEAT, a piece of iron used to strengthen the soles of shoes ; a piece
of wood or iron to fasten ropes to. (E.) The radical sense is ‘clump,’
as applied to a firm and close mass, ME. clete, a wedge, also clite ;
Prompt. Parv. p. 81; (where clote is prob. an error for clete). As if
from AS. *cléat (whence *clyte>clite) ; from a Teut. type *klautoz,
m.; clearly seen in Du. doo, a ball, G. klosz, a clod, lump, ball; the
weak grade *k/xt- appears in Clot, q.v.
CLEAVE (1), strong verb, to split asunder. (E.) The pt. t. is
clave, Ps. Ixxvili. 15 (A.V.), sometimes clove; the pp. is cloven, Acts,
ii. 3, sometimes clef¢ (Micah, i. 4), but the latter is unoriginal. ME.
cleoven, cleven, kleven. ‘Ful wel kan ich kleuen shides;’ Havelok,
1. 917. AS. cléofan (pt. t. cléaf, pp. clofen), Grein, i. 163.4-Du.
hlieven; Icel. kljufa (pt. τ. klauf, pp. klofinn); Swed. klyfva; Dan.
klove ; ΟἿ. chlioban, G. Alieben. Teut. type *kleuban-, pt. τ. *klaub,
pp- *klubanoz. B. Perhaps related to Gk. yAvpev, to hollow out, to
engrave; L. gliibere, to peel. From4/GLEUBH; Brugmann,i. § 762
(1). Der. cleav-age, cleav-er; also cleft, q.v. [But ποῖ cliff.
CLEAVE (2), weak verb, to stick, adhere. (E.) The true pt. t.
is cleaved, pp. cleaved; but by confusion with the word above, the pt.
t. most in use is clave, Ruth, i. 14 (A. V.) Writers avoid using the
pp:, perhaps not knowing what it ought to be. However, we find
pt. τ. cleaved in Job, xxix. 10; and the pp. cleaved, Job, xxxi. 7. ME.
cleovien, clivien, clevien, cliven. “ΑἹ Egipte in his wil cliwed;’ Genesis
and Exodus, ed. Morris, 1. 2384. ‘Cleouied faste;’ Layamon, i. 82.
AS. clifian, cleofian, Grein, i. 163; a weak verb, pt. t. clifode, pp. clifod.
Ἔα. Kleven, to adhere, cling; Swed. dibba sig, to stick to; OHG.
chleben, G. kleben, to cleave to. All from Teut. base *klib-, weak
grade of Teut. strong verb *Aleiban-, pt. τι *klaib, pp. *hlibanoz.
‘Traces of the strong form appear in AS. d0-clifan, to cleave to; cf.
also OHG, kliban, MHG. dliben, to cling to, take root; Icel. kifa, to
climb, viz. by grasping the tree; Du. &lijf, ivy. See Climb.
4 Observe the complete separation between this word and the pre-
ceding one; all attempts to connect them are fanciful. But we may
admit a connexion between Εἰ. cleave (2) and Gk. γλία, γλοία, L.
gliten. glue. See Clay and Glue.
CLEEK, a large hook or crook, used by fishermen, and in playing
golf. (E.) From cleek, verb, to clutch or grasp; a Northern form allied
CLEVER 113
to ME. clechen (pt. t. clahte), to seize firmly, grasp with hands or claws;
Stratmann, p. 121. AS. form (not found) *cl&c(e)an, pt. t. *cl@hte.
Apparently from Teut. base * Adai-, * klei- ; see Clay and Cleave
(2); and not related to Clutch.
CLEF, a key, in music. (F.—L.) Formerly also spelt cliff:
“Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, or notes ;᾿ Ford, Lover’s
Melancholy, A. i. sc. 1,—F. clef, ‘a key, . .. a cliffe in musick;’
Cot. L. clauem, acc. of clinis, a key. See Clavicle.
CLEFT, CLIFT, a fissure, a crack. (Scand.) Spelt cliff, Exod.
xxxill. 22 (A. V.) ; some copies have cliffs for clifts, Job, xxx. 6. ‘Clyff,
clyft, or ry{te, scissura, rima,’ Prompt. Parv. p. 81 ; clifte in Chaucer,
tr. of Boethius, bk. 4. pr. 4, 1. 198. And in Cursor Mundi, 19842.
The form cliff is corrupt; the final ¢ distinguishes the word from cliff.
Apparently Scandinavian. —Icel. k/uft, a cleft; Swed. klyft, a cave, den,
hole; Dan. kléft, a cleft, chink, crack, crevice. B. The Icel. ἀλη is from
the weak grade of kljiifa, to cleave, split. See Cleave (1). @ The
mod. spelling cleft is due to the feeling that the word is connected with
cleave, so that the word is now thoroughly English in form, though
originally Scandinavian (unless there was an AS. cly/t).
CLEMATIS, a kind of creeping plant. (Gk.) ‘ Clema or Clematis,
a twig, a spray; a shoot, or young branch: among herbalists, it is
more especially applied to several plants that are fu!l of young twigs;’
Kersey’s Dict. 2nd ed. 1715.“ Late L. clématis, which is merely the
Gk. word in Latin letters.—Gk. κληματίς, brushwood, a creeping
plant; dimin. from κλήματ-, stem of κλῆμα, a shoot or twig. — Gk.
κλάειν, to break off, to lop or prune. Brugm. ii. § 661.
CLEMENT, mild, merciful. (F.—L.) Rare; in Cymb. v. 4.18;
and in Cath. Angl. (1483).—F. clement, ‘clement, gentle, mild ;’ Cot.
=L. clémentem, acc. of clémens, mild. Der. clement-ly, clemenc-y
(clemencie, Gascoigne, i. 52, The Recantation of a Lover, 1. 9; from
L. clémentia, mildness).
CLENCH, to fasten; see Clinch.
CLEPSYDRA, a water-clock. (L.—Gk.) ‘They measured the
hours ..in glasses called clepsydre;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors,
bk. v.c. 18, § 2.—L. clepsydra. = Gk. κλεψύδρα. — Gk. κλεψ-, for κλέπτ-
ew, to steal, and ὕδωρ, water; from the constant flow of the water.
CLERESTORY. (F.—L.) ‘And all with clere-story lyghtys ;’
Arnold's Chron. ed. 1811, p. li. ‘ Englasid glittering with many a
clere story ;’ Skelton, Garland of Laurel, 479. It might as well be
spelt clear story, since clere is merely the old spelling of clear. The
pl. cleare stories occurs in the Will of Hen. VI; Nichols, Royal Wills,
p- 393. Socalled because it is a story furnished with windows, rather
than because ‘it rises clear above the adjoining parts of the building,’
as sometimes said. ‘ The ¢riforium, or series of arches between the
nave and clerestory are called Je blyndstoris in the life of Bp. Cardmey ;’
Oxford Gloss. p. 57; quoted in Bury Wills, ed. Tymms, note on
. 253. See Clear and Story (2).
CLERGY, the ministry, body of ministers. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME.
clergie, frequently used in the sense of ‘learning ;’ [like F. clergé,
from Late L. cléricatus, clerkship] ; but also with the modern mean-
ing, as: ‘Of the clergie at London . . . a conseil he made ;’ Rob. of
Glouc. p. 563, 1. 11812.—OF. clergie, formed as if from a Late L.
*cléricia, a form not given in Ducange.—Late L. cléricus, a clerk,
clergyman.—Gk. κληρικός, belonging to the clergy, clerizal.—Gk.
κλῆρος, a lot, allotment, portion; in eccl. writers, the clergy, because
‘the Lord is their inheritance,’ Deut. xviii. 2; cf. Gk. τῶν κλήρων, A.V.
‘God's heritage,’ in 1 Pet. v. 3; but more especially Acts i. 17, where
the lit. sense is ‘ the lot of this ministry.” Moisy has the mod. Norman
clergt, the clergy. Der. clergy-man.
CLERK, a clergyman, a scholar. (F.—L.—Gk.) Orig. a
clergyman; ME. clerc, clerk, Ancren Riwle, p. 318. AS. clerc, a priest,
A.S. Chron. an. 963. Either from OF. clerc, or immediately from
L. cléricus, by contraction. Gk. κληρικός, belonging to the clergy,
clerical, one of the clergy. See further above. Der. clerk-skip; and,
from the L. cléric-us, we have cleric, cleric-al.
CLEVER, skilful, dexterous. (E.) Rare in early use. ‘As
cleverly as th’ ablest trap ;’ Butler, Iudibras, pt. i. c. 1. 1. 398 (first
published a.p. 1663). It is not easier to find an earlier example.
Sir T. Browne cites clever as a Norfolk word, in his Tract VIII
(Works, ed. Wilkins, iv. 205); see my edition of Ray’s Collection of
Eng. Dialectal Words, Eng. Dial. Soc. pp. xv, xvii. The Norfolk
word is commonly pronounced ‘ klay-ur,’ and is used in many various
senses, such as ‘handsome, good-looking, healthy, tall, dexterous,
adroit’ (Nall); also, ‘kind, liberal? (Wilkin). B. Mr. Wedgwood
ingeniously suggests a connexion with ME. cliver or clivre, a claw,
Owl and Nightingale, ll. 78, 84, 270; in this case ‘clever’ would
haye meant originally ‘ready to seize’ or ‘ quick at seizing,’ and the
connexion would be with Low].Scot. clever (to climb), and cleave (2),
to adhere. In accordance with this, the word cliver once occurs (in
the Bestiary, 1. 221, pr. in An Old Iing. Miscellany, ed. Morris) as an
adj. with the apparent sense of ‘ ready to seize,’ or ‘expert with the
I
114 CLEW, CLUE
claws ;’ cf. ME. clivers, claws, clutches, from AS. clifer,a claw. So
also, in Dunbar, Fenyeit Freir, 86, we find: ‘ Scho was so cleverous of
her cluik,’ she was so skilful to seize in her clutch. The base edif- is
the same as that of the AS. clif-ian, to cleave to; see Cleave (2).
+ EFries. tiifer, clever; Dan. dial, &/éver, klever (Molbech);
all for *Alifer, *kliver ; the Norw. iva, to climb, becoming ἀΐνυε ia
Danish. Kalkar hay MDan. sJever, sprightly, wily; so that the E.
word may be of Scand. origin; cf. Dunbar'’s clever-ous. {J It is
remarkable that clever practically took the place of ME. deliver,
nimble, Chaucer, prol. 84. But the words are not connected. Der.
clever-ness.
CLEW, CLUE, a ball of thread. (E.) The orig. sense is ‘a
mass’ of thread ; then a thread in a ball, then a guiding thread ina
maze, or ‘a clue to a mystery;’ from the story of Theseus escaping
from the Cretan Labyrinth by the help of a ball of thread. Thus
Trevisa, ii. 385: ‘3f eny man wente thider yn withoute a clewe of
threde, it were ful harde to fynde a way out.’ Cf. ‘a clue of threde;’
Gower, Ὁ. A. ii. 306; Ὁ. v. 5343. ΑΘ. cliewen, clywen, a ball of
thread; by loss of the final m. We find ‘glomus, clywen ;’ AElfric’s
Gloss., ed. Somner, Nomina Vasorum. And the dat. clitvene (clis-
wene) occurs in Gregory’s Pastoral, sect. xxxv; ed. Sweet, p. 240.-++
Du, &uwen, a clew; whence &luwenen, to wind on clews (cf. E. to
elew up asail); ΟἿ. chlinwa, chlinwi, chliwe, MH G.dliuwe, a ball, ball
of thread; MDu. dlauwe ; and cf. G.knduel (for *4lauel),aclew. Allied
to L. glu-ere, to draw together, glo-mus, a clew; from 4/GLEU (Tent.
*kleu-), to draw together. Cf. Skt. g/au-, a lump (Macdonell). See
Claw... Der. clew, verb (Dutch).
CLICK, to make a quick, light sound. (E.) Rather oddly used Ly
Ben Jonson : ‘ Hath more confirm’d us, than if heart’ning Jove Had,
from his hundred statues, bid us strike, And, at the stroke, click’d all
his marble thumbs ;” Sejanus, ii. 2. EFries. &likken. An imitative
word, derived, as expressing a slighter sound, from clack, by the
thinning of a tof. This is clearly shown by the Dn. &likklak, the
clashing of swords, and &/ikklakken, to clash together, lit. ‘ to click-
clack.” See Clack, and Clink.
CLIENT, one who depends on an adviser. (F.—L.) ME. client,
Gower, C. A. i. 284, bk. iii. 160; P. Plowman, C. iv. 396. =F. client,
“a client or suitor;’ Cot.—L. clientem, acc. of cliens, a client, a de-
pendent ona patron. Clienxs represents cluens, one who hears, i.e. one
who listens to advice; pres. pt. of cluere, to hear, listen. The L.
cluere is cognate with Gk. κλέειν, to hear, and Skt. gru, to hear. —
7 KLEU, to hear; whence also E. loud. Curtius,i.185. See Loud.
Der. client-ship.
CLIFF, a steep rock, headland. (E.) ME. clif, clef, cleve. Spelt
elif, Layamon, i. 82, where the later text has clef; spelt clewe, id. i. $1
(later text). AS. clif, a rock, headland; Grein, i. 164.+Dnu. dif, a
brow, cliff; Icel. kif, a cliff; also dleif, a ridge of cliffs. We also find
G.-Mippe; whence Du. klip, a crag, Dan. dleppe, Swed. klippa, a crag,
rock, @ Cf. AS. clif, cliff, with cliian, to cleave to; Icel. kif with
Icel. £ifa (pt. t. kleif), to climb. The connexion is probable.
CLIMACTER, a critical time of life. (F.—Gk.) Used by Sir
T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iv. c. 12. § 18. Now only used in the
derivative adj. c/imacter-ic, often tumed into a sb. ‘This Is the most
certain climacterical year;’ Massinger, The Old Law, Acti.sc. 1. ‘In
the year of his climacteric, sixty-three ; Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (1665),
Pp- 337-8. — MF. climactere, ‘climatericall (sic) ; whence l’anclimactere,
the climatericall year; every 7th, or 9th, or the 63 yeare of a man’s
life, all very dangerous, but the last, most ;’ Cot. — Late L. climactér,
borrowed from Gk.=—Gk. κλιμακτήρ, a step of a staircase or ladder,
a dangerous period of life.—Gk. κλῖμαξ (stem κλίμακ-), a ladder,
climax; with agential sullix -r7p. See Climax. Der. climacter-ic.
CLIMATE, a region of the earth. (F.— Gk.) See Climate in
Trench, Select Glossary. ME. cimat; Chaucer's treatise on the
Astrolabe, ii. § 39, 1. 18; Maundeville, p. 162; Gower, C. A. i. 8;
prol. 137-—OF. climcé (F. climat), a climate. —Late L. climat-, stem |
of clima. = Gk. κλίμα, gen. κλέματος, a slope, a zone or region of the
earth, climate. — Gk. «Atvew, to lean, slope ; cognate with E. Jean. See
Lean (1). Der. climat-ic, climat-ic-al, climat-ise. Doublet, clime.
CLIMAX, the highest degree. (Gk.) Puttenham has clymax ;
Arte of Ε. Poesie, iii. 19; ed. Arber, μι 217. “ Climax, a ladder, the |
step of a ladder, a stile; in Rhetorick, a figure that proceeds by de-
grees from one thing to another ;’ Kersey’s Dict. 2nd ed. 1715.—L.
climax. — Gk. xAtuag, a ladder, staircase ; in rhetoric, a mounting by |
degrees to the highest pitch of expression, a climax. =—Gk. «Aivew, to
lean, slope, incline; cognate with Εἰ lear, See Ihean (1).
CLIMB, to ascend by grasping. (E.) Very common. ΜΕ.
climben, Layamon, i. 37; pt. t.« he clomb,’ Ancren Riwle, p. 354; ‘the
King .. - clam,’ Rob. of Ἰοῦς: p. 333. ΑΒ. climban, pt. t. clamb, pl.
clumbon ; A.S. Chron. an. 1070. We find also the derivative clymmiaz,
Grein, i. 164.4+-Du. Mimmen; OHG. chilimban, MHG. klimmen, to
climb. B. The original sense is ‘to grasp fimnly,’ as in climbing
CLIQUE
a tree; and the connexion is with Icel. 2/i/a, to climb, AS. c!ijian, to
cleave to. Streitberg, § 203. See Cleave (2), and Clamber.
CLIMB, a tegion of the earth. (Gk.)_ In Shak. Rich. II. i. 3.
285.—L. clima, a climate.=—Gk. κλίμα, a climate. Doublet, climate,
See Climate.
CLINCH, CLENCHG, to rivet, fasten firmly. (E.) ME. clenchen.
‘Clenchyn, retundo, repando ;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 80. ‘I clencheanayle;"
also ‘I clynche nayles;’ Palsgrave. ‘ The cros was brede, whon Crist
for us theron was cleyn?,’ i.e. fastened ; Legends of the Holy Rood, ed.
Morris, p. 138. The pp. cleynt points to an infin. clenchen, just as the
pp- ἀγειπὲ is from drenchen, to drown. We also find ME. clenken, to
strike smartly, Allit. Morte Arthure, 1. 2113. This is the causal of
clink, a by-form of cling, and means ‘to make to clink,’ to make to
stick fast (see below). Du, &linken, to clink, to rivet, kink, a blow,
rivet; Dan. klinke, a latch, rivet, Aénke, to clinch, to rivet ; Swed.
klinka, a latch, also, to rivet; OHG. chlankkan, clenkan, MHG.
klenken, to knot together, knit, tie; MHG. dlinke, a bar, bolt, latch.
Teut. type *Mankjan- (> *klenkan, *klinkan), causal of a type *klinkan-
(pt. t. *4/ank), as seen in EFries. and Low ὦ. Minhken, klingen, to
cling, to become drawn, to shrivel wp. See Cling. Cf. ME. clengen,
causal of clingen (Stratmann). Der. clinch-er.
CLING, to adhere closely. (E.) ME. clingen,to become stiff; also,
to adhere together. ‘ In cloddres of blod his her was clunge,’ i.e. his
hair was matted; Legends of the Holy Rood, ed. Morris, p. 142. AS.
clingan (pt. t. clang, pp. clungen), to shrivel up by contraction, to dry
up; Grein, i. 164. Cf. Dan. &lynge, to cluster, k/ynge, a cluster ; Swed.
klange, a tendril, a clasper; OHG, eclunga, a clew.
CLINICAL, relating to a bed. (F.—L.—Gk.) Sometimes clinick
occurs, but it is rare; it means one lying in bed; ‘the clinick or sick
person ;” Bp. Taylor, Sermons, Of the Office Ministerial; see too his
Holy Dying, 5. 6. c. 4.—F. clinique, ‘one that is bedrid ;? Cot.=L.
clinicus, a bedrid person (St. Jerome); a physician that visits patients
in bed (Martial). —Gk. «Auuxés, belonging to a bed; a physician who
Visits patients in bed; ἡ κλινική, his art.—Gk. κλίνη, a bed. —Gk.
κλίνειν, to slope, to liedown. See ean (1).
CLINE, to tinkle, make a ringing noise. (E.) Intrans. : ‘ They
herde a belle clinke ;? Chaucer, C. T., 12598 (C 664). Also trans. :
51 shal clinken yow so mery a belle,’ id. 12925 (B 1186). EFries.
klinken ; pt. t. klunk (ong. klank), pp. klunken, to clink.-+-Du- klinken,
to sound, tinkle (pt. τ. Alonk ; pp. geklonken) ; Dan. klinge, to sound,
jingle, &lingre, to jingle (frequentative); Swed. Alinga, to ring, clink,
tingle; Icel. Aving, interj. ting! tang! klingja, to ring. Clink is the
nasalized form of click, and the thinner form of clank. As click: clack::
clink: clank. Der. clink-er.
CLINKER, a cinder, or hard slag. (Du.) ‘ Clinkcrs, those
bricks that by having much nitre or salt-petre in them (and lying
next the fire in the clamp or kiln) by the violence of the fire, run and
are glazed over ;’ Bailey’s Dict. vol. ii. ed. 1731. Evelyn, in his
Diary, Aug. 19, 1641, refers to the clincars, or sun-baked bricks, with
which Amsterdam was paved. Not in early use, but borrowed from
Dutch ; however, the word simply means ‘that which clinks,’ from
the sonorous nature of these hardened bricks, which tinkle on striking
together. - MDu. dlinckaect, ‘a hard and sounding bricke,’ Hexham ;
Du. &linker, that which sounds, a vowel, a hardened brick; from
klinken, to clink; cf. Dan, dlinke, a hard tile. See above.
CLINKER-BUILT, applied to boats in which over-lapping
boards are clinched together with copper nails. (I) From clinker,
a clinch-nail ; which is from clink, to fasten together by a blow, 2
Northern verb of which clinch is the usual form ; see Clinch.
CLINQUANT, glittering. (F.—Du.) In Shak. Hen. VII, i. 1.
19. Said of spangles; lit. ‘tinkling.’—OF. clinguant (Godefroy) ;
pres. pt. of clinguer, to clink. = Du. AJinken, to clink; see Clink.
CLIP (1), to shear, to cut off. (Scand.) ME. clippen, to cut off,
shear off; Ormulunm, Il. 1189, 4106, 4142.—Icel. kl:ppa, to clip, cut
the hair; Swed. £vippa, to clip, shear, cut; Dan. Alipfe, to clip, shear.
Cf. also NFries. Alafpe, klepfe, to clip, shear; which suggests a con-
nexion with clap ; with reference to the clicking of the shears. Der.
clipd-er, clipp-ing.
| CLIP (2), toembrace, to grip. (E.) In Shak. Coriolanus, i. 6. 29.
ME. clipten, Chaucer, C. T., & 2413; cluppen, Ancren Riwle, p. 424-
| AS. clyppan; Grein, i. 164. Teut.type *kluppjan- ; cf. OHG, kluppa,
| forceps, tongs; from the weak grade of the Teut. ἐλ =Idg. *gleb,
to embrace, as in Lith. gleb-ys, an armful, OHG. dlajter, a cord of
wood,
CLIPPER, a fast horse, a fast ship. (Du.) Modem; modified
from Du. dlepper, a stced.— Dua. kleppen, to clap; with reference to
the noise of hoofs. See Clap. Cf. Notes on E. Etym. p. 38.
CLIQUE, a gang, set of persons. (F.—Du.) Modem. From F.
cligue, ‘a set, coterie, clique, gang; ’ Hamilton and Legros, French
| Dict. And sze Hatzfeld.— MF. cliguer, to click, clack, make a noise ;
| Cot.— Dn. ἀπάξει, to click, clash ; also, to inform, tell; whence &/:k-
i
Ϊ
|
j
CLOAK, CLOKE
ker, a telltale. [It probably meant a noisy gang, a set of talkers;
cf. F. clagueur, a clapper of hands.] The Du. word is cognate with
E. click. See Click.
CLOAK, CLOKE, a loose upper garment. (F.—C.) Cloke in
S. Matt. v. 40 (A. V.). ME. cloke, Chaucer, C. T. prol. 157;
Layamon, ii. 122 (later text). — OF. cloke, clogue,also cloche; Godefroy,
s. v. cloche.— Low L. cloca, a bell; also, a horseman’s cape, because
its shape resembled that of a bell; see Chaucer, Prol. 263. See
further under Clock, which is its doublet.
CLOCK, a measurer of time. (F.—C.) ME. clok, clokke,
Chaucer, C. T., 4434 (B14). [Cf AS. clugga, a bell (Lat. campana),
fElfred’s tr. of Peda, iv. 23 (Bosworth).} The clock was so named
from its striking, and from the bell which gave the sound. ‘ A great
clock put up at Canterbury, A.D. 1202: Haydn, Dict. of Dates. =
AF. cloke, a bell, Gaimar, 1. 2728; ONorthF. clogue, OF. and F.
cloche, a bell; cf. MDu. klocke (Du. kluk), a bell. Low L. clocca, a
bell. β. The origin of the word is disputed, and some difficulty is
caused by its being so widely spread; still, the Celtic languages give
a clear etymology for it, which is satisfactory. Cf. Irish clog, a bell,
a clock; clogan, a little bell; clogaim, I ring or sound as a bell;
Olrish cloc, a bell; W.and Corn. c/och, a bell. y. In other languages
we find Low L. clocca, cloca, a bell (whence F. cloche), Du. klok, a
bell, clock ; Icel. Alukka, old form klocka, a bell; Dan. klokke, a bell,
clock ; Swed. klocka, a bell, clock, bell-flower; Du. ἀϊοῦ, a clock,
orig. a bell; G. glocke, a bell, clock ; all, apparently, of Celtic orizin.
Celtic types *klukkos, *klukka; Stokes-Fick, p. 103. Cf. Gael. clag,
a bell; Gk. κλάζειν, to clash. See Clang. Der. clock-work.
CLOD, a lump or mass of earth. (E.) A parallel form to clot,
which has much the same meaning. ‘Clodde, gleba;’ Prompt. Parv.
p- 83. Pl. cloddes, Palladius on Husbandry, bk. ii. st. 35 bk. xii. st. 2.
{ But, earlier than about A.D. 1400, the usual spelling is clot. ‘The
cloitis therof ben gold,’ Lat. glebze illius aurum; Wyclif, Job, xxviii.
6.) But AS. clod- occurs in compounds, as in clod-kamer, a field-
fare ; and Clod- in proper names ; cf. W. Flem. d/odde, a ball (as of
tow), De Bo ; Swed. dial. Alodd, alump of snow or clay. Teut. type
*klu-do-, from the weak grade of *kleu-, to stick together. See
Clew, Cloud. Der. clod-hopper (a hopper, or dancer, over clods) ;
clod-poll, clod-pate. § Irish and Gael. clod are borrowed from English.
CLOG, a hindrance, impediment. (Scand.) The verb ἐο clog is
from the sb., not vice versa. The sense of ‘wooden shoe’ is merely
an extension of the notion of block, clump, or clumsy mass. ME.
clogge, as in: ‘ Clogge, truncus,’ i.e. a block ; Prompt. Parv., p. 83.
* Clogge, billot ;’ Palsgrave. The final hard g makes a Scand. origin
probable. Cf. Norw. Alugu, a hard knotty log of wood (Ross).
Ἴ The Lowl. Sc. clag, a clot, and claggy, covered with adhesive
mire, were associated with clog to some extent in late uses, but are of
different origin; they appear to be connected with clay. Der.
clog, verb.
CLOISTER, a place of religious seclusion. (F.—L.) ME. cloister,
cloistre; Chaucer, C. T. prol. 181.—AF. cloister, Langtoft, i. 96;
OF. cloistre (mod. F. clottre). = L. claustrum, a cloister, lit. ‘ enclosure.’
=L. claudere, pp. clausus, to shut in, enclose. See Close (1). Der.
cloistr-al, claustr-al, cloister-ed.
CLOKE, old spelling of Cloak, q. v.
CLOSSE (1), to shut in, shut, make close. (F.—L.) In early use.
ME, closen; the pt. t. closed, enclosed, occurs in Havelok, 1. 1310.
The verb was formed from the pp. clos of the French verb, or from
other parts of the verb in which the stem clos- occurred ; cf. OF. clos,
pp- of OF. clore, to enclose, shut in.—L. claudere (pp. clausus), to
shut, shut in. See Clause.
CLOSE (2), adj., shut up, confined, narrow. (F.—L.) In Allit.
Poems, ed. Morris, i. 183. Also as sb., ME. clos, cloos, close, an en-
closed place; Rob. of Glouc. p. 7, 1. 154.—OF. clos; see above.
Der. close-ly, cloce-ness, clos-ure ; clos-et, q. V.
CLOSET, asmall room, recess. (F.—L.) ‘The highere closet
of hir hows,’ Wyclif, Tobit, iii. 10; Chaucer, Troil. and Cres. ii.
1215.—OF. closet, in Godefroy, who gives: § Closet, Clozet,s.m., petit
clos, petit enclos.’ A dimin. from OF. clos, an enclosed space, a close,
by affixing the dimin, suffix -et. Clos was orig. the pp. of OF. clore,
to shut, L. clavdere; see above. Der. closet, verb.
CLOT, a mass of coagulated matter. (E.) Still in use, and now
somewhat differentiated from clod, though in ME, the senses of the
two words differed but little. ME. clot, clotte; ‘a clot of eorthe’=
a clod of earth, Ancren Riwle, p. 172. ‘Stony clof/es,’ Trevisa, ii.
23, where the Lat. text has ‘globos saxeos.’ The orig. sense is
‘lump.’ AS. cloft, clot (rare); ‘Massa, of clyne vel clo‘tum;’
Haupt’s Zeitschrift, ix. 488 ; ‘massa, clyne, clotte;’ Napier’s OE.
Glosses.4+MDu. klot, ‘a clod of earth,” Hexham; allied to MDu.
kluyte, “ἃ clod of earth,’ id.; and to EFries. klute, klafe, a lump;
Ὁ. klotz, alog. Teut. type *klut-to-, from the weak grade of Tent.
base *klent-. See Cleat, Clout, Cluster, Clew.
CLOVE 115
CLOTH, a garment, woven material. (E.) ME. cloth, clath:
Ancren Riwle, p. 418; Layamon, ii. 318. AS. clad, a cloth, a
garment; Grein, i. 162.4-Du. AJeed, clothes, dress ; G. Aleid, a dress,
garment. β. Origin unknown, but evidently a Teutonic word.
The Icel. kl@di, Swed. klade, Dan. klede, cloth, do not exactly corre-
spond in form. Der. cloth-es, from AS. cladas, the pl. of clad ;
also clothe, verb, q. v.
CLOTHE, to cover with a cloth. (E.) ME. clathen, clothen,
cleden ; Ormulum, 2710; Havelok, 1138. The pt. t. is both clothede
and cladde, the pp. both clothed and clad. Clad occurs in the
Romaunt of the Rose, l. 219; and isstill in use. ONorthumb, cl@den,
pt. τ clgdde, Matt. xxv. 36; which accounts for the form clad.
Formed from AS. clad, cloth; sce above.4Du. Aleeden, from kleed ;
so also (ἃ. kle:den, from kleid. The Icel. verb was ἀίαδα, pt. t.
kleddi, pp. kleddr. Der. cloth-i-er, cloth-ing.
CLOUD, a mass of vapours. (E.) ME. cloud, clowde. ‘Moni
clustered clowde’ =many a clustered cloud, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris,
LB. 367. The spellings cloyd, clowde, cloud, cloude, clod, occur in the
Cursor Mundi, 2580, 2872. Earlier examples are scarcely to be
found in the same sense, but the word is identical with ME. clid,
a mass of rock, ahill, ‘The hulle was biclosed mid cludes of stone’
=the hill was enclosed with masses of stone; Layamon i. 370, 371.
B. In corroboration of this identification, we may observe (1) that
the sense of ‘ mass of rock ’ passed out of use as the newer applica-
tion of the word came in; (2) that both words are sometimes found
with a plural in -ex as well as in -es; and (3) the orig. sense was
simply ‘conglomeration’ or ‘cumulus.’ Indeed, we find the ex-
pression ‘clowdys of clay,’ i.e. round masses of clay, Coventry
Mysteries, p. 402. y. From AS. clad, properly ‘a round mass,’
used in AS, to mean ‘a hill’ or ‘ mass of rock,’ but easily transferred
to mean ‘cloud’ at a later period, because the essential idea was
‘mass’ or “ ball, and not ‘rock.’ In Orosius, iii. 9. sect. 13 (ed.
Sweet, p. 132. 10), we read of a city that was ‘mid cladum ymb-
weaxen,’ i.e. fortified with masses of rock. δ. The AS. clii-d is con-
nec‘ed with the root seen in clew (Teut. root *k/ew) ; the weaker grade
appearing in clo-d. See Clew, Clod. Der. cloudy, cloud-i-ly, cloud-
i-ness, cloud-less, cloud-let (diminutive).
CLOUGH, a hollow ina hill-side. (E.) A clough, or clowgh, is
a kind of breach or valley downe a slope from the side of a hill, where
commonly shragges, and trees doe grow. It is the termination of
Colclough or rather Coldclough, and some other sirnames;’ Ver-
stegan, Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, c. 9. ME. clow, clough ;
“Sende him to seche in clif and clcw;? Cursor Mundi, Trin. MS.,
1.17590. Also spelt clew, Allit. Morte Arthur, 1639; and (in Scottish)
cleuch, Wallace, iv. 539. The cor.esponding AS. form would be *clok,
not yet found; but the parallel OHG. lah occurs in Klihuelde
(Foerstemann, ii. 371). These answer to Teut. *k/anxo-, from klanx-,
2nd grade of a root *#lenx, appearing in OIIG. cling-o, a torrent,
a gorge (Schade). Cf. Low G, Aang, also klinge, a torrent (Scham-
bach); &linge, a defile, Aingende beek, a rushing stream (Berghaus).
From the noise. (Academy, Aug. 31, and Sept. 7, 21, 1889.)
CLOUT, a patch, rag, piece of eloth. (E.) ME. clout, clut; Ancren
Riwle, p. 256. AS. cla¢; we find ‘commissura, οἰ τι; i.e. patch; in
/Elfric’s Glossary, ed. Somner, Nomina Vasorum, p. 61. [Hence
were borrowed W. clwt, Corn. clut, a piece, patch, clout; Irish and
Gael. clud, a clout, patch, rag.] Orig. sense, ‘ mass, piece of stuff ;’
Teut. type *4lit-oz, from Teut. root *kleu/, of which the weaker
grade occurs in Clot. Closely allied to Cleat. Der. clout,
verb.
CLOVES (1), akind of spice. (F.—L.) ‘There is another fruit that
commeth ont of India, like vnto pepper-cornes, and it is called cloues ;’
Holland’s Pliny, bk. xii.c. 7. Cotgrave has: ‘ cloude girofle,a clove.’
ME. clow, clowe; the latter is in Prompt. Parv.; and Chaucer has
clowe gilofre,C.T., 13692 (B1952). In the 16th cent. it became cloue
(=clove), prob. by the influence of Ital. ch’ovo, a clove, or by confusion
with clove (2), which was an older word. =F. clow, a:nail; whence
clou de girofle, a clove, which resembled a nail.—L. claxum, acc. of
cliuus,anail. See Cloy. Der. cl-ve-p'nk. @ There is also a weight
called a clove (=7 pounds of wool) ; see Clove (3).
CLOVE (2), a bulb, or tuber. (E.) ‘A bulb has the power of
propagating itself by developing, in the axils of its scales, new bulbs,
or what gardeners call cloves;’ Lindley, Botany, bk. i. c. 2. sect. 2.
ME. clof, cloue, clowe. Clowe of garlykke, clove of garlek ;* Prompt.
Parv. ¢ A lekes clof;? Guy of Warwick, A 3644. AS. clufu, Leech-
doms, ii. 336; also in the compounds clufJung, crowfoot, Ranunculus
sceleralus, where εἶτ} means ‘tuber,’ and Jung, poison, from the acrid
principle of the juices; and in clufwyrt, the buttercup, Ranunculus
acris; see Gloss. in Cockayne’s Leechdoms, iii. 319. [1 suspect the
cluf-wyrt is rather the Ranunculus bulbosus, or bulbous buttercup; at
any rate cluf-wyrt means ‘bulb-wort.”] The orig. sense of AS. clufu
was one of the small bulbs which make up the whole bulb of garlic,
I 2
116 CLOVE
&c.; so named from its cleavage.
cléofan, to cleave; see Cleave (1).
CLOVE (3), a denomination of weight. (F.—L.) A clove of
cheese is about 8 lbs.; of wool, about 7 lbs. ; Phillips (1706), The
word appears in the Liber Custumarum, where it is spelt clous, pl., in
Anglo-French (p. 63), and clawos, acc. pl., in Latin (p. 107). This
gives the etymology, and shows that it is identical with clove (1); see
note on Clove (1) above. Ducange has clavus line, a certain weight
or quantity of wool, which he notes as being an Eng. use of the word.
Clavus seems to have meant ‘lump’ as well as ‘nail.’ Cf. Ital. chiova,
‘a kind of great weight in Italy’ (Torriano).
CLOVER, a kind of trefoil. (E.) ME. claver, clover; spelt
clauer, Allit. Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, ]. 3241. AS. clafre, O. E. Texts,
p- 47, 1. 3753 cléfre, fem. (gen. cl#fran), Gloss. to Cockayne’s Leech-
doms, q.v.+Du. aver, clover, trefoil; whence Swed. kléfver, Dan.
hléver; cf. G. klee. B. The suggestion that it is derived from AS.
cléofan, to cleave, because its leaf is three-cleft, is inconsistent with
phonology and impossible.
CLOWN, a clumsy lout, rustic, buffoon. (Scand.) ‘This lowtish
clown ;’ Sidney’s Arcadia, bk. i. (R.; s.v. Low). ‘To brag upon his
pipe the clcwne begoon ;’ Turberville, Agaynst the Ielous Heads, st. 6.
ἰοῦ found much earlier. Of Scandinavian origin. —Icel. Alunni, a
clumsy, boorish fellow ; cf. kluxnalegr, clumsy; North Friesic Alénne,
a clown, bumkin (cited by Wedgwood); Swed. dial. Alunn, a log ;
kluns, a hard knob, a clumsy fellow, Rietz; Dan. kunt, a log,a block;
kluntet, blockish, clumsy, awkward. Cf. AS. clyne, a mass, lump,
ball. B. It is probably connected with E. clump, q.v.; cf. Icel. klumba,
a club; Dan. Alump, a clump, Alumpfod, a club-foot ; Swed. klump,
a lump, Alumpig, clumsy. See Clump. Der. clown-ish (Levins),
-ly, -ness.
CLOY, to glut, satiate, stop up. (F.—L.) In Shak. Rich. II, i. 3.
296; also cl. yment, Tw. Nt. ii. 4. 102; cloyless, Ant. ii. 1. 25. ‘Cloyed,
or Accloyed, among farriers, a term used when a horse is pricked with
a nail in shooing;’ Kersey’s Dict. 2nd ed. 1715. Cotgrave has:
‘Enclouer, to naile, drive in a naile; enclouer artillerie, to οἷον a piece
of ordnance; to drive a naile or iron pin, into the touch-hole thereof;’
also: ‘ Encloué, nailed, fastened, pricked, cloyed with a nail;’ also:
‘ Encloyer (obsolete), ἴο οἷον, choak, or stop up.’ Hence the etymo-
logy. -- MF. cloyer, a by-form of clouer (as shown above); Cotgrave
gives: ‘ Clouer, to naile; to fasten, join, or set on with nailes,” The
older form is cloer (Burguy).— OF. clo, later οἷοι, a nail. = L. clauum,
acc. of clauus, a nail. See Clove (1). Der. c/oy-less. Cloy was
frequently used as short for ac-cloy or a-cloy, where the prefix a- repre-
sented F. en-; see encloyer (above).
CLUB (τ), a heavy stick, a cudgel. (Ssand.) ME. clubbe, clabbe,
Layamon, ii. 216, ili. 35; Havelok, 1. 1927, 2289.—Icel. k/ubba,
klumba, a club; Swed. klubba, a club; klubb,a block, a club; Alump,
a lump; Dan, klub, a club; klump,a clump, lump; kumpfod, a club-
foot; Alumpfodet, club-footed. Cf. Dan. klunt,a log,a block. β. The
close connexion of club with clump is apparent; in fact, the Icel.
klubba stands for klumba, by the assimilation so common in that
language (Noreen). See Clump, Der. club-foot, club-footed.
CLUB (2), an association of persons. (Scand.) Not in very early
use. A good example is in the Dedication to Dryden’s Medal, where
he alludes to the Whigs, and asks them what right they have ‘to meet,
as you daily do, in factious clubs.’ In Sherwood’s Index to Cotgrave,
A.D. 1660, we find : ‘ To clubbe, mettre ou despendre a l’egual d’un
autre.’ The word is really the same as the last, but applied to a
‘clump’ of people. See Rietz, who gives the Swed. dial. Alubb, as
meaning ‘a clump, lump, dumpling, a tightly packed heap of men,
a knoll, a heavy inactive fellow.’ So we speak of a knot of people,
ora clump of trees. Der. εἶμ, verb.
CLUB (3), one of a suit at cards. (Scand.) a. The name is
a translation of the Span. ba:/os, i.e. cudgels, clubs; which is the
Span. name for the suit. Thus the word is the same as Club (1) and
Club (2). B. The figure by which the clubs are denoted on a card is
a trefoil; the IF. name being ἡγε, a trefoil, a club (at cards); cf.
Dan. kléver, clover, a club (at cards); Du. Alaver, clover, trefoil,
a club (at cards).
CLUCK, to call, as a hen does. (E.) ‘When she, poor hen, hath
cluck’d thee to the wars;’ Cor. v. 3. 163; where the old editions have
clock’d. ME. clokken. ‘Clokkyn as hennys;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 83. [Cf.
“He chukketh,’ said of a cock ; Chaucer, C. T., 15188 (B 4372).] AS.
cloccian ; Anglia, viii. 309, 1. 26; cf. A.S. Leechdoms, ii. 220, 1. 18.
The mod. I. form may have been influenced by the Danish.4+Du.
hlokken, to cluck; Dan, k/xkke, to cluck ; kluk, a clucking ; Alukhone,
a clucking hen; G. glucken, to cluck; gluckhenne, a clucking-hen.
Cf. L. glocire, to cluck. An imitative word; see Clack.
CLUE; see Clew.
CLUMP, a mass, block, cluster of trees. (E.) ‘ England, Scotland,
Ireland, and our good confederates the United Provinces, be all in a
From AS. cluf-, weak grade of
CLUTTER
clump together;’ Bacon, Of a War with Spain (R.). The AS. pl.
clymppan, lumps, occurs in AS. Leechdoms, iii. 134. Cf. also AS.
clymp-re, a lump (Grein) ; EFries. klump, klunt, a lump.+Du.
klomp, a lump, clog, wooden shoe; cf. k/ont, a clod, lump; Dan.
klump, a clump, lump; k/umpe, to clot; cf. k/uxt, a log, block;
Swed, klump,a lump; kdumpig, lumpy, clumsy; Icel. k/umba, klubba,
a club; (ἃ. Alump, a lump, clod, pudding, dumpling; klumpen,a lump,
mass, heap, cluster; cf. klunker, a clod of dirt. B. Besides these forms,
we find Dan. kimp, a clod of earth ; Swed. Alimp, a clod, a lump, a
dumpling ; these are directly derived from the root preserved in the
MHG, klimp/en (strong verb, pt. t. klampf), to draw together, press
tightly together, cited by Fick, iii, 51. y. From the same root we
have E, clamp, to fasten together tightly; so that c’amp and clump
are variants {from the same root. See Clamp; and see Club (1),
a doublet of c/ump.
CLUMSY, shapeless, awkward, ungainly. (Scand.) ‘Apt to be
drawn, formed, or moulded. .. even by clumsy fingers;’ Ray, On the
Creation, pt. ii, In Ray’s Collection of Provincial Eng. Words we
find: ‘ Clumps, Clumpst, idle, lazy, unhandy, a word of common use
in Lincolnshire ; see Skinuer, This is, I suppose, the same with our
clumzy, in the South, signifying unhandy; clumpst with cold, i.e. be-
nummed;’ and again he has; ‘C/usswmed, adj. “a clussumed hand,”
a clumsie hand; Cheshire.” a, All these forms are easily explai..ed,
being deducible from the ME. clumsed, benumbed. From this word
were formed (1) clussumed, for clusmed, which again is for clumsed, by
a change similar to that in clasp from ME. clapsen; (2) clumpst, by
mere contraction; (3) clumps, by loss of final ¢ in the last ; and (4)
clumsy, with -y for -ed, giving an adjectival form. B. The ME. clumsed,
also spelt clomsed, is the pp. of the verb c/umzen or clomsen, to benumb,
also, to feel benumbed. It is passive in the phrase ‘with clumsid
hondis,’ as a translation of ‘dissolutis manibus;’ Wyclif, Jerem.
xlvii. 3; see also Isaiah, xxxv. 3. ‘ He is outher clomsed [stupefied]
or wode’ [mad]; Hampole, Pricke of Conscience, 1. 1651. See fur-
ther in my note to Piers the Plowman, C. xvi. 23, where the intransi-
live use of the verb occurs, in the sentence: ‘ when thow clomsest for
colde’=when thou becomest numb with cold. y. Of Scandinavian
origin. Cf. Swed. dial. A/ummsen, benumbed with cold, with frozen
hands; spelt also Alumsun, kldumsen, klomsen, kliimmshandt (i.e. with
benumbed hands), &c., Rietz, p. 332 ; who also gives krumpen (p. 354)
with the very same sense, but answering in form to the E. cramped.
In Icelandic, Alumsa means ‘lockjaw.’ δ. It is easily seen that ME.
clumsen is an extension of clum-, weak grade of the root clam, or cram,
to pinch, whence also E. c’amp and cramp. See Clamp, Cramp.
So in Dutch we find kleumsch, chilly, numb with cold; from kleumen,
to be benumbed with cold, which again is allied to klemmen, to pinch,
clinch, oppress (Franck). Cf. prov. E. clem, to pinch with hunger ;
clum, benumbed; also Westphal. verklummen, benumbed ; MDan.
klums, sluggish (Kalkar).
CLUSTER, a bunch, mass, esp. of grapes. (E.) ME. cluster,
clustre, closter; Wyclif, Deut. xxxii. 32, Numb. xiii. 25, Gen. xl. 10.
AS. clyster, cluster; the pl. clystru, clusters, occurs in Gen. xl. 10.4
LowG. kluster. Cluster represents a Teut. form *klus-iro-, for *klul-tro-,
from the base &lut- which appears in Clot; so that a cluster means
a bunch of things adhering closely together, as e.g. in the case of a
cluster of grapes or of bees. From Teut. root */ew/, to mass together;
see Cleat, Clout.
CLUTCH, a claw; to grip, lay hold of. (E.) The verb is ME.
clucchen; ‘to clucche or to clawe;’ P. Plowman, B. xvii. 188. ‘he
sb. is ME. cloche, clouche, cloke; ‘and in his clockes holde;’ P. Plow-
man, B. prol. 154; ‘his kene clokes,’ Ancren Riwle, p. 130; cf. the
Lowl. Scot. cleuck, cluik, cluke, clook,aclaw ortalon. The old sb. was
superseded by the verbal form, which answers to AS. *clyccan, to
bend or crook the fingers; extant in the imp. s. c!yce (see Clitch in
N.E.D.), and in the pp. geclyht, written gecliht in the Liber Scintil-
larum, ὃ xxv; p.99, 1.2. Teut. type *kluk-jan-, (perhaps) ‘to bend
a joint.”
CLUTTER (1), to coagulate, clot. (E.) ‘The cluttered bloud ;’
Holland, Pliny, b. xxi. c. 25. ME. cloteren; the pp. clotered, also
written clothred, occurs in Chaucer, C. T., 2747 (A 2745). The same
as clotter, the frequentative form of clot; see Clot.
CLUTTER (2),a confused heap; toheap up.(E.) ‘Whataclutter
there was with huge, over-grown pots, pans, and spits;’ L’Estrange,
in Rich. and Todd’s Johnson. ‘Which clutters not praises together ;’
Bacon, to K. Jas. I: Sir T. Matthew's Lett. ed. 1660, p. 32 (Toda).
The same word as Clutter (1); the sense of ‘mass’ suggested that
of ‘confused heap;’ whence, further, that of ‘confused noise ;’ see
below.
CLUTTER (3), a noise, a great din. (E.) Notcommon; Rich.
quotes from King, and Todd from Swift; a mere variation of Clatter,
q.v-; affected by Clutter (2). Ihre gives M. Swed. Aluttra,, to
quarrel. Cf. EFries. koter, a rattle.
CLYSTER
CLYSTER, an injection into the bowels. (L.—Gk.) The pl. clésters
is in Holland’s Pliny, b. viii. c. 27; the verb c/ysterize in the same,
b. xx. c. 5; and Massinger has: ‘ Thou stinking c/yster-pipe;’ Virgin
Martyr, A. iv. sc. 1;. cf. Shak. Oth. ii. 1. 178.—L. clyster.— Gk.
κλυστήρ, a clyster, a syringe ; κλύσμα, a liquid used for washing out,
esp. a clyster, a drench. = Gk. κλύζειν, to wash. Cf. L. cliere, to purge,
Goth. hlitrs, pure. 4/KLEU, to cleanse. Brugm.i. § 490.
CO,, prefix; a short form of con-. See Con-.
COACH, a close carriage. (F.—Hung.) In Shak. Merry Wives, ii.
2. 66.—F. coch2, ‘a coach ;” Cot. Hungarian kots:, kocsi, a coach,
travelling carriage; whence the word was introduced into many other
languages. See Beckmann’s Hist. of Inventions, tr. in 1846, i. 77;
who says: ‘Stephanus Broderithus says, speaking of 1526;... “he
specdily got into one of those light carriages, which (from the name
of the place) we called hofcze.”’ The word was used in Hungary
from the reign of king Matthias Corvinus, 1458-90 ; and the ‘coach’
was named from a Hungarian village named Kocs, between Raab and
Buda; see N.E.D. The word coche first appears in E. in 1556.
COADJUTOR, assistant. (L.) Spelt coadiutour, Sir T. Elyot,
Governour, b. ii. c. 10. § 5.—L. co-, for cov-, which for cum, together ;
and adiitor, an assistant, allied to adiuctu-, pp. of adinudre, to assist.
See Adjutant. Der. ccadjutr-ix, coadljutor-:hip,
COAGULATS, to curdle, congeal. (L.) Shak. has coagulate as
pp. =curdled ; ‘coagulate gore;’ Hamlet, ii. 2. 484.—L. coagulatus,
pp. of codgulare, to curdle. — L. coagulum, rennet, which causes things
to curdle. = L. co- (for coz- or cum, together), and ag-ere, to drive ; (in
Latin, the contracted form cégere is the common form); with suffix
-u!-, having a diminutive force ; so that co-de-1l-um would mean ‘that
which drives together slightly.’— 4/AG, to drive. See Agent. Der.
coatulat-ton, coagul-able, coagul-ant.
COAITA, the red-faced spider monkey. (Brazil.) Spelt gua¢a in
Stedman’s Surinam, ii. 10. [Sometimes misspelt coar/i.)|—Tupi
(brazilian) coa'i, cuati, coaitéd (N.E.D.); spelt couatta in Bretoa,
Dict. Caraibe Francois, 1665; p. 180. @ Distinct from coati.
COAL, charcoal; a combustible mineral. (E.) ME. col, Layamon,
1.2366. AS. col, coal; Grein, i. 166.4Du. kool; Icel. and Swed. ko! ;
Dan. kul; OHG. cholo, MHG. kol, G. kohle. The Skt. jval, to blaze,
burn, is probably from the same root; cf. also Olrish gial, coal.
Der. coal-y, coal-ji.h, coal-heaver, &c.; also collier, q.v.; also collied,
i.e. blackened, dark, in Mid. Nt. Dr. i. 1. 145.
COALESCE, to grow together. (L.) Used by Newton (Todd) ;
in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1656; also by Goodwin, Works, v. iii. pt. iii.
Ρ. 345 (R.). Ν᾿ doubtless refers to the works of T. Goodwin, 5 vols.,
London, 1681-1703. —L. coalescere, to grow together. = L. co-, for con-
οὐ cum, together; and ale.cere, to grow, inceptive form of alere, to
nourish. See Aliment, Der. c-alescence, cnalescent, from coalescent-,
stem of the pres. part. of co:lesc re; also coalition (used by Burke)
allied to L. coalitus, pp. of c-alescere.
COARSE, rough, rude, gross. (F.—L.) In Shak. Henry VIII,
iii, 2. 239. Also spelt course, cowrse; ‘Yea, though the threeds
{threads] be cowrse;’ Gascoigne, Complaint of the Grene Knight,
1. 25; cf. ‘Course, vilis, grossus ;’ Levins, 224.39. a. The origin of
coarse is by no means well ascertained ; it seems most likely that it
tands for course, and that course was used as a contracted form of in
urseé, meaning ‘in an ordinary manner,’ and hence ‘ordinary,’ or
‘common.’ The phrase in course was also used for the morern of
urse; Meas. for Meas. iii. 1. 259. B. The examples in the N.E.D.
bear out this view. ‘The phrase ‘Too cors bordeclopes,’ i.e. two coarse
tablecloths occurs as early as 1424; Early Eng. Wills, p. 56. See
Course. Der. coarse-ly, -ness.
COAST, side, border, country. (F.—L.) ME. coste. ‘Bi thyse
Englissche costes’=throughout these English coasts or borders;
Wilham of Shoreham, De LBaptismo, st. 9; about A.D. 1315.—OF.
coste (F. cote), a rib, slope of a hill, shore. — L. co:ta,a rib, side. Der.
coast, V., coast-er, coa:t-wise. From the same source is ce-cost, q.v.;
also cutlet, q.v., costermonger, q.V.
COAT, a garment, vesture. (F.—G.) ME. cote, kote; K. Ali-
aunder, ed. Weber, 2413.—OF. cote (Εἰ, cotte), a coat ; Low L. cota,
cotta, a garment, tunic; cf. Low L. cottus, a tunic. MHG. kutte,
kotte, kotze, OHG. chozzo, a coarse mantle; whence also G. kutte,
a cowl. Cognate with OSax. cof, with the same sense. See Kluge.
Der. coat, vb., coat-ing.
COATI, COATI-MONDI, a camivorous mammal. (Brazil.)
Described as coati or coati-mondi in a tr. of Buffon (1792); i. 183.
The nose is long and flexible, and marked with white. —Tupi
(Brazilian) coats, cuati, cuatim; from cua, a cincture, and “47, a nose
(im being nasal). The word mondi is said to mean ‘solitary’ (N.E.D.).
COAX, to entice, persuade. (E.) Formerly spelt cokes. ‘ They
neither kisse nor cokes them;’ Puttenham, Arte of Poesie, lib. i.c. 8;
ed. Arber, p. 36. The word cokes as a sb. meant a simpleton, gull,
dupe. ‘Why, we will.make a cokes of this wise master;’ Ben Jonson,
COCHINEAL 7,
The Devil is an Ass, ii.1. ‘Go, you're a brainless cox, a toy, a fop;’
Beaum. and Fletcher, Witat Sev. Weapons, iii, τ. History unknown.
@ We may note that Cotgrave seems to have regarded it as equiva-
lent to the F. cocard.’ He has: ‘Cocard, a nice doult, quaint goose,
fond or saucie cokes, proud or forward meacock.’ Under the spelling
coquart, he gives ‘undiscreetly bold, peart, cocke/, jolly, cheerful.’
Thus the Ἐς coguart may have suggested cocket, and now answers to
the school-slang cocky, i.e. like a fighting cock. We may also note
OF. coquebert, coguibus, coquid’, all meaning ‘foolish ;’ see Godefroy.
COB (1), a small round hard lump, or knob; a head. (E.) The
senses are numerous; see ΚΕ... and N.E.D. In the sense
of small hard lump, the dimin. is cobble, as used in cabble-stones.
As applied to a pony or horse, it seems to mean short and stout.
ME. cob, a head, a person, esp. a great or leading person; the pl.
cabbes is used by Hoccleve, De Regim. Principum, |. 2806. ‘The verb
to cob or cop, to excel, is allied to AS. copp, a top, summit. Cf.
Du. kop, a head, pate, person, man; G. kopf,the head. Der. cob-web,
q.v.; cobb-le (2), sb., q.v.
COB (2), to beat, strike. (E.) In sailor's language and provincial
E. Cf. ME. cobben, to fight; Destr. of Troy, ll. 8285, 11025. Also
prov. E. cop, to strike on the head; whence, probably, W. cobro, to
strike ; cf. ΝΥ. cob, a bunch, a tuft; cop, a head, bunch. See Cob (1).
COBALT, a reddish-gray mineral. (G.). One of the few G. word 5
in English; most of such words are names of minerals. Used L:
Woodward, who died A.D. 1728 (Todd). =—G. obalt, cobalt. B. The
word is a nick-name given by the miners because it was poisonous and
troublesome to them; it is merely another form of G. kobold, a demon,
goblin; and cobalt itself is called kobold in provincial German ; see
Fliigel’s Dict. MHG. kobol/, a demon, sprite; in which the former
element kob- answers to AS. cof- in cof-godas, household gods,
used to translate L. penites; Voc. 189. 10; from AS. cofa, a
chamber. See Cove. (So in Kluge.)
COBBLE (1), to patch up. (E.) ‘He doth but cloute [patch]
and cobbill ;? Skelton, Why Come Ye Nat to Court, 1]. 524. The sb.
cobelere, a cobbler, occurs in P. Plowman, B. v. 327. Origin doubtful ;
perhaps the same as prov. E, cobble, to beat ; from Cob (2). Der.
co’'l-er.
COBBLE (2), 2 small round Jump. (E.) Chiefly used of round
stones, commonly called cobble-stones. ‘Hic rudus, a cobylstone ;”
Voc. 768. 38. A dimin. of cob, with the suffix -/e (for -el). See
Cob (1). Cf. Norw. koppull, a small round stone.
COBLE, asmall fishing-boat. (C.) ‘Cobles, or little fishing-boats ;’
Pennant, in Todd's Johnson. ME. coble, Scot. Legends of Saints, ed.
Metcalfe, xl. (Ninian), 1. 504.— W. ceubal, a ferry-boat, skiff. Cf.
W.. ceubren, a hollow tree; ceufad, a canoe. W. ceuo, to excavate,
hollow out; boats being orig. made of hollowed trees. Cf. Breton
kobar, gobar, also kabal, a coble, small boat ; from the form gébar is
derived the F. gabare, MF. gabarre, ‘a lighter ;” Cot.
COBRA DE CAPELLO, asnake witha hood. (Port.—L.) In
a tr. of Buffon (1792), ii. 277, it is called ‘cobra dz (error for de}
capello, or hooded serpent.’=Port. cobra, snake; de, of, with;
capello, a hood. = L, colubra, a snake; dé, of, with; capellum, acc. of
Late L. capellus, dimin. of Late L. capa, a cape. See Chaplet and
Cape (1).
COBWEB, a spider’s web. (E.) ME. copweb, Trevisa, tr. of
Higden, vit. 343; so also in Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 728; copwebbe in
Palsgrave, and in the Golden Boke, c. 17. Copweb is a shortened
form of attercop-web, from the ME. aétercap, a spider. β. In Wyclils
Bible we find: ‘ The webbis of an atfercop,’ Isaiah, lix.5; and; ‘the
web of atlercoppis,’ Job, viii. 14. The ME, attercop is from AS,
attorcoppe, a spider, Voc. 121. 28; a word compounded of AS. ator,
poison (Bosworth), and coppe, which perhaps also meant ‘spider ;’
cf. MDu. kop, koppe, ‘a spider,’ or a cob;’ Hexham. The exact
relation to cob (1) is obscure. Cf. Du. spinnekop, a spider; also,
a spider’s head; WFlem. koppe, kobbe, a spider (De Bo); West-
phal. kobbenwebbe, a cobweb.
COCA, a shrub, the leaves of which afford a stimulant. (Span.—
Peruv.) In E. G., tr. of Acosta (1604), bk. iv. c. 22; and J. Frampton,
Joyfull Newes (1577), fol. 101, back. Span. coca. Peruy, cuca; of
which form the Span. ecca is a corruption (Garcilasso, Comment. of
Peru, bk. viii. c. 15). Der. coca-ine.
COCHINEAL, ascarlet dye-stuff. (F.—Span.—L.—Gk.) Cochi«
neal consists ‘ of the dried bodies of fema!es of the Coccus cacti, an
insect native in Mexico, Central America, &c., and found on several
species of cactus;’ Webster. [These insects have the appearance of
berries, and were thought to be such; hence the name.} The word
cochineal occurs in Beaum. and Fletcher, Beggar's Lush, i. 3. Cf.
“the berrie of cochenile;’ Hakuyt’s Voy. iii. 46, 1. 10.—F.c chinille.
=Span. cochinilla, cochineal; cf. Ital. cocc:n:el:a, the same.—L,
coccineus, coccinus (Isaiah, i. 18), of a scarlet colour. L. coccum, a
berry; also, ‘ kermes,’ supposed by the ancients to be a berry.=Gk.
118 COCK
κόκκος, a kernel, a berry; esp. the coceus ilicis, or ‘kermes-berry,’ |
used to dye scarlet. @[ Distinct from Span. cochinilla, a wood-louse,
dimin. of cochina, a pig (Monlau).
COCK (1), the male of the domestic fowl. (E.) ME. cok; sce
Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale. AS. cocc, Matt. xxvi. 34,74; and
much earlier, in Alfred, tr. of Gregory, ed. Sweet, c. 63, p. 459. Of
imitative origin; from the bird’s cry. ‘Cryde anon cok! cok!’;
Chaucer, C. T., B 4467. Cf. Skt. kukkuta-, a cock; Malay kukuk,
crowing of cocks. 4 So also OF. coc (Εἰ, coq). — Low Lat. coceum, an
accus. form occurring in the Lex Salica, vii. 16, and of onomato-
poetic origin (Brachet).—Gk. κόκκυ, the cry of the cuckoo;
also the cry of the cock, since the phrase κοκκοβόας ὄρνις occurs
to signify a cock; lit. it means ‘the cock-voiced bird,’ or the
bird that cries cock! Cf. Cuckoo. Der. cock-er-el, a little cock,
apparently a double diminutive, ME. cokerel, Prompt. Parv. p. 86;
cock-fight-ing, sometimes contracted to cock-ing; cock-er, one who
keeps fighting-cocks; cock-pit; cock’s-comb, a plant; and see cock-
ade, cock-atrice, coxcomb. > The cock, or stop-cock of a barrel, is
probably the same word; ef. G, hakn, a cock, also, a faucet, stop-
cock. See Cock (3), and Chicken.
COCK (2), to stick up abruptly. (E.) We say to cock one’s eye,
one’s hat; or, of a bird, that it cocks up its tail. ‘[She] spreads and
cocks her tail;’ A. Marvell, Rehearsal Transposed, i. 161 (N.E.D.)
Apparently with reference to the posture of a cock’s head when crow-
ing; orto that of his crest or tail. See Cock (1). So also Gael. coc,
to cock, as in coc do bhoineid, cock your bonnet ; cf. Gael. coc-shron,
a cock-nose ; coc-shronach, cock-nosed. Der. cock, sb., in the phrase
‘a cock of the eye,’ &c.
COCK (3), part of the lock ofa gun. (E.) ‘Pistol’s cock is up;”
Hen. V, ii. i. 55. So named from its original shape; from the like-
ness to the head and neck of a cock, Similarly, the G. name is hahn ;
as in the phrase den Hakn spannen, i. e. to cock (a gun).
COCK (4), a small pile of hay, (Scand.) “Α cocke of hay ;’ Tyn-
dale’s Works, p. 450. Cf. ‘cockers of haruest folkes,’ Rastall,
Statutes; Vagabonds, &c. p. 474 (R.).. And see P. Plowman, C. vi.
13, and my note upon it.—Dan. fot, a heap, pile; Dan. dial. kok,
a haycock, at kokke hoet, to cock hay; cf. Icel. kikkr, a lump, a ball.
COCK (5), COCKBOAT, a small boat. (F.—L.—Gk.) The
addition of boat is superfluous ; see cock in K. Lear, iv. 6. 19. —OF.
cogue, also cogue, a kind of boat (Godefroy); cf. Ital. cocca, Span.
coca, a boat. B. The word also appears in the form cog or co 7ge, as
in Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 476; Chaucer, Legend of Good Women,
Ypsiphyle, 114. This is the Du. and Dan. hog, Icel. kuggr, a boat;
the same word. γ. The word was very widely spread, and is perhaps
to be referred, as suggested by Diez, to the L. concha. a shell; cf.
also mod. F. coche, a boat, and cogu, a shell. —Gk. κόγχη, a mussel,
cockle-shell; κόγχος, a mussel, cockle, cockle-shell.Skt. garthe-,
a conch-shell. See Conch; and see Cockle (1). @ But some
regard the Du. and Scand. forms as Teutonic; from Teut. types
*kukkon-, *kuggon-. It is probable that these types were confused
with derivatives of conchka. Cf. Korting, § 2283. Der. cock-swain, by
the addition of swain, q.v.; now gen. spelt coxswain. ἢ
ΟΟΟΚΑΘῈΕ,, a knot of ribbon on a hat. (F.) ‘Pert infidelity is
wit’s cockade ;’? Young’s Nt. Thoughts, Nt. 7, 1. 109 from end. The
a was formerly sounded as aa in baa; and the word is, accordingly,
a corruption of cockard.—F. coquarde, fem. of coguard, ‘foolishly
proud, saucy, presumptuous, malapert, undiscreetly peart, cocket,
jolly, cheerful;’ Cotgrave. He also gives: ‘ coguarde, bonnet ἃ la
coquarde, a Spanish cap, . .. any bonnet or cap worne proudly.’
Formed by suffix -ard from F. cog, a cock. See Cock (1).
COCKATOO, a kind of parrot. (Malay.) The pl.is spelt cacatoes,
and the birds are said to be found in the Mauritius; Sir T. Herbert,
Travels, p. 383 (Todd’s Johnson); or ed. 1665, p. 403.—Malay
kakaltia, a cockatoo; a word which is doubtless imitative, like our
eck; see Cock (1). This Malay word is given at p. 84. of Pijnappel’s
Malay-Dutch Dictionary; he also gives the imitative words kakak,
the cackling of hens, p. 753 and kukuk, the crowing of a cock, p. 94.
So also “ ζαλα’ῖα, a bird of the parrot-kind ;᾿ Marsden’s Malay Dict.
p- 261. Cf. Skt. kukkuta-, a cock; so named from its cry. See Cock,
Cuckoo.
COCKATRICE, a fabulous. serpent hatched from a cock’s egg.
(F.—Late L.—L.) In Shak. Tw. Nt. iii. 4. 215. ΜΕ. cocatryse,
kokatrice, Wyclif, Ps. xc. 13; Isa. xi. 8, xiv. 29.—OF. cocatrice,
cocairis, an ichneumon, a crocodile; Godefroy. Cf. Span. cocotriz,
a crocodile,= Late L. cécatricem, acc. of cdcatrix, caucatrix, a croco-
dile, basilisk, cockatrice. B. The form caciérix is a corruption of
Late L. calcatrix (caucatrix in Ducange), lit. ‘the treader,’ or ‘tracker
out,’ used to translate Gk. ἰχνεύμων. = L. calcare, to tread; see Caulk,
and see Ichneumon. The word being once corrupted, the fable
that the animal was produced from a cock’s egg was invented to
account for it.
COCKSHUT TIME
COCKER, to pamper, iadulge children. (Scand.) ‘A beardless
boy, a cockered silken wanton;’ K. John, v. 1. 70. ‘Neuer had so
cockered us, nor made us so wanton ;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 337d;
see Eastwood and Wright’s Bible Word-book. ‘ Cokeryn, carifoveo ;’
Prompt. Parv. p. 85. B. Prob. of Scand. rather than of native origin.
Orig. ‘to cry cok!’ as a cock does, repeatedly; the verb being fre-
quentative in form. Hence to call chickens repeatedly, to be ever
feeding them, to pet, pamper, &c. This is borne out by MDan.
kokre, to call often, as a cock or hen does; Norweg. kokla (1), to
cackle, (2), to cocker, pet; Norw. kokra, to utter monotonous cries,
also to cocker; Norw. kokrebarn,a pet child; kokren, adj., cockering
(Ross). Soalso MDu. kokelen, ‘to cocker, foster,’ Hexham ; whence
F. cogueliner, of which Cotgrave says: ‘ cogueliner un enfant, to dandle,
cocker, fondle, pamper, make a wanton of a child.’ The W. cocri, to
fondle, is from E. All from Cock (1).
COCK-EYED, squinting. (E.) See Halliwell. From Cock
2), Τὴν:
(QobkLE (1), a sort of bivalve. (F.—L.—Gk.) In P. Plowman,
C. x. 95, occurs the pl. cockes, with the sense of cock/es, the reading
in the Ilchester MS. being cokeles. Thus the ME. form is cokel,
dimin. of cok or cock (F. cogue), the orig. sense of which was ‘ shell.’
The word was borrowed from the French coguille,.a cockle-shell ;
cf. Ital. cocchiglia, Walloon kokil (Remacle).—Late L. type *coc-
chylia, by-form of conchylia, pl. of conchylium.— Gk. κογχύλιον, dimin.
of κόγχη, a mussel, a cockle. See Cock (5). Without the nasal,
we find also L. cochlea, a snail; cf. Gk. κοχλίας, α snail with a spiral
shell; κόχλος, a fish with a spiral shell, also a bivalve, a cockle.
See Korting, § 2283. 4 The ME. cockes answers to the pl. of AS.
s@-coce, a sea-shell, cockle, and of OF. cogue.
COCKLE (2), a weed among com; darnel. (E.) ME. cokkel.
‘Or springen [sprinkle, sow] cokkel in our clene corn;’ Chaucer,
C. T., 12923 (B 1183). AS. coccel, tares, translating Lat. zizania,
Matt. xiii. 27; whence also Gael. cogal/, tares, the herb cockle;
cogull, the corn-cockle ; Irish cogal.
COCKLLE (3), to be uneven, pucker up. (Scand.) ‘It made such
a short cockling sea, . . that I never felt such uncertain jerks in a
ship;? Dampier, Voyage, an. 1683 (R.). Of Scand. origin; cf.
Norw. koklutt, lumpy, uneven, i.e. cockled up; from Norw. kokle,
a little lump, dim. of kok, a lump. Cf. Swed. dial. fokke/, dimin. of
koka, a clod.
COCKLOFT, an upper loft, garret. (Hybrid; E. and Scand.)
‘Cocklofts and garrets;’ Dryden, tr. of Juvenal, Sat. ili. 1. 329.
From cock (1) and loft. ‘ Desvan de casa, a garret or cockloft;’ Min-
sheu, Span. Dict. (1623). So in German we find hahnbalken, a roost,
a cock-loft; and in Danish hanebielkeloft, lit. a cock-balk-lo{t; cf.
prov. E, hen-loft. It meant originally a place in the rafters where
cocks roosted, hence, a little room among the rafters; called also in
Danish loftkammer, i.e. loft-chamber. See Loft. 4] The W. coeg-
loft, a garret, is nothing but the E. cockloft borrowed.
COCKNEY, an effeminate person. (E.) ME. cokency, in P. Plow-
man, B. vi. 287; where it means ‘an egg’; so also in the Tourna-
ment of Tottenham in Percy’s Reliques, last stanza. The MI‘.
cokeney represents coken-ey, lit. ‘egg of cocks,’ from AS. @g, an egg,
where coken is the gen. pl. of cok, a cock, as clerken is of clerk.
This singular name was given particularly to the small misshapen
eg’s occasionally laid by fowls; see prov. E. cock’s egg (s.v. cock) in
K.D.D. ‘The small yolkless eggs which hens sometimes lay are
called cock’s eggs, generally in the firm persuasion that the name
states a fact;’ C.S. Burne, Shropshire Folk-Lore, p. 229. Cf. Harl.
Miscell. iii. 531. Florio’s Ital. Dict. (1598) has: ‘ Caccherelli,
cacklings of hens; also egs, as we say cockanegs.’ Hence cockney
was often a term of reproach, and meant a foolish or effeminate
person, or a spoilt child; see Cockney in Halliwell. The ΜΕ.
spelling was cokeney or cokenay, which was trisyllabic. ‘I sal been
halde a daf, a cokenay ; Unhardy is unsely, thus men sayth;” Chaucer,
C. T. 4206 (A 4208). Der. cockn-y-d.im, cockney-ism,
COCKROACH, a kind of beetle. (Span.) ‘ Cockroches, a kind
of insect;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Capt. J. Smith has cacarootch ;
Works, ed. Arber, p. 630 (1624). ‘Called cukreluce in Surinam’ ;
Stedman, i. 194 (1796). ‘ Without question, it is from the Portuguese
caroucha, chafer, beetle, and was introduced into our language by
sailors;”? Ε΄ Hall, Modern English, 1873, p. 128. But a friend
kindly points out that the E. word is borrowed, not from Port.
caroucha, but from Span. excaracha, ‘a wood-louse, a kind of centi-
pede, blatta or short-legged beetle, common aboard of American
ships, a cockroach, Blatta americana, L.;’ Neuman. I think the
Port. caroucha is merely a clipped form of the same word, with loss
of the first syl'able. The etymology of cucaracha is obscure.
COCKSHUT TIME, twilight. (E.) In Shak. Rich. IIT, v. 3.
zo. ‘A fine cockshoot evening,’ i.e. a fine evening for using cock-
shoots; Middleton, The Widow, A. iii, sc. 1. A cockshoot (shortened
COCO
to cockshot or cockshut) was a glade cut through a wood along which
woodcocks might dart or ‘shoot’ and be caught in nets, esp. at
twilight; see k.D.D. Palsgrave has: *‘ Cockesshote to take wod-
cockes with; uolee.’ Woodcocks were taken ‘in cockshoole tyme, as
yt is tearmed, which is the twylight, when yt ys no strange thinge
to take a hundred or sixe score in one woodd in twenty-four houres ;’
A. Newton, Dict. of Birds, p. 1044. Prof. Newton adds that ‘ another
MS. speaks of one wood having 13 cockshots.’ From cock, shoot,
and time. 4 Often absurdly referred to the verb to shut. See Phil.
Soc. Trans., 19043 p. 166.
COCO, wrongly COCOA (1), the cocoa-nut palm-tree. (Port.)
‘Give me to drain the cocoa’s milky bowl;’ Thomson, Summer,
1. 677. ‘A fruit called cocos’ [at Goa}; Hakluyt, Voy. ii. 2. ror.
[Misspelt cocoa in Johnson’s Dict.|—Port. (and Span.) coco, a
bugbear ; also, a cocoa-nut, cocoa-tree. * Called coco by the Portu-
guese in India on account of the monkey-like face at the base of the
nut, from coco, a bugbear, an ugly mask to frighten children; see
De Barros, Asia, Dec. iii. bk. iii. c. 7 ;’ Wedgwood. Cf. Port. fazer
coco, to play at bo-peep; Span. ser uz coco, to be an ugly-looking
person ; cocar, to make grimaces ; also, guarda el Coco, i.e. see the
bogy; Pineda. Of unknown origin.
COCOA (2), a corrupt form of Cacao, q. v.
COCOON, the case of a chrysalis. (F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt cocon
in 1699 (N.E.D.).=F. cocon, a cocoon; formed by adding the suffix
-on (gen. augmentative, but sometimes diminutive) to Ε΄. cogue, a
shell. From a by-form of L. concha, a shell. —Gk. κόγχη, a shell;
see Conch, Cock (5). Der. cocoon-ery.
COCTION, a boiling, decoction. (L.) In Boyle’s Works, vol. il.
Ῥ- 109 (R.). Formed from Latin, by analogy with Ε΄. words in -ton.
=L. coctidnem, ace. of coctio, a boiling, digestion ; allied to coctus, pp.
of coguere, to cook. See Cook.
COD (1), akind of fish. (E.) In Shak. Othello, ti. 1.156. ‘ Codde,
a fysshe, cableau;’ Palsgrave; cf. ‘Cabilaud, the chevin;’ and
*Cabillau, fresh cod ;᾿ Cot. Spelt cod, Statutes of the Realm, i. 356
(A.D. 1357). B. [suppose that this word cod must be the same as
the ME. codde, a bolster; though the resemblance of the fish to a
bolster is but fanciful. It is obvious that Shakespeare knew nothing
of the Linnean name gadus (Gk. yt5os); nor is any connexion
between cod and gadus possible. See Cod (2), and Cuttle. . Der.
cod-ling, q.v.
COD (2), a husk, shell, bag, bolster. (E.) Perhaps obsolete, except
in prov. E. In Shak., in cod-piece, Gent. of Verona, il. 7. 53; peas-
cod, i.e. pea-shell, husk of a pea, Mids. Nt. Dr. 111. 1.191. ME.
cod, codde; ‘codde of frute, or pese-cocdde;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 85.
The pl. coddis translates Lat. siliguis, Wyc'if, Luke, xv. 16. . [Cod
also means pillow, bolster ; as in: ‘A cod, hoc ceruical, hoc puluinar ;”
Cath. Ang.; in this sense it is of Scand. origin.] | AS. cod, cadd, a
bag; translating Lat. pera in Mark, vi. 8. 4 Icel. koddi, a pillow;
kodri, the scrotum of animals; Swed. kudde, a cushion. Cf. Swed.
dial. kudde, a pod; MDu. kodde, a club (Hexham), also ‘coleus,
testiculus;’ Kilian; Jutland kodde, a pod, the scrotum. AS. codd
answers to a Teut. type *kuddcz, m.; Icel. hoddi to *kuddon-, a weak
sb. 64 The W. cod, a bag, pouch, was borrowed from English.
CODDLE,, to treat as an invalid, to nurse overmuch, to render
cffeminate. (F.—L.) Another sense of coddle (still known in prov.
12.) was to parboil, to stew fruit; thus Dampier says of the guava:
‘It bakes as well as a pear, and it may be coddled, and it makes good
pies;’ A New Voyage, vol. i. c. 8. p. 222. In Beaumont and Fletcher’s
Philaster, A. V.sc. 4, 1. 31, the phrase ‘I'll have you coddled’ alludes
to ‘Prince Pippin.’ Apparently short for caudle, verb, i.e. to treat
with caudle; see Shak. Timon, iv. 3. 226. See Caudle.
CODE, a digest of laws. (.—L.) ME. code; as in ‘ Theodocius
his code ;’ Trevisa, tr. of Higden, iii. 255. Pope has the pl. codes,
‘Sat. vii. 96.—F. code.=—L. cddicem, acc. of codex, caudex, a trunk of a
{ree; hence, a wooden tablet for writing on, a set of tablets, a book.
B. The orig. form was perhaps *scaudex, connected with *scauda (i.e.
cauda), a tail, and the orig. sense a shoot or spray of a tree, thus con-
necting L. cauda with E. scwt, the tail of a hare or rabbit. See Scut.
Der. cod-i-/y, cod-i-fic-al-ion ; also cod-ic-il, q.v.
CODICIL, a supplement to a will. (&°.—L.) Used by War-
burton, Divine Legation, bk. iv. note 22 (R.). It occurs as early as
1477-8. ‘In this codic'll;’ Fifty Ἐς Eng. Wills (E..T.S.), p. 40.
-- ΜΕ. codicile, ‘a codicile;* Cot.—L. cédvcillus, a writing-tablet,
a memorial, a codicil to a will.—L. cddic-, stem of cdd>x, a tablet,
code; with addition of the dimin. suffix -i//vs. See Code.
CODLING (1), a young cod. (E.) ME. codlyng. ‘ Hic mullus,
a codlyng;’ Voc. 642. τό. ‘Codlynve, fysche, morus;’ Prompt.
Pary. p. 85. Formed from cod (1) by help of the dimin. suffix -ling ;
ef. duck-ling.
CODLING (2), CODLIN, a kind of apple. (C.;
with E. suffix.)
In Shak. Tw. Nt. i.-5. 167, it means an unripe apple.
Bacon men-
COGNISANCE
tions guadlins among the July fruits; Essay 46, Of Gardens. Quadling
is from ME, querdling. ‘ Querdlynge, appulle, Duracenum ;’ Prompt.
Parv. The suffix -lng is .; but querd- may be Celtic; from Irish
cueirt, cuirt, an apple-tree. @ The Irish cuetrt is a very old word, as
it was the name of Q in the Ogham alphabet. ‘The names of the
letters are taken from those of trees, as follows: B—beith, birch . ,
Q—queirt, apple:’ J. R. Allen, Monumental Hist. of Early Brit.
Church; p. 71; Rhys, Lect. on Welsh Philology, 2nd ed. p. 285.
COEFFICIENT, codperating with; a math. term. (L.) R.
quotes coefficiency from Glanvill, Vanity of Dogmatising, c. 12 (A.D.
1655).<L. co-, for con, ice. cum, with; and efficient-, stem of efficiens,
pres. part. of efficere, to cause, a verb compounded of prep. ex, out,
and facere, to make. See Efficient. Der. coefficienc-y.
CGENOBITE; sce Cenobite (above).
COEQUAL; from Co-, q. v.; and Equal, gq. v.
COERCE, to restrain, compel. (L.) Sir T. Elyot has coertion,
The Gouernour, bk. i. c. 8. § 6. Coerce occurs in Butler, Sat. on Age
of Ch. 11., 1. 162.—L. coercére, to compel. = L. co-, for con-, which
for cum, with; and arcére, to enclose, confine, keep off. From the
same root is the L. arca, a chest, whence E. ark. See Ark. Der.
coerc-i-ble, coerc-ive, coerc-ive-ly, coerc-ion.
COEVAL, of the same age. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 168r,
Formed by help of the adj. suffix -al (as in equal) from L, coeu-us,
of the same age. = L. co-, for con-, i.e. cum, together with ; and euum,
anage. See Age.
COFFEE, a decoction of berries of the coffee-tree. (Turk.— Arab.)
© A drink call’d coffa;’ Bacon, Nat. Hist. 5. 738. ‘He [the Turk]
hath a drink called cauphe;’ Howell, bk. ii. lett. 55 (A.D. 1634).
‘Their best drink is coffa ;’ Capt. J. Smith, Works, p. 856 (1603). --
Turk. gahveh, coffee. Arabic gahweh, coffee; Palmer's Pers. Dict,
col. 476; also gahwah or gahwa(t), Rich. Dict. p. 1155.
COFFER, a chest for money. (F,—L.—Gk.) ME. cofer, cofre
(with one f). ‘But litel gold in cofre;’ Chaucer, prol. 300. And
see Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, pp. 135, 224, 297-— OF. cofre,
also cofiz, a coffer. The learned form is cofix; the like popular
change of z to r is seen in E, order, Τὴ. ordre, from L. ordinem. Thus
coffer is a doublet of coffin. See Coffin. Der. coffer-dam.
COFFIN, a chest for enclosing a corpse. (F.—L.—Gk.) Origin-
ally any sort of case; it means a pie-crust in Shak. Tit. And. v, 2.
189.. ME. cofin, coffiz. he pl. cofines is in Rob. of Brunne, tr. of
Langtoft, p. 135.—OF. cofiz, a chest, case.—L, cophinum, acc. of
cophinus, a basket. = Gk. κόφινος, a basket; Matt. xiv. 20, where the
Vulgate version has cophinos and Wyclif has cofyas.
COG (1), a tooth on the rim of a wheel. (Scand.) ΜΕ. cog, kog.
‘Scariaballum, kog;’ Voc. p. 627. ‘Hoe striabellum, a cog of
a welle, id. 725. 7. ‘Cogge of a mylle, scarioballum;’ Prompt.
Parv. p. 85. And see Owl and Nightingale, 1. 86. (Gael. and Irish
cog, a mill-cog: W. cocos, cocs, cogs of a wheel, are from E.};- Of
Scand. origin. —MDan. hogge, a cog; kogge-hjul, also kagge-hjul,
a cog-wheel (Kalkar); Swed. kugge; MSwed. kugg (Ihre). Der,
cog-wheel,
COG (2), to cheat, trick, delude. (Scand.) Obsolete. Common in
Shak.; see Merry Wives, iii. 1.123. ‘To shake the bones and cog
[cheat with] the craftie dice ;’ ‘Turbervile, To his Friend P. Of
Courting, 1.13. Τὸ cog dice was to control their fall, in a cheating
way; as by ‘slyding, cogging, foysting ;’ Ascham, Toxophilus, ed.
Arber, p. 54. Very likely, the little finger was used as a cog, being
hitched against the die so as todirect it. The verb is almost certainly
connected with the preceding sb.; cf. MDan. kogge, a cog, Norw.
kogga, to dupe; Swed. kugge,a cog, kugga, to cheat. See Cog (1).
COGENT, powerful, convincing. (L.) In H. More, Immortality
of the Soul, bk. i. c. 4.—L. cdgent-, stem of cogens, pres. part. of
cogere, to compel. = L. co-, for con, which for cum, with; and agere,
to drive. Brugm.i. § 468. See Agent, Der. cogenc-y.
COGITATE, to think, consider. (L.) Shak. has cogitation,
Wint. Ta. i, 2. But it also occurs yery early, being spelt cog:-
taciun in the Ancren Riwle, p. 288.—L. cégitatus, pp. of cogilare, to
think. Cdgitare is for *coagi/are, i.e. to agitate together in the mind.
=-L. ρος, for cox, which for cum, with, together; and agztare, to
agitate, frequentative of agere, to drive. Drugm. i. ὃ 968. See
Agitate, Agent. Der. cogivat-ion, cogitat-ive.
COGNATE, of the same family, related, akin. (L.) In Howell’s
Letters, bk. iv. lett. 50. Bp. Taylor has cognation, ule of Conscience,
bk. ii.c, 23 and see cognacioun in Wyclif, Gen. xxiv. 4.—L,. cognatus,
allied by birth, akin.—L. co-, for con, which for cum, together ; and
gnalus, born, old form of ratus, pp. of gnasci, later nasci, to be born.
See Natal.
COGNISANCE, knowledge, a badge. (F.—L.) We find
conisantes in the sense of ‘ badges’ (which is probably a scribal error
for conisances) in Ρ. Plowman’s Crede, ed. Skeat, 1. 185 ; also conois-
cance, Gower, C. A. iii. 56 ; bk. vi. 1638. Conisaunce for ‘knowledge’
119
2718:
120 COGNITION
occurs in the Rom. of the Rose, 5559.—OF. conotssance, knowledge ;
at a later time a g was inserted to agree more closely with the Latin ;
see cognoissance in Cotgrave.-OF. conoissant, knowing, pres. pt.
of OF. conoistre, to know.—L. cognoscere, to know.—L. co-, for
con, i.e. cum, together; and gzoscere, to know, cognate with E. know.
See Know. Der. Irom the same F. verb we have cognis-able,
cognis-ant. Here belongs cognoscente, pl. -ti, a connoisseur, Ital.
cognoscente, from the pres. pt. stem of L. cognoscere.
COGNITION, perception. (L.) In Shak. Troil. v. 2. 63.
Spelt cognicion, Sir T. More, Works, p. 4a.—L. cognitidnem, acc. of
cognitio, a finding out, acquisition of knowledge; cf. cognitus, pp. of
cognoscere, to learn, know.=L. co-, for con, which for cum, together ;
and gnoscere, to know, cognate with E. know. See Know.
COGNOMEN, asumame. (L.) Merely Latin, and not in early
use. Cognominal occurs in Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, bk. iii. c.
24. § 3.—L. cognémen, a surname. = L, cs-, for con, 1.6. cum, together
with ; and nomen, a name, altered to gnomen by confusion with
gnoscere, to know, which is unrelated. See Noun.
COHABIT, to dwell together with. (L.) In Holland, Suetonius,
p. 132.° Barnes has cohabitation, Works, p. 322, col. 1.—L. cohabitare,
to dwell together.—L. co-, for con, i.e. cum, with; and habitare, to
dwell.. See Hatitation, Habit. Der. cchabit-at-ion.
COHERE, to stick together. (L.) In Shak. Meas. ii. 1. 11.-
L. coherére, to stick together.—L. co-, for con, i.e. cum, together ;
and herére, to stick. Cf. Lithuanian ga‘sz-ti, to delay, tarry. See
Hesitate. Der. coher-ent, coher-ent-ly, coher-ence ; also, like the pp.
cohes-us, we have cohes-ion, cohes-ive, cohes-ive-ness.
COHORT, a band of soldiers. (F.—L.) In Shak. K. Lear, i. 2.
162,.—F. cohorte, ‘a cohort, or company... of souldiers ;’? Cot.=—
L. cohortem, acc. of cohors, a band of soldiers. The orig. sense of
cohors was an enclosure, a sense still preserved in E. court, which is
a doublet of cohort; see Max Miiller, Lectures, 8th ed. ii. 277. See
Court.
COIF, a cap, cowl. (F.—MHG.—L.) ME. coif, coife; Polit.
Songs, ed. Wright, p. 329; Wyclif, Exod. xxviii. 40; xxix. 6.—OF.
coife (Supp. to Godetroy) ; spelt coiffz, Cotgrave ; Low L. cofia, acap ;
also spelt cuphia, cofea.—MHG., kuffe, kupfe, OHG. chuppa, chuppha,
a cap worn under the helmet ; Teut. stem *kupp-jon-. B. This word
is a derivative of MHG. kopf, OHG. chuph, a cup, also the head. =
L. euppa,a cup. Korting, § 5339. See Cup. Der. co/ff-ure.
COIGN, a corner. (F.—L.) In Shak. Macb. i. 6. 7.—F. coing,
given by Cotgrave as another spelling of coin, a corner ; he also gives
the dimin. corgnet, a little corner. The spellings coign, coing, were
convertible.—L. cuneum, acc. of cuneus, a wedge. See Coin.
COIL (1), to gather together. (F.—L.) ‘ Coil’d up in a cable ;’
Beaum. and Fletcher, Knight of Malta, 11. 1.—OF, co:llir, cuillir,
eueillir, to collect; whence also E. cull.—L. colligere, to collect. See
Cull, Collect. Der. coil, sb.
COIL (2), a noise, bustle, confusion. (F.—L.) It occurs fre-
quently:in Shak. ; see Temp. i. 2. 207 ; Much Ado, iii. 3. 100. Orig.
a collection; hence, in proy. E., a hay-cock, heap of hay; also
(through the idea of a collected crowd) confusion, bustle, stir, noise,
&c. ‘This mortal coil,’ the turmoil of life; Hamlet, iii. 1.67. All
from Coil (1). See E.D.D. and N.E.D. [Gael. coileid, a stir, is
from I. }
COIN, stamped money. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. coin, coyn; Chaucer, C.T.,
9044 (Ε΄ 1168). —OF, coin, a wedge, a stamp upon a coin, a coin ;
so named from its being stamped by means of a wedge. —L. cuneum,
acc. of cuneus,a wedge. A doublet of coign, a corner, q.v. Der.
coin, verb; coin-age, ME. coyngnage, Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 49.
COINCIDE, to agree with, fall in with. (L.) In Wollaston,
Relig. of Nature, s. 3; the word coincident is in Bp. Taylor, On Re-
pentance, c. 7, s. 5.—L. co-, for con, i.e. cum, together with; and
incidere, to fall upon, from in, upon, and cadere, to fall. See Ca-
dence. Der. coincid-ent, coincid-ence.
COIR, the prepared fibre of the husk of cocoa-nut, for making
ropes. (Malayalam.) The true sense is ‘rope.’ ‘Sowed together
with cayro, which is threede made of the huske of cocoes;’ Hakluyt,
Voy. il. pt. I. p. 251.— Malayalam kiyar, rope, cord; from kayayu,
to be twisted (Yule); Tamil kavayu, rope (H. H. Wilson).
COISTREL, COYSTRIL, a mean paltry fellow. (F.—L.)
In Shak. Tw. Ν. i. 3. 433 Per. iv. 6.176. Used for coustrel, which
was the older form. ‘ Coustrell, that wayteth on a speare, cousteillier ;’
Palsgrave. From this evidence we may also infer that coustre// was
an Εἰ. adaptation of the MF. word cousteillier or coustillier, probably
formed by the dropping of the last syllable and insertion of rv after ¢
(as in cart-r-idge). - MF. coustillier, ‘an esquire of the body, an armour-
bearer unto a knight, the servant of a man-at-armes [which explains
Palsgrave’s definition]; also a groom of a stable, a horse-keeper ;’
Cotgrave. The use of the word in the sense of ‘paltry fellow’ is
precisely parallel to the similar use of groom, lackey, hind, &c. The
COLLAPSE
lit. sense is one who carries a poniard.— MF. coustille, ‘a kind of long
ponniard, used heretofore by esquires;’ Cot. Variant of OF. cous/el,
spelt cousteau in Cotgrave, ‘a knife, or whittle, a sword, or any such
cutting weapon.’ The s is unoriginal; the proper OF. spelling is
coutel or cotel, also cultel.—L. cultellus, a knife; see Cutler,
Cutlass. The Late L. equivalent of coéstrel is cultellarius, a soldier
armed with a cutlass (Ducange).
COIT, another spelling of Quoit, q. v.
COITION, a meeting together, copulation. (L.) Used by Sir
T. Browne of the meeting together of magnetised substances ; Vulgar
Errors, bk. ii. c. 2. ὃ 8.—L. acc. coilidnem, a meeting together; cf.
L. cottus, pp. of coire, to come together.—L. co- (for cum), together;
ire, to go, come.
COKE, charred coal. (Scand.?) Not in early use. Plot, in his
Staffordshire, ed. 1686, p. 128, says: ‘ The coal thus prepared they
call coaks.’ It may be identified with ME. colke, the core of an
apple, the same as prov. I. coke, the core of an apple, also spelt
cowk. ‘Coke, pit-coal or sea-coal charred;’ Coles, Dict. ed. 1684.
‘Cowks, or cinders;’ E. D.S., Gloss. B. 17. ‘Cowk, the core: it’s
badly burnt lime, it’s nought but cowks;’ Cumberl. Gloss.,
15. 10. 5. Of doubtful origin. Perhaps allied to MSwed. kok, koka,
Swed. koka, a clod, clot; Norw. kok, a clod, lump (as of earth
or snow).
COLANDER, a strainer. (Prov.—L.) ‘ A colander or strainer ;’
Holland, Plutarch, p. 223. Also in Dryden, tr. of Virgil, Georg. ii.
328; see also his tr. of Ovid, Metam. bk. xii. 1. 588. ‘ Colatorium,
a colyndore;’ Voc. 574. 10. [Also spelt cwllender.] A SFrench or
Provengal word.=OProv. *colador (Span. coladur), mod. Prov.
couladou (for *couladour), a small basket used for straining wine from
a cask (Mistral).—L. type *cdlatdrem, acc. of *cdldtor, a strainer ;
by-form of L. colatérium, a strainer. = L. οὔ! γε, to strain. —L. cdlum,
a strainer, colander, sieve. The γι is intrusive, as in celandine,
COLCHICUM, a genus of liliaceous plants. (L.—Gk.) Described
as ‘ Mede Saffron’ in Lyte, tr. of Dodoens, bk. iii. c. 35.—L. colchi-
cum.=—Gk. Κολχικόν, meadow saffron; neut. of Κολχικός, Colchian.
= Gk. Κολχίς, Colchis ; a country to the E. of the Black Sea.
COLD, without heat, chilled. (1...) ME. cold, cald, kald; Old
Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 251, 283. OMerc. cald; AS, ceald;
Matt. x. 42. + Icel. kaldr ; Swed. kall; Dan. kold; Du, koud; Goth.
kalds; G. λα. Teut. type *kal-doz, cold; from *kal-, to be cold,
as in Icel. hal-a, to freeze; with suffix -doz=Gk. -rés. Cf. L. gel-
idus; and see Cool, Chill. Der. cold-ly, cold-ish, cold-ness.
COLE, COLEWORT, cabbage. (L.) For the syllable -wort,
see Wort. ME. col, caul; spelt cool in Palladius on Iusbandry,
bk, ii. st. 32. The comp. fole-plantes is in P. Plowman, Β. vi. 288.
AS. cawel, ciul; see numerous examples in Gloss. to Cockayne’s
Leechdoms. Not an E. word.=L. caulis, a stalk, a cabbage. + Gk.
καυλύς, astalk; lit.a hollow stem; cf. L. caule, openings; and prob.
allied to E. hollow. See Hollow. 4 The numerous related Teu-
tonic words, including G. ζολὶ, are all alike borrowed from the Latin.
Cole is a variant of kail, q.v.; cf. cauliflower, colza,
COLEOPTERA, an order of insects. (Gk.) A modern scientific
term, to express that the insects are ‘sheath-winged.’ —Gk. κολεό-ς,
κολεό-ν, a sheath, scabbard; and mrep-ov, a wing. For κολεύς, see
Prellwitz. The Gk. πτερόν is from 4/ PET, to fly; see Feather.
Der. coleopier-ous.
COLIBRI, a humming-bird. (F.—Carib.) In Churchill's Collec-
tion of Voyages (1732), v. 650, we find: ‘ Very little birds, by the
French called colibris, but by the English humming-birds.’ This is
in a description of Martinique, one of the French Caribbean islands,
=F. colibri; from Caribbean. See Notes on FE. Etym., p. 349.
COLIC, a pain in the bowels. (F.—L.—Gk.) Also spelt cholic;
Shak. Cor. ii. 1.83. Properly an adjective, as in ‘collick paines;’
Hollaad, Pliny, bk. xxii. c. 25 (Of Millet). ME. colyke; Prompt.
Parv.=—F. coligue, adj. ‘of the chollick,’ Cotgrave ; also used as sb.
and explained by ‘the chollick, a painful windinesse in the stomach
or entrailes.’=—L,. colicus, aflected with colic.—Gk. κωλικός, better
κολικός, suffering in the colon.—Gk. κῶλον, better κόλον, the colon,
intestines. See Colon (2).
COLISEUM, a bad spelling of Colosseum ; see Colossus,
COLLABORATOR, a fellow-labourer. (L.) A modern word ;
suggested by Ἐς, collaborateur, and formed on a Latin model. - 1.
collaborator, a modern coined word, formed by suffixing the ending
«(ον to collahori-, for collaborare, to work together with. —L. col-, for
con- before/, which is for cum, together with ; and /abérare, to labour,
from the sb. Jabor. See Labour.
COLLAPSE, to shrink together, fall in. (L.) The sb. is in
much later use than the verb, and is omitted in Todd’s Johnson;
Richardson’s three examples give only the pp. collapsed, as in ‘ col-
lapsed state,’ Mirrour for Magistrates, p. 588. This pp. is a transla-
tion into English of the L. collapsus, pp. of collabi, to fall together,
COLLAR
fall in a heap. —L. col-, for con- before 7, which is for cum, with; and |
labi, to glide down, lapse. See Lapse. Der. collapse, sb.
COLLAR, something worn round the neck. (F.—L.) ME. coler,
later coller; Rob. of Glouc. p. 223, 1. 4577; P. Plowman, B. prcl.
162, 169.— AF. coler, Royal Wills, p. 155; OF. colier, later collier,
a collar; see Cotgrave.= L. collare, a band for the neck, collar. —L.
collum, the neck; cognate with Goth. hals, G. hals, AS. heals, the
neck. Brugmann, i. ὃ 662. Der. collar-bone; fromthe same source
is coll-et (F. collet), the part of a ring in which the stone is set, lit.
a little neck. See Collet.
COLLATERAL, side by side, indirect. (L.) In Shak, All’s
Well, i. 1. 99. Also in P, Plowman, C. xvii. 136.—Late L.. colla-
teralis; Ducange.—L. col-, for con, i.e. cum, with; and lateralis,
lateral, from /a¢er-, decl. stem of Jatus, aside. See Lateral. Der.
collateral-ly.
COLLATION, a comparison; formerly, a conference. (F.—L.)
The verb collate, used by Daniel in his Panegyric to the Kiag, was
hardly borrowed from Latin, but rather derived from the sb. collation,
which was in very common use at an early period in several senses.
See Chaucer, C. ‘I’., 8201 (Ε 325); tr. of Boethius, bk. iv. pr. 4. 49.
The common ME. form was collacion.—OF. collacion, collation, a
conference, discourse; Godefroy. L. collatidnem, acc. of collatio, a
bringing together, conferring ; cf. collatum, supine in use with the
verb conferre, to bring together, but from a different root.—L. col-,
for con, i.e. cum, together with; and datum, supine used with the
verb ferre, to bring. The older form of Jatum was tlatum, and it
was connected with the verb /ollere, to take, bear away ; so that the
L. tlatus = Gk. τλητός, borne. —4/TEL, to lift, sustain ; whence also
E. tolerate, q.v. Der. collate, collat-or.
COLLEAGUE (1), a coadjutor, partner. (F.—L.) ‘S. Paule
gaue to Peter hys colleague ;’ Frith, Works, p. 61, col. 1. — MF. col-
legue, ‘a colleague, fellow, or co-partener in office ;’ Cot.— L. colléga,
a partner in office.—L. col-, for con, i.e. cum, together with; and
legere, to choose. See Legend, College, Collect.
COLLEAGUE (2), verb, to join in an alliance. (F.—L.) In
Hamlet, i. 2. 21.— OF. colleguer, colliguer, to colleague with.=L.
colligare, to bind together. — L. col-, for con- or cum, together ; ligdre,
to bind. See League (1).
COLLECT, vb., to gather together. (F.—L.) In Shak. K.
John, iv. 2. 142. [But the sb. cdllect is in early use, spelt collecte in
the Ancren Riwle, p. 20. This is derived from Late L. collecta, a
collection in money, an assembly for prayer ; used ecclesiastically to
signify a collect; on which see Trench, On the Study of Words.
L. collecta is the fem. of the pp. collectus, gathered together.]—OF.
collecter, to collect money ; Roquefort.— Late L. collectare, to collect
money.=—L. collecta, a collection in money.—L. collecta, fem. of
collectus, gathered together, pp. of colligere, to collect.—L. col-, for
con, i.e. cum, together; and /egere, to gather, to read. See Legend.
Der. collect-ion, collect-ive, collect-ive-ly, collect-or, collect-or-ate, collect-
or-ship. From the same source are college, q.v., and colleague (1),
q.v. _Doublets, cull, q. v., coil (1), 4. v.
COLLEEN, a girl. (Irish.) Modern. =Irish cailin, a girl; dimin.
of caile,a country-woman, The E, colleen bawn is from Irish cailin
ban, a fair (lit. white) girl.
COLLEGE, an assembly, seminary. (F.—L.) Spelt collage,
Skelton, Garland of Laurel, 1. 403; colledge in Tyndal, Works,
p. 359, col. 2.—MF. college, ‘a colledge;’ Cot.—L. collégium, a
college, society of persons or colleagues.—L, colléga, a colleague.
See Colleague (1). Der. collegi-an, collegi-ate, both from L,.
collegi-um.
COLLET, the part of the ring in which the stone is set. (F.—L.)
Used by Cowley, Upon the Blessed Virgin, 1. 11. It also means a
collar.—F. collet, a collar, neck-piece.—F. col, the neck; with suffix
-et.—L. collum, the neck. See Collar.
COLLIDE, to dash together. (L.) Burton, Anat. of Melancholy,
Ῥ- 274, uses both collide and collision (R.)—L. collidere, pp. collisns,
to clash or strike together. = L. col-, for con-, i.e. cum, together; and
ledere, to strike, dash, injure, hurt. See Lesion. Der. collis-ion,
allied to the pp. collis-us,
COLLIE, COLLY, a kind of shepherd’s dog. (E.) ‘ Coaly,
Coley, a cur dog;’ Brockett’s Glossary of N. Eng. Words, 1825.
‘Coley, a cur-dog; North;’ Grose, Gloss. (1790). Shepherd-dogs
‘in the N. of England are called coally dogs ;’ Recreations in Nat.
History, London, 1815. Supposed to be the same word as coaly,
black (like coal) ; from the coal-black hairs, Cf. prov. E. colley, soot,
also to blacken; and see below. Cf. collied, i.e. blackened, in Shak,
Mid. Nt. Dr.i. 1.145; see Colly (1).
COLLIER, a worker in a coal-mine. (E.) ME. colier, coljer ;
spelt also holier, cholier, William of Palerne, ed. Skeat, 2520, 2523.
Formed from ME. col, coal, by help of the suffix -er, with the inser-
tion of i for convenience of pronunciation, just as in Jaw-yer for law-er,
COLONEL 121
low-yer for how-er, saw-yer for saw-er. Thus the strict spelling
should, by analogy, have been col-yer. See further under Coal,
Der. coll:er-y.
COLLIMATE, to adjust a telescope accurately. (L.) Cockeram
has: ‘ Collimate, to levell, or winke with one eye;’ he means ‘to
aim at.’—L, collimit-us, pp. of collimare, a false form, being a mis-
reading for collinedre, to direct in a straight line, to aim, in some
editions of Cicero, Being mistaken for a real word, it was used by
Kepler (1604).—L. col-, for cum, together, with; lixeire, to make
straight, from Jinea, a straight line. See Line. Der. collimat-ion.
COLLOCATE, to place together. (L.) In Hall’s Chron. Rich.
III, an. 3. § 45.—L. collocitus, pp. of collocdre, to place together. = L.
col-, for con, i.e. cum, together; and Jociire, to place, from locus, a place.
See Locus. Der. collocat-ion, Doublet, couch, q.v.
COLLODION, a solution of gun-cotton. (Gk.) | Modern.
Named from its glue-like qualities. — Gk. κολλώδης, like glue, viscous.
“-- Gk. κόλλα, glue; and suffix -εἰδης, like, from εἶδος, appearance ;
see Idol.
COLLOP, a slice of meat. (E.) ‘ Colloppe, frixatura, carbonacium,
carbonella;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 88. The pl. coloppes is in P. Plow-
man, B, vi. 287. ut in the same, C. ix. 309, 4 MSS. out of 6 have
the older spelling colhoppes. A compound word; orig. col-hoppe,
where col- is the ME. col, a coal. In Noreen’s Altschwed. Lesebuch,
p- 145, we have: ‘ kol-huppadher . . , adj. roasted in the glow of
the coals; cf. Swed. gléd-hoppad.’ The latter means ‘roasted on
the gledes or glowing coals;’ from gléd, a glede. Rietz has Swed.
dial. glé-hoppa, gléd-hyppja, glé-hyppe, a cake baked on the gledes.
We may conclude that ME. col-hoppe meant ‘a thing baked or fried
on the coals.’ But the form hoppe requires further elucidation. See
Notes on E. Etym., p. 44. A connexion with G. hippe (for hippe,
formerly hyp), a wafer, scems possible; see Weigand.
COLLOQUY, conversation. (L.) Used by Wood, Athenze Oxo-
nienses (R.) ‘In the midst of this divine colloquy ;’ Spectator, no. 237.
{ Burton and others use the corrupt verb to collogue, now obsolete. | —
L. colloquium, a speaking together. —L, collog::i, to confer, converse
with. —L. col-, for cov-, i.e. cum, together ; and Jogui, tospeak, See
Loquacious. Der. collogui-al, collogui-al-ism.
COLLUDE, to act with others in a fraud. (L.) Not very
common. It occurs in Milton’s Tetrachordon (R.); and Cotgrave
has Εἰ, colluder, ‘to collude. The sb. collusion is commoner ; it is
spelt collwcyoun in Skelton, Garland of Laurel, 1. 1195; and collustoun
in Chaucer, Lak of Stedfastnesse, 1. 11.—L, colluzere, pp. collisus, to
play with, act in collusion with.<L. col-, for con-, i.e. cum, with;
and lidere, to play. See Ludicrous. Der. collus-ion, collus-rve,
collus-ive-ly, collus-ive-ness ; all like the pp. colliis-us.
COLLY (1), to blacken, darken. (E.) ‘Brief as the lightning in
the collied night ;” Mid. Nt. Dream, i. 1. 145. ME. colwen; whence
‘colwyd, Carbonatus;’ Prompt. Parv. From AS. col, a coal; so
that the orig. sense was ‘to begrime with coal-dust ;’ see Collie.
COLLY (2), a kind of dog; see Co lie.
COLOCYNTH, COLOQUINTIDA, the pulp of the fruit
of a species of cucumber. (Gk.) Cologuintida is in Shak. Othello,
i. 3. 355. ‘Colccynthis, a kind of wild gourd purging phlegm ;’
Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715. Cologuintida stands for colocynthida
(with hard ¢ before y), and is the acc. case of colocynthis (iv
[ii] Kings, iv. 39, Vulgate); this is the Latinised form of Gk.
κολοκυνθίς, the plant colocynth, of which the acc. case is κολοκυνθίδα.
The construction of new nominatives from old accusatives was a
common habit in the middle ages. Besides κολοκυνθίς, we find also
κολόκυνθος, κολοκύντη, a round gourd or pumpkin. B. Perhaps for
κολο-κυνθίς, from «xodo-, large, as in KoAd-kupa, great wave, and
-κυνθις, from κυείν, to be big (as with child) ; see Prellwitz.
COLON (1), a mark printed thus (:) to mark off a clause in a
sentence. (Gk.) The word occurs in blount’s Glossographia, ed.
1674; and in Putterham, Arte of E. Poesie, bk. ii. c. 5; ed. Arber,
Ρ. 88. The mark occurs much earlier, viz. in the first English book
ever printed, Caxton’s Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, ab. 1474;
leaf 250, back, ]. 7.—Gk. κῶλον, a member, limb, clause; the mark
being so called as marking off a limb or clause of a sentence,
COLON (2), part of the intestines. (Gk.) It occurs in Massinger,
Virgin-Martyr, iii. 3 (Hircius, speech 12); and in Coles’s Dict. 1684.
=- Gk. κῶλον, a part of the intestines ; more correctly κόλον (Liddell
and Scott). Der. colic, ἢ. v.
COLONEL, the chief commander of a regiment. (F.—Ttal. —L.)
It occurs in Milton, Sonnet on When the Assault was intended to
the City. Massinger has colonel:hip, New Way to pay Old Debts,
Act iii. sc. 2. [Also spelt coronel, Holland’s Pliny, bk. xxii. ce. 23;
which is the Spanish form of the word, due to substitution of r for
1, a common linguistic change ; whence also the present pronunciae
tion curnel. An early example is: ‘Hee was coronel/ of the foote-
men, thowghe that tearme in those dayes unuzed ;’ Life of Lord Grey
122 COLONNADE
COMEDY
(Camden Soc.), p. 1; written in 1575, and referring to 1544.]<F. | rape-seed, cole seed, lit. cabbage-seed.— Du. kool, cabbage ; zaad,
colonel, colonnel; Cotgrave has: ‘ Colonnel, a colonell or coronell,
the commander of a regiment.’ Introduced from Ital. in the 16th
century (Brachet).—Ital. colonel/o, a colonel; also a little column.
The colonel was so called because he led the little column or company
at the head of theregiment. ‘La campagnie colonelle, ou la colonelle,
est la premiere compagnie d’un regiment d’infanterie;’ Dict. de
Trevoux, cited by Wedgwood. The Ital. colonello is a dimin. of
Ttal. colsnna, a column.—L. columna, a column. See Column,
Colonnade. Der. colonel-ship, cslonel-cy.
COLONNADE, a row of columns. (F.—Ital.—L.) Spelt
colonade (wrongly) in Bailey’s Dict. vol. ii. ed. 1731.—F. colonna le
(not in Cotgrave). = Ital. colonna/‘a, a range of columns. — Ital. colonna,
a column. =L. columna, a column. See Column.
COLONY, a body of settlers. (F.—L.) The pl. colonyes is in
Spenser, View of the State of Ireland, Globe ed. p. 614, col. 2;
colony? in Wyclif, Acts xvi. 12.—F. colonie, ‘a colony ;’ Cotgrave.
=L. colénia, a colony,—L. colénus, a husbandman, colonist.—L.
colere, to till, cultivate land. Colere is for *guelere ; cf. L. in-quilinus,
a sojourner; Brugm, i. § 121. Allied to Gk. πέλομαι, I am, Skt.
char, to move. Der. coloni-al ; also colon-ise, colonis-at-ion, colon-ist.
COLOPHON, an inscription at the end of a book, giving the
name or date. (Gk.) Used by Warton, Hist. of Eng. Poetry, sect.
33, footnote 2.—Late L. colophén, a Latinised form of the Gk. word.
-Gk. κολοφών, a summit, top, pinnacle; hence, a finishing stroke.
Allied to Gk. κολώνη, a hill, L. cel-sus, lofty, and E. hol-m and hill.
COLOPHONY, a dark-coloured resin obtained from distilling
turpentine. (L.—Gk.) Spelt colophdnia in Coles’s Dict. ed. 1684.
L. colophénia. Named from Colopkén, a city of Asia Minor.—Gk.
κολοφών. a summit; see above.
COLOQUINTIDA ; see Colocynth.
COLOSSUS, a gigantic statue. (L.—Gk.) In Shak. Jul. Ces.
i. 2. 136. Particularly used of the statue of Apollo at Rhodes, =L.
co/ossus. Gk. κολοσσός, a great statue. Lit. ‘lofty;” allied to Gk.
κολωνός, a hill, and to Column. Der. coloss-al ; coloss-eum, also
written col‘:ewm, named from its magnitude (Gibbon).
COLOUR, a hue, tint, appearance. (F.—L.) ME. colur, colour.
“Rose red was his colur ;’ K. Horn, ed. Lumby, 1. 16. —OF. colur,
colour (F. couleur).—L. colérem, acc. of color, colour, tint. Der.
colour, verb, colour-able, colour-ing, colour-less.
COLFORTEUR, a hawker of wares. (F.—L.) Modern, and
mere French. Εἰ. colporteur, one who carries things on his neck and
shoulders. = F. colporter, to carry on the neck. =F. col, the neck ; and
porter, to carry.—L. collum, the neck ; and porfare, to carry. See
Collar and Porter. Der. colport-age.
COLT, a young animal, young horse. (E.) Applied in the A.V.
(Gen, xxxii. 15, Zech, ix. 9) to the male young of the ass and camel.
ME. colt, a young ass; O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 3, 1. 8.
AS; colt, a young camel, a young ass ; Gen. xxxii. 15.-4+Swed. dial.
hullt, a boy, lad; cf. Swed. kull, a brood, a hatch, Dan. kuld, a brood,
Dan. dial. kol/ring,a lad. Der. coltish.
COLTER; see Coulter.
COLUMBINE, the name of a plant. (F.—L.) Lit. ‘ dove-like.’
ME. columbine, Lyric Poems, ed. Wright, p. 26; Prompt. Parv.
p. 88.—OF. colombin, dove-like. Cotgrave gives: ‘ Colombin, the
herbe colombine; also colombine or dove-colour, or the stuff whereof
*tis made,’ = Late L. columbina, as in ‘ Hec columbina, a columbyne;’
γος. 710, 35.— L. columbinus, dove-like; fem. columbina. —L. columba,
a dove ; columbus, a male dove. Perhaps borrowed from Gk. κόλυμ-
Bos, a diver; cf. κολυμβίς, a diver, sea-bird. @ The calyx and
corolla resemble doves.
COLUMN, a pillar, body of troops. (L.) Also applied to
a perpendicular set of horizontal lines, as when we speak of a column
of figures, or of printed matter. This seems to have been the
earliest use in English. ‘ Cclumne of a lefe of a boke, columna;’
Prompt. Parv. p. 88.—L. columna, a column, pillar; allied to L.
columen, a top, height, summit, cx2men, the highest point. Cf. also
collis,a hill, celsus, high. See Colophon, Culminate. (4/ QEL).
Der. colwmn-ar ; also colonnade, q. v.
COLURE, one of two great circles on the celestial sphere at
right angles to the equator and to each other. (L.—Gk.) So named
because a part of them was always beneath the horizon in Greece ;
the word means clipped, lit. curtailed, docked. Used by Milton,
P. L. ix. 66.—L. colirus, curtailed; also, a colure.— Gk. κόλουρος,
dock-tailed, stump-tailed, truncated; as sb., a colure.—Gk. KoA-,
stem of κόλος, docked, clipped, stunted; and οὐρά, a tail.
COLZA OIL, a lamp-oil made from the seeds of a variety of
cabbage. (F.—L. and Du.) See Webster and London ; colza means
‘cabbage-seed,’ and should not be used of the cabbage itself.—F.
colza, better spelt colzat, as in Richelet ; borrowed from the Walloon
colza, golza, Rouchi colsa; see Remacle and Sigart.— Du. koolzaad,
seed (Littré). The Du. kool is not a Teut. word, but borrowed from
L. caulis ; Du. zaad is cognate with E. seed. See Cole and Seed.
COM.-, a common prefix; the form assumed in composition by the
L. prep. cum, with, when followed by b, f, m, or p. See Con-.
COMA, a deep sleep, trance, stupor. (Gk.) ‘Coma, or Coma
somnolentum, a deep sleep;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715. Late L. coma,
a Latinised form of Gk. κῶμα, a deep sleep; pethaps allied to Gk.
κοιμάω, 1 puttosleep. See Cemetery. Der. comat-ose, comat-ous ;
from κωματ-, stem of κῶμα, gen. κώματος.
COMB, a toothed instrument for cleansing hair. (E.) ME.
camb, comb. Spelt camb, Ormulum, 6340. ‘Hoe pecten, combe ;’
Wright’s Vocab, i. 199. Spelt komb, Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 327.
A cock's crest is another sense of the same word. ‘ Combe, or other
lyke of byrdys;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 88. It also means the crest of
a hill, of a dyke, or of a wave ; as in ‘ the dikes comb τ᾿ Genesis and
Exodus, ed. Morris, 2564. In honey-comb, the parallel cells seem to
have been likened to the arrangement of teeth in acomb. AS. camb,
a comb, crest; camb helmes, the crest of a helmet; camb on hette, or
on helme, a crest on the hat or helmet ; see the examples in Bosworth.
+Du. kam, a comb, crest; Icel. kambr, a comb, crest, ridge; Dan.
kam, a comb, ridge, cam on a wheel; Swed. kam, a comb, crest ;
OHG, kamb, kambo; MHG, kamp, ἃ. kamm, a comb, crest, ridge,
cog ofa wheel. Teut. type *kamboz; Idg. type *gombhos. B. Per-
haps named from the teeth in it; cf. Gk. γόμφος, a peg, γαμφή,
a jaw; Skt. jambha-s, a tooth; Russ. zub’, a tooth. Allied to O.
Church Slav. zoba#i, toeat. Brugmann, i. § 138. Der. comb, verb,
comb-er.
COMB, COOMB, a dry measure; 4 bushels. (E.) ‘ Coomb or
Comb, a measure of corn containing four bushels;’ Kersey’s Dict.
ed. 1715. ‘A coeme (or coome) is halfe a quarter;’ Tusser, Hus-
bandrye, § 17, st. 7. AS. cumb, a liquid measure, in Bosworth ; see
Birch, Cart. Saxon. i. 380; Cockayne, Leechdoms, iii. 28.4-Du. kom,
a bowl; Low G. kumm, kump ; G. kumme, kumpf, a bowl, deep dish.
@ Coom) is the better form; cumb became cumb; ef. room from AS.
run,
COMBAT, to fight, contend, struggle against. (F.—L.) A verb
in Shak. Much Ado, ii. 3. 170 ; a sb. in Merry Wives,i. 1. 165. He
also has combatant, Rich. I, i. 3. 117.— OF. combatre, ‘to combate,
fight, bicker, battell;’ Cot.—F. com-, from L. com-, for cum, with ;
and F. batire, from *battere, for L. battuere, to beat, strike, fight. See
Batter. Der. combat, sb., combat-ant (Ἐς, combatant, pres. part. of
combatre); combat-ive, combat-ive-ness.
COMBE, a hollow in a hill-side. (C.) Common in place-names,
as Farncombe, Hascombe, Compton (for Combe-ton). ‘These names
prove the very early use of the word, but the word is not E.; it
was in use in England beforehand, being borrowed from the Celtic
inhabitants of Britain. AS. cumb; see Birch, Cart. Saxon. i. 290.
— W.cwm [pron. oom), a hollow between two hills, a dale, dingle ;
occurring also in place-names, as in Cwm bychan, i.e. little combe;
Corn. cum, a valley or dingle; more correctly, a valley opening down-
wards, from a narrow point ; from Celtic type *kumba, a valley.
COMBINE, to join two things together, unite. (L.) In Shak.
K. John, v. 2. 37. ME. combinen, combynen. “ Combynyn, or copulyn,
combino, copulo ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 88. Lydgate has the pp. com-
byned, Minor Poems, p. 61.—L. combindre, to combine, unite; lit.
to join two things together, or to join by two and two.=—L. com-,
for cum, together; and bins, pl. Lint, two and two. See Binary.
Der. combin-at-ion, Hamlet, ii. 4. 60.
COMBUSTION, a burning, buming up. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Mach. ii. 3. 63. Also combustious, adj., Venus and Adonis, 1162.
Sir T. More has combustible, Works, p. 264d. The astrological
term combust was in early use ; Chaucer, Troil. and Cress. iii. 717. =F.
combustion, a combustion, burning, consuming with fire;’ Cot.—L.
combustianem, acc. of combustio, a burning; cf. combustus, pp. of
combirere, to burn up.=L. comb-, for cum, together, wholly; and
arere, pp. wstus, to burn; the insertion of the ὁ being perhaps due
to association with amb-irere. Der. From the same source, combust-
ible, combust-ible-ness.
COME, to move towards, draw near. (E.) ME, cumen, comen,
to come; pt.t.J cam or com, thu come, he cam or com, we, ye, or
thei comen; pp. cumen, comen, come; very common. AS, cuman,
pt. t. cwdm, com, pp. cumen.4-Du. komen; Icel. koma; Dan. komme ;
Swed. komma; Goth. kwiman; OHG. queman, MHG. komen, G.
kommen.4-L. uenire (for * guen-ire or * guem-ire); Gk. βαίνειν, to
come, go (where B is for gw); Skt. gam, to come, go.—4/GwkM,
to come, go. Brugm. i. ὃ 4321. Der. come-ly, q.v.
COMEDY, a humorous dramatic piece. (F.—L.—Gk.) Shak.
has comedy, Merry Wives, lil. 5. 76; also comedian, Tw. Nt. i. 5. 194.
Spelt commedy, it occurs in Trevisa, i. 315.— OF. comedie, ‘a comedy,
a play ;’ Cotgrave.—L. cmedia.— Gk. κωμῳδία, a comedy, ludicrous
COMELY
spectacle.= Gk. κωμῳδός, a comic actor.—Gk. kwyo-, for κῶμος,
a banquet, a jovial festivity, festal procession: and ἀοιδύς, a singer,
from ἀείδειν, to sing; a comedy was originally a festive spectacle,
with singing and dancing. For the latter part of the word, see Ode.
Der. comedi-an. Closely related is the adj. comic, from L. comicus,
Gk κωμικός, belonging to comedy ; whence, later, comic-al (Levins).
COMELY, becoming, seemly, handsome. (E.) ME. cumlich,
cumelich, comlich, comli, comeliche. Spelt comeliche, Will. of Palerne,
ed. Skeat, 963, 987; comly, id. 294. Also used as an adv., id. 660;
but in this sense comlyly also occurs; Chaucer, Book of the Duchess,
848. The comparative was comloker, and the superl. comlokest or
comliest. AS. cymlic, comely, Grein, i. 177; cymlice, ady. id. B.
According to the account in the N. E. D. (from which I dissent), the
AS. cymlic was formerly cymlic (with 5), and was allied to AS. cyme
(formerly cyme?), fine, beautiful; which again is allied to OHG.
ciimig, weak, tender, and to OHG., kim, with difficulty (G. kawm).
Thus the orig. sense was ‘like what is weak or tender;’ but the y
was shortened before m/, and the AS. cymlic was associated with AS.
cuman, to come, and so gained the sense of ‘ becoming,’ pleasing,
decorous. γ. But we find AS. cymlicor as early as in Béownlf, 1. 38,
where it practically means ‘stronger;” and the other examples of
AS. cymlic point to a similar reference to beauty or strength. More-
over, we find MDu. komelick, ‘apt, fit, or conveniable,’ Hexham ;
which is connected with komen, to come. Cf. also Become. I see
no reason for connecting comely with OHG. ciimig; but prefer to
connect it with Come. See Phil. Soc. Trans. 1902, p. 658. Der.
comelt-ness.
COMET, a star with a hair-like tail. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. comeie,
Rob. of Glouc. pp. 416, 548.—OF. comete, ‘a comet, or blazing
star;’ Cot. It occurs as early as the 12th century (Hatzfeld).=—L.
cométa, cométés, a comet. — Ck. κομήτης, long-haired ; hence, a comet.
— Gk. κόμη, the hair of the head; cognate with L. coma, the same.
Der. come'-ar-y. ts The L. comé/a occurs frequently in the AS.
Chron. an. 678, and later. But the later form was due to French
influence; cf. AF. comefe, Gaimar, 1433.
COMETT, a confect, a dry sweetmeat. (F.—L.) In Shak. 1 Hen.
IV, iii. τ. 253.. Spelt comfitte, Hall's Chron. Henry VIII, an. 13.
Corrupted from confit, by the change of x to m before f ME. conjite,
so spelt in Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, p. 121, 1. 75; ef. ‘ Confectio,
confyt, Voc. 574. 36.—<OF. confit, preserved, prepared, lit. ‘steeped,
confected, fully soaked ;’ Cotgrave. This word is the pp. of confire,
‘to preserve, confect, soake;’ id.=—L. conficere, to put together,
procure, supply, prepare, manufacture; pp. confectus; whence Late L.
confecte, fruits preserved with sugar-(Ducange), OF. confite, f., a
comfit, also confit, τὰ. (the same); Godefroy.—L. con-, for cum, with,
together; and facere, to make. See Fact. Comzit is a doublet of
confect, q.v. Der. comfit-ure; see Chaucer, C. T., C 862.
COMFORT, τὸ strengthen, encourage, cheer. (F.—L.) See
Comfort in Trench, Select Glossary. Though the verb is the original
of the sb., the latter seems to have been earlier introduced into Eng-
lish, The ME. verb is confor/en, later comforten, by the change of
nto m before f. It is used by Chaucer, Troil. and Cress. iv. 722, v.
234, 1395. [The sb. confort is in Chaucer, Prol. 775, 778 (A 773,
770); but occurs much earlier. It is spelt cunfort in O. Eng. Homi-
lies, ed. Morris, i. 185; kvnfort in Ancren Riwle, p. 14.]—OF. con-
forter, to comfort ; spelt cxnforter in A. F.; see Vie de St. Auban,
ed. Atkinson, 59, 284.—Late L. confortdre, to strengthen, fortify ;
Ducange.=L. con-, for cum, together ; and fortis, strong. See Fort.
Der. comfort, sb. ; comifort-able, comfort-abl-y, comfort-less.
COMFREY, the name of a plant. (F.—L.) Spelt comfory,
Book of St. Albans, fol. c 6, back, 1.1; confery in the 14th cent.,
Reliquize Antiquce, i. 55; and in Henslow, Medical Werkes, 46. 10.
(See also comfrey in Britten and Holland’s Plant-Names.)=OF.
cumfirie ; we find ‘ cumfir‘a, cumfirie, galloc,’ in a vocab. of the 13th
cent., Voc. 555. 43 also OF. cunfirie, confire in Godefroy. Here
cumfirie is the Ol’. name, gall.c the AS. name, and cwmfiria, the
Late L. name; the last appears to be merely the OF. name Latin-
ised. We even find the F. form consire in Cotgrave, explained as
‘the herbe comfrey ;’ but this may be an error for conjire. [The
mod. F. name is consoude (cf. Span. consuelda, Ital. consolida), derived
from L. consolidire, from its supposed healing powers.] B. The
OF. cumfirie or cunfirie appears to be a corruption of L, conferua,
comfrey, Pliny, xxvii. 8. [Another Late L. name was confirma ; we
find ‘ confirma, galluc,’ in the Durham Glossary, pr. in Cockayne’s
Leechdoms, iii. 301; and at p. 162 of vol, i. we learn that the plant
was called confirma or galluc. Halliwell gives ‘ gclloc, comfrey.’
Perhaps the change from conferva or confirma to cumfirie was due
to some confusion with Εἰ, confire (L. conficere), ‘to preserve, confect,
soake, or steep in;’ Cotgrave.] γ. If this be right, the derivation
is either from L. conferuére, to heal, grow together, said of broken
limbs (Celsus) ; or from L, confirmare, to strengthen, from its healing
COMMINGLE
128
powers; see Cockayne’s Leechdoms, i. pref. p. liii, and cf. the Gk.
name σύμφυτον.
COMIC, COMICAL; see under Comedy.
COMITY, urbanity. (L.) Not very common. ‘Comity, gentle-
ness, courtesie, mildness;’ Blount, Glossographia, ed. 1674. Not
from F., but directly from L., the suffix -i/y being employed by
analogy with words ending in F’. -ié, from L, -itatem. = L. cémitatem,
acc. of cémifas, urbanity.—L. cémis, friendly, courteous.
COMMA, a mark of punctuation, written thes (,). (L.—Gk.)
“The shortest pause . . they called comma;’ Puttenham, Arte of E.
Poesie, bk. iv. c. iv (v); ed. Arber, p. 88. In Hamlet, ν. 2. 42.—
L. comma, a separate clause of a sentence. =Gk. κόμμα, that which
is struck, a stamp, a clause of a sentence, a comma that marks off
the clause. — Gk. κόπ-τειν, to hew, strike.
COMMAND, to order, enjoin. (F.—L.) ME. commanden,
comanden, Chaucer, C. T., B 4270; Cursor Mundi, 6809.—OF. com-
mander, comander.=— Late L. commandire, a new compound, with the
seuse of L. manddre, to command ; confused with and partly replacing
L. commendare, to commend, also (in Late L.) to command. =L.
com-, for cum, together with; mandare, to put into the hands of,
entrust, command. See Mandate. Der. command, sb. ; command-
er, -er-hip; command-iig, -ing-ly; command-ment (Εἰ. commandement),
whence ME, commandement, in O. Eng. Misc., ed. Morris, p. 33, and
command-e-ment, quadrisyllabic, in Spenser, F.Q. i. 3. 9; command-
ant, (F. command-ant, pres. pt. of commander); also command-eer
(Du. kommanderen, to force into military service, from F. commander).
And see Commodore.
COMMEMORATHEH, to celebrate with solemnity. (L.) Cockeram
(in 1642) has: ‘ Commemorate, to rehearse or make mention.’ = L.
commemorat-us, pp. of commemorare, to call to mind.=L. com-, for
cum, together; and memordre, to mention, from memor, mindful.
See Memory. Der. commemorat-ion, -ive.
COMMENCEH, to begin. (F.—L.) In Shak. Macb. i. 3. 133.
The contracted form comsen (for comencen) occurs frequently in ME. ;
see P. Plowman, Β. i. 161, iii. 103. The sb. commencement was in
early use; O. Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 30.—OF. comencer, com-
mencer, commencter (Supp. to Godefroy). [Rightly with one m; cf.
Ital. cominciare.|=L. com-, for cum, together ; ἐγ γε, to begin,
from initium, a beginning. Sce Initiate. Der. commence-ment.
COMMEND, to commit, entrust to, praise. (L.) {It shal com-
mende ;’ Wyclif, Isaiah x. 28; where the Vulgate has commendabit.
=—L. commendare, to entrust, commit to.—L. com-, for cum, with;
and mandare, to put into the hands of; see Command. Der. com-
mend-at-ion (see kom. Kose, 4887), -able, -abl-y, -able-ness, -at-or-y.
COMMENSURATE, co-extensive, of equal extent. (L.) “ Com-
mensurate, of the same or equal measure ;’ Glossographia Anglicana
(1719). Sir T. Brown has it as a verb; ‘ Yet can we not thus. com-
mensurate the sphere of Trismegistus ;’ Vulgar Errors, bk. vii. c. 3,
end. =—L. commensuratus, as if the pp. of *commensurare, to measure
in comparison with. = L. com-, for cum, together ; menswrare, tomeasure,
from mensiira,a measure; see Measure. Der. commensurate, ad)j.,
τίν, -ness ; commensur-able, -abl-y, -alil-i-ty.
COMMENT, to make a note upon. (F.—L.) In As You Like
It, ii. 1.65. The pl. sb. commentes is in Sir T. More, Works, p. 152 ς;
and in Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, bk. i. c. 14. § 10.—F. com-
menter, ‘to comment, to write commentaries, to expound ;’ Cot. —
Late L. commentaire, for L. commentari, to reflect upon, consider,
explain. L. commentus, pp. of comminisci, to devise, invent, design.
=—L. com-, for cum, with; and the base -min-, seen in me-mun-i,
a veduplicated perfect of an obsolete verb *men-ere, to call to mind ;
with the inceptive deponent suffix -scit.—4/ MEN, to think ; cf. Skt.
man, to think. Brugmann,i. § 431. See Mental. Der. comment,
sb., comment-ar-y, comment-at-or.
COMMERCE, trade, trafic. (F.—L.) In Hamlet, iii. 1. 110.
{ Also formerly in use as a veib; sce Milton, Il Penseroso, 1. 39.) —
i. commerce, m., ‘commerce, intercourse of traffick, familiarity ;’
Cot. —L. commercium, commerce, trade.=L. com-, for cum, with ;
and merc-, for merx, goods, wares, merchandise, with suffix --um.
See Merchant. Der. commerci-al, commerci-al-ly; both from L.
commerci-um.
COMMINATION, a threatening, denouncing. (F.—L.) ‘The
terrible comminacion and threate;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 897 f. =F.
commination, ‘a commination, an extreme or vehement threatning ;”
Cot. -- L. comminationem, acc. of comminatio, a threatening, menacing ;
cf. comminaius, pp. of comminari, to threaten. = L. com-, for cum, with ;
and mundri, to threaten, See Menace. Der. commina-tor-y, from
L. inf. comm:nari.
COMMIIIGLE, to mix together. (Hybrid; L. and E.) Also
com.ngie; Shak. has cominzled or commi.:gled, Hamlet, iti. 2. 74.
An ill-coined word; made by prefixing the L. co- or com- (for cum,
with) to the E. word mingle. See Mingle; and see Commix.
124 COMMINUTION
COMMINUTION, a reduction to small fragments. (L.) Bacon
has communution, Nat. Hist. § 799. Sir T. Browne has comminuible,
Vulgar Errors, b. ii. c. 5. § 1. [The verb comminute is later, and
due to the sb.; it occurs in Pennant’s Zoology, The Gilt Head. }
Formed on the model of F. sbs. in -ion, from L. comminutus, pp. of
comminuere, to break into small pieces; (easily imitated from L.
miniitidnem, acc. of miniitio, a diminishing, allied to minutus, pp. of
minuere, to make smaller). L. com-, for cum, together; and minuere,
to make smaller, diminish. See Minute. Der. comminute, verb.
COMMISERATION, a feeling of pity for, compassion, (F.—
L.) In Shak. L. L. L. iv. 1.64. We also find the verb commiserate ;
Drayton, Dudley to Lady Jane Grey,1.98. Bacon has ‘ commiserable
persons ;’ Essay 33, Of Plantations. =. commiseration, ‘commisera-
tion, compassion; ’ Cot.—L. commiseritidnem, acc. of commiseralio, a
part of an oration intended to excite pity (Cicero) ; cf. commiseratus,
pp- of commiserari, to endeavour to excite pity. —L. com-, for cum,
with; and miserari, to lament, pity, commiserate, from miser,
wretched, deplorable. See Miserable. Der. from the same
source, commiserate, verb.
COMMISSARY, an officer to whom something is entrusted. (L.)
Specyall commyssaries ;’ Fabyan, ed. Ellis, p. 549. ‘ The emperor's
commisartes’ answere, made at the diett;’ Burnet, Rec. pt. iil. b. v.
no. 32 (R.) We also find commisariship in Foxe’s Martyrs, p. 1117,
an. 1544 (R.)—Late L. commuissarius, one to whom anything is
entrusted (F. commissaire); Ducange.—L. commissus, pp. of com-
mittere, to commit. SeeCommit, Der. commusari-al, commisari-at,
commissary-ship.
COMMISSION, trust, authority, &c. (F.—L.) In Chaucer,
Prol. 315.—F. commission, ‘a commission, or delegation, a charge,
mandate ;’ Cot.—L. commissidnem, acc. of commissio, the commence-
ment of a play or contest, perpetration; in Late L., a commission,
mandate, charge (Ducange); cf. commissus, pp. of committere, to
commit. See Commit. Der. commission-er.
COMMIT, to entrust to, consign, do. (L.) ‘Thanne shul ye
commute the kepyng of your persone to your trewe frendes that been
approued and y-knowe;’ Chaucer, Tale of Melibeus (Six-text),
Group B, 1. 2495.—L. committere, pp. commissus, to send out, begin,
entrust, consign, commit.—L. com-, for cum, with; and mittere, to
send. See Missile. Der. commit-ment, committ-al, committ-ce ;
also (like pn. commissus), commissary, q.v.; and commiss‘on, q. V-
COMMIX, to mix together. (Hybrid; L. and E.) “ Commyxt
with moold and flynt;’ Palladius on Iusbandry, bk. ii. st. 215 cf.
bk. 111, st. 3. A coined word; made by prefixing L. com- (for cum,
with) to I. mix. See Mix, and Commingle. Der. commixture,
which is, however, not a hybrid word, the sb. mixture being of L.
origin, from L. mixtira or mistira, a mixing, mixture; it occurs in
Shak. L. L. L. v. 2. 266. He also has commixtion (MF. commistion,
Cot.: from L. commistiOnem, acc. of commistio, a mixing, mixture) ;
but it occurs earlier, spelt comyxtioun, in Trevisa, ii. 159; see Spec.
of Eng. ed. Morris and Skeat, p. 241, 1. 161.
COMMODIOUS, comfortable, useful, fit. (F.—L.) Spelt com-
modiouse in Palladius on Husbandry, bk. ii. st. 22. Englished from
OF. commodieux (Godefroy). — Late L. commodidsus, useful; Ducange.
Formed with suffix -dsus from commodi-, for L. commodus, convenient ;
lit. in good measure.=L. com-, for cum, together; and modus,
measure. See Mode. Der. commodious-ly, commodious-ness; from
the same source, commod-tty; also commode, which is the F. form of
L. commodus.
COMMODORE, the commander of a squadron. (Du.—F.—L.)
* Commodore, a kind of admiral, or commander in chief of a squadron
of ships at sea;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715. Applied to Anson, whe
died A.D. 1762; it occurs in Anson’s Voyage, b.i.c. 1. First used
in the time of Will. III., and spelt commandore (N. E. D.)— Du. com-
mandeur ; ‘den Commandeur van een Stadt, the Commandeur of
a Towne;’ (Hexham). This shows that E. commandeur, in the
sense of ‘commander,’ is as early as 1658.—F. commandeur.—L. acc.
type *commandatorem ; from Late L. commandare; see Command.
COMMON, public, general, usual, vulgar. (F.-L.) ΜΕ.
commun, comun, comoun, comon, comune. Spelt commun, Rob. of
Gloue. p. 541, 1. 11215. OF. commun. —L. commiinis, general. —L.
com-, for cum, with ; and minis, complaisant, obliging, ready to
serve (Plautus). Cf. L. miinus, service. (As if ‘serving each other.’)
Cf. also Lith. mainas, Russ. miena, barter. Brugm. i. § 208. Der.
common-ly, common-ness, common-er, common-al-iy, common-place (see
place), common-weal, common-wealth (see weal, wealih) ; s. pl. commons.
Also, from L. comminis, we have commun-ion, commun-ist, commun-i-ly ;
and see commune.
COMMOTION, a violent movement. (F.—L.) Spelt com-
mocion ; Sir T. More, Works, p. 43 f.—F. commotion, ‘a commotion,
tumult, stirre;’ Cot. = L.commétidnem, acc. of commdtio, a commotion.
=L. com-, for cum, with ; and métio, motion. See Motion.
COMPATIBLE
COMMUNE, to converse, talk together. (F.—L.) ME. comunen.
‘With suche hem liketh to comune ;’ Gower, C. A. i. 643 bk. i.
1.651. Also communien ; spelt communy, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 102.
ΕΥ̓ ne shal noust commune wyth;’ Early E. Prose Psalter, Ps. exl.
(exli.) 5 ; where the Vulgate has zon communicabo. OF. communier,
to communicate, = L. comminicare, to communicate, pp. comminicatus.
—L. comminis, common, See Common. @ Partly also from OF.
communer, to have in common. Der. From the L. communicare we
also have communicate,a doublet of commune; communicant (pres. part.
form) ; communicat-ive, -ive-ness, -ion, -or-y; communica-ble, -bl-y,
COMMUTE, to exchange. (L.) In Bp. Taylor, Liberty of Pro-
phesying, s. 19 (R.) The sb. commutation is in Strype’s Records,
no. 23 (R.) The adj. commutative (F. commutatif ) is in Sir Τὶ Elyot,
The Governour, b. iii. c. 1. § 3.—L. commitare, to exchange with. =
L. com-, for cum, with; and mutare, to change, pp. muddius. See
Mutable. Der. commut-able, -abil-i-iy, -at-ion, -at-ive, -at-ive-ly,
COMPACT (1), adj., fastened or put together, close, firm. (F.—L.)
‘ Compacte, as 1 mought say, of the pure meale or floure;’ Sir T.
Elyot, The Governour, b. i. c. 14. ὃ 5.— MF. compacte, ‘ compacted,
well set, knit, trust [trussed], pight, or joined together ;’ Cot.—L.
compactus, well set, joined together, pp. of compingere, to join or put
together. —L. com-, for cum, with; and pangere, to fasten, plant, set,
fix, pp. pactus. See Pact. Der. compact, verb; compact-ly, -ed-ly,
-ness, -ed-ness ; and see below.
COMPACT (2), sb., a bargain, agreement. (L.) In Shak. gen.
accented compact, As You Like It, v. 4. 5.—L. compactum, an agree-
ment.—L. compactus, pp. of compacisci, to agree with. L. com-, for
cum, with ; and pacisci, to covenant, make a bargain; formed from
an old verb pac-ere, with inceptive suffix -sc-i. See Pact.
COMPANY, an assembly, crew, troop. (F.—L.) ME. companie,
companye, in early use; see An Old Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris,
p- 138, 1. 709.—OF. companie, compaignie, compagnie, company,
association (cf. OI. compain, a companion, associate; also OF.
compainon, companion, a companion).—Late L. companiem, acc. of
companiés, a company, a taking of meals together; cf. Late L.
companis, victuals eaten along with bread. = L. com-, for cum, with ;
and pans, bread. See Pantry. Der. compani-on; whence com-
panton-ship, -able, -abl-y, -less ; also ac-company, ἢ. Vv.
COMPARE, to set things togcther, in order to examine points of
likeness or difference. (F.—L.) In Shak. K. John, i. 79. Spelt
comper in Barbour, Bruce, i. 403. [The sb. comparison is in early use ;
see Chaucer, C. T. Group E. 666, 817 (Clerk’s Tale).] OF. com-
perer; Ἐς comparer; Cot.—L.compardre, pp. compardatus, to couple
together, to match, compare. - L. compar, like, equal.—L. com-, for
cum, together; and par, equal. See Par. @ Distinct from L. com-
parare, to acquire, a derivative of pardare, to prepare; see compare in
Spenser, F. Q. i. 4. 28. Der. compar-able, ccmparat-ive, -ive-ly ; also
compar-tson, from Ἐς. compar:.ison (Cotgrave), which from L. compara-
tidnem, acc. of compardatio, a comparing.
COMPARTMENT, a separate division of an enclosed space.
(F.—Ital.—L.) In Florio’s Ital. Dict. (1598). ‘In the midst was
placed a large compartment ;’ Carew, A Masque at Whitehall, an.
1633 (R.)—F. compartiment, ‘a compartement,... a partition ;’
Cot.—Ital. compartimento, ‘a compartment, a partition ;’ Florio. =
Ital. compartire, Late L. compartire, to divide, partition; Ducange. =
L. com-, for cum, with, together; and pariire, to divide, part, share,
from L. parti-, declensional stem of pars, a part. See Part.
COMPASS, acircuit, circle, limit, range. (F.—L.) ME. compas,
cumpas, of which a common meaning was ‘a circle.’ ¢ As the point
in a compas’=like the centre within a circle; Gower, C. A. iil. 92;
bk. vii. 229. ‘In manere of compas’=like a circle ; Chaucer, C. T.,
A 1880. =F. compas, ‘a compasse, a circle, a round ; also, a paire of
compasses ;’ Cot.—Late L, compassus, a circle, circuit; cf. Late L.
compassdre, to encompass, to measure a circumference. —L, com-, for
cum, together; and pas:us, a pace, step, track, or in Late L. a passage,
way, pass, route: whence the sb. compassus, a route that comes
together, or joins itself, a circuit (?). See Pace, Pass. @ But thcre
is much doubt as to the history of the senses of Late L. compassus and
compassare. Der. compass, verb, Gower, C. A. i. 173, bk. ii. 409;
Polit. Songs, p. 202 (ab. 1308) ; (a pair of) compass-es, an instrument
for drawing circles.
COMPASSION, pity, mercy. (F.—L.) ME. compassioun,
Chaucer, C.T., B 659.—OF. compassion; which Cotgrave translates
by ‘compassion, pity, mercie.’=L. compassidnem, acc. of compassio,
sympathy; cf. compassus, pp. of compati, to suffer together with, to
feel compassion. = L. com-, for cum, together with ; and pati, to suffer.
See Passion. Der. compassion-ate (Tit. Andron. ii. 3.217; Rich. II,
i. 3. 174); compassion-ale-ly, -ale-ness. Shak. has also the verb to
compassion, Tit. Andron. iv. 1, 124. And see compat-i-ble.
COMPATIBLE (often followed by WITH), that can bear
with, suitable with or to. (.—L.) Formerly used without with;
COMPATRIOT
‘not repugnant, but compatible ;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 485 d-=F.
compatitle, ‘compatible, concurrable; which can abide, or agree
together ;’ Cot. Late L. compatibilis, used of a benefice which could
be held together with another. —L. compati-, for compaii, to suffer
or endure together with; with passive suffix -b:lis.—L. com-, for
cum, together with ; and pa/i,to suffer. Seeabove. Der. compatibl-y ;
compati-bili-ty (F. compatibilité, as if from a L. acc. *compatibilitatem).
COMPATRIOT, of the same country. (F.—L.) ‘One of our
compatricts ;’ Howell’s Letters, b. i. s. 1. letter 15 (1619). —MF.
compatriote, ‘ one’s countryman ;’ Cot.—Late L. compatrid‘a, a com-
patriot (Lewis).—L. com-, for cum, together with; and pa’rid/a,
a native, from patria, one’s native soil, fem. of the adj. paérius,
paternal (the subst. terra, land, being understood) ; from L. patri-,
declensional stem of paler, father. See Patriot. @ The L. patr:d/a
is an imitation of the Gk. πατριώτης, a fellow-countryman ; from Gk.
πατριά, a lineage, allied to πατήρ, father.
COMPEERR, a fellow, equal, associate. (F.—L.) ME. comper.
‘His freend and his compeer ;’ Chaucer, C. Τὶ prol. A 670 (672). —
OF. *comper, a word not found, but probably in use as an equivalent
of the L. compar; the OF. per (whence E. peer) is very common. =
L. compar, equal; also, an equal, a comrade.—L. com-, for cum,
together with; and par, an equal, a peer. See Peer. 4 The F.
compére, a gossip, godfather, is quite a different word; it stands for
L. com-pater, i.e. a godfather.
COMPEL, to urge, drive on, oblige. (F.—L.) ME. compellen ;
the pp. compelled occurs in Trevisa, i. 247; il. 159; see Spec. of
Inglish, ed. Morris and Skeat, p. 241, 1. 166.— AI. compeller, Stat.
of the Realm, i. 375 (1362); OF. compeller. = L. compellere, to compel,
lit. to drive together ; pp. compulsus. = L. com-, for cum, together ; and
pellere, to drive. See Pulsate. Der. compell-able; also compuls-ion
(KX. John, ii. 218) ; compuls-ive, -ive-ly, -or-y, -or-i-ly, all like the L.
pp- compulsus.
COMPENDIOUS, brief, abbreviated. (F.—L.) In Sir T. Elyot,
The Governour, b. ii. c. 2, last section. The ady. compbendiously is in
the Romaunt of the Rose, 1. 2346. Adapted from OF. compendieux
(Palsgrave, p. 308).=—L. compendidsus, reduced to a small compass,
compendious. - L. compendi-um, an abbreviation, abridgement; with
suffix -dsus ; the lit. sense of compendium is a saving, sparing from
expense. = L. com-, for cum, with ; and pendere, to weigh, to esteem
of value. See Pension. Der. compendious-ly. The L. compendium
is also in use in English.
COMPENSATE, to reward, requite suitably. (L.) ‘ Who are
apt... tothink no truth can compensate the hazard of alterations ;’
Stillingfleet, vol. ii. sermon 1 (R.) Compensation is in Shak. Temp.
iv. 1, 2. [The ME. form was compensen, used by Gower, C. A. i. 365
(bk. iii. 2554), now obsolete: borrowed from F. compenser, from L.
compensdre.]=—L. compensatus, pp. of compensare, to reckon or weigh
one thing against another.—L. com-, for cum, together with; and
2. -nsare, to weigh, freauentative form of pendere, to weigh, pp. pensus.
See Pension. Der. compens-at-ion, compens-at-or-y.
COMPETE, to vie with another, contend in rivalry. (L.)
Little used till lately, though found as early as 1620 (N. E. D.) Coles
(1684) has compe‘ize instead of it. Englished from L. competere
(below). See Petition.
COMPETENT, fit, suitable, sufficient. (F.—L.) ‘ Competente
salarye;’ Gesta Romanorum, ed. Herrtage; c.1xi. p. 257. Also in
Shak. Hamlet, i. 1. 90. Cf. competence, 2 Hen. IV, v. 5. 70; com-
petency, Cor. i. 1. 143.—F. competent, ‘ competent, sufficient, able,
full, convenient ;’ Cot. Properly pres. part. of the F. verb competer,
‘to be sufficient for ;’ id. = L. compefere, to solicit, to be suitable or
fit.—L.com-, for cum, with; and petere, to fly to, seek. Der. com-
petent-ly, competence, competenc-y.
COMPETITOR, one who competes with another, a rival. (L.)
In Shak. Two Gent. ii. 6. 35. [Competition occurs in Bacon, Hist.
of Henry VII, ed. Lumby, p. 8, 1. 232. The verb to compete came
into general use later. ]— L. competitor, a fellow-candidate for an office.
=—L. com-, for cum, together with; and petifor, a candidate; cf.
peli-lus, pp. of pelere, to fall, fly towards, seek ; with suffix -/or of the
agent.—4/ PET, to fly, fall; cf. Skt. pa’, to fly, Gk. πέτομαι, I fly ;
and see Feather, Pen (1). Der. I'rom the same source, competit-
ive, compelit-ion; and see compete, competent.
COMPILE, to get together, collect, compose. (f.—L.) ‘As I
finde in a bok compiled ;” Gower, C. A. iii. 48; bk. vi. 1382. —OF.
compiler, of which Cotgrave gives the pp. compilé, which he explains
by ‘compiled, heaped together ;” but the word is quite distinct from
pile, a pillar or heap.—L. compilare, pp. compildtus, to plunder,
pillage, rob; so that the word had at first a sinister meaning. —L.
com-, for cum, with; and pilare, only with the sense ‘to thrust,’
perhaps allied to L. pilum, a javelin; see Pile (3). [Not the same
word as pildre, to deprive of hair.] Der. compil-er ; also compilation,
from F. compilation, which from L. compilatidnem, acc. of compilatio.
COMPLINE
COMPLACENT, gratified; lit. pleasing. (L.) Complacence is
in Milton, P. L. iii. 276; viii. 433. Complacent first appeats about
1767: ‘with complacent smile;’ Jago, Edgehill, bk. iv. 1. 104.—L.
complacent-, stem of complacens, pres. pt. of complacére, to please. = L.
com-, for cum, with; and placere, to please. See Please. Der.
comtlacent-ly, complacence, complacenc-y. Doublet, complaisan’,.q. v.
COMPLAIN, to lament, express grief, accuse. (F.—L.) In
Chaucer, C. T. 6340 (D 758); Troil. and Cress. iv. 1170.—OF. com-
plaign-,a stem of complaindre, ‘to plaine, complaine ;’ Cot. = Late
L. complangere, to bewail.—L. com-, for cum, with ; and plangere, to
bewail. See Plaint. Der. complain-ant (for complaignant, I’. pres.
part.), complaint (F. past part.).
COMPLAISAN'T, pleasing, obliging. (F.—L.) Used by
Cowley, on Echo, st. 2.—F. complaisant, ‘obsequious, observant,
soothing, and thereby pleasing; ’ Cotgrave. Pres. pt. of verb com-
flaire, to please. —L. complacére, to please. Complatsant is a doublet
of complacent, q.v. D2r. complaisance, in Dryden, Kind Keeper, iy. 1.
COMPLEMENT, that which completes; full number. (L.)
‘The complement of the sentence following ;’ Sir T. More, Works,
Ῥ- 954 b.=—L. complémentum, that which serves tocomplete. Formed
with suffix -mentum from the verb complé-re, to complete. See
Complete. Der. complement-al, used by Prynne, Sovereign Power
of Parliaments, pt. i.; but in old books it is often another spelling
of complimental; see Shak. Troil. iii. 1. 42. @ Complement is a
doublet of (Ital.) compliment; the distinction in spelling is of late
date. See complement in Schmidt, Shak. Lexicon. See Compli-
ment.
COMPLETE, perfect, full, accomplished. (L.) The verb is
formed from the adjective. ‘The fourthe day compleet fro none to
none ;” Chaucer, C. T. 9767 (E 1893).—L. complétus, pp. of com-
plére, to fulfil, fill uwp.—L. com-, for cum, with, together; and plére,
to fill. See Plenary. Der. complete, verb; complete-ly, -ness, com-
plet-ion; also complement, q.v.; compliment, q.v. Complete, verb, is
a doublet of comply, q.v.; and see compline.
COMPLEX, intricate, difficult. (L.) In Locke, Of Human
Understanding, b. ii. c. 12.—L. complexus, entwined round, hence,
intricate; pp. of complecti, to embrace. L. com-, for cum, together;
and flectere, to plait, allied to plicare, to twine, whence E. plait.
See Plait. Der. comjlex-i-ty; and see complex-ion, complic-ate,
complic-ity.
COMPLEXION, texture, outward appearance. (F.—L.) ‘Of
his complexion he was sanguin;’ Chaucer, C.T., A 333.—OF.
(and mod. F.) complexion, complexion, appearance. = L. com 1 x.dnem,
acc. of complex:o, a comprehending ; in Late L., a habit of the body,
complexion; cf. complexus, pp. of complecti, to embrace, twine
around. L. com-, for cum, with; and plectere, to plait (above).
Der. comblexion-ed, -al.
COMPLIANCE, COMPLIANT; see Comply.
COMPLICATE, to render complex. (L.) Complicate was
originally used as an adj., as in: ‘though they are complicate in fact,
yet are they separate and distinct in right;’ Bacon, Of a War with
Spain (R.) Milton has complicated, P.L. x. 523.—L. complicatus,
pp. of complicare, to plait together, entangle.—L. com-, for cum,
together ; and plicare, to fold. Cf. Complex. Der. complic-at-ion ;
and see complicity.
COMPLICITY, the state of being an accomplice. (F.—L.)
‘Complicity, a consenting or partnership in evil;’ Blount’s Glosso-
graphia, ed. 1674. [Not much used formerly; but complice, i.e.
accomplice, was common, though now less in use; see Shak. Rich. II,
ii. 3. 165.]—F. complicité, ‘a conspiracy, a bad confederacy ;’ Cot.
=F. complice, ‘a complice, confederate, companion in a lewd action;’
Cot.—L. complicem, acc. of complex, adj., confederate with, lit. inter-
woven.—L. com-, for cum, together, and plicare, to fold. See
Accomplice and Plait.
COMFLIMENT, compliance, courtesy. (F. —Ital.—Span.—L.)
Often spelt complement in old edd.; see Shak. Merry Wives, iv. 2. 5;
Tw. Nt. iii. 1. 110 (where the First Folio has complement in both
} laces) ; and editors systematically make the same alteration in other
books.—F. compliment, introduced in the 16th cent. from Ital.
(Brachet). Ital. complimento, compliment, civility. Formed, by help
of the suffix -mento, from the verb compli-re, to fill up, fulfil, suit. =
MSpan. complir, to fit, to furnish. See Comply. Complement
is the Lat. spelling of the same word. Der, compliment, verb; com-
pliment-ar-y. Compliment isalso a doublet of compliance ; see Comply.
COMPLINE, the last church-service of the day. (F.—L.)
ME. complin, Chaucer, C. T., 4169 (A 4171); Cursor Mundi, 25609.
Complin is an adj. form (cf. culver-in, flor-in), as in complin song.
The phr. comsling (for complin) song is in Douglas’s tr. of Virgil;
Prol. to bk. xiii. 1. 35. The sb. is comple, or cumplie, Ancren Riwle,
Ρ- 24-—OF. complie (mod. F. complies, which is the plural of complie).
=Late L. compléta, compline; the fem. of L. complétus, complete.
125
126 COMPLOT
See Complete. € Compléta (sc. héra) ; because it completed the
‘hours’ of the daily service.
COMPLOT, a conspiracy. See Plot (1).
COMPLY, to yield, assent, agree, accord. (Ital. —Span.—L.) In
Shak. to comply with is to be courteous or formal; Hamlet, ii. 2. 399;
ν. 2.195. Cf. Oth, i. 3. 264. Milton has comply, Sams. Agon. 1408 ;
also compliant, P. L. iv. 332; compliance, P. L, viii.603. [The word
is closely connected with compliment, and may even have been formed
by striking off the suffix of that word (see Skinner). It has no doubt
been much influenced by ply and pliant, but is of quite a different
origin. It is not of French, but of Italian origin.]—Ital. complire, to
fill up, to fulfil, to suit ; also ‘to use or accomplish all complements ;’
Florio. —MSpan. complir, now cumplir, ‘to fit, furnish, accomplish,’
Minsheu; the true Ital. form being compire.—L. complére, to fill up,
complete, See Complete. ss Thus comply is really a doublet of
complete. Der. compli-ant, compli-ance; false formations, imitating
pliant, appliance.
COMPONENT, composing. (L.) Sometimes used as a sb.,
but generally as an adjective, with the sb. part. ‘ The components of
judgments ;’ Digby, Of Man’s Soul, c. 10, § τὸ (A.D. 1645).—L.
component-, stem of compdnens, pres. part. of componere, to compose.
See Compound (1).
COMPORT, to agree, suit, behave. (F.—L.) ‘ Comports not with
what is infinite;” Daniel, A Defence of Rhyme, § 8, ed. 1603 (R.)
Spenser has comportance, i.e. behaviour, Εἰ. Ὁ. ii. 1. 29.—F. comporter,
‘to endure, beare, suffer;’ Cotgrave. He also gives ‘se comporter,
to carry, bear, behave, maintaine or sustaine himselfe.’—Late L.
comportare, to behave; L. comportare, to carry or bring together. =
L. com-, for cum, with; and portare, to carry. See Port (1).
COMPOSE, to compound, make up, arrange, soothe. (F.—L.
and Gk.) In Shak. Temp. iii. 1. 9 ; and somewhat earlier. ‘ [He]
composed and made a lampe ;’ Caxton, Troy-book, leaf 206, back.
(Cf. ME. compounen, to compose; Chaucer’s tr. of Boethius, bk. iii.
met. 9. 6.]—F. composer, ‘ to compound, make, frame, dispose, order,
digest ;᾿ Cot.—F. com-, from L. com-, for cum, with; and poser, to
place, pose. See Pose. B. Not derived from L. componere, though
used in the same sense, but from L. com- and pausare, which is quite
distinct from ponere. Der. compos-er ; compos-ed, -ed-ly, -ed-ness ;
compos-xre; and see below. And see Compound (1).
COMPOSITION, an agreement, a composing. (F.—L.) ‘ By
forward and by com+osicioun ;’ Chaucer, C. T., A 848.—F. com-
fosition, ‘a composition, making, framing,” &c.; Cot.—L. com-
posilionem, acc. of compositio, a putting together; cf. compositus, pp.
of componere, to put together, compose. See Compound (1).
Der. Hence also composit-or, composite; compost.
COMFOST, a mixture, composition, manure. (F.—L.) ‘ Com-
postes and confites’=condiments and comfits; Babees Boke, ed.
Furnivall, p. 121, 1. 75. Shak. has compost, Hamlet, iii. 4. 151;
and composture, Timon, iv. 3. 444.—OF. composte, f., ‘a condiment,
or composition, . . . also pickle;’ Cot. Also OF. compost, m. a
mixture (Godelroy).—L. compositus, mixed, pp. of compdnere, to
compose. See below. Thus compost is a doublet of composite ;
see above.
COMPOUND (1), to compose, mix, settle. (L.) The d is
merely excrescent. ME. componen, compounen; componeth is in Gower,
C. A. 11. 138; bk. vii. 1590. Chaucer has compounen, tr. of Boethius,
bk. iil. met. 9. 6.—L. compdnere, to compose.—L. com-, for cum,
together; and fdxere, to put, lay, a contraction of po-sinere, lit. ‘to
set behind;’ whence the old pt. t. postu7, Plautus, Pseudolus, v. 1. 35.
See Site. Brugm. i. § 240. Der. compound, adj., short for com-
poun-ed, pp. of ME. compounen (above) ; whence compound, sb. ; and
see compcce.
COMPOUND (2), the enclosure in which an Anglo-Indian house
or factory stands. (Malay.) See the discussion and exx. in Yule.—
Malay kampong, ‘an enclosure, . . . a fenced village; a collection
of buildings ;’ Marsden (1812).
COMPREHEND, to seize, grasp. (L.) ME. comprehenden,
Chaucer, C. T. 10537 (F 223).—L. comprehendere, to grasp. =—L.
com-, for cum, with; and prehendere, to seize. B. Prehendere is com-
pounded of L. pre, beforehand, and hendere, to seize, get, an obsolete
verb cognate with Gk. χανδάνειν and with E. get. See Prehensile,
Get. Der. comprehens-ive, -ly, -ness: comprehens-ible, -ibl-y, -ible-ness,
-tbil-i-ty, -ton; all like comprehens-us, pp. of comprehendere. Doublet,
comprise.
COMPRESS, to press together. (F.—L.) Used by Ralegh, Hist.
of the World, b. i. c. 2. 5.7 (R.) Not in Shak. ‘ With his chekys
compressyd ;’ Monk of Evesham, ed. Arber, p. 23. OF. compresser
(Godefroy); not in Cotgrave. (The sb. compress in the sense of
“bandage’ is also French. Cotgrave gives : ‘ Compresse, a boulster,
pillow, or fold of linnen, to bind up, or lay on, a wound.’]=L. com-
Pressare, to oppress; Tertullian. = L. com-, for cum, with; and pressare,
CONCEDE
to press; which from pressus, pp. of premere, to press. See Press (1).
Der. c-mpress, sb.; com, ress-:ble, -ibil-i-ty, -ion, -ive.
COMFRISH, to comprehend. (F.—L.) ‘ The substance of the
hole sentence is herin comprised;’ Sir Τὶ Elyot, The Governour,
Ὁ. 1. c. 13, 8 10. The pt.t. comprisit occurs in The Kings Quair,
st. 28.—OF,. (and F.) compris, also comprins. Burguy gives the form
compris aS well as comprins; but Cotgrave only gives the latter,
which he explains by ‘comprised, comprehended.’ Compris is the
shorter form of comprins, old pp. of F. comprendre, to comprehend.
—L. comprehendere, to comprehend. Thus comprise is a doublet of
comfrch2nd, q.v. Der. compris-al.
COMPROMISE, a settlement by concessions. (F.—L.) Shak.
has both sb. and verb; Merry Wives, i. 1. 33; Merch. i. 3.79. Pals-
grave has the sb. com romyse.—F. compromis, m., ‘a compromise,
mutuall promise of adversaries to refer their differences unto arbitre-
ment;’ Cot. Properly pp. of F. compromettre, ‘to compromit, or
put unto compromise ;”’ Cot.—L. comprdmittere,to make a mutual
promise.=—L,. com-, for cum, together ; and promittere, to promise. See
Promise. Der. compromise, verb (formerly also to compromz’).
COMPTROLLER, another spelling of controller ; see Control.
COMPULSION, COMPULSIVE; see Compel.
COMPUNCTION, remorse. (F.—L.) ‘ Have ye compunccioun;’
Wyclif, Ps. iv. 5 ; where the Vulgate version has compungimini.—OF.
compunction, ‘ compunction, remorse;’ Cot. Late L. compunctidnem,
ace. of compunctio (Lewis) ; cf. L. compunctus, pp. of compungi, to feel
remorse, pass. of compungere, to prick, sting. —L. com-, for cum, with ;
and pungere, to prick. Sec Pungent. Der. compuncti-ous.
COMPUTE, to calculate, reckon. (L.) Sir T. Browne has com-
puters, Vulg. Errors, b. vi. c. 4. § 43 computists, id. b. vi. c. 8. § 175
computable, id. Ὁ. ἵν. c. 12. § 23. Shak. has computation, Com. Errors,
il. 2. 4; Milton, compute, P. L. iii. 580.—L. computare, to compute. =
L. com-, for cum, together ; and puéare, to think, settle, adjust. B. The
primary notion of /utare was to make clean, ‘then to bring to clean-
ness, to make clear, and according to a genuinely Roman conception,
to reckon, to think (cp. 1 reckon, a favourite expression with the
Americans for I suppose);’ Curtius, i. 349.—4/PEU, to purify; see
Pure. Der, comput-at-ton, comput-able. Doublet, count (2), q.v-
COMRADE, a companion. (F.—Span.—L.) In Shak. Hamlet, i.
3. 65. [lather introduced by a blending of the Span. and F. forms
than through the French only; the MF. camerade was only used,
according to Cotgrave, to signify ‘a chamberfull, a company that
belongs to, or is ever lodged in, one chamber, tent, [or] cabin.’
And the Τὸ camarade was also taken from the Spanish; see Brachet.
Besides, the spelling camrado occurs in Marmyon’s Fine Companion,
1633; see Nares’s Glossary, ed. Halliwell and Wright.]—Span,
camarada, a company, society; also, a partner, comrade; {Minsheu
has Span. camarada, ‘a comerade or cabbin-mate souldier;’} cama-
radas de navio, ship-mates.—Span. camara, a chamber, cabin. —L,
camara, camera, achamber. See Chamber,
CON (1), to peruse, scan, observe closely. (E.) ME, cunnien, to
test, examine. Of Jesus on the cross, when the vinegar was offered
to him, it is said : ‘he smeihte and cunnede therof’=he took a smack
of it and ¢as¢ed it, i.e. to see what it was like; Ancren Riwle, p. 114.—
AS. cunnian, to test, try, examine into; Grein,i.171. B. A secondary
verb, formed from AS. cunnan, to know ; it signifies accordingly ‘ ta
try to know ;’ and may be regarded as the desiderative of ¢o know, See
Can. Der. ale-conner, i.e. ale-tester (obsolete) ; conn-img-lower, a
tower for observation.
CON (2), used in the phrase pro and con; short for L, contra,
against; prd meaning ‘ for;’” so that the phr. means ‘ for and against.’
CON.-, a very common prefix; for com-, a form of L. cum, with.
The form con- is used when the following letter is c, d, g, j, 2 7; 5», t,
orv; and sometimes before. Before ὁ, f, m, p, the form is com-;
before 1, col-; before r, cor-. See Com-.
CONCATENATE, to link together. (L.) An unusual word ; con-
catena.ion is in Bp. Beveridge’s Sermons, vol i. ser. 38. ‘Seek the
consonancy and concatenation of truth;’ Ben Jonson, Discoveries;
section headed Note domini Sti. Albani, &c.—L. concaténatus, pp.
of concaténare, to chain together, connect. = L, con-, for cum, together ;
and caténare, to chain, from catéxa, a chain. See Chain. Der.
concatenat-ion.
CONCAVE, hollow, arched. (F.—L.) Shak. Jul. Cs. i. 1. 52.
—OF. concave (Hatzfeld).—L. concauus, hollow.—L. con-, for cum,
with; and cauus, hollow. See Cave. Der. concav-ity.
CONCEAL, to hide, disguise. (F.—L.) ME. concelen, Gower,
C. A. ii. 282; bk. v. 4635.—OF. conceler (Godefroy).—L. concélare,
to conceal. —L. con-, for cum, together, wholly ; and cé/are, to hide.
=4/KEL, to hide, whence also oc-cul-t, cell, domi-cile, cl-andestine ;
cognate with Teutonic 4/ EL, whence E. hell, hall, hole, hull, holster,
&c. Der. conceal-ment, conceal-able.
CONCEDE, to cede, grant, surrender. (L.) ‘ Which
is not
CONCEIT
conceded ;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, bk. i. c. 4. § 6.—L. concédere,
Pp. concessus, to retire, yield, grant.—L. con-, for cum, together,
wholly ; and cédere, to cede, grant. See Cede. Der. concess-ion,
-tve, -or-y; like L. pp. concessus.
CONCEIT, a conception, idea, notion, vanity. (F.—L.) ME.
conceipt, conceit, conseit, conseyt. ‘ Allas, conceyles wronge!’ Chaucer,
Troil. and Cress. iii. 804. Gower has conceite, C. A. 1. 7; prol. 113.
Formed, by analogy with deceit, as if from an OF. form *conceite, from
L. concepia, f. {There is no OF. or AF. conceite, but Godefroy has
deceite, and AF. decey/e is in the Statutes of the Realm, i. 34 (1275).]
=L. concepla, fem. of conceptus, pp. of concipere, to conceive. See
Conceive. Der. conceit-ed, -ed-ly, -ed-ness; cf. conceplion.
CONCEIVE, to be pregnant, take in, think. (F.—L.) ΜΕ.
concezuen, conceuen; with τὸ for v. ‘ This preyere . ᾿ς concewes [con-
ceives, contains] alle the gode that a man schuld aske of God;’
Wyclif’s Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 442.— OF. conceiv-, a stem of concevsr,
concevoir, to conceive. L. concipere, to conceive, pp. conceptus.—L.
con-, for cum, together, wholly ; and cagerz, to take, hold. SeeCapable.
Der. conceiv-able, -abl-y, -able-ness ; concept-ion, q.V. 3 conceit, q. Vv.
CONCENTRE, to tend or bring to a centre. (F.—L.) ‘ Two
natures... have been concentred into one hypostasis ;’ Bp. Taylor,
vol. ii. ser. 1 (R.) Chaucer has concentrik; On the Astrolabe, i
17. 3; 1.16. 6. Concentre is now supplanted by the (Latin) form
concentrate. =F, concentrer, ‘to joine in one center ;’ Cot.—F. con-
(from L. con-, for cum, together) ; and centre,a centre. See Centre.
Der. concentr-ic, concentrate (a coined word), concentrat-ive, -ion.
CONCEPTION, the act of conceiving; a notion. (F.—L.)
ME. concepcion; Cursor Mundi, 220.—F. conception.=L. concept-
idnem, acc. of conceptio; cf. conceptus, pp. of concipere, to conceive.
See Conceive.
CONCERN, to regard, belong to. (F.—L.) ‘Such points as
concerne our wealth ;’ Frith’s Works, p. 46, col. 2.—F. concerner, ‘ to
concerne, touch, import, appertaine, or belong to;’ Cot.—L. con-
cernere, to mix, mingle ; in Late L. to refer to, regard ; Ducange. =
L. con-, for cum, together ; 3 and cernere, to separate, sift, decree,
observe. L. cernere is cognate with Gk. κρίνειν, to separate, decide ;
Lith. skir-ti, to separate. =/SKER, to separate; Brugmann, ii.
§ 612. Der concern-ed, -ed-ly, -ed-ness, -ing, -ment.
CONCERT, to plan with others, arrange. (F.—Ital.—L.)
(Often confused in old writers with consort, a word of different origin.
Thus Spenser: ‘For all that pleasing is to living eare Was there
consorted in one harmonee;’ F. Q.ii. 12. 70. See Consort.] ‘Will
any one persuade me that this was not . . . a concerted affair?’ Tatler,
no. 171. I. concerter, ‘to consort, or agree together ;’ Cot.—TItal.
concertare, ‘to agree or tune together, accord together, to sing or
play in consort ;’ Florio. B. Formed from L. concertare, to dispute,
contend, vie with, orig. a word of almost opposite meaning; but the
Span. concertar meant to bargain, and (hence) to agree, covenant,
come to terms; also, to settle, to harmonize, and even to tune
musical instruments (see Minsheu and Neuman). Baretti (Ital. Dict.,
1831) gives to concertare only the senses ‘to concert, to contrive, to
bring to pass;’ with the sb. concerfo, concert, harmony. y. From L.
con-, for cum, together ; and certare, to contend, vie with, orig. ‘to
decide by contest,’ frequent. of cernere, to decide (Bréal), See
Concern. Der. concert, sb., concerto (Ital.), concert-ina.
CONCESSION, CONCESSIVE;; see Concede.
CONCH, a marine shell. (L.—Gk.) ‘ Adds orient pearls which
from the conchs he drew ;’ Dryden, Ovid’s Metam, x. 39 (Pygmaleon).
= L. concha, a shell. — Gk. κόγχη (also «éyxos), a mussel, cockle-shell.
+Skt. gaxkha-,a conch-shell. See Coeckle(1). Der. conchi-ferous,
shell-bearing, from L. Serre, to bear; concho-idal, conch-like, from
Gk. εἶδος, appearance, form; concho- logy, from Gk. -Aoyia, from
λέγειν, to speak ; concho- log-ist. These forms with prefix concho- are
from the Gk. κόγχο-ς. Brugmann, i. § 631.
CONCILIATE, to win over. (L.) “cA philter or plant that
conctliates affection ; ‘Sir Τὶ Browne, Vulgar Errors; bk. vii. c. 7. § 7.
“Τὸ conciliate amitie ;’ Joye, Exposition of Daniel, c. 11.—L. con-
ciliitus, pp. of conciliare, to conciliate, bring together, unite.—L.
concilium, an assembly, union. See Council. Der. conciliat-ion,
-or, -ory.
CONCINNITY, harmony, congmity, elegance of expression.
(L.) Spelt concinnitie, meaning ‘harmony;’ Sir T. Elyot, The
Governour, i. 20 (near the end).—L. acc. concinnitdtem, skilful
adjustment ; from concinnus, skilfully adjusted. Der. conctnnous,adj.,
from L. concinn-us, with suffix -ous.
CONCISE, cut short, brief. (F.—L.) Used by Drayton, Moses
his Birth and Miracles, b. ii. 161. ‘The concise style;’ Ben Jonson,
Discoveries; sect. headed De Stylo: Tacitus. [Perhaps taken directly
from Latin.|—F. concis, m. concise, f. ‘ concise, briefe, short, succinct,
compendious ;’ (οἵ. - L. concisus, brief ; pp. of concidere, to hew in
pieces, cut down, cut short, abridge. =—L. con-, for cum, with; and
CONDEMN
cedere,to cut. See Cesura. Der. concise-ly, -ness; also concis-ion
(Philipp. iii. 2), from L. concisio, a cutting to | 1eces, dividing.
CONCLAVE, an assembly, esp. of cardinals. (F.—L.) In early
use. ME. conclave, Gower, C.A., i. 2543; bk. ii. 2812.—F. conclave,
‘a conclave, closet, &c.; Cot.—L. conclauwe, a room, chamber; in
Late L., the place of assembly of the cardinals, or the assembly itself.
Orig. a locked up place. = L. con-, for cum, together; and clauis, a key.
See Clef.
CONCLUDE, to end, decide, infer. (L.) ‘And shortly to con-
cluden al his wo;’ Chaucer, C.T., 1360 (A 1358).—L. conclidere,
pp. conclisus, to shut up, close, ἐπα. οἷν con-, for cum, together ; and
claudere, to shut. See Clause. Der. conclus-ion, -ive, sively: ~ive-
ness like pp. conclus-us.
CONCOCT, to digest, prepare, mature. (L.) ‘Naturall heate
concocleth or boyleth;’ Sir ‘fr. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b, ii. ch. 1.—
L. concoctus, pp. of concoguere, to boil together, digest. —L. con-, for
cum, with ; and coguere, to cook. See Cook. Der. concoct-ion, in
Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. iv. c. 1. § 1.
CONCOMITANT, accompanying. (L.) ‘The waiting-maids
Or the concomitants of it, are his patience,’ &c.; Ben Jonson, New
Inn, A. iv. sc. 3. ‘ Without any concomitant degree of duty or obedi-
ence;’ Hammond, Works, iv. 657 (R.). Formed from concomitant-,
stem of pres. part. of concomitari, to accompany. ‘The pp. concomit-
tus, accompanied, occurs in Plautus.—L. con-, for cum, together;
and com:tari, to accompany, from comit-, stem of comes, a companion.
See Count (a). Der. concomitant-ly; hence also concomitance (in
Cotgrave), and concomitanc-y.
CONCORD, amity, union, unity of heart. (F.—L.) ‘Concorde,
concord ;’ Palsgrave’s F. Dict. 1530; ME. concord, Chaucer, Car:
goo5, Ε΄ 1129). {The ME. verb concorden, to agree, is in Chaucer,
Troil. and Cress. ili. 1752.] =F. concorde. = L. concordia, = L. concord-,
stem of concors, concordant, agreeing. —L. con-, for cum, together;
and cord-, stem of cor, the heart. See Cordial, and Heart. Der,
toncordant, η.ν.; also concordat, q.V.
CONCORDANT, agreeing. (F.—L.) ‘ Concordant discords;’
Mirror for Magistrates, p. 556 (k.).—F. concordant, pres. pt. of con-
corder, to agree. = L. ‘concordare, to agree.=—L, concord-, stem of
concors, agreeing. See above. Der. concord-ant-ly; concord-ance
(AF. concordance, Bozon, p. 160).
CONCORDAT, a convention. (F.—L.) Borrowed from F.
concordat, ‘an accord, agreement, concordancy, act of agreement ;’
Cot. (Cf. Ital. concordato, a convention, esp. between the pope and
French kings. ]—Late L. concordatum, from the pp. of concordare, to
agree. See above.
CONCOURSE, an are: (F.—L.) ‘Great concourse of
pears ” Fabyan, Chron. vol. 1. c. 132-—F. concours ; Hatzfeld ;
(omitted in Cot. ).=— L. concursus, a running together.—L, concursus,
p- of concurrere, to run together. See Concur.
CONCRETE, formed into one mass; used in opposition to
abstract. (L.) “ Concrete or gathered into humour superfluous ;” Sir
T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. iv. (R.).—L. concrétus, grown together,
compacted, thick, dense; pp. of concrescere, to grow together.—L.
con-, for cum, together ; ; and crescere, to grow. See Crescent.
Der. concrete, sb. ; concret-ion, -ive.
CONCUBINE, a paramour. (F.—L.) ME. concubine, Rob. of
Glouc. p. 27; 1. 630.—OF. (and F.) concubine. —L. concubina, a con-
cubine.—L. con-, for cum, together; and cubare, to lie. Cf. L.
-cumbere (perf. -cubui), to bend, in the comp. imcumbere, concumbere ;
and perhaps Gk. κυφός, bent. Der. concubin-age.
CONCUPISCENCE, lust, desire. (F.—L.) ME. concupiscence,
Gower, C.A. iii. 267; bk. vii. 5223.—F. concupiscence.—L. concup-
iscentia, desire ; Tertullians= it, concupiscere, to long after; inceptive
form of concupere, to long after-—L. con-, for cum, with, wholly ;
and cupere, to desire. See Cupid. Der. concupiscent, from L.
concupiscent-, stem of pres. pt. of concupiscere.
CONCUR, to mn together, unite, agree. (L.) In Douglas, tr. of
/Eneid, bk. x. 1. 20; and in Shak. Tw. Nt. lili, 4. 73.—L. concurrere,
to run together, unite, join.—L. con-, for cum, together; and currere,
torun. See Current. Der. concurr-ent, -ly; concurr-ence (F. con-
currence), from concurrent-, stem of concurrens, pres. part. of con-
currere; also concourse, q. Vv.
CONCUSSION, a violent shock. (F.—L.) ‘Their mutual
concussion ;’ Bp. Taylor, On Orig. Sin, Deus Justificatus. Also in
Caxton’s Eneydos, heading to c. ee sins concussion, ‘concussion, . . a
joulting, or knocking one against another ;’ Cot.—L. concussinem,
acc. of concussio, a violent shaking; cf. concussus, pp. of concutere,
to shake together. L. con-, for cum, together ; and quatere, to shake,
See Quash. Der. concuss-ive, from L. pp. concussus.
CONDEMLN, to pronounce to be guilty. (F.—L.) ‘Ye shulden
neuer han condempnyd innocentis ;” Wyclif, Matt. xii. 7; where the
Vulgate has ‘nunquam condemmassetis innocentes.’ And see Cursor
127
128 CONDENSE
Mundi, 1. 18176. =OF. condemner, condempner (Supp. to Godefroy).
=L. condemnare, to condemn. =—L. con-, for cum, with, wholly; and
damnire, to condemn, damn. See Damn. Der. condemn-able; also
condemnat-ion, -or-y, like L. pp. condemnitus.
CONDENSES, to made dense, compress. (F.—L.) See Milton,
P.L. i. 429, vi. 353, ix. 636.—F. condenser, ‘to thicken, or make
thick;’ Cot.—L. condensire, pp. condensatus, to make thick, press
together.=—L. con-, for cum, together; and densare, to thicken, from
lensus, dense, thick. See Dense. Ler. condens-able, condens-ate,
vb. (Cockeram), -at-ion, -at-ive.
CONDESCEND, to lower oneself, deign. (F.—L.) ME. con-
descen en 3 Chaucer, C. T. 10721 (F 407).—F. condescendre, ‘to
condescend, vouchsafe, yield, grant unto;’ (οἱ. “Ταῖς L. con-
descendere, to grant; Ducange.—L. con-, for cum, together; and
descendere, to descend. See Deseend. Der. condescend-ing ; con-
descension, Milton, P. L. vill. 649 (Late L. condescensio, indulgence,
condescension, from L. con- and descensio, a descent).
CONDIGN, well merited. (F.—L.) ‘ With a condygne [worthy]
pryce;’ Fabyan, Chron. vol. i. c. 200. ME. condigne, Lydgate,
Minor Poems, p. 136.—F. condigne, ‘ condigne, well-worthy ;’ Cot.
=L. condignus, well-worthy.—L. con-, for cum, with, very; and
dignus, worthy. See Dignity. Der. condign-ly.
CONDIMENT, seasoning, sauce. (F.—L.) ‘Rather for con-
diment . , . than any substantial nutriment;’ Sir Τὶ Browne, Vulg.
Errors, b. iii. c. 22. ὃ 4.—F. condiment. = L. condimentum, seasoning,
sauce, spice. Formed with suffix -mentum from the verb condire, to
season, spice. Brugmann, i. § 656 (1).
CONDITION, a state, rank, proposal. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. condicion,
condition; in rather early use. See Hampole, Pricke of Conscience,
3955; Chaucer, C. T. 1433 (A 1431).—F. condition, OF. condicion,
—L. conditidnem, acc. of conditio, condicio, a covenant, agreement,
ecndition. B. The usual reference of this word to the L. condere, to
put together, is wrong; the true L. spelling is condicio, from con-, for
cum, together, and the base dic- seen in indicdre, to point out; closely
telated to condicere, to talk over, agree upon; which is from con-
(cum), together, and dicere, to say, speak (Bréal). See Diction.
Der. ~ondi'ion-ed, -al, -al-ly.
CONDOLE, to lament, grieve with. (L.) ‘In doleful dittie to
condole the same;’ Mirror for Magistrates, p. 783 (R.).—L. con-
dolére, to grieve with.—L. con-, for cum, with; and dolére, to grieve.
See Doleful. Der. condol-ence, -ent, condole-ment, condol-at-or-y (an
ill-formed word).
CONDONE, to forgive, pardon. (L.) ‘Condone, or Condonate,
to give willingly, to forgive or pardon ;’ Blount’s Glossographia, ed.
1674; ‘Condone, to give;’ (Cockeram), 1642.—L. conddnare, to
Temit; pp. corddndtus.—L. con-, for cum, together, wholly; and
donare, to give. See Donation. Der. condonat-ion.
CONDOR, a large kind of vulture. (Span.— Peruvian.) ‘ Con-
dor, or Contur, in Peru in America, a strange and monstrous bird ;’
Bailey’s Dict. vol. ii. ed. 1731. Pl. condores; E.G., tr. of Acosta’s
Hist. of the Indies, bk. iv. c. 37 (1604).—Span. condor, corrupted
from Peruvian cuntur. ‘ Garcilasso enumerates among the rapacious
birds those called cuntur, and corruptly by the Spanish condor ;’ and
again; ‘many of the clusters of rocks [in Peru] . . are named after
them Cuntur Kahua, Cuntur Palti, and Cuntur Huacana, for example
—names which, in the language of the Incas, are said to signify the
Condor’s Look-out, the Condor’s Roost, and the Condor’s Nest;’
Engl. Cycl. art. Condor ; cf. Notes on Eng. Etym., p. 342.
CONDUCE, to lead or tend to, help towards. (L.) In the
Romance of Partenay, prol. 206. ‘To conduce [conduct] me to my
ladies presence ;’ Wolsey to Henry VIII, an. 1527; in State Papers
(R.).—L. condiicere, to lead to, draw together towards. = L. con-, for
cum, together; and dicere, to lead. See Duke. Der. conduc-ible,
ibl-y, -ive, -ive-ly, -ive-ness ; and see conduct, conduit.
CONDUCT, escort, guidance, behaviour. (L.) Common in
Shak, both as sb. and verb. The orig. sense is ‘escort ;’ see Mer-
chant of Ven. iv. 1. 148.—Late L. conductus, defence, protection,
guard, escort, &c.; Ducange.—L. conductus, pp. of condiicere, to
bring together, lead to (above). Der. conduct, verb; conduct-ible,
-tbil-i-ly, -ion, -ive, -or, -r-ess. Doublet, conduit, q.v.
CONDUIT, a canal, water-course. (F.—L.) ‘As water, whan
the conduit broken is;’ Chaucer, Leg. of Good Women, Thisbe,
147-—OF. conduit, spelt conduict in Cotgrave, who explains it by
‘a conduit.’—Late L. conductus, a defence, escort; also, a canal,
conduit; Ducange. See Conduct.
CONE, a solid pointed figure on a circular base. (F. —L.—Gk.)
In Milton, P.L. iv. 776.—MF. cone, ‘a cone;’ Cot.—L. conus. — Gk.
κῶνος, a cone, a peak, peg. + Skt. ραγια(5), a whet-stone ; cf. L. cds,
a whet-stone. See Hone. Brugmann, i. § 401. Der. con-ic,
con-ics, cono-id (from Gk. x@vo-, for kwvos, and εἶδος, form) ; coni-fer-
ous (from L. coni-, for cdnus, and ferre, to bear).
|
CONFLATION
CONEY : see Cony.
CONFABULATE, ito talk together. (L.) “ Confabulate, to
talke, to tell tales,’ Cockeram; ed. 1642.—L. confabuldtus, pp. of
dep. verb confabulari, to talk together. —L. con-, for cum, together ;
and fabulari, to converse, from fabula, a discourse, a fable. See
Fable. Der. confabulat-ion.
CONFECT, to make up, esp. to make up into confections or
sweetmeats. (L.) ‘Had tasted death in poison strong confected ;’
Mirror for Magistrates, p. 858. Nearly obsolete. Gower has con-
fection, C. A. ili. 23; bk. vi. 6543; Chaucer has confecture, C.T.
12796 (C 862).—L. confectus, pp. of conficere, to make up, put
together. Cf. Late L. confecte, sweetmeats, comfits; Ducange. = L.
con-, for cum, together; and facere,to make. See Fact. Der. con-
fect, sb., confect-ion, -ion-er, -ion-er-y; also com/fit, αν.
CONFEDERATE, leagued together; an associate. (L.) Orig.
used asa pp. ‘ Were confederate to his distruction ;’ Sir T. Elyot,
The Governour, b. iil. c. 8 (end). ME. confederat; Trevisa, tr. of
Higden, ii. 157.—L. confederatus, united by a covenant, pp. of con-
federare.—L. con-, for cum, together; and federare, to league, from
feeder-, for *fedes-, stem of fedus,a league. See Federal. Der.
confederate, verb; confederat-ion, confederac-y.
CONFER, to bestow, consult. (L.) In Shak. Temp. i. 2. 126.
Palsgrave has conferre, p. 493.—L. conferre, to bring together, collect,
bestow.—L. con-, for cum, together; and ferre, to bring, cognate
with E. bear. See Bear (1). 4 Not from F. Der. confer-ence,
from Ἐς, conference, ‘a conference, a comparison ;’ Cot.
CONFESS, to acknowledge fully. (F.—L.) ME. confessen ;
P. Plowman, B. xi. 76.—OF, confesser, to confess. Late L. confessare
(Ducange).—L. confessus, confessed, pp, of confitéri, to confess. = L.
con-, for cum, together, fully; and fatcri, to acknowledge; allied to
L. fari, to speak, fama, fame. Cf. Gk. φάτις, αὶ speech. Brugmann,
i. § 195. See Fame. Der. confess-cd-ly, -icn, -ion-al, -or.
CONFIDE, to trust fully, rely. (L.) Shak. has covfident, Merry
Wives, ii. 1. 1943 confidence, Temp. i. 2. 97. Milton has confide,
P.L. xi. 235.—L. confidere, to trust fully.—L. con-, for cum, with,
fully ; and fidere, to trust, allied to fides, faith. See Faith. Der.
confid-ent, from L. confident-, stem of confidens, pres. pt. of confidere ;
confident-ly, confidence, confident-ial, -ial-ly ; also confidant, confidante,
from F. confidant, masc., confidante, fem., ‘a friend to whom one
trusts τ᾿ Cot.
CONFIGURATION, an external shape, aspect. (F.—L.)
‘The configuration of parts;’ Locke, Human Underst. b. ii. c. 21.—
F. configuration, ‘a likenesse or resemblance of figures;” Cot.—L.
configirationem, acc. of configiratio, a conformation; Tertullian ;
cf. configiiralus, pp. of configirare, to fashion or put together.—L.
con-, for cum, together; and figarare, to fashion, from figura, a form,
figure. See Figure.
CONFINE, to limit, bound, imprison. (F.—L.) [The sb. con-
fine (Othello, i. 2. 27) is really formed from the English verb; but
the pl. confines in Romeo, ili. 1. 6, is from OF. canfines, pl. f.
(Godefroy), from L. confinia, pl. of confinium, a border.] The old
sense of the verb was ‘to border upon;’ cf. ‘his kingdom conjineth
with the Red Sea;’ Hackluyt’s Voyages, v. ii. pt. ii. p. 10.—F. con-
finer, ‘to confine, to abbut, or bound upon; . . to lay out bounds
unto; also, to confine, relegate ;? Cot.—F. confin, adj., ‘ neer, neigh-
bour, confining or adjoining unto;’ id.—L. confinis, adj., bordering
upon.—L. con-, for cum, together; and fini:, a boundary. See
Final. Der. conjine, sb. (above) ; confine-ment.
CONFIRM, to make firm, assure. (F.—L.) ME. confermen,
rarely confirmen; see Rob. of Glouc. pp. 324, 446, 522, 5343 1].
6628, 9171, 10710, 11028. — OF. confermer (Ἰὺς covfirmer), to confirm.
=-L. confirmire, to strengthen, pp. confirmdlus.—L. con-, for cum,
together, wholly; and jirmire, to make firm, from jirmus, firm.
See Firm. Der. conjirm-able, -at-ion, -at-ive, -at-or-y.
CONFISCATHEH, to adjudge to be forfeit. (L.) Orig. used as a
pp., Merch. of Ven. iv. 1. 332. ‘Thou art banished from Rome,
and all thy goodes confiscate ;’ Lord Berners, tr. of Golden Book,
Letter iii. 1. 23.—L. confisctitus, pp. of confiscare, to lay by in a coffcr
or chest, to confiscate, transfer to the prince's privy purse.—L. cor-,
for cum, together; and fiscws, a basket, bag, purse, the imperial
treasury. See Fiseal. Der. confiscat-ion, -or, -or-y.
CONFLAGRATION, a great burning, fire. (F.—L.) Milton
has conflagrant, P.L. xii. 548. ‘Fire . . . whichis called a mupwats, a
combustion, or being farther broken out into flames, a conflagration ;’
IIammond's Works, iv. 593 (R.). [First ed. pub. 1674, 2nd ed.
1684.] Also in Blount (1656). —F. conflagration, ‘a conflagration,
a generall burning ;’ Cot.—L. conflagrationem, acc. of conflagritio,
a great burning; cf. conflagrilus, pp. of conflagrare, to consume by
fire. —L. con-, for cum, together, wholly; and flagrare, to burn. See
Flagrant.
CONFLATION ,,a blending or fusing of different things, sources,
CONFLICT
or readings. (L.) ‘A conflation. of them all;’ Bacon, Nat. Hist., |
§ 225.—L. acc, confldtionem, a casting in metal. (hence, a blending) ;
Jerem, li. 17 (Vulgate) ; cf. L. conflatus, pp. of conflare, to blow
together, to fuse. L. con- (for cum), together; and flare, to blow,
cognate with E. blow (1).
CONFLICT, a fight, battle, (L.)
‘a conflict, skirmish;’ Cot, Or immediately from Lat.] ME. con-
Jlycte, sb.; Prompt. Pary, Also conff‘cten, vb., later tr. of Higden,
i. 139. The sb. also.occurs in Sir Τὶ Elyot, The Governour, b. 1.
c. 1. § 2. Shak. has both sb. and vb.; L. L.L. iv. 3, 369; Lear,
lil, 1. 11, —L, conflictus, a striking together, a fight; cf. L. confiictare,
to strike together, afflict, vex. Covflictus is the pp., and conflictare
the frequentative, of confligere, to strike together, to fight. —L. con-,
for cum, together; and fligere, to strike. Der, conflict, verb.
CONFLUENT, flowing together. (L.) ‘Where since these
confluent floods;’ Drayton, Polyolbion, s. 20, Shak. has confluence,
Timon, i. 1. 425 conflux, Troil. 1. 3. 7. (ἃ. Douglas has confluence,
tr. of Virgil, bk. v.c. 11.1, 20.—L. confluent-, stem of confluens, pres.
pt. of confluere, to flow together. L. con-, for cum, together, and
fluere, to flow. See Fluent. Der. confluence; also conflux, from
confluxus, pp. of confluere.
CONFORM, to make like, to adapt. (F.—L.) ME. conformen,
Chaucer, C. T. 8422 (E 546; Camb. MS.) =F. conformer, ‘to con-
forme, fit with, fashion as ;’ Cot.—L. conformare, pp. conformatus,
to fashion as. = L.con-, for cum, together; and formare, to form, fashion.
See Form. Der, conform-able, -abl-y, -at-ion, -er, -ist, -i-ty.
CONFOUND, to pour together, confuse, destroy. (F.—L.)
ME. confounden, Chaucer, Boethius, b. ii. pr. 6. 1. 36, Confund
occurs in the Cursor Mundi, 730.—OF, (and F.) confondre, = L. con-
fundere, pp. confusus, to pour out together, to mingle, perplex, over-
whelm, confound. =L, con-, for cum, together; and fundere, to pour.
See Fuse (1). Der. confuse, ME. confus, used as a pp. in Chaucer,
C.T. 2232 (A 2230), OF, confus, from the L. pp. confusus ; con-
fus-ion, confus-ed-ly. Thus confound is, practically, a doublet. of
confuse. ;
CONFRATERNITY, a brotherhood. (F,—L.) In Holland’s
Plutarch, Ρ. 23 (R.). Coined by prefixing con- (L. cum, with) to
the sb. fraternity. The form confraternitas, a brotherhood, occurs in
Ducange. See Fraternity.
CONFRONT, to stand face to face, oppose. (F.—L,) . In ‘Titus
Andron. iv. 4. 3. ‘A noble knight, confronting both the hosts ;’
Mirror for Magistrates, p. 597 (R.).—F, confronter, ‘to confront, or
bring face to face;’ Cot. Formed, with a change of meaning, from
the Late L. confron‘are, to assign bounds to, confrontari, to be con-
tiguous to, to be near to.—L. con- (cum), together ; and /ront-, stem
of frons, forehead. See Front, Affront.
CONFUSE, CONFUSION;; see Confound.
CONFUTE, to prove to be false, disprove, refute. (F.—L.) In
Shak. Meas, ν. 100,—F. confuter, ‘to confute, convince, refell, dis-
prove ;’ Cot. [Or perhaps borrowed immediately from Latin.]—=L.
confitiire, to cool by mixing cold water with hot, to damp, repress,
allay, refute, confute ; pp. confitatus.—L, con-, for cum, together;
and the stem /it-, seen in fitis, a water-vessel, a vessel for pouring
from; an extension of the base fi-, seen in fu-di, fa-sus, perf. and
pp: of fundere, to pour.—4/ GHEU, to pour. See Fuse (1),
Refute, Futile. Der. confut-at-ian, -able.
CONGEAL, to solidify by cold. (F.—L.) ‘Lich unto-slime
which is congeled;’ Gower, C. A. iii. g6; bk, vii. 338.—OF. con-
geler, ‘to congeale;’ Cot.—L. congelare, pp, congeldtus, to cause to
freeze _together.< L. con-, for cum, together; and geldre, to freeze,
from gelu, frost. See Ged. Der. congezal-able, -ment; also congel-
at-ion, Gower, C, A, ii. 86, from Εἰ. congelation (Cot.), L. congelatio.
_CONGEE, leave to depart, farewell. (F.—L.) Also congé. Spelt
congie in Fabyan’s Chron. c. 243; congee in Spenser, Εὶ, Ὁ. iv. 6. 42.
ME. congeye, P. Plowman, 1}. xiii. 202. Hence the verb to congie,
Shak. All’s Well, iv. 3. 100 ; a word in use eyen in the 14th century ;
we find ‘to congey thee for euere,’ i.e. to dismiss thee for ever; P.
Plowman, B. iii. 173.— Fycongé, ‘leave, licence,.. .. discharge, dis-
mission ;’ Cot.; OF. congie, cunge, congiet (Burguy); equivalent to
Provencal comjat.— Late L. comiatus, leave, permission (8th century) ;
a corruption of L. commedtus, a passage, travelling, leave of absence,
furlough (Brachet).—L. com-, for eum, together; and medtus, a
going, a course, from meatus, pp. of meare, to go, pass. See
Permeate, :
CONGENER, allied in kin or nature. (L.) In. Bailey, vol. ii.
(1731). Merely L. congener, of the same kin. L, con-, for cum,
with ; and. gener-, for *genes-, stem of genus, kin, See Genus,
-ς CONGENIAL, kindred, sympathetic. (L.) [π΄ Dryden’s
Dedication of Juvenal, § 3; and in Pope, Dunciad, iv. 448. A
coined word, made .by pretixing L. con- (for cum, with) to genial,
[Perhaps from F. conflict,
from L, genralis, .See Genial, , Der. congenial-ly, -i-ly,
CONJOIN 129
CONGENITAL, cognate, born with one. (L.) First found in
1790; made by suffixing -al to the now obsolete word congenite or
congenit, of similar meaning, used. by Bp. Taylor, Rule of Conscience,
bei. c. Ij and by Boyle, Works, v. 513 (R.).—L. congen:ius, born
with. =L. con-, for cum, with; and genitus, born, pp. of gignere, to
produce, —4/ GEN, to produce. See Generate.
CONGER, a sea-eel, (F,—L:—Gk.) In’Shak. 2 Hen. LV, 11... 4.
266, ΜΕ. cungyr, Rich. Coer de Lion, 3515.—I', congre, ‘a congar;’
Cot.—<L,. congrum, acc. of congrus, a sea-eel; cf. also L. conger, a
sea-eel. = Gk. γύγγρος, the same.
CONGERIES, a mass of particles. (L.) In Glossographia
Angiicana Nova, 1719 (αἴτει congruoys). Merely L. congeriés, a
heap. —L, congerere, to heap up, bring together.—L. con-, for cum,
together; and gerere, to carry, bring; see Gerund. See below.
CONGESTION, accumulation. (F.—L.) Shak. has the verb
congest, Compl. of a Lover, 258. ‘ By congestion of sand, earth, and
such stuff ;’ Drayton, Polyolbion, Illustrations of s. 9.—F. congestion
(Hatzfeld).—L. ace. congestidnem, from congestio, a heaping together ;
cf. congestus, pp. of congerere, to bring together, heap up. See
above. Der. congest-ive.
CONGLOBE, to form into a globe. (L.) Milton has conglob'd,
P.L. vii. 239; conglobing, vii, 292.—L. conglobare, pp. conglobatis,
to gather into a globe, to conglobate.—L. con-, for cum, together ;
and globus, a globe, round mass. See Glebe. Der. conglobate,
conglobat-ion, like L, pp. conglobatus ; similarly conglobulate, from
L. globulus, a little globe, dimin. of globus.
CONGLOMERATE, gathered into a ball; to gather into a
ball. (L.) Orig. used as a pp., as in Bacon’s Nat. Hist, § 267.—L.
conglom:rdtus, pp. of conglomerare, to wind into a ball or οἷον, to
heap together.—L. con-, for cum, together ; and glomerdre, to form
into a ball, from glomer-, for *glome:-, stem of glomus, a clew of
thread, a ball; allied to L. globus, a globe. See Globe. Der.
conglomerat-ion.
CONGLUTINATEH, to glue together. (L.) Orig. used as a
pp-, as in Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. ii. c. 21. § 2.—L, con-
glitindtus, pp. of conglitindre, to glue together.—L. con-, for cum,
together; and glitinare, to glue, from glivin-, decl. stem of glaten,
glue. See Glue, Der. conglutin-ant, conglutinat-ive, -ion.
CONGOU, a kind of black tea, (Chinese.) ‘Congou tea;’
Sheridan, School for Scandal, v.1. In the Amoy dialect of Chinese,
called kang-hu ἐδ, where kang-hu is lit. ‘ work, labour;’ i.e. tea on
which labour has been expended (Douglas). The true Chinese is
kang-fu ch‘a, with the same sense.
CONGRATULATE, to wish all joy to. (L.) In Shak. L.L.L.
Vv. 1. 93.—L. congriétuldtus, pp. of congratulari, to wish much joy.—
L. con-, for cum, with, very much; and graéulari, to wish joy.a deponent
verb formed, with suffix -ul-, from grat-us, pleasing. See Grateful.
Der. congratjlat-ion, -or-y.
CONGREGATE, to gather together. (L.) In Shak. Merch. of
Ven. i. 3. 50, Rich, quotes from the State Trials (Sir J. Oldcastle),
showing that congregaied was used A.D..1413. 4 L. congregatus, pp. of
congregare, to assemble. = L. con-, for cum, together ; and gregare, to
collect in flocks, from greg-, stem of grex, a flock. See Gregarious.
Der. congregat-ion, -al, ~aJ-ist, -al-ism. °
CONGRESS; a meeting together, assembly. (L.) ‘ Their con-
gress in the field great Jove withstands;’ Dryden, tr. of ®neid, x.
616.—L. congressus, a mecting together; also an attack, cngagement
in the field, (as above).—L. congressus, pp. of congreci, to meet
together.=L. con-, for cum, together; and gradi, to step, walk, go,
from gradus, a step. See Grade. Der. congress-ive.
CONGREVE, (1) a kind of rocket; (2) a f.iction-match.
(Personal name,) Both invented by Sir W. Congreve, who died
in 1828. Orig: a place-name.
CONGRUE, to agree, suit. (L.) In Shak. Hamlet, iv. 3. 66.
Hence congruent, apt; L. L. L.i. 2.145 v. 1.97; also in Sir T. Elyot,
The Governour, bk. i. c. 8. § 3.—L. congruere, to agree together,
accord, suit, correspond ; pres. part. congruens (stem congruent-), used
as adj., fit-—L, con-, for cum, together; and -gruere, a verb which
only occurs in the comp. congruere and ingruere, and is of uncertain
meaning and origin. Der. congru-ent, congru-ence, cougru-t-ty (ME.
congruite, Gower, C. A. iii. 136; bk. vii. 1531); also congruous (from
L.. adj. congruus, suitable), -/y, -ness.
CONIC, CONIFEROUS;; see Cone.
CONJECTURE, a guess, idea. (F.=L.) In Chaucer, C. T.
8281 (Ε 405). —F. conjecture, ‘a conjecture, or ghesse;’ Cot. L. con-
jectiira, a guess; οἷς coniect-us, pp- of contcere (=conjicere), to cast or
throw tagether, —L, coz-, for eum, together ; and tacere,to cast, throw.
See Jet (1). Der. conjecture, verb; conjectw-al, -al-ly;
CONJOIN, to join together, unite. “(F.—L.) ME. conioignen ;
Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, Ὁ. iii. pr. 10, 1, 149. | [Contoint (conjotnt) is
in Gower, C, A. iii, 101; bk. vii. 502. Contuncioun (conjunction)
K
CONJUGAL
in Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, ed. Skeat, ii. 32. 1.] OF. conjoign-,
a stem of conjoindre (Burguy); still in use.—L. coniungere, pp.
coniunctus, to join together, unite.—L. con-, for cum, together; and
inngere, to join. See Join. Der. conjoint (pp. of F. conjoindre),
-ly ; also conjunct, -ion, -ive, -ive-ly, -ure, like L. pp. coniunctus.
CONJUGAL, relating to marriage. (F.—L.) In Milton, P. L.
iv. 493.<F. conjugal, ‘ conjugall;’ Cot.—L. coniugalis, relating to
marriage (Tacitus). = L. coniug-em, acc. of coniux, a spouse. —L. con-,
for cum, together; and ing-,as in iugum, a yoke. (4/YEU, to join.)
See Join, Yoke. Der. conjugal-ly, -i-ty.
CONJUGATION, the inflexion of a verb. (L.) [The verb to
conjugate is really formed from the sb. conjugation; it occurs in
Palsgrave, Introd. p. xxxiii.] Coniugacyon is in Skelton’s Speke
Parrot, 1. 185; and in Palsgrave, p. 399. Formed, in imitation of
F. words in -ion, from L, coniugatio, a conjugation; used in its
grammatical sense by Priscian. The lit. sense is ‘ a binding together.’
Cf. contugatus, pp. of coniugare, to unite, connect.—L. con- (cum),
together; iugare, to yoke, from ingum,a yoke. Der. conjugate, vb.;
also conjugate as an adj., from pp. coniugatus. Cf. conjunct-ton,
CONJUNCTION ; see under Conjoin.
CONJURE, to implore solemnly. (F.—L.) ME. conjuren,
P. Plowman, B, xv. 14.—F. conjurer, ‘to conjure, adjure; also, to
conjure or exorcise a spirit;’ Cot.—L. contiirare, to swear together,
combine by oath; pp. contiratus.—L. con-, for cum, together; and
ἐπγᾶγε, to swear. See Jury. Der. conjur-or, conjur-er, conjurat-ion.
ter The verb to conjure, i.e. to juggle, is the same word, and refers to
the invocation of spirits. Cf. ‘Whiles he madé céniuryng;’ King
Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1. 345.
CONNATE, born with us. (L.) ‘ Those connate principles born
with us into the world;” South, Sermons, vol. ii. ser. τὸ (R.). —L. con-
natus, pp. of connasci, to be born with (another). —L. con- (cum), with;
and nasci, to be born. See Cognate.
CONNATURAL, of the same nature with another. (L.) In
Milton, P. L. x. 246, xi. 529. A coined word, made by prefixing L.
con- (for cum, together with) to the E. word natural, from L. naturals,
natural, Probably suggested by OF. connaturel, ‘connaturall, natural
to all alike;’ Cot. See Nature.
CONNECT, to fasten together, join. (L.) First found in 1537.
Used by Pope, Essay on Man, i. 280, iil. 23, iv. 349. Old writers also
use connex, formed from the L. pp.—L. connectere, to fasten or tie
together; pp. connexus.— L. con-, for cum, together; and nectere,to bind,
tie, knit, join, Der. connect-ed-ly, -or, -ive; also connex-ion (like the
pp- connexus), a word which is usually misspelt connection. Cotgrave
has : ‘ Connexion, a connexion,’
CONNING-TOWER;; see under Con (1).
CONNIVE, to wink at a fault. (F.—L.) In Shak, Winter's Tale,
iv. 4. 692.—F. conniver, ‘to winke at, suffer, tollerate;’ Cot. =—L.
conniuére, to close the eyes, overlook, connive at.—L. con-, for cum,
together; anda form *niguere, to wink, whence the perf. tense connixi
and xtc-t-are, to wink with the eyes.4-Goth. Aneiwan, to bow.
Brugmann, i. § 664. Der. conniv-ance; better connivence, as in
Cotgrave.
CONNOISSEUR, a critical judge. (F.—L.) Used by Swift, on
Poetry, And in Bailey, vol. ii (1731).— Ἐς connaisseur, formerly spelt
connoisseur, a critical judge, a knowing one.—OF. connotss- (F.
connaiss-), a base used in conjugating the OF. verb constotstre (Εἰ. con-
naitre), to know.—L. cognoscere, to know fully.—L.°co-, for cum,
together, fully; and gnoscere, to know, cognate with E. know, See
Know. Der. connoisseur-ship.
CONNOTE, to imply, indicate. (L.) ‘To connote, to make known
together ;’ Glossographia Anglicana (1719). Sir T. More has
connotacyon, Works, p. 417, col. 1.—Late L. connotare, to mark in
addition or along with.—L. con- (for cum), together; and notare, to
mark, from ποία, ἃ mark. See Note. Der. connotat-ion, like the pp.
connolal-us.
CONNUBIAL, matrimonial, nuptial. (L.) In Milton, P. L. iv.
743. —L. conniibidlis, relating to marriage. = L.con-, for cum, together;
and niibere, to cover, to veil, to marry. See Nuptial.
CONOID, cone-shaped ; see Cone.
130
CONQUER, to subdue, vanquish. (F.—L.). In early use. ME. |
conqueren, conquerien or conquery. Spelt conguery, Rob. of Glouc.
p- 200, 1. 4115; oddly spelt cuncweart in Hali Meidenhad, ed.
Cockayne, p. 33; about A.D. 1200.—OF. conquerre, cunquerre, to
conquer. = L. conquirere, pp. congquisitus, to seek together, seek after,
go in quest of; in Late Latin, to conquer; Ducange.—L. con-, for
cum, together; and querere, pp. qu@situs, to seek. See Quest,
Query. Der. conquer-able, -or; conquest = ME, conqueste, Gower, C. A.
i. 27 (prol. 709), (AF. congueste, from Late L. conquisita, f. of pp.
conquisitus).
CONSANGUINEOUS, related by blood. (L.) In Shak. Tw.
Nt. ii. 3. 82; also consanguinity, Troil. iv. 2, 103.—L. consanguine-us,
CONSIST
related by blood; with suffix -ous.—L. con-, for cum, together; and
sanguineus, bloody, relating to blood, from sanguin-, decl. stem of
sanguis, blood. See Sanguine. Der, consanguin-i-ly (F.°con-
sanguinité, given by Cot.; from L. consanguinitatem, acc. of
consanguinttas, relationship by blood).
CONSCIENCE, consciousness of good or bad. (F.—L.) In early
use. Spelt kunscence, Ancren Riwle, p. 228; also consctence, p. 300.
- OF. (and ἘΠ) conscience. L. conscientia. — 1. con-, for cum, together
with; and scientia, knowledge. See Science. Der. con:cientious,
from Ἐς. consctentieux, ‘ conscientious,’ Cot.; which is from Late L.
conscientiosus, Hence consctentious-ly, -ness, And see conscious,
consctonable.
CONSCION ABLE, governed by conscience. (Coined from L.)
‘Indeed if the minister’s part be rightly discharged, it renders the
people more conscionable, quiet and easy to be governed ;’ Milton,
Reformation in England, bk.ii(R.). ‘As uprightlie and as conscionablie
as he may possible ;’ Holinshed, Ireland ; Stanihurst to Sir H. Sidney.
An ill-coined word (cf. fashion-able), used as a contraction of con-
scien(ce)-able; the regular formation from the verb conscire, to be
conscious, would have been consctble (cf. L. scibilis), but this would
not have given the sense, Der. conscionabl-y, See above.
CONSCIOUS, aware. (L.) In Dryden, Theodore and Honoria,
202. Englished from L. conscius, aware, by substituting -ous for -us,
asin arduous, egregious. = L. conscire, to be aware of. —L. con-, for cum,
together, fully ; and scire, to know. See Conscience.
CONSCRIPT, enrolled, registered. (L.) “Ὁ fathers conscripte,
O happie people ;* Lord Berners, Golden Boke, Letter 11. § 7, In
later times, used as a sb. L. conscriptus, enrolled; pp. of conscribere,
to write down together.=—L. con-. for cum, together ; and scribere, to
write. See Scribe. Der. conscript-ion.
CONSECRATE,, to render sacred. (L.) In Barnes, Works,
p- 331, col. 1. ME. consecrat, i.e. consecrated, Chaucer, C. T. 14023
(B 3207). —L. consecratus, pp. of consecrare, to render sacred. = L. con-,
for cum, with, wholly; and sacrare, to consecrate, from sacr(o)-, stem
of sacer, sacred. See Sacred. Der. consecrat-or, -ion.
CONSECUTIVE, following in order, (F.—L.) Not in early
use. One of the earliest examples appears to be in Cotgrave (1611),
who translates the F. consecutif (fem. consecutive) by ‘ consecutiue or
consequent ;? where consequent is the older form. The Late L, conse-
citivus is not recorded.—L. consecut-, stem of conseciitus, pp. of
consequi, to follow. See Consequent. Der. consecutive-ly; also
consecut-ion, like the pp. conseciitus.
CONSENT, to feel with, agree with, assent to. (F.—L.) ME.
consenten; spelt kunsenten in Ancren Riwle, p. 272.—OF. (and F.)
consentir.—L. consentire, to accord, assent to.—L. con-, for cum,
together; and sentire, to feel, pp. sensus. See Sens2. Der. consent,
sb. 3 consent-t-ent, -an-e-ous (L. consentdneus, agrecable, suitable) ;
-aneous-ly, -ness ; also consensus, a L. word.
CONSEQUENT, following upon. (L.) Early used as a sb.
‘Vengeance is the consequent ;” Chaucer, Tale of Melibeus, B 2578.
Properly an adj.—L. consequent-, stem of consequens, pres. part. of
consequi, to follow.—L. con-, for cum, together ; and segui, to follow.
See Second. Der. consequent-ly, -i-al, -i-al-ly; consequence (MF.
consequence, Cot., from L. consequentia).
CONSERVE, to preserve, retain, pickle. (F.—L.) ‘The
poudre in which myn herte, ybrend [burnt], shal torne That preye I
thee, thou take, and it conserve ;’ Chaucer, Troilus, v. 3¢9; and see
C.T. 15855 (G 387).—OF. and F. conserver, to preserve. = L. con-
serudre,= L. con-, for cum, with, fully; and seruare, to keep, serve.
See Serve. Der. conserve, sb. ; conserv-er, -ant, -able, -at-ion, -at-ive,
-at-ism, -at-or, -at-or-y.
CONSIDER, to deliberate, think over, observe. (F.—L.) ME.
consideren; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 3023 (A 3021). —OF, considerer. = L. con-
siderare, pp. consideratus, to observe, consider, inspect, orig. to inspect
the stars.—L. con-, together; and sider-, for *sides-, stem of sidus, a
star, a constellation. See Sidereal. Der. conszder-able, -abl-y,
-able-ness ; -ate, -ate-ly, -ate-ness ; -at-ion.
CONSIGN, to transfer, intrust, make over. (F.—L.) ‘My
father hath consigned and confirmed me with his assured testimonie ;”
Tyndal, Works, p. 457; where it seems to mean ‘sealed.’ It also
meant ‘to agree;’ Hen. V, v. 2. 90.—F. consigner, ‘to consigne,
present, exhibit or deliver in hand;’ Cot.—L. consignare, to seal,
attest, warrant, register, record, remark.—L. con-, for cum, with ;
and signare, to mark, sign, from signum, a mark, See Sign. Der.
consign-er, -ee, -ment.
CONSIST, to stand firm, subsist, to be made up of, to agree or
coexist, depend on. (F.—L.) In Shak. Tw. Nt. ii, 3. Io.—F.
consister, ‘to consist, be, rest, reside, abide, to settle, stand still or at
a stay;’ Cot.=L. consistere, to stand together, remain, rest, consist,
exist, depend on. L. con-, for cum, together; and sisfere, to make
to stand, also to stand, the causal of sfare, to stand. See Stand.
CONSOLE
Der. consist-ent, -ent-ly, -ence, -enc-y; also consist-or-y, from Late L.
consistorium, a place of assembly, an assembly ; consistort-al.
CONSOLE (1), to comfort, cheer. (F.—L.) Shak. has only
consolate, All's Well, iii. 2.131. Dryden has consol’d, tr. of Juv. Sat.
x. 1. 191. —F. consoler, ‘to comfort, cherish, solace ;’ Cot. —L. con-
sdlari, pp. consdlatus, to console.— LL. con-, for cum, fully; and sdlari,
to solace. See Solace. Der. consol-able, -at-ion, -at-or-y.
CONSOLE (2),a kind of bracket or corbel,a supporting bracket.
(F.—L.) In Phillips (1706).—F. console, ‘a corbell, a bracket ;’
Cot. Also called consolateur (Cot.) ; and therefore from Ἐς, consoler,
to comfort, solace, cherish; see Console (1). 47 Perhaps influenced
by L. consolidare, to strengthen; but see Korting, §§ 2445, 2446.
CONSOLIDATE, to render solid, harden. (L.) Orig. used as
a past participle. ‘ Wherby knowledge is ratified, and, as | mought
saye, consolidate ;’ Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b. iii. c. 26. § 1.—
L. consolidatus, pp. of consolidare, to render solid. L. con-, for cum,
with, wholly; and solidare, to make solid, from solidus, solid, firm.
See Solid.. Der. consolidat-ion ; also consols (first found in 1770),
a familiar abbreviation for consolidated annuities.
CONSONANT, agreeable to, suitable. (F.—L.) ‘A con-
fourme {conformable] and consonant ordre ;’ Bale, Apologie, fol. 55
(R.). Shak. has consonancy, Hamlet, ii, 2. 295.—F. consonant,
‘consonant, accordant, harmonious ;’ Cot.—L. consonant-, stem of
consonans, pres. pt. of consonare, to sound together with; hence, to
harmonise. = L.-con-, for cum, together; and sonfre, to sound. See
Sound (3). Der. consonant, sb. (Reliq. Antiq. ii. 17.4); consonant-
ly, consonance,
CONSORT, a fellow, companion, mate, partner. (L.) In Milton,
P.L. iv. 448. (Shak. has consort in the sense of company, Two Gent.
of Verona, iv. 1.64; but this is not quite the same word, being from
the verb to consort with, itself a derivative of cdénsort, sb. Note that
consort was often written for concert in old authors, but the words are
quite distinct, though confused by Richardson. The quotation from
P. Plowman in Kichardson is wrong; the right reading is not consort,
but confort, i.e. comfort; P. Plowman, C, vi. 75.]—L. consort-, stem
of consors, one who shares property with others, a brother or sister,
in Late L. a neighbour, also a wife; it occurs in the fem. MF. sb.
consorte in the last sense only.—L, con-, for cum, together ; and.sort-,
stem of sors, a lot, a share. See Sort; and compare Assort.
Der. consort, verb, Shak., L.L. L. ii. 1. 178.
CONSPICUOUS, very visible. (L.) Frequent in Milton, P. L.
ii, 258, &c. Adapted from L. conspicuus, visible, by the change of
-us into -ous, as in consanguineous, arduous, &c.— L. conspicere, to see
plainly. —L. con-, for cum, with, thoroughly; and specere, to look,
see. See Species. Der. conspicuous-ly, -ness.
CONSPIRE, to plot, unite for evil. (F.—L.) In Gower, C. A.
1. 81, 82; bk. i. 1173,°1206; Chaucer, C. T. 13495 (Β 1755).—F.
conspirer, =. conspirire, to blow together, to combine, agree, plot,
conspire. L. con-, for cum, together; and spirdre, to blow. See
Spirit. Der. conspir-at-or, conspir-ac-y (Chaucer, C. T., B 3889).
CONSTABLE, an officer, peace-officer. (F.—L.) In early use.
ME. constable, conestable; Havelok, 1. 2286, 2366.—OF. conestable
(F. connétable). = L. comes stabuli, lit. ‘ count of the stable,’ a dignitary
of the Roman empire, transferred to the Frankish courts. A docu-
ment of the 8th [goth] century has; ‘comes stabuli quem corrupte
conestabulum appellamus ;’ Brachet. [This document is the Chroni-
con Reginonis abbatis Prumiensis (who died in 915); anno 807. ]
See Count (1) and Stable. Der. constable-ship; constabul-ar-y,
from Late L. constabularia, the dignity of a constabulus or conestabulus.
CONSTANT, firm, steadfast, fixed. (F.—L.) Constantly is in
Frith’s Works, Life, p.3. Chaucer has the adj. constant, C. T. 8923
(E 1047); and the sb. constance, C. T. 8544, 8876 (E 688, 1000). —
F. constant (Cot.),<L. constant-, stem of constans,.constant, firm;
orig. pres. pt. of constare, to stand together.—L. con-, for cum,
together; and stare, to stand, cognate with E. stand, q.v. Der.
constant-ly, constanc-y.
CONSTELLATION, a cluster of stars. (F.—L.) ME. con-
stellacion. In Gower, C.A.i. 21, 55 (prol. 532, and bk. 1..393).—
OF. constellacion, Ἐς, constellation. L. constellitidnem, acc. of con-
stellatio, a cluster of stars. —L. con-, for cum, together; and cf. stellat-us,
‘pp. of stellare, to set with stars, from stella, a star, cognate with I.
star, q.vi
CONSTERNATION, fright, terror, dismay. (F.—L.) Rich.
quotes the word from Strype, Memorials of Edw. VI, an. 1551. It
was not much used till later.—F. consternation, ‘ consternation,
astonishment, dismay ;’? Cot. =—L. consternationem, acc. of consternatio,
fright ; cf. consterniitus, pp. of consterndre, to frighten, collateral form
to consternere, to bestrew, throw down.=—L. con-, for cum, together,
wholly ; and sfernere, to strew. See Stratum.
CONSTIPATE, to cram together, obstruct, render costive. (L.
Sir T. Elyot has constipations, Castel of Helth, Ὁ. iii, c. 7. The verb
CONTAMINATE
is in the same, bk. ii. c. 5. —L. constipatus, pp. of constipare, to make
thick, join thickly together. —L. con-, for cum, together; and stipare,
to cram tightly, pack; perhaps connected with stipes, a stem; see
Curtius, i. 264. Der. constipat-ion ; costive,
CONSTITUTE, to appoint, establish. (L.) Gower has the sb.
constitucton, C. A, li. 75; bk. iv. 2206. The verb is later; see
Caxton, Eneydos, c. 28, Sign. Hij, back (p. 109, 1. 9, E. E. T.S.) ;
Bp. Taylor, Holy Living, ¢. iii. 1. 1.—L. constitiitus, pp. of con-
stituere, to cause to stand together, establish.—L. con-, for cum,
together; and sfatuere, to place, set, denominative verb from status,
a position. See State. Der. constitu-ent, constitu-enc-y, from L.
stem constituent-, pres. part. of constituere ; also constitut-ton (Ἐς
constitution), whence constitut-ion-al, -al-ly, -al-ist, -al-ism 3; also
constitut-ive.
CONSTRAIN, to compel, force. (F.—L.) ME. constreinen ;
Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. i. pr. 1. 1.9; C.T. 8676 (E 800).—OF.
constreign-, a stem of constreindre, constratndre, to constrain (Godefroy),
later form contraindre, as in Cotgrave.—L. constringere, to bind
together, fetter.—L. con-, for cum, together; and stringere, pp.
strictus, to draw tight. See Strict, Stringent. Der. constrain-
able, constrain-ed-ly ; constraint = ME. constreint, Gower, C. A. ili.
380, bk. viii. 3018 (Old F. pp. of constretndre) ; also constrict, con-
strict-ion, constrict-or, from L, ῬΡ. constrictus ; also constringe,
constring-ent, from L. constringere.
CONSTRUE, to set in order, explain, translate. (L.) “ Τὸ con-
strue this clause ;’ P. Plowman, B. iv. 150; ef. 1. 145. [Adopted
directly from Lat., not from Εἰ. construire.\—L. construere, pp. con-
structus, to heap together, to build, to construe a passage. = L. con-,
for cum, together; and struere, to heap up, pile. See Structure.
Doublet, construct, from L. pp. constructus; whence construct-ion,
construct-ive, -ive-ly.
CONSUBSTANTIAL; see Con-, and Substantial.
CONSUETUDE, custom. (L.) In Wyclif, 1 Kings xx. 25;
where the Vulgate has consuétiidinem. —L. consuétido, custom ; see
Custom.
CONSUL, a (Roman) chief magistrate. (L.) In Gower, C. A.
iii. 138; bk. vii. 1598.—L. consul, a consul. Etym. doubtful, but
allied to the verb consulere, to consult, deliberate. 566. Consult.
Der. consul-ar, -ate, -ship.
CONSULT, to deliberate. (F.—L.) In Merry Wives, ii. 1.
111.“ Εἰς consulter, ‘to consult, deliberate;’ Cot.—L. consultare, to
consult ; frequent. form of consudere, to consult, consider. Root
uncertain; perhaps allied to sedére, to sit; cf. solium, a seat (Breal).
Der. consultat-ion,
CONSUME, to waste wholly, devour, destroy. (L.) ‘ The lond
be not conswmed with myschef;’ Wyclif, Gen. xli. 36; where the
Vulgate has ‘non consumetur terra inopia,’ = L. consimere, pp. con-
sumptus, to consume, lit. to take together or wholly. —L. con-, for
cum, together, wholly; and simere, to take. The L. simere is a
compound of *syps, allied to sub, under, up, and emere, to buy, take.
Brugmann, i. § 240. See Redeem. Der. consum-able; also (like
L. pp. consumptus) consumpt-ion, -tve, -tve-ly, -ive-ness.
CONSUMMATHE,, extreme, perfect. (L.) Properly a past part.,
as in Shak. Meas. for Meas. v. 383 ; and in Palsgraye, p. 495, col. 2,
1.18. Thence used as a verb, K. John, v. 7. 95.—L. consumméatu:,
from consummiare, to bring into one sum, to perfect.—L. con-, for
cum, together; and summa,asum. See Sum. Der. consummate,
verb; consummate-ly, consummat-ton.
CONSUMPTION, CONSUMPTIVE:;; see Consume.
CONTACT, a close touching, meeting. (L.) Dryden has contact,
Essay on Satire, 184.—L. contactus, a touching. L, contactus, pp.
of contingere, to touch closely.—L. con-, for cum, together ;. and
tangere, to touch. See Tact, Tangent. And see below.
CONTAGION, transmission of disease by contact. (F.—L.)
In Frith’s Works, p. 115, col. 2. ME. contagioun, Chaucer, C. I.
15540 (ἃ 72).—F. contagion, ‘contagion, infection ;? Cot.—L. con-
lagionem, acc. of contagio, a touching, hence, contagion. —L. con-,
for cum, with; and ¢ag-, 2nd grade of tag-, as in *tag-tus (> tac-tus),
pp: of ¢angere, to touch. See Contact. Der. con/agi-ous, -ous-ly,
-ous-ness. And see contaminate, contiguous.
CONTAIN, to comprise, include, hold in. (F.—L.) ME. con-
tenen, conteinen; Rob. of Glouc. p. 547, 1. 11373.—OF. contien-, a
tonic stem of contenir (Supp. to Godefroy).—L. continére, pp. con-
tentus. = L. con-.for cum, together; and tenére, tohold. See Tenable,
Der. contain-able; also content, q.v.3 continent, q.v.; continue, q.v.
CONTAMINATE, to pollute, corrupt, defile. (L.) In Shak.
J. Cas. iv. 3. 24. Used asa pp., spelt conamynate, in Hall, Chron.,
Hen. VII. an. xi. § 1. —L.contdmindius, pp. of contaminare, to defile. =
L. contamin-, stem of contamen-, contagion, which stands for *con-
tagmen.=L. con-, for cum, together; and ¢ag-, as in ¢ac-tus (for
*tag-tus), pp. of tangere, to touch. See Max Miller, Lectures,
K 2
131
132 CONTANGO
8th ed. ii. 309. See Contact, Contagion. Der. contami-
nat-ion.
CONTANGO, the percentage which a buyer of stock pays to
the seller to postpone transfer. (Span.?—L.?) Said to be an arbi-
trary or fortuitous formation from the verb to continue. But it
answers in form to Span. contengo, 1 p. 5. pr, of contener, ‘to refrain,
curb, restrain, repress, check the motion or progress of anything ;’
Neuman. =L. continére, to contain; see Contain. Thus contango
means ‘I check progress,’ i.e. ‘I put it off.’
CONTEMN, to despise. (F.—L.) ‘Vice to contemne, in vertue
to rejoyce;” Lord Surrey, On the Death of Sir T. W., 11. 10. Εἰ
contemner (Cot.).—L. contemnere, to Cespise, pp. contemtus or con-
lemplus.—L. con-, for cum, with, wholly ; and ftemnere, to despise
(of uncertain origin). Der. contempt, from MF. contempt, which
from L. contemptns, scorn, from the L. pp. contempius; hence con-
tempt-ible, -ibly, -ible-ness ; contemptu-ous, -ly, -ness.
CONTEMPLATE, to consider attentively. (L.) [The sb. con-
templation was in early use; spelt contemplaciun in Ancren Riwle,
Ῥ- 142; and derived from OF. contemplacion.| Shak. has contemplate,
3 Hen. VI, ii. 5. 33.—L. contemplitus, pp. of contemplari, to observe,
consider, used orig, of the augurs who observed a templum in the
sky.=— L. con-, for cum, together; and templum, a space marked out
in the sky for observation; also, a temple. See Temple; and
compare Consider, a word of similar origin. Der. contemplat-ton,
-ive, -ive-ly, -ive-ness.
CONTEMPORANEOUS, happening or being at the same
time. (L.) ‘The contemporaneous insurrections ;’ State Trials, Col.
1. Penruddock, an. 1655 (R.).—L. contempordneus, at the same time;
with change of -us to -ous, as in conspicuous, q.v.—L. con-, for cum,
together; and tempor-, for *tempos-, stem of zempus, time. See
Temporal. Der. contemporaneous-ly, -ness. Similarly is formed
contemporary, from L. con- and temporarius, temporary; cf. L. con-
temporare, to be at the same time (Tertullian),
CONTEND, to strive, dispute, fight. (F.—L.) In Hamlet, iv.
1. 7.—F. contendre (by loss of the final -re, which was but slightly
sounded); cf. Vend.=L. contendere, to stretch out, extend, exert,
fight, contend. = L. con-, for cum, with, wholly ; and ¢endere, to stretch.
See Tend (1). Der. (like L. pp. contentus) content-ion (F. con-
tention), content-ious (I. contentieux), -ious-ly, -ious-ness.
CONTENT, adj. satisfied. (F.—L.) In Shak. Temp. ν. 144.=F.
content, ‘content, satisfied ;’ Cot.—L. contentus, content; pp. of
continere, to contain. See Contain. Der. content, verb, from F.
contenter, which from Late L. contentare, to satisfy, make content;
also content-ed, -ed-ly, -ed-ness; also content, sb., that which is con-
tained ; and content-s, pl.
CONTEST, to call in question, dispute. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Cor. iv. 5. 116.—F. contester, ‘to contest, call or, take to witnesse,
make an earnest protestation or complaint unto; also, to brabble,
argne, debate,’ &c.; Cot.—L. contesi/ari, to call to witness. — L. con-,
for cum, together; and ¢estari, to bear witness, from /es¢is, a witness.
See Testify. Der. contest, sb.; contest-able.
CONTEXT, a passage connected with part of a sentence quoted.
(Τὼ). See quotation in Richardson from Hammond, Works, it. 182 ;
and Phillips (1658). Also MF. contexte, ‘a context.’ &c.; Cot.=L.
contextus, a joining together, connexion, order, construction. = L. pp.
contextus, woven together; from contexere, to weave together.—L,
con-;for cum, tagether; and. /exere, to weave. See Text. Der.
context-ure ; see texture.
CONTIGUOUS, adjoining, near. (L.) In Milton, P. L. vi. 828,
vii..273. Formed from L. contiguus, that may be touched, con-
tiguous, with change of -us into -oxs, as in contemporaneous, &c.
= L.. con- (cum), together; and tig-, weakened form of faz-, as in
fac-tus (for */ag-tus), pp. of tangere, to touch. See Contingent.
Der, contiguous-ly, -ness ; also contigu-t-ty.
CONTINENT, restraining, temperate, virtuous. (F.—L.) Spelt
contynent, \Wyclif, Vitus, i. 8, where the Vulgate has continentem.—
F. continent, ‘ continent, sober, moderate ;’ Cot.—L. continen/tem, acc.
of continens, pres. pt. of continére, to contain. See Contain. Der.
continent, sb. Ὁ continent-ly,. continence, continenc-y.
CONTINGENT, dependent on. (Le) Contingent occurs in
T. Usk, Test. of Love, bk. i. c. 4. 1. 563 -bk. ii. c. 9. 1.147. He
also has contingence, bk. ii, c. 9.1..181. Continzency is in Dryden,
Threnodia Augustalis, st. xviti. 1) 494.—L. contingent-, stem of pres.
pt. of contingere, to touch, relate to.—L. con-, for cum, together;
and tangere, to touch, See Tangent. Der. contingent-ly, con-
fingence, con'ingenc-y.
CONTINUE, to persist in, extend, prolong. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. con-
tinuen, whence ME. pres. part. continuende, Gower, C.-A. ii. 18;
bk. iv. 508. - Εἰς continuer; Cot. L. continudre, to connect, unite,
make continuous. —L. con‘inuus, holding together, continuous. =
L. continére, to hold together, contain. See Contain. Der. con-
CONTRAVENE
tinu-ed, continu-ed-ly, continu-ance (Gower, C. A. ii. 143 bk. iv. 368) ;
also continu-al, continu-al-ly, words in early use, since we find
cuntinuelement in the Ancren Riwle, p. 142; also continuat-ion, -ive,
τοῦ, from the L. pp. continudtus ; and see below.
CONTINUOUS, holding together, uninterrupted. (L.) Con-
tinuously is in Cudworth’s Intellectual System, p. 167 (R.).—L.
continuus, holding together; with change of τῆς into -ons, as in
contemporaneous, &c.— L. continére, to hold together ; see Contain.
Der. continuous-ly ; and, from the same source, continu-i-ly.
CONTORT, to writhe, twist about. (L.) ‘In wreathes contorted ;’
Drayton, The Moon-calf, 1. 8t.—L. contortus, pp. of ccnlorquére, to
turn round, brandish, hurl.=L. con-, for cum, together ; and torguére,
to turn, twist. See Torture. Der. contort-ion.
CONTOUR, an outline. (F.—Ital.—L. and Gk.) In Phillips
(1706). Borrowed from 1". contour; Cotgrave explains‘ le contour dune
ville’ by ‘ the compasse, or whole round of territory or ground, lying
next unto and about a towne.’ Ital. con/orno, a circuit; from con-
tornare, ‘to encircle ;’ Florio. τος con- (cum), together; and ornare,
to round off, to turn. See Turn,
CONTRA, prefix, against; from L. contra, against. L. contra
was orig. the ablative fem. of an obsolete form * con-f(e)r-us, a com-
parative form from con- (for cum), prep. together; cf. extra, prep.,
from exterus,
CONTRABAND, against law, prohibited. (Span.—Ital.—L.)
“Contraband wares of beauty;’ Spectator, no. 33. Hakluyt has
‘by Contrabanda;’ Voy. ii. 1. 224, 1. 24.—Spany contrabando, pro-
hibited goods. Ital. contrabhando, prohibited goods (whence also
Ε΄ contrebande). = Ital. contra, against; and bando, a ban, proclama-
tion. L. contra, against ; and Late L. bandunr, a ban, proclamation,
See Ban. Der. contrabanda-ist.
CONTRACT (1) to draw together, shorten. (L.) In Shak,
All’s Well, v. 3. 51. Palsgrave has contracte, p. 497.— L. contractus,
pp. of contrahere, to contract, lit. to draw together,—L. con-, for
cum, together ; and /rahere, to draw. See Trace. Der. contract-ed,
-ed-ly, -ed-ness; contract-:ble, -ible-ness, -ibil-i-ty; contract-ile, -il-i-ly,
-ton; and see contract (2).
CONTRACT (2), a bargain, agreement, bond. (F,—L.) In
Shak. Temp. ii. 1. 151.— MF. contract, ‘a contract, bargaine, agree-
ment;” Cot, [Cf. F. con‘racter, ‘to contract, bargaine;’ id.}—L,
contractum, acc. of contractus, a drawing together; also a compact,
bargain. —L. contractus, drawn together. See Contract (1). Der.
contract, verb, i.e. to make a contract (F, contracter) ; contract-or,
CONTRADICT, to reply to, oppose verbally, (L.) In the
Mirror for Magistrates, p. 850. Sir T. More has contradictory, Works,
p-110ge. T. Usk has contradiccion, Test, of Love, bk. ii. c. 11,1. 116;
and contradictorie, bk. ii. ¢. 13, |. 129.—L. contradictus, pp. of
contradicere, to speak against.—L, confra, against; and dicere, to
speak. See Diction. Der. contradict-ton, contradict-or-y.
CONTRADISTINGUISH, to distinguish by contrast. (Hy-
brid; L. and F.) Used by Bp. Hall, Episcopacy by Divine Right,
pt. iii, s. 2 (R.). Made up of L. contra, against; and distinguish,
4.ν. Der. contradistinct-ion, -ive,
CONTRALTO. In singing, the part next above the alto.
(Ital.—L.) First found in 1769; contrealt in 1730. Ital. contralto.
Ital. contra, against (L. contra) ; and alto, the high voice in singing,
from Ital. alto, high; which from L. altus, high.
CONTRAPUNTAL, relating to counterpoint, (Ital.—L.)
Modern. From Mltal. contrapunto (Ital. contrappunto), counter-
point. Ital. contra (L. contra), over against ; and punto (L. punctum),
a point. See Counterpoint,
CONTRARY, opposite, contradictory. (F.—L.) Formerly
accented contrary. ME. conirarie, Inearly use. In An Early Eng.
Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 30, 1. 1.— AF. contrarie, Year-books of
Edw. I., 1302-3, p. 363; OF. contraire.—L. contrarims, contrary.
Formed from the prep, contra, against. See Contra. Der. contrart-
ly, -ness, -e-ty, -wise.
CONTRAST, to stand in opposition to, to appear by com-
parison. (F.—L.) The neuter sense of the yerb is the orig. one in
Latin; whence the act. sense ‘to put in contrast with.’ ‘The
figures of the groups... must contrast each other by their several
positions;” Dryden, A Parallel between Poetry and Painting (R.) ;
p. 164 (ed. Yonge).—F. contraster, ‘to strive, withstand, contend
against;’ Cot.= Late L. contras‘are, to stand opposed to, oppose. = L.
contra, against; and stare, to stand. See Stand. Der. contrast, sb.
CONTRAVENE, to oppose, hinder. (F.—L.) “ Contravened
the acts of parliament ;’ State Trials, John Ogilvie, an. 1615 (R.) =
MF. contrevenir, ‘to thwart;’ Cot. (Cf. AF. contrevenant, contra-
yening; Statutes of the Kealm, i, 104 (1285).] —L. contrauenire, to
break a law; lit. to come against, oppose. L. contra, against; and
uentre, to come, cognate with E. come, q.v. Der. contravent-ton,
from the L. pp, contranentus,
“on
CONTRETEMPS
CONTRETEMPS, a mishap, a hitch. (F.—L.) In Thackeray,
Vanity Fair, ch. 34 (near the end); and see the Stanford Dict.=F.
contre-temps, a mishap, inopportune event.—L. contra, against ; and
tempus, time, opportunity.
CONTRIBUTE, to pay a share of a thing. (L.) Accented
contribute in Milton, P. L. viii. 155. Shak. has contribution, Hen. ΤΠ,
i. 2. 95.—L. contribitus, pp. of contribuere, to distribute, to contri-
bute. —L.con-, for cum, together; and fribuere,to pay. See Tribute.
Der. contribut-ion, -ive, -ar-y, -or-y.
CONTRITE, very penitent, lit. bruised thoroughly. (F.—L.)
Chaucer has contrite and contrition, near the beginning of the Persones
Tale (I 110, 133).—<OF. (and F.) contrit.—L,. contritus, thoroughly
bruised; in Late L., penitent; pp. of conterere.—L. con-, for cum,
together; and ¢erere, to rub, grind, bruise; see Trite. Der. con-
trite-ly, contrit-ion.
CONTRIVE, to hit upon, find ont, plan. (F.—L. and Gk.)
Contrive is a Jate and altered spelling; ME. controuen, controeuen,
contreuen (where τε is for v) ; 15th cent., con/reve, contryve; 16th cent., |
contrive. Spelt controue, rhyming with reproue (reprove), in the
Romaunt of the Rose, 7547; Gower, C. A. i. 216; bk. ii. 1708. —
OF. controver, to find, to imagine, invent; 3 p. 5. pr. contreuve |
(whence ME. controeuen, contreuen); see Godefroy. The pt. t. pl.
controverent occurs in st. g of La Vie de Saint Léger (Bartsch,
Chrestomathie Frangaise). - OF. con- (L. con-, for cum) with, wholly ;
and OF. trover, mod. F. frouver, to find. The OF. trover was
formerly explained from L. turbare, but was really formed from
Late L. tropare; for which see Troubadour, Trover. Der.
contriv-ance, contriv-er. @ An old pronunciation of the -trevs in
contreve is preserved in retrieve.
CONTROL, restraint, command. (F.—L.) Control is short for
contre-rolle, the old form of counter-roll. The sb. conterroller, i.e.
comptroller or controller, occurs in P. Plowman, C. xii. 298 ; and see
Controller in Blount’s Law Dictionary. OF, contre-role, contre-rolle,
a duplicate register, used to verify the official or first roll; see Con-
fréle in Brachet; and see Godefroy (Supplement) and Cotgrave. =
OF. contre, over against; and role, rolle, a roll, from rotulum, acc.
of L. rotulus. See Counter and Roll. Der. control, verb; con-
troll-ab’e, control-ment; also controller (sometimes spelt comptroller,
but badly), P. Plowman, C. xii. 298; contraller-ship.
CONTROVERSY, dispute, variance. (F.—L.) “ Controuersy
and varyaunce;’ Fabyan’s Chron. K. John of France, an. 7; ed.
Ellis, p. 505. ME. contronersie, Wyclif, Heb. vi. 16 (earlier text). |
{The verb controvert is a later formation, and of E. growth; there is
no L, controuertere. | — AF. controversye, Langtoft’s Chron., ed. Wright, |
i. 434 (1307).—L. controuersia, a quarrel, dispute. —L. contrduersus,
opposed, controverted.—L. contrd-, masc. or nent. form allied to |
fem. contra, against; and wersus, turned, pp. of uertere, to turn.
See Contra and Verse. Der. confroverst-al, -al-ly, -al-ist ; also
controvert (see remark above), controvert-ible, -ibl-y.
CONTUMACY, pride, stubbornness. (F.—L.) In Fabyan’s
Chron. King John, an. 7; ed. Ellis, p. 316. Chaucer has contumacie,
C.T., Pers. Tale, I 391. (The L. adj. contumax, contumacious, was
adopted both into French and Middle-English without change, and
may be seen in P. Plowman, C. xiv. 85, in Chaucer’s Pers. Tale
(De Superbia), and in Cotgrave.]—AF. contumacie, Year-books of
Kdw. I., 1302-3, p. 367. —L. contumacia, obstinacy, contumacy.=L.
contumax, gen. contumdaci-s, stubborn,—L. con- (cum), very, wholly ;
*tum-ax, adj. formed from tum-ére, to swell with pride. See Tumid.
Der. contumact-ous, -ous-ly, -ous-ness ; and see below.
CONTUMELY, reproach, (F.—L.) ‘Not to feare the con-
tumelyes of the crosse;’ Barnes, Works, p. 360, col. 1. ME. con-
tumelie, Chaucer, C. T., Pers. Tale, I 5506. - Εἰ, contumelie, ‘ contumely,
reproach ;’ Cot.<L. contumélia, misusage, insult, reproach. Prob.
connected with L. contumax; see above. Der. contumeli-ous, -ous-ly,
-OUS-NESS,
CONTUSE, to bruise severely, crnsh. (L.) Used by Bacon,
Nat. Hist. § 574.—L. contiisus, pp. of contundere, 10 bruise severely.
=L. con-, for cum, with, very much; and fundere, to beat, of which
the base is tud-; cf. Skt. tud, to strike, sting (which has lost an
initial s), Goth. stautan, to strike, smite.—4/STEUD, to strike;
Brugmann, i. § 818 (2). Der. contus-ion.
CONUNDRUM. (L.?) ‘I must have my crotchets! And my
conundrums!’ Jen Jonson, The Fox, Act v. sc. 7. It here means a
conceit, device. ‘I begin To have strange conundrums in my head;’
Massinger, Bondman, Act ii. sc. 3. Again, in Ben Jonson's Masque,
called News from the New World, Factor says: ‘And I have hope
to erect a staple for news ere long, whither all shall be brought, and
thence again vented under the name of Staple News, and not trusted
to your printed conundrums of the Serpent in Sussex, or the witches
bidding the devil to dinner at Derby; news that, when a man sends
them down to the shires where they are said to be done, were never
|
CONVIVIAL 133
there to be found.’ Here conundrum means a hoax or a canard. In
Ram Alley, iii. 1, 2 (Hazlitt’s Old Plays, x. 313) we find: ‘We old
men have our crotchets, our conundrums, Our figaries, quirks, and
quibbles, As well as youth.’ Also spelt guonundrum, conuncrum,
conimbrum, Etymology unknown; but doubtless of Latin origin,
originating in a university joke; attributed (in 1645) to Oxford ; see
N.E.D. Cf. gullet, as a corruption of quidlibet. It might thus be
| an old term of the schools, purposely perverted, such as *guo-nunc-
rum; like quidnunckery, found in 1804. For the later sense, see
Spectator, no. 61, May 10, 1711.
CONVALESCE, to recover health, grow well. (L.) ‘He
found the queen somewhat convalesced;’ Knox, Hist. Reformation,
b. ν. an. 1366. - Τι. conualescere, to begin to grow well; an inceptive
form. = L. con-, for cum, together, wholly ; and -walescere, an inceptive
form of ualére, to be strong. See Valiant. Der. convalesc-ent,
convalesc-ence.
CONVENE, to assemble. (F.—L.) ‘ Now convened against it ;’
Baker, Charles 1, Jan. 19, 1648 (R.). It is properly a neuter verb,
signifying ‘to come together ;’ afterwards made active, in the sense
‘to summon.’ =F. convenir, ‘to assemble, meet, or come together ;’
Cot.—L. conuenire, pp. conuentus, to come together.—L. con-, for
cum, together; and wenire, to come, cognate with E. come, q.v.
Der. conven-er ; conven-i-ent, q.v.; also convent, q.v., convent-ion, q.v.
CONVENIENT, suitable, commodious. (L.) In early use.
In Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, Ὁ. iii. pr. 11, 1. 80.—L. conuenient-, stem
of conueniens, suitable; orig. pres. pt. of conuenire, to come together,
to suit. See Convene. Der. convenient-ly, convenience,
CONVENT, a monastery or nunnery. (L.) (ME. couent (u for
v), in Chaucer, C. Τὶ, B 1827, 1867; from OF. covent; still preserved
in Covent Garden. Convent is the 10. form.]—L. conuentus, an
assembly.—L, conuentus, pp. of conuenire, to come together; see
Convene. Der. conventu-al; convent-ic-le (Levins).
CONVENTION, assembly, agreement. (F.—L.) ‘Accordyng
to his promes [promise] and conuencion;’ Hall, Hen, VI, an. 18. § 4.
=F. convention, ‘a covenant, contract;’ Cot.=L. conuentidnem, acc.
of conuentio, a meeting, a compact; cf. conuentus, pp. of conuenire, to
come together; see Convene, Der. convention-al, -al-ly, -al-ism,
-al-t-ly,
CONVERGE, to verge together to a point. (L.) ‘After they
{the rays] have been made to converge by reflexion or refraction;’
Newton, Optics (Todd). —L. conuergere, to incline together (Isidore).
= L. con-, for cum, together; and uvergere, to turn, bend,, incline.
See Diverg>, and Verge, verb. Der. converg-ent, -ence, -enc-y.
CONVERSE, to associate with, talk. (F.—L.) ME. conuersen
(with « for v); the pres. pt. conuersand occurs in the Northern poem
by Hampole, entitled The Pricke of Conscience, 1. 4198.—F. con-
verser ; Cotgrave gives: ‘ Converser avec, to converse, or be much
conversant, associate, or keep much company with.’ =—L. conuersari,
to live with any one; orig. passive of conversare, to turn round, the
frequentative form of conuertere, to turn round. See Convert.
Der. converse, sb.; convers-at-ion (ME. conuersacion, Ayenbite of
Inwyt, p. 96, from OF, conversacion) ; conversation-al, -al-ist ; convers-
able, -ant; also conversazione, the Ital. form of conversation.
CONVERT, to change, turn round. (F.—L.) ME. conuerten
(with « for v); Hampole, Pricke of Conscience, 4502; Chaucer,
| C.T., Β 435.— AF. and OF. convertir.—Folk-L. *convertire, for L.
conuertere, to turn round, to change; pp. conuersus.—L. con-, for
cum, together, wholly; and uertere, to turn. See Verse. Der.
convert, sb.; convert-ible, -ibl-y, -ibil-i-ty; also converse, adj., -ly,
convers-ion ; and see converse above.
CONVEX, roundly projecting; opposed to concave. (L.) In
Milton, P. L. ii. 434, iii. 419.—L. conuexus, convex, arched, vaulted ;
properly pp. of L. conuehere, to bring together, hence, to unite by an
arch. L, con-, for cum, together; and uehere, tocarry. See Vehicle.
Der. convex-ly, -ed, -i-ty.
CONVEY, to bring on the way, transmit, impart. (F.—L.)
ME. conueien (with τὸ for v), to accompany, convoy (a doublet of
convey); Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 678, 768.—AF. and ONorth F.
conveier, answering to O, Central F. convoier, to convey, convoy,
conduct, accompany, bring on the way. — Late L. conuiare, to accom-
pany on the way.=—L. cov-, for cum, together ; and wia, a way, allied
to uehere (above). See Viaduct. Der. convey-able, -ance, -anc-er,
-anc-ing, Doublet, convoy.
CONVINCE, to convict, refute, persuade by argument. (L.)
See Convince in Trench, Select Glossary. Palsgrave has conuynce,
p- 498. ‘All reason did convince ;’ Gascoigne, The Fable of
Philomela, st. 22.—L. conuincere, pp. conuictus, to overcome by proof,
demonstrate, refute. = L. con-, for cum, with, thoroughly ; and uincere,
to conquer. See Victor. Der. convinc-ible, -ing-ly; also (from L.
pp- conutctus) convict, verb and sb. ; convict-ion, -ive.
CONVIVIAL, festive. (L.) Shak, has the verb convive, to feast;
CONVOKE
Troilus, iv.5.272. Sir Τὶ Browne has convival, Vulg. Errors, b.iii.c. 25.
§15. The form convivial is used by Denham, Of Old Age, pt. iii. 47.
=—L. conuiuidlis, belonging to a feast. Formed, with suffix -dlis,
from L. conuiui-um, a feast.—L. conuiuere, to live or feast with any
one.—L. con-, for cum, with; and uivere, to live. See Victuals.
Der. convivial-ly, -i-ty.
CONVOKE, to call together. (L.) Used by Sir W. Temple, On
the United Provinces, c. 2. Florio has 114]. convocare, ‘to conuoke.’
134
[The sb. convocation was in use much earlier, in Trevisa, tr. of Higden, |
vii, 111.J—L. conuocdre, pp. conuocdtus, to call together. =L. con-,
for cum, together; and wocadre, to call. See Vocal, Der.
convoc-at-ton.
CONVOLVE, to writhe about. (L.) In Milton, P. L. vi. 328.
= L. conuolucre, to roll or fold together; pp. conuolitus.— L. con-, for |
cum, together ; and uoluere, to roll. See Voluble. Der. convolute,
convolut-ed, -ion ; also convolv-ul-us, a twining plant, a pure L. word.
CONVOY, to conduct, bring on the way. (F.—L.) ME. con- |
uoien (with u for v), another form of ME. conueten, to convey;
common in Barbour’s Bruce. ‘Till convoy him till his cuntré ;’
Bruce, v. 195. It is the Central F. form of convey. See Convey.
Der. convoy, sb.
CONVULSE, to agitate violently. (L.) Convulsion is in Shak.
Tempest, iv. 260. The verb convulse is later; Todd gives a quotation
for it, dated A.D. 1681.—L,. conuulsus, pp. of conuellere, to pluck up, |
dislocate, convulse. —L. con-, for cum, together, wholly ; and wellere,
to pluck. Der. convuls-ion, -ive, -ive-ly, -ive-ness.
CONY, CONEY, a rabbit. (F.—L.) ME. δορὶ, conni; also
conig, coning, conyng. ‘ Conies ther were also playinge;’ Rom. of the
Rose, 1404. ‘Cony, cuniculus,’ Prompt. Parv. p.go. ‘ Hic cuniculus,
a conyng;’ Vocab. 759. 25.—AF. conil (pl. conts), Stat. of the Realm,
i. 380 (1363); conyn (conin), Lib. Custumarum, p. 305; OF. connil.
=L. cuniculum, acc. of cuniculus, a rabbit. @ Du. konijn, Dan.
kanin, G. kanin-chen, are all of L. origin. The E. word is from the
OF. pl. conis, by dropping s.
COO, to make a noise as a dove, (E.) ‘Coo, to make a noise as
turtles and pigeons do;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715. ‘Croo, or Crooke/,
to make a noise like a dove or pigeon;’ id. A purely imitative
word, formed from the sound. See Cuckoo.
COOK, to dress food; a dresser of food. (L.) ME. coken, to cook;
P. Plowman, C. xvi. 60; cook, a cook, Chaucer. The verb seems, in
English, to have been made from the sb., which occurs as AS. cdc,
Grein, i. 167. The word so closely resembles the Latin that it must
have been borrowed, and is not cognate.—L. coguus, a cook; from
coquere, to cook.4-Gk. πέσσειν, to cook; Skt. pach, to cook; Kuss.
pech(e), to bake. —4/PEQ; whence L, * pequere, becoming *quequere by
assimilation, and finally coquere; Gk. Ἐπέφ-ιειν, whence πέσσειν. See
Prugmann, i. § 661. © AS. céc<Late L. cédcus, for coguus. Der.
cook-er-y= ME. cokerie, Gower, C. A. ii. 83; bk. iv. 2433.
COOL, slightly cold. (E.) ΜΕ. col, cole; Rob. of Glouc. p. 131,
1.2775. AS. cdl, cool, Grein, i. 167.4+Du. koe/, Teut. type *kol-uz;
also, with mutation, Dan. kl, kélig, cool, chilly; G. kukl. From
kol-, 2nd grade of kal-, as in AS. cal-an, Icel. kala, to freeze (pt. t.
kol\, See Cold. Der. cool, verb; cool-ly, cool-ness, cool-er; chill.
COOLIE, COOLY, an East Indian porter. (Hindustani.)
pl. coolyes occurs in Sir Τὶ, Herbert's Travels, ed. 1665, p. 78 (head-
line). — Hind. kali, a labourer, porter, cooley ; Hindustani Dict. by
D. Forbes, ed. 1839, p. 309. Prob. from Koli, a tribal name (Yule);
though Wilson would derive it from Tamil ili, daily hire or wages.
COOMB, a dry measure; see Comb (2).
COOP, «ἃ box or cage for birds, a tub, vat. (L.) Formerly, it also
meant a basket. ME. cupe,a basket. ‘ Cupen he let fulle of flures’
=he caused (men) to fill baskets with flowers; Floriz and Blancheflur,
ed. Lumby, 435; see also ll. 438, 447, 452, 457-—L. ciipa,a tub, vat,
butt, cask; whence also F. cuve. ‘The L. capa is cognate with Skt.
kiipa-, a pit, well, hollow; Curtius, i. 194. Cf. also Du. kurp, Icel.
kipa, a bowl; also from L. capa. See Cup and Hive. Der. coop,
verb; coop-er, coop-er-age.
CO-OPERATE, to work together. (L.) Sir Τὶ More has the
pres. part. codperant (a Τ᾿. form), Works, p. 383 e.— Late L. codperiitus,
pp- of codperari, to work together; Mark, xvi. 20 (Vulgate), —L. ον,
for com, i.e. cum, together; and operdri, to work. See Operate.
Der. codperat-or, coéperant (pres. pt. of F. coéperer, to work together,
from L. coéperari), coiperat-ion, -ive.
CO-ORDINATE, of the same rank or order. (L.) ‘Not sub-
ordinate, but co-ordinate parts;’ Prynne, Treachery of Papists, pt. i. |
p- 41 (R.).—L. co-, for com, i.e. cum, together; and ordinatus, pp. of
ordinare, to arrange. See Ordain. Der. codrdinat-ion.
COOT, a sort of water-fowl. (E.) ME. cote, coote. ‘Cote, mergus;” |
Voc. 641. 10. ‘Coote, byrde, mergus, fullica;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 95.
Spelt coote in Wyclif, Levit. xi. 16.4-Du. koe/,a coot; fem. B. 'rom
an AS. form *céfe, not found. History unknown.
The |
COPROLITE
COPAIBA, a kind of balsam. (Port.—Brazil.) Spelt copayba in
1712 (N. E. D.) = Port. copaiba (Vieyra; Eng.—Port. Dict.). — Brazil.
copaiba ; Hist. Brasil. (1648); ii. 230. Cf. Span. copayva in Pineda.
The suffix -iba means ‘ plant,’ ‘ tree.’
COPAL,, a resinous substance. (Span.— Mexican.) ‘Copal, a kind
of white and bright resin, brought from the West Indies;’ Blount’s
Gloss. ed. 1674. ‘ Copall, or Suchicopal ;’ E. G., tr. of Acosta, Ὁ. iv.
c. 29; also in Frampton, tr. of Monardes, fol. 2. It is a product of
the Rhus copallinum, a native of Mexico; Engl. Cyclopzedia, — Span.
copal, copal.— Mexican copalli, resin. ‘The Mexicaa copalli is a
generic name for resin;’ Clavigero’s Hist. of Mexico, tr. by C. Cullen,
ed. 1787; vol. i. p. 33.
CO-PARCENER, a co-partner. (L. and F.—L.) From L. co-,
for com, i.e. cum, with; and ME. parcener,a partner. We find Anglo-
Krench parcener, parcenere, Year-books of ldw. 1., 1292-3, p. 1553
parceners, pl., id. 45; Stat. Realm, i. 49, an. 1278; Annals of Burton,
pp- 471, 480. Also parcenerie, partnership, Year-books of Edw. I.,
1292-3, p. 45. See Partner.
COPE, (1), a cap, hood, cloak, cape. (Late L.) ME. cape, cope.
‘Hee capa, a cope;’ Voc. 570.16. And see Ancren Riwle, p. 56;
Havelok, 429. Gower has: ‘In kirtles and in copes riche;’ and
again: ‘ Under the cope of heven;’ Conf. Amantis, ii. 46, 102; iii.
138. The phrase ‘ cope of heaven’ is still in use in poetry. However
afterwards differentiated, the words cope, cape were the same originally.
Cope represents an AS. *cape, f.; cf. Icel. apa, a cape; and ef. pope
(from AS. papa).— Late L. capa, a cape. See Caps. Der. cop-ing,
cop-ing-stone, i.e, capping-stone.
COPE (2), to vie with, match. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. Hamlet,
ili, 2.60. ME. coupen, to strike, encounter; Destr. of Troy, l. 7231.
- OF. couper, coper ; see further under Coppice.
COPE (3), to buy. (Du.) ME. copen; Lydgate, London Lickpeny,
st. 7, in Spec. of Itnglish, ed. Skeat, p. 25. A word introduced into
England by Flemish and Dutch traders. —Du. koopen, to buy, pur-
chase; orig. to bargain. Cognate with AS, céapian, to cheapen, from
AS. céap, a bargain. See Cheap.
COPECK, a small Russian coin, worth less than $d.; 2 hundredth
part of a rouble (Russ.) Spelt copec in 1698 (N. E. D.).—Russ.
kopieika, a copeck ; dimin. of kopeé,a lance. So called from the figure
of Ivan IV, holding a lance (1535). See Rouble.
COPING-STONE;; see under Cope (1).
COPIOUS, ample, plentiful. (F.—L.) ‘A copyous oost,’ Wyclif,
1 Maccab. xvi. §; where the Vulgate has ‘ exercitus coptosus.’=—OF.
copteux, fem. copieuse, ‘copious, abundant ;’ Cot. = L. cépidsus, plentiful ;
formed with suffix -dsus from L. cdpi-a, plenty. _ The L. cépia stands
for *co-opia; from co- (for com, i.e. cum, together, exceedingly), and
the stem of-, seen in ofés, riches, and in in-opia, want. See Opulent.
Der. coptous-ly, -ness; and see copy.
COPPER, a reddish metal. (Cyprus.) ME. coper, Chaucer, C. T.
16760 (G 1292). AS. copor.—Late L. cuper; L. cuprum, copper ;
a contraction for cuprium @s, i.e. Cyprian brass. See Max Miller,
Lectures, 8th ed, il. 257.—Gk. Kumpios, Cyprian; from Κύπρος,
Cyprus, a Greek island on the S. coast of Asia Minor, whence the
Romans obtained copper; Pliny, xxxiy. 2. @ From the same source
is ἃ. kupfer, Du. koper, Ἐς cuivre, copper. Der. copper-y, copper-
plate; also copperas, q.v-
COPPERAS, sulphate of iron. (F.—L.) Formerly applied
also to sulphate of copper, whence the name. ME. copero:e. ‘Coperose,
vitriola;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 91.—OF. coperove, the old spelling of
couperose, Which Cotgrave explains by ‘ copres,’ i.e. copperas. Cf.
Ital. copparosa, Span. caparrosa, copperas. β. Diez supposed these
forms to be from L. cupri rosa, lit. copper-rose, a supposition which
he strengthened by the fact that the Greek name for copperas was
χάλκανθος, lit. brass-flower. But this is prob. mere popular etymology;
the Late L. ewprdsa seems to be an ordinary fem. adj, formation
from L. cupr-um.
COPPICE, COPPY, COPSHE, 2 wood of small growth.
(F.—L.—Gk.) Coppy (common in prov. Eng.) and cop:e are both
corruptions of coppice. Ccppice is used by Drayton, The Muses’
Llysium, Nymph. 4. It should rather be spelt copice, with one p.—
OF. copeiz, cofeis, cut wood; Godefroy. Hence applied to brushwood
or underwood, frequently cut for fuel, or to a wood kept under by
cutting. [Cf. Late L. copecia, underwood, a coppice. ]—OF. coper, to
cut; F. couper.— OF. cop, formerly colp, a blow, stroke ; F. coup; see
coup in the Supp. to Godefroy. — Late L. colpxm, acc. of colpus, a stroke;
from L. colaphus,a blow.— Gk, κόλαφος, a blow; a word of uncertain
origin, 4 OF. copeiz represents a Late L. type *colpaticium, from
colpare, to strike. Coppy arose from coppice being taken as coppies,
pl.; and copse from reducing a supposed pl. *copprs to copse.
COPROLITE, a roundish stone, supposed to consist of fossilised
faeces (Gk.) Modern; in 1829.—Gk. κόπρο-, for κόπρος, dung; and
λίθος, a stone.
COPULATE
COPULATE, to couple together. (L.) Used as a pp. by Bacon,
Essay 39, Of Custom.=L. copulatus, joined; pp. of copuldre.=—L.
copula, a band, bond, link; see Couple, Der. copulat-ion, copulat-ive;
and see couple.
COPY, an imitation of an original. (F.—L.) [The orig. signifi-
cation was ‘plenty ;᾿ and the present sense was due to the multipli-
cation of an original by means of numerous copies.] ME. copy, copie.
‘Copy of a thinge wretyn, copia;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 92. ‘Grete copy
{i.e. abundance] and plente of castelles, of hors, of metal, and of
hony ;’ Trevisa, i. 301,—F. copie, ‘the copy of a writing; also store,
plenty, abundance of;’ Cot.—L. cépia, plenty. See Copious. Der.
copy, verb; copi-er, copy-ist, -hold, -right.
COQUETTE, a vain flirt. (I. —L.—Gk.) ‘The coquet (sic) is
in particular a great mistress of that part of oratory which is called
action ;’ Spectator, no. 247. ‘Affectations of coguetry ;’ id. no. 377.
=F. coquette, ‘a pratling or proud gossip ;’ Cot. The fem. form of
coguet, the dimin. of cog, meaning ‘a little cock,’ hence vain as a cock,
strutting about; like prov. E. cocky. Cf. ‘cogueter, to swagger or
strowte it, like a cocke on his owne dung-hill;’ Cot. =F. cog, a cock.
See Cock (1). Der. coguet-ry, coguett-ish, -ish-ly, -ish-ness.
COR, a Hebrew measure of capacity. (Heb.) In Wyclif we have
the pl.‘ coris of whete;’ Luke, xvi. 7; where the Vulgate version has
coros, and the Gk. has κόρους. = Heb, kor, a measure, a round vessel;
allied to karar, to turn round.
CORACLE, a light round wicker boat. (Welsh.) See Southey,
Madoc in Wales, c. xiii, and footnotes. In use in Wales and on the
Severn. Cotgrave explains F. carabe as ‘a corracle, or little round
skiffe.’ = W. corwgl, cwrwgl, a coracle; dimin. of W, corwg, a trunk,
a carcase, cwrwg, a frame, carcase, boat. Cf, Gael. curachan, a coracle,
dimin. of curach, a boat of wicker-work ; Gael. and Irish corrach,
Olrish curach, a boat. Stokes-Fick, p. 93.
CORACOID, beaked like a crow. (Gk.) ‘ Coracotdes, a process
of the shoulder-blade;’ Phillips (1706). Medical L. coracoides. =
Gk. κορακοειδής, like a raven. Gk, kopaxo-, for κόραξ, a raven; and
εἶδος, form.
CORAL, a secretion of certain zoophytes. (F.—L.—Ck.) Chaucer
has coral, Prol. 158. —OF. coral ; see corail in Hatzfeld. —L. corallum,
coral; also spelt cora!lium.=—Gk. κοράλλιον, coral. See Schade,OHG.
Dict., p. 1374. Der. corall-ine; coralli-ferous, i.e, coral-bearing,
from the L. suffix -fer, bearing, from ferre, to bear.
CORBAN, a gift. (Hebrew.) In Mark, vii. 11.— Heb. gorban, an
offering to God of any sort, whether bloody or bloodless, but
particularly in fulfilment of a vow; Concise Dict. of the Bible. = Heb.
qarav, to draw near, to offer. Cf. Arabic gurbdn, a sacrifice, victim,
oblation; Rich, Dict. p. 1123.
CORBEL, an architectural ornament. (F.—L.) Orig. an ornament
in architecture, named from the idea of a projecting beak, Cotgrave
translates F. corbeau by ‘a raven; also, a corbell (in masonry) ;’ and
F. mutules by ‘brackets, corbells, or shouldring pieces.’ “ Corbell of
aroffe’ [roof]; Prompt. Parv. ‘Chemyneis, corbels ;’ Arnold’s Chron.
(1502); ed. 1811, p. 138. [The OF. form of corbeau was corbel, but
there were two distinct words of this form, viz. (1) a little raven, from
L. coruus, a raven, and (2) a little basket.]—OF, corbel, old spelling
of corbeau, a corbel; answering to mod. Ital. corbella, a corbel, a
bracket, given in Torriano’s Dict.; named from a fancied likeness to
a raven’s beak. Folk-Lat. corbellum, for corvellum, acc. of corvellus,
dimin. of L. coruus, a raven. Hatzfeld (s.v. corbeau) explains that
the projecting corbel was orig. cut slantwise, so that its profile was
beaklike. See Corvette. 4 Another architectural ornament was
a corbeil (wrongly, corbel),in the form of a basket; from Εἰ, corbeille,
L. corbicula, a little basket ; from L. corbis, a basket.
CORBY, a raven. (F.—L.) In Henryson; Dog, Wolf, and
Sheip, 1. 15.—OF. corbin, dimin. of corb, a raven (Godefroy). =—L.
coruus, a raven.
CORD, a small rope. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. corde, cord; Cursor
Mundi, 2247.—OF. (and F.) corde.—Late L. corda, a cord; L.
chorda, = Gk. χορδή, the string of a musical instrument ; oFig. a string
of gut. See Chord, Doublet, chord. Der. cord, verb; cord-age
(F. cordage), cord-on (F. cord-on) ; also cordelier (F. cordelier, a twist
of rope, also a Gray Friar, who used such a twist, from cordeler, to
twist ropes, which from OF, cordel, dimin. of OF. corde); also
corduroy, q.v.; cord-illera (Span.), a chain of hills.
CORDIAL, hearty, sincere. (F.—L.) Also used asasb. ‘ For
gold in phisik is a cordial ;" Chaucer, C.T., Prol. 443 (or 445).=—F.
cordial, τὰ. cordiale, f. ‘cordiall, hearty;’ Cot. Cf. ‘ Cordtale, the
herbe motherwort, good against the throbbing or excessive beating
of the heart;’ id.—L. cordi-, declensional stem of cor, the heart;
with suffix -a/is. See Heart. Der. cordial-ly, -i-ty.
CORDUROY, a thick-ribbed or corded stuff. (F.—L.) Rees’
Cyclop., (5. vy. Fustian) speaks of ‘the various cotton stuffs known by
the names of corduroy, &c. Already, in 1748, we find mention of
CORN 135
‘Serges, Duroys, Druggets, Shalloons,’ &c.; Defoe, Tour through
Great Britain, i. 94 (4th ed.). In 1722, the London Gazette
(no. 6089/4) mentions ‘a grey duroy coat.’ Hence it is probable
that corduroy represents Εἰ, corde du rot; indeed, it was also called
king’s-cord; see Ν. Ε. Ὁ.
CORDWAINER, a shoemaker. (F.—a town in Spain.) ‘A
counterfeit earl of Warwick, a cordwainer’s son;’ Bacon, Life of
Hen. VII, ed. Lumby, p. 177, 1. 15. ‘Cordwaner, alutarius;’
Prompt. Parv. p. 92. It orig. meant a worker in cordewan or corde-
wane, i.e, leather of Cordova; thus it is said of Chaucer’s Sir Thopas
that his shoon [shoes] were ‘of Cordewane;’ C. T., B 1922.—OF.
cordoanier, a cordwainer. = OF, cordoan, cordauan, cordewan, Cordovan
leather ; Godefroy. = Late L. cordodnum, Cordovan leather ; Ducange.
=Late L. Cordoa, a spelling of Cordova, in Spain (Lat. Corduba),
which became a Roman colony in B.c, 152, 5] ‘ Gallice corduan ;
alio modo dicitur cordubunum, a Corduba, civitate. Hispaniz, ubi
fiebat primo ;’ J. de Garlande, in Wright, Vocab. i. 125.
CORE, the hard central part of fruit, &c. (F.—L.) ‘Core of
frute, arula;’ Prompt. Parv, p. 93. ‘Take quynces ripe . . . but
kest away the core;’ Palladius on Husbandry, bk. xi. st. 73.—OF.
cor, a horn; also horn (the substance); also a corn on the foot, a
callosity; Cotgrave, and Supp. to Godefroy.=—L. cornii, a horn,
a horny excrescence. Hollyband (1580) has: ‘ Vn cor, a core in the
fete.’ @J In the 16th century, associated with OF. coer, cuer, ΜῈ.
coeur (F. ceur), and used with the sense of ‘heart.’ Hence Cotgrave
has: ‘Coeur, a heart ... also, the core of fruit; also, the queer of
a church,’ &c.; by further confusion with F. cheur.
CORIANDER, the name of a plant. (F.—L.—Gk.) See Exod.
xvi. 31; Numb. xi. 7; where Wyclif has coriandre.—F. coriandre,
‘the herb, or seed, coriander ;’ Cot.—L. coriandrum ; Exod. xvi. 31
(Vulgate version) ; where the d is excrescent, as is so commonly the
case after x.—Gk. κορίαννον, kopiavoy, also κύριον, coriander, β.
Said to be derived from Gk. κόρις, a bug, because the leaves have a
strong and bug-like smell (Weigand) ; but prob. a foreign word.
CORK, the bark of the cork-tree. (Span.—L.) “ Corkbarke,
cortex; Corktre, suberies;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 93. The earliest use
of corke was in the sense of a cork shoe or slipper. In 1391, the
Earl of Derby paid 3s. ‘pro uno pare corkes,’ for a pair of cork
shoes; see Earl of Derby’s Expeditions (Camden Soc.), p. 91,1. 19.
The Acts of Edw. IV (in 1463-4, Act 2, 3, c. 4) have: ‘ Botes,
shoen, galoches, or corkes’ (N. E. D.), Adapted from M.Span.
al-corque, ‘a corke shooe, a pantofle;” Minsheu. This seems to be
an Arab. form allied to. M.Span. (and Span.) al-cornogue, the cork-
tree; where αἱ is the Arab. def. article, and corn-oque is formed from
L. quern-us (for *guercnus), oaken, adj. from quercus, an oak ; the tree
being the Quercus Suber. @ But the bark of the tree was called, in
Spanish, corcho; from L. corticem, acc. of cortex, bark. Hence E.
cork is often derived from Span. corcho, though k from ch seems hardly
possible. Der. cork, verb.
CORMORANT, a voracious sea-bird. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Rich. II, ii. 1. 38. “ Cormerawnte, coruus marinus, cormeraudus ;’
Prompt. Parv. p. 93. Chaucer has cormeraunt, Parl. Foules, 1. 362.
= OF. cormarant, prob. for *cormarenc, as in Godefroy (Supp.); MF.
cormerant, m., cormerande, f.; Palsgrave.—OF. corp, a crow; and
OF. *marenc, belonging to the sea, from L. mare, sea, with G. suffix
-ing ; cf. Ἐς flam-ant, tlamingo, OF. flam-enc, with the same suffix ;
see Hatzfeld, Introd. § 142. [Cf. also Port. corvomarinho, Span.
cuervo marino, a cormorant, lit. sea-crow 3 L. coruus marinus, which
occurs as an equivalent to mergulus (sea-fowl) in the Reichenau
Glosses, of the 8th century.] 4 Another name for the bird is cog-
marant, ‘sea-cock ;᾿ see Godefroy (Supp.). The late spelling with
o may have been due to Bret. morvran (W. morfran), a cormorant.
The Breton and W. words are derived from Bret. and W. mdr, the
sea, and bran, a crow, by the usual change of 6 into v or /.
CORN (1), grain. (E.) ME. corn, Layamon, i. 166. The pl.
cornes is in Chaucer, C. T., B 3225. AS. corn, Grein, i. 166. + Du.
koren; Icel., Dan., and Swed. korn; Goth. kaurn; G. korn. Teut.
type *kurnom, n.; Idg. type *garnom, corn; whence OSlay. zrino,
Russ. zerno, corn. Cf. L. granum, grain; and Skt. jirma-, * worn
down,’ pp. of jri, to grow old. Doublet, grain. (4/ GER.)
Brugmann, i. ὃ 628. See Grain, Kernel.
CORN (2), an excrescence on the toe or foot. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Romeo, i. 5. 19. Spelt coorne in Prompt. Parv.—F. corne, ‘a horn ;
. a hard or horny swelling in the backepart of a horse ;’ Cot. Cf.
OF. corn (F. cor), a horn, horny swelling. L. cornu, horn, cognate
with E. horn, q.v. Cf. prov. F. (Verdun) corne, a corn on the foot
(Fertiault), Der. corn-e-ous, horny; from the same source are
cornea, q.V., cornel, q.V., corner, q.V., cornet, q.V., cornelian, q.V.;
also corni-gerous, horn-bearing, from L. ger-ere, to bear; corni-c-ul-
ate, horn-shaped, horned, from L. corniculatus, horned 5 cornu-copta,
q.y. See Core.
136 CORNEA
CORNEA, a horny membrane in the eye. (L.), L. cornea, fem.
of corneus, horny ; from corn, a horn. “See Corn (2).
CORNEL, ashrub; also called dogwood. (Du.=L.) ‘ Cornels
and bramble-berries gave the rest;’ Dryden, Ovid's Metam. bk. 1.
1. 136. ‘The cornell tree;’ Lyte, tr. of Dodoens, bk. vi. c. 51.
(Cf. also F. cornille, “a cornell-berry ;” Cotgrave; cornillier, ‘the
Jong cherry, wild: cherry, or cornill-tree;’ id. Cornille: was also
spelt cornoalle and cornoille; and corn:llier was also cornballer and
cornoiller; id.)—MDu. ornelle, ‘the fruit of the cornelle-tree,
Hexham; cf. MHG. cornelbaum, cornel-tree-(Weigand).—Late L.
cornolium, a cornel-tree. = L. cornum, a cornel-berry ; cornus, a: cornel-
tree, go called from the hard, horny nature of the wood.=L. cornu,
horn. Cf. Gk. κράνεια, xpavoy,acornel. See Corn (2).
CORNELIAN, a kind of chalcedony. (F.—L.) (ΜΕ, cor-
neline; Maundeville’s Travels, c. xxvii. p. 275; Palsgrave has
cornalyn, p. 208. Formerly spelt corneline, cornaline,as in Maundeville
and Cotgrave. = Ἐς corn line, ‘the cornix or cornaline, a flesh-coloured
stone;’ Cotgrave. Cf. Port. cornelina, the cornelian-stoie ; also
Ital. .corniola, (1) a cornel-berry, (2) a cornelian, prob..so named
because its colour resembles that of the frnit of the cornel-tree
(Schade). = Late L. corniola, cornel-berry ; cf. cornolium, cornel. —L.
corneus, adj. from cornus, a cornel. See above, B. From the Ital.
corntola, a cornelian, came the (ἃ. carniol, a cornelian, and the E,
carneol, explained by ‘a precious stone’ in Kersey’s and Bailey's
Dictionaries. The change from corniol to carneol points to a popular
etymology from: L. carneus, fleshy, in»allusion to the flesh-like
colour of the stone. And this etymology has even so far prevailed
as to cause cornelian to be spelt carnelian.
CORNER, a horn-like projection, angle. (F.—L.) ΜΕ.
corner; Gawayn and the Grene Knight, 1185.—AF. cornere, Liber
Custumarnm, p. 150; OF. corniere, ‘a corner ;᾿ Cot. Late L. cor-
néria, a corner, angle; cf. Late L. corneirus, angular, placed at a
corner. = Late. L. corna (OF. corne), a corner, angle. —L. *corna, for
cornua, pl. of cornu, a horn, a projecting point ; with change from ἢ.
pl. to fem. sing. (as often). See Corn (2). Der. corner-ed.
CORNET, a little horn; .a sort of officer. (F.-L.). ME.
cornet, a horn; Octovian Imperator, ll. 1070, 11go; in Weber’s Met.
Rom, iii. 202, 207. ° Also a horned head-dress, a flag or standard ;
and then a troop of horse (because accompanied. by a cornette or
standard), Shak. 1.Hen.. VI, iv..3. 25; lastly, an officer of such a
troop. - }*.corne/,a little horn, dimin. of F. corne,a horn; cornette, f.,
a horned head-dress, a flag. cornet. See above.
CORNICE, a moulding, moulded projection. (F.—TItal.—L.)
In Milton, Ρ. L. 1. 716.—MF. cornice, also corniche, ‘the cornish,
or brow of a wall, piller, or other peece of building ;’ Cot.; mod.F.
corniche. Ital. cornice, ‘the ledge wheron they hang: tapestrie in
any roome; also, an outietting peece or part of a house or wall;’
Florio. Origin uncertain; by some identified with Late L. coréntx,
a square frame. —Gk. xopwvis,a wreath, the cornice of a building (?) ;
literally an adj. signifying ‘crooked ;’ and obviously félated to L.
coréna,a crown. See Crown. ¥ But Ital. cornice rightly means a
crow; from L, cornicem, acc. of cornix, a crow. _ Cf. Corbel.
CORNUCOPIA, the horn of plenty. (L.) Ben Jonson has
cornucopie, Every Man, iii. 6. 24; rightly. =—L. corni copra, horn of
plenty; from corni, horn; and cépr@, gen. of cop:a, plenty. See
Corn (2) and Copious.
COROLLA, the cup of a flower formed by the petals. (L.) A
scientific term. Not in. Johnson.—L. corolla, a little crown; dimin.
of cordna,a crown. See Crown. And see below.
COROLLARY, an additional inference, or deduction. (L.)
“A corolarie or mede of coroune,’ i.e. present of a crown or garland ;
Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. iii. pr. 10, 1. 101.—L. corollarium, a
present of a garland, a gratuity, additional gift; also an additional
inference ; prop. neuter of corollarius, belonging to a garland.—L.
corolla, a garland; see above.
CORONACH, an outcry; a dirge. (Gael.) In Dunbar, Dance
of the 7 Sins, 1. 112; spelt correnoch. Gael. corranach, a dirge; lit.
‘howling together.’—Gael. comh- (=L. cum), together; ranatch, a
howling, from ran, to howl; which is from ra, sb.,an outcry.. Cf.
Trish coranach, α dirge.
CORONAL, a crown, garland. (F.—L.) .In Drayton’s_ Pas-
torals, Ecl. 3. Prdéperly an adj., signifying ‘of or belonging. to.a
crown.’=F. coronal, ‘coronall, crown-like;’ Cot,—L. cordnalis,
belonging to a crown. —L. cordza, a crown. See Crown.
CORONATION, a crowning. (L.) ‘Corownynge or corana-
cion;’ Prompt. Pary. p.93. [Not a F. word, but formed by analogy
with-F. words in -tion.]—Late L. cordnato, a coined word, from: L.
coronare, to crown; ῬΡ. corondlus.— L. cordna,a crown. See Crown.
CORONER, an officer appointed by the crown. (F.—L.)
Also crowner. ‘ Coroners and bailiffs ;’ Stow, King Stephen, an. 1142.
The word coroner occurs in a spurious charter of King Athelstan to
CORRIDOR
Beverley, dated A.D. 925, but really of the 14th century; see
Diplomatarium /&vi Saxon., ed. Thorpe, p. 181, last’ line. AF.
coroner, coruner, Statutes οἵ. the Realm, i. 28, 29 (1275).—OF-
corone, a crown.—L. cordna, a crown. B. The AF. coroner was
Latinised as coréndrius, i-e..a crown-officer. © Thus coroner -is
‘a crown-er,’ and the equivalent term crowner (Hamlet, v. 1. 4) is
quite correct.
CORONET, a little crown. (F.—L:) ‘With coronet!es upon
theyr heddes;’ Fabyan, Chron. an. 1432. Formed as a dimin., by
help of the suffix -efe (or -ette) from the OF. corone, a crown. =L.
coréna,.a crown. See Crown.
CORPORAL (1), a subordinate officer. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Merry Wives, ii, ἢν 128, --First. found in 1579.—MF. corporel,
spelt corporeau in 1562 (Supp. to Godefroy).—Late L. corpordlis,
a captain, a leader of a troop (1495).—L. corpor-, for *corpos-, stem
of corpus, body. | (J Another MF. (and F.) form was caporal, ‘ the
corporall of a band of souldiers;’ Cot.—Ital. caporale, a chief,
a corporal; whence it was introduced into French in the 16th century
(Brachet) ; cf. Late L. caporalis, a chief, a commander; Ducange.
This form is corrupt, due to association with Ital. capo, the head
(from L. caput); which could never have evolved the syllable -or-.
Cf, also Ital. capoparte, ‘a ringleader, Florio; which may easily
have suggested the change. Note Norm. dial. corporal, a corporal
(Moisy). Der. corporal-ship.
CORPORAL (2), belonging to the body. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Meas. iii. 1. 80. ME. corporel, Rom. Rose, 6757.—OF. corporcl,
corporal. L. corporalis, bodily.—L. .corpor-, for *corpos, stem ot
corpus, the body ; with suffix -alis. See Corps, Brugmann, i. § 555.
Der. From the same stem we have ‘corpor-ate, -ate-ly, -at-ion ; -e-al
(from L. corporeus, belonging to the body), -e-al-ly, -e-al-:-ty; and
see corps, corpse, corpulent, corpuscle, corset, corslet.
CORPS, CORPSE, CORSE, a body. (F.—L.) Corgs, i.e.
a body of men, is mod. French, and not in early use in English. Corse
is a variant of corpse, formed by dropping 2}; it occurs in An Old Eng.
Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 28, 1. 10. Corpse was also in early use;
ME. corps, Chaucer, C. T., 2821 (A 2819); and is derived from
late O,French, in which the p was sounded. OF. cors, later (14th
cent.) corps, the body. - L. corpus, the-body. Der. corp-ul-ent, q.v.;
corpus-c-le, q.v.; corset, corslet.
CORPULENT., stout, fat. (F.—L.) In Shak. 1 Hen. IV, ii.
4. 464. ΜΕ: corpulent, Gesta Roman., c. 65, p. 281, 1. 4 (EE. T.S.).
=F. corpulent, ‘corpulent, gross;’ Cot.—L. corpulentus, fat. L.
corpu-s, the body; with suffixes -ἰ- and -ent-. See Corps. Der,
corpulent-ly, corpulence.
CORPUSCLE, a little body, an atom. (L.) Avscientific term.
In Derham, Physico-Theology, bk. i. c. 1. note 2 (R.).—L.corpusculum,
an atom, particle; double dimin. from L. corpus, the body, with
suffix -cu-lo-. See Corps. Der. corpuscul-ar.
CORRAL, an enclosure for animals, pen, (Span.—L.) Chiefly
in Span. America and U. S.—Span. corra/,a court, pen, enclosure. =
Span. corro, a circle, a ring of people met to see a show. From the
Span. correre toros, to hold a bull-fight; lit. to run bulls. L. currere,
torun. Doublet, kraal, q.v.
CORRECT, to put right, punish, reform, (L.) ME. correcten;
Chaucer, C. T. 6242 (Ὁ) 661).—L. correct-us, pp. of corrigere, to
correct. = L. cor-, for con- (i.e. cum), with, thoroughly, before r; and
regere, to rule, order. See Regular. Der. correct, adj, (also from
L. correct-us); -ly, -ness, -ion, -ion-al, -'ve, -or; also corrig-ible, corrig-
enda (L. corrigenda, things to be corrected, from corr:gendus, fut. pass.
part. of corrigere) ; corregidor,a Span. magistrate, lit. ‘correcter ;’
{rom Span, corregir, to correct.
CORRELATES, to relate or refer mutually. (L.) In-Johnson’s
Dictionary, where it is defined by ‘to have a reciprocal relation, as
father to son.’ Cf. ‘Spiritual things and spiritual men are correlatives,
and cannot in reason be divorced ;’ Spelman, On Tythes, p. 141 (R.).
These are mere coined words, made by prefixing cor-, for con- (i.e.
cum, with) before relate, relative, &c. Ducange gives a Late L.
corrélatio, a mutual relation; and Cotgrave has MF. correlatif, ex-
plained by ‘correlative. See Relate. Der. correlat-:ve, correlat-ion.
CORRESPOND, to. answer mutually. (F.—L.) Shak. has cor-
responding, ie, suitable; Cymb. iii, 3..31 3 also corresponsive, fitting,
Troil. prol. 18.— OF. (and F.) correspondre (Supp. to, Godefroy).=—
Late’ L. correspondére. These are coined words, made by prefxing
cor- (for con-, ie..cum, together) to OF. respondre, L. respondére.
Ducange gives a Late L. ady. correspondenter,‘ at the same time.’. See
Respond. Der. correspond-ing, -ing-ly, -ent, -ent-ly, -ence.
CORRIDOR, agallery. (F.—Ital.—L.) In Blount’s Gloss. (1656);
defined as in Cotgrave (below)... The high wall and corridors that
went round it [the amphitheatre } are almost intirely ruined ;’ Addison,
On Italy (Todd’s Johnson). Also used as a term in fortification. =F.
corridor, ‘a curtaine, in fortification ;’ Cot. — Ital. corridore, ‘a runner,
CORRIE
a swift horse; also a long terrase or gallerie;’ Ilorio, = Ital. correre,
to run; with suffix -dore, a less usual form of -/ore, answering to L.
ace. suffix -tdrem.=—L. currere, to run. See Current.
CORRIE, a mountain dell or combe. (Gael.) “ Fleet foot on the
corrie;’ Scott, Lady of the Lake, iii. 16. Gael. coire,a cauldron, kettle ;
also, a circular hollow among mountains. W. pair, a cauldron; AS.
lwer, a cauldron. See Notes on Eng. Etym., p. 46; Brugmann,
i. § 123.
CORROBORATE, to confirm. (L.) ‘Dothe corroborate the
stomake;’ Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, bk. ii. c. 7 (Of Olyues).
Properly a past part., as in ‘except it be corroborate by custom ;’
Bacon, Essay 39, On Custom. = L. corrdboratus, pp. of corrdborare, to
strengthen. = L. cor-, for con- (i.e, cum, together, wholly) before r; and
roborare, to strengthen, from rdbor-, stem of rdbur, strength. See
Robust. Der. corroborat-.ve, -ion, corrobor-ant.
CORRODE, to gnaw away. (F.—L.) In Sherwood’s Index to
Cotgrave; in Florio's Ital. Dict. (1598); and in Donne, To the
Countess of Dediord, [Corrosive was rather a common word in the
sense of ‘a caustic;” and was frequently corrupted to corsive or corsy;
see Spenser, F. Ὁ. iv. 9. 14.]—F. corroder, to gnaw, bite; Cot.—L.
corrodere, pp. corrdsus, to gnaw to pieces. = L. cor-, for con- (i.e. cum,
together, wholly) before r; and rédere, to gnaw. See Rodent. Der.
corrod-ent, -ible, -ibil-i-ty; also (from L. pp. corrdsus) corros-ive, -ive-
ly, -ive-ness, -ion.
CORRODY, an allowance for maintenance. (Late L.—F.— Tent.)
See Corody, Corrody, in Blount, Nomolexicon. AF. corodie, Stat. of
the Realm, i. 256 (1327); Late L. corrddium, earlier corrédium. =
AF. conrei, conreit, provision, corrody (Britton). » See further under
Curry (1).
CORRUGATEH, to wrinkle greatly. (L.) In Bacon, Nat. Hist.
§ 964. —L. corrigatus, pp. of corriigare, to wrinkle greatly. —L. cor-,
tor con- (i.e. cum, together, wholly) before r; and rigare, to wrinkle,
from raga, a wrinkle, fold, plait. Der. corrugat-ton.
CORRUPT, putrid, debased, defiled. (L.) In Chaucer, C. T.
4939 (B 519); Gower, C. A. 1. 217, bk. ii. 1732. Wyclif‘has cor-
ruptid, 2 Cor, iv. 16.—L. corruptus, pp. of corrumpere, to corrupt,
intensive of rumpere, to break. =. cor-, for con- (i.e. cum, together,
wholly); and rumpere, to break in pieces. See Rupture. @ We
also find AF. corupt, Liber Albus, p, 463. Der. corrupt, vb. ; corrupt-
ly, -ness, -er; -ible, -ibi-y, -ibil-i-ty, -tble-ne:s; corrupt-ion= ME. cor-
rupcion, Gower, C. A.i. 37 (prol. 986), from F. corruption; corrupt-ive.
CORSAITR, a pirate, a pirate-vessel. (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘ Corsair,
a courser, or robber by sea;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715.—F. corsaire,
“a courser, pyrat ;’ Cot. =MItal. corsaro, ‘a pirate, or rouer by sea;’
Florio (s.v. corsale). — Late L. cursdrius, a pirate. —L. cursus, a course.
=-L. cursus, pp. of currere, to run. See Course, Current.
Doublet, kussar, 4. v.
CORSE, a dead body. (F.—L.) ME. cors: ‘Thanne wolen the
freres for the cors fihte ;’ Polit. Songs, p.-331, 1. 182 (1307-1327). =
OF. cors.—L. corpus, a body. See Corps.
CORSET, apairofstays. (F.—L.) ‘A corsette ofIanyr’[Dejanira];
Trevisa, tr. of Higden, ii. 361. Cotgrave has: ‘Corset, a little body,
also a paire of bodies [i.e. bodice] for a woman,’ = OF. cors, a-body ;
with dimin. suffix -et. See Corps.
CORSLET, CORSELET, a piece of body-armonr. (F.—L.)
Corslet in Shak. Cor. v. 4. 21.—F. corselet, which Cotgrave translates
only by ‘a little body;’ but the special use of it easily follows. [The
Ital. corsaletto, a cuirass, must have been modified from ‘the F.
cor-elet and OF. cors, a body, not from the Ital. corpo.]=—OF. cors,
a body; with dimin. suffixes -el- and -et. See Corps. Cf. Norm.
dial. corselet, a corset (Moisy).
CORTEGE, a train of attendants. (F.—Ital.—L.) In Evelyn's
Diary, 1 July, 1679. From F. cortéve, a procession. = Ital. corteg gio,
a train, suit, retinue, company.=Ital. corte, a court; from the same
L. source as E. court, q.v.
CORTES, the Span. national assembly. (Span.—L.) _ Lit.
‘courts.’ =Span. cortes, pl. of corte, a court. L. acc. cdrtem, a court.
CORTEX, bark. (L.) Modern. L. cortex (stem cortic-), bark.
Der. ertic-al; cortic-ate, cortic-at-ed, i.e. furnished with bark.
CORUNDUYM, a crystallised mineral, like a ruby. (Tamil ~Skt.’
See Yule.—{Tamil kurundam; cf. Hind. kurand (Forbes). Skt.
kuruvinda(s), a ruby (Benfey).
CORUSCATE, to flash, glitter. (L.) Bacon has coruscation, Nat.
Hist. § r21.—L. coruscatus, pp. of coruscdre, to glitter, vibrate; cf.
coruscus, trembling, vibrating, glittering. Der. corusc-ant, -at-ton,
CORVEE, forced labour. (F.—L.) In Ayenbite of Inwit, p. 38;
where the pl. is printed tornees. =F. corvee, f.‘a drudging daies worke;’
Cot.=—Late L. corrogata (sc. opera), requisitioned work ; fem. pp. of
corrogare, to exact.—L. cor- (for cum), together, very; and rogare,
to ask. See Rogation.
CORVETTE, a sort of small frigate. (F,—Port.—L.) Known
COSTMARY 137
in 1636; see Todd’s Johnson. =F. corvedte. = Port. corveta, a corvette;
Brachet. This is the same as the Span. corveta or corbe'a, ἃ corvette.
=-L. corbita, a slow-sailing ship of burthen. —L. corbis, a basket, See
Corbel.
CORYMB, ἃ species of inflorescence. (F.—L.—Gk.) F. corymbe,
=-L. ccrymbus.— Gk. κόρυμβος, ahead, cluster. Allied to Gk. κέρας,
I. horn. Cf. Skt. ¢xizga(m), a horn.
COSHER, to feast, to pamper. (Irish.)
y. 1. = Irish cofir, a feast.
COSMETIC, that which Leautifies. (Gk.) ‘This order of cos-
metick philosophers ;’ ‘Tatler, no. 34.—Gk. κοσμητικός, skilled in
adorning; whence also Ἐς cosmétique. — Gk. κοσμέω, 1 adorn, decorate.
= Gk. κόσμος, order, ornament. See below.
COSMIC, relating to the world. (Gk.) Modern. From Gk.
κοσμικός, relating to the world. Gk. κόσμος, order; also, the world,
universe. Der. cosmic-al, used by Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors,
bk. iv. c. 13. § 23 cosmic-al-ly.
COSMOGONY, the theory of the origin of the universe. (Gk.)
In Warburton, Divine Legation, b. iii. s. 3 (R.).—Gk. κοσμογονία,
origin of the world, Gk, κύσμο-, stem of κόσμος, the world; and
τγονια, a begetting, from -yov-, as in γέ-γον-α, perf. of γίγνομαι, I
become, am produced; where yor- is the second grade of 4/ GEN, to
produce. Der. co:mogon-ist.
COSMOGRAPHY, description of the world. (Gk.) In Sir
T. Elyot, The Governor, bk. i. c. 11. § 6 3 and in Bacon, Life: of
Henry VII, ed. Lumby, p. 171. —Gk. κοσμογραφία, description of the
world,=Gk. «écpo-s, world, universe; and γράφειν, to describe.
Der. cosmograph-er, -ic, -tc-al.
COSMOLOGY, science of the universe. (Gk.) In Blount
(1656). Formed as if from a Gk. *coopodoyia; from κόσμο-ς, the
world, and λέγειν, to speak, tell of. Der. cosmolog-tst, -ic-al.
COSMOPOLIT#, a citizen of the world. (Gk.) Used in
Howell’s Letters; Ὁ. 1. s. 6, let. 60, § 1.—Gk. κοσμοπολίτης, a citizen
of the world.— Gk. κόσμο-ς, the world; and πολίτης, a citizen; see
Politic. Der. cosmopolit-an.
COSSACK, a light-armed S. Russian soldier. (Russ.— Tartar.)
Spelt Cassacke in Hakluyt, Voy. i. 388.—Russ. kozak’, kazak’, a
Cossack; of Tartar origin. — Turki guzzig, a vagabond, a predatory
horseman (Yule).
COSSET, a pet-lamb, a pet. (E:) Spenser has cosse/, for cosset-
lamb, a pet-lamb. Prob. for cof+set, lit. ‘cot-sitter,’ i.e. living in a
cot, brought up within doors; cf. G. haus-lamm. AF. coscet, cozet,
a cottar; AS. co/s#¢a (Latinised as coftsetus), by-form of cof-sella, a
cottar; see Schmidt, Gloss, to AS. Laws. Cf. also G. kossat, a
cottager (Weigand) ; Ital. cassiccio, a pet-lamb (Florio), from casa,
a cottage. See Notes on Ing. Kiym. p. 46.. Der. cos:et, vb., to pet.
4 For ts >ss, ef. boat-:wa n, bless.
COST, to fetch a certain price. (Du.—F.—L.) ME. costen. In
Chaucer, C. T. 1910 (A 1908); P. Plowman, B, prol. 203.—MDu.
kosten, to cost. = OF. coster, couster (1°. cctiter), to cost. L. constare,
to stand together, consist, last, cost. — L. con- (for cum), together; and
stare, to stand. See Constant. 47 The OF. coster should have given
a form coast, ‘Der. cost, sb., -ly, -li-ness.
COSTAL, relating to the ribs. (L.) Τὴ Sir T. Browne, Vulg.
Errors, b. iv. c. 10. § 5. Formed, with suffix -al, fiom L. co:ta, a
tib. See Coast.
COSTERMONGER, an itinerant fruit-seller. (Hybrid ; F. and
E.) Formerly costerd-monger or costard-monger ; the former spelling
is in Drant’s Horace, where it translates L. pomarius in Sat. ii. 3.
227. It means costard-seller, ‘ Costard,a kind of apple. Costard-
monger, a seller of apples, a fruiterer;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715.
Much earlier, we find : ‘Co:tard, appulle, quirianum;’ Prompt.
Pary. p. 94. “ Costardmongar, fruyctier,’ i.e. fruiterer ; Palsgrave.
B. The etymology of costard, an apple, is uncertain; but the suffix
-ard is properly OF., so that the word is presumably OF., and related
In Shirlev St. Patrick;
| to OF, coste, a rib, with reference to such apples as had prominent
ribs. L. costa, a rib, Cf. Fy fruit cé-elé, ribbed fruit ; Hamilton.
y: The word monger is E.; see Ironmonger. @ There is no
reason for connecting co:tard with cus’ard. The cus ard-apple
mentioned in Dampier’s Voyages, an. 1699 (R.) is quite a different
fruit from the ME. cos¢ard.
COSTIVE, constipated. (F.—L.) ‘But, trow, is he loose or
costive of laughter?’ Ben Jonson, The Penates.—OF. costeve, pp.,
constipated (Godefroy).—L. cons‘ipdtus, pp. of constipare, to con-
stipate. See Constipate. Der. costive-ness.
COSTMARY, a plant. (F.—L.—Gk.) Lyte has costemary ; tr.
of Dodoens, bk. ii. c. 76. ME. costmary-, Two Cookery Books, ed.
Austin, p. 110, 1. 4. Compounded of cost and Marye; the ?atter
referring to St. Mary the Virgin. Cost is F. cost, which Cotgrave
explains by ‘ costmary, balsamine, alecoast.’=—L. costum, n.= Gk.
κόστος, an aromatic root (of a different odoriferous plant), This
188 COSTUME
is of Eastern origin; cf. Skt. ¢ush¢ha-, Costus speciosus; Arab, qust,
costus; Rich. Dict. p. 1130.
COSTUME, a customary dress. (F.—Ital.—L.) A modern
word; added by Todd to Johnson's Dict. Richardson cites a
quotation from Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dis. 12.—1T. costume; a late
form, borrowed from Italian.—Ital. costume; Late L. costima, con-
ἀνθ σε from L. acc. consuétiidinem, custom, Costume is a doublet
of custom. See Custom.
COSY, COZY, snug, comfortably sheltered. (Scand.)
word appears to have been introduced from Lowl. Scotch. We
find’: “ cosie in a hoord,’ Ramsay’s Poems, i. 305 (Jamieson); and
‘cozie i’ the neuk,’ Burns, Holy Fair, st. 20.
Norw. kosa, (0 =00), v., to refresh, whence kosa seg, to enjoy oneself ;
whence also hoseleg=Dan. hyg gelig, which Ferrall translates by
“comfortable, snug, cozy;’ and kosing, refreshment, recreation
(Aasen). Larsen gives Norw. hoselig, ‘snug, cosy.’ Prob. allied to
Swed. dial. kasa, to warm, kasug, warm.
COT, a small dwelling; COTE, an enclosure. (E.) ‘A Iutel
kot;’ Ancren Riwle, p. 362. Cote, in Havelok, ll. 737, 1141. ‘ Hec
casa, casula, a cofe;’ Wright's Vocab. i. 273. AS. cot, cote, a cot,
den; ‘16 péofa cote’=for a den of thieves, Matt. xxi. 13. ‘In cotte
dinum,’ into thy chamber; Northumbrian gloss to Matt. vi.6. [We
also find AS. cyte, Grein, i. 181.]4-Du. fot, a cot, cottage; Icel. kot,
a cot, hut; G. kofh, a cot (a provincial word); Fliigel’s Dict. [The
W. cwt, a cot, was borrowed from English.] Der. cott-age (with
Ἐς suffix); coft-ag-er ; cott-ar, cott-er ; cf, also sheep-cote, dove-cote, &c.
Also co'-quean, lit. a hussy (living in) a cot, Romeo, iv. 4.6; see
Quean.
COTERIE, a set, company. (F.—Teut.) Mere French. Cot-
grave gives: ‘Coferie, company, society, association of people.’
B. Marked by Brachet as being of unknown origin. Referred in
Diez to F. cote, a quota, share, from L. guotus, how much. But
Littré rightly connects it with OF. coterie, cofterie, servile tenure,
cottier, a cottar, &c. A coterie (Low L. coteria) was a tenure of
land by cottars who clubbed together. Low L. cota, a cot; of
Teutonic origin. See Cot.
COTILLON, COTILLION, a dance for eight persons. (F.—
Teut.) It occurs in a note toy. 11 of Gray’s Long Story. = F. cofillon,
lit. a petticoat, as explained by Cotgrave. Formed with suffix
-ill-on from Ἐς cotte, a coat, frock. See Coat.
COTTON (1), a downy substance obtained from a certain plant.
(F. —Span. — Arabic.) ME. cotoun, cotune, cotin (with one ¢). Spelt
cotoun in Mandeville’s Travels, ed. Halliwell, p. 212. =F. coton
This
(spelt cotton in Cotgrave).—Span, coton, printed cotton, cloth made |
of cotton; Span. algodon, cotton, cotton-down (where al is the Arab.
def, art.).— Arab. gun, qgutun, cotton; Richardson’s Dict. p. 1138;
Palmer's Pers. Dict. col. 472
COTTON (2), to agree. (F.—Span.— Arab.)
ceed, to hit, to agree;” Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715.
was orig. to form a good nap (to cloth, &c.). Thus Phillips (ed.
1706), s.v. Cotfum (sic) has: ‘in making Hats, to cotton well is
when the wooll and other materials work well and imbody toge-
ther.” From Cotton (1), above. Cf, prov. E. cofton (E.D.D.).
COTYLEDON, the seed-lobe of a plant. (Gk.) Introduced by
Linnzus in a new sense. As an anatomical term, it occurs as
early as 1545. See Phillips. Gk. κοτυληδών, a cup-shaped hollow,
—Gk. κοτύλη, a hollow, hollow vessel, small cup. Cf. Goth.
héthjo, a chamber (Uhlenbeck). Der. cotyledon-ous.
COUCH, to lay down, set, arrange. (F.—L.) ME. couchen,
cowchen, to lay, place, set. ‘Cowchyn, or leyne thinges togedyr,
colloco;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 96. Occurs frequently in Chaucer; see
C. T. 2163 (A 2161).—OF. coucher, earlier colcher, to place.—L.
collocare, to place together. L. col- for con- (i.e. cum, together)
before 7; and locdre, to place, from Jocus, a place. See Locus.
Der. couch, sb., ME. couche, Gower, C, A. iii. 315, bk. viii. 1193 ;
couch-ant. Doublet, collocate. ὃ
COUCHGRASS, a grass which is troublesome as a weed. (E.)
Here couch is a variant of quitch, which is a palatalised form of
quick, i.e. tenacious of life. See Quick.
COUGH, to make a violent effort of the lungs, (E.) ME.
coughen, cowhen; Chaucer, C. T. 10082 (E 2208). AS. *cokhian;
only found in the deriv. cohhetan, to make a noise. EFries. kuchen.
+Du. hugchen, to cough; MHG. kichen, G. keuchen, to pant, to
gasp; WFlem. kuffen, to cough (De Bo). B. From an imitative root
*keuh, weak grade *kuh, to gasp; see Chin-cough. Der. cough,
sb.; chin-cough.
COUGUAR, COUGAR, the puma. (F.—Prazil.) Spelt cou-
guar in atr. of Buffon (1792), 1. 193.—F. couguar (Buffon). From
the Guarani name, given as cuguacu-arana in Hist. Brasil. (1648), ii.
‘Cotton, to suc-
“Τὸ cotton well’
235.
COULD, was able to; see Can.
It seems to be from |
COUNTERPANE
COULTER, COLTER, the iron blade in front of a plough-
share. (L.) ΜΕ. culter, colter; Chaucer, C. T. 3761 (A 3763). AS.
culter, “ΕΓ. Gloss. 8 (Bosworth); a borrowed word.=—L. culter, a
coulter, knife; lit. a striker; cf. L. per-cellere, to strike. Der. From
the same source are cutlass, q.v.; and cutler, q.v.
COUNCIL, an assembly. (F.—L.) In Shak. L. L. L. ν. 2. 789.
Often confused with counsel, with which it had originally nothing to
do; council can only be rightly used in the restricted sense of ‘ as-
sembly for deliberation.” Misspelt counsel in the following quotation.
‘ They shall deliuer you vp to their counsels, and shall scourge you in
their sinagoges or counsel-houses;’ Tyndal, W orks, p. 214, col. 2; cf.
conciliis in the Vulgate version of Matt. x. τ. - AF, councylle, Lang-
toft’s Chron. i. 488; F. concile, ‘a councill, an assembly, session ;’
Cot.<L, concilium, an assembly called together.—L. con-, for cum,
together; and calare, to summon; see Calends. Der. councill-or,
ME. consetller, Gower, C. A. iii. 192; bk, vii. 3148.
COUNSEL, consultation, advice, plan. (F.—L.) Quite distinct
from council, q.v. In early use, ME. conseil, cunsei]; Havelok,
2862; Rob. of Glouc. p. 412; 1. 8535.— AF. cunseil, Laws of Will. I,
§ 10; OF. consetl.—L. constlium, deliberation. —L. consulere, to
consult. See Consult. Der. counsel, verb; counsell-or.
COUNT (1), a title of rank. (F.—L.) The orig. sense was
‘companion.’ Not in early use, being thrust aside by the E. word
earl; but the fem. form occurs earlier, being spelt cuntesse in the
AS. Chron. A.D. 1140. The derived word counté, a county, occurs
in P. Plowman, B. ii. 85. Shak. has county in the sense of count
frequently ; Merch. of Ven. i, 2. 49.—AF. counte, Polit. Songs,
p- 127; OF. conte, comte; Cotgrave gives ‘Conte, an earl,’ and
© Comte, a count, an earle.’= L. acc. comifem, a companion, a count;
from nom. comes.—L. com-, for cum, together; and έτσι, supine of
ire, to go. Der. count-ess, count-y.
COUNT (2), to enumerate, compute, deem. (F.—L.) ME.
counten; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 1731; also 1685.— AF. counter,
cunter, Year-books of Edw. I, 1292-3, pp. 69, 157; OF. cunter,
conter ; F. conter,—L.computare, to compute, reckon, Thus count is
a doublet of compute. See Compute. Der. count, sb.; count-er,
one who counts, anything used for counting, a board on which
money is counted.
COUNTENANCE, appearance, face, (F.—L.) In early use.
ME, contenaunce, cuntenaunce, countenaunce ; P, Plowman, B. prol. 24;
Cursor Mundi, 3368; continaunce, Polit. Songs, p. 216 (temp. [dw. I).
-OF. contenance, which Cotgrave explains by ‘the countenance,
looke, cheere, visage, favour, gesture, posture, behaviour, carriage.’
-L. continentia, which in Late L. meant ‘gesture, behaviour,
demeanour ;’ Ducange. = L. continent-, stem of pres. part. of continéic,
to contain, preserve, maintain ; hence, to comport oneself. 5:6
Contain. Der. countenance, vb.; dis-countenance.
COUNTER, in opposition (to), contrary. (F.—L.) ‘This is
counter ;’ Hamlet, iv. 5.110; ‘a hound that runs counter,’ Com. Errors,
iv. 2. 39. And very common as a prefix.=—F, contre, against ;
common as a prefix. L. contra, against; common as a prefix. See
Contra.
COUNTERACT, to act against. (Hybrid; F.andL.) Counter-
action occurs in The Kambler, no. 93. Coined from counter and ac’.
See Counter and Act. Der. counteract-ion, -ive, -ive-ly.
COUNTERBALANCE, sb., a balance against. (F.—L.) The
sb. counterbalance is in Dryden, Annus Mirabilis (A.D. 1696), st. 12.
From counter and balance. See Counter and Balance, Der.
counterbalance, verb.
COUNTERFEIT, imitated, forged. (F.—L.) ME. counterfeit,
contrefet, Gower, C. A. i. 70, 192; bk. i. 832; ii. 982. “ΟΕ, con-
trefait, pp. of contrefaire, to counterfeit, imitate; a word made up of
contre, against, and faire, to make, do.—L. contra, against; and
facere, to make. See Counter and Fact. Der. counterfeit, vb.,
ME. counterfeten; whence pp. couni/reeted, Chaucer, C. T. 5166
(B 746). φῶ The same spelling -feit occurs in forfeit, q.v.
COUNTERMAND, to revoke a command given. (F.—L.)
Used by Fabyan, Chron. c. 245, nearend; Palsgrave has contremaunde,
Ῥ- 497-—F. contremander, ‘to countermand, to recall, or contradict,
a former command;’ Cot. Compounded of contre, against; and
mander, to command, = L. contra, against ; and mandare, to command.
See Mandate. Der. countermand, sb.
COUNTERPANE (1), a coverlet fora bed, (F.—L.) A twice
altered form, connected neither with counter nor with pane, but with
quilt and point, The English altered the latter part of the word, and
the French the former. The older E. form is counterpoint, as i:
Shak. Tam. Shrew, ii. 353. ‘ Bedsteads with silver feet, pataraeees
coverlets, or counterpoints of purple silk ;’ North’s Plutarch, Pp: 30-
‘On which a tissue counterpane was cast;’ Drayton, The Barons’
Wars, Ὁ. vi. st. 43.— MI". contrepoinct, ‘the back stitch or quilting-
stitch ; also a quilt, counterpoint, quilted covering ;’ Cot. B. Thus
COUNTERPANE
named, by a mistaken popular etymology, from a fancied connexion
with OF, contrepoincter, ‘to worke the back-stitch,’ id.; which is
from contre, against, and pointe, a bodkin, But Cotgrave also gives
‘coutrepointer, to quilt;” and this is a better form, pointing to the
right origin, [In mod. F. we meet with the still more corrupt form
courtepointe, a counterpane, which see in Hatzfeld.] γ. The right
form is coutepointe (Supp. to Godefroy, p. 233), where couse is from
L. culcita, the same as culcitra, a cushion, mattress, pillow, or quilt.
=Late L. culcita puncta, a counterpane; lit. stitched quilt. ‘ Estque
toral lecto quod supra ponitur alto Ornatus causa, quod dicunt culctta
puncta;’ Ducange. δ. Thus coutepointe has become courtepointe in
mod. French, but also produced contrepoincte in Middle French,
whence the E. derivative counterpoint, now changed to counterpane.
See Quilt. The fem. pp. puncta is from the verb pungere, to prick ;
see Point. @ The AF. forms are cutepoint, quilt poynt, Royal Wil.s,
pp: 36, 100 (1360, 1381) ; cotl/e poin/e, Vie de St. Auban.
COUNTERPANS (2), the counterpart of a deed or writing.
(F.—L.) ‘Read, scribe; give me the counterpane;’ Ben Jonson,
Bart. Fair, Induction. AF. countrepan, Britton, i. 237; cuntrepan,
Wadington’s Manuel des Peches, 1. 10645.—F. contre, against; and
pan, in the sense of ‘a pane, piece, or pannell of a wall,’ Cot.—L.
contra, against; pannum, acc. of pannus, a cloth, patch. See
Counter and Pane.
COUNTERPART, a copy, duplicate. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Soinc! S4. Merely compounded of counter and part.
COUNTERPOINT, the composing of music in parts. (F.—L.)
‘The fresh descant, prychsonge [read prycksonge], counterpoint ;’
Bale on The Revel, 1550, Bb 8 (Todd’s Johnson). — MF, contrepoinct,
‘a ground or plain song, in musick;’ Cot.—F. contre, against; and
poinct (mod. F. point), a point. See Counter and Point. ‘ Counter-
point in its literal and strict sense signifies point against point. In the
infancy of harmony, musical notes or signs were simple points or
dots, and in compositions in two or more parts were placed on staves,
over, or against, each other;’ Engl. Cycl. Div. Arts and Sciences,
S.Ve
COUNTERPOISH, the weight in the other scale. (F.—L.)
In Shak. All’s Well, ii. 3. 182.—F. contrepots, contrepoids. Cotgrave
gives the former as the more usual spelling, and explains it by
‘counterpois, equall weight.’ See Counter and Poise. Der.
counterpoise, verb.
COUNTERSCARP,, the exterior slope of a ditch. (F.—TItal.—
L. and Teut.) The interior slope is called the scarp. The word is
merely compounded of counter and scarp. ‘ Bulwarks and counter-
scarps;’ Sir T. lerbert, Travels, ed. 1665, p. 64; and see Marlowe,
II Tamb. iii. 2.78. “ Contrescarpe,a counterscarfe or countermure ;’
Cot.—Ital. contrascarpa.—Ital. contra, over against ; and scarpa, a
scarp. See Counter and Scarp.
COUNTERSIGN, to sign in addition, attest. (F.—L.) ‘It
was countersigned Melford ;’ Lord Clarendon’s Diary, 1688-9 ; Todd’s
Johnson.=—F. contresigner, ‘to subsigne;” Cot.=—F. contre, over
against; and signer, to sign. See Counter and Sign. Der.
countersign, sb. (from counter and sign, sb.) ; countersign-at-ure.
COUNTERTENOR, the highest adult male voice. (F.—TItal.
—L.) It occurs in Cotgrave, who has: ‘ Contreteneur, the counter-
tenor part in musick.’= Ital. con/ratenore, a countertenor; Florio. =
Ital. contra, against ; and ¢enore,atenor. See Counter and Tenor.
COUNTERVAIL, to avail against, equal. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Romeo, ii. 6. 4. ME. contrevailen, Gower, C. A. i. 28; prol. 728.—
OF. contrevail-, a stem of contrevalcir, to avail against ; see Godefroy.
=F. contre, against; and valoir, to avail. —L. contra, against; and
ualére, to be strong, to avail. See Valiant. Der. countervail, sb.
COUNTESS; see under Count.
COUNTRY, a rural district, region. (F.—L.) In early use.
ME. contré, contree; Layamon’s Brut, i. 54.—OF. contree, country ;
with which cf. Ital. contrada.—Late L. contrata, contrada, country,
region; an extension of 1,. contra, over against. B. This extension
of form was explained by Diez as a Germanism, viz. as an imitation
of Ὁ. gegend, country, lit. ‘that which is opposite to the view,’ from
gegen, against ; but the imitation arose in the contrary way, the G.
gegend (which is meaningless) having been suggested by the Late L.
contrata, which appears as Ital., Prov., and Roumansch contrada, as
well as F. contrée. y. Contrata is regularly formed, as if a fem. pp.
from a verb *contrare, to place opposite, from contra, over against,
Der. country-dance, country-man.
COUNTRY-DANCE, a dance of country-people. (F.—L.
and OHG,) ‘ Heydeguies, a country daunce or rownd;’ E. K., Glosse
to Spenser, Shep. Kal., June, 1. 27. From Country and Dance.
Hence (first used in 1626) the F. contredanse (as if from F. contre,
against); but it is a mere perversion of the E. word (Hatzfeld).
COUNTY, an earldom, count’s province, shire. (F.—L.)
counté, countee; P. Plowman, B. ii. 85. See Count (1).
ME.
COUVADE 139
COUPLE, a pair, two joined together. (F.—L.). ME. couple,
Gower, C. A. iii. 241; bk. vii. 4437. The verb appears early, viz. iu
‘kupled bode togederes’=couples both together; Ancren Riwle,
p. 78.—OF. cople, later couple, a couple. L. copula, a bond, band ;
contracted from *co-ap-ul-a, where -ul- is a dimin. suffix. = L. co-, for
com, i.e. cum, together; and OL. apere, to join, preserved in the pp,
aplus. See Apt. Der. couple, verb, coupl-ing, coupl-et. Doublet,
copula,
COUPON, one of a series of conjoined certificates or tickets.
(F.—L.—Gk.) Modern.—F. coupon, lit. ‘a piece cut off. =F.
couper, to cut, slash; from coup, sb., a blow.—Late L. colpus, for
colaphus, a blow.—Gk. «éAagos,a blow on the ear. See Cope (2).
COURAGE, valour, bravery. (F.—L.) ME. courage, corage ;
Chaucer, C. T. prol. 11, 22; King Alisaunder, 3559.—OF. corage,
courage; formed with suffix -age (answering to L. -atieum) from L.
cor, the heart. See Cordial, and Heart. Der, courage-ous, -ly,
“ness,
COURIER, a runner. (F.—Ital.—L.) In Shak. Macb. i..7. 23.
- MF. courter, given in Cotgrave as equivalent to courrier, ‘a post,
or a poster.’ Ital. corriere, lit. ‘runner.’ =Ital. correre, to run.=—L,
currere, torun. See Current.
COURSE, a running. track, race. (F.—L.) ME. course, cours ;
Hampole, Pricke of Conscience, 4318; King Alisaunder, ed. Weber,
1. 288.—OF. cours. —L. cursum, acc. of cursus, a course; from cursus,
pp- of currere,torun. See Current. Der. course, verb; cours-er,
spelt corsour in King Alisaunder, 1. 4056; cours-ing.
COURT (1), a yard, enclosed space, tribunal, royal retinue,
judicial assembly. (F.—L.) In early use. ME. cort, court, cxrt.
‘Vnto the heye curt he yede’=he went to the high court; Havelok,
1685. It first occurs, spelt curt, in the AS. Chron, A.D. 1154.
Spelt courte, P. Plowman, B. prol. 190.—OF. cort, curt (F. cour), a
court, a yard, a tribunal.—L. acc. cortem, cchortem (nom, cohors),
a hurdle, enclosure, cattle-yard ; see Ovid, Fasti, iv. 704; also, a
cohort.—L, co-, for con-, i.e. cum, together; and hort-, as in hort-us,
a garden, cognate with Gk. χόρτος, a court-yard; and perhaps with
Yard (1). Der. court-e-ous, q.v.; court-es-an, Q.v.; court-es-y, G.V. ;
court-i-er,q.V.; court-ly, -li-ness, -martial, -plaster; also ccurt, verb, q.v.
COURT (2), verb, to woo, seek favour. (F.—L.) In Shak.
L.L.L. v. 2.122. Orig. to practise arts in vogue at court. ‘For
he is practiz’d well in policie, And thereto doth his covrtimg most
applie;’ Spenser, Mother Hubberd’s Tale, 784; see the context.
From the sb. court; see above. Der. court-s/ tp.
COURT CARDS, pictured cards. A corruption of coat cards,
also called coated cards; Fox, Martyrs, p. 919 (R.). ‘ Here’s a trick
of discarded cards of us!) We were rank’d with coats, as long as old
master lived;’ Massinger, The Old Law, iii. 1. Coat referred to
the dress of the king, queen, and knave; the king and queen
suggested court. See Nares. See Coat.
COURTEOUS, of courtly manners. (F.—L.) ME. cortaiv,
cortois, seldom corteous. Spelt corteys, Will. of Palerne, 194, 2704 ;
curteys, 231 ; curteyse, 406, 601. OF. cortots, curtots, curteis, courteous.
-OF, cort, curt, a court; with suffix - εἰς < L. -ensis. See Court.
Der. courteous-ly, -ness; also courte:-y, q.V-
COURTESAN, a prostitute. (F.—Ital.—L.) Spelt courtezan,
Shak. K. Lear, iii. 2. 79.—F. cour’i:ane, ‘a lady or waiting-woman
of the court; also, a professed strampet;’ Cot.; fem. of courtisan,
‘a courtier;’ id.—Ital. corfegiana, coriesana, ‘a curtezan,’ Florio;
fem. of cortegiano,‘acourtier;’ id, ‘The latter is for *cortesiano, an
extension of corfese, courteous. Ital. corte, court. See Court,
Courteous. @ The ME. courtezane occurs with the sense ot
“courtier ;’ Paston Letters, let. 7.
COURTESY, politeness. (F.—L.) In early use. ME. cor-
taisie, corteisie, curtesie; spelt kurteisie, Ancren Riwle, p. 70.—OF.
curteisie, courtesy. — OF. corteis, curteis, courteous. See Courteous.
COURTIER, one who frequents the court. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Hamlet, i. 2.117. ME. courteour, Gower, C. A. i. 89; bk. i. 1410.
From AF, *cortei-er = OF . cortoi-er, to live at court, Godefroy ; with
suffix -our < L. acc. suffix -a@térem.=—OF. cort,a court. See Court.
COUSIN, a near relative. (F.—L.) Formerly applied to a
kinsman generally, not in the modern restricted way. ME. cosin,
cousin; Rob. of Glouc. p. 91, l. 2019; Chaucer, C. T., A 1131; K.
Horn, 1. 1444; spelt kosin, Polit. Songs, p. 343, 1. 429 (ab. 1310). —
OF. cosin, cousin, a cousin. Late L. cosinus, found in the 7th cent. in
the St. Gall Vocabulary (Brachet). A contraction of L. consobrinus,
the child of a mother’s sister, a cousin, relation; whence also
Roumansch cusrin, a cousin; cf. Ital. cugino.—L. con-, for cum,
together ; and sobrinus, a cousin-german, by the mother’s side.
Sobrinus is for *swesr-inus, belonging to a sister; from L. scror (for
*swesor), a sister; cf, Skt. svasy, a sister. Brugmann, i. ὃ 319. See
Sister.
COUVADE, a custom of ‘man child-bed’ practised by some
140 COVE
primitive races. (F.—Ital.—L.) Modern.<F. couvade, a brood;
Jaire la couvade, ‘to sit cowring or skowking within doores;’ Cot. -
Ital. covata, ‘a covie, a brood;” Florio.—Ital. covata, fem. of pp. of
covare, to hatch.—L. cubare, to lie down, Doublet, covey, q.v.
COVE, a nook, creek, a small bay. (E.) ‘ Within secret coves
and noukes;’ Holland, Ammianus, p. 77. ME. coue (=cove), a den;
Cursor Mundi, 1. 12341, AS. cofa, a chamber, Mercian gloss to
Matt. vi. 6, xxiv. 26; a cave (L. spelunca), N. gloss to John, xi. 38.
+ Icel. kof, a-hut, shed, convent-cell; G. koben, a cabin, pig-sty.
B. Remote origin uncertain; not to be confused with cave, nor coop,
nor cup, nor alcove, with all of which it has been connected without
reason. Cf. Brugmann, i. § 658 (a). Der. cove, verb, to over-arch.
ga The obsolete verb cove, to brood (Richardson) is from quite
another- source, viz. Ital. covare, to brood; from L. cubdare; see
Covey.
COVENANT, an agreement. (F.—L.) ME. coxenant, couenaunt,
covenand (with u for v); often contracted to conand, as in Barbour’s
Bruce. Spelt covenaunt, printed covenaunt, Κα. Alisaunder, ed. Weber,
2036. - OF. convenant, covenant; Godefroy. Formed as a pres. pt.
from convenir, to agree, orig.-to meet together, assemble. = L. con-
uenire, to come together. See Convene. Der. covenant, verb;
covenant-er.
COVER, to conceal, hide, spread over. (F.—I.) ME. coueren,
keueren, kiueren (with w for v). Chaucer has couered, C. Τὶ 6172
(D 590).—OF.. covrir, couvrir, to cover; cf. Ital. coprire.=—L.
cooperire, to cover.—L. co-, for com, i.e. cum, together, wholly ; and
oferire, to shut, hide, conceal. β. It is supposed that L. oferire, to
shut, is for *op-uerire; cf. Lith. az-wer-iu, I shut, Lith. warta:, doors;
and Oscan acc. vertu, a door. See Brugmann, i. § 350. Der. cover-
ing, cover-let, q.v.; also covert, q.v.; ker-chief, q.v.; cur-few, q.V.
COVERLET, a covering for a bed. (F.—L.). ME, coverlite,
couerlite; Wyctif, 4 Kings, viii. 15.— AF. coverlit, Royal Wills,
p- 181 (1399); mod. F. convrelit, a bed-covering (Littré).=OF.
covrir, to cover; and F. lit, a bed, from L, lectum, acc. of lectus, a
bed. sm Hence-the word should rather be coverlit.
COVERT, 2a place of shelter. (F.—L.) Jn early use. ‘No
couert mi3t thei cacche’=they could find no shelter; William of
Palerne, 2217.—OF. covert, a covered place ; pp. of covrir, to cover.
See Cover. Der. covert, adj.,-ly; covert-ure (Gower, C. A. i. 224).
COVET, to desire eagerly and unlawfully. (F.—L.) ME. coveiten,
coueten (with τὶ for). ‘Who so coveyteth al, al leseth,’ who covets
all, loses all; Rob. of Glouc. p. 306.—AF. coveiter, Lai d’Havelok,
1. 695; (F. convoiter, with inserted γι), to covet: cf. Ital. cubitare
(for *cupitare), to covet. B. Formed, as if from a L. *cupiditire, from
acc. cupidita-fem, eager desire; which is from cupidus, desirous of. —
L. cxpere, to desire. See Cupid. Der. covetous (AIF. cuveitus,
Edw. Confessor, 1. 223; OF. ‘covortus, F. convoiteux); -ly, -ness.
Covetous was in early use, and occurs, spelt covetus, in Floriz and
Blancheflur, ed. Lumby, 1. 355.
COVEY, a brood or-hatch of birds. (F.—L.) ‘ Covey of pertry-
chys,’ i. 6. partridges; Prompt. Pary. p. 96.—OF. covee, F. couvee, a
covey of partridges; fem. form of the pp. of OF. cover, F. couver, to
hatch, sit, brood. —L. cubdre, to lie down; ef. E. incubate. Cf. Gk.
κύπτειν, to bend, «pds, bent.
COVIN, secret agreement, fraud; a law-term. (F.—L.) The
Anglo-French covine occurs in the Stat. of the Realm, i. 162, an. 1311.
The ME. covine, covin, counsel, trick, sleight, is in Chaucer, C. T.
606 (A 604). —OF. covin, m., covine, f., counsel, intention (Godefroy),
—Late L. convenium, a convention, pl. convenia (whence the OF.
fem. form).—L. conuenire, to come together; see Covenant,
Convene. Thus covin =conven/ion.
COW (1), the female of the bull. (E.) ME. en, cou: pl. Ay, Rie,
Aye; also kin, kuyn, mod. E. kine, due to AS. cyna, gen. pl. The
pl. ἐν is in Cursor Mundi, 4564; kin in Will. of Palerne, 244, 480;
Ayen in Caxton, Godfrey of Boloyne, ch. 8, 1. 15; hie in Golding’s
Ovid, fol. 26. AS, cit, pl. cv, formed by vowel-change; Grein,i. 172.
Teut. stem *hi-, whence also Icel. Ayr. Cf. also Du. koe, Swed. and
Dan. ko, G. huh; from Teut. stem *kd-. Further allied to Olrish
bd, Gael. δό, a cow; W. buw, a cow; L. bas, gen. bowts, an ox;
Gk. Bows, an ox; Pers. gaw, Skt. gd- (nom. gaus): Russ. goviado,
oxen. Idg.stems *g(w)ou-, *g(w)ow-. See Beef, Kine.
COW (2), to subdue, dishearten, terrify. (Scand.) ‘It hath cow'd
my better part of man;’ Macb. ν. 8. 18.—Icel. kuga, to cow,
tyrannise over; ata kiigask, to let oneself be cowed into submission :
see Cleasby and Vigfusson ; Dan. ue, to bow, coerce, subdue; Swed.
hufva, to check, curb, suppress, subdue. See Cuff (1).
COWARD, a man without courage. F.—L.) ME. couard, more
often coward; spelt coward in King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, ]. 2108.
= AF. coward, a coward, Langtoft’s Chron. i. 194; OF. couart, more
usually coart (Supp. to Godefroy), a coward, poltroon; equivalent to
11}, codardo. B. Sometimes explained as an animal that drops his
COY
tail; cf. the heraldic expression /iow covard,a lion with his tail
between his legs. Mr. Wedgwood refers to the fact that a hare was
called covard in the old terms of hunting ; ‘le coward, ou le court
cow’=:the hare, in Le Venery de Twety, in Reliquiz Antiqua, i. 153 ;
and he thinks that the original sense was ‘ bob-tailed,’ with referen-e
to the hare in particular. To which may be added, that Coart is the
name of the hare in the French version of Reynard the Fox. Or
again, it may merely mean one who shows his tail, or who turns tail.
y. Whichever be right, there is no doubt that the word was formed
by adding the suffix -ard (Ital. -ardo) to the OF. coe, a tail (Ital.
coda). — OF. coe, a tail; with the suffix -ard, of Teutonic origin. - Το.
cauda, a tail; with OHG. suffix -hart, orig. ‘hard.’ See Caudal.
Der. coward, adj., -ly, -li-ness, -ice=ME. cowardis, Gower, C. A.
ii. 66 (OF. coard-ise).
COWER, to crouch, shrink down, squat. (Scand.) ME, couren.
“Couren in a cope;’ Polit. Songs, p. 157 (temp. Edw. 1. ‘He
koured low;’ William of Palerne, 1. 47; ‘Ye... couwardli as
caitifs couren here in meuwe’=ye cowardly cower here in a mew
(or cage) like caitiffs; id. 3336.—Icel. kura, to doze, lie quiet ; Swed.
kura, to doze, to roost, to settle to rest as birds do; Dan. kure, to lie
quiet, rest; Swed. dial. Aura, to sit hunched up. Cf. ας kauern, to
cower.
COWL (1), a monk’s hood, a cap, hood. (L.) ME, cowle.
“Cowle, munkys abyte [monk’s habit], cuculla, cucullus;’ Prompt.
Parv. p. 97. {Another form covel occurs 5 times in Havelok, ll. 768,
858, 964, 1144, 2904, spelt couel, cuuel, kouel, and meaning ‘a coat ;’
from AS, ἐν δ, a cowl (Bosworth) ; the 7 passing into ME. νυ] ME.
cowle is from AS. cugele, cugle, ciile; the last of these occurs in
fElfric’s Saints’ Lives, c. xxxiil. 1. 237. B. These words are all from
Late L. cuculla, a frock, sometimes a hood ; from L. cucullus, a hood.
COWL (2), a vessel carried on a pole. (F.—L.) The pole sup-
porting the vessel was called a cow’-: τα ἢ; see Merry Wives, uli. 3. 156.
‘ Coul, a large wooden tub; formerly, any kind of cup or vessel Ὁ
Halliwell. ME. cunel (=cuvel), as in cuxel-staf, a cowl-staff, Gen.
and Exodus, 1]. 3710. OF. cuvel, later cuveau, ‘a little tub;’ Cot.
Dimin, of F. exve, ‘an open tub, a fat, or vat;’ id.—L. ciipa, a vat,
butt, large cask. Der. cowl-stafF; see σ᾽ α΄.
COWRY, a small shell used for money. (Hind.—Skt.) ‘ Cowries
(the Cyprea mone/a) are used as small coin in many parts of Southern
Asia, and especially on the coast of Guinea in Atrica;’ Eng. Cycl.,
Arts and Sciences, s.v. Cowry. The word is Hindustani, and must
therefore have been carried to the Guinea-coast by the English. =
Hind. Fawzi, a small shell used as coin; money, fare, hire ;’ Forbes’
Hind. Dict. p. 281. —Skt. Aaparda, kapardika, a cowry. See Yule.
H. H. Wilson, at p. 271, cites also Bengali kay, Guzerathi ζογί.
COWSLIP, the name of a flower. (E.) In Milton, Comus, 808.
Shak. has both cowslip, Temp. v. 1. 89; and oxlip, Mids. Nt. Dr.
ii. 1. 250. ME. cowslope, cowslop; Prompt. Parv. p. 99. AS. ci-
slyppe, casloppe; for the former form, see Cockayne’s Leechdoms,
Glossary; the entry ‘britannica, casloppe’ is in A‘lfric’s Glossary ;
Voc. 135. 26; ef. 361. 23. B. By the known laws of AS, grammar,
the word must be divided as ci-slyppe or cit-sloppe, where cii means
cow; cf. cu-nille, wild chervil (Leo). The word ox-lip was made to
match it, and there’ore stands for ox-slip or ox-slop; cf. prov. E.
bull-slor, a large oxlip, E.D.D., p. 435. The word slyppe or sloppe
means lit. a sirp, i.e. a piece of dung. An examination of the AS.
names of plants in Cockayne’s Leechdoms will strengthen the belief
that many of these names were of a very homely character. Cf.
Icel. kii-reki, a primrose, lit. ‘ cow-leavings;’ MDan. kodriv, marsh
marigold, lit. ‘cow-drift.’ See Slop.
COXCOMB, a fool, a fop. (t.) In Shakespeare, it means
(1) a fool’s cap, Merry Wives, v. 5. 146; (2) the head, Tw. Nt.
v. 179, 193, 105; (3) a fool, Com. Err. iii. 1, 32. ‘Let the foole
goe like a cockescome still;’ Drant’s Horace, Ep. bk. i. To Sceua.
For cock’s comb, i.e. cock’s crest. See cockscombe in Minsheu (1627),
who explains it. See Cock and Comb.
COXSWAIN, COCKSWAIN, the steersman of ἃ boat.
(Hybrid; F. and Scand.) The spelling cox:wain 1s modern; coch-
swain occurs in Drummond's Travels, p. 79 (Todd’s Johnson) ; in
Anson’s Voyage, b. iii. c. 9; and in Cook’s Voyage, vol. i. b. 11. 6. 1
(R.). The word is compounded of cock, a boat, and swain; and
means the person in command of a boat, not necessarily the steers-
man. though now commonly so used. See Cock (5) and Swain.
COY (1), modest, bashful, retired. (F.—L.) ‘Coy, or sobyr,
sobrius, modestus ;' Prompt. Parv. p. 86.—OF. coi, earlier que,
cooit (Godefroy), still, quiet. —Folk-L. *guétum; acc. of *quétus, for
L, quiétus, quiet, still. L. guiét-, stem of quiés, rest. See Quiet.
Der. coy-ly, -ness, -ish, -ish-ness. Doublet, gutet.
COY (2), a decoy for wild duck. (Du.—L.) See N.E.D. and
E.D.D.—Du. hoot, a cage; MDu. koye (Hexham).—Late L. cavza,
acage. See Cage; of which coy is a doublet.
COYOTE
COYOTE, a prairie-wolf. (Span.— Mexican.)
Mexican coyoil, the Mexican wolf; Canis latrans.
COZEN, to flatter, to beguile. (F.—L.) In Shak. Merry Wives,
iv. 2.180, ‘When he had played the cousining mate with others .. .
himselfe was beguiled;’ Hakluyt, Voyages, i. 586. Here the
spelling agrees with that of Cousin, q.v. Cozen is, in fact, merely
a verb evolved out of cousin. —F. cousiner, ‘to claime kindred for
advantage, or particular ends; as he, who to save charges in
travelling, goes from house to house, as cosin to the honour of every
one;’ Cot. So in mod. F., cousiner is ‘to call cousin, to sponge, to
live upon other people;’ Hamilton and Legros. The change of
meaning from ‘ sponge’ to ‘ begnile’ or ‘cheat’ was easy. Cf. OF.
cosin, a dupe (Godefroy). Der. cozen-age, cozen-er.
CRAB (1), a common shell-fish. (E.) ME. crabbe, Old Eng.
Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 51. AS. crabba, as a gloss to Lat. cancer ;
4Elfric’s Gloss.; Voc. 180. 41.+Icel. krabbi; Swed. krabba; Dan.
krabbe; Du. krab; G. krabbe. Allied to EFries. and Du, krabben, to
scratch, to claw; also to G. krebs, Du. kreeft, crab. See Crayfish.
CRAB (2), a kind of apple. (E.) ‘Mala maciana, wode-crabbis ;’
MS. Harl. 3388, qu. in Cockayne’s Leechdoms, Glossary. ‘ Crabbe,
appulle or frute, macianum;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 99. ‘ Crabbe, tre,
acerbus, macianus, arbutus;’ id. Cf. prov. E. scrab, a crab-apple,
E.D.D.; and Swed. dial. skrabba, fruit of the wild apple; also,
anything poor or weak ; cf. Swed. skrabbig, weakly.
CRABBED, peevish; cramped. (E.) ‘The arwes [arrows] of
thy crabbed eloquence ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 9079 (E1203). Cf. Lowland
Scotch crab, to provoke, in Jamieson ; he cites the sentence ‘ thou
hes crabbit and offendit God’ from Abp. Hamiltoun’s Catechisme,
fol. 153 b. “ Crabbyd, awke, or wrawe, ceronicus, bilosus, cancerinus ;’
Prompt. Parv. p. 99. B. From the same root as Crab (1), q. v.
Cf. Du. krabben, to scratch; kribben, to quarrel, to be cross, to be
peevish ; Aribbig, peevish, forward ; evidently the equivalent of
crabbed in the sense of peevish. y. As regards the phrase ‘ to write
a crabbed hand,’ cf. Icel. krab, a crabbed hand, Icel. krabba, to scrawl,
write a crabbed hand; Du. krabdbelen, to scribble, scrawl, scrape, a
dimin. form from krabben, to scratch. Thus crabbed, in both senses,
is from the same root. It is remarkable that the Prompt. Parv.
translates crabbyd by L. cancerinus, from cancer, a crab, Der.
crabbe:-ly, -ness.
CRACK, to split suddenly and noisily. (E.) ME. craken, kraken;
Havelok, 1557. ‘Speren chrakeden,’ spears cracked ; Layamon, iii. 94.
AS. cracian, to crack (Bosworth). ‘Sio eorpe call cracode,’ the earth
all cracked; Psalm xly, 3, ed. Thorpe. - Du. kraken, to crack, creak ;
krakken, to crack; krak,a crack; krak, crack!; G. krachen, to crack ;
krach, a crack; Gael, crac, a crack, fissure; cnac, to crack, break,
crash (from E.). B. An imitative word, like creak, croak, crash,
gnash. Cf. Skt. σαν), to roar. Der. crack, sb., crack-er ; crack-le, the
frequentative form, signifying ‘to crack often;’ crake, to boast, an
obsolescent word; also crack-n-el, q.v.
CRACKNEL, a kind of biscuit. (F.—Du.) ‘ Crakenelle, brede,
creputellus, fraginellus ;’ Prompt. Parvy. p. 100, ‘ Crakenell, cracque-
lin;’ Palsgrave. A curious perversion of F, craquelin, which
Cotgrave explains by ‘cracknell;’ the E. crak-en-el answering to F.
crag-el-in. = Du. krakeling, a cracknel; formed with dim. suffix -el
and the suffix -ing from kraken, to crack; from the crisp nature of
the biscuit.
CRADLE, a child’s crib; a frame. (I.) ME. cradel, Ancren
Riwle, p. 260. AS. cradol; in comp. cild-cradol, child-cradle ;
4Elfric’s Homilies, ed. Thorpe, ii. 76. [A true Teutonic word, not
borrowed from Celtic. Irish craidhal, Gael. creathall, a cradle, a
grate, are from English.] Allied to mod. G. sraéze, a basket, given
by Kluge; ΜΗ. kratte, kretze, OHG. cratto, crezzo, a basket
(Schade). On the other hand, Schade regards these (ἃ. words as
derived from)L. crates, a hurdle; which seems unlikely.
CRAFT, skill, ability, trade. (E.) ME. craft, creft; Layamon,
i, 120. AS. creft, Grein, i. 167. ++ Du. kracht, power; Icel. krapitr,
kraftr, craft, force; Swed. and Dan. kraft, power; G. kraft, power,
energy. B. Formed with suffixed -¢ from Teutonic stem *kra/- ; οἵ,
Icel. krefr, strong, or daring. Perhaps allied to AS. crafian, to
crave, demand; see Crave. Der. crajft-y, -i-ly, -i-ness, craft-s-man;
also hand-i-craft, q.v.
CRAG, a rock. (C.) ME. crag, pl. cragges; Hampole, Pricke
of Consvience, 6393; Cursor Mundi, 9885. - W. craig, a rock, crag;
allied to Gael. and Irish creag,acrag. Cf. W. careg, a stone; Bret.
karrek, a rock in the sea, rock covered with breakers ; Gael. and
Irish carraig, a rock, cliff. From a base *kars, to be rough or
hard ; Stokes-Fick, p. 72. Der. cragg-y.
CRAKE, CORNCRAKE, the name of a bird. (E.) Sonamed
from its cry, a kind of grating croak. Cf. ME. craken, to cry, shriek
out. ‘Thus they begyn to crake;’ Pilgrims’ Sea Voyage, 1. 16; see
Stacions of Rome, ed. Furnivall, E. E. T,S, 1867. An imitative
Span. coyote. =
CRANK 141
word, like crack, creak, and creak;-and see Crow. ὠς The Gk.
«peg, Lat. crex, also signifies a sort of land-rail, similarly named from
its cry. Der. corn-crake, Holland The Howlat, ]. 782; night-crake,
Voc. 639. 40.
CRAM, to press close together. (E.) ME. crammen... ὁ Ἐπὶ
crammyd;°’ Wyclif, Hos. xiii. 6. AS. crammian, to stuff. The
entry ‘ farcio, ic crammige’ occurs in Aélfric’s Grammar, De Quarta
Conjugatione. The compound verb undercrammian, to fill under-
neath, occurs in Elfric’s Homilies, i. 430.[-Icel. kremja, to squeeze,
bruise; Swed. rama, to squeeze, press; Dan. kramme, to crumple,
crush.] From cramm-, aa grade of the AS. strong verb crimm-an, to
crumble. Cf. OHG. chrimman, MHG. krimmen, to seize with the
claws, G. grimmen, to grip, gripe. Allied to Cramp.
CRAMBO, a name of game; doggerel verse. (L.—Gk.) A
popular variation of L. crambé, cabbage; esp. with reference to L.
crambé repeti‘a, cabbage served up again; hence, a tasteless repeti-
tion; see Juvenal, Sat. vii. 154.—Gk. κράμβη, cabbage,
CRAMP, a tight restraint, spasmodic contraction. (F.—Teut.)
The verb to cramp is much later than the sb. in English use. MI.
crampe, a cramp, spasm. ‘ Crampe,spasmus;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 100.
‘I cacche the crampe;’ P. Plowman, C. vii. 78.—1. crampe, ‘the
crampe;’ Cot. Cf. Ἐς crampon, ‘a cramp-iron.’—Du. kramp, a
cramp, spasm. From the 2nd grade of Teut. *krempan-, *krimpan-,
to draw together, as in OHG. krimphan, str. vb. Cf. FE. crimp, cramp,
crump-le. Also Swed. kramp, cramp ; krampa, a cramp-iron, staple ;
MDan. krampe, cramp ; krampe, a cramp or iron clasp; Ὁ. krampf,
cramp; krampen, krampfen, to cramp; Icel. krappr, cramped, strait,
narrow; kreppa, to cramp, to clench; where the pp stands for mp,
by assimilation, Der. cramp-fish, the torpedo, causing a spasm ;
cramp-iron, a vice, clamp.
CRANBERRY, a kind of sour berry. (Low G.) For crane-
berry; from some fanciful notion. Perhaps ‘ because its slender
stalk has been compared to the long legs and neck of a crane’
(Webster). Not in ME.; first in 1672; from Low G.=Low G.
kraanbere (Berghaus) ; G. kranbeere, explained in Fliigel’s Dict. as
‘a crane-berry, red bilberry.? And, most unequivocally, in Dan.
tranebar, a cranberry, Swed. ¢ranbéir, a.cranberry, where the word
follows the peculiar forms exhibited in Dau. ¢rane, Swed. trana, a
crane. See Crane, and Berry.
CRANE, a long-legged wading bird, (E.) ‘ Crane, byrde, grus ;’
Prompt. Pary. p. 100. Spelt cron, Layamon, ii. 422. AS. cran; we
find ‘ grus, eran’ in AElfric’s Glossary, Nomina Avium., + Du. kraan ;
Swed. ¢rana (for krana); Dan. trane (for krane); Icel. trant (for
krani) ; G. kran-ich, a crane. + W. garan, a crane ; Com. and Bret.
garan; Gk. γέρανος, a crane. Cf. also L. grus, a crane; Lith.
garnys, a stork. B, The word is usually derived from the bird's
cry; from4/ GER, to call, cry out; cf. Gk. γηρύειν. B. It is to be
noted, further, that, in the sense of a machine for raising weights, we
have still the same word; see Arnold’s Chronicle, 1502 (ed. 1811,
p. 127). In this sense, we find Gk. γέρανος, Dan. and Swed. fran,
Du. kraan, G. krahn; cf. Icel. trana, a framework for supporting
timber. In English, crane also means a bent pipe, or siphon, from
its likeness to the bird’s neck; and cf. F. grue, ‘a crane, also, ;the
engine so called;’ Cot. Brugmann, i. § 632. Der. crane, vb., to
extend the neck (cf. Westphal. /rdanex,to make a long neck) ; cran-berry.
CRANIUM, the skull. (L.—Gk.) Medical. Lorrowed from
L. cranium, the skull. —Gk. κρανίον, the skull; allied to κάρα, κάρη-
voy, the head, and to 1. cerebrum; cf. also Skt. giras, the head. See
Brugmann, i. §§ 508, 619. Der. crant-al, cranio-log-y, cranio-log-ist,
cranio-log-ic-al (from Gk. λόγος, discourse, λέγειν, to speak).
CRANK (1), a bent arm, for turning an axis. (E.) Shak. has
crank, a winding passage, Cor. i, 1. 141; also crank, to wind about,
1 Hen. IV, iii. 1. 98. Cf. Milton, L’Allegro, 1. 27. ‘Cranke of a
welle ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 1co.. AS. cranc-, in the comp. cranc-ste@f ;
Anglia, ix. 263, 1.14. Cf. Fries. krunken, bent. From Teut. type
*krank, 2nd grade of *krenkan- (*krinkan-), pt. t. *krank, pp.
*krunkanoz. Cf. AS, crincan, by-form of cring-an, to fall in battle,
orig. ‘to be bent up;’ Du. kronkel, a rumple, wrinkle, i.e. little
bend ; kronkelen, to rumple, wrinkle, bend, turn, wind. Hence also
Crinkle, which see. And see Cringe. Der. crank, to twist
about, 1 Hen. IV, iii. 1.98; crank-le, to twist about, as in Cotgrave,
S.V. serpeger.
CRANK (2), liable to be upset, said of a boat. (E.) ‘The
Resolution was found to be very crank;’ Cook, Voyage, vol. iii.
b.i.c. 1, Allied to Crank (1). Cf. Du. krank, ill, poor; Walloon
krankier ἴο turnaside, shift, krankieu, rickety (said of children), twisty
(said of trees); also Du, krengen, to careen, to bend upon one side in
sailing ; Swed. kranga, to heave down, to heel; krdngning,a careening,
heeling over ; Dan. krange, to heave down; also, to lie along, to lurch;
krencning, alurch. See Cringe. Der. crank-y, crank-ness.
CRANK (3), lively, brisk, (E.) Obsolescent and provincial.
142 CRANNY
“Crank, brisk, jolly, merry;’ Halliwell. ‘He who was a little
before bedred, and caried lyke a dead karkas on fower mennes
shoulders, ‘was now cranke and lustie ;’ Udal, on Mark, c. 2. v. 6.
Ultimately, a very different use of crank (2), from the notion of turning
quickly. Cf. Norw. kring, active, brisk, Dan. dial. kreng, dexterous,
Icel. kringr. easy,
CRANNY, a rent, chink, crevice. (F.—L.) ME. crany, with
one x; see Prompt. Pary. p. 100, where crayne or crany is translated
by L. rima, a chink. ‘ Crany, cravasse;’ Palsgrave. Formed by
adding the E, dimin. suffix -y to F. cran, a notch; also spelt crex, as |
in Cotgrave ; or from OF. crenee, a nook (Godefroy). Cf. Ital. crena,
a notch (Florio) ; and perhaps L. créna, a notch, used by Pliny, but |
of doubtful authority ; see Korting, § 2591.
cren-ate, ἢ... cren-ell-ale, q.v.
Der. (from L. créna)
CRANTS, a garland, wreath. (MDu.—G.) In Hamlet, v. 1. 255. |
| ham crauant and ouercumen’=they all knew them to be craven and
Lowland Scotch crance (Jamieson), The spelling Arants is given by
Kilian for the Du. word now spelt ἄγαν, a wreath, garland, chaplet ;
οἵ. Dan. krands, Swed. krans.—G. kranz, a wreath.
CRAPE, a thin crisp silk stuff. (F.—L.) ‘A saint in crape;’
Pope, Moral Essays, i. 136.—F. crépe, spelt crespe in Cotgrave, who
explains it by ‘cipres, cobweb lawne.’ OF. crespe, ‘ curled, frizzled,
crisped, crispe;’ id.— L. crispus, crisped, curled. See Crisp. Thus
crate is a doublet of crisp.
CRAPULOUS, intemperate, sick with drunkenness. (L.—Gk.)
In Bailey and Johnson. Charles Cotton has crapula; Night
Quatrains, 1. 72.—L. crapuldsus, drunken. L. crapula, intoxication.
— Gk. κραιπάλη, nausea, effect of a surfeit; prob. orig. ‘ giddiness.’
Allied to κραιπνός, rapid, swift ; Lith. kreip-ti, to turn, turn round.
CRARE, a kind of ship. (F.) Shak. has ‘sluggish crare;” Cymb.
iv. 2, 205 (old edd. care) ; see also craier in Halliwell; cray in Nares.
ME. crayer, Allit. Morte Arthure, 738, 3665.—OF, craier, creer, a
vessell of war (Godefroy) ; apparently a Norman word; Low L.
cra‘era, creyera. Origin unknown,
CRASH, to break in pieces forcibly, to make a sudden grating
noise. (Scand.?) Shak. has the sb. crash, Hamlet, ii. 2. 498. ‘He
shak’t his head, and crash’t his teeth for ire;’ Fairfax, tr. of Tasso,
bk. vii. st. 42.
Allit. Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 1. rrog, A mere variant of craze,
and both crash and eraze are again variants of crack. Cf. clash, dash ;
of imitative origin.
sld t kras, to dash to pieces; Dan. frase, to crackle; slaae i kras, to
break to shivers. See Craze, Crack. Der. crash, sb.
CRASIS, the contraction of two vowels into a long yowel or
diphthong. (Gk.) Grammatical. Borrowed from Gk. κρᾶσις, a
mixing, blending. Gk: κεράννυμι, I mix, blend. See Crater.
CRASS, thick, dense, gross, (L.) ‘Of body somwhat crasse and
corpulent ;’ Hall’s Chron, Hen. VII, an. 21. § 5.—L. crassus, thick,
dense, fat. Dor. crass-i-iude; cresset, 4:ν.
CRATCH, a manger, crib for cattle. (F.—OHG.) ΜΕ. eracche,
crecche; used of the manger in which Christ was laid; Cursor Mundi,
11237; spelt crecche, Anaren Riwle, p. 260.—OF. creche (mod. F.
créche), a manger, crib, [The Provengal form is crepcha, and the
Ital. is greppia; all are of OHG. origin. ]}—OHG. crippea (whence G.
krippe), a crib; cf. OSax. kribbia, a crib; see the Heliand, ed. Heyne,
1. 382. And see Crib. Der. cratch-cradle, i.e. crib-cradle; often
unmeaningly turned into seratch-cradle.
CRATE, a wicker case for crockery. (MDu.) ‘I have seen a
horse carrying home the harvest on a crate;’ Johnson, Journey to |
the Western Islands. Grose (1790) has: ‘crates, panniers for glass |
or crockery.’ And see E.D.D. Perhaps from MDu. kratte, Du.
krat, a basket; cf. MDu. kretse, a wicker pannier (Hexham); OHG.
eratto,a basket. B. Or, otherwise, from L. crates, a hurdle ; properly,
of wicker-wo.k. And see Cart, Cradle.
CRATER, the cup or opening of a volcano. (L.—Gk.) Used
by Berkeley, to Arbuthnot, Des-ription of Vesuvius, 1717 (Todd’s
Johnson), ‘ Crater, a cup or bowl, a goblet ;* Bailey, vol. ii. (1731).
-L. cra.eér, a bowl; the crater of a yolcano.—Gk. κρατήρ, a large
bowl in which things were mixed together.—Gk. κεράννυμι, 1 mix;
from the base’ xep-. Cf. Skt. eri, to mix.
CRAVAT, a kind of neckcloth. (F.—Austrian). Spelt crabat in
Hudibras, pt. i. c. 3. 1166: ‘Canonical crabat of Smeck.’ But this
is a corrupted spelling. Dryden has: ‘His sword-knot this, his
crdvat that designed;’ Epilogue to the Man of Mode, }. 23.—F.
cravate, meaning (1) a Croat, Croatian; and (2) a cravat. B. The
history of the word is recorded by Ménage, who lived at the time of
the first introduction of cravats into France, in the year 1636. He
explains that the ornament was worn by the Croates (Croatians), who
were more commonly termed Cravates; and he gives the date (1636)
of its introduction into I’rance, which was due to the dealings the |
French had at that time with Germany; it was in the time of the
Thirty Years’ War. See the passage quoted in Brachet, s.v. cravate ;
*Craschyn, as tethe, fremo;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 100; |
Pethaps suggested by Swed. krasa, to crackle ; |
CREAM
and in Nares, s.v. crabat. Ὑ. Brachet also explains, s.v. corvée, the
insertion, for euphony, of the letter v, whereby Croa‘e became Crovate
or Cravate; a similar striking instance occurs in Ἐς, pouvoir, from L.
potére, for potesse, The word is, accordingly, of historic origin; from
the name of Croatia, now a province of Austria. Cf. Cravatts, i.e.
Croatians, which occurs in 1653; see Sir S. D. Scott, The British
Army (1850), iii. 101; also N. and Q. 6S. vi. 113. The name is
of Slavonic origin; cf. Russ. Kroaz’, a Croatian.
CRAVE, to beg earnestly, beseech. (I¢.)
for v); Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 1, 1408. AS. crajian, to
crave; A.S. Chron. an. 1070; ed. Thorpe, p. 344. Cf. Icel. krefja,
to crave, demand; Swed. krafva, to demand; Dan. kreve, to crave,
demand, exact ; also Icel. krafa, acraving,a demand. Der. crav-ing.
CRAVEN, one who is defeated, a recreant. (F.—L.) ME.
crauant (with τὸ for v); also spelt crauand, crauaund. “ΑἸ ha cneowen
ME. crauen (with u
overcome; Legend of St. Katharine,132. “δα! crauaunde knyghte!’
=ha! craven knight; Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, ]. 133. B. Th:
termination in - νι is a mistaken one, and makes the word look like a
past participle. The word is really cravant, where -ant is the regular
French form of the present participle. —OF. cravant, pres. part. of
craver, by-form of crever, to burst, to break; and hence, to be over-
come. [Cf. Span. guebrar, to fail, to be bankrupt, which is the same
word.]—L. crepantem, acc. of pres. part. of crepire, to burst. See
further the uses of Εἰ crever; thus, OF. le cuer me creve means ‘ my
heart is breaking ;” OF. crevé means ‘dead ;’ and Walloon se krever
de rire is denounced by Remacle as being not a polite phrase. See
Phil. Soc. Trans. 1902, p. 659.
CRAW, the crop, or first stomach of fowls. (E.) ME. crawe;
Wyclif, 4 Kings, vi. 25. ‘Crawe, or crowpe of a byrde or other
fowlys, gabus, vesicula;” Prompt. Parv. p. lot. [Allied to crag or
craig, the neck.) As if from AS. *craga, the neck (not found);
NFries. krage, neck, craw. Cf. Du. Araag, the neck, collar; G.
kragen, a collar. Also (perhaps) Dan. kro, Swed. krafva, craw.
CRAWFISH; see Crayfizh.
CRAWL, to creep along. (Scand.) Spelt cra/l; Spenser, F. Ὁ.
iii. 3. 26. See Cursor Mundi, 6612. Cf. prov. E. crafffe, croffl-, to
crawl. =Icel. srafla, to paw, to scrabble with the hands; krafla fram
wr, to crawl out of; Swed. krafla, to grope; Swed. dial. kraila, to
creep on hands and feet; Dan. s#ravle, to crawl, creep. B. The orig.
base is here Teut. *krab-, signifying ‘to paw’ or ‘seize with the
hands;” with the frequentative suffix -/a; thus giving the sense of
“to grope,’ to feel one’s way as an infant does when crawling along.
Cf. Low G. krabbeln, krawweln, kraulen, to crawl (Schambach).
CRAYFISH, CRAWFISH, a species of crab. (F.—OHG.)
Spelt craiyi:h in Holland, tr. of Pliny, bk. xxxii.c. 7 (p. 439 b). A
mistaken accommodation of ME. crevis or creves, Wars of Alexander,
3864; spelt crevise, Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, p. 158; creveys,
Prompt. Parv.—OF. crevisse, given by Roquefort as another spelling
of OF. escrevisse, mod. Εἰ, écrevisse, a crayfish; Hatzfeld also cites
the OF. form crevice.—OHG, crebiz, MHG. krebez, G. krebs, a cray-
fish, crab; allied to G. krabbe, acrab. See Crab (1). tam It fol-
lows that the etymological division of the word into syllables is as
crayf-ish: and thus all connexion with jisk disappears.
CRAYON, a pencil of coloured chalk. (F.—L.) In Evelyn’s
Diary, Sept. 30, 1644. Borrowed from F. crayon, explained by Cot-
grave as ‘dry-painting, or a painting in dry colours,’ &c. Formed
with suffix -ox from F. craie, chalk.—L. créta, chalk. See Creta-
ceous.
CRAZE, to break, weaken, derange. (Scand.) ME. crasen, to
break, crack. ‘Iam right siker that the pot was crased,’ i.e. cracked ;
Chaucer, C. T., 16402 (G 934). Allied to crash, but nearer to the
original. Swed. krasa, to crackle; s/a it kras, to break in pieces.
Ihre also cites Swed. gd i kras, to go to pieces; and the MSwed.
kraslig, easily broken; so also Dan. krase, to crackle. 4 The F.
écraser is from the same source; the E. verb was (probably) not bor-
rowed from the French, but directly from Scand. ; but the adj. crazy
may have been suggested by the I’. pp. ἐογα: ὁ, broken. Der. craz-y,
craz-i-ly, craz-i-ness. Cf. Crash.
CREAK, to make a sharp grating sound. (E.) ME. creken.
‘He cryeth and he creketh ;’? Skelton, Colin Clout, 1. 19. ‘A crowe
. .. kreked ;’ Fabyan, Chron. vol. i. c..213. An imitative word, like
Crake and Crack. Cf. EFries. kraken, to creak; as in krakende
wagens, creaking wains (Koolman); OHG. chregén, krekén, to creak;
MDnu. kreken,*to creake,’ Hexham; also Du. krekel/, a cricket (from
its cry).
CREAM, the oily substance which rises in milk. (F.—L.—Gk.)
ME. creme,crayme. ‘Cowe creme ;’ Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, p. 266;
“crayme of cowe;’ id. 123. Also craym, creem, creyme, P. Plowm.
A. vii. 269; B. vi. 284; C. ix. 306.—OF. cresme, F. créme, cream:
Really the same word as OF. cresme (l*. chréme), chrism. = L. chrisma.
mena
CREASE
— Gk. χρῖσμα; see Chrism. @ Derived in late times from L.
weno OF error; Whence cremor lactis, and even crema lactis (Du-
cange); but the guess was a wrong one. Der. cream, verb; cream-y,
cream-i-ness. Doublet, chrism.
CREASE (τ), a wrinkle, small fold. (F.—L.) Richardson well
remarks that ‘this word so common in speech, is rare in writing.’
He quotes an extract containing it from Swift, Thoughts on Various
Subjects. Also: ‘The creses here are excellent good ; the proportion
of the chin good;’ Sir Gyles Goosecappe (1606), Act ii. sc. 1; a
quotation which seems to refer to a portrait. Phillips (in 1706) has
crease, a fold; and the word is noted by Skinner (1671). But the
earliest spelling is creast. In Lyte’s tr. of Dodoens, bk. vi. c. 40, a
peach-stone is said to be ‘ful of creastes [i.e. crests, ridges] and gut-
ters.’ Hence Phillips (in 1658) has ‘ Creas¢-tile, a roof-tile, which is
made to lay upon the ridge of a house ;’ whence prov. E. crease, ‘a
ridge-tile ;? E.D.D. Suggested by OF. cresté, crested ; also, wrinkled
or ruffled, in speaking of the surface of water; the form is Walloon,
which has kress, a crest, a tidge, &c. (Remacle) ; cf. mod. Prov. crest,
creis,a ridge. Thus crease is a doublet of crest; see Crest. Cf. Notes
on E. Etym. p. 49. @f For the spelling creast, a crest, see Caxton,
Morte Darthur, bk. v. c. 5.1. 66.
CREASE (2), CREESE, a Malay dagger. (Malay.) ‘Four
hundred young men, who were privately armed with eryzes;’ Sir
T. Herbert, Travels, ed. 1665 ; p. 68.— Malay kris or kris, ‘a dagger,
poignard, kris, or creese ;’ Marsden’s Malay Dict., 1812, p. 258.
CREATE, to make, produce, form. (L.) Orig. a past part.
‘Whan our lord hadde creat Adam;’ Chaucer, C. T., B 2293.
‘Since Adam was create ;’ Gascoigne, Dan Bartholomew, His Last
Will, 1. 3. Cf. K. John, iv. 1. 107.—L. cred/us, pp. of credre, to
create, make. β. Related to Skt. ky, to make, causal karayami,
I cause to be performed. Brugmann, i. § 641. Der. creat-ion, -ive,
τοῦ; also creat-ure (OF. creature, L. creatiira), a sb. in early use, viz.
in Hampole, Pricke of Conscience, 1. 38, King Alisaunder, 6948.
CREED, a belief. (L.) ME. crede, Ancren Riwle, p. 20; and
frequently credo, O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 75. An AS. form
creda is given in Lye and Bosworth.—L. crédo, 1 believe, the first
word of the Latin version of the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds ; from
L. crédere, to believe.Olrish cretim, I believe ; Skt. ¢raddadhami,
I believe ; cf. graddha, faith; both from the base ¢rat. Brugmann,
i. § 539. Der. From the L. crédere we have also cred-ence, Gower,
C, A. 1. 249, bk. ii. 2677 (OF. credence, Late L. crédentia, from the
pres. part. crédent-) ; cred-ent, -ent-i-al ; cred-i-ble (Gower, C. A. i. 23),
cred-t-bil-t-ty, -i-ble-ness, -i-bl-y ; also credit (from L. pp. créditus) , credit-
able, -abl-y, -able-ness, -or ; also credulous (L. crédulus, by change of
-us into -ous), -ly, -ness; and credul-i-ty (F. credulité, Englished by
credulity in Cotgrave, from L. acc. crédulttatem, nom. crédulitas).
CREEK, an inlet, cove, nook, bend. (MDu.?) Cf. Du. kreek,acreek;
MDu. kréke (Franck); whence the Tudor E. creke, mod. E. creek, was
probably derived. We also find ME. cryke, Chaucer, C. Τὶ prol. 411;
krike in Havelok, 708. = OF. crique,a creek, bay (Supp. to Godefroy). =
Swed. dial. krik, a bend, nook, corner, creek, cove (Rietz) ; Icel. kriki,
a crack, nook; cf. handarkriki, the arm-pit; Dan. dial. krig, a turn,
bend, bending in. β. Possibly W. crig,a crack, crigyll, a ravine, creek,
are from ME. The Swed. dial. armérik also means the bend of the
arm, elbow (Rietz); but the orig. form and sense are alike obscure.
See Crick. Der. creek-y.
CREEL, a large wicker basket. (F.—L.) ‘Crelle, baskett ;’
Prompt. Parv. The pl. crelis occurs in Wyntown, Chron. VIII.
xxxvill. 51 (N.E.D.). Lowland Sc. creil.<OF. creil (Lacurne) ;
given also in Ducange, 5.0. clefa, to translate L. crates, a hurdle.—
Late L. *craticulum, neuter; just as F. grille is from Late L. craticula.
Dimin. of L. crates, a hurdle. See Notes on E. Etym., p. 51.
CREEP, to crawl, as a snake, &c. (E.) ME. crepen, creopen;
Ancren Riwle, p. 292. AS. créopan, Grein, i. 169. - Du. kruipen, to
creep, crawl; Icel. ἀγγῶρα; Swed. krypa; Dan. krybe. Teut. type
*kreupan-, pt. τ. *kraup, pp. *krupanoz. Der. creep-er.
CREESE, a Malay dagger; see Crease (2).
CREMATION, burning, esp. of the dead. (L.) Used by Sir
T. Browne, Urn Burial, c. 1.—L. cremationem, acc. of cremdatio, a |
burning; cf. crematus, pp. of cremare, to burn.
CRENATE, notched, said of leaves. (L.) A botanical term.
Formed as if from L. *crénatus, notched (not used), from Late L.
créna (Ital. crena), a notch. See Cranny.
CRENELLATE, to furnish with a parapet, to fortify. (Late
L.—F.—L.) See List of Royal Licences to Crenella‘e, or Fortify ;
Parker's Eng. Archzologist’s Handbook, p. 233.— Late L. crénellare,
whence F. creneler, ‘to imbattle ;’ Cotgrave. - Late L. crenellus, a
parapet, battlement; [OF. crenel, later creneau, a battlement ; dimin.
of OF. cren, cran, a notch]; from Late L. créna, a notch (above).
CREOLE, one born in the West Indies, but of European or for-
eign blood. (F.—Span.—L.) See the quotations in Todd’s Johnson.
CREVICE 143
=F. créole.=Span. criollo, a native of America or the W. Indies; ἃ
corrupt word, made by the negroes; said to be a contraction of cria-
dillo, the dimin. of criado, one educated, instructed, or bred up, pp.
of criar, lit. to create, but commonly also to bring up, nurse, breed,
educate, instruct. Hence the sense is ‘a little nursling.’=L. creare,
to create. See Create. @ Cf.Span. criadilla, a worthless servant-
maid, dimin. of criada, a servant-maid.
CREOSOTE, a liquid distilled from wood-tar. (Gk.) Dis:
covered in 1832; so called because it has the quality of preserving
flesh from corruption; lit. ‘flesh-preserver.’=—Gk. xpeo-, for κρέας,
flesh (allied to L. caro, flesh) ; and σωτ-, shortened from σωτήρ, a
preserver, from σῴζειν, to save, preserve. (Incorrectly formed.)
CREFPITATEH, to crackle. (L.) Medical.—L. crepitatus, pp.
of crepitare, to crackle, rattle; frequentative of crepare, to rattle.
Der. crepitat-ion. See Crevice.
CREPUSCULAR, pertaining to twilight. (L.) First in 1668.
= L. crepuscul-um, twilight ; with suffix -ar. Allied to Sabine creper,
dark (Varro).
CRESCENT, the increasing moon. (L.) Properly an adj. sig-
nifying ‘increasing ;’ Hamlet, i. 3. 11. —L. crescent-, stem of crescens,
pres. pt. of crescere (pp. crétus), to increase, to grow; an inchoative
verb formed with suffix -sc-, allied to cre-adre, to create, make. See
Create. Der. From the base of pp. crét-us we have the derivatives
ac-cret-ion, con-crete, ‘The Ital. crescendo, increasing, a musical term,
is equivalent to crescent. @ It must be added that the spelling
crescent is an accommodated one. The word was formerly spelt
cressent or cressaunt. We find ‘Cressaunt, lunula’ in the Prompt.
Pary. p. 102. This is not from the Latin immediately, but from OF.
creissaunt, pres. part. of OF. creistre, to grow, from L. crescere. It
comes to the same at last, but makes a difference chronologically.
Cf. ‘a cressant, or halfe moone, croissant ;’ Sherwood’s Index to Cot-
grave; ‘cressent, the newe mone, cressant;’ Palsgrave.
CRESS, the name of several plants of the genus Crucifere. (E.)
ME. cresse, cres; also spelt kerse, kers, carse, by shifting of the letter
r, a common phenomenon in English; cf. mod. E. bird with ME.
brid. ‘Wisdom and witte now is nought worth a carse;” P. Plow-
man, B, x. 17, where 4 MSS. read kerse. ‘Cresse, herbe, nasturtium;’
Prompt. Parv. p. 102. ‘Anger gaynez [avails] the not a cresse;’
Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, i. 343. [{‘ Not worth a cress’ or ‘not worth
a kers’? was a common old proverb, now turned into the meaning-
less ‘not worth a curse.’| AS. cerse, cerse, cresse; see numerous
references in Cockayne’s Leechdoms, iii. 316. Cf. the entry ‘nas-
turtium, /in-kerse,’ i.e. town-cress, in A‘lfric’s Glossary; Voc. 135.
36. + Du. kers, cress; G. kresse, water-cresses ; OHG. cressa (whence
F. cresson, according to Hatzfeld). Teut. type * kras-jon- (Franck) ;
from * kras, 2nd grade of * kres-, as in OHG. cresan, chresan, to creep.
Hence the sense is ‘ creeper.’
CRESSET, an open lamp, placed on a beacon or carried on a
pole. (F.—L.) ‘Cresset, crucibollum ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 102, ‘A
lyht brennende in a kressette;’ Gower, C. A. ili. 217; bk. vii. 3743.
—OF, cresset, craisset, a cresset. β. A glance at a picture of a
cresset, in Webster's Dict. or elsewhere, will show that it consisted,
in fact, of an open iron cup at the top of a pole; and the cup was
filled with burning grease or oil; whence the name.—OF. craisse
(F. graisse), grease; Hatzfeld.—Folk L. *crassia, grease ; from L.
crassus, thick, dense. So also Walloon cracké, a cresset ; from
crache, grease. See Grease, Crass.
CREST, a tuft on a cock’s head, plume, &c. (F.—L.) ΜΕ.
creste, crest; Chaucer, C. T. 13834 (B 2096).—OF. creste, ‘a crest;
cop, combe, tuft;’ Cot.—L. crista, a comb or tuft on a bird’s head,
a crest, Der. crest, verb, crest-less; crest-fallen, i.e. with fallen or
sunken crest, dejected. Doublet, creave (1).
CRETACEOUS, chalky. (L.) It occurs in J. Philips, Cyder,
bk. i. 1. 545 first printed in 1708.—<L. créfaceus, chalky; by change
of -us to τοῖς, as in credulous, &c.—L. créta, chalk; generally
explained to mean Cretan earth, but this is hardly the origin of the
word. See Crayon.
CRETIN, a deformed idiot, chiefly in the Swiss Alps. (F.—L.—
Gk.) First in 1779.—F. crétin, which in Swiss patois means (1)
Christian, (2) a Christian being, one who is not a brute animal
merely.=—L. acc. Christianum; from Christus, Christ. —Gk. Χριστός;
see Christ.
CRETONNE, a kind of stout unglazed cloth. (F.) Modern. =
F. cretonne, a fabric orig. made at Crefon, a village in Normandy
(Hatzfeld).
CREVICE, a crack, cranny. (F.—L.) ME. crevice, but also
crevace. Spelt creutisse (with u for v), Gawain and the Grene
Knight, ed. Morris, 21833 crevace, Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, iii.
996. — AF. crevace (see quot. in Hatzfeld) ; MF. crevasse, ‘a crevice,
chink, rift, cleft;’ Cot. (Late L. crepatia).— OF. (and F.) crever, ‘to
burst or break asunder, to chink, rive, cleave, or chawn;’ id.—L.
144 CREW
crepare, to crackle, rattle; also, to burst asunder; a word possibly
of imitative origin. Doublet, crevasse.
CREW, a company of people. (F.—L.) Formerly crue;
Gascoigne, The Fruits of Warre, st. 46; ‘lf she be one of Cressid’s
crue;’ Turberville, His Love flitted from wonted Troth; st. 15.
Common as a sea-term, ‘a ship’s crew.’ First used in 1455,
Parliament Rolls, v. 297; where 300 men are ‘ ordejgned for a crue
over the ordinary charge’ at Calais, The earliest ἐς was ἃ rein-
forcement; later, a company sent on an expedition; and lastly, a
company (generally). ‘The Fresh kynge sent soone after into
Scotlande a crewe of Frenshemen, to ayde suche enemyes as kyng
Edwarde there had ;’ Fabyan’s Chron, ed. Ellis, p. 444. A crew2
is a corrupt substitution for acrewe, accrewe, or accrue, the obsolete
sb. from which the yerb to accrue is derived. ‘Thus Holinshed
(Chron. iii. 1135) has: ‘ The towne of Calis and the forts thereabouts
were not supplied with anie new accrewes [reinforcements ] of soldiors.’
— OF, acreue, accrue, 5. f, augmentation, reinforcement ; Godefroy.
— OF. acreue, fem. of pp. of acroistre, to augment (Supp. to Gode roy),
=—L. accrescere, to increase. L. ac-, for ad, to, in addition; crescere,
to grow. See Accrue, Accretion.
CREWEL, worsted yam slackly twisted. (F.—Teut.) In King
Lear, ii. 4.7. Halliwell explains it by ‘fine worsted, formerly much
in use for fringe, garters, &c.’ The Whitby Gloss. has ‘ creeals or
crules, coloured worsteds for ornamental needle-work, &c.’ Palsgrave
has: ‘Caddas or crule, sayette.’ The earliest mention of erules is in
Test, Eboracensia, ii, 100 (an. 1444). Generally in the pl. crewels,
prob. at first applied to the hanks or skeins, of which there were
many, of different colours. = OF. escrouelles (de laine), portions of
wool (Godefroy); dimin. of OF. escroe, escrowey a shred. See
Escrow. See Phil. Soc. Trans. 1905; p. 251.
CRIB, a manger, rack, stall, cradle. (1..)ὺ ME. crib, cribbe;
Ormulum, 3321; Cursor Mundi, 11237. AS. crib, cryb; Grein,
i. τόρ. + OSax. kribbia; see Cratch; Du. krib, a crib, manger;
OHG. krippha, MHG. hripfe, G. krippe, a crib, manger. Cf. also
Tcel. and Swed. krubba, Dan. krybbe, a crib. Perhaps allied to
MHG. krebe, a basket; but distinct from Du. kor/, G. korb, if these
are from L. corbis. Der. crib, verb, to put into a crib, hence, to
confine; also to hide away in a crib, hence, to purloin; from the
latter sense is cribb-age, in which the crib is the secret store of cards.
CRICK, a spasmodic affection of the neck. (E.) ‘ Crykke, seke-
nesse, spasmus ;᾿ Prompt. Parv. p. 103. ‘Those also that with a
cricke or cramp have their necks drawne backward ;’ Holland, tr. of
Pliny, b. xx. c. 5. Allied to prov. E. crink, a bend, a crick in the
neck (E.D.D.); which answers to Norw. krenk, a twist, sprain;
which again is allied to crank (1). See Crinkle.
CRICKET (1), a shrill-voiced insect. (F.-Du.) ‘ Crykette,
salamandra, crillus;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 103. Spelt cryket?, P. Plow-
man, C. xvi. 243. -- OF. crequet, criquet, a cricket, Supp. to Godefroy ;
a diminutive form. = OF. criquer, ‘to creake, rattle,’ Cot. ; ἃ word of
Germanic origin, being an attenuated form of F. craguer, ‘to cracke,
creake,’ id. See Creak, Crack. The Germanic word is. preserved
in Du. kriek, a cricket, and in the E. creak, sometimes written crick
(N.E.D.); also in the Du. krikkrakken, to crackle, and MDu, kricken,
‘to creake or to crack,’ Hexham. Cf. prov. E. cracket, creaker, a
cricket.
CRICKET (2), a game with bat and ball. (F.—Du.) The word
cricket-ball occurs in The Kambler, no. 30, Cotgrave translates the
ἘΝ crosse as ‘a crosier or bishop’s staffe; also a cricket-staffe, or the
crooked staff wherewith boies play at cricket.!’ The first mention of
cricket is in 1598; it was a development of the older game of club-
ball, which was played with a crooked stick, and was something like
the modern hockey ; see Engl. Cvcl. Supplement to Arts and Sciences,
col. 653.—OF, criguet, ‘baton servant de but au jeu de boule’
(Godefroy) ; so that the criquet was practically the wicket. Godefroy
has a quotation of 1478: ‘Le suppliant arriva en ung licu ou on
jouoit ala boulle, pres dune atache [vine-stake] ou criguet,’=—MDu.
krick, kricke, a crutch (Hexham). Cf. AS. cricc, eryce, a crutch, staff.
See Crutch, Der. cricket-er.
CRICOID, adj, applied to the ring-shaped cartilage forming a
part of the larynx. (Gk.) First in 1746.— Mod. L. cricoides, tran-
scription of Gk. κρικρειδής, ring-shaped.—Gk. κρίκο-, for xpixos or
κίρκος, a ring; and εἶδος, form. See Circus.
CRIME, an offence against law, sin. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. crime, cryme;
Chaucer, C. T., D1307.—F. crime, ‘a crime, fault ;’ Cot. —L. crimen,
an accusation, charge, fault, offence. Generally connected with L.
cernere, to sift, and the Gk, κρίνειν, to separate, decide, whence κρῖμα,
κρίμα, a decision. Der, From the stem crimin- of L. crimen, we have
crimin-al, -al-ly, eal-i-ty, -ate, -at-ton, -at-or-y.
CRIMP, to wrinkle, corrugate, make crisp. (E.)
cookery, as ‘to crimp a skate;’ see N,E.D. The frequentative
crimple, to rumple, wrinkle, occurs in the Prompt, Pary. p. 103. It
Cften used in |
|
CRISP
answers to an AS. *crempan, EFries. krempan, causal derivative of
Cramp. Or to AS. crympan, from the weak grade; cf. ‘Calamis-
tratis, gecrymttum;’ Voc. 378.26. Cf. Du. krimpen, to shrink, shrivel,
diminish ; Swed. krympa, to shrink, active and neuter; Dan. krympe
stg sammen, to shrink oneself together; G. krimpen, to crumple, to
shrink cloth, β. The orig. strong yerb appears as EFries, and
Du. krimeen, Swed. dial: krimpa, OHG, krimfan; Teut. type
*krempan- (krimpan-), to draw oneself together, to shrink up; pt,
τ, *kramp; pp. “krumpanoz. See Cramp and Crumple,. Der,
crimp-le.
CRIMSON, a deep red colour. (F,— Arab. —Skt.) ME. crimosine,
Gascoigne, Steel Glass, 1. 767; crimosin, Berners, tr. of Froissart,
vol. ii. c. 157 (R.); spelt crammysyn, G. Douglas, Prol. to xii Book
of Eneados, 1. 15 ; cremesin, Caxton, Troy-book, leaf 74, 1. 28. —OF.
cramoisin, cramotsi (Ἐς cramotsi) ; see Supp. to Godefroy; cf. Late L.
cramotsixus, crimson. The correct L. form appears in the Late L.
carmesinus, crimson (Span. carmesi, Ital. chermisi); so called from
the kermes or cochineal insect with which it was dyed. Arab. and
Persian girmisi, crimson; girmiz, crimson; see Palmer’s Pers. Dict.
col. 470.—Skt. krmi(s), a worm, an insect. B. The colour was so
called because produced by the cochineal-insect ; see Cochineal.
The Skt. Aymi(s) is cognate with Irish crutm and W. pryf, a worm.
Carmine is a doublet of crimson; see Carmine,
CRINGE, to bend, crouch, fawn. (E.) Used by Shak. in the
sense of to distort one’s face; Ant. and Cleop, iii, 13. 100; cf.
crinkle, to wrinkle, which is related to cringe. Mis. crengen; ‘he
crengit,’ he cringed; Holland, The Houlate, 1. 956. A causal
derivative of AS. cringan, crincgan, crincan, to sink in battle, fall,
succumb; Grein, i. 169; and see Sweet's A. 5. Reader. Thus cringe
is a causative of cring, and cring is a by-form of crink, with the sense
of ‘to bend’ or ‘to give way;’ further related to crank. See
Crank (2). Cf. EFries. krengen, to lay on its side, careen (a ship).
Der. crink-le, q.v.
CRIN GLE, a ring worked into the bolt-rope of a sail. (Low G.)
‘Cringle, a kind of wrethe or ring wrought into a rope for the
convenience of fastening another rope to it;’ Ash’s Dict., ed. 1775.
In Falconer’s Shipwreck (1762), c. ili. 1. 330.—Low G., fringel, a
ring (Liibben); EFries. kringel. Allied to Icel. kringla, a circle,
orb, disk (hence, simply a circle or ring); cf. kring/ottr, circular,
kringar, pl., the pulleys of a drag-net. Cf. kring, adv., around,
kringja, to encircle, surround ; Swed. kring, prep., around about ;
Du. kring, a circle, circuit, orb, sphere, Allied to Crinkle,
Cringe, and Crank (1).
CRINITEH, hairy. (L.) ‘How comate, crinxite, caudate stars are
framed ;’ Fairfax, tr. of Tasso, bk. xiv. st. 44.— L. crinitus, having
long hair. —L. crini-, for crinis, hair.
CRINKLE, to rumple slightly, wrinkle. (E.) ‘Her face all
bowsy, Comely crynklyd;’ Skelton, Elynour Rummyng, 1. 18. Cf.
crincled, full of twists or turnings, Chaucer, Legend of Good Women,
2012, Formed by adding -/e, the common frequentative termination,
to the base crinc- of the AS. strong verb crincan, to give way, bend in,
fallina heap. See Cringe. Thus crink-le is to bend frequently,
to make full of bends or turns. Cf. Dan, krinkelgange, meanderings
(Larsen). Compare Crimple.
CRINOLINE, a lady’s stiff skirt. (F.—L.) Formerly made of
hair-cloth. =F. crinoline, (1) hair-cloth; (2) crinoline; an artificial
word. =F. crin, hair, esp. horse-hair, from L. crinem, acc. of crinis,
hair; and Jin, flax, hence, thread, from L. linum, flax. See Crinite
and Linen.
CRIPPLE, one who has not the full use of his limbs. (Ε.) ME.
crupel, ἐγερεῖ, cripel ; see Cursor Mundi, 13106. An AS. word, but
the traces of it are not very distinct; spelt erypel in the Lindisfarne
MS., Luke, v. 24, as a gloss to paralylicus. Lit. ‘a creeper.’— AS.
crup- (with vowel-change from u to y), weak grade of créopan, to
creep; sce Creep. The suffix -el (for -ilo-) denotes the agent. +
Du. kreupel, adj, crippled, lame (cf. krutpelings, creepingly, by
stealth), kruipen, to creep; OFrisian kreppel, a cripple; Icel. Aryppill,
also kryplingr, a cripple; Dan. krébling, a cripple; cf. Dan. krybe, to
creep; G, 4rii*pel, a cripple; cf. MHG. ἀγάγοι, to, creep. B. The
suffix has the same active force as in AS. byd-el, i.e. one who pro-
claims: The AS, créopere, lit. ‘creeper,’ likewise means a cripple ;
ZElfric’s Saints’ Lives, vi. 20. Der. cripple, verb.
CRISIS, a decisive point or moment. (Gk.) ‘This hour’s the
very crisis of your fate;’ Dryden, Spanish Friar (Todd’s Johnson) ;
and in Minsheu (1627).—Gk. κρίσις, a separating, discerning, decision,
crisis. —Gk. κρίνειν, to decide, separate; allied to L. cernere, to sift.
See Critic. .
CRISP, wrinkled,.curled. (L.) ME. crisp, Wyclif, Judith, xvi. 10.
Also crips, by change of sp to ps, a phenomenon due to the more
{rcquent coaverse change of /s into <p, as in aspen, clasp, which see.
Crips is in Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, iii. 206, In very early use;. the
CRISTATE
AS. crisp occurs in the tr. of Beda, v. 2 (near the eid).—L. crispus,
curled ; allied to W. crych, rumpled; see Brugmann, i. § 565 (3).
Der. crisp-ly, -ness.
CRISTATE, crested. (L.) First in 1661.—L. cristatus, furnished
with a crest.—L. crista, a crest. See Crest.
CRITIC, a judge, in literature or art. (L.—Gk.) In Shak.
L. L. L. iii. 178.—L. criticus.—Gk. κριτικός, able to discern; cf.
κριτής, a judge. = Gk. κρίνειν, to judge. See Crisis. Der. critic-al
(Oth. 11. 1.120); -ise, -is-m; critique (Ἐς. critique, from Gk. κριτικός).
From the same source is criterion, Gk. κριτήριον, a test.
CROAK, to make a low hoarse sound. (E.) In Macbeth, i. 5. 40.
Spenser has croking ; Epithalamion, ]. 349. From a theoretical AS.
*cracian, to croak; represented only by its derivative crécetung, a
croaking; the expression hrefena crécetung, the croaking of ravens,
occurs in the Life of St. Guthlac, cap. viii. ed. Goodwin, p. 48.
B. Of imitative origin; allied to crake, creak, crow, which see. Cf.
Swed. kraka, a crow; L. grac-ulus, a jackdaw. Der. croak-er.
CROCHET, lit. a little hook. (F.—Late L.) Modern. Applied
to work done by means of a small hook. =F. crochet, a little crook
or hook; dimin., with suffix -et, from F. croche, variant of croc,
acrook. See Crotchet.
CROCK, a pitcher. (C.) ME. crokke, crok; the dat. case crocke
occurs in the Ancren Riwle, p. 214. AS. crocca, as a gloss to olla in
Ps. lix. 8; ed. Spelman. [OFries. krocha, a pitcher; Du. kruik ;
Icel. krukka; Swed. kruka; Dan. krukke; OHG. chruac, MHG.
kruoc, G. krug.] Yet, notwithstanding the wide spread of the word,
it was probably originally Celtic. —OlIrish crocan, Irish crogan, Gael.
crog, a pitcher, jar; W. crochan, a pot. + Gk. κρωσσός (for *xpwx-yos),
a pitcher. Der. crock-er, a potter, now obsolete, but occurring in
Wyclif, Ps. ii. 9; also crock-e-ry, a collective sb., made in imitation
of F. words in -rie; cf. nunnery, spicery.
CROCKET, an architectural ornament. (F.—Late L.) ME.
croket, a roll of hair; R. Brunne, Handlyng Synne, 1. 3208. —AF.
croket, Wm. of Wadington, Manuel des Peches, 1. 3305; NorthF.
form of F. crochet; see Crochet. Doublets, crochet, crotchet,
croquet.
CROCODILE, an alligator. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Hamlet, v. τ.
299.—F. crocodile, ‘a crocodile ;’ Cot.—L. crocodilus.—Gk. κροκό-
δειλος, a lizard (an Ionic form, Herod. ii. 69); hence, an alligator,
from its resemblance to a lizard. Origin unknown. φῶ The ME.
form was cokedrill, King Alisaunder, 5720; from the corrupt Late L.
cocodrillus.
CROCUS, the name of a flower. (L.—Gk.) In Milton, P. L.
iv. 701.—L. crocus.—Gk. κρόκος, the crocus; saffron. Cf. Skt.
kunkuma-, saffron. B. Apparently of Semitic origin; cf. Heb.
karkom, saffron; Arab. karkam or kurkum, saffron; Richardson’s
Dict. p. 1181.
CROFT, a small field. (E.) ME. croft, P. Plowman, B. v. 581;
vi. 33. AS. croft, a field; Kemble’s Codex Diplomaticus, 1257;
vol. vi. p. 79, l. 10. + Du. hroft, a hillock; MDu. krochte, crocht, a
field on the downs, high and dry land; also MDu. 4roft, krockt, high
and dry land (Oudemans). [This is quite a different word from the
MDu. krochte, when used in the sense of crypt; see Crypt.] 4 The
nee oe croit, a croft, small piece of arable ground, is borrowed
rom E.
CROMLECH, a structure of large stones, in which a flat stone
tests upon upright ones. (W.) Merely borrowed from Welsh. —W.
cromlech, an incumbent flagstone; compounded of crom, bending,
bowed (hence, laid across) ; and Jlech, a flat stone, flag-stone.
CRONE, an old woman. (F.—L.) In Chaucer, C. T. 4852
(B 432). Shortened from Picard carone, carrion, an old worn-out
horse (Corblet) ; answering to F. carogne, a contemptuous term for
a woman (Hatzfeld), charogne, carrion. See Carrion. β. Tusser
has crone in the sense of ‘ an old ewe.’— MDnu. kronie, karonie, an old
sheep. — Picard carone (as above).
CRONY, an intimate associate. (Gk.?) ‘Jack Cole, . . who
Was a great chrony of mine ;’ Pepys, Diary, May 30, 1665 (N.E.D.).
Said by Skinner, in 1671, to be ‘vox academica,’ i.e. university
slang; and Butler (Hudibras, pt. III. c. 2. 1. 1269) rhymes cronies
with monies. Perhaps for Gk. χρόνιος, a ‘long-lasting’ friend. = Gk.
χρόνος, time; see Chronicle.
CROOK, a hook, bend, bent staff. (Scand.) ME. crak; the pl.
crokes is in the Ancren Riwle, p. 174.—Icel. krakr, a hook, bend,
winding ; Swed. krok, a hook, bend, angle; Dan. krog, a hook,
crook ; kroge, to crook, to hook; kroget, crooked. Prob. allied to
OHG. chracho, a crook; from a base *krak, 2nd grade *krok.
Perhaps allied to crank, but without the nasal; cf. crick. @] The
Gael. crocan, a crook, is from Scand. or E. Der. crook, verb;
crook-ed, -ed-ly, -ed-ness ; also croch-et, q. v.
CROON, to hum, to utter a low, deep sound. (MDu. or Low G.)
Douglas has croyn (L. magére), tr. of Virgil, bk. vi. § 4. 1. 40.—MDu.
CROUCH
krénen (Du. kreunen), to groan, murmur (see Franck) ; Low ἃ.
kronen (Liibben). Of imitative origin.
CROP, the top of a plant, the craw of a bird. (E.) ME. croppe,
crop. In Chaucer, prol. 1. 7, ‘ the tendre croppes’ means ‘tle tender
upper shoots of plants.’ To crop off is to take off the top; whence
crop in the sense of what is reaped, a harvest. AS. cropp, crop; asa
gloss to ‘cima;’ Voc. 149. 13. We find cropp as a gloss to spica
(ear of corn), Luke, vi. 1; Northumbrian version. In Levit. i. 16,
we have ‘wurp pone cropp,’ i.e. throw away the bird’s crop. The
orig. sense seems to have been that which sticks up or out, a pro-
tuberance, bunch. + Du. krop, a bird’s crop; kroppen, to cram, to
grow to a round head; G. kroff, a crop, craw; Icel. kroppr, a hunch
or bump on the body ; Swed. kropp, Dan. krop, the trunk of the body.
Cf. Gk. βρέφος ; Brugmann, i. § 421 (7). B. Also in the Celtic
languages; W. cropa, the crop, or craw οἱ ἃ bird (from E.) ; Gael.
and Irish sgroban, the crop of a bird. Der. crop-full, Milton,
L’ Allegro, 113; crop, verb; crop out, verb, i.e. to bunch out, stick
out. Doublet, croup (2).
CROQUET, a game with mallets, balls, posts, and hoops. (F.—
Late L.) Noticed in N. and Q. 3S. iv. 349, 439, ν. 494 (1863, 1864).
Introduced into Ireland about 1835, and into England in 1852. Of
F. origin. = NormanF. (dialect) croquet, variant of F. crochet, a crook
(Moisy) ; also a hooked stick (Hatzfeld) ; used in some F. dialects
with the sense of hockey-stick (N.E.D.). The N.E.D. refers to Dr.
Prior’s Notes on Croquet (1872). See Crotchet. Doublets,
crochet, crotchet.
CRORE, ten millions (of rupees). (Hind.—Skt.) See Yule. =
Hind. kror, karor, ten millions; Wilson, p. 297, col. 2. From the
Prakrit form (krodt) of Skt. kétz, highest point, ten millions.
CROSIER, a staff with a curved top. (F.—Late L.) ‘ Because
a crosier-staff is best for such a crooked time;’ Gascoigne, Flowers :
Richard Courtop, &c., last line. Spelt crocer, croser, croycer, croyser
in the MSS. of P. Plowman, C. vi. 113. Made by adding the F.
suffix -ier to the sb. croce, also signifying a crosier or bishop’s staff,
P. Plowman, C. xi. 92. The 19th line of Chaucer's Freres Tale
alludes to a bishop catching offenders ‘with his hook.’ Moreover,
crosier (as now used) is practically short for crosier-staff, i.e. the staff
carried by the ‘crosier’ or crook-bearer.—OF. crossier, one who
carries a crosse (Godefroy). -- OF. croce, ‘a crosier, a bishop’s staff τ’
Cot.; spelt croce in the Chanson de Roland, 1670. Mod. F. crosse,
a crosier. = Late L. type *croccea; cf. Late L. crocia, crochia, a curved
stick, a bishop’s staff (Ducange).—OF. croc, a crook, hook. Late
L. croceum, ace. of croccus, a hook. The usual derivation from
cross is historically wrong; but, as ME. croce, a crook, and cross
were easily confused, the mistake was often made. Still the fact
remains, that the true shape of the crosier was with a hooked or
curved top; the archbishop’s staff alone bore a cross instead of a
crook, and was of exceptional, not of regular form. See my note to
P. Plowman, C. xi. 92. ‘ Many 19th century ecclesiastical antiquaries
have erroneously transferred the name crosier to the cross borne before
an archbishop ;’ N.E.D.
CROSS, the instrument of the Passion. (C.—L.) ME. cros, Laya-
mon’s Brut, iii. 261. AS. cros, as in Normannes cros, in Birch, Cart.
Sax. iil. 367 (A.D. 963-984). — Olrish cros; in the glossary to Leabhar
Breac, ed. Atkinson; [cf. Irish cros, a cross, a hindrance; crosatm,
I cross, stop, hinder; crosanach, cross, perverse]; Gael. crots, a cross,
W. croes. All from L. crux, a cross, orig. a gibbet. Der. cross, adj.
transverse, perverse, cross-ly, -ness, -bill, -bow, δία. ; cross-ing, -wise,
-let; also crusade, q.v., crutse.
CROTCHET, a term in music; a whim. (F.—Late L.) ME.
crochet ; ‘crochett of songe;’ Prompt. Pary. The sense of ‘ whim’
seems derived from that of ‘tune’ or ‘air,’ from the arrangement οὗ
crotchets composing the air. ‘Asa good harper stricken far in years
Into whose cunning hands the gout doth fall, All his old crotche?s in
his brain he bears, But on his harp plays ill, or not at all;’ Davies,
Immortality of the Soul, § 32.—F. crochet, ‘a small hooke . . . also,
a quaver in musick ;’ Cotgrave; who also has: ‘ Crochue, a quaver
in Musicke, whence il a des crochues en teste, his head is full of
crotchets.’ Dimin. of F. croc, ‘a grapple, or great hooke ;’ id.—
Late L. croccum, acc. of croccus,a hook. Der. crotchet-y. Doublets,
crochet, crocket, croquet. Cf. crosier, crouch.
CROTON, the name of a genus of plants. (Gk.) Modern. - ΟΚ.
κρότων, a tick, which the seed of the croton resembles (Webster).
Liddell and Scott give κρότων or κροτών, a dog-louse, tick; also, the
palma Christi or thorn bearing the castor-berry (from the likeness of
this to a tick) whence is produced croton and castor oil. The N.E.D.
gives xporwy, a tick, also the castor-oil plant (Ricinus communis),
taken in botany as the name of an allied genus.
CROUCH, to bend down, squat, cower. (F.—Late L.) ME.
crouchen, to bend down, stoop; ‘thei so lowe crouchen;’ Piers the
Plowman’s Crede, ed. Skeat, 302; cf. 1. 751.— OF. crochir, to become
L
145
146 CROUP
crooked; Godefroy; cf. OF. and F. crochu, crooked. =F. croche, croc,
a hook. = Late L. croceum, acc. of croccus, a hook.
CROUP (1), an inflammatory affection of the larynx. (E.) Low-
land Scotch croup, the disease; also croup, crowp, to croak, to cry
with a hoarse voice, to speak hoarsely; Jamieson. Allied to crope,
which is synonymous. ‘The ropeen of the rauynis gart the crans
crope’ =the croaking of the ravens made the cranes croup; Complaint
of Scotland, ch. vi. ed. Murray, p. 39. All of imitative origin ; as-
sociated with crow, croak, and also with Sc. roup, AS. hropan, to
cry, call aloud; Grein, ii. 108; Icel. hrdpa, to call out; Goth. hrop-
jan, to call out; Du. roepen; (ἃ. rufen, to call.
CROUP (2), the hinder parts of a horse, back of a saddle. (F.—
Teut.) ‘This carter thakketh his hors upon the croupe;’ Chaucer,
C. T.7141 (D 1559).—OF. (and F.) croupe, the crupper, hind part of
a horse; older spellings were crope, crupe. ‘The orig. sense is a
protuberance, as in croupe d'une montagne, etc.’ (Brachet). [Cf. E.
to crop out. }=Icel. kroppr, a hunch or bump on the body; cf. Aryppa,
a hunch, hump. ‘Thus croup is a doublet of Crop, q.v. Der.
croup-ier (see Hatzfeld); also crupper, q.v.
CROW, to make a noise as a cock. (E.) ME. crawen, crowen ;
Wyclif, Lu. xxii. 34. AS. crawan, to crow, pt. t. créow; Lu. xxii.
34, 60. + Du. kraatjen, to crow; hence, to proclaim, publish; ἃ.
krahen, to crow; both weak verbs. Cf. OSlav. grajati, Lith. groti,
to crow. All of imitative origin. See Max Miiller’s Lectures, 8th
ed. i. 416. Der. crow, a croaking bird, from AS. crawe, which see
in Ps. cxlvi. 10, ed. Spelman; and cf. OSax. kraia, Du. kraai, G.
krahe, a crow; also crow-bar, a bar with a strong beak like a crow’s;
also crow-foot, a flower, called crow-toe in Milton, Lycidas, 143.
CROWD (1), to push, press, squeeze. (E.) ME. crouden, to push,
Chaucer, C. T. 4716 (B 296). AS. *criidan, to crowd, press, push,
pt. t. créad, pp. croden. Grein, i. 168. Ct. AS. croda, gecrod, a
crowd, throng, id. 169. Also prov. E. (Norfolk) crowd, to push
along in a wheelbarrow. + MDu. kruyden, Du. krutjen, to push aleng
in a wheelbarrow, to drive. 4] The form of the infin. was * criidan,
not * créodan (as in Grein) ; cf. MDu. éruyden, with vy=AS. au. The
3 Ῥ. pres. sing. crydef and the pt. t. créad occur. Der. crowd, sb.
CROWD (2), a fiddle, violin. (W.) Obsolete. ‘The pipe, the
‘tabor, and the trembling croud;* Spencer, Epithalamion, 131. ME.
crowde, Wyclif, Luke, xv. 25, where the Vulgate has chorum; also
spelt crouth, King of Tars, 485.—W. crwth, anything swelling out,
a bulge, trunk, belly, crowd, violin, fiddle (Spurrell). + Gael. eruit,
a harp, violin, cymbal; Olrish croft, a harp; Celtic type * krot-ta ;
whence Late L. chrotta. See Macbain; and Rhys, Lect. on W. Phi-
lology, p. 114. Doublet, rofe; see Rote (2).
CROWN, a garland, diadem. (F.—L.—Gk.). ME. corone, co-
roune ; also in the contracted form crune, croun, by loss of the former
o. The contracted form is common at a very early period ; crune
occurs in Layamon, i. 181; Havelok, 1814.—AF. coroune, Liber
Cust., p. 217; OF. corone (F. couronne), a crown.=L. coréna, a gar-
land, wreath.<Gk. κορώνη, the curved end of a bow; κορωνίς, a
wreath, garland; cf. κορωνός, curved, bent. Allied to Gk. κυρτύ;,
bent, L. curuus; also to Gael. cruinn, round, circular; W. crwn,
round, circular. See Curve. Der. corolla, corollary, coron-al, coron-
-er, coron-et, all from L. corona. See these words. Also crown, vb.
CRUCIAL, in the manner of a cross; testing, as if by the cross.
(F.—L.) ‘Crucial incision, the cutting or lancing of an imposthume
or swelling crosswise; ’ Phillips (1706). - F. crucial,‘cross-wise, c1oss-
like ;’ Cot. Formed (as if from a L. * crucialis) from cruct-, declen-
sional stem of crux, a cross. See Cross.
CRUCIBLE, a melting-pot. (Late L.) Spelt crustble in
Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. ii. c. 1; and Cotgrave translates
Ἐς creuset by ‘crucible.’—Late L. crucibulum, cructbolus, a hanging
lamp, also, a melting-pot, Ducange; and see the Theatram Chemi-
cum. Diefenbach’s Supplement to Ducange gives: ‘Cructbolus, kruse,
kruselin, krug, becher.’ The suffix -bu/um, -bolus answers to L. -bulum
in thiri-bulum, a censer. B, The prefix eruci- points to the fact
that the word was connected with L. crux (gen. cructs), a cross; and
the original application was doubtless to a lamp with four nozzles,
pointing four ways like the arms of a cross. I possess such a Jamp,
bought in Italy, and the pattern is common. In the N.E.D., it 15
explained as ‘a lamp with crossed wicks, giving four flames;’ but
the wicks do not exactly cross. They point outwards from a common
centre, and each flame is at the end of an arm.
CRUCIFY, to fix on the cross. (F.—L.) ME. crucifien,
Wyclif, Mark, xv. 13. —OF. crucifier, ‘to crucifie, to nail or put to
death on a cross;’ Cot. L. *crucificare, for crucifigere, to fix on a
cross ; pp. crucifixus,— L. cruci-, declensional stem of crux, a cross;
and figere, to fix. See Cross and Fix. Der. crucifix, which occurs
early, in the Ancren Riwle, p. 16; crucifix-ion, allied to the L. pp.
cructfixus. From L. cruct- are also formed cruct-ferous, cross-bearing,
from the L. ferre, to bear; and cruci-form.
CRUSE
CRUDEH, raw, unripe. (L.) The words crude and cruditie occur
in Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth; bk. ii. ς. 28; bk. iv. c. 1. Chaucer
has crude, C. T. 16240 (G 772).—L. cridus, raw ; connected with
E. raw. See Raw. Der. crude-ly, -ness; crud-i-ty; and see cruel,
crust, crys/al,
CRUEL, severe, hard-hearted. (F.—L.) ME. cruel, Rob. of
Gloue. p. 417, 1. 8615. — OF. cruel, harsh, severe. — L. crudélis, severe,
hard-hearted. Fromthe same root as crude. Der. cruel-ly; cruel-ty,
from OF. cruelte (Ἐς cruauté), from L, acc. crudélitatem.
CRUBET, a small pot or jar. (F.—Teut.) ME. crnet ; ‘ waischingis
of cuppis and cruetis ;’ Wyclif, Mark, vii. 4. And see Prompt. Parv.,
p- 105, and note; Catholicon Anglicum, p. 84, note 4.—AF. cruet,
Royal Wills, p. 26 (1360) ; dimin. of OF. crue, cruie, an earthen pot
(Godefroy).—Low L. kriga, a pitcher. - ΟἿ. kruog, G. krug, a
pitcher. Cf. Du. Aruik, a pitcher, a jug.
CRUISE, to traverse the sea. (Du.—L.) ‘A cruise to Manilla ;’
Dampier’s Voyages, an. 1686.—Du. kruisen, to cross, crucify; also,
to cruise, lit. to traverse backwards and forwards. — Du. kruis, a cross.
—L. crucem, acc. of crux, a cross, with lengthening of π᾿ Thus
cruise merely means to cross, to traverse. See Cross. Der. cruis-er.
CRUMB, a small morsel. (E.) The final ὃ is excrescent. ME.
crume, crome, crumme, cromme. Spelt crume, Ancren Riwle, p. 342.
AS. criima, Matt. xv. 27.4-Du. kruim, crumb, pith; cf. Du. Aruimelen,
to crumble, Aruimel, a small crumb; kruimug, kruimelig, crumby,
or crummy; Dan. krumme, a crumb; G. krume, a crumb; cf. G.
hkriimelig, crumbling; kriimeln, to crumble. B. The in criima was
long; cf. prov. E. croom, a crumb, and Du. Aruim. Hence prov. E.
cream, creem, to press, represents OE. *créman=*cryman, formed by
mutation. Der. crumm-y or crumb-y, adj.; crumb-le, verb, cognate
with Du. kruimelen, G. krimeln.
CRUMPET, a kind of bread-cake. (E.) In Todd’s Johnson.
Wyclif has ‘crompid cake,’ to render L. laganum (Exod. xxix. 23); cf.
prov. Εἰ. crumpy cake, crisp cake. For crump-ed, pp. of ME. crumpen,
to curl up; whence E. crumple (below). Cf. G. krtimpen, krumpen,
to crumple, to curl up; krumm, crooked, curved; also AS. crompeht,
wrinkled. @ Orig. a thin (curled up) cake, cooked on a griddle.
CRUMPLE, to wrinkle, rumple. (E.) ME. cromplen. ‘My
skinne is withered, and crompled together ;’ Bible, 1551, Job, vii. 5.
‘ Crompled togyther ;’ Palsgrave, p. 309; with om for um. B. Crum-
ple is allied to cramp; from the weak grade of the strong verb
krimpen (in EFriesic), pp. Arump-en. It signifies ‘to cramp fre-
quently,’ ‘to pinch often;’ hence, to pinch or squeeze into many
folds or plaits. Cf. AS. crump, crooked; O. E. Texts, p. 81, ]. 1411.
See Cramp, Crimp.
CRUNCH, to chew with violence, grind with violence and noise.
(E.) Rare in books. Swift has craunch. ‘She would craunch the
wing of a lark, bones and all, between her teeth ;’ Voyage to Brob-
dingnag, ch. 3. An imitative word, and allied to scrunch. Cf.
prov. E. crinch, cranch, to crunch ; also Du. schransen, to eat heartily.
q A similar imitative word is ‘ Crunk, to cry like a crane ;’ Kersey’s
Dict. ed. 1715. This is the Icel. Arinka, to cry like a raven, to croak.
CRUPPER, the h nder part ofa horse. (F.—Teut.) ME. croper,
King Alisaunder, 1. 3421. Spelt crouper in Spenser, F. Q. iv. 4. 40.
— AF. cropere, OF. cropiere (Supp. to Godefroy) ; MF. croupiere, as in
“croupiere de cheval, a horse-crupper ;’ Cot.—OF. crope (Supp. to
Godefroy) ; Εἰ, croupe, the croup of a horse. See Croup (2).
CRURAL, belonging to the leg. (L.) ‘Crural, belonging to
the leggs, knees, or thighs;” Blount’s Glossographia, ed. 1674. —
L. criiralis, belonging to the shin or leg. - L. crur-, decl. stem of cris,
the shin, shank.
CRUSADBH, an expedition for sake of the cross. (F.—Span.
—L.) ‘Baldwine archbishop of Canturburie preached the croisad
there ;’ Harrison, Desc. of England (1577-87), bk. iii. ch. 4 (near
the end). ‘A pope of that name [Urban] did first institute the croi-
sado;’ Bacon, On an Holy War (R.). Spelt croysado in Blount’s
Glossographia, ed. 1674. ‘Crotsado or Crusade;’ Phillips, 1706.
Hence the word is due to a blending of OF. croisee, a crusade
(Roquefort) with the Proy. crozada and Span. cruzada.—F¥. croisade,
‘an expedition of Christians . . . because every one of them wears
the badge of the cross ;’ Cot.—Span. cruzada (with « changed to
oi); Late L. eruciata, a marking with the cross; orig. f. pp. of
cruciare, to cross. L. cruci-, decl. stem of crux, a cross. See Cross.
Der. crusad-er.
CRUSE, a small cup or pot. (Scand. or E.) See 1 Kings, xiv. 3;
2 Kings, ii. 20. ME. cruse, crowse, crouse. ‘Crowse, or cruse, potte,
amula;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 105. ‘A cruse of this [honey] now putte
in a wyne-stene;’ Palladius on Husbandry, x1. 51. Spelt cruce, id.
xi. 348.—Icel. kris, a pot, tankard; Swed. Arus,a mug; Dan. kruus,
a jug, mug. β. Or the word may be English; cf. NFries. kréss,
EFries. dros; also Du. Aroes, a cup, pot, crucible; ΜΗ. srise, an
earthen mug, ἃ. krause.
CRUSH
CRUSH, to break in pieces, overwhelm. (F.—Teut.) ¢ Cruschyn
or quaschyn, quasso;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 106.—<OF. cruisir, croissir,
to crack, break. (Span. crujir, Ital. crosciare). From a Teut. type
*kraustjan, causal form from *kreustan-, Goth. kriustan, to gnash with
the teeth. Cf. Swed. krysta, to squeeze; Dan. kryste, to squeeze,
press ; Icel. kretsta, kreysta, to squeeze, pinch, press ; also Swed. krossa,
to crush. B. See Goth. kriustan, to gnash with the teeth, grind the
teeth, Mk. ix. 18; whence Goth. srusts, gnashing of teeth, Matt. viii.12.
CRUST, the rind of bread, or coating of a pie. (F.—L.) ME.
crust, Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 204; Prompt. Parv. p. 106.—OF.
crouste; in (οἵ. L. crusta, crust of bread. Cf. Irish cruaidh, hard ;
Gk. κρύος, frost. See Crystal. Der. crust, verb; crust-y [perhaps
a perversion of cwrst, ill-tempered, which occurs as early as in Cursor
Mundi, 1. 19201] Beaum. and Fletcher, Bloody Brother, iii. 2. 23;
crust-t-ly, -i-ness; -at-ed, -at-ion; also crust-acea, formed with L.
suffix -G@eus, neuter plural -acea.
CRUTCH, a staff with a cross-piece. (E.) ME. crucche;
Layamon’s Brut, ii. 394. AS. crycc, a crutch, staff, in the AS. tr. of
Beda, iv. 31.4 Du. kruk, a crutch ; Swed. krycka, Dan. krykke, a
crutch; G. kriicke, a crutch. B. The base is *kruk, weak grade of
*kreuk (meaning unknown); perhaps allied to G. kriechen, OHG.
kriochan, to creep, creep about; cf. cripple.
CRY, to call aloud, lament, bawl. (F.—L.) ME. crien, cryen;
Rob. of Glouc. p. 401, 1. 8282. The sb. cri is in Havelok, 1. 270,
and in Layamon, ii. 75.—OF. crier, to cry; of which fuller forms
occur in Ital. gridare, Span. gritar, and Port. gritar.=—L. quiritare,
to shriek, cry, lament; see Brachet. Lit. ‘to implore the help of the
Quirites’ or Roman citizens (Varro). Der. cry, sb., cri-er.
CRYPT, an underground cell or chapel. (L.—Gk.) ‘Caves under
the ground, called crypte ;’ Homilies, Against Idolatry, pt. iii. See
Crypte in Phillips (1706).—L. crypta, a cave underground, crypt.
—Gk. κρύπτη, or κρυπτή, a vault, crypt; orig. fem. nom. of κρυπτός,
adj. hidden, covered, concealed. Gk. κρύπτειν, to hide, conceal.
Doublet, gro’.
CRY PTOGAMTIA, a class of flowers in which fructification is
concealed. (Gk.) A Linnzan name (1735). Made up from Gk.
κρυπτο-, for κρυπτός, hidden, and γαμ-εῖν, to marry. See Crypt and
Bigamy. Der. cryptogam-ic, -ous; cf. apo-cryph-al.
CRYSTAL, clear glass, a kind of transparent mineral. (F.—L. —
Gk.) _ In its moder form, it is Latinised; but it was first introduced
into English from the French. We find ME. cristal, Floriz and
Blancheflur, ed. Lumby, 274.—OF. cristal, crystal.—L. crystallum,
crystal; Ps. 147. 6 (Vulgate). Gk. κρύσταλλος, clear ice, ice, rock-
crystal. Gk. κρυσταίνειν, to freeze. — Gk. κρύος, frost. Der. crystall-
ine, -ise, -is-at-ion ; also crystallo-graphy, from Gk. γράφειν, to describe.
CUB, a whe!p, young animal. (Scand.?) In Shak. Merch. of Ven.
li. I. 29. Palsgrave has ‘ Cubbe, a yong foxe.’ Of uncertain origin;
but prob. Scand. The Shetland coob, to bring forth young, is applied
to the seal only; from Icel. kobbi, a young seal, Dan. kobbe. The
Dan. kubbe means a block, stump, short log; so also Swed. kubb.
The sense of ‘lump’ seems common to both words. Rietz (p. 361,
col. 1) gives Swed. kibb, kubbe, kobbe, as playful names for a calf.
CUBE, a solid figure contained by six equal squares, a die. (F.—
L.—Gk.) In Milton, P.L. vi. 552. The word occurs in Cotgrave,
who gives the F. cube, with the explanation ‘a cube, or figure in
geometry, foursquare like a die.’—L. acc. cubum, a cube, die. —Gk.
xvBos,a cube. Der. cube, verb; cub-ic, -ic-al, -ic-al-ly, -at-ure, cubi-
form; cuboid, from Gk. κυβοειδής, resembling a cube, which from
κύβο-, for κύβος, and εἶδ-ος, form, figure.
CUBES, the spicy berry of a tropical plant. (F.—Span.— Arab.)
Spelt quybybes, pl., in Mandeville, Trav. c. 5, p. 50; the Lat. text has
eubeba. Spelt cububes, pl., in Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. iii. c. 12.
Mentioned, under the Anglo-French form cubibes, pl., in the Liber
Albus, p. 230.—MF. cubebe, pl. cubebes, ‘cubebs, an aromaticall and
Indian fruit;” Cot.—Span. cubeba, fem. sing.— Arab. kababa(s), pl.
kababah, cubeb, an aromatic; Rich. Dict. p- 1166. See also Devic,
Supp. to Littré.
CUBIT, an old measure of length. (L.) ME. cubite, Wyclif,
Matt. vi.27.—L. cubitus, Matt. vi. 27 ; meaning lit. a bend, an elbow;
hence, the length from the elbow to the middle finger’s end. Cf. L.
cubare, to recline, lie down; see Covey.
CUCKOLD, a man whose wife is unfaithful. (F.—L.) ME.
kokewold, kukwald, kukeweld, cokold. Spelt cokewold, Chaucer, C. T.
3154 (A 3152); P. Plowman, B.v.159. ‘ Hic zelotopus, a kukwald,’
Wright’s Vocab. i. 217. Spelt kukeweld, Owl and Nightingale, 1542.
B. The word seems to have been modified at the end by confusion
with the ME. suffix -wold occurring in an-wold, power, dominion.
Cf. cokolde in the Coventry Mysteries, p. 120.—OF. cucualt, coucual, |
a cuckold (Godefroy).—OF. cucu, F. coucou, a cuckoo; with the
seieelatory suffix -ault, -al (from G. -wald) ; see Diez, Gram. ii. 346. |
e F. coucow also had the secondary sense of cuckold.
{The | man, B. vi. 62.
CUFF 147
allusions to the comparison between a cuckold and a cuckoo are end-
less; see Shak. L.L. L. v. 2. 920.]—L. cuculum, acc. of cuculus, a
cuckoo. See Cuckoo.
CUCKOO, a bird which cries cuckoo. (F.—L.) ME. coccou,
cukkow, &c. ‘ Hic cuculus, a cocow, cucko;’ Voc. 640. 32, 762. 33.
-OF,. cucu, F. coucou.<L. cuculum, acc. of cuculus, a cuckoo. + Gk.
κόκκυξ, a cuckoo, κόκκυ, the cry of a cuckoo; Skt. kokila-, a cuckoo.
All imitative words, from the sound kwku made by the bird; indeed,
the OF, cucu need not be referred to the L. form, as it is itself imitative.
See Cock, Cockatoo. Der. cuckold, q.v.
CUCUMBER, acreeping plant with ediblefruit. (L.) ME. cucumer,
later cucumber, with excrescent or inserted 6, Spelt cucumer, Wyclit,
Baruch, vi. 69. — L. cucumerem, acc. of cucumis,a cucumber. β. Per-
haps so called because ripened by heat; cf. L. cucuma, a cooking-
kettle, from L. coguere, to cook, bake, ripen. See Cook.
CUD, food chewed by ruminants. (E.) ME. cude, Crmulum, 1237.
In Wyclif, Deut. xiv. 6, where the text has code, three MSS. have
quide, which is a mere variant of the same word. See Quid. AS.
cudu, for cwudu, later form of cwidu; see AS. Leechdoms, vol. ii.
pp- 54, 56, 66, where hwit cwudu means ‘mastic;’ called hwit cwidu
(gen. cwidwes) at p. 182; hwit cudu, id. iii. 72. Teut. type *kwedwom,
neuter. Cf. Skt. jatu-, resin; Icel. kwada, resin. Orig. sense
‘ glutinous substance.’
CUDBEAR, a purple or violet powder, used for dyeing. (E.)
First in 1771. ‘A name devised, from his own Christian name, by
Dr. Cuthbert Gordon, who obtained a patent for this powder;’
N.E.D. From AS. Cafbeorht; compounded of cud, well known,
and beorht, bright.
CUDDLE, to embrace closely, fondle. (E.) Rare in books. R.
quotes: ‘They cuddled close all night;’ Somervile, Fab. 11. 1. 9.
‘Cudlyng of my cowe;’ Burlesque Song, in Reliq. Antique, i. 239.
Probably a corruption of *couth-le, to be frequently familiar, a
frequentative verb formed with the suffix -/e from the ME. couth,
well known, familiar; whence also prov. E. cootle, to fondle. We
find kud for cud in Will. of Palerne, ed. Skeat, Il. 51, 114, 501, ἄς.
See numerous examples of couth, familiar, loving, in Jamieson’s
Scottish Dict. This adj. couth was originally a pp. signifying known,
well-known. = AS. cad, known, familiar; used as pp. of cunnan, to
know; cf. Icel. Audr, another form of kunnr, familiar; Goth. kunths,
known, pp. of kuxnan, to know. Compare further AS. cadleécan, to
be friendly ; AElfric’s Saints’ Lives, xxv. 644.
CUDGEL, a thick stick. (E.) In Shak. Merry Wives, ii. 2. 292.
ME. huggel ; Ancren Riwle, p. 292. AS. cycgel, a cudgel; in
Gregory's Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, c. 40, p. 297. Perhaps a
‘knobbed’ stick; and allied to Cog.
CUDWEED, a plant of the genus Guaphalium. (E.) ‘Cotton-
weed or Cudweed, a sort of herb;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715. ‘ Cud-
weed, the cotton-weed ;’ Halliwell. Turner, in his Names of Herbes
(1548) explains Centunculus by chafweede, ‘in Yorkeshyre cudweede.’
‘The common name for the genus Gnaphalium ; [so named from] the
plant being administered to cattle that had lost their cud;’ N.E.D.
from Cud and Weed.
CUE (1), a tail, a billiard-rod. (F.—L.) The same word as queue,
q:v. [An actor’s cue is a different word; see below.] Ash’s Dict.
(1775) has ‘ Cue, the tail of a wig.’—OF. cue (Supp. to Godefroy),
coe (Roquefort) ; mod. F. queue, a tail. —L. coda, cauda, a tail. See
Caudal. @ The F. queue also means a handle, stalk, billiard-cue.
See Hatzfeld.
CUE (2), a direction for an actor’s appearance. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Merry Wives, iii. 3. 39. Sometimes written g or gv in the 16th century,
and said to stand for quando, when. This is the more probable
because cue or g was previously in use to denote the sum of half a
farthing in college accounts, and signified guadrans, ‘Cue, half a
farthing;” Minsheu (1627). ‘ Cu, Cue, halfe a farthynge;’ Prompt.
Parv.; see Way's note. The sound of cue denotes the Anglicised
pronunciation of the French name of the Latin letter. Hence also
cue, an actor’s part, and the phrase ‘a merry cue.’
CUFF (1), to strike with the open hand. (Scand.) Taming of the
Shrew, ii. 221. ‘I cuffe one;’ Palsgrave, p. 502.—Swed. kuffa, to
thrust, push. Thre translates it by ‘ verberibus insultare,’ and says it
is the E. cuff; adding that it is the frequentative (!) of the Swed. ku/va,
MSwed. kufwa, to subdue, suppress, cow ; see Cow (2); but this is
improbable. Berghaus has kuffen, to hit, cuff, and it is found also in
Hamburgh and in Pomeranian (Richey, Dahnert) ; cf. Norw. kuffa,
to cuff (Ross). De Bo gives WFlem. koove, hoffe, (1) a coif, (2) a box
on the ear; which seems to connect it with cuff (2). Der. cuff, sb.
CUFF (2), part of the sleeve. (L.?) Formerly it meant a glove
or mitten; now used chiefly of the part of the sleeve which covers
the hand but partially. ME. cuffe, coffe. ‘ Cuffe, glove or meteyne,
or mitten, mitta;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 106. The pl. coffes is in P. Plow-
The later use occurs in: ‘ Cuffe over ones hande,
Ι, 2
148 CUIRASS
poignet ;’? Palsgrave. B. Origin uncertain; bnt probably the same
word as cuffie, which occurs in the pl. cufian, in Kemble’s ed. of the
A.S. Charters, no. 1290, vol. vi. 133, 1. 20, where Leo supposes it to
signify ‘a covering for the head;’ whence, perhaps, a covering for the
hand. Cf. OHG. chuppha, MHG. hupfe, kuppe, kuffe, a coif. See
Coif, and Cuff (1).
CUIRASS, a kind of breast-plate. (F.—Ital.—L.) Orig. made
of leather, whence the name. In Milton, Samson, 132. Also in
Chapman’s tr. of the Iliad, bk. vil. 1. 221.— MF. cutrace, cuirasse (now
cuirasse), a cuirats (sic), armour for the breast and back ;’ Cot.
{Introduced from Ital. in the 16th century (Brachet).] = Ital. corazza,
a cuirass; Late L. cordtia, coriicium, a cuirass, breast-plate. Formed
as if from. an adj. *cordcius, for coriaceus, leathern.—L. corium, hide,
leather; whence F. cuir. Der. cuirass-ier.
CUISSES, pl., armour for the thighs. (F.—L.) In Shak. 1 Hen.
IV, iv. 1. 105. ME. quyssewes, Gawain and Grene Knight, 578.—
OF. cuissaux, ‘cuisses, armour for the thighs ;’ Cotgrave. =F. cuisse,
the thigh. —L. coxa, the hip; see Brachet. Brugmann, i. ὃ 609.
CULDEE, one of an old Celtic monkish fraternity. (C.) ‘The
pure Culdees Were Albyn’s earliest priests of God ;’ Campbell, Reul-
lura, 1. 5. The note on the line says: ‘ The Culdees were the primi-
tive clergy of Scotland, and apparently her only clergy from the 6th
to the 11th century. They were of Irish origin, and their monastery
on the island of Iona, or Icolmkill, was the seminary of Christianity
in North Britain.’ Olrish céle dé, Irish cetlede, a servant of God, a
Culdee. From Olrish cele, Ir. cetle,a spouse, also a servant; and dé,
gen. of dia, God. See Rhys, Lect. on W. Philology, p. 412. Cf.
Late L. Culdei, Colidei, Culdees; misspelt colidet as if from L. colere
Deum, to worship God.
CULINARY, pertaining to the kitchen. (L.) ‘Our culinary fire;’
Boyle’s Works, i. §23.—L. culindrius, belonging to a kitchen. = L.
culina, a kitchen; cf. coguina, a kitchen, with similar suffix. Culina
is for *coc-slina, from coquere, to cook; Giles, § 188.
CULL, to collect, gather. (F.—L.) ME. cullen. ‘Cullyn owte,
segrego, lego, separo;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 107.—OF. coillir, cuillir,
cuetllir, to cull, collect.—L. colligere, to collect. See Collect, of
which cull is a doublet.
CULLENDER, a strainer; see Colander.
CULLION, a mean wretch. (F.—L.) In Shak. Tam. Shrew, iv.
2.20. A coarse word.=—F. couillon, couille, Cotgrave; cf. Ital. cog-
lione, coglioni, coglionare; Florio.—L. cdleus, From a like source
(perhaps) is cully, a dupe, or to deceive.
CULLIS (1), a strong broth, boiled and strained. (F.—L.) ME.
colis, Liber Cure Cocorum, p. 20.—OF. coleis, coulets, later coulis,
“a cullis,’ Cot. ; substantival use of colets, later coulis, adj. ‘ gliding,’
Cot. =—L. type *cdlatictus ; from célare, to strain; see Colander.
CULLIS (2), in port-cullis, (F.—L.) The fem. form of the pre-
ceding; see Portcullis.
CULM, a stalk, stem. (L.) Botanical. ‘Culmus, the stem or stalk
of corn or grass;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715.—L. culmus, a stalk; cf.
calamus, a stalk, stem, cognate with E. haulm. See Haulm. Der.
culmi-ferous, stalk-bearing; from L. ferre, to. bear.
CULMINATE, to come to the highest point. (L.) See Milton,
P. Lili. 617. — Late L. culminit-us, pp. of Late L. culminare (Ducange),
to come to the top.—L. culmin-, decl. stem of culmen, the highest
point of a thing; of which an older form is columen, a top, summit.
See Column. Der. culminat-ion.
CULPABLE, deserving of blame. (F.—L.) ME. culpable, cout-
pable, coupable. Spelt culpable, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 302.
Spelt coupable, P. Plowman, B. xvii. 300.— OF. culpable, colpable, F.
coupable, culpable. = L. culpabilis, blameworthy. = L. culpare,to blame;
with suffix -bilis.—L. culpa, a fault, failure, mistake, error. Der.
culpabl-y ; culpabil-i-ty, from L. culpabilis; and see culprit.
CULPRIT, acriminal. (F.—L.) ‘Then first the cu/pri¢ answered
to his name;’ Dryden, Wife of Bath’s Tale, 273. Not orig. a single
word, but due to a fusion of AF. cul- (for culpable, i.e. guilty), and
AF. prist or prest (i.e. ready to prove it), signifying that the clerk of
the crown was ready to prove the indictment (N.E.D.).
CULTER, a plough-iron ; see Coulter.
CULTIVATE, to till, improve, civilise. (L.) ‘To cultivate...
that friendship ;’ Milton, To the Grand Duke of Tuscany (R.). It
occurs also in Blount’s Glossographia, ed. 1656. — Late L. cultzvddus,
pp. of cultivare, to till, work at, used a. bp. 1446; Ducange. [Hence
also EF. cultiver, Span. cultivar, Ital. coltivare.}—Late L. cultivus,
cultivated ; Ducange. Allied to L. cultus, tilled, pp. of colere, to till.
Brugmann, i. 8. 121. See Culture. Der. cultivat-ion, -or.
CULTURE, cultivation. (F.—L.) ‘The culture and profit of
their myndes;’ Sir Τὶ More, Works, p.14 4. ME. culture, Palladius
on Husbandry, bk. 1. 1. 21. =F. cadture, ‘culture, tillage, husbandry ;’
(οἵ. “Τὶ cultira, cultivation ; allied to cultus, pp. of colere, to till.
Der. culture, verb.
CUPBOARD
CULVER (1), a dove. (E.) Used by Spenser, F. Q. ii. 7. 34;
Tears of the Muses, 246. Preserved in the name of the Culver Cliffs,
near Sandown, Isle of Wight. Chaucer has colver, Leg. of Good Women,
Philom.g2. AS.cul/re, translating L.columba, Mark,i.10. B. Thought
to be an E. word, notwithstanding its superficial resemblance to L.
columba. Der. culver-tail, an old word for dove-tail; see Blount’s
Glossographia, ed. 1674.
CULVER (2), another form of Culverin; see below.
CULVERIN, a sort of cannon. (F.+L.) In Shak. τ Hen. IV,
ii. 3.56. Palsgrave has ‘Culveryng, gonne, culuerine.’ A corrupt form
for *culevrin, — OF, coulevrine (Hatzfeld), MF. coulewvrine, ‘a culverin,
the piece of ordnance called so;’ Cot. Fem. form of OF. coulevrin,
‘adder-like;’ id. =O coulewvre,an adder; id.—L. colubra, fem. form
of coluber, a serpent, adder ; whence the adj. colubrinus, snake-like,
cunning, wily. @ It appears that this cannon was so called from its
long, thin shape; some were similarly called serpertina ; see Junius,
quoted in Richardson. Other pieces of ordnance were called falcons.
CULVERT, an arched drain under a road. (Du.?) Not in John-
son, First used ab. 1770. Origin unknown. We might expect it to
be Dutch, in connexion with making of canals, &c. But no such word
is known in Dutch; though we might imagine a Du. *cozl-vaart, to
express the sense, viz. from Du. coul-, as in coul-age, leakage, coul-ant,
flowing (Calisch), and Du. vaart, a channel, canal, water-course, from
varen, to go; see Fare. B. The Du. coul- is borrowed from F.;
cf. MF. coulouére, ‘a channel, gutter,’ &c.; Cot.—F. couler, to flow,
trickle. —L. cdlare, to filter. —L. célum, a strainer. See Colander.
CUMBER, to encumber, hinder. (F.—Late L.) ME. combren,
Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, bk. iii. met. 10. 1. 6; Piers Plowman’s
Crede, 461, 763. The sb. comburment occurs in K. Alisaunder, ed.
Weber, 472. — OF. combrer, to hinder; cf. mod. F. enxcombre, an im-
pediment. — Late L. cumbrus, a heap, ‘found in several Merovingian
documents, e.g. in the Gesta Regum Francorum, c. 25 ;’ Brachet.
Ducange gives the pl. combr?, impediments. Of doubtful origin; some
refer it to G. kummer, grief, oppression, prov. G. kummer, rubbish.
Others, to L. cumulus, a heap, by change of / to r, not uncommon ;
with inserted ὃ. See Cumulate. Der. cumbr-ous (i.e. cumber-ous) ,
-ly, -ness; also cumber-some, by adding the E. suffix -some.
CUMIN, CUMMIN, the name of a plant. (L.—Gk.— Heb.)
ME. comin, King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 6797; also cummin, Wyclif,
St. Matt. xxiii. 22. In the AS. translation we find the forms cymyz,
cymen, and cumin, in the MSS. ‘There is an OF. form comin; see
Bartsch, Chrest. Franc. col. 275, 1. 29. Cotgrave has: ‘ Commin,
cummin.’ Both OF. and AS. forms are from the L. cuminum or
cyminum in Matt. xxiii. 23.—Gk. κύμινον. -π Heb. kammon, cummin.
Cf. Arab. kammiin, cummin-seed ; Rich. Dict. 1206, 1207.
CUMMERBUND, a waist-band, sash. (Hind. — Pers.) See ex-
amples in Yule.— Hind. kamar-band, a girdle, piece of cloth round
the loins. — Pers. kamar, the waist, the loins; and band, a band.
CUMULATE, to heap together. (L.) ‘All the extremes of worth
and beauty that were cumulated in Camilla;’ Shelton’s Don Quixote,
c. 33. The adj. cumulative is in Bacon, On Learning, by G. Wats,
Ὁ. lil. c. 1.—L. cumulatus, pp. of cumulare, to heap up. = L. cumulus,
aheap. Der. cumulat-ive, -ton ; also ac-cumulate, q.v.
CUNEATE, wedge-shaped. (L.) Modern; botanical. Formed
with suffix -ate, corresponding to L. -@tus, from L. cune-us, a wedge.
See Coin. Der. From the same source is cunei-form, i.e. wedge-
shaped: a modern word.
CUNNING (1), skilful, knowing. (E.) ME. cunning, conning;
Northern form cunnand, from Icel. kunnandi, pres. pt. of kunna, to
know. Spelt kunnynge, P. Plowman, B. xi. 7o. Really the pres. pt.
of ME. cunnen, to know, in very common use; Ancren Kiwle, p. 28o.
= AS. cunnan, to know. See Can (1). Der. cunning-ly.
CUNNING (2), knowledge, skill. (Scand.) ME. cunninge,
Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, iii. 966. Suggested by Icel. kunnandi,
knowledge, which is derived from kunna, to know, cognate with
AS. cunnan, to know; see Grein, i. 171. @ The AS. cunnung sig-
nifies temptation, trial. See Can (1).
CUP, a drinking-vessel. (L.) ME. cuppe, Gen. and Exodus, ed.
Morris, 2310. AS. cuppe,a cup. ‘Caupus, vel obba, cuppe;’ AElfric’s
Gloss. ed. Somner; Nomina Vasorum. [Cf, Du. and Dan. kop, Swed.
kopp, F. coupe, Span. copa, Ital. coppa, a cup; all alike borrowed from
Latin. ]=Late L. cuppa, a cup; variant of L. capa, a vat, butt, cask ;
in later times, a drinking-vessel; see Ducange. + Gk. κύπελλον, ἃ cup,
goblet; cf. «vm, a hole, hollow; also Skt. Aupa-, a pit, well, hollow.
Brugmann, i. §930 (4). Der. cup, verb; cup-board, q.v.; cupping-glass,
Beaum. and Fletcher, Bloody Brother, iv. 2. See Coop.
CUPBOARD, a closet with shelves for cups. (Hybrid; L. and
E.) ME. cup-borde, orig. a table for holding cups. ‘And couered
mony a cxpborde with clothes. ful quite ;’ Allit. Poems, ed. Morris,
ii. 1440; see the whole passage. And cf. Morte Arthure, ed. Brock,
206. Formed from cup and ME, bord, a table, esp.a table for meals
CUPEL
and various vessels. See Cup and Board. @ The sense of the
word has somewhat changed; it is possible that some may have
taken it to mean cup-hoard, a place for keeping cups; but there was
no such word, and such is πού the true etymology.
CUPEL, a small, shallow, porous, cup-like vessel used in refining
metals. (L..) Spelt coppell in Cotgrave, s. v. coupelle.— Late L. cii-
pella, dimin. of cuipa,a cask. See Cupola. Der. cupell-ate, cupell-
at-ion,
CUPID, the god of Jove. (L.) In Shak. Merry Wives, il. 2. 141.
—L. nom. enpido, desire, passion, Cupid.—L. cupere, to desire. Cf.
Skt. kup, to become excited. See Covet. Der. cupid-i-ty, q.v.
And, from the same root, con-cup-isc-ence.
CUPIDITY, avarice, covetousness. (F.—L.) Cupiditie, in
Hall’s Chron. Hen. VII, an. 11. ὃ 8.—F. cupidité, ‘cupidity, lust, covet-
ousness;’ Cotgrave. = L, acc. cupidititem, from nom. cupiditas, desire,
covetousness. = L. cupidus, desirous. — L. cupere, to desire. See above.
CUPOLA, a sort of dome. (Ital.—L.) ‘The ruined Cupola ;’
Sandys’ Travels (1632), p. 264. ‘Cupola, or Cuppola,. . an high
tower arched, having but little light ;’ Gazophylacium Anglicanum,
ed. 1689. Spelt cupolo in Blount, Glossographia, edd. 1674, 1031 ;
cupola in Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715.—Ital. cupola, a cupola, dome. = L.
ciipula, a small cask, a little vault; dimin. of capa,a cask, vat. See
Cup.
CUPREOUS, coppery, like copper. (L.) ‘ Cupreous, of or be-
longing to copper ;’ Blount, Glossographia, ed. 1674.—L. eupre-us, of
copper; with suffix -ous.—L. cuprum, copper. See Copper.
CUR, a small dog. (E.) ME. hur, curre. In early use. ‘The
fule kur dogge,’ i.e. the foul cur-dog, Ancren Riwle, p. 290. Cf.
Piers Plowman’s Crede, ed. Skeat, 644. Ὁ MDu. korre, a house-dog,
watch-dog, Oudemans; Swed. dial. kurre. B. So named from his
growling ; cf. Icel. kuvra, to murmur, grumble ; Dan. kurre, to coo,
whirr; Swed. kurra, to rumble, to croak ; Low (ὦ. kurren, to snarl
(Liibben) ; MDu. korrepot, a grumbler (Oudemans), equivalent to
Du. knorrepot, a grumbler, from Du. kuorren, to grumble, growl,
snarl. The word is imitative, and the letter R is known to be ‘ the
dog’s letter,’ Romeo, ii. 4. 222. Cf. ME. hurren, to make a harsh
noise. ‘Ris the dog's letter, and hurreth in the sound ; ” Ben Jonson,
Eng. Grammar. Der. (perhaps) curmudgeon.
CURACAO, CURACOA, a liqueur. (Span.) So named, ap-
parently, because first made from Curacao oranges. [The usual
spelling, with -oa, is incorrect.]—Span. Curagao, ‘an island off the
coast of Venezuela in South America ;’ Pineda.
CURASSOW, 2 gallinaceous bird, like a turkey. (Span.) In
a tr. of Buffon (1792); ii. 52. A phonetic spelling of Curagao
(above) ; whence it came
CURARI, another spelling of Wourali, q.v.
CURATE, one who has cure of souls. (L.) ME. curat, Chaucer,
Ὁ. T. prol. 219. —Late L. curatus, a priest, curate; cf. Late L. ciiratus,
adj.; ciiraitum bercjictum, a benefice with cure of souls pertaining to
it. Formed as a pp., from the sb. ciira, a cure. See Cure. Der.
curac-y. From the L. pp, curatus we have also curat-ive ; also (froin
cuirare), the sb. cura-tor, a guardian.
CUBB, to check, restrain, lit. to bend. (F.—L.) In Merch. of
Ven. i. 2.26. Curbed=bent. ‘ By crooked and curbed lines ;’ Hol-
land, Plutarch, p. 678. ME. courben, to bend; used also intransi-
tively, to bend oneself, bow down. ‘Yet I courbed on my knees;’
Ῥ. Plowman, B. ii. 1.. Cf. ‘ Hir necke is schort, hir shuldres courbe,’
1.6. bend; Gower, C. A. bk. i. 16£7. Also ME. corbe, sb.; as in ‘a
strong bitte with a corbe;’ Dictes of the Philosophers (1477); fol.
26, back. = OF. (and F.) courber. to bend, crook, bow.=—L. curuare,
to bend. =L. curuus, bent, curved. See Curve. Der. curb, sb.,
curb-stone, kerb-stone.
CURD, the coagulated part of milk. (E.) ME. curd, more often
crud or crod, by the shifting of γ so common in English. ‘A fewe
cruddes and creem;’ P. Plowman, B. vi. 2843; spelt croddes, id. C. ix.
309. From AS. crud-, weak grade of criidan, to crowd, to press
together; whence also prov. E. crowd-y, a kind of oatmeal gruel. +
Trish and Gael. gruth, curds. See Stokes-Fick, p. 119. See Crowd
(τ). Der. curd-y, curd-le,
CURE, care, attention. (F.—L.) ME. cure, Chaucer, C. T. prol.
305; King Alisaunder, 4016.—OF. cure, care. L. cira, care, atten-
tion, cure. Origin uncertain; the OLat. form was coera or coira, for
*koiza; Brugmann, i. 874. @ It is well to remember that cure is
wholly unconnected with E. care; the similarity of sound and sense
is accidental. In actual speech, care and cure are used in different
ways. Der. cure, verb; cur-able; cure-less; also curate, q.V.; curious,
q.v. And, from the same source, ac-cur-ate, q. Vv.
CURFEW, a fire-cover; the time for covering fires; the curfew-
bell. (F.—L.) ME. courfew, curfew, curfu. ‘Aboute corfew-tyme ;’
Chaucer, C. T., A 3645. ‘Curfu, ignitegium;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 110. =
AF. coeverfu, Statutes of the Realm, i. 102 (an. 1285); cue, Liber
CURRICLE 149
Albus, p. 369; OF. covre-feu, later couvre-feu, in which latter form it
is given. by Koquefort, who explains it as a bell rung at a fixed hour
as a signal for putting out fires. The history is well known; see
Curfew in Eng. Cycl., diy. Arts and Sciences. = OF. covrir, later convrir,
to cover; and F. fev, fire, which is from the L. focum, acc. of focus,
hearth, fire. See Cover and Focus, Der. cur/few-bell.
CURIOUS, inquisitive. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. curious, busy ; Romaunt
of the Rose, 1052.—OF. curios, careful, busy.—L. curidsus, careful,
=L. cura, attention. See Cure. Der. curtous-ly, -ness ; curios-i-'y
(ME. curtosité, Gower, C. A. iii. 383, bk. viii. 3114), from Εἰ, curiosité,
Englished ‘curiosity’ by Cotgrave, from L. acc. ciiridsitatem. Bacon
uses curiost/y to mean ‘elaborate work ;’ Essay 46, On Gardens,
CURL, to twist into ringlets; a ringlet. (Scand.) In English,
the verb seems rather formed from the sb. than vice versa. Gascoigne
has: ‘But curle their locks with bodkins and with braids ;’ Epil. to
the Steel Glas, ]. 1142; inSkeat,Spec. of English, Palsgravehas curled,
p- 309. We find another form cru/, due to the shifting of r; cf, cress,
curd. Chaucer has: ‘ With lokkes cradle,’ i.e. with curled or crisped
locks; Prol. $1; from the adj. cru/, curly, Notin AS.; but cf. EFries,
hrulle, krull,krul,acurl. β, The formcurl isof Scand. origin; cf.Norw.
kurle, a curl; Dan, dial. Aurle, a twist in thread; Swed, dial. kurla,
to curl, Du. ἀγπὶ, a curl; Arullen, to curl; MDu. krol, adj. curled ;
krollen, to curl, wrinkle, rumple; Dan. krolle, a curl; krélle, to curl;
Swed, krullig, crisp; Swed. dial. #rudZa, to curl (Rietz) ; Norw. kurle,
krull, a curl (Aasen) ; ἃ. krolle, γ. The orig. sense is clearly to twist,
or bend; it is allied to EFries. krillen, to bend, turn, wind; Low G,
krellen, to turn; NFries, krall, closely twisted; suggesting a Tent.
base *frellan-, to wind, str. vb.; pt. t. *krall, pp. *krullanoz (Franck).
Der. curl-y, -ing.
CURLEW, an aquatic wading bird. (F.) ME. corlew, curlew,
curlu. Spelt corlew, P. Plowman, C. xvi. 243; corlue, id. B. xiv. 43;
curlu, Early E. Psalter, Ps. 104 (105). 38. OF. courlieus, a curlew
(Godefroy); MF. corlieu, ‘a curlue;’ Cot, He also gives the F.
spellings corlis and courlis. Cf. Ital. chiurlo, a curlew; Span. chorlito,
a curlew, evidently a dimin. form from an older *chorlo. B. An imi-
tative word, from the bird’s cry. Cf, Ital. chiurlare, to howl like the
horn-owl, Meadows; also Swed. kurla, to coo (Widegren).
CURMUDGEON, acovetous, stingy fellow. (E, and F.?) Spelt
curmudgeon, Ford, The Lady’s Trial, A. v. sc. 1; curmudgin, Hudibras,
pt. ii. c. 2,1, 497 (Richardson), altered to curmudgeon in Bell’s edition,
i. 220. First found in 1577, spelt eurmudgen, in Stanyhurst’s Descr.
of Ireland (in Holinshed,p.102). [Spelt corne-mudgin (or cornmudgin)
by Holland, to translate the L. frumentarius, a corn-dealer ; see Hol-
land's tr, of Livy, pp. 150, 1104, as cited in Richardson. The latter
passage speaks of fines paid by ‘certain cornmudgins for hourding
up and keeping in their graine.’ This is a forced spelling, and only
tells us that the first syllable is not really a derivative of corn.] The
etymology is wholly unknown, but the form shows that at least the
latter part of the word is of French origin. It has been suggested
that cur- represents E. cur, a dog. Lowland Scotch has murgeon, to
mock, to grumble; also mudgeon, a grimace; see E.D,D, Perhaps
it meant ‘ grumbling cur.’
CURRANT, a Corinth raisin. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. Wint.
Tale, iv. 3. 40. Haydn gives 1533 as the date when currant-trees
were brought to England; but the name was also given to the small
dried grapes brought from the Levant and known in England at an
earlier time. ‘In Liber Cure Cocorum [p. 16] called raysyns of cor-
auns, Ἐς raisins de Corinthe, the small dried grapes of the Greek
islands. Then applied to our own sour fruit of somewhat similar
appearance ; Wedgwood. So also we find ‘ roysonys of coraunce ;”
Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, p. 211, last line. =F. ‘ Ratsins de Corinthe,
currants, or small raisins;’ Cot. Thus currant is a corruption of
Ἐς, Corinthe, Corinth. = L, Corinthus, — Gk. Κόρινθος. (| Referred to in
1390; ‘proj lb. racemorum de corenc, ν) d.;’ Earl of Derby’s Expe-
ditions, Camden Soc., p. 11, l. 22.
CURRENT, running, flowing. (F.—L.) ME. corrant. ‘Lik
to the corrant fire, that renneth Upon a corde, as thou hast sein,
Whan it with poudre is so besein Of sulphre;’ Gower, C. A. iii. 96;
bk. vii. 352. Afterwards altered to current, to look more like Latin.
= OF, curant, pres. pt. of OF, curre (more commonly corre), to run.
“ΙΝ currere, to run. Prob, for *eursere; and allied to horse.
Prugmann, i. §§ 499, 516, See Horse. Der. current, sb.; -ly,
currenc-y ; curricle,q.v.; and from the same source are cursive,
cursory, q.v. From the same root are concur, incur, occur, recur;
corridor, courter ; course, concourse, discourse, intercourse ; excursion,
incursion ; courser, precursor; corsair, &c.
CURRICLE, a short course; a chaise. (L.) ‘Upona curricle
in this world depends a long course of the next;”’ Sir T. Browne,
Christ. Morals, vol, ii. p. 23 (R.). The sense of ‘ chaise’ is late;
see N.E.D.—L. curriculum, a running, a course; also, a light car
(Cicero). Formed as a double diminutive, with suffixes -cu- and -lo-
CURRY
from the stem curri-; cf. parti-cu-la, a particle. = L. currere, to run.
See Current. Doublet, curriculum, which is the L. word,
unchanged. Cf. curule.
CURRY (1), to dress leather. (F.—L. and Teut.) ‘Thei curry
kinges,’ i.e. flatter kings, lit. dress them; said ironically ; Piers
Plowman’s Crede, ed. Skeat, 365. ‘Like as he wold coraye his
maystres hors ;’ Lydgate, Minor Poems, p- 53. The Ἐπ verb is
accompanied by the ME. sb. curreie, apparatus, preparation, arma-
ment; K. Alisaunder, 5118.—OF. conreer, correier, to prepare,
arrange, set in order; earliest form conreder (Godefroy); later
couroier ; whence the forms conroyer, courroyer, given by Cotgrave,
and explained by ‘ to curry, tew, or dress leather.’ = OF. conrei, later
conroy, equipage, gear, preparation of all kinds; earliest form cunreid
(Godefroy). |Formed, like array (OF. arroi), by prefixing a Latin
preposition to a Teutonic word; see Array.]—OF. con-, prefix,
from L. con- (for cum), together; and the OF. reid, array, order.
This word answers to Ital. -redo, order, seen in Ital. arredo, array. =
Late L. -rédum, -rédium, seen in the derived arrédium, conrédium,
equipment, furniture, apparatus, gear. B. This -rédium is of Tent.
origin ; cf. Swed. reda, order, sb., or, as verb, to set in order; Dan.
rede, order, sb., or as verb, to set in order; Icel. reidz, tackle; also
O. Low G. réde, AS. r@de, ready; see Ready. The same root appears
in array and disarray; and in Εἰ, d¢sarroi, arrot, corroyer. Der. curri-er.
βιν The phr. to curry favour is a corruption of ME. to curry favel, i.e.
to rub down a fallow-coloured horse. Favell was a common old
name for a horse; and curry favel occurs in Hoccleve, De Regim.
Principum, st. 755, 1. 5282. See my note to P. Plowman, ἰὸς ΠΥ (Ὁ
CURRY (9), ἃ kind of seasoned dish. (Tamil.) A general term
for seasoned dishes in India, for which there are many recipes. See
Curry in Yule.—Tamil kari, sauce, relish for rice. Yule adds that
the Port. form caril is from the cognate Canarese karil.
CURSE, to imprecate evil upon. (E.) ΜΕ. cursien, cursen, corsen.
‘This cursed crone;’ Chaucer, C. T. 4852 (B 432); ‘this cursed
dede ;᾿ id. 4853 (B 433). The sb. is curs, Chaucer, C. T. Prol. 663.
AS. cursian, A. S. Chron. an. 1137; where the compound pp.
forcursed also occurs. The AS. sb. is curs; Liber Scintillarum,
c.56; p.174, 1.6. β. Remoter origin unknown ; perhaps originally
Scandinavian, and due to a particular use of Swed. korsa, Dan. korse,
to make the sign of the cross, from Swed. and Dan. kors, a cross, a
corruption of Icel. #ross, a cross, and derived from Olrish cros; see
Cross. y. The N.E.D. says there is no trace of any connexion ;
but Norw. kors, kross, a cross, plague, worry, trouble, comes very
near the sense of a curse; so Du. kruts, tribulation; slechte kinderen
hebben is een groot kruis, it is a great cross to have bad children; cf.
Dan. dial. korselig, that which one dreads, or crosses oneself against ;
as, korseligt veir, horrible weather, which comes near the sense of
“cursed weather.’ The ultimate connexion seems to me possible.
Indeed, Berghaus gives Low G. krii&tsigen, to curse (lit. to cross).
Note, further, that Windisch gives Olrish cirsaigim, ‘1 reprehend.’
Der. ac-cursed, curs-ed, curs-er.
CURSIVE, running, flowing. (L.) Modern. Not in Todd's
Johnson. A mere translation of Late L. curstvus, cursive, as applied
to handwriting. = L. cursus, pp. of currere, to run. See Current.
CURSORY, running, hasty, superficial. (L.) The odd form
cursorary (other edd. cursenary, curselary) is in Shak. Hen. V, v. 2. 77.
‘He discoursed cursorily ;” Bp. Taylor, Great Exemplar, pt. 111. § 14
(R.).— Late L. cursérius, chiefly used in the adv. cursdrié, hastily,
quickly.—L. cursdri-, declensional stem of cursor, a ranner.=L.
curs-us, pp. of currere,torun, See Current. Der. cursori-ly.
CURT, short, concise. (L.) ‘ Maestro del campo, Peck! his name
is curt;’ Ben Jonson, The New Inn, iii. 1.—L. curtus, docked,
clipped. Cf. Gk. καρτός, chopped. - 4/ SKER, to shear, cut ; whence
also E. shear, and ee skardr, docked. See Shear. Der. curt-ly,
curt-ness ; ate ail,
CURTAIL, to feat short, abridge, dock. (F.—L.) a. Curtail
is a corruption of an older cuirtall, and was orig. accented on the
former syllable ; there is no pretence for saying that it is derived from
the F. court tailler, to cut short, a phrase which does not appear to
have been used ; though it is probable that both E. ¢ai and ἘΝ. tailler
had some influence on the development of the word. The two
instances in Shakespeare may suffice to show this. ‘I, that am cw-
tail’d of this fair proportion;’ Rich. III, 1. 1. 18. And again:
‘When a Gentleman is dispos’d to sweare, it is not for any standers-
by to curtall his oathes;’ Cymbeline, ii. 1. 12, according to the first
folio; altered to curtail in later editions. B. Cotgrave translates
accourcir by ‘to shorten, abridge, curta/l, clip, or cut short;’ and
this may help to show that the French for to curtail was not court
tailler (!), but accourcir. Ὑ. The verb was, in fact, derived from the
adj. curtall or curtal, having a docked tail, occurring four times in
Shakespeare, viz. Pilgr. 273; M. Wives, ii. 1. 114; Com. Err. iii. 2.
151; All’s Well, ii. 3. 65.—MF. courtault, courtaut; both forms are
150
CUSTARD
given by Cotgrave, and explained by ‘a curtall ; or, as an adj., by
‘curtall, being curtalled.’ He also gives: ‘Double courtaut, a strong
curtall, or a horse of middle size between the ordinary curtall, and
horse of service.” δ. The occurrence of the final JI in curtall shows
that the word was taken into English before the old form courtault
fell into disuse. Cf. Florio, who gives the Ital. ‘ cortaldo, a curtall,
a horse without a taile; cortare, to shorten, to curtall; corta, short,
briefe, curtald.’ = OF. court (Ital. corto), short ; with suffix -ault, -alt,
equivalent to Ital. -aldo, Late L. -aldus, of Germanic origin, as in
Regin-ald; from G. walt, O. Low Ο.. wald (Icel. vald), power. See
Hatzfeld’s French Dict. pref. ὃ 138.—L. curtus, docked. See Curt.
CURTAIN, a hanging cloth. (F.—L.) ME. cortin, curtin;
Chaucer, C. T. 6831 (D 1249). The pp. cortined, furnished with
curtains, is in K, Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1028.—OF. cortine, curtine,
a curtain.—Late L. cortina, a small court, small enclosure, croft,
rampart or ‘curtain’ of a castle, hanging curtain round a small
enclosure. See Exod. xxvi. 1 (Vulgate).<—L. cort-, stem of cdrs, a
court; with suffix -iza, fem of -inus, adj. suffix. See Court (1).
Der. curtain, verb.
CURTILAGE, a court-yard. (F.—L.) ‘All the comedities
(sic) wythyn the seid gardyn and curtelage ;’ Bury Wills, ed. Tymms,
p- 46. (A.D. 1467).—AF. curtilage, Stat. of the Realm, i. 221.
Formed, with suffix -age, from OF. cortil, courtil, ‘a back-yard;’
Cot.—Late L. cortile, an enclosure, small yard (Ducange). Dimin.
of Late L. cortis, a court-yard, from L. cérs. See Court (1).
CURTLEAXE, a corruption of cutlass; see Cutlass.
CURTSEY, an obeisance; see Courtesy.
CURULE,, chiefly in the phr. curule chair, a chair used by the
highest magistrates of Rome. (L.) Butler has ‘curule wit;’
Hudibras, i. 1. 715.—L. curilis, curriilis, applied to equi, horses, and
to sella, the curule chair. —L. currus, a chariot; see Curricle.
CURVE, adj. crooked; sb. a bent line. (L.) Not in early use.
The ME. form was courbe, whence E. curb, q.v. Blount’s Glosso-
graphia, ed. 1674, has the adjectives curvous and curvilineal, and the
sbs. curvature and curvity. ‘This line thus curve;’ Congreve, An
Impossible Thing, 1. 137.—L. curuus, crooked, bent (base cur-).4+Gk.
κυρ-τός, bent. See Crown. Der. curve, verb; curvat-ure, L. cur-
uatira, from curuare, to bend; curvi-linear ; also curve, q.v. And
see curb.
CURVET, to bound like a horse. (Ital.—L.) The verb is in
Shak. As You Like It, ili. 2. 258; the sb. is in All’s Well, ii. 3. 299.
—Ital. corvetta, a curvet, leap, bound; corvettare, to curvet, frisk.
(The E. word was orig. corvet, thus Florio has: ‘ Coruetta, a coruet,
a sault, a prancing or continuall dancing of a horse.’] = MItal. corvare,
old spelling of curvare, ‘to bow, to bende, to stoope, to crouch, to
make crooked ;’ Florio. Thus 20 curvef meant to crouch or bend
slightly ; hence, to prance, frisk.—L. curuare, to bend. L. curuus,
bent. See Curve. Der. curvet, sb. (Ital. corvetta).
CUSHAT, the ring-dove, wood-pigeon. (E.) ‘Cowshot, palum-
bus ;” Nicholson’s Glossarium Northanhymbricum, in Ray's Collec-
tion, ed. 1691, pp. 139-152. Cowschote; Catholicon Angl. (1483).
AS. ciisceote, a wild pigeon; Voc. 260. 7; cuscote, E. E. Texts, p. 85.
For cii-scote, where scofe prob. means darter, lit. ‘ shooter,’ from scof-,
weak grade of sc@otan, to shoot (cf. AS. scéota, a kind of trout);
and perhaps οἷ refers to the coo of the bird. Cf. ‘ Coo, coo, come
now, &c.; Song of the Cushat; in T. Dyer, Folklore, p. 98.
CUSHION, a pillow, soft case for resting on. (F.—L.) The pl.
cuischuns is in Wyclif, 1 Kings, v. 9. Spelt guysshiz, Chaucer, Troil.
and Cress. ii. 1229.— OF. cotssin, a cushion (Supp. to Godefroy) ;
later coussin, ‘a cushion to sit on;’ Cot. [It is supposed that coissin
was the true form; perhaps it was influenced by OF. coule, a quilt.]
— Late L. type *coxinum, a support for the hip; from coxa, hip, thigh
(like L. cubital, elbow-cushion, from cubitus, elbow). Cf. Ital. cus-
cino, cushion, coscia, hip; Span. cojin, cushion, cuja, hip. See
Romania, 1892, p.87. | The AF. form guissine occurs in A. Neckam
(Wright’s Vocab. i. 100); ef. E. cuisses, q.v. @ The G. kissen,
cushion, is borrowed from one of the Romance forms ; cf. Ital. cuczno,
cuscino, Span. coxin, Port. coxim.
CUSP, a point, tip. (L.) Not in early use. ‘Full on his cusp
his angry master sate, Conjoin’d with Saturn, baleful both to man ;’
Dryden, The Duke of Guise, Act iv (R.). It was a term in astrology.
‘No other planet hath so many dignities, Either by himself or in
regard of the cuspes;” Beaum. and Fletcher, Bloody Brother, iv. 2.—
L. cuspis, a point; gen. cuspid-is. Der. cuspid-ate, cuspid-at-ed.
CUSTARD, a composition of milk, eggs, &c. (F.—L.) In Shak.
All's Well, ii. 5. 41; custard-coffin, the upper crust covering a custard ;
Tam. Shrew, “Wy. 3. 82. The old custard was something widely
different from what we now call by that name, and could be cut into
squares witha knife. John Russell, in his Boke of Nurture, enumerates
it amongst the ‘ Bake-metes ;’ see Babees Boke, ed. Furnivall, p. 147,
1, 492; p. 271, 1.1; p. 273, 1. 21; and esp. the note on 1. 492, at
CUSTODY
p- 211. It was also spelt custade, id. p. 170, 1. 802. B. And there
can be no reasonable doubt that such is a better spelling, and that
it is, moreover, a corruption of the ME. crustade, a general name for
pies made with crust; see the recipe for crustade ryal quoted in the
Babees Book, p. 211. [A still older spelling is crustate, Liber Cure
Cocorum, ed. Morris, p. 40, derived immediately from L. crustatus.
= OF. croustade,* paté, tourte, chose qui en couvre une autre,’ i.e. a
pasty, tart, crust; Roquefort. Roquefort gives the Proy. form
crustado. Cf. Ital. crostata, ‘a kind of daintie pye;’ Florio.—L.
crustdlus, pp. of crustare, to encrust, from crusta, a crust. See Crust.
Der. custard-apple, an apple like custard, having a soft pulp;
Dampier, Voyage, an, 1699, iii. 33.
CUSTODY, keeping, care, confinement. (L.) Spelt custodye, Sir
T. More, Works, p. 40.—L. custddia,a keeping guard. —L. custod-,
stem of custos,a guardian; lit. ‘a hider.’ —4/ KEUDH, to hide, con-
ceal; whence also Gk. κεύθειν, to hide, and E. hide. See Brugmann,
i. § 699. See Hide (1). Der. custodi-al, custodi-an.
CUSTOM, wont, usage. (F.—L.) ME. custume, custome, costume ;
Chaucer, C. T. 6264 (D 682). Spelt custume, Old Eng. Homilies, ed.
Morris, ii. 11, 1. 11.— OF. costume, custume, custom (Late L. costuma,
Chartulary of 705); mod. Εἰ. coutume. From a Romanic type *cos-
tumne, prob. for *costudne, shortened from consuétidinem, acc. of the
classical L. consuétiido, custom. = L. consuétus, pp. of consuescere, to
accustom; inchoative form of L. *consuére, to be accustomed. — L. con-,
for cum, together, greatly, very; and suére, to be accustomed (Lucr. i.
60), more commonly used in the inchoative form suescere. B. Sucre
appears to be derived from L. suus, one’s own, as though it meant ‘to
make one’s own,’ or ‘ to have it one’s own way.’ @ Cf. F. amertume,
for L. amaritidinem; F. enclume, for L. inctidinem. Der. custom-ar-y,
-ar-i-ly, -ar-i-ness, -er ; -house; also ac-custom, ἢ...
CUT, to make an incision. (Scand.) ME. cutlen, kitten, a weak
verb; pt. τ. kutte, kitte. The form cutte, signifying ‘he cut,’ past tense,
occurs in Layamon, i. 349; iii. 228; later text. These appear to be
the earliest passages in which the word occurs. It answers to a late
AS. form *cyttan (for *cut-ian) ; and is of Scand. origin. Cf. Swed.
dial. kuta, kita, kvota, to cut with a knife; kuta, kytti, a knife (Rietz) ;
Icel. kuti, a little knife; Norw. Ayttel, kjutul, a knife for barking trees
(Aasen); MSwed. koé/a, to cut with a knife (Ihre). All (possibly)
due to OF. cout-el, a knife; see Cutlass. Der. cut, sb.; cutt-ing, -er ;
cut-water; cut-purse.
CUTCHERRY, a court-house, office. (Hind.) ‘The prodigious
labour of cutcherry;’ Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ch. 57 (or ch. 22 of
vol. ii). — Hind. kachahri, ‘a hall of justice, town-house, court, a public
office for the receipt of revenue,’ &c.; Forbes.
CUTICLE, the outermost skin. (L.) ‘ Cuticle, the outermost thin
skin ;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715; and in Phillips (1658). The adj. cuti-
cular is in Blount’s Glossographia, ed. 1674.—L. cuticula, the skin ;
double dimin., with suffixes -cu-la-, from cuti-, declensional stem of
cutis, the skin, hide. (Cf. particle from part.] The L. cutis is cognate
with E. hide. See Hide (2). Der. cuticul-ar, from the L. cuticula ;
also cut-an-e-ous, from a barbarous Latin cutaneus, not given inj Du-
cange, but existing also in the F. cwtané, skinny, of the skin (Cotgrave),
and in the Ital. and Span. cutaneo.
CUTLASS, a sort of sword. (F.—L.) The orig. sense was ‘a
little knife.’ Spelt cowtelace, in Dodsley’s Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, v.
189. Better spelt cuélas, with one s.—F. coutelas, ‘a cuttelas, or
courtelas, or short sword, for a man-at-arms;’ Cot. Cf. Ital. colte/-
laccio, ‘a curtelax, or knife;” Florio, [The Ital. suffix -accio (L.
-Gceum) is a general augmentative one, that can be added at pleasure
to a sb.; thus from libro, a book, is formed J/:braccio, a large ugly
book. So also Ital. coltellaccio means ‘a large ugly knife.’)}—OF.
coutel, cultel (Littré), whence F. couteau,a knife. Cf. Ital. coltello,
a knife, dagger.—L. cultellum, acc. of cultellus, a knife; dimin. of
culter,a ploughshare. See Coulter. @ The F. suffix -as, Ital. -accio,
was suggested by the L. suffix -@ceus; but was so little understood that
it was confused with the E. axe. Hence the word was corrupted to
curtleaxe, as in Shak. As You Like It, i. 3. 119: ‘a gallant curtleaxe
upon my thigh.” Yet a curtleaxe was a sort of sword!
CUTLER, a maker of knives. (F.—L.) ME. coteler; Geste His-
toryal of the Destruction of Troy, ed. Panton and Donaldson, 1. 1597.
“-- AF. cotillere, Liber Custumarum, p.185; OF. cotelier; later coute-
lier, as in mod. F.—Late L. cultellarius, (1) a soldier armed with a
knife; (2) a cutler. Formed with suffix -arius from L. cultell-, base
of cultellus, a knife, dimin. of culter, a ploughshare. See Coulter.
Der. cutler-y.
CUTLET, a slice of meat. (F.—L.) Lit. ‘a little rib.’ Cutlets,
a dish made of the short ribs of a neck of mutton ;’. Kersey’s Dict.
ed. 1715. —F. cételette, a cutlet; spelt costelette in Cotgrave, who ex-
plains it by ‘a little rib, side, &c.’ A double diminutive, formed with
suffixes -e/- and -ette, from OF. cos¢e,a rib (Cotgrave).— L. costa, a rib.
See Coast.
CYME
CUTTER, a swift sailing vessel. (Scand.) First in 1745; from
the verb ¢o cut, to speed (E.D.D.). = Norw. kut-, weak grade of kita
(pt. t. Raut), to run, to speed. See Phil. Soc. Trans. 1903, p. 145.
CUTTLE, CUTTLE-FISH, a sort of mollusc, (E.) Cotgrave
translates the F. cornet by ‘a sea-cut or cuttlefish ;’ and the F. seche
by ‘the sound or cuttle-fish.’ Cuttle occurs in Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 742.
The Prompt. Parv. has both cotul and codull. Cf. prov. E. cuddle,
coodle, Corrupted from cuddle by the influence of similar words in
MDnu. and H. German. The form cuddle is a legitimate and regular
formation from AS. cudele, the name of the fish. ‘Sepia, cudele, vel
wase-scite ;’ /Elfric’s Glossary, ed. Somner, Nomina Piscium. [The
name wase-scite means ooze-shooter, dirt-shooter, from the animal’s
habit of discharging sepia. ] + MDu. huttel-visch, a cuttle-fish; Kilian.
But this is rather a High-German form, and borrowed from the G.
huttel-fisch, a cuttle-fish. β. The remoter origin is obscure; the G,
hutte/-fisch is in no way connected with the G. kut/el, bowels, entrails.
y. Perhaps it meant ‘little bag,’ from its shape, or its ink-bag; cf. Low
G. kudel, a purse (Liibben’, AS. codd, a bag. See Cod (2). See
Phil. Soc. Trans. 1902, p. 661. :
CYANOGEN, a compound radical (in chemistry), consisting of
nitrogen and carbon. (Gk.) Named by Gay-Lussac (1815) from its
occurring in Prussian blue; N.E.D,—Gk. «vavo-, for κύανος, a dark
blue mineral ; and -yev-, as yév-os, race, with the idea of ‘ producing.’
Der. (from xvavos), cyan-ide, cyan-ite, cyano-type.
CYCLE, a circle, round of events. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘Cycle and epi-
cycle, orb in orb;’ Milton, P. L. viii. 84. And in Sir Τὶ Browne,
Vulgar Errors, b. iv. c.12.§ 10, Older form crkle, Sir Τὶ Elyot, The
Governour, bk. i. c. 25. § 3. =F. cycle, ‘a round, or circle ;’ Cotgrave.
—L. cyclus, merely a Latinised form of Gk. κύκλος, a circle, cycle. +
Skt. chakra-, a wheel, disc, circle, astronomical figure. Allied to E.
wheel; see Wheel. 4 The word may haye been borrowed imme-
diately from Latin, or even from the Greek. Der. cycl-ic, cycl-ic-al ;
cycloid, from Gk. κυκλοειδής, circular (but technically used with a new
sense), from Gk. κύκλο-, for κύκλος, and εἶδος, form, shape; cycloid-
al; cyclone, a coined word of modern invention, from Gk. κυκλῶν,
whirling round, pres. part. of κυκλόω, I whirl round, from Gk. κύκλος.
(Hence the final -e in cyclone is mute, and merely indicates that the
vowel o is long.] Also cyclo-metry, the measuring of circles; see
Metre. Also cyclo-pedia or cyclo-pedia, from Gk. κυκλοπαιδία, which
should rather (perhaps) be encyclopedia, from Gk. ἐγκυκλοπαιδεία, used
for ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία, the circle of arts and sciences, lit. circular or
complete instruction; der. from ἐγκύκλιος, circular, and παιδεία, in-
struction ; which is from ἐν, in, κύκλος, a circle, and mats (gen. παιδός),
a boy. child. Also epi-cycle, bi-cycle, tri-cycle.
CYCLAMEN, a flower; a genus of Primulacee. (L.—Gk.)
Lyte (tr. of Dodoens, bk. iti. c. 11) has cyclamen, and cyclaminon.—
Late L. cyclamen, for L. cyclaminos, -on. — Gk. κυκλάμινος, τον, cycla-
men; named from its bulbous roots; from Gk. κύκλος, a circle.
CYCLOPS, one of arace of one-eyed giants. (L.—Gk.) Douglas,
tr. of AEneid, bk. iii..c. 10, has Ciclopes, for Cyclopes, pl. of Cyclops. =
L. Cyclops, pl. Cyclapes, Virgil, AEn. ili. 644. —Gk. κύκλωψ, a one-eyed
giant ; Homer, Od. ix. 106; pl. κύκλωπες. Lit. ‘round-eyed.’=—Gk.
KvKA(o)-, for κύκλος, a circle; and wy, an eye.
CY GNET, a young swan, (F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt cignet in old edd.
of Shak. Tro. and Cress. i, 1. 58. Formed as a diminutive, with
suffix -t, from OF. cigne,a swan; Cot. 1. At first sight it seems to
be from Lat. cygnus,a swan; earlier form cycnus.— Gk. κύκνος, a swan.
2. But the oldest F. form appears as cisne (Littré) ; cf. Span. cisne,
a swan; and these must be from Late L. cicinus (Diez), a by-form of
cucinus (Brugmann, i. ὃ 950), likewise from κύκνος (as before). B. The
Gk. κύκνος is allied to Skt. gakuna-s, a large bird; L. ciconta, a stork.
See Diez; ath ed. p. 714.
CYLINDER, a roller-shaped body. (F.—L.—Gk.) Cilinder is
in Minshen, ed. 1627. [An older form chilyndre is in Chaucer, C.T.
Group B, 1396, where Tyrwhitt reads kalender, C. T.13136. It there
means a cylindrically shaped portable sun-dial.] — MF. cilindre, later
cylindre, the y being introduced to look more like the Latin; both
forms are in Cotgrave.—L. cylindrus, a cylinder. —Gk. κύλινδρος, a
cylinder, lit. a roller. — Gk. κυλίνδειν, to roll; an extension of κυλίειν,
to roll. Cf. Church-Slay. kolo, a wheel. (4/ QEL.) Der. cylindr-ic,
cylindr-ic-al.
CYMBAL, a clashing musical instrument. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME.
cimbale, cymbale; Wyclif, 2 Kings, vi. 5; Ps. cl. 5.—OF. crmbale, ‘a
cymball;’ Cot. Later altered to cymbale (also in Cotgrave) to look
more like the Latin. = L. cymbalum, a cymbal; also spelt cymbalon. =
Gk. κύμβαλον, a cymbal; named from its hollow, cup-like shape. =
Gk. κύμβος, κύμβη, anything hollow, a cup, basin. Skt. kumbha-s,
kumbhi, a pot, jar. The form of the root is KEUBH; Benfey, p. 196.
CYME, a species of inflorescence. (F.—L.—Gk.) Modern.=F.
cyme ; also.cime, ‘the toppe or knappe of a plant ;’ Cot.—L. cyma.=
Gk. κῦμα, anything swollen, a wave, the young sprout of a cabbage
CYNIC
152
(as in L.).—4/ KEU, to swell; Gk. κύειν, to be pregnant. Doublet, |
cyma (L. cyma), an ogee moulding of a cornice,
CYNIC, misanthropic; lit. dog-like. (L.—Gk.) In Shak. Jul.
Ces. iv. 3. 133-—L. cynicus, one of the sect of Cynics, — Gk. κυνικός,
dog-like, cynical, a Cynic.—Gk. κυν-, stem of κύων, a dog. +L.
can-is, a dog; Irish ct (gen. con), a dog; Skt. guan-, a dog; Goth.
hunds, a hound. See Hound.. Der. cynic-al, -al-ly, -ism; and see
cynosure.
CYNOSURE, a centre of attraction. (L.—Gk.) ‘ The cynosure
of neighbouring eyes;’ Milton, L’Allegro, 80.—L. cynosira, the con-
stellation of the Lesser Bear, or rather, the stars composing the tail
of it; the last of the three is the pole-star, whence the sense of
* guiding-star,’ or centre of interest.—Gk. κυνόσουρα, a dog’s-tail ;
also, the Cynosure, another name for the Lesser Bear, or, more strictly,
for the tail of it.—Gk. κυνός, dog’s, gen. case of κύων, α dog; and
οὐρά, a tail. See Cynic.
CYPRESS (1), a kind of tree. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. cipres, ci-
presse, cupresse. ‘Ase palme other ase cipres;’ Ayenbite of Inwyt,
p- 131. ‘Leves of cupresse;’ Palladius on Husbandry, b. x. st. 6,
Also called a cipir-tre. ‘Hec cipressus, a cypyr-tre;’ Wright’s Vocab.
1. 228.— OF. cypres, later cyprés, explained by Cotgrave as ‘the Cyprus
tree, or Cyprus wood.’ = Το, cyparissus; also cupressus. = Gk. κυπάρισσος,
the cypress. B. Prob. of Eastern origin; by some supposed to be the
Heb. gopher, gopher-wood, Gen. vi. 14; see Gesenius.
CYPRESS (2), CYPRESS-LAWN, a kind of lawn or crape.
(F.—L.—Gk.) ‘A cipresse (or cypress] not a bosom Hideth my heart;’
Tw. Nt. iii. 1.132. ‘ Cypress black as e’er was crow;’ Wint. Tale,
iv. 4. 221. See note on cypress in Ben Jonson, Every Man in his
Humonr, i. 3.121, ed. Wheatley. B. Palsgrave explains Ἐς crespe by
‘a cypres for a womans necke;’ and Cotgrave has: ‘ Crespe, cipres,
cob-web lawn;’ which seems to show some confusion between cypress
and crape. But in old wills they are kept distinct. Thus, in Testa-
menta Eboracensia, i. 240 (A.D. 1398), we find: ‘unum [velum] de
cypres,’ a cypress veil; ‘ij. flameola de cipres,’ id. i. 289 (A.D, 1402) ;
also ‘ flameolam meam de crispo,’ my crape veil, i. 271 (1400) ; ‘fla-
meolum de krespe,’ i. 382 (1415). ‘y. Butthe ME. cipres also meant (1)
a cloth of gold or othervaluable material; (2)a valuable satin (N.E.D.).
It is probable that all these were alike named from the island of Cyprus,
whence they were imported. —OF. C:pre, Cypre, Cyprus. = L. Cyprum,
ace. of Cyprus. — Gk. Κύπρος, Cyprus.
CYST, a pouch (in animals) containing morbid matter. (L.—Gk.)
Formerly written cystis. ‘ Cystis, a bladder; also, the bay that con-
tains the matter of an imposthume;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715,— Late
L. cystis, merely a Latinised form of the Gk. word. Gk. κύστις, the
bladder, a bag, pouch. Der. cyst-ic.
CZAR, the emperor of Russia, (Russ.—Teut.—L.) ‘Two czars
are one too many for a throne ;’ Dryden, Hind and Panther, iii. 1278.
— Russian ¢sare (with e mute), a king. OSlav. césari; Miklosich,
p- 28. Borrowed from Teutonic; cf. Goth. katsar.—L. Cesar.
@ This has been disputed; but see Miklosich. Cf. Matt. xiii. 24,
in Schleicher, Indogermanische Chrestomathie, p. 275 ; where OSlav.
cesars/vo occurs for Russ. tsarstvo, kingdom; &c. Der. czar-ina, with
Ital. suffix -zxa, from G. -in, fem. suffix, as in landgravine, margravine,
the Russ. form being ¢saritsa; also czarowitz, from Russ. tsarevich’,
the czar’s son.
DAB (1), to strike gently. (E.) ΜΕ. dabben. ‘The Flemmisshe
hem dabbeth o the het bare’=the Flemings strike them on the bare
head ; Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 192. The ME. sb. is dabbe.
‘Philot him gaf anothir dabbe’=Philotas gave him another blow;
K. Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1. 2306. Now generally associated with
the notion of striking with something soft and moist, but the orig.
sense is merely to tap. An ΕἸ. word; of imitative origin. MDu.
dabben, to pinch, to knead, to fumble, to dabble; Oudemans. Cf.
Norw. dabba, to tap with the foot (Ross); prov. G. (Strassburg)
dabbe = G. tappen (C. Schmidt) ; G. tappen, to grope, fumble; prov. G.
tapp, tappe, fist, paw, blow, kick; Fliigel’s Dict. 4 From the G.tappen
we have F. taper, and Εἰ. tap. Hence dab and tap are doublets. See
Tap. Der. dab, sb. See Dabble, and Dub.
DAB (2), expert. (E.) The phrase ‘he is a dab hand at it” means
he is expert at it.. Goldsmith has: ‘one writer excels at a plan; ...
another is a dab at an index;’ The Bee, no. 1. A word of slang
origin, and perhaps due to dab, vb. (above). It may have been to
some extent confused with the adj. dapper. See Dapper. 4 There
is no evidence connecting it with adept, as some haye guessed.
DAGGER
DAB (3), a fish. (1. A small flat fish; ME. dabbe, Liber Albus,
Pp. 3753 pl. dabys (A.D. 1460), Antiquarian Repository, ii. 211.
Prob. considered as a soft mass dabbed down. See Dab (1). And
cf, prov. ἃ. (Kurhessen) dob, soft, dabberig, soft (Vilmar).
DABBLE, to keep on dabbing. (E.) The frequentative of dab,
with the usual suffixed -le. The word is used by Drayton, Polyolbion,
s. 25, l. 97; see quotations in Richardson, Cf. ‘ dabbled in blood ;’”
Shak. Rich. IIT, 1. 4. 54,-+ MDu. dabbelen, to pinch, to knead, to
fumble, to dabble, splash about; formed by the frequentative suffix
-el- from MDnu, dabben, with a like sense; Oudemans. See Dab (1).
Cf, Norw. dabla, to dabble in water (Ross); Icel. dafla, to dabble ;
WFlem. debbelen, to fumble, handle.
DAB-CHICK, DOB-CHICK;; see Didapper.
DACE, a small river-fish, (F.—O. Low G.) ‘ Dace or Dare, a small
river-fish ;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715. Shak. has dace, 2 Hen. IV,
iii, 2. 356. 1, Another name for the fish is the dart. 2, Dare,
formerly pronounced dakr (daar), is simply the F. dard (=Late L.
acc, dardum), and dart is due to the same source. Cf. ME. dar, Voc.
763. 36. 3. So also dace, formerly darce ( Babees Book, ed. Furnivall,
p- 174), answers to the OF, nom. dars or darz, a dart, javelin, for
which Roquefort gives quotations, and Littré cites OF. dars with the
sense of ‘dace.’ ‘The AF, pl. darces occurs in Liber Custumarum,
p- 279. This OF. dars is due to Late L. nom. dardus, a dart, javelin,
of Low G, origin. 4 From this OF. dars is also derived the Breton
darz,a dace; cf. F. dard, ‘a dart, a javelin; ... also, a dace or dare
fish ;’ Cotgrave. @#- So named from its quick motion. See Dart.
DACHSHUND, a badger-hound. (G.) From G. dachshund,
badger-hound. See dachs, a badger, in Kluge.
DACOIT, a robber. (Hind.) See Dacoit in Yule. = Hind. dakait,
a robber belonging to an armed gang (Forbes). — Hind. gaka, robbery
by an armed gang (Forbes; H. H. Wilson). Der. dacoit-y, robbery.
DACTYL, the name of a foot, marked —-Uv. (L.—Gk.)
Puttenham, Arte of Poetrie, ed. Arber, p. 83, speaks of ‘the Greeke
dactilus;’ this was in A.D. 1589. Dryden speaks of ‘spondees and
dactyls’ in his Account prefixed to Annus Mirabilis. = L. dactylus, a
dactyl. = Gk. δάκτυλος, a finger, a dactyl; from the three joints of the
finger. See Trench, On the Study of Words, on the sense of dacty/.
Der. dactyl-ic,
DAD, a father. (E.) In Shak. Tw. Nt. iv. 2. 140; K. John,
ii. 467. A child’s word for father. So also EFnes. tatte; W. tad,
father; Corn. fat; Bret. tad, tat, father; Irish daid; Gael, dardein,
papa (used by children); Gk. raza, father; used by youths to their
elders; Skt. sa/a-, father; ¢ata-, dear one; a term of endearment, used
by parents addressing their children, by teachers addressing their
pupils, and by children addressing their parents, A familiar word,
and widely spread. Der, dadd-y, a dimin. form.
DADO, the die, or square part in the middle of the pedestal of a
column, between the base and the cornice ; also, that part of an apart-
ment between the plinth and the impost moulding. (Ital.—L.) So
defined by Gwilt,in Webster; see also Gloss. of Architecture, Oxford,
1840. The word is somewhat old, and occurs in Phillips, ed. 1706,
Like some other architectural terms, it is Italian. Ital. dado, a die,
cube, pedestal; Torriano (1688) has ‘ dado, any kind of dye to play
withall, any cube or square thing.” The pl, dad:, dice, is in Florio,
from a sing, dado, The same word as Span. dado, OF. det; see
further under Die (2), which is a doublet.
DAFFODIL, a flower of the amaryllis tribe. (F.—L.—Gk.)
The d is no part of the word, but prefixed much in the same way
asthe ¢in Ted, for Edward. It is difficult to account for it ; it is just
possible that it is a contraction from E. ¢h’affodidl, used by Cotgrave.
At any rate, the ME. form was affodille. ‘ Affodylle, herbe, affodillus,
albucea;” Prompt. Parv. = OF. asphodile, more commonly affrodi/le,
‘th’ affodill, or asphodill flower;* Cotgrave, Cf. ‘apkrodille, the
affodill, or asphodill flower ;’ id, [Here the French has an inserted
r, which is no real part of the word, and is a mere corruption. It is
clear that the E, word was borrowed from the French before this r
was inserted. We have sure proof of this, in the fact that Cotgrave
gives, not only the forms asphrodille, asphrodile, and affrodille, but
also asphodile, ‘the daffadill. The last of these is the oldest.]—L.
asphodelus, borrowed from the Greek.—Gk. ἀσφόδελος, asphodel.
See Asphodel. Der, Corrupted forms are daffadilly and daffadown-
dilly, both used by Spenser, Shep. Kal. April, ll. 60, 140. 4 See
N.E.D.; and the article by Dr. Murray in Phil. Soc. Proceedings,
Feb. 6, 1880.
DAFT, foolish. See Deft, below.
DAGGER, a dirk ; short sword for stabbing. (F.) ME. daggere,
Chaucer, C. T. prol, 113. [Connected with the ME. verb daggen,
to pierce. ‘ Derfe dynttys thay dalte with daggande sperys, i.e. they
dealt severe blows with piercing spears; Allit. Morte Arthure, ed,
Brock, 1. 3749. Cf, MDu. duggen, to stab; Oudemans; MDnu. dag,
a dagger; id.] —F. dague, a dagger, of unknown origin; and certainly
a anne a
DAGGLE
neither Celtic nor Germanic; Korting, § 2738. B. It might be better
to take Late L. daga as the source; since OF. dazue hardly occurs
before 1397 (see Ducange). Cf. also Ital. and Span. daga, a dagger ;
Port. adaga. The Port. form suggests an Eastern origin; cf. Heb.
dakhah, to strike ; or Arab. dahw, driving, thrusting.
DAGGLE, to moisten, wet with dew. (Scand.) So in Sir W.
Scott. ‘ The warrior’s very plume, I say, Was daggled by the dashing
spray ;’ Lay of the Last Minstrel, i. 29. Pope uses it in the sense of
to run through mud, lit. to become wet with dew; Prol. to Satires,
1,225. Palsgrave has: ‘I daggyll, or I dagge a thing with myer ν᾿
p- 506. It is a frequentative verb, formed from the prov. Eng. dag,
to sprinkle with water; see Atkinson’s Cleveland Glossary. —Swed.
dagg, dew; Icel. digg (gen. daggar), dew. These sbs. are cognate
with E. dew. See Dew. Cf. also Icel. diggva, Dan. bedugge, to
bedew.
DAGUERROTYPE, a method of taking pictures by photo-
graphy. (Hybrid; F. and Gk.) ‘ Daguerrotype process, invented by
Daguerre, and published A.D. 1838;’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates.
Formed from Daguerre, a French personal name (with o added as a
connecting vowel), and E. ¢ype, a word of Gk. origin. See Type.
DAHABEEY AH, a large sailing-boat, used by travellers up the
Nile. (Arab.) Lit. ‘ golden;’ as being like a gilded state barge. =
Arab. dahabiyah, golden ; from dahab, gold; Rich. Dict. p. 712.
(S=th in that.)
DAHLIA, the name of a flower. (Swedish.) ‘Discovered in
Mexico by Humboldt in 1789, and sent to Prof. Cavanilles, of the
Botanic Garden at Madrid, who [in 1791 | named the genus in honour
of the Swedish Professor Dah/;’ Beckmann, Hist. of Inventions
(1846); i. 517. Dahl is a Swedish personal name; the suffix -ia is
botanical atin.
DAINTY, a delicacy ; pleasant to the taste. (F.—L.) ME.
deinté, deintee, generally asa sb.; Ancren Riwle, p. 412. But Chaucer
has: ‘ Ful many a deynté hors hadde he in stable ;’ C, Τὶ prol. 168.
This adjectival use is, however, a secondary one, and arose out of
such phrases as ‘to leten deinté’=to consider as pleasant (Ancren
Riwle, p. 412), and ‘to thinken deyntee,’ with the same sense
(P. Plowman, B. xi. 47). —OF. daintie (to be accented daintié), also
deintie, dainte (deintié, dainté), joy, pleasure, also a tit-bit (Godefroy).
=L. ace. dignitatem, dignity, worth.—L. dignus, worthy. See
Dignity. 4 Cotgrave gives the remarkable adj. daix, explained by
‘dainty, fine, quaint, curious (an old word);’ this is precisely the
popular F. form of L. dignus, the learned form being digne. Cf. dis-
dain, in which -dain again represents L. dignus. Der. dainti-ly,
dainti-ness.
DAIRY, a place for keeping milk to be made into cheese. (Scand.
and F.) ME. daierie, better deyerye, Chaucer, C. T. 597 (or 599). The
Low L. form is dayeria, but this is merely the Εἰ, word written in a Latin
fashion. a. The word is hybrid, being made by suffixing the F. -erie
(L. -dria) to the ME. deye,a maid, a female-servant, esp. a dairy-
maid; late AS. dége, Thorpe, Diplom. p. 641. Similarly formed
words are butte-ry (=bottle-ry), vin-t-ry, pan-t-ry, laund-ry; see
Morris, Hist. Outlines of Eng. Accidence, p. 233. B. The ME, deye,
a maid, occurs in Chaucer, Nonne Pr. Tale, 1. 26 (B 4036), and is of
Scand. origin. —Icel. (ONorw.) deigja, a maid, esp. a dairy-maid ;
see note upon the word in Cleasby and Vigfusson; Swed. deja, a
dairymaid. γ. However, the still older sense of the word was
‘kneader of dough,’ and it meant at first a woman employed in
baking, a baker-voman. The same maid no doubt made the bread
and attended to the dairy, as is frequently the case to this day in
farm-houses. Teut. type *daig-jon-, f., lit. ‘dough-er ;” from the Teut.
type *daig-oz,as in the Icel. deig, Swed. deg, dough. The suffix -jdn-
had an agential force; cf. Moeso-Gothic verbs in -jan. See further
under Dough; and see Lady.
DATS, a raised floor in a hall. (F.—L.—Gk.) Now used of the
raised floor on which the high table in a hall stands. Properly, it
was the table itself (L. discus). Later, it was used of a canopy over
a seat of state or even of the seat of state itself. ME. dets, deys,
sometimes dais, a high table; Chaucer, Kn. Tale, 1342 (A 2200) ;
P. Plowman, B. vii. 17, on which see the note. — AF. deis, OF. dois,
dais,a high table in hall. The later sense appears in Cotgrave, who
gives : ‘ Dais, or Daiz, a cloth of estate, canopy, or heaven, that stands
over the heads of princes thrones; also, the whole state, or seat of estate.’
For examples of OF. dois in the sense of ‘ table,’ see δὲς in Supp. to
Godefroy. =L. discum, ace. of discus, a quoit, a plate, a platter; in
late Latin, a table (Ducange). Gk. δίσκος, a round plate, a quoit.
See Dish, Disc.
DAISY, the name of a flower. (E.) Lit. day’s eye, or eye of day,
i.e. the sun; from the sun-like appearance of the flower. ME.
dayesye ; explained by Chaucer: ‘ The dayesye, or elles the ye of day,’
Prol. to Legend of Good Women, 184. AS. degesége,.a daisy, in
MS. Cott. Faustina, A. x. fol. 115 b, printed in. Cockayne’s Leech-
DAMSEL 153
doms, iii. 292.—AS. deges, day's. gen. of deg, a day ; and ége, Mercian
form of AS. éage, an eye. See Day and Kye. Der. daisi-ed.
DALE, a low place between hills, vale. (E.) ME. dale, Ormulum,
9203. AS. del (pl. dalu),a valley; Grein,i.185. [As much Scand.
as AS.; the commoner AS. word was denu, used to translate uallis
in Lu. iii. §; hence mod. E. dean, dene, den; see Den. ] + Icel. dalr,
a dale, valley; Dan. dal; Swed. dal; Du. dal; OF-ies. de?; OSax.
dal; Goth. dal; G. thal. Further allied to OS!av. dolz, Russ. dol’,
a dale; cf. Gk. θώλος, a vault, Der. dell; see Dell.
DALLY, to trifle, to fool away time. (F.—Teut.) ME. dalien.
‘Dysours dalye,’ i.e. dicers play; K. Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 6991.
‘To daly with derely your daynte wordez’=to play dearly with your
dainty words; Gawayn and the Grene Knight, 1253. Also spelt
daylien, id, 1114.— AF. dalier, to converse, chat, pass the time in
social converse ; see gloss. to N. Bozon, ed. P. Meyer; OF. dallier,
to ‘chaff,’ jest at (Godefroy). Of Teut. origin; cf. Bavar. dalen, to
speak and act as children (Schmeller); mod. G. dahlen, to trifle
(which see in Kluge). See Notes on E. Etym. p. 56. Der. dalli-
ance, ME. daliaun-e, Gawain and Grene Knight, 1012; AF. daliaunce,
Polit. Songs, p. 320.
DALMATIC, an ecclesiastical vestment. (F.—Dalmatia.) ME.
dalmatyk, Wyntown, Chron, IX. vi. 153 (N.E.D.).=—F. dalmatique,
“a fashion of a long white gown, . . spotted .. with purple, at first
brought up by the Dalmatian, or Sclavonian priests; also a wide-
sleeved vestment, worn . . by deacons ;’ (οἵ. L. dalmatica (uestis) ;
fem. of Dalmaticus, belonging to Dalmatia.
DAM (1), an earth-bank for restraining water. (E.) ME. dam,
tr. by Lat. agger; Prompt. Parv. p. 113. No doubt an AS. word,
being widely spread; but not recorded. We find, however, the de-
rived verb fordemman, to stop up; AS. Psalter, ed. Spelman, Ps. lvii.
4; OFries. dam, dom, a dam; NFries. dam.+ Du. dam, a dam,
mole, bank; whence the verb dammen, to dam; Icel. dammr, a dam;
demma, to dam; Dan. dam, a dam; demme, to dam; Swed. damm,
sb. ; diimma, verb; Goth. dammjan, verb, only used in the comp.
faur-dammjan, to stop up; 2 Cor. xi. 10; MHG. tam, G. damm, a
dike. β. Remoter origin uncertain; prob. allied to Gk. θωμός, a heap,
θεμ-όω, 1 constrain. Observe that the E. sb. is older in form than the
verb. Der. dam, vb.
DAM (2), a mother; chiefly applied to animals. (F.—L.) ME.
dam, damm2; Wyclif, Deut. xxii. 6; pl. dammes, id. Cf. the A.V.
A mere variation of Dame, q.v.
DAMAGE, harm, injury, loss. (F.—L.) ME. damage, K. Ali-
saunder, 959.—OF. damage, domage (F. dommage), harm (Supp. to
Godefroy); corresponding to the Prov. damnatje.dampnatje,in Bartsch,
Chrestomathie Provengale, 85. 25; 100. 26; 141. 23; cf. F. dame<
L. domina.—Late L. *damniticum, harm; not actually found; but
cf. Late L. damniticus, condemned to the mines. (The OF. -age
answers to L. -fiticum, by rule.|—L. damndat-us, pp. of damnare, to
condemn. =L. damnum, loss, See Damn. Der. damage, verb ;
damage-able.
DAMASK, Damascus cloth, figured stuff. (Ital.—Syria.) ME.
damaske. ‘Clothes of ueluet, damaske, and of golde;’ Lydgate, Storie
of Thebes, pt. iii. 1]. 2143 ed. 1561, fol. ccclxix, col. 2.—Ital. damasco ;
Late L. Damascus, cloth of Damascus (Ducange).—L. Damascus,
proper name. =Gk. Δαμασκόύς. - Heb. dmeseg, damask; Heb. Dam-
meseg, Damascus, one of the oldest cities in the world, mentioned in
Gen. xiv. 15. Der. Hence also damask-rose, Spenser, Shep. Kal. April,
60; Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 165; damask, verb; damas-
kine, to inlay with gold (Ε΄. damasquiner) ; also damson, q. v.
DAME, a lady, mistress. (F.—L.) In early use. ME. dame,
Ancren Riwle, p. 230.—OF. (and F.) dame, a lady.=L. domina, a
lady; fem. form of dominus, a lord. See Don (2), and Dominate.
Der. dam-s-el, q.v. Doublet, dam (2).
DAMN, to condemn. (F.—L.) ME. damnen; commonly also
dampnen, with excrescent p. ‘Dampned was he to deye in that prisoun;’
Chaucer, C. T, 14725 (B 3605).—OF. damner ; frequently dampner,
with excrescent p.—L. damnare, pp. damnatus, to condemn, fine. =
L. damnum, loss, harm, fine, penalty. Brugmann, i. § 762. Der.damn-
able, -able-ness, -at-ion, -at-or-y; and see damage.
DAMP, moisture, vapour. (E.) In Shak. Lucrece, 778. The verb
appears as ME. dampen, to choke, suffocate, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris,
ii. 989. Though not found earlier, it can hardly be other than an E.
word; cf. EFries. damp, vapour. [It can hardly be Scandinavian,
the Icel. dampr being a mod. word ; see Cleasby and Vigfusson.] +
Du. damp, vapour, steam, smoke ; whence dampen, to steam; Dan.
damp, vapour; whence dampe, to reek ; G. dampf, vapour. Cf. Swed.
damb, dust. From the 2nd grade of Teut. *dempan-, pt. τ. *damp, pp.
*dumpanoz; as seen in MHG. dimpfen, timpfen, str. verb, to reek. Cf.
Swed. dial. dimba, str. verb, to reek. See Dumps. Der. damp,
verb; damp, adj.; -ly, -ness.
DAMSEL, a young unmarried woman, girl. (F.—L.) ME. damo-
154. DAMSON
sel, ‘And ladies, and damoselis;’ IK. Alisaunder, 1'71.— OF. damoisele
(with many variations of spelling), a girl, damsel ; fern. form of OF.
damoisel, a young man, squire, page, retained in mod. F. in the form
damoiseau. — Late L. domicellus, a page, which occurs in the Statutes
of Cluni (Brachet). This is shortened from domnicellus, also domini-
cellus, a regular double diminutive from _L. dominus, a lord; made
by help of the suffixes -c- and -el-. See Don (2), and Dominate.
@ For dan=sir (Chaucer), see Dan.
DAMSON, the Damascene plum. (F.—L.—Syria.) ‘When dam-
sines I gather;’ Spenser, Shep. Kal. April, 152. Bacon has dammasin,
Essay 46, Of Gardens; also ‘the damasin plumme ;’ Nat. Hist. § 509.
Lydgate has damysyns; Minor Poems, p. 15.— MF. damaisine, ‘a
Damascene, or Damson plum ;’ Cotgrave.—F. Damas, Damascus ;
with fem. suffix -ine.—L. Damascus. See Damask.
DAN, an honourable title; sir. (F.—L.) Spenser speaks of ‘ Dan
Chaucer ;’ F. Q. iv. 2. 32. Chaucer has ‘ dan John;’ C.‘T., B 3119.
~ OF. dan, acc., dans, nom., sir, lord, L.dominum, acc. of dominus,
lord. See Don (2). Der. dam (2), dame, damsel.
DANCE, to trip with measured steps. (F.—OHG.) ME. dauncen,
daunsen ; ‘ Maydens so dauncen,’ K. Alisaunder, 5213.—OF. danser,
dancer (Εἰς danser), to dance. —OHG. dansén, to draw, draw along,
as in a round dance; a secondary verb from MHG., dinsen, OHG.
tinsen, thinsen, to draw or drag forcibly, to trail along, draw a sword;
cognate with Goth. ¢hinsan, which only occurs in the compound at-
thinsan, to draw towards one, John, vi. 44, xii. 32. B. Related to
MHG. denen, OHG. thenen, to stretch, stretch out, draw, trail; Goth.
ufthanjan, to stretch after; L. tendere, to stretch; see further under
Thin.—4+/ TEN, to stretch. Der. danc-er, danc-ing.
DANDELION, the name of a flower. (F.—L.) The word
occurs in Cotgrave. The older spelling dent-de-lyon occurs in
G. Douglas, Prol. to xii Book of Aineid, 1. 119; see Skeat, Speci-
mens of English. ME. dent de lyoun, Medical Werkes, ed. Henslow,
p. 91,1. 12.—F. dent de lion, ‘the herbe dandelyon ;” Cot. [Cf. Span.
diente de leon, dandelion.| B. The plant is named from its jagged
leaves, the edges of which present rows of teeth. L. dentem, acc. of
dens, a tooth; dé, preposition, of; and Jednem, acc. of Jeo, a lion.
See Tooth, and Lion.
DANDLE, to toss a child in ones arms, or fondle it in the lap.
(Low G.) In Shak. Venus, 562; 2 Hen. VI, i. 3. 148. Palsgrave
has: ‘ I dandyll, as a mother or nourryce doih a childe upon their
lappe.’ Another meaning was to play, trifle with. Thus we find:
‘King Henries ambassadors into France having beene dandled [trifled
with, cajoled] by the French during these delusive practises, returned
without other fruite of their labours ;’ Speed, Hen. VII, b. ix. c. 20.
s. 28 (R.). Not known before the 16th century. B. In form, it is a
frequentative verb, made by help of the suffix -Je from an O. Low
German base dand-, which appears in the WFlem. dand-eren, to
bounce up and down, like an elastic ball (De Bo). y. Cf. MItal.
dandolare, dondolare, ‘ to dandle or dangle, to play the babie or gull;’
Florio; dandola, dondola, ‘a babie [doll], a puppie, ..a kinde of
play at the ball; also, dandling or dangling ;’ id. This word is
from the same Low G. root. Perhaps we may also compare MF.
dandiner, to balance or sway the body, or to swagger (Supp. to
Godefroy); and EFries. dindannen, to walk unsteadily, to sway from
side to side (Koolman). And see prov. E. dander, to tremble, shake,
saunter, trifle, in E.D.D.; MHG. tant, G. tand, a trifle, toy.
DANDRIFF, scurf on the head. (Scand.?) Formerly dandruff;
‘the dandruffe or unseemly scales within the haire of head or beard ;’
Holland’s Pliny, b. xx. c. 8. A compound word; composed of dander
and hurf. Of these, dander is a Yorksh, word, signifying a slight
scurf on the skin (E.D.D.); and hurf or urf (at Whitby), or huff
(EAnglia), with the sense of ‘scurf,’ is from Icel. hrufa, a scab.
Thus the latter part of the word is of Scand. origin; perhaps the
former was the same. See Hurfin E.D.D.; and Notes on E. Etym.,
Be
PDANDY, a fop, coxcomb. (Gk.?) The N.E.D. says: ‘In use on
the Scottish border at the end of the 18th century ; and about 1813-9
in vogue in London, for the “exquisite” or “ swell” of the period.
Perhaps the full form was ack-a-dandy, which occurs from 1659,
and in 18th. had a sense which might easily pass into that of dandy.’
Fack o’ Dandy occurs in 1632, which suggests that Dandy was a variant
of the name Andrew (as in Scotland). If so, the word is of Greek
origin. — Gk. ’Avdpéas; from ἀνδρεῖος, manly. Gk. ἀνήρ (gen. ἀνδρός),
a man.+Skt. nara-s, a man.
DANGER, penalty, risk, insecurity. (F.—L.) On the uses of
this word in early writers, see Trench, Select Glossary, and Richard-
son; and consult Brachet, s.v. danger. ME. daunger, daungere ;
Rob. of Glonc. p. 78, 1. 1751; Chaucer, C. T. Prol. 663 (or 665).
Still earlier, in the Ancren Riwle, p. 356; ‘ge polied ofte daunger
of swuche oderhwule pet muhte beon ower prel’=ye sometimes put
up with the arrogance of such an one as might be your thrall. =
DARE
OF. dangier (mod. F. danger), absolute power, irresponsible authority ;
hence, power to harm, as in Shak. Merch. of Venice, iv. 1. 180.
The word was also spelt dongier, which rhymes with alongier ina poem
of the 13th century cited in Bartsch, Chrestomathie Frangaise, col.
362, 1. 2; and this helps us out. B. According to Hatzfeld, this
answers toa Late L. *dommniarium, a form not found, but an extension
from dominium, power, for which see Dominion. At any rate,
dominium is certainly the true source of the word, and was used (like
OF. dongier) to denote the absolute authority of a feudal lord, which
is the idea running through the old uses of F. and E. danger. Y-
Brachet remarks: ‘just as dominus had become domnus in Roman
days, so dominiarium became domniarium, which consonified the ia
(see the rule under abréger and Hist. Gram. p. 65), whence domn-
jarium, whence OF, dongier ; for m=n, see changer (from cambiare] ;
for -drium =-ier see § 198.’ A word similarly formed, and from the
same source, is the E. dungeon. See Dominion, and Dungeon.
Der. danger-ous, -ous-ly, -ous-ness.
DANGLE, to hang loosely, swing about. (Scand.) In Shak.
Rich. II, iii, 4. 29.—Dan. dangle, to dangle, bob; Swed. dial.
dangla, to swing, Rietz; who also cites NFriesic dangeln from Out-
zen’s Dict. p. 44. Ihre gives MSwed. dengla, dangla; and Aasen
has Norw. dangla. Another form appears in Swed. dingla, Icel.
dingla, Dan. dingle, to dangle, swing about. B. The suffix -/e is, as
usual, frequentative ; and the verb is the frequentative of dang, 2nd
grade of ding, to strike, throw; so that the sense was to throw about
often, to bob, to swing. See Ding. @ We even find Low G. dung-
eln, to dangle; from the weak grade dung-. Der. dangl-er.
DANK, moist, damp. (Scand.) Inthe Allit. Morte Arthure, ed.
Brock, 1. 313, we find ‘the dewe that is daunke;’ and in]. 3750, we
have it as a sb. in the phrase ‘ one the danke of the dewe,’ i.e. in the
moisture of the dew. And cf. ‘ Dropis as dew or a danke rayne ;’
Destruction of Troy, 2368. It also occurs as a verb, in Specimens of
Lyric Poetry, ed. Wright; see Specimens of Early Eng. ed. Morris
and Skeat, sect. IV d. 1. 28: ‘deawes donketh the dounes,’ i.e. dews
moisten the downs.—Swed. dial. dank, a moist place in a field,
marshy piece of ground, Rietz; Icel. dokk, a pit, pool; where dokk
stands for dénk, by the assimilation so common in Icelandic, from
Teut. stem *dank-wd. We also find Swed. dial. danka, to moisten;
Dan. dial. donke, dynke, to sprinkle linen with water before ironing it;
also MSwed. dunkenhet, moisture, Dan. dial. dunkel, moist; Norw.
dynka, to wet. The forms prove the existence of an obs. Scand. verb
*dinka, to be wet, pt. τ. *dank, pp. *dunkinn. See Notes on E. Etym.,
p. 57. Cf. Damp.
DAPPER, spruce, neat. (Du.) Orig. good, valiant; hence brave,
fine, spruce. Spenser speaks of his ‘dapper ditties;’ Shep. Kal.
October, 1.13. ‘ Dapyr, or praty [pretty], elegans;’ Prompt. Parv.
= Du. dapper, valiant, brave, intrepid, bold. + OHG. taphar, heavy,
weighty, (later) valiant; G. /apfer, brave. + Ch. Slav. dobrii, good ;
Russ. dobrui, good, excellent. See Brugmann, i. § 563.
DAPPLE, a spot on an animal. (Scand.) ‘ As many’ eyes upon
his body as my gray mare hath dapples;’ Sidney, Arcadia, b. ii. p.
271 (R.). Hence the expression: ‘ His stede was αἱ dappel-gray ;’
Chaucer, C. Τ᾿ 13813 (B 2074).—Icel. depill, a spot, dot; a dog
with spots over the eyes is also called depill; the orig. sense is a
pond, a little pool, from Norw. dape, a pool, in Aasen; Cleasby
and Vigfusson. Cf. Swed. dial. depp, a large pool of water. Also
MDan, duppe, a puddle, a hole where water collects. Der. dapple,
verb; ‘ Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey;’ Much Ado, v.
3. 27; and dappled. @ As Mr. Wedgwood well observes, ‘the re-
semblance of dapple-grey to Icel. apalgrar, or apple-grey, Fr. gris
pommele, is accidental.’ The latter phrase is equivalent to Chaucer’s
pomely-grey, C. T. prol. 616 (or 618). Still, association with apple
may have changed dep- into dap-.
DARE (1), to be bold, to venture. (E.) a. The verb to dare,
pt. t. dared, pp. dared, is the same word with the auxiliary verb /o
dare, pt. τ. durst, pp. durst. But the latter keeps to the older forms;
dared is much more modern than durst, and grew up by way of dis-
tinguishing, to some extent, the uses of the verb. β. The present
tense, I dare, is really an old past tense, so that the third person is
he dare (cf. he shall, he can); but the form he dares is now often used,
and will probably displace the obsolescent ke dare, though grammati-
cally as incorrect as he shalls, or he cans. ME. dar, der, dear, 1 dare;
see Stratmann’s O. E. Dict. ‘The pore dar plede,’ i.e. the poor man
dare plead; P. Plowman, B. xiv. 108, Past tense dorsté, dursté.
‘For if he yaf, he dorsté make avaunt’=for if he gave, he durst make
the boast; Chaucer, C. Τὶ prol. 227. AS. tc dear (for dearr), I dare;
pu dearst, thou darest; he dear(r), he dare or dares; wé, gé, or hig
durran, we, ye, or they dare. Past tense, ic dorste, I durst or dared ;
pl. we durston, we durst or dared. Infin. durran, to dare; Grein, i.
212.4Goth. dars, I dare; daursta, I durst; pp. daursts; infin. daurs-
an, to dare; OHG. #ar, I dare; torsta, I dared; turran, to dare.
DARE
[This verb is distinct from the OHG. durfan, to have need, now
turned into dizfex, but with the sense of ἡ dare.’ In like manner, the
Du. durven, to dare, is related to Icel. purfa, to have need, AS. purf-
an, Goth. paurban, to have need; and must be kept distinct. The
verb requires some care and attention.]-+ Gk. θαρσεῖν, to be bold;
θρασύς, bold; Skt. dhysh, to dare. —4/DHERS, to be bold, to dare;
Brugmann,i.§ 502. 4 AS. dearr < *darr < *darz=Goth. dars; cf.
pt. t. dors-te. Der. dar-ing, dar-ing-ly.
DARE (2), a dace; see Dace.
DARK, obscure. (E.) ME. dark, derk, deork ; see dearc in Strat-
mann. AS. deorc, Grein, i. 191; base *derk-. The OHG. tarchan-
jan, to hide (answering to WGerm. *dark-n-jan) is from the 2nd
grade *dark- of the same base. Cf. also OSax. der-ne, AS. der-ne,
OHG. tar-ni, secret, dark. See Darn and Tarnish.
DARKLING, adv., in the dark. (K.) In Shak. Mid. Nt.
Dream, ii. 2. 86; Lear, i. 4. 2373; also in ‘goth him-self darkeling ;’
Lord Rivers, Dictes and Sayings (Caxton), fol. 35, 1.7. Formed
from dark by help of the adverbial suffix -ling, which occurs also in
Jlatling, i.e. flatly, on the ground ; see Halliwell’s Dict. p. 360. It
occurs also in hedling ; ‘heore hors hedlyng mette,’ i.e. their horses
met head to head, King Alisaunder, 1. 2261. B. An example in
older English is seen in the AS. becling, backwards, Grein, i. 76;
and see Morris, Hist. Outlines of Eng. Accidence, sect. 322, Adv.
Suffixes in -long, -ling.
DARKSOME, obscure. (E.) In Shak. Lucrece,379. Palsgrave
has darkesome, p. 309. Formed from dark by help of the suffix -some
(AS. sum); cf. ful-some, blithe-some, win-some, &c.
DARLING, a little dear, a favourite. (E.) ME. deorling, der-
ling, durling ; spelt deorling, Ancren Riwle, p. 56. AS. déorling, a
favourite; Aélfred’s tr. of Boethius, lib. iii, prosa 4. B. Formed
from déor, dear, by help of the suffix -/ing, which stands for -/-ing,
where -/ and -ing are both suffixes expressing diminution. Cf. duck-
Ling, gos-l-ing ; see Morris, Hist. Outlines of Eng. Accidence,
sect. 321. See Dear.
DARN, to mend, patch. (E.) ‘For spinning, weaving, derning,
and drawing up a rent;’ Holland’s Plutarch, p. 783 (R.). This
dern seems to be merely a peculiar use of ME. dernen, to hide, con-
ceal (prob. also to stop up a hole). Related to AS. gedyrnan, which
not only meant ‘to hide, conceal, keep secret,’ but also ‘to stop up
a hole,’ as shown by the gloss: ‘ oppilatum, gedyrned;’ Voc. 461. 7 ;
494. 25. So also proy. E. darn (Aberdeen) means not only ‘ to hide,’
but also ‘ to stop up a hole with straw ;’ E.D.D. So also Westphalian
stoppen means (1) to stop up; (2) to dam a stocking; Notes on E.
Etym., p.57. β. AS. gedyrnan is from the adj. dyrne, dierne (Merc.
derne), ‘secret,’ for Teut. *darn-jo- (Sievers, AS. Gr. §§ 159, 299),
whence also OHG. ¢arni, secret, dark ; see under Dark.
DARNEL, a kind of weed, rye-grass. (F.—Scand. and L.) ME.
darnel, dernel, Wyclif, Matt. xiii. 25, 29. Apparently a F. word,
Mr. Wedgwood cites (from Grandgagnage) the Rouchi darnelle,
darnel (given by Hécart); and compares it with Walloon darnise,
daurnise, tipsy, stunned, giddy (also in Grandgagnage). B. The
former syllable also appears as dor- in Lowl. Sc. dornel, darnel; and
is explained by Swed. dar- γέρε, bearded darnel (Oman). This prefix
prob. signifies ‘stupefying ;’ cf. MDu. door, foolish (Oudemans),
Swed. ddra, to infatuate, dire, a fool, Dan. daare, a fool, (ἃ. thor, a
fool; all of which are from a base *daur-, for *dauz-, *daus-, the
weak grade of which appears in AS. dys-ig, stupid; see Dizzy.
y- The latter syllable is from OF. nelle, neele, nielle, darnel (Godefroy).
=Late L. nigella, a plant, one kind of which has black seeds.—L.
nigellus, blackish ; dimin. of niger, black. See Notes on E. Etym.,
p- 593 Lyte, tr. of Dodoens, bk. ii. c. 96, bk. iv. c. 45. At least three
plants have been confused, gith, ἘΡΑ͂Ν and darnel. In Lolium
temulentum, temulentum is vepresented by dar-, and lolium by -nel.
Cf. MF. yuraye, ‘darnell,’ Cot.; from yure, ‘drunken ;’ id.
DART, a javelin. (F.—O.Low G.) ME. dart, Rob. of Brunne, tr.
of Langtoft, p. 178; Chaucer, C.T., A 1564.—OF. dart (mod. F.
dard), a dart; a word of O. Low G. origin. Cf. AS. darod, darad, or
dared, a dart; Swed. dart, a dagger, poniard ; Icel. darradr, a dart ;
ef. OHG. tart, adart. B. Perhaps from the base dar- of AS. derian,
to harm, injure. ΑἹ The Low L. dardus is evidently from an O. Low
German source. Der. dar/, verb, and see dace.
DASH, to thiow with violence. (Scand.) Orig. to beat, as when
we say that waves dash upon rocks. ME. daschen, dasschen. ‘Into
the cité he con dassche,’ i.e. he rushed, King Alisaunder, 2837 ; and
see Layamon, i. 62; 1. 1469. —Dan. daske, to slap; Swed. daska, to
beat, to drub ; Swed. dial. daska, to slap with the open hand, as one
slaps a child (Rietz. )+Low G, daschen, to thrash (Berghaus), B.A
shorter form appears in Swed. dial. diva, to strike (Rietz). Der.
dash-ing, i.e, striking ; dash-ing-ly.
DASTARD, ἃ cowardly fellow. (Scand.; with F’.suffix.) “ Dast-
ard or dullarde, duribuctius ;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 114. * Dastarde,
DAUPHIN 155
! estourdy, butarin;’ Palsgrave. 1. The suffix is the usual F. -ard, as
in dull-ard, slugg-ard; a suffix of Germanic origin, and related to
Goth. hardus, hard. In many words it takes a bad sense ; see Brachet,
Introd. to Etym. Dict. sect. 196. 2. The stem das¢- answers to E.
dazed, and the ¢ appears to be due to a past participial form. = Icel.
dastr, exhausted, breathless, pp. of desa, to groan, lose breath from
exhaustion ; closely related to Icel. dasadr, exhausted, weary, pp. of
dasask, to become exhausted, a reflexive verb standing for dasa-sik, to
daze oneself. Another past participial form is Icel. dasinn, commonly
shortened to dasi, a lazy fellow. Thus the word is to be divided
das-t-ard, where das- is the base, -/- the past participial form, and
-ard the suffix. The word actually occurs in MDutch without the
?, viz. in MDu. dasaert, daasaardt, a fool (Oudemans) ; and an ME.
dasart, a dullard, occurs once, in Minor Poems of the Vernon MS.
(E.E.T.S.), p. 333. On the other hand, we find Swed. dial. dast,
weary (Rietz). See further under Daze, 4 The derivation from
AS, adastrigan, to frighten, is absurd ; I find no such word; it is
recorded by Somner, but is an error for ONorthumb. adustriga, to
curse; Matt. xxvi. 74. Der. dastard-ly, -li-ness.
DATE ( (1), an epoch, given point of time. (F.—L.) ME. date ;
Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, i. 505. ‘ Date, of scripture, datum ;’ Prompt.
Pary. p. 114.—F. date, the date of letters or evidences ; Cotgrave. -
Late L. data, a date.—L. data, neut. pl. of datus, pp. of dare, to give.
In classical Latin, the neut. datum was employed to mark the time
and place of writing, as in the expression datum Roma, given (i.e.
written) at Rome. + Gk. di-dw-pu, I give; cf. δωτήρ, a giver, δοτός,
given; Skt. da-da-mi, I give, from the root da, to give; cf. daty, a
giver; Church Slav. dati, to give; Russ. dari/e, to give. -v DO, to
give. Der. From the L. datus, given, we have also nent. sing. datum,
and neut. pl. data; also dat-ive. And see dose, donation.
DATE (2), the fruit of a palm. (F.—L.—Gk.—Semitic.) ME.
date; Maundeyille’s Travels, ch. 5, p. 57. ‘Date, frute, dactilus ;”
Prompt. Parv. p. 114.—AF. date, Liber Albus, p. 224; OF. date
(Littré) ; later Ἐς datte, badly written dacte, a date; both spellings
are in Cotgrave. —L. daciylus, a date; also, a dactyl.—Gk. δάκτυλος,
a date (no doubt assimilated to the Gk. word for ‘ finger;’ but of
Eastern origin), From Semitic; cf. Aramaic digla, a palm-tree ;
whence Heb. Diglah, as a proper name, Gen. x. 27; also Arab. dagal,
a kind of palm; Rich, Dict. p. 679.
DAUB, to smear over. (F.—L.) ME. dauben, to smear; used to
translate if linire, Wyclif, Ezek. xiii. 10, 11; and see note 3 in Prompt.
Parv. p. 114.=OF. dauber, occurring in the sense of ‘ plaster.’ Cf.
AF. daubours, plasterers, Late L. dealbatorés, Liber Custumarum,
pp- 52,99. The earlier form of this OF. verb could only have been
*dalber, from L, dealbare, to whitewash, plaster. [Cf. F. aube from
L. alba (see Alb), and F. dorer from L. deaurare.| B. This
etymology of dauber is confirmed by Span. ja/begar, to whitewash,
plaster, corresponding to a hypothetical L. derivative *dealbicare.
y. From L. dé, down; and albare, to whiten, from albus, white. See
Alb. 4 The sense of the word has probably to some extent influenced
that of dab, which is of Low G. origin. W. dwb, plaster, dwbio, to
daub ; Gael. dob, plaster, dobair, a plasterer; Irish dob, plaster,
dobaim, I plaster, are all borrowed from Εἰ. daub.
DAUGHTER, a female child. (E.) ME. doghter, doughter,
douhter, dohter, dowter, &c.; the pl. dohtren occurs in Layamon,
i. 124,1. 29243 dehtren in O. Eng. Homilies, i. 247; de3ter in Allit.
Poems, ed. Morris, ii, 270. AS. doktor, pl. dohtor, dohtra, dohtru,
and dohter ; Grein, i. 195. + Du. dochter ; Dan. datter, dotter ; Swed.
dotter ; Icel. dottir; Goth. dauhtar; OHG. tohter, G, tochter. Tent.
type Xdohter ; Idg. type xdhughatar ; whence Lith. dukté, Russ. doche ;
Gk, θυγάτηρ, Pers. dukhtar, Skt. duhita. β. Lassen’ 5 etymology
from the Skt. duk (for dhugh), to milk—‘ the milker’—is not now
generally accepted.
DAUNT, to frighten, discourage. (F.—L.) ME. daunten, K.
Alisaunder, 1312.—AF, danter (Gaimar, 3201), daunter (Bozon) ;
OF. danter (Roquefort) ; MF. donter (Cotgrave), (of which the last =
mod. F. dompter), written for an older *domter, to tame, subdue,
daunt.—L. domitare, to subdue; frequentative of domare, to tame;
which is cognate with E. same, See Tame. Der. dauntless, -lessness.
DAUPHIN, eldest son of the king of France, (F.—L.—Gk.)
Formerly spelt ‘Daulphin, Fabyan, vol. 11. Car. VII. an. 16 (p. 560);
also Dolphine, Hall, Mdw. IV, an. 18. § 1. —OF. daulphin, for dauphin,
a dolphin ; also ‘the Dolphin, or eldest son of France; called so of
Daulphiné, a province given or (as some report it) sold in the year
1349 by Humbert earl thereof to Philippe de Valois, partly on
condition, that for ever the French king's eldest son should hold it,
during his father’s life, of the empire;’ Cotgrave. Brachet gives the
date as 1343, and explains the name of the province by saying that
the title of Daupkin was peculiar to SE. France. It first appears
A.D. 1140. The origin of it is unknown, though it certainly represents
the L. delphinus. A doublet of dolphin ; see Dolphin.
156 DAVIT
DAVIT, a spar used as a crane for hoisting a ship’s anchor clear
of the vessel; one of two supports for ship’s boats. (Heb.) ‘ Davi,
a short piece of timber, us’d to hale up the flook of the anchor, and
to fasten it to the ship’s bow;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715. Older
spelling David, a Christian name of Heb. origin. Capt. Smith
(Works, ed. Arber, p. 793, A.D. 1626) has: ‘the block at the Dawid’s
ende.’ So also Ε΄ davier, formerly daviet, from Daviet, dimin. of OF.
Davi, David; as in ‘davier de barbier, the pinser wherewith he [the
barber] draws or pulls out teeth ;” Cotgrave. He also gives : ‘ Davier
d'un pelican, a certain instrament to pick a lock withall; an iron
hook, or cramp-iron for that purpose.’ So also AF. daviot, a davit,
Riley, Memorials of London, p. 370 (1373); E. daviot, Naval
Accounts, p. 49 (1485).
DAW, a jackdaw, bird of the crow family. (E.) In Skelton, Ware
the Hawk, 1. 327. In]. 322 he uses the compound daw-cocke. The
compound ca-daw, i.e. caw-daw, occurs in the Prompt. Parv. p. 57;
on which see Way’s Note. May be claimed as an E. word, being
certainly of O. Low G. origin. B. A cognate word is traced by
Schmeller, in his Bavarian Dict. col. 494. He says that the
Vocabularius Theutonicus of 1482 gives the forms dach and dula; the
latter of these answers to (ἃ. dohle, a jackdaw, and is a dimin. form,
for an older *dahele, dimin. of daha. This daha is the O. Low G.
form answering to OHG. “πα, MHG. taihe, a daw; whence MHG.
tahele, later dakle, and now spelt dohle. y. ‘The word, like chough,
is doubtless imitative ; Schmeller gives dak dah as a cry used by
hunters. By a change of the initial letter, we have the imitative E.
word caw; and by uniting these words we have caw-daw, as above.
Cf. also Ital. taccola, £a chough, a rooke, a dawe; also a skould, a
pratler; also a rayling or a skoulding;’ Florio, This Ital. word is
plainly derived from Old High German. Der. jack-daw.,
DAWODLE, to waste time, to loiter. (Scand.) ‘And dawdle over
a dish of tea ;’ Boswell’s Johnson, June 3, 1781. Of Scand. origin ;
cf. Norw. daudall, indolent (Ross); Swed. dial. didolger, a slothful
man (Rietz) ; Low G. dédeln, to dawdle (Berghaus); Pomeran. deu-
deln, to waste time. Allied to Norw. daudleg, faint, stupid, lifeless
(lit. deadly) ; and to Icel. daudi, Swed. déd, death. See Death.
DAWKEK, transport by relays of horses or bearers; a post. (Hind.)
See Yule.—Hind. ¢ak, transport, the post (Forbes). Cf. Skt. drak,
quickly: dra, to run.
DAWN, to become day. (Scand.) ME. dawnen; but the more
usual form is dawen. ‘ Dawyn, idem est quod Dayyn, dawnyn, or dayen,
auroro ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 114. ‘That in his bed ther dawetk him
no day;’ Chaucer, C.T., A 1676; cf. 1. 14600 (B 3872). We find
daiening, daigening, daning, =dawning ; Genesis and Exodus, 77,
1808, 3264. B. The -x is a suffix, often added to verbs to giye them
a neuter or passive signification; cf. Goth. fullnan, to become full,
from fzlljan, to fill; Goth. gahailnan, to become whole; and the like.
The MI‘. word is to be divided as daw-n-en, from the older dawen ;
and the insertion of the τι was suggested by Swed. and Dan. dagning,
sb., a dawning, a dawn, as if from a verb *dagna, from dag, a day.
y. ME. dawen is the AS. dagian, to dawn; Grein, i. 182; from the
AS. deg, day. So G. tagen, to dawn, from tag, day. See Day.
Der. dawn, sb.
DAY, the time of light. (E.) ME. day, dai, dei; spelt dei in
Layamon, li. 2, 1.10246. AS. deg, pl. dagas. + Du. dag; Dan. and
Swed. dag; Icel. dagr; Goth. dags; ἃ. tag. Teut. type *dagoz, m.;
allied to Lith. dagas, a hot season, daga, harvest; OPruss. dagis,
summer; Skt. ni-digha-, the hot season, daha-,a burning, heat. -α
4 DHEGH, to burn, as in Lith. dég-ti, to burn, Skt. dah, to burn.
Thus the orig. sense was ‘hot time.” Brugmann, ii. 8 60. 4] Per-
haps it is well to add that the L. diés, Irish dia, W. dydd, meaning
‘day,’ are from quite a different root, and are wholly unrelated.
Der. dai-ly, day-book, -break, -spring, -star, and other compounds.
Also daisy, q.v.3 dawn, q.v,
DAY WOMAN, dairy-woman. (Scand. andE.) In Shak. L. L. L.
i. 2.137. The addition of woman is needless. Day=ME. deye, a
dairy-woman. - ONorw. deigja, a dairy-maid; see Dairy.
DAZE, to stupefy, render stupid. (Scand.) ME. dasen; the pp.
dased (or daswed) is in Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, ii. 150; in the Pricke
of Conscience, 6647; and in Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, i. 1085. The
ME. dasex is also intransitive, in the sense to become stupefied; see
N.E.D. =—Icel. dasa, in the reflexive verb dasask, to daze oneself, to
become weary and exhausted ; Swed. dasa, to lie idle; Norw. dasa,
to grow faint; dasa, to grow faint, be exhausted by cold or wet;
dast, pp. faint, tired out; Dan. dial. dase, to be idle. Cf. Low G.
dasen, dosen, to be listless; in ’n dds’ stin, to be in a daze (Berghaus).
@ Hence also OF. daser, to be dazed. Der. das-t-ard, q.v., and
dazzle, q.v.
DAZZLE, to confuse the sight by strong light. (Scand.; with
E. suffix.) In Shak. Hen. V, i. 2. 279; also intransitively, to be
confused in one’s sight, 3 Hen. VI, ii. 1. 25. “1 dasyll, as ones eyes
85
DEAR
co for lokyng agaynst the sonne;’ Palsgrave. ‘The frequentative of
daze, formed with the usual suffix -/e; lit. ‘to daze often.’ See Daze.
DE.-, prefix, (1) from L. prep. dé, down, from, away ; also (2)
occurring in French words, being the OF. des-, F. dé- in composition ;
in which case it=L. dis-. ‘It is negative and oppositive in destroy,
desueiude, deform, &c. It is intensitive in declare, desolate, desiccate,
&c.;’ Morris, Hist. Outlines of Eng. Accidence ; sect. 326.
DEACON, one of the third order of clergy. (L.—Gk.) ME.
deken ; Chaucer has the compound erchedeken, C.T. 6884 (Ὁ) 1300).
The pl. dekenes is in Wyclif, 1 Tim. iii. 8. AS. deacon, Exod. iv. 14.
“Το, didconus, a deacon. Gk. διάκονος (with ἃ), a servant; hence, a
deacon. The Ionic form is διήκονος. ‘From διά and *d-Kovos (a<an);
allied to ἐγ-κονέω, Τ am quick, éy-xovis, a maid-servant ;’ Prellwitz.
Der. deacon-ess, where the suffix is of F. origin; deacon-ship, where
the suffix is of AS. origin; deacon-ry, with I. suffix -ry (for -rie); also
diacon-ate, -al, formed from L. didicon-us by help of the suffixes -ate
and -al, of L. origin.
DEAD, deprived of life. (E.) ME. deed, ded; Chaucer, C.T.
prol. 148. AS. déad, dead, Grein, i. 189; [where déad is described
as an adjective, rather than as a past participle. And to this day we
distinguish between dead and died, as in the phrases ‘he is dead’ and
‘he has died ;’ we never say ‘he has dead.’ But see below.] + Du.
dood; Dan. did; Swed. déd; Icel. daudr; Goth. dauths, dead. B. The
termination -tks in Moeso-Gothic is the special mark of a weak past
participle, and there can be no doubt that dauths was formed with
this participial ending from the stem dau-, second grade of Teut.*deu-,
whence the Gothic diwan,to die. The Teut. type is *daudéz, answer-
ing to Idg. *dhautés, the change from -tds to -déz being due to Verner’s
Law. And this *daudoz is the pp. of Teut. *dan-jan, to die, exactly
preserved (with mutation of az to ey) in Icel. deyja, to die. Further
allied to Russ. davite, to strangle. Der. dead-ly (ME. deedli, Wyclif,
Heb. vii. 8); dead-li-ness ; dead-en, -ness; and see Death.
DEAF, dull of hearing. (E.) ME. deef, def, defe ; Chaucer, C. T.,
prol. 446 (or 448). AS. déaf; Grein, i. 190;-44Du. doof; Dan. dou;
Swed. dof; Icel. daufr; Goth. daubs; G. taub. B. Teut. type
* dauboz ; orig. ‘ obfuscated ;’ and allied to the G. toben, to blustcr,
rage, be delirious; also to the Gk. τῦφος, smoke, darkness, stupefac-
tion, stupor; and to τυφλός, ‘ blind.” (4/DHEUBH). Der. deaf-ly,
deaf-ness, dec f-en.
DEAL (1), ashare, division, a quantity. (E.) The sense of " quan-
tity’ arose out of that of ‘share’ or ‘ portion.” MI. deel, del, Chau-
cer, C. T., A 1825; Kn. Tale, 967. AS. dl, a portion, share;
Grein, i. 186. - Du. dee/, a portion, share; Dan. deel, a part, portion ;
Swed. del, a part, share; Goth. dails, a part; OHG. teil; Ὁ. theil.
Teut. type *dailiz; allied to Lith. dalis, a share; OSlav. déli.
Brugmann, i. § 279 (2). Der. deal, verb; whence deal-er, -ing,
-ings; cf. dole.
DEAL (2), to divide, distribute ; to traffic. (E.) ME, delen,
Chaucer, C. T. prol. 247, where it has the sense of ‘traffic.’ AS.
dexlan, to divide; Grein, i. 186.4-Du. deelen, to divide, share ; Dan.
dele; Swed. dela; Icel. deila; Goth. dailjan ; OHG. teilan ; G. theilen.
Teut. type *dai/jan-, from *dailiz, sb. The form of the verb shows
that it is derived from the sb. See Deal (1).
DEAL (3), a thin plank of timber. (Du.) The word is not E.,
but Dutch. ‘The earliest use of the word is in the Earl of Derby’s
Expeditions, 1390-3 (Camden Soc.), where find de’es, boards, fre-
quently ; see p. 359, col. 2, s.v. Wood. ‘A thousand deal-boards to
make huts for the soldiers;’ Clarendon, Civil War, ii. 675 (R.).
In Florio (1598), we find: ‘ Doga, a deale boord to make hogsheads
with.’=Du. deel, fem., deal, board, plank, threshing-floor (distinct
from deel, deal, part, which is neuter). In MDu. the word was di-
syllabic ; Hexham gives deele, ‘a planck, or a board’ (distinct from
deel, deyl, a part). 4+ Low G. dele, a board (which in the Bremen Wor-
terbuch is wrongly connected with AS. d#/) ; G.diele, board, plank ;
MHG., ditle; OHG. dilla; AS. fille, I. thill, Thus deal (3) is the
same word with Thill, q.v. @ The use of Du. ὦ for Eng. th
appears again in drill (1), q. v., and in deck.
DEAN, a dignitary in cathedral churches and colleges. (F.—L.)
The orig. sense is ‘a chief of ten.’ ME. den, deen, dene, P. Plow-
man, B. xiii. 65; also found in the comp. pl. suddenes, equivalent
to subdenes, i.e. sub-deans; P. Plowman, B. ii. 172.—OF. deien
(Roquefort) ; mod.F. doyen.— L. decdnzm, acc. of decanus, one set over
ten soldiers; later, one set over ten monks ; hence,adean.—L. decem,
ten; cognate with Εἰ. tex. Sce Decemvir and Ten. Der. dean-
ery, dean-ship; also decan-al, directly from L. decdn-us.
DEAR, precious, costly, beloved. (E.) ME. dere, deere; spelt
deore in Layamon, i. 7,1.143. AS. déore, dyre, Grein, i. 193, 215.
+ Du. dier ; Dan. and Swed. dyr, dear, expensive ; Icel. dyrr, dear,
precious ; OSax. diurt; OHG,. tiuri, MHG. tiure, G. thener, dear,
beloved, sacred, Teut. type *dewrjoz. Root unknown. Der. dear-ly,
-ness ; also dar-ling, q.v., dear-th, q. v.
DEARTH
DEARTH, dearness, scarcity. (E.) ME. dertie, P. Plowman,
B. vi. 330; Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 342. Not found in AS.,
but regularly formed trom AS. déore, dear; cf. heal-th, leng-th,
warm-th; see Morris, Hist. Outlines of Eng. Accidence, sect. 321.
+ Icel. dyrd, value; hence, glory; OSax. diuritha, value; OHG.
tiurida, value, honour. See above.
DEATH, the end of life. (E.) ΜΕ. deeth, deth, Chaucer, C. T.,
964 (or 966). We also find the form d:d, Havelok, 1687; a Scand.
form still in use in Lincolnshire and elsewhere. AS. déad, Grein,i.
189. Du. dood; [Dan. dod; Swed. did; Icel. daxidi}; Goth. dauthus;
G. tod. Teut. type *dax-thuz. See Dead and Die. GJ The ME.
form ded is rather Scandinavian than AS.; cf. the Danish and
Swedish forms.
DEBAR, to bar out from, hinder. (F.) In Shak. Sonnet 28.
Earlier, in ‘The Floure of Curtesie, st. 10, by Lydgate; pr. in Chau-
cer’s Works, ed. 1361, fol. ccclviii, back. Made up by prefixing the
OF. des- [=L. dis-] to the E. bar; see Bar. J It agrees in sense
neither with Late L. débarrare, to take away a bar, nor with OF.
desbarrer, to unbar (Cotgrave).
DEBARK, to land from a ship. (F.) ‘ Debark (not much used),
to disembark ;’ Ash’s Dict. 1775. —F. débarguer, to land ; spelt des-
barquer in Cotgrave.—F. des- (for L. dis-, away), and F. bargue, a
bark, ship. See Bark (1). Der. debark-at-ion, also spelt debarc-at-ion.
DEBASKH, to degrade, lower, abase. (Hybrid.) In Shak. Rich. 11,
iii. 3. 127... A mere compound, from L. dé-, down, and base. See
Base. Der. debase-ment, debas-ing, -ing-ly.
DEBATE, to argue, contend. (F.—L.) ‘In which he wol de-
bate;’ Chaucer, C. T. 13797 (B 2058). The ME. sb. debat occurs
in Ρ. Plowman, C. xxii, 251.— OI. debatre (F. débatire), ‘ to debate,
argue, discuss;’ Cot.—L. dé-, down; and battere, popular form of
L. batuere, to beat. See Beat, and Batter. Der. debate, sb.,
debat-er, -able.
DEBAUCGH, to seduce, corrupt. (F.—L. and Teut.) Only the
pp- debauched is in Shakespeare, and it is generally spelt debosh'd ;
‘Tempest, iii. 2. 29. —OF. desbaucher (mod. F. débaucher), ‘to debosh,
mar, corrupt, spoyle, viciate, seduce, mislead, make lewd, bring to
disorder, draw from goodness ;’ Cot.—OF. des-, prefix, from L, dis-,
away from; and OF. bazche, of rather uncertain meaning. Cotgrave
has: ‘bauche, a rew [row], rank, lane, or course of stones or bricks in
building.’ See Bauchein Diez, who remarks that, according to Nicot,
it means a plastering of a wall; according to Menage, a workshop
(apparently in order to. suggest an impossible derivation from L.
apothé-a). B. The compounds are esbaucher, to rough-hew, frame (Cot-
grave); embaucher, ‘to imploy, occupy, use in business, put unto work’
(id.) ; and desbaucher. Roquefort explains OF. bauche as a little
house, to make it equivalent to Low L. bugia, a little house. Dicz
proposes to explain débaucher by ‘to entice away from a workshop.’
He suggests as the origin either Gael. bale, a balk, boundary, ridge
of earth (which is mere. English), or the Icel. balkr, a balk, beam.
y. The latter of these suggestions may be nearly right ; but it may be
better to derive it from OSax. balko, a beam, or OHG., balco, balcho ;
the word bauche had clearly some connexion with building opera-
tions. At this rate, we should have esbaucher, to balk out, i.e. set
up the frame of a building; embaucher, to balk in, to set to work on
a building ; desbaucher, to dis-balk, to take away the frame or the sup-
ports of a building before finished or to leave it incomplete. Cf.
Korting, § 1183. And see OF. desbaucher in Supp. to Godefroy. See
Balk (1). Der. debauch, sb.; debauch-ee (F. débauché, debauched) ;
debauch-er-y.
DEBENTURE, an acknowledgment of a debt. (L.) Spelt de-
bentur by Lord Bacon, in the old edition of his speech to King James,
touching Purveyors. The passage is thus quoted by Richardson :
“Nay, farther, they are grown to that extremity, as is affirmed, though
it be scarce credible, that they will take double poundage, once when
the debenture [old ed. debentur| is made, and again the second time
when the money is paid.’ Blount, in his Law Dict., has; ‘ Debentur,
was, bya Rump-Act in 1649, ordained to be in the nature of a bond
or bill, &c. The form of which debentur, as then used, you may see
in Scobel’s Rump-Acts, Anno 1649, cap. 63.’ Also in the Paston
Letters, i. 364; no. 264 (ab. 1455).—L. débentur, they are due;
‘because these receipts began with the words débentur mihi;’ Web-
ster.—L. débére, to be due. See Debt.
DEBILITATE, to weaken. (L.) The verb occurs in Sir T.
Elyot, Castel of Helth, bk. ii. c. 30; Shak. has debile, i.e. weak,
Cor. i. 9. 48; and debility, As You Like It, ii. 3. 51; cf. MF. debili-
ter, ‘to debilitate, weaken, enfeeble;’ Cot.—L. débilitatus, pp. of
debilitare, to weaken. =—L. débilis, weak. Prob. from L. dé, away,
not; and -bilis, allied to Skt. bala-, strength; cf. Skt. dur-bala- (for
*dus-bala-), feeble. Brugmann, i. § 553. Der. From the same
source: is debility, spelt debilitie, Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. ii.
c. 10; OF, debilité, from L. débilitatem, acc. of débilitas, weakness.
DECAPITATE 157
DEBONAIR, courteous, of good appearance. (F.—L.) In
early use. ME. debonere, Rob. of Glouc. p. 197, 1. 3481; Ancren
Riwle, p. 186; also the sb. debonairte, O. Eng. Hom. i. 269, 1. 15.—
AF. debonere, debonaire, adj. affable, Life of Edw. Confessor, 1. 238;
compounded of de bon aire, lit. ofa good mien. Here de is L. dé, of;
bon is from L. bonus, good; and aire was ἃ 50. (orig. masc.) signifying
place, stock, race, a word of uncertain origin, but perhaps trom L.
area, an open space, or L. acc. agrum, field. Korting, § 828.
DEBOUCH, to march out of a narrow pass. (F.—L.) First in
1760. A modern military word (Todd). -- Εἰ. déboucher, to uncork,
to emerge.—F. dé-, for L. dis-, out, away; and houcher, to stop up
the mouth; thus deboucher is lit. ‘to unstop.’ From F. bouche, the
mouth; L. bucca, the cheek ; also, the mouth.
DEBRIS, broken pieces, rubbish. (F.—L. and C.) First in
1708. Merely French.=F. débris, fragments.—OF. debrisier, to
break in pieces (Godefroy).—OF. de-, for L. dé, down; and brisier
(F. briser), to break, of Celtic origin; cf. Gael. bris, to break, Irish
bris-im, I break.
DEBT, a sum of money due. (F.—L.) The introduction of the
ὃ (never really sounded) was due to a knowledge of the Latin form,
and was a mistake. See Shak. L.L.L. v. 1. 23. ME. dette, Chau-
cer, C. T. Prol. 280 (or 282); P. Plowman, B. xx. 10. The pl.
dettes and dettur (i.e. debtor) both occur on p. 126 of the Ancren
Riwle. OF. dette, a debt ; Cot. has both dette and debte.—L. débita,
asum due; fem. of débitus, owed, pp. of débére, to owe. B. Déebére
is for *déhibére, lit.to have away, i.e. to have on loan; from dé, down,
away, and habére, to have. See Habit. Der. debi-cr (ME. dettur,
OF. deteur, from L. débitdrem, acc. of débitor, a debtor). We also
have debit, from L. dzbitum.
DEBUT, a first appearance in a play. (F.) Modern, and French.
“ΕἸ début, a first stroke, a first cast or throw in a game at dice, first
play in a game at bowls; verbal sb. from débuter. ‘The MF. desbuter
meant ‘to repell, to put from the mark he aimed αἱ: Cot. The
change of meaning is singular ; the verb seems to have meant (1) to
displace an opponent’s bowl ; and thence (2) to lead in the next bout
(as is usual at bowls). See Notes on E. Etym., p. 63.—OF. des-,
for L. dis-, apart; and but, an aim. See Butt (1).
DECADE, an aggregate of ten (F.—L.—Gk.) The pl. decades is
in the title of ‘ The Decades of the newe worlde,’ by K. Eden (1555).
“ΕἸ decade, ‘a decade, the tearme or number of ten years or months;
also, a tenth, or the number of ten;’ Cot.=—L. decadem, acc. of decas.
= Gk. δεκάδα, acc. of δεκάς, a company of ten. = Gk. δέκα, ten; cognate
with E. Ten, q. v.
DECADENCE, astate of decay. (F.—L.) In Goldsmith, Citizen
of the World, let. 40, § 1. Spelt decadens, Complaint of Scotland, ch.
vii. p. 71, 1. 1o.—F. décadence, ‘decay, ruin ;’ Cot.—Late L. déca-
dentia, decay.—L. dé, down; and Late L. cadentia, a falling. See
Cadence. Der. decadenc-y; and see decay.
DECAGON, a plane figure of ten sides. (Gk.) So named be-
cause it also has ten angles. A mathematical term; in Phillips’
Dict. ed. 1658. Comp. ot Gk. δέκα, ten; and γωνία, a corner, an
angle, allied to γόνυ, the knee. Sce Ten and Knee.
DECAHEDROVN, a solid figure having ten bases or sides.
(Gk.) A mathematical term. Not in Kersey or Bailey. Comp. of
Gk. δέκα, ten; and ἕδρα, a base, a seat (with aspirated e), from
ἕδ-ος, a seat; from the base hed, cognate with E. sit. See Ten
and Sit.
DECALOGUE, the ten commandments. (F.—L.—Gk.) Writ-
ten decaloge ; Barnes, Epitome of his Works, p. 368, col..2. Earlier,
in Wyclif, prologue.to Romans ; p. 299, l. 23.—F. deculogue; (οἵ. -
L. decalogus.— Gk. 5exadoyos, the decalogue; comp. of Gk. δέκα,
ten, and λόγος, a speech, discourse, from λέγειν, to speak.
DECAMP, to go from a camp, depart quickly. (F.—L.) For-
merly discamp, as in Cotgrave. Decamp occurs in the Tatler, no.
11, and in Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715, who also gives decampment.—F.
decamper ; Cot. gives ‘ descamper, to discampe, to raise or to remove
a camp.’=L. dis-, away; and campus, a field, later a camp (Du-
cange). See Camp.
DECANAL; see under Dean.
DECANT, to pour out wine. (F.—L.andGk.) ‘ Let it stand some
three weeks or a month... Then decant from it the clear juyce;’
Reliq. Wottonianz, p. 454; from a letter written A.D. 1633. Ker-
sey explains decaniation as a chemical term, meaning ‘a pouring off
the clear part of any liquor, by stooping the vessel on one side.’ =F.
décanter, to decant (Span. decantar).—Med. L. décanthare, to pour
out (a word used by alchemists).—L. dé, down, from; and canthus,
the ‘lip’ of a cup, a peculiar use of. Gk. κάνθος, corner of the eye.
See Hatzfeld, under decanter and canthus. Cf. Hamburg kanten,
upkanten, to tilt a vessel (Richey). Der. decant-er.
DECAPITATH, to behead. (L.) Cotgrave has: ‘ Decapiter, to
decapitate, or behead.=Late L. décapitatus, pp. of décapitare, to
158 DECASYLLABIC
behead ; Ducange.—L. dé, down, off; and capit-, stem of caput, the
head. Dor. decapitat-ion.
DECASYLLABIC, having ten syllables. (Gk.) Modern.
Coined from Gk. δέκα, ten; and συλλαβή, a syllable. See Ten, and
Syllable.
DECAY, to fall into ruin. (F.—L.) Surrey uses the verb decaie
actively, in the sense of ‘wither;’ The Constant Lover Lamenteth.
The sb. decas (=L. décasus) is in Gower, C. A. i. 32; prol. 837.—
ONorth F, decair (pr. 5. subj. decaie), OF. dechaoir, &c., to decay; cf.
Span. decaer.—L. dé, down; and Folk L. cadire, cadére, for L. cadere,
to fall. See Cadence. Der. From the same source is decadence,
q-¥-; deciduous, q.v-
DECEASH, death. (F.—L.) ME. deces, deses; spelt decess in
Gower, C. A. iii. 243; bk. vii. 1. 45165 deses in Rob. of Brunne, tr.
of Langtoft, p. 126.—OF. deces (mod. F. décés), decease. — L. déces-
sum, acc. of décessus, departure, death. L. décédere, to depart. —L.
dé, from ; and cédere, to go. See Cede. Der. decease, verb.
DECEIVE, to beguile, cheat. (F.—L.) ME. deceyuen (with
u forv); P. Plowman, C. xix. 123; Polit. Songs, p. 337, l. 300.
The sb. deceit is in P. Plowman, C. i. 77.—OF. deceveir, decevoir ;
pr. 5. subj, deceive. L. décipere, pp. déceptus, to take away, deceive.
“Το dé, from ; and capere,totake. Der. deceiv-er, -able, -abl-y, -able-
ness; also deceit (through French from the L. pp. déceptus), spelt
disseyte in K. Alisaunder, 7705; deceit-ful, -ful-ly, -ful-ness ; also (like
L. déceptus) decept-ive, -ive-ly, -ive-ness; deception, q. V.
DECEMBER, the twelfth month. (L.) In Chaucer, On the
Astrolabe, pt. i. § 10.—L. December, the tenth month of the Roman
year, as at first reckoned.—L. decem, ten. See Ten.
DECEMVITR, one of ten magistrates. (L.) In Holland’s Livy,
pp: 109, 127.—L. decemuir, one of the decemuiri, or ten men joined
together in a commission. —L. decem, ten; and wri, men, pl. of uir,
a man, which is cognate with AS. wer,a man. Der. decemvir-ate,
from L. decemuiratus, the office of a decemvir.
DECENNTIAL, belonging toten years. (L.) ‘ Decennial, be-
longing to or containing ten years;’ Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674.—L.
decennalis, of ten years; modified to go with biennial. L. decem,
ten; and ann-us, a year, changing to en-us in composition. Der.
From the same source is dec-enn-ary, which see in N.E.D.
DECENT, becoming, modest. (F.—L.) ‘Cumlie and decent ;’
R. Ascham, Scholemaster, ed. Arber, p. 64.—MF. decent, ‘decent,
seemly;’ Cot.—L. decent-, stem of decens, fitting, pres. pt. of decére,
to become, befit; cf. L. decus, honour, fame. See Decorate. Der.
decent-ly, decenc-y.
DECEPTION, act of deceit. (F.—L.) In Berers’ Froissart,
ii. cap. 86; and Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 76.—OF. deception,
“deception, deceit ;᾿ Cot. —L. acc. décep'idnem, from nom. déceptio ; cf.
déceptus, pp. of decipere, to deceive. See Deceive.
DECIDE, to determine, settle. (F.—L.) ‘And yit the cause is
noght decided ;’ Gower, C. A. i. 15; prol. 334.—OF. decider, ‘to
decide ;’ Cot. —L. décidere, pp. décisus, lit. to cut off; also, to decide.
—L. dé, from, off; and cedere, to cut. Der. decid-able, -ed; also
decis-ion, -ive, -ive-ly, -ive-ness, like pp. décisus.
DECIDUOUS, falling off, not permanent. (L.) In Blount’s
Glossographia, 1674.—L. déciduus, that falls down; with (frequent)
change of -us to -ous. = L. décidere, to fall down. —L. dé, down; and
cadere, to fall. See Cadence. Der. deciduous-ness.
DECIMAL, relating to tens. (F.—L.) In Blount’s Gloss. ed.
1674.— OF. decimal, ‘ tything, or belonging to tythe;’ Cot.—Late
L. decimilis, belonging to tithes.—L. decima, a tithe; fem. of deci-
mus, tenth.=L. decem, ten; cognate with E. fen. See Ten. Der.
decimal-ly.
DECIMATE, to killevery tenth man. (L.) Shak. has decima-
tion, Tim. v. 4. 31.—L. décimatus, pp. of dectmare, totake by lot every
tenth man, for punishment.—L. decimus, tenth. See above. Der.
decimat-or, -ton.
DECIPHER, to uncipher, explain secret writing. (F.—L. and
Arab.) In Shak. Mer. Wives, v. 2. το. Imitated from MF. de-
chiffrer, ‘to decypher;’ Cot. From L. dé-, here in the sense of the
verbal wn-; and cipher. See Cipher. Der. decipher-able.
DECISION, DECISIVE ; see Decide.
DECK (1), to cover, clothe, adorn. (MDu.) In Surrey’s tr. of
neid, bk. ii. 1. 316: see Spec. of Eng. ed. Skeat, p. 208. Not in
early use, and not English; the AS. decan and gedecan are mythical.
— MDnu. decken, to hide; Du. dekken, to cover ; dek, a cover, a ship's
deck.4Dan. dekke, to cover; dek, a deck; Swed. tiéicka, to cover;
G. decken, to cover; AS. peccan, to thatch. See Thatch. Der.
deck, sb.; deck-er, three-deck-er. Doublet, thatch.
DECK (2), a pack of cards. (MDu.) In Shak. 3 Hen. VI, v. 1.
44. So called because the cards cover up or hide one another when
piled up; cf. MDu. decken, ‘to cover, to deck, or to hide’ (Hexham).
See above.
DECOY
DECLAIM, to declare aloud, advocate loudly. (L.) Wilson
has declame; Arte of Retorique, p. 158 (R.). Skelton has declama-
cyons, Garlande of Laurell, 326. The reading declamed occurs in
Chaucer, Troilus, ii. 1247; where old edd. have declared. [Not
found in OF.]—L. déclamdre, to cry aloud, make a speech.—L. dé,
down, here intensive ; and climare, to cry out. See Claim. Der.
declaim-er, -ant ; and (from L. pp. déclimatus) declamat-ion, -or-y.
DECLARE, to make clear, assert. (F.—L.) ME. declaren ;
Chaucer, Comp. of Mars, 163; Gower, C. A. 1. 158; bk. i. 1. 3436.
= OF. declairier (Godefroy), later declarer, ‘ to declare, tell, relate ;’
Cot. =—L. déclirare, pp. dé:laratus, to make clear, declare. —L. dé-,
i.e. fully; and clarus, clear. See Clear. Der. declarat-ion, -ive,
-ive-ly ; declarat-or-y, -or-i-ly.
DECLENSION, a declining downwards. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Rich, III, iii. 7. 189; and (asa grammat. term) Metry Wives, iv. 1.
76.—OF. declinaison; see index to Cotgrave, which has: ‘ declension
of a noune, declinaison de nom.’=—L. acc. déclinationem, from nom.
déclinatio, declination, declension. Thus declension is a doublet of
declination, See Decline.
DECLINE, to turn aside, avoid, refuse, fail. (F.—L.) ME.
declinen ; ‘hem pat eschuen and declinen fro vices and taken the wey
of vertu ;’ Chaucer, tr, of Boethius, Ὁ. iv. pr. 7; 1. 31. —OF.decliner ;
Cot. —L. déclinare, to bend aside from. = L.dé, from, away; and -clinare,
to bend, incline, lean; allied to E. lean. See ean (1). Der.
declinat-ion, in Chaucer, C. T. 10097 (ΕΣ 2223), from OF. declination,
L. acc. déclina‘iinem; see Declension, Declivity.
DECLIVITY, a descending surface, downward slope. (F.—L.)
Opposed to acclivity, q.v. Given in Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674.—I°.
déclivité.— L, décliuitatem, acc. of décliuitds, a declivity. —L. décliuis,
inclining downwards. = L. dé, down ; and cliuus, a slope, a hill, from
the same root as -clinare, to bend, incline. See Decline.
DECOCT, to digest by heat. (L.) In Shak. Hen. V, ili. 5. 20;
cf. ‘slowe in decoction ;’ Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. 1i. ch.
18; decoccioune, Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 82.—L. décoctus, pp. of
décoquere, to boil down.—L. dé, down; and coguere, to cook. Sec
Cook. Dor. decoct-ion, -ive.
DECOLLATION, a beheading. (F.—L.) ‘The feast of the
decollacion of seynt John Baptist ;’ Fabyan, an. 1349-50; also in Tre-
visa, v. 49. —OF. decollation, ‘a beheading : decollation sainct Jean, an
holyday kept the 29 of August ;’ Cot.—Late L. décollatidnem, acc.
of décollatio; cf. décolldtus, pp. of décollare, to behead. = L. dé, away
from; and collum, the neck. See Collar. Der. Hence the verb
decollate, used by Burke, Introd. to On the Sublime.
DECOMPOSE, to resolve a compound into elements. (F.—L. and
Gk.) Modern. First about 1751 (N.E.D.). Coined by prefixing L.
dé to the hybrid word compose. See Compose; and see note below.
DECOMPOSITION, a decomposing or resolution. (F.—L.)
Modern; first (in this sense) in 1731; Bailey, vol. ii. ed. 1731, has
decomposite, decomposition, and decompound. All are coined words,
made by prefixing the L. dé to composite, &c. See Composite,
Compound. Der. decompos-ite, -it-ion. @] Etymologically dis-
tinct from decompose, but much confused with it.
DECORATE, to ornament, adom. (L.) Hall has decorated,
Edw. IV, an. 23. § 1. “Ὁ noble prynces, in worshyp decorate ;’
Barclay, Ship of Fools, ed. Jamieson, ii. 16. And see Palsgrave,
p- 509. [Hall also uses the short form decore (from OF. decorer) ;
Hen. V, an. 2. § 19. The word decorat in Chaucer, tr. of Boethius,
b. iii. pr. 4, is a proper name, L. Decoratus.]—L. decoratus, pp. of
decorare, to adom.—L,. decor-, for *decos-, stem of decus, an orna-
ment. See Decorum. Der. decorat-ion, -ive, -or.
DECORUM, decency of conduct. (L.) In Ascham, Schole-
master, ed. Arber, p. 139, ]. 16.—L. decdrum, sb., seemliness, neut.
of decorus, seemly. —L. decdr-, stem of decor, seemliness ; closely re-
lated to decor-, from decus, ornament, grace.—L. decére, to befit ;
decet, it befits, seems. Cf. Gk. δοκέω, I am valued at, I am of
opinion ; δοκεῖ, it seems. Der. We also have decorous (which is from
L. decdrus, seemly) ; decorou:-ly. Sec Decent.
DECOY, to allure, entice. (Hybrid; L. and Du.—L.) A coined
word. The word decoy-duck, i.e. duck for decoying wild ducks, occurs
in Beaum. and Fletcher, Fair Maid, Act iv. sc. 2 (Clown) ; ‘ you are
worse than simple widgeons, and will be drawn into the net by this
decoy-duck, this tame cheater.’ But Burton, Anat. Melan. ii. 2. 4,
has: ‘Fowling . . with . . coy-ducks.’ Made by prefixing L. dé-,
down, to prov. Ε coy, a decoy, which was borrowed from Du. hoot,
a cage, a decoy, MDu. oye, also kouwe (Hexham). This is not a
true Du. word, but adapted from Late L. cavea, whence also F. and
E. cage; see Cage. B. Perhaps the prefixing of de- was due to asso-
ciation with ME. coyen, to quiet ; so that de-coy seemed to mean ‘ to
quiet down.’ (See Notes on E. Etym., p. 64.) Cf. accoy, Spenser,
F. Ὁ. iv. 8.59; ‘Coyyn, blandior;’ Prompt. Parv. See Coy. Der.
decoy-duck, -bird.
|
DECREASE
DECREASE, to grow less, diminish. (F.—L.) Both act. and |
neut. in Shak. Tam. Shrew, ii. 119 ; Sonn. 15. [Gower has the verb
discresen, C. A. ii. 189; from Late L. discrescere.] ‘ Thanne begynneth
the ryvere for to wane and to decrece;’ Maundeville, p. 44.—AF.
decreiss-, a stem of decreistre (Bestiary, 919); substituted for OF.
descretss-, descroiss-,a stem of descroistre,to decrease (Godefroy). Late
L. discrescere, for L. décrescere, to decrease (so that the AF. form was
more correct than the OF. form).—L. dis-, for dé-, off, from, away ;
and crescere, to grow. See Crescent. Cf. Norm. dial. décreitre, to
decrease (Moisy). Der. decrease, sb. (ME. descres, Gower, C. A. iii.
154; bk. vii. 1. 2054; AF. descrces, Stat. Realm, i. 158; from OF.
stem descreiss-, above) ; decreas-ing-ly; and see decrement.
DECREE, a decision, order, law. (F.—L.) In early use.
ME. decree, decre, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 122; Chaucer,
C. T. 17328 (117).—OF. decret, a decree.—L. décrétum, a decree ;
neut. of décrétus, pp. of décernere, to decree, lit. to separate. —L. dé,
away from, and cernere, to sift, separate, decide ; cognate with Gk.
κρίνειν, to separate, decide. See Critic. Der. decree, verb; also
decret-al, q.v., -ive, -or-y, from pp. décrétus.
DECREMENT, a decrease. (L.) ‘ Twit me with the decrements
of my pendants;’ Ford, Fancies Chaste, A.i.sc. 2.—L, décrémentum,
a decrease. Formed with suffix -mentum from décré-, occurring in
décréui and décrétus, perf. tense and pp. of décrescere, to decrease ;
see Decrease.
DECREPIT, broken down with age. (L.) In Spenser, F. Q. ii.
9. 553 Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. i. ch. 2 (Ages); Henrysoun,
Praise of Age, 1. 2.—L. décrepitus, that makes no noise; hence
creeping about noiselessly like an old man, aged, broken down. =L.
dé, away ; and crepitus, pp. of crepare, to crackle. See Crepitate.
Der. decrepit-ude; also decrepit-ate, -at-ion.
DECRETAL, a pope’s decree. (L.) In Rob. of Brunne, tr. of
Langtoft, p. 337; P. Plowman, B. v. 428.—Late L. décrétale, a
pope’s decree; neut. of décrétalis, adj., containing a decree.—L.
décrétum, a decree. See Decree.
DECRY, to cry down, condemn. (F.—L.) In Dryden, Prol. to
Tyrannic Love, ]. 4.— OF. descrier, ‘to cry down, or call in, uncurrent
or naughty coin; also, publiquely to discredit, disparage, disgrace ;’
Cot. — OF. des-, L. dis-, implying the reversal of an act, and here op-
posed to ‘cry up;” and OF. crier, to cry. See Cry. Der. decri-al.
DECUPLE,, tenfold. (F.—L.) Rare. In Blount’s Gloss. ed.
1674.—MF. décuple, ten times as much; Cot. [Cf. Ital. decuplo,
tenfold.] Formed from L. decuplus (Daniel, i. 20).—L. decem, ten ;
and suffix -plus asin duplus, double; see Ten and Double.
DECURRENT, extending downwards. (L.) As a botanical
term.=—L. décurrent-, stem of décurrens, pres. pt. of décurrere, to run
down.=—L. dé, down; and currere, to run. See Current. Der.
decurs-ive, from décursus, pp. of décurrere.
DECUSSATEH, to cross at an acute angle. (L.) ‘ Decussated,
cut or divided after the form of the letter X, or of St. Andrew’s
Cross, which is called crux decussata;’ Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674.—
L. decussatus, pp. of decussdre, to cross, put in the form of an X.—
L. decussis, a coin worth 10 as-es, and therefore marked with an X.
—L. dec-em, ten; and asst-, declensional stem of as, an as, ace. See
Ten and Ace. Der. decussat-ion.
DEDICATE, to consecrate, devote. (L.) Formerly used as a
pp: signifying ‘ dedicated.” ‘In chirche dedicat ;’ Chaucer, Pers.
Tale, 2nd Part of Penitence (1 964).—L. dédicatus, pp. of dédicare,
to devote.—L. dé, down; and dicdre, to proclaim, devote, allied to
dicere, to say, tell, appoint, orig. to point out.—4/DEIK, to show.
See Token. Der. dedicat-ion, -cr-y.
DEDUCE, to draw from, infer. (L.) In Sir T. More, Works,
p- 461; Tyndall, Works, p. 21, col. 2, 1. 41; Palsgrave, p. 509.—L.
dédicere, to lead or bring down. =—L. dé, down; and dacere, to lead.
See Duke. Der. deduc-ible, deduce-ment ; and see below.
DEDUCT, to draw from, subtract. (L.) ‘For having yet, in
his deducted spright, Some sparks remaining of that heavenly fyre ;’
where it means deduced or ‘ derived;’ Spenser, Hymn of Love, 106.
And in Palsgrave, p. 509. —L. déductus, pp. of dédiicere, to lead or
bring down. See above. Der. deduct-ion, -ive-ly.
DEED, something done, act. (E.) ME. deed, dede; Chaucer,
C. T. prol. 744 (or 742). OMerc. déd; AS. d#d, deed; Grein,
i. 185. - Du. daad ; Dan. daad; Swed. dad; Icel. dad; Goth. ga-déds,
a deed ; cf. missa-déds, a misdeed; OHG. tat, G. that. Teut. type
*dédiz; Idg. type *dhetis; from 4/DHE, to place, put, do. See
Do (1). Der. deed-less, mis-deed.
DEEM, to judge, think, suppose. (E.) ME. demen, Chaucer,
C.T. 1883 (A 1881). AS. déman,to judge,deem. Here the long is
the mutation of 6; the verb being derived from the sb. dom, a doom,
judgment. + Du. doemen, to doom; Dan. démme; Swed. déma;
Icel. dema; Goth. gaddmjan; OHG. tuomian, MHG. tuemen, to
honour, also to judge, doom. Teut. type *domjan. All from the sb.
DEFECT 159
See Doom. Der. deem-ster, a judge, ME. demestre, Cursor Mundi,
5586 (Fairfax MS.), used as a masc. sb.; but AS. démestre was a fem.
form, from masc. démere, lit. ‘ deem-er.’
DEEP, extending far downwards, profound, (E.) ME. deep, P.
Plowman, Ὁ. i. 17; spelt depe, id. B. prol. 15; deop, id. A. prol. 15.
AS. déop, Grein, 1. 191.4Du. diep; Dan. dyb; Swed. djup; Icel.
djipr; Goth. diups; OHG., tiuf, G. tief. Teut. type *deupoz. Cf.
Lith. dubtis, deep, W. dwfn, deep. Brugmann, i. § 566. From the
same source as Dip, which see. Der. deep-ly, -ness, -e::; also depth,
4. v., which compare with Goth. diupitha, Icel. dypt or dypd, and Du.
depte, depth (the AS. form being déopnes, i.e. deepness) ; depth-less.
DEER, a ruminant quadruped. (E.) Lit. a wild beast, and applied
to all sorts of animals; cf. ‘rats, and mice, and such small deer,
King Lear, iii. 4. 44. ME. deer, der, deor; spelt der, Ormulum,
1177. AS. δον, a wild animal; Grein, i. 192.- Du. dier, an animal,
beast ; Dan. dyr (the same); Swed. djur (same); Icel. dyr (same) ;
Goth. dius, a wild beast; Mark, i. 13; OHG. tor, G. thier. Teut.
type *deuzom. Idg. type *dheusdm, prob. ‘animal;’ from *dheus, to
breathe (Kluge). Brugmann, i. § 539 (2). Der. deer-stalk-er, deer-
stalk-ing (for which see Stalk).
DEF ACEH, to disfigure. (F.—L.) ME. defacen, desfacen, Chaucer,
Ho. of Fame, iii. 74; Gower, C. A. ii. 46; bk. iv. 1. 1322.—OF.
desfacier, MF. desfacer, ‘to efface, deface, raze;’ Cot.—OF. des-,
prefix.<L. dis-, apart, away; and face, a face, from L. facieés, a face.
(Similarly, Ital. sfacctare, to deface (Florio), is from Ital. prefix s-
<L. dis, and Ital. faccia, a face.] And see Efface. Der. deface-ment.
DEFALCATE, to lop off, abate, deduct. (L.) See Trench,
Select Glossary. Used as a pp. by Sir T. Elyot : ‘yet be nat these
in any parte defalcate of their condigne praises;’ The Governour,
b. ii. c. 10.—Late L. défaleare [also diffaleare, with prefix dif- for
dis-], to abate, deduct, take away. — L. dé, away; and Late L. falcdre
(see falcastrare in Ducange), to cut with a sickle, from falc-, stem of
falx,a sickle; see Falchion. Der. defalcat-ion.
DEFAME, to destroy fame or reputation. (F.—L.) ME. defame,
diffame, used convertibly, and the same word. Chaucer has both
“for his defame’ and ‘of his diffame;’ Six-text, Ellesmere MS.,
Group B, 3738, Group E, 730; (C. T. 14466, 8606.) The verb
diffamen is used by Rob. of brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 321; and by
Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, iii. 491. —OF. defamer, to take away one’s
reputation (Roquefort, who gives a quotation) ; also desfamer, dif-
famer (Godefroy). =—L. diffamare, to spread abroad a report, esp. a
bad report ; hence, to slander.—L. dif-, for dis-, apart, away; and
fama,areport. See Fame. Der. defam-at-ion, d:fam-at-or-y.
DEFAULT, a failing, failure, defect, offence. (F.—L.) ME.
defaute; the 1 was a later insertion, just as in fault, The pl. defautes,
meaning ‘ faults,’ is in the Ancren kiwle, p. 136; Gower has defalte,
C.A. ii. 122; bk. iv. 1.3588. = OF. deffaute, defaute,fem., later defaut, de-
fault,masc.,a default, fault,asinCotgrave. Cf. AF. defalte, Year-books
of Edw. I, 1392-3, p. 303. = OF. def-<L. dif-, for dis-, apart ; and
faute, oldest form falze, a fault (=Ital. fala, a failing), from Late L.
fallita, a deficiency, fem. of *fallitus, a new pp. of L. fallere, to fail.
See Fault. Der. default, verb ; default-er.
DEFEASANCE, a rendering null and void. (F.—L.) A law
term. ‘ Defeizance, a condition relating to a deed, .. . which being
performed, ... the deed is disabled and made void ;’ Blount’s Law
Dict.ed. 1691. Spenser has defeasaunce = defeat; F.Q. i. 12. 12.—AF.
defesaunce (Godefroy), a rendering void. OF. defaisant, deffaisant,
desfaisant, pres. part. of defatre, deffaire, desfaire (Godefroy), to render
void, lit. to undo.—OF. des-<L. dis-, apart, [with the force of E.
verbal un-]; and faire, to do, from 1. facere, to do. See Defeat.
Der. From the like source, defeas-ible.
DEFEAT, to overthrow, frustrate a plan. (F.—L.) The verb is
the original, as far as Eng. is concerned. ME. defeiten, to defeat.
‘To ben defet,’ to be wasted ; Chaucer, Troil. v. 618. Also defeted,
Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. ii. pr. 1.1.7. Formed from the F. pp.
“ΟΕ. defait, desfait, pp. of defaire, desfaire, to defeat, undo; see
Cot. and Godefroy. — OF. des- < L. dis-, [with the force of E. verbal
un-]; and faire, to do, from L.facere, todo. See Feat, Fact, For-
feit. Der. defeat,sb.; Hamlet, ii. 2. 598. And see above.
DEFECATE, to purify from dregs. (L.) Used asa pp. by Sir
T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, Ὁ. ii. c. 21.—L.défecitus, pp. of défecare,
to cleanse from dregs.—L. dé-, away, from; and fec-, stem of fex,
sediment, dregs; of unknown origin. Der. defecat-ion.
DEFECT, an imperfection, want. (L.) [The instance from
Chaucer in R. is wrong; for defect read desert. ‘The ME. word of
like meaning was defaute; see Default.] In Shak. Temp. iii. 1.
44.—<L. défectus, a want.—L. défectus, pp. of déficere, to fail; orig.
a trans. verb, to undo, loosen.—L. dé, down, from ; and facerc, to do.
See Fact. Der. defect-ive, -ively, -ive-ness; -ion; also (from L,
deficere) deficit, i.e. it is wanting, 3 pers. sing. present; deficient,
from the pres. part. ; deficienc-y.
160 DEFENCE
DEFENCE, a protection, guard. (F.—L.) ME. defence, K.
Alisaunder, 2615.—OF. defense. —L. défensa, a defending; Tertul-
lian —L. défensus (fem. défensa), pp. of défendere, to defend; sce
below. Der. defence-less, -less-ly, -less-ness ; also (from pp. défensus),
defens-ive, -ive-ly, -ible, -ibl-y, -ibil-i-ty. Also fence, q. v.
DEFEND, to ward off, protect. (F.—L.) In early use. ME.
defenden; defendyng occurs as a sb. in K. Alisaunder, 676.—OF. |
defendre.—L, dé/endere, to defend.—L. dé, down; and. (obsolcte) |
fendere, to strike, occurring in the comp. dé-/endere, of-fendere. B.
Fendere is allied to Gk. θείνειν, to strike, and Skt. han, to kill; from
γ᾽ GHwEN, to strike. Brugmann, i. § 654. Der. defend-er, defend-
ant (F. pres. pt.); also defence, q. v.; also fence, fencer.
DEFER (1), to put off, delay. (F.—L.) ‘Deferred vnto the
yeares of discretion ;’ Tyndall, Works, p. 388, col. 1. ME, aifferren, |
[A similar confusion between |
Gower, C. A. i. 2623 bk. ii. 1. 3074.
the prefixes de- and dif- occurs in defame, q.v.]—OF. dijferer, ‘to
defer, delay ;’ Cot. —L. differre, to bear different ways ; also, to delay.
=—L.dif- < dis-,apart; and ferre,to bear. See Boar (1). Doublet,
differ. J Distinct from the following.
DEFER (2), to submit or lay before; to submit oneself. (F.—L.)
“Hereupon the commissioners ... deferred the matter unto the earl
of Northumberland ;’ Bacon, Life of Hen. VII, ed. Lumby, p..65.
The sb. deference occurs in Dryden, On Satire, § 12.—OF. deferer,
“to charge, accuse, appeach ; deferer ἃ un appel, to admit, allow, or
accept of, to give way unto an appeale;’ Cot.—L. déferre, to bring
down, to bring a thing before one. = L. dé-, down; and ferre, to bear.
See Bear (1). 4 Distinct from the above. Der. defer-ence, -enti-al,
-enti-al-ly.
DEFIANCE, DEFICIENT; see Defy, Defect.
DEFILE (1), to make foul, pollute. (Hybrid; L. and E.) A
clumsy compound, with a L. prefix to an E. base. The force of the
word is due to E. foul, but the fo-m of the word was suggested by
OF. defouler, to trample under foot; so that the ME, defoulen, to
tread down, passed into (or gave way to) a later form defile ( occasion-
ally defoil). [We also had befoul and befile.}) Both sources must be
taken into account. A. We have (1) ME. defoulen, to tread down.
Rob. of Glouc., describing how King Edmund seized the robber
Liofa, says that he ‘fram the bord hym drou, And defouled him vnder
him mid hond and mid fote,’ 1.6., thrust him down; p. 277, 1. 5620.
Wyclif translates conculcatum est (A. V. ‘was trodden down’) by
was defoulid; Luke, viii. 5. ‘We defoule wip our fet pe fine gold
schene,’ as a translation of faurum pedibus coxculcamus ;’ Alexander
and Dindimus, ed. Skeat, 1027. This is the OF. defouler, ‘to tread
or trample on;’ Cot. Derived from L. dé-, down; and Late L.
fullare, 1o full cloth; see Fuller. B. Again, we have (2) ME.
defoulen, to defile, imitated from the former word, but with the
sense of Εἰ. foul engrafted on it. Wyclif translates coinguinat (A. V.
‘defileth’) by defoulith; Matt. xv. 11. | Later, we find defoylyd,
Sir T. More, Works, p. 771 a; afterwards defile, Much Ado, iii. 3. 60.
This change to defile was due to the influence of ME. /ylen, the true
E. word for ‘to pollute,’ correctly used as late as in Shak. Macb. iii.
1.65: ‘have I fl’d my mind.’ This is the AS. fylan, to make foul,
whence the comp. @/ylan, to pollute utterly, in Gregory’s Pastoral,
§ 54, ed. Sweet, p. 421; also befylan, to defile; Bosworth. The
verb fylan is regularly formed, by the usual mutation of ἃ to ¥, from
the adj. fal, foul. See Foul. Der. defilement.
DEFILE (2), to pass along in a file. (F.—L.) ‘ Defile, to march
or go off, file by tile; ’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715. Hence ‘ Defile, or
Dejilee, a straight narrow lane, through which a company of soldiers
can pass only in file;’ id. =F. défiler, to file off, defile; an earlier
sense was to unravel, said of thread.F. de- << OF. des-, L. dis-,
apart; and filer, to spin threads, from /i/,‘a thread, . . . also a file,
ranke, order,’ Cot.; from L, filum, a thread. See File (1). Der.
defile, sb., formerly defilee (as above), from F. defilé, pp. of défiler.
DEFINE, to fix the bounds of, describe. (F.—L.) ME. de-
Jinen s ‘Thave defyned that blisfulnesse is pe sovereyn good ;’ Chaucer,
tr. of Boethius, b. iii. pr. 2; 1. 49. Cf. diffinicioun, Chaucer, C. T.
5607 (Ὁ 25). (The latter is a false form; for definicioun.)—OF.
definer, Romanic variant of definir, ‘to define, conclude, determine
or discuss, precisely to express, fully to describe ;’ Cot.—L. definire,
to limit, settle, define. —L. dé down ; and finire, to set a bound, from
L, finis, a bound, end. See Finish. Der. defin-able, -ite, -ite-ly,
-ite-ness, -it-ion, -it-ive, -it-ive-ly.
DEFLAGRATION, arapid buming. (L.) In Phillips (1706).
From L. ace. defligritionem, a great burning. =L. déflagrire, to
burn down, consume by fire.—L. dé, fully; flagrare, to burn; see
Flagrant.
DEFLECT, to turn aside, swerve aside. (L.) “ΑἹ some part of
the Azores it [the needle] deflecteth not;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg.
Errors, bk. ii.c.2,§ 13. ‘ Deflexure, a bowing or bending ;’ Elount’s
Gloss. ed. 1674.—L. deflectere, to bend aside.=L. dé, down, away;
formen.
DEGENERATE
and flectere,to bend; pp. flexus. See Flexible.
deflex-ire,
DEFLOUR, DEFLOWER, to deprive of flowers, to ravish.
(F.—L.) ME. d flouren; Gower, C. A. ii. 322; bk. v. 1. 5812.
Spelt defowre, Spenser, F. Q. ii. 12. 75. —OF. defleurer, ‘to defloure,
to defile ;’ Cot.— Late L. défldrare, to gather flowers, to ravish. = L.
dé, from, away; and fldr-, decl. stem of ὅς, αὶ flower. See Flower.
q Cf. also OF. desflorir, with the same sense (prefix dis-). Observe
the use of flowres in the sense of ‘ natural vigour’ or ‘ bloom of youth ;’
Gower, C.A. ii. 267 ; bk. v. 1.4174. Der. deflour-er ; also (from pp.
d2floratss) deflorate, deflorat-ion.
DEFLUXION, a flow or discharge of humours. (L.) Medical.
‘ Defluxion of salt rheum ;” Howell’s Letters, Ὁ. i. sec. 2. let. 1.—L.
acc. défluxidnem, from nom. défluxio,a flowing down. = L. dé, down ;
and fluxus, pp. of fluere, to flow. See Fluid.
DEFORCE, to deprive by force. (F.—L.) Legal. ‘ Deforsour,
one that overcomes and casts out by force. See the difference be-
tween a deforsour and a disseisor, in Cowel, on this word; ’ Blount’s
Gloss. ed. 1674.—OF. deforcier, desforcier, MF. deforcer, ‘to dis-
seise, dispossess, violently take, forcibly pluck from ;’ Cot. Cf. Late
L. difforciare, to take away by violence; Ducange.— OF. de-, for des-
<L. dis-, apart, away; and force, power, from Late L. fortia, power,
from L. fortis, strong. See Force. Der. deforce-ment ; defors-our
(obsolete).
DEFORM, to disfigure, misshape. (F.—L.) ME. deformen, def-
The pp. defformyd is in Wyclif, 2 Cor. ili. 7. ‘ Defurmed
is the figure of my face;’ The Testament of Creseide, 1. 448.—OF.
difformer, to deform (Godefroy) ; with di/- for dis-, in place of de-. =
L. déformare, to deform; déformis, deformed, ugly.—L. dé, away ;
and forma, beauty, form. See Form. Der. deform-i-ty, ME.
deformité, Court of Love, 1169 ; deform-at-ion.
DEFRAUD, to deprive by fraud. (F.—L.) ME. defrauden,
Wyclif, Luke, xix. 8; P. Plowman, B. vii. 69. —OF. defrauder, ‘to
defraud ;’ Cot.—L. défraudare, to deprive by fraud.—L. dé, away,
from ; and fraud-, stem of fraus, fraud. See Fraud.
DEFRAY, to pay costs. (F.—L. and G.) In Cotgrave ; and see
Spenser, F. Ὁ. i. 5. 42.—MF. defrayer, ‘to defray, to discharge, to
furnish, or bear all the charges of,’ Cot.; OF. desfrayer (Littré).—
OF. des-, for L. dis-, away; and /rai, sing. of frais, cost, expense,
now used as a plural sb. Cotgrave also has the form fraiz ( =/fratts),
the pl. of a form frait ; and Hatzfeld cites OF. fres, pl. B. The OF.
sing. fre, later frait, frai, is equivalent to Low L. fredum, a fine,
composition, hence, a cost. —OHG. fridu (Ὁ. frieze), peace ; also, a fine
for a breach of the peace. Korting, §§ 3943, 3968. Der. defray-ment.
DEFT, neat, dexterous. (E.) In Chapman, tr. of Homer’s Iliad,
b. 1.1. τα from end. The ady. deftly is commoner; Macb. iv. 1. 68.
ME. dafte, defte, (1) becoming, mild, gentle, (2) innocent, whence
the sense of ‘ foolish,’ as in prov. E. daft; Ormulum, 2175, 4610;
Bestiary, 37; cf. dafftelike, fittingly, becomingly, Orm. 1215. AS
defte, as seen in ge-defte, mild, gentle, meek, Matt) xxi. 5; ge-
deftlice, fitly, seasonably, A‘lfred, tr. of Gregory's Past. Care, ed.
Sweet, p. 97, 1.153; and see 1.17. Cf. also deftan, and ge-deftan,
to prepare, Alf. Hom. i. 212, 362. B. The? is merely a suffix, and
disappears in prov. E. and ME. daff, daffe, a foolish person, P.
Plowman, B. i. 138; formed from the base daf-, to fit, appearing
in AS. ge-daf-en, fit (Grein), the pp. of a lost strong verb *defan,
to fit, suit. Cf. Du. deftig, grave, respectable, genteel; Low G.
deftig, fit, good, excellent ; Goth. ga-ddfs, ga-dobs, fitting, fit, from
ga-daban, to happen, befall, to be fit. All from Teut. base *dad, to
suit; Fick, i. 633, iii. 144. Cf also Dapper. Doublet, daft, in
a sinister sense, as, ‘ dafte, doltishe,’ in Levins. Der. de/t-ly, as
above ; deft-ne's.
DEFUNCT, deceased, dead. (L.) Lit. ‘ having fully performed
the course of life.’ Shak. has defunct, Cymb. iv. 2. 358; defunction,
Hen. V, i. 2. 58; defunctive, Phoenix, 1. 14.—L. défunctus, pp. of
d2fungi, to perform fully. —L. dé, down, off, fully; and fungi, to
perform. See Function. Der. defunct-ive, -ion (above).
DEFY, to renounce allegiance, challenge, brave. (F.—L.) In
early use. ME. defyen, deffien; Chaucer, C. T.15177 (B 4361). The
sb. defying is in K. Alisaunder, 7275.—MF. dejier, ‘to defie, chal-
lenge;’ Cot. Earlier spelling deffier, dessier (Godefroy), with the
sense ‘ to renounce faith.’ — Late L. diffiddre, to renounce faith, defy.
=—L. dif-, for dis-, apart ; and fidus, faithful, fidere, to trust ; allied
to fides, trust, faith, See Faith. Der. defi-ance, ME. defyaunce,
Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 92; defi-er.
DEGENERATE, having become base. (L.) Always an adj. in
Shak.; see Rich. I], i. 1.144; i. 1. 262.—L. dégeneratus, degenerated,
pp. of dégenerare.—L. dégener, adj. base, ignoble.—L, de, down;
and gener- (for *genes-), stem of genus, race, kind, cognate with E.
hin. See Kin. Der. degenerate, verb; -ly, -ness ; degenerat-ton,
-tve; degenerac-y.
Der. deflect-ion,
DEGLUTITION
DEGLUTITION, the act of swallowing. (F.—L.) ‘Deglutition,
a devouring or swallowing down ;’ Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674.—MF.
deglutition; see Ἐς déglutition in Hatzfeld. Coined from L. de,
down, and gliéit-us, pp. of glitire, to swallow. See Glut.
DEGRADE, to lower in rank, debase. (F.—L.) In Sir T. More,
Works, p. 624. * That no man schulde be degraded ;’ Trevisa, v. 35.
The pp. is spelt degradyt, Barbour, Bruce, i. 175.—OF. degrader,
“to degrade, or deprive of degree, office, estate, or dignity ;’ Cot.—
Late L. dégradire, to deprive of rank.—L. dé, down, away; and
gradus, rank. See Grade. Der. degrad-at-ion; and see degree.
DEGREE, rank, state, position, extent. (F.—L.) In early use.
ME. degre, degree; Chaucer, C.T. 9901 (E 2027). The pl. degrez
is in Hali Meidenhad, p. 23, 1. 21.—OF. degre, degret, a degree, step,
rank. Cf. Prov. degrat. ‘This word answers to a type *degradus ;’
Brachet.=—L. dé, down; and gradus, a step, grade. See Degrade.
DEHISCENT, gaping. (L.) A botanical term. —L. déhiscent-,
stem of déhiscens, pres. pt. of déhiscere, to gape open. =L. dé, down,
fully ; and hiscere, to yawn, gape, inceptive of hiare, to yawn. See
Hiatus. Der. dehiscence.
DEIFY, to account as a god, (F.—L.) ME. deifyen; ‘that they
may noght be deified;’ Gower, C. A. ii. 153; bk. v. 1. 776.—OF.
deifier, ‘to deifie ;’ (οἱ. “Ταὶς L. deificare. —L. detficus, accounting
as gods.—L. dei-, nom. deus, God ; and facere, to make, which
becomes jic- in composition. See Deity. Der. (from L. detficus)
deific, deific-al ; (like L. pp. deificitus) detficat-ton, Gower, C. A.
ii. 1585; bk. v. 1. 934. :
DEIGN, to condescend, think worthy. (F.—L.) ME. deignen,
deinen; Gower, C. A, ii. 11; bk. vi. 1. 293. Commonly used as a
reflexive verb. ‘Him ne deinede no3t;” Rob. of Glouc. p. 557,
1. 11645. ‘ Deineth hir herte reste ;* Chaucer, Troil. 111. 1281.—Al’.
deigne, Edw. Confessor, 4489; pres. 5. of OF. digner, Godefroy. —L.
dignari, to deem worthy.—L. dignus, worthy. See Dignity,
Dainty. Der. dis-dain, q.v.
DEITY, the divinity. (F.—L.) ME. dei#é, Romaunt of the Rose,
5056; Chaucer, C. T. 11359 (F 1047).—OF. deité, a deity. —L.
deitatem, acc. of deitas, deity. —L. det-, nom. deus, god; cf. dinus,
godlike.
divine ; Skt. deva-, a god; datva-, divine.
Der. From the same source, det-/y, q.v.; also dei-form, dei-st, -sm.
DEJECT, to cast down, (L.) ‘Christ detected himself euen ynto
the helles;’ Udal, Ephes. c. 4. v. 9.—L. détectus, pp. of déicere
(déiicere), to cast down, = L. dé, down; and tacere, to cast. See Jet (1).
Der. deject-ed, -ed-ly, -ed-ness, -ion.
DELATE, to accuse (in Scots law); to report. (L.) ‘If a
minister be thus left at liberty to delate sinners from the pulpit ;’
Case of Jas. Thomson, in App. to Boswell’s Johnson.—Late L.
delatare, to accuse; used as frequent. of déferre, to defer.—L. de,
fully ; and Jit-us, for tldtus, pp. of follere, to take away. See Delay.
DELAY, vb., to put off, to linger. (F.—L.) In early use; the
pp- delaied occurs in Rob. of Glouc. p. 513, 1. 10563; the sb. delai
1s in Layamon, ii. 308.—OF. delayer, dilater, given as. variants of
deleer in Godefroy. It answers in sense to L. dilatare, to defer, delay,
put off; which would properly give only OF. dileer. B. The L.
dildtare 1s {rom dilatus, deferred, put off. [The pp. di/dtus is used as
a pp. of differre, though from a different root.|—L. di-, for dis-,
apart ; and /atus, borne, carried, for //itus, allied to L. tollere, to lift ;
cf. Gk. τλητός, enduring. 4/ TEL, to lift. @ Since dilatus is
used as pp. of differre, the word delay is equivalent to defer ; see
Defer (1). The OF. spelling delaier (with ai) causes a difficulty.
The AF. form deslaier occurs in the Liber Albus, p. 217. Cf.
Gascon delaya, to delay (Moncaut).
from the verb. Note AF. delai, sb., delaier, vb., in the Statutes of
the Realm, pp. 28, 38 (1275).
DELECTABLE, pleasing. (F.—L.) [The usual ME. word was
delitable; see Delight. The quotations in Richardson are mislead-
ing; in the first and second of them, read delitable and delitably. The
occurrence of dilectable in the Romaunt of the Rose, 1440, is due to
Allied to W. duw, God; Gael. and Ir. dia, God; Gk. dios, |
And see Tuesday. |
Der. delay, sb. ; OF. delat, sb., |
| See Delectable, Delicate.
Thynne’s edition, and the occurrence of delectable in the only edition |
of Mandeville’s Travels, c. 14, p. 155, is suspicious.] However, we
find dilectable in Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 22; delectable in Caxton’s
Golden Legend, St. Poul first Hermit, § 1; and in the Bible of
1551, 2 Sam. i. 26, where the A. V. has ‘pleasant.’ Also in Shak.
Rich. 11, ii. 3. 7.“ OF. delectable, ‘delectable ;’ Cot. (first found in
14th c.)—L. delectabilis, delightful. L. délectare, pp. délectatus, to
delight, See Delight. Der. delectabl-y, delectable-ness, delect-at-ton.
DELEGATE, a chosen deputy. (L.) Cockeram (1642) has:
‘Delegate, to assigne, to send in commission.’ The sb. occurs in the
State Trials, an. 1613, Countess of Essex (R.).=L. delégdtus, pp. of
delégiire, to send to a place, depute, appoint.—L. de, from
legare, to send, depute, appoint, from leg-, stem of lex, law. See
Legate, Legal. Der. delegate, verb; delegai-ion.
7 Sane |
DELL
DELETE, to erase, blot out. (L.) ‘Studiously deleting the
character of that sacrament;’ T. Fuller, A Pisgah Sight, bk. iii.
sect. 10. ὃ 2.—L, délétus, pp. of délére, to destroy.—L. dé, down,
away; and -/ére, an unused verb closely related to linere, to daub,
smear, erase. Cf. the pt. t. déléut with Jeu, pt. t. of linere (Bréal).
DELETERIOUS, hurtful, noxious. (Gk.) Used by Sir T.
Browne, Vulgar Errors, Ὁ. iii. c. 7, § 4. ‘Tho’ stored with deletery
med’cines ;’? Butler, Hudibras, pt. i. c. 2, 1. 317-— Late L. délétérius,
noxious (with τοῖς for -us); merely Latinised from Gk.=—Gk. δηλη-
τήριος, noxious. — Gk. δηλητήρ, a destroyer.— Gk, δηλέομαι, I do a
hurt, I harm, injure.
DELP, a kind of earthenware. (Du.) ‘Delf, earthenware; counter-
feit China, made at Delft ;’ Johnson. Named from Deift in Holland.
‘Delft, S. Holland, a town founded about 1074; famous for Delft
earthenware, first manufactured here about 13:0. The sale of delft
greatly declined after the introduction of potteries into Germany and
England ;’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates. B. The -¢ is excrescent ; the old
name of the place was Delf; and it was named from the canal on
which it stood.—WFlem. del/f, a canal; De Bo. WFlem. and Du.
delven, to dig ; see Delve. (Franck.)
DELIBERATE, carefully considered. (L.) ‘Of a deliberate
purpose ;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 214 f. {There was an earlier
ME. verb deliberen; ‘For which he gan deliberen for the beste;’
Chaucer, Troil. iv. 169.]—L. déliberiitus, pp. of déliberare, to consult.
=-L. dé, down, thoroughly ; and /tbrare, to weigh, from libra, a
balance. See Librate. Der. deliberate, verb; -ly, -ness; deliberat-
ion (deliberacioun, Gower, C. A. ili. 352; bk. vili. 1. 2302), -ive, -ive-ly.
DELICATE, alluring, dainty, nice, refined. (L.) ME. delicat,
P. Plowman, C. ix. 279. Chaucer has delicat, C. T. 14389 (B 3661) ;
delicacie, id. 14397 (Β 3669).—L. délicatus, luxurious; cf. délicia,
luxury, pleasure ; délicere, to amuse, allure, from dé, away, greatly,
and lacere, to allure, entice. See Delicious. Der. delicate-ly,
-ness, delicac-y.
DELICIOUS, very pleasing, delightful. (F.—L.) ME. deli-
ctouse, King Alisaunder, 38; delicious, Gower, C. A. ili. 245; bk. vi.
1.671. - OF, delicieus (Godefroy). — Late L. délictdsus, pleasant, choice.
=-L. délicia, pleasure, luxury. See Delicate. Der. delicious-ly,
“ness,
DELIGHT, great pleasure; vb., to please. (F.—L.) A false
spelling. ME. delit, sb.; deliten, verb. Of these, the sb. is found
very early, in O. Eng. Homilies, i. 187, 1. 17. The verb is in
Chaucer, C. T. Group Εἰ, 997 (Cler. Tale). [In French, the verb
appears to be the older.]—OF. deliter, earlier deleiter, to delight ;
whence delit, earlier deleit, sb. delight. L. délectare, to delight ;
frequentative of délicere, to allure. = L. dé, fully ; and /acere, to allure.
Der. delight-ful, -ful-ly, -ful-ness,
-some; all hybrid compounds, with E. suffixes.
DELINEATE, to draw, sketch out. (L.) Orig. a pp. ‘ Desti-
nate to one age or time, drawne, as it were, and delineate in one table; ’
3acon, On Learning, by G. Wats, b. ii. c. 8 (R.). So also in Edw. IIL,
A. ii. sc. 2.1.75. πος délinedtus, pp. of délineare, to sketch in outline.
-L. dé, down; and Jinedre, to mark out, from /inea, a line. See
Line. Der. delineat-or-, -ion.
DELINQUENT, failing in duty. (L.)
161
Orig. a pres. part., used
| as adj. ‘ A delinquent person ;’ State Trials, an. 1640; Karl Strafford
(R.). As sb. in Shak. Mach. iti. 6. 12.—L. délinquent-, stem of
| délinquens, omitting one’s duty, pres. part. of délinquere, to omit. - L.
dé, away, from; and linguere, to leave. Der. delinguenc-y.
DELIQUESCE, to melt, become liquid. (L.) A chemical term.
πιο déliquescere, to melt, become liquid.—L. dé, down, away ; and
liquescere, to become liquid, inceptive form of liguére, to be wet.
See Liquid. Der. deliquesc-ent, -ence.
DELIRIOUS, wandering in mind, insane. (L.) A coined word,
made from the L. délirium, which was also adopted into English.
‘Delirium this is call'd, which is mere dotage ;” Ford, Lover's Melan-
choly, A. iii. sc. 3. The more correct form was deltrous. We find
in Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674: ‘Delirium, dotage ;’ and ‘Delirous, that
doteth and swerveth from reason ;’ but in Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715,
the latter word has become delirious.—L. délirium, madness; from
délirus, one that goes out of the furrow in ploughing, hence, crazy,
doting, mad. —L. dé, from; and Jira, a furrow, allied to OHG, leisa,
G, g-leis,a track, arut. Der. delirious-ly, -ness.
DELIVER, to liberate, set free. (F.—L.) ME. deliueren,
deliveren; King Alisaunder, 1319, 3197; Rob. of Glouc., pp. 382,
462; ll. 7836, 9502.—OF. delivrer, to set free. —Late L. déliberare,
to set free. — L. dé, from; and JiberGre, to free, from liber, free, which
may be connected with libido, pleasure, Jibet, it pleases, and the E.
lief. Brugmann, i. § 102. See Lief. Der. deliver-ance, -er, -y.
DELL, a dale, valley. (2) ME. delle, Reliquiz Antique, ii. 7
Stratmann); pl. dellun ( =dellen), Anturs of Arthur, st. 4. AS. dell,
n.; Cart. Saxon., ed. Birch, i. 5473 ii. 71. 4+ MDu. delle (Hexham) ;
M
DELTA
EFries. delle. See Notes on E. Etym., p. 65.
A variant of dale. See Dale. .
DELTA, the Greek name of the letter d. (Gk.—Pheenician.)
[Hence deltord. ‘ Deltoides (in anatomy) a triangular muscle which is
inserted to the middle of the shoulder-bone, and is shaped like the
Greek letter A;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. Deltoid is the Gk. δελτοειδής,
delta-shaped, triangular.—Gk. δέλτα ; and εἶδος, appearance.] The
Gk. δέλτα answers to, and was borrowed from, the Heb. daleth, the
Pheenician name of the fourth letter of the alphabet. The orig.
sense of daleth was ‘a door of a tent.’
DELUDE, to deceive, cajole. (L.) ME. deluden. ‘That it
deludis the wittes outwardly;’ Henrysoun, Test. of Creseide, 1. 509.
—L. délidere, to mock at, banter, deceive; pp. délitsus. — L. dé, tully;
and lidere, to play, jest. Der. delus-ive, ~ively, -ive-ness, -10n, -Or-y ;
all from pp. délasus.
DELUGE, a flood, inundation. (F.—L.)) In Lenvoy de Chaucer
a Skogan, |. 14.—OF, deluge, ‘a deluge;’ Cot.—L. diluuium, a
deluge. = L. diluere, to wash away. —L. di, for des-, apart; and luere,
to wash, allied to Jaue. See Lave.
DELVE, to dig with a spade. (E.) ME. delxex (with x for v),
pt. τ. da/f; Rob. of Glouc. pp. 131, 395; ll. 2772, 8134. AS. delfan,
to dig; Grein, i. 187.4 Du. delven, to dig; OHG. bidelhan, MHG.
telben, todig. Allied to Russ. dolbite, to hollow out; OPruss. dalp-tan,
apunch. Brugmann, i. §§ 493, 521 (2). Der. delv-er.
DEMAGOGUE, a leader of the people. (F.—Gk.) It occurs
in the Eikon Basilike; and Milton, Ans. ta Eikon Basilike, calls it
a ‘goblin word.’ = F. demagogue, a word ‘first hazarded by Bossuet
{died A.D. 1704, 30 years after Milton], and counted so bold a
novelty that for long{?]} none ventured to follow him in its use;’
Trench, Eng. Past and Present. Yet it had previously been em-
ployed by Oresme, inthe 14th c. (Littré). — Gk. δημαγωγός, a popular
leader.— Gk. dyu-, base of δῆμος, a country district, also the people ;
and ἀγωγός, leading, from ἄγειν, to lead, which is from 4/ AG, to
drive.
DEMAND, to ask, require. (F.—L.) In Shak. All’s Well, ii.
I. 21; and in Caxton (N.E.D.). [But the sb. demand (ME. demaunde)
was in early use, and occurs in Rob. of Glouc. p. 500, 1. 10285;
Chaucer, C. T. 4892 (B 472).]—OF. demander. —L. démandare, to
give in charge, entrust; in Late L., to demand (Ducange).=L. dé,
down, wholly; and mandare, to entrust, consign, See Mandate.
Der. demand, sb.; -able, -ant (law French).
DEMARCATION, DEMARKATION, a marking off of
bounds, a limit. (Span.—L. and MHG.) ‘The speculative line of
demarcation;’ Burke, On the Fr. Revolution (R.).—Span. demarca-
cton (see N.E.D.); whence also F. démarcation, in the phr. ligne de
demarcation, a line of demarcation. = L. dé, down; and Span. marcar,
to mark, a word of Germanic origin. See Mark. @ It will be seen
that the sb. démarcation is quite distinct from the. F. verb demarquer,
to dis-mark, i.e. to take away a mark. The prefix must be L. dé-,
not L. dis-, or the word is reversed in meaning.
DEMEAN (1), to conduct; reff. to.behave. (F,—L.) ME.
demainen, demzinen, demenen; Chaucer, Ho. of. Fame, ii. 451.—OF,
demener, to conduct, treat, manage (Godefroy).—OF. de-, from L.
dé, down, fully; and mener, to conduct, control, from Late L. mindre,
to drive cattle, ta lead from place to place ; L. mindre, to urge, drive
on; minari, to threaten. See Menace. Der. demean-aur, ἃ. v.
DEMEAN (2), to debase, lower. (Hybrid; L. and E.) Perhaps
suggested by Demean (1); but really formed, on the analogy of
debase, from the L. prep. ἐξ, ‘down, and the E. meaz, adj. base. See
Mean (2).
DEMEANOUR, behaviour. (F.—L.) A coined word;. ME. de-
menure, from demenen, to demean; see Demean (1). “1, for lexde,
D for demenure;’ Remedie of Loue, st. 63; in Chaucer’s Works, ed.
1561, fol. eccxxiiil. Demeanyng accurs in the same stanza, used as
asb. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. iv. 10. 49.
DEMENTED, mad. (L.) The pp- of the old verb demente, to
madden. ‘Which thus seke to demente the symple hartes of the
people;’ Bale, Apology, fol. 80.—L. démentare, to drive out of one’s
mind (Acts, viii. 11) ; cf. dementia, madness. = L. dé, away from; and
mené-, stem of mens, mind. See Mental.
DEMERIT, ill desert. (F.—L.) In Shak. Macb. iv. 3. 226;
but also used in a good sense, i.e. merit, Cor. i. τ. 276. —OF. demerite,
‘desert, merit, deserving; also (the contrary) a disservice, demerit,
misdeed, iil carriage, ill deserving; in which sense it is most com-
monly used at this day;’ Cot.—Late L. démeritum, a fault. —L.
démerére, to deserve (whence the good sense of the word).—L. dé-,
down, fully; and merére, meréri, to deserve. See Merit.
DEMESNE, orig. possession; also 2 manor-house, with lands.
(F.—L.) Also written demain, and a doublet of domain. ME.
demein, demeynx, 2 domain; Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 7;
Chaucer, C. T. 14583 (B 3855). [The spelling demesne is false, due
162
Teut. type *dal-jonv.
DEMURE
probably to confusion with OF. mesnee or maisnie, a household; see
Demain in Blount’s Law Dict.}— AF. demeine, Laws of Will. L., § 17;
demene, Year-books of Edw. I., 1292-3, p. 5; demesne, id., 1302-3,
p- 19; OF. demaine, demeine, orig. an adj., specially belonging to ;
whence also E. domain. So also Cot. gives: ‘Demain, a demaine, the
same as Domain.’ See Domain.
DEMI-, a prefix, signifying ‘half. (F.—L.) OF. demi, m. demie,
f. ‘halfe, demy ;” Cot.=L. damidium, half. —L. di-=dis-, apart; and
tet middle. See Medium, Medial. Der. demi-god, demi-
semiquaver, &c.; also demy, q. v.
DEMIJOHN, a glass vessel with a large body and small neck,
enclosed in wickerwork. (1.) Spelt dame-jeanne in Falconer’s Dict.
of the Marine (1769).—F. dame-jeanne (Littré). Much disputed ; and
prob. not of Eastern origin. The F. form seems to be right as it
stands; cf. Span. dama-juana, a demijohn.—F. dame (Span. dama),
lady; and Jeanne (Span. Fuana), Jane, Joan. See N.E.D.
DEMISE, transference, decease. (F.—L.) Shak. has the vb.
demise, to bequeath; Rich. III, iv. 4. 247. For the sb., see Blount’s
Law Dict. = OF. demise, also desmise, fem. of desmis, ‘displaced, de-
posed, ... dismissed, resigned;’ Cot. This is the pp. of OF. des-
yrettre, to displace, dismiss. ἢ. dinzttere, to send away, dismiss. — L.
di- = dis- (OF. des-), away, apart; and mitfere, to send. See Dismiss.
| ‘The sense changed from ‘resigned’ to ‘resigning.’| Der. demise, vb.
DEMOCRACY, popular government. (F.—L.—Gk.) Formerly
written democraty, Milton, Areopagitica, ed. Hales, p. 4.—MF. de-
mocratie, ‘a democratie, popular government;’ Cot. Med. L. démo-
cratia. Gk, δημοκρατία, popular government. =—Gk. δημο-, for δῆμος,
a country-district, also, the people ; and κρατέω, 1 am strong, 1 rule,
{rom «patos, strength, allied to κρατύς, strong, which is cognate with
E. hard. Der. democrat, -ic, -ic-al, -ic-al-ly.
DEMOLISH, to overthrow, destroy. (F.—L.) ‘ Were not the
tailor’s wife to be demolish’d;’ Ben Jonson, The New Inn, A. iv. sc.
3. And in Ralegh, Hist. of the World, b. ii. c. 20. 5. 2 (R.).—OF.
demoliss-, inchoative stem of the verb demolir, ‘to demolish ;’ Cot.=—
L. démdliri, pp. démélitus, rarely démdlire, ta pull down, demolish.
—L. dé, down; and mdliri, to endeavour, throw, displace, from mdles,
a heap, also labour, effort. See Mole (3). Der. demolit-ion.
DEMON, an evil spirit. (F.—-L.—Gk.) In Shak. Hen, V, ii. 2.
121; and in Trevisa, tr. of Higden, iii. 279. The adj. demoniak is ἴῃ
Chaucer, C. Ἐς 7874 (Ὁ 2292).—OF. demon, ‘a devill, spirit, hob-
goblin; Cot. —L. demon, a demon, spirit. Gk. δαίμων, a god, genius,
spirit ; also fate. Perhaps meaning ‘ distributer;’ from δαίομαι, I
impart (Prellwitz). Der. (from L. stem demoni-) demoni-ac, -ac-al,
-ac-al-ly; also (from Gk. δαιμονο-) demono-latry, i.e. devil-worsbip,
from Gk. λατρεία, service; also demono-logy, i.e. discourse about
demons, from Gk. λόγος, discourse, which from λέγειν, to say.
DEMONSTRATE, to show, explain fully. (L.) In Shak. Hen.
V, iv. 2. 54. Much earlier are ME. demonstratif, Chaucer, C. T.
7854 (D 2272); demonstracioun, Ch. tr. of Boethius, b. ii. pr. 4
1. 122; demonstrable, Rom. of Rose, 4688.—L. démonstratus, pp. of
démonstrare, to show fully.—L. dé, down, fully; and monstrare, to
show. See Monster. Der. demozstrat-ior; also demonstra-ble,
from L. demonstra-bilis ; demonstrat-ive, formerly demonstratif (see
above), from MF, demonstratif (Cotgrave), which from L. démon-
stratinus ; demonsirative-ly, -ness.
DEMORALISE, to corrupt in morals. (F.—L.) A late word.
First in 1793. Todd cites a quotation, dated 1808. -- F. démaraliser,
to demoralise ; Hamilton.—F. dé-, here=OF. des-<L. dis-, apart;
and moraliser, ‘to expound morally;’ Cot. ‘See Moral. Der.
demoralisat-ion,
DEMOTIC, pertaining to the people. (Gk.) Modern. Not in
Todd.—Gk. δημοτικός, pertaining to the people. Formed, with
suffix -t-o-, from δημότης, a commoner, This is formed, with sufix
-rns (denoting the agent), from δημο-, for δῆμος, a country-district,
also, the people. Cf. OIrish dam, a retinue.
DEMULCENT, soothing. (L.) Modern. The verb demudce
is once used by Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b. i. c. 20. § 1. — L. de-
mulcent-, stem of pres. pt. of démulcére, to stroke down, caress; hence,
to soothe. L. dé, down; and mulcére, to stroke, allay. Cf. Skt. mg,
to stroke.
DEMUR, to delay, hesitate, object. (F.—L.) ‘If the parties
demurred in our iudgement ;’ Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 215 h. ΜΕ: de-
meoren (60 τε Ἐς ew), Ancren Riwle, p. 242.—OF. demeurer, demourer,
‘to abide, stay, tarry ;’ Cot.—L. démorari, to retard, delay. = L.de,
from, fully; and morari, to delay, from mora, hesitation, delay. Der.
ἘΕΣΣΕΣΣΙ ταρε.
DEMURE, sober, staid, grave. (F.—L.) See Spenser, F. Q. ii.
1.6. [And see Trench, Select Glossary, who points out that: the
word was once used in a thoroughly good sense.} Demurely occurs
in La Belle Dame sans Merci, 1. 246 ; and demure in Lydgate, Minor
Poems, pp. 19, 29. Coined by prefixing de (for L. dé-, very) to ME.
DEMY
mure, mature, calm, demure, which occurs in Polit. Rel. and Love
Poems, ed. Fumivall, p. 107, 1. 139; Sir J. Hoiland, The Howlat,
1. 835 &c.—OF. meur (F. mtr), mature.—L. mdtirus, mature. See
Mature. 41 Palsgrave has: ‘Sadly, demeurement; Soberly, sadly,
meurement, Ὁ. 841. Demeurement=L.. dé matira mente.
DEMY, a certain size of paper. (F.—L.) A printer’s term; an-
other spelling of Demi-, q. v.
DEN, a cave, lair of a wild beast. (E.) ME. den; Will. of Palerne,
20. AS. denn, a caye, sleeping-place; L. ‘cubile;’ Grein, i. 187.4
MDu. denne, a den, cave; Kilian. @ Probably closely allied to
ME. dene,a valley, AS. denu, a valley; Grein, i. 187; still preserved
in place-names, as Tenter-den, Rotting-dean.
DENARY, relating to tens. (L.) Modern arithmetic employs
‘the denary scale.’ —L. dénarius, containing ten. = L. pl. déni ( = dec-
nt}, ten by ten. Formed on the base of decem, ten. See Decimal.
Der. Hence denier (below).
DENDROID, resembling a tree. (Gk.) Modern. From Gk.
devipo-, for δένδρον, a tree; and -εἰδης, like, from εἶδος, form. The
Gk. δένδρον appears to be a reduplicated form, connected with Gk.
δρῦς, a tree, an oak, and E. tree; Curtius, i. 295. See Tree. Der.
From the same source is dendro-logy, i.e. a discourse on trees, from
λόγος, a discourse.
DENIAL, DENIER; see Deny.
DENIER, a (former) French coin, the twelfth part of a sou. (F.
—L.) In Shak. Rich. III, i. 2. 252.—F. denier, ‘the tenth part of
an English penny;’ Cot.—L. dénarium, acc. of déndrius, a Roman
coin worth 10 as-es.—L. dén-i, ten by ten, from L. dec-em, ten; and
suffix -drius. See Denary.
DENIZEN, a naturalized citizen, inhabitant. (F.—L.) For-
merly denisen, Udal, Matt. c. 5. v. 5. [The verb to denize or dennize
also occurs. ‘The Irish language was free dennized [naturalized] in
the English pale;’ Holinshed, desc. of Ireland,c.1.] ‘In the Liber
Albus of the City of London the F. deinzein [also denzein, denszein|,
the original of the E. word, is constantly opposed to forein, applied
to traders within and without the privileges of the city franchise re-
spectively. Ex. ‘‘ Qe chescun qavera lowe ascun ou ascuns terres ou
tenementz de denszein ou de forein deinz la fraunchise de la citee ;”’
p: 448;’ Wedgwood. B. Thus E. denizen is from AF. deinzein, a word
formed by adding the suffix -ein = L. -anus (cf. OF. vilein =L, uillainus)
to the AF. deinz, within, which occurs in the above quotation, and is
the word now spelt dans.—L. dé intus, from within; which became
deinz, dens, dens, and finally dans.—L. dé, from; and intus, within;
see Internal. Der. denizen-ship.
DENOMINATE, to designate. (L.) ‘Those places, which were
denominated of angels and saints;’ Hooker (in Todd). —L. déndmind- |
tus, pp. of déndminare, to name.—L. dé, down; and ndminare, to
name, from ndmin-, stem of nomen, a name. See Noun, Name.
Der. denominat-ion (in Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. i. c. 2. § 1;
and in Usk, Test. of Love, bk. ii. c. 9, 1. 162); denominat-ion, -al, -al-
ism; denominat-ive, -or.
DENOTE, to mark, indicate, signify. (F.—L.) In Hamlet, i. 2.
83.=—OF-. denoter, ‘to denote, shew ;’ Cot.—L. dénofire, to mark out.
—L. dé, down; and nolare, to mark, from nota, a mark. See Note.
DENOUEMENT, the unravelling of the plot of a story. (F. —
L.) ‘The denouement, as a pedantic disciple of Bossu would call it,
of this poem [The Rape of the Lock] is well conducted ;’ Dr. War-
ton, Ess. on Pope, i. 250 (Todd).—F. dénouement; formed with suffix
-ment from the verb dénouer, to untic.—F. dé<L. dis-, apart; and
nouer, to tie in a knot, from noue, a knot, which is from L. nddum,
acc. of nddus,a knot. See Node.
DENOUNCE, to announce, threaten. (F.—L.) ME. denounsen.
Wyclif has we denounsiden to translate dénunciadbamus; 2 Thess. iii. ro.
= OF. denoncer ; Cot. —L. dénuntiare,to declare. - L. dé, down, fully;
and nuntiare, to announce, from nuntius, a messenger. See Nuncio.
Der. denounce-ment ; also (like L. pp. dénuntidtus) denunciat-or, -or-y.
DENSE, close, compact. (L.) In Milton, P. L. ii. 948; Bacon,
Nat. Hist. § 29. —L. densus, thick, close. + Gk. δασύς, thick. Brug-
mann, i. § 851. Der. dense-ness, dens-i-iy ; also con-dense, q-V-
DENT, a mark of a blow. (E.) A variant of dint; the orig. sense
was merely ‘a blow.’ ME. dent, dint, dunt. Spelt dent ot dint in-
differently in Will. of Palerne, 2757, 3750, 1234, 2784. See further
under Dint. Der. dent, verb. @ Partly confused with dent, an
indentation; from F. dent, a tooth (below).
DENTAL, belonging to the teeth. (L.) ‘The Hebrews have
assigned which letters are labial, which dental, and which guttural ;”
Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 198. Formed with suffix -al (=L. -alis) from
L. dent-, stem of dens, a tooth, cognate with E. tooth. See Tooth.
DENTATED, furnished with teeth. (L.) ‘ Dentated, having
teeth;’ Bailey, vol. 11. L. denta/us, toothed; formed with suffix
“Gus, a pp. form, from dent-, stem of dens, a tooth. See Tooth.
DENTICLE, a small tooth. (L.) In Chaucer's Astrolabe,
DEPONENT
pt. i. § 23. ‘ Denticle, a little tooth;” Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674.—L.
denti-cu-lus, formed with dimin. suffixes -cu- and -lu-s from denti-, de-
clensional stem of dens, a tooth. See Tooth. Der. denticul-ate,
-at-ion.
DENTIFRICE, tooth-powder. (F.—L.) It occurs in Blount’s
Gloss. ed. 1674; Ben Jonson, Catiline, Act ii. (Sempronia) ; and in
Holland’s Pliny, b. xxviii. c. 11 (end).—MF. and F. dentifrice (Hatz-
feld).—L. dentifricium, tooth-powder; Pliny. —L. denti-, for dens, a
tooth; and fricare, torub, Sce Tooth and Friction.
DENTIST, one who attends to teeth. (L.) First about 1760;
not in Johnson. Formed by adding the suffix -ist to L. dent-, stem
of dens, a tooth; see Tooth. Der. dentist-ry.
DENTITION, cutting of teeth. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss. ed.
1674. —L. dentitionem, acc. of dentitio, dentition. —L. denfire, to cut
teeth.=<L. denti-, declensional stem of dens, a tooth. Sce Tooth.
DENUDE, to lay bare. (L.) Used by Cotgrave to explain F.
denuer. =. dénidare, to lay bare. L. dé, down, fully; and niiddre,
to make bare, from ziidus, bare. See Nude.
DENUNCIATION, a denouncing. (L.) In Shak. Meas. i. 2.
152.—L. dénuntiationem, acc. of dénuntiatio.—L. dénuntiare, denunci~
ἄγε, to denounce. See Denounce.
DENY, to gainsay, refuse. (F.—L.) In early use. ME. denicn ;
Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 249; Wyelif, Matt. xvic 24, xxvi.
34.—OF. denier, earlier deneier, denoier, to deny.—L. dénegare, to
deny. —L. dé, fully; and negare, to deny, say no. See Negation.
Der. deni-al, -able,
DEODAND, a thing (formerly) forfeited to the crown, for pious
uses. (AF.—L.) See Blount’s Nomolexicon. Lit: ‘given ‘to God.’
“ΔΕ. deodande; Britton, bk. i. c. 2. § 14.—L. Ded, to God, dat.
case of Deus, God; and dandum, to be given, from dare, to give.
DEODAR, an omamental tree, a sub-species of cedar. (Hind. —
Skt.) See Yule.—Hind. dewdari, the name of a. tree (Forbes) ;
called dewdar in Kashmir (Yule). = Skt. deva-daru, timber of the gods.
—Skt. déva-, a deity (see Tuesday); and daru, a kind of pine (see
Tree).
DEPART, to separate, to part from, quit, die. (F.—L.) Inearly
use. ME. departen; Floriz and Blauncheflur, ed.. Lumby, 1. 12;
Chaucer, Troilus, v. 1073.—OF. departir, despartir (Godefroy).—
OF, des- (L. dis-), asunder; and partir, to part, from L. partire, to
part; which is from L. parti-, decl. stem of pars, a part. See Part.
Der. depart-ment, -ure.
DEPEND, to hang, be connected with. (F.—L.) ME. dependen.
‘ The fatal chaunce Of life and death dependeth in balaunce;’ Lyd-
gate, Thebes, pt. iii. sect. headed The Wordes of the worthy Queene
Tocasta, l. 33.— OF. dependre, ‘ to depend, rely, hang on;’ Cot. =—L.
dépendére, to hang down, depend on.—L. dé, down ; and pendére, to
hang. See Pendant. Der. depend-ant (¥. pres. pt-), depend-ent
(L. pres. pt.), -ent-ly, -ence, -enc-y.
DEPICT, to picture, represent. (L.) ‘His armes are fairly de-
picted in his chamber;’ Fuller, Worthies, Cambs. (R.). But depict
was orig.a pp. ‘I fond a lyknesse depict. upon a wal ;’ Lydgate,
Minor Poems, p. 177; cf. p. 259.—L. dépictus, pp. of dépingere, to
depict. —L. dé, down, fully; and pixgere, to paint. See Paint.
DEPILATORY, removing hair. (L.) ‘The same depilatory
effect ;> Holland, Pliny, b. xxxii. c. 7, ed. 1634, p. 439 d. Formed,
in imitation of MF. depilatoire (which Cotgrave explains by cepilatory)
from a Late L. form *dépilatorius, not found, but formed regularly
from L. dépilare, to remove hair.— L. dé, away; and pildre, to pluck
away hair, from pilus, a hair. See Pile (4).
DEPLETION, a lessening of the blood. (L.) ‘ Depletion, an,
emptying ;’ Blount’s Gloss. 1674. Formed, in imitation of repletion,
as if from a L. ace. *déplétionem, from nom. *déplétio. [Cf. L. replé-
tio, complétio.) Cf. déplétus, pp. of déplére, to empty.—L. dé, away,
here used negatively; and p/ére, to fill. See Plenary.
DEPLORE, to lament. (F.—L.; or L.) In Shak. Tw. Nt. iii. 1.
174. See Trench, Select Glossary. [Perhaps directly from Latin-]
= MF. deplorer, ‘to deplore;’ Cot.—L. déplorare, to lament over. =
L. dé, fully; and plorare, to wail. Allied to E. food. Brugmann,
i. § 154. Der. deplorable, -abl-y, -able-ness.
DEPLOY, to unfold, open out, extend. (F.—L.) A modern
military term; not in Johnson, but see Todd, who rightly takes it to
be a doublet of display.—¥. deployer, to unroll; OF. desployer, to
unfold ;? Cot. —OF-. des-<L. dis-, apart ; and ployer, to fold, from
L. plicare, to fold. See Ply. Doublet, display.
DEPONENT, one who gives evidence. (L.) ‘The sayde depon-
ent sayeth ;” Hall, Hen. VIII, an. 6. § 32. Palsgrave has :-‘ verbes
deponentes,’ i.e. deponent verbs; p. 403. We also find the verb to
depone. ‘ And further, Sprot deponeth ;’ State Trials, Geo. Sprot, an.
1606 (R.). —L. déponent-, stem of déponens, pres. pt. of dépdnere, to
lay down, which in Late L. also meant ‘to testify ;᾽ Ducange.—L.
dé, down; and fénere, to put, place. B. Pénere is a contracted
M 2
163
164 DEPOPULATE
yerb, standing for posinere, where po- is an old prep., and sinere
means to allow, also to set, put. See Position, Deposit.
DEPOPULATS, to take away population. (L.) In Shak. Cor.
ill. 1. 264.—L. dépopuldtus, p>. of dépopulare, to lay waste.=L. dé,
fully; and populdre, to lay waste, in Late L. to deprive of people or
inhabitants, from populus, a people. See People. Der. depopulat-
ion, -or.
DEPORT, to carry away, remove, behave. (F.—L.) ‘How a
man may bee valued, and deport himselfe ;’ Bacon, Learning, by G.
Wats, b. viii. c. 2. (R.) Milton has deport as sb., in the sense of
deporiment; P. L. ix. 389; xi. 666. [The peculiar uses of the word
are French, not Latin.] OF. deporter, ‘to beare, suffer, endure ; also,
to spare, or exempt from ; also to banish: se deporter, to cease, for-
bear, . .. quiet himself, hold his hand ; also to disport, play, recreate
himself ;” Cot.—L. dépor/dre, to carry down, remove; with extended
senses in Late Latin. —L. dé, down, away; and portare, to carry.
See Port (1). Der. deportat-ion (L. acc. déportationem, trom nom.
deportatio, a carrying away); deport-ment (MF. deporte-ment; Cot-
grave gives the pl. deportemens, which he explains by ‘ deportments,
demeanor’).
DEPOSE, to degrade, disseat from the throne. (F.—L. and Gk.)
In early use. ME, deposen; King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 7822; P.
Plowman, B. xv. 514.—OF. deposer; Cot. OF. de-< L. dé-, from,
away; and poser, to place, from pausare, to pause; in late L., to
place; Ducange. B. Pausdre, to place, is derived from pausa, sb.,
a pause, from Gk. παῦσις, a pause; but ponere and pausare were much
confused. See Pose, Paus2. Der. depos-able, -al. 4 Note that
depose is not derived, like deposit, from L. dépdnere, but is partly Gk.
See below.
DEPOSIT, to lay down, intrust. (F.—L.) ‘The fear is deposited
in conscience ;’ Bp. Taylor, Rule of Conscience, b. ii. c. 1. rule 3 (R.).
— ΜΕ. depositer,.‘to Jay down as a gage, to infeoffe upon trust, to
commit unto the keeping or trust οὔ; Cot.—L. dépos:tum, a thing
laid down, neuter of pp. of d3ponere. See Deponent. Der. deposit,
sb., -or; -ar-y, King Lear, ii. 4. 2543 -or-y.
DEPOSITION, a deposing, evidence. (F.—L.) Used by
Cotgrave.— MF. deposition, ‘the deposition of witnesses;’ Cot.—L.
acc. dépositionem, from nom. dépositio, a depositing, a deposition ; cf.
dépositus, pp. of déponere, to lay down; see above. 8] Not derived
from the verb to depose ; see Depose.
DELOT, a store, place of deposit. (F.—L.) Modern. In
use in 1794; Todd’s Johnson.—F. dépét, a deposit, a magazine;
Ifamilton ; OF. depost, ‘a pledge, gage;’ Cot.—L. dépositum, a
thing laid down, neut. of dépositus, pp. of défonere, to lay down.
See Deposit, of which (when a sb.) depot is the doublet.
DEPRAVE, to make worse, corrupt. (F.—L.) ME. deprauen
(with w for v), to defame; P. Plowman, C, iv. 225; see Trench,
Select Gloss.< OF. depraver, ‘to deprave, mar, viciate;’ Cot.—L.
deprauare, pp. déprauatus, to make crooked, distort, vitiate.—L. dé,
down, fully ; and prauus, crooked, misshapen, depraved. Der.
deprav-ed, -ed-ly, -ed-ness, -at-1on, -i-ty.
DEPRECATE, to pray against. (L.) Occurs in the State Trials,
an. 1589; the Earl of Arundel (R.); and in J. Earle, Microcosmo-
graphy, ὃ 64 (end).—L. déprecdtus, pp. of déprecari, to pray against,
pray to remove. —L. dé, away; and precari, to pray, from prec-, stem
of prex, a prayer. See Pray. Der. deprecat-ing-ly, -ion, -ive, -or-y.
DEPRECIATE, to lower the value of. (L.) ‘ Undervalue and
deprectate ;' Cudworth, Intell. System, pref. to Reader (R.).—L.
dépretiatus, pp. of dépretiare, 1o depreciate.mL. dé, down ; and
pretium, price, value. See Price. Der. depreciat-ion, -ive, -or-y.
DEPREDATEH, to plunder, rob, lay waste. (L.) The verb is
rare. Depredatours occurs in Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 492; depredation |
in Burnet, Hist. Reformation, an. 1537.—L. dépredatus, pp. of |
dépredari, to plunder, pillage.=—L. dé, fully; and predari, to rob,
from preda, prey, plunder. See Prey. Der. depredat-ion, -or, -or-y. |
DEPRESS, to lower, let down. (L.) First used in an astrolo-
gical sense ; Lydgate has depressed, Siege of Thebes, pt.i. 1.228. So
Chaucer uses depresstoun ; On the Astrolabe, ed. Skeat, ii. 25. 6.—L.
dépressus, pp. of déprimere, to press down. = L. dé, down ; and premere,
to press. See Press. Der. depress-ion, -ive, -or.
DEPRIVES, to take away property. (F.—L.) ME. depriuen;
Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 222; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris,
1. 449.— OF, depriver.—Late L. de¢riuare, to deprive one of office,
degrade. —L. dé, down, fully; and priudre, to deprive (of which the
pp- prizatus means free {rom office, private), from priuus, single,
peculiar. See Private. Der. deprivat-ion.
DEPTH, deepness. (E.) In the later text of Wyclif, Luke, v. 4;
Gen. i. 2. The word is English, but the usual AS. word is deopnes,
i.e. deepness. + Icel. dypt, dypd ; Du. diepte; Goth. diupitha. See
Deep.
DEPUTEH, to appoint as agent. (F.—L.) In Shak. Oth. iv.
DESCEND
248. But deputacion is in Gower, C. A. iii. 178; bk. vii. 1. 2750. -
OF. deputer, ‘to depute ;’ Cot.—L. députare, to cut off, prune down;
also to impute, to destine; in Late L. to select.—L. dé, down; and
putare, to cleanse, prune, arrange, estimate, think. —4/ PEU, to
cleanse. See Fure. Der. deputai-ion; also depuly (OF. depute; see
Cotgrave).
DERANGE, to disarrange, disorder. (F.—L. and OHG.) In
late use. Condemned as a Gallicism in 1795, but used by burke
(Todd).—F. déranger, to disarray ; spelt desranger in Cotgrave.—
OF. des- < L. dis-, apart, here used negatively ; and OF. ranger, to
rank, range, a word of Germanic origin. See Range. Der.
derange-ment.
DERELICTION, complete abandonment. (L.) Derelict, in the
sense of ‘abandoned,’ is also in use. Dereliction is in Hooker, Eccl.
Polity, b. v. 8. 17.—L. acc. dérelictionem, from nom. dérelicio, com-
plete neglect ; cf. dérelictus, pp. of dérelinguere, to forsake utterly.—
L. dé, fully; and relinguere, to leave. See Relinquish.
DERIDBE, to laugh at, mock. (L.) In Spenser, F. Q. vi. 7. 32.
=-L. déridére, pp. derisus, to mock. =L. dé, fully, very much; and
ridére,tolaugh. See Risible. Der. derid-er; also deris-ion (Caxton,
Troy-book, leaf 95, 1. 8), -ive, -ive-ly, from pp. derisus.
DERIVE, to draw from, make to flow from. (F.—L.) For the
classical use of the word in English, see Trench, Select Gloss. ME.
deriuen (with x for v), used as a neuter verb by Chaucer, C. T. 3c08
(A 3036), but in the usual way in 1. 3040 (A 3038).—OF. deriver,
‘to derive, or draw from; also, to drain or dry up;’ Cot.=—L.
déeriuare, pp. Gériudius, to drain, draw oft water.—L. dé, away; and
riuus,a stream. See Rival. Der. deriv-able, -abl-y, -at-ion, -at-ive,
-at-tve-ly.
DERM, the skin. (Gk.) ‘Derma, the skin of a beast, or of a
man’s body;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Hence derm, for brevity. —Gk.
δέρμα, the skin. Gk. δέρειν, to skin, flay; cognate with I. tear, —
AY DER, to burst, tear. See Tear (1). Der. derm-al; also epi-dermis,
pachy-derm,
DEROGATHE, to take away, detract. (L.) ‘Any thinge ...
that should derogate, minish, or hurt his glory and his name ;’ Sir T.
More, Works, p. 1121 c.—L. dérogatus, pp. of dérogare, to repeal
a law, to detract from.—L. dé, away; and rogare, to propose a law,
to ask. See Rogation. Der. derogat-ion, -or-y, -or-i-ly.
DERRICK, a kind of crane for raising weights. (Du.) Applied
to a sort of crane from its likeness to a gallows; and the term derrick
crane had special reference to a once celebrated hangman of the name
of Derrick, who was employed at Tyburn. He is mentioned in
| Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, and Mr. Tancock sends me the following
clear example. ‘The theefe that dyes at Tyburne . . is not halfe so
dangerous . . as the Politick Bankrupt. I would there were a Derick
to hang vp him too;’ Τὶ Dekker, Seven Deadly Sins of London
(1606); ed. Arber, p. 17. The name is Dutch; Sewel’s Du. Dict.
(p. 523) gives Diederik, Dierryk, and Dirk as varying forms of the
same name. This name answers to the (Οὐ. Dietrich, AS: péodric, i.e.
‘ruler of the people.’ The AS. péod is cognate with Goth. thinda,
| people; see Dutch. The suffix -ric answers to Goth. -rerks, as in
Frithareiks. Frederick ; cp. Goth. reiks, adj., chief, mighty, hence
rich; see Rich.
DERRING-DO, desperate courage. (E.) Spenser has: ‘ For
ever, who in derring-doe were dreade,’ &c.; Shep. Kal., Oct. 65.
| This extraordinary word is due to a total misconception of a phrase
in Chaucer; he has imagined it to mean ‘daring action.’ But
| Chaucer has: ‘In durring don that longeth to a knight ;’ Troil.
| v. 837; where durring is a sb., meaning ‘daring ;’ and don is the
infin., meaning ‘todo.’ Later authors have blindly adopted Spenser's
error, in total ignorance of ME. grammar. See my Notes on E.
Etym., p. 65.
DERVIS, DERVISH, a Persian monk, ascetic. (Pers.) ‘The
Deruisse, an order of begging friar ;’ Sir Τὶ Herbert, Travels, ed. 1665,
p- 324. ‘An order of Monkes, who are called Dervises;’ Sandys,
‘Trav. (1532), p. 55. Pers. darvish, poor, indigent; a dervish, monk ;
Palmer's Pers. Dict. col. 260. So called from their profession of
extreme poverty. Cf. Zend driyu-, poor (Horn).
DESCANT, a variation (in music), a disquisition. (F.—L.)
“Twenty doctours expounde one text xx. wayes, as children make
descant upon playne song ;’ Tyndal’s Works, p. 168; col. 1. Spelt
dyscant, Squire of Low Degree, 1. 790. —ONF. descant, forOF. deschant,
‘descant of musick, also, a psalmody, recantation, or contrary song to
the former;’ Cot. —OF. des-<L. dis-, apart, separate; and ONF. cant,
for OF. chant, a song; see Burguy, who gives cant, canter as
variants of chant, chanter. From L. cantus, a song; cantare, to sing.
See Chant, and Cant. Der. descant, verb.
DESCEND, to climb down, go down, (I'.—L.) ME. descenden,
Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, pp. 134, 243.— OF. descendre, ‘to
|
1. | descend, go down;’ Cot.—L. déscendere, pp. déscensus, to descend.
DESCRIBE
—L. dé,down; and scandere, toclimb. SeeSean. Der. descendant
(OF. descendant, descending ; Cot.) ; descend-ent (L. pres. pt. stem
descendent-) ; descens-ion, descens-ion-al ; descent, Gower, C. A. ili. 207;
bk. vii. 3432 (OF. descente, a sudden fall; formed from descendre by
analogy with the form vente from vendre, and the like).
DESCRIBE, to write down, trace out, give an account of. (L.)
In Shak. Merch. of Ven.i. 2. 40. [But the ME. descriven was in
early use; see K. Alisaunder, 4553; Chaucer, C. T. 10354 (F 40).
This was a French form, from OF. descrivre.]}—L. déscribere, pp.
déscriptus, to copy, draw out, write down. = L. dé, fully ; and scribere,
to write. See Scribe. Der. describ-able, descript-ion (Chaucer,
C.T., Group A, 2053), descript-ive, -ive-ly.
DESCRY, to make out, espy. (F.—L.) In early use. ME.
descryen, discryen. ‘No couthe ther non so muche diserye’ [ badly spelt
discryghe, but rhyming with nygremauncye}, i.e. nor could any one
discern so much; King Alisaunder, 1. 138.—OF. descrire, a shorter
spelling of descrivre, to describe; cf. mod. F. décrire. —L. déscribere,
to describe. See Describe. @ Thus the word is merely a doublet
of describe; but it was not well understood, and we frequently find in
our authors a tendency to confuse it with decry. Cf. ‘ Descryynge,
Descripcio ;? Prompt. Parv. p. 119.
DESECRATEH, to profane. (L.) “ Desecrated and prophaned by
human use;’ Bp. Bull, vol. 1. ser. 4 (R.).—L. désecratus, pp. of
désecrare, to desecrate.—L. dé, away; and sacrdre, to make sacred,
from sacro-, for sacer, sacred. See Sacred. Der. desecrat-ion, Bailey,
vol. ii. (1727).
DESERT (1), a waste, wilderness. (F.—L.) Prop. an adj. with
the sense ‘ waste,’ but early used asa sb. ME. desert, K. Alisaunder,
p- 199, 1. 4772; Rob. of Glouc. p. 232, 1. 4785 ; Wyclif, Luke, ii. 4.
= OF. desert, a wilderness ; also, as ad). deserted, waste. —L. désertus,
waste, deserted ; pp. of déserere, to desert, abandon, lit. to unbind. =
L. dé, in a negative sense; and serere (pp. sertus), to bind, join. See
Series. Der. desert, verb; desert-er, -ion.
DESERT (2), merit. (F.—L.) ME. deserte, Rob. of Glouc. p.
253, 1.5059; Gower, C. A. i. 62; bk.i. 614. —OF. deserte, merit ; lit.
a thing deserved ; pp. of deservir, to deserve. See Deserve.
DESERVE, to merit, earn by service. (F.—L.) ME. deseruen
(with κε for v), P. Plowman, Ὁ. iv. 303 ; Chaucer, C. T. 12150 (C 216).
— OF, deservir.—L. désernire, to serve devotedly ; in Late L. to de-
serve; Ducange. —L. dé, fully; and seruire, to serve, from seruus, a
slave, servant. See Serve. Der. deserv-ing, -ing-ly, -ed-ly; also
desert (2), q. ν.
DESHABILLE, undress, careless dress. (F.—L.) So in Mrs.
Centlivre, Busybody, A. i. sc. 1 (Miranda). But formerly quadri-
syllabic (with final -é) ; Steele has deshabilé, Spectator, no. 49, § 3-
—F. deshabillé, undress; orig. pp. of déshabiller, to undress. =F. des-,
OF. des-<L. dis-, apart, used as a negative prefix; and habiller, to
dress. See Habiliment. @ Now usually dishabille.
DESICCATE, to dry up. (L.) In Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 727.—
L. désiccatus, pp. of désiccire, to dry up.—L. dé, thoroughly ; and
siccare, to dry, from siccus, dry. See Sack (3), sb. dry wine. Der.
desiccat-ion.
DESIDERATE, to desire. (L.) Orig. a pp., and so used in
Bacon, On Learning, by G. Wats, b. iv. c. 2 (R.).—L. désideratus,
pp. of désideriire, to long for. Desiderate is a doublet of desire, vb.
See Desire. Der. desideratum, neut. of L. pp., with pl. desiderata.
DESIGN, to mark out, plan. (I’.—L.). In Shak. Rich. 11, ii. τ.
203. Also as sb., Meas. i. 4. 55.— OF. designer, ‘to denote, signife,
τοῖν designe, prescribe ;’ Cot. “Το désignire, pp. désignatus, to mark,
denote.—L. dé, fully; and signdre, to mark, from signum, a mark, a
sign. See Sign. Der. design, sb.; -ed-ly, -er ; also design-ate, -at-t0n,
-at-or (like the L. pp. désignatus).
DESIRE, to long for, yearn after. (F.—L.) In early use. ME.
desyren, desiren, KK. Alisaunder, |. 15; P. Plowman, B. xv. 461.
{The sb. desyr is in Chaucer, C. T. 1503 (A 1501).]—OF. desirer,
formerly desirrer (Burguy).—L. désiderare, to long for, esp. to regret,
tomiss. B. The orig. sense is obscure, perhaps ‘to note the absence
of the stars,’ hence, to miss, regret ; but there can be little doubt that,
like consider, it is derived from sider-, for *sides-, stem of sidus, a
star. See Consider. Der. desire, sb. ; desir-able, -abl-y, -able-ness ;
-abil-i-ty 3 -ous, -ous-ly.
DESIST, to cease from, forbear. (F.—L.) In Shak, Ant. and Cleop.
11. 7. 86.— OF. desister,‘ to desist, cease, forbear; ’ Cot.—L. désistere,
to put away; also, to leave off, desist.—L. dé, away ; and sistere, to
put, place; causal form of sfdre, to stand, which is cognate with Ἐς
stand. See Stand,
DESK, a sloping table, flat surface for writing on. (L.) In
Shak. Haml. ii. 2. 136. Earlier, in Fabyan, vol. i. c. 201. § 3.
ME. deske, Prompt. Parv. (A. D. 1440) ; pp. 120, 299. -- Med. L. desca,
a desk (Ducange). Cf. Ital. desco, ‘a desk’ (Florio); from L.
discum, acc. of discus, a disc, table. See Dish.
DESTITUTE 165
DESOLATE,, solitary. (L.) ME. desolat, Chaucer, C. T. 4551
(B 131).—L. désdlatus, forsaken; pp. of @ésdlare.—L. de, fully; and
solare, to make lonely, from sdlus, alone. See Sole, adj. Der.
desolate, verb ; -ly, -ness, desolat-ion.
DESPAIR, to be without hope. (F.—L.) ME. dispetren, dis-
peren. ‘He was despeyred;’ Chaucer, C. T. 11255 (F 943).—OF.
despeir-, tonic stem of desperer, to despair. —L. déspérare, pp. despér-
atus, to have no hope.—L. dé, away; and spérare, to hope, from
spér-,as in OL, sfér-es, pl. of spés, hope. Der. despair, sb. ME.
despeir, Chaucer, C. T., A 3474; despair-ing-ly; also (from L. pp.
désperitus) desperate, Tempest, iii. 3. 104; -ly, -ness, desperat-ion ; also
desperado, a Spanish word =L. déspérdtus.
DESPATCH, DISPATCH, to send off quickly. (Span.—L.)
The orig. sense was ‘to dispatch business.’ In Shak. K. John, i. 99;
vy. 7.90; the sb, is also common, as in Cymb. iii. 7.16. The spelling
dispatch isvery common, and is also more in accordance with I. analogy
(N.E.D.). First in 1517 (spelt dispached); Palsgrave (1530) has
dispatche, vb., Ὁ. 520.—Span. despachar, ‘to dispatch, to ridde out of
the way;’ Minsheu. Cognate with Ital. dispacciare, to dispatch
(Torriano) ; usually spacciare, ‘to dispatch, hasten, speed’ (Florio).
=L. type *dis-pactidre ; from dis-, intensive particle, and * pactiare,
for Late L. pactare, to make an agreement, from L. pactum, an agree-
ment; see Pact. B. Confused by Johnson with F. dépécher, OF.
depescher, obs. E. depeach (N.E.D.). Here pescher answers to a Late
L. pedicare, as in impedicare, to place obstacles in the way. Hence to
depeach=to remove obstacles. Pedicare is formed from L. pedica, a
fetter ; from ped-, stem of pes, a foot; see Impeach. Dispatch
might have been from Ital., but Ital. generally has the shortened form ;
and dispatch seems to have been due to dealings with Spain (ab, 1517).
Der. despatch or dispatch, sb.
DESPERATE, DESPERADO; see Despair.
DESPISE, to contemn. (F.—L.) ME. despisen, dispisen; K.
Alisaunder, 2988; P. Plowman, B. xv. 531.—OF. despis-, stem of
pres. pt., &c., of despire, to despise.— L. despicere, to look down on,
scorn.=—L, dé, down; and specere, to look. See Spy. Der. despic-
able (from L. despic-ere), -abl-y; also despite, q.v.
DESPITE, spite, malice, hatred. (F.—L.) ME. despit, dispit ;
K. Alisaunder, 4720; Rob. of Glouc., p. 547; 1. 11376.—OF. despit,
‘despight, spight, anger;’ Cot. —L. déspectus, contempt. — L. déspectus,
pp. of déspicere, to despise. See Despise. Der. despite, as prep. ;
despite-ful, -ful-ly, ~ful-ness. Also ME. dispitous, Chaucer, C. T. 6343,
D 761 (obsolete). Doublet, spite.
DESPOIL, to spoil utterly, plunder. (F.—L.) In early use. ME.
despoilen, Ancren Riwle, p. 148.—OF. despoiller (mod. F. depourller),
to despoil.—L. despoliare, to plunder. τα, dé, fully; and spoliare, to
strip, rob, from spolium, spoil, booty. See Spoil.
DESPOND, to lose courage, despair. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
1956. ‘Desponding Peter, sinking in the waves ;’ Dryden, Britannia
Rediviva, 258.—L. despondére, (1) to promise fully, (2) to give up,
lose.=L. dé, (1) fully, (2) away; and spondére, to promise. See
Sponsor. Der. despond-ent (pres. part.), -ent-ly, -ence, -enc-y.
DESPOT, a master, tyrant. (F.—L.—Gk.) Used by Cotgrave.
Dryden has ‘ despotick power ;’ Sigismunda, 599.—OF. despot, MF.
despote, ‘a despote, the chief, or soveraign lord of a country ;’ Cot. =
Late L. despotum, acc. of despotus. = Gk. δεσπότης, a master. B. The
syllable δεσ- =*Idg. dems, ‘of a house;’ cf. Skt. dam-pa/i-, master of
the house.’ The syllable -ποτ- is related to Gk. πόσις, husband, Skt.
p:ti-, lord, L, potens, powerful; see Potent. Brugmann, i. § 408.
Der. despotic, -ic-al, -ic-al-ly, -ism.
DESQUAMATION, a scaling off. (L.) A modern medical
term; in Bailey (1735). Regularly allied to L. desquamatus, pp. of
desquamire, to scale off.—L. dé, away, off; and sguama, a scale.
DESSERT, a service of fruits after dinner. (F.—L.) ‘Dessert, the
last course at a feast, consisting of fruits, sweetmeats, &c. ;’ Blount’s
Gloss. ed. 1674. —F. dessert, ‘the last course or service at table;’ Cot.
=F. desservir, ‘to do one ill service; desservir sus table, to take away
the table ;’ Cot. = OF. des- < L. dis-, apart, away ; and Εἰ, servir, from
L. seruire, to serve. See Serve.
DESTEMPER;; see Distemper.
DESTINE, to ordain, appoint, doom. (F.—L.) In Shak. Meas.
ii. 4. 128. The pp. desfaned is in The Wars of Alexander, l. 518.
[The sb. destiny is in early use; ME. destinee, Chaucer, C. T. 2325
(A 2323).— OF. destiner, ‘to destinate, ordain ;” Cot.—L. destinare,
to destine. = L. destina, a support, prop. —L. dé-, down; and *stanare,
to cause to stand, set up, a derivative of s/are, to stand. Cf. Cretic
στανύω, 1 set. Brugmann, ii. § 603. See Stand. Der. destin-ate,
destin-at-ion (like L. pp. destinalus) ; also destiny (ME. destinee, from
OF. destinee<L. destinata, fem. of the same pp.)-
DESTITUTEH, forsaken, very poor. (L.) ‘ This fair lady, on
this wys destr/ut;’ Test. of Creseide, st. 14; Lydgate, Minor Poems,
p- 34-—L. destitiitus, left alone, pp. of destituere, to set or place
166 DESTROY
alone.—L. dé, off, away; and statuere, to place, from status, a
position ; cf. status, pp. of side, to stand; cognate with E. stand,
See Stand. Der. destitui-ion.
DESTROY, to unbuild, overthrow. (F.—L.) . In early use.
The pp. distryed is in King Alisaunder, 1. 130. ME. destroien,
destryen, destruyen; the pt. τ. destrude occurs in Rob. of Glouc.,
p- 242. Rob, of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, has destroied, p. 8; destruc-
tion, Ῥ. 202.— OF. destruire, to destroy (F. détruire, Ital. distruggere).
— Folk-L. *destriigere (pp. destructus), for L. destruere (pp. destructus),
to pull down, unbuild.—L. dé, with sense of E. verbal un-; and
struere, to build. See Structure. Der. des/roy-er ; also (like L.
pp. destructus) destruct-ion, -ible, -ibl-y, -ibil-i-ly, -ive, -ive-ly, -ive-ness.
DESUETUDE, disuse. (L.) In Howell’s Letters, i. 1. 35 (dated
Aug. I, 1021).—L. déswetudo, disuse. L. désuetus, pp. of désuescere,
to grow out of use.—L. dé, with negative force; and swescere,
inceptive form of suére, to be used. See Custom.
DESULTORY, jumping from one thing to another, random.
(L.) ‘Light, desu/tory, unbalanced minds ;’ Atterbury, vol. iii. ser.
9 (K.). Bp. Taylor has deswltorious, Rule of Conscience, b. i. c. 2.—
L. désultorius, belonging to a désultor; hence, inconstant, fickle.
[Tertullian has desultrix wirtus, i.e. inconstant virtue.]—L. désultor,
one who leaps down ; one who leaps from horse to horse; an incon-
stant person; cf. désulius, pp. of désilere, to leap down.=L. dé,
down; and salire, to leap. See Saltation, Der. desuliori-ly, -ness.
DETACH, to unfasten, separate. (F.—L. and G.) Orig. a
military term, and not in early use. ‘ Detach (French mil. term), to
send away a party of soldiers upon a particular expedition ;’ Kersey,
ed. 1715.—F. détacher, lit. to unfasten.—F. dé-=OF. des-<L. dis-,
apart; and -tacher, to fasten, only in the comp. dé-tacher, at-tacher.
See Attach, Der. detach-ment.
DETAIL, a small part, minute account. (F.—L.) ‘To offer
wrong in detaile ;’ Holland’s Plutarch, p. 306 (R.).—OF,. detail, ‘a
peecemealing, also, retaile, small sale, or a selling by parcels ;’
Cot.—OF. detailer, ‘ to piecemeale, to cut into parcels ;’ Cot, —OF.
de-=L. de-, fully; and sailler, to cut. See Tailor. Der. derail,
verb. @ The vb. is from the sb. in English ; conversely in French.
DETAIN, to hold back, stop. (F.—L.) Detaining is in Sir T.
More, Works, p. 386 e. From OF. detien-, a stem of OF. detenir,
“to detaine or withholde;’ Cot.—L. désinére, to detain, keep back.
=—L. dé, from, away; and ¢enére, to hold. See Tenable. Der.
detain-er, -ment; detent-ion, q.v. Also detent, sb., a catch preventing
motion of a machine.
DETECT, to expose, discover. (L.) Sir T. More has the pp.’
devected ; Works, pp. 112 6, 219 c.—L. détectus, pp. of délegere, to
uncover, expose.—L, dé-, with sense of verbal un-; and tegere, to
cover. See Tegument. Der. detect-ion, -er, -or, -ive.
DETENTION, a withholding. (F.—L.) In Shak. Tim. ii. 2.
39-—MF. detention, ‘a detention, detaining;’ Cot.—L. acc. dé-
tentiOnem, from nom. détentio; cf. détenius, pp. of détinére, to detain.
See Detain.
DETER, to frighten from, prevent. (L.) Milton has defer, P. L.
li. 4493 deterr'd, ix..696. It occurs earlier, in Lyly’s Euphues, ed.
Arber, p. 106.—L. déterrére, to frighten from.—L. dé, from; and
terrére, to frighten, See Terror. Der. deterr-ent.
DETERGE, to wipe off. (L.) ‘ Deterge, to rub out ;? Cockeram
(1642).—L. détergere, to wipe off.—L. de, off, away; and iergere,
pp: dersus, to wipe, Der. deterg-ent; also deters-ive, -ion, like pp.
deters-us.
DETERIORATE, to make or grow worse. (L.) ‘ Deteriorated,
made worse, impaired;’ Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674.—L. déterioratus,
pp. of déteriorare, to make worse.—L. déterior, worse. β. The
word stands for dé-ter-ior, in which the first syllable is the prep. dé,
away, from; and -fer- and -ior are comparative suffixes; cf. in-ter-ior.
Der. deteriorat-ion.
DETERMINE, to fix, bound, limit, end. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. de-
terminen, Kom, of the Rose, 6631. Chaucer has determinat, C. Τὶ
7041 (D 1459).—OF. determiner, ‘to determine, conclude, resolve
on, end, finish ;᾿ Cot.—L. dé‘erminare, pp. détermindius, to bound,
limit, end.—L. dé, down, fully; and terminare, to bound, from
terminus,a boundary. See Term. Der. determin-able, -abl-y; -ate,
-ate-ly, -at-ion, -at-ive, like pp. determindtus; also determin-ed, -ed-ly,
-ant,
DETEST, to hate intensely. (F.—L.) ‘ He detesteth and abhor-
reth the errours;’ Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 422 a. Bames has detestable,
Works, p. 302, col. 2.—OF. detester, ‘to detest, loath;’ Cot.—L.
détestari, to imprecate evil by calling the gods to witness, to execrate.
=-L. dé, down, fully; and ¢estari, to testify, from testis, a witness.
See Testify. Der. detest-able, -abl-y, -able-ness; also -at-ion (like
pp. détestatus).
DETHRONE, to remove from a throne. (F.—L. and Gk.) In
Speed’s Chron. Rich. 11, b. ix. c. 13 (R.).—OF. desthroner, ‘to dis-
DEVISE
thronize, or unthrone;’ Cot.—OF. des-<L. dis-, apart; and OF.
throne, a royal seat, from Late L.. ¢hronus, an episcopal seat, from
Gk. θρόνος, aseat. See Throne. Der. dethrone-ment.
DETONATE, to explode. (L.) The verb is rather late. The
sb. detonation is older, and in Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715.—L. déetonatus,
pp. of dé/onare, to thunder down.=L, dé, down, fully; and ‘onare,
to thunder. See Thunder. Der. de/onat-ion.
DETOUR, awinding way. (F.—L. and Gk.) Late; not in John-
son; N.E.D. gives a quotation, dated 1738.—F. détour, a circuit;
verbal substantive from détourner, to turn aside, OF. destourner
(Cot.). —OF. des-<L, dis-, apart ; and fourzer, to turn. See Turn,
DETRACTION, a taking away from one’s credit. (L.) The
verb detract is in Shak. Temp. ii. 2. 96, and is due to the older sb.
The pres. pt. detractinge is in Barclay, Ship of Fools, ed. Jamieson ;
1. 17. Chaucer has detraclioun, or detraccion, Pers. Tale, Six-text,
Group I, 1. 614. [So also in 1]. 493, the six MSS. have detraccion,
not detracting as in Tyrwhitt.J—L. acc, détractidnem, lit. a taking
away, from nom. dééractio; cf. détractus, pp. of détrahere, to take
away, also, to detract, disparage.—L. dé, away; and trahere, to
draw. See Trait. Der. detract, verb; -or.
DETRIMENT, loss, injury. (F.—L.) In Sir Τὶ Elyot, Castel
of Helth, b. ii. c. 3.—OF. de/riment, ‘ detriment, loss;’ Cot.—L.
détrimentum, loss, lit. a rubbing away.=—L. detri-, seen in détritus,
pp- of déterere, to rub away; with suffix -mentum.=—L. dé, away ; and
terere, torub. See Trite. Der. detriment-al; also (like pp. detritus)
detritus, detrit-ion.
DETRUDE, to thrust down. (L.) ‘And theim to cast and
detrude sodaynly into continual captiuitie;’ Hall, Rich. 111, an. 3.
(R.). =L. détriidere, pp. détrisus, to thrust down. L, de, down ; and
tridere, to thrust. E. thrust is from the same root. Der. detrus-ton.
DEUCES (1), a two, at cards or dice. (F.—L.) In Shak. L. L. Le
i, 2. 49. Spelt dews, Skelton, Bouge of Courte, 1. 347.—F. deux,
two.—L. duds, acc. of duo, two; cognate with E, ‘wo. See Two.
DEUCH (2), an evil spirit, the devil. (F.—L.) ‘Owe! dewes!
all goes downe!’ O! the deuce! all is lost; York Plays, Play 1,
1.92. The orig. sense was exclamatory, signifying ‘Oh! ill-luck !”
because the deuce, or ‘two,’ was a losing throw at dice. Then it
came to be equivalent to ‘the devil!’ It is really the same word as
the preceding. See Academy, Jan. 30, 1892, p. 111; and see
N.E.D. Cf. Low G. de deus! (Bremen Wort.).
DEUTERONOMY, the fifth book of the Pentateuch. (L.—Gk.)
Spelt Deutronomye by Wyclif.—L. Deuteronomium (as in Deut.
xvii. 18); as if ‘a repetition of the law.’=—Gk. Δευτερονόμιον ; from
Sevrepo-s, second, and νόμος, law.
DEVASTATE, to lay waste. (L.) A late word; not in Johnson;
but it occurs in Bailey, vol. ii, 1727 (though mot in ed. 1731).
Devastation is in Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674. Instead of devastate, the
form devast was formerly used, and occurs in Ford, Perkin Warbeck,
Aviv. sc. 1,1. 6.—L. déuastaius, pp. of déuasiaire, to lay waste. —1L.
dé, fully; and uastare, to waste, cognate with E. waste, See Waste.
Der. devastat-ton.
DEVELOP, to unroll, unfold, open out. (F.—L. and Teut.)
In Pope, Dunciad, iv. 269. The pp, developed is in Blount’s Gloss.
(1656). —F. développer, to unfold, spelt desveloper in Cotgrave,= OF,
des-<L., dis-, apart ; and -veloper, occurring in F. envelopper, formerly
enveloper, to enwrap, Wrap up. See Envelope. Der. develop-ment,
DEVEST, the old form of Divest. (F.—L.) OF. desvesiir
(Hatzfeld).—L. dis-, away; and uestire, to clothe. See Divest.
DEVIATEH, to go out of the way. (L.) ‘ But Shadwell never
deviates into sense ;’ Dryden, Macflecknoe, |. 20. —L. déuiatus, pp.
of déuidre, to go out of the way.—L. déuixs, out of the way.—L,
dé, away from; uia, way. Sce Devious. Der. deviat-ion. ME.
deuiacioun, Τὶ, Usk, Test. of Love, iti. 1. 6.
DEVICE, a plan, project, opinion. (F.—L.) ME. deutse, deuys
(with wu for v) ; Chaucer, C. T. 816 (or 818). “ΟἹ devis, m., ‘speech,
talke, .. . a device;’ devise, f., ‘a device, poesie, embleme, . . .
invention; also, a division, bound;’ Cot.—Late L. diuisum, dinisa,
a division of goods, bound, mark, device, judgment. Se2 further
under Devise.
DEVIL, an evil spirit. (L.—Gk.) ME. deuil, deoucl (with u
for v); spelt devel, P. Plowman, 1}. ii. 102. AS. déoful, déofol;
Grein, i. 191.—L. diabolus. —Gk. διάβολος, the slanderer, the devil.
= Gk. διαβάλλειν, to slander, traduce, lit. to throw across. = Gk, διά,
through, across; and βάλλειν, to throw, cast. See Belemnite.
Der. devil-ish, -ish-ly, -ish-ness, -ry.
DEVIOUS, going out of the way. (L.) In Milton, P. L. iii,
489. —L. déuius, going out of the way; with change of -us to E. -ous,
as in numerous other cases.—L. dé, out of; and ua,.a way. See
Viaduct. Der. devious-ly, -ness; also deviate, q. v.
DEVISE, to imagine, contrive, bequeath. (F.—L.) In early use.
ME. deuisen (with w for v), King Horn, ed. Lumby, 930; Gower,
DEVOID
C. A. i. 19, 21; prol. 464, 822.—OF. deviser, to distinguish, regulate,
bequeath, talk. (Cf. Ital. divisare, to divide, describe, think. |—OF.
devise, a division, project, order, condition. [Cf. Ital. divisa, a divi-
sion, share, choice.] = Late L. dinisa, a division of goods, portion of
land, bound, decision, mark, device. —L. diuisa, fem. of diuisus, pp.
of diuidere, to divide. See Divide. Der. devis-er,-or ; device, q.v.
DEVOID, quite void, destitute. (F.—L.) ME. denoyd (with
πὶ for v); Rom. of the Rose, 3723. The pp. deuoided, i. 6. emptied
out, occurs in the same, 2929; from ME. denoiden, to empty. —OF.
desuuidier, desvoidier, to empty out (mod. F. dévider). OF, des-<L.
dis-, apart; and voidier, vuidier, to void, from OF. voide, vuide, f.
(m. vuit), void. See Void.
DEVOIR, duty. (F.—L.) In early use. ME. deuoir, deuer
(with « for v), Chaucer, C. T. 2600 (A 2598); P. Plowman, Ὁ.
xvii. 5.— MF. devoir, OF. deveir, to owe; also, as sb., duty. —L.
d3bére, to owe. See Dabt.
DEVOLVE, to roll onward, transfer, be transferred. (L.) ‘He
did devolve and intrust the supreme authority . . . into the hands of
those persons;’ Clarendon, Civil War, vol. iii. p. 483 (R.). ME.
deuoluen, Palladius, bk. xi. 497." L. déuoluere, to roll down, bring to.
—L. dé, down; and uoluere, toroll. See Voluble. Der. devolution,
defined as ‘a rolling downe’ in Cockeram ; cf. déuoliit-us, pp.
DEVOTE, to vow, consecrate to a purpose, (L.) Shak. always
uses the pp. devoted, asin Oth. ii. 3. 321. [The sb. devotion was in
quite early use; it is spelt dewociun in the Ancren Riwle, p. 368, and
was derived from Latin through the OF. devotion.]—L. déudtiis,
devoted; pp. of déuouére, to devote.—L, dé, fully ; and uouére, to
vow. See Vow. Der. devot-ed, -ed-ly, -ed-ness; devot-ee (a coined
word, see Spectator, no. 354) ; devot-ion, -ion-al, -ion-al-ly; and see
devout.
DEVOUR, to consume, eat up. (F.—L.) ME. dexouren (with
u for v) ; P. Plowman, C. iii. 140; Gower, C. A. i. 64; bk. i. 1. 654.
—OF. devoure, 1 p.s. pr. of devorer, to devour.—L. déworare, to
devour.=—L. dé, fully; and worare, to consume. See Voracious.
Der. devour-er.
DEVOUT, devoted to religion. (F.—L.) In early use. ME.
deuot (with u for v); Ancren Riwle, p. 376, 1. 3. Spelt devoue in
Gower, C. A. i. 64; bk. i. 1. 669.—OF. devot, devoted; see Gode-
froy. — L. déud!us, pp. devoted. See Devote.
DEW, damp, moisture. (E.) ME. deu, dew; spelt deau, dyau,
Ayenbite of Inwyt, 136, 144. The pl. dewes is in P. Plowman, C.
xviii. 21. AS. déaw, Grein, i. 190.4Du. dauww; Icel. dogg, gen.
sing. and nom. pl. déggvar; cf. Dan. dug, Swed. dagg ; OHG. ton,
tau; G. thau. Teut. type *dauwo-. B. Perhaps connected with Skt.
dhav, dhav, to run, flow (Fick); and Gk. θέειν (for *0éFev), to run
(Prellwitz). Der. dew-y ; also dew-lap (Mids. Nt. Dream, ii. 1. 50,
iv. 1. 127); dew-point (modern).
DEXTER, on the right side, right. (L.) A heraldicterm. In
Shak. Troil. iv. 5. 128. He also has dexterity, Haml.i. 2. 157.
Dryden has dexterous, Abs. and Achit: 904.—L. dexter, right, said of
hand or side.+Gk. degids, δεξιτερός, on the right ; Skt. dakshizta-, on
the right, on the south (to a man looking eastward) ; OHG. zéso, on
the right; Goth. taihswa, the right hand; Russ. desnitsa, the right
hand; W. deheu, right, southern; Gael. and Irish deas, right, southern.
B. The Skt. dakshiza- is from the Skt. daksh, to satisfy, suit, be
strong; cf. Skt. daksha-, clever, able. Brugmann, i. § 598. Der.
dexter-i-ty, -ous, -ous-ly, -ous-ness, dextr-al.
DEY, a governor of Algiers, before the French conquest. (F.—
Turk.) ‘The dey deposed, 5 July, 1830;’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates.
=F. dey.=—Turk. dai, a maternal uncle. ‘Orig. a maternal uncle,
then a friendly title formerly given to middle-aged or old people,
esp. among the Janizaries; and hence, in Algiers, consecrated at
length to the commanding officer of that corps, who frequently
became afterward pacha or regent of that province; hence the
European misnomer of dey, as applied to the latter ;’ Webster.
DHOW, DOW, a kind of ship, a slave-ship. (E. Indian?) See
Dhow in Yule; not of Arab. origin, Given as dao or dava in
Molesworth’s Marathi Dict. Perhaps from Skt. dha@v, to run, flow ;
dhavin, running.
DI- (1), prefix; ‘apart.’ (L.) L. di-, shorter form of dis-; see
Dis-.
DI- (2), prefix, signifying ‘twice’ or ‘ double.’ (Gk.) Gk. &-, for
δίς, twice. +L. bis, bi-, twice; Skt. duis, dvi-, twice. Connected with
Gk, δύω, L. duo, Skt. ἄνα, E. two. See Two.
DIA-, 2 common prefix. (Gk.) From Gk, διά, through, also,
between, apart ; closely related to δίς, twice, and δύο, two. Cf. L.
dis-, apart.‘ Both the prefixal and the prepositional use of διά are
to be explained by the idea between;’ Curtius, i, 296. See Two.
q This prefix forms no part of the words diamond, dial, or diary, as
may be seen.
DIABETES, a disease accompanied with excessive discharge of |
DIAMOND 167
urine. (Gk.) Medical. In Kersey, ed. 1715. The adj. diabetical is
in Cockeram (1642).—Gk. διαβήτης, diabetes ; orig. a pair of com-
passes, a siphon. = Gk. διαβαίνειν, to stand with the legs apart (like
compasses) ; also, to pass through (a siphon). Gk. διά, apart ; and
βαίνειν, to go, cognate with E, Come, q. v.
DIABOLIC, DIABOLICAL, devilish. (L.—Gk.) Spelt
diabolick, Milton, P. L. ix. 95. - L. diabolicus, devilish. — Gk, διαβολι-
κός, devilish. — Gk. διάβολος, the devil. See Devil.
DIACHYLON, an adhesive plaister. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘ Diachylon,
a plaister;’ Phillips (1658). Spelt diachi/on in W. Bullein, Dia-
logue against the Fever (1578), p. 48 (E.E.T.S.).—MF. diaculon,
diachylon; Cot.—Late L. diachylon, a medicament (Lewis).—Gk,.
διὰ χυλῶν, a medicine composed of juices; from διά, by means of ;
and χυλῶν, gen. pl. of χυλός, juice ; see Chyle. @ The Gk. διά,
‘consisting of,’ was formerly in much use as a prefix in medicinal
remedies, as dia-codium, dia-pente, δα.
DIACONAL, pertaining to a deacon. (F.—L.—Gk.) From F.
diaconal, which Cotgrave translates by ‘diaconall.’—Late L. dra-
conalis, formed with suffix -alis from L. diacon-us, a deacon. = Gk.
διάκονος, a deacon. See Deacon. Similarly diaconate =F. diaconat,
from L. dificon-dius, deacon-ship.
DIACRITIC, distinguishing between. (Gk.) ‘ Diacritick points;’
Wallis to Bp. Lloyd (1699), in Nicholson’s Epist. Cor, 1. 123
(Todd).—Gk. diaxpirucés, fit for distinguishing. = Gk. διά, between;
and κρίνειν, to distinguish. See Critic. Der. diacritic-al; used by
Sir W. Jones, Pref. to Pers. Grammar.
DIADEM, a fillet on the head, a crown. (F.—L.—Gk.) In early
use. ME. diademe, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 10357, 10374 (F 43, 60); Becket,
2149 (marked 2049); cf. P. Plowman, B. iii. 286.—OF. diademe ;
Cot.—L. diadéma.=—Gk. διάδημα, a band, fillet. = Gk. διαδέω, 1 bind
round. =Gk. διά, round, lit. apart; and dew, I bind. Cf. Skt. da, to
bind ; daman, a garland.<4/DE, to bind; Brugmann, ii. § 707.
DLASRESIS, a mark (7) of separation. (L.—Gk.) In Kersey’s
Dict. ed. 1715.—L. di@resiss—_Gk. διαίρεσις, a dividing. Gk.
διαιρέω, I take apart, divide.—Gk. &-, for διά, apart; and aipéw,
Itake. See Heresy.
DIAGNOSIS, a scientific determination of a disease. (Gk.) The
adj. diagnostic was in earlier-use than the sb.; it occurs in Blount’s
Gloss. ed. 1674.—Gk. διάγνωσις, a distinguishing ; whence the adj.
διαγνωστικός, able to distinguish.—Gk. διά, between; and γνῶσις,
enquiry, knowledge, from γι-γνώσκω, I know, cognate with E. know.
See Know.
DIAGONAL, running across from corner to corner. (F.—L.—
Gk.) In Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674 ; and in Cotgrave.=F. diagonal,
‘diagonall ;” Cot.=L. diagondlis, formed with suffix -a/is from a stem
diagon-.— Gk, διαγών-ιος, diagonal.—Gk, διά, through, across, be-
tween; and γωνία, a comer, angle. Der. diagonal-ly.
DIAGRAM, a sketch, figure, plan. (L.—Gk.) ‘Diagram, a title
of a book, a sentence or decree; also, a figure in geometry; and in
music, it is called a proportion of measures, distinguished by certain
notes ;’ Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674; diagramme in Cockeram (1642).
=L. diagramma, a scale, gamut.—Gk. διάγραμμα, a figure, plan,
gamut, list; lit. that which is marked out by lines. = Gk. διαγράφειν,
to mark out by lines, draw out, describe. =Gk. διά, through ; and
γράφειν, to write.
DIAL, a clock-face, plate for showing the time of day. (L.) In
Shak. Oth. iii. 4. 175. ΜΕ. dyal, dial; Lydgate, Minor Poems,
p. 245 ; Prompt. Parv. p. 120.—Med. L. didlis, relating to a day; cf.
Med. L. diale, as much land as could be ploughed ina day. [The
word journal has passed from an adjectival to a substantival sense in
a similar manner.]=L. diés, a day. See Diary. Der. dial-ist,
diall-ing.
DIALECT, a variety of a language. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak.
K. Lear, ii. 2. 115.—F. dialecte, ‘a dialect, or propriety of lan-
guage ;’ Cot.=L, dialectos, a manner of speaking.—Gk. διάλεκτος,
discourse, speech, language, dialect of a district. Gk. διαλέγομαι, 1
discourse ; from the act. form διαλέγω, I pick out, choose between. =
Gk. διά, between ; and λέγειν, to choose, speak. From the same
source is dialogue, q.v. Der. dialect-ic, -ics, -ic-tan, -ic-al, -ic-al-ly.
DIALOGUE, a discourse. (F.—L.—Gk.) In early use. ME.
dialoge, Ancren Riwle, p. 230.—OF. dialoge (Hatzfeld), later dta-
logue (Cotgrave).—L. dialogus, a dialogue (Cicero). = Gk. διάλογος, a
conversation. = Gk. διαλέγομαι, I discourse (above). Der. dialog-ist,
-ist-tc, -ist-ic-al.
DIAMETER, the line measuring the breadth across or thickness
through. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. diametre, Chaucer, Astrolabe, pt. il.
§ 38. 8.—OF. diametre, ‘a diameter ;’ Cot.—L. diametros.—Gk.
διάμετρος, f. a diagonal, a diameter.— Gk. διά, through ;and μετρεῖν,
to measure. See Metre. Der. diame‘r-ic-al, -ic-al-ly.
DIAMOND, a hard precious stone. (F.—L.—Gk.) [A doublet
of adaman’, and used in the sense of adamant as late as in Milton,
168 DIAPASON
P.L. vi. 364; see Trench, Select Glossary.] * Have herte as hard as
diamaunt ;’ Kom. of the Rose, 4385 ; spelt diamant, P. Plowman, 10.
ii. 13.—OF. diamant,‘ a diamond, also, the load-stone, instead of
aymant;’ Cot. [Cf. Ital. and Span. diamante, (ἃ. and Du. diamant,
a diamond.] β. Known to be a mere corruption of adamant, OF.
aimant (Hatzfeld); hence Ital. and Span. diamantino, adamantine.
See Adamant.
DIAPASON, a whole octave, harmony. (L.—Gk.) In Shak.
Lucrece, 1132; also in Milton, Ode at a Solemn Music, |. 23; Dry-
den, Song for St. Cecilia’s Day, 1. 15. ΜΕ. dyapason, Trevisa, tr. of
Higden, iii. 209.—L. diapasdn, an octave, a concord of a note with
its octave. — Gk. διαπασῶν, the concord of the first and last notes of
an octave; a contracted form of the phrase διὰ πασῶν χορδῶν
συμφωνία, a concord extending through all the notes; where διὰ
means through, and πασῶν is the gen. pl. fem. ‘of the adj. mas,
all (stem mayr-). The s2me stem appears in pan-theism, panto-mime,
&c, See Pantomime.
DIAPER, figured linen cloth. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘In dieper, in
damaske, or in lyne’ [linen]; Spenser, Muiopotmos, 364. ‘Covered
in cloth of gold diapred weel ;’ Chaucer, C. I. 2160 (A 2158).—OF.
diapré, ‘diaperd or diapred, diversified with flourishes or sundry
figures ;’ Cot. From the verb diaprer, ‘ to diaper, flourish, diversifie
with flourishings.” B. Instill earlier French we find diaspre, with the
sense of ‘fine silk cloth,’ often described as blanc (white); see
Godefroy. — Late L. diasprus, adj.; also used as a sb. (as in ‘ tunica
de diaspra alba’); Ducange.—Late Byzantine Gk. δίασπρος, pure
white; from da, wholly, and ἄσπρος, white (see N.E.D.). 4 Not
the same as Ital. diaspro, a jasper. But cf. Prov. diaspres, diaper,
costly cloth (Bartsch) ; also Late L. asperi, white money (Ducange).
DIAPHANOUS, transparent. (Gk.) “ Diaphanous, clear as
crystal, transparent ;’ Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674. Sir T. Browne has
the sb. diaphanity ; Vulg. Errors, b. ii. c. 1. § 18. —Gk. διαφανής, seen
through, transparent; with -ous for -ns; cf. διαφαίνειν, to show
through. —Gk. διά, through; and ¢av-, base of φαίνειν, to show. See
Phantom. Der. diaphanous-ly; from the same source, diaphan-i-ty
or diaphane-i-ty.
DIAPHORETIC, causing perspiration. (Gk.) ‘ Diaphoretick,
that dissolveth, or sends forth humours;’ Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674.
—L. diaphoréticus, sudorific.— Gk. διαφορητικός, promoting perspira-
tion. =—Gk. διαφόρησις, perspiration. —Gk. διαφορεῖν, to carry off,
throw off by perspiration. Gk. διά, through; and φορεῖν, to carry,
allied to φέρειν, to bear, cognate with E. bear. See Bear (1).
DIAPHRAGM, a dividing membrane, the midriff. (F.—L.—
Gk.) The L. form diaphragma is in Beaum. and Fletcher, Mons.
Thomas, iii. 1. ‘ Diaphragm, . . . the midriff;’ Blount’s Gloss. ed.
1074. -- Ἐς diaphragme, ‘the midriffe ;" Cot.—L. diaphragma.=—Gk.
διάφραγμα, a partition-wall, the midriff; cf. διαφράγνυμι, I divide by
a fence.—Gk. διά, between; and ppacow, I fence in, enclose (fut.
ppagw) ; allied to L, farcire, to stuff. See Farce. Der. diaphragmat-
ic, from d:appaypar-, stem of διάφραγμα.
DIARRHGA, looseness of the bowels. (L.—Gk.) In Kersey’s
Dict. ed. 1715; diarrhea in Cockeram (1642).—L. diarrhea. = Gk.
διάρροια, lit. a flowing through. —Gk, διαρρέειν, to flow through.—
Gk, διά, through; and ῥέειν, to flow. —4/ SREU, to flow. Brugmann,
i. § 318. See Stream.
DIARY, a daily record. (L.) ‘He must alwayes have a diary
about him ;’ J. Howell, Instructions for Foreign Travel, sect. iii. § 4;
ed. 1642.—L. diarium, a daily allowance for soldiers; also, a diary.
—L. diés,a day. Brugmann, i. ὃ 223. Der. diar-ist; cf. dial. ~
DIASTOLE, a dilatation of the heart. (Gk.) In Kersey’s Dict.
ed. 1715; and in Spenser, Globe ed.; p. 709, col. 1, 1. 20.—Gk.
διαστολή. adrawing asunder; dilatation of the heart. = Gk. διαστέλλειν,
to put aside. —Gk. διά, in the sense of ‘apart;’ and στέλλειν, to
nlace.
DIATONIC, proceeding by tones. (Gk.) ‘Diatonick Musick keeps
a mean temperature between chromatic and enharmonic, and may go
for plain song ;᾿ Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674. —Gk. διατονικός, diatonic;
we find also διάτονος (lit. on the stretch) used in the same sense. —
Gk. διατείνειν, to stretch out.—Gk. διά, through; and τείνειν, to
stretch.=4/ TEN, to stretch. See Tone. Der. diatonic-al-ly.
DIATRIBE, an invective discourse. (L.—Gk.) ‘ Diatribe, an
auditory, or place where disputations or exercises are held;’ Blount’s
Gloss. ed. 1674. Also ‘a disputation ;’ Kersey, ed. 1715.—L. dia-
triba, a place for learned disputations, a school; an extension of the
sense of the Gk. διατριβή, lit. a wearing away, a waste of time, a
discussion, argument. —Gk. διατρίβειν, to rub away, waste, spend
time, discuss. — Gk. διά, thoroughly; and τρίβειν, to rnb (with long).
Brugmann, ii. § 676.
DIB, to dab lightly, to make small holes in the ground. (E.) A
lighter form of dab; see N.E.D. and E.D.D. Hence dibber, a dibble;
Pegge, Kenticisms (E.D.S.). Cf. Dab.
DIBBER, DIBBLE, a tool used for setting plants.
DIE
(E.)
ΤΊ] not put The débble in earth to set one slip of them;’ Wint. Tale,
iy. 4. 100. ME, debyl/e, a setting-stick ; Cath. Anglicum, p. 92 (and
note). From the stem dab-; see Dab. And sce above.
DICE, the plural of die; see Die (2).
DICKER, half a score, esp. of hides. (L.) Once common; the
ace. pl. dicras occurs in Domesday Book ; see Blount’s Nomolexicon.
From AS, *dicor, not recorded ; but representing Late L. dicora. =
L. deciiria, a company or set of ten, —L. decem, ten; see Ten. 4 50
also F. dacre, Late L. dacra; Swed. dacker, ‘a dicker;’ Widegren.
DICOTYLEDON, a plant with two seed-lobes. (Gk.) In Bailey,
vol. ii. (1727,1731). A mod. botan, term; in common use. Coined
from Gk. &-, double (from δίς, twice); and Gk. κοτυληδών, a cup-
shaped hollow or cavity. —Gk. κοτύλη, anything hollow, a cup. Cf.
1.. calinus, a bowl; see Kettle. Der. dico/yledon-ous.
DICTATE, to command, tell what to write. (L.) ‘ Sylla could
not skill of letters, and therefore knew not how to aic’ate;’ Bacon,
Adv. of Learning, ed. W. A. Wright, i. 7. 29; p. 66. Shak. has
dictator ; Cor. ii. 2. 93.—L. dictatus, pp. of dictare, to dictate; cf.
* Sylla nesciuit literas, non potuit dicfare, quoted in Bacon, Essay
xv. B. Dictare is the frequentative of dicere, to say; see Diction.
Der. dictat-ion, -or, -or-ship, -or-i-al, -or-i-al-ly.
DICTION, manner of discourse. (F.—L.) In Shak. Haml. ν.
2. 123.—F. diction, ‘a diction, speech, or saying;’ Cot.—L. acc.
dictidnem, from nom, dictio, a saying, speech; cf. dict-, pp. stem of
dicere, to say, also, to appoint; from the same root as dicare, to tell,
publish.+Gk. δείκνυμι, 1 show, point out; Skt. dig, to show, pro-
duce; Goth. ga-teihan, to tell, announce; G. zeigen, to point out. =
¥ DEIK, to show, point out ; Brugmann, i. ὃ 207. Der. diction-ary ;
also dictum (neut. sing. of L. pp. dictus), pl. dicta; and see ditto.
Hence also bene-diction, benison, male-diction, malison, contra-diction,
&c. From the same root are indicate, indict, index, avenge, judge,
preach, &c.
DID, pt. t. of do; see Do.
DIDACTIC, instructive. (Gk.) In Bp. Taylor, vol. iii. ser. 10;
also in his Dissuasive from Popery, pt. i.s. 9 (R.).—Gk. διδακτικός,
instructive; cf. 1 Tim. iii. 2.—Gk. διδάσκειν, to teach ; where διδά-
σκειν =* δι-δακ-σκειν. 4+ L. doc-ére, to teach; cf. disc-ere, to learn.
Allied to δοκεῖν, to think; δέκομαι, Tonic for δέχομαι, receive.
(/ DEK.) Brugmann, i. § 707. Der. didactic-al, -al-ly.
DIDAPPER, a diving bird, a dabchick. (E.) ‘ Doppar, or cy-
doppar, watyr-byrde, mergulus;” Prompt. Pary. p. 127. For dive-
dapper. ‘ Like a dive-dapper peering through a wave;’ Shak. Venus,
86. Compounded of dive (q. v.) and dapper, i.e. a diver, dipper,
plunger, so that the sense of dive occurs twice in the word, according
to a common principle of reduplication in language. [Cf. Derwent-
water = white-water-water.] B. Dapper answers to AS. doppa ; ct. dop-
chicken, the Linc. word for the dab-chick (Halliwell) ; doppers, i.e.
dippers or Anabaptists, used by Ben Jonson in his masque entitled
News from the New World; and the form doppar cited from the
Prompt. Pary. above. The AS. form diife-doppa actually occurs, to
translate the L. pelicanus (Bosworth) ; where -a is an agential suffix,
replaced (later) by -er; and dop-=* dup-, weak grade of * deup-, as
seen in AS. déop, deep. Cf. Swed. doppa, to dip, plunge, immerge.
Hence also dap-chick, for dop-chick, i.e. the diving bird, corrupted to
dab-chick for ease of pronunciation. See Dip, Deep.
DIDDLE, to overreach. (E.) Also, to waste tine by dawdling ;
see E.D.D. From the base dyd-, as in AS. dyd-rian, to delude;
formed (by vowel-change of w to y) from dud-, weak grade allied to
dauth-, as seen in déad, death; cf. Dawdle. Cf. EFries. dudjen,
bedudjen, to overreach, dudden, to be stupid, doze, dream; Norw.
dudda, to hush to sleep (Ross); Dan. dude, darnel (because it
stupefies) ; Larsen.
DIE (1), to lose life, perish. (Scand.) ME. dien, dyen, dizen,
dejen, deyen. Spelt dejen in Layamon, 31796. Late AS. dé3an, Holy
Rood-tree, ed. Napier (E.E.T.S., 1894), p. 14, 1. 25; so that the
word may be a native one, after all. [The ordinary AS. word is
steorfan or sweltan; hence it is usual to regard die as Scandinavian. }
=Icel. deyja, to die; Swed. dé; Dan. dée. + OSax. dotan; MHG.
touwen, to die. Cf. also OF ries. deta, deja, to kill; Goth. af-daujan,
to harass, Matt. ix. 36. The Tent. base is *dau; whence * dau-jan,
to die (Icel. deyja), Cf. Russ, davite, to strangle. See Death,
Dead.
DIE (2), a small cube used for gaming. (F.—L.) The sing. die
is in Shak. Wint. Tale, iv. 3. 27; he also uses the pl. dice (id. i. 2.
133). Earlier, the sing. is seldom found; but the ME. pl. dys is
common; see Chaucer, C. T. 1240, 11002, 12557 (A 1238, F 690,
C 623). Some MSS. spell the word dees, which is, etymologically,
more correct. OF. det, a die (Burguy), later dé, pl. dez (Cotgrave);
cf. Proy. dat, a die (Brachet) ; also Ital. dado, pl. dadi, a die, cube,
pedestal ; Span. dado, pl. dados.— Late L. datum, a thing given or
DIET
decreed ; hence applied to a die for casting lots. Orig. neuter of
datus, pp. of dare, to give, let go, give forth, thrust, throw. See
Date (1). Der. die, a stamp, pl. dies; also dice, verb, ME. dycen,
Prompt. Pary. p. 121. Doublet, dado.
DIET (1), a prescribed allowance of food. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘Of
his diete mesurable was he;” Chaucer, C. T. 437 (A 435). Cf. ‘And
51 thow diete the thus,’ i.e. diet thyself in this way ; P. Plowman, B.
vi. 270.—OF, diete, ‘ diet, or daily fare; also, a Diet, Parliament;’
Cot. —Late L. diéta, dieta, a ration of food.—Gk. δίαιτα, mode of
life ; also, diet. Brugmann, i. ὃ 650. Der. diet-ary, -et-ic.
DIET (2), an assembly, council. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘Thus would
your Polish Diet disagree ;’ Dryden, Hind and Panther, ii. 407. It
occurs also in Cotgrave. — OF. diete, ‘diet ; also, a Diet, Parliament;’
Cot. = Late L. dieta, a public assembly ; also, a ration of food, diet.
B. The peculiar spelling dieta and the suffix -ta leave no doubt that
this word is nothing but a peculiar use of the Gk. δίαιτα, mode of
life, diet. In other words, this word is identical in form with Diet
(1), 4. ν. γ. At the same time, the peculiar sezse of the word un-
doubtedly arose from a popular etymology that connected it with the
L. diés, a day, esp. a set day, a day appointed for public business ;
whence, by extension, a meeting for business, an assembly. We
even find digta used to mean ‘a day’s journey ;’ and diéta, ‘a day’s
work,’ or ‘a daily duty ;’ Ducange.
DIFFER, to be distinct, to disagree. (F.—L.) ‘ Dyuerse and
differinge substaunces ;’ Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. v. pr. 5; 1.17. Ch.
also has the sb. difference, id. Ὁ. v. pr. 6; 1. 157.—OF. differer
(Hatzfeld); F. différer, also with the sense of ‘defer.’—L. differre,
to carry apart, to differ; also, to defer.—L. dif (for dis-), apart ;
and ferre, to bear, cognate with E. bear. See Bear (1). Der.
differ-ent (OF. different, from L. pres. part. stem different-), -ent-ly,
-ent-t-al ; also differ-ence (OF. difference, from L. differentia).
Doublet, defer.
DIFFICULTY, an obstacle, impediment, hard enterprise. (F.
—L.) [The adj. difficult is in Shak. Oth. iii. 3. 82, but it is some-
what rare in early authors, and was merely developed from the sb.
difficulty, which was a common word and in earlier use. The ME.
word for ‘difficult’ was difficile, occurring in Sir T. Elyot, The
Governour, Ὁ. i. c. 23. ὃ 5.) ME. difficultee; Chaucer, C. T. 6854
(Ὁ 1272).—OF. difficulté; Cot.—L. difficultatem, acc. of difficultas,
difficulty, an abbreviated form of *difficilitas.—L. difficilis, hard. = L.
dif-,=dis-, apart; and facilis, easy. See Facile, Faculty. Der.
difficult, -ly.
DIFFIDENT, distrustful, bashful. (L.) In Florio (1598), to
translate Ital. diffi /ente; and Milton, P. L. viii. 562, ix. 293. Shak.
has diffidence, K. John, i. 65.—L. diffidentem, acc. of diffidens, pres.
pt. of diffidere, to distrust; cf. L. diffidentia, distrust. —L. dif- =dis-,
apart, with negative force; and fidere, to trust, allied to fidés, faith.
See Faith. Der. diffident-ly, diffidence; see diffidence in Trench,
Select Glossary.
DIFFRACT, to deflect and break up a beam of light. (L.)
Scientific; not in Johnson.=—L. diffract-us, pp. of diffringere, to
break up.=—L. dif, for dis-, apart; and frangere, to break. See
Fraction. Der. diffract-ion, -ive.
DIFFUSE, to shed abroad, pour around, spread, scatter. (L.)
In Shak. Temp. iv. 1.79. Chaucer has diffusioun, Troilus, iii. 296. =
L. diffiisus, pp. of diffundere, to shed abroad. —L. dif-=dis-, apart ;
and fundere, to pour. See Fuse (1). Der. diffuse, adj.; -/y, -ness,
diffus-ible, -ed, -ed-ly, -ed-ness, -ion, -ive, -ive-ly, -ive-ness.
DIG, to turn up earth with a spade. (F.—Du.) ME. diggen.
‘Dikeres and delueres digged up the balkes’=ditchers and delvers
dug up the baulks; P. Plowman, B. vi. 109, where, for digged, the
earlier version (A. vii. 100) has dikeden. [Thus diggen is equivalent
to dikien, to dig.]—F. diguer, to make a dike (15th cent.) ; Littré.
=F. digue, ‘a ditch;’ Cot.— Du. dik, a dike; cognate with AS. dic,
a dyke, or dike, a ditch. Cf. Swed. dika, to dig a ditch, from dike,
a ditch; Dan. αἶρε, to dig, from dige,a ditch. 4 At first a weak
verb ; the strong pt. t. dug is of late invention, the true pt. t. being
digged, which occurs 18 times in the A. V. of the Bible, whereas dug
does not occur in it at all. Cf. stuck, late pt. t. of stick, See Dike.
Der. digg-er, digg-ings.
DIGAMMA, a Greck letter representing the sound of E. το. (Gk.)
‘Digamma, the letter F ;’ Cooper’s Thesaurus (1565). Lit. ‘double
gamma ;’ from its shape (F), which resembled that of a gamma (I)
with a doubled horizontal bar. —Gk. δι-, double ; and γαμμα, the
letter g. See Di- (2), and Gamut.
DIGEST, to assimilate food, arrange. (L.) In Shak. L.L.L.
v. 2. 289; Merch. iii. 5.95. [But digestion is much earlier, viz. in
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 10661 (F 347); so also digestive, id. 14967 (B 4151);
and digestible, id. 439.) ME. digest, used as a pp.=digested;
Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 195. —L. digestus, pp. of digerere, to carry
apart, separate, dissolve, digest. L. di-=dis-, apart; and gerere, to
DILIGENT 169
carry. See Jest.
-ibil-i-ty.
DIGHT, prepared, disposed, adorned. (L.) Nearly obsolete.
‘The clouds in thousand liveries dight;’ Milton, L’ All. 62. Dight
is here short for dighted, so that the infinitive also takes the form
dight. ‘ And havea care you dight things handsomely ;’ Beaum. and
Fletcher, Coxcomb, Act iv. sc. 3 (end). ME. dihten, di}ten, verb ;
the pp. dight is in Chaucer, C. T. 14447 (B 3719). AS. dihtan, to
set in order, dispose, arrange, prescribe, appoint ; Luke, xxii. 29.—
L. dictare, to dictate, prescribe. See Dictate. 47 Similarly, the
G. dchten, ΜΉΘ. tihten, dihten, is borrowed from the same L. verb.
DIGIT, a finger, a figure in arithmetic. (L.) ‘Computable by
digits ;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iv. c. 12. § 23.—L. digitus,
a finger, a toe; the sense of ‘figure’ arose from counting on the
fingers. @] Gk. δάκτυλος, a finger, seems to be unrelated. Der.
digit-al, -ate, -at-ed, -at-ion.
DIGNIFY, to make worthy, exalt. (F.—L.) In Shak. Two
Gent. ii. 4. 158.—OF. dignifier, to dignify (Godefroy); omitted in
Cotgrave, but given in Sherwood's index to that work.—Late L.
dignificare, to think worthy, lit. to make worthy.—L. digni-, for
digno-, for dignus, worthy ; and -jica@re, a suffix due to facere, to make.
See Dignity and Fact. Der. dignifi-ed.
DIGNITY, worth, rank. (F.—L.) In early use. ME. dig-
netee, dignitee, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 13386 (B 1646); spelt dignete in Hali
Meidenhad, ed. Cockayne, p. 15, 1. 3.—OF. dignité, digniteit.—L.
dignitatem, acc. of dignitas, worth.=—L. dignus, worthy ; perhaps
related to decus, esteem, and decef, it is fitting. Brugmann, 1. ὃ 762
(3). Der. dignit-ar-y. Doublet, dainty, q.v.
DIGRAPH, a double sign for a single sound. (Gk.) Modern.
Made from Gk. &-, double, and γράφειν, to write.
DIGRESS, to step aside, go from the subject. (L.) In Shak.
Romeo, iii. 3.127. [The sb. digression is much older, and occurs in
Thynne’s edition of Chaucer, Troilus, i. 143; the MSS. have
disgressioun. |= L. digressus, pp. of digredi, to go apart, step aside,
digress. — L. di-=dis-, apart; and gradi, to step; cf. gradus, a step.
See Grade. Der. digress-ion, -ion-al, -ive, -ive-ly.
DIJUDICATE, to judge between two parties, to decide. (L.)
Phillips (1658) has dijudication. = L. diitdicatus, pp. of diiiidicare, to
decide. L, di-, apart; and iidicare, to judge. See Di- (1) and
Judge.
DIKE, a trench, a ditch with its embankment, a bank. (E.) ME.
dik, dyk (also diche, whence the mod. E. ditch). ‘In a dyke falle’=
fall in a ditch (where 2 MSS. have diche); P. Plowman, B. xi. 417.
AS. dic, a dike; ‘hi dulfon ane mycle dic’=they dug a great dike ;
AS. Chron, an. 1016. + Du. aijk; Icel. diki; Dan. dige; Swed. dike ;
MHG. tich, a marsh, canal; G. teich, a pond, tank; the mod. G.
deich, a dike, being merely borrowed from Low G. Der. dig, q.v.
DILACERATE, to tear asunder. (L.) Used by Sir T. Browne,
Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 6. § 3.—L. dilaceritus, pp. of dilacerire, to
tear apart. = L. di-=dis-, apart; and dacerare, to tear. See Lacerate.
Der. dilacerat-inn.
DILAPIDATE, to pull down stone buildings, to ruin. (L.) In
Levins, 41. 36. Used by Cotgrave, who translates F. dilapider by
‘to dilapidate, ruin, or pull down stone buildings.’ =L. dilapidatus,
pp- of dilapidare, to destroy, lit. to scatter like stones or pelt with
stones; cf. Columella, x. 330.—L. di-=dis-, apart; and /apid-, stem
of lapis, a stone. See Lapidary. Dor. dilapidat-ion.
DILATE, to spread out, enlarge. widen. (F.—L.) ‘In dylating
and declaring of hys conclusion ;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 648 h.
(Chaucer has the sb. dilatacioun, C. T. 4652 (B 232).]—OF. dilater,
‘to dilate, widen, inlarge;’ Cot.—L. dilaius, spread abroad ; used
as pp. of differre, but from a different root. — L. di-=dis-, apart ; and
latus, carried, borne, for OLat. ¢/atus=Gk. τλητός, borne, endured.
= TEL, to lift; whence L. follere. Der. dilat-er, -able, -abil-i-ty,
-ion, -or-y, -or-i-ness; also dilat-at-ion (OF. dilatation, which see in
Cotgrave).
DILEMMA, a perplexity, puzzling situation. (L.—Gk.) In
Cockeram (164); and in Shak. Mer. Wives, iv. 5. 87; All’s Well,
iii. 6. 80.—L. dilenma,—Gk. δίλημμα, a double proposition, an
argument in which one is caught between (διαλαμβάνεται) two
difficulties. —Gk. &-, twice, double ; and λῆμμα, an assumption, a
premiss. See Di- (2) and Lemma.
DILETTANTEH, a lover of the fine arts. (Ital.—L.) Modern.
The pl. dilettanti occurs in Burke, On a Regicide Peace (Todd).—
Ital. dilettante, pl. dilettanti, a lover of the fine arts; properly pres.
pt. of dilet/are, to delight, rejoice.—L. délectare, to delight. See
Delectable. Der. dilettante-ism.
DILIGENT, industrious. (F.—L.) Chaucer has diligent, C. T.
485 (A 483); and diligence, id. 8071 (E 195). —OF-. diligent; Cot.
=-L. diligentem, acc. of diligens, careful, diligent, lit. loving ; pres.
part. of diligere, to select, to love; lit. to choose between.—L. di- =
Der. digest, sb. (L. digestumz), -er, -ible, -ion, -ive,
170 DILL
dis-, apart, between ; and /egere, to choose, cognate with Gk. λέγειν,
to choose, say. See Legend. Der. diligeni-ly, diligence.
DILL, the name of a plant. (E.) ME. dille, dylle. ‘ Dylle, herbe,
anetum ;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 121. AS. dile; ‘myntan and dile and
cymyn’=mint and dill and cummin; Matt. xxili. 23.4 Du. dille;
Dan, dild; Swed. dill; OHG. iilli, MHG. tille, G. dill.
DILUTE, to wash away, mix with water, weaken. (L.) ‘ Diluted,
alayed, tempered, mingled with water, wet, imperfect;’ Blount’s
Gloss. ed. 1674.—L. dilitus, pp. of diluere, to wash away, mix with
water.=L. di-=dis-, apart; and duere, to wash, cognate with Gk.
λούειν, to wash. Der. dilute, adj., dilut-ion ; from the same source,
dilu-ent, diluv-ium, -ial, -ian; and see deluge.
DIM, obscure, dusky, dark. (E.) ME. dim, dimme; ‘though I
loke dymme ;’ P. Plowman, B.x.179. AS. dim, dark ; Grein, i. 194.
+ Icel. dimmr, dim; MDan. dim; cf. Swed. dimmig, foggy; dimma,
a fog, a mist, haze; MHG. timmer, timber, dark, dim. And cf.
Olrish deim, dark; deme, darkness. Der. dim-ly, dim-ness,
DIME, a tithe; a tenth of a dollar. (F.—L.) ME. dyme, P.
Plowman, 1}. xv. 526.—OF. disme, dime.—L. decima, sc. pars, a tenth
part; fem. of decimus, tenth. L. decem, ten; see Ten. Doublet, dithe.
DIMENSION, measurement, extent. (F.—L.) ‘Without any
dimensions at al;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 1111 g.—MF. dimension,
‘a dimension, or measuring ;”’ Cot.—L. acc. dimensidnem, from nom,
dimensio, a measuring ; cf. dimensus, pp. of dimetiri, to measure off a
part of a thing, to measure out,—L. di-=dis-, apart ; and meftiri, to
measure. See Measure.
DIMINISH, to lessen, take from. (F.—L.) “Τὸ fantasy [fancy]
that giving to the poore is a diminishing of our goods ;” Latimer,
Sixth Ser. on Lord’s Prayer (R.). [Chaucer has diminucion, i.e.
diminution, Troilus, iii. 1335.] A coined word, made by prefixing
di- to the EK. minish, in imitation of L. diminuere, to diminish, where
the prefix di- (=L., dis-, apart) is used intensively. See Minish,
Minute. Der. diminish-able; like L. pp. diminiitus are diminut-ion
(OF. diminution, L, ace. diminutidnem), diminut-ive, -ive-ly, -ive-ness.
DIMISSORY, giving leave to depart. (L.) ‘Without the
bishop’s dimissory letters presbyters might not go to another dioces ;’
Bp. Taylor, Episcopacy Asserted, s. 39 (R.).—L. dimissorius, giving
leave to go before another judge.—L. dimissus, pp. of dimittere, to
send forth, send away, dismiss.—L. di-, for dis-, away; and mittere,
to send. See Dismiss.
DIMITY, a kind of stout white cotton cloth. (Ital.—L.—Gk.)
‘Dimiity, a fine sort of fustian;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715. ‘We do
vse to buy many of their silke quilts, and of their Scamato and
Dimite;’ Hakluyt, Voy. ii. pt. 1. p. 115 (misnumbered 127). —Ital.
dimiti, pl. of dimito, ‘a kind of course cotton or flanell;’ Florio. =
Late L. dimitum (pl. dimita), silk woven with two threads. —Gk.
δίμιτος, made with a double thread.—Gk. δίς, double; and μίτος, a
thread of the weof. 4 Mr. Wedgwood quotes from Muratori (in
Ducange) a passage containing the words ‘ amita, dimita, et trimita,
explained to mean silks woven with one, wo, or three threads
respectively. The word thus passed from Gk. into Latin, and thence
into Ital. dimifo, which is duly recorded by Florio; and so into
English.
DIMORPHOUS, of two forms. (Gk.) Modern.=Gk. δίμορφ-ος,
of two forms ; with suffix -ows.—Gk. &-, double; popp-7, form; see
Di- (2) and Morphia.
DIMPLE, a small hollow. (E.) In Shak. Wint. Ta. ii. 3. ror.
ME. dympuil. ‘Wir chyn full choise was .. with a dympull;’
Destruction of Troy (E.I.T.S.), 1. 3060. Apparently from a base
*dump (with mutation of τὶ to y), It answers in form to G. tiimpel,
dimpfel, a pool; OHG, tumphilo. Cf. Dan, dial. dump, a hollow in
a field; Du. dompelen, to dive. All perhaps allied to Swed. dial.
dimpa, to fall down, to plunge, str. vb. (pt. t. damp, supine dumpid).
If so, the orig. sense of dimple was ‘deep pool;” thence, a hollow
place. Cf. Lith. diibt’, to be hollow (pres. t. dumb-v). See Dingle.
DIN, a loud noise, clamour; to sound. (E.) The sb. is ME. din,
dene, dune; spelt dine, Havelok, 1860; dune, Layamon, i. 43; 1. 1009.
AS. dyn, dyne, noise; Grein, i. 213 ; dynnan, to make a loud sound ;
id. + Icel. dyxr, a din; dy»ja, to pour, rattle down, like hail or rain;
Swed. dan, a din; dana, to ring; Dan. dén, a rumble, booming;
done, to rumble, boom; Skt. dhuni-, roaring, a torrent; dhvani-, a
sound, din; dkvan, to sound, roar, buzz.
DINE, to take dinner, eat. (F.—L.) ME. dinen, dynen; P.
Plowman, B. v. 75; Rob. of Glouc. p. 558. [The sb. is diner (with
one x), P. Plowman, B. xiii. 28 ; Rob. of Glouc. p. 561.) —OF.
disner, mod. F. diner, to dine. Late L. *disjinare, short for *dis-
jijunare, to break one’s fast.—L. dis-, away; and iéiainare, to fast,
from iéiiinus, fasting. See Romania, viii. 95; where it is explained
that OF. disner, inf., answers to Late L. type *disjundre, whilst the
Late L. type *disjino (1 p. 5. pr.) produced the OF, desjeune, F.
déjeune, I breakfast. The difference in form is due to the difference
j in accentuation.
DIP
Somewhat similar is the formation of F. aider from
L. adiiitare. See Aid. Korting, ὃ 3007. Der. dinner (ME. diner,
from OF. disner, where the infin. is used as a sb.).
DING, to throw violently, beat, urge, ring. (E.) ‘To ding (i.e.
fling) the book a coit’s distance from him;’ Milton, Areopagitica,
ed. Hales, p. 322. ME. dingen, pt. t.dang, dong, pp. dungen. ‘ God-
rich stert up, and on him dong;’ Havelok, 1147; dungen, id. 227.
Though not found in AS., the word is probably E. rather than
Scand.; for it is a strong verb, whereas the related Scand. verbs are
but weak. Cf. Icel. dengja, to hammer; Dan. denge, to bang ; Swed.
diinga, to bang, thump, beat. Cf. also MDan. dinge, to blunt an
edge by beating on it; OHG. ¢angol,a hammer. Teut. type *dengan-,
pt. t. *dang, pp. *dunganoz. See Dangle, Dung.
DING-DONG, an imitation of the sound of a bell. (E.) In
Shak. Temp. i. 2. 403. A reduplicated form, with varied vowel;
from dong, an imitative word echoing a ringing sound.
DINGHY, DINGEY, a rowing-boat. (Bengali.) From Beng.
dingi, a boat, a wherry (H. H. Wilson) ; and see Yule.
DINGLE, a small dell, little valley. (E.) In Milton, Comus,
312. ME. dingel, a deep hollow, an abyss; ‘deopre then eni sea-
dingle? deeper than any sea-pool; O, Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris,
i. 263. [It thus answers in sense to what appears to have been the
orig. sense of dimple; cf. the variant dimble. ‘Within a gloomie dimble
shee doth dwell, Downe in a pitt, ore-grown with brakes and briars;’
Ben Jonson, Sad Shepherd, A. ii. sc. 2.‘ And satyrs, that in slades and
gloomy dimbles dwell;? Drayton, Poly-Olbion, 5. 2.1. 190.1 B. It is
clearly related to ME, dung, a pool; ‘so deop dung that ha druncneth
therin,’ so deep a pool that they are drowned therein ; Seinte
Marherete, ed. Cockayne, p. 15, 1. 21. Cf. OHG. tunc, an under-
ground cave; Lith. deng-ti, to cover. See Dimple.
DINGO, the native Australian dog. (New S. Wales.) New S.
Wales dingo, written ¢eingo in 1798 (Morris).
DINGY, soiled, dusky, dimmed. (E.) Very rare in books.
‘ Dingy, foul, dirty ; Somersetshire;’ Halliwell. So also ‘dingy, dirty;’
Pegge, Kenticisms (1736). This sense of ‘dirty’ is the original one.
The word really means ‘dung-y’ or ‘soiled with dung.’ The 2 is
due to an AS. y, which is the modification of τι, by the usual rule ;
cf. fill, from full: whilst xg has taken the sound of xj. B. This change
from u to i (for y) appears as early as the tenth century; we find
‘stercoratio, dingiung’ =a dunging ; A‘lfric’s Vocab., pr. in Voc. 104.
8. y. We can explain the change from xg to nj, by observing that
there was an AS. weak ἢ, dyncge as well as the str. f. dung. Cf.
mixendincgan, acc., lit. mixen-dung ; Anglia, vol. ix. p.261, 1. 9; also
AS. gedyngan, weak vb., prov. E. dinge, to soil. And cf. stingy, from
sting. See Dung. 4] Cf. Swed. dyngig, dungy, from. dynga, dung,
DINWNEBR;; see under Dine.
DINT, a blow, force. (E.) ME. dint, dunt, dent; spelt dint, Will.
of Palerne, 1234, 27843 dent, id. 2757; dunt, Layamon, 8420. AS.
dynt, a blow; Grein, i. 213. Icel. dyntr, a dint; dynta, to dint ;
Swed. dial. dunt, a stroke; dunta, to strike, to shake. “All from a
Teut. base dunt-. See Dent.
DIOCESE, a bishop’s province. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. diocyse,
Chaucer, C. T. 666 (A 664).—OF. diocese, ‘a diocess ;’ Cot.—L.
diecésis.— Gk, διοίκησις, housekeeping, administration, a province, a
diocese. Gk. διοικέω, I keep house, conduct, govern, —Gk, &-= διά,
through, throughout; and oixéw, I inhabit, from οἶκος, a house, an
abode; cognate with L. wicus, a village (whence E. wick, a town),
and Skt. veca-s, a house. Der. dioces-an.
DIGECIOUS, having male and female flowers on separate plants.
(Gk.) Botanical. From mod. Latin diwcia (Linnzeus, 1735); Gk.
type *douria, sb., from *diowos, adj. having two houses. —Gk. &-,
double ; and οἶκος, a house. . See above.
DIOPTRICS, the science of the refraction of light. (Gk.)
‘ Dioptricks, a part of optics, which treats of the different refractions
of the light, passing thro’ transparent mediums ;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed.
1715.—Gk. τὰ διοπτρικά, the science of dioptrics.—Gk. διοπτρικός,
belonging to the use of the δίοπτρα, an optical instrument for taking
heights, &c. Gk. 5-4, through ; and ὁπ-, as in Ionic ὄπ-ωπ-α, I have
seen, ὄψ-ομαι, I shall see; with agential suffix -τρα, f. Cf ὀπτήρ,
aspy. See Optics. Der. dioptric, -al.
DIORAMA, a scene seen through a small opening. (Gk.)
Modern. <A term applied to various optical exhibitions, and to the
building in which they are shown ; first shown in 1823. Coined
from Gk. δι- -ε διά, through; and ὅραμα, a sight, thing seen, from
épaw, 1 see; see Wary. Der. dioram-ic.
DIP, to plunge, immerge, dive for a short time. (E.) ΜΕ. dippen;
Prick of Conscience, 8044. Also duppen, Trevisa, tr. of Higden,
i, 117. AS. dippan, Exod. xii. 223; dyppan, Levit. iv. 17. - Dan.
dyppe, to dip, plunge, immerge. Teut. type *dup-jan, causal form
from the base *dup-, weak grade of *deup-, as seen in AS. déop, deep.
See Deep. The second grade is daup-, as seen in Goth. daupjan, to
|
DIPHTHERIA
dip, immerse, baptise, Du. doopen, to baptise, Swed. dopa, to baptise,
G. taufen, OHG. toufan, to baptise. See Deep and Dive. Der.
dip, sb.; dipp-er.
DIPHTHERIA, a throat-disease, accompanied with the forma-
tion of a false membrane. (Gk.) First in 1857. Coined from Gk.
διφθέρα, leather; from the leathery nature of the membrane formed.
Allied to Gk. δεψεῖν, to make supple; (hence, to prepare leather).
Cf. L. depsere, to knead, make supple, tan leather. Der. diphther-it-ic.
DIPHTHONG, a union of two vowel sounds in one syllable.
(F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt dipthong in Ben Jonson, Eng, Grammar, ch. 5 ;
and in Sherwood’s Index to Cotgrave, which also gives the MF.
dipthongue.— MY. dipthongue, ¢ diphthonge ;’ Palsgrave (1530).=— L.
ace. diphthongum, f.—Gk. δίφθογγος, with two sounds. Gk. δι- = dis,
double; and φθογγός, voice, sound, from Gk. φθέγγομαι, I utter a
sound, cry out. Cf. Lith. speng-ti, to resound.
DIPLOMA, a document conferring a privilege. (L.—Gk.) ‘ Di-
ploma, a charter of a prince, letters patents, a writ or bull;’ Blount’s
Gloss. ed. 1674. —L. diploma (gen. diplomatis), a document conferring
a privilege.= Gk. δίπλωμα, lit. anything folded double; a license,
diploma, which seems to have been originally folded double. —Gk.
διπλόος, twofold, double. = Gk, &-=dis, double; and πλόος, with the
sense of E. -fold, respecting which see Double. Der. diplomat-ic
(from the stem diplimat-), -ic-al, -ic-al-ly, -ist, diplomac-y.
DIPSOMANTA, a morbid thirst for stimulants. (Gk.) Modern.
From Gk. διψο-, for δίψος, thirst ; and μανία, mania.
DIPTERA, an order of insects with two wings. (Gk.) First in
1819. In Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715, we find ‘ Dipteron, in architecture,
a building that has a double wing or isle’ (sic). Coined from Gk.
&-= δίς, double; and πτερόν, a wing, from m7-, weak grade of zer-,
as in πέτ-ομαι. I fly. 4/ PET, to fly; see Feather.
DIPTYCH, a double-folding tablet. (L.—Gk.) First in 1622.
‘ Diptychs, folded tables, a pair of writing tables;’ Kersey, ed. 1715.
-Late L. diptycha, pl.—Gk. δίπτυχα, pl. a pair of tablets. —Gk.
δίπτυχος, folded, doubled.—Gk. &-, for δίς, double; and πτυχ-ή, a
fold; cf. also πτυκτός, folded, from πτύσσειν, to fold.
DIRE, fearful, terrible. (L.) Shak. has dire, Rich. II, i. 3. 127;
direful, Temp. i. 2. 263 direness, Macb. v. 5. 14.—L. dirus, dreadful,
horrible. Perhaps allied to Gk. δεινός, frightful; cf. δειλός, frightened,
cowardly; connected with δέος, fear, δείδειν, to fear. Der. dire-ful,
-ful-ly, -ness (all hybrid compounds).
DIRECT, straight onward, outspoken, straight. (L.) ME. directe,
Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, ed. Skeat, ii. 35. 11. [He also has the
verb directen ; see Troil. Ὁ. v. last stanza but one.]—L. directus,
straight, pp. of dirigere, to straighten, direct. —L. di-, for dis-, apart ;
and regere, to rule, control. See Rector, and Right. Der.
direct-ly, -ness; also direct, vb., -ion, -ive, -or, -or-ale, -or-y, -or-t-al.
Doublet, dress, q.v.; and see dirge.
DIRGE, a funeral song or hymn, lament. (L.) ME. dirige;
‘placebo and dirige;’ P. Plowman, C. iv. 467; and see Ancren
Riwle, p. 22; Prompt. Pary. p. 121. (See note to the line in P. Pl.,
which explains that an antiphon in the office for the dead began
with the words (from Psalm ν. 8) ‘dirige, Dominus meus, in con-
spectu tuo uitam meam ;’ whence the name.) —L. dirige direct thou,
imperative mood of dirigere, to direct. See Direct.
DIRK, a poniard, a dagger. (Du. ?)
bended [cocked] pistol;’ State Trials, Marquis of Argyle, an. 1661
(R.). First found in 1602, spelt dork (N.E.D.). Probably dork is
the same word with Du. do/k, Swed. and Dan. dolk, G. dolch, a
dagger, poniard. This is thought to be a word of Slavonic origin;
cf. Polish tulich, a dagger. @ Irish duirc, a poniard, is borrowed
from E.
DIRT, any foul substance, mnd, dung. (Scand.) ME. drit, by
the shifting of the letter > so common in English. ‘ Drit and donge’
=dirt and dung; K. Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 4718; cf. Havelok,
682. —Icel. drit, dirt, excrement of birds; dri/a, to void excrement;
ef. Swed. dial. drifa, with same sense; Rietz. + Du. drijten, with
same sense; cf. MDu. drijt, dirt (Kilian).. 4 In AS., we find only
the verb gedritan; it is rare, but occurs in Cockayne’s Leechdoms,
i. 364. Der. dirt-y, dirt-i-ly, dirt-i-ness.
DIS-, prefix. (L.) 1. From L. dis-, apart; dis and bis are both
forms from an older duis, which is from L..duo, two; cf. Goth, twis-,
apart. Brugmann,i.§ 279. Hence the sense is ‘in two,’ i.e, apart,
away. 2. The Gk. form of the prefix is di-; see Di- (2). 3. The
L. dis- became des- in OF., mod. F. dé-; this appears in several
words, as in de-feat, de-fy, &c., where the prefix must be carefully
distinguished from that due to L. dé. 4. Again, in some cases, dis-
is a late substitution for an older des-, which is the OF. des-; thus
Chaucer has desarmen {rom the OF. des-armer, in the sense of dis-arm.
DISABLE, to make unable, disqualify. (L.; and F.—L.) In
Spenser, F. Ὁ. v. 4. 31; and see Trench, Select Glossary. Made by
prefixing L. dis- to able. See Dis- and Able. Der. disabil-i-ty.
‘With a drawn dirk and,
DISBAND 171
DISABUSE, to free from abuse, undeceive. (L.; and F.—L.)
In Clarendon, Civil War, vol. i. pref. p. 21 (R.); and in Cotgrave,
s.v. des-abuser. From L. dis- and abuse. See Dis- and Abuse.
DISADVANTAGE, want of advantage, injury. (F.—L.) In
Shak. Cor. 1. 6. 49. ME. disauauntage, Trevisa, tr. of Higden, ji. 57.
“- OF. desavaniage (Hatzfeld). — OF. des- < L. dis-, apart; and OF.
avantage. See Dis- and Advantage. Der. disadvantage-ous,
-ousely,
DISAFFECT, to make unfriendly. (L.; and F.—L.) ( Disaf-
fected to the king ;’ State Trials, Hy. Sherfield, an. 1632 (R.). From
L. dis- and affect. See Dis-and Affect. Der. disaffected-ly, -ness, -‘on.
DISAFFOREST, to deprive of the privilege of forest lands; to
rendercommon. (L.) ‘There was much land disafforested ;’ Howell's
Letters, b. iv. let. 16. § 4. From L. dis-, away; and Law L. affor-
estare, to make into a forest, from af- (for ad) and foreséa, a forest.
See Dis- and Forest.
DISAGREE, to be at variance. (F.—L.) In Tyndal, Works,
Ρ- 133, col. 2.— OF. desagreer (Hatzfeld), —OF. des- < L. dis-, apart ;
and OF. agreer. See Dis- and Agree. Der. disagree-able, -abl-y,
-able-ness, -ment. @ The adj. disagreeable was suggested by OF.
desagreable.
DISALLOW, to refuse to allow. (F.—L.) ME. desallowen, to
refuse to assent to, to dispraise, refuse, reject. ‘Al that is humble he
desalloweth ;’ Gower, C. A. i. 833; Dk. i. 1237.—OF. desalouer,
desalower, to blame (Godefroy).—OF. des- (L. dis-) ; and alouer, to
approve of. See Dis- and Allow (2). Der. disallow-able, -ance.
DISANNUL, to annul completely. (L.; and F.—L.). In Shak.
Com. Err. i. 1.145. From L. dis-, apart, here used intensively ; and
annul, See Dis- and Annul. Der. disannul-ment.
DISAPPEAR, to cease to appear, to vanish. (L.; and F.—L.)
In Dryden, On the death of a very Young Gentleman, ]. 23; and in
Cockeram (1623). From L. dis-, apart, away; and appear. See
Dis- and Appear. Der. disappear-ance.
DISAPPOINT, to frustrate whatis appointed. (F.—L.) Shak. has
disappointed in the sense of ‘unfurnished,’ or ‘unready;? Hamlet, i.
5. 77. Ralegh has ‘such disappointment of expectation ;’ Hist. of
World, b. iv. c. 5. 5.11 (R.).— OF. desapointer, ‘to disappoint or
frustrate ;” Cot. —OF. des-<L. dis-, apart, away; and OF, apointer,
to appoint. See Appoint. Der. disappoint-ment.
DISAPPROVE, not to approve, to reject. (L.; and F.—L.)
‘And disapproves that care;” Milton, Sonn. to Cyriack Skinner.
From L., dis-, away; and approve. See Dis- and Approve. Der.
disapprov-al ; from the same L. source, disapprob-at-ion,
DISARM, to deprive ofarms. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. desarmen, Chaucer,
tr. of Boethius, b. 1. met. 4; 1. 11.—OF. desarmer, ‘to disarme, or
deprive of weapons ;’ Cot.—OF. des-, from L. dis-, apart, away ;
and armer, to arm. See Dis- and Arms. Der. disarm-a-ment,
probably an error for disarm-ment ; see ‘ desarmement, a disarming ;’
Cot.
DISARRANGE, to disorder. (L.; and F.—L.) Not in early
use ; the older word 1s disarray. ‘ The whole of the arrangement, or
rather disarrangement of their military ;’ Burke, On the Army Esti-
mates (R.). From L. dis-, apart, away; and arrange. Doubtless
suggested by MF. desarrenger, ‘to unranke, disorder, disarray ;’ Cot.
See Dis- and Arrange. Der. disarrange-ment.
DISARRAY, a want of order. (F.—L. and Teut.) In early use.
ME. disaray, also disray. Thus, in Chaucer, C. T. (Pers. Tale,
Remed. Luxuriz), Group I, 927, we find the readings desray, disray,
and disaray, as being equivalent words; disray occurs yet earlier, in
K. Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 4353. —AF. *desarrei, OF. desarroi, later
desarroy, ‘ disorder, confusion, disarray;’ Cot. There was also an
AF. form desray, Stat. of the Realm, i. 246; OF. desroi, later desroy,
‘disorder, disarray ;’ id.; see Godefroy, β. The former is from OF.
des-, L. dis-, apart, away; and AF, arre?, OF. arrof, compounded of
ar- (standing for L. ad, to) and AF. rei, OF. roi, order. In the latter,
the syllable ar- is omitted. See Dis- and Array. Der. disarray,
verb.
DISASTER, a calamity. (F.—L.) See Shak. Hamlet, i. 1. 118;
All’s Well, i. 1.187. — ME. desastre, ‘a disaster, misfortune, calamity ;’
Cot.—OF, des-, for L. dis-, with a sinister sense; and MF. as/re, ‘a
star, a planet; also, destiny, fate, fortune, hap;’ Cot., from L. astrum,
a star; cf. Sasérum sinis(rum, infortunium;’ Ducange. See Astral,
Aster. @ The MF. desastre was suggested by Ital. disastro (Hatz-
feld). Der. disastr-ous, -ous-ly.
DISAVOW, to disclaim, deny. (F.—L.) ME. desavowen; P.
Plowman, (Ὁ. iv. 322.—OF. desavouer, ‘to disadvow, disallow ;’ Cot.
= OF. des-, for L. dis-, apart ; and OF. avoer, avouer (Godefroy),
spelt advouer in Cotgrave, ‘to advow, avouch.’ See Dis- and
Avow. Der. disavow-al.
DISBAND, to disperse a band. (F.—L. and Teut.) In Cotgrave.
= OF, desbander, ‘to loosen, unbind, unbend ; also to-casse [cashier }
172 DISBELIEVE
or disband ;’ Cot.—OF. des-, for L. dis-, apart; and OF. bander, to
bend a bow, to band together. See Dis- and Band (2). Der.
disband-ment.
DISBELIEVE, to refuse belief to. (L. and E.) In Kersey’s
Dict. ed. 1715; earlier, in Cudworth, Intellectual System, p. 18
(R.). From L. dis-, used negatively ; and E. believe. See Dis- and
Believe. Der. disbeliev-er, disbelief.
DISBURDEN, DISBURTHEN, to free from a burden. (L.
and E.) In Shak. Rich. II, ii. 1. 229. From L. dis-, apart; and E.
berden or burthen, See Dis- and Burden.
DISBURSE, to pay out of a purse. (F.—L. and Gk.) Tn Shak.
Macb. i. 2.61. Palsgrave has disbourse, p. 517.—OF. desbourser, of
which Cotgrave gives the pp. desboursé, ‘disbursed, laid out of a
purse.’=OF, des-, from L. dis-, apart; and F. bourse, a purse. See
Dis- and Bursar. Der. disburse-ment.
DISC, DISK, a round plate. (L.—Gk.) [In very early use in
the form dish, q.v.] ‘ The disk of Phoebus, when he climbs on high
Appears at first but as a bloodshot eye;’ Dryden, tr. of Ovid, Metam.
xv. 284.—L. discus, a quoit, a plate.—Gk. δίσκος, a quoit; from
δικεῖν, to cast. Brugmann, i. § 744. Der. disc-ous. See Desk,
Dish.
DISCARD, to throw away useless cards, to reject. (L.; and F.
—L.—Gk.) In Spenser, F. Q. v. 5. 8. Sometimes spelt decard; see
Richardson. From L. dis-, apart; and card. See Dis- and Card.
DISCERN, to distinguish, separate, judge. (F.—L.) ME. dis-
cernen; Chaucer, Troil, Ὁ. iii. 1. 9.— OF. discerner; Cot.—L. dis-
cernere, to distinguish. αι, dis-, apart; and cernere, to separate,
cognate with Gk. κρίνειν, to separate. See Critic. Der. discern-er,
-ible, -ibl-y, -ment; see also discreet, discriminate.
DISCHARGE, to free from a charge, unload, acquit. (F.—L.
and C.) JInearly use. ME. deschargen; K. Alisaunder, ed. Weber,
3868. —OF. descharger, ‘to discharge, disburden;’ (οἱ. “ΟἹ, des-,
from L. dis-, apart, away; and charger, to charge, load. See Dis-
and Charge. Der. discharge, sb., discharg-er.
DISCIPLE, a learner, follower. (F.—L.) In early use. In
P. Plowman, B. xiii. 430. Discepline is in Ancren Riwle, p. 294.—
OF. disciple (Supp. to Godefroy). — L. discipulum, acc. of discipulus, a
learner. — L. discere, to learn; allied to docére, to teach. See Docile.
Der. disciple-ship. From the same source is discipline, from OF, dis-
cipline, L. disciplina; whence also disciplin-able, -ar-i-an, -ar-y.
DISCLAIM, to renounce claim to. (F.—L.) Cotgrave translates
desadvouer by ‘ to disadvow, disclaime, refuse.’ = AF. desclamer, Year-
books of Edw. 1., 1302-3, p. 83. —OF. des-, from L. dis-, apart, away;
and F. clamer, from L. clamare. See Dis- and Claim. Der- dis-
claim-er,
DISCLOSE, to reveal, unclose, open. (F.—L.) ‘And mihte of
no man be desclosed ;’ Gower, C. A. ii. 262; bk. v. 4030. “ΟΕ; des-
clos, disclosed, pp. of desclorre, to unclose ; Cotgrave gives ‘secret
desclos, disclosed, revealed.’—OF. des-, from L. dis-, apart, away ;
and OF. clorre, to shut in, from L. claudere, to shut. See Dis- and
Close. Der. disclos-ure.
DISCOLOUR, to spoil the colour of. (F.—L.) Chaucer has
discoloured, C, T. 16132 (ἃ 664). —OF. descolorer, later descoulourer,
as in Cot.—L. dis-, apart, away ; and coldrare, to colour, from coldr-,
stem of color, colour. See Dis- and Colour.
DISCOMFIT, to defeat or put to the rout. (F.—L.) In Bar-
bour’s Bruce, xii. 459. [Chaucer has disconfiture, C. Τὶ 1010 (A
1008).]—OF. desconfit, pp. of desconfire, ‘to discomfit, vanquish,
defeat ;” Cot.; and see Godefroy. [The x before f easily passed
into m, for convenience of pronunciation ; the same change occurs in
the word comfort.|—OF., des-, prefix; and confire, to preserve, make
ready. = L. dis-, apart ; and consicere, to finish, preserve. See Dis-
and Comfit. Der. discom/it-ure, from OF. desconfiture ; Cot.
DISCOMFORT, to deprive of comfort. (F.—L.) ME. discom-
forten; Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 70.—OF. desconforter ;
Cot. gives ‘se desconforter, to be discomforted.’—OF. des-, prefix,
from L, dis-, apart, away; and conforter, to comfort. See Dis- and
Comfort.
DISCOMMEND, to dispraise. (L.; and F.—L.) In Frith’s
Works, p. 156, col. 2. From L. dis-, apart; and commend. See
Dis- and Commend.
DISCOMMON, to deprive of the right of common. (L.; and
F.—L.) ‘Whiles thou discommonest thy neighbour's kyne;’ Bp.
Hall, b. v. sat. 3.1.72. From L. dis-, apart; and common, See
Dis- and Common.
DISCOMPOSE, to deprive of composure. (L.; and F.—L.
and Gk.) Bacon has discomposed in the sense of ‘removed from a
position;’ Hist. of Hen. VII,ed. Lumby, p. 217, 1. 33.—L. dis-, apart ;
and compose. See Dis- and Compose. Der. discompos-ure.
DISCONCERT, to frustrate a plot, defeat, disturb. (F.—L.)
In Bailey’s Dict. ed. 1731, vol. ii. MF. disconcerter, of which Cot.
DISCRIMINATE
gives the pp. ‘ disconcerté, disordered, confused, set awry.’— MF. dis-
<L. dis-, apart; and concerler, to concert. See Dis- and Concert.
DISCONNECT, to separate. (L.) Occurs in Burke, Qn the
French Revolution (R.).—L. dis-, apart; and Connect, q. v.
DISCONSOLATE, without consolation. (L.) ‘And this Spinx,
awaped and amate Stoode al dismaied and disconsolate;’ Lydgate,
Storie of Thebes, pt. i. § 14.—Late L. disconsdlatus, comfortless. =
L, dis-, apart; and consdldtus, pp. of consdlari, to console. See Dis-
and Console. Der. disconsolate-ness.
DISCONTENT, not content, dissatisfied. (L.; aud F.—L.)
‘ That though I died discontent I lived and died a mayde;’ Gascoigne,
Complaint of Philomene, st. 69.—L. dis-, apart ; and Content, q. v.
Der. discontent, sb.; discontent, verb; discontent-ed, -ed-ly, -ed-ness,
-ment,
DISCONTINUE, to give up, leave. (F.—L.) In Shak. Merch.
of Ven, iii. 4. 75.—MF. discontinuer, ‘to discontinue, surcease ;’
Cot.—L. dis-, apart, used negatively; and continuare, to continue.
See Dis- and Continue. Der. discontinu-ance, -at-ion (MF. dis-
continuation ; Cotgrave).
DISCORD, want of concord. (F.—L.) ME. descord, discord.
Spelt descord [not discord, as in Richardson] in Rob. of Glouc. p.
196; 1. 4039.—OF. descord (Roquefort); later discord, Cot. ; verbal
sb. from OF. descorder, to quarrel, disagree ; Godefroy. = L. discordare,
to be at variance. —L. dis-, apart; and cord-, stem of cor, the heart,
cognate with E, Heart, q. v. Der. discord-ant (F. discordant, ex-
plained by Cotgrave to mean ‘discordant, jarring,’ pres. pt. of dis-
corder); discordant-ly, discordance, discordanc-y. 4 The special
application of discord and concord to musical sounds is probably due
in some measure to confusion with chord,
DISCOUNT, to make a deduction for ready money payment.
(F.—L.) Formerly spelt discompt. ‘All which the conqueror did
discompt ;’ Butler, Hudibras, pt. il. c. 3. 1. 1105. ‘ Discount, to count,
or reckon off ;’ Gazophylacium Anglic. ed. 1689.—OF. desconter, to
relate ; later descompter, ‘to account back, or make a back reckon-
ing ;” Cot.—<OF. des- < L. dis-, apart, away; and conter, compler,
to count, from computdre, to compute, count. See Dis- and
Count (2). Der. discount, sb.; discount-able.
DISCOUNTENANCE, to abash. (F.—L.) ‘A great taxer
of his people, and discountenancer of his nobility ;’ Bacon, Life of
Hen, VII, ed. Lumby, p. 112.1. 20. ‘Whom they .. . discounten-
aunce ;’ Spenser, Teares of the Muses, 1. 340.— MF. descontenancer, to
abash ; see Cotgrave.—OF. des- < L. dis-, apart; and contenance
the countenance. See Dis- and Countenance.
DISCOURAGE, to dishearten. (F.—L.) ‘How th’erle of
Chartres discoraged th’emperour ;’ Caxton, Godfrey of Bologne, ch.
132 (heading). —OF. descourager, ‘ to discourage, dishearten ;’ Cot. =
OF. des- <L. dis-, apart; and courage, courage. See Dis- and
Courage. Der. discourage-ment.
DISCOURSE, a discussion, conversation. (F.—L.) ME. dis-
cours, i.e. reason ; Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. v. pr. 4. 1. 134.—OF.
discours, (Οἵ, “Τοὺς, discursus,a running about ; also, conversation, =
L. discursus, pp. of discurrere, to run about. L. dis-, apart; and
currere, to run. See Dis- and Course. Der. discourse, verb;
also discurs-ion, -ive (like L. pp. discursus).
DISCOURTEOUS, uncourteous. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q.
vi. 3. 34.— OF. discortois, ‘ discourteous ;’ Cot.—OF. dis-=L. dis-,
apart, here used negatively ; and OF. cortois, corteis, courteous. See
Dis- and Courteous. Der. discourteous-ly; from same source,
discourtes-y,
DISCOVER, to uncover, lay bare, reveal, detect. (F.—L.) ME.
discoueren, Rom. of the Rose, 4402.—OF. descovrir, MF. descouvrir,
“to discover;’ Cot. OF. des-, from L. dis-, apart, away; and couvrir,
to cover; see Dis- and Cover. Der. discover-er, -able, -y.
DISCREDIT, want of credit. (L.; and F.—L.) As sb. in Shak.
Wint. Tale, v. 2. 133; as vb. in Meas. iii. 2. 261. From L. dis-,
apart, here used in a negative sense; and Credit, q. v. Der. dis-
credit, verb; discredit-able.
DISCREET, wary, prudent. (F.—L.) ME. discret, P. Plowman,
C. vi. 84; Chaucer, C. T. 520 (A 518).—OF. discret, ‘discreet ;’
Cot.—L. discrétus, pp. of discernere, to discern. See Discern.
Der, discreet-ness; discret-ion (Gower, C. A, iii. 156; bk. vii. 2116),
-ion-al, -ion-al-ly, -ion-ar-y, -ion-ar-i-ly; also discrete (=L. discrétus,
separate), discret-ive, -ive-ly.
DISCREPANT, differing. (F.—L.) In Sir T. More, Works,
p. 262 ἢ. “ Discrepant in figure ;’ Sir Τὶ Elyot, The Governour, b. i.
c.17, 1. 199 (in Spec. of Eng. ed. Skeat.) — MF. discrepant, ‘ discrepant,
different ;? Cot.—L. discrepantem, acc. of discrepans, pres. pt. of
discrepire, to differ in sound.=L. dis-, apart ; and crepare, to make a
noise, crackle. See Decrepit. Der. discrep-ance, -anc-y.
DISCRIMINATE, to discern, distinguish. (L.) ‘ Discriminate,
to divide, or put a difference betwixt ;’ Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674.—
|
DISCURSIVE
L. discriminatus, pp. of discriminare, to divide, separate.—L. dis-
crimin-, stem of discrimen, a space between, separation.—L. dis-
cernere (pt. t. discré-ui, pp. discré-tus), to discern, separate. See
Dise2rn. Der. discriminat-ion, -ive, -ive-ly.
DISCURSIVE, ‘desultory, digressive. (L.) Used by Ben
Jonson, Hymenzi; The Barriers, 1, 5. See Discourse.
DISCUSS, to examine critically, sift, debate. (L.) Chaucer,
Ass. of Foules, 624, has the pp. discussed. Again, he has ‘ when
that nyght was discussed,’ i.e. driven away; tr. of Boethius, b. i.
met. 3, where the L. has discussa.—L. discussus, pp. of discutere, to
strike or shake asunder; in Late L., to discuss.—L. dis-, apart ; and
quatere, to shake. See Quash. Der. discuss-ive, -ion.
DISDAIN, scorn, dislike, haughtiness. (F.—L.) ME. desdeyn,
disdeyn, disdeigne ; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 79t (A 789). Gower has des-
deigneth, C, A. i. 84.—OF. desdein, desdaing, disdain. — OF. desdegnier
(Εἰς dédaigner), to disdain. OF. des-, from L. dis-, apart, here used
in a negative sense; and degnier, to deign, think worthy, from L.
dignari, to deem worthy, dignus, worthy. See Deign. Der. disdain,
verb; disdain-ful, -ful-ly, -ful-ness.
DISEASE, want of ease, sickness. (F.) ME. disese, want of
ease, grief, vexation; Chaucer, C. T. 10781, 14777 (F 467, B 3961).
= OF. desaise, ‘a sickness, a disease, being ill at ease;’ Cot.—OF.
des-, from L. dis-, apart; and aise, ease. See Hase. Der. diseas-ed.
DISEMBARK, to land cargo, to land from a ship. (F.) In
Shak. Oth. ii. 1. 210.—MF. desembarquer, ‘ to disembarke, or unload
a ship; also, to land, or go ashore out of a ship;’ Cot.—OF.
des-, from L. dis-, apart ; and embarquer, toembark. See Embark.
Der. disembark-at-ion.
DISEMBARRASS, to free from embarrassment. (F.) Used by
Bp. Berkeley, To Mr. Thomas Prior, Ex. 7 (Feb. 6, 1726).—MF.
desembarrasser, ‘to unpester, disentangle ; Cot.—OF. des-, from L.
dis-, apart; and embarrasser, to embarrass. See Embarrass.
DISEMBOGUBE, to discharge at the mouth, said of a river, to
loose, depart. (Span.—L.) The final -guwe is an error for -que. ‘He
was inforced to disembogue at the mouth of the Amazones ;᾿ Hakluyt,
Voy. iii. 636. ‘ My poniard Shall disembogue thy soul;’ Massinger,
Maid of Honour, Act ii. sc. 2,.—Span. desembocar, to disembogue,
flow into the sea.—Span. des-, from L. dis-, apart, away ; and em-
bocar, to enter the mouth, from Span. em-, from L. im-, for in, into,
and boca, the mouth, from L. bucca, cheek, mouth.
DISEMBROIL, to free from broil or confusion. (L. and F.) In
Dryden, Ovid, Met. i. 29.—L. dis-, apart; and F. embrouiller, ‘to
pester, intangle, incumber, intricate, confound ;’ Cot. See Embroil.
DISENCHANT, to free from enchantment. (F.—L.) ‘ Can all
these disenchant me?’ Massinger, Unnatural Combat, Act iv. sc. I.—
OF. desenchanter, ‘ to disinchant ;’ Cot. = OF. des-, from L. dis-, apart ;
and enchanter, to enchant. See Enchant. Der. disenchant-
ment.
DISENCUMBER, to free, disburden. (F.) ‘I have disincum-
ber’d myself from rhyme ;’ Dryden, pref. to Antony and Cleopatra. =
F. désencombrer; see Hatzfeld. From L. dis-, apart; and En-
cumber,q.v. Der. disencumbr-ance.
DISENGAGE, to free from engagement. (F.) In Kersey’s
Dict. ed. 1715; spelt disingage in Cotgrave.— MF. desengager, ‘to
disingage, ungage, redeem ;’ Cot. —OF. des-, from L. dés-, apart ;
and engager, to engage, pledge. See Engage. Der. disengage-
ment.
DISENTHRAL,, to free from thraldom. (L. and F. and E.) In
Milton, Ps. iv. 1. 4. From L. dis-, apart ; and Enthral, q. v.
DISENTRANCEH, to free from a trance. (L. and F.—L.)
‘Ralpbo, by this time disentranc’d;’ Butler, Hudibras, pt. i. c. 3. 1. 717.
From L. dis-. apart; and Entrance (2), q. v.
DISFIGURE, to deprive of beauty, deform. (F.—L.) ‘ What
list yow thus yourself to diyigwére?’ Chaucer, Troil. ii. 223.—OF.
desfigurer, ‘to disfiigure, deforme ;” Cot.—OF. des-, from L. dis-,
apart, away ; and jigurer, from L. figirare, to fashion, form ; from
gira, figure. See Figure. Der. désfigure-ment.
DISFRANCHISE, to deprive of a franchise. (L. and F.) Sir
Wylliam Fitzwilliam [was] disfraunchysed;’ Fabyan, vol. li. an.
1509, p. 695. From L. dis-,away; and Franchise, q.v. Der. dis-
Sranchise-ment.
DISGORGE, to vomit, give up prey. (F.—L.) In Shak. As
You Like It, ii. 7. 69; and Caxton, Siege of Troy, leaf 224, 1. 17.—
OF. desgorger, ‘to disgorge, vomit ;’ Cot.—OF. des-, from L. dis-,
apart; and Gorge, q.v. Der. disgorge-ment.
DISGRACE, dishonour, lack of favour. (F.—L.) In Spenser,
F.Q. v. 4. 23.— ΜῈ, disgrace, ‘a disgrace, an ill fortune, hard luck ;’
Cot.=—L. dis-, apart; and F. grace, from L. gratia, favour. See
Grace. Der. disgrace-ful, -ful-ly, -ful-ness.
DISGUISE, to change the appearance of. (F.—L. and ἃ.) ME.
disgysen. ‘We disgysed him anon;’ K. Alisaunder, 1. 121.—OF.
DISJUNCTION 173
desguisier, MF. desguiser, ‘to disguise, to counterfeit ;’ (οἱ. “ΟἿ.
des-, from L, dis-, apart; and guise, ‘guise, manner, fashion ;’ Cot.
See Guise. Der. disguis-er, -ment; also disguise, sb.
DISGUST, to cause dislike. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave as a sb., to
translate MF. desappetit. — MF. desgouster, ‘to distaste, loath, dislike,
abhor;’ Cot.—OF. des-, from L. dis-, apart; and gouster, to taste,
from L. gustare, to taste; from gustus, a tasting. See Gust (2).
Der. disgust, sb.; -ing, -ing-ly.
DISH, a platter. (L.—Gk.) In very early use. ME. disch, Ancren
Riwle, p. 344. AS. disc,a dish; see Mark, vi. 25, where the Vulgate
has in disco.—L. discus, a disc, quoit, platter. — Gk. δίσκος, a quoit.
B. Dish is a doublet of Disc, q.v.; desk is a third form of the same
word; and see dais.
DISHABILLE, another form of Deshabille, q.v.
DISHEARTEN, to discourage. (Hybrid; L. and 1.) In Shak.
Macb. ii. 3. 37. Coined from L. prefix dis-, apart; and E. hearten,
to put in good heart. See Heart.
DISHEVEL, to disorder the hair. (F.—L.) ‘With... heare
{hair] discheveled ;’ Spenser, Ἐς Ὁ. ii. 1. 13. “ Dischevele, save his
cappe, he rood al bare;’ Chaucer, C. T. 685 (A 683); where the
form is that of a F. pp.—OF. descheveler, ‘to dischevell: une femme
toute deschevelée, discheveled, with all her haire disorderly falling
about her eares;’ Cot.—OF. des-, from L. dis-, apart; and OF.
chevel (F. chevew), a hair, from L. capillum, acc. of capillus, a hair.
See Capillary.
DISHONEST, wanting in honesty. (F.—L.) Inthe Romaunt of
the Rose, 3442. Cf. ‘shame, that eschueth al deshonestee ;’ Chaucer,
Pers. Tale, Remedium Gulz (I 833).—OF. deshonneste, ‘ dishonest,
leud, bad;’ Cot.—OF. des-, from L. dis-, apart; and honneste, or
honeste, honest, honourable. See Honest. Der. dishonest-y.
DISHONOUR, lack of honour, shame. (F.—L.) ME. des-
honour, King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 3869.—OF. deshonneur, ‘ dis-
honour, shame;’ Cot.—OF. des-, from L. dis-, apart; and honneur,
honour. See Honour, Der. dishonour,vb.; dishonour-able, -abl-y,-er.
DISINCLINE, to incline away from. (L.) ‘Inclined to the
king, or but disinclined to them ;’ Clarendon, Civil War, vol. ii.
p. 20 (R.). From L. dis-, apart, away ; and Incline, q.v. Der.
disinclin-at-ion, -ed.
DISINFECT, to free from infection. (L.)
Ital. smorbare. Coined from L. dis-, apart ; and Infect, αν.
disinfect-ant.
DISINGENUOUS, not frank. (L.)
tr. of Ovid’s Metam., Dedication, ὃ τ. Disingenutty occurs in
Clarendon, Civil War, vol. i. p. 321 (R.). Coined trom L. dis-,
apart; and Ingenuous, q.v. Der. disingenu-ous-ly, -ous-ness, -i-ly.
DISINHERIT, to deprive of heritage. (L.and ¥.—L.) In Shak.
Rich. III, i. 1. 57. arlier, in Berners, Froissart, vol. i. c. 69 (R.)-
(The ME. form was desheriten, Havelok, 2547; this is a better form,
being from OF. desheriter, to disinherit; see Cotgrave.] Coined
from L. dis-, apart; and Inherit, q.v. Der. disinherit-ance, in
imitation of OF. desheritance.
DISINTER, to take out of a grave. (L. and F.—L.) ‘Which a
proper education might have disinterred, and have brought to light ;’
Spectator, no. 215. Coined from L. dis-, apart; and Inter, q.v.
Der. disinter-ment.
DISINTERESTED, free from private interests, impartial.
(F.—L.) A clumsy form; the old word was disinteress'd, which
was mistaken for a verb, causing a second addition of the suffix -ed.
‘Because all men are not wise and good and disinteress’d;’ Bp.
Taylor, Rule of Conscience, b. ii. c. 3 (R.). This disinteress’d is the
pp- of an obsolete vb. disinteress, for which see N.E.D. ‘ Disinteressed
or Disinterested, void of self-interest ;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715.— MF.
desinteressé, ‘discharged from, or that hath forgone or lost all interest
in;’ Cot. This is the pp. of desinteresser, ‘ to discharge, to rid from
all interest in;’ id. OF. des-, from L. dis-, apart; and MF. interesse,
‘interessed or touched in;’ id., from L. interesse, to import, concern,
compounded of infer, amongst, and esse, to be. Der. disinterested-ly,
-1eSS.
DISINTHRAL; see Disenthral.
DISJOIN, to separate. (F.—L.) ‘They wolde not disioyne nor
disceuer them from the crowne;’ Berners, Froissart, vol. ii. c. 200
(R.). — OF. desjorgn-, pres. stem of desjoindre, ‘ to disjoyne, disunite ;’
Cot. =L. distungere, to separate. — L. dis-, apart ; and inngere, to join.
See Join. And see below.
DISJOINT, to put out of joint. (F.—I..) In Shak. Macb. iii.
2. 16.—OF. desjoinct, ‘ disjoyned, parted;’ Cot. ‘This is the pp. of
OF. desjoindre, to disjoin; see above. Der. disjoint-ed-ness.
DISJUNCTION, a disjoining, disunion. (L.) In Shak. Wint.
Ta. iv. 4. 540.—L. acc. disiunctiOnem, from disiunctio, a separation ;
cf. disiunctus, pp. of disiungere, to disjoin. See Disjoin. From the
same source, disjunct-ive, -ive-ly.
In Florio, to translate
Der.
Disingenuous is in Dryden,
DISK
DISK, another spelling of Dise, q. v.
DISLIKE, not to like, to disapprove of. (L. and E.) In Shak.
Meas. i. 2. 18. [A hybrid compound ; the old form was mislike.|—
L. dis-, apart; and E. Like, q.v. Der. dislike, sb.
DISLOCATEH, to put out of joint. (L.) In Shak. Lear, iv. 2. 65.
= Late L. dislocdtus, pp. of dislocare, to remove from its place.=L.
174
dis-, apart, away; and Jocdre, to place, from locus, a place. See
Locus. Der. dislocat-ion.
DISLODGE, to move from a resting-place. (F.) ‘ Dislodged was
out of mine herte;’ Chaucer’s Dream, 2125 (a poem not by Chaucer,
but belonging to the 15th century). OF. desloger, ‘to dislodge,
remove;’ Cot.—OF. des-, from L. dis-, away; and loger, to lodge.
See Lodge. Der. dislodg-ment.
DISLOYAL, not loyal. (F.—L.) In Shak. Macb. i. 2. 52.
‘ Disloyall Treason;” Spenser, F. Q. ii. 7. 22.—MF. desloyal, ‘ dis-
loyall;’ Cot. —OF. des-, from L. dis-, apart; and Joial, loyal. See
Loyal. Der. disloyal-ly, disloyal-ty.
DISMAL, gloomy, dreary, sad. (F.—L.) ‘More fowle than
dismall day ;’ Spenser, F. Q. ii. 7. 26. The oldest use of the word
appears to be in the phrase *in the dismal,’ signifying ‘at an unlucky
time ;’ or lit. ‘in the evil days.’ It occurs in Chaucer, Book of the
Duchess, 1206; where the knight, in describing with what perturba-
tion of mind he told his tale of love to his lady, says: “1 not [know
not} wel how that I began, Ful euel rehersen hit I can; And eek, as
helpe me God withal, I trowe hit was ix the dismal, That was the ten
woundes of Egipte.’. The sense is: ‘I believe it was iz an unlucky
time similar to the days of the ten plagues of Egypt." The same
phrase—in the dismal—occurs in The Pistil of Swete Susan (Laing’s
Ane. Pop. Poet. of Scotland), 1. 305; and in Polit. Songs, ed. Wright,
Ῥ. 303, 1. 477. B. When the equivalence of dis-mal to ‘evil days’
was forgotten, the word days was (tautologically) added. Thus
Lydgate has: ‘Her dismale daies, and her fatal houres;’ Storie of
Thebes, pt. iii. (ed. 1561, fol. 370). See further in my note to
Chaucer, Bk. Duch. 1206; Brand, Pop. Antiq., ed. Ellis, ii. 45;
Trevisa, tr. of Higden, ii. 329.—AF. dis mal, explained as les mal
jours (evil days) in MS. Glasgow, Q. 9. 13, fol. 100, back ; in a poem
by Rauf de Linham dated 1256; the MS. is described by M. Paul
Meyer in his notes on Glasgow MSS.=—OF. dis, pl. of di, a day
(cf. Ἐς Lun-di); and mal, pl., evil.=L. diés mali, evil days. See
Notes on E. Etym., p. 60.
DISMANTLE, to deprive of furniture, &c. (F.—L.) In Cot-
grave; and in Shak. Wint. Tale, iv. 4.666. ‘Lambert presently took
care so to dismantle the castle [ of Nottingham] that there should be no
more use of it for a garrison;’ Clarendon, Civil War, vol. iii. p. 192
(R.). —MF. desmanteller, ‘to take a man’s cloak off his back; also,
to dismantle, raze, or beat down the wall of a fortress ;’ Cot.—OF.
des-, 1, dis-, apart, away; and manteler, ‘to cloak, to cover with'a
cloak, to defend;’ id., from MF. mantel, later manteau, a cloak.
See Mantle.
DISMASK, to divest of a mask. (F.) In Shak. L. L.L. v. 2.
296.—MF. desmasquer, ‘to unmaske;’ Cot.—OF. des-, from L. dis-,
away ; and F. masquer, to mask. See Mask.
DISMAY, to terrify, discourage. (Hybrid; F.—L. and OHG.)
In early use; in King Alisaunder, 2801. —OF. *desmayer, a form not
found [though Palsgrave has ‘I dismaye, I put a person in fere or
drede, je desmaye, and je esmaye; p. 519} but equivalent to Span,
desmayar, to dismay, dishearten, also, to be discouraged, to lose
heart (cf. Port. desmaier, Ital. smagare). ‘The OF. *desmayer was
supplanted in French by the verb esmayer, to dismay, terrify, strike
powerless. ‘These two verbs are formed in the same way, and only
differ in the forms of the prefixes, which are equivalent respectively
to the L. dis-, apart, and to L. ex, out. Both are hybrid words,
formed, with L. prefixes, from the OHG. magan (G. migen), to be
able, to have might or power. B. Hence we have OF. desmayer and
esmayer, to lose power, to faint, fail, be discouraged, in a neuter
sense; afterwards used actively to signify to render powerless with
terror, to astonish, astound, dismay, terrify. y. The OHG. magan
is the same word with AS. magan, and E. may; se: May (1). 8. Cf.
also Ital. smagare, formerly dismagare, to lose courage; Florio gives
both spellings, and notes also the active sense ‘to quell,’ i.e. to
dismay. Der. dismay, sb.
DISMEMBER, to tear limb from limb. (F.—L.) In early use.
The pp. demembred (for desmembred) is in Rob. of Gloue. Pp: 559:
1. 11727. ‘Swereth nat so sinfully, in dismembringe of Crist ;’
Chaucer, Pers. Tale, De Ira (I 591).—OF. desmembrer, ‘to dis-
member;’ Cot.—OF. des-, from L. dis-, apart ; and: membre, a
member, limb. See Member.
DISMISS, to send away, despatch. (L.) In Spenser, F. Q. vii. 7.
59. Acoined word; first in the pp. dismissed, Caxton, Jason, p. 80
(N.E.D.); from L. dis-, away, and missus, pp. of mittere, to send.
Suggested by OF. desmetire, ‘to displace, ... to dismiss;’ Cot.
DISPLAY
@> The true L. form is dimittere, without s.
dismiss-al, -ion; and see dimissory.
DISMOUNT, to descend. (F.—L.) In Spenser, Shep. Kal.
May, 315.—OF. desmonter, ‘to dismount, . . . to descend;* Cot. —
OF. des-, from L. dis-, away; and mon/fer, to mount, ascend, from
F. mont, a mountain. See Mount.
DISOBEY, to refuse obedience. (Ἐς πὶ. ‘Bot therof woll I
disobeie ;’ Gower, C. A, i. 86; bk. i. 1315. Occleve has disobeye and
disobeyed, Letter of Cupid, stanzas 51 and 55; in Chaucer's Works,
Vii. 228.— OF. desobeir, ‘to disobey ;’ Cot.—OF. des-, from L. dis-,
apart; and obeir,to obey. See Obey. Similarly we have disobedient,
disobedience; see Obedient.
DISOBLIGE, to refrain from obliging. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave.
— OF. desobliger, ‘ to disoblige;’ Cot. - OF. des-, from L. dis-, apart,
away; and obliger, to oblige. See Oblige. Der. disoblig-ing.
DISORDER, want of order. (F.—L.) ‘Such disordre and con-
fusion;” Udal, Pref. to 1st Ep. to Corinthians; fol. 44. ‘By dis-
orderyng of the Frenchemen ;’ Berners, Froissart, vol. ii. c. 217 (R.).
=— OF. desordre, ‘ disorder ;” Cot. OF, des-, from L. dis-, apart; and
ordre, order. See Order. Der. disorder, ver); -ly.
DISOWN, to refuse to own. (Hybrid; L. and E.) ‘To own or
disown books;’ State Trials, Col. John Lilburn, an. 1649 (R.). A
coined word, from L. dis-, apart; and E. Own, q.v.
DISPARAGE, to offer indignity, to lower in rank or estimation.
(F.—L.) ME. desparagen, William of. Paleme, 485; disparage,
Chaucer, C. T. 4269 (A 4271).—OF. desparager, ‘to disparage, to
offer unto a man unworthy conditions ;’ Cot. —OF. des-, from L. dis-,
apart; and OF. parage, lineage, rank; id. ; from Late L. paraticum,
corruptly paraigium, society, rank, equality of rank ; formed with
suffix -aticum from L. par, equal. See Peer. Der. disparage-ment.
DISPARITY, inequality. (F.—L.) ‘But the disparity of years
and strength ;” Massinger, Unnatural Combat, Act i. sc. 1 (near the
end).=—F. disparité (Montaigne).—F. dis- (L. dis-), with negative
force; and parifé, equality; see Parity. Suggested by L. dispar,
unequal, unlike. See Par.
DISPARK, to render unenclosed. (Hybrid; L. and E.) In Shak.
Rich. II, iii. 1. 23. Coined from L. dis-, apart; and E. Park, q.v.
DISPASSIONATE, free from passion. (L.) ‘Wise and dis-
passionate men;’ Clarendon, Civil War, vol. iii. p. 745 (R.). Coined
from L. dis-, apart; and E. Passionate, q.v. Der. dispassionate-ly.
DISPATCH;; see Despatch.
DISPEL, to banish, drive away. (L.) In Milton, P. L. i. 530.
‘His rays their poisonous vapours shall dispel ;’? Dryden, Art of
Poetry, 1074 (near end of c. iv).—L. dispellere, to drive away,
disperse. — L. dis-, apart, away; and pellere, to drive. See Pulsate.
‘DISPENSE, to weigh out, administer. (F.—L.) ‘ Despensinge
and ordeyninge medes to goode men ;” Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. v.
pr. 6, 1. 212. OF. dispenser, ‘to dispense with, . . . to distribute ;’
Cot.—L. dispensare, to weigh out, pay, dispense; frequentative form
of dispendere (pp. dispensus), to weigh out, to dispense, distribute,
spend.—L. dis-, apart; and pendere, to weigh; see Spend. Der.
dispens-able, -able-ness, -er, -ar-y; also (like L. pp. dispensdtus)
dispensat-ion (ME. dispensacioun, Trevisa, tr. of Higden, ili. 469) ;
-ive, -or-y,
DISPEOPLE, to empty of people. (F.—L.). ‘Leaue the land
dispeopled and desolate ;? Sir T. More, Works, p. 1212 ὦ. OF. des-
peupler, ‘to dispeople or unpeople;’ Cot.—OF. de-, from L. dis-,
apart; and peupler, to people, from pevple, people. See People.
DISPERSE, to scatter abroad. (L.) ME. dispers, orig. used as
a pp. signifying ‘scattered.’ “ Dispers in alle londes oute ;’ Gower,
C. A. ii, 185; bk. v. 1729. ‘ Dispers, as schep upon an hell;’ id.
ii. 1753 bk. vii. 1258.—L. dispersus, pp. of dispergere, to scatter
abroad.—L. di-, for dis-, apart; and spargere, to scatter. See
Sparse. Der. dispers-ive, -ion.
DISPIRIT, to dishearten. (L.)
courage;* Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715.
from 1... dis-, apart; and Spirit, q.v.
DISPLACE, to remove from its place. (F.—L.) In Spenser,
F. Q. vi. 9. 42.—OF. desplacer, ‘to displace, to put from a place ;’
Cot. — OF, des-, from L. dis-, away; and placer, to place, from place,
a place. See Place. Der. displace-ment.
DISPLANT, to remove what is planted. (F.—L.) ‘ Adorio.
You may perceive I seek not to displant you;’ Massinger, The
Guardian, Act i. sc. 1. And in Shak. Rom. iii. 3. 59.—OF. des-
planter, § to displant, or pluck up by the root, to unplant;’ Cot. =
OF. des-, from L. dis-, apart, away ; and planter, to plant, from plate,
a plant. See Plant.
DISPLAY, to unfold, exhibit. (F.—L.) |‘ Displayed his banere;’
Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 23; Gower, C. A. i. 221; bk. ii.
1835.—AF. despleier, desplayer, OF. desplier, to unfold, exhibit, show.
— OF. des-, from L. dis-, apart; and AF. pleier, OF. plier, ploier, to
See Missile. Der.
‘ Dispirit, to dishearten, or dis-
Written for dis-spirit; coined
ἽΝ
DISPLEASE
fold; from L. plicare, to fold. See Ply. Der. display, sb.; display-er.
Doublets, deploy, q. v., splay, q.v-
DISPLEASE, to make not pleased, offend. (F.—L.) ME. dis-
plesen, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, i. 455; Rom. of the Rose, 3101.—
OF. desplaisir, to displease.mOF. des-, from L.. dis-, apart, with
negative force; and plaisir, to please. See Please. Der. displeas-
ure, in Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 200.
DISPORT, to sport, make merry. (F.—L.) ME. disporten, to
divert, amuse; Chaucer, Troil. iii. 1133. [The sb. disport, i.e. sport,
is in Chaucer, C. ΤᾺ 777 (A 775).J—OF. se desporter, to amuse
oneself, cease from labour (Godefroy); also se deporter, ‘to cease,
forbeare, leave off, give over, quiet himself, hold his hand; also to
disport, play, recreate himself’ (Cotgrave). Cf. Late L. disportus,
diversion ; Ducange.—OF. des-, from L. dis-, away, apart ; and
porter, to carry ; whence se desporter, to carry or remove oneself from
one’s work, to give over work, to seek amusement; from L. portare,
to carry. See Port, and Sport.
DISPOSE, to distribute, arrange, adapt. (F.—L. and Gk.) ΜΕ.
disposer, to ordain; Chaucer, Troil. iv. 964; Gower, C, A. i. 84;
bk. i. 1253. —OF. disposer, ‘to dispose, arrange, order ;’ Cot.—OF.
dis-, from L. dis-, apart; and OF. poser, to place, of Gk. origin.
See Pose. Der. dispos-er, -able, -al.
DISPOSITION, an arrangement, natural tendency. (F.—L.)
In Chaucer, C. T. 2366. (A 2364).—F. disposition. —L. acc. disposi-
tionem, from nom. dispositio, a setting in order; cf. dispositus, pp. of
disponere, to set in various places.—L. dis-, apart; and ponere, to
place. See Position.
DISPOSSESS, to deprive of possession. (F.—L.) In Shak. K.
John, i. 1.13. Earlier, in Bale, Votaries, part ii (R.).—OF. des-
possesser (Godefroy). Coined from L. dis-, apart, away; and OF.
stem possess- ; see Possess. Der. dispossess-ion, -or.
DISPRAISH, to detract from one’s praise. (F.—L.) ¢Whan
Prudence hadde herd hir housbonde auanten hym [boast himself] of
his richesse and of his moneye, dispreysynge the power of hise aduer-
saries ;’ Chaucer, C. T. Tale of Melibeus (B 2741); dispraise, Cursor
Mundi, 1. 27585.—OF. despreis-, a stem of desprisier (Supp. to
Godefroy), to dispraise.OF, des-, from L. dis-, apart ; and prisier,
to praise. See Praise, Der. dispraise, sb.
DISPROPORTION, lack of proportion. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Oth. iii. 3. 233. Also as a verb, Temp. v. 290; 3 Hen. VI, iii. 2.
160.—MF. disproportion, ‘a disproportion, an inequality ;* Cot. =
OF. dis-, from L. dis-, apart ; and proportion, proportion. See Pro-
portion. Der. disproportion, verb; -able, -abl-y; -al, -al-ly; -ale,
-ate-ly, -ale-ness.
DISPROVE, to prove to be false. (F.—L.) ‘Ye, forsoeth
(quod she) and now I wol disprowe thy first wayes;’ T. Usk;
Testament of Love, b. ii; ch. iv. 135.—OF. des-, L. dis-, apart, away ;
and Prove, q.v. Der. disproof.
DISPUTE, to argue, debate. (F.—L.) ME. disputen, desputen;
‘byzylyche desputede’ =they disputed busily, Ayenbite of Inwit, p. 79,
last line; P. Plowman, B. viii. 20.—OF. desputer.—L. disputire. = L.
dis-, apart, away; and pwtare, to think, orig. to make clean, clear
up. =4/ PEU, to purify. See Pure. Der. dispute, sb., disput-able,
-abl-y, -able-ness, -ant, -er ; -at-ion, -at-i-ous, -at-1-o1s-ly, -at-t-ous-ness,
-at-ive, like L. pp. disputatus.
DISQUALIFY, to deprive of qualification. (F.—L.) ‘Are so
disqualify’d by fate;’ Swift, on Poetry, A Rhapsody, 1733; 1. 39.
Coined from the L. prefix dis-, apart; and Qualify, q.v. Der.
disqualific-at-ion. See Qualification.
DISQUIET, to deprive of quiet, harass. (L.) “ Disquieted con-
sciences ;’ Bale, Image, pt. i (R.). As sb., Much Ado, ii. 1. 268;
as adj., Tam. of the Shrew, iv. 1. 171. Coined from L. prefix dis-,
apart; and Quiet, q.v. Der. disqguiet-ude (Tatler, no. 97, § 3).
DISQUISITION, a searching enquiry, investigation. (L.) ‘On
hypothetic dreams and visions Grounds everlasting disquisitions ;’
Butler, Upon the Weakness of Man, ll. 199, 200.—L. disquisitionem,
ace. of disguisitio, a search into; cf. disqguisitus, pp. of disquirere, to
examine. —L. dis-, apart ; and guerere, to seek. See Query.
DISREGARD, not to regard. (L. and F.) ‘Among those
churches which . . . you have disregarded;’ Milton, Animadversions
upon the Remonstrant’s Defence (R.). A coined word; from L. dis-,
apart, here used negatively; and Regard, q.v. Der. disregard,
sb. ; -~ful, -ful-ly. ι
DISRELISH, to loathe. (L. and F.—L.) In Shak. Oth, ii. 1.
236. Coined from L. dis-, apart, in a negative sense; and Relish, q. v.
DISREPUTE, want of repute. (L. and F.—L.) Phillips’ Dict.
(ed. 1706) has ‘ disreputation or disrepute.’ The pp. disreputed is used
by Bp. Taylor, Great Exemplar, pt. i. 5.1 (R.). Coined from L.
dis-, apart; and Repute, q.v. Der. disrepué-able, -abl-y,
DISRESPECT, not to respect. (L. and F.—L.) ‘Let then the
world thy calling disrespect ;’ Donne, to Mr. Tilman; 1, 35. Coined
DISSOLUTE 175
from L. dis-, apart; and Respect, q. v.
-ful-ly.
DISROBEH, to deprive of robes, divest. (L. and F.) In Spenser,
F. Qvi. 8. 49. Coined from L. dis-, away; and Robe, q. v.
DISRUPTION, a breaking asunder. (L.) In Sir T. Browne,
Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 16. § 6.—L. acc. disruptidnem, from nom. dis-
rupio, commonly spelt diruptic, a breaking asunder; cf. disruptus,
pp: of disrumpere, dirumpere, to burst apart. L, dis-, di-, apart; and
rumpere,to burst See Rupture.
DISSATISFY, to displease, (L. and F.—L.) ‘Very much dis-
satisfied and displeased ;’ Camden, Queen Elizabeth, an, 159g. Coined
from L, dis-, apart; and Satisfy, q.v. Der. dissatisfaction; see
Satisfaction.
DISSECT, to cut apart, cutup. (L.) ‘Slaughter is now dissected
to the full;’ Drayton, Battle of Agincourt; st. 37 from end.—L,
dissectus, pp. of dissecare, to cut asunder. L. dis-, apart ; and. secare,
to cut. See Section. Der. dissect-ion, from F. dissection, given in
Cotgrave both as a F. and Eng. word; dissect-or.
DISSEMBLE, to put a false semblance on, to disguise. (F'.—L.)
In Frith’s Works, p. 51, col. 2.—OF. dis-, apart; and sembler, to
seem, appear. Cf. MF, dissimuler, ‘to dissemble ;’ Cot.—L. dis-,
apart; and simuldre, to pretend; cf. L. dissimuldre, to pretend that
athingis not. See Simulate; also Dissimulation.
DISSEMINATE, to scatter abroad, propagate. (L.) In Blount’s
Gloss. ed.1656, And in Bp. Taylor, Of Original Sin, c. vi. 5.1 (R.) ;
the word dissemination occurs in the same passage. = L. disséminatus,
pp- of disséminare, to scatter seed. L. dis-, apart; and sémindare, to
Der. disrespect, sb. ; -ful,
sow, from sémin-, decl. stem of <émen, seed. See Seminal. Der.
disseminat-ion, -or.
DISSENT, to think differently, differ in opinion. (L.) ‘If I
dissente and if I make affray;’ Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 44. ‘There
they vary and dissent from them;’ Tyndal’s Works, p. 445, col. 2.
[ The sb. dissension, ME. dissencioun, occurs in Chaucer, Tale of Me-
libeus (B 2881).] —L. dissentire, to difler in opinion. —L. dis-, apart ;
and sentire, to feel, think. See Sense. Der. dissent-er, -i-ent ; also
dissens-ion, like pp. dissensus; cf. OF. dissention, ‘ dissention, strife ;” Cot.
DISSERTATION, a treatise. (L.) Used by Speed, Edw. VI,
b. ix. c. 22 (R.).—L. acc. dissertationem, from nom. dissertatio, a de-
bate; cf. dissertdtus, pp. of dissertare, to debate, frequentative from
disserere, to set asunder, to discuss. L. dis-, apart; and serere, to
join, bind. See Series, Der. dissertation-al; also dissertat-or, like
Pp. dissertatus.
DISSERVICE, an injury. (F.—L.) Used by Cotgrave to trans-
late F. desservice.— OF. des-, L. dis-, apart; and Service, q. v.
DISSEVER, to part in two, disunite. (F.—L.) ME. disseueren
(with uw for v); Allit. Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 1575; “89 that I
scholde noght disseuere;’? Gower, C. A. ii. 97; bk. iv. 2838.—OF.
dessevrer, ‘to dissever;’ Cot.—OF. des-, from L. dis-, apart; and
sevrer, to sever, from L, séparare. See Sever. Der. dissever-ance.
DISSIDENT, dissenting, not agreeing. (L.) ‘ Our life and man-
ners be dissident from theirs ;’” tr. of Sir ‘I’. More, Utopia, b. ii. c. 7,
p- 130 (ed. Arber).—L. dissident, stem of dissidens, pres. part. of dis-
sidére, to sit apart, be remote, disagree. = L. dis-, apart; and L. sedére,
to sit, cognate with E. Sit, q. v.
DISSIMILAR, unlike. (F.—L.) ‘Dissimular parts are those
parts of a man’s body which are unlike in nature one to another; ’
blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674.—MF. dissimilaire, used with ref. to ‘such
parts of the body as are of sundry substances;” Cot.= OF. des-, from
L. dis-, apart; and MF. similaire, like. See Similar. Der. dis-
similar-i-/y; and see below.
DISSIMILITUDE, an unlikeness, variety. (L. and F.—L.)
‘When there is such a dissimilitude in nature;’ Barrow’s Sermons,
v.ii.ser.10(R.).—L. dis-, apart ; and Similitude, q.v.; suggested
by L. dissimilitado, unlikeness.
DISSIMULATION, a dissembling. (F.—L.) In Chaucer,
C. T. 7705 (Ὁ 2123).—OF. dissimulation (Hatzfeld). = L. dissimula-
lidnem, acc. of dissimulatio, a dissembling, like dissimulatus, pp. of
dissimulare, to dissemble. See Dissemble.
DISSIPATE, to disperse, squander. (L.) ‘ Dissipated and_re-
solued ;’ Wilson, Arte of Rhetorique, p. 213 (R.).—L. dissipatus,
pp. of dissrpare, to disperse.—L. dis-, apart; and obs. sipare, to
throw, appearing also in the compound insipare, to throw into; cf.
Skt. Aship, to throw. Brugmann, i. § 761. Der. dissipation; see
Shak. Lear, i. 2. 161.
DISSOCIATE, to separate from a company. (L.) Orig. used
asa pp. ‘Whom I wil not suffre to be dissociate or disseuered from
me;’ Udal, John,c. 14. § 1.—L. dissocidtus, pp. of dissociare, to dis-
solve a friendship.—L. dis-, apart; and soctare, to associate, from
socius, a companion. See £ociable. Der. dissociat-ion.
DISSOLUTEH, loose in morals. (L.) See Spenser, F. Q.i.7. 54.
ME. dissolut, Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 245.—L. dissoliitus, loose,
176 DISSOLVE
licentious ; pp. of L, dissoluere, to dissolve; see below. Der. disso-
lute-ly, -ness ; also dissolut-ion, given by Cotgrave both as a F, and EF.
word, from L. ace. dissoliitionem.
DISSOLVE, to loosen, melt, annul. (L.) ME. dissoluen ; Wy-
clif, 2 Pet. iii, 10; id. Select Works, iii. 68. —L. dissoluere, to loosen.
-L. dis-, apart; and soluere, to loose. See Solve. Der. dissolv-
able, -ent; from the same source, dissolu-ble, -bility ; and see dissolute
above.
DISSONANT, sounding harshly. (F.—L.) ‘This saiyng, to
all curtesie dissonant ;’ The Remedy of Love, st. 67; in Chaucer’s
Works, ed. 1561, fol. 324, col. 1.— OF. dissonant, ‘dissonant ;’ Cot.
= L. dissonantem, acc. of dissonans, pres. pt. of dissondre, to be unlike
in sound.—L, dissonws, discordant.—L. dis-, apart; and sonus, a
sound. See Sound, sb. Der. dissonance.
DISSUADE, to persuade from. (F.—L.) In Shak. As You Like
It, i. 2.170. Earlier, in Bale’s Eng. Votaries, pt. i. (R.).— MF. dis-
suader, ‘to disswade, or dehort from;’ Cot.—L. dissuadére, to dis-
suade. —L. dis-, apart; and suadére, to persuade, pp. swasus. See
Suasion. Der. dissuas-ion, -ive, -ive-ly, like pp. dissudsus.
DISSYLLABLE, a word of two syllables. (F.—L. —Gk.)
Spelt dissyl/abe formerly ; en Jonson has ‘ verbes dissyllabes,’ i.e.
dissyllabic verbs, Eng. Gram. ch. vii; and again ‘nouns dissyllabic’
in the same chapter. — MF. dissyllabe, ‘ of two syllables ;’ Cotas
disyllabus, of two syllables. Gk. δισύλλαβος, of two syllables. - Gk.
δι-, double ; and cvAAaf}, a syllable. See Di- and Syllable. Der.
dissyllab-ic. 4 The spelling with double s is unoriginal, but the
error appeared first in the French; the / before the final e has been
inserted to bring the spelling nearer to that of syllable. The spelling
dissyllable is in Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674; and dissdlable in Puttenham,
Arte of Poesie (1589) ; ed. Arber, p. 128.
DISTAFF, a staff used in spinning. (E.) The distaff is a staff
provided with flax to be spun off. Palsgrave has: ‘I dysyn a dystaffe,
I put the flaxe upon it to spynne.’ ME. distaf, Chaucer, C. T. 3772
(A 3774). ‘Hee colus, a dysestafe;’ 15th cent. Vocabulary, in Voc.
794. 14. AS. distef, rare; but we find ‘ Colus, distef’ in a Vocabu-
lary of the 11th century, in Voc. 125. 21. B. The quotation from
Palsgrave and the spelling dysestafe show that AS, distaf=*dis-stef
or *dise-stef. The latter element is our E. Staff, q.v. y. The for-
mer element is remarkably exemplified by the Platt-deutsch diesse,
the bunch of flax on a distaff; Bremen Worterbuch, i. 215, v. 284;
also by the E. Dizen, q.v. Cf. Low G. dise, disene, a bunch of flax
(Liibben), EF ries. disser; MHG. dehse, a distaff.
DISTAIN, to sully, disgrace. (F.—L.) ME. desteinen. In
Chaucer, Legend of G. Women, 255. ‘ Which with the blod was
of his herte Thurghout desteigned ouer ἃ]: Gower, C. A. i. 2343 bk.
li. 2245.— OF. desteign-, a stem of desteindre, ‘to distaine, to dead, or
take away the colour of;’ Cot. “ΟΕ, des-, from L. dis-, apart; and
OF. teindre, from L. tingere, to tinge. See Tinge; and see Stain,
which is an abbreviation of distain (like sport from disport).
DISTANT, remote, far. (F.—L.) In Chaucer, Astrolabe, pt. i.
sect. 17, 1. 32. —OF. distant, ‘distant, different ;” Cot.— L. distantem,
acc. of distans, pres. pt. of distare, to stand apart, be distant. = L. di-,
for dis-, apart; and sfare, to stand, cognate with E. Stand, q.v.
Der. distance, in Rob. of Glouc. pp. 511, 570, ll. 10533, 12018, from
F. distance, L. distantia.
DISTASTE, to make unsavoury, disrelish. (L. and F.—L.) In
Shak. Oth. iii. 3.327. Coined from L. dis-, apart; and Taste, q. v.
Der. distaste, sb. ; -ful, -ful-ly, -ful-ness.
DISTEMPER (1), to derange the temperament of the body or
mind. (F.—L.) See Trench, Study of Words; there is an allusion
to the Galenical doctrine of the four humours or temperaments.
‘The fourthe is, whan . . the humours in his body ben destempered ;’
Chaucer, Pers. Tale, De Gula (1 826). ‘That distemperes a mon in
body and in soule;” Wyclif, Select Works, iii. 157.—OF. *destem-
prer, only in the pp. destempré, destrempé, immoderate (Godefroy). —
OF. des-, from L. dis-, apart; and OF. temprer, to temper (mod. F.
tremper), from L. ¢emperare. See Temper. Der. distemper, sb.,
derangement.
DISTEMPER (2), a kind of painting, in which the colours are
tempered, or mixed with thin watery glue. (F.—L.) In Kersey’s
Dict. ed. 1715.—OF. destemprer, later destr emper, Hick Cotgrave
explains by ‘to soake, steepe, moisten, water, season, or lay in water ;
to soften or allay, by laying in water; to make fluid, liquid, or thin.’
The word is from the same source as the above.
DISTEND, to stretch asunder, swell. (L.) In Milton, P. L.
i. 572; xi. 88So.—L. distendere, pp. distensus, to stretch asunder. - L.
dis-, apart ; and ¢endere, to stretch.—4/ TEN, to stretch. See Tend.
Der. distens-tble, -ive, -ion, like pp. distensus.
DISTICH, a couple of ve a couplet. (L.—Gk.) Spelt
distichon in Holland’s Suetonius, p. 224 (Ik.) ; déstick in the Spectator,
no. 43, and in Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674; distich in Kersey’s Dict. ed.
| negatively; and dnire, to unite, from anus, one.
| From the same source, drsu-ion.
DISUSE
1715.—L. distichus, distichon.—Gk. δίστιχον, a ccuplet ; neut. of
δίστιχος, having two rows.—Gk. &-, double; and στίχος, a row,
rank, allied to στείχειν, to go, cognate with AS. stigan, to ascend,
whence ΕἸ. stirrup and stile.—4/ STEIGH, to go, march.
DISTIA, to fall in drops, flow slowly. (F.—L.) ME. distillen ;
‘That it malice non distilleth;’ Gower, C. A. i. 5; prol. 62. “ΟΕ.
distiller, ‘to distill;” Cot.—L. distillare, pp. distilldtus, the same as
déstillare, to drop or trickle down.—L. de, down; and stillire, to
drop, from s¢illa, a drop. See Still, sb. and vb. Der. distillat-ion,
-or-y, like L. pp. déstillatus ; also distill-er, -er-y.
DISTINCT, distinguished. (F.—L.) ‘In other manere been
distinct the speces of glotonye ;᾿ Chaucer, Pers. Tale, De Gula (1828).
= OF. distinct; Cot.—L. distinctus, pp. of distinguere, to distinguish.
See below. Der. distinct- -ive, -ion.
DISTINGUISH, to set apart, mark off. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Macb. iii. 1. 96. [The reading in Chaucer’s Boethius, bk. ii. pr. v. 47,
is distingwed, not distinguished.) —OF. disunguer, to distinguish; the
ending -ish seems to have been added by analogy, and cannot be
accounted for in the usual way. —L. distinguere, to distinguish, mark
with a prick; pp. distinctus.=—L. di-, for dis-, apart ; and *stinguere,
to prick, cognate with Gk. ori(ew, to prick, and E. stick, vb.
Brugmann, i. § 666. See Instigate, Stigma. Der. distinguish-
able; also distinct, q.v.
DISTORT, to twist aside, pervert. (L.) First used as a pp.
Spenser, F.Q. ν. 12. 36.—L. distortus, distorted, pp. of distorquére. =
L. dis-, apart; and /orguére, totwist. See Torsion. Der. distort-ion.
DISTRACT, to harass, confuse. (L.) [ME. destrat, distracted.
“Thou shalt ben so desfrat by aspre thinges;’ Chaucer, Boethius,
bk. iii. pr. 8. This isa F.form.] But we find also distract as a pp.
‘ Distracte were pei stithly’=they were greatly distracted ; Allit.
Destruction of Troy, 3219. As vb. in Shak. Oth. i. 3. 327; see
Lover's Complaint, 231.—L. distractus, pp. of distrahere, to pull
asunder, pull different ways.—L. dis-, apart; and érahere, to draw.
See Trace (1). Der. distract-ed-ly, -ion. Also distraught, an E.
modification of ME, destrat (above).
DISTRAIN, to restrain, seize goods for debt. (F.—L.) The
pp- destreined, i.e. restrained, is in Chaucer, Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 6,
1. 74.— OF. destreign-, pres. t. stem of destraindre, ‘to straine, press,
wring, vex extreamly ; also, to straiten, restrain, or abridge of
liberty;’ Cot.—L. distringere, to pull asunder.—L. di-, for dis-,
apart ; and s/ringere, to touch, hurt, compress, strain. See Strain,
verb. Der. distrain-or ; distraint, from OF. destrainte, MF. destraincte,
restraint, fem. form of pp. destrainct (Cotgrave) ; and see Distress,
District.
DISTRESS, great pain, calamity. (F.—L.) In early use.
ME. destresse, Rob. of Glouc. pp. 143, 442; Il. 3010, gt11.—OF.
destresse, ‘ distress ;’ Cot. ; older spellings destreice, destrece; Godefroy.
Destrece is a verbal sb. from OF. destrecter (Godefroy), corresponding
to a Late L. type *districtiare, to afflict, formed regularly from
districtus, severe, pp. of distringere, to pull asunder, in’ Late L., to
punish. See Distrain. Der. distress, vb., ME. distresen, Allit.
Poems, ed. Morris, ii. 8803 distress-ful, fully.)
DISTRIBUTE, to allot, deal out. (L.) In Spenser, ἘΠ 10:
30. ‘Whan that is distribute to pouer indigent peple ;’ Lord Rivers,
Dictes and Sayings (Caxton), fol. 5, 1. to.—L. distribiitus, pp. of
distribuere, to distribute. - L. dis-, apart ; and ¢ribuere, to give, impart.
See Tribute. Der. ἘΝ ΠΣΡΩ ΑΝ τεῦς τίον, -ive.
DISTRICT, a region. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave. ‘ District is that
territory or circuit, wherein any one has power to distrain ; as a manor
is the lord's district ;᾿ Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674.—MF. district, ‘a
district, . . the territory within which a lord . . may judge . . the
inhabitants ;? Cot. Late L. disérictus, a district within which a lord
may distrain (distringere potest); Ducange.=—L. districtus, pp. of
distringere. See Distrain.
DISTRUST, want of trust. (Hybrid; L. and E.) Udal has
distrust both as sb. and vb. ; On St. Matthew, capp. 5. 33, and 17. 19.
Coined from L. dis-, apart; and Ek. Trust, q.v. Der. distrust-ful,
-ful-ly, -ful-ness.
DISTURB, to disquiet, interrupt. (F.—L.) In early use. ME.
disturben, distourben ; spelt disturben, Ancren Riwle, p.162; distourben,
Rob. of Glone. p. 436, 1. 8985.— OF. destourber, ‘to disturbe;’ Cot.
=L. disturbare, to drive asunder, disturb.—L. dis-, apart ; and
turbare, to disturb, trouble, from ¢urba, a tumult, a crowd. See
Turbid. Der. disturb-ance, used by Chaucer, Compl. of Mars,
1. τοῦ; disturb-er. 41 Borrowed from French, the spelling being
afterwards conformed to the Latin.
DISUNITE, to disjoin, sever. (L.) In Shak. Troil. ii. 3. 109. —
L. disiinitus, pp. of disinire, to disjoin.—L. dis-, apart, here used
See Unite, Unit.
DISUSE, to give up the use of. (L.and F.—L.) ‘ Disuse, to for-
DISYLLABLE
bear the use of;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715; ‘ Disusage or Disuse, a
disusing;’ id. ME. disusex (with v for ~). * Dysusyn or mysse vsyn ;’
Prompt. Parv. p. 123. Barbour has diswsyt, for disusit, pp.; Bruce,
xix. 183. Coined from L. dis-, apart; and Use, q.v. Der. disuse,
sb. ; disus-age.
DISYLLABLE (so spelt in Kersey, ed. 1715); see Dissyllable.
DIT, to stop up. (E.) Barbour has ditét, stopped up; Bruce,
vi. 168. AS. dyttan, to stop up. Teut. type *dut-jan-; from Teut.
*dut-, as in AS. dott, a small lump, clot; Low G. duite, a plug. See
Dot.
DITCH, a dike, a trench. (E.) ME. diche, P. Plowman, C. xiv.
236, where one MS. has dike. Diche is merely a variant of dtke, due
to palatalisation, as in diche for AS. dice, dat. case of dic,a dike. See
Dike. Der. ditch, verb, ME, dichen, Chaucer, C. T. 1890 (A 1888),
from AS. dician ; ditcher, ME. diker, P. Plowman, C. i. 224.
DITHYRAMB, a kind of ancient hymn, (L.—Gk.) ‘ Dithyramb,
a kind of hymn or song in honour of Bacchus who was surnamed
Dithyrambus ; and the poets who composed such hymns were called
Dithyrambicks ;’ Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674.—L. dithyrambus.— Gk.
διθύραμβος, 2 hymn in honour of Bacchus; also, a name of Bacchus.
Origin unknown.
DITTANY, the name of a plant. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘ Dictamnus
groweth in Candy,and . . . maye be named in Englishe righte Dittany,
for some cal Lepidium also Dittany;’ Turner, Names of Herbes (1548),
p- 34 (E.D.S.). Also called dittander (Prior). ME. detane, detany,
Voc. 710. 15, 786. 10.—OF. ditain (Godefroy); MF. dictame, ‘the
herb ditany, dittander ;” Cot. Also AF. ditaundere, Wright’s Vocab.
i. 140, col. 1.—L. dictamnum, acc. of dictamnum or dictamnus.=Gk.
δίκταμνον, δίκταμνος, also δίκταμον, δίκταμος, dittany ; so named from
mount Dicté in Crete, where it grew abundantly.
DITTO, the same as before. (Ital.—L.) ‘ Ditto, the aforesaid or
the same;’ Phillips’ Dict. ed. 1706. — Ital. ditto, that which has been
said, a word, saying. L. dictum, a saying; neut. of dictus, pp. of
dicere, to say. See Diction. @ It may be observed that the pp.
of Ital. dire, to say, properly takes the form deffo, not ditto.
DITTY, a sort of song. (F.—L.) ME. dité, ditee; Chaucer,
Boethius, bk. iii. pr. 1. 1. 2; later dittie, Spenser, Colin Clout, 385 ;
shortened to ditt, id. F.Q. ii. 6. 13. —OF. ditié, dité, a kind of poem;
Godefroy. = L. dictaitum, a thing dictated for writing, neut. of dictatus,
Ῥ. of dictdre, to dictate. See Dictate.
DIURETIC, tending to excite passage of urine. (F.—L.—Gk.)
In Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. ii. c. 5. § 2. ‘ Diureticalnes,
diuretick quality;’ Bailey; vol. fi. ed. 1731.—MF. diuretique; see
Cotgrave.—L. ditréticus.—Gk. διουρητικός, promoting urine. —Gk.
διουρέειν, to pass urine. — Gk. δι-, for διά, through ; and οὖρον, urine.
See Urine.
DIURNAL, daily. (L.) In Lydgate, Complaint of the Black
Knight, 1. 590.—L. diurnalis, daily.—L. diurnus, daily.—L. diés, a
day. A doublet of Journal, q. v.
DIVAN, a council-chamber, sofa. (Pers.) ‘A Diuan, so they
call the Court of Iustice;’ Sandys, Tray. (1632); p. 62. In Milton,
P.L. x. 457.—Pers. divan, ‘a tribunal, a steward; a collection of
odes arranged in alphabetical order of rhymes; the Divan ¢ Hafiz is
the most celebrated ;’ Palmer's Pers. Dict., col. 282. In Richardson,
p- 704, the Pers. form is given as diwan, the Arab. as daywan,
explained as ‘a royal court, the tribunal of justice or revenue, a
council of state, a senate or divan,’ &c.
DIVARICATE, to fork, diverge. (L.) ‘With two fingers
divaricated, i.e. spread apart ; Marvell, Works, ii. 114 (R.). Sir
T. Browne has divarication, Vulg. Errors, b. vi. c. 11, § 4.—L.
diuaricat-us, pp. of diudricare, to spread apart.—L. di-, for dis-,
apart; and waricdre, to spread apart, straddle, from uaricus, straddling,
formed with suffix -cu-s from uari- (=uaro-), for uarus, bent apart,
straddling, crooked. Der. divaricat-ton.
DIVE, to plunge into water. (E.) ME. diuen, also duuen (with u
for v); spelt dyxen, P. Plowman, B. xii. 163; ἄπει, Ancren Riwle,
p- 282, 1. 10. AS. dyfan, to dive, Grein, i. 214; confused with the
strong verb diifan (pt. τ. déaf, pp. dofen), to dive, id. 213.4 Icel. dyfa,
to dive, to dip. Teut. base *deub, a secondary form allied to *deup,
asin E.deep. See Deep, Dip. Der. div-er, div-ing-bell, di-dapper,
i.e. dive-dapper. See Dove.
DIVERGE, to part asunder, tend to spread apart. (L.) ‘ Divergent
or Diverging Rays, in opticks, are those rays which, going from a
point of a visible object, are dispersed, and continually depart one
from another ;’ Phillips’ Dict. ed. 1706.—L. di-, for dis-, apart; and
uergere, to incline, verge, tend. See Verge. Der. diverg-ent, -ence.
DIVERSE, DIVERS, different, various. (F.—L.) ME. divers,
diverse (with τι for v). Spelt divers in An Old Eng. Miscellany, ed.
Morris, p. 35- ‘ Diuerse men diversé thinges seiden ;’ Chaucer, C. Τὶ
46031 (B 211). Spelt divers in the Bible, Mk. viii. 3, &c.— OF. divers,
m. diverse, f. ‘divers, differing, unlike, sundry, repugnant ;’ Cot.=L.
DOCK 177
diuersus, various ; orig. pp. of diuertere, to turn asunder, separate,
divert. See Divert. Der. diverse-ly, divers-i-ty, from ME. and F.
diversité, Chaucer, Troil. v. 1793; divers-i-fy, from ¥. diverstfier, “to
vary, diversifie’ (Cot.), from Late L. diuersificare, which from L.
diuersi- (for diversus), and -ficdre (from facere), to make ; diversificat-
ton, from Late L. pp. diuersificatus.
DIVERT, to turn aside, amuse. (F.—L.) ‘ List nat onys asyde
to dyuerte;’ Lydgate, Storie of Thebes, pt. ii. 1. 1130 (in Spec. of
Eng. ed. Skeat, p. 30).— MF. divertir, ‘to divert, avert, alter, with-
draw ;’ Cot. “Το, divertere, pp. diuersus, to turn asunder, part, divert.
=-L. di-, for dis-, apart; and wertere, to turn. See Verse. Der.
divers-ion, ‘a turning aside, or driving another way, recreation, or
pastime ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. And see above; also Divorce.
DIVEST, to strip, deprive of. (L.) In Shak. K. Lear, i. 1. 50.—
Late L. diuestire, a late equivalent of L. déuestire, to undress. - L.
di-, for dis-, apart ; and westire, to clothe, from vestis, clothing. See
Vest and Devest.
DIVIDE, to part asunder. (L.) ME. diuiden, dyuyden (with τι
for v), Wyclif, Exod. xiv. 16; also denyden, Chaucer, On the Astro-
labe, pt. i. § 7.—L. diuidere, pp. diuisus, to divide. —L. di-, for dis-,
apart; and *uidere, a lost verb, prob. ‘to part,’ from the same root
as L. uid-ua, a widow, and E. wid-ow, which see. Der. divid-er, -end ;
also (from pp. dinisus) divis-ible, -ibl-y, -ibil-i-ty, -ive, -or, -ion, -ion-al.
DIVINE, godly, sacred. (F.—L.) ‘A gret deuyn that cleped was
Calkas ;’ Chaucer, Troil. i. 66. ¢ Thus was the halle ful of divyninge,’
i.e. divining, guessing; id. C. T. 2523 (A 2521).—OF. divin, formerly
also devin (Godefroy), signifying (1) divine, (2) a diviner, augur,
theologian ; whence deviner, to divine, predict, guess.—L. dixinus,
divine; from the same source as diuns, godly, and deus, God. See
Deity. Der. divine-ly, divin-i-ty (ME. dininité, Gower, C. A. ili. 88 ;
bk. vii. 122; also divine, verb, divin-er, -at-ion.
DIVISION ; see Divide.
DIVORCE, a dissolution of marriage. (F.—L.) ‘The same
lawe yeueth lybel of departicion because of deworse;’ T. Usk, Testa-
ment of Loue, Ὁ. iii. ch. 2.1.14. ‘The pl. deworses is in P. Plowman,
B. ii. 175.— OF. divorce, ‘a divorce ;’ Cot.—L. diuortium, a separa-
tion, divorce. — L. divortere, another form of divertere, to turn asunder,
separate. See Divert. Der. divorce, verb ; divorc-er, divorce-ment.
DIVULGE, to publish, reveal. (F.—L.) In Shak. Merry Wives,
iii. 2. 43. =F. divulguer, ‘ to divulge, publish ;’ Cot. —L. dinulgare, to
make common, publish abroad. —L. di-, for dis-, apart ; and uulgare,
to make common, from uxlgus, the common people. See Vulgar.
DIVULSION, a rending asunder. (L.) ‘ Divulsicn, or separation
of elements ;” Holland’s Plutarch, p. 669; also in Blount’s Glosso-
graphia and Kersey.—L. diuulsionem, acc. of diuulsio, a plucking
asunder; like divulsus, pp. of diuellere, to pluck asunder.=L. di-, for
dis-, apart; and vellere, to pluck. See Convulse.
DIZEN, to deck out. (E.) Used by Beaum. and Fletcher, in
Monsieur Thomas, iv. 6. 3 and The Pilgrim, iv. 3. Palsgrave has :
“I dysyn a dystaffe, I put the flaxe upon it to spynne.’ Thus to dizen
was, originally, to furnish a distaff with flax; hence, generally, to
clothe, deck out, &c. β. Evidently from AS. *dise, for which see
Distaff. Der. be-dizen, q. v.
DIZZY, giddy, confused. (E.) ME. dysy, Pricke of Conscience,
771; dusie, O. Eng. Homilies, i. 117; superl. dusigest, Ancren Riwle,
p- 182. AS. dysig, foolish, silly ; Grein, i. 214; cf. dysigian, to be
foolish; id. B. From a Teut. base *dus-, appearing also in OHG.
tus-ig, dull, foolish ; Low G. disig, dizzy. Allied to *diis-, as seen in
Du. duiz-elen, to grow dizzy. Perhaps also to *dwes-, as in AS. dwés,
Du. dwaas, foolish (see Franck); and to Doze. Teut. root *dwes
(Kdwas, *dwé#s, *dus). Der. dizzi-ly, dizzi-ness.
DO, pt. t. DID, pp. DONE, to perform. (E.) ME. don, pt. t.
dude, dide, pp. don, doon, idon, ydon ; see Stratmann’s O. E. Dict.
AS. don, pt. τ. dyde, pp. gedon; Grein, i. 199-202.4Du. doen, pt. t.
deed, pp. gedaan ; OSax. don, duon, duan, doan, pt. t. deda, pp. giduan ;
OFries. dua, pt. τ. dede, pp. gedan; OHG, ton, toan, tuan, MHG.
tuon, duon, G. thun, επί. stem *dd-, Allied to Gk. τίςθημι,
I set, put, place; Skt. dha, to place, put; Lith. dé-ti, Slav. dé-di, to
put, to place. —4/DHE, to place, set. Brugmann, i. § 129. Der.
do-ings ; a-do, q.vV.; don, i.e. do on; dof, i.e. do off; dup, i.e. do up.
From the same root, doom, q.v., deem, q.v.; also deed, q.v.
DOCILE, teachable, easily managed. (F.—L.) ‘Be brief in what
thou wouldst command, that so The doci/e mind might soon thy pre
cepts know ;’ Ben Jonson, tr. of Horace, Ars Poet. (335, 336), where
the Lat. text has ‘animi dociles.’ =F. docile, ‘ docible, teachable ;’
Cot.<L. docilis, teachable.=L. docére, to teach. Der. docil-i-ty.
From the same root, didactic, q.v., disciple, q.v.; also doctor, doctrine,
document, q.V-
DOCK (1), to cut short, curtail. (E.) ‘His top was dokked lyk
a preest biforn ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 392 (A 590). From dock, sb., the
stump of a tail, stump, cut end; cf. ‘ dokkyn, or smytyn awey the
N
DOCK
tayle;’ Prompt. Parv.. See prov. E. dock, the solid, fleshy part of
an animal’s tail (E.D.D.). Cf. Low ὦν, dokke, a bunch, a stump,
peg (Berghaus) ; G. docke, a rail, plug, peg (like proy, E. dock, peg
of a top); MHG, tocke, OHG. foceha, around stick; Icel. dockr, a
short stumpy tail (Haldorsson); EFries. dokke, a bundle, bunch of
flax, hank of yarn. We even find MF. docquer, from Low G.; Pals-
grave has; ‘I scutte, Je docgue;’ p., 707. Andcf. WFlem, dokken, to
strike, knock ; MHG, tuc, a blow, stroke. Der. docket.
DOCK (2), a kind of plant. (E.) ME, dokke; Chaucer, Troil.iv.
461. AS. docce, a dock; very common in Cockayne’s ed. of A.S.
178
Leechdoms; see Glossary in vol. ili,-MDu. docke (as in docken |
bladeren, dock-leayes, Hexham) ; MDan. d-dotka, water-dock ([Κα]-
kar). Cf.-also Gael. dogha, a burdock; Irish meacan-dogha, the
great common burdock, where meacaz, means a tap-rooted plant, as
carrot, parsnip, &c. Der. bur-dock.
DOCK (3), a basin for ships. (Du.) ,In North’s Plutarch, p. 536
(R.). [G. Douglas has: ‘ Let every barge do prent hyr-self a dok ν᾽
L. ‘sulcumgue sibi premat ipsa carina ;’ ‘Aen. x, 296. This answers
to Norw. dokk, a hollow, depression ; and seems to be quite a different
word.] Cotgraye explains F. haze as ‘a dock, to mend or build ships
in.’ = MDnu. dokke, a harbour; Kilian, Oudemans; whence also Dan.
dokke, Swed, docka, G. docke,a dock, Mod. Du. dok. Der. dock, verb; |
dock-yard, ἧτο" The history of the word is very obscure. The ME.
dok (in G. Douglas) also resembles prov, E, doke, a hollow, depression,
indentation; Du. deyk, a dent.
DOCKET, a label, list, ticket, abstract..(E.) ‘The docket doth
but signify the king's pleasure for such a bill to be drawn;’ State
Trials, Abp. Laud, an, 1640 (R.).; ‘Mentioned in a docquet ;’
Clarendon, Civil War, v. ii. p. 426. Docket is explained as being an
abstract in Blount, Nomolexicon (1691). Apparently allied to the
verb dock, to clip, curtail, hence to make a brief abstract; cf. ‘ doker,
or dockyd;’ Prompt. Parv. See Dock.(1).
a F, form (as *docquet), from MF..décguer, to dock; -but no F. docguet
is found. Der. docket, verb,
DOCTOR, a teacher, a physician. (Ε΄ τε Το ‘A docloxr of
phisik ;” Chaucer, C. T. Prol. 413. (At) 3 spelt docor, P. Plowman,
C. xii. οὐ, -- OF. doctowr.— L. doe/erem, aces of doctor, a teacher. L.
docére, to teach; with agential suffix -¢ar,, See Docile., Der. doc-
tor-ate; and see doctrine, doc iment.
DOCTRINE, teaching, learning. (F.—L.)
C. xii, 225.— Εἰ, doctrine, L. doctrina, learning, = L, doctor, a teacher ;
see above. Der, doctrin-al.
DOCUMENT, a paper adduced to prove a thing. (F.—L.)
*Thus louers with ther moral documents’ ‘The Craft of Lovers,
st. 1; in Chaucer’s works, ed. 1561, [0]. 341... Εἰ, document, ‘a docu-
ment ;’ Cot.—L. documentum, a proof. L. docére, to teach, with
suffix -men/um; see Dozile. Der. document-al, document-ar-y.
DODDER, a kind of twining parasitic plant. (E.) \ ME. doder; |
Voc. 557. 11.4 Dan, dodder ; Swed. dodra; G. dotter, ΜΉ (ἃ, toler;
OWestphal. doder, Mone, Quellen, p. 257, 1.. 44. Orig. meaning
uncertain.
DODECAGON, a plane figure, having 12 equal sides and angles,
(Gk.) In Phillips’ Dict.ed. 1658. Coined from Gk. δώδεκα, twelve;
and γωνία, an angle, B. The Greek δώδεκα is from dw-, i.e. δύο, two ;
and δέκα, ten. See Decagon.
DODECAHEDRON, a solid figure, with 12 equal pentagonal
faces. (Gk.) Spelt dodecaedron in Kersey, ed. 1715. Coined from
Gk, δώδεκα, twelve; and €5pa, a base. See above, and Decahe-
dron,
DODGE, to go hither and thither, evade, quibble. (E.) ‘Let
there be some dodging casuist with more craft than sincerity ;’ Mil-
ton, Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (R.). Florio (1598) explains
Ital. arrowelare by ‘ to wheele or turne about, to dodge.’ In Gammer |
Gurton’s Needle, we find: ‘ dost but dodge,’ i.e, thou dost but quibble;
Hazlitt’s Old Plays, iii, 254 (cf. p. 193). Of uncertain origin. a.
The base seems to be that which appears in the Lowland Scotch dod,
to jog, North Eng, dad, tg shake; whence the frequentative forms
seen in North Eng. daddle, doddle, to walk wnsteadily, dodder, to
shake, tremble, totter, as also. in dadge, or dodge, to walk in a slow |
clumsy manner; doggle, or dodge/, to totter in walking, δες. (E,D.D.).
B. The orig, sense appears to be ‘to move unsteadily,’ or ‘ to shift
from place to place.’ But the history is very obscure.
DODO, a kind of large bird, now extinet. (Port.—E.?) In Her-
bert’s Travels, ed. 1665, p. 403, is a drawing of a dodo; at p. 402 he
speaks of ‘the dodo, a bird the Dutch call walgh-vogel or dod-eersen,’
which was then found in the Mauritius,
he adds: ‘a Portuguize name it is, and has reference to her sim-
plenes.’= Port. doudo, silly, foolish. According to Diez, this Port.
word was borrowed from late ME. dold, stupid; formed from AS. |
dol, dull, stupid. See Dold in N.E,D.; and cf. dolt. 4] Similarly
the booby was named, also by the Portuguese. See the long article
47 Docket might well be |
In P. Plowman, |
In his second edition, 1638, |
DOLEFUL
on the dodo in the Engl. Cyclopedia. Walg-vogel in Dutch means
‘nauseous bird ;’ it seems that the sailors killed them so easily that
they were surfeited of them.
DOB, the female of the buck. (C.?) ME. doo; Wyclif, Prov. vi. 5.
AS. da, translating L. dama in a copy of lfric’s Glossary cited by
Lye; cf. Sdamma, vel dammula, da;’ Voc. 320, 35. Cf. Dan. daa, a
deer (from AS. da); daa-hiort, lit. doe-hart, a buck; daa-hind, lit.
doe-hind, a doe. Also Swed. dofhjort, a buck; dofhind, a doe;
OHG, tamo, m., a buck. β. Perhaps all from L. dama, a deer;
but the E. form may be Celtic; cf. lrish dam, an ox, dam allaid, a
stag ; Stokes-Fick, p. 142.-4-Gk. δαμάλης, a young steer, Skt. damyas,
a steer, from dam, to tame. See Tame.
DOFF, to take off clothes or a hat. (E.) ‘And doffing his bright
arms ;’ Spenser, Ἐν Q. vi. 9. 36. ‘Dof bliue [15 bere-skin >= doff
quickly this bear-skin ; William of Palerne, 2343. A contraction of
do of, i.e, put off, just as don is of do on, and dup of do up. The ex-
pression is a very old one. ‘ pa hé him of dyde isernbyrnan’ =then he
did off his iron breast-plate; Beowulf, ed. Grein, 671.
DOG, a domestic quadruped. (E.) ME. dogge (2 syllables) ;
Ancren Riwle, p. 290. AS. docga, in a gloss ; ‘Canum (gen. pl.),
do-gena ;’ Cooper’s Report on Rymer’s Foedera, App. B. p. 148;
col. 1 (Record Series), .Cf, AS. Doggi-porn, Birch, Cart. Saxon. iii.
113; Doggene-ford, Kemble, Cod. Dipl. vi. 231. Hence were bor-
rowed Du, dog, a mastiff; Swed. dogg, a mastiff; Dan. dogge, a
bull-dog. Root unknown. Der. dog, verb, to track (Shak.); dogg-
ish, -ish-ly, -ish-ness + also dogg-ed, i.e. sullen (Shak. K, John, iv. τ.
129), -ed-ly, -ed-ness. Also dog-brier, -cart, -day, -fish, -rose, -star ;
| dog’s-ear.
DOG-CHEAP, very cheap. (E.) In Holinshed’s Chron. Eng.
. (1587), p. 476: ‘wool was dog-cheape.’ From dog (above). Cf.
dog-lired, dog-lame, &c.
DOGE, a duke of Venice. (Ital.-L.). In Blount’s Gloss. ed.
1674; and in Evelyn’s Diary (June, 1643).—Ital. doge, a doge,
| captain, general ; a provincial form of *doce.—L. ducem, ace. of dux,
a leader. See Duke.
DOGGER, a kind of fishing vessel. (E.) AF. doggere, inan Act
of 31 Edw, III. stat. 3. cap. 1 (1356). [Elence, apparently, Du.
| dogger and Icel, dugga were borrowed.] Origin uncertain ; perhaps
named, in some way, from E. dog. Cf. MDu. doggen,doggeren, * to
dogg one, or, to follow one secretly ;’ Hexham. See Notes on
E, Etym., p. γος
DOGGEREL, wretched poetry. (E.). Orig..an adj., and spelt
dogerel. ‘ This may wel be rime dogerel, quod he ;’ Chaucer, C. T.
13853 (B 2155). ‘ Amid my dogrell rime;’ Gascoigne, Counsel to
Withipoll, 1, 12, Prob, from dog; cf. Dog-cheap.
DOGMA, a definite tenet. (Gk.) ‘This dogma of the world's
eternity ;’ Cudworth, Intellectual System, p. 251 (R.). Rich. also
quotes the pl. dogmata from Glanvill, Pre-existence of Souls, c. 12.—
Gk. δόγμα, that which seems good, an opinion; pl. déyuara.—Gk.
δοκέω, pert, pass. δέδογμαι, Lam valued at, 1am of opinion. Allied
to L. docére, to teach; see Docile. Der. dogmat-ic, -ic-al, -ic-al-ly,
-ise, -1s-er, -ism, -ist, all from the stem δόγματ-.
DOILY, a small napkin. (Personal name.) Also used as the
name of a woollen stuff. ‘We should be as weary of one set of
acquaintance, though never so good, as we are of one suit, though
neyer so fine ;.a fool, and a ἐρεῖν stuff, would now and then find days
of grace, and be worn for variety ;’ Congreve, Way of the World ;
Α iii, sc, 3. § The’stores are very low, sir, some doiley petticoats and
manteaus we have, and half a dozen pair of laced shoes ;.’ Dryden,
Kind Keeper, iv. 1. ‘The famous Dolly . . . who raised a fortune
by finding out materials for stuffs,’ &c.; Spectator, πο. 283 (1712).
| Pegge says that ‘ Doyley kept a Linnen-drapers shop in the Strand,
a little W. of Catharine Street.” Some say no. 346, Strand, at the
|, E, corner of Wellington Street. The stuff was named after him.
The’name is of French origin; cf. Rich. Coer de Lion, ed, Weber,
1, 1647.
DOIT, a small Dutch coin. (Du. —Scand.) In Shak. Temp. ii. 2.
33.— Du. duit, a doit. =Icel, (ONorse) Aveit, a piece, bit, small coin.
=Icel. *Aveit, 2nd grade of *Jviéa, to cut, a lost verb. cognate with
| AS. Awitan, to cut; see Thwite.. .
DOLE, a small portion. (K.) ME. dole, dale. Spelt dole,
Ancren Riwle, pp. 10, 412; dale, Layamon, 19646, where the later
text has dole. AS, dal, ge-dal, Grein, i. 390; a variant of AS. dél,
a portion. Thus dole is a doublet of deal (1), 4. ν. 4] The difference
between deal and dole appears to be due to the suffix; dal is from a
type *dailo-; and deal from a type *daili-.
DOLEFUL, sad, miserable, (Hybrid; F. and E.) A hybrid
word, made by suffixing the AS. -ful to ME. doel, deol, duel, dol, del,
of French origin, ‘A deolful ping;’ Layamon, 6901, later text.
| The sb. appears in Lowland Scotch as dool; spelt deol in King
Horn, ed. Lumby, 1048; dol in O. Eng. Hom. i. 285, 1. 4.—OF.
DOLL
doel, duel, dol, mod. F. deuil, grief, mourning (Supp. to Godefroy,
s. v. dueil) ; verbal sb. of OF. dolotr, to grieve; cf. L. cordolium, grief
at heart. —L, dolére, to grieve. Der. doleful-ly, -ness. See con-dole,
and dolour.
DOLL, a child’s puppet. (Gk.) ‘Il carry you and your doll too,
Miss Margery ;’ Garrick, Miss in her Teens, Act ii. (Fribble).
The same word as Doll, pet name for Dorothy; cf. Doll Tearsheet in
2 Hen. IV. “Ὁ capitulum lepidissimum, . . O little pretie doll
poll ;’ Cooper’s Thesaurus, 1565. So also Sc. doro/y, a doll; from
Dorothy, which is a name of Gk. origin. In Johnson’s Dict.
DOLLAR, a silver coin. (Low G.—G.) In Shak. Macb.i. 2. 62.
— Low G. daler, a dollar. Adapted and borrowed from (ἃ. thaler, a
dollar. B. The G. thaler is an abbreviation of Joachimsthaler, acoin
so called because first coined from silver obtained from mines in
Joachimsthal (i.e, Joachim’s dale) in Bohemia about A.p. 15183 they
were sometimes called Schlickenthaler, because coined by the counts
of Schlick. The Ὁ. ¢hal is cognate with E. dale, Thus dollar=
dale-er. See Dale. 4 The Du. form is daalder.
DOLMAN, a kind of loose jacket. (F.—G.—Hung.—Turk. )
‘Clothed with a robe of dollymant crimson;’ Hakluyt, Voy. vol.
ii. pt. 1. p. 113.—F. dolman.—G. dolman, dollman.— Hung. dolmany.
— Turk. délaman, dilamah, a kind of long robe.
DOLMEN, a monument of two (or more) upright stones, with a
flat stone above them, (C.) The French name for a cromlech. =F.
dolmen. [Explained as ‘stone-table’ by Legonidec; from Bret. 26],
taol, table (from L. ‘abula) ; and men, a stone.} But rather ‘a stone
with a hole beneath..—Corn. dolmén, tolmén; from Com. doll, ‘oll
(W. twill, a hole) ; and méx (W. maen),astone. See N.E.D.
DOLOMITE, a kind of rock. (F.) Named, in 1794, after M.
Dolomieu, a French geologist (1750-1801).
DOLOUR, grief, sorrow. (F.—L.) In Shak. Two Gent. iii. 1.
240. ΜΕ. dolour, O. Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 212.—OF.
dolour, MF. doleur, * grief, sorrow ;* Cot.—L. dolorem, acc. of dolor,
grief.—L. dolére, to grieve; see Doleful. Der. dolor-ous, used by
Cotgrave to translate MF, doloureux, from L. adj. dolordsus.
DOLPHIN, a kind of fish. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Spenser, Εἰ. Ὁ. iv.
11. 23. ΜΕ. dolphyne, Allit. Morte Arthure, 2054. [ME. delfyn,
King Alisaunder, 6576, is immediately from L. delphinus.|—OF.
daulphin, older spelling of dauphin ; Cot. —Folk-L. dalfinum, acc. of
dalfinus, for L. delphinus.— Gk. δελφιν-, stem of δελφίς, a dolphin;
supposed to mean ‘ belly-fish;’ cl. Gk, δελφύς, womb. See Curtius,
i. 81. Doublet, dauphin.
DOLT, a dull or stupid fellow. (E.) In Shak. Oth. y. 2. 163.
ΜΕ. dult, blunt ; ‘dulée neiles, blunt nails, i. e. instruments of the
Passion; O. Eng. Hom. 1. 203; and see Ancren Riwle, p. 292,
where for dudte another reading is dudle, |The word is a mere exten-
sion of ME. dul, dull. Cf. Prov. E. dold, stupid, confused (Halli-
well), so that the suffixed -t =-d =-ed ; and dolt or dult is for dulled, i.e.
blunted. See Dull. Der. dolt-ish, -ish-ness ; dodo.
DOMATN, territory, estate. (F.—L.) ‘A domaine and inherit-
ance ;’ Holland’s Pliny, Ὁ. xiii. c. 3. 1. 4.—=MF. domaine, ‘a
demaine’ (sic), Cot. ; OF. demaine, a domain ; also, power ; Godefroy.
=Late L. dominicum, neut. of dominicus, with the same sense as
L. dominium, lordship, private property.—L. dominus, a lord; see
Dominate, Doublet, demesne, q. v.
DOME, a hemi-spherical roof. (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘Dome, a town-
house, guild-hall, state-house, meeting-house in a city, from that of
Florence, which is so called. Also, a flat round loover, or open roof
to a steeple, banqueting-house, &c. somewhat resembling the bell of
a great watch;’ Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674.— MF. dome, ‘a town-house,
guild-hall,’ &c. (as above) ; also dosme, ‘a flat-round loover,’ &c. (as
above); Cot. [The spelling dosme is false.]— Itai. duomo, domo, a
cathedral church (house of God). =—L. domum, acc. of domus, a house,
a building.’ (4/DEM.) See Timber. Korting, § 3089.
DOMESTIC, belonging to a house. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Rich. Il],-di. 4. 60.—F. domestique, ‘domesticall, housall, of our
houshold ;’ Cot.—L. domesticus, belonging to a household. =L.
domus, a house. Der. domestic-al-ly, -ate, -at-ion ; and see domicile,
dome.
DOMICILE, a little house, abode. (F.—L.) ‘One of the
cells, or domicils of the understanding ;’ Bacon, on Learning, by G.
Wats, ii. 12 (R.).—OF. domicile, ‘an house, mansion ;’ Cot.—L.
domicilium, a habitation.—L. domi- (=domo-), for domus, a house ;
and -citium, possibly allied to cella, a cell; see Dome and Cell.
Der. domicili-ar-y, -ate ; from L. domicili-um.
DOMINATE, to rule over. (L.) Shak. has dominator, L.L. L.
i. 1. 222; Titus, ii. 3. 31. [The sb. domination, ME. dominacion, is
in early use ; see Chaucer, C. T. 12494 (C 560); from OF. domina-
tion.|—L. domindtus, pp. of dominari, to be lord. = L. dominus, lord.
+Skt. damana-s, a horse-tamer; from dam, to tame; see Tame.
Der. dominat-ion (F. domination), -ive; domin-ant (F. dominant, pres.
DOR 179
pt. of dominer, to govern) ; and see domineer, dominical, dominion,
domino, domain, demesne, don (2).
DOMINEER, to play the master. (Du.—F.—L.) In Shak.
Tam. Shrew, iii. 2. 226.—MDu. domineren, to feast luxuriously ;
Oudemans.=OF. dominer, ‘to govern, rule . . . domineer, to have
soveraignty ;’ Cot.—L. domindri, to be lord; see above. For the
suffix, ef. cash-ier.
DOMINICAL,, belonging to our Lord. (F.—L.) In Shak.
L. L. L. v. 2. 44.—=MF. dominical; Cot.—Late L. dominicilis, do-
minical.—L. dominicus, belonging to a lord. = L. dominus, a lord; see
Dominate.
DOMINION, lordship. (F.—L.) ‘To haue lordship or do-
minion;’ Lydgate, Storie of Thebes, pt. ii; The Answer of King
Ethiocles.— OF. dominion.—Late L. acc. cominidnem, from nom.
dominio.—L. dominium, lordship.—L. dominus, a lord; see Do-
minate.
DOMINO, a masquerade-garment: (Span.—L.) ‘Domino, a
kind of hood worn by the canons of a cathedral church; also a
mourning-vail for women ;’ Kersey, ed. 1715.—Span. domino, a mas-
querade-dress. Orig. a2 hood worn by a master.—Span. domine, a
master, a teacher of Latin grammar.—L. dominus, a master; see
Dominate. Der. dominoes, the name of a game; from the phrase
faire domino, to complete (and win) the game; Hatzfeld.
DON (1), to put on clothes. (E.) ‘Don his clothes ;’ Hamlet, iv.
5. 52. Acontraction of do on, i.e. put on. ‘ Brutus hehte his beornes
don on hure burnan’= Brutus bade his men do on their breast-plates ;
Layamon, 1700, 1701. See Doff, Dup.
DON (2), sir; a Spanish title. (Span.—L.) In Shak. Two Gent.
i. 3. 39-—Span. don, lit. master, a Spanish title. —L. dominus, a mas-
ter; see Dominate. @ The Span. fem. is duenna, q.v.; donna is
Italian. The word itself is ultimately the same as the ME. dan, as in
‘dan John,’ or ‘dan Thomas’ or ‘dan Albon;’ Chaucer, C. T. 13935
(B 3119). This form is from the OF. dan, acc. of dans = L. dominus.
DONATION, a gift. (F.—L.) In Shak. Temp. iv. 85.—F. do-
nation, ‘a donation, a present ;᾿ Cot.—L. acc. dénationem, from nom.
donatio.—. dénare, to give.—L. dénum,a gift; cognate with Gk.
δῶρον, ἃ present, Skt. dana-m, a gift; cf. Skt. da, to give; OSlavon.
da-mi, I give; Lith. dz-mi, 1 give. —4/DO, to give. Brugmann, i.
§ 167. Der. From the same source are donat-ive, don-or, don-ee.
From the same root are anecdote, antidote, condone, pardon, dose,
dower ; also date (1), dative, dado, dte (2), δες.
DONJON, the keep of a fortress ; see Dungeon.
DONKEY, a familiar name for an ass. (E.) Common in mod.
E., but rare in E. literature; orig. dialectal. ‘A Donky, ora Dicky.
Anass. Essex and Suff.;’ Gent. Mag. 1793, pt-ii. p. 1083. It seems
at first to have rhymed with monkey,-as still in Somersets. a. The
word is a double diminutive, formed with the suffixes -ἀ- and -y (-ey),
the full form of the double suffix appearing in the Lowland Scotch
lass-tckie, a little-little lass; this double suffix is particularly common
in the Banffshire dialect, which has beastikie from beast, horsikie from
horse, &c., as explained in The Dialect of Banffshire, by the Rey.
Walter Gregor, p. 5. B. The stem is dun, a familiar name for a
horse, as used in the common phrase ‘dun is in the mire;’ as to
which see Chaucer, C. T. Mancip. Prol. 1. 5; Shak. Romeo, i. 4. 41.
The name dun was given to a horse or ass in allusion to its colour;
see Dun. @ Similarly was formed dunnock, ME. donek, a hedge-
sparrow, with a single suffix -ock.
DOOM, a judgment, decision. (E.) ME. dom; Havelok, 2487;
and common. AS. dém; Grein, i. 196. - Swed. and Dan. dom; Icel.
domr; Goth. doms; OHG., tuom, judgment. Teut. type *ddmoz, m.
Allied to Gk. θέμις, law ; and τί-θη-μι, I place, set. From 4/ DHE,
to place; ef. Skt. dha, to place, set; L.-dere,asincon-dere ; Lith. de-ti,
to place ; OSlavon. dé-t:, to place. Brugmann,i. ὃ 573. Der. deem,
yerb; q.v.; doomsday, q.v. Observe that the suffix -dom (AS. -dém)
is the same word as doom. See Theme, Thesis.
DOOMSDAY-BOOK, asurvey of England madeby William I.
(E.) So-called, popularly, as being a final authority. The etymology
is obvious, viz. from AS. domes deg, the day of judgment or decision ;
cf. ME. domesday, Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, iii. 194 (1284).
DOOR, an entrance-gate. (E.) ME. dore, Havelok, 1788. AS. dor,
n., duru, f.; Grein, i. 212.4 Du. deur; Dan. dor; Swed. dorr; Icel.
dyrr; Goth. daur; OHG. tor, G. thor, thiir. Further allied to L.
fores, pl.; Lith. durys, pl.; Olrish dorus, n.; W. drws, m.; Russ.
dver(e); Gk. θύρα; Skt. dvar; a door, gate. Root uncertain. Brug-
mann, i. § 462. Der. door-nail (ME. dorenail, Will. of Palerne, 628) ;
door-pin (ME. dorepin, durepin, Gen, and Exodus, 1078); door-ward
(ME. doreward, dureward, Layamon, ii. 317).
DOR, an insect that flies with a great humming noise. (E.) ME.
dore; ‘Crabro, dore;’ Voc. 576. 4. AS. dora; ‘Atticus, dora;’ Voc.
7.30. Lit. ‘buzzer;” cf Swed. dial. dorra, to buzz loudly; Dan.
dure, to roar (Larsen).
N 2
180 DORMANT
DORMANT, sleeping. (F.—L.) ‘His table-dormant ;’ Chaucer,
C. T. 355 (A 353).—F. dormant, pres. pt. of dormir, to sleep. =L.
dormire, to sleep; see Dormitory. Der. dormanc-y.
DORMER-WINDOW, an attic-window. (F. and E.) A
dermer was a sleeping-room. ‘Or to any shop, cellar, . . chamber,
dormer ;’ Chapman, All Fools, Act iv. sc. 1 (Notary). — OF. dormeor,
a dormitory (Godefroy). = L. dormitorium (below).
DORMITORY, a sleeping-chamber. (L.) ‘The dormitorie-
door;’ Holinshed, Desc. of Ireland, c. 3.—L. dormitorium, a sleep-
ing-chamber ; neut. of dormitorius, adj. of or belonging to sleeping. —
L. dormitor,a sleeper. — L.dormire,to sleep. Allied to Russ. dremat(e),
to sleep; also to Gk. δαρθάνειν, to sleep, Skt. dra, to sleep.
DORMOUSE, a kind of mouse. (F.—L.; and E.) ‘ Laye still
lyke a dormouse, nothynge doynge;’ Hall, Hen. VII, an 7. § 6.
ME. dormows. ‘ Hic sorex,a dormcws;’ Voc. 700. 20; and in Prompt.
Pary. Lit. ‘sleeping-mouse.’ The prefix is dorm (as if dorm-mouse) ;
from prov. E. dorm, to sleep. Cf. Icel., Norw., and Swed. dial. dorma,
to doze. All, apparently, from F. dorm:r,to sleep; see above. @ Hal-
liwell gives dorrer, a sleeper; but it has not been found.
DORNICK, a kind of cloth ; obsolete. (Flem.) See Bury Wills,
p- 135. Spelt dorneckes in Palsgrave. Named from Flem. Dornick
(Hexham); better known as F. Tournay (L. Tornacus). See
Cambric.
DORSAL, belonging to the back. (F.—L.) The term ‘dorsal fin’
is used by Pennant, Zool., iii. 32 (1769).—F. dorsal, of or belonging
to the back; Cot.—Late L. dorsalis, belonging to the back. = L. dor-
sum, the back.4-Olrish druimm, W. trum, back, ridge.
DORY, a fish. See John Dory.
DOSE, a portion of medicine. (F.—Gk.) ‘Without repeated
doses ;’ Dryden's tr. of Virgil, Dedication. And used by Cotgrave.
— MF. dose, ‘a dose, the quantity of potion or medicine,’ &c.; Cot.—
Gk. δόσις, a giving, a portion given or prescribed. —Gk. base δο-,
allied to δίδωμι, I give; cf. Skt. da, to give. Der. dose, verb. See
Donation.
DOT, a small mark, speck. (E.) Not in early use, and uncommon
in old authors. It occurs in Johnson’s Dict., and the phrase ‘ dotted
lines’ occurs in Burke’s Letters (Todd). Levins (1570) has: ‘A dot,
obstructorium.’ Cotgrave has: ‘Caillon, a dot, clot, or congealed
lump. The only other early trace I can find of it is in Palsgrave,
qu. by Halliwell, who uses do in the sense of ‘a small lump, or pat.’
Cf. prov. Eng. dot, a small lump, a small child. AS. dot/, only in
the sense of ‘ the head of a boil;’ A. 8. Leechdoms, ili. 40. Cf. Du.
dot, ‘a little bundle of spoiled wool, thread, silk, or such like, which
is good for nothing;” Sewel; or, ‘a whirled knot, clue, pellet ;’
Calisch. Also Norw. (οι, a tuft, bunch, wisp to stop a hole with ;
Low G, dutte,a plug. See Dit. B. The remoter origin is obscure ; cf.
Swed, dial. dof/, a little heap, clump; EFriesic do/te, dot, a clump
(Koolman); NFries. dodd, a clump (Outzen); Norw. dott, a tuft, a
wisp, something to stop up a hole with; Norw. dytte, AS. dyttan, to
stop up. Rietz (5. ν. dotfa, to stop up) cites Swed. dial. dot/, some-
thing soft rolled up, to stop up a hole with. See Dit.
DOTAGE, childishness, foolishness. (E. with F. suffix.) ME.
dotage, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 1425. From the verb doe, with
F. suffix -age, answering to L. suffix -fticum. See Dote.
DOTARD, a foolish fellow. (E. with F. suffix.) In Chaucer,
C. T. 5913 (Ὁ 331). From the verb dofe; with F. suffix -ard, of
OHG. origin. See Dote.
DOTEH, to be foolish. (E.) In early use. ME. dotien, doten;
Layamon, ]. 3294; P. Plowman, A. i. 129; B. i. 138. An Old Low
G. word. Cf. MDu. doten, to dote, mope, Oudemans ; Du. dutten, to
take a nap, to mope; dut, a nap, sleep, dotage; Icel. dotta, to nod
with sleep; MHG. sazen, to keep still, mope. 4 The F. radoter,
OF. re-doter, is of O. Low G. origin, with L. prefix re-. Der. dot-
age, q.v.; dot-ard, q.v.; dott-er-el, a silly bird, Drayton’s Polyolbion,
s. 25 (near the end); and Prompt. Pary.
DOUBLE, two-fold. (F.—L.) ME. double, Ancren Riwle, p. 70.
— OF. doble, later double, —L. duplus, double, lit. two-fold. ταῦ. du-,
for duo, two; and -plus, related to -πλὸς in Gk. δι-πλός, two-fold. See
Two. Der. double, verb; double-ness; also doublet, q. v., doublocn, q. Vv.
DOUBLET, an inner garment. (F.—L.) In Shak. Temp. il. 1.
102. ΜΕ. dobbelet, ‘a garment, bigera;’ Prompt. Parv.; see Way’s
note. = OF. double’, ‘a doublet, a jewell, or stone of two peeces joyned
or glued together;’ Cot. [Here doublet is probably used in a lapi-
dary’s sense, but the word is the same; see Godefroy, and cf. MF.
doublure, lining for a garment.}—F. double, double; with dim. suffix
-et; see Double.
DOUBLOON, a Spanish coin. (F.—Span.—L.) A Spanish
word, given in Johnson's Dict. as doublon, which is the Εἰ, form. =
Span. doblon, so called because it was the double of a pistole.—Span.
doblo, double ; with suffix -on (= Ital. -one.)—L. duplus ; see Double.
DOUBT, to be uncertain. (F.—L.) ME. douten, commonly in the
DOWLE
sense ‘to fear ;’ Havelok, 1. 708. — OF. douter, later doubter, as in Cot-
grave, whence ὁ was inserted into the E. word also. —L. dubi/are, to
doubt, be of two minds; allied to dubius, doubtful; see Dubious.
Der. doubt, sb.; -er, -ful, ~ful-ly, -ful-ness, -less, -less-ly.
DOUCEUR, a small present. (F.—L.) A French word, used by
Burke (Todd). —F. douceur, lit. sweetness. — L. dulcdrem, acc. of dul-
cor, sweetness. = L. dulcis, sweet ; see Dulcet.
DOUCHE, a shower-bath. (F.—Ital.—L.) Modern, anda French
word. =F. douche, a douche, a shower-bath, introduced from Ital. in
the 16th cent. (Brachet).—Ital. doccia, a conduit, canal, water-pipe,
spout. = Ital. docciare, to pour; formed as if from a Late L. *ductiare,
a derivation of ductus,a leading, in Late L.,a duct, canal; see Duct.
DOUGH, kneaded flour. (E.) ME. dah, dagh, do3, dogh, dow ;
spelt do}, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 205; see da} in Stratmann, p. 151.
AS. dah, gen. dages, dough; A. S. Leechdoms, ii. 342, 1. 18.-- Du.
deeg ; Dan. deig; Swed. deg ; Icel. deig ; Goth. daigs, a kneaded lump.
G. teig. Teut.type *daig-oz,m. B. The sense is ‘a kneaded lump;’
the root appears in Goth, deigan, digan, to knead, to form out of a
plastic material, Rom. ix. 20; cognate with L. jingere, to form, shape,
mould; also with Skt. dik, to smear.—./DHEIGH, to mould, to
knead; whence also Gk. τεῖχος, a wall (orig. of earth); and cf.
Paradise. Brugmann,i.§ 604. Der. dough-y. And see Figure,
Fiction, Dairy, Lady.
DOUGHTY, able, strong, valiant. (E.) ME. duhti, dohti,
dou3ti; Layamon, 14791; P. Plowman, B. v. 102. AS. dohtig, also
dyhtig, valiant; Grein, i. 213.—AS, dugan, to be strong, to avail.
Cf. Du. deugen, to be worth; Dan. due, to avail; whence dygtig, able,
capable ; Swed. duga, to avail; whence dugtig, able, fit; Icel. duga,
to avail; whence dygdugr, doughty; Goth. dugan, to avail, suit ;
OHG, tugan, G. taugen, to be worth; whence Οὐ. tiichtig, able,
4 The AS. dugan is prov. E. dow, to be worth something.
DOUSE, to plunge into water, immerse. (Scand.?) “1 have
washed my feet in mire or ink, douz’d my carnal affections in all the
vileness of the world; ’ Hammond, Works, iv. 515 (R.). ‘ He was
very often used... to be dowssed [perfundebatur] in water luke-
warme ;’ Holland, Suetonius, p. 75 (R.). ‘To swing i’ th’ air,
or douce in water ;’ Butler, Hudibras, pt. ii. c. 1. 1. 502. Perhaps of
Scand. origin; cf. Norw. dusa, to fall or topple down, as with a blow
(Aasen); dus (with uz), a push, a blow (id.). Cf. also MSwed. dunsa,
to fall heavily (Ihre); Swed. dial. duxsa, to plump down, fall
clumsily ; dus, the noise of a falling body; Rietz. And see
Dowse (1).
DOUT, to extinguish. (E.) In Shak. Hen. V, iv. 2. 11. Doxt
is for do out, i.e. put out. Cf. doff, don, dup, for do off, do on, do up.
DOVE, the name of a bird. (E.) ME. doue, douue, dowue (where
u=v); P. Plowman, B. xv. 393. AS. dife, only found in the com-
pound di/e-doppa, used to translate L. pelicinus (Bosworth) ; the usual
AS. word was culfra.4+OSax. diba (Heliand) ; Goth. dubo ; G. taube,
B. The sense is ‘ diver,’ the form dufe being from the verb difan, to
dive, with the suffix -e denoting the fem. agent, as usual. And see
Dive and Columbine. Der. dove-cot; also dove-tail, q. v.
DOVETAIL, to fasten boards together. (K.) ‘ Dovetaild is
a term among joyners,’ &c.; Blount’s Gloss. From dove and ¢ail ;
from the shape of the fitted ends of the board (<q).
DOW AGER, a widow with a jointure. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Mids. N. D. i. 1.5, 157. Spelt douagier in Palsgrave; Epistle, p. i.
- OF. douagere, sb. f. (Godefroy) ; from dovage, a dower. Cf.‘ To
make her dowage [endowment] of so rich a jointure ;’ Merry Devil of
Edmonton (R.). B. Again, the OF. dou-age is from the F. dover, to
endow. =—L. da/are, to endow. See Dower.
DOWDY, shabbily dressed; as sb., a slattern, (Scand.) £ Dido,
a dowdy ;’ Shak. Romeo and Juliet, ii. 4. 43. From ME. dowd, an
ill-dressed person; found as early as 1330 (N.E.D.); οἷν prov. E.
dowd, a woman’s cap (E.D.D.).—Icel. dada, to wrap up, swathe;
didi, swaddling clothes. Cf. Duds. N
DOWEL, a plug for connecting two pieces of wood, &c. (Low G.)
‘The quelis [wheels] ar ioyned with mani a dowle ;’ Cursor Mundi,
21270.—Low G, duvel, a plug (Liibben) ; cf. ἃ. dobel, OHG. tubilt,
a dowel; EFries. dofel. Allied to Swed. dubb, a plug, peg- Perhaps
influenced by F. dowille, a socket. f
DOWER, an endowment. (F.—L.) ME. dower, Chaucer,
C. T. 8683 (E 807).—OF. doaire, later douaire.— Late L. dotarium, =
L. dotare, to endow. —L. doi-, stem of dos (gen. dolis), a gilt, dowry.
+ Gk. das, a gift-e4/ DO, to give; cf. Skt. da, to give. Der.
dower-ed, dower-less; dowry (for dower-y) ; and see dowager.
DOWLAS, a coarse kind of linen. (Brittany.) ‘ Britaine [Brit-
tany] where . . Doulas and Lockeram is made ;’ Act 28 Hen. VIII.
c. 4. § 1 (N.E.D.). And in Shak. 1 Hen. IV. iii. 3. 79. — Bret.
Daoulas, SE. of Brest, in Brittany. See Lockram.
DOWLE,, a filament of a feather. (F.—L. ?)
ili. 3. 65. ME. doule, Plowman's Tale, 1272.
In Shak. Temp.
Perhaps from OF.
DOWN
doulle, douille, somewhat soft. = L. ductilis ; see Ductile.
see Notes on E. Etym.]
DOWN (1), soft plumage. (Scand.) In Gower, C. A. ii. 103, bk.
iv. 3021.—Icel.diinn, down; Swed. dun; Dan. duun. Cf. Lith. dujé,
down. Der. down-y; eider-down.
DOWN (2), a hill. (C.) ME. dun, doun; Layamon, 27256;
Ormulum, 14568. AS. dain, a hill; Grein, i. 213.—Jrish dan, a for-
tified hill, fort, town ; Gael. dun, a hill, mount, fort ; W. din, a hill-
fort. B. Cognate with AS. tix, a fort, enclosure, town; the AS. ¢
answering to Celtic d by Grimm’s law. See Town. Der. a-down,
q.v.; also down (3), q.v. Also, ‘the downs,’ a famous road-stead
for ships, opposite the North Downs (Kent) ; ‘in the Downes;’ Capt.
J. Smith, Works, p. 90. Stokes-Fick, p. 150. Doublet, dune.
DOWN (3), adv. and prep. in a descending direction. (E. and
C.) The prep. down is a mere corruption, by loss of the initial, of
ME. a-down, which again is for AS. of-dine, i.e. off or from the hill.
The loss of the prefix is of early date; dun (for a-dune) occurs in
Layamon, 6864, in the phrase ‘he dun lei’=he lay down. It will
be observed that this form dun was originally an adverb, not a pre-
position. See Down (2), and Adown. Der. down-ca:t, -fall,
-hearted, -hill, -right, -ward, -wards. Dunward (downward) occurs
in Layamon, 13106.
DOWSE (1), to strike in the face. (Scand.) ‘ Dowse, a blow on
the chaps;” Kersey, ed. 1715. ‘ Dowse, to give one a slap on the
chaps;’ Bailey (1735). (Cf. ME. duschen, to strike; ‘such a dasande
drede dusched to his heart ’=such a dazing dread struck to his heart ;
Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 1538. Of Scand. origin; cf. Norwegian
dusa, to strike with violence (also to topple down, as from a blow,
Ross); Ger. dial. dusen, tusen, to strike, run against, cited by Rietz
s.v. dust; also MDu. doesen, to beat heavily, strike (Kilian); EFries.
dossen, to strike (Koolman). B. The prov. G. (Altmark) dussex
means ‘to daze one by a blow on the head’ (Danneil) ; cf. Low G.
dussen, to be dased by a blow on the head. Perhaps allied to
Dizzy and Doze.
DOWSE (2), to plunge into water; see Douse.
DOWSE (3), to extinguish. (E.) A cant term; ‘dowse the glim,’
i.e. extinguish the light. Probably only a particular use of dowse
(1), to strike. Possibly suggested by dout, to extinguish.
DOXOLOGY, an utterance of praise to God. (L.- Gk.) ‘ Doxo-
logy, a song of praise,’ &c.; Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674.—Late L.
doxslogia. = Gk. δοξολογία, an ascription of praise.— Gk. δοξολόγος,
giving praise. = Gk. δοξο-, for δόξα, glory; and -λόγος, speaking, from
λέγειν, to speak. Δόξα meant originally ‘a notion,’ from δοκεῖν, to
think, expect ; see Dogma.
DOXY, a disreputable sweetheart. (MDu.) A cant term. In
Shak. Wint. Ta. iv. 3. 2. (Cf. EFries. doktje, dimin. of dokke, a doll.)
Prob. from MDu. docke, a doll. Cf. OHG. toccha, a doll, also a term
of endearment (G. docke).
DOZE, to sleep lightly, slumber. (Scand.) ‘ Dosed with his fumes,
and heavy with his load, They found him snoring in his dark abode;’
Dryden, tr. of Virgil, Ecl. vi. 21. Here dosed means ‘stupefied,’ ‘ ren-
dered drowsy.’=—Swed. dial. dusa, to doze, slumber; Rietz; Dan.
dose, to doze, mope. Cf. Icel. dasa, to doze; Low ἃ. dussen, to be
dizzy. From Teut. base *dus-, whence also dizzy; see Dizzy.
DOZEN, twelve. (F.—L.) ME. dosain; K. Alisaunder, 1. 657.
= OF. dosaine, dozaine; modF, douzaine, a dozen. — OF. doze, modF.
douze, twelve ; with suffix -aine (<L. -éna, as in cent-éna).—L. duo-
decim, twelve. = L. duo, two, cognate with E, two ; and decem, ten,
cognate with E. sex. See Two and Ten.
DRAB (1), a low, sluttish woman. (E.) In Shak. Macb. iv. 1. 31.
Palsgrave has: ‘Drabbe, a slutte.’ (Cf. also Irish drabog, a slut,
slattern, Gael. drabag, a slattern; Gael. drabach, dirty, slovenly, dra-
baire, a dirty, slovenly man; all from E.] Not found in AS. Cf.
EFries. drabbe, puddle-water; Du. drabbe, dregs, draff; Low G.
eels to slaver. Allied to Draff. Der. drab, verb; Hamlet,
11. 1. 26.
DRAB (2), ofa dull brown colour. (F.—Late L.) ‘Drab, adj. (with
clothiers), belonging to a gradation of plain colours betwixt a white
and a dark brown;’ Ash’s Dict. ed. 1775. He also gives: ‘ Drab,
s. (in commerce) a strong kind of cloth, cloth double milled.’ Bailey
(1721) has: ‘Drap, Drab, cloth” It would appear that drab was
applied to the colour of undyed cloth.=F. drap, cloth. = Late L. ace.
drappum, from nom. drappus, in Charlemagne’s Capitularies (Brachet).
Cf. Lith. drapanos, white linen. See Drape and Trap (2).
DRACHYM, a weight; see Dram.
DRAFYF, dregs, refuse, hogwash. (E.) ME. draf, Chaucer, C. T.
17346 (I 35); and earlier, in Layamon, 29256. Not found in AS. ;
but may be considered an E. word. + Du. dra/, swill, hog’s wash;
also drab, draft; Icel. draf, draff, husks; Swed. draf, grains; Dan.
drav, dregs, lees; G. traber, pl. grains, husks. Cf. AS. dréf, turbid ;
G. triibe ; Goth. drabjan, to trouble ; Gk. τρέφειν, to thicken, curdle,
[A guess ;
DRAMA 181
nourish, Allied to Drab (1), q.v.
draft ; from E.]
DRAFT, the act of drawing, a draught. (E.) A corruption of
draught, by the usual change of gh to f, as in laugh (pron. laaf).
See Draught. Der. draji, verb, drafis-man.
DRAG, to pull forcibly. (Scand.) ME. draggen, Prompt. Parv.
A secondary weak verb, due to draw. —Swed. dragga, to search with
a grapnel; dragg, a grapnel; cf. Dan. drag, a pull, tug, draught,
haul. = Swed. draga, to draw; Icel. draga, to draw, pull, carry; Dan.
drage, to draw, pull, drag. See Draw.
DRAGGLE, to make or become dirty by drawing along the
ground. (K.) ‘His draggling tail hung in the dirt;’ Hudibras,
pt.i.c. 1.1449. The frequentative of drag, by addition of the usual
suffix -le; cf. waggle from wag. See Drag. Doublet, drawl.
DRAGOMAN, an interpreter. (F.—Ital.—Gk.—Arab.) Spelt
druggerman, Pope, Sat. viii. 83. Sandys has drogermen as a pl. ;
Travels (1632), p. 62. [Found very early, spelt drogman, in King
Alisaunder, 1. 3401; from F. drogman.|—F. dragoman, drogman. =
Ital. dragommanno, an interpreter. A word of Eastern origin,
introduced from Constantinople by the Crusaders, who had borrowed
it from the medieval Gk. δραγούμανος, an interpreter (Brachet). =
Arab. tarjumain (formerly targuman), an interpreter, translator,
dragoman; Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 131; Rich. Dict. p. 388. Cf.
Chaldee targiim, a version, interpretation. See Targum.
DRAGON, a winged serpent. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. dragun;
Old Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 24, 1. 759.—F. dragon.—L. acc.
draconem, from nom. draco. = Gk. δράκων, a dragon; lit. ‘seeing one,’
i.e. sharp-sighted one. Gk. dpax-, weak grade of δέρκομαι, I see. —
“ DERK, to see; cf. Skt. dye, to see. Der. dragon-tsh, -e¢ (dimin.
form), -fly ; and see dragoon.
DRAGOON, a kind of light horseman. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘A
captain of dragoons ;’ Spectator, no. 261.—F. dragon, a dragoon,
horse-soldier ; the same word with F. dragon, a dragon, though the
reason for the name has been disputed. = L. acc. draconem, from nom,
draco,a dragon. See Dragon. Der. dragonn-ade, a French word.
4 Littré gives 1585 as the date of the first use of dragoons, and
quotes the supposition cf Voltaire, that they were so named from
OF. dragon, in the sense of ‘standard;’ but this is unsupported.
The fact is rather, that they were so called because armed with fire-
arms called dragons; and this is strongly supported by the use of E.
dragoon in the sense of a kind of carbine, as early as 1622 (N.E.D.).
And these carbines were so called because they ‘ breathed fire, lke
the fabulous dragons of old. The dragoons were at first infantry
soldiers, till 1784.
DRAIN, to draw off gradually. (E.) In Shak. Macb. i. 3. 18.
Not found in ME. AS dréhnigean, dréhnian, drénian; in the phr.
‘ge dréhnigead [var. read. dréhniad, dréniad| pone gnet aweg,’ 1.e.
ye drain away the gnat; Matt. xxili. 24. Also spelt dréahnian, A. 5.
Leechdoms, iil. 72 ; orig. sense, ‘to become dry.’ =— AS. *dréag-
Teut. *draug-, 2nd grade of Teut. *drengan-, to be dry; cf. Icel.
draug-r,a dry log. See Dry. Der. drain, sb.; drain-age, drain-er.
See Notes on Eng. Etym., p. 73.
DRAKE, the male of the duck. (E.) ‘As doth the whyte doke
after hir drake;’ Chaucer, C. T. 3576; cf. Havelok, 1241. This ME.
drake answers to AS. *draca, not found, but of the same form as AS.
draca, a dragon, though the latter is merely borrowed from the L.
draco (see Dragon). B. We find a similar equivalence of form in the
Low G. drake, (1) a drake; (2) a kite (Bremen Wort.) ; Low G.
drake, draak, (1) a kite; (2) a drake; (3) a meteor (Berghaus) ;
MDan. drage, (1) a dragon; (2) a drake (Kalkar). Cf. also Swed.
and, a duck, and-drake, a drake (from Low G.); Ὁ. enterich, OHG.
anetrecho, MHG. antrache (Schade), for *anut-trahho (Kluge) ; prob.
for anut (AS. ened) duck, and trahho, of unknown meaning, the same
in form as trahho,a dragon. Ihre notes MSwed. drake, a dragon,
a war-ship, and-drake, a drake. Levins (1570) has: ‘drake, birde,
anas;’ and ‘drake, dragon, draco.’ Cf. G. drache, drachen, a dragon,
akite. y. The AS. *draca is probably Teutonic. Perhaps connected
with Icel. draka or drak, a streak; Swed. dial. drakig ; Dan. dial.
draget, marked (on the back) with a white stripe.
DRAM, DRACHM, a small weight, small quantity. (F.—L.
—Gk.) In Shak. Timon, v. 1. 154; Merch. of Ven. iv. 1. 6.
‘ Drame, wyghte [weight], drama, dragma;’ Prompt. Pary.—OF.
dragme (Hatzfeld) ; MF. drame, dragme, drachme, ‘a dram; the
eighth part of an ounce, or three scruples; also, a handful of ;’ Cot.
=L. drachma, borrowed from Gk. δραχμή, a handful, a drachma,
used both as a weight and a coin; cf. δράγμα, as much as one can
grasp. =—Gk. δράσσομαι, I grasp. Brugmann, i. ὃ 509.
DRAMA, a representation of actions. (L.—Gk.) Puttenham
speaks of ‘ enterludes or poemes drammaticke ;’ Arte of Poesie, lib. i.
cap. 17 (heading). Cf. the phrase ‘dramatis persone’ commonly
prefixed to old plays.—L. drama.—Gk. δρᾶμα (stem δραματ-), a
(Cf. Gael. and Irish drabh,
182 DRAPE
deed, act, drama. —Gk. dpaw, 1 do, perform. - Lithuanian dara, I
make, do. Der. (from stem dramat-), dramat-ic, -ic-al, -ic-al-ly, -ise,
-ist; and see drastic.
DRAPE, to cover with cloth. (F.—Late L.) Formerly, to
manufacture cloth; ‘that the clothier might drape accordingly as he
might afford;’ Bacon, Hen. VII, ed. Lumby, p. 74.—F. draper, to
make cloth; Cot.<F. drap, cloth; see Drab (2). Der. drap-er,
occurring in P. Plowman, B. v, 255; -er-y.
DRASTIC, actively purgative, effective. (Gk.) ‘ Drastica, dras-
tick remedies, i.e. such as operate speedily and effectually ;’ Phillips’
Dict. ed. 1706.—Gk. δραστικός, drastic, effective; allied to δραστέος,
verbal adj. of δράω, I effect; see Drama.
DRAUGHT, also DRAFT, a drawing. (E.) ‘A draughie of
wyn ;’ Chaucer, C. Τὶ Prol. 398 (A 396); spelt drakte, Layamon,
29259. Not found in AS., but evidently derived from AS. drag-an,
to draw, drag; see Draw. The suffixed -¢ appears also in flight
from fly, drift from drive, &c. +4 Du. dragt, a load, burden; from
dragen, to carry; Dan. dragt, a load ; Icel. drdatir, a pulling, a
draught (of fishes); from draga, to draw. Der. draught-house (for
withdraught-house, where withdraught =a retreat, place to which one
withdraws) ; draughts-man or dra/ts-man ; also draughts, a game in
which alternate draughts, i.e. ‘moves,’ are made; Chaucer uses
draughtes, in the sense of ‘moves’ at the game of chess, in The Boke
of the Duchesse, 1. 653; cf. Tale of Beryn, ed. Furnivall, 1779, 1812.
DRAW, to pull along. (E.) ME. drawen; Layamon, i. 57 ;
1.1339. AS. dragan (pt. t. drdh) ; cf. law from the older lagu. The
form draw dates from after A.D. 1200, 4 Du. dragen ; Icel. and Swed.
draga, Dan. drage; Goth. dragan; G. tragen, to pull along, carry.
Teut. type *dragan-, pt. t. *drog. Der. draw-back, -bridge, -er, -ers,
-ing ; draw-ing-room (short for withdraw-ing-room, which was used
as late as 1627; see Pegge’s Curialia, pt. i. p. 66); -well; also with-
draw, q.v.; drawl, q.v.; draught, q.v.; ἄγαν, q.v.; dredge (1), ἃ. v-
DRAWL, to speak very slowly. (E.) In Shak. Merry Wives,
ii. 1.145. An extension of draw, with the suffix -l, giving a fre-
quentative force. Thus drawl is a doublet of draggle,q.v. Cf. Du.
dralen, to loiter, linger, delay; similarly formed from dragen, to
carry, endure ; Icel. dralla (< drag-la), to loiter.
DRAY, a low cart for heavy goods. (E.) The word dray-load
occurs in State Trials, an. 1643 (R.)} dray-men in Shak. Rich. IT,
i. 4. 32. ME. dreye, Trevisa, tr. of Higden, iii. 145. The form
ἄγαν agrees with AS. drage, which occurs in AS. drege or dreg-net,
a draw-net, or dredge-net ; Voc. 105. 4.-4-Swed. drég,a sledge, dray.
It means ‘ that which is drawn along ;’ see Draw.
DREAD, to fear, be afraid. (E.) ME. dredex, P. Plowman, B.
xx. 153. AS. dré@danx, only found in the compounds on-drédan,
adrédan, ofdrédan ; of which the first is common. + OSax. dradan,
only in the compound andradan or anddradan, to be afraid; OHG.
tratan, only in the comp. intratan, ΜΉ. entraten, to be afraid.
Teut. type *dr#dan-. Root unkdown. Der. dread, sb. ; dread-ful,
-ful-ly, ~ful-ness, -less, -less-ly, -less-ness, -naught.
DREAM (1), a vision. (E.) ME. dream, dreem, drem; Havelok,
1284. [Distinct from ME. dream, ‘sound,’ or ὁ music ;’ as in ‘ mid
te dredful dreame of pe englene bemen’= with the dreadful sound of
the angels’ trumpets, Ancren Riwle, p. 214; AS. dréam, (1) a sweet
sound, music, harmony; (2) joy, glee.| The sense of ‘ vision’ is not
found in the earliest English, but the AS. form must, in this case also,
have been *dréam. + OSax. drdm,a dream ; OFries. dram, a dream ;
Da. droom ; Icel. draumr ; Dan. and Swed. drém; G. traum. Kluge
suggests comparison with G. trug-bild,a phantom. If so, the Teut.
type was *draugmoz, m.; from Teut. *draug, second grade of
*dreugan- (OHG. triogan, G. triigen), to deceive. Cf. Icel. draugr,
a ghost. Also OPers. drauga (Pers. durigzh), a deceit, lie; from the
Idg. root *dhreugh. Brugmann, i. §§ 681, 689. Der. dream, verb,
q.v.; dream-less, dream-y.
DREAM (2), to see a vision. (E.) The verb is derived from
the sb., not vice versa. Cf. G. ¢raiimen, to dream, from sb. traum.
DREARY, DREAR, gloomy, cheerless. (E.) Drear is a late
poetical form, used by Milton (Il Pens. 119), Parnell and Cowper.
It is quite unauthorised, and a false form. ME, dreori, dreri, druri;
spelt dreery, drery, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 8390 (E 514). AS. dréorig, sad,
mournful; originally ‘ bloody,’ or ‘gory,’ as in Beowulf, ed. Grein,
1417, 2789. Formed, with suffix -ig, from AS. dréor, gore, blood;
Grein, i. 205. And again, AS. dréor is from the verb dréosan, to
fall, drip, whence also drizzle, q.v. + Icel. dreyrigr, gory; from
dreyri, gore; G. traurig, sad, orig. gory, from OHG. trar, gore. . All
from Teut. str. vb. *dreusan- (pt. t. draus, pp. druzanoz), to fall in
drops. See Drizzle, Drowse. Der. dreari-ness, -ly.
DREDGE (1), a drag-net. (E.) Also spelt drudge. ‘ Drudger,
one that fishes tor oysters;’ Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674. ‘ Dredgers,
fishers for oisters;’ Kersey, ed. 1715 ; cf. MF. drege (prob. from E.),
‘a kind of fish-net, forbidden to be used except for oysters;’ Cot.
DRILL
The NorthE. form is dreg (see Supp. to Jamieson). It answers to an
AS. form *drecg or *drecge (from *drag-jo-); from AS. drag-an, to
draw. See Draw. Cf. MDu. dregge, ‘a drag;’ Hexham. 4 There
is an AS. dreg-net, a draw-net, Voc. 105. 4; but this would give
dray-net ; see Dray.
DREDGE (2), to sprinkle flour on meat, &c. (F.—Late L.—
Gk.) ‘ Burnt figs dreg’d [dredged] with meal and powdered sugar ;”
Beaum. and Fletcher, Scornful Lady, Act ii. sc. 3. ‘Dredge you a
dish of plovers;’ id. Bloody Brother, Act ii. sc. 2. To dredge is to
sprinkle as in sowing dreg, or mixed corn; thus Holland says that
‘choler is a miscellane seed, as it were, anda dredge, made of all the
passions of the mind;’” Plutarch, p. 108 (R.). ‘ Dredge or Dreg, oats
and barley mingled together;’ Kersey, ed. 1715.—OF. dragée,
dragée aux chevaux, ‘ provender of divers sorts of pulse mingled
together; also the course grain called bolymong, French-wheat,
Block-wheat, or Buck-wheat ;’ Cot. Cotgrave also gives the older
sense of dragée as ‘a kind of disgestive (sic) powder, usually pre-
scribed unto weak stomachs after meat ;’ this is the mod. I’. dragée,
a sugar-plum. B. Allied to Ital. treggea, a sugar-plum ; and sup-
posed (by Diez) to be derived from Late L. tragémata. Diez quotes
from Papias: ‘ collibia sunt apud Hebreeos, quee nos vocamus fragé-
mata vel vilia munuscula, ut cicer frixum,’ &c.—Gk. τραγήματα,
dried fruits, pl. of τράγημα, something nice to eat.—Gk. τρώγειν
2nd aor. ἔ-τραγ-ον, to gnaw; also to eat dried fruits; allied to
τρώγλη, a hole, a cave (cf. E. trout, roglodyte).
DREGS, lees, sediment. (Scand.) A pl. form, from sing. dreg.
‘Fra fen, ful of dreg’ = out of a fen full of mire; Northern Met. ver-
sion of Ps. xxxix. 3. ‘Dregges and draffe;’ P. Plowman, B. xix. 397.
=-Icel. dregg, pl. dreggjar, dregs, lees; Swed. dragg, dregs, lees.
B. The theoretical Teut. form is *drag-jon- (Noreen); allied to
OPrussian dragios, dregs; cf. Gk. ταραχή, disorder, θράσσειν, to
trouble, disturb. J Not allied to (ἃ. dreck, dirt, for that is the Icel.
prekkr ; nor yet to L. fracés, dregs of oil (Brugm. i. § 417). Der.
drege-y, -i-ness.
DRENCH, to fill with drink or liquid. (E.) The causal of
“drink ;’ the old sense is ‘ to make to drink.’ ME. drenchen, Have-
lok, 561, 583. AS. drencan, to drench, Grein, i. 202 ; causal of AS.
drincan, to drink.4-Du. drenken, to water a horse; Icel. drekkja, to
drown, swamp; Swed. drénxka, to drown, to steep; (ἃ. ¢ranken, to
water, to soak. See Drink. Der. drench, sb.; AS. drenc.
DRESS, to make ready, deck. (F.—L.) ME. dressen; King
Alisaunder, 479.—OF. dresser, drescer, to erect, set up, arrange,
dress.— Late L. type *d?rectiare, not found; but formed from L.
directus, direct, straight, hence just, right, upright. See Direct.
Der. dress, sb.; -ing, -ing-case, -y; also dress-er (in Palsgrave), a
table on which meat was dressed.
DRIBBLE, to let fall in small drops. (E.) The reading dribling
in Shak. Meas. for Meas. i. 3. 2, may be an error for dribbing.
Dribble is the frequentative of drib, which is a variant of drip. ‘ Lyke
drunkardis that dribbis,’ i.e. drip, slaver; Skelton, Garland of Laurel,
641. Cf. Dan. dial. drible, dreble, to dribble, MDan. drybe, to drip ;
Jutland dribble, to dribble. See Drip. Der. dribbl-er ; also dribl-et,
formed with dimin, suffix -et. Kersey has ‘dribblet (old word), a small
portion, a little sum of money owing.’ 7 Not the same word as
drivel.
DRIFT, that which is driven. (E.) ‘The dragoun drew him
awaie [departed] with drift of his winges,’ i. e. driving, violent move-
ment; Alisaunder, frag. A., ed. Skeat, 998. Cf. Cursor Mundi, 496.
Formed with suffix -¢, trom drif-, weak grade of AS. drifan, to drive.
+Du. drift, a drove, flock, course, current, ardour; Icel. drift, dript,
a snow-drift; Swed. drift, impulse, instinct; G. érift, a drove, herd,
pasturage. See Drive. Der. dri/t, verb ; drift-less, -wcod.
DRILL (1), to bore holes, to train soldiers. (Du.) Cotgrave ex-
plains F. ¢rappan as ‘a stone-cutter’s drill, wherewith he bores little
holes in marble.’ Ben Jonson hints at the Dutch origin of the word
in the sense of ‘to train soldiers.’ ‘He that but saw thy curious
captain’s drill Would think no more of Flushing or the Brill;’
Underwoods, Ixii, 1. 29. — MDu. drillen, or ¢rillen, ‘ motitare, nutare,
vacillare, ultro citroque cursitare, gyros agere, gyrare, rotare, volvere,
tornare, terebrare,’ Kilian; mod. Du. drillen, to drill, bore, to turn
round, shake, brandish, to drill, form to arms, to run hither and
thither, to go through the manual exercise. Sewel’s Dutch Dict.
gives drillen, to drill, shake, brandish ; met den pick drillen, to shake
a pike ;. to exercise in the management of arms. B. The orig. sense
is ‘to turn round and round,’ whence (1) to turn men about or drill
them, (2) to turn a pike about, or brandish it. Allied to MHG.
drellen, to turn round (pp. gedrotlen), and to Low G. drall/, twisted
tight. Teut. type *predlan- (pt. τ. *prall), to twist; cf AS. pearl,
strict.. Der. drill, sb.
DRILL (2), to sow corn in rows. (Low G.) We find an old
word. drill used in the sense of ‘rill.’ ‘So does a thirsty land drink
DRILLING
up all the dew of heaven that wets its face, and the greater shower
makes no torrent, nor digs so muchas a little furrow, that the drils of
the water might pass into rivers, or refresh their neighbour's weari-
ness ;’ Bp. Vaylor, vol. i. ser. 6 (iX.). We also find the verb drill, to
trickle. ‘And water’d with cool rivulets, that ἀγα Along the
borders ;’ Sandys, Ecclesiastes, c. ii. B. This verb cannot be sepa-
rated from ?rill, used in precisely the same sense; as in ‘ Few drops
» . . adowne it ¢ri/d, i.e. trickled ; Spenser F. Ὁ. ii. 12. 78. In
Chaucer, C. T. 13604 (Group B, 1864), Tyrwhitt prints ¢rilled where
the Ellesmere MS. has trykled ; and it is clear that drill has the same
sense. It seems to be really the same word as the above, but with a
sense more common in Low G. The W. Flem. indrillen means ‘ to
drill in,’ to bury grain to a slight depth in the earth (De Bo) ; and
Berghaus notes not only the Low G. verb drillen, but drill-plog
(drill-plough) as used in drill-kultur, Trill is properly the Scand.
form. See Trill (2).
DRILLING, a twilled linen or cotton fabric. (G.—L.) A cor-
ruption of G, drillich, ticking, huckaback. And the G. word is a
corruption from L, ¢rilic-, stem of érilix, having or consisting of three
threads. = L. éri-, from tres, three ; and Jicium, a thrum, a thread.
DRINK, to suck in, swallow. (E.) ME. drinken; Chaucer,
C. T. 135. AS. drincan (common).4+Dn. drinken; Icel. drekka (for
drenka=drinka); Swed. dricka; Dan, drikke; Goth. drigkan (for
drinkan) ; (ἃ, irinken, Teut. type *drenkan-, pt. τ, *drank, pp.
*drunkanoz. Der. drink-able, -er, -offering; and see drunken,
drunkard, drench, drown,
DRIP, to fall in drops. (Scand.) ‘ Dryppe or drope, gutta, stilla,
cadula;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 132. ‘ Dryppyn or droppyn, stillo, gutto ;’
id. ‘ Dryppynge, or droppynge, stillacio;’ id. Drip is a secondary
weak verb, closely allied to the sb. drop, and is of Seand. origin. —
Dan. dryppe, to drip; dryp, a drop; cf. Icel. dreypa, to let drop, from
draup, 2nd grade of the strong verb drjuépa, to drip. The Dan. dryppe
represents a Teut. type *drupjan, from *drup-, weak grade of *dreupan-
as seen in AS. dréopan, strong vb., pp. dropen ; see a-dréopan in Grein ;
OSax. driopan, to drip; pt.t. drop; OHG. triufan, (ἃς triefen, to drip,
trickle; pt. τ. γος See Drop.
DRIVE, to urge on, push forward. (E.) ME. driven (with u=v),
Chaucer, C. T, 7122 (D1540). AS. drifan, Grein, i. 206. + Du.
driven; Icel. drifa; Swed. drifva; Dan. drive; Goth. dreiban; OHG.
iripan, ΜΠ. triben, (ἃ. tretben. Teut. type *dretban- (pt. τ. *draib,
p. *dribanoz). Der. drive, sb.,driv-er; also drif-t, q.v.; drove, q.v.
DRIVEL, to slaver, speak foolishly. (E.) ME. driuelen, to slaver.
© Drynken and dryuelen;’ P. Plowman, B. x. 41. ‘Thei don but
dryuele peron ;’ id. x. 11: where the C-text (xii. 9) has drevele. This
drevelen answers to AS. dreflian, to drivel or run at the nose; Voc.
161. 34. From the base drab-, whence also Draff. Cf. Low G.
drabbeln, to slaver ; Bremen Worterbuch. Also Swed. drafvel, foolish
talk ; like E. drivel, sb. Der. drivel, sb., drivell-ing, drivell-er.
DRIZZLE, to rain slightly. (E.) ‘These tears, that drizzle from
mine eyes ;᾿ Marlowe, Edw. II, Act ii. sc. 4.1.18. The old spelling
is drissel or drisel. ‘Through sletie drisling day ;’ Drant’s Horace,
b. 11. Sat. 2. Dris-el means ‘to fall often,’ and is the frequentative of
ME. dresen, to fall, from AS. dréosan, to fall in drops; see Dreary.
Cf. Dan. drysse, to fall in drops; Swed. dial. drésla.
DROLL, strange, odd, causing mirth. (F.—Du.) Shak. has
drollery, Temp. iii. 3. 21; 2 Hen. IV, ii. 1.156. The phr. ‘to play
the drol’ is in Howell's Letters, Ὁ. i. s. 1. let. 18 (1620). — MF, drole,
‘a boon companion, merry grig, pleasant wag;’ Cot. Also cf. droler,
‘to play the wag,’ id.; drolerie, ‘ waggery, good roguery;’ id. [The
early use of drollery shows that we took the word from the French. ]
— Du. drollig, ‘ burlesk, odd ;’ Sewel. [The sb. drol, a droll fellow,
is not noticed by Sewel.)—MDu. drol, ‘a juglar;’ Hexham. Cf.
Low G. drullig, droll. Perhaps from the pp. stem droll-; for which
see Drill (τὴ. Korting, § 3115. Der. droll-ish, droll-ery.
DROMEDARY, a kind of camel. (F.—L.—Gk.) In early use.
ME. dromedarie, King Alisaunder, 3407.—OF. dromedaire, ‘a dro-
medary ;” Cot.—Late L. dromedarius, better spelt dromadarius ; Du-
cange. = L. dromad-, stem of dromas, a dromedary ; with suffix -drius.
— Gk. δρομαδ-, stem of δρομάς, fast running, speedy. —Gk. δραμεῖν, to
run; used as infin. aor. of τρέχειν, to run, but from a different root.
+Skt. dram, to run ; akin to dra, to run.
DRONE (1), to make a deep murmuring sound. (E.) ‘ He that
dronis ay as ane bee ;’ Dunbar, Poems, xv. 8. [Cf. also ME. drou-
nen; ‘he drouned as a dragon, dredefull of noyes;’ Alisaunder, frag.
A., ed. Skeat, 1. 985.) Not found in AS., but an imitative word.
Similar words (but with a different vowel) are Swed. dréna, to low,
bellow, drone ; Dan. drone, to peal, ramble; drén, a rumbling noise;
Goth. drunjus, a sound, voice; Rom, x. 18; Icel. drynja, to roar.
Allied to Gk. θρῆνος, a dirge; Skt. dhran, to sound. See below.
DRONE (2), a non-working bee. (E.) ME. dran, drane; pl.
cranes, Piers Plowman’s Crede, 1. 726. AS. drain; AS. Chron. an.
DROWSE, DROW ZE 183
1127. ‘Fucus, dran;’ Voc. 121. 10; also dren, Voc. 318. 35. The
AS. dran (like EFries. drane) was prob. borrowed from OSax. dran
(cognate with AS. dr#n). Cf. MHG., treno, a drone; cited by Fick
and Curtius.+Gk. @p@vag, a Laconian drone-bee (Hesychius) ; Gk.
ἀν-θρήνη, a wild bee. ‘Teut. stems dren-, dr@n-; cf. drun- in the
article above. Der. dron-ish.
DROOP, to sink, faint, fail. (Scand.) ME. drupen, droupen ;
Chaucer, C. T. 107. The pres. part. drupand is in the Cursor
Mundi, |. 4457.—Icel. driipa, to droop; allied to the strong verb
drjipa, to drip or drop. In mod. Icel., drapa and drjupa are con-
founded ; but dripa is a weak verb, and from the weak grade *drap-.
For the sense, cf. ‘I am ready to drop,’ i.e. I droop, See Drop,
and Drip.
DROP, sb. a small particle of liquid; verd, to let fall small par-
ticles of liquid. (E.) ME. dropfe, a drop; dropien, droppen, to let
drop. The sb. is in Chaucer, C. T, 131; the verb in C. T. 16048
(G. 580); and the vb. is from the sb. AS. dropa, a drop; Grein, i.
207; dropian, to drop, Psalter, ed. Thorpe, xliv. 10; οἵ. also dréopran,
to drop, drip, Grein, i. 205.-4-Du. drop, a drop; Icel. dropi, a drop;
Swed. droppe, a drop; Dan. draabe, sb. a drop; vb. to drop; OHG,
tropfo, G. tropfen, a drop; Low G. druppen, a drop. B. All from
Teut. *drup-, weak grade of Teut. *dreupan-, to drop, as seen in AS.
dréopan; see Drip. Andsee Droop. Cf. Olrish dricht, dew.
DROPSY, an unnatural collection of serous fluid in the body.
(F.—L.—Gk.) ME. dropesie, a spelling found in Wyclif, Luke xiv.
2; where the earlier text has ydropesie. See further under Hydropsy.
Der. drops-ic-al.
DROSHKY, DROSKY,a kind of carriage. (Russian.) Mere
Russian. — Russ. drojki, a low four-wheeled carriage. » [The j sounded
agin French.] Given by Reiff. Dimin. of drog:, a waggon; which
was orig. pl. of droga, a perch (of a carriage).
DROSS, dregs, scum, impure matter, refuse. (E.) ME. dros,
Ancren Riwle, p. 284. AS. drds, Voc. 353. 20; cf. AS. drésna, an-
swering to Lat. fex, Ps, xxxix. 2, ed. Spelman, Cf. Du. droesem,
dregs; G. drusen, pl., lees, dregs ; OHG. ¢truosana, husks of pressed
grapes. And perhaps cf. AS.derstan, dregs ; Westphal. drost, dregs.
Der. dross-y, -i-ness.
DROUGHT, dryness. (E.) ME. drogte, drougte; Chaucer,
C.T.1.2. In P. Plowman, B. vi. 290, we have drough/, but in the
earlier text (A. vii. 273) we find droukpe. In the Ormulum, 1. 8626,
it is spelt drukhpe. AS. drigad, dryness; Voc. 317. 24.— AS. drug-
ian, to dry; cf. dryge, dry; Grein, i. 207. So also Du. droogte,
drought, from droogen, to dry. See Dry. @ The form drouth or
drougth occurs as late as in Spenser's, Daphnaida, 1. 333; and in
Bacon's Nat. Hist. § 669; and is still found in prov. English. The
same change from final th to final ¢ has occurred in height, spelt
highth in Milton’s Paradise Lost. Der. drought-y, -i-ness.
DROVE, a number of driven cattle, a herd. (E.) ΜΕ. drof, droue
(with w=v); ‘wip [his drowe of bestis;” Will. of Palerne, 181.—
AS. draf; AS. Chron, an. 1016.—AS. draf, 2nd grade of drifan, to
drive. See Drive. Der. drov-er.
DROWN, to be killed by being drenched in water; to kill by
drenching in water. (Scand.) Orig. an inéransitive or passive verb, as
particularly denoted by the suffixed -x; οἱ. the Mceso-Goth, verbs
in -nan, which are of a like character. ‘Shall we give o’er and
drown?’ Tempest, i. 1.42. ‘Alle... . drowned [perished] perinne ;’
Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 372. ‘Alle pai drowned;’ Cursor
Mundi, 11793; where the Cotton MS. has: ‘Al pai drund.’ The
form is M. Danish. —MDan. drukne, drougne, droune, drone, to sink,
to be drowned (Kalkar), B. The -xkn- was preserved in ME.
druncnien, later druncnen, drunknen; the spelling druncnen is in the
Ormulum, 15398 ; drunknen is in Wyclif, Isa. 1xiii. 6 ; cf, ONorthumb.
druncnia, to be drowned, to sink ; ‘ongann druncnia’ = began to sink;
Matt. xiv. 30 (Lindisfarne MS.). Formed, with suffix -ian, from
druncen, lit. drunken, pp. of drincaa, to drink. γ. Similarly, we find
Swed. drunkna, to be drowned, from drucken, drunken, pp. of dricka,
to drink; and Dan. drukne, to be drowned, from drukken, drunken,
old pp. of drikke, to drink. See Drunken. 4 It may be added
that this will appear more plainly from the Lindisfarne MS., Luke,
xii. 45; where the Lat. inebriari is translated by ‘ druncgnia vel pette
se druncenig,’ i.e. to drown or that. he may be drunken. Cf. the
numerous forms (without Δ) of Jutland drukne (Feilberg). See Notes
on E, Etym., p. 76.
DROWSE, DROW2ZE, to be sluggish. (E.) Formerly drouse ;
Milton, P. L.. xi. 1313 viii. 289; whence drousie, id. I] Penseroso, 83.
Not found (as yet) in the Mid. Itng. period. AS. drusian, to be
sluggish ; ‘lagu drisade’ =the lake lay sluggish; Beowulf, ed. Grein,
1630. The base dris- is a weaker grade of Teut. *dreus-, as seen in
AS. dréosan, to mourn; Grein, i. 206, which is the same as AS.
dréosan, to fall; id. B. So, too, OHG. trarén, to cast down the
eyes, to mourn (mod. G, frauern), is related to ONG, trireg, mournful,
184 DRUB
and to the E. dreary. See Dreary. Cf. Pomeran. druse, slumber.
Der. drowz-y (drowsy in Palsgrave), drowz-t-ness,
DRUB, to beat. (Arab.) In Butler, Hudibras, pt. i.c. 3. 1. 1042.
He also has the sb. drubs, id. pt. ili. c. 3.1. 209. First introduced |
in connexion with the East, and applied to the punishment of the |
bastinado. Phillips (1706) has: ‘ Drub, to beat the soles of the feet
with the stick, a punishment used in Turkey.’ Prob. from Arab.
arb (zarb), a beating with a stick; from Arab. root daraba (zaraba), |
he beat ; Rich. Dict. p. 952 (N.E.D.). B. Thre (in 1769) quotes |
Swed. drabba, to beat; with the conjecture of Spegel (1645-1714)
that it is from Arab. darab, * percutere, verberari facere.’ Der. drub,
sb.; drubb-ing.
DRUDGE, to perform menial work. (E.) Shak. has the sb.
drudge, Merch. of Ven. iii. 2. 103. ΜΕ. druggen ; Chaucer has ‘to
drugge and drawe;’ C. T. 1418 (A 1416). [Irish drugaire, a drudger,
drudge, slave, and Irish drugaireachd, drudgery, slavery, are from E. |
Tt answers to an AS. *drycgean, not found, but regularly formed from
drug-, weak grade of dréogan, to work, perform, endure (= Teut.
*dreugan-, Goth. driugan, LowlSc. dree). Cf. Icel. drjiig-virkr, one
who works slowly but surely; Norw. drugga, to go slowly, like one
under a heavy burden (Ross). Der. drudge, sb.; drudg-er-y.
DRUG, a medical ingredient. (F.) ME. drogge, drugge; the pl.
drogges, drugges is in Chaucer, Six-text, A 426; where the Harl.
MS. has dragges, Prol. 1. 428. [But dragges and drogges cannot be
the same word; the former is from OF. dragée, discussed s. v.
Dredge (2), q.v.; the latter is OF. drogue.]—OF. (and mod. F.)
drogue,a drug ; cf. Ital., Span., and Port. droga,a drug. B. Remoter
origin uncertain; Diez derives it from Du. droog, dry; and Sewel’s
Du. Dict. has: ‘Droogen, gedroogde kruyden en wortels, druggs ;’
but he has prob. confused the Ἐς with the Du. word. The word may
be Eastern. Orting, § 3116, suggests a Slavonic origin, viz. OSlav.
drag, Pol. drogt, costly. Der. drugg-ist.
DRUGGET. a coarse woollen cloth, (F.) ‘And, coarsely clad
in Norwich drugget, came;’ Dryden, Mac Flecknoe, 1. 33. —MF.
droguet, ‘a kind of stuff that’s half silk, half wooll ; Cot.
droguete. A dimin., with suffix -et, from Ἐς drogue, (1) a drug;
(2), trash, rubbish, stuff (Hamilton and Legros, French Dict.) ; 1.6.
in the latter sense. But it is probable that drogue, trash, is not the
same word as drogue, a drug.
DRUID, a priest of the ancient Britons. (F.—L.—C.) ‘The
British Druyds ;’ Howell, Foreign Travel, ed. 1642, sect. 10.—F.
Druide, a Druid. =L. pl, Druides; Czesar, De Bello Gallico, vi. 13.
Of Celtic origin, From Olrish druid-, as in druid, dat. and acc. of
drui, a magician, sorcerer; Irish draoi, druidh, an augur, magician ;
Gael. draot, draoidh, druidh, a magician, sorcerer. Origin undeter-
mined; the attempt to connect it with Irish and Gael. darach, darag,
an oak, is by no means convincing, @ The AS. dry, a magician, is
from British (W. dryw).
DRUM, a cylindrical musical instrument. (Du.) ‘The drummes
crie dub-a-dub ;’ Gascoigne, Flowers ; ed. Hazlitt, vol. i. p. 83, 1. 26.
First found, spelt drome, in 1541 (N.E.D.). An imperfect adaptation
of MDu. tromme, Du. trom, trommel, a drum; trommelen, to drum.
Cf. G. drommel, a drum ; esp. Strassburg drum, a drum (C. Schmidt);
Dan. drum, a booming sound. Der. drum, verb; drum-head, drum-
major, drum-stick, See also Thrum (2).
DRUMBLE, to be sluggish. (Scand.) Shak. has: ‘look how you
drumble ;’ Merry Wives, iii. 3. 156. — Norw. drumla, to be half asleep ;
allied to drumba, drumma, to straggle, lag behind (as cattle); see
Ross. Cf. Swed. drumla, to be clumsy, drummel, a blockhead (Oman).
DRUNKARD, one addicted to drinking. (E.; with F. suffix.)
In the A. V., Joel, i. 5; and in the Bible of 1551. Palgrave has
dronkarde. Formed from the base drunk- of the pp. drunken, with the
F. suffix -ard, of OHG. origin, used with an intensive force. his
suffix is of the same origin with Ἐς hard; Brachet, Etym. French Dict.
introd. § 196. @ The ME. word is dronkelew.
DRUNKEN, DRUNK, inebriated. (E.) ME. dronken,
drunken; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1264. AS. druncen, pp. of drincan, to
drink, but often used as an adj.; Grein, i. 207;
drunken-ness.
DRUPEH, a fleshy fruit containing a stone. (F.—L.—Gk.) A
botanical term. Modern; not in Todd’s Johnson. =F. drupe, a drupe,
stone-fruit.—L. dripa, an over-ripe, wrinkled olive (Pliny).—Gk.
δρύππα, an over-ripe olive; perhaps a contraction from, or allied to,
Gk. δρυπεπής, tipened on the tree ; [a word which is frequently varied
to δρυπετής, i.e. falling from the tree. ]=Gk. δρῦς, α tree; and πέσσειν,
to cook, ripen. See Tree and Cook. Der. drup-ac-e-ous, with suffix
=L. -fceus.
DRY, free from moisture. (E.) ME. dru3e, OEng. Hom. i. 87,
1, 12; druye, dry3ze, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 385 and 412; dreye,
Chaucer, C. T. 8775 (E 899). AS. dryge, drige, Grein, i. 207. Cf.
Du. droog, dry ; G. trocken, dry. Also Icel. draugr, a dry log. All
Cf. Span. |
see Drink. Der. |
DUDE
| from a Teut. root *dreug-, to be dry; cf. AS. dréog-an, to last, endure,
&c. The orig. sense may have been lasting, hard. See Drudge. Der.
dry, vetb; -ly, -ness ; -goods, -nurse, -rot, -salter ; see also drought.
DRYAD, a nymph of the woods. (L.—Gk.) Milton has Dryad,
P. L. ix. 387; and the pl. Dryades, Comus, 964.—L. Dryad-, stem of
Dryas, a Dryad. = Gk. δρυαδ-, stem of δρυάς, a nymph of the woods. =
| Gk. δρῦς, a tree; cognate with E. Tree, q.v.
DUAL, consisting of two. (L.) ‘This dualité... is founden in
euery creature ;” T. Usk, Test of Love, b. ii. ch. 13.1. 30.—L. dudalis,
dual. —L. duo, two. See Two. Der. dual-ism, dual-i-ty.
DUAN, a canto. (Gaelic.) In Macpherson’s Ossian ; and used by
Burs (The Vision).—Gael. duan, a song, canto; Olrish dian; see
Macbain.
DUB, to confer knighthood by a stroke on the shoulder. (E.) ME.
dubben, Havelok, 2042. AS. dubban; ‘dubbade his sunu.. . to ridere,’
dubbed his son knight; AS. Chron. an. 1086. B. A much-disputed
word ; but, apparently, of Teut. origin; if not native, it may be of
Scand. origin. The statement (in N. E.D.) that there is no such
Germanic verb as dubban, is hardly borne out. The Icel. dubba may be
foreign; but the Teut. forms dib, dab, dob, dub, expressive of light
movements, cannot all be unoriginal. Cf. Norw. dabba, to tap with the
foot (Ross); E. dab; Swed. dial. dabb, a viscous clot; Ε a dab; Norw.
dibba, to nod the head, to trip lightly (Ross); Swed. dial. dibb, to
touch lightly; Dan. dobbe, a float (because it bobs); Swed. dial. dobb,
dubb, a float, also (as a verb) to duck or bob under; Norw. dubba, to
nod (Aasen); EFries. dubbe,a blow, dubben, to strike; Low G. dobber,
a buoy; G. tupfen, to dab. The OF. adober, to dub, is therefore cor-
rectly derived by Diez from a Teut. base dub-, to dab or tap. Cf. E.
dub-a-dub (see Drum) ; evidently of imitative origin.
DUBIOUS, doubtful. (L.) In Milton, P. L. i. 104; and in Hall,
Edw. IV, an. 9. § 14. —L. dubidsus, doubtful. = L. dubium, doubt; neut.
of dubius, doubtful, moving in two directions; formed from L. duo,
two. See Two. Der. dubious-ly, -ness.
DUCAL, belonging to a duke. (F.—L.) F. ducal, Cot.— Late L.
ducalis, adj. —L. duc-, stem of dux, a leader; see Duke.
DUCAT, a coin. (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘As fine as ducat in Venise ;’
Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, iil. 258.—OF. ducat, ‘the coyne termed a
duckat, worth vi s. viii d.;’ Cot.—Ital. ducato, a ducat; a duchy. =
Late L. ducitus, a duchy. B. So called because first coined in the
duchy of Apulia (about A.D. 1140); and, after 1284, they bore the
legend ‘sit tibi, Christe, datus, quem tu regis, iste ducatus.’ See
Duchy.
DUCHESS, the wile of a duke. (F.—L.) Chaucer wrote The
Book of the Duchesse.— OF. duchesse, fem. of duc, a duke; with suffix
-esse=L, -issa=Gk. -ἰσσα. See Duke.
DUCHY, a dukedom. (F.—L.) ME. duche; P. Plowman, C.
iv. 245.—F. duché.— Late L. ducatus; formed with suffix -atus from
duc-, stem of dux, a leader. See Duke.
DUCK (1),a bird. (E.) ME. doke, duke; P. Plowman, B. v. 75;
xvii. 62. The word duk-e means ‘ diver ;’ the final -e= AS. τη. -a,
f, -e, a suffix denoting the agent, as in hunf-a,a hunter. AS. dice,
a duck; see Cart. Saxon., ed. Birch, ii. 162, 1. 3. See below. +
Dan. duk-and, a diver (bird); from duk-=dukke, to dive, and and
(=G. ente),a duck; Swed. dyk-fdgel, a diver (bird). See Duck (2).
The short « is due to the following &, as in suck. Der. duck-ling, with
double dimin., suffix -/- and -ing; cf. gos-ling.
DUCK (2), to dive, bob the head down. (E.) ME. duken,
douken ; the pres. pt. doukand, diving, occurs in The Wars of Alexan-
der, 1. 4090; and the pp. duked in the Cursor Mundi, 23203. It
answers to an AS. *diican (pt. t. *déac, pp. *docen), not found. - Du.
duiken, to stoop, dive; Dan. dukke, to duck, plunge; Swed. dyka, to
dive; G. tauchen, to dive. Der. duck (1).
DUCK (3), a pet, darling. (E.) ‘O dainty duck!’ Mids. N. Ὁ.
ν. 286. Apparently, a transferred sense of Duck (1).
DUCK (4), light canvas. (Du.) Strutt, Manners and Customs, iii.
129, quotes ‘lampas douck’ in a description of a tourney, as early as
2 Henry VIII (1510).— Du. doek, linen cloth, towel, canvas. + Dan.
dug, cloth; Swed. duk; Icel. diikr, cloth, table-cloth, towel; G. tuch,
cloth; OHG. tuoh, MHG. iuoch.
DUCT, a conduit-pipe. (L.) Still spelt ductus in 1715. ‘ Ductus,
a leading, guiding; a conduit-pipe;’ Kersey’s Dict.—L. ductus, a
leading ; cf. ductus, pp. of dacere, to lead. See Duke.
DUCTILE, malleable. (F.—L.) ‘Soft dispositions, which duc-
tile be;’ Donne, To the Countess of Huntingdon, 1. 27; and see
Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 845.—F. ductile, ‘easie to be hammered;’ Cot. —
L. ductilis, easily led; cf. ductus, pp. of dicere, to lead. See Duke.
Der. ductil-i-ty.
DUDE, a fop, exquisite. (Low G.) Modern. —G. dude, a foolish
fellow (Grimm); shortened from Low G. duden-dop, duden-kop, a lazy
fellow ; EFries. dud-kop, a drowsy fellow. Cf. EF ries. dudden, to be
drowzy ; see Dawdle.
DUDGEON
DUDGEON (1), resentment. (F.?) ‘When civil dudgeon first
grew high;’ Butler, Hudibras, pt. 1. c.1.1.1. The form endugine is
also found; see additions to Nares. Origin wholly unknown; though
the form would seem to be French.
DUDGEON (2), the haft of a dagger. (Unknown.) ‘And on thy
blade and dudgeon gouts of blood ;’ Macb. ii. 1. 46. See Clark and
Wright, notes to Macbeth; Furness, notes to ditto. The evidence goes
to show that some daggers were called dudgeon-hafted, which Gifford
explains by saying that ‘the wood was gouged out in crooked chan-
nels, like what is now, and perhaps was then, called snail-creeping ;’
note on Jonson’s Works, v. 221. The root of the box-tree was also
called dudgeon, apparently because it was curiously marked ; ‘the
root [of box]. .is dudgin and ful of work ;’ Holland's Pliny, b. xvi.
c. 16; where the context shows the sense to be " crisped damask-wise’
or ‘full of waving.’ B. In the earliest examples, the sense seems to
be ‘ boxwood ;’ at any rate, it is a material used by a cutler. A cutler
speaks of ‘ yuery [ivory ], dogecn, horn, mapyll, and the toel that be-
longeth to my craft;” Arnold’s Chron. (1502, repr. 1811), Ὁ. 245. In
the York Wills, iii. 96 (Surtees Soc.), we find, in 1439, ‘j dagger, cum
manubrio de dogeon.’ ‘ Ronnyn, as dojoun or masere ;’ Prompt. Parv.
p- 436. The earliest is AF. digeon, in 1380; see Riley, Memorials of
London, p. 439.
DUDS, rags, poor clothes. (Scand.) ΜΕ. ‘dudde, clothe, amphi-
bilus ;’ Prompt. Pary. Related to Icel. dad7, swaddling clothes; dida,
to swathe, wrap up. Cf. Dowdy. See Notes on EF. Etym., p. 78.
DUE, owed as a debt. (F.—L.) ME. dewe. ‘A maner dewe dette’
=a kind of debt due; P. Plowman, C. iv. 307. —OF. deu, masc. dene,
fem. ‘due;’ Cot.; pp. from devoir (spelt debvoir in Cot.), to owe. —
L. dedére, to owe. See Debt. Der. du-ly (ME. dueliche, Gower,
C, A. ili. 245; bk. vii. 4570); also du-ly, 4. v.
DUEL, a combat between two. (Ital.—L.) Formerly duello, Shak.
Tw. Nt. ili. 4. 337.—Ital. duello, whence also F. duel. —L,. duellum,
lit. a combat between two.—L. duo, two. See Two. 4 Cf. L.
bellum<duellum; see Belligerent. Der. dwell-er, -ist, -ing.
DUENNA, an elderly lady acting as guardian. (Span.—L.) It
occurs in Dryden’s Span. Friar, i. 2; and Mrs. Centlivre’s Busy Body,
ii. 2.—Span. duewa, a married lady, duenna.—L. domina, a lady.
@ Thus duenna is the same as donna, q.v.; or dame, q. Vv.
DUET, a piece of music for two. (Ital.) A musical term. = Ital.
duetto; in Baretti, Ital. Dict. — Ital. due, two. —L. duo, two. See Two.
For the suffix, cf. guart-ette, quint-ette.
DUFFEL, a kind of coarse woollen cloth. (Du.) ‘ And let it be
of dufil gray ;’ Wordsworth, Alice Fell. —Du. duffel, duffel. So
named from Duffel, a town not far from Antwerp.
DUFFER, a stupid person. (Scand.) Prob. the same as Lowl.
Sc. dowfart, formed with the suffix -art(=-ard) from the adj. dowf,
stupid, lit. ‘deaf.’ —Icel. dauf-r, deaf. See Deaf. Cf. WFlem. den
doofaard (or doovaard) spelen, to pretend to be deaf (De Bo).
DUG, ateat. (E.) In Shak. Romeo, i. 3. 26. ‘Tete, pappe, or
dugge;’ Palsgrave. The exact original is not forthcoming; it can
hardly be allied to Swed. dagga, Dan. degge, to suckle, fondle; or
to Goth. daddjan, to suckle. β. On the other hand, it corresponds to
Skt. duh (for dhugh), to milk ; whence dégha, a milch cow, doha-s,
a milking.
DUGONG, a swimming mammal, sea-cow. (Malay.) Malay
diiyong, a sea-cow; Marsden’s Malay Dict. p. 138.
DUKE, a leader. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. duc, duk; Layamon, 1. 86.—OF.
duc, acc. formed from a nom, dux.—L.dux, a leader; allied to dicere,
to lead. —4/ DEUK, to pull, draw; Brugmann, i. § 592. Der. duke-
dom ; and see duc-al, duch-ess, duch-y, duc-at, doge. Krom L. dicere
we have ad-duce, con-duce, de-duce, in-duce, &c.; also duct, con-duct,
de-duct, in-duct, &c.
DULCET, sweet. (F.—L.) In Shak. Mids. N. D. ii. 1.151; and
used by Cotgrave to translate OF .doucet. The spelling was refashioned
after L. dulcis; cf. M. Ital. dolcetto, somewhat sweet (Florio). Formed,
with dimin. suffix -e¢ (with force of E. -ish), from OF. dols, sweet; see
dols in Supp. to Godefroy.—L. dulcis, sweet. See Douceur; and
see below.
DULCIMER, a musical instrument. (F.—Span.—L. and Gk.)
In the Bible, A. V., Dan. iii. 5; and in Baret’s Alvearie.—OF.
doulcemer (Roquefort) ; cf. doulcemele in Godefroy. —Span. dulcemele,
a dulcimer; so called from its sweet sound. —L. dulce melos, a sweet
song; dulce is neut. of dulcis (see above) ; and melos= Gk. μέλος, for
which see Melody.
DULL, stupid, foolish. (E.) ME. dul; Chaucer, C. T. 10593
(F 279). [Also asa verb; ‘it dulleth me;’ id. 16561 (G1093).) In
the Ancren Riwle we have ‘ dulle neiles,’ i.e. blunt nails, as a various
reading of ‘dulte neiles;’ see Dolt. Dull also appears as ME.
dill; answering to a Teut. type *dul-joz. Closely allied to AS. dol,
foolish, stupid; Grein, i: 194. Cf. Du. dol, G. toll, mad; answering
to Teut. type *dul-oz. All from Tent. Ἐπὶ, for *dwul, weak grade of
DUNGEON 185
*dwel-an-, as scen in A.S. dwelan, to err, to be stupid; see Dwell.
Cf. also AS. ge-dwol-god, a false god; Irish and W. dail, blind.
Brugmann, i. ὃ 375 (6). Der. dull, verb; dul-ly, -ness ; dull-sighted,
-witted ; also dull-ard (with suffix as in drunk-ard, q.v.); also dol-t, q.v.
DULSE, an edible species of seaweed. (C.) See Jamieson, E.D.D.,
and N.E.D. From Irish and Gael. duileasg, dulse. According to
Macleod, it means ‘ water-leaf;’ from Irish and Gael. duille, leaf, and
uisg(e), water.
DUMB, silent, unable to speak. (E.) ME. domb, dumb; Chaucer,
C.T. 776 (A774). AS. dumb, mute; Grein, i. 212.4Du. dom, dull,
stupid; Icel. dumbr, dumb; Swed. dumb; Dan. dum, stupid; Goth.
dumbs, dumb ; OHG., tump, G. dumm, mute, stupid. B. The form
dumb, with the orig. sense of ‘stupid,’ is prob. allied to Goth. dawés,
deaf. See further under Deaf. Der. dumb-ly, -ness; dumb-bell, -show ;
also dumm-y (=dumb-y). 4 The dumb-bell exercise was called
‘a ringing of the dumb bells;’ which explains the name. See
Spectator, no. 115, ὃ 7.
DUMP (1), an ill-shapen piece. (E.) ‘Dump, a clumsy medal of
metal cast in moist sand: East ;’ Halliwell. Cf. the phr. ‘I don’t care
a dump,’ i.e. a piece, bit. Cf. ‘ Dubby, dumpy, short and thick: West;’
Halliwell. The dimin. of dump is dump-ling, q.v. Probably ‘a thing
thrown down in a mass ;’ see Dump (2). Der. dump-y.
DUMP (2), tostrike, fling down. (Scand.?) Cf. ME. dumpen, to
fall down plump; Allit. Poems, C. 362; dump, to heat, strike with
the feet ; to dump about, to move with short steps; Jamieson. Per-
haps associated with Icel. dumpa, to thump ; Swed. dial. dumpa, to
make a noise, dance awkwardly ; dompa, to fall down plump, to thump.
Also ef. Du. dompneus, a great nose. The root-verb appears in Swed.
dial. dimpa, to fall down plump, pt.t.damp, supine dumpid (Rietz). Cf.
E.Fries. dumpen, to press down quickly, to duck under water.
DUMPLING, a kind of pudding. (E.) ‘A Norfolk dumpling ;’
Massinger, A New Way to Pay, A. iii. sc. 2. A dumpling is properly
a small solid ball of pudding; a dimin. of dump, with double dimin.
suffix -ling (=-l+-ing). See Dump (1).
DUMPS, melancholy, sadness. (Scand.) ‘As one in dolefuldumps;’
Chevy Chase, later version, l. 198. The sing. is dump, somewhat rare.
‘He's ina deep dump now ;” Beaum. and Fletcher, Humourous Lieut.
A, iv.sc.6. Palsgrave has: “1 dumpe, I fall in a dumpe or musynge
upon thynges.’ The most closely allied word is Swed. dial. dumpin,
melancholy (Rietz); which is formed as a pp. from Swed. dial. dimba,
to steam, reek; cf. Dan. dump, dull, low. B. Further allied to ἃ.
dumpf, damp, Du. dompig,damp, hazy, misty, Du. dompen, to quench,
extinguish, and to E. damp. Also to EFries. dump, heavy, moist.
Cf. the phr. ‘to damp one’s spirits.’ See Damp. Der. dump-ish,
dump-ish-ly, dump-ish-ness.
DUN (1), of a dull brown colour. (C.) ‘ Dunne of hewe;” Rom.
of Rose, 1213. AS. dunn, dark; whence dunnian, to be darkened ;
Alfred’s Boeth. lib. 1. met. 5.— Irish and Gael. donn, brown; W. dwn,
dun, dusky, swarthy. Celtic type *donnos. @] Hence, I suppose, the
river-name Don, Der. don-key, dun-lin.
DUN (2), to urge for payment. (Scand.) ‘I shall be dunning thee
every day;’ Lord Bacon, Apophthegms, no. 288. Cf. ME. dunning,
a loud noise, Prompt. Parv. p. 135.—Icel. duna, to thunder, make a
hollow noise; dyzja, to rattle, make a din; koma einum dyn fyrir dyrr,
to make a din before one's door, take one by surprise; Swed. dana, to
make a noise, to ring. B. These words are cognate with AS. dynian,
to make a din; and dun is thus related to dix. See Din. Der. dun, sb.
DUNCE, a stupid person. (Propername.) A propername; origi-
nally in the phrase ‘a Duns man.’ ‘A Duns man;’ ‘Tyndall, Works,
p- 88; ‘a great Duns man, so greata preacher ;’ Barnes, Works, p. 232;
cf. p.272. The word was introduced by the Thomists, or disciples of
Thomas Aquinas, in ridicule of the Scotists, or disciples of John Duns
Scotus, schoolman, died A.D. 1308. The Scotch claim him as a native
of Dunse, in Berwickshire. Not to be confused with John Scotus
Erigena, died A.D. 875.
DUNE, a low sand-hill. (F.—Du.—C.) First in 1790.—F. dune.
=—MDnu. dune (Du. duin); cognate with AS. din, a down, of Celtic
origin. See Down (2).
DUNG, excrement. (E.) ME. dung, dong; Chaucer, C. T. 15024
(B 4208). AS. dung (dat. dunge), Luke, xiii. 8 (Hatton MS.); the
older MSS. have meoxe.4-OFries. dung; Swed. dynga, muck; Dan.
dynge, a heap, hoard, mass; cf. dynge, to heap, to amass; G. dung,
diinger. B. Remoter origin unknown; perhaps from the weak grade
of Ding, to cast, throw down, q.v. Der. dung, vb.; dung-cart, -heap,
-hill; also ding-y, q.v.
DUNGEON, a keep-tower, prison. (F.—L.) The same word as
donjon, a keep-tower of a castle. ‘ Which of the castel was the chief
dongeoun;’ Chaucer, C. T.1059 (A 1057); cf. P. Plowman, B. prol. 15.
= OF. donjon,the keep-tower or chief tower ofa castle; Proy. dompnhon
(Brachet).—Late L. domnianem, acc. of domnio, a donjon-tower.
Contracted from Late L. dominiGnem, acc. of dominio, the same as
186 DUNIWASSAL
dominium, a principal possession, domain, dominion; so called because
the chief tower. See further under Dominion, Domain.
DUNIWASSAL, a Highland gentleman, a yeoman. (C.) In
Sir W. Scott’s ‘Bonnie Dundee.’ = Gael. duine uasal, a gentleman. =
Gael. duine (W. dyn), a man; and uasal (W. wehel), nobly born, orig.
‘exalted.” See Brugmann, i. § 219 (4).
DUNLIYV, the red-back sandpiper. (E.) See Newton, Dict. of
Birds, on its variation of plumage according to the season. A variant
of dun-ling, lit. ‘ the little dun-coloured bird;’ see Dun. Cf. dun-
nock, a local name for the hedge-sparrow ; and don-key.
DUODECIMO, a name applied to a book in sheets of 12 leaves.
(L.) ‘ Duodecimo ; a book is said to be in duodecimo, or in twelves,
when it consists of 12 leaves in a sheet;’ Kersey, ed. 1715.—L.
duodeciméd, abl. case of duodecimus, twelfth. —L. duodecim, twelve. —
L. duo, two; anddecem, ten. See TWoand Ten. From same source,
duodecim-al ; duodec-ennial (see decennial); dozen ; and see below.
DUODENUM, the first of the smallintestines. (L.) ‘ Duodenum,
the first of the thin guts, about 12 fingers-breadth long ;’ Kersey, ed.
1715. A late L. anatomical word, formed from L. duodéni, twelve
apiece, a distributive form of duodecim, twelve. So named from its
length. See above.
DUP, to undo a door. (E.) In Hamlet, iv. 5. 53. Lit. to do up,
i.e. lift up the latch; and contracted from do up. See Don, Doff.
DUPE, a person easily deceived. (F.) A late word. In Pope,
Dunciad, iv. 502.—F. dupe, a dupe. Origin uncertain. Webster
and Littré say that it is the same as the OF. name for a hoopoe,
because the bird is easily caught. Cotgrave has: ‘ Dupe, f. a whoop,
or hooper; a bird that hath on her head a great crest, or tuft of
feathers, and loves ordure so well, that she nestles in it.’ This word
dipe is probably (like hoopoe) onomatopoetic, and imitative of the
bird’s cry. @ Cf. Bret. houpertk, (1) a hoopoe, (2) a dupe. We
have similar ideas in gull, goose, and booby. Der. dupe, verb.
DUPLICATE, double, two-fold. (L.) ‘Though the number
were duplicate;’ Hall, Hen. VII, an. 6. § 7; Lydgate, Minor Poems,
Ῥ. 165.—L. duplicatus, pp. of duplictre, to double. —L. duplic-, stem
of duplex, twofold.—L. du-, for duo, two; and plicare, to fold. See
Complex.
DUPLICITY, falsehood. (F.—L.) Lit. doubleness. ‘No false
duplicité;’ Craft of Louers, st. 22; in Chaucer’s Works, ed. 1561,
fol. 341, back. = F duplicité, —L.acc.duplicitatem, from nom. duplicitas,
doubleness. = L. duplici-, decl. stem of duplex, twofold. See above.
DURANCE, captivity. (F.—L.) Fabyan has duraunce in the sense
of ‘endurance,’ vol. i. c. 105. The sense ‘imprisonment,’ common
in Shak. (Meas. iii. 1. 67, &c.), comes from that of long sufferance
or long endurance of hardship. Cotgrave explains durer by ‘to dure,
last, continue, indure, abide, remaine, persist; also to sustaine, brook,
suffer.’ = OF. durance, duration (Godefroy). OF. durer, to last. See
Dure.
DURATION, length of time. (F.—L.) ME. duracioun,
Chaucer, Ho. Fame, 2114.—OF. duration. — Late L. dirdtidnem, acc.
of diriitio.—L. dirire, to last. See Dure.
DURBAR, a hall of audience. (Pers.) In Sir T. Herbert’s
Travels, ed. 1665, p. 103. A Hindustani word, but borrowed from
Persian. = Pers. dar-bar, a prince’s court, levee ; Palmer’s Dict. col.
255. Lit. ‘door of admittance.’ = Pers. dar, a door (=E. door), and
bar, admittance ; id. col. 64. 47 The word bar alone is also used in
the sense of court, congress; Rich. Pers. Dict. p. 230.
DURE, to last, endure. (F.—L.) Once in common use, now
nearly obsolete. ME. duren, King Alisaunder, 3276.—OF. (and F.)
durer, ‘to dure, last;’ Cot.—L. dirare, to last.—L. dirus, hard,
lasting.-+ Irish dur, dull, hard, stupid, obstinate, firm, strong; Gael.
dur, the same; W. dur, steel. Cf. Gk. δύναμις, force. Der. dur-ing
(orig. pres. pt. of dure), dur-able, -abl-y, -able-ness, -abil-i-ty; and see
duration, duress, durance.
DURESS, hardship, constraint. (F.—L.) ME. duresse; Rom.
of the Rose, 3547; Will. of Palerne, 1114.—OF. duresce, hardship.
—L. diritia, hardness, harshness, severity. ταὶ darus, hard.
DURIAN, a fruit. (Malay.) Malay durian, a fruit with a prickly
rind. = Malay dari, a thorn, a prickle.
DUSK, dull, dark, dim. (Scand.) ‘ Duskede his yen two;’ Chaucer,
C. T. 2808 (A 2806). ME. dose, dark, dim; O. Eng. Homilies, i. 259,
1, 16. Also deose; ‘This word is deosk ’ = this is a dark saying; Ancren
Riwle, p. 148. Prob. a Northern form (as the sk has not become sh).
Cf. AS. dox (for *dosc), translating L. flanus ; Voc. 239. 36. Cf. Swed.
dial. duska, to drizzle; dusk, a slight shower; duskug, misty (Rietz) ;
Norw. dusk, mist. See Notes on E. Etym., p.80. Cf. Skt. dhisara-,
gray (like dust); see Dust. Der. dusk, sb., dusk-y, dusk-i-ness,
dusk-i-ly,
DUST, fine powder. (E.) ME. dust, Ancren Riwle, p. 122: AS.
dist, Grein, i, 212.44Du. duist, meal-dust ; Icel. dust, dust ; Dan. dyst,
fine flour, meal; OHG. tunst, G. dunst, vapour, fine dust. All from
DYSENTERY
a Teut. base *dunst- (for *dwuns-t), the x being lost except in G. Cf.
Skt. dhvams, to fall to pieces (pp. dhvas-ta-) ; dhiis-ara-, dust-coloured.
Der. dust-er, dust-y, dust-i-ness.
DUTCH, belonging to Holland. (G.) Applied in old authors to
the Germans rather than to the Dutch, who were called Hollanders ;
see Trench, Select Glossary. However, Shak. has it in the usual sense;
All’s Well, iv. i. 78.—G,. Deutsch, lit. belonging to the people; MHG.
diut-isk. Here the suffix -isk=E. -ish, and the base diut- is cognate
with Goth, thiuda, AS. }20d,a people, nation. Cf. Irish ‘wath, a people;
Oscan touto,a city. Brugmann, i. § 218. See Teutonic.
DUTY, obligatory service. (AF.—L.) Chaucer has dwefee in the
sense of ‘due debt ;’ C. T. 6934 (D 1352) ; cf. Gower, C. A. iii. 124;
bk. vii. 1160.— AF. dueté, Liber Albus, p. 211. The word appears
to be an AF, coinage, there being no corresponding form in French ;
formed by analogy with words in -¢y fromthe OF. den, du. See Due.
4“ The F. word for duty is devoir (Span. deber, Ital. dovere), i.e. the
infin. mood used asasb. ; hence ME. deuoir, dewer (with u =v), Chaucer,
C. T. 2600 (A 2598). Der, dute-ous, -ly,-ness ; duti-ful, -ly, -ness.
DWALE, deadly nightshade. (Scand.) So called because it causes
stupefaction or dulness. ME. dwale, P. Plowman, C. xxiii. 379; on
which see my note. = Dan. dva/e, a trance, torpor, stupor, dvale-drik,
a soporific, dwale-drink ; Swed. dwala, a trance. Cf. AS. dwala, an
error, stupefaction. From *dwal, 2nd grade of AS. *dwel-an, to be
torpid, to err; see Dwell.
DWARF, a small deformed man. (E.) The final f is a substitu-
tion for a final guttural sound, written g or gh; in Lybeaus Disconus,
1, 403, we have the form dwerk, ‘The pl. dwerghes is in Mandeville’s
Travels, ed. Halliwell, p. 205. AS. dweorg, dwerg, dweorh, a dwarf ;
OMerc. dwerg; OE. Texts.4-Du. dwerg; Icel. dvergr; Swed. and
Dan. dverg; MHG. twerce (also querch), G. zwerg. Teut. type
*dwerg-oz. Der. dwarf-ish, -ish-ness.
DWELL, to delay, linger, abide. (Scand.) ME. dwellen, to delay,
linger; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 2356 (A 2354); to which are allied ME.
dwelen, to be torpid, and dwelien, to err; see Stratmann. [AS.
dwellan (only used in the active sense), to retard, cause to
delay, also, to seduce, lead astray, Grein, 1. 213, 394; to which
is allied dwelian, to go astray, err, wander about. The orig. sense is
to mislead, cause to err, whence the intransitive sense of to err, to
wander aimlessly. Causal of AS. dwelan (pt. τ. dwal, pp. dwolen), to
be torpid or dull, to err, found only in the pp. gedwolen (Grein); cf.
ge-dwol-god, false god, and duala, error, in the Northumb. version
of 5. Matt. xxiv. 24; and the Goth. dwals, foolish. See Dull.]}
B. But in the modern sense it is Scand. —Icel. dvelja, to dwell, delay,
tarry, abide; orig. to hinder; cf. dvdl, a short stay ; Swed. dvaljas,
to dwell, lit. to delay oneself; Dan. dvele, to linger; cf.dvale,a trance;
OHG. twaljan, MHG. twellen, to hinder, delay. See Dwale. Cf.
Skt. dhur, to bend aside, dhir-ta-, fraudulent. Brugmann, i. § 338.
Der. dwell-er, dwell-ing.
DWINDLE, to waste away. (E.) In Shak. Macb. i. 3. 22. The
suffix -le is a somewhat late addition, and has rather a diminutive
than the usual frequentative force, The d is excrescent, as common
after 2; cf. sound from ME. soun. ME. dwinen; Rom. of the Rose,
360; Gower, C. A. ii. 117; Dk. iv. 3440. AS. dwinan, to dwindle,
languish; Bosworth.-Icel. dvina; Swed. tvina, to dwindle, pine
away; Du. ver-dwijnen, to vanish. All from a Teut. str. vb.
*dweinan-.
DYE, to colour. (E.) ME. deyen, dyen; Chaucer, C. T. 11037
(F 725). Chaucer also has deyer, dyer, a dyer, C. T. prol. 364 (A
362). The sb. dehe, dye, colour, hue, occurs in O. Eng. Miscellany,
ed. Morris, p. 193, 1. 20. AS. déagian, to dye; from déah, sb. f., a
dye, colour; of which the Teut. type is *dauga, f. Remoter origin
unknown. | Not allied to L. facus (<Gk. puxos). Der. dy-er, dye-
ing, -stiffs.
DYKE, a ditch, bank ; see Dike.
DYNAMIG, relating to force. (Gk.) ‘ Dynamicks, the science of
mechanical powers; ’ Todd.—Gk. δυναμικός, powerful. — Gk. δύναμις,
power. —Gk. δύναμαι, 1am strong. Cf. L. darus, hard, lasting; see
Dure. Der. dynamic-s, -al, -al-ly; dynam-ite, because it explodes
with great force; dynamo-meter (i.e. measurer of force, from metre,
q. v-) : and see below.
DYNASTY, lordship, dominion. (F.—L.—Gk.) Applied to
the continued lordship of a race of rulers. ‘The account of the
dynasties ;’ Raleigh, Hist. of the World, Ὁ. iis c. 2. s. 2 (R.).—
Ἐς dynastie. — Late L. dynastia ; Higden, ii. 260. —Gk. δυναστεία, lord-
ship. —Gk, δυνάστης, a lord; cf. δυνατός, strong, able. Gk. δύναμαι,
I am strong ; see above.
DYSENTERY, a disease of the entrails. (L.—Gk.) ‘The
dysenterie or bloody flix;’ Holland’s Pliny, b. xxviii. ὁ. 9.—L.
dysenteria (Pliny),—Gk. ducevrepia, a bowel-complaint. —Gk. δυσ-,
prefix, with a bad sense (like Εἰ mis-); and ἔντερον, pl. ἔντερα, the
bowels, from Gk. ἐντός (= L. intus), within} from Gk. ἐν (=L. in), in.
DYSPEPSY
@ The prefix dus- is cognate with Skt. dus-, dur-, Irish do-, Goth.
tus-, tuz-, Icel. tor-, OHG. zur-, G. zer-.
DYSPEPSY, indigestion. (L.—Gk.) ‘ Dyspepsia, a difficulty of
digestion ;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715.—L. dyspepsia. Gk, δυσπεψία. --
Gk. δύσπεπτος, hard to digest. —Gk. δυσ-, prefix, hard (on which see
Dysentery); and πέπτειν, to soften, cook, digest, cognate with L.
coguere, whence Εἰ. cook. See Cook. Der. dyspept-ic (from δύσπεπτοΞ).
ie
E-, prefix, out. (L.) In e-vade, e-vince, e-volve, e-bullient, e-dict, &c.
—L. δ, ex, out. See Ex-.
EACH, every one. (E.) ME. eche, ech; Chaucer, C. T. 793 (A 791);
older form elch, Layamon, 9921. AS. #/c, each, Grein,i.56. Usually
considered as standing for d+ ge + lic, i.e. aye-like or ever-like. + Du.
elk, each; OHG. eogalih; MHG. iegelich, G. jeglicher. See Aye.
EAGER, sharp, keen, desirous. (F.—L.) ME. egre, Chaucer,
C. T. 9075 (E 1199); Rob. of Glouc. p. 80, 1. 1786.—AF. egre; F.
aigre, keen. L. acrem, acc. of cer, keen. = av AK, to pierce, sharpen.
See Acrid. Der. eager-ly, -ness ; also vin-egar, 4.0.
EAGLE, a large bird. (F.—L.) ME. egle, Chaucer, C. T. 10437
(F 123).—AF. egle; OF. aigle, ‘an eagle;’ Cot.=<L. aguila, an
eagle; see Aquiline. Der. eagi-et.
EAGRE, a tidal wave or ‘bore’ in a river. (F.?) ‘But like an
eagre rode in triumph o’er the tide;’ Dryden, Threnod. August. 135.
Sir T. Brown has agar, Vulg. Errors, bk. vii. c. 13. § 8. The Latinized
form higra occurs in Will. of Malmesbury, Gest. Pontific. p. 292;
whence Drayton has higre, Polyolbion, song vii. 1. 10. Of unknown
origin; apparently French.
EAN, EANLING; see Yean.
BAR (1), the organ of hearing. (E.) ME. ere, Chaucer, C. T. 6218
(Ὁ 636). AS. éare, Grein, i. 255. -Ἐ Du. oor; Icel. eyra; Swed. dra;
Dan. Gre; G. οὐκ; MHG. dre; OHG. dra; Goth. auso. Teut. type
*auzon-. Cf. also L. auris; Gk. ots; Russ. ucho; Lith. ausis, OIrish 0.
Brugm. i. § 213 (3). Der. ear-ed, -ache, -ring, -shot, &c.; also ear-wig,
q.v. And from the same root, auricular, q.v.; auscultation, q.v.
EAR (2), a spike, or head, of corn. (E.) ME. er; the dat. ere occurs
in King Alisaunder, 797; see ear in Stratmann. AS. éar, pl. ears of
corn; Northumb. eher, an ear, pl. ehera; Matt. xii. 1.4 Du. aar;
Tcel., Dan., and Swed., ax (=ahs); Goth. ahs; OHG. ahir; MHG.
eher; G.ahre. Teut. type *ahoz (*ahiz-); cognate with L. acus (gen.
acer-is), chaff; cf. Gk. d«-is, a point, a barb.—4/AK, to pierce. Brug-
mann, i. § 182.
EAR (3), to plough. (E.) In Deut. xxi. 4; 1 Sam. viii. 12; Is.
xxx. 24. ME. erien, P. Plowman, B. vi. 4,5; also eren, Chaucer,
C. T. 888 (A 886). AS. erian, erigan, to plough, Grein, i, 228. ἐ-
Icel. erja; MHG. eren, ern; Goth. arjan; Irish araim, I plough; L.
arare; Lith. arti; Russ. orat(e); Gk. dpdw, I plough.—4/ AR, to
plough. 4 ‘In its application to ploughing the AR (always re-
taining too its vowel a) is proper to all the European languages, as
distinguished from the Oriental ;’ Curtius, i. 426. Der. ear-ing. See
Arable.
EARL, the Eng. equivalent of count. (E.) ME. er/, Chaucer, C. T.
6739 (Ὁ 1157). AS. eorl, a warrior, hero; Grein, i. 260. + Icel. jarl,
older form earl, a warrior, hero; also, as a title; OSax. erl, a man.
Teut. type *erloz. ONorse (runic) erilaR. Der. earl-dom, from ME.
eorldom, Layamon, 11560; AS. Chron. an. 1053; where the suffix is
the AS. dém (=E. doom).
EARLY, in good time. (E.) ME. erly, adv. Chaucer, C. T. 33 ;
earlich, adj. Ancren Riwle, p. 258. AS. #@rlice, adv.; not much used,
as the simple form #r was used instead. The Northumb. adv, arlice
occurs in Mark, xvi. 2.—AS. #r, adv. sooner (Grein, i. 69), and Jic,
like; so that early =ere-like. See Ere. Der. earli-ness. @ It appears
that the word was originally in use only as an adverb.
EARN, to gain by labour. (E.) ME. ernien, O. Eng. Homilies,
i. 7.1.28. AS. earnian, Grein, i. 249. + OHG. arnén; cf. also G.
ernten, to reap, from (ἃ. ernte, harvest. Teut. type *az(a)ndjan, to
get the fruits of labour; from the sb. *az(a)na, Icel. ὅπη, labour;
cf. OHG., aran, Goth. asan-s,a harvest; also Goth. asneis (= AS. esne),
ahireling, labourer, lit. harvest-man. Cf. Russ. oséve, harvest, autumn;
OPrussian assanis, harvest. Brugmann, i.§ 903 (c). 4 As the form
of the root is AS, it has nothing to do with AS. erian, to plough.
Der. earn-ings.
EARNEST (1), eagerness, seriousness. (E.) Chiefly in the phrase
‘in earnest.’ Also frequently used as an adj., but the ME. ernest is
commonly a sb. ; see Chaucer, C. T. 1127, 1128, 3186. AS. eornost ;
on eornest, in earnest, Wulfstan, ed. Napier, p. 163; cf. AS. eornest,
EAVES 187
sb.; a fight, Grein, i. 261; also eorneste, adj. and adv. id. 262. - Du.
ernst, earnestness, zeal; OHG. ernust, a fight, MHG. ernest, G. ernst,
sb. seriousness. Allied to Goth. arn-iba, safely; cf. Gk. ὄρνυμι, to ex-
cite. See Uhlenbeck, s.v. arniba. Der. earnest, adj., earnest-ly, -ness.
EARNEST (2), a pledge, security. (F.—L.—Gk.—Heb.) In
2 Cor. i. 22; v. 5; Eph.i. 14. [The ¢ is excrescent, as commonly
after s; cf. whils-t, amongs-t from ME. whiles, amonges.| ME. ernes,
eernes; Wyclif, 2 Cor. i. 22; v.53; Eph.i.14. (Cf. prov. Eng. arles-
penny, an earnest-penny, where arles=arnes=ernes; Ray. W. ernes,
an earnest, pledge; from E.; Gael. earlas, an earnest, earnest-penny ;
from prov. E. arles.| B. This ME. ernes is a corruption (by association
with sbs. in -nes) of the earlier form erles ; ‘on erles of the eche mede,’
an earnest of the eternal reward; Hali Meidenhad (Εἰ E.T.S.), p.7;
whence also prov. E. arles. y. The ME. erles answers to an OF. *erles
(< L. *arrhulas), dimin. of OF. erres, pl., signifying ‘an earnest.’ Cf.
MF. arrhes (Cot.). This OF. erres occurs in Rom. Rose, 3418 (ed.
Méon), where the E. version has ‘ ernest,’ 1. 3680, —L. arrhas, acc. of
arrhe, pl. of arrha, shorter form of arrhabo, a pledge. = Gk. dppaBwv,
a pledge. This is a modification of the Eastern word, viz. Heb.
‘eravon, a pledge, Gen. xxxviii. 17. This word was introduced by the
Pheenicians into both Greece and Italy.
EARTH, soil, dry land. (E.) ME. eorfe, erfe, erthe; Layamon,
27817; P. Plowman, B. vii. 2. AS. eorde, Grein, i. 258.-- Du. aarde ;
Icel. jor¥; Dan. and Swed. jord; Goth. airtha; G. erde. B. Teut.
types *ertha, *erthon-, f. Allied to Gk. épa, the earth. Der. earth,
verb, earth-born, -en (ME, erthen, eorthen, Ancren Riwle, p. 388),
-ling, -ly, -li-ness, -y; also earth-quake, -work, &c.
EARWIG, the name of an insect. (E.) ‘ You suffer such ear-
wigs to creep into your ears ;’ Chapman, Mons. D’Olive, last scene.
So called because supposed to creep into the ear. AS. éar-wicga ;
Voc. 350. 36. From éare, ear; and wicga, an insect, a beetle, lit.
‘runner,’ for *weg-jon-; from AS. weg-an, to carry, to move, allied to
L, ueh-ere, to carry; see Vehicle. Sievers, AS. Gram., § 247 (b).
See Har (1).
EASE, quietness, rest. (F.) ME. ese, eise; Rob. of Glouc. p. 42,
1.977; Ancren Riwle, p. 108.—OF. aise, ease. Origin doubtful; but
OF. aisance occurs in the sensé of ‘neighbourhood,’ and may repre-
sent the L. adiacentia, ‘things adjacent;’ which may have suggested
OF. aisier, to make convenient, to facilitate, and aise, convenience.
See Korting, § 215. If so, Ital. agio is not allied. See Adjacent.
Der. ease, verb, eas-y, eas-i-ly, eas-i-ness; also ease-ment, in Udal, on
S. James, c. 5. v. 13; also dis-ease, q.v.
EASEL, a support for pictures while being painted. (Du.) ‘ Easell,
a frame, upon which the artist placeth his cloth;’ Phillips, ed. 1658.
= Du. ezel, lit.a little ass,an ass. ‘Easel, die Ezel der Schilders,’ i.e.
the painter’s easel; Sewel’s Eng.-Du. Dict. 1754. + G. esel, an ass,
easel. These are diminutives, with suffix -e/, from the stem as-, an
ass; see Ass. @ The word was borrowed from Holland rather than
Germany.
EAST, the quarter of sun-rise. (E.) ME. est, Chaucer, C. T. 4913
(B 493). AS. éast, ady. in the east, Grein, i. 255 ; common in com-
pounds, as in Fast-Sexa=East Saxons, men of Essex; AS. Chron.
A.D. 449; cf. éastan, from the east, éas¢erne, eastern, @aste-weard, east-
ward. + Du. oost; Icel. austr; Dan. dst; Swed. dstan; ΜΗ. dsten,
G. osten, the east; G. ost, east. + L. aurdra (=ausdsa), east, dawn ;
Gk. ἠώς, 230]. αὔως, Att. ἕως, dawn; Skt. ush@s, dawn. Brugmann, i.
§ 218 (4). Der. east-er-ly, east-er-n, east-ward ; also Es-sex (= East-
Saxon); also East-er, q.v.
EASTER, a Christian festival. (E.) ME. ester; whence ester-
dei, Easter day, Ancren Riwle, p. 412. AS. éastre, f.; Luke, xxii.
1; éastor- (in comp.), Grein, i. 256; pl. éastro, éastron, the Easter
festival; Matt. xxvi. 2; Mark, xiv. 1. AS. Eastre, Eostre, the name
of a goddess whose festivities were in April, whence April was called
Easter-monaé, Easter-month; Beda, De Temporum Ratione, c. xv.
B. The name Easrre is to be referred to the same root as easf, with
reference to the increasing light and warmth of the spring-season. She
was, in fact, the dawn-goddess; cf. Lith. auszra, f., dawn; Skt. usra,
f..dawn. See Kast.
BAT, to devour. (E.) ME. een, Chaucer, C. T. 4349 (A 4351).
AS. elan; pt.t. et, pp. eten; Grein, i. 228.4 Du. efen; Icel. eta;
Swed. ata; Dan. ade; Goth. itan; OHG, ezzan, ezan; MHG. ezzen ;
G. essen. + Ir. and Gael. ith; W. ysu; L. edere; Gk. ἔδειν ; Skt. ad.
/ ED, to eat, consume. Der. eat-er, -able; also fret (=for-eat), q.v.
EAVES, the clipt edge of a thatched roof. (E.) A sing. sb.; the
pl. should be eaveses. Also prov. E. oavis (Essex). ME. euese (u=
v); pl. eueses, which occurs in P. Plowman, B. xvii. 227. AS. efes,
a clipt edge of thatch, eaves, in the Lambeth Psalter, Ps. ci. 8
(Bosworth) ; whence the verb efesian, to clip, shave, shear, in Levit,
xix. 27. Cf. also oefsung, Corpus Gloss., 474.--Icel. ups, eaves ;
MSwed. ops; Swed. dial. uff, eaves (Rietz) ; Goth. ubizwa, a porch ;
John, x. 23; OHG. opasa, MHG, obse, a porch, hall; also, eaves.
188 EBB
[The sense ‘ porch’ is due to the projection of the eaves, forming a
cover.] B. The Teut. type is *obeswa, f. Allied to OHG. opa, oba,
MHG. obe, G. oben, above (cf. G. ob-dach, a shelter). See Over.
4 The orig. sense was ‘cover,’ or ‘shelter.’ Der. eaves-dropp-er,
one who stands under the drippings from the eaves, hence, a secret
listener; Rich. III, v. 3. 221; ME. enxesdroppers, pl., Lydgate, Ban-
quet of Gods and Goddesses, st.g9. Cf. Swed. dial. uffsa-drup, drop-
pings from the eaves (Rietz) ; Icel. upsar-dropi.
EBB, the reflux of the tide. (E.) ME. ebbe, Chaucer, C. T. 10573
(F 259). AS. ebba, ebb ; Atlfred’s Boethius, lib. ii. met. 8. Cf. AS.
ebbian, to ebb; AS. Chron. an. 897.4-Du. eb, ebbe, sb. ; ebben, vb.
[whence Dan. ebbe, sb. and vb.; Swed. ebb, sb. ; ebba, vb.]. Perhaps
the Teut. type is *af-jon-, or *ab-jon-, with the sense of ‘ going off ;’
see Off. Der. ebb-tide.
EBONY, a hard wood. (F.—L.—Gk.—Heb.) In Shak. L.L. L.
iv. 3. 247. Spelt ebene in Holland’s Pliny, b. xii. c. 4. [The adj.
ebon is in Milton, L’All. 8; spelt heben, Spenser, F. Q.i. 7. 37.) ME.
eban, ‘tre;’ Prompt. Parv.—OF, ebenus (Hatzfeld) ; MF. ebene, ‘the
black wood, called heben or ibonie;’ Cot.=—L. hebenus, hebenum,
ebenus, ebenum.=—Gk. ἔβενος ; also €Bevn.— Heb. hovnim, pl. ebony
wood; Ezek. xxvii. 15. Prob. a non-Semitic word.
EBRIETY, drunkenness. (F.—L.) In Sir T. Browne, Vulg.
Errors, b. ii. c. 6, part 7; bk. v. c. 23, part 16.—F. ebriété, ‘drunken-
ness;’ Cot.—L. acc. ébrietatem, from nom. ébrietas.—L. ébrius,
drunken; of obscure origin. Der. from same source, in-ebriate.
EBULLITION, a boiling. (F.—L.) In Sir T. Browne, Vulg.
Errors, b. iv. c. 7, ὃ 5. = OF. ebullition, ‘an ebullition, boyling ;’ Cot.
—L. ébullitiinem, acc. of ébullitio; a rare word; cf. ébullitus, pp. of
ébullire, to bubble up.—L. δ, out ; and bullire, to bubble, boil. See
Boil. Der. From same verb, ebulli-ent, Young, Nt. Thoughts, viii.
1. 98 from end.
ECARTE, a game at cards. (F.—L. and Gk.) First in 1824.
In Thackeray, Van. Fair, c. xxv. In this game, cards may be dis-
carded and exchanged ; hence the name.=F. écarté, discarded ; pp. of
écarter, to discard.=L. ex, out, away; and F. carte, Late L. carta,
from Gk. χάρτη, a leaf of papyrus; hence a card. See Card (1).
ECCENTRIC, departing from the centre, odd. (F.—L.—Gk.)
In Holland’s Pliny, b. ii. c. 15.—F. eccentrigue, ‘out of the center;
fol eccentrique, an unruly or irregular coxcomb ;’ Cot. = Late L. eccen-
tricus, coined from Gk. ἔκκεντρος, out of the centre.—Gk. ἐκ, out ;
and κέντρον, centre. See Centre. Der. eccentric, sb. (Milton, P. L.
iii. 475); ταὶ, -al-ly, -i-ty.
ECCLESIASTIC, belonging to the church. (L.—Gk.) Chaucer
has ecclesiast, sb., C. T. 710 (A 708). Selden, on Drayton’s Poly-
olbion, song 1, note To, and song 8, note 21, has both ecclestastic and
ecclesiastical. Late L. ecclesiasticus.— Gk. ἐκκλησιαστικός, belonging
to the ἐκκλησία, i.e. assembly, church. = Gk. ἔκκλητος, summoned. =
Gk. ἐκκαλέω, I call forth, summon. = Gk. ἐκ, out ; and καλέω, I call.
See Hale (2). Der. ecclesiast-ic-al.
ECHELON, a particular (diagonal) arrangement of troops. (F.—
L.) First in 1796 (N. E.D.). =F. échelon, a step or rung ofa ladder;
with reference to the successive ranks.—F. échelle, a ladder. —L.
scala, a ladder (Hatzfeld). See Seale (3).
ECHINUS, a sea-urchin. (L.—Gk.) Chaucer has the pl. echines ;
tr. of Boethius, bk. iii. met. 8. —L. echinus. = Gk. ἐχῖνος, a hedge-hog,
a sea-urchin. - OHG. igil, G. ἐρεῖ, AS. il, a hedgehog.
ECHO, a repeated sound. (L.—Gk.) ME. ecco, Chaucer, C. T.
9065 (Εἰ 1189). —L. &chd.— Gk. ἠχώ, a sound, echo; cf. ἦχος, ἠχή, a
ringing in the ears, noise. Der. echo, verb; also cat-ech-ise, q. V.
ECLAIRCISSEMENT, a clearing up. (F.—L.) In Dryden,
Marriage a la Mode, v.1.—F. éclaircissement, a clearing up.=F.
éclaircir, to clear up.—F. é-, OF. es-<L. ex, out, fully; and clair,
clear, from L. clarus. See Clear.
ECLAT, a striking effect, applause. (F.—L. and Low G.) First
in 1674 (N. E. D.).=—F. éclat, splendour; lit. a bursting out.=—F.
éclater, to burst forth; OF. esclater, to shine; s’esclater, to burst ;
Cot. Of G. origin, though the form is doubtful; perhaps from Late
L. type *exclappitare, formed from L. ex, out, fully, and Low G, ἀϊ]αρ-
pen, to clap, make a noise; see Clap. And see Slate (1).
ECLECTIC, lit. choosing out. (Gk.) ‘Horace, who is...
sometimes a Stoic, sometimes an Eclectic;’ Dryden, Discourse on
Satire ; Poet. Works, ed. 1851, p. 374.—Gk. ἐκλεκτικός, selecting ;
an Eclectic. — Gk. ἐκλέγειν, to select.—Gk. ἐκ, out; and λέγειν, to
choose. Der, eclectic-al, -al-ly, -ism ; see Eclogue.
ECLIPSE, a darkening of sun or moon. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME.
eclipse, often written clips ; P. Plowman, C. xxi. 140, and footnote. =
OF. eclipse, ‘an eclipse;’ Cot.— L. eclipsis. — Gk. ἔκλειψις, a failure, esp.
of the light of the sun.—Gk. ἐκλείπειν, to leave out, quit, suffer
eclipse. = Gk. ἐκ, out; and λείπειν, to leave. Brugmann, i. § 463. Der.
ecliptic, Gk. ἐκλειπτικός ; see Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, prol. 1. 67.
ECLOGUE, a pastoral poem. (L.—Gk.) In Sidney’s Arcadia,
EERY
b. iii (R.). ‘ They be not termed Eclogues, but Aglogues ;’ Spenser,
Argument to Sheph. Kal. ; cf. F. églogue, an eclogue.—L. ecloga, a
pastoral poem.—Gk. ἐκλογή, a selection; esp. of poems.—Gk.
ἐκλέγειν, to select; see Eelectic. @ Note the modification of
spelling, due to F. églogue.
ECONOMY, household management. (F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt
oeconomy in Cotgrave.—MF. oeconomie, ‘ oeconomy ;’ Cot. —L. @co-
nomia.=— Gk. οἰκονομία, management of a household. Cf. οἰκονομ-
éw, I manage a household. Gk. oixo-, for οἶκος, a house, cognate
with L. wicus; and νομ-, 2nd grade of νέμειν, to deal out, whence
also E. nomad, q.v. Der. econom-ic (spelt iconomique, Gower, C. A.
iii. 141, bk. vii. 1670); -ic-al, -ic-al-ly, -ist, -ise.
ECSTASY, enthusiasm. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. Mer. Ven. iii.
2, 112, — OF. extasie (Godefroy) ; cf. MF. ecstase, ‘an extasie, swoon-
ing, trance ;’ Cot. — Late L. ecs¢asis, a trance. — Gk. ἔκστασις, displace-
ment ; also, a trance. —Gk. ἐκ, out; and στάσις, ἃ standing, condition,
allied to ἴστημι, I place. m4/STA, to stand; see Stand. Cf. the
phrase ἐξιστάναι φρενῶν, to drive (one) out of his wits. Der. ecstatic
(Gk. éxatatix-os) ; -al, -al-ly.
ECUMENIC, ECUMENICAL, common to the world,
general. (L.—Gk.) ‘ Oecumenicall, or universall;’ Foxe, Martyrs,
p- 8 (R.).—Late L. @ciimenicus, universal. —Gk. οἰκουμενικός, uni-
versal. = Gk. οἰκουμένη (sc. γῆ), the inhabited world; fem. of οἰκούμ-
evos, pres. pt. pass. of olxéw, I inhabit. — Gk. οἶκος, a house. Brug-
mann, i. ὃ 611. See Heonomy.
ECZEMA, a skin disease. (Gk.) First in 1753 (N.E.D.).=—
Gk. ἔκζεμα, a pustule.—Gk. ἐκζέειν, to boil over.—Gk. ἐκ, out;
ζέειν, to boil. See Yeast.
EDDY, a whirling current of water. (E.) In Shak. Lucrece,
1669. ME. ydy (=idy), The Houlate, st. 64. [Either from a lost
AS. word with the prefix ed-=back ; or perhaps modified from the
Scandinavian by changing Icel. 1ὃ- to the corresponding AS. ed-.]
Cf. Icel. ida, an eddy, whirl-pool; ida, to be restless, whirl about ;
Norw. ida; Swed. dial. ida, ida, an eddy; Dan. dial. ide (Rietz).
B. Formed from AS. ed-, back, again,=Icel. 0-, back. Cf. Goth.
id-, back; OSaxon idug-, back; OHG, if-, ita-, back. Brugmann,
i. § 574. Cf. Iddy stone (now Eddystone), Arber, Eng. Garner, iil.
394 (A.D. 1599).
EDGE, the border of a thing. (E.) ME. egge; Ancren Riwle,
p- 60. AS. ecg, f. (gen. dat. acc. ecge), Grein, 1. 216.4Du. egge;
Tcel. and Swed. egg; Dan. eg; G. ecke. Teut. type *agja, f.. Ci. L.
aciés, Gk. axis, a point; Skt. agri-, an edge, corner, angle. — AK, to
pierce ; cf. Skt. ag, to pervade. Der. edge-tool, -wise, -less, edg-ing ;
egg (2), q.v-
EDIBLE, eatable. (L.) In Bacon, Nat. Hist. sect. 859.—Late
L. edibilis, eatable.— L. edere, toeat. See Hat.
EDICT, a proclamation, command. (L.) In Shak. Cor. i. τ. 84;
and in Caxton (N.E.D.).<L. édictum, a thing proclaimed. =—L.
édictus, pp. of édicere, to proclaim.—L. é, forth; and dicere, to speak.
See Diction.
EDIFY, to build up, instruct. (F.—L.) In Shak. Tw. Nt. v.
298. ME. edifien, P. Plowm. C. xxi. 42.—OF. edifier, ‘to edife,
build ;’ Cot.—L. edifictre, to build.—L. wdi-, stem of @dés, a
building ; and -fc-, for fac-ere, to make. B. The L. edés orig. meant
‘a fire-place,’ or ‘hearth ;’ cf. Irish aodh, fire. —4/AIDH, to kindle.
Brugmann, i. § 202. Der. edify-ing, edific-at-ion ; edifice, from F.
édifice,‘an edifice’ (Cotgrave), which is from L. edificium, a building;
edile, or edile, from L. edilis, a magistrate who had the care of public
buildings ; edile-ship.
EDITION, publication. (F.—L.) In Shak. Merry Wi. ii. 1. 78.
First in 1551.— OF. edicion (Hatzfeld).—L. éditidnem, acc. of éditio,
a publishing; cf. éditus, pp. of édere, to publish, give out.=—L. δ,
out; and dare, to give.—4/DA, to give. Der. from the same
source, editor (L. éditor), -i-al, -i-al-ly, -ship; also edit, editress,
coined words.
EDUCATE, to cultivate. train. (L.) In Shak. L. L. L. v. 1.
86; also education, As You Like It, i. 1. 22, 72. —L. éducatus, pp. of
éducare, to bring out, educate; allied to éducere, to bring out; see
Educe. Der. educat-or (L. éducator), -ton, -ion-al.
EDUCE, to bring out. (L.) Not common. In Pope, Ess. on
Man, ii. 175; and earlier, in Glanville’s Essays, ess. 3 (R.).—L
édiicere, pp. éductus, to bring out.—L. ὅν) out; and dicere, to lead.
See Duct. Der. educ-ible ; educt-ion, like pp. éductus.
EEL, a fish. (E.) ME. ef (with long e); pl. eles, spelt e/ys,
Barbour’s Bruce, ii. 577. 5. @l, pl. élas; AElfric’s Colloquy, in
Thorpe’s Analecta, p. 23.-4+Du. aal; Icel. all; Dan. aal; Swed. al;
G.aal. Teut.type*#loz. Der. eel-pout ; AS. #le-piita, a kind of fish.
EERY, timid; also strange, weird. (E.) ‘Id rove, and ne’er be
eerie, O;’ Burns; My Ain Kind Dearie, O. ΜΕ. ar}, ark, ar3e,
erze, timid; spelt eri in Cursor Mundi, 1. 17685. AS. earg, earh,
timid, cowardly. Cf. Icel. argr, ragr ; G. arg, timid ; Du. erg, bad.
EFFACE
EFFACE, to destroy the appearance of. (F.—L.) In Caxton,
Golden Legend, Life of St. James the More, § 8; also in Cot-
grave; and Pope, Moral Essays, i. 166.—F. effacer, ‘to efface,
deface, raze ;’ Cot. Lit. ‘ toerase a face or appearance.’ =F. ef-=L.
ef-, for ex, out ; and F. face, a face. See Face. Der. efface-ment.
EFFECT, a result, consequence. (F.—L.) ME. effect, Chaucer,
C.T.321 (A 319). — AF effect, Stat. Realm, i. 189; MF. effect, ‘an effect,
or work;’ Cot.<L. effectum, acc. of effectus, an effect.—L. effectus,
pp- of efficere, to effect.—L. ef- =ec- (ex), out; and -ficere, for facere,
to make. See Fact. Der. effectu-al (from decl. stem effectu- of sb.
effectus), -al-ly, -ate ; effect-ive (from pp. effectus), -ive-ly, -ive-ness ;
from same source, effic-ac-y, q.v.; effict-ent, q.v.
EFFEMINATE, womanish. (L.) In Shak. Rich. II, iii. 7. 211;
as a verb, Gower, C. A. 11. 236; bk. vii. 4304. —L. efféminaius, pp. of
effeminare, to make womanish. = L, ef- = ec- (ex); and femina,a woman.
See Feminine. Der. effeminate-ly, -ness, effeminac-y.
EFFENDY, sir, master. (Turkish—Gk.) Turk. éfendi, sir (a title).
- Mod. Gk. ἀφέντης, which is from Gk. αὐθέντης, a despotic master,
ruler. See Authentic.
EFFERVESCE, to bubble or froth up. (L.) ‘Effervescence, a
boiling over, . .. a violent ebullition;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715.—L.
efferuescere. = L, ef- =ec- (ex); and feruescere, to begin to boil, inceptive
of feruére, to glow, boil. See Fervent. Der. effervesc-ent, -ence.
EFFETE, exhausted. (L.) In Burton, Anat. of Melancholy, ii. 4.
I. 55 p- 370 (R.). =L. effetus, effetus, weakened by having brought
forth young. =L. ef-=ec- (ex) ; and fétus, breeding. See Fetus.
EFFICACY, force, virtue. (L.) In Sir T. Elyot, Castle of Health,
b. ii. c. 22, Englished from L. efficdécia, power. =—L. efficdci-, from
efficax, efficacious. = L. ef-=ec- (ex) ; ~fic-, from facere, to make; and
suffix -ax. See Effect. Der. efficaci-ous, -ous-ly, -ness. | The
ME. word for efficacy was efficace, Ancren Riwle, p. 246; from F.
efficace (Cotgrave).
EFFICIENT, causing an effect. (F.—L.) In Tyndal’s Works,
p- 3353 col. I (end).—F. efficient, ‘efficient;’ Cot. —L. efficientem, acc.
of efficiens, pres. pt. of efficere. See Effect. Der. efficient-ly, efficience,
efficienc-y ; also co-efficient.
EFFIGY, a likeness of a man’s figure. (L.) Spelt effigies in Shak.
As You Like It, ii. 7. 193.—L. effigiés, an effigy, image.—L. effig-,
base of effingere, to form. = L. ef-=ec- (ex); and jingere, to form. See
Feign. Cf. F. effigie, 15th cent. (Hatzfeld).
EFFLORESCENCE, a flowering, eruption on the skin, forma-
tion of a powder. (F.—L.) In Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. vi.
c. 12. ὃ 5.—F. efflorescence ; Cot. — L. *efflarescentia, a coined word from
efflorescere,inceptive form of efffdrére,to blossom. = L.ef- = ec- (ex) ; and
orére, to blossom, from flor-, stem of flds, a flower. See Flower.
EFFLUENCE, a flowing out. (L.) In Holland’s Plutarch,
p- 1059; Milton, P. L. ili. 6. Coined from L. effwent-, stem of pres.
pt. of effiuere, to flow out. —L. ef- =ec- (ex); and fluere, pp- fluxus, to
flow. See Fluent. Der. from the same verb, efflu-ent ; efflux (from
ῬΡ- effiuxus) ; effluvium (L. effluuium).
EFFORT, an exertion of strength. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave; and in
Caxton, Sons of Aymon, c. 24 (p. 527, 1. 21).—F. effort, ‘an effort,
endeavour ;’ Cot. Verbal sb. from F. efforcer, or s'efforcer, ‘to
indeavour;’ Cot. =F. ef-=L. ef- = ec- (ex); and forcer, to force, from
force, sb. See Force.
EFFRONTERY, boldness, hardihood. (F.—L.) In Kersey’s
Dict. ed. 1715.—F. effronterie, ‘impudency;’ Cot.—OF. effronte,
“shameless ;’ Cot. Formed with prefix e/-=L. ef-=ec- (ex) from
F. front, the forehead, front. See Front, Affront, Confront.
EFFULGENT, shining forth. (L.) The sb. effulgence is in
Milton, P. L. iii. 388.—L. effulgent-, stem of effulgens, pres. pt. of
effulgére, to shine forth.—L. ef-=ec- (ex); and fulgére, to shine.
See Fulgent. Der. effulgence.
EFFUSE, to pour forth. (L.) In Shak. 1 Hen. VI, v. 4. 52.
[The sb. effusion is in Occleve, Letter of Cupide, st. 61.]—L. effusus,
pp- of effundere, to pour forth. —L. ef-=ec- (ex); and fundere, to pour.
See Fuse. Der. effus-ion, -ive, -ive-ly, -ive-ness.
EFT, a newt; of which it is a variant. See Newt.
EGG (1), the oval body from which chickens, &c. are hatched.
(Scand.) ME. egg, pl. egges, eggis (from Norse); also ay, ey, pl. eiren
(from AS.). The pl. egges is in P. Plowman, B. xi. 343. [Chaucer
has ey, C. T. 16274 (G 806) ; cf. pl. etren in Ancren Riwle, p. 66. AS.
&@g, Grein, i. 55; pl. égru (whence eire, and the double pl. erre-n) ;
Du. e.)—Icel. egg; Dan. eg; Swed. agg.4G. εἰ. Prob. allied to
Trish ugh; Gael. ubh; W. wy; L. duum; Gk. ὧόν. See Oval.
Brugmann, i. § 309 (2).
EGG (2), to instigate. (Scand.) ME. eggen, Ancren Riwle, p. 146.
—Icel. eggja, to egg on, goad. —Icel. egg, an edge; see Hdge.
EGLANTINE, sweetbriar, &c. (F.—L.) In Spenser, Sonnet 26.
ME. eglentine, eglentier, Maundeville, Tray. c. ii. p. 14.— Τὸ églantine,
formerly aiglantine; another OF. form was aiglantier, given by
ELAND 189
Cotgrave, and explained as ‘an eglantine or sweetbrier tree.’ =OF.
aiglant, aiglent, the same, Godefroy; (whence atglant-ine, aiglant-ier) ;
for aiglent-. = Late L. *aculentus, prickly (not recorded), formed (with
suffix -lentus) from acus, a needle. Cf. L. acu-leus, a sting, prickle. See
Agilet.
EGOTIST, a self-opinionated person. (L.) Both egotist and
egotism occur in the Spectator, no. 562. They are coined words,
from L, ego, I. See I. @ Also ego-ism, ego-ist (Εἰ, egoisme, egoiste).
Ego-ist is the right form; egotist seems to have been imitated from
words like dramat-ist, where, however, the ¢ is a part of the stem of
the sb. Der. egotist-ic, egotise.
EGREGIOUS, excellent, select. (L.) In Shak. Cymb. v. 5. 211.
“Το égregi-us, chosen out of the flock, excellent; with suffix -os. τα
L.é grege, out of the flock. SeeGregarious. Der.egregious-ly, -ness.
EGRESS, a going out, departure. (L.) In Shak. Merry Wives,
ii. I. 225.—L. egressus, a going out.—L. égressus, pp. of égredior,
I go out.—L. é@, out; and gradior, 1 go. See Grade.
EGRET, the lesser white heron. (F.—OHG.) In Levins and
Huloet. The Anglo-French egret occurs in the Liber Albus, p. 467.
“ΟἿ. egrette, aigrette, ‘a fowl like a heron;’ Cot. Dimin. of
a form *aigre, of which OF. aigron, a heron (Supp. to Godefroy) is
an augmentative form. This aigron is the same as F. heron, OF.
hairon, a heron. *Aigre exactly answers to the OHG. heigir, heiger,
a heron; and egret (for hegr-et) is merely the dimin. of the her-
(=hegr-) in her-on. See Heron.
EH! interj. of surprise. (E.) ME. ey; Chaucer, C. T. 3766
(A 3768). AS. éa, eh! Grein, i. 63, 250. Cf. F. eh! Du. he! G. εἰ!
See Ah!
EIDER-DUCK, a kind of sea-duck. (Scand.) Not old; and
not in Johnson. ‘The eider bolster;? Darwin, Bot. Garden, c. iii.
388. Duck is an English addition. Adapted from Icel. @dar, gen. of
@dr, an eider-duck ; where ὦ is pronounced like E. ¢ in time. Der.
eider-down (wholly Scandinavian); from Icel. @dar-din, eider-down.
See Norw. ederdun in Falk and Torp.
EIGHT, twice four. (E.) ME. eighté (with final e), Chaucer,
C. T. 12705 (C771). AS. eahta, Grein, i. 235.-4-Du. acht; Icel. atta;
Dan. otte; Swed. atta; Goth. ahtau; OHG. ahta, MHG. ehte, ahte,
G. acht.4 Irish ocht; Gael. ochd ; W. wyth; Corn. eath; Bret. eich, eiz;
L. octo; Gk. ὀκτώ; Pers. hasht, Zend ashta, Skt. ashtau. Idg. type,
*okio(u). Der. eighth (for eight-th) = AS. eahtoda; eighty (for etght-
ty) = AS. eahtatig; eighteen (for eight-teen) = AS. eahtatyne; also eighth-
Ly, eight-i-eth, eighteen-th.
EISEL, vinegar. (F.—L.) Spelt esile, Hamlet, v. 1. 299. ME.
eistl, Ancren Riwle, p. 404. “5 OF. aisil, eisil, vinegar. From a L. type
*acétillum, —L. acétum, vinegar.
EISTEDDFOD, a congress of Welsh bards. (W.) First in 1822
(N.E.D.). But it is spelt ste¢hva in Drayton, Polyolb. iv. 179. —
W. eisteddfod, a sitting, session, congress. = W. eistedd, to sit.
EITHER, one of two. (E.) ME, either, eyther, aither, ayther ;
Chaucer, Parl. Foules, 125. AS. @gper, Matt. ix. 17; a contracted
form of @ghweper, Grein, i. 65. Compounded of a+ ge+hwebher ;
where a@=aye, ever, ge is acommon prefix, and hweper is E. whether;
March, A.S. Gram. sect. 136. Cf. Du. ieder; OHG. éowedar, MHG.
ieweder, G. jeder [without -ge-]. See Aye and Whether. 4 ME.
eyther was confused with ME. outher, E. or ; see Or (1).
EJACULATE, to jerk out an utterance. (L.) The sb. ejaculat-
ion is in Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 4. 5.—L. étaculatus,
pp- of étacularz, to cast out.—L. δ) out; and sacularz, to cast, from
taculum, a missile, from iacere, to throw. See Jet. Der. ejaculat-ion,
-or-y; and see below.
EJECT, to cast out. (L.) In Shak. Cor. iii. 1. 287.—L. éiectus,
pp. of écere, to cast out.—L. δ, out; and iacere, to cast. See above.
Der. eject-ment, -ion.
EKE (1), to augment. (E.) ME. eken, Northern form; the
Southern form is echen; ‘these fooles, that her sorowes eche ;’
Chaucer, Troil. i. 705. OMerc. écan, to augment; AS. iecan; Grein,
i. 229. Teut. type *awkjan-, weak verb; allied to Icel. auka; Swed.
oka; Dan. ége; Goth. awkan (neuter). Cf. L. augére, to increase;
Skt. djas, strength. Brugmann,i. ὃ 530 (2). (4/AWEGw); whence
also auction, augment. Der. eke, con).
EKE (2), also. (E.) ME. ek, eek, eke; Chaucer, C. T. 41. AS.
éac, Grein, i. 251.-4-Du. ook; Icel. auk ; Swed. och, and; Dan. og,
and; Goth. απ, All from the Teut. base *auk-, Idg. *aug-.
ELABORATE, laborious, produced with labour. (L.) ‘The
elaborate Muse ;’ Ben Jonson, tr. of Horace’s Art of Poetry, 1. 140.
=L. élaboritus, pp. of elabordre, to labour greatly. —L. δ, forth, fully;
and Jaborare, to work, from labor-, stem of Jabor, work. See Labour.
Der. elaborate, verb; -ly, -ness, elaborat-ion.
ELAND, a S. African antelope. (Du.—G.—Lith.) Spelt elan;
Hakluyt, Voy. iii. 104. From Du. eland, an elk. —G. elend. = Lith.
énis, an elk. Cf. W. elain, a hind; Russ. oléne, a stag. See Elk,
190 EKLAPSE
ELL
ELAPSE, to glide away. (L.) ‘Elapsed, gone or slipt away;’ | elegant, ‘elegant, eloquent ;’ Cot.—L. élegantem, acc. of élegans,
Phillips, ed. 1706.—L. élapsus, pp. of élabi, to glide away. =L. δ,
away; and Jabi, to glide. See Lapse. Der. elapse, sb.
ELASTIC, springing back. (Gk.) Pope has elasticity; Dunciad,
i. 186. Phillips, ed. 1706, has elasticity and elastick. A scientific
word, coined from a Gk. *éAaoricds, propulsive; from Gk. é\dw =
ἐλαύνω, I drive (fut. €Aac-w). Allied to L. alacer. See Alacrity.
Der. elastic-i-/y,
ELATE, lifted up, proud. (L.) ME. elat; Chaucer, C. T. 14173
(B 3357)-—L. élatus, lifted up.—L. δ, out, up; and Jatus =datus,
connected with ¢ollere, to lift.—4/ TEL, to lift. Der. elated-ly,
-ness 3 elat-ion.
ELBOW, the bend of the arm. (E.) ME. elbowe; Chaucer, Good
Women, prol. 179. AS. elboga; in Voc. 158. 8 ; e/n-boga, tr. of Beda,
bk. v. c. 3.4 Du. elleboog ; Icel. alnbogi, olnbogi, dlbogi, olbogi; Dan.
albue; OHG. elinpogo, MHG. elenboge, G. ellenbogen. B. Compounded
of AS. el (=eln < *alin-), cognate with Goth. aleina, a cubit [L. ulna,
the elbow, Gk. ὠλένη, the elbow}; and boga, a bending, a bow. 1. Of
these, the first set is allied to Skt. araini-, the elbow; see Ell.
2. The AS. boga is from4/ BHEUG, to bend; see Bow (τὴ. @ Cf.
Swed. armbage, the elbow, lit.arm-bow. Der. elbow, verb; elbow-room.
ELD, old age, antiquity. (E.) Nearly obsolete; but once common.
In Shak. Merry Wives, iv. 4. 36; Meas. iii. 1.36. ME. elde, Chaucer,
C. T. 2449 (A 2447). OMerc. eldu, old age (O. E. Texts, p. 542),
from OMerce. ald, old. Cf. AS. yldo, yldu, antiquity, old age ; Grein,
ii, 769; also ald, eldu, eld, id. i. 56, 222.4 Icel. εἰ]; Dan. elde.
Allied to Icel. old, an age; Goth. alths, anage. See Old.
ELDER (1), older. (E.) The use as a sb. is very old. ME.
elder, eldre; ‘tho londes that his οἰ ἄγος wonnen;’ Rob. of Brunne,
p- 144; ef. P. Plowman, C. x. 214. In AS., the same use occurs in
the Blickling Homilies, p. 195: ‘ure yldran,’ our elders. OMerc.
eldra (AS. yldra), elder, adj.; compar. of OMerc. ald (AS. eald), old.
See Old. Der. elder-ly, elder-ship.
ELDER (2), the name of a tree. (E.) The dis excrescent; the
tight form is eller. ME. eller, P. Plowman, B. i. 68; cf. edlerne treo,
id. A.i. 66. AS. ellen, ellern, Cockayne’s Leechdoms, iii. 324; ellern,
Corpus Gloss. 1775. ++ Low G. elloorn; Bremen Worterbuch, i. 303 ;
also ellern, elhorn, alhorn (Liibben). 57 Distinct from alder. There
is nothing to connect it in form with (ἃ. holunder,
ELDEST, oldest. (E.) ME. eldest, eldeste. OMerc. @ldesta (AS.
yldesta), Grein, i. 239; formed by vowel-change from OMerc. ald
(AS, eald), old. See Old.
ELECAMPANE, a plant. (F.—L.) In Holland, tr. of Pliny,
b. xix. c. 5. § 7; spelt elycampane, Sir Τὶ Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. iii.
c.12. Shortened from Εἰ. enule-campane, ‘ the hearbe called helicam-
panie ;’ Cot.—L. inula campana; where inula is the L. name for
elecampane in Pliny, as above. At the same time, the substitution
of ele- for F. enule was due to AS, eolone, eolene (for *iluna,a perversion
of inula); Voc. 26. 23; 36.11. Cf. elena campaina, Med. Works of
14th Cent., ed. Henslow, p. 115. B. Campana, fem. of campanus, is a
Late L. form, and perhaps means merely growing in the fields ; cf.
L. campdneus, of or pertaining to the fields (Lewis), though the proper
L. word for this is campestris; see Campestral.
ELECT, chosen. (L.) In Shak. Rich. II, iv. 126; and used by
Caxton (see Trevisa, tr. of Higden, iii. 99, 1. 2).—L. électus, pp. of
éligere,to choose out. —L.é@, out; and legere,to choose. See Legend.
Der. elect, verb; elect-ion (OF. election), Rob. of Brunne, p. 208;
election-eer ; elect-ive, -or, -or-al; cf. also eligible, q.v.; elegant, q.v.}
elite, q. Vv.
ELECTRIC, belonging to electricity. (L.—Gk.) Sir T. Browne
speaks of ‘electrick bodies ;’ Vulg. Errors, b. ii. c. 4. Coined from
L. électrum, amber ; from its electrical power when rubbed. —Gk.
ἤλεκτρον, amber; also shining metal; allied to ἠλέκτωρ, gleaming.
Der. electric-al, electric-ian, electric-i-ty, electri-fy, electro-meter; &c.
ELECTUARY, a kind of confection. (L.—Gk.) (ME. letuarie,
Chaucer, prol. 428 (A 426).—OF. Jletuaire, lectuaire (Godefroy) ;
MF. electuaire, ‘an electuary ; a medicinable composition made of
choice drugs, and of substance between a syrrop and a conserve ;’
Cot.J=—L. électuarium, électirinm, an electuary, a medicine that dis-
solves in the mouth; perhaps for *e(c)lictarium ; from Gk. ἐκλεικτόν,
an electuary.—Gk. ἐκλείχειν, to lick away. See Lick. @ The
usual Lat. word is ecligma, Latinised from Gk. ἔκλειγμα, medicine
that is licked away, from λείχειν, to lick.
ELEEMOSYNARY, relating to alms. (L.—Gk.) ‘ Eleemo-
sinary, an almner, or one that gives alms ;’ Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674.
Also used as an adj.; Glanvill, Vanity of Dogmatizing, c. 16 (R.).—
Late L. eleémosyndrius, an almoner.=Gk. ἐλεημοσύνη, alms. See
Alms.
ELEGANT, choice, grateful, neat. (F.—L.) In Cotgraye, and
in Milton, P. L. ix. ror8. Shak. has elegancy, L. L. L. iv. 2. 126.
Caxton has ‘elegaunt and fayr;’ Golden Legend, Moses, ὃ 2.—MF.
tasteful, neat. L. δ, out; and leg-, base of legere, to choose. See
Elect. Der. elegance, eleganc-y.
ELEGY, a lament, funeral ode. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘An Elegie’ is
the title of a poem by Spenser. — MF. elegie, ‘an elegy ;’ Cot.—L.
elegia. — Gk. ἐλεγεία, an elegy, fem. sing.; but orig. τὰ ἐλεγεῖα, neut.
pl., an elegiac poem; plur. of ἐλεγεῖον, a distich consisting of a hex-
ameter and a pentameter.—Gk. ἔλεγος, a lament. Der. elegi-ac,
eleg-ist.
ELEMENT, a first principle. (L.) In early use. ‘ The four
elementz ;’ On Popular Science, 1. 120; in Wright’s Popular Treatises
on Science, p. 134.—OF. element (Hatzfeld).—L. elementum, a first
principle. Der. element-al, -al-ly, -ar-y.
ELEPHANT, the largest quadruped. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. oli-
faunt, King Alisaunder, 5293; Lydgate has elyphaunt, Sege of Troye,
bk. ii, c. 11.1, 142. [The AS. form olfend was used to mean ‘a
camel ;’ Mark, i. 6.]—OF. olifant (Roquefort) ; elefant, Philip de
Thaun, Bestiary, 1. 691; also elephant; Cot.—L. elephantem, acc. of
elephas. = Gk. ἐλέφαντα, acc. of ἐλέφας. Of unknown origin; some
compare Heb. eleph, an ox; see Alphabet. Or from the Semitic
el, def. article, and Skt. δίας, an elephant. Der. elephant-ine.
ELEVATE, to raise up. (L.) ‘As many degrees as thy pool
[pole] is eZevat;? Chaucer, Astrolabe, pt. ii. c. 23.— L. éleudius, pp. of
éleudre, to lift up.—L. δι out, up; and leuare, to make light, lift, from
leuis, light. See Levity. Der. elevat-ion, -or.
ELEVEN, ten and one. (E.) ME. enlexen (with u=v), Layamon,
23364. AS. endlufon, Gen. xxxii. 22; older form endleofan, tr. of
Beda, bk. v. c. 18; ONorthumb. @llefne, Luke, xxiv. 9. Cf. OFries.
andlova, elleva. + Du. elf; Icel. ellifu; later ellefu; Dan. elleve; Swed.
elfva; Goth. ainlif; OHG. einlif, G. eilf, elf. B. All from a Teut.
base *ainlif, which best appears in the Goth. ain-lif. 1. Here ain=
AS. Gn=one. 2. The sutfix -lif is plainly cognate with the suffix
-lika in Lithuanian wénolika, eleven, Fick, ii. 292. And it is probable
that -Jika means ‘remaining ;’ cf. L. linguere (pt. τ. ligui), to leave,
Thus the sense is ‘one remaining,’ after fen. Brugmann, ii. § 175.
Cf. twelve; and Lith. ¢ry-lika, thirteen. Der. eleven-th.
ELF, a little sprite. (E.) ME. e/f, Chaucer, C. T. 6455 (D 873).
AS. elf, Grein, i. 56. 4 Icel. afr; Dan. αἰ; Swed. aif; OHG. alp; G.
elf, also alp,a nightmare,incubus. Der. elfin, adj. (=el/-en), Spenser,
Ἐς Ο. ii. 10. 71; elfin, sb. (=elf-en, dimin. of elf), id., i. 10. 60; el/-
ish, ME. elvish, Chaucer, C. T. 16219 (G 751); ed/-lock. @ Probably
elfin, sb. is merely a peculiar use of e/fiz, adj.; and this again stands
for elf-en, with adj. suffix -ex, as in gold-en; though prob. suggested
by AS. elfen, a female elf, whence ME. elven, an elf, Guy of Warwick,
ed. Turnbull, 3862 (N. E.D.). Doublet, oaf
ELICIT, to draw out, coax out. (L.) Orig.'a pp. ‘ Elicite, drawn
out or allured ;’ Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674.—L. élicttus, pp. of élicere,
to draw out.—L. δ. out ; and Jacere, to entice. See Lace.
ELIDK, to strike out. (L.) ‘The strength of their arguments is
elided ;’ Hooker, Eccl. Polity, b. iv. s. 4,—L. élidere, to strike out. =
L. δ, out; and Jedere, to dash, hurt. See Lesion. Der. elision, q.v.,
from pp. élisus.
ELIGIBLE, fit to be chosen. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave. -- ΜῈ. eli-
gible, ‘ eligible, to be elected ;’ Cot.—Late L. @ligibilis; formed with
suffix -bilis from éligere, to choose. See Blect. Der. eligibl-y,
eligible-ness ; also eligibili-ty, formed from éligibilis.
ELIMINATES, to get rid of. (L.) ‘ Eliminate, to put out or cast
forth of doors; to publish abroad ;” Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. —L.
éliminatus, pp. of éliminare, lit. to put forth from the threshold. =L.
δ, forth; and Jimin-, stem of Jimen, a threshold, allied to dimes, a
boundary; see Limit. Der. eliminat-ion.
ELISION, a striking out. (L.) In Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 124.<L.
élisionem, acc. of élisio, a striking out; cf. élisws, pp. of élidere, to
strike out. See lide.
ELITE, a choice set (in society). (F.—L.) ‘ The élite of crowds τ᾿
Byron, Don Juan, bk. xiii. st. 80.—F. élite.—L. électa, f. of électus,
chosen, pp. of éligere, to choose out. See Elect.
ELIXIR, the philosopher’s stone. (Arab.—Gk.) In Chaucer,
C. T. 16331 (G 863). — Arab. οἷ iksir, the philosopher’s stone ; where
el is the definite article; Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 44. It also meant
a sort of powder (Devic); from Gk. ξήρτιον, dry powder, or énp-dv,
dry (residuum).
ELK, a kind of large deer. (E.) ‘Th’ unwieldy e/k;’ Drayton,
Noah’s Flood. ME. elke, Book of St. Alban’s, fol. D iii, back, 1. 4;
elk, K. James I, King’s Quair, st. 156. An AF. pronunciation of
AS. elh, an elk, Voc. 12. 30; elch, Voc. 51. 36. (So also Burke from
AS. burh, &c.) Cf. Icel. elgr; Swed. elg, an elk ; OHG. elaho, MHG.
elch. + Russ. oléne,a stag (cf. Du. eland, an elk); L. alces; Gk. ἄλκη;
Skt. xshya-s, Vedic reya-s, a kind of antelope. (History obscure.)
EGIL, a measure of length. (E.) ME. elle, elne; Prompt. Pary.
p- 138. AS. εἶν, αὶ cubit ; see Matt. vi. 27, Lu. xil. 25 (Grein, 1, 225);
ELLIPSE
eln-gemet, the measure of an ell (ibid.). + Du. elle, an ell; somewhat
more than 3-4ths of a yard (Sewel) ; Icel. alin, the arm from the elbow
to the tip of the middle-finger; an ell; Swed. alx, an ell; Dan. alen,
an ell; Goth. aleina,a cubit; OHG. elina, MHG. elne, (ἃ. elle, an
ell. + L. ulna, the elbow; also, a cubit; Gk. ὠλένη, the elbow. The
Teut. type is *alina, f, Brugmann, i. § 159. B. Ell=el- in el-bow;
see Elbow.
ELLIPSE, an oval figure. (L.—Gk.) ‘Ellipsis, a defect; also,
a certain crooked line coming of the byas-cutting of the cone or
cylinder ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. = L. ellipsis, a want, defect ; also,
an ellipse. — Gk. ἔλλειψις, a leaving behind, defect, an ellipse of a word;
also the figure called an ellipse, so called because its plane forms with
the base of the cone a less angle than that of the parabola (Liddell).
— Gk. ἐλλείπειν, to leave in, to come short.—Gk, ἐλ-, for ἐν, in; and
λείπειν, to leave, cognate with L. linquere. Sce Eclipse. Der.
elliptic-al, from Gk, ἐλλειπτικός, adj. formed from ἔλλειψις.
ELM, a kind of tree. (E.) ME, elm, Chaucer, C, T. 2924 (A 2922).
AS. elm; Gloss, to Cockayne’s Saxon Leechdoms. 4Icel. amr; Dan.
alm, elm; Swed. alm. +L. ulmus ; whence G. ulm, Du. olm. Cf. Gael.
leamhan, Mid. Irish Jem, elm.
ELOCUTION, clear utterance. (L.) In Ben Jonson, Under-
woods, xxxi. 56; and Hawes, Pastime of Pleasure, c. xi. 1. 1.—L.
élociitionem, from nom, élocitio; cf. élocitus, pp. of éloqui, to speak
out. —L, δ, out; Jogui, to speak. See Eloquent. Der. elocution-
ar-y, -tst.
ELOIGN, ELOIN, to remove and keep at a distance, to with-
draw. (F.—L.) “ Eloine, to remove, banish, or send a great way from ;’
Blount’s Nomo-lexicon, Still in use as a law term. Spenser writes
esloyne, Ἐς Q. i. 4. 20.— OF. esloignier, MF. esloigner (mod. F.
eloigner), ‘to remove, banish, drive, set, put far away, keep aloof ;’
Cotgrave. = OF. es-, prefix; and doing (mod. F. doin), ‘far, a great way
off;’ Cot,—L. ex, off, away; longé, adv. afar, from longus, adj. long,
far. See Ex- and Long; also Purloin.
ELONGATE, to lengthen. (Late L.) Formerly ‘to remove;’
Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iv. c. 13, § 14.— Late L. élorgatus,
pp- of élongire, to remove; a yerb coined from L. δ, out, off, and
longus, long. See Long. Der. elongat-ion.
ELOPE, to run away, (AF.—Scand.) Spelt eldope, Spenser, F. Q.
v. 4. 9. = AF. aloper, to elope; Year-books of Edw. 111, 1337-8,
p- 587. The AF. prefix a- is prob. for OF. es- (< L. ex, away), as in
abash, B. ME. lopen, to run (Cath. Angl.) is from Icel. k/aupa, to run,
cognate with E. Leap, q.v. Cf. Du. looper, to run, whence Du.
ontloopen, to escape, with prefix ont-=G, ent-, as in extlaufen, to run
away. Der. elope-ment.
ELOQUENT, gifted with good utterance. (F.—L.) ME. eloquent,
Gower, C. A. iii. 85; bk. vii. 37; cf. eloguence, Chaucer, C. T. 10990
(F 678). -- OF. eloguent ; Cot. = L. éloguent-, stem of pres. pt. of élogui,
to speak out. = L. δ, out; and logui, to speak. See Elocution. Der.
eloquent-ly, eloquence.
ELSE, otherwise. (E.) ME. elles, always an adverb; Chaucer,
C. T. 13867 (B 2129). AS. elles, otherwise, Matt. vi. 1; an adverbial
form, orig. gen, sing. from a stem *aljo-, signifying ‘ other ;’ cf. AS.
eleland, a foreign land, Grein, i. 223.4 MSwed. ai/jes, otherwise (Ihre) ;
whence mod. Swed. edjest, with excrescent ἐ; MHG. alles, elles, other-
wise, an adverb of genitival form, Cf. Goth. aljis, other; L. alias,
otherwise, else, from alius, other: See Alien. Der. else-where.
ELUCIDATE, to make clear. (Late L.) ‘ Elucidate, to make
bright, to manifest; ’ Blount’s Gloss,, ed. 1674. —Late L. élacidatus,
pp: of éliicidare; compounded from L, é, out, very, and licidus, bright.
See Lucid. Der. elucidat-ion, -or, -ive.
ELUDE, to avoid slily. (L.) In Bp. Taylor, vol. i. ser. 5 (R.);
and Milton, P. L. ix. 158.—L. éladere, pp. élisus, to mock, deceive.
cL. δ, out; and liidere, to play. See Ludicrous. Der. elus-ive,
-ive-ly, -ion, -or-y; from pp. élisus.
ELYSIUM, a heaven. (L.—Gk.) In Shak. Two Gent. ii. ἡ. 38.
—L. élysium.—Gk, ᾿Ἤλύσιον, short for ᾿ηλύσιον πεδίον, the Elysian
field; Homer, Od. 4. 563. Der. Elysi-an.
EM, prefix. (F.—L.) F. em-, from L. im-, for in; before ὁ and f.
Hence em-balm, to anoint with balm; em-bank, to enclose with a bank,
cast up a bank; em-body, to enclose in a body; &c.
EMACIATE, to makethin. (L.) In Sir ΤῸ Browne, Vulg, Errors,
b. vii. c. 13, § 6.—L,. émacidtus, pp. of émaciare, to make thin.=L. δ,
out, very; and maci-, base of maci-és, leanness; cf. macer, lean. See
Meagre. Der. emaciat-ion.
EMANATE, to flow from. (L.) ‘In all bodily emanations ;’
Bp. Hall, Contemplations, New Test., Ὁ. iv. cont. 7. 8 19.—L.
emanitus, pp. of émandre, to flow out.—L, δ, out; and méanare, to
flow. Méanire=*madnare, from the base mad- in L. madidus, wet,
madére,to be moist. Cf. Skt. mad, to be wet,to get drunk. Brugmann,
i. § 762 (2). Der. emanat-ion, -ive.
EMANCIPATE, to set free. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss,, ed, 1674.
EMBER-DAYS 191
—L. é@mancipatus, pp. of émancipare, to set free.mL, δ, out; and
mancipare, to transfer property, from mancip-, stem of manceps, one
who acquires property; lit. one who takes it in hand; from maz-,
base of manus, the hand; and capere, to take, See Manual and
Capable. Der. emancipat-or, -ion.
EMASCULATE, to deprive of virility. (L.) ‘Which have
emasculated [become emasculate] or turned women;’ Sir T. Browne,
Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 17, § 2. L. émasculatus, pp. of émasculare, to
castrate. —L. δ, out of, away; and masculus, male. See Male. Der.
emasculat-ion.
EMBALM, to anoint with balm. (F.) In Shak. Timon, iy. 3. 30.
Spelt imbalm in Cotgrave. ME. embaumen; Chaucer, Leg. Good
Women, 676; cf. bawmyt, bawlmyt, embalmed, in Barbour’s Bruce,
xx. 286.— OF. embaumer, ‘to imbalm;’ Cot.—OF. em-=en-<L. in;
and baume, balm. See Balm.
EMBANK, to cast up a mound. (Hybrid; F. and E.) Spelt
imbank in Bailey’s Dict., vol. ii. ed. 1731. Coined from F. em- (L.
im-=in), and E, bank. See Bm-and Bank. Der. embank-ment.
EMBARGO, a stoppage of ships. (Span.—Late L.) ‘By laying
an embargo upon all shipping in time of war;’ Blackstone, Comment.
b. i. ο. 7.—Span. embargo, an embargo, seizure, arrest; cf. Span.
embargare, to lay onan embargo, arrest; for Late L, type *imbarricare,
to barin. = L, im-, foria, in; aud Late L. barra,a bar. Hence embargo
=a putting of a bar in the way. See Bar, Barricade, Em-
barrass. Der. embargo, verb,
EMBARK, to put or go on board ship. (F.) In Hamlet, i. 3. 1.
=-OF. embarquer, ‘to imbark;”’ (οἱ. - Εν em-< L. im-=in; and F.
bargue, a bark. See Bark (1). Der. embark-at-ion.
EMBARRASS, to perplex. (F.—Span.—Late L.) ‘I saw my
friend a little embarrassed ;’ Spectator, no. 109, ὃ 6.—F. embarrasser,
‘to intricate, pester, intangle, perplex ;’ Cot.—Span. embarazar, to
embarrass, = Span, em-(=L. im-=in); and barra,a bar. See Bar,
Embargo. Der. embarrass-nent. Φ The form barras may be
compared with Proy. barras, barrasso, a large bar (Mistral) ; or with
Span. barras, pl. bars. There was a game called juego de barras
(Minsheu, Span. Dict.). Korting, § 1245.
EMBASSY, the mission of an ambassador. (F.—Late L.—C.)
1. Shak, has embassy, L. L. L. i. 1. 1353 also embassage, Much Ado,
i. 1.2823 and embassade (= OF. embassade, Cotgrave), 3 Hen. VI, iv.
3. 32. 2. Latimer has ambassages, Sermon on the Ploughers, 1. 180
(in Skeat’s Specimens). Chaucer has embassadrye, Six-text, B 233.
3. Embassy is a modification of OF . ambassée. — Low L. ambascidta, sb.
(whence also MF. embassade) ; orig. fem. of pp. of ambasciare, to send
on a mission, from ambascia, a mission (of Celtic origin). See further
under Ambassador.
EMBATTLE (1), to furnish with battlements. (F.) ME. em-
battelen, enbattelen; Chaucer, C. 1. 14866 (B 4050; Lansdowne MS.).
“- OF. em- or en- (=L. im-= in), prefix; and OF. bastiller, to embattle.
See Battlement. 647 1. The simple verb bat‘ailen or battalen occurs
early; the pp. batdailyt or battalit, i.e. embattled, occurs in Barbour’s
Bruce, ii. 221, iv. 134; and the sb. battalyng, an embattlement, in the
same, iv. 136. 2. Obviously, these words were accommodated to
the spelling of ME. battale (better bataille), a battle; and from the
first a confusion with battle has been common.
EMBATTLE (2), to range in order of battle. (F.—L.). In Shak.
Hen. V, iv. 2.14. ME. embataillen; Gower, C. A, i. 221; bk, ii.
1837.—OF. embataillier, the same (Godefroy). A coined word, from
F. prefix em- (< L. im-, in); and OF. bataille, a battle, a battalion;
see Battle.
EMBAY, to enclose in a bay. (F.) In Shak. Oth. ii. 1.18. A
coined word; from F. em- (< L. tm-=in); and E. bay, of F. origin.
See Bay (3).
EMBELLISH, to adorn. (F.—L.) ME. embelisshen, Chaucer,
Good Women, 1737-— OF. embeliss-, stem of pres. pt. &c. of OF.
embellir, ‘to imbellish, beautifie ;’ Cot. OF. em- (L. im-=in); and
bel, fair, beautiful, from L. bellus, well-mannered, fine, handsome,
See Beauty. © For the suffix -ἰὰ, see Abash. Der. embel-
lish-ment.
EMBER-DAYS, fast-days at four seasons of the year. (E.) A
corruption of ME. ymber. ‘lhe Wednesdai Gospel in ymber weke in
Septembre monethe;’ Wyclif’s Works, ed. Arnold, ii. 203; cf. pp. 205,
207. ‘ Umbridawes’ (another MS. ymbri wikes), i.e. ember-days (or
ember-weeks); Ancren Riwle, p. 70. AS. ymbren, pl. ymbrenu; as in
pi féeower ymbrenu, the four ember-days; Wulfstan, ed. Napier, p. 136,
1.17. 1. ‘On pre pentecostenes wucan t6 pam ymbrene’ = in Pentecost
week according to the ymbren, i.e. in due course; rubric to Luke, viii.
40. ‘On &lcum ymbren-fastene, = at every ember-fast; Elfric’s
Homilies, ii. 608. 2. The orig. form of the word is ymb-ryne, and the
orig. sense ‘a running round,’ ‘circuit,’ or ‘ course ;’ compounded of
AS. ymb, ymbe, around, cognate with G. wm-, L, ambi-; and ryne, a
running, from rizzan,torun. See Ambi-, prefix,and Run, @ This
EMBER-GOOSE
is the best explanation; for numerous examples and references, see
ymbrenin AS. Dictionary. Ihre rightly distinguishes between MSwed.
ymberdagar, borrowed from AS. and obsolete, and the Swed. tamper-
dagar, corrupted (like G. quatember) from L. quattuor tempora, the
four seasons.
EMBER-GOOSE, the great northern diver. (Scand.) An Orkney
word; see E.D.D. Spelt imber-goose, Scott, Pirate, c. xxi.— Norw.
imbre, ymmer; cel. himbrin.
EMBERS, ashes. (E.) The ὁ is excrescent. The ME. forms are
emers, emmeres, eymers, eymbers, equivalent to Lowland Scotch ammeris,
used by G. Douglas to translate L. fauillam in A®neid, vi. 227.
‘ Eymbre, eymery, hote aschys ;’ Prompt. Parv. AS. émergean, pl. of
aémerge, f., anember; A.S. Leechdoms, iii. 30, 1. 18.4Icel. eimyrja,
embers; Dan. emmer, embers ; Swed. -mdrja, in comp. ask-morja, ash-
embers; ΟΠ ὦ. eimurja, embers; Bavarian aimern, emmern, pl.,
Schmeller, i. 75. B. Teut. type *aim-uz-jon-, weak fem.; for the
suffix, cf. Goth. juk-uzi (stem juk-uz-j@), allied to juk, a yoke. The
base aim- may be compared with Icel. eim-r, vapour; prov. E. cme
(< AS. *am), vapour; Dan. em, Swed. imma, steam.
EMBEZZLE, to steal slily, filch. (F.—L.) Formerly embesyll or
embesell. ‘I concele, I embesyll a thynge, I kepe a thynge secret ;
1 embesyll a thyng, or put it out of the way, Fe substrays; He that
embesylleth a thyng intendeth to steale it if he can convaye [it] clenly;’
Palsgrave’s F. Dict. Spelt embesile in The Lament of Mary Magdalen,
st. 39; pr. in Chaucer’s Works, ed. 1561, fol. 319. ‘The earliest
spellings are enxbesel, imbesel, and the sense is not only to filch, but also
to destroy fraudulently, as in‘ the sayd boke . . was enbesylyd, or loste;’
Fabyan, ed. Ellis, p. 293.— AF. enbeseiller, to make away with; Royal
Wills, p. 155 (A. D. 1397); (also AF. beseler, besiler; Notes on E.
Etym., p. 399). —OF. en- (< L. in); and OF. besillier, besiler, to
maltreat, destroy, apparently from OF. bes- (Late L. bis-, used as a
pejorative prefix). Cf. OF. besi/, ill-treatment, torture; and see Bezzle
inthe N.E.D. 47 Certainly influenced in the 16th cent., by a supposed
etymology from imbecill, to weaken, an obs. verb formed from the adj.
imbecile. Der. embezzle-ment.
EMBLAZON, to adorn with heraldic designs. (F.) Shak. has
emblaze, 2 Hen. V1, iv. 10. 76. Spenser has emblazon, F. Q. iv. 10. 55.
Formed from blazon, q.v., with F. prefix em-, from L. im-=in. Cf.
MF. blasonner, ‘to blaze arms;’ Cot. Der. emblazon-ment, emblazon-ry.
EMBLEM, a device. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. All’s Well, ii. 1.
44. ME. embleme, Lydgate, Chorle and Byrde (beginning). =OF.
embleme, ‘an embleme ;’ Cot. —L. embléma, a kind of ornament. = Gk.
ἔμβλημα, akind of movable omament, athing put on. —Gk. ἐμβάλλειν,
to put in, lay on.—Gk. ἐμ- -Ξ ἐν, in; and βάλλειν, to cast, throw, put.
See Belemnite. Der. emblemat-ic, from Gk. stem ἐμβληματ-; -ic-al.
EMBLEMENTS, the produce of sown lands, crops which a tenant
may cut after the determination of his tenancy. (F.—L.) In Blount’s
Nomo-lexicon; and still in use. Formed with suffix -ment from OF.
emble-er, embla-er, also emblad-er, the same word as mod. F. emblav-er,
“to sow the ground with corn;’ Cotgrave. See emblaer in Godefroy,
and emblaver in Littré. All these forms are from Late L. imbladare,
to sow with corn. = L. im-, for in, in, prefix; and Late L. bladum (F. blé),
contraction of abladum = L. ablatum, i.e.‘ (corn) carried away ;’ neut.
of ablatus, taken away; which is from ab, from, away, and Jatus, for
*tlatus, pp. of tollere, to take away. (4/TEL.)
EMBODY, to invest with a body. (Hybrid; F. and E.) In
Spenser, F. Ὁ. iii. 3. 22. Formed from E. body with F. prefix em-, for
L. im-=in. Der. embodi-ment,
EMBOLDEN, to make bold. (Hybrid; F. and E.) In Shak.
Timon, ili. 5.3. Formed from E. hold with F. prefix em-, for L. im-
=in; and with Εἰ. suffix -ev.
EMBOLISM, an insertion of days, &c. to make a period regular.
(F.—Gk.) ‘ Embolism, the adding a day or more to a year;’ Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674. ΜΕ. embolisme, Trevisa, tr. of Higden, iii. 259. —
OF. embolisme, ‘an addition, as of a day or more, unto a year;’ Cot.
“- Gk. ἐμβολισμός, an intercalation. — Gk. ἐμ- = ἐν, in; and βάλλειν, to
cast ; cf. ἐμβολή, an insertion. See Emblem. Der. embolism-al.
EMBONPOINT, plumpness of person. (F.—L.) ‘No more
than what the French would call Aimable Embonpoint ;? Congreve's
Poems, Doris, st. 4. Mere French.—F. embonpoint, ‘fulness, plump-
ness ;’ Cot. Put for en bon point, in good condition, in good case. =
L. in, in; bon-wm, neut. of bonus, good; punctum, point. See In,
Bounty, and Point.
EMBOSOM, to shelter closely. (Hybrid; F. and E.) In Spenser,
F. Q. ii. 4.25. From F. prefix em-=en, for L. in; and E. bosom, q.v.
EMBOSS (1), to adorn with bosses or raised work. (F.) Chaucer
has enbossed; Good Women, 1]. 1200. Cf. King Lear, ii. 4. 227.—
OF. embosser, to swell or arise in bunches ;’ Cot.—F. em-, from L.
imt-=in; and OF, bosse,a boss. See Boss.
EMBOSS (2), to enclose or shelter in a wood. (F.) In Shak,
All’s Well, iii. 6. 107. —MI°. embosguer, to shroud in a wood; Cot. =
192
EMERY
F, em-, from L. im-=in; and OF. bosc, a wood (Supp. to Godefroy).
See Bouquet.
EMBOUCHURE, a mouth, of a river, &c. (F.—L.) Mere
French; not in Johnson.—F. embouchure, a mouth, opening. =F.
emboucher, to put to the mouth; s’emboucher, to discharge itself (as
ariver).—F. em-, from L. im-=in; and Ἐς bouche, the mouth, from L.
bucca. See Debouch and Disembogue.
EMBOWKL, to enclose deeply. (F.—L.) ‘ Deepe emboweled in
the earth ;’ Spenser, F. Ὁ. vi. 8.15. (Often wrongly put for disem-
bowel; Shak. Rich. III, v. 2. 10.) From F. em-, from L.im-=in; and
bowel, of F. origin, q.v. Der. embowel-ment.
EMBOWER, to place in a bower. (Hybrid; F. and E.) Spenser
has embowering, i.e. sheltering themselves; tr. of Virgil’s Gnat, 225.
Coined from F. em-, from L. im-=in; and E. bower.
EMBRACEH, to take in the arms. (F.—L.) In early use. ME.
enbracen, to brace on to the arm (said of a shield), King Alisaunder,
6651 ; ef. Chaucer, C. T. 8288 (E 412). —OF. embracer, to embrace,
seize (Godefroy).—OF. em-, for en, I.. in; and brace, the two arms,
from L. brachia, pl. of brdchium. See Brace. Der. embrace, sb.
EMBRASURE, an aperture with slant sides. (F.) ‘Embrasure,
an inlargement made on the inside of a gate, door, &c. to give more
light ;’ Phillips, Dict., ed. 1706.—F. embrasure, orig. ‘the skuing,
splaying, or chamfretting of a door or window ;’ Cotgrave.—MF.
embraser (cf. mod. F. ébraser) ‘to skue, or chamfret off the jaumbes
ofa door or window ;’ Cot. 1. The prefix is F. em-=en, from L. in.
2. The rest is MF. braser, ‘to skue, or chamfret ;’ Cot.; of unknown
origin.
EMBROCATION, a fomenting. (F.—Late L.—Gk.) Spelt
embrochation in Holland’s Pliny, b. xx. c. 14, § 1.— MF. embrocation,
‘an embrochation, fomenting;’ Cot. Cf. Late L. embrocatus, pp. of em-
brocare, to pour into a vessel, &c.; cf. Ital. embroccare, to foment. =
Gk. ἐμβροχή, a fomentation.— Gk. ἐμβρέχειν, to soak in, to foment.
- Gk. ἐμ- - ἐν, in; and βρέχειν, to wet, soak.
EMBROIDER, toornament withneedlework.(F.) ME. embrouden,
embroyden, Chaucer, C. T. 89 (Six-text). [This ME. form produced
a later form embroid; the -er is a needless addition, due to the sb.
embroid-er-y.] Cotgrave gives ‘to imbroyder’ asa translation of OF.
broder.— AF. enbroyder, Stat. Realm, p. 380 (A.D. 1393); OF. prefix
em-=en-, from L. in; and OF. broder, to embroider, or broider. See
Broider. Der. embroider-er, embroider-y (tightly embroid-ery, from
ME. embroid; spelt embrouderie, Gower, C. A. ii. 41; bk. iv. 1175);
embroiderie, Merry Wives, v. 5. 75.
EMBROIL, to entangle ina broil. (F.) See Milton, P. L. ii. 908,
966; Daniel, Civil Wars, bk. ν. st. 47. - Ἐς embrouiller, ‘to pester,
intangle, incumber, intricate, confound ;’ Cot. — OF. em-=en-, from L,
in; and Ἐς brouiller, ‘to jumble, &c.’ See Broil(2). Cf. Norm. dial.
embroiller (Moisy). Der. embroil-ment.
EMBRUBE, variant of Imbrue, q. v.
EMBRYO, the rudiment of an organised being. (F.—Gk.)
Formerly also embryon. ‘Though yet an embryon;’ Massinger, The
Picture, Actii. sc. 2.— MF. embryon ; Cot. — Gk. ἔμβρυον, the embryo,
foetus. — Gk. ἐμ- = ἐν, in, within ; and βρύον, neut. of βρύων, pres. pt. of
βρύειν, to be full of a thing, swell with it.
EMENDATION, correction. (L.) In Bp. Taylor, Great Ex-
emplar, p. 3, disc. 18 (R.) ; Webbe, Eng. Poetrie, ed. Arber, p. 95.—
L. émendatio; allied to émendatus, pp. of émendare, to amend, lit. to
free from fault.—L,. δ, out of, hence, free from; and mendum, a fault.
See Amend. Der. emenda-tor, -tor-y; from L. émendare.
EMERALD, a green precious stone. (F.—L.—Gk.—Skt.— Heb.)
ME. emeraude, emerade; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, i. 1005; King
Alisaunder, 7030.— MF. esmeraude, ‘an emerald,’ Cot. ; OF. esmer-
alde, esmeraude, esmeragde (Supp. to Godefroy). —L. smaragdum, acc.
of smaragdus, an emerald. = Gk. σμάραγδος, a kind of emerald. Ex-
plained as a contracted form of ἔσμα-μάραγδος ; from Skt. asma, a
stone, and marakata(m), emerald; as if ‘emerald-stone.’ Skt.
marakatam is of Semitic origin. — Heb. bareget, an emerald. — Heb.
baraq, to flash.
EMERGE, to issue, rise from the sea, appear. (L.) In Bacon;
Learning, by G. Wats, b. ii. c. 12. Milton has emergent, P. L. vii.
286.—L. émergere, to rise out. —L. é, out; and mergere, to dip. See
Merge. Der. emerg-ent, from émergentem, acc. of pres. pt. ;
emergence, emergenc-y ; emerston, like pp. émersus.
EMERODS, hemorrhoids. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Bible, A. V.,
1 Sam. v. 63; spelt emorade, Levins; emeroudes, Palsgrave. MI.
emeraudis, pl., Reliq. Antiq. i. 190.—MF. hemorrhoide, pl. hemor-
rhoides; Cot. See Hemorrhoids.
EMERY, a hard mineral. (F.—Ital.—Gk.) Formerly emeril.
‘ Emeril, a hard and sharp stone,’ &c.; Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—
F. émeri; MF. emeril, Cot.; and, still earlier, esmeri (Brachet). = Ital.
smeriglio, emery. Gk. σμῆρις, also σμύρις, emery. Allied to 15. smear
(Prellwitz). See Smear.
EMETIC
EMETIC, causing vomit. (L.—Gk.) Spelt emetique in Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674. ih emeticus, adj. causing vomit. =—Gk. ἐμετικός,
provoking sickness. — Gk. ean I vomit.4L. womere, to vomit. See
Vomit.
ἘΜΈ, the same as Emu, which see.
EMIGRATH, to migrate from home. (L.) Emigration is in
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674; the verb is later. —L. émigrdtus, pp. of
emigrare.—L. δ, away; and migrare, to migrate. See Migrate.
Der. emivrat-ion; also emigrant, from pres. pt. of L. ibe
EMINENT, excellent. (L.) In Shak. All's Well, i. 2. 43.—L.
éminent-em, acc. of éminens, pres. pt. of éminere, to stand is project,
excel. ταὶ, δ, out; and *minére, to jut, project; for which cf. im-
minent, tro-minent. Der. eminence.
EMIR, a commaneer. (Arabic.) The pl. emers isin Sandys, Travels
(1632), p. 64, 1. 7.—Arab. amir, a nobleman, prince; Palmer’s Pers.
Dict. gor 51.— Arab. root amara, he commanded ; Chaldee amar, Heb.
amar, he commanded, or told; Rich. Dict. p: 167. See Admiral.
EMIT, to send forth. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L.
émittere, pp. missus, to send out.—L. δ. out; and miétere, to send.
See Missile. Der. emiss-ion, Dryden, "Hind and Panther, 1. 647;
emissar-y, Ben Jonson, Underwoods, Of Charis, viii. 1. 17.
EMMET, an ant. (E.) ME. emete, pl. emeten, Beket, 2141;
{also ME. amte, Wyclif, Prov. vi. 6; full form amote, Ayenbite of
Inwyt, p. 141.] AS. #mete, tr. of L. formica; Voc. 121. 26.4G.
ameise, an ant; OHG. a@meiza. Discussed in Kluge. 4] The AS.
emete became amete (amote) and emete in ME. The former became
amte, ante, E. ant; the latter became E. emmet, which is therefore
a doublet of ant. Sce Ant.
EMMEW, variant of Enew, q.v.
EMOLLIENT, softening. (F.—L.) Also as a sb.
outward emollients;’ Bacon, Nat. Hist. sect. 59.—MF.
‘softening, mollifying;’ Cot.—L. émollient-, stem of pres.
émollire, to soften.—L. δ, out, much; and mo/lire,
mollis, soft. See Mollify.
EMOLUMENT, gain, Profit: (F.—L.) In Cotgrave; and in
Holinshed, Descr. of Engl. c. 5 (R.).—OF. emolument, ‘ emolument,
profit ;’ Cot. = L. zmolumentum, prote what is gained by labour. =
L. é-molere, to grind thoroughly. =L. @, out, thoroughly ; and molere,
to grind. See Molar. The orig. sense of émolumentum may have
been ‘ miller’s toll;’ Bréal.
EMOTION, agitation of mind. (L.) In Bp. Taylor, Rule of
Conscience, b. iv. c. r (R.). Suggested by obs. verb emmove (Spenser,
F. Q. iv. 8. 3).—L. émouére, pp. émdtus, to move away. =—L. δ, away;
and mouére, to move. See Move. Der. emotion-al.
EMPALBE, to fix on a stake. (F.—L.) Also impale, meaning ‘to
encircle as with pales ;” Troil. v. 7. 5.—MF. empaler, ‘to impale, to
spit ona stake;’ Cot. - OF. em-=en-, for L. in; and MF. pal, ‘a pale,
stake;’ id. See Pale (1). Der. empale-ment.
EMPANEL, to put on a list of jurors. (F.—L.) Also empannel;
Holland, Livy, p. 475. Coined from F. em-=en, from L. in; and
Panel, q.v. @ Better than :mpannel, Shak. Sonn. 46.
EMPEROR, a ruler. (F.—L.) In early use. ME. emperour ;
King Alisaunder, 2719.—OF. empereor (Burguy).=— L. imperaidrem,
acc. of imperator, a commander. = L. imperare, to command. = L. im-=
‘Some
emollient,
pt. of
to soften, from
in, on, over; and pardre, to make ready, order. See Parade. From
same source, empire, q.V.3 empress, q.v.
EMPHASIS, stress of voice. (L.—Gk.) Hamlet, ν. 1. 278.—
L. emphasis. — Gk. ἔμφασις, an appearing, declaration, significance,
emphasis. — Gk. ἐμ-- ἐν, in: and φάσις, an appearance. See Phase.
Der. emphasise; also emphatic, from Gk. adj. ἐμφατικός, expressive ;
emphatic-al, -al-ly,
EMPIRE, dominion. (F.—L.) In early use. ME. empire;
King Alisaunder, 1588. — OF. empire. — L. imperium, command ;
allied to imperire, to command. See Emperor.
EMPIRIC, a quack doctor. (F.—L.—Gk.) All’s Well, ii. 1.
125.—MF. empirique, ‘an empirick, a physician, &c.;’ Cot.—L
empiricus.— Gk. ἐμπειρικός, experienced ; also, an Empiric, the name
of a set of physicians; cf. ἐμπειρία, experience; ἔμπειρος, experi-
enced. = Gk. éu-=éy, in; and πεῖρα, a trial, attempt; connected with
mépos, a way; and with E. fare. See Fare. Der. empiric-al, -ism.
, EMPLOY, to occupy, use. (F.—L.) In Shak. L. L. L. iii. 152 ;
and in Caxton, Golden Legend, Lyf of St. Audegonde, § 1.—OF.
employer, ‘to imploy ;’ Cot.—L. implicire; in Late L., to employ;
see Implicate, Imply. Der. employ, sb., -er ; -ment, Hamlet, v.
1.77. Doublets, imply, implicate.
EMPORIUM, a mart. (L.—Gk.) In Dryden, Annus Mirab.,
st. 302 ; Holinshed, Desc. of Ireland, p. 148. - L. emporium. —Gk.
ἐμπόριον, a mart; neut. of ἐμπόριος, commercial. Gk. ἐμπορία.
commerce ; ἔμπορος, a passenger, a merchant. = Gk. ἐμ- -- ἐν, ἴῃ ; and |
mépos, a way, πορεύεσθαι, to travel, fare. See Fare. |
EMPOWER, to give powerto. (F.—L.) ‘ You are empowered ;”
ENCEINTE 193
Dryden, Disc. on Satire, paragraph Io. Coined from F. em-=en,
{from L. in, upon; and Power, q. v.
EMPRESS, the feminine of emperor. (F.—L.)
use. [Spelt emperice in the AS. Chron. an. 1140] ; emperesse, Gower,
C. A. iii. 363 5 bk. viii. 2612. —OF. emperesse (Godefroy).—L. type
*imperdlorissa, fem. of L. imperator. See Emperor.
EMPRISE, an enterprise. (F:—L.) ME. emprise, Chaucer, C. Τὶ,
A 2540; Cursor Mundi, 9802.—OF. emprise; orig. fem. of empris,
pp. of emprendre, to take in hand, —L, im-, for in, in; and prehendere,
to take. See Prehensile.
EMPTY, void. (E.) The pis excrescent. ME. empti, empty;
Ancren Riwle, p. 156; Chaucer, C. I. 3892 (A 3894). AS. @mtig,
empty, Gen. i. 23 emtig, idle, Exod. v. 8. B. An adj. formed with
suffix -ig (=mod. E. -y) from Zmta or @metta, leisure; Alfred’s
Boethius, Preface ; also émota (Epinal Gloss. 680). Perhaps this
represents a type *#-mot-jon-, from #-, privative prefix, and mor, a
meeting for business. Der. empty, vb. 3 empti-ness,
EMPYREAL, EMPYREAN, pertaining to elemental fire.
(Gk.) Milton has “empyreal as adj., P. L. ii. 430 5 empyrean as sb., id.
771. Both are properly adjectives, coined with suffixes -al and -an
from the base empyre-, in Latin spelling empyre-, in Gk. ἐμπυραι-, in
Late Gk. éumvpacos, adj., which is extended from Gk. ἔμπυρ-ος, exposed
to fire. Gk. éu-=ev, fae and πῦρ, cognate with E. fire. See Fire.
q First used in the phr. celum empireum, Caxton, Golden Legend, Of
the Ascencion, § 4; from the neuter of the adj.
EMU, EMEU, a large bird. (Port.) Formerly applied to the
American ostrich. = Port. ema, anostrich. Remoter origin unknown.
@ There is no proof of its being Arabic ; see Newton, Dict. of Birds.
EMULATE, to try to equal. (L.) Properly an adj., as in
Hamlet, i. 1. 83.—L. @muldtus, pp. of emulari, to try to equal. = L.
amulus, striving to equal, Der. emulat-ion (OF. emulation, Cot-
grave) ; emulat-or, emulat-ive ; also emulous, in Shak. Troil. iv. 1. 28
(L. @mulus), -ly.
EMULSION, a milk-like mixture. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave.—
MF. emulsion, ‘an emulsion, any kind of seed brayed in water, and
strained to the consistence of an almond milk ;’ Cot. Formed from
L. émulsus, pp. of émulgére, to milk out, drain.—L. δ, out; and
mulgére, to milk. See Milk.
EN., prefix; from F. ez, from L. in, in, on; sometimes used to
give a causal force, as in en-able, en-feeble, It becomes em- before Ὁ
and p,as in embalm, employ. In enlighten, en- has supplanted AS. i-.
ENABLE, to make able. (F.—L.) ‘To a-certain you I woll
my-self exable ay mee of Love, st. 28; pr. in Chaucer’s Works,
ed. 1361, fol. » back. Formed from F. prefix ex-, from L. in;
ana Able, q.v.
ENACT, to perform, decree. (F.—L.)
enacte in Palsgrave. Formed from F. en=L.
Der. enact-ment, enact-tve.
ENALLAGE, the substitution of one grammatical form for
In very early
Rich. III, v. 4. 2; and
in; and Act, q.v.
another; as, e.g., of sing. for plural. (L.—Gk.) First in 1583
N. 1. D.) ; not common.—L. enallagé.—Gk. ἐναλλαγή, change ;
allied to ἐναλλάσσειν, to change.< Gk. ἐν, in; and ἀλλάσσειν, to
change, alter, from ἄλλος, other, different ; see Alien.
ENAMEL, aglass-like coating. (F.—L.andOHG.) ME. enamayl,
Assemblie of Ladies, st. 77; 1.534. Formed from F. prefix en<L.
in, i.e. upon, above; and amaile, later amel ot ammel, a corruption
of OF. esmail (= = Ital. smalto), “enamel. Thus Cotgrave renders
esmail by ‘ ammell, or enammell; made of glass and metals ;’ and
Palsgrave has enxamell, vb. and ‘ammell, esmael.’ B. Of Germanic
origin; cf. OHG. smalzjan, ΜΗ. smelzen, to smelt; Du. smelten,
to smelt. See Smelt. Cf. also O. Low G. smal, butter (Liibben),
(ἃ. schmalz, suet, butter; MItal. smalto, ‘morter, also amell,’ Florio.
y. From Low G., base smalt-, allied to OHG. smelzan, to melt, str.
vb. (pt. t. smalz). Der. enamel, verb.
ENAMOUR, to inflame with love. (F.—L.) The pp. enamoured
isin Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 254. —OF. enamorer (Burguy).
=F. en, from L. in; and F. amour, love. See Amour.
ENCAMP, to form into a camp. (F.—L.) In Henry V, iii. 6.
180. Formed from F. ex, in; and Camp, q.v. Der. encan:p-ment.
ENCASE, to put into a case. (F.—L.) ‘Round encasing The
moat of glass;” Ph. Fletcher, Purple Island, c. v. st. 34.—F. en-
caisser, ‘to put into a case or chest > Cot.=—F. en, from L. in; and
MF. caisse, a cise, chest. See Case (2).
ENCAUSTIC, burnt in. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Holland’s Pliny,
b. xxxv.c. 11, § 2.—F. encaustique, ‘wrought with fire;’ Cot.—L.
encausticus. Gk. ἐγκαυστικός, relating to burning in.—Gk. éyxaiw
(fut. ἐγκαύσω), 1 burn in; from éy=ev, in, and καίω, I burn. See
Calm, Ink.
ENCHINTE, pregnant. (F.—L.) F. enceinte, fem, of enceint,
pp. answering to L. incinctus, girt about, of which the fem. incincta
is used of a pregnant woman in Isidore of Seville. = L. incingere, to
Oo
194 ENCHAIN
gird in, gird about; from in, and ciugere, to gird. See Cincture.
Isidore explains incincta as‘ ungirt ;’ but the Late L. praecincta like-
wise means ‘pregnant.’ The reference seems to be to pressure
against the girdle.
ENCHAIN, to bind with chains. (F.—L.) In Shak. Lucr. 934.
ME. encheynen, T. Usk, Test. of Love, bk. ii. c. 6, 1. 4.—OF.
enchainer, ‘to enchain;’ Cot.—OF. en, from L. i; and chaine, a
chain.. See Chain.
ENCHANT, to charm by sorcery. (F.—L.) ME. enchaunten ;
P. Plowman, C. xviii. 288.—F. enchanter, ‘to charm, inchant ;’ Cot.
καὶ incantare, to repeat a chant-—L. in; and cantare, to sing,
chant. See Chant. Der. enchant-er ; enchant-ment, spelt enchante-
ment in Rob. of Glouc. p. 10, 1. 226; enchant-r-ess.
ENCHASE, to emboss, adorn, enshrine, engrave. (F.—L.) Often
shortened to chase, but exchaseis the better form. In Shak. 2 Hen. VI,
i. 2, 8.— MF. enchasser ; as ‘ enchasser en or, to enchace or set in gold;’
Cot.—F. en, from L. in; and MF. chasse, ‘a shrine for a relick, also
that thing, or part of a thing, wherein another is exchased, and hence
la chasse d’un raisor, the handle of a rasor;’ Cot. MF. chasse (F.
chasse) is a doublet of F. caisse ; from L. capsa,a box. See Case (2),
Chase (2), Chase (3).
ENCIRCLE, to enclose in a circle. (F.—L.) In Merry Wives,
iv. 4. 56. - Ἐς en, from L. in; and F. circle. See Circle.
ENCLINE, to lean towards. (F.—L.) Often incline, but encline
is more in accordance with etymology. ME. enclinen; Chaucer,
Pers. Tale, Group I, 361.—OF. encliner, ‘to incline;’ Cot.—L.
inclinare, to bend towards ; from in, towards, and clindre, to bend,
cognate with E. lean. See Lean, verb, and see below.
ENCLITIC, a word which leans its accent upon another.
(L.— Gk.) A grammatical term ; spelt enclitick in Kersey, ed. 1715.—
L. encliticus.— Gk, ἐγκλιτικός, lit. enclining. Gk. ἐγκλίνειν, to lean
towards, encline.= Gk. ἐγ- Ξε ἐν, in, upon; and κλίνειν, cognate with
E. lean. See ean (1). And see above.
ENCLOSE, to close in, shut in. (F.—L.) ME. enclosen, Chaucer,
C. T. 8096 (E 220).—OF. enclos, pp. of enclorre, to close in; from
en (from L. in), and clorre (L. claudere), to shut. See Close.
ENCOMIUM, commendation. (L.—Gk.) Spelt excomion in Ben
Jonson, Every Man in his Humour, A. iv. sc. 2. Latinised from Gk.
ἐγκώμιον, a laudatory ode; neut. of ἐγκώμιος, laudatory, full of
revelry. — Gk. ἐγ- τε ἐν, in; and κῶμος, revelry. See Comic. Der.
encomi-ast (Gk. ἐγκωμιαστής, 8. praiser) ; encomuast-ic.
ENCOMPASS, to surround. (F.—L.) In Rich. III, i. 2. 204.
ME. encumpassenx, Karly E. Psalter, xvii. 6. Formed from F. en,
from L. in; and compass. See Compass. Der. encompass-ment,
Hamlet, ii. τς 10.
ENCORE, again. (F.—L.) Mere French; ef. Ital. ancora, still,
again. =L. hanc héram, for in hanc horam, to this hour; hence, still.
See Hour.
ENCOUNTER, to meet in combat. (F.—L.) ‘ Causes encoun-
tringe and flowing togidere;’ Chaucer, tr. of Boethins, b. v. pr. 1,
1. 50. OF. encontrer, ‘to encounter ;’ Cot. =F. ex-, from L. ix; and
contre, from L. contra, against; cf. Late L. incontram, against. See
Counter-. Der. encounter, sb.
ENCOURAGE, to embolden. (F.—L.) As You Like It, i. 2.
252; ME. encoragen, Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 27.—OF. encoragier
(Godefroy) ; MF. excourager, ‘to hearten;’ Cot.—F. en, from L. in;
and courage. See Courage. Der. encourage-ment, Rich. III, v. 2.6.
ENCRINITE, the stone lily, a fossil. (Gk.) Geological. Coined
from Gk. ἐν, in; and κρίνον, a lily; with suffix -ite=Gk. -ἰτης.
ENCROACH, to trespass, intrude. (F.~L. and Teut.) “ En-
croaching tyranny ;’ 2 Hen. VI, iv. 1. 96. ME, encrochen, Allit.
Morte Arthure, 1. 1243. Lit. ‘to catch in a hook’ or ‘to hook
away. = OF, encrochier, to seize upon (Godefroy). Formed from F.
en, in; and croc, a hook, just as F. accrocher, to hook up, is derived
from F. ἃ (<L. ad), and the same word croc, of Germanic origin; cf.
MDnu. kroke, Icel. krdkr, a crook. See Crook. Der. encroach-er,
encroach-ment, Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, To Reader, ὃ 1. @ It is
impossible to derive encroach from OF. encrouer; it is a fuller form.
ENCUMBER, to impede, load. (F.—L.?) In early use. ME.
encumbren, encombren; Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 1173 P.
Plowman, C. ii. 192.— OF. encombrer, ‘to cumber, incumber;’ Cot.
=~ Late L. incumbrare, to obstruct. L. in, in; and Late L. cumbrus, an
obstacle. See Cumber. Der. excumbr-ance. The ME. sb. was
encombrement, King Alisaunder, 7825.
ENCYCLICAL, lit. circular. (L.—Gk.) ‘An encyclical epistle;’
Bp. Taylor, Dissuas. from Popery, pt. ii. b. ii. s. 2 (R.). Formed
(with Latinised spelling, and suffix -cal) from Gk. ἐγκύκλι-ος, circular
(said of a letter sent round), successive.=Gk, éy-=év, in; and
κύκλος, a ring. See Cycle.
ENCYCLOPASDIA, a comprehensive summary of science.
(L.—Gk.) In Elyot, Governour, bk. i. c. xiii, § 4. Encyclopedie
ENERGY
occurs in Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, To the Reader. § 1; cf. F.
encyclopedie in Cotgrave. Latinised from a coined Gk. Ἐἐγκυκλοπαιδεία,
a barbarism for ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία, the circle of arts and sciences ; here
ἔγκύκλιος is fem. of ἐγκύκλιος (see above); and παιδεία means “ in-
struction,’ from παιδ-, stem of παῖς, a boy. See Pedagogue. Der.
encyclohed-ic, encycloped-ist.
END, close, termination. (E.) ME. endé (with final e) ; Chaucer,
C. T. 4565 (B 145). AS. ende (Grein). 4+ Du. einde; Icel. endi ;
Swed. ande ; Dan. ende; Goth. andeis; G. ende, Teut. type *and-joz.
Cf. Olrish ind, Skt. anta-, end, limit. Der. end, verb; end-less (AS.
endeléas), -ly, -ness; end-wise, -ing. @| The prefixes ante- (L. ante),
anti- (Gk. ἀντί). and an- (in an-swer) are connected with this word.
ENDANGER, to place in danger. (F.—L.) In Shak. Two Gent.
v. 4. 133. Coined from F. en, from L. in ; and Danger, q.v.
ENDEAR, to make dear. (Hybrid; F. avd E.) Shak. has en-
deared, K. John, iv. 2. 228, Coined from F. en, from L. in; and E.
Dear, q.v. Der. endear-ment, used by Drayton and Bp. Taylor (R.).
ENDEAVOUR, to attempt, try. (F.—L.) 1. The verb to en-
deavour grew out of the ME. phrase ‘to do his dever,’ i.e. to do his
duty; cf. ‘Do now your devoir’=do your duty, Chaucer, C. T.
2600 (A 2598); and again, ‘And doth nought but his dever’ =and
does nothing but his duty; Will. of Palerne, 474. ‘He sholde en-
deuore hym to seche hem ;’ Caxton, Reynard, ed. Arber, p. 93. Shak.
has endeavour both as sb. and vb,; Temp. ii. 1. 160; Much Ado, ii.
2.31. 2. The prefix ex- has a verbal and active force, as in enamour,
encourage, encumber, enforce, engage, words of similar formation. —F.
en-, from L, in, prefix; and ME. devoir, dever, equivalent to OF.
devoir, debvoir, a duty. See Devoir. Der. endeavour, sb.
ENDECA,, incorrect form of Hendeca-3; which see.
ENDEMIC, peculiar to a people or district. (Gk.) ‘ Endemical,
Endemial, or Endemious Disease, a distemper that affects a great many
in the same country;’ Kersey, ed. 1715.— Gk. ἐνδήμιτος, ἔνδημτος,
native, belonging to a people. —Gk. év,in; and δῆμος, a people. See
Democracy. Der. also endemi-al, endemic-al.
ENDIVE, a plant. (F.—L.—Gk.—Semitic.) ‘Endyve, herbe, en-
divia;’ Prompt. Parv.=—F, endive (cf, Ital. endivia),—L. type *intibea,
f. adj.; from intibus, intubus, endive. Late Gk. ἔντυβον. Supposed
to be of Semitic origin; cf. Arab. hindab, endive, Rich. Dict., p. 1691.
Perhaps from Hind, India.
ENDOGEN, a plant that grows from within. (F.—Gk.) The Ἐς
term endogéne belongs to the natural system of De Candolle (1813).
— Gk. ἔνδο-, for ἔνδον, within, an extension from év,in; and yev-, base
of γίγνομαι, 1 am born or produced, from 4/ GEN, to produce. See
Genus. Der. endogen-ous.
ENDORSE, to put on the back of. (F.—L.) Modified from
endosse, the older spelling, and (etymologically) more correct ; see
Spenser, F. Ὁ. v. 11. 53, where it rhymes with bosse and Josse. But in
Ben Jonson, Underwoods, |xxi, it rhymes with horse. Palsgrave has “1
endosse ;’ p. 534.— OF. endosser, ‘to indorse;’ Cot.—F. en, upon;
and dos, the back.—L. in; and dorswm, the back. See Dorsal.
ENDOW, to give a dowry to. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q. iii. 4.
21. Hoccleve has endowed; Reg. of Princes, st. 569, 1. 3982. —F. en,
from L. in; and douer, ‘to indue, endow ;’ Cot.; from L. détare, to
give a dowry. See Dowry. Der. endow-ment, Rich. I, ii. 3. 139.
ENDUE (1), to endow. (F.—L.) Partly another spelling of
endow, ‘Among so manye notable benefites wherewith God hath
alreadie liberally and plentifully endwed us ;’ Sir J. Cheke, The Hurt
of Sedition (R.), ‘Indwyn (= induen), doto ;’ Prompt. Parv. OF.
endoer (later endouer), to endow; Burguy. See Endow. Also
used in senses which confuse it with L. induere. See Indue.
ENDUE (2), to clothe. (L.) The vb. exdue, to endow (cf. Gen.
xxx, 20), is unconnected with L. induere. But there is another verb
endue, to clothe, which is merely a corruption of indue (1) ; [just con-
trary to indue (2), which is a corruption of endue (1); cf.‘ I indue, Ze
endoue;’ Palsgrave.] Thus, in Ps. 132.9, we have ‘let thy priests be
clothed with righteousness ;’ in the Vulgate, ‘ sacerdotes tui induantur
iustitiam ;” and hence the versicle in the Morning Prayer: ‘endue
thy ministers with righteousness.’ See Indue (2). @ A third form
endue, from F, enduire, L. indiicere, appears to be obsolete.
ENDURE, to last. (F.—L.) ME. enduren, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 2398
(A 2396). —OF, endurer ; compounded of en, from L. ix; and durer,
L. dirare, to last. See Dure. Der. endur-able, -abl-y, -ance.
ENEMA, an injection, a clyster. (Gk.) In Bailey (1735). —Gk.
ἔνεμα, an injection. Gk. ἐν, in; and é-, weak grade allied to ἴημι
(for *ai-on-m), I send; see Prellwitz.
ENEMY, a foe. (F.—L.) In early use. ME. enemi, King Hom,
ed. Lumby, 952.—OF. exemi, κα L. inimicus, unfriendly. L. in- (= E,
un-), not; and amicus, a friend. See Amicable. Der. from same
source, exmity, 4. V-
ENERGY, vigour. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Cotgrave.—MF. energie,
‘energy, effectual operation ;” Cot, Late L. energia.—Gk. ἐνέργεια,
ENERVATE
action. = Gk. ἐνεργός, at work, active. —Gk. ἐν, in; and ἔργον, cognate
with E. work. See Work. Der. energetic (Gk. ἐνεργητικός, active) ;
καὶ, -al-ly.
ENERVATE, to deprive of strength. (L.) ‘For great empires
..- doe enervate,’ &c.; Bacon, Essay 58.—L. énerudtus, pp. of éner-
uare, to deprive of nerves or sinews, to weaken. =L. δ, out of; and
neruus, a nerve, sinew. See Nerve. Der. enervat-ion.
ENEW, to drive into the water. (F.—L.) Misprinted emmew in
Shak., Meas. iii. 1. g1. ‘Youre hawke hath ennewed the fowle into
the Ryuer;’ Book of St, Albans, fol. ἃ. ij.=—F. ex, in (L. iv); and
AF. ewe (Εἰ. eau, L. aqua}, water. Cf. OF. enewer, to soak in water
(Godefroy).
ENFEEBLE, to make feeble. (F.—L.) In Shak. Cymb. v. 2. 4.
Varlier, in Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 892 d.—OF. enfeblir, to enfeeble
(Godefroy). —F. en-, from L. in-, prefix; and AF. feble, feeble. See
Feeble. Der. enfeeble-ment.
ENFEOFF, to invest with a fief. (F.—L. and OHG.) Ini Hen.
ΙΝ, ili. 2. 69. Formed by prefixing the Τ᾿. en (< L. in) to the sb. fief.
Cf. ME, jeffen, to enfeoff, P. Plowman, B. ii. 78, 146; which answers
to OF, jieffer, ‘to infeoffe ;’ Cot. See Fief. 4] The peculiar spell-
ing is due to Old (legal) AF., and appears in the Law L. infeoffare,
and feoffiitor (Ducange). Der. enfeoff-ment.
ENFILADE, a line or straight passage. (F.—L.) ‘ Enjilade,
a ribble-row of rooms; a long train of discourse; ix ¢he Art of War,
the situation of a post, that it can discover and scour all the length
of a straight line;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. He also has the verb.=F.
enfilade, ‘a suite of rooms, a long string of phrases, raking fire ;’
Hamilton. =F. evjiler, to thread. =F. en, from L. in; and jil,a thread,
from L. filum,athread, See File (1). Der. exfilade, verb.
ENFOLD, to enclose, embrace. (F.—L.; and E.) Formerly also
infold, which is better, as being wholly English. Shak. has in/old,
Romeo, iii. 3. 73. From ex-, prefix (or iz, as prefix), and fold. See
Fold (1).
ENFORCE, to give force to. (F.—L.) ‘Thou most enforce thee;
Chaucer, C. T. 5922 (Ὁ 340).—OF. enforcer, to strengthen (Burguy).
- Fen, from L. im, in; and force. See Force. Der. enforce-ment, As
You Like It, ii. 7. 118.
ENFRANCHISKE, to render free. (F.) In L. L. L. iii, 121.
“- OF. enfranchiss-, stem of pres. pt. of exfranchir, to free (Godefroy).
=F, ex (from L.ix), in; and the adj. franc,free. See Franchise. Cf.
OF. franchir, ‘ to free, deliver ;’ Cot. Der. enfranchise-ment, K. John,
Ἶγν ἃ. 52:
ENGAGE, to bind bya pledge. (F.—L. and Teut.) In Othello,
ili. 3. 462. =F. engager, ‘to pawn, impledge, ingage;’ Cot. =F. ex
(from L, iz), in; and F. gage,apledge. See Gage (1). Der. engage-
ment, J. Ces. 11. 1. 307; engag-ing, -ing-ly.
ENGENDER, to breed. (F.—L.) ME. engendren ; Chaucer,
C. T. 6047 (Ὁ 465).—OF. engendrer, ‘to ingender;’ Cot. [The ὦ
. 15 excrescent.]—L. ingenerare, to produce, generate. —L,in; and gene-
rare, to breed; formed from gener- (for *genes-), stem of genus, a
race, brood. See Genus; and see Gender.
ENGINE, a skilful contrivance. (F.—L.) In early use. ME.
engin, a contrivance, Floriz, ed. Lumby, 755; often shortened to gin,
ginne, id. 131.—OF. engin, ‘an engine, toole;’ Cot.—L. ingenium,
genius; also, an invention. See Ingenious. Der. engin-eer,
formerly (and properly) engin-er, Hamlet, iii. 4. 206; engineer-ing.
ENGLISH, (originally) of or belonging to the Angles. (E.) AS.
Englisc, Englisc ; adj. formed by subjoining -ise (-ish) to *Angli-,
orig. stem of AS. Engle, pl., the Angles, one of the Teutonic tribes
who settled in Britain in the fifth century. Cf. Exgland, for AS.
Engla land, ‘land of the Angles.’
ENGRAILED, indented with curved lines; in heraldry. (F.—L.
and Teut.) Spelt engraylyt in The Book of St. Albans, pt. ii. fol. f 1,
bk. ; engrelede in Allit, Morte Arthure, 4183.—OF. engresle, pp. of
engreséer, to engrail; F. exgréler (Hatzfeld).—F. ez, in; OF. gresl2,
F. gréle, hail; because the edge or line seems as if indented or
‘pitted’ by the fall of hailstones. The OF. gresle is of doubtful
origin, but may be Tent. ; cf. OHG. grioz, grit.
. ENGRAIN, to dye of a fast colour. (F.—L.) ME. engreynen.
to dye in grain, i.e. of a fast colour; P. Plowman, B. ii. 15. Cf.
ΜΕ. engrainer, to dye; in Palsgrave, s.v. grayne, vb. Coined from
F. en, from L. in; and OF. graine, ‘the seed of herbs, &c., also
grain, wherewith cloth is died tx grain; scarlet die, scarlet in graine ;’
Cot. “Ταῖς L. grana, the cochineal berry or insect ; a fem. sb. formed
from grana, pl. of L. granum, grain. See Grain.
ENGRAVE, to cut with a graver. (Hybrid; F. and E.) Spenser
as the pp. engraven, Ἐς Q. iv. 7. 46; so also Shak. Lucr. 205. A
hybrid word; coined from F. prefix ex (from L. in), and E. grave. See
Grave (τ). Der. engrav-er, engrav-ing. 1. The retention of the
strong pp. exgraven shows that the main part of the word is English.
ὦ. But the E. compound was obviously suggested by the OF engraver, |
ENOUGH 195
“to engrave,’ (Cot.); der. rom F. en, and OHG. graban, G. graben,
to dig, engrave, cut, carve.
ENGROSS, to occupy wholly. (F.—L.) The legal sense ‘to
write in large letters’ is the oldest one. ‘Engrossed was vp [read it]
as it is well knowe, And enrolled, onely for witnesse In your regis-
ters;” Lydgate, Siege of Thebes, pt. ii., Knightly answer of Tideus,
1.56. Cf. Rich. IL, iii. 6.2. AF. engrosser, Stat. Realm, i. 379
(A.D. 1363). = AF. ex grosse; where grosse represents Late L. grossa,
large writing (Ducange); cf. MF. grossoyer, ‘to ingross, to write
faire, or in great and fair letters; Cot. See Gross. β. The sense
*to buy up wholesale’ was from the phr. en gros, i.e. in large. Der.
engross-ment. 2 Hen. IV, iv. 5. 80.
SN GULF, to swallow up ina gulf. (F.—L. and Gk.) In Spenser,
Ἐς Q. iii. 2. 32.— MF. engo’fer, ‘to ingulfe;’ (οί. “Ἐπ ez, from L.
in; and golfe,a gulf. See Gulf.
ENHANCE, to advance, raise, augment. (F.—L.) ME. exhansen,
P. Plowman, C. xii. 58. AF. exhkauncer, to promote ; Liber Custu-
marum, p. 219; apparently a corruption of AF. enxkaucer, to raise,
id., p. 1923; OF. enhaucier, to raise, exalt (Ital. inalzare).=—L. in, in,
up; and Late L. altiare, to lift, from altus, high; see Altitude.
@ Hardly from OProv. enansar, to further, advance; ‘ si'vostra valors
m’enansa=if your worth advances me;’ Bartsch, Chrestomathie
Prov. 147, 5. OProvy. enans, before, rather; formed from L. in ante,
just as the Prov. avans is from Lat. ab ante. See Advance. Der.
enhance-ment.
ENIGMA, a riddle. (L.—Gk.) In Shak. L. L. L. iii. 72.—L.
enigma (stem enigmat-).— Gk. αἴνιγμα (stem aiviypar-), a dark say-
ing, riddle. —Gk. αἰνίσσομαι, I speak in riddles. — Gk. αἶνος, a, tale,
story. Der. enigmat-ic, -ic-al, -ic-al-ly, -ise. ἢ
ENJOIN, to order, bid. (F.—L.) ΜῈ: enioinen (with ἐπ: });
P. Plowman, C. viii. 72.—OF. enjoindre (1 p.s. ptes. enjoin-s), ‘ to
injoine, ordaine ;’ Cot.—L. iniungere, to enjoin. See Injunction,
and Join, Ν
ENJOY, to joy in. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. enioien (with 1557), ΝΥ ΟΠ,
Colos. iii. 15.—AF. enjoier, Stat. Realm, i. 310 (A.D. 1351). Formed
from F. en, from L. in; and joie, joy. See Joy. Der. enjoy-ment.
ENKINDLE, to kindle. (Hybrid; Ἐς and Scand.) In Shak.
K. John, iv. 2. 163. Formed from Ἐς. en=L. in} and Kindle, q. v.
ENLACE, to encircle as with a Jace, enfold, entangle. (F. —L.)
ME. enlacen ; Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, bk. i. met. 4. 1.15. —OF. (and
F.) enlacer, ‘to intangle;’ Cot.—F. en (from L. iz), in; and acer,
“to lace, to bind;’ Cot., from Folk-L. *laciare, for L. laqueare, to
ensnare, from laqueus, a noose. See Lace.
ENLARGE, to make large. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q.v. 5. 55.
ME. enlargen, Mandeville, ‘Vrav., ch. v,p. 45.—AF. enlarger, Stat.
Realm, i. 398 (A.D. 1377). Formed from F. ex, from L. in; and
Large, q.v. Der. enlarge-men?, Shak. L. L. L. iii. 5.
ENLIGHTEN, to give light to. (Hybrid; F. and:E.) In
Shak. Sonnets, 152. From F. ex, from L. in; and E. Lighten,
ιν. Imitated from AS. inlthtan, to illuminate ;- Grein, 11. 142.
Der. enlighten-ment. é
ENLIST, to enroll. (F.—L. and 6.) First in 1698. In John-
son’s Dict., only under the word Lis¢. From Ἐς, en, from L. in; and
F. liste, a list. See List (2). Der. enlist-ment.
ENLIVEN, to put life into. (Hybrid; F. and E.) “Lo! of
themselyes th’ enlivened chessmen move;’ Cowley, Pind. Odes,
Destiny, 1. 3. From F, en, from L. in; and E. life. See Life,
Live.
ENMITY, hostility. (F.—L.) ME. enmité; Prompt. Parv. p.
140; also enemyté, Wyclif, Select Works, ili. 301.—AF. enemiéé,
Stat. Realm, i. 290 (A.D. 1340) ; OF. enemistié (Supp. to Godefroy) ;
later inimitié (Cot.),.—OF. en-, from L. in-, negative prefix; and
amiste, amistet, amity. See Amity.
ENNOBLE, to make noble. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Ὁ. iii. 3. 4.
‘He was exnoblyd ;’ Caxton, Golden Legend, Lyf of St. Fraunceis,
§ 38.—OF-. ennobdlir, ‘to ennoble ;᾽ Cot.=F. ex, from L. in; and F.
noble. See Noble.
ENNUI, annoyance. (F.—L.) In Todd's Johnson. =F. ennui ;
formerly enui, also anoi (Burguy). See Annoy.
ENORMOUS, great beyond measure. (F.—L.) In King Lear,
ii. 2.176; Milton, P.L.i. 511. Rarely exorm (asin Fairfax’s Tasso,
bk. viii. st..71), which is a more correct form, the -ous being added
unnecessarily. = MF. enorme, ‘huge, ... enormous ;’ (οἵ, - ΤῸ.
énormis,. out of rule, huge.=L. δ. out of; and xorma, a rule. See
Normal. Der. exormous-ly; from the same source, enorm-i-ly.
MF. enormité, ‘an enormity ;” Cot.
ENOUGH, sufficient. (E.) ME. 3enoh, inoh, inou, inow, enogh ;
pl. ἐμοῖς, inowe ; see Stratmann. The pl. ynowe (ynough.in Tyrwhitt)
is in Chaucer, C. T. 10784 (F 470). AS. genoh, genog, adj.; pl.
genoge, Grein, i. 438 ; allied to the impers. vb. geneah, it suffices, id.
435-+Goth. ganohs, sufficient ; allied to the impers. verb ganah, it
02
196 ENOUNCE
suffices, in which ga- 1s a mere prefix. Cf. Icel. gnogr, Dan. nok,
Swed. nok, Du. genoeg, G. genug, enough. Cf. also Skt. nag, to
attain, reach, L. nancisci, to acquire (pp. nac-tus) ; Idg. base *nak.
ENOUNCES, to state definitely, to pronounce. (F.—L.) In late
use; first in 1805. Coined, after the analogy of announce, from F.
énoncer, L. énuntiare; see Knunciate. Doublet, enunciate.
ENQUIRE, to search into, ask. (F.—L.) [Properly enguere,
but altered to enquire to make it look more like Latin; and often
further altered to inguire, to make it look still more so.} ME.
enqueren; Rob. of Glouc. pp. 373, 508 ; ll. 7675, 10469 ; in Chaucer,
enquere (rhyming with Jere), C. T. 5049 (B 629).—OF. enquerre
(Burguy), later enguerir (Cot.).—L. inguirere, to seek after, search
into.—L. in; and gue@rere, to seek. See Inquisition, Inquire.
Der. enguir-y, Meas. for Meas. v. 5 (1st folio ed. ; altered to inquiry
in the Globe Edition) ; enquest, now altered to inquest, but spelt
enqueste in P. Plowman, C. xiv. 85, and derived from OF. engqueste,
‘an inquest ;’ Cot. See Inquest.
ENRAGE, to put in a rage. (F.—L.) In Macbeth, iii. 4. 118.
G. Douglas has the pp. enragit, tr. of Virgil, bk. xiii. c. v. 1. 20.—
OF. enrager, ‘to rage, rave, storme;’ whence enragé, ‘enraged ;’
Cot. [Whence it appears that the verb was originally intransitive,
and meant ‘to get in a rage.’]=—F*. ex, from L. in ; and F. rage. See
Rage.
ENRAPTURE, to fill with rapture. (L.; with F. prefix.)
“Now the brow We gain enraptured ;’ Dyer, Ruins of Rome, 1.
134 (1740). From En.-, prefix, and Rapture.
ENRICH, to make rich. (F.—L.) ‘The Lord hath exrychide
me;’ Wyclif, Gen. xxx. 20 (earlier version).—OF. enrichir, ‘to
enrich ;? Cot.—F. ex, from L. in; and F. riche, rich. See Rich.
Der. enrich-ment,
ENROL, to insert in a roll. (F.—L.) ‘And [is] enrolled;’
Lydgate, Siege of Thebes; see quotation under Engross.—OF.
enroller, ‘to enroll, register;’ Cot.—F. en, from L. in; and OF.
rolle,aroll, See Roll. Der. exrol-ment, Holland’s Livy, p. 1221
(R.).
ENSAMPLE, an example. (F.—L.) In the Bible, 1 Cor. x. 11.
ME, exsample, Rob. of Glouc. p. 35, 1. 819. —AF. exsample, a corrupt
form of OF, essemple, exemple, or example; see Example. This
form occurs in the Statutes of the Realm, i. 104 (A.D. 1285).
ENSCONCEH, to shelter, or to take shelter in. (F.—L.) ‘ And
therein so ensconc’d his secret evil ;’ Shak., Lucrece, 1.1515. From
En.-, prefix, in; and Sconce (1).
ENSHRINE, to put in a shrine. (Hybrid; F. and L.) In
Spenser, Hymn on Beauty, 1. 188. From F. ex, from L. in; and
Shrine, q. v.
ENSIGN, a flag. (F.—L.) In Shak. Rich. 11, iv. 94. ME.
enseigne, Chaucer, Rom. Rose, 1. 1200.— OF. enseigne, Roman de la
Rose, 1. 1184; as in Cotgrave, who explains it by ‘a signe, ...
also an ensigne, standard.’ Late L. insignia, orig. pl. of L. insigne, a
paneer neut. of insignis, remarkable; see Insignia. Der. ensign-
cy, -ship.
ENSILAGE, green fodder preserved in a pit; or the process of
preserving it. (F.—Span.—L.—Gk.) _ First in 1881 (N.E. D.). =F.
ensilage, ensilage. =F, ensiler, verb. Span. ensilar, to preserve grain
in a pit.—Span. ex, from L. im, in; and silo, a pit. See Silo.
ENSLAVE, to make a slave of. (Hybrid.) In Milton, P. R.
111. 75.—F. en, from L. in; and Slave, q.v. Der. enslave-ment.
ENSNARE, to catch ina snare. (Hybrid; F. and E.) In Shak.
Oth. ii. 1. 170. - Εἰς ex, from L. in; and Snare, q. v.
ENSUE, to follow after. (F.—L.) ‘Dyuyne vengeaunce ensyewed
sodaynly ;’ Caxton, Golden Legend, St. Stephen, ἃ 6.—AF. ensu-,
as in ensuera, 3 Ὁ. fut. of OF. ensivre, to follow ; see Year-books of
Edw. I, 1302-3, p. 49.—Late L. inseguere, used for L. insegui, to
follow upon; from ix, upon, and segui, to follow. See Sue.
ENSURE, to make sure. (F.—L.) In Chaucer, C. T. 12077
(Ὁ 143). Compounded from F. ex (from L. iz), and OF. séur, sure.
See Assure, and Sure. @ Generally spelt insure, which is a con-
fusion of languages ; whence insur-ance.
ENTABLATURE, part of a building surmounting the columns.
(F.—L.) Spelt intablature in Cotgrave.— MF. entablature, ‘an
intablature ;’ Cot.; an equivalent term to entablement, the mod. F.
form. The OF, entablement meant, more commonly, ‘a pedestal’
or ‘base’ of a column rather than the entablature above. oth sbs.
are formed from Late L. intabulare, orig. to construct an intabuld‘um
or flooring. — L. iz, upon ; and Late L. fabulare, due to L. tabulatum,
board-work, a flooring. =L. ¢abula, a board, plank. See Table.
4 Since extablature simply meant something laid flat or boardwise
upon something else in the course of building, it could be applied to
the part either below or above the columns.
ENTAIL, to bestow asa heritage. (F.—L.) In Shak. 3 Hen. VI,
i, 1. 194, 235 ; as sb., All’s Well, iv. 3. 313. 1. The legal sense is
ENTOMOLOGY
peculiar ; it was originally ‘ to convert (an estate) into fee tail (Late
L. feudum talliatum); to settle (land) on a number of persons in
succession, so that it cannot be bequeathed at pleasure by any
one possessor.’ ‘To entayle land, addicere, adoptare hzredes ;’
Levins. =F, ex, from L. in, in, upon; and AF. ¢ailer, F. tailler, orig.
to cut, hence to impose a fee upon; from Late L. taleare, talliare, to
cut ; see Jail in Blount’s Nomolexicon. 2. The ME. entailen signifies
*tocut or carve,’ in an ornamental way ; see Rom. of the Rose, 140 ;
P. Plowman’s Crede, ed. Skeat, ll. 167, 200. — OF. entailler, ‘to
intaile, grave, carve, cut in;’? (οἵ. “Εν, en, from L. in; and
tailler, to cut. See Tally. Der. entail-ment.
ENTANGLE, to ensnare, complicate. (Hybrid; F. and Scand.)
In Spenser, Muiopotmos, 387; also in Levins. = Ἐς ex, from L. in; and
Tangle, q.v. Der. entangle-ment, Spectator, no. 352.
ENTER, to go into. (F.—L.) ME. entren, Rob. of Gloue. p. 47,
1. 1097; King Alisaunder, 5782. —OF. entrer, ‘to enter ;’ Cot.—L.
intrare, to enter, go into.—L. in; and *-trare, as in pene-trare, to
penetrate, go into; cf. Ski. ¢ara-, a passage, ἐγ, to cross, pass over ;
L. trans, across. See Brugmann, ii. § 579; and see Term. Der.
entr-ance, Macb. 1. 5. 40; entr-y, ME. entree, Chaucer, C. T. 1985
(A 1983), from OF. entree, orig. the fem. of the pp. of F. entrer.
ENTERIC, pertaining to the intestines. (Gk.) Chiefly in the
phr. ‘enteric fever.’ — Gk. ἐντερικός, adj., from ἔντερον, an intestine.
A comparative derivative from ἐν, prep., in. Cf. L. interus, inward ;
Skt. antara-, interior. See Interior.
ENTERPRISE, an undertaking. (F.—L.) Palsgrave has enter-
prise, sb., and entreprise, vb. The sb. is in La Belle Dame sans
Merci, 1. 515. Skelton has it as a verb; ‘Chaucer, that nobly enter-
prysyd;’ Garland of Laurell, 1. 388.—OF. entreprise (Burguy),
commonly entreprinse, ‘an enterprise ;’? Cot.—OF. entrepris, pp. of
entreprendre, to undertake. - Late L. interprendere, to undertake. = L.
inter, among; and prendere, short for prehendere, to take in hand,
which is from L. pre, before, and (obsolete) hendere, to get, cognate
with Gk. χανδάνειν, and E. get. See Prehensile and Get. Der.
enterpris-ing. Cf. emprise.
ENTERTAIN, to admit, receive. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q.
i. 10. 32.— OF, entretien-, a stem of entrelenir, ‘to intertaine;’ Cot.
—Late L. intertenére, to entertain. —L. iter, among ; and fenére, to
hold. See Tenable. Der. entertain-er, -ing ; -ment, Spenser, F. Q.
1 ΠΟΥ 27.
ENTHRAL, to enslave. (Hybrid; F.and Scand.) In Mids. Nt.
Dream, i. 1. 136. From F. en, from L. in; and E. Thrall, q.v.
Der. enthralment, Milton, P. L. xii. 171.
ENTHRONE,to set onathrone. (F.—L. and Gk.) Shak., Mer.
Ven, iv. 1. 194.— MF. enthroner, ‘ to inthronise ;’ Cot. From ΚΕ, ez,
in; and MF. throne, ‘a throne;’ id. B. Imitated from Late L. in-
thronisare, to enthrone, which is from Gk. ἐνθρονίζειν, to set on a
throne; from Gk. ἐν, in, on; and θρόνος, a throne. See Throne.
Der. enthrone-ment.
ENTHUSIASM, inspiration, zeal. (L.—Gk.) In Holland's
Plutarch, pp. 932, 1092 (R.); and in Marston, The Fawne, A. ii.
se. 1. (Cf MF. enthusiasme; Cot.]—Late L. enthiistasmus.— Gk.
ἐνθουσιασμός, inspiration. Gk. ἐνθουσιάζω, I am inspired. —Gk.
ἔνθους, contracted form of ἔνθεος, full of the god, inspired.—Gk. ἐν,
within ; and θεός, god. See Theism. Der. enthusiast (Gk. ἐνθου-
aiaat7s) ; -ic, Dryden, Abs. and Achit. 530; -ic-al, -ic-al-ly.
ENTICE, to tempt, allure. (F.—L.) ME. enticen, entisen; Rob.
of Glouc., p. 235; P. Plowman, C. viii. 91. —OF. enticier, entichier,
to excite, entice (Godefroy). —L. type *:néitiare, to kindle, to set on
fire.=—L, in, on; and *éitins, for ¢itio, a firebrand. Cf. F. attiser,
Ital. aétizzare, to set on fire; from the same sb. Der. entice-ment,
Chaucer, Pers. Tale, Group 1, 1. 967.
ENTIRE, whole, complete. (F.—L.) ME. entyre; the adv.
entyreliche, entirely, is in P. Plowman, C. xi. 188.— OF. entier,
‘intire ;’ Cot.; cf. Prov. enteir, Ital. intero.—L. integrum, acc. of
integer, whole. See Integer. Der. entire-ly, entire-ness; also
entire-ty, spelt entierty by Bacon (R.), from OF. entiere/é (Cot.),
from L. acc. integritatem ; whence entirely and integrity are doublets.
ENTITLE, to give a title to. (F.—L.) In Shak. L. L. L. v. 2.
822. From F. en, from L. in; and title. See Title.
ENTITY, existence, real substance. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674. A coined word, with suffix -/y, from L. enti-, decl. stem of
Late L. ens, a thing, a being, formed as if it were the pres. pt. of esse,
to be. —4+/ES, to be. See Essence.
ENTOMB, to put in a tomb. (F.—L. and Gk.) In Spenser,
F. Ὁ. ii. το. 40.—F. entomber, ‘to intombe ;᾿ Cot. =F. ex, from L, in,
in; and F. tombe,atomb. See Tomb. Der. entfomb-ment.
ENTOMOLOGY, the science treating of insects. (F.—L.—Gk.)
First in 1776. =F. enlymologie (1764). — Mod. L. *entomologia. -- Gk.
évropo-, for ἔντομον, an insect; properly neut. of ἔντομος, cut into;
so called from the very thin middle part; see Insect. The ending
ENTOZOON
B. The Gk. évropos is from
-logy is from Gk. λέγειν, to discourse.
See Tome.
Gk. ἐν, in; and rop-, second grade of τέμνειν, to cut.
Der. enfomolog-ist, entomolog-ic-al.
ENTOZOON, a parasitic animal living within another. (Gk.)
Modern and scientific. From Gk. ἐντό-, for ἐντός, within; and ζῷον,
ananimal. See Zoology.
ENTRAILS, the inward parts of an animal. (F.—L.) The
sing. entrail is rare ; but answers to ME, entraile, King Alisaunder,
1. 3628.— OF. entraile, entrails; MF. entrailles, pl. ‘the intrals,
intestines ;’ Cot.—Late L. intralia, also spelt (more correctly)
intranea, entrails. {For the change from x to /, cf. Boulogne, Bologna,
from L. Bononia.] B. Intriinea is contracted from L. interanea,
entrails, neut. pl. of interameus, inward, an adj. formed from infer,
within. See Internal. 4 The OF. entraile was a fem. sing., made
from a neut. pl.
ENTRANCE (1), ingress; see Enter.
ENTRANCE (2), to put into a trance. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Per. iii. 2. 94. From F. ex, from L. in; and E. trance=F. transe.
See Trance. Der. entrance-ment ; dis-entrance.
ENTRAP, to ensnare. (F.—L. and Teut.) In Spenser, F. Ὁ.
ii. τ. 4.— OF. entraper, ‘to pester; . . also, to intrap;’ Cot.—F. en,
from L. in; and OF. trape, a trap, of G. origin. See Trap (1).
ENTREAT, to treat, to beg. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F.Q. 1. 10.
Chaucer has entreteden, discussed, C. T., B 2466 (Tale of
Melibeus). — AF. ex/reter, F. Chron. of London, p. 48; OF. extraiter,
to treat of (Godefroy).—F. ex, from L. in; and OF. trailer, to
treat, from L. sractire, to handle. See Treat. Der. entreat-y,
K. John, v. 2. 1253 entreat-ment, Hamlet, i. 3. 122.
ENTRENCHGH, to cut into, fortify with a trench. (F.) ‘En-
trenched deepe with knife ;’ Spenser, F. Ὁ. iii. 12. 20; ‘In stronge
entrenchments ;’ id.ii. 11.6. A coined word; from F. en, from L. in;
and E, trench, of F. origin. See Trench.
ENTRUST, totrust with. (Hybrid; F.axdE.) By analogy with
enlist, enrol, enraplure, entrance, enthrone, we have entrust ; as in
Sir T. Browne, Vulgar Errors, bk. iii.c. 11. § 5. But znérust was also
usual, and is the form in Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715; see Intrust.
ENTWINE, ENTWIST, to twine or twist with. (Hybrid ;
F. and E.) Milton has entwined, P. L. iv. 174; Shak. has entwist,
Mids. Nt. Dr. iv. 1. 48. Both are formed alike; from F. ex (from
L. in), and the E. words ¢wine and /wist. See Twine, Twist.
ENUCLEATEH, to lay open, clearly explain. (L.) Lit. ‘ to get
out the kernel.’ In Cockeram (1642), misprinted enuncleate ;
Kersey, in 1658, has enucleation. L. énucleat-us, pp. of énucleare, to
get out a kernel. =L. δ, out; and nucleus, kernel, See Nucleus.
ENUMERATE, to number. (L.) Enumerative occurs in Bp.
Taylor, Holy Dying, c. 5. s. 3, 10. Enumeration is in Phillips
(1658).—L. énumeratus, pp. of éxumerare, to reckon up. =L. δ, out,
fully ; and numerare, to number, from xnumerus, number. See
Number. Der. enwmerat-ion, -ive.
ENUNCIATE, to utter. (L.) Enunciatyue occurs in Sir T.
Elyot, The Governour, Ὁ. iii. c. 25, § 5.“ Το. énunciatus, pp. of énun-
ciare, better éxuntiare, to utter.—L. δ, out, fully; and nuntiare, to
announce, from nuntius, a messenger. See Announce, Nuncio.
Der. enunciat-ion, -ive, -or-y.
ENVELOP, to wrap in, enfold. (F.—Teut.?) Spelt exvelop in
Spenser, F.Q. ii. 12. 34. ME. envolupen, Chaucer, C. T.12876(C 942).
=OF. envoluper, later enveloper, to wrap round, enfold. — F. ex,
from L. in; and OF. voluper, voloper, vioper, to wrap; from a base
volup-, of uncertain origin, but perhaps Low German. B. This base
resembles the ME. wlappen, to wrap up, which occurs at least twelve
times in Wyclif’s Bible, and seems to be another form of wrapfen,
to wrap. See Wyclif, Numb. iv. 5, 7; Matt. xxvii. 59; Luke, ii. 7,
12; John, xx.7,&c. See Wrap. But the base w/ap- is unknown
outside English, and thus does not account for the Romanic form.
Note Walloon ewalpé, to envelop (Remacle) ; Ital. viJuppo, a bundle,
inviluppare, to envelope; MItal. goluppare, to wrap (Florio). Cf.
Develop, Lap (3). Der. envelope, envelope-ment.
ENVENOM, to put poison into. (F.—L.) ME. enuenimen
(with =v); whence exwenimed, King Alisaunder, 5436; enueniming,
Chaucer, C. T. 9934 (E 2060).— OF. envenimer, ‘to invenome ;’ Cot.
= OF. en, from L. in; and venim, or venin, poison, from L, uenénum.
See Venom,
ENVIRON, to surround. (F.—L.) Spelt exuyrowne in Wyclif,
1 Tim. v. 13; pt. t. enuyrounyde, Matt. iv. 23; cf. Gower, C. A.
iit. 97; bk. vii. 373.—OF. environner, ‘to inviron, encompasse ;’
Cot.—OF. (and F.) environ, round about. OF. en, from L. im; and
virer, to turn, veer. See Veer. Der. environ-ment; also environs,
from F. environ.
ENVOY, a messenger. (F.—L.) 1. An improper use of the
word ; it meant ‘a message;’ and the F. for ‘messenger’ was
envoyé. 2. The envoy of a ballad is the ‘sending’ of it forth, and
EPIGRAM 197
the word is then correctly used; the last stanza of Chaucer’s Ballad
to K. Richard is headed L’envoye. = OF. envoy, ‘a message, a sending ;
also the envoy or conclusion of a ballet [ballad] or sonnet ;’ Cot.
Also ‘ envoyé, a special messenger;’ id. OF. envoyer, to send ;
formerly enveier (Supp. to Gedefroy).—OF. en veie, en voie, on the
way.=—L. in uiam, on the way. Cf. Ital. inviare, to send. See
Voyage. Der. envoyship.
ENVY, emulation, malicious grudging. (F.—L.) In early use.
ME. enuie (with u=v), exuye, enuy; Rob. of Glouc. pp. 122, 287;
ll. 2603, 5824.—OF. envie, ‘envy;’ Cot.=—L. inuidia, envy. See
Invidious. Der. envy, verb, Wyclif, τ Cor. xiii. 4; envi-ous, ME.
enuius, Floriz, ed. Lumby, 1. 356; -ous-ly, -able.
ENWRAP, to wrap in. (Hybrid; F.and E.) In Spenser, F.Q. ii.
3. 27; earlier, in Wyclif, 1 Kings, xv. 6; 4 Kings, ii. 8. Coined
from F. en, from L. in; and E. Wrap, q. v.
EOCENE, belonging to the lowest division of the tertiary strata.
(Gk.) First used by Lyell (1833).—Gk. ἠώ-ς, dawn ; and καινός,
new, recent.
EPACT, aterm inastronomy. (F.—Late L.—Gk.) In Holland's
Plutarch, p. 1051.—MF. epacte, ‘an addition, the epact;’ Cot.=—
Late L. epacta.— Gk. ἐπακτή (for ἐπακτός ἡμέραῚ, late fem. of ἐπακτός,
added, brought in. = Gk. ἐπάγειν, to bring to, bring in, supply. = Gk.
ἐπ-, for ἐπί, to; and ἄγειν, to lead. —4/ AG, to drive. See Act.
EPAULET, a shoulder-knot. (F.—L.—Gk.) Used by Burke
(R.). =F. épaulette, dimin. from épaule, OF. espaule, and still earlier
espalle, a shoulder. —L. spatula, a blade; in Late L. the shoulder;
see the account of the letter-changes in Brachet. B. Spatula is a
dimin. of spatha, a blade; borrowed from Gk. σπάθη, a broad blade.
See Spatula.
EPERGNE, a central ornament for a dinner-table. (F.—Teut.)
Also spelt epargne in 1779 (N.E.D.); which is more correct.=F.
épargne, lit. ‘economy.’ It seems to have been applied to the
épergne from the manner of its ornamentation; Cotgrave has:
“taillé d’espargne, cut with sparing work, the incutting being filled
with enamell, and the work set out, or appearing among it, in gold.’ =
F. épargner, MF. espargner, to spare, save (Ital. sparagzare, in Florio).
Formed, as if from an ΟΠ. *sparanjan (not found); from OHG.
sparon, to save, spare, cognate with AS. sparian. See Spare.
(Korting, § 8910.)
EPHAH, a Hebrew measure. (Heb.—Egyptian.) In Exod. xvi.
36, &c.—Heb. éyphah, a measure; a word of Egyptian origin;
Coptic dpi, a measure; Gesenius, ed. 8. p. 36.
EPHEMERA, flies that live but a day. (Gk.) ‘Certain flyes
that are called ephemera, that live but a day;”’ Bacon, Nat. Hist.
§ 697. A neut. pl., afterwards used as a fem. sing. — Gk. ἐφήμερα,
neut. pl. of adj. ἐφήμερος, lasting for a day.—Gk. ép-= ἐπί, for; and
ἡμέρα, a day, of uncertain origin. Der. ephemer-al; ephemeris (Gk.
épnuepis, a diary).
EPHOD, a part of the priest’s habit. (Heb.) In Exod. xxviii. 4,
&c. = Heb. éphod, a vestment ; from dphad, to put on, clothe.
EPI-, prefix. (Gk.) Gk. ἐπί, upon, to, besides; in ep:-cene, epi-
cycle, &c. It becomes ép- before an aspirate, as in eph-emeral ; and
ep- before a vowel, as in ep-och. Cf. L. ob, to, as in obwam, obire ;
Oscan op; Skt. api, moreover ; in composition, near to. Brugmann,
i. § 557 (2).
EPIC, narrative. (L.—Gk.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674; and
Spectator, no. 267.—L. epicus.—Gk, ἐπικός, epic, narrative. Gk.
ἔπος, a word, narrative, song; allied to L. uox,a voice. See Voice.
EPICENE, of common gender. (L.—Gk.) Epicene is the name
of one of Ben Jonson’s plays.—L. epicenus, borrowed from Gk.
ἐπίκοινος, common. Gk. ἐπί ; and κοινός, common. See Cenobite.
EPICURE, a follower of Epicurus. (L.—Gk.) In Macb. v. 3.
8.—L. Epicurus.—Gk. ‘Enixovpos, proper name ; lit. ‘ assistant.’
Der. epicur-e-an, -e-an-ism.
EPICYCLE, a small circle with its centre on the circumference
of a larger one. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Milton, P. L. viii. 84. Chaucer
has episicle; Astrolabe, pt. ii. § 35.—F, epicycle (Cot.).—L. epicyclus. πα
Gk. ἐπίκυκλος, an epicycle.—Gk, ἐπί, upon; and κύκλος, a cycle,
circle. See Cycle.
EPIDEMIC, affecting a people, general. (L.—Gk.) ‘An epi-
demic disease ;’ Bacon, Henry VII, ed. Lumby, p. 13,1. 10. Formed
with suffix -7c from L, epidém-us, epidemic; cf. MF. epidimique (Cot.).
= Gk, ἐπίδημος, among the people, general. —Gk. ἐπί, among; and
δῆμος, the people. See Endemic, Demagogue. Der. epidemic-al.
EPIDERMIS, the cuticle, outer skin. (L.—Gk.) ‘Within the
epidermis ;’ Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 297.—L. epidermis.— Gk. ἐπιδερμίς,
an upper skin; from ἐπί, upon, and δέρμα, skin. See Derm,
EPIGLOTTIS, a cartilage protecting the glottis. (Gk.) In Ker-
sey, ed. 1715.—Gk. ἐπιγλωττίς, Attic form of ἐπιγλωσσίς, epiglottis.
= Gk. ἐπί, near; and γλῶσσα, the tongue. See Gloss (2), Glottis.
EPIGRAM, a short poem. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. Much Ado,
198 EPILEPSY
v. 4. 103. Sir T. Elyot has the pl. epigrammata, in The Governour,
bk. i. c. 13. § 7.— F. epigramme, ‘an epigram;’ Cot.—L. epigramma
(stem epigrammat-).—Gk. ἐπίγραμμα, an inscription, epigram. = Gk.
ἐπί, upon; and γράφειν, to write. See Graphic. Der. epigram-
mat-ic, -ic-al, ~ic-al-ly, -ise, -ist. And, from the same verb, epigraph.
EPILEPSY, a convulsive seizure. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. Oth.
iv. 1. 51. “ΜῈ, epilepsie, ‘the falling sickness ;? Cot. —L. epilépsia.
—Gk, ἐπιληψία, ἐπίληψις, a seizure, epilepsy.—Gk. ἐπιλαμβάνειν
(fut. émAny-opat), to seize upon. Gk. ἐπί, upon; and λαμβάνειν, to
seize. See Cataleptic. Der. epileptic, Gk. ἐπιληπτικός, subject τὸ
epilepsy; K. Lear, ii. 2. 87.
EPILOGUE, a short concluding poem. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak.
Mids. Nt. Dr. ν. 360, 362, 369. —F. epilogue, ‘an epilogue ;* Cot. =
L. epilogus.e Gk, ἐπίλογος, a concluding speech.m Gk. ἐπί, upon;
and λόγος, a speech, from λέγειν, to speak.
EPIPHANY, Twelfth Day. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Cotgrave; and
in Caxton, The Golden Legend, Fest of the Ep:phanie ; and in Lyric
Poetry, ed. Wright, p. 96.—F. epiphanie, ‘the epiphany ;’ Cot.—L.
epiphania.=Gk, ἐπιφάνια, manifestation; originally neut. pl. of adj.
ἐπιφάνιος, but equivalent to sb. ἐπιφάνεια, appearance, manifestation.
= Gk. émpaivew (fut. émpayv-®), to manifest, show forth. Gk. ἐπί,
to; and φαίνειν, to show. See Fancy.
EPISCOPAL, belonging toa bishop. (F.—L.—Gk.) InCotgrave,
“ Epyscopall iurisdiction;’ Caxton, Acts of Hen. VII, fol. a 3, bk. = OF.
episcopal, ‘episcopall;’ Cot. = L. episcopalis, adj. formed from episcopus,
a bishop. — Gk. ἐπέσκοπος, an over-seer, bishop. See Bishop. Der.
episcopal-i-an; from the same source, episcopate (L. episcopatus) ;
episcopac-y.
EPISODE, a story introduced into another. (Gk.) In the
Spectator, no. 267.—Gk. ἐπεισόδ-ιον, orig. neut. of ἐπεισόδιος, episodic,
adventitious. — Gk. ἐπί, besides; and εἰσόδιος, coming in; which is from
eis, into, and ὁδός, ἃ way. Der, episodi-al (from ἐπεισόδι-ο5}; episod-ic,
-ic-al, -al-ly.
EPISTLE, a letter. (F.—L.—Gk.) In early use. The pl. epistlis
is in Wyclif, 2 Cor. x, 10. —OF. epistle, the early form whence epis/re
(Cotgrave) was formed by the change of / to r (as in chapter from L,
capitulum) ; Ἐς, épitre.=L. epistola (whence also AS. epistol).—Gk.
ἐπιστολή, a message, letter. = Gk. ἐπιστέλλειν, to send to; from ἐπί, to,
and στέλλειν, to send, equip. See Stole. Der. epistol-ic, -ar-y; from
L. epistol-a.
EPITAPH, an inscription on a tomb. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak.
Much Ado, iv. 1. 209; ME. epitaphe, epitaffe, Gower, C. A. iii. 326;
bk. villi. 1531.—F. épitaphe; Cot.—L. epitaphium.— Gk. ἐπιτάφιος
λόγος, a funeral oration; where ἐπιτάφιος signifies ‘over a tomb,’
funeral, = Gk. ἐπί, upon, over; and τάφος, a tomb. See Cenvtaph.
EPITHALAMIUM, a marriage song. (L.—Gk.) See the
Epithalamion by Spenser. = L. epithalamium. = Gk. ἐπιθαλάμιον, ἃ bridal
song ; neut. of ἐπιθαλάμιος, belonging to a nuptial. Gk. ἐπί, upon,
for; and θάλαμος, a bed-room, bride-chamber.
EPITHET, an adjective expressing a quality. (L.—Gk.) InShak.
Oth.i. 1. 14. — L. epitheton.— Gk. ἐπίθετον. αὐ epithet ; neut. of ἐπίθετος,
added, annexed. Gk, ἐπί, besides; and the base θε-, allied to τίθημι,
I place, set. —4/DHE, to place; see Do. Der. epithet-ic.
EPITOME, an abridgment. (L.—Gk.) In Shak. Cor. νυ. 3. 68 ;
and in Frith’s Works (1572), p. 97, col. 1 (written in 1529).—L.
epitomé.=— Gk. ἐπιτομή, a surface-incision; also, an abridgment. = Gk.
ἐπί, upon; and τέμνειν, tocut. See Tome. Der. epitom-ise, -ist.
EPOCH, a fixed date. (L.—Gk.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
—Late L. epocha; Ducange.=— Gk. ἐποχή, a stop, check, hindrance,
pause, epoch. — Gk. ἐπέχειν, to hold in, check. Gk. ἐπ- = ἐπί, upon ;
and ἔχειν, to have, hold; cognate with Skt. sah, to bear, undergo,
endure. —4/SEGH, to hold, check ; Brugmann, i. § 602.
EPODE, a kind of lyric poem. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Ben Jonson,
The Forest, x., last line. —OF. epode; (οἵ. πο L. epodos.—Gk. ἐπῳδός,
something sung after, an epode. = Gk. ἐπ- = ἐπί, upon, on; and ἀείδειν,
ἄδειν, to sing. See Ode.
EPONYMOUS, that gives (his) name to anything, esp. to a place.
(Gk.) Used by Grote in 1846.— Gk, ἐπώνυμος, given as a name, or
giving a name.—Gk, ἐπί, upon; and ὄνομα (Zolic ὄνυμα), a name.
See Name.
EQUAL, on a par with, even, just. (L.) Chaucer has both equal
and inegual in his Treatise on the Astrolabe; equally is in the C. T.
7819 (D 2237). [We find also ME. egal, from OF. egal.) =—L. egualis,
equal ; formed with suffix -a/is from @guus, equal, just. Der. equal-ly,
-ise, ~is-at-ion ; -i-ly, King Lear, i. 1. 5; and see equation, and equity.
EQUANIMITY, evenness of mind. (F.—L.) In Butler, Hudi-
bras, pt. i. c. 3. 1. 1020. « ΜΈ, éguanimité (Cot.). = L. equanimitatem,
acc. of @guanimitas, eyenness of mind.=L. @guanimis, kind, mild ;
hence, calm. L. @gu-, for @guus, equal; and animus, mind. See
Equal and Animate.
EQUATION, a statement of equality. (L.) ME. equacion,
ERE
Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, prol. 71 (or 76). Palsgrave has equate,
vb.—=L. equdtionem, acc. of eguatio, an equalising ; cf. eguatus, pp.
of equare, to equalise.—L, @quus, equal. See qual. Der. equat-or
(Late L. equator, from @guare), Milton, P. L. ili. 617; egua-ble (L.
@quabilis, from @quare); equa-bl-y ; equa-bil-i-ty, spelt equabilitie in
Sir T. Elyot, Governour, Ὁ. iii. c. 21. § 2. Also ad-equate,
EQUERRY, an officer who has charge of horses. (F,—OHG.)
Properly, it meant ‘a stable,’ and equerry really stands for eguerry-man.
It occurs in The Tatler, no. 19. § 2.—F. ecurie, formerly escurie, a
stable, spelt escuyrie in Cotgrave; Low L, scuria,a stable; Ducange.
= OHG, skiura, scura, ΜΉ. schiure, a shed (G. scheuer); lit. a cover,
shelter. —4/SQEU, to cover; see Sky. Brugmann,i. § 109. @ The
spelling eguerry is due to an attempt to connect it with L. eguus, a horse.
Vhere is, however, a real ultimate connexion with esquire, q.v.
EQUESTRIAN, relating to horsemen. (L.) ‘A certain equestrian
order ;’ Spectator, no. 104. ὃ 1. Formed, with suffix -an, from L.
equestri-, stem of egue:ter, belonging to horsemen. —L, egues, a horse-
man. = L, eguus,a horse. See Kquine.
EQUI-, prefix, equally, (L.) 10. @gui-, from @guus, equal; see
Equal. Hence egui-angular, equi-distant, equi-lateral, equi-multiple,
all in Kersey, ed. 1715. And see Equilibrium, Equinox,
Equipoise, Equipollent, Equivalent, Equivocal.
EQUILIBRIUM, aneven balancing. (L.) In Kersey,ed.1715.
=— L. equilibrium, a level position (in balancing), = L. @quilibris, level,
balancing equally. = L. egui-, for equus, equal; and dibrare, to balance,
from Jibra, a balance. See Equal and Librate.
EQUINE, relating to horses. (L.) First in 1778 (N. E.D,); not
in Todd’s Johnson. = L, equinus, relating to horses. L. equus, a horse.
+Gk. ἵππος (dialectally txxos), a horse ; Skt. a¢va-, ‘a runner,’ a horse;
Pers. asp; Olrish ech; AS.eoh, Idg.type *ekwos. Brugmann,i. § 116.
EQUINOX, the time of equal day and night. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Oth. ii. 3. 129. Chaucer has the adj. eguinoxral, C. ‘T. 14862 (B 4046).
— Εἰ équinoxe, spelt equinocce inCotgrave. = L, eguinoctium, the equinox,
time of equal day and night.—L. egui-, for equus, equal; and nocti-,
decl. stem of xox, night. See Equal and Night, Der. egu:nocti-al,
from L. eguinocti-um. QJ Note that the suffix -nox is not the L. nom,
nox, but comes from -noctium.
EQUIP, to fit out, furnish. (F.—Scand.) In Cotgrave ; and used
by Dryden, tr. of Ovid, Ceyx, 1. 67. Baret (1580) has esgueppe. {The
sb. eguipage is earlier, in Spenser, Sheph. Kal., Oct. 114; whence
equipage as a verb, Ἐς Q. ii, 9.17.)—= MF. equiper, ‘to equip, arm;’
also spelt esguiper; Cot.; AF. eskipper, Black Book of the Admiralty,
i. 20. —Icel. skipa, to arrange, set in order; prob. allied to Icel. skip,
aship. See Ship. Der. eguip-age (MF. equipage) ; equip-ment.
EQUIPOISE, an equal weight. (F.—L.) In the Rambler, no. 95
(0). Coined from egui-=F. equi-= L. equt-, and poise. See Equi-
and Poise.
EQUIPOLLENT, equally powerful. (F.—L,.) ‘Thou wilt to
kinges be eguipolent;’ Lydgate, Ballad of Good Counsel, st. 3; in
Chaucerian Pieces. OF. eguipolent; Cot.—L. @quipollent-, stem of
@quipollens, of equal value. = L. egui-, for equus, equal; and pollens,
pres. part. of pollére, to be strong,
EQUITY, justice. (F.—L.) In Shak. K. John, ii. 241; ME,
eguité, Gower, C. A. i. 271; bk. ii. 3327. — OF, equile, " equity ;’ Cot.
— L. equititem,acc. of equitas, equity ; from @quus,equal. See Equal.
Der. equit-able, OF. equitable (Cot.); -abl-y, -able-ness.
EQUIVALENT, of equal worth. (F.—L.) In Shak, Per. v.
I. 92.-- ΜῈ; eguivalent, ‘equivalent;’ Cot. L. eguiualent-, stem of
pres. part. of @guiualére, to be equivalent.=L. eguwi-, for eguis,
equal; and xalére, to be worth. See Equal and Value. Der.
equivalent-ly, equivalence.
EQUIVOCAL, of doubtful sense. (L.) In Shak. Oth. i. 3.
217. Formed, with suffix -al, from L. @guiuoc-us, of doubtful sense.
=L. equi-, for a@guus, equal (i.e. alternative); and ποὺς, base of
uoc-are, to call. See Equi- and Voice. Der. eguivocal-ly, -ness;
hence also eguivoceate (used by Cotgrave to translate MF. egu:voguer),
eguivoc-at-ion.
ERA, an epoch, fixed date. (L.) Spelt era in Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674.—L. era, an era; derived from a particular use of era, in the
sense of ‘counters,’ hence, ‘an item of an account,’ which is properly
the pl. of Ὡς, brass, money (Lewis).
ERADICATE, to root up. (L.) Sir T. Browne has eradication,
Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. il, c. 6. 5, 8; Cockeram (1642) has eradicate,—L.
éridicdtus, pp. of éradicare, to root up.» L, ὅν out; and radic-, stem
of radix, a root. See Radical, Der. eradicat-ion.
ERASE, to scrape out, efface. (L.) Eras'd is in Butler, Hudibras,
pt. lii.c. 3.1. 214.—L, érasus, pp. of éradere, to scratch out.—L, é, out ;
and radere,to scrape. See Rase. Der. eras-er, -ion, -ure; erase-ment.
ERE, before, sooner than. (E:). ME, er, Chaucer, C.T. 1042
(A 1040). AS.#r,soon, before; prep.,conj., and adv. ; Grein,i,69. (Cf.
AS. #r-lic, mod. E. early. |4 Du. eer, adv. sooner; OHG. ér, G, eher,
ERECT
sooner; Goth. airis, sooner, comp. of air, adv. early, soon. f Orig.
a comparative form ; the positive being found in Goth. air, soon, Icel.
ar, soon. Cf. Gk. pt, early. See Erst.
ERECT, upright. (L.) ME. erect, Chaucer, C. T. 4429 (B 9).+
L. érectus, set up, upright; pp. of érigere, to set up. —L, δ, out, up ;
and regere, to rule, set. See Regal. Der. erect, vb., -ion.
ERGOT, a diseased transformation of the seed of rye, &c., due to
a fungus, and thought to resemble a cock’s spur. (F.) First in 1683
(N. E. D.).—F. ergot, ‘a cock’s spur, spurred rye, ergot;’ Hamilton.
Cotgrave has both ergot and argot,a cock’s spur; and OF, argot occurs
in the T2th century (Littré). Origin unknown. Connexion with L.
argiitus, bright, clear, seems not impossible ; cf. L. argiitari, to stamp
with the feet, as a fuller. Cotgrave has argoter, to fight with spurs.
ERMINE, an animal of the weasel tribe. (F.-OHG.) ME.
ermyne, Rob. of Glouc., p. 191, 1. 3949; ermin, Old Eng. Homilies,
ed. Morris, 1st Ser. p. 181, 1. 361. —OF. ermine (Εἰς hermine), ‘the
hate-spot ermelin ;’ Cot. (Cf. Span. armiiio, Ital. ermellino, ermine ;
Low L. armelinus, ermine-fur.] AF. hermine, Langtoft, i. 172.
-OHG. harmin, MHG. hermin, ermine-fur; cf. mod. (ἃ. ermelin.
B. The forms hermin, hermelin, are extended from OHG. harmo,
MHG. harme, an ermine, corresponding to Lithuanian szarmi, szar-
monys, a weasel (Diez); cf. AS. hearma, the name of some quadruped,
Voc. 118. 43 ; MDu. armelijn, ‘an hermin;’ Hexham. 61 The deriva-
tion, suggested by Ducange, that ermine is for mis Armenius, Armenian
mouse, which may have been an equivalent term to mis Ponticus, a
Pontic mouse, which may have meant an ermine, is adopted by Littré.
ERODE, to eat away. (F.—L.) In Bacon, Nat. Hist. 5, 983.—
MF. eroder, ‘to gnaw off, eat into ;’ Cot.—L. érddere, pp. érdsus, to
gnaw off; from ὅ, off, and rddere, to gnaw. See Rodent. Der.
eros-ion, -ive; cf. L. érdsus.
EROTIC, amorous. (Gk.) ‘This eroticall love;’ Burton, Anat.
of Melancholy, iii. 2. t, 2; p. 442 (R.).—Gk. ἐρωτικός, relating to
love. -- Gk. ἔρωτι-, decl. stem of ἔρως, love; allied to ἔραμαι, I love.
ERR, to stray. (F.—L.) ME. erren, Chaucer, Troilus, b. iv. 1. 302.
— OF, errer, ‘to erre;’ Cot.—L. errdre,to wander; which stands for
an older form *ers-are. + Goth. airz-jan, to make to err; a causal
form; OHG. irran (for irrjan), to make to err; G. irren, to wander,
go astray; G. irre, astray. Brugmann, i. § 878. Der. err-or, q.v.;
errant, 4. ν. ; erratum, q.V.
ERRAND, a message. (E.) ME. erende, erande, sometimes arende
(always with one r); Layamon, 10057. AS. #rende, a message,
business; Grein, i. 7o. Cf. OSax. drundi; Icel. eyrendi, Grendi,
erendi; Swed. arende; Dan. @rende; OHG. Grunti,a message. Teut.
types uncertain; apparently *@rundjom, n., *arundjom, n. Fick (iii.
21, 30) separates this word from Goth. airus, Icel. arr, a messenger,
and connects it with AS. earn, Icel. Grr, swift, ready, Skt. arvant-, a
horsé. “ The initial vowel-sound is still unexplained.
ERRANT, wandering. (F.—L.) ‘Of errant knights;’ Spenser,
¥. Ὁ. v. 6. 6.—OF. errant, ‘ errant, wandering ;’ Cot. Pres. pt. of
OF. errer, eirer, edrer, to wander.=—Late L. i’erdre, to travel; from
iter,a journey; seeItinerant. But in some instances (see Troil.
and Cress. i. 3. 9) errant represents the pres. pt. of F. errer, to err,
from L. errare. See Err. Der. errant-ry. Doublet, arrant.
ERRATUM, an error in writing or printing. (L.) Most common
in the pl. errata; Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674. —L. erratum, pl. errata,
an error; neut. of erratus, pp. of errare. See Err. Der. errat-ic,
from pp. erratus ; whence errat-ic-al, Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors,
b. ii. c. 6. § 7, -ic-al-ly.
ERRONEOUS, faulty. (L.) ‘Erronious doctrine;’ Life of
Dr. Barnes, ed. 1372, fol. Aaa. iiij.—L. errdne-us, wandering about;
with suffix -ous.—L. errdne-, for errdni-, decl. stem of erro, a vagrant.
-—L.errare. See Err. Der. erroneous-ly, -ness.
ERROR, a fault, mistake. (F.—L.) ME. errour, Gower, C. A.
i. 21; prol. 511.— OF. errour.=—L. errarem, acc. of error, a mistake,
wandering. =L. errare, See Err. @ The spelling errour was altered
to error to be more like the Latin.
ERST, soonest, first. (E.) ME. erst, Chaucer, C. T. 778 (A 776).
AS. @rest, adv. soonest, adj. first, Grein, i. 71; the superl. form of
AS. @r,soon. See Ere.
ERUBESCENT, blushing. (L.) Rare ; in Bailey, vol. ii (1731).
=L. érubescent-, stem of pres. pt. of érubescere, to grow red. —L. δ,
out, very much; and rubescere, to grow red, inceptive form of rubére,
to be red. See Ruby. Der. erubescence, from MF, erubescence (Cot-
grave); from L. erubescentia, a blushing.
ERUCTATE, to belch out, reject wind. (L.) ‘ Aetna in times
past hath eructated such huge gobbets of fire;’ Howell’s Letters,
bi. 5,1. let. 27.—L. éructitus, pp. of éructire, to belch out ; from δ,
out, and ructare, to belch. Allied to ériigere, to belch (Festus), rugire,
to bellow, and to Gk. ἐρεύγεσθαι, to spit out, ἤρυγον, I bellowed; from
the base REUG, to bellow. Brugmann,i.§ 221. Der. eructat-ion.
ERUDITE, learned. (L.) ‘A most erudite prince ;’ Sir T. More,
ESCUTCHEON
Works, p. 645 b.=—L. éruditus, pp. of érudire, to free from rudeness,
to cultivate, teach; (orig. ‘rough-hewn into shape,’ said of a tree ;
Bréal).—L. δ, out, from; and rudis, rude. See Rude. Der. erudite-ly,
erudit-ion.
ERUPTION, a bursting out. (L.) In Shak. Haml. i. τ. 69.—
L. acc. éruptidnem, from nom. éruptio, a breaking out.—L. 2, out;
and ruptio, a breaking, allied to ruptus, broken. See Rupture.
Der. erupt-ive.
ERYNGO, the candied root of the sea-holly. (Ital. —L.—Gk.)
In Shak. Merry Wives, ν. 5. 23. An incorrect form; from MItal.
eringio, erigne, ‘the weede sea-hollie, also, eringos rootes ;” Florio.
-Ι,, éryngion.—Gk. ἠρύγγιον, dimin. of ἤρυγγος, an eryngo; see
Prellwitz.
ERYSIPELAS, a redness on the skin. (L.—Gk.) Spelt erysipely
(from OF. erysipele) in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. —L. erysipelas. — Gk.
ἐρυσίπελας (stem ἐρυσιπελατ-Ὸ), a redness on the skin. —Gk. ἐρυσι-,
allied to ἐρυθρός, red; and πέλλα, skin: See Red and Pell. Der.
erysipelat-ous (from the stem).
ESCALADE, a scaling of walls. (F.—Span.—L.) Florio has
Ital. scalada, ‘an escalado.” The Span. form scalado (which occurs
in Bacon, Hist. Hen. VII, ed. Lumby, p. 165) has given way to the
Ἐς, escalade, =F. escalade, ‘a scalado, a scaling ;’ Cot, Span, escalado,
properly escalada, an escalade ; these are the masc. and fem. forms of
the pp. of the verb escalar, to scale, climb. =Span. escala, a ladder. =
L. sciila, a ladder. See Seale (3).
ESCAPH, to flee away, evade. (F.—L.) ME. escapen, Chaucer,
C. T. 14650 (B 3922).—ONorth F-. escaper, AF. escaper, OF. eschaper
(F. échatper), to escape; lit. ‘to slip out of one’s cape,’ and so to
get away.=—L. ex cappa, out of one’s cape or cloak. See Cape (1):
47 In Italian, we not only have scappare, to escape, but also rncappare,
to ‘in-cape,’ to fall into a snare, to invest with a cape or cope; also
incappucctare, to wrap up in a hood, to mask. Cf. Norm. dial.
écapper, to escape (Moisy). Der. escape-ment; escap-ade, from F.
escapade, orig. an escape, from Ital. scappata, an escape, fem. of
pp: of scappare,to escape. Hence, later, the sense of ‘ breaking away
from restraint.’
ESCARPMENT, a smooth and steep decline. (F.—Ital.— Tent.)
A military term; F. escarpement. Formed from F. escarpe, a scarp;
with suffix -ment (L.-mentum). The verb is generally scarp rather
than escarp; see Scarp.
ESCHEAT, a forfeiture of property to the lord of the fee. (F.—
L.) ME. eschete, escheyte ; ‘I lese menye escheytes’ =I (the king) lose
many eschea/s; P. Plowman, C. v. 169.—OF. eschete, that which falls
to one, rent; a f. pp. form from the verb escheoir, to fall to one’s share
(F. échoir).—Late L. excadere, to fall upon, meet (any one), to fall to
one’s share; used A.D. 1229 (Ducange); from L. ex, out, and cadere,
to fall. See Chance. Der. escheat, verb; and see Cheat.
ESCHEW, to shun, avoid. (F.—OHG.) ME. eschewen, eschiwen ;
P. Plowman, (ἢ, ix. 51.—AF. eschuer, Liber Albus, p. 369; OF. es-
chiver, MF. eschever, ‘to shun, eschew, avoid, bend from;’ Cot. and
Godefroy. — OHG, sciuhan, MHG., schiuhen (G. scheuen), to frighten ;
also, intr. to fear, shy at. —OHG. *scioh, MHG. schiech, shy ; cognate
with E. shy. Thus eschew and shy (verb) are doublets. See Shy.
ESCORT, a guide, guard. (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘ Escort, a convoy ;ἢ
Bailey’s Dict., vol. ii. ed. 1731. — MF. (and F.) escorte, ‘a guide, con-
voy;’ Cot.—TItal. scorta, an escort, guide, convoy; fem. of pp. of
scorgere, to see, perceive, guide. Formed as if from L. *excorrigere,
a compound of ex and corrigere, to set right, correct ; see Correct.
Der. escort, verb, Φ7 Similarly Ital. accorgere, to find out, answers
toa L. *ad-corrigere; see Diez.
ESCRITOIRE, a writing-desk, bureau. (F.—L.) ‘Captain
Gibbet has made bold. . . with your study and escritoir ;’ Farquhar,
Beaux Stratagem, A. v. sc. 4 (near end).—F. escritotre, now €écritoire.
-L. scriptorium, place for writing. —L. script-us, pp. of scribere, to
write. See Scribe.
ESCROW, a deed delivered on condition. (F.—Teut.) A law
term (Webster); the same word as ME. scroue, scrow, examples of
which are given s.v. Seroll, q.v. It is the orig. word of which
scroll is the diminutive. Cf. AF. escrowwe, Britton, ii. 71.
ESCUAGE, a pecuniary satisfaction in lieu of feudal service. (F.
—L.) In Blackstone, Comment., b. ii. c. 3. — OF. escuage (Godefroy) ;
ef. Littré, s.v. écwage, who quotes from Ducange, s.v. scutégium,
which is the Low L. form of the word. Formed with suffix -age
from OF. escu, a shield; because escwage was, at first, paid in lieu of
service in the field. See Squire and Escutcheon.
ESCULENT, eatable. (L.) ‘Or any esculent, as the learned
call it;’ Massinger, New Way to Pay, Act iv. sc. 2.—L. esculentus,
fit for eating.—L. esca, food; with suffix -w-lentus (cf. uin-o-lentus
from uinum). The L. esca is for *ed-sca; from L. ed-ere, to eat, cog-
nate with E eat. See Hat. Brugmann, i. § 753.
ESCUTCHEON, a painted shield. (F.—L.) Spelt seutchion in
199
200 ESOPHAGUS
Bacon, Essay 29 (ed. Wright, p. 129) ; scuchin, Spenser, F. (Q. iii. 4.
16; scochen, Sir Degrevant, 1.1481 (Thornton, Rom.) ; scochon, Book |
of St. Alban’s, pt. ii. fol. £8, 1.7. ME. escochon (1480; N.E.D.) ;
AF. escuchon, Royal Wills, p. 67 (1376).—O. North F. escuchon, OF.
escusson, ‘a scutcheon,’ Cot.; answering to a Late L. type *sciitionem,
from a nom. *sciéio. ‘The form depends upon L. scutum, a shield,
just as Τὸ escusson does upon OF. escu, a shield. See Haquire. Cf.
Ital. scudone, a great shield, from scudo, a shield ; but note that the F.
suffix -on has a dimin. force, while the Ital. -one is augmentative.
ESOPHAGUS, the food-passage, gullet. (L.—Gk.) Also e@sopha-
gus. ‘ Oesophagus, the gullet ;” Kersey, ed. 1715. Oesophagus is a
Latinised form of Gk. οἰσοφάγος, the gullet; lit. ‘conveyer of food.’
= Gk. oigo-, allied to οἴσω, I shall carry, used as a future from a base
oi-, to carry, which is allied to εἶμι, 1 shall go; and pay-, base of
φαγεῖν, to eat.
ESOTERIC, inner, secret. (Gk.) ‘Exoteric and esoteric ;᾽ War-
burton, Divine Legation, b. ii. note Bb (R.). —Gk. ἐσωτερικός, inner
(Lucian); a term expanded from Gk. éow7epos, inner, a comparative
form from ἔσω, within, an adv. from ἐς -- εἰς, into, prep. 4 A term
used of those disciples of Pythagoras, &c. who were scientifically
taught, as opposed to those who had more popular views, the exoteric.
See Exoteric.
ESPALIER, lattice-work for training trees. (F. —Ital. —L.—Gk.)
In Pope, Sat. ii. 147. ‘ Espaliers, trees planted in a curious order
against a frame;’ Kersey, ed. 1715.—MF. espallier, ‘an hedge-rowe
of sundry fruit-trees set close together;’ Cot. —TItal. spalliera, the
back of a chair; an espalier (from its forming a back or support). =
Ital. spalla,a shoulder, top, back. —L. spatula, a blade; in Late L.
a shoulder. See Epaulet.
ESPECIAL, special, particular. (F.—L.) ME. especial, Chaucer,
C. T., B 2356 (Six-text). —OF. especial. = L. specialis, belonging to a
particular kind. —L. speciés,a kind. See Species. Der. especial-ly,
4 Often shortened to special, as in Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1019 (A 1017),
ESPLANADSH, a level space. (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘Esplanade,
properly the glacis or slope of the counterscarp; but it is now
chiefly taken for the void space between the glacis of a citadel and
the first houses of a town;’ Phillips, ed. 1696.—MF. esplanade, ‘a
planing, levelling, evening of ways;’ Cot. Formed from MF. es-
planer, to level, in imitation of Ital. spianata, an esplanade, lit. a
levelled way, from Ital. spianare, to level. L. explanare, to flatten
out, explain. See Explain.
ESPOUSKE, to give or take as spouse. (F.—L.) In Shak. Hen.
V, ii. 1. 81.“ OF. e.pouser, ‘to espouse, wed ; Cot. OF, espouse, ‘a
spouse, wife;’ id. See Spouse. Der. espous-er; espous-al, ME.
espousaile, Gower, C. A. ii. 322; bk. v. 5815 ; from OF. espousailles,
answering to L. sponsalia, neut. pl., a betrothal, which is from sponsdlis,
adj. formed from sponsa, a betrothed one.
ESPY, to spy, catch sight of. (F.-OHG.) ME. espyen, espien,
Chaucer, C. T. 4744 (B 324); often written aspien, asin P. Plowman,
A. ii. 201. [It occurs as early as in Layamon ; vol. ii. p. 404.] —OF.
espier, to spy.—OHG., spehin, MHG. speten (mod. G. spahen), to
watch, observe closely.+L. specere, to look; Skt. pag, spag, to spy,
used to form some tenses of dy¢, to see.—4/SPEK, to see. Brug-
mann, i. § 551. See Species, Spy. Cf. Norm. dial. espier, to spy.
Der. ὁ pion-age, F. espionnage, from MF. e pion, a spy (Cotgrave) ;
which is from Ital. spione, a spy, and from the same OHG, verb.
Also espi-al, ME. espiaile, Gower, C. A. iii. 56; bk. vi. 1643.
ESQUIRE, a shield-bearer, gentleman. (F.—L.) In Shak. Mer.
Wives, i. 1. 4. Often shortened to squire, ME. sguyer, Chaucer, C. T.
prol. 79.—OF. escuyer, ‘an esquire, or squire ;’ Cot. (Older form
escuier ; mod. F. écuyer.)— Late L. scutarius, prop. a shield-bearer. =
L. sciitum (whence OF. escut, escu, mod. Ἐς, écz), a shield. —4/SQEU,
to cover, protect ; see Sky.
ESSART, a variant of Assart, q.v.
ESSAY, an attempt. (F.—L.) See Bacon’s Essays. [Commonly
spelt assay in Mid. English; Barbour has assay, an assault, Bruce,
ix. 604, an effort, ii. 371, and as a verb, ix. 353. See Assay. ]
-OF. essai, a trial. —L. exagivm, weighing, a trial of weight; cf.
eximen, a weighing, a swarm. =—L. ex, out; and agere, to drive, impel,
move. Der. essay, verb, spelt assay in Shakespeare, and even later ;
essay-ist, Ben Jonson, Discoveries, Ingeniorum Discrimina, not. 6.
ESSENCE, a being, quality. (F.—L.) In Shak. Oth. iv. 1. 16.
— Εἰ essence, ‘an essence ;’ Cot. —L. essentia, a being; formed from
essent-, base of a pres. participial form from esse, to be. = 4/ES, to be ;
ef. Skt. as, to be. See Is. Der. essent-i-al, essent-i-al-ly ; from the
decl. stem essenti-.
ESSOIN, an excuse for not appearing in court. (F.—L. and Teut.)
ME. essoine, Chaucer, Pers. Tale, Introd. ὃ τὸ (I 164). Spelt essoigne
in AF., Stat. of Realm, i. 49, an. 1278; also essoyne, Year-books of
Edw.1., i. 13; assoyne, ibid. = OF. essoine (also MF. exoine), ‘an essoine,
or excuse ;’ Cot. ; OF. essonier, to excuse (Godefroy). — OF. es- (from
ETHIC
L. ex, away) ; and Late L. sunnia, excuse, in the Lex Salica, ed. Hessels
and Kern, Gloss. col. 673. From OHG. sunne (for *sundja, Braune,
xiv. 9), lawful excuse. Cf. Goth. sunjon, to excuse oneself, gasunjon,
ὁ justify ; from sunja, truth. Cf. also Goth. sunjis, true, which is
allied to Icel. sanur, AS. sod, Skt. satja(s), true. See further under
Sooth, Suttee.
ESTABLISH, to make firm or sure. (F.—L.) ME. establissen,
Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. i. pr. 4 (1. 65).—OF. establiss-, base of
some parts of the verb establir, to establish.—L. stabilire, to make
firm. = L. stabilis, firm. See Stable, adj. Der. es/ablish-ment, Spenser,
Ἐν Ὁ. v. 11. 35. 8] Sometimes stablish ; A.V., James, ν. 8.
ESTATE, state, condition, rank, (F.—L.) In earlyuse. ME.
estat, Hali Meidenhad, ed. Cockayne, p. 13, 1. 13; Chaucer, C. T.
928 (A 926).—OF, estat (Εἰ, état). —L. statum, ace. of status, a con-
dition. See State. @ Séave is a later spelling.
ESTEEM, to value. (F.—L.) ‘Nothing esteemed of ;’ Spenser,
p- 3, col. 2 (Globe ed.). Palsgrave has esteme.—OF. estimer, ‘to
esteem ;’ Cot.—L. @stimare, older form @stumare, to value. This
stands for *ais-tumare, to be compared with Goth. ais-tan, to regard ;
and further related to AS. ar, G. ehre, honour. Brugmann, ii. § 692.
See below; and see Aim.
ESTIMATE, valuation, worth. (L.) In Shak. Rich. II, ii. 3. 56.
=L. sb. estimatus, estimation ; from e@stimatus, pp. of @stimare, to
value. SeeHsteem. Der. estimate, verb, in Daniel, Civil Wars, Ὁ. iv.
st. 3; also e.timation, from MF. estimaticn, ‘an estimation’ (Cot.),
which from L. acc. estimationem ; also estimable, Merch. of Ven. 1. 3.
167, from OF, e.timable, from L. @stimabilis, worthy of esteem ;
whence estimabl-y,
ESTOP, to bar, impede, stop up. (F.—L.) See Stop.
ESTOVERS, supplies of various necessaries. (F,—L.?) ‘Common
of es/overs, i.e. necessaries, . . is aliberty of taking necessary wood,’
| ἄς. ; Blackstone, Comment. Ὁ. ii. c. 2; Ὁ. iii. c. 8. [He erroneously
derives it from estoffer, to stuff, which is a distinct word.]—OF,
estover, provisions; see Stover. The Anglo-F. esfover, sb., sus-
tenance, occurs in the Year-books of Edw. I.,i.19, 21, 231.
ESTRANGE, to alienate, make strange. (F.—L.) In Shak.
LL. L. v. 2. 213.—OF. estranger, ‘to estrange, alienate ;’ (οἱ. -
OF. estrange, ‘strange;’ id. See Strange. Der. estrange-ment.
The adj. s/range was in much earlier use.
ESTREAT, a true copy of an original record. (F.—L.) In
Blount; he refers us to Fitzherbert, Natura Brevium, foll. 57, 76.
AF. estrete, Stat. of the Realm; i. 32, an. 1275. (In the Lib.
Custumarum, p. 434, we have the L. gen. pl. extractarum.) B. The
lit. sense is ‘extract.’—OF, estrete, fem. of estret, also spelt es/rait,
pp. of estraire, to extract (Godefroy).—L. extracta, fem. of pp. of
extrahere; see Extract. Der. es/rea/, vb., to extract a record, as a
forfeited recognizance, and return to the court of exchequer for
prosecution, also to levy fines under an estreat (Ogilvie). Doublet,
extyact.
ESTUARY, the mouth of a tidal river. (L.) ‘ From hence we
double the Boulnesse, and come to an estwarie ;’ Holinsned, Descr. of
Britain, c. 14 (R.).—L. @studrium, a creek. —L. @siuare, to surge,
foam as the tide.—L. @stus, heat, surge, tide; from L. base aid-, to
burn, with suffix -¢v-.—4/AIDH, to burn, glow ; whence also Gk.
aidev, to glow. See Ether.
ESURIENT, hungry. (L.) Bailey, vol. ii (1731) has ‘ esurient,
hungering,’ “τ]ὸ. ésurient-em, acc. of &uriens, pres. pt. of ésurire, to be
hungry; a desiderative verb, formed from és-us, pp. of edere, to eat.
See Eat. @ Often with special reference to Juvenal, Sat. iii. 78.
ETCH, to engrave by help ofacids. (Du.—G.) ‘ Etching, akind
of graving upon copper with Aqua-fortis ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
= Du. efsen, to etch (a borrowed word from German). —G. ἄξει, to
feed, bait, corrode, etch ; a causal form, orig. signifying ‘to make
to eat;’ Teut. type *at-jan-, causal form of Teut. *e/-an- (pt. t. at), to
eat. See Hat. Der. efch-ing.
ETERNAL, everlasting. (F.—L.) ME. eternal, Chaucer, C. T.
15502 (G 34); also written e/ernel.mOF. efernel.—L. eternalis,
formed with suffix -a@lis from @/ern-us, everlasting, contracted form
of euiternus. Again, eui-ternus is formed, with suffix -/ernus, indi-
| cating quality, from @ui-, for euo-, from auum, age. See Age. Der.
elernal-ly; from same source, eferni-ty=ME. eternitee, Chaucer, tr.
of Boethius, b. v. pr. 6, 1. 8, from Ἐς, eternité, which is from L. ace.
@ternitatem ; also etern-ise, from OF. eterniser, ‘to eternize ;’ Cotgrave.
@ The Middle English also had eterne, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1992 (A
1990) ;=L. @lernus.
ETHER, the clear upper air. (L.—Gk.) In Dryden, tr. of Ovid’s
Metamorph. b.i.1. 86. { Milton has ethereal, ethereous, P. L. i. 45, vi.
473.J—L. ether.—Gk. αἰθήρ, upper air; cf. Gk. aidpa, clear sky. =
Gk, αἴθειν, to burn, glow. —4/AIDH, to burn. Brugmann, i. § 202.
Der. ether-e-al, -e-ous, -e-al-ly, -e-al-ise. And see estuary.
ETHIC, relating to custom. (L.—Gk.) Commonly used as ethics,
ETHNIC
sb. pl. ‘1 will never set politics against ethics ;” Bacon (in Todd’s
Johnson). ME. ethik, Trevisa, tr. of Higden, iii. 363. —L. éthicus,
moral, ethic. —Gk. ἠθικός, moral, ethic. —Gk. ἦθος, custom, moral
nature; cf. ἔθος, manner, custom. β. Allied to Goth. sidus, custom,
manner; G. si/te, custom; Skt. svadhd, self-will, strength. And cf.
L. suétus, accustomed. y. The Skt. form is easily resolved into sva,
one’s own self (cf. L. sé= Gk. €), and dha, to set, place (Gk. 07-) ; so
that Skt. svadhd is ‘a placing of one’s self,’ hence, self-assertion, self-
will, habit. See Prellwitz, and Goth. sidus in Uhlenbeck. Der. ethic-
al, -al-ly, ethic-s.
ETHNIC, relating to a nation. (L.—Gk.) In Ben Jonson’s Dis-
coveries; Veritas proprium hominis. Also in Levins. = L. ethnicus. =
Gk. ἐθνικός, national.—Gk. ἔθνος, a nation. Der. ethnic-al ; ethno-
logy, -graphy (modern words).
ETIOLATEH, to blanch plants. (F.—L.) ‘Cellery blanched or
etiolated;’ E. Darwin, Botanic Garden, note to c. 1, 1. 462.—F,
étiol-er, to blanch; with suffix -ate. For Norm. dial. s’étieuler, to
grow into haulm or stalk, like an etiolated plant.=F. e/eule, OF.
esteule, a Stalk. —Late L. stupula, for stipula, straw. See Stubble.
ETIQUETTE, ceremony. (F.—G.) First in 1750; and mere
French. F. étiquetie, f., a label, ticket ; explained by Cotgrave as
‘a token, billet, or ticket, delivered for the benefit or advantage of
him that receives it ;’ i.e. a form of introduction. Cf. MF. etiquet, m.,
‘a little note, ... esp. such as is stuck up on the gate of a court,’ &c.;
Cot. =G. stecken, to stick, put, set, fix; causal of (ἃ. stechen, to pierce.
See Stick, verb. Doublet, ticker.
ETYMON, the true source of a word. (L.—Gk.) In Sir T.
Herbert's Travels, ed. 1665, p. 242; and earlier, in Holinshed’s
Chron. of Scotland (R.).—L. e/ymon. = Gk. ἔτυμον, an etymon ; neut.
of érupos, true, real, allied to éreds, true, real; and to AS. sod, true.
See Sooth. Der. e/ymo-logy, spelt ethimologie in The Remedie of
Love, st. 60, pr. in Chaucer’s Works, ed. 1561, fol. 323, back (derived
from F. efymologie, in Cotgrave, L. etymologia, Gk. érupodoyia);
etymo-log-ise, spelt ethimologise, id. st. 62; -log-ist ; also -logi-c-al,
-logi-c-al-ly,
EU.-, prefix, well. (Gk.) From Gk. εὖ, well; properly neut. of
évs, good, for an older form *Feaus, good ; allied to Skt. vasu(s), good
(Prellwitz).
EUCALYPTUS, a gum-tree, (L.—Gk.) First in 1809. Named
by L’heritier in 1788; from the sort of cap which covers the flower |
before it opens. Lit. ‘ well-covered.’ = L. *excalyptus, representing a
coined Gk. form *ev-«aAumros; from εὖ, well, and καλυπτός, covered,
from καλύπτειν, to cover. See Hu- (above).
EUCHARIST, the Lord’s supper. (L.—Gk.) Shortened from
eucharistia, explained as ‘thankes-geuing’ in Tyndale’s Works, p. 467,
col.2. Spelt ewkaryst, Lydgate, Assembly of Gods, 1.1425. Cotgrave
has: ‘Eucharistie, the Eucharist.’—L. eucharistia.—Gk. εὐχαριστία,
a giving of thanks, the Eucharist.mGk. εὖ, well; and χαρίζομαι, 1
show favour, from χάρις, favour, closely related to χαρά, joy, and
χαίρειν, to rejoice.—4/ GHER, to desire; whence also E. yearn.
See Eu- and Yearn. Der. eucharist-ic, -ic-al.
EULOGY, praise. (L.—Gk.) In Spenser, Tears of the Muses,
1. 372. Shortened from Late L. ewloginm, which was itself used at
a later date, in the Tatler, no. 138. [Cf MF. euloge.] A form due
to confusing L. élogium, a maxim, inscription, with Gk. εὐλογία,
praise, lit. good speaking. = Gk. εὖ, well ; and λέγειν, to speak. See
Hu- and Logic. Der. eulog-ise, -ist, -ist-ic-al, -ist-ic-al-ly.
EUNUCH, one who is castrated. (L.—Gk.) In Shak. L.L.L.
lii, 201.—L. euniichus (Terence). —Gk. εὐνοῦχος, a eunuch, a cham-
berlain ; one who had charge of the sleeping apartments. = Gk. εὐνή,
prone, bed; and 6x-, 2nd grade of ἔχειν, to have in charge, hold,
Keep.
EUPHEMISM, a softened expression. (Gk.) ‘ Euphemismus, a
figure in rhetorick, whereby a foul harsh word is chang’d into another
that may give no offence ;’ Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715. But spelt
euphemism in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.— Gk. εὐφημισμός, a later word
for εὐφημία, the use of words of good omen.—Gk. εὖ, well; and
φημί, I speak, from 4/ BHA, tospeak. See Hu-and Fame. Der.
euphem-ist-ic.
EUPHONY, a pleasing sound. (Gk.) Euphony in Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674. ‘ Euphonia, a graceful sound;’ Kersey’s Dict., ed.
1715.— Gk. εὐφωνία, euphony. = Gk. εὔφωνος, sweet-voiced. —Gk. εὖ,
well; and φωνή, voice, from4/ BHA, to speak. See Eu- and
Fame. Der. euphon-ic, -ic-al, -i-ous, -t-ous-ly.
EUPHORBIA, a plant, usually called spurge. (L.—Gk.) ‘Tuba,
king of Mauritania, found out the herb Euphorbia, which he so called
after the name of his own Physitian Euphorbus;’ Holland, tr. of
Pliny, bk. xxv. c. 7. § 6.—L. Euphorbus.—Gk. Εὔφορβος, the name
of Juba’s physician (as above) ; Jit. ‘ well-fed.’—Gk. εὖ, well, and
φέρβειν, to feed, nourish.
EUPHRASY, the plant eye-bright. (Gk.) In Milton, P. L.
| in Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. ii. c. 22.
EVER 201
xi. 414. (Cf. F. enphraise, eye-bright; Cot.] The eye-bright was
called Euphrasia, and was supposed to be beneficial to the eyes. —
Gk, εὐφρασία, delight.—Gk. εὐφραίνειν, to delight, cheer ; cf. εὔφρων,
cheerful.—Gk. ed, well; and gpev-, base of φρήν, the mind, orig. the
midriff, heart.
EUPHUISM, affectation in speaking. (Gk.) So named from
a book called Exphues, by John Lyly, first printed in 1579.—Gk.
εὐφυής, well-grown, goodly, excellent. —Gk. εὖ, well; and gum,
growth, from φύομαι, I grow; from 4/ BHEU, to be. See Eu- and
Be. Der. euthu-ist, -ist-ic.
EUROCLYDOVN, a tempestuous wind. (Gk.) In Acts, xxvii.
14.— Gk. εὐροκλύδων, apparently ‘a storm from the East,’ but there
are various readings. As it stands, the word is from evpo-s, the S. E.
wind (L. Eurus), and κλύδων, surge, from κλύζειν, to surge, dash as
waves. 4 Another reading is εὐρακύλων =Lat. Euro-Aguilo in the
Vulgate; from Eur-us, E. wind, and Aguilo, N. wind.
EUSTACHIAN, used with reference to certain anatomical
structures or organs. (L.—Gk.) So named after a celebrated Ital.
anatomist called Evustachius, who died in 1574.—L. Eustachius.
Suggested by Gk. εὔσταχυς, rich in corn. = Gk. εὖ, well; and στάχυς,
an ear of com, lit. ‘prickle,’ and allied to E. sting.
EUTHANASIA, easy death. (Gk.) ‘ Euthanasie, a happy
death ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—Gk. εὐθανασία, an easy death ;
cf. eb@avaros, dying well.—Gk. εὖ, well; and θανεῖν, to die, on which
see Prellwitz.
EVACUATE, to discharge. (L.) In Sir T. Elyot, Castel of
Helth, b. ili. c. 6.—L. éuacudtus, pp. of éuacuire, to discharge,
empty out.—L. δ, out ; and wacuus, empty. See Vacation. Der.
evacuat-ion, -or.
EVADE, to shun, escape from. (F.—L.) In Shak. Oth. i. 1. 13;
cf. evadit in ἃ. Douglas, Ain. bk. ii. c. 7. 1. 102.—F. évader, ‘to
evade;” Cot.—L. éuddere, pp. éudsus, to escape, get away from: =L,
é, off; and uddere, to go. See Wade. Der. evas-ion, q.v., like
pp. éudsus; also evas-ive, -ive-ly, -ive-ness,
EVANESCENT, fading away. (L.) In Bailey’s Dict., vol. ii.
ed. 1731.—L. éudnescent-, stem of pres. pt. of éudnescere, to vanish
away.=—L. δι away; and udnescere, to vanish, from uanus, vain. See
Vanish. Der. evanescence.
EVANGELIST, a writer of a gospel. (F.—L.—Gk.) In early
use. Spelt ewangeliste, O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 209.—OF.
evangeliste, ‘an evangelist ;’ Cot. —L. ewangelista. — Gk. εὐαγγελιστής.
— Gk. εὐαγγελίζομαι, I bring good news; cf. εὐαγγέλιον, good tidings,
gospel.—Gk. εὖ, well; and ἀγγελία, tidings, from ἄγγελος, a
messenger. See Hu- and Angel. Der. (from Gk. evayyéA-tov)
evangel-ic, -ic-al, -ic-al-ly, -ic-ism, -tse, -ts-at-ion,
EVAPORATE, to fly off in vapour. (L.) The sb. ewaporation is
The verb is in Cotgrave,
to translate F. évaporer.—L. éuapordtus, pp. of éuaporare, to disperse
in vapour. —L, δ, away; and uapor, vapour. See Vapour. Der.
evaporat-ion, evapora-ble.
EVASION, an excuse, (F.—L.) InSir Τὶ More, Works, p. 693 c.
- OF. evasion (Hatzfeld),—L. éuasidnem, ace. of éuasio (Judith, xiii.
20), an escape; cf. éudsus, pp. of éuddere; see Evade.
EVE, EVEN, the latter part of the day. (E.) Eve is short for
even, by loss of final n; evening is from the same source, but is dis-
cussed below separately. ME. ewe, even, both in Chaucer, C. T. 4993,
9090 (B 573, E1214); the form ewe occurs even earlier, Owl and
Nightingale, 1. 41; the full form appears as efen, Ormulum, 1105;
@fen, Layamon, 26696. AS. #fen, éfen, Grein, i. 64.4+OSax. adand ;
OFries. dvend ; OHG, dbant, MHG., abent, G. abend. β. Origin
doubtful ; nor is it known whether these words are allied to Icel.
aptan, Swed. afton, Dan. cften, evening. Cf. Brugmann, i. ὃ 980.
4 Not connected with even, adj. Der. even-song, Chaucer, C. T.
832 (A 830) ; even-tide, Ancren Riwle, p. 404,= AS. &fen-tid, Grein;
also even-ing, g. Vv.
EVEN, equal, level. (E.) ME. euen, euene ; P. Plowman, C.
xxiii. 270. AS. efen, efn, sometimes contracted to emn, Grein, i.
218.4Du. even; Icel. jafn; Dan. jevn; Swed. jamn; Goth. ibns;
OHG. epan; G.eben. B. The Teut. type is *ebx0z. Root unknown;
perhaps related to E. ebb. Der. even, adv., even-handed, &c., even-ly,
even-ness.
EVENING, eve, the latter end of the day. (E.) ME, euening,
evenynge, Rob. of Glouc. p. 312; 1. 6382. AS. @/nung, Gen. viii. 11;
formed with suffix -wag (=mod. E. -ing) from #fn-ian, to grow
towards evening ; from afen, even. See Eve.
EVENT, circumstance, result. (L.) In Shak. L, L. L. i. 1. 245. —
L, éuentus, or €uentum, an event. = L. éuentus, pp. of éuenire, to happen.
—L.@, out; and wenire,to come. See Come. Der. event-ful; also
event-n-al, -u-al-ly (from éuentu-s).
EVER, continually. (E.) ME. ever, euere (where u=v), Chaucer,
C. T. 834 (A 832); efre, Ormulum, 206. AS. @fre, Grein, 1. 64.
402 EVERY
Unexplained ; but prob. related to AS. ἃ, awa, ever, Goth. aiw, ever ;
which are based upon the sb. which appears as Goth. aiws, L. euum,
Gk. αἰών, life. See Aye. Der. ever-green, -lasting (Wyclif, Rom.
vi. 22, 23), -lasting-ly, -lasting-ness; ever-more ; also ever-y, ἢ. ν. ;
ever-y-where, q.V.; n-ever, .V.
EVERY, each one. (E.) Lit. ‘ever-each.’ ME. exeri (with
u=v) short for ewerich, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1853 (A 1851); other forms
are euere-ilc, Havelok, 1330; euere-il, id. 2183 euer-ulc, Layamon,
2378; euer-alc, euer-ech, id. 4599.— AS. @fre, ever; and dc, each
(Scotch ilk). See Ever and Each.
EVERY WHERE, in every place. (E.) It represents wo old
forms. 1. Spelt exerihwar, Ancren Riwle, p. 200 ; eauer ihwer,
Legend of St. Katharine, 681. Compounded of ewer (AS. @re), and
ME. ihwar (AS. gehweér, everywhere, Grein, i. 415). In this case
the word is zof compounded of every and where, but of ever and
ywhere, where ywhere= AS. gehwér, a word formed by prefixing AS.
geto hw@r, where. Similarly we find aywhere = everywhere (lit. aye-
where) in Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 228. 2. Commonly regarded
as =every-where, which answers to ME, euery where, euerilk quar,
Cursor Mundi, 5567.
EVICT, to evince, to dispossess. (L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.
¢ That this deliverance might be the better evicted,’ i.e. evinced; Bp.
Hall, Contemplations, b. iv. c. xix. sect. 25.—L. éuictus, pp. of
éuincere. See Evince. Der. evict-ion.
EVIDENT, manifest. (F.—L.) Chaucer has euidently (with x
=v), Treat. on the Astrolabe, pt. ii. sect. 23, rubric; and euidences,
pl. sb., id. prol. 1. 2.—OF. evident, ‘evident;’ Cot.—L. éuident-,
stem of éuidens, visible, pres. pt. of éuidére, to see clearly. —L. δ, out,
clearly; and uidére, to see; see Vision. Der. evident-ly, evidence
(OF. evidence).
EVIL, wicked, bad. (E.) ME. evel (with u=v), Ayenbite of
Inwyt, p. 85; also iwel, Havelok, 114; ifel, Ormulum, 17423 vvel
(for wvel), Ancren Riwle, p. 52. AS. yfel, Grein, ii. 768; whence also
yfel, sb. an evil. + Du. exvel; OHG. upil, G. icbel; Goth. ubils.
‘Teut. type *u6iloz. Prob. related to Goth. ufar, AS. ofer, over,
beyond, as going beyond bounds. Cf. also Icel. afr, unfriendly,
OHG. uppi, hostile. See Over. @ The ME. evel is properly
Kentish; cf. OFries. evel, evil. Der. evil, sb.; evil-ly; evil-doer, &c.
EVINCEH, to prove beyond doubt. (L.) In Dryden, Hind and
Panther, ii. 190, 233.—L. éuincere, to overcome. = L. δ, fully ; and
uincere, to conquer. See Victor. 4 Older word, evict, 4. v.
EVISCERATE, to disembowel. (L.) In Burton, Anat. of
Melanch. i. 2. 3. 14. —L. éuisceratus, pp. of éuiscerare, to disembowel.
-L. δι out; and wiscera, bowels; see Viscera. Der. eviscerat-ion.
EVOKE, to call out. (L.) It occurs in Cockeram’s Dict. (1st ed.
1623); but was not in common use till later. [The sb. evocation is
in Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, pref. sect. 1; also in Cotgrave, to
translate MF. evocation.) —L. éuocare, to call forth. —L. δ. out; and
vocare, to call; allied to πολ, voice. See Voice. Der. evocat-ion,
from MF. evocation,
EVOLVES, to disclose, develop. (L.) In Hale’s Origin of Man-
kind (ed. 1677), p. 31.—L. éuoluere, to unroll.—L. @, out; and
woluere, to roll. See Voluble. Der. evolution, in Hale (as above),
Ῥ. 2593 evolution-ar-y, -ist.
EVULSION, a plucking out. (L.) In Sir T. Browne, Cyrus’
Garden, c. 2, § 11.—L. éuulsidnem, acc. of éuulsio; cf. éuulsus, pp. of
éuellere, to pluck out ; from δ, out, and wellere. See Convulse.
EWE, a female sheep. (E.) ME. ewe; see Wyclif, Gen. xxi. 28.
AS. ewe, Laws of Ine, ὃ 55 ; also AS. eowu, Gen. xxxii. 14.44 Du. 007;
Tcel. ar; MHG. ouwe. Cf. Goth. awistr, a sheepfold ; John, x. τό.
+ Lithuanian avis, a sheep ; Russ. ovisa, a sheep ; OJrish of ; L. ovis ;
Gk. dis ; Skt. avi-,a sheep, ewe. Brugmann, i. ὃ 158.
EWER, a water-jug. (F.—L.) In Shak. Tam. Shrew, ii. 350.
ME. ewer, Rob. Manning’s Hist. of England, ed. Furnivall, 1. 11425
(Stratmann).=—AF. ewer, Royal Wills, p. 27 (1360) ; OF. aiguier, a
vessel for water (Godefroy). =—L. aguarium, a vessel for water. =L.
aqua, water (whence AF. ewe, OF. aigue, F. eau). See Aquatic.
EX.-, prefix, signifying ‘out’ or ‘thoroughly.’ (L.) L. ex, out ;
cognate with Gk. ἐξ or ἐκ, ont, and Russ. iz’, ont; Lithuan, isz. It
becomes ef- before 7, as in ef-fuse. It is shortened to e- before 4, d,
g, 1, m, n, r, and v; as in e-bullient, e-dit, e-gress, e-late, e-manate,
e-normous, e-rode, e-vade. The Gk. form appears in ec-centric, ec-
clesiastic, ec-lectic, ec-logue, ec-lipse, ec-stasy. It takes the form es- in
OF. and Spanish ; cf. es-cape, es-cheat, es-cort, es-planade. In some
words it becomes s-, as in Italian; see s-cald, s-camper.
EXACERBATE, to embitter. (L.) The sb. exacerbation is in
Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 61. =—L. exacerbatus, pp. of exacerbare, to irritate ;
from ex, out, thoroughly, and acerbus, bitter. See Acerbity. Der.
exacerbat-ion,
EXACT (1), precise, measured. (L.) In Hamlet, v. 2. 19.—L.
exactus, pp. of exigere, to drive out, also to weigh out, measure. —L.
EXCHANGE
ex, out; and agere, to drive. See Agent. Der. exact-ly, -ness;
and see below.
EXACT (2), to demand, require. (F.—L.) In Shak. Temp. i.
2. 99. — MF. exacter, ‘to exact, extort;’ Cot.—Late L. exactare, in-
tensive of L. exigere (pp. exactus), to exact, lit. to drive out; see
above. Der. exact-ton, from MF. exaction, ‘ exaction ;” Cot.
EXAGGERATEH, to heap up, magnify. (L.) In Cotgrave, to
translate MF. exaggerer.—L. exaggeratus, pp. of exaggerdre, to
heap up, amplify. —L. ex; and aggerare, to heap, from agger,a heap,
which is from ag- (for ad, to, together, before 9) and gerere, to carry.
See Jest. Der. exaggerat-ion (MF. exaggeration, Cot.) ; -ive, -or-y.
EXALT, to raise on high. (.—L.) In Shak. K. Lear, ν. 3. 67.
Lydgate has: ‘ As he that lyst her name so hyghe exalte;’ Siege of
Troy, bk. i. c. 5 (fol. c 6, col. 2). [The sb. exaltacion is in Chaucer,
C. T. 6284 (Ὁ 702) ; and exaltat (pp.), id. 6286.]—OF. exalter, ‘to
exalt ;’ Cot, —L. exaliare, to exalt. —L, ex, out; andaltus, high. See
Altitude. Der. exalt-at-ion (OF. exaltation, Cot.) ; -ed, -ed-ness,
EXAMINE, to test, try. (F.—L.) ME. examinen, Chaucer, Tale
of Melibeus (B 2310); Gower, Ὁ. A. ii. 11; bk. iv. 293.— OF. ex-
aminer ; Cot.—L. examinare, to weigh carefully. —L. examen (stem
exaimin-), the tongue ofa balance; for *exiig-men ; cf. exigere, to weigh
out.—L, ex, out; and agere, to drive. See Agent and Exact (1).
Brugmann, i. § 768. Der. examin-er ; -at-ion (OF. examination, Cot.).
EXAMPLE, a pattern, specimen. (F.—L.) In Shak. Meas. iii.
1. 101. [Earlier form ensample, q.v.]—OF. essample, ensample
(Godefroy), also example (Supp.); later exemple (Cot.).—L. exem-
plum, a sample, pattern, specimen. = L. eximere, to take out; hence,
to select a specimen; with suffix -/wm, and inserted -p- (as in exem-
p-tus).=—L, ex, out; and emere, to take, procure, buy. Der. exemplar,
exemplify, exempt. Doublets, exsample, sample.
EXARCH, (1) a governor under the Byzantine emperors; (2) a
patriarch of the Eastern church. (L.—Gk.) First in 1588; cf,
Gibbon, Decline Rom. Empire, c. xlv.—L. exarchus.—Gk. ἔξαρχος,
aleader; from ἐξάρχειν, to lead. — Gk, ἐξ, out, especially ; ἄρχειν, to
begin. See Arch-. Der. exarch-ate (Gibbon).
EXASPERATE, to provoke. (L.) In Shak. K. Lear, v. 1. 60,
Properly a pp.,asin Macb. iii. 6. 38.—L. exasperfilus, pp. of exasperaire,
to roughen, provoke. —L. ex, much; and asper, rough. See Asperity.
Der. exasperat-ion, from MF. exasperation, Cot.
EXCAVATION, a hollowing out. (F.—L.) The sb. excavation
is in Cotgrave, to translate MF. excavation ; the verb excavate occurs
in 1599.—MF. excavation.—L. excauationem, acc. of excauatio, a
hollowing out; cf. excawatus, pp. of excauare, to hollow out. —L. ex,
out : and cauare, to make hollow, from cauus, hollow. See Cave.
Dor. excavate, suggested by the L. pp.; excava-tor.
EXCEED, to go beyond, excel. (F.—L.) ME. exceden; ‘That
he mesure nought excede ;’ Gower, C. A. iii. 157 ; bk. vil. 2155.— OF.
exceder, ‘to exceed;’” Cot. L. excédere, pp. excessus, to go out ; from
ex, out, and cédere, to go. See Cede. Der. exceed-ing (Othello, iii.
3. 258), exceed-ing-ly (id. 372); and see excess.
EXCEL, to surpass. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q. v. 12. 35. [The
sb. excellence and adj. excellent are older; see Chaucer, C. ‘T. r1941,
11944 (Ὁ 7, 10). ]—OF, exceller, ‘to excell;’ Cot, —L. excellere, to rise
up ; also, to surpass. = L. ex, out ; and *cellere, to rise up, Whence ante-
cellere, percellere, 8&cc.; allied to cel-sus, high, orig. ‘raised.’ Cf.
Lith. Arlzi, to raise; and see Hill. Brugm. i. § 633. Der. excell-ent
(OF. pres. pt. excellent) ; excell-ence (OF. excellence, from L. excellentia);
excellenc-y.
EXCEPT, to take out, exclude. (F.—L.) See the phrase ‘ excepte
Cryst one’=except Christ alone, P. Plowman, C, xvii. 215. [The
sb. exception is in Lydgate, Complaint of the Black Knight, st. 23.] =
OF. excepter, ‘ to except; Cot. = L. exceptare, frequentative of excipere,
to take out.—L. ex, ont; and capere, to take. See Capable. Der.
except, prep.; except-ing ; except-ion (OF. exception, Cot.); -ion-al,
-ion-able, -ive, -or.
EXCERPT, a selected passage. (L.) First in 1638. Both the
verb to excerpt and the verb to excerp were in use. ‘Excerp, to pick
out or choose ;” Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. —L. excerptum, an extract,
neut. of excerpius, pp. of excerpere, to select. L. ex, out ; and carpere,
to pluck, cull. See Harvest.
EXCESS, a going beyond, intemperance. (F.—L.) In Shak.
L.L. L. v. 2. 73; Gower, Ὁ. A. ii. 2763 bk. v. 4457.—OF. exces,
“superfluity, excess ;’ Cot. = L. excessum, acc. of excessus, a going out,
deviation ; from the pp. of excédere; see Bxcede. Der. excess-ive,
ME. excessif, Gower, C. A. iii. 177; bk. vii. 2722.=OF. excesstf,
“excessive τ᾿ Cot.; excess-ive-ly, -tve-ness.
EXCHANGE, a reciprocal giving and receiving. (F.—L.) ME.
eschaunge, sb.; ‘The Lumbard made non eschaunge ;” Gower, C; A. i.
10; prol. 207. The verb is later ; it occurs in Spenser, F. Q. vii. 6.
6. The prefix es- was changed to ex- to make the word more like
Latin. OF. eschange, sb. ; eschanger, vb., to exchange; Cot.—OF,
EXCHEQUER
es- (<L. ex-), out, away; and change, change. SeeChange. Der.
exchang-er, exchange-able.
EXCHEQUER, a court; formerly a court of revenue. (F.— Arab.
— Pers.) ME. eschekere, a court of revenue, treasury; Rob. of Brunne,
tr. of Langtoft, p. 280. Spelt cheker, P. Plowman, B. prol. 93.—OF.
eschequier, a chess-board; hence the checkered cloth on which
accounts were calculated by means of counters; see Blount’s Law
Dict. and Camden’s Britannia, [See also eschiguier in Cotgrave.]—
OF, eschec, check (at chess); eschecs, esches, chess. See Check,
Checker, Chess. 4 The Low L. form is scacc@rium, meaning
(1) a chess-board, (2) exchequer; from Low L. scacci, chess.
EXCISE (1), a duty or tax. (Du.—F.—L.) ‘The townes of the
Lowe-Countreyes doe cutt upon themselves an excise of all thinges,’ &c. :
Spenser, State of Ireland, Globe ed. p. 660. “ Excise, from the Belg.
acctise, tribute ; so called, perhaps, because it is assessed according to
the verdict of the asszse (!), ora number of men deputed to that office
by the king;’ Gazophylacium Anglicanum, 1689. ‘ This tribute is paid
in Spain, . . I suppose it is the same with the excise in England and
the Low Countries;’ Bp. Taylor, Rule of Conscience, b. 111. c. 2. R.
9 (R.). B. A misspelling of MDnu. aksits or ak:ys, spelt acciys in
Hexham, and aksys in Sewel’s Du. Dict., where it is explained to
mean ‘excise.’ Cf. G. accise, excise. The LE. spelling accise occurs
in Howell’s Familiar Letters. ‘’Twere cheap living here [in Amster-
dam], were it not for the monstrous aceises which are imposed upon
all sorts of commodities ;’ vol. i. let. vii., dated May 1, 1619. Again,
the Du. aksiis (like G. accise) is from OF. acceis, a tax ; found in the
12th c. riming with OF. defeis, from Late L. defensum (N.E.D.; no
reference). Late L. type *accenswm,a payment; allied to Late L.
accensire, to tax.—L. ac- (for ad), to; and census, a tax. See
Census. 4 For the sound-change, cf. Du. spijs, food, from Late L.
spensa (for dispensa), a larder, a spence. Der. excise-man.
EXCISE (2), to cut out. (L.) The sb. excis-ion is earlier ; Caxton
has : ‘ the same grete excysion ;’ Eneyd. c. xxi. p. 76, 1. 27.—F. exci-
sion.—L,. excisionem, acc. of excisio, a cutting out. This sb. and E.
excise, vb., are allied to L. excis-us, pp. of excidere, to cut out.—L. ex,
out ; and cedere, to cut; see Cesura.
EXCITE, to stir up, rouse, incite. (F.—L.) ME. exciten, Chaucer,
C. 'T. 16212 (G 744). —OF. exciter, ‘to excite;’ Cot. —L. excitire, to
call out; frequentative of exciére, to set in motion, call forth. — L. ex,
out; and ciére, to summon; see Cite. Der. excit-er, -ing, -ing-ly;
-able, -abil-i-ty ; excit-at-ion (OF. exciéation, ‘ excitation ;’ Cot.) ; excit-
at-ive (OF. excitatif; Cot.) ; excite-ment (Hamlet, iv. 4. 58).
EXCLAIM, to cry ont. (F.—L.) Both verb and sb. in Shak.
All’s Well, i. 3. 123; Rich. 11, i. 2. 2. OF. exclamer, ‘to exclaime ;’
Cot.—L. exclamare; from ex, out, and claméare, to cry aloud. See
Claim. Der. exclam-at-ion (OF. exclamation, ‘an exclamation ;’
Cot.) ; exclam-at-or-y.
EXCLUDE, to shut out. (L.) In Henryson, Test. of Creseide,
st. 19; and in Wyclif, Numb. xii. 15.—L. excliidere, pp. excliisus,
to shut out. =—L. ex, out; and claudere, to shut; see Clause. Der.
exclus-ton, -ive, -tve-ly, -ive-ness ; like pp. ex-lisus.
EXCOGITATE, to think out. (L.) In Sir T. Elyot, The Gover-
nour, Ὁ. i. c. 23. ὃ 6.—L. excdgitadtus, pp. of excdgitire, to think out.
“αὶ ex, out; and cdgitire, to think; see Cogitate. Der. excogitar-
ion; in the same chap. of The Governonr, ὃ 2.
EXCOMMUNICATHEH, to put out of Christian communion.
(L.). Properly a pp., as in Shak. K. John, iii. 1. 173, 223.—L. ex-
commiinicatus, pp. of excommiinicare, to put out of a community. = L.
ex, out; and comminicare; see Communicate. Der. excommuni-
eat-ion ; Much Ado, iii. 5. 69.
EXCORIATE, to take the skin from. (L.) The pl. sb. excoriat-
tons is in Holland's Pliny, b. xxiii. c. 3. The verb is in Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674. —L. excoridtus, pp. of excoriare, to strip off skin. =
L. ex, off; and corium, skin, hide. See Cuirass. Der. excoriat-ion.
EXCREMENT, animal discharge, dung. (L.) In Sir Τὶ Elyot,
Castel of Helth, b. ii. c. 11. See Spenser, F. Ὁ. iv. 11. 35.—L. ex-
crémentum, refuse, ordure. = L. excré-tum, supine of excernere, to silt
out, separate ; with suffix -mentum. See Excretion. 47 In Shak.
L. L. L. v. 1. 109, excrement is from another L. sb. excrémentum, a
derivative of excrescere, to grow out; see below. Der. excrement-al,
-tt-ious.
EXCRESCENCE, an outgrowth. (F.—L.) In Holland's Pliny.
Ὁ. xxii. c, 23 ; and in Cotgrave. = OF. excrescence, ‘ an excrescence;’
Cot.=L, excrescentia. Allied-to L. excrescent-, stem of pres. pt. of
excrescere, to grow out.—L. ex, out; and crescere, to grow; see
Crescent. Der. excrescent, from L. excrescent-, as above.
EXCRETION, a purging, discharge. (F.—L.) In Sir T. Browne,
Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. iii. c.13, § 1.— MF. excretion, ‘the purging or voiding
of the superfluities ;’ Cot.—L. excrét-us, pp. of excernere, to sift out,
Separate; with F. suffix -ion, as if from a L. *excrétidnem.—L. ex,
out; and cernere, to sift, separate, cognate with Gk. κρίνειν. See
EXFOLIATE 208
Crisis.
excreéfus,
EXCRUCIATE, to torture. (L.) In Levins. Properly a pp., as
in Chapman’s Odyssey, b. x. 1. 332. —L. excruciatus, pp. of excructare,
to torment greatly.—L. ex, out, very much; and cruc:are, to torment
on the cross, from cruct-, decl. stem of crux, across. See Crucify.
Der. excru-ciat-ion.
EXCULPATE, to free from a charge. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674.—L. exculpatus, pp. of exculpare, to clear of blame.—L. ex,
out of; and culpa, blame. See Culpable. Der. exeulpat-ion, -«r-y.
EXCURSION, an expedition. (L.) In Holland's tr. of Livy,
p- 773; Pope, Essay on Criticism, 1. 627.—L. excurstdnem, acc. of
excursio, a running out; cf. excursus, pp. of excurrere, to run out ;
from ex, out, and currere,torun, See Current. Der. excursion-it ;
also excurs-ive, -ive-ly, -1ve-ness, from pp. excursus. ἢ
EXCUSE, to free from obligation, release. (Εἰ -- 1.) ΜΈ. exeusen}
P. Plowman, C. viii. 298. — OF. excuser. — L. excisare, to release froma
charge. —L. ex, from; and causa, a charge, lit. a cause. See Cause.
Der. excuse, sb. ; excus-able, Gower, C. A.i. 76; bk. i. 1029 ; -at-or-y.
EXEAT, a permission to go away. (L.) Also, in old plays, as a
stage direction, in place of exit. —L. exea/, let him go out, from exire,
to go out. See Exit.
EXECRATE, to curse. (L.) In Cotgrave, to translate F. execrer.
[Shak. has execrable, Titus, v. 3.177; execration, Troil. ii. 3.7.) —L.
execratus, pp. of execrari, better spelt exsecrari, to curse greatly. —L.
ex, much; and sacrare, to consecrate, also, to declare accursed, from
sacr-um, neuter of sacer, sacred, also accursed. See Sacred. Der.
execra-ble, execral-ion.
EXECUTE, to perform. (F.—L.) ME. executen, Chaucer, C.T.,
A 1664. «ΟἹ executer; Cot.—L. execiitus, better spelt exveciiéus, pp.
of exsegui, to pursue, follow out. —L. ex, out ; and sequi, to follow ; see
Sue. Der. execut-ion (OF. execution), Chaucer, C. T. 8398 (E 522);
execut-ion-er, Shak, Meas. iv. 2. 9 ; execut-or, P. Plowman, C. vii. 254;
execut-or-y, -rix, -ive, -ive-ly; and see exequies.
EXEGEHESIS, exposition, interpretation. (Gk.) Modern. —Gk. ἐξή-
ynats, interpretation. = Gk. ἐξηγεῖσθαι, to explain. — Gk. ἐξ, out, fully;
and ἡγεῖσθαι, to guide; perhaps allied to E. seek. Brugmann, i. § 187.
Der. exeget-ic (Gk, ἐξηγητικός), exeget-ic-al, exeget-ic-al-ly.
EXEMPLAR, pattern. (F.—L.) ‘Tho nine crowned be very
exemplaire Of all honour;” The Flower and the Leaf, 1. 502.—OF.
exemplaire,‘a pattern, sample ;’ Cot.—L. exemslarium, a late form of
exemplar,a copy; to which the modern E, exemplar is now conformed.
=—L. exemplaris, that serves as a copy. —L, exemplum, an example,
sample. See Bxample; and Sampler. Der. exemplar-y; Hooker,
Eccl. Polity, b. i. 3. 4. 81.
EXEMPLIFY, to show by example. (F.—L.) A coined word;
in Iolland’s Livy, p. 109, who has ‘to exemplifie and copie out,’
where exemplifie and copie out are synonyms. Lydgate also has exem-
plefye, Siege of Troy, bk. v. c. 35.1. 20. —OF. *exemplifier ; not found:
= Late L. exemplificare,to copy out; Ducange. - L. exemplum, a copy ;
and -fictire (=facere),to make. See Example.
EXEMPT, freed, redeemed. (F.—L.) Shak. has exempt, adj., As
You Like It, ii. 1. 15; verb, All’s Well, ii. 1. 198. The pp. exemted
occurs in 1467, in Eng. Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith, p. 393, 1.12. —OF,
exempt, ‘exempt, freed,’ Cot.; exempter, ‘to exempt, free;’ id. —L.
exempt-us, pp. Of eximere, to take out, deliver, free. See Example.
Der. exempt, verb; -ion, from OF. exemption, ‘exemption ;’ Cot.
EXEQUTIES, funeral rites. (F.—L.) In Shak. 1 Hen. VJ, iii. 2.
133. ‘ The exeguies of Abner ;᾿ Wyclif, 2 Sam. ili. 31.— AF. exsequies,
Stat. Realm, i. 2243 OF. exeques, ‘funerals, or funeral! solemnities ;'
Cot. = L. exeguids, exsequids, acc. pl, of exseguie, funeral obsequies, lit.
‘ processions’ or ‘ followings.’=L. ex, out; and segui, to follow; see
Sequence, and Execute.
EXERCISE, bodily action, training. (F.—L.) ME. exercise,
Chaucer, C. T. 9032 (E 1156).—OF. exercice, ‘exercise ;’ Cot. —L.
exercitium, exercise. = L, exercitus, pp. of exercére, to drive out of an
enclosure, drive on, keep at work, = L. ex, out; and arcére, to enclose,
keep off. See Ark. Der. exercise, verb.
EXERGUE, the small space beneath the base-line of a subject
engraved on a coin, left for the date or engraver’s name. (F.— Gk.)
The final we is not pronounced, the word being French. It occurs
in Todd’s Johnson, and in works on coins. =F. exergue, used by Vol-
taire, Moeurs, 173 (Littré). So called because lying ‘ out of the work,’
not belonging to the subject. Cf. F. hors d’@uvre.—Gk. ἐξ, out of;
épy-ov, work. See Ex- and Work.
EXERT, to thrust out, put into active use. (L.) ‘The stars...
Exert (thrust out] their heads;’ Dryden, tr. of Ovid, Metam. b. i. ll.
88, 89. = L. exertus, better spelt exsertus, thrust forth ; pp. of exserere.
=L. ex, out; and serere, to join, put together, put; see Series.
Der. exert-ion.
EXFOLIATEH, to scale off. (L.) Exfoliation is in Burnet, Hist.
Der. excrete (rare verb), excref-ive, -or-y, from the pp.
9
~
04 EXHALE
of Own Time, an. 1699. ‘ Exfoliate, in surgery, to rise up in leaves or |
splinters, as a broken bone does;’ Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715.—L. ex-
foliatus, pp. of exfoliare, to strip off leaves. —L. ex, off; and folium, a
leaf. See Foliage. Der. exfoliat-ion.
EXHALE, to breathe out, emit. (F.—L.) In Shak. Rich. III, i.
2. 58.—F. exhaler, ‘to exhale ;’ Cot.—L. exhalare, pp: exhdaldtus, to
breathe out.—L. ex, out; and Aalare, to breathe. Der. exkal-at-ion,
K. John, ii. 4. 153; ME. exalacion, Gower, C, A. iii. 95; bk. vii. 330.
EXHAUST, to drain out, tire out. (L.) In Shak. Timon, iv. 3.
11g. Used as a pp. in Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, bk. ii. c. 6. § 6.
= L. exhaustus, pp. of exhaurire, to draw out, drink up. =L. ex, out; |
and haurire, to draw, drain. Der. exhaust-ed, -er, -ible, -ion, -ive, -less.
EXHIBIT, to show. (L.) Shak. has exhibit, Merry Wives, ii. 1.
29; exhibiter, Hen. V, i. 1. 743 exhibition, K. Lear, i. 2. 25.—L. ex-
hibitus, pp. of exhibére, to hold forth, present. = L. ex, out ; and habére, |
to have, hold; see Habit. Der. exhibit-er, τοῦ; exhibit-ion (OF.
exhibition, Cot.), -ton-er, -or-y.
EXHILARATE, to make merry, cheer. (L.—Gk.; with L.
prefix.) Milton has exhilarating, P. L. ix. 1047.—L. exhilaratus, pp. of
exhilarare, to gladden greatly. —L. ex, much; and hilarare, to cheer, |
from hilaris, glad; see Hilarious. Der. exhila-rat-ion, Bacon, Nat.
Hist. § 721.
EXHORT, to urge strongly. (F.—L.) ME. exhorten, Henryson,
Compl. of Creseide, last stanza.—OF. exhorter.=—L. exhortari.=—L.
ex, greatly; and horsari, to urge; see Hortative. Der. exhort-at-ion,
Wyclif, 1 Tim. iv. 13; exhort-at-ive, Levins ; exhort-at-or-y.
EXHUME, to disinter. (L.) First in 1783; even exhumation is |
not in Johnson, but was added by Todd, who omits the verb alto- |
gether. —Late L. exhumare; Ducange (A.D. 1285). Coined from L.
ex, out; and humus, the ground. In Pliny we find inkumare, to bury.
See Humble. Der. exhum-at-ion.
EXIGENT, exacting, pressing. (L.) Gen. used as a sb. =neces-
sity; Jul. Cesar, v. 1. 19.—L. exigent-, stem of pres. pt. of exigere,
to exact; see Exact (2). Der. exigence, MF. exigence, ‘exigence ;’
Cot.; exigenc-y.
EXIGUOUS, small, minute. (L.) Cockeram (1623) has exignity ;
exiguous occurs in 1651 (N.E.D.).—L,. exigu-us, small; with suffix
-ous for -us, as in ardu-ous, &c.—L. exigere, to weigh strictly, weigh
exactly. —L. ex, fully; and agere, to drive, move forcibly. See
Exact. Der. exigu-ity, from L. acc. exiguitatem.
EXILE, banishment. (F.—L.) ME. exile, Rob. of Brunne, Palgts
1.143 exzlen, verb, to banish, Chaucer, C. T. 4967 (B547).—OF. exil,
‘an exile, banishment ;’ Cot.=L. exilivm, better spelt exsilivm, ban-
ishment ; cf. exsu/, a banished man, one driven from his native soil.
Prob. from L. ex, out; and sedére, to sit, with change of dto/; cf. consul
(Bréal). Der. exile, verb (OF. exiler, Late L. exiliare); exile, sb.
(imitated from L. exsud, but of French form), Cymbeline, i. 1. 166.
EXIST, to continue to be. (L.) In Shak. Κα. Lear, i. 1. 114.—L.
existere, better spelt exsistere, to come forth, arise, be —L. ex; and |
sistere, to set, place, causal of stare, to stand; see Stand. Der.
exist-ence (OF., in Supp. to Godefroy), Rom. of the Rose, 5549.
EXIT, departure. (L.) In Shak. As You Like It, ii. 7. 141.=L. |
exit-us, departure ; from exire, to go out. B. Exit also occurs in old
plays as a stage direction, —L. exit, he goes out, from exire.=L. ex, |
out; and ire, to go.=/ EI, to go; cf. Skt. 7, to go.
EXODUS, a departure. (L.—Gk.) ‘Séo Oder boc ys Exodus ge-
haten,’ the second book is called Exodus; ®lfric on the Old Testa-
ment.=L. exodus. Gk. ἔξοδος, a going out.<Gk. ἐξ, out, and ὁδός,
a way, march; cf. Russ. khod’, a march.=4/ SED, to go; cf. Skt.
a-sad, to approach, Russ. khodite, to go. (See Prellwitz.)
EXOGEN, a plant increasing outwardly. (Gk.) Modern and |
scientific. — Gk. ἔξω, outside (from ἐξ, out) ; and yev-, root of yiyvo-
μαι, lam born or produced. See Endogen. Der. exogen-ous.
EXONERATE, to relieve of a burden, acquit. (L.) In Cotgrave,
to translate F. descharger.—L. exoneratus, pp. of exonerire, to dis-
burden. =—L, ex, off; and oner-, for *ones-, stem of onus, a load ; see
Onerous. Der. exonerat-ion, -ive.
EXORBITANT, extravagant. (F.—L.)
waste ;’ Massinger, The Guardian, i. 1. 30.
The Wolf and the Lamb, 1. 46. = OF. exorbitant, ‘ exorbitant ;’ Cot.
*To the exorbitant
—L. exorbitant-, stem of pres. pt. of exorbitare, to fly out of the |
track.=—L. ex, out; and orbita,a track ; see Orbit.
ly, exorbitance.
EXORCISE, to adjure, deliver from a devil. (L.—Gk.) Shak.
has exorciser, Cymb. iv. 2. 276; the pl. sb. exorcistis=L. exorciste in
Wyclif, Acts, xix. 13 (earlier text) ; Lydgate has exorcismes, Siege of
Thebes, pt. iii (How the bishop Amphiorax fell doune into helle). =
Late L. exorcizare.— Gk. ἐξορκίζειν, to drive away by adjuration. =
Gk. ἐξ, away; and ὁρκίζειν, to adjure, from ὅρκος, an oath. Der.
exorcis-er, exorcism (Gk. ἐξορκισμός), exorcist (Gk. ἐξορκιστής).
EXORDIUM,a beginning. (L.) In Sir Τὶ Elyot, The Governour,
Der. exorbitant-
2
Earlier, in Henrysom, |
|
| OF. expirer, ‘to expire;
EXPLETIVE
bk. i. c. 14. § 8; Spectator, no. 303. The pl. exordiums is in Beaum.
and Fletcher, Scornful Lady, i. 1.—L. exordium, a beginning, the
warp of a web.—L. exordiri, to begin, weave.—L. ex, from; and
ordiri, to begin, weave; akin to Order, q.v. Der. exordi-al.
EXOTERIC, external. (Gk.) First in 1662. Opposed to esoteric.
— Gk. ἐξωτερικός, external. —Gk. ἐξωτέρω, more outward, comp. of
«ἄν. ἔξω, outward, from ἐξ, out. Sce Esoteric.
EXOTIC, foreign. (L.—Gk.) ‘Exotic and exquisite;’ Ben
Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, A. iii. sc. 3. “ Exotical and forraine drugs ;’
Holland’s Pliny, b. xxii. c. 24 (end).—L. exdsicus, foreign. Gk.
ἐξωτικός, outward, foreign.—Gk. ἔξω, adv., outward; from ἐξ, out.
Der. exotic-al.
EXPAND, to spread out. (L.) Milton has expanded, P. L. i. 225;
,
| expanse, id. il. 1014.—L. expandere, pp. expansms, to spread out. —L.
ex, out; and pandere, to spread, allied to patére; see Patent.
Brugmann, ii. § 69. Der. expanse (L. expansus); expans-ible, -ibl-y,
-ibil-i-ly, -ion, -ive, -ive-ly, -ive-ness.
EXPATIATE, to range at large. (L.) In Milton, P. L. i. 774.
—L. expatiaius, pp. of expatiari, better spelt exspatiari, to wander. =
L. ex, out; and spatiari, to roam, from spatium, space; see Space.
Der. expatiat-ion, Bacon, On Learning, by ἃ. Wats, b. ii. c. 2 and
cama ΤΠ τὴς
EXPATRIATE, to banish. (L.) Not in Johnson. In Burke,
| On the Policy of the Allies (R.).—Late L. expatridtus, pp. of expa-
triare, to banish; cf. MF. expatrié, ‘ banished ;’ (Cot.).—L. ex, ont
| of ; and patria, one’s native country, from patri-, decl. stem of pater,
a father: see Patriot. Der. expatriat-ion.
EXPECT, to look for. (L.) Gower has expectant, C. A. i. 2163
bk. ii. 1712. —L. expectare, better exspectire, to look for. —L. ex, out ;
and spectare, to look; see Spectacle. Der. expect-ant, -ance, -anc-y ;
expect-at-ion (KK. John, iv. 2. 7).
EXPECTORATE, to spit forth. (L.) In Nolland’s Pliny, b.
xxiv. c. 16.—L. expectoraitus, pp. of expectorare, to expel from the
breast.—L, ex, out of; and pector-, for *pectos-, stem of pectus, the
breast; see Pectoral. Der. expectorat-ion, -ive; -ant (from the L.
res. pt.).
EXPEDITE, to hasten. (L.) In Cotgrave, to translate OF.
expedier; properly a pp., as in ‘ the profitable and expedite service of
Julius ;’ Holland’s tr. of Ammianus, p. 431 (R.).—L. expeditus, pp. of
expedire, to extricate the foot, release, make ready.—L. ex, out; and
ped-, stem of pés, the foot. See Foot. Der. expedit-ion, Macb. ii. 3.
116; expedit-i-ous, Temp. v. 315; -é-ows-ly; also (from the pres. part.
of L. expedire) expedient, Much Ado, ν. 2. 85; -/y; expedience, Rich. 11,
il. 1. 287.
EXPEL, to drive out. (L.) ME. expellen; Chaucer, C. T. 2753
(A 2751).=L. expellere, pp. expulsus, to drive out.—L. ex, out; and
pellere, to drive; see Pulsate. Der. expulse, OF. expulser (Cot.),
from L. expulsare, frequent. of expellere, 1 Hen, VI, ili. 3. 25;
expuls-ion, OF. expulsion, Cymb. ii. 1. 65; -ve.
EXPEND, to employ, spend. (L.) In Hamlet, ii. 2. 23. [The
sb. expence is in Gower, C. A. iii. 153 ; bk. vil. 2027.] —L. expendere,
to weigh out, lay out. —L. ex, out; and pendere, to weigh ; see Poise.
Der. expense, from L. expensa, money spent, fem. of pp. expensus ;
expens-ive, -ive-ly, -ive-ness ; also expendit-ure, from Late L. expenditus,
a false form of the pp. expensus. Doublet, spend.
EXPERIENCE, knowledge due to trial. (F.—L.) ΜΕ.
experience, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 5583 (Ὁ 1).—OF. experience. —L. experi-
entia, a proof, trial.—L. experient-, stem of pres. pt. of experiri (pp.
expertus), to try thoroughly.—L. ex; and *periri, to go through, as
in the pp. ferttvs and in the compounds experir?, comperiri; see Peril.
Der. experienc-ed, Wint. Ta. i. 2. 392; experi-ment (MF. experiment,
L. experimentum), All’s Well, ii. 1. 157; -ment-al, ~ment-al-ly, -ment-
al-ist; and see Expert.
EXPERT, experienced. (F.—L.) ME. expert, Chaucer, C. T.
4424 (B 4).—OF. expert, ‘expert ;’ Cot. —L. expertus, pp. of experiri ;
see Experience. Der. expert-ly, -ness.
EXPIATE, to atone for. (L.) In Shak. Sonnet xxii. 4.—L.
expidlus, pp. of expidre, to atone for fully.—L. ex, fully; and piare,
to propitiate, from pius, devout. See Pious. Der. expiat-or, -or-y,
-ion (OF. expiation, ‘expiation,’ Cot.) ; expia-ble, Levins, from expid-re.
EXPIRE, to die, end. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q. ili. 2. 44.—
> Cot.—L. expirare, better exspirdre, to
breathe out, die.—L. ex, out; and spirare, to breathe. See Spirit.
Der. expir-at-ion, L. L. L. v. 2. 8143 -at-or-y, -a-ble.
EXPLAIN, to make plain, expound. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave;
and Milton, P. L, ii. 518.—MF. explaner, ‘to expound, expresse,
explain ;’ Cot.—L. explandare, to flatten, spread out, explain. = L. ex,
fully ; and plandare, to flatten, from planus, flat. See Plain, Der.
explain-able; also explan-at-ion, -at-or-y, like L. pp. explanat-us.
EXPLETIVE, inserted, used by way of filling up. (1.) As
adj., in Blount (1656); as sb., in Pope, Essay on Criticism, 346.—L.
EX PLICATE
explétiuus, filling up; cf. MF. expletif (Cotgrave).—L. explétus, pp. of
explére, to fill up.—L. ex, fully; and plére, to fill. See Plenary.
Der. explet-or-y, like pp. explétus.
EXPLICATE, to explain, unfold. (L.) In Levins; and Dryden,
Religio Laici, 1. 289.—L. explicatus, pp. of explicare, to unfold. =L.
ex, out; and plicare, to fold, from plica, a fold. See Ply. Der.
explicat-ion, -ive, -or,-or-y; also explica-ble, Levins (from explica-re) ;
and see Explicit.
EXPLICIT, unfolded, plain, clear. (L.) ‘ Explicite, unfolded,
declared, ended;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. explicitus, old pp.
of explicare, to unfold; the later form being explicatus. See above.
Der. expflicit-ly, -ness; and see Exploit.
EXPLODE, to drive away noisily, to burst noisily. (F.—L.) The
old sense is seen in Milton, P. L. xi. 669; cf. ‘Priority is exploded ;’
Massinger, Emperor of the East, iii. 2.—MF. exploder, ‘ to explode,
publickly to disgrace or drive out, by hissing, or clapping of hands ;’ |
Cot. “Το explodere, pp. explasus, to drive off the stage by clapping. = |
L. ex, away ; and plaudere, to applaud.
Der. explos-ion, ‘a casting off or rejecting, a hissing a thing out ;’
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674 ; -ive, -ive-ly, -ive-ness; like pp. explosus.
EXPLOIT, achievement. (F.—L.) ME. espleit= success; Gower,
GLA. i. 258; bk. v. 3924.
cause of esploite than of any hindringe ;’ ‘Test. of Love, b.i.c. 5. 1. 19.
“- OF. esploit, revenue, profit, achievement (Godefroy) ; later exploict,
‘an exploit, act;’ Cot.—L. explicitum, a thing settled, ended, dis-
played ; neut. of explicitus, pp. of explicare.
reyenue, profit. See Explicit.
EXPLORE, to examine thoroughly. (F.—L.)
and in Milton, P. L. ii. 632, 971.—MF. explorer, ‘to explore ;’ Cot.
—L. explorare, to search out, lit. ‘to make to flow out.’ =L. ex, out; |
and plorare, to make to flow, weep. Cf. im-plore, de-plore. Brug-
mann,i. §154. Der. explor-er, -at-ion (MF. exploration, ‘exploration,’
Cot.), -at-or-y.
EXPLOSION, EXPLOSIVE; see Explode.
EXPONENT, indicating; also, an index. (L.)
First in 1581;
often mathematical. —L. exponent-, stem of pres. pt. of exponere, to |
expound, indicate; see Expound. Der. exponent-ial.
EXPORT, to send goods out of a country. (L.) ‘They export
honour from a man ;’ Bacon, Essay 48, Of Followers.=—L. exportare,
to carry away.—L. ex, away; and portare, to carry; see Port (1). |
Der. export, sb.; export-at-ion, -able.
EXPOSE, to lay open to view. (F.—L. and Gk.) In Spenser,
F. Ὁ. iii. 1. 46. Used by Caxton (N. E. D.). = OF. exposer, ‘ to expose,
lay out ;? Cot.—OF. ex (=L. ex), out; and OF. poser, to set, place ;
see Pose (1). Der. expos-ure, Macb. ii. 3. 133; and see expound.
EXPOSITION, an explanation. (F.—L.) In Gower, C. A.
i. 141; bk. i. 2932.— OF. exposition; Cot.—L. expostlionem, acc. of
expositio,a setting forth ; cf. expositus, pp. of exponere; see Expound.
Der. exposit-or, τοῦ- ἢ from pp. expositus.
EXPOSTULATHEH, to reason earnestly. (L.) ‘Ast. I have no
commission To expostulate the act;’ Massinger, Maid of Honour,
ili. 1. 3.—L. expostulatus, pp. of expostulare, to demand urgently. =
L. ex, fully; and postulare, to demand. See Postulate. Der.
expostulat-ion, -or, -or-¥.
EXPOUND, to explain. (F.—L.) The d is excrescent, but was
suggested by the form of the F. infinitive. ME. expounen ; Chaucer,
C. T. 14162 (B 3346) ; expounden, Gower, C. A. i. 31; prol. 823.—
OF. espondre, to explain (see Godefroy).—L. expdnere, to set forth,
explain.=—L. ex, out; and pdnere, to put, set; see Position. Der.
expound-er; also exposition, q.v. The OF. prefix es- became ex in
English, by analogy with other words beginning with ex.
EXPRESS, exactly stated. (F.—L.) ‘Lo here expres of womman
may ye finde ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 6301 (D719). Hence ME. expre:sen,
verb, id. 13406 (B 1666). —OF. expres, ‘expresse, speciall ;’ Cot.=—L.
expressus, distinct, plain; pp. of exprimere, to press out.—L. ex, out;
and primere, to press; see Press. Der. express, verb, express-ible, -ive;
-ton (OF. expression, ‘an expression;’ Cot.), -ion-less.
EXPULSION, EXPULSIVE;; see Expel.
EXPUNGE, to efface, blot out. (L.) Ben Jonson has expunged ;
Staple of News, v. 1. 27. Which our advanced judgements generally
neglect to expunge ;’ Sir Τὶ, Browne, Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. ic. 9. ἃ 6. =L.
expungere, to prick out, blot out.—L. ex, out; and pungere, to prick ;
see Pungent. 47 No doubt popularly connected with sponge, with
which it has no real connexion. Some authors use the form expunct,
from the pp. expunctus. Der. expunction, Milton, Areopagitica, ed.
Hales, p: 27, 1. 28.
EXPURGATE, to purify. (L.) Milton hasexpurge; Areopagitica,
ed. Hales, p.10, 1.25. The sb. expurgation is in Sir T. Browne, Pref.
to Vulg. Errors, paragraph 7.—L. expurgatus, pp. of expurgare, to
purge out.—L,. ex. out; and purgdre; see Purge. Der. expurgat-ion,
τοῦ, -or=y.
“Al the ianglynge [blame] ... is rather |
In Cotgrave; |
See Applaud, Plausible. |
Cf. Late L. explicra, |
EXTRAORDINARY
EXQUISITE, sought out, excellent, nice. (L.) ‘His facound
toung, and termis exguisy/e ;’ Henryson, Test. of Creseide, st. 39; 1. 268.
— L. exquisttus, choice; pp. of exquirere, to search out. = L. ex, out; and
querere, to seek; see Query. Der. exquisite-ly.
EXSEQUIES, the same as Exequies, q.v.
EXTANT, existing. (L.) In Hamlet, iii. 2. 273. — Late L. extant-,
stem of extans, a bad spelling of L. exstans, pres. pt. of exstare, to stand
forth, exist.—L. ex, out; and stare, to stand; see Stand.
EXTASY, EXTATIC; see Ecstasy, Ecstatic.
EXTEMPORE, on the spur of the moment. (L.) Shak. has
extempore, Mids. Nt. Dr. i. 2. 70; extemporal, L. L. L. i. 2. 189;
extemporal-ly, Ant. and Cleop. v. 2. 217.—L. ex tempore, at the
moment; where tempore is the abl. case of tempus, time; see Temporal.
Der. extempor-al (L. extempordalis), -an-e-ous, -ise, -ar-y.
EXTEND, to stretch out, enlarge. (L.) ME. extenden, Chaucer,
C. T. 4881 (B 461). —L, extendere, pp. extensus, to stretch out (whence
OF, estendre).—L. ex, out; and ¢endere, to stretch; see Tend. Der.
extent, sb.; extens-ion (OF, extension, ‘an extension ;’ Cot.) ; extens-ible,
-ibil-i-ty, -ive, -ive-ly, -ive-ness (like pp. extensus).
EXTENUATE, to reduce, palliate. (L.) ‘ To extenuate or make
thyn;’ Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. ii. c. 9.—L. extenuatus, pp.
of extenuare, to make thin, reduce. — L. ex, fully ; and tenuare, to make
thin, from tenuis, thin; see Tenuity. Der. extenuat-ion, 1 Hen. ΤΥ,
iii. 2. 223 -or-y.
EXTERIOR, outward. (F.—L.) Formerly exteriour ; afterwards
Latinised. ‘The exteriour ayre;’ Sir Τὶ Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. ii.
c. 24, 1.5. ‘What more exferiour honour can you deuise;” Barnes,
Works, p. 341, col. 2.— MF. exterieur, ‘exteriour;’ Cot. —L. exteridrem,
acc. of exterior, outward, comp. of exter or exterus, outward. =—L. ex,
out; with compar. suffix -tero-.
EXTERMINATE, to drive beyond bounds. (L.) In Cotgrave,
to translate F. exterminer, whence was formed Shakespeare’s extermine,
As You Like It, iii. 5. 89.—L. ex’erminatus, pp. of extermindre, to
drive beyond the boundaries. —L. ex, out, beyond; and terminus,
a boundary; see Term. Der. ex/erminat-ion (OF. extermination,
Cot.) ; -or, -or-y.
EXTERNAL, outward. (L.) InShak. K. John, ii. 571. Formed,
with suffix -a/, from extern, Oth. i. 1. 63.—L. extern-us, outward,
extended form from exterus; see Exterior. Der. external-ly.
EXTINGUISH, to quench. (L.) In Shak. Lucrece, 313. 1. A
false formation, made by adding -ish to L. extingu-ere, by analogy with
properly-formed verbs in -ish, such as ban-ish, abol-ish, which are of
French origin. 2. The Lat. extinguere is a later spelling of exstinguere,
pp- extinctus or exstinclus, to put out, quench, kill.—L. ex, out; and
*stinguere, prop. to prick, also to extinguish, quench; orig. ‘to blunt,’
as a weapon (Bréal). Cf. di-stinguish. @J The OF. word is esteindre,
F. éteindre. Der. extinguish-er, -able ; also (from pp. extinctus) extinct,
Hamlet, i. 3. 118; extinct-ed, Oth. ii. 1. 81; extinct-ion (MF. extinction,
“an extinction ;’ Cot.).
EXTIRPATE, to root out. (L.) Shak. has extirpate, Temp. i. 2.
125; and extirp (from MF. extirper), Meas. iii. 2, 110,—L. extirpatus,
pp. of extirpare, better spelt exstirpare, to pluck up by the stem.—L.
ex, out; and stirp-s or stirp-es, the stem of a tree. Der. extirpat-ion,
from MF. extirpation, ‘an extirpation, rooting out;’ Cot.
EXTOL, to exalt, praise. (L.) ‘And was to heaven extold;’
Spenser, F. Q. vii. 7. 37. —L. extollere, to raise up.— L. ex, out ; and
tollere, to raise. See Elate. Der. extol-ment, Hamlet, v. 2. 121.
EXTORT, to force out by violence. (L.) In Spenser, F. Q. v. 2. 5.
The sb. extortion is in Chaucer, C. T. 7021 (D 1439).—L. extorlus, pp.
of extorquére, lit. to twist out.—L. ex, out; and torguére, to twist; see
Torsion. Der. extort-ion (OF. extorsion) ; -ion-er, -ion-ate, -ion-ar-y.
EXTRA, beyond what is necessary. (L.) The use as an adj. is
modern.=—L. extra, beyond; for extera=ex exterad parte=on the
outside ; where ex¢era is the abl. fem. of exter; see Exterior. Also
used as a prefix, as in extra-ordinary, -vagant, &c.
EXTRACT, to draw out. (L.) In Shak. Meas. iii. 2.50. Properly
a pp., as in ‘the very issue extract [=extracted] from that good ;’
Holland’s Plutarch, p. 839; cf. p. 1045.—L. extractus, pp. of extrahere,
to draw out.=—L. ex, out; and ¢rahere, to draw; see Trace. Der.
extract, sb., extract-ton (OF. extraction, Cot.) ; extiact-ive, -or, -ible.
EXTRADITION, a surrender of fugitives. (F.—L.) Modern ;
not in Todd. =F. extradition (1798). Coined from L. ex, out; and
Tradition, q. v.
EXTRAMUNDANE, out of the world. (L.) In Kersey’s Dict.,
ed. 1715.—Late L. extramundanus; coined from extra, beyond, and
mund-us, world; with suffix -Gzvs. See Extra and Mundane.
EXTRANEOUS, external, unessential. (L.) In Sir T. Browne,
Vulg. Errors, b. ii. c. 7, part 9.—L. extrdneus, external; by change
of -us to -ous, as in arduous, egregious, &c. An extension from L, extra,
beyond. See Extra. Cf. Strange. Der. extraneous-ly. 1
EXTRAORDINARY, beyond ordinary. (L.) In Shak. Mer.
205
906 EXTRAVAGANT
Wives, iii. 3. 75.—L. extraordindrius, rare. From the phrase ex/ra
ordinem, outside the (usual) order. See Order. Der. extraordinari-ly,
2 Hen. [V, Li 2. 235.
EXTRAVAGANT, excessive, profuse. (F.—L.) See Shak.
Hamlet, i. 1. 154.—MF. extravagant, ‘extravagant ;’ Cot.—Late L.
extravagant-, stem of extravagans; formed from ex/ra@ and uagans,
pres. pt. of wagari, to wander. See Vague. Der. ex/ravagant-ly ;
extravagance (MF. extravagance, ‘an extravagancy,’ Cot.); extrava-
ganc-y, Tw. Nt. ii. 1. 125 extravaganza (Ital. es/ravaganza).
EXTRAVASATE, (L.) ‘Extravasate, in surgery, to go out of
its proper vessels, as the blood and humours sometimes do ;’ Kersey’s
Dict., ed. 1715. Coined from L, extra, beyond; and πῶς, a vessel ;
with suffix -ate. See Vase. Der. extravasat-ion.
EXTREME, last, greatest. (F.—L.) Palsgrave has extrem>.
Spenser has exiremest ; Ἐς Q. ii. 10. 31.— OF. extreme, ‘extreme ;’ Cot.
= L. extrémus, superl. of exterus, outward; see Exterior. Der.
extrem-i-ty, ME. extremité, Gower, C. A. ii. 85; bk. iv. 2489; from
OF. extremité, which is from L. acc. extrémitatem.
EXTRICATE, to disentangle. (L.) ‘Which should be extricated;’
Bp. Taylor, Dissuasive from Popery, pt. ii. b. i. 5.11. —L. extricitus,
pp: of extricare, to disentangle.—L. ex, out of; and ¢rice, trifles,
impediments; see Intricate. Der. extricat-ion, extrica-ble.
EXTRINSIC, external. (F.—L.) A false spelling for extrinsec,
by analogy with words ending in -ie. ‘ Astronomy exhibiteth the
extrinsique parts of celestial bodies ;’ Bacon, On Learning, by G. Wats,
b. ii. c. 4 (R.). = MEF. extrinseque, ‘ extrinsecall, outward ;”’ Cot.—L.
extrinsecus, from without. L. extrin =*extrim, adverbial form from
exter, outward (see Exterior) ; and secus, beside; thus extrin-secus =
on the outside, Sec-us is from the same root as L. sec-undum, according
to, viz., from L. segui, to follow; see Second. And cf. L. interim.
Der. extrinsic-al (formerly extrinsecal, Bp. Taylor, Rule of Conscience,
b. i. c. 2, rale 3, and in Cotgrave, as above); extrinsic-al-ly; and see
intrinsic,
EXTRUDE, to push out. (L.) In Levins, ed. 1570; and in
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. extriidere, pp. extriisus, to thrust forth,
“τι ex, out; and éridere, to thrust ; from the same root as Threat,
4:ν. Cf. in-trude, Der. extrus-ion, from pp. exirisus.
EXUBERANT, rich, superabundant. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave;
Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715; Thomson, Spring, 75.—MF. exuberant,
“exuberant ;’ Cot.=L. exiberant-, stem of pres. pt. of exiiberare, to be
luxuriant. =L. ex, very; and iiberare, to be fruitful, from aber, fertile ;
allied to tiber, an udder, fertility, cognate with E. xdder ; see Udder.
Der. exuberance, exuberanc-y; from MF.ex:.berance, ‘exuberancy;’ Cot.
EXUDE, to distil as sweat. (L.) In Johnson’s Dict.; and first in
1574. Another form is exudate, Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iii.
c. 4. ὃ 5; the sb. exudation is in the same author, Cyrus’ Garden, c. 3.
§ 52. —L. exiidare, better spelt exsiidare, lit. to sweat out. —L. ex, out;
and siddre, to sweat; see Sweat. Der. exud-at-ion.
EXULT, to leap for joy, be glad. (L.) Shak. has exult, Tw. Nt.
li. 5. 83 exuliation, Wint. Ta. v. 3. 131.—L. exultare, better spelt
exsultare, to leap up, exult, frequentative form of exsilere (pp. exsul/xs),
to spring οὐ, “Το. ex, out ; and salire, to leap; see Salient. Der.
exult-ing-ly, -ant, -at-ion.
EXUVIAS, cast skins of animals. (L.) In Kersey’s Dict., ed.
1715.— L. exuuie, things laid aside or put off. —L. exuere, to put off,
strip. Cf. L. ind-uuia, clothes.
EYAS, a nestling, a young hawk. (F.—L.) For nias or niais; by
substituting ax eyas for a nias, or aniais. ‘An hawke is calde ar eyas,’
&c. ; Boke of St. Alban’s, fol. Bij. ‘Thou art a xiaise;’ Ben Jonson,
The Devil is an Ass, Act 1. 56. 3.—F. niais,a nestling; Cot. {Healso
gives niard, whence faulcon niard, ‘a nias faulcon.’| Cf. Ital. nidiace,
or nidaso falcone, ‘an eyase hawk, a young hawk taken out of her nest;’
Torriano. From Late L. type *xidacem, acc. of *nidax, an adj. formed
from nidus, a nest. See Nest.
EYE, the organ of sight. (E.) ME. eye, eize, eighe; pl. eyen, eizen, |
eighen, as well as eyes, e'3es; P. Plowman, A. v. 90, B. v. 109, 134.
{Chaucer uses the form yé, pl. yéx, though the scribes commonly write
it eye, eyez, against the rime. The old sound of ey was that of εἰ in
eight, followed by a glide; the final e was aseparatesyllable.] OMere.
ege; AS. éage, pl. éagan, Grein, i. 254.4 Du. oog; Icel. auga; Dan. die;
Swed. dga; Goth. augo; G. auge (OHG. ouga). Teut. type *angon-.
Usually compared with L. oc-wd-ws, dimin. of an older *ocus; Gk.
ὄσσομαι (= dx-youac), 1 see; Lith. akis, an eye; Skt. akski. Brugmann,
i. § 681. Der. eye, verb, Temp. v. 238; eye-ball, K. John, iii. 4. 30;
eye-bright, used to translate F. euphraise in Cotgrave; eye-brow, ME.
e3e-brewe, Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 239, 1. 8, from Icel. auga-briin,
an eyebrow (see Brow); eye-lash; eye-less; eye-lid, spelt ehe-lid in
O. Eng. Homilies, i. 265, 1. 5 ; eve-salve, spelt ehe-sallfe in Ormulum,
1, 1852 ; eye-service, A.V. Eph. vi. 6; eye-sight, spelt eihsihde, Ancren
Riwle, p. 58; eye-sore, Tam. Shrew, iii. 2. 103; eye-tooth; eye-witness,
A.V. Luke, i. 2. Also dais-y, q.v., wind-ow, qe Ve
FACTION
EYELET-HOLE, a hole like a small eye. (F. and E.) For ME,
otlet, Wyclif, Exod. xxvi. 5; with hole added. ME. oilet is from OF.
oeillet, “ Oeillet, a little eye; also, an oilet-hole;” Cot. Dimin. of
OF. oeil, from L. octlum, acc. of oculus, the eye; see Hye.
EYOT, a little island. (E.) Also spelt ait. ‘ Eyet, an islet;’
Kersey, ed. 1715. ‘ Ait or eyght, a little island in a river;’ id. Spelt
eyt in a charter of Edw. Confessor, Kemble, Cod. Dipl. iv. 211; and
yget in Cod. Dipl. v. 17, 1. 30; with AF. substitution of -et for -cd.
From AS. igod, also written igecd; “τὸ anum igeode pe is Padmas
geciged’=to an eyot that is called Patmos; /#lfric’s Hom. ed.
Thorpe, 1. 58. The shorter AS. form is 7g, still preserved in Shepp-y
and in island. See Island. (See Notes on Eng. Etym., p. 87.)
EYRE, a journey, circuit. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. eire. ‘The eire of
| justize wende aboute in the londe;’ Rob. of Glouc., p. 517; 1. 10647.
‘Justices in eyre=judiciarii itinerantes ;’ Blount’s Nomolexicon. =
OF. eire, way; as in ‘le eire des feluns perirat’ =the way of the ungodly
shall perish, Ps. i, 7 (in Bartsch, Chrestomathie Frangaise, col. 41,
1. 35). “ΟἿ eirer, to journey, wander about.—Late L. i/erare, to
journey (for L. itinerare); from L, iter, a journey. See Errant.
EYRY, a nest; see Aery.
FABLE, a story, fiction. (F.—L.) ME. fable, Chaucer, C. T.
17342 (1 31). —F. fatle.=—L. fibula, a narrative.—L. fari, to speak.
+Gk. φημί, [say ; Skt. bhaish, tospeak. See Fate. Der. fable, verb ;
also (from 1. fabula) fabul-ous, Hen. VIII, i. 1. 36 ; -ows-ly, -ise, -ist.
FABRIC, a structure. (F.—L.) In Shak. Temp. iv. 151; andin
Caxton, Golden Legend; St. Austin, § 14.—F. fabrique; Cot.—L.
fabrica, a workshop, art, fabric. = L. fabri- for fabro-, stem of faber,a
workman. =L. *fab-, to fit; with suffix -er (stem -ro) of the agent.
The base *fab, answering to a root DHAB, appears in Lith. dab-int,
T clean, adorn ; Russ. dob-rui, good; Goth. ga-dab-ith, itis fit. See
Dapper. Doublet, forge, sb. q.v.
FABRICATE, to invent. (L.) In Cotgrave, to translate F.
fabriquer.— L. fabricatus, pp. of fabricari, to construct.—L. fabrica
(above). Der. fabricat-ion, from F. fabrication, ‘a fabrication ;’ Cot.
FABULOUS; see Fable.
FACADKH, the face of a building. (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘ Facade, the
outside or fore-front of a great building ;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715.
And in Blount’s Gloss. (16536).—ME. facade, ‘the forefront of a
house ;’ Cot. Ital. facciata, the front of a building. = Ital. faccia, the
face.— Folk L. facia, for L. faciés, the face ; see Face.
FACE, the front, countenance. (F.—L.) ME. face, Chaucer,
prol. 460; faas, K. Alisaunder, 5661. - Εἰς face. — Folk L. facia, for L.
faciés, the face. Der. face, verb, Macb. i. 2. 203 fac-et, spelt fascet,
Bacon, Ess. 55, Of Honour, from F, dimin. facette; fag-ade, q.v. ;
fac-ing ; faci-al, from L. faci-és ; also sur-face.
FACETIOUS, witty. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave.—F. facetieuwx, ‘ face-
tious ;’ Cot.—MF. facetie, ‘ witty mirth ;’ id. —L. facétia, wit; com-
moner in the pl. facéti@, which is also used in English. L. facétus,
elegant, courteous ; orig. ‘of fair appearance ;’ connected with Gk.
pa-os, light. Der. facetious-ly, -ness.
FACILE, easy to do, yielding. (F.—L.) In Shak. Oth. i. 3. 23.
And in Sir ‘T. Elyot, The Governour, bk. i. ο. 14. § 2. “ Εἰ, facile. —
L. facilis, easily done, lit. do-able. — Το. fac-ere, todo ; with swfhix -iis.
See Fact. Der. facil-i-ty, Oth. ii. 3. 84, from F. facilite, L. facili-
tdtem, acc. of facilitas ; facil-it-ate, imitated (but with suffix -ate) from
F., faciliter, ‘ to facilitate, make easie ;’ Cot. And see Faculty.
FAC-SIMILE, an exact copy. (L.) First in 1661 (N. E.D.),
From L, fac simile, make (thou) like.—L. fac, imp. 5. of facere, to
make; and simile, neut. of similis, like. See Fact and Simile.
FACT, a deed, reality. (L.) Formerly used like mod. E. deed ;
Shak. Mach. iii. 6. 10; cf. ‘fact of arms,’ Milton, P. L. ii, 124.—L.
factum,a thing done; neut. of factus, pp. of facere, todo. Allied to
Gk. τίθημι, I put, set, and E.do; see Do. Brugmann, i. §§ 129, 193-
Der. factor, Cymb. i. 6. 188, from L. factor, an agent ; fact-or-ship, -or-
age, -or-y, -or-i-al ; also fact-ion, 4. v. ; also fact-it-i-ous, q. V., feasible,
q.V., feature,q.v. Doublet, feat,q.y. 41 Fromthe same root we have
not only fac-ile, fac-ulty, fac-totum, fash-ion, feat-ure, but many others ;
e.g. af-fair, of-fect, arti-fice, com-fit, con-fect, counter-feit, defeat, de-
fect, dif-fic-ult, effect, for-feit, infect, manu-fact-ure, office, per-fect,
pro-fic-ient, re-fect-ion, sacri-fice, suf-fice, sur-feit, 8c.
FACTION, a party, sect. (F.—L.). In Shak, Haml. v. 2. 249.
=F. faction, ‘a faction or sect ;’ Cot.—L. factidnem, acc. of factio, a
doing, working for or against, faction; cf. factus, pp. of facere, to do;
see Fact. Der. facti-ous, Rich, III, i. 3. 128; -ous-ly, -ous-ness,
FACTITIOUS
FACTITIOUS, artificial, (L.) ‘Artificial and factitious
gemms ;’ Sir Τὶ Browne, Vulg. Err. b. ii. c. 1, § 6.—L. factitius,
better facticius, artificial; with change of -us to -ous, as in arduous,
egregious. factus, pp. of facere, to make; see Fact. Der.
Sactitious-ly.
FACTOTUM, a general agent. (L.) ‘ Factotwm here, sir;’ Ben
Jonson, New Inn, ii. 2.—L. fac totum, do (thou) all. =L. fac, imp. 5.
of facere, to do; and ¢dtum, all; see Fact and Total.
FACULTY, facility to act. (F.—L.) ME. faculté, Chaucer,
C. T. 244.- Εἰς faculté; Cot.—L. faculiatem, acc. of facultas, capa-
bility to do, contracted form of faciliias ; see Facile. Brugmann,
1. § 241 (Ὁ). Doublet, facility.
FAD, a whim, fancy, pet project. (F.—Proy.—L.) Adopted from
prov. E.; see E, D.D. Merely a shortened form of F. fadaise, ‘ fiddle-
faddle, twaddle, trifle ;” Hamilton. Cot. has F. fadeses, pl. ‘ follies,
toyes, gulleries;” and fadas, ‘sottish.’ Miege (1679) has “ fadle
[i.e. faddle], fadaises ;’ showing the association. = Prov. fadeza, folly
(Hatzfeld).—Prov. fat (Gascon fad), foolish.—L. fatuum, acc. of
fatuus, foolish. Der. faddle, nonsense.
FADE, to wither. (F.—L.) Gower has faded, C. A. ii. 109 ; bk.
iy. 3208. Cf. ‘ That weren pale and fade-hewed ;’ id. 1. 1113; bk. i.
2043. [Also written vade, Shak. Pass. Pilgrim, 131, 132 ; from MDu.
vadden, to fade (from F.).]—OF. fader, vb.; from fade, adj. ‘ un-
savoury, tastlesse ; weak, faint, witlesse ;’ Cot. = L. uapidum, acc. of
uagidus, vapid, tasteless. The change to initial f was prob. due to
confusion with L. fatuus, stupid. Korting, ὃ 3660. Der. fade-less.
FADGE, to turn out, succeed. (Scand.) ‘ How will this fadge ?’
Tw. Nt. ii. 2.34. It occurs in other obsolete senses, such as to fit, to
suit, agree; and, transitively, to fit up or piece together. It appears
to be a palatalised form due to Norw. faga, to suit, accommodate one-
self to, or Norw. fagga, to cobble up, to wrap up carelessly (Ross).
From Teut. base fag-, whence also OSax. fogian, AS. ἤσαν, to join,
suit, G. γι νι, to join, Du. voegen (see Kluge and Franck) ; and cf.
OHG, gi-fag, content; Goth. fulla-fah-jan, to satisfy. The same
base occurs in Fair (1).
FASCES, dregs. (L.) ‘Isent you of his feces there calcined ;’ Ben
Jonson, Alchemist, ii. 1.—L. fecés, dregs, pl. of fex (stem fec-) ; of
unknown origin. Der. fec-ul-ent, in Kersey’s Dict., from L. feculentus.
FAG, to dmdge. (E.) ‘Fag, to fail, grow weary, faint ;’ also,
‘to beat, to bang;’ Ash’s Dict.1775. “Το fag, deficere;’ Levins,
Io, 21, ed. 1570. Ofuncertain origin; but prob. a corruption of flag,
to droop; see Todd. See Flag (1). See below.
FAG-END, a remnant. (E.) ‘ Fag, the fringe at the end of a
piece of cloth, the fringe at the end of a rope ;’ Ash’s Dict. ed. 1775.
* Fagg (a sea-term), the fringed end of arope;’ id. ‘ The fag-end of
the world ;” Massinger, Virgin Martyr, Actii.sc. 3. Origin unknown.
Perhaps for flag-end =loose end; see Flag (1), and Fag. Thus, in
the Boke of St. Albans (1486), fol. Bj, we find: ‘ The federis at the
wynges next the body be calde the fagg or the fagg federis.’
FAGGOT, FAGOT, a bundle of sticks. (F.—Scand.) In Shak.
‘Tit. And. iii. 1.69; 1 Hen. VI, v. 4.55. ME. fagot, Cursor Mundi,
1. 3164.—F. fagot, ‘ a fagot, a bundle of sticks ;’ Cot. Cf. Ital. fagotlo,
fangotto, a bundle of sticks ; which was prob. borrowed from French;
the F. fagot being found before 1300. Formed, with dimin. suffix -ot,
from Norw. fagg, a bundle (Ross). The Norw. fagg also means a
short, clumsy person ; and prov. E. faggot is likewise used as a depre-
ciatory term, often applied to children and women; whilst we also
find prov. E. fadge with the precise sense of ‘ bundle.’ The Norw.
fagga, vb., means to bundle together or to cobble up, and is prob.
related to faga, to suit. See Fadge. β. I feel inclined to connect
Ital. fangotio (if distinct from fagotto) with Icel. fang, an armful,
as in skidar-fang, vidar-fang, an armful of fuel; fanga-hnappr, a
bundle of hay, an armful; from Icel. fa, to fetch, get, grasp; see
Fang. @ The ΝΥ. ffagod is borrowed from E. Der. faggot, verb.
FAHRENHEIT, the name of a kind of thermometer. (G.) From
the name of a Prussian physicist (1686-1736), inventor of the mer-
curial thermometer. (N.E.D.)
FAIENCE, crockery, pottery. (F.—Ital.) The N.E.D. quotes
‘Fayances or earthen-ware’ from a book of rates dated 1714.—F.
Saience, crockery ; so named from Faenza in Italy (near Ravenna),
where much pottery was once made.
FAIL, to fall short, be baffled. (F.—L.) In early use. ME. failen,
Layamon, 2938 (later text).=<F. fuillir, ‘to faile;’ Cot.—Folk L.
*fallire, for L. fallere, to beguile, elude ; pass. falli, to err, be baffled.
Perhaps allied to AS. feallan, to fall. See Fall. Brugmann,i.§ 757.
Der. fail, sb., Wint. Tale, ii. 3. 170; fail-ing ; fail-ure (substituted for
an earlier failer, from AF, failer, F. faillir, infin. mood used substan-
tively), used by Burke, On the Sublime, pt. iv. § 24 (R.); and see
fallible, fallacy, false, fault, faucet.
FAIN, glad, eager. (E.) ME. fayn, Chaucer, C. T. 2709 (A 2707);
common. AS. fegen, glad; Grein, i. 269,4-OSax. fagan, glad; Icel.
FALLACY
feginn, glad. Cf. AS. geféon (pt. t. gefeah), to rejoice. From Teut.
base *feh-, as in AS. geféon (for *ge-feh-an) ; cf. Goth fah-éths, joy.
Der. fawn, verb; q.v.
FAINT, weak, teeble. (F.—L.) In early use. ME. feint, feynt ;
King Alisaunder, 612; Gower, C. A. il. 5; bk. iv. 118.—OF, feint,
pp. of feindre, to feign; so that the orig. sense is ‘ feigned ;’ see
Bartsch, Chrest. Francaise, p. 515, 1.3. See Feign. @f Cf. ME.
feintise, signifying (1) faintness, (2) cowardice; Glos. to Will. of
Palerne; P. Plowman, B. v. 5. Der. faint-ly, Shak. Oth. iv. 1. 113;
faint-ness, Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 2. 428 ; faint-hearted, 3 Hen. VI, i. 1. 183;
faint, verb, Mids. Nt. Dr. ii. 2. 35.
FAIR (1), pleasing, beautiful. (E.) ME. fair, fayr, Chaucer, prol.
575 (A 573); fazer, Ormulum, 6392. AS. fever, Grein, i. 269.4
lcel. fagr ; Dan. Swed. fager ; Goth. fagrs, fit ; used to tr. Gk. εὔθετον
in Lu. xiv. 35; OHG. fagar. Teut. type *fagroz. Cf. Gk. πηγός,
firm, strong. Brugmann, vol.i. §§ 200, 7o1. Andsee Fadge. Der.
fair-ly, fair-ness.
FAIR (2),a festival, holiday, market. (F.—L.) ME. feire, fayre;
Chaucer, C. T. 5803 (Ὁ) 221).—OF. feire; Ε΄ foire.—L. feria, a
holiday; in Late L. a fair; commoner in the pl. férie. Fér‘@ is for
*fes-ia, feast-days; from the same root as Feast and Festal.
Brugmann, vol. ii. § 66.
FAIRY, a supernatural being. (F.—L.) ME. faerie, fairye, fairy,
‘enchantment ;” P. Plowman, B. prol. 6; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 6441
(Ὁ 850). [The modern use of the word is improper; the right word
for the elf being fay. The mistake was made long ago; and fully
established before Shakespeare’s time. |= OF. faerie, enchantment. =
OF. fae (F. fée), a fairy; see Fay. Der. fairy, adj.
FAITH, belief. (F.—L.) The final -th is analogous to the E.
suftix -th, as seen in truth, ruth, wealth, health, and other similar sbs.
B. ME. feip, feith, feyth; as well as fey. The earliest example of the
spelling feith is in Genesis and Exodus, 1. 2187 (ab. 1250). We find
fayth in the Cursor Mundi, 1. 3405; and fai occurs in the same
poem, ll. 2354 (riming with de/ay), and 1. 7562 (riming with zai). —
OF. fet, feid, feit. mL, fidem, acc. of fides, faith. + Gk. πίστις, faith;
πείθειν, to persuade ; πέποιθα, I trust. (4/BHEIDH.) Allied to
Bide. Brugmann,i. § 202. 4 The assumption that OF. feit, feid
was at first pronounced as feip, feid, is needless. The AF. fei appears
in Phil. de Thaun, L. des Creatures, 1. 244 (before 1150); I believe
the -¢h to be a purely E. addition. Der. faith-ful, -ful-ly, -ful-ness ;
-less, -less-ly, -less-ness, Krom the same root are fid-el-i-ty, af-fi-ance,
con-fide, de-fy, dif-fid-ent, per-fid-y,
FAKTR, a religious mendicant ; see Faquir.
FALCHION, a bent sword. (F.—Ital.—Late L.) In Shak.
L.L.L. v. 2. 618. ME. fauchon, P. Plowman, C. xvii. 169; directly
from F. fauchon, ‘a faulchion;’ Cot.—Ital. falcione, a scimetar. =
Late L. falcidnem, acc. of falcio, a sickle-shaped sword. =L. falci-,
decl. stem of falx,a sickle. Allied to flec-tere, to bend; Brugmann,
i. § 529 (2). @ The word was really taken from the F. fauchon, and
afterwards altered to falchion by the influence of the Ital. form.
Der. from L. falx are also falc-on, de-falc-ate.
FALCON, a bird of prey. (F.—L.) ME. faukon, King Ali-
saunder, 567 ; faucon, Chaucer, C. T. 10725 (F 411).— AF. faucon,
Stat. of the Realm, i. 293 (1340); OF. faucon, MF. faulcon, ‘a
faulkon;’ Cot.—Late L. falcdnem, acc. of falco, a falcon; so called
from the hooked shape of the claws. ‘Falcones dicuntur, quorum
digiti pollices in pedibus intro sunt curuati;’ Festus, p. 88; qu. in
White and Riddle. That is, falco is derived from falc-, stem of /alx,
asickle; see above. The / in falcon was inserted in the 15th century.
Der. falcon-er ; falcon-ry, from MF. faulconnerie ‘a faulconry ;᾽ Cot.
FALDSTOOL, a folding-stool. (F.-Low L.—OHG.) Now
applied to a low desk at which the litany is said; but formerly to a
folding-stool or portable seat. ‘ Faldstool, a stool placed at the S.
side of the altar, at which the kings of England kneel at their coro-
nation ;” Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. He also has: ‘ Faldis/ory, the
episcopal seat within the chancel.’ [Not E., but borrowed from F'.]
- OF. faldestoel (Godefroy). —Low L. faldistolium, also faldistorium
(corruptly), a faldstool.—OHG. faldan (G. falter), to fold ; and stuol
(G. stzhl), a chair, seat, throne. See Fold and Stool. @ We also
find AS. feldestél, A. S. Leechdoms, vol. i. p. lxii. 1. 3. But had the
word been native, it would have been /o/d-stool. See Fauteuil.
FALL, to drop down. (E.) ME. fallen, Chaucer, C. T. 2664
(A 2062). OMere. fallan, Matt. x. 29; the AS. form being feallan.
+ Du. vallen; Icel. falla; Dan. falde (with excrescent d); Swed.
falla; G. fallen. Teut. type *fallan-.. Cf. Lith. μὰ, to fall; and
perhaps L. fallere, to deceive, falli, to err. Brugmann, i. § 757.
Der. fall, sb.; be-fall, vb.; and see fell (1), fail.
FALLACY, « deceptive appearance, error in argument. (F.—L.)
In Shak. Errors, ii. 2. 188, Spelt falacye, Caxton, Reynard, c. 28;
ed. Arber, p. 67,1. 10. A manipulated word, due to the addition of
-y to ME. fallace or fallas, in order to bring it nearer to the L. form,
207
208 FALLIBLE
ME. fallace, fallas; once common; see P. Plowman, C. xii. 22, and
the note; also Gower, C. A. ii. 85; bk. iv. 2509.—F. fallace, ‘a
fallacy ;’ Cot.=L. fallacia, deceit. —L. falldc-, stem of fallax, decep-
tive. = L. fallere, to deceive; see Fail. Der. fallacious, Milton, P. L.
ii. 568 ; -ous-ly, -ous-ness; see below.
FALLIBLE, liable to error. (L.) In Shak. Meas. iii. 1. 170;
Lydgate, Siege of Troye, bk. i.c.6; fol. D6. Late L. fallibilis. = L.
fallere, to deceive, falli, to err; see Fail. Der. fallibl-y ; fallibili-ty.
FALLOW (1), untilled. (E.) The meaning ‘untilled’ is a mere
development. The orig. sense was (1) ploughed land; (2) ploughed
and harrowed land, left uncropped; and it was at first a sb. ME.
falwe, ploughed land, Havelok, 2509. AS. felging, fallow land
(Corpus gloss. 1385).—AS. fealg-, as in fealg-a, pl., harrows (for
breaking clods) ; Epinal gloss. 713. Allied to EFries. falgen, Low G.
falgen, to fallow land; OHG. felga, a harrow. Der. fallow, verb.
FALLOW (2), used with reference to colour ; pale brownish,
pallid. (E.) ‘His hewe falwe;’ Chaucer, C. T., A 1364. ‘ Falewe
lockes ;’” fallow locks of hair; Layamon, 18449. OMerc. falu; AS.
fealu, pale red, yellowish red; Grein, i. 286. - Du. vaal ; Icel. félr,
pale; G. fahl, pale, also falh; Lith. palvas. Cf. also L. pallidus;
Gk. πολιός, gray; Skt. palita-, gray. See Pale. Brugmann, i.
§ 375 (9). Hence fallow deer; Sir Τὶ Elyot has: ‘Dere redde and
falowe ;’ Castel of Helth, bk. ii. c. 12.
FALSE, untrue, deceptive. (F.—L.) ME. fals, Chaucer, C. T.,
A 1580; earlier, in O. Eng. Homilies, rst Ser. p. 185, 1. 16. “ΟἿ.
fals (F. faux).—L. falsus, false; pp. of fallere, to deceive; see Fail.
Der. false-ly, -ness, -hood (spelt falshede in Chaucer, C. T. 16519,
G 1051); fals-i-fy, 1 Hen. IV, i. 2. 235; -i-fic-at-ion, -i-fi-er, -i-ty;
also falsetto, from Ital. falsetto, treble; also faucet, q. v.
FALTER, to totter, stammer. (E.) ME. falteren, faltren.
‘Thy limes faltren ay’=thy limbs ever tremble with weakness;
Chaucer, C. T. 5192 (B 772). ‘And nawper faltered ne fel’=and
he neither gave way nor fell; Gawayne and the Grene Knight, 430.
The old sense of to ‘stumble,’ to ‘miss one’s footing,’ occurs late;
‘his legges hath foltred’ =the horse’s legs have given way; Sir T.
Elyot, The Governour, b. i. c. 17 (in Spec. of Eng., ed. Skeat, p. 197,
1, 78). Formed from a base falt-, with frequentative suffix -er. Of
obscure origin. Perhaps connected with Icel. refl. verb faltra-sk, to
be cumbered, to be puzzled.
FAME, report, renown. (F.—L.) In early use; King Alisaunder,
6385.—F. fame.—L. fama, report.—L. fari, to speak. See Fate.
Der. fam-ed; fam-ous, Gower, C. A. ii. 366; bk. v. 7125 ; fam-ous-ly.
FAMILY, a household. (L.) In Shak. Oth. 1. 1. 84. Spelt
JSamylye in Caxton, Golden Legend ; Moses, § 3 from end. =L. familia,
a household. = L. famulus, a servant ; Oscan famel, a servant (White) ;
cf. Oscan faamat, he dwells. Der. famili-ar (from L. familidris),
also found in ME. in the form famuler, familier (from OF. familier),
Chaucer, C. T. prol. 215 ; famili-ar-i-ty, -ar-ise.
FAMINE, severe hunger. (F.—L.) ME. famine, famyne;
Chaucer, C. T. 12385 (C 451).—F. famine. —Late L. *famina, un-
recorded, but evidently a barbarous derivative from L. famés, hunger.
Der. fam-ish, Merch. of Ven. ii. 2. 113; formed with suffix -isk by
analogy with langw-ish, demol-ish, and the like, from the base fam- in
OF. a-fam-er, later affamer, to famish. This base fam- is from L.
fam-és, hunger (F. faim).
» an instrument for blowing. (L.) Used by Chaucer to
describe a quintain; C. T. 16991 (H 42). AS. fann; Matt. iii. 12.
Not a native word, but borrowed from Late L. vannus, for L. uannus,
a fan; whence also Ἐς van. See Wan (2). Brugmann, i. ὃ
Der. fan, verb ; fann-er, fan-light, -palm.
FANATIC, religiously insane. (F.—L.) ‘ Fanatick Egypt;’
Milton, P. L. i. 480, And in Minsheu (1627).—F. fanatique, ‘mad,
frantick ;’ Cot.=L. fandticus, (1) belonging to a temple, (2) inspired
by a divinity, filled with enthusiasm.—L. faxum, a temple; see
Fane. Der. fanatic-al, -al-ly, -ism. J] On this word see a passage
in Fuller, Mixt Contemplations on these Times, § 50 (Trench).
FANCY, imagination, whim. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. Temp.
iv. 122; v.59. Acorruption of the fuller form fantasy, Merry Wives,
ν. 5. 55. ME. fantasie, Chaucer, C. T. 6098 (Ὁ 516). P. Plowman,
A. prol. 36. OF. fantasie, ‘the fancy, or fantasie;’ Cot.—Late L.
fantasia, or phantasia. = Gk. φαντασία, a making visible, imagination.
-Gk. φαντάζειν, to make visible; extended from φαίνειν, to bring
to light, shine; cf. φάος, light, φάε, he appeared. See Phantom.
Der. fancy, verb; fanci-ful. Doublet, fantasy (obsolete) ; whence
fantastic (Gk. pavtactikés), -al,-al-ly. From same root, epi-phany, q.v.
FANDANGO, a Spanish dance. (Span.) Dr. Pegge has a note
on it in his Anonymiana, cent. viii. § 30 (1818).=—Span. fandango,
‘a dance used in the West Indies;’ Pineda. Source uncertain; said
to be of negro origin. See Notes on Eng. Etym., p. 88.
FANE, a temple. (L.) In Shak. Cor. i. 10. 20.—L. fanum, a
temple; from an earlier form *fasnom; cf. Oscan fisnam, a temple,
<4
δ:
FARRIER
allied to L. festus, festive. See Feast.
fan-al-ic, q. Vv.
FANFARE, a flourish of trumpets. (F.—Span.) Spelt famphar ;
Montgomerie, Misc. Poems, xliiil. 40 (c. 1605).—F. fanfare, ‘a
sounding of trumpets;’ Cot.—Span. fanfarria, bluster, loud vaunting;
a word ofimitative origin. Der. fanfarr-on-ade, from F. fanfarronade,
which from Span. fanfarronada, bluster, boasting; from Span. fan-
farron, blustering, fanfarrear, to hector, bluster, boast.
FANG, a tusk, claw, talon. (E.) In Shak. K. John, ii. 353.
ME. fang, a capture; Wallace, xi. 1219. So also AS. fang =a taking ;
A.S. Chron. an. 1016. However, the sb. is derived from the verb.
AS. *fohan, to seize, only in use in the contracted form fon, of which
the pt. t. is feng, and the pp. gefangen; the pp. alone survived,
whence an infin, mood faxg-(ex) was evolved in dialects. Du. vangen,
to catch; Icel. fa, to get, seize, pp. fenginn; fang, a catch of fish,
&c.; Dan. faae, to get; Swed. fa, to get, catch; fang, a catch; Goth.
fihan, to catch; G. fangen, to catch; fang, a catch, also, a fang,
talon. B. All from a Teut. verb *fanhan-, pt. t. *fefang, pp. *fang-
anoz; allied to L. pangere, to fasten, fix. Brugmann, i. ὃ 421.
FANTASY, FANTASTIC; see Fancy.
FANTIGUE, FANTEAGUE, a state of excitement, fit of ill
humour. (F.—L.) Spelt fantique in 1825. Perhaps suggested by the
F. fanatique, ‘in a frenzie;? Cot.—L. fandticus; see Fanatic.
4 For the loss of the second syllable, cf. frantic, frenzy.
FAQUIR, FAKTR, a religious mendicant. (F.—Arab.) ‘Not
there the Fakir's self will wait ;’ Byron, The Giaour; § 11.—F. faguir,
fakir, — Arab. fagir, one of a religious order of mendicants ; lit. ‘ poor,
indigent ;’ Rich. Dict., p. 1096. See Fakeer in Yule.
FAR, remote. (E.) ME. fer, Chaucer, C. T. 496 (A 494); feor,
Layamon, 543. AS. feor; Grein, 1. 289.44Du. ver; Icel. fyarri;
Swed. fjerran, adv. afar; Dan. fyern, adj. and adv.; G. fern; Goth.
fairra,adyv. B. All allied to Gk. πέραν, beyond; Skt. paras, beyond ;
para-, far, distant. SeeFare. Der. far-th-er, far-th-est; see Farther.
FARCE, akind of comedy. (F.—L.) The orig. sense is ‘ stuffing ;”
hence, a jest inserted into comedies. ‘These counterfaityng plaiers of
Jarces and mummeries;’ Lord Berners, Golden Book, c. 14. Hence
Ben Jonson speaks of ‘ other men’s jests,... to farce their scenes
withal ;” Induction to Cynthia’s Revels. =F. farce, ‘a fond and dis-
solute play ;... any stuffing in meats;’ Cot.—F. farcer, to stuff. =—L.
farcire, to stuff.+-Gk. φράσσειν, to shut in. See Force (2). Der.
farc-ic-al ; and see frequent.
FARCY, a disease of horses, somewhat like glanders. (F. —L.)
‘ Farsye, a sore upon a beast or horse ;’ Huloet (1552). Also called
farcin, and even fashion or fashions. =F. farcin, ‘the farsy in a horse;’
Cot.<L. farciminum, a disease in horses and other animals. =—L.
farci-re, to cram, stuff (above). See Tam. Shrew, iii. 2. 53.
FARDEL,a pack, bundle. (F.—Span.— Arab.) In Shak. Hamlet,
iii. 1.76. ME. fardel, Rom. of the Rose, 5683 ; Cursor Mundi, 5004.
“ΟΕ. fardel, the true old form of fardeau, ‘a fardle, burthen, truss,
pack ;’ Cot. Cf. Low L. fardellus, a burden, pack, bundle. Fard-el is
a dimin. of F. farde, a burden, still in use in the sense of ‘ bale of coffee.’
= Span. (and Port.) fardel, fardo, a pack, bundle. B. Origin uncertain;
but prob. from Arabic. Devic (Supp. to Littré) cites Arab. fardah,
a package.
FARE, to travel, speed. (E.) ME. faren, Chaucer, C. T. 10802
(F 488). AS. faran, Grein, i. 264.-4-Du. varen; Icel. and Swed. fara;
Dan. fare; OHG. faran, G. fahren; Goth. faran, to go. Teut. type
*faran- (pt. τ. *for).4-Gk. πορεύομαι, I travel, go; πόρος, a way
through; περάω, I pass through; L. ex-per-ior, I pass through,
experience; Skt. pv, to bring over. —4/ PER, to pass over or through.
Der. fare-well=may you speed well, ME. fare wel, Chaucer, C. T.
2762; and see far, fer-ry; also thorough-fare, a passage through; wel-
fare, successful journey or state. From the same root are ex-per-ience,
ex-per-iment, port (1), q.v., per-il.
FARINA, ground corn. (L.) The adj. farinaceous is in Sir T.
Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 15. § 2.. The sb. occurs in 1707. —L.
farina, meal. =L. far, a kind of grain, spelt; cognate with E. Barley,
.v. Brugmann, i. § 180. Der. farin-ac-e-ous (L. farinaceus).
FARM, ground let for cultivation. (F.—L.) ME. ferme, Chaucer,
C. 1.253. ‘Hesette..[h]islondesto ferme ;’ Rob. of Glouc., p. 378;
1.7773. [Cf.also AS. feorm, a feast, entertainment; Luke, xiv. 12, 16;
also food, hospitality, property, use; see Grein, i. 293.] AF. ferme,
Stat. Realm, i. 140 (1300).—OF, ferme, a farm; ἃ ferme, on lease.
Late L. frma,a feast, a farm, a tribute; also, a lasting oath. = L. firmus,
firm, durable. See Firm. For the curious use of the word, see
jirma in Ducange. Der. farm, verb; -er, -ing.
FARRAGO, a confused mass. (L.) ‘That collection, or farago
of prophecies ;’ Howell’s Letters, b. iii. let. 22 (1648). —L. farrago,
mixed fodder for cattle, 2 medley.—L. far, spelt (gen. farr-is). See
Farina.
FARRIER, a shoer of horses. (F.—L.) Lit. a worker in iron.’
Brugmann, ii. § 66. Der.
FARROW
Spelt ferrer in Holland's Pliny, b. xxxiii. c. 11. Cotgrave has:
‘mareschal ferrant, a farrier.’ =—OF’. ferrier, a farrier (Godefroy). — L.
Jerrarius, a blacksmith, worker in iron.—L. ferrum, iron. See
Ferreous. Der. farrier-y.
FARROW, to produce a litter of pigs. (E.) ‘That thair sow
ferryit wes thar’=that their sow had farrowed, lit. was farrowed ;
Barbour’s Bruce, xvii. 701. Also i-varjed, pp. (from infin. varjen),
Ayenb. of Inwyt, p. 61,1. 29. (Cf. Dan. fare, to farrow.] Formed,
as a verb, from ME. fark, which means (not a litter, but) a single pig.
The word is scarce, but the pl. faren occurs in King Alisaunder, 2441.
AS. fearh, a pig; the pl. fearas occurs in A&If. Gloss., ed. Somner,
Nomina Ferarum, explained by ‘ suilli, vel porcelli, vel nefrendes.’ Ἐ
Du. varken (dimin.), a pig; OHG. farah, a pig; whence ἃ. dimin.
ferk-el, a piz.L. porcus, a pig. See Pork.
FARTHER, FARTHEST, more far, most far. (E.) In Shak.
Ant. and Cleop. ii. 1. 31; iii. 2. 26. These forms are due to a mistake,
and to confusion with further, furthest ; see Further. Not found
at all early; the ME. forms are fer, ferre, ferrer, and ferrest. ‘Than
walkede I ferrer;’ P. Plowman’s Crede, 207; ‘The ferrest in his
parisch ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 496 (A 494). Ferther first appears as an
ady.; Cursor Mundi, 6831 (ab. 1300), Ferthest first appears as an
adj.; P. Plowman, B. v. 239 (ab. 1377).
FARTHING, the fourth part of a penny. (E.) ME. ferthing,
ferthynge; P. Plowman, B. iv. 54. AS. feording, ferpyng, Matt. v. 26
(Royal and Hatton MSS.) ; older form féordling (Camb. MS.).—AS.
Jéord-a, fourth; with dimin. suffix -ing or -ling (=-l-ing). Allied to
AS. féower, four. See Four.
FARTHINGALE, FARDINGALE, a hooped petticoat.
(F.—Span.—L.) In Shak. Two Gent. ii. 7. 51; a corrupt form.=
MF. verdugalle, ‘a vardingall;’ Cot. Also vertugalle, ‘a vardingale;’
vertugadin, ‘a little vardingale ;’ id. Span. verdugado, a fardingale ;
so called from its hoops, the literal sense being ‘ provided with hoops.’
= Span. verdugo, a young shoot of a tree, a rod. = Span. verde, green. =
L. uiridis, green, See Verdant. @ The derivation from ‘ virtue-
guard’ is a yery clumsy invention or else a joke. The word was well
understood ; hence the term ‘his verdugo-ship’ in Ben Jonson, The
Alchemist, iii. 2 (Face).
FASCINATEH, to enchant. (L.) ‘ Fascination is ever by the eye;’
Bacon, Nat. Hist. ὃ 944. ‘ To fascinate or bewitch;’ id. Essay 9, Of
Envy. =L. fascindtus, pp. of fascinare, to enchant.=L. fascinum, a
spell. Der. fascinat-ion.
FASCINE, a bundle of rods. (F.—L.) First found ab, 1688 ; and
still a new term in 1711; see Spectator, no. 165. ‘ Fascines, faggots
or bavins;’ Kersey, ed.1715.—F. fascine, ‘a faggot;’ Cot. —L. fascina,
a bundle of sticks. = L. fasci-s,a bundle. Der. From the same source,
fascés, pl. of L. fascis; fasct-c-ul-ate ; fess.
FASG, to trouble, annoy, vex. (F.—L.) Common in Northen
dialects; see E. D. D.—MF. fascher (F. facher), to displease, vex;
Cot. = Folk L. *fasticare, to show arrogance; from L. fastus, arrogance
(Hatzfeld).
FASHION, the make or cut of a thing. (F.—L.) ME. faciun,
Cursor Mundi, 1. 22322; fasoun, Rom. of the Rose, 5513; fassoun,
Dunbar, Thistle and Rose, st. 12.—OF. faceon, fagon, form, shape. =
L. factidnem, acc. of factio,a making. See Faction. Doublet,
faction, Der. fashion, verb, -able, -abl-y.
FAST (1), firm, fixed. (E.) ME. fast, Ormulum, 1602; as adv.
faste, Chaucer, C. T.721 (A719). AS. fest, Grein, i. 271.4 Du. vast ;
Dan. and Swed. fast; Icel. fastr; OHG. vast; G. fest. Teut. type
*fastoz. Cf. Armenian hast, firm. Brugmann,ii.§79. Der. fast,verb
(below) ; fast-en, q.v.; fast-ness,q.v. Φ The phrase ‘ fast asleep’ is
Scandinavian ; Icel. sofa fast, to be fast asleep; see Fast (3).
FAST (2), to abstain from food. (E.) ME. fasten, Wyclif, Matt.
vi. 16. AS. festan, Matt. vi. 16.4-Du. vastex ; Dan. faste; Swed. and
Icel. fasta; Goth. fastan; (ἃ. fasten. B. A very early derivative from
Teutonic fast-, firm, in the sense to be firm, observe, be strict. See
Fast (1). Der. fast, sb., fast-er, fast-ing, fast-day.
FAST (3), quick, speedy. (Scand.) Merely a peculiar use of
fast, firm, Chaucer has faste= quickly; C. T. 16150 (G 682). The
peculiar usage is Scandinavian, and arose in the adverb. Cf. Icel.
drekka fast, to drink hard; sofa fast, to be fast asleep ; fylgja fast, to
follow fast ; fastr ὃ verkum, hard at work; leita fast eptir, to urge,
press hard after. The development is through the senses ‘ closely,’
‘urgently.’ See Fast (1).
FASTEN, to secure. (E.) ME. fastnen, festuen; Chaucer has
festne, prol. 195. AS. festnian, to make firm or fast ; Grein, i. 273.
= AS. fwst, fast, firm. See Fast (1). Der. fasten-ing. Φ4{ Observe
that fasten stands for fastn- in AS. festu-ian, so that the -en is truly
formative, not a sign of the infin. mood or a late addition.
FASTIDIOUS, over-nice. (L.) Orig. in the sense of ‘causing
disgust,’ or ‘loathsome ;’ Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, Ὁ. i. c. 9; see
Trench (Select Glossary). —L. fastididsus, disdainful, disgusting. = L.
FAVOUR
fastidium, loathing ; for *fastu-tidium.=L. fastus, arrogance; and
tedium, disgust. See Dare and Tedious. 4 ‘Bréal conjectures
(Zeitschrift, xx. 79), I think rightly, that L. fastus (for *farstus) and
fastidium (for *fasti-tidium) belong to this root,’ viz. DHERS, to
dare; Curtius, i. 318. Der. fastidious-ly, -ness.
FASTNESS, a stronghold. (E.) ME. festnes, Metrical Psalter,
xvii. 2. (Spec. of Eng., part ii. p. 25.) ‘The same as ME. /fastnesse,
certainty, strength; Wyclif, Gen. xli. 32 (early version). AS. festnes,
fwstnis, the firmament; Gen. i. 6.—AS. fest, firm; with suffix -nes,
See Fast (1).
FAT (1), stout, gross. (E.) ME. fat, Chaucer, prol. 200, 290. AS.
fet, fett, orig.a pp., contracted from *féted, fatted, enriched ; Grein,
1. 273.-OHG. feizit (G. feist), pp. of a Teut. verb * faitjan-, to make
fat, formed from a Teut. adj. * faitoz, fat, which is represented by Icel.
feitr, fat (Swed. fet, Dan. fed). B. Related to Gk. πίων, mapds, fat ; Skt.
pivan, fat. Der. fat, sb., fatt-y, fatt-i-ness, fat-ness, Rom. of the Rose,
2686 ; fatt-en, where the -en is a late addition, by analogy with fasten,
&c., the true verb being to fat, as in Luke, xv. 23, Chaucer, C. T. 7462
(Ὁ 1880) ; fati-en-er, -en-ing ; fat-ling (=fat-l-ing), Matt. xxii. 4.
FAT (2), a vat. (North E.) Joel, ii. 24, iii. 13. See Vat.
FATE, destiny. (F.—L.) ME. fate, Chaucer, Troil. v.1552.—OF.
fat, fate; not common (Godefroy). = L. fatum, what is spoken, fate. = L.
fatus, pp. of fari, to speak. Allied to Gk. φημί (Doric papi), I say.
BHA.) Brugmann, i. § 187. 4 Perhaps E. fate was simply made
from the common OF. fatal (whence ME. fatal, Chaucer, C. T. 4681,
B 261) in order to render L. fatum. Der. fat-al, -ed; fatal-i-ty, -ism;
Say, 4.ν.: fairy, q.v.
FATHER, a male parent. (E.) ME. fader, Chaucer, C. T. 8098
(E 222). [The spelling fader is almost universal in ME. ; father
209
occurs in the Bible of 1551, and is due to dialectal influence, which
changed -der to -ther.| AS. feder, Matt. vi. 9.4+Du. vader; Dan.
and Swed. fader ; Icel. fadir ; Goth. fadar; Ὁ. vater.4-L. pater; Gk.
πατήρ; Pers. pidar; Skt. pitr; Irish athair. Idg. type *pater-. Der.
father, verb; father-hood, -less, -ly ; also father-land, imitated from the
Dutch by I. D’Israeli; see his Curiosities of Literature, Hist. of New
Words. But it occurs earlier, in 1623.
FATHOM, a measure of 6 feet. (E.) Properly, the breadth
reached to by the extended arms. ME. fadme, Chaucer, C. T.,
A 2918; uedme, Layamon, 27686. AS. fedm, the space reached by
the extended arms, a grasp, embrace; Grein, i. 268. Du. vadsm, a
fathom ; Icel. fadmr, a fathom ; Dan. favn, an embrace, fathom ;
Swed. famn, embrace, bosom, arms; ἃ. faden (OHG. fadam), a
fathom, athread. Cf. L. patére, to lie open, extend; patulus, spreading.
See Patent. Der. fathom, vb. (AS./adman, Grein); fathom-able, -les:.
FATIGUE, weariness. (F.—L.) ‘ Fatigue, weariness ;’ Blount 5
Gloss. ed. 1674. ‘ Fatigate, to weary ;’ id. (obsolete). = OF. fatigue,
“weariness;’ (οἵ. “Οἷς fatiguer, to weary; id.eL. fatizare, to
weary (whence fatigate, in Shak. Cor. ii. 2.121). Connected with
L. fessus, wearied, fatiscere, to gape open (Bréal) ; and perhaps with
OLat. adfatim, sufficiently. Der. fatigue, verb. @] In French, the
sb. is from the verb; in E., the reverse.
FATUOUS, silly. (L.) In Donne, Devotions, ed. 1625, p. 25
(Todd). —L. fatu-us, silly, feeble; with suffix τοῖς, for L. -us. Der.
Satu-i-ty ; in-fatu-ate.
FAUCKHS, the upper part of the throat. (L.) L. pl. faucés; of
uncertain origin; but prob. allied to Gk. χάος, See Chaos.
FAUCET, a spigot, vent. (F.—L.) In Wyclif, Job, xxxii. 10. —
OF. (and F.) fausset, ‘a faucet,’ Cot.; also spelt faulset, id. Origin
uncertain; but perhaps from OF, faulser, to falsify, to forge; whence
‘ faulser un escu, to pierce or strike through a shield, to make a breach
into it;’ id.=—L. falsare, to falsify.=—L. falsus, false. See False.
q See OF. falser, to pierce; Supp. to Godefroy,
FAULT, a failing, defect. (F.—L.) ME. faute, with the sense
‘lack,’ Cursor Mundi, 4504.—OF. faute,a fault. The/ is due to the
insertion of / in the 15th century; thus we find ‘for faulte of trust ;”
Lord Rivers, Dictes of Philosophers, pr. by Caxton, fol. 20 b, 1. 4;
and Cotgrave has: ‘ Faulte, a fault.’ (Cf. Span., Port., and Ital. fala,
a defect, want.]—OF. faute, a fault. — Folk-L. *fallita, a defect ; fem.
of *fallitus, new pp. of L. fallere, to beguile; γαῖ, to err. See Fail.
Der. fault-y, -i-ly, -i-ness ; fault-less, -less-ly, -less-ness.
FAUN, a rural (Roman) deity. (L.) ME. faun, Chaucer, C. T.
2930 (A 2928).—L. Faunus. Perhaps from L. fauere, to be pro-
pitious ; pp. fautus. See Favour. Der. faun-a.
FAUTEUIL, anarm-chair. (F.—Low L.—G.) Mod. F. fauteuil ;
ME. fauldetueil (Cot.).— Low L. faldistolium. See Faldstool.
FAVOUR, kindliness, grace. (F.—L.) ME. favour (with u=v),
King Alisaunder, 2844.—OF. favour, F. faveur, ‘favour;’ Cot.—L.
fauorem, acc. of fauor, favour.—L. fauére, to befriend ; orig. to
venerate. Der. favour, verb; favour-able, P. Plowman, B. iii. 153;
-abl-y, -able-ness ; also favour-ite, Shak. Much Ado, iii. 1. 9, orig.
feminine, from OF. favorite, fem. of favorit or favori, favoured (Cot.) ;
Pp
210 FAWN
JSavour-it-iem. Also favonian, gentle; from Fauonius, the west wind ;
from fau-ére, to favour. Brugmann, i. § 664. > On the phr. curry
favour, see Curry.
FAWN (1), to cringe to, rejoice servilely over. (E.) ME. faunen,
Jauhnen ; P. Plowman, B. xv. 2953; C. xviii. 31. AS. fahnian,
fagnian, to rejoice; variants of fegenian, to fawn; from fegen, fain,
glad.+Icel. farna, to rejoice, be fain; fagna einum, to welcome one,
receive with good cheer. See Fain. Der. fawn-er, -ing.
. FAWN (2), a young deer. (F.—L.) ME. fawn, Chaucer, Book
of the Duchess, 429.—OF. fan, faon, ‘a fawne,’ Cot.; earlier feon
(Supp. to Godefroy).— Late L. *fetdnem, acc. of *fétd, a young one
(not found), an extension of L. fezus, offspring. See Fetus.
FAY, a fairy. (F.—L.) See the ‘Song by two /faies’ in Ben
Jonson’s Oberon. = F. fée, a fairy, elf; cf. Port. fada, Ital. fata, a fay.
-=Late L. fata, a fairy, ‘in an inscription of Diocletian’s time’
(Brachet); lit. ‘a fate, goddess of destiny.’=L. fata, pl. of fatum,
fate: later used as f. sing. See Fate. Der. fai-ry, q.v.
FEALTY, true service. (F.—L.) ME. feauté, Rob. of Brunne,
tr. of Langtolt, p. 3; fewté, King Alisaunder, 2911. [The spelling
fealty is later in E., though a better form; see feaulté in Cotgrave ;
but AF. fealté occurs in Gaimar, 1. 3719.|—OF. fealté, feelteit,
fidelity. =—L. fidélitatem, acc. of fidélitas. See Fidelity, of which
feally is a doublet.
FEAR, terror. (E.) ME. fere, P. Plowman, B. xiii. 162; better
spelt feer. AS. fer, a sudden peril, danger, panic, fear ; Grein, i. 277.
Orig. used of the danger of travelling. = AS. f#r-, 3rd stem of faran,
to go, travel.Icel. far, bale, harm, mischief; OHG. fara, var,
treason, danger, fright, whence G. gefakr, danger; Du. gevaar,
danger. Cf. also L. periculum, danger, experior, I go through,
experience ; also Gk. πεῖρα, an attempt, from mepaw, I go through.
- + PER, to pass through, travel; whence E. fare, verb. See Fare
and Peril. Der. fear, verb, often used actively =to frighten, terrify,
as in Shak. Tam. Shrew, i. 2. 211; fear-ful, -ful-ly, -ful-ness; -less,
-less-ly, -less-ness,
FEASIBLE, easy to be done. (F.—L.) «Τὶς feasible;’? Mas-
singer, Emp. of the East, i. 2. 76. [Also feasable.]}—MF. faisible,
faisable, ‘ feasible, doable ;’ Cot.—F. fais-, as in fats-ant, pres. pt. of
faire, to do.—L. facere, to do. See Fact. Der. feasibl-y, feasible-
ness, feasibil-i-ty.
FEAST, a festival, holiday. (F.—L.) ME. feste; Ancren Riwle,
p. 22.—OF. jeste (F. féte).—Late L. festa, fem.—L. festa, lit.
‘festivals ;’ pl. of festum, a feast, orig. neuter of festus, joyful.
Allied to Fair (2). Der. feast, verb; see festal, féte.
FEAT, a deed well done. (F.—L.) ME. feet, feite, faite; P.
Plowman, B. i. 184.— AF. fet, Statutes of the Realm, i. 47 (1278);
OF. (and F.) fait. —L. factum, a deed. See Fact, of which feat is
a doublet; and see feature.
FEATHER, a plume. (E.) ME. /ether, Chaucer, C. T. 2146
(A 2144). AS. feder; Grein, i. 278.4 Du. veder; Dan. fieder ; Swed.
fjader ; Icel. “δε; G. feder, + L. penna (for *pet-sna); Gk. πτερόν,
a wing; Skt. patra-, a feather. Teut. type fedra, f.; Idg. type petra.
- ν᾽ PET, to fly, fall. See Pen. Der. feather, verb; feather-y.
FEATURE, make, fashion, shape, face. (F.—L.) ME. feture.
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 17070 (H_ 121).—AF. feture, Havelok, 743; OF.
faiture, fashion. = L. factira, formation, work.—L. facere, to make,
See Fact, Feat. Der. featur-ed, feature-less.
FEBRIGE, relating to fever. (F.—L.) Used by Harvey (Todd’s
Johnson). =F. febrile. —L. *febrilis (not in Lewis’s Dict. ), relating to
fever.—L. febris,a fever. Der. febrifuge (F. fébrifuge, L. febrifugia) ;
from L. fugare, to put to flight.
FEBRUARY, the second month. (L.) Englished from L.
Februarius, the month of expiation ; named from februa, neut. pl., a
Roman festival of expiation celebrated on the 15th of this month. =
L, februum, purification, a word of Sabine origin ; whence also
februare, to expiate.
FECKLESS, ineffective. (F.—L.; with E. suffix.) Formerly
fectless, and short for effectless; see Effect. ‘A jfectless arrogant
conceit of their greatnesse ;’ K. James I., Basilikon Doron, § 17.
FECULENT, relating to feces ; see Feces.
FECUNDITY, fertility. (F.—L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
ME. fecundité, Palladius on Husbandry, bk. i. st. 9, 1. 57.—OF.
fecondité (Cot.), with o altered to uw to bring it nearer Latin.—L.
fecunditatem, acc. of fécunditas, fruitfulness.—L. fecundus, fruitful ;
from the same source as Fetus, q. y.
FEDERAL, belonging to a covenant. (F.—L.) In Kersey’s
Dict., ed. 1715. [Wyclif has federed=bound by covenant, Proy.
xvii. 9.]—F. fédéral. Formed as if from L. *federdalis, from feder-,
for */edes-, stem of faedus, a treaty, covenant; akin to L. fides, faith ;
see Fidelity. Der. feder-ate, from L. federatus, pp. of federare,
to bind by treaty; federat-ive ; also con-federate.
FEE, a grant of land, fief, payment. (k.—OHG.?) ΜΕ. fee.
FELLOW
| There are two words of this form; (1) property, cattle, AS. feoh, féo,
which is obsolete; and (2), fief, payment, which alone survives and
is here considered. Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 63, has:
‘ynto tham tuo he gaf Gryffyns /eez,’ i.e. estates, fiefs. Cf. ‘ Held
- . Normundie in fe;’ 1.6. by feudal homage; id. p. 86.—AF. fee ;
as in Liber Custumarum, p. 469: ‘come soun droit et soun fee,’ as
his right and his fee; OF. fé, fié, jiu, fie, fief (see fief in Supp. to
Godefroy). Late L. fevum, a fief (Ducange). Prob. from OHG.
fehu, payment, wages, a particular use of fehu, property (G. vieh). +
Du. vee, Icel. fé, Dan. fe, Swed. μὰ, Goth. faihu ; L. pecus; Skt. pacu-,
cattle. (4/ PEK.) Also cognate with AS, feok, property (above).
Doublet, fief. Der. fee, verb; fee-simple, Chaucer, C. T. 321.
FEEBLE, weak. (F.—L.) ME. feble, Ancren Riwle, p. 54;
Havelok, 323.—AF. feble, Stat. Realm, i. 273; OF. foible, oldest
form fleble (Godefroy); cf. Ital. fevole, feeble, where i is for /, as
usual in Italian. —L. flébilis, mournful, tearful, doleful.—L. flé-re, to
weep. Brugmann, ii. ὃ 590. Der. feebi-y, feeble-ness. Doublet,
foible.
FEED, to take food. (E.) ME. feden; Chaucer, C.T.146. AS.
fédan; Grein, i. 284. (For fodian, by vowel-change from 6 to é@.]
-- AS. fod, food. So also Du. voeden, Icel. feda, Swed. foda, Dan.
féde, Goth. fodjan, OHG. fuotan. Teut. type *fodjan-. See Food.
Der. feed-er.
FEEL, to perceive by the touch. (E.) ME. felen, Chaucer, C. T.
2807 (A 2805). AS. félan, Grein, 1. 285.4Du. voelen; G. fiihlen;
OHG. fuolan, Teut. type *foljan-; from *fol-, 2nd grade of Teut.
base *fal- ; whence Icel. fal-ma, to grope; cf. AS. fol-m, palm of the
hand, L. pal-ma. Allied to Palm (1). Der. feel-er, -ing.
FEEZE, FEAZE, PHEESE, to drive away. (E.) Properly
to drive away, put to flight ; hence, to worry, fret, punish; see ‘Tam.
Shrew, Ind. i. 1; Troilus, ii. 3. 215; gloss. to York Mysteries, and
Stratmann. OMerc. fésian, to drive away; Wulfstan, ed. Napier,
p- 162, 1. 18; AS. fysian.4-Swed. fsa, to drive away; Norw. /dysa.
Teut. type *faus-jan-.
FEIGN, to pretend. (F.—L.) ME. feignen, feynen, feinen, Rob.
of Glouc. p. 336, 1. 6906.—F. feindre, to feign; pres. pt. fergn-ant.=—
L. fingere, to feign. See Figure. Der. feign-ed-ly, -ed-ness; also
feint (in Kersey, ed. 1715), from F. feinte, fem. of feint, pp. of feindre ;
and see faint, fiction.
FELDSPAR, a kind of mineral. (G.) First in 1757; with the
spelling feldspath. Corrupted from (ἃ. feldspath, lit. ‘ field-spar.’ =
G. feld, a field, cognate with E. field; and spath, spar; see Field
and Spar (2).
FELICITY, happiness. (F.—L.) ME. felicitee, Chaucer, C. T.
7985 (E109).— OF. felicité.— L. felicitatem, acc. of félicitds, happiness.
=L. félici-, decl. stem of félix, happy, fruitful; from the same root
as feline (below). Der. /felicit-ous, -ous-ly; also felicit-ate, a coined
word first used as a pp., as in King Lear, i. 1. 76; -at-ion.
FELINE, pertaining to the cat. (L.) In Johnson’s Dict. First
used in 1681. —L. /élinus, feline. —L. féles, a cat; prob. allied to L.
felare, to suckle, and to Gk. θῆλυς, female (see Bréal).
FELL (1), to cause to fall, cut down. (E.) ME. fellen ; ‘it wolde
felle an oke;’ Chaucer, C. T. 1704 (A 1702). OMerc. fellan, AS.
fyllan, Grein, i. 360; formed, as a causal, by vowel-change, from
OMere. fallan, AS. feallan, to fall. Du. vellen, causal of vallen ; Dan.
falde, caus. of falde; Swed. filla, caus. of falla; Icel. fella, cans. of
falla; G. fallen, caus. of fallen. Teut. type *falljan-. See Fall.
Der. fell-er.
FELL (2), askin. (E.) ME. fel, Wyclif, Job, ii. 4 (early version).
AS. fel, fell, Grein, i. 278.4 Du. vel ; Icel. fell (App. to Dict. p. 773);
Goth. -fll, skin, in the comp. thrutsfill, leprosy ; MHG, vel. 4-L. pellis;
Gk. πέλλα. Der. fell-monger,a dealer in skins. Doublet, pell. Der.
il-22.
/ PELL (3), cruel, fierce. (F.—Late L.—L.?) ΜΕ. fel, Chaucer,
C. T. 7584 (D 2002). —OF. fel, cruel, furious (Godefroy) ; Walloon
fel, cruel, furious ; Ital. /ello, crnel.— Late L. fello, felo, a malefactor,
felon. Perhaps from L. fe/, gall; cf. Du. dial. fel, sharp, biting, acrid
(Molema). Closely connected with felon ; see Felon. Der. fel-ly,
fell-ness.
FELL (4), a hill. (Scand.) ME. fel, Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight, 723.—Icel. fjall, feli. a mountain; Dan. fjald; Swed. fall.
B. Probably allied to ἃ. fels, a rock (Kluge). Cf. Gk. πέλλα, a stone.
FELLAH, a peasant, tiller of the soil. (Arab.) First used in 1743 5
pl. fellahin. = Arab. fellah (Devic), fallah (Rich. Dict. p. 1098), a
farmer, villager, peasant. — Arab. root fala/a, to plough, tillthe ground.
FELLO#, rim of a wheel; see Felly.
FELLOW, a partner, associate. (Scand.) ME. felawe, Chaucer,
C. T. 397 (A 395) ; felaze, King Horn, ed. Lumby, 996. = Icel. félagi,
a partner in a ‘ felag.’=Icel. féJag, companionship, association, lit. ‘a
laying together of property ;’ as if ‘ fee-lay.’ = Icel. /é, property, cog-
nate with AS. feohk, cattle, property, L. pecus; and dag, a laying
FELLY, FELLOE
together. See Law. Der. fellow-ship, spelt feolausch*pe in the Ancren
Riwle, p. 160.
FELLY, FELLOE, part of the rim of a wheel. (E.) In Shak.
Hamlet, ii. 2.517. ME. felwe, Prompt. Parv.p. 154. AS. felge, also
felg, fem. sb.,a felly. ‘Forpam fe zlces spacan bid Sfer ende test on
pere nzefe, Sper on dre felge’ = because the one end of each spoke is
fixed in the nave, the other in the felly; Boethius, c. 39, sect. 7 (lib.
iv. pr. 6).-Du. velg; MDu. velge; Dan. felge; G. felge; cf. Low
G. falge, a felly. B.So named from the pieces of the rim being put
together; from Teut. verb *fe/han-, to fit together ; found in this sense
in OHG. felahan, to put together, also, to hide; allied to Goth. jilkan,
to hide, and Icel. fe/a, to hide, preserve. The AS. féolan (for *feolhan)
means to stick, to be joined to.
FELON, a wicked person. (F.—Late L.—L.?) ME. felun, Floriz,
ed, Lumby, 247, 329; felonie (=felony), id. 331.—OF. felon, a traitor,
wicked man. = Late L. fellanem, felonem, acc. of fello, felo, a traitor,
rebel. See Fell (3). Der. felon-y, -i-ous, -i-ous-ly, -i-ous-ness.
FELSPAR, the same as Feldspar, q. v.
FELT, cloth made by matting wool together. (E.) ME. felt,
Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 1689. AS. felt, Voc. 120. 3.4-Du. vil/;
Low G., Swed., Dan. fit; G. filz. Prob. allied to G. falzen, to groove,
to fit together, See Anvil. Der. felt, vb., -er, -ing. Also filler, q.v.
FELUCCA, a kind of small ship. (Ital.—Arab.) In use in the
Mediterranean Sea. Spelt felucco ; Sandys’ Travels (1632) ; p. 274.
wltal. feluca; cf. Span. faluca.—Arab. fulk, a ship; Rich. Dict.
Ῥ- 1e99. (See Devic.)
FEMALE, of the weaker sex. (F.—L.) An accommodated spell-
ing, to make it look more like male. ME. Semele, Gower, C. A. ii.
45, bk. iv. 1301 ; P. Plowman, B. xi. 331.—OF. femelle, ‘ female ;’
Cot.=—L. fémella, a young woman; dimin. of fémina, a woman. See
Feminine.
FEMININE, womanly. (F.—L.) In Shak. L.L. L. iv. 2.83;
Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, 1365.—OF. feminin, ‘feminine ;’ Cot.—L.
féemininus.\., fémina,a woman. β. Al.ied to L. félare, to suckle;
Gk. θῆλυς, female, θηλή, the breast ; Skt. dhaéri,a nurse. Brugmann,
i. § 134. Der. (from L. fémina), female, q.v.; also ef-femin-ate.
FEMORAL, belonging to the thigh. (L.) In Johnson’s Dict.—
L. femoralis; formed from femor-, stem of femur, the thigh.
| FEN, a morass, bog. (E.) ME. fen, King Alisaunder, 3965. AS.
fenn, Grein, i. 281.4Du. veex; Icel. fen; Goth. fani, mud. Teut.
type *fanjom,n. Ct. OPruss. pannean, a morass. Der. fenn-y.
FENCE, a guard, hedge. (F.—L.) Merely an abbreviation for
defence. ‘Without weapon or fense’=defence; Udall, on Luke,
c. 10. v. 3. ME. fenss, in the sense of ‘parrying with a sword,’
Barbour, Bruce, xx. 384. Cf. ‘The place... was barryd and fensyd
for the same entent ;’ Fabyan’s Chron, an. 1408-9. ‘ Fence, or de-
fence;’ Prompt. Pary. See Defence, and Fend. Der. fence, verb,
(1) to enclose, (2) to practise fencing ; fenc-ing, -ible.
FEND, to defend, ward off. (F.—L.) ME. fenden; the pt. t.
fended occurs in P. Plowman, B. xix. 46, C. xxii. 46, where some
MSS. read defended. Fend is a mere abbreviation of defend, q: ν.
Der. fend-er,(1), a metal guard for fire; (2) a buffer to deaden a blow.
FENIAN, one of an Irish brotherhood for promoting revolution.
Irish.) From Olrish Féxe, one of the names of the ancient popula-
tion of Ireland! (Windisch) ; later confused with Olrish Fiann, f., the
name of a body of warriors who defended Ireland in the time of Finn
and others (Windisch).
FENNEL, a kind of fragrant plant. (L.) ME. fenel, older form
fenkil; P. Plowman, A. v. 156 (and footnote). AS. finol, finul,
Jinugle, finule ; Cockayne’s AS. Leechdoms, iii. 326. =L. faeniculum,
feniculum, fennel. Formed, with dimin. suffixes -cu- and -l-, from L.
faeni-, for faeno-, from faenum, hay.
FENUGREEK, a plant, cultivated for its seeds. (F.—L.)
ME. venecreke, Book of St. Albans, leaf c 4, back. =F. fenugrec, ‘ the
πεῖρα, or seed, fennigreeke ;’ Cot.—L. faenum Graecum, lit, ‘ Greek
ay.’
FEOFF, to invest with a fief. (F.-OHG.) ME. feffen, feoffen;
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 9572 (E 1698) ; P. Plowman, B. ii. 78, 146 ; Rob. of
Glouc. p. 368; 1. 7585.—OF. feoffer, more commonly jieffer (Gode-
froy), to invest with a fief.m OF. fief, a fief; see Fief. “Der. Seoffee,
from OF. pp. feoffé, one invested with a fief.
» FEON, a barbed arrow-head; see Pheon.
FERACIOUS, fruitful. (L.) ‘Nurs'd on feracious Algidum ;’
Thomson, Liberty, Partiii. 363. From L. feraci-, decl. stem of ferax,
fruitful.=L. fer-re, to bear; see Bear (1).
FERAL (1), deadly, funereal. (L.) In Burton, Anat. Melan. Li.
2. 11, we have mention of < feral diseases.’ = L. férai-is, funereal.
FERAL (2), wild, uncultivated. (L.) Not common ; first in 1659.
ΤῸ fer-a, a wild beast; with suffix -a/ (F. -al, L. -alis). See
Fierce.
FERMENT, yeast, leaven, commotion, (L.)
‘ The nation is in
FESCUE 211
too high a ferment ;’ Dryden, pref. to Hind and Panther, 1.1. ME.
ferment, Palladius on Husbandry, bk. xi. 524.—L. fermentum, leaven ;
for *ferui-mentum; see Barm. = L. fervére, to boil, be agitated; see
Fervent. Der. ferment, vb., Milton, Samson, 619 ; ferment-at-ion,
Chaucer, C. T. 16285 (ἃ 817); ferment-able, -at-ive.
FERN, a plant with feathery fronds. (E.) ME, ferne, Chaucer,
C. Τ᾿ 10568 (F 254). AS. fearn, Gloss. to Cockayne’s AS, Leech-
doms.+- Du, varen; G. farnkraut = feather-plant ; Skt. parza-, a wing,
feather, leaf, tree; the orig. sense being ‘ feather ;’ just as Gk. πτέρις,
fern, is allied to πτερόν, a wing, feather. Brugmann, i. § 973. Cf. also
Lith. papartis, Kuss. paparot(e), Irish raith, W. rhedyn, tern. Stokes-
Fick, p. 226. Der. fern-y.
FEROCITY, fierceness. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627 ; fero-
cious is in Llount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. ME. ferocyté, Caxton, Hist. of
Troye, leaf 97, 1.24.—F. ferocit4, ‘ fierceness ;’ Cot. = L. ferdcitatem,
acc. of ferdcitas, fierceness.—L. ferdci-, decl. stem of ferox, fierce. =
L. ferus, wild. See Fierce. Der. /eroci-ous, an ill-coined word,
suggested by the OF. feroce, cruel ; -/y, -vess.
FERREOUS, mace ofiron. (L.) In Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors,
b. 11. ο. 3. § 4.—L. ferreus (by change of -us to -ous, as in arducus,
egregious)... ferrum, iron, Der. (from L, ferrum), ferri-fer-ous,
where -fer- is from 4/BHER, to bear; also farrier, q. v.
FERRET (1), an animal of the weasel tribe. (.—Late L.—L.)
See Shak. Jul. Caesar, i. 2. 186. MIS. forette, ferette; Prompt. Parv.
ME. (and AF.) fwret, Nominale, ed. Skeat, 736-7.—OF. furet, ‘a
ferret;’ Cot.— Late L. faré/us, fiirectus, a ferret; cf. Sard (gen. furonis),
a ferret, in Isidore (7th cent.). B. Said to be the same as Late L. fara,
a thief; from L. fur, a thief (Diez); cf. Ital. furone, a robber. ‘Der.
ferret, vetb;=MF. fureter, ‘to ferret, search, hunt ;’ Cot.
FERRET (2), a kind of silk tape. (Ital.—L.) ‘When perch-
mentiers {lacemakers] put in no ferret-silke ;’ Gascoigne, Steel Glass,
1095. [Also called floret-sidk, which is the French form; from
MF. jleuret, ‘ floret silk ;’ Cot.] Corrupted from Ital. fioreéto, pl.
fioretii, * flowrets, flourishings, a kinde of course [coarse] silke called
foret or ferret silke;’ Florio.—Ital. fiore, a flower; with dimin. suffix
-etto.—L. fldrem, acc. of flds,a flower. See Flower. J Apparently
named from its use in ornamentation. The OF. fleuret is, similarly,
the dimin. of F. fleur, a flower. The Ital. change of / to ¢ accounts
for the E. form.
FERRUGINOUS, rusty. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—
L. ferriigin-us, shorter form of ferriigineus, rusty ; with suffix τοι. πα
L. ferréigin-, stem of ferriiyo, rust ; formed from L. ferrum, iron, just as
eriigo, rust of brass, is from ws (gen. wr-is), brass. See Ferreous.
FERRULE, a metal ring at the end of a stick. (F.—L.) An
accommodated spelling, due to confusion with L. ferrum, iron.
Formerly verril. ‘Verrel, Verril,a little brass or iron ring at the
small end of a cane;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715. And so spelt in Sher-
wood’s index to Cotgrave. Also vyroll; in Palsgrave.—OF. virole,
‘an iron ring put about the end of a staff,’ &c, ; Cot. Late L, virola,
a ring to bind anything. —L. wiriola, a little bracelet. —L. uiria, a
bracelet, armlet; only found in pl. wriv.—L. uiére, to twist, bind
round,
FERRY, to transport, carry across a river. (E.) Orig. used
merely in the sense ‘to carry.” ME. ferien, to convey; the pt. t.
ferede is in Layamon, 1. 237. AS. ferian, to carry ; Grein, i. 283.
From AS. farax, to fare, go.4-Icel. ferja, to carry, ferry, from fara,
to go; Dan. ferge, Swed. firja, to terry; Goth. farjan, to travel by
ship, sail, allied to faran, to go. See Fare. Der. ferry, sb. (cf.
Icel. ferja, sb.) ; -boat, -man.
FERTILE, fruitful. (F.—L.) In Shak. Temp. i. 2. 338.—OF.
fertile, ‘fertile; ’ Cot.—L. fertilis, fruitful. — L. ferre, to bear ; cognate
with E, bear. See Bear (1). Der. fertil-i-ty, -ise.
FERULE, a rod (or bat) for punishing children. (L.) Formerly
spelt ferula, ‘They would . .. awaken him with the clappe of a
ferula ;’ Holland, tr. of Suetonius; Claudius, c. 8. Also the giant-
fennel, used as a rod. ‘There is not a plant in the world lighter...
being easie to . .. carrie, the stem serves old men instead of staves ;’
Holland, tr. of Pliny, bk. xiil. c. 22.—L. ferula, a rod; orig. the stem
of the ferula or ‘giant-fennel.’ Perhaps from ferre, to carry; see
above.
FERVENT, heated, ardent, zealous. (F.—L.) ME. feruent (with
u=v). Chaucer has fervently, Troilus, iv.1384.—OF. fervent, ‘ fervent,
hot;’ Cot.=—L. feruent-, stem of pres. pt. of feruére, to boil. Allied
to Olrish berb-aim, I boil. Der. fervent-ly, fervenc-y; also ferv-id,
Milton, P. L. v. 301, from L, feruidus, which is from feruére; -id-ly,
-id-ness ; ferv-our, \Vyclif, Deut, xxix. 20, from OF. fervor, ferveur<
L. ferudrem, acc. of feruor, heat; also fer-ment, q.v., ef-ferv-esce, αν.
FESCUE, a mote in the eye, a pointer used in reading. (F.—L.)
‘A feskue in her fist;” Two Noble Kinsmen, A. ii. sc. 2 (3). Used for
‘the mote in the eye;’ Wyclif, Matt. vii. 3, but spelt festw (the ME.
form); cf. P. Plowman, B. x. 278.—OF. festu (i. fétu), ‘a feskue;
PQ
212 FESS
astraw, rush, little stalk used for a fescue ;’ Cot. — Folk-L. *festiicum;
for L. festica, a stalk, stem, straw.
FESS, a horizontal band, in heraldry. (F.—L.) Spelt fesse in
Minsheu, and in Cotgrave, s.v. face. The pl. feces occurs about A.D.
1500; see Queen Elizabeth's Academy, &c., ed. Furnivall, p. οὗ,
1,113. Florio (1598) translates Ital. fasce by ‘ bundles. . . also fesses
in armorie.’=OF. fesse (Roquefort), spelt face in Cotgrave, and fasce
in mod. F.—L. fascia, a girth; allied to fascis, a bundle; see Fascine.
FESTAL, belonging to a feast. (F.—L.) In Johnson’s Dict.
Apparently unused in the 16th and 17th centuries; but it occurs ab.
i480 in English Gilds, ed. T. Smith, pp. 414-5, where we find ‘the
festall daie.’ = OF. festel, festal ; Godefroy. From L. fest-um, a feast ;
with suffix -alis. See Feast.
FESTSER, to rankle. (F.—L.) ME. festeren. ‘So festered aren
hus wondes’ = so festered are his wounds; P. Plowman, C. xx. 83.—
OF. festrir, to fester (Godefroy). OF. festre, feste, fisile, a festered
wound, ulcer. =L. fistula, a tube, a pipe, an ulcer, a running sore. The
L. fistula is still in use as a medical term. Hence the sb. is older than
the verb. Cf. ‘The fester thrild his bodi thurgh ;’ Cursor Mundi,
1. 11824; and Norm. dial. fé!re, a whitlow (Moisy). See Fistula.
FESTIVAL, a feast-day. (F.—L.) Properly an adj. ‘ With drapets
Jestivall;’ Spenser, Ἐς Q. ii. 9. 27.— OF. festival, festive; also, as sb.
a festival; Roquefort.—Late L. festivalis; formed, with suffix -dlis,
from L. festiuus; see below.
FESTIVE, festal. (L.) Modern; see Todd’s Johnson. ‘To
festive mitth;’ Thomson, Summer, 404.—L. festinus, festive. = L.
festum, a feast. See Feast. Der. festive-iy, festiv-i-ty.
FESTOON, an ornament, garland. (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘The fes-
toons, friezes, and the astragals;’ Dryden, Art of Poetry, 56. - Ἐς
Jeston, a garland, festoon ; cf. Span. feston. = Ital. festone, ‘a garland,
a crowne of flowers;’ Florio. B. Usually derived from festum, a
holiday, from the use of garlands as festive ornaments. See Feast.
Der. fes‘oon, verb.
FETCH, to bring. (E.) ME. fecchen, pt. τ. fette, pp. fet; Chaucer,
C. Τ. 821 (A 819), 7646 (D 2064). AS. fecc(e)an, to fetch; Gen. xviii.
4; Luke xii. 20. A later form of AS. fetian, gefetian, to fetch, Grein,
i. 253, 398; pp. fetod. Allied to AS. fe/,a pace, step, journey; Grein,
i. 273. Cf. Icel. feta, to find one’s way; Icel. fet. a step, pace. Con-
nected with L. pés (gen. ped-is), foot, and with Foot, q.v. Φ4 Cf.
AS. gefeccan, OE. Texts, p.178. See Anglia, vi.177; Sievers, A.S. Gr.
Der. fetch, used by Shak. to mean ‘a stratagem ;’ Hamlet, ii. 1. 38.
FETE, a festival. (F.—L.) Modern.=F. féte; OF. feste, a feast.
See Feast.
FETICH, FETISH, an object of superstitious dread. (F.—
Port.—L.) ‘ Fetisso, which is a kind of God;’ W. Dampier, A New
Voyage (1699); v. ii. part 2. p.105. Not in Johnson. =F. féliche. =
Port. feitico, sorcery; also a name given by the Portuguese to the
roughly made objects of superstitious dread in W. Africa. The orig.
sense is ‘artificial. —L. factitius, artificial. See Factitious. Der.
fetich-ism,
FETID, stinking. (F.—L.) In Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 481.—MF.
Jetide, ‘stinking ;’ Cot.—L. fétidus, fetidus, stinking. —L. fetére, to
stink. Der. fetid-ness.
FETLOCEK, the part of the leg (in a horse) where the tuft of hair
grows behind the pastern-joint. (Scand.) Also the tuft itself; by
confusion with lock (of hair). ‘ Feélock, or fetterlock, the hair that
grows behind on a horse’s feet;’ Kersey. The pl. is spelt feedlakkes
in Rich. Coer de Lion, 5816; and jitlokes in Arthur and Merlin, 5902.
Cf. Low Ο. filock (Liibben); MHG. wizzeloch (Kluge). Of Scand.
origin; the latter syllable is prob. only a double suffix (-/-ock) ; but
was understood as being our ‘lock’ of hair, viz. Icel. Jokkr, AS. loce.
B. In connexion with fet- we find Icel. fet, a pace, step, fet’, a pacer,
stepper (used of horses), feta, to step, the fetlock being employed in
stepping; cf. Swed. fjat, Dan. fied, a foot-print, footstep. track.
Further allied to Icel. fo/r, a foot, and to G. fessel, Low G. veltel
(Liibben), a pastern; and thus connected with both foot and fetter ;
see Fetter, Fetch, Foot.
FETTER, a shackle. (E.) Orig. a shackle for the foot. ME. feter,
Chaucer, C. Τ᾿ 1281 (A 1279). AS. fetor, feter, Grein, i. 283. + Du.
veter, lace; orig. a fetter; Icel. fjoturr; Swed. fjatirar, pl. fetters ;
MSwed. fjatter, a fetter (Ihre) ; cf. L. pedica; also com-pes (gen. com-
ped-is), a fetter; Gk. πέδη, a fetter. All from Idg. *ped-, Teut. *fe/-;
allied to Teut. fot-, as in E. foot. See Foot.
FETUS (incorrectly FOSTUS), offspring, the young in the womb.
(L.) Modern; in Johnson’s Dict.—L. fétus, a bringing forth, off-
spring. = L. fetus, fruitful, that has brought forth. From an Idg. base
*bhwé (< *bhu-é), to produce; related to fu- in fui, I was, and in fu-
turus, future. Cf, Gk. ἐφύη, was; φύειν, to beget; φύεσθαι, to grow;
φυτός, grown; Skt. bhi, to become, be; AS. béon, to be. See Be.
(of BHEU.) Brugmann,i. ὃ 361, ii. § 587. Der. (from the same root)
Se-cundity, q.v.; fe-line, q.v.; fe-licity, q.v.; also ef-fete, fawn (2).
FIDDLE
FEUD (1), perpetual hostility, hatred. (F.-OHG.) In Shak.
Troil. iv. 5.132. Modified in spelling from earlier fede, feid, in some
unexplained way; perhaps by the influence of the word foe; see
N.E.D. ME. fede (a Northern form), Wallace, i. 354; feid, Raul
Coilyear, 969; Levins has: ‘ Feade, odium’ (1570). —OF. faide, feide,
fede, perpetual hostility (Godefroy). —OHG. féhida, G, fehde, hatred,
enmity; cognate with AS. f#hd, enmity, from fah, hostile. See Foe.
FEUD (2), a fief; FEUDAL, pertaining to a fief. (Low L.—F.
—OHG.) In Blackstone’s Commentaries, b. ii. c. 4; and see Fee in
Blount’s Law Dict.—Low L. feudum,a fief; a barbarous L. form
allied to OF. jiu, also spelt fief; see further under Fief. (The intru-
sive dis unexplained.) Der. feud-al; feud-al-ism, feud-at-or-y.
FEUTER, to lay the spear in rest. (F.—Teut.) ‘His speare he
feutred;’ Spenser, F. Q. iv. 4. 45. From ME. feuter, sb., a rest for
aspear; Will. of Palerne, 3437 (cf. 1. 3593).— MF. feutre, felt, a piece
of felt, Cot.; OF. fel/re, a rest for the lance (Godefroy). It was fitted
with a pad, lined with felt; Late L. filtrum, See Filter. From
the Teut. type *fel/-oz; see Felt.
FEUTERER, a dog-keeper. (F.—Low L.—C.) ‘A yeoman-
feuterer;’ Ben Jonson, Every Man out of his Humour, ii.1 (Carlo). See
Nares. MI. vewter (for *vewtrier); Gawain and Grene Knight, 1146;
cf. Anglo-L, veltrarius (Blount, s.v. Vautrier); OF. veltrier (Gode-
froy). —OF. veltre, veutre,a boar-hound (Godefroy); F. vautre (Littré).
—Late L. vertragum, acc. of vertragus (Ducange, s. v. Canis veltris) ;
L. uertagus (Martial). Of Celtic origin. —C. ver-, intensive prefix ;
and trag-, to run; Stokes-Fick, pp. 136, 283.
FEVER, a kind of disease. (L.) ME. fewer (with u for v), P.
Plowman, C. iv. 96; fefre, Ancren Riwle, p. 112. AS. féfor, féefer ;
Matt. viii. 15. —L.febris, a fever. Der. fever-ous, -ish, -ish-ly, -ish-ness ;
also fever-few, a plant, corrupted from AS. féfer-fuge, borrowed from
Late L. febrifuga = fever-dispelling, from L. fugdre, to put to flight;
see Voc. 134. I.
FEW, of small number. (E.) ME. fewe, Chaucer, C. T. 641
(A 639). AS. féa, both sing. and pl. ; féawe, pl. only, Grein, i. 287.
+ Icel. far; Dan. faa; Swed. fa; Goth. fawat, Ρ]. L. paucus; Gk.
παῦρος, small,
FEY, doomed to die. (E.) ‘ Till fey men died awa’, man;’ Burns,
Battle of Sheriffmuir, 1. 19. ME. feye, P. Plowman, C. xvi. 2. AS.
fege, doomed to die. + Icel. fergr, destined to die; Du. veeg, about
to die; OHG. feigi, doomed to die ; whence G. feige, cowardly. Also
Swed. feg, Dan. feig, cowardly.
FEZ,a red Turkish cap, without a brim, (F.—Morocco.) Borrowed
by us from F. fez, the same; the word is also Turkish (Turk. fes). So
called because made at Fez, in Morocco; see Devic, Supp. to Littré.
FIASCO, a failure, break-down in a performance. (Ital. — Late L.)
From the Ital. phrase far jiasco, to make a bottle; also, to fail, to
break down (reason for this unknown; perhaps it means that the
empty bottle fails to please). Torriano, ed. 1688, has: ‘fiascki,
bottles, flaggons; also, an interjection of admiration, as pape in
Latin.’ Also Ital. fiasca, f., a flask, bottle. — Late L. flasca; see Flask.
FIAT, a decree. (L.) In Young’s Night Thoughts, vi. 465; and
Donne, The Storm, 1. 72. —L. fiat, let it be done. = L. fio, 1 become;
used as pass. of facere, to make; but really allied to fu-2, I was.
(/ BHEU.) Brugmann, i. § 282 (2).
FIB, a fable. (Low G.) In Pope, Ep. to Lady Shirley, 1. 24. Cot-
grave has: ‘ Bourde, a jeast, fib.’ Allied to fob, fub off (Shak.). Cf. G.
foppen, to banter (formerly to lie); Westphal. foppen, to deceive ;
Jip-ken, a small lie, a fib (Woeste). Der. 7b, vb.
FIBRE, a thread, threadlike substance. (F.—L.) Spelt fiber in
Cotgrave. =F. fibre; pl. fibres, ‘the fibers, threads, or strings of mus-
cles;’? Cot.—L. fibra, a fibre, thread. Der. jibr-ous, fibr-ine; also
fringe, q. ν.
FIBULA, aclasp, buckle. (L.) First in 1673. ‘The fibula ;’ Words-
worth, The Highland Broach, 17.—L. /ibula, a clasp, buckle. =—L.
fiuere, by-form of figere, to fix; see Fix.
FICKLE,, deceitful, inconstant. (E.) ME. jikel, P. Plowman, Ὁ.
iii. 25. AS. ficol, found in a gloss, Voc. 69. 18; formed, with a com-
mon adj. suffix -o/, from *fic-ian, to deceive, in comp. be-jician, to
deceive; cf. fic, fraud, facen, deceit; allied to Icel. feikn, an evil, a
portent, OSax. fékn, deceit. Cf. Skt. piguna-s, malignant ; Brugmann,
1. § 646. Der. jickle-ness.
FICTION, a falsehood, feigned story. (F.—L.) In Skelton, Colin
Clout, 1. 114.—F. fiction, ‘a fiction ;’ Cot. = L. fictidnem, acc. of jictio,
a feigning. Cf. L. fictus, pp. of fingere, to feign. See Feign, Figure.
Der. (from L. jictus) fict-it-i-ous, -ile; and see Figment, Figure.
FIDDLE, a stringed instrument, violin. (E.?) ME. jithel, P. Plow-
man, Β. xiti. 457; fidel, Chaucer, C. T. 298 (A 206). AS. 7idele, only
in the deriy. fidelere, a fiddler, in a copy of A®lfric’s Glossary (Bos-
worth) ; cf. Icei. fidla, a fiddle, fidlari,a fiddler; Dan. jiddel; Du.
vedel; G. fiedel (OHG. jidula). B. Of uncertain origin, but perhaps
Teutonic; whence Late L. vidula, vitula, a viol, fiddle. See Viol.
FIDELITY
FIDELITY, faithfulness. (F.—L.) In Shak. Mer. Wives, iv. 2.
160. Fabyan has fydelité, Chron. pt. vii. c. 238; p. 277. —F. jidelité,
‘fidelity ;’ Cot.—L. fidélitatem, acc. of jidélitds.—L. fidélis, faithful.
=-L. fides, faith. See Faith.
FIDGEHET, to be restless, move uneasily. (Scand.) In Boswell’s
Life of Johnson (Todd’s Johnson). A dimin. form of fidge. ‘ Fidge
about, to be continually moving up and down;”’ Kersey, ed. 1715.
Fidge is apparently a modification of the North E. fick or jike. ‘ Fike,
Syke, feik, to be in a restless state ;’ Jamieson. ME. jiken, Prompt.
Parv. p. 160; Bestiary, 656. ‘The Sarezynes fledde, away gunne
fyke’ =the Saracins fled, and away did hasten; used in contempt ;
Rich. Coer de Lion, 4749.—MDan. jige, Dan. dial. fige, to desire,
strive, hasten, hurry (see Kalkar and Molbech) ; cf. Norw. figa, more
commonly jika, to fidget, make restless movements (Ross) ; Icel. jika,
to climb up nimbly, as a spider; Swed. χα, fikas, to hunt after; and
see fika in Rietz; Norw. jika, to strive, take trouble ; jika efter, to
pursue, hasten after (Aasen). Cf. G. dial. (Alsace) ficken, to itch, to
hdeet. Der. jidge’, sb., fidget-y, fidget-i-ness,
FIDUCIAL, showing trust. (L.) Rare; see Rich. Dict. ‘ Fidu-
ciary, a feoffee in trust ;” Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Both words are
from L., fidicia, trust.—L. fidere, to trust. See Faith.
FIE, an interjection of disgust. (F.—L.) ME. fy, Chaucer, C. T.
4500 (B 80); ‘fy for shame;’ id. 14897 (B 4081); Will. of Palerne,
481.—F. fi.—L. fi, inter}. Cf. also Icel. fy, fei; Dan. fy, also fy
skam dig, fie for shame ; Swed. fy, also fy skam, fie for shame. We
find similar forms in the (ἃ. pfui, L. phui, phy, Skt. phut, natural
expressions of disgust, due to the sound of blowing away.
FIEF, land held of a superior. (F.—Low L.—OHG.?) In
Dryden, On Mrs. Killigrew, 1. 98. The ME. vb. feffen, to enfeoff, is
common ; see Chaucer, C. Τ᾿ 9572 (E1698); P. Plowman, B. ii. 78,
146.—OF. fief, early form μη (Chanson de Roland). = Low L. fevum,
a fief (Ducange). Prob. from OHG. fehu, property; see Fee.
FIELD, an open space of land. (E.) ME. feeld, Chaucer, C. T.
888 (A 886). AS. feld; Grein.4Du. veld; G. feld (whence Dan.
felt, Swed. fait). Teut. type */eljuz. Allied to AS. folde, earth, land.
Cf. Russ, polé, a field; Skt. pythiv7, earth. Brugmann, i. ὃ 502. Der.
jield-day, field-marshal, &c.
FIELDFARE, a bird of the thrush kind. (E.) ME. feldefare,
Chaucer, Troil. iii. 861; feldfare, Will. of Palerne, 183. AS. felde-
fare, Wright’s Vocab. 1. 63, 1. 27; but really miswritten feldeware ;
see Voc. 287.17. Lit. ‘ field-traveller;’ from faran, to travel; see
Fare. @ There is also an AS. feala-for, but this is the name of
some much larger bird, and is a different word altogether; see Sweet,
O. E. Texts, p. 88; Ep. gl. 807.
FIEND, an enemy. (E.) ME. fend, Chaucer, C. T. 7256 (D 1674);
earlier feond, Layamon, 1. 237. AS. féond, fiond, an enemy, hater;
properly the pres. pt. of féox, contr. form of féogan, to hate; Grein,
1. 294, 295.--Du. vijand, an enemy; Dan. and Swed. jiende; Icel.
Sandi, pres. pt. of /7a, to hate; Goth. jijands, pres. pt. of fijan, to
hate; G. feind.—4/ PKI, to hate; Fick, i. 145; whence also foe, q. v.
Cf. Skt. piy, to hate (Fick). 547 Similarly, friend is a pres. pt. from
Teut. base frei-, to love; see Friend. Der. fiend-ish, fiend-ish-ness.
FIERCE, violent, angry. (F.—L.) ME. fiers, Chaucer, C. T.,
A 1598 ; Rob. of Glouc. p. 188, 1. 3910. — OF. fers, fers, old nom. form
of OF. fer, fier, fierce (F. fier, proud). = L. ferus, wild, savage; cf. fera,
a wild beast.4-Gk. θήρ, a wild animal. Brugmann, i. ὃ 319. Der.
Ser-oc-i-ous, αν.
FIF#, a shrill pipe. (F.-OHG.—L.) In Shak. Oth. ili. 3. 352.
“Ε΄ fifre, ‘a fife;’ Cot.-OHG. pfifa, fifa; G. pfeife, a pipe. =
OHG. pfifen, to blow, puff, blow a fife; cf. G. pfiff, a whistle, hissing.
—Late L. pipare, to pipe; L. pipare, pipiare, to chirp. See Pipe.
FIG, the name of a fruit. (F.—Prov.—L.) The pl. figes occurs in
the Ancren Riwle, p. 150, where also the fig-tree is called jiger.
[The AS. jic (Matt. vii. 16) is a somewhat different form, being taken
directly from L. ficus.])—F. figue, due to the OProvengal form figa,
a fig; cf. Span. figo.—Folk-L. *fica, for L, ficus, a fig. Cf. OF. fie,
a fig; immediately from Folk-L. *fica. Der. fig-wort.
FIGHT, to contend in war. (K.) ME. βάλεν, fekten, Layamon,
ll. 1359, 1580. OMere. fehtan, AS. feohtan, Grein, i. 289; whence
the sb. fehte, AS. feohte, a fight. + Du. vechten; OHG. fehtan; G.
fechten (whence Dan. fegte, Swed. fakta). Teut. type *fehtan-, pt. t.
*faht, B. Possibly connected with L. pectere, to comb, to card,
hence, to pull, rend, fight (Streitberg). Der. fight, sb., fight-er, -ing.
FIGMENT, a fiction. (L.) ‘You heard no figment, sir;’ B.
Jonson, Every Man out of his Humour, iv. 4.—L. figmentum, a fiction ;
formed (with suffix -mentum) from the base fig- of fi(n)gere, to feign ;
pt. t. fic-tus (for *fig-tus). See below; and see Fiction, Feign.
FIGURE, something made, an appearance, representation.
(F.-L.) ME. figure, Chaucer, C. T. 7892 (E 16).—F. figure.=L.
Jigira, a figure, thing made.=L. fig-, base of fi(x)gere, to form,
FILLET
deigan, to fashion as a potter does; whence daigs, cognate with FE.
dough. —4/ DHEIGH, to smear, handle, form with the hands. See
Dough. Brugmann, i. ὃ 589. Der. figure, vb., jigur-ed, jigure-
head ; figur-ate, -at-ive, -at-ive-ly ; from the same root, feign, fiction,
figment, ef-fig-y, dis-figure, trans-figure ; also dike, dough, la-dy.
FILAMENT, a slender thread. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave, to
translate MF. filamens, ‘filaments ;” Cot. —F. filament (Hatzfeld). =
Late L. filamentum, a thread ; formed (with suffix -mentum) from
Late L. filare, to wind thread. —L. filum, a thread; see File (1).
FILBERT, the fruit of the hazel. (F.-OHG.) Fo merly spelt
philibert or philiberd, ‘The Philibert that loves the vale ;* Peacham’s
Emblems, ed. 1612 (R.). Gower has: ‘That Phillis in the same
throwe Was shape into a nutte-tre. .. And, after Phillis, philliberd
This tre was cleped in the yerd;’ C. A. ii. 30. [This is an allusion
to the story of Phyllis and Demophon in Ovid, and of course does
not account for the word, as it takes no notice of the last syllable ]
B. From AF. philbert, a filbert ; of which the pl. philbers occurs in
Britton, ed. Nichols, i. 371, note 5. Short for nox de philbert, as the
name is still ποὺς de filbert in Normandy (Moisy). From the proper
name Philibert. Cotgrave has: ‘ Philibert, a proper name for a man ;
and particularly the name of a certain Bourgonian (Burgundian]}
saint ; whereof chuine de S. Philibert, a kind of counterfeit chain.’
Perhaps the nut was also named after St. Philibert, whose name also
thus appears in another connexion. ‘ Noix de Filebert, aveline; saint
F., qui avait beaucoup enrichi l’abbaye de Jumieges [near Rouen], y
avait sans doute introduit de meilleures noisettes ;’ Dumeéril; Dict.
du Patois Normand. St. Philibert’s day is Aug. 22 (Old Style), just
the nutting season. The name is Frankish. —OHG. jilu-bert, i.e. very
bright; from jilu (G. viel), much, very ; and bert = berht, br.ght, cog-
nate with E. bright. See Hist. of Christian Names, by Miss Yonge,
ii. 231; where, however, 7ili- is equated to wille (will) by a mistake.
4 Similarly, a filbert is called in German Lambertsnuss as if for Lam-
bert’s nut (St. Lambert’s day is Sept. 17); but (according to Weigand)
the real orig. sense of Lambertsnuss was ‘nut from Lombardy.’
FILCHG, to steal, pilfer. (Scand.?) [Rob. of Brunne has jilchid ;
tr. of Langtoft, p. 282; but this seems to be a different word.} Filch
first appears in 1581, as a slang term; and its origin is quite un-
218
certain. Perhaps allied to ME. fe/en, to conceal; Icel. fela, to hide;
whence Icel. fylgsni, fylksni, a hiding-place. Cf. Goth. fulhsni,
secrecy.
FILE (1), a string, line, list, order. (F.—L.) In Macbeth, iii. 1.
95-— OF. file, ‘a fie, rank, row;’ Cot. Allied to fil, a thread. =
Late L. fila, a string of things (see fila, filare in Ducange). = L. filum,
a thread. Der. file, verb; fil-a-ment, q.v.; jil-t-gree, q.v.; fill-et,
q.v.; also en-jii-ade; also de-file (2).
FILE (2), a steel rasp. (E.) ME. jile, Chaucer, C. T. 2510
(A 2508). OMerc. fil, Corpus gloss., 1234; AS. féol, a file;
Bosworth. 4+Du. vijl; OHG. fihala, figala; (ἃ. feile. Yeut. type
*fihala < *finhala. Perhaps cf. Skt. pig, to adorn, form; but this is
doubtful. Der. file, verb; fil-ings.
FILE (3), to defile. (E.) ‘For Banquo’s issue have I filed my
mind;’ Macb. iii. 1.65. ΜΕ, fylen, Early E. Allit. Poems, Β. 136.
AS. -fylan, to render foul (in comp. gefylan) ; for *ful-ian.— AS. fil,
foul. See Defile (1) and Foul.
FILIAL, relating to a child. (L.) ‘All filial reuerence ;’ Sir Τὶ
More, Works, p. 63 f. Formed as if from Late L. filialis; cf. Late L.
Jilialiter, in a mode resembling that of a son.—L. filius, son; filia,
daughter ; orig. an infant; cf. L. féldre, to suck. —4/ DHE, to suck ;
ef. Skt. dha, to suck. Der. jilial-ly, fili-at-ion, af-fili-ate.
FILIBUSTER, a pirate, freebooter. (Span.—F.—Du.) First in
1587; from Spanish.—Span. filibuster, a buccaneer, a freebooter.
“Εἰ flibustier, spelt fribustier in 1667 (Hatzfeld). Corrupted from
Du. vrijbuiter, a freebooter.—Du. vrijbuiten, to rob, plunder. - Du.
frij, free; buit, booty. See Free and Booty. @ The exact history
is obscure; but, in any case, the word is of Du. origin.
FILIGREE, fine ornamental work. (F.—Ital. -L.) A corruption
of filigrain or filigrane, the older form. ‘ A curious filigrane handker-
chief... out of Spain;’ Dr. Browne’s Travels, ed. 1685 (Todd).
‘ Several filigrain curiosities ;’ Tatler, no. 245.—F. filigrane (cf. Span.
Jiligrana). = Ital. filigrana, filigree-work, fine wrought work. = Ital.
Jilo, a thread, row, jilare, to spin; and grano, the grain, or principal
fibre of the material; so called because the chief texture of the
material was wrought in gold or silver thread. From L. /tlum,
thread ; and granum, grain. See File (1) and Grain.
FILL, to make full. (E.) ME. jillen, P. Plowman’s Crede, ed.
Skeat, 763; older form fullen, Ancren Riwle, p. 40. AS. fyllan,
fullian, Grein, i.. 356, 300; from AS. ful, full.-Du. vudlen; Icel.
fylla; Dan. fylde; Swed. fylla; Goth. fulljan; G. fiillen., Teut. type
*fulljan-. See Full. Der. fill, sb., Chaucer, C. T.-2561 (A 2559);
Jill-er.
fashion, feign; pp. fic-tus (for *Jig-tus).4-Skt. dik, to smear; Goth. | FILLET, a little band. (F.—L.) ME. filet, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 32433
214 FILLIBEG, FILIBEG
Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 154.—OF. filet, dimin. of 7, a thread.
=L. filum,a thread. See File (1). Der. jillet, verb.
FILLIBEG, FILIBEG, a kilt. (Gaelic.) Used by Dr. John-
son, in his Tour to the Western Islands (Todd). — Gael. feileadh-beag,
the kilt in its modern shape; Macleod. = Gael. feileadh, feile, a kilt,
prob. from L. xélum, a veil (Macbain) ; and beag, little, small. Cf.
W. bach, small. (The older kilt was larger.)
FILLIP, to strike with the finger-nail, when jerked from under the
thumb. (E.) In Shak. 2 Hen. IV,i. 2.255. Another form of Flip.
Halliwell has: ‘ Flip, a slight sudden blow; also, to fillip, to jerk ;
Somerset. Lillie (Mother Bombie, ν- 3, ed. 1632, sig. Dd. ii) seems
to use the word jip in the sense to fillip.’
Syllippe in Palsgrave. See Flippant.
FILLS, used for ¢hills (Shak.). See Thill.
FILLY, a female foal. (Scand.) Shak. has filly foal, Mids. N.
Dr. ii. 1. 46. Merely the fem. form of foal, formed by suffixing
Teut. *-jn, f., which modifies the vowel. —Icel. fylja, a filly; foli, a
foal; cf. Dan. 70], neut.a foal; fole, masc. a foal ; Swed. fol, neut. a
foal; fale, masc.; G. fiillen, a colt; OHG. volo, a foal. See Foal.
FILM, a thin skin. (E.) In Shak. Romeo, i. 4.63. ME. film,
fylme, Prompt. Parv. p. 160. AS. filmen, written fylmen, membrane,
prepuce ; Gen. xvii. τα ; OFries. filmene, skin. For W. Teut. *filmin-
jo-; from *felmen-, *felmon-, as in AS. &ger-felma, the skin of an
egg. Extended from fel-, as in AS. fel, skin. See Fell (2). Der.
Im-y, -i-ness.
FILTER, to strain liquors; a strainer. (F.—Low L.—O. Low
G.) The sb. is in Cotgrave, s.v. feutre. ‘ Filter, or Filtrate, to
strain through a bag, felt, brown paper, &c.;’ also ‘ Filtrum or
Feltrum, a strainer; ... a felt- hat ; Kersey, ed. 1715.—MF.
fitrer, ‘to straine through a felt ; ” Cot.=MF. (and F. ) filtre, a
filter (Hatzfeld). B. A modification (due to the influence of Ital.
filtro) of the OF. feltre (Ε΄ feutre). Cf. F. feutre, * a felt, also a
filter, a peece of felt... to straine things through;’ Cot. =Low L.
filtrum, felt. =O. Low e πὶ (=E. felt), , preserved ‘in Du. vilt, Low
G. filt, felt; cf. G. filz. See Felt. Der. jilt-r-ate, jilt-r-at-ion.
FILTH, foul matter. (E.) ME. filth, felth, fulthe; Prompt.
Pary. p. 160; Ancren Riwle, p. 128. AS. fylS, Matt. xxiii. 27, where
the Hatton MS. has felthe. Formed, by vowel-change of ὦ to y, from
the adj. ful, foul, the AS. fy/d being the exact equivalent of OSax.
filitha, filth; so also OHG, fulida, filth, from fal, vil, foul. See
Foul. Der. jilth-y, -i-ness.
FIMBRIATED, edged with a narrow band. (L.) In heraldry.
‘ This cros fimbriatit or borderit;’ Book of St. Alban’s, pt. ii. fol. ἃ τ.
“ΤΌ jimbriatus, pp. of jimbriare, to fringe. = L. fimbria, fringe; see
Fringe.
FIN, a wing-like organ of a fish. (E.) ME. fizne; the pl. pp.
jinnede = furnished with fins, occurs in Alexander and Dindimus, ed.
Skeat, 1. 298. AS. jinn; Levit. xi. 9.4Du. vin; Low G. finne; Swed.
jinn-, in finnfisk, a finned fish; fena, a fin; Dan. finne.+L. pinna, a
fin, in the comp. pinniger, having fins; Ovid, Metam. xiii. 963.
4 The usual connexion asserted between L. pinna and penna is not
certain; if it were, we might connect jin with feather. Der. finn-y.
FINAL, pertaining to the end. (F.—L.) ME. final, Gower, C. A.
iii. 3485; bk. viii. 2183. —OF. final, ‘finall; ᾿ Cot.—L. finalis. = L.
finis, the end. See Finish. Der. jinal-ly, -i-ty ; also fin-ale, from
Ital. finale, final, hence, an ending.
FINANCE, revenue. (F.—L.) ME. fynaunce, used by Lord
Berners in the sense of ‘ransom ;’ tr. of Froissart, i. 311 (N. E. D.).
“All the jinances or revenues;’ Bacon, The Office of Alienations
(R.). = OF. finance, pl. finances, ‘ wealth, substance, revenue, . . . all
extraordinary levies; Cot.—Late L. financia, a payment. = Late L.
finare, to pay a fine or tax.— Late L. finis, a settled payment, a fixal
arrangement; L. finis, the end. See Fine (2),and Finish, Der.
financ-t-al, -i-al-ly, -i-er.
FINCH, the name of several small birds. (E.) ME. πεῖ, Chaucer,
C.. T. 654 (A 652). AS. πε; Voc. 23. 13.- Πα. vink; Dan. finke ;
Swed. fink ; G, fink; OHG., jincho.-W. pinc, a chaffinch ; also Gk.
σπίγγος, σπίζα, a finch; prov. E. spink, a finch, Of imitative origin.
Der. chaf-jinch, q.v.; bull-finch, ὅτε.
FIND, to meet with, light upon. (E.) ME. finden, Chaucer, Prol.
738 (A 736). AS. jindan 3 Grein.4+ Du. vinden; Dan. finde; Swed.
and Icel. jinna (<jinfa) ; Goth. finthan ; OHG. Jjindan; G. aden:
Teut. type *“fexthan- (pt. t. *fanth, pp. *funth-anoz) ; Idg. base *pent,
whence Olrish é-aim, I find. Perhaps allied to L. pet-ere, to seek
after, fly towards; from 4/PET, to fall, fly. Der. find-er.
FINE (1), exquisite, complete, thin. (F.—L.) ME. fyn, K.
Alisaunder, 2657; superl.: finest; P. Plowman, B. ii. 9.—OF. jin,
‘witty, εἷς . perfect, exact, pure;’ Cot.—Late L. finus, fine, pure,
used of money;.in place of L. finitus, well rounded (said of a
sentence); orig. pp. of L. finire, to end, from finis, end. Finus
was a back-formation from finire.. Thus jine is related to finite ; see
Der. ΜΠ, sb., spelt
FIRMAN
Finite. Der. jine-ly, -ness; jin-er-y, used by Burke (R.) ; jin-esse
(F. finesse); jin-ic-al, a coined word, in Shak. ‘K. Lear, ii. 2. 19 ; -ic-
al-ly ; also re-jine, g The Du. Sin, G. fein, &c., are not Teutonic
words, but borrowed from the Romance Languages (Diez).
FINE (2), a tax, forced payment. (Law L.) ΜΕ. jine, sb., Sir
T. More, Works, p. 62 b; vb., Fabyan’s Chron. an. 1440-1 (at the
end).—Law L. finis, a fine ; see Fine in Blount’s Law Dict., and finis
in Ducange. The ht. sense is ‘a final payment’ or composition, to
settle a matter; from L. finis, an end. See Finance, Finish.
Der. fine, verb; "fin-able ; Jin-ance, q.V.
FINGER, part of the hand. (Ε.) ME. finger, P. Plowman, C.
lil. 12, AS. finger, Grein.+ Du. vinger ; Icel. fingr ; Dan. and Swed.
Jjinger ; Goth. figgrs (=fingrs); G. pnger. Teut. type *fingroz, masc.
The Idg. type was probably *penkros; the word fist may be related.
Der. finger, verb ; jinger-post.
FINIAL, an ornament on 2 pinnacle. (L.) In Holland’s tr. of
Suetonius, p. 162; and tr. of Pliny, bk. xxxv..c. 12. Cf. ‘ every
butterace fined [ended] with finials ;’ Will of Hen. VI.; Royal Wills,
ed. Nichols, p. 302 (1448). A coined word, suggested by Late L.
finiles lapidés, terminal stones; finiabilis, terminal.=L. finire, to
finish ; see Finish.
FINICAL, spruce, foppish; see Fine (1).
FINISH, to end, terminate. (F.—L.) ME. jinischen; the pp.
Jinischid occurs in Will. of Palerne, 1. 5398.—OF. jiniss-, base of
Jiniss-ant, pres. pt. of finir, to finish.—L. finire, to end.—L. finis,
end, bound. Der. finish, sb., finish-er ; also fin-ite, q.v., fin-ial, q.v.,
we q.v., af-fin-ity, con-fine, de-fine, in-fin-ite.
FINITE, limited. (L.) In Dryden, Hind and Panther, i. 105.
First in 1493. =i finitus, pp. of finire, to end; see Finish, Der.
Jinite-ly, -ness ; in-finite.
FIORD, FJORD, a long narrow arm of the sea. (Norw.) First
in 1674.—Norw. fiord; cel. Jjordr, a firth, frith, bay. Teut. type
rite See Frith (2), Ford.
FIR, the name of a tree. (Scand.) ME. frre, Chaucer, C. T.
2923 (A 2921); answering to a mutated form allied to AS. furh,
in the comp. furh-wudu, fir-wood, which occurs in Voc. 39. 34, but is
of Scand. origin. Cf. Icel. fyri-skogr (written fyri-skogr), a fir-wood;
from Icel. fura, a fir; also Dan. fyr, Swed. fura.OLombardic
fereha, ‘ esculus ;’ G. fohre; W. pyr.4-L. quercus, an oak; see Max
Miiller, Lect. on Lang. vol. ii.
FIRE, the heat and light of flame. (E.) ME. fyr, Chaucer, C. T.
1248 (A 1296); also fur, P. Plowman, C. iv. 125. AS. fyr, Grein,
i. 364.4 Du. στρ; Icel. fyri; Dan. and Swed. fyr; G. feuer; OHG.
fiir. Teut. type *fa-ir ; cognate with Gk. πῦρ. B. The root seems
to be 4PU, to purify; cf. Skt. pavaka- (from 2), purifying, also
fire. See Pure. Der. frre, vb., fier-y (=fr-y), fir-ing; also
numerous compounds, as fire-arms, -brand, -damp, -fly, -lock, -man,
-place, -plug, -proof, -ship, &c.
FIRK, to conduct, drive, beat. (E.) To beat; in Shak. Hen. V,
iv.4.29. Orig. sense, to conduct ; AS. fercian, AS. Chron. an. 1009 αὶ
also fercian, Prob. from AS. fer, a journey ; faran, to go; see Fare:
FIRKIN, the fourth part of a barrel. (MDu.) In the Bible of
1851; John, ii. 6, ‘ Kilderkyn and firken ;’ Arnold's Chron. (1502) ;
ed. 1811, p- 85. Spelt ferdkyn in 1413; Riley, Mem. of London,
P- 5973 and ferdekyn in 1423 (N.E.D.).—Du. vierde, fourth; with
MDnu. dimin, suffix -kex (= -k-ex), formerly common, but now super-
seded by -éje or -je ; see Sewel’s Du. Grammar (in his Dict.), p. 37.
Cf. MDu. vierdevat, a peck (Sewel); and see Farthing and Kil-
derkin. β. Du. vierde is from Du. vier, four; see Four.
FIRM (1), steadfast, fixed. (F.-L.) ME. ferme, P. Plowman,
B, xvi. 238. —OF. ferme.—L. firmus. Cf. Skt. dharman, right, law,
justice ; dhara-, preserving; Skt. dhy, to maintain, carry, support.
Der. jirm, sb.; -ly, -ness; -a-ment, q.v.; also affirm, con-firm, in-
jirm; also farm, q.v.; and see below.
FIRM (2), a partnership. (Span.—L.) ‘ Firm, the name or
names under which any house of trade is established ; ’ Ash’s Dict.,
1775. This is the proper sense; it alludes to the signature of the
house ; and the word was used with the sense of ‘ signature’ as early
as 1574 (N.E.D.).—Span. jirma, a sign manual, signature ; from
jirmar, vb., to confirm.—L. firmare, to confirm.—L. firmus, firm
(above).
FIRMAMENT, the celestial sphere. (F.—L.) In early use.
ME. firmament, King Alisaunder, 714.—OF. firmament; Cot.—L.
jirmamentum, (1) a support, (2) the expanse of the sky; Genesis, i. 6.
-L. jfirmare, to strengthen; with suffix -mentum.—L. firmus, firm.
See Firm.
FIRMAN, a mandate. (Persian.) In Herbert’s Travels, ed. 1665,
p. 221.— Pers. ferman, a mandate, order; Palmer’s Pers. Dict., col.
452; OPers. framana (Horn); cf. Skt. pramanam, a measure, scale,
authority, decision; from pra= Pers. far- =Gk. πρό, before ; and ma,
to measure.
᾿
ἢ FIVES, a disease of horses, the strangles. (F.—Span.—Arab.)
In Shak. Tam. Shrew, iii. 2. 54. For vives, which is short for avives.
=F. avives, ‘vives; Hamilton.—Span. avivas, abivas, adivas, ‘the
| vives;’ Pineda. —Arab. ad-dhiba, the same disease. = Arab. al, the;
_ L. figere.)—OF. χε, § fixed, setled;
FIRST
FIRST, foremost, chief. (E.) ME. first, firste, Chaucer, C. T.
4715 (B 295). AS. fyrst, Grein, i. 364. + Icel. fyrstr ; Dan. forste,
Swed. forsta; OHG. furisto, first. Teut. type *furistoz, superl. from
the base *fur-, fore. See Fore, Former.
FIRTH, the same as Frith, q. v.
FISCAL, pertaining to the revenue. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed.
1627.—MF. fiscal, ‘fiscall;” Cot.—Late L. jiscalis, adj.—L. jiscus,
a basket of rushes, also, a purse. Der. con-fisc-ate, q. v.
FISH, an animal that lives in water, and breathes through gills.
(E.) ME. fish, fisch; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 10587 (F 273). AS. fise;
Grein. + Du. wisch; Icel. fiskr; Dan. and Swed. fish; G. ἥξει, L.
piscts. 4 Irish and Gael. iasg, Olrish jase (with loss of initial p, as in
Trish athair=L. pater), Root unknown. Der. jish, verb; jish-er,
-er-y, -er-man, -ing', -¥, -I-ness, -monger (see monger),
FISSURE, a cleft. (F.—L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—F.
Jissure, ‘a cleft ;’? Cot.—L. fissiira, a cleft; cf. fissus, pp. of findere
(base jfid), to cleave. Skt. bhid, to break, pierce, disjoin.—
¥ BHEID, to cleave; whence also E. Bite, q. y. Der. (from same
root), jiss-ile, easily cleft.
FIST, the clenched hand. (E.) ME, fist : also fest, Chaucer, C. T.
12736 (C 802); fust, P. Plowman, B. xvii. 166. AS. fyst; Grein,
1. 365.4-Du. vuist; G. faust; OHG. fast. Teut. type *fustiz. If the
orig. type was *funhstiz, it may be identified with Russ. piaste, the
fist, OSlav. pest’; from an Idg. type *peng-sti-. Brugmann, i. § 647 (6).
FISTULA, a deep, narrow abscess. (L.) In Levins, ed. 1570;
and Minsheu, ed. 1627.—L. fistula, a pipe ; from its pipe-like shape.
Der. jistul-ar, -ous; also fester.
FIT (1), to suit; as adj., apt, suitable. (Scand.) ME. jitten, to
arrange, set (men) in array; Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 1989, 2455.
The adj. is ME. fit, fyt. ‘Fyt, or mete [meet];’ Prompt. Parv.
p- 163.—Icel. itja, to knit together ; Norse dial. fitja, to draw a lace
together in a noose, knit (Aasen) ; Swed. dial. fittja, to bind together
(Rietz). Cf. G. fitzen, to bind into skeins, from /i/ze,a skein. From
tcel. fit, a hem, also ‘web’ ofa bird’s foot; cf. MDan. jidde, to bind,
Dan. fid, a skein, Note MDu. vitten, ‘to accommodate, to fitt, or
to serve’ (Hexham). @ Influenced as to sense by ME. feve, well
done; from F. fait, L. factus; see Feat. Der. jit, verb; fit-ing,
Spenser, F. Ὁ. vii. 7. 433 jit-ly, -ness; jitt-er.
FIT (2), a part of a poem; a sudden attack of illness. (E.) ME.
Jit, a part of a poem, burst of song, P. Plowman, A. i. 139; and see
Chaucer, C.T. 4228 (A 4230). AS. fit, a song; also, a struggle;
Grein, i. 300. Apparently related to Icel. fet, a pace, step, foot (in
poetry), part of a poem. Cf. Skt. pada-, a step, trace, a verse of
a poem; connected with pad, pad, a foot. See Fetch, and Foot.
Der. jit-ful, Macbeth, iii. 2. 23; jit-ful-ly, fit-ful-ness.
FITCH, old spelling of verch, Isaiah, xxviii. 25; see Vetch.
FITCHET, FITCHEW, a polecat. (F.—MDu.) Spelt fi/chew,
King Lear, iv. 6. 124; Troil. v. 1.67; and earlier, in P. Ploughm.
Crede, 1. 295. The pl. fichewx occurs in 1438, in Fifty Earliest E.
Wills, ed. Furnivall, p, r10.—OF, fichan (Godefroy) ; Picard ficheux ;
Walloon jickau (Sigart); answering to MF. fissau, expl. by Cot. as
‘a fitch or fulmart,’ i.e. polecat.—MDu. jisse, a polecat; Kilian. So
called from thesmell. Cf. Du. vies, nasty, loathsome; Icel. fist-sveppr,
a name of a fungus; Icel. fisa, Dan. 53,56, to make a smell.
FITZ, son. (AF.—L.) The spelling with ¢ is unnecessary, but
__was due to a wish to preserve the old sound of Norm. F. z, which was
| pronounced as ¢s. The usual old spelling is fiz ; see Vie de 5. Auban,
_ ed. Atkinson (Glossary); the spellings Jiliz, fitz, fiz all occur in Ρ.
_ Plowman, B. vii. 162 (and footnote).—L. filius,a son. See Filial.
FIVE, the half of ten. (E.) ME. 7if, Layamon, 1425. At a later
| period, the pl. form fyue or jive (with «=v, and with final e) is more
_ common ; cf. Rob. of Glouc. p. 6,1.135. AS. Sif; sometimes fife,
| five; Grein, i. 300. [Here ἢ stands for in or im, and the true form
_ was once *7inf; or (by the influence of £) *fimf.| + Du. νὴ; Dan.
and Swed. fem; Icel. jimm; Goth. fimf; OHG. jimf, finf; Ὅς fiunf.
+W. pump; Olrish coic; Lith. penki; Armenian hing; L. quinque;
| Gk. πέμπε, πέντε; Skt. paticha. Idg. type *penge. Brugmann,
ii. § 169. Der. fives, five-fold; fif-teen=ME. Jiftene=AS. fiflyne,
| see Ten; fif-th=ME. jifte=AS. fifta; fif-ty=AS. fiftig.
_ dhib, a wolf (which strangles). See Devic (in Littré).
FIX, to bind, fasten. (F.—L.) Originally a pp. as in Chaucer,
| C. T. 16247 (G 779). [We also finda ΜΕ. verb jichen, to fix, pierce ;
Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, ll. 2098, 4239; formed directly from OF.
| ficher; from Late L. *figicare (not found), a secondary form from
᾿ Cot. =—L, fixus, pp. of figere,
| tofix. Der. fix-ed, -ed-ly, -ed-ness; -at-ion, Gower, C. A. ii. 86; bk. iv.
2520; -i-ty; -ture, Merry Wives, iii. 3. 67; -ure, Troil. i. 3. 101,
|
FLAGRANT 15
| FIZZ, to make a hissing sound. (Scand.) We also find fizale, a
frequentative form, in Ben Jonson, The Devil is an Ass, y. 3. 2, Cf.
| ME. fyse, a blowing, Voc. 679. 23; allied to jist, Prompt. Parv. p.163.
-Icel. fisa, Dan. jise, with the same sense as L. pedere. An imitative
word. See Fitchew.
FLABBERGAST, to frighten, greatly astonish. (E.) First in
1772. <A dialect word, and more correctly flapper-gast ; see E.D. 1).
The etymology is obvious; viz. to gast (frighten away) with a flapper,
i.e. a clapper for frightening birds (E.D.D.).. Cf. gaste crowen, to
frighten crows; P. Plowman, A. vii. 129; and ‘ flappe, instrument to
smyte wythe flyys’ [flies]; Prompt. Parv. See Aghast and Flap.
FLABBY, soft and yielding, hanging loose. (K.) Not in early
use. “ Flabbiness, limberness, softness and moistness;’ Bailey’s Dict.
vol. ii. ed. 1731. ‘His flabby flanks;’ Dryden, tr. of Virgil, Georg.
iii. 780. A variant of fappy, i.e. inclined to flap about. Cf. Low G.
flabbe, a hanging lip, flabbsig, flabby (Danneil); MDu. flabbe, a
contemptuous name for the tongue, Oudemans ; Swed. dial. f/abb, the
hanging underlip of animals, ffabb, an animal’s snout, Rietz ; Dan.
fiab, the chops. See Flap.
FLACCID, soft and weak. (F.—L.) “ Flaccid, withered, feeble,
weak, flaggy;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. —F. flaccide, ‘weak, flaggie;’
Cot. = L. flaccidus, flaccid. —L. flaccus, flabby, loose-hanging. Der.
flaccid-ness, -i-ty.
FLAG (1), to droop, grow weary. (E.) ‘Slow and flagging
wings;’ 2 Hen. VI, iv. 1.5. Partly of F. origin (see at end); but
also partly imitative, and weakened from the form flack. ‘Flack, to
hang loosely, to flap;* E.D.D. It isthe same word as ME. flakken;
to move to and fro, to palpitate, as in Gower, C. A. iii. 315; bk.
viii. 1196: ‘her herte [began} to ffacke and μεῖς. [Hence the
frequentative verb jlacker, ‘ to flutter, quiver ;’ E.D.D.] From the E,
base flak, to waver; appearing in AS. flacor, flying, roving (Grein).
+Dan. flagre, to flicker, flutter; cf. Icel. flakka, to rove about;
fiaka, to flap (said of garments); Swed. flacksa, to flutter; MDu.
flakkeren, to waver; ὦ. flackern, to flutter. @ The special sense
is from OF. flaquir, to flag, MF. flague, ‘ weake, feeble, faint, flaggy;*
Cot.; from L. flaccus, limp. Cf. also MDu. flaggéren, ‘to flagge,
or grow wearie;’ Hexham. See Flabby, Flap, Flicker. Der.
flagg-y, flagg-i-ness.
FLAG (2), an ensign. (E.) In Shak. K. John, ii. 207.—The
E. flag occurs in Palsgrave (1530), and is the oldest Teut. form.
From ME. flakken, to waver, flutter; see Flag (1). Cf. Dan. flag;
Norw. and Swed. fagg, a flag; Du. vlag; G. flagge.
FLAG (3), 2 water-plant, reed. (Ε.) Wyclit has flaggy, filled
with flags or reeds; Exod. ii. 3. The same word as flag (2); and
named from its waving in the wind; see Flag (1). Cf. prov. E. flag,
a long, narrow leaf; Dan. fleg, an iris.
FLAG (4), FLAGSTONE, a paving-stone. (Scand.) Properly
| ‘a thin slice’ of stone ; applied formerly also to a slice of turf.
‘ Flags, the surface of the earth, which they pare off to burn: Norfolk;’
| Ray's Gloss. of Southern Words, ed. 1691. ME. flagge; ‘flagge of
the erthe;” Prompt. Parv. = Icel. flaga, a flag or slab of stone; flag,
the spot where a turf has been cut out. [These would regularly give
an E, form flaw, as in North E. (see E. D. D.), but flag is an E, Anglian
form, found also in South E.} Cf. Swed. dial. flagtorf, a cut turf
(Moller). —Icel. #ak-, appearing in flakaa, to flake off, to split; flagna,
to flake off. Flag (4) is closely allied to Flake, q. v.
FLAGELLATE, to scourge. (L.) Flagellation is in Blount’s
Gloss. ed. 1674.—L. flagellatus, pp. of flagellare, to scourge.=L.
flagellum, ascourge; dimin. of flagrum,ascourge. Der. flagellat-on;
flagell-ant, from L. flagellant-, base of pres. pt. of flagellare; also
flail, q. v.; and perhaps flog.
FLAGEOLET, a sort of flute. (F.—Prov.) Spelt flagellate in
Hudibras, c. ii. pt. 1. 1. 610.— MF. flageolet, ‘a pipe, whistle, flute ;’
Cot. Dimin. (with suffix -et) of OF. flageol, with the same sense;
14. —OProv. flaujols, a flageolet; as if from a Late L. type */laviolus.
Of unknown origin; the f7- may have been suggested by L. flare, to blow.
FLAGITIOUS, very wicked. (L.) ‘Many flagicious actes;’ Hall’s
Chron. Rich. III, an. 3. § 39. ME. flagiciouse; Wyclif has ‘ most
flagiciouse’ (Vulg. flagitiosissime) ; 2 Macc. vii. 34.—L. flagitidsus,
shameful. —L. flagitium, a disgraceful act; cf. flagitdre, to act with
violence, implore earnestly. Perhaps allied to Flagrant. Der.
flagitious-ly, -ness.
FLAGON, a drinking vessel. (F.—Late L.) In Berners, tr. of
Froissart, vol. ii. c. 187 (R.). Spelt fagan in Caxton’s ed. of Malory,
Morte Arthure, b. vii. c. 14; leaf 117, back, l. 7. -OF. flacon, older
form flascon, ‘a great leathern bottle; ’ Cot. Late L. flascdnem, acc.
i Lag a large flask ; augmentative of flascus, flasca, a flask. See
Flask.
FLAGRANT, glaring, said of a fault. (F.—L.) In Minshen,
ed. 1627.—MF. flagrant, ‘ flagrant, burning ;’ Cot.—L. flagrantem,
acc. of pres. pt. of fagrare, to burn.4+Gk. pdéyew, to burn; Skt,
216 FLAIL
bhraj, to shine brightly. —4/BHLEG, to burn. Brugmann, i. § 539
(2). Der. flagrant-ly, flagranc-y ; see con-flagrat-ion.
FLAIL, an instrument for threshing corn, (F.—L.) In P. Plow-
man, B. vi. 187.—OF. flael (F. fléau), a flail, scourge. —L. flagellum,
a scourge; in Late L., a flail. See Flagellate. 4 The Late AS.
flizel, Du. vlegel, G. flegel, are merely borrowed from L. flagellum.
FLAKE, a strip, thin slice or piece. (Scand.) ‘As flakes fallen
in grete snowes;’ Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, ili.102, Of Scand. origin;
MSwed. flake, aslice; the Norwegian dialects have preserved the word
as flak, a slice, a piece torn off, an ice-floe (Aasen) ; cf. Icel. flakna,
also flagna, to flake off, split; Swed. flaga, a flaw, crack, breach,
flake ; flagna, to peel off. Also Swed. dial. flag, flak, a thin slice;
Dan. snee-flage, a snow-flake, Perhaps allied to flay. See Flay,
Flaw, Floe, and Flag (4). Der. flak-y, flak-i-ness.
FLAMBEAU,atorch. (F.—L.) In Herbert's Travels, ed. 1665,
p- 1353 and in Dryden, tr. of Juv. Sat. iii. 450.—F. flambeau, ‘a linke,
or torch of wax;’ Cot. This answers to an ΘΕ, flambel, dimin, of
OF. flambe, a flame (below).
FLAME, a blaze, warmth. (F.—L.) In Chaucer, C. T. 15983
(G. 515). OF. flame, flamme; whence a secondary form flambe.—L.
flamma,a flame. L. jlamma=*flag-ma, from the base flag-, to burn ;
see Flagrant. Der. flame, verb, flam-ing ; flambeau, q.v. ; flamingo,
q:y. Also flamboyant, characterised by waving lines; from F. flam-
boyant, pres. pt. of flamboyer, to flame; from OF. flambe, flame.
FLAMEN, a priest of ancient Rome. (L.) In Mandeville’s
Travels, p. 141; spelt famyn.—L. flamen, a priest. J Perhaps for
*flag-men =he who burns the sacrifice; see Flame.
FLAMINGO, a bright red bird. (Span.—Proy.—L.) In Sir T.
Herbert’s Travels, ed. 1665, p. 403; spelt flamengo, Hakluyt, ili. 520.
=—Span. flamenco, a flamingo. Prov. flamenc, flamen, a flamingo ;
so called from the colour. —Proy. flama, a flame. =—L. flamma; see | ff
Flame. 4 The Prov. suffix -exc is an adaptation of the Teut.
suffix -izg. ‘The F. form for‘ flamingo’ is flamant, lit. ‘flaming ;’ but
it seems to have been confused with Ε΄, Flamand, a Fleming. Palsgrave
has: ‘Flemmyng, Flammant.’
FLANGE, a projecting rim. (F.—OHG.) A dialectal form con-
nected with prov. E. flange, to project out; E.1).D. Again, flange
is a corruption of prov. E. flanch, a projection ; cf. flanch in heraldry,
an ordinary on each side (or flank) of ‘the shield. OF. flanche (AF.
flanke), fem. sb. allied to F. flanc, side. Cf. MF. jlanchere, ‘a
flanker, side-peece ;’ Cot. See below.
FLANK, the side. (F.—OHG.) ME. flank, King Alisaunder,
3745. — OF. (and F.) flanc, side. Connected by Diez with L. flaccus,
soft; which is unsatisfactory. Now thought to be of OHG. origin. =
OHG, hlanca, MHG. Janke, the loin, side (with change of initial h/
to 72); cf. MDu. ‘de Lancke, the flanks ;’ Hexham, Allied to AS.
hlanc, slender. See Lank. Der. flank, verb; flange, q.v.
FLANNEL, a woollen substance. (Welsh.) ‘The Welsh
flannel ;’ Merry Wives, v. 5. 172. Prov. E. flannen, a more
correct form; cf. ‘apparelled in flanen,’ Sidney’s Arcadia, II. ii. 1
(ab. 1586). Prob. from W. gw/anen, an article made with wool, from
wlan, wool. The W. gwlan is cognate with ΕἸ wool; Rhys, Lect.
on W. Philology, p. 10. See Wool.
FLAP, to strike or beat with the wings, &c. (E.) ME. flappen,
P. Plowman, B. vi. 187. Also flap, sb., a blow, stroke, id. B. xiil. 67.
EFries. flappen. Not found in AS.4Du. flappen, to flap; flap, a
stroke, blow, box on the ear. B. A variant of flack, to beat, ME.
flakken, to palpitate ; see Flag (1); of imitative origin. Der. flap,
sb. ; flapp-er.
FLARE, to burn brightly, blaze, glare. (Scand.) In Shak. Merry
Wives, iv. 6. 62. ‘His flaring beams ;’ Milton, I] Pens. 132. Appa-
rently of Scand. origin. Cf. Norweg. flava, to blaze, flame, adorn
with tinsel; far, tinsel, show; Aasen. oss shows that it stands for
jiadra, to blaze, to display, to make a show; allied to Swed. fladdra,
to flutter, also to blaze, flame (Widegren); Low G. fladdern, G.
flattern, to flutter, flicker. From a Teut. base flad, to waver; cf, the
base flak, noticed under Flag (1).
FLASG, to blaze suddenly. (E.) In Shak. Timon, ii. 1. 32 ; used
of suddenly breaking out, K. Lear, i. 3. 4. ΜΕ. flaschen, to dash;
Trevisa, tr. of Higden, i. 63, ii. 369. Cf. Swed. dial. fasa, to burn
violently, blaze. And cf. Icel. flasa, to rush; flas, a headlong rush-
ing. Der. flash, sb.; flash-y, flash-i-ly, flash-t-ness. δ We find:
© Heo vlasked water peron’=she dashes or casts water on it; Ancren
Riwle, p. 314; which seems to be allied.
FLASK, a kind of bottle. (Late L.) In Shak. Romeo, iii. 3. 132.
AS. flasce, whence by metathesis, the form flacse, written flaxe. [This
change of sc tocs or x iscommon in AS. ; as in dscian = acsian =Gxian ;
mod, E. to ask and proy. E. toax.] See flasce in Voc. 240. 3 3 flaxe,
id. 109. 5. ‘Twa fatu, on folcise flaxan gehatene’=two vessels,
vulgarly called flasks; Gregory’s Dialogues, ii. 18 (Bosworth); where
the L. text has ‘quae vulgo fascones vocantur.’ We find also Icel. faska
FLAX
(an old word); Dan. flaske; Swed. flaska; G. flasche; OHG. flasca.
B. But it is improbable that the word is really ‘Teutonic; it seems to
be rather from Late L. flasca, a flask, of uncertain origin; the deriv.
fiasco occurs in Gregory (as above), ab. A.D. 600. Perhaps from L.
uasculum, a little vessel (Diez). We also find W. flasg, Gael. flasg
(from E.). Der. flegon, q.v.
FLAT, level, smooth. (Scand.) ME. flac; ‘sche fel . . flat to
the grounde ;’ Will. of Palerne, 4414. —Icel. jlacr, flat; Swed. flat;
Dan. flad. @ The connexion with Gk. πλατύς, broad, has not
been made out; Curtius, i. 346. And it must be rejected; see
Flawn. Der. flat, sb. ; -ly, -ness; flatt-en (coined by analogy with
length-en, &c.) ; flatt-ish, flat-wise.
FLATTER, to coax, soothe. (F.—Scand.; or E.) ME. flateren
(with one δ ἢ P. Plowman, B. xx. 10g. Perhaps from (orat any rate
influenced by) OF. flater (later flatter), ‘ to flatter, sooth, smooth;
. also to claw, stroke, clap gently;’ Cot. But this would have
only given a ME, form *flat-en; so that the -er- is an E, addition.
B. The OF. flat-er is from Icel. flat-r, flat ; with the notion of making
smooth, y. But the base fla/- may have been of imitative origin, like
fiak-, whence MSwed. fleckra, to flatter (Ihre); Swed. dial. fleka, to
caress (Rietz). Cf. ME, jlakken, to move to and fro, and G. flach,
flat; and note ME. flakeren as a variant of flateren, Ancren Riwle,
p- 222. @ The sb. flattery is from OF. flaterie, F. flatterie; which,
indeed, may have suggested the suffix -er-,
FLATULENT, full of wind, windy. (F.—L.) In Minsheu;
also in Holland’s Plutarch, p. 577 (R.).—MF. flatulent, ‘ flatulent,
windy;’ Cot.—Late L. fldtulentus ; not in Ducange, but regularly
formed from the base flatu-, by analogy with temulentus, drunken. =
L. flatus, a blowing, a breath.=L. flatus, pp. of flare, to blow; cog-
nate with E. blow. See Blow (1). Der. flatulent-ly, flatulence,
atulenc-y,
FLAUNT, to display ostentatiously. (Scand.) Shak. has flaunts,
s. pl. fine clothes, Winter’s ‘Ta. iv. 4.23. ‘Yeeld me thy flanting
[showy] hood ;’ Turberville, To his Friend that refused him, st. 10.
‘With... fethers faunt-a-flaunt,’ i.e. showily displayed ; Gascoigne,
Steel Glass, 1163. Prov. E. flant, flaunt, to gad about, esp. in finery ;
flanty or flaunty, giddy, flighty. OfScand. origin. Cf. Norw. flanta,
to gad about; from flava, to climb, to rove about, to gad about;
fiana, a gad-about, flanen, adj. obtrusive, forward (of children). So
also Jutland flanted, adj., as en flanted Tos, a gad-about (flaunting)
hussy, from a verb flante (Kok); Jutland flante, a giddy girl, flantet,
foolish (Feilberg); Dan. flane, a giddy girl, flane, to flirt. Also
Swed. dial. lana, to be unsteady, to be extravagantly hilarious, fana,
a flirt; whence also Swed. dial. flanka, to be unsteady, waver, hang
and wave about, ramble; and the adj. and adv. flankt, loosely,
flutteringly (which = Gascoigne’s flaunt-a-flaunt). Perhaps also allied
to Bavarian flandern, to flutter, flaunt, Schmeller, i. 792. Cf. Gk.
πλάνη, a wandering ; see Planet.
FLAVOUR, the taste, scent. (F.—L.) Milton, Sams. Agon.,
544, says of wine ‘the flavor or the smell, Or taste that cheers the
heart of Gods or men, ἄς. He here seems to distinguish flavour
from both smell and taste; but he may have meant the former. ME.
flauor (=flavor); Early E. Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, A. 87. But
Wyntown has flewoure, scent, Chron, ix. 26. 107; Henryson has
flewer, Moral Fables, p. 66 (N.E.D.). The word must have been
modified by the influence of savour.—OF. fléur, fleiur, flaur, smell.
Cf. Ital. fiatore, a bad odour; answering to a Late L. acc. type
*fator-em.=—L.. fldtus, pp. of flare, to blow. (Korting, § 3825.)
FLAW, a crack, break. (Scand.) ME. flawe, used in the sense of
‘flake ;’ ‘flawes of fyre’=flakes of fire; Allit. Morte Arthure, ed.
Brock, 2556.—Swed. jlaga, a flaw, crack, breach; also, a flake;
Norw. flaga, a piece flaked off; a place (on a tree-stem) without
bark (Ross); see Flake. Cf. prov. E. flaw, a flake (as of snow);
also a gust of wind, like Du. vlaag. Der. flaw-less.
FLAWN, a kind of custard. (F.—OHG.) ‘Fill ouen full of
flawnes;’ Tusser, Husb. § 90. st. 5. ME. flaun; ‘ Pastees and
Jlaunes,’ Havelok, 644.—F. flan, OF. flaon. Cotgrave gives flans,
‘flawns, custards, egg-pies ; also, round plates of metall ;’ and jlaons,
‘round plates of metall.’ [Cf. Span. flaon, flawn, plate of metal ;
Ital. fiadone, ‘a kind of flawne,’ Florio; Low L. jflado, flato, a
flawn.)—OHG. flado, a broad flat cake, flawn; MHG, wade; α.
fladen,akind of pan-cake. B. Cf. G. kuk-fladen, a piece of cow-dung ;
MDnu. vlade, ‘a flawne, Hexham; ME. fflathe, a flawn, Wright,
Vocab. i. 127; ἃ flat fish (Prompt. Parv.). Further allied to Gk.
πλατύς, broad, πλάθανον, a dish in which cakes were baked, a platter.
(See Scheler, Diez, Kluge.)
FLAX, the name of a plant. (E.) ME. flax, Chaucer, C. T. 678
(A 676). AS. fleax ; AElfric’s Gloss., ed. Somner, Vestium Nomina, _
1. το. Ἔα. vlas; G. flachs; OHG. vlahs, flahs. B. Cf. Goth. flahkta,
a plaiting of the hair; it is probable that flax is from the same root ;
see Curtius, 1. 203. Ifso, the root is PLEK, to weave; whence aise
FLAY
Gk. πλέκειν, to weave, plait. Der. flax-en, where -en is an AS. adj.
suffix.
FLAY, to strip off skin, slice off. (E.) Formerly spelt flea; see
Rich. and Halliwell. ME. flean, pt. τ. flow, pp. flan; Havelok,
2502. AS. fléan (in a gloss); Bosworth.+lIcel. fla, pt. t. 76, pp.
fleginn. Teut. type *flah-an-, pt. τ. *floh, to strike. Cognate with
Lith. plak-w, 1 strike; cf. L. plaga,astroke. See Plague. Brug-
mann, i. § 569.
FLEA, a small insect. (E.) ME. flee, pl. fleen; Chaucer, C. T.
16966 (H 17). AS. fléah (O. E. Texts); spelt feo, as a gloss to pulex,
in «ἘΠῚ. Gloss. ; Voc. 121. 38.4-Du. vloo; Icel. 16; ἃ. floh. Teut.
base *flauh- (or rather *plauh-) ; allied to the verb to flee. See Flee.
FLEAM, a kind of lancet. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Kersey’s Dict.,
ed. 1715. Spelt fleame in Cotgrave, s.v. deschaussoir.— OF. flieme,
Ἐς flamme, ‘a fleam;’ Hamilton and Legros, [Cotgrave gives only
the dimin. flammette, ‘a kind of launcet.’| — Late L. #létoma, a lancet
(Voc. 400. 11) ; shortened from flevotomum, phlebotomum, a lancet. =
Gk. φλεβοτόμον, a lancet. Gk. φλεβό-, decl. stem of φλέψ, a vein ;
and rop-, 2nd grade of τέμνειν, tocut. See Phlebotomy. This
pardonable abbreviation of too long a word is countenanced by Du.
vlijm, G. fliete, and MHG. fliedeme, all various corruptions of the
same surgical word.
FLECK, a spot. (Scand.) ME. has only the verb flekken, to spot ;
Chaucer, C. T. 16033 (G 565).—Icel. fekkr, a spot ; flekka, to stain,
spot; Swed. flack, a spot; flacka, to spot; Du. vlek, sb. ; vlekken, vb. ;
G. fleck, sb. ; flecken, vb., to spot, stain, put on a patch.
FLECTION, a bending; see Flexible.
FLEDGE, to acquire (or be furnished with) feathers. (E.) Shak.
has fledged, Merch. Ven. iii. 1.32. This pp. fledged is a substitution
for an older adj. fledge, meaning ‘ready to fly.’ ME. flegge, ‘ready
to fly’ (Stratmann), a Kentish form of ME. flygge, ready to fly ; spelt
fligge in the Prompt. Parv. p. 167 (and note). AS. *flyege, found in
comp. unflycge; as in ‘inplumes, unflicge ;’ O. E. Glosses (Napier),
28. 13. - Du. vlug, MDu. vlugge; Low G. flugge; OHG. flucchi.
Teut. type *fugjoz, adj.; from *flug-, weak grade of *fleugan-, to fly.
Cf. also Icel. fleygr, able to fly; Icel. feyg7a, to make to fly, causal
of fijiiga, to fly. See Fly (1). Der. fledge-ling.
FLEE, to escape, run away. (E.) Not the same word as jy.
ME. fleen, pt. τ. fleh, fleth; Cursor Mundi, 2818. [We also find the
pt. τ fledde, and pp. fled; Chaucer, C. T. 2932; Havelok, 1431.)
AS. fléon (pt. τ. fléah).4-OSax. fliohan, G. fliehen; Icel. flyja (pt. τ.
δ, also flydi) ; Swed. fly (pt. τ. flydde) ; Goth. thliuhan. Teut. type
*thliuhan- (pt. t. thlauh); so that ΑἹ was orig. ¢hl, and there was at
first no connexion with the verb to ly, which was at an early date
confused with it. 4 The pt. t. fed, ME. fledde, was due to Icel.
fiydi, Swed. flydde (above).
FLEECE, a sheep's coat of wool. (E.) Here -ce stands for 5, as
often. ME. flees, Prompt. Parv. p. 166; Wyclif, Gen. xxx. 35.
AS. fléos (Bosw.) ; earlier flivs (O. E. Texts) ; also (with mutation)
Flys, Ps. Ixxi. 6 (ed. Spelman). Du. vlies; G. fliess; MHG. vlius; cf.
also G. flaus,a woollen coat, MHG. vliis, a sheep-skin. Teut. types
*fleusi-, *fleuso-, *fliso- ; possibly allied to L. pli-ma. See Plume.
(See Kluge.)
FLEER, to mock, to grin. (Scand.) In Shak. L. L. L. v. 2. 109;
Jul. Ces. i. 3. 117. ME. flerien, Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 1088,
2778. Of Scand. origin; cf. Norw. flzra, to titter, giggle, laugh at
nothing ; Aasen. Dan. dial. flire, to jeer. Also Νοῦν. flisa, to
titter; Swed. flissa, to titter. B. Another variation of this verb is
Swed. flina, to titter; Swed. dial. fina, to make a wry face (Rietz).
FLEBST (1), a number of ships. (E.) ME. flete, Morte Arthure,
ed. Brock, 1189; fleote, Layamon, 2155. AS. fléot, a ship, Grein,
i. 304. [It seems afterwards to have been used collectively.]—AS.
fiéotan, to ‘fleet,’ i.e. to float, swim.--OSax. fliotan, Du. vlieten, to
flow; G. fliessen, to flow; Icel. fjdta, Swed. flyta, Dan. flyde. Teut.
type *fleutan-, pt. τ. *faut, pp. *flutanoz; Idg. base *plend, as in Lith.
pludis, a float of a fishing-net. (4/PLEU.) Cf. Gk. πλέειν, to sail ;
Skt. plu, pru, to swim, float, flow. B. Hence also the more usual
AS. form Ποία, a ship, Grein, i. 305 (=ME. flote, Havelok, 738) ;
which is cognate with Icel. floti, (1) a raft, (2) a fleet. See
Float (4).
FLEET (2), a creek, bay. (E.) Inthe place-names North-fleet,
Fleet Street, &c. Fleet Street was so named from the Fleet ditch ;
and fleet was a name given to any shallow creek, or stream or channel
of water; see E.D.D. ME. fleet, Prompt. Pary. p. 166. AS. fléot,
a bay of the sea, as in s#s fléot=bay of the sea; tr. of Beda, i. 34.
Cf. also AS. fléote,a stream. The orig. sense was ‘ that which flows;’
and the deriy. is from the old verb fleet, to float, flow; see above.
Cf. CE ee Tcel. fot, a stream ; Du. vliet, a rill, a brook.
FLEET (3), swift. (E.) In Shak. L. L. L. yv. 2. 261. It does
not seem to appear in ME., but the AS. form is jléotig (= fleet-y),
Grein, i. 304. It is a derivative from the old verb to fleet, and=
FLIPPANT
fleeting ; see Fleet (4). Cf. Icel. ffjotr, fleet, swift; from the verb
σία, see Fleet (1). Der. fleet-ly, -ness.
FLEET (4), to move swiftly. (E.) ‘As seasons flee¢t;’ 2 Hen.
VI, ii. 4. 4. From Fleet (3). Der. fleet-ing, fleet-ing-ly. @ Not
the same word as ffi, though allied to it; see Fit.
FLESH, the soft muscular covering of the bones of animals. (E.)
ME. flesch, fleisch; Chaucer, C. T. 147. AS. fl#sc, Grein, i. 302.-4-Du.
vleesch; G. fleisch, flesh; and (with short vowel) Icel. fesk, in the
special sense of ‘ pork,’ or ‘bacon;’ Dan. flesk, pork, bacon; Swed.
jiask, pork, bacon. Teut. type *faiskos, neut. Der. flesh, verb, K.
John, v. 1. 713 flesh-ed; -less, -ly, -y, -i-ly, -i-ness.
FLETCHER, an arrow-maker. (F.—C.) ME. flecchour, De-
struction of Troy, ]. 1593.—OF. flechier, a fletcher. —OF. fleche (F.
fléche), an arrow, = Olrish flesc, a rod, a wand. Stokes-Fick, p. 287.
FLEUR-DE-LIS, flower of the lily. (F.—L.) ΜῈ. floure-de-lice,
Minot’s Poems (Spec. of Eng. ed. Morris and Skeat, p. 131, 1. 25). —
OF. fleur de lis; whence also E. flower-de-luce, Winter's Ta. iv. 4. 127.
Here dis is from the old pl. form, because there were three flowers-
de-lis on the royal shield; the OF. nom. sing. was lil, —L. lilium, a
lily. See Flower and Lily.
FLEXIBLE, easily bent. (F.—L.) In Shak. Troil. i. 3. 50;
and Hoccleve, De Regim. Princ., 3358. —F. flexible, ‘ flexible ;’ Cot.
—L. flexibilis, easily bent.—L. flexus, pp. of flectere, to bend. Der.
flexible-ness, flexibl-y, flexibil-i-iy; from L. flexus are also flex-ion
(wrongly flect-ion), -or, -ile, -ure; from the same source, circum-flex,
de-flect, in-flex-ion (wrongly in-flect-ion), re-flect.
FLICKER, to flutter, waver. (E.) ME. flikeren, to flutter;
Chaucer, Troil. iv. 1221. AS. flicerian, Deut. xxxii.11; also flicorian,
/Elfric, Hom. ii. 156. B. Here flicerian is a frequentative form from
the base flic-, an attenuated form of the base FLAK, to beat; the
sense is ‘to beat slightly and often.’ γ. This is made clear by the
occurrence of the stronger form flaker in the ME. flakeren, Ancren
Riwle, p. 222; of which the later form flacker occurs in Coverdale’s
Bible, Ezek. x. 19: ‘And the cherubins flackered with their wings.’
See Flag (1). 4 The Icel. flékra, to flutter=E. flacker ; Du.
flikkeren, to sparkle=E. flicker. Cf. Prov. Du. flik, a light blow
(Molema).
FLIGHT (1), the act of flying. (E.) ME. flight, Chaucer, C. T.
Igo. AS. flyht, Grein, i. 306; allied to AS. flyg-e, flight. Teut.
type *fluhtiz; from *flug-, weak grade of “fleugan-, to fly. Der.
ight-y, -i-ness. See Fly (1).
FLIGHT (2), the act of fleeing away. (E.) ME. fl:ht, Layamon,
1. 21405; Ormulum, 1. 19683.4-OSax. and OHG. flucht. Teut. type
*thluhtiz; from *thluh-, weak grade of *thliuhan-, to flee; see
Flee.
FLIMSY, weak, slight.
217
(Scand.?) ‘Flimsy, limber, slight ;’”
Phillips, ed. 1706. In Pope, Prol. to Satires, 1. 94. Lit. ‘like the
skim on milk.’ Formed by adding -y to Dan. dial. flims, flems, skim
on milk; cf. EFries. flém, flim, afilm. These forms are allied to E.
film. If the ending was -sy (as from EFries. flim), cf. tip-sy, bump-sy,
also limp-sy, given by Webster as the synonym of flimsy in the U.S. A.
Der. flimsi-ness.
FLINCH, to shrink back. (F.—Teut.?) In Shak, All’s Well,
ii. I. 190.—OF. flenchir, flainchir, to turn aside, bend (given by
Godefroy, 5. ν. flechir). Perhaps from OHG, *hlencan, answering to
G, lenken, to bend, turn. This G. lenken is from OHG., hlanca, the
side (Kluge); see Flank. 47 The initial #7 would then be accounted
for, as in flank, from OHG. hl. See Link (1).
FLING, to throw, dart, scatter about. (Scand.) The pt. t. flang
= flung, occurs in King Alisaunder, 2749. Cf. Swed. fldnga, to use
violent action, to romp; fldnga med hdstarna, to ride horses too hard ;
fling, sb., violent exercise, i fléng, at full speed (cf. E. to take one’s
fling); Swed. dial. flanga, to strip bark from trees, to hack, strike
(Rietz) ; MSwed. flenga, to strike, beat with rods (Ihre) ; Dan. flenge,
to slash ; i fleng, indiscriminately. B. These forms presuppose a
strong verb *fling-a, which the E. form perhaps represents.
FLINT, a hard stone. (E.) ME. flint, Havelok, 2667. AS. fi:nt,
a rock; Numb. xx. 10. + Dan. flint; Swed. flinta. + Gk. πλίνθος, a
brick; Brugmann, i. §§ 575, 704. Der. flint-y, -i-ness.
FLIP (1), to fillip, jerk lightly. (Scand.) First in 1616; see
further under Flippant.
FLIP (2), a mixture of beer and spirit with sugar, heated. (E.)
‘Eat biscuit, and drink flip;’ Congreve, Love for Love, A. iii. sc. 4
(Ben). From flip (above), to beat up. Moisy (Dict. of Norman
patois) spells it phlippe, as if from F. Philippe; but it is borrowed
from E,
FLIPPANT, pert, saucy. (Scand.) ‘A most flippant tongue
she had;’ Chapman, All Fools, Act ν. sc. 1, prose speech by Gos-
tanzo. The suffix -ant is due to the Northern E, pres. pt. in -and ;
hence flippant=flippand, i.e. prattling, babbling. Or else -ant
imitates the F. pres, part.,as inramp-ant. From the base flip-, weak
218 FLIRT
grade allied to Icel. fleipa, to babble, prattle; Swed. dial. flepa, to
talk nonsense (Rietz). Cf. flip,thelip. Der. flippant-ness, flippanc-y.
FLIRT, to trifle in wooing. (E.) In old authors ‘to mock,’ or
scorn,’ and often spelt flurt ; see The Two Noble Kinsmen, ed.
Skeat, i. 2. 18 (and the note). The oldest sense of flirf was ‘to jerk
lightly away ;’ see N.E.D.and E. D.D. We find EFries. firr, flirt,
a light blow; flirtje, a giddy girl. Der. flirt, sb.; flirt-ation.
FLIT, to remove from place to place. (Scand.) ME. flitten;
P. Plowman, B, xi. 62; also flutten, Layamon, 30503. —Swed. flyita,
to flit, remove; Dan. flytte. From *flut-, weak grade of Icel. fjota
(Swed. fly/a, Dan. flyde), to float, flow. See Fleet (1). Cf. Icel.
για, to hasten; flytja, to carry, cause to flit; flytjask (reflexive), to
flit, remove. Der. /fi/t-ing, Ps. lvi. 8 (P.-Bk. version). Also flitter-
mouse, i.e. a bat; see Flutter.
FLITCH, a side of bacon. (E.) ME. flicche, P. Plowman, B. ix.
169. AS. flicce, str. n., to translate L. succidia; Bosworth. The pl.
fliccu occurs in Diplom. Angl., ed. Thorpe, p. 158; gen. flicca, id.
p- 460. Teut. type *fik-jom, n.+Icel. fikki, a flitch; lik, a flap,
tatter. B. The Swed. lik is a lappet, a lobe; Dan. flik is a patch ;
cf. G. flick- (in comp.), a patch. Perhaps allied to Fleck.
FLOAT, to swim on a liquid surface. (E.) ME. floten, flotian,
flotten; (very rare, the usual form being fleten (AS. fléotan)]; see
Fleet (4). ‘A whal... by that bot flote’=a whale floated by the
boat; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, (. 248. AS. flotran ; as in ‘ an scip
flotigende, a ship floating; A.S. Chron., an. 1031. Cf. AS. flota,
a ship (Grein); allied words to which are Icel. floti, a float, raft,
whence flotna, to float to the top; Swed. flotta, a fleet, a raft, flotta,
to cause to float; Du, vlot, a raft, whence vlotten, to cause to float,
to float; G. floss, a raft, whence fléssen, to float ; see also Fleet (1).
Tent. type *flutdjan-, to float; from */ut-, weak grade of *fleutan-,
to float, whence mod. E. fleet. See Fleet (1). 4 Partly confused
with F. flotter (OF. floter), to float; from the same Teut. base *flur-.
See Flotilla. Der. float, sb.; float-er, -age, -ing, -at-ion; also
flotsam, q.v.
FLOCK (1), a company of birds or sheep. (E.) ME, flok; ‘a
flok of bryddis’=birds; King Alisaunder, 566. AS. floce, m., Gen.
xxxii, 8.4Icel. fokkr; Dan. flok; Swed. flock. Der. flock, verb.
FLOCK (2), a lock of wool. (F.—L.) In Shak. 1 Hen. IV, ii.
1. 7; ME. flokkys, pl.; Prompt. Parv.—MF. floc, floc de laine, ‘a
lock or flock of wool;’ (οἵ, “Τὸ. floceum, ace. of floccus, a lock of
wool. Der. flock-y; and (from L. floceus), floce-ose, flocc-ul-ent; also
flock-bed, &c. Brugmann, i. ὃ 585 (1). 4 Not to be confused with
flake, with which it is unconnected.
FLOKB, a flake of ice. (Dan.) Modern; common in accounts of
Arctic Voyages.—Dan. flage, in the comp. iis-flage, an ice-floe ;
Norw. isflak, isflok, lit. ‘ice-flake.’ See Flake. @ Strictly, Dan.
flage gives E. flaw; the sound was not exactly caught.
FLOG, to beat, whip. (L.?) A late word. It occurs in Cowper’s
Tirocinium, 1. 329; and in Swift (Todd); also in Coles’ Dict. ed.
1671, which gives: ‘ Flog (cant word), to whip.’ Perhaps a school-
boy’s abbreviation from the L. flagellare, to whip, once a familiar
word. See Flagellate. 41 This is paralleled by the use of Low G.
flogger, as acommon variant of fegel, a flail; where flegel represents
L. flagellum.
FLOOD, a great flow of water. (E.) ME. flod, P. Plowman,
B. vi. 326. AS. flad, Grein, i. 305. ἘΠ). vloed; Icel. flod; Swed.
and Dan. fod; Goth. flddus, a river; G. fluth. Teut. type */0-duz,
act of flowing, also a flood; from the Teut. base *#@(w)-. From the
notion of flowing; see Flow. Allied to Gk. πλω-τός, floating.
Brugmann, i. 8 154. Der. fload, verb; fload-ing, flood-gate.
FLOOR, a flat surface, platform. (E.) ME. flor, Allit. Poems,
ed. Morris, B, 133. AS. fdr, Grein, i. 306.4-Du. vloer; G. flur.
Teut. type *fdruz. Cognate with W. Jlawr; Bret. lew-; Irish and
Gael. lar (<plar); Celtic type *(p)laros; Stokes-Fick, p. 236. From
Idg. *pla-, to spread out ; whence also L. pla-nus, plain. See Plain.
Der. floor-ing.
FLOP, to flap or sway heavily. (E.) A dialectal form; see
E.D.D. An imitative variety of flap, expressive of greater heaviness
or clumsiness. Cf. prov. Du. ffof, the sound of a blow or fall
(Molema); Low G. flupps, suddenly (Berghaus).
FLORAL, pertaining to flowers. (L.) Late. In Johnson’s Dict.
-L. fléralis, belonging to Flora.—L. Fldra, goddess of flowers ;
mentioned in Shak. Wint. Ta. iv. 4. 2.—L. jlér-, stem of Μῦς, a
flower; cf. flor-ére, to flourish. See Flower. Der. flor-esc-ence
(from L. fldrescere, to blossom) ; flor-et ; flori-culture, -fer-ous, -form,
flor-ist; also flor-id, q. v., florin, q. Vv.
FLORID, abounding in flowers, red. (L.) In Milton, P.L. iv.
278. [Directly from Latin; the OF. florde means ‘lively.’}=L.
fioridus, abounding with flowers. = L. fldri-, decl. stem of "ὅς, a flower.
See Flower. Der. florid-ly, -ness.
FLORIN, a coin of Florence. (F.—Ital.—L.) ΜΕ. flrin,
FLOUT
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 12704 (c. 770). Florins were coined by Edw. TIE in
1337, and named after the coins of Florence, which were much
esteemed. First in 13033; spelt florens (N. E. D.).—OF. florin, <a
florin ;’ Cot. —TItal. fiorino (= fforino), a florin; so named because it
bore a lily, the symbol of Florence. —Ital. fore, a flower; with
ailusion to L. Flérentia (Florence). —L. acc. flar-em, a flower, flor-ére,
to flourish. See Flower.
FLOSCULE, a floret of a composite flower. (L.) Botanical
and scientific. —L. floseulus, a little flower; double dimin. of fds,
a flower. See Flower.
FLOSS, a downy substance, untwisted silken filaments. (F.—L.)
What is now called floss-silk was formerly called sleave-silk; sce
Nares. The term floss-silk is modem (first in 1759). Cot. gives
‘ soye flosche, sleave silk;’ whence the E. word seems to have been
borrowed. [Cf. Ital. floscio, flaccid, soft, weak ; whence ffoscia seta,
‘raveling or sleave silke;’ Florio. The Venetian form, according
to Wedgwood, is flosso, which exactly agrees with the E. ffoss.} An
adj. formation from OF. flocher, to form into ‘ flocks’ or tufts.— OF.
floc; see Flock (2).
FLOTILLA, alittle fleet. (Span.—Teut.) Merely Spanish; Bailey
gives only the form flota. Span. flotilla, a little fleet; dimin. of flota,
a fleet, cognate with OF. flote, a fleet of ships, but also a crowd of
people, a group (OF. flote de gens); see Burguy. This OF. flote,
a fem. form, is from a Teut. source. Cf. Du. υἱοοί, a fleet, allied to
Icel. floti, (1) a raft, (2) a fleet, AS, Ποία, ἃ ship. From the Teut.
base *flut-; see Float, Fleet (1). (Kérting, § 3861.)
FLOTSAM, goods lost in shipwreck, and left floating on the
waves. (AF. —E.) and L.) In Blackstone’s Comment. b. i. c. 8; spelt
flotson in Blount’s Law Dict., ed. 1691. Cotgrave has: ‘a fio,
floating ; choses a flo, flotsens or flotzams.? This is an Old Law F.
term, appearing as AF. floteson, Black Book of the Admiralty, ed.
Twiss, i. 82; which answers to OF. flotaison, a flooding of fields, F.
flott-aison, flotation, formed with suffix -eson, -aison (L. -ationem) from
the verb ffotter, to float; which is of Teut. origin (above).
FLOUNCKH (1), to plunge about. (Scand.) ‘After his horse had
flounced and floundered with his heeles ;’ Holland, tr. of Ammianus,
p-77 (R.). ‘Alexander flounced. . . into the floudde ;’ Udall, tr. of
Erasmus, Apophthegmes (1542), p. 183, Ὁ (N.E. D.). Of imitative
origin; Cf. Swed. dial. funsa, to dip, plunge, to fall into water with
a plunge (Rietz); MSwed. flunsa, to plunge, particularly used of
the dipping of a piece of bread into gravy (Ihre); Norw. fluns,
violent and unusual treatment (Ross). See Flounder (1).
FLOUNCKH (2), a plaited border on a dress. (F.—L.) ‘To
change a flounce;’ Pope, Rape of the Lock, ii. 100, ‘ Farthingales
and flounces,’ Beaum. and Fletcher, Mons. ‘Thomas, ili. 2.3. Made,
by change of r to 1, from ME. frounce, a plait, wrinkle ; P. Plowman,
B. xiii. 318 ; Chaucer, tr. of Boethins, b. i. pr. 2, 1.20. We also have
frounced=frizzled and curled, in Milton, Il Pens. 123; cf. Spenser,
F.Q.i. 4. 14. —OF. froncer, frouser, ‘to gather, plait, fold, wrinkle;
fronser le front, to frown or knit the brows;* Cot. B. Perhaps from
Late L. *frontiare, to wrinkle the forehead; not found, but regularly
formed from fronti-, decl. stem of frons, the forehead. See Front,
and Frounce. (Korting, ὃ 4009.)
FLOUNDER (1), to flounce about. (Scand.) See quotation
under Flounce (1); also in Beaum. and Fletcher, Woman’s Prize,
ii. 6. 30. Of imitative origin; from Norw. flundra, to sprawl, to
flounder (Ross). Cf. Norw. fluna, to sprawl, struggle; Du. flodderen,
to dangle, flap, splash through the mire ; Swed. fladdra, to flutter.
FLOUNDER (2), the name of a fish. (F.—Scand.) Flounder-
like occurs in Massinger, Renegado, Act iii. sc. 1 (Mustapha’s 5th
speech). Flounder is in Beaum., and Fletcher, Mons. Thomas, ii. 3 ;
and in John Dennis, Secrets of Angling (ab. A.D. 1613), in Arber’s
Eng. Garner, i. 171. ME. floundre, Expeditions of Earl of Derby,
1390-3, Camden Soc.; p. 159, ]. 25.—OF. flondre (Normandy). =
Swed. flundra, a flounder; Dan. flynder ; EF ries. flunder ; Icel. flydra.
Prob. allied to Norw. flindra, a thin chip or slice, EFries. flidder,
a flat fish; G. fladen, a flat cake. See Flawn.
FLOUR, the finer part of meal. (F.—L.) ‘Fyne flowre of whete;’
Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. ii. c. 11; also spelt fower, with which
it is identical. ME. flour of whete, Karly E. Psalter, Ps. 80. 17 (81.
16). OF. flour, F. fleur de farine, ‘flower, or the finest meal;’ Cot.
See Flower.
FLOURISH, to blossom, thrive. (F.—L.) ME. florisshen;
Prompt. Parv. p. 167; Wyclif, Ps. lxxxix. 6.—OF. floriss-, base of
pres. pt. of florir, to flourish.—Folk-L. *florire, for L. flérére, to
flower; cf. L. fldrescere, inceptive form of florére, to flower,
bloom. —L. flér-, stem of “ὅς, a flower. See Flower. Der. flourish,
sb., -ing. )
FLOUT, to mock. (F.) A peculiar use of flute, used. as a verb;
Shak. Temp. iii. 2. 130. ME, flouten, to play the flute ; flowte, a flute,
Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, 1223. From French; see Flute. Cf.MDu.
FLOW
fluyten, to play the flute, also to jeer, to impose upon; now spelt
fimten (Oudemans) ; MDu. fluyt (Du. fluit), a flute. Der. flout, sb.
FLOW, to stream, glide. (E.) ME. flowen (not very common),
Chaucer, Troil. iii. 1758. AS. flowan, Grein, i. 306.4Du. vioeijen;
Icel. fda, to boil milk, to flood. Teut. base *#6-; cognate with Gk.
mAw-ew (for rAwf-ev), to float. Further allied to Gk. πλέειν (for
πλέβ-ειν), to sail, L. plu-ere, to rain; and therefore distinct from
L. fluere, to flow. See Flood. Der. flow, sb., -ing; also flood, q.v.
FLOWER, a bloom, blossom. (K.—L.) ME. flour, Chaucer,
C. T. 4; Havelok, 2917.—OF. flour, flor (I. fleur). —L. fldrem, ace.
of flds, a flower; cf. flarére, to bloom, cognate with E. blow, to bloom.
See Blow (2). Der. flower-y, -et; also flor-id, -al, -in; flos-cule,
flourish, q.v. Doublet, flour, q.v.
FLUCTUATE, to waver. (L.) In Milton, P. L. ix. 668; and
in Blount’s Gloss., 16356, 1681.—L. fluctudtus, pp. of fluctuare, to float
about.—L, fluctus, a wave.—L. fluctus, old pp. of fluere, to flow; s.e
Fluent. Der. fluctu-at-ion.
FLUE (1), an air-passage, chimney-pipe, (F.—L.) Evelyn speaks
of ‘chimney flues;’ Diary, Aug. 9, 1654. |Phaer (tr. of Virgil, x.
209) translates concha, the sea-shell trumpet of the Tritons, by
‘wrinckly wreathed flue’ (R.); but this is a misprint for “μι.
Prob. from ME. fluen, to flow ; as the pipe conducts the flow of the
smoke ;.‘to flue, fluere;* Cath. Angl. (1483).—OF. flue, a flowing ;
fluer, to flow.—L. fluere, to flow. So also Du. vloei-pijp, a ven-
tilating shaft, from Du. vloeijen, to flow, cognate with E. flow; see
Flow. But L. flwere is quite distinct from E. flow.
FLUE (2), light floating down. (E.?) In Johnson’s Dict,
explained as ‘soft down or fur.’ Also called fluff. Prob. of E.
origin. Perhaps a derivative of *#ug-, weak grade of the verb to
fly; see Fly (1). We find the exact equivalent in Norw. flu, flue
(Ross): El'ries. fliig, flog, flue; Low G. flog, flue. Cf. G. flug, flight.
FLUENT, flowing, eloquent. (L.) Used in the sense of ‘copious?
in Shak. Hen. V, iii. 7. 36.—L. fluentem, acc. of pres. pt. of fluere, to
flow. Cf. Gk. φλύειν, to swell, overflow, dvapAvew, to spout up ;
see Curtius, i. 375. Der. fluent-ly, fluenc-y; from same source, flu-id,
q.v., flu-or, q.v., flux, q.v., fluctuate, q.v.; also af-flu-ence, con-flux,
de-flux-ion, ef-flux, influx, re-flux, &c.
FLUID, liquid. (F.—L.) In Milton, P. L. vi. 349; Bacon, Nat.
Hist., sect. 68.—OF. fluide; Cot.—L. fluidus, flowing, liquid. =
L. fluere, to flow; see Fluent. Der. fluid-i-ty, -ness.
FLUKE (1), a flounder, kind of fish. (E.) ME. fluke, Morte
Arthure, ed. Brock, 1088. AS. flac, gloss to L. platissa, a plaice;
AElfric’s Colloquy.-+-Icel, ki, a kind of halibut. From *flok, 2nd
grade of a Teut. base *flak-, which appears in G. flach, flat.
‘FLUKE (2), part of an anchor. (E.) In Kersey’s Dict., ed.
1715. ‘Flouke of an anchor;’ Phillips (1658). Also spelt flook.
Apparently the same word as fluke (1), applied to the flattened end
of the hook. Apparently distinct from G. flunke, the fluke of an
anchor ; and from Icel. akkerisfleinn, Dan. ankerflig, Swed. ankarfly,
G, ankerfliigel, the fluke of an anchor.
FLUMMERY, a light kind of food. (W.) ‘Flummery, a whole-
some jelly made of oatmeal ;’ Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715. — W. Ilymru,
lymruwd, flammery, sour oatmeal boiled and jellied.=W. l/ymus,
sharp, tart.
FLUNKEY, a footman. (F.-OHG.) In Bums, Twa Dogs,
1.54. 115 origin is clearly due to F. flanquer, to flank ; it seems to
be put for flanker. ‘ Flanquer, to flanke, run along by the side of;
to defend, support, or fence; to be at ones elbow for a help at need;’
Cot. See Flank.
FLUOR, FLUOR-SPAR, a mineral. (L.) Latinised from
G. fluss, a flowing, fusion ; a term applied by G. Agricola (in 1546)
to minerals used as fluxes in smelting. The L. fluor (lit. a flowing)
was formerly in use as a term in alchemy and chemistry. ‘Fluor, a
flux, course, or stream;’ Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715.—L. fluere, to flow ;
see Fluent.
FLURRY, agitation, hurry. (E.) ‘The boat was overset by
a sudden flurry [gust of wind] from the North;’ Swift, Voyage to
Lilliput; c. 1. And see Rich. Dict. From flurr, to whir (N.E. D.);
prov. E. flurr, to ruffle, to disarrange (E. D. D.); of imitative origin.
Cf. Norw. flurutt, rough, shaggy, disordered (Aasen); Swed. dial. flur,
disordered hair, whim, caprice ; flurig, disordered ; Norw. flura, to
be in disorder (Ross).
FLUSH (1), to flow swiftly. (E.) ‘The swift recourse of flushing
blood ;” Spenser, F. Ὁ. iv. 6.29. G. Douglas uses flusch to signify
‘a pool ;’ prol. to Agn. vii., 1. 543 spelt fuss in Barbour, Bruce, xiii.
20. From flush, vb., to fly up quickly, like a startled bird ; cf. flusk,
to make a whirring or fluttering sound (E.D.D.). Apparently of
Imitative origin ; cf. EFries. flosiern, flustern, to fly with a noise, to
tustle (as wind); murmur (as water). [MDu. fuysenx, ‘to gush or
breake out violently’ (Hexham), Dan. dial. fuse, to gush out, are from
OF. fluir (pres. pt. fluiss-ant), to flow; and may be independent. |
FOCUS
FLUSH (2), to blush, to redden. (E.) Perhaps the same word
as the above, but much influenced by Flash, and perhaps by Blush.
Shak. has flushing =redness; Hamlet, i. 2. 155. ME. flushen, to
redden, as in ‘ flush for anger;’ Rich. the Redeless, ed. -Skeat, ii. 166.
Cf. Swed. dial. flossa, to burn furiously, to blaze (Rietz) ; Norw. dial.
flosa, passion, vehemence, eagerness; Aasen. And see F luster.
Der. flush, sb., flush-ing.
FLUSH (3), level, even. (E.) Perhaps from Flush (1); as an
adj., it meant ‘in full flow ;’ Dampier has: ‘Small brooks .. . that
run flush into the sea;’ Voy. i. 393. Hence, even or level, like a stream
when running full.
FLUSH (4), a term at cards; a hand containing a prescribed
number of cards of the same suit is ‘a flush.” (F.—L.) ‘ He facithe
owte at a flusshe, with shewe, take all!’ Skelton, Speke Parrot, 1. 424.
“ΕΞ. flux, ‘a flowing, .. a flux, .. also, a flush at cardes ;’ Cot. =L:
fluxus, a flowing; from the pp. stem of fluere, to flow; see Fluent
and Flux.
FLUSTER, to heat with drinking, confuse. (Scand.) See Shak.
Oth. ii. 3. 60, Also flowster (Yks., Som.), E.D.D. Cf. Icel. fausira;
to be flustered; #laustr, sb., fluster, hurry. Allied to EFries.
flistern, flustern, to rustle (as wind). Der. fluster, sb.
FLUTE, a musical pipe. (F.) ME. floiten, flouten, to play
the flute; Chaucer, C. T. 91. The sb. flue is in North’s Plutarch,
p: 763 (R.). OF. fleute, flaute, flehute, flahute (Supp. to Godefroy) ;
fleute (Cot.), a flute; flauter, to play the flute. Cf. mod. Prov. flahuto,
flavuto, flaguto, a flute (Mistral). Prob. of imitative origin; the ἡ-
may have been suggested by L. flare, to blow, cognate with E. blow;
see Blow (1). Der. flageolet, q. v.; and see flout.
FLUTTER, to flap the wings. (E.) ME. floteren, to fluctuate,
float about ; Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. iii. pr. 11,1. 156; Wyclif,
Isa. xxix. 9. AS. flotorian, to float about (fluctibus ferri); Gloss. to
Prudentius, p. 150, 1. 1; ef. AS. ffot, the sea; Ποία, a ship. AS.
fiot- (Teut. *flut-), weak grade of fléotan, to float. B. Thus the orig.
sense was to fluctuate, hover on the waves; and the form of the
word is due to Float. The word was afierwards applied to other
vibratory motions, esp. to the flapping of wings; cf. Low G. fluttern,
flutter, flit about, Bremen Worterbuch, i. 431, which is closely allied
to flit; cf. prov. E. flittermouse, a bat; also EFries. flxttern, to fly
noisily; Norw. flofra, to swim with difficulty (Ross). See Flit,
which is likewise a derivative of Teut. *fur-.
FLUVIATILE, belonging to a river. (F.—L.) In Bailey’s Dict.,
vol. ii (1731). «Ἐς fluviatile.—L. fluuiatilis. = L. flunius, a tiver.—L,
fluere, to flow.
FLUX, a flowing, a disease. (F.—L.) ME. flux, P. Plowman,
C. vii. 161; xxii. 46. —OF. flux, ‘a flowing, flux;’ Cot.—L. fluxus,
a flowing; from the pp. of fluere, to flow; see Fluent. Der. flux-
ible, -at-ion, -ion; and see flush (4).
FLY (1), to float or move in air. (E.) ME. flegen, fleyen, flizen;
pt. t. he flew, Chaucer, C. T. 15423 (B 4607). AS. fléogan, pt. t.
fléah; Grein, i. 303.4-Du. vliegen; Icel. fyuga; Dan. flyve; Swed.
jiyga; G. fliegen. B. Veut. type *fleugan-, pt. τ. *flaug; pp. *flug-
anoz. Cf. L. pliima, a feather, wing; see Plume. @ Not allied to
flee, but early confused with it. Der. fly, sb.=AS. fléoge (Grein) ;
Jiy-boat, fly-blown, -catcher, -fishing, -leaf, -wheel, -ing-fish, fli-er; also
flight = AS. flyht, Grein, i. 306; flight-y, -il-y, -i-ness.
FLY (2), a vehicle. (E.) Applied in 1708 to a stage-coach, to
express its swiftness of motion; this use is obsolete. Also the name
of a light vehicle, introduced at Brighton in 1816, and at first drawn
by men. ‘A nouvelle kind of four-wheeled vehicles, drawn by a man
and an assistant, are very accommodating to visitors. They are
denominated Flys;’ Wright’s Brighton Ambulator (1818); where
the date 1816 is given.
FOAL, the young of a mare. (E.) ME. fole, Ῥ: Plowman, B. xi.
335. AS. fola, Matt. xxi. 2.4-Du. veulen; Icel. fol’; Swed. fale;
Goth. fula; G. fohlen. Teut. type *fulon-, τὰ. Cognate with L.
pullus, the young of an animal; Gk, πῶλος, a foal. Der. filly,
219
.v.
“FOAM, froth, spume. (E.) ME. fome, Chaucer, C. T. 16032
( 564). AS. fam, Grein, i. 267.4-Proy. G. faim; OHG. feim.
Teut. type *faimo-. Cognate with Russ. prena, foam; Skt. phena,
foam; and prob. with L. spuma (<*spoima), foam, and L. pim-ex,
pumice. Cf. Spume. Der. foam, verb.
FOB (τ), a pocket for a watch. (O. Low G.) In Hudibras, pt.
iii. c. 1, 1. 107. An O. Low G. word, not preserved otherwise than
in the cognate prov. HG. (Prussian) fuppe, a pocket, which is cited
in the Bremen Worterbuch, i. 437. The dimin. fob-ke, a pocket,
is recorded by Berghaus.
FOB (2), to cheat, deceive, take in. (Low G.) Also to fob off, to
put off; Shak. Cor. i. 1.97; and see E.D. D.—Low G. foppen, to
befool (Berghaus); G. foppen, to jeer, banter.
FOCUS, a point where rays of light meet. (L.) - In Kersey, ed.
FODDER
1715. First in 1656.—L. focus, a hearth; hence technically used as
a centre of fire. Der. foc-al.
FODDER, food for cattle. (E.) ME. fodder, Chaucer, C. T.
3866 (A 3868). AS. fodor, foddor, foddur, Grein, i. 334; an extended
form from féda, food. Du. voeder ; Icel. fodr ; Dan. and Swed. foder ;
G. futter. Teut. type */odrom, n. See Food. Der. fodder, verb.
FORE, an enemy. (E.) ME. fo, foo; Chaucer, C. T. 63. AS. /ah,
fag, fa; Grein,i. 266. Teut. type *faihoz, m.; Idg. type * poigos,
whence also Irish oech, a foe, with loss of p. From the weak grade
*pig- we have Gk. mix-pds, bitter, Lith. pik-tas, unkind. Brugmann,
1. § 646. Der. foe-man.
FQETUS; see Fetus.
FOG, a thick mist. (Scand.) In Shak. Mids. Nt. Dr. ii. 1. go.
See N. E. D., where it is shown that the earliest sense of fog was
coarse or rank winter-grass; see Early Eng. Allit. Poems, B. 1683,
where we read of Nebuchadnezzar, that ‘fogge was his mete.’ It
also meant ‘moss;’ and hence the adj. foggy, covered with rank
grass, mossy, marshy, damp; whence fog, sb., damp, as a back-
formation. = Norw. fogg, long-strawed, weak, scattered grass in a
moist hollow (Ross). Der. fogg-y, fogg-i-ness, fog-bank.
FOIBLE, a weak point in character. (K.—L.) In Dryden,
Marriage a la Mode, iii. 1. F. foible, feeble; see Feeble.
FOIL (1), to disappoint, defeat. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q. v.
11, 33,foyle=to cover with dirt, to trample under foot. So yfoiled=
trampled under foot; King Alisaunder, 2712. Corrupted from OF.
fouler, perhaps by the influence of ME. /ylen, to render foul. —OF,
fouler, ‘to tread, stampe, or trample on, .. to hurt, press, oppress,
foyle, overcharge extremely ;’ Cot.—Late L. fullare, folare, to full
cloth.—L. fullo, a fuller, See Fuller. Der. foil, sb., a blunt
sword, so called because it could only foil or check, not kill; (in
wrestling, a throw not resulting in a flat fall, and so incomplete,
was called a foil); see Much Ado, v. 2. 13; also foil, a defeat;
Teklensav Ly νὲ 3:23.
FOIL (2), a set-off, in the setting of a gem. (F.—L.) In Hamlet,
ν. 2. 266.—AF. foille, a leaf; Stat. Realm, i. 219; MF. fueille, ‘a
leaf; . . . also the foyle of precious stones;’ Cot.—L. folia, pl. of
folium, a leaf; afterwards used as a fem. sing.; see Foliage.
FOIN, to thrust or lunge with a sword. (F.—L.) Obsolete. In
Chaucer, C. T. 1654; and in Shak. Merry Wives, ii. 3. 24. Lit. ‘to
thrust with an eel-spear.’ — OF. foine, foisne, an eel-spear. = L. fuscina,
a three-pronged spear, trident (Littré).
FOISON, plenty, abundance. (F.—L.) Obsolete; but in Shak.
Temp. ii, 1. 163; Chaucer, C. T. 4924 (B 504).—OF. foison,
‘abundance ;’ Cot. — Folk-L. fusidnem, with short u; for L. fisidnem,
ace. of fusto, a pouring out, hence, profusion; allied to fusus, pp. of
Jundere, to pour; see Fuse (1).
FOIST, to intrude surreptitiously, orig. to palm or put off.
(MDu.) In Shak. Sonnet 123, 1.6. The sb. foist is a trick: ‘Put
not your foists upon me; 1 shall scent them;’ Ben Jonson, The Fox,
Act iii (last speech but 21). To foist was a term in dice-play, and
meant to palm (or conceal in the fist), to introduce so as to fall as
required ; see Ascham, Toxophilus, ed. Arber, p. 54, and quotations
in N.E. D. = Du. vuisten, to take in the fist or hand (N. E. D.).=—Du.
vuist, the fist; cognate with E. Fist. Cf. Low G., /fiistjen, to take
in the hst (Low G., fuust) ; spelt viisten (and vist) in Liibben.
FOLD (1), to double together, wrap up. (E.) ME. folden;
P. Plowman, B. xvii. 145, 176. OMerc. faldan; AS. fealdan,
Grein, i. 286.+4-Dan. folde; Swed. falla; Icel. falda; Goth. falthan ;
G. falten. B. Teut. type *falthan-. Allied to Gk. &-mAdovos, doubled;
πλάσσειν (for ᾿πλάτ-γειν), to form, mould; Skt. pufa-, a fold
(Macdonell). See Plaster. Der. fold, sb., ME. fold, a plait; -fold,
in composition, as in two-fold, &c.
FOLD (2). (E). Theword/old, usedas asb., inthe sense ofsheep-fold,
is not in any way allied to the verb ¢o fold. It occurs as AS. fald, in
John, x.1 5; but this is contracted from an older form falod, also spelt
falud, faled (Sweet, O.E. Texts). Allied words are Du. vaalt, Low G.
faal, E¥ ries. folt, fold, a dung-pit ; Dan. fold, a sheep-pen (Franck).
FOLIAGE, a cluster of leaves. (F.—L.) ‘ Foliage, branching
work in painting or tapestry; also leafiness;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674. A F. word, but modified by the L. foli-um, a leaf; cf. foliation,
in Sir Τ᾿ Browne, Cyrus Garden, c. 3. § 113; foliafe, in Bacon, Nat.
Hist. § 293. -- MF. fueillage, ‘branched work, in painting or tapestry ;’
Cot.—MF. fuetlle, a leaf.—L. folia, pl. of folium, a leaf; later used
as a fem. sing.+Gk. φύλλον, a leaf. See Curtius, i. 380. Der.
foliag-ed; also (from L. folium) foli-ate, -at-ed, -at-ion, -fer-ous; also
folio, from the phr. in folio, where folio is the ablative case.
FOLK, a crowd of people. (E.) ME. folk; Chaucer, C. T. 2830
(A 2828). AS, folc; Grein.4Icel. fo/k; Dan. and Swed. folk; Du.
volk; G.volk. Teut. type *folkom, neut. 47 Lithuan. pilkas, a crowd,
Russ. polk’, an army, were prob. borrowed from Teutonic at a very
early date. Der. folk-lore.
220
FOP
FOLLICLE, a gland, seed-vessel. (F.—L.) ‘ Follicle, a little
bag, purse, or bladder;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—F. follicule,
‘a little bag, powch, husk;’ Cot.—L. folliculus, a little bag, dimin.
of follis, a pair of bellows, kind of bag.
FOLLOW, to go after. (E.) ME. folwen, folowen, Chaucer,
C. T. 3260; P. Plowman, B. vi. 2. [The w is due to the AS. g.]
AS. folgian, John, x. 27. We also find AS. fylcegan, fylgian, fyligan ;
Grein, 1. 360.4Du. volgen; Icel. fylgja; Dan. folge; Swed. folja;
G. folgen. So also OF ries. folgia, fulia, OSax. folgon. B. We also
find AS. fulgangan (pt. t. ful-éode), with the same sense, but derived
from AS. ful, full, and gangan, to go; and, in like manner, OHG.
follegan. Hence it is probable that the original sense was ‘to go
(or be) in full numbers,’ to go in a crowd, to accompany; and that
it is a derivative of Teut. *fulloz, full. See Full. Cf. AS. fylstan,
to assist, fuléwm, assistance ; both derivatives of AS. full, full. Der.
follow-ing, follow-er.
FOLLY, foolishness. (F.—L.) ME. folie (with one 7); Laya-
mon, later text, 3024.—OF. folie, folly. —OF. fol, a fool; see Fool.
FOMENT, to bathe with warm water, heat, encourage. (F.—L.)
‘Which bruit [rumour] was cunningly fomented;’ Bacon, Life of
Hen, VII, ed. Lumby, p. 22, 1. 28.—MF. fomenter, ‘to foment ;’
Cot.—L. fomentare. —L. fomentum, contr. from *fouimentum, a warm
application, lotion. —L. fouére, to warm; of unknown origin. Der.
Joment-er, -at-ion.
FOND, foolish. (E.) ME. fond, but more commonly fonned,
Wyclif, Exod. xviii, 18. Fonned is the pp. of the verb fonnen, to act
foolishly ; thus ¢hou fonnist = thou art foolish; Coventry Myst. p. 36.
Fonnen is formed from the sb. fox, a fool; of which the fuller form
fonne is in Chaucer, C. Τὶ 4087 (A 4089). Prob. of Fries. origin,
as the sb. answers to EFries. fone, fon, a maid, girl, weakling,
simpleton (Koolman). This form has a large number of variants,
as OF ries. famne, fomne, fone, fone, and appears to be ultimately the
same word as AS. fawmme, Icel. ferma, a virgin. See Notes on
E. Etym., p. 102. Der. fond-ly, -ness; also fond-le, frequentative
verb, to caress, used by Swift and Gay ; also fond-ling (with dimin.
suffix -ling =-1+-ing), Shak. Venus and Adonis, 229.
FONT (1), a basin of water for baptism. (L.) In very early use.
AS. font, fant, ASlfric’s Hom. i. 422.—L. fontem, acc. of fons, a fount;
see Fount.
FONT (2), FOUNT, an assortment of types. (F.—L.) ‘ Font,a
cast or complete set of printing-letters ;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. =F. fonte,
‘a casting of metals;’ Cot. =F. fondre, to cast. See Found (2).
FOOD, provisions, what one eats. (E.) ME. fode, P. Plowman,
B. vi. 271. AS. foda, «ἘΠῚ. Hom. ii. 396. Cf. Icel. fedi, feda, food;
Dan. fode; Swed. foda. [In English, the verb fedan, to feed, is
derived from the sb. foda, food ; not vice versa.]_ B. From AS. *fod-,
strong grade of AS. *fad-, corresponding to Gk, πατ- in πατ-έεσθαι, to
feed, From the Idg. root *pa-, to feed; whence L. pa-nis, bread, pa-
bulum, food, and pa-scere, to feed. See Pasture. Der. feed, q.v.;
Sodder, q. ν.
FOOL (1), a silly person, jester. (F.—L.) ME. fol; Layamon
(later text), 1442. —OF. fol (F. fou), a fool. = L. foll-em, acc. of follis,
a pair of bellows, wind-bag ; pl. follés, puffed cheeks ; whence the term
was easily transferred to a jester, as in Late L. follis,a fool. Perhaps
alliedto Ball(1). Der. fool-ish, -er-y ; -hardy= ME. folherdi, Ancren
Riwle, p. 62 (see hardy) ; -hardi-ness ; fools-cap, paper so called from
the water-mark of a fool’s cap and bells used by old paper-makers ;
also folly, q. ν.
FOOL (2), a dish of crushed fruit, &c. (F.—L.) From the sb.
above; named like ¢rifle. Florio has: ‘ Mantiglia,a kind of clouted
creame, called a foole or a trifle in English.’
FOOT, the extremity of an animal below the ankle. (E.) ME. fot
foot; pl. fet, feet; Chaucer, C. T. 474, 475 (A 472-3). AS. fot, pl. fet,
Grein. Du. voet; Icel. fotr ; Dan. fod; Swed. fot; Goth. fotus; ἃ.
fuss. Teut. type *fot (consonant stem), corresponding to Idg. type
*tod, with the variants *pod, *ped. Cf. L. pés, foot, gen. ped-is; Gk.
ποῦς, gen, 705-ds; Skt. pad, foot (gen. pad-as). Cf. Fetter, Fet!ock,
Fetch. Brugmann, i. ὃ 578. Der. foot, verb; foot-ball (1424), -boy,
-bridge, ~fall, -guard, -hold, -man, -mark, -pad, -passenger, -rot, -rule,
| -soldier, -sore, -stalk, -stall, -step ; also foot-ing, -less; also fetter, q.v-
From the same source, ped-al, -estal, -estrian, -icle, bi-ped, quadru-ped,
exped-ile, im-pede, centi-pede, δίς.
FOOTY, paltry, insignificant. (E.) First in 1752; a variant of
the older fough/y, musty (N. E. D.). ‘A mustie and foughtie taste in
the wine;’ Surflet, Countrie Farme, vi. 2. 731 (1600). From an AS.
form *faktig; answering to Du. vochtig, Dan. fugtig, Swed. fuktig,
damp; from AS. fiht, damp, moist. Cf. G. feucht,damp, From
Teut. base *fewk-, as in Icel. fjaka, to drift as snow or dust (Franck).
FOP, a coxcomb, dandy. (E.) Shak. has fops, K. Lear, i. 2. 14;
fopped (or fobbed) =befooled, Oth. iv. 2. 197; foppish, K. Lear, i. 4.
182; foppery, id. i. 2. 128. ME. foppe, a foolish fellow, Prompt.
FOR
Parv.; fop, Cov. Mysteries, p. 295; also fobbe, P. Plowman, C. iii.
193. (Not in AS.) Cf. EFries. foppen, to jeer, banter; Du. f ptex,
to cheat, mock, prate; fopper, a wag ; foppertj, cheating ( = E. foppery);
Low G. fopp, a lout ; foppen, to befool (Berghaus). Der. fopp-ish,
-ish-ness, -er-y, fop-ling. Cf. fob (2).
FOR (1), in the place of. (E.) The use of for as a conj. is due to
such phrases as AS. for-pam-pe, for-by=on account of; the orig. use
is prepositional. AS. for, for; also, before that; the same word as
AS. fore, before that, for; Du. voor, for, before, from; Icel. fyrir,
before, for; Dan. for, for; for, adv. before; Swed. for, before, for;
G. vor, before; fur, for; Goth. faura, before, for.4-L. prd, before ;
Gk. πρό, related to mapa; Skt. pra, before, away. See Fore; and
see below. Der. for-as-much, for-ever.
FOR- (2), only in composition. (E.) For-, as a prefix to verbs,
has usually an intensive force, or preserves something of the sense of
from, to which it is related. The forms are: AS. for-, Icel. for-,
Dan. for-, Swed. for-, Du. and Ὁ. ver-, Goth. fra- (rarely fair-) Skt.
para. The Skt. para is an old instrumental sing. οἵ para-, far;
perhaps the orig. sense was ‘away;’ see From. B. The derived
verbs are for-bear, for-bid, for-fend, for-go (spelt forego), for-get, for-
give, for-lorn, for-sake, for-swear. @ It is distinct from fore-, though
ultimately related to it ; see Fore.
FOR.- (3), only in composition. (F.—L.) In forclose (misspelt
foreclose) and forfeit, the prefix is French. See those words.
FORAGE, fodder, chiefly as obtained by pillage. (F.—Low L. —
Teut.) ME. forage, Chaucer, C. T. 9296 (E. 1422).—OF. fourage,
forage, pillage. —OF. forrer, to forage. — OF. forre, fuerre (F. feurre),
fodder, straw. Low L. fodrum, a Latinised form of Teut. *fodrom,
the same as E. fodder; see Fodder. Der. forage, verb; forag-er ;
also foray, sometimes spelt forray, a Lowland Scotch form coined
from ME. forrier, forreyer, a forager.— OF. forrier, a forager.—OF.
forrer, to forage (above). Forray occurs in Barbour’s Bruce both as
sb. and verb; see bk. ii. 1. 281, xv. 511.
FORAMINATED, having small perforations. (L.) Modern
and scientific.—L. foramin-, stem of foramen, a hole bored. —L.
forare, cognate with E. Bore, q. v.
FORAY, FORRAY, a raid for foraging; see Forage.
FORBEAR (1), to hold away from, abstain from. (E.) ME.
forberen, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 887 (A885). AS. forberan ; Grein, i. 316. —
AS. for-, prefix; and beran, to bear. See For- (2) and Bear.
Der. forbearing ; -ance, a hybrid word, with F. suffix, K. Lear,
12.182.
FORBEAR (2), an ancestor. (E.) Orig. Lowl. Scotch. ‘ His
forbearis .. of hale lynage;’ Wallace, i. 21. Lit. fore-beér, one who
is (or exists) previously ; from fore, before ; and the verb fo be. In
Montgomery’s Poems (Sc. Text Soc.), p. 211, the pl. forbe-ars rhymes
with /e-ars (liars). Cf. G. vorweser, a predecessor ; from vor, before,
and wesen, to be.
FORBID, to bid away from, prohibit. (E.) ME. forbeden,
Chaucer, C. T. 12577 (Ὁ 643). AS. forbéodan ; Grein, i. 316.— AS.
for-, prefix; and béodan,to bid, command. See For- (2) and Bid.
Cf. Du. verbieden; Goth. faurbiudan ; Dan. forbyde; Swed. firbjuda;
Ὁ. verbieten. Der. forbidd-en, pp. ; forbidd-ing.
FORCE (1), strength, power. (F.—L.) ME. force, fors, Chaucer,
C.T. 7094 (Ὁ 1512); Will. of Palerne, 1217. —OF. force. = Late L.
fortia, strength.=—L. forti-s, strong; older form forctis. Allied to
Skt. byhant-, large, great; and to E. Borough. Brugmann, i. §§ 566,
750. Der. force, verb; forceful, -ful-ly; forc-ible, -ibl-y, -ible-ness;
force-less, forc-ing, force-pump. Also fort, fort-i-tude, fort-ress, &c.
FORCE (2), to stuff fowls, &c. (F.—L.) A corruption of farce.
‘Farced, crammed, stuffed with a farce;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715.
‘ Farce, in cookery, a compound made of several meats and herbs ;’
id. ME. farsex. ‘Farse the catte within als thu farses a gos’
[goose]; Reliq. Antique, i. 51.—F. farcer, to stuff; see Farce.
Der. force-meat, a corruption of farce-meat or farced-meat.
FORCE (3), FOSS, a waterfall. (Scand.) A Northern word, as
in Stock Gill Force, &c. = Dan. fos; Norw. foss ; Icel. foss, formerly
fors, a waterfall ; Swed. fors. Cf. Swed. forsa, frusa, to gush.
FORCEPS, pincers. (L.) In Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715. —L. forceps,
gen. forcrpis, pincers, tongs; so called because used for holding hot
Iron, &c. (Paulus Diaconus); for *formi-ceps.—L. formus, hot; and
ttem cip-, from capere, to take, hold. Der. forcip-at-ed, forceps-like.
FORD, a passage, esp. through a river. (E.) ME. ford, also
forth; see P. Plowman, LB. v. 576, and footnote. AS. ford; Grein,
i. 317.4+G. furt, furth. Teut. type *furduz; allied to L. port-us,
a harbour, OWelsh (p)rit, W. rhyd, a ford. Also to frith (2).
Brugmann, i. § 514. B. Extended from the weak grade (*far) of AS.
faran, to fare, go; see Fare. Der. ford, vb.; -able.
FORE, in front, coming first. (E.) The adj. use, as in fore feet,
is uncommon; but we find fore /et=fore feet, in Will. of Palerne,
3284. The word is properly a prep. or ady., and in the former case
FOREJUDGE 221
is a longer form of for. AS. fore, for, before, prep.; fore, foran,
adv. See For (1).4-4-OHG. fora; Goth. faura. Cf. Gk. πάρος, Skt.
puras, in front, pura, formerly. Der. for-m-er, q. v.; fore-m-ost, q.V-;
and used as a prefix in numerous compounds, for which see below.
Also in for-ward (=fore-ward), q.v. The old comparative of
fore is fur-ther, q.v.
FORE-ARM (1), the fore part of the arm. (E.) A comparatively
modern expression ; first found in 1741. Merely made up from fore
and arm. See Arm (1).
FORE-ARM (2), to arm beforehand. (Hybrid; E. and F.)
Dryden, tr. of Virgil’s Aneid, vi. 1233.
arm; see Arms,
FOREBODBH, to bode beforehand. (E.) In Butler, Hudibras,
pt. 11. c. 3. 172; and Dryden, tr. of Virgil’s Aneid, iii. 470. Com-
pounded of fore and bode; see Bode. Cf. Icel. fyrirboda ; Swed.
forebuda. Der. fore-bod-er, -ing, -ment.
FORECAST, to contrive beforehand.
Chaucer, C. T. 15223 (B 4407).
Cast. Der. forecast, sb., -er.
FORECASTLBE, the fore part of a ship. (Hybrid; E. and L.)
‘ Forecastle of a ship, that part where the foremast stands;’ Kersey’s
Dict., ed. 1715. Also in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. ME. forcastel,
Destruction of Troy, 5657. A short deck placed in front of a ship,
above the upper deck, is so called, because it used in former times to
be much elevated, for the accommodation of archers and crossbow-
men. From fore and castle; see Castle. 4 Commonly corrupted
to foc’sle or foxle.
FORECLOSEH, to preclude, exclude. (F.—L.) ‘ Foreclosed,
barred, shut out, or excluded for ever;’ Blount’s Law Dict., ed. 1691;
with a reference to 33 Hen. VIII. c. 39. It should rather be spelt
forclosed. ‘He forclosed me fro all my kynsmen;’ Caxton, Four
Sons of Aymon, ch. xii. p. 289, 1. 11.—OF. forclos, pp. of forclorre,
to exclude. = OF. for-, from L. foris, outside; and clorre< L. claudere,
to shut. See Forfeit and Close. Der. forclos-ure.
FOREDATE, to date beforehand. (Hybrid; E. and F.) Merely
a compound of fore and date. Todd gives an example from Milton,
Reason of Church Government, b. ii. See Date.
FOREFATHER, an ancestor. (E.) The pl. forfadres is in
P. Plowman, C. viii. 134, where two MSS. have forme faderes, a fuller
form. The ME. forme is the superlative of fore; see Former. Cf.
Du. voorvader ; G. vorvater; Icel. forfadir.
FOREFEND, to avert; see Forfend.
FORE-FINGER, the first of the four fingers. (E.) In Shak.
All's Well, ii. 2. 24. ME. forefynger, Voc. p. 626, last line. From
fore and finger. So also fore-foot ; see under Fore.
FOREFRONT, the front part. (Hybrid; E. and F.) In the
Bible (A. V.), 2 Sam. xi. 15. ‘At a foyr frount;’ Wallace, bk. ix.
831. See Fore and Front.
FOREGO (1), to relinquish ; see Forgo.
FOREGO (2), to go before. (E.) Chiefly in the pres. part. fore-
going and the pp. foregone = gone before, previous; Othello, iii. 3. 428.
Cf. AS. foregangan, to go before; Grein, i. 321. Der. forego-er ; see
P. Plowman, B. ii. 187.
FOREGROUND, front part. (E.) Dryden speaks of ‘ the fore-
ground of a picture ;’ see Todd’s Johnson. From fore and ground.
Cf. Du. voorgrond; G. vorgrund.
FOREHAND, preference, advantage. (E.) Used in several
senses, and both as adj. and sb.; see Shak. Hen. V, iv. 1. 297; Troil.
i. 3. 143; Much Ado, iv. 1. 51; 2 Hen. IV, iii. 2. 52. <A difficult
word; but the etymology is clearly from fore and hand. Der. fore-
hand-ed; in the phr, ‘a pretty forehanded fellow ;’ Beaum. and
Fletcher, Scornful Lady, ii. 3 (last speech but 6).
FOREHEAD, the front part of the head above the eyes. (E.)
ME. forheed; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 154. Older form forheued (with u=
v); spelt vorheaned, Ancren Riwle, p. 18. From fore and head. Cf.
Du. voorhoofd; G. vorhaupt.
FORBIGN, out of doors, strange. (F.—L.) The insertion of
the gis unmeaning. ME. foreine, foreyne, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius,
b. 11. pr. 2, 1. 18.—OF. forain, ‘ forraine, strange, alien;’ Cot.—
Folk-L. *fcranus, for Late L. fordneus, applied to a canon who is
not in residence, or to a travelling pedlar.=L. fords, out of doors;
ady. with an acc. pl. form, allied to L. pl. forés, doors; also to L.
forum, a market-place, and E. door. See Door. Der. foreign-er,
Shak. K. John, iv. 2. 172.
FOREJUDGE (1), to judge beforehand. (Hybrid; E. and F.)
In Levins. [The pp. foriugyd, cited from Fabyan, vol. ii. an. 1400
(R.), has the prefix for-, not fore-.) Spenser has forejudgement ;
Muiopotmos, 1. 320. From fore and judge. Der. forejudge-ment.
FOREJUDGE (2), FORJUDGE, to deprive a man of a
thing by the judgment of a court. (F.—L.) Still in use as a law-
term, and quite distinct from the hybrid word fore-judge, to judge
In
From fore and the verb to
(E. and Scand.) ‘See
Compounded of fore and cast; see
222 FOREKNOW
beforehand. Better spelt forjudge; indeed, Blount’s Nomolexicon
(1691) has: ‘ forjudged the court, is when an officer of any court is
banished or expelled the same.’ The pp. forivgit is in the Kingis
Quair, 1]. 21,—F. forjuger, ‘ to judge or condemn wrongfully, also to
disinherite, deprive, dispossess of; ’ Cotgrave. =OF. for-, prefix, out,
outside ; and juger, to judge. The OF. for- is short for fors<L.
Joris, outside, See Foreclose, and Judge.
FOREKNOW, to know beforehand. (E.) Shak. has fore-
knowing, Hamlet, i. 1. 134; also foreknowledge, Tw. Night, 1. 5. 151.
Chaucer has forknow:ng ; tr. of Boethius, Ὁ. v. pr. 6,1. 194. From
fore and know. Der. foreknow-ledge.
FORELAND, a headland, cape. (E.) In Milton, P. L, ix. 514.
ME. forlond, Gawain and Grene Knight, 1. 699. From fore and
land. Cf, Dan. forland; Du. voorland; G. vorland; cel. forlendi,
the land between the sea and hills.
FORELOCK, the lock of hair on the forehead. (E.) In Milton,
P. L. iv. 302; Spenser, son. 70. From fore and lock.
FOREMAN, a chief man, an overseer. (E.) The expression
foreman of the petty jury’ occurs in The Spectator, no. 122;
and in Baret (1580), G620. From fore and man. Cf. Du. voorman,
G. vormann, the leader of a file of men; Icel. fyrirmadr, formadr.
Brugmann, i. § 518 (1).
FOREMOST, most in front. (E.) A double superlative, due to
the fact that the old form was misunderstood. a. From the base
fore was formed the AS. superlative adj. forma, in the sense of first;
a word in common use; see Grein, i. 329. Hence the ME. forme,
also meaning ‘first;’ see Stratmann. B. A double superlative
formest was hence formed, as a by-form to the regular fyrmes¢; cf.
‘pat fyrmeste bebod,’ the first commandment; Matt. xxii. 38. This
became the ME. formest, both adj. and adv.; as in Will. of Palerne,
939. See examples in Stratmann. y. Lastly, this was corrupted to
foremost, by misdividing the word as for-mest instead of form-est.
Spenser has formost, F. Ὁ. v. 7. 35. See Former. @ The Meeso-
Gothic also has frumists,a double superlative ; the single superlative
being frwma, cognate with Gk. πράμος, πρόμος, first, from πρό, before.
Brugmann, i. ὃ 518 (1).
FORENOON, the part of the day before noon. (Hybrid; E.
and L.) In Shak. Cor. 11. 1. 78. From fore and noon; see Noon.
FORENSIC, legal, belonging to law-courts. (L.) ‘ Forensal,
pertaining to the common-place used in pleading or in the judgment-
hall;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Forens-ic and forens-al are coined
words, formed (with suffixes -zc and -al) from L. forens-is, of or be-
longing to the forum or market-place or place of public meeting. =
L. forum, a market-place, orig. a vestibule: connected with L. forés,
doors. See Forum.
FORE-ORDAIN, to ordain beforehand. (Hybrid; E. and F.)
See τ Pet. 1. 20 (A. V.). From fore and ordain,
‘“FOREPART, front part. (Hybrid; E. and F.) In Acts, xxvii.
413; and in Levins. From fore and part.
FORERANK, front rank. (Hybrid; E.
Hen. V, v. 2.97. From fore and rank.
FORERUN, to run before. (E.) In Shak. L.L. L. iv. 3. 380.
From fore and run. Cf. Goth. faurrinnan, G. vorrennen. Der.
forerunn-er, Heb. vi. 20 (A. V.)3 cf. Icel. fyrir-rennari, forrennari.
FORESEES, to see beforehand. (E.) In Shak. Troil. v. 3. 64.
AS. foreséon; Grein, i. 322.—AS. fore, before; and séon, to see.
Ἔα. voorzien ; G. vorsehen. See See. Der. foresight, q.v.
FORESHIP, the front part ofa ship. (E.) In Acts, xxvii. 30 (A.
V.). AS. forscip; Voc. 166. 14. From fore and ship. Du. voorschip.
FORESHORTEN, to shorten parts that stand forward in a
picture. (E.) In Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715. From fore and shorten.
Der. foreshorten-ing.
FORESHOW, FORESHEW, to show beforehand. (E.)
Shak. Cymb. v. 5. 473. From fore and show.
“FORESIGHT, prescience. (E.) ME. foresiht, forsyghte; Prompt.
Parv. p. 171. From fore and sight. See Foresee.
FOREST, a wood, a wooded tract of land. (F.—L.) ME. forest,
King Alisaunder, 3581.—OF. forest, ‘a forrest;’ Cot.—Late L.
foresta, a wood; forestis, an open space of ground over which rights
of the chase were reserved. Medieval writers oppose the forestis or
open wood to the walled-in wood or pareus (park). ‘ Forestis est
ubi sunt ferze non inclusee; parcus, locus ubi sunt ferz inclusz ;’
document quoted in Brachet, q. v. 4. foris, out of doors, abroad ;
whence forestis, lying open. Allied to L. forés, doors; see Foreign.
Der. forest-er, contracted te forster, Chaucer, C. T. 117; and to
foster, Spenser, Ε΄. Ὁ. 111, 1. τ΄.
FORESTALL, το anticipate in a transaction. (E.) ME. /fore-
stallen, forsiallen; P. Plowman, B. iv. 56, where we find: ‘ forstalleth
my feires’=anticipates my sales in the fair. Thus to forestall, orig.
used as a marketing term, was to buy up goods by intercepting them
on the way. The object was, to sell again in the market at a higher
and F.) In Shak.
In
FORLORN
price; see Kersey’s Dict. From AS. forsteal, sb., obstruction, inter-
ception; see gloss. to Schmidt, A.S. Laws. In the Laws of Henry I
(Thorpe’s A. S. Laws, i. 586) we read that ‘forestel est, si quis ex
transverso incurrat, vel in via expectet et assalliat inimicum suum,’ =
AS. fore, before; and steal, a stall, the occupying of a fixed position.
See Fore and Stall.
FORETASTH, to taste beforehand. (Hybrid; E. and F.) In
Milton, P. L. ix. 929. From fore and taste. Der. foretaste, sb.
FORETELL, to prophesy. (E.) ME. foretellen; P. Plowman,
A. xi. 165. From fore and tell. Der. foretell-er.
FORETHOUGHT, a thinking beforehand, care. (E.) ME. for-
thoght, Cursor Mundi, 1. 27661. {Shak. has the verb to forethink ;
Cymb. ili. 4. 1715; from AS. fore-fencan.| From fore and thought.
FORETOKEN, a token beforehand. (E.) ME. foretokne; see
Gower, C. A. i. 1373 bk. i. 28125 spelt fortaken, Ormulum, 16157.
AS. foretdcen; Grein, i. 322. 4+ Du. voorleeken, a presage; G. vor-
zeichen. From fore and token; see Token. Der. /oretoken, verb.
FORETOOTH, a front tooth. (E.) ME. foretof, pl. foretep; in
Le Bone Florence, 1609, in Ritson’s Metrical Romances, and in
P. Plowman, C. xxi. 386. AS. foretéd, pl.; Voc. 157. 30. From
fore and tooth,
FORETOP, the hair on the fore part of the head. (E.) ME.
fortop, Treatises on Popular Science, ed. Wnght, p. 137, 1. 230. The
simple form 10} or ‘oppe is in P. Plowman, B. ii. 139. See Top.
Der. foretop-mast.
FOREW ARN, to warn beforehand. (E.) In Shak. Wint. Ta.
iv. 4. 215. ME. for-warnen; Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 96,
1. 15. From fore and warn; see Warn.
FORFEIT, a thing forfeited or lost by misdeed. (F.—L.) Pro-
perly a pp. as in ‘So that your lif be noght forsfet τ᾿ Gower, C. A. i.
194; bk. ii. 1039. Hence ME, verb forfeten, P. Plowman, C. xxiti.
25; and the ΜΕ, sb. forfeture, forsfaiture, Gower, C. A. ii. 153; bk.
y. 780. — OF, for/ait, forfet, forsfait, a crime punishable by fine, a fine
(Supp. to Godefroy; cf. AF. forfeit, Laws of Will. I., § 1); also pp.
of for-faire, orig. forsfaire, to trespass, transgress. — Late L. forisfactum,
a trespass, a fine; also pp. of forisfacere, to transgress, do amiss, lit.
‘to act beyond.’ =—L. foris facere, lit. to do or act abroad or beyond, =
L. foris, out of doors; and facere, to do. See Foreign; and see
Fact. Der. forfei’, vb., -wre, -able; and cf. counter-feit.
FORFEND, FOREFEND, to avert, forbid. (Hybrid; E. and
F.) In Shak. Wint. Τα. ἵν. 4.541. ME. forfenden, Wyclif, Job, xxxiv.
31. An extraordinary compound, due to E. for- (as in for-bid), and
fend, a familiar abbreviation of defend, just as fence (still in use) is a
familiar abbreviation of defence. See For- (2) and Fence. @ The
spelling forefend is bad.
FORGE, a smith’s workshop. (F.—L.) In Gower, C. A. i. 78;
bk. i. 1087 ; hence ME. forgen, to forge, Chaucer, C. T. 11951 (C 17)-
-OF. forge, a forge; whence forgier, to forge. = Folk-L. *faurga <<
*favrega (Schwan); for L. fabrica, a workshop, also a fabric. Cf.
Span. forja, a forge, forjar, to forge ; mod. Prov. fabreja, faureja, to
forge (Mistral). Thus forge is a doublet of fabric. Der. forge, vb.,
org-er, -er-y. See further under Fabric.
FORGET, to lose remembrance of, neglect. (E.) ME. forgeten,
forzeten; Chaucer, C.T. 1916 (A 1914). AS. forgitan; Grein, i. 324;
also forgeian (Εἰ. E. Texts). — AS. for-, prefix; and gitan,to get. See
For- (2) and Get. Cf. Du. vergeten; G. vergessen. Der. jorget-ful
(which has supplanted AS. forgitol) ; -ful-ly, -ful-ness, -for get-me-not
(Palsgrave, p. 1024, 1. 1).
FORGIVE, to give away, remit. (E.) ME. forgiven (with u=v),
forpiuen, forjzeuen; Chaucer, C. T.8402 (E526). AS. forgifan; Grein,
i. 323. = AS. for-, prefix; and gifan, to give. See For- (2) and Give.
Cf. Du. vergeven ; Swed. forgi/va, to give away, forgive; G. vergeben;
Goth. fragiban, to give, grant; Dan. dilgive, to forgive, pardon (with
prefix 7 in place of for). Der. forgiv-ing, forgive-ness.
FORGO, FOREGO, to give up. (E.) The spelling forego is as
absurd as it is general; it is due to confusion with foregone, in the
sense of ‘gone before,’ from a verb forego of which the infinitive is
little used. ME. forgon, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 8047 (E171). AS. forgan,
to pass over; ‘he forgad pas htises duru’=he will pass over the
door of the house; Exod. xii. 23.— AS, for-, prefix; and gan, to go.
See For- (2) and Go.
FORJUDGE, a better spelling of Forejudge (2), q. v.
FORK, a pronged instrument. (L.) ME. forke; the pl. forkis is
in King Alisaunder, 1191. Chaucer has ‘a forked berd’=beard,
C. T. 272 (A 270). AS. fore; Ailfric’s Homilies, i. 430.—L. furca,
a fork; of uncertain origin. Der. fork, vb., -ed, -ed-ness ; -y, -i-ness;
also car-fax,q.v. Brugmann,i. ὃ 605 (3). _@ The Dn. voré, Icel.
forkr, Ἐς. fourche (whence fourch-ette) are all from L. furca.
FORLORN, quite lost, desolate, wretched. (E.) ME. forlorn,
used by Chaucer in an active sense =quite lost; C. “Γι 11861 (F 1557).
It is the pp. of ME. forleosen, to lose entirely. AS. forloren, pp. of
FORM
forléosan, to destroy, lose utterly; Grein, i. 328.—AS. /for-, prefix ;
and loren, pp. of léosan, to lose, whence ME. lorn, Chaucer, C. T.
3530. Cf. Dan. forloren, lost, used as an adj.; Swed. forlorad, pp.
of forlora, to lose wholly ; Du. verloren, pp. of verdiezen, to lose; ὦ.
verloren, pp. of verlieren, to lose; Goth. fraliusan, to lose. See For-
(2) and Lose. Der. forlorn hope, in North’s Plutarch, p. 309 (R.),
or p. 372, ed. 1631, a vanguard; a military phrase borrowed from
MDnu. de verloren hoop =the forlorn hope (of an army); Kilian. Cot-
grave has: ‘ Perdu, lost, forlorn, past hope of recovery. Enfans perdus,
perdus, or the forlorne hope of a camp, are commonly gentlemen of
companies.’ For Du. kcop, see Hope (2).
FORM, figure, appearance, shape. (F.—L.) ME. ferme, King
Alisaunder, 358 ; whence formen, fourmen, to form, id. 5687.—OF.
forme..—L. forma, shape. —4/ ΠΗ ΕΝ, to hold, maintain ; cf. Skt. dh,
to bear, maintain, support; dharman, virtue, right, law, duty, character,
resemblance. Brugmann, ii. § 72. Der. form, vb.; form-al, Sir T.
More, Works, p. 125 f; -al-ly, -al-ism, -al-ist, -al-i-ty ; -at-ion, -at-ive,
cf. L. formatus, pp. of formdre, to form; form-er, sb.; form-ul-a,
from L. formula, dimin. of forma; -ul-ar-y. Also con-form, de-form,
in-form, per-form, re-form, trans-form, uni-form, &c. @] Form, a
bench, is the same word. See F. forme in Cotgrave.
FORMER, more in front, past. (E.) First in latest text of AS. Gos-
pels, Matt. xxi. 36 (ab.1160). In Shak. Jul. Caes.y.1.80. Spenser has
formerly, F. Q. 11.12.67. a. The word is really of secondary forma-
tion, and due to the mistake of supposing the ME. /ormest (now
foremost) to be a single superlative instead of a double one; see this
explained under Foremost. β. Just as ME. form-est was formed
from AS. forma by adding -est to the base form-, so form-er was made
by addiny -er to the same base ; hence form-er is a comparative made
from the old superlative for-m-a. Cf. L. pri-m-us, first. γ. We may
therefore resolve for-m-er into for- (= fore), -m-, superlative suffix, and
-er, comparative suffix. Der. former-ly.
FORMIC, pertaining to ants. (L.) First in 1671; chiefly used
of ‘formic acid.’ Short for *formic-ic.—L. formica, an ant. Brug-
mann, i. § 413 (8). Der. chloro-form.
FORMIDABLE, causing fear. (F.—L.) In Milton, P. L. ii.
649. Fisher has formydable; Works (E.E.T.S.); Ps. 38, p. 53,
1. 27.—F. formidable, ‘fearfull ;’ Cot.—L. formidabilis, terrible. = L.
formidare, to dread ; formido, fear. Der. formidabl-y, formidable-ness.
FORMULA, a prescribed form. (L.) In Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715.
=L. formula, dimin. of forma, a form; see Form. Der. formui-
ate, -ar-y.
FORNICATE, to commit lewdness. (L.) The E. verb fornicate
is of late use, appearing in the Works of Bp. Hall (R.); and first in
1552. It was certainly developed from the sbs. fornication and forni-
cator, both in early use. Chaucer has fornicatioun, C. T. 6886
(Ὁ 1302); and fornicatour is in P. Plowman, (. iii. 191 (footnote).
These are, respectively, OF. fornication and fornicateur; (οἵ. “Το.
fornicatus, pp. of fornicairi, to seek a brothel. L. fornic-, base of
fornix, (1) a vault, an arch, (2) a brothel. Perhaps allied to Furnace;
cf. OL. fornus, L. furnus, an oven (of vaulted shape). Der. fornicat-
ion, fornicat-or, explained above.
FORSAKE, to give up, neglect. (E.) ME. forsaken, Chaucer,
C. T. 14247 (B 3431). AS. forsacan, Allfred’s tr. of Orosius, i. 12.
sect. 3. The orig. sense seems to be ‘to contend strongly against,’
to ‘ oppose.’ = AS. for-, intensive prefix ; and sacaz, to contend, Exod.
ii. 13. B. This verb sacax is a strong verb, cognate with Goth. sakan,
to strive, dispute; and is represented in E. by the derived sb. sake.
Cf. Dan. forsage, to forsake; Swed. forsaka; Du. verzaken. See For-
(2) and Sake.
FORSOOTH, in truth, verily. (E.) ΜΕ. for sothe=for the truth,
verily; P. Plowman, B. iv. 2.—AS. for, for; and sdde, dat. of sad,
truth. See Sooth.
FORSWEAR, to deny on oath, esp. falsely. (E.) ME. forsweren,
Prompt. Parv, p. 1733; earlier forswerien, Ὁ. Eng. Homilies, i. 13,
lar. AS. forswerian ; Grein, i. 332.—AS. for-, prefix ; and swerian, to
swear. See For- (2) and Swear.
- FORT, a stronghold. (F.—L.) In Hamlet, i. 4. 28.—OF. fort,
“a fort, hold ;’ Cot.— Late L.fortis (domus), strong (house). = L, fortis,
strong. See Force. Der. fort-al-ice, q.v.; fort-i-fy, q.v.3 fort-i-
tude, q.v.; fort-r-ess, q.v. From L. fortis we have also Ital. forte,
loud (in music), with its superl. fortissimo.
FORTALICE, a small outwork of a fort. (Late L.—L.) Rare;
see Jamieson’s Scottish Dict, Cf. OF. fortelesce, a fortress; Span.
Jortaleza, — Late L. fortalitia, fortalitium. See Fortress.
FORTIFY, to make strong. (F.—L.) In Shak. K. John, iii. 4.
To.—OF. fortifier, ‘to fortifie, strengthen ;’ Cot. —Late L. fortificare.
=L. forti-, decl. stem of fortis, strong ; and fic-, from _facere, to make.
See Fort, Force. Der. fortifi-er ; fortific-at-ion, from Late L. pp.
Sortificatus.
FORTITUDH, strength. (F.—L.)
In Shak. Temp. i. 2. 154.
FOUL 223
= F. fortitude (Littré). = L. fortitido, strength; see ‘spiritus fortitudinis’
in Ρ. Plowman, B. xix. 284.—L. fortis, strong. See Fort.
FORTH, forward, inadvance. (E.) ME. forth, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 858
(A 856). AS. ford, adv. (common); extended from fore, before. Du.
voort, forward; from voor, before; G. fort, MHG. vort; from vor, before.
See Fore, Further. Der. forth-coming, Shak. Tam. Shrew, v. 1. 96.
Also forth-with, ina poem of the 15th century called Chaucer’s Dream,
1. 109, substituted for earlier forth mid=‘forth along with,’ O. E.
Hom. i. 117, 1. t8; cf. also ME. forthwithall, Gower, C. A. iii. 262 ;
bk. vii. 5064.
FORTNIGHT, a period of two weeks. (E.) ME. fourtenight,
(trisyllable), Chaucer, C. Τὶ 931 (A 929). Written fourten ni3t, Rob.
of Glouc. p. 533, 1.17; 1. 11010. From ME. fourten = fourteen ; and
nijt, old pl. =nights. The AS. form was féowertyne niht; Laws of Ine,
§ 55. B. Similarly, we have sexnight =seven night; the phr. seofon ntht
(=a week) occurs in Caedmon, ed. Grein, 1. 1349. It was usual to
reckon by nights and winters, not by days and years; see Tacitus,
Germania, c. xi. Der, for/night-ly.
FORTRESS, a small fort. ('.—L.) ME. fortresse, King Ali-
saunder, 2008. —OF. forteresce, a variant of fortelesce, a small fort
(Burguy). = Late L. fortalitia, a small fort. = Late L. fortis, sc. domus,
a fort. —L. fortis, strong; see Fort, Fortalice.
FORTUITOUS, depending on chance. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. [The ME. fortuit, borrowed from OF. fortuit, occurs in
Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. v. pr. 1. 1. 58, in the Camb. MS. ; see the
footnote.] Englished, by change of -ws to -ous (as in arduous, strenuous,
&c.) from L. fortuitus, casual. —L. forti-, related to forti-, decl. stem
of fors, chance (below). Der. fortuztous-ly, -ness.
FORTUNE, chance, hap. (F.—L.) In Chaucer, C. T. 1254
(A1252); Cursor Mundi, 23710. =F. fortune. —L. fortiina. = L. forti-,
allied to forti-, decl. stem of fors, chance, orig. ‘that which is pro-
duced ;’ from for-, weak grade of fer-, as in Latin fer-re, to bear;
cf. E. bear. —4/BHER, to bear; see Bear. See Bréal. Der.
fortun-ate, ME, fortunat, Chaucer, C. T. 14782 (B 3966), from L.
pp. fortindtus ; -ate-ly, -ate-ness; fortune-less, -hunter, -teller ; from the
same source, fortu-it-ous (above).
FORTY, four times ten. (E.) ME. fourty, Chaucer, C. T. 16829
(ἃ 1361). AS. féowertig; Grein, i. 296.—AS. féower, four; and -tig,
a suffix allied to ten; see tout and Ten.+ Du. veertig; Icel. farutiu;
Dan. fyretyve; Swed. fyratio; G. viertig; Goth. fidwortigjus. The
Goth, tigjus is the pl. of tigus, a decade; cf. Gk, δεκάς. Der. forti-
eth, from AS. féowertigoda.
FORUM, the Roman market-place. (L.) In Holland, tr. of
Pliny, bk. xxii. c. 6. § 2.—L. forum, a market-place, place for
business; a forecourt; allied to forés, doors; see Door. Der.
Jfor-ensic, ἢ...
FORWARD, adj. towards the front. (E.) ME. forward, adj. and
adv. ; but rare, as the form forthward was preferred. Forward, adv.
occurs in Chaucer, C. Τὶ Six-text, Group B, 263, in the Camb. MS.,
where the other 5 MSS. have forthward. AS. foreweard, adj. ; Grein,
i. 322.—AS. fore, before; and -weard, suffix; see Toward. Der.
forwards, ME. forwardes, Maundeville, p. 61, where -es is an ady. suffix,
orig. the sign of the gen. case (cf. Du. voorwaarts, G. vorwarts) ;
forward, verb, Shak. 1 Hen. IV, 1. 1. 335 forward-ly; forward-ness,
Cymb. iv. 2. 342.
FOSSE, a ditch. (F.—L.) In Holland, tr. of Suetonius, p. 185
(R.); ME. fos, Rob. of Glouc., 1. 179. = OF. fosse, ‘any pit or hole ;’
Cot.—L. fossa, a ditch. —L. fossa, fem. of fossus, pp. of fodere, to dig.
Brugmann, i. § 166. Der. fossil, q.v.
FOSSET, a spigot ; the same as Faucet, αν.
FOSSIL, petrified remains of an animal, obtained by digging.
(F.—L.) Formerly used in a more general sense; see Phillips’ Dict.,
ed. 1706.—OF. /ossile. ‘ that may be digged;’ Cot.—L. fossilis, dug
up.—L. fossus, pp. of fodere, to dig; see Fosse. Der. /ossil-ise,
fossili-ferous.
FOSTER (1), to nourish. (E.) ME. fostren, Chaucer, C. T. 8098
(E 222). AS. fdstrian, ina gloss (Leo); cf. fdstring, sb., a disciple,
Pref. to St. Luke, 1. 2 (Lind. MS.).— AS. fostor, fostur, nourishment;
Leo, p. 23; Grein, i. 335; Teut. type *fostrom, for *fod-trom, neut. ;
allied to AS. foda, food; see Food, Fodder.+Icel. fdstr, nursing ;
fostra, to nurse, foster ; Dan. foster, offspring ; fostre, opfostre, to rear,
bring up ; Swed. faster, embryo ; fostra, to foster. Der. foster-er ; also
(from AS. fostor) foster-brother, foster-child, foster-parent.
FOSTER (2), a forester; see Forest.
FOTHER, a load, cartload; a heavy mass. (E.) See Chaucer, Prol.
530. AS. foder,n.; A. 5. Chron. an. 852 (Laud MS.).4-MDu. voeder,
Du. voer; OHG. fuodar, G, fuder. Teut. type */0p-rom, n. From
*/op-, strong grade of *faf-, to grasp; see Fathom,
FOUL, dirty, unclean. (E.) ME. foul, P. Plowman, C. xix. 54.
AS. fal, Grein, i. 358.44-Du. vuil; Icel. full; Dan. fuul; Swed. ful ;
Goth. fals; G. faul, ‘Teut. type */a-loz; cf. Icel. -fainn, rotten; akin
224 FOUMART
to Putrid. Brugmann, i. § 113.
also foul, vb.; de-file, q.v.
FOUMART, a polecat. (E.) Lowland Sc. fowmart; Jamieson.
ME. folmard, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 534; also fulmart, fulmard,
as in Stratmann, s.v. ful=foul. From AS, fil, foul, stinking; and
AS. meard, a marten. Thus it means ‘foul marten;’ see Foul and
Marten.
FOUND (1), to lay the foundation of. (F.—L.) ME. founden,
Wyclif, Heb. i. 10; P. Plowman, B. i. 64.—OF. fonder, to found. =
L. fundare.=—L. fundus, foundation, base, bottom; cognate with E.
bottom; see Bottom. Andsee Fund. Der. found-er, ME. foundour,
Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 109; -r-ess; -at-ion.
FOUND (2), to cast metals. (F.—L.) In Milton, P. L. vi. 518;
and in Holland, tr. of Pliny, we find ‘famous for mettal-founding,’
b. xxxiv. c. 2; ‘the excellent founders and imageurs of old time,’ id.
c. 8 (of Deedalus) ; ‘the art of founderie or casting mettals for images;’
id.c. 7.—OF. fondre, ‘to melt, or cast, as metals ;’ Cot.—L. fundere,
to pour, cast metals; see Fuse (1). Der. found-er, found-r-y ( = found-
er-y), -ing, font (2) or fount.
FOUNDER, to go to the bottom. (F.—L.) ME. foundren, said
of a horse falling ;’ ‘and foundred as he leep;’ Chaucer, C. T. 2689
(A 2687).—OF. fondrer, chiefly in the comp. afondrer (obsolete) and
effondrer, to fall in (still in use), as well as in the sb. fondriére, a place
to founder in, a slough, bog; see ford in Burguy, and fondriére in
Hatzfeld. The sense seems to have been ‘to sink in,’ and the deriv.
is from F. fond, the bottom of anything. = L. fundus, the bottom ; see
Found (1). @ The form of the OF. verb should rather have been
fonder ; the r is intercalated, as in chanvre =chanve, hemp, from L.
cannabis; and may have been due to the influence of OF. fondre, to
melt; see Found (2). We have similar instances in E. part-r-idge,
t-r-easure, cart-r-idge, &c.
FOUNDLING, a deserted child. (E.) ME. fundeling, Will. of
Palerne, 481; fundling, King Horn, 228.—AS. fund-, weak grade of
Jindan, to find; and -ling =-l-ing, double dimin. suffix. Du. vondeling ;
similarly formed. See Find.
FOUNT (1), aspring, fountain. (F.—L.) In Shak. Meas. iv. 3. 102;
and Lucrece, 850. —OF. funt, font,a fountain. - L. fontem, acc. of fons,
a spring. Brugmann; Addenda to vol. iv. Der. fountain, Spenser,
Ἐς Q. ii. 12. 60, from OF. funtaine (F. fontaine), which from Late L.
JSontana ; fountain-head; and see font (1).
FOUR, twice two. (E.) ME. feower, fower, feour, four, Layamon,
25, 194, 1902, 2092, 25395. Chaucer adds a final e, and treats it as
apl.adj. ‘W ith fouré whité bolés in the trays;’ C. Τὶ 2141 (A 2139
AS. féower, Grein, i. 296.44OF ries. fiower, fiuwer, fior; Icel. ΠΣ
Dan. jire; Swed. fyra; Du. vier; Goth. fidwor; OHG. for; (αἱ anes
W. pedwar; Gael. ceithir; Olrish cethir; L. quatuor; Gk. τέτταρες,
τέσσαρες; dial. πίσυρες; Russ. chetvero; Lith. keturi; Pers. chehar; Skt.
chatvaras. Idg. type *getwer-. Der. four-fold, -foot-ed, -square; also
Sfour-th (AS. fedrpa) ; four-teen (AS. fedwerténe) ; four-teen-th; also
Sor-ty, q.v.
FOWL, a kind of bird. (E.) In ME. it signifies ‘ bird’ generally.
ME. foul, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 190; earlier, fuzel, fowel, Layamon, 2832.
AS. fugol; Grein, i. 355.4-Du. vogel; Ivel. fugl, fogl; Dan. fugl;
Swed. fogel; Goth. fugls; OHG. fugal; G.vogel. All from Teut.
type *fugloz, τη. ; certainly for *flugloz, by dissimilation ; the form
fluglas, pl., occurs in Matt. xiii. 32 (Rushworth gloss) ; flugles, gen.,
in the Erfurt glossary, 1085; and cf. flugol, adj., flying. Thus it is
from *flug-, weak grade of Teut. *fleugan-, to fly. See Fugleman
and Fly. Brugmann, i. ὃ 491. Der. fowl-er= ME. foulere, Wyclif,
Prov. vi. 5; fowl-ing-piece.
FOX, a cunning quadruped. (E.) ME. fox, also (Southern ME.) vox;
P. Plowman, C. xxili. 44; Owl and Nightingale, 817. AS. fox ; Grein,
1. 334.4 Du. vos; G. fuchs. Teut. type *fuhs, masc. Wealso find Icel.
foa, Goth. fauké, fem., a vixen; Teut. type *fukd@. Both from a base
*fuh-. A suggested connexion with Skt. puchchha-, ‘ tail,’ is doubtful.
Der. fox-hound, fox-y; also fox-glove, a flower= AS. foxes glofa,
Cockayne’s A.S. Leechdoms, ili. 327 (cf. Norw. revhandske = foxglove,
from rev, a fox, also Norw. peubjall (fox-bell), a foxglove ; and | prov.
E. fox-fingers, a fox-glove). And see vix-en.
FOY, a parting entertainment, given by (or to) a wayfarer. (Du. —
F.—L.) ‘Hoping ..to give you a frendly foy;’ Howell, Letters,
vol. ii. let. 12 (1634).—MDu. foy (Du. fooi), [a] ‘banquet given by
one at his parting from his friends ;’ Hexham. Prob. from F. voie,
a way, journey; from L. wia,a way; as suggested by Kilian. But
Franck derives it from F. fot, from L. acc. jidem; because Late L. fidés
occurs with the sense of ‘ payment.’
FRACAS, an uproar. (F.—Ital.—L.) Not in Johnson; borrowed
from mod. F. fracas, a crash, din. =F. fracasser, to shatter; borrowed
from Ital. in 15th cent. (Hatzfeld). = Ital. fracassare, to break in pieces;
whence /racasso, a crash. = Ital. fra-, prefix, from fra, prep. amongst,
short for L. infra, within; and cassare, to break. Imitated (or trans-
Der. foul-ly, -ness, -mouth-ed ;
FRANCHISE
lated) from L. interrumpere, to break in amongst, destroy (Diez).
The vb. cassare is from L, guassare, to shatter, intensive of quatere, to
shake. See Quash.
FRACTION, a portion, fragment. (F.—L.) ME. fraction,
fraccion ; Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, ed. Skeat, prol. 1. 51 (or 53).
“ΟΕ. (and F.) fraction, ‘a fraction, fracture ;’ Cot.—L. acc. frac-
tidnem, from nom. fractio, a breaking; "of. L. fractus, pp. of frangere, to
break (base frag-), cognate with E. break; see Break. Der. fraction-
al; also (from pp. fractus) fract-ure ; also (from base frag-), frag-ile,
-v., frag-ment, q.v. ; and (from frangere) frang-ible, q.v.
FRACTIOUS, peevish. (E.; partlyF.—L.) Not found in early
literature; it is given in Todd’s Johnson, without a quotation. A
prov. E. word, fratchous, fratchious, as if from the North. E. fratch,
to squabble, quarrel, chide with another; see E.D.D. Cf. ME.
fracchen, to creak as a cart; ‘ Fracchyn, as newe cartys;’ Prompt.
Parv. p. 175. Of imitative origin. B, But it also occurs (in 1725)
in the sense of ‘ refractory,’ as if formed from fraction, in the (obso-
lete) sense of ‘dissension;’ see N.E.D. See Fraction (above).
FRACTURE, a breakage. (F.—L.) In Minsheu; and G. Her-
bert’s Poems, Repentance, last line.—OF. fracture, ‘a fracture,
breach ;? Cot.=—L. fractiira, a breach.—L. fract-us, pp. of frangere,
to break; see Fraction. Der. fracture, vb.
FRAGILE, frail. (F.—L.) In Shak. Timon, v. 1. 204.=F.
fragile, ‘ fraile;’ Cot. —L. fragilis, easily broken ; from the base frag-,
to break; see Fraction. Der. fragil-i-ty. Doublet, frail, q.v.
FRAGMENT, a piece broken off. (F.—L.) In Shak. ‘Much
Ado, i. 1. 288. =F. fragment, ‘a fragment; ᾿ Cot.—L. fragmentum, a
piece ; formed with suffix -mentum from the base frag-, to break ; see
Fraction. Der. fragment-ar-y, -al.
FRAGRANT, sweet-smelling. (F.—L.) ‘The fragrant odor ;’
Sir T. More, Works, p. 1366 c.—F. fragrant, ‘ fragrant ;᾿ Cot.=—L.
fragrantem, acc. of fragrans, pres. pt. of fragrare, to emit an odour.
Brugmann, i. ὃ 665 (3). Der. fragrant-ly, fragrance.
FRAIL (1), easily broken. (F.—L.) ME. /reel, frele, Wyclif,
Rom. viii. 3. Chaucer has freletee, frailty; C. Τὶ, 12012 (C 78). —
OF. fraile, ‘ fraile, brittle ;’ Cot. —L. fragilis; see Fragile. Der.
Srail-ty, -ness.
FRAIL (2), a light basket for figs, &c. (F.—L.) Common in E.
dialects; see E.D. D. ME. fraiel, Wyclif, Jerem. xxiv. 2.—OF. freél,
also fleél, a basket, usually of rushes, for figs and grapes (Godefroy).
The older form is fleé/, whence freél by dissimilation. — L. flagellum,
a whip; but also a vine-shoot, whence baskets for grapes could
conveniently be made. β, Verified by observing that both fleél and
flagellum had the peculiar sense of a certain measure of wax; thus
Godefroy has ‘ quatre fleaus de chandele de εἶτα ;’ and Ducange, s. v.
fieolum, has ‘unum flagellum cere, quorum sex debent ponderare
libram.’ Cf. Gk. φραγέλλιον, for flagellum, in John ii.15. (Athenzeum,
Mar. 9, 1901).
FRAME, to form, construct. (E.) In Spenser, F. Q. iii. 8. 5.
ME. framien, fremien ; ; fremen, Havelok, 441. AS.iframian, to be
profitable, to avail; also fremian, fremman, to promote, effect, do;
Grein, i. 339. Lit. ‘ to further,’— AS. fram, from, strong, excellent ;
lit. ‘ surpassing,’ or ‘ forward.’ Cf. AS. fram, prep. from, away ; see
From.+lIcel. fremja, to further; from framr, adj. forward ; fram,
ady. forward ; and closely related to fra, from. B. The AS. adj. fram,
excellent, is cognate with Icel. framr, Du. vroom, G. fromm, good ;
see Kluge. Der. frame, sb. =ME. frame, a fabric (Prompt. Parv.),
also proht, Ormulum, 961 ; cf. Icel. frami, advancement ; also fram-er,
fram-ing, frame-work.
FRAMPOLD, quarrelsome. (Low G.) Obsolete. In Shak.
Merry Wives, ii. 2. 94. Spelt frampald, frampard, and explained
as ‘ fretful, peevish, cross, porary in Ray, Gloss. of South-Country
Words. Allied to prov. E. rantipole, a romping child. B. The
former part of the word is eeplatned by EFries. frante-pot, wrante-pot,
a peevish man; from EFries. franten, wranten, to be cross; MDu.
wranten, to chide, Dan. vrante, to be peevish; Dan. vranten, peevish.
Cf. also Dan. vrampet, warped; Low G. wrampachtigh, morose
(Liibben) ; Low G. frampe, a coarse, violent man (Berghaus). More
exactly, the root is supplied by MDu. wrimpen, ‘to wring the mouth,’
Hexham. Note also Lowl. Sc. frample, to disorder, and E. frump.
y. The second element, viz. -old, -ald, -art, -(p)art, may have arisen
from EFries. pot, a pot (a term of contempt), confused with E. poll,
the head.
FRANC, a French coin, worth about tod. (F.—G.) ME. frank,
Chaucer, C. Τ᾿ 13117 (B 1377).—OF. (and F.) franc ; see Cotgrave.
Short for Francorum Rex, on a coin of 1360 (Hatzfeld); see
Frank.
FRANCHISE, freedom. (F.—G.) ME. franchise, freedom;
Chaucer, C. T. 9861 (E 1987); Beket, 1289. Hence the verb
Sranchisen, fraunchisen, to render free, endow with the privileges of a
free man ; P. Plowman, C. iv. 114. —OF. franchise, privileged liberty.
"ἃ load, cargo.
| . FRAY (1), anaffray. (F.—L.) ‘There began.a great fraye bitween
FRANGIBLE
= OF. franchis-, stem of parts of the verb franchir, to frank, render
free. OF. franc, free; see Frank.
FRANGIBLE, brittle. (L.) Rare; first in 1440. In Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674.—Late L. frangibilis, a coined word, from L. frang-
ere, to break. See Fraction. Der. frangibil-i-ty.
FRANION, a gay idle companion. (F.—L.) ‘ Franion, a gay
idle fellow; see Heywood's Edw. IV, p. 45 [A.i. sc. 1]; Peele, i.
207 [Old Wives’ Tale, near beginning.]’ Halliwell. See further in
Nares; also Dodsley’s O. Plays, iv. 60, vi. 179. Apparently from
OF. fraignant, one who infringes (law) ; orig. pres. pt. of OF.
fraindre, freindre, to break; hence, to infringe.—L. frangere, to
break. See Fragile. 4 Perhaps somewhat confused with F.
fainéant, an idle fellow, lit. ‘one who does nothing.’
_ FRANK, free. (F.—OHG.) In Spenser, Shepherd’s Kal. Nov.
203.—OF. franc, free; Low L. francus, free. —OHG. franko, a Frank,
free man. The Franks were a Germanic people. Der. frank, vb.,
-ly, -ness ; frank-incense, q.v.; franchise, q.v., frank-lin, q.v.
FRANKALMOIGN, the name of the tenure by which most
church lands are held, (F.—OHG.; and L.—Gk.) In Blackstone,
Comment., b. ii. c. 4. Spelt frankalmoin in Blount’s Nomolexicon ;
lit. ‘free alms.’—F. franc, free; and almoine, Anglo-F. variant of
OF. almosne, mod, F. auméne, alms. See Frank and Almoner.
FRANKINCENSE, an odorous resin. (F.—OHG, and L.)
In Holland’s tr. of Pliny, b. xii. c. 14. ME. frank encens, Mandeyille’s
Trav., p. 120. OF. franc encens, pureincense. See franc in Cotgrave,
who gives the example : ‘ Terre franche, mould, pure soyle, soyle of it
selfe; a soyle without sand, gravell, or stones.’ See Frank and
Incense.
FRANKLIN, a freeholder. (F.—OHG.) ME. frankeleyn,
Chaucer, C. T. 333 (A 331); shortened to /franklen, P. Plowman,
C. vi. 64.— AF. fraunkelayn, Langtoft, ii. 212; Low L. francalanus,
franchilanus; Ducange. = Low L. francus, free; see Frank. 8B. The
sufhx is from OHG. -linc=G. and E, -ling, as in G. fremd-ling, a
stranger, and Εἰ, dar-ling ; precisely as in chamber-lain.
FRANTIC, full ofrage or madness. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. frenetik,
contr. form frentik. Chaucer has frenetyk, Troilus, v. 206 ; frentik
is in P. Plowman, C. xii. 6.—OF. frenatique (better frenetique),
‘frantick ;’ Cot.=—L. phrenéticus, phreniticus, mad. Gk. φρενητικός,
tightly φρενιτικός, mad, suffering from φρενῖτις, or inflammation of
the brain. —Gk. ppev-, base of φρήν, the heart, mind, senses. See
Frensy.
FRATERNAL, brotherly. (F.—L.) In Milton, P. L. xii. 26;
Minsheu, ed. 1627; andin Palsgrave. Altered to the L. spelling. =
OF. fraternel, ‘ fraternall ;’ Cot. — Late L. friterndlis, substituted for
L. fraternus, brotherly.—L. /rater, cognate with E. brother; see
Brother. Der. fraternal-ly; from the same source, fraternity, q. V.;
fratricide, q.v.
FRATERNITY, brotherhood. (F.—L.) ΜῈ. fraternité,
Chaucer, C. T. 366 (A 364).—OF. fraterni‘é.—L. friternitatem,
acc. of fraternitas.=—L. fraternus, brotherly.—L. frater, a brother;
see above. Der. fratern-ise=OF. fraterniser, ‘to fraternize,’ Cot. ;
-is-er, -is-at-ion (from fraternus). ’
FRATRICIDE (1), a murderer of a brother. (F.—L.) In
Minsheu, ed.. 1627. This is the true sense; see below. -- OF. /ratri-
cide, ‘a murtherer of his own brother;’ Cot. =—L. frairicida, a fratri-
cide. -- L, fratri-, decl. stem of frater, a brother; and -cida, a slayer,
from cedere (pt. t. ce-cidi), to slay. See Fraternal and
Casura.
FRATRICIDE (2), murder of a brother. (L.) ‘ Fratricide,
brother-slaughter;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. fratricidium, a
brother’s murder. = L. fraéri-; and -cidium, a slaying; see above.
FRAUD, deceit. (F.—L.) ME. fraude ; Chaucer, tr. of Boethius,
Ὁ. i. pr. 4, 1. 86. -- ΟἿ, fraude, ‘ fraud, guile ;’? Cot.= L. fraudem, acc.
of fraus (old form friis), guile. Der. fraud-ful, -ful-ly, -less; fraud-
u-lent, from MF. fraudulent, ‘fraudulent,’ Cot., from L. fraudulentus ;
Sraud-u-lent-ly, -u-lence.
. FRAUGHT, to lade a ship. (Friesic.) ‘If after this com-
mand thou fraught the court ;’ Cymb. i. 1. 126; ‘ The fraughting
souls within her;” Temp. i. 2.13. ME. fraghten, fragten, chiefly
used in the pp. fraught, Will. of Palerne, 2732, Chaucer, C. T., B 171
{see my note on the line). [The form freight was also used; see
Freight.) From EFries. frachten (in comp. be-frachten); Low Ὁ.
vrachien (Liibben) ; Du. 6e-vrachten ; and cf. Swed. frakta, Dan.
fragte, to fraught or freight (from Friesic). From the sb. appear-
ang as EFries. fracht, Low G. vracht (Liibben), Du. vracht, G. fracht,
See further under Freight,
som of the gromes and pages;’ Bemers, tr. of Froissart, v. i. c. 16
(R.). Short for affray, in the sense of ‘brawl’ or ‘ disturbance.’
AF. affray, disturbance (Bozon), Formed, with prefix a- (F. a-,
Το ad), from OF. freier, to rub (against); see Fray (3). Cf. Ital.
FREQUENT 225
Jregare, ‘to rub, to chafe with one’ (Florio); and Span. refriega,
an affray, a skirmish.
FRAY (2), to terrify. (F.—L. and Teut.) In the Bible, Deut.
xxviii. 26, Jer. vii. 33, Zech. i. 21. Short for affray, to terrify, whence
the mod. E. afraid. See Afraid, Affray.
FRAY (3), to wear away by rubbing. (F.—L.) Ben Jonson, Sad
Shepherd, i. 2. 13, has frayings, in the sense of peel rubbed off a.stag’s
horn. ‘A deer was said to fray her head, when she rubbed it against
a tree to renew it;’ Halliwell. OF. freier, MF. frayer, ‘to grate
upon, rub,’ Cot.=—L. fricare, to rub. See Friction.
FREAK (1), a whim, caprice. (E.) ‘The fickle freaks . . . Of
fortune false ;’ Spenser, F. Q. i. 4. 50. This use as a sb., though
now common, is unknown in ME. in the same sense. Perhaps
closely allied to the once common adj. frek, in the sense of eager,
quick, vigorous. ‘Es nan sa /rek,’ is none so eager; Cursor Mundi,
5198. And see frec in Stratmann. AS. /rec, bold, rash; Grein,
i. 338.+Icel. frekr, voracious, greedy; Swed. frdck, impudent,
audacious; Dan. frek, audacious; G. /rech, saucy ; OHG. freh,
greedy. Cf. Goth. fathufriks, lit. fee-greedy, avaricious. (An obscure
word.) Der. freakish, Pope, Wife of Bath, gr.
FREAK (2), to streak, variegate? (E.) ‘The pansy freak’d
with jet;’ Milton, Lycidas, 144. Perhaps ‘to streak whimsically ;’
from Freak (1). β. But cf. prov. E. freck, to mark with spots, to
dapple; which is allied to Freckle.
FRECKLE, a small spot. (Scand.) Spelt /rekell in Sir T. More,
Works, p. 7f. From a base frek-, whence frek-el and /rek-en are
diminutives. The latter is used by Chaucer, who has the pl. /reknes,
fraknes, C. T. 2171 (A 2169).—Icel. freknur, pl. freckles ; Swed.
frakne, pl. fraknar, freckles; Dan. fregne, pl. fregner, freckles. Cf.
Fleck. Der. freckle, vb., freckl-ed, -y.
FREE, at liberty. (E.) ME. fre, Chaucer, C. T. 5631 (D 49).
AS. fréo; Grein, i. 344. 4- Du. vrij; Goth. freis (base *frijo-) ; G. frei.
B. Teut. type *frijoz; closely connected with Skt. priya-, beloved,
dear, agreeable; and E. Friend. Cf. also W. rhydd, for (p)rydd,
free. Der. free, vb., free-ly, -ness; freedom=AS. fréo-ddm; free-
booter (see Booty) ; jree-hold, -hold-er; free-man=AS. fréoman ;
Sree-mason, -mason-ry; free-stone (a stone that can be freely cut), a
tr. of Εἰ, pierre franche; free-think-er, -will. As to freestone, see Notes
on Eng. Etym., p. 105.
FREEBOOTER, a rover, pirate. (Du.) Bacon, in his Life of
Hen. VII, ed. Lumby, p. 129, 1. 28, says that Perkin Warbeck’s men
were chiefly ‘ strangers born, and most of them base people and jfree-
booters.. These strangers were mostly Flemings; see p. 112, 1. 11, &c.
In a letter dated 1597, in the Sidney State Papers, ii. 78, is a mention
of ‘the freebutters of Flushenge;’ Todd's Johnson.—Du. urijbuiter,
a freebooter. - Du. vrijbuiten, to rob, plunder. = Du. uribuit, plunder;
lit. ‘free booty.’ The Du. vrij is cognate with E. free; and buit is
allied to booty. See Free and Booty. Doublet, jilibuster, q. v.
FREEZBH, to harden with cold, to be very cold. (E.) ME. freesen,
fresen; P. Plowman, (Ὁ. xiii. 192, AS. fréosan, Grein, i. 347; pp.
froren. + Icel. frjdsa ; Swed. frysa; Dan. fryse; Du. vriezen; ὦ.
Jrieren; OHG. freosan. ‘Teut. type */reusan-. + L. priirire, to itch,
orig. to burn; cf. pruina, hoar-frost, priina, a burning coal; Skt.
plosha-,a burning. From 4/PREUS, to burn; whence the Teutonic
base FREUS, appearing in Goth, frius, frost, as well as in the words
above. Der. fros-t, q.v., frore, q. ν.
FREIGHT, a cargo. (F.—OHG.) ME. freyte (1463); ‘freyght™
or huyr,’ i.e. hire, Caxton, Golden Legend ; St. Giles, § 3. Freighted
occurs in North’s Plutarch; see Shakespeare’s Plutarch, ed. Skeat,
p. 16, 1. 3. Apparently an altered spelling of OF. /rer, ‘the freight
of a ship, also the hire that’s paid for a ship;’ Cot.—OHG. fréht,
earnings, hire (supposed to be the same word as G. fracht, a cargo).
B. The OHG. fréht is thought to represent an OHG. type */ra-athtiz ;
from fra-, prefix (see Fret (1)), and *aihtiz > AS. #ht, acquisi-
tion, property, from agan, toown. See Own (1). Der. freight, vb.,
Sreight-age.
FRENZY, madness, fury. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. /renesye [not
frenseye as in Tyrwhitt], Chaucer, Troil. i. 727; P. Plowman, C.
xxiii, 85. — OF. frenaisie [better frenesie}, ‘frenzie;' Cot. —L. phrenésis.
= Late Gk. φρένησις, equivalent to Gk. φρενῖτις, inflammation of the
brain.=—Gk. gpev-, base of φρήν, the midriff, heart, senses. Der.
frantic, 4. ν.
FREQUENT, occurring often, familiar. (F.—L.) ‘How/freguent
and famyliar a thynge;’ Sir T. Elyot, Governour, b.iii.c. 7,§ 2. ‘ Fre-
quently in his mouthe;’ id. b. 1. c. 22.—MF. frequent, omitted by
Cotgrave, but given in Sherwood’s Index.—L. frequentem, acc. of
frequens, crowded, crammed, frequent ; pres. part. of a lost verb
*frequére, to cram, closely allied to farcire, to cram, and from the
same root. See Farce. Brugmann, ii. § 713. Der. frequent-ly,
-ness, frequenc-y; also frequent, vb. << MF. frequenter, ‘to frequent,’
Cot. « 1. frequentare; frequent-at-ion, -at-ive.
Q
226 FRESCO
FRESCO, a painting executed on plaster while fresh. (Ital. —
OHG.) See Fresco in Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715.—Ital. fresco, cool,
fresh. —OHG. frise (G. frisch), fresh. See Fresh.
FRESH, new, recent, vigorous. (E.; and F.—-OHG.) ME. fresh,
fresch. ‘Ful freshe and newe;’ Chaucer, C. T. 367 (A 365).—OF.
Sres, freis (fem. fresche), fresh. —OHG. frise (above). B. Also fersch,
Jersh; spelt fersse (=fershe), Rob. of Glouc. p. 397, 1. 8187; also
uersc (=fersc), O. Eng. Homilies, i. 175, 1. 248; representing AS.
Jerse; ‘ne fersc ne mersc’=neither fresh water nor marsh; Ancient
Laws,ed. Thorpe,i.184,1.8.+4Icel. ferskr, fresh; Du.versch; G.frisch;
OHG. frisc. y. Teut. type *friskez. Allied to Lith. préskas, sweet,
unsoured, i.e. unleavened (applied to bread); Russ. priesnuii, fresh.
Der. fresh-ly, -ness, -en,-man; also fresh-et, a small stream of flowing
water, Milton, P. R. ii. 345. See Frisk, Fresco.
FRET (1), to eat away. (E.) ME. freten, a strong verb; Chaucer,
C. T. 2070 (A 2068). AS. fretan, pt. t. fret; Grein, i. 340. Con-
tracted from */ra-etan, as is clearly shown by the Gothic form; from
Teut. fra-, intensive prefix, and etan, to eat.4-Swed. frata, to corrode ;
Du. vreten (ver-eten) ; (ἃ. fressen (ver-essen) ; Goth. fraitan, from fra-,
intensive prefix, and itax, to eat. See For (2) and Eat. Der.
fret-ful, Shak. 2 Hen. VI, iii. 2. 403; -ful-ly, -ful-ness ; frett-ing.
4 The strong pp. occurs in Levit. xiii. 55, in the form fret; contr.
from the ME. strong pp. freten, frete; see Chaucer, C. T. 4895 (B 475).
FRET (2), to ornament, variegate. (F.) ME. /retten, to adorn
with interlaced work, esp. with gold or silver embroidery. ‘ Fyoles
fretted with flores and fleez of gold, phials [cups] adorned with
flowers and fleeces of golde,’ Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 1476; cf.
P. Plowman, A. 11. 11.—OF. freter, to adorn; from free, an (inter-
laced) fret (in heraldry, F. frette). See Fret (3). 4 It can hardly
have been influenced by AS. fretwan, to adom, as this would become
ME. fratwen, fratewen; see Matt. xii. 44 (AS. version). Der. fret-work.
FRET (3), a kind of grating. (F.—L. or G.) A term in heraldry,
meaning ‘a bearing composed of bars crossed and interlaced.’ See
explanation in Minsheu, ed. 1627. Kersey, ed. 1715, has: ‘in heraldry,
a bearing wherein several lines run crossing one another.’ OF. frete,
F. fretie, a fret. Cotgrave gives ‘fretté, fretty, a term of blazon’
[heraldry]. According to Diez, fretfes, pl., means an iron grating.
Roquefort gives: ‘freer, to cross, interlace.’ Cf. Span. fretes, ‘ frets,
narrow bands of a shield, a term in heraldry’ (Meadows); from a
sing. frete. B. Of doubtful origin. According to Diez, from a Late
L. type *ferritia; from L. ferrum, iron; cf. Ital. ferriata, a grate of
iron (Florio). Another suggestion (also doubtful) is to derive it from
OSax. feter-, in feter-ds, pl., fetters, AS. feter, a fetter. See Korting,
§§ 3700, 3715. Der. frett-y.
FRET (4), a stop on a musical instrument. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Tam. Shrew, ii. 150. A fret was a stop such as is seen on a guitar,
to regulate the fingering; formed by thin pieces of metal or wires
running like bars across the neck of the instrument; see Levins. I
take it to be a particular use of OF. frefe, a ferrule; or ‘the iron band
or hoop that keeps a woodden toole from riving;’ Cot. Cf. Ital.
Ferretti, little irons, tags for points (Florio). Perhaps the same word
as the above; but this is doubtful.
FRIABLE, easily crumbled. (F.—L.) In Sir T. Browne, Vulg.
Errors, b, iii. c. 23. § 5.— MF. friable, ‘bruizeable, easie to be broken ;’
Cot. = L. friabilis, easily crumbled. = L. friare, to rub, crumble. Der.
Sriable-ness, friabil-i-ty.
FRIAR, a member of a religious order. (F.—L.) ME. frere,
Chaucer, C. T. 208; Rob. of Glouc. p. 530, 1. 10939.—OF. frere,
Sreire.—L. fritrem, acc. of frater, cognate with E. brother ; see Bro-
ther. Der. friar-y.
FRIBBLE, to trifle. (Flem.—Du.) ‘Than those who with the
stars do fribble,’ Butler, Hudibras, pt. ii. c. 3. 1. 36; and see Spectator,
no. 288. To fribble away is to waste foolishly and triflingly.—W.
Flemish fribbelen, wribbelen, to rub between the finger and thumb (as
a thread), to roll together by rubbing (De Bo); cf. Low G. wribbeln,
to rub between the fingers, to rub away. (Hence, to twiddle, trifle.)
Frequentative of Du, (and EFries.) wrijven, to rub, rub with the hand,
tub away, grind (pt. t. wreef, pp. gewreven); G. reiben, to rub.
FRICASSEH, a dish made of fowls. (F.—L.?) ‘A dish made
by cutting chickens or other small things in pieces, and dressing them
with strong sauce ;? Todd’s Johnson. ‘Soups, and olios, fricassees, and
ragouts;’ Swift, Tale of a Tub, § 7; id.—F. fricassee, a fricassee ;
‘any meat fried ina panne,’ Cot.; fem. pp. of fricasser, to fry, also, to
squander money. Of unknown origin (Brachet), 4] Perbapsa deri-
vative of frigere, to fry; with c inserted by a fancied connexion with
Jricare,to rub; cf. Korting, § 3990. We once had /fricasy in the sense
of rubbing; as in ‘fricasyes or rubbings;’ Sir T. Elyot, Castel of
Helth, 'b. ii. c. 32.
FRICTION, rubbing, attrition. (F.—L.) ‘Hard and vehement
friction ;’ Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxviii. c. 4.—F. friction, ‘a friction,
or frication ;’ Cot.—L. frictionem, acc. of frictio, a rubbing. = L. fric-
FRIPPERY
ius, usual pp. of fricare, to rub; allied to fridre, to crumble. Der.
| friction-wheel ; cf. friable.
FRIDAY, the sixth day of the week. (E.) ME. Friday, Chaucer,
C. T. 1536 (A 1534). AS. frige-deg ; rubric to 5. Mark, xi. 11.— AS.
Frige,gen.case of Frig, the wile of Woden (considered as the goddess of
love) and deg,a day; see Grein,i. 349.—4/ PREI, to love; see Friend.
Cf. Icel. fryadagr, Friday, OHG. Friatag, Frigetag, Friday. The
Teut. type (of AS. Frig) is *frija, fem. of *frijoz, dear, beloved,
‘free;’ Skt. priya, wife, loved one. Brugmann, i. § 309 (2). See
Free, Friend. @ AS. Frige deg was meant to translate L, dies
Veneris.
FRIEND, an intimate acquaintance. (E.) ME. frend, freond ;
Ormulum, 443, 1609, 17960. AS. fréond; Grein, i. 346. Orig. pres.
pt. of fréon, fréogan, to love; so that the sense is ‘loving ;’ id. 345.
+ Du. vriend, a triend; cf. vrijen, to court, woo; Icel. frendi, a kins-
man, from 77a, to love; Dan. frende, Swed. frande, a kinsman ;
Goth. frijonds, a friend, pres. pt. of frijon, to love; G. freund, a friend ;
OHG. friunt.—4/ PREL, to love; cf. Skt. pri, to love. Der. friend-
ly (AS. adv. fréondlice), -li-ness, -less (AS. fréondleas), -less-ness, -ship
(AS. fréondscipe).
FRIEZE (1), a coarse woollen cloth. (F.—Du.) Palsgrave (1530)
has; ‘ Fryse, roughe clothe, drap frise.’ Cf. ‘a gowne of grene frese,’
in 1418; Fifty E. E. Wills, ed. Furnivall, p. 37, 1.1. * Panni lanei
de Frise ;’ Earl of Derby's Expeditions, 1390-3, p. 280, 1. 25. ‘Woven
after the manner of deep, frieze rugges ;’ Holland’s tr. of Pliny, b. viii.
c. 48.- ΜῈ, frise, frize, ‘frise ;? Cot. He also gives drap de frise as
an equivalent expression; lit. cloth of Friesland.—Du. Vriesland,
Friesland ; Vries, a Frieslander. 4 The ME. Frise, meaning ‘ Fries-
land,’ occurs in the Romaunt of the Rose, 1093. Similarly, the term
“cheval de Frise’ means ‘ horse of Friesland,’ because there first used
in defensive warfare.
FRIEZE (2), part of the entablature of a column. (F.—L.) In
Shak. Macb. i. 6. 6.—MF. frize ‘(in architecture) the broad and flat
band, or member, that’s next below the cornish [cornice], or between
it and the architrave; called also by our workemen the frize;’ Cot.
Cf. Span. friso, a frieze, Ital. fregio, ‘a fringe, lace, border, ornament,
or garnishment ;” Florio. Whether Εἰ, /rise is from Ital. fregio is not
clear. The source is L. Phrygium (opus), Phrygian work; cf. Phry-
giam chlamydem, embroidered cloak, AEn. iii. 484.
FRIGATE, a large ship. (F.—Ital.) In Cotgrave; spelt frigat in
Hakluyt, Voy. iii. 665 (last line).—MF. fregate, ‘a frigate, a swift
pinnace;’ Cot.—TItal. fregata, ‘a frigate, a spiall ship;’ Florio.
@ Of uncertain origin; Diez supposes it to stand for *farga/a, a sup-
posed contracted form of fabricata, i.e. constructed, from fabricare, to
build; but this explanation is not now accepted. Der. frigat-oon
(Ital. fregatone), frigate-bird.
FRIGHT, terror. (E.) ME. fry3t; Seven Sages, ed. Wright, 948.
It stands for fyr3?, by the shifting of r so common in English, as in
bride, bird, brimstone, &c. ONorthumb. fyrihto, Matt. xxvili. 4; AS.
Syrhto, fyrhtu, fright; Grein, i. 362. Cf. fyrht, timid; afyrhtan, to
terrify. + OSax. forhta, fright; Goth. faurhtei, fright; faurhtjan,
to fear; G. furcht, OHG. forhta, forohta, forahta, fright; G. furchten,
to fear. Allied to OSax. forht, OHG. foraht, Goth. faurhts, timid,
fearful. Der. fright, verb (later form fright-en) ; Shak. uses the form
fright only ; fright-ful, Rich. III, iv. 4. 169 ; -ful-ly, ~ful-ness.
FRIGID, cold, chilly. (L.) ‘ The frigid region ;’ Chapman, The
Ball, A. iv. sc. 2 (Lamount). Frigidity is in Sir T. Browne, Vulg.
Errors, b. ii. c. 1. § 4. “Το frigidus, cold. —L. frigére, to be cold. —L.
frigus, sb. cold. + Gk. pryos, cold; see Brugmann, i. § 875. Der.
Srigid-ly, -ness, -i-ly.
FRILL, a ruffle on a shirt. (Low G.) In Ash’s Dict., ed. 1775.
The N.E.D. quotes ‘that can fril and paint herself’ (1574); and
‘their flaunting ruffes, their borowed /rilles’ (1591). Of Teutonic
(prob. Low G.) origin; but insufficiently recorded. Represented by
W.Flem. frul, frulle, a wrinkled plait, wrinkled fold in a small shred
or band; De Bo cites ‘/rudlex round the bottom of a dress,’ and ‘ sleeves
with frullen,’ Another trace of it occurs in Swed. dial. frall, froll,
a wrinkled or curled strip, as on a woman’s cap, whence fryllig,
wrinkled. This points to a Teut. *frulle, a frill, whence a verb
*fryllan-; so that the E. form frill appears to be verbal.
FRINGE, a border of loose threads. (F.—L.) Palsgrave has:
‘Freng, frenge.’ Chaucer has frenges, pl.; Ho. of Fame, iii. 228.—
OF. frenge, fringe (Supp. to Godefroy); F. frange. Cot. has:
‘Frange, fringe” The Wallachian form (according to Cihac) is
Jrimbie, which stands for *jimbrie, by a transposition of r, for greater
ease of pronunciation; cf. F. brebis from L. ueruécem.—L. fimbria,
fringe; chiefly in the pl. jimbria, curled ends of threads, fibres.
Brugmann, i. § 875. See Fibre. Der. fringe, verb, fringed, Tem-
pest, i. 2. 408; fring-y.
FRIPPERY, worn out clothes, trifles. (F.—L.) ‘Some frippery
to hide nakedness ;’ Ford, Fancies Chaste and Noble, A. i. sc. 1 (R.).
FRISK
Shak. has it in the sense of an old-clothes’ shop; Temp. iv. 225.
MF. friperie, ‘a friperie, broker’s shop, street of brokers, or
fripiers ;᾿ Cot.—MF. fripier, ‘a fripier, or broker; a mender
trimmer up of old garments, and a seller of them so mended ;’ id.
OF. frepe (also ferpe, felpe), frayed out fringe, rag, old clothes (Gode-
froy). Prob. from L. fibra,a fibre; Korting, § 3724.
FRISK, to skip about. (F.-OHG.) In Shak. Wint. Ta. i. 2. 67.
A verb formed from the adj. frisk, which occurs in Cotgrave.— MF.
frisque, ‘friske, lively, jolly, blithe, brisk, fine, spruce, gay ;’ Cot. ;
OF. frisque, NorthF. variant of frische, lively, alert (Godefroy) ; cf.
‘Fresshe, gorgeous, gay, frisque, Palsgrave, p. 313; Walloon /fris-
quette, a gay girl (Sigart).—OHG. frisc, G. frisch, fresh, brisk, lively ;
see Fresh, Cf. Norm. dial. frisquet, frisky (whence E. frisky) ;
Moisy. Der. frisk-y, equivalent to the old adj. frisk; frisk-i-ly, -t-ness;
Srisk-et, a printer’s term for a light frame often in motion.
FRITH (1), an enclosure, forest, wood. (E.) It occurs asa place-
name in Chapel-le-Frith, Derbyshire, and is common in Kent in the
names of woods; but is obsolescent. Drayton has: ‘ Both in the
tufty /rith and in the mossy fell,’ Polyolbion, song 17. ME. frith,
peace, Layamon, ]. 2549; Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 90 ; also
in the sense of enclosed land, enclosure, park for hunting, forest,
wood ; thus in Layamon, 1432, where the older MS. speaks of hunting
in the king's frith [fride}, the later MS. speaks of hunting in the king’s
park [parc]. See numerous examples in Matzner, and cf. AS. frid-
geard, an enclosed space, lit. ‘ peace-yard ’ or ‘ safety-yard,’ for which
see Thorpe, Anc. Laws, ii. 298; also MSwed. fridgiard, an enclosure
for animals (Ihre). AS. frid, peace; freodo, freodu, fridu, peace,
security, asylum ; Grein, i. 343, 347, 348.+lcel.fridr, peace, security,
personal security ; Dan. fred; Swed. fred, MSwed, frid. Cf. Du.
vrede, peace, quiet; G. friede. Teut. type *frithuz. From *fri-,
base of *fri-joz, free; see Free. @ The ME. /rith sometimes
means ‘ wooded country;’ this may be a different word; viz. from
AS. gefyrhde (Birch, Cart. Sax. iii. 120). Borrowed forms are W.
ffridd, park, forest; Irish frith, a wild mountainous place; Gael.
Srith, a forest for deer.
FRITH (2), FIRTH, an estuary. (Scand.) ME. firth, Barbour’s
Bruce, xvi. 542, 547-—Icel. “γον, pl. firdir,a firth, bay; Dan. ford ;
Swed. fyard. Teut. type, *ferduz; Noreen, § 139. Allied to L.
portus, ahavyen; see Ford. (Not connected with L. fretum.)
FRITILLARY, a genus of liliaceous plants. (L.) In Phillips,
ed. 1706. Called Frettellaria in Bacon, Essay 46 (Of Gardens). So
called because chequered markings on the corolla were associated
with a fritillus, which (according to Gerarde) was by some supposed
to mean a chessboard. Englished from Late L. fritillaria, coined
of
or
2
| from L, fritillus, a dice-box.
| FRITTER (1), a kind of pancake. (F.—L.) Spelt frytowre in
| Prompt. Pary. Cotgrave has: ‘ Friteau, a fritter.’ But the E. word
| rather answers to OF. friture, a frying, a dish of fried fish. Both
| of frigere,to fry. See Fry (1).
| friteau and friture are related to OF. frit, fried. —L. frictus, fried, pp.
Der. fritter, vb., to reduce to slices,
waste.
| FRITTER (2), a fragment. (F.—L.) ‘One that makes fritters
| of English ;’ Merry Wives, v. 5. 151 [but this may belong to the
| word above]. Johnson has; ‘ Fritter, a fragment, a small piece ;’ but
his examples from Bacon and Butler are wrong, as the reading is
| fitters in both.. Pope has the verb fritter, to break into fragments,
twice ; see Dunciad, i. 278, iv. 56. “ΟἿΣ freture, fraiture, a fracture,
| a fragment (Godefroy).—L. fractira, a breaking ; from fract-, pp.
stem of frangere, to break. See Fracture, Break,
FRIVOLOUS, trifling. (L.) In Shak. Tam. Shrew, v. 1. 28.
| Cotgrave translates Εἰ, frivole by ‘ frivolous, vain.’ = L. friuol-us, silly,
| trifling ; with change of L. -us to E. -ous, as in abstemious, arduous,
| &c. The orig. sense of friuvolus seems to have been ‘rubbed away ;’
also applied to refuse, broken sherds, &c. ‘ Friuola sunt proprie uasa
| fictilia quassa;’ Festus. =L. frifire, fricdre, to rub; see Friction.
| Der. frivolous-ly, -ness ; also frivol-i-ty, from Ἐς frivolite.
| FRIZ, FRIZZ, to curl, render rough. (F.—Du.) More often
| used in the frequentative form frizz/e. ‘Mecenas, if I meete with
| thee without my /risled top;’ Drant, tr. of Horace, Epist. i. τ. 94
(Lat. text). ‘Her haire frized short ;’ Pepys, Diary, Nov. 22, 1660.
“ΜΕ. frizer, ‘to frizle, crispe, curle;’? Cot. β. The orig. sense
| perhaps was to roughen the nap of a cloth, to make it look like frieze.
| This is rendered probable by Span. frisar, to frizzle, to raise the nap
| on frieze; from Span. /risa, frieze. —OF. frize, ‘the cloth called
| frisey’ Cot. Cf. MDu. vriséren [from F. friser], ‘ to frieze cloth; ’
Hexham. See Frieze (1). Der. frizz-le.
| FRO, adv. from. (Scand.) ME. fra, fro, also used as a prep.
Ormulum, 1265, 4820; Havelok, 318. —Icel. fra, from; also ady. as
| inthe phrase εἰ ok fra =to and fro, whence our phrase ‘ to and fro’ is
| copied. Dan. fra.4-AS. from; see From, Der. /ro-ward, q.v.
| ¥ Fro is the doublet of from; but from a Scand. source.
|
FROST 227
FROCK, a monk’s cowl, loose gown. (F.—Late L.—L.) InShak.
Hamlet, iii. 4.164. ME. frok, of which the dat. frokke occurs in P.
Plowman, B. v. 81. —OF. froc; whence ‘ froc de moine, a monk’s cowle
or hood ;’ Cot.; Late L. frocus, a monk's frock; also spelt floccus,
by the common change of /to r; see floccus in Ducange; and cf.
Port. froco, a snow-flake, from L, floccus. Prob. so called because
woollen (Diez; Korting, § 3847). See Flock (2). @ Otherwise
in Brachet ; viz. from OHG., hroch (G. rock), a coat.
FROG (1),asmall amphibious animal. (Ε.) ME. frogge, Rob. of
Gloue. p. 69, 1. 1562 ; pl. froggen, O. kX. Homilies, i. 51, 1. 30. AS.
Srocga (pl. frocgan) ; and frox (pl. froxas) ; Ps. Ixxvii. 50. Of these,
Srox =*frocs =*frosc, cognate with Icel. froskr, Du. vorsch, G. frosch.
B. The ME. forms are various ; we find froke, frosche, frosh, froske,
and frogge, all in Prompt. Parv. p. 180.
FROG (2), a horny substance ina horse's foot. (E.?) α. The frog
ofa horse’s foot is shaped like a fork, and I suspect it to be a corruption
of fork, q.v. Cf. F. fourchette, ‘a fork; (vet.) a frush or frog ;’
Hamilton. B. On the other hand, it was certainly understood as being
named after a frog (though it is hard to see why), because it was also
called a frush, which much resembles frosh, a ME. form of frog; see
Frog (1) ; though this might also be a substitute for F: fourc δ, a fork,
and this for Ἐς fourche'te. ‘ Frush or frog’, the tender part of a horse’s
hoof, next the heel ;’ Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715.
FROLIC, adj., sportive, gay, merry. (Du.) In Shak. Mids. Nt.
Dr. v. 394. Gascoigne speaks of a ‘ frolicke fauour’=a merry look ;
Fruites of Warre, st. 40. It seems to have been one of the rather
numerous words imported from Dutch in the reign of Elizabeth. =
MDzu. vrolick, ‘ frolick, merrie,’ Hexham; Du. vrol.jk, frolic, merry,
gay.+G. frohlich, merry. B. Formed by help of the suffix -ἰ j4 (= E.
like, -ly) from the base vro-, orig. an adj. with the sense of ‘ merry,’
found in OSax. frah, OFries. fro, and preserved in mod. G. froh,
joyous, glad, sy. Perhaps allied to Icel. frar, swift, light-footed
(Kluge). Der. frolic, verb, frolic, sb. ; frolic-some, -some-ness.
FROM, prep., away, forth. (E.) ME. from; common. AS. from,
fram.+ (cel. fra, from; OHG. fram, adv. forth ; prep. forth trom ;
Goth. fram, prep. from. Cf. also Icel. fram, adv. forward (Swed.
fram, Dan. frem) ; Goth. framis, ady. further. Doublet, fro; and see
frame.
FROND, a leafy branch. (L.) Not in Johnson. Modern and
scientific, First in 1785.—L. frond-, stem of frons, a leafy branch.
Der. frond-esc-ence, frondi-fer-ous (from decl. stem frondi-, and fer-re,
to bear).
FRONT, the forehead. (F.—L.) Inearly use. ME. front; used
in the sense of ‘ forehead,’ King Alisaunder, 6550.—OF. front, ‘the
forehead, brow ;’ Cot.—L. frontem, acc. of frons, the forehead. Der.
front, verb, 2 Hen. IV, iv. 1. 25 ; front-age, -less; front-al, a. v.,
front-ier, q.v., front-let, q. ν., fronti-spiece,q.v. Also front-ed (rare),
Milton, P. L. ii. 532. Also af-front, con-front, ef-front-ery. Also
frounce, flounce.
FRONTAL, a band worn on the forehead. (F.—L.) ‘ Which
being applied in the manner of a frontall to the forehead ;’ Holland,
tr. of Pliny, b.xx.c. 21. ME, frounte/, Polit. Songs, p. 154.—OF.
frontal, ‘a frontlet, or forehead-band ;’ Cot.—L. frontale, an orna-
ment for a horse’s forehead.—L. front-, stem of frons, the front.
See Front.
FRONTIER, a part ofa country bordering on another. (F.—L.)
In Shak. Hamlet, iv. 4.16; and Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 207 b, 1. 9.
— OF. frontiere, ‘the frontier, marches, or border of a country ;’ Cot.
= Late L. frontéria, frontaria, a frontier, border-land ; formed with
suffix -G@ria, fem. of -drius, from front-, stem of frons. See Front.
FRONTISPIECE, a picture at the beginning of a book, front
of a house. (F.—L.) A perverse spelling of frontispice, by confusion
with piece; see Trench, Eng. Past and Present. In Minsheu, ed. 1627;
and Milton, P. L. iii. 506.—F. frontispice, ‘the frontispiece, or fore-
front of a house ;” Cot. = Late L. frontispictum, the front of a church ;
lit. ‘front view.’=—L. fronti-, decl. stem of frons, the front; and
specere, to view, behold, see. See Front, and Special or Spy.
FRONTLET, a small band on the forehead. (F.—L.) In
Shak. K. Lear, i. 4. 208; Exod. xiii. 16, Deut. vi. 8 (A. V.); and in
Palsgrave.— OF. frontelet, a dimin. of frontel, with suffix -e, ‘A
frontlet, also the part of a hedstall of a bridle, that commeth over the
forehead; L. fronédle;’ Baret’s Alvearie. See Frontal.
FRORE, frozen. (E.) In Milton, P. L. ii. 595. Short for froren,
the old pp. of the verb ‘to freeze.” See An O. Eng. Miscellany, ed.
Morris, p. 151. AS. froren, gefroren, pp. of fréosan, to freeze. Du.
evroren, pp. of uriesen, to freeze; G. gefroren, pp. of frieren. See
reeze.
FROST, the act or state of freezing. (E.) ME. frost; also
forst, by the common shifting of r; Wyclif, Ps. Ixxvii. 47. AS. forst
(the usual form), Grein, i. 331.- Du, vorst; Icel., Dan., and Swed.
frost; G. frost. Teut. types *frus-toz, m., *frus-tom,n.; from *frus-,
Q 2
228 FROTH
weak grade of *freusan-, to freeze. See-Freeze. Der. frost, verb,
frost-y, -i-ly, -i-ness, -bite, -bitt-en, -bound, -ing, -nail, -work.
FROTH, foam upon liquids. (Scand.) ME. frothe, Prompt. Parv.
p- 180. Chaucer has the verb frothen, C. T. 1661 (A 1659). —Icel.
froda, fraud; Dan. fraade; (Swed. fradga]. β. From the weak grade
(*fruth) of the Teut. verb *freuthan-, to froth up; seen in AS. a-
fréodan, to froth up. Der. froth-y, -i-ly, -i-ness.
FROUNCE, to wrinkle, curl, plait. (F.—L.) The older form
of flounce; see Flounce (2). Der. frounce, sb.
FROWARD, perverse. (Scand. and E.) ME. froward, but com-
monly fraward; Hampole, Pricke of Conscience, 87; Ormulum, 4672.
This fraward is a Northern form of from-ward, due to substitution of
the Scand. Eng. fro for the AS. from. From Icel. fra, fro; and E.
ward; see Fro. Cf. AS. fromweard, only in the sense of ‘ about to
depart’ in Grein, i. 351; /roward has the orig. sense of from-ward,
i.e. averse, perverse. Cf. wayward; i.e. away-ward. And see
Toward. Der. froward-ly, -ness, Spenser, F. Ὁ. iii. 6. 20.
FROWN, to look sternly. (F.—Scand.) ME. frounen; Chaucer,
C. Τ, 8232 (Ε 356).—<OF. frongnier, whence F. re-frongner, ‘to
frown, lowre, look sternly, sullenly ;’ Cot. In mod. F., se refrogner,
to frown. Cf. Ital. infrigno, wrinkled, frowning ; Ital. dialectal
(Lombardic) frignare, to whimper, to make a wry face. B. Of Teut.
origin. From Teut. *frunjan-, as seen in Swed. dial. fryna, to make
a wry face (Rietz), Norw. froyna, the same (Aasen). /Korting,
§ 3834.) Der. frown, sb.
FRUCTIFY, to make fruitful. (F.—L.) In Shak. L. L. L. iv. 2.
30; and in Chaucer, Lenvoy a Scogan, 48. =F. fructifier, ‘ to fructifie;’
Cot.=—L. fructificdre, to make fruitful. = L. fructi-, for fructu-, decl.
stem of fructus, fruit; and -ficare, suffix due to facere, to make. See
Fruit and Fact. Der. fructifica-tion, from the same L. verb.
FRUGAL, thrifty. (F.—L.) In Shak. Much Ado, iv. 1. 130.
-F. frugal, ‘frugall;’ Cot.—L. frigdlis, economical, lit. of or
belonging to fruits.—L. frig-, stem of frux, fruits of the earth; of
which the dat. fragi was used to signify useful, temperate, frugal.
Allied to Fruit. Der. frugal-ly, -i-ty; also frugi-fer-ous, i.e. fruit-
bearing, frugi-vor-ous, fruit-eating, from L. frigi-, decl. stem of frusx,
combined with fer-re, to bear, uor-are, to eat.
FRUIT, produce of the earth. (F.—L.) ME. fruit, frut; spelt
frut in the Ancren Riwle, p. 150. —OF. fruit (Burguy). = L. fructum, ,
acc. of fructus, fruit. L. fructus, pp. of frui, to enjoy; cognate with Ὁ
E. brook, to endure.—4/ BHREUG, to enjoy; see Brook (1).
Brugmann, i. § 111; 1], § 532. Der. fruit-age; fruit-er-er (for fruit-
er, with suffix -er unnecessarily repeated), 2 Hen. IV, iii. 2. 36; fruit-
ful, Tam. Shrew, i. 1. 3; -ful-ly, -ful-ness, -less, -less-ly, -less-ness ; also
fruition, q.v., fructify, q. ν., fructiferous, fructivorous.
FRUITION, enjoyment. (F.—L.) In Shak. 1 Hen. VI, v. 5.
9. — OF. fruition, ‘fruition, enjoying ;’ Coi.—Late L, fruitidnem, acc.
of fruitio; cf. fruitus, by-form of fructus, pp. of frui, to enjoy.
FRUMENTY, FURMENTY, FURMETY, food made
of wheat boiled in milk. (F.—L.) Spelt firmentie in Gascoigne,
Steel Glas, 1077; see Specimens of English, ed. Skeat, p. 322.
Palsgrave has furmenté. Holland speaks of ‘frumenty or spike corne;”
tr. of Pliny, b. xviii. c. 23. —OF. fromentee, MF. froumenté, ‘furmentie,
wheat boyled ;’-Cot. Formed, with suffix -ee (L. -da), from OF. fro-
ment, ‘wheat;’ id.—Late L. frumentum; for L. frimentum, corn ;
formed (with suffix’ -mentum) from the base fri-, frig-; see Fruit,
Frugal.
FRUMP, a cross, ill-tempered person. (MDu.?). The older sense
was a jeer or a sneer; then, ill humour; lastly, an ill-humoured
person. ‘Sweet widow, leave your frumps;’ Beaum. and Fletcher,
Scornful Lady, A. ii. sc. 32. Apparently from MDu. *wrump-,
*wromp-, weak grade of wrimpen, ‘to wring the mouth,’ Hexham ;
Kilian makes it equivalent to grijsen, i.e. to frown. So also
Low G. frampe, a coarse, violent man (Berghaus); wrampachtich,
morose (Liibben); from the 2nd grade *wramp. The E.D.D.
has also frump, an unseemly fold, frungle, to wrinkle. The base
wrimp- is a variant of wrink-, as in wrink-le; cf. wring. Cf.
Frampold.
FRUSH, to bruise, to batter. (F.—L.) In Shak. Troil. ν. 6. 29.
ME. fruschen, to crush; Wallace, iii, 197.— OF. fruissier, froissier
(F. froisser), to break in pieces; L. type *frustiare.=L. frustum, a
piece; sce Frustum.
FRUSTRATE, to render vain. (L.) Formerly used as an adj.,
as in Sir Τὶ Elyot, The Governour, Ὁ. ili.c. 10; and in Shak. Temp.
iii. 3. 10.—L. frustrdtus, pp. of frustrari, to disappoint, render vain.
—L. frustra, in vain; properly fem. abl. of obsolete adj. frustrus, for
*frud-trus, originally meaning ‘ deceitful.’ Allied to E. fraud. See
Fraud. Der.-/rustrai-ion.
FRUSTUM, a piece ofa cone orcylinder. (L.) The pl. frustwms
is used by Sir T. Browne, Cyrus’ Garden; ch. ili. § 51. =—L. frustum,
a piece cut off, or broken off. Cf. Gk. θραυστός, broken, brittle ;
FULL
θραῦσμα, a fragment; from θραύειν, to break in pieces. Brugmann,
1. § 853. Der. frust-ule. ae ape ty ΤῈ
FRY (1), to dress food overa fire. (F.—L.) ME. frien; Chaucer,
C. T. 6069 (D 487) ; P. Plowman, C. ix. 334. —OF. frire, ‘to frie ;’
Cot.—L. frigere, to roast. + Gk. φρύγειν, to parch; Skt. bhrajj, to
boil, fry. Der. fry, sb.
FRY (2), the spawn of fishes. (F.—L.) In Shak. All’s Well; iv. 3.
250. ME. fri, fry; ‘to the.and to thi fri mi blissing graunt I’=to
thee and to thy seed I grant my blessing; Towneley Mysteries, p. 24.
AF. fry, frie, Liber Albus, pp. 507-8. 5 OF. *fri, variant of OF. froi
(F. fra‘), spawn (Supp. to Godefroy); cf. OF. frier, variant of OF.
froier, to spawn (id.) ; Norm. dial. frzer, to rub (Moisy).=—L. fricare,
torub. See F. frat in Hatzfeld.
FUCHSIA, the name of a flower. (G.) A coined name, first
used in 1703 by C. Plumier, a French botanist; made by adding the
L. suffix -/a to the surname of the German botanist Leonhard Fuchs
(d. 1566), who published his De Historia Stirpium in 1542; see N.
and Q. 7 5. xi. 326.
FUDDLE, to tipple, to render tipsy. (Low G.) Also found in
the sense ‘to waste time ;’ as, ‘they fuddle away the day with riot
and prophaneness ;’ Gent. Mag. xxvi. 431 (1756); see N. E. D. and
E.D.D. A specialised sense of Low G. fuddeln, to work lazily
(Brem. Wort.); also to go about in rags (Berghaus); cf. Low G.
fuddelke, aslattern, From the sb. fudden, rags; Ef ries. fudde, a rag,
a slut; Du. vod, a rag, a slut. Cf. Low G, fuddig, ragged, dirty;
Du. voddig.
FUDGE, an interjection of contempt. (F.) In Goldsmith, Vicar
of Wakefield (1766); also in Macklin, Love-a-la-Mode, A. ii. sc. 1
(Groom); 1760.—Picard fuche, feuche, an interjection of contempt
(Corblet); Ronchi fuche, bah! (i1écart); Walloon foge, bah! (Grand-
gaonage); cf. Low G. fu/sch! begone! cited by Wedgwood from Dan-
neil ; see also Sanders, Ger. Dict. 1. 525. Of onomatopoetic origin ;
cf. pish. The verb to fudge seems to have been influenced by fadge.
FUEL, materials for buming. (F.—L.) Also spelt fewel, fewell ;
Spenser, F. Q. ii. 7.36. Also fwaill, feweil ; Barbour’s Bruce, iv. 170.
Here, as in Richard Coer de Lion, 1471, it-seems to mean ‘ supplies.’
AF. fewaile, Liber Albus, p. 337.—OF. fouaille, fuaille, fuel, fagots
(Godefroy). =—Late L. focalia, pl. of focale, fuel.—L. focus, a hearth,
fire-place. See Focus.
FUGITIVE, fleeing away, transitory. (F.—L.) . Properly anadj.,
Shak. Antony, ili. 1. 7; also as a sb., id. iv. 9. 22; ME. fugitif,
Chaucer, Ho, of Fame, 146.—OF. fugitif, ‘ fugitive;’ “Cot.—L
fugitiuus, fugitive. = L. fugitum, supine of fugere, to flee ; cognate with
E. bow, to bend.+-Gk. φεύγειν, to flee; Skt. bhuj, to bend, turn aside.
- γ BHEUGH, to bow, to bend. Der. fugitive-ly, -ness. From
the same source, /ug-ac-ious, fug-ac-i-ly ; fugue, q.V.; also centri-fug-al,
re-fuge, subter-fuge. d
FUGLEMAN, the leader of a file. (G.) Modern. Not in Todd’s
Johnson. Also written f2ugelman ; as in Sydney Smith, Works, 1859,
ii. 120 (N.E.D.). Borrowed from G. fluigelmann, ‘the leader of a
wing or file. —G. fliigel, a wing; cf. flug, flight, from-the weak grade
of fliegen, to fly; and mann, man. See Fly (1). ω
FUGUE, a musical composition. (F.—Ital.—L.) In Milton,
P. L. xi. 563. —OF. (and F.) fugue, ‘a chace or report of musick, like
two or more parts in one;’ Cot.—Ital: fuga, a flight, a fugue. —L.
fuga, flight. See Fugitive. Der. fugu-ist.
FULCRUM, a point of support. (L.). ‘Fulcrum, a stay or sup-
port;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.—L. fulcrum, a support. = L. fulcire,to prop.
FULFIL, to complete. (E.) ΜΕ. fudfillen; P. Plowman, B. vi. 36.
AS. fulfyllan, which occurs in AElfric’s Grammar, ed. Zupitza, p. 153-
Compounded of ful, full; and fyllan, to fill. See Full and Fill.
Der. fulfill-er, fulfil-ment.
FULGENT, shining, bright. (L.) InMinsheu, ed. 1627; Milton,
P. L. x. 449; and York Mysteries, p. 514, 1. 12—L. fulgent- stem of
pres. pt. of fulgére, to shine.-+-Gk. φλέγειν, to burn, shine; Skt. bhraj,
to shine. Der. fulgent-ly, fulgenc-y; also ef-fulg-ence, re-fulg-ent.
FULIGINOUS, sooty. (L.) In Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 18 (R.).
Either from MF, fuligineux (Cot.); or, more likely, immediately from
L. filigindsus, sooty. L. filigin-, stem of filigo, soot. From the
same base as fu-mus, smoke; cf. Skt. dhuli-, dust. Sce Fume.
FULL (1), filled up, complete. (E.) ME. ful; P. Plowman, B.
prol.i7. AS. ful; Grein, i. 355.4-Du. vol; Icel. fullr; Dan. fuld (for
full) ; Swed. full; Goth, fulls; G. voll. Teut. type *fulloz; Idg. type
*palnos. Cf. Lith, pilzas, full; Russ. polnuit, full; Olrish lan (< *plan),
W. lawn, full; Skt. purza-, Pers. pur; Gk. πλήρης; L. plenus. Idg.
root *plé (weak form, *pa/), to fill. Brugmann, 1. §§ 393, 461. Der.
full, adv., full-y, ful-ness ; -blown, ~faced,~hearted,-orbed ; ful=fil ( =full
fill), ful-fil-ment ; also jill, by vowel-change, q.v. Also ful-some,q.v.
And see Plenary.
FULL (2), to full cloth, to felt. (F.—L.) Τὸ full cloth is to felt
the wool together ; this is Gone by severe beating and pounding. The
i
FULLER
word occurs in Cotgrave; alsoas ME. fallen, P. Plowman, B. xv. 445.
= OF. fuler, fouler; MF. fouller, ‘to full, or thicken cloath in a mill;’
Cot. Also spelt fowler, ‘to trample on, press ;’ id! = Late L. fullare
(1) to cleanse clothes, (2) to full cloth.=L. fullo, a fuller. 4 The
orig. sense of L. fullo was probably a cleanser, or bleacher; then, as
clothes were often washed by being trampled on or beaten, the sense
of ‘stamping’ arose; and the verb to full is now chiefly used in this
sense of stamping, pounding, or felting wool together. Der. full-ing-
mill, mentioned by Strype, Annals, Edw. VI, an. 1553.
FULLER, a bleacher of cloth; a fuller of cloth. (L.) See note
to Full (2) above. AS. fullere, Mark, ix. 3. Adapted from L. fullo,
a fuller (above).
FULMAR, a sea-bird of the petrel kind. (Scand.) The name is
used in the Hebrides (Εἰ. D. D.) ; and is of Scand. origin. Lit. ‘ foul
mew ;’ from its disagreeable odour. =Icel. ful-, for full, foul; and
mar,amew. See Foul and Mew (2).
FULMINATE, to thunder, hurl lightning. (L.) In Minsheu, ed.
1627. Sir T. Browne has fulminating, Vulg. Errors, b. ii. c. 5. § 19.
(Spenser has the short form fulmine, F. Q. iii. 2. 5 ; from OF. fulminer,
‘to thunder, lighten ;’ Cot.J—L. fulmindtus, pp. of fulminare, to
thunder, lighten. —L. fulmin-, for fulmen, lightning, a thunder-bolt
(= *fulg-men). = L. base fulg-, to shine ; seen in fulg-ére,to shine. See
Fulgent. Der. fulmin-at-ion.
FULSOME, cloying, satiating, superabundant. (E.) ME. fulsum,
abundant, Genesis and Exodus, 748, 2153; cf. Will. of Palerne, 4325.
Chaucer has the sb. fulsomnesse, C. T. 10719 (F 405). Made up from
ME. ful = AS. ful, full; and the suffix -som = AS. -sum (mod. E. -some).
See Full. Der. ful-some-ness. ΔΑ Not from foul.
_ FULVOUS, FULVID, tawny. (L.) Rare. Fulvid is in Todd’s
Johnson. Borrowed, respectively, from L. fulzus, tawny, and Late L.
fuluidus, somewhat tawny. Allied to Yellow. Brugmann, i. § 363.
_ FUMBLE, to grope about. (Du.) In old authors ‘to bungle.’
_ ‘False fumbling fantasye ;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 698a; Shak.
Antony, iv. 4. 14. The 6 is excrescent, and fumble stands for fummle.
= Du. fommelen, ‘to fumble, grabble;’ Sewel; Low G. fummeln, to
fumble. + M. Swed. (and Swed.) fumla, to fumble. Cf. Swed. famla,
to grope; Dan. famle; Icel. falma, to grope about. B. Prob. allied
to AS. folm, the palm of the hand (Grein, i. 311), cognate with L.
palma. See Palm (ofthe hand). Der. γον δίς ον.
FUME, a smoke, vapour. (F.—L.) Sir T. Elyot speaks of ‘fumes
in the stomake;” The Castel of Helth, b. 11. c. 17. ME. fume, Sowdone
| of Babylon, 1. 681. —OF. fum, smoke (Burguy).=—L. fimum, acc. of
Siimus, smoke. +Skt. dhiima-, smoke; Gk. θυμός, spirit, anger; cf. Skt.
dhi, to shake, blow. Brugmann, i. ὃ 106. Der. fume, verb (see
Minshen) ; fumi-ferous ; fum-ig-ate, q.v., fum-i-tory, q.V.
FUMIGATE, to expose to fumes. (L.) ‘You must be bath’d
and fumigated fitst ;’ Ben Jonson, The Alchemist, A.i.—L. fumigatus,
pp- of fuimigare, to fumigate. - L. fiim-, base of famus, smoke ; and -ig-,
for ag-, base of agere, to drive; thus the sense is ‘ to drive smoke about.’
See Fume. Der. fumigat-ion, from MF. fwnigation, ‘ fumigation,
smoaking ;’ Cot.
FUMITORY,, plant; earth-smoke. (F.—L.) InShak. Hen. V,
ν. 2. 45; a corruption of the older form fumiter, K. Lear, iv. 4.3; ME.
fumetere, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 14969 (B 4153). — OF. fume-terre, ‘ the herb
fumitory ;’ Cot. This is an abbreviation for fume de terre, smoke of
the earth, earth-smoke; so named from its abundance (Trevisa). = Late
L. fiimus terre. = L. fiimus, smoke; and terra, earth. See Fume and
Terrace. The G. name is erd-rauch, earth-smoke ; cf. W.cwd y mug,
lit. bag of smoke, fumitory.
FUN, merriment, sport. (Perhaps Scand.) Not found early. ‘ Rare
compound of oddity, frolic, and fux;’ Goldsmith, Retaliation, Post-
script, 1.3. Probably from the proy. E. verb fo fun, to cheat, to hoax;
| see E.D.D. Thisis ME. fonnen, to be foolish, dote; or, as act. vb.,
|
to deceive, befool; whence pp. fonned=mod. E. fond. See Fond;
| where the word is traced further back. Der. funn-y, funn-i-ly. 4 Irish
| fonn is from E.
| FUNAMBULIST, one who walks on a rope. (L.) Formerly
Junambulo, a rope-dancer ; see Gloss. to Bacon, Ady. of Learning, ed.
Wright; so that the word was suggested by Spanish; though -is¢ has
| been put for -o; cf. Span. funambulo, a walker on a rope. = L. fin-, stem
| Of finis, a rope; and *ambulus,a walker, a coined sb. from ambulare,
| to walk; see Ample.
| FUNCTION, performance, duty, office. (F.—L.) Common in
Shak. ; see Meas. i. 2. 14; ii. 2.393 &c.— MF. function, ‘a function ;”
| Cot. (F. fonction). =—L. functiinem, acc. of functio, performance ; ef.
| functus, pp. of fungi, to perform ; orig. to enjoy, have the use of. Cf.
| Skt. bhai}, to enjoy. Brugmann, ii. § 628. Der. function-al, -ar-y.
FUND, a store, supply, deposit. (F.—L.) ‘Fund, land or soil; also,
| a foundation or bottom ;” Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. And see Burnet,
Hist. of his Own Time, an. 1698 (R.). [10 should rather have been
| fond, as in Eng. Garner, ed. Arber, vi. 387 (ab. 1677); but it has been
FURLONG 229
accommodated to the I. form.] — MF. fond, ‘a bottom, floore, ground;
. .amerchant’s stock ;? (οἵ. “Το fundus, bottom, depth; cognate
with ἘΜ. bottom. See Bottom, and see Found (1). And see below.
FUNDAMENT, foundation, base. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. foundement,
fundement; Chaucer, C. T. 7685 (D 2103); Wyclif, Luke, vi. 48.
{Really F., and properly fuxdement, but altered to the L. spelling.]—
OF. fondement, foundation. —L. fundamentum, foundation. Formed,
with suffix -mentum, from funda-re, to found. See Found (1). Der.
fundament-a!, Alls Well, iii. 1. 2.
FUNERAL, relating to a burial. (F.—L.) Properly an adj., as
in ‘To do th’ office of funeral servyse ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 2914 (A 2912).
= OF. funeral, adj. (Godefroy).—Late L. funeralis, belonging to a
burial.=L. fiiner-, for *fines-, stem of fanus, a burial; with suffix
-alis. Der. funeral, sb.; funer-e-al, Pope, Dunciad, iii. 152, coined
from L. fivere-us, funereal, with suffix -al.
FUNGUS, a spongy plant. (L.) ‘ Mushromes, which be named
fungi;’ Hol'and, tr. of Pliny, bk. xxii.c. 23.—L. fungus, a fungus.
Gk. opoyyos, Attic form of σπόγγος, ἃ sponge. Thus fungus is allied
to sponge. See Sponge. Der. /ung-ous, -o-id.
FUNICLE, a small cord, fibre. (L.) In Johnson’s Dict. —L.
fiini-cu-lus, double dimin. of finis, a rope. See Funambulist.
Der. funicul-ar.
FUNNEL, an instrument for pouring in liquids into vessels.
(Prov.—L.) In Ben Jonson, Discoveries, sect. headed Precipiendi
modi. And in Levins’ Dict., ed. 1570. ME. fonel; Prompt. Parv.
A Southern F. word, due to the Bourdeaux wine-trade. = Prov. founil,
enfounil, enfounilh, a funnel ; Mistral, p. 911 (whence also Span. fonil,
Port. funil). Late L. fundibulum, a funnel (Lewis) ; L. infundibulum. =
L. infundere,to pour in. = L.in,in; and fundere,to pour. See Fuse (1).
FUR, short hair of animals. (F.—O. Low G.) [The orig. sense
was ‘casing.”] ME. forre; whence forred (or furred) hodes=furred
hoods; P. Plowman, Β. vi. 271. Also furre, Chaucer, Rom. Rose, 228.
Spelt for in King Alisaunder, 3295.— OF. forre, fuerre, a sheath, case;
(cf. Span. forro, lining of clothes, Ital. fodero, lining, fur, scabbard) ;
whence the verb forrer, to line with fur; Chaucer translates F. forrée by
furred ; Rom. Rose, 408. B. From an O. Low G. source, preserved in
Goth. fodr,a scabbard, sheath (John, xviii. 11) ; and in Icel. fodr, lining.
The cognate German word is futter. Allied to Skt. patra(m), a re-
ceptacle; cf. Gk. πῶμα, a cover. From 4/PA, to protect. Brug-
mann,i.§174. Der. fur, verb, furr-ed, furr-y, furr-i-er (Goldsmith,
Animated Nature, b. iv. c. 3), furr-i-er-y.
FURBELOW, a flounce. (F.) In the Spectator, no. 15.=—F.
farbala, a flounce; which, according to Diez (who follows Hécart), is
a Hainault word ; the usual form is F., Span., Ital., and Port. falbala,
a word traced back to 1692 (Hatzfeld); whence also E. falbala, as
‘a falbala apron,’ in C. Cibber, Careless Husband, A. i. sc. 1 (1704).
Origin unknown. Hatzfeld gives the orig. sense as ‘ bande d’étoffe
plissée ;’ and suggests a derivation from Ital. fa/della, which Torriano
(ed. 1688) explains as ‘a plaiting, or puckering, also a kind of thick-
gathered frock.’ This Ital. word is the dimin. of falda, a fold; from
OHG. faldan, to fold; see Fold (1). Cf. Norm. dial. farbalas
(Moisy); Lyons dial. farbella (Puitspelu).
FURBISH, to polish, trim. (F.—OHG.) In Shak. Rich. IT, i. 3.
76; Macb. i. 2. 32. ME. furbishen; Wyclif, Ezek. xxi. 9.—OF.
fourbiss-, stem. of pres. pt. of fourbir, ‘to furbish, polish ;’ Cot.—
OHG., *furbjan, furban, MHG. furben, to purify, clean, rub bright.
FURCATE, forked. (L.) The sb. fwrcation occurs in Sir Τὶ
Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 9. § 4.—L. furca/us, forked. = L. furca,
a fork. See Fork: Der. furcat-ion.
FURFURACEOUS, scurfy. (L.) Scarce; first in 1650. Merely
L. furfurdceus, like bran. - L. furfur, bran.
FURIOUS, full of fury. (F.—L.) In Chaucer, Compl. of Mars,
123.—<OF, furiewx, ‘furious;’ Cot.—OF. furie; see Fury. Der.
furious-ly, -ness.
FURL, to roll up a sail. (F.— Arab.) a. A contracted form of an
older furdle. ‘Nor to urge the thwart enclosure and furdling of
flowers ;’ Sir Τὶ Browne, Cyrus’ Garden, c. iii. § 15; spelt fardling
in Wilkin’s edition. ‘The colours furdled [furled] up, the drum is
mute ;’ John Taylor's Works, ed. 1630 ; cited in Nares, ed, Halliwell.
‘ Farthel, to furl;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. B. Furdle and farthel are cor-
tuptions of fardle, to pack up (see Nares); from the sb. fardel, a
package, burden. Note that fard/e also means to furl; as in ‘ fardle
it [the main-sheet] to the yaid;’ Golding’s Ovid, fol. 138, 1. 3 (ed.
1603). See further under Fardel. ;
FURLONG, one-eighth of a mile. (E.) ME. furlong, fourlong ;
P. Plowman, Β. v. 5; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 11484 (F 1172). AS. furlang,
Luke, xxiv. 13. The lit. sense is ‘ furrow-long,’ or the length of a
furrow. It thus came to mean the length of an ‘acre,’ which was
originally a piece of land measuring 220 yards (40 poles) by 22 yards
(4 poles). See acre in N.E.D.=AS. furh, a furrow ; and lang, long.
See Furrow and Long. ;
230 FURLOUGH
FURLOUGH, leave of absence. (Du.) Spelt furlough in Blount's
Gloss., ed. 1674. The gh was once sounded as f, and the word was
Dutch ; hence Ben Jonson has ‘ Like a Low-Country vorloffe ;’ Staple
of News, A. v. sc. 1. Du. verlof, leave, furlough; cf. Dan. forlov,
leave, furlough ; Swed. forlof; G. verlaub, leave, permission. B. The
Du. word stands for an older *verloof; from ver-, prefix, and -/oof-,
the equivalent of G. -/aub-, as seen in er-/aub-en, to permit, and in AS.
léaf, leave, permission; see Leave (2). y. The prefix ver-=Dan.
or-=E. for-; see For- (2).
FURMENTY, FURMETY;; see Frumenty.
FURNACE, an oven. (f.—L.) ME. forneis, fourneys; Chaucer,
C.T.14169 (E 3353). — OF. fornaise, later fournaise,‘afurnace;’ Cot. =
L. forndcem, acc. of fornax,an oven. L. fornus, furnus, an oven; with
suffix -@c-; allied to L. formus,warm. Cf. Skt. gharma-, glow, warmth;
see Brugmann, i. § 146.
FURNISG, to fit up, equip. (F.—OHG.) Common in Shak. ;
see Merch. of Ven, ii. 4. 9.— OF. fournis-, stem of pres. part. of four-
nir, ‘to furnish ;’ Cot. Formerly spelt fornir, furnir (Burguy) ; which
are corruptions of *formir, furmir. The AF. furmir occurs in the Life
of Edw. Confessor, 1. 1443 ; the form formir occurs in Prov., and is
also spelt fromir, which is the older spelling. —OHG. /rumjan, to
perform, provide, procure, furnish; allied to OHG. fruma (MHG.
vrum, vrume), utility, profit, gain; cf. mod. G. fromm, good. From
the same root as E. former; see Former, Frame. Der. furnish-er,
-ing; also furni-ture (Spenser, Εν Q. v. 3. 4), from F. fourniture,
‘furniture ;" Cot.
FURROW, a slight trench, wrinkle. (E.) ME. forwe, P. Plow-
man, B. vi. 106; older form foruh, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. v. met.
5.1.3. AS. furh, a furrow; Elfric’s Gloss. 1.17. The dat. pl.
furum is in /Elfred, tr. of Boethius, v. 2; lib. i. met. 6. + Du. voor,
a furrow; Icel. for, a drain; Dan. fure; OHG. furh, MHG. vurch,
G. furche,a furrow. Cf. W.rhych (p-rych), a furrow ; L. porca, a ridge
between two furrows. Brugmann, i. § 514. Der. furrow, verb; fur-
long. q. ν.
FURTHER, comparative of fore. (E.) ME. furder, Ancren
Riwle, p. 228; furper, ferfer; Chaucer, C. T. 36, 4115 (A 4117).
AS. furdra, adj. τὰ. ; furdur, furdor, further, ady. Grein, i. 358. +
Du. vorders, adv., further; OF 165. fordera, adj.; OHG. fordaro, G.
vorder, adj. Teut. type *furtheroz (i.e. *fur-ther-oz), answering to Gk.
mpo-rep-os, compar. of πρός In this view, the comp. suffix is -ther,
Gk, -rep-. See below. Der. further, vb., AS. fyrdran, formed from
Surdor by mutation of x to y.
FURTHEST. (E.) Not in very early use. ME. furthest, adj.,
Gower, Conf. Amantis, i. 208; bk. i. 1. 1966. Made as the superl.
of forth; and due to regarding further as the compar. of the same. The
true superl. of fore is firs’.
FURTIVE, thief-like, stealthy. (F.—L.) In Kersey, ed. 1715. —
MF. furtsf, m. furtive, f. ‘ filching, theevish ;’ Cot. — L. furtiuus, stolen,
secret. L. furtum, theft. —L. furari, to steal. —L. far, a thief. + Gk.
gmp, a thief; connected with φέρειν, to bear, carry off.—4/ BHER, to
bear. See Bear. Der. furtive-ly.
FURY, rage, passion. (F.—L.) ME. furie, Chaucer, C. T. 11262
(F 950). —OF. furie, ‘fury ;’ Cot.—L. furia, madness. —L. furere, to
rage; cf. Skt. bhuranya, to be active. —4/ BHEUR, to move about
quickly (Uhlenbeck). Der. furi-ous, q.v., -ous-ly, -ous-ness. Also
Sfuri-oso, from Ital. furioso; and fur-ore, from Ital. furore.
FURZEH, the whin or gorse. (E.) ME. firse, also friise, Wyclif,
Isaiah, lv. 13, Mic. vii. 4. AS. fyrs, AElfred’s tr. of Boethius, lib. iii.
met. 1; ¢. xxill. Older form /yres, Voc. 269. 22.
FUSCOUS, brown, dingy. (L.) ‘Sad and fuscous colours ;’ Burke,
On the Sublime, s. 16.—L. fuseus, dark, dusky; with change of -us
into -ous, as in arduous, strenuous.
FUSE (1), to melt by heat. (L.) In Johnson; but the verb is
modern, and really due to the far older words (in E.), viz. fus-ible,
Chaucer, C. T. 16324 (G 856), fus-il, i.e. capable of being melted,
Milton, P. L. xi. 573 ; fus-ion, Sir Τὶ Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. ii. c. 1.
§ 11; all founded upon L. fisus.—L. fisus, pp. of fundere, to pour,
melt. + Gk. χέειν, for χέβειν (base χευ-), to pour; Goth. giutan, to
pour. All from 4/GHEU, to pour; of which the extended form
GHEUD (=Goth. GEUT) appears in Latin. Der. fus-ible, from
OF. fusible, ‘fusible’ (Cot.), from Late L. *fusibilis, not recorded in
Ducange ; fus-i-bili-ty ; fus-ion, from F. form of L. fusidnem, acc. of
fusio, a melting; fus-11 (Milton, as above), from L. fusilis, molten,
fluid. 4 From the same root are found (2), con-found, con-fuse, dif-
Suse, ef-fus-ton, in-fuse, pro-fus-ion, re-fund, suf-fuse, trans-fuse ; fut-tle ;
also forson; also chyme, chyle, gush, gut.
FUSE (2), FUSEE (1), a tube with combustible materials for
discharging shells, ὅς. (F.—L.) Also spelt fusee. In Kersey’s Dict.,
ed.1715, we find: ‘ Fuse, Fusee, a pipe filled with wild fire, and put into
the touch-hole of a bomb.’ 1. Fuse first occurs in 1644, and may have
been taken directly from Ital. fuso, a spindle (with tow), also ‘a shaft
FYLFOT
or shank of anything ;’ (Torriano).—L. fusus,a spindle. 2. Fusee
first occurs in 1744, but is much earlier in French, OF. fusée, a
spindle-ful of tow, also a fusee (Godefroy). — Late L. fusdta, a spindle-
ful of tow; orig. fem. of pp. of fusare, to use a spindle. —L. fusus,
a spindle. See below.
FUSEE (2), a spindle in a watch. (F.—L.) ‘Fusee or Fuzy of
a watch, that part about which the chain or string is wound ;’ Kersey,
ed. 1715. — OF. fusée, ‘a spoole-ful or spindle-ful of thread, yarn, &c.;’
Cot. Late L. fusafa, a spindle-ful of thread ; orig. fem. pp. of fusare,
to use a spindle. ταὶ, fasus, a spindle. See above.
FUSIL (1), a light musket. (F.—L.) The name has been trans-
ferred from the steel or fire-lock to the gun itself. Hollyband's F.
Dict. (1580) explains Ἐς fusi by ‘a fusill to strike fire in a tinder-boxe.’
=F. fusil, ‘a fire-steele for a tinder-box ;’ Cot.; the same word as
Ital. focile, a steel for striking fire. — Late L. *focile, a steel for kindling
fire.—L. focus, a hearth. See Focus. Der. fusil-ier, -eer.
FUSIL (2), a spindle, in heraldry. (F.—L.) Explained in Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674. —OF. fuisel, fusel,a piece of wood, a spindle (Gode-
froy) ; he cites ‘ Hoc fusum, fusel’ from the Glasgow glossary. = Late
L. fisellus, formed as a dimin. from fasus, a spindle. See Fusee (2).
FUSIL (3), easily molten. (L.) See Fuse (1).
FUSS, haste, flurry. (E.) ‘There’s such a fuss and such a clatter
about their devotion ;’ Farquhar, Sir H. Wildair, A. iii. sc. 1. A
dialectal word, of imitative origin; cf. fuss up, to boil up, fussock
about, to bustle about quickly, make a fuss; E.D.D. Related words
are, probably, Norw. fussa, to complicate, to botch up, fjussa, to
complicate by using bustling haste, fjussa, a bewildered ninny ; fjassa,
to bustle about, to fuss, to prate; fjass, a fuss (Ross); Swed. fjas,
Swed. dial. /jas, a fuss.
FUST (1), to become mouldy. (F.—L.) “Τὸ fust in us unused ;’
Hamlet, iv. 4.39. ‘I mowld or fust as comme dothe, je moitsis ;’
Palsgrave. Made from the form fusty (found in 1398), which is a lit.
translation of OF. γιό, ‘fusty, tasting of the cask, smelling of the
vessel ;’ Cot.— OF. fuste, ‘a cask,’ Cot.; allied to fust, ‘any staffe,
stake, stocke, stump, trunke, or log.” [The cask was so named from
its resemblance to the trunk of a tree.]—=L. fustem, acc. of fustis, a
thick knobbed stick, cudgel. Der. fus-ty, fust-t-ness ; and see below.
FUST (2), the shaft of a column. (F.—L.) ‘ Fust, the shaft, or
body of a pillar;’ Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715.—OF. fust, a stump,
trunk; (οἵ. “Το fustem; asabove. Der. fust-ig-ate, q. Vv.
FUSTIAN, akind of coarsecloth. (F.—Ital.—Egypt.) In early
use. ME. fustane. ‘The mes-hakele of medeme fustane’ =the mass-
cloth [made] of common fustian ; O. E. Homilies, ed. Morris, ii. 162.
Also fustian, Chaucer, C. T. 75.—OF. fustaine; Supp. to Godefroy,
Cot. =Ital. fustagno; Low L. fustaneum, fustanium. = Arab, fustat, a
suburb of Cairo, in Egypt; whence the stuff first came. The Arab.
fustat also means ‘a tent made of goat’s hair.’’ See Rich. Arab. Dict.
p. 1090. @ Introduced into French in the middle ages, through
Genoese commerce.
FUSTIGATE, to cudgel. (L.) ‘ Fustigating him for his faults;’
Fuller's Worthies, Westmorland (R.). ‘Six fustigations;’ Fox,
Martyrs, p. 609 (R.).—Late L. fustigare, to cudgel (White and
Riddle). —L. fust-, base of fustis, a cudgel; and -ig-, weakened form
from agere, to drive. See Fust (1). Der. fustigat-ion.
FUSTY, mouldy. (F.—L.) In Shak. Cor.i.9. 7. See Fust (1).
FUTILE, trifling, vain. (F.—L.) Orig. signifying ‘ pouring forth,’
esp. pouring forth vain talk, talkative. ‘As for talkers and futile
persons, they are commonly vain;’ Bacon, Essay VI.=—F. futile,
‘light, vain;’ Cot.—L. fatilis, futtilis, that which easily pours forth ;
also, vain, empty, futile. Formed with suffix -i/is from the base *fud-,
to pour; ef. ef-fit-ire, for *effudtire, to blab (Bréal).—4/ GHEU, to
pour; see Fuse. Der. futile-ly, futil-i-ty.
FUTTOCKS, certain timbers in a ship. (E.) ‘ Futtocks, the
compassing timbers in a ship, that make the breadth of it;” Kersey’s
Dict., ed. 1715. Called foot-hooks in Bailey. Explained as foot-hooks
in 1644; hook referring to the bent shape of the timbers. Cf. ‘Cour-
baston, a crooked peece of timber tearmed a knee, or futtock ;’ Cot.
FUTURE, about to be. (F.—L.) ME. futur; Chaucer, C. Τὶ
16343 (G 875). “ΟἿ. futur, m. future, f. ‘future ;᾿ Cot. —L. futiirus,
about to be; future part. from base fu-, to be; cf. fu-i, I was.—
v7 BHEU, to be. See Be. Der. futur-i-ty, Shak. Oth. iii. 4. 117;
future-ly, Two Noble Kinsmen, i. 1. 174 (Leopold Shakspere).
FUZZ-BALL, a spongy fungus. (E.) Spelt fussebal/e in Minsheu,
ed. 1627. A fuzz-ball is a light, spongy ball resembling (at first
sight) a mushroom; also called puff-ball. Cf. prov. E. fuzzy, light
and spongy; fozy, spongy; E.D.D. Of English origin. Cf. Du.
voos, spongy ; Norw. fos, spongy; Low G. fussig, loose, weak. Allied
to L. pis-ula, pustula, a pimple; Gk. φυσάειν, to blow. J Also
called puckfiste, as in Cotgrave (s. v. vesse de loup); but this is from fotst.
FYLFOT, a peculiarly formed cross, each arm being bent at right
angles, always in the same direction. (E.) Also called a gamma-
Ἷ
GABARDINE, GABERDINE
dion. See Fairholt, Dict. of Terms in Art ; and Boutell’s Heraldry.
Modern; and due to a mistake. MS. Lansdowne 874, at leaf 190,
has fylfot, meaning a space in a painted window, at the bottom, that
fills the foot. This was erroneously connected (in 1842) with the
‘gammadion,’ as the cross was rightly named.
G
GABARDINE, GABERDINE, a coarse frock for men.
(Span.—Teut.) In Shak. Merch. i. 3. 113; and in Du Wes, Supp.
to Palsgrave, p. 907, col. 1: ‘the gabardine, Ja gauardine.’ =—Span.
gabardina, a coarse frock. Cf. Ital. gavardina (Florio); and OF.
galvardine, ‘a gaberdine,’ Cot.; whence ME. gawbardyne. Prob.
‘a pilgrim’s frock ;’ from MHG, walfart (Ὁ. wallfahrt), pilgrimage. =
MHG. wallen, to wander; fart, travel, from faran, to go; see Fare.
GABBLE,, to chatter, prattle. (E.) In Shak. Temp. i. 2. 356.
Formed, as a frequentative, with suffix -/e, from ME. gabben, to talk
idly, once in common use; see Chaucer, C. T. 15072 (B 4256); P.
Plowman, B.iii. 179. Of imitative origin; cf. gaggle, jabber, gobble.
4 The ME. gabben, to mock, from OF. gaber, to mock, is from Icel.
gabba, to mock, and is prob. of imitative origin. Cf. Icel. gap, ‘gab,
gibes;’ Norw. gapa, toclamour. See Gape; andcompare Babble.
Der. gabbl-er, gabbl-ing.
GABION, a bottomless basket filled with earth, as a defence
against the fire ofanenemy. (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘ Gabions, great baskets
5 or 6 foot high, which being filled with earth, are placed upon
batteries ;’ Kersey’s Dict.,ed.1715. Also found in Minsheu; and in
Marlowe, 2 Tamb. iii. 3. 56.—F. gabion, ‘a gabion;’ (οἵ. -- 114].
gabbione, a gabion, large cage; augmentative form of gabbia, a cage.
The Ital. gabbia also means ‘the top of the maste of a ship where
the shrouds are fastened’ (Florio); the Span. gavia is used in the
same sense. The Ital. gabba, in the latter sense, is also spelt gaggia,
which is allied to F.and E. cage. B. All from Late L. cavea, L. cauea,
a hollow place, cage, den, coop.—L. cauus, hollow. See Cage,
Cave, Gaol. Der. gabionn-ade (F. gabionnade, Cot.; from Ital.
gabbionata, an intrenchment formed of gabions).
GABLE, a peak of a house-top. (F.—Scand.) ME. gable,
Chaucer, C. T. 3571; P. Plowman, B. iii. 49. — OF. gable (Godefroy) ;
Norm. dial. gable; cf. Late L. gabulum, a gable, front of a building ;
Ducange. =Icel. gajl, Norw. and Dan. gavl, Swed. gafvel, a gable.
AS. geafel, a fork; Du. gaffel, G. gabel, a fork. Further allied to
Olrish gabul, a fork, gallows; W. gaff, the fork of the thighs. With
a different gradation, we find Goth. gibla, pinnacle, G. giebel, Du.
gevel, gable, OHG. gebal, head; also Gk. κεφαλή (Idg. *ghebhala).
See Gaff. Der. gable-end.
GABY, a simpleton. (Scand.) A dialectal word; see E.D.D.
Also in the form gawby, Prob, Scand. ; cf. MDan. gabe, also gdbe
(Jutland), a fool (Kalkar); Dan. dial. gabenar, a simpleton (Dan.
nar means ‘fool’). Allied to Dan. gabe, to gape. Cf. also Icel.
gapi, a rash, reckless man; gapamwuodr (lit. gape-mouthed), a gaping,
heedless fellow; Icel. gapa, to gape. See Gape.
GAD (1), a bar of steel, goad. (Scand.) ‘A gad of steel;’ Titus
Andron, iv. 1. 103. Also ‘upon the gad,’ i.e. upon the goad,
suddenly; K. Lear, i. 2. 26. ‘ Gadde of steele, quarreau dacier ;’
Palsgrave. ME. gad, a goad or whip; ‘bondemen with her gaddes’
=husbandmen with their goads or whips; Havelok, 1016.—Icel.
gaddr (for *gazdr), a spike, sting, hence a goad. + Goth. gazds, ἃ τοῦ ;
Trish gath, a spear, sting; L. hasta, a spear. Much influenced by
goad, with which it is ποῦ etymologically connected. Der. gad-fly,
i.e. sting-fly; and see gad (2).
AD (2), to ramble idly. (Scand.?) ‘Where have you been
gadding?’ Romeo, iv. 2.16. ‘ Gadde abrode, vagari;’ Levins, 7.47.
Perhaps the orig. sense was to run about like cattle stung by a gad-fly.
Cf. to have a gadfly, to gad about (1591); in N. E. D.=Icel. gadda, to
goad.—Icel. gaddr, a goad. See above. @ Or possibly a_back-
formation from ME, gadeling, a vagabond, for which see Gather.
GAFF, a light fishing-spear; also, a sort of boom. (F.—Teut.)
The gaff of a ship takes its name from the fork-shaped end which
rests against the mast. ‘ Gaff, an iron hook to pull great fishes into
a ship; also, an artificial spur for a cock;”’ Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715.
= OF. gaffe, ‘an iron hook wherewith sea-men pull great fishes into
their ships;’ Cot.; and see Supp. to Godefroy. Cf. Span. and Port.
gafa,ahook, gaff. B. Of Teut. origin. — Low G. gaffel, a two-pronged
hayfork; EFries. gaffel, a fork, a ship’s gaff; Du. σα δῖ, a pitchfork,
Ὁ ΕΣ gaff. Allied to G. gabel, a fork. See Gable. (Korting,
4101.)
GAFFER, an old man, grandfather. (Hybrid; F. and E.) ‘And
GALA 231
gaffer madman ;’ Beaum. and Fletcher, The Captain, 111. 5. Similarly,
gammer is a familiar name for an old woman, as in the old play of
“Gammer Gurton’s Needle;’ in which ‘gaffar vicar’ also occurs;
A. ν. sc. 2. The words are corruptions of gramfer and grammer,
which are the West of England forms of grandfather and grandmother ;
see E,D.D.
GAG, to stop the mouth forcibly, to silence. (E.) In Shak. Tw.
Nt. i. 5. 94; v. 384. ME. gaggen, to suffocate; Prompt. Parv. Of
imitative origin; cf. gaggle, guggle. Of similar formation is the Irish
gargach, stammering. See Gaggle. Der. gag, sb.
GAGE (1), a pledge. (F.—‘Teut.) ME. gage, King Alisaunder,
go4.—F. gage, m., ‘a gage, pawne, pledge;” Cot. Cf. Late L.
uadium, a pledge.=Teut. type *wadjom, n., a pledge; as in Goth.
wadi, AS. wedd, a pledge. See Wed, and see Wage. From the
same source are Ital. gaggio, Span. and Port. gage, a pledge
(Hatzfeld). Der. gage, vb. ; en-gage, dis-en-gage.
GAGE (2), to gauge; see Gauge.
GAGGLE, to cackle as geese. (E.) ME. gaglen, Rich. Redeles,
iii. 101. An imitative word; a frequentative from the base gag-.
Cf. cack-le, gabb-le ; also Icel. gagl, a wild goose ; gagg, a fox’s cry;
Lithuan. gagéti, to gaggle. Cf. Guggle.
GAIETY, mirth. (F.—Teut.) ‘Those gayities how doth she
slight;’ Habington, Castara, pt. iii. last poem, 1. 2; the Ist ed.
appeared in 1634.—OF. gayeté, ‘mirth, glee;’ Cot.—OF. gay,
‘merry ;’ id. See Gay.
GAIN (1), profit, emolument. (F.—Teut.) First in 1496; Pals-
grave has: ‘ Gayne or gettyng,’ p. 224; and ‘I gayne, 1 wynne,’
p- 559. = OF. gain, m., F. gagne, {. sb.; from OF. gaigner, F. gagner,
to gain; see Gain (2) below. It displaced ME. gain, advantage,
which was of Scand. origin; from Icel. gagn, gain, advantage ; Swed.
gagn, Dan. gavn, Allied to the (obsolete) ME. verb gainen, to profit,
be of use, avail, gen. used impersonally ; see Chaucer, C. T. 1178
(A 1176); this answers to Icel. and Swed. gégna, to encounter, to suit.
Der. gain-ful, gain-ful-ly, gain-ful-ness, gain-less, gain-less-ness.
GAIN (2), to acquire, get, win. (F.—Teut.) Not in early use.
‘Yea, though he gaine and cram his purse with crounes ;” Gascoigne,
Fruites of Warre, st. 69. Again, he has just above, in st. 66: “Τὸ
get a gaine by any trade or kinde.’ See Gain (1). [This verb
superseded the old use of the ME. gainen, to profit.] B. The
etymology of F. gagner, OF. gaigner (Cotgrave), gaagnier, gaaignier
(Burguy) = Ital. guadagnare, is from the OHG. weidenén (for *weidin-
jan), to pasture, which was the orig. sense, and is still preserved in the
F. sb. gagnage, pasturage, pasture-land.—OHG, weida (G. weide),
pasturage, pasture-ground ; cf. MHG. weiden, to pasture, hunt. + Icel.
veidr, hunting, fishing, the chase; veida, to catch, to hunt; AS. wad,
a hunt; Grein, ii. 636. Cf. L. wénari, to hunt. Further allied to Skt.
veti, he follows after (Uhlenbeck).
GAINLY, suitable, gracious. (Scand.) Nearly obsolete, except
in ungainly, now meaning ‘awkward.’ In Allit. Poems, ed. Morris,
C. 83; B. 728. Formed, with suffix -ly, from Icel. gegn, ready,
serviceable, kind, good. See Ungainly.
GAINSAY, to speak against. (Scand. and E.) In the A.V. Luke,
xxi. 15. ME. geinseien, a rare word. ‘ That thei not jein-seye my
sonde’=that they may not gainsay my message; Cursor Mundi,
5769 (Trinity MS.). The Cotton MS. reads: ‘pat pai noght sai
agains mi sand.’ B. The latter part of the word is E. say, q.v. The
prefix is rather the Icel. gegn, against, than the AS. gegn, against, as
occurring in the sb. gegncwide, a speech against anything. The
latter is better known in the comp. ongegn, ongéan, signifying again
or against. See Again, Der. gainsay-er, A.V. Titus, i. 9; gainsay-
ing, A.V. Acts, x. 29.
GAIRISH, GARISH, gandy; see Garish.
GATT, manner of walking. (Scand.) In Shak. Temp.iv. 102. A
particular use of ME. gate, a way. ‘ And goth him forth, and in his
gate’ =and goes forth, and in his way ; Gower, C. A. iii. 196; bk.
vii. 3314.—Icel. gata, a way, path, road ; Swed. gata, astreet ; Dan.
gade, a street.4Goth. gatwo, a street; G. gasse, a strect. See
Gate (2).
GAITER, a covering for the ankle. (F.—Teut.) Modern. Not
in Johnson’s Dict.—F. guétre, a gaiter; formerly spelt guestre.
Guestres, startups, high shooes, or gamashes for countrey folkes ; *
Cot. Marked by Brachetas ‘ of unknown origin.’ B. However, the
form of the word shows it to be of Teutonic origin; and prob. from
the same source as MHG. wester, a child’s chrisom-cloth (G. wester-
hemd) and the Goth. wasti, clothing ; cf. Skt. vas¢ra-,a cloth, garment ;
see Vesture, Vest. But see Korting, § 10014.
GALA, pomp, festivity. (F.—Ital.—OHG.) Chiefly in the comp.
‘a gala-day’ or ‘a gala-dress.’. Modern; not in Johnson. Sheridan
has: ‘the annual gala of a race-ball;’ Sch. for Scandal, i. 2.—F. gala,
borrowed from Ital. gala, ornament, finery, festive attire. Cf. Ital.
di gala, merrily; closely connected with Ital. galante, gay, lively.
282 GALAXY
See Gallant. Der. gala-day=F. jour de gala, Span. and Port. dia
de gala.
GALAXY, the ‘ milky way’ in the sky ; a splendid assemblage.
(F.—L.—Gk.) ‘See yonder, lo, the galaxye Which men clepeth
the milky wey ;’ Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, ii. 428.—OF. galaxie, ‘ the
milky way ;’ Cot. —L. galaxiam, acc. of galaxias. Gk. γαλαξίας, the
milky way. Gk. yadaxs-, for γαλακτ-, stem of γάλα, milk. Certainly
allied to L. Jact-, stem of lac, milk; see Lacteal.
GALE (τ), a strong wind. (Scand.) InShak, Temp. v. 314. To
be explained from Dan. gal, mad, furious; the Norweg. galen is
particularly used of storm and wind, as ein galen storm, eit galet veer,
a furious storm (Aasen). We say, ‘it blows a gale.’ Cf. Icel. gola,
a breeze, fjall-gola, a breeze from the fells. B. The Icel. galinn,
furious, is from gala, to sing, enchant. Cf. F. galerne, a north-west
wind.
GALE (2), a plant; the bog-myrtle. (E.) ME. gayle; Cath.
Anglicum. AS. gagel; AS. Leechdoms, iii. 6.4-Du. gagel.
GALEATED, helmeted. (L.) Botanical. —L. galeatus, helmeted.
—L. galea, a helmet.
GALINGALE, the pungent root of a plant. (F.—Span.— Arab.
—Pers.—Chinese.) ME. galingale, Chaucer, C. T. 383 (A 381).—
OF. galingal (Godefroy) ; the form garingal is more common, and
the usual later F. form is galangue, as in Cotgrave.—Span. galanga,
the same. — Arab. khalanjan, galingale; Rich. Dict. p. 625.— Pers.
khulanjan; id, p. 639. Said to be of Chinese origin; see N. E. Ὁ.
See Devic, Supp. to Littré; Marco Polo, ed. Yule, 11. 181.
GALIOT, a small galley; see Galliot.
GALL (1), bile, bitterness. (E.) ME. galle; P. Plowman, B.
xvi. 155. OMerc. galla, AS. gealla; Matt. xxvii. 34.4-Du. gal;
Tcel. gall; Swed. galla; Dan. galde (with excrescent d); G. galle.+
L. fel; Gk. χολή. B. From the same rootas Εἰ. yellow; so that gall
was named from its yellowish colour ; Prellwitz. Cf. Russ. jelch(e),
gall (j=zh) ; jeltuii, yellow. See Yellow. Der. gall-bladder.
GALL (2), to rub asore place, to vex. (F.—L.) ‘Let the galled
jade wince;’ Hamlet, iii. 2. 253. ME. gallen. ‘The hors...
was . .. galled on the bak;’ Gower, C. A. ii. 46; bk. iv. 1344.—
OF. galler, ‘to gall, fret, itch, rmb;” Cot.—OF. galle, ‘a galling,
fretting, itching of the skin;’ id.; F. gale, a scab on fruit. —Late
L. galla, a soft tumour, app. the same word as L, galla, a gall-nut;
see below. @ But also partly E.; cf. AS. gealla, (1) gall, bile ;
(2) a gall on a horse. Soalso Du. gal. Der. gall, sb., Chaucer,
C. T. 6522 (D940).
GALL (3), GALL-NUT, a vegetable excrescence produced by
insects. (F.—L.) InShak. ; ‘Though ink be made of gall ;’ Cymb.
i, 1.101, ME, galle, Prompt. Parv.<OF. galle, ‘the fruit called a
gall;’ Cot. —L. galla, an oak-apple, gall-nut.
GALLANT, gay, splendid, brave, courteous. (F.—OHG.)
“Good and gallant ship ;’ Shak. Temp. v. 237. ‘ Like young lusty
galantes ;’ Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol. ii. c. 105 (R.). ME. galaunt,
Polit. Poems, ed. Wright, i. 274.—OF. gallant; Cotgrave gives
‘gallant homme, a gallant, goodly fellow;’ properly spelt galant
(with one 1), as in mod. Ἐς B. Galant is the pres. part. of OF. galer,
to rejoice ; Cotgrave has: ‘ galler le bon temps, to make merry, to pass
the time pleasantly.”—OF. gale, show, mirth, festivity; the same
word as Ital., Span., and Port. gala, ornament, festive attire. -y. Of
Teutonic origin; and prob. from MHG. wallen, OHG. wallén, to go
on pilgrimage (Hatzfeld). Der. gallant, sb., whence also gallant,
vb.; gallant-ly, gallant-ness ; also gallant-r-y (Spectator, no. 4) from
MF. gallanterie, ‘gallantness, Cot. Also see gala, gall-oon.
GALLEON, a large galley. (Span.) Cotgrave explains MF.
gallion as ‘a gallion, an armada, a great ship of warre ;” but the word
is Spanish.—Span. galeon, a galleon, Spanish armed ship of burden ;
formed, with augmentative suffix -on, from Late L. galea, a galley.
See Galley.
GALLERY, a balcony, long covered passage. (F.—Late L.)
“The long galleries ;’ Surrey, tr. of Virgil’s A‘neid, Ὁ. ii. 1. 691. —OF.
gallerie, galerie, ‘a gallerie, or long roome to walke in; ’ Cot.—Late
L. galeria, along portico, gallery; Ducange. B. Uncertain ; perhaps
from Gk. κᾶλον, wood, timber (KGrting). See below.
GALLEY, a long, low-built ship. (F.—Late L.) In early use.
ME. galeie; King Horn, ed. Lumby, 185.—OF. galie (Godefroy) ;
gallée (Cotgrave).—Late L. galea, a galley. Of unknown origin ;
perhaps from Gk. κᾶλον, wood, also sometimes a ship (Korting).
Der. galley-slave; see galle-on, galli-as, galli-ot.
GALLIARD, a lively dance. (F.—C.?) In Shak. Tw. Nt. i.
3. 127, 137. ‘Dansyng of galyardes;’ Sir T. Elyot, Castel of
Helth, bk. il. c. 33.—F. gaillarde, fem. of gaillard, lively ; cf. galop
gaillard, ‘the galliard;’ Cot. Span. gallarda [in which JJ is pro-
nounced as ly], a kind of lively Spanish dance; Span. gallardo,
pleasant, gay, lively. B. Of uncertain origin; Diez rejects a con-
nexion with gala and gallant (Span. galante) on account of the double
GALLOW
Z and the F. form gaillard. The OF. gaillard meant ‘valiant’ or
‘bold ;’ perhaps of Celtic origin. Cf. Bret. galloud, power, galloudek,
strong ; Corn. galluidoc, able; Irish and Gael. galach, valiant, brave ;
W. gallu, to be able. Cf. Lith. galu, [am able (Thurneysen).
GALLIAS, a sort of galley. (F.—Ital.—Late L.) In Shak. Tam.
Shrew, ii. 380.—OF. galeace, ‘a galeass;’ Cot.—Ital. galeazza, a
heavy, low-built galley. Ital. and Late L. galea, a galley. See
Galley. 4 On the termination -ace, see Cutlass.
GALLIGASKINS, large hose or trousers. (F.—Ital. —L.)
a. Cotgrave has: ‘ Garguesques, a fashion of strait Venitians
without cod-peeces.’ Also: ‘ Greguesques, slops, gregs, gallogascoins,
Venitians.’ Also: ‘ Gregues, wide slops, gregs, gallogascoins, Veni-
tians, great Gascon or Spanish hose.’ Also: ‘ Greguesque, the same
as Gregeois, Grecian, Greekish.’ B. Here it is clear that Garguesques
is a corruption of Greguesques; that Greguesque originally meant
Greekish; and that Gregues (whence obs. E. gregs) is a mere con-
traction of Greguesqgue. y. And further, Greguesque is borrowed from
Ital. Grechesco, Greekish, a form given by Florio; which is derived
(with suffix-esco = E. -ish) from Ital. Greco, Greek. = L. Grecus, Greek.
δ. Finally, it seems probable that gallogascoin is nothing but a deriva-
tive of Ital. Grechesco, a name given (as shown by the evidence) to a
particular kind of hose or breeches originally worn at Venice. The
corruption seems to have been due to a mistaken notion on the part of
some of the wearers of galligaskins, that they came, not from Venice,
but from Gascony. 4] Thissuggestion is due to Wedgwood ; it would
seem that galligaskins = garisgascans< garguesquans; where the suffix
-an is the same as in Greci-an, &c. The word was also influenced by
E. galley ; they were thought to be ‘ like shipmen’s hose ;’ N. E. D.
GALLIMAUFREY, a hodge-podge, aragout. (F.) Robinson,
in his tr. of More’s Utopia, has: ‘a tragycall comedye or gallymal-
freye;’ ed. Arber, p. 64.—F. galimafrée ahodge-podge ; spelt calima-
free in the 14th cent. (Hatzfeld). Of unknown origin.
GALLINACEOUS, pertaining to a certain order of birds, (L.)
Modern. Englished from L. gallindceus, belonging to poultry.
Formed from L. gallina, a hen.—L. gallus, a cock.
GALLIOT, a small galley. (F.—Late L.) ΜΕ. galiote, Minot’s
Poems, Expedition of Edw. III to Brabant, 1. 81 (Spec. of Eng. ed.
Morris and Skeat, p. 129).—OF-. galiote, ‘a galliot ;’ Cot. Late L.
galeota, asmall galley; dimin. of ga/ea,a galley. Cf. Ital. galeotta,a
galliot. See Galley.
GALLIPOT, a small glazed earthen pot. (F.and E.) In Beaum.
and Fletcher, Nice Valour, iii. 1. 43. Similarly earthen tiles were
called galley-tiles. Wedgwood (ed. 1872) quotes from Stow: ‘ About
the year 1570, I. Andries and I, Janson, potters, came from Antwerp
and settled in Norwich, where they followed their trade, making
galley-tiles and apothecaries vessels’ [ gallipots |. Apparently so called
because at first brought over in galleys. Cf. galley-halfpenny. See
N.E.D. Phillips, ed. 1706, says that the galley-men came in galleys
from Genoa, ‘landed their goods at a place in Thames-street nam’d
galley-key, and traded with their own silver small coin call'd galley-
halfpence.” From Galley and Pot.
GALLON, a measure holding 4 quarts. (F.) ME. galon, galun,
galoun; P. Plowman, B. v. 224, 343; Chaucer, C. T. 16973 (H 24).
Spelt galun in King Horn, ed. Lumby, 1123. —OF. gallon, galon, jalon,
agallon (Godefroy) ; Late L. galéna (alsogalo), an English measure for
liquids ; Ducange. B. The suffix -on is augmentative ; and a shorter
form appears in mod. F. jale, a bowl, which evidently stands for an
older form *gale, just as jalon is for galon. Thus the sense is ‘a large
bowl.’ Ofunknown origin.
GALLOON, a kind of lace or narrow ribbon. (F.—OHG.) The
compound galloon-laces occurs in Beaum. and Fletcher, Philaster, v. 4.
46. Cotgrave has: ‘ Galon, galloon-lace.’ =F. galon, as in Cotgrave
(like ἘΝ. balloon from F. ballon) ; cf. Span. galon, galloon, lace; orig.
any kind of finery for festive occasions. = OF. gale, Span. gala, parade,
finery, court-dress; the suffix -on being augmentative, as in balloon.
See Gallant, Gala.
GALLOP, to ride very fast. (F.—Teut.) ‘Styll he galoped
forth right;’ Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol. i. c. 140. We also find
the form walopen, in the Romance of Partenay, ed. Skeat, 4827 (and
note on p. 259); and the pres. pt. walopande, Morte Arthur, ed.
Brock, 2827.—OF. galoper, to gallop; of which an older form must
have been waloper, as shown by the derivative walopin in Roquefort,
spelt galopin in mod. F. The sb. galop also appears as walop in
OF rench (Bartsch) ; and may be the original whence the verb was
derived. The sense was perhaps ‘ Celtic running.’—OSax. Walh, a
Celt; and kldpan, to run, to leap; see Walnut and Leap. The
Norw. vallhopp, a gallop (Aasen); lit. ‘a bounding over a field,’ or
‘field-hop,’ would account for the word even better; but is merely
an adaptation from Teutonic. Der. gallop-ade.
GALLOW, to terrify. (E.) In Shak. King Lear, iii. 2. 44.
Proy. E. (Somersets.) gally. ME. galwen. AS. g@lwan, inthe comp.
|
| Scintillarum, § 55 (p. 172).—AS. gamen, a game.
| Der.
G
} Annamese territory, not far from the gulf of Siam.
| is given by Dampier in 1699; Supp. to Voy. round the World, vi. 105;’
GALLOWAY
agelwan, to astonish ; ‘ pa wears ic ageelwed ’ = then was 1 astonished ;
fElfred, tr. of Boethius, c. xxxiv. § 5; lib. iii. pr. 10.
GALLOWAY, a nag, pony. (Scotland.) So called from
Galloway in Scotland ; the word occurs in Drayton’s Polyolbion, s. 3.
1. 28. Cf. Galloway-nag in Shak. 2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 205.
GALLOW-GLASS, GALLOGLASS, a heavy-armed foot-
soldier. (Irish.) In Macbeth, i. 2. 13.—Irish galloglach, a servant,
a heavy-armed soldier.=TIrish gall, a foreigner, an Englishman ;
oglach, a youth, servant, soldier (from og, Olrish δας, dc, young). It
meant ‘an English servitor;’ according to Spenser, View of Ireland,
Globe ed. p. 640; but gall orig. referred to Danes (Windisch).
(N. and Q. 6 5. x. 145.)
GALLOWS, a gibbet, an instrument for hanging criminals. (E.)
ME. galwes, Chaucer, C. T. 6240 (D658). AS. galga, gealga,a cross,
gibbet, gallows; Grein, i. 492. Hence was formed ME. galwe, by
the usual change from -ga to -we (and later still to -ow) ; and it
became usual to employ the word in the plural galwes, so that the
mod. E. gallows is also, strictly speaking, a plural form. + Icel. galgi,
the gallows, a gibbet; Dan. and Swed. galge, a gibbet; Du. galg;
Goth. galga, a cross; G. galgen. Teut. type *galgon-; cf. Lith.
zZalga, a pole (Z=zh).
GALOCHE,, a kind of shoe or slipper. (F.— Late L.—Gk.) ME.
galoche, Chaucer, C. T. 10869 (F 555); P. Plowman, B. xviii. 14.—
F. galoche, ‘a woodden shooe or patten, made all of a piece, without
any latchet or tie of leather, and worne by the poor clowne in winter; ’
Cot. —Late L. *galopia, *calopia, formed from *calopiis = Gk. καλάπους
(Hatzfeld) ; we find Late L. calopedia, a clog, wooden shoe (Brachet) ;
also calopodium=Gk. καλοπόδιον, dimin. of καλόπους, καλάπους, 2
shoe-maker’s last. Gk. κᾶλο-, stem of κᾶλον, wood ; and ποῦς (gen.
mod-és), a foot, cognate with E. foot.
GALORE, abundantly, in plenty. (C.) First in 1675. Also
spelt gelore, gilore in Jamieson, and golore in Todd’s Johnson.
©Galloor, plenty, North;’ Grose (1799).—Irish goleor, sufficiently ;
where go, lit. ‘to,’ is a particle which, when prefixed to an adjective,
renders it an adverb, and J/eor, adj., means sufficient; Gael. gu leor,
gu leoir, which is the same, Cf. Irish lia, more, allied to L. plis
(Stokes-Fick, p. 41).
GALT (1), GAULT, a series of beds of clay and marl. (Scand.)
A modern geological term. Prov. Εἰ. galt, clay, brick-earth, Suffolk
(Halliwell). Perhaps of Scand. origin. Norw. ga/d, hard ground,
a place where the ground is trampled hard by frequent treading, also
a place where snow is trodden hard; Icel. gald, hard snow, also spelt
galdr. (Doubtful.)
“GALT (2), a boar-pig. (Scand.) ‘Growene as a galte;’ Allit.
Morte Arthure, 1101.=Icel. giltr, galti, a boar; Swed. Dan. galt,
ahog. Cf. OHG. galza, a sow; (see Schade).
GALVANISM, a kind of electricity. (Ital.) Named from
Luigi Galvani, of Bologna in Italy, inventor of the galvanic battery
in A.D. 1701. Der. galvani-c, galvani-se.
‘GAMBADO, a kind of legging. (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘ Gambadoes,
much worne in the west, whereby, while one rides on horseback, his
leggs are in a coach, clean and warme;’ Fuller’s Worthies, Cornwall
R.). An E, adaptation, simulating Spanish, of F. gambade, of which
the usual sense is ‘ gambol;’ see Gambol.
GAMBESON, a military tunic, sometimes padded. (F.—Teut.)
“A band of Moorish knights gaily arrayed in gambesons of crimson
silk;’ Longfellow, Outre-Mer (Ancient Spanish Ballads). ME.
gambisoun, King Alisaunder, 5151.—OF. gambison, gambeison,
wambison (Godefroy); cf. Late L. wambasium. So called from
covering the belly.=OHG. wamba, belly; see Womb.
GAMBIT, an opening at chess. (F.—Ital.—L.) F. gambit. = Ital.
| gambetto, a tripping up. = Ital. gamba, the leg; see Gambol.
GAMBLE, to play for money. (E.) Comparatively a modern
word. It occurs in Cowper, Tirocininm, 246; and Burns has
gambling, Twa Dogs, 154. Formed, by suffix -Je (which has a fre-
quentative force), from the verb to game, the b being merely excres-
cent ; so that gamble=gamm-le. This form, gamm-le (Yorkshire, see
E.D.D.) has taken the place of the ME. gamenien or gamenen, to
Bey at games, to gamble, which occurs in King Alisaunder, ed.
eber, 5461. AS. gamenian, to play at a game, in the Liber
See Game.
‘ambl-er.
OGE, a gum-resin, of a bright yellow colour. (Asiatic.)
Th Johnson’s Dict. ‘Brought from India by the Dutch, about a.p.
1600 ;” Haydn, Dict. of Dates. The word is a corruption of Cam-
bodia, the name of the district where it is found. Cambodia is in the
‘The derivation
(N.E.D.).
GAMBOL,, a frisk, caper. (F.—Ital.—L.) In Shak. Hamlet,
GANG 233
(1. 643 of Lat. text); gambawd, or gambaud, Skelton, Ware the Hawk,
65; gambolde, gambalde in Palsgrave, s.v. Fetche; gambauld, Udal,
Flowers of Lat. Speaking, fol. 72 (R.).—OF. gambade, ‘a gamboll ;’
Cot. Ital. gambata, a kick (Brachet).—TItal. gamba, the leg; the
| same word as F. jambe, OF. gambe.=— Late L. gamba, earlier spelling
camba ; cf. acc. pl. cambas, glossed by AS. homme in A.S. Leechdoms,
vol. 1. p. Ixxi; ‘the bend’ of the leg. Cf. Gael. and W. cam,
crooked, answering to OCelt. *kambos (fem. *kamba), bent, crooked ;
Stokes-Fick, p. 78. 4 The spelling with 1 seems to have been due
to the confusion of the F. suffix -ade with F. suffix -aude, the latter of
which stands for an older -alde. Hence gambade was first corrupted
to gambaude (Skelton); then written gambauld (Udal) or gambold
(Phaer) ; and lastly gambol (Shakespeare), with loss of finald. Der.
gambol, vb., Mids, Nt. Dr. iii. 1. 168.
GAME, sport, amusement. (E.) In Shak. Mids. Nt. Dr. i. 1. 240.
ME. game, Chaucer, C. T. 1808 (A 1806); older form gamen, spelt
gammyn and gamyn in Barbour’s Bruce, ed. Skeat, iii. 465, ix. 466,
&c. AS. gamen, gomen, a game, sport; Grein, i. 366. - OSax.
gaman ; Icel. gaman; Dan. gammen, mirth, merriment; MSwed.
gamman, joy (Ihre); OHG. gaman, MHG. gamen, joy. Root un-
known. | Der. game, vb., gam-ing; game-some, ME. gamsum (=gamen-
sum), Will. of Palerne, 4193; game-ster (Merry Wives, iii. 1. 37),
where the suffix -ster, orig. feminine, has a sinister sense, Koch, Engl.
Gram. iii. 47 ; also game-cock, game-keeper. Doublet, gammon (2).
GAMMER, an old dame; lit. ‘grandmother;’ see Gaffer.
GAMMON (1), the thigh of a hog, pickled and dried. (F.—L.)
‘A gammon of bacon ;’ 1 Hen. IV, ii. τ. 26. Older form gambon,
Book of St. Alban’s, fol. f 2, back, ]. 9.— OF. gambon (Picard gambon),
the old form of F. jambon, corresponding to OF. gambe for jambe.
Cotgrave explains jambon by ‘a gammon;’ and Florio explains Ital.
gambone by ‘a hanche [haunch|,a gammon.’ Formed, with suffix
-on, from OF. gambe, a leg. See Gambol.
GAMMON (2), nonsense, orig. a jest. (E.) A slang word; but
really the ME. gamen preserved; see Backgammon and Game.
Cf. ‘This gamon shall begin ;’ Chester Plays, vi. 260. And Stanihurst
has gamening, i. e. ‘gambling;’ Virgil, ed. Arber, p. 153.
GAMUT, the musical scale. (Hybrid; F.—Gk. and L.) In
Shak. Tam. Shrew, iil. 1.67, 71. A compound word, made up from
OF. game or gamme, and ut. 1. Gower has gamme in the sense of
‘a musical scale;’ C. A. iii. 90; bk. vii. 172.—OF. game, gamme,
“gamut, in musick;’ Cot.—Gk. γάμμα, the name of the third letter
of the alphabet. Cf. Heb. gimel, the third letter of the alphabet, so
named from its supposed resemblance to a camel, called in Hebrew
gama! (Farrar, Chapters on Language, 136). Brachet says: ‘Guy
| of Arezzo [born about A.D. 990] named the notes of the musical scale
a, b,c, d, e, f, g, in which a was the low /a on the violoncello; then,
to indicate one note below this a, he used the Gk. y, which thus
standing in front of the whole scale, has given its name to it.” 2. The
word wt is Latin, and is the old name for the first note in singing,
now called do. The same Guy of Arezzo is said to have named the
notes after certain syllables of a monkish hymn to S, John, in a stanza
written in sapphic metre. The lines are: ‘ Ut queant laxis resonare
fibris Mira gestorum famuli tuorum So/ue polluti /abii reatum Sante
Tohannes ;’ the last term si being made from the initials of the final
words.
GANDER, the male of the goose. (E.) ME. gandre, Mandeville’s
Travels, p. 216. AS. gandra; AElfric’s Gram. De Tertia Declinatione,
sect. xvili; where it translates L. anser. Also spelt ganra, Voc.
131. 223. Du. gander; Low G. ganner (Berghaus). B. The d is
excrescent, as in thunder, and as usual after x; gandra stands for the
older gan-ra. Teut. type *gan-ron-,m. See further under Gannet,
Goose.
GANG (1), a crew of persons. (Scand.) The word gang occurs in
ME. in the sense of ‘ a going,’ or ‘a course.’ The peculiar use of gang
in the sense of a ‘crew’ is late, and is rather Scand. than E. In
Skinner, ed. 1671. “ Gang, a company, a crew;’ Kersey’s Dict., ed.
1715. He adds that ‘in sea-affairs, gangs are the several companies
of mariners belonging toaship.’ But in the sense of a ‘ set’ of things,
it occurs as early as 1340 in Northern E. (N. E. D.).=—Icel. gangr, a
going; also, collectively, a gang, as miisagangr, a gang of mice,
pjafagangr, a gang of thieves. Cf. Swed. gang, a going, a time; Dan.
gang, walk, gait; AS. gang, a going, a procession ; Du. gang, course,
pace, gait, tack, way, alley, passage; Goth. gaggs (=gangs), a way,
street. B. The ME. gang, a course, way, is from AS. gang, a journey
(Bosworth) ; which is from AS. gangan, to go; Grein, i. 367, 368. So
also Icel. gangr is from Icel. ganga, to go. See Gang (2).. Der.
gang-days, from Icel. gangdagar, pl.; gang-week, AS. gang-wuce;
gang-way, from AS. gang-weg, a way, road; gang-board, a Dutch
term, from Du. ganxgboord, a gangway.
GANG (2), togo. (Scand.) In Barbour’s Bruce, ii. 276, iv. 193,
¥. I. 209. Older spellings are gambold, Phaer, tr. of Virgil, Aun. vi. | x. 421.—Icel. ganga, to go. AS. gangon; OHG. gangan; Goth.
234 GANGLION
gaggan (=gangan), Teut.type *ganggan-. Allied to Lith. Zengiic,
I stride; Skt. pangha, the leg. Brugmann, i. § 609.
GANGLION, a tumour on a tendon. (L.—Gk.) Medical. In
Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715.—L. ganglion (Vegetius).—Gk. γάγγλιον,
a tumour nearatendon. Der. ganglion-ic.
GANGRENE, a mortification of the body, in its first stage. (F.—
L.—Gk.) Shak. has the pp. gangrened, Cor. ili. 1. 307. The sb. is
in Bacon, Nat. Hist., § 333; and in Cotgrave.—MF. gangrene, ‘a
gangreen, the rotting or mortifying of amember;’ Cot.=L. gangrena.
= Gk. γάγγραινα, an eating sore. A reduplicated form. Allied to
yép-wv, an old man, Skt. jaraya, to consume, jaras, old age; see
Prellwitz. Der. gangrene, vb.; gangren-ous.
GANNET, a sea-fowl, Solan goose. (E.) ME. gante (contracted
from ganet) ; Prompt. Parv. p. 186; see Way’s note. AS. ganot; ‘ofer
ganotes bd’ = over the sea-fowl’s bath, i.e. over the sea; Α. 5. Chron.
an. 975.4 Du. gent, a gander; OHG. ganazo, MHG. ganze, a gander;
Low G. gante. B. Formed with suffix -of (-ef), from the base gan-;
for which see Gander, Goose.
GANTLET (1), a spelling of Gauntlet, αν.
GANTLET (2), also GANTLOPE, a military punishment.
(Swed.) In Skinner, ed. 1671. Formerly written gantlope, but cor-
rupted to gantlet or gauntlet by confusion with gauntlet, a glove. ‘ To
run the ganilope, a punishment used among souldiers ;᾿ Phillips’ Dict.,
ed. 1658. Again, the is inserted, being no part of the orig. word,
which should be gatlope.—Swed. gatlopp (older form gatulopp), lit.
“a running down a lane,’ because the offender has to run between two
files of soldiers, who strike him as he passes. Widegren’s Swed. Dict.
(1788) has: ‘/épa gatulopp, to run the gantelope.’ = Swed. gata, a street,
lane; see Gate (2); and lopp, a course, career, running, from Jépa, to
run, cognate with E. Leap. Piob. due to the wars of Gustavus
Adolphus (died 1532).
GAOL, JAIL, a cage, prison. (F.—L.) Spelt gayole in Fabyan’s
Chron. (1516), an. 1293 ; gayhol in An Old Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris,
p. 153, 1. 219. The peculiar spelling gaol is due to the OF. gaole
(Godefroy, s. v. jaiole),and has been preserved in Law French. Chaucer
has gayler, C. Τὶ 1476 (A 1474); whence jailer and jail.— AF. gaole,
OF. jaiole, gaole, mod. F. geéle, a prison, cage for birds. ‘Inthe 13th
cent. people spoke of the gedle d'un oiseau as well as of the gedle d’un
prisonnier ;’ Brachet. [But it must be remembered that the 13th cent.
spelling was not geéle, but gaole.|— Late L. gabiola, a cage, in a charter
of A.D. 1229, cited by Brachet. A dimin. of Late L. gabia, for cavea,
a cage; Ducange. = L. cauea,a cage, coop, lit. a hollow place, cavity.
=L. cauus, hollow. See Cage, Cave, and Gabion. Der. gaol-er
or jail-er.
GAPE, to yawn, open the mouth for wonder. (Scand.) ME. gapen,
P. Plowman, B. x. 41.—Icel. gapa, Swed. gapa, Dan. gabe, to gape.
So also EFries., Du., Low ἃ. gapen.4G. gaffen. Cf. Skt. jabh, jambh,
to gape, yawn. Der.gap-er; andgaby,q.v. Also gap,sb., ME. gappe
(dat.) in Chaucer, C. T. 1641 (A 1639) ; a word which is rather Scand.
than E. ; cf. Icel. and Swed. gap, a gap, breach, abyss, from gapa, vb.;
Dan. gab, mouth, throat, gap, chasm, from gabe, vb.
GAR (1), GARFISH, a kind of pike. (E.) ΑΔ fish with a long
slender body and pointed head. ME. gar/ysche; Prompt. Parv. Prob.
named from AS. gar, a spear, from its shape; see Garlic. Cf. Icel.
geirsil, a kind of herring, Icel. geirr, a spear ; and observe the names
pike and ged.
GAR (2), to cause. (Scand.) Common in Lowland Scotch; and see
P. Plowman, B.i. 1213 v. 130; vi. 303.—Olcel. σῴγμα (Noreen), Icel.
géra; Dan. gjore; Swed. géra, to cause, make, do; lit. ‘to make ready.’
=Icel. gérr, ready ; cognate with E. yare. See Yare. So also AS.
gierwan, gearwian, to make ready, from gearu, ready, yare; see below.
GARB (1), dress, manner, fashion. (F.—Ital.—OHG.) Used by
Shak. to mean ‘form, manner, mode of doing a thing’ (Schmidt) ;
Hamlet, ii. 2. 390; K. Lear, ii. 2. 103.— MF. garbe, ‘a garbe, come-
linesse, handsomenesse, gracefulnesse, good fashion,’ Cot.; (whence
F. galbe, contour). = Ital. garbo, ‘grace, handsomeness, garbe;’ Florio.
“ΗΟ. garwi, garawi, preparation, getting ready, dress, gear; MHG.
gerwe, garwe; allied to OHG. garawen, MUG. gerwen, to get ready. =
OHG. garo, MHG. gar, gare, ready; cognate with E. yare. See
Gear.
GARB (2), a sheaf. (F.-OHG.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627. ME.
garbe, in A. Neckam; Wright’s Vocab. i. 113. An heraldic term. =
AF. and Picard garbe (Ε΄. gerbe), a sheaf. —OHG. garba, a sheaf (G.
garbe). Lit. a handful, or ‘what is grabbed” Cf. E. grab, Swed.
grabba, to grasp; Skt. grah (Vedic form grabh), to seize, See Grab.
Brugm. i. § 531.
GARBAGE, offal, refuse. (F.) In Shak. Hamlet, i. 5. 57.
‘ The garbage, aluus, intestina ;’ Levins, 11.13. Florio translates the
Ital. ¢ara by ‘the tare, waste, or garbish of any marchandise or ware.’
Palsgrave has: ‘ garbage of a foule,’ i.e. a fowl’s entrails. It agrees in
form with OF. garbage, gerbage, a tax paid in garbs or sheaves ; and
GARLAND
is prob. similarly formed from OF, garbe, a handful, small bundle,
Low L. garba, the same. See above.
GARBLE, to select for a purpose, to mutilate or corrupt an
account. (F.—Ital.—Arab.—L.) ‘The old sense was ‘to pick out,’
or ‘sort,’ so as to get the best of a collection of things. The statute
1 Rich. 1II, c. 11, was made ‘ for the remedie of the excessiue price and
badnesse of bowstaues, which partly is growen because the merchants
will not suffer any garbeling [or sorting] of them to be made.’ There
was an officer called the Garbler of spices, whose business was to visit
the shops, examine the spices, and garble, or make clean the same;
mentioned an. 21 Jacob. c. 1. See Blount’s Nomolexicon, where it is
further explained that ‘garbling of spice, drugs, &c. (1 Jacob. cap. 19)
is nothing but to purifie it from the dross and dirt that is mixed with
it.’ OF, garbeller (in Godefroy, entered by mistake under gerbele),
usually grabeller, ‘to garbell spices, also to examine precisely, sift
neerly ;’ Cot, The same word as Span. garbillar, to sift, garble ; Ital.
garbellare, ‘to garbel spices’ (Torriano); and Low L. garbellare, to
sift, a word which occurs A.D. 1269 (Ducange). Cf. Span. garbillo, a
coarse sieve, sifter. — Pers. gharbi/, a sieve; Arab. ghirbal, a large sieve;
Arab. kirbal, a sieve; gharbala, karbala, to sift. Prob. not an Arabic
word, but adapted from L, cribellum, dimin. of cribrum, a sieve;
allied to L. cernere, to sift. Rich. Dict., pp. 1046, 1177, 1178. See
Riddle (2).
GARBOIL, a disturbance, commotion. (F.—Ital.) In Shak.
Antony, i. 3. 61; ii, 2. 67.—OF. garbouil, ‘a garboile, hurliburly,
great stirre;’ Cot. Cf. Span. garbullo, a crowd, multitude. Ital.
garbuglio, ‘a garboile, . . tumult, disorder;’ Florio. B. Of uncertain
origin. Referred by Diez to L. garr-ire, to prattle, chatter ; in con-
junction with bullire, to boil, bubble, boil with rage. y. The latter part
of the word is thus well accounted for; see Boil. The former part is
less sure, and seems to be more directly from the Ital. gara, strife, since
Florio has ‘ garabullare, to rave.’ The source is probably imitative;
see Jar, to creak.
GARDANT, in heraldry: looking full at the spectator. (F.—
Teut.) Also guardant.—MF. gardant, pres. pt. of garder, ‘to ward,
watch, regard ;’ Cot. See Guard.
GARDEN, a yard, enclosure. (F.—Teut.) ME. gardin, Chaucer,
C. T. 1053 (A 1051); King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1028.—AF.,
O. North F. (Norm. dial. and Picard) gardin; F. jardin. —OSax.
gardo, a yard; cf. OHG. gartin, gen. and dat. of OHG. garto, a yard,
garden (Diez). The stem gartin- was retained in compounds, such as
OHG. gartin-ari, a gardener ; and this prob, suggested a Late L. form
*vard-inum (with L. suffix -7uum), whence the OF. form. β. The
OSax. gardo is cognate with AS. geard, whence E. yard; see Yard.
The substitution of OHG., ¢ (as in gart-) for Low G.d is regular.
Der. garden, vb.; garden-ing, garden-er.
GARFISH, a kind of pike. See Gar (1).
GARGLE, to rinse the throat. (F.—Late L.—Gk.) In Cotgrave.
Modified from F. gargouiller, just as the ME. gargyll (a gargoyle) is
from F. gargouille.—F. gargouiller, ‘to gargle, or gargarize ;’ Cot.
=F. gargouille; for which see Gargoyle. ἐξ The ME. gargarise,
used by Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. iv. c. 10, is from MF.
gargarizer, to gargle (Cot.), borrowed (through L. gargarizare) from
Gk. γαργαρίζειν, to gargle. From an imitative base, viz. Gk. γαργ-;
cf. Gk. yapyapewy, the uvula. Hence also Ital. garg-agliare, to
murmur, garg-atta. the throat (see below). Der. gargle, sb.
GARGOYLE, in architecture, a projecting spout. (F.—Late L.
—Gk.) ME. gargoyle, also spelt gargyll. The spelling gargoyle is in
Lydgate’s Siege of Troy, bk. ii. c.11 (fol. F 5, back, col. 1); we read of
‘ gargylles of gold fiersly faced with spoutes running’ in Hall’s Chron,
Henry VIII, an. 19.—F. gargouille, ‘the weesle or weason [weazand]
of the throat ; also, the mouth of aspowt, a gutter;’ Cot. Cf. Span.
gargola,a gargoyle. β. We find, in Ital., not only gargatta, gargozza,
the throat, windpipe, but also gorgozza, the throat, gullet, dimin. of
gorga, the throat. Thus garg-ouille is from the imitative Gk. base
yapy- (see above), just as Ital. gorga and E. gorge are from the
parallel L. base gurg-; see Gorge. (Korting, §§ 4169, 4401.)
GARISH, glaring, staring, showy. (Scand.) ‘The garish sun;’
Romeo, iii, 2. 25. ‘ Day’s garish eye;’ Milton, Il Penseroso, 141.
Chaucer uses the form gauren, to stare; C. T. 5332 (B 912); with
which cf. ‘gaurish in colour,’ Ascham, Scholemaster, ed. Arber, p. 54.
Perhaps from Norw. gagra, to bend the head backwards (Ross); from
gag, adj., bent backwards. From the attitude adopted in staring or
gazing fixedly. The change ag>az is regular.
GARLAND, a wreath. (F.—Teut.?) In early use. ME. gerlond,
Chaucer, C. T. 668 (A 666). The form gerlaundesche occurs in Hali
Meidenhad, ed. Cockayne, p. 23.—OF. garlande, ‘a garland ;’ Cot.
(The mod. F. guirlande is borrowed from Ital. ghirlanda.| Cf. Span.
guirnalda, Ital. ghirlanda,a garland. B. Of uncertain origin; see the
discussion of the word in Diez. It seems as if formed with a suffix
-ande from a MHG, *wierel-en, a supposed frequentative of wieren, to
----.- =
GARLIC
adorn; from OHG. wiara, MHG. wiere, gold wire, fine ornament.
(Korting, § 10389.) Cf. E. wire. Der. garland, vb.
GARLIC, a plant of the genus Allium. (E.) Lit. ‘ spear-plant ;’
from the shape of the leaves. ME. garleek, Chaucer, C. T. 636
(A 634). AS. garléac, used to translate L. allium in Aflfric’s Glos-
sary, Nomina Herbarum. = AS. gar, a spear; and /éac, a leek, plant.
+ Icel. geirlaukr (similarly formed). See Gar (1), Gore, and Leek.
4 Vhe \W. garlleg is borrowed from E.
GARMENT, a robe, coat. (F.—Teut.) A corruption of ME.
gernement, P. Plowman, C. x. 119. “ΟἿ. garnement, garniment, a
robe, lit. a defence ; formed (with suffix -ment=L. -mentum) from OF.
garnir, to protect, garnish, adorn. See Garnish.
GARNER, a granary, store for grain. (F.—L.) ME. gerner;
Chaucer, C. T. 595 (A 593).— OF. gernier, a variant of grenier, a
granary (Supp. to Godefroy). —L. granarium, a granary. Doublet,
granary, q.v. Der. garner, verb.
GARNET, a kind of precious stone. (F.—L.) ‘And gode
garnettes bytwene;’ Romance of Emare, ed. Ritson, l. 156; so also
garnettes, pl., in Lydgate, Chorle and Bird, st. 34. A corruption of
granat, a form also used in E., and found in Cotgrave.— OF. grenat
[also granat], ‘a precious stone called a granat, or garnet ;’ Cot. Cf.
Span. granate, Ital. granato, a garnet.—Late L. granatus, a garnet.
‘So called from its resemblance in colour and shape to the grains or
seeds of the pomegranate;’ Webster.—L. granatus, having many
grains or seeds; grandtum (for malum grandtum), a pomegranate. —
L. granum, a grain; see Grain.
GARNISH, to embellish, decorate. (F.—Teut.) In Spenser,
Verses addressed to Lord Ch. Howard, 1. 2; Prompt. Parv. p. 188.
Also spelt warnish in ME.; the pp. warnished is in Will. of Palerne,
1. 1083.—OF. garnis-, warnis-, stem of pres. pt. of garnir, guarnir,
older form warnir, to avert, defend, fortify, garnish (Godefroy). =
OHG. *warndjan, OHG. warndén, to guard against; cf. OHG. warna,
foresight, care. See Ware (2). Der. garnish, sb., garnish-ment,
garnish-er ; also garniture (Cotgrave), from F. garniture, ‘ garniture,
garnishment’ (Cot.), Low L. garnitira, from Low L. garnire, to
adorn, which is merely the Τὸ word Latinised; also garnish-ee =‘ the
party in whose hands another man’s money is attached’ (Kersey’s
Dict., ed. 1715), barbarously formed on the model of a F. pass. part.
as opposed to garnish-er considered as an agent; also garment, q. v.,
and garrison, q. Vv.
GARRET, a room at the top of a house. (F.-OHG.) ME. garite
(with one r), Prompt. Pary. p. 187; P. Plowman’s Creed, ed. Skeat,
214. It properly means ‘a place of Jook out,’ or ‘ watch-tower.’ =
OF. garite, a place of refuge, place of look-out, watch-tower (F.
guerite).—OF. garir, older spelling warir, to preserve, save, keep.—
OHG. warjan, to defend; cf. AS. werian, to defend. Allied to
Weir, q.v.
GARRISON, a supply of soldiers for defending a fort. (F.—
Teut.) 1. ME. garnison, provision, in La Belle Dame sans Mercy,
1.175; Barbour’s Bruce, ed. Skeat, xvii. 294 (footnote), where another
spelling is warnyson, and other reading is varnysing.— OF. garnison,
store, provision, supply (Norm. dial. garnison, Moisy).—OF. garnis-
ant, pres. part. of garnir, to supply, garnish; see Garnish. Thus
garnison is allied to garniture. 2. But it was supplanted by ME.
garison or warison, defence, safety; from OF. garis-, pres. pt. stem of
garir, to defend; see Garret.
GARROTE, GARROTTE, a method of effecting strangulation.
(Span.—C.) ‘ Garrotte, a machine for strangling criminals, used in
Spain. Many attempts to strangle were made by thieves called gar-
rotters, in the winter of 1862-63. An act was passed in 1863 to punish
these acts by flogging ;’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates. [See garrot and
garroter in Cotgrave.]—Span. garrote, a cudgel, tying a rope tight,
strangling by means of an iron collar; Minsheu says, ‘a cudgel to
wind [twist] a cord.’ Formed, with dimin. suffix -ofe, from Span.
garra, a claw, a talon, clutch, whence also the phrase echarle a uno la
garra, to grasp, imprison; Minsheu has ‘garra, a paw of a beast;’
cf. Prov. garra, leg (Mistral). Of Celtic origin; connected with
Breton gar, garr, W. and Com. gar, the shank of the leg (Diez) ;
Celtic type *garris; Stokes-Fick, p. 107, See Garter. Der. gar-
rotte, verb; garrott-er. (Korting, § 4160.)
GARRULOUS, talkative. (L.) 1. Milton has garrulity, Sams.
Agonistes, 491 ; and it occurs in Cotgrave, to translate Εἰ, garrulité,
from L. ace. garrulitatem, talkativeness. 2. The adj. garrulous occurs
in Chapman’s Homer, Comment. on Iliad, b. iii; note 2. It is bor-
rowed from L. directly, by change of, -us to -ous, as in ardu-ous,
strenu-ous, &c.—L. garrulus, talkative. Lfermed with suffix -(z)lu-,
from garr-ire, to prattle.—4/ GAR, to shout, call; whence also W.
gar-m, an outcry, Irish gairm. Brugmann, i.'§ 638. Der. garrulous-
ness; also garrul-i-ty, as above.
GARTER, a band round the leg, for fastening the hose. (F.—C.}
‘Eek ther be knightes old of the garter ;’ The Flower and the Leaf
GATHER
(15th cent.), 1.519. Hoccleve has a poem addressed to ‘ Knightes of
the Garter.’ The order was instituted by Edw. III, ab. 1344.—AF.
garter, Stat. of the Realm, i. 380 (an. 1363); OF. gartier, in dialects
of N, France (Hécart), Walloon garter (Sigart), spelt jartier in Cot-
grave, and explained by him as ‘a garter ;’ mod. F. jarretiére. Closely
connected with OF. garet (Godefroy), mod. F. jarret, the ham of the
leg. = Bret. gar, garr, the shank of the leg; cf. W. gar, the shank;
see Garrote. Der. garter, verb, All’s Well, ii. 3. 265.
GARTH, a yard, enclosure, fence. (Scand.) Northern; the pl.
garthis is in Hampole, Psalm xxxvi. 2.—Icel. gardr, a yard. + AS.
geard, a yard; see Yard.
GAS, an aeriform fluid. (Dutch.) The term is known to have been
a pure invention. The Belgian chemist Van Helmont (died A.D. 1644)
invented two corresponding terms, gas and blas; the former came into
use, the latter was forgotten. We may call it a Dutch word, as gas
is the Du. spelling. 4[ Van Helmont says that it was suggested by
235
the Gk. chaos :—‘ Halitum illum gas vocavi, non longe a Chao veterum
secretum ;’ Ortus Medicine, ed.1652,p.59a(N.E.D.). Der. gas-e-ous,
£as-0-meter, -
GASCONADEH, boasting, bragging. (Gascony.) ‘That figure of
speech which is commonly distinguished by the name of Gasconade ;’
The Tatler, no. 115 (part 2).—F. gasconnade, boasting; said to be a
vice of the Gascons. =F. Gascon, an inhabitant of Gascony, formerly
Vasconia. Der. gasconade, verb, gasconad-ing, gasconad-er,
GASH, to hack, cut deeply. (F.—Late L.—Gk.) ‘His gashed
stabs ;’ Macbeth, ii. 3. 119. A corruption of an older form garsh or
garse. ‘A garse or gashe, incisura;’ Levins, 33.14. ‘Garsshe in
wode or in a knife, hoche ;’ Palsgrave. The pl. sb. garcen (another
MS. has garses) occurs in the Ancren Riwle, p. 258, in the sense of
‘gashes caused by a scourge.’ = OF. garser, to scarily, pierce with a
lancet (Roquefort, and see jarser, garser in Godefroy); garscher, to
chap, as the hands or lips (Cotgrave). Cf. Late L. garsa, scarification,
or the making of numerous small incisions in the skin and flesh; an
operation called by the Greeks éyxapafis; Ducange. β. Origin ob-
scure ; it is possible that OF. garser represents Late L. caraxare, short
for incaraxare, incharaxire, to pierce, incise; from Gk. χαράσσειν, to
furrow, scratch. See Character. 4 Diez suggests a Late L. form
*carptiare, founded on carpere, to pluck. Note ME. carsare, as a gloss
to scarificator, Voc. 652.7. Der. gash, sb.
GASP, to gape for breath. (Scand.) ME. gaspen, Gower, C. A. ii.
260; bk. v. 3975. Also gaispen (Northern), Allit. Morte Arthure, 1462.
The latter is from Icel. and Norw. geispa, to yawn; Swed. gaspa; cf.
Dan, gispe. The former suggests a cognate AS. *gdspan (not found).
Note that ss commonly represents an earlier ps; thus clasp is ME.
clapsen, hasp was formerly haps, and aspen is from aps. Hence Icel.
getspa is for *geipsa ; froma Teut. base *geip (weak grade gip) ; cf. Du.
giypen, to gasp, AS. gipung,a gaping. Der. gasp, sb.
GASTRIC, belonging to the belly. (Late L.—Gk.) Coles (1684)
has gastrick; so also Blount, ed. 1656.—Late L. gastricus, gastric ;
formed with suffix -c- from gastri- = gastro-. = Gk. yaorpé-, for γαστήρ,
the belly (stem yaorep-). Der. from the same root, gastro-nomy; from
Gk. yaorpo-, and -voyia, derivative of νόμος, usage.
GATE (1), a door, opening, way. (E.) [In Proy. E. and ME. we
often find gate=a street; see below.] ME. gate, 3ate, yate. Spelt
gate, O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 237, 1. 31; jaze, Will. of Palerne,
3757; 3et, Ancren Riwle, p. 74. AS. geat, a gate, opening; Matt.
vii. 13 (whence ΜΕ. yate); pl. gatu (whence ME. gate). 4 Du. gat,
a hole, opening, gap, mouth; Icel. gat, an opening; OFries., OSax.,
and Low ἃ. gat. See Gate (2). Der. gat-ed, gate-way.
GATE (2), a street. (Scand.) Common in the North; it also
means ‘a way.’ ‘ Whilest foot is in the gate ;’ Spenser, F. Ὁ. i. 1. 13.
ΜΕ. gate, Ormulum, 12749.—Icel. and Norw. gata, Swed. gata, a
way, path, street, lane; Dan. gade; cf. Goth. gatwé,a street, G. gasse.
Perhaps allied to Gate (1). B. Gate (1) answers to Teut. type
*gatom, n.; but gate (2) to Teut. type *gatwon-, f. See Gait,
Gantlet (2).
GATHER, to draw into a heap, collect. (E.) Just as father
corresponds to ME, fader, so gather corresponds to ME. gaderen or
gaderien, to gather; as also mod. E. together corresponds to ME.
togideres. ‘ And gadred hem alle togideres’=and gathered them all
together; P. Plowman, B. xvi. 80. AS. gedrian, gaderian; Luke,
vi. 44; Grein, i. 366, 373. β. Formed, with causal suffix -tan, from
AS. gader, together, preserved in the compound gader-tang, associated
with (Grein, i. 365), and also as gador- or geador, together (Grein, i.
401); see Together. y. From a base gad-; cf. AS. ged, society,
fellowship, company ; whence also the AS. ge-gada, a companion,
and AS. ged-el-ing, an associate, comrade; cf. Goth. gad-il-iggs
( =gad-il-ings), a sister’s son, Col. iv. 10.4-Du. gaderen, to collect,
from gader, together; Low G. gadden, to collect (Berghaus); the
base appears in Du. gade, a spouse, consort; cf. G. gatte,a husband,
gattin, a wife. The base *gad- prob. meant ‘fit’ or ‘ suitable;’ cf.
996 GAUD
Low G. gad, pleasant (Berghaus); Russ. goduii, suitable, OSlav. god,
fitseason. See Good. Der. gather, sb.; gather-ing, gather-er.
GAUD, a show, ornament. (I'.—L.) Also spelt gawd, Shak. Mids.
Nt. Dr. i. 1. 33. Chaucer uses gaude in the sense of ‘ specious trick ; ’
C. T. 12323 (C 389).—OF. gaudir, to rejoice, to jest at.—L. gaudium,
gladness, joy; used in Late L. of ‘a large bead on a rosary ;’ whence
ME. gauded, furnished with large beads. ‘A peire of bedes gauded
al with grene;’ Chaucer, C. T. 159.—L. gaudére, to rejoice, pt. t.
gauisus sum; from a base gau-.4-Gk. γηθέειν, to rejoice; allied to
yaie (= yaF-iew), to rejoice; γαῦρος, proud. Brugmann,i. § 589°
ii, § 694. Der. gaud-y, i.e. show-y ; gaud-i-ly, gaud-i-ness.
GAUFFER, the same as Goffer, q.v.
GAUGE, GAGE, to measure the content of a vessel. (F.—Low
L.) In Shak. Merch. of Ven. ii. 2. 208 (where the old edd. have
gage). ‘ Or bore and gage the hollow caues uncouth ;’ Surrey, tr. of
Virgil, Eneid, ii. 52.—O. North F. gauger (printed gaugir in Roque-
fort), Norm. dial. gauger (Moisy), Central F. jauger, ‘to gage, or
measure a piece of [or?] cask;’ Cot.—OF. gauge (Norman; see
quot. in Moisy, s.v. gauge), old form of jauge, ‘a gage, the instrument
wherewith a cask is measured, also an iron leaver;’ Cot. Cf. Low
L. gaugia, the standard measure of a wine-cask (A.D. 1446); Ducange.
Also Low L. gaugatum, the gauging of a wine-cask ; gaugettum, a
tribute paid for gauging, a gauge; gaugiator, a gauger. Origin
unknown. Cf. gaugeour, a gauger; Stat. of the Realm, i. 331 (1353)-
Der. gaug-ing, gaug-er.
GAULT, clayand marl. See Galt (1).
GAUNT, thin, lean. (Scand.) InShak. Rich. IJ, ii. 1.74. ‘His
own gaunt eagle ;’ Ben Jonson, Catiline, iii. 1. ‘ Gawnt, or lene ;*
also ‘ Gawnte, or slendyr;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 189. ‘ Gant, slim,
slender ;’ Ray’s South- and East-Country Words, ed. 1691. Also
mentioned in Forby as a Norfolk, and in Moor as a Suffolk word ;
also in Yks. Linc. Lanc.; see E.D.D. It corresponds to Norweg.
gand, a thin pointed stick, a tall and thin man, an overgrown stripling
(Aasen); we also find Swed. dial. gaxk, a lean and nearly starved
horse (Rietz). Cf. ‘arm-gaunt steed,’ i.e. slender in the fore-leg,
Shak. Ant. and Cleop. i. 5. 48. Der. gaunt-ly, gaunt-ness.
GAUNTLET (1), aniron glove. (F.—Scand.) In Spenser, F. Q.
i. 4.43. ΜΕ. gawntelet, Sir T. Malory, Morte Darthur, bk. xix. c. 4
(end). —OF. gantelet, ‘a cantlet, or arming-glove ;’ Cot. Formed,
with dimin. suffixes -el- and -et, from OF. gant, a glove. Of Scand.
origin. —OSwed. wante, a glove (Ihre); whence Low L. wantus and
OF. gant by the usual change of w to gin French; see Garnish;
Dan. vante, a mitten; Icel. vottr (stem vatt=vant),a glove. OTeut.
type *wantuz. B. The most probable source is Teut. *windan-
(pt. t. wand), to wind, hence to involve, wrap, E. wind, verb. See
Wind (2). Cf. G. gewand, a garment; Low G. want, cloth
(Liibben). Noreen, § 257 (5).
GAUNTLET (2). (Scand.) In the phr. ‘to run the gauntlet,’
we have a corruption of an older gantlope. It appears as run the
gantlope in Bailey (1735), Kersey (1715), Philips (1706), and Blount
(1674). Bailey correctly defines it as ‘to run through a company of
soldiers, standing on each side, making a lane, with each a switch in
his hand to scourge the criminal.’ See further under Gantlet (2).
GAUZE, a thin silken fabric. (F.— Palestine?) ‘Gawz, a thin
sort of silk-stuff;” Kersey’s Dict. ed. 1715.—MF. gaze, ‘ cushion
canvas, the thin canvas that serves women for a ground unto their
cushions or pursework ; also, the sleight stuffe tiflany ;’ Cot. And
see Hatzfeld. Perhaps so called because first brought from Gaza,
in Palestine. Cf. Low L. gazétum, wine brought from Gaza; gazza-
tum, (perhaps) gauze. @ Several kinds of stuffs are named from
places; e.g. damask from Damascus, calico from Calicut, &c. ; but in
this instance evidence is lacking.
*GAVELKIND, a peculiar sort of tenure. (E.) In Minshen, ed.
1627. ‘ Gavelkind, a tenure, or custom, whereby the lands of the
father are equally divided at his death among all his sons ;” Blount’s
Nomolexicon, ed. 1691. ME. gauelkind; earliest spelling gauelikind
in 1205 (N.E.D.). The latter answers to AS. gafelgecynd ; from AS.
gafel, tribute, payment, and gecynd, kind, sort; see Kind. B. The
AS. gaf-ol (whence Low L. gabulum) is from Teut. *gab-, 2nd grade
of the verb fo give; see Give. @ Early misunderstood and mis-
represented ; and wrongly supposed to be of Celtic origin.
GAVIAL, the crocodile of the Ganges. (F.—Hind.) First in
1825. -- Ἐς gavial (a corrupt form).—Hind. ghaviydl, a crocodile
(Forbes).
GAVOTTE, a kind of dance. (F.—Prov.) Spelt gavot in Ar-
buthnot and Pope’s Martinus Scriblerus, as quoted in Todd's Johnson.
“- ΜΕ. gavote, ‘a kind of brawle (dance], danced, commonly, by one
alone ;’ Cot. = Prov. gavofo,f. 2 gavotte (Mistral). Fem. of Gavot,a
mountaineer of the Upper Alps (id.). Of historical origin; ‘ orig. a
dance of the Gavotes, i.e. people of Gap ;’ Brachet. Gap is in the
department of the Upper Alps, and in the old province of Dauphiné.
GELD
GAWE, awkward. (F.—Scand.) The orig. sense is left-handed.
It is short for E. dial. gauk-handed, left-handed (E. D, D.); and gauk is
contracted from gallack, gaulick, adj., left (of the hands) ; where -ick is
asuffix (N.E.D.). Of F. origin; cf. Burgund. géle, numb with cold,
said of the fingers (Mignard).—Swed. Dan, valex, benumbed ; whence
Swed. dial, val-handt, Norw. val-hendt, having numbed hands. @ Not
from Ἐς. gauche(N.E.D.) Der. gawk-y, awkward, ungainly.
GAY, lively, merry, sportive. (F.—OHG.) ME. gay, Chaucer,
C. T. 3213; Will. of Palerne, 816; King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 3204.
“- OF. gat, merry ; spelt gay in Cotgrave. = OHG.wahi, fine, beautiful.
Der. gai-ly, Will. of Palerne, 1625; ga/-e-ty, used by Bp. Taylor,
Holy Dying, c. 5.s. 5 [vot 15], from OF’. gayete, ‘mirth,’ Cot.
GAZE, to behold fixedly, stare at. (Scand.) ME. gasex. ‘When
that the peple gased up and down ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 8879 (E 1003). Of
Scand. origin, and preserved in Swed. dial. gasa, to gaze, stare, as in
the phrase gasa dkring se, to gaze or stare about one (Rietz); and in
Norw. gasa, to stare, gaze (Aasen), Der. gaze, sb., gaz-ing-stock.
GAZELLE, a kind of antelope. (F.—Span.—Arab.) Formerly
gazel. “ Gazel,akind of Arabian deer, or the antilope of Barbary ;’
Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715.— MF, gazel, gazelle, ‘a kind of wild goat ;’
Cot.—MSpan. gacelo, ‘a wild goat;’ Minsheu.= Arab. ghazal, ‘a
fawn just able to walk; a wild goat;’ Richardson’s Dict. p. 1050.
Explained as ‘a gazelle’ in Palmers Pers. Dict. col. 440.
GAZETTE, a small newspaper. (F.—Ital.) ‘As we read a
gazett;’ Bp. Taylor, vol. ii. ser. r (R.). [Ben Jonson has the
(supposed) Ital. pl. gazetti; Volpone, v. 2 (1. 7 from end).]—ML'.
gazette, ‘a certain Venetian coin scarce worth our farthing; also, a
bill of news, or a short relation of the generall occurrences of the time,
forged most commonly at Venice, and thence dispersed, every month,
into most parts of Christendom ;’ Cot. B. The word is certainly from
Ital. gazzetta, but that word has ¢wo meanings, viz. (1) ‘a yoong piot
ormagota pie’ [mag-pie}; and (2) ‘a small coine in Italie ;’ Florio.
Now the value of the latter (less than a farthing) was so small, that
Mr. Wedgwood’s objection would seem to be sound, viz. ‘that it
never could have been the price either of a written or a printed sheet ;’
so that this (the usual) explanation is to be doubted. But in Hatzfeld,
it is suggested that the coin gazze//a was paid,nct for the gazette itself,
but for the privilege of reading it; and it is added that it was a
periodical which appeared at Venice about the middle of the 16th
century. Ὑ. Gazzetta, a small coin, is prob. a dimin. from L. gaza,
treasure, wealth, a word borrowed from Gk. yaa, wealth, a treasury ;
which, again, is said to be from Pers. ganj, a treasure. 4 The
word gaze’, a small coin, occurs in Massinger, Maid of Hononr, ili. τ
(speech by Facomo), and in Ben Jonson, The Fox, ii. 1 (speech by
Peregrine). Der. gazett-eer, orig. a writer for a gazette, now used to
denote a geographical dictionary (since 1704).
GEAR, dress, harness, tackle. (Scand.) ME. gere, Chaucer, C. T.
354 (A 352). —Icel. gervi, gorvi, gear, apparel. Cf. gorr, geyrr, skilled,
dressed, pp. of géra, to make.4-AS. gearwe, pl. fem., preparation,
dress, ornament ; Grein, i. 495 ; whence was formed the verb gearwian,
to prepare ; alliedto AS. gearo, yare, ready. Also to OHG. garawi,:
MHG. garwe, gear; whence OF. garbe, and E. garb; see Garb (1).
See Gar (2); and Yare. Der. gear, verb; gear-ing.
GECK, adupe. (Du.) In Tw. Nt. v. 351. -- Du. gek, MDu. geck, a
fool, sot; cf. G. geck (the same) ; Dan. gyek, a fool ; Icel. gikkr, a pert,
rude person; Norw. gjekk, a fool (Aasen). 4 Distinct from gowk.
GECKO, a nocturnal lizard. (Malay.) Spelt gekko by Goldsmith
in 31774 (N.E.D.).—Malay gékog, a gecko: so named from an
imitation of its cry.
GED, the fish called a pike. (Scand.) A North. E. word. =Icel.
gedda, a pike; Swed. gadda; Dan. gedde (Larsen). Allied to Icel.
gaddr,a goad; see Gad (1). Named from the sharp thin head;
whence also the name ‘pike.’ So also gar-jish, q.v-
GEHENNA, the place of torture, hell. (L.—Gk.—Heb.)
‘ Gehenna, hell;’ Cockeram (1623); cf. Milton, P. L. i. 405.—L.
gehenna; Matt. v.22 (Vulg.).—Gk. γέεννα ; Matt. v. 22. —Late Heb.
gé(t)hinnom, hell, the valley of Hinnom; more fully, ‘the valley of
the son of Hinnom;’ see Jer. vii. 31.
GELATINE, a substance which dissolves in hot water and cools
asa jelly. (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘ Gelatina, any sort of cleargummy juice;’
Kersey’s Dict., ed.1715. The mod. form is French.—F. gélatine. =
Ttal. and Late L. gelatina, as cited by Kersey ; formed from L. gelatus,
pp- of ge’are, to congeal.—L. gelu, frost; see Gelid. Der. gelatin-
ale, gelatin-ous. From the same source, jelly.
GELD, to emasculate. (Scand.) ME. gelden; Wyclif, Matt.
xix. 12. “ Geldyn, castro, testiculo, emasculo ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 190.
—Icel. gelda; Swed. gélla (for galda); Dan. gilde. Cf. Icel. geldr,
Swed. gall, barren; and see Galt (2). Possibly related to Goth.
giltha, a sickle; Mark, iv. 29. Der. geld-er; also geld-ing, Chaucer,.
C. T. 693 (A 691), from Icel. gelding, a gelding =Swed. galling=
Dan. gilding. On the suffix -ing, see March, A. 5. Gram. sect. 228. *
_ origin, source.
GELID
GELID, cool, cold. (L.) ‘Dwells in their gelid pores;’ Thomson,
Autumn, 642. ‘Or gelid hail ;’ Chapman, tr. of Homer, Il. xv. 162.
—L. gelidus, cool, cold.—L. gelu, frost. Brugmann, i. ὃ 481. See
Cool. Der. gelid-ly, gelid-ness.
GEM, a precious stone. (F.—L.) ME. gemme; Chaucer, C. T.
8130 (E 254).—OF. gemme, ‘a gem;’ Cot.—L. gemma, a swelling
bud ; also a gem, jewel; whence also AS. gim. B. Of uncertain
origin; prob. connected with Skt. janman, birth, production; so that
gemma is for *gen-ma (γ΄ GEN). Brugmann, i. ὃ 413 (4). Der.
gemmi-fer-ous, bud-bearing (L. ferre, to bear); gemmi-par-ous, bud-
producing (L. parere, to produce) ; gemmate, having buds (L. gem-
matus, pp. of gemmére, to bud); gemmat-ion.
GEMINI, twins. (L.) The name ofa sign of the Zodiac. ‘He
was that time in Gemints;’ Chaucer, C. T. 10096 (E 2222); where
Geminis is the ablative case.—L. gemini, pl., twins; pl. of geminus,
double. Der. gemin-ous, double (= L. geminus, double), SirT. Browne,
Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 15. § 43 gemin-at-ion, a doubling, Bacon,
Colours of Good and Evil, sect. 8.
GEMSBOK, a large antelope in S. Africa. (Du.—G.) The Oryx
capensis ; a misapplied name, as it orig. meant a male chamois. — Du.
gemsbok, chamois-buck, male chamois (Calisch).—G. gemsbock,
chamois-buck.=—G. gems, gemse, chamois ; and 6ock, buck, male.
See Chamois and Buck.
GENDER (1), kind, breed, sex. (F.—L.) ME. gendre; Chaucer,
Ho. of Fame, i. 18. The d is excrescent, as so commonly the case
after z in English; cf. tender, and see engender.— OF. (and mod. F.)
genre, ‘kind;’ Cot.—L. genere, abl. case of genus, kind, kin, cognate
with E. kin; see Genus and Kin. @ The unusual deriv. from the
abl. case is due to the frequent use of the L. ablative in such phrases
as genere natus, hdc genere, omni genere, &c.; cf. Ital. genere, kind.
See below. Doublet, genre.
GENDER (2), to engender, produce. (F.—L.) ME. gendren,
Wyclif, Acts, vii. 8 (where the Vulgate has genuit).—OF. gendrer
(Godefroy).—L. generare, to beget. —L. gener-, for *genes, stem of
genus, kind, kin (above). Der. en-gender.
GENEALOGY, a pedigrce of a family, descent by birth. (F.—
L.—Gk.) ME. genologie, Wyclif, Heb. vii. 3 (where the Vulgate
has genealogia).—OF. genealogie, ‘a genealogy, pedegree;’ Cot.=
L. genealogia, = Gk. yeveadoyia, an account of a family; 1 Tim. i. 4.
— Gk. γενεά, birth, race, descent; and -Aoyia, an account, from λέγειν,
to speak of. Cf. Gk. γένος, birth, race, descent; see Genus and
Logic. Der. genealog-ic-al, genealog-ic-al-ly, genealog-ist,
GENERAL, relating to a genus or class, common, prevalent.
(F.—L.) ‘The viker general of alle;’ Gower, C. A. i. 253; bk. ii.
2804. Chaucer has the adv. generally, C. T. 17277 (H 328).—OF.
general, ‘generall, universall;’ Cot.—L. generalis, belonging to a
genus. “Ὁ ον gener-, for *genes, stem of genus, a race. See Genus.
Der. general, sb., esp. in the phrase in general, Gower, C. A. iii. 189;
bk. vii. 3088, and in the sense of ‘leader,’ All’s Well, iii. 3. 1;
general-ly ; general-ship; also general-ise, eeneral-is-at-ion; also general-
i-ty (Hooker, Eccl. Polity, ed. Church, b. i. sect. 6. subsect. 4), from
OF. generalité, ‘ generality, generallness,’ Cot.; also general-iss-i-mo,
supreme commander (see examples in Todd’s Johnson), from Ital.
generalissimo, a supreme commander, formed with the superlative
suffix -is-simo-, which has not been fully explained (Brugmann, ii.
73):
GENERATE, to produce. (L.) Orig. a pp., as in ‘all other
. . from them generate,’ i.e. born, Hawes, Past. of Pleasure, ch. 44,
st.t4. The verb is in Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 758.—L. generatus, pp. of
generare, to procreate, produce; see Gender (2). Der. generat-cr,
generat-ive ; also generation (Wyclif, Mark, viii. 12), from OF.
generation < L. ace. generatidnem, from nom. generatio.
GENERIC, pertaining to a genus. (L.) The older word, in
E., is generical. ‘ Generical, pertaining toa kindred;’ Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674 ; and found ina fifteenth century tr. of Higden; vol.i. p. 27.
A coined word, with suffix -c (or -ο- αἴ) from L. generi-, decl. stem of
fenus; see Genus. Der. generical-ly.
. GENEROUS, of a noble nature. (F.—L.) ‘The generous
{moble] and gravest citizens;’ Meas. for Meas. iv. 6. 13.—=MF.
genereux [older form genereus], ‘generous ;’ Cot.—L. generdsus, of
noble birth ; formed with suffix -dsws from gener-, for *genes, stem of
Senus; see Genus. Der. generous-ly, generous-ness ; generos-i-ty
(Coriol. i, 1. 215), from OF. generosité < Li. acc. generdsitatem, from
nom. generdsilas.
_ GENESIS, generation, creation. (L.—Gk.) L. genesis,the name
of the first book of the Bible in the Vulgate version. —Gk. γένεσις,
From 4 GEN, to beget.
‘GENET, a carnivorous animal, allied to the civet. (F.—Span. —
Arab.) ‘Genet, a kind of cat;’ Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715. Spelt
genneét in Skinner, ed. 1671. Caxton has genete, Reynard the Fox,
ch. 31.—F. geneftey‘a kind of weesell, black-spotted, and bred in
GENUS 237
Spain ;’ Cot.=Span. gineta, a genet. — Arab. jarneit, cited by Dozy,
who refers to the Journal Asiatique, Juin, 1849, p. 541.
GENTAL, cheering, merry. (F.—L.) In Spenser, Epithalamium,
399. = MF. genial, ‘ geniall, belonging to luck or chance, or to a man’s
nature, disposition, inclination ;’ Cot.—L. genialis, pleasant, delight-
ful. —L. genius, genius; also, social enjoyment. SeeGenius. Der.
genial-ly, genial-ness, genial-i-ty.
GENICULATE, jointed. (L.) A botanicalterm. Bailey gives
it in the L. form, viz. ‘ geniculatus, jointed;’ vol. ii., ed. 1731.
[Cockeram has the verb geniculate, ‘to ioynt.’|—L. geniculum, a little
knee, a knot or joint in a plant. Formed, with suffixes -cu- and -/-,
from geni-, for genu, a knee; cognate with E. knee. See Knee.
GENIE, a demon; see Jinn.
GENITAL, belonging to generation. (F.—L.) In Wyclif, Numb.
xxv. 8.—OF. genital, ‘ genitall, fit for breed, apt to beget ;’ (οἱ. “Τὰ
genitalis, generative. = L. genitum, supine of gignere, to beget. Gignere
(=gi-gn-ere) is a reduplicated form, from 4/ GEN, to beget; cf. Gk.
ylyvopar=yi-yv-opat; and Skt. jan, to beget. See Genus. Der.
genitals, pl. sb., which occurs in Gower, C. A. ii. 156; bk. v. 855.
GENITIVE, the name of a case in grammar. (F.—L.) In
Shak. Merry Wives, iv.1. 59. The suffix -ive is a substitution for an
older -if, answering to F. -if, from L. -iuus.— OF. genitif, ‘the
genitive case;’ Cot.—L. genediuus, lit. of or belonging to generation
or birth, applied in grammar to a particular case of nouns.=L,
genitum, supine of gignere, to beget. See above.
GENIUS, a spirit ; inborn faculty. (L.) See Shak. Macb. iii. 1.
56 ; Jul. Cesar, 11. 1.66; Spenser, F, Q. ii. 12. 47; Gower, C. A.i. 48;
bk. i. 196. —L. genius, the tutelar spirit of a person ; also, inclination,
wit, talent; lit. ‘inborn nature.’ From the weak grade of 4/ GEN,
to produce, beget. See Genus. Der. genii, pl., genius-es, pl.; also
eni-al, q. V.
GENWNET, a Spanish horse; see Jennet.
GENRE, a style of painting, depicting ordinary life. (F.-L.) A
peculiar use of F. genre, kind, style; see Gender (1).
GENTEETI,, lit. belonging to a noble race, well-bred, graceful.
(F.—L.) ‘’Tis the most genteel [old ed. gentile] and received wear
now, sir;’ Ben Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, i. 1 (Asotus). A doublet
of gentle; it arose at the end of the 16th century, and was at first spelt
gentile, with the 7 sounded as in French (N.E.D.).—MF. gentil,
‘gentle, . . . gracious, . . . also Gentile;’ Cot.—L. gentilis, orig.
belonging to the same clan; also,a gentile. See Gentile. Der.
genteel-ly, genteel-ness ; also gentil-i-iy, As You Like It, i. 2. 22,
Doublet, gentle; also gentile.
GENTIAN, the name of a plant. (F.—L.) In Minsheu. ME.
genciane ; Med. Wks. of 14th cent., ed. Henslow, p. 131.—OF.
gentiane, ‘gentian, bitterwort;’ Cot.—L. gentidna, gentian. So
named after the Illyrian king Gentius (about B.C. 180), who was the
first to discover its properties; see Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxv. 7.
GENTILE, a pagan. (F.—L.) In Shak. Merch. of Ven. ii. 6. 51.
Fabyan has Gentyle; Pt. v. ch. 82 (end).—OF, genti/, ‘gentle, . . .
Gentile ;’ Cot. =—L. gentilis, a gentile, lit. belonging to the same clan.
-L. genti-, decl. stem of gens, a tribe, clan, race. From 4/ GEN, to
beget, produce. Doublet, gentle; also, genteel.
GENTLE, docile, mild. (F.—L.) ME. gentil. ‘So hardy and
so gentil;’ Rob. of Glouc. p. 167; 1. 3482. ‘Noble men and gentile
and of heh burve’ [high birth]; O. Eng. Homilies, i, 273.—OF. φερε,
‘gentle;’ Cot.—L. gentilis, See Gentile and Genteel. Der.
gentl-y, gentle-ness; genile-man (ME, gentelman, Gower, C. A. ii. 785
bk. iv. 2275) 3 gentle-woman (ME. gentilwomman, Chaucer, C. Τὶ
15803: G 425)3 genile-man-ly, gentle-folks; also gent-ry, q.v.
GENTRY, rank by birth; gentlefolks. (F,—L.) ME. gentrie.
‘To pryde him of his gexirye is ful greet folye; for ofte tyme the
gentrye of the body binimeth (taketh away] the genérye of the soule;’
Chaucer, Pers. Tale, De Superbia; 1 461. Shortened from the older
form gentrise; see P. Plowman, C. xxi. 21, where we find the various
spellings gentrise, gentrice, genterise, and gentrye. — OF. genterise, rank,
formed from OF. gentilise, by the change of 1 into r (Godefroy).
Gentilise is formed, with OF. suffix -ice, -ise (L. -itia), from the adj.
gentil, gentle. See Gentle.
GENUFLECTION, GENUFLEXION, a bending of the
knee. (F.—L.) Spelt genuflexion in Howell’s Letters, b. 111. let. 2.
§ 2.—F. genuflexion, ‘a bending of the knee;’ Cot.—Late L. acc.
gentiflexidnem, from nom. geniiflexio; Ducange.—L. geni, the knee;
and flexus, pp. of flectere, to bend. See Knee and Flexible.
@ The correcter spelling is with x; cf. L. flexio, a bending.
GENUINE, of the true stock, natural, real. (L.) ‘ The last her
genuine laws which stoutly did retain;’? Drayton, Polyolbion, 5. 9.
lL14.—L. genuinus, innate, genuine. From the base genu- (for *gen-
wo-), an extension of the base gen- as seen in genus, &c.—4/ GEN,
to beget. See Genus. Der. genwine-ly, genuine-ness.
GENUS, breed, race, kin. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
22 GEOGRAPHY
First in 1551, as a term in logic. —L. genus (stem gener-, for *genes-),
Tace ; cognate with E. kin ; see Kin. — 4/GEN, to beget ; cf. Skt. jan,
to beget; Gk. γέντος, race; &c. Brugmann, i. § 604. Doublet,
kin, q.v. Der. gener-a, pl.; gener-ic, gener-ic-al, gener-ic-al-ly,
From the same root, gener-al, gener-ale, gener-ous; gender, en-gender,
con-gener; gen-i-us, gen-i-al, gen-it-al, con-gen-il-al; gen-it-ive, gen-u-
ine, gen-t-ile, gen-t-le, gen-t-eel ; con-gen-i-al ; de-gen-er-ate, indi-gen-
ous, in-gen-i-ous, in-gen-u-ous, pro-gen-i-tor, pro-gen-y, re-gener-ate, &c.
Also, from the Gk., gen-e-a-logy, gen-esis, hetero-gen-e-ous, homo-gen-
e-ous; endo-gen, exo-gen, hydro-gen, oxy-gen, nitro-gen, 8c.
GEOGRAPHY, a description of the earth, (F.—L.—Gk.) In
Minsheu (1627).—MF. geographie, ‘ geography ;’ Cot.<L. geogra-
phia. = Gk. yewypapia, geography, lit. earth-description. = Gk. yew- =
γηο-, combining form of γῆ, earth, laad ; and -γραφία, description,
from γραφεῖν, to write. Der. geograph-er, geograph-ic-al. From the
same form geo- as a prefix, we have numerous derivatives, such as
geo-centr-ic (see Centre), geo-logy (from Gk. λέγειν, to speak of),
geo-mancy (from Gk. μαντεία, divination, through the French) ; and
other scientific terms. See also Geometry and Georgic.
GEOMETRY, the science of measurement. (F.—L.—Gk.)
ME. geometrie, Gower, C. A. iii. go; bk. vii. 178.—OF. geometrie,
“geometry ;’ Cot.—L. gedmetria. = Gk. γεωμετρία, lit. ‘ the measure-
ment of land.’ —Gk. γεω- (as above), belonging to land ; and -μετρια,
measurement, from μετρέω. I measure, which is from μέτρον, a measure.
See Metre. Der. geometr-ic, geometr-ic-al, geometr-ic-al-ly, geometr-
ic-i-an, geometer.
GEORGIC, a poem on husbandry. (L.—Gk.) ‘ Georgicks,
bookes intreating of the tillage of the ground;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627.
The title of four books on husbandry by Virgil. —L. gedrgica, neut.
pl. (for georgica carmina=georgic poems).—L. gedrgicus, relating to
husbandry.=—Gk. γεωργικός, relating to husbandry.—Gk. γεωργία,
tillage. = Gk. γεωργεῖν, to till. —Gk. yew- (as above), relating to the
earth; and *épyyew >€pdew, to work. See Geography and Work.
Der. George = Gk. γεωργός, a farmer.
GERANIUM, a kind of plant. (L.—Gk.) Sometimes called
crane’s-bill or stork’s-bill, First in Turner (1548). ‘ Geranium, stork-
bill or herb robert; ’ Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715.—L. geranzum, Latin-
ised from Gk. γεράνιον, a geranium, crane’s bill (from the shape of
the seed-pod).=— Gk. γέρανος, a crane; cognate with Crane.
GERFALCON, a kind of falcon; see Gyrfalcon.
GERM, a seed. (F.—L.) Sir T. Browne speaks of the ‘ germ
of ... anegg;’ Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. ili. c. 28, ὃ 3.—F. germe, ‘a young
shute, sprout ;’ Cot.=L. germen (stem germin-), a sprout, shoot, bud.
Der. germin-al, germin-ate, germin-at-ion, from the stem germin-;
from the same source, german, q.v., germane. Doublet, germen,
Macbeth, iv. 1. 59.
GERMAN, GERMANE, akin. (F.—L.) Nearly obsolete,
except in quotations and in the phrase cousins-german or cousins-
germans, i.e. cousins having the same grandfather. In Shak. Wint.
Ta. iv. 4. 802 ; Timon, iv. 3.344; Hamlet, ν. 2. 165. Formerly also
spelt germain, as in Cotgrave, and orig. derived rather from the French
than Latin. The phrase ‘cosins germains’ (with the pl. adj. in s
according to the F. idiom) is in Chaucer, Tale of Melibeus, C. T.
Group B, 2558.—OF. germain, “ germaine, come of the same stock ;’
Cot.=<L. germanus, fully akin, said of brothers and sisters having the
same parents. Allied to Germ,
GERMANDER, a plant. (F.—Late L.—Gk.) In Bacon,
Essay 46 (Of Gardens). ‘ Germandre, herbe, germandré ;’ Palsgrave.
=F. germandrée, germander (Cotgrave); OF. gemandree (Supp. to
Godefroy, s.v. germandree) ; cf. G. gamander.— Late L. gamandria,
a popular alteration of Late Gk. yapavipud.—Gk. χαμαίδρυς, ger-
mander, lit. ‘ground-tree,’ or low-growing tree.— Gk. χαμαί, on the
ground ; dpus, tree. See Chameleon and Tree.
GERMEN, GERMINAL, GERMINATE;; see Germ.
GERUND, a part of a Latin verb, (L.) ‘The derivative gerun-
dive, misprinted gerundine, is used as a coined word in Beaum. and
Fletcher, Wit at Several Weapons, i. 2 (speech of Wittypate).—L.
gerundium, a gerund.—L. geruxdum, that which is to be done or
carried on; an adj. formed from gerere, to carry on, perform; pp.
ges-tus. (4/GES.) Der. gerund-i-al (from gerundi-um). See also
below.
GESTATION, the carrying of young in the womb. (F.—L.)
It occurs in the Index to Holland’s tr. of Pliny. MF. gestation, ‘a
bearing, or carrying ;’ Cot.=L. acc. gestatidnem, from nom. gestitio,
a carrying.—L. gesta-re, to carry; frequentative form of gerere, to
carry. See above. Der. gestat-or-y.
GESTICULATH, to make gestures. (L.) ‘Or what their
servile apes gesticulate;’ Ben Jonson, Poetaster, To the Reader (an
Epilogue).—L. gesticulatus, pp. of gesticulari, to make mimic ges-
tures. — L. gesticulus, a mimic gesture; formed, with suffixes -cu- and
-l-, from gesti- = gestu-, for gestus, a gesture. — L. gestus, pp. of gerere,
GIANT
to carry; reflexively, to behave. See Gerund. Der. gesticulat-ion,
gesticulat-or, gesticulal-or-y.
GESTURE, a movement of the body. (L-) In Shak. Temp. iii.
3. 37. ME. gesture, Sir Cleges (Weber), 1. 483.—Late L. gestira,a
mode of action,.—L. gest-us, pp. of gerere, to carry; reflexively, to
behave oneself. See Gerund and Gesticulate.
GET, to seize, obtain, acquire. (Scand.) ME. geren, pt. t. gat, pp.
geten; Chaucer, C. T. 5792, 293 (Ὁ 210, A 291).—Icel. gefa, pt. t.
gat, pp. getinn.4-AS.-getan, -gietan, only in the compounds on-gitan,
and-gitan, for-gitan, be-gitan, &c. ; Grein, il. 346, 1. 511 ; Goth. -gitan,
in the comp. bi-gitan, to find, obtain. -L. -hendere (base hed), in the
comp. prehendere, to seize; Gk. χανδάνειν (base xad), to seize; Russ.
gad-ate, to conjecture. (4¢/GHwED.) Brugmann, i. § 632. Der.
gett-er, gett-ing ; be-get, for-get; from the same root are ap-pre-hend,
com-pre-hend, re-pre-hend, &c.; also apprise, comprise, enterprise, sur-
prise; impregnable, &c.
GEWGAW, a plaything, specious trifle. (Scand.?) “ Gewgaws
and gilded puppets;’ Beaum. and Fletcher, Four Plays in One,
Triumph of Time, sc. 1. Spelt gewgaudes, id. Woman’s Prize, i. 4
(Rowland). Also gugawes, Holinshed, Descr. of Ireland, c. 4. ‘He
counteth them for gygawis;’ Skelton, Why Come Ye Nat to Court,
1060. Cotgrave explains babiole as ‘a trifle, whimwham, gugaw, or
small toy ;” and fariboles as ‘trifles, nifles, flim-flams, why-whaws,
idle discourses.’ The latter form why-whaw is a mere imitation of
the older gugaw. [The form gugaw seems to answer to ME, giuegoue
(=givegove?); ‘worldes weole, ant wunne, ant wurschipe, ant oder
swuche giuvegouen’ =the world’s wealth and joy and worship, and
other such gewgaws; Ancren Riwle, p. 196; but the pronunciation
of this ME. word is uncertain; and it cannot be safely identified with
gewgaw.| B. One sense of gewgaw is a Jew’sharp; cf. Walloon gawe,
a Jew’s harp (Grandgagnage). Cf. Swed. dial. guva, to blow ; Norw.
guva, gyva (pt. t. gauv), to reek; gufs,a puff. The ME. gwgawe
(Prompt. Parv., p. 168) means a flute or pipe. See Notes on E.
Etym., p. 116.
GEYSIR, a hot spring in Iceland. (Icelandic.) ‘ Geysir, the name
of a famous hot spring in Iceland. . . . The word geysir =‘‘ a gusher,”’
must be old, as the inflexive -ir is hardly used but in obsolete
words ;’ Cleasby and Vigfusson. —Icel. geysa, to gush ; formed (with
mutation of au to ey) from gaus, as seen in the pt. t. of gjosa, to gush ;
see Gush.
GHASTLY, terrible. (E.) The ἃ has been inserted, for no very
good reason. ΜΕ. gastly; ‘gastly for to see ;’ Chaucer, C, T. 1986
(A 1984). Formed, with suffix -ly, from the ME. gasten, AS. g@s/an,
to terrify. Allied to Goth. us-gats-jan, to terrify, and us-gers-nan, to
be astonished. See further under Aghast. Not to be confused
with ghostly, q.v. Der. ghastli-ness ; cf. also gasted, K. Lear, ii. 1.
573 gastness, Oth. v. τ. 106.
GHAUT, a landing-place, quay, way down to a river, mountain-
pass. (Hind.) For quotations, see Yule.—Hind. ghat; Bengali
ghat (H. H. Wilson ; Forbes, 1848, p. 450).
GHAZAL, an Oriental lyric poem. (Arab.) Spelt gaze/ in T.
Moore; Twopenny Postbag, vi. 69.—Arab. ghazal, an ode; Rich.
Dict. p. 1050.
GHEE, clarified butter. (Hind.—Skt.) See Yule. — Hind. ghi.=
Skt. ghyta, clarified butter; orig. pp. of ghy, to sprinkle. (H. H.
Wilson.)
GHERKIVN, a small cucumber. (Du.—Slav.-Low L.—Gk.—
Pers.) The his inserted to keep the ghard. ‘ Gherkins or Guerkins,
asort of pickled cucumbers ;’ Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715. Spelt gherkin
in Skinner, ed. 1671. Shortened from *agherkin.— Du. agurkje,
a gherkin; cf.‘ Gherkins, agurkes’ in Sewel's Eng.-Du. Dict. ed. 1754.
B. Note that the Du. dimin. suffix -ken was formerly used (as ex-
plained by Ten Kate) where the dimin. suffix -je now occurs ; so that
agurkje stands for an older form *agurkken, whence the ΕἸ. gherkin
must have been borrowed, with the loss merely of initial a. Koolman
gives augurken as the EFriesic form. Ὑ. From Polish ogurek, Bohem.
okurka. = Low L, angiirius, a water-melon (MItal. anguria, a cucum-
ber, Florio). — Late Gk. ἀγγούριον, a water-melon. = Pers. angarah, a
melon, a cucumber; Rich. Dict. p. 194.
GHOST, a spirit. (E.) The ἃ has been insertea. ME. goost,
gost; Chaucer, C. T. 2770 (A 2768). AS. gast, a spirit; Grein, i.
371.4Du.geest; G. geist, aspirit. Teut.type*gaistoz. Of uncertain
origin; but apparently allied to Icel. geis-a, to rage (like fire), and to
Goth, us-gais-jan, to terrify. Perhapsalsoto ghastly. See Ghastly.
Cf. Skt. keda-s, anger, wrath of the gods (Macdonell) Brugmann, i.
§ 785 (c). Der. ghost-ly, ghost-li-ness.
GHOUL, a kind of demon. (Arab.) Pron. gool, to rime with
cool.= Pers. ghal, an imaginary sylvan demon; supposed to devour
men and animals; Arab. ghuwal (the same). — Arab. ghawl, attacking
suddenly and unexpectedly ; Rich. Pers. Dict. p. 1062. See Yule.
GIANT, a man of great size. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. giant, more
i
Ϊ
GIAOUR
frequently geant, geaunt ; Chaucer, C. T. 13738 (B 1997); King
Alisaunder, 3465.—OF. geant, ‘a giant;’ Cot.—L. acc. gigantem,
from nom. gigas, a giant.—Gk. γίγας, a giant (stem γιγαντ-).
B. Sometimes explained from Gk. γῆ, the earth, as if the word meant
‘earth-born.’ Der. gigant-ic, q.v.; giant-ess.
GIAOUR, an infidel. (Ital.—Pers.) ‘In Dr. Clarke’s Travels,
this word, which means infidel, is always written djour. Lord Byron
adopted the Ital. spelling usual among the Franks of the Levant ;’
note 14 to Lord Byron’s poem of The Giaour. = Pers. ga@wr, an infidel ;
Rich. Dict. p. 1227. Avvariant of Pers. gabr, a Gueber; see Gueber.
GIBBERISH, nonsensical talk. (E.) Holinshed speaks of
‘ gibberishing Irish ;’ Descr. of Ireland, c. 1. ‘ All kinds of gibb’rish
he had learnt to know;’” Drayton, The Mooncalf, 1. 913. Cotgrave
has: ‘ Bagois, gibridge, strange talke. The hard g seems to separate
it from the old verb gibber, to gabble; Hamlet, i. 1. 116; which is
allied to jabber and gabble. But the g in gibber may have been some-
times hard, as in gibble-gabble (N. E.1).). If so, the derivation is from
gib-, variant of gab-, an imitative utterance; see Gabble. B. Johnson’s
derivation, from Gebir, an alchemist of the 8th cent., is unlikely, as the
word is not spelt gebirish.
GIBBET, a gallows. (F.) ME. gebet, gibet, Chaucer, Ho. of
Fame, i. 106; ‘hongen on a gibet;’ Ancren Riwle, p. 116.—OF.
gibbet, ‘a gibbet;’ Cot. (mod. F, gibet), B. Of unknown origin;
Littré suggests a comparison with OF. gibet, a large stick (oquefort) ;
apparently a dimin. of OF. gibbe, a sort of arm, an implement for
stirring the earth and rooting up plants, apparently a hoe (Roquefort).
Perhaps Scand. ; cf. Swed. dial. gippa, to jerk up, Norw. gippa, gjeppa,
to jerk up. This form gippa seems to be imitated from Swed. vippa,
to see-saw, to tilt up; cf. MDu. wippe, ‘a gibbit’ (Hexham), Swed.
vipp-galge, a gibbet.
GIBBON, a kind of ape. (F.) Cf. F. gibbon, in Buffon.
GIBBOSE, swelling. (L.) The L. form of the word below.
GIBBOUS, humped, swelling. (¥.—L.) ‘Its round and gibbous
back;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 26. § 5. The suffix
-ous is for Εἰ. -eux, by analogy with other words in which -ous
represents OF, -ous (later -eux).—F. gibbeux, ‘hulch, bunched, much
swelling ;’ Cot.=—L. gibbdsus, hunched. Formed, with suffix -dsus,
from L. gibbus, a hump, hunch; cf. gibbus, bent; gibber, a hump.
Der. gibbous-ness,
GIBB, to mock, taunt. (E.) ‘And common courtiers love to gybe
and fleare ;’? Spenser, Mother Hubberd’s Tale, 714. Of imitative
origin; cf. EFries. gibeln, to mock; Du. gtjbelen, to sneer. Note
also Swed. dial. gipa, to gape, also, to talk rashly and foolishly
(Rietz) ; Icel. geipa, to talk nonsense; Icel. geip, idle talk; Norw.
geipa, to make grimaces. @ Also spelt jibe. Der. gibe, sb.
GIBLETS, the various paits of a fowl that are removed before
cooking. (F.) ‘And set the hare’s head against the goose gyblets ;”
Harrington’s tr. of Orlando Furioso, b. xlii. st. 136 (R.); the date
of the Ist edition is 1591. ‘ May feed on giblet-pie;’ Dryden, tr. of
Persius, vi. 172. ‘Sliced beef, giblets, and pettitoes;’ Beaum. and
Fletcher, Woman-hater, i. 2. ME. gibelet ; see Wright’s Vocab.
1. 170. —OF, gibelet, which, according to Littré, is the old form of F.
gibelotte, stewed rabbit. Of unknown origin; not necessarily related
to F. gibier, game.
GIDDY, unsteady, dizzy. (E.) ME. gidi, gydi; Rob. of Glouc.
p- 68; 1. 1542. Late AS. gidig, frantic; in Napier’s Glosses; for
earlier *gydig, as shown by the hard g. Teut. type *gudigoz, i.e.
possessed by a god (like Gk. év@cos).—Teut. type *gudom, a god.
See God. Der. giddi-ly, giddi-ness,
GIER-EAGLE, a kind of eagle. (Du. and F.) Τὴ Levit. xi. 18.
The first syllable is Dutch, from Du. gier, a vulture; cognate with
G. geier, MHG. gir, a vulture. Allied to G. gier-ig, greedy, and to
E. Yearn, See Gyrfaleon. The word eagle is F. See Eagle.
GIFT, a thing given, present. (E.) ME. gift, commonly 3ift, 3eft ;
Rob. of Glouc. p. 122, 1. 2600; P. Plowman, B. iii. 99. [The
word is perhaps rather Scand. than E.] AS. gift, gy/t, rare in the
sing., but common in the pl. (when it often has the sense of ‘ nuptials,’
| With reference to the marriage dowry). In Bosworth’s Dict. is given
| a passage from the Laws of Ine, no. 31, in which the word gy/t
| appears as a fem. sing., with the sense of ‘dowry;’ see Thorpe’s
| Ancient Laws, i. 122, sect. 31. Or from Icel. gift, gipt (pron. gift),
ἃ gift. + Du. gift, a gift, present ; Goth. -gibts, -gifts, only in comp.
| fragibts, fragifts, promise, gift, espousal; G. -gift, in comp. mitgift,
| adowry, β. All from the corresponding verb, with the suffix -t, for
| 4-3 Teut. type *giftiz, fem. See Give. Der. gift-ed; heaven-
gifted, Milton, Samson Agon. 36.
_ GIG, a light carriage, a light boat. (Scand.) The orig. idea is
| that of anything that easily whirls or twirls about. In Shak. gig
| Means a boy’s top; L. L. L. iv. 3. 167; v. 1. 70, 73. Cf. whirligig.
, [In Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, iii. 852, we have: ‘ This hous was also ful
| of gigges;’ where the sense is uncertain; it may be ‘full of whirling
|
|
GIMBALS 239
things ;” since we find ‘ful . . of other werkinges’=full of other
movements, immediately below.] B. The hard g shows it to be of
Scand. origin, as distinguished from jig, the French form. Cf. Norw.
giga, to totter, shake about; gigra, gigla, to shake about (Ross); the
latter is the prov. E. giggle, to shake about, be unsteady; E. D. D.
Also Norw. geiga, to swing one’s arms about (Ross). See Jig.
GIGANTIC, giant-like. (L.—Gk.) In Milton, P. L. xi. 659;
Sams. Agon. 1249. A coined word, from the decl. stem gigani- of
L. gigas, a giant; see Giant.
GIGGLE, to laugh lightly, titter. (E.) ‘Giggle, to laugh out,
laugh wantonly ;’ Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715. ‘A set of gigglers;’
Spectator, no. 158. ‘Some gygy/l and lawgh;’ Barclay, Ship of
Fools, i. 63. An attenuated form of ME. gagelen, ‘to gaggle,’ or
make a noise like a goose. ‘Gagelin, or cryyn as gees, clingo;”
Prompt. Parv. p. 184. Cf. Icel. gagl, a goose; Ebries. gicheln,
Low G. giggeln (Danneil), G. kichern, to giggle. A frequentative
form. from animitative root. SeeCackle. Der. giggle, sb., giggl-er.
GIGLET, GIGLOT, a wanton woman. (Scand. ; with Εἰ, suffix.)
In Shak. Meas. for Meas. v. 352; 1 Hen. VI, iv. 7. 41. Earlier, in
Prompt. Parv. p. 194; and see the note. Cf. giglotrye, giddiness ;
How the Good Wife taught her Daughter, 1. 159 (in Barbour’s Bruce,
ed, Skeat). A dimin., with suffix -et or -ot, from an older giggle or
gigle. Cotgrave has: " Gadrouillette, a minx, gig/e, flirt, callet, gixie.’
Here again, gig-/e and gixie (=gig-sy) are connected with ME. gigge,
a flighty girl, Plowman’s Tale, 759 (cf. Ancren Riwle, p. 204;
N.E.D.). Prob. from the base gig, applied to rapid motion, and
thence to lightness of behaviour. See Gig, Giggle.
GILD, to overlay with gold. (E.) ME. gilden, Wyclif, Exod.
xxvi. 29. AS. gyldan; only in the pp. gegyld, A. S. Psalter, ed.
Spelman, xliv. 11 (xly. 9); and in comp. be-gyldan, ofer-gyldan.
Teut. type *gulthjan-. The y is the usual substitution, by vowel-
change, for an original u, which appears in the Goth. gulth, gold.
Cf. Icel. gylla (for gylda), to gild. See Gold. Der. gilt, contracted
form of gild-ed; gild-er, gild-ing.
GILL (1), an organ of respiration in fishes. (Scand.) “ Gylle of
a fische, branchia;” Prompt. Parv. Spelt gz/e, Wyclif, Tobit, vi. 4.
Allied to Dan. gi@lle, a gill; Swed. gal; MDan. galle, MSwed. gel.
Cf. Gk. χεῖλος, AZolic χέλλος, a lip. *
GILL (2), a ravine, yawning chasm. (Scand.) Also spelt ghyll;
common in place-names, as Dungeon Ghyll. —Icel. gil, a deep narrow
glen with a stream at the bottom; Norw. gil; and cf. Icel. geil, a
ravine; Swed. dial. gilja, a defile.
GILL (3), with g soft; a quarter of a pint. (F.—L.?) ΜΕ, gille,
gylle; P. Plowman, B. v. 346 (where it is written Jille =jille).—OF.
gelle, a sort of measure for wine; Roquefort. Cf. Low L. gillo, a
wine-vessel ; gella, a wine-vessel, wine-measure; Ducange. Godefroy
equates OF. gille, gelle with OF. gerle, a jar; cf. Ital. gerla,a basket.
Possibly from Late L. gerula, a basket carried on the back, also, a
measure of wine (Ducange), From L. gerere, to carry (Korting,
§ 4233).
GILL (4), with g soft; a woman’s name; ground-ivy. (F.—L.)
The name Gill is short for Gillian, which is in Shak. Com. Errors,
iii. 1. 31. And Gillian is from Εἰ, Juliane, from L. Iuliana, This
personal fem. name is formed from L. Julius; see July. B. The
ground-ivy was hence called Gill-creep-by-the-ground (Halliwell) ; or
briefly Gill. Hence also Gill-ale, the herb ale-hoof (Hall.); Gill-
burnt-tail, an ignis fatuus; Gill-hooter, an owl; Gill-flirt, a wanton
pulser ed, the same, Romeo, ii. 4. 162. St. Juliana’s day is
Feb. 16.
GILLIE, a boy, page, menial. (C.) Used by Sir W. Scott; but
Spenser also speaks of ‘ the Irish horse-boyes or cwilles, as they call
them ;’ View of the State of Ireland, Globe ed., p. 641, col. 2.— Gael.
gille, giolla, Irish giolla, a boy, lad, youth, man-servant, lacquey ;
Olrish gilla, a servant.
GILLYFLOWER, a kind of flower, a carnation, a stock. (F. —
L.—Gk.) Spelt gelliflowres in Spenser, Shep. Kal. April, 137.
Spelt gilloflower by Cotgrave. By the common change of r to /,
gilloflower stands for giroflower, spelt gerafloure in The Kingis Quair,
st. 190; where the ending flower is a mere E. corruption, like the fish
in crayfish, q. v.-—MF. giroflée, ‘a gilloflower; and most properly,
the clove gilloflower;” Cot. B. Here we have clove-gilloflower as
the full form of the name, which is Chaucer's clowe gilofre, C. Τὶ 13692
(B 1952); thus confirming the above derivation. Ὑ. From F. οἷοι de
girofle, where clou is from L. clauus, a nail (see Clove); and girofle
is from Late L. caryophyllum, a Latinised form of Gk. καρυόφυλλον,
strictly ‘nut-leaf,’ a clove-tree. (Hence the name means ‘nut-leaf,’
or ‘nut-leaved clove.’)=Gk. xapvo-, for κάρυον, a nut; and φύλλον,
a leaf (=L. folium, whence E. foli-age).
GIMBALS, a contrivance for suspending a ship’s compass so as
to keep it always horizontal. (F.—L.) The contrivance is one which
admits of a double movement. The name gimbals is formed (with
240 GIMLET, GIMBLET
excrescent δ) from the older word gimmails, also called a gemmow or
gemmow-ring. See also gimbol and gimmal in Halliwell; and the
remarks in Nares. ‘Gemmow, or Gemmow-ring, a double ring, with
two or more links;’ Kersey’s Dict.,ed.1715. In Shak. ‘a gimmal bit’
isa horse’s bit made with linked rings; Hen. V, iv. 2. 49. ‘Item, . .
pro haspis, gemewis, et clauis;’ Earl of Derby’s Expeditions, p. 221,
1. 29 (1392). The forms gemmow and gimmal correspond to MF.
gemeau and OF. gemel, a twin. =—L. gemellus, a twin; a dimin. form
from L. geminus, double. See Gemini.
GIMLET, GIMBLET, a tool for boring holes. (F.—Teut.)
‘ And see there the gimblets, how they make their entry ;’ Ben Jonson,
The Devil is an Ass, i. 1. ME. gymlot, Lydgate, Assembly of Gods,
1. 357. —MF. gimbelet, ‘a gimlet or piercer;’ Cot.=mod. F. gibelet (by
loss of m). Formerly (better) spelt guimbelet (Godefroy) ; Norm. dial.
guimblet, vimblet (Moisy). Spelt guinbelet in 1412 (Godefroy). A
dimin. of wimbie, as shown by the Norm. dial. vimbl-et. See Wimble.
And cf. Icel. vindla, to wind up, Norw. vindel, a gimlet (Ross).
GIMMAL, GIMMAL-RING; see Gimbals.
GIMP (with hard g), a kind of trimming, made with twisted silk,
wool, or cotton. (F.—Teut.) ‘My guimp petticoat;’? Dryden,
Marriage-a-la-Mode, iil. 1. ‘Gimp, a sort of mohair thread covered
with the same, or a twist for several works formerly in use ;’ Bailey’s
Dict., vol. ii. ed. 1731. [It seems to have been influenced by confusion
with F. guimpe, a wimple, OF. guimple, whence OF. guimpler, to
adorn, attire (Godefroy), and MF. guimpier,a maker of wimples. See
Wimple.] Cf. also Low G. gimpen, gimp (Berghaus). In sense it
answers to the F. gu/pure,a thread of silk lace. The F. guipure is of
Teutonic origin, from the base *wip-, to twist or bind round, appearing
in Goth. weipan, to crown. See Guipure.
GIN (1), to begin. (E.; pron. with g hard.) Obsolete ; or only
used as a supposed contraction of begin, though really the orig. word
whence begin isformed. It need not be denoted by’gin ; the apostrophe
should be omitted. Common in Shak. Macb. i. 2. 25, &c. ME. ginnen;
Chaucer, C. T. 3020 (A 3018). AS, -ginnan, to begin; only used in
the compounds on-ginnan, to begin, Matt. iv. 7; and be-ginnan, to
begin; so that perhaps ME. ginnen is for a-ginnen. + Du. be-ginnen; the
simple ginnen being unused; OHG. bi-ginnan; G. be-ginnen; Goth.
-ginnan, only in the comp. du-ginnan, to begin. See Brugmann, i.
§ 376. Der. be-gin.
GIN (2), a trap, snare. (F.—L.) ME. gin; ‘uele ginnes hep pe
dyeuel uor to nime pet uolk ’ = many snares hath the devil for to catch
the people; Ayenbite of Inwyt, ed. Morris, p. 54. (Pron. jin.) Also
in a far wider sense, and certainly a contraction of F. engin< L.
ingenium, a contrivance or piece of ingenuity. “Thus, in describing the
mechanism by which the horse of brass (in the Squieres Tale) was
moved, we are told that ‘therein lyth th’effect of al the gin’ = therein
is the pith of all the contrivance; C. T. 10636 (F 322). See Engine.
47 Particularly note the use of the word in P. Plowman, B. xviii. 250;
‘For gyzas the geaunt with a gynne engyned’=for Gigas the giant
contrived by a contrivance.
GIN (3), akind of spirit. (F.—L.) Formerly called geneva, whence
gin was formed by contraction. Pope has gin-shops ; Dunciad, iii. 148.
* Geneva, a kind of strong water;’ Kersey’s Dict.ed.1715. So called
by confusion with the town in Switzerland of that name; but really
a corruption. MF. genevre, ‘juniper ;’ Cot. [It is well known that
gin is flavoured with berries of the juniper.]—L. ianiperum, acc. of
tuniperus, a juniper. See Juniper.
GINGER, the root of a certain plant. (F.—L.—Gk.—Skt. — Malay-
alam.) So called in Skt. (but by a popular etymology) because
shaped like a horn ; the resemblance to a deer’s antler is striking. In
early use. ME. ginger; whence ginger-bred (ginger-bread) ; Chaucer,
C. T. 13783 (B 2044). An older form gingiuere (=gingivere) occurs
in the Ancren Riwle, p. 370.—OF. gengibre, gingibre (Supp. to
Godefroy, s.v. gingembre) ; Norm. dial. gengivre (Moisy, ed. 1895) ;
mod. F. gingembre.—Late L. gingiber; L. zingiber, ginger.—Gk.
(eyyiBeps, ginger. — Skt. ¢r#gavera, ginger. Skt. ¢r#ga-,a horn; and
vera», body (i.e. shape); adapted from Malayalam inchi-ver, green
ginger; from inchi,a root (Yule). Der. ginger-bread.
GiINGERLY, with soft steps. (F.—L.) ‘Go gingerly;’ Skelton,
Garl. of Laurell, 1. 1203; see Dyce’s note. Palsgrave has: ‘ Gyngerly,
a pas menu; as, allez a pas menu, ma fille. Prob. formed, with E. suffix
-ly, from OF. gensor, genzor, properly a comparative from OF. gent,
but also itself used as a positive, with the sense ‘ pretty, delicate.’ =
OF. gent, gentle, orig. well-born.—Folk-L. gentum, for L. genitum,
acc. of genitus, born, pp. of gignere, to beget. See Gentle. (So in
N. E.D.;>cf. gent in Hatzfeld.)
,GINGHAM, a kind of cotton cloth. (F.— Malay.) Spelt gingham
int615(Yule).—F. guingan. — Malay ginggang,a striped or checkered
cotton. (C. P. Ὁ. Scott.)
GINGLE, another spelling of Jingle, q. v.
‘GIPSY, the same as Gypsy, 4. v.
GIVE
GIRAFFE, the camelopard, an African quadruped with long
neck and legs. (F.—Span.—Arab.) ‘ Giraffa, an Asian beast, the
same with Camelopardus;’ Kersey’s Dict.,ed.1715. First in 1594,
spelt gyraffa; spelt giraffe in 1605. [Here giraffa=Span. girafa. We
now use the F. form.|=MF. giraffe (F. girafe).—Span. girafa.—
Arab. zaraf or zarafa(t),a camelopard; Rich. Dict. p. 772, col. 2. See
Dozy, who gives the forms as zarafa, zorafa, and notes that it is also
called jorafa.
GIRD (1), to enclose, bind round, surround, clothe. (E.) ME.
gurden, girden, gerden; the pp. girt is in Chaucer, C. T. 331 (A 329).
AS. gyrdan, to gird, surround; Grein, i. 536.4-Du. gorden; Icel.
gyrda, to gird; Dan. gjorde; Swed. gjorda; G. giirten; OSax. gurdian.
8. These are weak verbs, of which the Teut. type is *gurdjan-; from
* gurd-, weak grade of Teut. *gerdan- (pt. τ. * gard) to enclose; as in
Goth. bi-gairdan, to begird. Der. gird-er; gird-le, q.v.; girth, q.v.
From the same root we also have garden, yard ; and even horticulture,
cohort, court. See Yard (1).
GIRD (2), to jest at, jibe. (E.) A peculiar use of ME. girden,
gurden, to strike, cut. ‘ Gurdeth of Gyles hed,’ cut off Guile’s head;
P. Plowman, B. ii. 201. Of obscure origin. Hence, /o gird at=to
strike at, jest at; a gird is a cut, sarcasm; Tam. Shrew, v. 2. 58.
4 Not from AS. gerd, gyrd, a rod, as that became E. yard (2);
a connexion with M Du. geerde,a rod (Hexham) is possible ; but not
very probable.
GIRDLE, a band for the waist. (E.) ME. girdel, gerdel; Chaucer,
C. T. 360 (A 358). AS. gyrdel, a girdle; Mark, i. 6.4-Du. gordel ;
Icel. gyrdill; Swed. gérdel; G. giirtel. B. From the AS. gyrdan, to
gird, with suffix -el; see Gird (1). Allied to girth.
GIRL, a female child, young woman. (E.) ME. gerle, girle, gyrle,
formerly used of either sex, and signifying either a boy or girl. In
Chaucer, C. T. 3767 (A 3769) gerl is a young woman; but in C. T.
666 (A 664), the pl. gir/es means young people of both sexes. In Will.
of Palerne, 816, and King Alisaunder, 2802, it means ‘ young women ;’
in P. Plowman, B. i. 33, it means ‘boys;’ cf. B. x. 175. Answering
toan AS. form *gyr-el-, Teut. *gur-wil-,a dimin. form from Teut. base
*eur-. Cf. NFries. gor, a girl; Pomeran. goer, a child; O. Low ἃ.
gor, a child; see Bremen Worterbuch, ii. 528. Cf. Swiss gurre,
gurrli, a depreciatory term for a girl; Sanders, G. Dict. i. 609, 641 ;
also Norw. gorre, a small child (Aasen); Swed. dial. garra, gurre
(the same). Root uncertain. Der. girl-ish, girl-ish-ly, girl-ish-ness,
girl-hood.
°GIRON, GYROVN, in heraldry, an eighth part ofa shield. (F.—
OHG.) It is made by drawing a diagonal line from the top (dexter)
corner to the centre, and from the centre horizontally to the same side ;
a right-angled triangle. Spelt gyron, geron in Blount (1681).—MF,
gyron, guyron, ‘a tearme of blasonrie;’ Cot.-MHG, gére, OHG.
géro, G. gehre, a gusset, a gore. OHG. gér, a spear; see Gore (2).
GIRTH, the measure round the waist; the bellyband of a saddle.
(Seand.) ME. gerth. ‘His gerth and his stiropes also;’ Richard
Coer de Lion, 5733; and see Prompt. Parv. This is a Scand. form,
=Icel. gjérd, a girdle, girth; gerd, girth round the waist; Swed.
gjord; Dan. giord, a girth. + Goth. gairda, a girdle, Mark,i.6. Teut,
type *gerda, f. From the Teut. base *gerd-, to enclose; see Gird,
Der. girth, verb; also written girt. Allied to girdle. ᾿
GIST, the main point or pith of a matter. (F.—L.) Notin Todd’s
Johnson. A legal term (see Blackstone, Comment. iv. 333) denoting
the real ground of an indictment, or the point wherein the action lies,
“ΟἿ. gist (F. git), it lies. Cf. the old F. proverb, given by Cotgrave,
s.v.lievre. ‘Ie scay bien ou gist le lievre, I know well which 1s the
very point, or knot of the matter,’ lit. I know well where the hare 1165.
This gist is the mod. F. git, and similarly we have, in modern French,
the phrase ‘tout git en cela,’ the whole turns upon that; and again,
‘c'est la que g#t le lievre,’ there lies the difficulty, lit. that’s where
the hare lies; Hamilton’s F. Dict. B. From the vb. gésir, to lie, of
which the 3 pers. pres. was gist (mod. F. git).—L. iacére, to lie; an
intransitive verb allied to iacere, to throw. See Jet (1).
GITTERN, a kind of guitar. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. gitern (with
one δὲ; Chaucer, C. T. 12400 (C 466); P. Plowman, Β. xiii. 233.—
OF, guiterne,a guitar (Godefroy). A variant of cittern or cithern; see
Cithern and Guitar. :
GIVE, to bestow, impart, deliver over. (E.) ME. yeuen, yiuen,
jeuen, piven (with uz for v); Chaucer, C. T. 232. In old Southern and
Midland English, the g almost always appears as y (often written 3);
the modern hard sound of the g seems to be due to the influence of
Northern English. ‘ Gifand and takand woundis wyd.;’ Barbour’s
Bruce, xiii. 160. The pt. t. is yaf or jaf, Northern gaf, changing to
yeuen or jeuen in the pl. number; pp. yiuen, jiuen, Joven, youen, rarely
λέγει, gifen. AS. giefan, geofan, giefan, gifan, Grein, i. 505; pt. t. ἧς
geaf, pl. we gedfon, pp. gifen. + Du. geven; Icel. gefa; Dan. give;
Swed. gifva; Goth. giban; G. geben. Teut. type *geban-, pt. t. *gab,
Cf. Olvish geb-im, I give, I take. Der. giv-er; also gif-t; q.v-. +,
GIZZARD
GIZZARD,a second stomach in birds. (F.—L.) Spelt gisard in
Minsheu. Thed is excrescent. ME. giser. ‘The fowl that highte
voltor that eteth the stomak or the giser of Tityus’=the bird that is
named the vulture, that eats the stomach or gizzard of Tityus;
Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. iii. met. 12. 1. 28.—OF. gezier, jugier,
juisier (mod, F. gésier; Norm. dial. gister, gigier ; Picard gigier) ; see
Littré, who quotes a parallel passage from Le Roman de la Rose,
19506, concerning ‘li juisier Ticius’ =the gizzard of Tityus.—L. gigé-
rium, only used in the pl. gigéria, the cooked entrails of poultry.
GLABROUS, smooth. (L.) Rare. ‘French elm, whose leaves
are thicker, and more florid, glabrous, and smooth ;’ Evelyn, Sylva,
1. iv. § 1 (Todd’s Johnson). Coined, by adding the suffix -ous, from
L. glabr-, base of glaber, smooth. Idg. stem *gladh-ro-; see Glad.
Brugmann, i. § 589.
GLACIAL, icy, frozen. (F.—L.) ‘Glacial, freezing, cold ;’
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. ‘White and glacious bodies;’ Sir T.
Browne, Vulg. Errors, bk. ii. c. 1. § 3.—F. glacial, ‘icy ;’ Cot.—L.
glacidlis, icy.—L. glaciés, ice. Cf. L. gedu, cold (Bréal) ; see Gelid.
Der. From same source, glacier, q.v.; glacis, ιν.
GLACIER, an ice-slope or field of ice on a mountain-side.
(F.—L.) First in 1744. ‘The glacier’s cold and restless mass;’
byron, Manfred, i. 1. 68. A Savoy word.—F. glacier, as in ‘les
glaciers de Savoie;’ Littré.—F. glace, ice. Folk-L. glacia, for L.
glaciés, ice. See above.
GLACIS, a smooth slope, in fortification. (F.—L.) In Kersey’s
Dict., ed. 1715.—F. glacis, ‘a place made slippery, . . . a sloping bank
or causey;’ Cot.—MF. glacer, ‘to freeze, harden, cover with ice;’
id. =F. glace, ice. See above.
GLAD, pleased, cheerful, happy. (E.) ME. glad, Chaucer, C. T.
310 (A 308); also gled, Ancren Kiwle, p. 282. AS. gled, shining,
bright, cheerful, glad; Grein, i. 512.4 Du. glad, bright, smooth,
sleek; Icel. gladr, bright, glad; Dan. glad, Swed. glad, joyous; G.
glatt, smooth, even, polished. Cf. Russ. g/adkti, even, smooth, polished,
spruce; L. glaber, smooth. See Glabrous. Der. glad-ly, glad-ness ;
also gladsome = ME. gladsum, Wyclif, Psalm ciii. 15, Chaucer, C. T.
14784 (B 39608); glad-some-ly, glad-some-ness ; also gladd-en, in which
the suffix -ex is modern and due to analogy; cf. ‘ gladeth himself’ =
gladdens himself, Chaucer, C. T. 10923 (F 609). And see glade.
GLADH, an open space in a wood. (Scand.) ‘Farre in the
forrest, by a hollow glade;’ Spenser, F. Q. vi. 4,13. ‘Gladden, a
glade;’ A Tour to the Caves (E. Yorksh., 1781). 4 Gladden, a void
place,’ Yks.; Thoresby (1703); see E.D.D.; gladen, Wars of Alexan-
der, ed. Skeat, 131,and Glossary. Of Scand. origin; closely connected
with Icel. gladr, bright, shining (see Glad), the orig. sense being an
opening for light, a bright track, hence an open track in a wood
(Nares), or a passage cut through reeds and rushes, as in Two Noble
Kinsmen, ed. Skeat, iv. 1.64. Cf. Swed. dial. glad-yppen, completely
open, said of a lake from which the ice has all melted away (Rietz) ;
Swed. dial. glatt (=giladt), completely, as in glatt oppet, completely
open ; id.
GLADEN, GLADDEN, a plant, Iris pseudacorus. (L.) Spelt
gladon in Palsgrave; gladone in Prompt. Parv.; see Way’s note, and
Turner's Names of Herbes. AS. gledene; Cockayne’s Leechdoms,
| Gloss. to vol. ii, Altered from L. gladiolus, ‘a sword-lily ;’ Lewis
and Short. L. gladius, a sword; see Gladiator.
| GLADIATOR, aswordsman. (L.) ‘Two hundred gladiators ;’
| Dryden, tr. of Persius, vi. 115.—L. gladiator, a swordsman. = L.
᾿ gladius, a sword. See Glaive. Der. gladiator-i-al; also, from the
᾿ same source, gladi-ole, a plant like the lily, from L. gladi-ol-us, a small
| sword, dimin, of gladius. And see gladen.
GLADSOME, glad, cheerful; see Glad.
GLAITR, the white of an egg. (F.—L.) Little used now. ME.
| gleyre of an ey = white of an egg; Chaucer, C. T. 16274 (G 806) ; and
᾿ Prompt. Parv. = OF. glaire ; ‘1a glaire d’yn ceuf, the white of an egge ;’
| Cot. β. Here glaire is a later form of claire, as evidenced by related
_ words, esp. by Ital. chiara d’un ovo,‘ the white of an egge,’ Florio
| (where Ital. chi =L. cl, as usual) ; and by Span. clara de huevo, glair,
| white of an egg. =—L. clara, fem. of clarus, clear, bight; whence Late
| L. clara éui, the white of an egg (Ducange). See Clear, Clarify.
GLAIVE, a sword. (F.—L.) ME. gleiue (with u=v) ; Havelok,
1770; glayue, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, 1. 653 (or 654).—OF. glaive,
| ‘a gleave, or sword; also, a launce, or horseman’s staffe ;? Cot. —L.
| gladius, a sword; see Brachet. Contrary to the statement in
| N.E. D., the AF. giaive had the sense of ‘sword’ as early as in P. de
| Thaun, Bestiaire, 888 ; see my Notes on E. Etym., p. 119.
| GLAMOUR, gramarye, magic. (F.—L.—Gk.) Orig. Lowl.
Scotch ; spelt glamer (ab. 1700). Introduced into the literary lan-
;guage by Scott. ‘ Glamour, or deceptio visus ;’ Scott, Demonology,
‘letter iii. § 18. A corruption of grammar. See Gramarye.
GLANCE, a swift dart of light, a glimpse, hasty look; as a verb,
to glide off or from, to graze, to flash. (F.—L.) The sb. is from the
|
|
|
1
GLEEK 241
vb. Spenser has glaunce as averb: ‘ The glauncing sparkles through
her bever glared ;’ F. Q. ν. 6. 38. It occurs often in Shak., both as
vb. and sb. ; Two Gent.i. 1. 4; Mids. Nt. Dr. v.13. Apparently a
nasalised form (influenced by ME. glenten, to glance) of obs. ME.
glace, OF. glacier, to glide, slip, glance (Godefroy). —F. glace, ice.
= Folk-L. glacia, for L. glaciés; see Glacier. @ The ME. glenten
answers to the causal form of the str. vb. glinéa, still in use in Swed.
dial. (Rietz.) See Glint.
GLAND, a cell or fleshy organ in the body which secretes animal
fluid. (F.—L.) ‘Gland, a flesh-kernel;’ Kersey, ed. 1715.- ΜῈ.
glande, ‘a kernell, a fleshy substance filled with pores, and growing
between the flesh and skin ;’ Cot.; OF. glandre (Supp. to Godefroy,
s. v. glande).—L, glandula,a gland ; dimin. of glans (stem gland-), an
acorn. Coynate with Gk. Ba\-av-os,an acorn. Brugmann, i. § 665 (2).
Der. glandi-form, from L. glandi-, decl. stem of glans; glandi-fer-
ous (from L. -fer, bearing); gland-ule, from L. glandula (above),
whence glandul-ar, glandul-ous ; gland-ers, a disease of the glands
of horses, Taming of the Shrew, iil. 2. 51, from OF. glandre (above);
see Palsgrave, p. 183, l. 7.
G » to shine brightly, to stare with piercing sight. (E.)
ME. glaren. ‘ Swiche glaring eyen hadde he, as an hare ;’ Chaucer,
C. T. 686 (A 684). ‘ Hitis not al gold that glareth;’ id. House of
Fame, i. 272. ‘Thet gold thet is bricht and glareth;’ Kentish
Sermons, in An Old Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 27,1. 31. | Pro-
bably a true E. word; cf. AS. gler or glér, a pellucid substance,
amber (Bosworth, Leo).4-Low ἃ. glaren, to glow; WFlem. g/arien,
to glare, stare. Cf. also E. dial. glore, Norw. glora, to glare: Pro-
bably it is closely connected with Glass, q.v.. Der. glar-ing-ly,
glar-ing-ness.
GLASS, a well-known hard, brittle, transparent substance. (E.)
Perhaps named fromits transparency. ME. ρίας, Chaucer, C. T. 195.
AS. gles, glass; Grein,i. 513--4+-Du. glas; Dan. glar; MSwed. gler
(Ihre); Icel. gler; G. ρίας, OHG. clas. B. Perhaps from a Teut.
type *glazom, neuter ; and it may even be ultimately related to AS.
glowan, to glow. Der. glass-blow-er, glass-wort, glass-y, glass-i-ness ;
also glaze= ME. glasen, P. Plowman, B. iii. 49,61 ; whence glaz-ing,
glaz-t-er (=glaz-er, like bow-y-er, law-y-er =bow-er, law-er).
GLAUCOUS, grayish blue. (L.—Gk.) A botanical word ;. see
Bailey’s Dict., vol. ii. ed. 1731. First in1671 (Ray). Formed with
suffix -ous from L. glauc-us, blueish. — Gk. γλαυκός, gleaming, glanc-
ing, silvery, blueish; whence γλαύσσειν (=yAaveyew), to shine.
Allied to γελ-εῖν, to shine (Hesychius).
GLAZE, to furnish a window with glass. (E.) See Glass.
GLEAM, a beam of light, glow. (K.) ME. gleam, gleem, glem;
Havelok, 2122; Ancren Riwle, p.94. AS. gl#m, splendour, gleam,
brightness, Grein, i. 513; Leo. Cf. gliomu, glimu, brightness, orna-
ment; Grein, i. 515. Also OSax. glimo, brightness; ‘glitandi
glimo’= glittering splendour; Heliand, 3146; OHG. glimo, a glow-
worm. β. Teut. type *glaimiz, m.; from *glaim, 2nd. grade of
*eleim-, to shine. γ. Related words further appear in the Gk. χλι-
apés, warm, xAi-w, I become warm; (Prellwitz). See Glimmer,
Glitter. Der. gleam, vb., gleam-y.
GLEAN, to gather small quantities of corn after harvest. (F.)
ME. glenen, P. Plowman, C. ix. 67.—OF. glener, glaner, to glean ;
mod. F. glaner. = Late L. glenare, found in a document dated A.D. 561
(Brachet). Of unknown origin; see Korting, § 4332. B. We may
notice the later by-form gleam or gleme. ‘To gleame corne, spicili-
gere;’ Levins, 208.20. ‘To gleme corne, spicilegium facere ; Gleamer
of corne, spicilegus;’ Huloet. Apparently due to some confusion
with gleam; cf. prov. E. gleen, to shine (Εἰ. D. D.). | Der. glean-er.
GLEBE, soil; esp. land attached to an ecclesiastical benefice.
(F.—L.) ‘Have any glebe more fruitful;’ Ben Jonson, The Fox,
A. v. sc. t (Mosca). ME. glebe, Trevisa, tr. of Higden, i. 397. The
comp. glebe-land is in Gascoigne, Fruits of War, st. 21.—OF. glebe,
‘glebe, land belonging to a parsonage ;’ Cot.—L. gléba, soil, a clod
of earth. Der. gleb-ous, gleb-y; glebe-land.
GLEDS (1), the bird called a kite. (E.) ME. glede, Allit. Poems,
ed. Morris, ii. 1696. AS. glida, a kite, lit. ‘the glider,’ from the
sailing motion of the bird; Grein, i. 56; from glid-, weak grade of
glidan, to glide. See Glide.
GLEDE (2), GLEED, a glowing coal ; obsolete. (E.) ME. glede,
Chaucer, Ὁ. T. 1999 (A 1997). AS. gléd, Grein, i. 513. [Here ὃ
results from 6, by mutation.|—AS. gldwan, to glow ; seeGlow. So
also Dan. glad, a live coal; cf. Icel. glda, to glow.
GLEE, joy, mirth, singing. (E.) ME. gle, gice; Will. of Palerne,
824 ; also gleu, glew, Havelok, 2332. AS. gléo, earlier form gliu, joy,
mirth, music; Grein, 1. 515.4Icel. gly, glee, gladness ; Swed. dial.
gly, mockery, ridicule (Rietz). Ci Gk. χλεύη, ajest, joke. B. Form
of the root, *ghleu; Brugmann, i. § 633.
GLEEK (1), a scoff,a jest. (F.—Du.?) It meansa ‘ scoff’ in Shak.
1 Hen. VI, iil. 2. 123; ‘a glance of the eye’ in Beanm. and Flctcher,
R
242 GLEEK
Maid in the Mill, ii. 2.
use of the word below.
game of gleek.
GLEEK (2), 2 game at cards. (F.—Du.) So in Ben Jonson,
Alchem. y. 2 (Subtle); it is said that Catharine of Arragon played
‘at gleeke;’ Warton, Hist. of Eng. Poetry, sect. liv; vol. iii. p. 258,
note c, ed. 1840. See Nares. The earliest quotation in N.E, D. is
dated 1533; but we find mention of the card-games ‘post and giyeke’
in Roy, Rede Me (ed. Arber), p. 117 (1528). It should rather have
been spelt g/ik, but the E. ee represents the F. 7. The expression “1
shall gleek some of you’ occurs in Greene’s Tu Quoque (Nares).—
OF. glic, an old F, game at cards (mentioned in Rabelais, bk. i. c. 22),
Roquefort; also spelt ghelicgue (Godefroy). One object inthe game
was to get three cards alike (as three kings) ; this was called a gleek.
=—MDnu. gelijck, alike.—MDu. ge-, ghe-, prefix (=AS. ge-, ἃ. ge-,
Goth. ga-); and MDu. -ljck, Du. -lijk, cognate with E. like ; see
Like. 4 Hexham has MDn. gelijk ofte ongelijk spelen, ‘to play at
even or odds.’
GLEN, a narrow valley. (C.) In Spenser, Sheph. Kalendar,
April, 26.—Gael. and Irish gleann, a valley, glen; W. glyx ; Corn.
glyn; Olrish glenn. Celtic type *glennos. Stokes-Fick, p. 120.
GLIB (1), smooth, slippery, voluble. (E.) The orig. sense is
‘slippery ;’ Shak. has ‘ glib and oily ;’ K. Lear, i. 1. 2273 ‘ gliband
slippery ;’ Timon, i. 1.53. We also find glibbery. ‘ What, shall thy
lubrical and glibbery muse,’ &c. ; Ben Jonson, Poetaster, Act v (Tibul-
lus). A native word ; common in dialects; see E.D.D. Cf. EFries.
glibberig, slippery; glippen, to slip.4+Du. glibberig, slippery ;
glibberen, to slide; related to glippen, to slip away; Low G, gltb-
brig, slippery (Berghaus), glippig, glib, smooth (Schambach), Low
G. glippen, v.; Dan. glippe, to fall, to slip. B. We also find a
somewhat similar prov. E. gliddery, slippery, which is related to AS.
glidan,to glide. Der. glib-ly, glib-ness.
GLIB (2), a lock of hair. (C.) ‘Long glibbes, which is a thick
curled bush of heare, hanging downe over their eyes ;’? Spenser, View
of State of Ireland; Globe ed. p. 630, col. 2.—Irish and Gael. glib,
also Irish clib, a bushy lock of hair.
GLIB (3), to castrate; obsolete. (E.) In Shak. Wint. Tale, ii. 1.
149. The g is merely prefixed, and may have been suggested by Du.
ge-, as in MDu. ge-lubt, ‘gelt;’ Hexham. The orig. form is Jib.
‘ Accaponare, to capon, to gelde, to /ib, to splaie;’ Florio, ed. 1612.
Here lib answers to an AS. */ybban, where y arose, by mutation, from
an older u. Clearly cognate with Du. Jubben, to castrate. See
Left, adj.
GLIDB, to slide, flow smoothly. (E.) ME. gliden, pt. t. glod or
glood ; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 10707 (F 393). AS. glidan, Grein, i. 516.4
Du. glijden; Dan. glide ; Swed, glida; G. gleiten. Teut. type *gleidan-,
pt. τ. *glaid, pp. *glidanoz.
GLIMMER, to shine faintly. (E.) ME. glimeren, whence the
pres. part. glimerand, Will. of Palerne, 1427. The AS. form does
not occur. + Low G. glimmern, frequent. of glimmen, to shine;
MSwed. glimra (Ihre); Dan. glimre, to glimmer; glimmer, glitter,
also mica; Swed. dial. glimmer, to glitter, glimmer, a glimmer,
glitter; Swed. glimmer, mica (from its glitter); G. glimmer, a
glimmer, mica; glimmern, to glimmer. β. The simple forms appear
in Dan. glimme, to shine, Swed. glimma, to glitter, Du. glimmen, G.
glimmen, to shine. Cf. also prov. G. glimm, a spark (Fliigel) ; Swed.
dial. glim, a glance (Rietz). \Ve even find the sb. glim, brightness,
in Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, A. 1088; and AS. gleomu (for *glimu),
splendour. All from Teut. *glim-, weak grade of *gleim-; see
Gleam. Der. glimmer, sb.; and see below.
GLIMPSE, a short gleam, weak light ; hurried glance or view.
(E.) The p is excrescent; the old word was glimse. ME. glimsen,
to glimpse ; whence the sb. glimsing, a glimpse. ‘Ye have som
glimsing, and no parfit sighte;’ Chaucer, C. T. 10257 (E 2383).
Formed by suffixing -s- to the base glim-. See above.
GLINT, to glance, to shine. (Scand.) Obsolete; but important
as having influenced the form of glance; see Glance. For ME.
glenten, to move quickly aside, to glance aside; in later E., to shine.
“Hir eyen glente Asyde ;’ Chaucer, Troil. iv. 1223; cf. Allit. Poems,
ed. Morris, A. 70, 114, 671, 1026; B. 218. —Swed. dial. glinta, glinta,
to slip or glance aside.+G. glanzen, to make bright; from G. glanz,
brightness. B. We also find (really from a different root) MDan.
glinte, to shine, a nasalised form of giit- (in glitter); ΜΉ. glinzen,
to shine.
GLISSADKS, a sliding; a gliding step. (F.—Teut.) F. glissade,
a sliding.=F. glisser, to slide, glide. From OF. glier, to glide;
influenced by OF. glacier, F. glacer,to slide (Hatzfeld). β. OF. glier
is from OHG. glitan (G. gleiten), to glide; see Glide. OF. glacier
is from glace, ice; see Glacier. 4 It seems simpler to derive glisser
from Low G. glidschen or glisken, both meaning ‘to glide,’ and
secondary formations from the weak grade of Teut. *g/eidan-.
See examples in Nares. Prob. a peculiar
To gleek sometimes meant to beat at the
GLOSS
GLISTEN, GLISTER, to glitter, shine. (E.) These are mere
extensions from the E. base gits-, to shine, which appears in ME.
glisien, to shine; ‘in glysyinde wede’ =in glistening garment ; An Old
ing. Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 91, 1. 21. AS. glistan, to shine:
Voc. 121. 253; glisnian, to gleam, Grein, i. 516; cf. Swed. dial. glis-a,
to shine. A. Glisnian is formed from the base glis- by the addition
of the τι so often used to extend such bases; and hence we had ME.
glisnien, with pres. part. glisnande, glittering ; Allit. Poems, ed.
Morris, A. 165. This ME, glisnien gave a later E. glissen, but
the word is now spelt glis-t-en, with an excrescent ¢, which is
usually, however, not sounded. B. Similarly, from the base glis-,
with suffixed -¢ and the frequentative -e, was formed ME. glisteren or
glistren. ‘The water glistred over al;’ Gower, C. A. ii, 2523; bk. v.
3734. Cf. MDu. glisteren (Oudemans) ; now nasalised into mod. Du.
glinsteren, to glitter.
GLITTER, to gleam, sparkle. (Scand.) ME. gliteren (with
one 2); Chaucer, C. T. 979 (A 977); ‘glytered and glent;’ Gawain
and the Grene Knight, 604. —Icel. glitra, to glitter; trequentative of
glita, to shine, sparkle; Swed. gilittra, to glitter; glitter, sb. glitter,
spangle. Cf. AS. glitinian, to glitter, Mark, ix. 3; Goth. glitmunjan,
to shine, Mark, ix. 3. B. Shorter forms appear in AS. glitian, to
shine, Mone, Quellen, p. 355; Icel. glit, sb. glitter. y. All from
Teut. base *glit-, weak grade of *gleit-,as in OSax. glitan, G. gleissen, to
shine. Cf. Gk. yAc5-7, luxury. From Idg. base GHLEI, whence also
leam. SeeGleam. Der. glitter, sb.; and see glisten, glister.
GLOAMING, twilight. (E.) ‘Darker gloaming brought the
night;’ Burns, Twa Dogs, 232. But Hogg has: ‘Tween the
gloaming and the mirk ;’ Song. Here the gloaming means the evening
glow of sunset. ‘ Fra the glomyng of the nycht;’ Wyntoun, Chron.
iv. 7. 827. The oa is from AS. short 0; as in #fen-glommung,
twilight, in A.S. Hymnary (Surtees Soc.), 16.16. But the ὅ is usually
long; as in #fen-glom, evening glow, twilight; Grein, i. 64. Here
gld-m is from Teut. root glé-, as in AS. gldwan, to glow. See Glow.
q Distinct from Gloom.
GLOAT, to stare, gaze with admiration. (Scand.) Also spelt glote.
‘So he glotes [stares], and grins, and bites;’ Beaum. and Fletcher,
Mad Lover, ii. 2. ‘ Gloting [peeping] round her rock ;’ Chapman,
tr. of Homer, Odyssey, xii. 150.—Icel. glot/a, to grin, smile scorn-
fully ; aes dial. glotta, glutta, to peep (Rietz) ; G. glotzen, to stare
Fligel).
‘GLOBE, a ball, round body, (F.—L.) In Shak. Temp. iv. 153.
— OF. globe, ‘a globe, ball;” Cot.—L. globum, acc. of globus, a ball ;
allied to glomus, a ball, clue. See below. Der. glob-ate (L. globatus,
globe-shaped) ; glob-ose (L, globdsus), Milton, P. L. ν. 753, also
written g/ob-ous, id. v. 649; glob-y; glob-ule (L. glob-ul-us, dimin. of
globus); glob-ul-ar, glob-ul-ous, glob-ul-ar-i-ty.
GLOMERATE, to gather into a mass or ball. (L.) “Α river,
which after many glomerating dances, increases Indus;’ Sir Τὶ Herbert,
Travels, ed. 1665, p. 70(p.6gin R.).— L. glomeratus, pp. of glomerare,
to collect into a ball. —L. glomer-, for *glomes, stem of glomus, a ball
or clew of yarn; allied to L. globus, a globe. See Globe. Der.
glomerat-ion, Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 832; also ag-glomerate, con-glomerate.
GLOOM, cloudiness, darkness, twilight. (E.) In Milton, P. L.
i. 244, 544. Seldom found earlier except as a verb, ‘A glooming
peace ;’ Romeo, v. 3. 305. ‘Now glooming [frowning] sadly ;’
Spenser, Ἐς Ὁ. vi. 6. 42. Cf. ME. gloumen, to lower, as in *The
wedire gloumes, Wars of Alexander, 4142; also gloumben (with
excrescent 6), to frown; Rom. of the Rose, 4356. The ME. gloumen
answers to AS, *gliimian (not found) ; cf. E. room << ME. roum < AS.
rim. Allied toG@lum, Der. gloom-y, Shak. Lucrece, 803 ; gloom-
i-ly, gloom-i-ness ; but not gloam-ing.
GLORY, renown, fame. (F.—L.) ME. glovie, Ancren Riwle,
p- 358. —OF-. glorie, later gloire.—L. gloria, glory; prob. for *cloria;
cf. L. inclytus (in-clu-tus), renowned ; Gk. κλέος, glory ; κλυτύς,
renowned ; Irish cli, glory (Bréal). Der. glori-ous, in early use, Rob.
of Glouc. p. 483; glori-ous-ly, P. Plowman, C. xx.15; glori-ous-ness;
also glori-fy, ME. glorifien, Wyclif, John, vii. 39 (F. glorifier, L.
glorificare, to make glorious, from g/éri- = gloria, and fic- ( =fac-ere),
to do, make) ; also glori-fic-at-ion (from L. ace. glorificationem).
GLOSS (1), brightness, lustre. (Scand.) In Shak. Much Ado,
iii, 2, 6. Milton has glossy, P. L. i. 672.—Icel. glosst, a blaze; glys,
finery. Cf. Swed. dial. glossa, to glow, shine; Norw. glosa, to glow;
MHG. glosen, to glow ; glose, a glow, gleam. Perhaps allied to
Glareand Glass. Der. gloss, verb. @ Quite distinct from gloss(2). ὦ
Der. gloss-y, gloss-i-ly, gloss-i-ness. ᾿
GLOSS (2), a commentary, explanation. (L.—Gk.) ΜΕ. glose ©
(with one s), in early use; P. Plowman, C. xx. 15. [But the verb
glosen, to gloss or gloze, was much more common than the sb.; see |
Chaucer, C. T. 7374, 7375 (Ὁ 1792); P. Plowman, B. vii. 303.]) ἢ
This ME. glose is from the OF. glose, ‘a glosse;’ Cot. But the L. |
form glosse (with double 5) was substituted for the F. form in the 16th —
GLOSSARY
century; as, e.g. in Udal on S. Matt. xxiii. 18.—L. gldssa, a difficult
word requiring explanation. - Gk. γλῶσσα, the tongue; also, a tongue,
language, a word needing explanation. Der. gloss, verb; gloze, q. v. ;
gloss-ar-y, q.v.; glosso-graphy, glosso-logy; glottis, q. v.
GLOSSARY, a collection of glosses or words explained. (L.—
Gk.) In Kersey’s Dict. ed.1715. Spelt glosarye, Caxton, Golden
Legend, St. Clement, § 1.—L. g/dssarium, a glossary ; formed with
suffix -ari-um from L. gldss-a, a hard word needing explanation
(above). Der. glossari-al, glossar-ist. See below.
GLOSSOGRAPHER, a writer of glossaries or glosses. (Gk.)
In Blount’s Glossographia, ed. 1674. Coined from glosso-, for Gk.
γλῶσσα, a hard word; and Gk. γράφ-ειν, to write. See Gloss (2).
GLOTTIS, the entrance to the windpipe. (Gk.) “ Glottis, one
of the five gristles of the larynx;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. First in 1578.
-Gk. γλῶττις, the mouth of the windpipe (Galen).—Gk. γλῶττα,
Attic form of γλῶσσα, the tongue (above), Der. glott-al, adj.;
epi-glottis.
GLOVE, a cover for the hand. (E.) ME. gloue (with u for v),
glove; Chaucer, C. T. 2876 (A 2874); King Alisaunder, 2033. AS.
glof, glove; Grein, i. 516. Cf. Icel. gl@fi; prob. borrowed from AS.
glof. B. Possibly the initial g stands for ge- (Goth. ga-), a common
prefix ; and the word may be related to Goth. Jéfa, Icel. laff, the flat
or palm of the hand; Scottish Joof. Der. glov-er, fox-glove.
GLOW, to shine brightly, be ardent, be flushed with heat. (E.)
ME. glowen, Chaucer, C. T. 2134 (A 2132). AS. glowan, to glow;
very rare, but found in A£lfric, Hom. i. 424; the pt. t. gléow occurs
in his Saints’ Lives, vii. 240. + Icel. glia; Dan. glo, to glow; Swed.
dial. glo, gloa, to glow; Du. gloeijen, to glow, to heat; G. gliihen.
Allied to Gk. χλωρός, light green; Brugmann, i. § 156. Also to W.
glo, a coal. Der. glow, sb.; glow-worm, Hamlet, i. 5. 89. Also
glede (2).
GLOWER, to look angrily, to scowl. (E.) Spelt glowir in
᾿ς Dunbar’s Poems, ed. Small, xlix. 24. “ Glowres, is dull or lowering ;’
Pegge, Derbicisms, p. 102 (1791). EFries. glaren. Cf. Low G.
gluren, to be overcast (said of the weather) ; MDu. gloeren, ‘to look
awry, to leare,’ Hexham; Du. gluren, to peep, to leer. Cf. Lower (2).
GLOZEBE, to interpret, deceive, flatter. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Rich. II,
ii. I. 10. ΜΕ. glosen, to make glosses; from the sb. glose, a gloss,
See further under Gloss (2).
GLUE, a sticky substance. (F.—L.) ME. glue, Gower, C. A.
ii. 248; bk. v. 3603.—OF. glu, ‘glew, birdlime;’ Cot.—Late L.
glitem, acc. of glis (gen. glutis), glue; a form used by Ausonius.
Allied to L. gliiten, glue; glitus, tenacious; and to Gk. yAotds, mud,
gum. Allied to Clay. Brugmann,i. §639. Der. glue-y; and see
glutin-ous, agglutin-ate.
GLUM, sullen, gloomy, sad. (E.) ‘ With visage sad and glum;’
Drant, tr. of Horace; to translate L. saeuus, Epist. ii. 2. 21. But
the word was formerly a verb. ME. glommen, to look gloomy,
frown; Towneley Myst. xxx. 596; Halliwell’s Dict. p. 404. Allied
to ME. gloumen, to be gloomy. EFries, glumen, gliimen, to look
sullen.--Low G. glum, turbid; glumen, to make turbid; gluum, a
sullen look ; Norw. glyme, a sullen look, glyma, gloma, to look sullen;
see Gloom.
GLUME, a bracteal covering, in grasses. (L.) A botanical term.
Borrowed, like F. glume, from L. gliima,a husk, hull. = L. gliibere, to
peel, take off the husk ; whence *glubma=gliama. Cf. Gk. yAvpew,
to hollow out. Allied to E. cleave, to split asunder. See Cleave
| (1). Brugmann, i. § 672 (1). Der. glum-ac-e-ous (L. glivnaceus).
_ GLUT, to swallow greedily, gorge. (F.—L.) In Shak. Temp. i. 1.
| 63. ‘ Til leade (for golde) do glut his greedie gal;’ Gascoigne, Fruits
| of War,st.68. ME. glotien, P. Plowman, C. x. 76 (IlchesterMS.). —OF.
glotir, gloutir, to gulp down (Godefroy).—L. gliitire, gliittire, to
| swallow, gulp down. Cf. L. gula, the throat. Der. glutt-on, q. v.;
_ from the same root, de-glut-it-ion, gullet, gules.
GLUTINOUS, gluey, viscous, sticky. (L.) ‘No soft and glutinous
| bodies ;’ Ben Jonson, Sejanus, i.£.8. Englished from L. glitindsus,
| sticky.—L. glitin-um, glue; also gliiten (stem glitin-), glue. See
| Glue. Der. glutinous-ness ; also Cot. has ‘ glutinosité, glutinositie,
glewiness;’ glutin-al-ive ; ag-glutin-aie.
| GLUTTON, a voracious eater. (F.—L.) ME. glo/on, Chaucer,
| C. T. 12454 (C 520); also glutun, Ancren Riwle, p. 214; whence
| glotonie, gluttony, Chaucer, C. T. 12446 (C 512).—OF. gloton, later
glouton, ‘a glutton;’ Cot.=L. acc. gliitanem, from glito,a glutton. =—L.
| gliitire, to devour. See Glut. Der. glutton-y, glutton-ous.
| GLYCERINE, a certain viscid fluid, of a sweet taste. (F.—Gk.)
Modern. Named from its sweet taste. F. glycerine; coined from Gk.
| γλυκερός, sweet, an extension of γλυκύς, sweet. Der. from the same
' source, liquorice,
GLYPTIC, relating to carving in stone. (Gk.) Mere Greek. = Gk.
γλυπτικός, carving ; γλυπτός, carved, fit for carving. —Gk. γλύφειν, to
“hollow ont, engrave. Allied to Glume and Cleave (1).
=
GOAD 243
GNARL, to snarl, to growl. (E.) Perhaps obsolete. Shak. has
‘gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite ;’ Rich. II, i. 3. 292; ‘ Wolves
are gnarling ;’ 2 Hen. VI, iii. 1. 192. Gnar-l (with the usual added
-!) is the frequentative of guar, to snarl. ‘ For and this curre do gnar’
= for if this cur doth snarl; Skelton, Why Come Ye Nat to Court, 297.
This word is imitative; cf. AS. gnyrran, to snarl; Wulfstan, p. 139.
We find, however, EF ries. gnarren, to creak, snarl.--Du. knorren, to
grumble, snarl; Dan. knurre, to growl, snarl; cf. knarre, knarke, to
creak, grate; knuur, a growl, the purring of a cat; Swed. kxorra,
to murmur, growl; norr, a murmur; G. knurren, to growl, snarl;
knarren, knirren, to creak,
GNARLED, twisted, knotty. (E.) ‘ Gnarled oak ;’ Meas. for
Meas. ii. 2. 116. Gnarled means ‘full of gnarls,’ where guar-l is a
dimin, form of gnar or knar, a knot in wood. ME. knarre, a knot in
wood; Wyclif, Wisdom, xiii. 13; whence the adj. kzarry, full of knots.
‘With knotty snarry barein treés olde ;’ Chaucer, C.T. 1979 (A.1977)-
B. The spelling knur or knurr (for knar) also occurs; ‘A bounche
{bunch] or kzur in a tree ;’ Elyot’s Dict., ed. 1559,s.v- Bruscum. This
word has also a dimin. form knurl, with the same sense of ‘ hard knot.’
These words may be considered E., though not found in AS. Cf.
EFries. knarre, knar, a knotty piece of wood; Icel. gnerr, a knot,
knob. See Knurr,
GNASG, to grind the teeth, to bite fiercely. (Scand.) A modifi-
cation of ME. gnasten, to gnash the teeth ; Wyclif, Isaiah, v. 29 ; viii.
19.—MDan. knaske, to crush between the teeth, to gnash; Swed.
knastra, to crash (between the teeth); Icel. gnastan, sb. a gnashing ;
gnesta, to crack ; ἃ. knastern, to gnash, crackle; Low G. gnastern, the
same (Berghaus). β. Of imitative origin; so also Dan. knase, to
crackle; cf. Icel. gnista, EFries. gnisen, to gnash.
GNAT, a small stinging insect. (E.) ME. gnat, Chaucer, C. T.
5929 (Ὁ 347). AS. gnet, Matt. xxiii. 24. B. It has been suggested
that the insect was so named from the whirring of its wings; cf. Icel.
gnata, to clash; gnat, the clash of weapons.
GNAW, to bite furiously or roughly. (E.) ME. gnawen ; the pt. t.
gnow occurs in Chaucer, C. T. 14758 (B 3638); and gnew in Rich.
Coer de Lion, ed. Weber, 3089. AS. gnagan; the compound fcr-
gnagan, to devour entirely, occurs in A‘lfric’s Homilies, il. 194, 1]. 1.
Ἔα. knagen; Olcel. gnaga, mod. Icel. naga; Dan. gnave; Swed.
gnaga, B. Without the g, we have Icel. naga, Dan. nage, G. nagen,
to gnaw; Swed. nagga, to nibble ; whence the prov. E. nag, to tease,
worry, irritate, scold. See Nag (2).
GNEKISS, a species of stratified rock. (G.) Modern. A term in
geology. Borrowed from G, gneiss,a name given to a certain kind of
rock; from its sparkling. —OHG. gneistan, to sparkle; gneista, a
spark. AS. gnast, Icel. gneisti,a spark. Der. gnetss-o-id, with a Gk.
suffix, as in Ratecoia:
GNOME, a kind of sprite. (F.—Gk.) In Pope, Rape of the Lock,
i. 63.—F.gnome,a gnome. Littré traces the word back to Paracelsus;
it seems to be an adaptation of Gk. γνώμη, intelligence, from the
notion that the intelligence of these spirits could reveal the secret
treasures of the earth; but this is conjecture. The gnomes were spirits
of earth, the sylphs of air, the salamanders of fire, and the nymphs of
water, B. The Gk. γνώμη is from γνῶναι, to know (below).
GNOMON, the index of a dial, &c. (L.—Gk.) ‘The style in
the dial called the guomon ;’ Holland’s Pliny, Ὁ. ii.c. 72.—L. gndmon,
which is merely the Gk. word. = Gk. γνώμων, an interpreter, lit. ‘ one
who knows;’ an index of a dial. — Gk. γνῶναι, to know. —4/GEN ;
whence alsoE. Know,q.v. Der. gnomon-ic, gnomon-ics, gnomon-ic-al.
GNOSTIC, one of a certain sect in the second Christian century.
(Gk.) ‘The vain science of the Gnosticks ;’ Gibbon, Rom. Empire,
c.15.§ 11. And see Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—Gk. γνωστικός, good
at knowing.<Gk. γνωστός, longer form of yords, known.=—Gk.
γνῶναι, ἴο Κπονν. See Gnomon. Der. Gnostic-ism.
GNU, a kind of antelope. (Kaffir.) Found in 5. Africa. Orig.a
Kaffir word ; see the Kaffir Dict. by Davis, who gives it in the form
ngu, where the q represents a click. It was sometimes written qn,
whence gnu by an erroneous substitution of g for g. (N. and Q,,
9 5. v. 45.)
GO, to move about, proceed, advance. (E.) ME. gon, goon, go;
Chaucer, C. T. 379 (A 377); common. AS. gan, to go, Grein, 1. 368,
369.4Du. gaan ; (Icel. lost) ; Dan. gaae; Swed. gd; G. gehen, to go.
Distinct from Goth. gangan, OHG. kankan, Icel. ganga, E. gang. The
OHG. ga-m, I go, shows that the OTeut. *gai- belonged to the class
of ‘verbs in -mi.’ Der. go-by, go-cart, go-er, go-ing; also gait, q.v.
ἀφο The pt. t. went is from wend; see Wend.
GOAD, a sharp pointed stick for driving oxen. (E.) ME. gode.
‘Wipa longe gode ;’ P. Plowman’s Crede, ed. Skeat, 1. 433. AS. gad,
not common; but we find ‘ ongéan pa gdade’ =against the goad (cf.
Acts, ix. 5); 4élfric’s Hom. i. 386. 1.9. We find also the early form
gaad ; O. E. Texts, p. 99, 1. 1937. Teut. type *gaida, fem. ; verified
by the Lombardic form gaida (Ducange). From the Teut. base *gav-,
R 2
244, GOAL
-whence also AS, ga-r, Icel. gei-rr; cf. Olrish gai, a spear. See
Gore (2). @ Not allied to gad or yard (2).
GOAL, the winning-post in a race. (E.) A term in running races.
“As, in rennynge, passynge the go/e is accounted but rasshenesse; ’
Sir Τὶ Elyot, The Governour, b. iii. c. 21. ‘No person... should
haue wone the ryng or gott the gole before me;’ Hall’s Chron. Rich.
117, an. 2. § 2. ME. gol, a limit; Shoreham’s Poems, p.145,1.4. It
answers to an AS. form *gal (not found), which may have meant
‘barrier’ or ‘impediment ;’ whence g#lan, to impede, a-g#lan, to
delay. @ Not of F. origin, as often said.
GOAT, the name of a well-known quadruped. (E.) ME. goot,
gote; Chaucer, C. T. 690 (A 688). AS. gat; Grein,i. 373.4-Du. geit;
Dan. ged; Swed. get; Icel. geit; G. geiss, geisse; Goth. gaits.4L. hacdus,
akid. Idg. base *ghaid-. Der. goats-beard, goat-moth, goat-sucker.
GOBBET, a mouthful, a little lump, small piece. (F.—C.) The
short form gob is rare, ‘Gob or Gobbet, a great piece of meat;’
KXersey’s Dict., ed. 1715. ME. gobet, asmall piece; P. Plowman, C. vi.
100; Chaucer, C. T. 698 (A 696). ‘ Thei tooken the relifs of brokun
gobetis, twelue cofyns ful;’ Wyclif, Matt. xiv. 20.— OF. gobe/, a morsel
of food (Godefroy); not given in Burguy or Cotgrave, but preserved in
the modern F. gobet, in use in the Norman dialect (Du Bois). A dimin.
form, with suffix -et, allied to MF. god, a gulp, as used in the phrase
‘Vavalla tout de gob =at one gulpe, or, as one gobbet, he swallowed
it; Cot.—OF. gober, ‘to ravine, devour, feed greedily ;’ Cot. B. Of
Celtic origin ; cf. Gael. gob, the beak or bill of a bird, or (ludicrously)
the mouth; Irish gob, mouth, beak, snout; see Macbain. @ The prov.
E. gob, the mouth, is borrowed from Celtic directly. And see Gobble.
GOBBLE, to swallowgreedily. (F.—C.; with E. suffix.) ‘Gobble
up, to eat gobs, or swallow down greedily ;’ Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715.
First in 1601. A frequentative, formed by adding -le, of OF. gober,
‘to ravine, devour, feed greedily, swallow great morsels, let downe
whole gobbets;’ Cot. See Gobbet. @ At a late period the word
gobble was adopted as being a suitable imitative word (cf. gabble), to
represent the sound made by turkeys. In this sense, it occurs in Prior,
The Ladle, 1. 74: ‘ Fat turkeys gobbling at the door.’
GOBELIN, arich French tapestry. (F.) ‘So named from a house
at Paris, formerly possessed by wool-dyers, whereof the chief (Giles
Gobelin) in the reign of Francis I. [1515-1547] is said to have found
the secret of dyeing scarlet ;’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates.
GOBLET, a large drinking-cup. (F.—L.) ‘A goblet of syluer ;’
Berners, tr. of Froissart, v. 11. c. 87. ‘In grete goblettez;’ Morte
Arthure, 1. 207.—F. gobelet, ‘a goblet, bole, or wide-mouthed cup ;’
Cot. Dimin. (with suffix -er) of OF. gobel, (later form gobeau) which
Cot. explains by ‘a mazer or great goblet.’—Late L. cupellum, acc.
of ctipellus, a cup; ἃ dimin. of L. ca#pa,a tub, cask, vat. See Coop.
Cf. Picard gobe, a great cup. (Korting, § 2693; but doubtful.)
GOBLIN, a kind of mischievous sprite, fairy. (F.—Low L.—G.)
Formerly gobeline, in 3 syllables. ‘The wicked gobbelines ;’ Spenser,
F. Ὁ. il. το. 73. ME. gobelyn; Wyclif, Ps. xc (xci).6.—OF. gobelin,
‘a goblin, or hob-goblin ;’ Cot. Low L. gobelinus, a goblin; prob.
from the same source as G. kobold, a goblin (see Kluge). If so, it is
from MHG. hobel, a hut, with L. suffix -izwus. The sense is to be
explained from the cognate AS. cof-godas, ‘ penates,’ or household
gods. β. MHG. hobe/ is the dimin. of MHG. kobe, a stall, cognate
with Icel. cofi, a hut, AS. cofa, a chamber; see Cove. @ So in
Kluge, and Korting, § 2279. Diez derives it from Gk. κόβᾶλος, a
rogue, a knave, also, a goblin invoked byknaves. But kobold (at any
rate) is prob. Germanic.
GOBY, akind ofsea-fish. (L.—Gk.) ‘ Gobio or Gobius, the gudgeon
or pink, a fish;’ Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715. | The goby is a mere cor-
ruption of L. gabius (cf. F. gobie), orig. applied to the gudgeon; also
spelt cdbius.— Gk. κωβιός, a kind of fish, gudgeon, tench. See
Gudgeon.
GOD, the Supreme Being. (E.) ΜΕ. god (written in MSS. with
small initial letter); Chaucer, C. T.535 (A 533). AS. god; Grein, i.
517.4 Du. god ; Icel. gud ; Dan. gud; Swed. gud; Goth. guth; G. gott.
B. Teut. type *guthom; Idg. type *ghutom, perhaps ‘ the being who is
worshipped; ’ a pp. form from Idg. *ghu, to worship, as in Skt. hv, to
sacrifice (to), whence Skt. hu/a-,one to whom sacrifice is offered. @ In
no way allied to good,adj. Der. godd-ess, q.v.; god-child ; god-faiher,
4: ν. ; god-head, q.v. ; god-less, god-like, god-ly, god-send, god-son ; also
good-bye, q.v. ; gospell,q.v. ; gossip, q.v.
GODDESS, a female divinity. (E.; with Ἐς suffix.) ME. god-
desse (better godesse), a hybrid compound, used by Chaucer, C. T.
1103 (A rio1). Made by adding to God the OF. suffix -esse (= L.
-issa=Gk. -ισσα). 41 The AS. word was gyden (Grein,i. 536) ; cor-
rectly formed by vowel-change and with the addition of the fem. suffix
-en (Teut. -ina), asin Vixen, q.v. Cf. ἃ. géttin, fem. of gott.
GODFATHER, a male sponsor in baptism. (E.) ME. god-
fader, Rob. of Glouc. p.69; 1. 1571. Earlier, in William of Shore-
ham’s Poems, ed. Wright, p. 69 (temp. Edw. 11). From god, God;
GONFANON
and fader, father. B. Other similar words are godchild, Ancren
Riwle, p. 210; ME. goddo3ter=god-daughter, Ayenbite of Inwyt,
p- 48; ME. godmoder =god-mother, id. same page; ME. godsune=
god-son, Wright’s Vocab. i. 214, col. 2. And see Gossip.
GODHEAD, divinity, divine nature. (E.) ME. godhed, Chau-
cer, C. T, 2383 (A 2381) ; spelt godhod, Ancren Riwle, p.112. The
suffix is wholly different from E. head, being a variant of the suffix
which is commonly written -hood. ‘This -hood is from the AS. had,
office, state, dignity; as in ‘ pri on hadum’ =three in (their) Persons ;
/Elfric’s Hom. ii. 42. B. This AS. had properly passed into -hood, as
in E. man-hood ; but in ME. we also find the suffix -hede or -hed, as
in manhede, Will. of Palerne, 431 ; as if from an AS. mutated form
-h#d-; cf. OFries. -héd, Du. -heid, OSax. -héd, equivalents of AS.
-h#du; Teut. type *haidja, f. AS. had< Tent. *haidoz, τὰ. This
accounts for the double form maiden-hood and maiden-head.
GODWIT, the name of a bird. (E.) ‘Th’ Ionian godwit;’ Ben
Jonson, tr. of Horace’s Odes, lib. v. od. 2, 1.53. Of unknown origin;
but the former syllable may well bea shortened form of god, good, as
it was famous as a delicacy. The latter syllable -wit probably stands
for ME. wight, AS. wiht, a wight, a creature, which could be used
(in AS.) of a bird; see Cynewulf, Crist, 1.981. Variously corrupted
to god-wike in 1612 (N.E.D.); god-wipe (1579).
GOFFER, to flute or crimp a frill, &c. (F.—O. Low G.) Not
in Johnson, and not much used before 1800. (The o is long.) —MF.
gauffrer, ‘to print (a garment) ; also, to deck or set out with puffes ;’
Cot. Orig. to mark like the edging of pie-crust, or like wafers. =
MF. gauffre, goffre, ‘a wafer; also, a honny-combe;’ Cot. See
further under Wafer.
GOGGLE-EYED, having rolling and staring eyes. (E,) ‘They
gogle with their eyes hither and thither; ᾿ Holinshed, Descr. of Ireland,
c.I. ‘Glyare, or gogul-eye, limus, strabo;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 199.
‘ Gogyl-eyid, gogelere, limus, strabo;’ id. p. 201, Wyclif translates
L. luscum by ‘ gogil-i3ed’ = goggle-eyed ; Mark, ix. 46. “ Goggle-eyed
man, louche;’ Palsgrave, The suffix -Je is, as usual, frequentative ;
the base appears to be imitative; cf. prov. E. goggle, to shake, gog, a
quagmire (because it shakes). We find also Irish and Gael. gogshui-
leach, goggle-eyed, having wandering eyes; from gog,to moveslightly,
and suil, the eye, look, glance; but this gog seems to be of E, (and
imitative) origin. Cf. prov. Εἰ, coggle, Bavar. gageln, to be unsteady ;
and E. jog, joggle. Der. goggle, verb, to roll the eyes (Butler, Hudi-
bras, ii. 1. 120) ; goggles, i.e. a facetious name for spectacles.
GOITRE, a swelling in the throat. (F.—Prov.—L.) ‘Spelt goytre
in Howell, Letters, i. 1. 43. Used in speaking of the Swiss peasants
who are afflicted with it. = F. goitre, a swelled neck ; a back-formation
from the adj. goitreux, afflicted with goitre (Hatzfeld). = Prov. goitros,
adj.; from goit, sb., the throat (in Mistral).—L. guttur, the throat ;
see Juvenal, Sat. xiii. 162.
GOLD, a precious metal. (E.) ME, gold, Chaucer, C. T. 12704
(Ὁ 770). AS. gold; Grein, i. 519.4-Du. goud [for gold]; Icel. gull;
Swed. and Dan. guld; G. gold; Goth. gulth; 1 Tim. ii. 9. Teut,
type *gul-thom, neuter; Idg. type *ghal-tom; cf. Russ, zolofo, Skt.
hataka-, gold. Allied to Pers. zar, gold, Zend zaranya-, Skt. hiranya-,
gold. Named from its yellow colour; and allied to Yellow.
(/GHEL.) Brugmann, i. § 506; ii. § 79. Der. gold-en (AS.
gyld-en, by the usual letter change, but altered in ME. to gold-en) ;
gold-beater, gold-dust, gold-finch (Chaucer, C. T. 4365), gold-jish,
gold-leaf, gold-smith (Prompt. Pary. p. 202) ; mary-gold or mari-gold,
Also gild,
GOLF, the name ofa game. (Du.) Mentioned in Acts of James
IL., of Scotland; 1457, c. 71, ed. 1566: ‘the futball and the golf.’
The name is usually supposed to have been taken from that of a Du.
game played with a mall and ball. —Dnu. kolf, ‘a club to strike little
bouls or balls with, a mall-stick ;’ Sewel’s Du. Dict.Icel. 4ol/r, the
(rounded) clapper of a bell, a bulb, a bolt for a crossbow; kylfa, a
club ; Dan. kolbe, the butt-end of a weapon ; folv, a bolt, shaft, arrow ;
Swed. kolf, a butt-end, bolt; Low G. kulf, aclub with which boys
play a kind of hockey (Brem. Wort.) ; G. holbe, a club, mace, knob,
butt-end of a gun. & Or it may be allied to prov. E. gouff, to strike,
to hit (E. D. D.) ; which is possibly of imitative origin. Cf. cuff.
GOLOSH. The same as Galoche, q. v.
GONDOLA, a Venetian pleasure-boat. (Ital. —Gk.?) Shak. has
gondola, Merch. of Ven. ii. 8. 8; and gondolier, Oth. i. 1. 126. — Ital.
gondola, a boat used (says Florio) only at Venice ; a dimin. of gonda
(Torriano), with the same meaning. —Gk, κόνδυ, a drinking-vessel;
which the gondola was supposed to resemble (Diez). But this is
doubtful. Or from L. ciinula, a little cradle ; see Korting, § 2402.
GONFANON, GONFALON, a kind of standard or banner.
(F.—MHG.) ME. gonfanon, Rom. of the Rose, 1201, 20r8. [The
form gonfalon is from Ital. gonfalone.| The sb. gunfaneur =banner-
bearer, occurs in the Ancren Riwle, p. 300.—OF. gonfanon, gunfanon.
= MUG. gundfano, a banner, lit. battle-standard. — ΜΗ Ὁ, gunt, gund,
GONG
battle (chiefly preserved in female names, as Rhadegund\; and fano,
vano (mod. (α. fahne), a standard, banner. B. ‘The MHG, gund is
cognate with AS. gad (for *gunS), war, battle; Icel. gunur, gudr,
battle; from 4/GHwEN, to strike; cf. Skt. han, to strike, kill. Brug-
mann, i. § 678. γ. G. fahne is cognate with FE. vane; see Vane.
GONG, a metallic disc, used as a bell. (Malay.) Spelt gongo in
1590; gong in 1686; see Yule.— Malay agong or gong, ‘the gong,a
sonorous instrument ;’ Marsden’s Malay Dict., p. 12, col. 1.
GOOD, virtuous, excellent, kind. (E.) ME. good, gode, Chaucer,
C. 1. 479 (A 477). AS. god; Grein, i. 520.- 1). goed; Icel. gadr ;
Dan. and Swed. god; Goth. gods; G. gut. Teut. type *gddoz ; from
*god-, strong grade of *gad-, to suit, fit; for which see Gather. Cf.
Russ. godno, suitably; godnui?, suitable. Der. good, sb., pl. goods
(ME. goodes, P. Plowman, C. ix. 251); good-day ; good-Friday (ME.
gode fridaye, P. Plowman, Β. x. 414); good-ly= AS. gédlic, Grein, 1.
523; good-li-ness (ME-goodlines, also in A.V. of Bible, Isaiah, xl. 6,
and Fairfax, tr. of Tasso, b. xx. st. 107) ; good-natured ; good-ness
=AS. godnes, Grein, i. 523; good-will. Also good-man, q.v.
GOOD-BYE,, farewell. (E.) | A familiar (but meaningless) con-
traction of God be with you, the old form of farewell. Very common in
Shak., where old edd. often have God buy you. ‘ God buy you, good
Sir Topas;’ Tw. Nt. iv. 2. 108 (first folio). ‘God be with you;
I haue done;’ Oth.-i. 3. 189 (first folio). Strictly, God buy (also God
b’w’y) = God be with you; and the added you was needless, and is not
preserved.
GOODMAN, the master of the house. (E.) In the Bible, A.V.
Luke, xii. 39, &c. See Eastwood and Wright’s Bible Wordbook. ME.
godeman, in the Seven Sages, Thornton Komances, Introd. xliv, I. 5.
Observe especially the occurrence of godeman, as a tr. of L. pater-
familias, in An O. Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 33. ‘ Two bondmen,
whyche be all vnder the rule and order of the good man and the good
wy/e of the house ;” Sir T. More’s Utopia (Εἰ. version), ed. Arber, p. 75.
Compounded of good and man. Cf. Lowland Scotch gude man, the
master of a family ; Jamieson.
GOOSANDER, the largest species of Mergus. (Scand.?) ‘The
Mergus merganser ; formerly gossander, as in Drayton, Polyolb. song
xxv. 65. Of obscure formation; apparently ‘ goose-duck;’ from
Norw. gaas, Icel. gis, goose (modified by E. goose), and Norw.
and, a duck, Icel. ond (pl. andir), a duck, cognate with AS. ened.
See Newton, Dict. of Birds.
GOOSE, the name of a bird. (E.) ME. gos, goos, pl. gees;
Chaucer, C. T. 4135 (A 4137). -AS. gos, pl. gés; Grein, i. 523
(where gods stands for an older *gons<*gans, the lengthening of ὁ
causing loss of x).4-Du. gars; Dan. gaas (for *gans), pl. ges;
Swed. gas (for *gans); Icel. gas (for *gans); G. gans.4L. ans-er;
Gk. χήν ; Skt. hamsas, a swan; Olrish geis, a swan; Lithuan.
2asis. Teut. type *gans, Idg. base *ghans-. @ From the Idg. base
*ghan- we have also gann-et and gan-d-er. See Gannet, Gander.
The occurrence of these words favours the theory that Gk. χήν is
allied to xalvey (for *xav-yew), to gape. Der. goose-grass (so
called because geese are: fond of it), goose-quill, gos-hawk, q.v.,
gos-ling, q.v. And see below.
GOOSEBERRY, the berry of a well-known shrub. (E.) ‘Not
worth a gooseberry;’ 2 Hen. 1V,i. 2.196. ‘A gooseberrie, vua [uva]
crispa;” Levins, 104. 28. ‘Gose berrys, groiselles;’ Du Wes (in
Palsgrave), p. 912. From goose and berry; cf. goose-grass, &c.
@ Plant-names are often whimsical and inappropriate ; it is possible
that the name was suggested by North E. grosers, gooseberries (Halli-
well, Brockett). Burns has grozet, a gooseberry ; To a Louse, st. 5.
These forms are, apparently, from an OF. *grose, which occurs not
only in OF. grosele, groisele, a gooseberry, but also in Irish grois-aid,
Gael. grois-eid, W. grwys-en, a gooseberry, all borrowed from E,
(Turner has groser-bushe in 1548.) The OF. groisele is of Teutonic
origin; viz. from MHG. kris, curling, crisped; whence mod. ἃ.
krausbeere, a cranberry, rough gooseberry. Cf. Swed. krusbar, a
gooseberry. [Du. kruisbezie (lit. a cross-berry),is a singular corruption
of kroesbezie, by confusion between kruis, a cross, and kroes, crisp,
frizzled.] The G. kraus, Swed. krus, Du. kroes, crisp, frizzled, refer
to the short crisp curling hairs upon the rougher kinds of the fruit ;
ef. the L. name wva crispa in Levins, given above.
GOPHER, a kind of wood. (Heb.) In A.V. Gen. vi. 14.—Heb.
gopher, a kind of wood; supposed to be pine or fir.
‘ GORBELLIED, having a fat belly. (E.) In Shak. 1 Hen. IV,
ii. 2.93. Compounded of E. gore, lit. filth, dirt (here used of the
contents of the stomach and intestines) ; and belly. B. All doubt as
to the origin is removed by comparing Swed. dial. gér-balg, a fat
paunch, compounded of Swed. dial. gar (Swed. gorr), dirt, the con-
tents of the intestines, and balg, the belly. See Rietz, p. 225.
See Gore (1).. And see below.
* GORCROW, the carrion-crow. (E.) ‘Raven and gorcrow, all
my birds of prey;’ Ben Jonson, The Fox, Act i. Compounded of
GORSE 245
E. gore, filth, dirt, carrion (a former sense of the word); and crow.
See Gore (1). And see above.
GORDIAN, intricate. (Gk.) Chiefly in the phr. ‘ Gordian knot;’
Cymb. ii. 2. 34. Named from the Phrygian king Gordius (Gk. Γύρ-
dios), father of Midas, who, on being declared king, ‘ dedicated his
chariot to Zeus, in the Acropolis of Gordium. The pole was fastened
to the yoke by a knot of bark ; and an oracle declared that whosoever
should untie the knot should reign over all Asia. Alexander, on his
arrival at Gordium, cut the knot with his sword, and applied the
oracle to himself ;’ Smith’s Classical Dict.
GORE (1), clotted blood, blood. (E.) It formerly meant also
dirt or filth. It occurs in the sense of ‘filthiness’ in Allit. Poems,
ed. Morris, B. 306. AS. gor, dirt, filth; Grein, i, 520.-4-Icel. gor,
gore, the cud in animals, the chyme in men; Swed. gorr, dirt,
matter; MDu. goor, OHG, gor. Origin uncertain. Der. gor-belly,
q.v., gor-crow, q.v. Also gor-y, Macbeth, iii. 4. 51.
GORE (2), to pierce, bore through. (Ε.) In Shak. As You Like
It, ii. 1. 25. Formed, as a verb, from ME. gare, gore, gar, a spear.
‘Brennes . . . lette glide his gar’ = Brennus let fall his spear; Laya-
mon, 5079. AS. gar,a spear; Grein, i. 370. (The vowel-change is
perfectly regular ; cf. bone, stone, loaf, from AS. ban, stan, hlaf.)+
lcel. geirr, a spear; OHG. gér, a spear. Teut. type *gaizoz, m.;
allied to Gaulish L. gaesum, a Javelin; Olrish gai, aspear. Brugmann,
i. § 210(3). Perhaps allied to goad. Allied to gore (3) ; see below.
GORE (3), a triangular piece let into a garment ; a triangular
slip of land. (E.) ME. gore, Chaucer, C. T. 3237. . AS. gara, a
projecting point of land; A£lfred, tr. of Orosius, i. 1, ed. Sweet,
p- 24,1. 3. From AS. gar, a spear; see Gore (2). B. Similarly
we have Icel. geiri,.a triangular piece of land; from geirr, a spear.
Also ἃ. gehre, a wedge, gusset; Du. geer, a gusset, gore. Der.
giron, q.V.
° GORGE, the throat; a narrow pass. (F.—L.) ME. gorge, the
throat; Allit. Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 3760. —OF. gorge, the throat,
gullet. [Ital. gorga.]—Folk-L. *gorga, gullet (Hatzteld); prob. a
popular form of L. gurgulio, the gullet. Perhaps allied to L. gurgés,
a whirlpool; with which ef. Skt. gargara-, whirlpool. Der. gorge,
verb, Romeo, v. 3. 463; gorg-et, a piece of armour to protect the
throat, Troilus, i. 3.174; Spenser, F. Ὁ. iv. 3. 12. And see
gorgeous.
GORGEOUS, showy, splendid. (F.—L.) “ΟΥ̓ gorgeous aray ;’
Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 808 c; ‘they go gorgeously arayed;’ id. 808 ἃ.
A corruption of gorgias ; ‘ That were ioly and gorgyas in theyr gere;’
Justes of May and June, in Hazlitt’s Early Pop. Poet. ii. 117.— OF.
gorgias, ‘gorgeous, gaudy, flaunting, brave, gallant, gay, fine, trimme,
quaintly clothed;’ Cot. Cf. se gorgiaser, ‘to flaunt, brave,.or gallan-
tise it;’ id. B. Perhaps formed from OF. gorgias, ‘a gorget;’ id.;
as though to wear a gorget were a fine thing; or from the swelling
of the throat considered as a symbol of pride. y. Either way, the
word depends upon F. gorge, the throat ; and much light is thrown
upon the word by another entry in Cotgrave, viz. ‘se rengorger, to
hold down | let sink down] the head, or thrust the chin into the neck,
as Some do ἐπὶ pride, or to make their faces look the fuller ; we say, to
bridle it.” -8. Note also Span. gorja, the throat ; gorjal, a gorget, the
collar of a doublet; gorguera,a gorget; gorguero, a kind of neckcloth,
of ladies of fashion; gorguerin, a ruff round the neck. See Gorge.
The editor of the F. poems of G. Coquillart has: ‘ Gorgias, élégant
quise rengorge, fat qui se pavane, dont la poitrine est couverte d’étoffes
précieuses et de riches bijoux.’ Der. gorgeous-ly, gor geous-ness.
GORGON, aterrible monster. (L.—Gk.) InShak. Macb. ii. 3.77.
=-L. Gorgon, Gorgé. — Gk. Topyx, the Gorgon, a monster of fearful
aspect. — Gk. γοργός, fearful, terrible.. Cf. Olrish garg, fierce ; per-
haps Skt. garj, to roar. Der. Gorgon-ian, Milton, P. L. il. 611.
GORILLA, a kind of large ape. (OAfrican.) The word is.an old
one, lately revived. It occars just at the end of a treatise called the
Periplis (περίπλους), i.e. ‘circumnavigation, written by a Cartha-
ginian navigator named Hanno.. This was originally written in the
Punic language, and afterwards translated into Greek. He there
describes some creatures ‘ which the interpreters called -yopiAAas.’
GORMANDIZE, to eat like a glutton. (F.—Scand.) In Shak.
Merch. οἵ Ven, ii. 5. 3. -Cotgrave has: ‘ Gourmander, to ravine,
devour, glut, gormandize or gluttonize it.’ The E. form was suggested
by the previous existence in E. of the sb. gourmandyse, as in ‘they
eate withoute gourmandyse;’ Sit T. Elyot, Castle of Helth, b. ii..c. 1.
This is from OF. gourmandise, gluttony; Cot. Both the sb. gour~
mandise and the vb. gourmander are from the OF. gourmand, ‘a glutton,
gormand, belly-god ;’ Cot. See Gourmand. Der. gormandiz-er,
gormandiz-ing. . Ἷ
-GORSE, a prickly shrub, furze. (E.) For gorst. ME. gorst,
furze; Wyclif, Isaiah, lv. 13. AS. gorst. ‘On gorste;” Luke, vi.
44; A.V. ‘ofa bramble-bush;’ Vulgate, ‘de rubo.? B. So named
from its prickles. Cf. Skt. hysh, to bristle; L. hirsittus, horridus,
GOSHAWK
Brugmann, i. ὃ 882. See
246
bristly ; L. hordeum, Du. gerst, barley.
Hirsute.
GOSHAWKE, a kind of hawk. (E.) Lit. a ‘ goose-hawk.’ ME.
goshauk, Wyclif, Job, xxxix. 13. The connexion with goose is
proved by two successive entries in Voc. 131. 21, 22; viz. ‘ Auca,
gos;’ and ‘ Aucarius, gos-hafuc.’ Here gos=AS. σῦς, a goose; and
hafuc=a hawk. The Vocabulary is ascribed to the tenth century.
+ Icel. gas-haukr, similarly formed. And see below.
GOSLING, a young goose. (E.) In Shak. Cor. v. 3. 35.
ME. goselynge; Prompt. Parv. Here gose=ME. gos=AS. gos, a
goose. The suffix -lmg is a double diminutive, =/-ing. Cf. duck-
ling, from duck. See Goose.
GOSPEL, the life of Christ. (E.) ΜΕ. gospel, Chaucer, C. T.
483 (A 481). Also godspel, P. Plowman, ( xiii. 100. AS. godspell,
Grein, i. 519. The orig. sense was ‘ good story,’ to translate L.
euangelium. We find: ‘Euuangelium (sic), id est, bonum nuntium,
godspel;’ Voc. 314. 8. But the o (of AS. géd, good) was soon
shortened before dsp, and a more obvious popular etymology arose,
as if god-spell meant ‘story of God,’ i.e. Christ. Hence, when the
AS. word was introduced into Iceland, it took the form gudspjall =
God-story, and not géd-spjall=good story. And the OHG. word
was likewise gofspel (= God-story), and not guot spel. @ It is inter-
esting to find the orig. interpretation in the Ormulum, 1. 157 of the
Introduction.
GOSSAMER, fine spider-threads seen in fine weather. (E.)
ME. gossomer, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 10573 (F 259). Spelt gosesomer by
W. de Bibbesworth (13th cent.); Wright’s Vocab. i. 147, last line;
and in Nominale, ed. Skeat, 1, 625, we have ‘a web of gossomer.’
ME. gossomer is lit. goose-summer, and the proy. E. (Craven) name
for gossamer is summer-goose; see Craven Gloss. It is named from
the time of year when it is most seen, viz. during St. Martin’s summer
(early November) ; geese were eaten on Noy. 11 formerly. Cf. Lowl.
Sc. (popular variant) go-summer, Martinmas. B. We may note,
further, that Jamieson’s Scottish Dict. gives summer-cout, i. e. summer-
colt, as the name of exhalations seen rising from the ground in hot
weather; and the Yorkshire expression for the same is very similar.
‘ When the air is seen on a warm day to undulate, and seems to rise
as from hot embers, it is said, “see how the summer-colt rides!””
Whitby Glossary, by F. K. Robinson ; quoted from Marshall. y. In
the same Whitby Glossary, the word for ‘gossamer’ is entered as
summer-gauze. This may be confidently pronounced to be an ingenious
corruption, as the word gauze is quite unknown to Middle-English
and to the peasants of Craven, who say summer-goose; see Cart’s
Craven Glossary, where the summer-colt and summer-goose are synony-
mous. δ. The G. sommer means not only ‘summer,’ but also
“ gossamer,’ in certain compounds. The G. name for ‘ gossamer’ is
not only sommerfaden (summerthreads), but also mddchen-sommzer
(Maiden-summer), der-alte- Weiber-sommer (the old women’s summer),
or Mechtildesommer; see E. Miiller. It was also simply known as
der fliegende sommer, the flying summer (Weigand). This makes G.
sommer =summer-film ; and gives to gossamer the probable sense of
‘ goose-summer-film.’ The connexion of the word with summer is
further illustrated by the Du. zomerdraden, gossamer, lit. ‘summer-
threads,’ and the Swed. sommertraéd, gossamer, lit. ‘summer-thread.’
It may be observed that the spelling gossamer (with a) is certainly
corrupt. It should rather be gossomer or gossummer.
GOSSIP, a sponsor in baptism, a crony. (E.) The old sense
was ‘sponsor in baptism,’ lit. “ god-relative.’ The final p stands for
δ, and ss for ds. ΜΕ. gossib, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 5825 (Ὁ 243); earlier
spelt godsib. See Poems of Will. of Shoreham, ed. Wright, pp.
68-70, where occur the words gossibbe, sibbe, and gossibrede (also
spelt godsibrede), a derivative from godsib by suffixing ME. -rede
(=AS. r@den, E.-red in kind-red). B. Thus gossip stands for god-sib,
i.e. related in God; AS. godsibb, Wulfstan, ed. Napier, p. 160; m.
pl. god:ibbas. The f. sb. sib in AS, means ‘ peace,’ but there was
a derived word meaning ‘relative.’ Thus, in Luke, xiv. 12, the
Northumb. glosses to Latin cogna/os are (in one MS.) s:bbo and (in the
other) gistbbe; and again, in the Ormulum, 1. 307, it is said of
Elizabeth that she was ‘ Sante Mar3e sibb,’ i.e. Saint Mary’s relative.
Cf. Icel. sif, affinity; si, a relative; G. sippe, affinity; pl. sippen,
kinsmen; Goth. siba, relationship, adoption as sons, Gal. iv. 5; unstbis,
lit. unpeaceful, hence, lawless, wicked, Mark, xv. 28 ; unsibja, iniquity,
Matt. vii. 23. These are further related to Skt. sabhya-, relating to
an assembly, fit for an assembly, trusty, faithful; from sabha, an
assembly. Brugmann, i. §§ 124 (4), 567.
GOTH, one of a certain early Germanic tribe. (Late L.— Gothic.)
‘Theodoric, the king of Gothes ;? Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, bk. i. pr.
4. 53.—Late L. Garhi, pl. Goths. — Goth. *Gutds, or *Gutans, pl.; cf.
Goth. Gut-piuda, the Gothic people, where piuda (AS. péod) means
“people.” Der. Goth-tc.
GOUGE, a chisel with a hollowed blade. (F.—Late L.—C. ἢ)
GRADE
Formerly googe. ‘By googing of them out ;’ Ben Jonson, The Devil
is an Ass, A. 11. sc. 1 (Meercraft), ‘An yron goodg;’ Naval Accounts,
p- 240 (1497).—F. gouge, ‘a joyners googe;’ Cot. Cf. Span. gubia,
a gouge ; Ital. sgubia, sgubbia (Torriano) ; Port. goiva.— Late L. guvia,
a kind of chisel, in Isidore of Seville, lib. xix. De Instrumentis Lig-
nariis (Brachet) ; also gulbinm (Ducange). B. Of obscure origin ; but
perhaps Celtic. —OlIrish gulban, a beak; W. gylf (N. E. D.).
GOURD, a large fleshy fruit. (F.—L.) ME. gourd, Chaucer,
C. T. 17031 (Η 82). =F. gourde, formerly spelt gouhourde or cougourde,
both of which spellings are in Cotgrave. Gourde is short for gou-
hourde, which is a corruption of cougourde.—L. cucurbita, a gourd;
evidently a reduplicated form.
GOURMAND, a glutton. (F.—Scand.) Also gormand, gor-
mond, ‘To that great gormond, fat Apicius;’ Ben Jonson, Sejanus,
A. i. sc. 1. ‘To gurmander, abligurire;’ Levins, 83. 22.—F. gour-
mand, ‘a glutton, gormand, belly-god;’ Cot. B. Of Scand. origin.
— Norw, gurmen, inclined to gorge oneself (Ross) ; from gurma, (1)
to stir up mud; (2) to eat steadily and continually ; (3) to gorge one-
self (Aasen, Ross). Cf. Icel. gormr ; Norw. gurm, ooze, mud, grounds
of coffee, &c., allied to gor, gore; see Gore (1). The Span. gormar
means ‘to vomit.’ Der. gormand-ize or gormand-ise, q.V.
GOUT (1), a drop, adisease. (F.—L.) ‘ Gouts of blood;’ Macb.
ii. 1. 46. ‘And he was al-so sik mid goufe,’ i.e. with the disease;
Rob. of Glouc. p. 564; 1. 11865. The disease was supposed to be
caused by a defluxion of humours; so that it is the same word as
gout, a drop.—OF. goute, goutte, a drop; also, ‘the gowt;’ Cot. -
L. gutta,a drop. Der. gout-y, gout-i-ness.
GOUT (2), taste. (F.—L.) Merely borrowed from F, gout, taste.
-L. gustus, taste; cf. gustare, to taste; from the same root as E.
choose. See Choose.
GOVERN, to steer, direct, rule. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. gouernen,
(with uw for v), Rob. of Glouc. p. 44; 1. 1036.—OF. governer, later
gouverner.—L. guberndre, to steer a ship, guide, direct. (Borrowed
from Gk.) —Gk. κυβερνᾷν, to steer. Cf. Lithuan. kumbrttr, to steer.
Der. govern-able; govern-ess, Mids. Nt. Dream, ii. 1. 103; govern-
ment, Tempest, i. 2. 75 (the older term being govern-ance, as in
Chaucer, C. T. 12007, C 73); govern-ment-al; govern-or, ME.
gouernour (u for v), Wyclif, James, ili. 4, from OF. governeur<L.
acc. guberndtorem, a steersman ; governor-ship.
GOWAN, a daisy. (Scand.) ‘ And pu’d the gowans fine ;’ Burns,
Auld Lang Syne, st. 2. Also formerly, a buttercup; North E. gowlan,
Se. yellow gowan, corn marigold. Named from the colour. =Icel.
gulr, Swed. gul, Dan. guul, yellow. See Yellow.
GOWK,a cuckoo; a foolish person. (Scand.) ‘Thare galede the
gowke,’ there sang the cuckoo; Allit. Morte Arthure, 1]. 927, And
see E.D. D.=Icel. gaukr, a cuckoo; Swed. gok.--AS. géac (prov.
E. yeke), a cuckoo; G. gauch, Teut. type *gaukoz, τη.
GOWN, a loose robe. (F.—Late L.) ME. goune, Chaucer, C. T.
393; P. Plowman, Β. xiii. 227.—OF. gone, gonne, goune, a long coat
(Godefroy). —Late L. gunna, a skin, fur (scholiast on Geo. ill. 383) ;
also a garment of fur (8th cent.) Ducange. Hence also Ital. gonna,
OSpan. and Prov. gona, a woman's gown. Cf. also Byzantine Gk.
γοῦνα, a coarse garment. @] Sometimes said to be Celtic, which is
doubtful ; see Stokes-Fick, p. 281. Cf. W. gwn, a gown, loose robe ;
Trish gunn, Gael. and Corn. gun, a gown; Manx goon; but these
may be borrowed from E. Der. gown-s-man.
GRAB, to seize, clutch. (E.) A somewhat vulgar word, but
given in Rider, Eng.-Lat. Dict. (1589). Prob. of native origin; cf.
EFries. grabbig, greedy, grabbelen, to grab δἵ. Du. grabbel, a
scramble, grabbelen, to scramble for; Low G. grabbeln, to grab at;
Swed. grabba, to grasp. Very near to OSkt. grabh, to seize, a Vedic
form, of which the later form is grah; cf. OSlav. grabiti, to plunder.
The standard E. word is gripe. See Grapple, Gripe, Grasp.
GRACE, favour, mercy, pardon. (F.—L.) ME. grace, in early
use; Layamon, 6616 (later text). —OF. grace, L. gratia, favour. =
L. gratus, dear, pleasing. Brugmann, i. §§ 524, 632. Der. grace-
Jul, grace-ful-ly, grace-ful-ness ; grac-i-ous, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 8489
(E 613); grac-t-ous-ly, grac-i-ous-ness ; grace-less, grace-less-ly, grace-
less-ness. And see grateful.
GRADATION, an advance by short steps, a blending of tints.
(F.—L.) In Shak. Oth. i. 1. 37. —OF. gradation, ‘ a gradation, step,
degree ;᾿ Cot.—L. gradalidnem, acc. of gradatio, an ascent by steps.
Cf. L. gradatim, step by step. —L. gradus, a step. See Grade. Der.
gradation-al, gradation-ed.
GRADE, a degree, step in rank. (F.—L.) Of late introduction
into E.; see Todd’s Johnson ; though used asa mathem. term ( = degree)
asearly as 1511. [But the derived words graduate, &c., have been long
in use; see below.]=F. grade, ‘a degree ;’ Cot.—L. gradum, acc.,
a step, degree. =L. gradi (pp. gressus), to step, go. Brugmann, i.
§ 635; ii. § 707; Stokes-Fick, p.118. Der. grad-at-ion, q.v., grad-
i-ent, Q.v., grad-u-al, q.v., grad-u-ate, q.v. Doublet, gradus. From
]
GRADIENT
the same source are de-gree, de-grade, retro-grade ; in-gred-i-ent; also
ag-gress-ion, con-gress, di-gress, e-gress, in-gress, pro-gress, trans-gress.
GRADIENT, gradually rising; a slope. (L.) A coined word,
used in modern mechanics. = L. gradient-, stem of gradiens, pres. part.
of gradi, to walk, advance. See Grade.
GRADUAL, advancing by steps. (L.) ‘By gradual scale ;’
Milton, P. L. v. 483. [Also as sb., a gradual (see Blount), a service-
book called in Latin graduale, and more commonly known in ME. by
the F. form grayl.|—Late L. *gradualis, but only used in the neut.
gradudale (often graddle), to signify a service-book ‘containing the
portions to be sung by the choir, so called from certain short phrases
after the Epistle sung ix gradibus’ [upon the steps]; Proctor, On the
Common Prayer, p. 8. Formed, with suffix -dlis, from gradu-, decl.
stem of gradus, a step. See Grade. Der. gradual-ly. And see
grail (1).
GRADUATE, one who has received a university degree; as
verb, to take a degree, to mark off degrees. (L.) Cotgrave has:
‘Gradué, graduated, having taken a degree;’ and also: ‘ Grade,
graduate, or having taken a degree.’ ‘I would be a graduate, sir, no
freshman ;’ Beaum. and Fletcher, Fair Maid, A. iv. sc. 2 (Dancer).
And as sb., in Barclay, Ship of Fools, i. 2.— Late L. gradudtus, one
who has taken a degree; still in use at the universities. —L. gradu-,
decl. stem of gradus, a degree ; with pp. suffix -d/us. Der. graduat-
ton, graduat-or.
GRAFT, GRAFF, to insert buds ona stem. (F.—L.—Gk.) The
form graft is due to a confusion with graffed, which was orig. the pp.
of graff. Shak. has grafted, Macb. iv. 3. 51; but he also rightly has
graft as a pp. ‘ Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants ;’ Rich. IIT,
iii. 7.127. Also the verb to graff, As You Like It, iii. 2. 124. Cf.
Rom. xi.17. ME. graffen, to graft ; P. Plowman, B. v. 137. B. The
verb is formed from the sb. graff, a scion; found in 1398 (N. E. D.).
‘This bastard graff shall never come to growth;’” Shak. Lucr. 1062.
“ΟΕ. graffe, grafe, a style for writing with, a sort of pencil; also
greffe, ‘a graff, a slip or young shoot;’ Cot. [80 named from the
resemblance of the cut slip to the shape ofa pointed pencil. Similarly
we have L. graphiolum, (1) a small style, (2) a small shoot, scion,
graff.]—L. graphium, a style for writing with. —Gk. γραφίον, another
form of γραφεῖον, a style, pencil. = Gk. γράφειν, to write, grave. See
Graphic. Der. graft-er.
GRAIL (1), a gradual, or service-book. (F.—L.) ME. graile,
grayle. ‘ Grayle, boke, gradale, vel gradalis ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 207 ;
and see Way’s note.—OF. graél; Godefroy. —Late L. gradale; see
explanation s.v. Gradual.
GRAIL (2), the Holy Dish at the Last Supper. (F.—L.) In
Spenser, F. Q. ii. το. 53. ‘Fulfille the meruails of the greal;’
Arthur and Merlin, ed. Kolbing, 2222. See my Pref. to Joseph of
Arimathie, published for the Early Eng. Text Society. It is there
shown that the true etymology was, at an early period, deliberately
falsified by a change of San Greal (Holy Dish) into Sang Real (Royal
Blood, but perversely made to mean Real Blood). OF. graal, greal,
grasal, a flat dish, Prov. grasal, Late L. gradale, grasale, a flat dish,
a shallow vessel. [The various forms in OF. and Low L. are very
numerous; see the articles in Godefroy, Ducange, and Charpentier’s
Supplement to Ducange.} B. The word would appear to represent
a Folk-L. type *cratalis, formed from Late L. cratus, a cup, substi-
tuted for crater,a bowl. See Crater. It was, fabulously, the dish in
which Joseph of Arimathea is said to have collected our Lord’s blood.
GRAIL (3), fine sand. (F.) Spenser uses the word in a way
peculiarly his own ; he seems to have meant ‘ fine particles ;’ he speaks
of ‘sandie graile,’ and of ‘golden grayle;’ Ἐς Q.i. 7.6; Visions of
Bellay, st. 12. Perhaps suggested by MF. graisle, ‘thinne, small,
little ;’ Cot. (mod. F. gréle).—L. gracilis,slender. Φ It is, of course,
possible that Spenser was merely coining a new form of gravel.
GRAIN, a single small hard seed. (F.—L.) ME. grein, greyn,
grain; Chaucer, C. T. 598 (A 596); P. Plowman, B. x. 139. —OF.
grain. —L. granum, a grain, corn.-Irish gran, W. gronyn. Cognate
with E. corn. See Corn. Der. grain-ed; also granule, q.v., grange,
4-Υ., granary, q.v., granite, q.v. 33 Grain in the sense of fibre of
wood is the same word; cf. F. grain des pierres, the grain of stones
(Hamilton). The phrase ‘to dye in grain’ meant to dye of a fast
colour, by means of kermes, &c.; whence grained, deeply dyed,
Hamlet, iii. 4.90. The phrase is an old one; see P. Plowman, B. ii.
15. and the note.
GRALLATORY, long-legged, said of birds. (L.) A term
applied to wading birds. Coined from L. grallator, a walker on
stilts. =L. gralle, stilts, contracted from * gradle, formed from the
| base grad-in L. gradi,towalk. SeeGrade. Brugmann, i. § 587 (4).
|
|
|
|
|
Der. grallatori-al.
GRAMARYE, magic. (F.—L.—Gk.) Used by Scott, Lay of the
Last Minstrel, iii. 11, vi. 17; who took it from ‘ King Estmere’ in
Percy’s Reliques, where it occurs in a passage the genuineness of
GRANT 247
which is doubtful ; see Percy Folio MS., ii. 604, 1. 144, ii. 607, 1. 274.
The same word as ME. gramery, gramory, skill in grammar, or
(Gestingly) skill in magic. ‘Cowthe ye by youre gramery reche us a
drynk, I shuld be more mery ; Towneley Myst. p. 90, ‘I se thou
can of gramory and som what of arte;’ id. p. 311.—OF. gramaire,
grammar;seeGrammar. > I desire here to record my opinion,
that the word glamour, magic, also used by Scott in the same poem
(iii. 9), and taken by him from the expression ‘ They coost the glamer
o’er her’ in Johnny Faa (printed in Ritson’s Sc. Poems, ii. 176), is
nothing but another form of gramere, i.e. grammar. The note in
Vigfusson’s Dict. asserting the identity of glamour with Icel. glamr,
the moon, cannot be seriously entertained. I see that Littré (5. νυ.
grimoire) agrees with me as to glamour; cf. grimoire in Hatzfeld.
| This note, now confirmed (see N. E. D.), first appeared in 1884. }
GRAMERCY, thanks! (F.—L.) In Shak. Merch. of Ven. ii. 2.
128. Formerly grand mercy, Chaucer, C. T. 8964 (E 1088). =F.
grand merct, great thanks. See Grand and Mercy.
GRAMINEOUS, relating to grass. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674. Coined from L. gramin-, stem of gramen, grass. Der. gra-
minivorous, grass-eating, from grdmini-, decl. stem of gramen, and
uorare, to devour; see Voracious. And see Grass.
GRAMMAR, the science of the use of language. (F.—L.—Gk.)
ME. grammere, Chaucer, C. T. 13466 (B 1726).—OF. gramatre
(12th cent. ; see Hatzfeld).— Late L. grammatica, grammar (Hatzfeld).
— Gk. γραμματική, grammar. — Gk. γραμματικός, knowing one’s letters
(see below). Der. grammar-i-an, grammar-school ; from the same
source, grammatical; see below.
GRAMMATICAL, belonging to grammar. (F.—L.—Gk.)
‘Those grammatic flats and shallows;’ Milton, Of Education (R.).
Grammaticall isin Palsgrave, page v. — F. grammatical,‘ grammaticall;’
Cot, Formed, with suffix -al, trom L. grammaticus, grammatical. =
Gk. γραμματικός, versed in one’s letters, knowing the rudiments. = Gk.
ραμματ-, stem of γράμμα, a letter. Gk. γράφειν, to write. Der.
grammatical-ly.
GRAMPUS, a kind of fish. (F.—L.) ‘ Grampus, a fish somewhat
like a whale, but less;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. Sir T. Herbert mentions
‘ porpice, grampasse (the sus marinus), mullet,’ &c.; Travels, p. 404,
ed. 1655 (or p. 384, Todd's Johnson). Spelt graundepose in Skelton,
Speke Parrot, 1. 309.—AF. grampais, Black Book of Admiralty,i. 152;
a changed form of OF. craspois, crapois, graspois, grapois (Godefroy);
by substituting OF. grand, great, for OF. cras, gras, fat. Cf. Late L.
craspiscis in Thorpe, Anc. Laws, i. 300.—L. crassum piscem, acc., fat
fish. See Grease and Fish. @ The word forpoise is similarly
formed. See Porpoise.
GRANARY, ἃ storehouse for grain. (L.) ‘ Granary or Garner ;’
Kersey, ed. 1715. Also granarie in Levins, 104. 24.—L. grandrium
(pl. grandria), a granary.—L. griainum, corn. See Grain and
Garner. Doublet, garner; also, grange.
GRAND, great, large. (F.—L.) In Shak. Temp. i. 2. 274. ΜΕ.
grant, graunt ; not much used formerly, except in compounds. The
comp. grandame occurs in St. Marharete, ed. Cockayne, p. 22, 1. 32.
Graund-father is in Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol. 1. c. 3. Fabyan has
graund-mother, vol. i. c. 124; ed. Ellis, p. 102.—OF. grand, great.
=L. grandem, acc. of grandis, great. Der. grand-child, grandame,
grand-sire, grand-father, grand-son, grand-mother, grand-daughter ;
grand-ly, grand-ness, And see below.
GRANDEE, a Spanish nobleman. (Span.—L.) Spelt grandy;
‘in a great person, right worshipful sir, a right honourable grandy ;’
Burton, Anat. of Melancholy, To the Reader, ed. 1651, p. 35. Spelt
grande, Β. Jonson, Alchemist, A. iii. —Span. grande, great; also, a
nobleman. =L. grandem, acc. of grandis, great. See Grand.
GRANDEUR, greatness. (F.—L.) In Milton, P. R. iv. rro.
=F. grandeur, ‘ greatnesse;’ Cot. Formed, with suffix -ewr, from Ἐς
grand, great. See Grand.
GRANDILOQUENT, pompous in speech. (L.) Not in early
use. The adj. and the sb. grandiloquence are in Blount’s Glossary
(1681). Formed (in rivalry of L. grandiloguus, grandiloquent), from
grandi-, decl. stem of grandis, great, and loguent-, stem of pres. part.
of logui, to speak. See Grand and Loquacious. Der. grandi-
loquence.
GRANGE, a farmhouse. (F.—L.) ME. grange, graunge; Chaucer,
C. T. 12996 (B 1256) ; P. Plowman, B. xvii. 71.—OF. grange,‘a barn
for corn; also, a grange;’ Cot. ([Cf. Span. granja, a farmhouse,
villa, grange.]— Late L. granica, granea,a barn, grange.=L. granum,
corn. See Grain.
GRANITE, a hard stone. (Ital.—L.) ‘Grantte or Granita, a
kind of speckled marble ;’ Kersey, ed. 1715.—Ital. grantto, ‘a kind
of speckled stone;’ Florio. Ital. granito, pp. of granire, ‘to reduce
into graines;’ Florio; hence, to speckle.—Ital. grano, corn.=L.
granum, corn. See Grain.
GRANT, to allow, bestow, permit. (F.—L.) ME. graunten,
348 GRANULE
gvanien, in very early use; Layamon, 4789, later text ; Ancren Riwle.
> 34-— OF graanter, eraunter, later spellings of OF. craanier. creax-
ἔστ, to caution, to assure, guarantee; whence the later senses of
promise, yield. Cf Late L. créantare (for *crédeafare), to assure,
guarantee : creariium, a caution, guarantee; Ducange.=Lste L.
*crédentare, to guarantee, not found: closely related to Late L. er |
dentia, a promise, whence F. créance.— L_ credient-, stem of pres. part. |
of erédere, to trust. See Creed. Der. grant, sh, graxi-or, grani-ce.
GRANULE, a little rain. (L.) ‘Granule, a little grain. or berley-
corm;” Blount’s Gloss, ed. 1674. (Prob. directly from L.; bat εἴ.
Ἐς grade) —L. ξταπελεπε, @ little grain; dimin. of granum, a grain.
See Grain. Der. granul-ar, graxul-ate, granul-at-ion, for, sramul—ous
GRAPB, the fruit of the vine. (----Ο. LowG.) In Chancer, C.T.
17032 (H $3); P. Plowman, B xiv. 30.—OF. grate; MF. grappe.
<a bunch, or cluster of grapes τ᾿ Cot. [The orig. sense was ‘ ἐξ hook.
whence OF. grager, to gather clusters with a hook. The Ronchi dial.
has crape, 8 bunch (Heeart). In Ἐς. the sense has altered from
*cluster® to “single berry.” Bat cf Norman dial. grate, a grape
(Mfoisy; ed. 1895). C£ Span. grape, a hold-fast, camp-iron : Ital:
grappare, to Ξεῖτε ; srapfo, ἃ clutching; gradpolo, a cluster of grapes]
“—Tent. type *Eraffe-, whence O. Low G. crappo, = hook (Gallée),
Low G. irappe, s hook (Berghaus), OHG. chrapho, a hook. Allied
to E. cramp. See Cramp. Der. srapery. grape-skot. @> The
senses of “hook” and το εν or ‘handfal* resalt from that of |
“chatching.” See σταῤκεῖ.
GRAPHIC, pertsining to writing ; descriptive, (L.—Gk.) ‘The
letters will grow more large and graphical ;° Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 503.
«Eech Hine, as it were graphic, ‘in the face ;” Ben Jonson, An Elegy
on My Muse, Underwoods, του. ix. 154.—L. graphics, belonging to
painting or drawing. ¢.=— GE. ραφεκός, the some.— Gh ypiser. to write.
See Carve. Der. grapkic-ai,
“GRAPNEL, a grappling-iron. (F.— “δ “Low G) ME eeanent
(trisyllsbic) ; Chancer, Legend of Good Women, 640 (Cleo) _—
OF. grapén (Supp.to Guitar. Ἐς srapgim, 2 grepnel ; with dim. suiix
~, thus giving grapinel, in three syllsbles, Formed, with suffix -ix,
from OF. σταῤε. F. grappe, a hook. See Grape, Grapple.
[ἐπ PLE, to lay fest hold of, clutch. (F.—O. Low G.) In
Shsk. 1. L. L. ii. 218; Spenser, F. Ὁ. ἵν. 4-29. Properly to seize with
a graple, Le agrapael (Palsgrere, Ῥ 227): 2nd formed from the sb. =
ME. srappil, “the σγαῤῥέε of a ship;” Cot. The same in sense es F.
grappem. Both grappil snd gsrap}-iz are formed from F. srappe,
formerly used in the sense of “ “hook ;” ef. the phrase mardre ἃ Ja
gratfe, to bite at the hook, to swallow the bait (Hamilton) See
farther under Grape.
GRASP, to seize, δ μοιὰ k=. (Ε) ΜΕ. used in the sense
of “ grope,” to feel one’s way; 25 in ‘ And grasgezk by the walles to
and πὸ τ᾿ Chaucer, CT. 4291 (A 4293); also in Wyclif, Job, v..14,
xii. 25 (earlier version), where the Ister version hes grope. Just as
clasp was formerly claps, so grasp stands for grats. The ME. grasfex
stands for grag-sen, “That gragsest here and there as doth the blyade;*
Hoecleve, De Reg. Princ., ed. Wright, p. 8, st. 31 ΕΝ 2132). Prob.
from AS type Sorsisan (Teat. type *eraifésdx). from erizpex, to grope.
Cp. EFries. gratex, to stize. See Grope. gq Similsr transpositions
of sp are seen in the prov. Ἐς wogs for =asp, in AS. kegs, 2 hesp. AS
eps, an espen-tree; &ce. The extension of the stem by the addition
of s occurs in AS., and remsins in E. deex-s from dean.
GRASS, common herbsge. (E.) ME gras, gres; also gars. Spelt
eres, Chancer, C. T. 7577 (D 1995); gres and gresse, Prompt. Parv.
P. 2103-2, Ayenbite of Inwyt, ed. Morris, p.11I. AS gers, sres,
Grein, 1. 373-5 525.-+ Dr. snd Teel. gras; Swed. and Dan. sras ; Goth.
gras; G. gras Teut type *grasom,neut. From *grz., a weak grade
of Tent. "gr, to grow; ἐξ MHG. greose, young plants; and E
gremn. See Grow. Der. grass-floi, grass-y; grass-kopper = AS.
gerskoppa, Ps Ixxvii. 51, ed. Spelman : ἔσω ΜΕ. ς eresia, , Prompt.
Perv. Pp. 210, fom AS. grasam (Icel. gresja) ; grozfer=graz-a
cf. bew-yer, law-yer).
GRATE (1), Ξ fame-work of firon-bars. (Late L.—L.) ME grex.
* Grate, or trelys wyadowe, cancellus ;” Prompt. Parv. p. 207. =Late
L_ grate, a grating ; cf. Itel. erate, 2 grate, gridiron. ‘A variant of
Late τι crate, a grating, crat iar craves, 2 hurdle. See Crate.
Thus grave is a mere variant of crate, due to s weakened pronunciation. |
Der. grating, 3. Gimm. form; graz-ed.
GRATE | (2), to rub, scrape, scraich, STEER. (F.—Teat.) ME
graiex. © Grate brede [to grate os ], mica: Prompt. Perv. Ρ. 207-
*Graiyase of cyngare, jricta c.—OF. grater. to scratch, to
scrape; Cot; > Norm. dial. τς Qlfoisy) - ΓΈ. gratier. Cf. τσὶ.
graitare, to scratch, rab; Late L. crever cs found ia the Gamanic
Ξ “Εἰ quis aliem unguibus ἐταξατεσες ;* Lex Frisonmma, app. 5-—
codes ;
pare eee @s seen In Swed. iraita, to scrape; Dan.
; OHG. ckra=zix, G. ἂν scratch. Der. grater,
Cf. sratck.
γαΐΞξεπκ. to
scrape aizzz, tO
to scrape
grating, grat at-ing-ly.
GRAZE
| GRATEFUL, pleasant, thankful. (Hybrid; F. ad E) In
| Shak. All's Well, ii. 1.132. The suffix -fai is E., from AS. -fal, full.
The first syllable appears again in in-grate, and is dertved from OF .
grat, likewise preserved in OF. in-grat, * ungratefal;? Cot =L.
| pleasing. See Grace. Der. graieful- -ly, graieful-ness ; also gratify,
q-¥- = and see gratis, gratifude, gratuitous, gratulate; also agree.
RATIFY, to please, soothe. (F.— =L.) In Shek. Merch. of
| Ven iv. I. 406.— ΜΕ. gratifer, ‘to gratihe;* Cot.—L. gratiicare,
gra@npeari, to please. —L. grati-<_graio-, decl. stem of graéus, pleas-
ing; and -fcare (=/facere), to make. S55 Grateful, Grace. Der.
gratific-atton, from L. ace. gratifoitdazm, which is from gratifcari_
GRATIS, freely. (L.) Im Shak. Merch. of Ven. i. 3. 45.—L.
gratis, adv. freely; for gratis, abl. pl. of grata, favour. Se Grace,
GRATITUDE, ‘thankfolness. (F.— L.) In Shek. Cor. ii, 1.
291.—F. gratiixd?; Cot.—Late L. griiitidinem, acc. of 5
thankfulness. Formed (like Seastado from beaéws) from grains,
pleasing ; see ἘΣ
GRATUITOUS. freely given. (L.) ‘By way of gift, merely
gratuitous; Bp. Taylor, Rule of Coaascience, bic 3 3. rale S1.—L.
grituit-as, freely given; with sufix.-ous. Extended from grat, for
griizs, pleasing. “See Grateful. Der. itous-ly ; and see below.
ce: > 8 present. (F.—L.) So called because given
freely or fs. *To be given me in graicty ;” Ben Jonson, The
Humble Petition of Poor Bea to K.C harles, 1. το. And in Cotgrave.
= OF. gransié ‘a gratuity, or free gift;* Cot.—Late 1. gratmiatem.
acc. of σταῤκιίᾶς. a “free gift. Allied to gratuits, freely given. See
above.
GRATULATE, to congratulate. (L_) In Shak. Rich. Ti, iv.
t.10.—L._ gratuatus, pp. of gratalari,to wish a person joy. Formed
2s if from an adj. *gratelus, joyful; an extension of grafus, pleasing.
Sce Grateful. Der. gratulet-ion, gratulat-or-y ; also con-gratelaie,
which hes now taken the place of the simple verb.
GRAVE (1), to cat, engrave. (ΒΕ) ME. (with = for»), to
grave, also to bury; Chancer, C. T. $557 (E 681): Layamon, 9960.
AS. grafen, to dig, grave, engrave; Grein. i. 523.-+ Du. graven, to
dig; Dan. srave; Tcel. graja ; Swed. grafve, to dig ; Goth. grabaz,
Luke, vi. 48 ; G. graten. Tent. type *graban-, pt.t. *grod; Idg. type
*gkrabk-; sehen also Russ. groé’,a tomb, 2 grave. Der. ve
Chaucer, Ὁ. T. 125990 Ὁ 665); ; lit. £ that which is s dug ont;” also
grawer, grav-ing, grocve.
GRAVE @s solemn, sad. (F.—L.) Lit ‘heavy’ In Spenser,
F.Q v. 7. 18.=F. grave, © grave, stately;* Cot —L. gramem, acc. of
graxis, heevy, grave. + Goth. Rexres, heavy, burdensome, 2 Cor.
x. 10; Gk. βαρύς, heavy; Stig heavy. ἐὰν πα 220i:
Der. gravely, grave-nes ; _also gravity (Shak.), from F_ grevité
(Cot), from L. ace. grauiaiem ; gravi-t-aie, gravt-t-atton ; ἘΞ
from L. grazidws, burdened. From the same root, 7227, g- ν.: also
ay-sTav-aiz, ag-srizve, éaro-meier.
GRAVEL, fne small stones. (F.—C_) ME grazd (with x for 2),
in early use; in King Hom, ed. Lumby, 1. 14635.—OF- gravele, later
gravelle (Godefroy, Cot); dimin. of ΟΕ. grave, rough sand mixed
with stones (Brachet). =Celt. bese *srvave-, 25 in Bret. growan, gravel,
Com. grew, gravel, sand, W. ὅσο, pebbles ; Stokes-Fick, p. 117.
Der. graveli-y.
GRAVY, juice from cooked meat. F.- ΤΩ i eee
ree S St. Also τ or (with = for >).
1 se Mee oer τε ee ae
fat and greanie;” id_xvili. 63. ME. grexze, grazey, the name of 2
dresing for meats made of broth, milk of almonds, spices, and wine
orale. ‘Conyngus in graxe, rabbits in in gravy. Liber Cure Cocorum,
ed. Mortis, p. ὃ: cf. pp. 24, 35. And sce graxty in Two Cookery
books, ed. Austin (glossary). —OF. ξταπέ, a Similer sauce, which
seems to have been misread as grawé; cf‘ conyns en σγαπέ᾽ (mis-
printed grave}, Wright, Vol. of Vocab. iz 74. See Godefroy.—L_
ξταᾶπαξας, fll ‘of grains (with appsrent allusion to the thickened
broth). =L. grim, a grain; see Grain and Grenade. ¢= Thus
gravy appears to be an enor for gvaimy. Tormano explsins 15}.
Ξταπαῖο. granifo, ας ὃ kermnelly or comy as honey, figs, soap, or oyl is
sometimes in winter.’ See N. ED.
GRAY, asb-coloared ; white mixed with black. (E)
grey. ‘Hire eyen grey 3s clas: Chsucer, C. T. 159.
| (O. E. Texts) 3 AS. g72s; Grem, i. 525.-+ Da graamz; Icel. grar;
| Dan. gran; “Swed. «τᾶ: G. grax. Teat. type *grégecz; whenee
‘erés-,*srée.._ Cf. Low G. grag, gra (Bergh=us}. Der. grayzsk,
grayteard: (with doable dimm. suffix). CE «γαεῖε ss 2)
fsh-name in Harrison’s Descr. of England. Sil. 3.
GRAZBS (i), to fed aitle (E) Merely formed fom gras
ME. grease. ‘And lich an oxe, under the fot, He growth 3s ἢ
. | nedes mot ;? seid af Nebachsdnezzar;_ Gower, C. A-i. 142; bk. i. 2973-
| AS. grasiar, to graze. + Icel. grega; Dan. gsresse; Du. grazer; Ὁ
| eraser, See Grass. Der. graze.
GRAZE
GRAZE (2), to touch lightly in passing and glance off. (E.) It
appears to be merely a peculiar use of graze (1); and was used of
cannon-balls that rebounded from the grass. ‘That being dead, like
to the bullet’s grazing, Break out into a second course of mischief ;’
Hen. V, iv. 3. 105. ‘Those bullets which graze on the ground do
most mischief;’ Fuller, Holy and Profane State, ν, 1. 2. 80 also
G. grasen, to graze (pasture), also to rol] and bound, as cannon-balls
(Fligel) ; so also Dan. gresse (Larsen).
GREASE, animal fat, oily matter. (F.—L.) ME. grece, grese;
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 135, 6069 (A 135, D 487).—OF. graisse, gresse,
earlier creisse (Supp. to Godefroy); F. graisse.—Folk-L. *crassia
(Hatzfeld).=—L. crassus, thick, fat. See Crass. Der. greas-y,
greas-i-ness ; also cresset, q. v.
GREAT, large, ample, big. (E.) ME. gret, grete; Chaucer,
(ΟἿ. 1279. AS. gréat, Grein, i. 527. + Du. groot; G. gross. Teut.
type *grautoz. Der. great-ly, great-ness; great-coat, great-hearted ;
also great-grandfather, great-grandson. And see groat.
GREAVES (1), GRAVES, the sediment of melted tallow.
(E.) ‘Chandlers graiues [pr. graines|] ... the offall of rendred
Tallow;’ G. Markham, Husbandry (1614), Ρ. 97 (N.E.D.). ‘To
Grave a ship, to preserve the calking, by laying over a mixture of
tallow or train-oil, rosin, &c. boiled together ;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed.
1715. This verb merely means to smear with grave or graves, i.e, a
tallowy mess. Perhaps a native word; the AS. gréofa, glossed olla
(pot) may have meant ‘ melting-pot.’ Cf. EFries. grafen, pl., greaves.
Also MSwed. grefwar, dirt, ljus-grefwar, candle-ditt, refuse of tallow
(Ihre) ; Swed. dial. grevar, sb. pl. leavings of tallow, greaves (Rietz) ;
Westphal. graiwe; Low G. greven, greaves; Bremen WoOrterbuch,
ii. 541. + G. griebe, the fibrous remains of lard, after it has been fried
(Flugel) ; OHG. griupo, griebo.
GREAVES (2), armour for the legs. (I’.) In Milton, Samson,
1121. ME. grewes, pl.; Gawain and Grene Knt. 575.—OF. greves,
“boots, also greayes, or armour for the legs;’ Cot. Cf. Span. grebas
(pl. of greba), greaves.—OF. greve, ‘the shank, shin, or forepart of
the leg;’ Cot.; Picard greve.
GREBB,, an aquatic bird. (F.) Not in Johnson. First found in
Pennant (1766).—F. grébe, a grebe (Hamilton); also grépe, in the
dial. of Lyons (Puitspelu). Of unknown origin; Cot. gives griaibe,
‘a séa-mew,’ as a Savoyard word.
GRECE, a flight of steps. (F.—L.) ‘A grece ther was of steppis
fijftene ;” Cursor Mundi,1l. 10584. Really a pl. ;=gree-s, pl. of gree,
a step. OF. gré,a step (Roquefort).—L. gradum, acc. of gradus,
a step. See Grade and Degree. B. Hence grece was often im-
properly used to mean ‘a (single) step ;’ Shak. spells it grise ; Oth.
1 3. 200.
GREEDY, hungry, voracious. (E.) ME. gredi, gredy; Ancren
Riwle, p. 416; whence gredinesse, id. p. 416. AS. grédig, grédig ;
Grein, i. 525. + Icel. gradugr ; MSwed. gradig, gradig (Ihre); Dan.
graadig; Goth. grédags. Teut. type *gr@dugoz; an adj. formed from
Teut. gr#duz, hunger, greed; as seen in Goth. grédus, hunger, Icel.
graér, hunger, and in AS. gr#d-um, greedily, a dat. pl. form.
Further allied to Skt. grdhra-, greedy, grdh, to be greedy; gardha-s,
greed; Macdonell. («/GERDH.) Der. greed-i-ly, greed-i-ness, The
sb. greed, though not found before 1609, is a perfectly correct form.
GREEN, of the colour of growing plants. (E.) ME. green, grene,
Chaucer, C. T. 6443 (D 861) ; used assb., 6580(D 998). AS. gréne,
Grein, i. 526. [Here ὃ represents the ¢- mutation of 0, so that the
base is gro-.] + Du. groen; Icel. grenn (for grenn) ; Dan, and Swed.
grin; G. griin, MHG, gruene, OHG, kruonit. Teut. type *gron-joz,
earlier type *grd-niz (Sievers). Allied to AS. grdwan, to grow.
Teut. base *gra-, *grd-; see Grass. Thus green is the colour of
growing herbs. Der. green-s; the phrase ‘ wortes of grenes’ is used
to translate holera herbarum in The Anglo-Saxon and Early English
| Psalters, ed. Stevenson (Surtees Soc.), vol. i. p. 111; Ps. xxxvi. 2.
Also green-cloth, green-crop, greengage, green-grocer (see grocer),
green-house, green-ish, green-ish-ness, green-room, green-sand, green-
stone ; also green-sward (s.v. sward).
. GREENGAGE, a kind of plum. (Ε.) This stands for green
Gage, where Gage is a personal name. It is the French plum called
la grosse Reine Claude, and is written as Green Gage in P. Miller,
Gardener’s Dictionary, 7th ed. 1759, s.v. Prunus. ‘here is also a
blue Gage and a purple Gage. ‘Plum; of the many sorts, the follow-
ing are good: Green and blue gage, Fotheringham,’ &c.; C. Marshall,
Introd. to Gardening, 1796, p. 350. In R. Hogg’s Fruit Manual,
4th ed. 1875, it is said to have been introduced ‘at the beginning of
| the last century, by Sir T. Gage, of Hengrave Hall, near Bury, who
| procured it from his brother, the Rey. John Gage, a Roman Catholic
priest then resident in Paris.’ The following account is more explicit,
and gives the name as Sir William Gage. In Hortus Collinsonianus,
p: 60, are some Memoranda by Mr. Collinson, written 1759-1765,
where is the following entry. ‘On Plums. Mem. I was ona visit to
GRIEVE 249
Sir William Gage, at Hengrave, near Bury: he was then near 70.
He told me that he first brought over, from France, the Grosse Reine
Claude, and introduced it into England; and in compliment to him
the Plum was called the Green Gage; this was about the year 1725.’
(J. A. H. Murray.) B. It must be added, that Mr. Hogg shows that
there is reason for supposing that this plum was known in England
at least a century earlier than the above date, but was then called the
Verdoch, from the Ital. verdochia, obviously derived from verde
(L. uiridis), green. But this does not affect the etymology of the
present name. ‘The green gages’ occurs, with reference to plums,
in Foote’s Lame Lover, A. iii. (1770).
GREET (1), to salute. (E.) ME. greten, Chaucer, C. T. 8890
(E 1014); Ancren Riwle, p. 430. AS. grétan, to approach, visit,
address ; Grein, i. 526. + Du. groeten, to greet, salute ; OSax. grdtian ;
MHG. gruezen, G. griissen, to greet. Teut.type *grdtjan-; trom the
sb. *grét-oz, m., seen in Du. groet,G. gruss,agreeting. Der. greet-ing.
GREET (2), to weep, cry, lament. (E.) In Northern E. only.
ME. greten, Havelok, 164, 241, 285. AS. gr@tan, grétan, to weep;
Grein, i. 525. + Icel. grata; Dan. grade; Swed. grata; Goth. grétan,
to weep, pt. t. gai-grot. Teut. type *gr#tan-, with reduplic. pt. t.
Perhaps allied to Skt. hrad, to resound, roar, hrad-as, noise.
GREGARIOUS, associating in flocks. (L.) ‘No birds of prey
are gregarious;’ Ray, On the Creation, pt. i. (R.).—L. gregarius,
belonging to a flock (with suffix -ous). —L. greg-, base of grex, a flock ;
with suffix -arius. Cf. Olrish graig,a herd of horses ; W. gre, a flock ;
Stokes-Fick, p.117. Also Gk. ἀγείρειν, to assemble (Prellwitz). Der.
gregarious-ly, gregarious-ness; from the same source, ag-greg-ate,
con-greg-ate, se-greg-ate, e-greg-1ous.
GRENADE, a kind of war-missile. (F.—Span.—L.) Formerly
also granado, which is the Span. form. ‘ Granado, an apple filled
with delicious grains; there is also a warlike engine, that being filled
with gunpowder and other materials, is wont to be shot out of a
wide-mouthed piece of ordnance, and is called a granado for the like-
ness it hath with the other granado in fashion, and being fully stuffed
as the other granado is, though the materials are very different ;’
Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674. Spelt granados, Evelyn, Diary, June 1,
1667.—OF, grenade, ‘a pomegranet; also a ball of wildfire, made
like a pomegranet ;” Cot.—Span. granada, a pomegranate, a hand-
grenade. —Span. granado, full of seeds.—L. grandtus, full of seeds. —
L. granum, a grain. See Grain, Garnet. Der. grenad-ier (spelt
granadier, Evelyn, Diary, June 29, 1678).
GREY, the same as Gray, q. v.
GREYHOUND, a swift slender hound. (E.) ‘ Grehoundes he
hadde as swift as fowel in flight ;’ Chaucer, C. Τὶ rg0. Also spelt
greahund, Ancren Riwle, p. 332, last line. AS. grighund, Voc. 276.
3; where grig-=grieg- (Icel. grey-), for Teut. *graujo-. Cf. Icel.
greyhundr, a greyhouad ; composed of grey, a dog, and hundr, a
hound. The Icel. grey is also used alone in the sense of greyhound
or dog; and the Icel. greybaka means a bitch. 4 Whatever be the
source of Icel. grey, there is no pretence for connecting it with E.
gray, adj., for which the Icel. word is grar.
GRIDDLE, a pan for baking cakes. (F.—L.) ME. gredil, a
gridiron (in the story of St. Lawrence), Ancren Riwle, p.122. Called
a girdle (=gridle) in North, E.—AF. gridil (OF. greil), used to
gloss L. craticulam in Neckam; see Wright, Vol. Vocab. i. 102, 1. 9.
So also AF. gridile, glossed by ‘ rosting-hiron ;’ Nominale, ed. Skeat,
1. 488. [Cf Norm. dial. grédil, Moisy.]—Late L. *eraticulum, for L.
craticula, a griddle, dimin. of cratis,a hurdle. [W. greidyll is from E.)
See Crate, and see Grill. Der. From the same ME. gredil, by a
slight change, was made the ME. gredire, a griddle, P. Plowman,
C. iii. 130. Very likely, this was at first a mere change of / to r, but
the latter part of the word thus became significant, the ME. ire meaning
‘jron;’ hence our grid-iron, spelt gyrdiron in Levins, 163. 39.
GRIDE, to pierce, cut through. (E.) A favourite word with
Spenser; see F. Q. ii. 8. 36; Sheph. Kal. February, 1. 4; Virgil’s
Gnat, 254. And cf.‘ griding sword ;’ Milton, P. L. vi. 329. A mere
metathesis of gird, ME. girden, to strike, pierce, cut through, used
by Chaucer, and borrowed from him by later poets. ‘Thurgh girt
[pierced through] with many a grevous blody wound;’ Chaucer, C. T.
1012. See Gird (2). 4 The same word is used metaphorically
in the phrase ‘to gird at,’ i.e. to strike at, try to injure; see Shak.
2 Hen. IV, i. 2.7; so also a gird is a cut, a sarcasm, Tam. Shrew,
νὴ 2. 58.
GRIDIRON; see under Griddle.
GRIEF, great sorrow. (F.—L.) Inearly use. ME. grief, gref;
spelt gref, Floriz and Blancheflur, ed. Lumby, 187.— OF. grief, gref,
adj. burdensome, heavy, sad; as sb., grief (Godefroy).—L. grauem,
acc. of grauis, heavy, sad, grave. See Grave (2). Der. grieve,
&c. See below. ;
GRIEVE, to afflict; to moum. (F.—L.) ME. greuen (with
u=v), Rob. of Glouc, p. 41, 1. 969; P. Plowman, C. y. 95.—OF.
250 GRIFFIN, GRIFFON
grever, to grieve, burden, afflict.—L. grauare, to burden. —L. grauis,
heavy (above). Der. griev-ous (ME. greuous, P. Plowman, C. xvii.
77); griev-ous-ly, griev-ous-ness ; griev-ance, ME. greuance, Gower,
C. A. i. 289, bk. iii. 1. 296; and see above.
GRIFFIN, GRIFFON, an imaginary animal. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Griffin is a weakened spelling; a better spelling is griffon. ME.
griffon, Chaucer, C. T. 2135 (A 2133); King Alisaunder, 496. =F.
griffon, ‘a gripe, or griffon;’ Cot. Formed, with suffix -on, from
Late L. griffus, a griffin. —L. gryphus, an extended form of gryps,
a griffin. Gk. γρύψ (stem ypu7-), a griffin,a fabulous creature named
from its hooked beak. = Gk. γρυπός, curved ; also, hook-nosed, hook-
beaked. Allied to G. krauen, to claw (Prellwitz).
GRIG (1), a small lively eel. (Scand.) ‘A grigge, a young eele.
A merie grigge;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627. ‘ Anguillette, a grig, or little
eele;’ Cot. Cf. Lowland Se. crike, crick, a tick, a louse (Jamieson).
Probably Scandinavian. Scand. dial. krak, also krik, a little creature,
esp. a crawling creature; allied to krdka, to creep (Rietz); Norw.
krek, a creeping thing; kreka (pt. τ. krak), to creep. [Distinct from
G. kriechen.| > The phrase as merry as a grig is probably due to
this word, though it was early changed to (or confused with) the
equivalent phrase as merry as a Greek ; see quotations in Nares,
amongst which we may note ‘she’s a merry Greek indeed ;’ Troilus,
i. 2.118; ‘the merry Greeks, id. iv. 4.58. Merygreek is a character
in Udall’s Roister Doister; A.D. 1553. Cf. L. grecari, to live like
Greeks, i.e. effeminately, luxuriously ; Horat. Sat. ii. 2. 11.
GRIG (2), a cricket. (E.) Prov. E. grig; see E.D.D. Prob.
due to proy. E. crick, to make a sharp noise; and to E, cricket, ιν.
Cf. Du. kriek, a cricket. Apparently of imitative origin ; and distinct
from Grig (1).
GRILL, to broil on a gridiron. (F.—L.) Extended to grilly by
Butler. ‘Than have them gri/lied on the embers ;’ Hudibras, pt. iii.
ς. 2.1.15 from end. =F, griller, ‘to broile on a gridiron, to scorch ;’
(οί. -- Εἰ gril, ‘a gridiron;’ id. Formerly spelt greil, Godefroy. =
Late L. acc. *craticulum, a masc. form of craticula, a small gridiron,
Martial, xiv. 221 (whence F. grille, a grating). These are dimin.
forms from L, cratts, a hurdle. See Grate (1), Crate, Griddle.
GRILSE, the young salmon on its first return to the river from
the sea. (F.—OHG.?) The forms in the N. E. D. suggest that the
older form grilles was a plural, so that grilse=grills. An Act of
22 Edw. IV, c. 2, mentions ‘grillez ou salmons’ (N.E.D.). And
perhaps grill represents OF, grisle, grille, grayish, applied (like the
variant OF. grisel) to a horse. If so, it is from OF. gris, gray.—
OHG. gris, gray. @] Some refer grilse to Irish grealsach, ‘a kind
of fish ;’ but (if connected) the derivation may run the other way.
GRIM, fierce, angry-looking. (E.) ME. grim, Chaucer, C. T.
11458 (F 1146). AS. grim, fierce, cruel, severe, dire, Grein, i. 527;
for *grem-, and allied to AS. gram, angry, furious, hostile; id. i. 523.
Cf. also AS. grimetan, to rage, roar, grunt.+Dnu. grimmig, angry ; cf.
grimmen, to foam with rage; Icel. grimmr, grim, stern; gramr,
wrathful; Dan. grim, ugly, grim; gram, wrathful; + G. grimmig,
furious; grimmen, torage; grimm, fury; gram, hostile. From Teut.
root *grem- (2nd grade, *gram-), B. Further allied to Gk. χρόμη,
χρόμος, noise ; χρεμίζειν, χρεμετίζειν, to neigh; see Brugmann,i. ὃ 572.
IM ACE, an ugly look, smirk. (F.—Teut.?) ‘Annotations of
grimaces;’ Butler, Hudib. iii. 2. 1004. ‘ Grimace and affectation ;’
Dryden, Poet. Epist. to H. Higden, 1. 10.—F. grimace, ‘a crabd
looke;’ Cot. Of uncertain origin; but probably from G. grimm,
fury, or from Icel. grimr, Norw. grimm, angry, furious; cf. EFries.
and Low Ὁ. grimlachen, to laugh maliciously. (Korting, § 4355.)
Der. grimace, verb.
GRIMALKIN, a cat. (E.; partly OHG.) See Nares, who
suggests that it stands for gray malkin, ‘a name for a fiend, supposed
to resemble a grey cat.’ He is probably right. See Macb. i. 1. 8.
(Cf. the proverb ‘All cats are grey in the dark.’] In this view,
Malkin is for Mald-kin, dimin. of Maud (Matilda), with suffix -kin.
The name Maud, AF. Mald, is from OHG. Maht-hilt; from maht,
might, and hilt, battle. The ME. Malkin, as a dimin. of Maud, was
in very common use; see Chaucer, C. Τὶ 4450 (Β 30). It was a name
fora slut orloose woman, The Prompt. Parv. (1440) has: ‘ Malkyne,
or Mawt, propyr name, Molt, Mawde, Matildis, Matilda.’
GRIME, dirt that soils deeply, smut. (Low ἃ.) In Shak. Com, of
Errors, ili. 2.106. Asa verb, K. Lear, ii. 3. 9.— WFlem. grijm, grime
(De Bo); cf. MDn. grijmsel, grimsel, soot, smut (Kilian) ; grimmelen,
to soil, begrime (Oudemans), Also Dan, grim, griim, lampblack,
soot, grime; whence grimet, streaked, begrimed (Ferrall); MDan.
grim, soot on a kettle (Kalkar) ; Swed. dial. grima, a spot or smut on
the face; Rietz. Probably allied further to AS. begriwan, to smear (?),
Elf. Hom. i. 384, ii. 368 ; and to Gk. χρί-ειν, to anoint, to smear.
See Chrism. Der. grim-y.
GRIN, tosnarl, grimace. (E.) ME. grennen, Ancren Riwle, p. 212;
Layamon, 29550. AS. grennian, to grin; Grein, i. 525.-- OHG.
GRIT
grennan, to mutter, MHG, grennen, to grin. From a Teut. base
*gran-; whence also Icel. grenja,to howl. B. Perhaps influenced by
derivatives from a Teut. base *grein-; whence Du. grijnen, to weep,
ery, fret, grumble; grijusen, to grumble, to grin; Dan. grine, to grin,
simper; Swed. grina, to distort the face, grimace, grin; G. greinen,
to grin, grimace, weep, cry, growl; all of the latter set being related
to E. groan; see Groan. Der. grin, sb.
GRIND, to reduce to powder by rubbing. (E.) ME. grinden,
Chaucer, C. T. 14980 (B 3264); Ancren Riwle, p. 70. AS. grindan,
Grein, i. 528. ‘Teut. type *grendan-, pt. τ. *grand, pp. *grundanoz ;
whence also Du. grint, gravel, grit. Der. grind-er, grind-stone ; also
grist, αν.
GRIP, sb., a firm grasp; vb., to grasp firmly. (E.) 1. ME. gripe;
pl. gripen, Layamon, 1. 15273; vol. ii. p. 215. The pl. grippis is in
the Kingis Quair, st. 171. AS. gripe, a grip (Bosworth). 2. ME.
grippen; ‘he gript his mantel ;’ Will. of Palerne, 744. ONorthumb.
grippa; whence gegrippde, pt. t., Luke, ix. 39. B. Both from grip,
weak grade of Teut. *greipan-, to gripe (below).
GRIPE, to grasp, hold fast, seize forcibly. (Εν) In Shak.
Macb. iii. 1. 62; K. John, iv. 2. 190. ME. gripen, P. Plowman,
B. iii. 248. AS. gripan, to seize; Grein, i. 529. + Du. grijpen; Icel.
gripa; Dan. gribe; Swed. gripa; Goth. greipan; G. greifen. Teut.
type *greipan-, pt. τ. *gratp, pp. *gripanoz. Cf. Lithuan. graibyti, to
grasp at. And see Grope. Der. gripe, sb., gripes.
GRISE, GRIZE, a step. (Shak.) See Grece.
GRISETTEH, a gay young Frenchwoman of the lower class.
(F.—MHG.) Borrowed (1723) from F. grise‘te, orig. a cheap dress
of gray colour, whence they were named.=—F. gris, gray. = MHG.
gris, gray ; cf. G. greis,a grayhaired man. See Grizzly. @ Hence
also F. gris, the fur of the gray squirrel ; Chaucer, C. T. 194.
GRISKIN, the loin of a pig; prov. E. (Scand.) The lit. sense
is ‘a little pig’ (still found in Angus); it is formed by the dimin.
suffix -kin from the once common word gris or grice, a pig. ‘ Bothe
my gees and my grys’=both my geese and pigs; P. Plowman, B.
iv. 51. ‘Gryce, swyne, or pygge, porcellus,’ Prompt. Parv. p. 211;
and see Way’s note.—Icel. griss, a young pig; Dan. grits, a pig ;
Swed. gris,a pig. Cf. OSax. gris, gray.
GRISLED, the same as Grizzled, q. v.
GRISLY, hideons, horrible. (E.) ME. grisly, Chaucer, C. T.
1973 (A 1971). AS. grislic, horrible (see Clark Hall); perhaps
shortened from angrislic, terrible, Ps. lxxxviii. 8 (ed. Spelman).
Formed with suffix -lic (like) from gris-an, G@-gris-an (pt. t. a-gras),
to shudder. ‘ And for helle agrise’=and shudder at the thought of
hell; Laws of Cnut, i. 25; see Ancient Laws, ed. Thorpe, vol. i.
Ρ. 374.+ Du. af-grijselijk, horrible; af-grijzen, horror; Low ἃ.
grisen, griseln, to shudder (Berghaus).
GRIST, a supply of corn to be ground. (E.) ME. grist. ‘And
moreouer... grynd att the Citeis myllis...as long as they mey
have sufficiaunt grist ;’ Eng. Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith, pp. 335, 336.
AS. grist, as a gloss to L. molitira; Wright’s Vocab. 1. 34, col. 2.
It represents a type *grin(d)-st-, from the verb grindan, to grind.
See Grind. 47 Cf. b/a-st from blow (as wind), blossom ( = (b16-st-ma)
from blow (to flourish). The i was shortened before st; cf. jist.
Der. grist-le.
GRISTLE, cartilage. (E.) ‘Seales have gristle, and no bone ;’
Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xi. c. 37; vol. i. p. 3454. The word gristly
occurs in the preceding clause. It was especially used with reference
to the nose. ‘ Grystylle of the nose, cartilago;’ Prompt. Parv. ‘Nease-
gristles,’ i.e. gristles of the nose (speaking of many people together) ;
O.Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, 1.251. AS. gristle, asa gloss to cartilago ;
ZElfric’s Gloss. in Voc. 158. 22. OMerc. naes-gristle, gloss to carti-
lago; Voc. 10.20. Cf. OFries. gristel, gristl, grestel, gerstel; Richtofen.
B. The word may be the dimin. of grist, and derivable from grind ;
with reference to the necessity of crunching it if eaten. So also Du.
knarsbeen, gristle, from knarsen, to crunch (Wedgwood). See Grist.
4 The AS. grost (O. E. Texts, p. 112, 1. 56) also means " griséle,’ but
has a different vowel; cf. NFries. gréssel, griissel (Outzen), OHG.
crustula, gristle (Schade), These may be connected with Du. gruizen,
to crush, EFries. griisen, to crunch ; from a Teut. root *greus, noted
by Franck, s. v. griesmeel. Cf. Grit (2). Der. grist/-y.
GRIT (1), gravel, coarse sand. (E.) Formerly greet. ‘ Greete,
sabulum ;’ Levins, 89, 11. ‘ Sablonniere, a sand-bed, .. a place full
of sand, greet, or small gravel ;’? Cotgrave. ME. greot, Ancren Riwle,
p- 70. AS. gréot, grit, dust; Grein, i. 527. OFries. grét. + Icel.
grjot; G. gries; Swed. dial. grut, gravel. Closely allied to Grout,
q.v. See Grit (2). 4 The short vowel is due to confusion with
grit (2). Der. gritt-y, gritt-i-ness ; see also groats, grout.
GRIT (2), coarse oat-meal. (E.) Usually in pl. grits. The oldest
sense is bran or chaff. From AS. gryttan, pl.; as in hwéte gryttan,
wheat-grits, Voc. 141. 20. Cf. MDnu. grutte, ‘ barlie,’ Hexham; G.
griiize, f., grit, groats. Teut. type *grut-jan-, fem.; from *grut-, weak
|
|
|
GRIZZLY, GRIZZLED
grade of *greut- (2nd grade *graut), Idg. root *ghreud, to crush, pound
(whence Lith. grwzti, to crush, pound, O. Church Slav. grud-a, a clod).
4 Grit (1), AS. gréot, is from the prime grade *greut-.
GRIZZLY, GRIZZLED, of a grey colour. (F.—MHG.; with
E. suffix.) Shak. has grizzled, Hamlet, i. 2. 240 (in some copies
grisly) ; also grizzle as sb., a tinge of gray, Tw. Nt. v. 168. Formed
with suffix -y (or -ed) from ME. grisel, a gray-haired man. ‘ That
olde grisel is no fole’ [fool] ; Gower, C. A. iii. 356; bk. viii. 2407.
Grisel is formed, with suffix -el, from F. gris, gray. —MHG. gris,
gray; cf. G. greis, a gray-haired man. Der. From the same source,
gris-ette, q.v.
GROAN, to moan. (E.) ME. gronen, Chaucer, C. T. 14892
(B 4076); Ancren Riwle, p. 326. AS. grdnian, to groan, lament ;
Grein, i. 524. Teut. type *grain-djan; from a root *grei-, as in OHG.
grinan, G. greinen, to grin, weep, growl. Der. groan-ing.
GROAT, a coin worth 4d. (Ὁ. Low G.) ME. grote, Chaucer,
C. T. 7546 (Ὁ 1964) ; P. Plowman, B. iii. 137 (and see the note). —
O. Low G. grote, a coin of Bremen, described in the Bremen Worterb.
ii. 550. The word (like Du. groot) means ‘ great ;” the coins being
greater than the small copper coins (Schwaren) formerly in use in
Bremen. Cognate with E. great. See Great.
GROATS, the grain of oats without the husks. (E.) ME. grofes,
Liber Cure Cocorum, ed. Morris, p. 47. Inthe A. S. Leechdoms, iii.
292, appears the weak pl. grotan {miswritten gratan in the late MS.}.
This represents a weak sb, closely allied to AS. grot, an atom, par-
ticle, whence ME. grotes, bits, in Havelok, 472. The AS. grot is from
*grut-, weak grade of *greut-; see Grit (2). Cf. AS. grit, coarse
meal, whence E. grout, coarse meal, grouts, dregs. See Grout.
GROCER, a dealer in tea and sugar. (F.—L.) Formerly also
spelt grosser, as in Holinshed’s Chron. Rich. II, an. 1382 (R.) ;
Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. i. p. 193. . Spelt grocer, Libell of Eng.
Policye, l. 346; AF. grossour, Liber Custumarum, i. 304. A. In old
times, those whom we xow call grocers were called spicers. Dealers
were of two kinds, as now; there were wholesale dealers, called
grossers or engrossers, and retail dealers, called regrators ; see Liber
Albus, ed. Riley, p. 547, note 1. Thus the word grosser, properly
‘a whole-sale dealer,’ is now spelt grocer, and means ‘a spicer.’
B. Borrowed from OF. grossier, ‘a grocer; marchant grossier, that
sels only by great, or utters his commodities by wholesale ;’ Cot.—
OF. gros, fem. grosse, great. See Gross. Cf. Norm. dial. grossier,
a spicer, a grocer (Moisy). Der. grocer-y, formerly grossery, from
OF. grosserie, ‘great worke; also grossery, wares uttered, or the
uttering of wares, by whole-sale ;’ Cot.
GROG, spirits and water, not sweetened. (F.—L.) ‘O’er grog
or ale ;’ Byron, The Island, ii. 19. 4. An abbreviation of grogram.
‘Tt derived its name from Admiral Edward Vernon, who wore gro-
gram breeches, and was hence called ‘‘Old Grog.” About 1745
{rightly, Aug. 1740], he ordered his sailors to dilute their rum with
water. .. He died 30 Oct.,1757;’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates. See
Grogram.,
GROGRAM, a stuff made of silk and mohair. (F.—L.) For-
merly grogran, a more correct form (Skinner). ‘ He shall have the
grograns at the rate I told him;’ Ben Jonson, Every Man in his
Humomr, ii. 1. 9. Spelt grograyn in Cavendish, Life of Wolsey
(ab. 1557), ed. 1893, p. 147. So called because of a coarse grain or
texture.—OF. grosgrain, ‘the stuffe grogeran ;’ (οἵ. - Ἐς gros, gross,
great, coarse; and grain, grain. See Gross and Grain. Der.
grog, q.V-
GROIN, the fold or depression between the abdomen and each of
the upper thighs. (E.) In Shak. 2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 227. But groin is
an incorrect variant of grine or gryne,a common form in the 16th
century, from the still older form grind or grynd. Thus Cotgrave
has: ‘ Aines, f., the grine or groyne of man or woman.’ Palsgrave
has: ‘ Grynde bytwene the thyghe and the belly, ayne.’ Spelt grynde
in Lanfranc’s Cirurgie, p. 41 (ab. 1400). Prob. from AS, grynde, an
abyss ; the lit. sense being ‘depression.’ Teut. type *grundjom, from
*grunduz, ground; seeGround. Cf. prov. E. grindle, a small gutter
(E.D.D.); Bavar. grund, a valley. See Notes on E. Etym., Ρ. 124.
Der. groin-ed, i.e. having angular curves which intersect or fork off.
GROMWELL, a plant. (F.—L.?) The letter τὸ is a modern in-
sertion ; Cotgrave, s.v. gremil, gives gromill, grummell ; Palsgrave
has gromell ; the Prompt. Parv. has gromaly or gromely sede; grummel
occurs in the 14th century, in Reliquiz Antique, i. 52, 1. £; and the
Cath. Angl. has both grumelle and gromelle. {The gromwell or Litho-
spermum is remarkable for its hard, stony seeds ; whence Lithospermum
| (stony seed) as the name of the genus.}—OF, gromil, 13th cent. ;
Hatzfeld (5, ν. grémil). Also found as OF. gremil, grenil, grinnil
(Godefroy). Origin uncertain. 1. The form grenil seems to rest upon
_ L. granum, a grain; cf. ‘granum solis, gromylle;’ Voc. 587. 9.
| 2. Gromil perhaps is from OF. grume, stone of a grape (Godefroy),
| Prov. grum, the same (Mistral). =. griimus, a little heap. (Korting,
|
Ϊ
GROUND 251
§ 4372.) 4 Roquefort gives OF. grumel, ‘ pelote, peloton ;’ dimin.
of grume, used to mean all kinds of grain. Cotgrave also gives grum
as a Languedoc word synonymous with F. grain, grain. It would
seem that the L. griimus came to mean a mere clot of earth. Cf. Span.
grumillo, a small clot, a curd ; from grumo,a clot. We may note that
gromwell is also called in E. gray millet or (in Cotgrave) graymill,
which is merely the F. grémil ingeniously made partly significant, and
was clearly suggested by the fact that gromwell was sometimes called
milium solis as well as granum solis; see Cath. Anglicum.
GROOM, a servant, lad. (F.) Now esp. used of men employed
about horses; but orig. of wider use. It meant a lad, servant in
waiting, or sometimes, a labourer, shepherd. ME. grom, grome;
Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, iii. 135; P. Plowman, C. ix. 227; Havelok,
790; Ancren Riwle, p. 422; Polit. Songs (C.S.), p. 237,1.3. B. OF
uncertain origin ; Stratmann cites the MDu. grom and Olcel. gromr,
a boy, as parallel forms ; but neither of these forms are authorised or
have any obvious etymology, and may be borrowed from ME. grome,
which occurs in the Ancren Riwle (ab. 1225). γ. It seems to be from
an OF, *grome, only found in the dimin. form gromet; or else it was
shortened from the form gromet itself. Godefroy has OF. gromet,
grummet, groumet, gourmet (F. gourmet), a servant, valet, groom. Cf.
Span. grumete, a ship-boy. Referred by Diez to L. griimus, a small
heap, a clot. See Notes on E. Etym., p. 125. See Grume,
Grummet.
GROOVE, a trench, furrow, channel. (Du.) In Skinner; rare in
early books. ‘Groove, a channel cut out in wood, iron, or stone ;’
Kersey, ed. 1715. Also: ‘Groove or Grove, a deep hole or pit sunk
in the ground, to search for minerals ;’ id.; see Manlove’s poem on
Leadmines (Εἰ. D.S. Glos. B. 8, ll. 18, 22, and the Glossary), printed
A.D, 1653. Cf. ME. grofe,a mine; Wars of Alex., 5394.— Du. groef
(Du. oe =E. 00) or groeve, a trench, channel, groove; also, a mine,
quarry. = Du. graven (pt. t. groef), to dig; cognate with AS. grafan,
See Grave (1). @ The ME. grofe may be from Icel. grof, a pit
(cognate with Du. groef); but mod. E. groove, a channel, first found
in 1659, is borrowed from the 2nd grade of the Dutch verb.
GROPEH, to feel one’s way. (E.) ME. gropen,C. Τὶ 646 (A 644);
used in the sense of ‘grasp,’ King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1957.
AS. grapian, to seize, handle, Grein, i. 524; a weak verb, and un-
original. ‘Teut. type *graipdjan, from *graipa, f. sb., as seen in AS.
grap, the grip of the fingers, grasp of the hand; id. From *graip,
2nd grade of Teut. *greipan-, AS. gripan, to gripe. See Gripe.
B. Similarly the Icel. grep, grip, grasp, is allied to gripa, to gripe;
and the OHG. gretfa, a two-pronged fork (cited by Fick, 111. 111) to
OHG. grifan, to gripe. And see Grasp. Der. grop-ing-ly,
GROSS, fat, large. (F.—L.) Very common in Shak.; Merry
Wives, iii. 3. 43, &c. ‘This grosse imagination ;’ Frith’s Works,
p- 140, col. 2. Spelt grosse in Palsgrave.—OF. gros (fem. grosse),
‘grosse, great, big, thick;” Cot.—L. grossws, thick (a late form).
Der. gross-ly, gross-ness, gros-beak or gross-beak (F. gros bec, great
beak, the name of a bird), grocer, q.v., grocer-y; also gross, sb., en-
gross, in-gross, gro-gram, grog’.
GROT, a cavern. (F.—Ital.—L.—Gk.) ‘Umbrageous grots and
caves ;” Milton, P. L. iv. 257.—F. grotte, ‘a grot, cave ;’ Cot. Ital.
grotta, ‘a caue,a grot;” Florio. (Cf. Prov. croto (Mistral), formerly
cropta, cited by Littré.)—Late L. crupta, L. crypta, a crypt, cave,
grotto. From Greek; see Crypt. And see Grotto. Doublet,
crypt; also grotto. Der. grot-esque, q.v.
GROTTO, a cavern. (Ital.—L.—Gk.) A corruption of the
older form grotta, ‘And in our grottoes;’ Pope, tr. of Homer's
Odyss. b. x. 480. (Pope had his own grotto at Twickenham.) ‘A
grotta, or place of shade;’ Bacon, Essay 45 (Of Building). = Ital.
grotta, a grotto, whence F. grotte. See Grot.
GROTESQUE, ludicrous, strange. (F.—Ital. -L.—Gk.) ‘Gro-
tesque and wild;’ Milton, P. L. iv.136. ‘And this grotesque design ;’
Dryden, Hind and Panther, iii. 1044.—OF. grotesque; pl. grotesques,
‘pictures wherein all kinds of odde things are represented ;’ (οἵ. -
Ital. grottesca, ‘antick worke;’ Florio. [So called because such
paintings were found in old crypts and grottoes.|—Ital. groffa, a
grotto. See Grot, Grotto. 4 Sir T. Herbert uses the Ital. form.
“The walls and pavements, ... by rare artificers carved into story
and grotesco work ;’ Travels, ed. 1665, p. 147.
GROUND, the surface of the earth. (E.) ME. grund, ground,
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 455; Havelok, 1979; Layamon, 2296. AS. grund;
Grein, i. 530.4-Du. grond; Goth. *grundus, only in the comp. grundu-
waddjus, a ground-wall, foundation ; Luke, vi. 48, 49; OHG. grunt,
G. grund. Teut. type *grunduz; also *grunthoz, as in Icel. grunnr,
bottom (Dan. Swed. grund). We also find Gael. grunnd, Irish grunnt,
ground, bottom (from Norse or Ε.). Der. ground, verb (Chaucer,
C. T. 416, A 414); ground-less, ground-less-ly, ground-less-ness, ground-
ling, q.v., ground-sill, q.v.; also ground-floor, -ivy, -plan, -rent, -swell,
-work, Also grounds, q.v.
252 GROUNDLING
GROUNDLING, a spectator in the pit ofa theatre. (E.) In
Shak. Hamlet, iii. 2. 12; Beaum. and Fletcher, Prophetess, i. 3. 32.
A term of contempt ; made by suffixing -/ing, a double dimin. ending
(-Ling), to the sb. ground. 2. There is also a fish called the
groundling, so called because it keeps near the bottom of the water ;
the Low G. name is griindlink (Berghaus).
GROUNDS, dregs. (E.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627. ‘ Grounds,
the settling or dregs of drink ;” Kersey, ed. 1715. This peculiar use
of the word occurs also in Gael. grunndas, lees, dregs; Irish gruntas,
dregs, grunndas, lees, dross; both borrowed from E. See Ground.
GROUNDSEL, a small plant. (E.) Corruptly written greneswel
in Levins. Better groundswell, as in Holland’s Pliny, b. xxv. c. 13.
AS. grundeswylige, grundeswelge, grundeswilie, with numerous refer-
ences; Cockayne’s Leechdoms, iii. 329. ‘Senecio, grundswylige;’
Wright’s Vocab. i. 68, col. 2,1.1. B. The lit. sense would thus
seem to be ‘ground-swallower,’ i.e. occupier of the ground, abundant
weed ; as if from AS. grund, ground, and swelgan, to swallow; but
this seems to be, after all, only a popular etymology, as a much older
form appears in gundae-suelgiae, Kpinal gloss. 976 (also spelt gundae-
suelgae, gundesuilge, O.E. Texts, pp. 97,98). Thus the orig. sense was
“swallower or absorber of pus;’ from AS. gund, pus; and in fact
the leaves are still used for reducing abscesses.
GROUNDSILL, the timber of a building next the ground; a
threshold. (E.) Spelt grunsel, Milton, P. L.i. 460. ‘And so fyll
downe deed on the groundsyll;’ Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol. i. c. 176
(R.). Compounded of ground and sil?; see Sill.
GROUP, a cluster, assemblage. (F.—Ital.—G.) ‘Group, in paint-
ing, a piece that consists of several figures;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. ‘The
figures of the groups;’ Dryden, Parallel of Painting and Poetry, ed.
Yonge, 1882, p. 164. =F. groupe, a group; not in Cot. Ital. groppo,
a knot, heap, group, bag of money.= Tent. type *kroppoz, as seen in
G. kropf, a crop, craw, maw, wen on the throat; orig. a bunch. Cf.
Icel. kroppr, a hunch or bunch on any part of the body. See Crop,
of which group is a doublet. Der. group-ing, group, verb.
GROUSE, the name of a bird. (F.?) ‘ Growse, a fowl, common
in the North of England;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. Prof. Newton has
kindly sent me an earlier instance of the word. ‘ Attagen, perdix
Asclepica, the Heath-cock or Grouss.... Hujus in Anglia duas ha-
bemus species, quarum major vulgo dicitur, the black game, . . minor
vero, the grey game;’ Charleton, Onomasticon Zoicon, London, 1668,
p- 73. Earlier examples are given in N.E.D. In Household Ordi-
nances (1531), as given in Archologia, iii. 157, we have the pl.
forms ‘grows and peions’ [pigeons]. In Household Ordinances (1547),
ed. 1790, p. 220, the pl. is grewes. In 1674, the pl. is grooses. It is
possible that grows was at first a plural form, from a sing. grow or
grou. Of unknown origin; though the form seems to be French.
Giraldus Cambrensis, Topog. Hib. (Opera, Rolls Series, v. 47), has :
‘gallinze campestres, quas vulgariter grutas vocant.’ 4 Cotgrave,
s.v. griesche, has ‘the hen of the grice or moorgame.’ This seems to
be a mistake, as the form grice is otherwise unknown.
GROUT, coarse meal; in pl. grounds, dregs. (E.) Holland, tr.
of Pliny, bk. xx. c. 7 (v. ii. p. 46) has: ‘drie grout, or barley meale.’
AS. griit, groats, coarse meal; Codex Diplomaticus, ed. Kemble,
Charter 235 (vol. i. p. 311). + Du. gruit, dregs. Cf. Icel. grautr,
porridge; Dan. grad, boiled groats; Swed. grot, thick pap; G. griitze,
groats. Allied to Lithuan. grudas, corn. Also to groats, q.v.;
grit, q.v. Der. gru-el, q.v.
GROVE, a collection of trees. (E.) In Shak. M. N. Dr. iii. 1.
390. ME. grove (with u for v), Chaucer, C. T. 1480 (A 1478);
Layamon, 469. AS. graf, a grove (Lye) ; but the word is very scarce.
Leo refers to Codex Diplomaticus, ed. Kemble, Charter 305 (vol. ii.
p- 100; see also vol. iii. p. 436). It is both masc. and neut. Teut.
types *graibos, *graibom; from a root *gretb, which is wholly
unknown. No cognate forms appear: unless we may compare Norw.
greiv-la, a tree whose branches spread out wide like horns, greiv-la, v.,
to branch out, &c. (Ross).
GROVEL, to fall flat on the ground. (Scand.) In Shak. K. John,
ii. 305. (Not found earlier.) ‘The formation of the verb to grovel
was due to a singular grammatical mistake. Groveling was in use as
an adverb with the suffix -/ing, but this was readily mistaken for the
pres. part. of a verb, and, the -ing being dropped, the new verb fo
grovel emerged. B. Spenser uses the form groveling only. ‘Streight
downe againe herselfe, in great despight She groveling threw to
ground;’ Εἰ. Ὁ. 11. 1. 45. ‘And by his side the Goddesse groveling
Makes for him endlesse mone;’ F. Q. iii. 1. 38. ‘Downe on the
ground his carkas groveling fell;’ F. Q. iii. 5. 23. In the last in-
stance, the sense is ‘ flatly’ or ‘ flat.’ y. The ME. groveling or
grovelings isa mere adverb. ‘ Grouelyng’ to his fete thay felle;’ Allit.
Poems, ed. Morris, A. 1120. ‘ Grovelynge, or grovelyngys, adv. Sup-
pine, resupine;’ Prompt. Pary. p.215. After which is added: ‘Gro-
velynge, nom. Suppinus, resupinus ;’ showing that, in A.D. 1440, the
GRUFE
word was beginning to be considered as being sometimes a nom. pres.
part. Note also: ‘ Therfor groflynges thou shall be layde;’ ‘Towne-
ley Myst. p. 40. Way notes-that in Norf. and Suff. the phrase ‘to
lie grubblins, or with the face downwards, is stillin use. δ. The cor-
rect ME, form is grofling or groflinges, where the -ling or -lings is the
ady. suffix that appears in other words, such as dark-ling, flat-ling ;
see Darkling, Headlong. The former part of the word could
be used alone, with exactly the same adverbial sense; as ‘they fillen
gruf;’ Chaucer, C. T. 951 (A 949). The phrase is of Scand. origin.
-Icel. griifa, in the phr. liggja ἃ grifu, to lie grovelling, to lie on
one’s face, symja ἃ grifu, to swim on one’s belly. Cf. also griifa,
verb, to grovel, couch, or cower down. Also grufla, to grovel, which
justifies the E. verb, though proof of direct connexion between the
words is wanting; Swed. dial. gruva, flat on one’s face ; ligga ἅ gruve,
to lie on one’s face; Rietz. Root uncertain; perhaps related to
Grub. Der. grovell-er.
GROW, to increase, become enlarged by degrees. (E.) ME.
growen, P. Plowman, B. xx. 56; Ὁ. xiii. 177. AS. grdwan, pt. t.
gréow, pp. growen; Grein, i. 529. + Du. groevjen (weak); Icel, gréa ;
Dan. groe; Swed. gro. B. Esp. used of the growth of vegetables,
&c., and hence closely connected with the word greex, which.is from
the same root. Teut. root *gra-, *gra-. See Green and Grass.
@ The AS. word for the growth of animals is properly weaxan,
mod. E. wax, q.v. Der. grow-er; growth, Othello, v. 2. 14, not an
AS. word, but of Scand. origin, from Icel. grdér, σγδδὶ, growth.
GROWL, to grumble. (F.—Teut.) In Skinner, ed. 1671; and
in Pope, Moral Essays, ili. 195. Lowl. Sc. has the form gurle.
Wyclif, Select Works, ed. Arnold, ii. 249, has: ‘A mete, not defied
({digested] makith mannis bodi to growle’ [rumble]. —AF. grouler, to
make a noise like a crane ; Nominale, ed. Skeat, 1.837; Picard grouwler,
to murmur, grumble (Corblet).—EFries. grallen; WFlem. grollen,
to ramble (De Bo); Du. grollen, to grumble. + G. grollex, to bear
ill-will against, to be angry; also, to rumble (as thunder). B. Of
imitative origin; see Grumble. And see grol in Franck. Der.
growl, sb., growl-er.
GROWTH, sb.; see under Grow.
GRUB, to grope in the dirt. (E.) ME. grubben, grobben. ‘To
grobbe vp metal;’ Chaucer, /itas Prima, 1. 29. ‘So depe thei
grubbed and so fast;’ Legends of the Holy Rood, ed. Morris, p. 94,
1. 268. Cf. EFries. grubbeln, to grope about. From Teut. type
*grubjan-; from *grub, weak grade of *graban-, to dig; see Grave (1).
From the same grade are Low G. grubbeln, to grope about ;. G.
griibeln, OHG. grubilon, to rake, dig, grub up; and ON. gryfja, a pit.
Cf. Grovel. Der. grub, sb., an insect; grubb-er, grubb-y.
GRUDGE, to grumble, murmur. (F.) ME. grochen, gruchen,
grucchen, to murmur. ‘Why grucchen we?’ Chaucer, C. T. 3060
(A 3058). The weakened form grugge occurs in The Dictes and
Sayinges by Lord Rivers, pr. by Caxton, 1477, fol. 17, back, 1. 8.
‘sif pe gomes grucche’=if the men murmur, P. Plowman, B. vi. 219.
Spelt grocki, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 67 ; grucchen, Ancren Riwle,
p-186. The earliest spelling was grucchen, then gruggen, and finally
grudge, Tempest, i. 2. 249.—OF. groucier, grousser, groucher, to
murmur, Godefroy; later gruger, ‘to grudge, repine;’ Cot. Cf.
Low L. groussare, to murmur, found in a passage written A.D. 1358
(Ducange). Godefroy also gives the spelling croucier, evidently an
older form. β. Of uncertain origin, but prob. Scandinavian ; cf. Icel.
krytja (pt. t. krutti), to murmur, druér, a murmur; Swed. dial. krutéla,
to murmur (Rietz) ; Norw. gruéta, to grunt, to growl (Ross); MDan.
krutte, to grumble (Kalkar). 4 Different from mod. F. gruger, to
crunch. Der. grudge, sb., grudg-ing-ly. {
GRUEL, liquid food, made from meal. (F.—O. Low 6.) ‘Or |
casten al the gruwel in the fyr;’ Chaucer, Troilus, iii. 711.—OF. | |
gruel (Burguy) > mod. Ἐς gruau.—Late L. gritellum,.a dimin. of
griitum, meal, in a Carolingian text (Brachet).—O. Low G. grit,
cognate with AS. grit, groats, grout, coarse meal. See Grout.
GRUESOME, horrible, fearful. (Scand.) Also grewsome, gru- ]
some, grousum. ‘Death, that grusome carl;’ Burns, Verses to J. {
Rankine. And see Jamieson’s Sc. Dict., s.v. grousum. ‘ Growsome, ]
horridus ;” Levins, 162. Το. “- Dan. grusom, cruel; (Kalkar has M Dan. {
grusommelig, cruel, violent); Norw. gruvsam, frightful, also timid {
(Aasen).— Dan. gru, horror, terror; with Dan. suffix -som, as in ᾿
virk-som, active. Cf. Dan. grue, to dread, gruelig, horrid ; Norw.
gruva, to dread; Swed. gruflig, dreadful, dismal, horrid, dire. + Du.
gruwzaam, terrible, hideous; MHG. griiwesam, griisam, G. grausam,
cruel, horrible. Further allied to E. dial. growze, EFries. griisen, G.
grausen. to shiver, shudder.
GRUFF, rough, surly. (Dutch.) A late.word. ‘Such an one
the tall, . . . such an one the gruff;’ Spectator, no. 433. First in
Lowl. Se., in 1533; and in 1563 we find ‘ grof stanis,’ coarse, rough
stones, in Winyet’s Works, i. 114 (S. T.S.).— Du. grof, coarse, plump,
loud, blunt, great, heavy. + EFries. and Westphal. grof; EFries.
_ incorrect.
| waranty. Cotgrave has garrantie and warrantie.—AF. guarantie;
GRUMBLE
gruffig, coarse ; Swed. grof, coarse, big, rude, gross; Dan. grov, the
same; G. grob, coarse; OHG. gerob, grop. B. The OHG. form
shows that the initial g stands for ge (= AS. ge- = Goth. ga-), a mere
prefix. The syllable -rob may perhaps be allied to the weak grade
corresponding to AS. hréof, rough. Der. gruff-ly, gruff-ness.
GRUMBLE, to growl, murmur. (F.—G.) In Shak. Temp. i. 2.
249; &c.—Picard grumeler, groumeler (Corblet); F. grommeler, ‘to
grumble, repine;’ Cot.—Low and prov. G. grummelen, to grumble ;
frequentative of the verb grummen, grumen, or grommen ; cf. Bavarian
sich grumen, to be vexed, fret oneself, Schmeller, 997; MDu. grom-
melen, frequent. of Du. grommen, to grumble, growl. From *grumm-,
weak grade of Teut. *gremman-, to rage, as in MHG. and AS.
grimman, to rage, str. vb. B. The orig. sense is ‘to be angry,’ and
the word is closely connected with G. gram, vexation; see further
under Grim. Der. grumbl-er, grumbl-ing-ly.
GRUMEBE, a clot, as of blood. (F.—L.) Very rare; first used in
1619 (N.E.D.). Eden has growme,a lump ; Decades, p. 145 (1555) 3
ed, Arber, p. 182. Commoner in the adj. grum-ous. ‘ Grumous, full
of clots or lumps;’ Kersey, ed. 1715.— OF. grume, ‘a knot, bunch,
cluster;’ Cot. Cf. F. grumeau, a clot of blood; id.—L. griimus,
a little heap or hillock of earth. Der. grum-ous.
GRUMMET (1), GROMET, a ship’s boy, cabin-boy. (F.)
Rare in books. ‘In everie ship . . a boye, which is called a gromet ;’
Lambarde, Peramb. of Kent, ed. 1826, p. 110. —OF. gromet, a servant,
groom; see further under Groom.
GRUMMET (2), GROMMET, a ring of rope. (F.—C.)
“ Grommets, little rings on the upper side of the yard, to which the
caskets are fastned;’ Coles (1684). Spelt grummets; Capt. J. Smith,
Works, ed. Arber, p. 793 (1626).—OF. gromette (Hatzfeld), s.v.
F. gourmeite, the curb of a bridle (affected by F. gourmer, to curb).
According to Thurneysen, p. 102, the OF. gromette is from Bret.
chadenn gromm, lit. ‘bent chain,’ the chain of a curb; where gromm
is the fem. of Bret. krownm, bent, W. crwm. Celt. type *krumbos,
bent; Stokes-Fick, p. 100.
GRUNSEL, used for Groundsill, q. v.
GRUNT, to make a sound like a pig. (E.) ME. grunten, Ancren
Riwle, p. 326. AS. grunnettan (O. E. Texts, p. 559), an extension of
grunian, to grunt, found in Ailfric’s Grammar (Bosworth). + Dan.
grynte,to grunt; Swed. grymta, to grunt; G. grunzen. + L. grunnire,
OL. grundire; Gk. γρύζειν. B. All of imitative origin; cf. Gk. γρῦ,
the noise made by a pig. Der. grunt-er.
GUAIACUM, a genus of trees in the W. Indies; also, the resin
of the lignum vite. (Span.—Hayti.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627, and in
Kersey, ed.1715. Latinised from Span. guayaco or guayacan, lignum
vite. From the language of Hayti; see Frampton, tr. of Monardes,
Joyfull Newes, p. 10, back. Gua-, in Haytian, is a prefix or article
(R. Eden, p. 168). See Notes on E. Etym., p. 347.
GUANACO, a kind of Peruvian sheep. (Span.—Peruv.) Spelt
guancos, pl., in i. G., tr. of Acosta (1604) ; bk.i. c. 21, p. 70.—Span.
guanqco, ‘a beast in the West Indies, like a great sheep ;’ Pineda. =
Peruv. huanacu, a wild sheep; see Skeat, Notes on E. Etym., p. 343.
GUANO, the dung of a certain sea-fowl of S. America, used for
manure. (Span.—Peruvian.) See E. G., tr. of Acosta, 1604, p. 311
«bk. iv. c. 37); Prescott, Cong. of Peru, c. 5.—Span. guano or huano
(Pineda). Peruvian huanu, dung; see Skeat, Notes on E. Etym.,
Ρ. 343.
GUARANTEE, GUARANTY, a warrant, surety. (F.—
OHG.) Guarantee appears to have been misused in place of guaranty,
᾿ garanty, or garranty, probably owing to the use of words such as
lessee, feoffee, and the like; but the final -ee is (in the present case)
Blount’s Nomo-lexicon gives the spellings garanty and
OF, garraniie (better garantie), ‘ garrantie, warrantie, or warrantise,’
᾿ Cot.; fem. form of garanti, warranted, pp. of garantir, to warrant.
=OF. garant, also spelt guarant, warant (Burguy), and explained by
_ Cotgrave as ‘a vouchee, warrant, warranter, supporter, maintainer.’
See further under Warrant. 4 The OHG., τὸ became in OF. first
w, then gw, and finally g. Thus OF. garant and E, warrant are the
same word. Der. guarantee, vb.
GUARD, to ward, watch, keep, protect. (F.—Teut.) Common
in Shak. both as verb and 580. [He also has guardage, Oth. i. 2. 70;
guardant, Cor. ν. 2.67; guardian, Macb. ii. 4. 35. But the verb does
not seem to be much older, though the sb. is in Lydgate, De Deguil.
Pilgrimage, 8793. ich. cites guardens (=guardians) trom Surrey,
tr. of Virgil’s din. b. ii. 1. 1013 (E. version). ]—OF. garder, ‘to keep,
_ ward, guard,’ Cot.; also spelt guarder, as in the Chanson de Roland,
|
|
Ϊ
1.0; and, in the 11th century, warder.—OSax. τυαγασηι, to watch;
cognate with E. ward, vb. See further under Ward. 4 The sb.
| guard is older than the verb ; from OF. garde, guarde; from OTeut.
*warda, a guard. Der. guard-age, guard-ani, guard-ian (=OF,
| &ardien, which Cot. explains by ‘a warden, keeper, gardien’);
GUILD, GILD 253
guard-ed, guard-ed-ly, guard-ed-ness;_guard-room,
Doublet, ward; the doublet of guardian is warden, q.v.
GUAVA, a genus of trees and shrubs of tropical America. (Span.
—W. Indian.) The Span. name guayaba is no doubt borrowed from
the W. Indian name; see Skeat, Notes on E. Etym., p. 347. Spelt
guayva in 1593; Eng. Garner, ed. Arber, v. 532; in an account of
Drake’s expedition to Panama, &c. The pl. is spelt guayavos in
E. G., tr. of Acosta, bk. iv. c. 24 (1604). The guava is found within
the tropics in Mexico, the W. Indies, and S. America.
GUDGEON, a small fresh-water fish. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak.
Merch. of Ven.i. 1.102. ME. gojone. ‘ Goione, fysche ; gobius, gobio;’
Prompt. Pary. =F. goujon, ‘a gudgeon-fish, also the pin which the
truckle of a pully runneth on; also, the gudgeon of the spindle of a
wheele ; any gudgeon;’ Cot.=—L, gabidnem, acc. of gobio, a by-form
of gébius, a gudgeon.= Gk. κωβιός, a kind of fish, gudgeon, tench.
The Sicilian name was κῶθος (Liddell and Scott).
GUELDER-ROSBE, a species of Viburnum, bearing large white
ball-shaped flowers. (Du. and F.) Sonamed from some resemblance
of the flower toa whiterose. See Rose. The word guelder stands for
Gueldre, the F. spelling of the province of Gelderland in Holland.
GUERDON, a reward, recompense. (F.—OHG.) In Chaucer,
C. T. 7460 (D 1878). He also has the verb guerdonen=to reward ;
Pers. Tale, Group IJ, 1. 283, Six-text ed.; but this is derived from the
sb. Guerdonles occurs in Lydgate, Complaint of Black Knight,
1. 399. = OF. guerdon, ‘guerdon, recompence, meed;’ Cot. Equivalent
to Ital. guiderdone, a guerdon. = Low L. widerdonum, which, according
to Littré, is found in the time of Charles the Bald. B. This is a
singular hybrid compound from OHG. wider (G. wieder), against,
back again, and the L. donum, a gift; but the whole word is a mere
adaptation of OHG. widarldn, a recompence. y. The OHG. word
has its exact cognate in the AS. wider-/éan, a recompence, Grein,
ii. 697; which is compounded of the prefix wider, against, back again
(connected with ἘΣ. with- in the word with-stand) and the sb. léan,
payment, which is from AS. ἴδον, to lend; and Jéon is also allied
to E. loan. See With, Donation, and Loan. @ The same
notion of ‘ back’ occurs in the synonymous words re-ward, re-compence,
re-muneration.
GUERILLA, GUERRILLA, an irregular warfare carried on
by small bands of men. (Span.—OHG.) We speak of ‘ guerilla
warfare,’ making the word an adj., but it is properly a sb.—Span.
guerrilla, a skirmish, lit. a petty war; dimin. of guerra, war (=F.
guerre.) = ΟἿ Ὁ. werra, discord, the same word as E. war. See War.
GUESS, to form an opinion at hazard, to conjecture. (Scand.)
The insertion of « was merely for the purpose of preserving the g as
hard. ME. gessen; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 82.—Dan. gisse; Swed. gissa, to
guess; MDan. gidze, gitse, getse (Kalkar); NFriesic gezze, gedse
(Outzen); the oldest form being getze=*getsa, from the base *get-.
B. Closely related to Dan. gjette, to guess; the mod. Icel. gizka=
*git-ska, a denominative vb. from a base *git-isko-, for *get-isko-, i.e.
acquisitive, is from Icel. geta (1), to get, (2) to guess. The latter
word is cognate with AS. gifan, and mod, Εἰ get; and it is highly
probable that guess meant originally ‘to be ready to get,’ being a
secondary (desiderative) verb formed from get. See Get. Der.
guess, sb. ; guess-work.
GUEST, a stranger who is entertained. (E.) The w is inserted to
preserve the g as hard. The word is prob. Anglian or Scand., as
the AS. gi>y. ME. gest, Hampole, Pricke of Conscience, 1374;
also gist, Ancren Riwle, p. 68. AS. gest; also gist, giest; Grein,
i. 373. Cf. Icel. gestr; Dan. gest; Swed. ρακί. + Du. gast; Goth.
gasts; G. gast. Teut. type *gastiz; Idg. type *ghostis, whence L.
hostis, a stranger, guest, enemy; Russ. gos/(e), a guest, alien. B. The
orig. sense appears to be that of ‘alien,’ whence the senses of ‘enemy’
and ‘guest’ arose. See Hostile. Der. guest-chamber, Mark, xiv. 14.
From the same root, host (2), hostile.
GUIACUM, a genus of trees. See Guaiacum.
GUIDE, to lead, direct, regulate. (F.—Teut.) ME. gyden,
Chaucer, C. T. 13410 (B 1670). [The ME. form gyez is also common
(C. T. 1952); see Guy.] The sb. is gyde, C. T. 806 (A 804).—OF.
guider (14th cent.), from older guéer, to guide; the d being inserted
by the influence of OProv. guidar (Bartsch). Cf. also Ital. guidare ;
and Span. guiar. Romanic type *guidare.— OSax. witan (AS. witan),
to pay heed to; OHG. wizan.—Teut. root *weit-, *wit-; Idg. root
WEID, to know ; whence also AS, wis, wise, knowing, wisa, a leader,
director, wisian, to guide, lead, show the way. See Wit, Wise.
Der. gurde, sb., guide-post, guid-on, guise, guy-rope.
GUIDON, a pennon; or a bearer of a pennon. (F.—Teut.)
©With guidons trail’d on earth ;’ Sandys, Travels (1632), p. 84.—F.
guidon, ‘a standard, or banner, under which a troop of men of arms
do serve; also, he that bears it;’ (οἱ. - Ἐς guid-er, to guide; as
pointing the way. See above.
GUILD, GILD, an association of men of one class for mutual
guard-ship.
204 GUILDER
aid. (E.) The insertion of u, though common, is quite unnecessary,
and is unoriginal. See English Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith, Early
Eng. Text Soc., 1870. ME. gilde, 3ilde; the pl. 3ilden=guilds,
occurs in Layamon, 32001. Cf. AS. gegyldscipe, a guild, gegilda,
a member of a guild, in Thorpe’s Ancient Laws, A‘thelst. v. 8. 6;
vol. i. p. 236. These words are formed from AS. gild, a payment,
a guild (from the fee paid); also spelt gield, gyld. geld; from the AS.
gildan, to pay, whence also mod. E. yield; see Yield; cf. also Icel.
gildi, a payment, a guild, from gjalda (pres. t. geld), to pay; Dan.
gilde, a feast, a guild. + Du. gild, 2 guild, company, society ; Goth.
gild, tribute-money, Lu. xx. 22. @[ The hard g is remarkable, as the
AS. form would rather have given yild. It is usually referred to the
influence of Icel. gildi, but we must not forget the possible influence
of Latin and AF., which adopted the word very early. The Ν. Ε. Ὁ.
cites L. gildis ab. 1009, L. gildam ab. 1189 ; and AF. forms with gui-
appear early likewise. It is unlikely that L. g was sounded as y, and
it is certain that AF. gu was hard. Der. gut/d-hall, ME. gild-halle,
yeldhalle, Chaucer, C. T. 372 (A 370).
GUILDER, a Dutch coin. (Du.) In Shak. Com. Errors, i. 1. 8;
iv.1.4. A corrupt form of Du. gulden, a guilder, ‘a piece of 20 stivers’
(Sewel). Hexham has Carolus gulden, ‘a Charles gilder;’ Philippus gul-
den, ‘a Philip's gilder ;’ the former evidently refers to Charles V. Cf.
Ὁ. gulden, gulden, a florin; as the name implies, the coin was at first of
gold, though afterwards made of silver. The MHG. name was guldin,
or guldin pfenninc, the golden penny (L. aureus dendrius). 4+ Goth.
gultheins, golden. From Teut. adj. type *gulthinoz, golden; formed
(with suffix -inoz=L. -inus), from Teut. *gulth-om, gold. See Gold.
GUILE, a wile, cunning, deceit. (F.—Teut.) In early use.
ME. gile, gyle; Layamon, 3198, 16382 (later text) ; and common
later. —OF. guile, guille (Godefroy). From a Teut. source ; see
Wile. Der. guile-ful (ME. gileful, Wyclif, Job, xiii. 7, Ps. v. 7),
guile-ful-ly, guile-ful-ness (ME. gilefulnesse, Wyclif, Ecclus. xxxvii. 3) ;
guile-less, guile-less-ness. Doublet, wile.
GUILLEMOT, a sea-bird. (F.—Teut.) ‘A guillemot or sea-
hen;’ Ray, Willughby’s Ornithol., p. 324 (1678); N.E.D. ‘ Wil-
mots, Nodies, Gulles;’ Hakluyt’s Voy. iii. 76.—F. guillemot (1555,
Hatzfeld). Dimin. of F. Guillaume, as wilmot and prov. E. willock
(guillemot) are of William.—OHG. Wilhelm. In the Norm. dialect
roi Guillemot means our William I. (Robin).
GUILLOTINE, an instrument for beheading men. (F. personal
name.) ‘Named after the supposed inventor, a physician named
Joseph Ignatius Guillotin, who died in 1814. The first person
executed by it was a highway robber named Pelletier, April 25,
1792;’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates. Der. guillotine, verb.
GUILT, crime, punishable offence. (E.) The w is inserted to
preserve the gashard. ME. gilt, Gower, C. A. ii, 122 (bk. iv. 3610) ;
Chaucer, C. T. 5057 (B 637); commonly also guwlt, as in Ancren
Riwle, p. 258. AS. gy/t, a crime; Grein, i. 536. Teut. type *gultiz,
m. Some have connected it with AS. geldan,to pay; but this seems
to be inadmissible. No cognate word is known. Der. guilt-less
= ME. giltlees, Chaucer, C. T. 5063 (B 643) ; guilt-less-ly, guilt-less-
ness; also guilt-y= AS. gyltig, Matt. xxiii. 18; guilt-i-ly, guilt-i-ness.
GUINEA, the name of a (former) gold coin. (African.) ‘So
named from having been first coined of gold brought by the African
company from the coast of Guinea in 1663, valued then at 20s.; but
worth 30s. in 1695. Not coined since 1813. Reduced at various
times; in 1717 to 21s.;? Haydn, Dict. of Dates. Der. guinea-fowl,
guinea-hen, named from the same country. @ The guinea-pig is from
S. America, chiefly Brazil; so that the name is an erroneous one, as
in the case of turkey.
GUIPURE, a kind of lace; a kind of gimp. (F.—Teut.) First
in 1843; see N. E. D. =F. gwipwre, which Cotgrave defines as ‘a grosse
black thread, covered or whipt about with silk.’ =F. guiper, to cover
(thus) with silk; Godefroy gives the pp. guipé.—Teut. *wipan, to
wind ; as in Goth. wetpan, to crown (whence waips, a wreath); G.
weifen, to reel, to wind. Cf. MDan. gimpe, fringe; mod. Dan. gimpe,
to whip about with silk (Larsen).
GUISE, way, manner, wise. (F.-OHG.) ME. gise, gyse, Chaucer,
C. T. 995 (A993). Also guise, guyse; first used in Layamon, 19641,
later text, where the earlier text has wise. —OF. guise, way, wise; cf.
Prov., Port., Span., and Ital. guisa. [The gu stands for an older w.]
- OHG., wisa, ΜΗ. wise (G. weise), a way, wise, guise; cognate
with AS. wise, whence E. wise, sb. See Wise (2). Doublet, wise (2).
GUITAR, a musical stringed instrument. (F.—L.—Gk.) In
Skinner, ed. 1671. (‘Give me my guiftara;’ Ben Jonson, Gipsies
Metam. § 1 (end); from Span. guifarra.J—F. guitare (Littré).—L.
cithara (accented as in Gk.).—Gk. κιθάρα, a kind of lyre. @ The
ME. form of the word is giferne, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 3333. This also is
of F. origin; Cotgrave gives ‘ Guiterne, or Guiterre, a gitterne.’
GULES, the heraldic name for red. (F.—L.) ME. goules; Gawain
and Grene Knt., 619. Richardson cites: ‘And to bere armes than
GUN
are ye able Of gold and goules sete with sable ;” Squier of Low Degre,
1. 203, in Ritson’s Metrical Romances, vol. iii. At p. 484 of Rob. of
Glouc., ed. Hearne, is a footnote in which we find: ‘that bere the
armes of goules with a white croys.’=—F. gueules, ‘gules, red, or
sanguine, in blazon,’ Cot.; OF. goles, goules, geules; AF. goules,
gules, P. Langtoft, ii. 430, answering to Late L. gule, gules.
4 Ducange shows that L. gul@ also meant ‘skins of ermine dyed red.’
Cf. also OF. goler, to border with fur ; engoulé, engolé, angolé, trimmed
with fur. Cf. ‘murium rubricatas pelliculas, quas gulas vocant;’
S. Berard, Epist. 42. c.2. The origin of Late L. gul@ (in this sense)
is doubtful.
GULF, a hollow in the sea-coast, a bay, a deep place, whirlpool.
(F.—Ital.—Gk.) Formerly spelt goulfe, gulph. ‘ Hast thou not read
in bookes Of fell Charybdis goulfe?’ Turberville, Pyndara’s Answer
to Tymetes. ΜΕ. goulf; ‘the goulf of Venyse;’ Mandeville, Trav.
ch. v. p. 54. Milton has the adj. gulphie, Vacation Exercise, 1. 92;
Spenser has gulphing, Virgil's Gnat, 542.—F. golfe (formerly also
goulfe), a gulph, whirlepool;’ Cot.— Ital. golfo, a gulf, bay. Late
Gk. κόλφος, variant of Gk. κόλπος, the bosom, lap, a deep hollow,
bay, creek. [Cf. the various senses of L. sinus.|_ Der. gulf-y, en-gulf.
GULL (1), a web-footed sea-bird. (C.) ‘Timon will be left a
naked gull, Which flashes now a Phcenix ;’ Timon, ii. 1. 31. Com.
gullan, gwilan, a gull (Williams); W. gwylan; Bret. gwelan; Gael.
and Irish faotleann, Gael. faoileag, Irish faoileog, Olrish foilenn.
Celtic type *woilenno-. The prob. sense was ‘ wailer,’ from its cry; cf.
Bret. gwel-a, 1o weep. Stokes-Fick, p. 285.
GULL (2), a dupe. (Low G.) ‘Yond gull Malvolio;’ Tw. Nt.
ili. 2. 73. There seems to have been a false notion that the gull was
a stupid bird. Thus a person who entraps dupes is called a gull-
catcher, Tw. Nt. ii. 5. 204; and it is possible that popular etymology
wrongly associated this word with Gull (1); cf. owl, goose, dotterel.
But it is probably quite a distinct word, and borrowed from Du. or
Low G.=Low G. gull, adj., soft, mild, good-natured, open-hearted
(Berghaus) ; MDu. gulle, ‘a great wench without wit,’ Hexham;
EFries. gul, soft, mild, liberal (Koolman). Der. gull, verb, Tw. Nt.
li. 3. 1453 gull-tble.
GULLET, the throat. (F.—L.) ME. golet, gullet; Chaucer, C. T.
12477 (C543). ‘ Golet, or throte, guttur, gluma, gula;’ Prompt. Parve
“- Εἰ goulet, ‘the gullet;’ Cot. Dimin. of OF. gole, goule (mod. F.
gueule), the throat.—L. σία, the throat. Brugm. i. § 499. From
the same source we have gules, q.v. Doublet, gully, q. v.
GULLY, a channel worn by water. (F.—L.) In Capt. Cook’s
Third Voyage, b.iv. c. 4 (R.). Formerly written gullet. ‘ It meeteth
afterward with another gwdlet,’ i.e. small stream; Holinshed, Desc.
of Britain, c.11(R.).—F. goulet, ‘a gullet, . . . anarrow brook or deep
gutter of water;’ Cot. Thus the word is the same as Gullet, q. v.
GULP, to swallow greedily and quickly. (E.) ‘He has gulped
me down, Lance ;” Beaum. and Fletcher, Wit without Money, A. i.
sc. 2. ME. gulpen, gloppen, glubben; ‘Til Gloton hedde :-gloupet
(ν. τ. ygloppid, ygulpid) a galoun;’ P. Plowman, A. ν. το. Of
imitative origin. Cf. EFries. and Du. gulpen, to swallow eagerly ;
MDu. golpen, gulpen, to quaff (Hexham); Du. gulp, a great billow,
wave, draught, gulp. B. Further allied to Swed. glupande, Dan.
glubende, voracious; Swed. glup-sk, Dan. glub-sk, ravenous. From
Teut. root *gleup- ; as in Swed. dial. gliopa (pt. τ. glop, pl. glupum),
to swallow, Norw. glupa (pt. t. glaup), to swallow. Der. gulp, sb.
GUM (1), the flesh of the jaws. (E.) ME. gome. In Legends of
the Holy Rood, ed. Morris, p. 218, 1. 250, where it means ‘ palate.’
‘Gome in mannys mowthe, pl. goomys, Gingiva, vel gingive, plur.;’
Prompt. Pary. AS. géma, the palate, Jaws; Grein, i. 523.- Icel.
gomr, the palate; Swed. gom, the palate ; OHG. guomo, G. gaumen,
the palate. B. Allied to Gk. χαῦνος, gaping; Lith. gomurys, the
palate. See Brugm. i. § 196; where the AS. 6 is explained as from
ou. Der. gum-boil.
GUM (2), the hardened adhesive juice of certain trees. (F.—L.—
Gk.—Egypt.) ME. gomme, Chaucer, Good Women, 121; P. Plow-
man, B. ii. 226.—F. gomme, gum. = L. gummi.=—Gk. κόμμι, gum ; but
not orig.a Gk. word. Prob. of Egyptian origin; cf. Coptic home,
gum; Peyron, Dict., p.67. Der. gum, verb; gummi-ferous, from L.
suffix -fer, bearing, which from ferre, to bear; gumm-y, gumm-i-ness.
GUN, an engine for throwing projectiles. (Scand.) ME. gonne,
Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, 1643; P. Plowman, Ὁ. xxi. 293; King Ali-
saunder, ed. Weber, 3268. See note by Way in Prompt. Pary. p. 218.
[W. gwn, Irish gunna, gun, are from E.] Shortened from Icel.
Gunnhildr, a fem. proper name (whence Gunzild in Havelok), a name
once given to war-engines, and appropriately enough, because the
element gunn- (Icel. gunnr) signifies ‘war,’ and hildr signifies ‘battle.
This is confirmed by an account of munitions at Windsor Castle in
1330-1 (Exchequer Accts. Q. R. Bundle 18, no. 34), which mentions
“na magna balista de cornu quee vocatur Domina Gunilda.” In ME.
Gunne would be the regular pet-name for Gunnhildr, A Gunnild is
| From Idg.
GUNNY
GYPSY, GIPSY 255
mentioned in the A. S. Chron. an. 1045 (MS. D) ; and Gunn is now | a water-course, wide ditch; ME. gote, Prompt. Pary. p. 205; see
asurname. Cf. also gonnylde gnoste,a spark of a gun; Polit. Songs,
ed. Wright, p. 237. @J In Icel. poetry, gunn-eldr (war-fire) meant
“a sword,’ and gunn-mdni (war-moon) meant ‘a shield.’ Der. gunn-er,
gunn-er-y, gun-barrel, -boat, -carriage, -cotton, -powder, -shot, -smith,
-stock; also gun-wale, q. Vv.
GUNWY, a coarse kind of sacking for bags. (Hind.—Skt.) See
Yule. — Hind. and Mahratti gov, gomi, a sack, sacking. —Skt. goni,a
sack. Perhaps orig. made of hide; cf. Skt. gaus (stem gd-), an ox
(Uhlenbeck).
GUNWALE, the upper edge of a ship’s side. (Scand. and E.)
Corruptly pronounced gunnel [gunl]. In Skinner, ed. 1671. ‘ Gun-
wale, or Gunnel of a Ship, a piece of timber that reaches from the
halfdeck to the forecastle on either side ;” Kersey, ed. 1715. ‘ Wales
or Wails, those timbers on the ship’s sides, which lie outmost, and
are usually trod upon, when people climb up the sides to get into the
ship;’ id. B. Compounded of gun and wale; see Wale. So called
because the guns used once to rest upon it ; cf. ‘some guns, that went
with a swivel upon their gunnal ;’ Dampier, Voy., ed. 1729, i. 400.
The sense of wale is ‘ stick’ or ‘ beam,’ and secondly, ‘the mark of a
blow with a stick.’
GURGLE, to flow irregularly, with a slight noise. (Ital.—L.)
“Τὸ gurgling sound Of Liffy’s tumbling streams ;’ Spenser, Mourn-
ing Muse of Thestylis, 1. 3. Imitated from Ital. gorgolare, ‘to gurgle
as water doth running,’ Florio; also gorgogliare, to gargle, purl,
bubble, boil; cf. gorgoglio, a warbling, the gurgling of a stream.
The latter answers to a L. type *gurguliare, formed as if from L.
gurgulio, the gullet. See Gorge. Brugmann, i. ὃ 499. 4 To be
distinguished from gargle, though they were confused.
GURNARD, GURNET, a kind of fish. (F.—Prov.—L.; with
Teut. suffix.) ‘Gurnard, fysche ;’ Prompt. Parv. ‘ Gurnarde, a fysshe,
gournault;’ Palsgrave. See Levins. Shak. has gurnet, 1 Hen. IV, iv.
2.13. Cotgrave has: ‘ Gournauld, a gurnard fish τ᾿ but the E. word
answers rather to OF. gornard (Godefroy), F. *gournard (the suffixes
-ard, -ald, -auld being convertible) ; and this again stands, by the not
uncommon shifting of r, for *grouxard. The latter form is represented
in Cotgrave by ‘Grougnaut, a gurnard,’ marked as being a Languedoc
word; cf. Prov. gournau, grougnau, a gurnard (Mistral), from Prov.
ourgna, grougna, to grunt (which shows that the word is really of
roy. origin). β. Again, we find another form of the word in MF.
grongnard (mod. F. grognard), explained by Cotgrave as ‘ grunting ;”
and, in fact, the word gurnard means ‘grunter.’ Godefroy has OF.
groignart, gruinard, ‘grondant.’ ‘The gurnards... derive their popu-
lar appellation from a grunting noise which they make when taken
out of the water ;’ Eng. Cyclop. s.v. Trigla. y. The F. grognard
is formed by the suffix -ard (=OHG. hard, hart) from F. grogner,
for OF. grogntr, gronir, to grunt.—L. grunnire, to grunt. See
Grunt. The Prov. word is similar.
GUSH, to flow out swiftly. (E.) ME. guschen, Morte Arthure, ed.
Brock, 1130. Cf.EFries. giisen,to gush out; Low G. gusen (Berghaus).
Allied to MDu. guysen, to gush out (Kilian); Icel. gusa, to gush, spirt
out, a derivative of the strong verb gjdsa (pt. τ. gauss, pp. gosinn), to
gush, break out as a volcano. Also Du. gudsen, to gush; ‘het bloed
gudsde uyt zyne wonde, the blood did gush out of his wound ;’ Sewel.
o GHEU,to pour (Gk. χέ-ειν) ; whence 4f/GHEUD, to pour
(L. fundere (E. fuse), Goth. giutan, G. giessen, Icel. gjdta, Swed. gjuta,
Dan. gyde, AS. géotan, to pour). See Gut, Geysir, and Fuse.
| J The final sh suggests a Teut. base *gut-sk, extended from *gut-,
weak grade of Teut. *geut-, Idg. *gheud-. Der. gush-ing, gush-ing-ly ;
cf, gust (1), q.v.
GUSSET, a small insertion of cloth in a garment, for the purpose
_ of enlarging it. (F.) Particularly used of a piece of chain-mail pro-
tecting a joint in armour (see gloss. to Fairholt’s Costume), or an
insertion in the armhole of a shirt. ME. guschet, Wallace, bk. ii. 63.
The word occurs in Du Wes; see Palsgrave’s Dict., p. 906, col. 3.
=F. gousset, ‘a gusset; the piece of armour, or of a shirt, whereby
| the arme-hoole is covered;’ Cot. B. Named from some fancied re-
_, semblance to the husk of a bean or pea; the word being a dimin. of
| F. gousse, ‘the huske, swad, cod, hull of beanes, pease, &c.;’ Cot.
| Ital. guscio, a shell, husk; a word of unknown origin.
Gust (1), a sudden blast or gush of wind. (Scand.) In Shak.
| Mer. of Ven. iv. 1. 77.—Icel. gustr,a gust, blast; cf. also gjdsta, a
‘gust. Cf. Swed. dial. gust, a stream of air from an oven (Rietz) ;
\Norw. gust, a gust. —TIcel. gus-, weak grade of gjdsa, to gush. See
Gush. Der. gust-y, gust-i-ness.
' GUST (2), relish, taste. (L.) In Shak. Tw. Nt. i. 3. 333 and in
Spenser, F. Ὁ. vii. 7. 30. τοῖν. gus/us, a tasting, taste (whence F. gozit) ;
cf. gustare, to taste. -- 4/ GEUS, to choose; whence also Skt. jush, to
jenjoy, like, Gk. yevew, to taste, and E. choose. See Choose.
Doublet, gus/o, the Ital. form of the word. Der. dis-gust, q. v.
Way’s note.] ME. gutte, gotte; P. Plowman, B. i. 36; Rob. of Glouc.
p- 289, 1. 5865. AS. gutt; pl. guttas, ‘receptacula viscerum ;’ A. 5.
Gloss. in Mone’s Quellen und Forschungen, i. 1830, p. 333, 1. 198.
B. The orig. sense is ‘channel ;’ cf. Swed. gjuta, a mill-leat (Rietz) ;
Dan. gyde, a lane; MDnu. gofe, a channel (Hexham); G. gosse, a
drain; ME. gote, prov. E. gut, a drain, water-course. y. All from
the Idg. weak grade *ghud- (Teut. *gut-) of 44 GHEUD, to pour;
see Gush, Fuse. > Not connected with gutter, which is of Latin
origin. Der. gut, verb.
GUTTA-PERCHA, a solidified juice of certain trees. (Malay.)
“Made known in England in 1843 ;’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates. The
trees yielding it abound in the Malayan peninsula and in Borneo. =
Malay gatah, guttah, gum, balsam (Marsden’s Malay Dict., p. 283) ;
and percha, the name of the tree producing it (though now obtained
from other trees). Hence the sense is ‘gum of the Percha-tree.’
B. The spelling gutta is obviously due to confusion with the L. guéta,
a drop, with which it has nothing whatever to do. ‘ Gusta in Malay
means gum, percha is the name of the tree (Isonandra gutta), or of an
island from which the tree was first imported (Pulo-percha) ;’ Max
Miiller, Lect. on Language, 8th ed., i. 231. The former seems to be
right; see C. P. G. Scott, Malayan Words in E.
GUTTER, a channel for water. (F.—L.) ME. gotere ; Prompt.
Party. The pl. goteres is in Trevisa, i. 181.—OF. gutiere, goutiere ;
see quotations in Littré, 5. ν. gouétiére, a gutter; cf. Span. gotera, a
gutter. B. Esp. used of the duct for catching the drippings of the
eaves of a roof; from OF. gote, goute (mod. F. goutte), a drop.—L.
gutta,a drop. See Gout (1). Der. gutter, verb.
GUTTURAL, pertaining to the throat. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave. =
F. guttural, ‘ gutturall, belonging to the throat ;’ Cot.—L. gutturdlis ;
formed with suffix -alis from guttur, the throat. Der. guttural-ly (2).
GUY (1), a hideous creature, a fright. (F.—Ital.—Teut.) Orig. an
effigy of Guy Fawkes; carried about and burnt on Nov. 5 ; see Hone,
Every-day Book, i. 1430.—F. Guy.—Ital. Guido; a name of Teut.
origin.
GUY (2), @GUY-ROPH, a rope used to steady a weight. (F.—
Tent.) A nautical term. Spelt guée in Capt. J.Smith, Works, ed. Arber,
p-795. Dunbar has guye=a guide; p. 278, 1.1 (S. T.S.). In Skinner,
ed.1671. ‘ Guy, a rope made use of to keep anything from falling or
bearing against a ship’s side, when it is to be hoised in ;’ Kersey’s
Dict., ed. 1715.—OF. guie, guye,a guide; cf. Span. guia, a guide,
leader, guy. =F. guier, to guide ; earlier form of F. guider, to guide.
See Guide.
GUZZLE, to swallow greedily. (F.) ‘ Guzzle, to drink greedily,
to tipple ;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. Cotgrave explains OF. martiner by
‘to quaffe, swill, guzzle.’ Prob. suggested by OF. goziller, gosillier,
to vomit, also to prattle, talk (Godefroy) ; whence (in Cotgrave) the
comp. desgouziller, ‘to gulp, to swallow down.’ But OF, desgosiller
had both senses. Cf. also F. s’égosiller, to make one’s throat sore with
shouting; clearly connected with OF. gosillier, the throat (Godefroy),
and F. gosier, the throat. B. Littré connects gosier with Lorraine
gosse, the throat, the stomach of fatted animals. Remoter source
unknown; see Korting, ὃ 4237. Der. guzzl-er.
GYMNASIUM, a place for athletic exercises. (L.—Gk.) In
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. —L. gymnasium. = Gk. γυμνάσιον, an athletic
school; so called because the athletes were naked when practising
their exercises. —Gk. γυμνάζειν, to train naked, to exercise. —Gk.
υμνάς, more commonly γυμνός, naked. See Prellwitz. Der. From
the same source are gymnast = Gk. γυμναστής, a trainer of athletes ;
gymnast-ic, gymnast-ics ; also gymnick, from L. gymnicus, Gk. γυμνικός,
Milton, Samson Agon. 1324; also gymno-sophist, Ben Jonson, Fortu-
nate Isles (Merefool), from L.’ pl. gymno-sophiste, Gk. pl. γυμνο-
σοφισταί, lit. ‘naked sophists.’ Also gymnotus, an electric eel; lit.
‘naked back,’ from the absence of dorsal fins upon it; short for
gymno-notus, from Gk. γυμνό-ς, naked, and νῶτον, back.
GYNARCHY, government by a woman. (Gk.) Spelt gunarchy
by Lord Chesterfield (Todd). Coined from Gk, γυν-ἤ, a woman, and
-apxia, ἀρχή, rule, from ἄρχειν, to rule ; cf. olig-archy, tetr-archy, &c.
See Queen.
GYPSUM, a mineral containing sulphate of lime and water. (L.—
Gk.—Arab.) ‘ Gypsum, parget, white-lime, plaister ; also, the parget-
stone ;’ Kersey, ed. 1715.—L. gypsum, chalk. — Gk. Ἐγύψον, for γύψος,
chalk; Herod. vii. 69. B. Prob. of Eastern origin; cf. Pers. jabsin,
lime; Arab. jibs, plaster, mortar; Rich. Dict. p. 494.
GYPSY, GIPSY, one of a certain nomad race. (F.—L.—Gk.—
Egypt.) Spelt gipsen by Spenser, Mother Hubbard’s Tale, 1, 86; see
Giplian in Nares. This is a mere corruption of ME. Egypcien, an
Egyptian. Chaucer calls St. Mary of Egypt ‘the Egipcien Marie ;’
C. T., B 500 (1. 4920); and Skelton, swearing by the same saint, says
“By Mary Gipey!’ Garland of Laurell, 1455.—OF. Egyptien, Egiptien.
| GUT, the intestinal canal. (E.) [The same word as prov. E. gut, | —Late L. Egyptianus, formed with suffix -dnus from L. Hgyptius, an
|
256 GYRE
Egyptian.—Gk. Αἰγύπτιος, an Egyptian. —Gk. Αἴγυπτος, Egypt.
From the name of the country. > The supposition that they were
Egyptians was false ; their orig. home was India. Der. Hence per-
haps gyp, a college scout (at Cambridge) ; cf. Gif (dog’s name) in
David Copperfield. The common fable that gyp is from Gk. γύψ, a
vulture, is unsupported.
GYRE, a circle, circular course. (L.—Gk.) ‘Or hurtle rownd in
warlike gyre ;’ Spenser, F. Q. ii. 5. 8; cf iii. τ. 23.—L. gyrus, a circle,
circuit. = Gk. yipos, a ring, circle; cf. γῦρος, adj. round. Der. gyrate,
from L. gyratus, pp. of gyrare, to turn round, formed from gyrus;
gyrat-ion, gyrat-or-y.
GYRFALCON,GERFALCON,abirdofprey. (F.—Teut.and
L.) ‘Gyrfalcon, a bird of prey ;’ Kersey, ed. 1715; spelt ger/aulcon
in Cotgrave; girefaucoun in Trevisa, i. 323, to translate L. gyrofalco.
a. The prefix is French, the word being from OF. gerfaucon, girfaucon
(Godefroy), MF. gerfault, ‘a gerfaulcon, the greatest of hawks, called
also falcon gerfault;’ Cot. Cf. Ital. gerfalco, girfalco, girifalco, a ger-
falcon.—Low L. gérofalco, a gerfaleon; girefalco, in 55 Hen. III,
Excerpta Historica, p. 20 ; and (corruptly) gyrofalco (as if named from
his circling flight; see Gyre above). The right form is girefalco.—
MHG. girvalke; where gir is from OHG. gir-, for giri, greedy (whence
also G. geier, a vulture) ; and valke represents L, falco,a falcon. See
Gier-eagle.
GYRON, a term in heraldry. See Giron.
GYVES, fetters. (AF.—E.?) In early use; only in the plural.
ME. giues, gyues (with τε for v); Layamon, 15338 ; P. Plowman, C. xvi.
254. The g was orig. hard; we find ‘ guyvies de ferro’ in Records of
Nottingham, iii. 100 (1505); ghywes (for guyves), Allit. Morte Arthure,
3621. From AF, guives, pl., spelt gives, Fr. Chron. of London, p. 89.
Ofunknown origin ; presumably Teutonic, and perhaps E.; probably
from AS. widde, a thong, cord; see Layamon, 15338, 22833
(N.E.D.).
HA, an exclamation. (E.) ‘A ha! the fox!’ Chaucer, C. Τὶ 15387
(B 4571). When reduplicated, it signifies laughter. ‘Ha! ha! ha!’
Temp. ii. 1. 36. Common in Shak, as an exclamation of surprise. Of
onomatopoeticorigin; see also Ah.+OFries. haha, to denote laughter;
MHG. ha, G. he; MHG. haha; OF. ha.
HABERDASHER, a seller of small wares. (AF.) ‘An haber-
dasher ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 363 (A 361). ‘The haberdasher heapeth
wealth by hattes;’ Gascoigne, Fruits of War, st. 64. ‘Haberdasher,
a hatter, or seller of hats; also, a dealer in small wares;’ Kersey.
‘A haberdasher, mercier; a poore, petty haberdasher of small wares,
mercerot ;? Sherwood, index to Cotgrave. a. So named from selling
a stuff called Aapertas in Anglo-French, of which (possibly) hats were
sometimes made. Inthe Liber Albus, ed. Riley, p. 225, is mentioned
‘la charge de hapertas;’ in the E. version by Riley, ‘the load of
hapertas.’ And again, at p. 230, we find “ les feez de leyne d’ Espagne,
wadmal, mercerie, canevas, . . feutre, lormerie, peil, haberdassherie,
esquireux, ... et des autres choses ge l’em acustument par fee, vi. d;’
thus Englished by Riley: ‘the fixed charge upon wool of Spain,
wadmal, mercery, canvas, .. . felt, lymere, pile, haberdassherie,
squirrel-skins, .. and upen other articles that pay custom at a fixed
rate, is six pence.’ B. The word is probably of Teutonic origin; but
its history is not known. Der. haberdasher-y.
HABERGEON, a piece of armour to defend the neck and breast.
(F.—OHG.) ΜΕ. habergeon, Chaucer, C.T. τό; hawberioun, Wyclif,
1 Kings, xvii. 5. OF. haubergeon, hauberjon, a small hauberk (Supp.
to Godefroy); dimin. of OF. hauberc ; see Hauberk.
HABILIMENT, dress, attire. (F.—L.) ‘ The whiche furnyssh-
ynge his people with all habylymentys of warre;’ Kabyan’s Chron.,
Charles VII. (of France); ed. Ellis, p. 553.—F. habillement,‘apparell,
clothing; ’ Cot. Formed with suffix -ment from habiller, ‘to cloth,
dresse, apparell;’ Cot. B. The verb habiller signified orig. ‘to get
ready,’ from the Εἰ, habile, able, ready ; which is from the L. habilis,
manageable, fit. See Able. Der. fromthesame source, dis-habille,q.v.
HABIT, practice, custom, dress. (F.—L.) ME. habit, abit ; the
latter spelling being common. Spelt habit, P. Plowman, B. prol. 3;
abit, id. C, prol. 3; Ancren Riwle, p. 12, 1. 8.—OF. habit, ‘a garment,
raiment,. . . also, an habit, a fashion settled, a use or custom gotten ;’
Cot.—L. habitum, acc. of habitus, condition, habit, dress, attire. — L.
habitus, held in a certain condition, pp. of habére, to have, hold, keep.
See Brugmann, i. § 638. Der. habit, verb; pp. habited, i.e. dressed,
Wint. Tale, iv. 4. 557; habit-u-al,from MF. habitual (mod. F. habituel),
explained ‘habituall’ by Cotgrave, and from Late L. habitu-dlis,
HADES
formed with suffix -alis from habitu-, for habitus, habit; habit-u-al-ly;
habitu-ate, from L, habitudtus, pp. of habi/uare, to bring into a certain
habit or condition. Also, from the same source, habit-ude, q.v., habit-
able, q.V., habit-at, q.v., habit-at-ion, q.v., hab-ili-ment, q.v. From the
L. habére are also numerous derivatives, as ex-hibit, in-hibit, in-habit,
pro-hibit ; ab-le, ab-ili-ty, dis-hab-ille ; debt; prebend ; binnacle, malady.
HABITABLE, that can be dwelt in. (F.—L.) In Milton,
P. L, vili. 157; earlier, in Gower, C. A. ili. 104; bk. vii. 586.—F.
habitable, ‘ inhabitable;’? Cot.—L. habitabilis, habitable; formed with
suffix -bilis from habita-re, to dwell, frequentative form of L. habére,
to have (supine habit-um). See Habit. Der. habitabl-y, habitable-
ness, inhabitable,
HABITANT, an inhabitant. (F.—L.) In Milton, P. L. viii.
99; x.588. Spelt habitaunt in Palsgrave. =F. habitant, ‘an inhabitant ;’
Cot.; pres. part. of F. habiter, to dwell. = L. habitare, to dwell (above).
Der. in-habitant.
HABITAT, the natural abode of an animal or plant. (L.) A
word coined for use in works on natural history, It means ‘it dwells
(there).’ = L. habitat, 3 pers. s. pres. of habitare, to dwell.
HABITATION, a dwelling. (F.—L.) InShak. Mids. Nt. Dr.
v.17. ME. habitacioun, Chaucer, C. T. 2928 (A 2926). —F. habitation,
‘a habitation ;’ Cot. L. habitationem, acc. of habitatio, a dwelling. =
L. habitare, to dwell. See Habitable.
HABITUDE, usual manner, quality. (F.—L.) In Shak. Com-
plaint, 114.—F. habitude, ‘custom, use;’ Cot. -- L. habitiido, condition;
formed with suffix -(¢)a-do from habit-, pp. stem of habére, to have.
HACIBNDA, a farm, estate, farmhouse. (Span.—L.) Since
1760; chiefly with relation to former Spanish colonies. Span. ἡ
hacienda, an estate, orig. employment ; OSpan. facienda. — L. facienda,
neut. pl., things to be done; from the gerundive of facere, to do.
See Fact.
HACK (1), to cut, chop, mangle. (E.) ME. hakken. ‘To hakke
and hewe;’ Chaucer, C. T. 2867 (A 2865). ‘ Hacked of his heaued ’
=hacks off his head; Ancren Riwle, p. 298. AS. -haccian, to cut; in
comp. /0-haccian, of which the pt. t. 40-haccode occurs in St. Veronica,
ed. Goodwin, p. 36, 1. 22.4-Du. kakken, to hew, chop; Dan. hakke, to
hack, hoe; Swed. hacka, to chop; G. hacken, to chop, cleave. Teut.
type, *hakkon-, or *hakkdjan-. @ Mr. Oliphant calls attention to
ONorthumb. hackande, troublesome, in Early Eng. Psalter, Surtees
Soc., Ps. xxxiv. 13. ‘ Hence, perhaps, our “‘ hacking cough.” ’”
HACK (2), a hackney. See Hackney.
HACKBUT, an arquebus,an old kind of musket. (F.—O.LowG.)
In Holinshed, Hist. Scotland, an. 1583; kackbutter,a man armed with
a hackbut, id. an. 1544. Rich. says that ‘the 33 Hen. VIII. c. 6,
regulates the length in stock and gun of the hagbut or demshague, and
sets forth who may keep and use them.’ Also spelt hagbut, less
correctly. — MF. haguebute, ‘an haquebut, or arquebuze, a caliver ;’
Cot. B. A less correct form of hackbush, formerly hakebusse, as in
Naval Accounts of Hen. VII (1485), p. 50; see Arquebus. A mere
corruption of Low G, hakebiisse, Du. haakbus (haeckbusse in Hexham),
an arquebus ; due, apparently, to some confusion with OF. buser, ta
thrust.
HACKERY, a bullock-cart. (Hindi—Skt.?) Anglo-Indian. See
Supp. to Yule, who suggests Hindi chakra, a wheel, a cart; from
Skt. chakra-, a wheel. Forbes gives Hind. chhakva, a kind of
carriage, car.
HACKLE (1), HATCHEL, an instrument for dressing flax or
hemp. (E.) Also spelt Heckle, q.v.
HACKLE (2), long shining feathers on a cock’s neck; or a fly
for angling, dressed with such feathers. (E.) It appears to be the
same word as the above; see N.E. Ὁ.
HACKNEY, HACK, a horse let out for hire. (E.) ME,
hakeney, Chaucer, C. T. 16027 (G 559); P. Plowman, B. v. 318.
Late L. hackeneius, as early as 1292; ‘ pro hackeneio ferente tunicam
nocturnam et resalias;’ Expenses of John of Brabant; in The Cam-
den Miscellany, vol. ii. p. 2. Cf. AF. un hakenay, Stat. Realm, i. 288
(1340); sur hakenai, Ῥ. Langtoft’s Chron. ii. 250 (1307). Hackenetus
means ‘ belonging to Hackney,’ spelt Hakeneia in 1199, Rotuli Curie
Regis, ed. Palgrave, i. 216; ME. Hakeney (Middlesex) ; Inquis. p.
Mortem (1285). See Supplement. Der. hackney-ed.
HADDOCK, a sea-fish. (E.) ME. haddoke. ‘Hic morus, a
haddoke ;’ Wright’s Vocab. i. 222, col. 2. Spelt kaddok, Prompt.
Pary.; and in Liber Albus, p. 376. Of unknown origin; the Gael.
adag, a haddock, is a borrowed word from English; similarly, the
OF. hadot, ‘a salt haddock’ (Cotgrave), is plainly a less orginal
form. The suffix -ock is perhaps diminutive, as in hill-ock. The
Trish name is codog.
HADES, the abode of the dead. (Gk.) Spelt Ades, Milton, P. L.
ii. 964.— Gk. Gdns, ἄδης (Attic), ἀΐδης (Homeric), the nether world.
‘Usually derived from a, privative, and ἰδεῖν, to see [as though it
meant ‘the unseen’}; but the aspirate in Attic makes this very
- -- - --- ———_
| or mince.
English.
| brabble, in the making of a bargain.’
] mangle, faulter;’ also Du. hakketeren, to wrangle, cavil ; both deriva-
| tives of Du. hakken, tohack. Der. haggl-er; and see higgle.
HADJI, HAJJI
doubtful; ’ Liddell and Scott.
account in Prellwitz.
HADJI, HAJJI, one who has performed the pilgrimage to
Mecca, (Arab.) First in 1612.— Arab. /aji, ‘a Christian who has
performed the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, or 2 Muhammedan [who
has performed] that to Mecca;’ Rich. Dict., p. 549. Orig. the
latter.
HAMATITE, HAAMORRHAGE; sec Hematite, He-
morrhage.
HAFTT, a handle. (E.) ME.haft, heft. ‘Los inthe haft’ =loose
in the handle; Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 339. Spelt haft, Wyclif,
Deut. xix. 5; heft, Prompt. Parv. AS. heft, a handle; Grein, ii. 20.
Ἔα. heft, hecht ; Icel. hepti (pron. hefti); G. heft, a handle, hilt,
portion of a book. B. The orig. sense is ‘that which is seized, or
caught up;’ cf. the pp. seen in Icel. haftr, one who is taken, a
prisoner, and Goth. hafts, joined together; with which compare L.
captus, taken. y. All from the verb seen in AS. hebban, L. capere.
See Heave.
HAG, an ugly old woman. (E.) ME. hagge; P. Plowman, B. v.
191. The pl. heggen is in the Ancren Riwle, p. 216. The AS. form
is fuller, viz. hegtis, hegtesse, used to translate L. pythonissa, a pro-
phetess or witch ; Wright’s Vocab. i. 60, col. 1. Inthe same column,
we also find: " Tisiphona, weelcyrre ; Parce, hogtesse ;’ on which
Mr. Wright remarks: ‘The Anglo-Saxon of these words would
appear to be transposed. Hegtesse means properly a fury, or in its
modern representative, a hag, and would apply singly to Tysiphone,
while welcyrian was the name of the three fates of the A. S. mythology.’
+G. hexe, a witch ; OHG. hazissa, apparently short for hagazissa, also
hagazussa. B. The suffix -tesse, OHG. -zissa, contains a feminine
2
See Homer, II. i. 3.
ending ; the base is possibly (as has been suggested) the AS. haga |
(G. hag), a hedge, bush; it being supposed that witches were seen in
bushes by night. See Hedge, and Haggard. Schade refers the
AS. -tesse to teswian, to harm, from ¢esu, teosu, harm; thus -fesse =
‘harmer,’ Der. hag-gard (2), q.v.; and even haggard (1) is from
the same base.
HAGGARD (1), wild, said of a hawk. (F.—G.) Orig. the
name of a wild, untrained hawk. ‘ Ashagard hauke ;’ Spenser, F. Q.
i. 11. 19. ‘For haggard hawkes mislike an emptie hand ;’ Gas-
coigne’s Flowers, Memories, John Vaughan’s Theme, |. 26.—OF.
hagard, ‘hagard, wild, strange, froward . . . Faulcon hagard, a |
hagard, a faulcon that preyed for herself long before she was taken ;’
Cot. B. The orig. sense is ‘living in a hedge,’ hence, wild. Formed
with suffix -ard (of G. origin, G. -hart), from MHG. hag (OHG. hac),
a hedge; see Hedge, Haw. See Hatzfeld.
HAGGARD (2), lean, hollow-eyed, meagre. (F.—G.)
haggard eyes they stare;’ Dryden, tr. of Virgil, Georg. iv. 370.
Altered sometimes to hagged, as if ‘ hag-like.’
with hagged face;’ Gray, A Long Story, 4th stanza from end.
Wedgwood cites from I.estrange’s Fables: ‘A hagged carrion of a
wolf and a jolly sort of dog with good flesh upon ’s back fell into
company.’ A peculiar use of the word above ; ‘ wild,’ hence ‘ gaunt.’
See Hatzfeld.
HAGGIS, a dish commonly made in a sheep’s maw, of the
minced lungs, heart, and liver of the same animal. (Scand. ; with AF.
suffix.) ME. hagas, hageys, hakkys, Prompt. Parv. Also spelt haggas,
hagges, hakeys; see notes to Prompt. Parv., and to the Catholicon
Anglicum, p. 169; also the account in Jamieson. The AF. form is
hagiz; see Wright’s Vocab. i. 172, 1.6: ‘ Estrere le hagiz du pocenet,’
to take the haggis out of the pot. Formed, with AF. suffix -iz, -eis,
from the verb hag, to cut, found also in the E. frequentative haggle; see
Haggle (1); cf. Norm. dial. haguer, to cut up (Moisy). Cf. also
Du. haksel, minced meat, and Low G, haks un pliiks, a kind of hash |
4 The Gael. taigeis, a haggis, is merely borrowed from
HAGGLE (1), to cut awkwardly, mangle. (Seand.) ‘ York, all
haggled over ;’ Hen. V, iv. 6. 11. A frequentative of Lowland Sc.
hag, to cut, to hew.—Icel. haggua, to hew, from a base *haggw-
(Noreen, § 72, note 8); Swed. dial. khagga, to hew (Rietz) ; allied to
E. hew ; see Hew.
HAGGLE (2), to be slow in making a bargain. (Scand.) Cot-
grave explains OF. harceler by ‘to vex, harry, . . . also, to haggle,
hucke, hedge, or paulter long in the buying of a commoanty.’ He |
similarly explains barguigner by ‘to chaffer, . . . dodge, haggle,
It is plain that higgle is a
weakened form of thesame word. β. It seems probable that haggle
is ultimately the same as the word above. © Similarly we have Du.
hakkelen, to mangle, to stammer ; explained by Sewel as ‘ to hackle,
HAGIOGRAPHA, holy writings. (Gk.) A name given to
© With |
And see the |
the last of the three Jewish divisions of the Old Testament, contain- |
HALBERD, HALBERT
ing Ps., Prov., Job, Dan., Ez., Nehem., Ruth, Esther, Chron., Cant.,
Lam., and Eccles. = Gk. ἁγιόγραφα (βιβλία), books written by inspira-
tion. Gk. ἅγιο-, for ἅγιος, devoted to the gods, sacred, holy ; and
ypap-ev, to write. B. ἅγιος is allied to Skt. yaj, to worship. For
γράφειν, see Graphic. Der. hagiograph-y (in Minsheu), hagiograph-
er; cf. hagio-logy, sacred literature.
HA-HA, HAW-HAW, a sunk fence. (F.) ‘Leap each ha-ha
of truth and common sense ;’ Mason, Ep. to Sir W. Chambers, 1. 14.
“ΕΠ haha, an obstacle that interrupts one suddenly ; called ha! ha!
because it laughs at the man’s surprise who meets it. =F. ha ! inter-
jection of laughter. 4 With the pron. haw-haw compare E. spaw for
spa. ‘Just by the haw-haw ;’ Murphy, Three Weeks after Marriage,
Astiiiscst) (1776).
HAIL (1), frozen rain. (E.) ME. λαλεῖ, Layamon, 11975; spelt
hawel inthe later text. Later hay/ (by loss of 9 or w), Chaucer, Good
Women, Cleop. 76. AS. hagl, hagol ; Grein.4Icel. hagl ; Du., Dan.,
Swed. hagel; G. hagel. Teut. types *hag(a)loz, m., *hag(a\lom, n.
Allied to Gk. κάχληξ, a round pebble ; so that hail-stone is tautolo-
gical. Der. hail, verb, ME. hailen, Prompt. Parv.; also hail-stone,
ME. hailstone, Wyclif, Wisdom, v. 23 (later text).
HAIL (2), to greet, call to, address. (Scand.)
‘Heylyn, or gretyn, saluto;’ Prompt. Parv. Spelt he33lenn (for
hejlen), Ormulum, 2814. A verb formed from Icel. heil, sb.,
prosperity, good luck; a sb. formed from Icel. hell, adj., hale,
sound. ‘This sb. was particularly used in greeting, as in far heill,
farewell! B. The usual Icel. verb is heilsa, to say hail to one, to
greet one, whence ME. hailsen, to greet. In F. Plowman, Β. ν. ΟἹ, we
have: ‘I hailse hym hendeliche, as I his frende were’=I greet him
readily, as if I were his friend ; and, in this very passage, the Bodley
MS. reads: ‘I hatle him.’ Cf. Swed. hel, hale, Dan. hee/, hale,
whole. See Hale (1), and Whole.
HAIL! (3), an exclamation of greeting. (Scand.) ‘All hail,
great master! grave sir, hail, 1 come!’ Temp. i. 2. 189. ‘ Hayl be
pow, mary ’= Lat. awe Maria; Myrc’s Instructions for Parish Priests,
ed. Peacock, 1. 422.—Icel. heil/, hale, whole, adj., heill, good luck,
sb. See Hail (2). ¢3 Similar is the use of AS. wes hal, lit. be whole,
may you be in good health; but the AS. hal produced the E. whole,
and the Northern E. hale. See Wassail.
HATR, a filament growing from the skin of an animal. (E.; but
influenced by F.) ME. heer, her, Chaucer, C. T. 591 (A 589) ; Ancren
Riwle, p. 424. AS. her, κᾶν, Grein, ii, 24.44Du. haar; Icel. har ;
Dan. haar; Swed. har; G. haar, OHG. har. Teut. type *hérom, τι.
B. But this would have given a mod. E. form hear or here ; cf. heares in
Spenser, F. Ὁ. iv. 8. 4. The form now in use is due to the influence of
ME. hetre, heyre, a hair shirt; P. Plowman, B. v. 66 ; from OF. haire,
ME. heilen.
| ahairshirt ; and this OF. formis from OHG. harra (<*har-ja), hair-
* The ghostly prudes |
cloth, a fem. derivative from OHG. har, hair. y. The AS. λῶν is
further related to Icel. haddr, hair (Teut. type *hazdoz); and to
Lith. kassa, plaited hair; L. carere, to card wool. Der. hair-y, ME.
heeri, Wyclif, Gen. xxvii. 11 ; hair-i-ness ; hair-less; also hair-breadth,
-cloth, -powder, -splitting, -spring, -stroke, -trigger, -worm.
HAIRIF, HAYRIF, goose-grass; Galium Aparine. (E.) AS.
hege-rife, goose-grass.— AS. hege, a hedge (see Hay (2)); and -rife,
prob. allied to Rife, and meaning ‘abundant.’
HAKE, a sea-fish of the cod family. (Scand.) ‘ Hake, fysche,
squilla;” Prompt. Parv.—Norw. hakefisk (lit. hook-fish), a fish with
hooked under-jaw, esp. of salmon and trout (Aasen) ; from Norw.
hake, a hook; see Hook. β. Compare AS. hacod, glossed by L.
lucius ; Wright’s Vocab. i. 55, col. 2; whence Prov. E. haked, a
large pike (Cambridgeshire); Blount’s Gloss.; allied to G. hecht
ΜΗ. hechet, OHG. hachit, a pike. We may explain AS. hac-od
as furnished with sharp teeth; from Teut. *hak-, to pierce, as in
OHG. hecchen, ΜΉ. hecken (from *hak-jan-), to pierce, sting ;
see Hack.
HAKIM, a physician, doctor. (Arab.)
‘ The Doctors are named
| hackeems ;’ Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (ed. 1638), p. 234.— Arab. Zaki,
wise; also a doctor, physician.—Arab. root Aakama, he exercised
authority; Rich. Dict., p. 577.
HALBERD, HALBERT, a kind of pole-axe ; a combination
of spear and battle-axe, with a long handle. (F.—MHG.)_ In Shak.
Com. Errors, v. 185 ; and in Naval Accounts (1497); ed. 1896, p. 90.
An AF, halebarde occurs in 1372; Antiq. Repertory, ii. 27, col. 2.
Ben Jonson has halberdiers, Every Man, ed. Wheatley, ili. 5. 14.—
OF. halebarde, ‘an halberd ;’ Cot. “ΜΗ. helmbare, later halenbarte,
mod. G, hellebarte, an axe with which to split a helmet, furnished with
a conveniently long handle, derived from MHG. (and G.) helm, a
helmet; and MHG. (and G.) barte, OHG. barta, a broad axe. The
latter element is derived from G, barf, a beard; just as Icel. skeggja,
an axe, is from skegg, a beard; and see Barb (1). Cf. Icel. barda,
ahalberd. B. The former element has also been explained as ‘lone
handle;’ from ΜΉ. halm, a helve, handle; see Helm (1); but
5
258 HALCYON
this explanation is no longer favoured; see Kluge and Darmesteter.
The halberd may have been named from the jagged and irregular
shape of the iron head. Der. halberd-ier, OF. halebardier, ‘an
halberdier ;’ Cot.
HALCYON, a king-fisher;-as adj., serene, (L.—Gk.) ‘ Halcyon
days’=calm days, 1 Hen. VI, i. 2. 131. It was supposed that the
weather was always calm when the kingfishers were breeding. ‘They
lay and sit about midwinter, when daies be shortest; and the time
whiles they are broody, is called the halcyon daies; for during that
season, the sea is calme and nauigable, especially in the coast of
Sicilie;’ Holland’s Pliny, b. x. c. 32.—L. halcyon, commonly alcyon,
a kingfisher.—Gk. ἀλκυών, ἁλκυών, a kingfisher, B. The aspirate
seems to be wrong, and due to association with Gk. ads, sea, combined
with κύων, ‘conceiving,’ by popular etymology; but the Gk. name is
clearly cognate with L. alcédo, the true L. name for the bird.
HALES (1), whole, healthy, sound. (E.) ‘For they bene hale
enough, I trowe ;’ Spenser, Sheph. Kal., July, 107. A Norther E.
form; spelt hale in Cursor Mundi, 24888. It is the Northern form
corresponding to AS, hal, whence ME. hool, E, whole. See
Whole.
HALE (2), HAUL, to drag, draw violently. (F.—OHG.) ME.
halien, halen; whence mod. E, hale and a later form haul; it appears
as hall in 1581. Spelt kalie, P. Plowman, B, viii. 95; hale, Chaucer,
Parl. of Foules, 151.—F, ha/er, to pull; which first appears in. the
12th cent. (Hatzfeld),.—OHG., haldn, holon (G. holen), to summon,
to fetch. + OF ries. halia, to fetch; OSax. halon, to bring, fetch ; Du.
halen, to fetch, draw, pull; Low G. halen (whence Dan. hale, Swed.
hala), to pull, haul. Allied to AS. ge-holian, to acquire, get; L.
calare, to summon; Gk. καλεῖν, to summon. See Calends. Der.
haul, sb., haul-er, haul-age; also halyard, q.v. $a Hale is the older
form; we find ‘halede hine to grunde’=haled him to the ground,
Layamon, 25888 (later text); Aaul first occurs in the pp. thauled,
Life of Beket, ed. W. H. Black, 1. 1497.
HALF, one of two equal parts of a thing. (E.) ME. half; ‘half
a bushel ;᾿ Chaucer, C, T. 4242 (A 4244). OMerc. half; AS. healf,
Northumb. half, Luke, xix. 8; where the later AS. text has half.
+ Du. half; Icel. halfr; Swed. half; Dan. halv; Goth. halbs; G.
halb, OHG. halp. B. In close connexion with this adj. we find ME.
half, AS, healf (Gen. xiii. 9), Icel. halfa, Goth. halba, OHG. halpa,
used with the sense of ‘side,’ or ‘ part ;᾿ and this may have been the
orig. sense. It occurs, e.g.in the Goth. version of 2 Cor. iii. 10,
where the Gk. ἐν τούτῳ τῷ μέρει is translated by in thizai halbai.
y. A late example of the sb. is in the phrase Jeft half=left side, or
left hand; P. Plowman, Β. ii. 5. It survives in mod. E. behalf; see
Behalf. Cf. Skt. kalp-aya (causal of #/p), to arrange, to distribute
(Uhlenbeck). Der. halve, verb, ME. haluen (= halven), Wyclif, Ps. liv.
24; halv-ed ; half-blood, half-breed, half-bred, half-brother, half-sister,
half-moon, half-pay, half-way, half-witted, half-yearly. Also hal/-penny,
in which the f (as well as the /) has long been lost in pronunciation ;
spelt halpeny, P. Plowman, B. vi. 307. Also be-half. }
HALIBUT, a large flat-fish. (E.) ‘ Hallibut,a fish like a plaice;’
Kersey’s Dict.,ed.1715. Cotgrave translates OF, flatelet by ‘a hallibut
(fish).’ Spelt kalybut in Fabyan’s Chron., ‘ed. Ellis, p. 587. Com-
pounded of ME. kali, holy (see Holy), and bute, a flounder, plaice,
which occurs in Havelok, 759. See Butt (4). So called because
excellent eating for holidays; the sense being ‘holy (1.6. holiday)
plaice.’ The fish often attains to a large size,and weighs as much
as 400 lbs. The cognate languages have similar names for it. + Du.
heilbot; from heilig, holy, and bot, a plaice... Cf. Swed. helgflundra,
from helg, holidays, and flundra, a flounder; Dan, helle-flynder, from
hellig, holy, and jlynder, a flounder.
HALIDOM, a holy relic. (E.) ME. halidom, halidam. ‘That
dar y swere on the halydom;’ Rob. of Brunne, Handlyng Synne,
1. 5629. AS. haligdom; ‘on pam haligddme swerian,’ swear on the
halidom, Laws of Ethelred, sect. 3, c. 2; in Thorpe, Anc. Laws,
i. 293.— AS. halig, holy; and -dom, suffix, orig. the same as dom,
doom. See Holy and Doom. + Du. heiligdom ; Icel. helgidomr,
Dan. helligdom; G. heiligthum. @ By my -halidam (with -dam for
-dom) was imagined to refer to our Lady (Dame).
HALIMOTH, a court of a lord of a manor, held ina hall. (E.)
ME. halimote, halimot. ‘Vel halimoto;’ Laws of Hen. I., in
Thorpe, Anc. Laws, i. 517. Lit. ‘hall-moot;’ from ME. hal, hall;
and AS. gemdt, ME. imot, a moot, a meeting. See Halland Moot.
For the form of the word, cf. Handiwork.
HALL, a large room. (E.) ME. halle, Chaucer, C. T. 2523
(A 2521). OMerc. hall; AS. heall, heal, Grein, ii. 50; the acc. healle
occurs in Mark, xiv.-15, where the latest text has halle. + Du. hal;
Tcel. hall, holl; OSwed. hall. (The G. halle is a borrowed word.)
Teut. type *halld, f., for *halna; from *hal, 2nd grade of *helan-, to
cover, shelter; cf. AS. helan, to hide, conceal, cover; just as the L.
cella is allied to L. célare, to conceal, cover; the orig. sense being
HAM
‘cover,’ or place of shelter. See Cell. Der. hall-mark, guild-hall,
halimote. _%#> Quite unconnected with L. aula.
HALLELUJAG, the same as Alleluiah, q. ν.
HALLIARD, the same as Halyard, q. v. ᾿
HALLOO, HALLOW, to shout. (F.) ME. λαΐοινενι, to chase
with shouts; Chaucer, Book Duch. 379; Rich. Redeles, iii. 228; cf.
‘ Halow, schypmannys crye, Celeuma;’ Prompt. Parv.—OF. halloer,
to pursue with shouts (Godefroy). Of imitative origin. Cotgrave
has F, halle, ‘an interj. of cheering or setting on a dog,’ whence
haller, ‘ to hallow, or incourage dogs with hallowing.’
HALLOW, to sanctify, make holy. (E.) ME. hal3ien, Layamon,
17496 ; later halwe, P. Plowman, B. xv. 5573; halewe, halowe, Wyclif,
John, xi. 55. AS. halgian, to make holy; from halig, holy. See
Holy. And see below.
HALLOWMASS, the feast of All Hallows or All Saints.
(Hybrid; E. and L.) In Shak. Rich. II, v. i. 80. A familiar ab-
breviation for All Hallows’ Mass=the mass (or feast) of All Saints.
In Eng. Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith, p. 351, we have the expression
alle halowene tyd=all hallows’ tide; and again, the ‘yme of al halowene
=the time of all hallows. B. Here hallows’ is the gen. pl. of
hallow, ME. halwe,a saint ; just as halowene isthe ME. gen. pl. of the
same word. The pl. ha/wes (=saints) occurs in Chaucer, C. Τὶ 14.
y. The ME. halwe=AS. halga, definite form of the adj. halig, holy ;
so also the ME. halowene = AS. halgena, definite form of the gen. pl.
of the same adj. See Holy, and see Mass (2). 2. Similarly,
hallowe’en = all hallows’ even.
HALLUCINATION, wandering of mind. (L.) ‘For if vision
be abolished, it is called c@citas, or blindness; if depraved, and
receive its objects erroneously, hallucination ;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg.
Errors, b. ili. c. 18. § 4. Also in Minsheu, ed. 1627. Formed, by
analogy with F. 505. in -tion, from L. hallicindatio, alliicinatio, or
Glicinatio, a wandering of the mind. =—L. hallicinari, allicinari, or
Cf. Gk. ἀλύειν, ἁλύειν,
Der. hallucinate, verb,
to wander in mind; ἡλεός, distraught.
hallucinat-or-y.
HALM, the same as Haulm, q. v.
HALO, a luminous ring round the sun or moon. (F.—L.—Gk.)
‘This halo is made alter this manner;’ Holland’s Plutarch, p. 687
(R.).—F. halo (16th c.); Hatzfeld.—L. acc. halo, from nom. halés,
a halo. Gk. ἅλως, a round threshing-floor, in which the oxen trod
out a circular path; a halo.
HALSER (in Minsheu), the same as Hawser, q. v.
HALT (1), lame. (E.) ΜΕ. halt, Havelok, 543. OMerc. halt,
AS. healt, Northumb. halt, Luke, xiv. 21. 4 Icel. haltr ; Dan. halt;
Swed. halt; Goth. halts; OHG. halz. Teut. type *haltoz. Cf. L.
claudus, lame. Der. halt, verb=ME. halten, AS. healtian (Ps. xvii.
47); halt-ing, halt-ing-ly.
HALT (2), as sb., a sudden stop; as a verb, to stop quickly at the
word of command. (F.—G.) ‘And in their march soon made a halt;*
Sir W. Davenant, The Dream, st.19. A military term. Dr. Murray
says it first came in as an Ital. term, without initial 4; and Richardson
quotes the form alt from Milton, P. L. vi. 532, where mod. editions
have halt, The his due to F.—F. halte (Hatzfeld) ; cf. Ital. alto; as
in fare alto, to make a halt, to stop.—G. halt, halt! lit. hold! from
halten, to hold, check, cognate with E. Hold (1), q.v. The word
has passed, from G., into several languages. -
HALTER, a rope for leading a horse, anoose. (E.) ME. halter,
Gower, C. A. ii. 47; bk. iv. 1357. Also helfter =halter, in O. Eng.
Hom., ed. Morris, i. 53, 1. 18. AS. healfter (rare); the dat. on
healftre=with a halter, occurs as a translation of 1,. ix camo in
Ps. xxxi. 12 (Camb. MS.), ed. Spelman; also spelt helftre; we find
‘capistrum, heelftre,’ Wright's Vocab. i. 84, col. 1; cf. Thorpe’s
Analecta, p. 28, 1.1. + MDu. hal/ter (Hexham) ; G. halfter,a halter;
OHG. haljtra; O. Low ἃ. haliftra (Schade). Teut. types *halftr-,
*haliftr- (Franck). From the base *halb-, apparently signifying ‘to
| hold;’ see Helve. Lit. ‘something to hold by;’ cf. L. cap-istrum,
a halter, from L. capere, to take hold. Der. halter, verb.
HALVES, to divide in half. (E.) See Half.
HALYARD, HALLIARD, a rope for hoisting or lowering
sails, (E.) Both spellings are in Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715. A form
due to popular etymology, as if the ropes were so called because
fastened to the yards of the ship from which the sails are suspended,
and so hale or draw the yards into their places. But the d is excrescent;
from ME, halier, lit. ‘a haler,’ or ‘hauler.’ ‘Oon uptye with 2 haliers;’
Riley, Mem. of London, p. 370 (A.D.1373); halliers, Hakluyt, Voy,
iii. 847. See Hale (2).
HAM, the inner or hind part of the knee; the thigh of an animal.
(E.) ΜΕ. hamme, homme; the pl. is spelt both hommen and hammes,
| Ancren Riwle, p.122. AS. hamm; ‘ poples,hamm ;’ Wright’s Vocab.
| i. 44, Col. 25 ‘suffragines, hamma’ (pl.); id. ++ Du. ham; Icel. hom
| (gen. hamar); OHG. hamma, prov. G. hamme. B, Connected by
_ Cotton, and kamacas, or nets, in which they sleep’ (Webster).
HAMADRYAD
Brugmann (i. § 421) with Gk. κνήμη, the lower part of the leg. (But
see Gambol.) Der. ham-string, sb., Shak. Troil. i. 3.1543 ham-
string, verb.
HAMADRYAD, a dryad or wood-nymph. (L.—Gk.) Properly
used rather in the pl. Hamadryades, whence the sing. hamadryad was
(incorrectly) formed, by cutting off the suffix -es. Chaucer, C. T.
2930 (A 2938), has the corrupt form Amadrydes. — L. pl. hamadryades
(sing. hamadryas), wood-nymphs.—Gk. pl. ‘Ayadpuades, wood-
nymphs; the life of each nymph depended on that of the tree to
which she was attached.—Gk. ἅμα, together with (i.e. coexistent
with) ; and dpts,atree. “Aya is co-radicate with same; and δρῦς with
tree. See Same and Tree.
HAME, one of the two bent sticks round a horse collar. (E.)
Usually in the pl. hames. ME. hame ; Catholicon Anglic. (1483). In
Wright’s Vocab. i. 168, the AF. esteles is glossed by hames; and
boceles by beru-hames; cf. prov. E. bargham(E. D.D.).-+Du. haam. Cf.
MDu. hamme, ‘a cratch of wood to tie beasts to, or a yoke ;’ Hexham,
Further allied to Skt. gamyd, the pin of a yoke; Pers. sim, saym, ‘ the
neck-yoke of oxen,’ Rich. Dict., p. 866. (Horn, § 764; Uhlenbeck.)
Cf. Hem (1).
HAMLET, a small village. (F.-O. Low G.) ME. hamelet, of
three syllables; Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 269; spelt kamelat,
Barbour, Bruce, iv. 195 ; hamillet, id. ix. 403 (Edinb. MS.); hamlet,
id. ix. 403 (Camb. MS.). = AF. hamelet, Year-books of Edw. I, 1292-3,
p- 25; dimin. of OF. kamel (whence mod. F. hameau). Hamel is
used by Froissart, ii. 2. 232 (Littré). The suffix -el is also dimin. ;
the base being ham-.—OFriesic ham, a home, dwelling; cognate
with AS. ham, whence E. home. See Home. 4 The fact that the
word is French explains the difference of vowel.
HAMMER, a tool for driving nails. (E.) ME. hamer, hammer ;
Chaucer, C. T. 2510 (A 2508); Havelok, 1877. AS. hamor, Grein,
ii. 11.44 Du. hamer ; Icel. hamarr; Dan. hammer ; Swed. hammare;
G. hammer ; OHG. hamar. B. Of doubtful origin ; Curtius (i. 161)
connects it with Church Slavonic kameni (Russ. kamene), a stone.
Perhaps orig. ‘a stone implement ;’ Icel. hamarr also means ‘ a rock.’
Der. hammer, verb, K. John, iv. 1. 67; hammer-head (a kind of shark).
HAMMERCLOTH, the cloth which covers a coach-box.
(Hybrid; Du. and E.?) The N.E.D. quotes, from Mann. and Househ.
Exp. (1465), p. 315, ‘My mastyr bout [bought] . . xlj elles of
hamer-clothe.’ Also, from Archzol. xvi. 91 (Document of the time of
Queen Mary), ‘ Hamer-clothes, with our arms and badges of our
colours . . apperteininge unto the same wagon.’ Of unknown origin.
B. But perhaps the form hammer is an E. adaptation of the Du. word
hemel (which was not understood); with the addition of E. cloth.
Du. hemel (1) heaven, (2) a tester of a bed, roof of a coach, canopy,
dais, baldachin (Calisch). ‘Den hemel van een koetse, the seeling of
a coach,’ Hexham; explained by Sewel as ‘the testern of a coach.’
Cf. also MDu. hemelen, ‘to hide, cover, adorne;’ Hexham. Also
WFlem. hemelwagen, a triumphal car (De Bo). y. Cognate with
Swed., Dan., and G. himmel, heaven, a canopy, tester. See hemel
in Franck.
HAMMOCK, a piece of strong netting slung to form a hanging
bed. (West Indian.) ‘Those beds which they call kamacas, or
Brasill beds ;” Hakluyt’s Voyages, iii. 641. ‘Cotton for the making
of hamaccas, which are Indian beds;’ Ralegh, Discovery of Guiana,
| ed. 1596, p. 32 (Todd). ‘ Beds or hamacks;’ Sir T. Herbert, Travels,
| p. 6 (id.). Columbus, in the Narrative of his First Voyage, says: ‘a
| great many Indians came to-day for the purpose of bartering their
Cf.
| Span. kamaca,a hammock. Of West Indian origin ; prob. Caribbean.
| Eden has amacca, ed. Arber, p. 192; hamaca, p. 230. 4 Ingeniously
| corrupted in Dutch to hangmat, i.e. a hanging mat; but the older
| Du. form was hammak (Sewel).
HAMPER (τ), to impede, hinder, harass. (E.)
ME. hamteren,
ἢ mo the pp. is hampered and hampred, Will. of Palerne, 441,
| BuO:
“For, I trow, he can hampre thee;’ Rom. of the Rose, 6426.
A difficult word; but it seems to be a nasalised form allied to Low G.
hapern, EFries. haperen, to stop short. Cf. Alsace haperen, hamperen,
to hesitate, proceed with difficulty; ’skampert,it goes hard (E. Martin) ;
| Low G. hampern, occasional form of happern, happeln, to be stuck
fast (Berghaus); Du. haperen, to stop, stagnate, flag, fail; de machine
| hapert, the machine flags, is hampered; er hapert iets aan, there is
a hitch; Pomeran. happern, hapern, to meet with difficulties; Swed.
| dial. happla, to stammer; happe, to back a horse; Dan. happe, to
\stutter. Cf. Hopple. Der. hamper, a fetter (rare).
| HAMPER (2), a kind of basket. (F.—G.) ‘An hamper of
jgolde;’ Fabyan’s Chron., an. 1431-2; ed. Ellis, p. 607. ‘An hampyr
joe gold;’ Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 20. ‘Cophinus, hampere ;’ Voc.
659. το. A shortened form of Hanaper, q.v. ‘Clerk of the Hamper
[οἵ hanaper (Clericus hanaperii) is an officer in Chancery (Anno 2 Edw.
ἵν. c. 1) otherwise called Warden of the Hamper in the same statute ;’
HANDSEL, HANSEL
Blount’s Law Lexicon. — OF. hanapier; Low L. hanapérium, a large
vessel for keeping cups in. = OF. hanap (Low L. hanapus), a drinking-
cup.—OFrankish *hnapp- (Du. nap); OHG. hnapf (ΜΗ. napf),
a drinking-cup.-+-AS., kn@p, asa gloss to L. ciatus (cyathus) ; Wright's
Vocab. i. 24, col. 2. Doublet, hanaper.
HAMSTER, a species of rodent, allied to the rat. (G.) ‘The
skins of hamsters ;’ ‘Vopsell, Four-footed Beasts, ed. 1658, p. 413.—
G. hamster, ‘German marmot;’ Fliigel.
HANAPER, the old form of Hamper (2). Cf. ‘ hanypere, or
hamper, canistrum ;’ Prompt. Parv., p. 226. ‘ The Hanaper office
in the Court of Chancery derives its name from the hanaperium,
a large basket in which writs were deposited, &c.; Way’s note.
HAND, the part of the body used for seizing and holding. (E.)
ME. hand, hond, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 843 (A 841). AS. hand, hond;
Grein, ti. 11.44Du. hand; Icel. hind, hand; Dan. haand; Swed. hand;
Goth. handus; G, hand; OHG. hant. Teut. type *handuz, fem.
Root uncertain. Some connect it with Goth. hinthan, to seize, a strong
verb (pt. t. hanth, pp. kunthans), only found in the compounds
frahinthan, to take captive, ushinthan, to take captive. Der. hand,
verb, Temp. i. 1. 25; hand-er ; hand-barrow, hand-bill, hand-book
(imitated from G. handbuch, see Trench, Eng. Past and Present) ;
hand-breadth, Exod. xxv. 25; hand-cart; hand-ful (Wyclif has hond-
fullis, pl., Gen, xxxvii. 7); hand-gallop; hand-glass, hand-grenade,
hand-kerchief (see Kerchief), hand-less, hand-maid (Gen. xvi. 1),
hand-maiden (Luke, i. 48), hand-spike, hand-staves (Ezek. xxxix..g),
hand-weapon (Numb. xxxv. 18), hand-writing. And see hand-cuff,
hand-i-cap, hand-i-craft, hand-i-work, hand-le, hand-sel, hand-some,
hand-y.
HANDCUFF, a manacle, shackle for the hand. (E.) In Todd’s
Johnson, without a reference; rare in books. The more usual word
(in former times) was hand-fetter, used by Cotgrave to translate OF.
manette, manicle, and manotte. From hand and cuff. QJ Too late to
be an adaptation of ME. and AS. handcops, a handcuff. We find
‘ manica, hond-cops’ in a vocabulary of the 12th century; Wright’s
Vocab. i. 95, col. 2
HANDICAP, a race for horses of allages. (E.) Ina handicap,
horses carry different weights according to their ages, &c., witha view
to equalising their chances. The word was formerly the name of
agame. ‘To the Miter Taverne in Woodstreete ... Here some of
us fell to handycapp, a sport that I never knew before ;”’ Pepys’ Diary,
Sept. 18, 1660. Orig. the same as the Newe Feire, described in
P. Plowman, B. v. 327; which shows that it was a custom to barter
articles, and to settle by arbitration which of the articles was more
valuable, and how much (by way of ‘amends’) was to be given to the
holder of the inferior one. From this settlement of ‘amends’ arose
the system known as handicapping. The etymology is from hand?’ cap
(=hand in cap); from the mode of drawing lots. See the N.E.D.
and my Notes on P. Plowman} also N. and Q., June 23, 1855.
HANDICRAFT, manual occupation, by way of trade. (E.)
Cotgrave translates OF. mestier by ‘a trade, occupation, mystery,
handicraft.’ A corruption of handcraft; the insertion of ¢ being due
to an imitation of the form of handiwork, in which ὦ is a real part of
the word. AS. handcraft, a trade; Canons under K. Edgar, sect. xi;
in Thorpe’s Ancient Laws, ii. 246. See Hand and Craft. Der.
handicrofts-man.
HANDIWORK, HANDYWORK, work done by the
hands. (E.) ME. handiwerk, hondiwerc; spelt hondiwerc, O. Eng.
Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 129, 1. 20. AS. handgeweorc, Deut. iv. 28.
= AS. hand, hand; and geweorc,a collective form of weorc, work. See
Hand and Work. 4 The prefix ge- in AS. is extremely
common, and makes no appreciable difference in the sense of a word.
In later E., it is constantly. rendered by i- or y-, as in y-clept, from
AS. gecleoped. :
HANDLE, to treat of, manage. (E.) ME. handlen, Chaucer,
C. T. 8252 (E 376). AS. handlian, Gen. xxvii..12. Formed. with
suffix - and causal -iax from AS. hand, hand.+4 Du. handelen, to han-
dle, trade; Icel. hondla; Dan. handle, to treat, use, trade; Swed.
handla, G. handeln, to trade. All similarly formed. See Hand.
Allied to handle, sb., lit. a thing by which to manage a tool ; the dat.
pl. hondlen occurs early, in St. Juliana, ed. Cockayne and Brock,
p- 59; from AS. handle, a handle, Corpus Gloss. 1904. Cf. Dan.
handel, a handle.
HANDSEL, HANSEL, a first instalment or earnest of a
bargain. (Scand.) 1. In making bargains, it was formerly usual to
pay a small part of the price at once, to conclude the bargain and as
an earnest of the rest. The lit. sense of the word is ‘ delivery into
the hand’ or ‘hand-gift.2. The word often means a gift or bribe,
a new-year’s gift, an ‘earnest-penny, the first money received in a
morning, &c. See Hansel in Halliwell. ME. hansele, P. Plowman,
C. vii. 375; B.v. 3263 hazsell, Rich, Redeles, iv. 91. 2. Another
sense of the word was ‘a giving of hands,’ a shaking of hands by
S 2
“a
259
HANDSOME
way of concluding a bargain; see handsal in Icel. Dict. Cf. AS.
handselen, a delivery into the hand, cited by Lye from a Glossary
(Cot. 136) ; see Voc. 449. 29. [The AS. word is rare, and the word
is rather to be considered as Scand.]—Icel. handsal, a law term, the
transaction of a bargain by joining hands ; “hand-shaking was with
the men of old the sign of a transaction, and is still used among
farmers and the like, so that fo shake hands is the same as to conclude
a bargain’ (Vigfusson) ; derived from Icel. hand, hand, and sal, a
sale, bargain. Cf. Dan. handsel, a handsel, earnest ; Swed. handsol.
Der. handsel or hansel, verb, used in Warner’s Albion's England,
b. xii. c. 75, 1. 73 spelt hanselle, Cath. Angl. (1483).
HANDSOME, comely, orig. dexterous. (E.) Formerly it
signified able, adroit, dexterous; see Trench, Select Glossary; Shak.
has it in the mod. sense. ΜΕ. handsum. ‘ Handsum, or esy to hond
werke, esy to han hand werke, manualis ;’ Prompt. Parv.— AS. hand,
hand; and suffix -swm, as in wyn-sum, winsome, joyous; but the
whole word handsum does not appear.-Du. handzaam, tractable,
serviceable. B. The suffix -swm is a weaker grade of Du. -zaam,
G. -sam (in lang-sam) ; see -Some, sufix. Der. handsome-ly; hand-
someness, Troil. ii. 1. 16; spelt hansom-nesse in Palsgrave.
HANDY (1), dexterous, expert. (E.) ‘With handy care;’
Dryden, Baucis and Philemon, 1.61. From hand and -y. 4] Some-
what different from ME. hkendi, which occurs in King Horn, ed.
Lumby, 1336. ‘ Theonne beo 3e his hendi children’ =then ye are his
dutiful children ; Ancren Riwle, p. 186; from AS. hendig, appearing
in the comp. list-hendig, having skilful hands (Grein) ; which is com-
posed of AS, list, skill, and hendig, an adj. regularly formed from the
sb. hand by the addition of the suffix -ig and the consequent vowel
change from a toe. See Hand. + Du. handig, handy, expert; cf.
Dan. hendig’, usually behendig, expert, dexterous ; Swed. handig, dex-
terous ; Goth. handugs, clever, wise. Cf. G. behend, agile, dexterous ;
and see Handy (2).
HANDY (2), convenient, near. (E.) Also from hand and -y.
‘Very handy and conyenient;’ T. Fuller, Pisgah Sight, i. 400 (N.E.D.).
«Ah? though he lives so handy, He never now drops in to sup;’
Hood’s Own, i. 44. 4 Different in form from ME. hende. * Nade
his help hkende ben’=had not help been near him; William of Pa-
lerne, 2513. AS. gehende, near; ‘sumor is gehende’ =summer is nigh
at hand, Luke, xxi. 30; ‘he wes gehende ham scipe’’=he was nigh
unto the ship, John, vi. 19. _ [The prefix ge- could always be dropped,
and is nearly lost in mod. English.] The AS. gehende is an ady. and
prep., formed from hand by suffixed -e (for -jo-) and vowel-change.
See Handy (1).
HANDY WORK, the same as Handiwork, q.v.
HANG, to suspend; to be suspended. (E.) Here two E. verbs
and the ON, hengja have been mixed together. See the full account
in the N. E.D. A. Trans. and weak verb, pt. t. and pp. hanged.
‘Born to be hanged;’ Temp. i. 1. 35. But the pt. t. is generally
turned into hung, as in ‘ hung their eyelids down; > 1 Hen. 1V, iii. 2.
81. ΜΕ. hangien, hongien; also hangen, hongen. ἡ Honged hym
after’ =he hanged himself afterwards; P, Plowman, B. i. 68; pp-
hanged, id. B. prol. 176. AS. hangian, hongian, but with intransitive
sense, Grein, ij. 14; the pt. t. hangode occurs in Beowulf, ed. Grein,
2085. Cf. Icel. hengja, to hang up (weak verb), G. hangen (weak
verb). Teut. type *hangjan-. B. ME. hangen, pt. t. heng (some-
times hing), pp. hongen. ‘And theron heng a broche of gold ful
schene;’ Chaucer, C. T. 160. ‘ By ounces henge his lokkes that he
hadde;’ id. 679. The ME. infin. hangen is conformed to the causal
and Icel. forms, the AS. infin. being always contracted. AS. hon, to
hang, but transitive in sense (contr, from hahan or hanghan); pt. t.
héng, pp- kangen ; Grein, ἢ. 95. Cf. Icel. hanga, to hang, intr.; pt.
t. hekk, pp. hanginn; Goth. hahan, pt. t. haihah (formed by redupli-
cation), pp. hahans; G. hangen, pt. t. hieng, hing, pp- gehangen.
‘Allied to L. cunctari, to hesitate, delay, and Skt. gayk, to hesitate,
be in uncertainty, doubt, fear. Brugmann, i. 8.420. q The Du.
hangen, Dan. henge, Swed, hanga, are forms used with both trans.
and intrans.. senses. Der. hang-er, (1) one who hangs, (2) ἃ sus-
pended. sword, orig. part of a sword-belt whence the sword was sus-
pended, Hamlet, v. 2. 1573 hanger-on, hang-ing; hang-ings, Tam.
Shrew, ii 3513 Aang-man, Meas. 1v. 2. 18; hang-dog, Pope, Donne
Versified, Sat. iv. 267.
HANGNAILS for angnail, a form of Agnail, q. v.
HANK, a skein or coil of thread or yarn. (Scand.) Cotgrave
translates OF. bobine by ‘a skane or hanke of gold or silver thread.’
©An hanks’ Catholicon Angl. (1483). Cf. prov. E. hank, a skein, a
loop to fasten a gate, a handle (Halliwell). The rare ME. verb
hanken, to fetter, occurs in Cursor Mundi, 16044.—Icel. hank:, the
hasp or clasp of a chest; honk, a hank, coil; Dan. hank, a handle,
ear of a vessel; Swed. hank, a string, tie-band. Also Low G. hank,
a handle (Liibben) ; G. henkel, a handle, ring, ear, hook. B. The
rig. sense seems to be ‘a loop,’ or ‘hasp,’ or ‘ hook ;’ and the sb.
260
HARBINGER
is a nasalised form allied to Icel. kaki, a hook, G. haken, a hook,
AS. haca, a fastening of a door. See Hatch (1), Hook.
HANKER,to long importunately. (E.) Notin early use. ‘And
felt such bowel-hankerings To see an empire, all of kings;’ Butler,
Hudibras, pt. iii. c. 2. 1. 239. Cf. prov. E. hank, to hanker after
(North) ; Halliwell. This verb is a frequentative allied to prov.
E. hake, to wander about, loiter, hanker after ; also to tease; further
allied to prov. E. hake, a hook, and to hank (above). And see hanker
in the E.D.D.4-MDu. anckeren (surely for hanckeren), * to long or
desire much after anything;’ Hexham. Cf. WFlem. hankeren, with
the same sense as mod. Du. hunkeren, to hanker after, formerly hon-
keren (=hankeren) ; see Sewel. (J Perhaps it has often been asso-
ciated with the verb fo hang.
HANSEATIG, pertaining to the Hanse Towns in Germany.
(F.—OHG.) ‘ The chiefe cities of the Hans;’ Hakluyt, Voy. i.
155. The Hanse towns were so called because associated in a league.
= OF. hanse, ‘the hanse; a company, society, or corporation of mer-
chants;’ Cot.—OHG. hansa, mod. G, hanse, an association, league
(Fliigel).4Goth. hansa, a band of men, Mk. xv. 16; Luke, vi. 17.-Ὁ
AS. hos (for *hans], a band of men; Beowulf, 924. The Finnish
kansa, people, was borrowed from Teutonic. @ The league began
about A.D. 1140 (Haydn).
HANSEL, the same as Handsel, q.v.
HANSOM, a kind of cab. (E.) Modern. An abbreviation for
‘ Hansom’s patent safety cab.’ From the name of the inventor (1834).
Hansom is prob. a variant of Hanson (son of Hans); see Bardley’s
E. Surnames.
HAP, fortune, chance, accident. (Scand.) ME. hap, happ; Y.
Plowman, B. xii. 108; Layamon, 816, 3857.—Icel. happ, hap, chance,
good luck. Cf. AS. gehep, fit; JElfric’s Colloquy, in Voc. 92. 8;
also AS. megenhep, full of strength, modhep, full of courage, Grein,
ii. 219, 289. @] The W. hap, luck, hap, chance, must be borrowed
from E.; but the Olrish cob, Irish cobh, victory, triumph, is cognate.
Der. happ-y, orig. lucky, Pricke of Conscience, 1334; happ-i-ly, happ-
i-ness; hap-less, Gascoigne, Fruits of War, st. 108; hap-less-ly ; hap-
ly, Shak. Two Gent. i. 1. 32 (happily in the same sense, Meas. iv. 2.
98) ; hap-hazard, Holland, tr. of Livy, p. 578 (R.); happ-en, verb, q-v.;
mis-hap, per-haps.
HAPPEN, to befal. (Scand.) ME. happenen; Gower has
hapneth=it happens; C. A. ili, 62; bk. vi. 1815. ‘sif me pe lyffe
happene’ =if life be granted me ; Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 1269.
B. The form happenen is an extension of the commoner form happen
(mod. E. hap); ‘In any cas that mighte falle or happe;’ Chaucer,
C. T. 587 (A 585). The latter verb is formed directly from the
sb. hap above. 4 With the ending -enex compare Goth, verbs
in -nan.
HARAKIRI, a form of suicide.
dispatch ;’ but lit. suicide by disembowelment. = Jap. kara,
kiri, to cut (N. E. D.).
HARANGUB, a popular address. (F. —OHG.) In Milton, P.L.
xi. 663. ME. arang, Ratis Raving, 1. 244.— ΜῈ. harangue, ‘an oration,
. set speech, long tale;’ Cot. Cf. Span. arenga, Ital. aringa,
arringa, an harangue. B. The Ital. aringa signifies a speech made
from an aringo, which Florio explains by ‘a pulpit;” aringo also
meant an arena, lists, place of declamation. The more lit. sense is
a speech made in the midst of a ring of people. - OHG. hring (mod.
G. ring), a ring, a_ring of people, an arena, circus, lists; cognate
with Εἰ ring. See Ring. @ The yowel a (for i) reappears in the
sb. rank; see Rank, Range. The prefix ha- in F., and a- in Span.
and Ital., are due to the OHG. h-, now dropped. Der. harangue,
verb, Butler, Hudibras, pt. iii. c. 2. 1. 438.
HARASS, to torment, vex, plague. (F.—OHG.) Also spelt
harras. ‘To harass and weary the English ;’ Bacon, Life of Hen. VII,
ed. Lumby, p. 61 (spelt harrasse in R.).—MF. harasser, ‘to tire, or
toile out,. . . vex, disquiet ;’ Cot. B. Of disputed origin; but it
seems best to suppose it to be an extension of OF. harer; ‘harer un
chien, to hound a dog at, or set a dog on a beast;’ Cot. “ΟΠ,
haren, to cry out; allied to Goth. hazjan, to praise. Der. harass, sb.,
Milton, Samson, 257 ; Aarass-er.
HARBINGER, a forerunner. (F.—-OHG.) In Shak. Macb. i.
4.45. See Trench, Select Glossary. The » stands for r, and the older
form is ME. herbergeour, one who provided lodgings for a host or
army of people. This sense is retained in Bacon, who says: ‘ There
was a harbinger who had lodged a gentleman in a very ill room;’
Apophthegms, no. 54 (or 63). ‘The fame anon thurgh Rome toun
is born... By herbergeours that wenten him biforn ;’ Chaucer, C. T.
5417 (Β 995). In the title of the legend of St. Julian, in Bodley MS.
1596, fol. 4, he is called “ St. Julian the gode herberour,’ i.e. the good
harbourer. Herbergeour is formed (by help of the suffix -our, L. ταῦτ, ἢ
rem, denoting the agent) from the OF. herberger, ‘to harbour, lodge, |
or dwell in a house;’ Cot. (and see Godefroy).—OF. herberge, ἃ
(Japan.) Also known as ‘ happy
belly 5
HARBOUR
house, harbour, lodging ;’ Cot.; mod. F. auberge.— MUHG. herberge,
OHG. heriberga, a lodging, harbour; see further under Harbour.
HARBOUR, a lodging, shelter, place of refuge. (Scand.) ME.
herberwe, Chaucer, C. T. 767 (A 765; whence mod. E. harbour by
change of -erwe to -our, and the use of ar to represent the later sound of
er. The τὸ stands for an older 3, and this again for g ; the spelling her-
ber 32 isin Layamon, 28878. = Icel. herbergi,a harbour, inn, lodging, lit.
a‘ host-shelter ;’ derived from Icel. kerr, an army, and barg, 2nd grade
of bjarga, to save, help, defend. Cf. MSwed. herberge, an inn; derived
from her, an army, and berga, to defend (Ihre). + OHG. heriberga, a
camp, lodging; from OHG. heri (G. heer), an army, and bergan, to
shelter; whence come mod. F. auberge, Ital. albergo, an inn, and mod.
E. harbinger,q.v. B. For the former element, see Harry. For the
latter element, cf. Goth. bairgan, AS. beorgan, to preserve; and see
Bury. Itis usual to cite AS. hereberga as the original of harbour ;
but it is hardly native; though the word may have been borrowed
very early. Der. harbour, verb, ME. herberwen, P. Plowman, B. xvii.
73, from Icel. herbergja, to shelter, harbour, a verb formed from the
sb. herbergi; also harbour-er ; harbour-age, K. John, ii. 234; harbour-
less ; harbour-master ; also harbinger, q. v.
HARD, firm, solid, severe. (Ε.) ME. hard, Chaucer, C. T. 229
(and common). AS. heard, John, vi. 60; OF ries. herd. 4+ Du. hard ;
Dan. haard ; Swed. hard; Icel. hardr; Goth. hardus; G. hart. Teut.
type *harduz; allied to Gk. «parvs, strong; cf. κρατερός, καρτερός,
valiant, stout. See Brugmann, i. § 792. Der. hard-ly, hard-ness =
AS. heardnes, Mark, x. 5; hard-en= ME, hardnen, Ormulum, 1574,
18219, which is an extension of the commoner ME. harden, of which
the pp. yharded occurs in Chaucer, C. Τὶ 10559 (F 245); hard-en-ed;
hard-ship, ME. heardschipe, Ancren Riwle, p. 6,1. 9 ; hard-ware, hard-
featured, hard-jisted, hard-handed, hard-headed, hard-hearted, hard-
mouthed, hard-visaged ; also hard-y, q. v.
HARDOCK, HORDOCK, prob. the corn-bluebottle ; Cen-
taurea cyanus. (E.) Hardokes, pl., King Lear, iv. 4. 4 (1623); the
quartos have hordocks. The same as haudods, used in Fitzherbert’s
Husbandry to mean the corn-bluebottle; see Glossary, and Pref.
Ῥ. xxx. Mr. Wright (note to K. Lear) shows that hardhake meant
the Centaurea nigra. Both plants were called, indifferently, knobweed,
knotweed, and loggerhead. Named from the hardness of the head of
the Centaurea nigra, also called knapweed, tron-weed, iron-head, &c.
See Plant-names, ed. Britten and Holland. No kind of dock is
suitable for a wreath, or grows among corn.
HARDS, fibres of flax. (E.) ME. herdes. ‘Hempen herdes ;”
Chaucer, Rom. Rose, 1233. AS. heordan, pl. ‘Stuppa, heordan ;’
Corp. Gloss. 1908. + MDu. heerde, herde (Kilian); later héde (Hex-
ham) ; EFries. héde. Teut. type *hizddn-; cf. Meed. @ Not allied
to hard. Der. hard-en, adj.
HARDY, stout, strong, brave. (F.—OHG.) ME. hardi, hardy,
P. Plowman, Β. xix. 285; the comp. hardiere is in Layamon, 4348,
later text. — OF. hardi, ‘ hardy, daring, stout, bold;’ Cot. Hard: was
orig. the pp. of OF. hardir, of which the compound enhardir is
explained by Cotgrave to mean ‘to hearten, imbolden.’=OHG.
hartjan (MHG. herten), to harden, make strong. —OHG. hart: (G.
hart), hard; cognate with AS. heard, hard. See Hard. Der. hardt-ly,
hardi-ness, P, Plowman, B. xix. 31; hardi-head, Spenser, F. Q. i. 4.
38; hardi-hood, Milton, Comus, 650. ὄν" Hardi-ly, hardi-ness, hardi-
head, hardi-hood are all hybrid compounds, with E. suffixes ; showing
how completely the word was naturalised.
HARE, the name of an animal. (E.) ME. hare, Chaucer, C. T.
13626 (B 1886). AS. hara,as a gloss to L. lepus, AElfric’s Gloss.,
in Voc. 119. 11.4 Du. haas; Dan. and Swed. hare; Icel. her:
(formerly here) ; G. hase; OHG, haso. Teut. types *hazon-, *hason-,
m. Idg. type *kas-on-; cf. OPruss. sasnis (for *kasnis), W. cein-ach,
f. (Rhys) ; and Skt. ¢aga, orig. gasa, a hare. See Stokes-Fick, p. 74;
᾿ς Brugmann, i. § 826. Uhlenbeck connects Skt. gagas with AS. hasu,
| gray. Der. hare-brained, τ Hen. IV, v. 2. 19; hare-lip, K. Lear, iii.
| 4.3233 hare-lipped; harr-i-er, q.v.; hare-bell, q.v.
HAREBELL, the name of a flower. (E.) In Cymb. iv. 2. 222.
The word does not appear among AS. names of plants; but we find
ME. hare-belle, Voc. 713.9. Certainly compounded of hare and bell ;
but, owing to the absence of reason for the appellation, it has been
| supposed to be a corruption of hair-bell, with reference to the slender-
| ness of the stalk of the true ‘hair-bell,’ the Campanula rotundifolia.
| The apparent absence of reason for the name is, however, rather ix
| favour of the etymology from hare than otherwise, as will be seen by
consulting the fanciful AS. names of plants given in Cockayne’s
| Leechdoms, vol. iii. To name plants from animals was the old
custom ; hence hare’s beard, hare’s ear, hare’s foot, hare’s lettuce, hare's
palace, hare’s tail, hare-thistle, all given in Dr. Prior’s Popular Names
| of British Plants ; to which add AS. haran-hyge (hare’s foot trefoil),
haran-specel (now called viper’s bugloss), haran-wyrt (hare’s wort),
| from Cockayne’s Leechdoms. The spelling hair-bell savours of
HARLOT 261
modern science, but certainly not of the principles of English etymo-
logy. 4 A similar modern error (invented in 1851, by Fox Talbot)
is to derive fox-glove from folks’-glove (with the silly interpretation of
folks as being ‘ the good folks’ or fairies), in face of the evidence that
the AS. name was foxes gléfa=the glove of the fox.
HAREM, the set of apartments reserved for females in large
Eastern houses. (Arab.) Not in Todd’s Johnson. Spelt karam in Sir
T. Herbert’s Travels, ed. 1634, p. 62 (N.E.D.); and in Moore’s
Lalla Rookh; ‘And the light of his haram was young Nourmahal.’
Also in Byron, Bride of Abydos, c. i. st. 14.— Arab. Aaram, women’s
apartments ; lit. ‘sacred;’ Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 197.—Arab.
root karama, he prohibited; the haram is the place which men are
prohibited from entering ; Rich. Dict., p. 563.
HARICOT, (1) a stew of mutton, (2) a kidney bean. (F.) ‘Haricot,
in cookery, a particular way of dressing mutton-cutlets ; also, a kind
of French beans ;’ Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715.—F. haricot, ‘ mutton sod
with little turneps, some wine, and tosts of bread crumbled among,’
&c.; Cotgrave (who gives two other methods of preparing it, showing
that it was sometimes served with ‘chopped herbs’). B. See Littré,
who discusses it ; it is found that the sense of ‘ bean’ is later, whilst
the sense of ‘ minced mutton with herbs’ is old. Perhaps the bean
was so named from its use in the dish called haricot, or from their
being cut up; cf. Du.’ snijboon, French bean, from saiyden, to cut.
y. Of unknown origin, but presumably Teutonic. Hatzfeld quotes
febves de haricot, haticot beans (1642), hericog de mouton, haricot of
mutton, 14th c. Perhaps connected with OF. haligoter, harigoter, to
cut in pieces; haligote, harigote, a piece, a rag (Godefroy).
HARK! listen! (E.) ME. herke, Coventry Mysteries, 55 (Strat-
mann). The imp. mood of ME, herkien ; ‘And herke why,’ Chaucer,
C. T. 9187 (ΕἸ 1323). Cf. herkien, inf., O. Ἐς Hom. 1. 31, 1. 6.
OF ries. herkia, harkia. Closely allied to ME. herknen, to hearken,
See Hearken.
HARLEQUIN, the leading character in a pantomime. (F.—
Ital.) ‘The joy of a king for a victory must not be like that of a
harlequin upon a letter from his mistress ;’ Dryden (in Todd’s John-
son; no reference). He also has: ‘ Those nauseous harleguins ;’ Epil.
to Man of Mode, 1. 3.—F. arlequin, a harlequin; spelt harlequin in the
16th cent. Ital. arlecchino, a harlequin, buffoon, jester. B. It seems
best to connect it with the OF. hierlekin or hellequin (13th century)
for which Littré gives quotations. This word was used in the phrase
la maisnie hierlekin (Low L. harlequini familias) which meant a troop
of demons that haunted lonely places, called in Middle-English
Hurlewaynes kynne or Hurlewaynes meyné = Hurlewain’s kin or troop,
mentioned in Richard the Redeles, i. 90, and in the Prologue to the
Tale of Beryn, 1. 8. The orig. signification of OF. helleguin (see
Godefroy) seems to have been ‘a troop of demons,’ sometimes also
a demon, a devil. Cf. also Ital. Alichino, the name of a demon in
Dante, Inf. xxi. 118. The origin of the name is wholly unknown.
See note to Rich. Redeles, ed. Skeat, i. 90. @ I shall here venture
my guess. Perhaps hellekin may have been of Teut. origin; thus
OHG. hella cunnt, OF riesic helle kin (AS, helle cyn, Icel. heljar kyn)
would mean ‘ the kindred of hell’ or ‘the host of hell,’ hence a troop
of demons. The sense being lost, the OF. maisnre would be added to
keep up the idea of ‘host,’ turning hierlekin into (apparently) a
personal name of a single demon. The change from hellekin to
herlequin, &c., arose from a popular etymology which connected the
word with Charles Quint (Charles V.); see the story in Max Miiller,
Lectures, ii. 581. 11 may also have been conlused with OF. herle,
hierle, tumult.
HARLOT, a wanton woman. (F.—Teut.) Orig. used of either
sex indifferently ; in fact, more commonly of men in Mid. Eng. It has
no very bad sense, and means little more than ‘ fellow. ‘ He was a
gentil harlot and a kind ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 649 (A 647). ‘A sturdy
harlot [a stout fellow] wente ay hem behinde;’ id. 7336 (Ὁ 1753).
‘Dauwe the dykere with a dosen harlotes of portours and pykeporses
and pylede toth-drawers ’ = Davy the ditcher with a dozen fellows who
were porters and pick-purses and hairless (?) tooth-drawers ; P.
Plowman, C. vil. 369. ‘ Beggen ase on harlot’=beg like a vaga-
bond, Ancren Riwle, p. 356. Undoubtedly of Romance origin. OF.
herlot, arlot, explained by Godefroy as ‘fripon, coquin, ribaud,’ a
vagabond ; for which Diez givesa reference to the Romance of Tris-
tran, i. 173 (where it is misprinted berlot by Michel). B. The Prov.
arlot, a vagabond, occurs in a poem of the 13th century; Bartsch,
Chrestomathie Provencale, 207. 20; and Mistral explains Prov. arlot
by ‘pillard, ribaud, goujat qui suivait les armées.” Florio explains
Ital. arlotto by ‘a lack-Latin, a hedge-priest,’ and arlotta as a harlot
in the modern E. sense. Ducange explains Late L. arlotus, erlotus, to
mean a glutton. y. Of disputed origin, but presumably Teutonic,
viz. from OHG. hert, hari (G. heer), an army, anda suffix -ἰού. This
suffix occurs in Du. Jabber-/ot, a blackguard, which Franck mentions
in connexion with Du. leuteren, to loiter, linger, the sense of Jot being
262 HARM
‘loiterer.’ The fem. of Jot occurs in WFlem. Jute; De Bo explains
dronke-lutte asa drunken woman, a slut ; and jexever-lutte as a. gin-
drinking woman. Allied to OHG. lotar, MHG. lofar, lotter, useless,
vagabond-like, OHG. lotar, a frivolous fellow ; cf. prov. G. lotter-bube,
a vagabond (Fliigel) ; Bavar. Jo¢ter (Schmeller). Thus her-Jot meant
‘army-loafer, acamp-follower. 8] We find also W. herlod, a stripling,
lad; but this is merely the E. word borrowed; the Commish not only
borrowed the E.: Aarlot unchanged (with the sense of ‘rogue’), but
also the word harlutry, corruption, which is plainly the ME. karlotrie,
with a suffix (-rie) which is extremely common in French. See
Williams, Cornish Lexicon, p. 211. Der. harlot-ry.= ME. harlotrie,
of which one meaning was ‘ ribald talk ;” see Chancer, C. T. 563,
3147 (A 561, 3145). The suffix -ry is. of F. origin, as in caval-ry,
bribe-ry, δες.
HARM, injury, wrong. (E.) ME. harm, P. Plowman, C. xvi.
113; spelt herm, Ancren Riwle, p. 116. AS. hearm, herm, grief of
mind, also harm, injury ; Grein, ii. 60.4Icel. harmr, grief; Dan.
harme, wrath ; Swed. harm, anger, grief, pity; G. harm, grief. Teut.
type *harmoz, m. Cf. Russ. srame, shame. Brugmann, ii. ὃ 72.
Der. harm, verb, ME. harmen, spelt hearmin in O. Eng. Homilies,
ed. Morris, p. 263, 1. 7; harm-ful, Wyclif, Prov. i. 22; harm-ful-ly,
harm-ful-ness ; harm-less=ME. harmles, Will. of Palerne, 1671;
harm-less-ly, harm-less-ness.
HARMONY, concord, esp. of sounds. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME.
armonie, Gower, C. A. iii. 90; bk. vii. 165. ‘ There is a melodye in
heven, whiche clerkes clepen armony ;’ Testament of Love, ii. 9. 9.—
F. harmonie, = L. harmonia. = Gk. ἁρμονία, a joint, joining, proportion,
harmony. = Gk. dpuds, a fitting, joining. -- Gk. *apew, dpapioxe (fut.
ἀρῶ), to fit, join together. —4/AR, to fit ; whence also E. arm, article,
&c. Der. harmon-ic, Milton, P. L.iv. 687 ; harmonti-cs, harmoni-c-al,
harmoni-c-al-ly ; harmoni-ous, Temp. iv. 119 ; harmoni-ous-ly, harmoni-
ous-ness ; harmon-ise (Cudworth), karmon-is-er, harmon-ist, harmoni-um
(about A.D. 1840).
HARNESS, equipment for a horse. (F.—C.) In old books, it
often means body-armour for soldiers ; 1 Kings, xx. 11; &c. ME.
harnets, harneys, Chaucer, C. T., A 1613; spelt herneys, P. Plowman,
B. xv. 215. ‘He dude quyk harnesche hors’ =he commanded horses
to be quickly harnessed, King Alisaunder, 4708.—OF. harneis, her-
nois, armour. Of unknown origin. @ ‘The G. harnisch, Du. harnas,
&c., are borrowed from French; so also the Bret. harnez, old iron,
armour (Thurneysen). Der. harness, verb, =OF. harnaschier.
HARP, a stringed musical instrument. (E.) ME. harpe, Gower,
C. A. iii. 301; bk. viii. 764; Layamon, 4898. AS. hearpe, Grein, ii.
62; and see Aé]fred, tr. of Boethius, c. xxxv. § 6 (Ὁ. iii. met. 12).
Du. harp ; Icel. harpa ; Swed. harpa; Dan. harpe; G. harfe; OHG.
harpha. Teut. type *harpon-,f. Root unknown. Der. harp-er=
AS. hearpere, in “ΕἸ τε, as above; harp, verb, AS. hearpian, id. ;
also harpsichord, q.v.
HARPOON, a dart for striking whales. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘Some
fish with harpons’ (late edd. harpoons), Dryden, Art of Love, 875.
Also spelt harpon in J. Davis, Voyages, 1599, p. 137 (Hakluyt Soc.).
The dart is also called ‘a harping-iron’ in Kersey’s Dict. =F. harpon,
orig. ‘a crampiron wherewith masons fasten stones together’ (Cot-
grave) ; hence, a grappling-iron (whence also Du. harpoen).—OF.
harpe, ‘a dog’s claw or paw;’ Cot.; cf. ‘se harper l'un ἃ l'autre, to
grapple, grasp, hasp, clasp, imbrace, cope, close together, to scuffle
or fall together by the ears;’ id. [Cf. Span. arpon, a harpoon, arpeo,
a grappling-iron, arpar, to tear to pieces, rend, claw. Also Ital.
arpagone, a harpoon, arpese, a cramp-iron, clamp, arpicare, to
clamber up, arpino, a hook, arpione, a hinge, pivot, hook, tenter. |
B. The OF. harpe, claw, is from Late L. harpé, a sickle-shaped
sword.—Gk. ἅρπη, a sickle (Korting, § 4501). Allied to OLat.
sarpere, to prune; Russ. sep’, ‘a sickle.’ Der. harpoon-er.
HARPSICHORD, an old harp-shaped instrument of music.
(F.—Teut. and Gk.) Also spelt harpsicon or harpsecol. ‘On the
harpsicon or virginals ;* Partheneia Sacra, ed. 1633, p. 144 (Todd).
“Harpsechord or Harpsecol, 2 musical instrument ;’ Kersey. Spelt
harpsechord in Minsheu, ed. 1627. The corrupt forms of the word
are not easy to explain ; in particular, the letter s seems to have been
intrusive. OF. harpechorde, ‘an arpsichord or harpsichord; ᾿ Cot.
Compounded of OF. harpe, a harp (from a Teutonic source); and
chorde, More commonly corde, a string. See Harp, Chord, and
Cord. Cf. Ital. arpicordo (Florio).
HARPY, a mythological monster, half bird and half woman.
(F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. Temp. iii. 3. 83. Trevisa speaks of ‘ pe
arpies;’ tr. of Higden, ii. 363.—OF. harpie, or harpye, ‘a harpy;’ Cot.
—L. harjyia, chiefly used in pl. harpyie, Verg. AEn. iii. 226.—Gk. pl.
ἅρπυιαι, harpies; lit. ‘the spoilers.’ = Gk. ἅρπ-, the base of ἁρπάζειν,
to seize; allied to L. rapere, to seize. See Rapacious.
HARQUEBUS, the same as Arquebus, q.v.
HARRIDAWN, a worn-out wanton woman. (F.)
HASP
Macer, a Character, 1. 24. It seems to be a variant of MF. haridelle,
which Cot. explains by ‘a poor tit, or leane ill-favored jade ; i.e. a
worn-out horse. Some connect this with MF. hardelle, a herd;
‘also, a girl, a young maid, lasse,’ Cot. Of unknown origin; cf.
KGrting, § 4548. 4 It is remarkable that Godefroy has OF. harre-
banne, a debauched woman.
HARRIER (1), ahare-hound. (E.) Formerly harier, more cor-
rectly. So spelt in Minsheu, ed. 1627. The word occurs also in
Blount, Ancient Tenures, p. 39 (Todd). Formed from hare, with
suffix -ier ; cf. bow-yer from bow, law-yer from law.
HARRIER (2), a kind of falcon. (E.) ‘A sort of puttock
called a hen-harrier ;’ Ray, Collection of Words, pref. p. 3 (E. D.S.).
Named from its harrying or destroying small birds. See Harry.
HARROW, a frame of wood, fitted with spikes, used for breaking
the soil. (E.) ME. harwe, P. Plowman, B. xix. 268 ; spelt haru, harou,
harwe, Cursor Mundi, 12388. NFries. harwe. Not found in AS.+-
Icel. herfi, a harrow ; Dan. harv,a harrow; harve, to harrow; Swed.
harf, a harrow; harfva, to harrow. Apparently allied to MDan.
harge, Du. hark, Swed. harka, G. harke,a rake. @ The F. herce,a
harrow, is a different word; see Hearse. Der. harrow, verb, ME.
harwen, P. Plowman, C. vi. 19.
HARRY, to ravage, plunder, lay waste. (E.) Also written harrow,
but this is chiefly confined to the phrase ‘ the Harrowing of Hell, i.e.
the despoiling of hell by Christ. ME. her3ien, later herien, herwen,
harwen, “ ΒΥ him that harwed helle;’ Chaucer, C. T. 3512. ‘He
that heried helle ;’ Will. of Palerne, 3725. AS. hergian, to lay waste,
Grein, ii. 38. Lit. to ‘ over-run with an army ;’ cognate with Icel.
herja, Dan, herge, OHG. harjon, to ravage. Teut. type *harjdjan-, to
harry ; from *harjoz, an army, which appears in AS. here, an army,
a word particularly used in the sense of ‘ destroying host ;” Grein, ii.
35. B. The AS. kere is cognate with Icel. herr, Dan. her, Swed. har,
G, heer, and Goth. harjis, a host, army. Allied to OPruss. karjis,
an army (Uhlenbeck); OSlav. dara, strife; Lithuan. karas, war,
army. Der. harrier (2).
HARSH, rough, bitter, severe. (Scand.) ME. harsk, rough to the
touch, Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 1084, ‘ Harske, or haske, as sundry
frutys;’ Prompt. Parv.—Dan. harsk, rancid; Swed. hérsk, rank,
rancid, rusty; MSwed. harsk (Ihre).-++ G. harsch, harsh, rough.
B. Cf. Lithuan. kartis, harsh, bitter (of taste); see Hard. Der.
harsh-ly, harsh-ness.
HART, a stag, male deer. (E.) ME. hert, Chaucer, C. T. 11503
(F 1191); spelt keort, Layamon, 26762. AS. heort, heorot, Grein, ii.
69; also herut.4Du. hert; Icel. hjortr; Dan. hjort; Swed. hjort;
G. hirsch, OHG. hiruz. Teut. stem *herut-, i.e. ‘horned.’ Allied
to L. ceruus, a hart, W. carw, a hart, stag, horned animal; OSlav.
krava, Russ. korova, a cow; cf. Gk. κεραύς (for *képafos), horned ;
from the base which appears in the Gk. κέρας, a horn, and is related
to E. horn. The orig. sense is ‘ horned animal.’ See further under
Horn. See Stokes-Fick, p. 79. Der. harts-horn, so called because
the horns of the hart abound with ammonia; harts-tongue.
HARVEST, the ingathering of crops, the produce of labour. (E.)
Sometimes used in the sense of ‘ autumn ;’ see Wyclif, Jude, 12; Shak.
Temp. iv. 116. ME. herwest (with u for v), P. Plowman, B, vi. 292,
301. AS. herfest, autumn, Grein, ii. 24; the orig. sense being
‘crop.’ + Du. her/st, autumn; Icel. haust, autumn (contracted form) ;
Dan. host, harvest, crop (contr. form); Swed. hést, autumn (contr.
form); G. herbst, autumn, harvest; MHG. herbest, OHG. herpist.
B. All with a suffix -is-¢oz (-us-toz) from Teut. base hard-, allied
to the base καρπ- of the cognate Gk. καρπός, fruit. —4/ SQERP, to
shear; as in L. carp-ere, to pluck, gather, Lith. kerp-u, I shear.
Brugmann, i. 8 631. Cf. Gk. κείρειν, to shear; and see Shear.
Der. harvest, verb; harvest-er ; harvest-home, 1 Hen. IV, 1. 3. 353
harvest-man, Cor. i. 3. 39; harvest-moon, harvest-time.
HASEL, the name of a tree; see Hazel.
HASH, a dish of meat cut into small slices. (F.—G.) ‘ Hash,
cold meat cut into slices and heated again with spice, &c. ;? Kersey,
ed. 1715. An abbreviation of an older form hachey or hachee, in
Cotgrave. —OF. hachis, ‘a hachey, or hachee; a sliced gallimaufrey
or minced meat;’ Cot.—OF. hacher, ‘to hack, shread, slice ;” id. =
OF. and F. hache, an ax.—OHG. *happja, whence OHG. heppa,
MHG. hepe, a bill, asickle. See Hatchet. Der. hash, vb., perhaps
directly from F. hacher ; and see hatch (3).
HASHISH, HASHEESH, an intoxicating drink. (Arab.)
See Assassin.
HASLETS, HARSLETS, HASTELETS, the inwards of
a pig, &c., for roasting. (F.—L.) ME. hastelets, hastlettes; Gawaine
and the Grene Knt., 1. 1612. - OF. haséelet, meat roasted on a spit. =
OF. haste, a spit. —L. hasta, a spear, a spit; see Hastate.
HASP, a clasp. (E.) ME. haspe, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 3470.
of a dore, pessulum;”’ Prompt. Pary.
« Hespe
[Haspe stands for hapse, by the —
In Pope, | same change as in clasp from ME. clapsen, aspen from AS. eps.) AS.¥
|. ‘Hoe osticulum, a hatche ;’ Voc. 778. 14.
HASSOCK
hepse, as a gloss to sera (a bolt, bar), in Voc. 326. 36. + Icel. hespa;
Dan. haspe, a hasp, reei; Swed. haspe, a hasp; G. haspe, a hasp;
haspel, a staple, reel, windlass ; cf. Du. haspel, a windlass, reel.
B. All from a Teut. type *hap-son-, f. Cf. Low G. happen, hapsen,
to snatch, clutch ; F. happer, to lay hold οἵ; NFries. happe, to
snatch at. The sense of hasp is ‘a catch.’
HASSOCK, a stuffed mat for kneeling on in church. (E.)
‘ Hassock, a straw-cushion us’d to kneel upon;’ Kersey, ed. 1715.
Also in Phillips, New World of Words, 1706, in the same sense; see
Trench, Select Glossary. So called from the coarse grass of which
it was made; ME, hassok, ‘Hassok, ulphus;’ Prompt. Parvy.; see
Way’s Note, showing the word to be in use A.D. 1147 ; whilst in 1465
there is mention of ‘ segges, soddes, et hassokes’ =sedges, sods, and
hassocks. Forby explains Norfolk hassock as ‘ coarse grass, which
grows in rank tufts on boggy ground.’ AS. hassue, a tump or clump
of coarse grass or sedge; in Kemble, Cod. Dipl. iii. 223. 41 Distinct
from W. hesg, pl. sedges.
HASTATH, shaped like the head of a spear. (L.) Modern, and
botanical. — L. hastatus, spear-like: formed from hasta, a spear, which
is co-radicate with E. gad. See Gad (1).
HASTE, HASTEN, to go speedily ; Haste, speed. (F.—Teut.)
The form hasten appears to be nothing more than an extended form
of the verb ¢o haste; the pt. t. and pp. hastened (or hastned) do not
occur in early authors; one of the earliest examples is that of the pp.
hastened in Spenser, Shep. Kal., May, 152. Strictly speaking, the
form haste (pt. t. hasted) is much to be preferred, and is commoner
than hasten both in Shak. and in the A. V. of the Bible. ME. hasten
(pt. τ. hastede), where the » is merely the sign of the infin. mood, and
was readily dropped. Thus Gower has: ‘Cupide . . Syh [saw]
Phebus hasten him so sore, And, for he sholde him haste more, . . A
dart throughout his herte he caste ;’ C. A.i. 3363 bk. iii. 1697. ‘To
hasten hem ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 8854; (E 978). ‘But hasteth yow’
=make haste, id. 17383 (I 72). ‘He hasteth wel that wysly can
abyde ; and in wikked haste is no profit;’ id., Six-text, B 2244.
English ; both occur in the Cursor Mundi, 5198, 26737; where we
also find the phr. iz hast=in haste, 13402. Neither is found in AS.
=OF. haste (Εἰ, hate), sb. WGerm. *hai(f)st/i-, violence; as seen in
OFries. haest (Richtofen, 5. v. hast), AS. h@st, violence, fury. Cf. AS.
héste, violent, vehement, OHG. heis¢i, violent; also Goth. haifsts, f.,
strife; Icel. kept (=heift), war. Du. haast, G., Dan., Swed. hast,
haste, are all borrowed from French. Der. hast-y, Will. of Palerne,
4753 hast-t-ly, hast-i-ness. @=> Wealso find ME. hast:f, hasty, Allit.
Poems, ed. Morris, iii. 520; this is from OF. hastif, adj. formed
from the OF. haste (mod. F, hate}, haste, which was borrowed from
the Teutonic (as above).
HAT, a covering for the head. (E.) ME. hat, Chaucer, C. T. 472,
1390 (A 470, 1388). AS. het; ‘Galerus, vel pileus, fellen het;’
Voc. 118. 14; §Calamanca, het;’ id. 153. 22. + Icel. hott, a hood,
later hattr ; Swed. hatt; Dan. hat. Teut. type *hatfuz, τα. If it is
telated to hood, this form stands for an earlier type *hadnuz. Der.
| hatt-er, hat-band (Minsheu).
HATCH (1), a half-door, wicket. (E.) A word presenting some
difficulty. ‘Leap the hatch;’ King Lear, iii. 6. 76. It is the same
as North of E. heck, an enclosure of open-work, of slender bars of
᾿ wood, a hay-rack ; a heck-door is a door only partly panelled, the rest
being latticed (Halliwell) ; cf. Lowland Se. hack or heck, a rack for
cattle, a frame for cheeses (Jamieson). It seems to have been
specially used of anything made with parallel bars of wood. Palsgrave
| has: ‘ Hatche of a door, kecg.’ In a 15th-cent. vocabulary we find:
Also: ‘Hoc ostiolum,
| hek;’ id. 668. 4. AS. hac, f. (gen. hacce); ‘td pre ealdan wude
_ heecce,’ to the old wood hatch; Thorpe, Diplom. Avi Saxon. p. 395.
᾿ + Du. kek, a fence, rail, gate, Swed. hack, a coop, a rack. Teut.
_ type *hakja,f. Prob. named from being lightly fastened with a hook.
| Cf. AS. haca, a fastening of a door; Epinal Gloss. 803. All,
} probably, from the same source as hook; cf. prov. E. hatch, to fasten
(Halliwell); and see Shak. Per. iv. 2. 37. See Hake and Hook.
i Der. hatch-es, q.v.; also hatch-way.
i]
ἢ
'
HATCH (2), to produce a brood by incubation. (E.) ME,
Richard the
Redeles, Pass. iii]. 44. The pt. t. ha3te occurs in The Owl and
ο΄ hacchen.
| Nightingale, 1.105. Not found earlier; but prob. E. + Swed. hacka,
‘This brid | bird] . . hopith for to hacche ;’
to hatch, to breed; Dan. hekke, to breed, whence hakkebuur, a
| breeding-cage (lit. a hatch-bower), and A@ekkefugl, a breeder (lit..a
_hatch-fowl). In German, we have hecken, to hatch, MHG. hecken.
Origin unknown.
_| HATCH (3), to shade by minute lines, crossing each other, in
\drawing and engraving. (F.—G.) ‘Hatch, to draw small strokes
with a pen;’ Kersey, ed.1715. A certain kind of ornamentation on
[ἃ sword-hilt was called ha/ching, and is spelt hachyng in 13893 see
B. It is hard to say whether the vb. or sb. first came into use in |
HAUNCH 263
Riley, Memorials of London, p. 513; hence ‘hatched in silver,’ Shak.
Troil. i. 3. 65; ‘my sword well hatcht;’ Beaum. and Fletcher,
Bonduca, ii. 2.—F. hacher, ‘to hack, . . also to hatch a hilt ;’ Cot.
=F. hache, an ax.—OHG. *happja, whence OHG. heppa, a bill, a
sickle. See Hash. Der. hatch-ing (perhaps sometimes confused
with etching) ; and see hatch-et.
HATCHES, a frame of cross-bars laid over an opening in a ship’s
deck. (E.) ME. hacches, Chaucer, Good Women, 648; Will. of
Palerne, 2770. Merely the pl. of Hateh (1),q.v. Der. hatch-way,
from the sing. hatch.
HATCHET, a small axe. (F.—G.) ME. hachet, ‘Axe other
{or] hatchet;’? P. Plowman, B. iii. 304. Spelt hachet, John de
Garlande; in Wright's Vocab. 1. 137.—F. hachette, ‘a hatchet, or
smallaxe;’ Cot. Dimin. of F. hache, ‘an axe;’ id.; see Hatch (3),
and Hash.
HATCHMENT, the escutcheon of a deceased person, publicly
displayed. (F.—L.) In Shak. Hamlet, iv. 5. 214. Well known to
be a corruption of afch’ment, the shortened form of atchievement (mod.
E. achievement), the heraldic name for the same thing. Dryden uses
atchievement in the true heraldic sense; Palamon and Arcite, 1. 1620;
dtcheament is in Ferne (1586); and hachement in Hall (1548). See
N.E.D. See Achieve.
HATE, extreme dislike, detestation; to detest. (E.) A. The sb.
is ME. hate, Chaucer, C. T. 14506 (B 3778). AS. hete, Grein, ii. 39;
the mod. E. sb. takes its vowel from the vb. (AS. hatian).4-Du. haat ;
Tcel. hatr; Swed. hat ; Dan. had; Goth. hatis; G. hass, hate: These
forms suggest a Teut. type *hatoz, neut., gen. *hatizos; Idg. type
*kodos, gen. *kodesos ; whence a form *hatizin W. Germanic. Cf. Gk.
κήδειν, to vex; W.cawdd, displeasure. Stokes-Fick, p. 68. B. The
verb is AS. hatian, OF ries. hatia, OSax. hatoén, OHG. hazzon; allied
to Goth. hatan, to hate; from the same base *hat-. Der. hat-er;
hate-ful, Chaucer, C. T. 8608 (E 732); hate-ful-ly, hate-ful-ness; also
hat-red, q. v.; from the same source, heinous, q.v.
HATRED, extreme dislike. (E.) ME. hatred, P. Plowman,
B. iii. 140; fuller form hatreden, Pricke of Conscience, 3363. Not
found in AS.; but the suffix is the AS. suffix -r#@den, signifying ‘law,’
‘mode,’ or ‘ condition,’ which appears in fréondréden, friendship (Gen.
xxxvii. 4), &c.; see Kindred. And see Hate.
HAUBERK, acoat of ringed mail. (F.—OHG.) Orig. armour
for the neck, as the name implies. ME. hauberk, Chaucer, C. T. 2433
(A 2431); hawberk, King Alisaunder, 2372.—OF. hauberc, halberc
(Burguy). = OHG. halsberc, halsberge,ahauberk. — OHG. hals(G. hals),
the neck, cognate with AS. heals, L. collum, the neck; and OHG,
bergan, to protect, cognate with AS. beorgan, to protect, hide. See
Collar and Bury. Der. habergeon, q.v.
HAUGH, apiece of alluvial land beside a river. (E.) Northern;
also halgh, as in Greenhalgh. AS. healh, a nook, a corner; see N.E.D.
41 From the dat. case heale, hale, we have ME. hale, a nook; common
in place-names as a suffix, and often written -hall.
HAUGHTY, proud, arrogant. (F.—L.) a. The spelling with
gh is a mistake, as the word is not E.; it is a corruption of ME.
hautein, loud, arrogant. ‘I peine me to have an hautein speech’ =I
endeavour to speak loudly ; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 12264 (C 330); cf. Rob.
of Glouc., 1. 15304.‘ Myn hauteyn herte’= my proud heart; Will. of
Palerne, 472. β. The corruption arose from the use of the adj. with
the E. suffix -ness, producing a form hawtein-ness, but generally
written hautenesse, and easily misdivided into hauti-ness (like naughtt-
ness). ‘For heo [she, i.e. Cordelia] was best and fairest, and to
hautenesse drow lest’ [drew least]; Rob. of Glouc. p. 29 (where the
best MS. has hautesce); 1. 687. Later forms hautyn, Book of
St. Alban’s, fol. a 5, hauty in Palsgrave.— OF. hautain, also spelt
haultain by Cotgrave, who explains it by ‘hauty, proud, arrogant.’
= OF. haut, formerly halt, high, lofty; with suffix -ain=L. -anus. =
L. altus, high; see Altitude. Der. haughti-ly; haughti-ness (for
hautin-ness = hautein-ness, as explained above).
HAUL, to hale, draw; see Hale (2). This spelling occurs early.
‘T-hauled hi were. . out of the lond;’ Beket, 1. 1497.
HAULM, HALM, HAUM, the stem or stalk of grain. (E.)
Little used, but an excellent E. word. ‘The hawme is the strawe of
the wheat or the rie; Tusser’s Husbandry, sect. 57,st. 15 (E. D.S.).
‘ Halm, or stobyl [stubble], Stipula;’ Prompt. Parv. OMerc. halm ;
Vesp. Psalter, Ps. Ixxxii. 14 (Ixxxiii.13) ; AS. healm, in the compound
healm-streaw, lit. haulm-straw, used to translate L. stipulam in Ps.
Ixxxii. 12, éd. Spelman. Du. halm, stalk, straw ; Icel. halmr ; Dan.
and Swed. halm.+Russ. soloma, straw; 1. culmus, a stalk; calamus,
a reed (borrowed from Gk.); Gk. κάλαμος, a reed; καλάμη, a stalk or
straw of corn; W. calaf,a stalk. See Brugmann, ii. § 72; Stokes-
Fick, p. 73. B. From the same root as Culminate, q.v.
HAUNCH, the hip, bend of the thigh. (F.-OHG.) ME. hanche,
Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 1100; spelt haunche, Ancren Riwle, 280. =
F. hanche, ‘the haunch or hip;’ Cot. Cf. Span. and Ital. anca, the
964 HAUNT
haunch; the F. word was also sometimes spelt anche (Cotgrave).
Teut. origin; from Frankish *hanka, fem., represented by MDu.
OF |
hancke, ‘ the haunch or the hip,’ Hexham: whence also O. North F. |
hanke, Norm, dial. hangue, haunch (Moisy). Korting, §§ 663,
4479-
HAUNT, to frequent. (F.) ME. haunten, hanten, to frequent, use,
employ. ‘ That haunteden folie’ =who were ever after folly; Chaucer,
C. T. 12398 (C 464). ‘ We haunten none tauernes’=we frequent no
taverns; Pierce Plowman’s Crede, ed. Skeat, 106. ‘ Haunted Mau-
metrie’ = practised Mohammedanism, Rob, of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft,
p- 320. The earliest use of the word is in Hali Meidenhad, ed.
Cockayne, p. 25, 1. 15.—OF. hanter, ‘to haunt, frequent, resort |
unto;’ Cot. β. Origin unknown, and much disputed.
are: (1) Icel. Aeimta, lit. to fetch home, to draw, claim, recover; but
neither form nor sense suit: (2) Bret. hent, a path: (3) a nasalised
form of L. habitare, to dwell (Littré): (4) a Late L. form *ambitare
(not found), to go about, from L. ambitus, a going about (Scheler).
The last seems to me the most likely; there are many such forma-
tions in F. Der. haunt, sb.
HAUTBOY, akind of musical instrument. (F.—L.) [Also called
Suggestions |
oboe, the Ital. name.] In Shak. 2 Hen. IV, iii. 2. 351; where the old |
edd. have hoeboy. Spelt hau’boy (sic) in Ben Jonson, tr. of Horace’s
Art of Poetry, where the L. has bia; Ars Poet. 202. Spelt hobois,
hoboy in Cotgrave. — MF. haultbois (or hautbois), ‘a hobois, or hoboy;’
Cot. OF. hault, later haut, high, from L. alius, high; and F. bos<
Late L. boscus, wood. See Altitude and Bush. Thus the lit.
sense is ‘high wood;” the hautboy being a wooden instrument of
a high tone. Doublet, oboe.
HAUT-GOUT, a high flavour. (F.—L.) | Spelt haugou in
Howell's Letters, vol. i. § 5. let. 38. =F. haut, high ; gout, taste.—L.
altus, high ; gustus, taste; see Gust (2).
HAVE, to possess, hold. (E.) ME. hauen, pt. t. hadde, pp. had
(common). AS. habban, pt. τ. hefde, pp. gehefd.4Du. hebben; Icel.
hafa; Swed. hafva; Dan. have; Goth. haban; G. haben. Teut. stem
*habe-. If cognate, as some hold, with L. habére, to have, the Idg.
stem is *khabhe-. Streitberg, § 206, p. 307.
HAVEN, an inlet of the sea, harbour, port. (E.) ME. haven
(with κε for v), Chaucer, C. T. 409 (A 407); spelt haxene, Layamon,
8566. Late AS. h@fene (acc. hefenan), A.S. Chron. an. 1031. —Icel.
hofn; Dan. havn, Swed. hamn.4Du. haven; G. hafen. B. Allied to
AS. hef (Grein, ii. 19), Icel. and Swed. haf, Dan. hav, MHG. hab,
the open sea, main.
HAVERSACK, a soldier's bag for provisions. (F.—G.) Lit.
‘oat-bag’ or ‘ oat-sack.’ A late importation. It occurs in Smollett’s
tr. of Gil Blas, Ὁ. 11. c. 8 (R.).—F. havresac, a haversack, knapsack
(Hamilton).—G. habersack, hafersack, a sack for oats.—G. haber,
hafer, oats (cognate with Icel. hafr, Du. haver, Swed. hafre, Dan.
havre, oats), from MHG. habere, OHG. habaro, oats; and ἃ. sack,
cognate with E. sack.
HAVILDAR, a sepoy non-commissioned officer, corresponding
to a sergeant. (Pers.—Arab.) So in Yule. From Pers. jawal-dar,
a military officer of inferior rank; Rich. Dict., p. 585.— Arab.
hawala(h), commission, charge; and Pers. dar, holding (as in sr-dar).
HAVOG, general waste, destruction. (F.—Teut.) ‘Cry havoc,’
Shak. Cor. iii. 1. 275; Jul. Cees. iii. 1. 273; ‘cries on havoc,’ Haml.
y. 2. 375. ‘Pell-mell, kavoc, and confusion;’ 1 Hen. IV, ν. 1. 82.
‘They entrid in-to Ylion and pillyd hit, and after did do crye hauok
upon all the tresours ;” Caxton, Troy-book, fol. 175. ‘Tocrye havok’
occurs in 1419; Excerpta Historica, p. 32. From the AF. phrase
crier havok ; Black Book of Admiralty, 1.455. An Eng. adaptation of
OF. havot, pillage, plunder (Godefroy), used in precisely the same
way; esp. in the phrase crier havot, to cry out ‘plunder,’ of which
Godefroy gives two examples. It is clearly connected with OF. havee,
a handful (Godefroy), which Cotgrave explains by ‘a gripe, or hand-
full, also a booty, or prey;’ from the OF. verb haver, ‘to hooke, or
to grapple with a hook,’ Cot. Cf. havet, ‘a little hooke,’ Cot. ;
havecg, the same (Godetroy). W.de Bibbesworth explains havet by
‘a Hesh-hook ;” Wright, Vocab. i. 172. Apparently from the Teut.
base *haf- seen in Goth. hafjan, to heave, lift up; see Heave and
Haft. ‘To cry havoc’ was to give the signal tor seizing upon the
spoil. Notes on Ε. Etym., p. 128. Der. havoc, verb (rare), Hen. V,
i. 2. 173, where a cat is said ‘ to tear and havoc more than she can eat.’
HAW, a hedge; a berry of the haw-thorn. (E.) The sense of
‘inclosure’ or ‘hedge’ is the orig. one.
of early use in this transferred sense. ME. hkawe. Chaucer uses
hawe, lit. a haw-berry, to signify anything of no value, C. T. 6241
(D 659); but he also has it in the orig. sense,
a polkat in his hawe’ =there was a polecat in his yard; C. T. 12789
(C 855). AS. haga, an enclosure, yard, house, Grein, li. 5; whence
the usual change to later hage, haze, hawe, by rule.+Icel. hagi,
In the sense of ‘ berry,’ the |
word is really a short form for haw-berry or hawthorn-berry ; still it is |
© And eke ther was |
| trade of the pedlar is denoted by hokkerye, spelt also hukkerye and
| hukrie; where the base of the word is the same as that of the word
| hedge; Owl and Night., 817.
HAY
a hedged field, a pasture; Swed. kage, an enclosed pasture-ground ;
Dan. have [for hage], a garden; Du. haag, a hedge; whence
*s Gravenhage, i.e. the count’s garden, the place called by us the
Hague. ‘Teut. type *hagon-,m. Allied to G. hag, a fence, hedge;
and further, to W. cae, an enclosure. See Quay. Stokes-Fick,
p- 66. Der. haw-jinch ; haw-thorn=AS. hegporn, which occurs as
a gloss to alba spina, Voc. 139. 23; ONorthumb. hagaforn, Matt.
vii. 16. Also hedge, q.v.
HAWK (1), a bird of prey. (E.) ME. hauk, Chaucer, C. T.
4132, 5997 (A 4134, D 415). Earlier hanek (=havek), Layamon,
3258. AS. hafoc, more commonly heafoc, Grein, ii. 42-44Du. havic ;
Icel. haukr ; Swed. hok; Dan. hig; G. habicht, OHG. hapuh. B. All
probably from the Teut. base *hab, to seize, hold; see Heave, and
ef. L. capere. Cf. Low L. capus, a falcon, from L. cap-ere; and L.
accipiter, a hawk. Der. hawk, verb, ME. hauken, Chaucer, C. T. 7957
(E 81) ; hawk-er.
HAWK (2), to carry about for sale. (O. Low G.) Not in early
use. Rich. quotes from Swift, A Friendly Apology, the line: ‘To
hear his praises hawk’d about.’ The verb 15 ἃ mere development from
the sb. hawker, which is an older word. See Hawker.
HAWK (3), to force up phlegm from the throat, to clear the
throat. (E.) ‘Without hawking or spitting ;’ As You Like It, v. 3.
12. Apparently an imitative word; cf. W. hochi, to throw up phlegm;
hoch, the throwing up of phlegm; Dan. harke, Swed. harska, to hawk.
And (perhaps) Norw. hauka, to shout, call out (Aasen); F. hoguet,
hiccough,
HAWKER, one who carries about goods for sale, a pedlar.
(O. Low ἃ.) Minsheu tells us that the word was in use in the reign
of Hen. VIII; it is much older, in E., than the verb to hawk.
‘ Hawkers, be certain deceitfull fellowes, that goe from place to place
buying and selling brasse, pewter, and other merchandise, that ought
to be vttered in open market... You finde the word An. 25 Hen. VIII,
cap. 6, and An. 33 eiusdem, cap. 4;’ Minsheu. ‘ Those people which
go up and down the streets crying newsbooks and selling them by
retail, are also called Hawkers ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. [The
earliest trace of a similar word is in P. Plowman, B. v. 227, where the
huckster.) B. A word introduced from abroad; cf. Low ἃ. hoker,
aretail-dealer, Du. heuker ; MDu. heukeren, to sell by retail, to huckster;
heukelaar, a huckster, retailer (Sewel). We find also Dan. hoker,
a chandler, huckster, hékeri, a hawker’s trade, hokre, to hawk; Swed.
hokeri, higgling, hokare, a chandler, cheesemonger. Also G. hécker,
a retailer of goods. See further under Huckster.
HAWSE, HAWSE-HOLE. (Scand.) ‘Hawses, two large
round holes in a ship, under the head or beak, through which the
cables pass, when the ship lies at anchor;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Cf. |
‘T was forced to cut cable in the hawse ;’ Eng. Garner, vii. 83 (ab.
1606). So called because made in the ‘neck’ or bow, of the ship. =
Icel. hals, hals, the neck; also (as a sea-term) part of the bow of a |
ship or boat. Cf. Du. hals, neck ; halsblok, a hawse-block ; Dan. and
Swed. hals, neck, also a tack (as asea-term). Also AS. heals, ἃ. hals,
Goth. hals, neck; cognate with L. collum, neck. Distinct from
hawser ; see below.
HAWSER, HALSER, a small cable. (F.—L.) ‘ Hawser,a
three-stroud [-strand] rope, or small cable;’ Kersey. In Sherwood’s
index to Cotgrave, halser means a tow-rope by which boats are drawn
along. In Grafton’s Chron., Rich. III, an. 3, we read: ‘ He wayed
up his ancors and halsed up his sayles.’ ‘Two haucers pour boy-
ropes ;’ (1373) Riley’s Mem. of London, p. 369. ‘ With well-
wreathed halsers raise Their white sails ;’ Chapman, tr. of Od. ii. 609.
From the old verb hause, to lift, raise, as in Kom. of Partenay, 3083.
—OF. halcier, Ἐς hausser (Hatzfeld), to raise.— Late L. altsare, to
elevate.—L. altus, high. See Altitude. Similarly the MlItal. Ἷ
alzaniere, ‘a halsier [hawser] in a ship’ (Florio) is from Ital.
alzare, to raise. @ Often associated with hawse (above), though of |
different origin.
HAWTHORN, from haw and thorn; see Haw.
HAY (1), grass cut and dried. (E.) Formerly used also of uncut
growing grass. ME. hey, hay; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 16963 (H 14). ‘ Vpon
grene hey’=on green grass; Wyclif, Mark, vi. 39. From OMerc.
heg (faenum), Vesp. Psalter, xxxvi[i]. 2. AS. hig, grass, hay; ‘ ofer
peet gréne hig’ =on the green grass; Mark, vi. 39.4-Du. hoot ; Icel.
hey; Dan. and Swed. ho; Goth. hawt, grass; G. heu, ΜΗ. houwe.
B. The true sense is " cut grass ;’ the sense of ‘ growing grass’ being
occasional. The Tent. type is *hau-jom,n. From the base *hau(w)- of
the verb to hew, i.e. to cut. See Hew. Der. hay-cock, hay-maker.
But not ME. hay-ward, where hay =hedge (below).
HAY (2), a hedge. (E.) ME. hee, heye; ‘bi the heie, by the
AS. hege; see Corpus Gloss., 606.
Teut. type *hagiz; allied to Haw. Cf. OF. hare, a hedge, of Low
ἢ
]
\
HAZARD
G. origin. Der. hay-ward, an officer who had charge of fences and
enclosures ; P. Plowman, C, vi. 16, and note.
HAZARD, chance, risk. (F.—Span.—Arab.) ME. hasard, the
name of a game of chance, generally played with dice ; Chaucer, C. T.
12525 (C 591). Earlier, in Havelok, 2326.—F. hasard, ‘ hazard,
adventure ;’ Cot. The orig. sense was certainly ‘a game at dice’
(Littré). B. We find also Span. azar, an unforeseen accident, hazard,
MSpan. azar, ‘ an ill token, a pricke or note in a die, a hucklebone ;’
also azar en el dado, ‘a game at dice called hazard;’ Minsheu. Cf.
Mital. zara, ‘a gameat dice called hazard, also a hazard or a nicke at
dice ;᾿ Florio. It is probable that F. ha-, Span. a-, answers to the
Arab. article al, turned into az by assimilation. Thus the F. word is
from Span., and the Span. from Arab. al zahr, the die, a word only
found in the vulgar speech ; see Devic’s Supplement to Littré. But
Arab. zahr is a word of doubtful authority ; and the etym. is uncertain.
Der. hazard, verb, hazard-ous.
HAZE, vapour, mist. (Low G.) Not in early use. The earliest
trace of the form haze is in Ray’s Collection of Northern-English
Words, 1691 (Ist ed. 1674). He gives: ‘it hazes, it misles, or rains
small rain.’ Asasb., it occurs in Phillips, ed. 1706: ‘ Haze, a Rime
or thick Fog.’ ‘ Hazy weather’ is in Dampier’s Voyages, ed. 1684
(R.) ; and ‘thicke and hawsey’ occurs in 1625 (N.E.D.). Appar-
ently due to the Low G. phrase de Hase Brouet, i. e. a mist or haze is
rising ; see Bremen Worterbuch. Brouet=brews,is brewing. Berg-
haus enters the phrase under Hase, a hare; but does not explain the
connexion. Rietz gives has, a slight shower of rain, as a Swed, dial.
word. Note also prov. E, haar,a cold sea-fog or mist(E. D. D.); Du.
dial. harig, foggy, misty (Boekenoogen). Der. haz-y, haz-i-ness.
HAZEL, the name of a tree or shrub. (E.) ME. hasel. ‘The
hasel and the ba3-porne’ [haw-thorn]; Gawayne and the Grene
Knight, ed. Morris, 744. AS. haesel. ‘ Corilus, hesel. Saginus,
hwit hzsel;’ Wright’s Vocab. i. 32, col. 1. ‘Abellane, hesl, vel
hesel-hnutu’ [hazel-nut]; id. 33, col. 2 (Voc. 137. 16, 139. 17).+
Du. hazelaar; Icel. hasl, hesli; Dan. and Swed. hassel; (ἃ. hasel;
OHG. hasala.4-L. corulus (for *cosulus); W. coll; Olmsh coll (for
*cosl). Stokes-Fick, p. 92. Teut. type *hasaloz; Idg. type *kosolos.
Der. hazel-nut=AS. haselhnutu, as above; hazel-twrg, Tam. Shrew,
ii, 255.
HE, pronoun of the third person. (E.) ME. ke; common. AS.
hé ; declined as follows. Mase. sing. nom. hé; gen. his; dat. him;
acc. hine. Fem. sing. nom. héo; gen. and dat. hire; ace. hi. Newt.
sing. nom. and ace. hit; gen. his; dat. kim. Plural (for all genders) ;
nom. and acc. hi, hig; gen. hira, heora; dat. him, heom.4Du. hy ;
OSax. he, hi; allied to Goth. neut. ki-ta. Allied to Lith. szés, this,
L. ci-tra, on this side, Gk. ἐ-κεῖ, there, κεῖνος, {πα one. Brugmann,
i. §§ 83, 604. Der. hence, here, hither.
HEAD, the uppermost part of the body. (E.) ME. hed, heed;
earlier heued (=heved), from which it is contracted. ‘ His heed was
balled’ [bald]; Chaucer, C. Τ᾿ 198. In P. Plowman, B. xvii. 70, it
is spelt hed; but in the corresponding passage in C. xx. 70, the
various readings are hede, heed, and hewede. AS. héafod, Mark, vi. 24,
where the latest MS. has héafed.4-Du. hoofd; Goth. haubith; G.
haupt ; OHG. houbit. Also Olcel. λαιοῦ, later héfud ; Dan. hoved ;
Swed. Aufvud. Teut. types *haubud-, *haudid-, n.; which have no
_ equivalents. The L. caput (with short a) is allied to AS. hafela,
heafola, head. Der. head, vb. ; head-ache, -band (Isa. iii. 20), -dress,
_ «gear, -land, -less, -piece (K. Lear, ili. 2. 26), -guarters, -stall (Tam.
Shrew, iii. 2. 58), -stone (Zech. iv. 7), -strong (heed-strong in Pals-
| grave), τέιγε (1 Esdras, 111, 6), -way, -wind. Also head-ing, a late
word ; head-s-man (All's Well, iv. 3. 342); head-y (2 Tim. iii. 4),
| headi-ly, head-i-ness. Also head-long, q.v.
] HEADLONG, rashly; rash. (E.) Now often used as anadj,
| but orig. an adv. ME. hedling, heedling, hedlynges, heuedlynge ;
Wyclif, Deut. xxii. 8; Judg. v. 22; Matt. vii. 32; Luke, vili. 33.
| ‘Heore hors hedlyng mette’=their horses met head to head; King
| Alisaunder, 2261. The suffix is adverbial, answering to the AS. suffix
| -ling, which occurs in bec-ling, backwards. In this suffix, the -/- is
| separable ; the common form being -imga; as in fér-tnga, suddenly.
HEAL, to make whole. (E.) ME. helen. ‘ For he with it conde
| bothe hele and dere;’ i.e. heal and harm, Chaucer, C. T. 10554
| (F 240). AS. λίαν, to make whole; very common in the pres.
| part. helend=the healing one, saviour, as a translation of Jesus,
_ Regularly formed (with ἐ- mutation of ἃ to #) from AS. hal, whole ;
_ see Whole. + Du. heelen, from heel, whole; Icel. hea, from hell;
Dan. hele, trom heel ; Swed. hela, from hel ; Goth. hailjan, from hails ;
'G, heilen, from heil. Der. heal-er, heal-ing ; and see health.
|__| HEALTH, soundness of body, or of mind. (E.) ME. helch,
ΟΡ. Plowman, C. xvii. 137. AS. Ae#ld (acc. h#lde), Aelfric’s Hom. i.
466,1. 8; ii. 396, 1. 21. Formed from AS. hal, whole. Teut. type
\*hailitha, {. The suffix -‘ha denotes condition, like L. -/as. 4 Not
‘a very common word in old writers; the more usual form is ME. hele
I
HEARTY
(P. Plowman, Ὁ. vi. 7, 10), from AS. h#lu, Grein, ii.22. Der. health-y,
health-i-ly, health-i-ness; health-ful, health-ful-ly, health-ful-ness ;
health-some, Romeo, iv. 3. 34.
HEAP, a pile of things thrown together. (E.) ME. heep (dat.
heepe, hepe), Chaucer, C. T. 577 (A 575); P. Plowman, B. vi. 190.
AS. héap, a heap, crowd, multitude; Grein, ii. 56.4-+Du. hoop; (whence
Tcel. hopr ; Dan. hob; Swed. hop) ; G. haufe, OHG. hifo.4 Russ. kupa,
a heap, crowd, group; Lithuanian kaupas, a heap (Fick, iti. 77).
Brugmann, i. § 421 (7). Der. heap, vb., AS. héapian, Luke, vi. 38.
Doublet, hope (2).
HEAR, to perceive by the ear. (E.) ME. heren (sometimes huyre),
pt. t. herde, pp. herd; Chaucer, C. T. 851 (A 849) ; 13448 (B 1708).
OMerc. héran; AS. hyran, pt. τ. hyrde, pp. gehyred ; Grein, ii, 132.4
Du. hooren; Icel. heyra ; Dan. hore ; Swed. hora; Goth. hausjan; G.
λόγοι, OHG. horjan. Teut. type *hauzjan-. Cf. Gk. ἀ-κού-ειν, to hear.
q It does not seem possible so to ignore the initial ἃ as to connect it
with the word ear, though there is a remarkable similarity in form
between Goth. kausjan, to hear, and Goth. auso, the ear. See Ear.
Der. hear-er, hear-ing, hear-say, q.v., hearken, q.v.
HEARKEN : see under Hark.
HEARSAY, a saying heard, arumour. (E.) From hear and say.
‘I speake unto you since I came into this country by hearesay. For I
heard say that there were some homely theeves, &c.: Bp. Latimer,
Ser. on the Gospel for St. Andrew’s Day (R.). The verb say, being
the latter of two verbs, is in the infin. mood, as in AS. ‘ Ful ofte time
I haue herd sein;’ Gower, C. A. i. 367; bk. iii. 2622. ‘He...
secgan hyrde’=he heard say; Beowulf, ed. Grein, 875.
HEARSE, a carriage in which the dead are carried to the grave.
(F.—L.) Much changed in meaning. ME. herse, herce. First (perhaps)
used by Chaucer, ‘ Adoun I fel when that I saugh the herse;’ Com-
plaint to Pity, st.3. ‘Heerce on a dede corce (herce vpon dede corcys),
Pirama, piramis ;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 236. Mr. Way’s note says: ‘ This
term is derived from a sort of pyramidal candlestick, or frame for
supporting lights, called hercia or herpica, from its resemblance in
form to a harrow, of which mention occurs as early as the xiith
century. It was not, at first, exclusively a part of funeral display, but
was used in the solemn services of the holy week . . . Chaucer appears
to use the term herse to denote the decorated bier, or funeral pageant,
and not exclusively the illumination, which was a part thereof; and
towards the 16th century, it had such a general signification alone.
Hardyng describes the honours falsely bestowed upon the remains of
Richard IT. when cloths of gold were offered ‘* upon his hers’? by the
king and lords;’ &c. See the whole note; also Rock, Church of our
Fathers, ii. 495. The changes of sense are (1) a harrow, (2) a tri-
angular frame for lights in a church service, (3) a frame for lights
over a tomb, (4) a frame to support a pall, (5) a carriage for a dead
body; the older senses being quite forgotten. OF. herce, ‘a harrow,
also, a kind of portcullis, that’s stuck, as a harrow, full of sharp,
strong, and outstanding iron pins’ [which leads up to the sense of a
frame for holding candles]; Cot. Mod.F. herse, Ital. erpice, a harrow.
=L. hirpicem, acc. of hirpex,a harrow, also spelt irpex. @ A re-
markable use of the word is in Berners’ tr. of Froissart, cap. cxxx,
where it is said that, at the battle of Crecy, ‘the archers ther stode
in maner of a herse,’ 1. 6. drawn up in a triangular form, the old F.
harrow being so shaped. See Specimens of English, ed. Skeat, p. 160.
Der. re-hearse.
HEART, the organ of the body that circulates the blood. (E.)
ΜΕ. herte, properly dissyllabic. ‘ That dwelled in his herté sike and
sore, Gan faillen, when the her/é felté deth;’ Chaucer, C. T. 2806,
2807 (A 2804). AS. heorte, fem. (gen. heortan), Grein, ii. 69. Du.
hart; Icel. hjarta; Swed. hjerta; Dan. hyerte; Goth. harrto; G. herz,
OHG, herza, Teut. type *herton- n.; which afterwards became fem.
+rish cridhe; Kuss. serdtse; L. cor (gen. cord-is); Gk. κῆρ, xapiia; ἊΝ.
craidd; Lith. szirdis, Streitberg, § 86; Stokes-Fick, p.95. Der. heart-
ache, Hamlet, iii. 1. 62 ; heart-blood = ME. herte-blod, Havelok, 1819;
heart-breaking, Ant. 1. 2. 743; heart-broken, heart-burn, heart-burning,
L. L. L. i. 1. 280; heart-ease, heart-en, 3 Hen. VI, 11. 2. 79; heart-
felt, heart-less=ME. herteles, Wyclif, Prov. xu.8; heart-less-ly, heart-
less-ness, heart-rending, heart-stck, heart-sickness, hearl-whole. Also
heart’ s-ease, q.v., heart-y, q.v.
HEARTH, the floor in a chimney on which the fire is made. (E.)
ΜΕ. herth, herthe; a tare word. ‘ Herthe, where fyre ys made ;’
Prompt. Parv. AS. heord, as a gloss to foculare; Wright's Vocab. i.
27, col. I (Voc. 127. 4). Du. kaard; MDan. herd (Kalkar) ; Swed.
hard, the hearth of a forge, a forge; G. herd, a hearth; OHG. hert,
ground, hearth. Teut. type *herthoz, τὰ. Idg. base *ker-; cf. L.
cremare, to burn. Der. hearth-stone (in late use).
HEART’S-EASE, a pansy. (E.) ‘ Hearts-ease, or Pansey, an
265
herb ;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. ‘ Harlysease, a floure ;’ Palsgrave. Lit.
ease of heart, i.e. pleasure-giving.
HEARTY, cordial, encouraging. (E.) ME. herty. + Herty,
266 HEAT
cordialis;’ Prompt. Parv. An accommodation of the older ME.
hertly. ὁ ΕΣ han hertely hate to oure hole peple’=ye have hearty hate
against our whole people; Alexander and Dindimus, ed. Skeat, 961.
Der. hearii-ly, hearti-ness.
HEAT, great warmth. (E.) ME. hete, Chaucer, C. T. 16876
(G 1408). AS. hétu, h@to; Grein, ii. 24; from *hattin-, heat,
fem. Formed from the adj. hat, hot. B. The Icel. iti, heat, Du.
hitte, G. hitze, are not precisely parallel forms; but are formed from
the weak grade Ait-. See further under Hot. Der. heat, verb= AS.
hétan, in ‘The Shrine, ed. Cockayne, p. 16, 1. 15 ; formed rather from
the adj. had, hot, than from the sb. ; heat-er.
HEATH, wild open country. (E.) ME. hethe (but the final e
marks the dat.) ; Chaucer, C. T. 6; spelt heth, P. Plowman, B. xv.
451. AS. λάδι, Grein, ii. 18.4 Du. heide; Icel. heidr ; Swed. hed;
Dan. hede ; Goth. haithi, a waste; (ἃ. heide. Teut. type *haithja, f.
Further allied to W. coed, a wood; L, -cétwm in comp. bii-cétum, a
pasture for cows; where δᾶ- is allied to bds,a cow. Stokes-Fick,
p. 76. Der. heath-y; also heath-en, q. v.
HEATHEN, a pagan, unbeliever. (E.) Simply orig. ‘a dweller
on a heath;’ see Trench, Study of Words; and cf. L. pagdnus, a
pagan, lit. a villager, from pagus, a village. The idea is that dwellers
in remote districts are among the last to be converted. ME. hethen.
‘ Hethene is to mene after heth and vntiled erthe’=heathen takes its
sense from heath and untilled land; P. Plowman, B. xv. 451. AS.
heden, a heathen; Grein, ii. 18.— AS. k#d,a heath. See Heath.
B. So also Du. heiden, a heathen, from heide, a heath; Icel. heidinn,
from heidr; Swed. heden, from hed; Dan. heden, from hede; Goth.
haithnd, a heathen woman, haithiwisks, wild, from haithi; G. heiden,
from heide. And note AS. h@den,a wild creature, monster ; Béowulf,
986. Der. heathen-dom=AS. h#dendom, Grein, ii. 19; heathen-ish,
heathen-ish-ly, heathen-ish-ness, heathen-ise, heathen-ism,
HEATHER, a small evergreen shrub. (E.) Usually associated
with heath. But heather is quite a late form; and the old name is
hadder. ‘ Hadder, heath or ling;’ Ray, N. Country Words (1691).
ME. haddyr ; Wallace, v. 300. So that the words seem to be distinct.
4 MDan. hede meant (1) a heath; (2) ling (Kalkar).
AHEAVE, to raise, lift or force up. (E.) ME. heen (with x for v);
Chaucer, C. T. 552 (A550) ; earlier form hebben, Rob. of Glouc., p. 17,
1.8; or]. 389. From AS. hef-,a pres. stem of AS. hebban, Grein, ii.
28; pt.t. df, pp. hafen; orig. a strong verb, whence the later pt. t.
hove, occasionally found. Cf. OFries. keva, to heave. + Du. heffen ;
Icel. hefya; Swed. hafva; Dan. have; Goth. hafjan; G. heben, OHG.
heffan. Teut. type *hafjan-, pt. t. *hof; corresponding to L. capio,
Iseize; cf. Gk. κώπη, a handle. 4 Distinct from have. Der. heav-er,
heave- -offering ; also heav-y, q. v.
HEAVEN, the dwelling-place of the Deity. (E.) ME. heuen
(with « for a Chaucer, C. wae 2563 (A 2561). AS. heofon, hiofon,
hefon, Grein, 11. 63. Ὁ OSax. hedan. Cf. ‘AS. his-heofon, a ceiling ;
so that the sense may have been ‘canopy’ or ‘cover.’ B. Another
word for ‘heaven’ is the Icel. himinn; Goth. himins, heaven; and
G. himmel, heaven (with altered suffix). The two forms can hardly
be connected. Der. heaven-ly=AS. heofonlic; heavenly-minded;
heaven-ward, heaven-wards, as to which see Towards.
HEAVY, hard to heave, weighty. (E.) ME. heut, δεν (with τι
πὰ Chaucer has heny and heuinesse; C. T. 11134, 11140 (F 822,
828). AS. hefig, heavy; Grein, ii. 29; lit. ‘hard to heave,’ from AS.
haf-, stem of hebban (pt. τ. haf), to heave. + Icel. hofigr, heavy ; from
hefia, to heave; OHG. hepig, hebig (obsolete), heavy ; Low G. hevig.
Der. heavi-ly; So NS hefignes (Grein):
HEBDOMADAL, weekly. (L.—Gk.) ‘As for hebdomadal periods
or weeks;’ Sir Tl. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iv. c. 12, ὃ 11.—L. heb-
domadalis, belonging to a week.—L. hebdomad-, stem of hebdomas, a
number of seven, a week; with suffix -a@/’s.—Gk. ἑβδομάς, a number
of seven, a week; cf. ἕβδομος, seventh. Gk. ἑπτά (for *cenra), seven ;
cognate with Εἰ, sever. See Seven.
HEBETUDE, dulness, obtuseness. (L.) ‘ Hebe/wde, bluntness,
dulness ;’ Bailey (1735).—L. hebetiido, bluntness.—L. hebes (hebet-),
blunt, dull.
HEBREW, a descendant of Abraham. (F.—L.—Gk.—Heb.) In
Merch. of Ven. 1. 3. 58, 179.—F. hebreu, spelt hebrieu in Cotgrave. —
L. Hebreus. — Gk. €Bpatos. — Heb. ‘ivri, a Hebrew (Gen. xiv. 13); of
uncertain origin, but supposed to mean one of a people dwelling in
Heber, i.e. in the land ‘beyond’ the Euphrates; from Heb. ‘avar, he
crossed over.
HECATOMB, a sacrifice of a large number of victims. (F.—L.
—Gk.) Lit. a sacrifice of a hundred oxen,. In Chapman’s tr. of
Homer’s Iliad, b. i. 1. 60.—MF. hecatombe; Cot.—L. hecatombé. — Gk.
ἑκατόμβη, a sacrifice of a hundred oxen; or any large sacrifice. — Gk.
ἑκατόν, hundred (cognate with Skt. gata, L. centum, 4S. hund) ; and
βοῦς, an ox (cognate with EF. cow). See Hundred and Cow.
HECKLE, HACKLE, HATCHEL, an instrument for dress-
HEEL
ing flax or hemp. (E.) ME. hekele, hechele. ‘Hekele, mataxa;’ Prompt.
Parv. ‘I heckell (or hetchyll) flaxe;’ Palsgrave. ‘Hec mataxa, a
hekylle;’ Wright's Vocab. i. 269, col. 2 (Voc. 668. 32). EFries. hekel,
hikel. + Du. hekel, a heckle; Dan. hegle,a heckle; Swed. hackla; G
hechel. ‘Teut. type *hakila, fem.; from a Teut. base *hak-, to pierce,
bite, as in OHG. hecchen, ΜΗ. hecken (for *hakjan), to pierce, bite
as a snake; cf. AS. hacod, a pike (fish), from its sharp teeth. Cf.
Hack (1). Der. hackle ὦ), hackle (2), q.v
HECTIC, continual ; applied toa fever. (F.—L.— Gk.) ‘My fits
are like the fever ectick “fits 5? ;’ Gascoigne, Flowers, The Passion of a
Lover, st. 8. Shak. has it as a sb., to mean ‘a constitutional fever ;’
Hamlet, iv. 3. 68.—F. hectique, ‘sick of an hectick, or continuall
feaver;’ Cot.— Late L. *hecticus, for which I find no authority, but
it was doubtless in use as a medical word.—Gk. ἐκτικός, hectic,
consumptive (Galen).—Gk. ἕξις, a habit of body; lit. a possession.
Gk, éé-w, fut. of ἔχειν, to have, possess. = 4/ SEGH, to hold in, stop;
whence also Skt. sah, to hold in, stop, bear, undergo, endure, &c.
Der. hectic, sb.
HECTOR, a bully; as a verb, to bully, to brag. (Gk.) ‘The
hectoring kill-cow Hercules;’ Butler, Hudibras, pt. ii. c. 1. 1. 352.
From the Gk. Hector ("Exrwp), the celebrated Trojan hero. ‘The lit.
sense of Gk. ἕκτωρ is ‘holding fast ;’ from the Gk. ἔχειν, to hold.
See Hectic.
HEDGE, a fence round a field, thicket of bushes. (E.) ME.
hegge, Chaucer, C. T. 15224 (B 4408). AS. hecg (dat. hecge); A.S.
Chron. an. 547; Cart. Saxon., ed. Birch, i. 339; iii. 532. ‘Teut. type
*hagja, f.; formed from hag- with suffix -ja, causing vowel-change of
hag- to heg-; i.e. it is a secondary form from AS. haga, a hedge,
preserved in mod. E. in the form haw; see Haw. + Du. hegge, heg,
a hedge; cf. haag,a haw; Icel. heggr, a kind of tree used in hedges;
cf. hagi, a haw (see Icel. Dict. p- 774); G,. hecke. Der. hedge, verb
(Prompt. Parv. p. 232), hedge-bill, hedge- born, 1 Hen. VI, iv. 1. 43;
hedge-hog, Temp. ii. 2. 10; hedge-pig, Macb. αν ΣΡ ΤΩ hedge -priest,
L.L.L. v. 2. 5453; hedge-row, Milton, L’Allegro, 58; hedge-school ;
hedge-sparrow, K. Lear, i, 4. 2353 also hedg-er, Miiton, Comus, 293.
HEED, to take care, attend to. (E.) ME. peden’s pt. t. ede
Layamon, 17801; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, A. 1050 (or 1051). AS.
hédan, to take care; pt. t. hedde; Grein, ii. 29. A weak verb,-formed
by vowel change from a sb. *héd, care, not found in AS. but occurring
in OFries. hdde, hiide, care, protection, and allied to G. hut, OHG.
huota, heed, watchfulness. 4 OSax. hédian, to heed; Du. hoeden, to
heed, guard, from hoede, guard, care, proiection ; G. hitter, to protect
(OHG, huaten), from G. hut (OHG., huota), protection. B. For the
vowel-change, cf. bleed (AS. blédan) from blood (AS. 616d). Brugmann,
i. § 754. Prob. allied to Hood. The notion of ‘ guarding’ is
common to both words. Der. heed, 50. -- ME. hede, Chaucer, C. T.
305 (A 303); heed-ful, heed-ful-ly, heed-ful-ness, heed-less, heed-less-ly,
heed-less-ness.
HEEL (1), the part of the foot projecting behind. (Ε.) ME. heel,
heele; Wyclif, John, xiii. 18. AS. héla, the heel; Grein, ii. 30. We
find also the gloss : ©Calx, héla, hoh nipeweard’? =the heel, the lower
part of the heel ; Wright's Vocab. i, 283, col. 2 (Voc. 266. 8).4 Du.
hiel (from OFriesic héla) ; Icel. hell; Swed. hal; Dan. hel. B. It
is probable that AS. héla is a contraction of *koh-ila, with the usual
vowel-change from 6 (followed by 7) toé@; this would make the
word a diminutive of AS. kok, which also means ‘the heel,’ and is
a commoner word. See Hough. Der. heel-piece.
HEEL (2), to lean over, incline. (E.) A corrupted form; the
word has lost a final d, whilst the vowel has been lengthened. Τί is
modified from ME. helden, hilden. Cf. the EFries., Du. and Swed.
forms. Palsgrave has: ‘I hylde, I leane on the one syde, as a bote
or shyp, or any other vessell, ie encline de cousté, Sytte fast, I rede
{advise ] you, for the bote begynneth to hylde.’ ‘ Heldyn, or bowyn,
inclino, flecto, deflecto;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 2343 see Way’s note.
B. The ME. helden or hilden was frequently transitive, meaning (1) to
pour, esp. by tilting a vessel on one side; and (2) intransitively, to
heel over, to incline. Wyclifhas: ‘and whanne the boxe of alabastre
was brokun, she he/de it [poured it out] on his heed;’ Mark, xiv. 3.
AS. hyldan, heldan, trans. to tilt, incline, intrans. to bow down;
Grein, ii. 131. . ‘ pu gestadoladest . . . eordan swa feeste, peet hio on
®nige healfe ne helded’ = Thou hast founded the earth so fast, that it
will not heel over on any side; AElfred’s Metres, xx. 164. It isa weak
verb, related to the (participial) adjective heald, inclined, bent down,
which occurs in zider-heald, bent downwards; Grein, ii. 295. 4 Icel.
halla (for *haida), to lean sideways, heel over, esp. used of a ship;
from hallr (< *halth-), leaning, sloping ; Dan. helde, to slant, slope,
lean, tilt (both trans. ‘and intrans.) 3 ct held, an inclination, slope;
Swed. halla, to tilt, pour; cf. EFries. hella, to heel over. The adj.
is AS. -heald, OF ries. hald, Icel. hallr, OHG. hald, inclined, bent
forward ; -Teut. type *halthoz. Allied to AS. hold, Gl hold, faithful,
true (to a master), Goth. hulths, gracious; Teut. type *hullhoz. Cf.
HEFT
Goth. wilja-halthei, inclination of will, partiality (which see in
Uhlenbeck).
HEFT, a heaving. (E.) In Shak. Wint. Ta. ii. τ. 45. Formed
from the verb ¢o heave, and closely allied to haft. 4 Heft also occurs
as another spelling of haft.
HEGEMONY, leadership. (Gk.) Chiefly modern. =Gk. ἡγε-
μονία, leadership. = Gk. ἡγεμον-, from ἡγεμών, a leader.—Gk. ἡγέ-
opat, I lead. Gk, ἠγ-, as in ἤγ-αγον, 2 aor. of ἄγ-ειν, to lead, cognate
with L, ag-ere.—4/ AG, to drive. See Agent.
HEGIRA, the flight of Mohammed. (Arab.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. ‘The era of the Hegira dates from the flight of Moham-
med from Mecca to Medina, on the night of Thursday, July 15, 622.
The era begins on the 16th;” Haydn, Dict. of Dates.— Arab. hijrah,
separation (here flight) ; the Mohammedan era; Palmer’s Pers. Dict.
col. 695. From the Arab. root kajara, he separated, he went away.
Cf. Arab. hajr, separation, absence; id. 47 Hence, pronounce the
E. word as hejra, with soft g and no i.
HEIFER, a young cow. (E.) ME. hayfare, hekfere. “ Juvenca,
hayfare;” Wright's Vocab. i.177,1. 4; ‘ Hec juvenca,a hekfere;’ id.
250, col. 2. (Voc. 624.14; 758. 3, with kf< hf.) AS. héahfore.
‘Annicula, vel vaccula, héahfore;’ also, ‘ Altilium, fet héahfore’
{a fat heifer]; id. p. 23, col. 2 (Voc. 120. 29, 35). Also spelt
héahfru; Voc. 274. 20. B. The first syllable (héak or heah) is prob.
the same as AS. héah, high; but the rest isobscure. The forms -fore,
-fru, may be referred to AS. faran, to go; hardly to AS, fearr,
bull.
HEIGH-HO, an exclamation of weariness. (E.) Also, in Shak.,
an exclamation of joy; As You Like It, iv. 3. 169; ii. 7, 180, 182,
100 ; ill. 4. 54. ‘But sung hey-howe;’ The Frere and the Boy
(Hazlitt ; E. E. Pop. Poetry, iii. 62), 1.50. Compounded of heigh,
a cry to call attention, Temp. i. 1.6; and ho! interjection. Both
words are of natural origin, to express a cry to call attention.
HEIGHT, the condition of being high; a hill. (E.) A variant
of highth, a form common in Milton, P. L.i. 24, 92, 282, 552, 723;
ὅς. Height is common in Shak. Merch. Ven. iv. 1.72; &c. ΜΕ.
highte, hyghte, asin Chaucer, C. T. 1786 (where it rimes with lyghte) ;
also he3pe (=heghthe), Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 317; heighthe,
Mandeville’s Travels, p. 40. AS. héahdu, héhdu, also hiehdu (Bos-
worth); from héak, high. - Du. hoogte, height; Icel. hed; Swed.
hijd; Dan. hoide; Goth. hauhitha. See High. Der. height-en,
Shak. Cor. v. 6. 22; formed by analogy with length-en, strength-en,
&c.; not an orig. form.
HEINOUS, hateful, atrocious. (F.—O.LowG.) Properly trisyl-
labic. ME. heinous, hainous; Chaucer, Troilus, ii. 1617. — OF. hainos,
odious ; formed with suffix -os (=L. dsus, mod. F. -eux) from the sb.
haine, hate.—OF. hair, to hate. From an O. Low G. form, well
exemplified in Goth. hatjan (=hatian), to hate; OFries. hatia. See
Hate. Der. heinous-ly, heinous-ness.
HEIR, one who inherits property. (F.—L.) The word being F.
the h is silent. ME. heire, heyre; better heir, heyr; Chaucer, C. T.
5186 (B 766); also eyr, Will. of Palerne, 128; εἰν, Havelok, 410.—
OF. heir, eir (later hor), an heir.—Late L. hérem, for L. hérédem,
acc. of hérés, an heir. See Brugmann, i. § 477. Der. heir-dom,
heir-ship, hybrid words, with E. suffixes; heir-apparent, t Hen. IV, i.
2.653 heir-ess, with F. suffix, Blackstone’s Comment., b. iv. c. 15
(R.); Aeir-less, Wint. Ta. y. 1. 103; heir-presumptive, heir-male; also
hetr-loom, q.v.
HEIR-LOOM, a piece of property which descends to an heir
along with his inheritance. (Hybrid; F. avd E.) ‘Which he an
heir-loom left unto the English throne ;”? Drayton, Polyolbion, 5. 11
(near the end). Also (in 1424) in E. E. Wills, p. 56. Compounded
of heir (see above) ; and loom, a piece of property, furniture, the same
word as Joom in the sense of a weaver’s frame. See Loom (1).
HELIACAL, relating to the sun. (L.—Gk.) A term inastronomy,
used and defined in Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. iv. c. 13. ὃ 7;
“We term that . . the heliacal [ascension of a star], when a star which
before, for the vicinity of the sun, was not visible, being further
removed, beginneth to appear.’ = Late L. héliacus, Latinised from the
Gk. ἡλιακός, belonging to the sun.—Gk. ἥλιος, the sun; allied to L.
sol. See Solar. Der. heliacal-ly.
HELIOCENTRIC, considered with reference to the sun as
acentre. (Gk.) An astronomical term; in Kersey, ed.1715. Coined
from helio-= Gk. #Aco-, for ἥλιος, the sun; and cen/ric, adj. coined
from Gk. κέντρον, centre. See Heliacal and Centre. 8. Similar
formations are helio-graphy, equivalent to photography, from γράφειν,
to write ; helio-/atry, sun-worship, from λατρεία, service, worship;
helio-trope, q.v.
HELIOTROPE, the name of a flower. (F.—L.—Gk.) In
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674; Ben Jonson; Sejanus, iv. 5.— F. heliotrope,
‘the herbe turnsole ;’ Cot.—L. heliofroprum.—Gk. ἡλιοτρόπιον, a
heliotrope.—Gk. #Ato-, for ἥλιος, the sun; and τροπ-, 2nd grade of
ae
HEMATITE 267
τρέπειν, to turn; lit. ‘sun-turner,’ or the flower which turns to the
sun. See Heliacal and Trope.
HELIX, a spiral figure. (L.—Gk.) ‘Helix, barren or creeping
ivy; in anatomy, the outward brim of the ear; in geometry, a spiral
figure ;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. —L. helix, a volute, spiral; kind of ivy.—
Gk. ἕλιξ, anything twisted, a tendril, spiral, volute, curl.—Gk.
ἑλίσσειν, to turn round. —Gk. root Fed; allied to L. uol- in noluere,
toroll. See Volute. Der. helices, the pl. form; helic-al, helic-al-ly.
HELL, the place of the dead ; the abode of evil spirits. (E.) ME.
helle ; Chaucer, C.T.1202 (A 1200). AS. hel, a fem. sb., gen. helle ;
Grein, 11. 29.4-Du. hel; Icel. hel; G. hille, OHG. hella ; Goth. halja,
hell. Teut. type *halja, f.; from hal-, 2nd grade of the Teutonic base
*hel-, to hide, whence AS, helan, G. hehlen, to hide ; so that the orig.
sense is ‘that which hides or covers up.’ The AS. helav is allied to
L. célare, to hide, from the root *4é/, to hide, whence also L. cella,
E. cell. Der. hell-ish, hell-ish-ly, hell-ish-ness ; hellfire = AS, helle-fyr,
Grein, ii. 31; hell-hound, ME. helle-hund, Seinte Marherete, ed.
Cockayne, p. 6, 1. 4 from bottom.
HELLEBORS, the name of a plant. (F.—L.—Gk.) Alsospelt
ellebore, as frequently in Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxv. c. 5.—OF,
ellebore, “ hellebore ;’ Cot. Properly hellebore.—L. hellzborus, = Gk.
ἑλλέβορος, the name of the plant. Of uncertain origin.
HELM (1), the instrument by which a ship is steered. (E.)
Properly used of the tiller or handle of the rudder. ME. helme;
Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, iii. 149. AS. helma, masc., Alfred’s tr. of
Boethius, cap. xxxv. ὃ 4; lib. iii. pr. 12.4Icel. hjalm, a rudder; G.
helm, a helve, handie, B. Closely allied to ME. halm, a handle,
Gawaine and Grene Knt., l. 330. Another kindred word is helve.
See Helve. Der. helms-man; where helms =helm’s (the possessive
case).
HELM (2), HELMET, armour for the head. (E.) ME. helm,
Chaucer, C. T. 2611 (A 2609). AS. helm, masc., (1) a protector,
(2) a protection, helm; Grein, ii. 31.4Du. helm (also helmet), a
helm, casque; Icel. Ajalmr, a helmet ; Dan. hielm; Swed. hjelm; G.
helm; Goth, hilms. Teut. type *hel-moz, m., lit. ‘a covering.’ B. All
formed with suffix -mo- from the base ke/- (Teut. hel-), a grade of
the root *kél, to cover, protect. See Hell. Der. kelm-ed, Chaucer,
C. T. 14376 (B 3560); helm-et, a dimin. form, with suffix -et of F,
origin, from OF. helmet.
HELMINTHOLOGY, the natural history of worms. (Gk.)
A scientific word. Coined from Gk. ἕλμινθο-, decl. stem of ἕλμινς, a
worm; and -Aoya, a discourse, from λέγειν, to speak. The Gk.
ἕλμινς is also found as ἕλμι», i.e. ‘that which curls about ;’ from the
same source as ἕλτ-ιξ, ἃ helix. See Helix. Der. helminthologi-c-al.
HELOT, a slave, among the Spartans. (L.—Gk.) ‘The Helots ;’
Sir P. Sidney, Arcadia; (1638); Ρ. 16. The pl. helots answers to L.
pl. Héldtes, borrowed from Gk. Εἵλωτες, pl. of EiAws, a helot, bonds-
man; fabled to have meant originally a man of Helos (“EAos), a town
of Laconia, whose inhabitants were enslaved under the Spartans.
Der. helot-ism.
HELP, to aid, assist. (E.) ME. helpen, pt. τ. halp, pp. holpen;
Chaucer, C. T. 10244 (E 2370). AS. helpan, pt. τ. healp, pp. holpen;
Grein, ii. 33.-4-Du. helpen ; Icel. hjalpa; Dan. hielpe ; Swed. hjelpa;
Goth. hilpan; G. helfen, OHG. helfan. Teut. type *helpan- (pt. t.
*halp, pp. *hulpanoz). Allied to Lithuan. szelpzi, tohelp. Der. help,
sb.= AS. helpe (Grein) ; help-er, help-ful, help-ful-ness, help-less, help-
less-ly, help-less-ness ; also help-meet, a coinage due to a mistaken
notion of the phrase an help meet (Gen. ii. 18, 20); later form help-
mate; thus Rich. quotes from Sharp’s Sermons, vol. iv. ser. 12: ‘ that
she might be a help-mate for the man.’
HELVE, a handle of an axe. (E.) ME. helue (=helve), Wyclif,
Deut. xix. 5; spelt hel/fe (for helfe), Ormulum, 9948. AS. hielf, of
which the dat. hielfe occurs in Gregory’s Pastoral, ed. Sweet, p. 166,
1.8; also helfe, as in * Manubrium, heeft and helfe;’ Wright’s Vocab.
i. 35, col. 1 (Voc. 142. 21).4+MDnu. helve, a handle; Oudemans;
Low G. helft, a handle; Pomeran. helfter. Allied to Helm (1) and
Halter.
HEM (1), the border of a garment. (E.) ME. hem; pl. hemmes,
Wyclif, Matt. xxiii. 5. AS. hemm, hem; ‘Limbus, stemning vel
hem;’ Wright’s Vocab. i. 26, col. 1 (Voc. 125. 13). Orig. ‘an
enclosure;’ cf. OFries. ham, hem; NFries.. kam, an enclosure;
EFries. ham, an enclosure surrounded by ditches. Der. hem, verb,
chiefly in the phr. ¢o hem in (cf. G. hemmen, to stop, check, hem,
from Fries. ham ; Swed. haémma, to withhold, keep in), Shak, Troilus,
iv. 5. 193.
HEM (2), a slight cough to call attention. (E.) “ Cry hem! when
he should groan,’ Much Ado, v. 1. 16; cf. As You Like It, i. 3. 19.
An imitative word, formed from the sound. Allied to Hum. In
Dutch, we also find the same word hem, used in the same way. Der.
hem, verb, As You Like It, i. 2. 18.
HEMATITE, an ore of iron. (F.—L.—Gk.) The sesqui-oxide
HEMI-
of iron; so called because of the red colour of the powder (Webster).
‘The sanguine load-stone, called hamatites;’ Holland’s Pliny, b. xxxvi.
c. 16.— OF. hematite (Supp. to Godefroy). wil hamatites ; Pliny. - Gk.
αἱματίτης, blood-like. — Gk. aivar-, stem of αἷμα, blood.
HEMITI,, half. (Gk.) From a L. spelling (hémi-) of the Gk. prefix
ἡμι-, signifying half; cognate with L. sémi-, half. See Semi-.
HEMICRANTA, megrim; see Megrim.
HEMISPHERE, a half sphere, a half globe. (F.—L.—Gk.)
In Cotgrave.— MF. hemisphere, ‘a hemisphere ;’ Cot. —L. hémisphe-
rium.— Gk. ἡμισφαίριον, a hemisphere.— Gk. ἡἥμι-, prefix, signifying
half; and σφαῖρα, a ball, sphere. See Hemi-and Sphere. Der.
hemispheri-c-al ; Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b, ii. c. 1, § 13.
HEMISTICH, half a line, in poetry. (L.—Gk.) Not from F.
hemistique (Cotgrave), but directly from L. hémistichium, by dropping
the two latter syllables. Kersey has: ‘ Hemistichium, a half verse.’ =
Gk. ἡμιστίχιον, a half verse. Gk. ἡμι-, half; and στίχος, a row,
order, line, verse. See Hemi- and Distich.
HEMLOCK, a poisonous plant. (E.) ME, hemlok; spelt hum-
loke, humlok, Wright’s Vocab. 1. 226, col. 1, 265, col. 1; homelok, id.
i. 191, col. 2 (Voc. 711.343 786.16; 645.21). AS. hemlic, hymlice ;
Gloss to Cockayne’s Saxon Leechdoms ; early form hymblice, Epinal
Gloss. 185. Of unknown origin.
HEMORRHAGE, a great flow of blood. (F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt
hemorragy by Kay, On ‘the Creation, pt. r (R.).—MF. hemorrhagie,
‘an abundant flux of blood ;’ Cot. =Late L. hemor rhagia, Latinised
from Gk. αἱμορραγία, a violent bleeding. = Gk, aipo-, for αἷμα, blood ;
and Fpay-, a grade of ῥήγνυμι, I break, burst ; the lit. sense being ‘a
bursting out of blood.’ Gk. Fpay is allied to E. wreak.
HEMORRHOIDS, EMERODS, painful bleeding tubercles
round the margin ofthe anus. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘ Hemorrordes be vaynes
in the foundement ;’ Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. iii. c. 9.— MF.
hemorrhoide, ‘an issue of blood by the veins of the fundament ;’ Cot.
=—L. hemorrhoide, hemorrhoids, pl. of hemorrhoida, — Gk. aipoppoises,
pl. of aipoppois, adj., liable to flow of blood. Gk. αἷμο-, for αἷμα,
blood; and ῥέειν, to flow, cognate with Skt. sru, to flow, and allied to
E. stream. Der. hemorrhoid-al. Doublet, emerods.
HEMP, a kind of plant. (L.—Gk.) ME. hemp, Havelok, 782.
Contracted from a form henep ; the x becoming m by the influence of
the following p. AS. henep, henep ; Cockayne’s A. S. Leechdoms, i.
124. ll.1, 3, and note. [Cf. Du. hennep; Icel. hampr; Dan. hamp ;
Swed. hampa; G. hanf; OHG. hanaf.| All from L. cannabis; Gk.
κάνναβις ; hemp. Cf, Skt. gaza-s, hemp; prob. not an Idg. word.
B. The L. word is merely borrowed from Gk. ‘Grimm and Kuhn
both consider the Gk. word borrowed from the East, and the Teutonic
one from the L. cannabis which certainly made its way to them ;’
Curtius, i. 173. The word was borrowed so early that it suffered
consonantal change. Der. hemp-en, with adj. suffix, as in gold-en ;
Hen. V, iii. chor. 8. Also canvas, q.v.
HEN, the female of a bird, especially of the domestic fowl. (E.)
ME. hen, Chaucer, C. T. 15445; pl. hennes, id. 14872 (B 4629, 4056).
AS. henn, hen, hen; Grein, ii. 23. Teut. type *hanja, f.; from AS.
hana, a cock; Grein, ii. 11.4-Du. hen, fem. of haan, a cock; Icel.
hena, fem, of hani; Dan. héne, fem. of hane, a cock; Swed. héna,
fem. of hane; (ἃ, henne, fem, of hahn, acock. Cf. Goth. hana, a cock.
B. ‘Thus hen is the fem. of a word for cock (obsolete in English), of
which the old Teutonic type was *han-on-. yy. The AS. hana means,
literally, ‘singer,’ the suffix -a denoting the agent, as in AS. hunt-a,a
hunter. —4/K AN, to sing ; whence L. canere, tosing. Der. hen-bane,
Prompt. Parv. p. 235; lit. ‘ fowl-poison ;’ see Bane. Also hen-coop,
hen-harrier, a kind of hawk (see Harrier) ; hen-pecked, i.e. pecked
by the hen or wife, as in the Spectator, no. 176: ‘a very good sort of
people, which ware commonly called in scorn the henpeckt.’ ‘My
henpecked sire ;’ Dryden, tr. of Virgil, Past. iii. 49.
HENCE, from this place or time. (E.) ME. hennes, P. Plowman,
B. iii. 108; whence the shorter form hens, occurring in Lydgate’s
Minor Poems, p. 220. In the modern hence, the -ce merely records
that the ME. hens was pronounced with voiceless s, not with a final
z-sound. B. In the form hennes, the suffixed s was due to a habit of
forming adverbs in -s or -es, as in ¢wy-es, twice, need-es, needs ; an older
form was henne, Havelok, 843, which is found as late as in Chaucer,
C. T. 2358 (A 2356). y. Again, henne represents a still older henen
or heonen, spelt heonene in Ancren Riwle, p. 230, 1. 8. AS. heonan,
hionan, hence; Grein, ii. 67. Here heonan stands as usual for an
older *hinan. A shorter form appears in the AS. Aeona (for hina),
hence, Grein, ii. 67; closely allied to hi-ne, acc. masc. of the pron.
hé, he. See He. δ Similarly, L. kinc, hence, is connected with L.
hic, this. Der. hence-forth, compounded of hence and forth, and
answering to AS. forS heonan, used of time ; see examples in Grein,
ii. 68, ll. 1-4; hence-forward, comp. of hence and forward.
HENCHMAN, a page, servant. (E.) In Shak. Mids. Nt. Dr.
ii. I. 121, ‘Compare me the fewe.. disciples of Jesus with the
268
HERALD
solemne pomp. .. of such as go before the bishop, of his hensemen,
of trumpets, of sundry tunes,’ &c. ; Udal, on St. Mark, c. 11. vv. I-10.
‘And every knight had after him riding Three henshmen on him
awaiting ;7 The Flower and the Leaf, 1. 252 (a poem wrongly
ascribed to Chaucer, and belonging to the fifteenth century). ME.
henksman; the pl. henksmen occurs in 1392, in the Earl of Derby’s
Expedition (Camden Soe.), p. 163; cf. p. 280. Spelt henxtman in
1402. The full (Latinised) form hengestmannus occurs in the Issue
Roll for 1380 (Easter); see N.E.D. B. We also find Hinxman as
a proper name in Wilts. (in the Clergy List, 1873) ; showing that the
right etymology is from ME. hengest (cognate with Du. and (ἃ. hengst,
Swed. and Dan. hingst), a horse, and E. man. We find similar
formations in Icel. hestuvérdr (lit. horse-ward), a mounted guard
(Cleasby) ; and in Swed. hingstridare (lit. horse-rider), ‘a groom of
the king’s stable, who rides before his coach;’ Widegren’s Swed.
Dict. In this view, the sense is simply ‘ groom,’ which is the sense
required in The Flower and the Leaf. y. The ME. hengest occurs in
Layamon, |. 3546, and is from AS. hengest, a horse (Grein, ii. 34),
once a common word. It is cognate with Icel. hestr, Swed. and Dan.
hingst and hast, (ἃ. hengst ; from an orig. Teutonic *hangistoz. The
orig. sense of hexchman was ‘horseman ;’ then ‘a page,’ usually
a young man of high rank. See A Student’s Pastime (index). J I
find in Blount’s Nomolexicon, ed. 1691, the following: ‘ Henchman,
qui equo innititur bellicoso, from the G. hengst, a war-horse: with us
it signifies one that runs on foot, attending upon a person of honor
or worship. [Mentioned] Anno 3 Edw. 4. cap. 5, and 24 Hen. 8
cap. 13. It is written henxman, anno 6 Hen. 8. cap. 1.’
HENDECAGON, a plane figure of eleven sides and angles.
(Gk.) So called from its eleven angles. —Gk. ἕνδεκα, eleven; and
γωνία, απ angle. Ἕνδεκα -- ἕν, one, and δέκα, ten. See Heptagon.
HENDECASYLLABIC, aterm applied to a verse of eleven
syllables. (Gk.) From Gk. ἕνδεκα, eleven ( -- ἕν, one, and δέκα, ten) ;
and συλλαβή, a syllable. See Decasyllabic.
HENNA, the Egyptian privet; also a dye made from the leaves
to stain the nails, &c. (Arab.) ‘Their women. . witha certaine colour
in their hand called Hanna which will staine ;’ Purchas, Pilgrimage,
1614, p. 637 (N.E.D.).—Arab. hinna‘, the dyeing or colouring
shrub; Lawsonia inermis; Rich. Dict., p. 582.
HENT, a seizure, an intention. (E.) In the latter sense, Shak.
Haml. iii. 3. 88. A doublet of hint; see Hint.
HEP, HIP, the fruit of the dog-rose. See Hip (2).
HEPATIC, pertaining to the liver. Cae —Gk.) Spelt epatike,
Book of St. Alban’s, fol. C 5, back, 1. ‘ Hepatiques, obstructions
of the liver;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. ‘LMF. hepatique, ‘ hepatical,
of or belonging to the liver;’ Cot.=—L. hépaticus.—Gk. ἡπατικύς,
belonging to the liver. —Gk, nar, stem of ἧπαρ, the liver.+-L. iecur,
the liver; Skt. yakyt, the liver. Der. hepatic-al ; hepatic-a, a flower,
the liver-wort ; see hepathique. hepatique in Cotgrave.
HEPTAGON, a plane figure with seven sides and angles. (Gk.)
In Blount’ s Gloss., ed. 1674. So called from its seven’ angles. = Gk.
ἑπτά, seven, cognate with E. seven ; and γωνία, an angle, allied to γόνυ,
aknee. See Seven and Knee. Der. heptagon- fal
HEPTAHEDRON, a solid figure with seven bases or sides.
(Gk.) Spelt heptaedron in Kersey, ed. 1715.— Gk. ἑπτά, seven, cognate
with E, seven; and ἕδρα, a seat, base, from the same ‘base as E. seat
and sit. See Seven and Sit.
HEPTARCHY, a government by seven persons. (Gk.) In
T. Fuller, Worthies of England, ch. 3. Applied to seven Old-English
kingdoms, viz. those of Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Essex, Northumber ἥτε ud,
Mercia, and East Anglia. The term is not a good one; see Freeman,
Old Eng. Hist. for Children, p. 40.—Gk. ἐπτ-, for ἑπτά, seven; and
-apxia, government. See Seven and Anarchy.
HER, possessive and objective case of the fem. of the third pers.
pronoun. (E.) ME. hire, the usual form; also here, Chaucer, C. T.
4880 (B κοῖς hure, P. Plowman, C. iv. As 48. AS. hire, gen. and
dat. case of héo, she; the possessive pronoun being made from the
gen. case, and ‘indeclinable ; see Sweet's A. S. Reader, Grammat.
Introduction. The word is to be divided as hi-re, where hi- is to be
referred to a Teut. pronominal base, signifying ‘this ;’ and -re is the
usual AS, fem. inflection in the gen. and dat. of adjectives declined
according to the strong declension. See He. Der. her- s, ME. hires,
Chaucer, C. T. 4647 (B 227); not found much earlier ; her. -self.
HERALD, an officer who makes proclamations. (F.—OHG.)
ME. herald, heraud; Chaucer, C. T. 2601 (A 2599); P. Plowman,
B. xviii. 16.—OF. eral, peed a herald; Low L. heraldus; cf. Ital.
araldo, a herald; OHG.sherolt: (G. herold) , a herald (from OF.).
B. Nevertheless, the OF. word is of Teut. origin; and prob, from
OHG. harén, to proclaim, cry aloud; with the usual F. suffix -al¢ for
-ald-<G. -wald (Toynbee, Gr. § 692. xx); the sense being ‘ crier’ or
‘proclaimer.’ Cf. OHG. fora-haro, a herald; from for- -harén, to
proclaim. y. The OHG. harén is cognate w ith Goth. hazjan, AS.
HERB
herian, to praise. Korting, § 4491. Der. herald-ic; also herald-ry,
Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 2. 213, spelt heraldie, Gqwer, C. A.i. 173; bk. ii. 399.
HERB, a plant with a succulent stem. (F.—L.) The word being
of F. origin, the k was probably once silent, and is still sometimes
so considered; there is a tendency at present to sound the hk, the word
being a short monosyllable. ME. erbe, herbe, Chaucer, C. T. 14972,
14955 (B 4156, 4139); King Alisaunder, 331.—F. herbe, ‘an herb;’
Cot.=—L,. herba, grass, a herb; properly herbage, food for cattle.
B. Supposed to be allied to OL. forbea, food, and to Gk. φορβή,
pasture, fodder, forage, φέρβειν, to feed. Der. herb-less, herb-ac-eous,
in Sir Τὶ Browne, Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. ii. c. 6, § 15, from L. herbaceus,
grassy, herb-like; herb-age, from F, herbage, ‘herbage, pasture’ (Cot.),
answering toa L.form *herbaticum ; herb-al ; herb-al-ist, Sir T. Browne,
Vulg. Errors, b. ii. c. 6, § 4; herb-ar-ium, from L. herbarium, a book
describing herbs, a herbal, but now applied to a collection of plants;
herbivorous, herb-devouring, from L.uorare,to devour (see Voracious).
And note ME. herbere, a herb-garden, from L. herbarium through the
French; a word discussed under Arbour.
HERD (1), a flock of beasts, group of animals. (E.) ME, heerde,
heorde. “ Heerde, or flok of beestys;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 236. ‘Ane
heorde of heorten’=a herd of harts; Layamon, 305. AS. heord, herd,
hyrd, (1) care, custody, (2) herd, flock, (3) family; Grein, ii. 68.
Icel. hjord; Dan. hiord; Swed. hjord; G. heerde; Goth. hairda. ‘Teut.
type *herda, f. Cf. Skt. cardha(s), aherd, troop. Brugmann, i. § 797.
Der. herd, vb., ME. herdien, to draw together into a herd, P. Plowman,
C. xiv. 148; herd-man, ME, herdeman, hirdeman, Ormulum, 6852 ;
later form herd-s-man, Shak. Wint. Ta. iv. 4. 344. Der. herd (2).
HERD (2), one who tends a herd. (E.) Generally used in the
comp. shep-herd, cow-herd, &c. ME. herde, Chaucer, C. T. 605
(A 603); Will. of Palerne, 6; spelt hurde, P. Plowman, C. x. 267.
AS. hierde, hirde; Grein, ii. 77.4Icel. hirdir; Dan. hyrde; Swed.
herde; G. hirt, hirte; Goth. hairdeis. Teut. type *herdyoz, i.e. keeper
of the herd (*herda). See above. Cf. Lithuan. kerdzus, a cow-herd.
Der. cow-herd, goat-herd, shep-herd.
HERE, in this place. (E.) ME. her, heer; Chaucer, C. T. 1610,
1612, AS. hér; Grein, ii. 34.44Du. hier; Icel. hér; Dan. her; Swed.
har; Ὁ. hier; OHG. har; Goth. kér. B. All from the pronominal
base HI (Fick, iii. 74); so that here is related to he just as where is
related to who. See He. Der. here-about, Temp. ii. 2. 41; here-
abouts; hereafter, ME. her-after, Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 243;
here-by, ME. her-bi, Owl and Nightingale, 127 ; here-in, ME. her-inne,
Havelok, 458; here-of, ME. her-of, Havelok, 2585; here-tofore, 1 Sam.
iv. 7; here-unto, 1 Pet. ii. 21; here-upon, answering to ME. her-on,
P. Plowman, B. xii. 130; here-with, Malachi, iii. 10.
HEREDITARY, descending by inheritance. (L.) In Shak.
Temp. ii. 1. 223; and in Cotgrave, to translate MF. hereditatre.
Englished from L. héréditdrius, hereditary. L. héréditds, heredity.
=L. hérédi-, decl. stem of hérés, an heir. See Heir. Der.
hereditari-ly. From the same base we have heredita-ble, a late and
tare word, for which heritable (MF. heritable) was formerly used, as
in Blackstone’s Comment. b. ii. c. 5 (R.); also heredita-ment, in
Fabyan’s Chron., ed. Ellis, p. 650; heredit-y (F. hérédilé, L. acc.
héréditalem).
HERESY, the choice of an opinion contrary to that usually
received. (F.—L.—Gk.) The word means, literally, no more than
‘choice. ME. heresye, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 267 (see Spec. of
English, ed. Morris and Skeat, p. 103, 1. 149); ereste, Wyclif, Acts,
xxiv. 14; Ancren Riwle, p. 82.—OF. heresie, ‘heresie, obstinate or
wicked error;’ Cot.—L. type *éresia, for L. heresis. Gk. αἵρεσις,
a taking, choice, sect, heresy.—Gk. αἱρεῖν, to take, αἱρεῖσθαι, to
choose. Der. heretic, q.v.
HERETIC, the holder of a heresy. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. eretsh,
heretik, \Wyclif, Tit. iii. 10.—OF. heretique, ‘an heretick;’ Cot.=L.
hereticus.— Gk. αἱρετικός, able to choose, heretical. —Gk. αἱρεῖν, to
take, αἱρεῖσθαι, to choose. See Heresy. Der. heretic-al.
HERIOT, a tribute paid to the lord of a manor on the decease of
a tenant. (E.) See Blackstone, Comment. b. ii. capp. 6, 28; and see
Hariot in Blount’s Law Lexicon; and Heriot in Jamieson’s Scot. Dict.
(Sir D. Lyndesay speaks of a herield hors, a horse paid as a heriot,
The Monarche, ὃ. ni. 1. 47343; but this represents AS. keregveld, war-
tax.] ME. heriet ; ‘ And [his beste best [beast] to heriet;’ S. E,
Legendary, ed. Horstmann, p. 445, 1. 480. From AF. heriet, Year-
books of Edw. I (1392-3), p. 213. From AS. heregeatz, lit. military
apparel; Grein, ii. 36. The heregeatu (-geatwa, -geatwe) consisted
of ‘military habiliments or equipments, which, after the death of the
yassal, escheated to the sovereign or lord, to whom they were
delivered by the heir;’ Thorpe, Ancient Laws, Ὁ. ii. glossary, s.v. In
later times, horses and cows, and many other things were paid as
heriols to the lord of the manor. ‘And pam cinge minne heregeatwa,
feower sweord, and féower spxra, and féower scyldas, and féower
beagas,. . {ower hors, and twa sylfrene fata; ’ i. e. And [1 bequeath]
HERON
to the king my heriots, viz. four swords, and four spears, and four
shields, and four torques, . . four horses, and two silver vessels ; Will
dated about 946-955; in Thorpe’s Diplomatarium A®vi Saxonici,
p- 499.—AS. here, an army (hence, belonging to war); and geatw,
pl. geatwe, apparel, adornment ; Grein, i. 495.
HERITAGE, an inheritance. (F.—L.) In early use. ME. heri-
tage, Hali Meidenhad, ed. Cockayne, p. 25, last line but one ; King
Horn, ed. Lumby, 1281; also erifage, Alexander and Dindimus, ed.
Skeat, 981.— OF. heritage, ‘ an inheritance, heritage ;’ Cot. Formed,
with suffix -age (answering to L. -d/icum) from OF, heri/er, to inherit.
—L. héréditare, to inherit; the loss of a syllable is exemplified by
Low L. héritator, used for héréditiitor ; it would seem as if the base
héri- was substituted for hérédi-.—L. hérédi-, decl. stem of herés, an
heir; see Heir. Der. from same source, herit-able, heril-or.
HERMAPHRODITE, an animal or plant of both sexes. (L.
—Gk.) In Gascoigne, The Steele Glas, 1. 53. See Sir Τὶ Browne,
Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 17.—L. hermaphroditus.—Gk. ἑρμαφρόδιτος ;
a coined word, made up from Gk. Ἑρμῆς, Hermes (Mercury), as
representing the male principle; and ᾿Αφροδίτη, Aphrodite (Venus),
the female. Hence the legend that Hermaphroditus, son of Hermes,
and Aphrodite, when bathing, grew together with Salmacis, the
nymph of a fountain, into one person; see Ovid, Met. iv. 383. Der.
hermaphrodit-ic, -ic-al, -ism ; also hermaphrodism.
HERMENBUTIC, explanatory. (Gk.) A modern word. From
Gk. ἑρμηνευτικός, skilled in interpreting. Gk. ἑρμηνευτής, an inter-
preter; of which a shorter form is ἑρμηνεύς. Connected (perhaps)
with L. sermo, speech (Prellwitz). Der. hermeneutic-al, her meneutic-
al-ly, hermeneutics (the science of interpretation).
HERMETIC, chemical, &c. (Gk.) ‘Their seals, their characters,
hermetic rings;’ Ben Jonson, Underwoods, lxi. An Execration upon
Vulcan, 1. 73.—Low L. herméticus, relating to alchemy; a coined
word, made from the name Hermés (=Gk. ἙἝ ρμῆςν) ; from the notion
that the great secrets of alchemy were discovered by Hermés Trisme-
gistus (Hermes the thrice-greatest). Der. hermetic-al, hermetic-al-ly.
4 Hermetically was a term in alchemy ; a glass bottle was said to be
hermetically (i.e. perfectly) sealed when the opening of it was fused
and closed against the admission of air.
HERMIT, one who lives in solitude. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. eremite,
heremite; in early use. [It first appears in Layamon, 18763, where
the earlier text has eremite, the later heremife. This form was taken
directly from L. herémita, the later form hermite being from the French.
Heremite occurs in P. Plowman, B. vi. 190, and even as late as in
Holinshed’s Description of Britain, b. i. c.g (R.).] The shorter form
armyte also occurs in Layamon, 18800; and hermy/e is in Berners’
tr. of Froissart, vol. 11. c. 204 (R.).—F. hermite, ‘an hermit ;* Cot.=<
Late L. heremita, for herémita, in P. Plowman, B. xv. 2813 but
usually erémitta.— Gk. ἐρεμίτης, a dweller in a desert. —Gk. ἐρημία, a
solitude, desert.—Gk. ἐρῆμος, deserted, desolate. Root uncertain ;
perhaps allied to Goth. arms, poor (Prellwitz). Der. hermit-age,
Spenser, F. Q. i. 1. 34, spelt heremytage, Mandeville’s Travels, p. 93,
from F. hermitage, ‘an hermitage;’ Cot. Also hermit-ic-al, spelt
heremiticall in Holinshed, Desc. of Britain, b. i. c.g (R.), from L.
herémiticus (better erémiticus), solitary.
HERN, the same as Heron, q.y.
HERNIA, a kind of rupture; a surgical term. (L.) In Kersey,
εἄ. 1715; hirnia in Chaucer, C. T. Pers. Tale (1 423).—L. herna, a
rupture, hernia.
HERO, a warrior, illustrious man. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Hamlet,
li. 2. 270.— MF. heroé,‘a worthy, a demygod;’ Cot.—L. herdem, acc.
of hérds, a hero.—Gk. ἥρως, a hero, demi-god. 4 The mod. F.
heros is now accommodated to the spelling of the L.nom. The L.
acc. is, however, still preserved in the Span. heroe, Ital. eroe. Der.
hero-ic, spelt heroicke in Spenser, F.Q.v.1. 1, from MF. heroique (Cot.),
which from L. héréicus; hero-ic-al-ly, hero-ism; also hero-ine, q. v.
HEROINE, a famous woman. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Minsheu.
‘A heroine is a kinde of prodigy ;’ Evelyn, Memoirs; Mrs. Evelyn
to Mr, Bohun, Jan. 4, 1672 (R.).— MF. heroine, ‘a most worthy lacy;
Cot.=—L. hérdine. — Gk. ἡρωΐνη, f. of ἥρως, hero (above).
HERON, a long-legged water-fowl. (F.—OHG.) ME. heroune,
Chaucer, Parliament of Foules, 346. Also hayron, Wright's Vocab.
1. 177; (Voc. 625. 4). ‘ Heern, bytde, heryn, herne, ardea;’ Prompt.
Parv. p. 237. — OF. hairon, ‘a heron, herne, hernshaw;’ Cot. (Mod. F.
heron; OProv. aigros; Ital. aghtrone, atrone ; Span. avron.) —OHG,
heigir, heiger, a heron; with suffixed -on (Ital. -ove). Allied to
Swed. hdger, a heron; Dan. heire, a heron; Icel. hegri, a heron;
OHG. hehara, G. λάλον, heher, a jackdaw; AS. higora, a magpie;
Gk. κίσσα (for *xix-ya), Skt. ζχιλῖ-, a jay (Prellwitz); of imitative
origin. Brugmann, 1. §§ 86, 639. 4 The AS. name was hragra,
Wright's Vocab. i. 29, col. 1 (Voc. 6. 37) ; with which cf. G. rether,
a heron; Du. resger; allied to Gk. κριγή, a creaking, xpiCew, to
screech. Der, heron-er, ME. heronere, Chaucer, Troilus, iv. 4133
269
270 HERONSHAW, HERNSHAW
from OF. haironnier; Cotgrave explains faulcon haironnier as ‘a
herner, a faulcon made only to the heron.’ Also heron-ry, And see
Heronshaw, Egret.
HERONSHAW, HERNSHAW, (1) a young heron, (2) a
heronry. (F.—OHG.) Spenser has herneshaw, a young heron; F. Ὁ.
vi. 7.9. Two distinct words have been confused here. 1. Hernshaw,
a heron, is a corruption of heronsewe; the name heronsew for the heron
is still common in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. Mr. Peacock’s Glos-
sary of Manley and Corringham (Lincoln) words has: ‘ Heronsew,
the common heron, ‘‘ There were vewed at this present survey cer-
tayne heronsewes whiche have allwayes used to brede there to the
number of iiij.”—Survey of Glastonbury, temp. Hen. VIII, Mon. Ang.
i. 11. See Chaucer, Squyeres Tale, F. 68.’ The etymology of this
heronsewe is given by Tyrwhitt, who cites the F. herongeau trom ‘the
glossary,’ meaning probably that in Urry’s ed. of Chaucer; but it is
verified by the fact that the OF. herouncel (older form of herongeaw)
occurs in the Liber Custumarum, p. 304, and means ‘a young heron.’
And again, Palsgrave has ‘ heronceau, an hernshawe ;’ p. 187. ‘The
suffix -c-el is a double dimin., as in dion-c-el, later lionceau. Forew<F.
eau, cf, ME, bew-tee=F, beau-té. 2. Hernshaw in its other sense
is due to a (false) popular etymology, as if it were from heron,
and shaw, a wood. ‘This sense is given by Cotgrave, who explains
OF. haironniere by ‘a heron’s neast, or ayrie; a herneshaw, or shaw
of wood wherein herons breed.’ Hence heronshaw (1) is (F.—OHG.,) ;
heronshaw (2) is hybrid.
HERRING, a small fish. (E.) ME. hering (with one r), Have-
lok, 758. AS. hérincg; the pl. hérincgas is in A®lfric’s Colloquy, in
Thorpe’s Analecta, p. 24; also héring, Wright’s Vocab. i. 56, 1. 4
(Voc. 94. 13; 181. 4). -Ἐ Du. haring; G. haring; OHG. haring
(Kluge). β. The explanation that the fish is named ‘from its ap-
pearance in large shoals, from the Teut. type *karjoz, an army (as
seen in Goth. harjis, AS. here, G. heer), seems to be phonetically im-
possible. The word remains unexplained.
HESITATE, to doubt, stammer. (L.) Spelt hesitate, hesitate in
Minsheu, ed. 1627. [Perhaps suggested by the sb. hesitation, which
occurs in Cotgrave to translate F. hesitation, whereas he explains hest-
ter only by ‘to doubt, ἔξαγε, stick, stammer, stagger in opinion.’] =
L. hesitatus, pp. of hesitare, to stick fast; a frequentative formed from
hesum, supine of herére, to stick, cleave. + Lithuanian gaiszti, gaisz-
oti, to tarry, delay (Nesselmann); Fick, i. 576.—4/GHAIS, to stick,
cleave; where the gh is not palatal. Brugmann, i. § 627. Der.
hesitat-ion, hesit-anc-y; from the same root, ad-here, co-here, in-her-ent.
HESPERIAN, western. (L.—Gk.) ‘Your feigned Hesperian
orchards ;’ Massinger, Virgin Martyr, A. iv. sc. 3 (where it refers to the
Hesperides). —L. Hesperi-us, western; with suffix -an.—L. Hesperi-a.
- Gk. Ἑ σπερία, the western land ; fem. of ἑσπέριος, evening, western.
-- Gk. ἕσπερος, evening. L. uesper, evening; see Vesper. Der.
Closely allied to the adj. ἑσπέριος is the fem. éomepis, whence the pl.
‘Eorepides, the daughters of Night, who dwelt in a western isle, and
guarded a garden with golden apples; Hesiod, Th. 215.
HEST, a command. (E.) ME. hest, heste, ἃ command; also, a
promise ; Chaucer, C. T. 11376 (F 1064). The final ¢ is properly
excrescent, as in whils-t, agains-t, amongs-t, amids-t, from ME. whiles,
againes, amonges, amiddes. AS, h#s,a command, Grein, i. 24; Teut.
type *hatttiz, f. (>*haissiz, with ss for ¢t).— AS. hatan, to command;
Teut. type *haitan-. + Icel. heit, a vow, from heita, to call, promise ;
OHG. heiz (G. geheiss), a command, from OHG. heizan (G. heissen),
to call, bid, command. Cf. Goth. haitan, to name, call, command.
HETEROCLITE, irregularly inflected. (L.—Gk.) A gram-
matical term; hence used in the general sense of irregular, disorderly.
‘Ther are strange heferoclites in religion now adaies;’ Howell, Familiar
Letters, vol. iv. let. 35.—L. heteroclitus, varying in declension. = Gk.
ἑτερόκλιτος, otherwise or irregularly inflected. — Gk. ἕτερο-, decl. stem
of ἕτερος, other; and -κλιτος, formed from «Awe, to lean, hence, to
vary as ἃ case does, cognate with E, Jean (1).
HETERODOX, of strange opinion; heretical. (Gk.) In
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Compounded from Gk. €repo-, decl. stem
of ἕτερος, another, other; and δύξα, opinion, from δοκεῖν, to think.
Der. heterodox-y, Gk. ἑτεροδοξία.
HETEROGENEOUS, dissimilar in kind. (Gk.) Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674, gives the adjectives heterogene,-heterogeneal, and the
sb. heterogeneity, Compounded from Gk, ἕτερο-, decl. stem of ἕτερος,
another, other; and γένος, kind, kin, cognate with E. hin. Der.
heterogeneous-ly, -ness; heterogene-it-y.
HETMAN, a captain; of Cossacks, or in Poland. (Pol.—G.)
First in 1710, in Whitworth, Acc. of Russia (ed. 1758, p. 19). =
Polish hetman (Russ. ataman’), ἃ. captain. G. kaupiman, a captain.
=—G. haupt, head; and mann, man.
HEW, to hack, cut. (E.) ME. hewen, Chaucer, C. T. 1424 (A
1422). AS. héawan, to hew; Grein, ii. 62.+Du. howwen; Icel.
hoggva; Swed. hugga; Dan. hugge; G. hauen; OHG. houwan. Teut.
HIDALGO
type *hauwan-. + Russ. kovate, to hammer, forge; Lith. kauti, to
fight; cf. Lith. kowd, battle. Allied to L. cuidere, to strike, pound,
beat. Brugmann, i. § 639. The root appears to be KEU, to
strike, beat. Der. hew-er; also hay (1), q.v.; hoe, q.v,
HEXAGON, a plane figure, with six sides and angles. (L.—Gk.)
Hexagonal is in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Hexagone in Minsheu,
ed. 1627. Named from its six angles. —L. hexagonum, a hexagon. =
Gk. ἑξάγωνος, six-cornered.—Gk. ἕξ, six, cognate with E. six; and
γωνία, an angle, corner, allied to γόνυ, knee, cognate with E. knee.
See Six and Knee. Der. hexagon-al, hexagon-al-ly.
HEXAMETER, a certain kind of verse having six feet. (L.—
Gk.) ‘This provoking song in hexameter verse ;” Sidney’s Arcadia,
b. i. (R.). ‘1 like your late Englishe hexameters ;’ Spenser, letter to
Harvey, qu. in Globe ed. of Spenser, p. xxviii. —L. kexameter ; also
hexametrus.— Gk. ἑξάμετρος, a hexameter; properly an adj. meaning
“of six metres’ or feet. — Gk. ἕξ, six, cognate with E, six; and μέτρον,
a measure, metre. See Six and Metre.
HEY, interjection. (E.) ME. hei, Legend of St. Katharine, ]. 579;
hay, Gawayn and Grene Knight, 1445. A natural exclamation. + ἃ.
hei, interjection; Du. hei, hey! ho!
HEYDAY (1), interjection (G. or Du.) In Shak. Temp. ii. 2.
190. ‘Heyda, what Hans Flutterkin is this? what Dutchman does
build or frame castles in the air?’ Ben Jonson, Masque of Augurs.
‘Toly rutterkin, heyda!’ Skelton, Magnif. 757. Borrowed either
from G. heida, ho! hallo! or from Du. hei daar, ho! there. It comes
to much the same thing. The G. da, Du. daar, are cognate with E.
there. B. But note that Cotgrave has MF, hadea, ‘ inter). of perceiving
or surprising, ha! are you there?’; cf. OF. λό dea, hé dia, inter).
(Godetlroy, 5. v. dea). @ The interj. ey is older; see above.
HEYDAY (2), frolicsome wildness. (E.) ‘At your age the heyday
in the blood is tame;’ Hamlet, iii. 4.69. I take this to be quite a
different word from the foregoing, though the commentators confuse
the two. In this case, and in the expression ‘ keyday of youth,’ the
word may well stand for high day (ME. hey day); and it is not sur-
prising that the old editions of Shakespeare have highday in place of
heyday; only, unluckily, in the wrong place, viz. Temp. ii. 2.190. So
also ‘in the highday of blood;’ Macklin, Love-a-la-Mode, A. i (Sir
Archy); ‘in the kighday of youth ;’ Smollett, Hum. Clinker, 1771, ii.
50. Cf. ‘that sabbath day was an high day ;’ John, xix. 31. For the
old spellings of high, see High.
HIATUS, a gap, defect, &c. (L.) In Bailey’s Dict., vol. ii. ed.
1731.—L. hiatus, a gap, chasm; cf. hiatus, pp. of hiare, to yawn,
gape; cognate with E. yawn. See Yawn. Doublet, chasm, q.v.
HIBERNAL, wintry. (F.—L.) In Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors,
b. iv. c. 13, § 10, where it is spelt hybernal. -α Ἐς hibernal, ‘ wintery ;’
Cot.—L. hibernalis, wintry (Wisdom, xvi. 29, Vulg.); lengthened
from L. hibernus, wintry. B. Hi-bernus is allied to Gk. χειμερινός,
wintry, χεῖμα, winter; and to L. hi-ems, winter, Gk. χιτών, snow,
Skt. Ai-ma-s, cold, winter; the form of the root is GHEI. Der. from
same source, hibern-ate.
HICCOUGH, HICCUP, HICKET, a spasmodic inspiration,
with closing of the glottis, causing a slight sound. (E.) Now generally
spelt hiccough. Spelt hiccup (riming with prick up), Butler's Hudibras,
pt. ii. c. 1. 346. Also hicke?, as in the old edition of Sir T. Browne,
Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. iv. c. 9, ὃ 5; and in Minsheu. Also hichcock; Florio
explains Ital. singhiozzi by ‘ yeaxings, hichecocks.’ Also hickock ; Cot-
grave has: ‘ Hoquet, the hickock, or yexing;’ also ‘ Hocqueter, to yex,
or clock [cluck], to have the hickup or hickcock.’ B. It seems to be
generally considered that the second syllable is cough, but it is ascer-
tained (see N. E. D.) that hiccongh is an accommodated spelling, due
to popular etymology. The evidence takes us back to the forms
hick-ock, hick-et, both formed from hick by the help of the usual dimin.
suffixes -ock, -et. Cf. Ἐς hogu-et, the hiccough, in which the final
-et is certainly a dimin. suffix; Walloon hikett, a hiccough, hiket,
a shaking (Remacle). y. The former syllable hic, hik, or hick is
of imitative origin, to denote the spasmodic sound or jerk; and is
preserved in the proy. E. hick, to hiccough. It is not peculiar
to English. + MDu. huck-up, ‘the hick or hock ;’ also hick, ‘ the hick-
hock,’ Hexham; Du. Aik, the hiccough, hikken, to hiccough; Dan.
hikke, the hiccough; also, to hiccough; Swed. hicka, the hiccough ;
also, to hiccough. And cf. W. ig, a hiccough, sob; igio, to sob;
Breton, kik, a hiccough, called kak in the dialect of Vannes, whence
(perhaps) F. koguet. δ. All from an imitative base HIK, variant
form of KIK, used to denote convulsive movements in the throat;
see Chinecough.
HICKORY, an American tree of the genus Carya. (N. Amer.
Indian.) Short for pohickery, recorded in 1653 as the Amer. Indian
name}; Virginian powcohicora (Trumbull).
HIDALGO, a Spanish nobleman of the lowest class. (Span. —L.)
The word occurs in Terry, Voyage to East India, ed. 1655, p. 169
(Todd) ; fidalgo, Sir T. Herbert’s Travels, ed. 1665, p. 116.—Span.
HIDE
hidalgo, a nobleman ; OSpan. fidalgo, Port. fidalgo, a nobleman ; also
MSpan. hijodalgo (Minsheu). Lit. ‘son of something,’ i.e.ason to whom
a father has left an estate. (So Korting; the explanation from filius
Italicus is baseless.) B. Hijo, OSpan. fijo, is from L. filium, acc. of
filius, son; see Filial; -d’algo is from L. dé aliquo, of something.
HIDE (1), to cover, conceal. (E.) ME. hiden, huden; Chaucer,
C. T. 1479 (A 1477); Ancren Riwle, p.130. AS. kydan, Grein, ii.
125. ++ Gk. κεύθειν, to hide. And cf. L. cus-tds, a custodian (see
Custody); W. cuddio, to hide (base coud-).—4/ KEUDH, to hide.
Der. hid-ing. Brugmann, i. ὃ 699.
HIDE (2), a skin. (E.) ME. hyde, Pricke of Conscience, 1. 5299 ;
hude, Ancren Riwle, p. 120. AS. hyd, the skin; Grein, ii..125.-
Du, huid; Icel. hud; Dan. and Swed. hud; OHG. hat; G. haut. +L.
cutis, skin; Gk. κύτος, σκῦτος, skin, hide; OPruss. ἀεμέο, hide.
=SKEU, to cover; Fick, i. 816. See Sky. Der. hide-bound,
said of a tree the bark of which impedes its growth, Milton’s Areo-
pagitica, ed. Hales, p. 32, 1.2; also hide (3).
HIDE (3), to flog, castigate. (E.) Colloquial; ‘to skin’ by
flogging. Cf. Icel. hyda, to flog; from hid, the hide. Der. hid-ing.
HIDE (4), a measure of land. (E.) ‘ Hide of land;’ Blount’s Law
Dict., ed. 1691. Of variable size; estimated at 120 or 100 acres; or
even much less; see Blount. Low L. hida; Ducange. AS. hid;
/Elfred’s tr. of Bede, b. ili. c. 243 b. iv. c.13, 16,19. (See Kemble’s
Saxons in England, b. i. ε. 4; and the Appendix, showing that the
estimate at 120 or Ioo acres is too large.) B. This word is of a
contracted form; the full form is kigid; Thorpe, Diplomatarium
ZEvi Saxonici, p. 657 ; Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus, no. 243. This
form higid is equivalent to hiwisc, another term for the same thing ;
and both words orig. meant (as Beda says) an estate sufficient to
support οὔθ family or household. They are, accordingly, closely con-
nected with AS, hiwan, domestics, those of one household, and with
the Goth. heiwa-frauja, the master of a household; see further under
Hind (2). 47 Popular etymology has probably long ago confused
the hide of land with hide, a skin; but the two words must be kept
entirely apart. \ The former is AS. higid, the latter AS. hyd.
HIDEOUS, ugly, horrible. (F.—L.?) The central e has crept
into the word, and it has become trisyllabic ; the true form is hidous.
It is trisyllabic in Shak. Merry Wives, iv. 3. 34. ME. hidous (the
invariable form) ; Chaucer, C. T., A 3520; healsohas hidously, C. T.,
A 1701.—OF. hidos, hidus, hideus, later hideux, hideous; the earliest
form is hisdos. B. Of uncertain origin; if the former s in hisdos is
not an inserted letter, the probable original is L. hispiddsus, roughish,
an extended form of L. hispidus, rough, shaggy, bristly. (Korting,
§ 4581.) Der. hideous-ly, hideous-ness.
HIE, to hasten, (E.) ME. hien, hyen, hijen; P. Plowman, B. xx.
322; cf. Chaucer, C. T. 10605 (F 291). The ME. sb. hie or hye, haste,
is also found; id. 4629 (B 209). AS. higian (higian?), to hasten;
Grein, ii. 72. B. Allied to Du. kijgen, to pant; which seems to be
of imitative origin.
HIERARCHY, a sacred government. (F.—Gk.) Gascoigne has
the pl. hierarchies; Steel Glas, 993; ed. Arber, p. 77; spelt hierarches,
Sir Τὶ Elyot, The Governour, i. 1. ὃ 4.—F. hierarchie, ‘an hierarchy ;’
Cot. Gk. ἱεραρχία, the power or post of an ἱεράρχης. — Gk. ἱεράρχη»,
a steward or president of sacred rites.—Gk. fep-, for ἱερός, sacred ;
and ἄρχειν, to rule, govern. B. The orig. sense of ἱερὸς was ‘ vigor-
ous;’ cognate with Skt. ishiras, vigorous, fresh, blooming (in the
Peterb. Dict.); see Brugmann, i. § 851. For ἄρχειν, see Arch-,
prefix. Der. hierarchi-c-al; we also find hierarch (Milton, P. L. v.
| 468), from Gk. ἱεράρχης.
HIEROGLYPHIC, symbolical ; applied to picture writing.
(L.—Gk.) ‘The characters which are called hieroglyphicks;’ Holland,
tr. of Plutarch, p. 1051 (R.). ‘An hieroglyphical answer ;’? Ralegh,
| Hist. of the World, b. ili. c. 5. s. 4 (R.).—L. hieroglyphicus, sym-
| bolical.=Gk. ἱερογλυφικός, hieroglyphic. Gk. fepo-, decl. stem of
ἱερός, sacred; and γλύφειν, to hollow out, engrave, carve, write in
incised characters. See Hierarchy and Glyptic. Der. hiero-
glyphic-al, -al-ly; also the sb. hieroglyph, coined by omitting -ic,
HIEROPHANT, a revealer of sacred things, a priest. (Gk.)
In Warburton’s Divine Legation, b. ii. s. 4 (R.).—Gk. ἱεροφάντης,
teaching the rites of worship. — Gk. fepo-, for ἱερός, sacred; and φαίνειν,
to show, explain. See Hierarchy and Phantom.
| HIGGLE, to chaffer, bargain. (E.) ‘To higgle thus;” Butler,
Hudibras, pt. ii. c. 2. 1. 491. And used by Fuller, Worthies, North-
umberland (R.). .A weakened form of haggle; see Haggle (2).
| Der. higgl-er.
| HIGH, tall, lofty, chief, illustrious. (E.) ME. heigh, high, hey,
hy; Chaucer, C.T., A 316; P. Plowman, B.x.155. AS. héah, heh;
| Grein, ii. 44. - Du. hoog; Icel. har; Swed. hog; Dan. hoi; Goth.
| hauhs; G. hoch; OHG. koh. Teut. type *hauhoz. B. The orig. sense
| i8 “knoblike,’ humped or bunched up; cf. G. hiigel, a bunch, knob,
hillock ; Icel. haugr, a mound. ‘The still older sense is simply
'
HIND
‘rounded ;’ cf. Lith. kauvkaras, a hill, kaukas, a boil, a swelling ; Skt.
kucha-s, the female breast. 4/KEUK, to bend, make round; ef. Skt.
kuch, to contract, bend. Der. height, q.v.; high-ly; also high-born,
K. John, v. 2.793; high-bred; high-coloured, Ant. and Cleop. il. 7. 45
high-fed; high-flown ; high-handed; high-minded, τ Hen. VI, i. 5.12;
high-minded-ness ; high-ness, Temp. ii. 1.1723 high-priest; high-road;
high-spirited ; high-way=ME. heigh weye, P. Plowman, B. x. 155;
high-way-man; high-wrought, Othello, ii. 1. 2; with numerous similar
compounds. Also high-land (below) ; and see how (2).
HIGHLAND, belonging to a mountainous region. (1.) ‘A
generation of highland thieves and redshanks ;’ Milton, Observ. on
the Art. of Peace (quoted in Todd). AS. héahlond, ahigh land; from
héah, high, and lond, land; Cadmon, Exod. 385. Der. highland-er ;
highlands.
HIGHT, was or is called. (E.) Obsolete. A most singular word,
presenting the sole instance in English of a passive verb ; the correct
phrase was he hight =he was (or is) called, or he was named. ‘ This
grisly beast, which lion hight by name’ = which is called by the name
of lion; Mids. Nt. Dr. ν. 140. ME. highte. ‘ But ther as I was wont
to highte [be called] Arcite, Now highte I Philostrat ;’ Chaucer, C.T.,
A1557. Older forms hatte, hette. ‘ Clarice hatte that maide’ =the maid
was named Clarice ; Floriz and Blancheflur, ed. Lumby, 1. 479.
‘Thet hetten Calef and Josue’ =that were named Caleb and Joshua ;
Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 67. And see Stratmann’s Dict., s.v. halen.
From AS. hatte, I am called, I was called; pres. and pt. t. passive
or middle, of AS, hatan, active verb, to bid, command, call; Grein,
ii. 16, 17. Icel. heiti, I am named, from heita, to call; G. ich
heisse, I am named, from heissen, to call. B. Best illustrated by
Gothic, which has haitan, to call, name, pt. t. haihait; whence was
formed the passive pres. tense haitada, I am called, he is called; as
in ‘Thomas, saei kaifada Didymus’ = Thomas, who is called
Didymus; John, xi. 16. See Hest.
HILARITY, cheerfulness, mirth. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘ Restraining
his ebriety unto hilarity ;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. v. c. 23,
§ 16.—F. hilari/é, mirth; omitted by Cotgrave, but see Littré. =
Ι,. hilaritatem, acc. of hilaritas, mirth.—L. hilaris, hilarus, cheerful,
gay. Not an orig. L. word; but borrowed.—Gk. ἱλαρός, cheerful,
gay. Cf. Gk. ἵλαος, propitious, kind ; ἵλημι, 1am gracious.—4/ SEL;
whence E. silly. Brugmann, iv. § 594. Der. Hence the late word
hilari-ous, formed as if from a L. *hilaridsus; hilarious does not occur
in Todd’s Johnson. From same source, ex-hilarate. 47 Hilary Term
is so called from the festival of St. Hilary (L. Hilarius); Jan. 13.
HILDING, a base, menial wretch. (E.) In Shak. used of both
sexes; Tam. Shrew, ii. 26; &c. [Not derived, as Dr. Schmidt says,
from AS, healdan, to hold; which is impossible.] We also find
helding, hilding, heilding, applied to a worthless horse, a jade
(N.E.D.). Prob. from ME. helden, to incline, to bend down. Cf.
ME. heldinge, a bending aside; AS. hylding, a bending (Voc. 382. 2).
See Heel (2). -
HILL, a small mountain. (E.) ME. hil (with one 1); Havelok,
1287; also kul, Ancren Riwle, p. 178. AS. ἀν; Grein, ii, 132.
‘Collis, Ayll;* Wright’s Vocab. i. 54, col. 1 (Voc. 177, 24). And
see Northumbrian version of St. Luke, xxiii. 30.44MDu. hil, hille ;
Oudemans. B. Further allied to Lithuan. kalnas, L. collis, a hill;
culmen, a top; Gk. κολωνός, a hill. Brugmann, i. § 633. See
Culminate, and Holm. From /QEL, to be elevated, rise up.
Der. hill-y, hill-i-ness; dimin. hill-ock, in Shak. Venus and Adonis,
237. 4 Not connected with G. hiige/, a hill; for that is related to
E. how, a hill; see How (2).
HILT, the handle of a sword. (E.) In Shak. Hamlet, v. 2. 159;
it was common to use the pl. A/¢s with reference to a single weapon ;
Jul. Cesar, v. 3. 43. ME. hilt; Layamon, 6506. AS. hil, Grein,
li. 75; helt, O. E. Texts. 4 Icel. kjalt ; Dan. hjalte; North Fries.
heelt; OHG. helza, a sword-hilt. Cf OF. helt (from Teutonic).
Perhaps allied to Low G. he//t, an ax-handle, and to Helve. Der.
hilt-ed.
HIM, the objective case of he; see He.
HIN, a Hebrew liquid measure. (Heb.) In Exod. xxix. 40, &c.
Supposed to contain about 6 quarts. — Heb. hin, a hin; said to. be a
word of Egyptian origin.
HIND (1), the female of the stag. (E.) ME. hind, hynde; P.
Plowman, B. xv. 274. AS. hind, fem.; Grein, ii. 7γ6. « Du. hinde,
a hind, doe. + Icel., Dan., and Swed. hind; OHG, hinta, MHG. hinde ;
whence G. hindin, a doe, with suffixed (fem.) -ix. Perhaps allied to
Gk. κεμ-άς, a young deer. Der. hind-berry, a wild raspberry.
HIND (2), a peasant. (F.) In Spenser, F. Q. vi. 8.12. The d
is excrescent. ME. hine, Chaucer, C. T. 605 (A 603); hyne, P-
Plowman, B. vi..133. AS. *hkiza, a.domestic; but the word 1s un-
authenticated as a nom. sing., and was orig. a gen. pl.; so that hina
really stands for hina man=a man of the domestics. We find hina
ealdor =elder of the domestics, i.e. master of a household; “ΕἸ το 5
271
272 HIND
tr. of Beda, iii.9. B. Further, hina stands for higna, gen. pl. of hiwan
(pl. nom.), domestics; Grein, ii. 78. Cf. hiwen, a family; hiwre#den,
a household; also G. hei-rath, marriage ; Goth. hetwa-frauja, master
of a household. Allied to L. ciués, a citizen. Brugmann, i. § Gog.
HIND (3), adj. in the rear. (E.) We say ‘hind feet,’ i.e. the two
feet of a quadruped in the rear. But the older expression is ‘ hinder
feet,’ as in St. Brandan, ed. Wright, p. 30, the positive degree not being
used ; we also find hynderere, hyndrere, Wyclif, Gen. xvi. 13 ; hyndre:t,
Chaucer, C. T. 624 (A 622). AS. hindan, only as ady., at the back
of 3 hindeweard, hindwards, backwards ; hinder, ady. backwards;
Grein, ii. 76. + Goth. hindar, prep. behind; hindana, prep. beyond ;
Ὁ. hinter, prep. behind; hinten, adv. behind; OHG., hintaro, comp.
adj., hinder. We also find Goth. hindumists, hindmost. All from
the base which appears in AS. hin-an (heon-an), hence; while the
comp. suffix -der answers to Gk.-repo-. See Hence, He, Behind.
Der. hind-ward, Wyclif, Ps. xlix. 17, ixix. 4; also hind-most, q. v. ;
hinder, verb, q.v.; be-hind.
HINDER, to put behind, keep back, check. (E.) ME. hindren,
hyndren; Gower, C. A. i. 311; bk. iii. 937. He also has the sb.
hinderer ; i. 3303 iii. 111; bk. iil. 1526; bk. vii. 803. AS. hindrian;
A. 5. Chron. an, 1003.—AS. hinder, adv. behind; cf. hindan,
behind. + Icel. hindra, to hinder; G. hindern. See Hind (3). Der.
hinder-er ; also hindr-ance (for hinder-ance), with F. suffix -ance ;
‘damages, hurt, or hinderaunce;’ Frith’s Works, p. 15; and see
La Belle Dame sans Merci, 602.
HINDMOST, last. (E.) In Shak.Sonnet, 85.12; 2 Hen. VI,
111. 1. 2; cf. henmast, Barbour, Bruce, viii. 245. The suffix is the
word most, and the compound is of late formation. B. Distinct from
AS. hindema, hindmost; Grein, ii. 76; where the suffix -ma is the
same as that seen in L. opti-mus, optu-mus, best ; see Aftermost;
cf. Goth. hindumists, hindmost, Matt. viii. 12 ; to be divided as hind-
u-m-ists; cf. Goth. fru-ma, first. See Hind (3). 4 Also spelt
hindermost, as in Holinshed, Hist. Scotland, an. 1290 (R.). And
again, we have ME. hind-r-est, as in Chaucer, C. T. 624 (A 622).
HINGE, the joint on which a door turns. (E.) The was formerly
e. ME. henge (with hard g), a hinge; with dimin. form hengel, a
hinge. ‘As a dore is turned in his hengis’ [earlier version, in his
heeng]; Wyclif, Prov. xxvi. 14. Hengyl of a dore;’ Prompt. Parv.
Ὁ. 235. ‘Hic gumser, a hengylle;’ Wright’s Vocab. i. 261, col. 1
(Voc. 779. 3). B. So called because the door hangs upon it; from
ME. hengen, to hang. ‘Henged ona tre;’ Havelok, 1429. Hengen
is a later variant (cf. Icel. hengja) of ME. hangien, AS. hangian, to
hang; see Hang. Cf. AS. henge-clif, a steep cliff, and stone-henge ;
Dan. dial. hinge, henge, a hinge (Dan. hengsel); Low G. henge;
MDu. henge, hengene, a hinge (Du. hengsel). For the sound, cf. singe,
swinge. Der. hinge, verb.
HINT, a slight allusion. (E.) a. The verb is later than the sb.
‘As I have hinted in some former papers;’ Tatler, no. 267. First
found in 1648. Only the sb. occurs in Shak., where it is a common
word ; Oth. i. 3.142,166. Esp. used in the phrases ‘ to take the hint,’
or ‘upon this hint.’ B. Hint properly signifies ‘a thing taken,’ i.e.
a thing caught or apprehended ; being a derivative of the ME. henten
(pp. kent), to seize upon. Palsgrave has: “7 hente, I take by vyolence;’
also spelt hinten. Cf. hint, sb., a sudden seizure, Dunbar, Fenyeit
Friar, 1. 88. ‘ Hyntyd, raptus; Hyntyn, or revyn, or hentyn, rapio,
arripio ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 240. ‘The earlier spelling of the verb was
henten, pt. τ. hente, Chaucer, C. T. 700 (A 698); the pp. kent occurs
even in Shak. Meas. iv. 6. 14. AS. hentan, to seize, to hunt after ;
Grein, ii. 34. Cf. Goth. -hinthan, to seize. See Hunt. Der. hint,
verb.
HIP (1), the haunch, upper part of the thigh. (E.) ME. hupe, hipe,
hippe. ‘About hire hipes large;’ Chaucer, C. T. 474 (A 472).
‘ Hupes had hue faire’ =she had fair hips; Alisaunder, l. 190; printed
with Will. of Palerne, ed. Skeat. AS. hype; Gregory's Pastoral, ed.
Sweet, p. 383, 1. 2. - Du. hexp; (Dan. hofte; Swed. hoft; from G.
hiifte); Goth. hups; OHG. huf. B. The suffixed - or -te in some
of these words stands for the Idg. suffix -fo-; the older Teut. type is
*hupiz. Perhaps allied to Gk. κύβος, the hollow near the hips of
cattle. Der. hip-bone, AS. hype-ban; Wright’s Vocab. i. 44, col. I,
last line (Voc. 159. 24). ἔφ" The word hipped, depressed, is con-
nected with hypochondria; see Hippish.
HIP (2), also HEP, the fruit of the dog-rose. (E.) ME. hepe.
‘And swete as is the bremble flour That bereth the rede hepe ;’
Chaucer, C. T. 13677 (B 937). AS. héope (Voc. 133. 36); whence
the comp. héop-brymel, a hip-bramble; Wright’s Vocab. i. 33, col. 1;
to translate L. rubus (Voc. 138. 37). Dan. hyben, pl.; MDan. hjuben-
torn, hip-thorn; MHG. hiefe, OHG. hiufo, a bramble-bush.
HIPPISH, hypochondriacal. (Gk.) In Byron, Beppo, st. 64.
The word is merely a colloquial substitute for hypochondriacal, of
which only the first syllableis preserved. Hence hippish is for hyp-ish.
See Somerville’s poem entitled ‘ The Hip.’
HITCH
HIPPOCAMPUS, a kind of fish. (Gk.) Hyppocamps ends a line
in W. Browne’s Britannia’s Pastorals, bk. ii. song 1. It has a head
like a horse, and a long flexible tail; whence the name.—Gk.
ἱπποκάμπος͵ ἱπποκάμπη, a monster, with a horse’s head and fish’s tail.
— Gk, inno-, for ἵππος, a horse; and κάμπος, masc. of κάμπη, a cater-
pillar, also a sea-monster, allied to κάμπ-τειν, to bend.
HIPPOPOTAMUS, the river-horse. (L.—Gk.) ME. yfota-
mus, Alexander and Dindimus, ed. Skeat, 157. Also ypotanos, King
Alisaunder, 6554. Both corrupted from L. hippopotamus.—Gk.
ἱπποπόταμος, the river-horse of Egypt; also called ἵππος ποτάμιος --
river-dwelling horse.—Gk. ἱππο-, for ἵππος, a horse; and ποταμός,
a river. B. The Gk. ἵππος has a dial. by-form ἴκκος, cognate with
L. eguus, a horse; see Equine. Ποταμός is ‘running’ water; cf.
Gk. ποτ-ή, flight, mér-opa, I fly (Prellwitz). gs From the same
Gk. ἔἕππος we have hippo-drome, a race-course for horses; hippo-phagy,
a feeding on horse-flesh ; hippo-griff, a monster, half horse, half
griffin; &c.
HIRE, wages for service. (E.) ME. hyre, Chaucer, C. T. 509
(A 507); also hure, huyre, hyre, P. Plowman, A. ii. οἵ; B. ii. 122.
AS. hyr, fem. (gen. Ayre), Luke xix. 23.44Du. huur, wages, service ;
Swed. hyra, rent, wages ; Dan. Ayre, hire ; prov. G. heuer, hire (Fliigel's
Dict.). Teut.type *hir-ja, f. Der. hire, verb, AS. hyrian, Matt. xx.
73 hire-ling, AS. hyrling, Mark, i. 20.
HIRSUTE, rough, shaggy, bristly. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674; and in Bacon, Nat. Hist., § 616.—L. hirsiitus, rough, bristly.
Allied to Gk. χέρσος, dry, hard; L. horrére, to bristle. See
Horror. Der. hirsute-ness (Todd).
HIS, of him, of it. (E.) Formerly neut. as well as masc. AS. his,
gen. m. and n. of ἀξ, he. See He, Its.
HISS, to make a sound like a serpent ora goose. (E.) Wyclif
has hisshing, a hissing, 2 Chron. xxix. 8; and hisse, v., Isa. v. 26.
The L. sibulat is glossed by hyssyt, i.e. hisses ; Wright's Vocab. i. 180,
1. 1 (Voc. 627. 15).4-MFlem, hisschen, to hiss; Kilian, Oudemans ;
Norw. hyssa; MSwed. hyss, a noise to drive away pigs (Ihre) ; Gascon
hissa, to hiss (Moncaut). B. Formed from the sound; the Du, sissen,
Ὁ. zischen, to hiss, are even more expressive ; cf. fizz, whizz, whistle.
Der. hiss, sb.; hiss-ing, Jer. xviii. 16, &c.; and see hist, hush.
HIST, an interjection enjoining silence. (E.) InShak. Romeo,
ii. 2. 159. In Milton, Il Penseroso, 55, the word hist appears to
mean ‘to summon by saying hist;’ so that ‘ And the mute silence
hist along’ =summon (and bring) along the mute Silence by saying
hist. Also ist, st. Cf. Dan. Ays, interj. silence! hysse, to hush.
HISTOLOGY, the science which treats of the minute structure of
the tissues of plants and animals. (Gk.) A modern scientific term.
Coined from Gk. isto-, for ἱστός, a web; and -Aoyia, from λόγος, a
discourse, from λέγειν, to speak. B. The orig. sense of ἱστός is a
ship’s mast, also the bar or beam of a loom, which in Greek looms
stood upright; hence, a warpor web. γ. So called because standing
upright ; from Gk. torn, to make to stand, set, place; from 4/STA,
to stand; see Stand.
HISTORY, also STORY, a narrative, account. (L.—Gk.)
Story (q.v-) is an abbreviated form. Gower has histowre, C. A.
iii. 48; bk. vi. 1383. Fabyan gave to his Chronicle (printed in
1516) the name of The Concordance of Histories. In older authors,
we commonly find the form s¢orie, which is of F. origin. Historie is
Englished directly from L. historia, a history. —Gk. ἱστορία, a learning
by enquiry, information, history. —Gk. iorop-, stem of ἵστωρ οτἴστωρ,
knowing, learned ; for *i5-rwp, from the weak grade ἰδ- of εἰδέναι, to
know.=4/WEID, to know; see Wit. Der. histori-an, formerly
historien, Sir Τὶ Elyot, The Governour, b. i.c. 24 ; histort-c-al, Tyn-
dal’s Works, p. 266, col. 2 ; histori-c-al-ly : histori-c; histort-o-grapher,
a writer of history (from Gk. γράφειν, to write), Gascoigne’s Steel
Glas, 981 ; histori-o-graphy.
HISTRIONICAL, relating to the stage. (L.) In Minsheu.
‘ And is a histrionical contempt ;’ Ren Jonson, Magnetic Lady, A. ill,
sc. 4. Coined, with suffix -a/, from L. histriontc-us, of or belonging to
a player.=L. histridni-, decl. stem of histrto, a player, actor. From
Etruscan hisfer, a player; Livy, vii. 2.
HIT, to light upon, to strike, to attain to. (Scand.) ME. hitten,
P. Plowman, B. xii. 108; xvi. 87; Layamon, 1. 1550.—Icel. hit/a, to
hit upon, meet with ; Swed. hié¢a, to find, discover, light upon; Dan.
hitte, to hitupon. Der. hit, sb.
HITCH, to move by jerks, catch slightly, suddenly. (E.) ME.
hicchen. ‘ Hytchyn, hychyn, hytchen, or remevyn, Amoveo, moveo,
removeo ;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 239; where the word should have been
printed as hycchyn or hycchen. We also find : ‘ Hatchyd (read hacchyd],
or temevyd, hichid, hychyd, Amotus, remotus;’ ibid. Cf. Lowland
Scotch hatch, holch, to move by jerks; Jamieson. Also prov. E.
hotch, hutch, to jerk, to hitch; huck, to draw near, to hitch (E.D.D.).
Of obscure origin. Perhaps related to proy. E. huck, to hunch up;
Du. hokken, to squat, to crouch, also to stick ; as het hokt, there isan
~<a
HITHE, HYTHE
obstacle (or hitch); Calisch. If so, it is allied to huckster.
Phil. Soc. Trans. 1903, p. 150. Der. hitch, sb.
HITHE, HYTHE, a small haven. (E.) ME. hithe; as in
Garleke-hithe, P. Plowman, B. v. 324; andsee Prompt. Parv., p. 242,
note r. AS. hyd, a haven; Grein, ii. 126. Teut. type *hithja, f.
HITHER, to this place. (E.) ΜΕ. hider, hither, Chaucer, C. T.
674 (A 672); the right form in Chaucer being probably hider, since
he rimes ¢hider with slider ;C.T. 1265 (A 1263). [SoalsoME. fader,
moder are now father, mother.| AS. hider (common) ; Grein, ii. 71.4
Icel. hédra (for hidra) ; Goth. hidré.4L. cttra, on thisside. B. From
the Teutonic pronominal base hi- (see He) ; with a suffix allied to
the Idg. comparative suffix -ter. Der. hither-to; hither-ward, ME.
hiderward, P. Plowman, B. vi. 323.
HIVE, a basket for bees. (E.) The old sense is ‘hood.’ ME. hyue
(with z for v), Chaucer, C. T. 15398 (B 4582). Spelt Ayfe, Wright’s
Vocab. i. 223, col. 2 (Voc. 706. 41). AS. hyf, f.; Voc. 123. 16;
‘ Aluearia, hyfi;’ Corpus Gloss. 133. Teut. type *hiifiz.4-Du. huif,
a hood, a hive (see Franck); Dan. dial. hyve. Allied to L. cpa,
a tub, acup. See Cupola.
HO, HOA, a call to excite attention. (E.) ‘And cryed ho!’
Chaucer, C. T., A 1706. Merely a natural exclamation; cf. Icel. hd,
inter}. ho!, also Icel. hoa, to shout out ho!
HOAR, white, grayish white. (E.) ME. hor, hoor; Chaucer,
C. T. 3876, 7764 (A 3878, D 2182): P. Plowman, B. vi. 85. AS.
har, Grein, ii. 14.4-Icel. karr, hoar, hoary; G. hehr, exalted, OHG.
hér, proud, lofty, orig. ‘reverend.’ Teut. type *hairoz ( =hai-roz), lit.
‘shining;’ hence, white. The base hai- appears in Goth. hats, a
torch, G. hei-ter, orig, ‘ bright,’ Icel. hei-d, brightness ; cf. Skt. kétu-s,
asign,a meteor (Kluge). 4 To be kept distinct from Icel. kar, which
is the E. high (the r being merely the sign of the nom. case) ; and also
from E. hair. Der. hoar-y, occurring in the comp. horilocket, having
hoary Jocks, Layamon, 25845; hoar-i-ness; also hoar-frost, ME.
hoorfrost, Wyclif, Exod. xvi. 14; also hoar-hound, q.v.
HOARD, ἃ store, a treasure. (E.) ME. λογά, Chaucer, C. T.
3262; Gower, C. A. iii. 155; bk. vii. 2094. AS. λογά, Grein, ii. 96.
+Icel. kodd; G. hort; Goth. huzd, atreasure. B. The Teutonic type
is *huzdo-, due to Idg. *kudh-dho-, ‘ a thing hidden ;’ from *kudh, weak
grade of 4 KEUDH, whence Gk. κεύθ-ειν, AS. hyd-an, to hide. See
Hide (1). Brugmann, i. §699. Der. hoard, verb, AS. hordian, in
Sweet’s A. 5. Reader; cf. Goth. huzdjan, to hoard; hoard-er, AS.
hordere (Bosworth).
HOARDING, HOARD, a fence enclosing a house while
builders are at work. (F.—Du.; or Du.) Rare in books; it is
difficult to say how long it may have existed in E. asa builder's term.
_ Hoard occurs in 1757 (N.E.D.). Either taken directly from Du.
horde, a hurdle; or from OF. hourd, ‘a scaffold,’ in Froissart (Gode-
froy, 5. v. hourt), which is borrowed from it. The suffix -ing is, of
' course, English. Cf. Picard hourdage, a scaffold (Corblet); AF.
| hurdys, a scaffold, in Liber Albus; p. 477. The true E. word is
Hurdle, q.v.
| HOARHOUND, HOREHOUND, the name of a plant. (E.)
The true hoarhound is the white, Marrubium vulgare ; the first part of
the word is hoar, and the plant is so called because its bushy stems
| ‘are covered with white woolly down ;’ Johns, Flowers of the Field.
The final dis excrescent ; the ME. form being horehune. ‘ Marubium,
_ horehune;’ Wright’s Vocab. i. 139 (Voc. 554. 2). AS. harhiine; or
simply hkiixe ; for numerous examples of which see Cockayne’s A.S.
Leechdoms, iii. 334 ; where we also find: ‘the syllable har, hoary,
᾿ describes the aspect, so that ‘* black horehound”’ shows how we have
_ forgotten our own language.” The words are also found separate ;
| pa haran hiinan. We also find hwite hare hiinan, white horehound,
an early indication of the black horehound, Ballota nigra, a very
| strong-smelling plant. B. The first syllable is obvious; see Hoar.
| The second syllable is unexplained. @ It thus appears that the right
names should have been hoar houn and black houn; white hoarhound
involves a reduplication ; and black hoarhound, a contradiction.
| HOARSE, having a rough, harsh voice. (E.) Ther in this word
is probably intrusive, and is (generally) not sounded; still, it was
| inserted at an early period. ME. hoos, hos, hors; all three spellings
| occur in P. Plowman, B. xvii. 324 (and various readings) ; hors,
Chaucer, Book of the Duchesse, 347. AS. λᾶς, Grein, ii. 14.44Dan.
| hes; Swed. hes; Du. heesch; G.heiser. B. All froma Teutonic type
| *haisoz ; or (if the r be original) *hairsoz ; perhaps the latter is indi-
cated by the Icel. form hass. See N.E.D. Der. hoarse-ly, hoarseness.
| HOARY, white; see Hoar.
| HOAX, to trick, to play a practical joke. (Low L.) In Todd’s
Johnson; not found in early writers. The late appearance of the
‘word suggests that it is a corruption of hocus, used in just the same
jsense, ‘ Legerdemain, with which these jugglers hocus the vulgar ;’
\Nalson,in Todd. ‘ This gift of hocus-pocussing ;’ L’Estrange (Todd).
‘See Hocus-Pocus. Der. /oax, sb.
See |
HOBNOB, HABNAB 273
HOB (1), HUB, the nave of a wheel, part of a grate. (E.) The
true sense is ‘ projection.’ Hence hub, ‘ the nave ofa wheel (Oxford-
shire) ; a small stack of hay, the mark to be thrown at in quoits, the
hilt of a weapon ; up to the hub, as faras possible ;’ Halliwell. The
mark for quoits is the same word as hod, ‘a small piece of wood of a
cylindrical form, used by boys to set on end, to put half-pence on
to chuck or pitch at;’ Halliwell. Hob also means the shoe (pro-
jecting edge) ofa sledge. The hob of a fire-place is explained in the
N.E. D. as having been orig. ‘a boss or mass of clay behind the fire-
place.’ EFries. hobbe, a rough tump of grassy land rising out of
water ; hubbel, a projection.--Du. hobbel, a knob; G. hiibel, OHG.
hubel, ahillock. [Cf. Du. heuvel, a hill; AS. hofer,ahump.} Lith.
kup-stas, a tump of grass. Der. hob-nail, a nail with a projecting
head, 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 398; 2 Hen. VI, iv. το. 63 ; hob-nail-ed.
HOB (2), a clown, a rustic, a fairy. (F.-OHG.) ‘The hobbes as
wise as grauest men;’ Drant’s tr. of Horace’s Art of Poetry (R.).
‘From elves, hobs, and fairies That trouble our dairies;’ Beaumont
and Fletcher, Monsieur Thomas, iv. 6. See Nares; also Hob in
Atkinson’s Cleveland Glossary, where, however, the suggestion of
identifying hob with elf is to be rejected. It is quite certain that Hob
was a common personal name, and inearlyuse. ‘ To beg of Hob and
Dick ;’ Cor. ii. 3.123. That it was in early use is clear from its
numerous derivatives, as Hobbs, Hobbins, Hobson, Hopkins, Hopkinson.
B. That Hob, strange as it may seem, was a popular corruption of
Robin is clearly borne out by the equally strange corruption of Hodge
from Roger, as well as by the name of Robin Goodfellow for the hob-
goblin Puck; (Mids. Nt. Dr. ii. 1.40). Robert Bruce was nicknamed
*kyng Hobbe;’ Polit. Songs, p. 216. γ. The name Robin is French,
and, like Robert, is of OHG. origin; Littré considers it as a mere pet
corruption from Robert, a name early known in England, as being that
of the eldest son.of Will. I. Der. hob-goblin (see goblin) ; spelt hob-
goblyng in Palsgrave, who translates it by F. goblin.
HOBBLE, to limp, walk with a limp. (E.) ME. hobelen (with
one b), P. Plowman, A. i. 113; P. Plowman’s Crede, 106; and see
Barbour’s Bruce, iv. 447. Practically, the frequentative of hop; so
that the lit. sense is ‘ to hop often.’4-Du. hobbelen, to toss, ride on a
hobby-horse, stammer, stutter (all with the notion of repetition of
uneven motion) ; frequent. of hobben, to toss up and down; allied to
huppen, huppelen, to hop, skip. Cf. EFries. and Westphal. Aub-
belen, to hobble; OF. hober, to move, bestir oneself; prov. G.
hoppeln, to hop, hobble (Fliigel). See Hop (1). Der. hobble, sb.
HOBBLEDEHOY, a youth approaching manhood. (E.) A
jocose word, very variously spelt (see N. E.D.). Palsgrave, in 1540,
has hobledehoye ; Cotgrave explains F. marmaille as ‘ young rascals
. atroop of . . unprofitable hoberdihoies.’ The true origin is un-
known. Perhaps suggested by E. hobble, expressive of clumsy move-
ment, and hoy! as an interjection. Cf. F. hober, ‘to remove from
place to place, a rustic word ;’ Cot. Low G. hop-hei, an assembly
of common people who dance about ; Alsace hoppetihopp, a giddy,
flighty, eccentric man (Martin) ; Low G. hupperling, a boy who
jumps about, and cannot be still. Hobby was also a pet name for
Robert ; see Hobby (1).
HOBBY (1), HOBBY-HORSKE, an ambling nag, a toy like a
horse, a favourite pursuit. (F.—OHG.) See Hobby in Trench, Select
Glossary. A hobby is now a favourite pursuit, but formerly a toy in
imitation of a prancing nag, the orig. sense being a kind of prancing
horse. In Hamlet, iii. 2.142. ‘They have likewise excellent good
horses, we term the hobbies ;’ Holland, Camden’s Ireland, p. 63. A
corruption of ME. hobin, a nag; Barbour’s Bruce, ed. Skeat, xiv.
68, 500; [whence OF. hobin, ‘a hobby, a little ambling and short-
maned horse;’ Cot.] B. But this ME. Hobin was a horse’s name
(see N.E. D.); of which Dobbin is a familiar variant. And Hobin is
but an E, variant of F. Robin; see further under Hob (2).
HOBBY (2), a small species of falcon, (F.—Du.) Obsolete. Cot-
grave translates MF’. hobreau by ‘the hawke tearmed a hobby.’ ME.
hobi, hoby (with one δ). ‘ Hoby, hawke ;’ Prompt. Parv. ; pl. hobies, Sir
T. Elyot, The Governonr, cap. xviii ; see Spec. of English, ed. Skeat,
p- 204. Like other terms of falconry, it is of F. origin; being from
OF. hobet, a hobby, allied to the MF. hobreax mentioned above. So
named from its movement. —OF. hober, ‘ to stirre, move, remove from
place to place ;” Cot.—MDu. hobben, to toss, move up and down. See
Hobble. @ This etymology is confirmed by noting that the OF.
verb hober was sometimes spelt anber (Cot.); corresponding to which
latter form, the hobby was also called aubereau (Cot.).
HOBGOBLIN, a kind of fairy. (F.—OHG.) In Minsheu, ed.
1627; and in Mids. Nt. Dr. ii. 1. 40; hobgoblyng in Palsgrave.
Compounded of hob and goblin. See Hob (2) and Goblin.
HOBNAIL, a kind of nail. See Hob (1).
HOBNOB, HABNAB, take or leave, in any case, at random.
(E.) Compounded of hab and nab, derived respectively from AS.
habbar, to have, and nabban, not to have. 1, In one aspect it means
Ἧ
274 HOCK
‘take it or leave it ;* implying free choice, and hence a familiar invita-
tion to drink, originating the phrase.‘ to hob-nob together.’ ‘ Hob-nob
is his word; give’t or take’t;’ Twelfth Night, iii, 4. 262. 2. In
another aspect, it'means hit or miss, at random ; also, in any case.
€ Philautus determined, kab, nab, to sende his letters;’ i.e. whatever
might happen ; Lyly’s Euphues, ed. Arber, p. 354. ‘Although set
down hab-nab, at random;’ Butler’s Hudibras, pt. ii. c. 3. 1. 900.
B. Hab is from AS. habban; see Have. Nab is from AS. nabban,
a contracted form of xe habban, not to have.
HOCK (1), the hough; see Hough.
HOCK (2), the name of a wine. (G.) ‘ What wine is it? Hock ;’
Beaum. and Fletcher, The Chances, A. ν. sc. 3. Shortened from
Hockamore (Stanford Dict.), which was an Anglicised form of Hoch-
heimer, i.e. wine of Hochheim, the name of a place in Germany, on the
river Main, whence the wine came. It means ‘high home;’ see
High and Home.
HOCKEY, the name of a game. (E.) Also calied hawkey ; so
named because played with a hooked stick; see Hook. @ In some
places called bandy, the ball being bandied backwards and forwards.
HOCUS-POCUES, a juggler’s trick, a juggler. (Low L.) Hokos-
Pokos is the name of the juggler in Ben Jonson, Magnetic Lady, Chorus
at end of Act i. In Butler's Hudibras, it means a trick; ‘ As easily as
hocus-pocus ;’ pt. ili. c. 3. 1. 716. . If the word may be said to belong
to any language at all, it is bad Latin, as shown by the termination
-us. The reduplicated word was a mere invention, used by jugglers
in playing tricks. ‘At the playing of every trick, he [a juggler in the
times of James I] used to say ‘‘ kocus pocus, tontus, talontus, vade
celeriter, jubeo ;””’ Ady’s Candle in the Dark, Treat. of Witches, &c.
p- 29; cited in Todd. See the whole articlein Todd. 4 The‘ deri-
vations’ sometimes assigned are ridiculous; the word no more needs
to be traced than its companions fonts and ¢alontus. Der. hocus, to
cheat; see Todd. Hence also hoax, q.v.
HOD, a kind of trough for carrying bricks on the shoulder.
(MDu.) ‘A lath-hammer, trowel, a hod, or atraie;’ Tusser. Five
Hundred Points of Husbandry, sect. 16, st.16(E. D.S. edition, p. 37,
last line), Cotgrave has: ‘ Oiseau, a bird . . also, a Hodd, the Tray
wherein Masons carry their Mortar.’ MDu. hodde, ‘a basket or a
maund ;’ given by Hexham, 5. v. Botte. Cf. Swed. dial. hodda, hudda,
f., a hut; MDan. hodde, a hut, hudde, a small room; cognate with
Alsace hutte, G. hotte,a wooden yessell, a tub, a vintager’s dosser
(Fliigel); [whence F. hotte, ‘a scuttle, dosser, basket to carry on
the back; the right hot/e is wide at the top and narrow at the
bottom; Cot.] β. All (perhaps) from Teut. *hud-, weak grade
of *heud- =Gk. κεύθ-, to hide; the orig. sense being ‘cover’ or
‘case.’ See Phil. Soc. Trans., 1902, p. 671. @ Note that E. has
the Low G. form, but F. the HG. form; whence ME. hotte, in
Chaucer, Hous of Fame, 1940; see my note.
HODGE-PODGE, a mixture ; see Hotchpot.
HOB, an instrument for cutting up weeds, &c. (F.—G.) ‘ How,
pronounced as [i.e. to rime with | mow and throw ; a narrow ironrake
without teeth, tocleanse gardens from weeds; rastrum Gallicum’ [ἃ
French rake]; Ray’s Collection of South-Country Words, ed. 1691.
Written haugh by Evelyn (R.). =F. hove,‘ an instrument of husbandry,
which hath a crooked handle, or helve of wood, some two foot long,
and a broad and in-bending head of iron ;’ Cot.; Norm. dial. hoe. =
OHG., houwa, G. haue, a hoe.mOHG, houwan, to hew; cognate
with E. hew. See Hew. Der. hoe, vb.
HOG, the name of an animal, a pig. (E.) ME. hog; Wyclif,
Luke, xv. 16; King Alisaunder, 1885. Also hogge, ‘maialis, est
enim porcus carens testiculis ;” Cathol. Anglicum, p.187. Cf. hog-
sheep, one clipped the first year. It occurs as AS. hocg in Hocges
tin, Kemble, Cod. Dipl. Moisy, ed. 1895, gives Norm. dial. hogge,
a six-months’ lamb, a pig; and hogasire, a two-year-old sheep (both
prob. from E.). AS. ogg, Cambridge Phil. Soc. Proceedings, 1xi-
Ixiii (1902), p. 13,1. 2. B. Cf. also the prov. E. hog, vb., to cut short
a horse’s mane, to cut a hedge, to pollard a tree, to hack off (Ε, D. D.).
- Norw. hogga, to cut (Aasen) ; allied to Icel. hoggva (base hagg-),
to hew. See Phil. Soc. Trans., 1903, p. 151. Der. hogg-ish, hogg-
ish-ly, hogg-ish-ness ; hog-ring-er 3 hog’s-lard.
HOGSHEAD, a measure containing about 524 gallons; a half-
pipe. (E.) In Shak. Temp. iv. 252; L.L. L. iv. 2.883 &c. Also in
Cotgrave, to translate F. tonneau; it seems to have meant a large cask.
Minsheu, ed. 1627, refers us to ‘An. 1 Rich, III, cap. 13.’ Cf. ‘ij
pipes, v hogges-hedes, in The Earl of Derby’s Expeditions (Camden
Soc.), p. 156 (A.D. 1392). Certainly derived from ME. hogges hed,
“hog’s head ;’ a fanciful name, of which the origin isnot known; but
it seems as sensible as pife in ‘pipe of wine.’
MDan. hogshoved, a hog’s head, modified into Dan. oxehoved, as if it
meant ‘ox-head;’ Low (ἃ. hukeshovet, a hogshead (Liibben) ; also
Swed. oxhufuud, a hogshead, lit. ‘ox-head;’
Du. oxhooft. Cf. also prov. E. hogget,a hogshead, a large cask.
Hence were borrowed |
G. oxhoft, a hogshead; |
| final γι.
HOLLY
HOIDEN, HOYDEN, a romping girl. (MDu.) See hoyden in
Trench, Select Glossary ; in old authors, it is usually applied to the
male sex, and means a clown, a lout, a rustic. ‘ Badault, a fool,
dolt, sot,. .. gaping hoydon ;’ Cot. ‘ Falourdin, a luske, lowt,...
lumpish hoydon;’ id. ‘ Hills. You mean to make a hotden or a hare
Of me, to hunt counter thus, and make these donbles;’ Ben Jonson,
Tale ofa Tub, A. ii. sc. 1. —MDu. heyden (mod. Du. heiden), a heathen,
gentile ; also a gipsy, vagabond; Sewel.—MDu. heyde,a heath. See
Heathen, Heath. @ This derivation, proposed by Skinner, is
probable enough. The W. hoeden, having only the modern E. meaning
of ‘ coquette,’ must have been borrowed from English, and is not the
original, as some have supposed.
HOIST, to heave, raise with tackle. (MDu.) The ¢ is excrescent,
and due to confusion with the pp. The verb is properly hoise, with
pp. hotst=hoised. ‘ Hoised up the main-sail;’ Acts, xxvii.4o. Shak.
has both hoise and hovst, and (in the pp.) both hoist and hoisted ;
Rich. III, iv. 4. 529; Temp. i. 2.148; Hamlet, ili. 4. 207; Antony,
iii. 10. 15, iv. 12. 34, Vv. 2. 55. ‘We hoyse up mast and sayle;’
Sackville’s Induction, st. 71 (A.D. 1563). ‘I ἄγεθ up the sayle;’
Palsgrave. ‘Made the saylles to be hyssed uppe;’ Caxton, Eneydos,
ch. 31, p. 116. ‘With anker hoist ;’ Lydgate, Troy-book, bk. iii.
c. 13; fol. 1. i (1555).—MDnu. hyssen, to hoise (Sewel) ; mod. Du.
hijschen. [The MDu. y (mod. 4) being sounded like English long /,
the vowel-change is slight.] - Low G. hisen, hiessen, to hoist ; whence
Dan. heise, hisse, to hoist; Swed. hissa, to hoist ; hissa upp, to hoist up.
Cf. F. hisser, to hoist a sail, borrowed from the Du. or Low G.; quite
distinct from F. hausser, to exalt, which is from L. altus, high (F.
haut).
HOLD (1), to keep, retain, defend, restrain. (E.) ME. holden,
Chaucer, C. T, 12116 (C 182). AS. healdan, haldan, Grein, ii. 50.
+ Du. houden; Icel. halda; Swed. halla; Dan. holde; Goth. haldan;
G, halten. Teut. type *haldan-; pt. τ. *he-hald. Der. hold, sb.,
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 10481 (F 167); hald-fast, hold-ing; be-hold, up-hold.
HOLD (2), the ‘hold’ of a ship. (Du.) ‘A hulk better stuffed in
the hold;’ 2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 70. Not named, as might be supposed,
from what it holds; but a nautical term, borrowed (like most other
such) from the Dutch. The d is really excrescent, and due to a
natural confusion with the E. verb. The right sense is ‘ hole.’ = Du,
hol, a hole, cave, den, cavity; Sewel gives also ‘ het hol van een schip,
the ship’s hold or hull.’ Cognate with E. Hole, q. v.
HOLE, a cavity, hollow place. (E.) ME. hole, hol; Chaucer,
C. T. 3440, 3442; Havelok, 1813. AS. hol, a cave; Grein, ii. 92.
+ Du. hol; Icel. hol ; Dan. hul; Swed. hal. Cf. also Goth. hulundi,
a hollow, cave; us-huldx, to hollow out, Matt. xxvii. 60. B. Teut.
type *hulom, n. ; orig. neut. of *huloz, adj. hollow, as in AS. hol, Du.
hol, Icel. holr, Dan. hul, G. hohl. Prob. from *hul-, weak grade of
Teut. *helan-, tocover; see Hell. 47 Notallied to Gk. κοῖλος, hollow.
HOLIBUT, a fish. (E.) See Halibut.
HOLIDAY, a holy day, festival, day of amusement. (E.) For
holy day. Spelt holy day ; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 3309; haliday, P. Plowman,
B. v. 409. See Holy and Day.
HOLINESS, a being holy. (E.) See Holy.
HOLLA, HALLO, stop, wait! (F.) Not the same word as
halloo, g.v., but somewhat differently used in old authors. The true
sense is stop! wait! and it was at first used as an interjection simply,
though easily confused with halloo, and thus acquiring the sense of to
shout. ‘ Holla, stand there!’ Othello, i. 2. 56. ‘Cry holla [stop!]
to thy tongue;’ As You Like It, iii. 2. 257. —F. hold, ‘an interjection,
hoe there, enough; .. also, hear you me, or come hither ;’ Cot.—F.
ho, interjection; and /d, there. B. The F./a is an abbreviation from
1, illac, that way, there, allied to lic, pron. he yonder. Der. holla,
hollo, verb; K, Lear, iii. 1.55; Twelfth Night, i. 5. 291. 4 The
form hallo is due to confusion with hal/oo.
HOLLAND, Dutch linen. (Du.) In Shak. 1 Hen. IV, iii. 3. 82-
“A shert of feyn Holond;’ Coy. Myst. p. 241. From the name of
the country; Du. Holland. Orig. form Holt-land, i.e. wood-land;
see Holt. (N.E.D.) Der. from the same source, hollands, i.e. gin
made in Holland.
HOLLOW, vacant, concave; as sb., a hole, cavity. (E.) ME.
holwe, Chaucer, C. T. 291, 1365 (A 291, 1363). Regularly formed
from AS. hol3e, dat. form of holh, only as a sb., signifying a hollow
place, vacant space ; also spelt holg ; see Cockayne’s A. S. Leechdoms,
lii. 365 ; Gregory’s Pastoral, ed. Sweet, p. 218, ll. 1, 3, 4,9; P+ 241»
ly. Cf. OHG. huliwa, a pool, puddle. An extended form from
AS. hol, a hole; see Hole. Der. hollow, verb; ‘hollow your body
more, sir, thus;’ Ben Jonson, Every Man in his Humour, ed.
Wheatley, i. 5. 136; hollow-ly, Temp. iii. 1. 70; hollow-ness, ME.
holownesse, Chaucer, Troil. vy. 1809 ; hollow-eyed, Com. Errors, v. 249;
hollow-hearted, Rich. 111, iv. 4. 435.
HOLLY, the name of a prickly shrub. (E.) The word has lost a
ME. holin, holyx. The F. hous [holly] is glossed by holyn
HOLLYHOCK
in Wright’s Vocab. i. 163, 1.17; the spellings holin, holie both occur
in the Ancren Riwle, p. 418, note /. AS. holen, holegn ; Cockayne’s
A.S. Leechdoms, iii. 332. - W. celyn; Corn. celin; Bret. kelen, holly ;
Gael. cuilionn ; Irish cuileann, holly. Idg. type *kolenno- ; Stokes-
Fick, p. 91. B. The base of the AS. word is also preserved in Du,
hulst, Low G. hulse, holly; and from the older form (hulis, huls) of
the G. word the F. houx is derived. Der. holm-oak, q. v.
HOLLYHOCK, a kind of mallow. (E.) Itshould be spelt with
one /, like holiday. ME. holihoc, to translate L. althea and OF. ymalue,
in a list of plants; Wright’s Vocab. i. 140, col. 1,1. 6 (Voc. 556. 24).
[Here the OF. ymalue=mod. F. guimauve, the marsh mallow (Cot.). |
Also spelt holihocce, holihoke ; see Cockayne’s Leechdoms, iii. 332,
col. 1, bottom. Compounded from ME. hol, holy; and hocce, hoke,
hoc, a mallow, from AS. hoc, a mallow; id. Minsheu, ed. 1627,
gives ‘ Holie hocke, i.e. malua sacra.’ B. The mallow was also called
in AS. hocléaf. Cf. ΝΥ. hocys, mallows; hocys bendigaid, hollyhock,
lit. ‘ blessed mallow’ (where bendigaid is equivalent to L. benedictus) ;
but this W. form is merely borrowed from the AS. nom. pl. hoccas.
y- ‘Of hagiological origin ; another name wascaulis Sancti Cuthberti ;’
NE. D.
HOLM, an islet in a river; flat land neara river. (Scand.) ‘ Holm,
a river-island;’ Coles, ed. 1684. ‘Holm, in old records, an hill,
island, or fenny ground, encompassed with little brooks ;’ Phillips,
ed.1706. The true sense is ‘a mound,’ or any slightly rising ground ;
and, as such ground often has water round it, it came to mean an
island. Again, asa rising slope is often situate beside a river, it came
to mean a bank, wharf, or dockyard, as in German. The most
curious use is in AS., where the main sea itself is often called holm,
from its convex shape; the later senses are Scandinavian. ME. holm.
‘Holm, place besydone a water, Hulmus ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 243; see
Way’s note, which is full of information about the word. [The
Low L. hulmus is nothing but the Teutonic word Latinised.] = Icel.
holmr, holmi, holmr, an islet; ‘even meadows on the shore with
ditches behind them are in Icelandic called hkolms;’ Dan. holm, a
holm, quay, dockyard; Swed. holme, a small island ; whence G. holm,
a hill, island, dockyard, wharf (Fliigel). 4 L. culmen, a mountain-top;
οἵ. L. collis, a hill. See Culminate and Hill.
HOLM-OAK, the evergreen oak. (E.) Cotgrave translates MF.
yeuse by ‘the holme oake, barren scarlet oak, French oak.’ The tree
is the Quercus Ilex, or common evergreen oak, ‘a most variable
_ plant, . . with leaves varying from being as prickly as a holly to being
as even at the edge as an olive;’ Eng. Cyclop.s.v. Quercus. Whether
| because it is an evergreen, or because its leaves are sometimes
_ prickly, we at any rate know that it is so called from its resemblance
to the holly. B. The ME. name for holly was holin, sometimes
phonetically varied to holm or holy. ‘Holme, or holy ;’ Prompt.
_ Parv. p. 244; and see Way’s note. ‘ Hollie, or Holmtree ;’ Minsheu.
The form holm is in Chaucer, C. T. 2923 (A 2921). Thus holm-oak
| =holly-oak. See Holly.
- HOLOCAUST, an entire burnt sacrifice. (L.—Gk.) So called
because the victim offered was burnt entire. It occurs early, in the
Story of Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 1319, 1326, where it is
| plainly taken from the Vulgate version of Gen. xxii. 8. = L. holocaustum;
Gen. xxii. 8. — Gk. ὁλόκαυστον, neut. of ὁλόκαυστος, ὁλόκαυτος, burnt
whole.=Gk. ὅλο-, for ὅλος, whole, entire; and καίειν (fut. Kavo-w),
to burn. β. The Gk. ὅλος is cognate with Skt. sarva(s), all. Brug-
mann, i. § 319. For καίειν see Caustic.
-_ HOLOTHURIAN, belonging to the genus of sea-slugs; as sb.,
a sea-slug, sea-cucumber, trepang. (L.—Gk.) Modern. Modern
_ L.holothiiria, neut. pl. of Gk. ὁλοθούριον, α kind of zoophyte (Aristotle).
| HOLSTER, a leathern case for a pistol. (Du.—G.) Merely ‘a
‘ case;’ though now restricted to a peculiar use. In Butler, Hudibras,
pt. i.e. 1. 1. 391.— Du. holster, a pistol-case, holster ; also, a soldier’s
knapsack (Sewel). B. The word is not orig. E., though we find
hulstred = covered, Rom. of the Rose, 6146; and AS. heolstor, a hiding-
place, cave, covering, Grein, ii. 67; as well as Icel. hulstr, a case,
\ sheath ; Goth. hulistr, a veil, 2 Cor. iii. 13. γ. But any real connexion
‘with these words is very doubtful; as the Du. word appears to have
| been borrowed (with change of ft to s¢) from G. holfter, hulfter,
jaholster; MHG. hulfler, a quiver; from OHG. hulft, a cover, case
(Franck, Kluge). Hexham has MDnu. hwelfte, ‘a galloch to weare
with shoes or bootes.’
| HOLT, a wood, woody hill. (E.) ‘ Holt, a small wood, or grove;’
| Kersey, ed. 1715. ME. holt, Chaucer, C. T. 6. ‘Hoc virgultum, a
holt ;’ Wright’s Vocab. i. 270, col. 1 (Voc. 796. 29). AS. holt,a wood,
‘grove ; Grein, ii. 95.4-Du. hout (MDn. holt), wood, timber ; Icel. holt,
a copse; G. holz, a wood, grove; also wood, timber. Teut. stem
\*hulto-, Idg. stem *haldo-. Allied to Olrish caill, coill (for *cald-),
wood; ΔΝ, celli,a grove; Russ. koldda, a log ; Gk. κλάδος, a twig.
'Stokes-Fick, p, 82.
HOLY, sacred, pure, sainted. (E.) The word is nothing but ME.
|
os
ak
HOMOLOGOUS 275
hool (now spelt whole) with suffix -y. ME. holi, holy; Chaucer, C. T.
178; AS. halig; Grein,ii.7.4-Du. heilig; Icel. heilagr, often contracted
to helgr ; Dan. hellig ; Swed. helig ; G. heilig ; Goth. heilag, neut., in
an inscription. Teut. type *hailagoz, a derivative of Teut. *hailoz,
whole (AS. λα) or of *hailoz or *hailiz, sb.,a good omen. Cf. Irish
cél, W. coel, an omen; Stokes-Fick, p. 88. See Whole. Der.
holi-ly; holi-ness, AS. halignes; holi-day, q.v.; holly-hock (for holy
hock), q. ν.; hali-but (=holy but), q.v.
HOMAGE, the submission of a vassal to a lord. (F.—L.) In
early use. In Rob. of Glouc. p. 46, 1. 5; 1. 1061; P. Plowman,
B. xii. 155.— OF. homage, later hommage, the service of a vassal. —
Late L. homaticum (also homindticum), the service of a vassal or ‘man.’
—L. homo (stem homin-), a man; hence, a servant, vassal. See
Human. Q The AS. guma, a man, is cognate with L. homo ;
see Bridegroom.
HOME, native place, place of residence..(E.) ME. hoom, home ;
Chaucer, C. T. 2367 (A 2365); P. Plowman, B. v.. 365; vi. 203 ;
common in the phrase ‘to go home.’ AS. him, home, a dwelling ;
Grein, ii. 9. The acc. case is used adverbially, as in ham cuman, to
come home; cf. L. tre domum.+Du. heem, a farm; heim, in the comp.
heimelijk, private, secret; Icel. heimr, an abode, village, heima, home;
Dan. jem, home; also used adverbially, as in E.; Swed. hem, home;
and used as adv.; (ἃ. heim; Goth. haims, a village.-+ Lithuanian kéemas,
OPruss. caymis, a village (Fick, iii, 75). Teut. types *haimoz,
*haimiz. Some compare Skt. kshéma(s), safety, safe abode, from
kshi, to dwell; but this is to be rejected. Cf. Brugmann, i. § 920.
Der. home-bred, Rich. II, i. 3.187; home-farm; home-felt ; home-keeping,
Two Gent. of Verona, i. 1. 2; home-less, AS. hamléas (Grein); home-
less-ness; home-ly, Chaucer, C. T. 330 (A 328); home-li-ness, ME.
homlinesse, Chaucer, C. T, 8305 (E 429); home-made; home-stck ;
home-sick-ness ; home-spun, Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 1. 79; home-stall; home-
stead (see Stead); home-ward, AS. himweard, Gen. xxiv. 61;
home-wards,
HOMER, a large Hebrew measure. (Heb.) Asa liquid measure,
it has been computed at 80 gallons (more or less). Also used as a dry
measure. — Heb. khmer, a homer, also a heap or mound (with initial
cheth); from the root kkamar, to undulate, surge up, swell up.
HOMESTEAD, a dwelling-place, mansion-house, with its en-
closures. (E.) In Bp. Hall, Contemplations, New Test. b. ii. cont. 3.
§ 6 (Todd). ‘Both house and homestead into seas are borne;’ Dryden
(quoted in Todd; no reference). Compounded of home and stead.
HOMICIDE, man-slaughter; a man-slayer. (F.—L.) 1. Chaucer
has homicide in the sense of manslaughter; C. Τὶ 12591 (C 657). —F.
homicide, ‘ manslaughter ;’ Cot.—L. homicidium, manslaughter. = L.
homi-, short for homin-, stem of homo, a man (see Homage) ; and
-cidere, for cedere, to cut, to kill. 2. Chaucer also has: ‘He that
hateth his brother is homicide;’ Pers. Tale, De Ira, § 4 (1 565).—
F. homicide, ‘an homicide, man-killer ;’ Cot.—L. homicida, a man-
slayer ; similarly formed from homi- and -cidere. Der. homicid-al.
HOMILY, a plain sermon, discourse. (F.—L.—Gk.) In As You
Like It, iii. 2. 164. And see Pref. to the Book of Homilies. ME.
omelye, Trevisa, tr. of Higden, ii. 183.—OF. omelie (F. homelte,
Hatzfeld).—L. homilia, a homily.—Gk. ὁμιλία, a living together,
intercourse, conyerse, instruction, homily. —Gk. ὅμιλος, an assembly,
throng, concourse.—Gk. 6p-, short for ὅμο-, for duds, like, same,
cognate with E, Same ; and (possibly) ‘An, εἴλη, a crowd, band, from
εἴλειν, to press or crowd together, compress, shut in. Der. homiletic,
from Gk. ὁμιλητικός, sociable, an adj. allied to ὁμιλία, used in Ε. as
the adj. belonging to homily; hence homiletic-al, homiletic-s. Also
homil-ist (= homily-ist).
HOMINY, maize prepared for food. (West Indian.) ‘Milke
Homini ;’ Capt. J. Smith, Works, p. 886. ‘From Indian avhuminea,
parched cormm;’ Webster. Trumbull gives appuminneonash, with the
same sense.
HOMMOCEKE, a hillock ; see Hummock.
HOMCGOPATHY, a particular treatment of disease. (Gk.) The
system is an attempt to cure a disease by the use of small doses of
drugs such as would produce the symptoms of the disease in a sound
person. Hence the name, signifying ‘similar feeling.’ Proposed
(ab. 1796) by Dr. Hahnemann, of Leipsic (died 1843). Englished
from Gk. ὁμοιοπάθεια, likeness in feeling or condition, sympathy. =
Gk. ὅμοιο-, for ὅμοιος, like, similar ; and παθεῖν, aorist infin. of πάσχειν,
to suffer. The Gk. ὅμοιος is from ὅμός, same, like. See Same and
Pathos. Der. homeopath-ic, -ist.
HOMOGENEOUS, of the same kind or nature throughout.
(Gk.) ‘Homogeneal, of one or-the same kind, congenerous;’ Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674. ‘Of homogeneous things ;’ State Trials, Earl of
Strafford, an. 1640 (R.). . Englished from Gk. ὁμογενής, of the same
race.—Gk. dpo-, for ὁμός, cognate with E. same; and “γένος, race,
cognate with I. diz. See Same and Kin. Der. homogeneous-ness.
HOMOLOGOUS, agreeing, corresponding. (Gk.) ‘Homolo-
ΤΩ
276 HOMONYMOUS
gous, having the same reason or proportion ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.
Englished from Gk. ὁμόλογος, agreeing, lit. saying the same. —Gk.
ὅμο-, for duos, cognate with E. same; and λόγος, a saying, from
λέγειν, to say. See Same and Logic. Der. so also homology,
agreement, from Gk. ὁμολογία.
HOMONYMOVUS, like in sound, but differing in sense. (L.—
Gk.) Applied towords. In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L.homonym-us,
of the same name ; with suffix -ous. Gk. ὁμώνυμος, having the same
name.=— Gk. ὅμο-, for ὁμός, cognate with E. same; and ὄνυμα, Aolic
form of ὄνομα, a name, cognate with E. name. See Same and
Name. The Gk. ὦ is due to the double o. Der. homonymous-ly ;
also homonym, sb., from F. homonyme, ‘a word of divers significa-
tions ;’ Cot. Hence homonym-y. @ Similarly we have homo-phonous,
like-sounding; from Gk. φωνή; a voice, sound.
HONE, a stone for sharpening various implements. (E.) ‘ Hoone,
barbarys instrument, cos ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 245. AS. han, a hone,
but only found in the sense of ‘stone ;’ as in ‘to p&re hane;’ Birch,
Cart. Saxon. ii. 458; whence the derived verb h#nan, to stone, John,
x. 32.4 I cel. hein, a hone; Swed. hen, a hone (Widegren); MDan. hen.
Teut. type *haina, f. Cf. Skt. οἷ, to sharpen. Brugmann, i. § 200.
HONEST, honourable, frank, just. (F.—L.) ME. honest, fre-
quently in the sense of ‘honourable ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 246; honeste,
King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 158. —OF. honeste (Littré) ; later honneste,
‘honest, good, virtuous,’ Cot.; mod. F. honnéte. — L. honestus, honour-
able; for hones-tus, related to L. honos, honour. See Honour. Der.
honest-ly ; honest-y, ME. honestee, Chaucer, C. T. 6849 (D 1267), from
OF. honestet (Ste. Eulalie, 1. 18), from L. acc. hones‘atem, from nom,
honestas, honourableness.
HONEY, a fluid collected by bees from plants. (E.) ME. hony,
Rob. of Glouc., p. 43, 1. 1013; P. Plowman, B. xv. 56; Auni, Ancren
Riwle, p. 404. AS. hunig, Mark, i. 6.4Du. honig; Icel. hunang ;
Dan. honning ; Swed. honing; G. honig, MHG. honec, OHG. honang.
Teut. type *huna(n)gom, neut. Allied to Gk. κνηκός, pale yellow,
Skt. kanaka-m, gold. Der. honey-bag, Mid. Nt. Dr. iii. 1. 171;
honey-bee, Hen. V, i. 2. 187; honey-comb, q.v.; honey-dew, Titus, iii.
1.112; honey-ed, Hen. V,i. 1.503 honey-moon, ‘the first sweet month
of matrimony,’ Kersey, ed. 1715 ; honey-mouihed, Wint. Ta. ii. 2. 33;
honey-suckle, q.v. 3 honey-tongued, L. L. L. v. 2. 334.
HONEYCOMB, a mass of cells in which bees store honey.
(E.) ME. honycomb, Chaucer, C. T. 3698. AS. hunig-camb; Bos-
worth, Lye. = AS. hunig, honey ; and camb,a comb. See Honey and
Comb. 4 The likeness to a comb is fanciful, but there 15 πὸ doubt
about the word. It seems peculiar to E.; cf. G. honig-schetbe=a
‘shive’ or slice of honey, a honey-comb ; Swed. honingskaka, Dan.
honningkage (honey-cake) ; Icel. hunangsseimr (honey-string); Du.
honigraat (honey-mass). Der. honeycomb-ed.
HONEY-MOON, the first month after marriage. (E.)
Wedded love was compared to the full moon, that soon wanes ;
Huloet, 1552. See N.E.D. There was at first no reference to the
period of a month.
HONEYSUCKLE, the name of a plant. (E.) So named
because honey can be easily suckled or sucked from it. ME. honysocle,
Prompt. Parv. p. 245; also hunisuccles, Voc. 558. 15. Extended
from AS. huni(g)sice, Voc. 298. 22. See Honey, Suckle.
HONOUR, respect, excellence, mark of esteem, worth. (F.—L.)
In early use. ME. honour, Chaucer, C. T. 46; earlier honure, Laya-
mon, 6084 (later text). The verb honouren isin Rob. of Glouc., p. 14,
1.16; 1. 325.—AF. honur; OF. honur, honeur.—L. hondrem, acc. of
honos, honor, honour. Der. honour, v., honour-able, Chaucer, C. T.
12574 (C 640); honour-abl-y, honour-able-ness, honour-ed, honour-
less; honor-ar-y, used by Addison (Todd), from L. honorartus ; also
honest, ιν. J The spelling honor assumes that the word is from the
L. nominative, which is not the case. But it is now more phonetic.
HOOD, a covering, esp. for the head. (E.) ME. hood, Chaucer,
C. T. 195; P. Plowman, B.v. 329; hod, Ancren Riwle, p. 56. AS.
hod, a hood; Voc. 199. 18; spelt hood, Epinal Gloss. 239.4-Du.
hoed, a hat; Pomeran. hdd, hood, a hat; G. hut, OHG. huot, hot,
ahat. β. Allied to E. heed; cf. G. hiiten, to protect. Also to Hat.
Der. hood-ed ; hood-man-blind, Hamlet, iii. 4. 77 ; hood-wink, Romeo,
i. 4. 4, lit. to make one wink or close his eyes, by covering him with
a hood.
-HOOD, -HEAD, suffix. (E.) AS. had, state, quality ; cognate
with Goth. kaidus, manner, way; and Skt. kétu(s), a sign by which
a thing is known, from it, to perceive, know (Vedic). Brugmann,
ii. § 104. The form -head (as in God-head) may be compared with
the OFries. héd, héde, OSax. héd, cognate with AS. had.
HOOF, the horny growth which sheathes the feet of horses, &c.
(E.) ME. hoof, huf; dat. sing. hufe, Prick of Conscience, 4179; pl.
hoves, Gawayn and the Grene Knight, 459. AS. hf, to translate
L. ungula ; Wright’s Vocab. i. 43. col. 2, 71. col. 2 (Voc. 158. 20).
+Du. hoef; Icel. hafr; Dan. hov; Swed. hof; G. huf. Teut. type
HOP
*hofoz,m. Allied to Skt. gapha-s, a hoof, esp. a horse’s hoof. Der.
hoof-ed, hoof-less.
HOOK, a bent piece of metal, &c. (E.) ME. hok, Havelok, 1102;
pl. hokes, P. Plowman, B. y. 603. AS. hdc, /Elfric’s Homilies, i. 362;
also hooc ; ‘ Arpago, vel palum, hooc;’ Wright's Vocab., i. 16, col. 2.
+Du. hoek; also (with a-grade), Du. haak; Icel. haki, Dan. hage,
Swed. hake, a hook, clasp, hinge, G. haken, a hook, clasp, AS. haca,
ahook. See Hake. Der. hook, v.; hook-ed, ME. hoked, P. Plow-
man, B. prol. 53; hook-er ; hook-nosed, 2 Hen. IV, iv. 3. 45; also
arquebus, q.v. Hence ‘by hook or by crook ;’ Spenser, F. Ὁ.
TA eb
HOOKAH, HOOKA, a kind of pipe for smoking. (Arab.)
‘Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe;’ Byron, The Island, c. ii. st.
19. — Arab. iugga(h), a casket, bowl, a pipe for smoking ; properly,
the bottle through which the fumes pass. Cf. Arab. ugg, a hollow
place. Palmer’s Pers, Dict. col. 201; lich. Dict. p. 575.
HOOP (1), a pliant strip of wood or metal bent into a band. (E.)
ME. hoop, hope, hoope. ‘ Hoope, hope, cuneus, circulus ;’ Prompt.
Pary. p. 245. ‘ Hic circulus, a hope ;’ Wright's Vocab. i. 276, col. 1.
AS. hop, a hoop ; rare, but found in Holy Rood, ed. Napier, p. 22,
l.9,and 1. 14; p. 24, 1.6.4-Du. hoep, ahoop. Teut. type *hdpoz, m.
Der. hoop, verb; hoop-er.
HOOP (2), WHOOP, to call out, shout. (F.—Teut.) Whoop is
a late spelling ; as in Spenser, F. Ὁ. vi. 8. 11; and Palsgrave has:
‘I whoope, I call, je huppe.’ ME. houpen, to call out; Chaucer, C. T.
15406 (B 4590); P. Plowman, B. vi. 174.— OF. houper, ‘ to hoop unto,
or call afar off;’ Cot. Of imitative origin; from F. houp! inter).
used in calling to dogs (Hatzfeld); cf. Goth. hwopan, to boast;
Romans, xi. 18. Doublet, whoop; see Whoop: and cf. Hoot.
Der. hoop-ing-cough, a cough, accompanied with a hoop or convulsive
noisy inspiration; formerly called the chincough. See Chincough.
_Also spelt whooping-cough, but this makes no real difference.
HOOPOK, the name of abird. (L.) a. The old name for the bird
was houpe or hoope, as in Minsheu’s Dict., ed. 1627; spelt houpe in
1580 (N.E.D.). This is the F. form; from F. huppe, OF. hupe,
huppe; spelt huppe in Philip de Thaun, The Bestiary, 1. 1263, pr.
in Wright’s Popular Treatises on Science, p. 119. B. Also called
hoopoop in 1668 (N. E. D.), in imitation of the L.name. Cf. alsc OF.
pupu, a hoopoe ; Low G. huppupp (Danneil). All from L. upupa, a
hoopoe ; the initial ἃ in the mod. E. form being borrowed from thehk
inthe F. form. y. Called ἔποψ in Greek ; both L. up-up-a and Gk.
ἔπ- οᾧ are words of onomatopoetic origin, due to an imitation of the
bird’s cry. @ The bird has a remarkable tuft on its head ; hence F.
huppe, a tuft of feathers. But the tuft is named from the bird; not
vice versa.
HOOT, to shout in derision. (Scand.) ME. houten, whence the
Pp: yhouted, yhowted =hooted at; P. Plowman, B. ii. 218 ; also huten,
Ormulum, 2034. Of Scand. origin; the original being preserved in
MSwed. huta, in the phrase huta ut en, lit. to hoot one out, to cast out
with contempt, as one woulda dog (Ihre) ; Swed. huta wt, to take one
up sharply; Norw. Auta, to shout, hut (with ἃ), a cry to a dog
(Aasen). Hence also Norm. dial. houter, as a variant of houper, to
whoop. β. Formed from the Swed. interj. hut, begone! a word of
imitative origin; cf. Norw. hit (above), W. hwt, off! away! Irish wt,
out! psha! Gael. κέ! ut! interjection of dislike. So also MHG.
hiuzen, hauzen, to call to the pursuit, from the interjection Aiw (mod.
G. hui), hallo! So also Dan. huje, to shout, hoot, halloo, from hut,
hallo!’ OF. hwer, to shout. The regular modern form would be
hout, but the expressive ἃ has been preserved. Der. hoot, sb.; cf.
hue, in the phrase hue and cry; see Hue (2).
HOP (1), to leap on one leg. (E.) Formerly used of dancing on
both legs. ME. hoppen, huppen. ‘At every bridal wolde he singe
and hoppe,’ i.e. dance; Chaucer, C. T. 4373 (A 4375). ‘To huppe
abowte’= to dance about, P. Plowman, C. xviii. 279. ΑΘ. hoppian,
to leap, dance; Aélfric’s Homilies, i. 202, 1. 18.4+Du. hoppen, to hop;
Icel. hoppa, to hop, skip; Swed. hoppa, to leap, jump, hop; Dan.
hoppe (the same); cf. G. hupfen (thesame). Teut. type *huppayan-,
from Idg. base *gup-n-; allied to Russ. hipiete, to boil. Brugmann, i.
§ 421 (7). Der. hop, sb. (we still sometimes use hop in the old sense
of ‘a dance’); hopp-er (of a mill), ME. hoper or hopper, Chaucer,
C. T. 4034 (A 4036) ; hop-scotch, a game in which children hop over
lines scotched or traced on the ground (see Scotch) ; hopp-le, a fetter
for horses, causing them to hop or progress slowly, a frequentative
form. Also hobb-le (=hopp-le); see Hobble. Also grass-hopper,
q.v.
‘HOP (2), the name of a plant. (Du.) In Cotgrave, to translate
MF. houbelon (=F. houblon). Also in Minsheu’s Dict., ed. 1627.
‘ Hoppe, humulus, lupulus ;’ Levins, ed. 1570. ‘ Hoppes in biere’
[beer]; Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. ii. c. 21. The pl. hoppis
occurs as early as 1502, in Arnold’s Chron. ; ed. 1811, pp. 236, 246;
and hops are frequently mentioned in the Northumberland Household-
HOPE
book, 1512. ‘ Hoppe, sede for beyre(v.r. bere), Hummulus, secundum
extraneos ;’ (i.e. it isa foreign word) ; Prompt. Parv. (1440). —MDu.
hoppe (Franck), Du. hop, the hop-plant.4G. hopfen, the hop. B. We
also find AS. hymele, Icel. humall, Swed., Dan. humle, MDu. hommel,
the hop (Kilian); whence the Late L. humulus, now used as the
botanical name. [The F. houblon is of Walloon origin, and ultimately
from the Dutch.] But these can hardly be related words. J] An
old note of the word occurs inan Old Westphalian gloss. : ‘ volubilis
major, hoppe ;’ Mone, Quellen, p. 292. Cf. O. Low G. hoppo, hupo,
the hop (Gallée). Dr. E. Scott writes :—‘ One of the Westminster
Abbey documents, temp. Henry I or late 11th century, begins—
“ Hec est firma... ad panem vj. cumbas. .. xx hopis de brasio.””
Der. hop-vine, hop-bind (corruptly hop-bine).
HOPE (1), expectation; as a verb, to expect. (E.) The verb is
weak, and seems to be derived from the sb. ME. hope,sb., Chaucer,
C. T. 88. ME. hopen, verb, sometimes in the sense ‘ to expect ;’ as,
‘Our manciple, I hope he wil be deed’=I fear he will be dead;
Chaucer, C. T. 4027 (A 4029). See P. Plowman, C. xviii. 313, and
the note. AS. hopa, sb., in Alfric’s Hom. i. 350, 1. 24; i. 568,1. 8 ;
also used in the comp. ‘dhopa, hope, Grein, il. 545 ; hopian, v. to hope,
Grein, ii. 96.4-Du. hoop, sb., hopen, v.; Dan. haab, sb., haabe, v.;
Swed. hopp, sb., whence the reflexive verb hoppas, to hope; MHG.
hoffe, sb., represented by mod. G. hoffnung ; G. hoffen,to hope. Der.
hope-ful, hope-ful-ly, hope-ful-ness ; hope-less, -ly, -ness.
HOPS (2), a troop. (Du.) Only in the phr. forlorn hope, North’s
Plutarch, ed. 1631, p. 372. The phr. also occursin An Eng. Garner,
vii. 128, where Sir F. Vere describes the battle of Nieuwport (S.W. of
Ostend) in the year 16co ; here it is at once connected with Du. ver-
loren hoop; see Forlorn. Here hoop =band, troop, as in ‘ een hoop
krijghs-volck, a troupe or a band of souldiers ;’ Hexham. Cf. verloren
hoop (Kilian). It is now obsolete in Dutch. The usual sense of
Du. hoop is heap; see Heap.
HOPLITE, a heavy-armed foot-soldier. (Gk.) Modern. From
Gk. ὁπλίτης, a hoplite.—Gk. ὅπλτον, a weapon, piece of armour;
with suffix -ἰτῆς (ΕἸ -ite) ; allied to ὅπλομαι, I prepare for myself, and
to ἕπω, 1 am busy with (Prellwitz).
HOPPLE, to fetter a horse, ἅς. (E.) ‘To hopple an horse, to
tye his feet with a rope ;’ Kersey (1721); andin Coles (1684). Lit.
to make to hopple, or hobble; see E.D.D. Cf. MDu. hoppelen, to
hobble ; see Hobble, and Hop.
HORDE, a wandering troop or tribe. (F.—Turk.—Tatar.) Spelt
hoord in Sir T. Herbert’s Travels, ed. 1665, p. 61; and in Hakluyt,
Voy. i. 491.—F. horde, first in use in the 16th century (Littré).—
Turk. urdi, a camp (Zenker, p. 117); cf. Pers. ordi, ‘a court,
camp, horde of Tartars;’ also urdi, a camp, an army; Rich. Pers.
Dict., pp. 56, 201.—Tatar irda, a royal camp, horde of Tatars
(Tartars) ; see Pavet de la Courteille, p. 54. First applied to the
‘Tatar tribes.
HORDOCK: see Hardock.
HOREHOUND, a plant; see Hoarhound.
HORIZON, the circle bounding the view where earth and sky
seem to meet. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. 3 Hen. VI,iv. 7. 81. [But
we also find ME. orizonte, Chaucer, Treatise on the Astrolabe,
prol, 1.7. This is (through the OF.) from the L. acc. horizontem. |
=F. horizon, ‘a horizon;’ Cot.—L. horizon (stem horizont-), —Gk,
ὁρίζων, the bounding or limiting circle; orig. the pres. pt. of the vb.
SpiCev, to bound, limit. —Gk. ὅρος, a boundary, limit; perhaps allied
to Gk. ἕρκος, an enclosure (Prellwitz). Der. horizont-al, horizont-al-ly.
HORN, the hard substance projecting from the heads of some
"animals. (E.) ME. horn, Chaucer, C. T.116. AS. horn, Grein,
| ii. 98. 4 Icel., Dan., and Swed. horn; Du. horen [for horn, the e being
due to the trilling of the r}; G. Aern; Goth. haurn. Teut. type
*hornom, n. + W., Gael., and Irish corn; L. cornu. B. The Celtic
forms are from the Idg. base *kor-no-; Stokes-Fick, p. 79. Further
allied to Gk. xép-as,ahorn; andto Hart. Der. horn-beam, a tree;
| horn-bill, a bird; horn-blende, a mineral term, wholly borrowed from
G. horn-blende, where -blende, i.e. a ‘ deceitful’ mineral, yielding little
ore, is from blenden, to dazzle, lit. to make blind ; horn-book, L. L. L.
v.1. 49; horn-ed, Mids. Nt. Dr. v. 243, spelt hornyd in Prompt. Pary.
P: 247; horn-owl or horn-ed owl; horn-pipe, Wint. Tale, iv. 3. 47,
a dance so called because danced to an instrument with that name,
mentioned in the Rom. of the Rose, 4250; horn-stone; horn-work,
a term in fortification, named from its projections ; horn-less ; horn-y,
Milton, P. R. ii. 267; also horn-et, αν, From the same source are
| corn (2), corn-er, corn-et, &c.
HORNET, a kind of large wasp. (E.) So called from its
resounding hum. In Holland’s Pliny, b. xi. c. 21. AS. hyrnet,
hyrnetu; the pl. hyrnytta occurs in Exod. xxiii. 28. ‘Crabro, hyrnet ;’
#Elfric’s Gloss., De Nominibus Insectorum. Formed, with suffix - δέ,
from horn, a horn, by regular yowel-change; cf. hyrned=horned,
Grein, ii. 133. The vowel has, however, reverted in mod. E. to the
HORSE-COURSER, HORSE-SCORSER 9277
original ο, for clearness. See Horn.+EFries. hérnetje ; Westphal.
horntje ; LowG. horneke (Schambach). Cf. OSax. horno-bero, a hornet,
lit. a ‘ horn-bearer;’ AS. horn-bera,a trumpeter. Hexham has MDu.
horener, hornte, a hornet, horentoren, a wasp; from horen, a horn.
q It is curious that G,. hornisse, OHG. hornaz (without vowel-change)
is referred to a Teut. type *hurznatoz (cf. Du. horz-elen, to buzz), allied
to L. crabro (for *cras-ro), a hornet, Lith. szirszz (gen. szirsz-ens),
a hornet ; lit. ‘a buzzer ;’ see Brugmann, i. § 626.
HOROLOGE, an instrument for telling the hours, a clock.
(F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. Oth. ii. 3. 135. Nearly obsolete. ME.
orloge, Chaucer, C. 7. 14860 (B 4044).—OF. horologe, horloge ;
‘Horloge, a clock or dyall ;’ Cot.—L. horologium, a sun-dial, a water-
clock. = Gk. ὡρολόγιον, the same. — Gk. wpo-, for ὥρα, a season, period,
hour ; and -λογιον, formed from λέγειν, to tell. See Hour and
Logic. Der. horolog-y, horolog-i-c-al.
HOROSCOPE, an observation of the sky at a person’s nativity.
(F.—L.—Gk.) A term in astrology. In Cotgrave. [Chaucer uses
the L. term horoscopum ; Treatise on the Astrolabe, ed. Skeat, pt. ii.
§ 4.] =F. horoscope, ‘the horoscope, or ascendant at a nativity ;’ Cot.
-L. horoscopus, a horoscope ; from héroscopus, adj., that shows
the hour.=Gk. ὡροσκόπος, a horoscope; from the adj. ὡροσκόπος,
observing the hour. Gk. ὧρο-, for ὥρα, season, hour; and σκοπεῖν,
to consider, related to σκέπτομαι, 1 consider, See Hour and
Sceptic. Der. horoscop-y, horoscop-i-c, horoscop-ist.
HORRIBLE, dreadful, fearful. (F.—L.) ME. horrible, also
written orrible, Chaucer, C. T. 4893 (B 473). — OF. horrible, ‘horrible,
terrible;” Cot.—L. horribilis, terrible, lit. to be trembled at; formed
with suffix -bilis from horrére, to tremble, shake. See Horror.
Der. horribl-y, Chaucer, C. T. 14535 (B 3807); horrible-ness.
HORRID, dreadful. (L.) Directly from Latin. Spenser uses
it in the L. sense of ‘rough.’ ‘His haughty helmet, horrid all with
gold;’ F. Q.i. 7. 31.—L. horridus, rough, bristly, &c.—L. horrére,
to be rough. See Horror. Der. horrid-ly, horrid-ness.
HORRIFY, to make afraid, scare. (L.) A late word; ποῖ in
Johnson. Coined, by analogy with words in -fy (mostly of F. origin),
from L. horrificare, to cause terror. = L. horrificus, causing terror. = L.
horri-, from horrére, to dread ; and -fic-, for facere, to make. Der.
From L. horrificus has also been coined the adj. horrific, Thomson’s
Seasons, Autumn, 782. See Horror.
HORROR, dread, terror. (F.—L.) Formerly also spelt horrour
(Minsheu), because at first taken fromthe French, Sir T. Elyot has
horrour; Castel of Helth, bk. iii. ch. 1; and so in Chaucer, C. T.
Pers. Tale (I 224). We find ‘sad horror’ in Spenser, Εἰ, Q. ii. 7. 23;
and horrors in Hamlet, ii. 1. 84, in tke first folio edition. —OF.
horrour; later horreur, ‘horror;’ Cot.—L. horrérem, acc. of horror,
terror, dread. —L. horrére, to bristle, be rough; also, to dread, with
reference to the bristling of the hair through terror. Cf. Skt. kysk,
to bristle, said of the hair, esp. as a token of fear or of pleasure.
Thus horrére is for *horsére (cf. L. hirsutus, rough, shaggy); from
o GHERS, to be rough. Der. From L. horrére we have horrent
(from the stem of the pres. part.) ; also horri-ble, q. v., horri-d, q. v.;
horri-fy, q.v.; and horri-fic. Cf. hirsute, urchin.
HORSKE, the name of a well-known quadruped. (E.) The final
e merely marks that the s is hard, and is not to be pronounced as z.
ME. hors; pl. hors (unchanged), also hors-es, as now. Chaucer,
C. T. 74, 10504 (A 74, F 190). ‘Thei sellen bothe here hors and
here harneys’=they sell both their horses and their harness ;
Mandeville’s Travels, p. 38. AS. hors, neut.; pl. hors, Grein, ii. 98.
+ Icel. hross; also hors; Du. ros; G. ross; MHG. ros, ors, OHG.
ἄγος, B. Teut. type *horsom, n.; Idg. stem *curs-o-; prob. allied to
curs-us, pp. of L. currere, to run, whence also Εἰ. courser with the sense
of ‘horse.’ See Courser. y. This supposition is made more
probable by the fact that the same base will account for AS. hor:c,
swift, Grein, ii. 98; cf. MHG. rosch, swift. Brugmann, i. ὃ 516;
ii. 8 662. Der. horse, verb, Wint. Ta. i. 2. 288; horse-back, ME.
hors-bak, Gower, C. A. iii. 256; bk. vii. 1. 4908 ; horse-block, horse-
breaker, horse-fly, horse-guards ; horse-hair, Cymb. ii. 3. 333 horse-
leech, Hen. V, ii. 3. 573 horse-man, Wint. Ta. iv. 3. 67; horse-man-
ship, Hen. V, iii. 7. 58; horse-power, horse-race, horse-racing ; horse-
shoe, Merry Wives, iii. 5. 123; horse-tail, horse-trainer, horse-whip,
sb. and yb. Also numerous other compounds, as horse-bread, horse-
flesh, horse-pond, all readily understood. Also horse-chestnut, said to
be so called because the nuts were ground and given to horses; the
word also occurs in several plant-names, as horse-foot, horse-knop,
horse-radish, horse-tatl, horse-thistle, horse-tongue, horse-vetch. Also
wal-rus.
HORSE-COURSER, HORSE-SCORSER, a jobbing
dealer in horses. (Hybrid; E. and F.—L.) The latter form is
corrupt ; see examples in Nares, 5. vy. Horse-courser, Scorse. And
courser is for cosser, coser; ‘Hic mango, a cosyr;” Voc. 684. 40.
And cf. Gloss. to Elyot’s Governcur, ed. Croft, 5. ν. Skocer, From
278 HORTATORY
AF, cossour (1310), a broker, in Riley, Mem. of London, p. xxii. =
Late L. céciatorem, acc. of cocidtor, a broker (Duc.). Cf. L. cdcio,
a broker. See my Notes on E. Etym., p. 136.
HORTATORY, full of encouragement. (L.) ‘He animated his
soldiers with many hortatorie orations ;’ Holland, Ammianus, p. 202
(R.). Formed as if from L. *hortadorius, a coined word from hortator,
an encourager.—L. hortd-, as in hortari, to encourage ; prob. con-
nected with horiri (pres. tense horior), to urge, incite. Perhaps allied
to E. yearn (Prellwitz, 5. v. χαίρω). Der. So also hortative (Minsheu),
a better form, from L. hortatiuus, encouraging ; also ex-hort, q. v.
HORTICULTURE, the art of cultivating gardens, gardening.
(L.) First in Phillips, ed. 1678. From L.-horti, gen. of hortus,
a garden ; and culture, Englished form of L. cultira, cultivation.
See Culture. L. hortus is allied to E. yard; see Yard (1). Der.
horticultur-al, horticultur-ist.
HOSANNA, an expression of praise. (Gk.—Heb.) In Matt.
xxi.g,15; &c. It is rather a form of prayer, as it signifies ‘save, we
pray.’ —Gk. doavva, Matt. xxi. 9.— Heb. hoshi'Gh nnd, save, we pray ;
Ps. cxviii. 25. - Heb. hdshia', save, from ydsha‘, to save; and πᾶ, a
particle signifying entreaty.
HOSE, a covering for the legs and feet; stockings. (E.) ME.
hose, pl. hosen ; Chaucer, C. T. 458 (A 456); Ancren Riwle, p. 420.
AS. hosa, pl. hosax; ‘ Caliga vel ocrea, hosa;’ Wright’s Vocab. i. 81,
col. 2 (Voc. 327. 29). + Du. hoos, hose, stocking, spout, water-spout ;
Tcel. hosa, the hose covering the leg between the knee and ankle,
a kind of gaiter; Dan. hose, pl. hoser, hose, stockings ; G. hose,
breeches (whence OF. hose). Perhaps ef. Skt. kdska-s, a sheath.
Der. hos-i-er, where the inserted i answers to the y in law-y-er,
bow-y-er ; hos-i-er-y.
HOSPICE, a house for the reception of travellers as guests.
(F.—L.) Modern; chiefly used of such houses in the Alps. =F.
hospice, a hospice. —L. hospitium, a hospice. —L. hospiti-, decl. stem
of hospes, a guest; also, a host. See Host (1), Hospital.
HOSPITABLE, showing kindness to strangers. (F.—L.) In
K. John, ii. 244; Cor. i. 10, 26.—F. hospitable, ‘hospitable ;’ Cot.
Coined, with suffix -able, from Late L. hospitare, to receive as a guest ;
Ducange. — L. hospit-, stem of hospes, a guest, host. See Host (1).
Der. hospitabl-y, hospitable-ness.
HOSPITAL, a building for receiving guests; hence, one for
recelving sick people. (F.—L.) ME. hospital, hospitalle ; Mandeville’s
Travels, ed. Halliwell, p. 81; hospytal, Eng. Gilds, ed. T. Smith,
p- 350, 1. 25.—OF. hospital, ‘an hospitall, a spittle ;” Cot. —Late L.
hospitale, a large house, palace, which occurs A.D. 1243 (Brachet) ;
a sing. formed from L. pl. hospttalia, apartments for strangers. — L.
hospit-, stem of hospes; see Host (1). Der. hospitall-er, ME.
hospitalier, Chaucer, C. T. Persones Tale, De Luxuria (I 891);
hospital-i-ly, ME. hospitalite, Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 96. Doub-
lets, hostel, hotel, spital.
HOST (1), one who entertains guests. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. host, hoste,
Chaucer, C. T. 749 (A 747).— OF. hoste, ‘an hoste, inn-keeper;’
Cot. Cf. Port. hospede, a host, a guest.—L. hospitem, acc. of hospes,
(1) a host, entertainer of guests, (2) a guest. B. The base hospuzt- is
commonly taken to be short for *hos¢i-pot-, where hos¢i- is the decl.
stem of hosfis, a stranger, a guest, an enemy; see Host (2). Again,
the stem -fo/- is supposed to have meant ‘lord,’ being allied to L.
pol-ens, powerful; cf. Skt. pati-, a master, governor, lord; see
Possible. “y: Thus hospes=*hostifotis, guest-master, a master of
a house who receives guests. Cf. Russ. gospode, the Lord, gospodare,
governor, prince; from goste, a guest, and -pode=Skt. pati-, a lord.
Brugmann, i. § 240. Der. host-ess, from OF. hostesse, ‘an hostesse,’
Cot.; also host-el, q. v., host-ler, q. v., hotel, gq. v.; and from the same
source, hospital, q.v., hospice, q. V-, hospitable, q. v.
HOST (2), an army. (F.—L.) The orig. sense is ‘enemy’ or
“foreigner.” ME. hos‘, Chaucer, C. T. 1028 (A 1026); frequently
spelt ost, Will. of Palerne, 1127, 1197, 3767; Cursor Mundi, 6160. -
OF. host, ‘an host, or army, a troop ;”? Cot.—L. hostem, acc. of hos-
tis, a stranger, an enemy; hence, a hostile army, host. + Russ. goste,
a guest, visitor, stranger, alien; AS. gest; see Guest. Der. host-ile,
Cor. iii. 3. 97, from F. hostile, which from L. hostilis; host-tle-ly ;
host-il-i-ty, K. John, 1v. 2. 247, from Ἐς hostilite, which from L. acc.
hostilitatem. Doublet, guest.
HOST (3), the consecrated bread of the eucharist. (L.) ‘In as
many hoostes as be consecrate ;* Lp. Gardner, Of the Presence in the
Sacrament, fol. 35 (R.). And in Holland’s Plutarch, p. 1097 (R.).
ME. oite, Rob. of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, 1. 8849. Coined by
dropping the final syllables of L. hos¢ia, a victim in a sacrifice; after-
wards applied to the host in the eucharist. B. The old form of
hostia was fostia (Festus), and it signified ‘that which is struck or
slain.’ = L. hostire (old form fostire), to strike.
HOSTAGE, a person delivered to the enemy as a pledge for the
performance of the conditions of a treaty. (F.—L.) In early use.
HOUGH, HOCK
ME. hostage, Layamon, 4793, 8905 (later text only). —OF. hostage,
“an hostage, pawne, surety,’ Cot.; mod. F. otage. Cf. Ital. ostaggio;
OProv. ostatge, Bartsch, Chrestomathie Prov. col. 173, 1.18. Per-
haps from a Late L. *obsidaticum, acc. of *obsidaticus, not found, yet
preserved also in Ital. statico, a hostage, and regularly formed from
Late L. obsidatus, the condition of a hostage, hostage-ship. Obsidatus
is formed (by analogy with principatus from princip-, stem of princeps)
from L, obsid-, stem of obses, a hostage, one who remains behind with
the enemy.= L. obsidére, to sit, stay, abide, remain. L. ob, at, on,
about ; and sedére, to sit, cognate with ΕΣ, sif. See Sit. J Another
explanation is from a Late L. form *hospitaticum, a receiving as a
guest; from L. hospit-, for hospes, a host; see Host (1). So Korting.
The words may have been confused.
HOSTEL, an inn. (F.—L.) Now commonly hotel, q.v. ME.
hostel, Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 1397; Sir Gawayn and the
Grene Knight, 805.—OF. hoste/, an inn. Regularly contracted from
Late L. hospitale; see Hospital. Doublets, hotel, hospital, spital.
Der. hostel-ry, ME. hostelrie, Chaucer, C. T. 23; hoséler, q.v.
HOSTLER, OSTLER, a man who takes care of horses at an
inn. (F.—L.) ‘ Host’ler, the horse-groom, but properly the keeper of
an hostelry;’ Coles, ed. 1684. Orig. the ina-keeper himself, and so
named from his hostel. ME. hostiler, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 241.—OF.
hostelier, ‘an inn-keeper;”’ Cot.—OF. hostel; see Hostel.
HOT, very warm, fiery, ardent. (E.) The vowel was formerly
long. ME. hot, hoot, Chaucer, C. T. 687. ‘Nether cold, nether
hoot ;” Wyclif, Rey. ili. 16. AS. hat, hot; Grein, 11. 15.4-Du. heet;
Tcel. heitr; Swed. het; Dan. hed; G. hess, OHG. heiz. Teut. type
*haitoz. The weak grade *hit- appears in Icel. hiti, heat, G. hitze.
Cf. also Goth. hais, a torch, heitd, fever; Lithuan. kaitra, heat.
Der. hot-bed; hot-blooded, Merry Wives, v. 5. 2; hot-headed; hot-
house, Meas. ii. 1. 66; hot-ly, hot-spur. Also heat, q.v.
HOTCH-POT, HODGE-PODGE, a farrago, confused mass.
(F.—Du.) Hodge-podge is a mere corruption; the old term is hotch-
pot. The intermediate form hotch-potch is in Sir T. Herbert’s Travels,
ed. 1665, p. 336. ‘A hotchpot, or mingle-mangle;’ Minsheu. ‘ An
hotchpotte, incisium;’ Levins. ‘A hotchepotte of many meates;’
Palsgrave. ME. hochepot, Chaucer, Tale of Melibeus, C. T. B 2447.
-F. hochepot, ‘a hotch-pot, or gallimaufrey, a confused mingle-
mangle of divers things jumbled or put together ;’ Cot. Cf. F. hocher,
“to shake, wag, jog, nob, nod;’ id.—MDu. kutsepot (Hexham) ;
hutspot, ‘hodge-podge, beef or mutton cut into small pieces ;’
Sewel. So called from shaking or jumbling pieces of meat in a pot.
=MDu. huts-, base of hutsen, to shake, jolt (Oudemans); and Du.
pot, a pot. From hutsex was also formed the frequentative verb hut-
selen, ‘to shake up and down, either in a tub, bowl, or basket ;’
Sewel. The verb hutsen was also spelt hofsen (Sewel), which comes
still closer to the French; so also EFries. hotjen, hutjen, to shake up.
Cf. WFlem. hotteren, to shake up (De Bo). See Hustle and Pot.
HOTEL, an inn, esp. of a large kind. (F.—L.) A modern word ;
borrowed from mod. F, hétel=OF. hostel. See Hostel.
HOTTENTOT, a native of the Cape of Good Hope. (Du.) The
word is traced in Wedgwood, who shows that the Dutch gave the
natives this name in ridicule of their peculiar speech, which sounded
to them like stuttering. He cites the word from Schouten (1653).
En is Dutch for ‘and;’ hence hot en tot=‘hot’ and ‘tot;’ where
these words indicate stammering. Cf. hateren, to stammer, fateraer,
a stammerer, in Hexham’s Du. Dict., 1647; tateren to tattle (Sewel) ;
Pomeran. hiitentiit, a quack (a derisive name). See also Phil. Soe.
Trans. 1866; p. 15.
HOUDAH, HOWDAH, a seat to be fixed upon an elephant’s
back. (Hind.— Arab.) Used in works of travel; and in The Sur-
geon’s Daughter, c. xiv. by Sir W. Scott. — Hind. haudah (Forbes). =
Arab, hawdaj, a litter carried by a camel, in which Arabian ladies
travel; a seat to place on an elephant’s back; Rich. Dict. p. 16943
Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 709. (See Yule.)
HOUGH, HOCK, the joint in the hind-leg of a quadruped, be-
tween the knee and fetlock, corresponding to the ankle-joint in man;
in man, the back part of the knee-joint. (E.) Now generally spelt
hock; but formerly hough. ‘Unto the camel's hough ;’ 2 Esdras,
xv. 36 (A.V.). Cotgrave translates F. jarret by ‘the hamme, or
hough.’ ME. houch, Wallace, ed. Jamieson, i: 322. The pl. ho3es
occurs in Sir Gawayn and the Grene Knight, 1. 1357. AS. hah, the
heel; Grein, ii, 92.4FIcel. ha-, in the comp. hasinn =hock-sinew.
Teut. type *hanhoz. The E- heel is related; see Heel. B. Hock is
a later form; and may have arisen in the comp. ‘ hough-sinew,’ spelt
hohsinu in AS., and hoxene, hOxne in OFriesic. (AS. ks>x.) See G.
hechse (in Kluge) ; and see Hox. Allied to L. coxa, the hip; Skt.
kaksha-s, the arm-pit. Der. hough, verb, to cut the ham-string of
a horse, Josh. xi. 6, 2 Sam, viii. 4; often altered to hox, sometimes
spelt hocks; see Shak. Wint. Ta. i. 2. 244; hoxe, Wyclif, Josh. xi. 6
(later version).
HOUND
HOUND, a dog. (E.) ME. hound, hund; P. Plowman, B. v. 261;
Havelok, 1994. AS. hund, Matt. vii. 6; Du. hond; Icel. hundr ;
Dan. and Swed. hund; G. hund; Goth. hunds. Teut. type *hundoz,
m. Further allied to L. can-is, a dog, Gk. κυών (genitive xuv-ds),
Skt. gvan, a dog; also Irish cu, Gael. cu, W. ci, a dog; Russ, suka,
a bitch; Lith. szz (stem szun-), a dog. Brugmann, i. § 609. The
final d may have been suggested by confusion with Teut. *henthan-,
to catch. See Hunt. Der. hound, verb, in Otway, Caius Marius,
Act iv. sc. 2 (R.) ; hound-sish, Chaucer, C. T. 9699 (I. 1825) ; hound’s-
tongue.
HOUR, a certain definite space of time. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME.
houre, Chaucer, C. T. 14733 (B 3613).—AF. houre, Statutes of the
Realm, p. 30 (1275); OF. hore (mod. F. heure).—L. hora.— Gk. ὥρα,
a season, hour; cf. @pos, a season, a year. Allied to year. See
Year. Der. hour-ly, adj. Temp. iv. 108, adv. Temp. i. 2. 402;
hour-glass, Merch. of Ven. i. 1. 25; hour-plate. Also (from L. hdra)
hor-ar-y; Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674; hor-al, Prior, Alma, c. 3. Also
horo-loge, horo-scope, which see.
HOURI, anymphofParadise. (F.—Pers.— Arab.) ‘With Paradise
within my view And all his houris beckoning through ;’ Byron, The
Giaour; see note 39 to that poem. Also in Dr. Johnson's Irene, iv.
5. 10. —F. houri.— Pers. hiir?, a virgin of Paradise; hard, κᾶν, a virgin
of Paradise, a black-eyed nymph; so called from their fine black eyes.
“- Arab. hir, pl. of Arab. hawra, fem. of akwar, having fine black
eyes; Rich. Arab. Dict. pp. 585, 33; Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 206.
“- Arab. root hawira, to be black-eyed like a doe. (Devic.)
HOUSE, a dwelling-place; a family. (E.) ME. hous, Chaucer,
C. T. 252. AS. λᾶς, Matt. xii. 25.4-Du. huis; Icel. hits; Dan. huus;
_ Swed. hus; Goth. -Aus, in the comp. gwd-hus, a house of God;
Ὁ. haus, OHG. λᾶς. Teut. type *hiisom, n. B. Probably allied
_ to Hoard, and Hide (1). From 4/ KEUDH, to hide. Brugm. i.
— § 796. Der. house, verb, now ‘to provide a house for,’ as in Gower,
CLA, ili. 18 (bk. vi. 498), but the ME. housen also meant ‘to build
_ a house,’ as in Rob. of Glouc. p. 21, 1. 13 (cf. ‘kowsyn, or puttyn yn
_ a howse, domifero;’ ‘howsyn, or makyn howsys, domifico;’ Prompt.
Parv. p. 251); house-breaker, house-breaking ; house-hold, ME. hous-
hold, Chaucer, C. T. 5681 (D 99), so called because held together in
one house; howse-hold-er, ME. housholder, Chaucer, C. T. 341;
| house-keeper, Cor. i. 3. 55, Mach. iii. 1. 975 house-keeping, L. L. L.
ii. 1043 house-leek, ME. hows-leke, Prompt. Parv. p. 251; house-less,
_K., Lear, iii. 4. 26; house-mard, house-steward, house-warming, house-
| wife, spelt husewif, Ancren Riwle, p- 416, also hosewijf or huswijf,
| Wyclif, 3 Kings, xvii. 17, and frequently huswife, as in Shak. Cor. i.
| 3. 76, Romeo, iv. 2. 43; house-wife-ry, or hus-wife-ry, Oth. ii. 1. 113,
| with which cf. ‘huswyfery, yconomia;’ Prompt. Pary. See also
Husband, Hussy, Hustings, Hoard.
HOUSEL, the eucharist or sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. (E.)
_ The orig. sense is ‘sacrifice.’ ME. housel, Rom. of the Rose, 6386;
P. Plowman, C. xxii. 394. AS. hiisel (for *hunsel), the eucharist ;
᾿ Grein, ii. 112. -Ἑ Goth. huns/, a sacrifice, Matt. ix. 13. The orig.
sense was prob. ‘holy rite.’ Allied to Lith. szwentas, holy, conse-
crated; Zend spanta-, holy. Brugmann, i. § 377. Der. housel, verb,
ME. hoselen, houselen, P. Plowman, C. xxii. 3; unhousel’d, Hamlet, i.
5: 77-
᾿ς HOUSINGS, trappings of a horse. (F.—Arab.) Unconnected
with house, but probably often supposed to be related to it; the old
form was houss, the addition -ings being English. ‘The cattle used for
draught ... are covered with housings of linnen;’ Evelyn, Diary,
end of May, 1645. ‘A velvet bed of state drawn by six horses, houss’d
with the same;’ Evelyn, Diary, Oct. 22, 1658. ‘Spread on his back,
the kouss and trappings of a beast;” Dryden, tr. of Ovid’s Metam.
b. xii. 582. “ Housse, the cloth which the king’s horseguards wear
| behind the saddle ; Coles’ Dict., ed. 1684. ‘A howse of a horse ;’
Cath. Angl. (1483).—OF. houce (Godefroy); F. housse, a short
mantle of course cloth (and all of a peece) worn in ill weather by
country women about their head and shoulders ; also a footcloth for
Ϊ a horse; also a coverlet :᾿ (οἵ, Cf. Low L. hicia, a long tunic;
| housia, a long tunic, coverlet for a horse, also spelt hiisia, hussia.
| Ducange dates hicia in A.D. 1326, and hiisia in A.D. 1259, so that
| the word is of some antiquity. The sense is clearly ‘covering.’
_B. Perbaps from OHG., hulst, a cover (Schade). 4 Icel. hudstr, AS.
| heolstor, Goth. hulistr, a cover. From *hul-, weak grade of Teut.
| *helan-, to cover, hide; cf. AS. helan, to hide, OHG. and Du. hullen,
|to cover. y. But Devic suggests as the origin Arab. yashiah, a
covering, veil (Mem. de la soc. de ling. de Paris; V. 37). Korting,
| § 4666. Cf. Arab. ghushwa(¢),a veil, covering ; Rich. Dict. p. 1052.
The W. hws, a covering, is borrowed from E. houss.
[(OVEL, a small hut. (F.—Teut.) ME. hovel, hovil.
lytylle howse, Teges;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 250. ‘ Hovyl for swyne,
i Oper beestys;’ ibid. Perhaps from an AF. *huvel; cf. OF.
| huvelet, a penthouse (Godefroy), a double diminutive. Apparently
© Hovylle,
HUCKABACK 279
(like OF. huvet, a cap, helmet, from OF. huve, a cap, covering for
the head) from AS. hife, a hood; cf. OHG. huba (G. haube), a
hood; MDu. hxyve, a tilt of a cart, a coif (Hexham); Norw. huva,
Icel. hiifa,a hood. Note prov. E. hovel, huvel, a finger-stall ; from
AS. hife. See Hive.
HOVER, to fluctuate, hang about, move toand fro. (E.) InMacb.i.
1.12. ‘Hover, to stay, wait for. ‘* Will you hover till 1 come?”’
E.D.S. Gloss. B. 22, p. 96. A frequentative, with suffix -er, of
ME. houen (=hoven), sometimes used in precisely the same sense, and
once a common word. ‘Onight! alas! why niltow [wilt thou not]
over us hove ;’ Chaucer, Troil. iii. 1427; also in P. Plowman, Ὁ. xxi.
83 (see the note); ‘ Where that she hoved and abode;’ Gower, C. A.
iii. 63; bk. vi. 1848; ‘He hovede and abode;’ Seven Sages, ed.
Wright, 2825; ‘ He howede’ = he waited, Rob. of Gloune. p. 172, 1.12.
In the earliest examples, it had the sense of ‘hover,’ or ‘be poised.’
In the Bestiary, 1. 69, it is said of the eagle that ‘he houed in Se
sunne,’ he soars or is poised in the sunlight. The o in ME. héven
was long (N.E.D.). The origin is unknown; but if the orig. idea
was that of soaring or being lifted up, it may be related to hdf, the
strong grade of AS. hebban, toheave. See Heave. @ The W. hofio,
to hover, to fluctuate, to suspend, was borrowed from English.
HOW (1), in what way. (E.) ME. how, hou, hu; spelt ku, Ancren
Riwle, p. 182, 1. 20; also hwu,id., p. 256, 1. 10; alsowhow, P. Plow-
man’s Crede, 1. 141, AS. hiv; Grein,ii. 110.44OFries. hi, hd, how;
Du. hoe; Goth. hwaiwa. β. The Goth. form shows that the word is
closely related to the pronoun who, which is Goth. hwas, AS. hwa. Ct.
Gk. πώς, how; and ὦ, wie. See Who, Why. Der. how-be-it,
Hen. V, i. 2. 91, Cor. i. 9. 76 ; how-ever, K. John, i. 173 ; how-so-ever,
Ham. i. 5. 84.
HOW (2), ahill. (Scand.) Chiefly in place-names ; as Silver How,
near Grasmere. ME. how; Hampole’s Psalter mentions ‘ howys . .
and hilles ;’ Ps. lxxi. 3.—Icel. haugr, a how, mound ; Swed. hog, a
heap, pile, mound; Dan. hor, a hill. Allied to E. high, Goth. hauhs.
Cf. Icel. har, Swed. hog, Dan. hoz, high; also Lithuan. saukaras, a hill.
See High.
HOWDALH, the same as Houdah, q.v.
HOWITZER, a short light cannon. (G.—Bohemian.) Some-
times spelt howi‘z; a mod. word, in Todd's Johnson. Borrowed
from G. haubitze, a howitzer ; a word formerly spelt haufnitz. = Bohe-
mian haufnice, orig, a sling for casting a stone; Jungmann, Bohem.
Dict. i. 662. The F. obus, a bomb-shell, is from the same G. word.
HOWL, to yell, cry out. (E.) ME. houlen, Chaucer, C. T. 2819
(A 2817); Gower, C. A. ii. 265. An imitative word; and prob.
native ; cf. MDu. huylen, to howl; Dan. kyle; Icel. yla; Swed. yla;
G. heulen, Similar forms are L. ululare, to shriek, howl (whence
OF. huller) ; Gk. tAaw, I bark (said of a dog), 1 howl or cry out
(said of a man); ὀλολυγή, a cry. ΑΓ As Scheler remarks, the ἃ in
OF. huller was due to German influence. Der. howl, sb.; cf. hurly-
burly, q.v. And see Owl.
HOX, to hamstring. (E.) ME. hoxe, Wyclif, Josh: xi. 6. To cut
the hox or hamstring ; this sb. occurs in Wyclif, 2 Sam. viii. 4; and
is short for hoxen, huxen, or hockshin, lit. ‘hock-sinew,’ AS. hohksinu.
- AS. koh, heel, also hock, hough; and simu, a sinew. See Hough
and Sinew.
HOY (1), a kind of sloop. (Du.) In Spenser, Β΄. Ὁ. ii. 10. 64.
‘Equyppt a hoye, and set hir under sayle ;’ Gascoigne, Fruits of War,
st. 136. ‘An hoye of Dorderyght ;’ Paston Letters, iii. 388. —MDu.
hoei (Verwijs), variant of MDu. hex, heude, ‘a boate or a ship’
(Hexham); a kind of flat-bottomed merchantnian, a hoy; whence
also MF. λεὰ, explained by Cotgrave to mean ‘a Dutch hoy.’ Of
uncertain origin.
HOY (2), interj. stop! (E.) A nautical term. ‘When one ship
hails another, the words are, What ship, hoy? that is, stop, and tell
the name of your ship; ’ Pegge, Anecdotes of the English Language,
p- 16 (Todd). Also an exclamation. sometimes of joy; ME. hoy,
P. Plowman, Ὁ. ix. 123. Cf. Du. kui, hoy! come! well! Dan. hui,
hallo! See Ho! Der. a-hoy, q.v.
HOYDEN, the same as Hoiden, q.v. ;
HUB, the projecting nave of a wheel; a mark at which quoits are
cast; &c. (E.) The orig. sense is ‘ projection.” ‘ Hubs, naves of
wheels;” Marshall’s Leicestershire and Warwickshire Words, ed.
1790 (E.D.S.). -Also (in many dialects), the back of a grate, or the
side-ledge of it; see N. E.D.. The same word as hob ; see Hob (1).
HUBBUB, a confused noise. (C.) Another spelling is whkoobub,
Wint. Ta. iv. 4.629; Two Noble Kinsmen, ed. Skeat, ii. 5.35. Spen-
ser has ‘shrieking hububs ;” F. Q. ii. 10. 43 ; 4130 " ἃ terrible yell and
hubbabowe ;’ View of State/of Ireland, p. 632 (Globe ed.). An imita-
tive word; and perhaps suggested by Gael. wb! inter}. of aversion ;
Trish aby! awarcry. Hubbub was confused with E. hoop-hoop, and
whoobub with ἘΠ, whoop-hoop. See Hoop (2):
HUCKABACK, a sort of linen cloth. (Low G.?). ‘ Huckaback, a
9
~
80 HUCKLE-BERRY
sort of linen cloth that is woven so as to lie partly raised ;’ Bailey,
vol. ii. ed. 1731. First in 1690 (N.E.D.). The word bears so
remarkable a resemblance to Low G. hukkebak, G. huckeback, pick-a-
back, that it seems reasonable to suppose that it at first meant ‘ ped-
dler’s ware ;’ see Huckster.
carry one pick-a-back ; i sow (ἃ. hokeboken, to carry on the back
(Liibben). Weigand (i. 828) explains G. Huckepack as (1) a humped
back for carrying a shinee (2) a burden borne on the back.
HUCKLE-BERRY, a berry of the Gaylussacia, a low berry-
bearing shrub, common in N, America. (E.) In Hawthorne, Twice-
told Tales, ed. 1851; I. xvi. 249: ‘alot of huckleberries.’
as whortleberry, formerly hurtleberry. Spelt hurtilberyes ; Babees Book,
. 123, 1.82. See Whortleberry.
HUCKLE-BONS, the hip-bone. (E.) ‘Thehip . . . wherein
the joint doth move The thigh, ’tis called the huckle-bone ;’ Chapman,
tr. of Homer, Iliad, ν. 297. ‘Ache in the huckle-bones;’ Sir T.
Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. iv.c.6. Huckle is the dimin. of prov. Eng.
huck, which is a mere variant of hock; thus huck-le=hock-le. See
E.D.D. And see Hough. Dunbar has hukebanis, hip-bones or
hock-bones ; Flyting with Kennedie, 181. @ In dialects, the hock,
orig. the heel, is confused with the ham and the hip.
HUCKSTER, a peddler, hawker, retailer of small articles. (O.
Low G.) Properly a feminine form, the corresponding masc.
form being hawker, as now spelt, though hucks/er answers better to
hucker. We have the expression ‘ she hath holden hokkerye, i.e. fol-
lowed a huckster’s trade; P. Plowman, B. v. 227. But the AS. dis-
iinction in gender between the terminations -er and .-ster was lost at
an early period, so that the word was readily applied to men. * Hwk-
stare, hukstere, auxionator, auxionatrix, auxionarius. Huks/are of
frute, colibista ;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 252. | Hucster, as a gloss to insti-
torem ; Wright’s Vocab. i.123. ‘ Forr patt te33 turrndenn Godess hus
inntill hucesterress bope’=for that they turned God’s house into
a huckster’s booth; Ormulum, 15816, 7. B. An O, Low G. word,
but it does not appear in AS, The related words are Du. heuker, a
retailer, hewken, to retail ; also ‘ heukeren, to sell by retail, to huckster ;
heukelaar, a huckster, retailer;’ Sewel’s Du. Dict. Also Swed.
hékare, a cheesemonger (Widegren); Dan. hoker, a chandler,
huckster, hokeri, the huckster’s trade; hékerske, a ‘huxteress’ (this
form is the Dan. equivalent of E.huckster) ; hokre, tohuckster. ‘y. The
word was imported, about A.D, 1200, probably from the Nether-
lands ; the termination -ster being Dutch as well as English, as shown
by Du. sfin-ster,a spinster, &c.
but it is well illustrated by Hexham’s MDu. Dict., which gives
us hucken, to stoop or bow; een hucker, a stooper, bower, or bender ;
onder eenen swaren last hucken, to bow under a heavy burden; een hucker,
a huckster, or a mercer. Compare also the Icel. hokra, to go bent, to
crouch, creep, slink about, on which it is noted that ‘ in modern usage
hokra means to live as a small farmer, whence hokr, in bi-hokr, small
farming ;’ Vigfusson. Nothing could be more fitting than to describe
the peddler of olden times as a croucher, creeper, or slinker about ;
his bent back being due to the bundle upon it. (See Sir W. Scott’s
description of Bryce Snailsfoot in The Pirate.) ε. Cf. also MDu.
huycken, huken, Du. hutken, to stoop down, crouch (Oudemans) ; Icel.
haka, to sit on one’s hams, with its deriv. hokra; Low G. huken, to |
crouch (Brem. Wort.); hoker, a huckster (Liibben). So also G.
hucke is properly the bent back, whence G. huckeback, pick-a-back ;
G. hocken is to squat, also to carry on the back, and_G. hocker means |
| of his lance weighed six hundred (shekels), and the shaft (of it) was
(1) a hump on the back, and (2) a huckster. See Hawker.
‘HUDDLE, to throw together confusedly, to crowd together. (E.)
Used in late authors in the sense of performing a thing hastily; see |
examples in Todd; but it simply meant, originally, to hide ina heap,
hence to crowd up, or to crowd ; see Merch. of Ven. iv. 1. 28 ; Much
Ado, il. 1.252. ‘Tohudle up together;’ Minsheu. Not found in early
writers ; but the equivalent form fo hudder (the suffixes -er, -/e being
similarly used to express a frequentative) is represented by ME. |
“ For scatred er thi Scottis, and hodred |
in per hottes = for thy Scots are scattered, and huddled (dispersedly) |
hodren = hoderen (with one @).
in their huts; Rob. Manning, tr. of Langtoft, ed. Hearne, p. 273.
B. But again, this ME. hoderen also had the sense of ‘ cover;’ as in
‘hodur and happe’=cover and wrap up; Le Bone Florence, 112, in
Ritson’s Met. Romances, vol. iii; and the true notion of huddle or |
hudder was to crowd together for protection or in a place of shelter,
a notion still preserved when we talk of cattle being huddled together
in rain. So also Low G. Audern, to huddle oneself up (Scham-
bach), Kurhessen huttern, to cover up warm. y. From Teut. base
*hud-, weak grade allied to ME. huden, to hide, Ancren Riwle,
Ρ- 1745 more frequently written Aiden, whence mod. E. hide ; see
Hide (1). Thus to huddle is to hide closely, to crowd together
for protection, to crowd into a place of shelter. Cf. also the ME. sb.
hudels (=AS., hydels), a hiding-place ; Ancren Riwle, p. 146; Wyclif,
\
Deut. xxvii. 15. δ. The notion of doing things hastily may have
Thesame |
HUGUENOT
| been due to the influence of Du. hoefelen, ‘ to doe a thing unskilly ;’
Cf. Pomeran. eenen hukbak dragen, to |
δ. The etymology is much disputed ; |
| exalt;
Hexham. This is allied to G. Audeln, to bungle, of which the Alsatian
form is hudlen ; cf. Swed. hutla, Dan. hutle, to bungle.
HUE (1), show, appearance, colour, tint. (E.) MIE. hewé, often
a dissyllabic word; Chaucer, C. T. 396 (A 394); but properly mono-
syllabic, and spelt heu, Havelok, 2918. AS. hiw, heow, appearance,
Grein, ii. 78.44Swed. hy, skin, complexion; Goth. Aiwi, form, show,
appearance, 2 Tim. iii. 5. Teut. type *hiwjom, n. Cf. Skt. chhavi,
skin, complexion, beauty. Der. hue-d, ME. hewed, Chaucer, (. T.
ΠΕΡ. (F 1245); Awe-less,
HUE (2), clamour, outcry. (F.—Teut.) Only in the phr. hue and
cry, Merry Wives, iv. 5.92; 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 556. See Hue and cry
in Blount’s Nomolexicon; he notes that ‘Ave is used alone, anno
4 Edw. I. stat. 2. In ancient records this is called hutesium et clamor ν᾽
for the latter phrase he cites a passage from the Close Rolls, 30
Hen. III. m. 5. ME. Aue, a loud cry ; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, i.
872 (or 87 73). “ΟΕ. hu, a cry (Godefroy) ; huer, ‘to hoot, ... make
hue and cry ;’ Cot. Cotgrave also gives bude, ‘ashowting,... outcry,
or hue and cry. Of Teut. origin. —MHG. ha, interj.; hiizen, to
hoot ; MSwed. huta, to hoot ; see Hoot.
HUFF, to puff, bluster, bully. (E.) ‘A huff, a huffing or swag-
gering fellow. Huff, to puff or blow, to rant or vapour ;’ Kersey’s
Dict., ed. 1715. ‘And still you huff it;’ Ben Jonson, Every
Man, i. 2.35. Hence huffer, a braggart ; “By such a braggadocio
huffer ;’ Butler, Hudibras, pt. ii. c. 3, 1. 1034. The old sense was
‘to blow’ or ‘ puff up.’ ‘ When as the said winde within the earth,
able to huffe up the ground, was not powerful enough to breake forth
and make issue ;’ Holland’s Pliny, b. ii. c. 85. β. Of imitative
origin; we find huf, puf, and haf, paf in Relig. Antiq. i. 240, to re-
present forcible blowing; cf. puff. Cf. Lowl. Sc. hauch, a forcible
puff; hech, to breathe hard. See Puff, Whiff. Der. huff, at
draughts, simply means ‘to blow;’ it seems to have been customary
to blow upon the piece removed ; Jamieson gives ‘ blaw, to blow,
also, to huff at draughts; I blaw, or blow you, I take [i.e. huff] this
man.’ (So also in Danish; blese en brikke, to huff (lit. blow) a man
at draughts.) Also hwff-er, in Hudibras, as above ; huff-ish, huff-
ish-ly, huff-ish- ness, huff-y, huff-i-ness.
HUG, to embrace closely. (Scand.?) In Shak. Merch. of Ven. ii.
6.16; Rich. III, i. 4.252; &c. [Quite distinct from hug, to shrink,
shudder ; Palsgrave has: ‘I hugge, I shrinke me in my ‘bed. It is
a good porte to se this lytle boye hugge in his bedde for cold.’]
B. Of uncertain origin. Perhaps (but with a change of sense) from
Icel. hugga, to soothe, to comfort ; hugga barnid, to soothe a child;
allied to huga, to mind; hugna, to please; cf. Swed. hugna, to
delight, gratify; Dan. hue, to like. Kalkar has MDan. hugge, to
console, to encourage. ‘This is not far from the sense of hug, in
Comus, 164: ‘and hug him into snares,’ i. e. entice, lure.
HUGE, very great, vast. (F.) ME. huge, Chaucer, C. T. 2953
(A 2951); P. Plowman, Β, xi. 242; Will. of Palerne, 2569. Oddly
spelt hogge; ‘an hogge geant;’ Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft,
p- 31,1. 17. The etymology is much disguised by the loss of an
initial a, mistaken for the E. indef. article; the right word is ahuge.
(The same loss occurs in ME. avow, now always vow, though this is
not quite a parallel case, since vow has a sense of its own.) —OF,
ahuge, huge, vast; a I2th-century word. In the account of Goliath,
in Les Livres des Rois, we find: ‘E le fer de la lance sis cenz, e la
hanste fud grosse e ahuge cume le suble as teissures’= and the iron
great and huge as a weaver’s beam; Bartsch, Chrestomathie Francaise,
col. 45, 1. 36. Also ahoge, ahoje (Godefroy). β. Of unknown
origin ; but perhaps connected with OHG. irhohen (G. erhohen), to
and the OHG. hoh, Icel. har, AS. héah, high. Cf. Norw.
hauga, to heap up; Icel. haugr, a hill, whence OF. hoge, hogue,
a hill; Norm. dial. kogu, arrogant (Moisy). See How (2). Der.
huge-ly ; huge-ness, Cymb. i. 4. 157.
HUGGER-MUGGER, secrecy. (E. and Scand.) In Hamlet,
iv. 5. 84, in phr. in Augger-mugger. A reduplicated form; orig.
hucker-mucker, as in More, Dialoge, ii. 52 b, iv. 121 b (N. E. D.).
The E. prefix hucker is unmeaning, but rimes to mucker, from ME,
mukren, mokeren, to heap up, hoard, conceal, from Norw. mukka,
aheap. See Muck.
HUGUENOT, a French protestant. (F.—G.) ‘ Huguenots,
Calvinists, Reformists, French Protestants;’ Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674.
And in Minsheu. =F. huguenots, s. pl. ‘ Huguenots, Calvinists, Re-
formists ;’ Cot. As if from some person of the name of Huguenot.
This name was in use as a Christian name two centuries before the
time of the Reformation. ‘Le 7 octobre, 1387, Pascal Huguenot de _
Saint Junien en Limousin, docteur en decret;’ Hist. Litt. de la
France, t. xxiv. p. 307 (Littré). Huguenot is a dimin. of Hugues,
Hugh.—{MHG. Hug, Hugh. β. But this form was due to popular
etymology ; and was perverted from G. e‘dgenoss, a confederate, or
| Spenser, F. Q. vi. 3.51.
' perhaps for *humndanus (Bréal); allied to L. hom-o, a man.
|
HULK
from the equivalent Low G. form eedgenoot (MDu. eedtgenoot in
Hexham). Wedgwood cites the Swiss Romance forms einguenot,
higuenot, a protestant, also from G. Cf. Korting, § 3215.
HULK, a heavy ship. (Late L.—Gk.) Sometimes applied to
the body of a ship, by confusion with hull; but it is quite a different
word, meaning a heavy ship of clumsy make ; Shak. Troil. ii. 3. 277.
The hulks were old ships used as prisons. ME. hulke. ‘ Hulke,
shyppe, Hulcus;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 252. ‘ Hulke, a shyppe, heurcque ;’
Palsgrave. ‘Orque, a hulk or huge ship;’ Cot. Late AS. hulc;
‘Liburna, hule;’ Voc. 181. 28.—Late L. hudka, a heavy merchant-
ship, a word used by Walsingham; see quotation in Way’s note to
Prompt. Parv. ; also spelt hulcus, as quoted above. Also spelt (more
correctly) holcas; Ducange.—Gk. ὁλκάς, a ship which is towed,
a ship of burden, merchantman. = Gk, ἕλκειν, to draw, drag; whence
also ὁλκή, a dragging, ὁλκός, a furrow, a machine for dragging ships
on land ; from the base *selk-. Allied to L. sulcus, a furrow, AS. sulh,
a plough. Brugmann, i. ὃ 645. Der. hulk-ing, hulk-y, i.e. bulky
or unwieldy. @7~ Not the same word as ME. hAulke, a hovel, Wyclif,
Isaiah, i. 8; which is from AS, hulc, a hut; Wright's Vocab. i. 58.
HULL (1), the husk or outer shell of grain or of nuts. (E.) ME.
hule, hole, hoole. ‘Hoole, hole, holl, or huske, Siliqua;’ Prompt.
Pary. p. 242. ‘Hull of a beane or pese, escosse.
a tree, escorce ;’ Palsgrave; and see Way’s note in Prompt. Parv.
Peese hole (or pese hule) = pea-shell ; P. Plowman, B. vii. 194, in two
MSS.; see the footnote. AS. hulu, a husk; see index to Napier’s
glosses. Allied to G. hiilse, a husk. From Teut. *hul-, weak grade
of *helan-, to hide, to cover, as in AS. helan. Lit. ‘covering.’ See
Hell.
(Cotton MS.) ; Du. hullen, to put a cap on, mask, disguise ; Goth.
huljan, to hide, cover; G. ver-hiillen, to wrap up; Icel. hylja, to hide,
cover ; Swed. holja, to cover, veil; Dan. hylle, to wrap. Der. see
housings.
HULL (2), the body of a ship. (E.) Not in very early use.
First in 1571. ‘She never saw above one voyage, Luce, And, credit |
me, after another, her hull Will serve again ;’ Beaumont and Fletch.
Wit Without Money, i. 2.17. The Avil is, literally, the ‘shell’ of
the ship, being the same word with the above; see Hull (1).
B. But it is probable that its use with respect to a ship was due to
some confusion with ME. holl, Du. hol, the hold of a ship; see
Hold (2). Cf. ‘Hoole (holle) of a schyppe, Carina;’ Prompt.
Parvy. Der. hull, verb, to float about, as a ship does when the sails
are taken down, Shak. Tw. Nt. i. 5. 217; Rich. III, iv. 4. 4383
Hen, VIII, ii. 4. 199. So in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, we find:
‘Hull, the body of a ship, without rigging. Hulling is when a ship
at sea takes in all her sails in a calm.’
HUM (1), to make a low buzzing or droning sound. (E.) ME.
hummen; Chaucer, Troilus, ii. 1199; Palladius on Husbandry, ed.
Lodge, vii. 124. Of imitative origin. 4G. hummen, to hum. Cf.
also Du. hommelen, to hum; the frequentative form; and Hem (2),
Also MSwed. hum, a rumour (Ihre). Der. hum (2), 4. v., hum-bug,
4. ν., hum-drum, q. v., humble-bee, q. v.; also humm-ing-bird, Pope’s
Dunciad, iv. 446, and in Evelyn’s Diary, July 11, 1654; called
a hum-bird, Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. vi. c. 8. § 10.
HUM (2),to trick, to cajole. (E.) A particular use of the word
above. In Shak. hum not only means to utter a low sound, as in
Temp. ii. 1. 317, but also to utter a sound expressive of indignation,
as in ‘turns me his back And hums,’ Macb. iii. 6. 42 ; ‘to bite his lip
and hum At good Cominius,’ Cor. v. 1. 49. See Richardson and
Todd, where it further appears that applause was formerly expressed
by Aumming, and that to kum was to applaud; from applause to
flattery, and then to cajolery, is not a long step. See the passage
in Ben Jonson, The Alchemist, Act i. sc. 1, where Subtle directs his
dupe to ‘cry hum Thrice, and then buz as often;’ showing that the
word was used in a jesting sense. β, Wedgwood well points out
| asimilar usage in Port. zumbir, to buzz, to hum, zombar, to joke, to
jest; to which add Span. zumbar, to hum, resound, joke, jest, make
one’s-self merry, zumbon, waggish. Der. hum, sb. a hoax (Todd) ;
hum-bug, q.v. Cf. humh! interj., Beaum. and Fletcher, Mons.
Thomas, i. 2.
HUMAN, pertaining to mankind. (F.—L.) Formerly humaine,
but now conformed to the L. spelling. ‘ All feimaine thought ;’
‘TI meruayle not of the inhumanities that
the humam people committeth;” Golden Book, lett. 11, § 2.—MF.
humain, ‘gentle, ... kumane, manly;’ Cot.—L. hiimanus, human;
See
Homage. Der. human-ly, human-ise, human-is-at-ion, human-ist,
human-kind ; also human-i-ty, ME. humanitee, Chaucer, C. T. 7968
(E 92), from OF, humaniteit, which is from L. acc. himanitatem,
nom. himdanitas; hence humanit-ar-i-an. And see Humane,
ἐπ The accent distinguishes human, of French ocigin, from humane,
taken directly from Latin.
Hull or barcke of |
Allied words are OSaxon bikullean, to cover, Heliand, 1406 |
| a humble-bee; hkummen, to hum; Swed. humla, a humble-bee.
HUMOUR
HUMANE, gentle, kind. (L.) In Shak., humane (so spelt)
does duty both for human and humane, the accent being always on
the former syllable; see Schmidt, Shak. Lexicon. Hence it has the
sense of ‘kind;’ Temp. i. 2. 346. We have now differentiated the
words, keeping the accent on the latter syllable in humane, to make
it more like the L. himdanus. We may therefore consider this as the
L. form. Both L. himdnus and F. humain have the double sense
(1) human, and (2)kind. SeeHuman. Der. humane-ly, humane-
ness.
HUMBLE, lowly, meek, modest. (F.-L.) ME. humble,
Chaucer, C. T. 8700 (E 824). Spelt wmble in O. Kentish Sermons,
in An O. Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 30. —OF. (and ἘΝ) humble,
‘humble;’ Cot. (With excrescent b.)—L. humilem, ace. of humilis,
humble ; lit. near the ground.—L. humus, the ground; kumi, on the
ground. Cf. Gk. χαμαί, on the ground; Kuss. zemlia, earth, land.
Brugmann, i. ὃ 604. Der. humbl-y ; humble-ness, formerly humblesse,
Chaucer, C. T. 1783 (A 1781). Also, from L. humilis, humili-ty,
g.V., humili-ate,q.v. Also, from L. humus, ex-hume, q.v. And see
281
| Chameleon.
HUMBLE-BEE, a humming bee. (E.) To humble is to hum ;
| or more literally, to hum often, as it is the frequentative form,
standing for humm-le; the ὁ being excrescent. ‘To humble like a
bee;’ Minsheu. ME. humblen, for hummelen. ‘Or elles lyk the
last humblinge After the clappe of a thundringe ;’ Chaucer, Ho. of
Fame, 1039. Hence hombel-be or hombul-be; Reliquie Antique,
ed. Wright and Halliwell, i. 81. ‘Hic tabanus, a humbyl-bee;’
Wright’s Vocab. i. 255 (Voc. 767. 20).4-Du. hommelen, to hum,
a frequentative form; kommel, a humble-bee, a drone, G. hummel,
See
Hum (1).
HUMBLE-PIE;; see under Umble.
HUMBUG, a hoax, a piece of trickery, an imposition under fair
pretences. (E.) ‘ Humbug, a false alarm, a bugbear ;’ Dean Milles
MS. (written about 1760), cited in Halliwell. The word occurs in
a long passage in The Student, vol. ii. p. 41, ed. 1751, cited in Todd.
An alleged earlier trace of the word is on the title-page of an old
jest-book, viz. ‘ The Universal Jester, or a pocket companion for the
wits; being a choice collection of merry conceits, drolleries, .. .
bon-mots, and humbugs,’ by Ferdinando Killigrew, London, said to
be about 1735-40; but it is no older than1754(N.E.D.). See the
Slang Dictionary, which contains a good article on this word. It is
probably a compound of Aum, to cajole, to hoax, and the old word
bug, a spectre, bugbear, ghost ; the orig. sense being ‘sham bugbear’
or ‘false alarm,’ as given by Dean Milles. [The N.E. D. makes
hum, v., to cajole, a shortened form of humbug, but it is of the same
date at least ; and see Hum (1).] See Hum (2) and Bug. Der.
humbug, verb, as in ‘ humbugged, egad!’ Smollett, Peregrine Pickle,
ch. 85 (1751); humbug,sb., improperly used for humbugger.
HUMDRUM, dull, droning. (E.) Used as an adv., with the
sense of ‘idly’ or ‘listlessly’ in Butler. ‘Shall we, quoth she,
stand still kum-drum?’ Hudibras, pt. i. c. 3. L 112. But it is
properly an adj., signifying monotonous, droning, tedious, as in ‘ an
old humdrum fellow ;’ Addison, Whig Examiner (1710), No. 3
(Todd); and is thus found as eariy as 1553. The sb. humdrum,
a dull fellow, is in Ben Jonson, Every Man,i. 1. Merely formed, as
a reduplicated word, from Aum, a humming noise, and drum, a dron-
ing sound, made to rime with hum. See Hum (1).
HUMERAL, belonging to the shoulder. (L.) ‘ Humeral muscle,
the muscle that moves the arm at the upper end;’ Kersey, ed.
1715.— Late L. humeralis, belonging to the shoulder; ct. L. humerale,
a cape for the shoulders. L. humerus, better umerus, the shoulder.
+Gk. ὦμος, the shoulder ; Goth. amsa, the shoulder ; Skt. amsa-s, the
shoulder, Brugmann, i. § 163.
HUMID, moist. (F.—L.) In Milton, P. L. iv. 151; and in
Cotgrave.—F. Aumide, ‘humid, moist;’ Cot.—L. himidus, better
umidus, moist.—L. hiimére, better tmére, to be moist; allied to
iuens, moist, uuidus, tidus, moist.4-Gk. ty-pds, moist; Icel. vokr,
moist. Brugmann, i. §§ 658, 667. Der. Aumid-ness, humid-t-ly,
Merry Wives, iii. 3. 43 ; and see Aumour.
HUMILIATE, to make humble. (L.) A late word, really
suggested by the sb. humiliation, used in Chaucer, C. T. Pers. Tale
(I 480). The verb is formed from L. humulidtus, pp. of humilare,
to humble. = L. Aumuli-, decl. stem of humilis, humble, See Humble.
Der. Aumiliat-ton (formed by analogy with other words in -ation)
from L. acc. humiliatidnem, nom. humilialio.
HUMILITY, humbleness, meekness. (F.—L.) ME. humilitee,
Chaucer, C. T. 13405 (B 1665).—OF. humilite:t, later humilite.—L.
acc. Aumulitatem, from nom. humilitds, humility. — L. humil:-, decl. stem
of humilis, humble. See Humble.
HUMOUR, moisture, temperament, disposition of mind, caprice.
(F.—L.) See Trench, Select Glossary, and Study of Words. ‘He
τὸ
R2 HUMMOCK, HOMMOCK
knew the cause of euery maladye, And wher engendred, and of what
humour ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 423 (A 421). [The four humours,
according to Galen, caused the four temperaments of mind, viz.
choleric, melancholy, phlegmatic, and sanguine.]—OF. humor
(Littré), later kwmeur, ‘ humour, moisture ;’? Cot. —L. hiimorem, acc.
of humor, better wmor, moisture. —L. hiimére, better wmére, to be
moist. See Humid. Der. humour, verb ; humor-ous, humor-ous-ly,
humor-ous-ness, humour-less, humor-ist; from the same source, hxm-
ect-ant, moistening (rare).
HUMMOCK, HOMMOCK, a mound, hillock, mass. (E.)
‘Common among our voyagers,’ Kich. ; who refers to Anson, Voyage
round the World, b. ii. ο. 9; Cook, Second Voyage, b. iii. c. 4.
*Round hoommockes or hyllockes τ᾿ R. Eden, ed. Arber, p. 381 (1555).
It appears to be related to hump and hunch. Cf. EFries. hummel,
variant of kumpel, hiumpel,a hillock; Du. homp, a hump, hunch;
‘een homp kaas, a lunch [i.e. hunch] of cheese;’ Sewel. ‘ Hompelig,
tugged, cragged;’ id. So too Low G. hiimpel, a little heap or
mound ; Bremen Worterb. ii. 669. Hummock is formed with dimin.
-ock, as in hill-ock; whilst the EFries. kiimmel is formed with the
dimin. -el. See Hump, Hunch.
HUMP, a lump, bunch, esp. on the back. (E.) ‘Hump, a
hunch, or lump, Westmoreland ;’ Halliwell. Of O. Low G. origin,
and may be claimed as E., though not in early use. ‘Only a natural
hump’ {on his back}; Addison, Spectator, no. 558. ‘The poor
hump-backed gentleman ;” id. no. 559.4-Du. homp, a hump, lump;
cf. Low G. hiimpel, a small heap, Bremen Worterbuch, ii. 669;
Dan. humpel, a hummock; Norw. hump, a knoll, a hillock; Swed.
dial. hump, a clot or piece of earth, &c.; Low G. humpe, hompe, a
hunch of bread (Berghaus). Cf. also Skt. Aubja-s, hump-backed.
Der. hump-backed; humm-ock, q.v.; hunch, q.v.
HUNCH, a hump, bump, a round or ill-shaped mass. (E.)
A variant of hump. Hunch-backed occurs in the later quarto edd. of
Shak. Rich. III, iv. 4. 81 (Schmidt). ‘Thy crooked mind within
hunch’d out thy back;’ Dryden, qu. in Vodd (no reference); it
occurs in CEdipus, i. 6, by Dryden and Lee (N. E.D.). A palatalised
form of prov. E. hunk, a lump; which agrees with WFlem. hunke,
as in hunke brood, a hunch of bread (De Bo). And see Franck,
s.v. honk. Der. hunch, vb., hunch-hacked.
HUNDRED, ten times ten. (E.) ME. hundred, Chaucer, C. Τὶ
2155 (A 2153); also hundreth, Pricke of Conscience, 4524. AS.
hundred, Grein, il. 111. A compound word. = AS. hund, a hundred,
Grein, il. 111; and -red, with the sense of ‘reckoning’ or rate, to
denote the rate of counting; cf. Icel. hund-rad, which orig. meant
120; and G, hund-ert, This suffix is allied to Goth. rathjo, number
(L. ratio); cf. Goth. garathjan, to reckon, number, Matt. x. 30;
and see Rate (1). Thus the word grew up by the unnecessary
addition of -red (denoting the rate of counting) to the old word
hund, used by itself in earlier times. B. Dismissing the suffix, we
have the cognate OHG. hunt (also once used alone), Goth. hund ;
cf. also W. cant, Gael. ciad, Irish cead, L. centum, Gk. €-Kar-dv,
Lith. szimtas, Russ, sto, Pers. sad, Skt. catam, all meaning a hundred.
y. All from an Idg,. type *kamtém, prob. a docked form of *dekam-
tom, a decad; and allied to Goth. tathunté-hund, a hundred, which
Brugmann explains as δεκάδων δεκάς (a decad of decads). See
Brugmann, i. § 431, ii. § 179. Andsee Ten. @ The ME. hun-
dreth is a Scand. form; from the Icel. hundrad. Der. hundred-th,
hundred-fold, hundred-weight, often written cwt., where c=L. centum,
and wt=Eng. weight.
HUNGER, desire of food. (E.) ME. hunger, Chaucer, C. T.
14738 (B 3618). AS. hungor, Grein, ii. 111.4Icel. ἀπῆρε; Swed.
and Dan. hunger; Du. honger; G. hunger; Goth. hithrus, hunger ;
whence huggrjan (=hungrian), to hunger. Teut. types *hungruz,
*hunhruz, m. Allied to Lith. kanka, suffering. Brugm. i. § 639.
Der. hunger, verb=AS. hyngran (with vowel-change of zw to y);
hungry= AS. hungrig (Grein); hungri-ly; hunger-bitten, Job, xviii.
12:
HUNT, to chase wild animals. (E.) ME. humnten, honten, Chaucer,
C. T. 1640, AS. huntian; see /Elfric’s Colloquy, in Voc., p. 92.
Properly ‘to capture ;’ a secondary verb related to hentan, to seize,
also a weak verb; Grein, ii. 54. B. We also find Goth. hunths,
captivity, Eph. iv.8; formed from the weak grade (hunth-) of the
verb hinthan (pt. t. hanth), to seize, capture, only used in the comp.
fra-hinthan, with pp. fra-hunthans, a captive, Luke, iv. 19. It
would hence appear that hun/- is a variant of hunth-, though the
variation is not easy to explain. ‘On an apparent pre-Teutonic
change of xt to xd in these and some other words, see Prof. Napier
in Mod. Quart. Lang. & Lit., July, 1898, p. 130; cf. Brugmann,
i. § 7or’—N. E. D. Der. hunt, sb.; hunt-er, Chaucer, C. T. 1638,
later form of AS. hunta, a hunter, in ®lfric’s Colloquy ; hunt-r-ess,
with I. suffix -ess, As You Like It, iii. 2. 4; hunt-ing, sb., hunt-ing-
box, hunt-ing-seat ; hunt-s-man (=hunt’s man), Mid. Nt. Dr. iv. 1. 143;
HURRICANE
hunts-man-ship ; hunts-up (=the hunt is up, i.e. beginning), Rom. iii.
5. 34, replaced by the hunt is up, Tit. Andron. ii. 2. 1.
HURDLE, a frame of twigs interlaced or twined together, a
frame of wooden bars. (E.) ME. hurdel; pl. hurdles, K. Alisaun-
der, 6104. AS. hyrdel; ‘cleta, cratis, hyrdel;’ ‘crates, i.e. flecta,
hyrdel ;’? Wright’s Vocab. i. 26. col. 2, 34. col. 1 (Voc. 126. 16;
140. 23). Also OMerc. hyrdil, Voc. 16.7. A dimin. from a Teut.
base *hurd-; see the cognate words.4Du. horde, a hurdle; Icel.
hurd; G. hiirde, MHG. hurt; Goth. haurds, a door, i.e. one
made of wicker-work, Matt. vi. 6. Further allied to L. cratis, a
hurdle, Gk. κάρταλος, a (woven) basket, from 4/QERT, to weave;
whence also Skt. ἀγέ, to spin, chyt, to connect together. Cf. also
Skt. Aafa-s, a mat. Brugmann, §§ 529, 6333; also Stokes-Fick,
p- 80, where we find Irish certle, glossed by L. ‘glomus.’ Der.
hurdle, verb, pp. hurdled, Milton, P. L. iv. 186. Doublet, crate, q.v.
HURDY-GURDY, a kind of violin, but played by turning
a wheel. (E.) ‘Hum! plays, Isee, upon the hurdy-gurdy ;’ O’Hara’s
play of Midas, Act i (1764). Suggested by Lowl. Sc. hirdy-girdy, a
confused noise; cf. also hirdum-dirdum, with the same sense. Note
also: ‘Som vsep straunge wlafferynge, chiterynge, harrynge and
garrynge, i.e. some people use a strange babbling, chattering,
snarling and growling; Trevisa, tr. of Higden, ii. 159. Cf. Low-
land Sc. hur, to snarl; gurr, to snarl, growl, purr; Jamieson. ‘R
is the dog’s letter, and hurreth in the sound;’ Ben Jonson, Eng.
Grammar. The word seems to have been fashioned on the model of
hurly-burly.
HURL, to throw rapidly and forcibly, to push forcibly, drive.
(Scand.) ‘And hurlest | Tyrwhitt has hurtlest| al from est till occi-
dent ’=and whirlest all from east to west; Chaucer, C. T. Group B,
297=1. 4717. ‘Into which the flood was hurlid;’ Wyclif, Luke,
vi. 49, in six MSS. ; but seventeen MSS. have hurtlid, So again, in
Luke, vi. 48, most MSS. have hurtlid, but eight have hurlid. In the
Ancren Riwle, p. 166, we find ‘ mid a lutel hurlunge’ = with a slight
collision; where another reading is hurtlinge. B. It is plain that
hurl was often confused with hwurtle, both being used in the sense of
to push violently, jostle, strike with a forcible collision. For those
who wish to make the comparison, further references are (1) for
hurlen: Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 211; Poems and Lives of Saints,
ed. Furnivall, xxiii. 25; Will. of Palerne, 1243; Legends of the
Holy Rood, p. 140; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 44, 223, 376, 413,
874, 1204, 1211 ; Destruction of Troy. 1365; Rob. of Glouc. p. 487,
1. 9974; Fabyan’s Chron., an. 1380-1 (R.); Spenser, F. Ὁ. 1. 5. 2,
&c.; (2) for hurtlen, Wyclif, Jerem. xlviii. 12; Prompt. Parv. p. 253;
Will. of Palerne, 5013; Pricke of Conscience, 4787; Chaucer,
Legend of Good Women, Cleopatra, 59; ἅς. B. Nevertheless, they
seem to have zo etymological connexion. Hurl is not found in AS.,
nor earlier than 1225; so that it is prob. of Scand. origin. Explained
by Swed. dial. hurra, to whir, to whirl round; whence hurrel, a
whirl, Aurrel-wind, a whirlwind. So also Dan. hurre, to buzz;
whence hurle, to whir (Larsen); Norw. hurra, to whirl, hum ; hurla,
to buzz; cf. Icel. hurr, a noise. And cf. EFries. hurrel,a gust of
wind; hurreln, to blow in gusts; hurrel-wind, a whirlwind. We
likewise find E. hurleblast, a hurricane, hurlepool, a whirlpool ;
hurlewind, a whirlwind. See Hurry. And compare Whirl, of
which hurl is perhaps a ‘ weak-grade’ form. Der. hurl-er.
HURLY-BURLY, a tumult. (F. and E.) In Macb. i. τ. 3;
as adj., 1 Hen. IV, v. 1. 78. Spelt Aurly-burlye, in Bale’s Kynge
Johan, p. 63 (before 1560). A reduplicated word, the second sylla-
ble being an echo of the first, to give more fulness. The simple form
hurly is the original ; see K. John, iii. 4.169; 2 Hen. IV, iii. 1. 25.—
OF. hurlee, a howling, great noise, orig. fem. pp. of hurler, ‘to howle,
to yell;’ Cot. Cf. Ital. urlare, to howl, yell. Both these forms are
corrupt, and contain an inserted r. The OF. form was orig. huller,
to howl, also in Cot.; cf. Bartsch, Chrestomathie Francaise, col.
354, |. 24; and the correct Ital. form is wlu/are, to shriek, also to howl
or yellasa wolf (Florio). —L. ululare, to howl; wlula,an owl. @ The
MF. hurluburlu, a heedless, hasty person, used by Rabelais, does not
seem to be immediately connected. But we may note MDan. hulder-
bulder, noise, racket (Kalkar); Swed. huller om buller, pell-mell.
The mod. E. hullabaloo seems to be a corruption.
HURRAH, an exclamation of joy. (G.) Spelt whurra in Addison,
The Drummer (near the end). From G. hurra, MHG. hurra. Of
imitative origin; see Hurl. The older word is Huzzah, q. v.
HURRICANE, a whirlwind, violent storm of wind. (Span.—
Caribbean.) Formerly hurricano, ‘The dreadful spout, Which
shipmen do the hurricano call;’ Shak. Troilus, v. 2. ¥72.—Span.
huracan, a hurricane; spelt hurracan in Pineda. = Caribbean huracan,
as written by Littré, who refers to Oviedo, Hist. des Indes. ‘ Great
tempestes which they caule furacanas or haurachanas;’ Eden, ed.
Arber, p. 216. See also Washington Irving’s Life of Columbus,
b. viii. c. 9 (Trench); Rich. quotes from Dampier’s Voyages, v. ii.
HURRY
pt. ii. c. 6, that hurricanes are ‘ violent storms, raging chiefly among
the Caribbee islands.’ Hence also Port. furac@o, a hurricane.
HURRY, to hasten, urge on. (Scand.) ~Quite different from
harry, with which Richardson confuses it. In Shak. Romeo, vy. 1.
65; Temp. i. 2.131. Extended by the addition of y from an older
form hurr, just as scurry is from skirr. It is probably the same word
with the rare ME. horien, to hurry. ‘ And by the hondes hym hent
and horyed hym withinne ’=and they [the angels] caught him [Lot]
by the hand, and hurried him within; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B.
883.—MSwed. hurra, to swing or whirl round (Ihre); Swed. dial.
hurra, to whirl round, to whiz; Swed. dial. hurr, great haste, hurry
(Rietz) ; Dan. hurre, to buzz, to hum; Icel. hurr,a noise. B. Of
imitative origin, and a weaker form of the more expressive and fuller
form whir; see Whir, Whiz. Ben Jonson says of the letter R that
it is ‘the dog's letter, and huwrreth in the sound.’ Der. hurry, sb.
HURST, a wood. (E.) In Drayton’s Polyolbion, 5. 2, 1. 187:
‘that, from each rising hurst.’ ME. hurst (Stratmann). Very com-
mon in place-names in Kent, 6. σ. Pens-hurst. AS. hyrst, i.e. Hurst
in Kent; Thorpe, Diplomatarium, p. 65.4-MHG. hurst, a shrub,
thicket; Low αι. horst; EFries. horst; MDu. horst, horscht, ‘the
wood of osieres or withes;’ Hexham. Perhaps allied to Hurdle.
HURT, to strike or dash against, to injure, harm. (F.) In early
use. ΜΕ. hurten, hirten, used in both senses (1) to dash against,
push; and (2) to injure. Ex. (1) ‘And he him hurteth [pusheth]
with his hors adoun,’ Chaucer, C. T. 2618 (Six-text, A 2616), ac-
cording to 4 MSS.; ‘heo hurten heora hafden’ = they dashed their
heads together, Layamon, 1878. (2) ‘That no man hurte other=
that none injure other; P. Plowman, B. x. 366. Inthe Ancren Riwle,
it has both senses ; see the glossary.—OF. hurter, later heurter, ‘to
knock, push, jur, joult, strike, dash, or hit violently against ;’ Cot.
‘Se heurter a une pierre, to stumble at a stone,’ id. B. Hardly of
Celtic origin; and not from W. hyrddu, to ram, push, impel, butt,
make an assault, hwrdd, a push, thrust, butt; see Thurneysen, p. 81.
We find also OProv. urtar, hurtar (Gloss. to Bartsch, Chrest. Pro-
vengale), Ital. wrtare, to knock, hit, dash against; perhaps from
a late L. type *urtare, as if from *urtum, unused supine of urgére, to
urge, to press on. See Korting, § 9924. 81 MDu. horten, and Low G.
hurten, to push, are from F. Der. hurt, sb., Ancren Riwle, p. 112,
Chaucer, C.T. 10785 (F 471); hurt-ful, hurt-ful-ly, hurt-ful-ness ;
hurt-less, hurt-less-ly, hurt-less-ness.
HURTLE, to come into collision with, to dash against, to
tattle. (F.; with Ἐς suffix.) Nearly obsolete, but used in Gray’s Fatal
Sisters, st. 1; imitated from Shak. Jul. Cesar, ii. 2.22. ME. hurtlen,
to jostle against, dash against, push; see references under Hurl.
Tothese add: ‘ And he him hurtleth with his hors adoun;’ Chaucer,
C. T. 2618 (Six-text, A 2616), in the Ellesmere MS., where. most
other MSS. have hurteth. B. In fact, hurt-le is merely the frequenta-
tive of hurt in the sense ‘ to dash.’ And this hurfis the ME. hurten,
to dash, also to dash one’s foot against a thing, to stumble. ‘ If ony
man shal wandre in the day he hirtith not,’ i.e. stumbles ποῖ ; Wyclif,
John, xi. 9. Du Wes has MF. hurteler, ‘to hurtle together ;’
perhaps from E.; see Palsgrave, p. 948, col. 2. See further under
Hurt.
HURTLEBERRY, a bilberry. (E.) Hakluyt has hurtilberies,
Voy. i. 477. Also called huckleberries, hurts, horts, hearts, hart-
berries; Ἐς, Plant-names (Εἰ. D.S.). Spelt kurtes, A. Boorde, Dyetary,
ed. Furnivall, p. 267. AS. heorotberge, a berry of the buckthorn;
AS. Leechdoms, iii. 331; but cf. Voc. 33. 12, 203. 22, 409. 13, 443.
28. From AS. heorot, a hart; and berge, berie, a berry. See Hart
and Berry.
HUSBAND, the master of a house, the male head of a household,
a married man. (Scand.) The old sense is ‘master of a house.’
ME. husbonde, husebonde. ‘The husebonde ... warned his hus pus’=
the master of the house guardeth his house thus; OEng. Homilies,
ed. Morris, i. 247. ‘Till a vast husbandis houss’=to an empty
[waste] house ofa farmer; Barbour’s Bruce, vii. 151. AS. hiisbonda;
‘et Εἶτα hiisbondum’ = from their fellow-dwellers in the same house;
Exod. iii. 22. Not a true AS. word, but borrowed from Scandina-
vian. = Icel. hiisbond, the master or ‘goodman’ ofa house; a contracted
form from hisbiiandi.—Icel. λῆς, a house; and biandi, dwelling,
inhabiting, pres. part. of bia, to abide, dwell. See Boor, Busk.
Der. husband-man, ME. housbonde-man, a householder, Wyclif, Matt.
Xx. 1; husband-ry, ME. housbonderye, P. Plowman, B. i. 57, spelt
housbondrye, Chaucer, C. T. 9172 (E1296).
HUSH, to enjoin silence. (E.) Chiefly used in the imp. mood
and in the pp. ΜΕ. hushen, hussen; ‘and husht was al the place,’
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 2983, ed. Tyrwhitt; spelt kust, huyst in Six-text,
A2981. ‘Tho weren the cruel clariouns ful whist [Camb. MS. hust]
and full stille ;” Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. ii. met. 5,1. 16 (or 25).
“ After iangling wordes cometh ‘‘huissht ! pees, and be stille”;’ Test.
of Love, bk. 1. ch. 5, 1.-90, B. The word is purely imitative, from
HUT 283
the use of the word hush or husk¢ to signify silence (hush being after-
wards looked upon as a pp.) ; and it is seen that whist is but another
expression of the same kind. See Whist. Cf. Low G. husse bussee,
an expression used in singing children to sleep ; Bremen W6rterb. ii.
678; Hamburgh hiissex, to hush to sleep (Richey). So also G. kusch,
hush! quick! Pomeran. hiisch, Dan. Ays, hush! also Swed. hyssa,
Dan. husse, MDan. hvisse, to hush. And see Hist. Der. hush-
money, Guardian, no. 26, April 10, 1713. @ In the form hushé, the
¢ was at first an integral part of the word, just as in whist, ‘I huste,
I styll,’ Palsgrave ; ‘to huste, silere ;’ Levins.
HUSK, the dry covering of some fruits, &c. (E.) ME. huske.
“ Huske of frute or oper lyke ;” Prompt. Parv. p. 254. ‘ The note [nut]
of the haselle hathe an husk with-outen ;’? Mandeville, Trav. ch. xviii.
p. 188. The & is a dimin. suffix, From AS. his, a house. Cf.
Low G, huuske ; (1) a little house; (2) core of an apple (Berghaus) ;
Pomeran. hiiseken, the same; EFries. hiiske, a little house, core of an
apple, small case; MDu. huysken, a little house, case, husk of fruit
(Kilian). And note AS. pisan hosa, pea-shell, as a gloss to L.
siliqua; Corpus Gloss. 1867. Der. husk, verb, to take off the shells ;
husk-ed.
HUSKY, hoarse, as applied to the voice. (E.) A peculiar use
of husky, i.e. full of husks (N. E. D.). ‘Huskye, or ful of huskes,
siliquosus ;” Huloet (1552). Andsee the otherexamples. But perhaps
influenced by prov. E. hask, dry, parching, tart, hoarse (E. Ὁ. D.);
husk, hoarse, dry, also hoarseness (id.). Der. husk-i-ness.
HUSSAR, a cavalry soldier. (G.—Hungarian.—Servian. —Gk.
—L.) ‘Hussars, Husares, Hungarian horsemen ;’ Coles’ Dict. ed.
1684. ‘After the manner of the Hussars;’ Spectator, no. 576.
‘ Hussars, light cavalry in Poland and Hungary, about 1600. The
British Hussars were enrolled in 1759;’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates. -
G, Husar. —Hungar. huszar, a free-booter, later, a light horseman. —
Serv. xusar, a hussar, free-booter, robber, sea-robber; Popovié.’ = Late
Gk. κουρσάριος, a corsair, pirate (Ducange).—Late L. cursarius, a
corsair. L. curs-us, a course. See Corsair; of which hussar is
a doublet. The word is older than the story about Mathias
Corvinus (1458) ; see N. and Q. 8S. ii. 156; Miklosich, p. 148.
HUSSIF, a case containing thread, needles, and other articles for
sewing. (E.) ‘ Hussif, that is, house-wife; a roll of flannel with
a pin-cushion attached, used forthe purpose of holding pins, needles,
and thread ;’ Peacock, Gloss. of words used in Manley and Corring-
ham, co. Lincoln. Spelt Awsswife in Garrick, Miss in her Teens,
Act 2.sc. 1 (1747). The sense is ‘housewife’s companion.’ [It is
remarkably like Icel. hist, a case; but this is accidental.] From
House and Wife. The ME. word was nedyl-hows, i.e. needle-house;
Voc. 659. 37-
HUSSY, a pert girl. (E.) ‘The young husseys ;’ Spectator, no.
242. Hussy is a corruption of huswife; cf. * Doth Fortune play the
huswife with me now?’ Hen. V, v. 1. 85. And again, huswife stands
for house-wife= woman who minds a house; from house and wife in
the general sense of woman; cf. ‘ the good housewife Fortune,’ As
You Like It, i. 2. 33; ‘ Let housewives make a skillet of my helm ;’
Oth. i. 3. 273. Cf. ME. hoswyf, mater familias; Voc. 794.9. See
House and Wife. And see Hussif.
HUSTINGS, a platform used by candidates for election to par-
liament. (Scand.) The modern use is incorrect; it means rather
a ‘council,’ or assembly for the choice of such a candidate; and it
should rather be used in the singular husting. Minsheu has hustings,
and refers to 11 Hen. VII. cap. 21. ME. husting, a council ; ‘ hulden
muchel husting’= they held a great council; Layamon, 2324. AS.
histing, a council (of Danes); A. S. Chron. an. 1012. Not an AS.
word, but used in speaking of Danes.—Icel. hasping, ‘a council
or meeting, to which a king, earl, or captain summoned his people
or guardsmen.’—Icel. his, a house; and ping, (1) a thing, (2) as
a law term, ‘an assembly, meeting, a general term for any public
meeting, esp. for purposes of legislation; a parliament, including
courts of law.’ Cf. Swed. ting, a thing, an assize; halla ting, to
hold assizes ; Dan. ¢ing, a thing, court, assize. B. The Icel. hus is
cognate with E. house; and ping with KE. ching. See House and
Thing.
HUSTLE, to push about, jostle in a crowd. (Du.) It should
have been hutsle, but the change to hustle was inevitable, to make it
easier of pronunciation. In Johnson’s Dict., but scarce in literature.
First in 1684.—Du. hutselenx, to shake up and down, either in a tub,
bowl, or basket ; onder malkanderen hutselen, to huddle together [lit.
to hustle one another}; Sewel. A frequentative form of MDu.
hutsen, Du. hotsen, to shake, jog, jolt. ‘ Hutselen, or hutsen, to shake
something in a hat;’ Hexham. Cf. Lowland Se. hotch, hott, to move
by jerks, hot/er, to jolt; prov. G. hotze, a cradle, a swing (Schade).
See Hotchpot.
HUT, a cottage, hovel. (F.—OHG.) ME. hotte. ‘For scatred
er pi Scottis, and hodred in per hottes’= for scattered are thy Scots,
HUTCH
and huddled in their huts; Rob. Manning, tr. of Langtoft, ed.
Hearne, p. 273.—F. hutie, ‘a cote [cot] or cottage ;’ Cot. —OHG.
hutta, α. hiitte, a hut, cottage; whence also Span. Auta, a hut ; and
probably Du. hut, Dan. kyle (since these words have not the Low G.
d for HG. #). + Swed. hydda, a hut; MDan. hodde, a hut, hudde,
a nook (Kalkar). From Teut. *hud-, weak grade of *heud-, to hide.
See Hide (1), Hod.
HUTCH, a box, chest, for keeping things in. (F.—Low L.)
Chiefly used now in the comp. rabbit-hutch. Shak, has bolting-hutch,
a hutch for bolted (or boulted) flour; 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 495. Milton
has hutch’d=stored up; Comus, 719. ME. huche, hucche, P. Plowman,
B. iv. 116; Hampole’s Psalter, Ps, 131 (132). 8. —OF. (and F.) huche,
‘a hutch or binne;’ Cot.—Low L. hitica; ‘quadam cista, yulgo
hutica dicta ;’ Ducange. B. Ofunknown origin ; but prob. Teutonic ;
and prob. from OHG, huotan, MHG., hueten, to take care of, from
OHG. huota, heed, care, cognate with E. heed. See Heed.
HUZZAH, a shout of approbation. (E.) ‘Loud huzzas ;’ Pope,
Essay on Man, iv. 256. ‘They made a greate huzza, or shout, at
our approch, three times;’ Evelyn’s Diary, June 30, 1665. Of
imitative origin; cf. G. hussa, huzza; hussa rufen, to shout huzza.
We find also Dan. Aurra, hurrah! Swed. hurra, hurrah! hurrarop,
a cheer (rop =a shout); hurra, v., to salute with cheers: MHG.
hurra, hurrah! Cf. Dan. hurre, to hum, to buzz. See Hurrah,
Hurry.
HYACINTH, a kind of flower. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Cotgrave
and Minsheu; and in Milton, P. L. iv. 701. Spelt Ayacint in Daniel,
Sonnet 34.—F. hyacinthe, ‘the blew or purple jacint, or hyacinth
flower ; we callit also crow-toes;’ Cot. = L. hyacinthus.=— Gk. ἑάκινθος,
an iris or larkspur (not what is now called a hyacinth) ; said, in
Grecian fable, to have sprung from the blood of the youth Hyacinthos ;
but, of course, the fable is later than the name. Cf. Brugmann,
i. § 280. Der. hyacinth-ine, i.e. curling like the hyacinth, Milton,
P. L. iv. 301; Pope, Odys. vi. 274. Doublet, jacinth.
HYADES, a group of stars in Taurus. (Gk.) In G. Douglas, tr.
of Virgil, bk. iii. ch. 8,1. 21.—Gk. ὑάδες, pl., the Hyades; lit. ‘little
pigs;’ allied to Gk. ts, a sow: see Sow (2). Called in Latin
sucule, with the same sense. ΑἹ Connected in popular etymology
with ὕειν, to rain; hence Virgil has ‘ pluuiasque Hyadas;’ Aen.
iii. 516.
HY AWA, the same as Hyena, q. v.
HYALINE, crystalline, glassy. (L.—Gk.) See Milton, P. L.
vii. 619.—L. Ayalinus. —Gk. tadwos, glassy; see Rev. iv. 6.—Gk.
ὕαλος, vedos, crystal.
HYBRID, mongrel, an animal or plant produced from two
different species. (L.—Gk.) ‘She’s a wild Irish born, sir, and
a hybride;’ Ben Jonson, New Inn, A, ii. sc. 2 (Host); also spelt
hybride in Minsheu. - L. hibrida, hybrida, a mongrel, hybrid; esp. with
reference to a wild boar and a sow; Pliny, bk. viii. c. 53. B. Some-
times derived from Gk. ὕβριδ-, stem of ὕβρις, insult, wantonness,
violation; but this is doubtful. Rather, from Gk. ὕ-, for Us, a sow;
and iBpo-, only known from the comp. ἰβρί-καλοι = χοῖροι, i. e. hogs
(Hesychius). So M. Warren, in Amer. Journal of Philology;
vol. v. no. 4.
HYDATID, a cyst containing a watery fluid. (Gk.) The pl.
hydatides occurs in 1683; Phil. Trans. xiii, 284.—Gk. ὑδατιδ-, stem
of ὑδατίς, a watery vesicle.—Gk. ὑδατ-, stem of ὕδωρ, water. See
Hydra.
HYDRA, a many-headed water-snake. (L.—Gk.) In Shak,
Cor. iii. 1. 93.—L. hydra. —Gk. ὕδρα, a water-snake; also written
ὕδρος ; from the base ὑδ- which appears in ὕδωρ, water.4Skt. udra-s,
a water-animal, otter; cited by Curtius, i. 308; Russ. vaidra,
an otter; Lithuan. wdrd, an otter; AS. οἵδ», an otter. See Otter
and Water. Brugmann, i. ὃ 572. Der. hydra-headed, Hen. V,
i. I. 35; also Aydr-ant, barbarously coined, with L. suffix -ant- ;
also hydr-ate.
HYDRANGEA, a kind of flower. (Gk.) A coined name,
referring to the cup-form of the capsule, or seed-vessel ; Johnson’s
Gardeners’ Dict., 1877. First in 1753. Made from Gk, ὑδρ-, for
ὕδωρ, water; and ἀγγεῖον or ἄγγος, a vessel.
HYDRAULIC, relating to water in motion, conveying or
acting by water. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘ Hydraulick, pertaining to organs,
or to an instrument to draw water, or to the sound of running waters
(Bacon) ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Bacon has hydraulicks, Nat.
Hist. § 102.—F. Aydraulique, ‘ the sound of running waters, or music
made thereby;’ Cot.—L. hydraulicus.—Gk. ὑδραυλικός, belonging
to a water-organ.—Gk. ὕδραυλις, an organ worked by water. = Gk.
ὕδρ-, for ὕδωρ, water; and αὐλός, a tube, pipe; from the base af, to
blow; cf. ἄημι, 1 blow. @] For a description of what the hydraulic
organ really was, see Chappell’s Hist. of Music.
HYDRODYNAMICS, the science relating to the force of
water in motion. (Gk.) <A scientific term; coined (in 1738) from
284
HY PNOTISM
Gk. ὕδρο-, from ὕδωρ, water; and Late L. dynamicus, a word of Gk.
origin. See Water and Dynamic.
HYDROGEN, a very light gas. (F.—Gk.) F. hydrogene
(1787). Spelt Aydrogene, E. Darwin, Botanic Garden, c. iii. 1. 260
(note); 1791. A scientific term; coined from hydro-, for Gk.
U5po-, from ὕδωρ, water ; and -géne, for Gk. root γέν-, to produce,
generate. The name means ‘ generator of water.’ See Water and
Genesis.
HYDROPATHY, the water-cure. (Gk.) First in 1843.
Coined from hydro-, standing for Gk. ὕδρο-, from ὕδωρ, water; and
ΑΚ. πάθ-ος, suffering, hence, endurance of treatment. See Water
and Pathos. Der. hydropath-ic, hydropath-ist.
HYDROPHOBIA, fear of water. (L.—Gk.) In Kersey’s
Dict., ed. 1715; spelt hydrophobie,a French form, in Minsheu. First
in 1547. A symptom of the disease due to a mad dog's bite. Coined
from Gk. ὕδρο-, from ὕδωρ, water; and Gk. φόβ-ος, fear, fright, allied
to φέβομαι, I flee.
HYDROPSY, the old spelling of Dropsy. (F.—L.—Gk.)
ME. ydropesie, Wyclif, Luke, xiv. 2; where the later text has
dropesie (with loss of y).— MF. hydropisie, ‘dropsie ;’ Cot. —L. hydrd-
pisis, hydropisia.—Late Gk. *bdpwmois, not found; extended from
Gk. ὕδρωψ, dropsy, a disease due to excess of water.— Gk. ὕδρο-, for
ὕδωρ, water. See Water.
HYDROSTATICS, the science which treats of fluids at rest.
(Gk.) In Kersey, ed. 1715; first in 1660. Coined from hydro-=
Gk. ὕδρο-, from ὕδωρ, water; and E, statics. See Water and
Statics.
HYENA, a sow-like quadruped. (L.—Gk.) Also spelt hyena ;
Milton, Samson, 748. (Older authors use the French form, as hyen,
Shak. As You Like It, iv. 1.156. ME. hyenxe, Chaucer, La Respounse
de Fortune au Pleintif, st. 2.)—L. hyena.— Gk. ὕαινα, a hyena, lit.
‘sow-like ;’ thought to resemble a sow.—Gk. ὕ-, stem of ts, a sow,
cognate with E. sow; with fem. adj. suffix -αινα. See Sow (2).
HYGIENE, sanitary science. (F.—Gk.) Hygiene occurs in 1671
(N. E. D.). =F. hygiéne ; in Dict. Acad. 1762. =Gk. ὑγιεινή (τέχνη),
fem. of ὑγιεινός, healthful. —Gk. ὑγιής, healthy.
HYMEN, the god of marriage. (L.—Gk.) In Shak. Temp. iv.
1. 23.—L. hymen. —Gk. Ὑμήν, the god of marriage. Der. hymenean
or hymenean, Milton, P. L. iv. 711, from MF. hymenean, ‘of or
belonging to a wedding,’ Cot., from L. Hymeneus, Gk. ὑμέναιος,
another name of Hymen, though the proper signification is a
wedding-song; later turned into kymen-eal, as in ‘ hymeneal rite,’
Pope’s Homer, Il. xviii. 570. Allied to hymn; Brugmann, i.
§ 204.
HYMN, a song of praise. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. ympne, Wyclif,
Matt. xxvi. 30; in which the p is excrescent after m, as in ME,
solempne = solemn. = OF. ymne (Littré), later hymne, ‘a hymne,’ Cot. =
L. Aymnum, acc. of hymnus. — Gk. ὕμνος, a song, festive song, hymn.
B. Some explain ὕμνος as ‘a stitching or joining together’ (cf.
Rhapsody), and connect it with Skt. sya@man, a thread (Macdonell)
and E. seam (1) and sew; Brugmann, i. ὃ 294. Der. hymno-
logy.
HYPALLAGE, an interchange. (L.—Gk.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674; and in Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, ed. Arber, bk. iii. ch. 15,
Ρ- 183.—L. hypallagé, ‘a rhetorical figure, by which the relations of
things seem to be mutually interchanged; as, dare classibus austros
(=to give the winds to the fleet) instead of dare classes austris (to
give the fleet to the winds); Virgil, fn. iii. 61;’ White. —Gk.
ὑπαλλαγή, an interchange, exchange, hypallage.—Gk. in-, for ὑπό,
under (see Sub-) ; and ἀλλαγή, change, from ἀλλάσσειν, to change;
from Gk. ἄλλ-ος, another, other. See Alien, Else.
HYPER., prefix, denoting excess. (L.—Gk.) L. hyper, for
Gk. ὑπέρ, above, beyond, allied to L. super, above. See Super-.
Hence hAyper-baton, a transposition of words from their natural order,
lit. £a going beyond,’ from βαίνειν, to go, cognate with Εἰ. come;
hyper-critical, coined from hyper- and critical ; hyper-borean, extreme
northern (Minsheu), from L. boreas, Gk. Bopéas, the north wind ;
hyper-metrical, &c. And see below.
HYPERBOLE, a rhetorical exaggeration. (L.—Gk.) In Shak.
L. L. L. v. 2. 407.—L. hyperbolé.— Gk. ὑπερβολή, excess, exaggera-
tion. — Gk. ὑπέρ, beyond (see Hyper-); and βάλλειν, to throw, cast.
Der. hyperbol-ic-al, Cor. i. 9. 51. Doublet, hyperbola, as a mathe-
matical term.
HYPHEN, a short stroke (-) joining two parts of a compound
word. (L.—Gk.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. Ayphen, which
is merely a Latinised spelling of Gk. ὑφέν, together, lit. ‘ under one.”
-Gk. ip-, for ὑπό, under (see Hypo-); and ἕν, one thing, neuter of
εἷς, one, which is prob. allied to L. sém- in sim-plex.
HYPNOTISM&, the process of artificially producing a deep sleep.
(Gk.) Introduced in 1842; due to hypnotic, adj., which occurs as
early as 1625. ‘ Hypnoticks, medicines that cause sleep ;’ Kersey,
HYPO-
ed. 1721.—Gk. ὑπνωτικός, sleepy, narcotic. Gk. ὑπνό-ειν, to put to
sleep. —Gk. ὕπνος, sleep, for *sup-nos, where sup- is the weak grade
of 4/SWEP, to sleep; cognate with L. somnus (< *swep-nus); see
Somniferous. Brugmann, i. §§ 97, 121.
HYPO,, prefix, lit. ‘under.’ (Gk.) Gk, ὑπό, under ; cognate with
L. sub. See Sub-.
HYPOCHONDRIA, a mental disorder, inducing gloominess
and melancholy. (L.—Gk.) The adj. kypocondriack occurs in Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674. Named from the spleen, which was supposed
to cause hypochondria, and is situate under the cartilage of the
breast-bone.—L. hypochondria, sb, pl., the parts beneath the breast-
bone. = Gk. ὑποχόνδρια, pl. sb., the same. — Gk. ὑπό, under, beneath ;
and χόνδρος, a corn, grain, groat, gristle, and esp. the cartilage of
the breast-bone (cognate with G. grand, gravel, and allied to E.
grind). Der. hypochondria-c, hypochondria-c-al; also hip, to depress
the spirits, hipp-ish. See Hippish.
HYPOCRISY, pretence to virtue. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. ipo-
crisye, Chaucer, C. T. 12344 (Ὁ 410); ypocrisie, P. Plowman, B. xv.
108. —OF. hypocrisie, ‘hypocrisie, dissembling ;’ Cot.—L. Aypocrisis,
in Tim. iv. 2 (Vulgate). —Gk. ὑπόκρισις, a reply, answer, the playing
of a part on the stage, the acting of a part, hypocrisy. — Gk. ὑποκρίνο-
pa, I reply, make answer, playa part. — Gk. ὑπό, under; and κρίνομαι,
I contend, dispute, middle voice of κρίνειν, to judge, discern.
Critic. Der. from the same source, hypocrite, ME. ypocryte,
Chaucer, C. T. 10828 (F 514), F. hypocrite, L. hypocrita, hypocrités,
from Gk. ὑποκριτής, a dissembler, Matt. vi. 2; hypocrit-ic, hypocrit-
ic-al, hypocrit-ic-al-ly.
HYPOGASTRIC, belonging to the lower part of the abdo-
men. (F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt hypogastrick in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
“The hypogaster or paunch;’ Minsheu.—MF. hypogastrique, ‘ be-
longing to the lower part of the belly ;’ Cot.—Late L. hypogastricus.
—Gk, ὑπογάστριον, the lower part of the belly. See Hypo- and
Gastric.
HYPOSTASIS, a substance, personality of each Person in the
Godhead. (L.—Gk.) In Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715 ; and in Minsheu,
ed. 1627. ‘The hypostatical union is the union of humane nature
with Christ’s Divine Person;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. hypo-
stasis.— Gk. ὑπόστασις, a standing under, prop, groundwork, subsist-
ence, substance, Person of the Trinity. —Gk. ὑπό, under; and στάσις,
a placing, a standing, from 4/STA, to stand. See Hypo- and
Stand. Der. hyfostatic=Gk. ὑποστατικός, adj. formed from ὑπό-
στασις ; hypostatic-al.
HYPOTENUSE, HYPOTHENUSE, the side of a right-
angled triangle which is opposite the right angle. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Hypothenuse in Kersey, ed. 1715; but it should rather be hypotenuse.
—F. hypotenuse.—L. hypoténiisa.— Gk, ὑποτείνουσα, the subtending
line (γραμμή, a line, being understood) ; fem. of ὑποτείνων, pres. pt.
of ὑποτείνειν, to subtend, i.e. to stretch under.=Gk. ὑπό, under;
and τείνειν, to stretch, from 4/TEN, to stretch. See Subtend.
HYPOTHEG, a kind of pledging or mortgage. (F.—L.—Gk.)
A law term. The adj. hkypothecary is in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
Hypothec is Englished from MF. hypotheque, ‘an ingagement, mort-
gage, or pawning of an immovable;’ Cot. - L. hypothéca, a mortgage.
= Gk. ὑποθήκη, an under-prop, also a pledge, mortgage. —Gk. ὑπό,
under ; and base 67-, to place, from 4/DHE, to place. See Hypo-
thesis. Der. hypo/hec-ate, to mortgage ; hypothec-at-ion.
HYPOTHESIS, a supposition. (L.—Gk.) In Minsheu, ed.
1627. The pl. hypotheses is in Holland’s Plutarch, p. 623 (R.). —Late
L. hypothesis. —Gk. ὑποθέσις, a placing under, basis, supposition. =
Gk, ὑπό, under; and base θε-, to place, from 4/DHE, to place. See
Hypo- and Thesis. Der. hypothetic, adj.=Gk. ὑποθετικός, sup-
posed, imaginary ; hypothetic-al, hypothetic-al-ly.
HYSON, a kind of tea. (Chinese.) First mentioned in 1740.
In the Amoy dialect called chhun-té, lit. ‘spring tea,’ from chhun,
Spring, and 16, tea (Douglas). Said to have been orig. from hi
chhun, lit. ‘blooming spring ;’ i.e. early crop. From Amoy hi,
blooming ; chhun, spring ; Chinese hei-ch'un.
_HYSSOP, an aromatic plant. (F.—L.—Gk.—Heb.) Spelt hysope
in Minsheu. ΜΕ. ysope, Wyclif, Hebrews, ix. 19.—OF. hyssope,
‘hisop ;” Cot.<L. hyssopus.—Gk. ὕσσωπος, an aromatic plant, but
different from our hyssop; Heb. ix. 19.—Heb. ézobh, a plant,
cot nature of which is not known; see Concise Dict. of the
ible.
HYSTERIC, convulsive, said of fits. (F.—L.—Gk.) Kersey
has hysteric and hysterical ; only the latter is in Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674.—=MF. hysterique; ‘affection hysterique, the suffocation of the
matrix ;’ Cot.=—L. hystericus; whence hysterica passio, called in E.
“the mother ;’ see K. Lear, ii. 4. 56.—Gk. ὑστερικός, suffering in the
womb, hysterical. —Gk. ὑστέρα, the womb; allied to Skt. «dara-m,
the belly, the womb; which see in Uhlenbeck. Brugmann, i. § 706.
Der. hysteric-al, -al-ly; hysterics, hysteria.
See |
ICOSAHEDRON
Ι
I, nom. case of first personal pronoun. (E.) ME. (Northern) εἰ, ἐ;
(Southern) ich, uch, i, AS. ic.4-Du. ik; Icel. ek; Dan. jeg ; Swed.
jag; Goth. ik; G. ich; OHG. th.+Russ. ia; Lith. asz; L. ego; Gk.
ἐγώ, ἐγών ; Skt. aham. Idg. base EGH-, EG-; see Brugmann, ii.
§ 434; Streitberg, § 183. See Me, which is, however, from a different
base.
I-, prefix with negative force. (L.) Only in t-gnoble, i-gnominy,
i-gnore, as an abbreviation of L. in-; see In- (3).
IAMBIC, a certain metre or metrical foot, denoted by ὦ -, for
short followed by long. (L.—Gk.) ‘Zambick, Elegiack, Pastorall ;’
Sir P. Sidney, Apologie for Poetrie (1595); ed. Arber, p. 28.—L.
iambicus, —Gk. ἰαμβικός, iambic. Gk. ἴαμβος, an iamb or iambic
foot, also iambic verse, a lampoon. Origin doubtful. @ Jamb is
sometimes used to represent Gk. tapBos.
IBEX, a species of goat. (L.) Jbexe in Minsheu.
name. = L. ibex, a kind of goat, chamois.
IBIS, a genus of wading birds. (L.—Gk.—Egyptian.) ‘A fowle
in the same Egypt, called :bis ;᾿ Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. viii. c. 27.
‘Sikonyes, that thei clepen zbes ;’ Mandeville’s Tray. ch. 5, p. 45-—
L. ibis. — Gk. ifis; an Egyptian bird, to which divine honours were
paid; Herod. ii. 75, 76. Of Egyptian origin; cf. Coptic hippen
(Peyron), occurring as a bird-name in Levit. xi. 17, Deut. xiv. 16,
where the LXX version has ἶβις, and the Vulgate has ibis.
ICH, any frozen fluid, esp. water. (E.) ME. ys, tts; spelt ys (=«is),
P. Ploughman’s Crede, 436; yse (dat. case), Rob. of Glouc. p. 463,
1. 4; le g511. AS. is, ice ; Grein, ii. 147.4-Du. ijs; Icel. iss; Dan.
iis; Swed. is; G. eis; OHG.is. Teut. type *isom, neut. Der. ice-
berg, found in 1774, but not in Todd’s Johnson; in which the latter
element is the Du. and Swed. berg, Dan. bjerg, G. berg, a mountain,
hill; whence Du. jsberg, Swed. isherg, Dan. tisbjerg, (ἃ. eisberg, an
iceberg. We prob. borrowed it from Dutch. Also ice-blink, from
Dan. iisblink, Swed. isblink, a field of ice extending into the interior
of Greenland; so named from its shining appearance; from Dan.
blinke, to gleam; see Blink. Also ice-boat, ice-bound, ice-cream
(abbreviated from iced-cream), ice-field, ice-float, ice-floe, ice-house,
ice-island, Ice-land, ice-man, ice-pack, ice-plant. Also ice, vb., ic-ing.
Also ic-y=AS. isig; Grein, li. 147; tc-i-ly, ic-i-ness. And see
Icicle.
ICHNEUMON, an Egyptian carnivorous animal. (L.—Gk.) In
Holland's Pliny, b. viii. c. 24 ; Gosson, School of Abuse, ed. Arber,
p- 38 (1579).—L. ichneumon (Pliny). —Gk. ἰχνεύμων, an ichneumon;
lit. ‘a tracker;’ so called because it tracks out the eggs of the
crocodile, which it devours. See Aristotle, Hist. Animals, 9. 6. 5.—
Gk. ἰχνεύειν, to track, hunt after.—Gk. ἴχνος, a track, footstep.
Der. From the same source is ichno-graphy, a design traced out,
ground-plan, a term in architecture (Vitruvius).
ICHOR, the fluid in the veins of gods. (Gk.) ‘ The sacred ichor ;’
Pope, tr. of Homer, Il. v. 516.—Gk. ixwp, juice, the blood of gods.
Der. ichor-ous.
ICHTHYOGRAPHY, a description of fishes. (Gk.) A
scientific term. Coined from Gk. ix@vo-, decl. stem of ἰχθύς, a fish;
and γράφειν, to describe. B. So also ichthyology, spelt icthyology
by Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 24. § 1; from Gk. ἰχθύς,
a fish, and λόγος, a discourse, from λέγειν, to speak of.
ICICLE, a hanging point of ice. (E.) ME. istkel; spelt yseke/,
iseyokel, isykle, isechel, P. Plowman, B. xvii. 227; C. xx. 193. Com-
pounded of ME. ys, ice (see Ice) ; and ikyl, also used alone in the
same sense of ‘icicle,’ as in Prompt. Parv., p. 259. Levins also has
ickles=icicles. AS. isgicel, compounded of is, ice, and gicel, a small
piece of ice ; orig. written ises gicel, where ises is in the gen. case.
‘Stiria, ises gicel;’ Elfric’s Gloss., in Wright's Vocab. i. 21, col. 2
(Voc. 117.14). B. Gicel appears in the older form gecilae, Epinal
Gloss. 954, which is cognate with Icel. jokull, used by itself to signify
‘icicle;’ cf. Low G. is-hekel, is-jakel, icicle. γ. Icel. jokull is the
dim. of Icel. jaki, a piece of ice, cognate with Irish aig, W. ia, ice
(from an OCeltic type yagi-); Stokes-Fick, p. 222. Cf. also Pers.
yakh, ice; Rich. Dict. p. 1705; Horn, § 1126. Also prov. E. ickle,
an icicle; and the comp. ice-shockle, Thus the word really = ice-ice-/,
though the second ice is not the same word with the first. 4 Observe
that -ic- in ic-ic-le is totally different from -ic- in art-ic-le, part-ic-le.
ICONOCLAST, a breaker of images. (Gk.) ‘ Iconoclasts, or
breakers of images;’ Bp. Taylor, Of the Real Presence, xii. § 28.
A coined word; from Gk. eixévo-, for εἰκών (Latinised as icon), an
image; and κλάστης, a breaker, one who breaks, from κλάειν, to
break. Der. iconoclast-ic.
ICOSAHEDRON, a solid figure, having twenty equal triangular
faces. (Gk.) Spelt icosaedron in Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715. Coined
285
A scientific
286 IDEA
from Gk. εἴκοσι, twenty; and ἕδρα, a base, lit. a scat, from base ἐδ-,
to sit, cognate with E. Sit. Der. icosahedr-al.
IDEA, a (mental) image. notion, opinion. (L.—Gk.) ‘ Idea is
a bodilesse substance,’ &c.; Holland, tr. of Plutarch, p. 666. ‘The
fayre Idea ;’ Spenser, Sonnet 45.—L. idea.—Gk. ἰδέα, the look or
semblance of a thing, species. — Gk, ἰδεῖν, to see. 4/WEID, to see;
cf. Skt. vid, to perceive, know. See Wit, verb. Der. ide-al, from
MF. ideal, ‘ideall’ (Cot.), which is from L. idedlis ; hence ide-al-ly,
ide-al-ise, ide-al-ism, ide-al-ist, ide-al-is-at-ion, ide-al-ist-ic, ide-al-i-ty
(most of these terms being rather modern).
IDENTICAL, the very same. (L.) ‘Of such propositions as in
the schools are called identicall ;? Digby, Of Man’s Soul, c. 2 (R.)
Coined by adding -al to the older term identic, spelt identick in
Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715. ‘The beard’s th’ identique beard you
knew ;’ Butler, Hudibras, pt. ii. c. 1. 1. 149. Identic is formed as if
from a Late L. *identicus, suggested by the older identitas; see
Identity. Der. identic-al-ly, -ness.
IDENTITY, sameness, (F.—Late L.—L.) ‘Of identity and
of diversity ;” Holland’s Plutarch, p. 54 (R.); and in Minsheu. =F.
identité, ‘identity, likeness, the being almost the very same ;’ Cot.—
Late L. identitatem, acc. of identitas, sameness ; a word which occurs
in Marcianus Capella. = L. identi-, occurring in identi-dem, repeatedly ;
with suffix -tas.—L. idem, the same; for *is-dem >*iz-dem; Brug-
mann, ii. § 416,—L. i-, from base I, pronominal base of the 3rd
person ; and -dem, from base DE, likewise a pronom. base of the 3rd
person. Der. From the same L. identi- we have identi-fy = F.
identifier (Littré); whence identi-fic-at-ion ; see identical.
IDES, the 15th day of March, May, July, and October, and the
13th of other months. (F.—L.) ‘The zdes of March;’ Jul. Czesar,
i. 2. 18, 19.—F. ides, ‘the ides of a month ;’ Cot. —L. idis, the ides.
Rob. of Brunne has the Lat. form Jdus; tr. of Langtoft, p. 341.
IDIOM, a mode of expression peculiar to a language. (F.—L.—
Gk.) ‘The Latine and Greek idiom;’ Milton, Of Education (R.)
Spelt idiome in Minsheu. =F. idiome, ‘an ideom, or proper form of
speech;’ Cot.—L. idiéma.—Gk. ἰδίωμα, an idiom, peculiarity in
language.= Gk. ἰδιόω, I make my own.—Gk. ἔδιο-, decl. stem of
ἴδιος, one’s own, peculiar to one’s self. (See Prellwitz.) Der. idiom-
at-ic, from ἰδιώματ-, stem of ἰδίωμα ; idiom-at-ic-al, idiom-at-ic-al-ly.
Also idio-pathy, a primary disease not occasioned by another, from
ἴδιο-, for ἴδιος, and ma-, as seen in παθεῖν, to suffer (see Pathos) ;
idio-path-ic, idio-path-ic-al-ly. And see below.
IDIOSYNCRASY, peculiarity of temperament, a character-
istic. (Gk.) ‘ Whether quails, from any ‘diosyncracy or peculiarity
of constitution,’ &c.; Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 28, last
section. Cf. F. idiosyncrasie.— Gk. ἰδιοσυγκρασία, a peculiar tempera-
ment or habit of body.—Gk, ἴδιο-, for ἔδιος, peculiar to one’s self;
and σύγκρασις, a mixing together, blending. For Gk. ἴδιος, see
Idiom. The Gk. σύγκρασις is compounded of σύν, together, and
κρᾶσις, a mingling; see Crasis.
IDIOT, a foolish person, one weak in intellect. (F.—L.—Gk.)
See Trench, Study of Words. ME. idiot, Chaucer, C. T. 5893 (D 311).
=F. idiot, ‘an ideot (sic) or naturall fool;’ Cot.—L. ididta, an
ignorant, uneducated person. —Gk, ἰδιώτης, a private person, hence
one who is inexperienced or uneducated. (See r Cor. xiv. 16, where
the Vulgate has locum ididta, and Wyclif ‘ the place of an ydiote.’) =
Gk. ἰδιόω, I make my own. Gk. i&o-, for téios, one’s own. See
Idiom. Der. idiot-ic, idiot-ic-al, idiot-ic-al-ly, idiot-ism ( =idiom) ;
also idioc-y, in Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715, formed from idiot as
prophec-y is from prophet.
IDLE, unemployed, useless, unimportant. (E.) ME. ydel, Chaucer,
C. T. 2507 (A 2505); hence the phr. im idel=in vain, id. 12576
(C 642). AS. idel, vain, empty, useless; Grein, ii. 135.4-Du. del,
yain, frivolous, trifling; (whence Dan. and Swed. idel); G. eitel,
vain, conceited, trifling; OHG. ital, empty, useless, mere. The
orig. sense seems to have been ‘ empty’ or ‘ clear;’ cf. Low G. ide,
pure, unmixed (Liibben); cf. Gk. i@apds, pure, αἰθήρ, a clear sky.
See Ether. Der. idl-y; idle, verb; idl-er, idle-ness, Ormulum,
4736, from AS. idelnes, Grein, ii. 135.
IDOL, a figure or image of a god. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. idole,
Chaucer, C. T. 15753 (ἃ 285).—OF. idole; see Sherwood’s index to
Cot. «Το idélum, 1 Cor. viii. 4 (Vulg.); also iddlon.—Gk. εἴδωλον,
an image, likeness. —Gk. εἴδομαι, 1 appear, seem; cf. Gk. εἶδον,
I saw, ἰδεῖν, to see. —4/WEID, to see; cf. Skt. vid, to perceive; and
see Wit, verb. Der. ido-latry (contraction of idolo-latry), ME.
ydolatrie, Chaucer, C. T. Pers. Tale, De Avaritia, § 2 (I 748), from
F. idolatrie=Late L. idélatria, shortened form of idélolatria, from
Gk. εἰδωλολατρεία, service of idols, Coloss. iii. 5; composed of
εἰδωλο-, for εἴδωλον, and λατρεία, service, from λάτρον, hire. Also
idolater, from OF. idolatre, ‘an idolater’ (Cot.); also idolastre in
OF., whence ME. dolastre, an idolater, Chaucer, C. T. Pers. Tale,
De Avaritia, § 3 (1 749); the OF. idolatye is developed from OF.
ILIAC
idolatr-ie, explained above. Hence also idolatr-ess, idolatr-ise, idolatr-
ous, idolatr-ous-ly. Also idol-ise (Kersey), idol-is-er ; see idyl.
IDYL, IDYLL, a pastoral poem. (L.—Gk.) ‘Amatorions
eidyls ;? Holland’s Pliny, bk. xxviii. ch. 2 (ii. 296). ‘Zdyl, a poem
consisting of a few verses;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. —L. idyllium.
— Gk, εἰδύλλιον, a short descriptive pastoral poem ; so called from
its descriptive representations.—Gk. εἶδος, shape, figure, appear-
ance, look. Gk, εἴδομαι, 1 appear, seem (above). Der. idyll-ic.
IF, a conjunction, expressive of doubt. (E.) ME. if, Chaucer,
C.T. 145; 3if, P. Plowman, B. prol. 37; giff, Barbour, Bruce, i. 12.
AS. gif, if; Grein, i. 505. Cf. Icel. ef, if, if; OFries. ief, gef, ef,
if; OSax. ef, if; Goth. zba, ibai, interrog. particle, jabai, if. Cf. also
Du. of, OF ries. of, OSax. of, G. ob ; OHG. iba, condition, stipula-
tion, whence the instrum. case ib, ipu, used in the sense of ‘if,’ lit.
‘on the condition ;’ also OHG. upi, upa, ube, mod. (ἃ. ob, whether.
B. The OHG. zbu is the instrumental case of iba, as said above ; so
also the Icel. ef, if, is closely related to (and once a case of) Icel. ef
(if), doubt, hesitation, whence also the verb efa (ifa), to doubt. See
Kluge, s. v. οὗ, @ The guess of Horne Tooke, that AS. gif is the
imperative mood of AS. gifan, to give, has been copied only too
often. It is plainly wrong, (1) because the AS. use of the words
exhibits no such connexion, and (2) because it fails to explain the
cognate forms.
IGNITION, a setting on fire. (F.—L.) ‘Not a total ignition ;’
Sir Τὶ Browne, Works, b. ii. c. 2. ὃ 6.—F. ignition, ‘a burning,
firing;’ Cot. Coined (as if from L. *ignitio, a burning) from L.
ignitus, pp. of ignire, to set on fire. —L. ¢gnis, fire. Skt. agni, fire ;
base *egni-. Cf. Russ. ogone, Lith. ugnis, fire; base *ogni-, Brug-
mann, 1. § 148. See also Ingle (2). Der. Hence ignite, a later
word, though perhaps formed directly from L. pp. ignitus ; ignit-ible.
Also igneous, Englished from L. igneus, fiery, by the common change
from L, -us to E. τοῦς, Also, directly from the Latin, ignis fatuus,
lit. ‘ foolish fire,’ hence,a misleading meteor; see Fatuous. ‘Fuller
(Comment. on Ruth, p. 38) would have scarcely spoken of “fa
meteor of foolish fire,” if ignis fatuus, which has now quite put ‘out
«ὁ firedrake,” the older name for these meteors, had not been, when
he wrote, still strange to the language, or quite recent to it;’
Trench, Eng. Past and Present, lect. iv. (ed. 1875).
IGNOBLE, not noble, mean, base. (K.—L.) In Shak. Rich. III,
il. 7. 127.—F. ignoble, ‘ignoble ;’ Sherwood’s index to Cotgrave.—
L. ignobilis.—L. i-, short for in-, not; and gndbilis, later nobilis,
noble. See I- and Noble. Der. ignobl-y, ignoble-ness. And see
Ignominy.
IGNOMINY, disgrace, dishonour. (F.—L.) In Shak. 1
Hen. IV, v. 4. 100. =F. ignominie, ignominy ;’ Cot.—L. ignominia,
disgrace.—L, ἐς, short for in-, not; and gndmini-, decl. stem of
-gnomen (as in a-gndmen, co-gnomen), something by which one is
known; from gno-scere, to know; see Know. @ Distinct from L.
nomen, a name; see Name. Der. ignomini-ous, ignomini-ous-ly,
-ness. See Ignore. “
IGNORE, not to know, to disregard. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave.
—F. ignorer, ‘to ignore, or be ignorant of ;? Cot.—L. igndrare, not
to know.=—L. ἐπ, short for in-, not; and the base gnd-, seen in
gnoscere, later noscere, to know. See Know. Der. ignorant, in the
Remedie of Love, st. 34, pr. in Chaucer’s Works, ed. 1561, fol. 323 b,
from Ἐς. ignorant (Cot.), which from L. igndrant-, stem of pres. pt. of
ignorare; ignorant-ly; also ignorance, in early use, Ancren Riwle,
p. 278, 1.7, from F. ignorance (Cot.), which is from L. ignorantia,
ignorance. Also ignoramus, formerly a law term ; ‘Igndramus (i. 6.
we are ignorant) is properly written on the bill of indictments by the
grand enguest, empanelled on the inquisition of causes criminal and
publick, when they mislike their evidence, as defective or too weak
to make good the presentment ;’ Blount’s Law Dict. 1691 (from
Cowel, 1607).
IGUANA, a kind of American lizard. (Span.—Caribbean.)
‘The yguana’ is described in a translation by E. G. of Acosta’s
Hist. of the Indies, p. 313. Spelt wanna in Eden, ed. Arber, p. 167.
Also called guana.—Span. iguana. B. Eden (ed. Arber, pp. 85,
167) gives twanna as the (Caribbean) name in Hayti; he spells it
yuana at p. 220. Littré gives ywana as a Caribbean word, cited by
Oviedo in 1525.
IGUANODON, a fossil dinosaur, with teeth like an iguana.
From iguana, and Gk, ὁδον-τ-, stem of ὀδούς, a tooth.
IL- (1), the form assumed by the prefix in- (=L. in, prep.) when
followed by 1. Exx.: il-lapse, il-lation, il-lision, il-lude, il-luminate,
il-lusion, il-lustrate, il-lustrious. See In- (2).
IL- (2), the form assumed by the L. prefix zn-, used in a negative
sense, when followed by 1. Exx,: il-legal, il-legible, il-legitimate,
il-liberal, il-licit, il-limitable, il-literate, il-logical. See In- (3).
ILIAC, pertaining to the smaller intestines. (F.—L.) ‘The
iliacke passion is most sharpe and grieuous;’ Holland, tr. of Pliny,
ILIAD
b. xxx. c. 7.“ Εἰ iliaque, ‘of or belonging to the flanks;’ Cot.
Formed from Late L. iliacus, adj. (Lewis); from L. i/ia, sb. pl. the
fianks, groin. β. But interpreted as if from Late L. ileos, for Gk.
εἰλεός, a severe pain in the intestines; from Gk. εἱλεῖν, εἴλειν, to
press hard. See also Jade (2).
ILIAD, an epic poem by Homer. (L.—Gk.) Called ‘ Homer's
Tliads’ by the translator Chapman.=L, Jliad-, stem of Ilias, the
liad. = Gk. Ἰλιάδ-, stem of Ἰλιάς, the iad. Gk. Ἴλιος, Ἴλιον, Ilios,
llion, the city of Ilus; commonly known as Troy. —"IAos, Ilus, the
(mythical) grandfather of Priam, and son of T'ros (whence Troy).
ILK, same. (Ε.) Hence, of that ilk, of the same (territorial)
name; e.g. Guthrie of that ilk, i.e. Guthrie of Guthrie. ME.
(Northern) iJk; AS. ilca, m., the same. From the pronominal stem
i- (as in Goth. i-s, L. is, he), and AS. lic, like. Cf. such, which
(North. sw lk, quhilk).
ILL, evil, bad, wicked. (Scand.) The comp. and superl. forms
are Worse, Worst, αν. ME. ill, il/e, Ormulum, 6647 ; common
as ady., Havelok, 1165 ; chiefly used in poems which contain several
Scand. words. —Icel. ‘llr, adj. ill; also written ir; Dan. ide (for
ille), adv. ill, badly ; Swed. dla, adv. ill, badly. [It is not allied to
the AS. y/el, whence the mod. E. evil.) Der. ill, adv., ill, sb. ; ill-
ness, Macb. i. 5. 21 (not in early use) ; iJl-blood, ill-bred, ill-breeding,
ill-favoured, ill-natured, ill-starred, ill-will.
ILLAPSE, a gliding in, sudden entrance. (L.) Rare. ‘The
illapse of some such active substance or powerful being, ilapsing
into matter,’ &c.; Hale, Origin of Mankind, p. 321 (R.) Coined (in
imitation of lapse) from L. illapsus, a gliding in.—L. i/- (for in), in;
lapsus, a gliding, from the same stem as the pp. of /abi, to glide.
See Il- (1) and Lapse. Der. illapse, vb.
ILLATION, an inference, conclusion. (F.—L.) ‘ Zilation, an
inference, conclusion ;” Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674; and in Cotgrave.
=F. illation, ‘an illation, inference ;’ (οἵ. “Τὸ acc. illatidnem, from
nom. il@tio, a bringing in, inference.—L. il-=in-, prefix, in; and
lat-, as in latus=tlatus, borne, brought (= Gk. τλητός, borne), from
TEL, to lift. See Il- (1) and Tolerate. 587 Since Jatus is used
as the pp. of ferre, to bear, whence in-fer-ence, the senses of illation
and inference are much the same. Der. il-lative, il-lative-ly.
ILLEGAL, contrary to law. (L.) ‘Not an illegal violence ;’
Milton, Reason of Church Government, b. ii (R.) And in Selden,
Table Talk, ed. Arber, p. 75. From 1]- (2) and Legal. Der.
illegal-ity, from F, illegalité, ‘illegality ;’ Cot.; ilegal-ly, illegal-ise.
ILLEGIBLE, not to be read. (F.—L.) ‘ The secretary poured
the ink-box all over the writings, and so defaced them that they
were made altogether illegible; Howell, Dodona’s Grove, ed. 1645,
p- 55 (N. E. D.). Coined from Il- (2) and Legible. Der.
illegibl-y, illegible-ness ; also illegibil-t-ty.
ILLEGITIMATE, not born in wedlock. (L.) In Shak. Troil.
vy. 7. 18 From Il- (2) and Legitimate. Der. illegitimate-ly,
illegitimac-y.
ILLIBERAL, niggardly, mean. (F.—L.) In Marlowe, Faustus,
i, 1. Bacon has illiberalitie; Essay vii (Of Parents). From 1]- (2)
and Liberal. Der. illiberai-ly, illiberal-i-ty.
ILLICIT, unlawful. (F.—L.) “ Illicitous, Illicite, unlawful; ’
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1684. =F, illicite, ¢illicitous ;’ Cot.—L. illicitus,
not allowed.—L. i-=in-, not; and licitus, pp. of licére, to be
allowed, to be lawful. See License. Der. illicit-ly, illicit-ness.
ILLIMITABLE, boundless. (L.) In Spenser, Hymn of
Heavenly Love, 1. 57; Milton, P. L. ii. 892. From Il- (2) and
Limitable; see Limit. Der. illimitabl-y, illimitable-ness.
ILLISION, a striking against. (L.) In Holland’s Plutarch,
p- 867 (R.); and Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 27, part 10.
Formed (by analogy with F.sbs. from L. accusatives) from L. illiszo,
a striking or dashing against; cf. iJlis-us, pp. of illidere, to strike
against. L. il- (for in, upon); and /Jadere, to strike, hurt. Sce
11- (1) and Lesion.
ALLITERATE, unlearned, ignorant. (L.) In Shak. Two Gent.
lil. i. 206. —L. illitteratus, less correctly iliteratus, unlettered. = L.
il-=in-, not; and litteratus, literatus, literate. See Il- (2) and
Literal. Der. illiterate-ly, -ness.
ILLOGICAL, not logical. (L. and Gk.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674. From 1]- (2) and Logical; see Logic. Der. ilogical-ly,
-ness.
ILLUDE, to deceive. (L.; or F.—L.) ‘I cannot be iliuded;’
Sir T. More, Works, p. 166 g. Cf. F. illuder, ‘to illude,delude, mock;’
Cot. “αὶ illidere, pp. illiisus, to make sport of, mock, deceive. = L.
il- =in-, on, upon; and Jiidere, to play. See Il- (1) and Ludi-
crous. Der. illus-ion, q.v.; also illus-tve, Thomson, to Seraphina,
1,2; illus-ive-ly, illus-ive-ness.
ILLUMINATE, to enlighten, light up. (L.) In the Bible,
A.V., Heb. x. 32; Shak. Jul. Cesar, i. 3. 110. But properly a pp.,
as in Bacon, Ady. of Learning, b. i. 7. § 3; G. Douglas, tr. of Virgil,
IMBECILE
prol. to bk. xii., 1. 54. [Older writers use il/umine; see Dunbar,
Thrissill and Rois, st. 3. - We also find the shortened form illume,
Hamlet, i. 1. 37. Both from F. illwminer; Cot.|—L. illiiminatus,
Heb. x. 32 (Vulgate); pp. of ilaminare, to give light to.—L. il-,
for in, on, upon; and Jaminare, to light up, from lamin-, for lamen,
light. See Il- (1) and Luminary. Der. illuminat-ion, illuminat-
ive, illuminat-or; also illumine (see above), for which Gower uses
enlumine, Ος A. iii. 86 (bk. vii. 64), whence the short form dlume
(see above), with which cf. relume, Oth. v. 2. 13.
ILLUSION, deception, false show. (F.—L.) In Chaucer, C.T.
11446 (F 1134).—F. illusion, ‘illusion;’ Cot.—L. acc. ilisionem,
from nom. illasio, a deception; cf. illisus, pp. of illiidere, to mock.
See Illude; which also see for ilusive.
ILLUSTRATE, to throw light upon. (L.) In Shak. Hen. VIII,
iii. 2.1813; and in Palsgrave. Properly a pp.; see L. L. L.iv. 1.65;
y. 1. 128.—L. dlustratus, pp. of illustrdre, to light up, throw light
on.=L, il-, for in, upon; and lustrare, to enlighten. See Illus-
trious. Der. illustrat-or, illustrat-ion, illustrat-ive, illustrat-ive-ly ;
and see below.
ILLUSTRIOUS, bright, renowned. (F.—L.; or L.) In
Shak. L. L. L. 1. 1. 178. A badly coined word; either from F.
illustre, by adding -ous, or from the corresponding L. éllustris, bright,
renowned. [Its form imitates that of industrious, which is correct. |
B. The L. illustris is derived from il-, for ix, on, upon; and -lustris,
for *louc-s-tris, from louc-, base leuc- > Ine-, as in lic-idus, bright.
See Lucid. Brugmann, i. ὃ 760. Der. ilustrious-ly, -ness.
IM-. (1), prefix. (F.—L.) In some words, im- stands for em-, the
OF. form of L. im-, prefix. Exx.: im-brue, im-mure, im-part.
IM- (2), prefix. (E.) For E. in; as in im-bed, for in-bed.
due to the influence of Im- (1).
IM- (3), prefix. (L.) 10. im- (for iz), in; when ὃ, m, or p follows.
Exx.: im-bue, im-merge, im-migrate, im-mit, im-pel, &c.
IM- (4), prefix. (K.—L.; or L.) Negative prefix; for L. in-,
not. Exx.: im-matertal, im-mature, im-measurable, im-memorial, im-
modest, im-moderate, im-moral, im-mortal, im-movable, im-mutable ;
im-palpable, im-parity, im-partial, im-passable, im-passive, im-patient,
im-peccable, im-penetrable, im-penitent, im-perceptible, im-perfect, im-
perishable, im-personal, im-pertinent, im-perturbable, im-piely, im-pious,
im-placable, im-polite, im-politic, im-ponderable, im-possible, im-potent,
im-practicable, im-probable, im-proper, im-provident, im-prudent, im-
pure; for which see material, &c.
IMAGE, a likeness, statue, idol, figure. (F.—L.) In Chaucer,
C. T. 420 (A 418). And in St. Katherine, 1. 1476.—F. image, ‘an
image;’ Cot.—L. imdginem, acc. of imago, a likeness. Formed,
with suffix -@go, from the base im- seen in im-itdr?, to imitate. See
Imitate. Der. image-ry, Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, iii. 100; ymagerie,
Gower, C. A. ii. 320; bk. v. 5771; also smag-ine, q. ν.
IMAGINE, to conceive of, think, devise. (F.—L.) ME, ima-
ginen; Chaucer, C. T. 5309 (Β 889).—F. imaginer, ‘to imagine,
think ;’ Cot.—L. imdgindri, pp. imigindtus, to picture to one’s self,
imagine. = L. imagin-, stem of imago, a likeness ; see Image. Der.
imagin-er ; imagin-able, Sir T. More, Works, p. 1193 d; imagin-abl-y,
imagin-able-ness ; imagin-ar-y, Com. of Errors, iv. 3. 10; imagin-at-
ton, ME. imaginacioun, Chaucer, C. T. 15223 (B 4407); imagin-at-ive
=ME. imaginatif, Chaucer, C. T. 11406 (F 1094) ; imagin-at-ive-ness.
IMAM, IMAUM, a Muhammedan priest. (Arab.) Arab. imam,
a leader, chief, prelate, priest. —Arab. root amma, ‘he tended
towards;’ Rich. Dict., p. 163.
IMBALM, the same as Embalm, q.v. (F.) Milton has im-
balm'd, Areopagitica, ed. Hales, p. 6, 1. 7.
IMBANK, the same as Embank, q.v. (F. and E.)
IMBARGO, the same as Embargo, q.v. (Span.)
Dict. ed. 1684.
IMBARK, the same as Embark, q.v. (F.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.
IMBECILE, feeble. (F.—L.) ‘We in a manner were got out
of God’s possession; were, in respect to Him, become imbecile and
lost ;? Barrow, Sermons, vol. ii. ser. 22 (R.) {Formerly a rare word
as an adj.; but the verb to imbécill (accented on the penultimate) was
rather common; see note below.] IJmbecility is in Shak. Troil. i. 3.
114.—MF. imbecille, ‘weak, feeble;’ Cot.—L. imbécillum, acc. of
imbécillus, feeble. Root unknown. Der. imbecil-i-ty. ἐφ" The
examples in R. show that the verb to imbécill or imbécel, to weaken,
enfeeble, was once tolerably well known. It also meant ‘to diminish’
or ‘subtract from,’ and was repeatedly confused with the verb to
embezzle, to purloin. An example from Udal, on the Revelation of
St. John, c. 16, shows this sense. It runs as follows: ‘The second
plage of the second angell is the second iudgement of God against
the regiment of Rome, and this is smbeselyxge and diminishyng of
theyr power and domynion, many landes and people fallynge from
them.’ The quotations (in R.) from Drant’s tr. of Horace, b.i. sat. 6
and sat. 5, introduce the lines : §So tyrannous a monarchie tmbecelyng
287
But
In Coles’
IMBED
freedome, than’ [then]; and: ‘And so imbecill all theyr strengthe
that they are naught to me.’ These lines completely establish the
accentuation of this verb, and further illustrate its sense. See Hm-
bezzle. The old word bezzle, to squander, is, however, the real
original of im-bezzle; from OF. besiler, to destroy, waste.
IMBED, to lay, as in a bed. (E.; with F. prefix.) In Todd’s
Johnson. From Im- (2) and Bed. For in-bed or em-bed.
IMBIBE, to drink in. (F.—L.; or L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674. Cf. enbibing in Chaucer, C. T.,G 814.—MF. imbiber, in use in
the 16th cent.—L. imbibere, to drink in.—L. im- =in, in; and bibere,
to drink. See Bib. Or taken immediately from Latin. Der.
imbibit-ion, once a common term in alchemy; see Ben Jonson,
Alchemist, ii. 1 (Subtle). Der. imbue, q. v.; imbrue, q. v.
IMBITTER, to render bitter. (E.; with Ἐς prefix.) ‘Why loads
he this wnbitter’d life with shame?’ Dryden, tr. of Homer’s Iliad,
b. i. 1. 494. From Im- (1) and Bitter.
IMBODY, the same as Embody. (E.; with F. prefix.)
Milton, P. L. i. 574; Comus, 468. See Im- (1).
IMBORDER, io border. (F.) From Im- (1) and Border.
In Milton, P. L. ix. 438.
IMBOSOM, the same as Embosom. (E.; with F. frefix.)
Milton, P. L. iii. 75, v. 597- See Im- (1).
IMBOWER, to shelter with a bower. (E.; with F. prefix.)
From Im- (1) and Bower. In Milton, P. L. i. 304.
IMBRICATED, bent and hollowed like a gutter-tile; covered
with scales that overlap. (L.) A term in botany. Both imbricated
and imbrication are in Kersey, ed.1715. Blount (1656) has imbricate,
i.e. formed like a gutter-tile.—L. imbricatus, pp. of imbricare, to
cover with a gutter-tile.—L. imbric-, stem of zmbrex, a gutter-tile. =
L. imbri-, decl. stem of imber, a shower of rain.4Gk. ἀφρός, foam ;
Skt. abhra-, a rain-cloud, Brugmann, i. § 466. Der, imbricat-ion.
IMBROGLIO. (Ital.) In Gray, A Long Story, 1. 66.—Ital.
imbroglio, perplexity, trouble, intrigue; hence, a confused heap. =
Ital. imbroglare, to entangle, perplex, confuse. —Ital. im- (for ix),
in; broglio, a broil, confusion ; see Broil (2).
IMBROWN, to make brown. (E.; with F. prefix.)
Im- (1) and Brown. In Milton, P. L. iv. 246.
IMBRUE, IMBREW, EMBRUE, to moisten, drench. (F.—
L.) ‘(Mine eyes] With teares no more imbrue your mistresse face ;’
Turberville, The Lover Hoping Assuredly. “ Imbrew'd in guilty
blood ;’ Spenser, F. Q.i. 7.47. ‘ With mouth enbrowide ;’ Lydgate,
Stans Puer, 1. 38.—OF. embruer ; Cot. gives ‘s’embruer, to imbrue
or bedable himself with.’ Variant of OF. embeurer, embreuver,
to moisten; aliied to MItal. imbevere, which Torriano gives as
equivalent to rmbuire, ‘to sinke into, to moist or wet, to embrue ;’
Florio. Cf. mod. Ital. imbevere, to imbibe. B. The OF. embreuver
is formed, like mod. F. abreuver, from a causal verb -bevrer, to give
to drink, turned into -brever in the 16th century, and thence into
-bruer, See abreuver in Brachet. y. This causal verb (as if L.
*biberare) is founded on OF, bevre (F. boire), to drink ; from L.
bibere, to drink. 8. Hence imbrue is the causal of to imbibe, and
signifies ‘to make to imbibe,’ to soak, drench. See Imbibe.
tr Probably it has often been confounded with imbue (below).
Unconnected with E. brew, with which it is sometimes supposed to
be allied.
IMBUB, to cause to drink, tinge deeply. (L.) ‘ With noysome
rage imbew'd;’ Spenser, Ruines of Rome, st. 24, 1. 6. Cf. Milton,
P. L. viii. 216.—L. imbuere, to cause to drink in.—L. im-, for in,
in; and -buere, a causal form, apparently allied to L. bibere, to drink.
Cf. Norm. dial. embu, saturated with wet (Moisy). 4 Early exx.
have only the pp. imbued, suggested by the L. pp. imbiatus.
IMITATE, to copy, make a likeness of. (L.)
his passion;’ Sir T. More, Works, 1346 b.=—L. imilatus, pp. of
imitari, to imitate. Jmitari is a frequentative form of *im-are, not
found; cf. Image. Root uncertain. Der. imitat-ion, imitat-or,
imitat-ive, imitat-ive-ly, imit-a-ble, imit-a-bil-i-ly.
IMMACULATE, spotless. (L.) ‘The moste pure and immaculate
lambe,’ Udal, on St. Matt. c. 26. v. 26; Shak. Rich. II, v. 3. 61. And
in Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 79. —L. immaculatus, unspotted. = L.
im-=in-, not ; and maculatus, pp. of maculare, to spot, from macula,
aspot. See Mail (1). Der. immaculate-ly, immaculate-ness.
IMMANENT, indwelling. (L.) In Sir D. Lyndesay, Satyre,
1. 3460.—L. immanent-, stem of pres. pt. of immanére, to dwell
within. —L. im-, for in, within ; and manére, to remain, dwell. See
Mansion.
IMMATERIAL, not material. (F.—L.) In Shak. Troil. v.
1. 35-—MF. immateriel, ‘immateriall;’ Cot. See Im- (4) and
Material. 4 The final syllable has been changed to -a/, to make
it nearer the Latin. Der. immaterial-ly, -ise, -1sm, -tst, ~i-ly.
IMMATURE, not mature. (L.) In Milton, P. L. vii.
Im- (4) and Mature.
288
In
In
From
iG
277.
Der. tmmature-ly, -ness, immatur-ed,
See
‘Imitate and follow |
IMMURE
IMMEASURABLE, not to be measured. (F.—L.) ‘ Theire
immesurable outrage ;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 590 b. See Im- (4)
andMeasurable. Der. immeasurable-ness, immeasurabl-y. Doublet,
immense,
IMMEDIATE, without intervention, direct, present. (F.—L.)
‘Their authoritye is so hygh and so immediate of [not to] God;’
Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 893 d.—MF. immediat, ‘immediate ;* Cot.
See Im- (4) and Mediate. Der. immediate-ly, -ness.
IMMEMORIAL, beyond the reach of memory. (F.—L.) ‘ Their
immemorial antiquity ;’ Howell, Familiar Letters, b. ii. let. 59 (R.) ;
let. 60, ed. 1678; dated 1630.—F. immemorial, ‘without the com-
passe, scope, or reach of memory;’ Cot. See Im- (4) and
Memorial. Der. immemorial-ly.
IMMENSE, immeasurable, very large. (F.—L.) In Milton,
P. L. i. 790; and in Daniel, Musophilus, st. 27 from end.=—F.
immense, ‘immense ;’ Cot.—L. immensus, immeasurable.—L. im-=
in-, not; and mensus, pp. of metiri, to measure. See Im- (4) and
Mete. Der. immense-ly, immense-ness, immens-i-ty, immeas-ur-able,
from mensiirus, fut. pp. of metiri; immens-ur-abil-i-ty.
IMMERGEH, to plunge into. (L.) ‘Zmmerged, or Immersed, dipt
| in or plunged ;” also ‘Jmmerse, to plunge or dip over head and
ears;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. Immerse occurs as a pp. in Bacon, Nat.
Hist. s. 114.—L. immergere, pp. immersus, to plunge into, — L. im-=
in, in, into; and mergere, to plunge, sink. See Im- (3) and Merge.
Der. immerse, from pp. immersus ; immers-ion.
IMMIGRATE, to migrate into a country. (L.) ‘ Hitherto I
have considered the Saracens, either at their immigration into Spain
about the ninth century,’ &c. ; Warton, Hist. Eng. Poetry, Diss. i. ;
ed. 1840, vol. i. p. xviii. The verb is in Cockeram (1623).—L.
immigratus, pp. of immigrare, to migrate into. See Im- (3) and
Migrate. Der. immigrat-ion, immigrant.
IMMINENT, projecting over, near at hand. (L.) ‘ Against the
sinne imminent or to come;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 370b. ΜΕ.
imminent, Libell of E. Policye, 1. 739.—L. imminent-, stem of pres.
part. of imminére, to project over.—L. im-=in, upon, over; and
minére, to jut out. See Eminent. Der. imminent-ly; imminence,
Shak. Troil. v. Io. 13.
IMMIT, to send into, inject. (L.) ‘ ZJmmit, to send in, to put
in;’ Cockeram (1642). ZJmmission is in Bp. Taylor, Great Exemplar,
pt. 11. dis. 12 (R.)—L. immittere, pp. immissus, to send into. See
Im- (3) and Missile. Der. immiss-ion, from pp. immissus.
IMMOBILITY, steadfastness. (F.—L.) ‘The earth’s settled-
ness and zmmobility ;” Wilkins, That the Earth may be a Planet, b. ii.
prop. 5 (R.) =F. immobilité, ‘ steadfastnesse ;” Cot.—L. ace. immd-
bilitatem, from L. immobilitas, immobility.—L. immodbilis, immov-
able. See Im- (4) and Mobile.
IMMODERATE, not moderate. (L.) “ Zmmoderate slepe ;’
Sir T. Elyot, Castell of Helthe, bk. ii. ch. 30. Sir T. More has
immoderately; Works, p. 87 a, 1. 1.—L. immoderatus, not moderate.
See Im- (4) and Moderate. Der. immoderate-ly.
IMMODEST, not modest. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q. b. ii.
c. 6. st. 37.—F. immodeste, ‘immodest ;’ Cot.—1.. tmmodestus. See
Im- (4) and Modest. Der. immodest-ly, immodest-y.
IMMOLATE, to offer in sacrifice. (L.) Cotgrave has immolated,
to explain F. immolé.—L. immolatus, pp. of immolare, to sacrifice ;
lit. to throw meal upon a victim, as was the custom.—L. im-=in,
upon ; and mola, meal, cognate with E. meal. See Im- (3), Meal
(1). Der. immolat-ion, from F. immolation, ‘an immolation, sacri-
fice ;’ Cot.
IMMORAL, not moral, wicked. (F.—L.) In Kersey, ed. 1715.
From Im- (4) and Moral. Der. immoral-ly, -t/y.
IMMORTAL, not mortal. (F.—L.) ME. immortal, Chaucer
C. T. 5059 (B 639).—MF. immortel, ‘immortall;’ Cot.—L. im-
mortalis, See Im- (4) and Mortal. Der. immortal-ly, immortal-
ise, 1 Hen. VI, i. 2. 1483; immortal-i-ty, Shak. Lucrece, 725.
IMMOVABLE, not movable. (F.—L.) ME. immouable; Test.
of Love, bk. iii. ch. 4. 1. 207. From Im- (4) and Movable ; see
Move. Der. immovable-ness, immovabl-y,
IMMUNITY, freedom from obligation. (F.—L.) In Hall’s
Chron. Edw. IV, an. 10. § 19. Wyclit has yamunité, 1 Macc. x. 34.
=F. immunité, ‘immunity;’ Cot.—L. imminitatem, acc. of im-
minitas, exemption. = L. immiinis, exempt from public services. = L.
im-=in-, not; and minis, serving, obliging (whence also commiinis,
common). Cf. L. minus, duty; see Common.
IMMURE, to shut up in prison. (F.—L.) In Shak. L. L. L. iii.
| 126; Merch. Ven. ii. 7.52. Shak. also has immures, sb. pl. fortifica-
tions, walls, Troilus, prol. 1. 8; spelt emwres in the first folio. Similarly
| immure stands for emmure.— MF. emmurer, ‘to immure, or wall
| about;’ (οἵ. “Ἐπ em-, from L. im-=in, in, within; and F. murer,
‘to wall;’ Cot., from L. murare, to wall, from miurus, a wall. See
| Im- (1) and Mural.
IMMUTABLE
IMMUTABLE, not mutable. (F.—L.) ‘Of an immutable
necessitie,’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 838h [not p. 839]; and in
Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 25.—F. immutable, with same sense as
immuable, which is the better form; both are in Cotgrave.—L. im-
mitabilis. See Im- (4) and Mutable. Der. immutabl-y, immuta-
ble-ness, immuta-bili-ty.
IMP, a graft, offspring, demon. (Late L.—Gk.) Formerly used
in a good sense, meaning ‘scion’ or ‘ offspring.’ ‘ Well worthy
impe;’ Spenser, F. Q. i. 9. 6. ‘And thou, most dreaded impe of
highest Jove ;’ id. Introd. to b. i. st. 3. ME. imp, ymp,a graft on
a tree ; impen, ympen, to graft. ‘I was sumtyme a frere [friar], And
the couentes [convent’s] gardyner, for to grafle ympes ; On limitoures
and listres lesynges I ymped;’ P. Plowman, B. v. 136-8. ‘Of feble
trees ther comen wrecched impes ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 13962 (B 3146).
The pl. sb. impen occurs in the Ancren Riwle, p. 378, 1. 24; and the
pp: i-imped, i. e. grafted, in the same, p. 360, 1. 6. (The verb is due
to the sb.) AS. impian, to graft; Gerefa, § 12; in Anglia, ix. 262.
AS. impan, s. pl., grafts; Gregory’s Past. Care, ed. Sweet, p. 381,
1, 17.—Late L. impotus, a graft, occurring in the Lex Salica; see the
text called Lex Emendata, c. xxvii. § 8.—Gk. ἔμφυτος, engrafted ;
James, i. 21.—Gk. ἐμφύειν, to implant.mGk. éu- for ἐν, in; and
φύειν, to produce, from 4/ BHEU, tobe. SeeIn andBe. 54] From
the same source are W, impio, to graft, imp, a graft, scion; Dan.
ympe, Swed. ympa, G. impfen, OHG. impiton, imphon, to graft; also
F. enter, to graft; showing that the word was widely spread at an
early period. Der. imp, vb. Rich. II, ii. 1. 292, ME. impen, AS.
impian, as above.
IMPACT, a striking against, collision. (L.) Modern. ‘The
quarrel [crossbow-bolt | by that impact driven, True to its aim, fled
fatal ;’ Southey, Joan of Arc, b. viii. 1. 228.—L. impactus, pp. of
impingere, to impinge. SeeImpinge. 4 The right form of the sb.
should rather have been impaction. The word impacted occurs in
Holland’s Pliny, b. xx. c. 21.‘ Impacted, dashed or beaten against,
cast or put into ;” Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
IMPAIR, to make worse, injure, weaken. (F.—L.) ‘ Whose
praise hereby no whit impaired is;’ Spenser, Colin Clout, l. 755.
ME. empeiren, also written enpeiren; Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. iv.
pr. 3, 1. 35; b. iv. pr. 6, 1. 170,—OF. empeirer (Burguy); later
empirer, ‘to impaire;’ Cot.—Late L. impéidrare, to make worse. =
L. im-=in, with an intensive force; and L. péior, worse; a com-
parative form from a lost positive, and of uncertain origin. Cf.
Pessimist.
IMPALH, the same as Empale, η. ν. (F.—L.) In Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674; and in Minsheu, ed. 1027. In Shak. it means ‘to
surround ;’ Troilus, v. 7. 5; but it is the same word. Der. impale-
ment.
IMPALPABLE, not palpable. (F.—L.) In Holland’s Plu-
tarch, p. 913 (R.); and in Cotgrave.—F. impalpable, ‘impalpable ;’
Cot. See Im- (4) and Palpable. Der. impalpabi-y.
IMPANEL, IMPANNEL, the same as Empanel, 4. ν.
IMPARITY, want of parity. (F.—L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674. From Im- (4) and Parity; cf. L. imparitds. See Par.
[No MF. imparité in Cotgrave ; but OF. imparité is in Godefroy. |
IMPARK, EMPARK, to enclose fora park. (F.) ‘Zmpark, to
enclose . . . ἃ piece of ground fora park ;” Kersey, ed. 1715. ‘Not
.+.held nor emparked within any laws or limits;’ Bp. King, Vine
Palatine, 1614, p. 32 (Todd).— AF. enparker, Stat. Realm, i. 197. =
F. ex, for L. in, in; and F. parc, from Late L. parcus, See Park.
IMPART, to give a part of, communicate. (F.—L.) ‘The secrete
thoughtes imparted with such trust;’ Surrey, Prisoned in Windsor,
1. 37; see Specimens of English, ed. Skeat, p. 220.—MF. impartir,
‘to impart ;’ Cot.—L. impartire, impertire, to bestow a share on.=L.
im-, for in, on, upon; and partire, partiri, to share, from parti-,
decl. stem of pars, a part. See Part. Der. impart-ible.
IMPARTIAL, not partial. (F.—L.) In Shak. Rich. ΤΙ, i. 1.
115. From Im-(4)and Partial. Der. impartial-ly, impartial-i-ly.
_IMPASSABLE, not to be passed through. (F.—L.) In Milton,
P.L. x. 254.. From Im- (4) and Passable; see Pass. Der.
impassabl-y, impassable-ness.
IMPASSIBLE, incapable of feeling. (F.—L.) ‘This most
pure parte of the soule, . . . diuyne, impassible, and incorruptible ;’
Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b. iii. c. 24. § 2. Impassibilitie is in
Sir T. More’s Works, p. 1329 b. =F. impassible, ‘impassible, sence-
lesse;’ Cot.—L. impassibilis, incapable of passion or suffering. = L.
mm-=in-, not; and passibilis, capable of suffering, allied to passus, pp:
of pati, to suffer. See Im- (4) and Passion, Patient. Der. im-
passthle-ness, impassibili-ty,
IMPASSIONED, roused to strong feeling. (F.—L.) In
Milton, P. L. ix. 678. From the prefix im-=L. in, with an intensive
force; and Passion. Der. A similar formation is impassionate,
rarely used.
IMPERIAL 289
IMPASSIVE, not susceptible of feeling, not showing feeling.
(F.—L.) In Milton, P. L. vi. 455. From Im- (4) and Passive.
Der. impassive-ly, -ness; Burton has impassionate in a like sense;
Anat. of Melancholy, i. 3. 1. 3.
IMPATIENT, not patient. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. impacient, ‘Im-
pacient is he that wol nat been y-taught ;? Chaucer, C. T. Pers. Tale,
De Superbia, I 401.—F. impatient, ‘impatient;’ Cot. See Im-
(4) and Patient. Der. impatient-ly, impacience, impactenc-y,
IMPAWN, to pledge. (F.) In Shak. Hen. V,i. 2. 21; Hamlet,
v. 2.155, 171. From im-, prefix, a substitute for F. em-=L. im-, in;
and pawn; see Im- (1) and Pawn.
IMPEACH, to charge with a crime. (F.—L.) The orig. sense
is ‘to hinder;’ and it was once so used. ‘ The victorie was much
hindered and impeached;’ Holland, tr. of Livy, p. 308 (R.) ‘To
impeach and stop their breath;’ Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xi. c. 3.
ME. empechen; ‘no man [schal], empeche hem; Wyclif, Works, ed.
Arnold, iii. 294. -- OF. empescher, ‘to hinder, let, stop, bar, impeach ;’
Cot. B. Littré and Scheler connect it with Prov. empedegar, which
they cite; from Late L. impedicare, to fetter. Impedicare is from
the prefix m-=in, in, on; and pedica, a fetter, from pedi-, decl. stem
of pés, a foot; see Im- (1) and Foot. y. At the same time some
(at least) of the senses of OF. enpescher are due to OF. empacher,
Span. empachar, Ital. impacciare, to delay; these represent a Late L.
frequent. form *impacticare, a derivative from impingere, pp. im-
pactus, to fasten upon. Impingere is compounded of im-=in, in,
on; and pangere, to fasten. See Pact, and see Despatch. Der.
impeach-er, impeach-able, impeach-ment, spelt impechement, Sir 'T. Elyot,
The Governour, b. i. c. 15 (end); empeschement, Dictes of the Philo-
sophers, pr. by Caxton, fol. 13, back, ]. 5.
IMPEARL, to adorn with pearls. (F.) .In Milton, P. L. v. 747.
From Im.- (1) and Pearl.
IMPECCABLE, not liable tosin. (L.) ‘ Impeccable, that cannot
offend or do amiss;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. impeccabilis,
faultless.—L. im- for in-, negative prefix; and peccabilis, peccable.
See Im- (4) and Peccable. Der. impeccabili-ty.
IMPECUNIOUS, in want of money. (L.) ‘Put him out, an
impecunious creature;’? Ben Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, A: νυ. sc. 2
(Anaides).—L. im-, for in-, not; and pecinidsus, rich, from peciinia,
money; see Pecuniary.
IMPEDE, to obstruct. (L.) In Macbeth, i. 5. 29. The sb. im-
pediment is commoner, and earlier; Hoccleve, De Regimine Prin-
cipum, 1. 1807. —L. impedire, to intangle the feet, obstruct. —L. im-
=in, in; and ped-, stem of pés, a foot; see Im- (3) and Foot.
Der. impedi-ment, umpedi-t-ive.
IMPHEL, to drive forward, urge. (L.) ‘The flames impell’d;’
Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, st. 230. And in Caxton, Eneydos, ch. xxii.
p- 78,1. 17.—L. impellere, pp. impulsus, to urge on. —L. im-=in, on,
forward: and pellere, to drive. See Im- (3) and Pulsate. Der.
impell-ent, impell-er; and (from pp. impulsus) im-pulse, Milton, P. L.
lil, 120; impuls-ion, id. Sams, Agon. 422 ;- impuls-ive, impuls-ive-ly,
impuls-ive-ness.
IMPEND, to hang over, be near. (L.) Milton has impendent,
P. L. 11. 177, v. 891. ‘ Vengeance impending on you;’ Massinger,
The Old Law, A. v. sc. 1.—L. impendeére, to hang over.=L. im-=in,
on, over; and pendére, to hang. See Im- (3) and Pendant. Der.
impend-ing ; also impend-ent, {rom the stem of the pres. part.
IMPENETRABLE, not penetrable. (F.—L.) In Sir T. Elyot,
The Governour, b. i. c. 23. 8 5; Shak. Merch. Ven, iii. 3. 18.—MF.
impenetrable, ‘impenetrable;’ Cot. See Im- (4) and Penetrate.
Der. impenetrabl-y, Milton, P. L. vi. 400; tmpenetrabili-ty,
IMPENITENT, not penitent. (F.—L.) Sir T. More has both
impenitent and impenitence; \Vorks, p. 573a. From Im- (4) and
Penitent. Der. impenitent-ly, impenitence ; impenitenc-y, Bible A. V.
heading to Isa, ix.
IMPERATIVE, authoritative. (F.—L.) In Palsgrave (Of
Verbs). — MEF. imperatif, ‘imperative, imperious; the imperative
mood in grammer ;’ Cot.—L. imperdtiuus, due to a command.=L.
imperdtum, a command; neut. of imperdtus, pp. of imperare, to
command.=—L. im-=in; and parare, to make ready, order. See
Im- (3) and Parade. Der. impera-tive-ly ; and see imperial.
IMPERCEPTIBLE, not perceptible. (F.—L.) ‘ Hang on such
small impérceptible strings’ [not things]; Cowley, Davideis, b. iv;
1. 323.—F. imperceptible, ‘imperceptible ;’ Cot. See Im- (4) and
Perceive. Der. imperceptibl-y, imperceptible-ness, imperceptibili-ty.
IMPERFECT, not perfect. (F.—L.) Really of French origin,
but conformed to the Latin spelling. ME. impar/it, inparfit, inperfit ;
P. Plowman, B. xv. 50; Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. iii. pr. 9, 1. 16.
—OF. imparfait (Hatzfeld); imperfaict (Cotgrave) = L. imperfectus.
See Im- (4) and Perfect. Der. imperfect-ly, imperfect-ness, im-
per fect-ion.
IMPERIAL, relating to an empire. (F.—L.) ME. imperial,
U
490 IMPERIL
Gower, C. A. iii. 61; bk. vi. 1785.—OF. emperial (Burguy) ; later
imperial (Cot.).—L. imperialis, belonging to an empire. - L. imperium,
an empire. See Empire. Der. imperial-ly, imperial-ism, imperial-
ist; also (from L. imperium) imperi-ous, Hamlet, v. 1. 236, Oth. ii. 3.
276; imperi-ous-ly, imperi-ous-ness.
IMPERIL, to put in peril. (F.—L.) In Ben Jonson, Magnetic
Lady, at the end of Act ii; Probee’s second speech; Spenser, F. Q.
iv. 4.10, From Im- (1) and Peril.
IMPERISHABLE, not perishable. (F.—L.) In Milton, P. L.
vi. 435.— MF. imperissable, ‘unperishable;’ Cot. See Im- (4) and
Perish. Der. imperishabl-y, imperishable-ness, imperishabil-i-ty.
IMPERSONAL, not personal. (F.—L.) In Levins. Ben Jonson
treats ofimpersonal verbs ; Eng. Grammar, b. i. c. 106. - Ἐς impersonnel,
‘impersonall ;᾿ Cot.—L. impersonalis. See Im- (4) and Person.
Der. impersonal-ly, impersonal-i-ly,
IMPERSONATE, to personify, to personate or represent a
person’s qualities. (L.) ‘The masques ... were not only furnished
by the heathen divinities, but often by the virtues and vices imper-
sonated ;’ Warton, Hist. Eng. Poetry, sect. 1xi; ed. 1840, iii. 400.
From L, im-=in, used as a prefix ; and personate.
Person. Der. impersonat-ion.
IMPERTINENT, not pertinent, trifling, rude. (F.—L.) ME.
impertinent; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 7930 (Ε 54).—F. impertinent, ‘imperti-
nent, unfit ;’ Cot. L. impertinent-, stem of impertinens, not belonging
to. See Im- (4) and Pertinent, Pertain. Der. impertinence,
Milton, P. L. vili. 195; impertinenc-y, K, Lear, iv. 6. 178; imperti-
nent-ly,
IMPERTURBABLE, not easily disturbed. (L.) In Ash’s
Dict., ed. 1775.—L. imperturbabilis, that cannot be disturbed. See
Im- (4) and Perturb. Der. imperturbabili-ty.
IMPERVIOUS, impassable. (L.) In Cowley, Ode upon Dr.
Harvey, st. ii. 1.6; and in Milton, P. L. x. 254.—L. imperuius, im-
passable; the L. -us being turned into Εἰ. -ows, as in arduous, con-
spicuous, &c.—L.im-=in (=E.un-), not; per, through; and wa, a
way. See Viaduct. Der. impervious-ly, -ness.
IMPETRATE, to procure by entreaty. (L.) ‘Zmpetrate, to
obtaine ;’? Cockeram (1642); and in Minsheu.—L. impeirat-us, pp.
of impetrare, to procure. L. im-, for in, prep., to; patrare, to bring
to pass, to achieve, perhaps orig. ‘to act as father,’ and allied to
pater, father.
IMPETUS, sudden impulse, violent push. (L.) In Boyle’s
Works, vol. i. p. 138 (R.)—L. impetus, an attack, impulse; lit. ‘a
falling on.’—L. im-=in, on, upon; and petere, to seek, tend to, lit.
to fly or fall. —4/PET, to fall, fly; cf. Skt. pat, to fly; see Im- (3).
Der. impetu-ous, Caxton, Troy-book, leaf 174 back, 1. 19, from fF.
impetueux, which is from L. impetudsus ; impetu-ous-ly, impetu-ous-ness,
impetu-os-i-ty.
IMPIETY, want of piety. (F.—L.) In Shak. Much Ado, iv. 1.
105.—F, impieté, ‘impiety ;’ Cot.—L. impietatem, acc. of impietas.
See Im- (4) and Piety. And see Impious.
IMPINGE, to strike or fall against. (L.) ‘ Impinge, to hurl or
throw against a thing ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1678.—L. impingere,
pp- impactus, to strike upon or against.—L. im-=in, on; and pan-
gere, to fasten, also to strike. See Pact. Der. impact, q.v.
IMPIOUS, not pious, wicked. (F.—L.) In Shak. Haml. i. 2.
94. Coined from Im- (4) and Pious, [The OF. word is impie.]
Der. impious-ly, -ness; and see impiety.
IMPLACABLE, not to be appeased. (F.—L.) ‘Bering im-
placable anger ;’ Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 83 a.—F. implacable, ‘ un-
placable;’ Cot.—L. implacabilis. See Im- (4) and Placable.
Der. implacabili-ly.
IMPLANT, to plant in. (F.—L.) In Milton, P. L. xi. 23; and
Barnes, Works, p. 323, col. 1.—F. implanter, ‘to implant, to fix, or
setinto;” Cot.=—L. im-=in, in; and plantare, to plant. See Im- (1)
and Plant. Der. implant-at-ion.
IMPLEAD, to urge a plea or suit at law. (F.—L.) In Acts, xix.
38 (A. V.); and Fuller, Hist. of Waltham Abbey, § 16 (p. 10, ed.
1655). ME. enpleden, empleden, Trevisa, tr. of Higden, vii. 481.
“- AF. enpleder, Stat. Realm, i. 49 (1278); MF. emplaider, ‘to sue,
to implead;’ Cot. See Im- (1) and Plead. Der. implead-er.
IMPLEMENT, a utensil, tool. (Late L.—L.) In Hamlet, i.
1. 74.—Late L. implémentum, an accomplishing, filling up; furni-
ture, necessaries, an instrument. L. implére, to fill, discharge,
execute. — L. im-=in, in; and plére, to fill; see Im- (3) and Full.
IMPLICATEH, to involve. (L.) Cot. has implication, to trans-
late F. implication; the verb is noted by Cockeram (1642); and
the pp. form implicat occurs as early as 1536.—L. implicatus, pp. of
implicare, to infold, involve.—L. im-=in, in; and plica,a fold. See
Im- (3) and Ply. Der. implicat-ion, from F. implication; also
implicit, Milton, P. L. vii. 323, from L. implicitus, also a pp. of
implicare ; implicit-ly, -ness; and see imply.
See Im- (3) and |
IMPOTENT
IMPLORE, to entreat, beg earnestly. (F.—L.) In Spenser,
F. Q. iii. 11. 18; used as a sb., id. 11. 5. 37.—F. implorer,
‘to implore;’ Cot.—L. impldrare, to implore. L. im-=in, on,
upon; and plérare, to wail. See Im- (3) and Deplore. Der.
implor-ing-ly.
IMPLY, to mean, signify. (F.—L.) ‘It implyeth fyrst repug-
naunce;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 1127 b. A coined word; from
Im- (1) and Ply, as if from an OF. emplier; but the OF. form was
empleier, later emploier. [According to stress, an infin. emplier would
answer to L. implicdre, inf., whilst empleie would answer to L. im-
flicd ; but Godefroy gives no example of the stem empli-.] Doublets,
implicate, ἢ. v.; employ, q. ν.
IMPOLITE, not polite. (L.) ‘I never saw such impolite con-
fusion at any country wedding in Britain ;’ Drummond, Trav. (let. 3.
1744), p. 76 (Todd). First in 1612.—L. impolitus, unpolished, rude.
See Im- (4) and Polite. Der. impolite-ly, -ness.
IMPOLITIC, not politic. (L. and L.—Gk.) ‘ They [the mer-
chants] do it so impoliticly;’ Bacon, Report on the Petition of the
Merchants (R.). Spelt impolitick in Phillips and Kersey. From Im-
(4) and Politic. Der. im-politic-ly.
IMPONDERABLE, without sensible weight. (L.) Modern.
The older word is imponderous ; Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. ii.
c. 5. § 10. From Im- (4) and Ponderable or Ponderous.
IMPORT, to bring in from abroad, to convey, signify, interest.
(F.—L.; or L.) In the sense ‘to bring in from abroad,’ the word
is Latin. ‘It importeth also plaine and open blasphemy ;’ Sir T.
More, Works, pp. 325, 326a.—F. importer ; ‘cela importe moult, that
imports much, that is of great consequence ;’ Cot.—L. importare,
to import, bring, introduce, cause.—L. im-=in, in; and portdre, to
carry; see Port (1). Der. import, sb.; import-ant, L. L. L. v. 1. 104,
from F. important, pres. pt.; important-ly ; importance, Wint. Ta. v.
2. 20, from F. importance; also import-er, import-at-ion,
IMPORTABLB, intolerable. (F.—L.) Obsolete. Inthe Prayer
of Manasses (A. V.); Spenser, F. Q. 11. 8. 35; and earlier, in Chaucer,
C. T. 9020 (E 1144).—F. importable, ‘intollerable ;᾿ Cot.—L. im-
portabilis, that cannot be borne. See Im- (4), Port (1).
IMPORTUNE, to molest, urge with eager solicitation. (F.—L.)
In Ant. and Cleop. iv. 15.19; Meas. i. 1. 57. Formed from ME,
importune, adj., molesting, troublesome; cf. ‘ And for he nill be impor-
tune Unto no wight, ne onerous;? Rom. of the Rose, 5632.—OF.
importun, ‘impoitunate, urgent, earnest with, troublesome;’ Cot.
“αὶ importiinus, unfit, unsuitable, troublesome, grievous, rude.
B. The L. importiinus (with prefix im-=in-, not) and opportinus
(with prefix ob) are both related to L. portus, a harbour, with refer-
ence to approach or access to it; so that importinus =hard of access,
unsuitable, &c. Cf. L. Portinus, the protecting god of harbours.
See Port (2). Der. importun-i-ty (Levins), from F. importunité = L.
acc. importinitatem; also importun-ate (Levins), a coined word;
importun-ate-ly, importun-ate-ness.
IMPOSE, to lay upon, enjoin, obtrude, palm οἵ. (F.—L. and
Gk.) In Spenser, F. Ὁ. v. 8. 49.—F. imposer, ‘to impose;’ Cot.
=F. im-=L. im-=in, on, upon; and poser, to place; see Im- (1)
and Pose. @ The F. imposer was confused with L. imponere
(below). Der. impos-ing, impos-ing-ly.
IMPOSITION, a laying on, tax, deception. (F.—L.) ‘Thy
fader sette on us... grete imposicions;’ Caxton, Golden Legend,
Hist. of Roboas.—F. imposition. L. ace. impositionem, from nom.
impositio, a laying on; cf. impositus, pp. of imponere, to lay on.—L.
im-=in, on; and ponere, to put, lay; see Im- (3) and Position.
Der. from same source: tmpost, from F. impost, ‘an impost, custom’
(Cot.), which from L. pp. impositus; impostor, Temp. i. 2. 477, from
L. impostor, a deceiver; impost-ure, Hall’s Chron. Hen. VI, an. 26.
§ 2, from Ἐς imposture, ‘imposture, guile’ (Cot.).
IMPOSSIBLE, not possible. (F.—L.) ME. impossible, Chaucer,
C. T. 6270 (Ὁ 688). =F. impossible, ‘impossible ;’ Cot. —L. impossi-
bilis. See Im- (4) and Possible. Der. impossibili-ty.
IMPOSTHUME, an abscess. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘A boyle or
imposthume ;’ Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. ii. c. 25. Also (better)
spelt apostume, as in Prompt. Parv.— OF. apostume, ‘an apostume, an
inward swelling full of corrupt matter;’ Cot. Also (better) spelt
aposteme ; Cot.—L. apostéma, an abscess. — Gk. ἀπόστημα, a standing -
away from; hence, a separation of corrupt matter. —Gk. ἀπό, from, |
cognate with E, of, off; and o77-, base of ἵστημι, I set, place, stand, |
from 4/STA, to stand. See Apo- and Stand. Der. imposthum-ate,
imposthum-at-ion. tt Here the prefix im- is due to mere corruption; ~
the right form was aposteme or apostem (N. E. D.).
IMPOSTOR, IMPOST;; see under Imposition.
IMPOTENT, not potent, feeble. (F.—L.)
—L. impotentem, acc. of impotens, unable.
Der. impotent-ly, impotence, impotenc-y.
ME. impotent; ᾿
Gower, C. A. iii. 383; bk. viii. 3127.» Εἰ impotent, ‘impotent ;’ (οί
See Im- (4) and Potent. —
ΐ
]
|
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ἰ
IMPOUND
IMPOUND, to put into a pound, as cattle. (E.) In Shak. Hen.V,
i. 2. 160. From Im- (2) and Pound (2). Der. impound-age.
IMPOVERISH, to make poor. (F.—L.) ‘Him and his sub-
jects still impoverishing ;’ Drayton, Barons’ Wars, b. v. st. 8; and in
Baret. From OF. empouriss-, stem of pres. part. of empovrir, to im-
poverish (Godefroy).—F. em-, for L. in, extremely; and OF. povre,
poor. See Poor. Der. impoverish-ment (Cotgrave).
IMPRACTICABLE, not practicable. (Late L.—Gk.) In
Phillips, ed. 1706, and Kersey, ed. 1715; see Tatler, no. 187, § 3.
From Im- (4) and Practicable. Der. impracticabl-y, impracticable-
ness, impracticabili-ty.
IMPRECATE, to invoke a curse on. (L.) [The sb. imprecation
(from F, imprecation) is in earlier use than the verb, and occurs in
Puttenham, Eng. Poetrie, ed. Arber, bk. iii. ch. 19; p. 221. ‘The
imprecation of the vestall nun Tuccia ;” Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxviii.
c. 2.J—L. imprecdtus, pp. of impreciri, to call down by prayer.—L.
im-=in, upon, on; and precari, to pray. See Im- (3) and Pray.
Der. imprecat-ion (above) ; imprecat-or-y.
IMPREGNABLE, not to be taken or seized upen. (F.—L.)
‘Impreignable cities and stronge holdes;’ Sir T. Elyot, The Gover-
nour, b. i. c. 27. ὃ 10. [The g is inserted much as in sovereign, and
was sometimes silent; or gz was pronounced as xy.] Caxton has
imprenable, Golden Legend, Moses, ὃ 5 from end. OF. imprenable,
‘impregnable ;’ Cot. =F. im-=L. im-=in-, negative prefix; and F.
prendre, to take, from L. prehendere, to seize. See Comprehend.
Der. impregnabl-y, impregnabili-ty.
IMPREGNATE, to render pregnant. (L.) Milton uses impregn,
P. L. iv. 500, ix. 737; this is a mere abbreviation. Sir T. Brown
has impregnate, Vulgar Errors, bk. iii. ch. 12. § 9. —L. impraegnatus,
pp- of an (unused) impraegnare, to make pregnant. L. im-=in, in ;
and praegna-, seen in praegnans, praegnas, pregnant. See Im- (3)
and Pregnant. Der. impregnat-ion.
IMPRESEH, an heraldic device, with a motto. (F.—Ital.— L.)
In Shak. Rich. II, iii. 1. 25. Also spelt impresa (Nares). = MF. im-
prese.—Ital. impresa,‘an imprese, an embleme; also an enterprise ;’
Florio. Fem. of impreso, undertaken (hence, adopted), pp. of im-
prendere, to undertake. L. in, in; and prehendere, to lay hold of; see
Prehensile. Doublet, emprise, an enterprise; Spenser, F. Ὁ. ii.
4. 12, from Εἰς emprise, fem. pp. of emprendre, to undertake, Cot.
Der. impresario, an undertaker, stage manager, from Ital. impresa,
an undertaking.
IMPRESS, to imprint, make an impression, press. (L.) ME, im-
pressen, Chaucer, Troil. iii. 1543 ; Gower, C. A. i. 257; bk. ii. 2g00.
The sb. impressioun is in Chaucer, C. T. 3613.—L. impressare,
frequentative of imprimere, to impress. —L. im-=in, upon; and
premere, to press. See Im- (3) and Press. Der. impress, sb., Two
Gent. ill. 2.6; impress-ion, Gower, C. A. ii. 14; bk. iv. 389 ; impress-
ible, impress-ibl-y, impress-ible-ness, impress-ive, impress-ive-ly, impress-
ive-ness. 4] But impress-ment, a seizing of provisions or sailors for
public service, is a coined word allied to the press in Press-
gang; see Press (2).
IMPRINT, to print upon, impress deeply. (F.—L.) ‘Im-
printed that feare so sore in theyr ymaginacyon ;’ Sir T. More, Works,
1196 ἃ (not 1197]. ME. empreinten, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, bk. v.
met. 4.1. 12.—OF. empreinte, ‘a stamp, print;’ Cot. Orig. fem. of pp.
of empreindre, ‘to print, stamp;’ id. = L.imprimere, to impress (above).
ts The OF. verb is empreindre. Der. imprint, sb. (first in 1480).
IMPRISON, to put in prison. (F.—L.) ME. enprisonen, Rob.
of Glouc., ed. ΝΥ. A. Wright, 1. 9521. For emprison.—OF. em-
prisonner, ‘to imprison;*. Cot.—F. em-=L. im-=in, in; and F.
prison, a prison. See Im- (1) and Prison. Der. imprison-ment.
IMPROBABLE, not probable. (F.—L.) In Shak. Tw. Nt. iii.
4. 141.—F. improbable, ‘improbable;’ Cot. See Im- (4) and Pro-
bable. Der. improbabl-y, improbabili-ty.
IMPROMPTU, off hand; a thing composed extempore. (F. —L.)
“They were made ex tempore, and were, as the French call them,
impromptus;" Dryden, A: Discourse on Satire; in Dryden’s Poems,
ed. 1856, p. 366. =F. impromptu; ‘ L'Impromptu de Versailles’ is the
title of a comedy by Moliére.—L. in promptii, in readiness ; where
prompiu is the abl. of promptus, a sb. formed from proémere, to bring
forward. See In and Prompt.
IMPROPER, not proper. (F.—L.) ME. improper. ‘Impro-
prelich he demeth fame;’ Gower, C. A. i. 21; prol. 537.—F. im-
propre, ‘unproper;’ Cot. From Im- (4) and Proper. Der.
improper-ly ; so also impropriety, in Selden’s Illustrations to Drayton’s
Polyolbion, 5. 2, note to 1. 110, from im- and propriety.
IMPROPRIATE, to appropriate to private use. (L.) ‘Canst
thou impropriate to thee Augustus’ worthy praise?’ Drant, tr. of
Horace, Ep. to Quinctius (Ep. i. 16,1. 29). Coined from L. im-=
in, in, hence to (a person) ; and propriare, to appropriate, from pro-
prius, one’s own ; see Im- (3) and Proper. Der. impropriat-ion.
IN- 291
IMPROVE, to make better. (F.—L.) In Shak. Jul. Cesar, ii.
1.159. ‘Apfrove and improve, approvement and improvement, are
used in our old law as respectively equivalent ;’ Richardson. See
Blount’s Nomolexicon. Jmprove is altered from the late ME. en-
prowen (see Skelton, Philip Sparowe, 793), which was a parallel
form to ME. approwen, to ‘ approve,’ to benefit. AF. emprouwer, to
benefit, parallel to OF, aproer, approuer, to benefit. These are
formed (with prefix em- for L. iz, or prefix a- for L. ad) from OF.
prou, sb. profit, benefit ; which is allied to Ital. prode, sb. benefit,
and Ital. prode, adj. good, valiant. See Prowess. The AF. forms
enprouver, emprover, both occur in Britton. 4 Not allied to prove,
with which it was confused in form. Der. improv-able, improv-abl-y,
improv-able-ness, improv-ing-ly, improve-ment, Bacon, Essay 34, Of
Riches.
IMPROVIDENT, not provident. (L.) In Shak. 1 Hen. VI, ii.
1.58. From Im- (4) and Provident; see Provide. Der. im-
provident-ly, improvidence. Doublet, imprudent.
IMPROVISE, to recite extemporaneously, bring about on a
sudden. (F.—Ital.—L.) Quite modern. Not in Todd's Johnson.
—F. improviser. = Ital. improvvisare, to sing extempore verses. — Ital.
improvuiso, sudden, unprovided for. —L. improuisus, unforeseen. = L.
im-=in-, negative prefix; and prouisus, pp. of produidere, to foresee.
See Im- (4) and Provide. Der. improvis-er, improvis-ate, improvis-
at-ore (Ital.), improvts-at-ion ; we even find improvis-at-ise, Chambers,
Cyclop. of Eng. Literature, 1860, ii. 499, col. 2.
IMPRUDENT, not prudent. (F.—L.) In Chaucer, C. T.,
B 309. Milton has imprudence, P. L. xi. 686. - Ἐς imprudent, ‘im-
prudent ;’ Cot. —L. imprident-, stem of impriidens, not prudent. See
Im- (4) and Prudent. Der. imprudent-ly, imprudence.
IMPUDENT, shameless. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q. iii. 12. 5;
Chaucer, C. T., 1397. —F. impudent, ‘impudent ;’ Cot. = L. impudent-,
stem of impudens, shameless. — L. im-=in-, not ; and pudens, modest,
properly pres. part. of pudére, to feel shame (a word of doubtful
origin). Der. impudent-ly; impudence, from F. impudence, ‘im-
pudence’ (Cot.).
IMPUGN, to attack, call in question. (F.—L.) In rather early
use. ME. impugnen ; P. Plowman, B. vii. 147.—F. impugner, ‘to
impugne, fight or stirre against ; Cot.—L. impugnare, to fight
against. —L. im-=in, against ; and pugnare, to fight. See Im- (1)
and Pugnacious. Der. impugn-er, impugn-able.
IMPULSE, IMPULSION, IMPULSIVE: see Impel.
IMPUNITY, safety from punishment. (F.—L. and Gk.) ‘As
touching both the impunitie and also the recompense of other the
informers;’ Holland, tr. of Livy, p. 1035 (R.); and in Cotgrave.
=F. impunite, ‘impunity ;᾿ Cot.—L. impinitatem, acc. of impinitis,
impunity. L. impini-, decl. stem of impunis, without punishment.
—L. im-=in-, not; and foena, penalty, from Gk. mown. See Im-
(4) and Pain.
IMPURE, not pure. (F.—L.) ‘Impure and uncleane ;’ Tyn-
dall, Works, p. 193,.col. 2.—F. impur, ‘impure;’ Cot.—L. impirus.
See Im- (4) and Pure. Der. impurs-ly, impure-ness, impur-i-ty,
Shak. Lucrece, 854.
IMPUTE, to place to the account of, reckon against as a fault,
ascribe, charge. (F.—L.) In Levins. ‘Th’ imputed blame;’
Spenser, F. Ὁ. ii. 1. 20. And in Caxton, Eneydos, ch. 20; p. 73.— 1°.
imputer, ‘to impute, ascribe, or attribute unto;’ Cot.—L. imputare,
to bring into a reckoning. L. im-=im, in; and putare, to reckon,
suppose, orig. to cleanse. See Im- (1) and Putative. Der.
imput-er,imput-able, imput-abl-y, imput-able-ness, imputabil-i-ty ; tmput-
at-ton, Merch. Ven. i. 3. 13; imput-at-ive, imput-at-ive-ly,
IN, prep. denoting presence or situation in place, time, or circum-
stances. (E.) ME. in; passim. AS. in; passim.4Du. in; Icel. 7;
Swed. and Dan. 7; Goth. in; G. in.-W. yn; Olrish in (Fick, 1.
486) ; OPruss. en; L.in; Gk, ἐνί, ἐν. B. L. in isa weakened form of en,
as in OL. en-do; cf. Gk. ἐν, ἔν-δον. Der. inn-er, from AS. innera,
a comparative adj., Grein, ii. 143 ; in-most, ME. inemaste (written for
innemest), Castel of Love, ed. Weymouth, 1. 809 (Stratmann), from
AS. innemest, an authorised form (Bosworth). ἀφο The form inner-
most is doubly corrupt, having an inserted +, and ὁ substituted for
oldere; the correct form is innemest = AS. innemest above. Even this
is a double superlative, with the suffix -est added to the formative
-m- which in itself denotes the superlative (as in Latin pri-m-us) ; see
this explained under Aftermost, Foremost. Similarly inmost
should rather have been inmest. Der. (continued) : in-ward, q. v.;
also there-in, where-in, with-in, in-as-much, in-so-much ; and cf. in-ter-,
in-tro-; also inn, q.v.
IN- (1), prefix, in. (E.) In some words, the prefix in- is purely:
E., and is merely the prep. iz in composition. [Exx.: in-born, in-
breathe, in-bred, in-land, in-lay, in-let, in-ly, in-mate, in-side, in-sight,
in-snare, in-stall, in-step, in-twine, in-twist, in-weave, in-wrap, in-
wrought, See In,
2
4
U
292 IN-
IN- (2), prefix, in. (L.; or F.—L.) In some words, the prefix is
not the E. prep. in, but the cognate L. form. Exx.: in-augurate,
in-carcerate, in-carnate, in-cidence, &c. These words are rather
numerous. β. Sometimes the L. word has passed through F. before
reaching E. Exx.: in-cise, in-cite, in-cline, in-dication, &c. J In-
(2) becomes ἐϊ- before 7, as in il-lusion ; im- before m and p, as in im-
bue, im-peril ; ir- before r, as in ir-rigate.
IN- (3), prefix, with negative force. (L.; or F.—L.) In numerous
words, the prefix in- has a negative force; from L. neg. prefix in-,
which is cognate with E. τοῖς (with the same force), Olrish an-, Skt.
an- (frequently shortened to a-), Gk. ἀν- (often shortened to a-),
Zend an-,a-. See Un- (1), An-, A-(9). β, In many words, the
L. word has reached us through the medium of French. Exx.: in-
capable, in-certainty, in-clement, in-compatible, &c. @ In- (3) be-
comes i- before gz, as in i-gnoble; il- before 1, as in il-legal ; im-
before mz and p, as in im-mense, im-pure ; ir- before r, as in ir-rational.
INABILITY, lack of ability. (F.—L.) ME. inabylité; in A
Goodly Balade, a poem wrongly ascribed to Chaucer, 1. 68; see
Chaucerian Poems, p. 407. See In- (3) and Able.
INACCESSIBLE, not accessible. (F.—L.) In Shak. Temp.
li, 1. 37.—F. inaccessible; Cot. From In- (3) and Accessible ;
see Accede. Der. inaccessible-ness, inaccessibili-ty.
INACCURATE, not accurate. (L.) ‘Very inaccurate judg-
ments;’ Warburton, Divine Legation, b. ii. 5, 6 (R.) Inaccuracy is
in Bailey’s Dict., vol. ii. ed. 1731. From In- (3) and Accurate.
Der. inaccurate-ly, inaccuracy.
INACTION, want ofaction. (F.—L.) In Bailey, vol. ii. ed. 1731.
From In- (3) and Action; see Act. Der. inact-ive, inactive-ly;
in-activity, Swift, Horace, Ὁ. iv, ode g, 1. 2.
INADEQUATE, not adequate. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706.
From In- (3) and Adequate. Der. inadeguate-ly, inadequate-ness,
inadequac-y,
INADMISSIBLE, not admissible. (F.—L.) In late use. Used
by Burke, On a Regicide Peace, let. 1, note (R.) =F. inadmissible,
‘unadmittable;’ Cot. From In- (3) and Admissible; sce
Admit.
INADVERTENT, unattentive, heedless. (L.) Spelt inadvertant
in Bailey, vol. ii. ed. 1731; first found in 1653. JZnadvertence is in
earlier use ; Coles’ Dict., ed. 1684; first found in 1568 ; inadvertency
in Bp. Taylor, vol. i. ser. 5 (R.) Inadvertent is of L. origin ; inadver-
tence is from the F. inadvertence, ‘inconsideration;’ Cot. See In-
(3) and Advert. Der. inadvertent-ly; also in-advertence, in-adver-
tenc-y, as above.
INALIENABLE, not alienable. (F.—L.) In Howell, Letters,
vol. ii, let. x. § 4.—F. inalienable, ‘ unalienable;’ Cot. From In-
(3) and Alienable; see Alien.
INAMORATO, a lover. (Ital.—L.) In Greene, Upstart Courtier,
fol. D 4 (1592).—MlItal. inamorato, a lover, spelt innzamorato in
Florio; pp. of ixxamorare, to enamour. —L. ix. in; and amdr-, stem
of amor, love, allied to amare, to love; see Enamour. Der. in-
amorata, fem. of the same.
INANE, empty, void, silly, useless. (L.) ‘ We speak of place,
distance, or bulk, in the great inane’ [i.e. void, used as a sb.};
Locke, On Human Underst. b. ii. c. 15. s. 7. [Not from F., but
suggested by F. inanité, ‘emptiness, inanity’ (Cot.), which is from
L, inanitatem, acc. of indnitis, emptiness.]—L. indnis, void, empty.
Of uncertain etymology. Der. inan-i-ty; inan-it-ion, q.v.
INANIMATE, lifeless. (L.) ‘Znanimate, without life ;? Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674. And in Cockeram (1642). —L. inanimatus, lifeless.
See In- (3)'and Animate. Der. inanimat-ion.
INANITION, emptiness, exhaustion from lack of food. (F.—L.)
Spelt inanisioun, Lanfranc’s Surgery, p. Too (1380). ‘Repletion and
inanition may both doe harme ;’ Burton, Anat. of Melancholy,
p- 235 (R.)=—F. inanition, ‘an emptying;’ Cot. Allied to the
pp. indnitus of L. inainire, to empty ; from inani-, decl. stem of inanis,
empty. See Inane.
INAPPLICABLE, not applicable. (L.) Bailey has inapplicable-
ness, Vol. ii. ed. 1731. From In- (3) and Applicable ; see Apply.
Der. inapplicable-ness, inapplicabili-ty.
INAPPRECIABLE, not appreciable. (L.) A rather late word ;
not in Todd’s Johnson. First in 1787. From In- (3) and Ap-
preciable; see Appreciate.
INAPPROACHABLE, not approachable. (F.—L.) A late
word ; not in Todd’s Johnson, but in Webster (1828). From In-
(3) and Approachable ; see Approach.
INAPPROPRIATE, not fit. (L.) Late; not in Todd. From
In- (3) and Appropriate. Der. inappropriate-ly, inappropriate-
mess,
INAPT, not apt. (F.—L.) First in 1744; but ineptitude is in
Howell, Familiar Letters, b. i. s. 1. let. 9 ; dated 1619. From In-
(3) and Apt. 4 Note that ineptitude is a correct spelling, from
INCARNADINE
L. ineptitido; so too the L, adj. is ineptus, not inaptus.
ly, inapt-i-tude. Doublet, inept, q. v. (a better form).
INARTICULATE, not distinct. (L.) ‘The inarticulate sounds
of music ;’ Giles Fletcher, Poems ; Pref. to the Reader.—L. inarti-
culdtus, indistinct. From In- (3) and Articulate. Der. inarticu-
late-ly, -ness ; inarticulat-ion.
INARTIFICIAL, without artifice. (L.) ‘An inartificial argu-
ment ;” Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. i. c. 7. § 2.—L. inartificialis,
not according to the rules of art. From In- (3) and Artificial;
see Artifice. Der. inartificial-ly.
INASMUCH, seeing that. (E.) Merely the three words ix as
much run together. We find North. E. ix als mekil als, Cursor Mundi,
19596; also inasmyche as, Wyclif’s Works, ed. Arnold, ii. 206. Cf.
‘be als moche as that ryvere may serve’ = by as much as that river, &c. ;
Mandeville’s Travels, ed. Halliwell, p. 45.
INATTENTION, lack of attention. (F.—L.) ‘This universal
indolence and inattention among us;’ Tatler,no.187. From In- (3)
and Attention; see Attend. Der. inatient-ive, inattent-ive-ly.
INAUDIBLE, not audible. (L.) In Shak. All’s Well, v. 3. 41.
See In- (3) and Audience. Der. inaudibl-y, inaudibili-ty,
INAUGURATE, to consecrate, install, enter upon or invest with
an office formally, begin formally. (L.) ‘The seat on which her
kings inaugurated were ;’ Drayton, Polyolbion, 5. 17.1.188. Properly
app., as in ‘being inaugurate and invested in the kingdome;’ Holland,
tr. of Livy, p. 14 (R.) ‘When is the inauguration?’ Beaum. and
Fletcher, Valentinian, v. 5. 1.—L. inauguratus, pp. of inaugurare,
to consult the divining birds, practise augury, inaugurate. =L. in-=
prep. in, for, towards; and avgurare, to act as augur. See In- (2)
and Augur. Der. inaugurat-ion (above) ; inaugurat-or ; inaugural.
INAUSPICIOUS, not auspicious. (L.) In Shak. Romeo, v. 3.
111. See In- (3) and Auspice. Der. inauspicious-ly, -ness,
INBORN, born within one, native. (E.) ‘And straight, with
inborn vigour, on the wing;’ Dryden, Mrs. Anne Killigrew, 1. 191.
Late AS. inboren, in-born, From in, prep.; and born, pp. of bear.
See In- (1) and Bear (1). So also Icel. innborinn, inborn.
INBREATHED, breathed in. (E.) ‘Dead things with in-
breathed sense ;’ Milton, At a Solemn Musick, 1. 4. See In- (1) and
Breathe.
INBRED, bred within, innate. (E.) ‘ My inbred enemy;’ Milton,
P. L. ii. 785. From in, prep.; and bred, pp. of Breed.
INCA, a royal title. (Peruvian.) ‘The Indian Inca ;’ Howell,
Fam. Letters, 2nd Introd. Poem, 1.19. Dryden has the pl. Incas;
Fables, Dedication, ὃ 7.—Peruv. inca, a title. Cf. Peruv. gapay kapac
Inca, king of Peru (¢apay=only; kapac=lord); Peruv. Dict. Inca
was orig. the chief of a tribe (Oviedo). Garcilasso de la Vega
explains capa Inca as ‘sole lord;’ and complains that the Span.
form inga is corrupt.
INCAGE, to put in a cage. (F.—L.) Better encage. In Shak.
Rich. II, ii. 1. 102. -- Ἐς encager, ‘to incage, to shut within a cage;’
Cot.=<F. en=L. in, in; and cage,acage. See In- (2) and Cage.
INCALCULABLE, not to be counted. (L.) ‘Do mischiefs
incalculable ;? Burke, On Scarcity (R.) From In- (3) and Caleula-
ble; see Calculate. Der. incalculabl-y.
INCANDESCENT, glowing hot. (L.) ZJncandescence is in
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. —L. incandesceni-, stem of pres. part. of
incandescere, to glow.—L. in, towards; and candescere, inceptive
form of candére, to glow. See In- (2) and Candle. Der. incan-
descence.
INCANTATION, a magical charm. (L.) ME. incantacion,
Gower, C. A. iii. 455 bk. vi. 1309.— OF. incaniation; see N. E. D.=
L. incantatidnem, acc. of incantatio, an enchanting ; cf. incantatus, pp.
of incantare, to sing charms. See Enchant.
INCAPABLE, not capable. (F.—L.) In Drayton, Moses his
Birth, b. i. 1, 250; Milton, P.L. ii. 140, v. 505 ; Shak., Sonnet 113. —
F. incapable, ‘uncapable;’? Cot. From In- (3) and Capable. Der.
incapabili-ty ; and see below.
INCAPACITY, want of capacity. (F.—L.) In Minsheu. =
F, incapacité, ‘incapacity;’ Cot. Cf. L. incapax, incapable. From
In- (3) and Capacity; see Capacious. Der. incapacit-ate ; in-
capacit-at-ion, Burke, Thoughts on the Present Discontents, ed. E. J.
Payne (Clar. Press), p. 63, 1. 3.
INCARCERATEH, to put in prison. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss.
ed. 1674. Asa pp. in Roy, Rede Me, ed. Arber, p. 48, 1. 6.—L. im,
in; and-carceratus, pp: of carcerare, to imprison, from carcer, a prison;
a word of uncertain origin. Der. incarcerat-ion.
INCARNADINE, to dye of a red colour. (F.—Ital.—L.) In
Shak. Macb. ii. 2.62; see Nares.=F. incarnadin, ‘carnation, of
Der. inapt-
a deep, rich, or bright carnation ; Cot. =Ital. icarnadino, ‘carnation —
or flesh colour; Florio. Also spelt incarnatino (Florio), asin mod. —
Italian. Ital. incarnato, incarnate, of flesh colour. =—L. incarnatus,
incarnate. See Incarnation.
ey ee
INCARNATION
INCARNATION, embodiment in flesh. (F.—L.) ME. in-
carnacion, Rob. of Glouc. p. 9; 1. 197.—F. incarnation. Late L.
incarnatioOnem, acc. of incarnatio; cf. incarnatus, pp. of incarnare, to
clothe with flesh.—L. im, in; and carn-, stem of caro, flesh. See
Carnal. Der. incarnate, Merch. Ven, ii. 2. 29, from pp. incarnatus ;
incarnat-ive, i.e. causing flesh to grow, Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxvii.
c. 11 (near end).
INCASE, the same as Encase. (F.—L.} In Pope, tr. of Homer,
Od. i. 333.
INCAUTIOUS, not cautious. (L.) ‘ You treat adventurous, and
incautious tread ;’ Francis, tr. of Horace, b. ii. oder (R.). From In-
(3) and Cautious; see Caution. Der. incautious-ly, ness.
INCENDIARY, one who sets fire to houses, &c. (L.) ‘ Others
called him... incendiarie;’ Holland, tr. of Suetonius, p. 238.—L.
incendiarius, setting on fire.—L. incendium, a burning. —L. incendere,
tokindle. See Incense (1). Der. incendiar-ism.
INCENSE (1), to inflame. (L.) ‘Much was the knight in-
censt ;’ Spenser, F. Ὁ. v. 3. 36.—L. incensus, pp. of incendere, to kindle,
inflame. = L. iz, in, upon ; and *candere, to burn (found also in comp.
accendere), allied to candére, to glow. See In- (2) and Candle.
Der. incend-iary, q. v.; incense-ment, Twelfth Nt. iii. 4. 260.
INCENSE (2), spices, odour of spices burned. (F.—L.) ME.
encens, Chaucer, C. T. 2279 (A 2277).—F. encens, ‘incense, frankin-
cense;’ Cot.—L. incensum, incense, lit. what is burnt; orig. neuter of
incensus, pp. of incendere; see Incense(1). Der. frank-incense, censer.
INCENTIVE, provoking, inciting. (L.) ‘Part incentive reed
Provide, pernicious with one touch to fire;’ Milton, P. L. vi. 519.
[Yet not connected with L. incendere, to kindle.] —L. incentiuus, that
which strikes up or sets a tune; hence, that provokes or incites; cf.
L. *incentus, unused pp. of incinere, to blow or sound an instrument.
=L. in, into; and canere, to sing. See Enchant, Chant.
INCEPTIVE, beginning. (L.) In Phillips’ Dict. ed. 1706.
Formed, with suffix -ive (=L. -iuus), from incept-um, supine of
incipere, to begin, lit. to seize on.—L. in, on; and capere, to seize;
see In- (2) and Capable. Der. inceptive-ly; and see incipient.
INCERTITUDKE, uncertainty. (F.—L.) In Holland, tr. of
Pliny, bk. xviii. c. 25, p. 586 h. =F. incertitude, ‘incertainty ;’ Cot.
=L. in-, not; and Late L. certitido, certainty (Duc.), from certus,
sure. See Certain.
INCESSANT, ceaseless. (L.) In Levins. And in Shak. Hen. V,
li. 2. 38. —L. incessant-, stem of incessans, unceasing. = L. in-, negative
prefix; and cessans, pres. pt. of cess@re, to cease. See In- (3) and
Cease. Der. incessant-ly.
INCEST, impurity. (F.—L.) In early use. ME. incest, Ancren
Riwle, p. 204, 1. 20.—F. inceste, ‘incest ;’ Cot.—L. incestus (gen. -iis),
sb. incest. —L. incestus, adj., unchaste.=L. in-, not; and castus,
chaste. See In- (3) and Chaste. Der. incest-u-ous, Hamlet, i. 2.
157; incest-u-ous-ly.
INCH (1), the twelfth part of a foot. (L.) ME. inche, Prompt.
Pary. p. 261. Older spelling also unche; ‘ feouwer' unchene long ;’
Layamon, 23970. AS. ynce; Laws of Aithelberht, 67 ;. in Thorpe’s
Ancient Laws, i. 18.—L. uwzcia, an inch; also, an ounce. See
Ounce (1), which is the doublet. Der. inch-meal, Temp. ii. 2. 3
(see Piecemeal) ; inch-thick, Wint. Tale, i. 2. 186. ἐᾷν" The AS.
y=ii, derived from τὸ by vowel-change; the changes from L. τὲ to
AS. y, and thence to ME. #, are quite regular.
INCH (2), an island. (Gael.) In Shak. Macb. i. 2. 61; Henry,
Wallace, bk. ix. 1147.—Gael. innis, an island.+4Irish iis, an island ;
W. ynys; Bret. enez; Corn. enys. Cf. L. insula.
INCHOATE, just begun. (L.) First in 1534 (N.E.D.).=L.
inchoatus, more correctly incohatus, pp. of incohare, to begin.
INCIDENT, falling upon, liable to occur. (F.—L.) In Levins;
and in Shak. Timon, iv. 1.21. Also used as sb. Lydgate incydentes,
sb. pl., Troye Book, bk. v. last ch.; fol. Ddij, back.—F. incident,
“an incident, circumstance ;’ Cot.—L. incident-, stem of pres. pt. of
incidere, to befall. —L. in, on; and cadere, to fall. See Cadence.
Der. incident-al, -ly, -ness ; incidence; incidenc-y, Wint. Tale, i. 2. 403.
INCIPIENT, beginning. (L.) Found in 1669. ‘Incipient
apoplexies ;’ Boyle, Works, vol. iv. p.641 (R.).—L. incipient-, stem
of incipiens, pres. pt. of incipere, to begin; see Inceptive. Der.
incipient-ly, incipience.
INCIRCLE, the same as Encircle. (F.—L.) In Kersey, ed.
1715.
INCISE, to cut into, gash. (F.—L.) ‘But I must be incised
first, cut, and opened ;” Beaum. and Fletcher, Mad Lover, ii. τ. 17.
=F. inciser, ‘to cut into, make an incision ;’ Cot. =L. incisus, pp. of
incidere, to cut into. =L. in, into; and cedere, to cut. See In- (2)
and Cesura. Der. incis-ion, L. L. L. iv. 3. 97, from F. incision
(Cot.); inc#s-ive, from F. incisif, ‘cutting,’ Cot.; incis-ive-ly, incis-ive-
ness; incis-or, from L. incisor; incis-or-y.
INCITE, to rouse, instigate. (F.—L.) -In K. Lear, iv. 4. 27.—
INCOMPREHENSIBLE 293
F. inciter, ‘to incite;’ Cot.—L, incitdre, to urge forward.—L. in,
towards, forwards; and citare, to urge. See In- (2) and Cite.
Der. incite-ment, from F, incitement, ‘an inciting,’ Cot.; ‘ncit-at-ion,
spelt zxcitacion, Sir T. More, Works, p. 551 c.
INCIVIL, uncivil, rude. (F.—L.) In Shak, Cymb. v. 5. 292. —
F. incivil, ‘uncivill;’ Cot. —L. inciuilis, rude. From In- (3) and
Civil. Der. incivil-it-y, Com, Errors, iv. 4. 49, from F.. incivilité,
‘incivility ;’ Cot.
INCLEMENT, not clement. (F.—L.) In Milton, P. L. iii.
426. =F. inclement, ‘unclement;’ Cot. From In- (3) and Clement.
Der. inclement-ly ; inclemenc-y, used by Cot. to translate Εἰ, inclemence.
INCLINE, to lean towards, bow towards. (F.—L.) ME. en-
clinen, Gower, C. A. i. 168; bk. ii. 271; also in Chaucer, C. T.
13908 (B 3092).—F. incliner, ‘to incline;’ Cot.+L. inclindre, to
incline. —L. in, towards; and *clixdre, to lean, cognate with ἘΣ, lean.
See Lean (1). Der. inclin-at-ion, Hamlet, iii. 3. 39, ME. incly-
nacioun, Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. gt, from F. inclination, ‘an
inclination,’ Cot. ; also inclin-able, Cor. li. 2. 60.
INCLOSE, the same as Enclose. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q..
iii. 2.31; Dunbar, Thistle and Rose, st. 22. Der. enclos-ure, Milton,
P. L. iv. 133. See Include.
INCLUDE, to shut in, contain. (L.) In Barnes, Works, p. 228,
col. 2.—L. inclidere, pp. incliisus, to shut in.—L. in, in; and clau-
dere, to shut. See In- (2) and Close (1). Der. inclus-ton; inclus-
ive, Rich. III, iv. 1. 59; inclus+ive-ly.
INCOGNITO, in concealment. (Ital.—L.) In Dryden, Kind
Keeper, Act i. sc. 1; and in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. — Ital. incog-
nito, unknown.=L. incognitus, unknown. = L. in-, not; and cognitus,
known. See In- (3) and Cognition. J Shortened to incog,
Tatler, no. 230.
INCOHERENT, not coherent. (L.) ‘Two incoherent and un-
combining dispositions;’ Milton, On Divorce, b. i. c. 1. . ‘ Besides
the incoherence of such a doctrine ;’ id. Ὁ. ii. c. 2. See In- (3) and
Cohere. Der. incoherent-ly, incoherence.
INCOMBUSTIBLE, that cannot be burnt. (L.) ‘Stories of
incombustible napkins ;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iti, c.14, § 3.
From In- (3) and Combustible; see Combustion. Der. in-
combustible-ness, incombustibilt-ty.
INCOME, gain, profit, revenue. (E.) Properly, the ‘ coming in,’
and hence, accomplishment, fulfilment. ME. income, coming in;
Cursor Mundi, 11127. -‘ Pain pays the income of each precious
thing ;” Shak. Lucrece, 334. From In- (1) and Come.
INCOMMENSURABLE, not commensurable. (F.—L.) In
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—F. incommensurable, “ unmeasurable ;’
Cot.—L. incommensirabilis. See In- (3) and Commensurate,
Der. incommensurabl-y, incommensurable-ness, incommensurabili-ty.
INCOMMENSURATE, not commensurate. (L.) In Boyle,
Works, vol. iv. p. 780 (R.). From In- (3) and Commensurate.
INCOMMODEH, to cause inconvenience to. (F.—L.) In Florio
(1594), 5.ν. Incomodare. =F. incommoder, ‘to incommodate, hinder ;’
Cot. —L. incommodire, to cause inconvenience to.—L. incommodus,
inconvenient. =L. im-, not; and commodus, convenient. See In- (3)
and Commodious. Der. incommod-i-ous, North’s Plutarch, p. 77
(R.) 3 incommod-i-ous-ly, -ness;. also incommod-i-ty, Sir Τὶ Elya@
Castel of Helth, Ὁ. 11. c. 31.
INCOMMUNICABLE, not communicable. (F.—L.) In
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.— 1. incommunicable, ‘ uncommunicable ;’
Cot. See In- (3) and Commune. Der. incommunicabl-y, incom-
municable-ness, incommunicabili-ty; so also in-communic-at-ive.
INCOMMUTABLE, not commutable. (F.—L.) ‘The in-
comutable deyté ;’ Caxton, Golden Legend; Pentecost, § 1. =F. in-
commutable; Cot. See In- (3) and Commute. Der. incommutabl-y,
incommutable-ness, incommutabili-ty.
INCOMPARABLE, matchless. (F.—L.) In Shak. Timon,
i. I. 10; and Lydgate, Troye Book, bk. i. ch. 6, fol. D 4 (end).—
F. incomparable, ‘incomparable ;” Cot. See In- (3) and Compare.
Der. incomparabl-y, incomparable-ness. ‘
INCOMPATIBLE, not compatible. (F.—L.) In Beaum, and
Fletcher, Four Plays in One, Triumph of Love, se. 1, 1. 7.—F. in-
compatible, ‘incompatible;’ Cot. From In- (3) and Compatible.
Der. incompatibl-y ; incompatibil-i-ty, from F. incompatibilité (Cot.).
INCOMPETENT, not competent. (F.—L.) In Minshen. =
F. incompetent, ‘incompetent, unfit ;? Cot. See In- (3) and Com-
petent. Der. incompetent-ly, incompetence; also incompetenc-y, used
by Cot. to.translate F. incompetence,
INCOMPLETE, not complete. (L.) ‘A most imperfect and
incompleat divine;’ Milton, Animad, upon Remonstrants Defence
against Smectymnuus (R.).. ME. incompleet, Wyclif, Works, ed.
Arnold, iii. 342, 1. 9.—L. incomplétus. See In- (3) and Complete.
Der. incomplete-ly, -ness.
INCOMPREHENSIBLE, not to be comprehended. (F.—L.)
INCOMPRESSIBLE
‘How incomprehensible are his waies;’ Frith, Works, p. 84, col. 2,
last line. And in Wyclif, Jerem. xxxii. 19.—F. incomprehensible ;
Cot. From In- (3) and Comprehensible ; see Comprehend.
Der. incomprehensibl-y, incomprehensibili-ty ; so also incomprehens-ive,
incomprehens-ive-ness.
INCOMPRESSIBLE, not compressible. (L.) In Bailey,
vol. ii. ed..1731. From In- (3) and Compressible ; see Com-
press. Der. incompressibili-ty.
INCONCEIVABLE, not to be conceived. (F.—L.) First in
1631. Bailey has inconceivable-ness, vol. ii.ed. 1731. A coined word ;
see In-(3) and Conceive. Der. inconceivabl-y, inconceivableness.
INCONCLUSIVE, not conclusive. (L.) First in 1707. See
Todd’s Johnson. From In- (3) and Conclusive; see Conclude.
Der. inconclusive-ly, -ness.
INCONDITEH, ill-constructed, crude, rude. (L.) ‘Carol incon-
dite rhythms ;’” Philips, Cyder, bk. ii. = L. inconditus, ill put together.
—L. in-, not ; conditus, pp. of condere, to put together, from con-, for
cum, together, and -dere, to put, place, allied to Gk. τί-θη-μι,1 place.
See Thesis. Brugmann, i. § 573.
INCONGRUOUBS, inconsistent, unsuitable. (L.) In Cotgrave,
to translate F. incongrue.—L. incongruus; with -ous for -us. From
In- (3) and Congruous; see Congrue. Der. incongru-i-ty, in
Minsheu, and used by Cot. to translate F. incongruité.
INCONSEQUENT, not following from the premises. (L.)
Kersey has inconsequency, ed. 1715; Bailey has inconsequentness,
vol. it. ed. 1731.—L. inconsequent-, stem of inconsequens, inconsequent.
See In- (3) and Consequent. Der. inconsequent-ly, -ness; incon-
sequence, inconsequenc-y ; also inconsequent-ial , inconsequent-ial-ly,
INCONSIDERABLE, unimportant. (F.—L.) In Milton,
P. R. iv. 457. From In- (3) and Considerable; see Consider.
Der. So also inconsider-ate, Shak. K. John, ii. 67; inconsider-ate-ly,
inconsider-ate-ness ; inconsider-at-ion, in Cotgrave, to translate Ἐς in-
consideration.
INCONSISTENT, not consistent. (L.) ‘Though it be in-
consistent with their calling;’ Howell, Foreign Travel, ed. 1642,
s. 18; ed. Arber, p. 76. From In- (3) and Consistent; see
Consist. Der. inconsistent-ly, inconsistence, inconsistenc-y.
INCONSOLABLE, not to be consoled. (F.—L.)
sheu.< F. inconsolable, ‘inconsolable ;’ Cot.—L. inconsdlabilis.
In- (3) and Console. Der. inconsolabl-y.
INCONSTANT, not constant. (F.—L.) ‘Inconstant man;’
Spenser, F. Q.i. 4. 26. ME. inconstaunt, Hoccleve, Letter of Cupid,
l. 1ot.—F. inconstant, ‘inconstant;’ Cot. See In- (3) and Con-
stant. Der. incorstant-ly; inconstanc-y, used by Cot. to translate
Ἐς. inconstance.
INCONSUMABLE, that cannot be consumed. (L.) ‘Coats,
inconsumable by fire ;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 14, ὃ 4.
A coined word. See In- (3) and Consume.
INCONTESTABLE, not contestable. (F.—L.) ‘ By necessary
consequences, as incontestable as those in mathematicks ;’ Locke, Of
Human Underst. Ὁ. iv. c. 3. s. 18 (R.).—F. incontestable, ‘not to be
contested or stood on;’ Cot. See In- (3) and Contest. Der.
incontestabl-y.
INCONTINENT (1), unchaste. (F.—L.) In Shak. As You
Like It, v. 2. 42. - Ἐς incontinent, ‘incontinent, immoderate ;” Cot. —L.
incontinent-, stem of incontinens.—L,. in-, not; and continens, contain-
ing, pres. pt. of continére, to contain. See In- (3) and Contain.
Der. incontinent-ly ; incontinence, used by Cot. to translate F. in-
continence ; also incontinenc-y, spelt incontinencie in Sir T. More,
Works, p. 207 f.
INCONTINENT (2), immediately. (F.—L.) In Spenser,
F. Q. i. 9. 19. ME. incontinent, Generydes, 1. 1571. —F. incontinent,
“adverb, incontinently, instantly ;’ Cot. Lit. ‘immoderately ;’ and
due to the word above. Der. incontinent-ly, Oth. i. 3. 306.
INCONTROLLABLE, not to be controlled. (F.—L.) ‘An
incontroullable conformity ;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iv.
c. 12, § 15. Acoined word. See In- (3) and Control. Der. in-
controllabl-y.
INCONTROVERTIBLE, not to be gainsaid. (L.) In Sir T.
Browne, Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. vii. c. 13, § 4 [vot c. 23]. A coined word.
See In- (3) and Controversy. Der. incontrovertibl-y, incontro-
vertibili-ty.
INCONVENIENT, not suitable, incommodions, (F.—L.) ‘I
wene that non inconuentent shalt thou fynde betwene Goddes for-
weting and liberté of arbitrement;’ Test. of Love, b. ili. c. 3. 77.
‘Withouten any inconuenience thereof to folow ;” id. c. 4. 139.—F.
inconvenient ; Cot. —L. inconuenient-, stem of inconueniens, unsuitable.
See In- (3) and Convenient. Der. inconvenient-ly, inconvenience,
inconventenc-y.
INCONVERTIBLE, not convertible. (L.) ‘And accompanieth
the inconvertible portion;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. il. c. 5,
294.
In Min-
See
INCULPABLE
§ 8 [reference in R. wrong].—L. inconuertibilis, unchangeable. See
In- (3) and Convert. Der. inconvertibili-ty.
INCONVINCIBLE, not convincible. (L.) ‘Yet it is not
much less injurious unto knowledge, obstinately and inconvincibly [in-
convincedly, .] to side with any one;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors,
Ὁ. i. c. 7, § 6. A coined word; from In- (3) and Convince. Der.
inconvincibl-y.
INCONY, adj., rare, fine, delicate, pretty, very dear. (E.) In
Shak. L. L. L. iii. 1. 136; iv. 1. 144; Marlowe, Jew of Malta, iv. 5
or 6). Perhaps for in-conny ; where zv- is intensive, as in ME. in-ly,
very; and conny (also canny) is North E., meaning skilful, gentle,
pleasant, dainty, ὅς. (E.D.D.) From E. can, I know (how); cf.
Icel. kunnigr, knowing, wise ; Swed. kunnzg, skilful.
INCORPORATE, to form into a body. (L.) In Shak. Romeo,
ii. 6.37. Orig.a pp.as in Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 2. 208 ; and much earlier
(spelt zxcorporat) in Trevisa, tr. of Higden, i. 329.—L. incorporatus,
pp. of incorporare, to furnish with a body.=L. im, in; and corpor-,
decl. stem of corpus, a body. See In- (2) and Corporal (2). Der.
incorporat-ion, Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 1045 ἢ ; so also incorpor-eal,
Milton, P. L. i. 789 ; incorpor-eal-ly.
INCORRECT, not correct. (F.—L.) In Hamlet, i. 2. 95.=—F.
incorrect, ‘ incorrect;’ Cot.—L. incorrectus, uncorrected. See In-
(3) and Correct. Der. incorrect-ly, -ness; so also incorrigible, in
Minsheu, and used by Cot. to translate F. incorrigible ; incorrigible-
ness, incorrigibili-ty.
INCORRUPT, not corrupt. (L.) ‘The most iuste and incorrupt
iuge’ [judge]; Joye, Exposicion of Daniel, c. 7. And in Trevisa,
tr. of Higden, vii. 149.—L. incorruptus, uncorrupted. See In- (3)
and Corrupt. Der. incorrupt-ly; incorrupt-ion, Sir T. More,
Works, p. 13454; incorrupt-ness; also incorrupt-ibl2, Bible, 1551,
1 Cor. xy. 52, from F. incorruptible, Cot.; incorruptibl-y, incorrupt-
thle-ness.
INCRASSATE, to make thick. (L.) ‘Liquors which time hath
incrassated into jellies;’ Sir Τὶ Browne, Urn-burial, c. iii. § 3.—L.
incrassatus, pp. of incrassare, to make thick. —L. in, in, into; and
crassare, to thicken, from ecrassus, thick. See Crass. Der. incrass-
ation, incrassat-ive.
INCREASE, to grow in size, to augment. (F.—L.) ME. in-
cresen, Prompt. Pary. p. 261. Earlier, encresen, Chaucer, C. T. 13394
(B 1654). — AF. encress-, a stem of encrestre, to increase; Stat. Realm,
p- 284.—F. en, in; and AF. cres-, stem of creistre, to grow (OF.
croistre, F. croitre). ‘Un arbresu ki eu munt fu cresant? =a small tree
which was growing on the mount; Vie de St. Auban, ed. Atkinson,
1172. Cf. L. increscere, to increase. —L. in, in; and crescere, to grow.
See In- (2) and Crescent. Der. increase, sb., Bible, 1551, Ezek.
xxxiv. 27. And see increment.
INCREDIBLE, not credible. (F.—L.) ‘ Reioysyng incredibly ;’
Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b. ii. c. 2; Shak. Tam. Shrew, ii.
308. - Εἰ, incredible, ‘incredible;’ Cot.—L. incrédibilis. From In- (3)
and Credible; see Creed. Der. incredibl-y, incredibili-ty ; so also
incred-ul-ous, 2 Hen, IV, iv. 5.154, from L. incrédulus, by change of -us
to -ous, as in numerous other instances ; incredulous-ly ; incredul-i-ty,
from Εἰ, incredulité, ‘ incredulity,’ Cot.
INCREMENT, increase. (L.) Used by Bp. Taylor, Liberty of
Prophesying, § 16. ‘Zncrement, incrementum ;’ Levins, ed. 1570 =
L. incrémentum, increase. Formed with suffix -mentum from incre-,
base of tncrescere, to increase. See Increase.
INCROACH, the same as Encroach. (F.)
in Cotgrave, to translate MF. enxjamber.
INCRUST, to cover with a crust. (F.—L.) ‘The chapell is
incrusted with such precious materials;’ Evelyn, Diary, Noy. 10,
1644. ‘ Incrustate, incrustare ;’ Levins, ed. 1570. —F. incruster, ‘to
set ascab or crust on ;᾿ Cot.=—L. incrustare, to cover with a crust. —L.
in, on; and crusta,a crust. See In- (2) and Crust. Der. zncrustat-
ion, Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. @#> Better than excrust.
INCUBATE, to sit on eggs to hatch them. (L.) The verb is
late, and suggested by the sb. incubation. ‘The daily incubation of
ducks;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 7, § 9.—L. incubatus,
In Minsheu ; and
pp. of incubare, to lie upon, sit upon eggs. See Incubus. Der,
incubat-ion, incubat-or.
INCUBUS, a nightmare, oppressive weight. (L.) ‘ Ther is
noon other incubus but he;’ Chaucer, C. T. 6462 (D 880). =—L.
incubus, a nightmare. =L. incubare, to lie upon. —L. im, upon; and
cubare, to lie down, lit. to be bent down. Cf. Gk. κύπτειν, to stoop
down.
INCULCATE, to enforce by admonitions. (L.) ‘To inculcate,
inculcare ;’ Levins.=L. inculcdlus, pp. of tnculcare, lit. to tread in.
=L. in, in; and calcire, to tread. See Calk. Der. inculcat-ion.
INCULPABLE, not culpable. (L.) ‘As one that was in-
culpable ;’ Chapman, Homer’s lliad, Ὁ. iv. 1. 103; and in Minsheu.
=L. inculpabilis. See In- (3) and Culpable. Der. inculpabl-y.
INCULPATE
INCULPATE, to bring into blame. (L.) First in 1799. Not
in Todd’s Johnson. — Late L. inculpare, to bring blame upon, accuse ;
Ducange.=L. in, upon; and culpa, blame; see In- (2) and Culp-
able. Der. inculpat-ion, inculpat-or-y.
INCUMBENT, lying upon, resting upon asa duty, (L.) ‘Aloft,
incumbent on the dusky air ;’ Milton, P. L. 1. 226. —L. sncumbent-, stem
of pres. pt. of incumbere, to lie upon; a nasalised form allied to
incubare, to lie upon. See Incubus, Der. incumbent, sb., one who
holds an ecclesiastical office, see Minsheu, and Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674 ; incumbent-ly, incumbenc-y.
INCUMBER,, the same as Encumber. (F.—L.)
and in Milton, P. L. vi. 874, ix. 1051.
INCUR, to become liable to, bring on. (L.) In Shak. Merch.
Ven. iv. 1. 361.—L. incurrere, to run into, fall into, run upon, attack,
befal, occur.—L. im, upon; and currere, to run. See In- (2) and
Current. Der. incursion, q. v.
INCURABLE, not curable. (F.—L.) ME. incurable, P. Plow-
man, B. x. 327; Gower, C. A. ii. 119; bk. iv. 3509.—F. incurable ;
Cot. =L. incitrabilis.=—L. in-, not; and curabilis, curable, from cirdre,
to cure. See In- (3) and Cure. Der. incurabl-y, incurable-ness,
incurabili-ty.
INCURSION, an inroad, encounter. (F.—L.) InShak. 1 Hen.
IV, ili, 2. 108.—F. imcursion, ‘an incursion, inrode ;’ Cot.—L. in-
cursidnem, acc. of incursio, an attack; allied to L. incursus, pp. of
incurrere, to attack. See Incur.
INCURVATE, to bend, crook. (L.) In Cockeram, pt. ii. s. v.
bow. ‘Incurvation, a crook’ning or bowing ;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. —L.
incurudtus, pp. of incurudre, to bend into a curve.—L. in, in, into;
and curudre, to curve, from curuus, crooked ; see In- (2) and Curve.
Der. incurvat-ion,
INDEBTED, being in debt. (F.—L.) In Luke, xi. 4 (A. V.).
ME. endetted ; Chaucer, C. T. 16202 (G 734).—OF. endetter, MF.
endebter, ‘to bring into debt;’ Cot.—F. ez, in, into; and OF. deéte,
MF. debte, a debt. See In- (2) and Debt. Der. indebted-ness.
INDECENT, not decent. (F.—L.) In Spenser, b. ii. c. 9. st. 1.
=F, indecent, ‘undecent;’ Cot.=—L. indecent-, stem of indecens, un-
becoming. See In- (3) and Decent. Der. indecent-ly, indecenc-y.
INDECISION, want of decision. (F.—L.) Used by Burke
(R.). =F. indecision, ‘an undecision ;’ Cot. See In- (3) and Decide.
Der. indecis-ive, indecis-ive-ly, -ness.
INDECLINABLE, that cannot be declined. (L.) A gram-
matical term. In Palsgrave, Introd. p. xxxvii.—L. indéclinabilis,
indeclinable.—L. im-, neg. prefix; and déclinare, to decline, inflect
a substantive. See In- (4) and Decline. Der. indeclinabl-y,
INDECORUM, want of propriety. (L.) ‘To entermingle merie
iests in a serious matter is an indecorum ;’ Gascoigne, On Verse, ed.
Arber, p. 32. And in Minsheu’s Dict., ed. 1627.—L. indecorum,
what is unbecoming; neut. of indecorus, unbecoming. See In- (3)
and Decorum. Der. indecor-ous, used by Burke (R.); directly
from L. indecérus, with -ous for -us ; hence indecor-ous-ly.
INDEED, in fact, in truth. (E.) ME. in dede, in reality, accord-
ing to the facts. ‘ And how that al this proces fil ix dede’ =and how
all this series of events happened in reality ; Chaucer, C. T. 14327
(B 3511). We find nearly the modern usage in the following.
“Made her owne weapon do her finger blede, To fele if pricking wer
so good im dede;’ Sir Τὶ Wiat, Of his Love that pricked her finger
with a nedle. From in, prep.; and dede, dat. case of deed. See In
and Deed.
INDEFATIGABLE, that cannot be wearied out. (F.—L.)
In Milton, P. L. ii. 408; and in Minsheu. =F. indefatigable, ‘ inde-
fatigable ;’ Cot.—L. indéfatigabilis, not to be wearied out.=—L. in-,
negative prefix; and défatigare, to weary out, from dé, down, ex-
tremely, and fatigdre, to weary. See In- (3) and Fatigue. Der.
indefatigabl-y, indefatigable-ness,
INDEFEASIBLE, not to be defeated or made void. (AF.—L.)
An AF. law-term. Spelt indefeosable in Cockeram (1642). ‘An
indefeasible title;’ Burnet, Hist. Reformation, an. 1553 (R.). Also
spelt indefeasable ; Tatler, no. 187. From In- (3) and Defeasible;
see Defeasance, Defeat. Der. indefeasibl-y, indefeasibili-ty.
INDEFENSIBLE, not defensible. (L.) Used by Sir T. More,
Works, p. 151. From In- (3) and Defensible. See Defend.
Der. indefensibl-y.
INDEFINABLE, that cannot be defined. (L.) Modern.
Added by Todd to Johnson's Dict. From In- (3) and Definable.
See Indefinite.
INDEFINITE, not definite, vague. (L.) ‘It was left somewhat
indefinitely ;’ Bacon, Life of Hen. VII, ed. Lumby, p. 102, 1. 25.
From In- (3) and Definite. See Define. Der. indefini‘e-ly, -ness.
INDELIBLE, not to be blotted out. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave.
Misspelt for indeleble. Owing to the lack of E. words ending in -eble,
it has been made to end in -:ble, by analogy with ferr-ible, horr-ible,
In Minsheu;
INDIAMAN
and the like. The correct spelling indeleble often occurs (see Rich.
and Todd) and is given in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. ‘ Might fix any
character indeleble of disgrace upon you;’ Bacon, Letters, ed. 1657,
p- 13 (Todd).—MF. indelebile, ‘indelible :᾿ Cot.—L. indélébilis,
indelible. L. in-, not; and délébilis, destructible, from délére, to
destroy. See In- (3) and Delete. Der. indelibl-y, indelibili-ty.
INDELICATE, not delicate, coarse. (F.—L.) ‘If to your nice
and chaster ears That term indelicate appears;’ Churchill, The
Ghost, b. iii]. 283. Indelicacy is in the Spectator, no. 286. From
In- (3) and Delicate. Der. indelicate-ly, indelicac-y.
INDEMNIFY, to make good for damage done. (F.—L.) ‘I
believe the states must at last engage to the merchants here that they
will indemnify them from all that shall fall out on this occasion ;’
Sir W. Temple, to Lord Arlington (R.). Cf. MF. indemniser, ‘to
indemnize, or indamnifie;’ Cot. [A clumsy and ignorantly formed
compound, made as if from an OF, indemnifier or Late L. indemni-
Jicare, neither of which is used; the true words being OF. in-
demniser and Late L. indemnisdre.])—L. indemni-, decl. stem of
indemnis, unharmed; and F. suffix -fier=L. -jicare, forms due to L.
facere, to make; see Fact. β. L. indemnis is from in-, neg. prefix;
and damnum, harm, loss; see In- (3) and Damage. Der. indemnijic-
at-ion. And see Indemnity.
INDEMNITY, security from loss, compensation for loss.
(F.—L.) ‘Sufficiently prouide for thindemnity (i.e. the indemnity]
of the wytnes;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 970 b.=F. indemnité, ‘in-
demnity ;’ Cot. —L. indemnitatem, acc. of indemnitas, security from
damage. = L. indemni-, decl. stem of indemnis ; see Indemnify.
INDEMONSTRABLE, not demonstrable. (L.) ‘ Undiscern-
able, and most commonly ixdemonstrable;’ Bp. Vaylor, Liberty of
Prophesying, s. 2. —L. indémonstrabilis, not to be shown, = L. in-, not;
and démonstrabilis, demonstrable, from démons(rare, to show. See
In- (3) and Demonstrate.
INDENT (1), to notch, cut into points like teeth. (Law L.)
A law term. In making duplicates of deeds, it was usual to cut or
indent the edges exactly alike so that they would tally with each
other upon comparison. The deeds with edges so cut were called
indentures, and the verb to indent came also to mean to execute a
deed or make a compact. See indentura in Ducange. ‘Shall we
buy treason, and indent with fears, When they have lost and for-
feited themselves?’ τ Hen. IV, i. 3.87. It was also used as a term
in heraldry, as in the following. ‘ His baner, . . . the which was
goules, . . . bordred syluer indented;’ Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol. i.
c.60(R.). Hence used in a general sense. ‘ With indented glides;’
As You Like It, iv. 3. 113. —Law L. indentaire, to notch or cut into
teeth ; whence also MF, endenter (Cotgrave).—L. in, in, into; and
dent-, stem of dens, a tooth, cognate with E. Tooth, q.v. Der. in-
denture, Hamlet, v. 1. 119 (=Law L, indentira, Ducange), formed
with Ἐς suffix -ure (=L. -ira) by analogy with Ἐς sbs. such as bless-
ure from bless-er, &c. Also indentat-ion (in one sense).
INDENT (2), to make a dint in. (E.) ‘Deep scars were seen
indented on his breast ;’ Dryden, Juvenal, vi. 151. From ΕἸ. im,
prep. ; and dent,a dint. See Dent. Suggested and much affected
by indent (1), though really a different word. Der. indent-ation.
INDEPENDENT, not dependent. (L.) The Independents
formed a sect famous in history. ‘Robert Brown preached these
views [i.e. such views as they held] in 1585 ... A church was
formed in London in 1593, when there were 20,000 independents...
Cromwell, himself an Independent, obtained them toleration;’ Haydn,
Dict. of Dates. From In- (3) and Dependent; see Depend.
Der. independent-ly, independence, independenc-y.
INDESCRIBABLE, not to be described. (L.) A late word;
added by Todd to Johnson’s Dict. From In- (3) and Describ-
able ; see Describe.
INDESTRUCTIBLE, not to be destroyed. (L.) ‘ Primitive
and indestructible bodies ;’ Boyle, Works, vol. i. p. 538 (R.). From
In- (3) and Destructible; see Destroy. Der, indestructibl-y,
indestructible-ness, indestructibili-ty.
INDETERMINATE, not fixed. (L.) ‘Any sterre . . . in-
determinat;’ Chaucer, Astrolobe, pt. il. § 17 (rubric). —L. indéler-
mindtus, undefined. = τς in-, not ; and détermindtus, pp. of dé/erminare,
to define, limit, fix; see In- (3) and Determine. Der. indeter-
minate-ly, indeterminat-ion; so also indetermin-able, indetermin-abl-y ;
and indetermin-ed.
INDEX, a hand that points out, a table of contents to a book. (L.)
See Nares. In Shak. Rich. III, ii. 2. 149; Troil. i. 3. 343; Hamlet,
iii. 4. 52. [The L. pl. is indices; the E. pl. is indexes. ]—L. index
(stem indic-), a discloser, informer, index, indicator ; allied toindicare,
to point out. See Indicate. Der. index, verb (modern), index-
learning, Pope, Dunciad, ii. 279.
INDIAMAN, a large ship employed in trade with India; from
India and man. See Indigo and Man.
295
996 INDIAN
INDIAN RUBBER, INDIA-RUBBER, caoutchouc, so
named from its rubbing out pencil marks, and because often brought
from the W. Indies; from Jndia and Rubber. The use of
Indian with teference to the West Indies was once common; see
Temp. ii. 2. 34; Pope, Horace, Ep. I. i. 69. See Indigo.
INDICATE, to point out, show. (L.) In Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715 5
first in 1651. Indication is earlier, in Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 479.—L.
indicatus, pp. of indicare, to point to, point out.—L. in, towards;
and dicare, to proclaim, make known. From dic-, weak grade of
7 DEIK, to show; whence also Εν Token, q.v. Der. indicat-or,
indicat-or-y, indicat-ion ; also indicat-ive, a grammatical term, used in
the F. grammar prefixed to Palsgrave’s Ἐς Dict., p. xxxi; indicative-ly ;
also index, q.v.
INDICT, to accuse. (L.; rather F.—L.) The spelling is Latin;
but the pronunciation is invariably indite [i.e. rhyming with bi‘e],
showing that it is really French. See further under Indite.
Shak. has indict (old editions indite) in Haml. ii. 2. 46453 Oth. iii.
4.154. Der. indict-able; indict-ment, Wint. Ta. iii. 2. 11; and see
Indiction.
INDICTION, a cycle of 15 years. (F.—L.) Lit. an imposition
of a tax, an impost, tax. Specially applied to the period called the
Indiction, ‘a cycle of tributes orderly disposed for 15 years, not
known before the time of Constantine ...In memory of the great
victory obtained by Constantine over Mezentius, 8 Cal. Oct. 312, the
council of Nice ordained that the accounts of years should be no
longer kept by the Olympiads, but by the Indiction, which has its
epocha 1 Jan. 313. It was first used by the Latin church in 342
{Sept. 1] ;’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates. Given and explained in Minsheu
and Blount.—F. indiction, ‘a tearme of 5, 10, or 15 years used by the
ancient Romans in their numbring of years ; also an imposition, taxe,
or tallage;’ Cot.—L. indictidnem, acc. of indictio, an imposition of
a tax; cf. L. indictus, pp. of indicere, to appoint, impose. = L. in, in,
to; and dicere, to say, speak, tell, appoint. See Im- (2) and
Diction.
INDIFFERENT, impartial, neutral, unimportant. (F.—L.) In
Palsgrave; and Ecclus. xlii. 5 (A. V.). See Bible Wordbook and
Nares. And see Shak. Rich. II, ii. 3.116; Jul. Ceesari. 3.115; Tam.
Shrew, iv. 1. 94. =F. indifferent, ‘indifferent, equall, tollerable, in
a mean between both ;’ Cot.—L. indifferent-, stem of indifferens,
indifferent, careless. From In- (3) and Different; see Differ.
Der. indifferent-ly, Jul. Cesar, 1. 2. 87; Titus Andron. i. 430; Haml.
lil. 2. 41; indifference.
INDIGENOUS, native, born in, naturally produced in. (L.)
‘Negroes .. . not indigenous or proper natives of America ;’ Sir T.
Browne, Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. vi. c. 10. § 7.—L. indigenus, native; by
change of -xs to -ous, as in very numerous instances. —L. indi-, for
indu, Old L, extension from the prep. iz (cf. Gk. ἔνδον, within) ; and
gen-, as in gen-i-tus, born, pp. of gignere, to beget, formed from
GEN, to beget. See Genus.
INDIGENT, destitute, needy, poor. (F.—L.) ME. indigent;
the sb. indigence is in Chaucer, C. ‘T. 4524 (B 104); Gower, C. A.
iii. 153; bk. vii. 2028. —F. indigent, ‘indigent;’ Cot.=L. indigent-,
stem of indigens, a needy person, lit. needing; orig. pres. pt. of
indigére, to need, to be in want. —L. ind-, shortened from indy, an
Old L. extension from the prep. iz (cf. Gk. ἔνδον, within) ; and egére,
to be in want. B. Egére is allied to *egus, adj., only found in comp.
ind-igus, needy. Cf. Gk. ἀχήν, poor, needy (rare) ; Theocritus, 16.
33. Both L. and Gk. words appear to be from 4/EGH, to be in
want; Fick, i. 482. Der. indigent-ly, indigence.
INDIGESTED, not digested, unarranged. (L.) Indigested in
the sense of ‘unarranged’ is now commonly so written, as if to dis-
tinguish it from undigested, applied to food; but the words had once
the same sense. ‘Hence, heap of wrath, foul izdigested lump;’
2 Hen. VI, v. 1.157. ‘The shorter form indigest also occurs ; ‘mon-
sters and things indigest;’ Shak. Sonnet 114, 1. 5.—L. indigestus,
(1) unarranged, (2) undigested. —L. in-, not; and digestus, pp: of
digerere, to arrange, digest. See In- (3) and Digest. Der. indi-
gest-tble (cf. digestible in Chaucer, C. T., A 437), from F. indigestible,
‘indigestible,’ Cot., from pp. indigestus ; indigest-ibl-y ; also indigest-
ion, from F. indigestion, ‘indigestion,’ Cot.
INDIGNATION, anger at what is unworthy. (F.—L.) ME.
indignacion. ‘The hates and indignaciouns of the accusour Ciprian ;’
Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. i. pr. 4, 1. 74. —F. indignation, ‘indigna-
tion;’ Cot. L. indignationem, acc. of indignatio, displeasure; cf.
indignalus, pp. of indignari, to consider as unworthy, be displeased
at.=—L. indignus, unworthy. —L. in-, not; and dignus, worthy. See
In- (3) and Dignity. Der. So also indignant, Spenser, F. Q. iii. 5.
23, from L. indignant-, stem of pres. part. of indignari; indignant-ly ;
also indignity, Spenser, F. Q. iv. 7. 36, from MF. indigneté, ‘indignity’
(Cot.), from L. indignitatem, acc. of indignitis, unworthiness, indig-
nity, indignation.
INDOCILE
INDIGO, a blue dye obtained from a certain plant. (F.—Span. --
L.—Gk. —Pers.—Skt.) Most of it comes from India, whence the
name. The mod. name indigo is French, a word borrowed from
Spanish. Holland uses the Span. form. ‘There commeth from
India .. . store enough not only of indico;’ tr. of Pliny, b. xxxv.
c. 7.—F. indigo. =Span. indico, indigo; lit. ‘Indian.’—L. Indicum,
indigo; neut. of Zndicus, Indian.—Gk. ἰνδικόν, indigo; neut. of
Ἰνδικός, Indian. = Pers. Hind, India; Rich. Dict. p. 1691. The name
is due to the Zndus, a large river. Skt. sindhu-, the river Indus, a
river. @ The Persian changes initial s into kh; see Max Miiller,
Lectures, i. 265.
INDIRECT, not direct, crooked. (F.—L.). In Shak. Merch.
Ven, iv. 1. 350; Caxton, Chesse, bk. iv. c. 2.—F. indirect, ‘indirect,
not right;”? Cot. L. indirectus. See In- (3) and Direct. Der.
indirect-ly, -ness, indirect-ion, Hamlet, ii. 1. 66.
INDISCERNIBLE, not discernible. (L.) Spelt indiscernable
in Kersey, ed. 1715. From In- (3) and Discernible; see Dis-
cern. Der. indiscernibl-y.
INDISCREET, not discreet. (F.—L.) ME. indiscret ; spelt
indyscrete in Myrc's Instructions for Parish Priests, ed. Peacock, 1. 825.
—F. indiscret, ‘indiscreet ;’ Cot.—L. indiscrétus, unseparated, in-
discriminate ; also, that does not discern or distinguish. See In- (3)
and Discreet; also Discern. Der. indiscreet-ly, -ness; also indis-
cretion, from F. indiscretion, ‘indiscretion;’ Cot. See below.
INDISCRIMINATE, confused. (L.) ‘ The use of all things
indiscriminate ;’ Bp. Hall, b. v. sat. 3, 1.25. Here it is used as an
adverb. —L. indiscriminatim, adv., without distinction. —L. in-, not;
and discriminatim, with a distinction. —L. discrimin-, decl. stem of
discrimen, a separation, distinction. See In- (3) and Discrimi-
nate. Der. indiscriminate-ly.
INDISPENSABLE, that cannot be dispensed with. (L.) In
Bale’s Apology, fol. 133 (R.). From In- (3) and Dispensable ;
see Dispense. Der. indispensabl-y, indispensable-ness.
INDISPOSED, disinclined, unwell in health. .(F.—L. and Gk.)
‘The indisposed and sickly;’ K. Lear, ii. 4. 112.—MF. indisposé,
‘sickly, crazie, unhealthfull, ill-disposed ;” Cot. F. in-=L. in-, not;
and MF. disposé, ‘nimble, well disposed in body,’ Cot.; from the
verb disposer. See In- (3) and Dispose. Der. Hence the verb
indispose, which is quite modern; indisposed-ness. 4 But indispos-
it-ion, Timon, ii. 2. 139, from F. indisposttion, Cot., is wholly Latin;
see Disposition.
INDISPUTABLE, not disputable, certain. (F.—L.) ‘ Indis-
putably certain ;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. v.c. 12. § 1. From
In- (3) and F. disputable, ‘ disputable,’ Cot.; see Dispute. Der.
indisputab-ly, indisputable-ness.
INDISSOLUBLE, not dissoluble. (F.—L.) ‘The indissoluble
knot;’ Udal, on St. Matthew, c. 19; vv. 1-9.—F. indissoluble, ‘in-
dissoluble;’ Cot.—L. indissoliibilis, = L. in-, not ; and dissolabilis, that
may be dissolved, from dissoluere, to dissolve. See In- (3) and
Dissolute. Der. indissolubl-y, indissoluble-ness, indissolubili-ty,
INDISTINCT, not distinct. (F.—L.; or L.) In Ant. and
Cleop. iv. 14. 10.—F. indistinct, ‘indistinct ;’ Cot.—L. indistinctus,
From In- (3) and Distinct. Der. indistinct-ly, -ness; so also in-
distinguish-able, Shak. Troil. v. 1. 33 5 indistinguishabl-y.
INDITH, to dictate for writing, compose, write. (F.—L.) It
should rather be exdite. ME. enditen, Chaucer, C. T. 1874 (A 1872).
‘ Indyted or endyted of clerkly speche, Dictatus ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 261.
‘“Indytyd be [by] lawe, for trespace, Indictatus ;” id. OF. enditer,
MF. endicter, ‘to indict, accuse, impeach;’ Cot. Spelt exditer, with
the sense ‘to point out;’ Bartsch, Chrest. Frangaise.—Late L. in-
dictare, to accuse; frequentative of L. indicere, to proclaim, enjoin,
impose. —L. in, upon; and dicere, to say; see Diction. It would
seem that the senses of the related words indicadre, to point out, and
dictire, to dictate, have influenced the sense of indite. 4 The spelling
indict is reserved for the sense ‘to accuse.’ Der. indit-er, indite-
ment. Doublet, indict, q.v.
INDIVIDUAL, separate, pertaining to one only. (L.) ‘If it
were not for two things that are constant . . . no individuall would
last one moment;’ Bacon, Essay 58, Of Vicissitude. Formed, with
suffix -al, from L. indiuidu-us, indivisible, inseparable; hence, dis-
tinct, apart.—L. in-, not; and diuiduus, divisible, from diuidere, to
divide; see In- (3) and Divide. Der. individual-ly, individual-ise,
individual-is-at-ion ; -ism, -i-ty; also individu-ate (rare), individu-at-ion ;
and see below.
INDIVISIBLE, not divisible. (F.—L.) ‘That imdivistble
point or centre;’ Hooker, Eccl. Polity, ed. Church, b. i. sect. viii.
subsect. 8. Also in Cotgrave. =F. indivisible, ‘indivisible ;’ Cot.—L.
indiuisibilis. From In- (3) and Divisible; see Divide. Der.
indivisibl-y, indivisible-ness, indivisibili-ty.
INDOCIGE, not docile. (F.—L.) ‘Hogs and more indocile
beasts ;’ Sir W. Petty, Adv. to Hartlib (1648), p. 23; Todd.=—F. in-
INDOCTRINATE
docile, ‘indocible;’ Cot.—L. indocilis, not teachable.
and Docile. Der. indocil-i-ty.
INDOCTRINATE, to instruct in doctrine. (L.) ‘His indoc-
trinating power ;’ Milton, Apology for Smectymnuus (R.), Coined
as if from Late L. *indoctrinare, not found.—L. in, in; and doc-
trina, learning. See In- (2) and Doctrine. Der. indoctrinat-ion.
INDOLENCEH, idleness. (F.—L.; or L.) Also indolency. ‘ In-
dolence or Indolency;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. Only indolency is given in
Coles and Blount, and occurs in Holland’s Plutarch, p. 480 (R.).
Indolence and indolent both occur in the Spectator, no. 100; the
former is from Εἰ, indolence. Indolency.is Englished from L, indo-
lentia, freedom from pain; hence, ease.—L. in-, neg. prefix; and
dolent-, stem of dolens, pres. part. of dolére, to grieve. See In- (3)
and Dolour. Der. indolent (later than indolence) ; indolent-ly.
INDOMITABLE, untameable. (L.) ‘It is so fierce and in-
domitable ;’ Sir T. Herbert, Travels, p. 383 (R.). A coined word;
from L, in-, not; and domitare, frequentative of domdre, to tame,
cognate with E. same; see In- (3) and Tame. Der. indomitabl-y.
INDORSKH, the same as Endorse. (L.) @ The OF. is endosser ;
the Late L. is indorsare. Der. indors-er, indors-ee, indorse-ment.
INDUBITABLE, not to be doubted. (F.—L.) ‘He did not
indubitably believe ;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. i. c. 1. § 6.
=F. indubitable, ‘undoubtable;’ Cot. —L. indubitabilis, indubitable.
ΚΙ, in-, not; and dubitabilis, doubtful, from dubitare, to doubt.
See Doubt. Der. indubitabl-y, indubitable-ness; so also in-dubious.
INDUCE, to lead to, prevail on. (L.) ‘Znduceth in many of
them a loue to worldly thinges;’ Sir I. More, Works, p. 880 h;
Caxton, Eneydos, ch. 24; p. 90.—L. indiicere, to lead in, conduct
to.=L. in, towards; and dicere, to lead. See In- (2) and Duct.
Der. induc-er, induc-ible; induce-ment, Spenser, F. Q. vii. 6. 323; also
induct, q.v.
INDUCT, to introduce, put in possession. (L.) ‘Inducted and
brought in thither;’ Holland, tr. of Livy, p. 1029 (R.); and in
Palsgrave.—L. inductus, pp. of indicere, to bring in; see above.
Der. induct-ion, from F. induction, ‘an induction, entry, or leading
into’ (Cot.), from L. inductidnem, acc. of inductio, an introducing ;
induct-ive, induct-ive-ly. @] Induction was formerly used for ‘ intro-
duction ;” as in Sackville’s Induction to the Mirror for Magistrates.
INDUE (1), to invest or clothe with, supply with. (L.) ‘ Infinite
shapes of creatures there are bred . . . Some fitt for reasonable
sowles t’indew;’ Spenser, F. Q. iii. 6. 35. ‘ Indu’d with robes of
various hue ;’ Dryden, tr. of Ovid’s Metam. b. xi. 1. 264; where the
Lat. has ‘induitur uelamina mille colorum,’ Metam. xi. 589. —L.
induere, to put into, put on, clothe with. And see Higden’s Poly-
chronicon, iii. 453, where induenge occurs in the 15th cent. transla-
tion, and Higden has induit. B. Connected with indunxie, clothes,
ex-uui@, spoils; the prefix is ind- rather than zn-, there being no con-
nexion with Gk. évdvew, ἐνδύνειν, to put on. See Exuvig. Der.
indue-ment (rare). And see below.
INDUE (2), a corruption of Endue, to endow, q.v. (F.—L.)
This word is distinct from the above, but some of our best writers
seem to have confused them. For instances, see Shak. Tw. Nt. i. 5.
105, Oth. iii. 4. 146, &c.; Spenser, Εἰ. Ὁ. ii. 2. 6. See Todd’s Johnson.
The mistake chiefly arises in the phrase ‘indued with,’ miswritten
for ‘endued with,’ in the sense of ‘endowed with;’ see Shak. Two
Gent. v. 4. 153, Com, Errors, ii. 1. 22. Dryden uses ‘indued with’
correctly, as in the instance cited under Indue (1).
INDULGENCE, permission, licence, gratification. (F.—L.)
ME. indulgence, P. Plowman, B. vii. 193; Chaucer, C. T. 5666
(Ὁ 84).—F. indulgence, ‘indulgence;’ Cot.—L. indulgentia, indul-
gence, gentleness. —L. indulgent-, stem of pres. part. of indulgére, to
be courteous to, indulge. B. Origin doubtful; it is not even certain
whether the prefix is ix- or ind-, Bréal explains indulgentia as from
*indu-licentia; but Prellwitz connects it with Gk, ἐν-δελεχής, con-
tinuous, Goth. ‘ulgus, steadfast, and E. long; see Long (2). Der.
indulg-ent, Ant. and Cleop. i. 4. 16, from F. indulgent, ‘indulgent,’
Cot. Hence the (later) verb indulge, Dryden, tr. of Persius, Sat. v.
74; answering to L. indulgére.
INDURATE, to harden. (L.) Indurated occurs four times, and
induration twice, in Barnes, Works, p. 282. Properly a pp., as in
Tyndal, Works, p. 28, col. 1; ‘for their harts were indurate;’ cf.
Caxton, Golden Legend, Moyses, § 10.—L. indiritus, pp. of indi-
rare, toharden. See Endure. Der. indurat-ion, ME. induracioun,
Chaucer, C. T., G 855.
INDUSTRY, diligence. (F.—L.) In Shak. Two Gent. i. 3. 22;
spelt industree, Spenser, F. Ὁ, i. 10. 45.—F. industrie, ‘industry ;’
Cot. —L. industria, diligence.—L. industrius, diligent. B. Of un-
certain origin; perhaps for *industruus=*indu-stru-us, from indu,
OLat. extension from in, in; and the base séru-, occurring in s/ruere,
to arrange, build (hence, to toil); see Instruct. Der. industri-al,
industri-al-ly; also industri-ous, Temp. iv. 33, from F. industrieux,
See In- (3)
INEXPEDIENT
‘industrious’ (Cot.), which from L. industri-dsus, abounding in
industry ; industri-ous-ly.
INDWELLING, a dwelling within, (E.) ‘The personal in-
dwelling of the Spirit ;’ South’s Sermons, vol. ν. ser. 7 (R.). From
In- (1), and Dwelling, sb. formed from Dwell. Der. So also
indwell-er, Spenser, F. Ὁ. vii. 6. 55.
INEBRIATEH, to intoxicate. (L.) In Levins.—L. inébridtus,
pp. of inébriare, to make drunk.=—L, in, in, used as an intensive
prefix; and ébridre, to make drunk, from ébri-us, drunk, See
Ebriety. Der. inebriat-ion, Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. v.
c. 23, part 16; also in-ebriety.
INEDITED, unpublished. (L.) First in 1760; see Todd. From
In- (3) and Edit.
INEFFABLE, unspeakable. (F.—L.) In Tindale; 2 Cor. ix.
15; and in Caxton, Golden Legend; Holy Sacrament, ὃ 1.—F.
ineffable, ‘ineffable;’ Cot. —L. ineffabilis, unutterable.=—L. in-, not ;
and effabilis, utterable, from effiri, to speak out, utter. —L. ef < ex,
out; and fart, to speak; see Fame. Der. ineffabl-y, Milton, P. L.
vi. 721.
INEFFACEABLE, not to be effaced. (F.—L.) Modern; not
in Todd’s Johnson. — MF. ineffagable, ‘ uneffaceable ;? Cot. See In-
(3) and Efface. Der. ineffaceabl-y.
INEFFECTIVE, not effective. (L.) ‘An ineffective pity;
Bp. Taylor, vol. i. ser. 12 (R.). From In- (3) and Effective; see
Effect. Der. ineffective-ly; so also ineffect-u-al, Milton, P. L. ix.
301; ineffectual-ly, -ness, And see below.
INEFFICACIOUS, that has no efficacy. (F.—L.) In
Phillips, ed. 1706. From In- (3) and Efficacious; see Efficacy.
Der. inefficacious-ly ; so also inefficient, a late word, added by Todd
to Johnson’s Dict.; whence inefficient-ly, ineffictenc-y.
INELEGANT, not elegant. (L.) In Levins; and Milton, P. L.
V. 335-—L. inélegant-, stem of inélegans, See In- (3) and Elegant.
Der. inelegance, ineleganc-y.
INELIGIBLE, not eligible. (F.—L.)
Todd’s Johnson. From In- (3) and Eligible.
ineligibilt-ty,
INELOQUENT, not eloquent. (F.—L.)
viii, 219.—MF. ineloguent, ‘uneloquent;’ Cot.
Eloquent.
INEPT, not apt, inexpert, foolish, (F.—L.) In Cotgrave and
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—MF. inepte, ‘inept, unapt;’ Cot. “Το.
ineptus, improper, foolish.—L, in-, not; and apius, fit, proper. See
Apt. Der. inept-ly, inept-i-tude. Doublet, inapt, q. v.
INEQUALITY, want of equality. (F.—L.) ‘But onely con-
siderynge the inegualitie;’ Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b, iii.
c. 1. end. «ΜΈΝ inegualité, ‘inequality ;’ Cot.—Late L. inegudlitas.
“Τρ in-, not; and @gualitas, equality, from @qudlis, equal. See In-
(3) and Equal. 4 The adj. inegual (for unequal) is in Chaucer,
Gti 2273 (A 2271):
INERT, dull, inactive. (L.) ‘Znertly strong;’ Pope, Dunciad,
iv. 7.—L. inert-, stem of iners, unskilful, inactive. —L. m-, not; and
ars (gen. art-is), art, skill. See Art. Der. inert-/y, inert-ness; also
inert-ia=L. inertia, inactivity.
INESTIMABLE, that cannot be valued, priceless. (F.—L.)
In Shak. Rich. 111,1. 4. 27; Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, bk. v. pr. 3.
297
Modern; not in
Der. ineligibl-y,
In Milton, P. L.
See In- (3) and
137. From In- (3) and Estimable; see Estimate. Der. in-
estimabl-y.
INEVITABLE, that cannot be avoided. (F.—L.) ‘Inevitable
destiny ;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 645 d. — MF. inevitable, ‘inevitable ;’
Cot. = L. inéuitabilis, unavoidable. = L. in-, not ; and éu2/abilis, avoid-
able, from éuitare, to avoid; from L. é-, out, away; and ditare, to
shun (of doubtful origin). Der. inevitabl-y, inevitable-ness.
INEXACT, not precise. (L.) Modern; not in Todd; coined
from In- (3) and Exact. Der. inexact-ly, -ness.
INEXCUSABLE, not excusable. (F.—L.) In Bible, 1551,
and in Tindale; Rom. ii. 1.—F. imexcusable, ‘ unexcusable ;’ (οἵ. -
L. inexctisabilis, Rom. ii. 1 (Vulgate). —L. in-, not ; and excisare, to
excuse. SeeIn- (3) and Excuse. Der. inexcusabl-y, inexcusableness.
INEXHAUSTED, not spent. (L.) In Dryden, On Mrs. Anne
Killigrew, 1. 28. From In- (3) and Exhausted; see Exhaust.
Cf. L. inexhaustus, inexhausted. Der. inexhaust-ible, in Cowley’s
Pref. to Poems, on his Davideis 3 inexhaustibl-y, inexhaustibili-ty.
INEXORABLE, unrelenting. (F.—L.) In Shak. Merch. Ven.
iv. 1. 128; Romeo, v. 3. 38.—F. inexorable, ‘inexorable;’ Cot.—L.
inexdrabilis, that cannot be moved by entreaty.—L. im-, not; and
exdrabilis, easily entreated, from exdrdre, to gain by entreaty; which
is from ex, from, and drare, to pray. See Adore, Oral. Der.
inexorabl-y, inexorable-ness, inexorabili-ty.
INEXPEDIENT, unfit. (F.—L.) In Phillips,ed.1706. From
In- (3) and Expedient; see Expedite. Der. inexpedient-ly,
inexpedience, inexpedienc-y.
298 INEXPERIENCE
INEXPERIENCE, want of experience. (F.—L.) In Milton,
P. L. iv. 931. — MF. inexperience (Godefroy, Supp.).—L. inexperientia,
want of experience. See In- (3) and Experience. Der. inex-
perienc-ed.
INEXPERT, not expert. (F.—L.) In Tindale, Heb. v. 13.=
OF. inexpert (Godefroy).—L. inexpertus, untried. - L. in-, not ; and
expertus, experienced. See Expert. Der. inexpert-ly, -ness.
INEXPIABLE,, that cannot be expiated. (F.—L.) In Levins;
and in Milton, Samson, $39.— MF. inexpiable (Supp. to Godefroy).
= L. inexpiabilis. = L. in-, not; and expiabilis. See Expiate. Der.
inexpiabl-y, inexpiable-ness.
INEXPLICABLE, that cannot be explained. (F.—L.) In
Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b. il. c. 12, § 2; and Hamlet, iii. 2.
=F. inexplicable, ‘inexplicable ;’ Cot.—L. inexplicabilis.—L.
ποῖ; «πὰ explicare, to unfold, explain. See Explicate. Der.
explicabl-y, inexplicabili-ty,
INEXPRESSIBLE, that cannot be expressed. (L.) In Milton,
Pp. L. v. 595; viii. 1132. From In- (3) and Expressible; see
Express. Der. inexpressibl-y; so also inexpress-ive, inexpress-ive-ly,
-neSSs,
INEXTINGUISHABLE, that cannot be quenched. (F.—L.)
In Hawes, Pastime of Pleasure, ch. xlv. st. 3. From In- (3) and
Extinguish. 4 The old form is inextinguible, Sir T. More, Works,
p- 825 g, from F. inextinguible (Cot.), L. inextinguibilis, Matt. iii. 12
(V ulgate). Der. inextinguishabl-y.
INEXTRICABLE, that cannot be extricated. (F.—L.) In
Cotgrave; and Milton, P. L. v. 528... F. inextricable, ‘inextricable ;’
Gore Prexirienb ite L. in-, not; and extricare, to extricate. See
In- (3) and Extricate. Der. inextricabl-y.
INFALLIBLE, quite certain. (F.—L.) In Shak. Meas. iii. 2.
ΤΙ; see Palsgrave, p. 896, 1. 7.—F. infallible, ‘infallible ;’ Cot.
From In- (3) and Fallible. Der. infallibl-y, infallibili-ty.
INFAMY, ill fame, vileness. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Ὁ. vi. 6.1;
Caxton, Eneydos, ch. xxvi. Ὁ. 93. =F. infamie, ‘infamy.’ = L. infamia,
ill fame. = L. infami-s, of ill report, disreputable. L. in-, not; and
jfam-a, fame; see Fame. Der. So also in-fam-ous, accented in-
famous, Spenser, F. Ὁ. i. 12. 27, from in- and famous.
INFANT, a babe, person not of age. (L.) [The ME. enfaunt
(shortened to faunt, P. Plowman, B. vii. 94), from F. enfant, has
been supplanted by the Law Lat. form.] In Spenser, F. Q. vi. 9. 14.
—L. infant-, stem of infans, a babe, lit. one who cannot speak. = L.
in-, not; and fans, speaking, pres. part. of fari, to speak. See
Fame. Der. infanc-y, Temp. i. 2. 484, suggested by F. enfance,
infancy ; infant-ile, from MF. infantile (Cot.), which is from L. ixfan-
tilis; infant-ine, from MF. infantin, ‘infantine,’ Cot.; infanti-cide=F.
infanticide, ‘ child-murthering’ (Cot.), from L. infantzcidium, child-
murder: and this from L. infanti-, decl. stem of infans, and -cid-
(=ced-) in ced-ere, to kill (see Ceesura) ; infanticid-al; and see
Infantry. Also infante, a prince of Portugal or Spain who is not
the heir to the throne (Port. infante) ; infanta,a princess (Port. infania).
INFANTRY, a band of foot-soldiers. (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘ The
principal strength of an army consisteth in the infantry or foot ;’
Bacon, Hist. Hen. VII, ed. Lumby, p. 72.—F. infanterie, ‘the
infantry or footmen of an army;’ Cot. Ital. infanteria, ‘infantery,
souldiers on foot ;’ Florio. B. The lit. sense is ‘a band of infants,’
i.e. of young men or servants attendant on knights. — Ital. infante, an
infant. —L. mmfantem, acc. of infans, an infant ; see Infant.
INFATUATE, to make foolish, besot. (L.) In Skelton, Speke
Parrot, 1. 377. Properly a pp., as: ‘ There was never wicked man
that was not infatuate ;’ Bp. Hall, Contemplations on O. T., b. xviii.
c. 4. par. 7.—L. infatuatus, pp. of infatuare, to make a fool of.—
L. in-, as intensive prefix; and fatu-us, foolish; see Fatuous. Der.
infatuat-ton.
INFECT, to taint. (F.—L.) Properly a pp., as: ‘the prynce,
whose mynd in tender youth infect, shal redily fal to mischief ;’
Sir T. More, Works, p. 39 Ὁ. So also infect in Chaucer, C. Τὶ 322
(A 320), where Tyrwhitt has ‘in suspect.’ Hence ME. infecten, to
infect, Prompt. Parv. p. 261. —OF. infect, ‘infect, infected ;’ Cot.—
L. infectus, pp. of inficere, to put in, dip, mix, stain, tinge, infect. =
L. in, in; and facere, to make, put; see Fact. Der. infect-ion,
13.
in-,
im-
infect-i-ous, infect-i-ous-ly, infect-i-ous-ness; infect-ive (Levins), from
Ι,. infectiuus.
INFELICITY, misfortune. (F.—L.) ME. infelicitee, Com-
plaint of Creseide, st. 6.—OF. infelicité (omitted by Cot.).—L. in-
felicitatem, acc. of infélicitas, ill luck. See In- (3) and Felicity.
Der. infelicit-ous.
INFER, to bring into, deduce, imply. (F.—L.) In Sir T. More,
Works, p. 840 ἢ. — MF. inferer, ‘to inferre, imply ;’ Cot. —L. inferre,
to bring into, introduce, infer.—L. im, into; and βόγγο, to bring,
cognate with E. bear; see Bear. Der. infer-able, or inferr-ible,
infer-ence, infer-ent-:-al, infer-ent-i-al-ly,
| 52:
| infirmus, not firm, weak. See In- (3) and Firm. Der. injirm-ly;
| Parv. p. 157. OF. enfermerie,
| firmaria, a hospital. — L. infirmus ;
INFLUENCE
INFERIOR, lower, secondary. (F.—L) Now conformed to
the L. spelling. Spelt izferiour in some edd. of Spenser, F. Q. iii. 3.
54 (R.); and in Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, bk.i. c. 1. § 7. Spelt
infertoure in Levins.—MF. inferieur, ‘inferiour, lower;’ Cot.=L.
inferidrem, acc. of inferior, lower, compar. of inferus, low, nether.
B. Strictly, infer-ior is a double comparative ; inferus itself is a comp.
form, answering to Skt. adhara(s), lower, from adhas, ady. under-
neath, low, down. Der. inferior-i-ty; and see Infernal.
INFERNAL, hellish. (F.—L.) ME. infernal, Chaucer, C. T.
2686 (A 2684).—F. infernal (Burguy).=—L. inferndlis, belonging to
the lower regions, infernal.=L. infernus, lower; extended from
inferus, low. See Inferior. Der. infernal-ly.
INFEST, to disturb, harass, molest. (F.—L.) In Spenser,
F. Q. ii. 1. 48. =F. infester, ‘to infest ;’ Cot. —L, in/estare, to attack,
trouble.—L. infestus, attacking, hostile. For in-fest-us; probably
allied to of-fend-ere, to offend; see Offend.
INFIDEL, faithless, unbelieving; a heathen. (F.—L.) ‘Oute
of the handes of the infydelles ᾿ > Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol. ii. c. 40
(R.). = OF, injidele, ‘infidell;’ Cot.—L. injidélis, faithless.—L. in-,
not; and fdélis, faithful. See In- (3) and Fidelity. Der. infidel-
i-ty, ‘from F. infidelité, ‘infidelity ;’ Cot.
INFINITE, endless, boundless. (L.) ME. infinit, Chaucer,
Ga 2520 (A 2827).—L. injinitus, infinite. See In- (3) and
Finite. 4 The MF. form is infini; but there was (see Hatzfeld)
an older form injinit, from which the ME. word was really taken.
Der. infinite-ly; infinit-y (ME. infinitee), from F. infinité, which from
L. ace. infinitatem ; injinit-ude, from ἘΝ, injinitude (Cot.) ; infinit-ive,
from Ἐς infinitif (Sherwood’s index to Cot.), from L. infinitiuus, -
the unlimited, indefinite mood (in giammar); also infinit-estmal,
a late and coined word, in which the suffix is imitated from that of
cent-esimal, q.v.; infinit-esimal-ly.
INFIRM, feeble, weak. (L.) ‘Infirm of purpose ;’ Macb. ii. 2.
52. ME. infirme, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, bk. v. met. 2.1. 3.—L.
also infirm-ar-y, q.V., infirm-i-ty,
INFIRMARY, a hospital on the infirm. (F.—L.) Modified
| from ME. fermerye so as to bring it nearer to the Lat. spelling.
The ME. fermerye, shortened from *enfermerie, occurs in the Prompt.
‘an hospitall;’ Cot.—Late L. m-
see Infirm.
INFIRMITY, feebleness. (F.—L.) ME, infirmitee, spelt
infirmyte, Wyclif, 2 Cor. xi. 30. =F. infirmilé, ‘infirmity ;’ Cot.—1.
infirmitatem, acc. of infirmitas, weakness. = L. ‘infir mus ; see Infirm,
INFTX, to fix into. (L.) ‘Jngixed into his flesh ;’ Sir Τὶ More,
| Works, p. 1114a.—L. ingixus, pp. of infigere, to fix! in.=L. ia, in;
and figere, to fix; see Fix.
INFLAME, to cause to bum, excite. (F.—L.) In Shak. K. John,
ve το 73 and in Palsgrave. Modified from OF. enflamber, ‘to
inflame’ (Cot.), so as to bring it nearer to L. inflammire, to set in
a flame.=—L. ix, in; and flamma, a flame. See Flame. Der.
inflamm-able, from F. inflammable, ‘inflammable’ (Cot.), formed
from L. inflammare ; inflamm-a-bili-ty ; inflamm-at-ion, 2 Hen. IV,
iv. 3. 103 3 inflamm-at-or-y.
INFLATE, to blow into, puff up. (L.) In Palsgrave ; and in
Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, Ὁ. ii. c. 7 (Of Fylberdes). Orig.app., ἢ
as in The Complaint of Creseide, st. 7 (1. 463). —L. inflatus, pp. ot
inflare, to blow into.—L. in, into; and flare, cognate with FE.
Blow (1), q. v. Der. :mflat-ion, Lanfranc, Cirurgie, p. 204, 1. 16;
from F, inflation, ‘an inflation ;’ Cot.
INFLECT, to bend, bend in, modulate the voice ; (in grammar)
to vary the terminations. (L.) oe inflected, i.e. bent; |
Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 1. § 4. And in Cockeram
(1642).—L. inflecter e, to bow, curve, lit, “bend in. -L. m, in; and
flectere, to bend; see Flexible. Der. inflect-ion (better spelt |
inflex-ion, as in Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. iii. c. 1. § 2), from
L. inflexto; cf. inflex-us, pp. of inflectere ; inflex-ion-al ; inflect-ive.
INFLEXIBLE, that cannot be bent. (F.—L.} In Lanfranc,
Cirurgie, i. 2. 1, p. 24; and Milton, Samson, 816.—F. inflexible, |
‘inflexible ;’ Cot.—L. inflexibilis, not flexible. See In- (3) and |
Flexible. Der. inflexibl-y, inflexibili-ty. i
INFLICT, to lay on, impose. (L.) In Spenser, F. Q. vi. 8. 22.
—L. inflictus, pp. of infligere, to inflict.—L. ix, upon; and fligere, to
strike. See Afflict. Der. inflict-ion, Meas. i. 3. 28; injlict-ive,
from MF. inflicttf, ‘ inflictive ; ’ Cot.
INFLORESCENCE, mode of flowering, said of plants.
(F.—L.) A moder botan. term. =F, inflorescence (Littré). Coined
from L, infldrescent-, stem of pres. part. of infldrescere, to burst into |
blossom. =L, in, in ; and fldrescere, to flourish ; see Flourish. (
INFLUENCE, an inspiration, authority, power. (F.—L.)
Properly a term in astrology; see quotation from Cotgrave below.
“Ὁ influences of thise hevenes hye ;’ Chaucer, Troil. iii. 618. -OF.
INFLUENZA
influence, a flowing in, and particularly an influence, or influent
course, of the planets; their vertue infused into, or their course
working on, inferiour creatures ;’ Cot. — Late L. inflwentia, an inunda-
tion, lit. a flowing into. —L. influent-, stem of pres. part. of influere,
to flow into.—L. in, in; and fluere, to flow; see Fluid, Der.
influence, verb; influenti-al, from L. influenti- ; influenti-al-ly; influx,
q-v. Doublet, influenza.
INFLUENZA, a severe catarrh. (Ital.—L.) ‘The new
influenza ;’ Foote, Lame Lover, A. i. (ab. 1770). —Ital. influenza, lit.
influence, also (according to Littré) an epidemic catarrh, A doublet
of Influence, q. v.
INFLUX, a flowing in, abundant accession. (L.) Formerly
used as we now use ‘influence.’ ‘That dominion, which the starres
have... by their influxes;’ Howell, Forraine Travell, sect. vi;
ed. Arber, p. 36.—L. influxus, a flowing in.=—L. influxus, pp. of
influere, to flow in; see Influence,
INFOLD, to inwrap. (E.) Sometimes written exfold, but badly.
In Shak. Macb. i. 4.31. From In- (1) and Fold.
INFORM, to impart knowledge to. (F.—L.) ME. enformen,
Gower, C. A. i. 87; bk. i. 1340.— OF. enformer (Godefroy) ; MF.
informer, ‘to informe ;’ Cot.—L. informare, to put into form, mould,
tell, inform.=—L. iz, into; and forma, form; see Form. Der. in-
form-er ; inform-ant ; inform-at-ion, ME. enformacion, Gower, C. A.
iii. 145; bk. vii. 1780.
INFORMAL, not formal. (L.) In Shak. Meas. νυν. 236. From
In- (3) and Formal; see Form. Der. informal-ly, informal-i-ty.
INFRACTION, a violation, esp. of law. (F.—L.) Used by
Waller (Todd’s Johnson; without a reference) ; and in Cockeram
(1642). - Ἐς infraction, the same as infracture, ‘an infracture, in-
fringement ;’ Cot.=—L. infractidnem, acc. of infractio, a weakening ;
cf. infractus, pp. of infringere; see Infringe.
INFRANGIBLE, that cannot be broken. (F.—L.) In Min-
sheu; and in Holland’s tr. of Plutarch, p. 661 (R.).—F. infrangible,
‘infrangible, unbreakable;’ Cot. See In- (3) and Frangible.
Der. infrangibili-ty.
INFREQUENT, not frequent. (L.) In Sir T. Elyot, The
Governour, b. lii. c, 22. —L. infrequent-, stem of infrequens, rare. See
In- (3) and Frequent. Der. infrequent-ly, infrequenc-y.
INFRINGE, to break into, violate, esp. law. (L.) In Shak.
L. L. L. iv. 3. 144, 146.—L. infringere, to break into. —L. in, into;
and frangere, to break. See Fraction. Der. infringe-ment.
INFURIATE, to enrage. (L.) Properly a pp., as in Milton,
P. L. vi. 486.—Late L. infuriatus, pp. of infuriare, to rouse to fury
(Ducange). [Perhaps suggested by Ital. infuriato, pp. of infuriare,
“to grow into fury or rage;’ Florio.—Ital. in furta, ‘in a fury,
ragingly ;’ Florio, }=—L. ix, in; and furia, properly a Fury, hence,
fury. See Fury.
INFUSE, to pour into (F.—L.) In Shak. Merch. Ven. iv. 1.
132,137. The pp. enfused is in Palladius on Husbandry, 111. 755.
=F. infuser, ‘to infuse ;’ Cot. —L. infiisus, pp. of infundere, to pour
into.—L.in,in; and fundere, to pour; see Fuse(1). Der. infus-ion,
Wint. Ta. iv. 4. 816 ; infus-or-i-a, infus-or-i-al,
INFUSIBLE, not fusible. (F.—L.) In Sir T. Browne, Vulg.
Errors, Ὁ. ii. 6. 1,8 11. From In- (3) and Fusible; see Fuse (1).
INGATHERING, a gathering in. (E.) In Bible, ed. 1551,
and A. V.; Exod. xxiii. 16. From In- (1) and Gather.
INGENDER, the same as Engender. (F.—L.) In Minsheu;
and Milton, P. L. ii. 794, iv. 809, x. 530.
INGENIOUS, witty, skilful in invention. (F.—L.) In Caxton,
Golden Legend, St. Machaire, § 1; and in Shak. Tam. Shrew, i. 1. 9.
Shak. often uses it indiscriminately with ingenwous (Schmidt). Cf.
ingeniously, Timon, ii. 2. 230.—F. ingenieux, ‘ingenious, witty, in-
ventive ;’ Cot.—L. ingenidsus, clever. = L. ingeninm, temper, natural
capacity, genius. See Engine, Genius. Der. ingenious-ly, -ness.
And see below.
INGENUOUS, frank, honourable. (L.) In Shak., who confuses
it with ingenious (Schmidt) ; see L. L. L. i. 2. 29; iii. 59; iv. 2. So.
=L. ingenuus, inborn, free-born, frank, candid; with change of -us
to -ous.—L. in, in; and gen-, base of gignere, to beget (pt. t. gen-ut),
from 4/GEN, to beget. Der. ingenuous-ly, -ness ; also ingenu-i-ty, Ben
Jonson, Every Man out of his Humour, Act iii. sc. 3 (some edd., sc. 9,
Macilente’s speech), from F. ingenuité, ‘ingenuity’ (Cot.), which is
from L. acc. ingenuitatem. And see above.
INGLE (1), fire. (C.) Burns has ingle-lowe, blaze of the fire, The
Vision, st. 7. Spelt ingill, G. Douglas, tr. of Virgil, bk. v. ch, 11.
117. = Gael. and Irish aingeal, fire; allied to L. ignis, Skt. agni-, fire.
See Ignition.
INGLE (2), a darling, paramour. (Du. or Fries.—L.—Gk.) See
Nares. Spelt enghle; Ben Jonson, Poetaster, A. i. (Ovidsen.).—MDu.
ingel, engel, an angel; Koolman notes EFries. engel, an angel, as
being commonly used as a term of endearment and as a female
INGRATITUDE 299
name ; cf. Low G. mitin engel, the usual term of endearment between
a married couple (Berghaus); whence E. my ningle (Nares).—L.
angelus.— Gk. ἄγγελος ; see Angel.
INGLORIOUS, not glorious. (F.—L.) In.Shak. K. John, v.
1.65.—F. inglorieux, ‘inglorious ;” Cot.—Late L. ingldridsus, formed
from L. inglorius, inglorious. See In- (3) and Glory. Der. in-
glorious-ly, -ness. | @ Perhaps borrowed directly from L. inglorius,
like arduous from L. arduus, &c.
INGOT, a mass of metal poured into a mould, a mass of un-
wrought metal. (E.) See my note to Two Noble Kinsmen, i. 2. 17.
ME. ingot, Chaucer, C. T. 16677, 16691, 16696, 16701 (G 1209-33) ;
where it means ‘a mould in which metal is cast;’ see the passages.
But the true sense is that which is still preserved, viz. ‘ that which is
poured in,’ a mass of metal. From AS. in, in; and gofen, poured,
pp. of géofan, to pour, shed water, fuse metals; Grein, i. 504. Cf.
Du. ingieten, Swed. ingjuta, to pour in. B. The AS. géotan is
cognate with Du. gieten, G. giessen, Icel. g7ota (pp. gotinn), Dan.
gyde, Swed. gjuta (pp. guten), Goth. gjutan, to pour, shed, fuse; all
from 4/GHEUD, to pour, seen also in L. fundere (pt. t. fudi, pp.
fiisus); which is an extension of 4/GHEU, to pour. See Fuse,
Chyle. ¢ > A. From the E. ingot is derived the F. lingot, an
ingot, which stands for ingot, by that incorporation of the article
which is not uncommon in French; cf. lendemain (=le en demain),
loriot (from L. aureolus), luette (from L. uua), dierre (from L. hedera).
And again, from F. Jingot (found in 1405) was formed the Low Lat.
lingotus, which is not an early word, but assigned by Ducange to
A.D. 1440. This Low Lat. word has been by some fancifully
derived from L. lingua, the tongue; owing to a supposed resemblance
of a mass of molten metal to the shape of the tongue; much as the
countryman described the size of a stone as being ‘as big as a lump
of chalk.’ ΒΒ. Scheler hesitates to accept the derivation here given,
from the notion that the AS. verb géotan soon became obsolete.
This is quite a mistake, as it is still extant; see ‘ Vote, to pour,’ in
Halliwell, and cf. Cleveland yetling, a small iron pan; and more E.
dialect words from the same source might be adduced. The ME.
verb 3efen was long in use also ; see examples inStratmann, 5. v. jeoten,
3rd ed., p. 262.‘ Hys mase [mace] he toke in hys honde tho, That
was made of yoten bras,’ i.e. brass formed in a mould; Rich. Coer
de Lion, ed. Weber, 370. ‘ The lazar tok forth his coupe [cup] of
gold; Bothe were yofex in ὁ mold, i.e. both the lazar’s cup and
another were cas¢ in one mould; Amis and Amiloun, ed. Weber,
2023. ‘Mawmez igoten of golde’=idols cast out of gold; Juliana,
ed. Cockayne, p. 38, 1. 13. C. Moreover, there was a derivative
sb. gote, a channel ; see Prompt. Parv., p. 205, and note ; it occurs
in the statutes 33 Hen. VIII, c. 33, 2 and 3 Edw. VI, c. 30; stall in
use in the forms gote, gowt, gut, got, in various parts of England ; cf.
Du. goot, a gutter; Low G., giite, gete, a can for pouring out, the
beak of such a can; gdfe, a pouring out; see Bremen Worterb. ii.
502. D. And note particularly that the whole word ingot has its
parallel in the cognate (yet independent) G. einguss, ‘infusion, in-
stillation, pouring in, potion, drink (given to horses); as a technical
term, jet, ingot;’ Fliigel’s G. Dict. Cf. also Swed. ingote, the neck
of a mould for casting metals (Oman); Low G, ingote=G. einguss
(Berghaus). The objection that the ME. pp. was usually yoten rather
than gofen, is not fatal; cf. E. give with ME. yeven, yiven.
INGRAFT, ENGRAFT, to graft upon. (F.—L.—Gk.)
See Engraffed and Engraft in Schmidt, Shak. Lexicon. Spelt in-
graft, Milton, P. L. xi. 35. Coined from In- (1) or In- (2) and
Graft, q. v.
INGRAILED, a term in heraldry; see Engrailed.
INGRAIN, to dye of a fast colour. (F.—L.) ME. engreynen,
P. Plowman, B. ii. 15, xiv. 20; cf. P. Plowman’s Crede, 1. 230. See
the excellent note by Mr. Marsh, in his Lect. on the E. Language,
ed. Smith, p. 55, on the signification of to dye in grain, or of a fast
colour. And see Shak. Tw. Nt. i. 5. 255, Haml. iii. 4. 90; Milton,
Il Pens. 33, Comus, 750.—F. en graine, in grain ; Cot. gives ‘ graine,
the seed of herbs, also grain wherewith cloth is died in grain, scarlet
die, scarlet in graine. β. The F. en=L. in, in; the I. graine is
from Late L. graza, the dye produced from cochineal, which appears
also in Span. and Ital. grana, grain, seed, cochineal. So named
from the resemblance of the dried cochineal to fine grain or seed;
from L. granum, a grain ; see Grain.
INGRATIATHE, to commend to the favour of. (L.) In Bacon,
Life of Hen. VII, ed. Lumby, p. 93, 1. 2. Coined from L, in, into ;
and gratia, favour; see Grace. Cf. Ital. ingratiare, ‘ to engrace ;’
ingratiarsi, ‘to ingratiate, or to insinuate ones self into favour’
(Torriano).
INGRATITUDE, want of gratitude. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. ingratitude,
Ayenbite of Inwyt, ed. Morris, p. 18, 1. 4.—F. ingratitude, ‘ingrati-
tude;’ Cot.=—L. ingratitudo, unthankfulness.=—L. ingrati-, from the
decl. stem of ingrdtus, unpleasant, unthankful. See In- (3) and
800 INGREDIENT
Grateful. Der. ingrate, Tam. Shrew, 1, 2. 270, from F, ingrat=L.
ingratus; whence ingrate-ful, Tw. Nt. v. 80.
INGREDIENT, that which enters into a compound. (F.—L.)
In Shak. Wint. Ta. 11. 1. 43.—F. ingredient, ‘an ingredient, a begin-
ning or entrance; also, in physick, a simple put into a compound
medicine ;’ Cot.—L. ingredient-, stem of pres. pt. of ingredi (pp.
ingressus), to enter upon, begin. —L. in, in; and gradi, to walk; see
Grade. And see Ingress.
INGRESS, entrance. (L.) In Holland, Pliny, b. xxi. c. 14;
and in Palladius on Husbandry, bk. i. 964.—L. ingressus, an enter-
ing. = L. ingredi, to enter upon (above).
INGUINAL, relating to the groin. (L.) A medical term; used
in 1681.—L. inguinalis, belonging to the groin. =—L. inguin-, stem cf
inguen, the groin.
INGULF, the same as Engulf. (F.) Spelt ingulfe in Minsheu.
INHABIT, to dwell in, occupy. (F.—L.) In Shak. Tw. Nt.
iii. 4. 391. ME. enhabiten, Wyclif, Acts, xvii. 26.—F. inhabiter, ‘to
inhabit ;’ Cot.—L. inhabitare, to dwell in.=L, in, in; and habitare,
to dwell; see Habit. Der. inhabit-able; inhabit-ant, Macb. i. 3.
413; ihabit-er, Rev. viii. 13 (A. V.).
INHALE, to draw in the breath. (L.) A lateword. In Thom-
son, Spring, 834.—L. inhalare, to breathe upon.—L. in, upon; and
halare, to breathe. The E. sense assumes the L. verb to mean
‘to draw in breath,’ which is not the case. Inhale is used in contrast
with Exhale, q.v. Der. inhal-at-ion.
INHARMONIOUS, not harmonions. (F.—L.—Gk.) A mod.
word; in Cowper, The Task, i. 207. Coined from In- (3) and
Harmonious; see Harmony. Der. inharmonious-ly, -ness.
INHERENT, existing inseparably, innate. (L.) ‘A most in-
herent baseness ;” Shak. Cor. iii. 2. 123.—L. inh@rent-, stem of pres.
part. of inherére, to stick fast in.—L. in, in; and herére, to stick.
See Hesitate. Der. inherent-ly; inherence, from F. inherence, an
inherence ; ixherenc-y. Somewhat rarely, inhere is used as a verb.
INHERIT, to possess as an heir, come to property. (F.—L.)
‘Inheryte, or receyue in heritage, Heredito;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 261.
= OF. enheriter, to inherit (Godefroy). — Late L. inheréditare.—L. in,
in; and héréditare, to inherit. —L. hérédi- or herédi-, decl. stem of
heres or hares, an heir. See Heritage, Heir. Der. inherit-able,
inherit-or, inherit-ress ; inherit-ance, K. John, i. 72.
INHIBIT, to check, restrain. (L.) In Palsgrave; and in Shak.
All’s Well, i. 1.1575 Oth. i. 2. 79.—L. inhibitus, pp. of inhibére, to
have in hand, check.—L. in, in; and habére, to have. See Habit.
Der. inhibit-ion, Dunbar, Thrissill and Rois, st. 10, from F. inhibition,
“an inhibition,’ Cot. ; inhibit-or-y.
INHOSPITABLE, not hospitable. (F.—L.) In Levins; and
in Shak. Per. v. 1. 254.—F. inhospitable, ‘ unhospitable ;’ Cot. See
In- (3) and Hospitable. Der. inkospitabl-y, inhospitable-ness ; so
also in-hospi-tality.
INHUMAN, not human, barbarous, cruel. (F.—L.) Also
written inhumane in old authors; Shak. Merch. Ven. iv. 1. 4. Cf.
inhumayne in Caxton, Golden Legend, St. Vincent, § 2. —F. inhumain,
‘inhumane, ungentle;’ Cot.— L.inhiimanus. See In-(3)and Human.
Der. inhuman-ly, inhuman-i-ty.
INHUME,, to inter, deposit in the earth. (F.—L.) In Minsheu,
ed. 1627.—F. inhumer, ‘to bury, inter;” Cot.—L. inkumare, to bury
in the ground.=—L. in, in; and Aumus, the ground. See Humble.
Der. inhum-at-ion, Sir T. Browne, Urn Burial, c. 1, § 4.
INIMICAL, like an enemy, hostile. (L.) ‘ Inimical to the con-
stitution ;” Brand, Essay on Political Associations, 1796; Todd's
Johnson. -- Το. inimicalis, extended from inimicus, unfriendly. —L, in-,
not; and amicus, a friend; see In- (3) and Amity. Der. inimical-ly.
INIMITABLE, that cannot be imitated. (F.—L.) ‘For the
natiue and inimitable eloquence ;’ Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b. i.
c. 23, ὃ 6.- Ἐς inimitable, ‘unimitable;’ Cot.—L. inimitabilis. —L.
in-, not; and imitabilis, that can be imitated; see In- (3) and Imi-
tate. Der. inimitabl-y.
INIQUITY, wickedness, vice, crime. (F.—L.) ME. iniquitee,
Chaucer, C. T. 4778 (B 358).—F. iniguité, ‘iniquity;’ Cot.—L.
iniquitatem, acc. of iniguizas, injustice, lit. unequalness. = L. in-, not ;
and @guitas, equality, uniformity, justice; see In- (3) and Equity.
Der. iniquit-ous, iniquit-ous-ly,
INITIAL, commencing, pertaining to the beginning. (L.) In
Phillips, ed. 1706.—L. initialis, incipient. L. initium, a beginning.
= L. initum, supine of inire, to enter into.—L. in, into; and ire, to
go, from 4/EI, to go. Der. from same source, commence, q.v. And
see Initiate.
INITIATE, to instruct in principles. (L.) The participial
form occurs in Shak. Macb. iii. 4. 143; ‘the initiate fear that wants
hard use.’ = L. initidtus, pp. of initidre, to begin. = L, initium, a begin-
ning (above). Der. inttiat-ion, initiat-ive, initiat-or-y.
INJECT, to throw into, cast on. (L.) ‘Applied outwardly or
INLET
iniected inwardly ;’ Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxvi.c. 15. ‘The said
iniection;’ id. b. xx. c. 22 (Of Horehound).—L, iniectus, pp. of
inicere (injicere), to throw into. L, in, into; and iacere, to throw;
see Jet. Der. inject-ion.
INJUDICIOUS, not judicious, (F.—L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706 ;
and Bp. Hall, Cases of Conscience, dec. 3, cas. 9 (R.). From In-
(3) and Judicious. Der. injudicious-ly, -ness; so also in-judicial.
INJUNCTION, an enjoining, order. (L.) ‘After the special
injunccion of my lorde and master;’ Bale, Image, pt.i; and in Shak.
Merch. of Venice, ii. 9.17. Formed, by analogy with F. sbs. in
-ion, from L. iniunctionem, acc. of iniunctio, an injunction, order; cf.
iniunctus, pp. Of iniungere, to join into, enjoin. See Enjoin.
INJURE, to hurt, harm. (F.—L.) (Really made from the sb.
injury, which was in much earlier use.) In Shak. As You Like It,
iii, 5.9. Cf. F. injurier, ‘to wrong, injure, misuse ;’ Cot.— Late L.
intiriare ; for L. iniuriari, to do harm to. = L. inéiria, an injury.—L.
initrius, wrongful, unjust. L, in-, neg. prefix; and 7ur-, stem of ius,
law, right; see Just. Der. injur-y, ME. iniurie, Wyclif, Col. iii.
25, from AF. injurie, Phil. de Thaun, Bestiary, 1. 395, rather than
from OF. injure, an injury (the usual form), both forms answering
to L. initiria, an injury ; injuri-ous, injuri-ous-ly, -ness. And see
below.
INJUSTICE, want of justice. (F.—L.) ‘Jf he be sene to
exercise injustyce or wrong ;’ Sir T. Elyot, The Govyernour, b. iii.
ς. 4.—F. injustice, ‘injustice ;’ Cot.—L. iniustitia. See In- (3) and
Justice.
INK, a fluid for writing with, usually black. (F.—L.—Gk.)
‘Inke, encaustum;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 261. Older form enke, Wyclif,
Jer. xxxvi. 18. —AF. enke, A. Neckam, in Wright’s Vocab. i. 116,
last line; OF. engue, ink (Littre); the mod. F. form being encre,
with inserted 7. —L. encaustum, the purple red ink used by the later
Roman emperors; neut. of excaustus, burnt in, encaustic.—Gk.
éyxavoros, burnt in. See Encaustic. @f Littré remarks that the
accent on the L. encaustum varied; from éncaustum was derived the
OF. engue, whilst from encazstum was derived the Ital. inchiostro
(ink). Der. ink-y ; ink-holder, ink-stand ; ink-horn, Ezek. ix. 2(A.V.),
but otherwise almost obsolete.
INKLBE, a kind of tape. (Du.?) In Shak. L. L. L. iii. 140;
Wint. Ta. iv. 4. 208. ‘ White yrkell ;? Harman, Caveat (E.E.T.S.),
p- 65. Spelt izkyll in Amold’s Chron.; ed. 1811, p. 237; ‘.brod
enkell,’ broad tape; Wills and Inventories from Durham, p. 103
(1582). Prob. from MDu. inckel (Oudemans), Du. enkel, single (as
opposed to double), which may have been applied to a commoner
sort of tape. No certain connexion is known; but WFlem. inkel-
ooge or enkelooge, lit. ‘ single-eye,’ is a term in lace-making, referring
to the edging of the lace (De Bo). Koolman has enxkel daken, a
single coverlet ; cf. Dan. enkelt-garn, single yarn (Larsen).
INKLING, a hint, intimation. (Scand.?) In Shak. Hen. VIII,
ii, 1.140; Cor. i. 1. 59. ‘ What cause hee hadde soo to thynke,
harde it is to saye, whyther hee, being toward him, any thynge
knewe that hee suche thynge purposed, or otherwyse had any inke-
lynge thereof; for hee was not likelye to speake it of noughte ;*
Sir T. More, Works, p. 38 a. Inkling is a verbal sb. formed from
the ME. verb incle. ‘Lo incle the truthe ;’ Alisaunder, ed. Skeat,
616 (in Appendix to Will. of Palerne). ‘{ Alexander] herd a nyngk-
iling [whispered mention] of his name ;’ Wars of Alexander, 1. 2968 ;
where a nyngkiling =an yngkiling. Origin unknown ; perhaps allied
to Swed. enkel, single, Dan. enkelt, Cf. Swed. et enkelt ord, a single
word; Dan. enkelte bemarkninger, a few stray remarks ; MDu. encke-
linge, ‘a falling or a diminishing of notes;’ Hexham. Kilian has
MDnu. ‘eenckelen den sanck [song], ornare cantum symphonia;...
voce remittente canere.’ See Inkle.
INLAND, an inner part of the country. (E.) Orig. a sb., sig-
nifying a place near some great town or centre, where superior
civilisation is supposed to be found. ‘The counties lying round
London are still, in a similar spirit, called ‘home’ counties. Used
in contrast to upland, which signified a remote country district where
manners were rough. See Shak, Tw. Nt. iv. 1. 52; Hen. V, i. 2.
142; &c. Cf. AS. inland (a legal term), a domain; see Laws of
King Edgar, i. 1, in Thorpe, Ancient Laws, i. 263; also p. 432,
last line but one. —AS. zz, within; and land, land, country. Cf.
Icel. inlendr, native. See In and Land. Der. inland, adj. As
You Like It, ii. 7. 96; inland-er, Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. ili. c, 11,
1. 7 (end).
INLAY, to lay within, ornament with inserted pieces. (E.) In
Shak. Merch. Ven. v. 59; Cymb. v. 5. 352. From In and Lay.
Der. inlay-er ; inlaid (pp. of the verb).
INLET, a place of ingress; a small bay. (E.) The orig. sense
is ‘admission’ or ‘ ingress ;’ hence, a place of ingress, esp. from the
sea to the land. Spelt inate: ‘ The king o blis will haf inlate’ =the
king of glory will have admission, must be admitted ; Cursor Mundi,
INLY
18078. From AS. ix, in; and /é#tan, to let. Cf. the phr. ‘to let in.’
+, einlass, place of ingress ; Low Gk. inlat (Schambach). See In
and Let (1).
INLY, adj., inward; adv., inwardly. (E.) As adj. in Two Gent.
ii. 7. 18; commonly an adv., Temp. v. 200. ME. ἐμὶν (chiefly as
ady.), Chaucer, Troil. i. 640. AS. inlic, adj. inward, AElfred, tr. of
Beda, b. iii. c. 15; whence inlice, adv. inwardly.—AS. in, in; and
lic, like ; see In and Like.
INMATE, one who lodges in the same place with another,
a lodger, co-inhabitant. (E.) In Minsheu; and Milton, P. L. ix.
495, xii. 166. First in 1589. From In, prep. within; and Mate,
a companion, q. v.
INMOST, INNERMOST;; see under In.
INN, a large lodging-house, hotel, house of entertainment. (E.)
ME. in, inn; Ancren Riwle, p. 260, 1. 6; dat. inne, P. Plowman,
B. viii. 4. AS. in, inn, sb.; Grein, ii. 140. Allied to AS. in, inn,
ady. within ; AS. iz, prep. in; see In.+4Icel. inni, an inn; cf. inni,
adv. indoors; inn, ady. indoors; from in, the older form of 7, prep.
in. Der. inn, verb (see Inning) ; inn-holder; inn-heeper, 1 Hen. IV,
Ἵν. Ὡς 51.
INNATE, in-born, native. (L.) ‘ Your ixnat sapience ;* Hoc-
cleve, De Regimine Principum, 2130. Also formerly spelt inated;
see examples in Nares.—L. innatus, in-born; pp. of innasciz, to be
born in.—L. in, in; aud nasci, to be born; see Native. Der.
innate-ly, -ness.
INNAVIGABLE, impassable by ships. (F.—L.) In Cockeram
(1642). ‘Th’ innavigable flood ;’ Dryden, tr. of Virgil, vi. 161.—
F. innavigable. =—L. innauigabilis. From In- (3) and Navigable.
INNER, INNERMOST; see under In.
INNING, the securing of grain; a turn at cricket. (E.) As
a cricket term, invariably used in the pl. innings, though only one
side has an inning at a time (first in 1746). Merely a peculiar use
of the verbal sb. formed from the verb to inv, i.e. to house or secure
corn when reaped, also to lodge. Cf. ‘All was inned at last into the
king’s barn;’ Bacon, Hist. Hen. VII, ed. Lumby, p. 65,1. 6. The
verb ¢o ina is from the sb. Inn, q.y. Cf. AS. innung, a dwelling;
Liber Scintillarum, 11. 18.
INNOCENT, harmless, not guilty. (F.—L.) ME. innocent,
Chaucer, C. T. 5038 (B 618). Innocence also occurs, id. 11905
(F 1601).—F. innocent, ‘innocent ;’ Cot.—L. innocent-, stem of
innocens, harmless. =—L. in-, not; and nocexs, harmful, pres. part. of
nocére, to hurt; see In- (3) and Noxious. Der. innocent-ly, inno-
cence; innocenc-y, Gen. xx. 5 (A. V.). And see Innocuous.
INNOCUOUBS, harmless. (L.) Sir Τὶ Browne has innocuously,
Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 28, § last. Englished from L. innocuus, harm-
less; by change from -xs to -ows, as in numerous instances. —L. in-,
not; and nocuus, harmful, from nocére, to harm; see Innocent.
Der. innocuous-ly, -ness. Doublet, innoxious.
INNOVATE, to introduce something new. (L.) In Levins,
Shak. has innovation, Haml. il. 2. 347; innovator, Cor. 111. 1. 175.—
L. innoudtus, pp. of innoudre, to renew.—L. in, in; and πομᾶγε, to
make new, from nouus, new; see In- (2) and Novel. Der.
innovat-ion, innovat-or.
INNOXIOUS, harmless. (L.) ‘Benign and of innoxious quali-
ties ;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iv. c. 13, § 25.—L. innoxius,
harmless. From In- (3) and Noxious. Der. innoxious-ly.
INNUENDO, INUENDO, an indirect hint. (L.) The
spelling ‘nuendo, though not uncommon, is incorrect. ‘Innuendo is
a law term, most used in declarations and other pleadings; and the
office of this word is onely to declare and ascertain the person or
thing which was named incertain before; as to say, he (innuendo, the
plaintiff) is a thief; when as there was mention before of another
person ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. —L. innuendo, i.e. by intimation;
gerund of innuere, to nod towards, intimate.—L. in, in, towards;
and nuere, tonod. See In- (2) and Nutation.
INNUMERABLE, that cannot be counted. (F.—L.) ΜΕ.
innumerable, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 267, 1. 17.—F. innumerable, ‘in-
numerable ;” Cot.—L. innumerabilis.—L. in-, not; and numerabilis,
that can be counted, from nwmerare, to number; see Number.
Der. innumerabl-y.
INNUTRITIOUS, not nutritious. (L.) Innutrition, sb., first
found in 1796; the adj. appears to be of the same date. From In-
(3) and Nutritious. Der. So also in-nutrition.
INOBSERVANT, not observant, heedless. (L.) Inobservance
is used by Bacon (R.).—L. inobseruant-, stem of inobseruans ; from
Tn- (3) and Observant; see Observe. Der. inobservance.
INOCULATE, to engraft, introduce into the human system. (L.)
‘The Turkish inoculation for the small pox was introduced to this
country under the name of ingrafting’ (R.); he refers to Lady Mary
V. Montague’s Letters, let. 31. But inoculate in old authors sig-
nifies to engraft; see Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xix. c. 8, sect. on
A a
INSECT
‘graffing herbs ;? and Hamlet, iii. 1. 119.—L. inoculdtus, pp. of
inoculare, to engraft, insert a graft.—L. in, in; and oculus, an eye,
also a bud or burgeon of a plant; see Bye. Der. inoculat-ion.
INODOROUS, not odorous. (L.) In Kersey, ed. 1715.—L.
inodorus, inodorous. From In- (3) and Odorous; see Odour.
INOFFENSIVE, giving no offence. (F.—L.) In Milton,
P. L. v. 345, vill. 164. From In- (3) and Offensive; see Offend.
Der. inoffensive-ly, -ness.
INOFFICIAL, not official. (F.—L.) Modern; but once in
1632. From In- (3) and Official; see Office. Der. inofficial-ly.
INOPERATIVE, not operative. (F.—L.) In South’s Sermons,
vol. vi. ser, 4 (R.). From In- (3) and Operative.
INOPPORTUNE, not opportune, unfitting, (F.—L.) ‘An
inopportune education ;’ Bp. Taylor, Great Exemplar, pt. iii. ad s. 15.
From In- (3) and Opportune. Der. inopportune-ly.
INORDINATE, unregulated, immoderate. (L.) Skelton has
inordinat, Why Come Ye Nat to Court, 1228; and inordinatly, 7ot.
And see Chaucer, C. T. (I 414). —L. inordindtus, irregular.—L. in-,
not; and ordinatus, pp. of ordindre, to set in order, from ordin-,
stem of ordo, order; see Order. Der. inordinate-ly, -ness; in-
ordinat-ion.
INORGANIC, not organic. (F.—L. and Gk.) Formerly in-
organical; Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. ‘Organical or inorganical ;’
Burton, Anat. of Melancholy, p. 26 (R.). From In- (3) and Or-
ganic; see Organ. Der. inorganic-al-ly; inorgan-is-ed.
INQUEST, a judicial inquiry. (F.—L.) ‘And seththe thoru
enqueste | MS. anqueste] he let thorugh the contreies anquere ;’ Beket,
1. 387; in 5. Eng. Legendary, p. 117.—OF. exqueste, ‘an inquest ;’
Cot. —Late L. inguesta, sb.; from inquesta, fem. of inguestus, late sub-
stitution for inguisttus, pp. of inquirere, to search into. See Inquire.
Doublet, inquiry.
INQUIETUDE, want of rest, disquiet. (F.—L.) In Phillips,
ed. 1658.—MF. inguie‘ude, ‘ disquiet ;’ Cot.—L. inquiétiido, restless-
ness.=—L. in-, not; and quiétudo, rest, from quiétus, quiet. See
Quiet.
INQUIRE, ENQUIRE, to search into or after. (L.) The
spelling inquire is Latin, but the word is really a modification of
the ME. enquire, (also) engueren (see quot. under Inquest) ; from
OF. enquerre (Godefroy). Spelt inguyre, Spenser, F. Q. b. ii. introd.
st. 4.—L. inguirere, pp. inguisttus, to search into. See Enquire.
Der. inguir-er, inquir-ing, inquir-ing-ly; inguir-y, Spenser, F. Q.
vi. 4. 243 also inguisit-ion, Temp. i. 2. 35, from F. inguisition< L.
inquisitionem, acc. of inguisitio, a searching for, from pp. inguisit-us ;
inquisit-ion-al ; inquisit-or (Levins), from L. inquisitor, a searcher ;
inquisit-or-i-al, inquisit-or-i-al-ly ; inquistt-ive, ME. inquisitif, Gower,
Ὁ. A. i. 226; bk. 11. 1987, an OF. spelling of L. inguisitiuus, searching
into; inguisit-ive-ly, -ness. And see inquest.
INROAD, a raid into an enemy’s country. (E.) ‘Many hot
inroads They make in Italy ;’ Ant. and Cleop. i. 4.50. ‘An inrode,
an invasion ;’ Baret (1580). Compounded of in, prep., and road, the
Southern E. equivalent of North E. raid, a riding, from AS. rad,
ariding. See Road, Raid, Ride. The change from AS. ἃ to
later oa is the usual one.
INSANE, not sane, mad. (L.) In Macb. i. 3. 84.—L. insanus,
not sane. See In- (3) and Sane. Der. insane-ly, insan-i-ty.
INSATIABLE, not satiable. (F.—L.) ‘Gredynes insaciable ;’
Hoccleve, De Regimine Principum, |. 1172. —F. insatiable, ‘insatiate,
unsatiable;’ Cot.—L. insatiabilis. ταῦτ΄, in-, not; and sa/iare, to satiate.
See In- (3) and Satiate. Der. insatiabl-y, insatiable-ness, insatia-
bili-ty. Also insatiate, Skelton, Colyn Cloute, 1181; from L. in-
satidtus, not sated.
INSCRIBE, to engrave as on a monument, engrave, imprint
deeply. (L.) In Shak. Hen. VIII, iii. 2. 315. —L. inscribere, pp.
inscriptus, to write upon.=L. in, upon; and scribere, to write. See
Scribe. Der. inscrib-er ; also inscription, Merch. Ven. ii. 7. 4, from
F. inscription< L. inscriptionem, acc. of inscriptio, an inscription, from
PP. inscriptus ; inscript-ive.
INSCRUTABLE, that cannot be scrutinised. (F.—L.) ‘God’s
inscrutable will;’ Barnes, Works, p. 278, col. 1.—F. inscrutable,
‘inscrutable ;’ Cot.—L. inseriitabilis.—L in-, not; and *scriitabilis
(not found), formed from seritari, to scrutinise. See Scrutiny.
Der. inscrutabl-y, inscrutable-ness, inscrutabili-ty.
INSECT, a small invertebrate animal, as described below.
(F.—L.) ‘Wel may they all be called insecta, by reason of those
cuts and diuisions, which some haue about the necke, others in the
breast and belly, the which do go round and part the members of
the body, hanging together only by a little pipe and fistulous con-
ueiance;’ Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xi. c. 1. =F. insecte, ‘an insect ;’
Cot.—L. insectum. ‘Ture omnia insecta appellata ab incisuris, que
nunc ceruicum loco, nune pectorum atque alui, precincta separant
membra, tenui modo fistula coherentia;’ Pliny, b. xi. c. 1, § I.—
301
302 INSECURE
L, insectus, pp. of insecare, to cut into. —L. in, into; and secare, to cut.
See Section. @ The L. insecium is a rendering of Gk. ἔντομον, an
insect. Der. insect-ile; insecti-vorous (from L. uorare, to devour).
INSECURE, not secure. (L.) Bp. Taylor has ‘znsecure appre-
hensions;’ The Great Exemplar, pt. i. ads. 2; also ‘insecurities and
inconveniencies ;’ id. ib. pt. i. ad 5. 6 (R.).—L. insécuirus, not secure.
See In- (3) and Secure. Der. insecure-ly, insecur-i-ty.
INSENSATE, void of sense. (L.) In Milton, P. L. vi. 787;
and Skelton, Works, i. 209.—L. insensdtus, irrational. —L. in-, not;
and sensatus, gifted with sense, from sensus, sense; see In- (3) and
Sense.
INSENSIBLE, devoid of feeling. (F.—L.) In Leyins; and
Shak. Cor. iv. 5. 239.—F. insensible, ‘ insensible.’=L. insensibilis.
From In- (3) and Sensible; see Sens2. Der. insensib/-y, insensi-
bili-ty. So also in-sentient.
INSEPARABLE, not separable. (F.—L.) In Sir P. Sidney,
Apol. for Poetry, ed. Arber, p. 49, 1. 36.—F. inseparable, ‘ insepar-
able;’ Cot.—L. inséparibilis. From In- (3) and Separable;
see Separate. Der. inseparabl-y, inseparable-ness, inseparabili-ty.
INSERT, to join into, introduce into. (L.) ‘I haue.. . inserted;’
Sir T. More, Works, p. 1053 f.—L.insertus, pp. of inserere, to insert,
introduce into. —L. in, into; and serere, to join, bind, gonnect ; see
In- (2) and Series. Der. insert-ion.
INSESSORIAL, having feet (as birds) formed for perching on
trees. (L.) Scientific and modern. Formed, in imitation of L.
sessor, a sitter, from insess-us, pp. of insidére. to sit upon.—L. in,
upon ; and sedére, to sit; see Sit.
INSHRINE, the same as Enshrine. (E. and L.)
INSIDE, the inward side or part. (E.) Sir T. More, Works,
p- 1256 f, has ‘on the outsyde’ opposed to ‘ on the ixsyde.’ Formed
from In and Side.
INSIDIOUS, ensnaring, treacherous. (F.—L.) In Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674.—F. insidieux, ‘deceitfull;’ Cot.—L. insididsus,
cunning, deceitful.—L. insidie, sb. pl. (1) troops of men who lie
in wait, (2) a plot, snare, cunning wiles. = L. insidére, to sit in, take
up a position, lie in wait.—L. iz-, in; and sedére, to sit, cognate
with FE. sit; see In- (2) and Sit. Der. insidious-ly, -ness.
INSIGHT, the power of seeing into. (E.) ME. insight, instht.
‘Salomon, Which hadde of euery thing insthte’ =Solomon, who had
insight into everything ; Gower, C. A. ii. 80; bk. iv. 2340. Spelt
instht, Layamon, 30497. From In and Sight. + Du. inzicht,
insight, design ; G. einsichi, insight, intelligence.
INSIGNIA, signs or badges of office. (L.) Borrowed from L.
insignia, pl. of insigne, a distinctive mark, which was orig. the neut.
of the adj. insignis, remarkable. See Ensign.
INSIGNIFICANT, poor, mean, vile. (L.) ‘ Little insigni-
Jicant monk ;’ Milton, A Defence of the People of England (R.).
From In- (3) and Significant; see Sign. Der. insignificant-ly,
insignificance, insignificanc-y. So also in-significative.
INSINCERE, not sincere. (F.—L.) ‘But ah! how insincere
are all our joys;’ Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, st. 209. From In- (3)
and Sincere. Der. insincere-ly, insincer-i-ty.
INSINUATE, to introduce artfully, hint. (L.) In Levins; and
in Shak, Rich. II, iv. 165.—L. Insinudalus , pp: of insinudre, to intro-
duce by winding or bending. =L. ix, in; and sinuare, to wind about,
from sinus,a bend. SeeSinuous. Der. insinuat-ing, insinuat-ing-ly ;
insinuat-ion, K. John, v. 1. 68, from Εἰ. insinuation, ‘an insinuation,’
Cot. ; insinuat-or, insinuat-ive.
INSIPDD, tasteless. (F.—L.) ‘His salt, if I may dare to say
so, [is] almost insipid,’ spoken of Horace; Dryden, Discourse on
Satire ; Poems, ed. 1856, p. 377, 1. 7.—F. instpide, ‘unsavory, smack-
lesse ;᾿ Cot.—L. insipidus, tasteless. —L. in-, not; and sapidus, well-
tasting, savoury. See Savour, Der. insipid-ly, insipid-i-ty.
INSIST, to dwell upon in discourse. (F.—L.) In Shak. Jul.
Ces. ii, το 245.—F. insister, ‘to insist on;’ Cot.—L. insistere, to
set foot on, persist.—L. im, upon; and sistere, to set, causal verb
formed from stare, cognate with E, Stand.
INSNARE, the same as Ensnare. (E.)
INSOBRIETY, intemperance. (F.—L.) In Howell, Familiar
Letters, vol. iii. let. 26 (end). From In- (3) and Sobriety ; see
Sober.
INSOLENT, contemptuous, rude. (F.—L.) ME. insolent,
Chaucer, C. T. Pers. Tale, De Superbia (I 399). =F. insolent, ‘ in-
solent, malapert, saucy ;” Cot.—L. insolent-, stem of tusolens, not
customary, unusual, haughty, insolent. —L. in-, not; and solens, pres.
part. of solére, to be accustomed, to be wont (root unknown); or
from L. in-, against, and sol-, weak grade of the vb. ¢o swell (AS.
swellan). Der. insolent-ly; insolence, Court of Love, l. 936; Chaucer,
C. T., 1 391; insolenc-y, in the Bible Wordbook.
INSOLIDITY, want of solidity. (F.—L.) Used in 1578.. From
In- (3) and Solidity ; see Solid.
INSTEP
INSOLUBLE, not soluble, that cannot be solved. (F.—L.)
Insolubles, in the sense of ‘ insoluble problems,’ occurs in Sir T. More,
Works, p. 355 b; cf. p. 165, col. 2. See Wyclif, Heb. vii. 16 (earlier
version). —F. insoluble, ‘insoluble ;’ Cot.—L. insoliibilis. See In-
(3) and Soluble. Der. insolubl-y, insoluble-ness, insolubili-ty. And
see below.
INSOLVENT, unable to pay debts. (L.) Τὴ Kersey's Dict.,
ed. 1715. ‘If his father was insolvent by his crime;’ Bp. Taylor,
Rule of Conscience, b. iii. c. 2. Formed from L, in-, not; and
soluent-, stem of soluens, pres. part. of soluere, to solve, to pay; see
Solve. Der. insolvenc-y (Kersey).
INSOMNTA, sleeplessness. (L.) First as insomnie; in Cockeram
(1623). —L. insomnia. —L. insominis, adj., sleepless. = L. in-, not; and
somnus, sleep. See Somnolence.
INSOMUCH, to such a degree. (E.) ‘Znsomuch I say 1 know
you are;’ As You Like It, vy, 2.60, From In, So, and Much;
See Inasmuch.
INSPECT, to look into, examine. (L.) In Kersey, ed. 1715;
Cockeram (1623) has inspected. [But the sb. inspeccioun is in much
earlier use, and occurs in Gower, C. A. iii. 46; bk. vi. 1349.) —L.
inspectare, to observe ; frequent. of inspicere, to look into.—L. in, in;
and specere, to spy ; see Spy. Der. inspect-or, inspect-or-ship ; also
inspect-ion = Ἐς inspection, ‘ an inspection’ (Cot.), from L. inspectidnem,
acc. of inspectio, a looking into.
INSPIRE, to breathe into, infuse, influence. (F.—L.) ME.
enspiren, Chaucer, C. T. 6; Gower, C. A. iii. 226; bk. vii. 4003.
—OF. enspirer, later inspirer, the latter being the form in Cot-
grave.—L. inspirare, to breathe into, inspire. L. in, into; and
spirare, to breathe; see Spirit. Der. inspir-able, inspir-at-ion,
Robert of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, 1. 7746, inspir-at-or-y, inspir-er ;
also in-spirit (Pope, To Mrs. M. B., 1. 13), from iz and spirit.
INSPISSATEH, to make thick, as fluids. (L.) ‘ The sugar doth
inspissate the spirits of the wine;’ Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 726.—L.
inspissatus, pp. of inspissare, to thicken. L. in, into, here used as
intensive prefhx; and spissare, to thicken, from spissus, dense.
INSTABILITY, want of stability. (F.—L.) ‘For some,
lamentyng the instabilitee of the Englishe people ;’ Hall’s Chron.
Hen. IV, an. 1. § 15. —F. instabilité, ‘instability ;? Cot.=— L. instabili-
tatem, acc. of instabilitas. —L. instabilis, unstable. See In- (3) and
Stable, adj.
INSTALL, INSTAL, to place in a stall, seat, or office. (F.—
Low L.—OHG.) Though the word might easily have been coined
from Eng. elements, yet, as a fact, it was borrowed. ‘ To be installed
or inthronised at Yorke;’ Hall’s Cron. Hen. VIII, an. 22. ὃ 9.—F.
installer, ‘ to install, settle, establish, place surely in ;’ Cot. — Low L.
installare, to install.—L. ix, in; and Low L. stallum, a stall, seat,
place to sit in; Ducange. β. The Low L. stallum is from OHG.
stal, G. stall, a stall, place, cognate with E. stall. See Stall.
Der. install-at-ion, from MF. installation (Cot.) ; instal-ment, formerly
used in the sense of installation, Shak. Rich. 1Π| iii. 1. 163;
a coined word.
INSTANCE, solicitation, occasion, example. (F.—L.) “Αἴ
his instance ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 9485 (E 1611). =F. ins¢ance, ‘instance,
earnestnesse, urgency, importunitie;’ Cot.—L. instantfia, a being
near, urgency.=—L,. instant-, stem of instans, present, urgent; pres.
part. of instare, to be at hand, press, urge.—L. iz, upon, near; and
stare, to stand, cognate with E. Stand, q.v. Der. instant, adj.
urgent, Luke, xxiii. 23, from 10. instant-, stem of instans ; instant-ly=
urgently, Luke, vii. 4; also instant, sb. =moment, Spenser, F. Ὁ. 11.
5. I1, from Ἐς instant, ‘an instant, moment’ (Cot.), from the same
L. instant-. Also instant-an-e-ous, Thomson, To the Memory of
Lord Talbot, 1. 27, coined as if from a L. *instant-dneus, made by
analogy with L. mdment-dneus ; instant-an-e-ous-ly.
INSTATE, to put in possession. (F.—L.) In Shak. Meas. ν.
249. Coined from in-, equivalent to F. ex-, prefix; and state. See
In- (2) and State. Der. re-instate.
INSTEAD, in the place. (E.) ME. in stede, Mandeville’s
Travels, ch. 21, ed. Halliwell, p. 227. We also find on stede nearly
in the same sense. ‘ And he toc him ox sunes stede’=and he took
him in place of a son, received him as a son; Genesis and Exodus,
ed. Morris, 2637. From AS. on stede, lit. in the place. ‘ On fxra
neegla stede’=in the place of the nails; John, xx. 25. See In and
Stead.
INSTEP, the upper part of the foot, rising from the toes to the
ankle. (E.) In The Spectator,no. 48. Asomewhat rare word; formerly
also spelt instup or instop. ‘Coudepied, the instup ;’ Cot. Minsheu,
ed. 1627, refers, under Jnstep, to Instop ; and also gives: ‘ the instop
of the foot,’ as well as ‘Jnstuppe, vide Instoppe.’ But Palsgrave, in
1530, has the form insteppe; and A. Borde, ab. 1542, has instep,
Introd. of Knowledge, ed. Furnivall, p. 189, 1. 26. B. It would
seem that instep and instop (or instup) were both in use; the former
INSTIGATE
must be from zm, prep. in, and ME. steppen, to step. The latter may
contain the strong grade stap- of AS. steppan, to step; cf. AS. stdp-el,
a footprint, OSax. stdp-o, a step. The reference seems to be to the
movement of the instep in walking. See Step.
INSTIGATE, to urge on, incite. (L.) In Shak. Merry Wives,
111. 5. 77; and in Levins. —L. instigatus, pp. of instigare, to goad on,
incite.—L. iz, in, on; and *stig-, to stick, prick, sting, allied to L.
stinguere, to prick or scratch out, to quench. See Sting, Distin-
guish. See Brugmann, i. § 633. Der. instigat-ion, Wint. Ta. ii.
1. 163, from F. instigation, ‘ an instigation;’ Cot. ; instigat-or ; and
see instinct.
INSTI, to infuse drop by drop. (F.—L.) ‘A faythfull preacher
..- doth instill it into us ;’ Fryth, Works, p. 166, col. 2.—F. insriller,
‘to drop, trill, drizle;’ Cot. —L. instillare, to pour in by drops. =L.
in, in; and stilla, a drop. See Still (2). Der. instill-at-ion, from
F. instillation, ‘an instillation ;’ Cot.
INSTINCT, a natural impulse or instigation, esp. that by which
animals are guided aright. (F.—L.; or L.) ‘A secrete inward
instincte of nature ;” Sir T. More, Works, p. 521 c. =F. instinct, ‘an
instinct or inclination ;? Cot. [Or perhaps directly from Latin. ]—L.
instinctum, acc. of instinctus, an instigation, impulse; cf. instinctus,
pp: of instinguere, to goad on, instigate. —L. in, on; and stinguere,
to stick, prick; see Instigate. Der. instinct-ive, instinct-ive-ly,
Temp. i. 2. 148; also instinct, adj.=instigated, moved, Pope, tr. of
Tliad, b. xviii. 1. 442, from L. pp. instinctus.
INSTITUTE, to establish, set up, erect, appoint. (L.) In Shak.
1 Hen. VI, iv. 1. 162; Tam. Shrew, i. 1. 8; and in Palsgrave.=—L.
instittitus, pp. of instituere, to set, plant, establish. —L. in, in (with
little force) ; and sfatuere, to place, from status, a position. See
Statute, State. Der. institute, sb.; institut-ion, Meas. for Meas. i.
I. 11, from F. institution, ‘an institution;’ Cot.; institut-ion-al, in-
stitut-ion-ar-y, institut-ive,
INSTRUCT, to inform, teach, order. (L.) ‘But instructe hem,’
i.e. them; Lord Rivers, Dictes and Sayings, pr. by Caxton, fol. 4,
1. 7. Properly a pp. as in ‘informed and instructe in all thynges ;’
Caxton, Golden Legend, Cony. of St. Paul, § 6.—L. instructus, pp.
of instruere, to build into, instruct. L. iz, into; and struere, to build;
see Structure. Der. instruct-ible ; instruct-ion; L. L. L. iv. 2. 81,
from F. instruction, ‘an instruction,’ Cot. ; instruct-ive, instruct-ive-ly,
-ness ; instruct-or, -ress ; and see instrument.
INSTRUMENT, a tool, machine producing music, contract
in writing, a. means. (F.—L.) ME. instrument=a musical instru-
ment, Chaucer, Parl. of Foules, 197.—F. instrument, ‘an instrument,
implement, engine,’ &c.; (οἵ. “Το instriimentum, formed with suffix
-mentum, and prefix in-, from struere, to build; see Instruct. Der.
instrument-al, instrument-al-ly, instrument-al-i-ty, instrument-al-ist, in-
strument-at-ion.
INSUBJECTION, want of subjection. (F.—L.) A late word;
added to Johnson by Todd. From In- (3) and Subjection.
INSUBORDINATE, not subordinate. (L.) Quite modern.
From In- (3) and Subordinate. Der. insubordinat-ion.
INSUFFERABLE, intolerable. (F.—L.) ‘ Perceiving still her
wrongs insufferable were ;’ Drayton, Polyolbion, 5. 6. 1.141. Coined
with prefix in- (=not) and suffix -able from Suffer, q.v. Der.
insufferab-ly, Milton, P. L. ix. 1084.
INSUFFICIENT, not sufficient. (L.) Chaucer has insufficient,
C. T., Ὁ 1960. Shak. has insufficience, Wint. Ta. i. 1. 16; also in-
sufficiency, Mid, Nt. Dr. ii. 2. 128.— L. insuffictent-, stem of insufficiens.
From In- (3) and Sufficient ; see Suffice. Der. insufficient-ly,
insufficience, insufficienc-y.
INSULAR, belonging to an island. (L.) In Cotgrave, to trans-
late F. insulaire,—L. insularis, insular. = L. insula, an island. Perhaps
allied to Gael. innis, an island; see Inch (2). Der. insular-ly,
insular-i-ty; also insul-ate, from L. insulatus, made like an island;
insul-at-or, insul-at-ion. And see Isle, Isolate.
INSULT, to treat with indignity, affront. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Rich. 11, iv. 254.—F. insulter, ‘to insult;’ Cot.—L. insultare, to
| leap upon or against, scoff at, insult; frequent. form of insilire, to
] leap into, spring upon.—L. iz, upon; and salire, to leap. See
Salient. Der. insult, sb. = MF. insult, ‘an affront,’ Cot. ; insult-er,
insult-ment, Cymb. iii. 5. 145.
INSUPERABLE, insurmountable. (F.—L.) In Caxton,
Eneydos, ch. xii. p. 44; and Milton, P. L. iv. 133. =F. insuperable,
_ finsuperable;’ Cot.— L. insuperabilis, insurmountable. —L. in-, not ;
| and superare, to surmount, from super, above. See Super-. Der.
insuperabl-y, insuperabili-ty.
INSUPPORTABLE, intolerable. (F.—L.) Accented as in-
_ supportable, Spenser, F. Ὁ. i. 7. 11.—F. insupportable, ‘ unsupport-
_ able;’ (οι. «- Ἐς in-<L. in-, not; and F. supportable, from supporter,
| tosupport; see Support. Der. insupportab-ly, insupportable-ness.
INSUPPRESSIBLS, that cannot be suppressed. . (L.)
A
INTEND 303
coined word; first in 1610. Also used by Young, On Orig. Com-
position (R.). Shak. has insuppressive, Jul. Ces. ii. 1. 134. From
In- (3) and Suppress.
INSURE, to make sure, secure. (F.—L.) ME. ensure, Chaucer,
C. T, 12971 (B 1231; Petworth MS.; most MSS. have assure). — Al’,
enseurer (Godefroy); used instead of OF. asseurer (Cot.), aseurer
(Burguy), by the substitution of the prefix ex (<L, in) for the prefix
a(<L.ad), The form -seurer is from OF. seur, sure. See In- (2)
and Sure; also Assure, Der. insur-able, insur-er, insur-ance ; in-
sur-anc-er, Dryden, Threnodia Augustalis, 186.
INSURGENT, rebellious. (L.) A late word, added by Todd
to Johnson’s Dict.—L. insurgent-, stem of pres. part. of insurgere,
to rise up.—L. in, upon; and surgere, to rise; see Surge. Der.
insurgenc-y; and see insurrection.
INSURMOUNTABLE, not surmountable. (F.—L.) In
Phillips, ed. 1696.—F. insurmontable, ‘ unsurmountable ;’ Cot.
“ΕΠ in-< L. in-, not; and surmontable, from surmonter, to surmount;
see Surmount. Der. insurmountabl-y.
INSURRECTION, rebellion. (F.—L.) In Shak. 1 Hen. IV,
y. I. 79.—= OF. insurrection (Hatzfeld).—L. insurrectiOnem, acc. of
insurrectio, an insurrection; cf. izsurrectus, pp. of insurgere, to rise up,
rebel; see Insurgent. Der. insurrection-al, insurrection-ar-y, in-
surrection-ist.
INTACT, untouched. (L.) In Bailey, ed. 1721.—L. intactus,
untouched. = L. iz-, not; and tactus, pp. of tangere, to touch; see
Tangent, Tact, Intangible.
INTAKE, an enclosure from a moor. (Scand.) Northern; see
E. 10. D. =Norw. inntak, a taking in; from inn, in, and taka, to take.
See Take. Cf. Swed. intaga, an enclosed space that was formerly
part of a common; intaga, to take in (Widegren).
INTANGIBLE, that cannot be touched. (L.) “ Intactible or
Intangible;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. From In- (3) and Tangible.
INTAGLIO, an engraving, esp. a gem in which the design is
hollowed out. (Ital.—L.) Evelyn has intaglias, Diary, 1 Mar..
1644; and intaglios, 23 Oct., 1654.—Ital. intaglio, an engraving,
sculpture, carving. Ital. intagliare, to cut into, engrave.—lItal.
in< L. in, in; and fagliare, to cut, from Late L. taleare, to cut, esp.
to cut twigs, from falea, a rod, stick, bar, twig. See Entail and
Tally. Der. intagli-at-ed.
INTEGER, that which is whole or entire ; a whole number. (L.)
In Kersey, ed. 1715, as an arithmetical term; first in 1509.—L.
integer, adj. whole, entire; lit. untouched, unharmed. = L. in-, not ;
and ¢ag-, base of tangere, to touch; see Tangent. Der. integr-al,
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, formed from integr-um, neut. of integer
used as sb.; integr-al-ly, integr-ate, integr-at-ion, integr-ant ; also
integr-i-ty, Sir T. More, Works, p.1337h, fromF. integrité (( οἵ.) < L.
integritatem, acc. of integrilas, soundness, blamelessness. Doublet,
entire, q.V-
INTEGUMENT, a covering, skin. (L.) In Chapman, tr. of
Homer, 1]. xxii. 1. 7 from end. =—L. integumentum, a covering.=L.
in, upon; and fegere, to cover. See Tegument, Der. integu-
ment-ar-y.
INTELLECT, the thinking principle, understanding. (F.—L.)
ME. intellect, Chaucer, C. T. 2805 (A 2803).—OF. intellect, ‘the
intellect ;? Cot.—L. intellectum, acc. of intellectus, perception, dis-
cernment ; cf. intellectus, pp. of intelligere, to discern; see Intelli-
gence. Der. intellect-u-al, Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b. ill. c.
24. § 2; intellect-u-al-ly ; intellect-ion, intellect-ive.
INTELLIGENCE, intellectual skill, news. (F.—L.) ME.
intelligence, Gower, C, A. iii. 85; bk. vii. 28. =F. intelligence ; Cot.
=L. intelligentia, perception. = L. intelligent-, stem of intelligens, pres.
part. of intelligere, to understand, lit, ‘to choose between.’ = L. iniel-,
for inter, between, before Z following; and legere, to choose; see
Legend. Der. intelligenc-er, Rich. III, iv. 4. 71; intelligenc-ing,
Wint. Ta. ii. 3. 68; also intelligent, Wint. Ta. i. 2. 378, from L.
intelligent-, stem of intelligens ; intelligent-ly, intelligent-t-al ; also in-
telligible, Wyclif, Wisdom, vii. 23, from Ἐς, intelligible, ‘ intelligible’
(Cot.), from L. intelligibilis, perceptible to the senses, Wisdom, vii.
23 (Vulgate) ; intelligibl-y, intelligibili-ty.
INTEMPERANCE, want of temperance, excess. (F.—L.)
Spelt intemperaunce, Spenser, F. Q, ii. 4. 36. =F. intemperance, ‘ in-
temperance ;’ Cot.=L. intemperantia, want of mildness or clemency,
intemperance, excess. See In- (3) and Temperance. Der. in-
temperate, Meas. v. 98, and in Levins, from L. intemperatus, un-
tempered ; inlemperate-ly, intemperate-ness.
INTEND, to fix the mind upon, purpose. (F.—L.) ME. entenden,
Gower, C. A.i. 12; prol. 253; later spelt intend, to bring it nearer
Latin.=F. entendre, ‘to understand, conceive, apprehend,’ Cot.;
whence entendre ἃ, ‘to study, mind, heed,’ id.—L. intendere, to
stretch out, extend, stretch to, bend, direct, apply the mind.=L.
in, towards; and tendere, to stretch; see Tend. Der. intend-ant,
904 INTENSE
Kersey, ed. 1715, from MF. intendant, one of ‘ the foure overseers
or controllers of the exchequer, at first brought in by king Francis
the First’ (Cot.), formed as a pres. part. from L. pres, part. infendens ;
intend-anc-y; intend-ed ; intend-ment, As You Like It, i. 1. 140; also
intense, q. V.+ intent, αν.
INTENSE, highly increased, esp. in tension, severe. (L.) In
Milton, P. L, viii. 387.—L. intensus, stretched out, pp. of intendere,
to stretch out; see Intend. Der. intense-ly, intense-ness, intens-i-ly ;
intens-i-fy (from F. suffix -fier<L. -jficare, for facere, to make) ;
intens-ive, intens-ive-ly, intens-ive-ness.
INTENT, design, intention. (F.—L.) ME. entente, Chaucer,
C. T. 960 (A 958); Ancren Riwle, p. 252, notea. Later, in/evt,
Gower, Ὁ. A. ii. 262; bk. v. 4038.—F. entente, ‘intention, purpose,
meaning; Cot. Entente is a participial sb. formed from the vb.
entendre; see Intend. Der. The adj. intent (Milton, P. L. ix. 786
is directly from L. intentus, pp. of intendere; intent-ly, intent-ness.
Also intent-ion, Wint. Ta. i. 2. 138 (spelt intencyone in Prompt.
Parv.), from F. intention, ‘an intention, intent,’ from L. intentidnem,
acc. of intentio, endeavour, effort, design ; zvtent-ion-al, intent-ion-al-ly,
intention-ed.
INTER, to bury. (F.—L.) ME. enterren. ‘And with gret dule
entyrit wes he;’ Barbour’s Bruce, xix. 224. Later, infer, K. John,
v. 7. 99.—F. enterrer, ‘to interre, bury;’ Cot.—Late L. interrare,
to put into the ground, bury. —L. iz, in; and ‘serra, the earth; see
Terrace. Der. inter-ment=ME. enterement, Gower, C. A. ii. 319,
bk. v. 5727, from Ἐς enterrement, ‘ an interring ;’ Cot.
INTER., prefix, among, amongst, between. (L.) L. inter-,
prefix; from izter, prep. between, among. A comparative form,
answering to Skt. antar, within; and closely connected with L.
interus, interior. See Interior. In a few cases, the final r becomes
1 before 1 following, as in intel-lect, intel-ligence. Most words with
this prefix are purely Latin, but a few, as inter-weave, are hybrid.
In some cases, inter- stands for the F. entre.
INTERACTION, mutual action. (L.; and F.—L.) Modem;
not in Todd’s Johnson. Coined from Inter- and Action.
INTERCALATEH, to insert between, said of a day in a calendar.
(L.) In Raleigh, Hist. of World, Ὁ. ii. c. 3. 5. 6. Intercalation is
explained in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. intercalatus, pp. of
intercalare, to proclaim that something has been inserted. — L. inter,
between, among; and calare, to proclaim; see Calends. Der.
intercalat-ion; also intercalar = L. intercalaris; intercalar-y = L.
intercalarius.
INTERCEDKH, to go between, mediate, plead for one. (F.—L.)
Milton has intercede, P. L. xi. 21 5 intercession, P. L. x. 2283 inter-
cessour, P. L, iii. 219.— MF, inderceder ; ‘interceder pour, to intercede
for ;᾿ Cot.—L, intercédere, lit. to go between. —L. inter, between ;
and cédere, to go; see Inter- and Cede. Der. interced-ent, interced-
ent-ly; also (like pp. tntercessus) intercess-ion =F. intercession, ‘ inter-
cession, Cot.; intercession-al; intercess-or, formerly intercessour,
from Ἐς, intercesseur, ‘an intercessor’ (Cot.), which is from L. acc.
intercessorem ; hence intercessor-i-al, intercessor-y.
INTERCEPT, to catch by the way, cut off communication.
(F.—L.) Orig. a pp.; thus Chaucer has intercept =intercepted; On
the Astrolabe, pt. ii. § 39, 1. 24. “Τὸ intercept, intercipere ;’ Levins
(1570). =F. intercepler, ‘to intercept, forestall ;’ Cot.—L. interceptus,
pp- of intercipere, lit. to catch between.—L. inter, between; and
capere, to catch, seize. See Inter- and Capable. Der. intercept-
er ; intercept-ion, Hen. V, ii. 2. 7.
INTERCESSION, INTERCESSOR;; see Intercede.
INTERCHANGE, to change between, exchange. (F.—L.)
Formerly enterchange. ‘ Full many strokes .. . were enterchaungéd
twixt them two ;’ Spenser, F. Q. iv. 3. 17.—F. entrechanger; s’entre-
changer, to interchange ;’ Cot.—F. entre < L, inter, between; and
changer, to change. See Inter- and Change. Der. interchange-
able ; interchange-abl-y, Rich. II, i. 1. 146; interchange-ment, Tw. Nt.
v. 162.
INTERCOMMUNICATEH, to communicate mutually. (L.)
In Phillips (1706). Coined from Inter- and Communicate ;
seeCommune. Der. intercommunicat-ion; so also intercommun-ion.
INTERCOSTAL, lying between the ribs. (F.—L.) In Blount's
Gloss., ed. 1674.—F. intercostal, ‘between the ribs ;? Cot. From L.
inter, between ; and costa, a rib. See Inter- and Costal.
INTERCOURSE, commerce, connexion by dealings, com-
munication. (F.—L.) In Milton, P. L. ii. 1031, vii. 571. Spelt
entercourse in Fabyan’s Chron., an, 1271-2; ed. Ellis, p. 368.
Modified from F. extrecours, intercourse ; omitted by Cotgrave, but
in use in the 16th century in the sense of ‘ commerce;”. see Littré.
Late L. intercursus, commerce ; L. intercursus, interposition. See
Inter- and Course. Der. So also inter-current, inter-currence.
INTERDICT, a prohibitory decree. (L.) A law term, from
Law Latin. [The F. form enéredit is in early use; Rob. of Glouc.,
INTERLACE
p- 495, 1. 6 (and note), 1. 10173; enterdite, Gower, C. A. i. 259; bk.
li. 2979. Hence the ME. verb entrediten, Rob. of Glouc., p. 495,
1, 10184.] ‘An interdicte, that no man shal rede, ne syngen, ne crystene
chyldren, ne burye the deede, ne receyue sacramente ;’ Caxton, tr. of
Reynard the Fox, ch. 28; ed. Arber, p. 70, last line. —Law L.
interdictum, a kind of excommunication, Ducange; L. interdictum,
a decree of a judge.=—L, interdictus, pp. of interdicere, to pronounce
judgment between two parties, to decree.—L. inter, between; and
dicere, to speak, utter. See Inter- and Diction. Der. interdict,
vb. ; interdict-ion, Mach. iv. 3. 106; interdict-ive, interdict-or-y.
INTEREST (1), profit, advantage, premium for use of money.
(F.—L.) Differently formed from the word below. ‘My well-won
thrift, Which he calls interest;’? Merch. Ven. i. 3. 52.—OF. interest
(mod. ἘΝ, interét), ‘an interest in, a right or title unto a thing; also
interest, or use for money ;”’ Cot.—L. interest, it is profitable, it
concerns; 3 p.s. pres. indic. of interesse, to concern, lit. to be between.
- L. inter, between; and esse, to be. See Inter- and Essence.
q Littré remarks that the F. has considerably modified the use of
the L. original; see his Dict. for the full history of the word. He
also bids us observe that the Span. interes, Port. interesse, Ital. inter-
esse, interest, are all taken from the infinitive mood of the L. verb,
not from the 3 p.s. pres., as in French; cf. Late L. interesse, interest.
Besides this, the use of this sb. helped to modify the verb below; q. v.
> Spenser has the Ital. form interesse, F. Q. vii. 6. 33 ; cf. intresse,
Chaucer, Fortune, 71; interesse, Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 170.
INTEREST (2), to engage the attention, awaken concern in,
excite in behalf of another. (F.—L.) A very curious word; formed
(by partial confusion with the word above) from the pp. interess’d of
the obsolete verb #o interess. ‘The very same confusion occurs in the
formation of Disinterested, q.v. ‘The wars so long continuéd
between The emperor Charles and Francis the French king, Have
interess’d, in either’s cause, the most Of the Italian princes;’ Mas-
singer, Duke of Milan, i. 1.‘ Tib. By the Capitol, And all our gods,
but that the dear republic, Our sacred laws, and just authority Are
interess'd therein, I should be silent;’ Ben Jonson, Sejanus, iii. 1.
‘To interess themselves for Rome, against Carthage;’ Dryden, On
Poetry and Painting, § 13 (R.). “Τὸ interess or interest, to concern,
to engage;’ Kersey, ed. 1715.— MF. interessé, ‘interessed, or touched
in;’ Cot. Cf. Ital. interessare (pp. interessato), Span. interesar (pp.
interesado), to interest. ποτὸν interesse, to concern; see Interest (1).
Der. interest-ed (really a reduplicated pp.), first used in 1665 ; interest-
ing (first in 1711), interest-ing-ly; also dis-interest-ed, q. Vv.
INTERFERE, to inte:pose, intermeddle. (F.—L.) A word
known in the 15th cent., but not much used. Chiefly restricted to
the peculiar sense of hitting one leg against another; said of a horse;
see Palsgrave, s.v. Extrefyer. ‘ Entyrferyn, intermisceo ;’ Prompt.
Pary. ‘To interfeere, to hacke one foot or legge against the other,
as a horse doth;’ Minshen, ed. 1627. ‘To enterfeir, to rub or dash
‘one heel against the other, to exchange some blows;’ Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. — MF. entreferir, ‘to interchange some blows; to strike or
hit, at once, one another; to interfeere, as a horse;’ Cot.=F. entre,
between; and ferir, to strike.—L. inter, between; and ferzre, to
strike. See Inter- and Ferule. Der. interfer-er, interfer-ence.
INTERFUSE, to pour between. (L.) Milton has interfus’d,
ΡΤ, vii. 89.—L. interfisus, pp. of interfundere, to pour between.
See Inter- and Fuse (1). Der. interfus-ion,
INTERIM, an interval. (L.) At least 14 times in Shak.; sce
Jul. Caesar, ii. 1.64; &c.—L. interim, adv. in the mean while.=—L.
inter, between ; and mt, allied to is, demonst. pronoun.
INTERIOR, intemal. (L.) In Shak. Rich. III, i. 3. 65.—L.
interior, compar. of interus, which is itself a comparative form. Thus
interior (like inferior) is a double comparative. The L. interus and
intimus correspond to Skt. antara- (interior) and antima-, Vedic antama-
(last), which are, respectively, compar. and superl. forms. The
positive form appears in L. and E. ix. Brugmann, i. § 466. Der.
interior, sb., Merch. Venice, ii. 9. 28 ; interior-ly; and see internal.
INTERJACENT, lying between. (L.) In Kersey, ed. 1715.
Interjacency is in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. interiacent-, stem of
pres. part. of interiacére, to lie between. —L. inter-, between; and
iacére, to lie. See Inter- and Gist. Der. interjacenc-y.
INTERJECTION, a word thrown in to express emotion.
(F.—L.) In Shak. Much Ado, iv. 1. 22; and in Palsgrave.=F.
interjection, ‘an interjection ;’ (Οἵ. “Τοὺς interiectionem, acc. of inter-
iectio, a throwing between, insertion, interjection; cf. intertectus,
pp. of intericere, to cast between.—L. inter; and iacere, to cast;
see Inter- and Jet (1). Der. interjection-al; also interject, verb
(rare).
INTERLACE, to lace together. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q.
y. 3. 23; and in Sir Τ᾿ More, Works, p. 739 b. Spelt enterlace ἴῃ
Baret (1580); and Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, iii. pr. 12.118. Modified
from MF, entrelasser, ‘to interlace ;’ Cot.—F. entre, between; and
INTERLARD
lasser, lacer, to lace; Cot. See Inter- and Lace.
ment.
INTERLARD, to place lard amongst. (F.—L.) ‘ Whose grain
doth rise in flakes, with fatness interlarded ;’ Drayton, Polyolbion,
5. 26, 1. 255. Caxton has entrelarded, Troy-bk, fol. 62, 1. 7.—F.
entrelarder, ‘to interlard, mingle different things together ;’ Cot.
See Inter- and Lard.
INTERLEAVE, to insert blank leaves in a book between the
others. (Hybrid; L. anzdE.) In The Spectator, no. 547, § 2. Coined
from Inter- and Leave, the latter being a coined verb from the
sb. Leaf (pl. leaves).
INTERLINE, to write between the lines. (L.) ‘I interline, I
blot, correct, I note;’ Drayton, Matilda to Κι. John, 1. 36; and in
Cotgrave, to translate F. entreligner. —Late L. interlineaire, to write
between lines for the purpose of making corrections ; used A.D. 1278;
Ducange. =L. inter, between; and linea, a line. See Inter- and
Line. Der. interline-ar, from Late L. interlinearis ; whence inter-
line-ar-y, Milton, Areopagitica, ed. Hales, p. 41, 1. 3; interline-at-ion.
INTERLINK, to connect by uniting links. (Hybrid; L. and
Scand.) ‘With such infinite combinations interlinked;’ Daniel,
Defence of Rhyme, § 19. Coined from L. inter and Zink. See Inter-
and Link.
INTERLOCUTION, a conference, speaking between. (F.— L.)
“A good speech of interlocution ;’ Bacon, Essay 32, Of Discourse. =
F. interlocution, ‘an interlocution, interposition ;’ Cot. —L. inter-
lociitionem, acc. of interlociitio.—L. inter, between; and lociitus, pp.
of logui, to speak; see Inter- and Loquacious. Der. So also
interlocut-or, Bp. Taylor, Great Exemplar, pt. iii. s. 11 (R.), from
L. inter and lociitor, 2 speaker; interlocut-or-y.
INTERLOPER, an intruder. (Hybrid; L.andE.) ‘ Interlopers
in trade ;’ Minsheu’s Dict., ed. 1627. ‘Interlopers, leapers or runners
between; it is usually applied to those merchants that intercept the
trade or traffick of a company, and are not legally authorised ;’
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. inter, between; and Εἰ. dial. loper,
a runner (as in land-loper), from E. dial. lofe, dial. form of E. leap.
See Inter-andLeap; andsee Blope. € Low G.and Du.enterloper
are said to be from E. Der. interlope, vb., coined from the sb.
INTERLUDE, a short piece played between the acts of a play.
(L.) In Shak. Mids. Nt. Dr. i. 2,6; and in G. Donglas, ed. Small,
y. i. p. 45, 1. 18. ME. enterlude, Gawaine and G. Knight, 472;
entyrlude, Rob. of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, 8993. — Anglo-Lat. inter-
ludium (Ducange). Coined from L, inter, between; and liidus, a play,
or lidere, to play; see Inter- and Ludicrous. Der. interlud-er.
INTERLUNAR, between the moons. (L.) ‘ Hid in her vacant
interlunar cave ;’ Milton, Samson Agon., 89. Applied to the time
when the moon, about to change, is invisible. Coined from L. inter,
between ; and /iza, moon. See Inter- and Lunar.
INTERMARRY, to marry amongst. (Hybrid ; L.andF.) Sce
examples in R. from Bp. Hall and Swift. Coined from L. iner,
amongst ; and marry, of F. origin; see Inter- and Marry. Der.
intermarri-age.
INTERMEDDLE, to mingle, meddle, mix with. (F.—L.)
_ ME. entermedlen; ‘Was entermedled ther among;’ Rom. of the
| Rose, 906.—OF. entremedler, a variant of entremesler, ‘to inter-
mingle, interlace, intermix;’ Cot. [For this variation, see mes/er,
| medler, in Godefroy.]=OF. entre, from L. inter, among; and OF.
| medler, to meddle. See Inter- and Meddle. Der. intermeddl-er.
INTERMEDIATE, intervening. (F.—L.) In Kersey, ed.
| 1715.—F. intermediat, ‘that is between two;’ Cot.—L. inter, be-
tween; and mediatus, pp. of mediare, to halve. See Inter- and
| Mediate. Der. intermediate-ly.
INTERMINABLE, endless. (L.) In Chaucer, tr. of Boethius,
|b. vy. pr. 6, 1. 29.—L. intermindbilis, endless. —L. in-, not; .and
| ferminare, to terminate, from terminus, an end. See In- (3) and
Term.
Der. interlace-
INTERMIT, to interrupt, cease for a time. (L.) In Shak. Jul.
Ces. i. 1. 50. —L. intermittere, to send apart, interrupt.—L. inter,
between ; and mit/ere, to send; see Inter- and Missile. Der.
| itermult-ent, as in ‘ an intermittent ague,’ Holland, tr. of Ammianus,
|p. 420, from the pres. part. ; inter mitt-ing-ly ; also intermiss-ion,
| Macb. iv. 3. 232, from F. intermission (Cot.) < L. intermissi@nem,
| acc. of intermissio, allied to intermissus, pp. of intermitlere; inter-
muss-ive, τ Hen. VI, i. 1. 88.
| INTERMIX, to mix together. (L.) Shak. has intermixed; Rich.
IL vy. 5.12, Coined from L. inter, among, and mix, of L. origin;
see Inter- and Mix. Der. inter-mixture, from inter- and mixture,
| q-¥.
|
ia
INTERSTICE 305
INTERNAL, being in the interior, domestic, intrinsic. (L.)
In Spenser, F. Ὁ. iii. 10. 59. . Coined, with suffix -al, from L, internus,
inward; extended from inter-,inward; see Interior. Der. internal-
ly, Allied to denizen, q.v., entrails, q.v.
INTERN, to confine within certain limits. (F.—L.) Modern.
=F. interner, to relegate into the interior (Hamilton). =F. interne,
internal. L. internus (above).
INTERNECINE, thoroughly destructive. (L.) ‘ Internecine
war;’ Butler, Hudibras, pt. i. c. 1. 1.774. —L. internecinus, thoroughly
destructive. = L. inéerneci-o, utter slaughter. —L. inter, thoroughly
(see Lewis) ; and necare, to kill. See Inter- and Necromancy.
INTERPELLATION, an interruption, summons, hindrance.
(F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627. —F. interpellation, ‘ an interruption,
disturbance ;’ Cot.—L. interpellatidnem, acc. of interpellatio, an in-
terruption, hindrance ; cf. interpellatus, pp. of interpellare, to drive
between, hinder.=L. inéer, between; and pellere, to drive; sce
Inter- and Pulsate.
INTERPOLATE, to insert a spurious passage. (L.) ‘Although
you admit Czesar’s copy to be therein not interpolated;’ Drayton,
Polyolbion, 5. 10; Illustrations (end). —L. interpolatus, pp. of inter-
polare, to furbish up, patch, interpolate.—L. interpolus, inter polis,
polished up. = L. inter, between, here and there ; and folire, to polish.
See Inter- and Polish. Der. interpolat-ion, from F. interpolation,
‘a polishing ;’ Cot,
INTERPOSE, to put between, thrust in, mediate. (F.—L. and
Gk.) In Shak. Jul. Cees. ii. 1. 98.—F. interposer, ‘to interpose, to
put or set between;’ Cot. See Inter- and Pose. Der. interpos-er,
Merch. Ven. iii. 2. 3209.
INTERPOSITION, intervention, mediation. (F.—L.). ‘By
reason of the often izxterposicion;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 1291 ἃ. -
F. interposition, ‘an interposition, or putting between;’ Cot. See
Inter- and Position (which is not from pose).
INTERPRET, to explain, translate. (F.—L.) ME. interpreten,
Wyclif, 1 Cor. xiv. 27; intferpretour is in verse 28.—F. interpreter,
‘to interpret ;’ Cot.—L. interpretiri, to expound. —L. interpret-, stem
of interprés, an interpreter; properly an agent, broker, factor, go-
between. B. OF uncertain origin ; the former part of the word is
L. inter, between; the base -pret- is perhaps allied to L. pretixm,
price. Der. interpret-able, interpret-er (in Wyclif, as above); also
(ef. L. pp. interpretatus) interpretat-ion=F. interpretation, ‘ an inter-
pretation’ (Cot.) 3 interpretat-ive, inter pretat-ive-ly.
INTERREGNUM, an interval between two reigns. (L.) “1π-
terreign or Interregnum;’ Kersey, ed. 1715.—L. interregnum.—L.
inter, between ; and regnum, a reign, rule. See Inter- and Reign.
INTERROGATEH, to examine by questions, question. (L.) In
Minsheu, ed. 1627. Shak. has interrogatory, K. John, iii. 1. 1473
shortened to intergatories, Merch. Ven. v. 298.—L. interrogatus, pp.
of inferrogdre, to question. = L. inter, thoroughly (see Lewis) ; and
rogare, to ask; see Rogation. Der. interrogat-or, interrogat-or-y;
interrogat-ion =F. interrogation, ‘an interrogation” (Cot.), from L.
acc. interrogationem ; interrogat-ive, from L. inierrogatiuus; inter-
rogat-ive-ly
INTERRUET, to break in amongst, hinder, divide continuity.
(L.) ‘ Your tale for to interrupte or breke;’ Hoccleve, De Regimine
Principum, 1. 1231.—L. interruptus, pp. of interrumpere, to burst
asunder, break up, hinder.—L. inter, between; and rumpere, to
break. See Inter- and Rupture. Der. interrupt-ed-ly, inter-
rupt-ive, interrupt-ive-ly; also interruplion, ME. interrupcioun, Gower,
C. A. i. 37 (prol. 985) =F. interruption (Cot.), from L. acc. inter-
ruptionem.
INTERSECT, to cut between, cross as lines do. (1,.) ‘Zuter-
secteth not the horizon;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. vi. c. 7. § 4.
—L. intersectus, pp. of intersecare, to cut apart.—L. inter, between,
apart; and secare, to cut. See Inter- and Section. Der. in/er-
sect-ion.
INTERSPERSB, to disperse amongst, set here and there. (L.)
‘Interspersed, bestrewed, scattered or sprinkled between ;’ Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. interspersus, pp. of interspergere, to sprinkle
amongst. = L. inter, amongst ; and spargere, to scatter ; see Sparse.
Der. interspers-ion.
INTERSTELLAR, lit. between the stars. (L.) ‘The tuter-
stellar sky;’ Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 354. Coined from L. inter,
amongst; and E. sée//ar, adj. dependent on L. s¢el/a, a star; see
Stellar.
INTERSTICE, a slight space between things set closely
together. (Ε.-- 1.) ‘For when the airy interstices are filled;’
Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. ii. c. 5. § 14.— MF. interstice, in use
in the 16th century; Littré. = L. interstitiwm, an interval of space. =
L. inter, between ; and status, pp. of sistere, to place, a causal verb
formed from s/are, to stand; see State. Der. interstiti-al, from L.
interstiti-um.,
Χ
906 INTERTWINE
INTERTWINE, to twine amongst. (Hybrid; L. and E.) In
Milton, P. R. iv. 405. From L. inter, amongst; and E. Twine,
ἐν. GF So also inter-twist.
INTERVAL, a space or period between. (F.—L.) ME. inier-
zalle, Chaucer, C. Τὶ (B 2723).—OF. intervalle, ‘an interval ;’ Cot.
= L. interuallum, lit. the space between two palisades; or the space
within the breastwork of a camp.—L. inter, between; and xallum,
a rampart, whence E. wall. See Inter- and Wall.
INTERVENE, to come between, interpose. (F.—L.) In
Bacon, Ady. of Learning, bk. i. 4. 1.—F. intervenir, ‘to interpose
himselfe ;’ (οἱ. Τὸ, interuenire, to come between. = L. inter, between ;
and uenire, to come, cognate with E. Come, 4. v. Der. inter-
vent-ion=F. intervention, ‘an intervention’ (Cot.), from L. acc.
interuentionem, allied to L. pp. interuentus.
INTERVIEW, a mutual view or sight, a meeting. (F.—L.'
In Shak. L. L. L. ii. 167; spelt entervene in 1520; Royal Letters,
ed. Ellis, i. 166. —OF. entrevue (Supp. to Godefroy), a verbal sb. allied
to entreven, pp. of entrevoir; cf. ‘s’entrevoir, to behold or visit one
another ;’ (οἱ. - Ε΄ entre, from L. inter, between ; and OF. vex, pp.
of voir, from L. uidére, to see; see Vizw.
INTERWEAVE, to weave together. (Hybrid; L. and E.)
The pp. interwoven is in Milton, P. R. ii. 263. Coined from L. infer,
between; and Weave, q.v.
INTESTATE, without a will. (L.) ‘Or dieth intestate ;’
P. Plowman, B. xv. 134. —L. intestatus, that has made no testament
or will. —L, in-, not; and testatus, pp. of testari, to be a witness, to
make a will; see Testament. Der. intestac-y.
INTESTINE, inward, internal. (F.—L.) In Shak. Com.
Errors, i. 1. 11.—F. intestin, ‘intestine, inward ;’ Cot. = L. intestinus,
adj. inward. β. Formed from L. intus, ady. within; cognate with
Gk. ἐντός, within. These are extensions from L. in, Gk. ἐν, in; see
In. Der. intestines, pl. sb., in Kersey, ed. 1715, from F. intestin,
“an intestine’ (Cot.), which is from L. intestinum, neut. of intestinus.
Also intestin-al, from Εἰ. intestinal (Cot.). Cf. Entrails.
INTHRAL, the same as Enthral, q. v., but with E. prefix.
(E.) Spelt inthrall in Kersey, ed. 1715; and in Phineas Fletcher,
Purple Island, c. 5. st. 7. Der. inthral-ment.
INTIMATE (1), to announce, hint. (L.) In Shak. L. L. L. ii.
129. Properly a pp., as: ‘their enterpryse was intimate and pub-
lished to the kyng;’ Hall’s Chron. Hen. IV, an. 1. § 11.—L. δες
matus, pp. of intimare, to bring within, to announce.=—L. intimus,
innermost; superl, corresponding to comp. inéerior; see Interior.
Der. intimat-ion, from Ε΄. intimation, ‘an intimation;’ Cot. And
see Intimate (2).
INTIMATE (2), familiar, close. (L.) The form of this word
is due to confusion with the word above. <A better form is intime,
as in: ‘requires an intime application of the agents;’ Digby, On
Bodies, b. 5. s. 6. This is MF. intime, ‘inward, secret, hearty,
especiall, deer, intirely affected’ (Cot.), from L. intimus, innermost,
closely attached, intimate; see above. Der. intimate-ly, intimac-y.
INTIMIDATE, to frighten. (Late L.—L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. [Probably suggested by MF. inéimider, ‘ to fear, to skare ;’
Cot.J—Late L. intimidatus, pp. of intimidare, to frighten; in the
Acta Sanctorum (Ducange).—L. inz-, intensive prefix, from the prep.
in; and timidus, timid, fearful; see Timid. Der. intimidat-ion,
from F. intimidation, ‘a fearing, a skaring ;” Cot.
INTITULED, entitled. (F.—L.) In Shak. L. L. Liv. 1. 8;
and in Caxton, Godefroy of Bologne, rubric to ch. 1.—F. intitulé,
‘jntitled or intituled,’ Cot. ; intituler, ‘ to intitle, id. See Entitle.
INTO, prep. denoting passage inwards. (E.) ΜΕ. into, Chaucer,
C. T. 2431 (A 2429); Layamon, 5150.—AS. in 40 (two words),
where iz is used adverbially, and 70 is the preposition. Cf. up to,
down to. ‘Ne ga pi mid pinum esne iz 46 dome’ =go not thou in/o
judgment [lit. zxwards to judgment] with thy servant; Psalm exlii. 2
(metrical version) ; Grein, ii. 149. See In and To.
INTOLERABLE, not tolerable. (F.—L.) ‘For lenger to
endure it is intollerable ;’ Lament of Mary Magdalen, st. 54; and
see st. 10... Εἰ intolerable, ‘ intollerable ;’? Cot.—L. inicleriibilis ; see
In- (3) and Tolerable. Der. intoleratl-y, intolerable-ness. So
also in-tolerant, a late word, in Todd’s Johnson; intolerance =F. in-
tolerance, ‘ impatiency,’ Cot.
INTOMB, the same as Entomb. (F.—L.—Gk.; with Ἐς prejix.)
In Shak. Macb. ii. 4. 9 (first folio).
INTONE, to chant. (Late L.—L. and Gk.) Formerly entone
(from OF. extoner); G. Douglas, tr. of Virgil, bk. vii. ch. 12. 5.
“Ass intones to ass ;’ Pope, Dunciad, ii. 253.—Late L. intonare, to
sing according to tone.=L. in tonum, according to tone; where
tonum is acc. of torus, not a true L. word, but borrowed from Gk.
roves; see Tone. Der. inton-at-ion. @ Note that sxtonation was
also formerly used in the sense of ‘loud noise.” Thus Minsheu
(ed. 1627) has:
| Todd’s Johnson. —L.
‘Intonation, loud noise or sound, a thundering.’ |
INTROSPECTION
This is from the classical L. intonare, to thunder forth, compounded
of in (used as intensive prefix) and /on@re, to thunder, which is from
OL. tonus, thunder. See Thunder.
INTOXICATE, to make drunk. (Late L.—L. and Gk.) In
Shak. Hen. V, iv. 7. 39. Intoxycat in Palsgrave. Lydgate has
intoxycate=invenomed, Troy-Book, bk. ii. c. 24; fol. Ὁ. 2, back,
col. 1. Used asa pp. in Fryth’s Works, p. 77: ‘their mynde is so
intoxicate.’ = Late L. intoxicdtus, pp. of intoxicare, to poison. =L. in,
into; and /oxicum, poison, a word borrowed from Gk. τοξικόν, poison
in which arrows were dipped, from τόξον, a bow; of which the pl.
τόξα -- (τὴ bow and arrows, (2) arrows only. Der. intoxicat-ion.
INTRA,., prefix, within. (L.) L. intra, on the inside, within ;
for *intera, abl. fem. of *interus, whence the compar. intferi-or ; sce
Interior.
INTRACTABLE, not tractable. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed.
1627.—F. intractable, ‘intractable ;’ Cot. —L. intractabilis. See In-
(3) and Tractable, Trace. Der. intractabl-y, intractable-ness.
INTRAMURAL, within the walls. (L.) Modern; not in
intra, within; and miirus, a wall; see
Mural.
INTRANSITIVE, not transitive. (L.) In Kersey, ed. 1715.
=L. intransitiuus, that does not pass over to another person; used
of verbs in grammar. See In- (3) and Transitive. Der. intrans-
itive-ly.
INTREAT, the same as Entreat. (F.—L.; with E. prefix.)
Minsheu, ed. 1627, gives both spellings; and see the Bible Word-
book and Ναγεβ. Spelt intreate in Palsgrave.
INTRENCH, the same as Entrench. (F.—L.; with E. prefix.)
In Shak. 1 Hen. VI, i. 4. 9. Der. intrench-ment.
INTREPID, dauntless, brave. (L.) ‘That quality [valour]
which signifies no more than an intrepid courage;’ Dryden; Dedic.
to Virgil’s A‘neid. = L. intrepidus, fearless. —L. in-, not; and trepidus,
restless, alarmed; see In- (3) and Trepidation. Der. intrepid-ly ;
intrepid-i-ty, Spectator, no. 122.
INTRICATE, perplexed, obscure. (L.) In Shak. Com. Errors,
v. 269. ‘With mundane affections infricate;’ Roy, Rede me, ed.
Arber, p. 91, 1. 15.—L. intricatus, pp. of intricare, to perplex, embar-
rass, entangle. =—L. ix, in; and ¢rice, pl. sb., hindrances, vexations,
wiles (whence also Extricate). Der. intricate-ly, intricate-ness ;
intricac-y, Milton, P. L. viii. 182. And see Intrigue.
INTRIGUE, to form secret plots. (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘Intriguing
fops ;’ Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, pt. 11.1. 521.—F. intriguer,
formerly also spelt intriguer, ‘to intricate, perplex, pester, insnare ;’
Cot. Ital. intrigare, ‘to intricate, entrap ;? Florio.— L. intricare, to
perplex; see above. Der. intrigue, sb.; intrigu-er.
INTRINSIC, inward, genuine, inherent. (F.—L.) A mistake
for intrinsec. Intrinsecal was formerly in use, as in Minsheu, ed.
1627. Shak. has intrinse, K. Lear, ii. 2. 81; and intrinsicate, Antony,
ν. 2.307. ‘Intrinsecal or Intrinsick, inward or secret ;’ Kersey, ed.
1715.— MF. intrinseque, ‘intrinsecal, inward ;’ Cot.—L. intrinsecus,
inwards; lit. following towards the inside.—L. *intrim, allied to
intr-G@, within; and secus, lit. following, connected with L. secundus,
second, and segui, to follow. Drugmann, i. § 413 (2). See Intra-
and Second. 4 Similarly Extrinsic, q.v. Der. intrinsic-al
(for intrinsec-al), intrinsic-cl-ly.
INTRO,, frefix, within. (L.) L. intrd, an adv. closely allied to
L. intra, within ; from interus, inner. See Interior.
INTRODUCE, to lead or conduct into, bring into notice or use.
(L.) ¢ With whiche he zx¢roduceth and bringeth his reders into a false
ynderstanding;’ Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 341 e. ‘ Who hath intro-
duced the[e] to do this;’ Caxton, Troy-book, fol. 248, 1. 5.—L.
introdiicere, pp. intrdductus, to bring in. —L. intro, short for interd,
orig. abl. of ix‘erus, inward (see Interior); and diicere, to lead;
see Duke. Der. introduct-ion, Chaucer, C. T. 16854 (G 1386),
from Ἐν introduction<L. acc. introductidnem (nom, introductio) ;
introduct-ive ; introduct-or-y, Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, prol. 73;
introduct-or-i-ly.
INTROIT, an antiphon sung as the priest approaches the altar.
(F.—L.) ‘The introyte of the masse ;’ Caxton, Golden Legend;
The Purification, ὃ last. OF. in/roi’e, Ἐς introit (Hatzfeld).—L.
introitum, acc. of introitus, lit. ‘entrance.’ = L. introitus, pp. of introire,
to enter. L. initrd, within ; ire, to go.
INTROMISSION, a letting in, admission. (L.) ‘Intromission,
a letting in;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. A rare word. Formed,
by analogy with F. sbs. in -ion, from intromissum, supine of the
verb intromiltere, to introduce. —L. intré, within (see Introduce) ;
and mittere, to send; see Mission. Der. Sometimes the verb
intromit is used, but it is not now common,
INTROSPECTION, a looking into. (L.) In Kersey, ed.
1715. Formed, by analogy with F. sbs. in -ion, from L. acc. ἦτ
frospectionem, from nom. introspectio, a looking into. - L. imtro,
INTRUDE
within (see Introduce); and the base sfec-;
svecere, to look; see Spy.
INTRUDE, to thrust oneself into. (L.) In Hamlet, iii. 4. 31.
=L. intridere, to thrust into, obtrude (oneself).—L. ix, into; and
tridere, to thrust. See Thrust. Der. intrud-er; also intrus-ion,
Sir T. More, Works, p. 640 b=F. in‘rusion, an intrusion’ rae:
allied to L. pp. intriisus ; intrus-ive, Thomson, Liberty, pt. i. 1. 299;
intrus-ive-ly, intrus-ive-ness.
INTRUST, to give in trust, commit to one’s care. (Scand.; with
Ik. prefix.) Sometimes entrust, but infrust is much better, as beiag
purer English; the latter part of the word being of Scand. (not F.)
origin. In Dryden, Character of a Good Parson, 1. Com-
pounded of In and Trust.
INTUITION, a looking into, ready power of perception.
(F.—L.) Used by Bp. Taylor in the sense of ‘looking upon;’
Great Iixemplar, pt. i.s. 36; and Rule of Conscience, b. iv. c. 2 (R.).
[Intuitive is in Cotgrave, and in Milton, P. L. v. 488.]—MF. (and F.)
intuition (Hatzfeld). Formed by analogy with ‘uition; allied to L.
intuitus, pp. of intuéri, to look upon. =L. in, upon; and tier, to look ;
see Tuition, Tutor. Der. intuit-ive=F. intuitif, ‘intuitive’ (Cot.) ;
intut'-ive-ly,
INTUMESCENCE, a swelling. (F.—L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. - Εν intumescence, ‘a swelling, puffing;’ Cot. Formed (as
if from a Late L. *intumescentia), from L. intumescent-, stem of pres.
pt. of intumescere, to begin to swell. —L. in, used intensively ; and
tumescere, inceptive form of ‘umére, to swell. See Tumid.
INTWINE, another form of Entwine, q.v. (E.) Really a better
form, as being purer English. f So also in-twist ; see Entwist.
INUNDATION, an overflowing of water, a flood. (L.) In
Palsgrave; and in Shak. K. John, v. 1. 12; v. 2. 48. [Imitated
from ἘΝ inondation.|—L. inunditionem, acc. of inundatio, an over-
cf. stectis, pp. of
4
ole
flowing ; cf. inundatus, pp. of inundare, to overflow, spread over in |
waves. = L, in, upon, over; and unda, a wave. See Undulate.
Der. inundate, vb., really suggested by the sb., and of later date.
INURE, to habituate, accustom. (F.—L.) In Shak. Tw. Nt. ii.
5.160. Also enwre,as in Spenser, F’. ὃ. iv. 2. 29; V. 9. 301; Vi. 8.14;
and Sonnet 14, 1. 7. ‘A fayre company, and well exewred to the
warre;’ Caxton, Four Sons of Aymon, ch. viii. p. 187.—OF.
enovrer, to work ; whence pp. exouré ἃ, employed in. =L. inoperare,
to effect ; from in, in, and operare, to work, from opera, work. See
Operate. β. The word may have also been influenced by the
phrase ix (F. ev) ure, i.e. in operation, in work, in employment ;
which was formerly common. ‘Thus, in Ferrex and Porrex, Act iv.
sc. 2, we have: ‘And wisdome willed me without protract (delay ]
In speedie wise to put the same in wre,’ i.e. in operation, not in use ;
see the passage in Morley’s Library of Eng. Literature, Plays, p. 59,
col. 1. And again, ‘I wish that it should streight be put in ure;
id. Act v. sc. 1. Ὑυ. Hence was also formed the verb to ure, used
in the same sense as inure. ‘Ned, thou must begin Now to forget
thy study and thy books, ses ure thy shoulders to an armout’s
weight ;’ Edw. HI, Act i. sc. 1, 1. 159 (in the Leopold Shakspere,
p- 1038). ὃ. The ΞΟ, ΕΥ̓͂, of ure is from the OF. ovre, oevre,
nevre, eure, Work, action, operation. [Mr. Wedgwood well remarks
upon the similar sound-changes by which the F.
become the E. man-ure.] Der. inure-ment (rare). 3" ‘The word
ure here treated of is quite distinct from ME. wre, fate, destiny, luck,
as used in Barbour’s Bruce, i. 312, ii. 434, &c.; see glossary to my
edition. In this case, ure is the OF. eur, aur (mod. Εἰ. heur in bon-
heur). from L. augurium; see Augur.
INUR\N, to put into a sepulchral urn. (F.—
Hamlet, i. 4. 49. See In- (1) and Urn.
INUTILITY, uselessness. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave.=—F. inqtilité,
‘inutility ;”’ Οἱ. “Τὸ. inasilititem, from nom, initilitas. See In- (3)
and Utility.
INVADE, to enter an enemy’s country, encroach upon. (F.—L.)
“And streight invade the town;’ Lord Surrey, tr. of Eneid, b. ii
1. 536. Τὴ, invader, ‘to invade ;’ Cot.—L. inuddere, to go into,
enter, invade.=L. im, in, into; and uddere, to go. See Wade.
Der. invad-er: invas-ion, K. John, iv. 2. 173=F. ivasion, ‘an
invasion’ (Cot.), from L. tnwdsidnem, acc. of inudsio; cf. pp. inudsus;
also invas-ive, K. John, v. 1. 69.
INVALID, not valid. (L.; or F.—L.)
Milton, P. L. viii. 116. —L. inualidus (below). B. Accented invalid,
and pronounced as a F, word, when used asa sb. ‘ As well stow'd
with gallants as with invalids ;’ Tatler, no. 16.—F. invalide, ‘im-
potent, infirme ;”? Cot.—L. innalidus, not strong, feeble. = L. in-, not ;
and walidus, strong; see Walid. Der. invalid-ate, Burnet, Own Time,
an. 1680 (R.) ; invalid-at-ion ; invalid-i-ty.
INVALUABLE, that cannot be valued. (F.—L.) ‘ For rare-
ness of invaluable price ;’ Drayton, Moses, his Birth and Miracles,
bk. i. 1.550. From In- (3) and Valuable. Der. invalucbl-y.
.; or L.) In Shak.
A. Accented imvalid,
man-euvre has |
INVIDIOUS 307
INVARIABLE, not variable. (F.—L.)
Vulg. Errors, b. i. c. 6, § last. =F. invariable, ‘unvariable ;’
From In- (3) and Variable. Der. invariabl-y, invariable-ness.
INVASION, an entry into an enemy's country. (F.—L.) See
Invade.
INVECKED, INVECTED, in heraldry, the reverse of
engrailed, said. of an edge indented with successive cusps. (L.)
Formerly used with a slightly different meaning; see the diagram
in the Boke of St. Albans, pt. ii. fol. ἃ 4 (1486). Lit. ‘ carried in.’
=L. inuectus, carried inwards, pp of inuehere (below).
INVEIGH, to attack with words, rail. (L.) In Shak. Lucrece,
1254. The close connexion of inveigh with the sb. invective,at once
points out the etymology. In this word, the L. hk is expressed by
the guttural gh, just as the AS. hk was replaced by the same com-
bination; see Matzner, Eng. Gram. i. 149. Cf. Span. invehir, to
inveigh.—L. inuehere (pp. inuectus), to carry into or to, to intro-
duce, attack, inveigh against.—L. in, into; and uehere, to carry ;
see Vehicle. Der. invect-ive, sb. from F. invective, ‘an invective
(Cot.) ; also, as adj., as in ‘inuectyne monycyons,’ Caxton, Eneydos,
ch, 16, p. 65, 1. 1, from L. adj. inwectinus, scolding, from the pp.
inuectus ; hence invect-ive, adj. ; invect-ive-ly, As You Like It, ii. 1. 58.
Also invecked (above). Also (obs.) invect, to inveigh, from the pp.
invectus; as in ‘Fool that I am, thus to inmvect against her;’ Beau-
mont and Fletcher, Faithful Friends, iii. 3.
INVEIGILE, to seduce, entice. (AF:.—L.) ‘ Achilles hath in-
veigled his fool from him ;” Shak. Troil. ii. 3. 99. ‘ Yet have they
many baits and guileful spells To inveigle and invite the unwary
sense ;’ Milton, Comus, 537, 538. And see Spenser, F. Q. i. 12. 32.
‘The sayd duke of Glouceter inuegelyd so the arbysshop, of Caunter-
bury ; aes ed. Ellis, p. 668. | Indirectly from F. aveugler, to
blind; cf. E. aveugle, to cajole, seduce, in Froude’s Hist. v. 132
(A.D. 1547); and State Papers, ix. 287 (A. D. 1543).]—AF. enveoglir,
to blind, in Will. of Wadington’s Manuel des Peches, 1. 10639; and
in N. Bozon. Altered, ignorantly, from F. aveugler, to blind. =I
aveugle (AF. enveogle in Bozon), adj., blind. = Late L. *aboculum, acc.
of *aboculus, blind. [Ducange has avoculus, also aboculis, adj.) —L.
ab, without ; oculus, eye. 4 Baret (1580) has: ‘iuveigle ones
minde, occecare animum.’ Der. inveigle-ment (rare).
INVENT, to find out, devise, feign. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F..Q«
Ike ΒΡ ΤΟΙ» with the sense ‘to find.” =F. inventer, ‘to invent ;’ Cot.
-L. inuent-us, pp: of inuenire, to come upon, discover, invent. =L.
In Sir T. Browne,
Cot.
in, upon; and wenire, to come, cognate with E. Come, q.v. Der.
invention, ME. innencion, ‘Testament of Creseide, st. 10 =F. invention,
‘an invention’ (Cot.), from L. inuentiOnem, acc. of inuentio; in-
ventive<¥. inventif, ‘inventive’ (Cot.); invent-ive-ly, invent-ive-ness ;
invent-or, ME. inuentor, Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b. i. c. 20,
§ 11<F. inventeur, from L. acc. inuentOrem ; invent-or-y, Cor.i. 1. 21.
INVERSE, inverted, opposite. (F.—L.) ME. invers, Gower,
C.A. iil. 3; bk. vi. 70. —OF. invers, ‘inverse’ (Cot.).—L. inuersus, pp.
of inuertere; see Invert. Der. inverse-ly, invers-ion, Sir T. Browne,
Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 15, § 6, formed by analogy with F. sbs. in -ion,
from L. acc. innersidnem.
INVERT, to turn upside down, reverse. (L.) In Shak. Temp.
lit, I, 7O.—L. inuertere, to invert.—L. in, signifying motion to-
wards, or up; and wertere,to turn. See Verse. Der. invert-ed-ly ;
also inverse, q.v.
INVERTEBRATE; see In- (3) and Vertebrate. (L.)
INVEST, to dress with, put in office, surround, lay out money.
(F.—L.) ‘ This girdle to invest ;’ Spenser, Ἐς Ὁ. iv. 5. 18.—F. in-
vestir, ‘to invest, inrobe, ἘΞ (οἵ. “1... inuestire, to clothe,
clothe in or with.=L. ix, in; and uestire, to clothe, from westi:,
clothing; see Vest. Der. invest-ment, Hamlet, i. 3. 128 ; invest-i-
ture, in Tyndal’s Works, p. 362 [misnumbered 374]<F. investiture
(Cot.), resembling L. inuestitira, fem. of fut. part. of izuestire.
INVESTIGATE, to track out, search into. (L.) .‘ She [Pru-
dence] doth inuestiga‘e and prepare places apt and conuenient ;’ Sir
T. Elyot, The Governour, b. 1. c. 22, ὃ 2.—L. inuestigdtus, pp. of
inuestigare, to track out, search into a track.—L. in, in; and westi-
gare, to trace. See Vesiige. Der. investigat-ion, ME. inuesti-
gacioun, Libell of E. Policy, 1. 9045 investigat-ive, investigat-cr,
investigat-or-y ; also investiga-ble. 4 Note that investigable also some-
times means ‘unsearchable,’ from L. inuestigabilis, unsearchable
(distinct from inuestigabilis, ‘that may be investigated) ; where the
prefix in- has a negative force.
INVETERATE, grown old, firmly established or rooted. (L.)
In Shak. Temp. i. 2. 122; Rich. II, 1. 1. 14.—L. inueterdtus, pp. of
inueterare, to retain for a long while. —L. iz, with intensive force ;
and weter-, decl. stem of vetzs, old. See Veteran. Der. invetera‘e-ly,
inveterate-ness, inveterac-y.
INVIDIOUS, envious, productive of odium. (L.) “ Invidious
crimes ;’ Dryden, tr. of Virgil, wn. xi. 518. Formed by analogy
X 2
908 INVIGORATE
with adjectives in -ous (of F. origin) from L. inwididsus, envious,
productive of odium.—L. inuidia, envy. See Envy. Der. in-
vidious-ly, invidious-ness.
INVIGORATE, to give vigour to. (L.) ‘This polarity...
might serve to invigorate and touch a needle ;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg.
Errors, b. ii. c. 2, § 6. A coined word, formed as if from a L. *in-
nigorare (not found); from iz, prefix, and igor, vigour. See
Vigour.
INVINCIBLE, unconquerable. (F.—L.) In Shak. Cor. iv. 3.
10; and Caxton, Golden Legend, St. Vincent, § last.—F. invincible,
‘fnvincible;’ Cot.—L. inuincibilis.—L. in-, not; and uincibilis,
vincible. See In- (3) and Vincible. Der. invincibl-y, invincible-
ness, invincibili-ty.
INVIOLABLE, that cannot be violated or profaned. (F.—L.)
In Sir T. More, Works, p. 527 g: and in Spenser, F. Q. iv. 10. 33.
=F. inviolable, ‘inviolable ;’ Cot.—L. inuiolabilis.—L. in-, not;
and uiolabilis, that may be violated, from wioldre. See In- (3) and
Violate ; and see below. Der. inviolabl-y, inviolabili-ty.
INVIOLATE, not profaned. (L.) In Spenser, tr. of Virgil’s
Gnat, 1. 425; ME. inuiolat, Hoccleve, De Regim. Principum,
1. 3696.—L. inuiolatus, unhurt, inviolate. —L. in-, not; and ziolatus,
pp- of wioldre, to violate ; see In- (3) and Violate.
INVISIBLE, that cannot be seen. (F.—L.) ME. inuisible,
Chaucer, Legend of Good Women, 1021; Gower, C. A. ii. 247;
bk. v. 3574.—F. invisible; in Sherwood’s index to Cotgrave.=L.
inuisibilis. See In- (3) and Visible. Der. invisibl-y, invisibili-ty.
INVITE, to ask, summon, allure. (F.—L.) ‘God inuwited men
vnto the folowing of himselfe;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 1205 e.
=F. inviter, ‘to invite;’ Cot.—L. inuitire, to ask, bid, request,
invite. Allied to *wit-us, willing ; as seen in in-uitus, unwilling ;
Brugmann, i. § 343. Der. invitat-ion, Merry Wives, i. 3. 50 < F.
invitation, ‘an invitation,’ Cot. ; invit-er, invil-ing-ly.
INVOCATE, to invoke. (L.) In Shak. Rich. ITI, i. 2. 8.=L.
inuocatus, pp. of inuocare; see Invoke. Der. invoca’-ion, ME. in-
uocacioun, Gower, C. A. iii. 46 (bk. vi. 1329), from F. invocation,
“an invocation’ (Cot.), from L. acc. inwocitidnem.
INVOICE, a particular account of goods sent. (F.—L.) ‘Zn-
voice, is a particular of the value, custom, and charges of any goods
sent by a merchant in another man’s ship, and consigned to a factor
or correspondent in another countrey;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
The word is certainly a corruption of invoyes, an English plural of
F. envoi, OF. envoy, a sending. See Jnvoy, an invoice, in N.E.D.
Compare the phrases in Littré: ‘ par le dernier exvoi, j'ai recu’ = by
the last conveyance, I have received, &c.; ‘j’ai recu votre envoi’
=I have received your last consignment; ‘lettre d’exvor,’ an invoice.
See Envoy. 4 A somewhat similar example occurs in the pro-
nunciation of ‘ bourgeois’ type, called by printers burjoice.
INVOKE, to call upon. (F.—L.) £ Whilst I invoke the Lord,
whose power shall me defend;’ Lord Surrey, Psalm §5, l. 27; and
in Shak. Hen. V, i. 2. 104.—F. invoguer, ‘to invoke ;’ Cot.—L.
inuocare, to call on.—L. in, on; and uocare, to call, allied to πῦο-,
stem of dx, voice; see Voice. Doublet, invocate, q. ν.
INVOLUNTARY, not voluntary. (L.) In Pope, Imit. of
Horace, Odes, iv. 1, l. 38; and Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, bk.
iii.c. 1, § 3.—L. inuoluntarius. See In- (3) and Voluntary. Der.
involuntart-ly, involuntari-ness.
INVOLUTE, involved, rolled inward. (L.) “ Involute and
Evolute Figures, certain geometrical figures;’ Kersey, ed. 1715.—
L. inuolitus, pp. of inuoluere; see Involve. Der. involution, from
F. involution, *an involution, enwrapping, enfolding,’ Cot., from L.
inuolitidnem, acc. of inuolitio, a rolling up.
INVOLVE, to infold, wrap up. (F.—L.) ‘That reuerende
studie is inuolued in so barbarouse a langage;’ Sir Τὶ Elyot, The
Governour, b. 1. c. 14, § 1. In Hoccleve, De Regimine Principum,
1. 2657.—F. involver, ‘to involve ;’ Cot. —L. inuoluere, to roll in or
up.—L. in, in; and woluere, to roll; see Voluble. Der. involve-
ment ; involucre, an envelope, from Εἰ involucre, L. inuolitcrum ; and
see Involute.
INVULNERABLBE, not vulnerable. (F.—L.) In Spenser,
F. Q. vi. 4. 4.—F. invulnerable, ‘invulnerable ;’ Cot. —L. inuulner-
abilis. See In- (3) and Vulnerable. Der. invulnerabl-y, invulner-
able-ness, invulnerabili-ty.
INWARD, internal. (E.) ME. inward, adj., St. Juliana, p. 44,
1,12; commonly ady., as in Ancren Riwle, p. 272. [The adv. is
also inwardes, id. p. 92.) AS. inneweard, innanweard, adj.; Grein, i.
143.=AS, innan, inne, adv. within, formed from prep. in, in; and
suffix -weard, with the notion of ‘towards;’ see Toward, To-
wards. Der. inward-s, adv., where -s answers to ME. adverbial
suffix -es, orig. the inflection of the gen. case; inward-ly, AS. in-
weardlice; Grein, i. 144. Also inwards, sb. pl., Milton, P. L. xi.
430.
| meaning ‘ sluggishness ;’
IRON
INWEAVE, to weave in, intertwine. (E.) Milton has inwove,
P. L. iii. 352; inwoven, P. L. iv. 693. Compounded of In- (1) and
Weave.
INWRAP, the same as Enwrap, q.v. (E.)
INWREATHE, to wreathe amongst. (E.) Milton has in-
wreath'd, P. L. iii. 361. From In- (1) and Wreathe.
INWROUGHT, wrought in or amongst. (E.) “ Inwrought with
figures dim;’ Milton, Lycidas, 105. From In- (1) and Wrought,
i.e. worked.
IODINE, an elementary body, in chemistry. (Gk.) First in
1814. So named from the violet colour of its vapour. Formed,
with suffix -ine (asin chlor-ine, brom-ine), from Gk. iwd-ns, contr. form
of ἰοειδής, violet-coloured.—Gk. to-v, a violet; and εἶδ-ος, appear-
ance. See Violet andIdyl. Der. iod-ide.
IOTA, a jot. (Gk.) The name of the Gk. letters. See Jot.
IPECACUANHA, a medicinal West-Indian root. (Port.—
Brazilian.) So defined in Bailey’s Dict., vol. ii. ed. 1731.— Port.
ipecacuanha, given in the Eng.-Port. part of Vieyra’s Dict. Cf. Span.
ipecacuana. Both Port. and Span. words are from the Guarani
(Brazilian) name of the plant, ‘pé-haa-guavta ; where ipé = peb, small ;
kaa, plant; guava, causing sickness (Cavalcanti). See Notes on E.
Etym., p. 337. J Spelt ipecacoanha in Historia Naturalis Braziliz,
1648; p. 17.
TR- (1), prefix. (L.; or F.—L.) The form assumed by the prefix
in- (=prep. im), when the letter r follows. See In- (2). Exx.:
ir-radiate, ir-rigate, ir-rision, ir-ritate, ir-ruption.
TR- (2), prefix. (L.; or F.—L.) For in-, negative prefix, when the
letter r follows. See In- (3). Exx.: all words beginning with ir-, ἡ
except those given under Ir- (1).
IRB, anger. (F.—L.) In Chaucer, C. T. 7587 (D 2005). =F. ire,
‘ire;’ Cot.—L. ira, anger (of doubtful origin). Der. ire-ful, Com.
Errors, v. 151 ; ir-asc-i-ble, in Palsgrave, from Ἐς irascidle, ‘ cholerick’
(Cot.), which from L. irascibilis, adj. formed from irasci, to become
angry ; irascibl-y, irascibili-ty.
IRIS, a rainbow. (L.—Gk.) In Shak. All’s Well, i. 3. 158. —L.
iris, a rainbow.—Gk. fps, Iris, the messenger of the gods; ips,
a rainbow (Homer). Root uncertain. Der. irid-ese-ent, a coined
word, as if from pres. part. of a L. verb irid-esc-ere, to become like
a rainbow, formed with inceptive suffix -esc- from irid-, stem of iris
(gen. irid-is) ; hence iridescence ; also iridi-um (from the decl. stem
widi-). Iris, a flower, is the same word; and see orrice.
IRK, to weary, distress. (E.) Now used impersonally, as in
Shak. As You Like It, ii, 1. 22. A. Formerly used personally.
ME. irken, (1) to make tired, (2) to become tired. Of these, the
transitive (orig.) sense does not often appear, though preserved in
the mod. phrase ‘it irks me,’ and in the word irksome=tiring.
‘ Irkesoum, fastidiosus ; Jrkesumnesse, fastidium ; Irkyn, fastidio, acci-
dior ;’ Prompt. Parv. The intrans. sense is common. ‘To preche |
also pow my3t not yrke’= you must not grow weary of preaching;
Myre, Instructions for Parish Priests, 526. Jrked = shrank back, drew
back; Gawain and Grene Knight, 1573. ‘Swa pat na man moght ©
irk withalle’ =so that none may grow tired withal; Pricke of Con-
science, 8918. ‘ Men schuld yrke to telle them alle ;’ Rob. of Brunne,
Chron. (Rolls Series), 1.11122. B. We also find ME, irk =tired, |
oppressed. ‘Owre frendis of us wille sone be irke’ =our friends will §
soon be tired of us; Sir Isumbras, 118. ‘Syr Arther wos irke,’ 1. 6. Ϊ }
tired; Anturs of Arthur, st. vi. ‘ Thof he was irk [tired ];” Cursor |
Mundi, 6425. Hence for-hirked, for for-irked, very weary; Gen, |
and Exodus, 3658. Palsgrave has: ‘I waxe yrke, 11] me ennuyev j
C. The verb irken, to be tired, is from the adj. irk, tired, weary, |
sluggish ; apparently a back-formation from the AS. irg} (which |
came to be pronounced as irk-j; cf. length, strength), with the
see irgp in Toller. And irgf, iergp was, —
formed (with suffix - 2 Ὁ) from AS. earg, inert, sluggish, weak, timid; )
cognate with Lowl. Scotch ergh, timid, Icel. arg, Du. erg, G. arg,’
cowardly. Cf. 6. es drgert mich, it irks me. See Phil. Soc. Trans.
1903, p. 151. Der. irk-some, irk-some-ness, in the Prompt. Pary., 85,
above. |
IRON, a common metal. (E.; or C.) ME. iren, Chaucer, C. T.,
502 (A 500); yzen (for isex), Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 139, 1. 31. AS.!
iren, both adj. and sb., Grein, ii. 145; older form isen, both adj. and
sb., id. 147; also isern, adj., Alfred, tr. of Gregory, p. 165; shortened
form of *isern-en, as the Goth. form shows.-Du. ¢jzer, formerly
yzer; Icel. jarn, contracted from the old form isarz; Dan. and Swed:
jern; OHG, isarn; ΜΈΓ. isern, isen; G. etsen; Goth. eisarn, sb.
eisarneins, adj. And cf. W. haiarn, Irish iarann, Bret. houarn, iron
B. The Teut. forms are all from the base *isarxo-; and the (εἰ,
forms are likewise from an OCeltic *isarno-, *eisarno-; see Stokes)
Fick, p. 25. And it is suggested that the Teut. forms were bor
rowed from Celtic. Cf. also Goth. aiz, L. aes, brass ; Skt. ayas, 1ror
:
{
a δὲν "pe ey
Der. iron-bound, -clad, -founder, -foundry, -grey, -handed, -heartec
|
|
TRONMONGER
-ma-ter, -mould [see mould (3)], -ware, -work, -witted, Rich. ILI,
iv. 2. 28. Also iron-monger, q.v.
IRONMONGER, a dealer in iron goods. (E.) In Minsheu’s
Dict., 1627; Pepys’ Diary, Feb. 6, 1668-9 ; Beaum. and Fletcher,
Cupid’s Revenge, iv. 3; also irexmanger, York Mysteries, Ὁ." xxii.
See Iron and Monger. Der. iron-monger-y.
IRONY, dissimulation, satire. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘Tronic, a speaking
by contraries, a mocke, a scoffe;’ Minsheu’s Dict., ed. 1627. =F.
ironie (not in Cotgrave, but cited by Minsheu).—L. tronia.—Gk.
εἰρωνεία, dissimulation, irony.—Gk. εἴρων, a dissembler, one who
says less than he thinks or means. β. This Gk. word is a pres.
part. from ἐρέω (εἴρομαι, €popar), 1 ask, I question ; and is an Ionic
form, Cf. eipwréw, Ionic for épwraw, I ask; ἔρευνα, enquiry (base
*reu) ; see Prellwitz. Der. ironi-c-al, ironi-c-al-ly.
IRRADIATE, to throw rays of light upon, light up. (L:) In
Cockeram (1623); Milton, P. L. iii. 53.—L. irradiatus, pp. of
irradiare, to cast rays on. L. ir-=in, on; and radius, a ray. See
Ir- (1) and Ray. Der. irradiat-ion ; also irradiant, from stem of
pres. pt. of irradiare ; irradiance, Milton, P. L. viii. 617.
IRRATIONAL, not rational. (L.) In Milton, P. L. ix. 766,
x. 708; and in Henrysoun, The Cock and Fox. =L. irratidndlis. See
Ir- (2) and Rational. Der. irrational-ly, irrational-i-ty.
TRRECLAIMABLE, that cannot be reclaimed.
First in 1662 (in its present sense).
Reclaim. Der. irreclaimabl-y.
TRRECONCILABLE, that cannot be reconciled. (F.—L.) In
Minsheu, ed. 1627; in Cotgrave; and in Milton, P. L. i. 122.=F.
irreconciliable, ‘ irreconcilable ;’ Cot. Εἰ. ir-<L. ir-=in-, not; and
F. reconcilier, ‘to reconcile ;’ Cot. See Ir- (2) and Reconcile.
Der. irreconcilabl-y, irreconcilable-ness.
IRRECOVERABLE, that cannot be recovered.
In Shak. 2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 360. Milton has irrecoverably, Samson
Agon. 81. Coined from ir-, for in-, not; and F. recouvrable, ‘ re-
coverable;’ Cot. See Ir- (2) and Recover. Der. irrecoverabl-y.
Doublet, irreczperable.
_ IRRECUPERABLE, irrecoverable. (F.—L.) ‘Ye {yeal,
what irrecuperable damage ;’ Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b. i. c. 27.
§ 11.—OF. irrecuperable, ‘unrecoverable ;’ Cot.—L. irrecuperabilis.
=L. ir-=in-, not; and recuperare, to recover. See Ir- (2) and
_ Recover. Doublet, irrecoverable.
IRREDEBMABLE, not redeemable. (F.—L.) A coined
word; first in τόσο. From Ir- (2) and Redeem. Der. irredeem-
᾿ς abl-y.
᾿ IRREDUCIBLE, not reducible. (L.)
| p. 50 (R:); first in 1633. From Ir- (2) and Reduce.
irreducibl-y, irreducible-ness.
IRREFRAGABLE, that cannot be refuted. (F.—L.) In
| More’s Works, p. 1031, col. 1; and Minsheu, ed. 1627.—MF. irre-
| fragable, ‘irrefragable, unbreakable ;’ Cot. =—L. irrefragabilis, not to
| be withstood.—L. ir-=in-, not; and refrigari, to oppose, thwart,
withstand. β. Refragari is of doubtful origin. Perhaps from re-,
back, and frag-, base of frangere, to break ; the orig. sense perhaps
| being ‘to break back ;” but see Bréal. See Fragment. @ The
| long @ appears also in L. suffragium, prob. from the same root.
(F.—L.)
Coined from Ir- (2) and
(F.—L.)
In Boyle’s Works, vol. i.
Der.
Der. irrefragabl-y, irrefragable-ness, irrefragabili-ty.
IRREFUTABLE, that cannot be refuted. (F.—L.) -In Kersey,
| ed. 1715; first in 1620, From Ir- (2) and Refute.
Sutabl-y.
IRREGULAR, not regular. (F.—L.) In Shak. K. John, v. 4.
545 and in Cath. Anglicum (1483).—OF. irreguler. —L. irréguliris.
| See Ir- (2) and Regular. Der. irregular-ly; irregular-i-ty, from
| ME. irreeularité, ‘irregularity,’ Cot.
| IRRELEVANT, not relevant. (F.—L.) Used by Burke (R.).
| From Ir- (2) and Relevant. Der. irrelevant-ly, irrelevance.
, IRRELIGIOUS, not religious. (F.—L.) In Shak. Merry
| Wives, v. 5. 242.— MF. irreligieux, ‘irreligious ;’ Cot. = L. irreligiasus.
See Ir- (2) and Religious. Der. irreligious-ly; irreligious-ness
| δὶς Wordbook).. So also ir-religion, Holland’s Pliny, b. ii. ς, 7,
ed. 1634, p. 4 i.
TRREMEDIABLE, that. cannot be remedied. (F.—L.) In
| Minsheu, ed. 1627; first in 1547.—MI. irremediable, ‘ remediless ;’
| Cot.—L. irremediabilis:—L. ir-, for in-, not; and remediabilis, reme-
| diable, from remedium, a remedy. See Ir- (2) and Remedy.
| Der. irremediabl-y, irremediable-ness.
| IRREMISSIBLE, that.cannot be remitted or forgiven. (F.—L.)
Ϊ Your sinne is irremissible ;” Fryth, Works, p. 3, col. 1. - MF. irremis-
_ sible, ‘unremittable ;? Cot. —L. irremissibilis, unpardonable... See
, Ir-(2) and Remit. Der. irremissible-ness.
| TRREMOVABLE, not removable, firm. (F.—L.) In Shak.
᾿ Wint. Tale, iv. 4. 518. Coined from ir-=in-, not; and removable ;
| see Ir- (2) and Remove. Der. irremovabl-y,
Der. irre-
|
|
|
ISINGLASS 909
IRREPARABBLB, that cannot be repaired. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Temp. iv. 140; and Hoccleve, De Regim. Principum, ]. 2082. —MF.
irreparable, ‘irreparable, unrepairable ;’ Cot.—L. irrepardabilis. See
Ir- (2) and Repair. Der. irreparabl-y, irreparable-ness,
IRREPREHENSIBLE, free from blame. (F.—L.) In Min-
sheu, ed. 1627; ME. irreprehensyble, Wyclif, 1 Tim.-iii. 2 (earlier
text).=MF. irreprehensible, ‘irreprehensible, blamelesse ;’ Cot. =L.
irreprehensibilis, unblamable. See Ir- (2) and Reprehend. Der.
irreprehensibl-y, irreprehensible-necs.
IRREPRESSIBLE, not repressible. (F.—L.) Modern; added
by Todd to Johnson. Coined from ir-=in-, not; and repressible.
See Ir- (2) and Repress. Der. irrepressibl-y.
IRREPROACHABLE, not reproachable. (F.—L.) In Kersey,
ed. 1715; first in 1634. — ΜῈ, irreprochable, ‘ unreprochable ;’ Cot. =
Ε΄ ir-=in-, not; and MF, reprochable, ‘reproachable;’ Cot. See
Ir- (2) and Reproach. Der. irreproachabl-y,
IRREPROVABLE, not reproyable, blameless. (F.—L.) In
Minsheu, ed. 1627. — MF. irreprovable, ‘ unreprovable ;’ Cot. See Ir-
(2) and Reprove. Der. irreprovabl-y, irreprovable-ness.
IRRESISTIBLE, that cannot be resisted. (F.—I..) In Milton,
P. L. vi. 63. Coined from Ir- (2) and resistible; see Resist. Der.
irresistibl-y, irresistible-ness, trresistibili-ty.
IRRESOLUTE, not resolute. (L.) In Shak. Hen. VIII, i. 2.
209; first in 1573. Coined from Ir- (2) and Resolute. Der.
irresolute-ly, irresolute-ness ; also irresolut-ion.
IRRESPECTIVE, not respective. (F.—L.) ‘God’s absolute
irrespective decrees of election ;* Hammond, Works, v. i. p. 462 (R.).
From F. ir-=in-, not; and F. respectif, ‘respective ;’ Cot. See
Respect. Der. irrespective-ly.
IRRESPONSIBLE, not responsible. (L.) ‘Such high and
irresponsible licence over mankind ;’ Milton, Tenure of Kings (R.).
From Ir- (2) and responsible; see Response. Der. irresponsibl-y,
irresponsibili-ty.
IRRETRIEVABLE, not retrievable. (F.—L.) ‘ The ‘con-
dition of Gloriana, I am afraid, is irretrievable ;’ Spectator, no. 423.
From F, ir-=in-, not; and retrievable; see Retrieve. Der..irre-
trievabl-y, irretrievable-ness.
IRREVERENT, not reverent. (F.—L.) .In Milton, P.-L. xii.
ΙΟΙ. “ΜῈ, irreverent, ‘unreverent;’ Cot.—L. irrenerent-, stem of
irreuerens, disrespectful. —L. ir-=in-, not; and reuerens, respectful,
properly pres. part. of reuerérz, to revere. See Revere. Der.
irreverent-ly ; irreverence, Chaucer, C. T. Pers. ‘Tale, De Superbia,
sect. τ (I 391). ᾿
IRREVOCABLE, that cannot be recalled. (F.—L.) ‘In
Spenser, F. Ὁ. vi. 2. 15; and in Palsgrave.<F. rrevocabie, ‘ irre-
vocable;’ Cot.—L. irrenocabilis.—L. ir-=in-, not ; and reuocabilis,
revocable, from rezocare, to recall. See Revoke. Der. irrevocadl-y,
irrevocable-ness,
IRRIGATE, to water. (L.) ‘Irrigate, to water ground;’
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. And earlier, in Minsheu, ed. 1627.—L.
irrigalus, pp. of irrigare, to moisten, irrigate, flood.—L. in, upon,
or as an intensive prefix; and rigGre, to wet, moisten. Der. irrigat-
ion; also irrig-u-ous, Milton, P. L. iv. 255, from L. irriguus, adj.
irrigating, allied to trrigire.
IRRISION, mocking, scorn. (F.—L.) Rare; in Minsheu, ed.
1627. —MF. irrision, ‘ irrision, mocking ;’ Cot.—L. irrisidnem, acc.
from irrisio, a deriding; cf. irrisus, pp. of irridére, to laugh αἵ. -
L. ir-=in, at; and ridére, to laugh. See Risible.
IRRITATE, to provoke. (L.) ‘Jrritate [provoke] the myndes
of the daunceis;’ Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b. i. c. 19.1,
irritatus, pp. of irritdre, perhaps, to cause to snarl, also to pro-
voke, tease, irritate. B. Prob. a frequentative from irrire, also
spelt Airrire, to snarl as a dog, which seems to be an imitative word.
Der. irritat-ion=F. irritation, ‘an irritation’ (Cot.), from L. acc.
irritatiénem ; irritat-ive, irritat-or-y; irrit-ant, from the stem of pres.
pt. of irritare; also irrit-able, in Minsheu, ed. 1627, from L.
irritabilis ; irrit-abl-y, irrit-able-ness, irrit-abili-ty.
IRRUPTION, a bursting in upon, sudden invasion. (.—L.)
‘An irruption, or violent bursting in;”’ Minsheu, ed. 1627. - Εν irrup-
tion, ‘an irruption, a forcible entry;’ Cot.—L. irruptionem, acc. of
irruptio, a bursting into. - L.ir-=in, in, upon; and reptio, a bursting ;
cf. rupius, pp. of rumpere, to burst. See Rupture. Der. irrupt-ive,
irrupt-ive-ly, from pp. irruptus of irrumpere, to burst in.
IS, the 3 pers. pres. of the verb substantive. (E.)
further under Are, Essence.
ISINGLASS, a glutinous substance made from a fish. (Du.)
‘Ising-glass, a kind of fish-glue brought from Island [Iceland], -us’d
in medicines;’ Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715. Spelt ison-glass in 1662
(N. E. D.). A singular perversion of MDu. huyzenblas, mod. ‘Du,
huisblad. ‘Isinglass, huyzenblas;’ Sewel’s Eng.-Du. Dict.; 1754.
The lit. sense is ‘ sturgeon-bladder;’ isinglass being obtained from
AS. “is; see
810 ISLAM
the bladder of the sturgeon (Accipenser sturio).— MDu. huys, a stur-
geon; blaese, a bladder (Kilian).--G. hausenblase, isinglass; from
hausen, a kind of sturgeon (answering to MDu. huyzen); and blase
(=Dnu. δίας), a bladder, from blasen, to blow, allied to E. Blast.
ISLAM, the religious system of Mohammed. (Arab.) ‘The
revolt of Islam ;’ Shelley. — Arab. islam, lit. ‘ submission,’ or ‘ resigna-
tion.’ Arab. root salama, he was resigned; whence also salaam,
Moslem, Mussulman.
ISLAND, an isle, land surrounded by water. (E.) The s is
ignorantly inserted, owing to confusion with is/e,a word of F. origin ;
see below, In Spenser, F. Q. ii. 6.11, the word is spelt island in
the Globe edition, but ἡ]αγια in the passage as quoted in Richardson.
ME. iland, ilond, yland, ylond ; spelt ylond in Octovian Imperator,
1. 539 (Weber’s Met. Romances, ili. 179); ilond, Layamon, 1. 1133
(later text), AS, igland, Grein, ii. 136. B. The AS. ig-land is
compounded of ig, an island, and land, land; prob. by association
with éa-land, an island, from éa, water. Grein (1i. 136) gives ig, ieg
as equivalent forms, with references; the word is also written ég in
Mercian (id. i. 233); and in Eng. local names appears as -ea or -ey,
as in Batters-ea, Aldern-ey, Angles-ey. 6. Cognate words are: Du.
eiland, an island, formerly written eyland (Sewel); Icel. eyland; Swed.
oland, used as a proper name for an island in the Baltic Sea; G.
eiland. ὃ. Dropping the syllable -Jand, we also find AS. ig, ieg,
Mercian ég (as above); Icel. ey, an island; Dan. and Swed. 6, an
island ; also G. ave, a meadow near water. All from Teut. *agwia,
fem. of *agwioz, adj., belonging to water; an adj. formed from Teut.
*ahwa, water, represented by AS. δα, OHG. aha, Goth. ahwa,astream,
cognate with L. agua, water. See Aquatic. Thus the AS. δα sig-
nifies ‘ water ;’ whence ieg, ig, ‘a place near water,’ lit. ‘ aqueous ;’
and ig-land, an island. Der. island-er, Temp. ii. 2. 37.
ISLE, an island. (F.—L.) Quite distinct from the E. island, in
which the s was ignorantly inserted. It is singular that, in the word
isle, the s was formerly dropped, thus tending still further to confound
the two words. ME. ile, yle; Rob. of Glouc., p. 1, 1. 33 Wyclif,
Deeds [Acts], xxviii, 1.—OF. ille, ile; MF. isle, ‘an isle ;’ Cot. ;
mod. F. ile.—L. insula, an island. See Insular. Der. is/-et, in
Drayton’s Polyolbion, 5. 24, note, from MF. isletve, ‘a little island’
(Cot.), a dimin. form. And see isola/e.
ISOCHRONOUS, performed in equal times. (Gk.) In Phillips’
Dict., ed. 17¢6 (s. ν. Zsochrone). Imitated from Gk. ἰσόχρονος, con-
sisting of an equal number of times (a grammatical term). =—Gk. igo-,
for ἴσος, equal; and χρόνος, time, whence also E. Chronicle.
B. The Gk. ἴσος or ἶσος is perhaps allied to Gk. εἶδος, form; Brug-
mann, i. § 345 (c). Cf. Skt. wishu-, adv., equally. Der. isochron-ism.
ISOLATE, to insulate, place in a detached situation. (Ital. —L.)
The word occurs in the Preface to Warburton’s Divine Grace, but
was censured in 1800 as being a novel and unnecessary word (Todd).
And see note in Trench, Eng. Past and Present. ‘Todd remarks,
further, that isolated was properly a term in architecture, signifying
detached. It was thus at first a translation of Ital. ‘solato, detached,
separate, formed as an adj. (with pp. form) from isola, an island. =
L. insula, an island; also, a detached house or pile of buildings,
whence insulatus, insulated, answering to Ital. isolato. See Insular.
@ The F. isole is likewise borrowed from the Ital. isolato; the E.
word was not taken from F., but directly from the Italian. Der.
isolat-ion. Doublet, insulate.
ISOSCELES, having two sides equal, as a triangle. (L.—Gk.)
In Phillips’ Dict., ed. 1706.— L. isosceles. —Gk. ἰσοσκελής, with equal
legs or sides. —Gk. ἰσο-, for ἴσος, equal (see Isochronous); and
σκέλος, a leg, which see in Prellwitz.
ISOTHERMAL, having an equal degree of heat. (Gk.)
Modern. Gk. ἴσο-, for ἴσος, equal; and θέρμ-η, heat; with adj.
suffix -al. See Isochronous, Thermometer.
ISSUE, that which proceeds from something, progeny, produce,
result. (F.—L.) ΜΕ, issue. ‘To me and to myn issue;’ P. Plow-
man, C, xix. 259. ‘An isswe large;’ Chaucer, Troil. ν. 205.—OF.
issué, ‘the issue, end, success, event;’ Cot. A fem. form of issz,
‘issued, flowen, sprung, proceeded from;’ pp. of issir, ‘to issue, to
go, or depart out;’ id.—L, exire, to go out of; from ex, out, and
are, to go; see Exit, The F. pp. issw answers to Folk-L. *exiitus,
for L. exitus. Der. issue, verb, borrowed from the sb.; ‘we issued
out’ is in Surrey’s tr. of Virgil, where the L. text has ‘iuuat ire,’
fEneid, ii. 27; ME. iswen, Rich, Coer de Lion, 4432. [The ME.
Northern verb was isch, common in Barbour’s Bruce, and borrowed
from the Τὸ, vb. issir.] Also issu-er; issue-less, Wint. Ta. v. 1. 174.
ISTHMUS, a neck of land connecting a peninsula with the main-
fand. (L.—Gk.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627; spelt ‘s¢mus in Cotgrave, to
translate MI’. isthme.—L. isthmus.—Gk. ἰσθμός, a narrow passage,
neck of land; allied to ἴθμα, a step; from 4/EI, to go.
IT, the neuter of the third personal pronoun, (E.) Formerly also
hit, P. Plowman, A,, i, 85, C. ii. 83; but ἐξ in the same, B. i. 86,
IWIS
AS. hit, neuter of ke; see He.-+Icel. hit, neut. of hinn; Du. het,
neut. of hij; Goth. hita. δῷ" The gen. case its was just coming
into use in Shakespeare’s time, and occurs in Temp, i. 2. 95, &c.,
but the usual form in Shak. is kis, as in AS. We also find ἐξ in
Shak. (with the sense of ¢s) in the first folio, in 13 passages, Temp.
ii. 1. 163, &c. See the articles in The Bible Wordbook and in
Schmidt’s Shak. Lexicon. Jts does not once occur in the Bible, ed.
1611, which has 7¢ where mod. editions have ts in Levit. xxv. 5;
but first appears in Florio’s Ital. Dict. (1598), 5. ν. Spontaneamente.
The use of hit for his (=ifs) occurs early, viz. in the Anturs of
Arthur, st. vili. 1. 11, and in Allit. Poems, B. 264. The AS. neuter
form is hit, nom.; his, gen.; him, dat.; Ait, acc. Der. it-self; see
Self.
ITALICS, the name given to letters printed thus—in sloping type.
(L.) So called because invented by Aldo Manuzio (Aldus Manutius),
of Venice, about A.p. 1500. Aldo was born in 1449, and died in
1515. Letters printed in this type were called by the Italians corsivi
(cursive, or running hand), but were known to other nations as
Italics; see Engl. Cyclop. s.v. Manuzio.—L, Jtalicus, Italian. —L.
Ttalia, Italy (Gk. Ἰταλία). The initial 7 15 long. Der. italic-ise.
ITCH, to have an irritating sensation in the skin. (E.) Like if
(Ξ ΜΕ. yif, 3if=AS. gif) this word has lost an initial ME. y or
3=AS. g. ME. then, icchen, 3ichen, 3iken; see Prompt. Parv. pp.
259,538. The pp. occurs in Chaucer, C. T. 3684, where the Six-text
(A 3682) has the various spellings icched, yched, and 3echid, AS.
giccan, for *gyccan, to itch; in AS. Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, vol.
li. Ὁ. 50, 1.135 whence AS. gyhda, an itching, in Aélfric’s Hom.
i, 86.4 Du. jeuken, to itch; whence jeuking, jeukte (= AS. gyhpa), an
itching; G. jucken, to itch; OHG. jucchan. Teut. type *jukjan- or
*jukkjan-. Der. itch, sb., itch-y.
ITEM, a separate article or particular. (L.) The mod. use of
item as a sb. is due to the old use of it in enumerating particulars.
Properly, it is an adv, meaning ‘also’ or ‘likewise,’ as in Shak. Tw.
Nt. i. 5. 265: ‘as, tem, two lips, indifferent red; stem, two grey
eyes;’ &c.—L. item, in like manner, likewise, also; closely related
to ita, so; cf. ts, he. Cf. Skt. i¢tham, thus; ittha, thus; ti, thus.
ITERATE, to repeat often. (L.) Bacon has iterations and
iterate in Essay 25 (Of Dispatch). Shak. has sterance, Oth. v. 2. 150
(folio edd.); iteration, 1 Hen. IV, i. 2. lot.—L. iterdtus, pp. of
iterare, to repeat. —L. iterum, again; a comparative adverbial form
(with suffix -¢er-) from the pronom. base I of the third person; see
Item. Cf. Skt. i-ara(s), other. Der. iterat-ion, iterat-ive.
ITINERANT, travelling. (L.) ‘And glad to turn itinerant ;’
Butler, Hudibras, pt. ili. c. 2. 1. 92. —L, itinerant-, stem of pres. pt.
of the verb itinerari, to travel. — L. itiner-, stem of i/er, a journey. =
L, it-um, supine of ire, to go.—4/EI, to go; cf. Skt. ὦ, to go. Der.
itinerant-ly, itineranc-y, itinerac-y. Also itinerary (Levins), from L.
ilinerdrium, an account of a journey, neut. of i/iner-Grius, belonging
to a journey, from the base itiner- with suffix -arius.
IVORY, a hard white substance chiefly obtained from the tusks
of elephants. (F.—L.) ME. yuory, ivorie (with « for v), Chaucer,
C. T. 7323 (Ὁ 1741); also spelt every, Trevisa, i. 79.—AF. ivorie,
Charlemagne, ed. Michel, 1. 353; OF. ivurie, ivory, a 12th-century
form, cited by Littré; later ivoire, ‘ivory;’ Cot. (Cf. Prov. evori,
Bartsch, Chrestomathie Provencale, 29. 20, whence perhaps the ME.
form exery. Also Ital. avorio, avolio.j}—L. eboreus, adj. made of
ivory.—L. ebor-, stem of ebur, sb. ivory. B, Supposed by some to
be connected with Skt. zbha-s, an elephant. Der. ivory, adj., ivory-
black, ivory-nut.
IVY, the name of a creeping evergreen. (E.) ‘He moot go pypen
in an ivy-leef;’ Chaucer, C. T. 1840 (A 1838). AS. ifig, ivy; see
Gloss, to AS. Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne; also ‘fegn, an old form in
the Corpus glossary, 1. 718. {The AS. / between two vowels was
sounded as v, and the change of AS. -ig to E. -y is regular, as in AS.
stan-ig = E. ston-y].4--OHG. ebahewi, ivy (cited by Kluge) ; G. epheu.
B. The AS. if-ig seems to be a compound word. The syllable ἐξ is
equivalent to Du. e- in ei-loof, ivy (lit. ivy-leaf); and to OHG,
eba(h)- in ebahewi; but the orig. sense is unknown. Der, ‘vy-mantled,
tvi-ed.
IWIS, certainly. (E.) ME. ywis, iwis; Chaucer, C. T. 3277;
3705. Common in Shak., as in Merch, Ven, ii. 9. 68, Tam. Shrew,
i. 1. 62, Rich. III, i. 3. 102. AS. gewis, adj. certain; gewislice, adv.
certainly; Grein, i. 43.4-Du. gewis, adj. and adv., certain, certainly;
G, gewiss, certainly. Cf. Icel. viss, certain, sure. B. All from Teut.
type *wissoz, for *wittoz (Idg. *wid-tos), pp. from the base wif- in
Teut. *wil-an-, to know. See Wit (1). From 4/ WEID, to know.
> It is to be particularly noted that the ME. prefix i- (=AS. ge-)
was often written apart from the rest of the word, and with a capital
letter. Hence, by the mistake of editors, it is sometimes printed J wis,
and explained to mean ‘I know.’
verb wis, to know, has found its way into many dictionaries,
Hence, further, the imaginary
IZARD
IZARD, a kind of antelope. (F.) Modern. =F. iserd; perhaps of
Tberian origin (Hatzfeld).
IZZARD, the letter Z. (F.—Gk.) Written ezod in 1597 (N.E.D.);
tzzard in Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, A. iv.—F. ézed, a 1’.
name for the letter (see my Notes on E. Etym., p. 146); Prov. izédo,
izéto (Mistral).—Gk. ¢j7a, the name of the 6th letter of the Gk.
alphabet,
JABBER, to chatter, talk indistinctly. (F.?) Formerly jaser or
jable. ‘Whatsoeuer the Jewes would jaber or iangle agayn ;’ Sir T.
More, Works, p. 665 c. ‘To abil, multum loqui;’ Levins, ed.
1570. ΜΕ. iaberen, to chatter; see under T'ateryn in Prompt.
Parv. And cf. gibber, Hamlet, i. 1. 116. ‘Jabber, Fabble are imita-
tive words, similar to gabber, gabble, which are from the base gab,
seen in Icel. gabba, to mock, scoff. More immediately, they may be
teferred to OF. jaber, given by Godefroy as a variant of gaber, to
mock. Cf. also MF. javioler, ‘to gabble, prate, or prattle;* Cot.
Of imitative origin. See Gabble; and cf. Du. gabberen, ‘to
jabber’ (Sewel). Der. jabber-er.
JABIRU, a large wading bird of tropical America. (Brazil.)
From the Tupi-Guarani (Brazilian) jabirw; see Hist. Nat. Brasilice,
1648 ; ii. 200.
JACAMAR, a bird of the family Galbulide. (F.—Brazil.)
F. jacamar (with c as 5), Brisson, = Tupi-Guarani (Brazilian) jacama-
cirt; Hist. Nat. Brasiliz, 1648; ii. 202; Newton, Hist. Birds.
JACANA, a grallatorial aquatic bird. (Brazil.) From Tupi-
Guarani (Brazilian) jasand; written jacana (for jagana); see Newton,
Hist. Birds ; and Hist. Nat. Brasiliz, 1648 ; ii. 190.
JACINTH, a precious stone. (F.—L.—Gk). In the Bible, Rev.
ix. 17; xxi. 20. ‘In Rev. ix. 17, the hyacinthine, or dark purple,
colour is referred to, and not the stone; as in Sidney’s Arcadia (B. i.
p- 59, 1. 28), where mention is made of ‘* Queene Helen, whose Zacinth
haire curled by nature,’ &c.;’ Bible Wordbook, ed. 1866. [But
I should explain ‘iacinth haire,’ like ‘ hyacinthine locks’ in Milton,
ΡΟ Το, iv. 301, to mean ‘hair curling like the hyacinth,’ without refer-
| ence to colour.] ME. iacynte, Wyclif, 2 Chron. ii. 7 (earlier version),
| iacynct (later version). Gower has jacinctus; C. A. ili, 112; bk. vii.
842.—OF. jacinthe, ‘the precious stone called a jacint;’ Cot. —Late
L. iacintus, hiacinthus, for hyacinthus, a jacinth, Rey. xxi. 20 (Vul-
gate).—Gk. ὑάκινθος ; Rey. xxi. 20. See Hyacinth. @ Thus
| jacinth is for hyacinth, like Jerome for Hierome or Hieronymus, and
Jerusalem for Hierusalem.
JACK (1), a saucy fellow, sailor. (F.—L.—Gk.—Heb.) The
phrase ‘thou Sire John’ is in Chaucer, C. T. 14816 (B 4000); on
which Tyrwhitt remarks: ‘I know not how it has happened, that in
| the principal modern languages, John, or its equivalent, is a name of
| contempt, or at least of slight. So the Italians use Gianni, from
| whence Zani; the Spaniards Fuan, as bobo Huan, a foolish John; the
| French ean, with various additions ; and in English, when we call
| aman a Fohn, we do not mean it as a title of honour. Chaucer, in
| 1. 3708, uses Facke fool, as the Spaniards do bobo Juan; and I suppose
| jack-ass has the same etymology.’ ‘Go fro the window, }acke fool,
she said;’ Chaucer, C. T. 3708. This ME. Yacke has been supposed
᾿ to have been borrowed from the Ἐς, Fagues; but it is hard to believe
that this common French name should have been regarded as an
| equivalent to the E. common name John, since it really answers to
| Facob. Indeed, a strong case has been made out by Mr. E. Β.
| Nicholson (in his Pedigree of Jack, 1892) for regarding it as short
| for Facken (found in 1327) which is a variant of Jankin, the regular
_ dimin. of Hohn, and so used by Chaucer, C. T., B 1172. See further
| under Zany. 8. Itisdifficult to tell to what extent the various senses
| of the word jack depend upon the name above. a. It is, however,
clearly to be traced in the phrase ‘Jack ο᾽ the clock, Rich. I, v. 5. 69,
where it means a figure which, in old clocks, used to strike upon the
bell. B. Ina similar way, it was used to name various implements
| which supplied the place of a boy or attendant, as in boof-jack and in
| the jack which turns a spit in a kitchen. γ. Similarly, it denoted
the key of a virginal; Shak. Sonnet 128. 8. Hence perhaps also
a familiar name for the small bowl aimed at in the game of bowls;
| Shak. Cymb. ii. 1,2. €. And for a small pike (fish), as distinct from
| a full-grown one; and in many other instances (see N.E.D.). Der.
Ι Fack-o-lent = Jack of Lent, a puppet thrown at in Lent, Merry Wives,
Il. 3. 27; Fack-a-lantern= Jack ο᾽ lantern, also called Yack-with-the-
| lantern, an ignis fatuus (see Todd’s Johnson) ; Yack-pudding, Milton,
Defence of the People of England, c. r(R.), compounded of Yack
and pudding, just as a buffoon is called in French Fean-pottage (John-
JAG 311
pottage) and in German Hans-wurst (Jack-sausage); fcck-an-apes
(for which see below); ‘fack-by-the-hedge, ‘an herb that grows by
the hedge-side,’ Kersey, ed. 1715, 1. 6. Sisymbrium Alliaria, see Lyte,
tr. of Dodoens, bk. v. c. 72; jack-ass; jack-daw, Pliny, b. x.
c. 29 (and not a corruption of chough-daw, as it has been desperately
guessed to be): cf. MF. jaquette, ‘a proper name for a woman, a
piannat, or megatapy’ [magpie], Cot. Also jack-screw, a screw for
raising heavy weights, &c.
JACKANAPKHS, a tame ape, a man who displays tricks like
an ape; used as a term of contempt. Tyndall has Jack an apes
(Iacke a napes in ed. 1528); Works, 1572, p. 132, col. 1, 1.11. ‘He
grynnes and he gapis As it were iack napis;’ Skelton, Why Come
ye nat to Courte, 1.651. History shows that the orig. form was Iack
Napes, and it is first known as a nick-name of Wm. de la Pole,
duke of Suffolk (murdered in 1450), whose badge was an ape’s clog
and chain, such as was usually attached to a tame ape. It is
possible that, at the same time, there was a covert meaning in
Napes (which also then meant Nafles), because he advocated the
king’s marriage with Margaret, daughter of René, titular king of
Jerusalem, Sicily, and Naples ; which made him unpopular,
JACK (2), a coat of mail, a military coat worn over the coat of
mail. (F.—L.—Gk.—Heb.) ‘ Jakke of defence, iak of fence, garment,
Baltheus ;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 256, and note, showing that the word
was in use as early as 1375. ‘ lacke, harnesse, iacg, iacqgue ;’ Pals-
grave. - OF. Faque, ‘ James, also a Tack, or coat of maile, and thence,
a Tack for the body of an Irish grey-hound .. . put on him when he
is to coap’ [with a wild boar]; Cot. Cf. Ital. giaco, a coat-of-mail,
Span. jaco, a soldier’s jacket; also Du. jak, G. jacke, Swed. jacka,
a jacket, jerkin. β. Of obscure origin. Most likely Ducange is
right in assigning the origin of it to the Facquerie, or revolt of the
peasantry nicknamed Facgues Bonhomme, A. D. 1358. That is, it is
from the OF. name 4acques.—L. Iacdbus.—Gk. ᾿Ιάκωβος. — Heb.
Fa‘aqab, Jacob, lit. ‘one who seizes by the heel.’—Heb. root ‘agab,
| to seize by the heel, to supplant. 4 In some instances, jack (1)
| and jack (2) were doubtless confused ; as, e.g. in blackjack. Der.
| jack-et, q.v.; also jack-boots, boots worn as armour for the legs, in
the Spectator, no. 43553 black-jack (Nares, s. v. jack’.
JACKAL, a kind of wild animal. (Turk.—Pers.) In Dryden,
Annus Mirabilis, st. 82, 1. 327; Sir T. Herbert, Travels, ed. 1665,
p- 115. Spelt Zaccal in Sandys, Trav. p. 205. -- Turk. chakal. = Pers.
shaghal; Palmer's Pers. Dict. col. 383. Cf. Skt. grgala-s, a jackal,
a fox.
JACKET, a short coat. (F.—L.—Gk.—Heb.) ‘Ina blew jacket-’
Spenser, Mother Hubberd’s Tale, 1. 205. Palsgrave has facket.=—
OF, jaquette, ‘a jacket, or short and sleevelesse country-coat ;” Cot.
Dimin. of OF. jaque, ‘a jack, or coat of mail;’ Cot. See Jack (2).
Der. jacket-ed.
JACOBIN, a friar of the order of St. Dominick. (F.—L.—Gk.
—Heb.) ‘Now frere menour, now Jacobyx ;’ Rom. of the Rose,
1. 6338.—F. jacobin, ‘a jacobin;’ Cot.—Low L.' Facdbinus, adj.
formed from Facdbus; see Jack (2). 8Β. Hence one of a faction
in the French revolution, so called from the Hacobin club, which first
met in the hall of the Jacobin friars in Paris, Oct. 1789 ; see Haydn,
Dict. of Dates. CC, Also the name of a hooded (friar-like) pigeon ;
F. jacobine, fem. of jacobin. Der. Facobin-ic-al, Facobin-ism.
JACOBITE, an adherent of James 11. (L.—Gk.—Heb.)
Formed with suffix -ite (=L. -ita), from facdb-us, James. See Jack
(2). Der. Facobit-ism.
JACONET, a cotton fabric. (Hind.—Skt.) At first imported
from India; spelt jaconot in 1769. ‘Corrupted from Urdii [Hind.]}
Fagannathi, from Jagannath (Juggernaut) or Fagannithpiri in Cut-
tack, where it was originally manufactured ;’ N. E.D. See Jugger-
naut. (Hind. pir =a town.)
JADE (1), a sorry nag, an old woman. (Scand.?) ME. jade
(MS. Jade), Chaucer, C. T. 14818 (B 4002). Also found as jaud,
jad (E.D.D.). Of unknown origin; unless it can be a variant of
Lowl. Sc. yaud, yad, yade, which seems probable; see E.D.D. If
so, it is from Icel. jalda, a mare; cf. prov. Swed. jalda, a mare
(Rietz). . Der. jade, vb. to tire, spurn, Antony, iii. 1. 34.
JADE (2), a hard dark green stone. (F.—Span.—L.) In Bailey’s
Dict., vol. ii. ed. 1731. Cf. F. jade, Span. jade, jade. Florio's Ital.
Dict. gives the form iada. The jade brought from America by the
Spaniards was called piedra de yada, because it was believed to cure
pain in the side (see Pineda, s.v. piedra); for a similar reason it was
called nephritis (from Gk. veppés, kidney). Hence F. jade is from
Span. jada, also tjar, the flank; cf. Port. ihal, ilharga, the flank,
side. L. ilia, pl., the flanks. Korting, § 4708.
JAG, a notch, a pointed shred. (F.?) ‘Fagge, or dagge of a
garment;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 255. ‘I iagge or cutte a garment;
Tagge, a cuttyng;’ Palsgrave. Cf. iaggen, to pierce, strike through ;
Morte Arthure, 2087. Apparently coined as a parallel form to dag ;
312 JAGGERY
and as dag may have been (in some of its senses) suggested by F.
dague, a dagger (see Morte Arthure, 2102), so jag may have been
suggested by an OF. *jagaye, variant of zagaye or azagaye or archegaie,
an assagai (Cot., Godefroy). Godefroy and Cotgrave quote the
dimin. form jagayetle; and archigaie occurs in Froissart; see
Assagai. Der. jagg-ed, spelt iaggde in Gascoigne, Steel Glas,
1161; whence /o-iagged, Skelton, Llinour Rummyng, |. 124; jagg-
ed-ness; jagg-y.
JAGGERY, a coarse brown sugar. : (Port. —Canarese— Skt.)
Spelt gagara, Hakluyt, Voy., ii. pt. 1. 252.— Port. jagara, jagra.—
Canarese sharkare (11. H. Wilson).—Skt. carkara. See Sugar.
JAGUAR, aS. American beast of prey. (Brazilian.) In a trans-
lation of Buffon’s Nat. Hist., London, 1792. The word is Brazilian ;
see Buffon, Quadruped. t. 111. pp. 289, 293 (Littré). ‘agua in the
Guarani [Brazilian] language is the common name for tygers and
dogs. The generic name for tygers in the Guarani language is
FJaquarete;’ Clavigero, Hist. of Mexico, tr. by Cullen, ii. 318 (ed.
1787). Cavalcanti gives Brazil. yduara, a dog, ydudra-eté, iducra-ete,
a jaguar ; Granada, in his Vocab. Rioplatense, gives ‘jaguar, tigre.’
See my Notes on E. Etym., p. 338.
JAIL, another spelling of Gaol, q.v. (F.—L.)
JALAP, the root of a Mexican plant. (Mexican.) ‘ Falap, the
root of a kind of Indian night-shade;’ Phillips’ Dict., ed. 1706.
And in Coles, ed. 1684. Named from Falapa or Xalapa, in Mexico.
From Aztec Xalapan, lit. ‘sand by the water;’ from xal(/?), sand,
a(¢l), water, and pan, on, near; where -/i, -¢] are suppressed in com-
position. See my Notes on E. Etym., p. 332.
JALOUSIE, a blind made with slats sloping upward from with-
out. (F.—L.—Gk.) First in 1824.—F. jalousie, ‘jealousie; also
a lattice window, or grate to look through;’ Cot. So called because
it prevents strangers from seeing in. = F. jalowx, jealous; see
Jealous.
JAM (1), to press, squeeze tight. (E.) ‘am, to squeeze ;’
Halliwell. ‘fammed in between the rocks;’ Swinburne, Travels
through Spain (1779), let. 3, p.8. ‘4am, to render firm by treading,
as cattle do land they are foddered on ;’ Marshall’s Rural Economy
of Norfolk (E.D.S. Gloss. B. 3). The same word as cham, or
champ. ‘I chammea thyng small bytwene my tethe, or champe ;’
Palsgrave. ‘Champ [with excrescent p], to tread heavily, Warwick-
shire; to bite or chew, Suffolk ;’ Halliwell. Whence also: ‘Champ,
hard, firm, Sussex ;’ id.; i.e. chammed or jammed down, as if by
being trodden on; and see E.D.D. See Champ, which is of
imitative origin. 4 For the common and regular change from ch
to 7, see Jaw, Jowl.
JAM (2), a conserve of fruit boiled with sugar. (E.) In
Johnson’s Dict.; and in Ashe (1775). Apparently from Jam (1).
The following quotation suggests that it may mean a soft substance,
resembling what has been chewed. ‘And if we haue anye stronger
meate, it must be chammed afore by the nurse, and so putte into the
babe’s mouthe;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 241h. See Champ.
ΑΜΒ, the side-post of a door. (F.—L.) ‘%aum of the door, the
side-post. This word is also used in the South, where they say the
jaum of the chimney;’ Ray, Collection οἵ North-Country Words,
1691. Spelt jawmbe in Cotgrave. ‘ Yea, the jambes, posts, principals,
and standards, all of the same mettall;’ Holland, tr. of Pliny, b.
xxxiii. c. 3, 8. 7. And in Baret (1580).—F. jambe, ‘the leg or shank,
... the jaumbe or side-post of a door ;” Cot. Cf. Ital. gamba, Span.
gamba, the leg; Port. gambias, pl. the legs. —Late L. gamba, a hoof;
Vegetius, 1. δύ, near the end; 3. 20. From an older form camba,
which appears in the book of Cerne (see Gambol), and in O. Spanish
(Diez, whom see). Closely allied to O. Celtic *kambos, crooked
(Stokes-Fick) ; so that the word was orig. used of the bent leg or the
knee. Cf. W. cam, crooked. And see Ham. Der. giamb-eux,
leggings, greaves, Spenser, F. Q. ii. 6. 29; jambeaux, Chaucer, C. T.,
B 2065; pl. from an AF, *iambel; from OF. jambe.
JANE, a twilled cotton cloth; see Jean.
JANGLE, to sound discordantly, to quarrel. (F.—Scand.) ‘A
jangling of the bells;’ Shak. Per. ii, τ. 45.. Hence jangle=to
make discordant; ‘like sweet bells jangled;’? Haml. iii. 1. 166.
ME. janglen, to quarrel, talk loudly. ‘To jangle and to jape;’
P. Plowman, B. ii. 94. Spelt gangle, Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 7413. —
OF. jangler, ‘to jangle, prattle, talk saucily or scurvily;’ Cot.
B. Of Scand. origin. Swed. dial. and Norw. jangla, to quarrel ;
cf. Du. jangelen, 1o importune (Sewel), a frequentative form (with
suffix -e/) from Du. jaxken, to howl, yelp as a dog (Sewel). Cf.
Low G. janken, to yelp as a dog; Bremen Worterb. ii. 636; also
Westphal. jdanglen, to play out of tune. Of imitative origin ; cf. L.
gannire, to yelp as a dog, talk loudly. Der. jangl-er, jangl-ing ; see
jingle.
“TANIZARY, JANISSARY, a soldier of the old Turkish
footguard, (I’,—Ital.~ Turkish.) Bacon speaks of ‘the Janizaries’
JASMINE, JESSAMINE
in Essay 19, Of Empire, near the end. ‘There is an earlier reference
to them in Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 279 f. ‘ Fanissaries, an order of
infantry in the Turkish army : originally, young prisoners trained to
arms ; were first organised by Orcan, about 1330, and remodelled by
his son Amurath I. 1360... . A firman was issued on 17 June, 1826,
abolishing the Janizaries ;” Haydn, Dict. of Dates. And see Gibbon,
Roman Empire, c. 64.—MF. Fannissaires, ‘the Janizaries;’ Cot.
Μ. Ital. tanizzeri, ‘the Turkes gard;’ Florio. Of Turkish origin ;
the word means ‘new soldiery ;’ from Turk. ye7i, new, and cheri,
soldiery (Devic). The # represents saghir noon, a nasal letter peculiar
to Turkish. And cheriisfrom Pers. charik, auxiliary forces (Zenker) ;
see Rich. Dict., p. 53
JANUARY, the
(MS. Zanuary), Chaucer, C. T. 9267 (E 1393).
Tainudrius, January, named from the god Janus.
is allied to Diana (Bréal).
JAPAN, aname given to certain kinds of varnished work. (Japan.)
Properly ‘ ¥apan work,’ where Yapan is used adjectivally. Named
from the country; see Yule. Pope playfully alludes to ‘shining
altars of Japan ;’ Rape of the Lock, iii. 107. Der. Hence japan,
verb, to varnish like Japan work, to polish ; japann-er, a polisher of
shoes, shoe-black, Pope, Imit. of Horace, Epist. i. 1. 156.
JAPH, to jest, mock, befool. (F.—Scand.) Obsolete. In Chaucer,
C. T. 1731; P. Plowm. B. i. 67. Apparently suggested by OF.
japer (Hatzfeld), F. japper, to bark as a dog, to yap, of imitative
origin; but in sense answering rather to OF. jaber (Godefroy),
variant of gaber, ‘to mock, flout, gull, cheat,’ Cot.; which has just
the same sense as jape. Roquefort has gap=gab, mockery. = Icel.
gabba, to mock; gabb, mockery. Puitspelu gives Lyons dial. japia,
foolish stories. See Gabble, Jabber.
JAR (1), to make a discordant noise, creak, clash, quarrel. (E.)
‘ All out of ioynt ye iar ;” Skelton, Duke of Albany, 1. 378. And see
Shak. Tam. Shrew, iil. 1. 39,473 ν. 2.1. Jar stands for an older form
char, only found in the prov. EK. char, to chide, and in the derivative
charken, to creak like a cart or barrow (Prompt. Parv.), also to creak
like a door (Gower, C, A. ii. 102); cf. also AS, ceorian, cerian, to
murmur, MDu. karren, kerren, ‘to crake [creak] like a cart,’ Hexham;
OHG. kerran, to give a loud harsh sound; cf. Jargon and Gar-
rulous. Der. jar, sb., spelt jarre, Spenser, Ἐς Q. ili. 3. 23.
JAR (2), an earthen pot. (F.—Span.—Arab.) ‘A great jar;’
Ben Jonson, tr. of Horace’s Art of Poetry; 1. 28. And in Cotgrave.
The Latinized form jarrus occurs in The Earl of Derby’s Expeditions
(Camden Soc.), p. 228, 1. 18.—OF. jare, ‘a jarre,’ Cot.; mod. F.
jarre. (Cf. Span. jarra, a jug, pitcher; Ital. giara, giarra, ‘a iarre;’
Florio.}—Span. jarra, jarro, a jar (Pineda); jarro (Minsheu).—
Arab. jarrah, a jar (Devic) ; cf. Pers. jurrah, a little cruise, or jar ;
Rich. Dict. p. 504, col. 5. Probably borrowed by the Spanish from
the Arabs.
JARGON, a confused talk. (F.—L.?) ME. jargon, jergon,
chattering. ‘And ful of jargon’=very talkative; Chaucer, C. Τὶ
9722 (E 1848). Particularly used of the chattering of birds ; Gower,
C. A. ii, 264; bk. v. 4103; Rom. of the Rose, 716.—F. jargon,
‘gibridge, fustian language,’ Cot.; jargonner, ‘to speak fustian,
jangle, chatter, id. The word is old, and appears also as OF,
gergon, gargon (Godefroy). Cf. Span. gerigonza, Jargon; gerigonzar,
to speak a jargon; Ital. gergo, jargon. B. All perhaps from
7:
first month of the year. (L.) ME. Fanuary
Englished from L.
Iainus (for *Dianus)
|
]
|
{
an imitative base garg- (cf. garg-le, gurg-le), prob. allied to |
L. garrire; see Jar (1). This extended form GARG, answering
to a Teut. base KARK, is exactly represented in English by ME,
charken, to creak as a cart, and the AS. cearcian, to gnash the
teeth (AElfric’s Homilies, i. 132). Anattenuated form of charkenis the _
‘Al ful of chzrking —
ME. chirken, to chirp, to make a harsh noise,
[ =jargon] was that sory place;” Chaucer, C. T. 20c6 (A 2004).
JARGONELLE, a variety of pear. (F.—Ital.— Arab. —Pers.)
In Johnson’s Dict.—F. jargonelle, a variety of pear, very stony or
gritty (Littré).
Formed (according to Littré) as a dimin. from F, _
jargon, a yellow diamond, a small stone. =Ital. giargone, a sort οἵ
yellow diamond; E. zircon.—Arab. zargiin.—Pers. zargun, gold- |
coloured, from zar, gold, and giin, colour ; see Devic, Supp. to Littré,
and Yule.
JASEY, JAZY, a wig made of worsted or tow. (Jersey.) ‘The |
old gentleman in the flaxen jazy;’ Scott, Redgauntlet, ch. xxi [not |
xx]. For Jersey, because made of Jersey yarn; see Forby, Vocab,
of E. Anglia. See Jersey.
JASMINE, JESSAMINE, a genus of plants. (F.—Pers.) |
Spelt jasmin, jessemin, jelsomine, jesse, in Cotgrave. Milton has jessa-
mine, P. L. iv. 698; Lycidas, 143. The spelling jasmin agrees with
MF. jasmin; Cot. Fessemin, jelsomine answer to the Ital. forms—
gesmino, gelsomino. ‘The Span. form is jazmin. All are from Pers.
yasmin, jasmine; of which another form is yasamin, jessamine; Rich.
Pers. Dict. p. 1703 ; Palmer's Pers, Dict. col. 715.
JASPER
JASPER, a precious stone. (F.—L..—Gk.— Arab.) ME. Jaspre,
Tasper. ‘ What is bettre than gold: Jaspre;’ Chaucer, C. T., Tale
of Melibeus, B 2297. Also spelt Zaspis, Gower, C. A. iii. 112; bk.
vii. 841.—OF. jaspre (see Littré), an occasional spelling of OF. and
F. jaspe, ‘a jasper stone :᾿ Cot. [Thus the r is an addition, and no
real part of the word.]—L. iaspidem, acc. of iaspis, a jasper.—Gk.
taoms.— Arab. yasb, yasf, also spelt yashb, jasper ; whence Pers. yashp,
yashf, jasper; Rich. Pers. Dict. p. 1707; Palmer's Pers. Dict. col.
719. Cf. Heb. sashpheh, a jasper.
JAUNDICH, a disease caused by bile. (F.—L.)
Merch. Ven. i. 1. 85. The d is purely excrescent, as commonly in
FE. words after 2; cf. sound from F. son. ME. Jaunys, Pricke of Con-
science, ]. 700; spelt aundys, Trevisa, ii. 113; further corrupted to
iawndres, ina 15th-cent. tr. of Higden, on the same page as the last
reference. = OF. (and F.) jaunisse, so spelt in the 13th cent. (Littré) ;
but Cot. gives it as jaulnisse, ‘the jaundies.’ Formed with suffix -isse
(=L. -itia) from F. jaune, yellow; because the disease is character-
ized by yellowness of the skin and eyes. ‘Lhe oldest spelling of jaune
is jalne (Littré).—L. galbinus, also galbineus, greenish yellow. =L.
galbus, yellow. The likeness of L. galbus to G. gelb is so close as to
suggest that it is of Teutonic origin ; the true L. form being heluws.
See Yellow. Der. jaundic-ed.
JAUNT, a tiring ramble, an excursion. (F.) It would seem
from the exx. in Shak. that jawnt and jaunce are equivalent terms.
Jaunt isa wild and fatiguing ramble, Romeo, ii. 5. 26; where another
reading is jaunce; cf. geances, fatiguing journies, in Ben Jonson,
A Tale of a Tub, A. ii (Hilts). It also means to ramble, rove, id.
ii. 5. 53, where another reading for jaunting is jaunsing. Again, Shak.
has: ‘Spurred, galled, and tired by jauncing Bolingbroke,’ i.e. hard-
riding Bolingbroke. This jaunce is from ME. jancer, of which
Cotgrave says: ‘ Yancer vn cheval, to stirre a horse in the stable
till he sweat with-all, or as our jaunt; an old word.’ Not found
in OF. Cf. E. dial. jankit, jaded; Swed. dial. jank, useless trouble,
slow motion (Rietz); Norw. jauka, to stagger. Der. jaunt, vb., to
tamble. 4 I suggest that jaunt arose from jaunts, a corrupt form
of jaunce, taken as a plural form.
JAUNTY, JANTY, genteel, stylish, fantastical. (F.—L.) ‘We
owe most of our jazty fashions now in vogue to some adept beau
among them’ [the French]; Guardian, no. 149; dated 1713. Asif
formed with suffix -y from the verb jawnt, to ramble idly about; but
formerly janty or jantee, also jentee, variants of genteel, and used in
the same sense. See therefore Genteel. B. Exx.: ‘This jantee
sleightness to the French we owe ;” T. Shadwell, Timon, p. 7: (1688).
‘A jaunty [genteel] part of the town;’ Spectator, no. 503. ‘Turn
you about on your heel with a jantee air;’ Farquhar, The Inconstant,
Act 1. Cf. also ‘Sae jimpy lac’d her gen?y waist;’ Burns, Bonie
Ann. Der. jaunt-i-ness, Spectator, no. 530.
JAVELIN, a kind of spear or dart. (F.—C.?) Used in the
sense of boar-spear, Shak., Venus, 616. ‘Javelyn, a speare, tauelot ;’
Palsgrave.—MF. javelin, m., javeline, f., ‘a javeling, a weapon of a
size between the pike and partizan ;? Cot. Cf. MF. javelot, ‘a gleave,
dart, or small javelin;’ Cot. Also Span. jabalina, Ital. giavellotto,
a javelin. β. Perhaps of Celtic origin. The Breton gavlin and
gavlod are merely borrowed from the French; but the origin is
shown by the Irish gabhla, a spear, lance; gabhlach, forked, divided,
peaked, pointed ; gabhlan, a branch, a fork of a tree; gabhlog, any
forked piece of timber; gabhal, Olrish gabul, a fork. Cf. Gael. gobhal,
afork; gobhlach, forked, pronged; gobhlag, a small fork, two-pronged
instrument; gobslan, a prong, small fork, weeding-hook. Also W.
gafl, a fork; gaflach, a fork, a dart. See Gaff. γ. Hence may
also be explained the ME. gavelok, a javelin, dart, in King Alisaunder,
1.1620; AS. gafeluc, Voc. 143.6; also MHG, gabildt, a javelin (from
F.). See Thumeysen, p. 63; Macbain, s. v. gobhal.
JAW, part of the mouth. (F.—L.) ME. jowe; ‘ Yowe or cheke-
bone, Mandibula;’ Prompt. Parv. ‘ jit drow [drew] I him out of
pe Towes, scilicet faucibus, of hem pat gapeden;’ Chaucer, tr. of
Boethius, b. i. pr. 4,1. 70. ‘pe ouer iawe’=the upper jaw, Trevisa,
ill. 109; with various readings, jawe, geowe.— AF. jowe, glossed
“cheke ;’ W. de Bibbesworth, in Wright’s Voc. i. p. 145; Norm. dial.
joe, Guernsey jaue (Moisy); F. jove, the cheek ; OF, joe (with o for
later ou), Chanson de Roland, 1. 3921; corresponding to Ital.
‘ota, ‘a cheek, a iaw’ (Florio), Prov. gauta; which Diez derives
tom Late L. gavata, L. gabata, a kind of platter, a bowl; from the
Tounding of the jaw. Korting, § 4103. 41 Palsgrave has chawe-
bone; this alteration to chaw is later, and due to association with the
verb to chew. Somewhat similar is the MDu. souwe, the cavity of the
mouth, from MDu. kouwen (Du. kaauwen), to chew; Kilian. Der.
jaw-bone, Bible, 1551, Judg. xv. 153 jaw-teeth; jaw-fallen, Fuller,
Worthies, Essex (R.) ; lantern-jaw-ed.
JAY, a bird with gay plumage. (F.-OHG.) ME. jay, Jay;
Chaucer, C. T. 644; King Alisaunder, 1. 142.—MF. jay (older
͵
In Shak.
JENNETING 318
spellings gay, gai), a jay; Cot. Mod. F. géai; Gascon gat; Norm.
dial. gai. So also Span. gayo, a jay, gaya, a magpie. B. Hardly
from OHG, gahi (MHG. gehe, G. jak), adj., quick, lively (Kluge).
But rather allied to gay, OF. gai; and to be derived from OHG,
wiahi, fine, beautiful. Korting, § 1718.
JEALOUS, suspicious of rivalry, tender of honour. (F.—L.— Gk.)
ME. jalous, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1331 (A 1329). Earlier gels, Ancren
Riwle, p. 90, where it occurs to translate L. zéldtes. —OF. jalous, later
jaloux, ‘jealous;’ Cot. Cf. Ital. geloso, Span. zeloso, jealous.—
Late L. zéldsus, full of zeal; related to 1,. zé/6¢és, one who is jealous.
“αι, zélus, zeal. — Gk. ζῆλος, zeal; see Zeal. Der. jealous-ly; jealous-y,
ME. jalousye, Chaucer, C. T. 12360 (C 366), from F. jalousie ;
also jalousie, q.v. _Doublet, zealous.
JEAN, JANE, a twilled cotton cloth. (F.—Ital.) ‘ Gene
fustian;’ in 1589; H. Hall, Society in Eliz. Age, p. 210. Cf. ME.
Gene, Genoa; spelt Geaxe in The Paston Letters, ii. 293.—MF.
Genes, Genoa. = Ital. Genova, Genoa; whence it was brought.
JEER, to mock, scoff. (F.—L.?) In Shak. Com. Errors, 11. 2. 22.
‘He saw her toy, and gibe, and geare;’ Spenser, F. Q. ii. 6. 21:
‘There you named the famous jeerer, That ever jeered in Rome or
Athens;’ Beaum. and Fletcher, Nice Valour, vy. 1 (Song). It seems
to have been regarded as a foreign word ; see Ben Jonson, Staple of
News, iv. 1.5: ‘Let’s jeer alittle. ‘eer? what’s that? Expect, sir,’
i.e. wait a bit, and you will find out. Not found before 1553.
B. The origin of the word is doubtful. If it were a slang term, it
might be a corruption of Du. scheren, scheeren, From the Du. gek,
a fool, and scheeren, to shear, was formed the phrase den gek scheeren
(lit. to shear the fool), to mock, jeer, make a fool of one. Soon these
words were run together, and the word gekscheeren was used in the
sense of jeering. See Sewel’s Du. Dict., which gives the above forms,
as well as the sb. gekscheeren, ‘a jeering, fooling, jesting : Zk laat my
niet gekscheeren, I will not be trifled with.’ ‘This is still preserved in
mod. Du. gekscheren, to jest, banter, and in the phrase het is geen gek-
echeren, it isno laughing matter. The phrase was also used as scheeren
cen gek, to play the fool; whence simply scheeren, ‘ to gibe, or to jest’
(Hexham). γ. But it accords better with phonetic laws to derive it
from OF, (or AF.) giere, an occasional variant of OF. chiere, whence
E. cheer. Godefroy has: ‘S'aucuns hons te fait d’amere giere,’ if
any man makes you bitter cheer (jeers at you). Again, in his Supple-
ment: ‘ Mas faites bale, giere, ioie, solas, et ris,’ but dance, make
cheer and joy, and pleasure, and laughter. From the phr. faire male
chere, to make ill cheer, to frown upon. See Cheer. 4 See my
Note; Phil. Soc. Trans., 1902. Der. jeer, sb., Oth. iv. 1. 83-
JEHOVAH, the chief Hebrew name of the Deity. (Heb.) In
Exod. vi. 3. — Heb. yahdvah, or more correctly yhwh (not pronounced) ;
see article on Jehovah in the Concise Dict. of the Bible.
JEJUNE, hungry, meagre, empty. (L.) ‘ We discourse jejznely,
and falsely, and unprofitably;’ Bp. Taylor, pref. to Great Exemplar.
-L. iéiinus, fasting, hungry, dry, barren, trifling, poor. Of uncer-
tain origin. Der. jejune-ly, jejune-ness,
JELLY, anything gelatinous, the juice of fruit boiled with sugar.
(F.—L.) In Hamlet, i. 2. 205. ME. Jely; Lydgate, Hors, Shepe,
and Goos; 1. 70. Hence geli-cloth; Earl of Derby’s Expeditions
(Camd. Soc.), p. 234. Sometimes spelt gelly.—¥. gelée, ‘a frost, also
gelly ;’ Cot. Properly the fem, form of gelé, frozen, pp. of geler, ‘ to
freeze, to thicken or congeale with cold;* Cot. —L. gelare, to congeal.
“Το gelu, frost. See Gelatine, Gelid, Congeal. Der. jelly-fish.
JEMADAR, a native officer in a sepoy regiment. (Hind. — Arab.
and Pers.) See Yule.— Hind. jama‘dar, a jemadar. = Arab. jamé‘at,
a body of men (from Arab. root jama‘a, he collected); and Pers. dar,
a holder, master. See N. E. D.; and Rich. Dict., pp. 518, 646.
JENNET, GENNET, a small Spanish horse. (F.—Span.—
Arab.) Yennets; Shak. Oth. i, 1. 113. ‘A breeding jennet;’ Shak.
Venus, 260. ‘ We have xx. thousande of other mounted on genettes ;’
Bemers, tr. of Froissart, vol. i. c. 236. “ Iennettes of Spayne;’ Squyr
of Lowe Degre, 1. 749.— MF. genette, ‘a genet, or Spanish horse ;”
Cot.—Span. ginete, a nag; but the orig. sense was a horse-soldier,
esp. a light-armed horse-soldier. Minsheu (1623) has: ‘ ginete,
a light horseman that rideth a /a gineta ;” also “ cavalgar a la Gineta,
to ride with the legs trussed up in short stirrups, with a target and
a ginnet launce.’ Of Moorish origin. The word is traced by Dozy
(Glos. p. 276) to Arab. zenata, a tribe of Barbary celebrated for its
cavalry; see Devic, Supp. to Littré.
JENNETING, an early apple. (F.—L.—Gk.—Heb.) ‘In July
come... plummes in fruit, ginnitings, quadlins ;’ Bacon, Essay 46,
Of Gardens. ‘ Contrariwise, pomgranat-trees, fig-trees, and apple-
trees, liue a very short time; and of these, the hastie kind or éenitings,
continue nothing so large as those that bear and ripen later ;’
Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xvi.c. 44. So called because they were ripe
about St. John’s day (June 24) in France and Italy ; but in England
sometimes later, See Hogg’s Fruit Annual, pp. 361, 522. Cf. pere-
JEOPARDY
Jonettes [Jeannot pears] in P. Plowman, ©. xiii. 2214, and the note.
Sometimes spelt geniton (N. E. D.).=—F. Feanneton, Feannet ; from
Jean, John. Cotgrave has: ‘Pomme de δ. Fean, or Hastivel, a soon
tipe apple called the St. John’s apple.’ Cf. G. Fohannisapfel, “ John
apple, geniting;” Fligel. See Jack (1). € Commonly said to
be a corruption of Fune-eating apples!
JEOPARDY, hazard, peril, danger. (F.—L.) ME. jupartie, later
ieopardy or jeopardy. ‘ Hath lost his owen good thurgh jupartye ;’
Chaucer, C. T. 16211 (ἃ 743). The various readings in this line
are Iupartie, Iopardy, Iopardye, and Iepardye, Spelt Iupartye, Chaucer,
Troilus, ii. 465. The original sense was a game in which the chances
are even, a game of hazard, hence hazard or chance; as in: “ΤῸ
putte that sikernes in jupartye=to put in hazard that which is secure ;
ΤΟΙ]. iv. 1512. —OF. jeu parti, lit. a divided game. ‘A jeu parti is
properly a game, in which the chances are exactly even. See Froissart,
y. i. c. 2343 Ils n’estoient pas a jeu parti contre les Francois (= for
they were unequal in numbers to the French) (Johnes’ translation) | :
and vol. ii. c. 9, si nous les voyons ἃ jeu parti. From hence it sig-
nifies anything uncertain or hazardous. In the old French poetry,
the discussion of a problem, where much might be said on both
sides, was called a jeu parti, See Poesies du Roy de Navarre,
chanson xlviii..—Tyrwhitt’s note to Chaucer, C. Τὶ 16211,—Late L.
iocus partitus, an alternative, a phrase used when a choice was given,
of choosing one side or the other; see Ducange.=—L, iocus, a joke,
jest, sport, play, game; and parfitus, divided, pp. of partiri, to part,
from part-, stem of pars, a part. See Joke and Part. Der.
jeopard, to hazard (coined by dropping -y), Judges, v. 18, ME.
Iuparten, Chaucer, Troil. iv. 1566; jeopardise, vb.; also jeopard-ous,
spelt zeopardeous in Hall’s Chron. Hen, VIII, an. 25, § 10; jeopard-
ous-ly, | @J Observe the AF. diphthong eo, representing the F. eu.
JERBOA, a small rodent quadruped. (Arabic.) Mentioned in
an E. translation of Buffon’s Nat. Hist., London, 1792. The animal
takes its name from the strong muscles in its hind legs.— Arab.
yarbi‘, ‘(1) the flesh of the back or loins, an oblique descending
muscle; (2) the jerboa, an animal much resembling the dormouse,
which makes prodigious bounds by means of its long hind legs; see
Nat. Hist. of Aleppo, by Russell ;’ Rich. Pers. Dict. p. 1705, col. 2.
JEREED, JERID, a wooden javelin, used ina game. (Arab.)
‘The hurl’d on high jereed ;’ Byron, Giaour, ix.— Arab, jarid, a palm-
branch stripped of its leaves, a lance. Rich. Dict., p. 505.
JERK, to give a sudden movement, throw with a quick action.
(E.) Cotgrave has: ‘ Fouetter, to scourge, lash, yerke, or jerke.’ In
Shak. as a sb, L. L. L. iv. 2.129. ‘A zerk, verber;’ Levins, ed.
1570. ‘With that which jerks [lashes] the hams of every jade;’
Bp. Hall, Satires, b. iii. sat. 5, 1. 26, Lowland Sc. yerk, to beat,
strike smartly; a smart blow. ‘To jerke or gerke;’ Minsheu, ed.
1627. ‘A girke or yerke of a rod or whip;’ Minsheu’s Span. Dict.
(FE. index). Halliwell also gives: ‘Girk, a rod; also, to beat.’
β. Another form is yert. Cotgrave has: ‘At/ainte, a reach, hit, blow,
stroke,...a gentle nip, quip, or jert, a sleight gird, or taxation.’
y- Moreover, the words jert and gird were regarded as equivalent;
thus Sherwood has, in his index to Cotgrave: ‘A jert or gird,
Attainte.” The words jerk, jert, and gird are probably all connected,
and all had once the same meaning, viz. to strike, esp. with a whip
or rod. δ. The only one of these three forms found in ME. is
gurden, girden, to strike ; see gurden in Stratmann. See Gird (2).
4 Ιἰ may be added that the usual meaning of jer# in old authors 15
to whip, to lash; as partly shown above. Der. jerk, sb.
JERKED BEEF, dried beef. (Peruvian.) ‘The beef thus called
is cut into thin slices and dried in the sun to preserve it. The process
is explained in Capt. Basil Hall’s Extracts from a Journal written
on the coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico, vol. i. c. 4. The name is
a singular corruption of cchargut, the S. American name for it, which
is a Peruvian word, ‘ The male deer and some of the coarser kind
of the Peruvian sheep were slaughtered ;. . . and their flesh, cut into
thin slices, was distributed among the people, who converted it into
charqui, the dried meat of the country ;’ Prescott, Conquest of Peru,
αν. B. An earlier form is jerkin beef. ‘ Their fish and flesh they
boyle . . or broyle..; or else .. putting it on a spit, they turne first
the one side, then the other, till it be as drie as their zerkin beefe in the
West Indies ;? Capt. J. Smith, Works, ed. Arber, p. 63.—Peruv.
echarguini, to make jerked (or hung) beef. Cf. Peruv. cchargut, sb.,
a slice of flesh or hung beef or dried beef, Still common in the form
charqui, sb., dried flesh, unsalted, in long strips; Granada, Vocabu-
lario Rioplatense. See my Notes on Eng. Etym., p. 343-
JERKIN, a jacket, short coat. (Low G.) ‘With Dutchhin
dublets, and with Jerkins iaggde;’ Gascoigne, Steel G!ass, ]. 1161
(in Spec. of Eng. ed. Skeat). Similar forms are Westphal. jiirken,
a kind of overcoat; EFries. jurken, a child’s frock. The origin is
unknown ; but perhaps it is from some name. Thus under EFries.
Djure, Koolman notes that EFries. Djurko, Diurko is their form of
314
JET
Du. Dirk (ἃ, Dietrich, Thecdoric), whence also the surnames Djurven
and Furken. ‘Ferkin may represent Djurken, whilst the forms jurken,
jtirken (above) may come from Furken; so also may the late Du.
jurk, a frock (Sewel). β. I prefer the solution suggested by Berg-
haus; that Low G. Furi isa pet name for George, and that it also
takes the dimin, form #iirgex, and in Hamburg Fiirkex; cf. OF.
Georget, a sort of casaque (Godfrey). And cf. E. jacket (Athenzeum,
Jan. 10, 1903); Phil. Soc. Trans., 1903, p. 153.
JERSEY, fine wool, a woollen jacket. (Jersey.) ‘ Fersrey, the
finest wooll taken from other sorts of wooll, by combing it;’ Kersey,
ed. 1715. Lit. ‘ Jersey wool,’ and named from ersey, one of the
Channel islands. On the termination -ey, meaning ‘island,’ see
Island. Of Scand. origin.
JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE, a kind of sunflower. (Ital. —
L.) ‘There is a soup called Palestine soup. It is made, I believe,
of artichokes called Ferusalem artichokes, but the Jerusalem artichoke
is so called from a mere misunderstanding. The artichoke, being
a kind of sun-flower, was called in Italian girasole, from the Latin
gyrus, circle, and sol, sun. Hence Jerusalem artichokes and Palestine
soups!’ Max Miiller, Lect. on Language, 8th ed. ii. 404.— Ital.
girasole,a sun-flower. = Ital. girare, to tum; and sole, sun. —L. gyriire,
to turn round, from gyrus (=Gk. ydpos), a circle; and sdlem, acc. of
sol, sun. See Gyre and Solar.
JESSAMINE, the same as Jasmine, q. v.
JESSES, straps of leather or silk, with which hawks were tied by
the legs. (F.—L.) In Shak. Oth. iii. 3. 261. ‘ That like an hauke,
which feeling herselfe freed From bels and jesses which did let her
flight τ᾿ Spenser, F. Ὁ. vi. 4.19. ‘ esses for a hauke, get ;’ Palsgrave.
ME. ges, both 5. and pl. “Με ofhalt thane uogel be the ges,’ one
restrains the bird by the jess; Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 254. ‘ Gesse
made of leder’ [leather]; Book of St. Albans, fol. b 5, back. OF.
ges, gies, nom., get, giet, acc.; pl. ges, gies (Godefroy, 5. ν. giet) ;
MF. jects, pl. ‘ Gect, a cast or throw, as at dice; /es jects d’un oyseau,
a hawkes Jesses;’ Cot. So called from their use in letting the hawk
fly.—L. ‘actus, nom., a cast, throw (acc. iactum).—L. iactus, pp. of
iacere, to throw. Cf. also OF. jeter, MF. jecter, ‘to cast, hurl;” id.
=L. iactare, to hurl, throw, frequentative of iacere, to throw. See
Jet (1).
JEST, a joke, fun. (F.—L.) In Shak. Temp. iv. 241. Orig.
a story, tale. ME. geste, a story, a form of composition in which
tales were recited. ‘ Lat see wher [whether] thou canst tellen aught
in geste ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 13861 (B 212). “1 cannot geste’=I cannot
tell tales like a gestour, or professed tale-teller; id. 17354 (I 43).
Geste=a tale, a saying; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, A. 277.—OF.
geste, an exploit, a history of exploits, romance, tale; chansons de
geste, heroic poems; see Burguy. = L. gesta, used for rés gesta, a deed,
exploit, lit.‘ a thing performed ;’ or from L, gesta, neut. pl. = L. gestus,
pp- of gerere, to carry on, do, perform. See Gesture. Der. jest,
vb., jest-ing-ly; also jest-er=ME. gestour, a reciter of tales, as in:
‘And gestours for to tellen tales,’ Chaucer, C. T. 13775 (B 2036).
From L, gerere are also formed gesé-ure, gest-i-cu-late, con-gest-ion,
di-gest, in-di-gest-ion, sug-gest, re-gist-er ; also belli-ger-ent, con-ger-
ies, ex-ag-ger-ate.
JESUIT, one of the Society of Jesus. (F.—Span.—L.—Gk. —
Heb.) In Cotgrave. The order was founded in 1534 by Ignatius
Loyola; see Haydn, Dict. of Dates. —MF. Fesuite, ‘a Jesuite;’ Cot.
—Span. Feswita (the order being of Spanish foundation), Formed
with suffix -i/a (=L. ita as in L. er€ém-ita=Gk. -ἰτῆς as in ἐρημίτης,
a hermit) from L, Jésa-, for lésus, q.v. Der. jesuit-ic, jesutt-ic-al,
jesuit-ic-al-ly, jesuit-ism; all words with a sinister meaning, craft
being commonly attributed to the Jesuits.
JESUS, the Saviour of mankind. (L.—Gk.—Heb.) In Wyclif’s
Bible. —L. Jésiis (Vulgate).—Gk. Ἰησοῦς. -- Heb. Féshi‘a (Jeshua,
Nehem. viii. 17, a later form of Joshua); contracted form of Yeho-
shiv‘a (Jehoshua, Numb. xiii. 16), signifying ‘ Jehovah is salvation’ or
‘ Saviour.’ = Heb. root yasha‘, to be large; in the Hiphil conjugation,
to save. Der. Jesuit, q.v. Doublets, Fochua, Feshua, Fehoshua.
φῶ In ME. commonly written in a contracted form (Ihs), which -
by editors is often printed Fhesus. This is really an error, the hk
standing for the Gk. H (long δ), so that ‘Ihs’=Tésws. So also ‘Thi’
= Iésu.. In Gk. capitals, it is IHC, where H=long ὃ and C=s,
being a form of the Gk. sigma; the mark above signifying that the
form is contracted. In later times IHC became IHS. Lastly (the
H being misunderstood) the ingenious fiction arose that IHS meant
Iesus Hominum Salvator = Jesus Saviour of Men. The mark, being
then unmeaning, was turned into a little cross, as on modern altar-
cloths.
JET (1), to throw out, fling about, spout. (F.—L.) In Tudor-
English it commonly means to fling about the body, to strut about,
to stalk about proudly. ‘ How he jets under his advanced plumes ;’
Tw. Nt. ii. 5. 36. ‘Then must ye stately goe, ie/ting yp and downe;’
JET
Ralph Roister Doister, A. iii. sc. 3. 1. 121 (in Spec. of Eng. ed. Skeat).
ME. getten, ietten; see Prompt. Pary. pp. 192, 258, and Way’s notes;
also Hoccleve, De Regimine Principum, 428. ‘I iette, 1 make a
countenaunce with my legges, ie me iamboye; I iette with facyon and
countenaunce to sette forthe myselfe, ie braggue;’ Palsgrave.—OF.
jetter, also getter, ‘to cast, hurl, throw, fling, dart or send cut
violently, put or push forth ;᾿ Cot.—L. iactdre, to fling, frequent. of
iacere, to throw: whence iactare s?, to boast. Der. jet, sb, ME. get,
in early use in the sense of ‘ fashion;’ cf. ‘ Get, or maner of custome,
Modus, consuetudo,’ Prompt. Pary.; ‘al of the newe Jet’ =all in the
new fashion, Chaucer, C. T. 684 (A 682); this answers to OF, ief or
get (mod. F. jet), which Cot. explains by ‘a cast or throw, as at
dice.’ [The mod. sense of jet is a spout of water, as in Pope,
Dunciad, ii. 177.) Hence also jetteau, Spectator, no. 412, for Ital.
getto, a jet, by confusion with F. jet d’eau=a spout of water, a foun-
tain (where Εἰ, eaw=L, aqua, water). Also jet-sam, q. v., jett-y, q.V-
ty From L., iacere (pp. iactus) are numerous derivatives ; as, ab-ject,
ad-ject-ive, con-ject-ure, de-ject, e-ject, in-ject, inter-ject-ion, ob-ject, pro-
ject, reject, sub-ject; also ad-jac-ent, circum-jac-ent, sub-jac-ent, e-jac-
ulate; also amice (1), agistment, gist, joist, jesses.
JET (2), a black mineral, used for ornaments. (F.—L.—Gk.)
‘His bille was blak, and as the Jeet it shoon;’ Chaucer, C. Τὶ 14867
(Β 4051).—OF. tatet (Hatzfeld, 5. v. jais), iayet (Godefroy); MF.
jet, jaet, ‘jet;’ (οἵ. “Τὸ, gagiitem, acc. of gagatés, jet (whence the
forms gayet, jaet, jet in successive order of development); see Trevisa,
ii. 17, where the L. has gagates, Trevisa has gagates, and the later
Ε΄ version has iette. Described in Pliny, xxxvi. 19.—Gk. γαγάτης,
jet; so called from Taya, a town in Lycia, in the S. of Asia Minor.
Der. jet-black ; jett-y, Chapman. tr. of Homer, 11. ii. 629; jett-i-ness.
JETSAM, JETSON, JETTISON, things thrown overboard
from a ship. (F.—L.) “ Fetson is a thing cast out of the ship, being
in danger of wreck, and beaten to the shore by the waters, or cast
on the shore by mariners; Coke, vol. vi. fol. 106.a;’ Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674 (5. v. flotson) ; jetson, in Minsheu.— AF. getesone,
Black Book of the Admiralty, i. 96, 170; OF. getaison (Godefroy). =
L. iactationem, acc., a casting. = L. iactare, to cast out. Cf. F. ‘faire
le iect, to throw the lading of a ship overboard;’ Cot. See Jet (1).
JETTY, a projection, a kind of pier. (F.—L.) Lit. ‘thrown
out.’ ME, gettey; Lydgate, Troy-book, fol. N 1, back, col. 2, 1. 2
(bk. ii. c. 21). The same as Jutty, 4. v.—OF. g<tee, MF. jettée,
a cast, hurle, throw, fling, also a jetty or jutty; also, the bank of
a ditch, or the earth cast out of it when it is made;’ Cot. Properly
the fem. of the pp. of OF. geter, F. jeter, to throw. See Jet (1).
JEW, a Hebrew. (F.—L.—Gk.—Heb.) ME. Jewes, pl. Jews;
Chaucer, C. T, 124¢9 (C 475); earlier, Giwes, Giws, Ancren Riwle,
p- 106.— AF. Jeu, Gex,a Jew; Εἰ, γι}; Cotgrave. = Late L. Iadeum,
ace. of Jadeus, — Gk. Ἰουδαῖος, an inhabitant of Judzea. Gk. ᾿Ιουδαία,
Judzea.—Heb. Yehiidah, Judah, son of Jacob; lit. ‘celebrated’ or
‘illustrious.’ = Heb. root yadah, to throw; in the Hithpiel conjuga-
tion, to praise, celebrate. Der. Yew-ess (with F. suffix); Few-ish;
FJew-ry, ME. Iewerie, Chaucer, C. T. 13419 (B 1679), earlier Giwerie,
Ancren Riwle, p. 394, signifying ‘a Jew’s district,’ from OF. Fuierie
(Littré)=mod. F. Fuiverie. Also Fews-harp, Hakluyt, Voy. iii. 665,
1. 21, sometimes called ‘%ews-trump, as in Beaum. and Fletcher,
Humorous Lieutenant, A. v. sc. 2. 1. 10; a name given in derision,
prob. with reference to the harp of David.
JEWEL, a precious stone, valuable ornament. (F.—L.) ME.
iowel, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 112, 1. 6; ἐμοὶ, id. p. 77, 1. 1.—AF.
iuel, iouel; OF. joiel, joel, jouel (Godefroy); later joyau, ‘a jewell ;’
Cot. Origin disputed; either (1) from Late L. ioca/e, usually in pl.
iocalia, jewels (lit. trinkets), from L. iocari, to play (OF. joer, jouer).
=L. tocus, play; see Joke. Or (2) a dimin. (with suffix -el) of OF.
and F, joie, joy, pleasure; so that the sense is ‘a little joy, i.e. a
toy, trinket. Cf. Span. joye/, a jewel, trinket, dimin. of joya, a jewel,
present (answering in form to F. joie, though not used in same sense).
Also Ital. giojello, a jewel, dimin. of gioja, (1) joy, (2) a jewel. See
further under Joy. > ~The use of Span. joya and Ital. gioja in the
~ sense of ‘jewel’ supports the latter etymology; hence some think
that the word was misunderstood in the middle ages, so that ‘jewel’
Was translated into Late L. in the form jocdle, preserving the sense of
‘toy,’ but missing the etymology, which was thought to be from L.
tocus instead of from gaudium, the sense of the two words being not
Very different. See Toynbee, §§ 76, 143; Kérting, §§ 4188, 5182.
Der. jewell-er, with which cf. MF. joyallier, a ‘jeweller,’ Cot. ; jewell-
er-y or jewel-ry, with which cf. MF. joyaulerie, ‘ jewelling, the trade
or mystery of jewelling,’ Cot.
JIB (1), the foremost sail of a ship. (Du.) ‘ib, the foremost
sail of a ship;’ Ash’s Dict., ed. 1775. First, spelt gibb, in 1661.
Perhaps so called because readily shifted from side to side; the sb.
being derived from the verb. See Jib (2). Der. jib-boom (Ash).
JIB (2), to shift a sail from side to side. (Du.) ‘8, to shift
JOB 315
the boom-sail from one side of the mast to the other;’ Ash’s Dict.,
ed.1775. “Τὸ jib round the sail;’ Cook, Third Voyage, b. ii. c. 3 (R.).
Also spelt jibe. ‘ %ibing, shifting the boom-sail from one side of
the mast to the other (Falconer) ;’ id. Also spelt gybe. ‘ Gybing,
the act of shifting the boomesail,’ &c.; id.; cf. Dan. gibbe, ‘to gybe,
a naut, term;’ Ferrall (from E. or Du.).—Du. gijpen (of sails), to
turn suddenly; Calisch. Sewel gives: ‘ Gypen, ’t overslaan der
zeylen [the overturning of a sail] a sail’s being turned over by an
eddy wind.’ Cf. Jutland gippe, to shift the sails; Swed. dial. gippa,
verb, used of a sudden movement or jerk; thus, if a man stands on
the lower end of a slanting plank, and a sudden weight falls on the
upper end and tips it up, he is gippad, i.e. jerked up; Reitz. Cf.
Swed. guppa, to move up and down, to rock. And sce Gibbet.
JIB (3), to move restively, as a horse. (F.—Scand.) ‘fib, said
of a draught-horse that goes backwards instead of forwards ;’ Halli-
well. A very early use of a compound from this verb occurs in
ME. regibben, to kick. ‘ Hit regibbeth anon, ase uet kelf and idel "=
it kicks back again, like a fat and idle calf; Ancren Riwle, p. 138.
Cf. ‘Wynsyng of an horse, regibement ;’ Palsgrave. —OF. giber, ‘se
débattre des pieds et des mains, s’agiter, lutter,’ i.e. to struggle with
the hands and feet, Roquefort ; giber, to shake (Godefroy). Whence
OF. regiber (Roquefort), mod. F. regimber, to kick; accounting for
the ME. regibben. Cf. also OF. giper, to kick (as a horse) ; Godetroy ;
Burgundy gipai, to gambol (Mignard). B. Of Scand. origin; cf.
Swed. dial. gippa, to jerk. See Jib (2).
JIBBAH, the same as Jubbah. (Arab.) See Jupon,
JIBE, the same as Gibe, q.v. (Scand.)
JIG, a lively tune or dance. (F.—MHG.) As sb. in Shak. Much
Ado, ii. 1.77; Hamlet, ii. 2.522. As vb., Hamlet, iii. 1. 150.—OF.
gige, gigue, a sort of wind instrument, a kind of dance (Roquefort) ;
but it was rather a stringed instrument, as noted by Littré and
Burguy ; which may be verified by consulting Dante's use of the Ital,
giga in Paradiso, xiv. 118. Cf. Norm. dial. giguer, to dance (Moisy) ;
Span. giga, a jig, lively tune or dance; Port. giga, a jig; Ital. giga,
‘a fiddle, a croud, a kit, a violin’ (Florio). —MIIG. gige, mod. G.
geige, a fiddle. Der. jig, verb, jig-maker, Hamlet, iii, 2. 131.
Doublet, gig, q.v.
T, a flirt, inconstant woman. (L.)
| plays the jit;’ Otway, The Orphan, i. 1. 66. ‘And who is jilted
for another's sake;’ Dryden, tr. of Juvenal, Sat. vi. 530, A con-
traction of jillet, ‘A jillet brak his heart at last;’ Burns, On a
Scotch Bard, Gone to the W. Indies, st. 6. A diminutive (with
suffix -et) of Fill, a personal name, but used in the same sense as
jilt or flirt. Hence the compounds fiirt-gill, Romeo, ii. 4. 162; and
flirt-Gillian, Beaum. and Fletcher, The Chances, i.i. 1 (Landlady).
Cf. ‘ Bagasse, a baggage, queane, jyll, punke, flirt ;’ Cot. Gill is
short for Gillian, i.e. Juliana; see Gill (4), See Gillott, Gillett, in
Bardsley, Dict. of Surnames. Der. jilt, verb.
JINGLE, to make a clinking sound. (E.) ME. gingelen, ginglen ;
Chaucer, C. T. 170. A frequentative verb from the base jing, by-
form of prov. E. jink, to chink, to jingle, allied to and probably the
same word as chink, a word of imitative origin; see Chink (2).
A fuller form appears in jangle; hence Palsgrave has gyngle-geangle ;
see Jangle. Der. jingle, sb.
JINN, a demon. (Arab.) Formed from the Arab. pl. jinna(d),
demons; so that the form is properly a plural. The Arab. sing. is
jinni, jinniy, which is Englished as jinnee or (more frequently) as genie
(as if connected with L. genius).
JINRIKSHA, a light two-wheeled vehicle drawn by one or
moremen. (Japan.) See Fennyrickshaw in Yule. — Japan. jinrtkisha ;
from jin, a man; riki, strength; and sha, acar. ‘A car drawn by
strength of man.’
JOB (1), to peck with the beak, as a bird. (E.?) ‘ Becquade, a
pecke, job, or bob with a beake;” Cot. ‘ Jobbyn wythe the bylle’=
to job with the beak; Prompt. Pary. Prob. of imitative origin; cf.
chop, dab, bob. Cf. Irish and Gael. gob, the beak or bill of a bird.
JOB (2), a small piece of work. (F.—C.?) In Pope, Epilogue to
Satires, i. 104; ii. 40; Donne versified, Sat. iv. 142. He also has
the verb: ‘And judges job,’ Moral Essays, to Bathurst, 141. Spelt
jobb in Kersey, ed. 1715. First in 1627. It seems to be equivalent
to gob. ‘Gob, a portion, a lump; hence the phrase, to work by the
gob;’ Halliwell. Dimin. forms are seen in: ‘ Gobbet, a morsel, a
bit; a large block of stone is still called a gobbet by workmen ;’
Halliwell. ‘ fobbel, Fobbet, a small load, generally of hay or straw,
Oxfordshire ;’ id. And see E.D.D. β. In earlier authors, only
gobbet is found; ME. gobet, Chaucer, C. T. 698.—OF. gob, lit. a
mouthful, ‘ L’avalla tout de gob, at one gulpe, or as one gobbet, he
swallowed it;’ Cot. Cf. gober, ‘to ravine, devoure, swallow great
morsels, let downe whole gobbets ;” Cot. Of Celtic origin; cf. Gael.
and Irish gob, the bill or beak of a bird, also, ludicrously, the mouth.
| See Gobbet, and Job (1). Der. job, verb ; jobb-er, jobb-er-y.
‘Where dilatory fortune
910 JOCKEY
JOCKEY, a man who rides a race-horse.
“As jockies usé;’ Butler, Hudibras, pt. ili. c. 1.1.6 from end. ‘ Whose
jockey-rider'is all spurs;’ id. pt. il. c. ii. last line. A Northern E.
pronunciation of Fackey, dimin. of ack as a personal name; see
Jack (1). A name given to the lads who act as grooms and riders.
FJocky, for Jack, occurs in Skelton, Works, ed. Dyce, i. 185, 1. gr.
Der. jockey, verb ; jockey-ism, jockey-ship.
JOCOSE, merry. (L.) Focose is in Kersey, ed. 1715. Jocosity,
in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. —L. iocdsus, sportive.—L. iocus, a joke,
sport. See Joke. Der. jocose-ly, jocos-i-ty.
JOCULAR, droll. (L.) ‘My name is Fokphiel,... An airy
jocular spirit ;’ Ben Jonson, Masques, The Fortunate Isles. = L. iocu-
laris, jocular.—L. ioculus, a little jest; dimin. of focus, a jest; see
Joke. Andsee Juggle. Der. jocular-ly, jocular-i-ty.
JOCUND, merry, pleasant. (F.—L.) ME. ioconde, Tocunde ;
Chaucer, C. T. 16064 (G 5y46).—OF. jocond, pleasant, agreeable
(Godefroy) ; Roquefort gives the derived adj. jocondexx, and the
derived sb, jocondite.—L. itcundus, pleasant, agreeable; from L.
iuuare (pt. τ. 7i-ui), to help, aid; so that the orig. sense was ‘ help-
ful.’ See Adjutant. Der. jocund-ly, jocund-i-ty.
JOG, to push slightly, jolt. (E.?) Prob. imitative. Cf. Kentish
jock, to jolt, shake; E. Ὁ. Ὁ. Cooper's Thesaurus (1565) has:
‘Succutio, To shake a thyng, to iogge vp.’ Not found earlier. De Bo
gives the WFlem. djokken, to jolt, to jog, as equivalent to Εἰ, choquer,
to knock; cf. also Low G. jukkeln, jukkern, to jog on, to ride badly
(Berghaus); Norw. and Swed. dial. jukka, to jog up and down in
riding. Cf. also E. skog, as used in Hen. V, il. 1. 47. And see
Shock. Der. Hence jog as a neuter verb, to move by jolts, ride
roughly, trot, Wint. Ta. iv. 3. 132, Tam. Shrew, ili. 2. 213 ; jog-trot ;
jogg-le, frequentative form.
JOHN DORY, the name of a fish. (F.—L.) ohn Dory is the
vulgar name of the fish also called the dory. It occurs in “Todd's
Johnson, spelt ohn Dory, dory, and doree. 1. Dory or doree is
merely borrowed from the F. dorée, the vulgar Ἐς, name of the fish,
signifying ‘ golden’ or ‘ gilded,’ from its yellow colour. Dorée is the
fem. of the pp. of the verb dorer, to gild.=—L. deaurdre, to gild, lit.
‘cover with gold.’—L. dé, prep. of, with; and aurum, gold. See
Aureate. 2. The prefix ohn is nothing but the ordinary name;
cf. jack-ass. It is usually explained as a corruption of F. jaune,
yellow; but there is no reason why Englishmen should have prefixed
this F. epithet, nor why Frenchmen should use such a tautological
expression as jaune dorée, ‘This suggested corruption is not a ‘ well-
known fact,’ but given as'a mere guess in Todd’s Johnson. 3. In
fact, the prefixing of the name John was due to the popularity of an
extremely well-known ballad, entitled John Dory, pr. in 1609; see
Ritson’s Anc. Songs. It is alluded to in Beaum. and Fletcher, The
Chances, A. ili. sc. 2. See Nares,
JOIN, to connect, unite, annex. (F.—L.) ME. ‘oynen, ioignen ;
P. Plowman, B. ii. 136; A. ii. 1¢6.—OF. joign-, pr. pl. stem of
joindre, to join. = L. iungere, pp. iunctus, to join (base iug-). —4/Y EUG,
to join; cf. Skt. yxj, to join, connect; also Gk. ζεύγνυναι, to join,
yoke. From the same root is E. yoke; see Yoke. Der. join-er,
Sir T. More, Works, p. 345 d; join-e-ry; joind-er (from F. joindre),
Tw. Nt. v. 160; and see joint, junct-ure, junct-ion, junta. From F.
joindre we also have ad-join, con-join, dis-join, en-join, re-join, sub-join.
From L. iungere (pp. iunct-us) we have ad-junct, con-junct-ure, con-
junct-ion, dis-junct-1on, in-junct-ion, sub-junct-ive ; whilst the L. base
tug- appears in con-jug~al, con-jug-ate, sub-jug-ate, jug-ul-ar.
JOINT, a place where things are joined, a hinge, seam. (F.—L.)
ME. ioynt, P. Plowman, B. xvii. 175, C. xx. 142; ‘out of zoynte,’ id.
C. x. 215.—F. joint, ‘a joint, joining;’ (Οἵ. “ΟΕ, joint, pp. of
joindre, to join; see Join. Der. joint, adj. (from the pp.) ; joint-ly,
joint-stock ; joint, verb, Ant. and Cleop. i. 2. 963; joint-ure, Merry
Wives, iii. 4. 50, from MF. joincture, ‘a joining, coupling, yoaking
together’ (Cot.), from L. iunctara, from the pp. stem of iungere, to
join ; joint-ress (short for joint-ur-ess), Hamlet, 1. 2. 9.
JOIST, one of a set of timbers which support the boards of a
floor. (F.—L.) Sometimes called jist (with 7 as in Christ); and
vulgarly jice, riming with mice. ‘They were fayne to lay pavesses
{large shields] and targes on the joystes of the bridg to passe ouer;”
Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol. i. c. 415 (R.). ME. giste, gyste. ‘Gyyste,
balke, Trabes;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 196. ‘The gistes;’ Wright's
Vocab. i. 170 (Walter de Bibbesworth). “ Gys¢ that gothe ouer the
florthe, soliue, giste 5 Palsgrave. = OF, giste, *a bed, couch, lodging,
place to lie on ” (Cot.); also a joist, as in Palsgrave’s mod, F. gite.
So called’ because these timbers form a support for "the floor to lie
on. OF. gesir, to lie, lie on. See Gist, which is related. Der.
joist, verb.
JOKH#, a jest, something mirthful. (L.) ‘ Foking decides great
things;’ Milton, tr. of Horace (in Minor Poems). —L. iocus, ‘a joke,
jest” Cf. OF. joguer; in Ducange, 5. v. Jocare. Brugmann, i. § 302.
(F.—L:—Gk.— Heb.) |
JOT
Der. joke, vb.; and see joc-ose, joc-ul-ar. > The Du. jok, a joke,
is merely borrowed (like the E. word) from Latin.
ΤΟΙΣ, another form of Jowl, q.v. (E.)
JOLLY, merry, plump. (F.—Scand. or L.) ME. Joly, ioly, coli,
Chaucer, C. T. 3263. He also has jolly, id. 4368 (A 4370); iolinesse,
id. 10603 (F 289); iolitee, id. 10592 (F 278). The older form is
Tolif or iolif ; King Alisaunder, 1. 155.—OF. jolif, later joli, ‘jolly,
gay, trim, fine, gallant, neat;’ Cot. B. Perhaps the orig. sense was
‘festive.’ —Icel. 751, Yule, a great feast in the heathen time; see 761
in Icel. Dict. See Yule. y. But this solution is by no means
certain. Perhaps from Late L. *gandivus, joyful; from gaudium,
joy, gaudére, to rejoice (P. Meyer). Der. jolli-ly, jolli-ty, jolli-ness.
JOLLY-BOAT, a small boat belonging to a ship. (Scand.) In
Todd’s Johnson. Apparently, the element jolly is the adj. above,
but this may have been substituted for Dan. jolle, a yawl, jolly-boat ;
Swed. julle, a yawl; cf. Du. jol, a yawl, skiff. See Yawl, Boat is
then a needless addition, due to the corruption into the E. adj. jolly.
B. Perhaps suggested by jolywat, which seems to have been a sort of
boat. ‘Grete boat and jolywat;’ Naval Accts. of Hen. VII (1896),
p-181. And this is (doubtfully) derived from Port. galeota, a galliot ;
see Gallevat in Yule ; and see Galliot.
JOLT, to shake violently, to jerk. (E.) Formerly also jozlt.
Cotgrave explains Ἐς hewrtade as ‘a shock, knock, jur [jar], jolt,
push ;’ and heurter as ‘to knock, push, jur, joult, strike.’ Also
found in the comp. jolt-head, a thick-headed fellow, Two Gent. iii.
I. 290; Tam. Shrew, iv. 1. 169. “ Tecte de beuf, a joull-head, jcber-
noll, loger-head, one whose wit is as little as his head is great ;’ Cot.
In North’s Plutarch, p. 133 (R.), or p. 158, ed. 1631, we find some
verses containing the word jolt-head, as well as the expression ‘this
heavy jolting pate,’ said of Jupiter, when regarded as a stupid tyrant.
The frequent association of jolt with head or pate suggests a con-
nexion with joll or jowl in the sense of ‘head.’ “ Jol, or heed, iolle,
Caput;” Prompt. Parv. ‘Tolle of a fysshe, este;? Palsgrave. * Ther
they jollede [beat on the head] Jewes thorowe ;’ MS. Calig. A. ii.
f. 1173 cited in Halliwell. ‘They may 7011 horns [knock heads]
together;’ As You Like It, i. 3. 59. ‘How the knave jowls it [viz.
a skull] to the ground ;’ Hamlet, v. 1. 84. ‘I jolle one aboute the
eares, Ie sovfflette;’ Palsgrave. Cf. prov. E. jow, jowl, to knock
(the head); jollock, to jolt. We may also compare proy. E. jot,
to jerk, spelt jot¢e in Palsgrave. -y. It may be added that jolt seems
to have acquired.a frequentative sense, ‘to knock often,’ and was
soon used generally of various kinds of jerky knocks. ‘He whipped
his horses, the coach jolted again ;’ Rambler, no. 34 (R.). See further
under Jowl. Der. jolt, sb.
JONQUIL, a kind of narcissus. (F.—Span.—L.) In Kersey’s
Dict. ed. 1715. Accented jonguil, Thomson’s Seasons, Spring, 548.
= Mod. F. jonquille, a jonquil. So named from its rush-like leaves ;
whence it is sometimes called Narcissus juncifolius.—Span. jungutllo,
Jonquil. Span, junco, a rush.—L. iuncus, a rush., See Junket.
@ So also Ital. giunchiglia, a jonquil; from giunco, a rush.
JORDAN, a pot, chamber-pot. (L.?—Gk.?—Heb.?) ME.
Iordan, Chaucer, C. T. 12239 (C 305); see Tyrwhitt’s note. Also
Iurdon, Iordeyne; see Prompt. Pary., and Way’s note; p. 267.
Halliwell explains it as ‘a kind of pot or vessel formerly used by
physicians and alchemists. It was very much in the form of a soda-
water bottle, only the neck was larger, not much smaller than the
body of the vessel; &c.—Late L. iu-danus; as in Prompt. Parv.
B. Origin uncertain; but it may very well have been named from the
river Jordan (L. Jordinés, Gk. Ἰορδάνης, Heb. Vardeén, i.e. flowing
down). ‘We must remember this was the time of the Crusades.
It was the custom of all pilgrims who visited the Holy Land to
bring back a bottle of water from the Jordan for baptismal purposes.
It was thus that Jordan as a surname has arisen. I necd not
remind students of early records how common is Yordan as a
Christian name, such cognomens as ‘ Jordan de Abingdon’ or
‘Jordan le Clerc? being of “the most familiar occurrence ; ; » Bardsley,
Our English Surnames, p. 53. Thus Yordan may be short for
‘Jordan-bottle.’ Halliwell further explains how the later sense (as
in Shakespeare) came about; the bottle being, in course of time,
occasionally used for baser purposes. ΑἹ Not from Dan. or Swed.
jord, earth ; the adj. from which is jordisk, and means ‘ terrestrial.’
JOSS, a Chinese figure of a deity. (Port.—L.) Critic in jars
and josses;’ Epilogue to A Jealous Wife, by Colman (1761). Not
Chinese; but a corruption of Port. deos, God. Cognate with Span.
dios, OF. deus.—L. Deus, God; nom. case. See Deity.
JOSTLE, JUSTLE, to strike or push against. (F.—L.; with E.
suffix.) [Not in P. Plowman, as said in R.] ‘Thou jws/lest nowe too
nigh;’ Roister Doister, iii. 3. 129 (in Spec. of Eng., ed. Skeat).
Formed, with E. frequentative suffix -le, from just or joust; see
Joust.
JOT, a tittle. (L.—Gk. — Heb.) Spelt
In Spenser, Sonnet 57.
JOURNAL
iote in Udall, Prol. to Ephesians, and Phaer’s Virgill, Ain. b. x1; see
Richardson. Englished from L. iota, Matt. v. 18 (Vulgate).—Gk.
ἰῶτα, the name of the Gk. letter 1.— Heb. yéd (y), the smallest
letter of the Heb. alphabet. B. Hence also Du. jot, Span. and Ital.
jota, a jot, tittle. See the Bible Word-book. Der. jot, yerb, in the
phr. ‘to jot down’=to make a brief note of. 4 Not the same
word as proy. E. jot, to jolt, jog, nudge; which appears as jotte in
Palsgrave.
JOURNAL, a day-book, daily newspaper, magazine. (F.—L.)
‘Turnall, a boke, journal ;’ Palsgraye. Properly an adj., signifying
‘daily.’ ‘ His journal greeting ;’ Meas. for Meas. iv. 3. 92. ‘ Their
journall labours ;’ Spenser, F. Q.i. 11. 21. - Ἐς journal, acj. ‘journall,
dayly ;’ Cot.—L. diurndlis, daily ; from diés,a day. See Diurnal,
Diary. Der. journal-ism, journal-ist, journal-ist-ic. And see
journey, ad-journ. Doublet, diurnal.
JOURNEY, a day’s travel, travel, tour. (F.—L.) ME. Jornee,
Tournee. It means ‘a day’s travel’ in Chaucer, C. T. 2740 (A 2738).
Spelt jurneie, Ancren Riwle, p. 352, 1. 29.—F. joxruce, ‘a day, or
whole day; also...a daies worke or labour; a daies journy, or
travell;’ Cot. B. F. journée answers to Span. jornada, Ital. gior-
nata, Late L. jornata, a day’s work; all formed with the fem. ending
of a pp. as if from a verb *jornare, from the stem jorn- (<diurn-),
which appears in Late L. jorn-ale (=E. journal). —L. diurn-us, daily.
See Journal. Der. journey, verb, Rich. III, ii. 2. 146; journey-
man, Rich. II, i. 3. 274.
JOUST, JUST, to tilt, encounter on horseback. (F.—L.) ME.
Tusten, Iousten ; Chaucer, C. T. 96; P. Plowman, B, xviii, 82.—OF.
jouster, ‘to just, tilt, or tourney ;’ Cot. (mod. F. joxter). (Cf. Ital.
giostrare, Span. justar, to tilt.] B. The orig. sense is merely ‘to
meet’ or ‘to approach,’ a sense better preserved in OF. adjouster,
to set near, to annex; (not E. adjust). (The hostile sense was
easily added as in other cases; cf. E. to meet (often in a hostile
sense), to encounter, and ME. assemblen, to fight, contend, so common
in Barbour’s Bruce. So also F. rencontre.|— Late L. iuxtare, to
approach, cause to approach, join; see Ducange.—L. ἐπέ, near,
close, hard by; whence OF. jouste, ‘neer to, hard by ;’ Cot.
form iuxti =zig-is-ta, fem. abl. of the superl. form of adj. iig-is,
continual; from base iag- of iungere, to join.—4/YEUG, to join ;
see Join. Brugmann, i. § 760 (1), note 1. Der. joust, sb., ME.
Tuste, Touste, P. Plowman, 19. xvii. 74. Also jost-le, q.v.
JOVIAL, mirthful. (F.—L.) In the old astrology, Jupiter was
‘the joyfullest star, and of the happiest augury of all;’ Trench, Study |
of Words. ‘The heavens, always joviall, i.e. propitious, kindly ;
Spenser, F. Ὁ. ii. 12. 51.—OF. Fovial, ‘joviall, sanguine, born under
the planet Jupiter;’ Cot.—L. Jouidlis, pertaining to Jupiter. —L.
Toui-, for OLat. Iours, Jove, only used in later Lat. in the form
Ti-piter (=Jove-father), Jupiter. B. Again Jowis stands for an older
Diouis (cf. Oscan dat. Dixv-et), allied to diés, day, and to deus, God;
cf. Gk. Διός, gen. case of Ζεύς. See Deity, Tuesday. Brugmann,
i. 88 120, 223. Cf. Skt. div, to shine, whence deva-, a deity, datva-,
divine ; also Skt. dyz-, inflectional base of Dyaus, Sce Max Miiller,
Lect. on Lang. vol. ii. Der. jovial-ly, jovial-ness, jovial-i-ty.
JOWL, JOULE, the jaw or cheek. (E.) ‘Cheek by jowl;’ Mids,
Nt. Dream, iii. 2. 338. B. A corruption of chowl; cf. cheek and
chowl, and cheek for chowl in E.1).D. [Wealso find chow! ina some-
what different sense. ‘ The chowle or crop adhering unto the lower
side of the bill [of the pelican], and so descending by the throat ;
a bag or sachel very observable ;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. v.
c.1.§5. ‘His chyn with a chol lollede’=his chin wagged with the
hanging flesh beneath it ; Piers Ploughman’s Crede, 1. 224 (in Spec.
of Eng. ed. Skeat).] y. There is also a form chau/, meaning (ap-
parently) ‘jaw.’ ‘Bothe his ckaul [jowl] and his chynne;’ Ali-
saunder, fragment A, ed. Skeat, r119 (in App. to Wm. of Palerne),
This chaul is a corruption of an older form chawel=chavel. Thus in
the Cursor Mundi, 1. 7510, when David describes how he slew the
lion and the bear, he says: ‘I scok pam be pe berdes sua pat I pair
chafftes raue in twa’ =I shook them by the beards so that I reft their
chaps in twain; where other MSS. read chauelis, chaulis, and chaules.
So also: ‘Chavylbone, or chawl-bone or chaule-bone, Mandibula ;’
Prompt. Pary. p. 70; and see Way’s note, who cites: ‘A chafte,
a chawylle, a chekebone, maxilla;’ and: ‘Brancus, a gole, or a
chawle.’ And again: ‘ And pat deor to-dede his che/fles’ (later text,
chowles)=and the beast opened (?) his jaws; Layamon, 6507.— AS.
ceafl, the jaw; pl. ceaflas, jaws, chaps; Grein, i. 157. ‘Dauid...
his ceaflas to-teer’= David tare asunder the chaps (of the bear);
fElfric on the Old Test. ; Liber Regum.-+-OSax. kaffas, pl. the jaws.
Allied to Icel. kjaptr, the mouth, jaw, esp. of a beast; for *kjaf-tr ;
ef. Swed. Aift, jaw, Dan. kjeft. The 1 in AS. ceafl is a mere suffix,
and the word must have originated from a’ Teutonic base *kaf-.
See Chafer. δ. But the connexion of chow! with chaul is doubtful,
and the word cannot be said to be satisfactorily solved; see Ν, E. D,
| see Indicate.
y. The |
JUGGERNAUT 917
@ The change from ch to 7) is well illustrated by the Norfolk jig-
by-jole=cheek by jowl=Ayrshire cheek for chow, cheek by chowl;
see E. D. D.
JOY, gladness, happiness. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. Joyé, ioyé (dissyllable),
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1873 (A 1871); earlier, in Ancren Riwle, p. 218.—
OF. joye, joie, ‘joy, mirth;’ Cot. Cf. Ital. gioja, joy; Gascon ρον.
=L. neut. pl. gaxdia, which was turned into a-fem, sing. as in other
cases (see Antiphon); from sing. gaudium, joy.—L. gaudére, to
rejoice. See Gaud.. Der. joy, verb, 2 Cor. vii. 13 (A. V.) ; joy-ful,
ME. joiefull, Gower, C. A. i. 191, bk. ii. 931 3 joy-ful-ly, joy-ful-necs ;
joy-less, joy-less-ly, joy-less-ness ; joy-ous, ME. joy-ous, Shoreham’s
Poems, ed. Wright, p. 120, 1. 14; joy-ous-ly, joy-ous-ness.
JUBBAH, a kind of tunic. (Arab.) See Jupon.
JUBILATION, a shouting for joy. (L.) In Cotgrave; ME.
Tubilacioun, Wyclif, Ps. cl. 5.—F. jubilation, ‘a jubilation, exulta-
tion ;’ Cot. L. iubilationem, acc. of iubilatio,a shouting for joy; cf.
L. ‘ubilatus, pp. of iubilare, to shout for joy.—L. iubilum, a shout of
joy. B. There is nothing to connect this with the following word ;
the resemblance is accidental. Nevertheless, the words were con-
fused at an early date. Der. jubil-ant, from pres. pt. of iabilare.
JUBILEE, a season of great joy. (F.—L.—Heb.) ME. Iubilee,
Chaucer, C. T. 7444, (D'1862).—OF. jubilé, ‘a jubilee, a year of
releasing, liberty, rejoicing ;’ Cot.—L, fabileus, the jubilee, Levit.
xxv. IL; masc. of adj. iabileus, belonging to the jubilee ; Levit. xxv.
28. An alteration of L. *idbéleus (due to the influence of L. iubilum,
a shout of triumph), which is the true rendering of Late Gk.
ἰωβηλαῖος, adj. formed from ἰώβηλος, jubilee (Josephus, Antiq. iii. 12.
3).— Heb. yabé/, a blast of a trumpet, a shout of joy; orig. a blast
on aram’s horn. Distinct from the word above.
JUDGE, an arbitrator, one who decides a cause. (F.—L.) ME.
Tuge, iuge, Chaucer, C. T. 15931 (ἃ 463).—F. juge, ‘a judge ;’
Cot.—L. itidicem, acc. of iidex, a judge. B. The stem is it-dic-,
and signifies ‘one who points out what is law ;” from ia-s, law, and
dic-are, to point out, make known. For iis, see Just. . For dicare,
Der. judge, verb, ME. Iugen, iuggen, Rob. of
Glouc., p. 345, 1. 7082 ; judge-ship ; judg-ment, ME. ixgement (three
syllables), Chaucer, C. T. 807 (A 805) ; judgment-day, judgment-
seat; and see judicature, judicial, judicious, Also ad-judge, pre-
judge.
JUDICATURE, judgment. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave and Pals-
grave.—F. judicature, ‘judicature;’ Cot.—L. tidicditira, office: of
a judge; cf. itdicat-us, pp. of iadicdre, to judge.—L. iutic-, stem
of iudex, a judge. See Judge. Der. (from L. tidicare) judic-able ;
(like pp. tidicdtus), judicat-ive (L. indicatiuus), judicat-or-y (L.
iudicitorius).
JUDICIAL, pertaining to courts of law. (F.—L.) In Cot-
grave; and in Wyclif, Nehem. iii. 30.—OF. judiciel, ‘judiciall;”
Cot. = L. iadicialis, pertaining to courts of law. —L. iadici-um, a trial,
suit, judgment. = L. iidici-, decl. stem of iidex,a judge. See Judge.
Der. judicial-ly ; judiciar-y (L. iidiciarius); and see below.
JUDICIOUS, full of judgment, discreet. (F.— 1.) In Shak,
Macb. iv. 2. 16.—F. judicieuz, ‘judicious ;’ Cot, —L. *iadicidsus, not
found, but regularly formed with suffix -dsus from L, iudici-, decl.
stem of iiidex, a judge.. Der. judicious-ly, judicious-ness.
JUG, a kind of pitcher. (Heb.?) ‘A iugge, poculum ;” Levins,
ed. 1570. ‘A iugge to drink in;’ Minsheu, ed. 1637. Of uncertain
origin. Mr. Wedgwood’s suggestion is probably right; he connects
it with ‘ Fug or Fudge, formerly a familiar equivalent of Joan or
Jenny.’ In this case, the word is of jocular origin ; which is rendered
probable by the fact that a drinking-vessel was also called a jack, and
that another vessel was called a jill, ‘A jacke of leather to drink
in;’ Minsheu. ‘ack seems to have been the earlier word, and #il/
was used in a similar way to go with it. ‘Be the Yacks fair within,
the Fills fair without ;’? Tam. of Shrew, iv. 1. 51; oa which Steevens
remarks that it is ‘a play upon the words, which signify two
drinking-measures as well as men and maid-servants.’ B. The use
of Fug or foan appears in Cotgrave, who gives: ‘ Fehannette, Jug,
or Jinny ;’ and again: ‘fannette, Judge, Jenny, a woman’s name.’
[How Fug came to be used for ‘Joanna is not very obvious ;. but pet
names are liable to strange confusion. The forms Fug and Fudge are
more like the Heb. Judith (Gen. xxvi. 34).] Similarly, Wedgwood
cites ‘Susan, a brown earthenware pitcher,’ used in the district of
Gower (Philol. Proceedings, iv. 223). Cf. also ‘a jack of beer,’
Dodsley’s O. Plays, ed. Hazlitt, vii. 218, ix. 441. As Fug was
a female name, we also find jvg, a mistress, as a term of endearment;
id. iv. 183, vi. 511, Vili. 400, xii. 115. Qf The curious word jubbe,
in the sense of bottle, occurs in Chaucer, C. T. 13000 (B 1265); but
jug can hardly be a corruption of it.
JUGGERNAUT, the name of an Indian idol, (Hindi—Skt.)
See Southey, Curse of Kehama, c. xiv; and see Yule. = Hindi Fagan-
natha, vernacularly jagannath, 2 name esp. applied to Kyshya, as
918 JUGGLER
worshipped at Puri in Orissa (H. H. Wilson).—Skt. jagannatha-,
lord of the world. —Skt. jagat, world ; natha-, protector, lord.
JUGGLER, one who exercises sleight of hand. (F.—L.) ME.
Togelour, iogelour, Chaucer, C. T. 7049, 10533 (D 1467, F 210).
‘ Ther saugh I pleyen ‘ogelours, Magiciens, and tregetoures;’ Chaucer,
Ilo. Fame, iil. 169. Spelt jug/ur, with the sense of ‘ buffoon ;’
Ancren Riwle, p. 210, 1. 30.—OF. jogleor, jugleor, jougleor (Burguy) ;
later jongleur, with inserted 2; hence ‘ jonglewr, a jugler;’ Cot.—L.
io-ulatorem, acc. of ioculator, a jester. — L. toculari, to jest. L. ioculus,
a little jest, dimin. of zocus, a joke; see Joke. Der. juggler-y, ME.
Togelrie, Chaucer, C. T. 11577 (F 1265). Hence also was developed
the verb juggle, formerly iuglen, used by Tyndall, Works, p. 101,
col. 2,1. 7 from bottom (see Spec. of Eng. ed. Skeat, p. 169, 1. 70,
. 170, 1. tor); juggl-ing, juggle, sb.
JUGULAR, pertaining to the side of the neck. (L.) Also
jugulary. ‘ Fugularie, of or belonging to the throat;” Minsheu, ed.
1627. Formed with suffix -ar or -ary (= L. -arius) from ingul-um or
ingul-us, the collar-bone (so called from its joining together the
shoulders and neck); also, the hollow part of the neck above the
collar-bone; also the throat. Dimin. of ingum, that which joins,
a yoke. —4/YEUG, to join. See Yoke.
JUICE, sap, fluid part of animal bodies. (F.—L.) ME. Juse,
iuce; Gower, C. A. ii. 265; bk. v. 4120; spelt Zuys, S. E. Legendary,
St. Cuthbert, 1. 52.—OF. jus, ‘juice, liquor, sap, pottage, broath ;’
Cot.—L. ius, broath, soup, sauce, pickle; lit. ‘ mixture.’ + Skt.
yusha-, soup.=4/YEU, to bind, mix; cf. Skt. yz, to bind, join, mix ;
Gk. ζύμη, leaven. Der. juic-y, juice-less, juic-t-ness.
JUJUBE, the fruit of a certain tree. (F.—L.—Gk.—Pers.) The
tree is the Rhamnus zizyphus or Rhamnus jujuba. “ Iuiubes, or inbeb-
fruit ;” Minsheu, ed. 1627. See Lanfranc, Cirurgie, p. 74, 1. 14.—
OF. jujubes, ‘the fruit or plum called jujubes;” Cot. A pl. form. =
Late L. jujuba (Ital. gingiuba, Florio); altered form of the pl. of L.
zizyphum, the jujube; fruit of the tree zizyphus.—Gk. ζίζυφον, fruit
of the tree ζίζυφος. — Pers. zayzafin, zizfin, zizafin, the jujube-tree ;
Rich. Dict. p. 793.
JULEP, a sweet drink, demulcent mixture. (F.—Span.— Arab. —
Pers.) ‘This cordial julep here;’ Milton, Comus, 672. ‘Good
wine ... made in a iulep with suger;’ Sir Τὶ Elyot, Castel of Helth,
b. iii. c. 18. See Lanfranc, Cirurgie, p. 76, 1]. 9. —F. julep, ‘a julep,
or juleb, a drink made either of distilled waters and syrops mixed
together; or of a decoction sweetned with hony and sugar, or else
mingled with syrops;’ Cot. Span. julepe, julep. = Arab. julab, julep;
from Pers. gulab, rose-water, also, julep; Rich. Dict. pp. 512, 1239.
— Pers. gui, a rose; and ab, water; id. pp. 1238, 1.
JULY, the name of the seventh month. (F.—L.) Chaucer, Treat.
on the Astrolabe, calls the month Julius, Iuyl, Iuylle; pt.i. § 10. July
is from AF, Julie, L. Tulius, a name given to this month (formerly
called Quinctélis) in honour of Caius Julius Cesar, who was born in
this month. Hence the E. form was accented as 7άϊν (rhyming with
newly) as late as in Dr. Johnson’s time; cf. ‘Then came hot Fiily,
boyling like to fire;’ Spenser, F. Q. vii. 7. 36. Now Fu-ly, prob.
to distinguish it more clearly from Fine (N. and Q., 9 S. x. 426).
4 Quinctilis is from quintus, fifth, because this was formerly the
fifth month, when the year began in March. Quintus is from guinque,
five; see Five.
JUMBLE, to mix together confusedly. (E.) ‘I jumbyll, I make
a noyse by removyng of heavy thynges. I jumble, as one dothe
that can [not] play upon an instrument, je brouille;’ Palsgrave.
Here it means to make a confused noise. Cf. prov. E. jum, a jolt ;
whence jummle, jumble, to jolt (frequentative). Of imitative origin.
47 Chaucer uses the equivalent form jompren. ‘Ne jompre eek no
discordaunt thing yfere’=do not jumble discordant things together ;
Troilus, ii, 1037. But Sir T. More uses the word in the sense of
“to mingle harmoniously ;’ as in: ‘Let vs... see how diffinicion
of the churche and hys heresies will jumper and agree together
among themselfe ;” Works, p. 612a. Compare this with the phr.
“to jump together’ (=to agree with). Der. jumble, sb.; jumbl-
ing-ly,
JUMP (1), to leap, spring, skip. (Scand.?) In Shak. As You
Like It, ii. 1. 53, and in Palsgrave; but not found earlier. The
frequentative form jumper occurs in Sir Τὶ More, and jompren in
Chaucer; see quotations 5. v. Fumble. Hence the word jump may
have been known to our dialects at an earlier date. Cf. Sc. jump
(pt. t. jamp) in E. D. D. Perhaps it is of Scand. origin. Cf. Jutland
jumpe, to be in oscillating motion, also, to jump, spring (Feilberg) ;
allied to Swed. dial. jompa, to jog up and down, as in riding (Rietz).
Note also Swed. dial. gumpa, to spring, jump, or wag about heavily
and clumsily (Rietz); Swed. guppa, to move up and down; Dan.
gumpe, to jolt; gimpa, to wriggle (Rietz) ; Norw. gimpa, to swing
oneself about (Ross); Norw. gimpe, to see-saw, gamp, a nag (Larsen).
As Rietz remarks, there must have been a strong verb *gimpa, pt. t.
JUNTO
*gamp, pp. gumpinn. + MHG., gumpen, to jump; gumpeln, to play
the buffoon ; gempeln, to jump, dimin. form of prov. G. gampen, to
jump, spting, hop, sport; see Schmeller’s Bavarian Dict. ; cf. MHG.
gampelmann, a buffoon, jester, one who plays antics ; mod. G. gimpel,
a simpleton. But the history of the verb is very obscure. Der. jump,
sb., used in the sense of ‘lot’ or ‘hazard,’ Anthony, iii. 8.6. Also
jump (2).
JUMP (2), exactly, just, pat. (Scand.?) ‘ Hump at this dead
hour ;” Hamlet, i. 1. 65; cf. v. 2. 386; Oth. ii. 3. 392. From the
verb above, in the sense to agree or tally, commonly followed by
with, but also used without it. ‘ Both our inventions meet and jump
in one;’ Tam. Shrew, i. 1.195. ‘They jump not on a just account;’
Oth, i. 3. 5. See Jump (1).
JUNCTION, ajoining. (L.) Used by Addison, Spectator, no.165,
§ 5: ‘Upon the juncéion of the French and Bavarian armies.’ Formed,
by analogy with F. sbs. in -ion, from L. iunctidnem, acc. of iunctio,
a joining; cf. L. tunctus, pp. of iungere, to join. See Join.
JUNCTURE, a union, critical moment. (L.) ‘Signes work-
ings, planets iunctures, and the eleuated poule’ [pole]; Warner,
Albion’s England, b, v. c. 27.‘ Functure, a joyning or coupling
together;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. iunctira, a joining; ct.
iunct-, stem of pp. of tungere, to join. See Join. @f The sense of
‘critical moment’ is probably of astrological origin ; cf. the quotation
from Warmer.
JUNE, the sixth month. (L.) Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, pt. i.
§ 10, has Junius and Juyn; the latter answering to Εἰ, Juin. Englished
from L. Ziinius, the name of the sixth month and of a Roman gens
or clan,
JUNGLE, country covered with trees and brushwood. (Hind. —
Skt.) Not in Johnson; first in 1776 (N.E.D.).—Hind. jangal,
wood, jungle (Forbes). —Skt. jafigala-, adj. dry, desert. Hence
jungle=waste land. @ The Skt. short a is sounded like τὶ in mud ;
hence the E. spelling. Der. jungi-y.
JUNIOR, younger. (L.) In Levins, ed. 1570.—L. itnior,
comparative of inuenis, young; so that iunior stands for inuenior.
Cf. Skt. yuvan, young. SeeJuvenile. Der. junior-ship, junior-i-ty.
JUNIPER, an evergreen shrub. (L.) Jn Levins, ed. 1570.
Spelt junipere; Spenser, Sonnet 26; ieniper, Palladius on Husbandry,
bk. i. 1. 397.—L. idniperus, a juniper-tree. Of doubtful origin. Der.
gin (3), q.V.
JUNK (1), a Chinese three-masted vessel. (Port. — Malay.)
‘China also, and the great Atlantis, ... which have now but junks
and canoas’ [canoes]; Bacon, New Atlantis, ed. 1639, p. 12. Also
in Sir T. Herbert’s Travels, ed. 1665, pp. 42, 384. — Port. (and Span.)
junco, a junk.=Malay jong, also ajong, a junk; Javanese jong.
@[ Not allied, as often said, to Chinese chw‘an, ‘a ship, boat, bark,
junk, or whatever carries people on the water;’ Williams, Chinese
Dict., 1874, p. 120; unless the Chinese word is borrowed from
Malay.
JUNK (2), pieces of old cordage, used for mats and oakum.
(Port.—L.) ‘Funk, pieces of old rope;’ Ash’s Dict., ed. 1775.
“Funk, a sea-word for any piece of old cable ;’ Kersey’s Dict., ed.
1715.— Port. junco, a rush; (in a ship) the junk; Vieyra’s Dict.
[As if so called from rush-made ropes; but there is no obvious
connexion.]—L. iuncus, a rush. B. Salt meat is also facetiously
termed junk by the sailors, because it is as tough as old rope.
@ Funk, a lump (Halliwell), is a different word, being for chunk,
a log of wood; see Chump.
JUNKET, a kind of sweetmeat. (F.—Ital.—L.) Also spelt
juncate; Spenser, F. Q. v. 4. 49. In Shak. Tam. Shrew, ili, 2. 250;
Milton, L’Allegro, 102, The orig. sense was a kind of cream-cheese,
served up on rushes, whence its name. Also used as a name for
various delicacies made of cream. Cf. Iuncade; Voc. 590. 44.
‘Milke, crayme, and cruddes, and eke the Joncate ;’ I. Russell, Boke
of Nurture, 1. 93; in Babees Book, p. 124.—MF. joncade, ‘a certain
spoon-meat, made of cream, rose-water, and sugar;’ Cot. =Ital.
giuncata, ‘a kind of fresh cheese and creame, so called because it is
brought to market upon rushes; also a iunket;’ Florio. [Cf. MF.
jonchée, ‘a bundle of rushes; also, a green cheese or fresh cheese
made of milk thats curdled without any runnet, and served in a fraile
[basket] of green rushes;’ Cot.; Norm. dial. jonquette, a junket
(Moisy).] Formed as a pp. from Ital. gizncare, ‘to strewe with
rushes ;’ Florio.—Ital. giunco, a rush.—L. inncum, ace. of iuncus,
arush. Der. junket, vb., junket-ing, Spectator, no. 466. From the
same source, jonquil, q.v., junk (2).
JUNTA, a congress, council. (Span.—L.) In Howell's Letters,
vol. i. sect. 3, let. 21.—Span. junta, a junta, congress. —L. iuncta,
f. of iunctus, pp. of iungere, to join; see Join. And see Junto.
JUNTO, a knot of men, combination, confederacy, faction.
(Span.—L.) ‘And these to be set on by plot and consultation with
a junto of clergymen and licensers;’ Milton, Colasterion (I-).
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JUPON
Erroneously used for junta (above) ; as if from Span. junto, united,
conjoined. =—L..iunctus, pp. of iungere, to join.
JUPON, ἃ tight-fitting tunic, a skirt. (F.—Arab.) ME. gipoxn,
Chaucer, C. T..75; Iupon, Allit. Morte Arthure, 905.—OF. Iujzon,
gippon, ‘a short cassock ;’ Cot.; also Juppon. Extended form of I.
jupe, MF. juppe, ‘a gaberdine, cassock,’ Cot.; OF. Iupe, Iuppe.—
Arab. jubba(t), ‘a waistcoat with cotton quilted between the outside
and lining;’ Rich. Dict. p. 494; whence also E. jubbah, jibbah, a
kind of tunic. See Notes on 1". Etym., p. 149.
JURIDICAL, pertaining to a judge or to courts of law. (L.)
Blount, in his Glossographia, ed. 1674, has juridical and juridick.
First in 1502. Formed with suffix -al, from L. iiridic-us, relating
to the administration of justice. —L. iari-, decl. stem of ‘as, law; and
dicare, to proclaim. See Just and Diction. Der. juridical-ly.
JURISDICTION, authority to execute laws. (F.—L.) ME.
Iurisdiction, Chaucer, C, T. 6901 (D 1319).—F. jurisdiction, ‘juris-
diction ;’ Cot.—L. itirisdictidnem, acc. of iarisdictio, administration
of justice. —L. iiris, gen. of iis, justice; and dictio, a saying, pro-
claiming. See Just and Diction.
JURISPRUDENCE, the knowledge of law. (F.—L.) In
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. - Ἐς jurisprudence ; Cot.— L. itrispridentia,
the science of law.=L. iiris, gen. of itis, law; and pridentia, skill,
prudence. See Just and Prudence.
JURIST, a lawyer. (F.—L.) ‘Furist, a lawyer;’ Blount’s
Gloss., ed.1674. First in 1481.—F. juriste, ‘a lawyer;’ Cot.— Late
L. idrista, a lawyer. Formed, with suffix -ista (Gk. -torns), from
iur-, stem of is, law. See Just.
JUROR, one of a jury. (F.—L.) In Shak. Hen. VIII, v. 3.
60. ME. iuroure, P. Plowman, B. vii. 44.—AF. iwrour, Yearbooks
of Edw. I, 1292-3, p. 43. (Cf. F. jureur, ‘a swearer or deposer,
a juror;’ Cot.) —L. iiradérem, ace. of iiritor, a swearer.—L. iira-,
stem of ‘ardre, to swear; with agential suffix -tor. See Jury.
JURY, a body of sworn men. (F.—L.) ‘I durst as wel trust
the truth of one iudge as of two ivries;’ Sir T. More, Works,
p- 988d. ME. iuree, Allit. Morte Arthure, 662.—F. juré2, a jury,’
Cot.; lit. a company of sworn men. Properly the fem. pp. of F.
jurer, to swear. =—L. iardre, to swear ; lit. to bind oneself by an oath.
Cf. Skt. yw, to bind; yds, health (Macdonell). Der. jury-man, Tw.
Nt. iii. 2.17. From same source, con-jure. And see juror.
JURY-MAST, a temporary mast. (F.—L.?) ‘ Fury-mast,a yard
set up instead of a mast that is broken down by a storm or shot,
and fitted with sails, so as to make a poor shift to steer a ship ;’
Kersey, ed. 1715. And in Capt. J. Smith, Works, p. 221 (1616).
Perhaps short for ajziry mast, where ajury= OF. ajuirte, aid, succour
(Godfrey). From L. adjutdre, to aid; see Aid. Cf. ‘iuwere,
remedium;’ Prompt. Pary. Also mod. Prov. ajudaire, ajuaire,
auxiliary (Mistral); OF. ajuer, one who aids (Roquefort).
JUST (1), righteous, upright, true. (F.—L.) ME. Just, iust;
Wyclif, Luke, i. 17.—F. jus’e, ‘just;’ Cot.mL. iustus, just. Ex-
tended from tis, right, law, lit. what is fitting ; with suffix -tus. See
Jury. Der. just=exactly, Temp. ii. 1. 6; just-ly, just-ness; and
see justice, justify.
JUST (2), the same as Joust, 4. v. (F.—L.)
JUSTICE, integrity, uprightness ; a judge. (F.—L.) ME. Zustize,
iustice, generally in the sense of judge; Chaucer, C. T. 316.—OF.
justice, (1) justice, (2) a judge (Burguy); the latter sense is not in
Cotgrave. = L. iustitia, justice; Late L. iustitia, a tribunal, a judge ;
Ducange.=L. iusti-=iusto-, for iustus, just; with suffix -ti-a. See
Just (1). Der. justice-ship, justic-er, K. Lear, iii. 6. 59; justic-i-a-ry,
from Late L. iustitidrius.
JUSTIFY, to show to be just or right. (F.—L.) ME. Zustifien,
iustifien ; Wyclif, Matt. xii. 37; Gower, C. A. i. 84; bk. 1. 1250.—
F. justifier, ‘to justifie ;? Cot. —L. iustificire, to justify, show to be
just.=—L. iusti-=iusto-, for iustus, just; and -ficare, used (in com-
position) for facere,to make. See Just and Fact. Der. justiji-able,
justifi-abl-y, justifi-able-ness, justifi-er; also justificat-ion, Gower, C. A.
i. 169; bk. ii. 296; Wyclif, Rom. ν. 16, from F. justification, from
L. ace. iustificationem, allied to the pp. iustificdtus ; also justificat-ive,
justificat-or-y.
JUSTLE, the same as Jostle, q.v. In Temp. v. 158.
JUT, to project. (F.—L.) ‘Putting, proiectus;’ Levins, ‘ For-
Jetter, to jut, leane out, hang over;’ Cot. A phonetic variant of
Jet (τ), q.v. Der. jutt-y, sb. a projection, Macb. i. 6. 6, from MF.
jettée, ‘a cast ..a jetty, or jutty, Cot.; hence jutt-y, vb. to project
over, Hen. V, iii. i. 13. See Jetty.
_JUTE, a substance resembling hemp. (Bengali.—Skt.) ‘The
Jute of commerce is the product of two plants of the order of Tiliacee,
viz. Corchorus capsularis and Corchorus olitorius . . the leaves . . are
employed in medicine . . dried leaves prepared for this purpose being
found in almost every Hindu house in some districts of Bengal . . Its
Tecognition as a distinct plant [from hemp] dates from the year 1795,
’
| rapidly.
KEDGE, KIDGE 319
when Dr. Roxburgh, Superintendent of the East India Company’s
Botanical Garden at Seebpoor, forwarded a bale prepared by himself,
under its present name of jute ;’ Overland Mail, July 30, 1873, Ρ. 17
(which contains a long article on Jute). — Bengali ji, joot, ‘the fibres
of the bark of the Corchorus olitorius, much used for making a coarse
kind of canvas, and the common ganni bags; it is also sometimes
loosely applied to the plant ;’ H. H. Wilson, Gloss of Indian Terms,
p- 243. From jhofo, vulgarly jhuto, the native name in Orissa (Yule).
Perhaps from Skt. jifa-, more commonly jafd, the matted hair cf
Civa, a braid of hair.
JUVENILE, young. (F.—L.) uvenile is in Bacon's Essays,
Of Vicissitudes, § last ; juvenilitie in Minsheu, ed. 1627.—F. juvenile,
‘youthful ;’ Cot.=—L. iuuenilis, youthful. — L. inuenis, young ; cognate
with E. Young, q.v. Der. juvenile-ness, juvenil-i-ty. Cf. juvenal
(from L, inuendlis, by-form of iuuenilis), jocularly used, L. L. L. i. 2. 8.
And see junior.
JUXTAPOSITION, contiguity, nearness. (F.—L.) In Kersey,
ed. 1715." Ἐς juxtaposition (1690); Hatzfeld. A coined word, from
L. iuxta, near; and F. position, position. See Joust and Position.
K
KAFTAN, a Turkish robe. See Caftan.
KAIL, KALB, a cabbage. (North. E.—L.) Kail or kale is the
North E. form of cole or cole-wort. Spelt keal in Milton, Apology
for Smectymnuus (R.). ‘ Cale, olus ;” Cath. Anglicum (1483). ME.
caul; AS. caul, cawel.—L. caulis, a stalk, a cabbage; whence were
also borrowed Icel. kal, Dan. kaal, Swed. kal; see Cole.
KAILS, nine-pins. (O. Low G.) Perhaps obsolete. Formerly
also keyles. ‘A game call’d nine-pins, or keils;’ Ben Jonson,
Chloridia. ‘ Quille, the keel of a ship, also a keyle, a big peg, or pin
of wood, used at nine-pins or keyles;’ Cotgrave. Spelt ayles;
Reliquiz Antique, i. 292; caylys,id. ii. 224. Of O. Low Ger. origin ;
Du. kegel, ‘a pin, kail; mid kegels spelen, to play at nine-pins ;’
Sewel. (It may be observed that Aails were shaped like a cone.) Cf.
Dan. kegle, a cone; kegler, nine-pins; Swed. keg/a, a pin, cone; both
borrowed from Low G.4+OHG. chegil, G. kegel, a cone, nine-pin,
bobbin (whence F. quille). 8. Evidently a dimin. form; from
a Teut. base *kagil-. Related to Du. keg, kegge, a wedge; Swed.
dial. kage, stubs, stumps.
KALEIDOSCOPE, an optical toy. (Gk.) Modern. Invented
by Sir D. Brewster, and named by him in 1817. Coined from Gk.
xad-és, beautiful, εἶδο-, for εἶδος, appearance, and σκοπ-εῖν, to behold,
survey. Thus the sense is an instrument for ‘ beholding beautiful
forms.’
KALENDAR, KALENDS; see Calendar, Calends.
KALI, soda-ash; see Alkali.
KANGAROO, the name of a quadruped. (Australian.) ‘The
kangaroo is one of the latest discoveries in the history of quadrupeds ;’
tr. of Buffon’s Nat. Hist., London, 1792. ‘ The animals called by the
natives kangooroo or kanguru;’ Cook, Journal, Aug. 4,1770. But
the name is no longer in use in the Australian dialects, which change
See Austral English, by E. E. Morris. Der. kangaroo-
rat.
KAVASS, an armed constable. (Turk.— Arab.) Modern. From
Turk.-Arabic gawwas, lit. a bowmaker; from Arab, gaws, a bow;
Rich. Dict. pp. 1152, 1153.
KAYAK, a light Greenland canoe. (Eskimo.) An Eskimo word ;
common in all the dialects (N. E. D.).
KAYLKES, ninepins; see Kails.
KEDGE (1), to warp a ship. (F.—L.) ‘Kedge, to set up the
foresail, and to let a ship drive with the tide, lifting up and letting
fall the kedge-anchor, as often as occasion serves ;’ Kersey’s Dict.
ed. 1714. And sce the longer description in ‘Todd’s Johnson. ‘A
caggeyng cable ;’ Naval Accounts, Henry VII, 1485, ed. 1896, p. 12.
Allied to cadge, to fasten, to tie, which seems to be a variant of catch.
Cf. catch-anchor, under catch, sb. (3),in N.E.D. See Catch. Cf.
also: ‘let fall a cadge anker;’ Hakluyt, Voy. iii. 107 (last line).
Der. kedg-er, kedge-anchor, ‘Kedge-anchors, or Kedgers, small anchors
used in calm weather, and in a slow stream;’ Kersey. So called
because used to assist in kedging ; see Todd’s Johnson.
KEDGE (2), KIDGH, cheerful, lively. (E.) ‘Kedge, brisk,
lively ;? Ray’s Gloss., ed. 1691; see reprint, ed. Skeat (Eng. Dial.
Soc.), pref. p. xviii. Also called kidge (Forby). An East Anglian
word. ‘Kygge, or ioly, kydge, kyde, jocundus, hillaris, vernosus;’
Prompt Pary. Cf. prov. E. cadgy, cheerful ; and perhaps Swed. dial.
kage, wanton, kiigas, to be eager.
920 KEEL
KEEL (1), the bottom of a ship. (Scand.) ME. kele (rare). ‘The
schippe [Noah’s ark] was. . . thritty cubite high from the cule to the
hacches vnder the cabans ;’ i.e. from the bot/om to the hatches; where
[instead of cule = bottom, from F. cz] another reading is kele = keel;
Trevisa, tr. of Higden, ii. 233. Of Scand. origin; answering to Icel.
kjolr, Dan. kjol, Swed. kél, the keel of a ship; Teut. type *helwz.
4 Distinct from AS. céol, a ship, OHG. kiol, MHG. hiel, a ship.
But Du. and G. kiel, a keel, are borrowed from Scand. Der. seel-ed,
heel-age ; also keel-son, q.v. Also keel-haul, q.v.
KEEL (2), to cool. (E.) ‘ While greasy Joan doth keel the pot;’
L. L. L. y. 2.930. The proper sense is not to sewm the pot (though
it may sometimes be so used) but to /eep it from boiling over by stirring
it round and round; orig. merely to cool it or keep it cool. ‘Keel,
to keep the pot from boiling over ;’ A Tour to the Caves, 1781; see
Eng. Dial. Soc. Gloss. Β, τ. ‘ Faith, Doricus, thy brain boils ; keel
it, keel it, or all the fat’s in the fire;’ Marston, [Induction to] What
You Will, 1607; in Anc. Drama, ii. 199 (Nares). ME. kelen, to cool,
once a common word; see Ormulum, 19584; OEng. Homilies, i. 141;
Prompt. Parv., p. 270; Court of Love, 775; Gower, C. A. ii. 360;
bk. v. 6908. AS. célan, to cool. AS. cdl, cool; see Cool. 8] Note
the regular change from 6 to δ, as in fot, foot, pl. fét, feet; so also
feed from food, &c.
KEELHAUL,. (Du.) Also keelhale, ‘to punish in the seaman’s
way, by dragging the criminal under water on one side of the ship
and up again on the other;’ Johnson, ‘ Hawling ynder the keele;’
Capt. Smith, Works, p. 790. Formerly called heel-raking (Phillips).
A less severe punishment was ducking at the main-yard (Phillips).
From keel (1) and hale (2); like Du. kielhalen, G. kielholen. The E.
word was imitated from Dutch. See N. E. Ὁ.
KEELSON, KELSON, a piece of timber in a ship next to the
keel. (Scand.) ‘Keelson, the second piece of timber, which lies
right over the keel;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. Spelt ke/sine, Chapman, tr.
of Homer, Hiad, i. 426.—Swed. Xélsvin, the keelson; Dan. hjolsviin ;
Norweg. kjélsvill (Aasen) ; whence G, kielschwein, a keelson. B. For
the former syllable, see Keel. The latter syllable wholly agrees, in
appearance, with Swed. suin, Dan. suzinx, G. schwein, which = E. swine
(see Swine). And such may have been the original sense; for
animal names are strangely applied. Perhaps a better sense is
given bv Norweg. Ajolsvill, where svill answers to G. schwelle, E. sill;
see Sill. It is not known in which direction the alteration was
made.
KEEN, sharp, eager, acute. (E.) ME. kene, Chaucer, C. T. 1968
(A 1966); Havelok, 1832. AS. céne; Grein, i. 157. Here ὃ comes
from an older 0; the orig. sense is ‘ knowing’ or ‘skilful.’+Du. koen,
bold, stout, daring ; Icel. kenn (for kenn), wise ; OHG. chuoni, kuani,
MHG. kuene, (ἃ. kiihn, bold. Teut. type *kdnjoz, able, wise; from
kon-, 6-grade of the Teut. root *ken (4/GEN), to know; see Ken,
Can (1). Der. keen-ly, keen-ness, Merch. of Ven. iv. 1. 125.
KEBP, to regard, have the care of, guard, maintain, hold, pre-
serve. (E.) ME. kepen, pt. τ. kepte, pp. kept; Chaucer, C. T. 514 (or
512). AS. cépan (weak verb), to keep, guard, observe, heed ; also to
seize, lay hold of, &c. Teut. *2dpjan; root unknown; prob. allied
to AS. gecop, fit, suitable. [Distinct from AS. cépan, variant of cypan,
to buy (see Cheap).] In Alfric’s Homilies, i. 412, we find ‘gif he
dysigra manna herunga cépd on arfeestum weorcum’=if he seek after
the praises of men in pious works. ‘Georne Saes andagan cépton’
=they earnestly awaited the appointed day; A‘If. Hom. ii. 172.
‘ Cépad heora timan’ = they observe (or keep) their times ; id. ii. 324.
Der. keep, sb., keep-er, keep-er-ship ; keep-ing, As You Like It, i. 1.9;
also keep-sake, i.e. something which we keep for another’s sake, first
known in 1790, and added by Todd to Johnson’s Dict.
KEG, a small cask or barrel. (Scand.) Formerly also spelt cag.
*Cacque, Caque, a cag ;’ Cot. And in Sherwood’s Index to Cotgrave,
we find: ‘A kegge, caque; voyez a Cag.’ =—Icel. kaggi, a keg, cask ;
Swed. kagge, ‘a cag, rundlet, runlet,’ Tauchnitz, Swed. Dict.; Nor-
wegian kagge, a keg, a round mass or heap, a big-bellied animal or
man (whence prov. Εἰ. kedge-bellied, pot-bellied). And see Kails,
which is probably related.
KELP, a kind of large sea-weed; hence, the calcined ashes of
sea-weed. (E.) Formerly kifp or kilpe. ‘As for the reits [sea-weeds |
kilpe, tangle, and such like sea-weeds, Nicander saith they areas
good as treacle. Sundry sorts there be of these reits, going under
the name of Alga;’ Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxxii.c.6. ME. eulp;
‘as culpes of the see waggeth with the water ;’ Trevisa, tr. of Higden,
ii, 181. Not found in AS.
KELPIBE, in Scotland, a fabulous demon assuming various shapes,
usually that of a horse. (C.) ‘Be thou a elpie;’ Burns, Let. to
Mr. Cunningham, Sept. 10, 1792. And see Brand, Antiq., ed. Ellis,
ii. 513; the kelpie is a kind of horse, that makes a. bellowing or
neighing sound, and browses beside alake. Prob. from Gael. calpach,
colpach, a heifer, bullock, colt; colfa, a cow, a horse; Irish colpach,
KERSEY
colpa, a cow,a colt. And perhaps the Gael. word is from Icel. kaifr,
a calf (Macbain). See my Notes on E. Etym. p. 150.
KELSON, the same as Keelson, q.v. (Scand.)
KELT, the same as Celt, q.v.
KEMB, to comb. (E.) See Unkempt.
KEN, to know. (Scand.) Not E., but Scand. ME. kennen, to
know, discern. ¢ That kenne myght alle,’ that all might know; Allit.
Poems, ed. Morris, C. 357.—Icel. kenna, to know; Swed. hénna;
Dan, kjende.4+Du. kennen; (ἃς kennen. B. The sense ‘to know’ is
Scand.; but it is not the original sense. ‘The verb is, etymologically,
a causal one, signifying to make to know, to teach, show; a sense
frequently found in ME. ‘Kenne me on Crist to bileue’=teach me
to believe in Christ; P. Plowman, B. i. 81. Such is also the sense
of AS. cennan, Grein, i. 156; and of Goth. kanxjan, to make known,
John, xvii. 26. Teut. type *kannjan-, to make known, causal of the
verb which appears as cunnan in AS, and kunnan in Gothic, with the
sense ‘ to know.’ For further remarks, see Can (1). Der. ken, sb.,
Cymb. iii. 6. 6; a coined word, not in early use; kenn-ing, the range
of sight, as far as one can see.
KENNEL (1), a house for dogs, pack of hounds. (F.—L.)
Properly ‘a place for dogs;’ hence, the set of dogs themselves.
ME. kenel (with one x), Prompt. Parv.; Sir Gawayn and Grene
Knight, 1140.— Norm. French *kenil, answering to OF. chenil,
a kennel. β. The Norman form is proved by the & being still
preserved in English, and by the Norman F. kenet, a little dog,
occurring in a Norman poem cited in Way’s note in Prompt. Pary.,
p- 271, where the ME. kenet also occurs. This kenet is dimin. of
a Norman F. ken, answering to Picard kien, OF. chen (Littré), mod.
F. chien, a dog. So also in OF, chen-il, the former syllable=the
same OF, chen. sy. From Late L. canile, ‘domus canis;’ Voc. 198.
29.—L. can-, base of canis, a dog; with the termination -ie, occurring
in ou-ile, a house or place for sheep, a sheepfold, from ou-is, a sheep ;
cf. Ital. canile, a kennel. See Canine. Der. kennel, vb.; kennell’d,
Shak. Venus, 913.
KENNEL (2), a gutter. (F.—L.) In Shak. Tam. Shrew, iv.
3. 98. A later form of the ME. canel or canell, of which ME. chanell
(=mod. E. channel) is a variant with palatalisation.—AF. canel,
a channel; in Charlemagne, ed. Michel, 1. 556.—L. canalem, acc. of
candlis,,a canal; hence, a channel or kennel. See Channel, of
which kennel is a doublet; also Canal.
KERAMIC, the same as Ceramic, q.v.
KERBSTONE, CURBSTONE, a stone laid so as to form
part of the edging of stone or brick-work. (Hybrid; F.—L.; and
KE.) ‘Kerbstone, a stone laid round the brim of a well;’ Kersey’s
Dict., ed. 1715. A phonetic spelling of curbstone ; so called from its
curbing the stone-work, which it retains in its place. Seé Curb and
Stone.
KERCHIEF, a square piece of cloth used to cover the head;
and later, for other purposes. (F.—L.) Better spelt curchief. Spelt
kerchiefe in Shak. Merry Wives, ili. 3. 62, iv. 2. 74. ME. couerchef
(=coverchef), Chaucer, C. ΤῸ 6172 (D 590); also spelt couerhcief
(=coverchief), id. 455 (A 453). Also kerchef, Chaucer, Parl. of
Foules, 272.—OF. covre-chef, later couvre-chef; cf. ‘Couvre-chef,
a kerchief ;’ Cot. OF. covrir, later couvrir, to cover ; and chef, chief,
the head, which is from L. caput, the head. See Cover and Chief.
| A word of similar formation is curfew, q.v. Der. hand-kerchief,
pocket-hand-kerchief.
KERMES, the dried bodies of insects used in dyeing crimson.
(Arab.—Skt.) See Crimson.
KERN (1), KERNE, an Irish soldier. (Irish.) In Shak. Mach.
i. 2. 13, 30; v. 7.17. ‘The kearne .. . whom only I tooke to be the
proper Irish souldiour;’ Spenser, View of the State of Ireland; in
Globe ed. of Spenser, p. 640, col. 1.— Irish ceatharn, a troop, but
used in the sense of ceatharnach, a (single) soldier; from Olrish
ceithern,a troop (Macbain). Cp. L, caterua,atroop. See Cateran.
(Stokes-Fick, p. 76).
KERN (2), another spelling of Quern, ἡ. v.
KERNED, a grain, the substance in the shell of a nut. (E.)
ME, kirnel (badly kirnelle), P. Plowman, B. xi. 253; curnel, id. C.
xiii. 146. AS. cyrnel, to translate L. granum; Voc. 138.22. Formed
(with dimin. suffix and yowel-change from Teut, «to y) from AS.
corn, grain. Teut. stem. *kurnilo-. See Corn.
KEROSENE, alamp-oil made from petroleum. (Gk.) Ill coined
from Gk. κηρός, wax; with suffix -ene.
KERSEY, coarse woollen cloth. (E.). In Shak. L. L. L. v. 2.
413. ‘Carsey cloth, cre:y;’ Palsgrave. ‘ Pro tribus ulnis de hersey;’
Earl of Derby’s Expedition, 1390 (Camd. Soc.), p. 89, 1. 3. The word
is certainly English, and the same word as the personal name Kerse¥;
named from Kersey, 3 miles from Hadleigh, in the S. of Suffolk, |
where a woollen trade was once carried on. <A little weaving still
goes on at Hadleigh. The place of the manufacture of kersey is now
|
|
KERSEY MERE
the North of England, but it was once made in the South (Phillips’
Dict.). AS. Ceres-ig, ‘Czer’s island;’ Birch, Cart. Saxon. iii. 603.
4 The F. carizé, ‘kersie’ (Cot.), Du. karsaat, Swed. kersing, are all
from the E. word.
KERSEY MERE, atwilled cloth of fine wool. (Cashmere.) A
modern corrupt spelling of cassimere, an old name for the cloth also
called Cashmere. See Cassimere, Cashmere. ‘The corruption
is clearly due to confusion with sersey, a coarse cloth of a very different
texture.
KESTREL, a base kind of hawk. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q.
li. 3. 4; spelt castrel, Beaum. and Fletcher, Pilgrim, i. 1; kas¢ril,
Ben Jonson, Epiccene, iv. 4; see Nares. The ¢ is excrescent (as
after s in whils-t, amongs-t); it stands for kas’rel, kes’rel, short for
casserel, kerserel,— OF. quercerelle, ‘a kastrell ;? Cot. Also cresserelle,
crecerelle,‘a kestrel, id. Probably for *quercelelle, the regular dimin.
of quercelle, ‘a kastrell,’ Cot.—L, querquéedula, a kind of teal; see
Diez and Scheler. Prob. of imitative origin. β. See also, in Cot-
grave, the forms cercelle, a teal; cercerelle, a kestrel, teal; creceredle,
a kestrel; mod. F. crécerelle. The form cercelle is mod. F. sarcelle;
see Littré, under crécelle, crécerelle, sarcelle; Diez, under cerceta, the
Spanish form. The Ital. ¢ristarello, a kestrel (Florio), represents
a form *cristarello; cf. Burgundian cristel, a kestrel, a form cited by
Wedgwood. (See my letter to The Academy, Oct. 7, 1882, p. 262.)
KETCH, a small yacht or hoy. (F.—L.) ‘Ketch, a vessel like
a hoy, but of a lesser size;’? Kersey, ed. 1715. ‘We stood in for the
channel : about noon we saw a sail having but one mast; judged it
to be a ketch; but, drawing nearer, found it was a ship in distress,
having lost her main and mizen masts;’ Randolph’s Islands in the
Archipelago, 1687, p. 103 (Todd). Formerly also catch; Capt. J.
Smith, Works, ed. Arber, p. 51. Supposed to be a particular use of
catch, from the verb to catch. See Catch; and see Catch, sb. 32)
in N. E. D:
KETCHUP, a sauce. (Malay.) ‘Shall I use ketch-up?’ W. King,
Art of Cookery, let. 8; in Eng. Poets (1810); ix. 252. Spelt ketchup
in 1711 (N. E. D.).—Malay kéchup, kichup, a sauce; soy. (In Du.
spelling ketjap.) See C. P. G. Scott; Malayan Words in English.
Perhaps ult. of Chinese origin; see N. E. D.
KETTLE, a metal vessel for boiling liquids. (Scand.—L.) ME.
ketel (with one ¢), Prompt. Pary.; Wyclif, Levit. xi. 35. As the & is
hard, it is prob. from Icel. ketill; a kettle; we find also AS. cefe/,
AS. Leechdoms, ii. 86; spelt ceil in the Epinal Glossary, 168. Cf.
also Du. ketel, G. kessel. The Mceso-Goth. form is katils, occurring
in the gen. pl. katilé in Mark, vii. 4 (Gk. χαλκίων, Lat. eramentorum,
A. V. ‘brazen vessels’). β. Borrowed from L. catillus, a small bowl,
also found in the form catinulus; dimin. form of L. catinus, a bowl,
a deep vessel for cooking food. The L. catinus is a kindred word to
Gk, κότυλος, a cup, κοτύλη, a small cup; see Cotyledon. € From
the L. catillus were also borrowed Icel. ketill, Swed. hittel, Dan. kedel,
Dn. ketel, G. kessel, and even Russ, hotel’, Der. kettle-drum, Hamlet,
1b £650
KEX, hemlock; orig. a hollow stem. (C.?) ‘Bundles of these
empty kexes ;’ Beaum. and Fletcher, Elder Brother, iii. 5.13. ME.
kex, kix; P. Plowman, B. xvii. 219; Prompt. Parv. In Walter de
Bibbesworth, the kex seems to mean ‘ dry stalks,’ and translates OF.
le frenole; Wright, Vocab., vol. i. p. 157. Cf. prov. E. keggas, tall
umbelliferous plants; answering to Corn. cegas, hemlock. Prob. of
Celtic or Latin origin ; cf. Welsh cegid, hemlock; L. ciciita, hemlock.
4 Hence also prov. E. hecksies =kexes, in Shak. Hen. V, v. 2. 52;
a pl. sb. of which the proper singular form is not kecksy, but kex. See
Way’s note in Prompt. Parv., s.v. ἀνα. Note also that kex really =
kecks, and is itself a plural; kexes being a double plural. W. cecys, pl.,
is merely the E. word borrowed.
KRY, that which opens or shuts a lock. (E.) Formerly called fay,
timing with may, Merch. of Ven. ii. 7. 59; and with survey, Shak.
Sonnet 52. ME. keye (riming with pleye, to play), Chaucer, C. T.
9918 (E 2044). AS. c&g, cége, Grein, i. 156; whence ME. keye by
the usual change of g into y, as in day from AS, deg ; OFries. kai,
kei, akey. Der. key-board, key-hole, key-note, key-stone.
KHALIF, KHALIFA, the same as Calif, q. v.
KHAN, a prince, chief, emperor. (Pers.— Tatar.) Common in
Mandeville’s Travels, spelt Cham, Cane, Chane, Can, Chan; pp. 42,
215, 216, 224, 225.— Pers. khan, lord, prince (a title); Palmer’s Pers.
Dict., col. 212. But the word is of Tatar origin; the well-known
title Chingis Khan signifies ‘great khan’ or ‘great lord,’ a title
assumed by the celebrated conqueror Temugin, who was proclaimed
Great Khan of the Moguls and Tatars, a.p. 1205. He is always
known by the sole #it/e, often also spelt Gengis Khan, corrupted (in
Chaucer) to Cambuscan. See Introd. to Chaucer's Prioresses Tale,
&c., ed. Skeat, p. xlii. Der. khan-ate, where the suffix is of L.
origin.
IVE, a prince. (F.—Pers.) A Turkish title given to the
KIDNEY 321
governor of Egypt; the word itself is, however, not Turkish, but bor-
rowed from Persian.—F. Kheédive.—Pers. khadiw, khidiw, khudiw,
a king, a great prince, a sovereign, Rich. Dict. p. 601; spelt khidiv,
a king, Palmer’s Dict. col. 216, where the name for the viceroy of
Egypt is given as khidéwi. Cf. Pers. khoda, God (Vullers, p. 663).
KHIDMUTGAR, KITMUTGAR, a male servant who waits
at table; in India. (Hind.—Pers.—Arab.) First in 1765. —Hind.
khidmatgar, a male domestic who waits at table (Forbes). — Pers.
khidmat-gar, the same ; lit. ‘rendering service ;’ Rich. Dict., p. 601.
Formed with Pers. -gir, agential suffix, from Arab. khidmat, service,
employment, from Arab. root khadama, he served; ib. (See Yule.)
KIBE, a chilblain. (C.) In Hamlet, v. 1.153. ‘She halted of
[owing to] a kybe;’ Skelton, Elynour Rummyng, |. 493. ‘ He haltith
often that hath a Ayby hele ;’ id. Garland of Laurell, 1.502. ‘Gibbus,
hybe,’ Voc. 586. 25. ‘Kybis on the fete ;’ Lanfranc, Cirurgie, p. 5
(ab. 1400).—W. cibi, a kibe (D. Silvan Evans); also cibwst, ‘ chil-
blains, kibes ;’ Spurrell. β. Explained in Pughe’s Welsh Dict. as
standing for cib-gwst, from cib, a cup, seed-vessel, husk, and gwst,
a humour, malady, disease. Thus the sense would appear to be
‘a malady in the shape of a cup,’ from the swelling or rounded form.
KICK, to strike or thrust with the foot. (Scand.) ME. kiken,
Chaucer, C. T. 6523 (D 941); P. Plowman, C, v. 22. [W. cicto, to
kick, given in the Eng.-Welsh portion of Spurrell’s Dict., and Gael.
ceig, to kick, are both from E.] We find also prov. E. kink, to kick,
also to jerk, twist the body, to sprain. —Norw. kikka, for kinka, to
over-drive a horse, so as to sprain him; ἀϊΐζία, to jerk, to go jerkily,
like a capricious horse; Aikk, a spraining or straining of a sinew
(Ross). Evidently related to Kink. Cf. Swed. kik-hosta, Low G.
kinkhoost, the chincough, hooping-cough. A kink is a twist in a rope;
hence, a hitch, jerk, kick, sprain. See kick, kink, in E. D. D.
KICKSHAWS, a delicacy, fantastical dish. (F.—L.) ‘ Any
pretty little tiny kickshaws;’? 2 Hen. 1V,v. 1.29. The pl. is hick-
shawses. ‘Art thou good at these kickshawses?’ Twelfth Nt. i. 3. 122.
At a later time, Aickshaws was incorrectly regarded as being a pl.
form. Kickshaws is a curious corruption of F. quelque chose, lit.
something, hence, a trifle, small delicacy. This can be abundantly
proved by quotations. ‘Fricandeaux, short, skinlesse, and dainty
puddings, or quelkchoses, made of good flesh and herbs chopped
together, then rolled up into the form of liverings, &c., and so boiled ;”
Cotgraye’s F. Dict. ‘I made bold to set on the board kickeshoses, and
variety of strange fruits;’ Featley, Dippers Dipt, ed. 1645, p. 199
(Todd). ‘Fresh salmon, and French kickshose;’? Milton, Animad-
versions upon Remonstrant’s Defence (R.). ‘ Nor shall we then need
the monsieurs of Paris .. . to send [our youth] over back again
transformed into mimicks, apes, and kicshoes ;? Milton, Treatise on
Education (Todd). ‘As for French kickshaws, Cellery, and Cham-
paign, Ragous, and Fricasees, in truth we’ve none;’ Rochester,
Works, 1777, p. 143. ‘Some foolish French quelquechose, I warrant
you. Quelguechose! oh! ignorance in supreme perfection! He means
a kek shose ν᾿ Dryden, Kind Keeper, A. iii. sc. 1.—F. quelque chose,
something. = L, gual-is, of what kind, with suffix -qguam ; and caussa,
a cause, thing. Qualis answers to E. which; quam is fem. acc. of qui,
answering to E. who. See Which, Who, and Cause.
KID, a young goat. (Scand.) ME. kid, Chaucer, C. T. 3260, 9238
(E 1364); Ormulum, 7804. —Norw. and Dan. kid, a kid; Swed. kid,
in Widegren’s Swed. Dict., also kidling ; Icel. kid, kiBlingr, a kid.+-
OHG. kizzi, MHG.and 6. kitze,a kid. Der. hid, verb ; kid-ling, with
double suffix -J-ing ; kid-fox, a young fox, Much Ado, ii. 3. 443 alsu
kid-nap, q.v.
KIDDULB#, a kind of weir formed of basket-work, placed in a river
to catch fish, (AF.) AF. fide/, pl. kideux, Statutes of the Realm,
i. 316 (1351); MF. quideau, ‘a wicker engine whereby fish is caught ;’
Cot. F. guideau ; which cannot be derived from F. guider (Hatzfeld),
though it may have been modified byit. Cf. Τὶ 4it,a tub, basket for
fish; prov. E. kid, a tub, basket. Sce Kit (1).
KIDNAP, to steal children. (Scand.) ‘ People that lye in wait
for our children, and may be considered as a kind of kidnappers
within the law τ᾿ Spectator, no, 311 (Richardson, Johnson). * Thou
practisest the craft of a A’dnapper ;’ said by Giant Maul, in Bunyan,
Pilg. Prog. pt. 2. Compounded of kid, a child, in thieves’ slang ; and
nap, more commonly zab, to steal. Kid is of Scand. origin; see Kid.
Nap is also of Scand. origin ; from Dan. nappe, to snatch, Swed. nappa,
to catch, to snatch, lay hold on; see Nab. Der. hid-napp-er.
KIDNEY, a gland which secretes the urine. (E.) ‘And the two
hydneers ;’ \Wyclif, Exod. xxix. 13 (earlier version) ; ‘and twey ἀϊά-
neris;” (later version). But the ending -eris, -eers seems to be a sub-
stitution for -eren, -eiren (see N. Ἐς D.); and, in the same passage,
three MSS. have kideneiren. In W.de Bibbesworth, we find the sing.
form hidenei; Wright’s Voe. vol. i. p. 149. Comparing kiden-er, pl.
hiden-eiren, with ME. er, ey, an egg, pl. eiren, eggs, we see the
probability that ME. εἰ (pl. efren) constitutes the seco:d element in
Υ
322 KILDERKIN
hid(e)n-cy. B. This ME. εἰ is from AS. ég (pl. @gru, whence ME.
eire, later eive-n, a double pl. form), meaning ‘egg ;’ from the shape.
Cf. Du. εἰ, an egg, pl. eijeren. The former clement is unknown;
perhaps it represents an AS. adj. form *cydden, or an AS. *cyddan,
formed from AS. codd, a bag, husk, which in ME. also meant ‘ belly.’
Cf. prov. Τὸ. kid, a pod, husk; Aiddon, a kidney; Swed. dial. kudde,
apod. 4 The ME. xere, a kidney, seems to be a different word ;
from Icel. xyra, Dan. nyre, cognate with G, niere,a kidney. Der.
hidney-bean. The phrase ‘ of his kidney’ means ‘ of his size or kind ;’
see Merry Wives, iii. 5. 110.
KILDERKIN, a liquid measure of 18 gallons. (Du.—F.—Span.
—Arab.—L.) In Levins, ed. 1570; spelt kylderkin, ‘Take a hilder-
hin... of 4 gallons of beer ;’ Bacon, Nat. Hist., § 46. The size of
the measure appears to have varied. A corruption (by change of the
liquid x τὸ 1) of MDu. kindeken. Spelt hylderken in Palsgrave; il-
derkyn in 1390; see Riley, Memorials of London, p. 517; but kin-
Corkin in 1598 and 1691, kynterkya in 1530 (N. E. D.). Kilian
gives: ‘Kindeken, kinneken, the eighth part of a vat.’ In mod. Du.,
kinnetje means ‘a firkin,’ which in English measure is only half
akilderkin. B. The form resembles that of Du. kindekin, ‘a little
child,’ Sewel ; formed, with dimin. suffix -ken (=E. -kin =G. -chen),
from Du. wind, a child; but the real origin is very different. It is
ascertained to be a derivative, with the same suffix -ken, from a Du.
spelling of OF. guintal, ‘a quintal, or hundredweight ;’ Cot. See
jurther under Quintal. ‘See Grimm, Wort., s.v. Kindlein (2);
Verwijs and Verdam, 5. v. Kindekijn (2);’ N.E. Ὁ.
KILL, to slay, deaden. (E.) ME. &illen, more commonly cullen ;
a weak verb. Spelt cadlen, P. Plowman, A. i, 64; kullen (various
yeading, killen), id. B. i. 66. The old sense appears to be simply ‘to
hit’ or ‘strike,’ ‘We kylle of thin heued’=we strike off thy head ;
Allit: Poems, ed. Morris, B. 876.‘ Pauh a word culle pe ful herde
up o pine herte’=though a word strike thee full hard upon the
heart; Ancren hiwle, p. 126, 1. 13; with which compare: ‘ pe cul
of per eax’ =the stroke of the axe; id. p. 128,1. 1. ‘ Ofte me hine
culde,’ often people struck him; Layamon, 1. 20319. If a native
word, it answers to an AS. type *cyllan, from the weak grade,
c(w)ul, of cwel-an, to die; of which E. gvell is the causal form. The
sense ‘to strike’ is somewhat against this; but there is a parallel
Jorm in EFries. kiillen, to vex, strike, beat; which suits very well ;
cf. also OHG. chollen, to vex, kill, martyr, allied to guellan, with
the same sense. Tor the loss of τὸ, cf. dull, which is related to
dwell. See Quell, 4 It bears some resemblance to Icel. holia,
to hit on the head, to harm; from sollr, top, summit, head, crown,
shaven crown, pate; cf. Norweg. kylla, to poll, to cut the shoots
off trees ; from Norweg. koll, the top, head, crown; Aasen. But this
hardly seems the right solution. Der. hill-er.
KIN, a large oven for drying corn, bricks, &c.; bricks piled for
burning. (L.) ‘Kylne, Kyll, for malt dryynge, Ustrina ;’ Prompt.
Parv., p. 2743 kulne, Keliquize Antique, il. &1. AS. cyln, a drying-
house ; ‘ Siceatorium, ον, vel ast;’ Wright’s Vocab, i. 58 (where
ast = ast= I, oast in oast-house, a drying-house). Also spelt cyline in
the Corpus glossary, 1.906. β. Merely borrowed from L. culina,
a kitchen; whence the sense was easily transferred to that of
‘drying-house.” ‘The Icel. kylna, Swed. kolna, a kiln, are from the
game source; so also W. cy’yn, cyl,a kiln. See Culinary.
KILOGRAMME, KILOGRAM, a weight containing 1000
grammes ; about 2-205 lb. avoirdupois. (F.—Gk.) F. kilogramme
(1795).—F. hilo-, for Gk. χίλιοι, a thousand; and F. gramme, for
Gk. γράμμα. a letter, also taken to mean a small weight.
KILOMETRE, a length of 1000 metres; nearly five furlongs.
(F.—Gk.) F. Ailométre (1795). —F. kilo-, for Gk, χίλιοι, a thousand;
and F. métre,a metre. See Metre.
KILT, a very short petticoat worn by the Highlanders of Scotland,
(Scand.) The sb. is merely derived from the verb Hilt, to tuck up,
added by Todd to Johnson’s Dict. ; he makes no mention of the sb.
‘Her tartan petticoat she’ll Ailt,” ive. tuck up; Burns, Author's
Tearnest Cry, st. 17. ‘Ki/t, to tuck up the clothes;’ Brockett’s
North-Country Words. G. Douglas translates Virgil’s Nuda gen
(4En, 1. 320) by diltit. ‘To kylte, succingere;’? Cath. Anglicum
(1483).— Dan. kilte, to truss, tuck up; Swed. dial. kita, to swathe
or swaddle a child (Rietz); MSwed. uphilta, to tuck up (Ihre). Cf.
Icel. hilting, a skirt. B. There is an allied sb., signifying ‘lap ;’
occurring in Swed. dial, 4iléa, the lap; cf. Icel. ἀγαϊέα, the lap,
kj6ltu-barn, a baby in the lap, 4jéltu-rakki, a lap-dog.
KIMBO; see this discussed under Akimbo.
KIN, relationship, affinity, genus, race. (E.) ME. kun, kyn, hin.
“T haue no fun pere’ =I have no kindred there; P. Plowman, A. vi.
118, where some MSS. have kyn; spelt kynne, id. B. v. 639. AS.
cynn; Grein, i, 177. OSax. kunni; Icel. ἄγ, kin, kindred, tribe;
cf. kynni, acquaintance; Du. kunne, sex; Goth. kuni, kin, race, tribe.
B. Teut. type *kunjom, neut. From Teut. *#ux, weak grade of the
KING
root KEN, equivalent to Idg. 4/GEN, to generate; whence L. genus.
See Genus, Generate. Der. from the same source are kind, q.v.,
kindred, q.v., hing, q-v. Also kins-man = kin’s man =man of the
same kin or tribe, Much Ado, v. 4. 112; Ains-woman, id. iv. 1. 305;
hkins-folk, Luke, ii. 44.
KIND (1), sb., nature, sort, character. (E.) ΜΕ. hund, kunde,
kind, kinde ; Chaucer, C. T. 2453 (A 2451); spelt kunde, Ancren
Riwle, p. 14, 1. 10, AS. cynd, generally gecynd, Grein, i. 387, 388 ;
the prefix ge- making no difference to the meaning ; the most usual
sense is ‘nature.’ ‘Teut. type *kundiz, fem. ; from *kun-, base of
*kun-jom, kin, with suffix -di-=Idg. -ti-. See Kin. Der. kind-ly,
adj., ME. kyndli=natural, Wyclif, Wisdom, xii. 10, and so used in
the Litany in the phr. ‘ Aindly fruits;’ whence also kindli-ness. Also
kind (2) below.
KIND (2), adj., natural, loving. (E.) ME. kunde, kinde;
Chaucer, C. ‘I’. 8478 (E 602). ‘For pe kunde folk of pe lond’ =for
the native people of the land; Rob. of Glouc. p. 40, 1. 937. A
common meaning is ‘natural’ or ‘native.’ AS. cyzde, natural, native,
in-born; more usually gecynde, where the common prefix ge- does
not alter the sense; Grein, i. 178, 388. Teut. type *Aund- oz, fron
the sb. *kundiz; see the sb. above. Der. kind-ness, ME, kindenese
(four syllables), Chaucer, C. T. 5533 (B 1113); Aind-ly, adv. 3, kind-
hearted, Shak, Sonnet 10,
KINDLE (1), to set fire to, inflame. (Scand.) ME. hindlen ;
Chaucer, C. T. 12415 (C 481); Havelok, 915; Ormulum, 13442,
Formed from Icel. kynda, to light a fire, kindle; Swed. dial. kinda,
kynda, kvdnda, to kindle. B. But Icel. kyndill, Swed. dial. kyndel,
a torch, has evidently been affected by AS. candel, a candle (from
L. candéla); as shown by Icel. Ayndill-messa, Candlemas ; adapted
from AS. candel-masse, Candlemas, at the time of the introduction
of Christianity into Iceland. Der. kindl-er.
KINDLE (2), to bring forth young. (E.) ‘The cony that you
see dwell where she is kindied;’ As You Like It, iii. 2. 358. ME.
kindlen, kundlen. ‘ Thet is the uttre uondunge thet kundled wredde’
=it is the outward temptation that produces wrath, Ancren Riwle,
p- 194, 1. 20: where we also find, immediately below, the sentence :
“thus beod theo inre uondunges the seouen heaued-sunnen and hore
fule #undles’=thus the inward temptations are the seven chief sins
and their foul progeny. Cf. also: ‘Kyndlyn, or brynge forthe yonge
kyndelyngis, Feto, effeto;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 275. And in Wyclif,
Luke, iii. 7, we find * kyndlis of eddris’ in the earlier, and ‘ kyndlyngis
of eddris’ in the later version, where the A. V. has ‘ generation of
vipers. β. The verb kindlen, to produce, and the sb, &indel,
a generation, are due to the sb. kind; see Kind (1). We may
probably regard the sb, Aindel as a derivative of kind, and the verb as
formed from it. Both words refer, in general, to a numerous progeny,
a litter, esp. with regard te rabbits, &c.
KINDRED, relatives, relationship. (E.) The former d is ex-
crescent, the true form being Ainred, which occurs occasionally in
Shakespeare; as, e. g. in Much Ado, ii. i. 68 (first folio), ‘ All the
kinred of Marius;’ Shakespeare’s Plutarch, ed, Skeat, p. 47, 1. 27.
ME. hkinrede, Chaucer, C. T. 2792 (A 2790); spelt cunreden, St.
Juliana, ed. Cockayne, p. 60, 1.13. Composed of AS. cyn, kin (see
Kin), and the suffix -réden, signifying ‘condition,’ or more literally
“rule.” The AS. cynr@den does not appear, but we find the parallel
word hiwr@den, a household, Matt. x. 6; and the same suffix is
preserved in E. hat-red, Réden is connected with the Goth. garaideins,
tule, and the adj. Ready, q.v. Der. kindred, adj., K. John, iii. 4. 14.
KINE, cows. (E.) Not merely the plural, but the double plural
form; it is impossible to regard it as a contraction of cowen, as some
have absurdly supposed. a. The AS. ci, a cow, made the pl. cj,
with the usual vowel-change of i to 73 cf. mis (E. mouse), pl. imps (E.
mice). Hence the ME. ky (=cows), Barbour, Bruce, vi. 405, and
still common in Lowland Scotch. ‘The Aye stood rowtin 7’ the
loan;’ Burns, The Twa Dogs, I. 5 from end. B. By the addition
of -en, a weakened form of the AS. plural-ending -ax, was formed
the double plural ky-ex, so spelt in the Trinity-College MS. of P.
Plowman, B. vi. 142, where other MSS. have kyene, kyne, λίγη, ken.
Hence kine in Gen, xxxii. 15; &c. See Cow. Cf. ey-ne for ey-en
(AS. éag-an), old pl. of eye (AS. éage). Also MDu. hoeyen, pl. of
koe, acow. y. Or kine may represent the AS. gen. pl. cyna, used
with numerals; the evidence is insufficient.
KINEMATIC, relating to motion. (Gk.) From Gk. κινήματ-,
stem of κίνημα. movement ; from κινεῖν, to move ; with adj. suffix -ic.
KINETIC, causing motion. (Gk.) From κινητικός, moving;
from κινεῖν, to move.
KING, a chief ruler, monarch, (E.) ME. king, a contraction of
an older form kining or hyning. Spelt king, Ancren Riwle, p. 138;
last line; 4ining, Mark, xv. 2 (Hatton MS.). AS. cyning, also
cynincg,, cyninc, cynyng, Mark, xv. 2; Grein, i. 179.— AS. cyn, a tribe,
race, kin; with suffix τῶν. The suffix -img means ‘ belonging to,”
KINGDOM
and is frequently used with the sense ‘son of,’ as in ‘Alfred pel-
wulfing ’ = Alfred son of ΖΕ μενα; A.S. Chronicle, an. 871. Thus
cyn-ing = son of the tribe, i.e. chosen of the tribe, or man of rank.
OSax. kuning, a king, from kunt, kunni, a tribe; OFriesic kining,
kening, from ken, a tribe; Icel. konungr, a king, with which cf.
Olcel. konr, a noble, Icel. ἄγη, a kind, kin, tribe; Swed. konung;
Dan. konge; Du. honing; G. kénig, ΜΗ. kiinic, ΟἿ. chuning,
kunninc; from MHG, kiinne, OHG. chunni, a race, kind. See Kin.
B. Or else cyn-ing is ‘son of a noble,’ from AS. cyn-e, royal; the
ultimate result is the same, See below. Der. hing-crab, hing-craft,
king-cup, Spenser, Shepherd’s Kalendar, April, 1.141 ; king~jisher (so
called from the splendour of its plumage), Sir T. Browne, Vulg.
Errors, b. ili. c. 10; king-less, Rob, of Glouc. p. 105 (1. 2289) ; hing-
let, a double diminutive, with suffixes -/- and -et ; king-like, king-ly,
ΜΕ. kingly, Lydgate’s Minor Poems, p. 20; king-li-ness. Also king's
bench, so called because the king used to sit in court; Aing’s evil,
Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xx. c. 4 (end), and in Palsgraye, so called
because it was supposed that a king’s touch could cure it, And see
kingdom.
KINGDOM, the realm of a king. (E.) ME. kingdom, kyng-
dom; P, Plowman, B. vii. 155. Evidently regarded as a compound
of king with suffix -dom; and AS. cyningdom occurs thrice in the
poem of Daniel. But, as a fact, the commoner form was kinedom ;
“pene Ainedom of heouene’=the kingdom of heaven, Ancren Riwle,
p- 148, 1. 3. AS. cyneddm, a kingdom; Grein, i. 179. β. The
former is cognate with OSax. kuningddm, ONorse konungdomr. The
latter was formed (with suffix -ddm) from the adj. cyne, royal, very
common in composition, but hardly used otherwise. This ad).
answers nearly to Icel. kor, a man of royal or noble birth; and
is related to-Kin and King. Thus the alteration from ME. kine-
to Ε΄ king- makes little practical difference. δ So also, for hing-ly,
there is an AS. cynelic, royal; Grein, i. 179.
KINK, a twist in a rope. (Du.) ‘Kink, a twist or short con-
volution in a rope ;’ Brockett, Gloss. of North Country Words, ed.
1846.— Du. kink, a twist in a rope; but prob. of Scand. origin. Cf.
Norw. and Swed. kink, a twist in a rope; also Low G. kinke, a twist
inathread, β. From a Teut. base KEIK, to bend; appearing in
Icel. kikna, to sink at the knees through a heavy burden, keikr, bent
backwards, keikja, to bend backwards. ‘The base is well preserved
in Norw. kika, to twist, keika, to bend back or aside, kixka, to writhe,
twist, kink, a twist (Aasen). 4 There is an ultimate relation to
Chincough, g.v. And see Kick.
KIOSK, a Turkish open summer-house, small pavilion. (F.—
Turk.—Pers.) In Byron, Corsair, iii. 1. Spelt Aiosgue in French. =
Turk. kushk, késhk (with & pronounced as ki), a kiosk; Zenker’s Dict.,
p- 774-—Pers. kishk, a palace, a yilla; a portico, or similar pro-
jection in a palace, Rich, Dict. p. 1217; a palace, kiosk, Palmer's
Dict. col. 496. Devic remarks that the 7 is due to the Turkish
practice of inserting a slight ¢ after &.
ER, to cure or preserve salmon. (E.) This meaning is
quite an accidental one, arising from a practice of curing kipper-
salmon, i.e, salmon during the spawning season. Such fish, being
inferior in kind, were cured instead of being eaten fresh, ‘ Kipper-
time, a space of time between May 3 and Twelfth-day, during which
salmon-fishing in the river Thames was forbidden ;” Kersey, 64.171.
But some explain 4ipper to mean a salmon before spawning. It answers
exactly, in form, to AS. cypera, a kind of salmon; though the precise
sense is not known. ‘Eow fon lysted leax odde cyperan,’ You wish
to catch a salmon or a kipper; Metres of Boethius, xix. 12.
KIRK, a church. (North. E.—Gk.) The North. E. form; see
Burns, The Twa Dogs, 1. 19. ME. kirke, P. Plowman, B. vy. 1;
Ormulum, 3531. Cf. Icel. kirkja; Dan. kirke ; Swed. kyrka; borrowed
from AS. cirice, circe, a church. Of Gk. origin. See Church.
KIRTLE, a sort of gown or petticoat. (L.; with E. suffix.) Used
rather vaguely, ME. kirtel, Chaucer, C. T. 33213 kurtel, Ancren
Riwle, p. 10. AS. cyrée/, to translate L. palla; AElfric’s Gloss., in
-Voc. 107, 26. Also ONorthumbrian cyrtel, to translate L. tunica;
Matt. y. 40 (Lindisfarne MS.)+Icel. kyrtill, a kirtle, tunic, gown;
Dan. Hortel, a tunic; Swed. kortel, a petticoat. B. Evidently
a diminutive, with suffixed -el, for -il. From L. curtus, short ; which
also appears in Du. kort, (ἃ. kurz, short. See Curt.
KISMET, fate, destiny. (Turk.—Pers.— Arab.) First in 1849.—
Turk: gisme?, fate.— Pers. gismat, fate. Arab. gisma(t), a portion ;
fate, destiny. = Arab, root gasama, he divided.
__ KISS, a salute with the lips, osculation. (E.) ME. cos, kos, cus,
hus; later hisse, hiss. The yowel ὁ is really proper only to the verb,
(Which is formed from the sb. by vowel-change. ‘And he cam to
»Jhesu, to kisse him; And Jhesus seide to him, Judas, with a coss
.thou bytrayest mannys sone ;’ Wyclif, Luke, xxii. 47, 48. The form
husse is as late as Skelton, Phylyp Sparowe, 361. In the Ancren
Riwle, p. 102, we find cos, nom. sing., cosses, pl., cosse, dat. sing.;
KLEPTOMANIA 323
as well as cws, verb in the imperative mood. AS. coss, sb., a kiss,
Luke, x::ii, 48; whence cyssan, to kiss, id. xxii. 47.4-Du. kus, sb.,
whence kussen, yb.; Icel. oss, sb., whence kyssa, vb.; Dan. kys, sb.,
kysse, vb.; Swed. kyss, sb., kyssa, vb.; G. kuss, MIG. kus, sb.,
whence kiissen, vb. B. All from a Teut. type *kussuz, sb. Cf. Goth.
kukjan, to kiss; EFries. kik, a kiss. Der. kiss, verb; as shown
above.
KISTVAEN, the same as Cistvaen, q.v.
KIT (1), a vessel of various kinds, a miilk-pail, tub; hence, an
outfit. (Du.) ‘A zit, a little vessel, Cantharus;’ Levins. ‘Hoc
mul[cjtrum, a kyt#;” Voc. 696. 14. In Barbour’s Bruce, b. xviii.
1. 168, we are told that Gib Harper’s head was cut off, salted, put
into ‘a ἀγέ, and sent to London.—MDu. kitte, ‘a great wodden
bowle, or tancker,’ Hexham ; Du. kit, ‘a wooden can;’ Sewel. Cf.
Norweg. ki/te, a large corn-bin in the wall of a house (Aasen). Kit,
an outfit, a collection, set, lot, is the same word (N.E. D.).
KiT (2), asmall violin, (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘Tl have his little gut
to string a kit with;’ Beaum. and Fletcher, Philaster, Act v. sc. 4
(4th Citizen). Abbreviated from MF. guiterne, a cittern, or cithern,
Cot.; OF. guitterne (Roquefort) ; which is borrowed from L. cithara,
See Cithern, Gittern. Godefroy, 5. ν. guiterneur, a player on
a cittern, quotes the by-form quiéerneur. The form is North. F.;
Norm, dial. guiterne, Moisy, ed. 1895.
KIT-CAT, KIT-KAT, the name given to portraits of a par-
ticular size. (Personal name.) a. A portrait of about 28 by 36 in.
in size is thus called, because it was the size adopted by Sir Godfrey
Kneller (died 1723) for painting portraits of the members of the
Kit-kat club. B. This club, founded in 1703, was so named because
the members used to dine at the house of Christopher Kat, a pastry-
cook in King’s Street, Westminster [or in Shire Lane, near Temple
Bar; see Spectator, no. 9, and note in Morley’s edition;] Haydn,
Dict. of Dates. “Immortal made, as Kit Kat by his pies;’ W. King,
Art of Poetry, letter viii; pr. in 1708. -y. Kit is a familiar abbrevia-
tion of Christopher, a name of Gk. origin, from Gk. Χριστο-φόρος, lit.
* Christ-bearing.’
KITCHEN, a:‘room where food is cooked. (L.) The 2 is in-
serted, ME. kichen, kychene, kechene, Will. of Palerne, 1681, 1707,
21713 kychyne, P. Plowman, B.v. 261. Spelt Auchene, Ancren Riwle,
p- 214. AS. ‘cycere, coquina;’ Voc. 283. 12.—Late L. cucina, for
L. coqutna, a kitchen. —L. coguere, to cook; seeCook. Der. kitchen-
maid, kitchen-stuff, kitchen-garden.
KITE, a voracious bird; a toy for flying in the air. (E.) ΜΕ.
kité, kyté (dissyllabic), Chaucer, C. T. 1181 (A 1179). AS. cyta;
we find the entry ‘Butio (sic), cyta’ in AElfric’s Gloss. (Nomina
Auium); and in the Corpus Glossary, 333. The L. butio is properly
a bittern; but doubtless buteo is meant, signifying a kind of falcon
or hawk. ‘The y was long, as shown by the modern sound ; οἵ.
E. mice with AS. mys. B. Teut. type *kit-jon-, an agential form.
Prob. from its swift flight ; cf. Norw. kuta (pt. t. kaut), to run, go
swiftly (Aasen). -y. The toy called a ite is mentioned in Butler,
Hnudibras, pt. 11. c. 3. 1. 414; and is named from its hovering in the
air.
KITH, kindred, acquaintance, sort. (E.) Usual in the phrase
‘kith and kin.’ ME, cud0e, kippe, kith; see Gower, C. A. il. 267,
bk. v. 4180; P. Plowman, B. xv. 497. AS. cyd8u, native land, εν,
relationship; Grein, i. 181, 182.— AS. cid; known; pp. of cunnan,
to know; see Can (1) and Kythe.
KITLING, a kitten. (Scand.) Palsgrave has kytlyng (1530). =
Icel. ketlingr, a kitten; dimin. of ko¢tr (stem katiu-), a cat. Cog-
nate with E. cat; see Cat. @ The ME. kitling, ketling, also meant
a whelp, or young of any animal; perhaps it was influenced. by L.
catulus,a whelp. It first appears in ‘the kitelinges of liouns;’ E.
Eng. Psalter, lvi. 5 ; where the Vulgate has catulorum leonum,
KITTEN, a young cat. (F.—L.) ME. kyton, P. Plowman, C.
i. 204, 207; kitonn, id., B. prol. 190, 202. From an AF. *kitoun,
variant of OF. chitoun, a kitten, used by Gower, Mirour de ’]Omme,
1. 8221. Again, AF. *kitouz isa variant of Norm. F. caton, Northern
form of F. chafon, a kitten, formed from F. chat, a cat, with suffix
τον (<L. -Gxem).= Folk-L. cattum, acc. of cattus, for L. catus, a cat.
See Cat. Cf. MF. chatton. ‘Chatton, a kitling or young cat;’ Cot.
For the ἐ- sound, cf. Low G. kette, kitte, kettin, hittin, f.,a female cat;
kitten, ‘a kitten (Schambach). ~@3= The true E. form is kit-ling;
see above. Note also the old verb to kittle,to produce young as
acat does. Cf. Norw. kjetling,a kitling or kitten, ἀρήϊα, to kittle or
kitten; Aasen. ‘I kyttell, asa catte dothe, je chatonne. Gossyppe,
whan your catte Aytelleth, I praye you let me haue a kytlynge (chatton),
Palsgrave; cf. Way’s note in Prompt. Parv. p. 277. :
KIWI, the apteryx, a-wingless bird.- (Maori.)- First in 1835.
The native name in New Zealand; so called from the note of the
bird.* See Austral English; by E. E. Morris.
KLEPTOMANTA, an irresistible propensity to theft. (Gk.)
pery
324 KNACK
Spelt cleptomania in 1830,.—Gk. κλεπτο-, for kAenrns, a thief; and
pavia, frenzy; see Mania.
KNACK, a snap, quick motion, dexterity, trick. (E.) ‘The
moré queinté knakkés that they make’=the more clever tricks they
practise; Chaucer, C. T., A 4051 (Harl. MS.). On which Tyrwhitt
remarks: ‘The word seems to have been formed from the knacking
or snapping of the fingers made by jugglers.’ For this explanation,
he refers us to Cotgrave. “ Matassiner des mains, to move, knack, or
waggle the fingers, like a jugler, plaier, jeaster, &c.;’ Cot. ‘ Niquet,
a knick, tlick, snap with the teeth or fingers, a trifle, nifle, bable
[bauble], matter of small value ;’ id. ‘ Faire la nigue, to threaten or
defie, by putting the thumbe naile into the mouth, and with a jerke
(from the upper teeth) make it to knack;’ id. The word is clearly
(like crack, click) of imitative origin; cf. EFries. knakken (base
*knakan), pt. τ. knuok, knok, to snap, make a snapping noise.-+ Du.
knakken; Norw. knaka, Swed. knaka, Dan, knage, to crack. [Gael.
cnac, a crack, is from E. crack.) The senses are (1) a snap, crack,
(2) a snap with the finger or nail, (3) a jester’s trick, piece of
dexterity, (4) a joke, trifle, toy. See Shak. Mids. Nt. Dr. i. 1. 34;
Tam. Shrew, iv. 3. 67; Wint. Tale, iv. 4. 360, 439. @f A similar
succession of ideas is seen in Du. knap, a crack; knappen, to crack,
snap; knap, clever, nimble; knaphandig, nimble-handed, dexterous.
See Knap. Der. knick-knack, q.v. @ The F. nigue (above) is
from Du. knikken, to crack slightly, an attenuated form of knakken.
And see Knock.
KNACKER, a dealer in old horses. (E.) Now applied toa
dealer in old horses and dogs’ meat. Prob. it meant at first a dealer
in knacks, i.e. trifles or worthless articles. See Knack, above.
2. We also find : ‘ Knacker, one that makes collars and other furni-
ture for cart-horses;’ Ray, South and East Country Words, 1691
(E. Ὁ. S. Gloss. B. 16). Perhaps from Icel. knakkr, a man’s saddle ;
cf. hnakkmarr, a saddle-horse.
KNAG, a knot in wood, a peg, branch of a deer’s horn. (E.)
‘I schall hyt hynge on a knagg’ =I shall hang it on a peg; Le Bone
Florence, 1. 1795; in Ritson, Metrical Romances, y. iii. ‘A knagge
in wood, Bosse;’ Sherwood’s Index to Cotgrave. We read also of
the ‘sharp and branching knags’ of a stag’s horn; Holland, tr. of
Plutarch, p. 1039. Not found in AS. EFries. knagge, a knot in
wood, a stump. Cf. also Low G. knagge, knot, peg (Liibben);
Norw. knagg, a knag, short branch; Swed. knagg, a knag, knot;
Dan. knag,a peg, cog. We also find Irish cxag, a knob, peg, cnaig,
a knot in wood; Gael. cnag, a pin, peg, knob; borrowed from E.
Der. knagg-y.
KWAP, to snap, break with a noise. (E.) ‘He hath knapped the
speare in sonder;’ Ps, xlvi. 9, in the Bible of 1535, also of 1551;
still preserved in the Prayer-book version. ‘As lying a gossip as
ever knapped ginger;’ Merch. Ven. iii. 1. 10. ‘Thow can ἦμαρ
doun [knock down] caponis;? Henryson, Wolf and Fox. Not in
AS.; EFries. knappen. Of imitative origin; cf. EFries. knap, a
cracking, a snap.4Du. kvappen, to crack, snap, catch, crush, eat;
whence knapper, (1) hard gingerbread, (2) a lie, untruth [this brings
out the force of Shakespeare's phrase]; Dan. kneppe, to snap, crack
with the fingers; ἀπο, a snap, crack, fillip. Cf. Swed. knep, a trick,
artifice ; bruka knep, to play tricks; which illustrates the use of the
parallel word knack, q.v. Der. knap-sack.
KNAPSACK, a provision-bag, case for necessaries used by
travellers. (Du.) ‘And each one fills his knapsack or his scrip;’
Drayton, The Battle of Agincourt, 6th st. from end.— Du. knapzak,
a knapsack ; orig. a provision-bag.—Du. knap, eating, knappen, to
crack, crush, eat; and zak, a bag, sack, pocket. Cf. Westphalian
knapp, a piece of bread (Franck). See Knap and Sack.
KNAP, a hill-top; KNAPWEED, knopweed; see Knop.
ΚΝ ΑΗ, a knot in wood. (E.) See Gnarled and Knurr.
KNAVE, a boy, servant, sly fellow, villain. (E.) The older
senses are ‘boy’ and ‘servant.’ ME. knaue (with uforv). ‘ A knaue
child’ =a male child, boy; Chaucer, C. T. 8320, 8323 (E 444, 447).
‘The kokes knaue, thet wasshed the disshes;’=the cook’s boy, that
washes the dishes; Ancren Riwle, p. 380, 1. 8. AS. cnafa, a boy,
another form of cnapa, a boy; cnapa occurs in Matt. xii. 18, and in
Ps. Ixxxv. 15, ed. Spelman, where another reading (in the latter
passage) is cnafa.4-Du. knaap, a lad, servant, fellow; Icel. knapi,
a servant-boy; Swed. kndfvel, a rogue (a dimin. form); G. knabe,
a boy; OHG., knappo, also knabo, as to which see Streitberg, § 131
(5). B. The origin of the word is doubtful; but it is generally
supposed that the initial 4n- corresponds to the weak grade of the
/GEN, to beget. Cp.Genus. And see Knight. Der. knav-ish,
Chaucer, C,T.17154 (H 205); knav-ish-ly; knav-er-y, Spenser, F. Q.
li. 3. 9.
KNEAD, to work flour into dough, mould by pressure. (E.)
ΜΕ. kneden, Chaucer, C. T. 4092 (A 4094); Ormulum, 1486. AS.
cnedan, to knead, very rare; in the ONorthumbrian versions of
KNIGHT
Luke, xiil. 21, the L. fermentaretur is glossed by sie gedersted vel
gecnoeden in the Lindisfarne MS., and by sie gederstad vel cneden in
the Rushworth MS.; hence we infer the strong verb cnedan, with
pt. τ. cred, and pp. cneden. We also find the form gecnedan, Gen.
xviii. 6; where the prefix ge- does not affect the force of the verb.
The verb has become a weak one, the pp. passing from knoden to
kneded in the 15th century, as shown by the entry: ‘Knodon, knedid,
Pistus;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 280.4Du. kneden; Icel. knoda, Swed.
kndda (both from the weak grade); G. kneten, OHG. chnetan. Teut.
type *knedan-, pt. t. *knad, pp. *knedanoz. Further allied to Russ.
gnetate, gnesti, to press, squeeze, from an Idg. base *gnet-, to press.
Der. knead-ing-trough, ME. kneding-trough, Chaucer, C. T. 3548.
KNEE, the joint of the lower leg with the thigh. (E.) ME. kne,
knee; pl. knees, Chaucer, C. T. 5573 (B 1153); also cneo, pl. cneon
(=4kneen), Ancren Riwle, p. 16, last line but one. AS. cned, cneow,
aknee; Grein, i. 164.4-Du. knie; Icel. kné; Dan. kne@; Swed. knd;
G. knie, OHG. chnin; Goth. kniu. Teut. type *kxewom, neut.
Allied to L. genu; Gk. γόνυ; Skt. janu, knee. B. The Idg. related
bases are *genu- (as in L.), *gonu- (as in Gk.), and *gneu- (answering
to Teut. *kneu-). The loss of vowel in the weak grade is well illus-
trated by the Gk. γνύ-πετος, fallen upon the knees. Der. knee-d,
knee-pan; also kneel, q.v. And see geni-culate, genu-flection, penta-
gon, hexa-gon, &c.
KNEEL, to fall on the knees. (E.) ME. knelen, Havelok,
1320; Ormulum, 6138. AS. cneowlian, to kneel, various reading
for gecneowigan in Canons under k. Edgar; see N. E. D., and Thorpe,
Anc. Laws, ii. 282, ὃ xvi.--Du. kuielen; Low G. knelen (Liibben) ;
whence Dan. kn@le, to kneel. Formed from knee (AS. cneow) by
adding -J-, to denote the action.
KNELL, KNOLL, to sound as a bell, toll. (Ε.) ‘ Where bells
have knolled to church;’ As You Like It, ii. 7.114; ‘I knolle a belle,
Ie frappe du batant;’ Palsgrave. ME. kuillen; ‘And lete also the
belles Auille;? Myrc’s Instructions for Parish Priests, ed. Peacock,
1.779. ‘Knyllynge of a belle, Tintillacio;? Prompt. Parv., p. 279.
The orig. sense is to beat so as to produce a sound. AS. enyllan, to
beat noisily; in the ONorthumb. version of Luke, xi. 9, we find:
‘cnyllad and ontyned bid iow’=knock and it shall be opened to
you (Rushworth MS.). We find also AS. ον, a knell, the sound of
a bell (Bosworth). The AS. verb=Teut. *knul-jan, whence ME.
knillen, of which knell and knoll are later variants (prob. of imitative
origin), From a Teut. base *kvel- (whence *knal, *knul- by grada-
tion); as in the OHG. strong verb er-knellan, to resound. Cp. Du.
knallen, to give a loud report; knal, a clap, a report; Dan. knalde
(=knalle), to explode ; knalde med en pidsk, to crack a whip; knald
(=hnall), a crack; Swed. knalla, to make a noise, to thunder ; ἐμαὶ],
a report, loud noise; G. kxallen, to make a loud noise; all, a report,
explosion ; Icel. gvella, to scream. B. All words of imitative origin,
like knack, knap, knock. 47 We find also W. cnill, a passing-bell, cnul,
a knell; borrowed from E. Der. knell, sb., Temp. i. 2. 402.
KNICKERBOCKERS, loose knee-breeches. (Du.) First in
1859. ‘The name is said to have been given to them because of
their resemblance to the knee-breeches of the Dutchmen in Cruik-
shank’s illustrations to W. Irving’s Hist. of New York;’ Ν. Ε. Ὁ.
This book came out under the pseudonym of Diedrich Knickerbocker.
KNICK-KNACK, a trick, trifle, toy. (I.) A reduplication of
knack in the sense of ‘trick,’ as formerly used} or in the sense of
‘toy,’ as generally used now. ‘ But if you use these knick-knacks,
i.e. these tricks; Beaum. and Fletcher, Loyal Subject, ii. 1 (Theo-
dore). The reduplication is effected in the usual manner, by the
attenuation of the radical yowel a to 1; cf. click-clack, ding-dong,
pit-a-pat. Cf. Du. knikken, to crack, snap, weakened form of knakken,
to crack. See further under Knack,
KNIFE, an instrument for cutting. (E.) ME. knif, cnif; pl.
kniues (with u=v), Chaucer, C. T. 233. The sing. knif is in the
Ancren Riwle, p. 282, last line but one. AS. cnif, a knife (late),
Voc. 329.17. EFries. knif, also knip.4-Du. knijf; Icel. knifr, hnifr;
Dan. kniv; Swed. knuif; G. (provincial) kxeif, a hedging-bill, clasp-
knife (Fliigel) ; Low G. knif, knip (Liibben), B. The root is un-
certain; if we may take *knip- as the Teut. base, we may perhaps
connect it with the verb which appears in Du. dzijpen, to pinch, nip;
G. kneipen, to pinch, kneifen, to nip, squeeze. See Nip. ¥ The
F. canifis of Teut. origin. Der. knife-edge.
KNIGHT, a youth, servant, man at arms. (E.) ME. knight;
see Chaucer's Knightes Tale. AS. cnikt, a boy, servant; Grein, 1.
165; OMerc. cneht (O. E. Texts).-Du. knecht, a servant, waiter,
whence Dan. knegt, a servant, knave (at cards) ; Swed. knekt, a soldier,
knave (at cards); G. knecht, a man-servant. B. Origin uncertain;
the AS. suffix -eht, -iht is adjectival, as in stan-iht=stony. Probably
cn-eht is from cn-, weak grade of cen-, Idg. gen-, as in Gk. γέντος,
kin; cf. Gk. γντήσιος, legitimate, allied to γένος. Thus cn-eht may=
*cyn-eht, i.e. belonging to the ‘kin’ or tribe; it would thus signify
a
ia
|
{
|
{
t
KNIT
one of age to be admitted among the men of the tribe. Der. knight,
verb, knight-ly, Wyclif, 2 Macc. viii. 9, with which cf. AS. cnihélic,
boyish (Bosworth) ; knight-hood, ME. kny3thod, P. Plowman, B. prol.
112, from AS. cnihthad, lit. boyhood, youth (Bosworth); knght-
errant. 2 Hen. IV, v. 4. 243 knight-errant-r-y.
KNIT, to form into a knot. (E.) ME. knitter, Chaucer, C. T.
1130 (Δ 1128); P. Plowman, B. prol. 169. AS. cny’tan, cnittan;
‘Necto, ic cry/te,’ Ailfric, Gram., ed. Zupitza, p. 214; the comp. be-
enittan is used in /Elfric’s Homilies, i. 476, 1. 5. Formed by vowel-
change from Teut. *knut-, base of AS. cnotta, a knot.+Icel. ἄρνα,
knytja, to knit; cf. knw’r, a knot; Dan. kxytte, to tie in a knot, knit;
Swed. knyta, to knit, tie; knwt, knot. See Knot. Der. knitt-er,
knitl-ing.
KNOB, allied to Knop, q.v. (E.) In Levins; and Chaucer,
C. T. 635 (A 633). Cf. Low α. knobbe, a knob; Du. knobbel. Der.
knobb-ed, knobb-y, knobb-i-ness.
KNOCK, to strike, rap, thump. (E.) ME. knokken; Chaucer,
C. T. 3432. AS. cnucian, later cnokien, Matt. vii. 7; Luke, xi. 10.
Also ge-cnocian, ge-cnucian, AS. Leechdoms, i. 168, note 8.4Icel.
knoka, to knock. An imitative word; from Teut. *knuk-, weak
grade allied to *knak-. See Knack. Cf. Low G, knuk, a knock.
Der. knock, sb., knock-kneed, knock-er.
KNOLL (1), the top of a hill, a hillock, mound. (E.) ME. nol,
a hill, mount; Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 1. 4129. AS. coll;
‘pra munta cnollas’ =the tops of the hills; Gen. viii. 5.44Du. kno/,
a turnip; from its roundness; Dan. knold (for *knoll),a knoll; Swed.
knol, a bump, knob, bunch, knot; (ἃ. kvollen, a knoll, clod, lump,
knot, knob, bulb (provincially, a potato); MHG. knolle. And cf.
Swed. dial. kvall, a knoll. We also find W. col, a knoll, hillock ;
from E.
KNOLL (2), the same as Knell, ᾳ. ν. (E.)
KNOP, KNOB, a protuberance, bump, round projection. (E.)
Knob is a derivative, yet occurs in Chaucer, C. Τὶ 635 (A 63:),
where we find the pl. knobbes, from a singular knobbé (dissyllabic).
Knop is in Exod. xxv. 31, 33, 36 (A. V.). The pl. knoppis is in
Wyclif, Exod. xxvi. 11; spelt knoppes, Rom, of the Rose, 1683, 1685,
where it means ‘rose-buds.’ It also occurs in the sense of a hill-top
(N. E. D.; E. Ὁ. D.). [It is perhaps allied to knap, in the sense of
‘hill-top ;᾽ asin: ‘some high snap or tuft of a mountaine;’ Holland,
tr. of Pliny, b. xi. c. 1r.]4-Du. ἀπο, a knob, pummel, button, bud;
allied to knoop, a knob, button, knot, tie; Dan. ἄπο, a knob, bud;
Swed. knopp,a knob; allied to knop, a knot; G. knopf, a knob, button,
pummel, bud. Teut. stem *knuppo-; and Du. knoop is from Teut.
stem *knaupo-; both from a Teut. base *kvenp- (Franck). B. With
a different vowel, we find E. knap (as above), from AS. cnepp, a hill-
top, Luke, iv. 29; Numb. xiv. 44; allied to Icel. knappr, a knot, stud,
button; MSwed. kxapp, a button; Dan. kxap, a knob, button; Low
G. knap, a hill (Schambach). And this may be allied to knap, to
strike; cf. bump. See Knap. Knap, in the sense of ‘ to beat,’ occurs
in King Lear, ii. 4.125. Der. knop-weed or knap-weed.
KNOT, a tight fastening, bond, cluster. (E.) ME. knotté (dis-
syllabic), Chaucer, C. T. 10715 (F 401). AS. cnotta, a knot; Elfric’s
Hom, ii. 386, 1. 22.4-Du. knot, Low G. knutte. Teut. type *knutton-
(whence Εἰ. knit); from a base *knr}-. B. We also find OHG.
knodo, a knob, from a Teut. type *kudéon-, Idg. type *gniton-; as
well as OHG., knoto, G. knoten, a knob, a knot, from a Teut. type
*knudon-, Idg. type *gnu/dn-. -y. Also (with a long vowel), Icel.
knutr, a knot, Swed. knut, Dan. knude, 8. Also (with original a)
Teel. knotir, a ball; Teut. type *knaituz. For this change, cf. knop,
knap; see Knop. 4867 Not connected with L. nddus,a knot. Der.
knot, vetb; knit, q.v.; knott-y, knot-less, knot-grass.
KNOUT, a whip used as an instrument of punishment in Russia.
(Russian—Scand.) Not in Todd’s Johnson.—Russ. knule, a whip,
scourge; but spelt as in French. Not a Slavonic word.—Swed. ἀμμὲ
(Icel. knatr),a knot. See Knot (y). Der. knout, verb.
KNOW, to be assured of, recognise. (E.) ME. knowen; pt. t.
knew, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 5474 (B 1054); pp. knowen, id. 5310 (B 890).
AS. cnawan, pt. t.cnéow, pp.cndwen; gen. used with prehx ge-, which
does not affect the sense; Grein, i. 386.4Icel. knd, I know how
to, defective verb; OHG. chnaan, to know, only in the compounds
bi-chnaan, ir-chnitan, int-chnian; cited by Fick, iii. 41.4-Russ. znate,
to know, OSlavon. zna-ti; L. ndscere (for gndscere), to know; Gk.
γι-γνώσκειν (fut. γνώσομαι), a reduplicated form ; Skt. jnd, to know.
Cf. also Pers. far-zan, knowledge ; Olrish gnath, known, accustomed ;
W. gnawd,acustom. β. All from *gné, *gnd-, to know. secondary
forms from 4/GEN, to know; whence Can (1), Ken, Keen, &c.
Brugmann, i. § 304. Der. know-ing, know-ing-ly; also know-ledge, q.v.
KNOWLEDGE, assured belief, information, skill. (E.) ME.
knowlege, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 129603 spelt knoweliche, knowleche in Six-
text ed., B 1220. In the Cursor Mundi, 12162, the spellings are
knaulage, knawlage, knauleche, knowleche. The d is a late insertion;
LABELLUM B25
and -lege is for older -leche. For know-, see above. As to the suffix,
it is of verbal origin; the ch is a palatalised form of ς as usual; and
the ME. suffix -lechen represents the AS. suffix -/@can, as in néah-
-lécan, to draw nigh, . The origin of this -/écan is not quite
certain; I regard it as representing *-lacian, from the substantival
suffix -lac, preserved in E, Wedlock, q.v. γ. The AS. -ac corre-
sponds to Icel. -/e’kr ; and we find a related word in Icel. kunnleikr,
knowledge. Der. acknowledge, a bad spelling of a-knowledge; see
Acknowledge.
KNUCKLE, the projecting joint of the fingers. (E.) ME.
knokil. ‘Knokyl of an honde, knokil-bone, Condilus ;’ Prompt. Parv.
‘Knokylle-bone of a legge, Coxa;’ id. ‘The knokelys of the fete ;’
Rel. Antiq. i. 199 (ab. 1375). Not found in AS.; the alleged form
cnucl, due to Somner, appears to be a fiction, Yet some such
form probably existed, though not recorded ; it occurs in OFriesic as
knokele, knokle.+-Du. knokkel, a knuckle (Sewel); dimin. of kxoke,
knake,a bone, ora knuckle (Hexham); Low G, knukkel; Dan. knokkel ;
Swed. knoge, a knuckle (in which the dimin, suffix is not added); G.
knochel, a knuckle, joint; connected with knochen, a bone. Note
MDnu. kxoke ; Hexham has: ‘ De knoest, knoke, ofte Weere van een boom,
the knobb or knot of a tree.’ All from a Teut. base *knwk-; perhaps
allied to Knock. And cf. Knop.
KNURR, KNUR, a knot in wood, wooden ball. (E.) ‘A
knurre, bruscum, gibbus;’ Levins, 190. 16. ‘Bosse, a knob, knot, or
knur ina tree;’ Cot. ΜΕ. kxor, ‘Without knot or kuor, or eny
signe of goute;’ Tale of Beryn, ed. Furnivall, 1. 2514. Not found
in AS., but prob. a native word. Ekries. knure. Cf. also MDu.
knorre, a hard swelling, knot in wood (Kilian, Oudemans); Dan.
knort, a knot, gnarl, knag; Swed. dial. knurr, knurra, a round knob
ona tree; G. knorren, a hunch, lump, protuberance, knot in reed or
straw; prov. G. knorz, a knob, knot (Fliigel). β. It is evidently
allied to ME. kuarre, a knot in wood; see Wyclif, Wisd. xiii. 13 ;
see Gnarled.
KOPJBE, a small hill. (Du.)
lit. ‘little head ;’ dimin. of kop, head.
of a hill; G. kopf, head.
KORAN, the sacred book of the Mohammedans. (Arab.) Also
Alcoran, where al is the Arabic def. article. Bacon has Alcoran,
Essay 16 (Of Atheism). - Arab. quran, Palmer's Pers. Dict., col. 469;
explained by ‘reading, a legible book, the kuran,’ Rich. Pers. and
Arab. Dict. p. 1122. — Arab. root gara‘a, he read ; Rich. Dict. p. 1121.
q ‘he a is long, and bears the stress; but Byron has kérans, Corsair,
il. 2.
KOUMISS, a fermented liquor prepared from mare’s milk. (F.—
Russ. —Tatar.) Spelt chumis in 1607; Topsell, Fourfooted Beasts,
p- 32. 2. “ΕἸ koumis, — Russ. kymuis’; Reiff. — Tatar kumiz ΟΝ. E. D.).
KRAAL, a Kaffir village. (Du.—Port.—L.) ‘This shews the
koral, or kraal, to be a village;’ Voyages (1745); vol. ii. p. 120
(note); under the date 1714.— Du. kraal. = Port. curral, an enclosure
for cattle, a fold for sheep; Span. corral.—Port. corr-o, a ring in
which to bait bulls ; with suffix -al. = L. currere, torun ; see Current.
From the Span. phrase correr foros, to run bulls, to hold a bull-fight
(Diez). Korting, § 2705.
KYTHE, KITHEH, to make known. (E.) In Burns, Hallowe'en,
st. 3. ME. Aythen, kithen; Chaucer, C. T. 5056 (B 636). AS. cySan,
to make known; formed by regular vowel-change from cud, known,
pp. of cuznan, to know. See Uncouth, Can (1).
Ile
LAAGER, a camp, a temporary lodgement surrounded by
waggons. (Du.) SAtrican Du. lager; Du. leger; cf. G. lager, a
camp, MHG. leger. See Leaguer, Lair.
LABEL, a small slip of paper, &c. (F.) Variously used. In
heraldry, it denotes a small horizontal strip with (usually) three
pendants or tassels. Also, a strip or slip of silk, parchment, or
paper. ME. Jabel; Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, pt. i. § 22; where
it denotes a movable slip or thin rule of metal, used on the front of
the astrolabe, revolving on a central pin, and used as a sort of pointer.
=OF. label, also lambel (Ἐς lambeax), in the heraldic sense; see
Hatzfeld. Cotgrave has: ‘Lambel, a label of three points; Lambeau,
a shread, rag, or small piece of stuffe or of a garment.’ Of uncertain
origin ; perhaps allied to OLat. lamberare, to tear in pieces (Ascoli).
Korting, § 5399. B. Butthe OF. label may be of Teut. origin ; from
OHG. lappa (G. lappen), a flap, rag, shred; see Lap (1). Der.
label, verb; Twelfth Night, i. 5. 265.
LABELLUM, a pendulous petal. (L.) A botanical term. =—L.
labellum, a little lip. For */abrellum, dimin. of labrum, a lip, akin to
labium, a lip; see Labial.
Common in 5. Africa. Du. hopje,
Cf. E. cop, AS. cop, top, esp.
326 LABIAL
LABIAL, pertaining to the lips. (L.) ‘Which Tetters are
Jabiail;’ Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 198. [The /abéal letters are p, b, /, v,
τὸ ; closely allied to which is the nasal m.]— Late L. labzdlis, belong-
ing to the lips; coined from L. Jabium, the lip. See Lip.
LABIATE, having lips or lobes. (L.) A botanical term.
Coined, as if from a L. pp. *lJabiatus, from L. labium, the lip. See
Labial.
LABORATORY, 2 chemist’s workroom. (L.) ‘Laboratory, a
chymists workhouse ;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. And in Ben Jonson,
Mercury Vindicated. Shortened from elaboratory, by loss of e.
‘Elaboratory, a work-house;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Cf. MF.
elaboratoire, ‘an elaboratory, or workhouse;’ Cot. Formed, as if
from a L. *élabératorium, from élabdrare, to take pains, compounded
of L, δ, out, extremely, and /abérare, to work. See Elaborate,
Lakour.
LABORIOUS, toilsome. (F.—L.) ME. laborious ; Gower,
Conf. Amant. ii. go; bk. iv. 2636.—F. laborieux, ‘laborious ;’ Cot.
=L. labéridsus, toilsome; formed with suffix -dsus from labori-, decl.
stem oflabor. See Labour. Der. laborious-ly, -ness.
LABOUR, toil, work. (F.—L.) ME. labour (accented on
-our); Chaucer, C. T. 2195 (A 2193).—OF. labour, later labeur.—L.
lakorem, acc. of labor (oldest form Jabds), labour, toil. B. Perhaps
allied to labare, to totter, to sink, from the idea of struggling with
a heavy weight (Bréal). Der. labour, verb, ME. labouren, Chaucer,
C. T. 186; labour-ed; labour-er, ME. laborer, Chaucer, C. T. 1411
(A 1409); and see labor-i-ous, labor-at-or-y. #7. ‘The spelling with
final -our, answering to OF. -our, shows that the derivation is not
from L. nom. labor, but from the acc. laborem.
LABURNUM, the name of atree. (L.) In Holland, tr. of Pliny,
b. xvi. c. 18.— L. laburnum; Pliny, xvi. 18. 31.
LABYRINTH, a place full of winding passages, a maze.
(F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. Troil. ii. 3. 2.—F. labyrinthe; Cot. =L.
labyrinthus.— Gk. λαβύρινθος, a maze, place full of lanes or alleys.
Prob. of Egypt. origin. @ Cotgrave spells the Ε΄ word ‘ laborinth;’
so also Late L. laborintus, Trevisa, i. 9 ; by confusion with L. /abor.
Der. labyrinth-ine, labyrinth-i-an.
LAC (1), a resinous substance. (Hind.—Skt.) A resinous sub-
stance produced mainly upon the banyan-tree by an insect called the
Coceus lacca. ‘Lacca, a kind of red gum;’ Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715.
= Hind. lakh, the same as Pers. Jak, luk, ‘the substance commonly
called gum-lac, being the nidus of an insect found deposited on certain
trees in India, and from which a beautiful red lake is extracted, used
in dyeing ;’ Richardson's Pers. Dict. p. 1272. —Skt. laksha, lac, the
animal dye; also Jaktaka-, lac; rakta, lac, from rakta-, pp. of the verb
γαῆ), to dye, to colour, to redden; cf. Skt. razzga-, colour, paint
(Benfey). Doublet, Jake (2). Der. lacqu-er, gum-lac, shel-lac.
LAC (2), a hundred thousand. (Hind.—Skt.) Imported from
India in modern times; we speak of ‘a Jac of rupees’ = 100,000
rupees. = Hind. Jakh, a hundred thousand. = Skt. daksha@, a lac,
a hundred thousand ; orig. ‘a mark;’ cf. Skt. /aksh, to mark, Accord-
ing to H. H. Wilson, the reference is to the great number of Jacca
insects ina nest. See Lackin Yule. See Lae (1).
LACE, a cord, tie, plaited string. (F.—L.) ME. Jas, Jaas, King
Alisaunder, 7698 ; Chaucer, C. T. 394 (A 392).—OF. ας, a snare ;
MF. Zags (F. lacs); ef. lags courant, a noose, running knot; Cot.—L.
Taqueum, acc. of Iagueus, a noose, snare, knot. B. Perhaps allied
to L. lacére, to allure, used in the comp. allicere, to allude, élicere, to
draw out, délicere, to entice, delight. See Delight. Der. lace,
verb, Spenser, F. Q. v. 5. 38. Doublet, Jasso. ἔξ" The use of
Jace in the orig. sense of ‘snare’ occurs in Spenser, Muiopotmos, 427.
LACERATE, to tear. (L.) In Cotgrave, to translate F. lacerer;
and in Minsheu, ed. 1627.—L. laceratus, pp. of lacerare, to tear,
rend. = L. /acer, mangled, torn.+Gk. Aaxepds, torn ; cf. Aaxis, a rent.
Der. lacerat-ion, lacerat-ive.
LACHRYMAL, LACRIMAL, pertaining to tears. (L.)
The usual spelling Jachrymal is false; it should be lacrimal. In
anatomy, we speak of ‘the Jachrymal gland.’ Spelt lachrymall in
Holland, tr. of Pliny, bk. xxix. c.6; p. 367; we find ‘lachrymable,
lamentable,’ ‘lachrymate, to weep,’ and ‘lachrymatory, a tear-bottle’
in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. All formed from L. lacryma, a tear,
better spelt /acruma or lacrima. . The oldest form is dacrima
(Festus); cognate with Gk. δάκρυ, a tear, and with E. tear. See
Tear, sb. Der. from the same L. Jacrima are lachrym-ose, lachry-
mat-or-y.
LACK (1), want. (E.) The old sense is often ‘ failing,’ ‘ failure,’
or ‘fault.’ ME. lak, spelt Zac, Havelok, 1. 191; the pl. /akkes is in
P. Plowman, B. x. 262. Not found in AS., but cf. EFries. Jak,
defect, blame; OFries. Jek, damage, harm, /Jakia, to attack. Du.
lak, blemish, stain; whence /aken, to blame; Low G. lak, defect,
blame; MSwed. Jack, defect, blame. We also find Icel. Jakr,
defective, lacking. Der. Jack, verb; see below.
LADE
LACK (2), to want, be destitute of. (E.) ME. lakken, Chaucer,
C. T. 758, 11498 (A 756, F 1186); P. Plowman, B. v. 132. The
verb is formed from the sb. ; hence the verb is a weak one; and the
pt. t. is lakkede, as in Chaucer. See therefore ack (1) above.
LACKER, another form of Lacquer, q. v.
LACKEY, LACQUEY, a footman, menial attendant. (F.—
Span.?—Arab.?) In Shak. As You Like It, iii. 2. 314; Tam.
Shrew, tii. 2. 66. Also spelt alakay in Lowl. Sc.; see Rolland,
Court of Venus, ii, 1035 (5. T.S.).—MF. laquay, ‘a lackey, footboy,
footman ;’ Cot. ModF. laguais. There was also an OF, form
alacay ; see Littré, who shows that, in the 15th cent., a certain class
of soldiers (esp. crossbow-men) were called alagues, alacays, or
lJacays. (The prefix a- suggests al, the Arab. def. article.) —Span.
lacayo, a lackey ; cf. Port. dacaio, a lackey, /acaia, a woman-servant
in dramatic performances. β. The use of a- (for al) in OF. alacays
suggests an Arab. origin. Arab. Juka‘, worthless, slavish, and, as
a sb., a slave. The fem. form ἰακζ' ἃ, mean, servile (applied to
a woman) may account for the Port. lacaia, Allied words are Jaki‘,
abject, servile, /aka‘i, slovenly ; alka‘, sordid, servile. See Richardson,
Pers. Dict. pp. 1272, 1273, 159. γ-. However, this is but a guess ;
the etymology is quite uncertain ; Diez connects it with Ital. leecare,
G, lecken, to lick ; see Lick. Der. lackey, verb, Ant. and Cleop. i.
4. 46; Spenser, F. Ὁ. vi. 2. 15.
LACONIC, briet, pithy. (L.—Gk.) ‘ Laconical, that speaks
briefly or pithily;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. ‘ With laconic brevity ;”
Beaum. and Fletcher, Little Fr. Lawyer, ν. 1 (Cleremont).—L.
Laconicus, Laconian. Gk. Λακωνικός, Laconian. Gk. Λάκων, a La-
conian, an inhabitant of Lacedzemon or Sparta. These men were
proverbial for their briefand pithy style of speaking. Der. daconic-al,
laconic-al-ly, laconic-ism ; also lacon-ism, from Gk. Λάκων.
LACQUER, LACKER, a sort of varnish. (F.—Port.— Hind.
—Skt.) ‘Lacker, a sort of varnish ;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. ‘Lacquer’d
chair;” Pope, Horace, Ep. ii. 1. 337. ‘The lack of Tonquin is
a sort of gummy juice, which drains out of the bodies or limbs of
trees... . The cabinets, desks, or any sort of frames to be lackered,
are made of fir or pone-tree (sic). . .. The work-houses where the /acker
is laid on are accounted very unwholesom ;’ Dampier, Voyages, an.
1688; ed. 1699; vol. ii. pt. 1, p. 61.— MF. Jacre, ‘a confection or
stuffe made of rosin, brimstone, and white wax mingled, and melted
together,’ 8&c.; Cot. — Port. Jacre, sealing-wax; allied to Port.
laca, gum-lac.— Hind. /akh, lac.—Skt. laksha, lac. See Lac (1).
Der. lacquer, verb.
LACROSSE, a Canadian game; played with a crosse, or large
stringed bat. (F.—L.) F. Ja crosse; from Ja, f., the, and crosse,
a bent stick. = L. illa, f, of ille, that; Late L. type *croccia, *croccea,
fem. of adj. formed from Late L. croccus, a hook.
LACTEAL, relating to milk, conveying chyle. (L.) “ Lacteal,
Lacteous, milky ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. ‘ Lactory [read lactary|
or milky plants, which have a white and Jacteous, juice ;’ Sir T.
Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. vi.c. 10, § 2. Formed with suffix -al from
Το, lacte-us, milky. — L. lact-, stem of Jac, milk.4+Gk. γαλακτ-, stem
of γάλα, milk. Der. lacte-ous (=L. lacteus) ; lactesc-ent, from pres.
part. of Jactescere, to become milky ; whence lactescence. Also lacti-c,
from Jacti-, decl. stem of lac; whence also lacti-ferous, where the
suffix is from L. -fer, Learing, from ferre, to bear, cognate with E.
bear. Also lettuce, q.v.
LACUNA, a hiatus, gap in a MS. (L.) First in 1663.—L.
laciina, a hole, pit. L. lacu-s, a lake; see Lake (1), Lagoon.
LACUSTRINE, pertaining to a lake. (L.) First in 1830.
Formed from L. dacus, a lake; like L. palustri-, from palus, a marsh,
LAD, a boy, youth. (E.) ME. ladde, pl.laddes ; Havelok, 1. 1786;
P. Plowman, B. xix. 32; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 36. Of obscure
origin; perhaps (as suggested in N.E.D.) the orig. sense was ‘ one
led,’ i.e. a follower, dependant. From ME. Jad, led, pp. of léden,
to lead. See Lead (1). (H. Bradley, in Athenwum, June 1, 1894.)
@ Larsen has Dan. aske-ladd (Norw. oske-ladd) the youngest son in
Norw. nursery tales, a (male) Cinderella ; where aske =ash.
LADANUM, the same as Laudanum, q. v.
LADDER, a frame with steps, for climbing up by. (E.) ME.
laddre, P. Plowman, B. xvi. 44; Rob. of Glouc. p. 333, 1. 6830.
The word has lost an initial ἃ. AS. hl@dder, hl@der, a ladder;
Grein, ii. 8o.--Du. ladder, a ladder, rack or rails of a cart; OHG.
hleitra, G, leiter,a ladder, scale. β, Allied to Gk. «Aduag, a ladder;
see Climax. Named from sloping; see Lean (1). (4/KLEI.)
LADS (1), to load. (E.) ‘And they Jaded their asses with the
corn;’ Gen, xlii. 26. Formerly a strong verb; we still use the pp.
Jaden=loaded; Ant. and Cleop. 111. 11. 5; v. 2.123. ME. laden,
pp. Zaden, Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 1. 1800. AS. hladan, to
heap together, to lade, to burden; also, to lade out (water) ; pt. t.
hlad, pp. kladen.4Du. laden ; Icel. Alada, Dan. lade, Swed. ladda;
Goth. -hlathan (in comp. af-klathan ; G, laden, OHG. hladan. p. All
LADE
from a Teut. base *klad (not *hlath), to lade (Kluge). Allied to
Russ. Alade, a load. Der. lad-ing, a load, cargo, Merch. Ven. iii. 1.
And see Lade (2). (Distinct from /oad.)
LADE (2), to draw out water, drain, (E.) ‘He'll dade it [the
sea] dry;’ 3 Hen. VI, iii. 2.139. ME. hladen, laden; ‘lhade out
thet weter’=lade out the water, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 178, 1. 19
{where 74 is written for ἀ1. AS. hladan, to heap together, to load,
to lade out; Grein, ii. 79. ‘Hldd weter’=drew water; Exod. ii.
19. The same word as Lade (1). Der. /Jad-le, q. v.
LADLE, a large spoon. (E.) So called because used for lading
or dipping out water from a vessel. ME. /adel, Chaucer, C. T.
2022; P. Plowman, B. xix. 274. AS. Aledel; in Glosses, ed. Napier.
Formed with suffix -e/ from AS. hladan, to lade; see Lade (2).
B. The suffix -el in this case denotes the means or instrument, as in
E, sett-le (=AS. set-l), a seat, a thing to sit upon.
LADY, the mistress of a house, a wife, woman of rank. (E.)
ME. lady, Chaucer, C. T. 88. Older spellings /efdi, Layamon, 1256;
lefdi, leafdi, Ancren Riwle, pp. 4, 383; lheuedi (=hlevedi), Ayenbite
of Inwyt, p. 24; ἰα 112, Ormulum, 1807. AS. hléfdige, a lady ;
Grein, ii. 81 ; ONorthumb. Alafdia, in the margin of John, xx. 16,
in the Lindisfame Μ5. B. Of uncertain origin; the syllable ἀϊ
is certainly from the word Al@f, a loaf; see Loaf, Lord. But the
suffix -dige remains uncertain; the most reasonable guess is that
which identifies it with a supposed *dige, a kneader, from a verb
cognate with Goth. deigan, to knead. This gives the sense ‘ bread-
kneader,’ or maker of bread, which is a very likely one; see Lord.
Cf. Icel. deigja, a dairy-maid ; and see further under Dairy, Dough.
Q The Icel. Τα δὲ, a lady, is merely borrowed from English. B. The
term Lady was often used in a special sense, to signify the blessed
Virgin Mary ; hence several derivatives, such as lady-bird, lady-fern,
lady’s-finger, lady’s-mantle, lady’s-slipper, lady's-smock, lady’s-tresses.
Cf. G. Marien-kafer (Mary’s chafer), a lady-bird; Marien-blume
(Mary’s flower), a daisy; Marien-mantel (Mary’s mantle), lady’s-
mantle; Marien-schuh (Mary's shoe), lady’s-slipper. Der. A. (in
the general sense), lady-love, lady-ship, ME. ladiship, Gower, C. A.
li. 301, bk. v. 5208; written lefdischip (=deference), Ancren Riwle,
p- 1083 /ady-like. B. (in the special sense) lady-bird, &c., as above.
Also lady-chapel, lady-day, which strictly speaking are not compound
words at all, since /ady is here in the gen. case, so that lady chapel =
chapel of our Lady, and lady day=day of our Lady. The ME. gen.
case of this word was [αν or Jadie, rather than Jadies, which was
a later form; this is remarkably shown by the phrase ‘in his /ady
grace’=in his lady’s favour, Chaucer, C, T. 88; where Tyrwhitt
wrongly prints Jadies, though the MSS. have /ady. The contrast of
Lady day with Lord’s day is striking, like that of Fri-day with
Thur-s-day, the absence of s marking the fem, gender; the AS. gen.
case is hl@fdig-an.
LAG, sluggish, coming behind. (E.) ‘Came too Jag [late] to
see him buried ;’ Rich. III, ii. 1. 90. Cf. prov. E. lag, late, last,
slow ; lag-last, a loiterer; lag-teeth, the grinders, so called because
the last in growth; Halliwell. A difficult word, prob. due to con-
fusion of Jag, in other senses (see N. E. D.) with ME. Jak, E. lack,
failure, deficiency. Cf. prov. I. Jack, to be absent, to loiter, lackish,
slow, backward, lacky, laggy, a last turn, last of all; ME. Dan. Jakke,
to go slowly (Kalkar) ; Norw. Jagga, to go slowly (Ross) ; Icel. /akra,
to loiter, to lag behind. € The obs. Jagg, remnant of liquor in a
cask, seems to answer to Norw. dagg(a)hall, with the same sense
(Ross), which is prob. derived from Icel. dogg, the end of a cask, and
Norw. Aald, inclined. This may have influenced the form. Der. Jag,
verb, Spenser, F. Q. i. 1.6; spelt Jagge in Palsgrave ; also lagg-ing-ly,
lagg-er; lag-end, τ Hen. IV, v. 1. 24; lagg-ard (a late word), where
the suffix -ard is French (of Teut. origin) and is affixed even to English
bases, as in drunk-ard.
LAGAN, wreckage lying on the bed of the sea. (F.—Scand.)
‘Lagan, such a parcel of goods as the mariners in danger of ship-
wrack cast out of the ship; and because they sink, they fasten to them
a buoy ;’ Cowel, Interpreter (1701). He adds that they are called
ligan, from Lat. ligandé, i.e. fastening. But they are called lagan.—
AF. lagan, used by Edw. II in 1315 (Godefroy); whence Late L.
laganum. Allied to Icel. légn, pl. Jagnir, a net laid in the sea. —Icel.
aa and stem of liggja, to lie; see Lie (1). So called because
sunk.
LAGER-BIER, a light German bier. (G.) From G. lager-bier,
beer brewed for keeping. —G. lager, a store (see Leaguer); and
bier, beer (see Beer).
LAGOON, LAGUNE, a shallow lake. (Ital. or Span.—L.)
Ray speaks of ‘the Jagune,... about Venice’ in 1673 (N.E.D.).
And Dampier of a lagune in Mexico; New Voy. (1699), i. 241. We
speak of ‘the lagoons of Venice ;’=Ital. and Span. laguna, a pool. =
E. laciina, a pool. =L. lacus, a lake ; see Lake (1).
“LAIC, LAICAL, pertaining to the people. (L.—Gk.) ‘A
LAMPOON 827
Laicke, or Lay-man ;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627.—L. laicus; of Gk. origin.
See Lay (3), the more usual form of the word.
LATR, the den or retreat of a wild beast. (E.) ME. /eir; the dat.
case /eire occurs in OEng. Homilies, ed. Morris, 2nd Series, p. 103,
1. 11, where it means ‘bed.’ Spelt Jayere, meaning ‘camp,’ Morte
Arthure, ed. Brock, 1. 2293. AS. leger, a lair, couch, bed ;. Grein,
ii. 167 ; from AS. *leg-, base of licgan, to lie down. See Lie (1).
Du. leger, a bed, couch, lair ; liggex, to lie.-+MHG. leger, OHG,
legar, now spelt lager, a couch; OHG. liggan, to lie; Goth. ligrs,
a couch ; ligan, to lie. Doublet, leaguer.
LAITY, the lay people. (F.—L.—Gk.; Ἐς suffix.) In Kersey,
ed. 1715; laitie, Cockeram (1642).. A coined word; AF. Jaieté, lay
property, Yearbooks of Edw. 1, 1304-5, p. 411; from the adj. Jay,
with the F. suffix -¢é, due to L. acc. suffix -taétem. Formed by
analogy with du-ty from due; &c. See Lay (3).
LAKE (1), a pool. (F.—L.) ME. lac; Layamon, 1280; also
AF. lac, as in ‘pas meres and Jaces’ = these meres and lakes; in MS. E.
of the AS. Chron. an. 656; see Plummer’s ed. p. 31.—L. lacum, acc.
of /acus, a lake. The lit. sense is ‘a hollow’ or depression.-Gk.
λάκκος, a hollow, hole, pit, pond. Doublet, /och. Der. lag-oon, q. Vv.
LAKE (2), a colour, a kind of crimson. (F.—Pers.—Skt.) A
certain colour is called ‘crimson Jake.’ ‘ Vermillian, Jake, or crimson;’
Ben Jonson, Expostulation with Inigo Jones, 1. 11 from end. .
laque, ‘sanguine, rose or rubie colour;’ Cot.—Pers. lak, lake pro-
duced from lac; Rich. Dict. p. 1253; Pers. /ak, lac; see Lae (1).
LAMA (1), a high priest. (Thibetan.) We speak of the Grand
Lama of Thibet. ‘Offered to a living Lama ;’ Murphy, Orphan of
China (1759), A. 11. sc. 2. First in 1654.—Thibetan blama, a priest,
the ὁ being silent; Jaschke, Dict., p. 650.
LAMA (2), the same as Llama, q.v.
LAMB, the young of the sheep. (Ε.) ME. lamb, lomb; Chaucer,
C.T. 5037 (B 617). AS.lamb, Grein, ii. 154; pl. lambru.4-Du. lam;
Icel. lamb; Dan. lam; Swed.lamm; G.lamm; Goth. lamb. B. All
from Teut. type */amboz, neut.; root unknown. Der. lamb, verb,
lamb-like, lamb-skin; also lamb-k-in (with double dimin. suffix),
Len Valiente Laas
LAMBENT, flickering. (L.) ‘Was but a lambent flame;’
Cowley, Pindaric Odes, Destiny, st. 4.—L. lambent-, stem of pres.
part. of Zambere, to lick, sometimes applied to flames; see Virgil,
“Ἐπ. ii. 684. From 4/LAB, to lick; whence also E. labial, lip, and
lap, verb. See Lap (1).
LAME, disabled in the limbs, esp. in the legs. (E.) ME. lame,
Wyclif, Acts, iii. 2; Havelok, 1938. AS. lama (weak form only),
Matt. viii. 6.4-Du. Jam; Icel. Jami; Dan. lam, palsied ; Swed. lam ;
MHG. lam; ἃ. lahm. ββ. The orig. sense is maimed, bruised,
broken; from the base LEM, to break (second grade LOM), pre-
served in Russ. Jomate, to break; Fick, iii. 267. Cf. Icel. Jama, to
bruise, prov. E. Jam, to beat; whence Jamming, a beating, Beaum.
and Fletcher, King and No King, A. v. sc. 3. Der. lame, verb ;
Zame-ly, lame-ness.
LAMENT, to utter a mournful cry. (F.—L.) Though the sb.
is the orig. word in Latin, the verb is the older word in English,
occurring in John, xvi. 20, in Tyndal’s version, A.D. 1520, -- Ἐς
lamenter, ‘to lament ;’ Cot.=—L. lamentiri, to wail. —L. lamentum,
a mournful cry; formed with suffix -mentwm from the base 1ᾶ-, to
utter a cry, which appears again in /d-trare, to bark. β. Cf. Russ.
laiate, to bark, snarl, scold. Of imitative origin. Der. lament, sb.;
lament-able, Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 145; Jament-at-ion, ME.
lamentacioun, Chaucer, C. T.937 (A 935); from F. lamentation.
LAMINA, a thin plate or layer. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674.—L, lamina, a thin plate of metal. Cf. Omelette. Der.
lamin-ar, lamin-at-ed, lamin-at-ion.
LAMMAS, a name for the first of August. (E.) ME. /ammasse ;
P. Plowman, B. vi. 291; see note on the line (Notes, p.173). AS.
hlafmesse, Grein, i. 80; AS. Chron, an, 921; ata later period spelt
hlammesse, AS. Chron. an. too9. K. ΖΕ] τε has: ‘on }ézre tide
calendas Agustus, on fem dege fe wé hatad Aldfmasse ;’ Orosius,
V. xiii. 8.2. B. The lit. sense is ‘loaf-mass,’ because a loaf was
offered on this day as an offering of first-fruits ; see Chambers, Book
of Days, ii. 154.—AS. haf, a loaf; and masse, mass. See Loaf and
Mass (2). Another AS. name for Jammas was hlaf-sénung, i.e. loaf-
blessing; The Shrine, p. 112. Δ] Not from Jamb and mass, as the
fiction sometimes runs.
LAMMERGEYER, the bearded vulture. (G.) First in 1817.
=—G. liimmergeier, lit. “lambs-vulture.’=G. lémmer, pl. of lamm,
alamb; geier,a vulture. See Lamb and Gyrfalecon.
LAMP, a vessel for giving light. (F.—L.—Gk.) In early use.
ME. lampe; St. Margaret, ed. Cockayne, p. 20, 1. 21.—OF. lampe,
‘a lampe;’ Cot.—L. lampas.—Gk. λαμπάς, a torch, light.—Gk.
λάμπειν, toshine. Der. lamp-black 5 lanier, ἢν.
LAMPOON, a personal satire. (I'.—O. Low G.) In Dryden,
328 LAMPREY
Essay on Satire, 1. 47.—F. /amfon, orig. a drinking song; so called
from the exclamation /ampons !=let us drink, frequently introduced
into such songs. (See Littré, who gives an example.)—F. lamper,
to drink; a popular or provincial word ; given in Littré. Perhaps
a nasalised form of OF. lapper, ‘to lap or lick up;’ Cot. Cf.
Picard lamper,to drink, Of O. Low ἃ. origin; see Lap (1). Der.
lampoon-er.
LAMPREY, a kind of fish. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. laumprei, laumpree ;
Havelok, ll. 771, 897.—AF. lamprey, Liber Albus, p. 382; OF.
lamproie, spelt lamproye in Cot. Cf. Ital. lampreda, a lamprey. =
Late L. Jampréda, a lamprey, of which an older form was Jayzpetra
(Ducange). β. So called from its cleaving to rocks; lit. ‘ licker of
rocks;’ coined from L. /amb-ere, to lick, and petra, a rock. See
Lambent and Petrify. Scientifically named Petromyzon, i.e.
stone-sucking.
LANCE, a shaft of wood, with a spear-head. (F.—L.) ME.
launce ; P. Plowman, B. iii. 303; King Alisaunder, ]. 936. —F. lance,
“a lance;’ Cot.—L.Jlancea, a lance. Root uncertain. Der. lance,
verb, Rich. III, iv. 4. 224 (sometimes spelt Janch)=ME. launcen,
spelt Jawncyn in Prompt. Parv., p. 290; Janc-er, formerly written
lanceer, from F. lancier, ‘a lanceer’ (Cot.); also lancegay, 4. V.;
lanc-et, q.V., lance-ol-ate, q.v. (But not Jansquenet.)
LANCEGAY. a kind of spear. (Hybrid; F.—L.; and F.—
Span.—Moorish.) Obsolete. In Chaucer, C. T. 13682, 13751 (Six-
text, B 1942, 2011). A corruption of F. /ance-zagaye, compounded
of lance, a lance (see Lance), and zagaye, ‘a fashion of slender...
pike, used by the Moorish horsemen;’ Cot. Cf. Span. azagaya =al
zagaya, where al is the Arab. def. art., and zagaya is an OSpan. word
for assegay or ‘ dart,’ a word of Berber or Algerian origin. See my
note to Chaucer, loc. cit., and Way’s note, Prompt. Parv., p. 290.
4 Assegai is from Port. azagaia.
LANCEOLATS,, lance-shaped. (L.) A botan. term, applied
to leaves which in shape resemble the head of a lance. = L. danceolatus,
furnished with a spike. = L. Janceola,a spike ; dimin. of Jancea, a lance;
see Lance. 4 Esp. applied to the leaf of the plantain; cf. F.
lancelée, ‘ ribwort plantaine’ (Cot.).
LANCET, a surgical instrument. (F.—L.) ME. launcet, also
spelt lawnset, lawncent, Prompt. Parv., p. 290.— OF. lancetie, ‘a sur-
geon’s launcet; also, a little lance;’ Cot. Dimin. of F. lance; see
Lance.
LANCH, another spelling of Lance, verb, and of Launch.
LAND, earth, soil, country, district. (E.) ME. land, lond;
Chaucer, C. T. 4912 (B 492). AS.Jand; Grein, ii. 154.-4-Du. land;
Icel., Dan., and Swed. land; Goth. land; G. land; MHG. lant.
Teut. type */andom, neut. ; closely allied to Celtic type *Janda, whence
Trish Jann, land, open space, W. /lan, a yard, churchyard ; whence F.
Jande, a moor. See Lawn (1). Der. Jand, verb, AS. lendan
(=landian), Grein, ii. 168; land-breeze, land-crab, land-flood, land-
grave, q.v., land-holder, land-ing, land-lady; land-lord, Tyndal’s
Works, p. 210, col. 1, AS. land-hlaford ; lands-man ( =land-man, Ant.
and Cleop. iv. 3. 11); Jand-mark, Bible, 1551, Job, xxiv. 2; land-rail,
q.v.; land-scape, q.v.; land-slip, land-steward, land-tax, land-waiter,
land-ward.
LANDAU, a kind of coach. (G.) Added by Todd to Johnson’s
Dict. In E. Darwin, Botanic Garden, pt. ii. c. i. 344. Named from
Landau, a town in Bavaria. Here, Land=E. land; for -au, see
Island.
LAND-GRAVE, a count of a province. (Du.) ‘Zandgrave,
or Landsgrave, the earl or count of a province, whereof in Germany
there are four ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Spelt Jangraue, Fabyan,
Chron., ed. 1811, p. 328.—Du. landgraaf, a landgrave. = Du. land,
land, province; and graaf, a count, earl. So also G. landgraf, from
land and graf. B. ‘he word was borrowed from the Du. rather than
the G., at any rate in the fem. form Jandgravine, which answers to
Du. Jandgravin rather than to G. landgriifinn. See and and Mar-
grave. Der. landgrav-in, as above; landgrav-i-ate, ‘that region or
country which belongs to a landgrave ;’ Blount.
LANDRATIL, a kind of bird; see Rail (3).
LANDSCAPE, the prospect of a country. (Du.) In Milton,
L’Allegro, 1. 70. Formerly spelt Jandskip ; see Trench, Select Glossary.
‘The landskipp . . which is in the Dutch cabinett;’ (1648); Bury
Wills, ed. Tymms, p. 216. And see Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, which
gives it as a painter’s term, to express ‘all that part of a picture which
is not of the body or argument ;’ answering somewhat to the mod.
term back-ground. It was borrowed from the Dutch painters. = Du.
landschap, a landscape, province ; cf. landschap-schilder, a landscape
painter. = Du. /and, cognate with E. land; and -schap, a sufix=AS.
-scipe =I. -ship (in friend-ship, wor-ship), allied to the verb which in
Eng. is spelt shape. See Land and Shape. 4 The Du. sch is
sounded more like Εἰ, sk than E. sk; hence the mod. sound.
LANE, an open space between hedges, a narrow passage or street.
LAP
(E.) ME. lane, lone; Chaucer, C. T. 16126 (G 658); P. Plowman,
A. ii. 192, B. ii. 216. AS. lane, lone,a lane; Codex Diplomaticus, ed.
Kemble, vol. i. p. 1. 1. 13; vol. iii. p. 33 (mo. 549). [Cf. Prov. E.
lone (Cleveland), Jonnin (Cumberland).] OFriesic Jona, Jana, a lane,
way; North Fries. Jona, Jana, a narrow way between houses and
gardens (Outzen).-+-- Du. Jaan, an alley, lane, walk. Tent. type
| *landn-, fem.
LANGUAGE, speech, diction. (F.—L.) ME. langage, King
Alisaunder, 1. 6857; Chaucer, C. T. 4936 (B 516).—F. langage, lan-
guage ; formed with suffix -age (< L.-aticum) from langue, the tongue.
—L. lingua, the tongue. See Lingual, Tongue.
LANGUID, feeble, exhausted, sluggish. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674.—L. languidus, languid.—L. languére, to be weak. See
Languish. Der. languid-ly, languid-ness,
LANGUISH, to become enfeebled, pine, become dull or
torpid. (F.—L.) ME. languishen, Chaucer, C. T. 11262 (F 950);
Cursor Mundi, 14138. —F. /anguiss-, stem of pres. part. of Janguir, ‘to
languish, pine;’ Cot. —L. languére, to be weak ; whence languescere,
to become weak, which furnishes the F. stem Janguiss-. . From
7SLEG, to be slack or lax, whence also E. Jax, q.v. See Slack.
Brugmann, i. § 193; ii. ὃ 632. Der. languish-ing-ly, languish-ment ;
and see languid, languor.
LANGUOR, dulness, listlessness. (F.—L.) ME. langour,
Will. of Palerne, 918, 986; /angur, Cursor Mundi, 3596. [Now
accommodated to the L. spelling.|—F. /angueur, ‘langor;’ Cot.—
L. languorem, acc. of languor, languor. = L. languére, to be weak. See
Languish.
LANIARD, the same as Lanyard, q.v.
LANIFEROUS, wool-bearing. (L.) A scientific term in
zoology. In Coles (1676). Coined from L. linifer, producing wool.
=L. lani-, for lana, wool; and ferre, to bear. B. The L. lana is
allied to Wool, q.v.; L. ferre is cognate with E, bear. Der. So
also lani-gerous, wool-bearing, from L. gerere, to carry.
LANK, slender, lean, thin. (E.) ME. lank, lonk; spelt lone, OE.
Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 249, 1. 9: ‘/onc he is ant leane’=he is lank
and lean. AS. Alanc, slender; Grein, ii. 80. B. The orig. sense was
‘bending,’ weak; cf. G. lenken, to turn, bend; see further under
Link (1). Der. Jank-ly, lank-ness.
LANNER, a species of falcon. (F.) ME. laner, Voc. 761. 10;
lanner, Newton, Dict. of Birds.— OF. Janier, ‘a lanner;’ Cot. Per-
haps the same word as OF. lanier, cowardly. (N. E. D.)
LANSQUENET, a German foot-soldier; a game at cards.
(F.—G.) Corruptly spelt lanceknight in old authors, by a popular
blunder. See Ben Jonson, Every Man, ed. Wheatley, A. ii.sc. 4.1. 21.
‘Lansknyght, lancequenet ;’ Palsgrave. =F. lansquenet, ‘a lanceknight,
or German footman; also, the name of a game at cards ;’ Cot.—G,
(and Du.) landsknecht, a foot-soldier. —G, lands, for Jandes, gen. case
of land, land, country; and knecht,a soldier. Land=E. land; and
knecht=E, knight. ‘Vhus the word is land’s-knight, not lance-knight.
@ The term means a soldier of the flat or Low Countries, as distin-
guished from the men who came from the highlands of Switzerland ;
see Revue Britannique, no. for Sept. 1866, p. 29 (Littré).
LANTERN, a case for carrying a light. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME.
lanterne, Floriz and Blancheflur, ed. Lumby, 1. 238.—F. lanierne, =
L. lanterna, laterna, a lantern; the spelling Janterna occurs in the
Lindisfarne MS., in the L. text of John, xviii. 3. Lanterna=*lam-
terna=*lampterna; not a true L. word, but borrowed from Gk.
λαμπτήρ, a light, torch. —Gk. λάμπειν, to shine. See Lamp.
G Sometimes spelt Janthorn (Kersey), by a singular popular etymo-
logy which took account of the horn sometimes used for the sides of
lanterns.
LANUGINOUS, covered with down or soft hair. (L.) In
Blount’s Gloss. (1681). From L. laniigindsus, downy. = L. laniigin-,
stem of Janugo, down: from lana, wool. See Wool.
LANYARD, LANIARD, a certain small rope in a ship. (F.)
The spelling /aniard is the better one, since the word has nothing to
do with yard. The d is excrescent; the old spelling was lannier.
‘Lanniers, Lanniards, small ship-ropes that serve to slacken or make
stiff the shrowds, chains,’ &c.; Kersey, ed. 1715. ‘Laniers, vox
nautica ;’ Skinner, ed.1671. ‘Lanyer of lether, Jasniere ;’ Palsgrave.
= MF. Janiere, ‘a long and narrow band or thong of leather ;’ Cot.
B. Origin uncertain; but Cotgr. has Janieres, ‘hawks lunes,’ i.e. jesses;
perhaps from OF. lanier, a species of falcon. See Lanner.
LAP (1), to lick up with the tongue. (E.) ME. lappen, lapen,
Wyclif, Judges, vii. 7; Gower, C. A. iii. 215; bk. vii. 3671.
lapian, to lap; rare, but found in AElfric’s Grammar, De Tertia Con).
§ 6; and in Glosses to Prudentius (Leo). The derivative lepelder,
a dish, is in Aflfric’s Homilies, ii. 244, 1. 4.4-Icel. lepja, to lap like
a dog; Dan. Jabe, to lap; MHG. Jaffen, OHG. Jaffan, to lap up;
MDnu. Jappen, lapen, ‘to lap or licke like a dogge;’ Hexham.+L.
lambere (with inserted m), to lick. All from 4/LAB, to lap, lick
LAP
up; Brugmann, ii. § 632. Der. from the same base are /a)-i-al,
lamb-ent, lip.
LAP (2), the loose part of a coat, an apron, part of the body
covered by an apron, a fold, flap. (E.) ME. lappe (dissyllabic),
Chaucer, C. T. 688 (A 686); P. Plowman, B. ii. 35, xvi. 255; often
in the sense of ‘skirt of a garment ;” see Prompt. Parv., and Way’s
note. AS. leppa, a loosely hanging portion ; ‘ lifre-/@ppax’ = portions
of the liver; A®lfric’s Gloss., in Voc. 160. 39. OFries. lappa, a piece
of a garment. +Du./ap,a remnant, shred, rag, patch; Dan. /ap,a patch;
Swed. Japp, a piece, shred, patch ; G. /appen, a patch, shred. B. The
Teut. type is */appon-, m.; allied to Icel. Japa, to hang down (not
given in Cleasby, but cited by Fick and others). Cf. Gk. AoBds, a lobe
of the ear, or of the liver (Prellwitz). See Lobe. Der. lap-ful ;
lap-el, i.e. part of a coat which laps over the facing (a mod. word,
added by Todd to Johnson), formed with dimin. suffix -el; lapp-et,
dimin. form with suffix -e/, used by Swift (Johnson) ; /ap-dog, Dryden,
tr. of Juvenal, Sat. vi. 853; also dew-lap. Perhaps connected with
lap (3). Cf. lop-eared = lap-eared, with hanging ears, applied to
rabbits.
LAP (3), to wrap, involve, fold. (E.) Prob. derived from the
word above ; whence also ME. bi-lappen, to enfold ; Ormulum, 14267.
ME. Jappen, to wrap, fold, Will. of Palerne, 1712; ‘/apped in cloutes’
= wrapped up in rags, P. Plowman’s Crede, ed. Skeat, 1. 438. B. The
puzzling form wlappen is misleading ; thus in Wyclif, Matt. xxvii. 59,
the L. inuoluit is translated in the later version by ‘/appide it,’ but in
the earlier one by ‘ wlappide it.? But this ME. wlappen is a later form
of wrappen, to wrap, by the frequent change of r to/7; so that wlap is
a mere corruption or later form of wrap, prob. influenced by Jap, to
enfold. See Wrap.
LAPIDARY, one who cuts and sets precious stones. (L.) Cot-
grave translates Εἰ, lapidaire by ‘a lapidary or jeweller.’ ‘ Werk of
the lapidarie ;” Wyclif, Ecclus. xlv. 13 (A. V. 11). Englished from
L. lapidarius, a stone-mason, a jeweller.—L. Japid-, stem of lapis,
astone. Allied to Gk. λέπας, a bare rock, λέπις, a scale, flake. From
the base LEP, to scale off, peel; seen in Gk. λέπειν, to peel. Der.
from the same source, lapidi-fy, lapid-esc-ent, lapid-esc-ence, lapid-esc-
enc-y, Sir Τὶ Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 23. § 5. Also di-lapid-ate,
q-v.
LAPIS LAZULI, a silicate containing sulphur, of a bright
blue colour. (L. and Arab.) From L. /apis, a stone; and Jazulz, gen.
of Med. L. Jazulum, azure; see Azure.
LAPSE, to slip or fall into error, to fail in duty. (L.) In Shak.
Cor. v. 2.19; the sb. /apse is in All’s Well, 11. 3.170.—L. lapsare, to
slip, frequentative of /abi (pp. /apsus), to glide, slip, trip. Cf. F. laps,
aslip. Allied toSleep. Cf. Skt. /amb, to hang down; Brugmann,
i. § 553. Der. lapse, sb., from L. lapsus, a slip ; hence also some
senses of the vb.; cf. AF. laps de temps, lapse of time, Stat. Realm,
i. 318 (1351). Also col-lapse, e-lapse, il-lapse, re-lapse.
LAPWING, the name of a bird. (E.) ME. lappewinke (four
syllables), Gower, C. A. ii. 329, bk. v. 6041; later Japwinke, Prompt.
Pary. p. 288; spelt /hapwynche, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 61,131. AS.
hléapewince; Voc, 260.2. B. The first part is hléape-, connected with
hléapan, to run, spring, leap; see Leap. γ. The second part of the
word is, literally, ‘winker;’ but we must assign to the verb wink its
original sense. This orig. sense appears in the OHG. winchan, ΜΗ,
winken, to move from side to side, a sense preserved in mod. G. wanken,
to totter, stagger, vacillate, reel, waver, &c. Thus the sense is ‘ one
who turns about in running or flight,’ which is fairly descriptive of
the habit of the male bird. δ. We find, however, an AS. form Jaepae-
uince (OE. Texts, p. 504), which has not been explained. 4 Popular
etymology explains the word as ‘ wing-flapper ;” but /ap does not really
take the sense of flap ; it means, rather, to droop, hang down loosely ;
see Lap (2). This interpretation is wrong as to both parts of the
AS. form of the word, and is too general.
LARBOARD, the left side of a ship, looking from the stern.
(E.) Cotgrave has: ‘ Babort, the Jarboord side of a ship.’ It is also
spelt Jarboord in Minsheu, ed. 1627. ‘The spelling is, however, pro-
bably corrupt; the ME. spelling appears to be Jaddebord. In Allit.
Poems, ed. Morris, C. 1. 106, some sailors are preparing to set sail,
and after spreading the mainsail, ‘ pay layden in on /adde-borde and
the lofe wynnes’=they laid in [hauled in?] on the Jarboard and
set right the loof (see Luff). Again, in the Naval Accounts of
Henry VII, ed. Oppenheim, p. 192, we find sterborde and latheborde ;
and, at p. 203, Jatebord; so that the former syllable was once Jathe,
late, or ladde. It was obviously altered to leerebord (Hakluyt, Voy.
i. 4) and to Jarboard (Milton, P. L. ii. 1019) by the influence of steer-
board, later starboard; see Starboard. B. The only word which
answers in form to ME. Jadde is Swed. Jadda, to lade, load, charge,
answering to Icel. klada, AS. hladan, E. lade. We find Icel. hlada
seglum=to take in sail. γ. Beyond this, all is uncertainty ; we may
conjecture that the sails, when taken down, were put on the left side
LARK 329
of the ship, to be out of the way of the steersman, who originally
stood on the starboard (=steer-board) or right side of the ship.
δ. But it is worth notice that Icel. Aladask ἃ mara bogu, lit. ‘to lade
oneself on the shoulders of a horse,’ meant ‘to mount a horse ;’ and
one mounts a horse on the Jef? side. 4 The F. babord=G. backbord,
where back means ‘ behind’ the steersman, who used his paddle on
the right side of the ship.
LARCENY, theft, robbery. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave, who ex-
plains OF. larrecin by ‘larceny, theft, robbery.’ An old law term;
see Blount’s Nomolexicon. OF. lJarrecin, larcin (both forms are in
Cotgrave); mod. F. larcin. The spelling Jarrecin occurs in the
Laws of William the Conaueror, § xiv; in Thorpe’s Ancient Laws
of England, i. 472; and Jarcin in Britton, bk.i.c. 25. [The suffix
-y appears to be an E, addition, to conform the word to forger-y,
burglar-y, felon-y, and the like; but it is unnecessary.]—L. /atro-
cinium, freebooting, marauding, robbery; formed with suffix -cinium
(occurring also in ¢ird-cinium) from latro, a robber. B. Curtius
(i. 453) considers Jatro as borrowed from Gk. It is, rather, allied
to Gk. λάτρις, a hireling, used in a bad sense. The suffix -‘ro or
-rpis denotes the agent, and the base is /é- or Ja, discussed by
Prellwitz, s.v. Adtpov. Der. larcen-ist.
LARCH, a kind of tree like a pine. (G.—L.) Spelt Jarche in
Minsheu, ed. 1627. Also spelt Jarche by Turner, Names of Herbes
(1548), who seems to have introduced the spelling directly from G.
larche, a larch, though the ch naturally took the E. sound. —G.
lirche.=L. laricem, acc. of larix, the larch-tree (whence Late Gk.
Aap). The L. larix is for *darix (cf. lingua for dingua); cognate
with Irish dair, W. dar, an oak (Stokes-Fick, p. 147); οἵ. Skt. daru,
wood, a kind of pine. Allied to Tree.
LARD, the melted fat of swine. (F.—L.) ‘ Larde of flesche, larda,
vel lardum;? Prompt. Parv. p. 288.—OF. (and F.) lard, ‘lard;’
Cot. —L. lardum ; also larda, shortened form of laridum (also larida),
lard, fat of bacon. Akin to Gk. Aapés, pleasant to the taste, nice,
dainty, sweet, λαρινός, fat. Der. lard, verb, ME. larden (Prompt.
Parv.), from F. larder, to lard (see note to Ben Jonson, Every Man,
ed. Wheatley, A. iii. sc. 5, 1.174); lard-er, Gower, C. A. iii. 124,
with which cf. AF. larder, OF. lardier, ‘a tub to keep bacon in’
(Cotgrave), hence applied to a room im which bacon and meat are
cept, called by Palsgrave a larder-house; lard-y, lard-ac-e-ous ; inter-
lerd.
LARGE, great, bulky, vast. (F.—L.) In early use. ME. large
(which usually has the sense of liberal), O. Eng. Homilies, ed.
Morris, i. 143, 1. 32.—F. large.—L. larga, fem. of largus, large,
long. Cf. OF. larc, larg, τα. (superseded by large, f.) Der. large-ly ;
large-ness, King Alisaunder, 1. 6879; large-heart-ed; large-hand-ed,
Timon of Ath. iv. 1. 11; and see largess, en-large.
LARGESS, a liberal gift, donation. (F.—L.) ME. largesse,
P. Plowman, A. vi. 112; Ancren Riwle, p. 166.—F. Jargesse, bounty ;
(οἱ. “Ταῖς L. *largitia (not found), for L. largitio, a bestowing,
giving; cf. L. largitus, pp. of largiri, to bestow.—L. largus, large,
liberal; see Large.
LARIAT, a rope with a noose, a lasso, (Span.—L.) ‘Lariats,
or noosed cords;’ W. Irving, Tour on the Prairies, 1835, p. 26.—
Span. la reata, lit. ‘the rope that ties together.’ = L. lla, fem. of ille,
he; and Span. reasar, lit. ‘to retie,’ attach together, from L. re-,
again, and apéare, to adjust, from aptus, fit. See Apt.
LARK (1), the name of a bird. (E.) Lark also appears as
lavrock ; see Burns, Holy Fair, st. 1. ME. larke, Chaucer, C. T.
1493 (A 1491); spelt Javerock, Gower, C. A. ii. 264; bk. v. 4100.
AS. lawerce, later lauerce, liverce, liferce. The spelling Jawerce is in
Voc, 286. 173 lauerce in Voc. 131. 28. Laferce is in the comp.
lafercan-beorh, a place-name cited in Kemble. But the oldest spelling
is Jaurice, Corpus Gloss. 1173.4Icel. levirki, a lark ; Low G. lewerke
(Bremen Worterbuch); OHG. lérehha; G. lerche; Du. leenwrik,
leeuwertk ; Swed. larka; Dan. lerke. B. The Icel. Je-virki=skilful
worker or worker of craft, from Je, craft, and virki, a worker; cf.
Icel, J@-visi, craft, skill, J@-viss, crafty, skilful; and (as to virki), il-
virki, a worker of ill, spell-virkt, a doer of mischief. But the general
Teut. form points rather to an original *laiwirakjon- (N. Εἰ D.),
which may perhaps mean ‘revealer of treachery;’ from *rakjan-
(AS. reccan, to relate,expound). Cf. Jéwa,a traitor, betrayer, Mark,
xiv. 44; also Goth. Jéw, an occasion, opportunity (Rom. vii. 8, 11),
whence Jéwjan, letwjan, to betray. Such a name would point to some
superstition which may have connected the bird with the rising sun ;
but no such legend is known. Thus the true origin remains wholly
unknown: and the oldest spelling (/aurice) is obscure.
LARK (2), ἃ game, sport, fun. (E.) Spelt Jark in modern E.,
and now a slang term. Also used as sky-Jark, and probably due to
a peculiar use of Lark (1); from its cheerful note. Often (but
perhaps wrongly) connected with ME. Jak, lok; also lak, which is
a Scand. form. See Will. of Palerne, 678; P. Plowman, B. xiv.
890 LARUM
243; Ormulum, 1157, 2166; Ancren Riwle, p. 152, note ὃ: &c.
(Stratmann). Cf. AS. lac, play, contest, prey, gift, offermg; Grein,
ii. 148; Icel. Jeikr, a game, play, sport.
LARUM, short for Alarum, q.v. In Shak. Cor. i. 4. 9.
LARVA, an insect in the caterpillar state. (L.) A scientific
term. = L. Jarua, a ghost, spectre, mask ; the insect’s first stage being
the mask (disguise) of its last one; a fanciful term. Root unknown.
Der. Jarv-al, Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
LARYNX, the upper part of the windpipe. (L.—Gk.) In
Kersey, ed. 1715; and in P. Fletcher, Purple Island, c. 4, note 29.—
L. larynx. —Gk. λάρυγξ, the larynx, throat, gullet; gen. case, Aa-
puyyos. Der. daryng-e-al, laryng-e-an, laryng-itis.
LASCAR, a native E. Indian sailor. (Pers.) ‘ Lascars, or Indian
seamen ;’ W. Dampier, A New Voyage, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 112 (1669).
First in 1625.—Pers. Jaskkar, an army; whence Jashkari, military ;
hence, a soldier, camp-follower; Rich. Pers. Dict. p. 1265. See
Yule.
LASCIVIOUS, lustful. (L.) In Shak. Rich. II, ii. tr. 19; Lyd-
gate, Assembly of Gods, 1. 686.—Late L. lascividsus, lustful. —L.
lasciuia, sb ; from L. lasctuus, lascivious. Lengthened from an older
form *Jascus (not found), as fest-ixus is from fest-us. Cf. Skt. lash, to
desire, covet, akin to Gk. λιελαίομαι, I desire, and to E. lust. See
Lust. Der. lascivious-ly, lascivious-ness.
LASH (1), to fasten firmly together. (F.—L.) ‘Lash (in sea
affairs, to fasten or bind up anything to the ship’s sides;’ Kersey,
ed. 1716. ‘Her ordnance being /ashed so fast :᾿ Capt. Smith, Works,
ed. Arber, p. 674.—OF. lachier, variant of Jacter (Godefroy), to
fasten with a lace or string. OF. Jacke (Godefroy), a lace, also a
hinge. =Folk-L. *lacium, tor L. laqueum, acc. of lagueus, a snare.
See Lace. (Cf. Norm. dial. lacher, to fasten with thongs (Moisy).
@ We also find Du. lasschen, to join, scarf together ; lasch, sb., a
piece, joint, seam, notch ; Swed. Jaska, to stitch, Jask, a scarf, joint ;
Dan. Jaske, to scarf, Jask, a scarf; but it is not clear that they have
influenced the E. word. See dasch in Franck. Der. lash-ing, sb.
LASH (2), a thong, flexible part of a whip, a stroke, stripe.
(F.—L.) ME. lasche. ‘Lasche, stroke, ligula, flagrum ;" Prompt.
Pary. p. 288. ‘Whippes Jasshe ;” Chaucer, Parl. of Foules, 178.
Perhaps formed from Lash (1). Cf. Norm. dial. Jaschier, to lash,
whip with a cord (Le Héricher). β. Or, from OF. dache, a lace
(Godefroy) ; seeabove. Der. lash, verb, to flog, scourge ; cf. ‘Laschyn,
lashyn, betyn, ligulo, verbero ; > Prompt. Parv.
LASS, a girl. (Scand.) ME. Jasse, spelt Jasce in Cursor Mundi,
1. 2608. ME. lasce may be regarded as allied to Icel. loskr (base
lask-), weak ; MSwed. losk, a person having no fixed abode; OSwed.
locka kona, 2 spinster (cited by Vigfusson):—H. Bradley ; in Athe-
neum, June 16, 1894. Cf. Bavarian Jasch, a woman (a term of
contempt); Schmeller. B. Olcel. Jéskr is for *lat-hwaz, allied to
Goth. lat-s. idle, E. date, q.v.; Brugmann, ii. § 85.
LASSITUDBE, weariness. (F.—L.) ‘The one is callyd cruditie,
the other lassitude;’ Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, Ὁ. iv. c. 1.=F.
lassitude; Cot. —L. lassitido, faintness, weariness. = L. lassi-, for Jassus,
tired, wearied ; with suffix -té-den-. B. Lassus is for *lad-tus, where
lad- corresponds to Jat- in Goth. Jats, slothful, cognate with E. date.
See Late. Brugmann, i. § 107.
LASSO, a rope with a noose. (Span.—L.) Modern; not in
Todd’s Johnson. The pron. is that used in Texas, which is archaic.
=OSpan. Jaso (Minsheu, 1623); Span. azo, a snare, slip-knot; and
cf. F. lacs. — Folk-L. *lacium, for L. lagueum, acc. of laqueus, a snare.
See Lace. @ Not from mod. Spanish, for the Span. z is sounded
like our voiceless ἐᾷ. Der. lasso, verb.
LAST (1), latest, hindmost. (E.) Last is a contraction of Jatesé,
through the intermediate form Jats¢ (=lat’st), for which see Ormulum,
1. 4168. See Late. Cf. Du. Jaatst, last, which is the superl. of
Jaat, late.
LAST (2), a wooden model of the foot on which shoes are made.
(E.) ME. last, leste. ‘Hee formula, last ;’ Voc. 654. 35; ma
glossary of the 15th cent. ‘Leste, sowtarys [shoemaker’s] forme,
formula ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 298. AS. last, a foot-track, path, trace
of feet ; Grein, ii. 160; also AS. J@s¢e, a model of the foot ; ‘ Calo-
podium, uel mustricula, Jeste;’ Voc. 125. 32.4Du. leest, a last,
shape, form; Icel. Zeistr, the foot below the ankle; Swed. Jast, a
shoemaker’s last ; Dan. Jest, the same; G. Jeisten, the same; Goth.
laists, a track, way, footstep; 2 Cor. xii. 18. B. The Teut. types are
all from a base Jaist-, and the original sense is foot-track, trace of
a man’s path; ef. G. gleise (ge-leise), a track. Formed from Teut.
*Jais, as in Goth. Ταὶς, I know (Phil. iv. 12); the trace being that
whereby ἃ man’s path is known. This word Jais was orig. used in
the sense ‘ I have experienced,’ and it is the pt. t. of Goth. Jeisan, to
track, to find out. From Teut. base */eis, to find out, whence E.
learn; allied to L. Jira, a furrow, a track, whence Εἰ, de-lir-tous, See
Learn. Der. last (3)-
LATH
LAST (3), to endure, continue. (E.) ME. Zasten, Havelok, 538;
also lesten, Prompt. Parv. p. 299. AS. J#stan, to observe, perform,
last, remain; the orig. sense being ‘to follow in the track of,’ from
last, a foot-track; see Last (2).--Goth. daistjan, to follow, follow
after; from Jaists, a foot-track ; G. leisten, verb, to perform, follow
out, fulfil, allied to Jeister, sb., a form, model, shoemaker’s last.
Der. last-ing-ly, ever-last-ing. 41 The train of ideas in learn, last (2),
and last (3) is: trace (whence learn, know), follow ont, fulfil,
continue.
LAST (4), a load, a large weight, ship’s cargo. (E.) ΜΕ. last.
©A thousand Jast quad yere’=a thousand cargoes of bad years ;
Chaucer, C. T. 13368 (B 1628); and see Deposition of Rich. II, ed.
Skeat, iv. 74. AS. hlest, a burden; Grein, ii. 81.—AS. hladan, to
load; see ade, Load.+lcel. Jest, a load, from hlada, to load ;
Dan. last, a weight, burden, cargo, from Jade, to load; Swed. Jast,
a burden, allied to ladda, to load; Du. and G. last, from laden, to
load. Idg. type *#lat-sto- (-sti-), from *kat-, to lade; whence also
Idg. *klat-to-, as in Icel. lass, a cart-load, Swed, /ass, the same.
LATCH, a catch, fastening. (E.) ME. lacche, used by Walter
de Bibbesworth to translate OF. cliket; Wright’s Vocab. i. 170. [See
cliket in Chaucer, C. Τὶ 9920 (E 2046).] _‘Latche, lahche, lach, or
snekke, Clitorium, vel pessula;’ Prompt. Parv. p..283. From ME.
verb lacchen, to seize, catch hold of, Will. of Palerne, 666, 671; P.
Plowman, B. xviii. 324. AS. /@ccan, to seize, lay hold of, Grein, ii.
τότ; also ge-leccan, Alfric’s Homilies, i. 152, ii. 50. B. AS. laeccan
is a weak verb (pt. t. Jehie), from a base *Jazk-. It is perhaps ulti-
mately connected with L. Jajueus, a snare. @ The assertion in
Trench’s Select Glossary that Jace and latch are ‘the same word,’
may be true for some senses of the latter; thus ME. Zacche occurs in
the sense of ‘snare’ in Ch., Rom. Rose, 1624. The E. and F. words
were prob. coniused. For the F. word, see Latchet. Der. latch,
verb, to fasten with a latch, merely formed from the sb., and not the
same as ME. lacchen ; also latch-key.
LATCH, to moisten. (E.) In Shak. Mid. Nt. Dream, iii. 2. 30:
«But hast thou yet πολέ the Athenians eyes With the loue-iuyce, as
I did bid thee doe ?? ed. 1623. Oberon had bidden Puck to ‘annoint
his eyes;’ ii, 1. 261. A variant of North ΕἸ. deck, to moisten, which
exactly represents AS, leccan, to moisten, water ; latch has the vowel
of prov. E. lache, a gutter, AS. Jacu, a stream, closely allied to Jeccan.
Cf. MDu. laken, to flow (Oudemans), Swed, daka 74, to pour on to.
See Notes on E. Etym., p. 158.
LATCHET, a little lace,a thong. (F.—L.) Inthe Bible, Mark,
i. 7, Isa. v.27. The former ¢ is intrusive. ME. lachet, as in ‘lachet
of a schoo;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 284. ‘ Lachet outher loupe’ =latchet
or loop; Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight, 1. 591. —OF. lachet,
Norman and Picard form of OF. Jacet, ‘the lace of ἃ petticote, a
woman's lace or lacing, also a snare or ginne;’ Cot. Dimin. (with
suffix -e?) of OF. lache (Godefroy), variant of Jas, asnare. See Lace,
ea Observe that Jatche/ is the dimin. of lace, and distinct from latch
in most of its senses.
LATE, tardy, coming behind, slow, delayed. (E.) 1. ME. lat,
rare as an adj. in the positive degree. ‘A Jat mon’=a man slow of
belief; Joseph of Arimathie, ed. Skeat, 1. 695. The adv. is late, as
in ‘late ne rathe’=late nor early, P. Plowman, B. iii. 73. 2. The
compar. form is later or latter, spelt lettere in Layamon, 1]. 5911.
3. The superl. is latest, latst, or lasi, the intermediate form appearing
in the Ormulum, 1. 4168. AS. le, slow, late; Grein, ii, τόρ. θὰ.
laat, late; Ice}. latr, slow, lazy; Dan. lad, lazy, slothful; Swed. lat,
lazy, idle; Goth. dats, slothful, Luke, xix. 22; G. lass, weary, indo-
lent. Allied to L. Jassus (=*lad-tus), weary. B. All from the weak
grade of Tent. base */é, to let, let go, let alone; so that /ate means
Tet alone, neglected, hence slothful, slow, coming behindhand. See
Let (1). Brugmann, i. § 107. Der. late-ly, late-ness, lat-ish, latt-er,
latt-er-ly, last (1), 4.ν.» last-ly. Also let (2), From the same source,
lassitude, q.v.
LATEEN, triangular, applied to sails. (F.—L.) In Ash’s Dict.,
ed. 1775. Vessels in the Mediterranean frequently have Jateer sails,
of a triangular shape. The E. spelling preserves the pronunciation
of the F. word Latine, the fem. of Ladin, Latin; the lit. sense being
‘Latin sails,’ i.e. Roman sails. See Latin... ‘ Voile Latine, a mizen
or smack saile;? Cot. ‘Latina, the mizen saile of a ship; also, the
Latine toong;’ Florio, Ital. Dict. ed. 1598. So also Span. Latina
vela, a lateen sail; ala Latina, of a triangular form.
LATENT, lying hid, concealed. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674; and in Cockeram (1642).—L. datent-,. stem of pres. pt. of
latére, to lie hid. Der. latent-ly, latenc-y.
LATERAL, belonging to the side. (L.). In Milton, P. L. x.
vos. ‘A lateral view;’ Ben Jonson, Underwoods, xxiii. 1. 9.-
lateralis, belonging to the side, —L. laters, for *lates-, stem of latus,
the side. Irish Jesh, W. led, side. Der. lateral-ly.° -
LATH, a thin slip of wood, (%.) In Shak. Tw. Nt. iv. 2. 130,
Se οἷς κπερειυυσςςς
LATHE
In the North of England, the form used is /at; see Ray, Halliwell,
and the Holderness Glossary (E. D.S.). This corresponds with ME.
latte, a lath. ‘Hic asser, a lait;’ Voc. 729. 4. AS. lett, pl. letta;
‘ Asseres, Jetta;” /Elfric’s Gloss., in Voc. 126. 14; also Jatta, pl.,
Voc. 185. 20.4Du. lat, a lath; G. latte, a lath, whence F. latte is
borrowed. β. The exact correspondence of the dental sound in AS.
lett and G. latte presents a difficulty. Perhaps the modern E. form
was influenced by the W. Wath, a rod, staff, yard, which is cognate
with Irish slat, a rod, from a Celtic type *slatta. The pl. Jathes occurs
in 1350; Riley, Memorials of London, p. 261. Der. Jatt-ice, q.v.,
latt-en, q. v-
LATHE (1), a machine for ‘ turning’ wood and metal. (Scand.)
‘Could turn his word, and oath, and faith, As many ways as in a
lathe ;’ Butler, Hudibras, pt. iii. c. 2. ll. 375, 376. Cotgrave explains
F. fournoir by ‘a turner’s wheel, a Jathe or Jare.’ Prob. of Scand.
origin; froma form represented by Dan. Jad, as in dreie-lad, a turning-
lathe; which also means ‘ frame,’ as in vever-lad, a loom (weaving-
frame). This Dan. /ad is prob. the same as Icel. A/ad, a pile, a stack;
from hlada, to lade; see ade (2). β. We may also compare AS.
hlad-hwéog! (lit. lade-wheel), an engine or wheel of a well, to draw
water (Bosworth) ; also AS. hlad-trendel, a wheel for drawing water
(id.); which are clearly derived from AS. hladan, to lade out water.
A transference of name from the water-wheel to the lathe would be
@ The entry /6d, a lathe, in Vigfusson’s Ice]. Dict., is incorrect
Ancient Laws, i.184. ‘In quibusdam vero provinciis Anglice voca-
batur Jed, quod isti dicunt fithinge;’ id. i, 455, note 3; and see
Glossary in vol. ii. Icel. 143, land, landed possession, Teut. type
*l@dom, neuter. Cf. Goth. un-léds, poor, lit. ‘landless.’
LATHER, foam or froth, esp. when made with soap and water.
(E.) ME. lather, for which Stratmann gives no reference; but we
find the derived verb Jetherien, as in ‘he I-ferede a swote’=he was in
a lather with sweat; Layamon, 1]. 7489 (later text). AS. Jéador,
lather, Voc. 456. 14; also in the comp. /éador-wyrt, lit. lather-wort,
i.e. soap-wort; Gloss. to AS. Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne ; whence
the verb /é@drian, to anoint, John, xi. 2 (Lindisfarne MS.).+4Icel.
laudr, later 1odr, froth, foam, scum of the sea, soap; whence Jaudra,
1édra, to foam, also to drip with blood ; Jeydra, to wash. . Teut. type
*laudrom, neut.; Idg. type */outrom, as in Gk. λουτρόν, for λοβετρόν,
a bath, from Aovw, Homeric Adw (for *Aofw), I wash (Prellwitz).
Cf. L. lauaire, to wash ; for which see Lave. Der. lather, vb.
LATIN, pertaining to the Romans. (F.—L.) ME. Latin ;
‘Chaucer, C. T. 4939 (B 519); and earlier, in St. Juliana, p. 3.—F.
Latin.=L. Latinus, Latin, belonging to Latium.—L. Latium, the
name of a country of Italy, in which Rome was situate. Der. Latin-
ism, Latin-ist, Latin-i-ty, Latin-ise. Also latim-er = Latin-er, an
interpreter, Layamon, 14319; well known as a proper name. Also
Tateen, q. V.
LATITUDE, breadth, scope, distance of a place N. or 5. of the
equator. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. latitude; Chaucer, C. Ὑν 4433.—F. latitude.
“ὦ. Jatitido, breadth.=—L. Jaius, broad; from an OL. sélatus,
appearing in stla¢a, a broad ship. See Brugmann, i. § 529 (2).
Der. latitudin-al, from- stem Jdatitidin- of the sb. latitudo ; latitudin-
ar-i-an, latitudin-ar-t-an-ism, latitudin-ous.
LATTEN, a mixed metal, a kind of brass. (F.—G.?) ‘ This
latten bilbo;’ Merry Wives, i. 1. 165. ME. latoun, laton ; Chaucer,
C. T. jor (A 699).—OF. Jaton (13th cent., see Littré) ; mod. F.
laiton. Cotgrave has: ‘Laiton, lattin (metall).’ Cf. Span. laton,
latten, brass; Port. /a/@o, brass ; Ital. o¢tone (corrupted from Jottone
or lattone), latten, brass, yellow copper. β. According to Diez,
the OF. Jaton is from Jatte, a lath (also spelt Ἰαΐρ, as in Cotgrave) ;
because this metal was hammered into thin plates. This is rendered
probable by the Ital. /a/¢a, tin, a thin sheet of iron tinned, answering
in form to Low L. Jatta, a lath (occurring in Voc. 729. 5); 50
also Span. Jatas, laths, hoja de Jata, tin-plate, tinned iron plate [where
hoja=foil, leaf}; also Port. Jata, tin plate, ἰαίας, laths. γ. If
this be right, these words are of G. origin viz. from G. latte, a lath;
see Lath.
LATTER, another form of later; see Late. (E.)
LATTICE, a network of crossed laths. (F.—G.) Here, as in
other words, the final -ce stands for s; a better form is /a/tis, as in
Spenser, F. Q. iii. 12.15. ME. latis, latys; Wyclif, Prov. vii. 6.—
AF. latys, Liber Albus, p. 333, 1. 4; F. attis, lath-work (Hamilton).
=F. Ja‘te, a lath. —G. Ja‘te,a lath; see Lath. Der. /attice-work.
LAUD, to praise. (L.) ΜΕ. Jauden. ‘If thou Jaudest and ioyest
any wight;’ Test. of Love, b. i. ch. το. 76; ‘laude it nought ;”
P. Plowman, B. xi, 102. —L. Jaudire, to praise.—L. laud-, stem of
LAVATORY 331
laus, praise. Root uncertain. Der. laud-er, laud-able, land-able-necs,
laud-abl-y ; also laud-at-or-y (from pp. laud-adtus)'; laud, sb., Troil.
11. 3. 179; Hamlet, iv. 7.178. And see allow (2).
LAUDANUM, a preparation of opium. (L.—Gk.—Pers.)
‘Laudanum or Opiate Laudanum, a medicine so called from its ex-
cellent qualities ;’ Kersey, ed. 1715; and in Sir T. Browne, Religio
Medici, pt. ii. § 12. Kersey’s remark refers to a. supposed connexion
with L. Jaudare, to praise; on which Mahn (in Webster) remarks:
‘this word cannot be derived from L. Jawdandum, to be praised, nor
was it invented by Paracelsus, as it previously existed in Provengal.’
The zame, in fact, was an old one; but was transferred from one
drug to another. ‘Laudanum, Ladanum, or Labdanum, a sweet-
smelling transparent gum gathered from the leaves of Cistus Ledon,
a shrub, of which they make pomander; it smells like wine mingled
with spices ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Cf. MSpan. Jandano, ‘the gum
labdanum ysed in pomanders ;’ Minsheu (1623). Spelt Jabdanum in
Cotgrave, 5. v. labdane; but Jaudanum in Bullein’s Dialogue (1578),
p- 43, 1. 13. Spelt ladanum, Ben Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, v. 2
(Perfumer).—L. /adanum, lédanum, the resinous substance exuding
from the shrub Jada; Pliny, xxvi. 8. 30, § 47; xii. 17. 37, ὃ 45.—Gk.
λήδανον, Aadavoy, the same.—Gk. λῆδον, an oriental shrub, Cistus
Creticus. — Pers. Jadan, the gum-herb lada; Rich. Pers. Dict., p. 1251,
col, 2, last line.
LAUGH, to make the noise denoting mirth. (E.) ME. laughen,
Chaucer, C. T. 3847 (A 3849). Various spellings are lauhwen,
lauhen, laghen, leh3en, lihzen, &cc.; see Stratmann. OMerc. hlekhan,
AS. hlehhan, hlihhan, hlihan, pt. τ. hldh; Grein, ii. 81.4-Du. lagchen;
Icel. hlaja, pt. t.kl6; Dan. lee;.Swed. le; ἃ. lachen; Goth. hlahjan,
pt. t. Aidh. B. All imitative words from a Teut. base HLAH,
corresponding to an Aryan base KLAK, to make a noise. Cf.
Lith. Aleg-é/i, to laugh, Gk. κλώσσειν, to cluck. Somewhat similar
words are χλώζειν, to cry as a jackdaw, κρώζειν, to caw, KAa Cer, to
clash, κράζειν, to croak, &c.; L. crocitare, glocire; and cf. E. crake,
creak, crack, click, clack, cluck, &c. Der. laugh, sb., laugh-er, laugh-
able, laugh-abl-y, laugh-able-ness, laugh-ing-ly, laugh-ing-gas, lavgh-
ing-stock. Also, laugh-ter, Chaucer, Troil. ii. 1169, from AS. hleahtor,
Grein, ii. 82, cognate with Icel. klatr, Dan. latter, G. lachter.
LAUNCH (1), LANCHG, to throw forward like a spear, hurl,
send forth, send (a ship) into the water. (F.—L.) ME. launchen, to
pierce, Destr. of Troy, 6811; variant of launcen, to hurl, Will. of
Paleme, |. 2755; cf. P. Plowman’s Crede, 551. ‘Lawncyn, lawnchyn,
or stynge with a spere or blode-yryne, lanceo ;’ Prompt. Parv. —OF.
lanchier, variant of lancier, Picard lancher, F. lancer, ‘to throw, fling,
hurle, dart; also, to prick, pierce ;’ Cot.—F. Jance, a lance; see
Lance. Doublet, lance, verb.
LAUNCH (2), the largest boat of a man of war, a kind of long-
boat. (Span.—Port.—Malay.) Formerly Janck. ‘The craft was. .
a lanch, or long-boat;’ Dampier, Voy. (ed. 1729), i. 2.—Span.
lancha, ‘the pinnace of a ship;’ Pineda,— Port. ancha, pinnace of
a ship; also /anchara.—Malay lanchar, swift, nimble; lanchar, to
proceed quickly. See Notes on E. Etym., p. 158.
LAUNDRESS, a washerwoman. (F.—L.) Formerly Jaunderess
(see below), formed by adding the F. suffix -ess to the old word
launder or lavender, which had the same sense. ME. /avender,
Chaucer, Legend of Good Women, ]. 3583 spelt Jauender, laynder,
Jandar, Barbour’s Bruce, ed. Skeat, xvi. 273, 292.—OF. lavandier,
masc. one who washes; (whence the fem. lavandiere, ‘a launderesse
or washing-woman ;᾿ Cot.).— Late L. /avandarius, one who washes ;
Ducange. = L. Jauand-a, things to be washed ; from laure, to wash ;
see Lave. Der. laundr-y (=launder-y), spelt lavendrye in P. Plow-
man, B. xv. 182.
LAUREATE, crowned with laurel. (L.) ME. lauwreat, Chaucer,
C. T. 14614 (B 3886). —L. lauredtus, crowned with laurel. = L. /aurea,
a laurel crown ; fem. form of adj. Jaureus, made of laurel, from Jaurus;
see Laurel. Der. laureate-ship.
LAUREL, the bay-tree. (F.—L.) In Shak. Troil. i. 3. 107.
Formed, by the common substitution of J for r, from ME. laurer,
a laurel, Chaucer, C. T. 9340 (E 1466); spelt Jorer, Gower, C. A.
i. 3373 bk. iii. 1716; Jorel, Will. of Palerne, 1. 2983. —F. laurier,
‘a laurell, or bay-tree;’ Cot.—Late L. */aurarius (not found), an
adjectival formation with suffix -arius.— L. laurus, a laurel-tree,
Der. laurell-ed; also laur-e-ate; see above.
LAURUSTINUS, an evergreen shrub. (L.) Used by Evelyn
in 1664. Really compounded of two separate words.—L. laurus,
a laurel ; fins, a laurustinus.
LAVA, the matter which flows down a burning mountain. (Ital.
—L.) In Keats, Lamia,i. 157. A late word; added by Todd to
Johnson’s Dict.—Ital. Java, ‘a running gullet, streame, or gutter
sodainly caused by raine;’ Florio’s Ital. Dict., ed. 1598.— Ital.
lavare, to wash. =—L. lauare, to wash; see Lave.
LAVATORY, a place for washing. (L.) In Levins; ἀπά ἴῃ
332 LAVE
Wyclif, Exod. xxx. 18, Cotgrave explains F. davafotre as ‘a lavatory,
a place or vessell to wash in.’=—L. lauatorium, a lavatory ; neut. of
laudtorius, belonging to a washer.—L. Jauadtor, a washer. =L. Jauare,
to wash; see Lave.
LAVE, to wash, bathe. (F.—L.) ME. lauen; ‘And laueth
hem in the Jauandrie’ [laundry]; P. Plowman, C. xvii. 330; cf.
Layamon, 7489. - Εἰ Javer, to wash. = L. laude, to wash. 4+-Gk. λούειν,
to wash. From the Idg. base LOU, to wash. See Lather. Der.
lav-er (Exod. xxxviii. 8), ME. lavour, lauour, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 5869
(Ὁ 287), from OF. laveoir, lavoer (Godefroy), lavoir, ‘a washing
poole’ (Cot.), from L. lauatorium (above). And see laundress, lotion.
From the same base are de-luge, al-luvial.
LAVEER, to beat to windward, to tack. (Du.—F.—Du.) ‘But
those that ’gainst stiff gales /aveering go;’ Dryden, Astrzea Redux,
1. 65.— Du. laveeren, MDu. laveren, loeveren, ‘ to saile up and downe,’
Hexham. =MF. Joveér (Littré); F. louvoyer.—F. lof, luff, weather-
side.—Du. loef. See Luff. See Notes on E. Etym., p. 159.
LAVENDER, an odoriferous plant. (F.—Late L.) Spelt
lavendre in Palsgrave; cf. Shak. Wint. Ta. iv. 104. ‘ Lavendere,
herbe, Lavendula ;’ Prompt. Parv. = AF. lavendre, Voc. 557. 9. — Late
L. lavendula, as in Prompt. Pary. and Voc. 557.9. Other forms are
lavandula, livendula (N.E.D.). Also F. lavande, ‘ lavender,’ Cot. ;
Ital. /avanda, lavender; Ital. Javendola, Span. lavandula. B. The
plant was often laid with fresh-washed linen, and thus came to
be associated (in popular etymology) with L. lauare, to wash. But
the early form /ivendula tends rather to associate it with Jiuére, to be
livid, from its blueish colour. The exact source is unknown.
LAVISH, adj., profuse, prodigal. (F.—L.) a. The adj. is due
to an obs. sb., also spelt /avish ; also davas, lavess, which is explained
below. β. Examples of the adj. are as follows. ‘In al other thing
so light and Jawes [are they] of theyr tong;’ Sir T. More, Works,
p. 250b. ‘Punishing with losse of life the avesnes of the toung ;’
Brende, Quintus Curtius, fol. 67 (R.). ‘ Although some /auishe lippes,
which like some other best ;” Gascoigne, In Praise of Lady Sandes,
1. 7 (Poems, ed. Hazlitt, vol. i. p. 53). ‘Lavish Nature ;’ Spenser,
Muiopotmos, 1. 163. Spelt Javas in ‘Romeus and Juliet,’ p. 20
(Halliwell); so also ‘7avas of theyr tungys;’ Paston Letters, iii.
323. Ὑ. The adj. arose from the use of /avas, sb., in the sense of
lavishness or prodigality. ‘There was no Jauas [ profusion, excess]
in their speche ;’ Caxton, Golden Legend, fol. 364, back (N. E.D.).
Whence also the vb., as in; ‘ | hose, who did prodigally lavesse out
and waste their substaunce ;’ Udall, tr. of Erasmus’ Apophthegms,
Diogenes, 8 161. The sb. is of F. origin. — OF. Javasse, an inundation,
abundant rain (Godefroy); cf. Rouchi davache, as in plouvoir alavache,
to rain abundantly (Heécart).—F. Javer, to wash; Norm. dial. Zaver,
to lavish, to squander (Moisy).—L. Zaudre, to wash. See Lave.
Compare: ‘ He Jauez hys gyftezas water of dyche’ = God lavishes his
gifts as (freely as one would take) water out of a ditch; Allit. Poems,
ed. Morris, A. 607; see the whole passage, which treats of God’s
profuseness of reward to the souls in heaven. Der. Javish-ly, lavish-
ness, lavish-ment; also lavish, verb (Levins).
LAW, a rule of action, edict, statute. (Scand.) ME, lawé (two
syllables), Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1167 (A 1165). AS. lagu, a late word,
used in place of the early AS. ὦ, law. Borrowed from prehistoric
ON. *lagu, answering to Icel. lég (below). Cf. OSax. lag (pl. lagu),
a statute, decree; Icel. /ég (s. pl., but used in the sing. sense), for
older */agu, a law; it is the pl. of ag, a stratum, order, due place,
lit. ‘that which lies” or is placed; Swed. lag; Dan. Jov. Teut.
type *lagom, n. _B. The sense is ‘that which lies” or is in
due order; from Teut. base ἔαρ, 2nd grade of *liggan-, to lie;
see Lie (1). Der. Jaw-ful, ME. laweful, Trevisa, iii. 193; law-
Jful-ly, ME, lawefulliche, P. Plowman, C. x. 593 law-ful-ness, see Owl
and Nightingale, ed. Stratmann, 1. 1741; law-giver ; law-less, ME.
Jaweles, Trevisa, iil. 73; law-less-ly, law-less-ness; law-book, see
Ormulum, 1. 19533 law-suit; also law-yer, q. v.
LAWN (1), a space of ground covered with grass in a garden.
(F.—C.} Properly an open space, esp. in a wood; a glade (see
Glade). The spelling lawn is not old; the older spelling is in-
variably /aund, which was still in use in the 18th century, ‘Laund
or Lawn, in a park, plain untilled ground ;’ Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715.
Spelt Jaund in Shak. Venus, 813; 3 Hen. VI, iii. 1. 2. ME. daund,
Chaucer, C. T. 1691; (observe that Dryden substitutes Jawn in his
Palamon and Arcite, 1. 845); P. Plowman, C. i. 8.—OF. daunde
(Godefroy), also dande, ‘a land or laund, a wild, untilled, shrubby,
or bushy plain;” Cot. Cf. Ital. and Span. Janda, a heath, tract of
open country. OCeltic */anda, fem.; whence Bret. Jann, a bushy
shrub, of which the pl. /annow is only used to signify waste land, like
the F. /andes. The Bret. Jann is also used in a variety of senses,
corresponding to those of Gael. and Irish Jann, and W.Jlan; one of
these senses is and or territory, though most often used of an inclosure.
Spurrell gives W. Jan, ‘an area, yard, church;’ but the Gael. Jann
LAY FIGURE
means ‘ an inclosure, a house, a church, a reposiiory, land ;’ and the
Trish Jann is ‘land, a house, church, repository.’ In fact, the Irish
Jann and E. land are cognate words ; see Land,
LAWN (2), a sort of fine linen. (F.2—L.?) In Shak. Wint. Ta.
iv. 4. 209, 220. ‘Inthe third yeare of the raigne of Queene Elizabeth,
1562, beganne the knowledge and wearing of /awne and cambrick,
which was then brought into Ingland by very small quantities ;’
Stow, King James, an. 1604 (R.). But this misleading statement 15
entirely wrong, as the word is known to English as early as 1415
(N. Ἐς D.). It also occurs in Lydgate’s London Lickpenny, 1. 66
(Minor Poems, p. 105); and in Menrysoun, Test. Cressid, 423. In
1502, lawn is enumer-ted among the wares of Flanders; Amold’s
Chron., ed. 1811, p. 205. And Palsgrave (1530) has: ‘Laune lynen,
crespe.” I understand Laune lynen to mean ‘linen of Laon,’ formerly
also Lan, not far N.\W. of Kheims; cf. ‘ Lawne, or fine linnen cloth
called cloth of Remes;’ Baret. Linen manufacture was carried on
at Laon for many centuries (Romania, xxix. 182). For the spelling
Lan, see Calendar of State Papers, vi. 203, 224; and for OF. Lan
(Laon) see Ménage.=—L, Laudinum, Lugdinum, a name of Celtic
origin. Cf. fawn (2), from OF, fan, faon; pawn (2), from OF, paon.
LAWYER, one versed in the law, one who practises law. (I.)
ME. lawyer, lawier; P. Plowman, B. vii. 59. From Jaw, with suffix
-yer. This suffix originated in the use of the suffix -‘en in place of
-en in causal verbs, and verbs derived from sbs. Thus, from the AS.
lufu, love, was formed the vb. lujigan or lufian, to love, which became
Jov-ien in ME. Hence the sb. dov-ier or lov-yer, a lover, another form
of Jov-er or lov-ere, a lover; see the readings in the Petworth and
Lansdowne MSS. in Chaucer, C.T.,A 1347. By analogy, from lawe,
law, was formed Jaw-ier or law-yer. So also bow-yer, one who uses
a bow}; saw-yer, one who uses a saw.
LAX, slack, loose, soft, not strict. (L.) In Milton, P. L. vii. 162.
= L. daxus, lax, loose.—L. base LAG, to be weak; whence also
langu-ére, to be languid, with inserted x. Allied to slack; see Slack.
Brugmann, i. ὃ 193. Der. lax-ly, lax-ness; lax-i-ty, from F. laxité
(Cot.), which from L. acc. laxitatem; and see lax-at-ive.
LAXATIVE, loosening. (F.—L.) ME. laxatif, Chaucer, C. T.
14949 (B 4133)-— F. laxatif, ‘laxative ;’ Cot. —L. laxatitius, loosening;
cf. laxatus, pp. of laxare, to render lax. —L. Jaxus; see Lax. Der.
laxative-ness,
LAY (1), to cause to lie down, place, set. (E.) The causal of die,
from which it is derived. ME. leggen; weak verb, pt. t. leide, pp. leid;
Chaucer, C. T. 81, 3935 (A 3937). AS. lecgan (where cg=gg), to
lay; pt.t. egde, pp. gelegd; Grein, ii. 166. Formed (by vowel-change
of a to e) from dag, orig. form of AS. Jeg, pt. t. of licgan, tolie; see
Lie (1).4+Du. leggen, pt. t. Ingde, leide, pp. gelegt; Icel. leggja, pt. t.
lagdi, pp. lagidr, lagdr; Dan. legge, pt. t.lagde, pp. lagt; Swed. lagge,
pt. t. lade, pp. Jagd; Goth. lagjan, pt. t. lagida, pp. lagiths; G. legen,
pt. t. Jegte, pp. σε! ρὲ. Teut. type *lagjan-; from lag, 2nd grade of
*legjan-,to lie. B. The form Jay is due to the base Jeg-, occurring in
AS. leg-est, leg-0, 2nd and 3rd pers. sing. of the present tense. Der.
lay-er, αν.
LAY (2), a song, lyric poem. (F.-OHG.) ME. Jai, O. Eng.
Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 199, 1. 167; Jay, P. Plowman, B. viii. 66. -
OF. lat, spelt Jay in Cotgrave; cf. Proy. Jais,a lay. [The Jay was
regarded as specially belonging to the Bretons; Mr. Wedgwood cites
from Marie de France: ‘ Les cuntes ke jo sai verais Dunt li Breton
unt fait lor Jats Vus cunterai assez briefment’ =the tales which I know
to be true, of which the Bretons have made their days, I will briefly
relate to you. See further in note 24 to Tyrwhitt’s Introductory
Discourse to the Cant. Tales ; and see Chaucer, C. Τὶ 11021 (F 709).}
Of doubtful origin ; but most probably from OHG. leth, deich, a game,
sport; also melody, song (see Schade).-+Icel. le‘kr; AS. lac, sport ;
Goth. latks, dancing (Lu. xv. 25). Teut. type */athoz, m.; whence
also OSlav. likii, Russ. lik’, a chorus, choir. J Not from Celtic;
and not from G, died; see under Lark (2).
LAY (3), LAIC, pertaining to the laity. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME.
lay ; ‘ Lered men and Jay’ = learned men and laymen; Rob.of Brunne,
tr. of Langtoft, p. 171, last line. — OF, Jai, ‘lay, secular, of the laity ;”
Cot. —L. laicus, belonging to the people (whence the E. Jaic).—Gk.
λαικός, belonging to the people. —Gk. λαός (Ionic Anés, Attic λεώς),
the people. Root uncertain. Der. laic-al, Jay-man, Trevisa, v. 289;
also lai-ty, used by Cotgrave (as cited above), formed with suffix -ty
by analogy with words such as chasti-ty, quanti-ty, &c.
LAY FIGURE, a jointed wooden model of the human body,
used by artists. (Du. and F.) Figure is from F. figure, L. figura.
Lay is properly a part of the older word Jayman (used in the same
sense as lay figure).— Du. leeman, lit. ‘joint man,’ i.e. jointed figure;
where Jee is for Jede-, in compounds (Sewel) ; from MDu. Jed?, lidt
(Hexham), Du. Jid, a joint, limb, which is cognate with AS. 1d,
a limb, G. g-lied, Goth. lithus, a limb. See Franck. See Notes on
E. Etym., p. 159.
LAYER
LAYER, a stratum, row, tier, bed. (E.) ‘Zayer, a bed or channel
in a creek, where small oisters are thrown in to breed ; among gar-
deners, it is taken for a young sprout covered with mould, in order to
raise its kind;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. Lay-er =that which lays, hen-e
a mode of laying or propagating. It was extended to mean anything
carefully laid in due order. See Lay (1). J Distinct from Jair,
which is from the intrans. verb to lie. Der. layer-ing.
LAZAR, a leper. (F.—L.—Gk.—Heb.) ME. Jazar, Chaucer,
C. Τ. 242.—F. Lazare; see Littré. —L. Lazarus.— Gk. Λάζαρος, the
name of the beggar in the parable; Luke, xvi. 20; contracted from
the Heb. name Eleazar.— Heb. El‘azar, ‘he whom God helps.’ Der.
lazar-like, Hamlet, i. 5. 72; /azar-house, Milton, P. L. xi. 479; also
Jazar-etto, from Ital. /azzeretto, a plague-hospital.
LAZY, slow, sluggish, slothful. (Low G.?) In Shak. Temp. iii.
1. 28; spelt /aesie in Spenser, Shep. Kal. Feb., 9; July, 33; Jazée in
Minsheu, ed. 1627. We also find the verb to laze. ‘S’endormir en
sentinelle, to sleep when he hath most cause to watch; to Jaze it when
he hath most need to looke about him;’ Cot.; this is a back forma-
The phonology offers difficulties; it does not
appear to be connected with G. Jassig, weary, lazy (though the sense
corresponds) ; which is from G. /ass, cognate with Εἰ late. Of course
we did not borrow words from High German in the 16th century,
except in very rare and peculiar instances, such as carouse. Der.
lazi-ly, lazt-ness.
LEA (1), LEY, LAY, a tract of open ground. (E.) ‘On the
watry lea,’ i.e. plain; Spenser, F. Ὁ. iv. 2.16. Often spelt ley, leigh,
in E. place-names, as in Brom-ley, Haw-ley, Had-leigh. ‘Thy rich
leas ;” Tempest, v. 1.60. AS. /éah, léa, gen. case léages, also léage ;
see Thorpe, Diplomatarium /Evi Saxonici, p. 109, 1. 8, p. 202,1. 4;
also p. 526, where the place-name Hed-léah (Hadleigh) occurs; also
p. 658. B. Justas AS. fléak (=E. flea) is cognate with G. foh, so lea
15 cognate with prov. G. /ok, a morass, bog, wood, forest (i liigel),
which also appears in place-names, such as Hohen-lohe, i.e. high leas.
So also we find the Low G. /oge, which in place-names near Bremen
signifies a low-lying tract, a grassy plain; Bremen Worterb. iii. 80.
So also Water-loo = water-lea. Teut. types *lauhoz, m., */auha, f.
Further cognates occur in Lithuanian Jaukas, an open field (Nessel-
mann); L. liicus, a grove, glade, open space in a wood (?) ; Skt.
loka-s, a region; Idg. type *lougos. Orig. sense ‘a clearing, cleared
land.’ Allied to Lucid. Brugmann, i. § 221. δ No connexion
whatever with Jay (1); but see below.
LEA (2), LEY, LAY, fallow land, arable land under grass,
pasture-land. (E.) Often very difficult to distinguish from Lea (1).
‘Leys, to falowe or to sowe otes upon ;’ Fitzherbert, Husbandry, ὃ 8.
‘Lay, londe not telyd;’ Prompt. Parv. Short for Jey-/and, from ley,
adj. ‘Thi lond that lith δίς; Gamelyn, 1.161. AS. *lége; as in
léh-hrycg, ‘lea rig;’ Birch, Cart. Saxon. iii. 96. From /#g-, 3rd
stem of licgan, to lie; see Lie (1). Cf. Icel. -legr, as in gras-legr,
lying in the grass. See N. E.D.
LEAD (1), to bring, conduct, guide, precede, direct, allure. (E.)
ME. leden, pt. t. ladde, ledde, pp. lad, led; Chaucer, C. T. 4777, 4862,
5006 (B 357, 442, 646). AS. ledan, pt. τ. ledde, pp. léded; Grein,
ii. 161; lit. ‘to show the way.’ = AS. lad, a way, path; Grein, ii. 150.
= AS. lidSan, strong verb, to travel, go; Grein, ii. 183 ; of which ledan
may be regarded as the causal form.+Icel. eiJa, to lead, from /eid,
away; which from /ida, to go, pass, move along; Swed. leda, to lead,
from led, a way, course; which from /ida, to pass, go on; Dan. lede,
to lead, from /ed, a gate; which from Jide, to glide on; G. leiten, to
lead; causal of OHG. lidan, to go, go away, undergo, endure, suffer
=mod. Ὁ. leiden, to suffer; cf. G. begleiten (=be-geleiten), to accom-
pany, go on the way with. Cf. Du. leiden, to lead. B. Teut. type
*laidjan-; from *laith, 2nd grade of *leithan-, to travel, as in AS. lidan,
Goth. ga-leithan, to go (pt. t. ga-laith, pp. ga-lithans). Der. lead, sb.,
lead-er, lead-er-ship, lead-ing-strings. And see lode, load.
LEAD (2), a well-known metal. (E.) ME. leed, led; dat. lede,
Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, iii. 341 ; P. Plowman, B. v. 600; cf. Havelok,
924. AS. léad; Grein, ii, 168.4 Du. ood, lead, a plummet; M. Low
G. léd (whence Swed. lod, a weight, plummet; Dan. lod, a weight,
plummet) ; G. Jo¢z, a plummet, bullet; MHG. ἰδέ, lead. Teut. type
*laudom, neut. Cognate with Olrish Jwaidhe, Gael. luaidh, lead (Mac-
bain). Der. lead-en, ME. leden, Chaucer, C. T. 16196 (G 728), with
suffix as in gold-en; lead-pencil ; also lead, vb., lead-ed.
LEAF, part of a plant, two pages of a book. (E.) ME. /eef, lef,
pl. ἴδιος (=Jeves) ; Chaucer, C. T. 1840 (A 1838). AS. léaf, pl. léaf;
Grein, ii. 168. OFries. /@f.4+OSax. laf; Du. loof, foliage; Icel. lauf;
Swed. léf; Dan. Jév, foliage; Goth. laufs, pl. laubds; OHG. laup,
ΜΗ. Joup, a leaf; OHG. laup, MHG. loup, leaves, G. laub, leaves,
LEAP 338
foliage. B. All from Teut. types *Jaudom, n., or *lauboz,m. Further
allied to Russ. lupite, to peel, OSlav. Jupiti, Lithuanian 1ὰριὶ, to strip.
Der. leaf-age (made in imitation of foli-age), leaf-less, leaf-let, leav-ed,
leaf-y (also leauy, i.e. leav-y, in ed. 1623 of Shak. Macb. v. 6. 1), leaf-i-
ness, inter-leave.
LEAGUE (1), a bond, alliance, confederacy. (F.—Ital.—L.) In
Shak. Mer. Wives, iii. 2. 25. Spelt /yge in G. Douglas, tr. of Virgil,
bk. iti. ch. 7, 1. 63. —F. ligue, ‘a league or confederacy ;’ Cot. = Ital.
liga, variant of lega, ‘a league, confederacie ;’ Florio; Late L. liga
(sometimes Jega), a league, confederacy.—L. ligare, to clasp, bind,
fasten, tie, ratifyan agreement. See Ligament. Der. league, verb,
Oth. ii. 3. 2185 cf. ‘se liguer l’un ἃ l'autre, to make a league ;’ Cot.
And see ligature.
LEAGUE (2), a distance of about three miles. (Prov.—L.—C.)
The distance varied. ‘A league or myle;’ Levins, ed. 1570. Cot-
grave, s. v. /ieue, notes that German or long leagues are about 4 miles
long, those of Languedoc, about 3 miles, and Italian or short leagues
are about 1 mile. ‘A hundred deages fro the place ;’ Berners, tr.
of Froissart, Chron. vol. i. c. 81. ‘The space of iii Jeges;’ Gesta
Romanorum, c. 78; p. 397-—Prov. legua; OF. legue, a league
(Godefroy, Supp., s. v. /iewe) ; Bordeaux /égue (Mistral); but the usual
OF. form was live ; mod. F. lieve, Cf. Gascon lega; mod. Prov. lego ;
Ital. lega (Florio) ; Span. legua. = Low L. léga, which occurs A.D. 1217,
Ducange; another form being /euca, which is the more original; L.
leuca {more correctly levga), a Gallic mile of 1500 Roman paces ;
a word of Celtic origin. B. The Celtic word remains in Bret. Jed or
Jev,a league; in the district of Vannes, Jeu. From Celtic type leuga ;
Stokes-Fick, p. 244. Observe that the F. form from which the E.
word is derived is a Southern F. or Provengal form; and the E. league
of 3 miles coincides, as to length, with that of Languedoc. See
Phil. Soc. Trans. 1903, p. 154. Der. seven-leagu-ed.
LEAGUER, acamp. (Du.) In All’s Well, iii. 6. 27.—Du. leger,
a lair; also,a camp, army. See Beleaguer. Doublet, Jair.
LEAK, to ooze through a chink. (Scand.) ME. leken. ‘ That
humoure oute may /eke’=that the moisture may leak out; Palladius
on Husbandry, ed. Lodge, b. vi. 1. 33.—Icel. /eka (pt. t. lak), to drip,
dribble, leak asa ship. Cf. Swed. lacka; Dan. lekke; Du. lekken, to
leak, drop; G. lecken, to leak, run, trickle; AS. leccan, to wet, to
moisten; Ps. vi. 6 (ed. Spelman) ; all weak verbs from the same root.
Teut. type *lekan-, pt. t. */ak, pp. *lekanoz. See Lack. Cf. also
AS. hlec, leaky; Westphal. /ek, leaky.4JIrish and Gael. leagh, to
melt ; W. //aith, moist; base *leg. Der. leak, sb., from Icel. leki,
a leak; leak-y, Temp. i. 1. 51; leak-i-ness ; also leak-age, a late word,
with F. suffix -age (=L.-aticum). Also lack (1), lack (2).
LEAL, loyal, true. (F.—L.) Spelt Jeale in Levins, ed. 1570.
A Northern word ; in Burns, Halloween, st. 3. ME. Jel; ‘ And be Jel
to the lord;’ Will. of Palerne, 1. 5119.—AF. leal; see Vie de St.
Auban, ed. Atkinson; OF. lee, mod. F. Joyal. See further under
Loyal, of which it is a doublet.
LEAN (1), to incline, bend, stoop. (E.) ME. lenen, P. Plowman,
B. prol. 9, xviii. 5. The trans. and intrans. forms are now alike;
properly, the intrans. form is the more primitive, and the mod. E.
verb may have arisen from this form only, as the causal form was
rare. AS. hleonian, hlinian, intrans. weak verb, to lean, Grein, i. 85 ;
whence hl#nan, to make to lean, id. i. 81.-4+OSax. hlinOn, intrans.
form; OHG, hlinéxn, ΜΉ. lenen, G. lehnen, intrans. form. All from
Teut. root *klet-, Idg.4/ KLEI; whence L. *clindre, obsolete, occurring
in inclinare; see Incline; Gk. κλίνειν (with long 4), to make to bend,
cause to lean. See Clinical. Der. From the same root, in-cline,
de-cline, re-cline, en-cline, ac-cliv-i-ty, de-cliv-i-ty.
LEAN (2), slender, not fat, frail, thin. (E.) ΜΕ. lene (two
syllables). ‘ As lené was his hors as is a rake ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 289.
AS. hl#ne, lean ; used of Pharaoh’s lean kine; Gen. xli. 3.44+Low ἃ.
leen, lean. B. Perhaps the orig. sense was leaning, bending, stooping;
hence weak, thin, poor. Cf. L. décliuis, bending down, declining ;
@tate décliuis, in the decline of life; OFries. lanig, yielding, weak;
Olrish cléen, sloping, bad. See Lean (1). ¢@7 The occurrence of
the initial ἃ in AS. l#ne at once separates it from AS. /J#ne, adj.
transitory, which is connected with lend and loan. Der. lean-ly,
dean-ness.
LEAP, to bound, spring, jump. (E.) ME. lepen, pt. t. leep, lep,
pp- lopen ; Chaucer, C. T. 4376, 2689 (A 4378, 2687); P. Plowman,
B. v. 198. AS. hléapan, to run, leap, spring; a strong verb; pt. t.
hléop, pp. gehléapen ; Grein, ii. 82, andi. 24 (5. v. ahléapan). OFries,
hlapa (cf. prov. E. lope).4-OSax. hlépan, to run; in comp. ahklopan ;
Du. Joopen, to run, flow; pt. t. liep; pp. geloopen; Icel. hlaupa, to
leap, jump, run; pt. t. Aljop, pp. klaupinn; Dan. lobe, to run ; Swed.
lopa, to run; Goth. -Alaupan, to leap, only in comp. wus-hlaupan ; pt.
t. hlaihlaup (reduplicated) ; OHG. Alaufan, MHG., loufen, G. laufen
(pt. t. lief, pp. gelaufen),torun. β. All from Teut. type *hlaupan-,
pt. τ. *hle-hlaup, to leap, run. Der. leap, sb., AS. klyp, Grein, ii. 89,
334 LEARN
cognate with Icel. Alaup, a leap, G. lawf, a course.
leap-year, ME. lepezeer, Mandeville’s Travels, p. 77.
LEARN, to acquire knowledge of. (E.) ME. lernen, Chaucer,
C. T. 310 (A 308). AS. leornian, to learn; Grein, ii. 179.-4-OSax.
lindn, to learn, contracted form of *lizndn; OHG. lirnén, G. lernen.
Teut. type *Jizndjan- ; in which LIS is the base, and -n- is a forma-
tive element used in certain verbs ; see Streitberg, § 208. Cf. Goth.
full-nan, to become full, and-bund-nan, to become unbound, af-lif-nan,
to be left remaining, ga-hail-nan, to become whole, ga-wak-nan, to
become awake. β. Krom Teut. type *Ziz(a)noz, pp. of *Jeisan-, to
trace out, of which the pt. t. /a’s occurs in Gothic with the sense “1
know,’ i.e. I have found out. Hence also Teut. */aizjan-, to teach,
as in AS. leéran, ME. léren, G. lehren, to teach; and Teut. */aizd, sb.,
as in AS. Jar, E. lore. See Last (2), Lore. Brugmann, i. § 903 (c).
Der. learn-ed, orig. merely the pp. of the verb; learn-ed-ly, learn-ed-
ness, learn-er, learn-ing.
LEASE (1), to let tenements for a term of years. (F.—L.) ‘To
lease or let leas, locare, dimittere; the lease, letting, locatio, dimissio;’
Levins, ed. 1570. An AF. law term; see Blount’s Nomolexicon,
ed. 1691.—AF. lesser, Year-book of Edw. I (1292-3), p. 43; F.
laisser, ‘to leave, relinquish ;’ Cot. [Cf. Ital. Zasciare, to quit.]
Laisser is still used in the sense ‘to part with’ or ‘let go’ at a fixed
price; sce Littré. [The AI’. form Jesser at once accounts for E.
less-or, less-ee.|—L. laxare, to slacken, let go.—L. laxus, lax, slack ;
see Lax. @ Not related to G. lassen, which=E. let ; see Let (1).
Der. /Jease-hold ; also less-or (spelt Zeassor in Blount’s Nomolexicon),
signifying ‘ one who leases,’ with suffix -or of the agent ; Jess-ee (spelt
leassee in Blount), signifying ‘one to whom a lease is granted,’ with
suffix -ee in place of OF. -é (<L. -dtus), the pp. ending, with a passive
sense,
LEASE (2), to glean. (E.) In Dryden, tr. of Theocritus, Idyl 3,
1. 72, ΜΕ. lesen, P. Plowman, B, vi. 68. AS. lesan, to gather
(Grein).4 Du. lezen, to gather, read; Icel. Jesa, to glean, to read ;
G, lesen; Goth. lisan, to gather; pt. t. das. Teut. type *Jesan-, pt. t.
*las ; allied to Lith. /ést’, to pick up with the bill.
LEASE (3), a pasture, meadow-land. (E.) ME. J/ese, pasture,
Will. of Palerne, 175. AS. Ἰῶς, a pasture; gen., dat., acc. /éswe.
Teut. type /éswa, fem. Prob, connected with Jé¢-an, to let alone;
so that the sense was ‘land not tilled.” See N. E.D. Doublet,
prov. E. leasow; see E.D.D. 6] Often confused with Lea (1).
LEASH, a thong by which a hawk or hound is held; a brace
and a half. (F.—L.) 1. ME. lees, leese, leece. ‘Alle they renne
in o dees’ =they all run in one leash ; Chaucer, C. T. Pers. Tale, De
Septem Peccatis (Six-text, Group I, 387). And see Prompt. Parv.
p- 291. —OF, lesse (mod. F. Jaisse), “ἃ leash, to hold a dog in;’ Cot.
Cot. also gives: ‘Laisse, the same as Lesse, also, a leash of hounds,
&c.’ . Cf. Ital. Jascio, a leash, band; also a legacy, will.—Late L.
laxa, a lease, thong; lit. a loose rope; cf. ‘Laxa, a lees;’ Voc.
592. 5.—L. laxa, fem. of Jaxus, loose, lax; see Lax. 2. The sense
of ‘three’ arose from the application of the word to the number
usually leashed together (Richardson); see Shak. 1 Henry IV, ii.
Also leap-frog ;
4.7. ‘A Brace of grehoundis, of ij ; a Lece of Grehoundis, of iij ;’
Book of St. Alban’s, fol. f 6, col. 2. Der. Jeask, verb, Hen. V,
prol. 7.
7
LEASING, falsehood, lying. (E.) In Ps. iv. 2, v. 6; A.V.
ME. lesynge, lesinge ; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1929 (A 1927). AS. Jéasing,
feasung, a falsehood; Grein, ii. 179; from AS. Jéasian, to lie.— AS.
léas, false, orig. empty; the same word with AS. léas, loose. Cf.
Icel. dausung, falsehood ; Du. Joos, false; Goth. Jaus, empty, vain ;
lausa-waurds, loose-worded, speaking loose and random words, Tit.
1. to. See Loose.
LEAST ; see under Less,
LEAT, a duct, open water-course. (E.) See Leat in E.D.D.
From AS. ge-/ét, outlet, course; ‘op pera strata geleto, to the
cross-roads ; Earle, Land Charters, p. 292, 1. 4; also weter-gelét,
a conduit; Voc. 211. 13.—AS. /@tan, to let, allow, let out; see
Let (1). Cf. WFlem. /aat, a leat; De Bo.
LEATHER, the prepared skin of an animal. (E.) ME. lether,
Chaucer, C. T..3250. AS, leder, in comp. geweald-leder, lit. ‘ wield-
leather,’ i.e. a bridle; Grein, i. 478. ‘Bulga, leper-coddas,’ i.e.
leather bags; Aélfric’s Gloss., in Voc. 117. 3.-4-Du. leder; Icel.
ledr ; Dan. leder ; Swed. lider; G.leder. Teut. type *lethrom, neut.;
Idg. type */etrom, as in Olrish lethar, W.Uledr. Stokes-Fick, p. 248.
Der. Jleather-n, ME. letheren, P. Plowman, B. v. 192, formed with
suffix -ex, as in gold-en; also leather-y,
LEAVE (1), to quit, abandon, forsake. (E.) ME. lenen (with
u =v), pt. t. dafte, lefte, pp. laft, left; Chaucer, C. T. 8126, 14204,
10500 (E 250, B 3388, F 186). AS. l#fan, Grein, ii. 162. The lit.
sense is ‘to leave a heritage,’ to leave behind one. = AS. Jaf, a heritage,
residue, remnant. OFries. Jéva, to leave.+Icel. Jeifa, to leave, leave
a heritage; from /e/f, a leaving, patrimony.
β. The Goth. form is |
LEDGE
laibjan, only in comp. bi-laibjan, to leave behind; from the sb. /aiba,
a remnant. Teut. type *Jaibjan-, to leave; from */aib-, as in AS.
laf, Icel. leif, Goth. laiba, above. And *laib- is the 2nd stem of
Teut. Jeidan-, to remain, as in AS. be-lifan, G. b-leiben from OHG.
bi-liban. From the Idg. 4/LEIP, whence Gk. λιπ-αρής, persistent ; the
weaker grade */ip is in Skt. lip, to smear, Gk. Aim-os, grease, Russ.
lip-kit, sticky, Lith. lip-t?, to adhere to. See Live. Brugmann, i.
§ 87. @ The Gk. λείπειν answers to L. linguere, and to Goth.
lethwan, G. leihen, to lend (orig. to let go). See oan. Der.
leav-ings.
LEAVE (2), permission, farewell. (E.) In the phr. ‘to take
leave, the word is the same as leave, permission. The orig. sense
was, probably, ‘to take permission to go,’ hence, ‘ to take a formal
farewell.’ Cf. ‘to give leave.’ We may, then, remember that the
sb. is entirely independent of the verb above. ME. Jeue, leave (with
u=v). ‘ By your Jeve’ = with your permission; Chaucer, C. T. 13377-
‘ But taketh his /ewe’=but takes his leave; id. 1219. AS. léaf, per-
mission; Grein, ii. 168; whence was formed the verb /yfax(OAnglian
léfan), to permit= ME. léuen, to permit, grant (now obsolete), one
of the most troublesome words in old authors, as it is frequently
confounded by editors with ME. Jexen, to lend, and misprinted ac-
cordingly ; see note to Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale, ed. Skeat, 1. 1873.
The orig. sense of Jeave is ‘that which is acceptable or pleasing,’ or
simply ‘pleasure ;’ and the Teut. type is */auda, fem.; from *lawd-,
2nd grade of Teut. root */eud, whence AS, Jéof, pleasing, lief, dear ;
see Lief.4Du. -Jof, only in the comp. oor-lof, permission, ver-lof,
leave ; cf. also Icel. Jeyfi, leave ; Jeyfa, to permit; ofan, permission ;
G. ur-laub, leave, furlough; ver-laxb, leave, permission ; er-/auben,
to permit. See Furlough and Love.
LEAVEN, the ferment which makes dough rise. (F.—L.) ME.
leuain, leuein (with τι for v). ‘ He is the Jewe:n of the bred’ [bread] ;
Gower, C. A. i. 294; bk. iii. 446; cf. Prompt. Parv. p. 300.—F.
levain, ‘leaven ;’ Cot. L. leudimen, an alleviation, mitigation; but
used (here) in the orig. sense of ‘that which raises.’ [Ducange
records the sense of ‘leaven’ for Late L. leudmentum, a parallel form
to leuamen.|—L. leudire, to raise. See Lever. Similarly, Ital.
lievito, leaven, is from Ital. Mevare, to raise (<L. leudre). Der.
leaven, verb.
LECHER, a man addicted to lewdness. (F,—G.) In early use.
ME. lechur, lechour; O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 53, 1. 273
Ancren Riwle, p. 216; Rob. of Glouc. p. 119; 1. 2529. —OF. lecheor
(Godefroy), lechewr (Cotgrave), lit. one who licks up. —OF, lechier,
to lick, to live in gluttony (Godefroy), mod. F. lécher, to lick. —OHG.
lecchon, G. lecken, to lick; cognate with E, Lick, q.v. Der. lecher-
ous, P, Plowman, C. ii. 25; lecher-ous-ly, lecher-ous-ness ; lecher-y,
ME. lecherie, leccherie, Hali Meidenhad, ed. Cockayne, p. 11, 1. 3.
Cf. lickerish.
LECTERN, LECTURN, a reading-desk. (F.—L.) ‘Leterone,
lectorne, lectrone, lectrun, deske, Lectrinum;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 299.
Spelt Jecterne in Minsheu, ed. 1627. Adapted from OF. Jetrun,
a lectern (Godefroy), with ¢ added from the Late L. form. Late L.
lectrum, a reading-desk or pulpit (attributed to Isidore of Seville).
For *leg-trum; from leg-ere, to read (below). [Cf L. mule-trum,
a milking-pail; from mulg-ére, to milk.] See Legend. Some
forms, as OF, leitrin, Ἐς lutrin, were influenced by Late L. lectrinum,
by-form of Jectrum. Hence Jectryne, a lectern; Trevisa, tr. of
Higden, vi. 447.
LECTION, a reading, portion to be read. (F.—L.) ‘ Other
copies and various Jections;’ Milton, A Defence of the People of
England. (R.)—OF, lection, a reading, a lesson (Godefroy). =L.
lectiOnem, acc. of lectio, a reading ; cf. L. lectus, pp. of legere, to gather,
read; see Legend. Der. Jecéion-ary; and see below. Doublet,
lesson.
LECTURE, a discourse, formal reproof. (F.—L.) ‘ Wherof
oure present lecture speaketh ;’ Sir T. More, p. 1301 c. =F. lecture,
“a lecture, a reading;’ Cot.—Late L. Jectira, a commentary ; cf.
lectus, pp. of legere, to read; see Legend. Der. lecture, verb,
lectur-er, lecture-ship.
LEDGE, a slight shelf, ridge, small moulding. (E.) Palsgrave
has: ‘Ledge of a shelfe, apuy,’ 1. 6. support; also: ‘Ledge of a dore,
barre.’ See Legge in Prompt. Pary. In Norfolk, a bar of a gate, or
stile, of a chair, table, &c., is termed a ledge, according to Forby.
A door made of three or four upright boards, fastened by cross-
pieces, is called a ledger-door ; a ledger is a horizontal slab of stone,
a horizontal bar, and is also called a ligger (Halliwell). A ligger
is ‘a lier, that which lies, from AS. Jiegan, to lie; and ledge is from
a like source, as it was evidently formed from ME, leggen [gg=dj],
to lay, the causal of liggen, AS. licgan (above). So also MHG.
lekke, legge, a layer, stratum, from OHG., Jekkan, to lay. We me
δ
| also note Norw. dega, a lying, couch, lair, bed, a support upon whic!
anything rests. See Lay (1), Lie (1).
LEDGER
LEDGER, a book in which a summary of accounts is preserved.
(E.) Formerly called a ledger-book; Kersey, ed. 8715. Spelt lidger
in 1538, with reference to a bible that was always to lie in the same
place (N.E.D.). The word had other meanings, most of them
involving the sense of ‘lying still.” Thus a ledger was a horizontal
slab of stone (Halliwell) ; Jeger ambassadors were such as remained
for some time at a foreign court ; see /eiger in Shak. Meas. iii. 1. 59.
A ledger-bait was a bait that was ‘fixed or made to rest in one
certain place;’ I. Walton, Angler, pt. i. c. 8. ‘A rusty musket,
which had lien long Jeger in his shop;’ Fuller’s Worthies, London
(R.). Formed, like ledge above, from ME. leggen |gg =dj], to lay,
or from ΜΕ. liggen [gg=dj), to lie; which were much confused.
Cf. prov. E. lidge, to ie (E.D.D.). A similar formation occurs in
Du. legger, ‘one that lyes down’ (Sewel); hence mod. Du. legger,
the nether mill-stone [answering to E. ledger, a horizontal slab of
stone]; MDu-Jligger, ‘a dayly Booke kept for ones use,’ 1. 6. a ledger
(Hexham) ; MDu. leggen, to lie, once in common use, though the
true form is liggen, and the proper sense of leggen is to lay. We
know how these words are constantly confused in English. ‘Te
bed leggen, to ly a-bed. Neer leggen, to lie down. Waar legt hy
t’huys, where does he ly, or lodge?’ Sewel. See Lie (1). 4 Thus
a ledger-book is one that lies always ready in one place. The
etymology of the word was ill-understood, and it was confused with
OF. legier, light; see Ledger-line. Hence it was sometimes
spelt digier (see Richardson) ; and Howell goes so far as to use
a leger-book in the sense of a portable memorandum-book, apparently
from thus mistaking the true sense. ‘Some do use to have a small
leger-booke fairely bound up table-book-wise,’ i.e. like a memorandum-
book; Howell, Forraine Travell, sect. iv, ed. Arber, p. 27. N.B. The
earliest quotation in the N. E. D. is dated 1481, with reference to
‘a large copy of the breyiary;” but Wylie, Hist. Henry IV, iv. 198,
cites ‘19 portos, 3 diggers’ in 1401.
LEDGER-LINE, in music; one of the short lines added
above or below the stave to accommodate notes lying beyond the
usual five lines. (Hybrid; E. and L.) Not in Todd’s Johnson.
Spelt /eger-line in Ash’s Dict.,1775. ‘ You add a line or two to the
five lines,. .. those lines... being called Ledger-lines ;’ Playford,
Skill of Music, i. 6; ed. 1700(N. E.D.). So called from lying flat ;
cf. ledger, a horizontal timber (N.E.D.), 541 Not from F. léger,
OF. legier, light; the Ἐς, name is ligne additionnelle.
LEE, a sheltered place, shelter; part of a ship away from the
wind. (Scand.) ME, lee, shelter, ‘ We lurked yndyr lee,’ we lay
hid under shelter; Mort Arthure, ed. Brock, 1. 1446. A-lee=on the
lee; Deposition of Rich. II., ed. Skeat, iv. 74. The word and its
use are perhaps both Scand.; the E. word is Jew, a shelter, still in
use. provincially (E. D. D.), though: lee also occurs. Prob. from
Icel. Alé, lee, used only by seamen ; sigla ἃ hile, to stand to leeward ;
hlé-bord, the lee-side ; Dan. le; Swed. 1a.4+Du. 1. Cognate with
AS. hléo, hleow, a covering, protection, shelter; Grein, ii. 82 ; whence
prov. E.Jew, a shelter, also, as adj., warm; see Lew. β. From
AS, hléo was formed the sb. hléod, hleowd, a shelter (Grein, ii,
83) ; the same word as prov. E. Jewth, shelter, warmth. With these
forms we may compare Icel. k/y, warmth, dler, hljr, warm, hlyja,
to shelter. All froma Teut. type *Alewoz, adj. warm. @ Note
the pronunciation /ew-ard, for lee-ward, due to E. lew. Der. lee-shore,
lee-side, lee-way. Also lee-ward, allied to MDu. lywaard, lee-ward
(Sewel) ; fhe mod. Du. form being dijwaaris.
LEECH (1), a physician. (E.) In Shak. Timon, v. 4.84. ME.
leche, Chaucer, C. T. 15524 (G56). AS. déce, a physician; Matt.
ἶχ. 12; Lu. iy. 23. Connected with AS. Jdcnian, to heal; Grein,
ii. 150. Cf. Icel. leknir, a physician ; lekna, to cure, heal; Dan.
lege, a physician; lege, to heal; Swed. liikare, a physician; from
akg, to heal ; Goth. letkeis, lékeis, a physician, Lu. iv. 23 ; connected
with leikinon, lékinon, to heal ; OHG. /ahhi, lichi, a physician; con-
nected with OHG. lahhinén, to heal, MHG, Jachenen, to employ
remedies, MHG. Jachen, a remedy. 8. The AS. dice, Dan. lege,
Goth. lékeis, are all from a Teut. type */@kjoz, a healer; from Idg.
base */ég-. γ. We may further compare Irish and Gael. leigh,
Olish liaig, a physician.
LEECH (2), a blood-sucking worm. (E.) ME. leche, Prompt.
Parv. p. 291. AS. léce; we find ‘Sanguisuga, vel hirudo, J&ce’ in
VElfric’s Gloss., Nomina Insectorum; Voc. 121. 36. Lit. ‘the
healer ;’ and the same word as the above.
‘LEECH (3), LEACH, the border or edge of a sail at the sides.
(Scand.) ‘Leech, the edge ofa sail, the goring ;’ Ash’s Dict., ed. 1775.
*The leetch of a sail, vox nautica; Skinner, ed. 1671. ‘Penne d'une
voile, the leech of a saile ;’ Cot. Ultimately allied to Icel. ἐλᾷ, a leech-
line ; Swed. lik, a bolt-rope, stdende liken, the leeches ; Dan. lig, a bolt-
Tope; staaende lig, a leech.4+-MDu. lyken, a bolt-rope (Sewel); Du.
dijk (see Franck),
LEEK; a kind of onion. (E.) ME, leek, Chaucer, C. T.
LEGATE 335
(A 3879); P. Plowman, Β.. ν. 82. AS. léac; Voc. 295. 22.4-Du.
look ; Icel. laukr ; Dan. log ; Swed. lok; G.lauch. Teut.types *laukoz,
m.; */aukom,n. Root unknown; perhaps from Teut. type *lauk, as
in AS. léac, pt. t. of liican, to weed, to pull up. Der. gar-lic, char-
lock, hem-lock.
LEER, to cast side-glances. (E.) ‘I leare or lere, as a dogge dothe
underneth a dore ;’ Palsgrave. Cf. Shak. L. L. L. v. 2. 480, 2 Hen. 1V,
vy. 5.73 Troil. v. 1.97. The verb is a later development from the
ME. lere, meaning the cheek, also the face, complexion, mien. ‘A
loveli lady of lere’= a lady of lovely mien; P. Plowman, B. i. 3. It
was orig. almost always used in a good sense, and with adjectives
expressive of beauty, but in Skelton we find it otherwise in two
passages. ‘ Her lothely dere Is nothynge clere, But vgly of chere’ =
her loathsome look is not at all clear, but ugly of aspect ; Elynoure
Rummynge, 1. 12. ‘Your lothesum Jere to loke on;’ 2nd Poem
against Garnesche, ]. 5. Shakespeare has it in two senses; (1) the
complexion, aspect, As You Like It, iv. 1. 67, Titus Andron. iv. 2.
110; (2) a winning look, Merry Wives, i. 3. 50. Ata later period it
is generally used in a sinister sense. AS. hlZor, the cheek ; hence the
face, look, Grein, ii. 85.4-OSax. klior, the cheek; MDu. Her (Oude-
mans); Icel. hlyr, pl. the cheeks. Der. leer, sb., a side-glance.
LEES, dregs of wine. (F.) In A. V, Isa. xxv. 6, Jer. xlviii. 11.
‘ Verily the lies of wine are so strong ;’ Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxiii.
c. 2. ΜΕ. dyes, pl.; Chaucer, House of Fame, iii. ogo. Gower
has lie, sing., sediment ; Conf. Amant. i. 309; bk. iii. 895. A pl. sb.,
from a sing. not much used. =F. Jie, ‘the lees, dregs, grounds, thick
substance that settles in the bottome of liquor;’ Cot. Of unknown
origin; the Late L. form is Jia; the phr. ‘ fecla sive lias uini’ occurs
in a MS. of the roth century (Littré). Moncaut has Gascon lio, ‘ lie
de vin.’ Perhaps Celtic; cf. Bret. lec’hid, sediment, W. /Jaid, mire.
Korting, § 5574; Thurneysen, p. 66.
LEET, a special court of record held by certain lords of manors.
(E.?) ‘Amercyn in a corte or Jefe;’ Prompt. Pary. Spelt Jéa in
Law Latin (Cowell); and /Jete in AF., as in Stat. Realm, i. 342
(1353); Year-books of Edw. I., 1392, p. 297. Lete is perhaps the
AF. spelling and adaptation of AS. J#@d; for which see Lathe (2).
B. Or perhaps it was adapted from Icel. JeiJ, which, according to
Vigfusson, means precisely ‘a leet.” y. Or perhaps a particular use
of leat, q.v. Cf. Low G. gelaat, G. gelass, room, space.
LEF'T, a term applied to the (usually) weaker hand. (E.) ME.
left, lift, luft.. Spelt left, Chaucer, C. T. 2955 (A 2593); Zift, Will.
of Palerne, 2961 ; /u/t, P. Plowman, A. ii. 5; Layamon, 24461. Rare
in AS., which has the term winster instead; see Grein, ii. 716. We
do, however, find ‘inanis, Jeft,’ in a Gloss (Mone, Quellen, i. 443),
and the same MS. has senne for synne (sin); so that left is the Kentish
form of ly/t, with the sense of ‘ worthless’ or ‘ weak ; cf. AS. lyft-
ddl, palsy. NFriesic leeft, leefter hond (left hand) ; Outzen.-MDu.
luft, left (Oudemans) ; Kilian also gives the form /ucht. B. The ¢ is
a suffix; ef. EFries. luf, weak. All from Teut. base *lud-; cf. Du.
lubben, to geld. See Lib, (So H. Sweet ; in Anglia, iii. 155; 1880.)
Der. left-handed, -ness.
LEG, one of the limbs by which animals walk, a slender support.
(Scand.) ME. leg (pl.legges), Chaucer, C. T. 593 (A 591); Layamon,
1. 1876 (later text, the earlier text has sconken =shanks). = Icel. leggr,
a leg, hollow bone, stem of a tree, shaft of a spear; Dan. leg, the
calf of the leg; Swed. Jagg, the calf or bone of the leg. Teut. type
*lag-joz. Ct. Icel. hand-leggr (lit. hand-stem), the fore-arm, arm-
leggr, the upper arm; L. dac-ertus, the upper arm; Skt. lak-ufa-,
a cudgel (Macdonell). Der. leg-less, legg-ings.
LEGACY, a bequest of personal property. (F.—L.) ME. legacie,
‘ Hir legacy and lamentatioun ;? Henrysoun, Complaint of Creseide,
1.597; Wyclif, 2 Cor. v. 20 (earlierversion). Cf. ME. legat, ‘alegacy;”
Cot. The ME. legaciealso meant ‘ office of a legate ;” Trevisa, tr. of
Higden, viii. 260. = OF. legacie, office of a legate (Godefroy). = Late L.
légatia (Ducange).—L., legatus, a legate; see Legate. Cf. also L.
légatum, a legacy, bequest; orig. neut. of pp. of L.végare, to appoint,
bequeath. —L. dég-, stem of lex, law. See Legal. Der. legacy-
hunter ; also legat-ee, a barbarously formed word, coined by adding
the F. suffix -é (=L. -atus), denoting the pp., to the stem of -L.
légat-us, pp. of légare.
LEGAL, pertaining to the law. (F.—L.) In Minsheu’s Dict.,
ed. 1627.—MF. legal, ‘legall, lawful;’ Cot.=—L. légaiis, legal. = L.
lég-, stem of lex, law. Allied to L. legere, Gk. λέγειν, to collect.
Brugmann, i. § 134. (4/LEG.) Doublets, leal, loyal. Der. legal-ly,
legal-ise ; legal-i-ty, from Ἐς. legalité, ὁ lawfulness’ (Cot.), which from
Late L. acc. légalitatem. And see legacy, legate, legislator, legitimate ;
allege, delegate, relegate, college, colleague, privilege, &c.
GATE, a commissioner, ambassador. (F.—L.) ME. degate,
legat; Rob. of Glouc. p. 4993 1. 10276; Layamon, 1. 24501; AS.
Chron. an. 1123 (Laud MS.).—OF. degat, ‘a legat, the pope’s
ambassador ;’ Cot.—L., légatus, a legate, deputy ; pp. of légare, to
986 LEGATEE
appoint, send. =—L. Jég-, stem of lex, law. See Legal. Der. legate-
ship; legat-ion, from MF. legation, ‘a legateship’ (Cot.), which from
L. ace. légat‘dnem ; also legat-ine, adj., Hen. VIII, iii. 2. 339.
LEGATEE; see under Legacy.
LEGEND, a marvellous or romantic story. (F.—L.) ME.
legende, Chaucer, C. T. 3143 (A 3141); P. Plowman, C. xii. 206.—
OF. legende, ‘a legend, a writing, also the words that be about the
edge ot a piece of coyne;’ Cot.—Late L. légenda, as in Aurea legenda
=the Golden Legend; fem. sing. from L. /égenda, neut. pl. of fut.
pass. part. of legere (pp. lectus), to read, orig. to gather, collect.
Gk. λέγειν, to collect, gather, speak, tell. B. From 4/LEG, to
gather. Brugmann,i. § 134. Der. legend-a-ry; also (from L. leg-ere)
leg-ible, leg-ibl-y, leg-ible-ness, leg-i-bili-ty; together with numerous
other words such as Jection, lecture, legion, lesson; col-lect, coil (1),
cull, di-lig-ent, e-leg-ant, e-lect, e-lig-rble, intel-lect, intel-lig-ent, neg-lect,
neg-lig-ent, re-col-lect, se-lect, pre-di-lect-ion, sacri-lege, &c. Also (from
Gk. λέγειν) lexicon, dialect, ec-lect-ic ; log-ic, log-arithm, and the suffixes
-logue, -logy; syllogism.
LEGERDEMATHN, sleight of hand. (F.—L.) ‘And of legier-
demayne the mysteries did know;” Spenser, F. Q. v. 9. 13. ‘ Per-
ceiue theyr leygier demaine ;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 813 g. Also in
Lydgate, Dance of Macabre (The Tregetour). = OF. legier de main,
lit. light of hand. The OF. legier, F. léger, light, slight, is from
a Late L. type *leviarius ; from L. leurs, light; whence also Span.
ligero, Ital. leggiero. The F. de 15 from L. dé, prep. The F. matn is
from L. manum, acc. of manus, the hand; see Manual.
LEGER-LINE, in music; see Ledger-line.
LEGIBLE, that can be tread. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.
‘Legibylle, legibilis ;7 Cath. Anglicum (1483).—OF. legible, ‘ legible,
readable;’ Cot. = L. legibilis, legible. —L. legere, to read; see Legend.
Der. legibl-y, legible-ness, legibil-i-ty,
LEGION, a large body of soldiers. (F.—L.) In early use.
ME. legiun, Layamon, 6024; later, legioun, legion. = OF. legion,
“a Roman legion ;” Cot.—L.legidnem, acc. of legio, a Roman legion,
a body of troops of from 4200 to 6000 men.=L. legere, to gather,
select, levy a body of men. See Legend. Der. legion-ar-y.
LEGISLATOR, a law-giver. (L.) In Bacon, Life of
Henry VII, ed. Lumby, p. 69, 1. 30. =L. /égis-Jator, lit. proposer of
a law. = L. legis, gen. case of Jex, a law ; and Jé/cr, a proposer of a law,
lit. a carrier, bearer, allied to /a¢wm, to bear, used as supine of ferre,
to bear, but from a different root. B. For L. lex, see Legal. L.
latum stands for tlatum, from 4/TEL, to lift; see Tolerate. Der.
legislat-ion, legislat-ive, legislat-ure ; hence was at last developed the
yerb to legislate. And see Legist.
LEGIST, one skilled in the laws. (F.—L.) ‘A great iuryst
and legyst;” Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol. ii. c. 210 (R.). = OF. legiste,
in use in the 13th century; mod. Ἐς, Jégiste; Littré. = Late L. légista,
a legist.—L. Jég-, stem of lex, law; with (Gk.) suffix -ista. See
Legal.
LEGITIMATE, lawful, lawfully begotten, genuine, authorised.
(L.) In Shak. K. John, i.116. ‘ Without issu Jegyt/ymat;’ Fabyan’s
Chron., ed. Ellis, p. 253.—Late L. légitimatus, pp. of légitimare, to
declare to be lawful.—L. légitimus, pertaining to law, legitimate ;
formed with suffix -timus from Jégi-, decl. stem of Jex, a law; see
Legal. Der. legitimate-ly, legitimac-y, legitim-ist (from legitim-us).
LEGUME, a pod. (F.—L.) A botanical term. In Todd’s
Johnson, Formerly, the L. legiimen was used, as in Kersey’s Dict.,
ed. 1715.—F. /égume, pulse; in botany, a pod.=L. legimen, pulse,
bean-plant ; applied to that which can be gathered or picked, as
opposed to crops that must be cut. = L. legere, to gather; see Legend,
Der. legumin-ous, from stem legiimin- (of legiimen).
LEISURE, freedom from employment, free time. (F.—L.) ME.
leyser, leysere ; Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, 1. 172 ; Rob. of Brunne,
tr. of Langtoft, p. 229, 1. 1.—OF. leisir (Godefroy), later Joisir (Cot.),
leisure. The OF. Jeisir was orig. an infin. mood, signifying * to be
permitted ;’ Littré.—L. licére, to be permitted. See Licence. Der.
leisure-ly. ὅδ We may note the bad spelling; it should be Jeis-er,
leis-ir, or lezir ; but is now mispronounced.
LEMAN, LEMMAN, a sweetheart, of either sex. (E.) In
Shak. Merry Wives, iv. 2.172; Tw. Nt. ii. 3. 26. ME. lemman,
Havelok, 1283; older form leofmon, Ancren Riwle, p. 90, 1. 14.
aoe AS. léof, dear; and mann, a man or woman. See Lief and
an.
LEMMA, in mathematics, an assumption. (L.—Gk.) In Kersey’s
Dict., ed. 1715. First in 1570.—L. lémma.—Gk. λῆμμα, a thing
taken ; in logic, a premiss taken for granted. —Gk. εἴτλημμαι, perf.
pass. of λαμβάνειν, to take; base AaB-, for *cAaB-; Brugmann, i.
§ 852.
LEMMING, LEMING, a kind of Norwegian rat. (Nor-
wegian.) Described as ‘the leming or Lapland marmot’ in a trans-
lation of Buffon’s Nat. Hist., London, 1792; cf. Goldsmith, Nat.
LENTISK
Hist., 1774, ii. 283. Not in Todd’s Johnson. = Norweg. lemende;
also used in many various forms, as lemende, limende, lemende, lomende,
lemming, lemelde, &c.; see Aasen; Swed. lemel ; Icel. Jmundr ; Swed.
dial. lemming. There is also, according to Ihre (Lexicon Lapponi-
cum), a Lapp form, Juomek. β. Origin obscure; Aasen thinks that
the word means ‘ laming,’ i.e. spoiling, very destructive, and connects
it with Norweg. /enya, to palsy, strike, beat; but this is ‘ popular
etymology.’ Perhaps it is of Lapp origin, after all.
LEMNISCATE, one of certain closed curves, resembling the
figure 8. (L.—Gk.) First in 1781. From L. lémniscatus, adorned
with a ribbon ; from the ribbon-like form. = L. /émniscus, a pendent
ribbon. —Gk. λημνίσκος, a fillet. Said to be from Gk. Ajvos, wool ;
see Wool.
LEMON, an ovate fruit, with acid pulp. (F.—Late L.—Pers.—
Malay.) Formerly limon; as in Levins, ed. 1570; lymon, Lydgate,
Minor Poems, Ρ. 15.—F. limon,‘ alemmon;’ Cot. = Late L. limdnem,
ace. of limo, a lemon. [The pl. limdnés occurs about A.D. 1200;
Yule.}—Pers. Jimi, lemon, citron.— Malay limau; Javanese limo,
lime, citron, lemon; Uhlenbeck (on Skt. nimbii). The final -π may
be Latin; whence, perhaps, Pers. limi, limiina, a lemon, citron;
Richardson’s Pers. Dict., p. 1282, col. 1. Cf. Turk. limin; Arab.
laimiin,a lemon ; Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 517. Der. lemon-ade, from
F. limonade.
LEMUR, a nocturnal mammal. (L.) First in 1795. From its
habit of going about at night, it has been nicknamed ‘ ghost’ by
naturalists. —L. emur, a ghost.
LEND, to let for hire, allow the use of for a time. (E.) The
final d is excrescent, as in sound from F. son. ME. denen, pt. t. lenede,
lende, lente, pp. lened, lend, lent. ‘Thus the mod. final d was easily
suggested by the forms of the pt. t. and pp. ‘Leen me your hond’
=lend me your hand; Chaucer, C. T. 3084 (A 3082). ‘This lond
he hire Jende’=he lent [granted] her this land; Layamon, 1. 228.
AS. l&nan, to lend, also, to give, grant; Grein, ii. 163.—AS. lén,
a loan, Grein, ii. 163.4-Du. leenen, to lend; from leen, a fee, fief ;
Tcel. Jana, to lend; from /an,a loan; Dan. Jaane, to lend; from Jaan,
a loan; OHG. léhandn, (ἃ. lehnen, to lend (a provincial word) ; from
OHG. Jékan, lehen, lehn, a fief. See further under Loan, Der.
lend-er ; lend-ings, K. Lear, ili. 4. 113.
LENGTH, extent, the quality of being long. (E.) ME. lengthé
(two syllables), Chaucer, C. T. 83, 4428 (B 8). AS. lengdu ; the
dat. lenge occurs in the AS. Chron. an. 1122. For */angida. Formed
with suffix -3~ and vowel-change of a to e from AS. lang, long.4-Du.
lengte, from lang; Dan. lengde, from lang ; Swed. langd, from lang ;
Tcel. Jengd, from langr. See Long. Der. length-en, in which the
final -ex has a causal force, though this peculiar formation is conven-
tional and unoriginal; in the ME. lengthen, the final -ex merely
denoted the infinitive mood, and properly produced the verb to
length, as in Palsgrave, and in Shak. lassionate Pilgrim, 1.210. Also
length-y, length-i-ly, length-i-ness ; length-wise, length-ways.
LENIENT, mild, merciful. (L.) In Milton, Samson, 659. —L.
lénient-, stem of pres. part. of lénire, to soften, soothe. = L. Jénis, soft,
mild. See Lenity, Lithe. Der. lenient-ly, lenienc-y.
LENITY, mildness, clemency. (F.—L.) In Shak. Hen. V,
iii, 2. 26,6. 118. —OF. lenize, mildness (obsolete). —L. lénitatem, acc.
of énitas, softness, mildness. = L. Jéni-, decl. stem of lénis, soft, gentle,
mild; with suffix -ta@s. Root uncertain; but -re-lent and lithe are
related words. Der. lenit-ive=OF. lenitif, a ‘lenitive’ (Cot.), from
Late L. lénitivus. And see Lenient.
LENS, a piece of glass used for optical purposes. (L.) In Kersey,
ed. 1715. So called, from the resemblance in shape to the seed of
a lentil, which is like a double-convex lens.—L. lens; see Lentil.
Der. lenticul-ar, from L, lenticula, a little lentil.
LENT, a fast of forty days, beginning with Ash Wednesday. (E.)
The fast is in the spring of the year, and the old sense is simply
‘spring.’ ME. lenten, lente, lent ; spelt Jenten, P. Plowman, B. xx.
359. AS. lencten, the spring; Grein, ii. 167.4+Du. lente, the spring;
G. lenz, spring ; OHG., lenzin, leng:zen. B. Supposed to be derived
from AS., Du.,and G. lang, long, because in spring the days lengthen 5
Kluge suggests that the orig. Teut. type was *Jangi-tino-, i.e. ‘long
day ;’ where -¢ino- is allied to Skt. dina-, Lith. déna, a day. Der.
lenten, adj., Hamlet, ii. 2. 329 ; here the suffix -en is not adjectival (as
in gold-en), but the whole word is the ME. Jenten fully preserved ; so
also Lenten-tide = AS. lencten-tid, spring-time, Gen. xlvili. 7.
LENTIL, an annual plant, bearing pulse for food. (F.—L.)
ME, Jentil; Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 1. 1488.—OF. lentille,
‘the lintle or lentill;’ Cot.—L. Jenticula, a little lentil; double Ὁ
dimin. (with suffix -cu-I-) from Jenti-, decl. stem of Jens, a lentil. See
Lens. Der. Jenticul-ar, resembling a lens or lentil.
LENTISK, the mastic-tree. (F.—L.) In Turner’s Herbal (1562);
and in Cotgrave. =F. lentisque, ‘the lentiske or mastick-tree ;” Cot. |
= L. lentiscum, lentiscus, a mastic-tree ; named from the clamminess |
|
|
|
LEO
of the resin yielded by it.—L. lenti-, decl. stem of Jentus, tenacious,
sticky, pliant. See Relent and Lithe.
LEO, a lion. (L.—Gk.—Egypt.) As the name of a zodiacal sign;
Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, ed. Skeat, i. 8. 2. We even find AS. Jeo,
Grein, ii. 171.—L. leo, alion; see Lion. Der. leon-ine =F. leonin
(Cot.), from L. /edn-in-us, from Jedn-, stem of leo.
LEOPARD, the lion-pard, an animal of the cat kind. (F.—L.
—Gk.) ME. leopard, leopart, P. Plowman, B. xv. 293.—OF. leo-
pard, ‘a leopard, or libbard, a beast ingendred between a lion and
a panther;’ Cot. —L. leopardus, a leopard. — Gk. Aedmap5os, λεοντό-
παρδος, a leopard; supposed to be a mongrel between a pard or
panther and a lioness; Pliny, Nat. Hist. Ὁ. viii. c. 16.—Gk. λεό-,
Aeovto-, secondary form or decl. stem of λέων, a lion; and πάρδος,
a pard. See Lion and Pard.
LEPER, one afflicted with leprosy. (F.—L.—Gk.) The form
of the word is founded on a mistake ; the word properly means the
disease itself (2 Kings, v. 11), now called leprosy; the old term for
‘leper’ was leprous man, ‘And loo! a leprouse man cam... And
anon the Jepre of him was clensid;’ Wyclif, Matt. viii. 2, 3. And
see Henryson, Test. of Cresseid, ll. 438, 451, 474, 480, &c.=—F.
lepre, ‘a leprosie ;’ Cot.— L. lepra,—Gk. λέπρα, leprosy. So called
because it makes the skin scaly. Gk. λεπρός, scaly, scabby, rough.
- Gk. λέπος, a scale, husk, rind.—Gk. λέπειν, to strip, peel, take
off the husk or rind, scale. Cf. Russ. /upite, to scale, peel, bark;
Lithuanian ltpti, to scale, peel. Der. lepr-ous=OF. leprous, from L.
leprosus, adj.; whence was coined the sb. Jepros-y, Matt. viii. 3.
LEPIDOPTERA, s. pl., a certain order of insects. (Gk.)
Modern, and scientific; due to Linnzus. Used of the butterfly, and
other insects whose four wings are covered with very fine scales.
Coined from Gk. Aemido-, decl. stem of λεπίς, ἃ scale; and πτερά, pl.
of πτερόν, a wing. λεπίς is from λέπειν, to scale (see Leprosy) ;
and πτερόν is allied to E. feather, from πτ-, weak grade of 4/PET,
to fly; see Feather, Pen. Der. lepidopter-ous.
LEPORINE, pertaining to the hare. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1656. Either from F. leporin, ‘ of or belonging to a hare’ (Cot.),
or rather directly from L. leportnus, with the same sense. = L. lepor-,
for *lepos-, stem of lepus,a hare. See Leveret.
LEPROSY ; see under Leper. (f.—L.— Gk.)
LESION, an injury, wound. (F.—L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674.— MF. lesion, ‘ hurt, wounding, harme :᾿ Cot. —L. lesidnem, acc.
of lesio, an injury; cf. Jesus, pp. of ledere, to hurt. Der. (from L.
ledere), col-lide, col-lis-ion, e-lide, tl-lis-ion.
LESS, smaller. (E.) Used as compar. of Jittle, but from a differ-
ent root ; the coincidence in the first letter is accidental. ME. Jessé,
lassé, adj., les, adv. ‘ The lesse luue’=the less love ; Ancren Riwle,
p-92,1.7. Les as adv., id. p. 30,1. 7. AS. l#ssa, adj., 1s, adv. ;
Grein, ii. 164.4-OFries. Jéssa, less. B. L#ssa stands for l#s-ra, by
assimilation; Teut. type */ais-iz-on-; and Js represents the Teut.
type */ais-iz, both formed (with comp. suffix -iz-) from a base */ass-,
for *lais-o-, small; allied to Lith, Jésas, thin, small. From Idg. base
leis-,
LEAST, the superl. form, is the ME. Jes¢é, adj., P. Plowman, B.
ili. 24; lest, adv., Gower, C. A. i. 153; bk. 1. 3285. AS. lesest
(whence /#st by contraction), Grein, 11. 164; from the same base
*lais-, with the usual suffix -es¢ (for -ist, Gk. -catos). Der. less, sb. ;
less-er, a double comparative, Gen. i. 163 Jess-ex, vb., from ME.
Tassen, Sir Gawain and the Grene Knight, ]. 1800, dessin (for lessen),
Prompt. Parv., p. 298 ; with a new suffix -en (as in length-en) added,
after the loss of the ME. infin. suffix -en, -e. And see Jest.
-LESS, suffix. (E.) AS. δας, cognate with Loose, q.v.
LESSEE, LESSOR;; see under Lease.
LESSON, a reading of scripture, portion of scripture read, a
task, lecture, piece of instruction. (F.—L.) ME. Jesson, Chaucer,
Ὁ. T. 9069 (E 1193); spelt /escun, Ancren Riwle, p. 282,1. 3.—OF.
lecon, ἙΝ, legon.—L. lectionem, acc. of lectio, a reading ; from legere, to
tread; see Legend. Doublet, lection.
LEST, for fear that, that not. (E.) Not for deast, as sometimes
erroneously said, but due to Jess. It arose from the AS. equivalent
expression dy /#s Se, as in the following sentence. ‘ Nelle we das
race na leng téon, dy l#s Se hit eow xpryt pynce’=we will not
prolong this story farther, lest it seem to you tedious; Sweet’s A. 8.
Reader, p. 94, 1. 211. Here ὃν ls Se literally=for the reason less
that (L. qud minus) ; where ὃν (=for the reason) is the instrumental
case of the def. article; /#s=less, adv.; and de (=that) is the in-
declinable relative. B. At a later period ὃν was dropped, les
became Jes, and las de, coalescing, became one word Jesthe, altered
(regularly) to Jeste, and lastly to Jest, for ease of pronunciation. The
form Jeste occurs in the Ancren Riwle, p. 58, 1. 12, whilst the older
expression }i Jes pe occurs in O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 117,
1. 2 from bottom; so that the word took the form Jeste about the
beginning of the 13th century. See Nevertheless.
LEVER 337
LET (1), to allow, permit, suffer, grant. (E.) ME. Jeten (with
one ¢), a strong verb; pt. t. dat, let, leet; pp. laten, leten, lete. See
Chaucer, C, T. 128, 510 (A 508). AS. /é@/an, létan, to let, allow;
pt. t. lét, leort, pp. l#ten; Grein, ii. 165.-4-Du. Jaten, pt. τ. liet, pp.
gelaten; Icel. lata, pt. τ. δέ, pp. latinn; Dan. lade, pt. t. lod, pp.
ladet; Swed. lata, pt. τ. lat, pp. ldten; Goth. létan, pt. t. Jaildt,
pp. létans ; G. lassen, pt. t. liess, pp. gelassex._ B. The Teut. type
is *l#t-an-, pt. t. *lelot, pp. *1@tanoz. Idg.4/LE(1)D ; from the weak
grade */ad comes E, late. See Late. Brugmann, i. ὃ 478. Cf.
Lith. /éidmi, I let (base ἰδία). And see Let (2).
LET (2), to hinder, prevent, obstruct. (E.) ME, letten (with
double 2), a weak verb. ‘ He Jetted nat his felawe for to see’=he
hindered not his fellow from seeing ; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1894 (A 1892).
AS. lettan, to hinder; also gelettan ; Grein, ii. 168. A causal verb,
with the sense ‘ to make late,’ just as hinder is derived from the -hind
in behind. AS. let, slow; see Late.4+Du. letten, to impede; from
laat; Icel. le/ja, from latr; Goth. latjan, intrans., to be late, to
tarry; from Jats, slothful. Teut. type *lat-jan-; from *lat-, slow.
See above.
LETHAL, deadly, mortal. (F.—L.; or L.) Spelt Jethall in
Minsheu, ed. 1627.—F. lethal, ‘deadly, mortal;’ Cot. [Or directly
from Latin.]—L. lethalis, better /étalis, mortal.—L. létum, death.
Der. lethi-ferous, deadly ; from Jléthi-, for léthum, and -fer-ous = -fer-us,
bearing, from ferre, to bear.
LETHARGY, heavy slumber, great dulness. (F.—L.—Gk.)
In Shak. Wint. Ta. iv. 4.627. Spelt lecharge, Sir T. Elyot, Castel
of Helth, b. ii. c. 34.—MF. lethargie, ‘a lethargy ;’ Cot.=L, lé-
thargia.— Gk. ληθαργία, drowsiness. —Gk. λήθαργος, forgetting, for-
getiul.—Gk. λήθη, oblivion, See Lethe. Der. lethargi-c, from
Gk. ληθαργικός, drowsy ; lethargi-c-al; lethargi-ed, K. Lear, i. 4. 249.
LETCH, to moisten. (E.) AS. Jeccan, to moisten; see Latch (2).
The usual spelling is leach, to remove by percolation; see N. E. 1),
LETHE, forgetfulness, oblivion. (L.—Gk.) In Shak. Hamlet,
i. 5. 33-—L. levhé.—Gk. λήθη, a forgetting; also Lethe, the river
of oblivion in the lower world, Allied to Gk. λαθ-, base of λαν-
θάνειν, to lie hid. Der. leth-argy, q.v.; lethe-an; lethe’d, Antony,
11. I. 27.
LETTER, a character, written message. (F.—L.) ME. lettre,
Genesis and Exod., ed. Morris, 1. 993. —F. letire.—L. littera (older
forms litera, leitera), a letter. Brugmann, i. § 930. Der. l/etter-ed,
Will. of Palerne, 1. 4088; Jetter-founder, letter-ing, letter-fress ;
letters-patent, Rich. II, ii. 1. 202, where patents is the F. plural
adjective.
LETTUCE, a succulent plant. (F.—L.) ME. Jetuce, Palladius
on Husbandry, b. ii. st. 29, 1. 202; Jetus, Cursor Mundi, 6079. Of
obscure formation; it seems to be a plural form, from a singular
letu.m AF. letue; Voc. 558. 27.—L. lactica, lettuce; named from its
juiciness; Varro, De Lingua Latina, v. 104.—L. lact-, stem of lac,
milk. See Lacteal. Cf. F. laitue.
LEUCOMA, a white opacity in the cornea of the eye. (Gk.)
In Phillips (1706). —Gk. λεύκωμα, whiteness. — Gk. λευκοῦν, to make
white. = Gk. λευκός, white. Allied to Lucid.
LEVANT, the East of the Mediterranean Sea. (F.—Ital. —L.)
Levant and Ponent, lit. rising and setting (with ref. to the sun) are
old terms for East and West. ‘Forth rush the Levant and the
Ponent winds;’ Milton, P. L. x. 7o4.—F. levant, ‘the Levant, the
East ;”? Cot.—Ital. Jevante, ‘the east winde, the cuntrey lying toward
or in the east;’ Florio. —L. Jewant-, stem of pres. part. of leuare, to
raise, whence sé Jeuare, to rise; see Lever. Der. levant-ine. Cf.
slang E. levant, from Span. levantar, lit. to raise; levantar la casa, to
break up house, move away.
LEVEE, a morning assembly. (F.—L.) ‘The good man early
to the levee goes;’ Dryden, tr. of Juvenal, Sat. vi. 1. 428. As if
from F. levée (see Levy), but really an alteration of F, lever, infin.
used as a sb. in the sense of /evee (see Littré).—F. lever, to raise ;
see Levy.
LEVEL, an instrument by which a thing is determined to be
horizontal. (F.—L.) ME. Jivel, level (with « for v); P. Plowman,
A. xi. 1355 B. x. 179.—OF. livel, preserved in the expression ‘ d’un
livel, levell ;” Cot. Later spelt liveau, afterwards corrupted to ni-
veau ; both spellings are in Cotgrave, who explains it by ‘a mason’s
or carpenter’s levell or triangle.’ He also gives the verb niveler
(corruption of Jiveler), ‘to levell..—L. libella, a level; dimin. of
libra, a level, balance; see Librate. @ Not an AS. word, as
sometimes said. Der. level, verb, spelt levell in Palsgrave, of which
the pp. leaueld (=levell’d) occurs in Sir P. Sidney, Apology for
Poetry, ed. Arber, p. 55; Jevell-er, level-ness.
LEVER, a bar for raising weights. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. leuour (with
u=v), Rob. of Glouc. p. 126, 1. 2680; Jewer, Romance of Partenay,
ed. Skeat, 1. 4177.—OF. leveor (Godefroy), MF. leveur, ‘a raiser,
lifter ;’ Cot. [Not quite the same word as I, levier, a lever, which
Z
LEVERET
differs in the suffix.]—L. Jeua/drem, acc. of leuator, a lifter. —L.
leuare, to lift, lit. to make light. = L. lewis, light. See Levity. Der.
leyer-age.
LEVERET, a young hare. (F.—L.) Spelt lyweret in Levins, ed.
1570. ME. leveret, Voc. 592. 22.—AF. leveret, pl. leveres, Gaimar,
Chron. 6239 ; pl. Jeverez, Rel. Antiq. i. 155; allied to OF. levrault,
a ‘leveret, or young hare;’ Cot. B. The suffix -ault=Late L.
-aldus, from ΟΥ̓ Ὁ. wald, power; see Introd. to Brachet, Etym, Dict.,
δ 195; but the AF. suffix -et is diminutive; cf. Ital. lepretta, a
leveret. The base Jevr- is from L. lepor-, for *lepos, stem of Jepus,
ahare. See Leporine.
LEVIATHAN, a huge aquatic animal. (L.—Heb.) In Min-
sheu, ed. 1627; and in Shak. Mids. Nt. Dr. ii. 1. 174.—Late L.
leviathan, Job, xl. 20 (Vulgate), where Wyclif has levyathan. = Heb.
livyathan, an aquatic animal, dragon, serpent; so called from its
twisting itself in curves.— Heb. root Javah, Arab. root Jawa’, to
bend, whence Jawa, the twisting or coiling of a serpent ; Rich. Dict.
pp. 1278, 1275.
LEVIGATE, to make smooth. (L.) Now little used. [Rich-
ardson cites an example from Sir T. Elyot, where Jevigate= lightened,
from L. leuigiare, to lighten, which from Jeuis, light; see Levity.
But this is quite another word.] ‘When use hath Jevigated the
organs, and made the way so smooth and easie;’ Barrow, vol. iii.
ser. 9 (K.).=—L. léuigdtus, pp. of léuigare, to make smooth. =L. déu-,
stem of /éuis, smooth; with suffix -ig- weakened from ag-ere, to
drive. The L. léuis is cognate with Gk. λεῖος, smooth ; which see
in Prellwitz. Der. levigat-ion.
LEVIN, lightning. (Scand.) ‘The flashing Jevin;’ Spenser,
F, Q. v. 6. 40; ‘Thunder and Jevene;’ Genesis and Exodus, 3265.
Cf, MDan. Joffx, lightning; Kalkar, s.y. june; Swed. dial. lyvna,
lygna; Rietz, 5. ν. ljuna. Teut. *lengnd-. (4/ LEUQ).
LEVITE, one of the tribe of Levi. (L.—Gk.—Heb.) In A. V.
Lu. x. 32; P. Plowman, B. xii. 115.—L. Lenita, Lu. x. 32.—Gk.
Aevirns, Lu. x. 32. Formed with suffix -r7s from Λευΐ, Rey. vii. 7.—
Heb. Lévi, one of the sons of Jacob. Der. Levit-i-c-us, Levit-i-c-al.
LEVITY, lightness of weight or of conduct. (F.—L.) In Shak.
All’s Well, i. 2. 35.—OF. Jevité, lightness (Godefroy) ; obsolete. =
L. leuitatem, acc. of leuitas, lightness.—L. Jeuis, light; usually con-
sidered as allied to Gk. ἐλαχίύς, small, Skt. Jaghu-s, light; see
Prellwitz and Uhlenbeck.
LEVY, the act of raising men for war; a force raised. (F.—L.)
In Shak. Macb. iii. 2. 25. ‘Make Jewy of my dettys;’ Bury Wills
(Camd. Soc.), p. 43 (1463). ‘ Whanne kynge Iohn had Jexyed many
great summes of money;’ Fabyan, Chron., Edw. III, an. 30. [The
yerb is from the sb.] =F. Jevée, ‘a bank, or causey ; also, a levy, or
levying of money, souldiers, &c.;’ Cot. Properly the fem. of the
pp: of the vb. lever, to raise. = L. leudre, to raise; lit. to make light.’
=-L. leuis, light; see Levity. Der. levy, verb, Jevi-able; see lev-ee,
lev-er, lev-ant, al-lev-iate, e-lev-ate, leav-en, legerdemain, re-lev-ant, re-
lieve. Doublet, levee.
LEW, warm. (E.) ‘The sunne, briht and Jewe;’ Havelok, 2921.
AS. klgow, warm; as in comp. ge-kléow (Bosworth).Icel. lyr,
warm, mild. Der. Jew-warm, tepid; also Jew, sb., warmth, shelter ;
prov. E. lew-th, shelter. See Lee.
LEWD, ignorant, base, licentious. (E.) Contracted for lewed.
ME. Jewed, Chaucer, C. T. 576. AS. l#wede, adj. lay, 1. 6. be-
longing to the laity ; ‘ pat Jéwede folc’=the lay-people, lfric’s
Homilies, ed. Thorpe, ii. 74, 1. 17.‘ Laicus, J@wede mann,’ Voc.
308.15. The word thus originally merely meant ‘the laity,’ hence
the untaught, ignorant, as opposed to the clergy. The phrase Jered
and lewede=clergy and laity, taught and untaught, is not uncommon;
see P. Plowman, B. iv. τι. B. The form J#wede is not participial in
form, and the assumed connexion or confusion with the verb Jéwan,
to betray, does not suit the sense or help the development. γ. It
has been derived from L. */aicatus, belonging to the laity, parallel to
Late L. cléricatus, whence clergy; and if so, is from L. Jaicus, a word
of Gk. origin; see Laic. So Sievers, § 173; Pogatscher, § 340.
But the phonetic difficulties seem too great for this. Der. Jewd-ly,
lewd-ness = ignorance, Acts, xviii. 14.
LEXICON, a dictionary. (Gk.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. -
Gk. λεξικόν (with βιβλίον, a book, understood), a lexicon; properly
neut. of λεξικός, adj., of or for words. —Gk, λέξι-ς, a saying, speech.
—Gk. λέγειν, to speak; see Legend. Der. lexico-graph-y, lexico-
graph-i-c-al, lexico-graph-i-c-al-ly, lexico-graph-er; all from γράφειν,
to write; see Graphic.
LEY, a meadow; see Lea. (E.)
LIABLE, responsible, subject. (F.—L.) In Shak. John, ii. 490;
v. 2.101. In the latter passage it means “ allied, associated, com-
patible ;? Schmidt. Formed, with the common suffix -adle, from F.
lier, ‘to tie, bind, fasten, knit, . .. unite, oblige, or make beholden
to;’ (οἵ. “Το ligare, to tie, bind; see Ligament. Der. Jiabil-i-ty.
338
LICENCE, LICENSE
LIAISON, an illicit intimacy between a man and woman.
(F.—L.) ‘Some chaste liaison ;? Byron, Don Juan, iii. 25.—F. liaison.
“Το, ligationem, acc. of ligatio, a binding ; from ligadre, to bind. See
Ligament.
LIANE, LIAWNA, a climbing tropical plant. (F.—L.) ‘The
nebees, called by the French Mannes;’? Stedman, Surinam, vol. i.
Ῥ. 231.—F. liane, the same ; from Norm. and Picard dian, a band.=L.
ligamen, a tie. —L. ligare, to bind (above). See Lien.
LIAS, a formation of limestone, underlying the odlite. (F.)
Modern in E. as a geological term: but found in Northern E.,
and spelt yas, as early as 1404 (N.E.D.).—F. liais, formerly Jiois.
‘Liais, a very hard free-stone whereof stone-steps and tombe-stones
be commonly made ;’ Cot. Spelt Jiois in the 13th cent. (Littré,
Hatzfeld.) Of unknown origin. Der. liass-ic.
LIB, to castrate; now dialectal. (E.) Florio, ed. 1598, has:
* Accaponare, to geld, splaie, or 1. Cf. EFries. liibben, Du. lubben,
to lib. See Glib (3).
LIBATION, the pouring forth of wine in honour of a deity.
(F.—L.) In Minshen, ed. 1627; and in Wyclif, Ezek. xx. 28.—F.
iibation (Cot.)—L. libatidnem, acc. of libatio, a libation.—L. libare,
to sip, taste, drink, pour out. + Gk. λείβειν, to pour out, offer
a libation, let flow, shed. Brugmann, i. § 553.
LIBEL, a written accusation, defamatory publication. (F.—L.)
The orig. sense is merely ‘a little book’ or ‘a brief piece of writing.’
Hence Wyclif has: ‘3yue he to hir a libel of forsakyng;’ Matt. v.
31.—OF. libel (Godefroy). -- L. libellum, acc. of libellus, a little book,
writing, written notice; hence ‘/ibellum repudii’ in Matt. v. 31
(Vulgate). Dimin. of liber, a book; see Library. Perhaps
taken directly from the Latin. Der. libel, verb, libell-er, libell-ous,
Itbell-ous-ly.
LIBERAL, generous, candid, free, noble-minded. (F.—L.)
ΜΕ. liberal, Gower, C. A. iii. 114; bk. vii. 876.—OF. liberal,
‘liberall;’ Cot.—L. Jiberalis, befitting a free man, generous. = L.
liber, free. Der. liberal-ly; liberal-i-ty=F. liberalité (Cot.), from
L. ace. liberalitatem ; liberal-ism, liberal-ise. Ard see liberate, liberty,
libertine.
LIBERATEH, to set free. (L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.=—L.
liberatus, pp. of ltberdre, to set free.—L. liber, free; see Liberal.
Der. liberat-ion, liberat-or.
LIBERTINE, a licentious man. (L.) In Shak. Much Ado, ii.
1.144. ‘Applied at first to certain heretical sects, and intended to
mark the licentious liberty of their creed ;’ Trench, Select Glossary ;
ιν. Wyclif has ibertyns in Acts, vi. 9.—L. libertinus, adj., of or
belonging to a freed man; also, as sb.,a freed man; used in the
Vulgate in Acts, vi. 9. An extended form of L. Jibertus, a freed
man.—L. liber, free; with participal suffix -tws. See Liberal.
Der. libertin-ism.
LIBERTY, freedom. (F.—L.) ME. Liberté, libertee, Chaucer,
C. T. 8047 (E 171).—OF. Liberte, later liberté, ‘liberty, freedom ;”
Cot.—L. libertatem, ace. of libertis, liberty.—L. liber, free; see
Liberal.
LIBIDINOUS, lustful. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627; * His
lybidynous desire ;’ Caxton, Eneydos, ch. ix. p. 36.—F. lisidineux,
‘libidinous, lascivious;’ Cot.—L. libidindsus, eager, lustful. —L.
libidin-, stem of libido, lust, pleasure. =L. libet, it pleases; also
(better) spelt Zubet. Cf. Skt. Jubh, to desire. Allied to Lief, Love.
Der. libidinous-ly, libidinous-ness.
LIBRARY, a collection of books, a room for books. (F.—L.)
ME. librarie, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. i. pr. 4, 1. 10.—F. lébrairie ;
which in OF. meant a library (Godefroy).—Late L. type libraria ;
allied to L. librarius, of or belonging to books. —L. libr-, stem of
liber, a book, orig. the bark of a tree, which was the earliest writing
material; with suffix -drius. B. Prob. connected with Gk. Aéms,
a scale, rind; from 4/LEP, to peel; Brugmann, i. § 499. Der.
librari-an, librari-an-shtp.
LIBRATEH, to balance, be poised, move slightly as things that
balance; LIBRATION, a balancing, slight swinging motion.
(L.) The verb is rare, and prob. suggested by the sb. ‘ Libration,
a ballancing or poising; also, the motion of swinging in 2 pendulum;’
Kersey, ed. 1715. First in 1603. Formed, by analogy with F. sbs.
in -ion, from L. libratidnem, acc. of libratio, a poising.—L. librare,
to poise. = L. Zibra, a balance, a level, machine for levelling, a pound
of 12 ounces.4+Gk. λίρα, a pound of 12 ounces,a coin. B. L. li-bra
= Gk, Ai-rpa, the words being cognate. Brugmann, i. ὃ 589. Der.
librat-or-y ; from the same source are de-liber-ate, equi-libri-um, level.
Also F. litre, from Gk. λίτρα; lira, q. v- :
LICENCE, LICENSE, leave, permission, abuse of freedom,
excess, (F.—L.) ‘Lene and Zycence?=leave and licence ; P. Plow-
man, A. prol. 82. ‘A lycence anda leue;’ id. B. prol. 85. {The
right spelling is with ¢; the spelling with s is reserved for the verb,
by analogy with practice, practise, &c.|—¥. licence, ‘ licence, leave ;”
LICENTIATE
Cot.—L. licentia, freedom to act.—L. licent-, stem of pres. pt. of
licére, to be allowable, to be permissible; see Brugmann, ii. ὃ 587.
Der. licence, or more commonly Jicense, verb, 1 Hen. 1V, i. 3. 123;
lcens-er, spelt licenc-er, Milton’s Areopagitica, ed. Hales, p. 24, 1. 8;
also Licentiate, q.v., licentious, q.v. See also leisure, il-licit.
LICENTIATEH, one who has a grant to exercise a function.
(L.) ΜΕ. licentiat, Chaucer, C. T. 220. Englished from Late L.
licentiatus, pp. of licentiare, to license. = L. licentia (above).
LICENTIOUS, indulging in excess of freedom, dissolute.
(F.—L.) ‘A Lcentious libertie;’ Spenser, F. Q. v. 5. 25.—OF.
licentiens (Godefroy) ; F. licencieux.—L. licentidsus, full of licence.
— L. licentia, licence. See Licence. Der. licentious-ly, -ness.
LICHEN, one of an order of cellular flowerless plants; also, an
eruption on the skin. (L.—Gk.) See Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxvi.
c. 4; p- 245. Also Kersey’s Dict., ed. 1715.—L. lichén, in Pliny,
Nat. Hist. xxvi. 4. 10, § 21 ; xxiii. 7. 63, § 117.— Gk. λείχην, lichen,
tree-moss ; also, a lichen-like eruption on the skin, a tetter. Generally
connected with Gk. λείχειν, to lick, to lick up; from its encroach-
ment; see Lick. Cf. Russ. dishai, a tetter, a lichen.
LICH-GATE, a church-yard gate with a porch under which a
bier may be rested. (E.) In Johnson’s Dict. The word is scarce,
though its component parts are common. Chaucer has lich-wake
{or rather Jiché-waké in 4 syllables] to signify the ‘waking’ or
watching of a dead body; C. T. 2960 (A 2958). The lit. sense is
“corpse-gate.’ ME. lich, the body, most often a dead body or
corpse (sometimes lengthened to liche in two syllables, as above) ;
see Layamon, 6682, 10434; Ormulum, 8183, 16300; St. Marharete,
ed. Cockayne, p. 5; Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 2441, 2447,
2488, 4140; P. Plowman, B. x, 2; ὅς. AS. lic, the body, almost
always used of the living body; Grein, ii. 179. The orig. sense is
‘form,’ shape, or likeness, and it is from the same root as like, adj.,
with which it is closely connected; see Like (1). Du. Jijk, a corpse;
Icel. Jik, a living body (in old poems); also a corpse; Dan. lig,
a corpse ; Swed. lik, a corpse; Goth. leik, the body, Matt. v. 29;
a corpse, Matt. xxvii. 52; G. leiche, OHG. lih, the body, a corpse ;
whence G, leichnam, a corpse. Tent. type *litom, n. And see
Gate.
LICK, to pass the tongue over, to lap. (E.)
Wyclif, Luke, xvi. 21. AS, liccian, Luke, xvi. 21; Grein, ii. 180.
Ἔα. likken; G. lecken. Teut. type *likkdn- (whence F. lécher).
Allied to Goth. Jaigén, only in the comp. bi-laigon, Luke, xvi. 21.
+Russ. lizate; L. lingere; Gk. λείχειν ; Lith, lész-ti; Olrish lig-im,
Llick; Pers. dish-tan; Skt. lik, Vedic form rik, to lick. β. All from
LEIGH, to lick. Brugmann, i. § 604. Der. lecher, q.v.
LICKERISH, LIQUORISH, fond of dainties; greedy;
lecherous. (F.—G.) ‘The liguorish hag rejects the pelf with
scorn;’ Dryden, Wife of Bath, 319. Adaptations of ME. Jikerous ;
‘she hada likerous yé’ [eye]; Chaucer, C. T., A 3244. —AF. *likerous,
*lekerous, Northern variant of OF. licherous, lecherous, lecherous; cf.
Norman dial. liquer, lequer, for F. lécher, to lick (Moisy). = North F.
lequer, for F. lécher, to lick. OHG, lecchdn (G. lecken), to lick.
See Lecher.
LICORICE, LIQUORICH, a plant with a sweet root, used in
medicine, (F.—L.—Gk.) ΜΕ. licoris. In early use; Layamon,
17745; Chaucer, C. T. 3207.— AF. lycorys, Liber Albus, p. 224;
OF. *licorice, spelt licorece, Vie de St. Gilles, 854; MF. liquerice,
‘lickorice,’ in Cotgrave. ([Littré gives also the corrupt (but old)
spellings reculisse, regulisse, whence mod. F. réglisse. So also in
Ital., we have the double form legorizia, regrlizia.]—L. liquiritia,
liquorice, a corrupted form; the correct spelling being glycyrrhiza,
which is found in Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxii. 9. 11.— Gk. γλυκύρριζα,
the liquorice-plant ; so called from its sweet root.—Gk. γλυκύ-, for
Ὑλυκύς, sweet; and ῥίζα, a root, cognate with E. wort. The Gk.
γλυκύς is often regarded as cognate with L. dulcis, sweet ; but this
is very doubtful.
LICTOR, an officer in Rome, who bore an axe and fasces. (L.)
Tn Shak., Antony, v. 2. 214.—L. lictor ; so called (perhaps) from
the fasces or bundles of bound rods which he bore, or from binding
culprits. Connected with ligdre, to bind (Bréal). See Ligament.
LOD, a cover. (E.) ΜΕ. did (rare, see exx. in Stratmann) ; spelt
led, Sir Cleges, 1. 272, in Weber’s Met. Romances, vol. i. AS. Alid,
Matt. xxvii. 60.4+Du. lid, a lid; (not the same word as Jid, a joint).
+Icel. hlid, a gate, gateway, gap, space, breach ; OHG. Alit, MHG.
lit, a cover (whence (ἃ. augen-lied, eye-lid). Teut. type *klidom, n.
B. From *hlid-, weak grade of Teut. *hleidan-, *hlidan-, to cover; as
in AS. hlidan, to shut, cover, Grein, 11, 86; cf. OSax. hlidan, to
cover. Der. lid-gate, a swing-gate; also occurring as a poet’s
name, from a place-name in Suffolk.
IE (1), to rest, lean, lay oneself down, repose, abide, be situate.
{E.) A strong verb. ME. liggen, lien, pt. t. lei, lai, lay, pp. leien,
lein, lain; Chaucer, C. T. 3651, 20; P. Plowman, B. iii. 175, i- 30,
ME. licken, likken;
LIEUTENANT
iii. 38. AS. licgan, pt. t. leg, pp. legen; Grein, 11, 181.4Du. liggen,
pt. t. Jag, pp. gelegen.-+-Icel. liggja, pt. t. la, pp. leginn ; Dan. ligge ;
Swed. ligga; Ὁ. liegen, pt. t. lag, pp. gelegen; Goth. ligan, pt. t. lag,
pp- ligans. Teut. type *lig-jan- (except in Gothic); pt. t. *Zag, pp.
*leganoz. Teut, root *leg; Idg.4/LEGH. Further related to Russ.
lejate, to lie; L. base leg-, to lie; only in lectus, a bed; Gk. base
Aex-, appearing in aorist ἔλεξα, Homer, Iliad, xiv. 252 ; λέχος, a bed.
47 As to the modern Εἰ. form, which depends on the AS. stem lig-,
occurring in the 2nd and 3rd person sing. indic. and in the imp. sing.,
see Sweet, E. Gram. § 1293. The pp. Jien occurs in Gen, xxvi. 10,
Ps. xviii. 13. Der. day, q. v., law, q. v.
LIE (2), to tell a lie, speak falsely. (E.) ME. Zien, lien, lyen,
a strong verb; Layamon, 3034, Chaucer, C. T. 765 (A 763) ; pt. t.
leh, Layamon, 12942, 17684; pp. owen, P. Plowman, B. v.95. AS.
léogan, pt. t. léag, pp. logen ; τοίη, ii. 176.4Du. liegen, pt. t. loog,
pp. gelogen; Icel. Higa, pt. t. laug, pp. loginn ; Dan. lyve, pt. t. 16),
pp. dojet ; Swed. Ljuga, pt. t. log, pp. yugen ; Goth. liugan, pt. t. lauh,
pp. lugans ; G. liigen, pt. t. log, pp. gelogen. B. Teut. type *leugan-,
pt. t. *laug, pp. *luganoz. Teut. root leug; Idg.4/LEUGH. Cf.
Russ. Igate, luigate, to lie; loje,a lie. Der. lie, sb.= AS. lyge, lige,
Grein, tl. 199 ; Zi-ar, cf. AS. léogere ; ly-ing, ly-ing-ly.
LIEF, dear, beloved, loved, pleasing. (E.) Now chiefly used in
the phr. ‘ I had as lief’ which is common in Shak. ; see Hamlet, iii.
2. 4. ME. lief, leef, lef, Chaucer, C. T. 3790 (A 3792); vocative
and pl. leue (=Jdeve), id. 1138; compar. leuer (=Tlever), id. 295;
superl. lewest (=Jlevest), P. Plowman’s Crede, ed. Skeat, 1. 16. AS.
ἰδοῦ, liof, vocative léofa, pl. léofe; compar. léofra, superl. léofesta,
Grein, ii. 174, 175 (a common word).+-Du. lief, dear; Icel. jifr ;
Swed. Jjuf; Goth. linbs ; G.lieb, ΜΗ. liep, OHG. liup. Teut. type
*leuboz; Idg. type *leubhos. Cf. also Russ. lioboi, agreeable ; liobite,
to love. B. All from Teut. base LEUB, to be pleasing to; cf. L.
lubet, libet, it pleases; Skt. /ubh, to covet, desire. —4/LEUBH, to
desire. Der. (from the same root) love, leave (2), believe, furlough,
lib-idinous.
LIEGE, faithful, subject, true, bound by feudal tenure. (F.—
OHG.) α. The etymology is disguised by a change both of sense
and usage. We now say ‘a liege vassal,’ i.e. one bound to his lord;
it is easy to see that this sense is due to a false etymology which
connected the word with L. ligatus, bound, pp. of ligare, to bind;
see Ligament. β. But the fact is, that the older phrase was
‘a liege lord,’ and the older sense ‘a lord entitled to feudal alle-
giance.’ The phrase ‘ my/ege man’ occurs twice, and ‘ my lege men’
once, in Will. of Palerne, 1174, 2663, 3004. The expression ‘ vr [our]
lige louerd’ occurs in Rob. of Glouc. p. 457, 1.9376; and in Chaucer,
C, T. 12271 (Six-text, C 337, where the MSS. have lige, lege, liege).
In Barbour’s Bruce, ed. Skeat, v. 165, we find: ‘ Bot and I lif in lege
pouste’=but if I survive in sovereignty entitled to homage; or, in
iree sovereignty. OF. lige, ‘liege, leall, or loyall; Prince lige,
339
a liege lord; Seigneur lige, the same;’ Cot. Also (better) spelt
liege in the 12th cent, (Littré.) —OUG. ledec, ledic, also lidic, lidig
(mod. G. ledig), free, unfettered, free from all obligations; which
seems to have been the orig. sense. The expression ‘Jigivs homo,
quod Teutoniceé dicitur Jedighman’ occurs A.D.1253; Ducange. ‘A
liege lord’ seems to have been a lord of a free band; and his Jieges,
though serving under him, were privileged men, free from other
obligations. ΒΒ. Further; the OHG. lidic is cognate with Icel.
lidugr, free, also ready, willing; and is prob. allied to OHG. Jidan,
to go, depart, experience, take one’s way; cognate with AS. lidan,
to go, travel. Also, the Icel. Jidugr, ready, free, is from Icel. lida,
to travel; see Lead (1). 4 For futher information on this difficult
word, see Diez, Scheler, and J ittré; and the MDu. ledig, free, in
Kilian, And see Korting, § 4=06. ‘ Leecheyt { =ledigheid] is moeder
van alle quaethede’ =idleness is mother of all vices; O. Du. Proverb,
cited in Ondemans. Ducange’s attempt to connect the word with
Late L. litus, a kind of vassal, is a failure.
LIEGER, LEIGER, an ambassador ; see Ledger.
LIEW, a legal claim, a charge on property. (F.—L.) A legal
word; not in Todd’s Johnson; preserved as a law term from the
16th century. =F. dien, a band, or tye, .. . anything that fasteneth or
fettereth;’ Cot.—L. ligamen, a band, tie.—L. ligare, to tie; see
Ligament. Andsce Liane.
LIU, place, stead. (F.—L.) In the phr. ‘in lieu of’ =in place
of; Temp. i. 2. 123. - Ε΄. lieu, ‘a place, roome;’ Cot. Spelt dix in
the 1oth century. (Littré.)—L. locum, acc. of Jocus, a place; see
Locus. Der. lieu-tenant, q. V.
LIEUTENANT, a deputy, vicegerent, &c. (F.—L.) ME.
lieutenant, Gower, C. A. i. 73; bk. i. 947; P. Plowman, B. xvi. 47.
“ΕΠ. lieutenant, ‘a lieutenant, deputy ;’ Cot.—L. locum-tenentem,
acc. of Jocum-tenens, one who holds another's place, a deputy. —L.
locum, acc. of locus, a place; and fenens, pres. part. of fenére, to
hold. See Locus and Tenant. Der. Jeutenanc-y. J The pron,
Z2
840 LIFE
as leflenant is old; cf. luftenand in Barbour, Bruce, xiv. 139. Cf.
OF. luef, for liew (Godefroy).
LIF, animate existence. (E.) ME. lif, lyf, gen. case lyues, dat.
lyue, pl. lyues (with u =v) ; Chaucer, C. T. 2757, 2778, 14100 (A 2755,
2776, B 3284). AS. lif, gen. lifes, dat. life, pl. lifas; Grein, ii. 183.
+lcel, lif, lif; Dan. liv; Swed. lif; OHG. lip, leip, life; mod. G.
leib, the body. Cf. Du. lijf, the body. B. Teut. type *Jitom, n.
This sb. is a derivative from Teut. root *Ji6 (weak grade *Jid), to
remain, occurring in Icel. Jifa, to be left, to remain, to live, AS.
lifian, to be remaining, to live; OHG. liban, lipan, only used in the
comp. beliban, ΜΗ. beliben, G. bleiben, to remain, be left. y. The
sense ‘remain’ arose from that of ‘ to cleave;’ and thus /ife is con-
nected with Lithuanian Jipti, to cleave, stick, Skt. lip, to anoint,
smear, Gk. ἀλείφειν, to anoint, λῖπ-αρής, persistent; the form of the
toot being LEIP; Fick, i. 754. Der, life-blood, life-boat, life-estate,
life-guard, q. v., life-hold, life-insurance, &c.; also life-less, life-less-ly,
life-less-ness, life-long. Also live, live-ly, live-lihood, live-long. From
the same source, Jeave (1). And see Alive.
LIFEGUARD, a body-guard. (Hybrid; E. and F.) ‘The
Cherethites were a kind of lifeguard to king David;’ Fuller, Pisgah
Sight of Palestine, ed. 1650, p. 217. From Life and Guard.
4 See Trench, Eng. Past and Present. The word is not borrowed
from the G. letbgarde, a body-guard; and it is much to the purpose
to observe that, if it were so, it would make no difference; for the
Ὁ. leib is the G. spelling of the word which we spell life, despite the
difference in sense. The MHG. lip meant ‘life’ as well as ‘ body.”
LIFELONG, lasting for a life-time. (E.) Modern; suggested
by livelong ; see Livelong.
LIFT (1), to elevate, raise. (Scand.) ME. Jiften, to raise;
Prompt. Parv. p. 303; P. Plowman, B. v. 359; Havelok, 1028;
spelt Jeften (leffienn), Ormulum, 2658, 2744, 2755, 6141, 7528, &c.
The orig. sense is to raise aloft, to exalt into the air.—Icel. lypia
(pronounced /yfta), to lift; allied to loft, the air; Dan. lofte, to lift;
loft, a loft, a cock-loft, orig. ‘the air;’ Swed. lyfta, to lift; loft,
a loft, garret, orig. ‘the air.’ Teut. type */uftjan-; from */uftuz, the
air; see Loft. The i=y, mutation of u (0).
LIFT (2), to steal. (E.) ‘ But if night-robbers Jit [steal from]
the well-stored hive;’ Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, st. 228, 1. 916.
The sb. lifter, a thief, occurs in Shak., Troil. i. 2, 129. This sense
arose from that of lifting up and carrying away; and the word is
ult. the same as Lift (1). See N.E.D. Skelton has: ‘Conuey it
be [by] cra‘te, lyft and lay asyde;’ Magnificence, ]. 1373.
LIGAMENT, a band, the membrane connecting the moveable
bones. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627. ME. ligament, Lanfranc,
Cirurgie, p. 24, 1. 1.—F. ligament, ‘a ligament, or ligature; ” Cot.—
L. ligamentum, a tie, band.—L. liga-re, to tie; with suffix -mentum.
Der. ligament-al, ligament-ous. From L. ligare we have also liga-
ture, liable, liane, lictor, lien, lime-hound, ally, alligation, alloy, ally,
league (1), oblige, rally (1).
LIGAN, as if from L. ligdre ; corrupt form of Lagan, q.v.
LIGATURE, a bandage. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627;
and in Lanfranc, Cirurgie, p. 177, 1.17. —F. ligature, ‘a ligature, tie,
band ;’ Cot.—L. ligatira, a binding, bandage ; from ligare, to bind ;
see Ligament.
LIGHT (1), illumination. (E.) ME. light, Chaucer, C. T. 1989,
1001 (A 1987, 1989). AS. léoht, Grein, ii. 177 (cf. lyhtan, liktan, to
shine, id. 11. 200); OMerc. Jéht, whence ME. liht, light.4-Du. licht ;
Ὁ. licht, OHG. lioht; Goth. livhath, light. B. Observe that the ¢ is
a mere suffix; Teut. type */ewh-tom, n., related to *leuh-toz, adj.,
‘bright,’ as in E. light, adj. The Goth. livh-ath answers to Teut.
type *lewh-a-thom, Idg. type *leuk-o-tom. Ὑ. Neglecting the final ¢,
we have cognate words in Icel. Jjds (Teut. type *leuh-som), light,
Icel. Jogi, a flame (whence Lowland Scotch Jowe, a flame). IRdg.
root LILUQ; whence L. /iix, light, L. Jiimen (=luc-men), light, Jana
(=louc-sna), moon; with numerous connected terms; also Gk.
Aevx-ds, white, bright, λύχνος (=Avx-vos), a light, lamp, &c. Cf.
Skt. ruch, to shine. See Lucid. Der. light-house. Also light, verb,
ΜΕ. lighten, Chaucer, C. T. 2428, AS. lyhtan, lihtan, Grein, ii. 200;
whence light-er, sb. Also light-en (1), q.v., light-ning, q.v. Con-
nected words are Iuc-id, luc-i-fer, e-luc-idate, il-lu-minate, lu-nar,
lu-natic, luc-ubration, lea (1), q.v., lustre, il-lu-strate, il-lu-strious, lu-
minous. lynx, 8c.
LIGHT (2), active, not heavy, unimportant. (E.) ME. light,
Chaucer, C. T. 9087 (E 1211); lightly, adv., id. 1463 (A 1461).
AS. léoht, adj., Grein, ii. 176; OMerc, likt, Matt. xi. 30 (Rushworth
MS.).+4+ Du. ligt; Icel. léttr; Dan. let; Swed. lait; Goth. leihts, 2 Cor.
i. 17; G. leicht, MHG. likte, OHG. Jihti, liht. Teut. type *lihtoz,
for *linxtoz, *lenxtoz. Allied to Lith. Jengwas, light; from Idg. base
*lengh(w). From the weak grade of the same we have Gk. é-Aax-ts, |
Skt. lagh-u(s), light. Allied further to Skt. lazgh, to jump over.
See Brugmann, i. 8 684; Sievers, § 84. Thus the orig. sense is |
LIGULE
‘springy,’ active, nimble; from which the other senses are easily
deduced. Der. light-ly, light-ness, lights, q. v., ligh'-fingered, li~ht-
leaded, light-hearted, light-minded, &c.; light-some, Rom. of the Rose,
1. 936; Light-some-ness; light-en (2), q.v.; light-er, q.v. From the
same root we have (from L. Jeu-is) lev-ant, lev-er, lev-ity, lev-y, al-lev-
tate, &c. And see Lung.
LIGHT (3), to settle, alight, descend. (E.) ME. lighten,
lihten; ‘adun heo gunnen Iihten’=they alighted down; Layamon,
26337; ‘he lighte a-doun of lyard’ =he lighted down from his horse,
P, Plowman, Β. xvii. 64. B. The sense is to relieve a horse of his
burden, and the word is identical with ME. lighten in the sense of to
Telieve of a burden. The derivation is from the adj. light, not heavy ;
see Light (2). y. When a man aligh‘s from a horse, he not only
Telieves the horse of his burden, but completes the action by
descending or alighting on the earth; hence light came to be used
in the sense of to descend, settle, often with the prep. on. ‘New
lighted on a heaven-kissing hill ;’ Hamlet, 111. 4.59; ‘this murderous
shaft Hath yet not lighted;’ Macb. ii. 3. 148. Hence this verb is
(in sense) a doublet of Lighten (2), q.v., as well as of Lighten (3).
Der. light-er, q.v. And see Alight, verb.
LIGHTEN (1), to illuminate, flash. (E.) The force of the final
-en is somewhat dubious, but appears to have arisen in the transitive
form. 1. Intrans. to shine as lightning; ‘ it J ghiens,’ Romeo, ii.
2. 120. ME. lightenen, Prompt. Pary. p. 304; also lightn-en, to
shine; Wyclif, Gen. i. 15. 2. Trans. The trans. use is in Shak.
Hen. VIII, ii. 3. 79, Titus And. ii. 3. 227, with the sense ‘to
illuminate.” ME, lightenen; as in ‘that lightend has ur ded sa dim;’
Cursor Mundi, 18600. From /ight, sb. with causal suffix -er, as in
length-en, strength-en. Ve also find the simple form light, as in:
‘the eye of heaven that lights the lower world ;’ Rich. 11, iii. 2. 38.
This is the ME. lighten, lighté (where the final -ex is merely the
mark of the infin. mood, often dropped); Chaucer, C. T. 2428
(A 2426). AS. léohtan, to illuminate; Grein, ii. 178.—AS. léoht,
light; see Light (1). Der. lightn-ing.
LIGHTEN (2), to make lighter, alleviate. (E.) The final -en is
merely formative, as in strength-en, length-en, short-en, weak-en. It is
intended to have a causal force. We also find the simple form to
light, answering to ME. lighten, lighté (in which the final -ex is
merely the mark of the infin, mood, and is often dropped). ‘Lyghteyn,
or make wyghtys [weights] more esy, lightyn burdens, heuy weightis,
Allevio;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 304. ‘To likten ower heaued’=to take
the weight [of hair] off your head; Ancren Riwle, p. 422. From
the adj. light; see Light (2), and Light (3). So also Dan. lette,
to lighten, from Jet, light.
LIGHTEN (3), to descend, settle, alight. (E.) ‘O Lord, let
thy mercy lighten upon us;’ Te Deum, in the Prayer-book (L.
‘fiat’). Here lighten is a mere extension of Light (3), q. v.
LIGHTER, a boat for unlading ships. (Du.) In Skinner, ed.
1671; and in Pope, Dunciad, ii. 287. ‘Lyghter, a great bote;’
Palsgrave. Probably borrowed from Du. Jigter, a lighter (Sewel) ;
spelt /ichter in Skinner. Hence also lighter-man, from Du. ligterman,
a lighter-man (Sewel).= Du. ligt, light (not heavy) ; see Light (2).
@ ‘vhus the sense is the same as if the word had been purely
English; it means ‘unloader;’ from the use made of these vessels.
Der. livhter-man (as above) ; lighter-age.
LIGHTNING, an illuminating flash. (E.)
schyneden ;’ Wyclif, Ps. Ixxvii (Ixxviii). 19.
Lighten (1).
LIGHTS, lungs. (E.) ME. lightes, Destruction of Troy, 10705;
pa léhte=the lights, Layamon, 6499, answering to AS. Sa liktan,
i.e. the light things. So called from their lightness. So also Russ.
legkiia, lights; from leghii, light. See Light (2).
LIGN-ALOKES, the litter drug aloes. (Hybrid; L. and Gk.)
In Numbers, xxiv. 6 (A. V.) ‘A kind of odoriferous Indian tree,
usually identified with the Aguilaria Agallochum which supplies the
aloes-wood of commerce. Our word is a partial translation of the
L. lignum aloés, Gk. ξυλαλόη. The bitterness of the aloe is pro-
verbial ;? Bible Wordbook, ed. Eastwood and Wright. Chaucer has:
‘As bittre.. . as is ligne aloes, or galle;’ Troilus, iv. 1137.—L. lig-
num, wood; and aloés, of the aloe, gen. case of aloé, the aloe, a word
borrowed from Gk. ἀλόη, the aloe. On the true distinction between
aloe and aloes-wood, see note to Aloe. And see Ligneous.
LIGNEOUS, woody, wooden, wood-like. (L.) ‘Of a more
ligneous nature ;” Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 504. Formed by mere change
of L. τὴς into E. τοῖς (as in ingenuous, arduous, and many others),
from L. ligneus, wooden.=—L. lignum, wood; a word of disputed
otigin, Der. from ligni- (for ligno-) we have ligni-fer-ous =wood-
producing (from ferre, to bear); ligni-fy=to turn to wood; and
from the stem lign- has been formed lign-ite, coal retaining the
texture of wood, where the suffix -7fe is Gk.
LIGULE, a strap-shaped petal. (L.)
‘Thi lightnyngis
Verbal sb. from
A mod. botanical term;
LIGURE
also applied to the flat part of the leaf of a grass. —L. ἦρα, a little
tongue, a tongue-shaped extremity ; by-form of lingua, Dimin. of
lingua, a tongue; see Lingual. But Brugmann (i. § 604) derives
lig-ula immediately from lig-, base of ling-ere, to lick. Sce Lick.
LIGURE, a precious stone. (L.—Gk.) In the Bible, A. V., Ex.
xxviii. 19, xxxix. 12. ‘Ourtranslators have followed the Septuagint
λιγύριον and Vulgate ligurius in translating the Heb. leshem by
Ligure, which is a precious stone unknown in modern mineralogy ;’
Bible Wordbook, by Eastwood and Wright.—L. ligirins.—Gk. Ac
γύριον, also spelt λιγγούριον, λιγκούριον, λυγκούριον, a sort of gem;
acc. to some, a reddish amber, acc. to others, the hyacinth
(Liddell).
LIKE (1), similar, resembling. (E.) ME. lyk, lik; Chaucer,
C. T. 414, 1973 (A 412, 1971). AS. lic, in comp. ge-lic, like, in
which form it is common; Grein, i. 422. The prefix ge- was long
retained in the weakened form ἐ- or y-; Chaucer has yliche as an
adv., C. T. 2528 (A 2526).-+-Du. ge-lijk, like; where ge- is a prefix;
Icel. likr, glikr, like; where g- = ge-, prefix; Dan. liz; Swed. lk;
Goth. ga-leiks, Mark, vii. 8; G. gleich, MHG., ge-lich, OHG. ka-lih.
B. All signifying ‘resembling in form,’ and derived from the Teut.
sb. *likom, a form, shape, appearing in AS. /ic, a form, body (whence
Lich-gate), OSax. lik, Icel. lik, Goth. Jeik, the body, &c. Cf. Lith.
lygus, like; Skt. linga(m), a mark, sign; W. cyffe-lyb, like, similar ;
Stokes-Fick, p. 251. Der. like-ly, ME. lykly, Chaucer, C. T. 1174
(A 1172) ; like-li-hood, ME. liklihed, id. 13526 (B 1786); like-li-ness,
ME. liklines, id. 8272 (Εἰ 396); like-ness, ME. liknes, P. Plowman, B. i.
113, formerly i-/icnes, Ancren Riwle, p. 230, from AS. ge-licnes; like-
wise, short for in like wise (see Wise, sb.) ; like (2), q.v.; like, sb. ;
lik-en, q.v. 97 All adjectives ending in -ἶν have adopted this
ending from AS. -lic, lit. ‘like;” all adverbs in -/y take this suffix
from AS, -lice, the same word with the adverbial final -e added.
The word like-ly = like-like, a reduplication.
LIKE (2), to approve, be pleased with. (E.) The mod. sense
is evolved by an alteration in the construction. The ME. verb lyken
(or liken) signified ‘to please,’ and was used impersonally. We
have, in fact, changed the phrase it likes me into I like, and so on
throughout. Both senses are in Shak.; see Temp. iii. 1. 43, Hamlet,
ν. 2. 276. Chaucer has only the intrans. verb. ‘And if you lyketh’ =
and if it please you; C. T. 779 (A 777); still preserved in the mod.
phrase ‘if you like.’ ‘That oghte /yken yow’=that ought to please
you; id. 13866 (B 2128). AS. lician, to please, rarely lican ; Grein,
ii. 182. The lit. sense is to be like or suitable for.— AS. lic, ge-lic,
like; see Like (1).4+Du. Jijken, to be like, resemble, seem, suit ;
from ge-lijk, like; Icel. lika, to like; from Jitr, like; Goth. leckan,
ga-leikan, to please; from ga-letks, like; MHG. lichen, ge-lichen, to
be like; from ge-lich, like (G. gleich). Der. lik-ing, ME. lykynge,
P. Plowman, B. xi. 20, O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 271. Also
well-liking = well-pleasing, Ps. xcii. 13, Prayer-book.
LIKEN, to consider as similar, to compare. (E.; or Scand.)
ΜΕ. Itknen, ‘The water is /ikned to the worlde;’ P. Plowman, B. viii.
39, A. ix. 34. ‘ And /yknez hit to heuen ly3te’=and likens it to the
light of heaven; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, A. 500. But the orig.
sense was perhaps intransitive, as in the case of Goth. verbs in -zan,
and several Swed. verbs in -za ; and the peculiar use and form of the
word seem to be Scand. It is intrans. in Allit. Poems, B. 1064.—
Swed. πα, (1) to resemble, (2) to liken; from Jik, like; Dan. ligne,
(1) to resemble, (2) to liken; from ig, like. See Like (1).
AC, a flowering shrub. (F.—Span.—Arab.—Pers.) ‘The
lelacke tree;’ Bacon, Essay 46. Spelt /ilach in Kersey, ed. 1715.—
MF. lilac, Cot.; now spelt Jilas.—Span. lilac, lila, a lilac. Of
Oriental origin. - Arab. Jilak, lilak (Devic). Derived from the Pers.
lilaj, lilanj, or lilang, of which the proper sense is the indigo-plant ;
Rich. Pers, Dict. p. 1282. Here the initial 1 stands for , and the
above forms are connected with Pers. μη], the indigo-plant ; whence
nilak (dimin, form, whence Arab, Jilak), blueish; Rich. Dict. pp. 1619,
1620, Cf. Skt. nila-s, dark-blue, nili, the indizo-plant. Named from
the blueish tinge on the flowers in some varieties (Devic).
LILLIPUTIAN, diminutive, very small. (E.) ‘The stairs are
of lilliputian measurement ;’ Dickens, American Notes (1850), p. 33.
Formed with suffix -iax, from Lilliput, the name of an imaginary
country in Gulliver’s Travels, inhabited by pygmies six inches high.
Coined by Swift (1726).
LILT, to sing cheerfully. (Scand.) Cf. ME. lilding-horn, Chaucer,
Ho. of Fame, 1223. The pp. Julted occurs in Early E. Allit. Poems,
A. 1207. Connected with Norw. /illa, to sing in a high tone;
OSwed. για, to lull to sleep (Rietz, s. v. Julla).—Swed. Iulla, Dan.
lulle, to hum, to lull, See Lull. See Notes on E. Etym., p. 163.
“LILY, a bulbous plant. (L.—Gk.) ME. χε; Chaucer, C. ἘΠ:
15555 (ἃ 87). AS. lilie, pl. lilian; Matt. vi. 28 ; AElfric’s Gloss.,
Nomina Herbarum.=L. Jilium; Matt. vi. 28.—Gk. λείριον, a lily;
the change of Gk. p to L. 7 being in accordance with usual laws.
LIME-HOUND 341
4 The more usual Gk. name is κρίνον, as in Matt. vi. 28. Der.
lili-ac-e-ous = L, liliiiceus,
LIMB (1), a member of the body, branch of a tree. (E.) ME.
lim, pl. limes; Chaucer, C. T. 4881 (B 461). AS. lim, pl. leomu;
Grein, ii. 188; Icel. Jimr; Dan. and Swed. lem. Teut. types *li-mom,
n.; *li-moz, m.; allied to AS. li-, Goth. li-thus,a limb. See Lay
figure. Cf. Lith. Jémz, trunk, stature.
LIMB (2), the edge or border of a sextant, &c. (L.) ‘Limb, in
mathematics, the outermost border of an astrolabe; ,. in astronomy,
the utmost border of the disk or body of the sun or moon, when
either is in eclipse ;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. Kersey also gives the form
limbus. —L. limbus, a border, edging, edge. Cotgrave gives MF.
Imbe de bouteille, ‘the mouth or brink of a bottle. Doublet,
limbo
LIMBECK, the same as Alembic, q.v. Palsgrave has: ‘ Lem-
byke for a styllatorie, Jembic;’ where lembic is a F. form.
LIMBER (1), flexible, pliant. (E.) Not found very early.
‘With limber vows ;’ Wint. Tale, i. 2. 47. Richardson quotes an
earlier and better example. ‘Ne yet the bargeman, that doth rowe
With long and limber oare ;’ Turbervile, A Myrrour of the Fall of
Pride. Cooper’s Thesaurus has: ‘Lentus, softe, pliant, limber’ (1565).
Perhaps allied to limp, flexible, pliant; or to prov. E. limmock,
flexible, pliant. The suffix -er is adjectival, as in bitt-er, fai-r (= AS.
feg-er), &c.; see Matzner, Engl. Gramm. i. 435. See Limp (1).
LIMBER (2), part of a gun-carriage consisting of two wheels
and a shaft to which horses are attached. (F.) Taken up from
prov. E. ‘ Limbers, thills or shafts (Berkshire) ; Limmers, a pair of
shafts (North) ;’ Grose’s Prov. Eng. Glossary, ed. 1790; and see
E.D.D. It appears that ὁ is excrescent, and the form limmers is
the older one. B. Further, limmer was formerly spelt /imour (in
1480), and lymowr, as in: ‘ The cartis stand with lymowris ;” Douglas,
tr. of Virgil, bk. ix. ch. 6, 1. 23. In Douglas, Palice of Honour,
st. 33, the form used is lymnaris, pl. of lymnar, for limner. ‘The
spelling limours seems to be an E, variant of Εἰ, limons, pl. of limon,
‘the thill of a waine,’ which was mostly used in the pl.; Cot.
Similarly, /émner may well represent F. /imonier, as in ‘Cheval
limonier, a thill-horse ;’ Cot.
LIMBO, LIMBUS, the borders of hell. (L.) In Shak. All’s
Well, v. 3. 261. The orig. phrase was in limbo, Com. Errors, iv. 2.
32; or more fully, ix limbo patrum, Hen. VIII, ν. 4. 67.—L. limbo
(governed by the prep. iz), abl. case of limbus, a border; see Limb
(2). ‘ The limbus patrum, in the language of churchmen, was the place
bordering on hell, where the saints of the Old Testament remained
till Christ’s descent into hell;’ Schmidt. The Ital. word is also
limbo, derived (not from the ablative, but) from the acc. limbum of
the same L. word. Cf. P. Plowman, B. xvi. 84. Doublet, limb (2).
LIME (1), viscous substance, bird-lime, mortar, oxide of calcium.
(E.) The orig. sense is ‘viscous substance.’ ME. lym, litm, lyme.
‘Lyme, to take with byrdys [to catch birds with], viscus; Lyme, or
mortare, Calx;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 305. And see Chaucer, C. Τὶ
16274 (ἃ 806). AS. lim, bitumen, cement; Grein, 11. 188.4-Du.
lijm, glue, lime ; Icel. lim, glue, lime, chalk; Dan. Jlitm, glue; Swed.
lim, glue; G. leim, glue; MHG. lim, bird-lime.4+L. limus, mud,
slime. B. Teut. type *limoz, Idg. type *letmos, from 4/LEI; of
which the weak grade (li) appears in 1.. li-nere, to smear, daub;
cf. Russ. lite, to pour, flow; cf. Skt. Ji, to melt, to adhere; allied to
Skt. ri, to distil. See ooam (which is allied). Der. lime, verb,
Ancren Riwle, p. 226, Hamlet, iii. 3. 68; lim-y; lime-kiln, Merry
Wives, iii. 3. 86; lime-stone; lime-twig, Lydgate, Minor Poems,
p. 180 ; lime-rod, spelt lymrod, Chaucer, C. Γι 14694 (B 3574).
LIME (2), the linden-tree. (E.) In Pope, Autumn, 25. <A cor-
ruption of the earlier spelling line. ‘Linden-iree, or Line-tree;’
Kersey, ed. 1715. ‘In the line-grove’ (modern edd. lime-grove) ;
Shak. Temp. v. το. The change from line to lime does not seem to
be older than about A.D. 1625. The form J:me is in Bailey’s Dict.,
vol. ii. ed. 1731; Bacon has ‘the lime-tree;’ Essay 46. B. Again,
line is a corruption of lind, the older name, by loss of final d. See
Linden. Der. lime-tree.
LIME (3), a kind of citron. (F.—Span.— Arab. or Pers. — Malay.)
First in 1638. ‘Lime, a sort of small lemmon ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. =
Ἐς lime, a lime ; Hamilton. - Span. lima. = Arab. limah (below) ; Pers.
limit, a lemon, citron; Rich. Dict. p. 1282.— Malay Jimau, Javanese
limo, a generic name for a lime or citron. And see Lemon. Dozy
gives Arab. limah, a lime ; see Devic.
LIME-HOUND, a dog led by a cord; a dog used for hunting
the wild boar. (F.—L.; and E.) Lime-hound is short for liam-
hound, a hound held by a liam or leash. ‘ The string wherewith wee
leade a Grey hounde is called a lease, and for a hounde a lyame ;’
Turberyille, Booke of Hunting, ed. 1575, p. 240. See Croft’s Gloss.
to Sir T. Elyot’s The Governour. Spenser has lime-hound; Ἐς Q.
y. 2. 25.— OF. liem; Ἐς lien; see Littré, 5. ν. lien ; and cf, Norm.
342 LIMIT
dial. lian, a tie, a cord. —L. ligamen, a fastening; see Lien. And
see Hound. See Notes on E. Etym., p. 164.
LIMIT, to assign a boundary; a boundary. (F.—L.) The verb
is in older (general) use in E. than the sb. limit, though really the
derived word. ME. limitez, to limit. ‘To limite us or assigne us ;’
Chaucer, Tale of Melibeus, Six-text, B 2956. [Hence the sb. limit-or,
Chaucer, C. T. 209.) —F. limiter, ‘to limit ;’ Cot. =F. dimite,a limit;
id. —L. Fimitem, acc. of limes, a boundary; akin to L. dimen, a thres-
hold. Prob. allied to L. dimus, transverse (Bréal). Der. limit-ed,
limit-ed-ly, limit-ed-ness, limit-less, limit-able; also limit-at-ion =F.
limitation, <a limitation’ (Cot.), from L. acc. limitationem.
LIMN, to illuminate, paint. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. limnen, a contracted
form of lwminen. ‘ Lymnyd, or lumynid, as bookys;’ Prompt. Parv.
p-317. ‘Lymnore,luminour, Alluminator,illuminator;’ id. B. Again,
fuminen is short for enluminen, by loss of the prefix. Chaucer has
enlumined =enlightened; C. T. 7909 (E 33).—MF. enluminer, ‘to
illuminate, inlighten; . . also to sleek, burnish ; also to limn; Cot.
—Late L. inliiminare ; for L. illaminare, to enlighten ; see I1lumin-
ate. Der. limn-er=ME. luminour, as above, short for enlumtinour ;
‘ Exlumineur de livres, a burnisher of bookes, an alluminer;’ Cot.
- LIMP (τ), flaccid, flexible, pliant, weak. (E.) ‘Limp, limber,
supple ;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. Scarce in books, but known to our E.
dialects, and doubtless an old E. word. B. Allied words are perhaps
‘Swiss lampig, lampelig, faded, loose, flabby, hanging,’ and similar
words, cited in Wedgwood. Also Bavarian lampecht, flaccid, lampende
Ohren, hanging ears (answering to E. lop-ears, as in ‘a lop-eared
rabbit’) ; lamp, lemp, arag,a hanging shred; from the verb Jampen,
to hang loosely down ; Schmeller, Bay. Dict. 1474. Cf. Skt. lamba-,
depending, lambana-, falling; from the verb /amb, to fall, hang
downwards. Der. limp-ness; cf. limber (1).
LIMP (2), to walk lamely. (E.) In Shak. Merch. Ven. iii. 2.
130; and in Levins (1570). Palsgrave has: ‘ lympe-hault, boiteux.’
Not easily traced earlier, and the orig. form is uncertain. Allied to
AS. lemp-healt, limp-halting, halting, Jame, of which the earliest
form is laempi-halt, Epinal Gloss., 589; cf. lentp-halt, Corpus Gloss.,
1250. Allied also to MDan. impe, to limp (Kalkar}; MHG. limphin,
to limp. Possibly connected with Limp (1), rather than (as some
think) with Lame. We also find Low G. lumpen, to limp
(Bremen WoOrterbuch) ; which seems to be connected with limp by
gradation. So also Dan. dial. Jumpe, to limp; Jumpen, lame.
LIMPET, a small shell-fish, which cleaves to rocks. (L.) Cot-
grave explains OF. berdin by ‘the shellfish called a lympyne or
a lempet. Holland, tr. of Pliny, Ὁ. xxxii. c. 9, translates L. mituli
by ‘limpins.’ ME. lempet, Durham Acc. Rolls (Surtees Soc.), p. 10
{2523). AS. lempedu, (properly) a lamprey.— Late L. lemprida, for
Jampreda, late form of lampetra, a lamprey; see Lamprey, of
which Jimpet is a doublet. We find in Wiilker’s Gloss., 438, 17:
‘lemprida, lempedu ;’ where lempedu is the AS. form. See Notes on
E. Etym., p. 164.
LIMPID, pure, clear, shining. (F.—L.) In Blount’s Gloss. ed.
1674. ‘Most pure and limpid juice ;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors,
bk. ti. c. 1. ὃ 16-—F. limpide, ‘clear, bright;’ Cot.=—L. limpidus,
limpid, clear. Allied to L. Zympha, pure water; see Lymph.
Brugmann, i. ὃ 102. Der. limpid-i-ty, limpid-ness,
LINCH-PIN, a pin to fasten the wheel on to the axle. (E.)
Formerly also spelt lins-pin ; see Kersey, ed. 1715; Coles, ed. 1684 ;
Skinner, ed. 1671. [Linxch appears to be a corrupted form, obviously
by confusion with Jink.] The pl. inses in Will. of Shoreham’s Poems,
p- 109, means ‘linch-pins.’ AS. lynis, an axle-tree ; Epinal Gloss., 8.
+Du. duns, a linch-pin; whence Junzen, to put the linch-pin to
a wheel; Low G. lunse, a linch-pin; Bremen Worterbuch ; G. Jiinse,
alinch-pin. β. Cf. also OHG, luz, a linch-pin.
LIND, LINDEN, the lime-tree. (E.) Here (as in the case of
asp-en) the true sb. is Jind, whence lind-ex was formed as an adjective,
with the suffix -ew as in gold-en, birch-en, beech-en. The true name
is lind, or, in longer phrase, linden tree. Lind was in time corrupted
to line, and later to dime; see Lime (2). ME. Jind, lynd; Chaucer,
C. T. 2924 (A 2922). AS. lind, Grein, ii. 128. ‘Seno vel tilia,
lind;’ A®lfric’s Gloss, Nomina Arborum. Hence the adj. linden
(Grein, ii. 189), as in linden bord=the linden shield, shield made of
lind.+ Du. linde, linde-boom ; Icel. lind; Dan. lind, lind-tre; Swed.
lind; G. linde, OHG. linta. Teut. type *lenda; Idg. base *lent-;
the weak grade appears in Gk. ἐλάτη, silver fir. Cf. Lith. lenta,
a board.
LINE, a thread, thin cord, stroke, row, rank, verse. (L.; or F.—
L.) In all senses, the word is of L-. origin; the only difference is
that, in some senses, the word was borrowed from L. directly, in
other senses through the French. \Ne may take them separately, as
follows. 1. Line=a thin cord or rope, a thread, rope of a ship.
ME. lyne; P. Plowman, B. v. 355. AS. line, a cord; Grein, ii.
189.—L. Jinea, a string of hemp or flax, hempen cord; properly |
LINIMENT
the fem. of adj. Jineus, made of hemp or flax.—L. limwm, flax. Prob.
rather cognate with than borrowed from Gk. λίνον, flax. [The G.
letn, &c. are probably borrowed from Latin.}] 2. Line=a verse,
rank, row; Chaucer, C. T. 1553 (A 1551); P. Plowman, B. vii. 110.
“ΠΤ. ligne, a line. L. linea, a line, stroke, mark, line of descent;
the same word as above. Der. dine, verb,.in various senses; to
line garments is properly to put dinenx inside them (see Linen);
also lin-ing, lineal, q.v., linear, q.v., lineage, q.V-, Lineament, q.v.
And see linnet, linseed, linsey-woolsey, lint, de-lineate, a-lign..
LINEAGE, race, family, descent. (F.—L.) ME. linage (with-
out the medial e), Chaucer, C. T. 1552 (A 1550); Romance of
Partenay, 5033; lignage, Gower, C. A. i. 344; bk. iii. 1944.—F.
lignage, ‘a lineage;’ Cot. [Here E. ne=F.gn.} Made with suffix
-age (=L. -aticum) from F. kgne, a line.—L. linea, a line; see
Line.
LINEAL, belonging toa line. (L.) In Spenser, F. Q. iv. 11.
12. ‘Lineally and in the genelogye ;’ Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 17.
= L. linedlis, belonging toa line. =L. linea, a line; see Line. Der.
lineal-ly. Doublet, linear.
LINEAMENT, a feature. (F.—L.) ‘In the Ziniamentes and
fauor of his visage;’ Sir ‘I. More, Works, p. 61 b. = MF. lineament,
‘a lineament or feature;’ Cot.—L. line@mentum, a drawing, de-
lineation, feature. —L. dineire, to draw a line ; with suffix -mentum. —
L. linea, a line; see Line.
LINEAR, consisting of lines, (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674. —L, linearis, belonging to a line. — L. linea; see Line.
Doublet, Jineal, which is an older word. Der. linearly.
LINEN, cloth made of flax. (L.) Used asa sb., but really an
adj., with adj. suffix -en as in wooll-en, gold-en; the orig. sb. was lin,
preserved in Jin-seed. ME. lin, sb, linen, adj. .The sb. is rare.
“The bondes . . . That weren of ful strong line’ =the bonds that
were of very strong flax; Havelok, 539. The adj. is common.
‘Clothid with lyxzux cloth... he lefte the Zyznyx clothing;’ Wyclif,
Mark, xiv. 51, 52. It was also used as a sb., as now. ‘In lynnen
yclothed’=clothed in linen; P. Plowman, B. i. 3.—AS. lin, flax,
linen; in comp. Jin-w@d, a linen garment; John, xiii. 5. Thence
was formed the adj. dimen, as in linen hregl=a linen cloth, John,
xiii. 4.—L. linum, flax; cognate with Gk. λίνον, flax. See Line.
And see linseed, linnet.
LING (1), a kind of fish. (E.) ‘Lynge, fysshe;’ Palsgrave.
Spelt Jeenge in Prompt. Parv. p. 296; and see Way’s note. Spelt
lenge, Havelok, 1. 832. Not found in AS., but answering to Teut.
*lang-jon-, f., from lang, long; i.e. ‘the long one.’ EFries. Jeng,
leng-jisk. So called from its slender shape.+-Dnu. Jeng, a ling; from
lang, long; Icel. Janga, a ling; from Jangr, long; Norw. langa,
longa (Aasen); Swed. ldnga; G. lange,a ling; also called langfisch,
i.e. long fish.
LING (2), heath. (Scand) ‘Eynge, or heth;’ Prompt. Parv.
p- 305 ; and see Way’s note. ‘ Dede in the Jyng’= lying dead on
the heath; Sir Degrevant, 1. 336, in Thornton Romances, ed. Halli-
well. (Not AS.) —Icel. lynxg, ling, heather; Dan. lyng; Swed. lung,
ling, heather; Swed. dial. ding (Rietz). Teut. type *lengwo-; cf.
Swed. lingon, the whortleberry.
LINGER, to loiter, tarry, hesitate. (E.) ‘Of lingring doutes such
hope is sprong, pardie;’ Surrey, Bonum est mihi, 1. 10; in Tottell’s
Miscellany, ed. Arber, p. 31. Formed by adding the frequentative
suffix -er or -r to the ME. Jengen, to tarry ; with further thinning of
eto? beforeng. This ME. verb is by no means rare. ‘I may no
lenger lenge’ =I may no longer linger; P. Plowman, B. i. 207. Cf
Will. of Palerne, 5421; Havelok, 1734.— AS. dengan, to prolong, put
off; Grein, i. 168; formed by the usual vowel-change (of a to e) from
AS. lang, long ; see Long. Cf. Icel. /engja, to lengthen, from /angr,
long; ἃ. verlangern, to prolong, from Jang, long; Du. lengen, to
lengthen, verlengen, to prolong.
LINGO, speech, language. (Prov.—L.) A contemptuous term.
‘ Well, well, I shall understand your Jingo one of these days ;” Con-
greve, Way of the World, A. iv. sc. τ (Sir Wilfull).—Prov. lengo,
lingo, speech (Mistral) ; Jingo is the precise form used at Marseilles,
and lengo is Gascon (Moncaut).=—L. lingua, tongue, speech (below).
Cf. Port. lingoa.
LINGUAL, pertaining to the tongue. (L.) A late word (with
few exceptions); not in Todd’s Johnson. Coined, as if from an adj.
lingualis, from L. lingua, the tongue, of which the OL. form was
dingua (see Lewis’ Dict.) ; cognate with E. Tongue, q.v. Der.
(from L. lingua) lingu-ist, q.v., language, q.V-
LINGUIST, one skilled in languages. (L.) In Shak. Two
Gent. iv. 1. 57; and in Minsheu, ed. 1627. Coined, with suffix -ist
( =L. -ista, trom Gk. -korns), from L. lingu-a, the tongue; see Lin-
gual. Der. linguist-ic, linguist-ic-s.
LINIMENT, a salve, soft ointment. (F.—L.) The word occurs
3 or 4 times in Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxii, c. 21.—F. [niment,
LINING
‘a liniment, a thin ointment ;”’ Cot.—L. linimentum, smearing-stuff,
ointment. Formed, with suffix -mentum, from linxire, to smear; allied
to linere, to smear. Cf. Skt. ri, to distil, ooze, drop; Ji, to melt,
adhere. Brugmann, i. § 476 (5); ii. § 608.
LINING, a covering on the inner surface of a garment. (L.) In
Shak. L. L. Τὰν. 2.791. Formed, with E. suffix -ig, from the verb
to line, meaning to cover the inside of a garment with line, i.e. linen;
see Line, Linen.
LINK (1), a ring of a chain, joint. (Scand.) In Shak. Cor. i. 1.
73- (Cf. ‘ Trouth [truth] and mercy linked in a chain ;’ Lydgate,
Storie of Thebes, pt. ii (How trouth is preferred). —Olcel. *hlenkr,
Icel. hlekkr (by assimilation) ; Dan. lanke; Swed. liéint.--AS. hlence
(which would have given linch); as in the comp. sb. welhlence,
a slaughter-link, i.e. linked coat of mail, Grein, ii. 646. ‘Teut. type
*hlankjoz, m.; cf. also ἃ. gelenk, a joint, link, ring; G. lenken, to
turn, bend. Der. link, verb.
LINK (2), a torch. (Scand.)} ‘A link or torch ;’ Minsheu’s Dict.,
ed. 1627. ‘Links and torches ;’ Shak. 1 Hen. IV, iii. 3. 48. ‘ Lynke,
torche ;’ Palsgrave. Of obscure origin; but it is prob. the same as
the word above, in the sense of ‘length of rope;’ cf. ‘a link of
sausages.’ Such seems to be the sense in Shak. 2 Hen. IV, v. i. 23:
‘ Now, sir, a new dink to the bucket must needs be had.’ Links for
torches were made of handy lengths of rope.
LINN, a pool; also a cascade, torrent. (C.) Two words have
been confounded: (1) AS. hlynnz, a torrent; Rushworth Gospels,
John, xviii. 1; and (2) Gael. inne, Irish linn, W. llyn,a pool. See
Notes on E. Etym., p. 165.
LINNET, a small singing-bird. (F.—L.) ME. lynet, Court of
Love, I. 1412.—OF. linette (Godefroy) ; F. linotte, ‘a linnet ;’ Cot.
{So called from feeding on the seed of flax and hemp, as is clearly
shown.by similar names in other languages, e.g. G. hdnfling, a linnet,
from hanf, hemp, G. lein-finke, a linnet (cited by Wedgwood), lit.
a lin-finch, flax-finch.)—F. Jin, flax.—L. Jinum, flax; see Linen,
Line. @ The E.name 15 Jintwhite, Scotch lintguhtt ; see Complaint
of Scotland, ed. Murray, p. 39, 1. 24. From AS. linetwige, a linnet ;
/Elfric’s Gloss., Nomina Avium. ‘This name is also (probably) from
L. linum, flax. So also W. Ilinos, a limnet; from Jlin, flax.
LINSEED, flax-seed. (Hybrid; L.and E.) ME. lin-seed; spelt
lynne-seed in P. Plowman, C. xiii. 190; linseed (to translate OF . lyzoys)
in Walter de Bibbesworth ; Wright’s Vocab. i. 156. From ME. lin
=AS. lin, flax, borrowed from L. linwm, flax; and E. seed. See
Line, Linen, and Seed. Der. linseed-oil, linseed-cake.
LINSEY -WOOLSEY, made of linen and wool mixed.
(Hybrid; L. and E.) ‘Lynsy-wolsye, linistema, vel linostema ;’
Cathol. Anglicum (1483). Used facetiously in Shak. All’s Well, iv.
1. 133 Minsheu (ed. 1627) has: ‘Jinsie-woolsie, i.e. of linnen and
woollen.’ Asif from ME. Jin, linen; and E. wool; with -sy or -sey
as a suffix twice over; cf. ¢ip-sy; see Linen and Wool. β. But
linsey may represent Lindsey, near Kersey (Suffolk); see Kersey. In
fact, Lindsey was formerly Lynsey, Lylsey, Lelesey ; Skelton has the
form Lylse wulse ; see further in the Supplement.
LINSTOCK, LINTSTOCK, a stick to hold a lighted match.
(Du.) In Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, st. 188; spelt Jinstock in Mar-
lowe, Jew of Malta, v. 4. 4. ‘Lint-stock, a carved stick (about half
a yard) with a cock at one end to hold the gumner’s match, and
a sharp pike at the other, to stick it anywhere ;’ Coles’ Dict., ed.
1684.—Du. lontstok, ‘ a lint-stock ;’ Sewel. — Du. dont, a match; and
stok, a stick, for which see Stock.+ Dan. lunte-stok, a lint-stock ;
from Junte, a match, and stok, a stick ; Swed. lunt-stake; from lunta,
a match, an old bad book (fit to be burnt), and stake, a stick, candle-
stick. B. The derivation of Du. ont, Swed. Junta, is uncertain; but
it would appear from Kilian that Du. /omp, a rag, tatter, MDu. lompe,
was also used in the same sense as ont, MDu. lonte. Perhaps lonte
arose from *lomp-te ; cf. MDu. lonte, a match, rag, with MDu. /ompe,
a rag, tatter; and Swed. Junta, a match, with Swed. dumpor, rags
(only used in the plural). Sce Thre, 5.0. Junta; and see Lump.
LINT, scraped linen. (F.—L; or L.) ‘ Lynt, schauynge of lynen
clothe, Carpea ;’ Prompt. Pary. p. 306. Spelt Zynnet in Lanfranc,
Cirurgie, p. $3; but dynt (flax) in Barbour, Bruce, bk. xvii. 612.
Either from F. lin, flax, with Ἐς suffix -et or -ette (cf. OF. linette,
linseed, in Godefroy) ; or perhaps borrowed directly from L. linteum,
a linen cloth. —L. linéevs, made of linen. = L. Jinum, flax. See Line,
Linen. @ And see Du. dint in Franck.
LINTEL, the head-piece of a door or casement. (F.—L.) ME.
lintel, lyntel ; Wyclif, Exod. xii. 22.— OF. lin’el (see Littré), later F.
linteau, ‘ the lintell, or head-piece, over a door;’ Cot.—Late L. lin-
tellus, 2. lintel; which (as Diez suggests) stands for *Jimitellus, dimin,
of L. limes (stem limit-), a boundary, hence a border; see Limit.
Prob. confused with limen, a threshold. @] A similar contraction is
found in Span. linde, from L. acc. limitem, a boundary.
» LION, a large and fierce beast of prey. (F.—L.—Gk.—Egypt.)
LIST 345
In early use. In Layamon, 1463, we find Jeon in the earlier text, fou
in the later. A still earlier form was leo, but this was borrowed from
the Latin directly; see Ineo. = OF. leon, lion. = L. lednem, acc. of lea,
a lion. Gk. χέων, a lion. Also Gk. λέαινα, for *A€Fauva, a lioness;
from Egypt. laba’, ἰατυαὶ, a lioness ; which was also the name of the
hieroglyphic for L. Cf. Heb. abi, a lion; also of Egypt. origin.
See Notes on Εἰ. Etym., p. 165. We also find ἃ. léwe, OHG, lea,
lewo; Russ. Jev’; Lithuanian Jévas, lavas; Du. leeww; &c. Der.
lion-ess, As You Like It, iv. 3. 115, from F. lionnesse ; lion-hearted ;
also lion-tse, orig. to show strangers the lions which used to be kept
in the Tower of London. See Capt. Smith, Works, ed. Arber;
p- 872.
LIP, the muscular part forming each of the upper and lower edges
of the mouth. (E.) ME. lippe, Chaucer, C. T. 128, 133. AS. lippa.
‘Labium, ufeweard lippa’=upper lip; A®lfric’s Gloss., in Voc. 157.
22. ‘Labrum, nidera lippe’=nether lip; id.+-Du. lip; Dan. lebe;
Swed. lapp ; G. lippe, lefze; ΟἿ. lefs, leffur. Further allied to L.
lab-rum, lab-ium, the lip; Pers. lab, the lip, Palmer's Pers. Dict.
col. 511. See Brugmann, i. § 563. Perhaps allied to /ambere, to
lick (Bréal). The AS.Jippa representsa Teut. type *lep-jon-,m. Der.
lipp-ed ; from the same root are lab-ial, lab-iate, lamb-ent.
LIQUEFY, to make liquid. (F.—L.) Also ‘ to become liquid,’
but this is a later sense. ‘ ‘The disposition not to liguefie’ =to become
liquid ; Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 840.—MF. liguefier ; but only found in
Cot. as a pp.; he gives ‘liquefié, dissolved, melted, made liquid.’
B. The E. liquefy is formed by analogy with other words in -/y, which
answers to F. -fier=L. -/icdre, used in place of facere, to make. But
in the intrans. sense the word corresponds to L. liquefieri, to become
liquid, used as pass. of liguefacere, to make liquid. L. lique-, from
liquére, to be fluid; and facere, to make. Sce Liquid and Fact.
Der. lique-fact-ion, Minsheu, ed. 1627; allied to liquefactus, pp. of
liquefacer?.
LIQUESCENT, melting. (L.) Modern; in Todd’s Johnson;
and in Bailey, vol. ii.—L. iquescent-, stem of pres. pt. of liguescere, 10
become liquid ; inceptive form of liguére, to be liquid. See Liquid.
Der. liquescene-y, de-liquescent.
LIQUEUR, a cordial. (F.—L.) In Pope ; Dunciad, iv. 317.
A modern F. form of the older term Liquor, αν.
LIQUID, fluid, moist, soft, clear. (’.—L.) ‘The playne [flat]
and liquide water ;’ Tyndal, Works, p. 265, col. 2. — F. liquide, ‘liquid,
moist, wet ;’ Cot. —L. liquidus, liquid, moist. L. liguére, to be liquid
or moist or clear. See Bréal. Der. liquid, sb., liquid-i-ty, liquid-ness ;
also liquid-ate, q.v.; liquor, q.v., lique-fy, q-V-
LIQUIDATE, to make clear, clear or pay off an account.
(L.) Bailey has liquidated, vol. ii. ed. 1727. ‘Liguidate, to make
moist or clear;’ Blount, Gloss., 1681.—Late L. liquidatus, pp. of
liquidare, to clarify, make clear. —L. liquidus, liquid, clear; see
Liquid. Der. liguid-at-ion =F . liquidation ; liquidat-or.
LIQUOR, anything liquid, moisture, strong drink, (F.—L.)
The word is really F., but has been accommodated to the orig. L.
spelling; yet we retain somewhat of the F. pronunciation, the qu
being sounded as c (k). ME.licour, Chaucer, C. T. t. 3; spelt licur,
Ancren Riwle, p. 164, 1. 13.—AF. licur, Tristan, i. 136; F. liqueur,
‘liquor, humor ;’ Cot.=—L. ligudrem, acc. of liquor, moisture.=L.
liquére, to be liquid; see Liquid. Doublet, liqueur.
LIQUORICEH, the same as Licorice, q. v.
LIRA, an Italian silver coin. (Ital.—L.) First in 1617. — Ital.
lira.—L. libra, a pound. Doublet, litre.
LISP, to pronounce imperfectly, utter feebly, in speaking. (E.)
ME. Kispen, lipsen; Chaucer, C. T. 266 (Six-text, A 264, where 5 MSS.
have lipsed for lisped). AS. *wlispian, to lisp; in G-wlispian, in Napier’s
Additions. AS. wlisp, imperfect in utterance, lisping, Voc. 8. 29;
also spelt wlips, Voc. 192. 11.-4-Du. lispen, to isp; Dan. lespe, to
lisp; Swed. laspa; (ἃ. lispeln, to lisp, whisper. B. An imitative
word, similar to Whisper, q.v. Der. lisp, sb.; lisp-ing-ly.
LISSOM,, pliant, agile. (.) A contr. form of lithesome; from
E. lithe, with suffix -some. See Lithe.
LIST (1), astripe or border of cloth, selvage. (E.) ME. list, liste.
‘With a brode diste’ =with a broad strip of cloth; P. Plowman, B.
v. 524. AS. liste ; ‘ Lembus, liste ;’ Corp. Gloss., 1228. TFeut. type
*list-jon-, f.4-Du., lijst, list, a border ; Ὁ. /eiste, list, border; OHG.
lista, whence Ital. désta, F. liste. Der. list (2).
LIST (2), a catalogue. (F.—G.) In Shak, Hamlet, i. 1. 98,
i. 2. 32. “Ἐς liste, ‘a list, roll, catalogue ; also, a list, or selvage ;’
Cot. The older sense is the latter, viz. border; hence it came to
mean a strip, roll, list of names. —OHG. lista, G. leiste, a border ;
cognate with AS. liste, whence list, a border. See List (1).
4 Thus ἠδέ (1) and list (2) are the same word, but the latter is
used in the F. sense. Der. dist, yerb, en-list.
LIST (3), gen. used in the pl. Lists, q.v-
LIST (4), to choose, to desire, have pleasure in. (E.) In Shak,
944 LIST
1 Hen. VI, i. 5. 22. Often used as an impers. verb in older authors.
ME. listen, lusten ; ‘if thee Just’ or ‘if thee list’ =if it pleases thee ;
Chaucer, C. T. 1185; cf. 1. 1054 (A 1183, 1052). AS. lystan, to
desire, used impersonally ; Grein, 11. 200. Formed (by regular vowel-
change from τι to y) from AS. Just, pleasure; see Lust.4+Du. Justen,
to like; Icel. lysta, to desire ; Dan. lyste ; Swed. lysta; Goth. lustdn ;
G, geliisten. Teut. type *lustjan-; from *lustuz, sb. Der. list, sb.,
Oth. 11. 1.105. And see Jist-less.
LIST (5), an inclination (of a ship) to one side. (E.) A variant
of Just, desire, inclination, which was formerly used in the same sense.
‘The ship at low water had a great Just to the offing ;’ T. James,
Voy. (1633), p. 82 (N. E. D.). ‘Lust of a ship;’ Phillips (1658);
prov. Εἰ. lust (E.D. D.). Cf. Dan. lyst, inclination. See List (4).
LIST (6), to listen. (E.) In Hamlet, i. 5. 22. ME. listen, lusten.
‘ Listeth, lordes ;’ Chaucer, Sir Thopas, ]. 1. ‘And Just hu ich con
be bitelle;’ Owl and Night., 263. AS. hlystan, Grein, ii. go. —AS.
hlyst, hearing, the sense of hearing, id. Teut. type *hJustiz, Idg. type
*clustis ; cf. Icel. hlust, the ear, W. clust, the ear; Skt. grustis, hearing,
obedience (Uhlenbeck). All from 4/KLEUS, extended form of
4/KLEU, to hear, whence L. clu-ere, Gk. κλύ-ειν, Skt. gru, to hear.
See Loud.
LISTEN, to hearken, give ear. (E.) In Shak. Macb. iv. 1. 89 ;
ii. 2. 29. We also find Jist, as above. So we also find both ME.
lustnen or listnen, and lusten or listen. 1. ‘ Or lysteneth to his reson,’
P. Plowman, B. xiv. 307; where the Trinity MS. has Jistneth, ed.
Wright, 1. 9534. Here list(e)neth stands for the older listneth, the e
being inserted for greater ease of pronunciation, and still retained in
mod. E. spelling, though seldom sounded. We further find the pt. t.
lustnede, Layamon, 26357; and the pp. Justned, id. 25128. This
form lus(t)nen is derived from an AS. form *hlysnan (see below) by
an insertion of 7, due to confusion with the closely allied List (5),
AS. hlystan, used in the same sense. The AS. *Alysnan is inferred
from O. North. lysna (for *hlysna) in Matt. xiii. 18; cf. AS. hlosnian,
to listen (Bosworth). Here /ysza represents a Teut. type *Alusindjan-,
and hlosnian represents a Teut. type *Alusndjan; both from Teut.
*hlus-, weak grade of *hleus, to hear ; 4/KLEUS (above). Cf. Swed.
lyssna, to listen; EFries. liistern, Westphal. lustern.
LISTLESS, careless, uninterested. (E.) The lit. sense is ‘devoid
of desire.’ Not immediately derived from the verb to ist (see List
(4)), but put in place of the older form Justless. We find Zyséles in
Prompt. Parv. p. 307; but Justles in Gower, C. A. ii. 111; bk. iv.
3262. Formed from Just with the suffix -Jess. See Lust and -less.
Cf. Icel. lystarlauss, having no appetite, from lyst=Jos¢i, lust. Der.
list-less-ly, list-less-ness.
LISTS, the ground enclosed for a tournament. (E.) Scarcely
used in the singular. Used to translate OF. lices in the Rom. of the
Rose, 4199; and much affected by the influence of that word. ME.
listes, pl. sb., the lists, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 63, 1864. Really the pl. of
E. list, a stripe, border, which took up the further sense of limit or
boundary; as in Eng. Gilds (E. E. T.S.), p. 44: ‘Any brother or
sister that duellen wyt[h]Jouten the /ystys of thre myle fro the cyte.’
See therefore List (1). B. Note also OF. Jisse, lice (mod. F. lice),
‘a list or tiltyard;” Cot. Cf. Ital. Jiccia, a barrier, palisade, list ;
Span. liza, a list for tilting; Port. liga, ligada, list, enclosed ground
in which combats are fought : whence Low Lat. Ποία, s. pl., barriers,
palisades ; licte duelli, the lists. Hatzfeld thinks this OF. lice may
be derived from a Romanic type */is‘ea, formed from OHG. lista (G.
leiste), a border. If so, it is closely related to E. Jis¢ (1); and this
explains the way in which the two were so readily confused.
LITANY, a form of prayer. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. Jetanie, Ancren
Riwle, p. 20, 1. 4; altered to Jitante, litany, to bring it nearer to the
L. spelling. —OF. Jetanie, a litany; so spelt in the 13th century
(Littré); mod, Ἐς Jitanie. — L. litania. Gk. λιτανεία, a prayer. = Gk.
λιταίνειν, to pray. Gk. λιτανός, a suppliant; from λιτή, supplica-
tion, prayer, allied to λίτομαι, λίσσομαι, I pray, beg, beseech.
LITERAL, according to the letter. (F.—L.) ‘It hath but one
simple Jitterall sense;’ Tyndal, Works, p. 1, col. 2.—OF. Literal,
ΜΕ. litéral, ‘literall;’ Cot. —L. litteralis, literal. = L. littera, a letter ;
see Letter. Der. Jiteral-ly, -ness; also liter-ar-y, Englished from
L. litterarius, belonging to learning ; and see Literature.
LITERATURE, the science of letters, literary productions.
(F.—L.) In Wyntoun, Chron. ν. 3633.—MF. literature, ‘ literature,
learning ;’ Cot. —L. litteratiira, scholarship; allied to the pp. form
litteraitus, learned. αὶ. Jittera, a letter; see Letter. Der. literate,
from L. litteratus; literatur-ed, Hen. V, iv. 7. 157.
LITHARGE, protoxide of lead. (F.—L.—Gk.) Lit. ‘stone-
silver.” ME. litarge, Chaucer, C. T. 631, 16243 (A 629, G 775).—
OF. litarge, Ἐς litharge, ‘litargie, white lead;’ Cot. =—L. lithargyrus.
= Gk. λιθάργυρος, litharge.— Gk. λιθ-, base of λίθος, ἃ stone (root
unknown) ; and ἄργυρος, silver (see Argent).
LITHE, pliant, flexible, active. (E.) ME. lithe, Chaucer, Ho. of
LIVE
Fame, i. 118. AS. ide (for *linSe), gentle, soft; Grein, ii. 183;
178, gentle, id. 182.--G. ge-lind, ge-linde, OHG. lindi, soft, tender.
Teut. type *Jinthjoz. B. Shorter forms appear in Icel. dinr, soft, L.
lénis, gentle, len-tus, pliant; see Lenient. Der. lithe-ness; lissom
=lithe-some. And see lenity, lentisk, re-lent.
LITHER, foul, pestilential, of the air. (E.) ‘Two Talbots
winged through the lither skie;’ 1 Hen. VI, iv. 7. 21. Also ex-
plained as ‘yielding,’ owing to the influence of lithe, which is un-
connected ; but see ‘Juther eir’ in P. Plowman, C, xvi. 220. ME.
lither, luther ; AS. lydre, evil, poor, bad (hence, dull). See Stratmann
and E.D.D. Cf. G. liederlich, vicious.
LITHOGRAPHY, writing on stone. (Gk.) Modern. Coined
from Gk. λίθο-, decl. stem of λίθος, a stone; and γράφειν, to write.
Der. lithograph-er, lithograph-ic; lithograph. Also Lith-ta, lith-tum,
LITHOTOMY, the operation of cutting for stone. (L.—Gk.)
Englished from Late L. litho/omia, the form given in Kersey's Dict.,
ed. 1715.—Gk. λιθοτομία. Gk. λίθο-, decl. stem of λίθος, a stone;
and τομ-, 2nd grade of τεμ-, base of τέμνειν, to cut; see Tome.
Der. lithotom-ist.
LITIGATION, a contest in law. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674. Formed, by analogy with F. words in -ion, from Late L.
litigatio, a disputing. —L. litigare, to dispute.—L. Jit-, stem of Jis,
strife, law-suit ; and -ig-, weakened form of ag-ere, to drive, conduct
(see Agent). B. The L. Jis was in OL. stlis (Festus). Der. Jiti-
gate, a late verb, really due to the sb.; litigant =L. litigant-, stem of
pres. pt. of litigare; also litigious, q. v.
LITIGIOUS, contentious. (F.—L.) In old authors it also
means ‘debatable’ or doubtful; see Trench, Select Glossary. Liti-
gious = precarious ; Shak. Pericles, iii. 3. 3.—F. litigieux, ‘ litigious,
debatefull ;’ Cot.—L. litigidsus, (1) contentious, (2) doubtful. —L.
litigium, strife; cf. litigare, to dispute; see Litigation. Der.
litigious-ly, litigious-ness.
LITMUS, a kind of dye. (Du.) Spelt litmose-blew in Phillips,
ed. 1706. It appears in AF. as lytemoise, Liber Albus, p. 238. Put
for lakmose ; prob. by association with the old E. word Jit, to dye. =
Du. Jakmoes, a blue dye-stuff (Sewel). — Du. Jak, lac; and moes, pulp.
Hence also G. Jackmuss, litmus. See Lac.
LITRE, a unit of capacity in the metric system. (F.—Late L.—
Gk.) It contains about 13 pints. —F, Jitre (1793). — Late L. litra.=—
Gk. Aitpa, a pound. See Librate, Lira.
LITTER (1), a portable bed. (F.—L.) ME. litere, Cursor
Mundi, 13817; Wyclif, Isa. Ixvi. 20. Spelt Jyter in Caxton, Rey-
nard the Fox, ed. Arber, p. 61, 1. 1.— AF. littere, Livere de Reis, 86 ;
OF, litiere (F. litiére), ‘a horse-litter;’ Cot.—Late L. lectaria, a
litter. —L. lectus, a bed. Cf. Gk. λέκτρον, a bed, λέχος, a couch. =
L. and Gk. base LEGH, to lie; see Lie (1). Allied to Lectern.
LITTER (2), materials for a bed, a heap of straw for animals
to lie on, a confused mass of objects scattered about; &c. (F.—L.)
Really the same word as the above; with allusion to beds of straw
for animals, and hence a confused heap. Thus Cotgraye has:
‘Litiere, a horse-litter, also Jitter for cattell, also old dung or manure.’
See Litter (1). β. Hence also Jitter in the sense of ‘a brood ;’ see
the various senses of ly¢ere in Prompt. Parv.; and cf, Εἰ, accoucher,
and E. ‘to be in the straw.’ And see Wright, Vocab. p. 156. Der.
litter, verb, Temp. i. 2. 282.
LITTLE, small. (E.) ME. litel, lutel (with one ¢); Chaucer,
C. T. 492 (A 490); Havelok, 481; Layamon, 9124. AS. lytel,
Tytel, Grein, ii. 201.44OSax. luttil; Du. luttel, little, few; MHG.
lutzel; OHG. luzzil; Teut. type *Juttiloz. B. All from 4 base
LEUT, to deceive, in connexion with which we also find AS. lytig,
deceitful, A£lfric’s Colloquy, in Voc. 101. 2; also AS. Jot, deceit,
Grein, i. 194; and the Goth. /iuts, deceitful, liuta, dissembler, Juton,
to betray. y. Further, the Teut. base LEUT meant orig. to stoop,
to bow down (hence to creep, or sneak), as in AS. lutan, to stoop,
‘lout,’ incline to; see Lout. Der. Jitile-ness. sy It is remarkable
that the Icel. Jitill, Swed. liten, Goth. Jeitils, little, are unrelated;
being from a base */eit. The forms 1655, Jeast, are from a different
source. But see Loiter.
LITTORAL, belonging to the sea-shore. (L.) Spelt Jittoral in
Kersey; Jitoral in Blount, ed. 1674. Mere Latin. —L. Jittoralis,
better Jitoralis, belonging to the sea-shore. = L. Jitor-, for *litos, stem
of Jitus, the sea-shore.
LITURGY, public worship, established form of prayer. (F.—
Late L.—Gk.) Spelt Jitturgie in Minsheu, ed. 1627.— MF, lyturgie,
‘a liturgy, or form of service;” Cot.=L., liturgia. Gk. λειτουργία,
public service. Gk. λειτουργός, performing public service or duties.
- Gk, λεῦτο-, for λεῦτος, public ; and ἔργον, work, cognate with E.
Work. β. Λεῖτος, λέϊτος, Adios, public, is derived from λαός, λεώς,
the people; whence E. Laic, Laity. Der. liturgi-c, liturgi-c-al,
litur g-ist.
LIVE (1), to continue in life, exist, dwell. (E.) ME, liuien, liuen
LIVE
(with « for v); Chaucer, C. T. 508 (A 506); Havelok, 355. AS.
lifian; Grein, ii. 185 ; also libban, id. 179; where bd stands for fi.
Du. leven; also used as sb., with sense of ‘life;’ Icel. lifa, to be
left, to remain behind, also to live; Dan. leve ; Swed. lefua ; Goth.
liban ; G. leben, to live (whence leben, sb. life), MHG. leben, lepen, to
live (also spelt libjan, lipjan) ; allied to b-leiben, MHG. beliben, OHG.
beliban, to remain, be left. From Teut. stem */ib-, weak grade cf
*leib-, to remain. B. The sense of ‘live’ is unoriginal; the older
sense is to remain, to be left behind. See further under Life.
Der. liv-er, liv-ing ; and see live (2).
LIVE (2), adj. alive, having life, active, burning. (E.) ‘Upon
the next Jive creature that it sees;’ Mids. Nt. Dr. 11. 1.172. The
use of this adj. is really due to an attributive use of Jive, aphetic
form of alive, which is not a true adj., but a phrase consisting of
a prep. and a dat. case; see Alive. B. The use as an adj. arose
the more easily owing to the currency of the words Jive-ly and liv-ish.
The former is still in use, but the latter is obsolete; it occurs as
lifissh in Gower, C. A. iii. 93; bk. vii. 257. Der. live-stock.
LIVELIHOOD, means of subsistence. (E.) a. Cotgrave
translates Εἰ, patrimoine by ‘ patrimony, birthright, inheritance, Jivel:-
hood” And Drayton speaks of a man ‘Of so fair livelihood, and so
large rent;’ The Owl. The metre shows that the word was then,
as now, trisyllabic. B. But it is a singular corruption of the ME.
livelode, liuelode, i.e. life-leading, means of living; due to confusion
with Jivelihood in the sense of ‘ liveliness,’ as used (quite correctly) in
Shak. Venus, 26; All’s Well, i. 1. 58. y. Again livelode is better
spelt liflode, as in P. Plowman, Β. prol. 30. Cf. ‘Lyflode, liyflode,
lyuelode, or warysome, Donativum ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 308; indeed,
we find livelode as late as in Levins, ed. 1570. An older spelling is
in St. Marharete, ed. Cockayne, p. 20, 1. 16, where we find liflade,
meaning ‘ way of life,’ lit. leading of life. δ. Late AS. Jiflad, course
of life; Rule of St. Bennet, ed. Schroer, c. 1; p. 13, 1. 24. Com-
pounded of AS. Jif, life; and AS. Jad, a leading, way, also provisions
to live by, Grein, ii. 150. Another sense of AS. Jad is a course, as
preserved in mod, E. Jode. See Life and Lode.
LIVELONG, long-lasting, long as it is. (E.) ‘The Jlivelong
night ;’ Macb.ii. 3.65. Orig. lief-long, i.e. ‘dear long ;’ but altered
to live-long at the end of the 16th cent., where Jive represents the
verb to live, the i being short. Sometimes understood as /ive-long
(with long 7) as if connected with Jife. Really from Lief and
Long. β. Cf. ‘Alle the lefe Jonge daye;’ Sowdan of Babylon,
1. 832; ‘Al that Jeve longe nyht;’ H. Lovelich, The Holy Grail,
ce. xxxix. 1. 319.
LIVELY, vigorous, active. (E.) A corruption of lifely. ‘Lyvely,
liyfly, or qwyk, or fulle of lyyf, Vivax;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 308.
Chaucer uses /y/ly in the sense of ‘in a life-like manner,’ C. T., A 2087.
AS. liflic. Compounded of Life and Like. Der. Jiveli-ness, in
Holinshed, Conquest of Ireland, c. 9 (R.). Cf. lively, ady., in a life-
like manner, Two Gent. iv. 4. 174; Chaucer (as above).
LIVER, an organ of the body, secreting bile. (E.) ME. ler
(with u=v); Chaucer, C. T. 7421 (Ὁ 1839). AS. lifer, Grein, ii.
184.4Du. lever; Icel. lifr; Dan. lever; Swed. lefver; (ἃ, leber,
MHG. lebere, OHG. lepara, lipara, Cf. Russ. liver’, the pluck (of
animals) ; (from Teut.) Teut. type */idra, f.; cognate with Armenian
leard, liver; but not with L. iecur. Brugmann, i. §§ 280, 557 (2).
Der. liver-coloured ; also liver-wort, Prompt. Parv. p. 309.
LIVERY, a thing delivered, as 6. g. a uniform worn by servants ;
a delivery. (F.—L.) ME. liveré (with u« for v, and trisyllabic),
Chaucer, C. T., A 363.—AF. liveré (Britton); F. divrée, ‘a delivery
of a thing that’s given, the thing so given, hence, a livery;’ Cot.
Properly the fem. of the pp. of Jivrer, to deliver, give. Cf. Ital.
liberare, to deliver. — Late L. liberare, to give, give freely ; a particular
use of L. liberare, to set free; see Liberate. Der. livery-man ;
livery-stable, a stable where horses are kept at livery, i.e. at a certain
Tate or on a certain allowance; liveri-ed. ¢#- The word is fully
explained in Spenser, View of the State of Ireland, Globe ed., p. 623,
col. 2; and Prompt. Parv. p. 308.
LIVID, black and blue, discoloured. (F.—L.) ‘Purple or livid
spots ;’ Bacon, Life of Hen. VII, ed. Lumby, p. 12, |. 31.—F. livide
(Cot.) —L. lividus, leaden-coloured, bluish. L. Jiuére, to be bluish.
Cf. W. Iliw, Olrish li, colour, hue. Brugmann, i. § 94. Der. lividness.
LIZARD, 2 kind of four-footed reptile. (F.—L.) ME. lesarde,
Prompt. Parv. p. 298; Jusarde, P. Plowman, B, xviii. 335.—OF.
lesard, m., lesarde, f., ‘a lizard;’ Cot.—L. lacerta, a lizard; also
lacertus. Root unknown. Cf. Alligator.
A, a Peruvian quadruped, (Peruvian.) See Prescott, Con-
quest of Peru, ον. ‘Llama, according to Garcilasso de la Vega, is
a Peruvian word signifying flock; see Garcilasso, Com. Real. parte i.
lib. viii. c. xvi;’ note in Prescott. But the Peruy. Dict. gives ‘//ama,
carnero de la tierra,’ i.e. sheep of the country. Cf. ‘Llamas, or
sheepe of Peru;” Hakluyt, Voy. iii. 735.
LOBBY 345
LLANO, a treeless plain in S. America. (Span.—L.) Usually in
the pl. Zlanos ; spelt Janos in E. G., tr. of Acosta, b. 111. c. 20. —Span.
lano (pl. lanos), a plain.Span. llano, plain, flat.—L. planus, flat.
See Plain.
LO, interj. see, behold. (E.) ME. Jo, Chaucer, C. Τ᾿ 3019 (A 3017).
AS. 1a, lo! Grein, ii. 148. β. Lo is gen. considered as equivalent to
look; and we actually find a ME. lo (with close 0), prob. from ἰδ-,
short for AS, Jéca, look thou! But this would have become /oo in
modern E., and is obsolete; though it may have affected the sense
of the surviving form. The AS. /a is a natural interjection, to call
attention. Cf. Gk. ἀλαλή, a loud cry, ἀλαλάζειν, to utter a war-cry,
L. la-trare, to bark; &c.
LOACH, LOCHE, a small river-fish. (F.) ME. Joche ; Prompt.
Pary. p. 310. Also lochefissh, Stat. of the Realm, i. 355 (1357).—F.
loche, ‘the loach;’? Cot. Cf. Norm. dial. logue, a loach, a slug
(Moisy) ; Ital. Jocea, locchia, ‘a cob, or gudgeon-fish;’ Florio, Of
unknown origin.
LOAD, a quantity carried, a burden. (E.) Most probably this
word has been extended in meaning by confusion with the unrelated
verb to Jade, Load is common in Shakespeare both as a sb. and verb,
but in ME. it is a sb. only, and is identical with Lode, q.v., not-
withstanding the difference in sense. The AS. Jad means only way,
course, journey; but ME. Jode has also the sense of ‘burden.’ An
early example of this is ‘hors and /ode,’ Ancren Riwle, p. 268; cf.
also carte-lode, a cart-load, in Havelok, 1. 895. It should be par-
ticularly noticed, however, that the derived verb fo Jead is constantly
used in prov. E. in the sense ‘to carry corn ;’ and, in the Prompt.
Parv. p. 62, we find: ‘Cartyn, or ede wythe a carte, Carruco.’
Chaucer has y-lad=carried, Prologue, 530. ‘Se geneat sceal ...
lade ledan,’ the tenant shall carry loads;’ Birch, Cart. Saxon. iii.
102. Hence ἰοαά- ΜΕ. lode=AS. lad, a derivative from the 2nd
grade of the verb Jidan, to go, travel. See Lode, Lead (1). Der.
load, vb.
LOAD-STAR, LOAD-STONE, the same as Lode-star,
Lode-stone.
LOAF, a mass of bread; also of sugar. (E.) ME. lof, ἰοῦ ‘A
pese-lof’ =a loaf made of peas; P. Plowman, B. vi. 181; pl. Jooues
(=loves), Wyclif, Matt. iv. 3. AS. hlaf, a loaf; Grein, ii. 79.4Icel.
hleifr; Goth. hlaifs; Ὁ. laib, MHG. leip. Cf. also Lithuanian k/épas,
Lettish Alatpas, bread; Russ. khlieb’, bread; prob. borrowed from
Teutonic. B. Perhaps named from its ‘rising,’ when leavened ; cf.
AS. hlifian, to rise high; NFries. lif, a loaf; MSwed. Jef (Ihre).
Der. loaf-sugar; lady, lord, lammas.
LOAM, a mixed soil of clay, sand, &c. (E.) ME. lam, dat. lame;
Cursor Mundi, 11985; where one MS. has cley (clay). AS. lam ;
Grein, ii. 153; Du. leem; G. lehm, OHG. leim. B. Teut. types
*laimo-, *laimon- ; from the base */at-, 2nd grade of *lei- (> *li-), as
in Jim, lime, to which Joam is closely allied. See Lime (1). Also
akin to Icel. Jeir, loam (Teut. type *lai-zom). Der. loam-y, ME.
lami, Hali Meidenhad, ed. Cockayne, p. 47, 1. 28.
LOAN, a lending, money lent. (Scand.) ME. lone, Chaucer,
C.T. 7443 (Ὁ 1861); P. Plowman, B. xx. 284. This corresponds to
an AS. Jan, but we only find /én, Grein, ii. 163; A®lfric’s Homilies,
ii. 176, last line. We once find /an-land for lén-land, Kemble, Cod.
Dipl. iii. 165; from Norse.—Icel. Jax, a loan; Dan. Jaan, a loan;
Swed. Janz. Cognate with AS. /én, a loan (whence E. lend, q.v.) ;
Du. leen ; G. lehn. B. These words answer to Teut. types */aihwniz,
*laihwnoz,n.; from *laihw-, 2nd grade of the verb appearing in Goth.
leihwan, to lend (Luke, vi. 34), AS. léon, for likan, to lend, give
(Grein, ii. 187), Icel. ja, to lend, G. leihen, OHG. lihan. y. The
Teut. base *leihw answers to Idg. 4/LEIQ, whence the L. linguere
(pt. t. ligu-i), to leave ; which is closely related to Gk. λείπειν, Skt.
rich, to leave ; Olrish Jec-im, 1 leave. Quite distinct from AS.
léan, Icel. laun, G. lohn, a reward; see Lucre. Der. len-d, q.v.
LOATH, disliking, reluctant, unwilling. (E.) ME. loth (opposed
to leef, dear, willing), Chaucer, C. T. 1839 (A 1837); Havelok,
261. AS. a3, hateful (very common), Grein, ii. 150.4Icel. Jeidr,
loathed, disliked; Dan. Jed, loathsome ; Swed. Jed, odious; OHG.
leit, odious; orig. mournful. β, All from a Teut. type */aithoz,
mournful, in which -thoz is prob. a suffix. Allied to G. leiden, to
suffer; but prob. not to AS. lidan, to travel (pt. t. Jad), as usually
said (Kluge). Der. loath-ly = AS. ladlic, Grein, ii. 151; loathe, verb
= AS. ladian, AElfric’s Hom. ii. 506, 1. 24; loath-ing, sb., ME. lothynge,
Prompt. Pary. p. 316; loath-some, ME. lo/hsum, Prompt. Parv. p. 314,
spelt Jaithsum, Cursor Mundi, 23229 (Gott. MS.), where the suffix
-some = AS. -sum as in win-some; also loath-some-ness.
LOBBY, a small hall, waiting-room, passage. (Low L.—G.)
In Hamlet, ii. 2. 161, iv. 3. 39. Becon (1553) has: ‘ Our recluses
neuer come out of their Jobbeis ;’ Reliques of Rome, 53. [Hence we
may suppose that it was a monastic term, and was taken up into E.
directly from the Low L.]=Low L., lobia, a portico, gallery, covered
346 LOBE
way, Ducange ; also spelt Jobium. Also laubia; as if from a Tent.
type *Jaubja.—MHG. loube, an arbour, a bower, also an open way
up to the upper story of a house. ‘The latter sense will be at once
intelligible to any one who has seen a Swiss chalet ; and we can thus
see also how it easily passed into the sense of a gallery to lounge or
wait in. The same word as mod. G. Jaube,a bower. So called from
being formed orig. with branches and foliage.—=MHG. Joub, loup,
OHG. laut, mod. (ὦ. laub, a leaf; cognate with E. Leaf, q.v.
Doublet, lodge.
LOBBE,, the flap or lower part of the ear, a division of the lungs
or brain. (F.—Late L.—Gk.) In Cotgrave.—F-. lobe, ‘the lap or
lowest part of the ear, also a lobe or lappet of the liver ;” Cot. Late
L. lobum, acc. of lobus, not given in Ducange, but it may (I suppose)
be found in old works on medicine as a transliteration of the Gk.
word ; Cooper’s Thesaurus (1565) has Jobos.— Gk. χοβός, a lobe of
the ear or liver; allied to L. degula, the lobe of the ear. Brugmann,
i. § 667. Der. lob-ate, mod. and scientific ; /ob-ed.
LOBELIA, a genus of herbaceous plants. (Personalname.) First
in 1739; but named after Matthias de Label (1538-1616), botanist
and physician to James 1. (N.E.D.)
LOBSTER, a kind of crustacean. (L.) ME. lopstere, loppester,
loppister. ‘A loppyster or a crabbe;’ Voc. 624.12; ‘ Hic polupus,
lopstere ;” id. 642. 22. AS. loppestre; Voc. 181. 2; a corruption of
an earlier form lopust; Voc. 30. 36. B. The word had no sense in
AS., lopust being a mere corruption of L. locusta, meaning (1) lobster,
(2) locust; see Locust. Hence the entry: ‘ Locusta, lopust;’ in
Voc. 30. 36.
LOCAL, belonging to a place. (F.—L.) . Spelt Jocall in Frith,
Works, p. 139, last line.=F. local, ‘locall;’ Cot.—L. localis,
local. —L. locus, a place; see Locus. Der. local-ly, local-ise, lacal-
is-at-ion, local-i-ty, Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674; also loc-ate, q. v.
LOCATH, to place. (L.) A late word, added by Todd to
Johnson’s Dict. = L. Jocatus, pp. of locdre, to place. — L. locus,
a place; see Local. Der. Jocat-ion, in Cockeram, ed. 1623;
Tocat-ive.
LOCH, a lake. (Gaelic.) In place-names, as Loch Lomond, Loch
Ness. = Gael. and Irish Joch, a lake, arm of the sea; cf. Corn. lagen;
Bret. laguenn, lagen.4-L. lacus; see Lake. Doublets, lake, lough.
LOCK (1), a contrivance for fastening doors, an enclosure in
acanal; &c. (11.) ME, loke, Prompt. Parv. p. 311; pl. Joken, also
Tocun, lokes, Layamon, 5926. AS. loca, pl. locan; Grein, ii. 191;
allied to Jac, a hole.-Icel. Joka, a lock, latch; Jok, a cover, lid of
a chest ; Swed. Jock, a lid; cf. G. loch, a dungeon, hole; orig. a locked-
up place, B. All from Teut. *Juk-, weaker grade of the strong verb
*liatkan-, to lock, enclose, appearing in the AS. strong verb licax, to
enclose, Grein, ii. 194; also in Icel. Jiika, to shut, finish (strong
verb); MHG. liichen, to shut; Goth. galikan, to shut, shut up.
Der. lock, verb, ME. Jokken, locken, Chaucer, C. T. 5899, D 317;
(observe that this verb is a secondary formation from the sb., and
not to be confused with the old strong verb duken, louken = AS. liican,
now obsolete, of which the pp. /aken occurs in Chaucer, C. T. 14881,
B 4065); also Jock-er, a closed place that locks = ME. lokere, Prompt.
Parv. p. 311, answering to OFlemish Joker, a chest (Kilian) ; also
lock-jaw, for lockedyjaw ; lock-keeper; lock-smith; lock-up. And see
lock-et.
LOCK (2), a tuft of hair, flock of wool. (E.) ME. Jok; pl.
lokkes, lockes, Chaucer, C. T. 81. AS. locc, Joc, Grein,.ii. 191; pl.
loceas.4-Du. lok, a lock, tress, curl; Icel. Jokkr ; Dan. lok; Swed.
lock ; OHG, loch, G. Tocke. B. The form of the Teut. type is *Jukkoz,
m.; Idg. type */ugnos; from a Teut. base */uk, weak grade of Teut.
*Teuk, Idg. LEUG; whence also Icel. /ykkr, a loop, bend, crook.
From the same root are Gk. λύγος, a pliant twig, withy; λυγίζειν,
to bend; Lith. vgnas, pliable.
LOCKEYT, a little gold case wom as an ornament. (F.—Scand.)
ME. loket, Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 154. The old sense is a
small lock, something that fastens. ‘With wooden Jockets "bout
their wrists,’ with reference to the pillory; Butler, Hudibras, pt. ii.
ce. 1. 1. 808.—F. loguet, ‘the latch of a door;’ Cot. Cf. Guernsey
dial. loguet, ¢cadenas.’? Dimin. of OF. Joc, a lock ; Godefroy. Bor-
rowed from Icel. Joka, a lock, latch; see Lock (1).
LOCKRAM, a cheap kind of linen. (F.—Breton.) In Shak.
Cor, ii. 1. 225; see Nares and Halliwell. ‘A Jockerom kercher;’
Bury Wills, ed. Tymms (Cama. Soc.), p, 147 (4556). —F. locrenan,
the name given to a sort of unbleached linen; named from the place
in Brittany where it is manufactured ; Dict. de Trévoux.—F. Loc-
renan, also called S. Renan, the name of a place in Basse Bretagne,
a few miles N. by W. from Quimper.= Bret. Lok-ronan, the Bret.
name for the same place. The sense of the name is ‘St. Ronan’s
cell;’ from Bret. dk, a cell, and Ronan, St. Ronan; see Legonidec’s
Bret. Dict., where this very name is cited as an instance of the use of
Lok- as a prefix in place-names. @ Cf. dozclas, similarly named;
LOG
‘dowlas and lockeram’ are mentioned in 4529, Act 21 Hen. 8.
ey iy:
LOCOMOTION, motion from place to place. (L.) ‘Pro-
gression or animal locomotion ;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iii.
c.1,§ 2. Coined from L. Jocé, abl. of oeus, a place; and motion. See
Locus and Motion. Der. locomot-ive, adj., Kersey’s Dict., ed.
1715; hence locomotive, sb.=locomotive engine, the first of which
was used A.D. 1814, Haydn, Dict. of Dates.
LOCUS, a place. (L.) ‘Locus, a place, room, or stead;’
Phillips, ed. 1706. He also gives instances of its technical use in
astronomy and philosophy.—L. Jocws, a place; a later form of OL.
stlocus, a place. Prob, allied to Skt. sthala-m, firm ground, also,
a place. Brugmann, i. ὃ 585. Cf. G. stelle, a place. See Stall.
Der. loc-al, q.v., loc-ate, al-locate, allow (1), col-locate, dis-locate, lieu,
lieu-tenant, loco-motive ; also couch.
LOCUST, a winged insect. (L.) In Kersey, ed. 1715, it also
means ‘a fish like a lobster, called a long-oister;’ see Lobster.
ME. locust, Cursor Mundi, 6041; Wyclif, Rev. ix. 3.—L. locusta,
a shell-fish ; also a locust. Doublet, lobster, q.v.
LODE, a vein of ore. (E.) In Halliwell. Also spelt Joad, as in
Carew’s Survey of Comwall, p. 10 (R.). An old mining term. The
lit. sense is ‘course.’ AS. dad, a way, course, journey ; 0x lade=in
the way, Beowulf, ed. Grein, 1. 1987. Teut. type */aida, f.; closely
allied to *laidjan-, to lead; see Lead (1).+Icel. eid, a lode, way,
course; Dan. /ed, a gate; Swed. Jed, a way, course. Der, lode-star,
lode-stone; also lead (1).
LODESTAR, LOADSTAR, the pole-star. (E.) Lit. ‘ way-
star;’ i.e. the star that shows the way, or that leads. ME. lode-
sterre, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 2061 (A 2059). Compounded of lode, a way,
course; and star. See Lode and Star.+4lIcel. leidar-stjarna ; from
leidar, for leid, a way, and stjarna, a star ; Swed. led-stjerna; G, leit-
stern.
LODESTONE, LOADSTONE, an ore that attracts pieces
of iron. (E.) ‘For lyke as the /odestone draweth unto it yron;’
Udall, on S. Mark, c. 5, v. 21. And see Robinson’s tr. of More’s
Utopia (1556), ed. Arber, p. 32. Spelt Jodestone, loadstone, in
Minsheu, ed. 1627. Compounded of Jode and stone, similarly to
lodestar ; see above.-+Icel. leidarsteinn ; from leidar, for Jeid, a lode ;
and stein, stone.
LODGE, a small house, cottage, cell, place to rest in. (F.—Low
L.—G.) ME. loge, logge; Chaucer, C. T. 14859 (Ὁ 4043); Seven
Sages, ed. Weber, 2603.—OF. loge, ‘a lodge, cote, shed, small
house ;? Cot. [Cf. Ital. Joggia, a gallery, a lodge. ] —Low L. Jaubia,
a porch; ef. /obia, a gallery. ‘We find in an act of A.D. go4, “In
palatio quod est fundatum juxta basilica beatissimi principis aposto-
lorum, in Zaubia .. . ipsius palatii ;”’’ Brachet (see Ducange).—Teut.
type *lanbja; cf. OHG. lowba (ΜΗ. loube, G. laube), an arbour,
a hut of leaves and branches. mOHG. laup (ΜΗ. loub, G. laub),
a leaf; cognate with E. Leaf, q.v. Der. Jodge, verb, ME. loggen,
Chaucer, C. T. 14997 (B 4181), Ancren Riwle, p. 264; from OF.
loger, ‘to lodge, lie, sojourne’ (Cot.); lodg-ing=ME. logging,
Chaucer, C. T. r5001 (B 4185); lodg-er; lodg-ment, in Kersey, ed.
1715. Doublet, lobby, q.v.
LOFT, a room in a roof, attic, upper room. (Scand.) See Bible
Word-book. ME. loft, Gawain and the Grene Knight, ed. Morris,
1. 1096. The proper sense of loft, is ‘air,’ as in Aloft, q.v. The
peculiar sense is Scand. — Icel. /opt (pron. loft), meaning (1) air, sky,
(2) an upper room, balcony; cf. the prov. E. sty-parlour as applied
to an attic; Dan. loft, a loft, cock-loft; Swed. loft, a garret.--AS,
lyft, air, sky, Grein, ii. 198; whence ME. 271, sky, P. Plowman, B,
xv. 3513 Goth. luftus, the air; Du. ducht [for luf/t], air, sky; G. Luft,
the air. Root unknown. Der. Joft-y, Shak. Lucrece, 1167, Rich. H,
lui. 4. 353 loft-i-ly; loft-t-ness, Isa. 11. 17; also left, q.v.; a-loft, qev.
LOG (1), a block, piece of wood. (K.) ‘A long Jog of timbre ;’
Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 54 5-ὀ ‘ Logges, buches;” Du Wes, Sup. to
Palsgrave, p. 914, col. 1. ME. logge (1398). An obscure word;
perhaps allied to prov. E. Jug, ME. lugge, a long stick, a pole. The
proy. E.Jvg also means a tree-trunk. Cf. E. clog. Der. log-cabin,
log-hut ; log-man, Temp. ili. 1. 67 ; logg-et, a small log (with dimin.
suffix -e/, of F. origin), Ben Jonson, Tale ofa Tub, A. iv. sc. 5, Puppy’s
5th speech ; Jogg-ats, another spelling of logg-ers, the name of a game,
Hamlet, v. 1. 100; Jog-wood, so called because imported in logs, for
which reason it was also called béock-wood, as appears from Kersey’s
Dict. and the Stat. 23, Eliz. ς. 9, cited in Wedgwood; also Jog (2),
q.v.3 logger-head, q. Vv.
LOG (2), a piece of wood with a line, for measuring the rate of
a ship. (E.) In Kersey, ed. 1715. The same as Log (1). But
Swed. ogg, a log (as a sea-term), whence Jog-lina, log-line, log-bok,
log-book, logga, to heave the log (Widegren), Dan, Jog, log-line, log-
bog, logge, Du. log, log-lijx, log-buek, loggen, do not seem to be 0
words, and were prob. taken from E. Der. log-board,~-book, -line. -reel.
-
|
A
i
| MDu. term, Latinised as Lollardus.
LOG
LOG (3), a Hebrew liquid measure. (Heb.) The twelfth part of
ahin. In Levit. xiv. το. ἡ Heb. log, a word which orig. signified ‘a
basin ;’ Smith, Dict. of the Bible.
LOGARITHYM, the exponent of the power to which a given
number or base must be raised in order to produce another given
number. (Gk.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674; and in Ben Jonson,
Magnetic Lady, A. i. sc. 1 (Compass). Logarithms were invented
by Napier, who published his work in 1614; Haydn. Coined from
Gk. Aoy-, stem of λόγος, a word, a proportion; and ἀριθμός, a
number; the sense being ‘ratio-number.’ See Logic and Arith-
metic. Der. logarithm-ic, -ic-al, -ic-al-ly.
LOGGER-HEAD, a dunce; a piece of round timber (in a
whale-boat) round which a line is. passed to make it run more slowly.
(E.) In Shak. it means a blockhead; L. L. L. iv. 3. 204. The
word evidently means much the same as log-head and is a similar
formation to block-head; the difficulty is to account for the syllable
-er. However, the prov. E. logger means a clog fastened to a horse’s
leg, to hamper its movements. See Log (1) and Head.
LOGIC, the science of reasoning correctly. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME.
Ingike, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 288 (A 286).—OF. logique, ‘ logick;’ Cot.—
L. logica (=ars logica), logic; properly fem. of logicus, logical. =
Gk. λογική (-- λογική τέχνη), logic; properly fem. of Aoyurds, belong-
ing to speaking, reasonable. Gk. λόγος, a speech. Gk. λέγειν, to
collect, gather, select, tell, speak. L. legere, to collect, select, read ;
see Legend. Der. logic-al, logic-al-ly, logic-i-an (Levins). Also
(from Gk. λογιστής, a calculator, λογιστικός, skilled in calculating),
logistic, logistic-al. Also logo-machy, a strife about words = Gk. Aoyo-
paxia, 1 Tim. vi. 4, from Gk. Adyo-, for Aoyds, and μάχομαι, I fight
or contend. From the same Gk. source we have numerous words,
as ana-logue, apo-logue, cata-logue, deca-logue, dia-logue, ec-logue, epi-
logue, mono-logue, pro-logue; also syl-log-ism; also log-arithm; also
ana-logy, apo-logy, elymo-logy, eu-logy; also all scientific terms in
-logy, such as bio-logy, concho-logy, &c. And (from λέγειν), dia-lect,
ec-lectic, lex-icon.
LOI, part of an animal just above the hip-bone. (F.—L.) ME.
loine, loyne; Prompt. Pary. p. 3 2; Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 191,
in a song written temp. Edw. 11. OF. loigne, logne (Godefroy), also
longe, ‘the loyne or flank ;* Cot. - Late L. *Jumbea (not found), fem.
of an adj. *Jumbeus, formed from L. Jumbus, the loin. 51 We may
note that the AS. Jendenu, pl. sb., the loins, is cognate with the L.
word; hence came ME. Jendis, leendis, the loins, in Wyclif, Matt. 111.
4, &c. See Lumbar.
LOITER, to delay, linger. (Du.) ‘LZoyter and goe a-begging;’
Tyndall's Works, p. 217, col. 1; see Trench, Select Glossary, where
the orig. bad sense of the word is noted; and see Palsgrave. ME.
loitren. ‘Loytron, or byn ydyl, Ocior;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 311.— Du.
(and MDu.) leuteren, to linger, loiter, trifle, waver ; also MDu. Joterex,
to delay, linger, act negligently, deceive, waver, vacillate (Kilian,
‘Oudemans) ; cf. MFlemish Jutsex, with the same senses (Kilian) ;
WFlem. Jutteren, to totter (De Bo) ; Norw. lutra, to loiter. Perhaps
allied to Lout. Der. loiter-er.
LOLL, to lounge about lazily. (ΕΔ ME. Jollen; ‘And wel
loseliche /olleth there’ = and very idly he lounges there ; P. Plowman,
B. xii. 213.‘ He that Jolleth is lame, other his leg out of ioynte,
Other meymed in som membre’ = he who lounges is lame, or his leg
is out of joint, or he is maimed in some member; id. C. x. 215.
See also id. B. y. 192; P. Plowman’s Crede, ed. Skeat, 1. 224. Cf
Teel. Jolla, ‘segniter agere,’ Halddrsson; MDu. lollen, to sit over
the fire. -‘ Wie sit en Jolé of sit en vrijt Verlet sijn werck, vergeet sijn
tijt’ = he who sits and warms himself, or sits and wooes, neglects his
work and loses his time; Cats, ed. 1828, i. 428, a; cited by Oude-
mans. Kilian also gives lollebancke, a sleeping-bench, as a Zealand
word. The older sense was prob. to ‘doze,’ to sleep, hence to brood
over the fire, to lounge about. It appears to be allied to Jull, i.e. to
sing to sleep; see Lull. Der. Joll-+r; and see Lollard.
LOLLARD, a name given to the followers of Wyclif. (MDu.)
The history of the word is a litle difficult, because it is certain that
several words have been purposely mixed up with it. 1. In the first
place, the ME. word most commonly in use was not Jollard, but
loller = one who lolls,.a lounger, an idle vagabond. ‘Ismelle aloller
in the wind, quod he;’ Chaucer, C. T. 12913 (B. 1173). That
‘lounger’ is the true sense of this form of the word, is clear from
ἃ passage in P. Plowman, C. x. 188-218, the whole of which may be
consulted. The most material lines are: ‘ Now kyndeliche, by Crist,
beth suche callyd Jolleres, As by englisch of οὔτε eldres of olde menne
techynge ; He that /olleth is lame other his leg out of ioynte Other
Meymed in som membre,’ i.e. such fellows are naturally called Jollers
in the English of our forefathers; he that Jol/s about is lame, or
broken-jointed, or maimed; see Loll. 2. At the same time, the
name Jol/ard was also in use as a term of reproach ; and this was a
It had been in use before
LOO 347
Wyclif. Ducange quotes from Johannes Hocsemius, who says,
under the date 1309: ‘Eodem anno quidam hypocritae gyrovagi,
qui Lollardi sive Deum laudantes vocabantur, per Hannoniam et
brabantiam quasdam mulieres nobiles deceperunt ;’ i.e. In this year
certain vagabond hypocrites, called Lollards or God-praisers, deceived
certain noblewomen in Hainault and Brabant. He adds that Tri-
themius says in his Chronicle, under the date 1315: ‘ita appellatos
a Gualtero Lolkard, Germano quodam.’ This latter statement makes
no difference to the etymology, since Lolhard as a surname (like our
surnames Fisher, Baker, or Butcher) is precisely the same word as
when used in the sense of ‘ God-praiser.’ The lit. sense is ‘a singer,’
one who chants. = M Du. dollaerd (1) a mumbler of prayers or hymns
(L. mussitator), one who hums; (2) a Lollard ; Kilian, Oudemans.
This is a mere dialectical variation of a form /ull-ard, formed regu-
larly from the MDn. Jullen (also Jollen), to sing, hum, with the suffix
-ard as in E. drunk-ard, slugg-ard, &c., denoting the agent. This
MDu. Judlen is our E. word Lull, q.v. Hexham has: ‘/od, or Jule,
a harmonious sound.’ 3. Besides the confusion thus introduced, it
was common to compare the Lollards to tares, by help of a bad pun
on the L. Jolia, tares; this has, however, nothing to do with the
etymology. See my note on Chaucer, C. T., B 1173, in the Prioresses
Tale, &c. (Clarendon Press). J Since /ol? and Jul are allied words,
it makes no very great difference to which verb we refer /oller and
Lollard; still Joller=loll-er, and Lollard =lull-er.
LONE, solitary, retired, away from company. (E.) Not in early
use ; the word does not appear in Minsheu or Levins, and I find no
example much earlier than Shakespeare, who has: ‘a poor lone
woman ;’ 2 Hen. IV, ii. 1. 35. It probably was at first a colloquial
or vulgar word, recommended by its brevity for more extended use.
It is known to be a short form of alone, as has generally been ex-
plained by lexicographers ; even Shakespeare brings it in as a pun:
‘a long loan for a poor Jone woman to bear.’ Observe: ‘I go alone,
Like to a lonely dragon;’ Cor. iv. 1. 30. Todd cites a slightly
earlier instance: ‘ Moreover this Glycerie is a Jone woman;’ Kyffin,
transl. of Terence, ed. 1588; but Palsgrave has‘ lone, onely, seul ;’ and
see P. Plowman, B.xvi. 20. See Alone. B. Other examples of loss
of initial a occur in the words mend, purtenance, limbeck, vanguard.
Der. Jone-ly, Cor. iv. 1. 30; lone-li-ness, Hamlet, iii. 1. 46; also lone-
some, spelt Jonesom in Skinner, ed. 1671; lone-some-ness ; also lone-ness :
‘One that doth wear himself away in Jone-ness,’ Fletcher, Faithful
Shepherdess, A. i. sc. 2 (Amarillis).
LONG (1), extended, not short, tedious. (E.) ME. long, Northern
lang ; Chaucer, C. T. 3021 (A 3019); Pricke of Conscience, ]. 632.
AS. lang, long; Grein, ii. 156.4-Du. lang; Icel. langr; Dan. lang;
Swed. lang; Goth. laggrs (=langrs); (ἃ. lang; L. longus. Brug-
mann, i. § 642. Der. long, adv.; long-boat, long-measure, long-run,
long-sight-ed, long-stop, long-suffering. Also a-long (1), a-long (2),
and be-long, verb (see N. E. D.). Also (from L. longus) long-evity,
q. Y., long-itude, q.v. Also length, q.v.; ling (1), q.v.; ling-er, q.v.,
lunge, q.v. Cf. lumber (1).
LONG (2), to desire, yearn; to belong. (E.) Often used with
for or after. Very common in Shak. ME. longen, longien. ‘Than
longen folk to goon on pilgrimages’=then people desire, &c. ;
Chaucer, C. T. 12. AS. langian, impers. vb. with acc. of person.
‘Langad pé awuht,’ dost thou desire ought? ‘ Heeled Jangode’ =the
heroes longed; Grein, ii. 157. [Distinct from langian, to grow long. ]
+OSax. langon, impers.; Icel. Janga, impers. and pers. ; OHG, lan-
gon,impers. Cf. G. verlangen, to long for. Not allied to long (1),
but rather to G. gelingen, to succeed, prosper; to AS. lungre, quickly ;
and Gk. ἐλαφρός, light, nimble. See Kluge ; and Brugmann, i. ἃ 684.
But the Ν. E.D. connects it with lomg (1). Der. long-ing, sb.;
long-ing, adj., lovg-ing-ly.
LONGEVITY, length of life. (L.) ‘In longevity by many con-
ceived to attain unto hundreds’ [of years]; Sir T. Browne, Vulg.
Errors, b. iii. c. 9. § I. Spelt longeuitie in Minsheu, ed. 1627.
Coined, by analogy with F. words in -ifé (=E. -ity), from L. longe-
μίξας, long life. = L. Jong-, stem of longus, long ; and euitas, full form
of the word commonly written @fas, age. See Long and Age.
LONGITUDE, lit. length; distance in degrees from a given
meridian. (F.—L.) ‘Longitudes and latitudes ;’ Chaucer, On the
Astrolabie, Prol. 1. 57.—F. longitude. —L. longitido (gen. longi-
tudin-is), length, long duration; in Late L., longitude. = L. longi-,
for longo-, 460]. stem of longus, long ; with suffix -tado. See Long.
Der. lnngitudin-al (from stem longitidin-) ; longitudinal-ly.
LOO, a game at cards. (F.) Spelt Zz in Pope, Rape of the Lock,
c. ili. 1. 62 (1. 350). Formerly called Lanterloo (Engl. Cycl.,Supp.).
‘Pam in Janteraloo;’ Farquhar, Sir Harry Wildair, ii. 2 (1701). =F.
lanturelu or lanturlu, inter}. nonsense ! fiddlestick! fudge! (Hamilton);
also a game at cards, jew de la bé'e (i.e. loo); see Littré and Hamil-
ton. [The more usual F.name for loo is moxuche.] B. The expression
was orig. the refrain of a famous vaudeville in the time of Cardinal
LOOBY
Richelieu (died 1642); hence used in order to give an evasive answer.
As the expression is merely nonsensical, it admits of no. further
analysis.
LOOBY, a simpleton, a lubber. (E.) ME. Joby, Rich. the Redeles,
ii. 170. Allied to Lubber, q.v.
LOOF, another spelling of Luff, q.v.
LOOK, to behold, see. (E.) ME. Joken, lokien; Chaucer, C. T.
1697. AS. locian, to look, see ; Grein, ii. 192. +OSax. lakdn, to look ;
cf. prov. G. lugen, to look out, OHG. luogén, MHG. luogen, to mark,
behold. Brugmann, i. § 421 (7). Der. look, sb., ME. Joke, Chaucer,
C. T. 3342; look! interj.; look-er, look-out, look-ing, look-ing-glass.
LOOM (1), a machine for weaving cloth. (.) In Spenser,
Muiopotmos, |. 272. ME. Jome, a tool, instrument; P. Plowman,
Ὁ. vi. 45; and see Prompt. Parv., p. 312. The pl. Jomen=implements
for tilling the soil, occurs in the Ancren Riwle, p. 384. AS. gelima,
a tool, implement, A‘lfred, tr. of Beda, iv. 28, ed. E. E. T.S., p. 366,
1. 23; cf. AS. and-loma, a tool, implement, utensil; Voc. 549. 9.
The mod. E. Joom has the sense of ME. weblome, a weaving loom ;
see Test. Eboracensia, i. 191; Records of Nottingham, ii. 22 (1404).
LOOM (2), to appear faintly or ata distance. (Scand.) The orig.
sense is to glimmer or shine faintly. Rare; and usually used of
aship. ‘Looming of a ship, is her prospective [appearance | or shew.
Hence it is said, such a ship looms a great sail, i.e. she appears or
seems to bea great ship;’ Kersey’s Dict. ed.1715. So also Skinner,
ed. 1671, who adds: ‘she Jooms but small,’ i.e. looks small. The
orig. sense may have been ‘to come slowly towards ;’ answering to
EFries. lomen, Swed. dial. Joma, to move slowly ; cf. MHG. Juomen,
to be weary, from the adj. Juomi, slack. Kilian has MDu. lome, slow,
inactive. From Teut. base dm-, 2nd grade of */am-, as in E. lame.
See Lame, Loon (2). Der. Joom-ing, sb.
LOON (1), LOWN, a base fellow. (E.) Spelt Joon in Macbeth,
v. 3. 11; lown in Oth. ii. 3. 95. The latter passage is ‘ he called the
tailor Jown,’ cited from an old ballad. In the Percy Folio MS., ed.
Hales and Furnivall, ii. 324, 1. 52, the line appears as: ‘therfore he
called the taylor clowne.’ Lowl. Sc. loun, used frequently by Dunbar
(see Small’s Glossary); see Joon in E.D.D. Cf MDu. Joen, ‘homo
stupidus ;” Kilian.
LOON (2), a water-bird, diver. (Scand.) A corruption of the
Shetland name loom; see Gloss. of Shetland Words by Ἵν Edmonds-
ton; Phil. Soc. 1866.—Icel. Jomr, a loon; Swed. and Dan. Jom;
Norw. lom. Prob. from the Jame or awkward motion of such birds
on land; cf. Swed. dial. Joma, EFries. lomen, to move slowly; see
Loom (2). For derogatory use of the names of birds, cf. booby, gull,
goose, owl, &c.
LOOP, a bend, a bend in a cord leaving an opening. (C.) Spelt
loupe in the Bible of 1551, Exod. xxvi. 4,5. The ME. loupe is also
used in the sense of ‘ loop-hole,’ but it is prob. the same word, denoting
348
1.1175. The pl. louwpis, loops, occurs in the allit. Troy-book (see
Glossary). Palsgrave has: ‘ Loupe in a towne-wall, creneau ; Loupe
to holde a button, fermeau.’ (ἃ. Douglas has lowpis, “En, bk. v. ch. 5.
66; and Jowpit, looped, id. 13. Jamieson has Lowl. Scotch Joops,
the windings of a river. The word appears to be Northern, and
borrowed from Gaelic. Gael. 2b, a bend, loop, noose, winding,
meander ; Juib, a fold, corner, or angle, a turn of a stream, a bending
of the shore; Macleod. Cf. Irish Jub, a loop, bow, staple, plait, fold,
thong, meander; and note the sense of ‘thong’ in Cath. Anglicum,
which has: ‘a Jowpe, Amentum.’ = Gael. and Irish Jub, to bend; cf.
Olrish lubtha, bent (Windisch). And see Macbain. Der. loop,
verb; Joop-ed, full of holes, K. Lear, iii. 4. 31; loop-hole, Shak. Lucr.
1383, the older term being ME. loupe, as above; loop-hol-ed. ga But
the N. E. D. connects /oop-hole with Du. luipen, MDu. lipen, to lurk
(hence, to spy).
LOOSH, free, slack, unfastened, unconfined. (Scand.) ME. αι,
loose, Chaucer, C. T. 4062 (A 4064); where the Camb. MS. has Jos,
and the Petworth MS. has louse. Spelt Jowse, Jousse, in the Ancren
Riwle, p. 228, note d. a. The form Jaws is Scand.; from Icel. lauss
(Swed. Dan. Jés); it is the Norse equivalent of ME. lees, false; see
Prompt. Parv. p. 298. The latter is from AS. /éas, (1) loose, (2) false ;
cognate with Icel. /auss, loose, vacant, Dan. and Swed. los, loose.
+0OSax. /ds, MDu. Joos, (1) loose, (2) false (Oudemans); the mod.
Du. separates the two senses, having Jos, loose, and Joos, false.
Further cognate words appear in Goth. /aus, empty, vain; G. Jos,
loose. Tent. type */ausoz; from */aus, 2nd grade of Teut. */ewsan-,
to lose. See Lose; and see Loosen. See Notes on E. Etym.,
p- 173. Der. loose-ly, loose-ness. Note that -less (AS. léas) is the
eommonest suffix in E.; see -less. And see Leasing.
LOOSE, LOOSEN, to make loose, set free. (E.) The suffix
-en is due to analogy with words like lengthen, strengthen, and has
been added. ME. Josen, lousen, lowsen; where the final x merely
LOSE
marks the infinitive mood, without having the causal force which is
implied by the final » at present. ‘The boondis of alle weren Jousid’
=the bonds of all were loosed; Wyclif, Acts, xvi. 26. From the
adj. above.+OSax. ldsian, ‘to make free.’ So also Du. Jossen, to
loosen, release; Icel. Jeysa, to loosen; Swed. Jésa; Dan. lose; G.
losen; Goth. lausjan; all from the adjective.
LOOT, plunder, booty. (Hindi.—Skt.) A modern term, imported
from India. Hindi /a¢ (with cerebral 2), loot, plunder. The cere-
bral ¢ shows that an r is elided. —Skt. Jé¢ram, short form of léptram,
booty, spoil. —Skt. /up, to break, spoil; the neut. pp./uptam is also used
in the sense of ‘ booty,’ like the deriy./optram; see Benfey, p. 798. —
AW REUP, to break; whence L. rumpere, G. rauben, and Ἐς rob. See
Rob, Rupture. Cf. Horn, Pers. Dict., § 608. 4 Thus /oot=that
which is robbed. Der. loot, verb.
LOOV ER, the same as Louver, q. v.
LOP, to maim, to cut branches off trees. (E.) In Levins, ed.
1570; and in Shak. Cymb. ν. 4. 141. Spelt Joppe in Palsgrave.
Ducange quotes loppare as an Anglo-Latin word ; Birch (Cart. Saxon.
ili. 240) has ‘ cet Joppede thorne;’ asif from an AS. verb loppian, to lop.
Der. lop, sb., small branches cut off, Henry VIII, i. 2. 96. And see
glib (3), left.
LOQUACIOUS, talkative. (L.) In Milton, P. L. x. 161. A
coined word, formed by adding -fous to L. logudc-, stem of loguax,
talkative. [Prob. suggested by the sb. loguacity, which had pre-
viously been introduced into the language from F. Joguacité,
‘loquacity;’ Cot. Loguacity occurs in Minsheu, ed. 1627.) —L. logui,
tospeak. Der. Joquacious-ly, -ness. Also loquac-i-ty, from Εἰ, loguactté,
which from L. acc. loguacitatem. From the same root are col-logu-ial,
e-logu-ence, ob-logu-y, soli-logu-y, ventri-logu-ist; also (like L. pp.
lociit-us) al-locut-ion, circum-locut-ion, e-locut-ion, inter-locut-ion, pro-
locutor.
LORD, a master, ruler, peer. (E.) ME. louerd (=loverd),
Havelok, 1. 96; gen. contracted to Jord, Chaucer, C. T. 47. AS.
hlaford, a lord; Grein, ii. 80. Fuller form hlafweard (misprinted
halfweard), Ps. civ. 17 (ed. Thorpe). B. Thus the word is a com-
pound, and the former syllable is AS, λα, a loaf. It also appears
that -ord stands for weard, a warden, keeper, master; whence hla/-
weard = loaf-keeper, i.e. the master of the house, father of the family.
See Loaf and Ward. The simple word weard is used nearly
synonymously with the comp. hlaf-weard; and cf. hord-weard, a
treasure-keeper, lord (Grein). Der. Jord, verb (gen. used with 1),
2 Hen. VI, iv. 8. 47; lord-ed, Temp. i. 2. 97; lord-ing (with dimin.
suffix -ing), Wint. Ta. i. 2. 62 - ΜΕ. lauerd-ing, Layamon, 27394;
lord-l-ing (with double dimin.), Bp. Hall's Satires, b. 11. sat. 2, 1. 12
=ME. louerd-ling, Layamon, 12664, later text ; lord-ly= ME. lorde-
liche, P. Plowman, B. xiii. 302; Jord-li-ness, Shak. Ant. v. 2. 161;
lord-ship = ME. lordeship, P. Plowman, B. iii. 206.
LORE, learning, doctrine. (E.) ME. lore, Chaucer, C. T. 529,
4424 (A 527, B 4). [The final e is unessential,, and due to the
frequent use of the oblique cases.] AS. Jar, lore; gen., dat., acc.
lare; Grein, ii. 158.4-Du. leer, doctrine; G. lehre, MHG. lére, OHG,
léra (whence Dan. Jere). Teut. type */aiza, f. ; cf. Goth. Jaisjan, to
teach ; Jaiseins, doctrine. From */ais, 2nd grade of */eisan-, to trace
out. See further under Learn.
LOREL,, a variant of Losel, q.y.
LORGNETTE, an opera-glass. (F.) ἘΝ lorgnette.—F. lorgner,
to spy.
LORIKEET, a small lory. (Malay; with Span. suffix.) From
Jory, q.V.; with dimin. suffix -keet, borrowed from parrakeet.
LORIMER, a maker of bits and spurs. (F.—L.) Also loriner;
both forms are in Blount’s Gloss. (1681). ‘Loremar that maketh
byttes;’ Palsgrave. -- OF. loremier, lorenier (Godefroy) ; Ἐς lormier.—
OF. lorain, tein, bridle, bit.— Late L. loranum, a rein, bit. L. lorum, τ
a thong.
LORIOT, the golden oriole. (F.—L.) ‘Loriot, a bird other- |
wise called a witwall;’ Kersey, ed. 1715.—F, loriot, ‘the bird called |
a witwall, yellowpeake, hickway;’ Cot. Corruptly written for —
Toriot, l’oriol, the prefixed J being the def. article (=L. ille). —
Cotgrave has: ‘Oriot, a heighaw, or witwall;’ also spelt Oriol, id. |
The latter form is the same as E. Oriole, q. v.
LORN, old pp. of the verb to Jose. (E.) See Lose, Forlorn. Ὁ
LORY, a small bird of the parrot kind. (Malay.) In Webster |
Also called Jury, and (better) nory, nury.— Malay lari, a bird of the |
parrot kind, also called niiri; Marsden’s Malay Dict., p. 311. Nuri, |
the lury, a beautiful bird of the parrot kind, brought from the |
Moluccas ; id. p. 350. i
LOSE, to part with, be separated from, (E.) The mod. E. lose Ὁ
appears to be due to confusion between three ME. forms, viz. (1).
losien, (2) lésen, (3) léosen. 1. Losien is recorded in Stratmann, p. 4055 |
it occurs in the sense ‘to be lost,’ or ‘to perish, as in O. Eng, |
Homilies, ed. Mortis, i. 117, ll. 28, 35; and in Layamon, 20538, it |
{
]
ῦ
——
LOSEL
is used exactly in the sense of ‘lose.’= AS. losian, to become loose,
to escape, Grein, ii. 194. From /os-, weak grade of Jéosan, to lose.
2. ME. losen, to loose, set free, is from the adj. ds, lous, loose; see
Loose. 3. The ME. /éosen, more commonly /éser, is in Stratmann,
at p. 394. This is the verb which invariably has the force of ‘ lose,’
but it should rather have produced a mod. E. leese. It is a strong
verb, with pt. t. lees, and pp. loren, lorn ; see Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1217,
3530; P. Plowman, B. v. 499. AS. -léosan, to lose; pt. t. /éas, pp.
loren; only used in comp. for-léosan, to lose entirely, Luke, xv. 4, 9,
Grein, i. 328.4 Du. -liezen, only in comp. ver-liezenx, to lose; pt. t.
verloor, pp. verloren; G. -lieren, only in comp. ver-lieren, pt. t. verlor,
pp- verloren; Goth. -liusan, only in comp. fra-liusan, to lose, Luke,
xv. 8, with which cf. fra-lusnan, to perish, 1 Cor. i, 18. β. All three
forms are from different grades of the Teut. verb */ewsan-, to lose ;
pt. τ. “laus, pp. *luzanoz. From the Teut. base LEUS, to lose,
become loose (Fick, iii. 273). This base is an extension of 4/LEU,
to set free, whence Gk. λύειν, to set free, release; L. Juere, to set free.
A still older sense, ‘to set free by cutting a bond,’ is suggested by
Skt. 2a, to cut, clip; Benfey, p. 799. 4 Note the double form of
the pp., viz., Jost, lorn ; of which lost ( =/os-ed) is formed from ME.
losten: but lorn (=lor-en) is the regular strong pp. of léosen= AS.
léosan. Der. los-er, los-ing ; from the same Teut. base are loose, vb.,
also spelt loosen, q.v., loose, adj.; leasing, q.v.; lorn, for-lorn ; loss,
q-v- From the root LEU we also have solve, solution, ana-ly-sis,
para-ly-sis, palsy.
LOSEL, LOREL, a worthless fellow, a scamp. (E.) In
Shak., Wint. Tale, ii. 3. 109. ME. lozel, P. Plowm. B. vi. 124; also
lorel, id., vii. 136. Cf. AS. los-ian, to perish. From Teut. *lus-,
weak grade of */eusan-, AS. léosan, to lose, of which the pp. was
lor-en (for older *los-en) ; whence lor-el. See Lose (above). The
sense is ‘devoted to perdition;’ for the suffix, cf. AS. wac-ol,
watchful.
LOSS, a losing, damage, waste. (E.) ME. Jos, Chaucer, C. T.
4447 (B 27). AS. los, destruction; ἐδ lose wurdon, i.e. perished,
/Elfred, tr. of Beda, lib. v. c. 9 (or c. 10). ONorthumb. Jos, Matt.
vii. 13 (Lindisfarne MS.). From Teut. *2us-, weak grade of */eusan-,
AS. /éosan, to lose; see Lose.
LOT, a portion, share, fate. (E.) ME. Jot, a share; Rich. Cuer
de Lion, 4262, in Weber’s Met. Romances. AS. hklot; Matt. xxvii.
35, Luke, xxiii. 34; also hlyt, Grein, ii. go. The AS. Alot, n. (Teut.
type *hklutom) is from hlut-, the weak grade of Teut. *hleutan-, AS.
hléotan, to cast lots, a strong verb.4-Du. lot, a lot; loten, to cast
lots; Icel. Aluti, a part, share; from the strong verb kljota, to obtain
by lot; Dan. lod, a lot; Swed. lott, a lot ; lotta, to cast lots. Cf.
also G. loos, a lot; loosen, to cast lots; Goth. klauts, a lot, Mark,
xv. 24; from Teut. *hlaut, 2nd grade of *hleutan- (above). Der. lot,
vb. ; lott-er-y, q.v.; al-lot, q.v.
LOTH,, reluctant; the same as Loath, q.v.
LOTION, a washing, external medicinal application. (L.) ‘Lot-
ion, a washing or rinsing ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Formed, by
analogy with F. words in -ion, from L. létio, a washing; cf. lotus,
pp. of lauare, to wash; see Lave. Brugmann, i. § 352 (3).
LOTO, LOTTO, the name of a game. (Ital.—Teut.) Modern;
the spelling /ofto is the correct Ital. spelling ; /ofo is a F. form of the
Ital. word.—Ital. Jof‘o, a _lot, lottery, Of Teut. origin; cf. OHG.
hléz (G. loos), a lot; see Lot.
LOTTERY, a distribution by lot or chance. (Ital. —Teut.)
In Levins, ed. 1570; and in Shak. Merch. Ven. i. 2. 32, ii. 1. 15.
=Ital. lotteria, lottaria, ‘a lottery;’ Torriano (1688). —Ital. lotto
(above). 4 The F. loterie is borrowed from Italian, but is in much
later use; thus it is omitted by Cotgrave, and Sherwood’s index to
Cotgrave only gives balotage, sort, as equivalent words to E, lottery.
LOTUS, the Egyptian water-lily. (L.—Gk.) ‘Zotos, or Lotus,
the lote-tree;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. Minsheu. ed. 1627, speaks of the
lothe-tree or lote-tree. It is spelt ote by Chapman, tr. of Odyssey, ix.
163.—L. lotus, l6tos.— Gk. λωτός, a name given to several shrubs;
(1) the Greek lotus; (2) the Cyrenean lotus, an African shrub, the
eaters of which were called Loto-phagi = Lotus-eaters, from Gk.
φαγεῖν, to eat; (3) the lily of the Nile; see Liddell and Scott. Der.
Loto-phagi; lotus-eater.
LOUD, making a great sound, noisy. (E.) ME. loud; more
common in the ady. form Joudé =loudly; Chaucer, C. T. 674, 15339
(A 672, B 4523). AS. hlad, loud, Grein, ii. 88.4-Du. Iuid; G. laut,
ΟΗΟ. hlut. B. Teut. type *hlidoz, for *hliithds (with accent on 0);
allied to the Idg. type *klutdés (with weak grade Alu) as seen in L.
-clutus, in comp. in-clutus, renowned; Gk. κλυτύς, renowned; Skt.
gruta-, heard, from ¢gru, to hear, Gk. κλύειν. 4/KLEU, to hear.
Brugmann, i. §§ 100, 113. Der. loud-ly, loud-ness ; from the same
Toot is cli-ent.
LOUGH, a lake. (Irish.) The written Irish form of Jock. = Irish
lock, a lake, lough, arm of the sea; see Loch.
LOW 349
LOUNGE, to loll about, move about listlessly. (F.—L.) In
Skinner’s Dict., ed. 1671; not before 1508. ‘A very flourishing
society of people called loungers, gentlemen whose observations are
mostly itinerant ;’ The Guardian, no. 124, dated Aug. 3,1713. The
verb seems to have been suggested by the term Jungis, defined in
Minsheu, ed. 1627, as meaning ‘a slimme, a tall and dull slangam,
that hath no making to his height ;’ and even as late as in Kersey,
ed. 1715, we find Jungis explained as ‘ a drowsy or dreaming fellow.’
It was once a well-known term, and occurs in Decker’s Satiromastix ;
Beaum. and Fletcher, Knight of the Burning Pestle, Act ii. sc. 3,
speech 1; Lyly’s Euphues and his England, ed. Arber, p. 325; and
the Play of Misogonus, written about 1560; see Nares and Halliwell.
=-F. longis, ‘a lungis; a slimme, slow-back, dreaming luske [idle
fellow], drowsie gangrill; a tall and dull slangam, that hath no
making to his height, nor wit to his making; also, one that being
sent on an errand is long in returning;’ Cot. Cf. Norm. dial. longis,
or seint-longis, a dolt, a slow fellow (Moisy). β. Littré supposes
that the sense of F. Jorgis was due to a pun, having reference to L.
longus, long; see Long. For, strictly, Longis was a proper name,
being the OF. form of L. Longius, or Longinus, the name of the
centurion who pierced the body of Christ. This name Longinus
first appears in the Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, and was
probably suggested by the Gk. Adyx7, a lance, the word used in
John, xix. 34; hence the Picard form Jongin, with the sense of F.
longis. See my note to P. Plowman, C. xxi. 82. See the word
Lunge, which is certainly due to L. longus. Der. loung-er.
LOUSE, the name of an insect. (E.) ME. lous, pl. lys or lis;
P. Plowman, B. v. 197, 198. AS. dis, as a gloss to L. pediculus ;
fElfric’s Gloss., Nomina Insectorum; the pl. form was /ys.--Du.
luis; Dan. lus, pl. lus; Swed. lus, pl. loss; Icel. lis, pl. lyss; G.
laus, pl. lause. All from Teut. *liis, fem. Cf. W. leuen, a louse;
Stokes-Fick, p. 256. Der. lous-y, lous-i-ness ; louse, v.
LOUT, a clown, awkward fellow. (E.) The lit. sense is ‘stoop-
ing’ or ‘slouching.’ In Levins; and in K. John, ii. 509, iii. 1. 220.
Sidney has: ‘this Jowtisk clown;’ Arcadia, Ὁ. i. (R.) From the
old verb lout, to stoop, bow: ‘he humbly /outed ;’ Spenser, F. Ὁ. i.
10. 44. ΜΕ. louten, to stoop, bow down; Chaucer, C. T. 14168
(B 3352); P. Plowman, B. iii. 115. AS. Jiatan, to stoop, str. vb.;
pt. τ. /éat; Grein, ii. 197.4-Icel. lata, to bow down; whence itr,
adj. bent down, stooping, which may have suggested our modern
lout; Swed. luta, to lean; Dan. Jude, to stoop. ‘Teut. type */utan-,
pt. τ. *laut, pp. lutanoz. Der. lout-ish, lout-ish-ness, loit-er.
LOUVER, LOOVER, an opening in the roofs of ancient
houses. (F.—Teut.) ME. lover, Prompt. Parv. p. 315; see Way’s
note. He cites: ‘A Joouer, or tunnell in the roofe, or top of a great
hall, to auoid smoke, fumarium, spiramentum;’ Baret. Also in
P. Plowman, C. xxi. 288; Romance of Partenay, 1175. In the
latter passage we find: ‘ At lovers, lowpes, archers had plente, To
cast, draw, and shete, the diffence to be’=it (the town) had plenty
of archers at openings and loop-holes, to cast, draw (bow), and
shoot.—OF. Jovier, a louver; see Godefroy, who has lovier, luvier,
lover, with three instances in which it is used to translate Late L.
lodium. = Romanic type */édarium, adj. form due to Late L. lédium,
a louver. (For the intercalated v, cf. F. pouvoir, from OF. pooir =
Span. poder.) B. The orig. sense was prob. an opening over a fire-
place; from Icel. 4/d0, n. pl. a hearth, a fire-place; ult. allied to
Icel. Alada, to lade, to pile, build up. See Lade. (See Academy,
Dec. 1894.)
LOVAGE, an umbelliferous plant. (F.—L.) In Levins, ed.
1570, and in Cotgrave. Spelt Joveache in Palsgrave ; and ab. 1400,
in Henslow’s Medical Works of 14th cent., p. 8, 1.18. From OF.
levesche (mod. F. livéche), ‘ common lovage, Lombardy lovage,’ Cot. ;
spelt livesche, lixvesche, luvesche, lovache in Godefroy ; cf. luvesche, as
in Voc. 555. 11, whence the E. form. Cf. Ital. levistico, lovage. = L.
ligusticum, lovage, a plant indigenous to Liguria; whence its name.
=L. Ligusticus, belonging to Liguria. —L. Liguria (prob. formerly
*Ligusia), a country of Cisalpine Gaul, of which the principal town
was Genua, the modern Genoa. Similarly, we have Etruscan from
Etruria [Etrusia?].
LOVE, affection, fondness, attachment. (E.) ME. love (with u
for v), Chaucer, C. T. 1137, 1161 (A 1135, 1159). AS. lufu, love ;
Grein, ii. 196. From the weak grade (*/ud) of Teut. base *leub-.
Goth. Jub; OHG, luba; cf. G. liebe, OHG. liupa, love; Russ.
liobov’, love; Skt. ldbha-, covetousness, Jubhk, to desire. Closely
allied to Lief. (4/LEUBH). Der. Jove, verb, ME. louen (=loven),
older forms Jouien, luuien, AS. lufigan, lufian, Grein, ii. 195; also
lov-able, lov-er (Chaucer, C. T., A 1347), lov-ing, lov-ing-ly, lov-ing-ness,
lov-ing-kind-ness; also love-ly, ME. Iuuelich, Ancren Riwle, p. 428,
1. 25; love-li-ness ; also love-less, love-bird, love-knot, love-lock, love-
lorn. Also be-love, ME. bi-lufien, to love greatly.
LOW (1), inferior, deep, mean, humble. (Scand.) ΜΕ. low, pl.
350 LOW
lowe ; Chaucer, Ὁ. Τὶ 17310 (H 361); older spellings /owk, Ancren
Riwle, p. 140,1. 2; dah, Ormulum, 15246, loogh (in the comp.
biloogh = below), Allit. Poems, B. 116. Late AS. /ak, in 1. 8 of The
Grave; in Thorpe’s Analecta, p. 153.—Icel. Jagr, low; Swed. lag ;
Dan. lav.4+Du. laag. BB. The orig. sense is “ that which lies down,’
or lies low (as we say). From Icel. /ag-, 3rd (pt. pl.) stem of liggja,
to lie. See Lie (1). Der. Jow-ness, P. Plowman’s Crede, ed.
Skeat, 1. 513 ; Jow-ly, Chaucer, C. T. 99, low-li-ness; low-er, vetrb=
to make or become more low, formed from the comparative of the
adj. (cf. better), Shak. Ant. i. 2. 129 ; low-church, low-land, low-lander,
low-spirited. Also be-low (=by low).
LOW (2), to bellow as a cow or ox. (E.) ME. loowen, lowen,
Wyclif, Job, vi. 5; Jer. li. 52. AS. hldwan, to bellow, resound ;
Grein, ii. 88.4-Du. loeijen, to low; MUG. luejen, OHG. hldjan, to
low. Cf. L. cla-mare, to exclaim, cry out ; Gk. κέτκλη- μαι, perf. pass.
of καλ-εῖν, to call. Der. Jow-ing, I Sam. xv. 14.
LOW (3), a hill. (Z.) In place-names; as Lud-low, Bart-low,
Trip-low. AS. hlaw,a hill, a slope; also spelt k/@w, Grein, ii. 81.
It also means a mound, a grave.4Goth. Alaiw, a grave, tomb ;
allied to Goth. klains, a hill. From Tent. base *hlai-, 2nd grade of
*hlei- (Idg. KLEI), to incline, slope. Hence it is related to L.
clinus, a hill; clindre, to lean; and E. lean, verb. See Lean (1).
LOW (4), flame. (Scand.) In Burns, The Weary Pund o’ Tow,
1. το. ME. lojzhe, Ormulum, 16185. —Icel. Jogi, a flame ; NFries.
Towe (Outzen); MDan. loge, Dan. lwe. From Teut. */uk, weak
grade of *leuh- (Idg. LEUK), to shine; allied to L. lux; see
Lucid.
LOWER (1), to let down, abase, sink. (E.) See Low (1).
LOWER (2), to frown, look sour. (E.) ME. louren, Chaucer,
C. T. 6848 (Ὁ 1266); P. Plowman, B. v. 132; spelt luren, K. Horn,
ed. Lumby, 1. 270. Not found in AS.+EFries. and Low G. liren,
to lower, frown, peer; MDu. loeren (with oe for a, Franck), ‘to
leere, to frowne;’ Hexham. Also (ἃ. lawern, to lurk, lie on the
watch; a sense which appears in the E. derivative Jur-k; see Lurk.
LOYAL, faithful, true. (F.—L.) Common in Shak.; as in Rich.
ΤΙ, i. 1. 148, 181.—F. Joyal, ‘loyall, faithfull, also lawfull;’ Cot.
—L. légalis, legal.— L. lég-, stem of Jex, law. See Legal. Doublets,
leal, legal. Der. loyal-ly, loyal-ty, loyal-ist.
LOZENGE, a rhombus; a small cake of flavoured sugar, &c.,
orig. of a diamond shape. (F.—Prov.—L.) Formerly spelt losenge;
and esp. used as an heraldic term, to denote a shield of a diamond
shape; see Romaunt of the Rose, 1. 893, where the OF. word is
also losenges. The word losenges in Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, 1317,
is prob. the same word. —OF. losenge, lozenge, ‘a losenge, a lozenge,
a little square cake of preserved herbs, flowers, &c. ;? Cot. Mod. F.
losange; Prov. lausange (Mistral). —OProv. lauza, Prov, Jauso (Gascon
luso), a square stone, a tomb-stone (Mistral); Low L. lausa, lauza,
the same. Allied to Span. /aude, a tomb-stone (Pineda). —L. acc.
lapidem, from nom. lapis, a stone, also a tomb-stone, grave-stone,
See Lapidary. 4 See N. and Q. 9S. x. 84. The phonology is
quite regular; the L. d, between two vowels, becomes OProv. z, mod.
Proy. 5, as in L. daudare, to praise, OProv. dauzar, mod. Prov. lausa.
With Span. laude< L.lapidem, compare Span, raudo, rapid< L.rapidum.
But /auza may represent an adj. form */apidea. Cf. also Span. losa,
a flag-stone, marble-slab, a square stone used for paving; whence
losar, to pave; OF. lauze, Port. lousa, a flat-stone, a slate for
covering roofs; all from Proy. Thus the word meant grave-stone,
square slab; and finally a flat square cake.
LUBBSER, a clumsy fellow, dolt. (E.) ME. lobre, lobur, P. Plow-
man, A. prol. 52; B. prol. 55; wheresome MSS. have Joby. Palsgrave
has: “1 lubber, I playe the lubber.? We find similar forms in Du.
lobbes, a booby; Swed. dial. Zubber, a thick, clumsy, lazy man (Rietz) ;
lubba, the same, from Jubba, v., to be slow or dull; MDnu. Jlobben,
ἐᾷ lubbard, a clown;’ Norw. Jubb, lbba, one of round thick figure,
lubben, short and thick. Cf. W. Zlob, a dolt, lubber; /Jabi, a strip-
ling, looby ; Pomeranian Jobhe, a lubber ; EFries. dobbe, ἰοῦ, a flabby
lump. Shak, has Job, Mids. Nt. Dr. ii. 1. 16, which is exactly the W.
word ; also to /ob down =to droop, Hen. V, iv. 2.47. Der. lubber-ly,
Merry Wives, v. 5. 195. And see Jump.
LU BRICATE, to make smooth or slippery. (L.) Used by Ray,
On the Creation, pt. ii. (R.) Kersey, ed. 1715, has lubricitate, to
make slippery. The adj. dubrick occurs in Cotgrave to translate F.
lubrique; and the sb. lubricity, for F. lubricité. = L. libricatus, pp. of
liibricare, to make slippery. = L. libricus, slippery (whence F. Jubrique).
Allied to Slip, q.v. Der. lubricat-ion, lubricat-or ; also lubricity =F.
lubricité, as above.
LUCE, a fish, prob. the pike. (F.—L.) ‘ Luce, fysche, Lucius ;’
Prompt. Parv.; and see Chaucer, C. T. 352 (A 350).—OF. lus,
‘a pike;’ Cot.—L. Jicius, a fish, perhaps the pike. φῶ It is
probable that /uce in Shak. Merry Wives, i. 1. 16, means a lonse,
by a pun upon the word; see note in Schmidt.
2
LUFF
LUCID, bright, shining, clear. (L.) ‘Lwcid firmament ;’ Spenser,
Mother Hubbard’s Tale, 1. 1259. [There is no MF. lucide in Cot.;
the E. word was taken directly from Latin.]=—L. Jicidus, bright,
shining. “ἰὸς, licére, to shine; L. lic-, stem of lux, light. From
o/LEUK or 4/REUK, to shine; whence also Skt. ruch, to shine,
ruch, light, Gk. λευκός, white, &c. Der. lucid-ly, lucid-ness, lucid-i-ty.
Also Luci-fer, Chaucer, C. T. 14005 (B 3189), from L. luect-fer
(bringer of light, morning-star), from L. Jicé-, decl. stem of lux, and
fer-re, to bring. Also lucent, Ben Jonson, Epigram 76, 1. 8, from
L. licent-, stem of pres. pt. of licére, to shine. Also lucubration,
q.v. From the same root we have du-nar, lu-min-ous, lu-min-ary,
e-lu-cid-ate, il-lu-min-ate, limn, pel-lu-cid, lu-s-trat-ion, il-lu-s-trate,
trans-luc-ent, lu-natic, lustre (1), lynx. And see Light (1).
LUCK, fortune, chance, good hap. (MDu.) ‘Lukke and good
happe ;’ Caxton, Hist. of Troye, leaf 216, back, 1. 7. Not found
in AS.—Du. luk, geluk, good fortune, happiness.+-MHG. geliicke,
good fortune; whence G. gliick (‘or gelitck). Prob, allied to G.
locken, MHG., locken, OHG. lokén, to entice, allure, decoy; cf. the
Shetland word duck, to entice, to entreat (Icdmondston). The
EFries. luk, Swed. lycka, Dan. lykke, are all from ἃ. Der. luck-y,
Much Ado, v. 3. 32; luck-i-ly, luck-i-ness, luck-less, luck-less-ly,. -ness.
LUCRE, gain, profit, (F.—L.) ME. ducre, Chaucer, C. Ὁ.
16870 (G 1402).—F. lucre.—L. lucrum, gain. Allied to Irish luach,
value, price, wages, hire; G. ohn, a reward; Gk. λεία, booty; Russ.
lov’, catching of prey, /ovite, to capture. All from 4/LEU, to win,
capture as booty; Fick, i. 755. Der. lucr-at-ive, from F. lucratif,
‘lucrative,’ Cot.<L. lucratixus, from lucratus, pp. of lucrari, to gain,
which is from lucrum., sb.; also lucrative-ly, -ness.
LUCUBRATION, a production composed in retirement. (L.)
‘Lucubration, a studying or working by candle light ;” Phillips’ Dict.
ed. 1706. Coined, in imitation of Εἰ. words in -tion, from L. licu-
bratio, a working by lamp-light, night-work, lucubration. —L. liicu-
brare, to bring in lamps, to work by lamp-light.—L. lacubrum,
a faint light (Isidore); formed from /Jic-, stem of Jux, light. See
Lucid, Light (1).
LUDICROUS, laughable, ridiculous. (L.) ‘Some Judicrous
schoolmen;’ Spectator, no. 191, 1.1. Formed (like arduous, &c.)
immediately from L. Jiidicrus, done in sport; by change of -us to
-ous.—L. lidi-, for ludo-, decl. stem of Jidus, sport.—L. lidere, to
play. Root unknown. Der. ludicrous-ly, -ness ; also (from lidere),
al-lude, col-lude, e-lude, de-lude, inter-lude, pre-lude; and (like pp.
liisus), al-lus-ion, col-lus-ion, de-lus-ion, il-lus-ion.
LUFF, LOOF, to turn a ship towards the wind. (E.?) The
pp. Joofed is in Shak. Ant. iii. 10. 18. ‘To oof, usually pron. to
luff ;’ Phillips’ Dict. ed. 1706. Shak. prob. took the word from
North’s Plutarch, since we find ‘he was driven also to loof off to
have more room’ in the description of the battle of Actium ; see
Shakespeare’s Plutarch, ed. Skeat, p. 212, note 1, The verb answers
to Du. Joeven, to luff, to keep close to the wind. ΒΒ. But the verb
is due to an older sb., found in ME. more than once. This is the
ME. lof, a ‘ loof, the name of a certain contrivance on board ship,
of which the use is not quite certain. We find it in Layamon,
11. 7859; 97443 the pl. being loves (=TJoves), 20949, 30922; see Sir F.
Madden’s remarks in vol. 111. p. 476 of his edition; and cf. OF. lof,
loef, louf in Godefroy, used in the same sense. See also Richard
Cuer de Lion, 1. 71; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, C. 106; Ancren
Riwle, p. 104, 1, 1 (though this passage is of doubtful meaning).
The word seems to have had different scnses at different times ; thus
the mod. Du. Joef is ‘ weather-gage,’ like mod. E. ἐμ; but Kilian
explains the MDu. loef by scalmus, i.e. a thole-pin. In Falconer’s
Marine Dict. we find Joof explained as ‘the after-part of a ship’s
bow ;’ whilst in Layamon and other passages in ME. we find (as
Sir F. Madden says) that it is ‘applied to some part of a ship, the
agency of which was used to alter its course.’ Sir 1. Madden quotes
from the Supplement to Ducange, s.v. dracena, which L. word is
used as equivalent to E. /oof, and explained by gubernaculum. The
reader should consult Sir . Madden’s note. The Joof was certainly,
as Mr. Wedgwood remarks, ‘a timber of considerable size, by which
the course of the ship was directed.’ It was not, however, what we
now call a rudder. CC. In my opinion, the passages in which the
word occurs go to prove that it was orig. a kind of paddle, which in
large ships became a large piece of timber, perhaps thrust over the
after-part of a ship’s bow (to use Falconer’s expression) to assist the
rudder in keeping the ship’s head right. D. In any case, we may
perhaps infer that the orig. sense was ‘ paddle ;’ and the word may be
an English one, though we may have also re-borrowed the word, in
the 16th century, from the cognate Du. Joef. Cf. also Dan. uy, luff,
weather-gage; Juve, to luff; Swed. lof, weather-gage; but these may
have been borrowed from Dutch. We find, however, the cognate
Bavarian Jaffen, the blade of an oar, flat part of a rudder (Schmeller).
| These words are further to be connected with Icel. fi, the flat hand,
|
]
|
|
LUG
Goth. 7éfa, the flat hand, palm of the hand, the Lowland Scotch
form being loof. ἘΠ. Recapitulating, we may conclude that the
flat or palm of the hand was the original /oof which, thrust over the
side of the primitive canoe, helped to direct its course when a rude
sail had been set up; this became a paddle, and, at a later time,
a more elaborate piece of mechanism for keeping the ship’s head
straight; which, being constantly associated with the idea of the
wind’s direction, came at last to mean ‘ weather-gage,’ esp. as in the
Du. loef houden, to keep the luff, de loef afwinnen, to gain the luff,
te loef, windward; &c. A similar idea is seen in L. palma, (1) the
palm of the hand, (2) the blade of an oar. The verb is from the
older 580. @ Napier’s Collection of Glosses contains the entry:
‘Redimicula, lafas;’ 5241; otherwise, Jof is unrecorded. We must
not connect Du. /oef, luff, with Du. lucht, air; nor with our own
word loft. Der. a-loof, q.v.
LUG, to pull, haul, drag. (Scand.) ‘ To dugge, trahere, vellere ;”
Levins. The old sense was ‘to pull by the hair.? In Gower, iii.
148 (bk. vii. 1892), we have: ‘ And be the chin and be the cheke
She duggeth him 1iht as hir liste,’ i.e. she pulls him by his beard and
whiskers as she pleases. So also : ‘ to-lugged of manye’ = pulled by
the hair by many people; P. Plowman, B. ii. 216.—Swed. lugga, to
pull by the hair; cf. Swed. dugg, the fore-lock; Norw. lugga, to
pull by the hair; Zugg, the hair of the head. β. Perhaps a variant
(with ἃ for g) appears in Low G. luken, to pull, esp. to pull by the
hair; Brem. Worterbuch, iii. 97; cf. prov. E. louk, to weed, pull up
weeds (see loukers =weeders, in Halliwell), from AS. diican, str. vb.,
to pull up weeds; cf. Dan. duge, the same. ‘ Ceorl of his zecere lycd
yfel weod monig’=a peasant lugs many an evil weed out of his field;
4Elfred’s tr. of Boethius, met. xii. 28.. Der. lugg-age (with F. suffix
-age), Temp. iv. 231. And see Lugsail. ὅτ The alleged AS.
geluggian, due to Somner, is unauthorised.
LUGSAIL, a sort of square sail. (Hybrid; Scand. and E.)
‘Lugsail, a square sail hoisted occasionally on a yard which hangs
nearly at right angles with the mast;’ Ash’s Dict., ed. 1775. [He
does not mention Jugger, which appears to be a later word ; the Dan.
lugger, Du. logger, a lugger, may be borrowed from E.] Apparently
from the verb to dug, it being so easily hoisted by a mere pull at the
rope which supports the yard. Der. dugg-er, a ship rigged with lug-
sails; unless the derivation runs the other way; in which case the
lugsail is named from the lugger, which may be from Du. logger,
‘slow ship,’ from Du. log, EFries. lug, slow. (Uncertain.)
LUGUBRIOUS, mournful. (L.) Spelt Jugubrous and lugubrious
in Kersey, ed. 1715 ; but Jugubrous only in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
Suggested by L. ligubris, mournful. —L. ligére, to mourn. Cf. Gk.
λυγρός, sad; prob. also Skt. rwj, to break, bend. Der. lugubrious-ly,
“ness.
LUKEWARM, partially warm, not hot. (E.) ‘Leuke warme or
blodde warme;’ Palsgrave. Luke means ‘tepid,’ and can correctly
be used alone, as by Sam Weller in Dickens, Pickwick Papers, ch.
33: ‘let me have nine penn’orth οὐ brandy and water Juke.’ It is
sufficient to trace this word alone. ME. leuk, leuke, luke, warm,
tepid. ‘ Als a Jeuwke bath, nouther hate ne calde;’=as a tepid bath,
neither hot nor cold; Pricke of Conscience, 1.7481 (Harl. MS.).
‘Tha blod com ford Juke’ =the blood came forth warm; Layamon,
27557. Not in AS. Cf. Du. leuk, lukewarm; EFries. lik, luke,
tepid, weak, slack. Root uncertain; see Du. Jewk in Franck.
q Distinct from the older word Jew, with the same sense, but perhaps
affected by it. ‘Thou art Jew, nether cold nether hoot;’ Wyclif,
Rev. iii. 16, where one MS. has Jewk. This Jew is closely allied to
AS. hléo, hleow, a shelter, a place that is protected from cold wind,
&c., allied to the mod. E. lee; see Lee. Der. luke-warm-ly, luke-
warm-mness.
GULL, to sing to rest, quiet. (E.?) ME. dullen, Chaucer, C. T.
8429, 9697 (E 553, 1823). Earlier, in Walter de Bibbesworth, 1. 9;
in Wright, Vocab. i. 143. Not in AS.--Swed. Julla, to hum, to lull;
Dan. Julle, to wii; MDu. Judlen, to sing in a humming voice, sing to
sleep; Oudemans; WFlem. lui/ex, the same; De Bo. B. Purely an
imitative word, from the repetition of Ju, Ju, which is a drowsier
form of the more cheerful /a/ la/ used in singing. Cf. G. lallen, to
lisp as children do, to babble (lit. to say Jala) ; so also Gk. λαλεῖν, to
speak. Der. lull, sb. ; lull-a-by; and see loll, loll-ard, lilt.
LUMBAGO, pain in the loins. (1... In Phillips’ Dict., ed. 1706.
=L. lumbaigo (a rare word), pain in the loins. = L. Jumb-us, the loin.
See Lumbar.
LUMBAR, belonging to the loins. (L.) ‘Lumbar or Lumbary,
belonging to the loins ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.—L. lumbaris, adj., only
found in the neut. /umbare, used as sb. to signify ‘apron;’ Jerem.
xii, I (Vulgate).—L. lumbus, the loin. Cf. AS. lendenn, pl. the
loins, Matt. iii. 4; Du. lendenen, s. pl.; Swed. land, Dan. lend, the
loin; G. Jende, the haunch. Root unknown. Brugmann, 1. § 360.
Der. (from L. lumbus) lumb-ago ; also loin, q. v.
LUNATIC 351
LUMBER (1), cumbersome or useless furniture. (F.—G.) See
Trench, Select Glossary, where we find: ‘The luwmber-room was
orig. the Lombard-room, or room where the Lombard banker and
broker stowed away his pledges. .. . As these would naturally often
accumulate here till they became out of date and unserviceable, the
steps are easy to be traced by which the word came to possess its
present meaning.’ So in Webster, Northward Ho, A. vy. sc. 1:
‘for though his apparel lie i’ the Lombard.’ ‘To put one’s clothes
to lumber, pignori dare ;’ Skinner’s Dict., ed. 1671. ‘Lombardeer,
an usurer or broaker, so called from the Lombards ... hence our
word lumbar, which signifies refuse household stnff. Lombard is also
used for a bank for usury or pawns ;᾿ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674 ; so
also in Fuller, Church Hist., II]. v. το. Minshen, ed. 1627, gives
Lumbar, Lombar, or Lombard, ‘a bancke for vsury or pawnes.’ He
also gives: ‘Lumber, old baggage of household stuffe, so called of
the noise it maketh when it is remoued, lumber, lumber, &c.;’ and
if any reader prefer this fancy, he may do so; see Lumber (2).
But, on the other hand, Butler uses Zumber to mean ‘money for
pledges;” as: ‘The /umber for their proper goods recover;’ Upon
Critics, 1. 94. And the word had reference to quite small articles ;
as ‘a brasse ladle, and other Jomber;’ Unton Inventories, p. 27.
‘A panne of brasse, with other Jombor;’ Will of Ια. Morton (1488);
pr. by E. M. Thompson. β. The Lombards were early known as
lenders of money on pawn; see P. Plowman, C. vii. 241, B. v.
242, and the note. — F. Lombard, ‘a Lombard ;’ Cot.; OF.
Lombart, a usurer (Godefroy). (It also formerly meant a pawn-
broker’s shop; Littré),—Late L. Longobardus, Langobardus ; for G.
Langbart, Long-beard ; a name given to the men of this tribe (Littré).
See Long and Beard. { Or the sb. may have been originally
due to the verb to /umber, to rumble, to move heavy furniture, make
a noise thus ; cf. dumber, v., in Palsgrave, and Swed. dial. lomra, to
roar. See N. E.D. The word may have been influenced by both
sources. See Lumber (2). Der. lumber-room.
LUMBER (2), to make a great noise, as a heavy rolling object.
(Scand.) ‘ The lumbering of the wheels;’ Cowper, John Gilpin,
st. 6 from end. ‘I dumber, I make a noise above ones head, Je fais
bruit. You lumbred so above my head I could not sleep for you;’
Palsgrave. ‘ They lumber forth the lawe;’ Skelton, Colin Clout,
1. 95. <A frequentative verb of Scand. origin; preserved in Swed,
dial. Jomra, to resound, frequent. of ljwmma, or ljomma, to resound,
thunder ; from Jjumm,a great noise; Rietz. [Similarly Jumber (with
excrescent δ) stands for lumm-er, where -er is the frequentative suffix. |
B. The Swed. Jjumm is cognate with Icel. kljomr, a sound, tune,
voice; but differs from AS, λίγη, a loud noise (Grein), in the suffix
and quantity. The Goth. hliuma means ‘ hearing;” Mk. vii. 35.
y. Swed. Yumm, Icel. iljémr, Goth. hliuma, are from the Teut. base
*hleu-, to hear; 4/KLEU. See Loud.
LUMINARY, a bright light. (F.—L.) ‘O radiant Luminary ;’
Skelton, Prayer to the Father of Heaven, 1, 1.—OF. luminarie
(Littré) ; later luminaire, ‘a light, candle, lampe;’ Cot.=—L. liimi-
nare, a luminary, neut. of limindaris, light-giving. — L. limin-, stem of
lumen (=*lac-men), light. Cf. L. liicére, to shine; see Lucid.
And see Luminous.
LUMINOUS, bright, shining. (F.—L.) ‘Their sunny tents,
and houses duminous ;’ Giles Fletcher, Christ’s Triumph after Death ;
11. st. 31.—F. lumineux, ‘shining ;’ Cot.—L. Jiimind.xs, luminous. = L.
lamin-, stem of limen, light; see Luminary. Der. luminous-ly,
-ness. Also (from L. liimen) lumin-ar-y, il-lumin-ate. See Lucid.
@ Perhaps taken directly from Latin.
LUMP, a small shapeless mass, clot. (Scand.) ME. lompe,
lumpe; ‘a lompe of chese’=a lump of cheese; P. Plowman, C. x.
150. Of Scand. origin; cf. Swed. dial. Jump, a piece hewn off a log
(Rietz) ; Norweg. Jump, a block, knop, stump (Aasen). B. Allied
words are Du. domp (MDnu. /ompe), a rag, tatter, lump; Dn. lomp,
clumsy, dull, awkward; EFries. Jump, clumsy, thick, vile, lumpy ;
Swed. and Dan. lumpen, shabby, mean. Perhaps allied to Limp (2)
by gradation ; cf. Dan. dial. ampe, Low G. lumpen, to limp. Der.
lump-ing ; lump-ish, Two Gent. ili. 2. 62; lunp-y, lump-fish. Also
lunch, q.v-
LUNAR, belonging to the moon. (L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.
{The older word was lunary, used by Cot. to tr. F. lunaire.] —L.
linaris, lunar. = L. lina (<*loucsna@), the moon, lit. light-giver. Cf.
L. lacére, to shine; see Lucid. Brugmann, i. ὃ 218. Der. (from
L. Tiina) lun-ate, i.e. moon-shaped, crescent-like ; Jun-at-ion, in
Kersey, ed. 1715; lun-at-ic, 4. v..; lun-ette, ‘in fortification, a small
work gen. raised before the courtin in ditches full of water,’ Phillips
=F. lunette, dimin. of F. lune, the moon. Also inter-lunar.
LUNATIC, affected with madness. (F.—L.) ME. lunatik,
P. Plowman, C. x. 107; used as sb. id. B. prol. 123.—F. lunatique,
‘Junatick ;’ Cot.—L. Jiiniticus, insane; lit. affected by the moon,
which was supposed to cause insanity. —L. /wxaéus, moon-like.
352 LUNCH
=—L. lina, the moon; see Lunar. Der. lunac-y, Hamlet, ii. 2. 49,
iii. I. 14.
LUNCH, a lump, large piece of bread, &c. (Scand.) ‘Lunches,
slices, cuts of meat or bread;’ Whitby Glossary. Minsheu (ed. 1627)
mentions lunch, as being equivalent to ‘ gobbet, or peece.’ ‘Cheese
an’ bread .. in Junches;’ Burns, Holy Fair, st. 23. Rietz has Swed.
dial. Junk, a ball of flour in broth. The word is a variant of Jump ;
just as bunch, hunch, are variants of bump and hump; see those words.
Similarly, Swed. Jinka,tolimp. Andsee Lump. Der.lunch-eon,q.v.
LUNCHEON, LUNCH, a slight meal between breakfast
and dinner. (Scand.) Lunch, in the modern sense, seems at first to
be an abbreviation of /uncheon, though we shall trace the latter back
to lunch in the sense mentioned in the article above. Cotgrave
translates OF. caribot by ‘a lunchion, or big piece of bread, &c. ;’
also OF. horion by ‘a dust, cuff, rap, knock, thump, also, a luncheon,
or big piece.” ‘A lunch, or a luncheon of bread;’ Gazophylacium
Anglicanum (1689). We may suspect the spellings Junch-ion, lunch-
eon, to be merely literary English for Junch-in. ‘A huge lunshin of
bread, i.e. a large piece ;’ Thoresby’s (Yorkshire) Letter to Ray,
1703 (E. Ὁ. 5. Gloss. B. 17, p. 103). And this Junchin is probably
nothing but Junching, with n for xg. At any rate, luncheon, lunchion,
or Junchin, is nothing but an old proyincial word, and a mere
extension of lunch, a lump, without, at first, any change of meaning.
It was easily extended to mean a slight meal, just as we now say ‘to
take a snack,’ i.e. asnatch of food. Quite distinct from Nuncheon,
q-v. Der. lunch, verb.
LUNE, a leash; as, the June of a hawk. (F.—L.) ‘Lunes, or
small thongs of leather;’ Strutt, Sports, bk. i. c. 2. § 9. Prob.
a variant of ME, loigne, the same; Rom. Rose, 3882.—OF. loigne,
longne,a lune. = Late L. Jongia,a thong ; formed from L, longus, long;
see Long. Cf. MF. longe, ‘a hawk’s lune or leash ;’ Cot.
LUNG, one of the organs of breathing. (E.) Gen. in the pl.
lungs. ME. lunge (sing.), Gower, C. A. iii. 100; bk. vii. 465;
lunges (pl.), id. 111. 99 ; bk. vii. 452. Also longes, pl., Chaucer, C. T.
2754 (A 2752). AS. lungen, fem. sing.; pl. lungena. ‘Pulmo,
lungen ;’ Voc. 160. 34; lungena, 306. 18.4-Du. Jong, s. pl., lungs,
lights; Icel. dunga, neut. sing.; usually in pl. Jungu; Dan. lunge ;
pl. dunger ; Swed. lunga; ας lungen, pl. B. Allied to AS. lungre,
quickly (orig. lightly), Grein, ii. 196; also to E. light (2), which is
allied to Gk. ἐλαχύς, Skt. laghu-, light ; see Light (2). Thus the
lungs are named from their lightness; indeed, they are also called
lights. Finally, lungs, light, levity are all from the same root. Cf.
also Russ. /egkoe, lung, as compared with Russ. legkii, light; Port.
Teves, lights, from Jeve, light. Brugmann, i. § 691. Der. lung-wort,
AS. lungenwyrt, Gloss. to Cockayne’s A. S. Leechdoms.
LUNGE, a thrust, in fencing. (F.—L.) In Todd’s Johnson ;
formerly Jonge, used by Smollett (Johnson). ‘I have my passees, ...
My longes;’ Dekker, Wonder of a Kingdom, A. i. sc. 1; spelt
longees, Butler, Hud. pt. iii. c. 1.159. The E. a Jonge is a mistaken
substitute for F. allonge (formerly also alonge), ‘a lengthening,’ Cot.
So named from the extension of the body in delivering the thrust. =
F. allonger (formerly alonger), to lengthen; cf. Ital. allongare,
allungare, to lengthen (Florio). Compounded of F. ἃ (L. ad) and
*longare, only in comp. é-longdre, to lengthen; see Elongate.
LUPINE, a kind of pulse. (F.—L.) The pl. is both Zupines and
lupins in Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxii. c. 25. ME. lupines, pl.,
Lanfranc’s Cirurgie, p. 88, 1. 20.—F. lupin, ‘the pulse lupines;’
Cot.—L. lupinum, a lupine, kind of pulse; neut. of Zupinus, wolfish,
though the reason of the name is not apparent; perhaps ‘ because it
exhausts the soil’ (Webster). —L. Jupus, a wolf; see Wolf.
LURCH (1), to lurk, dodge. (Scand.) Merely a variant of lurk,
due to a palatalised pronunciation; see Lurk. It means to lie in
wait, lurk; Merry Wives, ii. 2. 26. Der. lurch-er, ‘one that lies
upon the lurch, or upon the catch, also a kind of hunting-dog,
Phillips, ed. 1706; ‘false Jorchers,’ Roy, Rede Me, ed. Arber, p. 98,
Maze
LURCH (2), the name of a game. (F.—G.) The phr. ‘ to leave
in the lurch’ was derived from its use in an old game ; to lurch is
still used in playing cribbage. ‘ But rather leave him in the lurch ;’
Butler, Hudibras, pt. ii. c. 3.1. 1151. The game is mentioned in
Cotgrave.—F. lourche, ‘the game called Lurche, or, a Lurch in
game; il demoura lourche, he was left in the lurch;’ Cot. He also
gives: ‘ Ourche, the game at tables called lurch.’ B. This suggests
that Jourche stands for l’ourche, the initial 1 being merely the def.
article ; but this is doubtful, as we find also Ital. Jurcio, ‘the game
lurch;’ Torriano. sy. Apparently from OF. lourche, deceived,
duped (Godefroy). —Bavar. lurzen, to deceive; Jurz, left (of the
hands), perverse, beaten at draughts; Schmeller, i. 1503. Der.
lurch, v., to cheat, rob; see Coriolanus, ii. 2. 105.
LURCH (3), to devour; obsolete. (F.?—G.?) Bacon says that
proximity to great cities ‘Jurcheth all provisions, and maketh every
LUSTRE
| thing deare;’ Essay xlv, Of Building. That is, it absorbs them,
lit. gulps them down. ‘ To lurch, deuour, or eate greedily, Ingur-
gito;’ Baret, Alvearie. ‘ Lurcher, an exceding eater;’ Palsgrave.
Perhaps a peculiar use of lurch (2), as if to devour before others.
Cf. ‘I lurtche, as one dothe his felowes at meate with etynge to
hastyly ;’ Palsgrave. But influenced by Ital. Jurcare, to lurch or
devour greedily;’ Torriano; Late L. lurca@re, to devour greedily ; L.
lurcari, the same; L. Jurco, a glutton.
LURCH (4), a sudden roll sideways. (Scand.?) Not in Todd’s
Johnson. ‘A Jee lurch, a sudden jerky roll of a ship to the leeward,
as when a heavy sea strikes her on the weather side ;’ Cent. Dict.
A sea term. Of obscure origin; but probably due to lurch (1) in
the sense of to stoop or duck like one who skulks or tries to avoid
notice. See Lurch (1).
LURE, a bait, enticement, decoy. (F.—G.) ME. lure, Chaucer,
C. T.17021(H 72). The pp. lured, enticed, occurs in P. Plowman,
B. v. 439; cf. Chaucer, C. T. 5997 (Ὁ 415). A term of the chase;
and therefore of F. origin. OF. loerre, loirre (see Littré), later Jeurre,
“a faulconer’s lure;’ Cot.—Teut. type *Jd¢hrom, n.; as in MHG.
luoder (G. luder), a bait, decoy, lure. Der. lure, vb.
LURID, wan, gloomy. (L.) ‘Lurid, pale, wan, black and blew;’
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. liiridus, pale, yellow, wan, ghastly.
Prob. allied to Gk. χλωρός, green (Prellwitz) ; see Chlorine.
LURK, to lie in wait, skulk, lie hid. (Scand.) ME. lurken, lorken,
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 16126 (ἃ 658) ; P. Plowman, Β. ii. 216. Of Scand.
origin. = Norw. lurka, to sneak away, to go slowly; Swed. dial.
lurka, to do anything slowly; EFries. /urken, to shuffle along. B. The
τὰ appears to be a suffix; cf. Norw. and Swed. dura, Dan. lure, to
lurk, outwit, G. Jauern, to lurk. See Lower (2). Doublet, lurch
(1); perhaps lurch (4).
LURY, the same as Lory, q. v.
LUSCIOUS, delicious, very sweet, fulsome, nice. (F.—L.?)
Also spelt Jushious, Spenser, F. Q. ii. 12. 54; and in Skinner.
Wedgwood cites from Palsgrave: ‘ Fresshe or Jussyouse, as meate
that is nat well seasoned or that hath an unplesante swetnesse in it,
fade.’ ‘The strong may eate good Jooshiouse meate;’ Drant, tr. of
Horace, bk. ii. sat. 4 (1566). It seems to be formed from prov. E.
lush, sweet, juicy, abundant, said of vegetation (E.D. D.). Β. Possi-
bly influenced by ME. Jucius, variant of Jicius, short for delictous ; as
in ‘ with Jucius drinkes ;’ Robson, Three Met. Romances, p. 17; cf.
‘with licius drinke,’ id. p. 38. So also: ‘licious quails ;’ Bp. Hacket,
Cent. of Sermons, fol. p. 515. And it may also have been influenced
by ME. lusty, pleasant. ‘How lush and lusty the grass looks ;’
Temp. ii. 1.52. See Lush. Der. luscious-ness.
LUSH, fresh, luxuriant, juicy, said of vegetation. (F.—L.)
‘ Then green and voyd of strength and Jush and foggy is the blade;’
Golding, tr. of Ovid, Metam. xv. leaf 182 (1603). Cf. Tempest, ii.
1. 52. A parallel form to /Jash, relaxed, tender, soft and watery
(E. D.D.). And see N. E.D.=—MF. lasche, ‘slack, flagging, weak ;’”
Cot. —MF, lascher (F. lacher), to slacken. Late L. */ascare, for L.
laxire, to slacken. L. laxus, lax; see ax.
LUST, longing desire. (E.) The old sense is ‘ pleasure.’ ME.
lust, Chaucer, C. T. 192. AS. lust, pleasure; Grein, ii. 196.4-Du.
lust, delight ; Icel. lyst, losté; Dan. lyst; Swed. lust; Goth. lustus;
G. lust. Allied to Skt. lash, to desire; Gk. λιλαίομαι. Brugmann,
i. § 518 (2). Der. dust, verb, K. Lear, iv. 6. 166, the older form
being list= AS. lystan; lust-y, ME. lust-y, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 80; lust-i-ly,
lust-i-ness; lust-ful, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 80; Just-ful-ness, O. Eng.
Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 21 ; Jist-less (=TIust-less), Gower, C. A. il.
111, bk. iv. 3262 ; Prompt. Parv. p. 307; Jist-less-ness.
LUSTRATION, a purification by sacrifice, a sacrifice. (L.)
©The doctrine of Justrations, amulets, and charms ;’ Sir T. Browne,
Vulg. Errors, b. i. c. 11. sect. 12. Formed, by analogy with F.
words in -tion, from L, Justratio, an expiation, sacrifice. L. lustrare,
to purify. —L. dustrum, an expiatory sacrifice. See Lustre (2).
LUSTRE (1), splendour, brightness. (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘ Lustre of
the dyamonte;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 736. Spelt /uster in
Minsheu, ed. 1627.—F. lustre, ‘a luster, or gloss;’ Cot.—Ital.
lustro, ‘a lustre, a glasse, a shining ;’ Florio; cf. Late L. lustrum,
a window ; lit. a place for admitting light ; connected with L. /ustrare,
to enlighten, illumine. B. This verb Justrire appears to be quite
distinct from Justrare, to purify; for which see Lustre (2). It is
prob. formed from a lost adjective */ustrus, shining, an abbreviation
of *lic-strus; in any case, it is to be connected with Jacére, to shine;
see Lucid. Der. lustr-ous, All's Well, ii. 1. 41 ; lustrous-ly ; lustre=
less; also lutestring. αν.
LUSTRE (2), LUSTRUM, a period of five years. (F.—L.)
Spelt Justrum in Minsheu, ed. 1627; which is the L. form. In |
Du Wes, Sup. to Palsgrave, p. 1078, we find the pl. Justres, both E.
and F.=OF. and F. lusire, ‘a tearm οἵ... fifty months;’ Cot.=L.
Tustrum, an expiatory offering, a lustration; also a period of five |
LUTE
years, because every five years a lustrum was performed. β. The
orig. sense is ‘a washing’ or purification ; connected with L. luere,
to cleanse, purify, and Jaudre, to wash; see Lave. Der. lustr-al,
adj.; lustr-at-ion, q.v.
LUTE (1), a stringed instrument of music. (F.—Proy. —Span.—
Arab.) ME. lute, Chaucer, C. T. 12400 (C 466). It is not easy to
say how the word came to us; but prob. it was through the French,
viz. OF. εμέ. = Prov. laut,.—Span, laud. Arab. al ‘iid (below). The
forms are: OF, /eut, pl. leus (Hatzfeld); MF. lut (Cot.), mod. F.
luth; Prov. laut, Span. laud, Port. alaude, Ital. liuto, leuto; also
MDnu. Juyte (Kilian), Du. uit, Dan. lut, G. laute. B. The Port.
form alaude clearly shows the Arab. origin of the word, the prefix al-
being the Arab. def. article, which in other languages appears merely
as an initial 2, Thesb. is Arab. ‘ad (with initial ain), wood, timber,
the trunk or branch of a tree, a staff, stick, wood of aloes, lute, or
harp; Rich. Dict. p. 1035, col. 1. Der. lute-string, Much Ado, iii.
2.61; and in Palsgrave.
LUTE (2), a composition like clay, loam. (F.—L.) Chaucer has
enluting, Six-text, Group G, 1. 766, on which see my note. We also
find the pp. luted, i.e, protected with lute; see Bacon, Nat. Hist.
§ 99; Massinger, A Very Woman, iii. 1. 38. —OF. lut, ‘clay, mould,
loam, durt ;’ Cot.=—L,. Jutwm, mud, mire ; lit. that which is washed
over or washed down. =—L. luere, to wash, lave; see Lave. Der.
lut-ing.
LUTESTRING, a lustrous silk. (F.—Ital.—L.) In Skinner,
ed. 1671. ‘The price of lutestring;’ Spectator, no. 21. A curious
corruption of Justring or lustrine. ‘Lustring or Lutestring, a sort of
silk;’ Kersey.=—F. lustrine, lustring; Hamilton. = Ital. ustrino, lute-
string (a shining silk), tinsel; Meadows. β. So called from its
glossiness, Ital. lustrare, to shine. — L. lustrare, to shine; see
Lustre (1). és Distinct from Jute-string under lute (1).
LUXATION, dislocation. (F.—L.) In surgery.—F. luxation,
‘a luxation; a being out of joint;’ Cot.—L. luxdtidnem, acc. of
luxatio, a dislocation. — L. luxare, to dislocate. — L. luxus, adj., out of
joint. Cf. Gk. Aogés, bent sideways, oblique. Brugmann, ii. § 635.
Der. luxate (Davies) ; from pp. luxdt-us.
LUXURY, free indulgence in pleasure, a dainty. (F.—L.)
ME, Juxurie, Chaucer, C. T. 12418 (C 484).—AF. luxurie, Phil. de
Thaun, Bestiary, 566; F. luxure, ‘luxury;’ Cot.—L. luxuria, luxury.
An extended form from L. luxus, pomp, excess, luxury. Der. luxuri-
ous, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, Ὁ. i. pr. 4, 1. 2243 luxuri-ous-ly, -ness ;
luxuri-ate, from L. luxuridtus, pp. of luxuriare, to indulge in luxury;
luxuri-ant, Milton, P. L. iv. 260, from L. /uxuri-ant-, stem of pres.
pt. of luxuridre ; luxuri-ant-ly, luxuri-ance, luxuri-anc-y.
_ -LY, a common adj. and adv. ending. (E.) As an adj. ending, in
man-ly, &c.; the AS. form is -lic. As an adv. ending, the AS. form
is -lice. The suffix -lic is the same word as AS. lic, like; see Like.
_LYCANTHROPY, a belief in werwolves. (Gk.) From Gk.
λυκανθρωπία, a madness in which one imagines himself a wolf. —Gk.
λυκάνθρωπος, a man-wolf, werwolf.—Gk. Ave-os, a wolf; ἄνθρωπος,
aman. See Wolf. Der. From Gk. λύκος we also have lyco-podium,
‘a genus of cryptogamous plants; where -podinm is from Gk, ποδ-,
from πούς, the foot; from the claw-like shape of the root; N. E. Ὁ.
LYDDITE, an explosive. (E.) Named from Lydd, a place in
Kent; see N. and Q., 9S. ν. 185 (1900).
LYE, a mixture of ashes and water, water impregnated with alka-
line salt imbibed from wood-ashes. (E.) ‘Ley for waschynge, lye,
leye, Lixivium ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 2943; Je3e, dat., Ayenbite of
Inwyt, p. 145, 1. 22. AS. léak, f., gen. léage, ‘lie, lee’ [lye], AS.
Leechdoms, ii. 338, 397.4+Du. Joog ; G. lange, OHG. louga. ‘Teut.
type *lauga, f. Ββ. Further allied to Icel. laug, a bath; from
-a Teut. base LAU, to wash, akin to L. laudre, to wash; see Lave
and Lather.
: LYM, alime-hound. (F.—L.) In Shak., K. Lear, iii. 6. 72.
for lime-hound, q. v.
LYMPH, a colourless fluid in animals. (L.) A shortened form
of lympha, the older term. ‘Lympha, a clear humour ;’ Kersey, ed.
| .1715.—L. lympha, water, lymph; also, a water-nymph. β, The
spelling with y is due to a supposed derivation from the Gk. νύμφη,
a nymph, which is false. The word is rather to be spelt limpa,
lumpa, and to be connected with L. limpidus, clear ; see Lrimpid.
Brugmann, i. §§ 102, 763 (b). Der. lymph-at-ic, Evelyn’s Diary,
| Jan. το, 1657; from F. lymphatique (Cot.), L. Lymphiticus.
LYNCG, to punish summarily, by mob-law. (E.) Not from
| John Lynch (Haydn), but from Charles Lynch, his brother, a Virginia
| planter (1736-96), who ‘undertook to protect society .. in the
| Tegion where he lived, on the Staunton river, by punishing with
| Stripes or banishment such lawless or disaffected persons as were
acensed.’—Cent. Dict. The name Lynch is from AS. hlinc, a ridge
| of land; see Link (1). Der. lynch-law.
L y a keen-sighted quadruped. (L.—Gk.)
Short
ME. lynx; Ayen-
MACE 353
bite of Inwyt, ed. Morris, p. 81, 1. 6.—L. lynx. ὦ Gk. Avyé, a lynx;
allied to λεύσσειν (for *Aeve-yew), to see, λεύκος, bright, and named
from its bright eyes.—4/REUK, to shine; cf. Skt. ruch, to shine,
loch, to see. The corresponding Teut. base is LEUH, to shine,
whence G. luchs, Swed. lo, OSax. lohs, Du. losch, AS. lox, a lynx.
Cf. also Lith. Juszis, a lynx, Russ. ruise, Polish rys, and prob. Zend
raozha. See A Student’s Pastime, p. 393. See Lucid. Der.
lynx-eyed.
LYRE, a stringed musical instrument. (F.—L.—Gk.) In
Milton, P. L. iii. 17; he also has lyrick, P. R. iv. 257.—F. lyre,
‘a lyra [sic], or harp ;’ Cot.—L. lyra. — Gk. λύρα, a lyre, lute. Der.
lyre-bird ; lyr-ic, spelt liricke in Sir P. Sidney, Apol. for Poetry, ed.
Arber, p. 45, last line ; lyr-ic-al, lyr-ic-al-ly, lyr-ate.
M
MACADAMISE, to pave a road with small, broken stones.
(Hybrid; Gael. and Heb. ; with F. suffix.) ‘Macadamising, a system
of road-making devised by Mr. John Macadam, and published by
him in an essay, in 1819,’ &c.; Haydn, Dict. of Dates. Macadam =
son of Adam; from Gael, mac, son; and Heb. adam, a man, from
the root adam, to be red.
MACARONI, MACCARONI, a paste made of wheat flour.
(Ital.—L.) ‘He doth learn to make strange sauces, to eat an-
chovies, maccaroni, bovoli, fagioli, and caviare;’ Ben Jonson,
Cynthia’s Revels, A. ii (Mercury). ‘ Macaroni, gobbets or lumps of
boyled paste,’ &c.; Minsheu, ed. 1627.—MItal. maccaroni, ‘a kinde
of paste meate boiled in broth, and drest with butter, cheese, and
spice;’ Florio, The mod. Ital. spelling is maccheroni, properly the
plural of maccherone, used in the sense of a ‘macarone”’ biscuit.
B. Of somewhat doubtful origin; but prob. to be connected with
Mital. maccare, ‘to bruise, to batter,’ i.e. to pound; cf. Ital. macco,
‘a kind of dish made of beans boiled to a mash;’ Torriano.—L.
mac-, base of mdcerdre, to macerate. See Macerate. y. Thus the
orig. sense seems to have been ‘pulp;’ hence anything of a pulpy
or pasty nature. Der. Macaron-ic, from Εἰ. macaronique, ‘a maca-
ronick, a confused heap or huddle of many severall things’ (Cot.),
so named from macaroni, which was orig. a mixed mess, as described
by Florio above. Cf. Ital. maccheronea, ‘Macaronics;’ Baretti.
The name macaroni, according to Haydn, Dict. of Dates, was given
to a poem by Theophilo Folengo (otherwise Merlinus Coccaius) in
1509; macaronic poetry is a kind of jumble, often written in a
mixture of languages, And see macaroon. Maccaroni, a fop, a
dandy, belongs here. Garrick has ‘ rake and maccaroni ;’ Bon Ton,
A. i. sc. 1 (Sir J. Trotley). Florio has: ‘maccarone, a gul, a dolt,
a loggerhead ;’ so that the E. word for ‘fop’ should have ended in
-e. See the long extract under macaroni in Davies, Suppl. Glossary.
MACAROON, a kind of cake or biscuit. (F.—Ital.—L.) In
Albumazar, A. ii. sc. 3 (Davies). Formerly macaron, as in Cotgrave.
=F. macaron; pl. macarons, ‘macarons, little fritter-like buns, or
thick losenges, compounded of sugar, almonds, rose-water, and
musk, pounded together and baked with a gentle fire; also [the
same as] the Ital. macaroni;’ Cot.—Ital. macarone, a macaroon.
See further under Macaroni. ἅτ The sense of the word has
been somewhat altered.
MACAW, a kind of parrot. (Brazil.) Gay has mockaw, The
Toilette, 1. 9. Spelt maccaw by Willughby, Ornithologia (1676),
p- 733; but mackao by Charleton, Onomasticon (1668), p. 66. --
Brazil. macao; see Macaw in Newton, Dict. of Birds.
MACK (1), a kind of club, (F.—L.) In early use. ME. mace,
King Alisaunder, 1901.— AF. mace, Stat. Realm, i. 231; OF. mace,
mache (Burguy), mod. F. masse, a mace.—L. *matea, a beetle, only
preserved in the dimin. mateola, a beetle, mallet; Pliny, 17. 18. 29.
Korting, ὃ 6000. Der. mace-bearer.
MACE (2), a kind of spice. (F.—L.—Gk.) <A pl. form maces
occurs in Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. ii. c. 10; cf. ‘item,
in maces;’ Earl of Derby’s Expedition, 1392-3; p. 221, 1. 25.—AF.
maces, Liber Albus, p. 230.—F. macis, ‘the spice called mace;’
Cot.; OF. macis, maceis, maceys (Godefroy); so that the E, form
should be maces, sing., not plural. B. The etym. is very obscure ;
the L. macis or maceis (gen. maccidis) is a doubtful word, the name of
a fictitious spice in Plautus (Lewis). It is possible that the F.
macts was confused with OF. macer, of which Cot. says that it ‘is
not mace, as many imagine, but a reddish, aromaticall, and astringent
tind of a certain Indian root.” This OF. macer is the word con-
cerning which we read in Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xii. c. 8, that ‘the
macir is likewise brought out of India; a reddish bark or rind it is of
a great root, and beareth the name of the tree itselfe.”, Cf. L. macir,
Aa
854 MACERATE
i.e. ‘macir;” Pliny.—Gk. μάκερ; doubtless a borrowed word from
the East.
MACERATE, to soften by steeping, to soak. (L.) In Spenser,
Virgil’s Gnat, 1. 94.—L. mdceraius, pp. of mdcerare, to steep; a
frequentative from a base médc-; from an Idg. base *mak. Der.
macerat-ton.
MACHICOLATION, an opening in the floor of a projecting
gallery of a tower, for pouring down molten lead and the like. (Low
L.) Coined from Late L. machicolare, to provide with machi-
colations; cf. MF. machecoulis, maschecoulis, ‘ the stones at the foot of
a parapet (especially over a gate) resembling a grate, through which
offensive things are thrown upon assailants;’ Cot. Of uncertain
origin; perhaps from MF. mache-, as in MF. mache-rave, ‘a turnip-
eater,’ Cot., and other words, but here meaning ‘ bruising’ or ‘killing;’
and OF. coléis, MF. coulis, adj., gliding, or as sb., a groove; L. type
*cOlaticius, from colare, to strain; see Cullisand Portcullis. Here
mache- (F. mache-) is from the OF. mascher, macher, to chew, also
used in the sense of to crush, to murder (see OF. mascher in Gode-
froy). Hence it may mean ‘a groove for crushing foes.’ The OF.
mascher is from L. masticare; see Masticate.
MACHINE, a contrivance, instrument. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak.
Hamlet, ii. 2. 124; first in 1549.—F. machine. =—L. machina. =Gk.
μηχανή, a device, machine ; cf. μῆχος, means, contrivance. B. From
the base μηχ, 2nd grade of the Idg. 4/MAGH, Teut. MAG, to
have power; whence also the Εἰ, verb may; Curtius, i. 416. See
May (1). Der. machin-er-y, machin-ist ; machin-ate, from L. machi-
natus, pp. of machinari, to contrive, which is from the sb. machina;
machin-at-ion, K. Lear, i. 2. 122, v. I. 46; AF. machinacion, Stat.
Realm, i. 342 (1353); machin-at-or.
MACKEREL, the name of a fish. (F.—L.?) ME. makerel,
Havelok, 758.—OF. makerel, in Neckam’s Treatise de Utensilibus ;
Wright’s Vocab. i. 98, 1. 1; makerelle, Liber Albus, p. 235. (Mod.
F. maquereau.) From Late L. magquerellus; of unknown origin.
@ The suggestion in Mahn’s Webster, that the F. maquereau, a
mackerel, is the same word as OF. maguereau, a pandar (Cotgrave),
from ‘a popular tradition in France that the mackerel, in spring,
follows the female shads, which are called verges or maids, and
leads them to their mates,’ is one which is open to doubt. It may
be that the story arose out of the coincidence of the name, and
that the name was not derived from the story. The etymology of
OF. maquereau, a pandar, is from the Teut. source preserved in Du.
makelaar, a broker, pandar, from Du. makelen, to procure, bring
about, frequentative form of maken, to make.
MACKINTOSH, a waterproof overcoat. (Gael.) From the
name of the inventor.
MACROCOSM, the whole universe. (Gk.) In Phillips, ed.
1706; and in Howell’s Letters, vol. i. let. 34 (1621). ME. macro-
cosme, Lydgate, Assembly of Gods, 995. Spelt macrocosmus in
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Coined from Gk. μακρό-, for μακρός,
long, great; and κόσμος, the world. See Microcosm.
MACULATEH, to defile. (L.) Used as a pp. in The Two Noble
Kinsmen, ed. Skeat, v. 1. 134.—L. maculatus, pp. of maculare, to
spot.—L. macula, a spot; a dimin. form. Der. maculat-ion. Shak.
Troil. iv. 4. 66; im-maculate, q.v. And see mail (1).
MAD, insane, foolish. (E.) The vowel was at first long. ME.
mad, spelt maad in Li Beau Disconus, 1. 2001, in Ritson’s Met.
Romances, vol. ii.; made in The Seven Sages, ed. Wright, 2091.
Cf. médschipe = madness; Ancren Riwle, p..148, 1.1. The ME. mad
is from AS. (ge-)m#ded, maddened, shortened to (ge-)medd (cf. fat),
pp- of ge-m#dan, to madden, to drive mad. Cf. AS. ge-maad, mad,
Corpus Gloss. 2105.-4-OSax. ge-méd, foolish; OHG. ka-meit, gi-meit,
vain; Icel. meiddr, pp. of meidSa, to maim, hurt; Goth. ga-maids,
bruised, maimed ; Luke, iv. 19, xiv. 13, 21. B. Thus the Teut. sense
appears to be ‘maimed.’ Teut. type *smaidoz, Idg. type *mozttds,
pp- from the root MEI, to change; cf. L. mutare, to change; see
Mutable. 4 Not connected with Ital. matto, mad (see Mate (2)) ;
nor with Skt. matta-s, mad (pp. of mad, to be drunk). Der. mad-ly,
mad-ness ; also ME. madden, to be mad, Wyclif, John, x. 20 (obsolete) ;
also madd-en, to make mad, for which Shak. uses the simple form mad,
Rich. I, v. 5, 61, &c.; mad-cap (from mad and cap), K. John, i. 84;
mad-house; mad-man, L. L. L. v. 2. 338; mad-wort.
MADAM, my lady, a lady. (F.—L.) In early use. ME.
madame, King Alisaunder, 269.—F. madame=ma dame, my lady. =
L. mea domina, my lady. See Dame. Doublet, madonna.
MADDER, the name of a plant. (E.) ME. madir, mader (with
one d); Prompt. Parv. AS. medere, in Cockayne’s Leechdoms, iii.
3373 cf. feld-meadere, field-madder, Voc. 300. 10.4Icel. madra; Du.
mede, mee. Cf. Skt. madhura-, sweet, tender; whence fem. madhura,
the name of several plants (Benfey). See Mead (1).
MADEIRA, a sort of wine. (Port.—L.) In Shak. 1 Hen. IV,
L 2. 128. So named from the island of Madeira, off the N. W.
MAGIC
coast of Africa. The name is Port., and signifies that the island was
well-wooded. = Port. madeira, wood, timber. Cf. Span. madera (the
same). —L. matéria, stuff, wood, timber; see Matter (1). See Diez,
p- 465; also Hakluyt, Voy. vol. ii. pt. 2. p. 7.
MADEMOISELLE, miss; lit. my damsel. (F.—L.) Milton,
Apology for Smectymnuus, speaks slightingly of ‘grooms and
madamoisellaes’ (R.). Spelt madamoselle, Caxton, Blanchardyn, ch.
16.—F. mademoiselle, spelt madamoiseile in Cotgrave.—F. ma, my ;
and demoiselle, formerly damoiselle, 2 damsel. See Madame and
Damsel.
MADONNA, my lady, Our Lady. (Ital.—L.) In Shak. Tw.
Nt. i. 5. 47.—Ital. madonna.—Ital. ma, my; and donna, lady.=—
L. mea, my; and domina lady, dame. See Dame. Doublet,
madame.
MADREPOREH, the common coral. (F.—Ital.—L. and Gk.)
Modern; not in Todd’s Johnson.<F. madrépore, madrepore. = Ital.
madrepora, explained in Meadows as ‘a petrified plant.’ B. Of
somewhat uncertain origin; but prob. the first part of the word is
Ital. madre, mother, used in various compounds, as madre-selva (lit.
mother-wood), honeysuckle, madre-bosco (lit. mother-bush), wood-
bine (Florio), madre perla, mother of pearl (Florio); from L.
matrem, acc. of mater, mother; see Mother. y. The part -pora
appears to be from the Gk. πῶρος, a light, friable stone, also a
stalactite. Hence madre-pore =mother-stone, a similar formation to
madre perla (lit. mother-pearl), 4 If this be right, it has nothing
to do with F. madré, spotted, nor with pore. But it has certainly
been understood as connected with the word pore, as shown by the
numerous similar scientific terms, such as catenipora, tubipora, denti-
pora, gemmipora, &c.; see the articles in Engl. Cycl. on Madrephyl-
liea and Madreporea, It does not follow that the supposed con-
nexion with pore was originally right ; it only shows that this sense
was substituted for that of the Gk. m@pos. In fact, the Ital. poro
(7@pos) was misunderstood as representing L. porus in 1599; N. E.D.
MADRIGAL,, a pastoral song. (Ital.—L.—Gk.) ‘ Melodious
birds sing madrigals;’ Marlowe, Passionate Shepherd; cited in
Shak. Merry Wives, iii. 1. 18, 23.—Ital. madrigale, pl. madrigali,
madriali, ‘ madrigals, a kind of short songs or ditties in Italie ;’ Florio.
It stands for *mandrigale, and means ‘a shepherd’s song ;’ cf. man-
driale, mandriano, ‘a heardesman, a grasier, a drover; [also] as
madrigale ;’ Florio.—Ital. mandra, ‘a herde, drove, flocke, folde ;’
Florio. —L. mandra, a stall, stable, stye.— Gk. μάνδρα, an inclosure,
fold, stable.+Skt. mandura, a stable for horses; prob. from mand,
to sleep. 4 The suffix -gale=L. -calis. Perhaps through F.
madrigal.
MASNAD, a priestess of Bacchus. (Gk.) From Gk. μαινάδ-,
stem of μαινάς, mad, raving; assb., a female Bacchanal. = Gk. μαίνομαι,
Iam mad, I rave; allied to μανία, madness; see Mania.
MAGAZINE, a storehouse, store, store of news, pamphlet.
(F.—Ital.—Arab.) In Milton, P. L. iv. 816., Spelt magason,
Hakluyt, Voy. ii. pt. τ. p. 234.—MF. magazin, ‘a magazin,’ Cot.;
mod. F. magasin. = Ital. magazzino, a storehouse. [Cf. Span. maga-
cen, also almagacen, where al is the Arab. article.]— Arab. makhzan
(pl. makhazin), a storehouse, granary, cellar; Rich. Dict. p. 1366.
Cf. also khizanat, a magazine, treasure-house; from khaza, a laying
up in store; id. pp. 609, 610. Der. magazine, vb., to store ; North,
Examen, 1740, p. 222.
MAGGOT, a grub, worm. (E.) ME. magot, magat (with one
&), given as a variant of ‘ make, mathe, wyrm yn the fleshe ;’ Prompt.
Parv. p. 321. Cf. maked in Wright’s Vocab. i. 255, col. 1, to
translate L. ¢arinus [misprint for farmus] or simax [=L. cimex].
Maggot is an AF. perversion of ME. maddok, a maggot; see Voc.
594. 3; Lanfranc’s Cirurgie, p. 44,1. 18; Henslow, Medical Works
of the 14th Cent., p. 141; also madek, O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris,
i. 326.
A dimin. from AS. maa, mafu, a worm; Voc. 122. 35 |
205. 8.4 Du. made; G. made, OHG. mado; Goth. matha, a worm. _
Cf. Icel. madkr, a maggot; Dan. maddik, madike, a maggot.
Mawkish. Der. maggot-y.
See }
MAGI, priests of the Persians. (L.—Gk.—Pers.) In P. Plowman, ὦ
C. xxii. 85. Borrowed from L. magi, Matt. ii. 1 (Vulgate). —Gk.
μάγοι, Matt. ii. 1; pl. of μάγος, a Magian, one of a Median tribe |
Properly,
(Herod. i. ror), hence, an enchanter, wizard, juggler.
one of the priests or wise men in Persia who interpreted dreams, &c. —
(Liddell.) B. From OPers. magu- (nom. magus), Pers. mugh, miigh, —
one of the Magi, a fire-worshipper; Horm, § 984; Rich. Dict, |
p- 1527. Der. mag-ic,q.v. ¢@ It is interesting to note that the
word magus, which Sir H. Rawlinson translates by ‘the Magian,’ |
occurs in cuneiform characters in an inscription at Behistan; see.
Schleicher, Indogerm. Chrestomathie, p. 151; Nineveh and Perse-
polis, by W. S. W. Vaux, ed. 1851, p. 405. - |
MAGIC, enchantment. (F.—L.—Gk.—Pers.) ME. magihe,
sb., Chaucer, C. T. 4634 (B 214).—F. magique, adj. ‘magical ;’ Cot.
{
|
MAGISTERIAL
“Το magicus, magical.Gk. μαγικός, magical. Gk. μάγος, one of
the Magi, an enchanter. See Magi. B. The sb. magic is an
abbreviation for ‘magic art,’ L. ars magica. Der. magic-al, magic-
al-ly; magic-ian, Mi. magicien, Chaucer, C. T. 14213 (B 3397),
from F. magicien, ‘a magician ;’ Cot.
MAGISTERIAL, master-like, authoritative. (L.) In Phillips,
ed. 1706. Coined, with suffix -al, from L. magisteri-us, magisterial,
belonging to a master.—L. magister, a master. See Magistrate.
Der. magisterial-ly, mgisterial-ness,
MAGISTRATE, a justice of the peace. (F.—L.) ME.
maiestrat (=mayjestrat), Wyclif, Luke, xxiii..13.—F. magistrat, ‘a
magistrate, ruler;’ Cot.—L. magistritus, (1) a magistracy, (2) a
magistrate. —L. magister,a master, See Master. Der. magistrac-y.
MAGNANIMITY, greatness of mind. (F.—L.) ME. magna-
nimitee, Chaucer, C. T. 155783 (G 110). —F. magnanimité, ‘ magnani-
mity ;’ Cot.—L. magnanimitatem, acc. of magnanimitas, greatness of
mind.—L. magn-, stem of magnus, great; and animi-, for animus,
the mind; with suffix -ta@s. See Magnate and Animus.
MAGNANIMOUS, high-minded, noble. (L.) In Shak. All’s
Well, iii. 6. 70. Formed (by changing -us to -ous, as in ardu-ous,
&c.) from L. magnanimus, great-souled. =L. magn-, stem of magnus,
great; and animus, the mind. Der. magnanimous-ly.
MAGNATE, a great man, noble. (L.) A late word; not in
Todd’s Johnson. From Late L. magnatem, acc. of magnas, a prince
(Judith, v. 26).—L. magn-, stem of magnus, great. B. L. magnus is
cognate with Gk. μέγας, great, Skt. mahant-, great, and Εἰ, much; see
Much, 4 Magzate is a Hungarian and Polish use of the L. word;
the F, magzat (in Littré, but little used) is, more strictly, due to the
pl. magnats=L. magnates. For derivatives from L. magnus, see
Macnitude.
MAGNESIA, the oxide of magnesium. (Late L.—Gk.) The
Name magnesia, apparently formerly applied to manganese, occurs in
Chaucer, C. T. 16923 (ἃ 1455); and in Ben Jonson’s Alchemist,
Act ii (Surly). Added by Todd to Johnson’s Dict. Coined from
some supposed resemblance to the mineral called by a similar name
in Gk., from L. Magnésia, fem. of Magnésius, of or belonging to the
country called Magnesia. —Gk. Μαγνήσιος, belonging to Magnesia,
in Thessaly; whence λίθος Μαγνήτης or λίθος Μαγνήσιος, lit. Mag-
nesian stone, applied to (1) the magnet, (2) a metal that looked like
silver. See Schade, p. 1395. Der. magnesi-um. See Magnet.
MAGNET, the loadstone, a bar having magnetic properties.
(F.—L.—Gk.) ME. magnete, Prompt. Parv. p. 325.—AF. magnete,
Bozon, p. 51; OF. magnete (Godefroy), also found as manete, in
a Ε΄. MS. of the 13th cent.; see Littré, s.v. magnetique. — L. magnéta,
acc. of magnés, for magnés lapis= Magnesian stone, the loadstone. =
Gk. Μάγνης (stem Μάγνητ-), Magnesian; also Μαγνήτης, whence
λίθος Μαγνήτης, the Magnesian stone, magnet. See Magnesia.
4 Spenser has the L. form magnes, F. Q. ii. 12. 4. Der. magnet-ic,
magnet-ic-al, magnetic-al-ly, magnet-ism, magnet-ise.
MAGNIFICENT, doing great things, pompous, grand. (L.)
In Shak. L. L. L. i. 1. 193.—L. magnificent-, stem of magnificens,
doing great things. — L. magni-, for magnus, great ; and -fic-, for fac-,
base of facere, to do; with suffix -ent of a pres. part. See Magnify.
Der. magnificent-ly; magnificence (Chaucer) =F. magnificence, ‘ mag-
nificence,’ Cot. So also magnific-al, A. V. 1 Chron. xxii. 5, from L.
magnificus, grand.
MAGNIFY, to enlarge, praise highly. (F.—L.) ME. magni-
Jien, Wyclif, Matt. xxiii. 5.—F. magnifier, ‘to magnifie;’ Cot.—L.
magnificare, tomake large. —L. magni-, for magnus, great ; and -fic-,
for fac-, base of facere, to make, do. See Magnate and Fact,
_ MAGNILOQUENCE, elevated or pompous language. (L.)
‘Modern ; added by Todd to Johnson’s Dict. Coined, by analogy
with F. words in -ence (=L. -entia), from L. magniloquentia, elevated
language. =—L. magni-, for magnus, great; and loquentia, discourse,
from loguent-, stem of pres. part. of Jogui, to speak. See Magnate
and Loquacious. Der. magniloguent, a coined word.
MAGNITUDE, greatness, size. (L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.
[There is no F. magnitude.]—L. magnitiido, greatness. —L. magni-,
for magnus, great; with suffix -/t%do, expressive of quality. See
Magnate. ἘΞ The derivatives from L. magnus are numerous,
viz. magn-animity, magn-animous, magn-ate, magni-ficent, magni-fy,
magni-loquence, magni-tude, From the base mag- of the same word
we have also mag-tstrale, mag-isterial, master, majesty, major, mayor.
And see Much and May (1).
MAGNOLIA, the name of a genus of plants. (F.) ‘A genus
of plants named in honour of Pierre Magnol, who was professor of
medicine and prefect of the botanic garden of Montpellier [in
France]. He was born in 1638, and died in 1715;’ Engl. Cycl.
See his Botanicum Monspeliense, 1686.
MAGPIE, the name of a bird. (Hybrid; F.—L.—Gk.; and F.
-L.) 1. Called magot-pie in Macbeth, iii. 4.125. We also find
MAIM 355
prov. E. maggoty-pie; and madge, meaning (1) an owl, (2) a magpie.
The prefixes Mag, Magot, Maggoty (like Madge) are various forms of
the name Margaret; cf. Robin as applied to the red-breast, Fenny to
the wren, Philip to the sparrow. Mag may be taken to be short for
Magot=¥. Margot, which is (1) a familiar form of F. Marguerite,
and (2) a name for the magpie.—F. Margot, for Marguerite. =L.
margarita, a pearl.=Gk. μαργαρίτης, a pearl, a word of Eastern
origin; cf. Pers. murwarid, a pearl; Rich. Dict. p. 1396; Skt.
manjari,a pearl. 2. The syllable pie=F. pie, from L. pica, a magpie;
see Pie (1).
MAGUEY, the American aloe. (Cuba.) According to Oviedo,
it is of Cuban origin. 4 Not Mexican, whichhas no g. The Mex,
name is metl.
MAHARAJAH, a title of some Indian princes. (Skt.) From
Skt. maha-raja, m., lit. ‘ great king.’ =—Skt. maha-, for mahant-, great,
allied to L. magnus, great ; and raja, king, allied to L. rex, king.
MAHDI, an Arabian Messiah. (Arab.) From Arab. mahdi, one
who is (divinely) guided ; from ma, prefix, and hady, to guide. Cf.
hadi, a guide (Rich. Dict., pp. 1661, 1670).
MAHLSTICK, the same as Maulstick, gq. v.
MAHOGANY, the name of a tree and a wood. (W. Indian.) See
mahogany in index to Boswell’s Life of Johnson. Added by Todd to
Johnson’s Dict.; ‘said to have been brought to England by Raleigh,
in 1595;’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates. Spelt mohogeney in 1671, with
a reference to Jamaica. Of W. Indian origin; but from what dialect
is unknown.
MAHOMETAN ; see Mohammedan.
MAHOUT, an elephant-driver. (Hind.) ‘The mahout of his
elephant had been pulled off his seat ;’ Thackeray, Vanity Fair,
ch. iv.— Hind. mahawat, an elephant-driver (Forbes). And see
Yule.
MAID, MAIDEN, a girl, virgin. (E.) 1. Mayde occurs in
Rob. of Glouc. p. 13, 1. 297. It isnot common in early ME., and is,
practically, merely a corruption of maiden, by the loss of final x,
rather than a form derived from AS. meg or meged, a maiden
(Grein, ii. 216). 2. The usual early ME. word is maiden or meiden,
Ancren Riwle, pp. 64, 166. AS. megden, a maiden (Grein, ii. 216) ;
also me#den, Mark, v, 41; later text, maide. B. AS. maegden, cognate
with OHG. magatin, is formed from megd- (for meged) by adding
the suffix -ix (cf. L. -in-us); see March, A. 5. Gram. art, 228.
y- Mage’ is cognate with Goth. magaths, a virgin, maid (= G. magd),
where the suffix -ths answers to the Idg. suffix -to-s. The base meg-
is allied to Goth. mag-us, a boy, a child, Luke, ii. 43; also to Icel,
mogr, a boy, youth, son. δ. The orig. sense of magus is ‘a growing
lad,’ one increasing in strength; from the Teut. base MAG, to have
power, whence also might, main. See May (1). See Stokes-Fick,
p- 198. Der. maiden-hood= AS. megdenhad, Grein, ii. 216; also
spelt maiden-head=ME. meidenhed or maydenhede, Gower, C., A. ii.
230, bk. v. 3068, which is a mere variant of maiden-hood; matden-ly,
Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 2. 217, Skelton, Garden of Laurel, 1. 865 ; maiden-
li-ness; maiden-hair; also maid-child, Levit. xii. 5.
MATHZH (1), steel network forming body-armour. (F.—L.) ‘ For
though thyn housbonde armed be in maitlle;’ Chaucer, C. T. 9078
(E 1202); the pl. mayles is in the Anturs of Arthur, st. xxx. Cf.
‘macula, mayl;’ Voc. 594. 18.—OF. maille, ‘maile, or a link of
maile, whereof coats of maile be made; . . any little ring of metall;
. . also, a mash [mesh] of a net;’ Cot.—L. macula, a spot, speck,
hole, mesh of a net, net. See Maculate.
MAIL (2), a bag for carrying letters. (F.k-OHG.) ME. male,
a bag, wallet ; Chaucer, C. T. 3117, 12854 (A 3115, C 920); Havelok,
48.—OF. male (mod. F. malle), ‘a male, or great budget ;’ (οἱ. -
OHG. malaha, MHG. malhe, a leathern wallet. Cf. Gael. and Irish
mala, a bag, sack (from E.).-++ Gk. μολγός, a hide, skin. Der.
mail-bag, mail-coach, mail-cart.
MAIL (BLACK), a forced tribute. (Scand.) Mail is a Scottish
term for rent. Jamieson cites the phr. burrow-mailles, duties payable
within boroughs, from the Acts of Jas. I. c. 8 (A.D. 1424). Black-
maill is mentioned in the Acts of Jas. VI. c. 21 (1567), and in the
Acts of Elizabeth, an. 43, cap. 13, as a forced tribute paid to moss-
troopers; see Jamieson and Blount. Spelman is right in supposing
that it meant black rent or black money, a jocose allusion to tribute
paid in cattle, &c., as distinct from rent paid in silver or white
money ; Blount shows that the term black money occurs in 9 Edw, III.
cap. 4, and white money is not uncommon. Blount also cites the term
black-rents. A Northern form.—Icel. mal, speech, law-suit, agree-
ment; mali, agreement, payment. Cognate with AS. mefel, mél,
a meeting, speech ; Goth. mathl, a meeting-place.
MAIM, a bruise, injury, crippling hurt. (F.—OHG.) Also spelt
mahim in Law-books; Blount’s Nomolexicon, ed. 1691, ME. maim,
pl. maimes, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 135, 1. 27; the pp. y-maymed is in
the preceding line. The verb occurs also in Chaucer, C. T. 6714
Aaz
856 MAIN
(D1132):—AF.mahaym; Liber Albus, p. 281; OF. meshain (Godefroy) ;
MF. mehaing, ‘a maime, or ... abatement of strength... by hurts
réceived ;’ Cot. Whence the verb mehaigner, ‘to maime;’ id. Cf.
Ital. magagna, a defect, blemish ; whence magagzare, to spoil, vitiate.
β. ΟΥ̓ uncertain origin’; Bret. machaz, mutilation (whence machaza,
to maim, mutilate), is borrowed from F. (Thurneysen). Some derive
the Ital. word from OHG. mann, a man, and *hamjan, to mutilate,
from the OHG. adj. kam, maimed (Korting), In the OF. form, the
prefix is mes-; see Mis- (2). Der. maim, verb.
MAIN (1), sb., strength, might. (E.) To be distinguished from
main (2), though both are from the same Idg. root. ME. main, dat.
maine, Gower, C. A. iii. 4; bk. vi. 90 ; also mein, as in ‘ with al his
mein,’ Floriz and Blauncheflor, ed. Lumby, 1. 17. AS. megen,
strength; Grein, ii. 217.4 Icel. megin, strength; OSax. megin,
strength; OHG. megin, Also OHG. magan, Icel. magn. Teut.
types *maginom, *maganom,n.; from Teut. base *mag-; see May (1).
MAIN (2), adj., strong, great. (Scand.) In Shak. Rich. III,
v. 3.299. ME. maya, Wars of Alex. 3018. Maine saile (=main-
sail) occurs in the Bible of 1551, Acts, xxvii. 40.—Icel. megn, strong,
mighty; allied to megin, strength (above). Cf. Icel. meginland,
main-land ; megin-sjor, main sea, the main, Der. main-ly ; also main-
deck, -mast, -sail (Palsgrave), -spring, -stay, -top, -yard; main-land
(Palsgrave).
MAINOUR. (F.—L.) In the phr. ‘taken with the mainour,’
or later, ‘taken in the manner;’ see 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4.347. See note
to Manner. We find pris ov meinoure (where ov =F. avec), Stat. of
the Realm, i. 30, an. 1275. Blount, in his Nomolexicon, explains
mainour as meaning ‘the thing that a thief steals ;” and ‘to be taken
with the mainour,’ as ‘with the thing stoln about him, flagrante
delicto.’ Τὰ is lit.‘ with the manceuvre,’ and therefore refers rather to
the act than the thing; see Cotgrave, s.v. flagrant; E. Webbe,
‘Travels, 1590, ed. Arber, p. 28. The Anglo-F. meinoure, also
mainoure (Stat. Realm, i. 161) answers to OF. manouvre (Littré).
See Manceuvre.
MAINTATN, to keep in a fixed state, keep up, support. (F.—L.)
ME. maintenen, mayntenen, KK. Alisaunder, 1. 1592. — Ἐς maintenir, ‘ to
maintain ;” Cot.—L. mani tenére, to hold in the hand; or more
likely, in Late Latin, to hold by the hand, to support or aid another,
as shown by the use of ME. mainteinen, to aid and abet, P. Plowman,
B. iii. 90, and note. —L. mani, abl. case of manus, the hand ; and
tenére, to hold. See Manual and Tenable. Der. maintain-able,
maintain-er ; mainten-ance, ME. meintenaunce, spelt mentenaunce in
Shoreham’s Poems, p. 100, 1. 19, from OF. maintenance, ‘main-
tenance ;’ ‘Cot.
MAIZE, Indian corn or wheat. (Span.—W. Indian.) ‘Indian
maiz ;’ Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 49; and in Essay 33. Also in Dampier’s
Voyages, an. 1681 (R.).—Span. maiz, maize.—W. Indian mahiz,
mahis, in the old Carib dialect of the island of Hayti (S. Domingo) ;
ἐξ R. Eden (ed. Arber), pp. 67, 116, 118; Acosta, Hist. Indies,
k. iv. οὶ 16.
MAJESTY, crandeur, dignity. (F.—L.) ME. magestee, Chaucer,
C.-T. 4320 (A 4322); E. E. Psalter, Ps. 71. 20.—OF. majestet,
majeste, later majesté, ‘ majesty ;’ Cot. - L. maiestatem, acc. of maiestas,
dignity, honour. —L. miies-, related by gradation to ma-ior, comp. of
mag-nus, great, with the addition of a comparative suffix; see Brug-
mann, ii. § 135. The sense of maiestas is the ‘condition of being
greater,’ hence, dignity. See Major, Magnitude. Der. majest-ic,
a coined word, Temp. iv. 118; mayest-ic-al, L. I. L. v. 2. 102;
majest~ic-al-ly, 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 479.
MAJOLICA, usually with ware; decorative enamelled pottery.
(Ital.—Span.—L.) From Ital. maiolica, also maiorica, ‘ the earth we
call porcelane, whereof China dishes are made;’ Florio.—Span.
Mallorca, Majorca, formerly Majolica (Ducange), whence the first
specimens came. From L, maior, greater.
MAJOR, greater; the title of an officer in the army. (L.)
Early used (as an adj.) as a term in logic, as in ‘this maior or first
proposition ;? Fryth, Works, p..147, col. 1. ‘The major part ;’
Cor. ii. 1. 64.—L. maior, greater; comparative of magnus, great;
see Magnitude. Der. major-ship, major-general; major-domo,
spelt maiordomo in Puttenham, Art of Poesie, b. iii. c. 4. (ed. Arber,
p- 158), imitated from Span. mayor-domo, a house-steward (see
Domestic) ; also major-i-ty, 1 Hen. IV, iii. 2. 109, from F. majorite,
‘majority;’ Cot. Doublet, mayor,
MAJUSCULE, a capital or uncial letter; not a minuscule.
(L.) From L, maiuseulus, somewhat larger ;: allied to maior, greater;
see Major.
MAKE, to fashion, frame, cause, produce, (E.) ME. maken,
makien; pt. t. makede, made, pp. muked, maad, mad; Chaucer, Ὁ. T.
9, 33, 396. AS. macian, pt. τ. macode, pp. macod; see Sweet, A. 5.
Reader ; also ge-macian (Grein).4-Du. maken; G. machen, OHG,
machon, to make. Allied to Match (1), Der. make, sb., Gower,
MALIGN
C, A. ii. 204; bk. v. 2096; mak-er, P. Plowman, B. x. 240; make-
peace, Rich. I, i. 1.160; make-shift, make-weight ; and see match (1).
MALACHITE, a hard green stone. (Gk.) ‘Malachites, Molo-
chites, a \xind of precious stone of a dark green colour, like the herb
mallows ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Formed, with suffix -ites (= Gk, -ἰτης)
from Gk. μαλάχ-η, a mallow. See Mallow.
MALADMINISTRATION, bad administration. (F.—L.)
Spelt maleadministration in Swift, Sentiments of a Church of Eng.
Man, 5. 2 (R.).—F. male, fem. of mal (=L. malus), bad; and F.
administration, See Malice and Administer. € So also mal-
adjustment, mal-adroit, mal-apert, mal-conformation, mal-content, &c.;
these have the same Εἰ, adj. (or mal, adv.) as a prefix.
MALADROIT, clumsy, (F.—L.) ἘΝ maladroit; for mal (L.
male), ill, badly ; and adroit. See Adroit.
MALADY, disease, illness. (F.—L.) ME. maladie, maladye,
Chaucer, C. T. 421, 1375 (A 419, 1373). Also earlier, in O. Eng.
Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 31,1]. 13.— AF. maladie, Edw. Conf. 1511;
Ἐς maladie, ‘malady ;’ Cot.—F. malade, sick, ill; oldest spelling
malabde (Littré). Cf. Prov. malaptes, malautes, malaudes, sick, ill;
Bartsch, Chrestomathie. - L. male habitus, out of condition ; cf. male
habens, sick, Matt. iv. 24 (Vulgate).—L. male, ady., badly, ill, from
malus, bad; and habitus, held, kept, kept in a certain condition, pp.
of habére, tohave. See Malice and Habit. 4] The usual deriva-
tion is that given by Diez, who imagined F. malade to answer to male
aptus ; there appears to be no authority for the phrase, which (like
ineptus) would mean ‘foolish’ rather than ‘ill.’ See Korting, § 5833.
MALAPERT, saucy, impudent, ill-behaved. (F.—L.) The
true sense is “ ill-skilled,’ ‘ill-bred.”. In The Court of Love, 737
(after A.D. 1500); also in Chaucer, Troil. iii. 87.—OF. mal appert,
insolent (see Godefroy).—OF. mal<L. male, adv., badly, ill; and
appert, ‘ expert, ready, dexter, prompt, active,nimble; feat, handsome
in that he does ;’ Cot. Also spelt aspert, espert; from 1.. expertus,
expert; see Expert. [The OF. apert, ‘ open, evident,’ is a different
word, and der. from L. apertus, open; but the OF. apert and appert
were much confused, as, e.g. in Godefroy, though kept apart by
Cotgrave.] @ By a complete confusion of L..apertus and expertus,
we find OF, esfert used in the sense of ‘open.’ Der. malapert-ly,
malapert-ness.
MALARIA, miasma, noxious exhalation. (Ital.—IL.. and Gk.)
Modern. Not in Todd’s Johnson. = Ital. mal’ aria, for mala aria, bad
air. Mala is fem. of malo, bad, from L. malus, bad; see Malice.
Aria represents Late L. *aria, for deria, f. of derius, adj. formed from
L. aér, air, Gk. ἀήρ. See Air. i
MALCONTENT, MALECONTENT, discontented. (F.
—L.) In Shak. 3 Hen, VI, iv. 1. 10, 60.—OF. malcontent, ‘ male-
content ;’ Cot.—F. mal, ady., from L. male, badly; and F. content.
See Malice and Content.
MALE, masculing (F.—L.) ME. male. ‘ Male and female ;’
Wyclif, Matt. xix. 4. Cf. Chaucer, C. T. 5704 (Ὁ 122).—OF. masle
(later male), ‘a male,’ Cot. (who gives both spellings); mod. F. male;
earliest spelling mascle (Hatzfeld).—L. masculum, acc. of masculus,
male; formed with suffixes -cu- and -l- from mas-, stem of mas,
a male creature, man (gen. mdar-is=*mis-is). See Masculine.
Der. mascul-ine, mallard. Nowise connected with female.
MALEDICTION, a curse, execration. (F.—L.) Τὴ Shak.
K, Lear, i. 2. 160. Spelt malediccion in the Bible of 1551, Gal. iii.
10.— Ἐς malediction, ‘a malediction ;* Cot.—L. maledictionem, acc. of
maledictio, a curse; cf. maledictus, pp. of maledicere, to speak evil
against. —L. male, adv., badly; and dicere, to speak. See Malice
and Diction, Doublet, malison.
MALEFACTOR, an evil-doer, (L.) ‘ Heretik or any male-
factour ;’ Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 941 ἢ; and in Dictes of the Philo-
sophers, pr. by Caxton, fol. 11 Ὁ, 1. 18:—L. malefactorem, acc. of
malefactor, an evil-doer.—L. male, adv., badly; and factor, a-doer,
from facere, todo. See Malice and Fact. Der. So also malefac-
tion, Hamlet, ii. 2. 621, from factidnem, acc. of factio, a doing. ;
MALEVOLENT, ill-disposed to others, enyious. (L.) Lit.
‘wishing ill.’ In Shak. 1 Hen. IV, i. 1. 97. “το, maleuolent-, stem
of maleuolens, wishing evil.—L. male, adv., badly, ill; and uolens,
pres. pt. of welle, to wish. See Malice and Voluntary. Der.
malevolent-ly ; malevolence, from OF. malivolence (Godefroy).
MALFORMATION, an ill formation. (F.—L.) Coined from
mal- and formation; see Maladministration.
MALIC, made from apples. (L.) Formed with suffix -ic (L.
-ic-us) from L. mal-unt, an apple.4-Gk. μῆλον, a fruit, an apple.
MALICE, ill will, spite. (F.—L.) ME. malice, Rob. of Glouc.
Ρ. 570; 1. 12027.—F. malice, = L, malitia, badness, ill will,.—L. mali,
for malus, bad; with suffix -¢i-a. Root unknown. Der. malici-ous,
ME. malicious, K. Alisaunder, 3323, 5045, from F. .malicieux;
maliciously, -2€ss. |
MALIGN, unfavourable, malicious. (F.—L,.) ‘The spirit |
MALINGER
malign ;’ Milton, P. L. iii. 553; cf. iv. 503, &c. ME. maligne; in
Shoreham’s Poems, p..72, 1.25. [The derived verb malign, to curse,
is found in Sir T. More, Works, p. 37 b.]— OF. maling, fem. maligne,
‘malignant ;’ Cot. (Mod. F. malin.) — L. malignus, ill-disposed,
wicked ; for *mali-gen-us, ill-born ; like benignus for *heni-gen-us. =
L. mali-, for malus, bad; and gen-, base of gignere, to produce. See
Malice and Generate. Der. malign, verb (as above), due to L.
malignare, to act spitefully ; malign-ly, malign-er; also malign-ant,
Temp. i. 2. 257, from L. malignant-, stem of pres. pt. of malignare,
to act spitefully; malign-ant-ly; malign-anc-y, Tw. Nt. ii. τ. 4;
malign-i-ty, ME. malignitee, Chaucer, Persones Tale, De Invidia
(Six-text, 1.513), from F. malignité << L. malignitatem, acc.. of
malignitas, malignity.
MALINGER, to feign sickness. (F.—L. and ἃ.) Modern.
Not in Todd’s Johnson. Coined from F. malingre, adj. diseased,
sickly, or ‘sore, scabby, ugly, loathsome;’ Cot.—F. mal, badly;
and OF. haingre, heingre, Norm. dial. haingre, thin, emaciated
(Godefroy, Moisy).—L. male, adv. badly, from malus, bad; and G.
hager, thin, lean. Cf. Korting, § 306; where another solution is
offered, viz. from L. mal- (for male), and the suffix -ing- (of G.
origin); § 5825; which fails to explain the ἃ.
MALISON, a curse. (F.—L.) In early use. ME. malison,
spelt malisun in Havelok, 426.—AF. malicoun, Polit. Songs, ed.
Wright, p. 234; OF. maleison, in Godefroy. A doublet of male-
diction, just as benison is of benediction; see Malediction and
Benison.
MALKIN, a kitchen wench. (F.—OHG.) In Chaucer, C. T.
B 30 (see note); P. Plowm. B. i. 182 (see note). Orig. a reduced
form (not of Mary, but) of Matilda. ‘Malkyne, or Mawt, Molt,
Mawde, propyr name, Matildis;? Prompt. Parv. Dimin. of AF,
Mald, Maud, Matilda. —OHG. Mahkt-hilt; where maht means ‘ might,’
and hilt, ‘battle.’ Cf. Macbeth, i. 1.8. Der. Gri-malkin.
MALL (1), a large wooden hammer or beetle. (F.—L.) Also
maul, It occurs in the Spectator, no. 195, near the beginning ; and
in Spenser, F. Ὁ. i. 7. 51. ME. malle, St. Brandan, ed. Wright,
Ῥ- 48; spelt mealle in O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 253, 1. 12 ;
melle, Hampole, Pricke of Conscience, 6572.—OF. mail, mal, maul
(Godefroy) ; F. mail, ‘a mall, mallet, or beetle ;’ Cot.—L. malleum,
acc. of malleus,a hammer. [The vowel a in the E. word was perhaps
suggested by the L. form.] Der. mail (2), q.v.; mall-e-able, q. v.,
mall-et, q. Vv.
MALL (2), the name of a public walk. (F.—L.) Preserved in
the name of the street called Pall Mall, and in The Mall in St. James’s
Park. In Pope, Rape of the Lock, ν. 133. ‘To walk in the Mail ;’
Parsons, Wapping Old Stairs, 1.9. Named from MF. pa/e-maille,
“a game wherein a round box bowle is with a mallet struck through
a high arch of iron,’ &c. [i.e. the game imitated in mod. croquet ;
Cot. A representation of the game is given in Knight’s Old England,
vol. ii. fig. 2152.—MlItal. palamaglio, ‘a stick with a mallet at one
end to play at a wooden ball with ; also, the name of such a game;’
Florio. Better spelt pallamaglio, as in Baretti’s Dict. Lit. ‘a ball-
mallet” or ‘ ball-mall.’—Ital. paila, a ball ; and maglio (=F. mail),
a mace, mall, hammer. β. A hybrid word; from OHG. palla,
pallo (MHG. baile, G. ball), a ball, cognate with E. Ball, q. v.; and
L. malleum. acc. of malleus, a hammer; see Mall (1). @& Itis
contended that Ital. pallamaglio really meant ‘mallet-ball,’ not
‘ball-mallet ;” if so, it was misunderstood. See my Notes on E.
Etym., p. 204; s.v. Pall-mall.
MALLARD, a wild drake. (F.—L.) ME. malard. ‘Malarde,
anas ;᾿ Prompt. Parv.—OF. malard, also maslard, ‘a mallard, or
wild drake ;’ Cot. Formed with suffix -ard (of G. origin); and
certainly from OF. masle (mod. F. male), male; see Male. β. The
suffix -ard (= Goth. hardus, G. hart, hard) was much used in forming
masculine proper names, to give the idea of force or strength; hence
it was readily added to OF. masle, producing a form masl-ard, in
which the notion of‘ male’ is practically reduplicated. See Introd.
to Hatzfeld, Etym. Dict. § 147. γ. As this etymology, given by
Diez, offers some difficulty, Hatzfeld suggests that Malart (Malard
‘in Godefroy) was a proper name, playfully given to the bird; and that
this name is from OHG. Madal-hard, a proper name cognate with
AS. Mathelheard (Birch, Cart. Saxon. i. 280). And in fact the ME.
form mawdelarde, ‘mallard’ occurs in the Liber Cure Cocorum, p. 27.
But it represents the OF. madlarde, f., wild duck (Godefroy), f. of
madlard; from AF. madle, male, variant of OF. masle (above). For
AF, dl=OF. si, cf. medlar, medley.
MALLEABLE, that can be beaten out by the hammer. (F.—L.)
Tn Shak. Per. iv. 6.152; and even in Chaucer, ( T. 16598 (ἃ 1130).
=OF. malleable, ‘ mallable, hammerable, pliant to the hammer ;’
Cot. Formed with suffix -able from obs. L. *malleare, to hammer, of
‘which the pp. malledtus occurs. ποτὶ, malleus, a hammer; see Mall
(1). Der. malleabili-ty, malleable-ness (see Locke, On Hum. Underst. |
|
MAMMA
b. iii. c. 6. 5. 6, c. 10. s. 17) ; malleat-ed, Blount’s Gloss., δᾶ, 1674,
from L, pp. malledt-us ; malleat-ion.
MALLECHO, mischief; lit. ‘malefaction.’. (Span.—L.) In
Hamlet, iii. 2. 147.—Span, malhecho, ‘misdone; an evil deed;’
Minsheu.—Span. mal, evil; hecho, done, pp. of hacer, to do.—L.
male, ill; factus, pp. of facere, todo. See Fact.
MALLET, a small mall, a wooden hammer. (F.—L.) ‘ Bear-
ynge great ma/leides of iron.and stele;’. Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol.
i. c. 422(R.), ΜΕ. maillet, Romance of Partenay, 4698; malyet,
Wyntoun, Chron. iii, 104.—F. maillet, ‘a mallet or hammer ;’ Cot.
Dimin. of F. mail; see Mall (1).
MALLOW, the name of a plant. (L.) ME. malwe; Prompt.
Parv. AS. malwe, mealewe; Voc. 135. 27; 297-27. Not a Teut.
word, but borrowed from L. malua, a mallow.4-Gk. padaxn (for
Ἐμαλβάκην, a mallow. B. Named from its supposed emollient pro-
perties; cf. Gk. μαλάσσειν (=*padax-yev), to make soft, from
μαλακός, soft, mild. Der. marsh-mallow, AS. mersc-mealewe, Voc.
296. 21. Also malv-ac-e-ous (=L. maludceus, adj.). ir Mr. Wedg-
wood shows that the Arabs still use mallows for poultices to allay
irritation, And see Malachite.
MAULM, a kind of earth. (E.) Common in proy. E. AS. mealm,
as seen in mealm-tht, sandy, chalky ; mealm-stan, malm-stone, maum-
stone.+-Icel. malmr, sand; Goth. malma, sand. Teut. base *mal-m-,
from mal-an, to grind, allied to L. mol-ere, to grind. See Meal (1).
MALMSEY, a strong sweet wine. (F.—Gk.) InShak. L.L. L.
Vv. 2. 233. Spelt malmesay in Tyndall, Works, p. 229, col. 2. Also
called malvesye, Chaucer, C. T. 13000 (B 1260).—AF. malvesy
(Ducange) ; OF. malvoisie, ‘malmesie;’ Cot. From Malvasia, now
called Napoli di Malvasia (see Black's Atlas), the name of a town on
the E. coast of Lacedaemonia in the Morea; for Monemvasia (Gk.
pov-euBagia), lit. ‘single entrance.’ = Gk. por-n, fem. of μόνος, single ;
ἐμ-βασία, entrance, from ἐν, in, βαίνειν, to go. Cf. Span. malvasia,
Ital. malvag:a,malmsey. 4] The second m in Malmsey is due to the
form Monemvasia.
MALT, grain steeped in water, and dried in a kiln, for brewing,
(E.) ME. malt, Chaucer, C. T. 3989 (A. 3991). AS. mealt, Voc.
196. 22; whence mealt-hus, a malt-house, Voc. 185. 24. From Teut.
*malt (AS. mealt), 2nd grade of *meltan-, strong verb, to melt; hence,
to steep, soften. Du. mout; Icel. malt, whence the weak verb melta,
to malt (not the same as E. mel?) ; Dan. and Swed. malt; G. malz,
malt; cf. MHG. malz, soft, weak. Cf. Skt. mrdu-s, L. mollis, soft.
See Melt. Der. malt, vb., ME. malten, Prompt. Parv.; malt-horse,
Com. Errors, iii. 1. 32; malt-house; malt-worm, 1 Hen. IV, ii. 1.
83; also malt-ster, ME. malte-stere, Prompt. Parv. @ The suffix
-ster was once looked upon as a fem. termination, as in brew-ster,
baxter for bake-ster, web-ster, spin-ster; and the baking, brewing,
weaving, and spinning were once all alike in the hands of females.
See Spinster.
MALTREAT, to treat 11]. (F.—L.) ‘Yorick indeed was never
better served in his life; but it was a little hard to malireat him
after ;’ Sterne, Tristram Shandy, vol. ii. c. 17, not far from the end.
=F. maliraiter, to treat ill. Cf. Ital. maltrattare, to treat ill.—L,
male, ady., ill, badly ; and tractare, to treat, handle. See Malice
and Treat. Der. maltreat-ment, MF. maltraictement, ‘hard deal-
ing ;’” Cot.
MALVERSATION, fraudulent behaviour. (F.—L.) ‘ Mal-
versation, ill conversation, misdemeanour, misuse ;’ Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. —F. malversation,‘misdemeanor;’ Cot. Regularly formed
(with suffix -a-¢’on) from F. malverser ; Cot. gives ‘ malverser en son
office, to behave himself ill in his office.’ —L. male, adv., badly ; and
uersart (pp. uersatus), to dwell, be engaged in, from xersare, fre-
quentative form of wertere, to turn, See Malice and Verse.
MAMALUKE, MAMELUKE, an Egyptian light horse-
soldier. (F.—Arab.) In Sir T. More, Works, p. 279 f. Also in
Skelton, Why Come Ye Nat to Courte, 1. 476; see Spec. of Eng.
ed. Skeat, p. 143, and the note. —MF, Mamaluc, ‘a Mameluke, or
light-horseman ;’ Cot. [Cf. Span. Mameluco, Ital. Mammalucco. |
They were a corps of slaves. — Arab. mamliik, a purchased slave or
captive; lit. ‘ possessed.’— Arab. root malaka, he possessed ; Rich.
Dict. pp. 1494, 1488.
MAMMA, an infantine'term for mother. (E.) Seldom found in
books, except of late years; it occurs in Prior's poems, entitled
‘Venus Mistaken,’ and ‘ The Dove.’ ‘The babe shall now begin to
tattle and call her Mamma ;’ Lily, Euphues, ed. Arber, p. 129. In
Skinner and Cotgrave it is spelt mam; Cot. gives: Mammam, the
voice of infants, mam.’ Skelton has mammy, Garl. of Laurel, 1. 974.
The spelling mamma is doubtless pedantic, and due to the L. mamma;
it should rather be mama, as it is merely a repetition of ma, an
infantine syllable. It may also be considered as an E. word; most
other languages have something like it. Cf. MF. mammam, cited
aboye, mod. F. maman; Span. mama, Ital. mamma, Du, mama,
357
858 MAMMALIA
G. mama, mdémme, memme, all infantine words for mother; also
W. mam, mother, L. mamma, mother, Gk. μάμμη, Russ. mama, &c.
@ We have no evidence against the borrowing of the word from
French; still it was. most likely, not so borrowed. Brugmann, ii.
§ 179, 947-
MAMMALIA, the class of animals that suckle their young.
(L.) Modern and scientific; not in Johnson. Formed from L.
mammalis, belonging to the breasts. — L. mamma, the breast.
B. There is a doubt whether the word is the same as L. mamma,
mother; if it be, we may consider it as of infantine origin; see
above. y. Brugmann separates them (i. § 587), and explains this
mamma as *mad-ma, from mad-ére, to be wet; cf. Gk. pads (< *pad-
yos), μαστός (< *pyad-rés), breast; μαδ-άειν, to flow away. Der.
mammalian; we also use mammal as a convenient short term for
‘one of the mammalia.’”
MAMMILLARY, pertaining to the breasts. (L.) ‘The
mammillary teats ;’ Dr. Robinson, Endoxa (ed. 1658), p. 51; Todd’s
Johnson. Coined from L. mammillaris, adj. formed from mammilla,
a teat, dimin. of mamma, a breast. See Mammalia.
MAMMON, riches, the god of riches. (L.—Gk.—Syriac.) In
A. V. Matt. vi. 24; Luke, xvi. 9.—L. mammona, Matt. vi. 24 (Vul-
gate).—Gk. μαμωνᾶς ; ibid.—Syr. mamédn@a; a word which often
occurs in the Chaldee Targums of Onkelos, and later writers, and in
the Syriac version, and means ‘riches;’ Dict. of the Bible. Cf. Heb.
matmon, a hidden treasure ; from ¢@man, to hide (¢ =¢eth).
MAMMOTH, an extinct species of elephant. (Russ. — Tatar 7)
© An entire mammoth, flesh and bones, was discovered in Siberia, in
1799;’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates.—Russ. mamant’, a mammoth.=
Siberian mammont, ‘From Tartar mamma, the earth, because the
Tungooses and Yakoots believed that this animal worked its way in
the earth like a mole;’ Webster. But it does not appear that there
is any such Tatar word. See N. and Q. 9 5. xi. 286.
MAN, a human being. (E.) ME. man, Chaucer, C. T. 1. 43.
AS. mann, also mon; Grein, ii. 105.44Du. man; Icel. madr (for
*mannr); also man; Swed. man; Dan. mand (with excrescent d) ;
Goth. manna; (ἃ. mann; [the G. mensch=miéinnisch, i.e. mannish,
human]. Allied to Skt. manu-, Vedic manus-, a man. β. Con-
nected by some with Skt. man, to think; see Mind. But it is
unlikely that the orig. sense could have been ‘thinker.’ Der. man-
child, Gen. xvii. 10; man-ful, Lydgate, Complaint of the Black
Knight, st. 60; man-ful-ly, Two Gent. iv. 1. 28; man-ful-ness ; man-
hood, Chaucer, C. T. 758 (A 756); man-of-war, Luke, xxiii. 11;
man-kind, q.v.; man-ly, ME. manlich, P. Plowman, B, v. 260, from
AS. manlic, man-like, see Grein, ii. 211 ; man-li-ness ; man-slaughter,
ME. man-slaghter, Cursor Mundi, 25772; man-slay-er, ME. mansleer,
Trevisa, iii. 41, 1. 8, Wyclif, John, vill. 44. Also man, vb., Rich. II,
ii. 3.54. Also man-like, Antony, i. 4. 5 ; man-ly, adv., Macb. iv. 3.
2353 mann-ish, As You Like It, i. 3. 123, Chaucer, C. T. 5202
(B 782); man-queller, 2 Hen. IV, ii. 1. 58, Wyclif, Mark, vi. 27 ;
man-ik-in, αν.
MANACLE, a fetter, handcuff. (F.—L.) Better spelt manicle,
as in Cotgrave. ME. manycle, Wyclif, Ps. cxlix. 8, earlier text ;
where the later text has manacle.— AF. manicle, Vie de St. Auban ;
OF. manicle, pl. manicles, ‘ manicles, hand-fetters, or gyves ;’ Cot.—
L. manicula, dimin. of manica, a long sleeve, glove, gauntlet, manacle,
handcuff. —L. manus, the hand; see Manual. Der. manacle, vb.,
Temp. i. 2. 461.
MANAGE, government of a horse, control, administration.
(F.—Ital.—L.) Orig. a sb., but now superseded by management.
‘Wanting the manage of unruly jades;’ Rich. II, iii. 3. 179.— MF.
manege, ‘the manage, or managing of a horse;” Cot. Mod. F.
manege. = Ital. maneggio, ‘a busines, a managing, a handling, ... an
exercise;’ Florio. Particularly used of managing horses; the mod.
Ital. maneggio means ‘ariding-school.’ The lit. sense is ‘a handling,’
the word being formed from maneggiare, ‘to manage, handle.’ = Ital.
mano, the hand.=—L. manum, acc. of manus, the hand; see Manual.
Der. manage, vb., to handle, Rich. II, iii. 2. 118 ; manag-er, L. L. L.
i. 2. 188; manage-able, manage-able-ness; manage-ment (a coined
word), used by Bp. Hall in a Fast Sermon, April 5, 1628 (R.).
Doublet, manége, from mod. F. manége. ay Not to be confused
with ME. menage, a household, K. Alisaunder, 2087, from OF.
maisnage, MF. mesnage (Cot.), mod. F. ménage; this OF. maisnage
stands for maison-age, extended from F. maison, a mansion; see
Mansion. (Scheler.)
MANATEE, a sea-cow, a dugong. (Span.—Carib.) The word
occurs in Sir T. Herbert’s Travels, ed. 1665, p. 404; spelt manate
in R. Eden, ed. Arber, p. 231, 1. 2 (1555).—Span. manati, a sea-cow ;
also written manato. A West Indian word; spelt manattoiii in
Raymond Breton’s Dictionaire Caraibe-Frangois; Auxerre, 1665 ;
p- 349. ft The Malay name is dugong, s. v.
MANCHET, a loaf of fine wheaten bread. (F.—L.?) ‘Of breade
MANDREL
. . the most excellent is the mainchet, v.r. ‘manchet ;’ Harrison,
Desc. of England, bk. ii. ch. 6. ME. manchete, Liber Cure Cucorum,
p- 53. β. The word seems to refer to quality; and, if so, is prob.
different from Norm. dial. manchette, bread made in the shape of a
crown, and also called couronne; i.e. of an annular shape; Moisy,
Robin; prob. from manchette, ‘a cuff or hand-ruff ;* Cot.; which is
alsoannular. Dimin. of manche, a sleeve. — L. manica, a sleeve ; from
L. manus, the hand; see Manacle.
MANCHINEEL, a W. Indian tree. (F.—Span.—L.) ‘ Man-
chinelo-tree, a tree that grows wild in the woods of Jamaica, the fruit
of which is as round as a ball ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Spelt manchineel,
W. Dampier, New Voy. (1699), iii. 67; mancinell, Capt. Smith,
Works, p. 905.—F. mancinelle (Hatzfeld). [Mahn gives Ital. manct-
nello, but it must be modem, and borrowed from Spanish; the
name, like many W. Indian words, is certainly Spanish, not Italian.]
=—Span. manzanillo, a little apple-tree ; hence, the manchineel tree,
from the apple-like fruit; dimin. of Span. manzana, an apple, also
a pommel. Cf. Span. manzanal, an orchard of apple-trees.—L.
Matiana, neut. pl. of Matidnus, adj.; we find Matiana mala, and
Matiana poma, applied to certain kinds of apples. The adj. Matianus,
Matian, is from L. Matius, the name of a Roman gens (Lewis).
MANCIPLE, a purveyor, esp. for a college. (F.—L.) Not
obsolete; still in use in Oxford and Cambridge. ME. manciple,
Chaucer, C. T. 569 (A 567). The is an insertion, as in principle,
syllable, participle. OF. mancipe, a slave; also manciple (Godefroy).
Cf. Mital. manctpio, ‘a slave, vassal, subject, captive, manciple,
farmer, baily,’ &c.; Florio.—L. mancipium, a slave, orig. possession,
property, lit. a taking in the hand; see Maine, Ancient Law, p. 317.
Cf. L. mancipi-, decl. stem of manceps, a taker in hand.—L. man-,
base of man-us, the hand; cip-, weakened form of cap-, base of cap-ere,
to take. See Manual and Captive.
MANDARIN, a Chinese governor of a province. (Port.—Malay
—Skt.) Not a Chinese, but a Malay word; brought to us by the
Portuguese. In Sir Τὶ Herbert’s Travels, ed. 1665, p. 3953 and in
E. G[rimston], tr. of Acosta, 1604, p. 370. — Port. mandarim, a man-
darin.— Malay (and Hindu) mantri, ‘a counsellor, minister of state;
ferdana mantri, the first minister, vizir;’ Marsden, Malay Dict., p. 334.
= Skt. mantrin-, a counsellor; maha-mantrin-, the prime minister. =
Skt. mantra-, a holy text, charm, prayer, advice, counsel. Formed,
with suffix -tra, from Skt. man, to think, mind, know; cf. Skt. man-tu-,
man-ty, an adviser.—4/MEN, to think; see Mind. (See Yule.)
MANDATE, a command, order, charge. (F.—L.) In Hamlet,
iii. 4. 204. - MF. mandat, ‘a mandate, or mandamus, for the prefer-
ment of one to a benefice;’ Cot.—L. mandatum, a charge, order,
commission. L. mandatus, pp. of mandare, to commit to one’s
charge, enjoin, command. f. Lit. ‘to put into one’s hand,’ from
man-, base of manus, the hand, and dare, to give. [So also manceps
=a taker by the hand; from man- and capere, to take.] See
Manual and Date (1). Brugmann, i. § 589 (2,.0). Der. man-
dat-or-y. Doublet, maundy, in the term Maundy Thursday, q.v.
From L. mandare are also counter-mand, com-mand, de-mand, re-mand,
com-mend, re-com-mend, commodore. Also mandamus, a writ that
enjoins a duty; from L. mandamus, we command, the first word in it.
MANDIBLE, a jaw. (L.) ‘Mandibula, the mandible, or jaw ;’
Phillips, ed. 1706, —L. mandibula, a jaw. —L. mandere, to chew, eat.
Der. mandibul-ar, adj., from L. mandibula,
MANDILION, a soldier’s cloak. (Ital. —Span.—Arab.—L.)
See examples in Nares, = Ital. mandiglione, ‘a mandillion, souldier’s
iacket;’ Florio.—Span. mandil, a coarse apron.—Arab. mandil, a
table-cloth, towel, mantle. —L. mantile, a napkin.
MANDOLIN, a kind of guitar. (F.—Ital.—Gk.) Added by
Todd to Johnson's Dict. ‘Lutes and mandolins ;’ T. Moore; Ob!
come to me when daylight sets; 1. 7.—F. mandoline, a mandolin. =
Ital. mandolino, dimin. of mandola, a kind of guitar (there were
several kinds). Mandola is a corruption of mandora (cf. F. mandore),
and, again, this is for bandora=lItal. pandora. See further under
Banjo.
MANDRAKE, ἃ narcotic plant. (AF.—L.—Gk.) In Gen. xxx.
14, Where the Bible of 1551 has pl. mandragoras. Also mandrake in
Palsgrave. ME. mandragores, Old Ing. Miscellany, ed. Morris,
p- 19, 1. 613. AS. mandragora, Cockayne’s Leechdoms, i. 244.
Mandrake (also spelt mandrage in Minsheu) is the AF, mandrake,
also mandrage (Bozon); a shortened form of mandragora, the form
used by Shak. in Oth. iii. 3. 330. Cf. OF. mandragore, Ital. man-
dragora, Span. mandragora. = L. mandragoras, gen. -@ ; Gen. xxx. 14.
= Gk. μανδραγόρας, the name of the plant; of uncertain origin.
MANDREL, the revolving shank in which turners fix their work
ina lathe. (F.—L.) ‘ Manderil, a kind of wooden pulley, that is part
of a turner’s leath;’ Bailey’s Dict. vol. ii. ed. 1731. Corrupted from
Ἐς mandrin, a punch, a mandrel (Hamilton). B. Marked by Littré
as of unknown origin; but. prob. derived from a L. type *mandar-
MANDRILL
inum, allied to Oscan mamphur, (apparently) a mandrel or part of
a lathe (Lewis). Cf. also Icel. méndull, handle of a handmill; Lith.
menturé, something that twirls; Skt. mantha-s, a churning-stick,
manthana-s (the same), from math, manth, to churn, See Brugmann,
i. §§ 571, 589 (2, b), 757-
MANDRILL, a kind of baboon. (E.) Nares, s.v. Drill, shows
that mandrill occurs in Smith’s Voyage to Guinea (1744), who thought
the animal was so called from its likeness to a man. Compounded of
E. man, and dril, ‘a large overgrown ape or baboon ;’ Blount’s Gloss.
The origin of dril or drill is unknown; perhaps allied to MDu. drillen,
‘to goe, trot, or run up and downe,’ Hexham; whence also E. drill, v.
See Drill in Nares, and in the N. E. D.
MANE, long hair on the neck of a horse, &c. (E.) ME, mane,
King Alisaunder, 1957. AS. manu, mane; Erfurt gloss., £182.-++
Icel. mon (gen. manar, pl. manar), a mane ; Swed. and Dan. man;
Du. maan (Sewel) ; MDu. mane (Hexham); G. méhne, OHG. mana.
Cf. W. myngen, a horse’s mane, mwng,a mane; from mwa, the neck.
So also Irish mong, a mane, muince, a collar (W. mynci, the hame of
a horse-collar) from Irish muin, the neck. Hence E. mane is plainly
connected with Skt. manya, the tendon forming the nape of the neck ;
and with L. monile, a necklace (Stokes-Fick, p. 216).
MANEGE, the control of horses ; see Manage.
MANGANESE, the name of a metal. (F.—Ital.—L.—Gk.)
The metal was discovered in 1774 (Littré). But the term is much
older, otherwise used. ‘Manganese, so called from its likeness in
colour and weight to the magnes or loadstone, is the most universal
material used in making glass;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—MF.
manganese, ‘a certain minerall which, being melted with glasse,
amends the colour thereof ;’ Cot. = Ital. manganese, ‘a stuffe or stone
to make glasses with; also a kind of mineral stone ;’ Florio. B. A
perverted form of magnesia, also written mangnesia. See Cent. Dict.,
and Schade, p. 1395; and see Magnesia. Palsgrave has mangnet
for magnet.
MANGE, the scab or itch in dogs, &c. (F.—L.) Minsheu, ed.
1627, gives ‘the mange’ as sb., and mangie as adj. Cf. ‘a mangy
dog,’ Timon, iv. 3. 371; ‘In wretched beggary And maungy misery,’
Skelton, How the Douty Duke of Albany, &c., ll. 137, 138. But
earlier, the sb. is mangie, as in ‘the mangie, or the scurvie,’ in E. G.,
tr. of Acosta, p. 465. ΜΕ. maniewe (= manjewe); see N.E.D.—OF.
manjue, mange; cf. mod. Norman manjure, Guernsey manjue (Moisy).
= OF. manjuer, mangier, F. manger, toeat. [The MF. sb. for‘ mange’
is mangeson.| See further under Manger. Der. mangi-ness.
MANGEL-WURZEL, a variety of beet. (G.) For mangold-
wurzel, also sometimes used. — G. mangold-wurzel, beet-root. = G. man-
gold, MHG. mangolt, beet, derived by Schade from the personal name
Manegolt ; and wurzel, root, allied to Wort (1).
MANGER, an eating-trough for cattle. (F.—L.) In Sir T.
More, Works, p. 1139 ἢ. ME. maungeur, Cath. Anglicum (1483).
=OF. mangeure (Godefroy); Εἰ. mangeoire, ‘a manger ;᾿ Cot.—F,
manger, to eat.=L. mandicare, to eat.—L. mandicus, a glutton. =
1, mandere,to chew. See Mandible.
MANGLE (1), to render maimed, tear, mutilate. (F.—G.) In
Sir T. More, Works, p. 538 f.— AF. mangler, to maim (Godefroy) ;
for mahangler, to maim, Langtoft, i. 254. Frequent. form of OF.
mahaigner, to maim. OF, mahaing, a maim, a hurt; see Maim.
Der. mangl-er.
MANGLE (2), a roller for smoothing linen; vb., to smooth
linen. (Du.—Late L.—Gk.) A late word; added by Todd to John-
son’s Dict. ‘A movement capable of being applied to mangles and
calenders ;’ Ann. Reg. (1799), p- 399. Borrowed from Dutch; cf. Du.
mangelen, to roll with a rolling-pin; Jinnen mangelen, to roll linen on
a rolling-pin; mangels‘ok, a rolling-pin (Sewel); een mangelstok,
“a smoothing role, or a battle-dore’ (Hexham). The corresponding
Mital. word is mangano, ‘a kind of presse to presse buckrom ;’
Florio. Both Du. and Ital. words are modifications of Late L. man-
ganum, mangona, a very common word as the name of a military
engine for throwing stones; see Mangonel. The mangle, being
worked with an axis and winch, was named from its resemblance to
the old war-engine ; sometimes it was reduced to an axis or cylinder
worked by hand. The Ital. mangano also means ‘a mangonel,’ =
Gk, μάγγανον, α machine for defending fortifications ; also, the axis
ofa pulley. See Prellwitz.
MANGO, the fruit of an E. Indian tree. (Span.— Port. — Malay. —
Tamil.) InSir T. Herbert’s Travels, ed. 1665, p. 350. —Span. mango.
—Port. manga.—Malay mawgga, ‘the mango-fruit, of which the
varieties are numerous ;’ Marsden’s Dict., p. 327. Formerly mangka
(see Yule). — Tamil man-kay, i.e. man-fruit, or fruit of the tree called
mamaram, i.e. man-tree (from man and maram, wood, tree); cf.
Catamaran (Yule).
MANGONEL, a war-engine for throwing stones. (F.—Late L.
—Gk.) ΜΕ. mangonel, in a MS. of the time of Edw. II; Polit.
MANNA
Songs, ed. Wright, p. 69.—AF. mangonel, Langtoft, i. 494; OF.
mangonel, later mangonneau, ‘an old-fashioned sling or engine,’ &c.;
Cot.—Late L. mangonellus, dimin. of mangona, manganum, a war-
engine. = Gk. μάγγανον ; see Mangle (2).
MANGOSTEEN, a fruit. (Malay.) Formerly mangostan.—
Malay manggustan (C. P. G. Scott); manggista (Marsden),
MANGROVE. (Hybrid; Malay and E.) ‘A sort of trees called
mangroves ;’ Eng. Garner, vii. 371 (ab. 1689). My belief is that the
second syllable is nothing but the E. word grove, and has reference to
the peculiar growth of the trees, which form a close thicket of some
extent. Again, the tree is sometimes called the mangle (F. mangle,
from Span. mangle) ; so that mangrove may well stand for mang-grove
or ‘grove of mangs or mangles.’ The syllable mang may be due to
the Malay name for the tree, viz. manggi-manggi; see Pijnappel’s
Malay-Dutch Dict. p.133. β. On the other hand, the Span. mangle,
a mangrove, appears to be of S. American origin (Yule). Cf. Brazil.
mangue, Hist. Nat. Brasil. i. 113.
MANTA, madness, frenzy. (L.—Gk.) In Phillips, ed. 1706.
(ME. manie, Chaucer, C. T. 1376, is from F. manie, ‘ madnesse;’
Cot. ]—L. mania. — Gk. μανία, madness, frenzy. B. The orig. sense is
‘mental excitement ;’ cf. μένος, mind, spirit, force; Skt. manyu-,
anger, fury. See Mind. Der. mania-c, spelt maniack in Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674, from F. maniague, ‘mad,’ Cot.; as if from a Lat.
*maniacus. Hence maniac-al.
MANIFEST, evident, apparent. (F.—L.) ME. manifest,Chaucer,
tr. of Boethius, Ὁ. 111. pr. 10, 1. 104.—F. manifeste, ‘manifest ;’ Cot.
—L. manifestus, evident. B. The lit. sense is (probably) ‘struck by
the hand,’ hence, palpable. L. mani-, for manu-, from manus, the
hand; and -festus=*-fed-tus, pp. of obs. verb *fendere, to strike,
occurring in the compp. dé-fendere, of-fendere ; cf. in-festus, in-fensus,
hostile. —4/GwHEN, to strike; see Defend (Bréal). And see
Manual. Der. manifest-ly, manifest-ness ; manifest, vb., ME. mani-
festen, Chaucer, Boeth. bk. ii. pr. 7, 1. 31; manifest-at-ion ; also mani-
Sesto, 4. ν.
MANIFESTO, a written declaration. (Ital.—L.) ‘ Manifesto
or evidence ;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 17. § 5.— Ital.
manifesto, sb., a manifesto, — Ital. manifesto, adj., manifest. = L. mani-
festus; see Manifest.
MANIFOLD, various. (E.) ME. manifold, manyfold, Gower,
C, A. i. 3443 bk. iii. 1952. AS. manigfeald, manifold ; Grein, ii.
210.—AS. manig, many; and -feald, suffix (Εἰ. -fold), connected with
fealdan, to fold. See Many and Fold.
MANIKIN, MANAKIN, a little man, dwarf. (F.—Du.) In
Tw. Nt. iii. 2.57. [Not an E. word.]—MF. maneguin, ‘a puppet ;’
Cot.—MDu. manneken, a little man (Hexham) ; mod. Du. mannetje,
by alteration of the suffix. Formed, with double dimin. suffix -k-en,
from Du. manne-, for man, a man. See Man. Cf. G. méannchen,
from mann.
MANIOG, the cassaya-plant. (Port.—Brazil.) Better spelt man-
dioc. = Port. mandioca (Span. mandiocha in Pineda). = Brazil. mandioca,
the root of the cassava-plant. Cp. ‘ mandiiba, maniiba, cujus radix
mandioca yocatur ;” Hist. Brasil. ii. 65. It is spelt mandthoca in the
same, i. 52. Granada gives the Guarani name as mandiég.
MANTPLE, a handful ; small band of soldiers, a kind of priest’s
scarf. (F.—L.) ‘Our small divided maniples,’ i.e. bands of men;
Milton, Areopagitica, ed. Hales, p. 48, 1.6. Also manypule, a scarf;
Supp. to Palsgrave, p. 1068, 1. 31. - MF. manipule, ‘a fistfull ;’ Cot.
“ἰὸς manipulus, a handful; hence, a wisp of straw, &c. used as an
ensign ; snd hence, a company of soldiers under the same standard,
a band of men.—L. mani-, for manu-, for manus, the hand; and
-pulus, lit. filling, from the weak grade ( pa/) of the root *p/é-, to fill;
cf. L. plénus, full, and AS. full, See Manual and Full. Der.
manipul-ate, q.V.
MANIPULATE, to handle. (L.) A modern word; not in
Johnson ; the sb. manipulation (but not the verb) was added by Todd
to Johnson’s Dict. The verb was prob, suggested by the sb. manipula-
tion, which appears in F.in 1716. Even the sb. is quite a coined word,
there being nothing nearer to it than the L. manipulatim, by troops,
an adv. formed from manipulus,a troop. The word manipulate should
mean ‘to fill the hands’ rather than merely to use them. Altogether,
the word has little to recommend it on etymological grounds; but it
is now well established. Perhaps the suffix has been confused with
that of inter-polate. Der. manipulat-ion, -ive, -or.
MANITO, a spirit, a fetish. (Algonkin.) ‘Gitche Manito, the
mighty ;’? Longfellow, Hiawatha, xiv. From the Algonkin manitu,
manito, a spirit, a demon (Cuoq).
MANKIND, the race of men. (E.) ME. mankinde, Gower,
C. A. ii. 83; bk. iv. 2443. The final d is excrescent, the older form
being mankin, Ormulum, 799. AS. mancynn, mankind; Grein, ii.
207.—AS. man, aman; and cynn, kind, race; see Man and Kin,
MANNA, the food supplied to the Israelites in the wilderness of
359
360 MANNER
Arabia. (L.—Gk.—Heb.) In A. V. Exod. xvi. 15; Numb. xi. 7;
Dent. viii. 3; &c. —L. manna, Deut. viii. 3 (Vulgate); butin Exod. xvi.
15 the Vulgate has manhu, and in Numb. xi. 7 it has man. = Gk. μάννα.
— Heb. max, manna. B. Two explanations are given; (1) from Heb.
min hu, what is this? from the enquiry which the Hebrews made
when they first saw it on the ground, where man is the neuter inter-
rogative pronoun; see Exod. xvi. 15. But this is a popular etymology;
since man is not Hebrew, but Aramaic (Gesenius). And (2) that the
sense of man is ‘it isa gift’ (cf. Arab. mann, beneficence, grace, favour,
also manna, Rich. Dict. p. 1495). See Gesenius, Heb. Dict. (1883),
. 468.
PMANNER, way, fashion, habit, sort, kind, style. (F.—L.) In
early use. ME. manere, Ὁ. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 51, 1. 30.
— AF. manere, Stat. Realm, i. 27 (1275); OF. maniere, ‘manner ;’
Cot. Mod. F. maniére; properly ‘ habit.’ Orig. fem. of OF. manier,
adj. manual, easily managed (Godefroy) ; allied to OF. manier, ‘to
handle, hand, manage, wield;’ Cot.—Late L. type *mandarius, for
L. manudarius, handy. L. manu-, for manus, the hand; see Manual.
Der. manner-ly, in Skelton, who wrote a poem called Manerly
Margery Mylk and Ale; manner-li-ness ; un-manner-ly, Hamlet, iii. 2.
364; manner-ism. it~ The phrase fo be taken in the manner (a law
phrase) is a corruption of to be taken with the mainour ; the L. phrase
is cum manuopere captus, Here mainour is the same word as
maneuvre, 4.ν. See maynure in Croft’s gloss, to Sir T. Elyot’s
Governour, And see Mainour.
MANGEUVRE, dexterous management, stratagem. (F.—L.)
Introduced into E. in the 18th cent. Added to Johnson’s Dict. by
Todd, who cites it from Burke, but without a satisfactory reference.
=F. manewvre, a manceuvre, properly a work of the hand. — Late
L. manuopera (more commonly manopera), a working with the hand.
(Cf. Span. maniobra, handiwork; maniobrar, to work with the
hands, manceuvre ; Ital. manovra, the working of a ship; manovrare,
to steer a ship.])=L. mani operari, to work with the hand. —L,
mani, abl. of manus, the hand; and operdri, to work, from opera,
work. See Manualand Operate. Der. maneuvre, vb., maneuvr-
er. Doublet, manure,
MANOR, a place of residence for a nobleman in former times ;
estate belonging to a lord. (F.—L.) In Shak. Merry Wives, ii. 2.
19. ME. manere, P. Plowman, B. v. 595.— OF. manoir, ‘a mansion,
mannor, or mannor-house,’ Cot.; formerly also spelt menoir (Gode-
froy). Properly ‘a place to dwell in;’ from OF. manoir, menoir,
to dwell (Godefroy). —L. manére, to dwell, remain; see Mansion.
Der. manor-house, L. L. L. i. 1. 2083 manor-seat ; manor-i-al.
MANSE, a clergyman’s house, in Scotland. (L.) ‘ Manse, a
habitation, a farm ;” Blount’s Law Lexicon, ed. 1691. An old law
term.—Late L. mansa, a farm.—L. mansa, fem. of mansus, pp. of
manére, to dwell; see Mansion,
MANSION, a large house, dwelling-place. (F.—L.) ME.
mansion, Chaucer, C. T. 1976 (A 1974).—OF. mansion, a dwelling-
place; Burguy.—L. mansidnem, acc. of mansio, a stopping, a place
of abode; cf. mansus, pp. of manére, to dwell.-Gk. μένειν, to stay,
remain; allied to μόνιμος, staying, steadfast. —4/MEN, to remain.
Der. mansion-house; mansion-ry, Macb. i. 6.5; from L. manére are
also manse, manor, permanent, remain, remnant. And see menial,
menagerie, messuage.
MANTEL, a shelf over a fire-place. (F.—L.) Hardly used
except in the comp. mantel-piece and mantel-shelf; formerly used in
the comp. manile-tree, which occurs in Cotgrave, s.v. manteau, In
old fire-places, the mantel slopes forward like a hood, to catch the
smoke; the word is a mere doublet of Mantle, q.v. ‘ Mantyltre of
a chymney, manteau dune cheminee;’ Palsgrave. @ The difference
in spelling between mantel and mantle is an absurdity. Der. mantel-
piece, -shelf.
MANTLE, a cloak, covering. (F.—L.) Better spelt mantel,
as it is the same word as that above. In early use. ME. mantel,
Layamon, 14755, 15274. (Cf. AS. mentel, a mantle, Ps. cviii. 28.]
“- OF. mantel (Godefroy), later manteau, ‘a cloke, also the mantle-
tree of a chimney ;’ Cot.—L. mantellum, a napkin; aiso, a means
of covering, a cloak (in a figurative sense) ; cf. L. mantéle, mantile,
a napkin, towel. A shortened form appears in the Late L. man-
tum, a short cloak, used by Isidore of Seville, whence Ital. and
Span. manto, F. mante, a mantle. For the origin, see Brugmann,
i. §§ 134, 483 (7)., Der. mantle, vb., to cloak, cover, Temp. v.
67; also mantle, vb., to gather a scum on the surface, Merch. Ven.
i. 1. 893; mantel-et (with dimin. suffix),‘a short purple mantle,.. .
in fortification, a moveable pent-house,’ Phillips, ed. 1706, from F.
manielet, ‘a little mantle, a movable pent-house,’ &c., Cotgrave.
Also mantilla, a long head-dress, from Span. mantilla, dimin. of
manto, a cloak, a veil.
MANTUA, a lady’s gown. (Ital.) Seldom used except in the
comp. mantua-maker, a lady’s dressmaker. ‘Mantoe or Mantua gown,
MAR
a loose upper garment, now generally worn by women, instead of a
straight body’d gown;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. ‘ By th’ yellow mantos
of the bride ;’ Butler, Hudibras, pt. iii. c. 1.1. 700. Manto is from
Ital. (or Span.) manto, a mantle, or even from F. manteau; but
Mantua gown must refer to Mantua in Italy, though this connexion
seems to have arisen from mere confusion. As to Ital. manto, see
Mantle.
MANUAL, done by the hand, suitable for the hand. (F.—L.)
We recognize it as a F. word from its use after its sb., in such phrases
as ‘sign manual,’ or ‘seal manual ;’ the spelling has been conformed
to the L. vowel in the final syllable. Shak. has seal manual, Venus,
1.516. Formerly spelt manuel, as in Cotgrave. Cf. ‘syne manuell,’
sign manual; Fifty Eng. Wills, ed. Furnivall, p. 83, 1. 18 (1428). =
F. manuel, ‘manuel, handy, of the hand;”’ Cot.—L. manwdalis,
manual. L. manu-, for manus, the hand. B. The sense of manus is
‘the measurer;’ formed (with suffix -2x-) from *ma, weak grade of
ME, to measure, whence also Skt. ma, to measure, a verb which
when used with the prep. zs, out, also means to build, cause, create,
compose; cf. also Skt. mana-, sb., measuring, measure; Brugmann,
ii. § 106. Der. manual, sb., a hand-book ; manual-ly. From L.
manus we also have man-acle, man-age, man-ciple, man-ege, mani-fest,
mani-ple, mani-pul-ate, mann-er, man-euvre, man-ure; manu-facture,
manu-mit, manu-script, a-manu-ensis; also main-tain, e-man-cip-ate,
quadru-man-ous, &c.
MANUFACTURE, a making by hand. (F.—L.) In Bacon,
Life of Henry VU, ed. Lumby, p. 58,1. 19; p. 196, 1. 4. Also spelt
manifacture, as in Cotgrave.—F. manufacture (also manifacture in
Cot.), ‘ manifacture, workemanship;” Cot. Coined from Latin. =
L. mani, by the hand, abl. of manus; and factiira, a making, from
facere,to make. See Manual and Fact. Der. manufacture, vb.,
manufactur-al, manufactur-er, manufact-or-y.
MANUMIT, to release a slave. (L.) ‘Manumitted and set at
liberty ;’? Stow, Edw. III, an. 1350. The pp. manumissed occurs in
North’s Plutarch, p. 85 (R.); or p. 103, ed. 1631.—L. maniimittere
(pp. mantimissus), to set at liberty a slave, lit. ‘to release from one’s
power,’ or ‘send away from one’s hand.’=L. mani, abl. of manus,
the hand; and mittere, to send. See Manual and Missile. Der.
manumission, from Εἰ, manumission, ‘a manumission or dismissing”
(Cot.), from L. maniimissionem, acc. of manumissio, a dismissal,
formed like the pp. maniimissus.
MANURE, to enrich with a fertilising substance. (F.—L.)
The old sense was simply ‘to work at with the hand.’ ‘ Arable
land, which could not be manured [tilled] without people and
families, was turned into pasture; ’ Bacon, Henry VII, ed. Lumby,
p- 70, 1. 26. ‘Manured with industry ;᾿ Oth. i. 3. 328. Cf. manure
in G. Douglas, tr. of Virgil, bk. iv. ch. 5.1.72. See Trench, Select
Glossary. Manure is a contracted form of maneuvre; see Manceuvre
andInure. Der. manure, sb., manur-er, manur-ing.
MANUSCRIPT, written by the hand. (L.) Properly an adj.,
but also used as a sb. ‘A manuscript;’ Minshen, ed. 1627.— Late
L. manuscriptum, a manuscript; L. mani scriptum, written by the
hand.—L. manu, abl. of manus, the hand; and scriptum, neut. of
scriptus, pp. of scribere, to write. See Manual and Scribe.
MANY, not few, numerous. (E.) ME. mani, many, moni, fre-
quently followed by a, as ‘many a man ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 229, 3905
(A 3907). The oldest instances of this use are in Layamon, 7993,
16189, 29131. AS. manig, monig, Grein, ii. 209.4-Du. menig; Dan.
mange; Swed. mange; Icel. margr (with a singular change from x
ἴο 7); see Noreen, ὃ 369; Goth. manags; G. manch, MHG. manec,
OHG. manac. B. All from a Teut. type *managoz. Further allied
to Irish minic, Gael. minig, W. mynych, frequent, Russ. mnogie, pl.
many.
MAP, a representation of the earth, or of a part of it. (F.—L.)
The oldest maps were maps of the world, and were called mappe-
mounde, as in Gower, C. A. iii. 102; bk. vii. 530. This is a F. form
of the L. name mappa mundi, which occurs in Trevisa, i. 27, and in
the corresponding passage of Higden’s Polychronicon. B. The
original sense of L. mappa was a napkin; hence, a painted cloth.
According to Quinctilian, it isa Punic word. See Napkin.
MAPLE, the name of atree. (E.) ME. maple, mapul; Chaucer,
C. T. 2925 (A 2923). AS. mapul-der, the maple-tree ; ‘ Acer,
mapulder,’ Voc. 138. 153 we also find mapolder, a maple, Mapulder-
stede, now Maplestead (in Essex), in Thorpe’s Diplomatarium Byi
Saxonici, pp. 146, 403; and Kemble has Mapeles baruue in his index.
Hence the AS. name is mapul, mapel; cf. mapel-irzow, Birch, Cart.
Saxon. i. 290. The Icel. mopurr is borrowed from E.
MAR, to injure, spoil, damage. (E.) ME. merren, less com-
monly marren, P. Ploughman’s Crede, J. 66; Will. of Palerne, 664.
OMerc. *merran, in comp. d-merran, to hinder; Vesp. Ps. 77. 31-
Also AS. d-myrran, used in various senses, such as to dissipate,
waste, lose, hinder, obstruct ; see Matt. x. 42, Luke, xv. 14; Atlfric’s
|
MARABOU
Hom. i. 372, 1. 3; Grein, i. 28,29. Cf. also AS. mirran, to impede,
Exod. v. 4; gemearr, an impediment, /®lfred, tr. of Gregory’s Past
Care, ed. Sweet, p. 401, ll. 17, 20.44+MDu. merren, to stay* retard
(Hexham); Du. marren, to tarry; OHG. marrjan, to hinder, disturb,
vex; whence mod. F. marri, vexed, sad; Goth. marzjan, to offend,
cause to stumble. Teut. type *marzjan-; base *marz-. Brugmann,
i. 903 b.
MARABOU, MARABOUT, a kind of African stork; also,
its downy feathers. (F.—Port.—Span.—Arab.) F. marabout. = Port.
marabuto (Hatzfeld).—Span. morabito, a Moorish anchorite, a re-
ligious man (Pineda). The bird obtained its name from its sage-like
appearance; the Indian variety is called the adjutant-bird, for a
similar reason. Arab. murabit, quiet, still; a hermit, sage; a re-
ligious sage among the Berbers; see Devic. And see Maravedi.
MARANATHA, our Lord cometh. (Syriac.) In 1 Cor. xvi. 22.
‘Tt is a Grecised form of the Aramaic words maranatha, our Lord
cometh ;” Dict. of the Bible. Cf. Arab. mar, lord (from Syriac).
MARASCHINO, a cordial. (Ital.—L.) It is said to have come
originally from Dalmatia, where the cherries grow. = Ital. mara-
schino, an adj. form from marasca, amarasca, a kind of sour cherry
(Baretti). —L. amarus, bitter, sour.
MARAUD, to wander in quest of plunder. (F.) ‘ Marauding,
ranging about as soldiers in quest of plunder, forage, &c.;’ Bailey's
Dict. v. ii. ed. 1731.— MF. marauder, ‘to beg, to play the rogue ;’
(οί. - Ε΄ maraud, ‘a rogue, begger, vagabond, varlet, rascall ;’ Cot.
B. The etymology is much disputed; see Scheler and KGrting.
Bugge suggests a Late L. form *malaldus, from L. malus, evil;
whence maraud by dissimilation.
MARAVEDI, a small coin, less than a farthing. (Span.— Arab.)
In Minsheu, ed. 1627.—Span. maravedi, the smallest Span. coin.
Called in Port. both marabitino and maravedim. The name is an old
one, the coin being so called because first struck during the dynasty
of the Almoravides at Cordova, A.D. 1094-1144 (Haydn, Dict. of
Dates, s.v. Spain). Maravedi is derived from the Arab. name of
this dynasty. — Arab. Murabifin, the name of an Arab. dynasty; pl.
of murabit, a hermit, a sage; see Marabou. Rich. Pers. Dict.
. 1382.
"MARBLE, a sort of stone. (F.—L.) Gen. called marbreston
(=marble-stone) in ME. ; afterwards shortened to marbre, and thence
changed to marbel or marble. Spelt marbre-ston, Layamon, 1317
(later text); marbelston, P. Plowman, A. x. tot; marbel, Chaucer,
C. T. 1895 (A 1893).—OF. marbre, ‘marble ;’? Cot. —L. marmorem,
acc. of marmor, marble, considered as a masc. sb.; but it is com-
monly neuter.-Gk. μάρμαρος, explained as a glistening white stone,
whence μαρμαίρειν, to sparkle, glitter; cf. μαρμάρεος, sparkling,
paipa, the dog-star, lit. ‘sparkler.’ But named rather from its hard-
ness; cf. μάρμαρ, explained as στερεόν, i.e. a hard body; see Prell-
witz. Der. mardl-y; also marble-hearted, K. Lear, i. 4. 281, &c.
MARCASITE, a’kind of iron pyrites. (F.—Span.—Arab.)
‘Other metals and marcasites;’ Evelyn’s Diary, June 21, 1650.—
F. marcasite, marcassite, ‘the marcassite, or fire-stone ;” Cot.—Span.
marquesita, ‘a stone found in the copper-mines;’ Pineda. Arab.
marqashitha, marcasite; Devic. And see Viillers.
MARCESCENT, withering. (L.) Botanical. In Bailey’s Dict.
vol. ii. ed. 1731.—L. marcescent-, stem of pres. pt. of marcescere,
inceptive form of marcére, to wither, lit. to grow soft. Brugmann, i.
§ 413 (8).
MARCH (1), a border, frontier. (F.-OHG.) Usually in the pl.
marches, as in Hen. V,i. 2. 140. ME. marche, sing., P. Plowman,
B. xy. 438. AF. marche, Liber Albus, p. 229; Stat. Realm, i. 211.—
F. marche, ‘a march, frontire;’ Cot.—<OHG. marka, a boundary.
See Mark (2), of which march is a doublet.
‘MARCH (2), to walk with regular steps, as a soldier. (F.—L.?
or G.?) In Spenser, F. Ὁ. v. 10. 33.—F. marcher, ‘to march, goe,
pace ;? Cot. β. Of disputed origin; a good suggestion is Scheler’s,
who sees in it the notion of regular beating (cf. Ἐν ‘to be on the beat,’
“to beat time’), and connects it with L. marcus, a hammer, whence
a verb *marcare, to beat, could easily have arisen in Late L., and
would well express the regular tramp of a marching host. y. Other-
wise, from F. marche, a frontier, from OHG: marka, cognate with
AS, mearc; see March (1). Cotgrave has: ‘ Marche, ..a march,
frontire, .. . a march, marching of soldiers.” Diez cites an OF. phr.
aller de marche en marche, to go from land to land, to make expeditions.
Der. march, sb., K. John, ii. 60.
MARCA8 (3), the name of the third month. (F.—L.) ME. March,
Chaucer, C. T. 10361 (F 47). Not from OF. and Ἐς mars, but from
Marche, the’ ONF. (Picard) form, also found in the dial. of Rouchi
(Hécart).—L. Martium, acc. of Martius, the month of Mars, lit.
belonging to Mars, —L. Mariti-, decl.stem of Mars, the god of war.
MARCHIONESS, the fem. of Marquis, q.v.
MARCHPANE, a sweet cake, made with almonds and sugar.
MARJORAM
(F.—Ital.—L.?) In Romeo and Jul. i. 5.9. ME. march payne, in
a list temp. Hen. V; Fabyan, repr. 1811, p. 587. From a dial. form
(prob. Picard) of MF. marcepain, which occurs in 1544 (Hatzfeld) ;
corrupted to massepain in F.—Ital. marciapane, marzapane (Florio).
The origin of marcia is unknown, but it prob. represents a name, such
as L. Martia; pane is from L. panem, acc. of panis, bread.
MARE, the female of the horse. (E.) ME. mere, Chaucer, C. T.
543 (A 541). AS. mere; we find ‘ equa, mere’ in Voc. 119. 36. . This
is the fem. form of AS. mearh, a horse, Grein, ii. 238 ; also spelt mearg,
mear.+Icel. merr, a mare, mer-hross, mer-hryssi, a mare-horse, used as
fem. of marr,a steed; Dan. m@r,a mare; Swed. mirr,a mare; Du.
merrie, a mare; G. mdhre, OHG. meriha, a mare; fem. of OHG.
marah, a battle-horse. B. The AS. mearh, Icel. marr, OHG. marah,
a battle-horse, steed, are cognate with Irish and Gael. marc, W. and
Corn. march, a horse, a stallion. Root uncertain. ‘Teut. type *marh-
oz, Idg. type *mark-os, m., a horse; whence Teut. type *marh-jon-,
f.,a mare. Der. mar-shal,q.v. 3 The mare in night-mare (q.v.)
is a different word.
MARGARINE, a pearl-like substance extracted from hog’s lard;
and (by misapplication ), a substitute for butter. (F.— L.—Gk. — Pers.)
A barbarous formation from margar-ic (acid), a substance supposed
to be present in certain fats; from margar-, as in margar-et, Ἐς mar-
guerite, lit. ‘ pearl.’ = L. margarita, pearl. = Gk. μαργαρίτης, pearl. =
Pers, murwarid, a pearl; Rich. Dict. p. 1396.
MARGIN, an edge, border. (L.) ME. margin; spelt margyne,
P. Plowman, Β. vil. 18. Trevisa (i. 41) translates L. margines by
margyns. = L.margin-,stem of margo, a brink, margin, border; cognate
with E. Mark (2),q.v. Der. margin-al, margin-al-ly, margin-at-ed.
Doublets, margent, with excrescent ¢, Tyndal, Works, p. 32, col. 2;
marge, Spenser, Ἐς Q. iv. 8. 61, from F. marge; also mark (2).
MARGRAVE, a marquis, a lord of the marches. (Du.) ‘The
maregraue, as thei call him, of Bruges :᾿ tr. of Sir Τὶ More’s Utopia,
1551, ed. Arber, p. 28. Cf. meregrave in Liber Custumarum, p. 634.
- Du. markgraaf, a margrave.— Du. mark, a mark, also a march,
border, border-land ; and graaf,a count, earl. -++-G. markgraf, similarly
compounded... For the first element, see Mark (2). The second
element is Du. graaf, G. graf, MHG. grave, OHG. kravjo, graveo,
gravo, alord chief justice, administrator of justice, count. Of unknown
origin; Franck and Kluge reject the explanations from Late L. or
Celtic. Kluge dissociates it from AS. geréfa, a reeve, but connects it
with Goth. ga-gréfts, a decree (Luke, ii. 1). Franck admits associa-
tion with AS. geréfa ; for which see Reeve (2). Der. margrav-ine,
from Du. markgravin, where -in is a fem. suffix. See marquis.
MARIGOLD, the name of a plant. (Hybrid; Heb. and E.)
The pl. mary-goulden occurs in Medical Works of the 14th cent., ed.
G. Henslow, p. 81 (from MS. Harl. 2378, fol. 29). Spelt marygould
in Levins; maryguld in G. Douglas, Palace of Honour, Prol. st. 5.
In Shak. Wint. Ta. iv. 4.105. It bears a yellow flower, whence also
the Du. name goud-bloem (gold-bloom), a marigold. Compounded
of Mary and Gold. Chaucer has gold for marigold; C. T. 1931
(A 1929). The Gaelic name is Jus-mairi, Mary’s leek or plant.
Flowers named from the Virgin Mary are numerous ; hence our /ady’s-
slipper, lady’s tresses, &c. ‘The name Mary (from F. Marie, L. Maria,
Gk. Mapia) is Hebrew, and is the same as Heb. Miryam or Miriam.
MARINE, belonging to the sea. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave. [The
sb. mariner is in much earlier use, spelt marineer, Chaucer, C. Τὶ
13367 (B 1627). ]—F. marin, ‘marine, of the sea;” Cot.—L. marinus,
adj., of the sea.—L. mare, the sea; cognate with E. mere, a pool; see
Mere (1). Der. mariner, which occurs in Floriz and Blancheflur,
ed. Lumby, 1.71; from AF. mariner, Liber Albus, p. 381 (footnote) ;
F. marinier, a mariner ;’ Cot.
MARIONETTE, a puppet. (F.—L.—Gk.—Heb.) Cotgrave
has marionnette, ‘little Marian; .. also, a puppet.’ Dimin. of F.
Marion, Marian; from Marie, Mary; see Marigold.
MARISH, a marsh. (F.—L.) In Ezek. xlvii. 11. Variant of
ME. mareis, Chaucer, C. T. 6552 (D 970). OF. maresche (Godefroy);
also mareis (Hatzfeld); Late L. type mariscus.—L. mar-e, the sea;
cognate with Mere (1); with suffix -iscus. @[ The F. marais is
preserved in the name Beaumaris, in Anglesey. Doublet, morass,
MARITAL, belonging to a husband. (F.—L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674.—F. marital, ‘ belonging to a mariage, esp. on the husband’s
side ;’? Cot.—L. maritdlis, adj., formed from maritus, a husband ; see
Marry.
MARITIME, pertaining to the sea. (F.—L.) In Shak. Ant. i. 4.
51.“ Εἰ maritime, ‘maritime ;’ Cot.—L. maritimus, adj., formed with
suffix -¢imus from mari-, for mare, the sea, cognate with E. Mere (1),
361
ἐν.
MARI ORAM, an aromatic plant. (F.—Late L,) The former r
is often omitted in various languages. ME. majoran, Gower, C. A. iii.
133; bk. vii. 1433.—OF. majorane (Godefroy); Late L. majorana
(Ducange). Cf. Ital. majorana, Span. mayorana, Port. matorana,
MARK
marjoram. β. Doubtfully connected with Late L. majoraca, mar-
joram, Ducange; thought to be a disfigured form of L. a-maracus,
marjoram, with loss of initial a.— Gk. ἀμάρακος, marjoram.
(1), a stroke, outline, trace, line, sign. (E.) ME. merie,
Chaucer, C. T. 6201 (D 619). AS. mearc, fem.a mark, sign.+Du.
merk ; Icel. mar’; Swed. marke; Dan. merke; Ὁ. marke, MHG. marc,
a mark, token. Cf. Lithuan. margas, marked, variegated. Prob.
the same as Mark (2), which seems to be older. Der. mari, vb.,
362
AS. mearcian (Grein) ; mark-er, mark-ing ink; marksman, Dryden's |
Meleager (from Ovid, bk. viii), 1. 188; also mark-man, Romeo, i.
I. 212.
(2), a march, limit, boundary. (E.) Not common in
ME., the usual form being merche or marche. ME. merke; as in
“ merke of felde,’ Gen. and Exodus, ed. Morris, 440. AS. mearc, fem.
a boundary.+ OSax. marka; Du. mark; G. mark, fem., OHG.
marcha ; Goth. marka,a confine, coast. So also Icel. mér&, f., a forest ;
orig. a boundary. Teut. type *marka, f. Allied to L. margo, a
margin; Zend merezu, Pers. marz,a border; Olrish mruig, a mark,
province. See Mark (1). The sense of ‘ boundary ’ suggested that
of ‘mark to indicate a boundary.’ Doublet, march (1). Cf. margin.
MARK (3), the name of a coin. (Scand.) The Old E. mark was
valued at 13s. 4d. ME. mark, Chaucer, C. T. 12324 (C 390). AS.
mare ; ‘i. marc goldes’ =1 marc of gold, Diplomatarium A®vi Saxon.,
ed. Thorpe, p. 379. —Icel. mark; Dan. and Swed. mark, a mark.+G.
mark, a certain weight of silver, viz. 8 oz.; also a coin. β. Perhaps
a particular use of Mark (1), as denoting (1) a fixed weight, and
(2) a fixed value. Cf. the use of foken to denote a coin.
T, a place of merchandise. (F.—L.) In early use.
ME. market, Old Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 16,1. 491. Late
AS. market, Birch, Cart. Saxon. iii. 582; 1. 23.—OF. *market, NF.
variant of marchet (Roland, 1150), mod. F. marché. Cf. Walloon
markié, Prov. mercatz (Bartsch), Ital. mercato, Span. mercado, a
market. = L. mercatum, acc. of mercaius, traffic, trade, also a market
(whence also G. markt, Du. markt, Icel. markadr, &c.). “ L. mercatus,
pp- of merca@ri, to trade. Closely connected with L. merx, mer-
chandise. See Mercantile. Doublet, mari. Der. market-able,
Temp. v. 266; market-cross, -town. And see merchant.
MARL, a rich earth. (F.—L.) ME. marle, marl, Trevisa, ii. 15 ;
see Spec. of Eng. ed. Morris and Skeat, p. 236, ll. 25,27. Dis-
syllabic in marle-pit, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 3460.—OF. marle, merle, maile,
now spelt marne ; cf. Picard and Walloon marle, Gascon merle; and
see Littré, s.v. marne. Cot. has the derivative marliere, ‘a marle-pit.’
— Late L. margila, marl; dimin. of Late L. marga, marl (a common
word); Ducange. It occurs in Pliny, xvii. 6. 4, § 42, who considers
it to be a word of Gaulish origin. @[ The Irish and Gael. marla,
ἌΝ. marl, must be borrowed from E.; the G., Du., Dan., and Swed.
mergel are from the L. margila. Der. marl-y, marl-pit.
INE, a small cord used for binding large ropes, to protect
them. (Du.) ‘Some the galled ropes with dauby marling bind ;’
Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, st. 148. — Du. marling, marlijn, a marline ;
also called marireep (corruption of marreep). So called from its use
in binding ropes.—Du. marren, to tie (MDu. marren, maren, ‘to |
bynde, or to tye knots,’ Hexham); and /ijn (corruptly Jing), a line,
borrowed from F. ligne, L. linea, a line. Similarly mar-reep, from
reep, a rope. The MDu. maren=E. moor, in the expression ‘to
moor a ship.” See Moor (2) and Line. Der. marline-spike.
MARMALADE, a jam or conserve, gen. made of oranges, but
formerly of quinces. (F.—Port.—L.—Gk.) ‘Marmalet, Marmelade,
a kind of confection made of quinces, or other fruit ;’ Phillips. Spelt
marmalat, marmalet in Levins; marmalet in Baret; marmelad in
Tyndall, Works, p. 229, col. 2.—MF. mermelade, ‘marmelade ;’
Cot. Mod. F. marmelade.= Port. marmelada, marmelade; orig. made
of quinces. Formed with suffix -ada (like that of a fem. pp.) from
marmel-o,a quince; thus the sense is ‘ made of quince.’ = L. melimélum,
lit. a honey-apple, sometimes applied to the quince, as shown by the
allied word mélomeli, the syrup of preserved quinces. = Gk. μελίμηλον,
a sweet apple, an apple grafted on a quince; cf. μηλόμελι, honey
flavoured with quince. —Gk. μέλε-, honey, cognate with L. mel, honey ;
and μῆλον, ἀπ apple. See Mellifluous and Melon.
MARMOSET, a small variety of American monkey. (F.—L.)
Formerly applied to a different animal, as the word is older than
Columbus. ME. marmosetie, marmozette. ‘ Apes, marmozeites, babe-
wynes [baboons], and many other dyverse bestes;” Mandeville’s
Travels, ed. Halliwell (1866), p. 210; see Wright's note to Temp. ii.
2. = Ε΄ marmouset (OF. marmose?), ‘the cock of a cestern or fountaine,
made like a woman’s dug; any antick image, from whose teats water
trilleth ; any puppet, or antick; any such foolish or odd representa-
tion; also, the minion, favorite, or flatterer of a prince;’ Cot. It
would seem that the word was applied to some kind of ape because
of its grotesque antics. B. The origin of OF. marmoset (Cotgrave)
looks uncertain ; and Scheler’s statement that the Late L. υἱοῖς mar-
| to be a mistake; as the L. form is marmosétdrum.
MARQUE
moréiorzm occurs as a translation of F. rue des Marmousets turns out
y- At the same
time, itis perfectly clear that one reason for the use of this particular
word as meaning a kind of ape was due to a connexion with the
F. word marmoé (not to be confused with E. marmot, which may be
a difierent word). Cotgrave has: ‘Marmot, a marmoset, or little
monky;’ also: ‘Marmoite, a she marmoset, or she monky.’ The
etym. of this F. marmot is uncertain; the most likely explanation is
Scheler’s; he takes it to be a dimin. with suffix -οὐ from OF. merme,
little, tiny, lit. very small. This OF. merme is a curious derivative
of L. minimus (like OF. arme from L. animus); see Minim. This
| gives to Ἐς marmot the sense of ‘ dear little creature,’ and accounts
for the mod. use in the senses of ‘ puppet’ and ‘little child’ (Hamil-
ton); cf. Ital. marmotia, ‘a marmoset, a babie for a childe to play
withall, a pugge;” Florio. Korting, § 1678.
OT, 2 mountain-rat, a rodent animal. (F.—Rom.—
L.) Sometimes introduced into Eng. from Ital. Ray speaks of
‘the Marmoiio or mus Alpinus, a creature as big [as] or bigger than
a rabbet;’ On the Creation, pt. ii (R.). ‘ Marmotto, a mountain-
ταῖς Kersey, ed. 1715. Also Englished from F. marmotie; cf.
Ital. marmotia, ‘a marmotte,’ Baretti; substituted for marmotana,
‘the mountain-rat, a marmotan;’ Torriano. [Cf. OF. marmotaine,
marmotan, ‘ the Alpine mouse, or mountain-rat ;” Cot.] Romansch
(Grisons) murmont; cf. OHG. murmunti, muremunto, a marmot.=L.
miir-, for miis,a mouse, and montis, gen. of mons, a mountain. Thus
the sense is ‘mountain-mouse.’ See Mountain and Mouse.
4 So in Diez. But Kérting (§ 6387) rejects this etymology, and
proposes to refer marmoiie to OF. merme, very small, from L. minimus;
cf. Romania, xxiii. 237, and see Marmoset.
MAROON (1), brownish-crimson. (F.—Ital.) Not in Todd’s
Johnson, ‘Marones or great chesnuts ;’ Passenger of Benvenuto (1612).
Lit. ‘chesnut-coloured.’ =F. marron, ‘the great chestnut;’ Cot.=
Ital. marrone; Florio gives the pl. as marroni, maroni, ‘a kind of
greater chestnuts then any we haue.’ Of unknown origin; Diez
suggests a connexion with the L. name Maro. Cf. late Gk. μάραον,
the fruit of the cornel-tree, in Eustathius (12th cent.).
MAROON (2), to put ashore on a desolate island. (F.—Span.—
L.—Gk.) It occurs in Scott, The Pirate, c. xli. Dampier has:
‘I was ... morooned or lost ;’ Voy. (1699) ; τ. ii. pt. 2. p. 843 ch
p- 95. And see Maroons in Haydn, Dict. of Dates. =F. marron, adj.,
an epithet applied to a fugitive slave; négre marron, a fugitive slave
who takes to the woods and mountains (Littré); hence the E. verb
to maroon =to cause to live in a wild country, like a fugitive slave.
See Scheler, who points out that the F. word is a clipt form of Span.
cimarron, wild, unruly; hence, savage. Of unknownorigin. B. Some
have connected it with Span. cima, a mountain-summit. Cf. Ital. and
Port. cima, F. cime, ἃ mountain-top; according to Diez, the OSpan.
cima also meant a twig, sprout; from L. cyma, a young sprout of
a cabbage. — Gk. κῦμα, anything swollen, a wave, young sprout.
4 Mr. Wedgwood says that ‘the fugitive negroes are mentioned
under the name of symarons in Hawkins’ Voyage, § 68, where they
are said to be settled near Panama.’ He also cites the following:
“I was in the Spanish service, some twenty years ago in the interior
of Cuba, and negro cimarrén or briefly cimarrén, was then an every-
| day phrase for fugitive or outlawed negroes hidden in the woods and
mountains ;’ Notesand Queries, Jan. 27, 1866. Verified by Granada’s
Vocab. Rioplatense, which has cimarron, adj., belonging to the hills,
said of animals and plants; applied in Span. to slaves.
MARQUE, LETTERS OF, letters authorising reprisals.
(F.—Proy.—G.) The old sense of etter of margue was a letter signed
by a king or prince authorising his subjects to make reprisals on
another country, when they could not otherwise get redress. It is
now only used in naval affairs, to show that a ship is not a pirate of
a corsair. Palsgrave has: ‘I sende forthe a letter of marke,’ &c.
‘ Law of Marque, or [corruptly] Mart; this word is used 27 Edw. 1Π,
stat. 2. c. 17, and grows from the German word march [which, how-
ever, is the English form of the word], i.e. Jimes, a bound or limit.
And the reason of this appellation is because they that are driven to
this law of reprizal, take the goods of that people (of whom they
have received wrong and can get no ordinary justice) when they
catch them within their own territories or precincts; Blount’s Gloss.,
ed.1674. ‘Margue.. . signifies in the ancient statutes of our land as
much as reprisals; as An. 4 Hen. V, c. 7, Margues and Reprisals are
used as synonima ; and letters of marque are found in the same signi-
fication in the same chapter;’ id. See also Ducange, s.v. Marcha,
In one instance, cited by Wedgwood and Littré, the OF. marguer
seems to mean ‘to pillage,’ the lit. sense being ‘to catch within one’s
borders.’ Littré also shows that the spelling marche was used in the
same sense as margue, in this connexion ; it would hence appear that
margue is lit. a border, and hence a catching within one’s borders,
as explained by Blount above.—OF. margue, properly a boundary
|
;
|
|
|
MARQUEE
explained by Cot. as ‘a distresse, arrest, or seisure of body or
goods.’ Healso gives: ‘Droict de Marque, power to arrest the body,
and seize the goods of another; granted by the king, and in old time
given by the parliament, against a stranger or forreiner.’ = Prov.
marca (mod. marco), verbal sb. from marcar, to seize by way of
reprisal (Hatzfeld) ; cf. also Prov. marca, a mark.—MHG., marke,
OHG. marcha, a march, boundary, border. See March (1) and
Mark (2). ζῶ" The corrupt form Jeffers of mart occurs in Beaum.
and Fletcher, Wife for a Month, ii. 1 (Tony).
MARQUEE, a large field-tent. (F.—G.) Modern; not in Todd’s
Johnson. This is one of the words in which a final s has been cut
off, from a false idea that marquees is a plural form; so also we have
sherry for sherris, pea for pease, and ‘ Chinee’ for Chinese, &c. Marquees
is nothing but an Εἰ. spelling of F. marquise, an officer’s tent, large
tent, marquee. B. Littré says that marquise, a tent, a little elegant
construction, was no doubt so named from marquise, a marchioness,
or lady of rank who was to be protected from the inclemency of the
weather. That is, it is short for ‘tent of the marchioness.’ The F.
marquise is the fem. of marquis, a marquis; see Marquis.
MARQUETRY, inlaid work. (F.—MHG.) In Sir T. Herbert’s
Travels, ed. 1665, p. 146. —F. marqueterie, ‘inlaied work of sundry
colours ;᾿ Cot. =F. marqueter, ‘to inlay, to diversifie, flourish, or work
all over with small pieces of sundry colours, also, to spot ;’ id.
Lit. ‘to mark slightly, or with spots ;’ iterative form of marquer, to
mark. =F. marque, a mark.—MHG. mark, G. marke,a mark, token ;
cognate with Εἰ mark ; see Mark (1).
MARQUIS, a title of nobility. (F.—Low L.—G.) ME. markis,
marguis; Chaucer, C. T. 7940, 8473 (E 64, 597).—OF. marchis
(Hatzfeld), later marguis, ‘a marquesse, in old time the governour
of a frontire, or frontire town ;’ Cot. Cf. Prov. and Span. marques,
Port. marquez, Ital. marchese.— Low L. marchensis, a prefect of the
marches. = Low L. marcha, a march, boundary. OHG. marcha,
a march, boundary; see March (1) and Mark (2). @ The true
OF. form was marchis; altered to markis by the influence of Ital.
marchese (with ch as k); Hatzfeld. Der. marguis-ate, in Minsheu;
also marchioness= Low L. marchidnissa, formed with fem. suffix -issa
(=Gk. -ἰσσαὴ from Low L. marchion-em, acc. of marchio, a prefect
of the marches, which is a variant of marchensis. Also marquee, q.v-
Doublet, marguess, Merch. Ven. i. 2. 125, from Span. marques; cf.
margrave, q. Vv.
MARROW (1), pith, soft matter within bones. (E.) ME. marow,
marwhe, marughe (with one r), Prompt. Parv. p. 326. More com-
monly mary, Chaucer, C. T. 12476 (C 542). AS. meark, matrow,
dat. mearge, Voc. 159. 32. OMerc. merg, dat. merge, Corpus gloss.
1308.4 Du. merg, marrow, pith ; Icel. mergr, marrow ; Swed. merg;
Dan. marv; G. mark, OHG. marag, marrow. Teut. types *mazgom,
n., mazgoz,m. Further allied to Russ. mozg’, marrow; Zend mazga-,
Pers. maghz; and Skt. majjan (for *masjan), marrow of bones, pith
or sap of trees. Root unknown. 4 The Gael. smior, marrow,
strength, Irish smear, grease, W. mer, marrow, do not belong here,
but are related to E. smear, Der. marrow-bone, ME. mary-bone,
Chaucer, C. T. 382.
MARROW (2), 2 companion, partner. (Scand.) ME. marwe,
*socius ;’ Prompt. Pary.=—Icel. margr, (1) many; (2) friendly; see
Vigfusson. Cognate with E. many; see Many.
MARRY, to take for a husband or wife. (F.—L.) Properly ‘to
provide with a husband.” ME. marien (with one r), Rob. of Glouc.
p. 30, 1. 7oo.—F. marier, to marry. —L. mariiare, (1) to give a
woman in marriage, (2) to take a woman in marriage. — L. maritus,
a husband; the fem. marita means lit. provided with a husband, or
joined to a male.=L. mari-, for mas, a male. See Male. Der.
marri-age, ME. mariage (with one r), Rob. of Glouc. p. 31,1. 726,
from F. mariage, which from Late L. maritaticum, a woman’s dowry,
in use A.D. 1062, later maritagium (Ducange); marriage-able,
marriage-able-ness. And see marital.
MARSALA, a wine. (Ital.) From Marsala, a town on the
W. coast of Sicily.
MARSH, a morass, swamp, fen. (E.) ME. mersche, Wyclif,
Gen. xli. 18 (earlier text). AS. mersc, a marsh; Grein, ii.234. [The
change from sc to sk is usual and regular.} Mersc is a contraction of
mer-isc, orig. an adj. signifying full of meres or pools (=mere-ish) ;
Teut. type *mar-isk- ; formed with suffix -isc (-ish) from Teut. *mari-,
AS. mere, a mere, pool, lake; see Mere.4Low G. marsch, Bremen
Worterbuch, iii. 133. Der. marsh-y, marsh-i-ness.
MARSHAL, a master of the horse; variously applied as a title
ofhonour. (F.—OHG.) The orig. sense is ‘ horse-servant,’ a farrier
or groom ; it rose to bea title of honour, like constable, η. ν. ME.
| mareschal, Rob. of Glouc. p. 491, 1. 10081; marschal, P. Plowman,
| B. iti. 200.—OF. mareschal (mod. F. maréchal), ‘a marshall of a
kingdom or of a camp (an honourable place), also, a blacksmith,
farrier ;’ Cot.—OHG. maraschalh (ΜΗ. marshalc, G. marschall),
MARTINGALE
an attendant upon a horse, groom, farrier. OHG. marah, a battle-
horse, whence the fem. meriha, a mare, cognate with E. Mare, q.v.;
and schalh, MHG. shalc, a servant, whence G. schalk, a knave, a
rogue (by a change of sense parallel to that of E. knave). B. The
latter element is cognate with AS. scealc, a servant, man (Grein),
Du. schalk, a knave, Icel. skalkr, a servant, knave, rogue, Swed. skalk,
a rogue; the oldest form and sense being preserved in Goth. skadks,
a servant, Mat. viii.g. Der. marshal, vb., Macb. ii. 1. 42, the sense
being ‘to act as marshal, it being orig. a part of his duty to arrange
for tournaments and to direct ceremonies ; marshall-er, marshal-ship.
#7 The syllable -shal occurs also in sene-schal, q. v.
MARSUPIAL, belonging to a certain family of animals. (L.—
Gk.) Modern. Applied to such animals as have a pouch in which
to carry their young.—L. marsipium, a pouch.—Gk. μαρσύπιον,
μαρσίπιον, a little pouch; dimin. of μάρσυπος, μάρσιπος, a bag, pouch
(Xenophon, Anab. 4. 3. 11).
MART, a contracted iorm of Market, q.v. In Hamlet, 1. 1. 74.
MARTELLO TOWER, a circular fort on the S. coast of
England. (Ital.—L.—Gk.—Pers.) ‘ The English borrowed the name
of the tower from Corsica in 1794;’ Webster. More correctly
Mortella, because the fort taken in 1794 by the English was situate in
Mortella bay, Corsica (Davies). The Ital. mortella means a myrtle.
@ Some have thought that these towers were called sorri di martello
because the watchmen gaye the alarm by striking the bell with
a hammer; Sir G. C. Lewis, Letters, 1862, p. 419 (see quot. in
Davies, Suppl. Glossary). Torriano has sonare le campane a martello,
to sound the bells with a hammer, to give an alarm ; and see Ariosto’s
Orlando, x. 51; xiv. 100. Hence the mistaken spelling. Cf. N.
and Q. 10 S. iii. 193. See Myrtle.
MARTEN, a kind of weasel. (F.—Low L.—Teut.) a. Marten
is a contraction of the older form martern, in Harrison’s Description
of England, b. ii, c. 19, ed. Furnivall, p. 310, and in Palsgrave ;
ME. martryn, properly ‘ marten’s fur,’ used by Lydgate (Halliwell’s
Dict.). B. Again, martrin is an adj. form; from OF. martrin, adj.,
belonging to the marten (Godefroy) ; cf. OF. martrine, f., marten’s
fur. The E. sb. is marter or martre; it is spelt martre in Caxton,
tr. of Reynard the Fox, ed. Arber, p. 112, 1. 18.—F. martre (also
marte), ‘a martin,’ Cot.; spelt martre in the 11th cent. (Littré).
Cf. Ital. martora, Span. marta, Low L. *marturis, of which Ducange
gives the pl. marturés, as being a common word ; also martalus (with
the common change of J forr).—Teut. type *marf-uz, a marten; cf.
MHG. and G. marder ; Du. marier ; AS. meard, a marten, Orosius, i.
1; see Sweet’s A. S. Reader; Icel. mordr (gen. mardar) ; Swed. mard;
Dan. maar (for *maard), Root unknown. J 1. The supposed L.
martes, a marten, is due to a doubtful reading in Martial, 10. 37. 18,
and cannot be relied on. It is curious that the AS. name was lost,
and replaced by the F. one; but many terms of the chase are Norman.
MARTIAL, warlike, brave. (F.—L.) In Shak. Hen. V, iv. 8.
46; Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 5.—F. martial, ‘ martiall ;’ Cot. =—L.
Martialis, dedicated to Mars. —L. Marti-, decl. stem of Mars, the god
of war; see March (3). Der. martial-ly; also martial-ist (obsolete),
Two Noble Kinsmen, 1. 2. 16.
MARTIN, a bird of the swallow kind. (F.) In Minsheu, ed.
1627, the name of the bird is given as martin, marten, martinet, and
martelet. Palsgrave has martynet. Of these forms, marten is corrupt ;
and martinet, martelet are dimin. forms, for which see Martlet. =F.
martin, (1) a proper name, Martin, (2) the same name applied to
various birds and animals (Scheler) ; thus martin-pécheur is a king-
fisher (Hamilton), and oiseau de S. Martin is ‘the ring-taile or hen-
harm,’ Cot.; whilst the MF.name for the martin was martinet; Cot.
A note to Dunbar’s Poems (S. Τὶ 5.), ii. 223, says that the hen
harrier was called in F. oiseau de Saint-Martin because it traverses
France about Noy. 11 (St. Martin’s day). Der. mart-let, q.v. Also
(from the name Martin) Martin-mas or (corruptly) Martle-mas, 2
Hen. IV, ii. 2. 110; martin-et, q. v.
MARTINET, a strict disciplinarian. (F.) ‘You martinet
rogue;’ Wycherley, Plain Dealer (1677), A. 111. sc. 1. ‘So called
from an officer of that name, whom Voltaire describes as the regulator
of the French infantry under Louis XIV’ (a. D. 1643-1715); Todd’s
Johnson. See Sir S. D. Scott, The British Army, iii. 302. The
name is a dimin. of the name Martin; see Martin.
MARTINGALE, MARTINGAL, a strap fastened to a
horse’s girth to hold his head down; in ships, a short spar under the
bowsprit. (F.—Proy.) The ship’s martingale is named from its re-
semblance, in situation, to the horse’s. ‘The word, spelt martingal,
is given in Johnson only with respect to the horse. Minsheu, ed.
1627, speaks of ‘a martingale for a horse’s taile;’ the word also
occurs in Cotgrave.—F. martingale, ‘a martingale for a horse ;”
Cot. He also gives: ‘a la martingale, absurdly, foolishly, un-
towardly, . . . in the homeliest manner.’ β. See the account in
Littré, who shows that the term arose from an oddly made kind of
363
864 MARTINMAS
breeches, called chausses ἃ la martingale, a phrase used by Rabelais.
Cf. Span. martingal, an old kind of breeches; Ital. martingala, an
old kind of hose. γ. The explanation of Menage is accepted by
Littré and Scheler. He says the breeches were named after the
Martigaux (pl. of Martigal), who were the inhabitants of a place
ealled Martigues in Provence (S. of France). See Mistral, who gives
Prov. martingalo, martegalo, a martingale (both for horse and ship).
-Prov. Martingau, Martegau, an inhabitant of Martegue. = Proy.
Martegue, Martigue, near the mouths of the Rhone; said to be named
from St. Martha, who was supposed to be buried at Tarascon.
MARTINMAS, MARTLEMAS, the feast of St. Martin;
Nov. 11. (Hybrid; F. and L.) Palsgrave has Martylmas. The
corruption to Martlemas (2 Hen. IV, ii. 2. 110) is due to the easy
change of x to/; see Lilac. ME. Martynmesse, Rob. of Brunne, tr.
of Langtoft, p. 230, 1. 1. Compounded of the F. proper name
Martin; and ME. messe=AS. masse, from L. missa, a mass. See
Martin and Mass (2).
MARTLET (1), a kind of bird, a martin. (F.) In Levins;
and in Shak. Merch. Ven. ii. 9. 28. Martinet in Baret (1580).
A corruption of the older name martnet or martinet by the same
change of x to J as is seen in Martlemas for Martinmas. ‘ Martnet,
martenet, byrd;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 327-—F. martinet, ‘a martlet or
martin;’ Cot. Picard martinet, a martin ; also martelot, in the de-
partment of la Meuse (Corblet). Dimin, of F. martin, a martin ;
with suffix -et. See Martin.
MARTLET (2), a swift; in heraldry. (F.—L.) The name was
orig. merlette, altered to martlet by confusion with marélet (1), which
meant ‘a martin,’ a bird closely allied to the swift. The alteration
was earlier than Cotgraye’s time, as he gives I’. merlette, f., ‘a mart-
let, in blason.’ But the true sense of merlette was ‘a little blackbird.’
=F. merle, a blackbird. =—L. merula; see Merle. 41 We find OF.
merlos, pl. of merlot, in the sense of " martlets’ or swifts, in the Roll of
Caerlaverock (1300), p. 7. See Notes on E. Etym., p. 179.
MARTYR, one who suffers for his belief. (L.—Gk.) Lit. fa
witness’ to the truth. ME. martir, O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris,
ii. 185, 1.10. AS. martyr, Aelfred, tr. of Beda, lib. 1. ο. 7. —L. martyr.
—Gk. μάρτυρ, μάρτυς, a witness; lit. one who remembers, records,
or declares. Cf. Skt. sm, to remember, desire, record, declare. =
ASMER, to remember ; whence also E. memory, Gk. μέριμνα, care,
&e. Der. martyr-dom, AS. martyr-ddm; also martyro-logy, from
Gk. μάρτυρο-, decl. stem of μάρτυς, with the common suffix -logy of
Gk. origin, from λέγειν, to speak ; martyro-log-ist.
MARVEL, a wonder. (F.—L.) ME. mervaile; King Alisaunder,
1. 218.—F. merveille, a marvell;”’ Cot. [Cf. Span. maravilla, Ital.
maraviglia, Port. maravilha.|—L. mirabilia, neut. pl., wonderful
things; according to the common confusion in Late L. between the
fem. sing. and neut. pl.; from the adj. mirabilis, wonderful. =L.
mirari, to wonder at. —L. mirus, wonderful ; formed with suffix -rvs
from the base mi-, later form of smi-. See Miracle. Der. marvell-
ous, ME. meruailous, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 174, 1. 20;
marvell-ous-ly, marvell-ous-ness; also marvel, vb., ME. meruailen,
merueillen, P. Plowman, B. xi. 342.
MASCLE, in heraldry; a perforated lozenge. (F.—L.) An
erroneous spelling of OF. macle.—OF. macle, a mascle, or lozenge-
shaped plate of steel, used in making scale-armour (Godefroy) ; MF.
(and F.) macle, ‘ the mash [mesh] of a net; also, in blazon, a mascle,
or short lozenge, having a square hole in the middest;’ Cot.=—L.
macula, a mesh; whence also Mail (1), q.v. Perhaps confused
with OHG, masca,a mesh. Doublet, mail (1). See Notes on E.
Etym., p. 181.
MASCULINE, male. (F.—L.) ME. mascudin, Chaucer, tr. of
Boethius, b. ii. pr. 3. 1. 28.—F. masculin, ‘masculine ;’ (οἵ. “Το.
masculinus, lengthened from masculus, male; see Male. Der.
masculine-ly, masculine-ness.
MASG, to beat into a mixed mass. (E.)
mix.’ ‘To masche, miscere;’ Levins, 35. 10. ‘Maschyn, yn brew-
ynge, misceo; Maschynge, mixtura, mixtio;’ Prompt. Parv. Also
ME. méshen, to mash; Owl and Nightingale, 84; as if from AS.
*mé@scan, from *mdsc, sb. ‘To mash is, in particular, to steep malt;
the tub into which the refuse grains are put is called the mash-tub,
whence pigs are fed. A mash for horses is a mixture of malt and
bran. Cf. Lowland Scotch mask-/at, a vat for brewing ; masking-fat,
a mashing-vat ; masking-pat, a tea-pot, lit. a pot for steeping or
infusing tea (see Burns, When Guildford good our pilot stood, st. 1).
See Halliwell and Jamieson. Apparently E.; cf. AS. ma@x-wyrt (for
*masc-wyrt), wort, new beer, Cockayne’s Leechdoms, ii. 87, 97, 107.
Here max stands for mdasc, as usual, whence Sc. mask, Ἐς mash; the
sense of mdse was probably a mixture, esp. brewers’ grains.--Swed.
dial. mask, brewers’ grains (Rietz), Swed. mask, grains ; Swed. mdska,
to mash; Dan. mask, a mash; whence mask-kar, a mashing-tub ;
meske, to mash, to fatten pigs (with grains); North Friesic mask,
The old sense was ‘to
MASS
grains, draff (Outzen); Norw. meisk, sb., meiska, vb.; G. meisch,
a mash (of distillers and brewers); whence meischfass, a mash-vat,
meischen, to mash, mix, B. Thus the verb to mash is due to the sb.
mash (from AS. mdsc-, with yowel-shortening), meaning ‘ a mixture ;”,
and it is probable that the base *mdasc- (Teut. *maisk-) is allied by
gradation to misc-, as in AS. miscian, to mix ; see Mix. The Irish
masgaim, I infuse, mash malt, Gael. masg, to mix, infuse, steep, are
borrowed from E. But Irish measgaim, 1 mix, Gael. measg, to mix,
W. mysgu, to mix, as well as Lithuan, maiszy#i, to stir things in
a pot, from misz#, to mix (Nesselmann), are cognate. 4 Unconnected
with OF. mascher, Ἐς macher, which is merely L. masticare, to chew.
MASK, MASQUE, a disguise for the face; a masked enter-
tainment. (F.—Span.—Arab.) It is usual to write mask in the
sense of visor, and masque in the sense of masquerade; there is no
reason for this distinction. Perhaps we may call mask the E., and
masque the F. spelling. No doubt it is, and long has been, gen.
supposed that the entertainment takes its name from the visor,
according to the F. usage; but it is remarkable that the sense of
entertainment is an old one, the use of the visor being accidental.
The sense of entertainment isa common one in old authors. ‘A jolly
company In maner of a maske;’ Spenser, Ε΄, Ὁ. ili. 12. 5. ‘The
whiles the maskers marched forth in trim array;’ id. 111. 12. 6.
“Some haue I sene ere this, full boldlye come daunce in a maske, .
whose dauncing became theym so well, that yf theyr vysours had
beene of [off ] theyr faces, shame woulde not haue suffred theym to set
forth a foote;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 1039 e. ‘ Cause them to be
deprehended and taken and their maskers taken of [off] and theyr
hipocrisie to be dyscouered ;’ id. p. 758b. Note here the use of
maskers in the sense of masks; it is not a mistake, but correct accord-
ing to the Span. spelling, as will appear.—F. masque, ‘a mask, a
visor;’ Cot. B. This F. masgue is probably due to the Late L.
masca, ἃ mask, or a spectre, in the Corpus Glossary, 1.1275. But
we must further consider the fuller forms evidenced by MF. masguarizé,
‘masked,’ Cot.; as well as by masquerie, masquerade, mascarade, ‘a mask
ormummery.’ y. The last form, mascarade, is plainly borrowed from
Span. mascarada, a masquerade, assembly of maskers, from mascara,
a masker, masquerader, also a mask. Cf. Ital. mascherata, a mas-
querade; mascherare, to mask, maschera, a mask; so that Sir T.
More’s use of masker=mask, is fully accounted for. Arab. mas-
kharat, ‘a buffoon, a fool, jester, a droll, a wag, a man in masquerade ;
a pleasantry, anything ridiculous or mirthful, sport; Pers. mas-
kharah kardan, to ridicule or deride, to play the buffoon;’ Rich.
Pers. Dict. p. 1416.—Arab, root sakhira, he ridiculed; id. p. 815.
q Both sources seem real ; as M. Devic remarks, in the Supplement
to Littré, it is needless to give all the details in full by which
the latter etymology can be proved. It is sufficient to refer to
Dozy, Glossaire des Mots Espagnols tirés de |’Arabe. Der. mask-er;
also masquer-ade, explained above ; whence masquerad-er.
MASON, a worker in stone. (F.—Late L.—G.?) In early use.
ME. mason, King Alisaunder, 1, 2370; spelt mascun, Floriz and
Blauncheflor, 1. 326.—OF. magon, masson (F. magon), ‘a mason ;’
Cot.— Late L. macidnem, acc. of macio, a mason; we find also the
forms machio, macho, maco, and even marcio, mactio, matio, mattto.
B. The difficulty is to tell the true Low Lat. form; marcio is prob-
ably wrong, and mactio may be a misreading of mattio. If we take
matio or maitio as the standard form, we may perhaps suppose
machio, macho, macio, maco to come from it; the difficulty of dis-
tinguishing between c and ¢ in MSS. is often very great. γ. Mattio
may be referred to a Teut. stem *matjon-, m., i.e. a cutter, from
a base *mat-, to hack, or cut; whence possibly E. mat-tock. Cf.
OHG., mezzo, a mason, (ἃ. steinmeiz, a stonemason. Der. mason-ic;
also mason-ry, Rom. of the Rose, 1. 302, from F. magonnerie, from
the verb magonner, to do mason’s work.
MASQUE, MASQUERADE; see Mask.
MASS (1), a lump of matter, quantity, size. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME,
masse, Prompt. Parv.= F. masse, ‘a masse, lump ;’ Cot.=L. massa,
amass. (Prob. not a true L. word, but taken from Gk.) =Gk. μᾶζα,
a barley-cake, closely allied to μάγμα, any kneaded mass. —Gk.
μάσσειν (for *pax-yev), to knead. Cf. Lith. minkyti,to knead. Der.
mass, vb.; mass-ive, from Ἐς massif, ‘massive,’ Cot.; mass-tve-ly,
mass-ive-ness; also mass-y (an older adj., with E. suffix -y=AS. -ig),
Spenser, F. Q. iii, 11. 47 5 mass-i-ness,
MASS (2), the celebration of the Eucharist. (L.) ME. messe,
masse, Ῥι Plowman, B. v. 418, C. viii. 27; Chaucer has masse-peny, ὦ
C. T. 7331 (D 1749). Spelt messe in Havelok, 188. [Not from F.
messe, but directly from L.} OMerc. messe, Matt. viii. 4; AS. masse,
1) the mass, (2) a church-festival, Grein, ii, 226; Alfred, tr. of
Beda, b, iv. c. 22, ed. Whelock, p. 319.—Late L. missa, (1) dis-
missal, (2) the mass; see Ducange. B. The name is usually |
accounted for by supposing that the allusion is to the words ie,
missa est (go, the congregation is dismissed), which were used at the
MASSACRE
conclusion of the service. ‘Come I to ite, missa est, I holde me
yserued ’ =If I come in time to hear the last words of the service, it
suffices for me; P. Plowman, B. v. 419. Wedgwood suggests that
it meant rather the dismissal of the catechumens who were not
allowed to remain during the celebration of the eucharist ; for which
he cites the following passage from Papias: ‘ Missa tempore sacrificii
est quando catecumeni foras mittuntur, clamante leuita |the deacon],
Si quis catecumenus remansit, exeat foras; et inde missa, quia sacra-
mentis altaris interesse non possunt, quia nondum regenerati sunt.’
y- It matters little ; for we may be sure that missa is, in any case,
derived from L. missa, fem. of missus, pp. of mittere, to send, send
away; see Missile. 4 The change of vowel from L. ito AS. @ is
remarkable, but we find a similar change in Icel. messa, Swed.
messa, Dan. messe; and still more clearly in G. messe from OHG.
messa and missa; also in OF. messe, Ital. messa. (All these words
are, of course, borrowed from Romanic, which substitutes e for L. short
i; cf. F. vert from L. uiridem.) Der. Candle-mas, Christ-mas, Hallow-
mas, Lam-mas, Martin-mas, Michael-mas; ἢν.
MASSACRE, indiscriminate slaughter, carnage. (F.—O. Low
G.?) Pronounced massacre in Spenser, F. Ὁ. iii, 11. 29; he also
has massacred, id. ili. 3. 35.—F. massacre, ‘a massacre;’ Cot. Also
massacrer, ‘to massacre;’ id. The OF. sb. is magacre, machacre
(Godefroy). B. Of disputed origin; perhaps extended from Low G,
matsken, to cut, to hew (Bremen Worterb. iii. 137), Du. matsen, to
maul, to kill. Cf. G. metzeln, an extension of metzen, to cut, to kill
(Fliigel) ; G. meézelei, a massacre, butchery, slaughter; see Mason.
4 The F. word is one of much difficulty ; the above solution is very
doubtful. See Norm. dial. machacre, a massacre (Moisy), allied to
ONF. macheclier,a butcher (Wace); cf. Late L. macellarius, a butcher
(Ducange), from L. macellum, shambles, meat-market. Cf. also OF.
maceclier, macheclier, macacrier, macecrier, &c., a butcher (Godefroy).
This seems to lead to a right solution, though the forms are
abnormal.
MAST (1), a pole to sustain the sails of a ship. (E.) ME. mast,
Chaucer, C. T. 3264. AS. mest, the stem of a tree, bough, mast of
a ship; Grein, i. 226 (whence Icel. mastr was prob. borrowed).+Dnu.
mast ; Swed. and Dan. mast; G. mast. Prob. cognate with L. malus
(<*mazdos), a mast ; Brugmann, i. § 587. Der. mast-less, dis-mast.
MAST (2), the fruit of beech and forest trees. (E.) ‘he orig.
sense is ‘ edible fruit,’ with reference to the feeding of swine. ME.
mast. ‘They eten mast;’ Chaucer, τας Prima, 1. 7. AS. mest;
‘prim hund swina mest’=mast for three hundred swine; Thorpe,
Diplomatarium Evi Saxonici, p. 7o.44G. mast, (1) mast, (2) stall-
feeding, fattening; whence mdisten, to fatten. B. Doubtless allied
to Skt. médas, sb., fat; see Brugmann, i. § 698.
MASTER, a superior, lord, teacher. (I'.—L.) In early use.
ME. maister, meister, spelt meister, O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris,
1.41, L. 29.—OF. maistre, meistre; mod. Ἐς maitre, a master. —L.
magistrum, acc. of magister, a master. B. L. mag-is-ter is a double
comparative form ; the base mag- is the same as in mag-nus, great,
Gk. peéy-as, great; so that the sense is ‘ great-er-er’ =much more
great. Der. master, verb ; master-ly, master-ship, master-y, q.v.; also
master-builder, -hand, -key, -less, -piece, -work, &c.
MASTERY, lordship, dominion. (F.—L.) Inearlyuse. ME.
maistrie, meistrie; spelt meistrie in Ancren Riwle, p. 140.—AF.
maisterie, Philip du Thaun, Livre des Creatures, 1. 1564; OF.
maistrie, meistrie, mastery (Burguy).—OF. maistre, a master; see
Master.
“MASTIC, MASTICH, a kind of gum resin. (F.—L.—Gk.)
‘The tree yielding it is also called mastic, but should rather be called
the mastic-tree, spelt mastick-tree in the Bible, Story of Susanna, v. 54.
Another name for the tree is lentisk. ‘The lentiskes also haue their
rosin; which they’ call mastick;’- Holland, tr. of Pliny, Ὁ. xiv. c. 20.
ME. mastyk, Prompt. Parv.; mastic, Palladius, xi. 410.—F. mastic,
“mastick, asweet gum τ᾿ Cot.<L. mastiché. — Gk. μαστίχη, the gum
of the tree σχῖνος, called in L. lentiscus. B. So called because it was
used for chewing in the East; from the base μαστ-, seen in μάσταξ,
the mouth, μαστάζειν, to chew.—Gk. μασάομαι, I chew. Der.
mastic-ate, q.v.
~. MASTICATS, to chew. (L.—Gk.) The E. verb was sug-
gested by the previous use of the sb. mastication, which alone appears
in Minsheu, ed. 1627, and in Cotgrave, who uses it to translate the
F. mastication. = L. masticatus, pp. of masticare, to chew ; ἃ late word,
marked by Lewis as ‘post-classical.’ B. Formed, like most verbs in
~are, froma sb. The orig. sense was probably ‘to chew mastic,’ from
Το ‘mastice, mastiché, mastic, Gk. μαστίχη; see Mastic. @ The
true L, word for ‘ chew’ is mandere. The explanation under Mastic,
that mastic is so named from being chewed, only applies to Greek ;
in Latin, the verb is derived from the sb. Der. masticat-ion, from
F. mastication, as above; masticat-or-y.
MASTIFF, a large dog. (F.—Late L.—L.) ME. mestif,
Ε΄
MATE 3€5
mastif. ‘Als grehound or mastif’ (timing with hastif), Rob. of
Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 189, 1. 8. ‘ Mastyf, or mestyf, hownde;’
Prompt. Parv. But the AF. form was mastin; see Polit. Songs, ed.
Wright, p. 283; Langtoft, ii. 100.—OF. mastin, a mastiff, lit. * house-
dog’ (Supp. to Godefroy) ; also ‘a domestic ;’ see Godefroy. = Late
L. type *mansuétinum, acc. of *mansuétinus, tame, domestic; extended
from mansuétus, tame.—L. mansuétus, pp. of mansuescere, to tame ;
lit. ‘to accustom to the hand! =—L. man-, for manus, the hand; and
suescere, to accustom, make one’s own, which is allied to suus, one’s
own. See Korting, § 5906. Cf. L. mansuétarius, a tamer (Lewis).
B. The Late L. mastinus seems to have been mistakenly changed to
mastiuus (mastivus); see Ducange. Confusion also set in with ME.
masty, fat (adj. formed from mast (2)), and OF. mestif, mongrel,
Late L. *mixtivus, from L. mixtus, pp. of miscére, to mix.
MASTODON, the name of an extinct elephant. (Gk.) Modem;
so called from the conical or nipple-like projections on its molar
teeth. Coined from Gk. μαστ-, base of μαστός, the female breast
(connected with μαδάειν, L. madére, to be moist); and ὀδον-, short
for d5ovr-, stem of ὀδούς, a tooth ; see Tooth.
MAT, a texture of sedge, rushes, or other material, to be laid on
a floor, &c. (L.) ME. matte. ‘Matte, or natte, Matta, storium;’
Prompt. Parv. AS. meatta; ‘ Storea, vel psiata, meatta ;’ Voc. 154. 2.
{L. storea means ‘a mat.’ Observe the variant ME. natte given in
the Prompt. Parv.]—L. matta, a mat; cf. Low L. natta, a mat
(Ducange). B. From the form matta were borrowed E. mat, Du.
mat, G, matte, Swed. matta, Dan. maatte, Ital. matta, Span. mata;
whilst the form natta is preserved in F. matte. Precisely a similar
interchange of m and x occurs in F. nappe from L. mappa; see Map.
y- Root uncertain; the curious shifting of m and » suggests that (as
in the case of map) the word may have been a Punic word; indeed,
it would not be surprising if the words mappa and matta were related.
Der. mat, verb; matt-ed, matt-ing.
MATADOR, the slayer of the bull in bull-fights. (Span. —L.)
In Dryden, Span. Friar, A. i. sc. 2. Spelt matadore, Pope, Rape of
the Lock, iii. 33, 47.—Span. matador, lit. ‘the slayer ;” formed with
suffix -dor (=L. acc. -tdrem) from matar, to kill. L. mactare, (1)
to honour, (2) to honour by sacrifice, to sacrifice, (3) to kill. —L.
mactus, honoured ; allied to mag-nus, great (Bréal).
MATCH (1), one of the same make, an equal, a contest, game,
marriage. (E.) ME. macche, mache. Spelt macche=mate, com-
panion; P. Plowman, B. xiii. 47. ‘This was a mache ynmete’= this
was an unfit contest; Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 4070; whence the
pp- machede = matched, id. 1533, 2904. The orig. sense was ‘ com-
panion’ or ‘mate,’ hence an equal, giving the verb to match=to
consider equal; the senses of ‘contest, game, marriage,’ &c,, are
really due to the verb. AS. -ma@cca, generally ge-m@cca, a com-
panion, comrade, spouse; Grein, i. 426. (The prefix ge-, often and
easily dropped, makes no difference.] The change of sound from
final -cca to -cche, and later to -tch, is perfectly regular. B. The form
gemacca or mecca is one of secondary formation; from the more
original form maca, a companion, as in gi-maca, gloss to compar in
Durham Ritual, p. 165, 1. 6; whence ME. make, a companion
(Chaucer).Icel. maki, Swed. make, Dan. mage, OSax. gi-mako, a
mate, acomrade. B. Allied to AS. gemec, adj., like, Icel. makr, adj.,
suitable, MHG. gemach, suitable; and to AS. macian, to make, to
‘fit together.’ See Make. @ Distinct from Mate (1). Der.
match, vetb, see exx. above, and see P. Plowman, B. ix. 173; also
match-less, match-less-ly, match-less-ness.
MATCH (2), a prepared cord for firing a cannon, a ‘lucifer.’
(F.—L.—Gk.) ME. macche; ‘the macche brenneth’=the match
burns (used of a smouldering wick) ; P. Plowman, B, xvii. 213. —
OF. mesche, meiche, ‘ the wicke or snuffe of a candle; the match of
a lamp; also, match for a harquebuse, &c.;’ Cot. Mod. F. méche.
The corresponding Late L. type is *micca or *mycca, which may be
connected with Gk. μύκης, the snuff of a lamp-wick; and with Late
L. myxus, the wick of a candle (Ducange); and Martial (14. 41. 2)
uses the acc. pl. myxas, as if from nom. myxa, i.e. the nozzle of
a lamp, the part through which the wick protrudes. —Gk. μύξα, the
nozzle of a lamp; the more orig. senses being (1) mucus, discharge
from the nose, (2) a nostril. See further under Mucus. Der.
match-lock, i.e. a lock of a gun holding a match, and hence the gun
itself; added by Todd to Johnson’s Dict. Karting, § 6429.
MATES (1), a companion, comrade, equal. (Low G.) Spelt mate
in Prompt. Parv., p. 329; Sir Ferumbras, 1. 1372. [Distinct from
AS. gemaca, and borrowed from Low German. |= Mid. Low ας mate
(Franck); Low G. maat, a companion; MDu. maet, ‘a mate or
fellow-companion ;” Hexham; Du. maat.4~-OHG, gimazzo, a com-
panion at table; cf. Goth. matjan, to eat, from mat-, base of mats,
meat. See Meat. The sense is ‘one who eats with you;’ the
prefix gi- (Goth. ga-), meaning ‘together, is lost in the MDnu. form,
Der. mafe, vb., All’s Well, i. 1. 102; mate-less.
866 MATE
MATE (2), to check-mate, confound. (F.—Pers.—Arab.) Used
by Shak. in the sense ‘to confound;’ as in ‘My mind she has
mated, and amazed my sight;” Macb.v. 1.86. It is the same word
as is used in chess, the true form being check-mate, which is often
used as a verb. β. Properly, check mate is an exclamation, mean-
ing ‘the king is dead;’ this occurs in Chaucer, Book of the Duchess,
659.— OF. eschec et mat, ‘check-mate ;’ Cot. ; so also in Rom. Rose,
ed. Méon, 6676. Cf. AF. maté, mated; Gaimar, 3320. Here the
introduction of the conj. δέ is unnecessary and unmeaning, and due
to ignorance of the sense.—Pers. shah mat, the king is dead. = Pers.
shah, king; and mat, he is dead, Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 518.
y. Shah is a Pers. word (see Shah) ; but mat is not, being of Arab.
origin. Arab. root mata, he died; Rich. Dict. p. 1283 ; whence is
derived the Turk. and Pers. mat, ‘astonished, amazed, confounded,
perplexed, conquered, subjected, .. . receiving check-mate,’ id.; also
Pers, mat kardan, ‘to give check-mate, to confound ;’ id. Cf. Heb.
mith, to die. @ We have here the obvious original of OF. mat,
“deaded, mated, amated, quelled, subdued,’ Cot. Also of ME. mate,
confounded, Ancren Riwle, p. 382, Will. of Palerne, 2441, &c.;
a word merely borrowed from OF, See also Check, Chess.
MATERIAL, substantial, essential. (F.—L.) ‘Hys materiall
body;’ Tyndall, Works, p. 460, col. 2. And in Chaucer, Ὁ, T.,
1 182.—OF. materiel, ‘ materiall;’ Cot.—L. matérialis, material.
—L. matéria (also matériés), matter; see Matter. Der. material-ly,
material-ness, material-i-ty, material-ise, material-ism, material-ist,
material-ist-ic, material-ist-ic-al.
MATERNAL, belonging to a mother. (F.—L.) Spelt maternall
in Minsheu and Cotgrave. Caxton has: ‘our maternal tongue ;’
Godfrey of Boloyne, prol.; p. 4, 1. 24.—F. maternel, ‘maternall ;’
Cot.—Late L. materndlis, extended from L. mdternus, motherly.
This adj. is formed with suffix -nus (Idg. -nos) from L. mater,
cognate with E. mother: see Mother. Der. maternal-ly; also
matern-i-ty, from F. maternité, ‘maternity’ (Cot.), which from L.
acc. maternitatem.
MATHEMATIC, pertaining to the science of number. (F.—
L.—Gk.) Gower speaks of ‘the science ... mathematique ;’ C. A.
iii. 87; bk. vii. 72.—OF. mathematique, ‘mathematical ;’ Cot.—L.
mathematicus. —Gk. μαθηματικός, disposed to learn, belonging to the
sciences, esp. to mathematics. — Gk. μαθήματ-, stem of μάθημα, that
which is learnt, a lesson, learning, science.—Gk. μαθή-, appearing
in μαθήσομαι, I shall learn, fut. of μαν-θά-νειν, to learn; one of the
derivatives from 4/MEN, to think; cf. μάντις, a seer, μένος, mind,
Skt. man, to think. The syllable -@a- prob. represents Idg. dha,
weak grade of 4/DHE, to put, place (Gk. τίςθη-μι). See Mind.
Der. mathematic-al, -al-ly, mathematic-i-an ; also mathematic-s, sb. pl.
MATINS, MATTINS, morning prayers. (F.—L.) ‘ Masse
and matines ;’ Rob. of Glouc. p. 369, 1. 7605. ‘Matynes and masse ;’
P. Plowman, B. v. 418.—F. matins, ‘matins, morning praier ;” Cot.
A pl. sb. from F. matin, properly an adj., but used as a sb. to mean
‘the morming.’—L, md/itinum, acc. of matiitinus, belonging to the
morning; which passed into F. with the loss of x, thus pro-
ducing ma?’tin, contracted to matin; cf. Ital. mattino, morning. = L.
Matiita, the goddess of morning or dawn; cf. Lucretius, v. 655; as
if from a masc. *mdatitus, with the sense of ‘timely,’ or ‘early ;’
closely related to L. matarus (Bréal); see Mature. Der. matin,
sb. morning (in later use), Hamlet, i. 5. 89, from F. matin, the
morning; hence matin, adj., as in ‘the matin trumpet,’ Milton, P. L.
vi. 526. And see matutinal. @ The spelling with double ¢ may
be due to Ital. maétino, or simply to the doubling of ¢ to keep the
vowel a short, as in matter, mattress.
MATRASS, a long-necked glass bottle; in chemistry. (F.—
Span.—Arab.?) From Ἐς matras, the same. Cotgrave has matraz,
matrac, also matelas, ‘a streight, long, narrow-necked, and great,
wide, round-bellied bottle or violl, of strong and thick glasse.’
Perhaps from Span. matraz, a matrass. Devic thinks it is of Arab.
origin.
MATRICIDE, the murderer of one’s mother. (F.—L.) 1. The
above is the correct sense, but rare ; see Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. —
F. matricide, adj., ‘mother-killing ;’ Cot. —L. matricida, a murderer
of a mother.—L. matri-, decl. stem of mater, a mother (see
Mother) ; and -cida, killing, formed from ce@dere (pt. t. ce-cid?), to
kill (see Casura). 2. Sir T. Browne has the word in the sense
‘murder of one’s mother;’ Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 16, § 5. In this
case, it is coined directly from L. matricidium, a killing of a mother.
“Το mdatri-, as before ; and -cidium, a killing, from cedere, as before.
4 Fratricide, parricide, are equally ambiguous. Der. matricid-al,
MATRICULATH, to admit to membership, esp. in a college,
to register. (L.) Used as a pp., with the sense of ‘enrolled,’ in
Skelton, Garland of Laurel, 1. 1281.—Late L. matriculatus, pp. of
matriculare, to enrol, a coined word.—L. mdtricula, a register ;
a dimin. of matrix, (1) a breeding animal, (2) a womb, matrix,
MAUGRE
(3) a public register, roll, list, lit. a parent-stock.
Der. matriculat-ton,
MATRIMONY, marriage. (F.—L.) ME. matrimoine,
Chaucer, C. T. 3097 (A 3095).—AF. matrimonie, Year-book of
idw. I, 1304-5, p. 251; OF. matrimonie; MF. matrimonie, ‘ matri-
mony,’ Cot.; of which another form was matrimoine. — L, matrimonium,
marriage. = L, miatri-, decl. stem of mater, a mother (see Mother);
with suffix -6n-io-. Der. matrimoni-al, matrimoni-al-ly,
MATRIX, the womb, a cavity in which anything is formed,
a mould, (L.) Exod. xiii. 12, 15. [Written matrice in Numb. iii.
12 in A. V., ed. 1611. Minsheu has both matrice and matrix; the
former is the F. form. Cf. ‘ matrice, the matrix,’ Cot. ; from the L.
matricem, the acc. case.|—L. matrix, the womb. —L. matri-, decl.
stem of mater, mother, cognate with E. Mother, q. v.
MATRON, a married woman, elderly lady. (F.—L.) ME.
matrone, Gower, C. A. i. 98; bk. i. 1657.—F. matrone, ‘a matron;’
Cot.—L. mdatrona, a matron; extended from matr-, for mater,
a mother; see Mother. Der. matron-ly, matron-al, matron-hood ;
also (from L. matri-), matrix, q.v., matri-c-ul-ate, q. v., matri-cide,
matri-mony; and see mater-nal.
MATTER (1), the material part of a thing, substance. (F.—L.)
ME. matere (with one 4), Chaucer, C. T. 6492 (D gto). Earlier
form materie, Ancren Riwle, p. 270, 1. 7.—OF. matiere, matere; mod.
F. matiére.—L. matéria, matter, materials, stuff; so called because
useful for construction, building, &c. See Brugmann, i. § 407. Der.
matter, vb., not in early use ; matter-less ; materi-al,q.v. Also matter
2), q.v.
‘ MATTER (2), pus, a fluid in abscesses. (F.—L.) ‘ Matter,
that which runs out of a sore;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. Really the same
word as the above; see Littré, 5. ν. matiére, sect. 8, who gives:
‘Matiére purulente, ou simplement matiére, le pus qui sort d'une
plaie, d’un abscés.’ So also in the Dict. de Trevoux. Littré gives
the example: ‘II est sorti beaucoup de matiere de cette plaie’=much
matter has come out of this sore. See Matter (1).
MATTINS, the same as Mating, q. v.
MATTOCK, a kind of pickaxe. (E.) ME. mattok. ‘Hoc
bidens, a mattok ;’ Voc. 726. 29; and see Prompt. Pary. AS. mattuc,
Orosius, b. iv. ο, 8. 8.2. B. Hence probably W. matog, a mattock,
hoe; cf. Gael. madag,a mattock, pickaxe (from E.); Russ. motuika,
Lithuan. matikkas, a mattock (from Teut.). See Mason.
MATTRESS, a quilt to lie upon. (F.—Arab.) ‘A mattress,
culcitra;’ Levins. ME. materas, Voc. 583. 21.—OF. materas, ‘a
matteresse, or quilt to lie on;’ Cot. Picard and Walloon matras
(AF. materas ; Royal Wills, p. 181). Mod. F. matelas (by change of
r tol); ef. Span. and Port. al-madraque, a quilted cushion, mattress
(where αἱ is the Arab. def. article). — Arab. mafrah, ‘a place, station,
post, situation, foundation, a place where anything is thrown; mufrah,
thrown away, rejected 3” Rich. Dict. p. 1440. This Arab. word
came to mean anything hastily thrown down, hence, something to
lie upon, a bed (Devic) ; just as the L. stratwm, lit. ‘ anything spread,’
came to mean a bed. The Arab. mafrah is derived from the Arab.
root faraha, he threw prostrate; Rich. Dict. p. 967.
MATURE, ripe, completed. (L.) ‘Maturity is a mean between
two extremities, .. . they be maturely done;’ Sir T. Elyot, The
Governour, b. i. c. 22. ‘ Peres right mature;’ Palladius, iii. 827.—
L. mdatirus, mature, ripe, arrived at full growth. See Matins.
Der. mature-ly; matur-i-ty, from F. maturité, ‘maturity’ (Cot.),
which from L. acc. maturitatem; mature-ness; matur-at-ion, from
MF. maturation, ‘a maturation, ripening’ (Cot.), which from L. ace.
matirationem, allied to maturatus, pp. of ma@tirare, to ripen ; matur-
at-ive, from MF. maturatif, ‘maturative, ripening’ (Cot.), a coined
word; matur-esc-ent, from the stem of the pres. pt. of maturescere,
inceptive form of matirare. Closely related words are matin,
matutinal.
See Matrix.
Matins.
MAUDLIN, sickly sentimental. (F.—L.—Gk.—Heb.) The
orig. sense was ‘shedding tears of penitence,’ like Mary Magdalene,
who was taken as the type of sorrowing penitence. Hence the ex-
pression ‘their maudlin eyes’ in Dryden’s Prol. to Southerne's play
of The Loyal Brother, 1. 21 (A.D. 1682). Corrupted from ΜῈ,
Maudeleyne, or Magdelaine, Chaucer, C. T. 412 (A 410); P. Plow-
man, B. xy. 289.—OF. Maudeleine, Magdaleine.—L. Magdaléne.=
Gk. Μαγδαληνή, i.e. belonging to Magdala; Luke, viii. a. Here
‘Magdala’ answers to Heb. migdol, a tower; Smith’s Dict. of the
Bible. 4 Observe the spelling Maudlin (for Magdalen) in All's
Well, v. 3. 68. a...
MAUGRE, in spite of. (F.—L.) Obsolete, except in imitating
MAUL
archaic writing. In Shak. Tw. Nt. iii. 1. 163; Tit. And. iv. 2. 110;
K. Lear, v. 3. 121. In P, Plowman, B. ii. 204, it means ‘in spite
οἵ; but in B. vi. 242, it is (rightly) a sb., signifying ‘ill will.’—OF.
malgre, maugre, maulgre; Cot. has ‘maulgre eux, mauger their
teeth, in spite of their hearts, against their wils.’ The lit. sense of
malgre is ‘ill will’ or ‘ displeasure.’ Compounded of mal, from L.
malum, acc. of malus, bad, ill; and OF. gre, gret, from L. gratum,
a pleasant thing. See Malice and Agree.
MAUL, to beat grievously, to bruise greatly, disfigure. (F.—L.)
Formerly mall. ‘Then they mailed the horsses legges, that their
mightie coursers lefte praunsynge;’ Bible, 1551, Judges, v. 22.
ME. mallen, to strike with a mall or mace, Joseph of Arimathie,
ed. Skeat, 1. 508. Merely formed from ME. malle, a mall, mace;
see Mall (1). 4 Even the sb. is spelt maul in A. V. Prov.
xxv. 18.
MAULSTICK, a stick used by painters to steady the hand.
(Du.) In Phillips, ed. 1706. — Du. maalstok, a maulstick. — Du. malen,
to paint; stok, stick. Cf. G. malerstock, a maulstick, lit. ‘ painter’s
stick ;? from G. malen, to represent, paint, and stock, a stick, staff.
B. G. malen, OHG, malon, to mark (hence to delineate, draw, paint),
is der. from G. mahl, MHG. and OHG, mal, a mark; see Meal (2).
y. G. stock is cognate with E. stock, stake; see Stock.
MAUND (1), a basket. (F.—LowG.) ME. mawnd, ‘ sportula;’
Prompt. Pary. [This word, now nearly obsolete, occurs as early as
the 8th century, in the gloss: ‘ Qualus, mand;’ Voc. 42. 26; but it
became obsolete, and was replaced by AF. mande.]—OF. mande,
a basket (Godefroy) ; Picard mande (Corblet).— Du. mand, a basket,
hamper; prov. G. mand, mande, manne, a basket (Fliigel), whence
F. manne; EFries. mande.
MAUND (2), a (very variable) weight. (Arab.) From Arab.
mann; Pers. man. Cf. Heb. maneh, Gk. pra (Yule).
MAUNDY THURSDAY, the day preceding Good Friday.
(F.—L.; and E.) Thursday is the E. name of the fifth day of the
week; see Thursday. Maundy is ME. maundee, maunde, a com-
mand, used with especial reference to the text ‘ Mandatwm noyum,’
&c.; John, xiii. 34. ‘He made his maundee,’ He [Christ] performed
his own command, i.e. washed his disciples’ feet ; P. Plowman, B.
xvi. 140. ‘Lord, where wolte thou kepe thi maunde?’ Coventry
Mysteries, ed. Halliwell, p. 259. The ‘new commandment’ really
is ‘ that ye love one another ;’ but in olden times it was, singularly
enough, appropriated to the particular form of devotion to others
exemplified by Christ when washing his disciples’ feet, as told in
earlier verses of the same chapter. ‘ The Thursday before Easter is
called Maundy Thursday, dies mandati, a name derived from the
ancient custom of washing the feet of the poor on this day, and sing-
ing at the same time the anthem—Mandatum novum, &c.; John, xiii.
34... The notion was, that the washing of the feet was a fulfilling of
this command, and it is so called in the rubric, conveniunt clerici ad
factendum mandatum. This rite, called mandatum or lavipedium, is
of great antiquity, both in the Eastern and Western church ;’ &c.;
Humphrey on the Common Prayer, p. 179. See my long note on
P. Plowman, B. xvi. 140, and Maundy Thursday in the Index to the
Parker Society’s publications. Maundy, for mandatum, occurs in
Grindal’s Works, p. 51; Hutchinson, pp. 221, 259, 346; Tyndale,
i. 259, iii. 236 (Parker Soc.). β. From OF. mandé, that which is
commanded. Cot. has ‘ mandé, commanded, . . . directed, appointed.’
=L. mandatum, a command, lit. that which is commanded, neut.
of mandatus, pp. of mandare, to command. See Mandate, of which
maundy is, in fact, the doublet. [ Not connected with maund,
a basket, for which see Maund (1). Cf. OHG. mandat, the wash-
ing of feet (Otfrid) ; obviously from L. mandatum.
MAUSOLEUM, a magnificent tomb. (L.—Gk.) ‘ This mauso-
Teum was the renowned tombe or sepulchre of Mausolus, a petty king
of Caria ;’ Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxxvi. c. 5.—L. mausdleum, a
splendid tomb, orig. the tomb of Mausolus.—Gk. Μαυσωλεῖον, the
tomb of Mausolus. — Gk. Μαύσωλος, king of Caria, to whom a splendid
Monument was erected by his queen Artemisia.
MAUVE, the name of acolour. (F.—L.) Modern. So named
from its likeness to the tint of the flowers of a mallow. =F. mauve,
| amallow.=L. malua, a mallow; see Mallow.
MAVIS, the song-thrush. (F-—C.) ME. mavis, Rom. of the
| Rose, 619. =F. mauvis, ‘a mavis, a throstle ;’ Cot. ; and see Roman de
| la Rose, 614. Cf. Span. malvis, a thrush. Supposed to be derived
| from or related to Bret. milvid, also milfid, a mavis; called milchouid
Cf. Corn.
See Thurneysen,
| (with guttural ch) in the neighbourhood of Vannes.
| melhues, OCorn. melhuet, a lark (Williams).
p. 107.
| MAVOURNEEN, my darling. (Irish.) ‘Erin mavournin;’
| Campbell, Exile of Erin; last line.=Irish mo, my ; mhuirnin (with
mh=v), mutated form of muirnin, darling, from muirn, affection,
| See Gael. mitirn in Macbain.
|
MAZE 367
MAW, the stomach, esp. in the lower animals. (E.) ME. mawe
(disyllabic), Chaucer, C. T. 4906 (B 486). AS. maga, the stomach ;
Voc. 48. 39.4+Du. maag; Icel. magi; Swed. mage; Dan. mave;
G. magen, OHG. mago, Root unknown. 4 The change from
maga 10 mawe, maw, is quite regular; cf. AS. haga, ME. hawe, E.
haw. Der. maw-worm, i.e. stomach-worm, parasite, Beaum. and
Fletcher, Bonduca, i. 2 (3rd Soldier).
MAWKISH, squeamish. (Scand.; with E. suffix.) ‘Mawhkish,
sick at stomach, squeamish;’ Phillips, ed.1706. Dryden has ‘maw-
hkish joys;’ tr. of Lucretius, bk. iii. 1. 307. The older sense is
‘loathsome,’ or, more literally, ‘maggoty.’ Formed with suffix -ish
from ME. mauk, mawk, a maggot; cf. mawky, adj., ‘cimicosus ;’
Cath. Anglicum. ‘Hic cimex, Anglicé mawke;’ Voc. 643. 2.
Mauk is a contraction of the older form madek, a maggot, which
occurs (in another MS.) as a variant of meade, a maggot; O. Eng.
Homilies, i. 251, 1. 19; cf. note on p. 326. —Icel. madkr, a maggot ;
Dan. maddik, a maggot; whence the Norweg. makk (Aasen)=E.
mawk. Ββ. This is a dimin. form with suffix -%, from the older form
appearing in AS. mada, Goth. matha, Du. and G. made, a maggot ;
prob. allied to Moth. Der. mawkish-ly, mawkish-ness.
MAXILLAR, MAXILLARY, belonging to the jaw-bone.
(L.) Blount, ed. 1674, gives both forms. Bacon has ‘ maxillary
bones ;’ Nat. Hist. § 747.—L. maxillaris, belonging to the jaw-
bone. —L. maxilla, the jaw-bone; allied to mala, the cheek-bone
(Bréal).
MAXIM, a proverb, general principle. (F.—L.) Lit. ‘a saying
of the greatest importance.’ In Shak, Troil. i. 2. 318.—F. maxime,
‘a maxime, principle;’ Cot.—L. maxima, greatest (for maxima
sententidrum, the chief of opinions); fem. of maximus, greatest, super].
of magnus, great. See Magnify.
MAXIMUM, the greatest value or quantity. (L.) A mathe-
matical term. = L. maximum, neut. of maximus, greatest; see Maxim.
MAY (1), I am able, I am free to act, I am allowed to. (E.)
There is no infinitive in use ; if there were, it would rather take the
form mow than may. May is the present tense (once, the past tense
of a strong verb); might is the past tense (really a secondary past
tense or pluperfect). ME, infin. mown (for mowen), Prompt. Parv.
p- 346; pres. t. sing. J may, Chaucer, C. T. 4651 (B 231); pt. t.
I mighte, id. 322, 634 (A 320, 632). AS. mugan, infin., to be able;
pres. t. ic meg, I may or can; pt. t. ic mihte, 1 might.4-OSax. mugan ;
pres. t. ik mag; pt. t. mahta; Icel. mega; pres. t. ek ma; pt. t. ek
matti; Du. mogen; pres. t.ik mag; pt.t.ik mogt; Dan. pres. t. maa;
pt. t. maatte; Swed. pres. t. md; pt. τ. matte; G. mogen; pres. t.
mag; pt. t. mochte; Goth. magan; pres. t. ik mag; pt. t. ik mahta.
B. All from a Teut. base MAG, to have power. Further allied to
Russ. moche, to be able; cf. moche, sb., power, might ; Gk. μηχανή,
means. All from 4/MAGH, to have power. Der. might; also
dis-may. And cf. machine, mechanic.
MAY (2), the fifth month. (F.—L.) ME. Mat, May; Chaucer,
C. T. 1502 (A 1500). —OF. May, Mai, ‘ the month of May ;” Cot.—
L. Maius, May; so named as being the month of ‘ growth.’ It was
dedicated to Maia, i.e. ‘the increaser.’ Allied to maior, greater,
magnus, great (Bréal), See Magnitude. Der. May-day, flower,
Sly, -pole, -queen.
MAYOR, the chief magistrate of a town. (F.—L.) ME. maire,
P. Plowman, B. 111. 87. There were mayors of London much earlier ;
cf. AF. meire, Stat. Realm, i. 52 (1281).—F. maire, a mayor.—L.
maior, greater; hence, a superior. See Major. ¢# It is most
remarkable that the sixteenth century spelling, viz. mayor, resembles
the Span. spelling mayor. Spelt maior in Shak, Rich, III, ili. 1.
17 (first folio); it answers to OF. maior, from L. maiorem, the acc.
case. The word maire was first used temp. Hen. III; Liber Albus,
p- 13. Der. mayor-ess, a coined word, formed by adding the F. fem.
suffix -esse (=L. -issa, Gk. -tcaa); Ben Jonson speaks of ‘the lady
may’ress’ in An Elegy, Underwoods, 1x. 1. 70. Cf. Norm. dial.
mairesse, wife of a mayor (Moisy). Also mayor-al-ty, Lord Bacon,
Life of Hen. VII, ed. Lumby, p. 209, 1. 24; a coined word, as if
from a Lat. acc. *mdaidralitatem. Also mayor-ship, mayor-dom, in
Cotgrave, s.v. mairie.
MAY-WEED, stinking camomile ; Anthemis Cotula. (E.) Short
for maythe-weed ; where maythe represents AS. megfa, magefe, camo-
mile. See Notes on E. Etym., p. 183.
MAZE, a labyrinth, confusion, perplexity. (E.) ME. mase,
P. Plowman, B.i. 6. Prob. from the verb; we find ME. masen, to
confuse, puzzle ; Chaucer, C. T. 4946 (B 526). The AS. *mastan,
vb., appears in the comp. pp. d-masod; Wulfstan, Homil. (ed.
Napier), p. 137, 1. 233 οἵ. Norweg. masa-st (where the final -st=-sk
= stk, oneself), a verb of reflexive form, to fall into a slumber, to lose
one’s senses and begin to dream; masa, to be continually busy at
a thing, to have a troublesome piece of work to do, also, to prate,
chatter (Aasen). Icel. masa, to chatter, prattle; Swed. dial. masa,
MAZER
(1) to warm, (2) to bask before the fire or in the sun, ... (4) to be
slow, lazy, work slowly and lazily; mas, adj., slow, lazy (Rietz).
B. These senses of lounging, poring stupidly over work, dreaming,
and the like, agree with the E. phrase to be in a maze, i.e. in a
dreamy perplexity. Compare the following: ‘Auh pe bimasede
Isboset, lo! hwu he dude maseliche’ =but the stupid Ishbosheth, lo!
how stupidly he acted; Ancren Riwle, p. 272. Prob. the orig. sense
was ‘to be lost in thought ;” hence to be in perplexity. Der. maz-ed,
Mids. Nt. Dr. ii, 1. 113 (cf. ME. mased, bimased) ; maz-y, maz-i-ness.
Also a-maze, q.v.
MAZER, a large drinking-bowl. (F.—OHG.) Obsolete. ‘ Mazer,
a broad standing-cup, or drinking-bowl ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. ME.
maser, Prompt. Parv.; pl. masers, Testamenta Ebor. i. 160 (1391). —
AF. maser, Royal Wills, p. 25 (1360); mazer (Bozon, p. 50); OF.
masere, a bowl of maple-wood [explained by Godefroy as made of
akind of streaked precious stone, but see madre in Diez].—OHG.
masar, a knot in wood, also maple-wood. Mazers were so called
because often made of maple, which is a spotted wood; the orig.
sense of the word being ‘a spot,’ a knot in wood, &c. Cf. Icel.
mosurr, ‘a maple-tree, spot-wood ;’ mésur-bolli, a mazer-bowl ;
mosurtré, a maple-tree. B. The word is allied to the form which
appears in MHG. mase, a spot, mark of a blow; whence also E.
Measles, q.v. Der. masel-yn (=maser-in), a dimin. form, used in
the same sense, Chaucer, C. T. 13781 (B 2042).
MAZURKA, a lively Polish dance. (Pol.) From Pol. Mazurka,
lit. a woman of Massovia or Mazovia, a province of Poland contain-
ing Warsaw. Similarly, Polonaise means both a Polish woman and
a dance; and cf. Polka.
MAZZARD, MAZARD, the head, the skull. (F.—-OHG.)
In Hamlet, v. 1. 97. Formed from mazer, a bowl; with excrescent
d. See Mazer. See Notes on E. Etym., p. 183.
ME, pers. pron. the dat. and obj. case of 7. (E.) ME. me. AS.
mé; fuller form mec, in the acc. only. + Du. mij; Icel. mér, dat. ;
mik, acc.; Swed. and Dan. mig; Goth. mis, dat.; mik, acc.; G. mir,
dat.; mich, acc.4-Corn. me, mi; Bret. me; Irish, Gael., and W.
mi. 4-L. mihi, dat.; mé, acc.; Gk. μοί, ἐμοί, dat. ; μέ, ἐμέ, acc.; Skt.
mahyam, mé, dat.; mam, ma,acc. Der, mine (1), my.
MEAD (1), a drink made from honey. (E.) ME. mede, Legends
of the Holy Rood, p. 138, 1. 202. Also spelt meth, meeth, Chaucer,
C. T. 3261, 3378. AS. medu, meodu, medo, meodo, Grein, ii. 239.+
Du. mede ; Icel. mjodr ; Dan. midd; Swed. mjéd; G. meth; OHG. meto;
W. medd; Lithuan. middus, mead; medis, honey; Russ. med’; Gk. μέθυ,
intoxicating drink; Skt. madhku, sweet; also, as sb., honey, sugar.
Idg. type *medhu; Brugmann, ii. § 104.
MEAD (2), MEADOW, a grass-field, pasture-ground. (E.) So
called because ‘mown.’ 1. ME. mede, Chaucer, C. T. 89. AS.
méd; ‘Pratum, méd;’ Voc. 147. 16. Allied to the prov. E. math,
a mowing, used only in the comp. after-math, an after-mowing, a
second crop; and to AS. mawan, to mow; see Mow (1). Ci. G.
mahd, a mowing; MHG., maz, a mowing, a crop,a mead; MHG.
mate, matte, a meadow ; Swiss mat/, a meadow, in the well-known
names Zermatt, Andermatt ; also OHG. maen, to mow, cognate with
E. mow; also Gk. ἄ-μητος, ἃ harvest, ἀμάειν, tomow. 2. The fuller
form meadow is due to the inflected form, dat. m&d-we, of the same
word ; the change from final -we to later -ow is the usual one, as in
sparrow, arrow, &c. ‘Mid /#swe and mid m#dwe’ = with leasow and
with meadow; A. 5. Chron., an. 777, MS. E. (see Thorpe’s edit.
p- 92, note 1). Teut. type *mé#-d-wa, nom. f.; from Teut. root ἔπι
=Idg. *mé, to mow, as in Gk. ἄ-μη-τος (above). Der. meadow-y.
MEAGRE, lean, thin, poor, scanty. (F.—L.) ME. megre,
P. Plowman, B. v. 128; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 1198. (Not in
earlier use; and not from AS. meger, in A. 5. Leechdoms, ii. 242.)
—AF,. megre, Sit Bevis, 1101; F. maigre, thin. L. macrum, acc. of
macer, thin, lean; whence also AS. meger, Icel. magr, Dan., Swed.,
and G. mager, thin, lean, were borrowed at an early period; unless
they be cognate, which is possible. Cf. Gk. μακρός, long. Der.
meagre-ly, -ness. From the same source, e-mac-i-ate.
MEAL (1), ground grain. (E.) ME. mele, Chaucer, C. T. 3993
(A 3995). AS. melu, melo, gen. melewes, Matt. xili. 33.-4-Du. meel ;
Icel. mjol, later form mél; Dan. meel; Swed. mjol; G. mehl. Teut.
type *melwom,n. B. All from the Idg. 4/MEL, to grind; as in
Olrish mel-im, OSlav. mel-jg, I grind. ‘The 2nd grade occurs in L.
mol-ere, Lith. mal-di, to grind, and in Teut. *mal-, as in Icel. mala,
Goth. malan, OHG. malan, to grind. See Mill, Molar. Der.
meal-y, meal-i-ness, meal-y-mouth-ed.
MEAL (2), a repast, share or time of food. (E.) ME. meel,
Chaucer, C. T. 4886 (B 466). AS. ml (1), a portion of time, stated
time, Grein, ii. 221. Hence the orig. sense was ‘time for food ;’ cf.
mod. E. ‘regular meals.’ It has reference to the common meal at a
stated time, not to a hastily snatched repast.Du. maal, (1) time,
(2) a meal; Icel. mal, (1) a measure, (2) time, nick of time, (3) a
368
MEASURE
meal; Dan. maal, measure, dimension ; maaltid, a meal (lit. meal-
time); Swed. md/, measure, due size, meal; Goth. mél, time, season;
Ὁ. mahl,ameal; mal,atime. β. Teut. type *mé#lom, n.; base mé#l-,
from Idg. 4/ME, to measure; cf. Skt. ma, to measure; see Mete.
Der. meal-time, meal-tide.
MEAN (τ), to have in the mind, intend, signify. (E.) ME.
menen, Chaucer, C. T. 2065 (A 2063). AS. ménan, tointend ; Grein,
ii. 222. + Du. meenen, to think, believe, fancy, mean ; Dan. mene, to
mean, think ; Swed. mena, to mean, think; (ας meinen, OHG,. meinjan,
to think upon, mean, signify. B. These are all secondary verbs, as
shown by the OHG. form, and derived from the sb. which appears
as MHG. meine, OHG. meina, thought, intent, signification. Further
allied to Icel. minni, OHG. minni, remembrance, memory, mind ; see
Mind. Der. mean-ing, ME. mening, Chaucer, C. T. 10465 (F 151),
cognate with G. meinung ; mean-ing-less. See moan.
MEAN (2), common, vile, base, sordid. \E.) ME. mene; ‘pe
mene and pe riche;’ P. Plowman, B. prol. 18. AS. méne, usually
ge-méne, common ; OFries. méxe, common ; and cf. Goth. gamains,
common, Titus, i. 4; see Common. € The peculiar sense of
‘base, vile’ is prob. due to confusion with Mean (3), which some-
times meant ‘middling.’ The AS. geméne is further allied to the
AS. méne, wicked, false, evil, from maz, sb., wickedness. Cf. Icel.
meinn, mean, base, hurtful; meiz, a hurt, harm; Dan. meen, Swed.
men, hurt, injury; MHG. mein, false; mein, a falsehood; cf. ἃ. meinerd,
perjury. Der. mean-ly, L.L. L. v. 2. 328; mean-ness (not in early use).
MEAN (3), coming between, intermediate, moderate. (F.—L.
ME. mene. ‘And a mene [i.e. an intermediate one, a Bete
bitwene pe kyng and pe comune’ [commons]; P. Plowman, B. i.
158. ‘In pe mene while ;’ Will. of Palerne, 1148.—AF. meen, Stat.
Realm, i. 140 (1300) ; OF. meien, moien (Godefroy); mod. F. moyen,
mean, intermediate. = L. medianus, extended form from medius, middle;
see Mediate. Der. mean, sb., ME. mene, Rom. of the Rose, 6527 ;
mean-s, ME. menes, Chaucer, C. T. 11195 (F 883).
MEAN (4), to moan. (E.) In Mid. Nt. Dream, v. 1. 330 (first
folio). ME. ménen, AS. m&nan, to moan; see Moan. So also in
Merch. Ven. iii. 5. 82, I explain mean it by ‘ lament, sorrow.’
MEANDER, a winding course. (L.—Gk.) ‘Through forth-
rights and meanders ;’ Temp. iii. 3. 3. —L. Meander, = Gk. Μαίανδρος,
the name of a river, remarkable for its circuitous course ; Pliny, b. vy.
c. 29. Der. meander, vb., meander-ing. ;
MEASLES, a contagious fever accompanied by small red spots
on the skin. (E.) [The remarks in Trench, Select Glossary, are
founded on a misconception. The word is guite distinct from ME.
mesel, a leper, which will be explained below.] ‘ The maysilles,
variol,’ Levins, 125. 15. ‘Rougeolle, the meazles;’ Cot. In Shak.
Cor. iii. 1. 78, the sense is ‘ measles,’ not ‘leprosy,’ as explained in
Schmidt. The use of the term was quite definite. ‘The maisils,a
disease with many reddish spottes or speckles in the face and bodie,
much like freckles in colour;’ Baret. ME. maseles, to translate |
OF. rugeroles (14th cent.), in Wright’s Voc. i. 161, 1. 23. AS.
mesle-, a spot; in composition. Cf. ‘eruca, mal-sceafa, Voc. 121. |
343 ‘eruca, me@sle-sceafa, Voc. 544.13; so that ma@sle has the same Ὁ
sense as mé@l, i.e. a spot, mark. Du. maselen. ‘De maselen, ofte |
[or] masel-sieckte, the measels, or sick of the measels. De masel-sucht,
the measell-sicknesse ;? Hexham. The same word as MDu. masselen.
‘ Masselen ofte masseren, black spots or blemishes of burning upon
one’s body or leggs;’ Hexham. β. It is obvious that the word
simply means ‘spots,’ or rather ‘little spots;’ the Du. form masel |
being a dimin. of an older form *mase, allied to the MHG. mdse, |
OHG. masa, a spot, the mark of a wound; cf. also G. maser [=masel],
a spot, speckle, and masern, pl. measles, . γ. Precisely the same |
form maser, ‘a spot,’ is the source whence is derived the E. Mazer, |
q.v. @ It thus appears that meas/e means ‘a little spot.’ It is |
therefore wholly unconnected with ME. mesel, which: invariably
means ‘a leper’ (see Stratmann); whence meselrie, i.e. leprosy. |
Both mesel and meselrie occur in Chaucer, Pers. Tale, I. 624-5. This ;
word is borrowed from OF. mesel, which is from L, misellus, wretched, |
unfortunate, dimin. of miser, wretched; see Miser. » The confusion
between the words is probably quite modern; when, e. g., Cotgraye |
explains MF. mesel, meseau, by ‘a meselled, scurvy, leaporous, |
lazarous person,’ he clearly uses meselled as equivalent to leprous; |
whilst he reserves the spelling meazles to translate rougeolle. Ch |
Skt. masurika, a kind of eruption or small pox (Macdonell), Der —
measl-ed, measl-y. i
MEASURE, extent, proportion, degree, moderation, metre.
(F.—L.) ME, mesure, P. Plowman, B.i. 35; Ancren Riwle, p. 374
1.1; Οἱ Eng. Homilies, 2nd Ser. p. 55, 1. 8. —OF. mesure.=L. men- ος
siira, measure; cf. mensus, pp. of métiri, to measure. From Idg.
4/ ME, to measure, whence Skt. ma, to measure, Gk. μῆ-τις, counsel.
See Brugmann, ii. § 771. Der. measure, vb., ME. mesuren, Chaucer,
tr. of Boethius, b. ili. pr. 2, 1. 28; measur-able, ME. mesurable,
of)
MEAT
P. Plowman, B. i. 19; measur-abl-y, measur-ed, measure-less, measure-
ment,
MEAT, food, flesh of animals used as food. (E.) ME. mete,
Chaucer, C. T. 1615. AS. mete, John, iv. 32, 34. Teut. type
*matiz, m.+Icel. matr, food; Dan. mad, victuals, food; Swed. mat,
victuals; Goth. mats, food (whence matjan, to use as food, eat) ;
OHG. maz, food. B. Prob. allied to Skt. mad, to be glad, madaya,
to exhilarate, to be satished (Uhlenbeck). Der. meat-offering.
MECHANIC, pertaining to machines. (F.—L.—Gk.) First
used as a sb., with the sense ‘mechanic ατί. ME, mechanike,
mechanique. ‘* Whos arte is cleped mechanigue’= whose art is called
mechanic; Gower, C. A. ili. 1423; bk. vii. 1693. OF. mechanique,
mecanique, ‘mechanicall ;” Cot.=—L. méchanica, mechanic; also used
as sb., the science of mechanics. Gk. μηχανική, sb., the science of
mechanics; fem. of adj. μηχανικός, relating to machines. —Gk.
μηχανή, a machine; see Machine. Der. mechanic-al (see Trench,
Select Glossary); mechanic-al-ly; mechanic-s, mechanic-i-an; also
mechan-ist, mechan-ism.
MEDAL, a piece of metal in the form of a coin. (F.—Ital.—L.
—Gk.) Shak. has medal to signify ‘a piece of metal stamped with
a figure;’? Wint. Ta. i. 2. 307.—MF. medaille, ‘a medall, an ancient
and flat jewel,’ &c.; Cot. (Mod. F. meédaille.) — Ital. medaglia,
a medal, coin; equiv. to OF. meaille, whence mod. F. maille, a small
coin. =—Folk-L. type *metallea, adj. fem.—L. metallum, metal; a
word of Gk. origin; see Metal. Cf. Late L. medalia, a small coin.
Der. medal-ist or medall-ist ; medall-i-on, in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674,
from MF. medaillon (F. médaillon), ‘a little medall,’ Cot., which is
from the Ital. medaglione, formed from medaglia.
MEDDLE, to mix or interfere with. (F.—L.) To meddle with
is to mix with. The ME. verb medlenx simply means ‘to mix.’ ‘Medled
togideres’ = mixed together, P. Plowman, B. ix. 3. Also frequently
spelt mellen; thus, for ‘ imed/ed togidres,’ another reading is ymelled,
in Trevisa, 111. 469, 1. 4. —AF. medler, Langtoft, i. 248; OF. mesler,
meller, to mix, interfere or meddle with (Godefroy). Cotgrave has:
“mesler, to mingle, mix,. . jumble; se mesler de, to meddle, inter-
meddle, deal with, have a hand in.’ Mod. F. méler. Cf. Span.
mezclar, Port. mesclar, Ital. meschiare [for mesclare, by usual change
of cl to chi], to mix. —Late L. misculare, to mix; cf. L. miscellus,
mixed.—L. miscére, to mix; see Miscellaneous. β. The orig.
OF. form was mesler, whence AF. *mezdler, medler, An intrusive ὦ
occurs, similarly, in medlar, q.v. Der. meddl-er, meddle-some (with
E. suffix), meddl-ing. Also medley, q.v.
MEDIATE, middle, acting by or asa means. (L.) Rare as an
adj., and not very common in the ady. form mediate-ly. ‘ Either
immediatly or mediatly;’ Fryth’s Works, p. 18.—L, medidtus, pp. of
mediare, to be in the middle.—L. medius, middle; cognate with AS,
midd, middle; see Medium. Der. mediate, verb (rare in old
books) ; Rich. quotes: ‘employed to mediate A present marriage, to
be had between Him and the sister of the young French queen ;’
Daniel, Civil War, b. viii. st. 49. Also mediat-ion, q.v., mediat-or,
q.v. Also im-mediate. Also medial, from L. medi-alis.
MEDIATION, intercession, entreaty for another. (F.—L.)
ME. mediation, mediacioun, Chaucer, C. T. 4654 (B 234).—OF.
mediation, ‘mediation ;? Cot. Formed as if from a L. acc. *media-
tidnem, from a nom. *medidtio.—L. mediare, to be in the middle, be
between ; see Mediate.
MEDIATOR, an intercessor. (F.—L.) Now conformed to
the L. spelling. ME. mediatour, Wyclif, 1 Vim. ii. 5.—<OF. media-
teur.=—L. medidtorem, acc. of mediator, one who comes between, a
_ mediator.—L. medidre; see Mediate. Der. mediator-i-al, mediator-
| i-al-ly.
| MEDIC, a kind of clover. (L.—Gk.) Botanical. Lit. ‘ Median.’
| Phillips, ed. 1706, has both medick and the L. form médica.—Gk.
Μηδική, for Μηδικὴ πόα, Median grass; fem. of Μηδικός, Median.
| From Media, the name of a country in Asia; Pliny, b. xviii. c. 16,
MEDICAL, relating to the art of healing diseases. (L.) In
| Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.— Late L. medicalis, medical.=—L. medicus,
| 2 physician. —L. medéri, to heal. See Medicine. Der. medical-ly,
| _MEDICATE, to impregnate with anything medicinal. (L.)
| Rich. quotes ‘his medicated posie at his nose’ from Bp, Hall, A
| Sermon of Thanksgiving, = L. medicatus, pp. of medicérz, to heal. =
Το, medicus, a physician, See Medicine. Der. medicat-ed, medicat-
| ton, medicat-ive. Also medica-ble, Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, from L.
_ medicabilis ; medicament, from OF. medicament, ‘a medicament, salve’
_ Cot.), which is from L. medicamentum.
MEDICINE, something given as a remedy for disease. (F.—L.)
Inearly use. ME. medicine, in O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 187,
1. 4 from bottom. -- ΟἿΣ, medecine (for medicine). «τος medicina, medi-
cine. L. medicus, a physician. =L. medériz, to heal. B. Fick (i. 714)
_ compares also Zend madh, to treat medically, madha, medical science.
_ Der. medicine, vb., Oth, iii. 3. 332; medicin-al, Wint. Ta. ii, 3. 373
MEET 369
medicin-al-ly ; medicin-able, Much Ado, ii. 2. 5. And see medical,
medicate.
MEDIEVAL, relating to the middle ages. (L.) Also written
medieval, Modern; not in Todd's Johnson. Coined from L. medi-,
for medius, middle; and L. @u-um, an age; with suffix -al, See
Mediate and Age.
MEDIOCRE, middling, moderate. (F.—L.) ‘A very mediocre
poet, one Drayton ;’ Pope, To Dr. Warburton, Nov. 27, 1742 (R.).
—F. médiocre, middling. —L. mediocrem, acc. of mediocris, middling ;
extended from medius, middle. (Cf. ferox from ferus.) See Mid,
Der. mediocri-ty, F. médiocrité, from L. acc. mediocritatem.
MEDITATE, to think, ponder, purpose. (L.) In Shak. Rich. TI,
ili. 7..75- [The sb. meditation is in much earlier use, spelt meditaciun
in the Ancren Riwle, p. 44, 1. 4.]—L. meditatus, pp. of meditari, to
ponder. Cf. Gk. μέδομαι, I attend to; Brugmann, i. § 59t. See
Mete. Der. meditat-ion, from OF. meditation<L. acc. meditationem ;
meditat-ed, meditat-ive, meditat-ive-ly, meditat-ive-ness.
MEDITERRANEAN, inland. (L.) In Shak. Temp. i. 2.
234; and in Cotgrave, who translates MF. Mediterranée by ‘ the
mediterranean or mid-earth sea.’—L, mediterrdne-us, situate in the
middle of the land; with suffix -az (=F. -an, L. -dnus), —L. medi-,
for medius, middle; and ¢erra, land; with suffix -ne-o-. See Mid and
Terrace. 4 Chiefly applied to the Mediterranean Sea, which
appeared to the ancients as nearly in the middle of the old world ;
but the word was sometimes used more generally ; see Trench, Select
Glossary.
MEDIUM, the middle place, means, or instrument. (L.) In
Dryden, Art of Poetry, c. iv. 1. 888; Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 293.—
L. medium, the midst, a means; neut. of medius, middle ; see Mid.
MEDLAR, a small tree with a fruit somewhat like an apple or
pear. (F.—L.—Gk.) Palsgrave has medlar for both the fruit and
the tree. Properly, medlar is the name of the ree; the fruit should
be called a medle, but the word is obsolete; the medlar is so called
because it bears medles. ME. medler, a medlar-tree; Rom. of the
Rose, 1375. Also called medle-tre, Sir Beves of Hamptoun, ed.
Turnbull, 52 (Stratmann).=—AF. medler, OF. meslier, a medlar-tree ;
both in Godefroy, Supp., s.v. nesplier (sic); MF. meslier, ‘a medlar-
tree ;’ Cot.—AF. medle, OF. mesle (both in Godefroy, Supp., s.v.
nesple); MF. mes/le, ‘a medlar (a Picard word) ;’ Cot. —L. mespilum,
a medlar; cf. mespilus, a medlar-tree; Pliny, Ὁ. xvii. c. 10.—Gk.
μέσπιλον, a medlar. @ The introduction of ὦ before Z in this word
is curious; but the same phenomenon occurs also in meddle and
medley; it arose from the OF. s/, which became zdI, and finally dl.
MEDLEY, a confused mass, confusion, mixture. (F.—L.) ME.
medle, medlee. ‘Medle, mixtura :᾿ Prompt. Parv. p. 331. Also spelt
mellé (dissyllabic), which occurs in Barbour’s Bruce in the sense of
‘mixture,’ b. v. 1. 404, and over and over again in the sense of " fray,’
‘contest,’ exactly corresponding to the mod. F. mélée, which is in
fact the same word. See Trench, Select Glossary. Chaucer has
medlee in the sense of ‘ mixed in colour,’ asin: "116 rood but hoomly
in a medlee cote,’ Prol. to C. T. 330 (A 328).—AF. medlee, a combat,
Life of Edw. Conf., p. 15; cf. OF. mesle, melle (fem. forms meslee,
mellee), pp. of mesler, or meller (mod. F. méler), to mix. See further
under Meddle. The verb to meddle also appears as mell, All’s
Well, iv. 3. 257; Barbour’s Bruce, v. 409; and see Nares.
‘DOC, a red wine. (F.) From Médoc, a region of France, in
the department of Gironde.
MEDULLAR, MEDULLARY, belonging to the marrow.
(L.) Medullar is in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Kersey, ed. 1715, has
both forms, = L. medullaris, belonging to the marrow.=—L. medulla,
the marrow. Cf. L. medius, middle.
MEED, reward, wages, hire, reward of merit. (E.) ME. mede,
P. Plowman, B. ii. 20, 27, 34, 36, 39, &c. AS. méd, Matt. vi. 1;
allied form meord (with r for older s), John, iv. 36, Rushworth MS.
+G. miethe, hire; MHG. miete, OHG. mieta. Cf. Goth. mizdo,
reward; Russ. mzda, remuneration; Gk, μισθός, pay; Pers. muzd,
wages; Skt. midha-, reward. IRdg. types *méizdha, *mizdha, f.;
*mizdhos, m.; *mizdhom,n. Brugmann, i. § 226.
MEEK, mild, gentle. (Scand.) ME. meke, Chaucer, C. T. 69;
Havelok, 945; spelt meoc, Ormulum, 667.—Icel. mjikr, soft, agile,
meek, mild; Swed. mjuk, soft, pliable, supple; Dan. myg, pliant,
soft; NFries. mjock. Cf. also Du. mutk, soft ; Goth. *miks, only in
comp. miika-médei, gentleness, Teut. types *meukoz,*miikoz. (AS.
méoc, from Scand., only occurs in Méoces din, a place-name ; Birch,
Cart. Sax, ii. 557. Der. meek-ly, meek-ness.
MEERSCHAUM, a substance used for making tobacco-pipes.
(G.) Modern.=—G. meerschaum, lit. sea-foam, = G. meer, sea, cognate
with E. Mere (1) ; and schaum, foam, cognate with E. Seum,
MEET (1), fitting, according to measure, suitable. (E.) ME.
mete, Chaucer, C. T. 2293 (A 2291). [We also find ME. mete with
the sense of moderate, small, scanty; P. Plowman’s Crede, 1. 428.
Bb
870 MEET
This is the same word, from the notion of fitting tightly.] _OMerc.
méte, measurable, as in or-mete, excessive, Epinal Gloss. 640; AS.
mé&te, small, scanty, lit. tight-fitting ; whence unméte, immense, im-
measurable; Grein, ii. 227, 624.— AS. mét-, 3rd grade of metan, pt.
t. pl. mét-on, to mete; see Mete. Cf 6. missig, moderate, frugal ;
from messen, to measure. Der. meet-ly, meet-ness.
MEET (2), to encounter, find, assemble. (E.) ME. meten,
Chaucer, C. T. 1526 (A 1524). AS. métan, to find, meet; Grein,
ii, 234; OMerc. mdetan (Sweet, OE. Texts). (Formed with the
usual yowel-change from @ to ὃ, as in fot, pl. fet.) AS, mot, gemot,
a meeting; see Moot.4OSax. motian (the exact equivalent of AS.
métan), from mot; Du. moeten, only in comp. ontmoeten, to meet,
from gemoet, a meeting ; Tcel. mata, meta, to meet, from mot, a
meeting ; Swed. méta, to meet, from mot, preserved only in the prep.
mot, against, towards ; Dan. méde, to meet; cf. mod, against ; Goth.
gamotjan, to meet. All from Teut. base *mdt-, of uncertain meaning.
Perhaps cf. Gk. μήδ-ομαι,1 devise, plan. Der. meet-ing, AS. geméting,
Grein, i. 429; meet-ing-house.
MEGALOSAURUS,, fossil animal. (Gk.) Lit. ‘great lizard!’
=Gk. peyddo-, decl. stem extended from μέγα-, for μέγας, great,
cognate with E. Much, q.v.; and σαῦρος, a lizard.
MEGATHERIUM, a fossil quadruped. (Gk.) Lit. great
wild beast” =—Gk. μέγα, n. of μέγας, great, cognate with E. Much,
q.v.3 and therium, for Gk. θηρίον, dimin. of θήρ, a wild beast.
MEGRIM, a pain affecting one side of the head. (¥F.—L.—Gk.)
ME. migrim, migreim, migrene. ‘“Mygreyme, migrym, mygrene,
sekenesse, Emigranea;’ Prompt. Parv. Here migrim is a corruption,
by change of x to m, of the older form migrene.—F. migraine, ‘the
megrim, head-ach ;’ Cot. =—Late L. hémigranea, megrim, Ducange ;
cf. émigranea in Prompt. Parv., just cited. —L. hémicrania, a pain on
one side of the face.=— Gk. ἡμικρανία, megrim.=—Gk. ἡμι-, half (see
Hemi-); and κρανίον, the cranium, skull (see Cranium).
MELANCHOLY, depression or dejection of spirits, sadness.
(F.—L.—Gk.) Supposed to be caused by an excess of black bile;
whence the name. ME. melancolie, malencolie, Gower, C. A. i. 393
prol. 1069; cf. ‘engendred of humour malencolyk,’ Chaucer, C. T.
1377 (A 1375). — OF. melancolie, MF. melancholie, ‘ melancholy,
black choler;’ Cot.=—L. melancholia. —Gk. μελαγχολία, melancholy.
=Gk. μελάγχολος, jaundiced, filled with black bile. Gk. μέλαν-,
stem of μέλας, black, dark, gloomy (allied to Skt. mala-, dirty,
malina-, black) ; and χολή, bile, cognate with E. Gall, q.v. Der.
melanchol-ic, MF. melancholique, ‘melancholick’ (Cot.), from L.
melancholicus.
LANITE, a black variety of garnet. (Gk.) From Gk.
μέλαν-, stem of μέλας, black; with suffix -ite (Gk. -(TNS)«
MELEE, a confused conflict. (F.—L.) Explained under
Medley.
MELILOT, the name of a plant. (F.—L. —Gk.) In Levins and
Cotgrave.—MF, melilot, ‘melilot;’ Cot.=L. melilotos.—Gk. μελί-
Awros, μελίλωτον, a kind of clover; so called from the honey it
contained. —Gk. μέλι, honey; and λωτός, lotus, clover. See Melli-
fluous and Lotus.
MELIORATE, to make better, improve. (L.) Bacon has
meliorate and melioration, Nat. Hist. §§ 232, 434-—L. melidratus, pp.
of melidrare, to make better (Lewis). —L. melior, better. B. Cognate
with Gk. μᾶλλον, rather, compar. of μάλα, ady., very much, ex-
ceedingly. Der. meliorat-ton, a-meliorate.
MELLIFLUOUS, flowing sweetly, sweet. (L.) In Milton,
P. L.y. 429; P.R.iv. 277. And in Shak. Tw. Nt. ii. 3.54. —L. meili-
fluus, flowing like honey (by change of -us to -ous, as in numerous
other instances). —L. melli-, decl. stem of mel, honey; and suffix
~fluus, flowing, formed from fluere, to flow. β. L. mel is cognate
with Gk. μέλι, Goth. milith, honey ; Irish mil, W. mél, For L. fluere,
see Fluent. Der. So also melli-fluent, from melli- (as above) and
fluent-, stem of pres. pt. of fluere. So also melli-ferous, i.e. honey-
bearing, from L. ferre, to bear. And see melilot, marmalade.
MELLOW, fully ripe. (E.) ‘Melwe, melowe, or rype, Maturus ve
Prompt. Pary. Hence mellow-y, as in ‘not mellowy,’ for L, ‘necdum
mitia;’ Palladius, iv. 523. Pegge notes that, in Derbyshire, a mellow
apple or pear is called a mealy one; and perhaps mellow is an adjec-
tival use of meal. The ME. melwe may be due to AS. melw-, as in
melw-e, dat. of melu, meal. See Meal(1). Cf. Du. malsch, Low G.
mals, soft, mellow; Du. mul, soft, mollig, soft (see Franck). @f Per-
haps confused with OMerc. merwe, tender (Matt. xxiv. 32); AS.
mearu, G. miirbe, mellow. Der. mellow-ness.
MELOCOTON, a peach grafted on a quince. (Span. —Ital.—L.
—Gk.) Spelt malakatoon ; Webster, Devil’s Law-case; A. i. sc. 2;
and see Nares.—Span. melocoton, a quince, a peach grafted on a
quince. = Ital. melocotogno, a quince. Late L. mélum cotdneum, a
quince (Ducange). = Gk. μῆλον κυδώνιον, a quince; lit. a Cydonian
apple. See Quince.
MENACE
MELODRAMA, MELODRAME, a theatrical performance,
with songs. (F.—Gk.) Given in Yodd’s Johnson only in the form
melodrame, noted by Todd as a modern word lately borrowed from
French, It is now written melodrama, —F. mélodrame, properly,
acting with songs. A coined word.=Gk. μέλο-, for μέλος, a song
(see Melody) ; and δρᾶμα, an action, drama (see Drama). Der.
melodramat-ic, melodramat-ist, from the stem δράματ-.
MELODY, an air or tune, music. (F.—L.— Gk.) ME. melodie,
melodye, Chaucer, C. T. 9; Legend of St. Christopher, 1. 18.—OF.
melodie. = L. melodia. =Gk. μελῳδία, a singing. Gk. μελῳδός, adj,
singing, musical.—Gk. peA-, for μέλος, a song, music; and @dn,
a song, ode (see Ode). Der. melodi-ous, -ly, -ness.
MELON, 2 kind of fruit. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘Of melones;’ see
Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. 11. c 7; ME. meloun, Wyclif,
Numb. xi. 5.—=OF. melon, ‘a melon;’ Cot.—L. mélénem, acc. of
méld, an apple-shaped melon. = Gk. μῆλον, (1) an apple, (2) fruit of
various kinds. Cf. L. malum, an apple (possibly borrowed from
Gk.). Der. mar-mal-ade, q. v-
MELT, to become liquid, dissolve. (E.) ME. melten; pt. t. malt,
Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 1017; pp. molten, P. Plowman,
B. xiii. 82. AS. meltan, pt. t. mealt, Grein, ii. 230.4+Gk. μέλδειν, to
melt. Allied to Skt. mydu-, soft, and the OSlavonic mladu, soft
(cited by Max Miiller, Lect. on Language, Sth edit., ii. 363). Brug-
mann, i. § 580, ii. § 690. (4/MEL). Der. melt, trans. vb., AS.
mieltan, millan ; melt-ing, melt-ing-ly. Also malt, 4. ν.» milt (1), 4-ν.
MEMBER, 2 limb, a clause, one of acommunity. (F.—L.) ME.
membre, Rob. of Glouc. p. 511, 1. 10525.—F. membre, a member. =
L. membrum, a member. Brugmann, i. § 875. Der. member-ship,
with E. suffix. Also membr-ane, q.v-
MEMBRANE, a thin skin or film. (F.—L.) ‘The skin is
a membrane of all the rest the most large and thick ;’ P. Fletcher,
Purple Island, c. 2, note 13.—F. membrane, ‘a membrane;’ Cot. =
L. membrana, a skin covering a member of the body, a membrane.
=—L. membr-um, a member; see Member. Der. membran-ous,
membran-ac-e-Ous.
MEMENTO, a memorial or token whereby to remember another.
(L.) A Lat. word, adopted into E.; as early as 1401; see Polit.
Poems, ii. 103. From the first word in one of two prayers in the
Canon of the Mass. The phrase memento mori (remember you must
die) is in Shak. 1 Hen. IV, iii. 3. 35; but this is used in a different
connexion. ‘That memento would do well for you too, sirrah;’
Dryden, Kind Keeper, A. iv. sc. 1. We find ‘for memento sake’ as
early as in P. Plowman, B. v. 474, where there is a special allusion to
the text ‘ Remember me,’ Luke, xxiii. 42. — L. memento (see Luke, xxiii.
42, Vulgate); imperative of memini, 1 remember; see Mention,
Mind. Brugmann, ii. ὃ 846. (4/MEN).
MEMOIR, a record, short biographical sketch, collection of
recollections. (F.—L.) Commonly in the pl. memoirs, spelt memoires
in Phillips’ Dict., ed. 1706.— MF. memoires, “notes of, writings for,
remembrance, . . . records;’ Cot. Pl. of MF. memoire, memory. =
L. memoria, memory; also, a historical account, record, memoir.
See Memory.
MEMORY, remembrance, recollection. (F.—L.) ME. memorie,
Chaucer, C. T. 10118 (E 2244); King Alisaunder, 4790. = OF.
memoire, memory (of which the AF. form memorie is in Gaimar).=—
L. memoria, memory. = L. memor, mindful. B. The L. me-mor
appears to be a reduplicated form (like me-min-i, I remember) ; cf.
Gk. pép-pepos, anxious, μερ-μηρίζειν, to be anxious, to ponder
earnestly (with which the notion of memory is closely associated); Ὁ
the simpler form in Gk. appears in pép-tuva, care, thought. y. Thus |
the base is MER, a later form of 4/SMER, to remember, as in Skt. Ὁ
smy, to remember; cf. E. Martyr, q.v. Brugmann, ii. § 846. Der.
memori-al, Gower, C. A. ii. 19; bk. iv. 532; from OF. memorial, |
“a memoriall’ (Cot.), from L. memorialis 5 memori-al-ist, memori-al-tsé.
Also memor-able, Hen. V, ii. 4. 53, from MF. memorable, ‘memor-
able’ (Cot.)<L. memora-bilis, from memorare, which from memor.
Hence memor-abl-y. Also memorandum, pl. memorandums, I Hen. IV,
iii. 3. 179, from L. memorandum, neut. of fut. pass. part. of memorare,
torecord. Also com-memor-ate, im-memor-ial, re-mem-ber. Doublet, ©
memoir. Not allied to memento. ᾿
MENACE, a threat. (F.—L.) ME. menace, manace ; spelt manas, —
King Alisaunder, l. 843. " Now cometh manace, that is an open folye;
for he that ofte manaceth, &c.; Chaucer, Pers. Tale, De Ira (I 646).
—OF. menace, menache, manace (Supp. to Godefroy) ; MF. menace —
(Cot.), a threat.—L. minacia, a threat, of which the pl. minaci@ 15
used by Plautus. —L. minaci-, decl. stem of minax, full of threats ; also,
projecting. = L. mine, pl., things projecting, hence (from the idea of
threatening to fall) threats, menaces ; cf. mindri, to threaten. Perhaps
allied to L. -minére, as in é-minére, to jut out, project. Der. menace, |
verb, as above ; menac-ing, menac-ing-ly. From the same source, com= .
min-at-ion, de-mean (1); perhaps allied to e-min-ent, pro-min-ent. ia
{
|
MENAGERIE
MENAGERIG, a place for keeping wild animals. (F.—Late L.
—L.) ‘The menagerie in the tower ;’ Burke, On a Regicide Peace,
let. 1 (R.). =F. ménagerie, ‘properly a place where the animals of
a household are kept, then by extension a place in which are kept rare
and foreign animals;’ Brachet. (So also Scheler.)—F. ménager, to
keep house. =F. ménage, a household, housekeeping ; OF. mesnage,
‘houshold stuffe, businesse, or people, a houshold, family, or meyney ;’
Cot. See further under Menial, Mansion.
MEND, to remove a fault, repair. (F.—L.) ME. menden, Will.
of Palerne, 647. The sb. mendyng is in King Alisaunder, 5206.
Mend is an aphetic form of amend, by the loss of the initial vowel.
See Amend. Der. mend-er, merd-ing.
MENDACITY, falsehood, lying. (L.) ‘The mendacity of
Greece ;’ Sir Τὶ Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. i. c. 6. § 9. Formed, by
analogy with F. words in -ty, from L. acc. mendacitatem, from nom.
mendacitas, falsehood.=—L. mendaci-, decl. stem of mendax, false,
lying. Allied to mentir?, to lie. B. The orig. meaning of L. mentiri
was ‘to think out, invent, devise ;’ cf. commentum, a device, a false-
hood, comminisci, to devise. -y. Hence the base men-t- is plainly an
extension from the common 4/MEN, to think. See Mention,
Mentor. Der. mendaci-ous, formed with suffix -ous from mendaci-
above; mendaci-ous-ly, -ness.
MENDICANT, a beggar. (L.) Properly an adj., as ‘ the men-
dicant (or begging) friars.’ The word came in with these friars, and
must have been well known, as a Latin word at least, in the 14th
century. Chaucer has the F. form mendinant, C. T. 7488 (D 1906).
Palsgrave has: ‘ mendycante, an order of freres, mendicant.’ = L.
mendicant-, stem of pres. part. of mendicare, to beg.—L. mendicus,
beggarly, poor; cf. L. menda, a fault. Der. mendicanc-y. Also
mendic-it-y, ME. mendictte, Rom. of the Rose, 6525, from OF. men-
dicité, ‘ mendicity,’ Cot.
MENHIR, a tall monumental stone. (Bret.) A modem name;
from Bret. men, also mean, a stone; and Bret. hir, long. The
former is from the Celtic type *maini-, as in W. maen, Bret. mean,
a stone; allied to L. mania, walls. The latter is from the Celtic
type *séros, long, as in Irish str, W. hir, Corn. and Bret. hir; cf. L.
sérus, late.
MENTAL, one of a household, servile. (F.—Late L.—L.)
Properly an adj., but also used as sb. ‘His seruauntes menyall ;’
Skelton, Why Come Ye Nat to Courte, 592. ME. meineal, meyneal.
“ Grete 3e wel her meyneal chirche,’ i.e. the church of their household,
Wyclif, Rom. xvi. 5. This adj. is formed, by help of the common
suffix -al (=F. -al, L. -alis) from the ME. sb. meine, meinee, maine,
mainee, a household, now obsolete, but once in common use; see
Rob. of Glouc., pp. 167, 1. 3484; Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft,
p-15; Will. of Palerne, 184, 416; Havelok, 827; Wyclif, Matt. x. 25,
Luke, ii. 4; Chaucer, C. T. 7627 (Ὁ) 2045). B. [Note that this word
is entirely unconnected with E. many, with which Richardson con-
fuses it. In Spenser, prob. owing to such confusion, the word is
badly spelt many or manie, Ἐς Q. vy. 11. 3.]—OF. mesniee, maisnee,
meisnee, mainsniee (Godefroy) ; cf. ‘ Mesnie, a meyny, family;’ Cot.
The same word as Ital. masnada, a family, troop, company of men.
= Late L. *manstdnata, for which Ducange gives the forms mansnada,
maisnada, a family, household ; whence the derivative mansidnaticum,
expenses of a household, as explained in Brachet, s.v. ménage.
y- Formed, with fem. pp. suffix -ata, from mansidn-, stem of L.
mansio, a dwelling. See Mansion, Menagerie.
MENINGITIS, inflammation of the membranes of the brain or
spinal cord. (Gk.) From Gk. μηνιγγ-; stem of μῆνιγξ, a membrane,
esp. of the brain; with suffix -itis (Gk. -ctis).
MENISCUS, a crescent-shaped Jens. (Gk.) From Gk. μηνίσκος,
acrescent; dimin. of μήνη, the moon. See Moon.
R, . MINIVER, a kind of fur.
(F.—L.) ME. meniuer (with u for v) ; spelt menyuere, P. Plowman,
| B. xx. 137.—AF. meniver, Liber Albus, p. 283; OF. menu ver;
| “menu ver, ou verk, the furre minever, also, the beast that bears it;’
| Cot. Also spelt menu vair, ‘ minever, the furre of ermins mixed or
spotted with the furre of the weesell called gris;’ Cot.—OF. menu,
little, small,’ Cot.; and vair, ‘a rich fur of ermines powdered thick
| with blue hairs;’ Cot.
1 B. The F. menu is from L. miniitus, small;
see Minute. The F. vair is from L. uarius, variegated, spotted ;
| see Weir, Various. Thus the sense is ‘little spotted’ fur or
_ animal.
| MENSES, the monthly discharge from the womb. (L.) A L.
| medical phrase. In Phillips, ed. 1706.—L. mensés, with the same
| Sense; pl. of mensis, a month; from the same root as E. Month, q.v.
| Der. menstruous, ιν.
|_ MENSTRUOUS, having or belonging to menses. (L.) In
| Isaiah, xxx. 22 (A. V.); Palladius, i. 859. —L. menstruus, monthly.
| =L. mensis, a month. See Month. Der. menstru-ate, from men-
| Struare. Also menstruum, a solvent, Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors,
Ϊ
|
MERE 371
b. ii. c. i. § 113 considered as a solvent liquid, and likened, by the
alchemists, to menstrual blood; see N. E. D.
MENSURATION, measuring, measurement. (L.) In Phillips,
ed. 1706. Formed, by analogy with F. words in -tion, from L. men-
surationem, acc. of mensuratio, a measuring. — L. mensirare, to
measure. = L, menstira, measure ; see Measure.
-MENT, a common suffix. (F.—L.) Εἰ. -ment, from L. -mentum,
answering to Gk, -ya-ro-, Idg. -man-to-.
MENTAL, pertaining to the mind. (F.—L.) In Shak. Timon,
1.1. 31.—F. mental,‘ mentall;’ Cot.—Late L. mentalis, mental. —L.
ment-, stem of mens, mind; see Mind. Brugmann, i. § 431 (2).
Der. mental-ly.
MENT_ON, a notice, remark, hint. (F.—L.) ME. mencioun,
Chaucer, C. T. 895 (A 893). —F. mention, ‘ mention.’ —L. mentionem,
acc. of mentio,a mention. Closely related to mens (decl. stem menti-),
the mind, and to me-min-i, 1 remember. See Mind. Der. mention,
vb., Wint. Tale, iv. 1. 22; mention-able.
MENTOR, an adviser, monitor. (Gk.) Not in Todd’s Johnson.
Simply adopted from the story in Homer, where Athene takes the
form of Mentor with a view to give advice to Telemachus. See Pope’s
Homer, Od. b. ii. —Gk. Μέντωρ, proper name; it means ‘adviser,’
and is cquivalent to L. monitor. Doublet, monitor, q.v.
MENU, a bill of fare. (F.—L.) From F. menu, a brief account
or minute; substantival use of menu, small.—L. miniitus, small; see
Minute.
MEPHITIS, a pestilential exhalation, (L.) In Phillips, World
of Words, ed. 1706. ‘The adj. mephitick is in Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 16745; spelt mephiticke in Cockeram (1623).—L. mephitis, a pesti-
lential exhalation; Afn. vii. 84. Der. mephit-ic.
MERCANTILE, commercial. (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘That I may
use the mercantile term;’ Howell, Familiar Letters, vol. i. let. 29;
A.D. 1621.—MF. mercantil, ‘merchantly;’ Cot. —Ital. mercantile,
mercantile. L. mercant-, stem of pres. part. of mercdri, to trade;
with suffix -i/is. See Mercant.
MERCENARY, hired for money, greedy of gain. (F.—L.)
ME. mercenarie, Chaucer, C. T. 516 (A 514).—F. mercenaire, ‘ mer-
cenary ;’ Cot.—L. mercénarius, older form mercennar-us, a hireling ;
for *merced-ndarius.— L. mercéd-, stem of mercés, a rcward, pay.—L.
merc-, stem of merx, merchandise. Brugmann, i. § 702 (2). See
Mercy.
MERCER, a dealer in silks and woollen cloths. (F.—L.) The
sense is simply ‘a trader.’ In early use. ME. mercer; Ancren Riwle,
p- 66, 1. 18. - Εἰς mercier.—L. type *mercidrius ; cf. Late L. mercérius,
a mercer, trader.—L, merci-, decl. stem of merx, merchandise; with
suffix -Grius, denoting the agent. See Merchant. Der. mercer-y,
from AF. mercerie, Liber Albus, p. 225.
MERCHANDISE, a merchant’s goods, wares. (F.—L.)
ME. marchandise, P. Plowman, B. prol. 63.—F. marchandise, ‘ mer-
chandise;’ Cot.—F. marchand; see Merchant.
MERCHANT, a trader. (F.—L.) ME. marchant, Chaucer,
C. T. 272 (A 270); Floriz and Blauncheflur, ed. Lumby, 42. —OF.
marchant (Burguy), F. marchand, a merchant. L. mercant-, stem of
pres. pt. of mercari, to barter.—L. merc-, stem of merx, merchandise.
Perhaps allied to merére, to gain, buy, purchase; see Merit. So
Bréal. Der. merchantman, Matt. xiii. 45; merchand-ise,q.v. And
see com-merce.
MERCURY, the messenger of the gods; quicksilver. (F.—L.)
ME. mercurie, with the sense of quicksilver, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 16240,
16242 (G 772, 774); as the name of the god, id. 1387.—AF. mer-
curie, Livre des Creatures, by Philippe de Thaun, 1. 264 (in Wright,
Popular Treatises.on Science) ; F. mercure.—L. Mercurium, acc. of
Mercurius, Mercury, the god of traffic.—L. merc-, stem of merx,
merchandise ; see Merchant. Der. mercuri-al, Cymb. iv. 2. 310;
mercurial-i-e.
MERCY, favour, clemency. (F.—L.) In early use. ME.
merci, Old Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 43; Ancren Riwle, p. 30. —
F. merci; OF. mercit.—L. mercédem, acc. of mercés, reward, pay;
which in Late L. had the sense of mercy or pity. —L. merc-, stem of
merx, merchandise, traffic. Der. merci-ful, spelt merciuol, Ayenbite
of Inwyt, p. 188; merci-ful-ly, merci-ful-ness ; merci-less, merct-less-ly,
merci-less-ness ; mercy-seat, Exod. xxv. 17; gra-mercy.
MERE (1), a lake, pool. (E.) ME. mere, Allit. Poems, ed.
Morris, A. 158. AS. mere,a mere; Grein, ii. 232.4-Du. meer; Icel.
marr, the sea; G. meer, OHG. mari, sea; Goth. marei, sea. Russ.
moré, sea; Lithuan. marés, pl.; W. mér; Gael. and Irish muir; L.
mare. β. Some explain it as ‘that which is dead,’ hence a
desert, waste, a pool of stagnant water or the waste of ocean;
ef. Skt. maru-, a desert, allied to my, to die. But this is too
far-fetched. Der. mar-sh, q.v.; mar-ish, q.v. J Probably allied
to moor (1).
MERE (2), pure, simple, absolute. (L.) Very common in Shak.;
Bb2
372 MERE
see Meas. for Meas. iii. 1. 30, &c. See Trench, Select Glossary. =
L. merus, pure, unmixed; esp. used of wine. Der. mere-ly.
MERE (3), a boundary. (E.) Spelt meare; Spenser, F. Ὁ. iii. 9-
46. ΜΕ. mere, Trevisa, tr. of Higden, i. 137. AS. gem#re, a
boundary (the prefix ge- makes no difference). Cf. Icel. anda-meri,
aland-mark. Teut. type *(ga)mairjom, n.; allied to L. mirus (for
*moiros), a wall. See Mural. Der. mere-stone; spelt meere-stone,
Bacon, Essay 56, ὃ 1.
MERETRICIOUS, alluring by false show. (L.) In Minsheu,
ed. 1627. Formed, by the common change of -vs to -ous, from L.
meretricius, pertaining to a courtesan. —L. meretrici-, decl. stem of
meretrix, a courtesan. Formed with fem. suffix -tr-ix (signifying an
agent) from meré-re, to gain, receive hire. See Merit. Der.
meretricious-ly, -ness.
MERGANSER, a bird resembling a duck. (L.) Compounded
of L. merg-us, a diver, diving-bird, from merg-ere, to dive; and
anser, a goose, cognate with E. goose. See Merge and Goose.
MERGE, to sink, plunge under water. (L.) It occurs in
Prynne’s Breviate of the Prelates, ed. 1637, p. 64; Todd’s Johnson.
The sb. mersion is in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. mergere, to dip.
+Skt. majj, to dive, bathe, sink. Brugmann, i. § 816. Der. merg-er;
mers-ion, from mersidnem, acc. of mersio, a dipping, cf. mersus, pp. of
mergere; also merg-anser (above). Also e-merge, im-merge.
MERIDIAN, pertaining to mid-day. (F.—L.) ME. meridian;
‘the altitude meridian;’ Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, prol. 1. 56 (or
60). Also used as sb.— OF. meridien, ‘ meridian, south ; also as sb.,
the meridian ;’ Cot.=—L. meridianus, belonging to mid-day. = L. meri-
diés, mid-day ; as if mert-dié signified ‘in the clear day,’ from merus,
pure, and diés, a day; but really for *medi-dié, at mid-day, from
medius, middle, and diés. Brugmann, i. § 587 (7). See Medium
and Diurnal. Der. meridion-al, Chaucer, C. ‘I’. 10577 (F 263),
from OF. meridional, L. merididnalis ; meridion-al-ly.
MERINO, a variety of woollen. (Span.—L.) Not in Todd’s
Johnson. —Span. merino, roving from pasture to pasture; a name
given to a certain kind of sheep.—Span. merino, an inspector of
pastures and sheep-walks. = Late L. majérinus, a major-domo, steward
of a household; cf. Late L. majoralis,a head-shepherd. See Ducange
and Diez. Formed from L. maior, greater; see Major.
MERIT, excellence, worth, desert. (F.—L.) ME. merite, Gower,
C. A. iii. 187; bk. vii. 3029. —OF. merize, ‘merit ;’ Cot. —L. meritum,
lit. a thing deserved; orig. neut. of meritus, pp. of merére, to deserve,
B. The orig. sense of merére was perhaps ‘to receive as a share ;’ i.e.
if it is allied to Gk. μείρομαι, I obtain a portion, μέρος, a portion,
share. Der. merit-or-i-ous, Tyndall’s Works, p. 171, col. 1, Englished
from L. meritdrius, deserving; meritor-i-ous-ly, -ness. And see mere-
tricious.
MERLE, a blackbird. (F.—L.) In Henrysoun’s Testament of
Creseide, 1. 430.—OF. merle, ‘a mearle, owsell, blackbird ; > Cot. =
L. merula, a blackbird. See Titmouse. And see merl-in.
MERLI, a kind of hawk. (F.—Teut.) ME. merlion, Chaucer,
Parl. of Foules, 339; cf. AF. merilun, in MS. Digby 86, desc. by
Stengel (p. τοὺ. -- ΟἿ. emerillon, esmerillon, ‘the hawk termed a
marlin;’ Cot. Cf. Ital. smerlo, a kind of hawk, whence smeriglione,
a merlin; Span. esmerejon, a merlin. Of Teut. origin; cf. OHG.
smirl, Icel. smyrill, mod. G. schmerl, a merlin. B. Diez supposes the
Romance words to have been formed from L. merula, a blackbird;
the initial s being unoriginal. See Merle. But L. merula may be
cognate; with m forsm. Cf. Korting, ὃ 6124.
MERMAID, a fabled marine animal. (E.) ME. mermaid,
Chaucer, C. T. 15276 (B 4460) ; also mermaidens, Rom. of the Rose,
682.— AS. mere, a lake, mere; and megd, a maid; cf. AS. mere-wif,
a mere-woman, Grein, ii. 233. See Mere and Maid. @ The
sense of mere was easily exchanged for that of sea under the influence
of F. mer, the cognate word. Der. mer-man, similarly formed.
MERRY, sportive, cheerful. (E.) ME. merie, mirie, murie (with
one r), Chaucer, C. T. 235, 1388 (A 1386). Best form murie, as in
Layamon, 10147. AS. merg{e], merry, Grein, ii. 233. Better spelt
myrge (see mirige in Bosworth); cf. urge, ady. (Grein). B. The
orig. sense of AS. myrg-e was ‘ making the time short’ (cf. OHG.
murg-fari, transitory). Cognate with Gk. Bpax-vs, short; from the
common base *mygh- (Brugmann, ii. § 104). Hence the AS. myrge
(from Teut. type *murgjoz) means ‘ lasting a short time,’ and so
“making the time short ;” cf. Goth. ga-maurgjan, to shorten. See
Brief (1). First explained in Eng], Studien, viii. 465. The form
merie is Kentish. Der. merri-ly, merri-ness, L. L. L. i. 1. 202; also
merriment (a hybrid word, with F. suffix, which has almost displaced
merriness), Spenser, Ἐς Ὁ. ii. 6. 3. Also merry-andrew, where Andrew
is a personal name, asserted by Hearne (Benedict. Abbas, ed. 1735,
tom. i. pref. p. 50) tovhave been given to jesters in remembrance of |
the once famous Andrew Boorde, Doctor of Physic in the reign of
MESSENGER
wrongly; see Mr. Furnivall’s preface to his edition of Andrew
Boorde’s Introduction of Knowledge, and see the passage from Heatne
cited at length in Todd’s Johnson. Also merry-thought; Cot. trans-
lates F. lunette by ‘the merry-thought, the forked craw-bone of
a bird, which we use in sport to put on our noses.’ See further in
N. E.D. And see mirth.
MESENTERY, a membrane in the middle of the intestines.
(L.—Gk.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627. Englished from L. mesenterium.
=Gk. μεσεντέριον, also μεσέντερον, the membrane by which all the
intestines are connected. —Gk. pea-, for μέσος, middle, cognate with
L. medius (see Mid); and ἔντερον, a piece of the entrails (see
Entrails). Der. mesenter-ic.
MESH, the opening between the threads of a net. (E.) Some-
times mask. Surrey has meash as a verb. ‘ How smala net may take
and meash a hart of gentle kinde;’ Description of the Fickle Affec-
tions, 1. 44; in Tottel’s Misc., ed. Arber, p. 7. [ME. maske; ‘ maske
of nette, macula;’ Prompt. Pary.; but this is a Scand. form; cf.
Tcel. méskvi, Dan. maske, a mesh.] AS. max, a net (equivalent to
masc, by the frequent interchange of x and sc, as in ask= AS. axian,
acsian). We find ‘max mine,’ glossed by retia mea; fElfric’s Col-
loquy, in Thorpe’s Analecta, p. 23,1. 5 (or in Voc. 92. 8). The very
rare dimin. mescre, a mesh, is glossed by L. macula in a gloss; Voc.
450. 10.4Du. maas,a mesh, net; Icel. miskui, a mesh ; Dan. maske ;
OHG,. masca; G. masche. B. The orig. sense seems to have been
‘a knot,’ from the use of knots in netting; this sense appears in
Lithuanian mazgas, a knot, magzfas, a knitting-needle, allied to the
verb megsti (pres. t. mezgit), to knot, to weave nets; forms cited by
Fick, iii. 236; Nesselmann, p. 387. Der. mesh, vb., as above.
MESMERISBE, to induce an extraordinary state of the nervous
system, in which the operator controls the action of the patient.
(G. proper name.) Formed with verbal suffix ~ise (=F. -iser), from
Mesmer, the name of a German physician, of Mersburg, who first
published his doctrines in 1766. See Haydn, Dict. of Dates. Der.
mesmer-tst, mesmier-ism, mesmer-ic.
MESNE, intermediate. (F.—L.) Given in Cowell’s Interpreter,
with a wrong derivation from OF. maisne, younger by birth. But it
is a variant of AF. meen, mean, intermediate; see Mean (3).
MESO.-, middle. (Gk.) From Gk. μέσο-, for μέσος, middle,
cognate with L. medius, middle; see Medium, Mid. Hence meso-
cephalic, having a head of medium size; and many scientific terms.
MESS (1), a dish of meat, portion of food. (F.—L.) ‘A mease
of meat, ferculum;’ Levins, 204. 36. ‘A messe, or dish of meate
borne to the table, fereulum ;? Baret, Alvearie. And see Gen. xliil.
34. ME. messe “Messe of mete, ferculum;’ Prompt. Parv. “ His
furste mes, his first dish; King of Tars, 86; in Ritson, Met. Rom.
ii. 160. [Cf ME. entremesse, a side dish, on which see my note to
Barbour’s Bruce, b. xvi. 1. 457.]—OF. mes, a dish, course at table
(Godefroy; Burguy). Cotgrave has: ‘més, a messe, or service of
meat, a course of dishes at table.” Mod. F. mets (which also appears
in Cotgrave), is a misspelt form due to a wish to point out more dis-
tinctly its connexion with the verb mettre, of which the old pp. was
mes. Cf. Ital. messo, a course of dishes at table; also, a messenger
(the former =L. missum: the latter = L. missus). —OF. mes (<Late L.
missum), that which is set or placed, viz. on the table; pp. of mettre,
to place.—Late L. mitéere, to place; L. mittere, to send. See
Mass (2) and Message. @ Not to be derived from AS. myse,
a table, nor from L. mensa, nor from OHG, maz, meat; all of which
have been (absurdly) suggested. Der. mess, sb., a number of persons
who eat together, the orig. number being four; see Levins, and
Trench, Select Glossary; also L. L. L. iv. 3. 207. “Ὅ A fourth, to
make us a full messe of guests ;” Heywood, Witches of Lanes., A. i.
sc. 1. ‘Euery messe being jive persons ;” Hakluyt, ΝΟΥ.» 1. 100;
l. 1. Also mess, vb., to eat of a mess, to associate at table ; also
mess-mate.
MESS (2), a mixture, disorder. (F.—L.) ‘As pure a mess
almost as it came in;’ Pope, Epilogue to Satires, Dial. ii. 176. The
same as mess (1); see N. E. Ὁ.
MESSAGE, a communication sent to another, an errand. (F.
—L.) Inearly use. In Rob. of Glouc. p. 359, 1. 7495. -- F. message,
“a message;’ Cot.—Late L. missdticum, message. Extended from
L. miss-us, pp. of mitéere, to send; see Mission. Der. messenger, ἢ. Υ-
And see mess (1), mass (2).
MESSENGER, the bearer of a message. (F.—L.) The is
excrescent, as in scavenger for scavager, passenger for passager; 50
also messenger is for messager. ME. messager, Chaucer, C. T. 5103,
5191, 5205 (B 743, 771); Ancren Riwle, p. 190, 1. 20. AF. messager,
Polit. Songs, p. 243 (1397); messanger, Langtoft’s Chron., ii. 210.
Formed from message with suffix -er of the agent; see Message.
@ We also find ME. message in the sense of ‘messenger,’ as in
Alli. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 454. ‘This form answers to Late L
Henry VIII; several jest-books were ascribed to him, perhaps | miss@ticus, m.
ἃ.
!
{
{
!
(aa
[
|
{
᾿Μοῖαδ- and Bear (1).
MESSIAH
MESSIAH, the anointed one. (Heb.) In Dan. ix.
mashiakh, anointed; from mashakh, to anoint.
MESSUAGE, a dwelling-house with offices, &c. (F.—L.)
‘Messuage (messuagium), a dwelling-house ; but by that name may
also pass a curtilage, a garden, an orchard, a dove-house, a shop,
a mill, a cottaye, a toft, as parcel of 2 messuage,’ &c.; Blount, Nomo-
lexicon, ed. 1691. ME. me.suage, Chaucer, C. T. 3977.—AF.
mesuage, Year-books of Edw. I, 1292-3, p. 219; OF. mesucge, a
manor-house (Roquefort); οἷ. Late L. mesuagium, messuagium,
a manor-house (Ducange), also mansuagium, a farm-house. = Late L.
type *mansudticum (cf. mansudrius, a dweller in a house); allied to
mansionaticum, a Mansion, mansa@ticus, a mansion. All from Late L.
mansa, a small farm with a house, a manse.—L. mansa, fem. of
mansus, pp. of manére, to remain, dwell. See Manse, Mansion.
Thus messuage=mansu-age; cf. OF. mes, a manse, MF, mez, ‘a
mesuage;’ Cot.
META., prefix. (Gk.) From Gk. μετά, prep., among, with,
after; frequently used as a prefix, when it commonly implies
‘change.’ Cognate with Goth. mith, AS. mid, G. mit, with. Der.
met-al, meta-morphosis, meta-phor, meta-phrase, meta-physics, meta-
thesis, met-empsychosis, met-eor, meth-od, met-onymy ; &c.
METAL, a name given to certain solid opaque substances, as
gold. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. metal, Rob. of Glouc. p. 28,1. 665; also
metel, id. Ὁ. 6, 1. 144.— OF. metal, ‘mettal, mettle;’ Cot. = L.
metallum, a mine, metal. —Gk. μέταλλον, a pit, cave, mine, mineral,
metal. Cf. μεταλλάω, I search after, search carefully, explore. Of
unexplained origin. It prob. contains the prep. μετά. Der. metall-ic,
Milton, P. L. i. 673, immediately from L. metallicus; metalli-fer-ous,
from metalli-=metallo-, for metallum, and -fer, producing, from
ferre, to bear; also mefalloid, i.e. metal-like, from Gk. μέταλλο-,
for μέταλλον, and εἶδος, form; also metallurgy, q.v. Doublet,
mettle,
METALLURGY, a working in metals. (F.—L.—Gk.)
25.—
In
Phillips, World of Words, ed. 1706. — MF. mezallurgie, ‘a search for |
metall in the bowels of the earth,’ Cot. [But this would appear to
be but a partial explanation.) —Low L. *metallurgia, not recorded,
but such a form mast have existed as a transcription from the Gk. =
Gk. μεταλλουργύς, adj., working in metals, mining; μεταλλουργεῖν,
to smelt ore or work metals. — Gk. μέταλλο-, decl. stem of μέταλλον,
a metal; and ἔργον, work, cognate with E. work. See Metal and
Work. 4 The vowel u=Gk. ov, resulting from o and ε. Der.
metallurg-ic-al, metallurg-ist.
METAMORPHOSIS, change of form, transformation. (L.—
Gk.) Chaucer has Metamorphoseos, short for Metamorphoseos liber,
book of metamorphosis, C. T. 4513 (B 93). He alludes to the
celebrated Metamorphoseon Libri, books of metamorphoses, by Ovid;
and there is no doubt that the word became widely familiar because
Ovid used it.—L. metamorphosis (gen. sing. metamorphosis or meta-
morphoseos, the latter being the Gk. form; gen. pl. metamorphdsedn),
a transformation. —Gk. μεταμόρφωσις, a transformation. — Gk. μετα-
μορφόομαι, I am transformed. =Gk. μετά, which in comp. has the
sense of ‘change ;’ and μορφόω, I form, from μυρφή, form. B. The
etymology of μορφή is uncertain; some connect it with L. forma,
form. Brugmann, i. § 413 (8). Der. metamorphose, Two Gent. i. 1.
66, ii. 1. 32, a verb coined from the sb. above; also used by Gas-
coigne, Complaint of Philomene, 1. 18 from end. Also metamorph-ic,
a geological term, likewise a coined word.
METAPHOR, a transference in the meaning of words. (F.—L.
—Gk.) ‘And make therof a metaphore;’ Gascoigne, Complaint of
Philomene (near the end); ed. Arber, p. 116.— MF. metaphore,
“a metaphor ;’ Cot.—L. metaphora.=Gk. μεταφορά, a transferring
of a word from its proper signification to another. Gk. μεταφέρειν,
to transfer.—Gk. μετά, which in comp. often gives the sense of
‘change;’ and φέρειν, to bear, carry, cognate with E. bear. See
Der. metaphor-ic, -ic-al, ic-al-ly,
METAPHRASE, METAPHRASIS, a literal translation.
(Gk.) - Metaphrasis, a bare translation out of one language into
another ;’ Phillips, World of Words, ed. 1706.—Gk. μετάφρασις,
a paraphrasing. — Gk. μεταφράζειν, to paraphrase, translate, lit. to
change the style of phrase. =—Gk. μετά, signifying ‘change;’ and
$pacev,tospeak. See Meta- and Phrase. Der. metapkrast=Gk.
μεταφράστης, a translator ; metaphrast-ic.
METAPHYSICS, the science of mind. (L.—Gk.) Formerly
called metaphysic; thus Tyndall speaks of ‘textes of logike, ... of
metaphysike ;” Works, p. 104, 1.1. ME. methaphesik, Trevisa, tr. of
Higden, iii. 365.—L. metaphysicus, metaphysical; whence meta-
physica, sb. pl., metaphysics.— Gk. μετὰ τὰ φυσικά, after physics ;
-because the study was supposed fitly to follow the study of physics
or natural science. The name is due to editors of Aristotle. See
Physics. Der. metaphysic-al, Levins; -al-ly, -i-an.
METASTASIS, a change of condition. (Gk.) From Gk.
METROPOLIS 373
μετάστασις, a removal, change; allied to μεθιστάναι. to remove. —
Gk. μετά, implying change, and ἱστάναι, to place.
METATHESIS, transposition of some letters of a word. (L.—
Gk.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. metathesis. — Gk. μετάθεσις,
transposition. = Gk. μετά, signifying ‘change ;’ and θέσις, a setting,
place. See Meta- and Thesis.
METE, to measure. (E.) ME. meten, P. Plowman, B. i. 175.
AS. metan, gemetan, to measure; Grein, ii. 234.4-Du. meen; Icel.
meta, to tax, value; Swed. md¢a, to measure; Goth. mitan; G.
messen, Cf. Gk. μέδ-ομαι, I provide for; L. modus, measure,
moderation. See Mode. (4/MED.) Brugmann, i. ὃ 412 (1).
Der. mete-yard, Levit. xix. 35, from AS. met-geard, a measuring-rod,
Voc. 147. 20 (see Yard) ; meet (1).
METEMPSYCHOSIS, the transmigration of souls. (Gk.)
‘ Metempsychosis, a passing of the soul from one body to another ;’
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Spelt metempsichosis in Herbert's Travels,
ed. 1665, p. 53.— Gk. μετεμψύχωσις, a transferring of the soul. —Gk.
μετεμψυχόω, 1 make the soul pass from one body to another. —Gk.
μετ-, for μετά, denoting ‘change;’ ey-, for ἐν, in, into, before the
y following ; ψυχ-, for ψυχή, the soul. See Psychology.
METEOR, an apparition in the sky. (F.—Gk.) Frequent in
Shak. ; see Rich. II, ii. 4. 9, ὅζο. -- ΜΈ: me/eore, ‘a meteor ;’ Cot. —
Gk. μετέωρος, adj., raised up above the earth, soaring in air; hence
μετέωρον, a meteor. — Gk. μετ-, for μετά, among; and ἐώρα, allied to
aiwpa, anything suspended, from ἀείρειν, to lift, raise up. See Prell-
witz. Der. meteor-ic ; meteoro-logy, from λόγος, a discourse, λέγειν,
to speak; meteoro-logi-c-al, meteoro-log-ist.
METHEGLIN, mead. (W.) In Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth,
b. 11. c. 22; L. L. L. y. 2. 233.—W. meddyglyn, mead ; lit. medical
liquor. W. meddyg, from L. medicus, healing, curative; and Ilyn,
liquor (Spurrell, pt. i. p. 189). See J. Davies, Welsh-Lat. Dict.
1632.—A. L. Mayhew.
METHINKS, it seems to me. (E.) ME. me thinkes, Will. of
Palerne, 430; also me thinketh, id. 839. AS. mé pynced, it seems to
me; Grein, ii. 613. Here mé is the dat. case of the Ist pers. pronoun;
and pyzced is from the impersonal verb }yxcan, to seem, distinct from
pencan, to think (Grein, ii. 579). β. Cognate with AS. pyncan are
OSax, thuncian, Icel. pykkja (= pynkja), Goth, thugkjan ( = thunkjan),
G,. diinken, OHG. dunchan, to seem. These answer to a Teut. type
*thunkjan-; from *thunk-, weak grade of *thenk-; see Think.
METHOD, arrangement, system, orderly procedure, way. (F.—
L.—Gk.) In Shak. Meas. for Meas. iii. 2. 52.—MF. methode, ‘a
method, a short, ready, and orderly course for the teaching, learning,
or doing of a thing;’ Cot.—L. methodus.— Gk. μέθοδος, an enquiry
into, method, system.—Gk. pe@-, for μετά, after; and ὁδός, a way;
the lit. sense being ‘a way after,’ or ‘a following after.’ B. The
Gk. ὁδός is from 4/SED, to go; cf. Skt. sédaya (with ἃ), to approach
(Benfey, p. 999); Russ. chodite, to go, walk, march, chod’, a going,
course. See Prellwitz; Brugmann, i. § 907, ἢ. 1. Der. method-ic-al,
method-ic, method-ist (Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, and see Trench,
Select Glossary), method-ise, Method-ism.
METHYLATED, mixed with methyl. (Gk.) Methyl is the
radical of wood-spirit or methylic alcohol. From Gk. μέθυ, wine ;
and ὕλη, wood. As if ‘spirit of wood ;” see N. E. Ὁ.
METONYMY, a rhetorical figure. (L.—Gk.) ‘I understand
your mefonymy ;? Butler, Hudibras, pt. ii. c. 3. 1. 588. ‘Metonymie,
a putting one name for another; a figure, when the canse is put for
the effect, or contrarily ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1074.—L. metonymia.
—Gk. μετωνυμία, a change of names, the use of one word for an-
other. —Gk. μετά, implying ‘change;’ and ὄνομα, a name, cognate
with E. name; see Name. Der. metonym-ic-al, -ic-al-ly.
METRE, METER, poetical arrangement of syllables, rhythm,
verse. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. metre, Chaucer, C. T. 13987 (B 3170).
—OF. metre, ‘meeter;’ Cot.—L. metrum.=—Gk. μέτρον, that by
which anything is measured, arule, metre. β, From base με-, with
suffix -τρον, signifying the agent; see Brugmann, ii. ὃ 62. From
the weak grade (ye-) of 4/ME, to measure; cf. Skt. ma, to measure.
4 The word meter occurs in A. 5. (see Bosworth), from L. metrum ;
but Chaucer took it from the French. Der. metr-ic-al (Skelton,
A Replycacion, 338), metr-ic-al-ly; dia-meter. Also metro-nome,
a musical time-measurer, from pérpo-, for μέτρον, and νόμος, dis-
tribution, from νέμειν, to distribute. Also baro-meter, chrono-meter,
hexa-meter, hydro-meter, hygro-meter, penta-meter, thermo-meter, tri-
meter ; geo-metry, trigono-metry, &c.
METROPOLIS, a mother city. (L.—Gk.) Ecclesiastically, it is
applied to the chief cathedral city; thus Canterbury is the metropolis
of England, but London is not so, except in a secular sense. In
K. John, vy. 2. 72; and Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. The adj. metro-
politan (=L. métrogolitanus) was in much earlier use, having a purely
ecclesiastical sense. ‘Bysshoppes meéropolitanes’ = metropolitan
bishops; Sir T. More, Works, p. τορι ἢ. (Here Sir T. More uses
374 METTLE
the word as a F. adj., with added s, and following its sb.) —L. méiro-
polis. —Gk. μητρόπολις, a mother-state; ecclesiastically, the city of
a primate.—Gk. μήτρο-, for μήτηρ, a mother, cognate with E.
Mother; and πόλις, a city, for which see Police. In St.
Erkenwald, ed. Horstmann, |. 26, London is called ‘pe metropol and
pe mayster-tone.’ ‘ And thereof is metropolis called the chiefe citee,
where the Archbishop of any prouince hath his see, . . as Caunterbury
and Yorke ;’ Udall, tr. of Erasmus’ Apophthegms ; Diogenes, § 110.
Der. metropolit-an, from L. metropolitanus (cf. Gk. πολίτ-ης, a
citizen).
METTLE, spirit, ardour. (F.—L.—Gk.) Absolutely the same
word as metal, though the difference in sense is now indicated by a
difference in the spelling. Common in Shak. ; see K. John, ii. 401,
Jul. Cesar, 1. 1. 66, i. 2. 313, ii. 1. 134, iv. 2. 24, &c. ‘No dis-
tinction is made in old editions between the two words, either in
spelling or in use ;’ Schmidt. The allusion is to the temper of the
metal of a sword-blade. See Metal. Der. metil-ed; mettle-some
(with E. suffix).
MEW (1), tocryasacat. (E.) In Shak. Macb. ἵν. 1. 1; Hamlet,
v. I. 3153 ‘cry mew!’ 1 Hen. IV, iii. i. 129. ME. mawen. ‘Tybert
[the cat] coude not goo awaye, but he mawede and galped so lowde,’
i.e. mewed and yelped so loudly; Caxton, tr. of Reynard the Fox,
ed. Arber, p. 22. Of imitative origin.--Low G. mauen, miauen. So
also Pers. maw, the mewing of a cat; Arab. mua, a mewing; Rich.
Dict. p. 1517. Der. mew-l, As You Like It, ii. 7. 144; this is a F.
form, from MF. miauler, ‘to mewl or mew like a cat,’ Cot.
MEW (2), a sea-fowl, gull. (E.) ME. mawe. ‘Hee fuliga,
semawe’ [sea-mew]; Voc. 641.1. AS. me®w, ‘ Alcedo, vel alcion,
mew ;’ id. 131. 30; also méau, id. 5. 16; méu, 432. 9.4 NFries.
méwe; Du. meeuw; Icel. mar; Dan. maage; Norw. maake; G. méwe.
B. Teut. types *mai(g)wiz, *maihwoz; Idg. types *moigis, *moigos
(N.E.D.). Perhaps allied to Skt. méchaka-s, dark-blue.
MEW (3), a cage for hawks, &c. (F.—L.) The sense of ‘ cage’
gave rise to the verb mew, to enclose. [The verb mew also meant
‘to moult,’ which is the orig. sense in French; cf. ME. mewen, to
change ; Chaucer, Troil. ii, 1258.] ME. mewe, meuwe, mue. ‘And
by hire beddes heed she made a mewe;’ Chaucer, C. T. 10957
(F 643). ‘In mezwe;’ Will. of Palerne, 3336. ‘In mue;’ Knight
de la Tour Landry, ch. 64; ed. Wright, p. Ss, 1. 3 from bottom. =
OF. mue, ‘a change, or changing; any casting of the coat or skin,
as the mewing of a hawke;... also, a hawks mue; and a mue, or
coope wherein fowle is fattened;’ Cot. So also Guernsey mue,
a mew.=F, muer, ‘to change, to mue, to cast the head, coat, or
skin ;’ Cot.—L. mitare,to change. β. For *moui‘dre, frequentative
form of mouére, to move; see Move. Cf. pridens for proutcens,
bubus for bouibus (Bréal). Der. mew-s,s. pl., a range of stabling,
orig. a place for falcons; the reason for the change of name is given
in Stow’s Survey of London, ed. 1842, p. 167. * Then is the Mew:e,
so called of the king’s falcons there kept by the king’s falconer,
which of old time was an office of great account, as appeareth by a
record of Rich. II, in the 1st year of his reign... After which time
[A. D. 1534] the fore-named house called the Mewse, by Charing-cross,
was new built, and prepared for stabling of the king's horses, in the
reign of Edw. VI and Queen Mary, and so remaineth to that use.
Also mew, vb., to cage up, confine, of which the pp. mued occurs in
The Knight de la Tour Landry, ch. 64, p. 85,1. 29. Also mew, vb.,
to moult, cast the coat; ‘But I have mew’d that coat,’ Beaum. and
Fletcher, Little French Lawyer, iii. 2. See Moult.
MEWL;; see under Mew (1).
MEWS, ἃ range of stabling; see Mew (3).
MEZZOTINTO, a mode of engraving. (Ital.—L.) See Evelyn’s
Diary, Mar. 13, 1661.—Ital. mezzo tinto, half tinted.— Ital. mezzo
{L. medius) ; and tinto, pp. of tingere, to tinge. See Mediate and
‘Tinge.
M1LASMA, pollution, infectious matter. (Gk.) In Phillips, ed.
1706.—Gk. μίασμα, pollution, stain. —Gk. μιαίνειν, to stain.
M:iCA, a glittering mineral, (L.) ‘ Mica, a crum, or little quan-
tity of anything that breaks off; also glimmer, or cat-silver, a
metallick body like silver, which shines in marble and other stones,
but cannot be separated from them;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Cf. mod.
F. and Span. mica, mica. Apparently from L. mica, a crumb (see
Microcosm) ; but it seems to have been applied to the mineral
from a notion that this word is re’ated to L. micare, to shine,
glimmer; which is not the case. Dor. mic-ac-e-cus, a coined adj.
MICH, to skulk, hide, play truant. (E.) ME. mich2n, Prompt.
Parv. The sb. micher, a skulking thief, occurs in the Rom. of the
Rose, 6541; and, much earlier, spelt muchare, in Ancren Riwle, p.
150, last line. The ΜΕ. muchen, michen, result from an AS. form
*myccan, not found. But it is allied by gradation to OHG. muhhon,
to lie in wait secretly ; whence G. meucheln, to assassinate, meuch-
lings, insidiously, maliciously. See meuchel- in Kluge. Der. mich-er,
MIDRIFF
1 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 450, and in Ancren Riwle (as above); mich-ing,
Hamlet, iii. 2. 146.
MICHAELMAS, the feast of St. Michael. (Hybrid; F.—Heb.
and 1.) ME. michelmesse, mychelmesse, P. Plowman, B. xiii. 240.
1. Michel is from F. Michel, the Ἐς, form of Heb. Mikhael, a proper
name, signifying ‘who is like unto God?’ from Heb. mi, who? ke,
like, El, God. 2. The suffix -mas, ME. messe, AS. masse, is from
L. missa, a mass ; see Mass (2).
MICKULE, great. (E.) ΜΗ. mikel, mukel, michel, muchel, mochel ;
used as ady. in Chaucer, C. T. 260 (A 258). And see Havelok,
1025; Ormulum, 788; ὅς. AS. micel ; Grein, ii. 242.-4Icel. mikill
(mykill); Goth. mikils; ΜΗ Ὁ. michel, OHG. mihil.4-Gk. peyaa-n,
fem., great. Allied to Gk. μέγας, great, L. magnus. See Much,
MICROBE,, a very minute living being. (F.—Gk.) ἘΝ microbe,
due to Sédillot (1878); and prob. meant to express ‘small living
being ;’ but it should mean ‘ short-lived.’ — Gk. μικρύβιος, short-lived.
= Gk. μικρός, also σμικρός, little ; and Bios, life.
MICROCOSM, a little world. (F.—L.—Gk.) This term,
meaning ‘a little universe,’ was applied in old times to man, who
was regarded as a model or epitome of the universe. In Minsheu,
ed. 1627. ‘This word is sometimes applied to man, as being a com-
pendium of all other creatures, his body being compared to the baser
part of the world, and his soul to the blessed angels ;’ Blount, ed.
1674. Also in Shak. Cor. ii. 1.68. - Ἐς microcosme, ‘a little world;’
Cot. —L. microcosmus.— Gk. μικρόκοσμος, a little world. — Gk. puxpo-,
decl. stem of μικρός, also σμικρός, small, little; and κόσμος, a world
(see Cosmetic).
MICROSCOPE, an instrument for viewing small objects. (Gk.)
In Milton, P. R. iv. 57. Coined from Gk. puxpo-, decl. stem of
μικρός, small; and σκοπ-εῖν, to behoid, see. Cf. Gk. ἐπίσκοπος, an
overseer, bishop. See Microcosm and Scope. Der. microscop-ic,
microscop-ic-al, So also micro-meter, an instrument for measuring
small distances; see Metre. Many compounds begin with micro-.
MID, middle. (E.) ME. mid, midde; only used in compounds
and phrases ; see Stratmann. AS. mid, midd, adj., middle; Grein,
ii. 248.-4+ Du. mid-, used in composition, as mid-dag, mid-day ; Icel.
midr, adj.; Swed. and Dan. mid-, in composition; Goth. midjis ;
OHG, mitti, adj.+-L. medius, adj.; Gk. μέσος, olic μέσσος ( = ᾿μέθ-
yos); Skt. madhya-, adj., middle. Teut. type *medjoz; Idg. type
*medhjos, adj. Der. amid, 4. v., whence the use of mid (for ’7id) as
a preposition, like Russ. mejdu, mej’, amid; a-mid-s-t, q. vy. Also
mid-day, AS, mid-deg, John, iv. 6 ; mid-land, 2 Mace. viii. 35 (A-V.);
mid-night, AS. mid-ntht, Voc. 175. 38; mid-rib, a modern botanical
term, not in Todd’s Johnson; mid-riff, q.v.; mid-ship, short for
amid-ship, whence also the term midship-beam, Phillips, World
of Words, ed. 17¢6; mid-ship-man; mid-summer, AS. midsumor,
A.S. Chron., an. 1052; mid-way, ME. midwei, Ancren Riwle, p. 412.
Also midd-le, q.v.; mid-st, q.v. Also (from L. medi-us), medi-
ate, ὅτε.
MIDDEN, a dunghill. (Scand.) Common in dialects. ME.
midding ; spelt myddyng, Pallacius, i. 750.— Dan. méddyng, a dung-
hill (for *mégdynge).— Dan. még (Icel. myk?), muck; Dan. dynge,
aheap. Lit. ‘muck-heap.’ Dan, dynge=Swed. dynga, dung ; allied
to E. dung. See Muck and Dung.
MIDDLE, adj., intervening, intermediate. (E.) ME. middel,
adj. ‘In the myddel place ;’ Mandeville’s Travels, p. 2 (in Spec. of
English, p. 165, 1. 34). Also middel, sb. ‘Aboute hir middel ;’
Gower, C. A. ii. 47, 1.12; bk. iv. 1356. AS. middel, sb., Grein, ii.
249. B. Formed with suffix - οἰ from AS. midd, adj. ; see Mid.4+Du.
middel, adj., adv , and sb. ; G. mitiel, sb., means; OHG. mit.il, adj.,
middle. Cf, Icel. medal, prep. among. Der. middle-man, given in
Phillips, ed. 1706, as a military term, signifying ‘he that stands
middlemost in a file;’ micdl-ing, used by L’Estrange and Dryden
(Johnson), not an early word ; middle-moct, 1 σεῖς, li. 5 (in the Bible
of 1551 and in the A. V.), an ill-coined superlative on the model of
Sore-mo:t and aft r-mo.t.
MIDGE, a small fly or gnat. (E.) ME. migge, mygge. ‘Hee
sicoma, a myge’ [better mgge|; Voc. 707. 4. AS. micge, Alfric’s
Gloss., Nom, Insectorum; in Voc. 122. 7; ‘ Culix, myge’ | for myeg];
id. Voc, 261. 6; mygg, 16. 23. Here micge is for mycge, where y 15
due to an earlier x, with the usual vowel-change.+4Du. mug, a gnat;
Low G. mr gge, Bremen Wértcrbuch ; Swed. mygg; Dan. myg; G.
miicke, ΟἿ. mucca, mugga. B. ‘Leut. types *mugjon-, f.; *mugjoz,
m.; perhaps the orig. sense was ‘buzzer,’ from the noise made by
the insect’s wings. Cf. Gk. μύζεν, to mutter, μυῖα, a fly (Prellwitz);
also Icel. my, a midge. Der. mug-wort, q.v.
MIDRIFF, the diaphragm, separating the heart from the stomach,
ἅς. (E.) ME. midrif, mycryf, Prompt. Pary. AS. midrif. ‘ Dis-
septum, midrif; Exta, midrif;’ Voc. 159. 40, 42. Older form
midhrif; A. S. Leechdoms, ii. 260.—AS. mid, middle; and hrif,
the belly, the womb, Grein, ii, 104. Cf. Du. rif, in the sense of
|
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Ϊ
Ϊ
Ι
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|
MIDST
‘carcase;’ OHG. href, the body, OFries. rif, ref, the belly, midref,
the midriff. 4 With AS. Arif compare L. corp-us, body.
MIDST, the middle. (E.) ‘In the midst,’ Com. Errors, i. 1.
104; and 11 other times in Shakespeare. ‘In middest of his race ;’
Spenser, Ἐς Ὁ. vi. 3. 25. Jn the midst is from this older phrase ἐπ
middest. Moreover, the ¢ is excrescent, as in whils-t, amongs-t ; and
in middest answers to ME. in middes, as in ‘in myddes the se’ =in the
midst of the sea, Pricke of Conscience, 1. 2938. A parallel phrase is
amyddes, P. Plowman, B. xiii. 82. B. Here the s gives the phrase
an adverbial force, and is due to the habit of forming adverbs from
the AS. gen. case in -es, The older form is without the s, as in a
midde, Layamon, 4836, also spelt a midden, id. 8154. Still earlier,
we have on midden, Luke, xxiv. 36, in the latest version of the A. S.
Gospels, where the earlier version has on mydlene. y. The ME.
form midde answers to AS. middan, dat. case of the sb. midde, formed
from the adj. mid, middle. See Mid; and see Amidst.
MIDWIFE, a woman who assists another in childbirth. (E.)
ME. mydwyf, P. Plowman’s Crede, 1. 78; mydwyf, Myrc’s Duties
of Parish Priest, ed. Peacock, 1. 98; mydewy/, id. 1. 87; mydwijf,
Wyclif, Gen. xxxviii, 27 (later version); medewife, id. (earlier version).
The false spelling medewife (not common) is due to confusion with
mede, i.e. meed, reward; this has misled Verstegan and others as to
the etymology. In Cursor Mundi, 5543, the Fairfax MS. has the pl.
midwyues ; but the Cotton MS. has midwimmen(mid-women). B. The
prefix mid- is certainly nothing but the once common AS. and ME.
mid, prep., together with ; it occurs again as a part of the ME. mid-
polinge, compassion (lit. suffering with), Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 157.
There are several such compounds in AS.; as mid-wyrcan, to work
with, Mk. xvi. 20, mid-wyrhta, a worker together with, co-adjutor,
A.S. Chron. an. 945; see Bosworth. This AS. mid is cognate with
Du, mede, with (whence medebroeder, a companion, lit. mid-brother,
medegenoot, a partner, medehelpen, to assist); also with G. mit
(whence G. mit-bruder, a comrade, mithelfer, a helper, mitmachen, to
take a part in, &c.); also with Gk. μετά, with (whence μεταλαμβάνειν,
to participate). The sense of mid in this compound is clearly ‘ helping
with,’ or ‘ assisting.’ y. The ME. wif means no more than ‘woman ;’
see Wife, Woman. And see Meta-. Der. midwif-er-y, spelt
midwifry in Bp. Hall, Sat. i. 1, 25, a clumsy compound, with F.
suffix -ery (=F. -erie).
MIEN, look, bearing, demeanour. (F.—C.) Spelt meen in
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Hehas: ‘Meen (Εἰ. mine), the countenance,
figure, gesture, or posture of the face.’ {Meane in Spenser, F. Q. vi.
7. 39, is a different word.]—F. mine, ‘the countenance, look, cheer;’
Cot. B. The F. word is not found earlier than the 15th century ;
still, Ital. mina is borrowed from it (Hatzfeld). Prob. of Celtic
origin. = Bret. min, muzzle, beak (also used of men); cf. W. min,
lip; Irish méx, mouth; Corn. mein, min, lip, mouth (Thurneysen).
Celtic types *makna, *mekno-, open mouth ; Stokes-Fick, 197. (So
Hatzfeld ; Korting, § 6172).
MIGHT (1), power, strength. (E.) ME. might, mi3t; Chaucer,
C. T. 5580 (B 1160). AS. miht, meht, meht; Grein, ii. 235.4 Du.
magt ; Goth. mahts; G. macht, OHG. maht. B. Teut. type *mahtiz,
for *mag-tiz, might (Fick, iii. 227) ; from MAG, to be able ; see May
(1). Cf. Russ. moche, might, from moche, to be able. Der. might-y,
AS. mihtig, meahtig, Grein, ii. 237; might-i-ly, might-i-ness,
MIGHT (2), was able. (E.) AS. meahte, mihte, pt. t. of mugan,
to be able; Grein, ii. 267. See May (1).
MIGNONETTE, an annual plant. (F.—G.) Modern. Added
by Todd to Johnson. = F. mignonette, fem. dimin. of mignon, a darling.
See Minion.
MIGRATE, to remove from one country to another. (L.) The
sb. migration is in Cotgrave, and in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L.
migratus, pp. of migrare, to wander ; connected with Gk. ἀμείβειν, to
change (Prellwitz). Der. migration, from F. migration, ‘a migration’
(Cot.), from L. acc. migrationem. Also migrat-or-y, e-migrate, im-
migrate.
O, the emperor of Japan. (Japan.) From Jap. mikado,
said to mean ‘high gate;’ like the Turkish Sublime Porte. = Jap. mi,
august, exalted; kado, gate, door.
MILCH, milk-giving. (E.) In Gen. xxxii.15. ‘A hundred milch
kine;’? Tam. Shrew, ii. 1. 359. ‘Mylch cowe, vacca mulsaria;’
Prompt. Pary., p. 327. Also melche, as in Lay le Freine, 196; in
Weber, Met. Rom., vol. i. From AS.melc, adj., milch (see Bosworth);
The Shrine, p. 130, 1. 3. Allied to Milk, q.v. Cf. Icel. mjalk,
milk; milkr, mjolkr, adj., milk-giving; milk er, a milch ewe. So
G. melk, adj., milch ; Low G. melsck, milch (Schambach).
MILD, gentle, kind, soft. (E.) ME. mild, milde ; Rob. of Glouc.
Pp. 72, 1. 1625. AS. milde, Grein, ii. 250.4-Du. mild; OSax. mildi;
Icel. mildr; Dan. and Swed. mild; G. mild, OHG. milti; Goth.
mildeis, only in comp. un-mildeis, without natural affection, 2 Tim.
i. 3. Allied to Gk. μαλθακός, soft, mild; Olrish meld, pleasant;
MILLENNIUM
Skt. mydh, to grow weary of, disregard (Macdonell) ; root *meldh.
Brugmann, i. § 591, ii. ὃ 690. Der. mild-ly, mild-ness.
MILDEW, a kind of blight. (E.) ME. meldew, Wyclif, Gen.
xli. 6. AS. meledéaw, honey-dew, Grein, ii. 230; mildéaw, Voc. 455.
19. Cf. OHG. militou, mildew, cited by Grein, β. The sense is
prob. ‘ honey-dew,’ from the sticky honey-like appearance of some
kinds of blight, as, e.g. on lime-trees. Cf. Goth. milith, honey ;
allied to L. mel, Gk. μέλι, honey; Irish mil, honey, milcheo, mildew.
See Mellifluous and Dew. 4 The mod. G. word is mehlthau,
i.e. meal-dew; but this is an altered form, as it does not agree with
the OHG. militou; the OHG. for ‘ meal’ being melo.
MILE, a measure of distance, 1760 yards. (L.) ME. mile, pl.
mile, Chaucer, C. T. 16023 (ἃ 555). AS. mil,a mile; fem. sb., with
pl. mila, mile; Grein, ii. 250, Formed from L, pl. milia, more
commonly millia, used in the sense of a Roman mile; the proper
sense is ‘thousands.’ The oldername for the Roman mile was mille
passus, or mille passuum, a thousand paces. B. Hence also G. meile,
OHG. mila, a mile; Du. mijl,a mile, &c. @ The ME. unchanged
pl. mile explains such a phrase as ‘a fen-mile stage.’ Der. mile-age
(with F. suffix) ; mzle-stone. And see millenary, milfotl, million.
MILFOIL, the name of a plant. (F.—L.) Ina Vocabulary of
Plant-names, said to be of the thirteenth century, we find ‘ Mille-
folium, milfoil ;’ Wright’s Vocab. i. 139. The sense is ‘ thousand-
leaf,’ from the minute and numerous sections into which the leaf is
divided. — OF. milfoil ; from F. mille, a thousand, and OF. fuil, foil,
m., a leaf. —L. milifolium, millefolinm, milfoil ; from mille, a thousand,
and folium, a leaf. See Foil. The true E. name is yarrow,
375
4. ν.
MILITATE, to contend, fight, be opposed to. (L.) Modern.
Added by Todd to Johnson’s Dict. [But militant, chiefly used of
‘the church militant,’ occurs in Barnes, Works, p. 253, col. 2.]—L.
militatus, pp. of militare, to serve as a soldier, fight. —L. milit-, stem
of miles, a soldier. Root uncertain. Der. militant, from L. militant-,
stem of pres. pt. of militare. From L. milit- we have also milit-ar-y,
All’s Well, i. 1. 132; milit-ar-ist, a coined word, All’s Well, iv. 3.
161. Also milit-ia, 4. v.
MILITIA, a body of soldiers for home service. (L.) ‘ Except
his militia of natives be of good and valiant soldiers ;* Bacon, Essay
29, Of Greatness of Kingdoms. =—L. militia, (1) warfare, (2) troops,
army.=—L,. milit-, stem of miles, a soldier, See Militate. Der.
militia-man.
MILK, a white fluid secreted by female mammals for feeding
their young. (E.) ME. milk, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 360 (A 358). OMerc.
milc (in Sweet, O. E. Texts). AS. meolc, sometimes meoluc; Grein,
ii. 240.4 Du. melk; OSax. miluk; Icel. mjolk; Dan. melk ; Swed.
mjalk ; Goth. miluks; G. milch. Teut. stem *meluk-, f. Allied to
AS. melcan, str. vb., pt. t. mealc ; G. melken (pt. t. molk, pp. gemolken),
OHG. melchan, to milk ; orig. ‘to stroke, from the action employed
in milking a cow. β. Teut. type *melkan-, pt. t. *malk, str. vb. ;
allied to Gk. ἀμέλγειν, to milk, L. mulgére, to milk ; Lith. milsz-tz,
to milk, OIrish blig-im, I milk. From 4/MELG; Brugmann, i.
§ 608. The older sense appears in Skt. 917}, to wipe, rub, stroke,
sweep; from 4/MERG, to rub, wipe. Der. milk-er, milk-y ; milk-
maid, milk-pail, milk-tree ; milk-sop, ἡ. v.; milch, q.V-
MILKSOP, an effeminate man. (E.) ‘Allas, she seith, that
euer I was shape To wedde a milksop, or a coward ape ;’ Chaucer,
C. T. 13916 (B 3100). The lit. sense is ‘bread soaked in milk ;’
hence, a soft, effeminate man. From ME. milk, milk; and soppe,
a sop, bread soaked in milk. See Milk and Sop.
MILL, a machine for grinding corn, &c. (L.) ME. melle (riming
with ¢elle); Chaucer, C. T. 3921 (A 3923). Also mulle, in comp.
windmulle, a windmill, Rob. of Glouc. p. 547, 1. 11383. Mill is a
corruption, for ease of pronunciation, of miln, still in use provincially ;
cf. the name Milner, equivalent to the commoner Miller. Similarly,
ME. mulle is for ME. mudne, which occurs in Sir Gawain, ed. Morris,
2203. In P. Plowman, A. ii. 80, we have as various readings the
forms mulnere, mylnere, myllere, mellere, a miller, corresponding re-
spectively to mulne, mylne, mylle, melle,a mill. AS. myln, a mill;
‘Molendenum, myln;’ Voc. 330. 19. Also spelt mylen, Grein, il.
270. Not an E. word, but borrowed from Late L. mulina, for L.
molina, a mill; whence also Icel. mylna, a mill. Extended from
L. mola, a mill, lit. ‘that which grinds;’ cf. molere, to grind.—
“MEL, to grind, rub; whence also Lithuan. mal¢i, Goth. malan,
G. mahlen, to grind. Brugmann, i. § 121 (2). Der. mill-cog, mill-
dam, mill-race, mill-stone, mill-wright, mill-wheel. Also mill-er,
mill-er’s-thumb (a fish). See Meal (1).
MILLENNIUM, a thousand years. (L.) In Johnson’s Dict. =
Mod. L. *millennium, a period of a thousand years.—L. mille, a
thousand ; and annus, a year; see Annual. The same change of
vowel occurs in bi-ennial, tri-ennial, &c. Der. millenni-al. @ar We
also find millenary, Bp. Taylor, Sermons, vol. ii. ser. 12 (R.), This
876 MILLET
is from L. milléndrius, belonging to a thousand, a derivative of pl.
adj. milléni, extended from mile, a thousand.
MILDET, the name of a plant. (F.—L.) In Holland, tr. of
Pliny, bk. xviii. c. 7.— Ἐς millet, ‘millet, mill; ἡ Cot. Dimin. of F.
mil, ‘mill, millet ;’ Cot. —L. miliuwm, millet ; whence also AS. mil,
millet (Bosworth). + Gk. μελίνη, millet. Root uncertain. Der.
mili-ar-y, directly from L. milinm.
MILLINER, one who makes bonnets, &c. (Ital.) In Shak.
Wint. Ta. iv. 4. 192. © A millaner’s wife;’ Ben Jonson, Every Man
(ed. Wheatley), i. 3. 120; see the note. A milliner or millaner was
formerly of the male sex. Spelt millener in Phillips; millenier in
Minsheu. Origin somewhat disputed; but probably for Milaner,
a dealer in wares from Milan, in Italy. Milan steel was in good
repute at an early period; we find ‘And a Millaine knife fast by my
knee’ in the Percy Folio MS., ed. Hales and Furnivall, i. 68; where
a note says: ‘ The dealers in miscellaneous articles were also called
milliners, from their importing Milan goods for sale, such as brooches,
aiglets, spurs, glasses, &c.; Saunders’s Chaucer, p. 241.’ Chapman
has: ‘Milan, a rich state of haberdashers;” ‘The Ball, Act v. See
examples in Palmer, Folk-Etymology. ‘The Ital. Milano, L. Medio-
lanum, is a2 name of Celtic origin; see Bacmeister, Kelt. Briefe,
pp. 71, 102. We must also remember that the old sense of milliner
was a haberdasher, or seller of small wares; see Minsheu, ed. 1627,
whose suggestion that milliner is derived from L. mille (a thousand)
is to be rejected, though it shows that their wares were of a very
miscellaneous character, and that they had ‘a thousand small wares
to sell’ 4 We also have the term mantua-maker, as if from the
Italian town of Mantua, but this is a corruption of Ital. manto. Der.
milliner-y.
MILLION, a thousand thousand. (F.—L.) ME. millioun;
Chaucer, C. T. 7267 (Ὁ 1685). —F. million, ‘a million;’ Cot. — Late
L. millionem, acc. of millio; Ducange. Evidently a coined word, ex-
tended from L. mille, a thousand. See Mile. Der. million-th;
million-aire, from Εἰ. millionnaire.
MILREIS, a Portuguese coin. (Port.—L.) Formerly milree.
‘ Mill-Ree or a Thousand Rees, a Portuguese coin, worth ὅς. 83d.
sterling ;’ Phillips (1706). Now worth ab. 4s. 6¢.— Port. milreis ;
from mil, a thousand, and σεῖς, pl. of real, ‘a Port. coin called ree,
equal to 27/400d.;’ Vieyra. He also gives: ‘mil réis, a milree,
equal to 5s. 74d.;’ (1857).—L. mille, a thousand ; régalem, acc. of
regalis, royal. See Real (2).
MILT (1), the spleen. (E.) ME. milte, O. Eng. Miscellany, ed.
Morris, p. 178, 1. 171. AS. milte; ‘Splen, milte;’? Voc. 160. 35.
Ἔα. milt, the spleen; Icel. milti, the spleen; Dan. milt; Swed.
mjalte; G. milz, milt; OHG, milzi. Teut. stem *meltjo-, *meltjon-.
B. All from the verb to me/t, in the sense ‘ to digest ;’ cf. Icel. melta,
(1) to malt for brewing, (2) to digest; see Melt.
MIT (2), soft roe of fishes. (MDu.) In Walton’s Angler, with
the spelling melt; see Todd. Palsgrave has: ‘ Mylte [in] a fysshe,
laicte de poisson.’ In this sense, it was prob. borrowed from MDn.
milte, ‘the milt of a fish, Hexham; cf. Norw. mjelie, the same.
Doubtless confused with mizk, sometimes used with the same sense ;
cf. “ Lactes, mylke of fyshe;’ Voc. 591.16. This use of the word is
known elsewhere. Cf. Swed. mjolk, milk; mjolke, milt of fishes ;
mjélkfisk, a milter, lit. milk-fish ; Dan. jiske-melk, soft roe, lit. fish-
milk. So also G. milch, (1) milk, (2) milt of fishes; MDu. melcker
van een visch, ‘the milt of a fish,’ Hexham; Low G. melk, milk, also
milt (Liibben). Der. milt, vb., mili-er.
MIMIC, imitative, apt in imitating. (L.—Gk.) ‘ Mimic Fancy ;’
Milton, P. L.v. 110. The sb. mimick occurs in Milton, Samson,
13253 and once in Shak. Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 2. 19, spelt mimmick in
the folios. L. mimicus, farcical. —Gk. μιμικός, imitative, belonging
to or like a mime.—Gk. pros, an imitator, actor, mime. Der.
mimic, sb., mimic, vb., mimic-ry. We sometimes find mzme, directly
from Gk. ptuos; also mim-et-ic, from Gk. μιμητικός, imitative, from
μιμη-τής, an imitator.
MINARET, a turret on a mosque. (Span.— Arab.) Added by
Todd to Johnson; it occurs in Swinburne’s Travels through Spain ;
letter 44.—Span. minarete, a high slender turret. Arab. mandrat,
a candle-stick, lamp, light-house, a turret on a mosque; Rich. Dict.
p- 1496.—Arab. manar, the same, id.; connected with zar, fire,
p- 1548.4+Heb. mandrah, a candle-stick ; from nir, to shine.
MINCE, to chop small. (F.—L.) ME. mincen; the pp. mincid,
spelt myncyd, occurs in the Liber Cure Cocorum, ed. Morris, p. 18.
=—OF. mincier, MF. mincer, ‘to mince, to shred;’ Cot.—Late L.
type *minitidre, to mince, make small (see Schwan, § 199); from
Late L. minitia, a small piece.—L. miniitus, small; see Minute.
Cf F. dial. mincer (Berry) ; Norm. dial. mincher, to break up (Moisy).
@ From the same root we have AS. mixsian, to become small, to
fail. It only occurs twice: ‘werigra wlite minsode’ =the comeliness
of the accursed ones failed; Daniel, 268, ed. Grein; and again,
MINIKIN
‘swide ne minsade’=it did not greatly fail; Reimlied, 29. From
the adj. min, small, Grein, ii. 252. Cf. Du. min, less; L. min-or,
less; see Minish. See Korting, § 6202. Der. minc-ing =taking
small steps, Isa. iii. 16; mince-pie, formerly minced-pie, Spectator,
no. 629; mtnce-meat, formerly minced-meat (Baret).
MIND, the understanding, intellect, memory. (E.) ME. mind,
mynd, often in the sense of memory; Chaucer, C. T. 1908, 4972
(A 1906, B 552). AS. gemynd, memory, mind, thought (where the
prefixed ge- makes no difference); Grein, ii. 432. Formed (with
the usual vowel-change of 1 to y) from AS. munan, to think, gemunan,
to remember ; id. i. 431; ii, 268.4Goth. gamunds, remembrance, f. ;
from gamunan, to remember. ‘Teut. type *mundi-z, f.; for *mun-
thiz, by Verner’s law. Idg. type *man-ti-s; cf. L. mens (decl. stem
menti-), mind ; Skt. ma-ti-,f., mind. B. All from the weak grade of
MEN, to think; cf. Skt. man, to think, L. me-min-i, I remember.
Der. mind, verb, from the sb. ; cf. AS. gemyndgian, to remember,
Grein, ii. 4333 mind-ed; like-mind-ed; mind-ful, Shak. Lucrece,
1. 1583; mind-ful-ly, mind-ful-ness ; mind-less, Pricke of Conscience,
2088. From the same root, mental, mentor, mania, mandarin, money,
mint (1), mendacious, com-ment, &c.
MINE (1), belonging to me. (E.) ME. min, pl. mine, Chaucer,
C. T. 1146 (A 1144); frequently shortened to my, as in id. 1145.
AS. min, poss. pron. (declinable), Grein, ii. 252; from AS. min
(unchangeable), gen. case of the Ist pers. pronoun ; see Me.+4+Goth.
meins, poss. pron. (declinable), mine; from mera, gen. case of Ist
personal pronoun. So in other Teut. tongues. Doublet, my.
MINE (2), to excavate, dig for metals. (F.—C.) In King
Alisaunder, 1. 1216; cf. 1.1218, ‘And therupon anon he bad His
mynours for to go and myne;’ Gower, C. A. ii. 198; bk. v. 2120.—
F. miner, ‘to mine, or undermine;’ Cot. Cf. Ital. minare, Span.
and Port. minar, to mine. All of Celtic origin, according to
Thumeysen (p. 67). Cf. Irish and Gael. mein, ore, vein of metal;
Olrish mianach, ore (Windisch); W. mwn, ore, a mine; W. mwn-
glawdd, a mine (from clawdd, a pit); Bret. men-gleuz, a mine (cf.
cleuz, hollow), pron. men-glé in the dialect of Vannes. Celtic type
*meini (Stokes). Der. mine, sb.; min-er, ME. minour, as above;
min-ing ; min-er-al,q.v. Also counter-mine, under-mine.
MINERAL, what is dug out of mines. (F,—C.) ME, mineral.
‘ The thridde stone in special By name is cleped mineral Whiche the
metalls of every mine Attempreth, til that thei ben fyne;’ Gower,
C. A. ii, 875 bk. iv. 2554.—F. mineral, ‘a minerall;’ Cot. Formed
as adj. to accompany the sb. miniere, ‘a mine of metals or minerals,’
Cot.—F. miner, to mine; see Mine (2). Cf. Span. minera, a mine.
Der. mineral-ise, mineral-ist, minera(1)-logy (where the final J is
dropped, owing to the 7 following), a coined word from Gk,
λόγος, discourse, from λέγειν, to speak; minera-logi-c-al, minera-
log-ist.
MINEVER, MINIVER, the same as Meniver, q.v.
MINGLE, to mix, confuse. (E.) Common in Shak. ; both trans.
and intrans. K, Lear, i. 1. 242; Macb. ili. 4. 3. Spelt myrgell in Pals-
grave ; but cf, mengling, sb.,a mingling, More, Life of Rich. ITI, ed.
Lumby, p. 70. A frequentative form, lit. ‘to mix often,’ from the older
verb ming, ME. mengen, mingen. ‘The busy bee, her honye now
she minges ;’ Surrey, Desc. of Spring; see Spec. of Eng. ed. Skeat,
p-217(C),la11. The ME. verb occurs as ming, imp., in Henrysoun,
Test. of Cresseid, 1. 613; it is more often mengex, and mostly used
in the pp. meint (contracted form of menxged), or meind, or meynd,
Gower, C. A. ii. 262; bk. v. 4049. AS. mengan, to mix, also to
become mixed; also spelt mencgan, mangan, Grein, ii. 231. B. The
vowel-change (of a to @ or e) shows that mengan is a causal verb,
derived from the older form mang, a mixture, preserved in the forms
ge-mang, ge-mong, a mixture, crowd, assembly (where the prefixed
ge- makes no difference), Grein, i. 425.4+Du. mengelen, to mingle;
from mengen, to mix; OFries. mengia, to mix; cf. mong, prep.
among; Icel. menga, to mingle; G. mengen, to mingle. y. These
forms are all due to the sb. mang, a mixture, crowd, as above.
@ Not allied to mix, nor to Gk. μίγνυμι. Der. mingl-ing; com-
mingle, q.v. And see Among, Monger, and Mongrel. J
MINIATURE, a painting onasmall scale. (Ital.—L.) ‘Minia-
ture (from minium, i.e. red lead), the art of drawing pictures in little,
being done with red lead, Miniated, painted or inlaid, as we read
of porcellane dishes miniated with gold;’ Blount’s Gloss. ed. 1674.—
Ital. miniatura, a miniature; cf. Ital. miniato, pp. of miniare, ‘ to die,
to paint, to coloure or limne with vermilion or sinople or red lead ;’
Florio,—L. minium, cinnabar, red lead. B. Said to be an Iberian
word, the Romans getting their minium from Spain; see Pliny, b.
xxxiil. C. 7.
MINIKIN, a little darling, (Du.) In Baret (1580). Florio
translates Ital. mignone by ‘a minion, a fauorit, a mintkin, a darling.
= Du. minnekyn, a cupid; Sewel’s Du. Dict.; ‘ Minne, Minneken, my
love ;’ Hexham’s Du. Dict. ed. 1658. Dimin. of Du. minne, love,
MINIM
cognate with OHG. minna, love, allied to E. mind. See Mind,
Minion. Der. minikin, adj., i.e. dear little, K. Lear, iii. 6. 45.
MINIM, a note in music; τσὶ of a drachm. (F.—L.) Mynym
in Palsgrave. The minim was once the shortest note, a quarter of
the breve, or short note. The modern semibreve is so long a note
that the breve is out of use. Formerly also spelt minzun; Romeo,
ii. 4. 22, second quarto (Schmidt).—OF. minime ; ‘ minime blanche,
a minume in musick [so called from its open head]; minime noire,
a crochet” [because wholly black]; Cot.=—L. minimum, minumum,
acc. of minimus, minumus, very small; a superlative form with Idg.
suffix -mo- (Brugmann, ii. ὃ 72) from a base min-, small. See
Minor. Doublet, minimum, directly from L. neut. minimum, the
smallest thing.
MINION, a favourite, flatterer. (F.-OHG.) Palsgraye has
mignyon. In Shak. Temp. iv. 98; see Trench, Select Glossary.—F.
mignon, ‘a minion, favorite ;’ Cot. =F. mignon, adj., minion, dainty,
neat, spruce; also pleasing, gentle, kind;’ Cot. [The use as a sb.,
with a sinister sense, appears more clearly in Ital. mignone, ‘a
minion, a favorite, a dilling, a minikin, a darling;” Florio.| B. The
F. -on, Ital. -one, isa mere suffix; the base mign- is due to MHG.
minne, OHG. minna, minni, memory, remembrance, love; well-
known by its derivative minnesinger=singer of love. y. This OHG.
minna, memory, is allied to L. me-min-i, and to E. mind; see
Mind, Minikin.
MINISH, to make little, diminish. (F.—L.) In Exod. v. 19;
see Bible Word-book. ME. menusen. ‘Menusid, or maad lesse ;’
Wyclif, John, iii. 30, earlier version. Chaucer has the comp. amenuse,
Pers. Tale, 1 377 (Six-text).=—F. menuiser, ‘to minish, extenuate;’
Cot. Cf. Ital. minuzzare, to mince, cut small. —Late L. *minitiare,
not found; cf. Late L. minitare, to reduce to fragments. —L. mi-
niitia, smallness. -- L. miniitus, small (whence Ἐς. menx) ; see Minute,
Minor. Der. di-minish; see mince.
MINISTER, a servant. (F.—L.) ME. ministre, Chaucer, C. T.
1665 (A 1663); Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 312, 1. 13.
[Afterwards altered to the L. form.)—F. ministre.—L. ministrum,
acc. of minister, a servant. B. Formed with compar. suffix -ter from
*min-es, related by gradation to min-us, ady. less, and to min-or, adj. ;
see Minor, Minim. Der. minister, vb., ME. ministren, Rob. of
Brunne, p. 80, from Εἰ. ministrer, L. ministrare; minister-i-al, minister-
i-al-ly; ministr-ant, from the stem of pres. pt. of L. ministrare;
ministr-at-ion, from L. acc. ministratidnem, from ministrare; ministr-
at-ive; ministr-y. Also minstrel, q.v.
IVER, the same as Meniver, q.v.
MINKE, a small stoat-like animal. (Low ἃ.) ‘Powlecats,
weessels, and minkes;’ Capt. J. Smith, Works, p. 60. ‘ Mynkes,
a furre, mingues ;” Palsgrave.— Low G. mink, menke, a sort of otter
(Liibben). Cf. MDan. minke, Swed. menk, a mink (Kalkar).
MINNESINGER, a German lyric poet of early times. (G.)
‘Songs of the Minnesingers;’ Longfellow, Hyperion; bk. i. ch. 8
(conclusion). ‘They composed love-songs in the 12th and 13th
centuries. = G. minne, love ; singer,asinger. See Minikin, Minion.
MINNOW, the name of a very small fish. (E.) There are two
similar names for the fish in early books; one corresponds to minn-
ow, and is prob. a pure E. word; the other corresponds to OF,
menuise. 1. ME. menow, spelt menawe in a Nominale of the 15th
cent., in Voc. 704. 44; spelt menoun, pl. menounys, Barbour’s Bruce,
ii. 577. The suffix -ow cannot be traced to the earliest period; we
find only AS. myne. ‘Capito, myne, vel #lepite’ [eel-pout]; Voc.
180. 38. We also find, in A‘lfric’s Colloquy (Voc. 94. 13), the ace.
pl. mynas and élepiitan as a gloss to Late L. menas et capitones.
This AS. myne is cognate with OHG. muniwa, a minnow
(Kluge). It is not a mere borrowing from L. mena. Similarly,
the AS. pyle, a pillow, answers to E, pillow. 2. The ME. menuse
occurs (spelt menuce) in the Prompt. Parv. p. 333; and (spelt
menuse) in the Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, p. τόδ, 1. 747. Cf.
“Hec menusa, a menys;” Voc. 763. 33.— OF. menuise, ‘small fish of
divers sorts, the small frie of fish;’ Cot. Clearly connected with L.
miniitia, smallness, also, a small particle; from L. minitus, minute ;
see Minute. @ The Late L. ména, L. maena, is not the same
ae being borrowed from Gk. μαίνη, a small sea-fish, often
salted.
MINOR, less, inferior. (L.) Like major, it was a term familiar
in logic. It occurs in Sir T. More, Works, p. 504 d.—L. minor,
less; compar. from a base min, small, not found in Latin, but
occurring in the very form min in NFriesic and Low G.+Icel. minnr,
less (no positive); Goth. minniza, less (no positive). B. All from
*mi, weak grade of 4/MEI, to diminish; Brugmann, i. § 84. Der.
minor-i-ty, Rich. III, i. 3. 11, coined in imitation of major-ity.
MINOTAUR, a fabulous monster. (L.—Gk.) ME. Minotaure,
Chaucer, C. T. 982 (A 980).—L. Mindtaurus.— Gk. Μινώταυρος, a
monster, half man, half bull; born, according to the story, of
MIRAGE 377
Pasiphaé, wife of Minos.—Gk. Mivw-, for Μίνως, Minos, king of
Crete ; and ταῦρος, a bull.
MINSTER, a monastery. (L.—Gk.) ME. minster; in the name
Yest-minster, of frequent occurrence; P. Plowman, B, iii. 12; &c.
AS. mynster, Grein, ii. 271. Borrowed early from L. monastérium,
a monastery. See Monastery, which is a doublet.
MINSTREL, a musical performer. (F.—L.) ME. minstrel,
minstral ; spelt mynstral, P. Plowman, B. prol. 33; méntstral, Chaucer,
C. T. 10392 (Εἰ 78); menestral, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 192. The pl.
menestraus occurs in Ancren Riwle, p. 84, 1. 11.—OF. menestrel,
‘a minstrell;’ Cot. Also menestral (whence pl. menestraus).— Late
L. ministralis, ministerialis, a retainer; hence applied to the lazy
train of retainers who played instruments, acted as buffoons and
jesters, and the like. —L. minister, a servant; see Minister. Der.
minstrel-sy, Lydgate, London Lyckpeny, st. 12 ; see Spec. of English,
ed. Skeat, p. 26; spelt minstralcye, Chaucer, C. T. 2673 (A 2671).
MINT (1), a place where money is coined. (L.) ME. mint;
spelt mynt, Myrc’s Instructions for Parish Priests, 1. 1775; menet,
Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 241. AS. mynet, mynyt,a coin; Matt. xxii. 19.
Not an AS. word, but borrowed from L. monéta, (1) a mint,
(2) money. B. Moné‘a was a surname of Juno, in whose temple at
Rome money was coined. The lit. sense is ‘the warning one,’ from
monére, to warn, admonish, lit. ‘to cause to remember;’ cf. L. me-
min-t, I remember. See Bréal; and Brugmann, ii. § 79. Cf. G.
miinze, mint; MDu. munte. Der. mint, vb., mint-er, mint-age.
Doublet, money.
MINT (2), the name of an aromatic plant. (L.—Gk.) ME.
minte, mynte, Wyclif, Matt. xxiii. 23. AS. minte, Matt. xxiii. 23;
γος. 2.7. Not an E. word, but merely borrowed from L. menta,
mentha, Matt. xxiii. 23 (Vulgate). —Gk. μίνθα, pivOos, mint.
MINUET, the name of a dance. (F.—L.) ‘Menuet or Minuet,
a sort of French dance, or the tune belonging to it;’ Phillips, ed.
1706, So called from the short steps in it.—F. menuét, ‘smallish,
little, pretty;’ Cot. Dimin. of F. menu, small.—L. minitus; see
Minute.
MINUS, the sign of subtraction. (L.)
minus, less; neuter of minor, less; see Minor.
MINUSCULE, small, as applied to a letter in early MSS.
(L.) ‘Minuscule letters are cursive forms of the earlier uncials;’
Is. Taylor, The Alphabet, i. 71.—L. minuscula (sc. littera), fem. of
minusculus, rather small; dimin. of minus (minor), less.
MINUTE, very small, slight. (L.) An accentuation on the
first syllable occurs in: ‘ With minute drops;’ Milton, Il Penseroso,
1. 130. But the word first came into use as a sb., in which use it is
much older. ME. minute, meaning (1) a minute of an hour, (2) a
minute of a degree ina circle. ‘ Foure minutes, that is to seyn, minutes
of an houre ;’ Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, pt. i. § 7.1. 8. ‘A degree
of a signe contieneth 60 minutes ;’ id, pt. i. § 8. 1. 11. —L. minutus,
small (whence F. menu); Late L. minita, fem., a small portion, a
mite (of money). Pp. of minuere, to make small.—L. min-, small,
only found in min-or, less, min-imus, least; but cognate with NFries.
min, small.-Gk. μινύ-θειν, to make small.—4/MEI, to diminish ;
cf. Skt. mi, to hurt. See Minor, Minish. Der. minute-ly, minute-
ness; and from the sb., minute-book, minute-glass, minute-gun, minute-
hand.
MINX, a pert, wanton woman, (Low G.) In Shak. Tw. Nt. iii.
4. 133; Oth. iii. 3. 475. An adaptation of Low G. minsk, (1) m.,
a man, (2) n., a pert female. Cf. G. mensch, neut., a wench; Du.
mensch, n. (vulgar), a woman; het oude mensch, the old woman
(Calisch). The G. mensch was orig. an adj.=mann-ish, from mann,
aman. Cf. AS. mennisc, human, from mann, a man; EFries. minske,
minsk,a man; West Flem. minsch (De Bo).
MIOCENE, less recent, in geology. (Gk.) A coined word,
signifying ‘less recent.’ =Gk. μείο-, for μείων, less; and καιν-ός, new,
recent.
MIRABOLAN, in Hakluyt; see Myrobolan.
MIRACLE, a wonder, prodigy. (F.—L.) In very early use.
ME. miracle, Chaucer, C. T. 4897 (B 477). The pl. miracles is in
the A.S, Chron. an. 1137 (last line).=—F. miracle.—L, mira-culum,
anything wonderful, Formed with suffixes τοῖς and -lu- (=Idg.
suffixes ko-, lo-) from mird-ri, to wonder at.—L. mirus, wonderful
(base smi-ro).—4/SMEI, to smile, laugh, wonder at; see Smile.
Cf. Skt. smi, to smile, whence smaya-, wonder. Der. miracul-ous,
Macb. iv. 3. 147, from F. miraculeux, ‘miraculous’ (Cot.), answering
toa L. type *miracul-dsus, not used ; miracul-ous-ly, -ness. From L.
mirari we have also mir-age, mirr-or.
MIRAGE, an optical illusion. (F.—L.) Modern. =F. mirage,
an optical illusion by which very distant objects appear close at
hand; in use in 1753 (Hatzfeld).—F. mirer, to look at.<—Late L.
mirare, to behold. = L. mirari, to wonder at. See Miracle,
Mirror.
Mathematical. = L.
878 MIRE
MIRE, deep mud. (Scand.) ME. mire, myre; Chaucer, C. T.
510 (A 508); myre, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 70, 1. 18;
mire, Will. of Palerne, 3507.—Icel. myrr, mod. myri, a bog, swamp ;
Swed. myra, a bog, marsh; Dan. myr, myre, a marsh.-OHG. mios,
MHG. mies, moss, swamp; NFries. myrre; AS. méos, moss. Teut.
base *meus->*meuz->*meur-. Allied to Moss, q.v. The sense is
‘mossy ground,’ bog, deep mud. I cannot find authority for an
alleged AS. myre, mire. Der. mire, vb., Much Ado, iv. 1. 135;
mir-y, Tam. Shrew, iv. 1. 77.
MIRKY; see Murky.
MIRROR, a looking-glass. (F.—L.) ME. mirour, myroure
(with one r); P. Plowman, B. xi. 8.—OF. mireor, later miroir, ‘a
myrror;’ Cot. This form answers to a L. type *miratérium, not
found. Evidently from the Late L. mirare, to behold.—L. mirari,
to wonder at. See Miracle.
MIRTH, merriment, pleasure, jollity. (E.) ME. mirthe, Chaucer,
C. T.775 (A 773). AS. myrgS, myrd, mirhd, mirigd, mirth, Grein,
ii. 271. Formed from AS. myrge, merry. Cf. Gael. and Irish mear,
merry (Macbain). See Merry. Der. mirth-ful, mirth-/ul-ly, -ness.
MIS.-. (1), prefix. (E. and Scand.) The AS. prefix mis- occurs in
mis-déd, a misdeed, and in other compounds. It answers to Du.,
Dan., and Icel. mis-, Swed. miss-, G. miss-; Goth. missa- (with the
sense of ‘ wrong’), as in missa-déds, a misdeed. Teut. type *misso- ;
Idg. type *mit-to-; allied to OHG,. midan (G. meiden), to avoid; L.
mittere, to send away, pp. missus. Brugmann, i. § 794. Hence the
verb to miss; see Miss (1). It is sometimes Scand., as in mis-take.
Der. mis-become, -behave, -deed, -deem, -do, -give, -lay, -lead, -like,
-name, -Shape, -time, -understand. Also prefixed to words of F. and
L. origin, as in mis-apply, -apprehend, -appropriate, &c. Also to
Scand. words, as in mis-call, -hap, -take. And see Mis- (2).
MIS- (2), prefix. (F.—L.) Not to be confused with mis- (1).
The proper old spelling is mes-, as in OF. mes-chief, mischief. The
comparison of this with Span. menos-cabo, diminution, Port. menos-
cabo, contempt, &c. shows that this prefix undoubtedly arose from
L. minus, less, used as a depreciatory prefix. At the same time,
Scheler’s observation is just, that the number of F. words beginning
with mé- (OF. mes-) was considerably increased by the influence of
the G. prefix miss- (see above) with which it was easily confused.
Clear examples of this F. prefix occur in mis-adventure, mis-alliance,
mis-chance, mis-chief, mis-count, mis-creant, mis-nomer, mis-prise.
MISADVENTURE, ill luck. (F.—L.) ME. misauenture ;
spelt messauenture, King Horn, ed. Lumby, 1. 710.— OF. mesaventure
(Burguy).—OF. mes-, prefix (<< L. minus); and F. aventure, ad-
venture. See Mis- (2) and Adventure.
MISALLIANCEH, an improper alliance. (F.—L.)
word; added by Todd to Johnson’s Dict.—F. meésalliance.
Mis- (2) and Ally.
MISANTHROPH, a hater of mankind. (Gk.) ‘I am _ mis-
anthropos ;’ Timon, iy. 3. 53.-—Gk. μισάνθρωπος, adj., hating man-
kind, — Gk. μισ-εῖν, to hate, from μῖσ-ος, hatred ; and ἄνθρωπος, a man.
See Anthropology. Der. misanthrop-ic, misanthrop-ic-al, mis-
anthrop-ist, misanthrop-y (Gk. μισανθρωπία).
MISAPPLY, to apply amiss. (Hybrid; F.—L.; with E. prefix.)
In Shak. Romeo, ii. 3. 21. From Mis- (1) and Apply. Der. mis-
appli-ca-tion.
MISAPPREHEND, to apprehend amiss. (Hybrid; E. and L.)
In Phillips, ed. 1706. From Mis- (1) and Apprehend. Der.
misapprehens-ton,
MISAPPROPRIATHE, to appropriate amiss. (Hybrid; E. and
L.) Late; not in Johnson, From Mis- (1) and Appropriate.
Der. misappropriat-ion,
MISARRANGE, to arrange amiss. (Hybrid; E. and F.) From
Mis- (1) and Arrange.
MISBECOME, not to suit. (E.) In Shak. L. L. L. y. 2. 778;
and in Palscrave. From Mis- (1) and Become.
MISBEHAVE, to behave amiss. (E.) In Shak. Romeo, iii. 3.
143; and in Palsgrave. From Mis- (1) and Behave. Der. mis-
behav-iour, spelt mysbehavour in Palsgrave; see Behaviour.
MISBELIEVE, to believe amiss. (E.) ME. misbeleuen, Gower,
C. A. ii. 152,15; bk.v. 739. From Mis- (1) and Believe. Der.
misbelief, spelt mysbylyefe, Pricke of Conscience, 5521; misbileaue,
St. Katharine, 348.
MISCALCULATE, to calculate amiss. (Hybrid; E. and L.)
Late. In Johnson. From Mis- (1) and Calculate. Der. mis-
calculat-ion.
MISCALL, to abuse, revile. (Hybrid; E. and Scand.) In
Spenser, F. Q. iv. 8. 24. From Mis- (1) and Call.
MISCARRY, to be unsuccessful, to fail, to bring forth pre-
maturely. (Hybrid; E. and F.) In Shak. Meas. for Meas. iii. 1.
217. ME. miscarien. ‘Yet had I leuer dye than I sawe them mys-
carye to-fore myn eyen;’ Caxton, tr. of Reynard Fox, ed. Arber,
A late
See
MISERABLE
p: 79, 1. 10; and see Chaucer, C. T., A 513.
Carry. Der. miscarri-age.
MISCELLANEOUS, various, belonging to or treating of
various subjects. (L.) ‘An elegant and miscellaneous author ;’ Sir
T. Browne, Works, b. i. c. 8, part 6.— L. miscellaneus, miscellaneous,
varied (by change of -us to -ous, as in arduous, &c.).—L. miscellus,
mixed. - τος miscére, to mix. See Mix. Der. miscellaneous-ly, -ness.
Also miscellany, which appears to be due to L, neut. pl. miscellanea,
various things. ‘As a miscellany-madam, [I would] invent new
tires ;’ Ben Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, iv. 1 (Phantaste’s long speech).
MISCHANCH, mishap, ill luck. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. meschance,
Rob. of Glouc. p. 137,1. 14; 1. 2902,—OF. meschance, ‘a mischiefe,
or mischance;’ Cot. See Mis- (2) and Chance.
MISCHIEF, an ill result, misfortune, damage, injury, evil.
(F.—L.) ΜΕ. myschief; P. Plowman, B. prol. 67. Opposed in
ME. to bonchief, i.e. a good result. ‘Good happes and boonchief,
as wel as yuel happes and meschief;’ Trevisa, i. 87, 1. 19.—OF.
meschief, a bad result, misadventure, damage. Cf. Span. menoscabo,
diminution, loss; Port. menoscabo, contempt ; which are varied forms
of the same word. From Mis- (2) and Chief. (The L. words
in the compound are minus and caput.) Der. mischiev-ous, a coined
word, As You Like It, ii. 7. 643 mischiev-ous-ly, -ness.
MISCONCEIVE, to conceive amiss. (Hybrid; E. and F.—L.)
‘He that misconceyveth, he misdemeth ;’ Chaucer, Ο, T. 10284 (E 2410).
A coined word. From Mis- (1) and Conceive. Der. miscon-
cept-ion.
MISCONDUCT, ill conduct. (Hybrid; E. and L.) It occurs
in the Spectator; no. 256, § 4. From Mis- (1) and Conduct.
Der. misconduct, verb.
MISCONSTRUE, to interpret amiss. (Hybrid; E. and L.) In
Shak. Merch. Ven. ii. 2. 197; Chaucer, Troilus, i. 346. From
Mis- (1) and Construe. Der. misconstruct-ion.
MISCOUNT, to count wrongly. (F.—L.) ME. miscounten,
Gower, C. A. i. 147, 1. 12; bk. i. 3112. —OF. mesconter, to miscount
(Godefroy). From Mis- (2) and Count.
MISCREANT, a vile fellow, wretch. (F.—L.) Orig. an un-
believer, infidel ; see Trench, Select Glossary. Formerly also used
as an adjective. ‘Al miscreant [unbelieving] painyms;’ Sir Τὶ More,
Works, p. 7748. ‘This miscreant [unbeliever] now thus baptised ;’
Frith’s Works, p. 91, col. 1. Gower has the pl. mescreantz, in his
Praise of Peace, 268. — OF. mescreant, ‘miscreant, misbelieving ;’ Cot.
B. The prefix mes- answers to L. minus, less, used in a bad sense;
see Mis- (2). By comparing OF. mescreant with Ital. miscredente,
incredulous, heathen, we at once see that OF. creant is from L.
crédent-, stem of pres. part. of crédere, to believe; see Creed. And
see Recreant.
MISDATE, to date amiss. (Hybrid; E. and F.—L.) ‘Oh!
how misdated on their flattering tombs!’ Young’s Night Thoughts,
Night, v. 1. 778. From Mis- (1) and Date. ᾿
MISDEED, a bad deed. (E.) ME. misdede, Ancren Riwle,
p- 124, 1. 22. AS. misd#d, Grein, ii. 255.4+Du. misdaad; Goth.
missadéths ; (α. missethat, OHG. missitaat. From Mis- (1) and
Deed.
MISDEEM, to judge amiss. (E.) ME. misdemen, Chaucer, C. T.
10284 (E 2410). From Mis- (1) and Deem. (Icel. misdema.)
MISDEMEANOUR, ill conduct. (Hybrid; E. and F.—L.)
In Shak. Tw. Nt. ii. 3. 106. From Mis- (1) and Demeanour.
4 It is possible that the prefix is French; see Mis- (2). But I find
no proof of it.
MISDIRECT, to direct amiss. (Hybrid; E.and L.) Added by
Todd to Johnson. From Mis- (1) and Direct. Der. mis-direction.
MISDO, to do amiss. (E.) ME. misdon, misdo; P. Plowman,
B. iii. 122. We find ‘yfle vel mis doed’ as a gloss to ‘ male agit”
in the ONorthumb. glosses of John, iii. 20. - Du. misdoen; ἃ,
missthun. From Mis- (1) and Do. Der. misdo-er, ME. misdoer,
mysdoer, Wyclif, 1 Pet. ii. 12. And see misdeed.
MISEMPLOY, to employ amiss. (Hybrid; E. and F,—L.)
In Dryden, Absalom, 1. 613. From Mis- (1) and Employ. Der.
misemploy-ment.
MISER, an avaricious man, niggard. (L.) It sometimes means
merely ‘a wretched creature ;’ Spenser, F. Q. ii. 1. 8. See Trench,
Select Glossary.—L. miser, wretched. Cf. Ital. and Span. misero,
(1) wretched, (2) avaricious. Prob. connected with Gk. pioos,
hatred; Curtius, ii. 225. Der. miser-ly; miser-y, ME. misérte,
Chaucer, C. T. 14012 (B 3196), from OF. miserie (Littré, mod. F.
misére), Which from L. miseria, wretchedness ; also miser-able, q.v.
MISERABLE, wretched. (F.—L.) Skelton has miserably
and miserableness; Why Come Ye Nat to Court, 865, 1029.—F.
miserable, ‘miserable ;’ Cot.—L. miserabilis, pitiable. = L. miserart,
to pity. —L. miser, wretched; see Miser. Der. miserabl-y, miser-
able-nes
From Mis- (1) and
| γάμος, marriage.
| You Like It, i. 2. 37.
As You Like It, i. 1.177.
MISFORTUNE
MISFORTUNE, ill fortune. (Hybrid; E. and F.—L.) In
the Bible of 1551, Nehem. i. 3. Palsgrave has: ‘ Mysfortune, des-
fortune ;’ so that the prefix is not French. From Mis- (1) and
Fortune.
MISGIVE,, to fail, be filled with doubt. (E.) In Shak. Julius,
iii. 1.145. From Mis- (1) and Give. Der. misgiv-ing.
MISGOVERN, to govern amiss. (F.—L.) In Shak. Rich. II,
vy. 2.5; and in Palsgrave. = MF. mesgouverner, recorded by Palsgrave.
—OF. mes-, mis-; and Ἐς gouverner, to govern; see Mis- (2) and
Govern. Der. misgovern-ment, Much Ado, iv. 1. 100.
MISGUIDEH, to guide wrongly. (Hybrid; E. and F.—Teut.)
ME. misguide, Gower, C. A. iii. 373, 1. 14 bk. viii. 2920; where it
is contrasted with guide. Also misgyen, Chaucer, C.T.14451(B3723).
From Mis- (1) and Guide. @ The prefix does not seem to be
French. Der. misguid-ance.
MISHAP, ill hap. (Hybrid; E. and Scand.) In Prompt. Parv.
The verb mishappen, to mishap, fall out ill, occurs in Chaucer, C. T.,
A 1646, From Mis- (1) and Hap.
MISHNAH, MISHNA, a digest of Jewish traditions; the
“second Law.’ (Heb.) ‘Their Mishna or Talmud text;’ Purchas,
Pilgrimage, bk. ii. ch. 12. § 1. par. 7.— Heb. mishnah, a repetition;
a second part; instruction (in oral tradition). —Heb. shanak, to
Tepeat.
MISINFORM, to inform amiss. (Hybrid; E. and F.—L.) ME.
misenformen, Gower, C. A.i. 178; bk. ii. 559. From Mis- (1) and
Inform. Der. mis-inform-at-ion.
MISINTERPRET, to interpret amiss. (Hybrid; E. and F.—
L.) In Shak. Rich. I], iii. 1. 18. From Mis- (1) and Interpret.
Der. misinterpret-at-ion.
MISJUDGH, to judge amiss. (F.—L.) ‘And therefore no more
mysse-indge any manne;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 952 ἢ. —OF. mes-
juger, to misjudge (Godefroy). See Mis- (2) and Judge. Der.
mis-judg-ment.
MISLAY, to lay in a wrong place, lose. (E.) ‘The mislaier of
a meere-stone [boundary-stone] is to blame;’ Bacon, Essay lvi, Of
Judicature. From Mis- (1) and Lay. (Icel. misleggja.)
MISLEAD, to lead astray. (E.) ‘ Misleder [misleader] of the
papacie;’ Gower, C. A. i. 261; bk. ii. 3021. AS. mislédan, to
mislead, seduce (Bosworth). From Mis- (1) and Lead, verb.
MISLIK#, to dislike. (E.) In Shak. Merch. Ven. ii. 1.1. ME.
misliken, to displease (usually impersonal); Will. of Palerne, 2039.
AS. mi:lician, to displease ; Exod. xxi. 8. Der. mislike, sb., 3 Hen. VI,
iv. 1. 24.
MISNAME, to name amiss. (E.) In Skelton, A Replycacion,
1.59. From Mis- (1) and Name.
MISNOMER, a wrong name. (F.—L.) ‘ Misnomer, French
Law-Term, the using of one name or term for another;’ Phillips,
ed. 1706. It properly means ‘a misnaming.’ Also in Blount’s
Nomolexicon, ed. 1691, where the prefix is said to be the F. mes-,
which is correct. The E. word answers to an OF. mesnommer
(Godefroy).— OF. mes- (< L. minus), badly; and nommer, to name,
from L. ndminare, to name. See Mis- (2) and Nominate.
MISOGAMY, a hatred of marriage. (Gk.) In Blount’s Glossary
(1655). From μισο-, hating, from μισεῖν, to hate; and -yayia, from
So also misogynist, from μισο-, hating, and γυνή,
a woman.
MISPLACK, to place amiss. (Hybrid; E. and F.—L.)
From Mis- (1) and Place.
In As
Der. misplace-
ment,
MISPRINT, to print wrongly. (Hybrid; E. and F.—L.) ‘By
| misse-writing or by mysse-pryntynge;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 772 Ὁ.
| From Mis- (1) and Print.
Der. misprint, sb.
MISPRISE, MISPRIZE, to slight, undervalue. (F.—L.) In
Spenser has the sb. mesprise = contempt ;
F. Q. iii. 9. 9.— MF. mespriser, ‘to disesteem, contemn,’ Cot.; OF.
mesprisier (Godefroy). — OF. mes- (< L. minus), badly; and Late L.
| pretidre, to prize, esteem, from L. pretium, a price. See Mis- (2)
and Prize, Price. But see below.
| MISPRISION, a mistake, neglect. (F.—L.) See Blount’s
| Nomolexicon, ed. 1691. He says: ‘misprision of clerks (Anno 8
| Hen. VI. c, 15) is a neglect of clerks in writing or keeping records
|... Misprision also signifies a mistaking (Anno 14 Edw. III. stat. 1.
| cap. 6)."— OF. mesprision (Godefroy); MF. mesprison, ‘ misprision,
| error, offence, a thing done, or taken, amisse;” Cot. β. This OF.
| mesprison or mesprision has the same sense and source as mod. F,
| méprise, a mistake (Littré). It is written misprisio in Low L,
| (Ducange) ; but this is only the OF. word tumed into Latin.
Ὑ. From OF. mes-< L. minus, badly; and Late L. prensidnem, ace.
(of prensio, a taking, contracted form of L. prehensio, a seizing. The
|latter is from L. prehensus, pp. of prekendere, to take. See Mis- (2)
jand Prison. Cf. mispris’d, mistaken; Mid. Nt. Dr. iii. 2. 74.
MISSILE 379
4 Misprision was ignorantly confused with misprise, in the sense of
contempt. Thus Blount, in the article already cited, says: ‘misprision
of treason is a neglect or light account made of treason ;’ and he
derives the word from MF. mespris, contempt. Milton wrongly has
misprision in the sense of ‘scorn;’ Cent. Dict.
MISPRONOUNCEH, to pronounce amiss. (Hybrid; E. and
F.—L.) ‘They mis-pronounced, and I mislik’d;” Milton, Apology
for Smectymnuus; Works (1852), iii. 268. From Mis- (1) and
Pronounce. Der. mispronunci-at-ion.
MISQUOTEH, to quote amiss, misinterpret. (Hybrid; E. and
F.—L.) In Shak. 1 Hen. IV, v. 2. 13. From Mis- (1) and
Quote. Der. mi:quot-at-ion.
MISREPRESENT, to represent amiss. (Hybrid; E. and Ἐς
—L.) In Milton, Samson, 124. From Mis- (1) and Represent.
Der. misrepresent-at-ion.
MISRULE, want of rule, disorder. (Hybrid; E. and F,—L.)
Gower has it as a verb, ‘That eny king himself misreule;’ C. A.
iii. 170; bk. vii. 2509. Stow mentions ‘the lord of misrule’ under
the date 1552 (R.); and it occurs in 1503, in the Privy Expenses of
Elizabeth of York, p. 91; and first in 1491. From Mis- (1) and
Rule.
MISS (1), to fail to hit, omit, feel the want of. (E.) ME. missen,
Will. of Palerne, 1016. Rather a Scand. than an E. word, but the
prefix mis-, which is closely connected with it, is sufficiently common
in AS. AS. missan (rare). “ΡΥ lees pe him misse,’ lest aught escape
his notice, or, go wrong with him; Canons under King Edgar, 32;
in Thorpe, Ancient Laws, ii. 250. And in Beowulf, 2439. A weak
verb, formed from a base *mith-, weak grade of *meith-, as in AS.
and OS. midan, to conceal, avoid, escape notice (also in G. meiden,
OHG. midan, to avoid). Cf. the prefix mis-, signifying amiss or
wrongly. Du. missen, to miss; mis,sb., an error, mistake ; mis, adv.,
amiss; mis-, as prefix, amiss; Icel. méssa, to miss, lose; mis, or
ἃ mis, ady., amiss ; mis-, prefix; Dan. miste (for misse), to lose ; mis-,
prefix; Swed. mista (for missa), to lose; miste, adv., wrongly, amiss;
miss-, prefix ; Goth. missd, adv., reciprocally, interchangeably ; missa-,
prefix, wrongly; MHG. missen, OHG. muissan, to miss; OHG. mis
or missi, variously; OHG. missa-, prefix; MHG. misse, an error.
Allied to L. mittere, to send; see Missile, and see Mis- (1). Brug-
mann, i. § 794. Der. miss, sb., ME. misse, a fault; ‘to mende my
misse’=to repair my fault, Will. of Palerne, 1. 532. Also miss-ing.
MISS (2), a young woman, a girl. (F.—L.) Merely a contraction
from Mistress, q.v. One of the earliest instances in dramatic
writing occurs in the introduction of Miss Prue as a character in
Congreve’s Love for Love. An early example occurs in the
following: ‘she being taken to be the Earle of Oxford’s misse, as at
this time they began to call lewd women;’ Evelyn’s Diary, Jan. 9,
1662. Thus Shak. has: ‘this is Mistress Anne Page,’ where we
should now say ‘ Miss Anne Page ;’ Merry Wives, 1. 1. 197. Cf.‘ The
virtuous matron and the miss;’ Butler, Hudibras, pt. iii. c. 1. 864.
MISSAL, a mass-book. (L.) ME. myssalle, Voc. 719. 333
cf. mass-book, ME. messebok, Havelok, 186. In Minsheu, ed. 1627.
In Sherwood’s Index to Cotgrave we find E. missal, given as equi-
valent to OF. messel, missel; but Cotgrave himself explains the
OF. words as ‘ masse-book.’ The E. word is rather taken directly
from the familiar Latin term than borrowed from OF.—Late L.
missale, a missal.—Late L. missa, the mass. See further under
Mass (2).
MISSEL-THRUSH, MISTLE-THRUSH, the name of
a kind of thrush. (E.) So called because it feeds on the berries of
the mistle-toe. The name is not recorded early. ‘ We meet in Aristotle
with one kind of thrush [ἐξοβόρος called the miselthrush,,or feeder
upon miseltoe;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. ii. c. 6. § 21 (part 3).
+. mistel-drossel, a mistle-thrush ; from mistel, mistletoe, and drossel,
athrush. See Mistletoe and Thrush.
MISSHAPE, to shape amiss. (E.) Chiefly in the pp. misshaped,
3 Hen. VI, iii. 2. 170; or misshapen, Temp. v. 268. ME. misshapen,
pp-, spelt mysshape (with loss of final x), P. Plowman, B. vii. 95.
From Mis- (1) and Shape.+MDu. misscheppen, to misshape, used
by Vondel (Oudemans) ; G. missschaffen, to misshape (rare).
MISSILE, that may be thrown; a missile weapon. (L.) Properly
an adj., now chiefly used as a sb. Taken directly from L. rather
than through the Ἐς Cotgrave gives ‘feu missile, a squib or other
firework thrown,’ but the word is not in Littré, and probably not
common. ‘His missile weapon was a lying tongue;’ P. Fletcher,
The Purple Island, c. vii. st. 68.—L. missilis, adj., that can be
thrown; the neut. missile is used to mean a missile weapon (¢élum
being understood).=—L. missus, pp. of mittere, to throw. B. Perhaps
for *mitere; cf. pt. t. mi-st.--OHG. midan, to avoid; see Miss (1).
Brugmann, i. ὃ 930. Der. From L. mittere are also derived ad-mit,
com-mit, e-mit, im-mit, inter-mit, manu-mit, o-mit, per-mit, preter-mit,
re-mit, sub-mit, trans-mit, with their derivatives; from the pp. miss-us
MISSION
are also mass (2), mess (1), miss-al, miss-ion, q.V., miss-ive, q.v., dis-
miss, di-missory, e-miss-ar-y, pro-miss-or-y ; com~-pro-mise, de-mise, pre-
mise, pre-mises, pro-mise, sur-mise, message, &c.
MISSION, a sending, an embassy. (L.) In Shak. Troil. iii, 3.
189. [The MF. mission merely means ‘expence, disbursement ;’
Cot.} Formed, by analogy with F. words in -ion, from L. mis-
sidnem, acc. of missio, a sending; cf. missus, pp. of mittere, to send.
See Missile. Der. mission-er, a missionary, Dryden, Hind and
Panther, ii. 565; mission-ar-y, Tatler, no. 270, Dec. 30, 1710.
MISSIVE, a thing sent. (F.—L.) Used by Shak. to mean
ἐᾷ messenger;’ Macb. i. 5. 7 And in G. Douglas, Palice of
Honour, pt. ii. st. 5. K. Edw. IV employs the phr. ‘our lettres
missiues, in 1477; Orig. Letters, ed, Ellis, 1. 17.— MF. missive, ‘a
letter missive, a letter sent;”’ Cot. Coined, with suffix -ive {- 1,
-iuus), from L. miss-us, pp. of mittere, to send; see Missile.
MISSPEND, to spend ill, to squander. (Hybrid; E. and L.)
‘That folke in folyes myspenden her fyue wittes;’ P. Plowman,
B. xv. 74. From AS. mis-, prefix, wrongly, amiss; and AS. spendan,
in the compounds asfendan, forspendan; see Sweet’s A. S. Reader.
But spendan is not a true E. word; it is borrowed from L. dispendere.
See Mis- (1) and Spend.
MIST, watery vapour, fine rain. (E.) ME. mist, P. Plowman,
A. prol. 88; B. prol. 214. AS. mist, gloom, darkness; Grein, il.
256.4Icel. mistr, mist; Swed. mist, foggy weather at sea; Dn. mist,
fog. β. Teut. type *mih-stoz, τα. Apparently from the base mig
(Idg. migh, Skt. mih) which appears in Lithuan, mig-la, mist
(Nesselmann), Russ. mgla (for mig-la), mist, vapour, Gk. ὀ-μίχ-λη,
mist, fog, Skt. mth-ira-, a cloud; cf. also Skt. mégh-a-, a cloud.
y. All from 4/MEIGwH, to darken; different from 4/MEIGH,
which appears in L. mingere. Brugmann, i. §§ 604, 633. Der.
mist-y, AS. mist-ig (Grein) ; mist-1-ness,
MISTAKE, to take amiss, err. (Scand.) ME. mistaken, Rom.
of the Rose, 1. 1540,—Icel. mistaka, to take by mistake, to make a
slip.—Icel. mis-, cognate with AS. mis-, prefix; and ‘aka, to take.
See Mis- (1) and Take. Der. mistake, sb., mistak-en, mis-tak-en-ly,
MISTER, MR., a title of address to a man. (F.—L.) The
contraction Mr. occurs on the title-page of the first folio edition of
Shakespeare (1623); but it is probably to be read as Master, Cot-
grave explains monsieur by ‘sir, or master.’ It is difficult to trace
the first use of mister, but it does not appear to be earlier than 1550,
and is certainly nothing but a corruption of mas¢er or maister, due to
the influence of the corresponding title of mistress. See Master,
Mistress, β. Richardson’s supposition that it is connected with
ME. mister, a trade, is as absurd as it is needless; notwithstanding
the oft-quoted ‘what mister wight,’ Spenser, F. Ὁ. i. 9. 23. 4 It
may be remarked that ME, mister is from OF. mestier (F. métier),
L. ministerium, and is therefore a doublet of ministry.
MISTERM, to term or name amiss. (Hybrid; E. and F.—L.)
In Shak. Romeo, iii. 3. 21. From Mis- (2) and Term.
MISTIME, to time amiss. (E.) ME. mtstimen, to happen amiss,
Ancren Riwle, p. 200, note e, AS. mistimian, to happen amiss,
tum out ill (Bosworth), From Mis- (1) and Time.
MISTLE-THRUSH;; see Missel-thrush.
MISTLETOE, a parasitic plant. (E.) In Shak. Titus, ii. 3. 95.
Scarcely to be found in ME., but it must have existed. The
variant form mzystyldene is in MS. Sloane 2584, p. 90; see Henslow,
Medical Werkes, p. 130. AS. misteltain. “ Viscarago, mistiltan” (sic) ;
fElfric’s Gloss., Nomina Herbarum; in Voc. 136.11. [The a is of
course long; cf. Ἐς s‘one with AS. stan, &c.) This should have
produced mistletone, but the final τι (ne) was dropped, probably
because the ME. /one (better ¢oon) meant ‘toes,’ which gave a false
impression that the final γι was a plural-ending, and unnecessary.-+
Icel. mistelteinn, the mistletoe. B. The final element is the easier to
explain; it simply means ‘ twig.” Cf. AS. tan, a twig (Grein), Icel.
teinn, Du. teen, ΜΉ. zein, Goth, tains, a twig, Dan. ten, Swed. ten,
a spindle; all from a Teut. type *éain-oz, m., a twig, rod. γ. The
former element is AS. mistel, which could be used alone to mean
‘mistletoe,’ though it was also called Gc-mistel (oak-mistle), to
distinguish it from eord-mistel (earth-mistle), a name sometimes
given to wild basil or calamint; see Cockayne’s A. S. Leechdoms.
In Danish, the mistletoe is called either mis‘el or mistelten. In
Swed. and G. the mistletoe is simply mistel. δι The word mist-el is
clearly a mere dimin. of mist, which in G. has the sense of ‘dung ;’
cf. MDu. mest, mist, dung (Hexham). As to the reason for the
name, cf. ‘it [the mistletoe] comes onely by the mewting of birds . .
which feed thereupon, and jet it passe through their body ;’ Holland,
tr. of Pliny’s Nat. Hist., bk. xvi. ch. 44. ε. The G. mist is cognate
with Goth. maihstus, dung; which see in Uhlenbeck. Der. misse/-
thrush, αν.
MISTRESS, a lady at the head of a household. (F.—L.) Also
written Jfrs., and called Missis. In Shak, Macb. iii. 5. 6. ME,
380
MIX
maistresse, Chaucer, C, T. 10691 (F 377). —OF. maistresse, <a mis-
tress, dame;’ Cot, (Mod. F. maitresse.) Formed with F. suffix
-esse (<L., -issa, Gk. -ἰσσαὶ from OF. maistre, a master; see Master.
Der. mistress-ship, Titus Andron. iv. 4. 40.
MISTRUST, to regard with suspicion. (Scand.) ME. missetrost,
Coventry Plays, ed, Halliwell, 126 (Stratmann) ; mistraist, Bruce,
x. 327 (in Hart’s edition, see the footnote); méstriste, Chaucer,
C. T. 12303 (C 369). Rather Scand. than E. See Mis- (1) and
Trust. Der. mistrust, sb.3 mistrust-ful, 3 Hen. VI, iv. 2. 8; mis-
trustJSul-ly, -ness,
MISTY (1), nebulous, foggy. (E.) ‘A ful misty morow;’
Chaucer, Troil. iii. 1060. AS, mistig, adj.; from mist, mist; see
Mist.
MISTY (2). (F.—L.—Gk.) Used for mystic; in the Prompt.
Parv., we find a distinction made between ‘ mysty, nebulosus’ and
‘mysty, or prevey to mannes wytte, misticus.’ So also mysty, mystic,
in Wyclif, Eng. Works, ed. Matthew, p. 3443; and mystily, mystically,
in the same, p. 343. Cf. mistier, with the double meaning, in
P. Plowman, B. x. 181. See Palmer, Folk-Etymology. For the
loss of the final letter, cf. E. jolly from OF. jolif. See Mystic.
MISUNDERSTAND, to understand amiss. (E.) ME. mis-
understanden, Rob. of Glouc. p. 42, 1. 990. From Mis- (1) and
Understand. Der. misunderstand-ing.
MISUSE, to use amiss. (F.—L.) ‘That misuseth the might and
the power that is yeven him ;” Chaucer, C. T. (Melibeus), Group B,
3040 (Six-text); Gower, C. A. ii, 279, 1. 12.—OF. mesuser, to mis-
use 3 Godefroy.—OF. mes-, mis-; and user, to use. See Mis- (2)
and Use. Der. misuse, sb., 1 Hen. IV, i. 1. 43, OF. mesus, sb.
(Godefroy) ; misusage, OF, mesusage.
MITE (1),a very small insect. (E.) ME. mite, Chaucer, C. T. 6142
(Ὁ 560). AS. mite. ‘Tomus, mada, mite;’ Aélfric’s Gloss., Nom.
Insectorum; Voc. 122. 6.4-Low G, mile, a mite; Du. mit; OHG,
miza, a mite, midge, fly. B. The word means ‘cutter’ or ‘ biter,’
from the Teut. root MEIT, to cut small; whence Goth. maitan, to
cut, Icel. meita, to cut, also Icel. meitill, G. meissel, a chisel. Der.
mit-y. And see emmet.
MITE (2), a very small portion. (F.—Du.) ME. mite; ‘not
worth a myfe;’ Chaucer, C. T., Α 1558. ‘A my/e [small coin] that he
offrep;’ P. Plowman, C. xiv. 97.—OF. mite (Godefroy).—MDu.
mijt, a small coin, the sixth part of a doit; mite, myte, a small coin,
worth a third of a penning, according to some, or a penning and
a half, according to others; anything small; xiet eener myte, not
worth a mite (Oudemans). From the Teut. base MEIT, to cut
small; see Mite (1).
MITIGATE, to alleviate. (L.) Mytigate in Palsgrave. ‘ Breake
the ordinaunce or mitigat it;’ Tyndall’s Works, p. 316, col. 1.—L.
mitigatus, pp. of mitigare, to make gentle.—L. mit-, stem of mitis,
soft, gentle; with suffix -ig-, for agere, to make. Root uncertain.
Der. mitigation, ME. mitigacioun, P. Plowman, B. ν. 477, from Ἐς
mitigation, ‘ mitigation,’ Cot.; mitigat-or ; mitigat-ive, from MF,
mitigatif, ‘mitigative,’ Cot.; also mitiga-ble, L. mitigabilis, from
mitiga-re,
MITRAITLLEUSE, a machine-gun, (F.—Du.) F. mitrailleuse,
fem. agential sb. from mitrailler, to fire small missiles. =F. mitraille,
small bits of grape-shot; ‘lumps consisting of divers metals’ in Cot.
Variant of MF. mitaille, ‘great file-dust,’ Cot. Extended from OF,
mite, a mite, small piece; see Mite (2).
MITRE, a head-dress, esp. for a bishop. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘Thy
mytrede bisshopes’=thy mitred bishops; P. Plowman, C. v. 193.
‘On his mitere, referting to a bishop; Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Lang-
toft, p. 302, 1. 2.—OF. mitre, ‘a bishop’s miter;” Cot. =—L. mitra,
a cap.—Gk. μίσρα, a belt, girdle, head-band, fillet, turban. B, Per
haps allied to Gk. μίτος, a thread of the woof (Prellwitz). ]
MITTEN, a covering for the hand. (F.) ME. mitaine; spelt ᾿
miteyn, Chaucer, C, T. 12307 (Ὁ 373) ; myteyne, P. Plowman’s Crede,
ed. Skeat, 1. 428.—<OF. mitaine; Cot. gives: ‘mitaines, mittains,
winter-gloves.” Cf. Gascon mitano,a mitten, B. Of disputed origin; |
see Hatzfeld, Scheler, and Korting, § 6043. Mistral has Prov. mito,
a mitten, as well as mitano. Ϊ
MITTIMUS, a warrant of commitment to prison. (L.) ‘Take |
a mittimus;’ Massinger, A New Way, 1. 47 from end. From L. |
mittimus, we send; from the first word in the warrant. = L. mitéere, to
send; see Missile. = |
MIX, to mingle, confuse. (L.) In Shak. 2 Hen. IV, v. 2. 46. {
Rich, cites ‘mixed with faith’ from the Bible of 1561, Heb. iv. 2. |
But in earlier books it is extremely rare; Stratmann cites the pp-
mixid from Songs and Carols, ed. Wright, no. VI. Mix (see N.E. D.)
is a back-formation from the pp. mx?, in use as a law-term, asm
Shillingford’s Letters (Camden Soc.), App. 39: ‘Any action real,
personal, and myzxte;’ A.D.1448. Cf. AF. mixte, Britton, ii.64. Hence
Palsgrave has: ‘I myxte or myngell.’=L. mixtus, pp. of miscére, to |
MIXEN
mix. W. mysgu, to mix; cymmysgu, to mix together; Gael. measg,
to mingle, mix, stir; Irish measgaim, I mix, mingle, stir, move ;
Russ. mieshate, to mix; Lithuan. maiszyti, to mix. Cf. Skt. micra-,
mixed. β. All from a #MEIK, to mingle; see Brugmann, i.
§ 707, 760. Der. mix-er, com-mix ; also mix-ture, Romeo, iv. 3. 21,
Sir T. More, Works, p. 83 a, from L, mixtira, a mixing, mixture,
allied to mixt-us, pp. of miscére.
MIXEN, a dung-hill. (E.) In Chaucer, C. T., I g11. AS.
mixen, meoxen, a dung-hill; from meox, dung. Allied to G. mist,
Goth. maihstus, dung; from the verbal root seen in AS. migan, L.
mingere, Gk. ὀ-μιχ-εῖν, to make water. Brugmann, i. § 796 (b).
IZEN, MIZZEN, the hindmost of the fore and aft sails, in
a three-masted vessel. (F.—Ital.—L.) Spelt misen in Minsheu, ed.
1627, and in Florio, ed. 1598; meson in Naval Accts. of Hen. VII,
p- 36. ‘Meson sayle of a shyppe, mysayne;’ Palsgrave. = MF. misaine,
which Cotgrave defines as ‘ the foresaile of a ship.’ —Ital. mezzana,
‘a saile in a ship called the poope or misen-saile ;’ Florio, ed. 1598.
Cf. mezzano, ‘a meane or countertenour in singing, a meane man,
betweene great and little;’ id. B. The sense had reference to its
original position, which was that of ‘a fore-sail’ (see Cotgrave), and
in mod, F, it still signifies a sail between the bowsprit and the main-
mast, occupying the middle position between the jib and main-sail
of a cutter. —Late L. medianus, middle; whence also F. moyen, and
E. mean (3). Extended from L, medius, middle; see Mid, Doublet,
mean (3). Der. mizen-mast or mizzen-mast.
MIZZLE, to rain in fine drops. (E.) ‘As the miseling vpon the
herbes, and as the droppes vypon the grasse;’ Deut. xxxil. 2, in the
Bible of 1551. ‘Immoysturid with mislyng;’ Skelton, Garland of
Laurell, 698. ‘To miselle, to mysylle, pluitare ;’ Cathol. Anglicum ;
p: 241. Cf. MDu. mieselen, to drizzle (Hexham); Low G. miseln
(Berghaus). From the base mis-, as in EFries. mis-ig, damp, gloomy ;
allied to EFries. mis, mis-ig, damp, moist. Cf, Mist.
MNEMONICS, the science of assisting the memory. (Gk.)
‘“Mnemonica, precepts or rules, and common places to help the
memory ;’” Phillips, ed. 1706. —Gk. μνημονικά, mnemonics; neut. pl.
of μνημονικός, belonging to memory.<—Gk. μνήμονι-, from μνήμων,
mindful. — Gk. μνάομαι, I remember; Skt. mda, to remember. From
the base *mna, lengthened grade of 4/MEN, to think; see
Mind.
MOAN, a complaint, a low sound of pain. (E.) ME. mone,
Chaucer, C. T. 11232 (F 920). This corresponds to an AS. form
*man, which does not appear with the modern sense; but the derived
verb mz#nan, to moan, to Jament, is common; see exx. in Grein,
ii, 222. B. This AS. verb passed into the ME. menen, to moan;
whence mened hire = bemoaned herself, made her complaint, P. Plow-
man, B. iii. 169. After a time this verb fell into disuse, and its
place was supplied by the sb. form, used verbally. ‘Than they of
the towne began to mone;’ Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol. i. c. 348.
y- Some identify AS. m#nan, to moan, with AS. méznan, to mean;
see Mean (1); but there is no connexion in sense. Ettmiiller
| compares AS. man, adj., evil, wicked, sb. evil, wickedness. Note
| that the Icel. mein (cognate with AS. man, wickedness) means
| a hurt, harm, disease, sore, whence there is but a step to a moan as
'
|
|
.
|
1
|
Ι
the expression of pain; but this is unsatisfactory. @] Cf. means
(some edd. moans) in Shak., M. Nt. Dr. v. 330. Der. moan, verb,
as explained above ; also be-moan, q.v.
MOAT, a trench round a fort, filled with water. (F.—Teut.) ME.
| mote, P. Plowman, B. v. 595.—OF. mote, ‘chaussée, levée, digue,’
| Le. a causeway, embankment, dike, Roquefort ; and see Godefroy.
| Norm. dial. motte, a moat, foss. [Just as in the case of dike and
| ditch, the word moat originally meant either the trench dug out, or
_ the embankment thrown up; and in OF. the usual sense was cer-
| tainly an embankment, hill. It is therefore the same word as mod.
| F. motte, a mound, also a clod, or piece of turf. ‘Motte, a clod,
| lumpe, round sodd, or turfe of earth; also, a little hill or high
| place; a fit seat for a fort or strong house; hence, also, such a fort,
| Or house of earth; .. a butt to shoot at;’ Cotgrave. The orig.
| Sense is clearly a sod or turf, such as is dug out, and thrown up into
a mound; and the word is associated with earthen fortifications,
whence it was transferred to such a trench as was used in fortifica-
Ϊ tion. Thus Shak. speaks of ‘a moat defensive to a house ;’ Rich. II,
ll. I. 48; and in P. Plowman, the ‘mote’ is described as being ‘the
manere aboute,’ 1.6. all round the manor-house. Cf. also: ‘ Mothe,
| a little earthen fortresse, or strong house, built on a hill;” Cotgrave.]
[ΟΕ also Low L. mota, motta, (1) a mound, (2) a mound and moat
| together; Ital. morta, a heap of earth, also a hollow, trench (as in
Ἑ, 3 Span. mota, a mound; Romansch muota, muotta, a rounded
hill, B. Of Teut. origin, but rarely found; it occurs, however, in
the Bavarian motf, peat, esp. peat such as was dug up, burnt, and
used for manure ; whence mot/en, to burn peat; Schmeller, Bavarian
|Dict., col. 1693. This Bavarian word is prob, related to E. mud;
ὶ
MODERATE
see Mud. Cf. also MHG. mot, peaty earth. Der. moat-ed, Meas,
for Meas. ili. 1. 277.
MOB (1), a disorderly crowd. (L.) Used by Dryden, in pref. to
Cleomenes, 1692; as cited in Nares. A contraction from mobile
uulgus. ‘I may note that the rabble first changed their title, and
were called “ the mob”’ in the assemblies of this |The King’s Head]
Club. It was their beast of burden, and called first mobile vulgus,
but fell naturally into the contraction of one syllable, and ever since
is become proper English; ’ North’s Examen (1740), p. 574; cited
in Trench, Study of Words. In the Hatton Correspondence, ed.
E. M. Thompson (Camden Soc.), the editor remarks that mob is
always used in its full form mobzle throughout the volumes (see ii. 40,
99, 124, 156); but, as Mr. Thompson kindly pointed out to me, he
has since noted that it occurs once in the short form mob, viz. at
p- 216 of vol. ii; Thus, under the date 1690, we read that ‘ Lord
‘Torrington is most miserably reproached by the mobile’ (ii. 156);
and under the date 1695, that ‘a great mob have been up in Holborn
and Drury Lane’ (ii. 216). In Shadwell’s Squire of Alsatia (1688),
we find mobile in A. 1. sc, I, but mob in A. iv. sc. 2. And see
Spectator, no. 135.—L. mdbile, neut. of mdbilis, movable, fickle ;
mobile uulgus, the fickle multitude. See Mobile and Vulgar.
Der. mob, verb. See Notes on E. Etym., p. 190.
MOB (2), a kind of cap. (Dutch.) ‘Job, a woman’s night-cap;’
Bailey’s Dict., vol. ii. ed. 1731. We also say mob-cap.—Du. mop-
muts, 2 woman’s night-cap; where muts means ‘cap;* MDu. mop,
a woman’s coif (Sewel); Low G. mopp, a woman’s cap (Danneil).
Cf. prov. E. mop, to muffle up (Halliwell).
MOBILE, easily moved, movable. (F.—L.) ‘Fyxt or els
mobyll ;’ Skelton, Why Come Ye Nat to Courte, 1. 522. [The ex-
pression ‘ mobil people’ occurs, according to Richardson, in The
Testament of Love, b. i; but the reading is really mokil, i.e. much ;
ch. 6,1. 73. ]—F. mobile, ‘movable;’ Cot.—L. mdbilis, movable (for
méuibilis).—L. mouére, to move; see Move. Der. mobili-ty, from
F. mobilité, which from L. acc. mdbilitatem; also mobil-ise, from mod.
F. mobiliser ; hence mobil-is-at-ion. And see mob (1).
MOCCASIN, MOCCASSIN, MOCASSIN, a shoe of deer-
skin, &c. (N. American Indian.) Spelt mocassin in Fenimore Cooper,
The Pioneers, ch. i. A North-American Indian word. From
Powhatan mockasin; Algonquin makisin (Cuoq); Micmac mkadsun
(S. T. Rand). Capt. Smith (Works, ed. Arber, p. 44) cites Indian
© mockasins, shoaes.’
MOCK, to deride. (F.—L.) ME. mokken, Prompt. Parv.—OF.
mocquier, late moquer. ‘Se mocquer, to mock, flowt, frumpe, scoffe ;’
Cot. According to Korting, § 6330, it is the Picard form of
moucher, to wipe the nose; Corblet gives the Picard form as mouker,
and Moisy has Norm. dial. mouguer, to wipe the nose (so that the
vowel does not quite correspond) ; but Mistral has mod. Prov.
mouca, moucha, to wipe the nose, and se mouca, to mock. Cotgrave
has MF. moucher, ‘to snyte or make cleane the nose; also to frumpe,
mocke, scoff, deride.’ Cf. Ital. moccare, ‘to blow the nose, also to
mocke;’ Florio.—Late L. muccare, to blow the nose.—L. muccus,
miicus, mucus. See Mucus. Der. mock, sb.; mock-er ; mock-er-y,
spelt mocguerye in Caxton, Hist. of Troye, fol. 95, 1. 8, from F.
moquerie; mock-ing, mock-ing-bird.
MODBH, a manner, measure, rule, fashion. (F.—L.) ‘In the first
figure and the third mode;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 504 d; where
it is used in a logical sense. F. mode, ‘ manner, sort, fashion ;” Cot.
= L. modum, acc. of modus, a measure, manner, kind, way. B. Akin
to Gk. μέδομαι, 1 think upon, plan, L. meditor, I meditate, Gk.
μῆδος, a plan, μήδομαι, 1 intend, plan; from 4/MED (Teut. MET),
to measure, to plan, best exemplified in E. mete; cf. Icel. mati,
a mode, manner, way; see Mete. Brugmann, i. § 412. Der.
mod-al, a coined word from L. mod-us ; mod-ish, coined from F. mode ;
mod-el, q.v., mod-er-ate, q.V., mod-ern, q.V., mod-est, q.V.; mod-ic-um,
q.v., mod-i-fy, q.v.; mod-ul-ate, q.v. From the L. modus we also
have accom-mod-ate, com-mod-ious. Doublet, mood (2).
MODEL, a pattern, mould, shape. (F.—Ital.—L.) See Shak.
Rich. I, iii. 2. 153; Hen. V, ii. chor. 16; &c.—MF. modelle (F.
modeéle), ‘a modell, pattern, mould ;’ Cot. Ital. modello, ‘a model,
a frame, a plot, a mould;’ Florio. Formed as if from a L. type
*modellus, dimin. of modulus, a measure, standard, which again is
a dimin. of modus. See Modulate, Mode. Der. model, vb.,
modell-er, modell-ing ; re-model.
MODERATH, temperate, within bounds, not extreme. (L.)
‘Moderat speche ;’ Hoccleve, Reg. of Princes, 2436. ‘ Moderately
and with reuerence ;” Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 361 h.—L. moderaius,
pp- of moderari, to fix a measure, regulate, control. From a stem
*moder-, answering to an older *modes-, extended from mod-, as in
modus, a measure; see Modest, Mode. Der. moderate, verb,
Shak. Troil. iv. 4. 5; moderate-ly, moderate-ness, moderat-or, Sir P.
Sidney, Apology for Poetrie, ed. Arber, p. 32, from L. moderator ;
381
382 MODERN
moderat-ion, Troil. iv. 4. 2, from OF. moderation, ‘moderation’ (Cot.),
which from L, acc. moderitidnem.
MODERN, belonging to the present age. (F.—L.) Used by
Shak. to mean ‘common-place ;’ Macb. iv. 3.170, &c.—F. moderne,
‘modem, new, of this age ;” Cot.—L. modernus, modem ; lit. of the
present mode or fashion ; formed from a stem *moder-, for *modes- ;
from mod-, as in modus, a measure; cf. modo, adv., just now. See
Moderate. Der. modern-ly, modern-ness, modern-ise.
MODEST, moderate, decent, chaste, pure. (F.—L.) Modestly
is in Gascoigne, Fruites of Warre, st. 208 (and last). Modestie is in
Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b. i. c. 25, ὃ 6.—F. modeste, ‘modest ;’
Cot.—L. modestus, modest, lit. keeping within bounds or measure.
From a stem *modes- (extended from mod-us), with Aryan suffix τέο;
the same stem, weakened to moder-, gives moder-aie, moder-n.—L.
modus, a measure; see Mode. Der. modest-ly, modest-y.
MODICUM, a small quantity. (L.) In Shak. Troil. ii. τ. 74.
Merely L. modicum, neut. of modi-c-us, moderate. From modi-, for
modus, a measure; see Modify, Mode.
MODIFY, to moderate, change the form of. (F.—L.) ME.
modifien, Gower, C, A. ili. 1573 bk. vii. 2153; Chaucer, C. T.,
A 2542.—F. modifier, ‘to modifie, moderate ;’ Cot.—L. modificare.
—L. modi-, for modus, a measure ; and ~fic-, for fac-ere, to make.
See Mode and Fact. Der. modifi-er, modifi-able ; modific-at-ion
=F, mod fication, ‘modification’ (Cot.), from L. acc. modifica-tidnem,
MODULATE, to regulate, vary. (L.) ‘To modulate the
sounds ;’ Grew, Cosmographia Sacra (1701), b. i. c. 5. sect. 16 (R.).
{But the verb was prob. suggested by the sb. modulation, given as
both a F. and Ἐς word by Cotgrave; from the L. acc. modulationem. |
“Το modulatus, pp. of modulari, to measure according to a standard.
=—L. modulus, a standard; dimin. of modus, a measure. See Mode.
Der. modulat-ion, as above; modulat-or, from L. modulator. So also
module, from Ἐς module, ‘a modell or module’ (Cot.), from L.
modulus, Also modulus =L. modulus.
MOGUL, a Mongolian. (Mongolia.) In Sir T. Herbert, Travels,
ed. 1663, p.75; Milton, P. L. xi. 391. ‘Mr. Limberham is the mogul
{lord] of the next mansion ;’ Dryden, Kind Keeper, iv. 1. ‘The word
Mogul is only another form of Mongol; the Great Mogul was the
emperor of the Moguls in India. ‘ The Mogul dynasty in India
began with Baber in 1525;’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates. Cf. Pers.
Moghol, a Mogul; Rich. Pers. Dict. p. 1460.
MOHATR, cloth made of fine hair. (Arab.) The E. spelling is
a sophisticated one, from a ridiculous attempt to connect it with E.
hair; just as in the case of cray-fish. Spelt mohaire in Skinner, ed.
1691; older spelling mockaire, Hakluyt, Voy. ii. 273; whence was
borrowed the MF. moudire, cited by Skinner; the mod. F. is moire.
Other MF. forms are mohére, mouhaire, cited by Scheler. The name
was given to a stuff made from the hair of the Angora goat (Asia
Minor). = Arab. mukhayyar, ‘a kind of coarse camelot or hair-cloth;”
Rich. Dict. p. 1369, col. 2. See Devic, in Supp. to Littré. Doublet,
moire, from F. morre.
MOHAMMEDAN, a follower of Mohammed. (Arab.) From
the well-known name. = Arab. muhammad, praiseworthy; Rich. Dict.
p- 1358. - Arab. root amada, he praised; id. p. 581.
MOHUR, a gold coin current in India. (Pers.) From Pers.
muhr, muhur, a seal, a gold coin current in India for about Al 16s. ;’
Rich. Dict. p. 1534, col. 1; Pers. muhr, muhar, a seal, a gold coin
worth 16 rupees (H. H. Wilson).-4-Skt. mudra, a seal.
MOIDORE, a Portuguese gold coin. (Port.—L.) ‘ Moidore,
a Portugal gold coin, in value 27 shillings sterling ;’ Bailey’s Dict.,
vol. ii. ed. 1731.—Port. moeda d’ouro or moeda de ouro, a moidore,
ει 75. Lit. ‘money of gold.’—L. monéta, money; dé, of; aurum,
gold. See Money and Aureate.
MOIETY, half, a portion. (F.—L.) See K. Lear, i. 1. 7, where
it means ‘a part’ merely. It means ‘a half’ in All’s Well, iii. 2. 69.
“- AF. moyté, Year-books of Edw. I, ii. 441; F. moitié, ‘an half, or
half part ;’ Cot.—L. medietatem, acc. of medietas, a middle course,
a half.—L. medius, middle; see Mediate. ἢ
MOIL,, to toil, to drudge. (F.—L.) Skinner, ed. 1691, explains
moil by ‘impigré laborare,’ i.e. to toil, drudge. But it is prob.
nothing "but a peculiar use of the word moile, given in Minsheu,
ed. 1627, with the sense ‘ to defile, to pollute ;’ cf. moil, ‘ to drudge,
to dawb with dirt ;’ Phillips, ed.1706. As Mr. Wedgwood suggests,
moil, to drudge, is probably ‘ only a secondary application from the
laborious efforts of one struggling through wet and mud;’ orsimply,
from the dirty state in which hard labour often leaves one. y. We
find earlier quotations for both senses; Halliwell cites ‘we moyle
and toyle’ from the Marriage of Wit and Humour, A.D. 1579.
Rich. quotes from Gascoigne: ‘A simple soule much like myself did
once a serpent find, Which, almost dead for cold, lay moyling in the
myre;’ i.e. wallowing in the dirt ; see Gascoigne, ed. Hazlitt, i. 94.
So also Spenser uses moyle for ‘to wallow ;’ see his Hymn of Heavenly
MOLE
Love, st. 32. Still earlier, the sense is simply to wet or moisten.
ME. moillen, to wet. ‘A monk... moillid al hir patis,’ i.e. moistened
all their heads by sprinkling them with holy water; Introd. to Tale
of Beryn, ed. Furnivall, p. 6, 1. 139.— OF. moiller, moiler (Littré),
later mouiller, ‘to wet, moisten, soake;’ Cot. The orig. sense was
‘to soften,’ which is effected, in the case of clay, &c., by wetting it.
The OF. moiller answers to a L. type *molliare, to soften (not found),
formed directly from L. molli-, stem of mollis (OF. mol), soft. See
Mollify.
MOIRE, watered silk. (F.—E.—Arab.) A later F. form of E.
Mohair, q.v.; ina slightly altered sense. L6rting suggests that,
in the sense of ‘ watered silk,’ it may represent L. marmoreus, shining
like marble, from marmor, marble; because moire cannot well
represent the Arabic form. But Hatzfeld derives F. moire from
E. mohair; which explains the matter. We then reborrowed this
F. form moire.
MOIST, damp, humid. (F.—L.) ME. moiste; ‘a moiste fruit
with-alle;’ P. Plowman, B. xvi. 68. The peculiar use of ME. moiste
is suggestive as to the derivation of the F. word. It means ‘ fresh’ or
‘new ;’ thus the Wife of Bath’s shoes were ‘ ful mozste and newe;’
Chaucer, C. T. 459 (A 457). The Host liked to drink ‘ moiste and
corny ale ;’ id. 12249 (C 315). And again ‘ moisty ale’ is opposed to
old ale; id. 17009 (H 60).—OF. moiste (Littré), later morte, ‘ moist,
liquid, humid, wet ;’ Cot. But the old sense of F. moiste must have
agreed with the sense with which the word was imported into
English. Etym.disputed. Either (1) from L. musteus, of or belonging
to new wine or must, also new, fresh; as musteus caseus, new cheese
(Pliny). —L. mustum, new wine ; a neut. form from mustus, adj., young,
fresh, new. See Korting, § 6414; and cf. Prov. mousti, moist, allied
to moust, new wine (Mistral). B. Or (2) from L. muccidus, miicidus,
mouldy; from L. miicus, mucus (Korting); see Mucus. y. Or
from L, *muscidus, for L. miicidus, the same (Hatzfeld). Perhaps
the two L. words coalesced in French (N.E.D.). Der. moist-ly,
moist-ness ; moist-en, Spenser, Ἐς Q. iii. 6. 34, where the final -en is
really of comparatively late addition (by analogy with other verbs
in -en), since Wyclif has ‘ bigan to moiste hise feet with teeris,’ Luke,
vii. 38; moist-ure, Gower, C. A. iii, 109; bk. vii. 730; from OF.
moisteur, mod. F. moiteur (Littré).
MOLAR, used for grinding. (L.) ‘Molar teeth or grinders ;’
Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 752.—L. molaris, belonging to a mill, molar. =
L. mola, a mill. —4/MEL, to grind; see Mill. Brugmann, ii. § 690.
MOLASSES, syrup made from sugar. (Port.—L.) Also
molosses ; in Phillips, ed. 1706. It ought rather to be medasses ; as in
Stedman’s Surinam, i. 317 (1796). Spelt malasses, Hakluyt, Voy. il.
pt. 2, p. 4. As it came to us from the West Indies, where the sugar
is made, it is either a Port. or a Span. word. The Span. spelling is
melaza, where the z (though now sounded like hk in bath) may well
have had (ab. 1600) the sound of E. ss; see Lasso. Cf. also Port.
melago, molasses; where the ¢ is sounded like E. ss; and this Port.
form better represents the L. neuter sb. [We also find Ital. melassa,
Ἐς mélasse.}=L. mellaiceum, a kind of must (Lewis); neuter of
mellaceus, made with honey, hence honey-like; cf. Port. melado,
mixed with honey. Formed with ending -dc-e-us from mell-, mel,
honey. See Mellifluous (with which cf. also marmalade, another
decoction).
MOLE (1), a spot or mark on the body. (E.) ME. mole. ‘ Many
moles and spottes ;? P. Plowman, B. xiii. 315. [As usual, the ME.
o answers to AS. a.] AS. mal, also written maal (where aa=a).
‘ Stigmentum, ful maal on regel’ =a foul spot ona garment; /Elfric’s
Gloss., in Voc. 125. 19.44OHG. meil, a spot; Goth. mail, a spot,
blemish. ‘Teut. type *mailom, n. Root unknown.
MOLE (2), a small animal that burrows. (E.) Mole seems to be
quite distinct from another name of the animal, viz. moldwarp. Shak.
has both forms, viz. mole, Temp. iv. 194; and moldwarp, I Hen. IV,
iii. 1. 149. Palsgrave has mole. In the 15th cent., we find ‘ Talpa,
molle;’ Voc. 639. 14-4-+MDu. and Du. mol; Low G. mull (Berghaus).
Teut. type *mulloz or *mulluz, m. (Franck). Prob. related to MDu.
mul, ‘the dust or crumblings of turf, Hexham; ME. mul, AS. myl,
dust; which are further related to Mould (1). The sense may
have been ‘earth-grubber’ or ‘ crumbler,’ from the weak grade of
/ MEL, to pound; see Molar. Cf. EFries. mullen, to grub ; mulle,
a child that grubs in the ground; mulle, mul, a mole; Low G. mull-
worm, a mole (Danneil). 2, The other form appears as ME. mold-
werp; Wyclif, Levit. xi. 30. From ME, molde, mould; and werpen,
to throw up, mod. E. to warp. See Mould and Warp. So also
MDnu. molworp (Kilian); Icel. moldvarpa, a mole, similarly formed.
Cf. Swed. mull-sork, mull-vad, a mole; from mull, mould, And note
Icel. mylja, to crush. Der. mole-hill, Cor. v. 3. 30. :
MOLE (3), a breakwater. (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘Mole or peer” [pier] ;
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. ‘The Mole, that. .defendeth the hauen; __
Sandys, Trav. (1632); p.255.— MF. mole, ‘a peer, a bank, or causey |
{
MOLECULE
on the sea-side;’ Cot. F. méle.—Ital. molo, mole, ‘a great pile ;’
Florio. = L. mdlem, acc. of mdles, a great heap, vast pile. A word of
doubtful origin. Der. From L. mdles we also have molecule, q.v.
MOLECULE, an aton, small particle. (L.) Formerly written
molecula, ‘ Molecula, in physicks, a little mass or part of anything ;”
Bailey’s Dict. vol. ii. ed. 1751. A coined word ; formed with double
dimin, suffix -c-u/- (in imitation of particula,a particle) from ἵν. méles,
aheap. See Mole (3). Der. molecul-ar.
MOLEST, to disturb, annoy. (F.—L.) ME. molesten, Chaucer,
Troilus, b. iv. 1. 880.—F. molester, ‘to molest;’ Cot. —L. molestare,
to annoy. =—L. molestus, adj., troublesome, burdensome. β. Formed
(with suffix -tus=Idg. -to-s) from a stem moles-, which is usually
associated with mdles; see Mole (3). Der. molest-er ; molest-at-ion,
Oth. ii. 1. 16.
MOLLA, the same as Mullah, q. ν.
MOLLIFY, to soften. (F.—L.) In Isa. i. 6 (A.V.). ‘It
[borage] mollyfyech the bealy ;’ Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. ii.
c.g. Hoccleve has mollifie, Reg. of Princes, 2638. [The sb. mollifi-
cacioun is in Chaucer, C. Τ᾿ 16322; G 854.)—OF. mollifier, ‘to
mollifie ;’ Cot. —L. mollificare, to soften. L. molli-, for mollis, soft ;
and -fic-, for facere, to make. B. L. mollis is akin to Skt. mrdu-,
soft; O. Ch. Slav. mladz, young, tender (Russ. molodo?) ; and to Gk.
μέλδειν, ἘΝ. melt; see Melt. Brugmann, ii. § 690. Der. mollifi-able,
mollifi-er ; also mollific-at-ion, allied to mollificatus, pp. of mollificare.
And see moil, mollusc.
MOLLUSC, an invertebrate animal, with a soft fleshy body, as
asnail. (L.) Modern. Not in Todd’s Johnson. Cf. F. mollusque,
a mollusc (Littré).—L. mollusca, a kind of nut with a soft shell,
which some molluscs were supposed to resemble; from molluscus,
softish ; allied to mollescere, to become soft.—L. mollis, soft; see
Mollify.
MOLTEN, melted. (E.) In Exod. xxxii. 4; &c. The old pp.
of melt; see Melt.
MOLY, the name of a certain plant. (L.—Gk.) In Spenser,
Sonnet 26.—L. mdly.—Gk. μῶλυ; Homer, Od. x. 3053 cf. Skt.
mila-m, an edible root.
MOMENT, importance, value, instant of time. (F.—L.) ‘In
a moment ;’ Wyclif, 1 Cor. xv. 52.— F. moment, ‘a moment, a minute,
a jot of time ; also moment, importance, weight ;’ Cot.—L. mdmen-
tum, a movement, hence an instant of time; also moving force, weight.
B. For mouimentum ; formed with the common suffix -ment- from
mouere, to move; see Move. Der. moment-ar-y, Temp. 1251202,
from L. mémentarius ; moment-ar-i-ly, -ness; moment-an-y (obsolete),
Mids. Nt. Dr. i. 1. 143, from L. mdmentdineus ; moment-ly ; moment-
ous, from L. mdmentdsus ; momentous-ly, -ness. Doublets, momentum
(=L. mdmentum) ; also movement.
MONAD, a unit, &c. (L.—Gk.) The pl. monades was formerly
used as synonymous with digits. ‘ Monades, a term in arithmetick,
the same as digits ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.—L. monad-, stem of monas,
a unit.—Gk. μονάς, a unit. —Gk. μόνος, alone, sole. See Mono-.
MONARCHY, sole government, a kingdom. (F.—L.—Gk.)
The word monarchy is (perhaps) older than monarch in English.
Sir David Lyndsay’s book entitled ‘The Monarché,’ written in 1552,
treats of monarchies, not of monarchs; see 1.1979 of the poem. ME.
monarchie, Gower, C. A.i. 27; prol. 605. -- F. monarchie, ‘a monarchie,
a kingdom ;’ Cot. =—L. monarchia. = Gk. μοναρχία, ἃ kingdom. =Gk.
μόναρχος, adj., ruling alone. —Gk. pov-, for μόνος, alone; and ἄρχειν,
to be first. See Mono- and Arch-. Der. monarch, Hamlet, ii. 2.
270, from F. monarque<L. monarcha, from Gk. μονάρχης, a sovereign ;
monarch-al, Milton, P. L. ii. 428; monarch-ic, from F. monarchique
(Cot.), Gk. μοναρχικός ; monarch-ic-al; monarch-ise, Rich. 11, iii. 2.
165; monarch-ist.
MONASTERY, a house for monks, convent. (L.—Gk.) The
older word was minster, q.v. Sir T. More has monastery, Works,
Pp: 135 e. Also in Caxton, Golden Legend; Mary Magd. § 12.
| Englished from L. monastérium, a_minster.—Gk. μοναστήριον, a
| minster.— Gk. μοναστής, dwelling alone; hence, a monk. - Gk.
| μονάζειν, to be alone. —Gk. μονός, alone. See Mono-. Der. From
| Gk. μοναστής we also have monast-ic, As You Like It, iii. 2. 441=
Gk, μοναστικός, living in solitude; hence monast-ic-al, monastic-ism.
Doublet, minster.
MONDAY, the second day of the week. (E.) ME. monenday,
Rob. of Glouc. p. 495, 1. 10180; later Moneday, Monday. AS. Monan
deg, Monday; rubric to John, vii. 32. The lit. sense is ‘day of the
| Moon’ —AS. mdnan, gen. of mona, the moon (a masc. sb. with gen.
in-an); and deg,a day. See Moon and Day.
MONETARY, relating to money. (L.) Modern; not in Todd’s
| Johnson. Imitated from L. monétarius, which properly means
| ‘belonging to a mint,’ or a mint-master.—L. monéfa, (1) a mint,
(2) money ; see Mint (1).
Ι MONEY, current coin, wealth. (F.—L.) ME. moneie; Chaucer,
Ϊ
|
|
|
|
MONODY
C. T. 705 (A 703). OF. monete; mod. F. monnaie.—L. monéta,
(1) a mint, (2) money. See further under Mint (1). Der. money-
bag, Merch. Ven. ii. 5.18; money-ed, Merry Wives, iv. 4.88; money-
changer ; money-less. Also monetary, q. Vv.
MONGER, a dealer, trader. (L.) Generally used in composition.
ME, wol-monger, a wool-monger; Rob. of Glouc. p. 539, 1. 11173.
AS. mangere, a dealer, merchant; the dat. case mangere occurs in
Matt. xiil. 45. Formed with suffix -ere (=mod. E. -er) from mang-
ian, to traffic, barter, gain by trading, Luke, xix. 15. Cf. mangung,
merchandise, Matt. xxii.5. β. The form mangian is from L. mango,
a dealer, of which mangere is a translation or equivalent. 4[ Prob.
sometimes confused with AS. mengan, to mingle, already treated of
under Mingle, q. v.; AS. mang, a mixture, preserved in the forms
ge-mang, ge-mong, a mixture, crowd, assembly, Grein, i. 425. Der.
cheese-monger, fell-monger, fish-monger, iron-monger, δῖα.
MONGOOSE; see Mungoose.
MONGREL, an animal of a mixed breed. (E.) In Macbeth,
iii. 1. 93. Spelt mungrel, mungril in Levins, ed. 1570. The exact
history of the word fails, for want of early quotations; but we may
consider it as short for *mong-er-el, with double dimin. suffixes as
in cock-er-el, pick-er-el (a small pike), so that it was doubtless orig.
applied to puppies and young animals. B. As to the stem mong-,
we may refer it to AS. mang, a mixture. The sense is ‘a small
animal of mingled breed.’ See Mingle. € We also find late
ME. mengrell, Book of St. Albans, fol. {4, back. If not an error for
mongrell, it is from AS. mengan, to mix; from mang, as above.
MONITION, a warning, notice. (F.—L.) ‘With a good
monicion;’ Sir ‘I. More, Works, p. 245 5. Caxton has monycion,
Golden Legend, St. Juliana, § 2.—F. monition, ‘a monition, ad-
monition ;” Cot.—L. monitidnem, acc. of monitio, a reminding; cf.
monitus, pp. of monére, to remind; lit. to bring to mind or make to
think. —4/MEN, to think. Brugmann, ii. § 794. Der. monit-or,
from L. monitor, an adviser, from monére; hence monit-or-y, Bacon,
Henry VII, ed. Lumby, p. 73, 1. 6; montt-or-ship ; monit-r-ess (with
fem. suffix -ess =F. -esse, L. -issa, Gk. -ἰσσαὶ ; monit-or-i-al. And see
Admonish. The doublet of monitor is mentor.
MONK, areligious recluse. (L.—Gk.) ME. monk, Chaucer, C.T.
165. AS. munec, Grein, ii. 269 ; also munuc, Sweet’s A. S. Reader.
=—L. monachus. — Gk. μοναχός, adj. solitary; sb. a monk. Extended
from Gk. pov-os, alone; see Mono-. Der. monk-ish; monk’s-hood.
Also (from L. monachus) monach-ism. And see monastery, minster.
MONKEY, an ape. (Low G.—F.—Ital.—L.) Spelt munkie in
Levins and Baret, monkey, munkey, in Palsgrave; perhaps not found
much earlier. Borrowed from Low G. Moneke, the name of the ape’s
son in Reinke de Vos (1479); where -se is for -ken, dimin. suffix; so
that the F. version has Monnekin (Godefroy). Formed (with Low G.
suffix -ke = -ken =G. -chen) from MF. monne, an ape.= MItal. monna,
mona, ‘an ape, a munkie, a pug, a kitlin [kitten], a munkie-face;
also a nickname for women, as we say gammer, goodie, good-wife
such a one;’ Florio. He notes that mona is also spelt monna ; ef.
mod. Ital. monna, mistress, dame, ape, monkey (Meadows). [Cf. also
Span. mona, Port. mona, a she-monkey; Span. and Port. mono,
a monkey.] The order of ideas is: mistress, dame, old woman,
monkey, by that degradation of meaning so common in all languages.
B. The orig. sense of Ital. monna was ‘ mistress,’ and it was used as
a title; Scott introduces Monna Paula as a character in the Fortunes
of Nigel. As Diez remarks, it is a familiar corruption of madonna,
i.e. my lady, hence, mistress or madam; see Madonna, Madam.
@ The Span. and Port. moxa were, apparently, borrowed from
Italian; being feminine sbs., the masc. sb. mono was coined to
accompany them. The Mital. has also monicchio, ‘a pugge, a
munkie,’ Florio; which is the Ital. equivalent of the Low G. form.
MONO,, prefix, single, sole. (Gk.) From Gk. povo-, for μόνος,
single. Shortened to mon- in mon-arch, mon-ocular, mon-ody ; see
also mon-ad, mon-astery, mon-k. Words with this prefix are numerous ;
e.g. mono-ceros, a unicorn, from Gk. κέρας, a horn; mono-chrome,
painting in one colour, from χρῶμα, colour; mon-ecious, having
stamens and pistils in different flowers on the same plant, from
οἶκος, a house, dwelling.
MONOCHORD, a musical instrument with one chord. (F.—
L.—Gk.) Spelt monacorde; in Hall’s Chron. Hen. VII, an. 1. § 9.
=F. monocorde.—L. monochordon.—Gk. povdyopdov.—Gk. pévo-;
and χορδή, the string of a musical instrument. See Mono- and
Chord.
MONOCOTYLEDON, a plant with one cotyledon.
Modern and botanical, See Mono- and Cotyledon.
MONOCULAR, with one eye. (Hybrid; Gk. and Ly A
coined word; used by Howell (R.). From Gk. pov-, for μόνο-,
from μόνος, sole; and L. oculus, an eye. See Mono-and Ocular.
MONODY, ἃ kind of mournful poem. (Gk.) ‘In this monody,’
&c. ; Milton, Introd. toLycidas. So called because sung by a single
383
(Gk.)
384 MONOGAMY
person. — Gk. μονῳδία, a solo, a lament.=— Gk. μον-, for μόνος, alone;
and #7, a song, ode, lay. See Mono- and Ode. Der. monod-ist.
MONOGAMY, marriage to one wife only. (L.—Gk.) Spelt
monogamie in Minsheu, ed. 1627. Used by Bp. Hall, Honour of the
Maried Clergie, sect. 19, in speaking of a book by Tertullian. = L.
monogamia, monogamy, on which Tertullian wrote a treatise.—Gk.
μονογαμία, monogamy ; μονόγαμος, adj., marrying but once.—Gk.
μόνο-, for μόνος, alone, sole; and γαμεῖν, to marry, γάμος, marriage.
See Mono- and Bigamy. Der. monogam-ist, Goldsmith, Vicar
of Wakefield, ch. xiv.
MONOGRAM, a single character, a cipher of characters joined
together. (L.—Gk.) Used by Ben Jonson, but in a different sense ;
Underwoods, Poet to Painter, lxx. 11.—L. monogramma, a mono-
gram.=— Gk. μονογράμματον, a mark formed of one letter; neut. of
μονογράμματος, consisting of one letter.—Gk. pdvo-, sole; and
ypapuar-, stem of γράμμα, a letter, from γράφειν, to grave, write.
See Mono- and Graphic. Der. So also mono-graph, a modern
word, from Gk. γραφή, writing.
MONOLOGUE, a soliloquy. (F.—Gk.) ‘ Besides the chorus
or monologues ;’ Dryden, Essay of Dramatic Poesie. But Minsheu,
ed. 1627, distinguishes between monologue, a sole talker, and mono-
logie, ‘along tale of little matter.’ =F. monologue, given by Cotgrave
only in the sense ‘ one that loves to hear himselfe talke ;’ but, as in
dia-logue, the last syllable was also used in the sense of ‘speech.’ =
Gk. μονύλογος, adj., speaking alone. Gk. μόνο-, alone; and λέγειν,
to speak. See Mono- and Logic.
MONOMANTA, mania on a single subject. (Gk.) A coined
word; from Mono- and Mania. First in 1823.
MONOPOLY, exclusive dealing in the sale of an article.
(L.—Gk.) £ Monopolies were formerly so numerous in England that
parliament petitioned against them, and many were abolished, about
1601-2. They were further suppressed by 21 Jas. I, 1624;’ Haydn,
Dict. of Dates. ‘Thou hast a monopoly thereof;? Sir T. More,
Works, p. 1303 h.— L. monopdlium. —Gk. μονοπώλιον, the right of
monopoly ; μονοπωλία, monopoly. = Gk. μόνο-, sole (see Mono-);
and πωλεῖν, to barter, sell; connected with Icel. fal-r, adj., venal,
for sale (Prellwitz) ; Skt. pazya-, saleable, pay (for ρα), to buy.
Der. monopol-ise, spelt monopol-ize in Bacon, Hist. Hen. VII, ed.
Lumby, p. 147, 1. 33; a coined word, formed by analogy, since
the MF. word was simply monopoler (Cotgrave).
MONOSYLLABLEB, a word of one sylable. (F.—L.—Gk.)
In Minsheu, ed. 1627; he makes it an adjective. Altered from F.
monosyllabe, adj., ‘ of one syllable ;’ Cot. = L. monosyllabus, adj. —Gk.
μονοσύλλαβος, adj., of one syllable. See Mono- and Syllable.
Der. monosyllab-ic.
MONOTONY, sameness of tone. (Gk.) Bailey, vol. ii. ed.
1731, gives it in the form monotonia. Gk. povorovia, sameness of
tone. =—Gk. μονότονος, adj., of the same tone, monotonous. See
Mono- and Tone. Der. monoton-ous, formed from Gk. μονότονος,
by change of -os into -ous; like the change of L. -us into E. -ous (as
in ardu-ous, &c.). Also monotone, a late term. Also monoton-ous-ly,
~nESS.
MONSOON, a periodical wind. (Du.—Port.—Arab.) | Spelt
monson in Hakluyt’s Voyages, ii. 278. Sir T. Herbert speaks of the
monzoones ; Travels, ed. 1665, pp. 409, 413. Ray speaks of ‘the
monsoons and trade-winds;’ On the Creation, pt. 1 (R.).—MDu.
monssoen, in 1596 (Yule). — Port. mong@o, monsoon. — Arab. mawsim,
a time, a season; Rich. Dict. p. 1525; whence also Malay musim,
‘a season, monsoon, year;’ cf. also awal misim, ‘ beginning of the
season, setting in of the monsoon;” Marsden, Malay Dict. pp. 340,
24. (See Monsoon in Yule.)
MONSTER, a prodigy, unusual production of nature. (F.—L.)
ME. monstre, Chaucer, C. T. 11656 (F 1344). =F. mozstre, ‘a monster ;’
Cot.—L. monstrum, a divine omen, portent, monster. To be re-
solved into mon-es-tru-m (with Idg. suffixes -es- and -tro-, for which
see Brugmann) from mon-ére, to warn, lit. to make to think. =
MEN, to think; see Mind. Der. monstr-ous, formerly monstru-
ous, as in Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. iv. met. 3, 1. 22, from OF.
monstrueus (Godefroy), MF. monstrweux, ‘monstrous’ (Cot.), which
from L. monstrudsus (also monstrdsus), monstrous; monstrous-ly,
monstraus-ness 5 monstros-i-ty, spelt monstruosity, Troilus, iii, 2. 87.
Also de-monstrate, re-monstrate. Doublet, muster.
MONTH, the period of the moon’s revolution. (E.) Properly
28 days ; afterwards so altered as to divide the year into 12 parts,
ME. moneth (of two syllables), Rob. of Glouc., p. 59, }. 1369; some-
times shortened to month. AS. mona, sometimes ménd, a month;
Grein, ii. 262; properly ‘a lunation.’? Cf. AS. ména, moon; see
Moon.+Du. maand ; Icel. minudr, manadr, monodr; Dan. maaned ;
Swed. mdnad; Goth. méndths; G. monat. Teut.type *ménoth-. Cf.
also Lithuan. ménesis, a month, ménzz, moon ; Russ. miesiats’, a month,
also the moon; L, mensis,a month; Irish and W. ms, Gael. mios,
MOOT
a month; Gk. μήν, month, μήνη, moon; Pers. mak, a moon, a
month; Skt. ma@s,a month. Der. month-ly, adj., K. Lear, i. 1.134;
month-ly, adv., Romeo, ii. 2. 110.
MONUMENT, a record, memorial. (F.—L.) Tyndall speaks
of ‘ reliques and monumentes ;> Works, p. 283, col. 1.—F. monument,
“a monument;’ Cot.—L. monumentum,a monument. f. Formed,
with suffix -ment-wm, from mon-u-=mon-i-, seen in moni-tus, pp. of
monére, to remind, cause to think.—4/MEN, to think; see Moni-
tion. Der. monument-al, All's Well, iv. 3. 20.
MOOD (1), disposition of mind, temper. (E.) It is probable that
the sense of the word has been influenced by confusion with mood (2),
and with mode. ‘The old sense is simply ‘mind,’ or sometimes
‘wrath.? ME. mood; ‘aslaked was his mood’ = his wrath was
appeased; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1762 (A 1760). AS. méd, mind, feeling,
heart (very common); Grein, ii. 257.4-Du. moed, courage, heart,
spirit, mind; Icel. mddr, wrath, moodiness ; Dan. and Swed. mod,
courage, mettle; Goth. mdds, wrath; (ἃ. muzh, courage. . All
from a Teut. type *md-do- ; where -do- is a suffix, Cf. Gk. μέ-μα-α,
I strive after. Brugmann, i. § 196. Der. mood-y, AS. mddig, Grein,
ii. 260 ; Sweet, New E. Gr. § 16083 mood-i-ly, mood-i-ness.
MOOD (2), manner, grammatical form. (F.—L.) A variant of
mode, in the particular sense of ‘ grammatical form of a verb.’ Spelt
mode in Palsgrave. ‘ Mood, or Mode, manner, measure, or rule. In
Grammar there are 6 moods, well known;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
See Mode. Perhaps it has often been confused with Mood (1) ;
see Mood in Trench, Select Glossary.
MOON, the planet which revolves round the earth. (E.) ME.
moné, of two syllables; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 9759 (E 1885). AS. mona,
a masc. sb.; Grein, ii. 262.4-Du. maan ; Icel. mani, masc. sb.; Dan.
maane; Swed, mane, masc. ; Goth. ménxa, masc.; G. mond, masc. ;
OHG., mino. Tent. type *mé#-non-, m.+4+Lithuan. ménz, masc.; Gk.
μήνη. Cf. Skt. mds, a month ; which Benfey refers to ma, to measure.
—4+/ME, to measure, as it is a chief measurer of time. See also
Month. Der. moon-beam, moon-light, moon-shine; moon-calf, Temp.
li. 2. 111; moon-ish, As You Like It, iii. 2. 430.
MOONSHEE, a secretary. (Hind.—Arab.) Hind. munshi, ‘a
writer, a secretary; applied by Europeans usually to teachers or
interpreters of Persian and Hindustani;’ H. H. Wilson, Gloss. of
Indian Terms, p. 356.—Arab. munshi’, a writer, secretary, tutor,
language-master ; Rich. Dict. p. 1508. (See Moonshee in Yule.)
MOOR (1), a heath, extensive waste ground. (E.) ME. more,
King Alisaunder, 6074. AS. mdr, a moor, morass, bog ; Grein, ii.
262.4-MDnu. moer, ‘ mire, dirt, mud; moerlandt, ‘ moorish land, or
turfie land of which turfe is made,’ Hexham; OHG. muor. Teut.
types *moroz, m., *mdrom,n.; prob. related, by gradation, to Goth.
marei, sea, lake; see Mere (1). Der. moor-ish, moor-land, moor-
cock; moor-hen, ME. mor-hen, Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 158, 1. 6.
Also mor-ass, q. V-
MOOR (2), to fasten a ship by cable and anchor. (E.) In
Minsheu, ed. 1627; Milton, P. L. i. 207. Not found in ME. or AS.,
but prob. E., and representing an AS. form *mdarian, to moor a ship;
for we find, as derivatives, AS. marels, a mooring-rope or painter,
Voc. 288. 28, and mérels-rap, the same, Voc. 182. 30. Cognate
with Du. maaren, meeren (Sewel), to tie, to moor a ship; MDu.
marren, maren, to bind, or tie knots (Hexham); Du. merex (Franck) ;.
whence perhaps ME. marlen, to moor; Prompt. Pary. Der. moor-
ing, moor-age; and see marline.
MOOR (3), a native of North Africa. (F.—L.) ‘A Moore,
or one of Mauritania,a blacke moore, or neger ;”’ Minsheu, ed. 1627.
ME. Mowres, pl. Moors; Mandeville’s Travels, ch. xiv. p. 156.—F.
More, ‘a Moor, Maurian, blackamore ;’ Cot.—L. Maurus, a Moor;
see Smith’s Class. Dict. Der. Moor-ish; and see morris, morocco,
Morian. Also black-a-moor, spelt blackamore, in Cotgrave, as above ;
a corruption of black moor in Minsheu, as above; also spelt blackmoor
in Beaum. and Fletcher, Mons. Thomas, v. 2.
MOOSBE, the American elk. (N. Amer. Indian.) ‘ Moos, a beast
bigger than a stagge;’ Capt. Smith, Works, p. 207. The native
Virginian name; Abenaki mus, Penobscot muns; see N. and Ὁ. 9 8.
xii. 504. Cuoq cites Algonquin mons (with x). 4
MOOT, to discuss or argue a case. (E.) Little used, except in
the phr. ‘a moot point.’ ‘To moofe, a tearme ysed in the innes of
the Court, it is the handling of a case, as in the Vniuersitie, their dis-
putations, problemes, sophismes, and such other like acts ;” Minsheu,
ed. 1627. The true sense is ‘to discuss in or at a meeting,’ and the
verb is unoriginal, being due to AS. mét, ME. mote, later moot, an
assembly or meeting, whence also moot-hall, 1. 6. a hall of assembly,
occurring in P. Plowman, B. iy. 135; ¢f. also ward-mote, i.e. meet
ing of a ward, id. prol. 94. Cf. ME. motien, moten, to moot, discuss,
also to cite, plead, P. Plowman, B. i. 174; AS. motian, to cite,
summon (to an assembly or court); ‘gif man... pane mannan mofe
=if one summon (or cite) the man; Laws of Hlothhere, sect. 8; see
Ϊ
Ϊ
i
MOP
Thorpe, Ancient Laws, i. 31.—AS. mdt, a meeting, an assembly ;
usually spelt gemdt, a word familiar in the phrase witena gemoé, an
assembly of wise men, a parliament.-+Icel. més, a meeting, court of
law; MHG,. muoz, mdz, a meeting. B. From a ‘Teutonic type
*métom, n. Der. moot-able, moot-case, i.e. case for discussion;
moot-point, i.e. point for discussion; moot-hall, a hall of assembly,
law court. Also meet, q.v. Observe that meet is a mere deriva-
tive of moot, as shown by the vowel-change.
MOP (1), an implement for washing floors, &c. (F.—L.) In
Torriano’s Ital. Dict., the word pannatore is explained by ‘a maulkin,
a map of rags or clouts to rub withal;’ ed. 1688. Halliwell gives
prov. E. mop, a napkin, as a Glouc. word. “" Not such maps as you
wash houses with, but mags of countries;’ Middleton, Span. Gipsy
(acted in 1623); A.ii.sc.2, Most likely borrowed from OF. mappe,
a napkin, though this word was later corrupted to nappe. See Nappe
in Littré, who cites the spelling mappe as known in the 15th century,
though the corrupt form with initial 2 was already known in the
1ith century. Both mappe and nappe are from L. mappa, a napkin;
whence also Map and Napkin, the former being taken from the
form mappe, whilst the latter was due to παρε. L. mappa is a word
of Punic origin. See Map. We find Walloon map, a table-cloth,
mappe, a napkin (Remacle); W. Flem. moppe, a (ship’s) mop (De
Bo). @ Cf. strop, knop, with strap, knap. The Celtic forms are
from Ε. Der. mop, verb.
MOP (2), a grimace; to grimace. (E.) Obsolete. ‘ With mop
and mow ;’ Temp. iv. 47. Also as a verbal sb.; ‘ mopping and
mowing ;’ K. Lear, iv. 164. The verb to mop is allied to Mope,
4.ν. Z Hence also ME. mopfe, a foolish person; in Weber, Met. Rom.
iii. 56.
MOPE#, to be dull or dispirited. (E.) In Shak. Temp. v. 240.
Allied to ME. mopisch, foolish; Beket, 1. 78. We also find mo/,
to grimace; see Mop (2). Cf. ‘in the mops, sulky;’ Halliwell.
+Du. moppen, to pout; whence to grimace, or to sulk; MSwed.
mopa, to mock (Ihre); Westphal. mopen, to grimace; Dan. maabe,
to mope; cf. prov. G. muffen, to sulk (Fliigel). Also ME. mappen,
to bewilder, stupefy ; Legends of the Holy Rood, p. 216. And see
Mow (3). Der. mop-ish, mop-ish-ness.
MORAINE, a line of stones at the edges of a glacier. (F.—
Teut.) Modem; well known from books of Swiss travel. =F.
moraine, a moraine; Littré. (Cf. Port. morraria, a ridge of shelves
of sand; morro, a great rock, a shelf of sand; Ital. mora, a pile of
stones. (But not Span. moron, a hillock.)] B. Of Teut. origin; cf.
Bavarian mur, sand and broken stones, fallen from rocks into a
valley; Schmeller, Bayerisches Worterbuch, col. 1642. Schmeller
notes the name moraine as used by the peasants of Chamouni,
according to Saussure. y. The radical sense is ‘mould’ or ‘ crumbled
material ;’ hence fallen rocks, sand, &c.; cf. G. miirbe, soft, OHG.
muruwt, soft, brittle; Icel. merja, to crush (K6rting).
MORAL, virtuous, excellent in conduct. (F.—L.) ‘O moral
Gower ;’ Chaucer, Troilus, b. v, last stanza but one.—F. moral,
‘morall;’ Cot.<L. mdrdlis, relating to conduct.<L. mor-, from
| mos, a manner, custom. Root uncertain. Der. moral, sb., morals,
| sb. pl.; moral-er, i.e. one who moralises, Oth. ii. 3. 301; moral-ly;
| morale (a mod. word, borrowed from F. morale, morality, good
' conduct); moral-ise, As You Like It, ii. 1. 44; moral-ist; moral-i-ty,
| Meas. for Meas. i. 2. 138, from F. moralité, ‘ morality,’ Cot.
MORASS, a swamp, bog. (Du.—F.—Teut.) ‘Morass, a moorish
ground, a marsh, fen, or bog ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Todd says that
P. Heylin, in 1656, noted the word as being ‘new and uncouth;’
| but he omits the reference. It occurs in a list of ‘uncouth words’
| at the end of Heylin, Obs. on the Hist. of K. Charles I, published
by H[amon] L[estrange]; but Heylin should rather have attributed
it to Fuller. Du. moeras, marsh, fen (Sewel). The older Du.
form is moerasch, adj., ‘moorish’ (Hexham); as if from the sb.
moer, ‘mire, dirt, or mud’ (id.), But this moerasch is an altered form
of MDu. marasch, maerasch, a marsh, pool (Kilian). OF. maresque,
| maresche, adj., marshy; also, as sb.; a marsh, a pool; Low L.
| mariscus.— Teut. *mari, the sea; see Marish. Cf. G. morast, from
| Du. or Low G. (see Morast in Kluge); whence also Swed. moras ;
| Dan. morads (a corrupt form). Doublet, marish.
| MORBID, sickly, unhealthy, (F.—L.) ‘Morbid (in painting),
|= term used of very fat flesh very strongly expressed ;’ Bailey’s Dict.,
vol. ii. ed. 1731.—F. morbide, sometimes similarly used as a term in
painting (Littré).—L. morbidus, sickly (which has determined the
| Present sense of the E. word).=—L. morbus, disease. Allied to mor-i,
to die, mors, death; see Mortal, Brugmann, ii. § 7o1. Der.
jmorbid-ly, morbid-ness ; also morbi-fic, causing disease, a coined word,
[σα morbi-, for morbus, and L. suffix -fic-us, due to facere, to make.
MORDACITY, sarcasm. (F.—L.) Little used. It occurs in
‘Cotgrave, =F. mordacité, ‘ mordacity, easie detraction, bitter tearms;’
Cot—L. acc, mordacitatem, from nom. mordacitas, power to bite. =
᾿
]
| form.
MORN 385
L. mordaci-, decl. stem of mordax, biting; with suffix -ἐᾶδ.
mordére, to bite. Cf. Skt. mardaya, to rub, breek in pieces; from
myd, torub. Brugmann, ii.§ 794. (4/MERD, SMERD.) 8B. Prob.
from the same root as E. Smart, q.v. Der. mordaci-ous, little
used, from the stem mordaci-; mordaci-ous-ly. Also mordant, biting,
F. mordant, from 1.. mordent-, stem of pres. pt. of mordere, to bite.
MORE, additional, greater. (E.) ‘The mod. E. more does duty
for two ME. words which were, generally, well distinguished, viz.
mo and more, the former relating to number, the latter to size.
1. ME. mo, more in number, additional. ‘Mo than thries ten’=
more than thirty in number; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 578 (A 576). AS. ma,
both as adj. and adv., Grein, ii, 201. Thus ‘ peer byS wundra ma’ =
there are wonders more in number, lit. more of wonders (Grein).
This AS. mad was originally an adverbial form; it is cognate with
Goth. mais, more, adv. 2. ME. more, larger in size, bigger; ‘ more
and lesse’=greater and smaller, Chaucer, C. T. 6516 (D 934).
{The distinction between mo and more is not always observed in old
authors, but very often it appears clearly enough.] AS. mara,
greater, larger; Grein, ii. 212. Cognate with Icel. meri, greater ;
Goth. maiza (stem maizon-), greater. See Most. Allied to Olrish
mir, mor, W. mawr, great; AS. mé#re, illustrious. @[ Mo is an
adverbial, but not a positive form; the positive forms are much,
mickle, many. The -r- in more represents Teut. -z-, which in the adv.
*mais (being final) was (regularly) lost in AS. Brugmann, i. ὃ 200.
Der. more-over.
MOST, the superl. form, answers to ME. moste, Chaucer, C. T.
2200 (A 2198), also spelt meste, maste, measte, in earlier authors (see
Stratmann). AS. mé#st, most; Grein, ii. 226. Cognate with Du.
meest, Icel. mestr, G. meist, Goth. maists; Teut. type *mais-toz, the
superl. form allied to the comp. *maiz-on- (above). Altered from
ΜΕ. méste to later mést by the influence of more and mo.
MOREL, an edible fungus. (F.-OHG.) ‘Spungy moréls;’
Gay, Trivia, iii. 203. [Properly morille, but confused with another
morel, the name of a herb, but lit, mulberry-colored;’ MF. morelle,
‘the herb morell, garden nightshade,’ Cot. (cf. MF. morelles,
‘morell cherries,’ Cot.), ultimately from L. mdrum, a mulberry.] =F.
morille, ‘ the smallest and daintiest kind of red mushrome;’ Cot.—
OHG. morhila (G. morchel), a morel; from OHG. morha, a roct,
a carrot, allied to AS. more, an edible root. See morchel in Kluge.
MORGANATIC, used with reference to a marriage of a man
with a woman of inferior rank. (Low L.—G.) When the left
hand is given instead of the right, between a man of superior and a
woman of inferior rank, in which it is stipulated that the latter and
her children shall not inherit the rank or inherit the possessions of
the former. The children are legitimate. Such marriages are fre-
quently contracted in Germany by royalty and the higher nobility.
Our George I was thus married ;” Haydn, Dict. of Dates.— Low L.
morganitica. Ducange explains that a man of rank contracting a
morganatic marriage was said ‘accipere uxorem ad’ morganaticam.’
This L. word was coined, with suffix -dica, from the G.- morgen,
morning, which was in this case understood as an abbreviation for
MHG. morgengabe, morning-gift, a term used to denote the present
which, according to the old usage, a husband used to make to his
wife on the morning after the marriage-night; esp. if the wife were
of inferior rank. This G. morgen is cognate with E, morn; see
Morn. :
MORIAN, a blackamoor, a Moor. (F.—L.) ‘The Morians’
land;’ Ps. Ixviii. 31 (P. B.).—OF. Morien, a Moor (Godefroy);
also Moriaine (15th cent.). From a Late L. type *Mauritanus or
*Mauritanius, a man of Mauritania, the country of the Maurt or
Moors. (A Student's Pastime, p. 254.)
MORION, an open helmet, without visor. (F.—Span.) Τὴ
Spenser, Muiopotmos, |. 322.=—F. morton, ‘a murrian, or head-peece ;’
Cot.—Span. morrion. Cf. Port. morri@, Ital. morione, a morion.
The word is Spanish, if we may accept the very probable derivation
of Span. morrion from morra, the crown of the head. The latter
word has no cognate form in Ital. or Port. Cf. Span. morro, any-
thing round; moron, a hillock. Perhaps from Basque murxa, a hill,
heap (Diez).
MORMONITE,, one of a sect of the Latter-day Saints. (Εἰ; but
α pure invention.) ‘the Mormonites are the followers of Joseph Smith;
‘called the prophet, who announced in 1823, at Palmyra, New York;
that he had had a vision of the angel Moroni. In 1827 he said that
he found the book of Mormon, written on gold plates in Egyptian
characters;’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates, q.v. We may call the word E.,
as used by English-speaking people; but it is really a pure invention.
B. Joseph Smith’s own explanation was that it meant * more good τ᾿
from E. more, and Egypt. mon, good. (This was probably an after-
thought.) See The Mormons; London, 1851. Der. Mormon-ism.
MOR\, the first part of the day. (E.) ME. morn, a North E.
“Ομ the morn’=on the morrow; Barbour’s Bruce, i. 604;
Ce
386 MORNING
to-morn = to-morrow; id. i. 621. Morn and morrow are merely
doublets; the former being contracted from ME. morwen, and the
latter standing for ME. morwe, the same word with loss of final ~.
The form morwe is in Chaucer, C. T., A 1492; the older form morwen
is in the Ancren Riwle, p. 22, 1.16. AS. morgen, morn, morrow,
Grein, ii. 264; whence morwen by the common change of g to w.
Cf. OFries. morn, morning.-Du. morgen; Icel. morginn; Dan.
morgen; Swed. morgon; G. morgen; Goth. maurgins. Cf. Lith.
merk-ti, to blink. Orig. sense prob. ‘dawn.’ Doublet, morrow.
MORNING, dawn, mor. (E.) ME. morning, P. Plowman,
B. prol. 5; contracted from the fuller form morwening, Chaucer,
C. T. 1064 (A 1062). Morwening signifies ‘a dawning,’ or ‘a be-
coming morn ;’ formed with the substantival (not participial) suffix
-ing (AS. -ung) from ME, morwen=AS. morgen, morn; see Morn.
Cf. even-ing ; from even. Der. morning-star.
MOROCCO, a fine kind of leather. (Morocco.) Added by Todd
to Johnson’s Dict. Named from Morocco, in N. Africa; whence
also F. maroqguin, morocco leather. So called from the Moors.
MOROSSE,, ill-tempered, gloomy, severe. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. See Trench, Select Gloss., who shows that the word was
once used as if it owed its derivation to L. mora, delay; but this use
is obsolete. — L. mérdsus, self-willed; (1) in a good sense, scrupulous,
fastidious, (2) in a bad sense, peevish, morose.—L. mdr-, decl.
stem of mds, (1) self-will, (2) usage, custom, character. See Moral.
Der. morose-ly, morose-ness. Also moros-i-ty, in Minsheu, ed. 1627,
from OF. morosité, ‘ morosity, frowardnesse,’ Cot.; but now ob-
solete.
MORPHIA, MORPHINE, the narcotic principle of opium.
(Gk.) Modern; coined words from Gk. Morpheus (Moppevs), the
god of sleep and dreams, lit. ‘the shaper,’ i.e. creator of shapes
seen in dreams.—Gk. μορφή, a shape, form. Der. meta-morph-osis,
a-morph-ous; from μορφ-ή.
MORRIS, MORRIS-DANCE, an old dance on festive
occasions. (Span.—L.) In Shak. Hen. V, ii. 4. 25. See Nares’
Glossary. (ἃ. Douglas has the pl. morisis, Aen, bk. xiii. ch. ix.
1. 112. The dance was also called a morisco, as in Beaum. and
Fletcher, Wild Goose Chase, v. 2. 7. A morris-dancer was also
called a morisco, 2 Hen. VI, iii. 1. 365; and it is clear that the word
meant ‘ Moorish dance,’ though the reason for it is not quite certain,
unless it was from the use of the tabor as an accompaniment to it. =
Span. Morisco, Moorish. Formed with suffix -isco (=L. -iscus, E.
-ish) from Span. Moro, a Moor.=L. acc. Maurum, a Moor; see
Moor (3). See Brand, Popular Antiquities. @ We also find
morris-fike, i.e. Moorish pike, Com. Errors, iv. 3. 28. Spelt morys-
pike, Sir T, Elyot, Castel of Helth, Ὁ. ii. c. 23. ‘The Mourish
daunce’ is mentioned in 1494; Excerpta Historica, p. 95.
MORROW, moming, morn. (E.) A doublet of morn. From
ΜΕ. morwe by the change of final -we to -ow, as in arr-ow, sparr-ow,
sorr-ow, &c.
(A 822). Again, morwe is from the older morwen, by loss of final x;
and morwen=mod. E. morn. See Morn. Der. to-morrow= AS, td
morgene, Where 0=mod. E. to; the sense is ‘for the morrow;’ see
Grein, il. 264,
MORSE, a walrus. (F.—Finnish.) Spelt morsse, Hakluyt’s
Voyages, i. 5 (margin). ‘The tooth of a morse or sea-horse;’ Sir
T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. iii. c. 23. § 5.—F. morse. Finnish
mursu, a morse (Renvall); whence also Russ. morj’, a morse (with
j sounded as zh, i.e. as F. 7). Cf. Lapp. morsha, a morse (Friis).
The Russ. name is morskaia korova, i.e. sea-cow.
MORSEL, a mouthful, small piece. (F.—L.) ME. morsel,
Chaucer, C. T.128. Also mossel, Rob. of Glouc. p. 342, 1. 70253
‘thys mossel bred’=this morsel of bread. The corrupt form mossel
is still in common use in prov. E.=OF. morsel, morcel, mod. F.
morceau, ‘a morsell, bit,’ Cot. (And see Burguy.) Cf. Ital. morsello.
Dimin. from L. morsum, a bit.=—L. morsus, pp. of mordére, to bite;
see Mordacity.
MORTAL, deadly. (F.—L.) See Trench, Select Glossary. ME.
mortal, Chaucer, C. T., A 61, 1592.—OF. mortal (Burguy); morte!
(Cot.)—L. mortalis, mortal.—L. mort-, stem of mors, death. The
decl. stem mor-ti- contains the Idg. suffix -ti-. 4/MER, to die; ef.
Skt. my, to die, pp. myta-, dead; L. mori, to die. Der. mortal-ly;
mortal-i-'y, from Εἰ, mortalité, ‘mortality’ (Cot.), from L. acc. mor-
talitatem ; morti-fer-ous, Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, from L. fer-re, to
bring, cause. And see mort-gage, morti-fy, mort-main, mort-u-ary.
MORTAR (1), MORTER, a vessel in which substances are
pounded with a pestle. (L.) [A certain kind of ordnance was also
called a mortar, from its orig. resemblance in shape to the mortar for
pounding substances in. ‘This is a French word.] ME. morter, P.
Plowman, B. xiii. 44; King Alisaunder, 1. 332
332.
mortar; A. 5. Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, i. 142.. [Cf. OF. mortier,
‘A morwe’=on the morrow, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 824 |
AS. mortere, a |
‘a morter to bray (pound) things in, also, the short and wide- |
MOSS
mouthed piece of ordnance called a morter,” &c.; Cot.J—L. mor-
tarium,a mortar. Cf. L. marculus, a hammer. See mortar (2).
MORTAR (2), cement of lime, sand, and water. (F.—L.)
ME. mortier, Rob. of Glouc., p. 128, 1. 2715.—OF. mortier, ‘ morter
used by dawbers;’ Cot.—L. mortarium, mortar; lit. stuff pounded
together; a different sense of the word above; see Mortar (1).
MORTGAGE, a kind of security for debt. (F.—L.) ME.
mortgage, spelt morgage in Gower, C. A. ili. 2343 bk. vil. 4228.—
OF. mortgage, mortgaige, ‘morgage, or mortgage ;’ Cot. ‘It was
called a mortgage, or dead pledge, because, whatever profit it might
yield, it did not thereby redeem itself, but became lost or dead to the
mortgager on breach of the condition;’ Webster. —F. mort, dead,
from L. mortuus, pp. of mori, to die; and F. gage, a pledge. See
Mortal and Gage (1). Der. mortgag-er; mortgag-ee, where the
final -ee answers to the F. -é of the pp.
MORTIFY, to destroy the vital functions, vex, humble.
(F.—L.) ME. mortifien, used as a term of alchemy, Chaucer, C. Τὶ
16594 (G 1126).—OF. mortifier, ‘to mortifie,’ Cot.—L. mortificare,
to cause death. L. morti-, decl. stem of mors, death ; and -fic-, for
fac-ere, to make, cause; see Mortal and Fact. Der. mortify-ing ;
mortific-at-ion, Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 700 f, from OF. mortification
(Cot.), from L. acc. morttficationem,
MORTISE, a hole in a piece of timber to receive the tenon, or
a piece made to fit it. (F.) Spelt mortesse in Palsgrave; mortaise in
Cot. Shak. has mortise as a sb., Oth. ii. 1. 9; and the pp. mortised,
joined together, Hamlet, iii. 3. 20. ME. morteys, Prompt. Parv.;
Mandeville, Tray. ch. 7, p. 76.—F. mortaise, ‘a mortaise in a piece .
of timber;’ Cot. Cf. Span, mortaja, a mortise. B. Of unknown
origin; it cannot be from L. mordére, to bite, which could not have
given the Δ Devic (in a supplement to Littré) thinks the Span.
word may be of Arabic origin. Der. mortise, verb.
MORTMATN, the transfer of property to a corporation. (F.—L.)
‘ Agaynst all mortmayn;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 3338. ME, mayn
mort, Trevisa, tr. of Higden, viii. 265. The Statute of Mortmain
was passed A.D. 1279 (7 Edw. 1). Property transferred to the church
was said to pass into main mort or mort main, i.e. into a dead hand,
because it could not be alienated. —F. mort, dead; and main, a hand
(L. manus). See Mortgage and Manual.
MORTUARY, belonging to the burial of the dead. (F.—L.)
The old use of mortuary was in the sense of a fee paid to the parson
| ofa parish on the death of a parishioner. ‘ And [pore over] Linwode,
a booke of constitutions to gather tithes, mortwaries, offeringes, cus-
tomes,’ &c.; Tyndall’s Works, p. 2, col. 1. Lyndwode, to whom
Tyndall here refers, died A.D. 1449.—AF. mortuarie, Year-books of
Edw. I, 1302-3, p. 443-— Late L. mortuarium, a mortuary ; neut. of
L. mortuarius, belonging to the dead. —L. mortu-us, dead, pp. of mori,
to die; see Mortal.
MOSAIC, MOSAIC-WORK, ornamental work made with
small pieces of marble, &c. (F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt mosaick, Milton,
P. L.iv. 700.‘ Mosaicall-worke, a worke of small inlayed peeces;’ τὺ
Minsheu’s Dict., ed. 1627.— MF. mosaigue, ‘mosaicall work;’ Cot. |
= Ital. mosaico, mosaic; [Span. mosaica obra, mosaic work.| Formed |
from a Late L. muisdicus, adj.,an extended form from L. museum |
opus (also called miisiuum opus), mosaic work. The Late L. form ;
misdicus answers to a Late Gk. Ἐμουσαϊκός, an extended form in |
some way related to the Late Gk. μουσεῖον, mosaic work; neut. of |
μουσεῖος, of or belonging to the Muses (hence artistic, ornamental).
=Gk. μοῦσα, a Muse; see Muse (2).
MOSLEM, a Mussulman or Mohammedan; as adj., Mahom-
medan, (Arab.) ‘This low salam Replies of Moslem faith I am om
Byron, The Giaour (see note 29).— Arab. muslim, ‘a musulman,
a true believer in the Muhammedan faith ;’ Rich. Dict. p. 1418.
A mussulman is one who professes islam, i.e. ‘obedience to the will
of God, submission, the true or orthodox faith ;’ id. Ρ. 91. A parti-
cipial form, from the 4th conj. of salama, to be safe, be at rest. The
words moslem, mussulman, islam, and salaam are all from the same
root salama. Doublet, mussulman. Ϊ
MOSQUE, a Mahommedan temple or church. (F.—Span.—
Arab.) ‘Mosche or Mosque, a temple or church among the Turks
and Saracens;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Spelt musgue, Sandys,
Trav. (1632), p. 27.-- Ἐν mosquee, ‘a temple or church among the
Turks;’ Cot.—Span. mezquita, a mosque. — Arab. masjid, a mosque,
temple; Rich. Dict. p. 1415. Cf. Arab. sajjadah, ‘a carpet, &C., |
place of adoration, mosque ;’ id. p. 812.— Arab. root sajada, to adore,
prostrate oneself, mi |
MOSQUITO, a kind of gnat. (Span.—L.) Spelt muski‘to in
Sir T. Herbert, Travels, ed. 1605, p.128; muskyto, Hakluyt, Voy. iil. |
107.—_Span. mosquito, a little gnat; dimin. of mosca, a fly. —L. musca, hn
a fly. Cf. Gk. μυῖα, a fly; Lithuan. musé, a fly. a
MOSS, a cryptogamic plant. (E.) ME. mos, P. Plowman, C. xviil-
14; mosse (dat.), id. B. xv. 282. AS. mos (Bosworth). Du. mos; |
t
{
ἱ
| in wine or other liquids.
| mother.
| G. moder, mould. Der. mother-y.
MOST
Icel. mos, moss; also, a moss, moorland; Dan. mos; Swed. mossa;
G. moos, ΜΗ. mos, moss; also a moss, swamp. Teut. base *mus-,
weak grade allied to MHG. mies, OHG. mios, moss ; AS. méos, moss
(Teut. base *meus-) ; andto Mire. β. Further allied to Russ. mokh’,
moss; L. muscus, moss. Brugmann, i. § 105. © We may note the
Εν use of moss in the sense of bog or soft moorland, as in Solway
Moss, Chat Moss; this sense comes out again in E. mire, which is
certainly related to moss. Der. moss-land, moss-rose; moss-trooper,
i.e. a trooper or bandit who rode over the mosses on the Scottish
border ; moss-ed, As You Like It, iv. 3. 105; moss-grown, 1 Hen. IV,
ili. I. 333 moss-y, moss-i-ness. Also mire.
MOST, greatest. (E.) ME. most, mést. AS. mést.4-Du. meest ;
Icel. mestr; G. metst; Goth. maists. Teut. type *ma-ist-oz, superl.
form allied to More, q.v. The o (for early ME. δ) is due to
association with the o in more.
MOTE, a particle of dust, speck, spot. (E.) ME. mot, mote;
Chaucer has the pl. motes, C. T.6450 (D 868). AS. mot, Matt. vii. 3.
+Du. mot, saw-dust ; EFries. mut, rubbish.
MOTET, a short piece of sacred music. (F.—L.) In Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674. ME. motetis, pl.; Wyclif, Works; ed. Matthew,
Ῥ- 91.—F. motet, ‘a verse in musick, or of a song, a poesie, a short
lay;’ Cot. (Cf. MItal. mottetto, ‘a dittie, a verse, a iigge, a short
song; a wittie saying;’ Florio.) Dimin. of F. mot, ‘a word; the
note winded by a huntsman on his horne;’ Cot.—L. mudtum, a mur-
mur; see Motto.
MOTH, a lepidopterous insect. (E.) ME. motthe, Chaucer, C. T.
6142 (D 560); also spelt moe, moupe, mou;te, P. Plowman, C, xiii.
217. AS, modde, Grein, ii. 261; also mohde, Matt. vi. 20, latest text;
O. Northumbrian mohde, mohda, Matt. vi. 20.4-Du. mot; Icel.
motti,; Swed. mdtt, a mite; (ἃ, motte, a moth. Origin doubtful.
B. We also find AS, madu, a maggot, bug; ‘Cimex, madu,’ AElfric’s
Gloss., Nomina Insectorum, in Wright’s Vocab. i. 24; cognate forms
being Du. and G. made, a maggot, Goth. matha, a worm ; but con-
nexion with moth is doubtful. A late example of ME. mathe, a
maggot, occurs in Caxton’s tr. of Reynard the Fox, ed. Arber, p. 69;
‘a dede hare, full of mathes and wormes.’ y. Perhaps the latter
word meant ‘a biter’ or ‘eater;’ Fick refers AS. madu to the root
of E. mow, to cut grass.. Der. moth-eaten, ME. moth-eten, P. Plow-
man, B. x. 362.
MOTHER (1), a female parent. (E.) ME. moder, Chaucer, C. T.
5261 (B 841), where Tyrwhitt prints morher; but all the six MSS. of
the Six-text ed. have moder or mooder. [The ME. spelling is almost
invariably moder, and it is difficult to see how mother came to be
the present standard form ; it was probably due to dialectal influence. |
AS. moder, modor, modur ; Grein, ii. 261.4-Du. moeder ; Icel. mddir ;
Dan. and Swed. moder; (ἃ. mutter, OHG. muotar.+Irish and Gael.
mathair; Russ. mat(e); Lithuan. moré (Schleicher) ; L. mater; Gk.
μήτηρ ; Pers. madar; Skt. mata, maty. B. All formed from a root
*ma, of uncertain meaning. Der. mother-ly, mother-li-ness, mother-
hood, mother-less. Cf. matrix, matron,
MOTHER (2), the hysterical passion. (E.) In K. Lear, ii. 4.
56. Spelt moder in Palsgrave ; the same word as the above. So also
Du. moeder means ‘ mother, womb, hysterical passion ;’ cf. G. mutter-
beschwerung, mother-fit, hysterical passion.
MOTHER (3), lees, sediment. (E.) ‘As touching the mother or
lees of oile oliue ;’ Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxiii. c. 3. It is prob.
the same word as Mother (1), as the dregs seem to be bred in the
liquid. So also in mod. Du. we have moer signifying both sediment |
or dregs, also a matrix or female screw; G. mutter, mother, sediment
Cf. Gk. γραῦς, an old woman ; also, scum,
Perhaps affected by E. mud, MDu. modder, mud, lees, dregs ;
MOTION, movement. (F.—L.) ‘Of that mocyon his cardynalles
were sore abashed ;’ Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol. i. c.. 326.—F,
motion, omitted in Cotgrave, but used by Froissart in this. very
| passage, as quoted by Littré.—L. mdtidnem, acc. of mdtio, a move-
| ment ; cf. modus, pp. of mouére, to move; see Move. Der. motion-
| less, Hen. V, iv. 2. 50.
| MOTIVE, an inducement. (F.—L.) Properly an adj., but also
| used asasb. ME. motif, a motive, Chaucer, C. T. 5048, 9365 (B 628,
} E 1491).—OF, molif, ‘a motive, a moving reason;’ Cot.—Late L.
motivum, a motive ; found A.D. 1452; but certainly earlier.— Late L.
| motiuus, moving, animating ; found Α.Ὁ. 1369. Formed with L. suffix
| -tuus from mdt-, stem of mdtus, pp. of mouere; see Move. Der.
| motiv-i-ty (modern), Also motor, i.e. a mover, Sir T. Browne, Vulg.
Errors, b. ii. c. 2. § 2, borrowed from L. mator, a mover. Ὁ
| MOTLEY, of different colours. (F. —G.) ME. mottelee, Chaucer,
ΓΟ. Ὑ. 273 (A271). So called because spotted or clotted. Apparently
jformed, with pp. suffix -é, from OF. motel, *mottel, MF. mottean,
“ἃ clot of congealed moisture,’ Cot.; also used in the sense of MF.
|mottelet, ‘a little clod, lump of earth,’ id. A dimin. of OF. mote,
Ϊ
|
MOULT 387
motte, MF. motte, ‘a clod, lump, round sodd, or turfe of earth; also
a little hill;’ Cot. See Moat. Cf. Languedoc moutel, a clot of
anything adhesive, dimin. of mouto, a clod (D’Hombres). Mistral
gives Prov. mouteloun, ‘petite pelote;’ ἃ mouteloun, ‘en grumeaux.’
B. Perhaps affected by OF. mattelé, ‘clotted, knotted, curdled, or
curd-like;’ Cot. Cf. OF. mattonné, in the expression ciel mattonné,
“a curdled [i.e. mottled] skie, or a skie full of small curdled clowds ;’
id. The OF. mattelé answers to a pp. of a verb *matteler, representing
an OHG. *matteln, a frequentative verb regularly formed from
Bavarian matte, curds; Schmeller’s Bayerisches Worterbuch, col.
1685 ; MDu. matte, curds(Hexham). Der. mottled, Drayton, Muses’
Elysium, Nymph, 6. 1. 57.
MOTTO, a sentence added to a device. (Ital.—L.) In Shak.
Per. ii. 2. 38.—Ital. motto, ‘a word, a mot, a saying, a posie or
briefe in any shield, ring, or emprese’ [device]; Florio. —L. muttum,
a mutter, a grunt, a muttered sound; cf. mitire, muttire, to mutter,
mumble. Tormed from 4/MEU, to make a low sound; cf. Gk. po,
a muttered sound. See Mutter. And cf. Motet.
MOULD (1), earth, soil, crumbling ground. (E.) ME. molde,
P. Plowman, B. prol. 67, ili. 80. AS. molde, dust, soil, earth,
country; Grein, ii. 261.4-Du. moude, molde, mould; cf. molm,
mould; Icel. mold, mould, earth; Dan. muld; Swed. mull (for muld) ;
Goth, mulda, dust; Mk. vii. 11; prov. G. molt, molten, garden mould
(Fliigel) ; OHG. molta. B. All from a Teut. type *mul-don, f.;
from *mal, weak grade of 4/MEL, to grind; see Meal (1). Der.
mould-warp, the old name for a mole (see mole); also mould-er,
a frequentative verb, ‘to crumble often,’ hence, to decay, cf. ‘in the
mouldring of earth in frosts and sunne,’ Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 337.
The adj. mouldy, in its commonest sense, is unconnected.
MOULD (2), a model, pattern, form, fashion, (F.—L.) ME.
molde, P. Plowman, Β. xi. 341. ONorth Εἰ, molde, Les Rois, p. 244
(Moisy); OF. molle, mole, mod. F. moule, a mould. Littré gives
molle as the spelling of the 14th century; a still earlier form was
modle, in the 13th cent.—L. modulum, acc. of modulus, a measure,
standard, size. See Model. Cf. Span. molde, from modulus, by
transposition. Der. mod-el, a dimin. form, Also mould, vb., Mids,
Nt. Dr, iii. 2. 211; mould-er, mould-ing.
MOULD (3), rust, spot. (E.) Spenser has: ‘Upon the litle
brest .. a litle purple mold;’ F. Q. vi. 12. 7.. But chiefly in the
compound iron-mould. Here mould is a mere extension of mole,
a spot; the added d was prob. due to confusion with moled, i.e.
spotted. ‘ One droppe of poyson infecteth the whole tunne of Wine;
..one yron Mole defaceth the whole peece of Lawne ;’ Lyly, Euphues,
ed. Arber, p. 39. See further under Mole (1).
MOULDY, musty, fusty. (Scand.) In Shak. 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4.
134; ili. 2.119. This isan extremely difficult word. It has probably
been confused with mould (1), supposed to mean dirt, though it
properly means only friable earth. It has also probably been con-
fused with mould (3), rust, spot of rust.’ But with neither of these
words has it anything to do. It is formed from the sb. mould,
fustiness, which is quite an unoriginal word, as will appear. For
an example of this sb., compare: ‘ we see that cloth and apparell,
not aired, doe breed moathes and mould ;’ Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 343.
This sb. is due to the ME. verb moulen, to become mouldy, to
putrefy or rot, as in; ‘ Let us not moulen thus in idlenesse :᾿ Chaucer,
C. T., Group B, 32. The pp. mouled was used in the precise sense
of the mod. E. mouldy, and it is easy to see that the sb. was really
due to this pp., and in its turn produced the adj. mouldy. Stratmann
cites ‘ pi mowlid mete,’ i.e. thy mouldy meat, Political Poems, &c.,
ed. Furnivall, p. 181; mowllyde brede, i.e. mouldy bread, Reliquix
Antique, i. 85 ; ‘Pannes mouled in a wyche,’ clothes lying mouldy
in a chest; Test. of Love, b. ii. ch. ii. 1.29. So also. mowled, mowlde,
mucidus ; from mowle, mucidare, Catholicon Anglicum, q.v. Todd
cites: ‘Sour wine, and mowled bread ;’ Abp. Cranmer, Ans. to
Bp. Gardiner, p. 299. With which compare: ‘ Very coarse, hoary,
moulded bread,’ Knollys, Hist. of the Turks (Todd). .B. The oldest
spelling of the ME. verb is muwlen. ‘ Oder leten pinges muwlen oder
rusten’= or let things grow mouldy or rusty; Ancren Riwle, p. 344,
1. 4. We also find ‘mulede pinges’= mouldy things, id. p. 104,
note hk. Hence mowly, adj.; ‘All the brede [bread] . . waxed anon
mowly ;’ Caxton, Golden Legend, St. Thomas, § 10. Cf. prov. E.
mouly, mouldy; E.D.D. Of Scand. origin. Cf. ME. moul, sb.,
mouldiness, answering to MDan. mul, Swed. dial: mul, muel, mujel,
Swed. mégel, mould. Cf. also Dan. mullen, mouldy, mulne, to
become mouldy ; Swed. dial. τιμίας, Swed. méglas, to grow mouldy ;
Icel.. mygla, to grow musty, formed, by vowel-change of. to y,
from Icel. mug-, as in mugga, mugginess. See Muggy. Thus
mould is mugginess ; the notions of muggy and mouldy are still not
far apart... Der. mouldt-ness ;\ also mould, verb, for moul, Spenser,
F. Q. ii. 3. 41. See note on Mould (1) above,
MOULT, to cast feathers, as birds do..(L.) The Z is intrusive,
σοὺ 2
MOUND
just as in fault from ME. faute; see Fault. ME. mouten; ‘his
haire moutes,’ i.e. falls off, Pricke of Conscience, 1. 781. ‘Mowtyn,
as fowlys, Plumeo, deplumeo;’ Prompt. Parv, ‘ Mowter, moulter,
quando auium penne decidunt ;? Gouldman, cited by Way to illus-
trate ‘ Mowtare, or mowtard [i.e. moulter, moulting bird], byrde,
Phitor;’ Prompt. Pary. AS, bi-mitian, to exchange (Bosworth).
—L. miitare, to change ; whence F. muer, to moult; see Mew (3).
So also OHG. miizén, to moult, is merely borrowed from L. mitare ;
now spelt mausen in mod. G, Der. moulting; also mews; and see
mutable.
MOUND, an earthen defence, a hillock. (F.—L.) ‘Compast
with a mound;’ Spenser, F. Q. ii. 7. 56. ‘The sense of ‘ hillock’ or
‘heap’ is found also in F. mont, Ital. monte, and Walloon mont,
a heap, a mass (Sigart); as well as in L. mons, Mound is merely
a variant of mount (1).—AF. mund, variant of munt, a hill; Vie de
St. Anban, 848, 875; OF. mont.— LL. montem, acc. of mons, a moun-
tain, a heap. See below. Φ Verhaps confused with AS. mund,
protection ; thus Baret (1580) has: ‘A hedge, a mound, sepes.’ Cf.
τον. E. mound, a hedge.
MOUNT (1), a hill, rising ground. (L.) ME. munt, OEng.
Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 11, "1. 14. AS. munt, Grein, ii. 269. [Im-
mediately from Latin, but affected by AF. munt.]—L. montem, acc. of
mons, a mountain ; stem mon-ti-. Formed (with suffix -¢/-) from the
second grade (mon-) of 4/MEN, to project, seen in L. é-min-ére, to
jut out; cf. E. pro-mon-tor-y. See Eminent. Der. mount-ain,
νον mount (2), q.v.
MOUNT (2), to ascend. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. mounten, P. Plowman,
B. prol.:67; older form monten, King Alisaunder, 784.—F. monter,
‘to mount ;” Cot. =F, mont, a mountain, hill. [The verb is due to
the use of the OF. adverb a mont, up-hill; so also the adv. a val,
down-hill, produced F. avaler, to swallow, and avalanche.|—L. mon-
tem, acc. of mons, a hill. See Mount (1). Der. mount-er, mount-
ing; also mount-e-bank, q.v. Also a-mount, q.v.; para-mount, re-
mount, sur-mount, tanta-mount, tra-moniane.
MOUNTAIN, a hill. (F.—L.) In early use. ME. montaine,
Layamon, 1. 1282.—OF. montaigne, montaine; mod. F. montagne,
a mountain. Late L. montinea, by-form of montana, a mountain ;
Ducange.—L. montana, neut. pl., mountainous regions ; from mon-
tainus, adj., hilly. —L. mont-, stem of mons, a mountain. See
Mount (1). Der. mountain-ous, Cor. ii. 3. 127, from MF. montaign-
eux, ‘mountainous,’ Cot.; mountain-eer, Temp. ili. 3. 44, with suffix
seer =F. -ier.
MOUNTEBANK, a charlatan, quack doctor. (Ital. —L. and
G.)__ Lit. ‘one who mounts on a bench,’ to proclaim his nostrums.
See Trench, Select Glossary, ‘In Shak. Hamlet, iv. 7.142. ‘ Fellows,
to mount a bank! Did your instructor In the dear tongues, . never
discourse to you OF the Italian mountebanks?’ Ben Jonson, Volpone,
ii. 1 (Sir Politick). Ital. montambanco, a mountebank ς MItal. monta
in banco, ‘a mountibanke,’ montar’ in banco, ‘to plaie the mounti-
banke;’ Florio. B. Hence the ὁ stands for older ἐν which is short
for ix; the mod. Ital. must be divided monta-m-banéo, where -m- (for
in) has. become m before the following ὃ. - Τα}. montare, to mount,
cognate with F.- monter, to mount; in=L. in, in, on; and Ital.
banco, from OHG, banc, a bench, money-table. See Mount (2),
In, and Bank (2). : Cf. Ital. saltimbanco (for saltar’ in ‘banco),
a quack. Ἑ
MOURN, to grieve, be sad. (E.) ME. moornen, mournen, mornen;
Chaucer, Ο, T., A 3704. AS. murnan, to grieve; Grein, ii. 269.-+-Icel.
morna; Goth. maurnan; OHG. mornén, B. The Goth. -η- before
-an is a mere suffix, giving the verb an intransitive character; and
the Tent. type is *mzr-n-an-. Allied to AS. meornan, to'care ; Gk,
μέρτιμνα, sorrow. From 4/SMER3; ef. Skt. sm, to remember, to
long for. Der. mourn-ful, Spenser, F. Q. i. 1. 543 mourn-ful-ly,
mourn-ful-ness ; mourn-ing, sb., AS. murnung. :
‘MOUSE, a small rodent quadruped. (E.). ME. mous (without
final ὃ), Chaucer, C.T. 144. AS: mits, in /Elfric’s Gloss., Nomina
Ferarum ; Voc. 120.16. The pl. is mys, by vowel-change3; whence
KE. mice.+-Du. muis; Icel. mas, pl. myss; Dan. muus; Swed. mus;
G. maus; Russ. muish(e); L. mis; Gk. pts; Pers. mish; Rich. Dict.
Ῥ. 13253 Skt. mmiisha-, a rat, a mouse. 8. The sense is " the stealing
animal.’ =4/MEUS, ‘to steal; whence Skt. mush, to steal, miisha-,
a stealer, Der.: mouse, vb., Macb: ii. 4: 13, mous-er;. mouse-ear,
a plant, mouse-tail, a plant. Also muscle. (But not tit-mouse.)
MOUSTACHE, MUSTACHE, the hair on the upper lip.
(F.—TItal.— Gk.) - Formerly mustachio, Shak, L. L. L. ve 1. 110;
this is taken from the Ital. form given below. Both mustachio.and
mustache are given in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.=.F. moustache, ‘a
mustachoe;’ Cot. Ital. mostaccio, ‘a face, a snout, a mostacho;’
Florio. [Cf Span. mostacho, a whisker, moustache; answering to
the E. form mostacho in Florio.|—Gk. μύστακ-, stem of μύσταξ, the
upper lip, a moustache ; Doric and Laconic form of μάσταξ, that
388
MUCK, AMUCK
wherewith one chews, the mouth, the upper lip; cf. μαστάζειν, to
chew, eat. See Mastic.
MOUTH, the aperture between the lips, an aperture, orifice, out-
let. (E.) ME. mouth, Chaucer, C. T. 153. AS. mid, Grein, ii.
266.4-Du. mond; Icel. munnr (for *mundr); Dan. mund; Swed.
mun; G. mund; Goth. munths. B. Teut. type *munthoz, m.; Idg.
type *mantos; cf. L. mentum, the chin. Der. mouth, vb., Hamlet,
iv. 2.203; mouth-ful, Pericles, ii. 1. 35 5 mouth-piece.
MOVE, to set in motion, stir, impel. (F.—L.) ME. souen,
moeuen, meuen; P. Plowman, B. xvii. 194 (where all three spellings
occur in the MSS. The xz is written for v; the form meuen is
common). Also in Chaucer, Parl. of Foules, 1. 150.—OF. movoir,
mod. F. mouvoir.—L. mouére, to move; pp. mdtus. Allied to Skt.
miv, to push (with pp. miita-, moved, corresponding to L. médtus ;
also Gk. ἀμεύομαι, 1 surpass. Der. mov-er, Chaucer, C. T. 2989
(A 2987); mov-able, of which the ME, form was meble or moeble,
P. Plowman, B. iii. 267, borrowed from F. meuble, L.- mdbilis,
movable ; mov-abl-y, mov-able-ness; move-ment, Gower, C. A. iii. 107,
bk. vii. 674, from OF. movement (Burguy); mov-ing, mov-ing-ly.
Also mobile, from L. mobilis, movable, often contracted to mob; see
Mob. Also mot-ion, q.v., mot-ive, q.v., mot-or; cf. L. pp. mdtus.
Also mo-ment, com-mot-ion, e-mot-ion, pro-mote, re-mote, remove ;
mutiny.
MOW (1), to cut down witha scythe. (E.) ME. mowen; ‘Mowe
other mowen’ (other MSS. mouwen), i.e. mow (hay) or stack (in a
mow); P. Plowman, C. vi. 14. The old pt. t. was mew, still com-
mon in Cambridgeshire; see Layamon, 1942. AS. mawan, Grein,
ii. 213. (The vowel-change from AS. ὦ to E. ο is regular ; cf. stan,
stone.) Du. maaijen ; G. mahen, OHG. maan, to mow. B. Teut.
type *m#wan-; allied to Gk. ἀ-μάτω, I reap, L. me-t-ere, to reap.
Brugmann, ii. § 680. Der. mow-er. mow-ing ; also mea-d, mea-d-ow,
after-ma-th.
MOW (2), a heap, pile of hay or corn, (E.) ME. mowe; ‘ mowe
of scheues’=heap of sheaves, given as a various reading in Wyclif,
Ruth, iii. 7 (later text). AS. miga,a mow, Exod, xxii. 6, where
the Vulgate has aceruus frugum. Oldest form miha, Corpus Glos.,
46.4-Icel. miga, migi, a swathe in mowing, also a crowd of people,
a mob; Norw. muga, mua, a heap (of hay).. B. The change from
AS. g to ME. w is common; so also in ME. morwe (morrow) from
AS. morgen; ME. hawe, a haw, AS. haga.
MOW (3), a grimace; obsolete. (K.—MDu.) ‘With mop and
mow ;’ ‘emp. iv. 47. ‘Mopping ana mowing ;’ K. Lear, iv. 1, 64.
“I mowe, I mocke one; he useth to mocke and mowe;’ Palsgrave.
Chaucer has ME. mowes, pl.; C. T., I 258.—OF. moe, mouth, lip,
grimace ; F. moue, ‘a moe, or mouth, an ill-favoured extension or
thrusting out of the lips;’ Cot. MDu. mouwe, the protruded under-
lip ; see Oudemans, who cites the phrase ma”en die mouwe=to make
a grimace, deride, in two passages. 4 Lhe word mop, its com-
panion, is also foreign ; see Mop (2).
MUCH, great in quantity. (E.)
Formerly also used with respect of size. ‘A moche man’=a tall
man; P. Plowman, B. viii. 70; where one MS. reads mykil. ‘ Muche
and lyte’=great and small; Chaucer, C. T. 496 (A 494), where
other MSS. have moche, miche, meche. B. When we compare ME.
miche, moche, muche, with the older forms michel, mochel, muchel, we
see at once that the former result from the latter by the loss ot final
1, Muche occurs in Layamon, 10350; but not in AS, Muchel,
mochel, are variants of michel (the orig. form) due to form-association
with ME, lutel, from AS, lytel. B. The orig. form was AS. micel
(cf. Lowl. Sc. mickle), great.--Icel. mikil/, great; OHG, mihhil;
Goth. mikils. Allied to Gk. μεγάλ-η, great, μέγας, great; and to L.
magnus. See Magnitude.
MUCILAGE, a slimy substance, gum. (F.—L.) Richardson
cites the word from Bacon’s Philosophical Remains. ‘he adj. muei-
laginous is in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. =F. mucilage, " slime, clammy
sap, glewy juice;’ Cot.=<L. micilago (stem miicilagin-), mouldy
moisture ; used by Theodorus Priscianus (iv. 1), a physician of the
4th century (Lewis). Extended from *micilus, for miicidus, an adj.
formed from micus; see Mucus, Der. mucilagin-ous (from the Ϊ
stem). ,
MUCK, filth, dung, dirt. (Scand.) ME. muck; spelt muk, Gower,
Ὁ. A. ii. 2903 bk. v. 4853; mc, Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris,
2557.—Icel. myki, dung; whence myki-reka, a muck-rake, Gung-
shovel ; cf, moka, to: shovel dung out of a stable; Dan. még, dung; |
Norw. mok-dunge, a muck-heap; prob. allied to Norw. mukka,
aheap. Cf. Swed. mocka, to throw dung out of a stable, like prov.
E. ‘to muck out. J Not allied to AS. meox, dung, whence prov. ES
mixen,adung-heap. Der. muck-y, muck-i-ness ; muck-heap, muck-rake
(Runvan’s Pilg. Progress). : |
MUCK, AMUCK, a term applied to malicious rage. (Malay.)
Only in the phrase ‘to rua amuck;’ the word has been absurdly |
ME. moche, muche, miche.
!
ἶ
|
MUCKINDER
turned into a muck. Dryden goes further, and inserts an adjective
between muck and the supposed article! ‘ And runs an Indian muck
at all he meets;’ Hind and Panther, 111. 1158. To run amuck is to
run about in a mad rage.—Malay a@muk, ‘engaging furiously in
battle, attacking with desperate resolution, rushing in a state of
frenzy to the commission of indiscriminate murder, running amuck.
It is applied to any animal in a state of vicious rage;’ Marsden,
Malay Dict. p. 16.
MUCKINDER, a handkerchief. (Proy.—L.) ‘Take my muck-
inder, And dry thine eyes ;’ Ben Jonson, Tale.of a Tub, iii. i (Turfe).
ME. mokadour, Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 30. - Prov. mocadovr, mod.
Proy. moucadou (Mistral); the same as Ἐς. mouchoir. — L. type *mucca-
torium, the same as miicaitorium, a wiper; given by Ducange in the
sense of ‘ pair of snuffers.’ = Late L. muccare, to free from mucus. = L.
muccus, mucus; see Mucus.
MUCUS, slimy fluid. (L.) The adj. mucous is in older use, the
sb. being modern. Sir T. Browne says the chameleon’s tongue has
“a mucous and slimy extremity ;’ Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 21. § 7.—L.
miicus, muccus, slime from the nose; whence the adj. miucdsus,
Englished by mucous. Allied to Gk. μύξα, the discharge from the
nose, μύκης, snuff of a wick; cf. Gk. ἀπομύσσειν ( =dro-pin-yew), to
wipe the nose; L. @-mungere, to wipe the nose. Der. muc-ous; and
see mucilage, match (2).
MUD, wet, soft earth, mire. (E.) ME. mud; the dat. mudde
occurs in Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 407; see Spec. of Eng., ed.
Morris and Skeat, p. 156, 1. 407. Not found in AS. Of Old Low
G, origin, and prob. a native word. Fries. mudde.. Cf. OLow G.
mudde, mud ; whence the adj. muddig, muddy, Bremen Worterbuch ;
MSwed. modd, mud (Ihre); Pomeran. modde. Also in an extended
form; cf. Du. modder, mud. β. The cognate High German form
is found in the Bavarian mott, peat, already mentioned as the origin
of E. moat; see Moat. This establishes it as a Tent. word. Cf.
Skt. miitra-m, urine. Der. mudd-y, mudd-i-ly, mudd-i-ness, mudd-le.
MUDDLE, to confuse. (E.) ‘Muddle, to rout with the bill,
as geese and ducks do; also, to make tipsy and unfit for business ;’
Kersey, ed. 1715. A frequentative verb, formed with the usual
suffix -/e, from the sb. mud. Thus to mudd-le is to go often in mud,
to dabble in mud; hence, to render water turbid, and, generally, to
confuse. Similarly, Dan. muddre, to stir up mud in water, said of
a ship, from Dan. mudder, mud (from Du.). Cf. EFries. muddelen,
to dirty; MDu. moddelen, ‘to mudd water,’ Hexham; Pomeran.
muddeln, to disorder. See Mud.
MUEZZIN, a Mohammedan crier of the hour of prayer. (Arab.)
Spelt muezin in Sir T. Herbert, Travels, ed. 1665, p. 339.— Arab.
mw’zin, mu’azzin, ‘the public crier, who assembles people to prayers
by proclamation from a minaret ;’ Rich. Dict. p. 1523; mu’azzin,
“the crier of a mosque;’ Palmer's Pers. Dict. col. 617. Connected
with Arab. azan, the call to prayers, Palmer, col. 17; uzn, the ear,
Rich. p. 48, Palmer, col. 17; azina, he listened, Rich. p. 48. (Here
Ζ- 5. with the sound of E. τὰ in that.)
MUFF (1), a warm, soft cover for the hands. (Walloon—F.—
Late L.) Spelt muffe in Minsheu, ed. 1627. Prob. from Walloon
mouffe (Sigart), mof (Remacle), a muff. [Cf. Du. mof, Low G. muff
(Berghaus); EFries. muf; from the same.] A shortened form of
F. mowfle, a kind of muff; see further under Muffle.
MUFF (2), a silly fellow, simpleton. (E.) A prov. E. word, of
imitative origin. It simply means ‘a mumbler’ or indistinct speaker.
Cf. prov. E. muff, muffle, to mumble (Halliwell) ; mofffe, to do any-
thing ineffectually ; id. So also prov. E. maffle, to speak indistinctly,
an old word, occurring in Richard the Redeles, ed. Skeat, iv. 63:
“And somme mafflid with the mouth, and nyst [knew not] what they
mente.’ Cf. Du. muffen, to dote; prov. G. muffen, to be sulky
(Bliigel) ; EFries. mu, a muff, simpleton ; Du. mof, a (Westphalian )
boor, a clown, used asanickname. @ Cf.‘ Almains, Rutters, Muffes,
and Danes;’ Marlowe, Tamb. pt. ii. A. i. sc. 1. 22. This is the
| same word; Muffe (Du. mof) was a nickname given by one Germanic
]
Ι
|
people to another. ‘The Low Dutch call the High muffes .. up-
braiding them with their heavinesse ;’ Sir J. Reresby, Travels (1657).
And see Addit. to Nares.
MUFFIN, a kind of tea-cake. (F.?) Lane. dial. mowyin, moufin,
| a wheat-cake baked upon a bake-stone over the fire; tea-cake in
}
|
Ϊ
_ as ἃ toothless person does.
} velare ; to muffle the mouth, obturare ;’ col. 184. “1 muffyll, je em- |
general (E.D.D.). Cp. Norm. dial. mouflu, adj., said of bread
swollen up in the baking, Moisy, Corblet ; OF. mouflet, soft bread
(Roquefort); OF. mofflet, bread of a finer sort (Ducange); Prov.
pan mouflet, soft bread (Mistral); OF. pain moflet, soft bread
(Godefroy). Probably related to EFries. muffeln, to mumble food,
See Muff (2).
MUFFLE, to cover up warmly. (F.—Late L.) Levins, ed. 1570,
gives: ‘A muffle, focale [i.e. a neck-cloth]; to muffle the face,
| monffle ;’
|
|
ι
Palsgrave. The pp. mujffeld is in Malory, ed. Caxton,
MULLAH, MOLLA
bk. viil.ch. 25; 1.34. Only the verb is now used, but it is derived from
the sb. here given. —OF. mofle, moufle (13th cent., Littré) ; the same
as monffle, which Cot, explains by ‘a winter mittaine.’ [Cf. MDu.
moffel, ‘a muff, or muffe lined with furre;’ Hexham; Norweg.
muffel, a half-glove, mitten; Aasen; from OF.|—Late L. muffula
(occurring A.D. 817), a winter glove (Ducange) ; also spelt mudfola.
Of unknown origin, B. From the sb. muffle came the verb to muffle,
in common use owing to analogy with the numerous frequentative
verbs ending in-/e. See Muff (1). To muffe a bell is to wrap
a cloth round the clapper ; a muffled peal is a peal rung with such
bells, rung on the 31st of December. At midnight, the muffles are
taken off, and the New Year is rung in. Hence the phrase ‘a muffled
sound:’ the sense of which approaches that of prov. E. muffle, to
mumble, from a different source, as explained under Muff (2).
Der. muffl-er, Merry Wives, iv. 2. 73.
MUF'TI, an expounder of the law, magistrate. (Arab.) In Sir
T. Herbert’s Travels, ed. 1665, pp. 175, 285; spelt mziti, Howell,
Directions for Travel, ed. Arber, p. 85 ; mz/ti in Sandys, Trav. 1632,
p- 36 (end). = Arab. mujfti, ‘a magistrate’ (Palmer, col. 590) ; ‘ wise,
one whose sentence has the authority of the law, an expounder of
the Muhammedan law, the mufti or head law-officer amongst the
Turks;’ Rich. Dict. p. 1462. Connected with fatwa, ‘a judicious
or religious decree pronounced by a mufti, a judgment, sentence ;’
id. p. 1070. 4 The phrase ‘in mufti’ means in civilian costume,
as opposed to military dress. See Yule.
MUG, a cylindrical cup for liquor. (Low G.) . ‘A mugge, potte,
Ollula;’ Levins, 184. 24. ‘Clay mugis, pl.; G. Douglas, tr. of
Virgil, prol. to bk. viii. st. 8. Perhaps from EFries. mukke, a
cylindrical earthen vessel; Groningen mokke (Molema, p.. 543);
whence also Norm. dial. mogue, Guernsey mogue (Moisy); Norw.
mugge, mugga, an open can or pitcher; see Aasen, Larsen. The
Trish mugan, a mug, is prob. from E. Cf. proy. E. muggen, made of
earthenware.
MUGGY, damp and close, said of weather. (Scand.) Both
muggy and muggish are in Ash’s Dict., ed. 1775.—Icel. mugga, soft
drizzling mist; whence mugguvedr, muggy, misty weather. Cf,
Norw. mugg, fine rain; muggen, moist, muggy. Perhaps allied
to Dan. muggen, musty, mouldy; mugne, to grow musty; Swed. dial.
muggen, mouldy, from mugg, mould. Cf. also Swed. mégel, mould,
Icel. mygla, to grow musty. Der. muggi-ness; cf. mouldy.
MUGWORT, the name of a wild flower. (E.) Spelt mogworte
in Palsgrave. AS. mucgwyrt, the Artemisia; see numerous examples
of the word in Cockayne’s A. S. Leechdoms, ili. 339. It prob. means
‘midge-wort ;’ see Midge. Perhaps regarded as being good against
midges; cf. flea-bane. For the form, cf. OSax. muggia, Du. mug,
Low G. mugge, a midge, muggert, mugwort. Note also Dan. myg-
blomst, ‘ midge-bloom,’ bog orchis.
MULATTO, a child of a white person and a negro. (Span.—L.)
Used by E. Young, The Centaur (1754), letter 2; ‘Todd’s Johnson.
=Span. mulato, ‘a mulatto, a son of a black and of a white;’
Pineda (1740); ‘the sonne of a black Moore and one of another
nation;” Minsheu (1623). From Span. mzl-o, a mule, with dimin.
suffix -atf-; see Diez.—L. milum, acc. of milus; see Mule. )
MULBERRY, the fruit of a certain tree. (Hybrid; L. and E.)
ME. moolbery. Trevisa translates sycomoros by moolberyes, i. ΤΊ,
1.4. Here the / stands for r; cf. ME. murberie, Voc. 557. 31. The
AS. name for the tree was mdr-béam; see Cockayne’s A. S. Leech-
doms, iii. 339. ‘ Morus, vel rubus, mor-béam;’ Aélfric’s Gloss.,
Nomina Arborum, in Wright’s Vocab. i. 32, col. 2. [The AS. béam,
a tree, is mod. E. beam.| B. Berry is an E. word; mul=ME.
mool= AS. mér-. The AS. mor- is from L. morus, a mulberry-tree.
Cf. Gk. p@pov, μόρον, a mulberry, popéa, a mulberry-tree ; perhaps
μῶρον is the origin of L. mérum, a mulberry. The G. maulbeere
(OHG,. mirberi) is similarly compounded, from L. mérus and G.
beere. See Sycamore. Der. murrey.
MULCT, a fine, penalty. (L:) Given as a sb. in Minsheu, ed.
1627.—L. muilcta, a fine, penalty; whence also OF. multe (Cot-
grave). The older and better L. form is malta. Said to be of Sabine
or Oscan origin. Der. mulct, vb.
MULE, the offspring of the horse and ass. (F.—L.) ME. mule,
Rob. of Glouc. p. 189, 1. 3913. —F. mule.— L. milum, acc. of miilus,
amule. β. The long ἃ points to a loss; the word is cognate with
Gk. μύκλος, an ass, μυχλός, a stallion ass. (See Prellwitz.) @] The
L. miilus is also the origin of AS. mil, which is obsolete; it would
have given the mod. E, form as moul or wowl. Der. mul-ish; mul-
et-eer, spelt muleter in old edd. of Shakespeare, 1 Hen. VI, iii. 2. 68,
from Ἐς. muletier, ‘a muletor’ (Cot.), which from F. mulet, ‘a moyle,
mulet, or great mule’ (id.), formed with suffix -e¢ from Εἰ, mule<l,
miilum, acc. οἵ miilus.
MULLAH, MOLLA, a Mohammedan title of respect given to
some religions dignitaries. (Arab.) Arab. maula, a judge, the magis-
389
390 MULLED
trate of a large city, a lord,a master; Rich. Dict. p. 1528; commonly
pronounced molla in Turkey (Devic).
MULLED, a term applied to sweetened ale or wine, (F—L.?)
Apparently from ME. mu/len, to break to powder, crumble (Prompt.
Parv. p. 348), from the sb. mudl, powder, the sense of which was
perhaps transferred (as Way suggests) to the ‘ powdered condiments’
which the ale contained, esp. grated spices, and the like. Cf. ME.
mul, AS. myl, dust, powder. But Blount’s Gloss. has: ‘ Mulled
sack (vinum mollitum), because softened and made mild by burning
and a mixture of sugar.’ =F. mollir, to soften. = L. mollire, to soften.
=L. mollis, soft; see Mollify. Cf. mull’d, weak; Cor. iv. 5. 229.
MULLEIN, a kind of wild flower. (F.) The great mullein is
Verbascum thapsus. Spelt mullein in Minsheu, ed. 1627. ME. moleyn,
Prompt. Pary.—AF. moleine, Voc. 556. 31; Ἐς moléne. The ME.
name was softe, i.e. the soft. ‘This suggests a der. from OF. mol,
soft; from L. mollis, soft.
MULLET (1), a kind of fish. (F.—L.) ME. molet; ‘Molet,
fysche, Mullus;’ Prompt. Pary. Older form mulet, occurring as a
gloss to L. miilus in a list of fishes of the 12th cent.; see Wright’s
Vocab. i. 98, 1. 1.“ OF, mulet, ‘the mullet-fish;’ Cot. Formed,
with dimin. suffix -et, from L. mullus, Late L. miilus, the red mullet.
Cf. Gk. μύλλος, a sea-fish.
MULLET (2), a five-pointed star. (F.—L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. A term in heraldry. ME. molet, a mullet (in heraldry) ;
Book of St. Alban’s, pt. ii. fol. £7, back; pl. molettys, id. fol. b 3,
back. OF. and Ἐς molette, a rowel; ‘ molette d’esperon, the rowell of
a spur,’ Cot.; mollette, ‘a mullet, the ramhead of a windlesse, the
rowell of a spur;’ id. Hatzfeld explains F. molette as the dimin.
of F. meule, a mill-stone.—L. mola, a mill. See Molar, Mill.
4 The transference of sense was from ‘wheel of a water-mill’ to
any wheel, including the spur-rowel, which the mullet resembled.
MULLIGATAWNY, ahot soup. (Tamil.) It occurs in 1784;
see Yule. From Tamil milagu-tannir, lit. pepper-water (Yule). Cf.
Malayalam mu/aka, pepper; Tamil fannir, water (H. 11. Wilson).
MULLION, an upright division between the lights of windows.
(F.) A variant of munnion, with the same sense, which is still in
use in Dorsetshire; Halliwell. It occurs in some edd. of Florio;
see below.=F. moignon, ‘a stump, or the blunt end of a thing;
moignon des ailes, the stumps, or pinions of the wings; motgnon du
bras, the brawn, or brawny part of the arm;’ Cot. β. Hence
munnion, just as OF. troignon gives E. trunnion. Cf. MItal. mugnone,
‘a carpenter’s munion or trunion;’ Torriano. As Wedgwood well
observes, ‘the munnion or mullion of a window is the stump of the
division before it breaks off into the tracery of the window.’ It
clearly took its name from the likeness to the stump of a lopped
tree, which is one of the senses of F. moignon; see Littré. The
word also occurs as Span. muton, the brawn or muscle of the arm,
the stump of an arm or leg cut off; Port. munhdes, pl. of munhao, the
trunnions ofa gun. Further allied to Span. musteca, the wrist, Port.
munheca. Ὑ. From OF. moing, maimed (Diez, 4th ed. p. 725). Of
uncertain origin; see Korting, § 6369. 4 The E. form may be
Walloon. Sigart has: ‘Mouyon, mouillon (d’cabiau), tranche de
cabillaut ; peut-étre de moignon.’
MULTAN GULAR, having many angles. (L.) In Kersey, ed.
1715.—L. mult-, stem of multus, many; and anguldris, angular.
See Multitude and Angular. @ Similarly, mudti-lateral, from
multi=multo-, from multus, and Ἐς lateral, q.v. So also multi-
Jorm.
MULTIFARIOUS, manifold, diversified. (L.) In Blount's
Gloss., ed. 1674; he says it occurs in Bacon. Englished (by change
of -us to -ous, as in ardu-ous, &c.) from L. multifarius, manifold,
various. ‘The orig. sense appears to be ‘ many-speaking,’ i. e. speak-
ing on many subjects. —L. multi=multo-, from multus, much; and
-farius, prob. connected with fari, to speak. Cf. the rare word
fariari, to speak. See Multitude and Fate.
MULTIPLE, repeated many times. (L.) In Kersey, ed. 1715.
A coined word, analogous to ¢ri-ple, quadru-ple, &c., the suffix being
due to the L. suffix -plex; see Multiply.
MULTIPLY, to increase many times, make more numerous.
(F.—L.) ME, multiplien, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 16303 (G 835). He also
has multiplying, sb., C. Τὶ 12308 (Ὁ 374); and multiplication, C. ἽΝ
16317 (ἃ 849). —F. multiplier, ‘to multiply ;’ Cot. —L. multipiicare,
to render manifold. —L. multiplic-, stem of multiplex, manifold. —L.
multi- = multo-, for multus, much ; and the suffix -plex, with the sense of
‘fold.’ See Multitude and Complex, Plait. Der. multiplic-and,
from the fut. pass. part. multiplicandus ; multiplic-at-ion, from Ἐς mul-
tiplication<L. ace, multiplicationem ;
multiplic-i-ty, Drayton, The Mooncalf, 1. 491 (R.).
MULTITUDE, a great number, a crowd. (F.—L.) ME.
multitude, Gower, C. A. i. 220; bk. ii. 1810.“ Ἐπ multitude, ‘a mul-
titude;’ Cot.—L. multitiidinem, acc. of multitido, a multitude.
multiplic-at-ive ; multipli-er ; |
MUMPS
Formed (with suffix -tado) from multi- = mulio-, from mxltxs, many,
much, Root unknown. Der. multitudin-ous, Mach. ii. 2. 62, from
the stem mudtitidin-.
MULTURE, a toll or fee taken for grinding corn at a mill.
(F.—L.) MF. moulture, ‘a multure ; a grist, or grinding ; the corne
ground; also, the toll or fee that’s due for grinding;’ Cot. (IF.
mouture.)—L. molitiira, a grinding; from molere (pp. molitus), to
grind. See Molar.
MUM (1), an interjection, impressing silence. (E.) In Shak.
Temp. iil. 2. 59. ME. mom, mum, expressive of the least possible
sound with the lips; P. Plowman, B. prol. 215; Lydgate, London
Lyckpeny, st. 4, in Spec. of Eng. ed. Skeat, p. 24. So also L. mn,
Gk. pi, the least sound made with the lips. Evidently of imitative
origin. Der, mum-ble; and see mummer. Compare mew, murmur,
muiter, myth.
MUM (2), a kind of beer. (Low G.) ‘Cold roast beef and mum ;’
Guardian, no. 34 (1713). ‘Mugs of mum;’ Pope, Dunciad, ii. 385.
Named after Christian Mumme, a brewer of Brunswick (ab. 1492).
Cf. Du. mom, G. mumme (in Weigand).
MUMBLE, to speak indistinctly, to chew inefficiently. (E.)
The ὁ is excrescent, and due to emphasis; the final -/e is the usual
frequentative ending.. ME. momelen, mamelen, to speak indistinctly
or weakly; P. Plowman, A. v. 21, B. vy. 21. Formed with the
frequent. suffix -el- from ME. mom, a slight sound. See Mum (1).
Cf. Du. mommelen, 1Fries. and G. mummeln, to mutter, mumble;
similarly formed ; Low G. mummeln, to mumble food (Schambach.)
Der. mumbl-er, mumbl-ing.
MUMMER, a masker, buffoon. (F.—Du.)
mummynge ;’ Tyndall, Works, p. 13, col. 2, 1.1. ‘As though he
came in in a mummary;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 975 b. ‘Made
prouysyon for a dysguysynge or a mummynge ;”’ Fabyan’s Chron, an,
1399-1400. ‘Mommery, mommerie;’ Palsgrave. ME. mommerye,
mommynge, a rude dramatic entertainment; Trevisa, tr. of Higden,
viii. §39, 540. This early use of the F. form mummery shows that
we took the word through the French, though it was orig. a Dutch
or Platt-deutsch word. Cotgrave gives, however, no verb; but this
was easily developed.—MF. mommeur, ‘a mummer, one that goes
a mumming;’ also mommerie, ‘a mummery, a mumming;’ Cot.=
MDnu. mommen, ‘to goe a moming, or in a maske;’ also mom,
mommer, OF mommekans, ‘a mommer, or a masker ;’ also mommerye,
‘momming, or masking’ (with Εἰ, suffix); Hexham. He also gives
mom-aensicht, ‘a vizard, or a mommers vizard.’ Cf. Low ἃ. mum-
meln, bemummeln, to mask, mumme, a mask; Bremen Worterbuch.
(Hence G. vermummen, to mask.) Ββ. The origin is imitative, from
the sound mum or mom, used by nurses to frighten children, like the
E. bo! See Wedgwood, who refers to the habit of nurses who wish
to frighten or amuse children, and for this purpose cover their faces
and say mum! or bo/ whence the notion of masking to give amuse-
ment. Cf. G. mummel, a bugbear. ‘Thus the origin is much the
same as in the case of mum, mumble; see Mum (1). Der. mum-
mer-y.
MUMMY, an embalmed human body. (F.—Ital.—Pers.) For-
merly used of stuff derived from mummies. ‘Mumy, Mummy, a
thing like pitch sold by the apothecaries; .. one [kind] is digged
out of the graves, in Arabia and Syria, of those bodies that were
embalmed, and is called Arabian Mummy ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
‘Mummy hath great force in stanching of bloud;’ Bacon, Nat. Hist.
§ 980.—MF. mumie, ‘mummy; man’s flesh imbalmed; or rather
the stuffe wherewith it hath been long imbalmed;’ Cot. —Ital.
mummia, mumia (cf. Span. momia).— Pers. mimiya, a mummy. =
Pers. mum, mdm, wax (much used in embalming); Rich. Dict.
. 1520.
"MUMP, to mumble, sulk, whine, beg. (Du.) A mumper was an
old cant term for a beggar; and to mump was to beg, also to be
sulky; see Nares, ed. Halliwell and Wright. The original notion
was to mumble, hence to mutter, be sulky, to beg; used derisively
with various senses. ‘How he mumps and bridles!’ where the sense
appears to be ‘ grimaces;’ Beaum. and Fletcher, Maid in the Mill,
iil, 2 (Pedro). — Du. mompen,to mump, to cheat (Sewel). Cf. MDu.
mompelen, to mumble (Sewel); mommelen, mompelen, to mumble
(Hexham). ββ. The form mompelen is nothing but an emphasised
form of mommelen, and mompen of mommen, to say mum, to mask.
That is, mump is merely a strengthened form of the imitative word
mum; see Mum (1),Mumble,Mummer. Cp. Norw. mumpa, to
munch; WFlem. mompe, a mouthful, also, one who pouts (De Bo).
The curious Goth. verb bi-mamp-jan, to deride, mock at, Luke, xvi.
14, has a similar origin. Der. mump-er, mump-ish (sullen) ; mumps,
‘That goeth a
q. ve x
MUMPS, a swelling of the glands of the neck. (Du.) This
troublesome disease renders speaking and eating difficult, and gives
the patient the appearance of being sullen or sulky. ‘To have the
{
{
{
Ϊ
|
{
ΜΌΝΟΗ
mumps’ or ‘to be in the mumps’ was, originally, to be sullen; the
sense was easily transferred to the disease which gave such an
appearance. It is derived from the verb Mump, q.v. We find
mumps used as a term of derision. ‘Not such another as I was,
mumps!’ Beaum. and Fletcher, Scornful Lady, v. 1 (Elder Loveless).
‘Sick οὐ the mumps, i.e. sulky; B. and F., Bonduca, i. 2 (Petillius),
near the end.
MUNCH, to chew, masticate. (E.) In Mach. i. 3. 5 (where ed.
1623 has mouncht). Udall has maunch, Apoph. of Erasmus, § 23.
ME. monchen, Chaucer, Troil. i. 914. Monch- answers to an older
form monk-, apparently an imitative word parallel to the base mom-
in ME. momelexn, to mumble; see Mumble. Kilian has MDu.
moncken, mompelen, ‘mussitare. Cf. EFries. and Low G. munkeln,
to mumble; and see Mump. @ We cannot deduce it from F.
manger, for phonetic reasons; yet it is quite possible that this
common F, word may have helped to suggest the special sense.
The F. manger is from L. mandicdre, to chew, extended from
mandiicus, a glutton, which is from mandere, to chew; see Man-
dible. Der. munch-er.
MUNDANE, worldly. (F.—L.) Taken from F., but now spelt
as if from Latin. ‘For folowinge of his pleasaunce mondayne ;’
Skelton, Book of Three Fooles, ed. Dyce, i, 205.—F. mondain,
‘mundane;’ Cot.—L. munddnus, worldly.—L. mundus, the world
(lit. order, like Gk. xécpos).—L. mundus, clean, adorned.
MUNGOOSE, MONGOOSE, an Indian ichneumon., (Telugu.)
Spelt mongoose in 1673; mangus in 1685; see Yule, who says: ‘The
word is Telugu, mangisu. Jerdon gives mangiis however as a Deccani
and Mahratti word.’ Forbes, in his Hind. Dict., has: ‘mangiis,
a weasel, a mongoose.”
MUNICIPAL, pertaining toa township or corporation. (F.—L.)
In Cotgrave.=F. municipal, ‘municipall;’ Cot.—L. miinicipilis,
belonging to a miinicipium, i.e. a township which received the rights
of Roman citizenship, whilst retaining its own laws. —L. miinicipi-,
from miiniceps, a free citizen, lit. one who takes office or undertakes
duties. = L. miini-, for minus, obligation, duty, and capere, to take ;
see Capture; andsee below, Der. municipal-i-ty.
MUNIFICENCE, bounty, liberality. (F.—L.) Both muni- |
ficence and munificent are in Minsheu, ed. 1627. The sb. is the more
orig. word.=—F. munificence, ‘munificence;” Cot.—L. minificentia,
bounty, bountifulness. Formed as if from an adj. *miinificent-,
with secondary suffix -ent; the only related word found is the adj.
minificus, bountiful, liberal, formed upon miini-, for miinus, a duty,
a present, and facere, to make; so that miini-ficus = present-making.
[The verb miinifictre is a mere derivative of minificus.] B. For the
verb facere, see Fact. The L. mdnus signifies orig. ‘ obligation ;’
from an Idg. base *o/-, whence also E. munition, muniment, com-
mon, com-mune, com-muni-c-ate, im-muni-ly, re-muner-ate. See Bréal;
and Brugmann, i. § 208. From + MEI, to exchange; see Com-
mon. Der. munificent, coined to suit the sb. ; muni-ficent-ly.
MUNIMENT, a defence, a record of a claim, title-deed.
(F.—L.) In Shak. muniments means expedients or instruments ; Cor.
i, 1. 122.—F. muniment, ‘a fortifying; also used in the sense of
munition;’ Cot.—L. miinimentum, a defence, safeguard. Formed
with suffix -mentum from mini-re, to fortify, for an older form
moenire, lit, to furnish with a wall. L. moenia, neut. pl., ramparts,
walls, defences. Allied to munition. Brugmann, i. § 208.
MUNITION, materials used in war; also, a fortress. (F.—L.)
In Isaiah, xxix. 7, xxxiii. 16; and in Shak. K. John, v. 2. 98.=<F.
munition, ‘munition, store, provision, provant or victuals for an
army ;’ Cot.=L. miinitionem, acc. of minitio, a blockading, defending,
securing ; cf. miinitus, pp. of miinire, to fortify. See Muniment.
Der. am-munition.
MUNNION, the older and correct form of Mullion, q. v.
MURAL, belonging to a wall. (F.—L.) ‘He [Manlius Capi-
tolinus] ... was honoured with a murall crown of gold;’ Holland,
tr. of Pliny, b. vii. c. 28.—F. mural, ‘murall, of or belonging to a
wall;’ Cot.<$L. miralis, mural. L. mirus, a wall; OL. moerus,
| moirus. B, Probably akin to moenia, walls. See Muniment.
| Der. im-mure.
| MURDER, MURTHER, wilful killing of another man, (E.)
| ME. mordre, morder; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 15057 (B 4241). Also morthre,
| Rob. of Glouc. p. 560, 1. 11736. AF. murdre, Laws of Will. I,
| 822. AS. morSor, mordur; Grein, ii. 263.4-Goth maurthr. B. The
_ Word appears without the suffix -or in AS. and OSax. mord, OF riesic
| morth, mord, Du. moord, G. mord, Icel. mord, death, murder, cognate
| with L. mors (base mort-), death; see Mortal. The change from
th (asin AS. mordor) to d was due to Norman influence; note the
| AF. forms murdre, murdrir. Der. murder, vb., AF. murdrir, ME.
| mortheren, P. Plowman, B. xvii. 278; murder-er; murder-ess, spelt
moerdrice in Gower, C. A. i. 351; bk. iii. 21623 murder-ous or murther-
| ous, Mach. ii. 3. 147 3 murder-ous-ly.
| roaras water; Skt. marmara-, the rustling sound of the wind.
| dead carcases.
MUSCLE
MURIATIC, briny, pertaining to brine. (L.) In Johnson. =
L. murtaticus, pickled or lying in brine. —L. muria, salt liquor, brine,
pickle.
MURICATED, prickly. (L.) ‘ Muricated, in botany, prickly,
full of sharp points;’ Ash’s Dict., ed. 1775.—L. maricatus, adj. of
the form of a pp. formed from miiric-, stem of miwrex,a fish having
sharp prickles, also, a sharp pointed stone, a spike.
MURKY, MIRKY, dark, obscure, gloomy. (Scand.) The -y
is a modern addition. ‘Hell is murky;’ Macb. v. 1. 41. ME.
mirke, merke. ‘The merke dale;’? P. Plowman, 10.1.1. ‘The mirke
nith’ [night]; Havelok, 404. —Icel. myrkr (for *mirkwoz, Noreen) ;
Dan. and Swed. mérk, dark, murky. + AS. mirce; OSax. mirki.
4 The AS. mirce would have become mirch; the final & shows that
the origin is Scand. Cf. Skt. marka-, an eclipse (Macdonell) ; see
Uhlenbeck, Skt. Dict. Der. murki-ly, murki-ness,
MURMUR, a low muttering sound; to mutter, complain in a
391
| low voice. (F.—L.) ME. murmur, sb., Chaucer, C. T. Pers. Tale,
De Invidia (I 503); murmuren, vb., id. 10518 (F 204). - Ἐς murmure,
‘a murmure;’ also murmurer, ‘to murmure;’ Cot.—L. murmur,
a murmur; whence the verb murmurare.4-Gk. μορμύρειν, to rush and
B. Evi-
dently a reduplicated form from the imitative 4/MUR, expressive of
a rustling noise; asin Icel. murra,G.murren, to murmur. Brugmann,
i. § 499. Der. murmur-ous, Pope, tr. of Odyssey, b. xx. 1. 19.
MURRAIN, an infectious disease among cattle. (F.—L.) ME.
moreyne, moreine, P. Plowman, C. iv. 97.— OF. *moreine, not found;
closely allied to OF. morine, a carcase of a beast, a malady or
murrain among cattle. See Roquefort, who cites an OF. translation
of Levit. xi. 8; ‘tu eschiveras mortes morines’=thou shalt eschew
(Cf. Norm. dial. morine, Span. morriza, Port.
morrinha, murrain.]—OF, morir (mod. F. mourir), to die (Burguy).
= Folk-L. morire, for L. mori, to die; see Mortal.
MURREY, dark red; obsolete. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘The leaves of
some trees turn a little murry or reddish;’ Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 512.
Spelt murrey, Palsgrave; murreye, Hoccleve, De Regim. Principum,
695.— OF. morée, ‘a kind of murrey, or dark red colour;’ Cot.
This OF. morée answers to a Late L. mdrdta, fem. of mdratus. We
actually find Late L. méraéuwm in the sense of a kind of drink, made
of thin wine coloured with mulberries ; see Ducange. Cf, Ital.
morato, mulberry-coloured, from Ital. mora, a mulberry; Span.
morado, mulberry-coloured, from Span. mora. _ Hence the derivation
is from L. mdrum, a mulberry ; and the sense is properly ‘ mulberry-
coloured.’ See Mulberry.
MURRION, another spelling of Morion, q. v.
MUSCADEL, MUSCATEL, MUSCADINE, a rich fra-
grant wine, a fragrant pear. (F.—Ital.—L.—Gk.—Pers.) Shak.
has muscadel, a wine, Tam. Shrew, iii. 2.174. ‘ Muscadel/, mulsum
apianum ;’ Levins. Spelt muscadine, Beaum. and Fletcher, Loyal
Subject, iii. 4, last line. And see Nares.—MF. muscadel, ‘the wine
muscadell or muscadine;’ Cot. —MItal. moscadello, moscatello, ‘the
wine muscadine ;” cf. moscardino, ‘a kinde of muske comfets, the name
of a kind of grapes and peares;’ moscatini, ‘ certaine grapes, peares,
and apricocks, so called ;’ Florio. Dimin. forms from MItal. moscato,
‘sweetened or perfumed with muske ; also the wine muskadine ;’ id.
= Mital. musco, ‘muske; also, a muske or civet cat;’ id. “τος museum,
acc. of muscus, musk; see Musk.
MUSCLE (1), the fleshy parts of the body by which an animal
moves. (F.—L.) Sir T. Elyot has the pl. muscules; Castel of
Helth, b.ii.c.33. But thisisa Latinised form. Spenser has muscles,
Astrophel, 120.—F. muscle.—L. musculum, acc. of musculus, (1) a
little mouse, (2) a muscle, from its creeping appearance. (Cf. F.
souris, (1) mouse, (2) muscle.) Dimin. of mis, a mouse, cognate
with E. mouse; see Mouse. Der. muscul-ar, in Kersey, ed. 1715,
substituted for the older term musculous (Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674),
from L. musculdsus, muscular.
MUSCLE (2), MUSSEL, a shell-fish. (L.) Really the
same word as the above, but borrowed at a much earlier period, and
directly from Latin. ME. muscle, Chaucer, C. T. 7682 (D. 2100) ;
P. Plowman, C. x. 94; which follows the F. spelling. AS. muzxle ;
‘“Muscula, muxle;’ Voc. 319. 22; and again, ‘Geniscula, muzxle;’
Voc. 261. 34. [Here the x stands for cs, by metathesis for sc, just
as in AS, dxian for dscian; see Ask.)—L. musculus, a small fish,
sea-muscle ; the same word as musculus, a little mouse; see Muscle
(1). 4 The double spelling of this word can be accounted for;
the L. musculus became AS. muscle (Mone, Quellen, p. 340), early
turned into mux/e, whence E. mussel, the final -e/ being regarded as
the AS. dimin. suffix. The spelling muscle is French. θυ" The
remarkable change of sense in L. musculus from ‘little mouse’ to
‘muscle’ has its counterpart in Dan. mus-ling, a muscle (the fish),
lit. ‘monse-ling.’ Cf. Swed. mus, a mouse ; muss/a, a muscle (fish) ;
Gk. μῦς, (1) mouse, (2) muscle, in both E. senses. We even find,
392 MUSCOID
as Mr. Wedgwood points out, F. souris, ‘a mouse, also, the sinewy
brawn of the arm ;’ Cot.
MUSCOID, moss like. (Hybrid; L., with Gk. suffix.) Botanical.
Coined from L. musco-, for muscus, moss; and the Gk. suffix -ειδης,
like, from εἶδος, form. See Moss.
MUSE (1), to meditate, be pensive. (F.—L.) ME. musen,
Chaucer, C. T. 5453 (B 1033); P. Plowman, B. x. 181. [We also
find ME. mosard, musard, a dreamer, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Lang-
toft, pp. 229, 266; from F, musard, sb. a muser, dreamer,’ also as
adj. ‘musing, dreaming,’ &c.; Cot.]—F. muser, ‘to muse, dreame,
study, pause, linger about a matter;’ Cot.—OF. muse, the mouth,
snout of an animal, Godefroy ; whence the dimin, musel, later museau,
whence FE. muzzle; see Muzzle. B. Strange as it may seem, this
etymology, given by Diez, is probably the right one; it is well
borne out by Florio’s Ital. Dict., where we find : ‘ Musare, to muse,
to thinke, to surmise, also to muzle, to muffle, to mocke, to iest, to
gape idlie about, to hould ones musle or snout in the aire. This is
plainly from Ital. muso, ‘a musle, a snout, a face.’ The image is
that of a dog snuffing idly about, and musing which direction to take;
and arose as a hunting term. Thus in the Book of St. Alban’s, fol.
e 6, we find: ‘And any hound fynd or musyng of hir mace,’ i.e.
1f any hound find her [a hare], or makes ascenting of her. See the
OF. musart, muse, musel, muser. @] Disputed; see Diez, Korting,
Scheler. Der. mus-er, a-muse.
MUSE (2), one of the nine fabled goddesses who presided over
the arts. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. Hen. V, prol. 1.—F. muse. =L.
misa, amuse. = Gk, μοῦσα, ἃ muse. Der. mus-eum, q.v., mus-ic, q. V-,
mos-aic, αν.
MUSEUM, a repository for works of art, &c. (L.—Gk.)
Museum, a study, or library ; . ... The Museum or Ashmole’s Museum,
a neat building in the city of Oxford .. . founded by Elias Ashmole,
Esq.;’ Phillips, World of Words, ed. 1706. This building was
finished in 1683. ‘That famous. Museum;’ Sandys, Trav. 1632;
p- 11r.—L. miséum.—Gk. μουσεῖον, the temple of the muses, a study,
school. —Gk. μοῦσα, a muse; see Muse (2).
MUSHROOM, a kind of fungus. (F.—OHG.) In Shak. Temp.
ν. 39- The final m is put for x ME. muscheron, explained as
‘toodys hatte, boletus, fungus;’ Prompt. Parv.—MF. mouscheron,
mousseron, ‘a mushrome;’ Cot. Extended from OF. mousse, moss
(Hatzfeld) ; where mushrooms grow.=OHG. mos (G. moos), moss;
cognate with E. moss; see Moss.
MUSIC, the science of harmony. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. musik,
musyk, P. Plowman, B. x. 172.—F. musique, ‘musick;’ Cot.=—L.
miisica. = Gk. μουσική, any art over which the muses presided, esp.
music; fem. of μουσικός, belonging to the muses.—Gk. μοῦσα, a
muse; see Muse (2). Der. mucic-al, L. L. L. iv. 3. 3425 music-al-
ly; music-i-an, Merch. Ven. v. 106, from F. musicten.
MUSIT, a small gap in a hedge; obsolete. (F.—C.) In Shak.
Venus, 683; and see Two Noble Kinsmen, iii. 1. 97, and my note
thereon; also Nares.—MF. mussette, ‘a little hole, corner, or hoord
to hide things in;’ Cot. Hence applied to the hole in a hedge
through which a hare passes. Dimin. of OF. miusse, ‘a secret
corner ;’ Cot.—F. musser, ‘to hide, conceale;’ id. Of Celtic origin;
ef, Olrish miich-aim, Τ hide (Thurneysen, p. 108).
MUSK, a strong perfume obtained from the musk-deer. (F.—L.
—Gk.—Pers.) In Shak. Merry Wives, ii. 2. 68. Spelt muske in
Palsgrave.=— MF. musgue (Palsgrave); F. muse, ‘musk;”’ Cot.—L.
muscum, acc. of muscus, musk.— Late Gk. μόσχος. = Pers. musk, misk,
musk; Rich. Dict. p..1417. Cf. Skt. mushka-s, a testicle ; because
the musk was obtained from a bag behind the musk-deer's navel.
Another sense of mushka-s was (probably) ‘little mouse;’ from musk,
to steal. See Mouse. Der. musc-adel, q.v., nut-meg, q.V.; musk-
apple, musk-rose (from the scent); musk-y.
MUSKET, a2 small hawk; a hand-gun. (F.—Ital.—L.) a. The
old guns had often rather fanciful names. One was called the
falconet, a dimin, of falcon; another a saker, which was also the
name of a hawk; another a basilisk; another a culverin, i.e. snake-
like; see Culverin. So also the musket was called after a small
hawk of the same name. β. Shak. has musket, a hand-gun; All’s
Well, iii. 2. 111. ME. musket, spelt muskytte in Prompt. Parv., and
explained asa ‘byrde.’ ‘ Musket, a lytell hauke, mouchet ;’ Palsgrave.
See Way’s note, who remarks that ‘the most ancient names of fire-
arms were derived from monsters, dragons, or serpents, or from
birds of prey, in allusion to velocity of movement.’ = MF, mousquet,
“a musket (hawke, or piece) ;’ Cot. [Here piece=gun.] [Cotgrave
also gives MF. mouchet, mouschet, ‘a musket, the tassel of a spar-
hauke; also the little singing-bird that resembles the friguet, [which
is] a kind of sparrow that keeps altogether about walnut-trees.’ |=
Ttal. mosguetto, ‘a musket; also, a musket-hawke;’ Florio, γ. Just
as MF. mouchet, mouschet, is related to MF. mouche, mousche, a fly,
so Ital. mo:guetfo is related to Ital. mosca, a fly. [The connexion is
72
72
MUSTANG
not very obvious, but see the remarks in Scheler, who shows that
small birds were sometimes called flies; a clear example is in G.
gras-miicke, a hedge-sparrow, lit. a ‘grass-midge.’ The particular
hawk here spoken of was so named from his small size.]—L. museca,
a fly. Observe also, in Florio, the forms moscardo, ‘a kind of birde,
also a musket hauke;’ moscherino, ‘a kind of flie, the name of
a birde;’ moschetti, ‘a kinde of sparowes in India, so little, as with
feathers and all one is no bigger then (than ] a little walnut ;’ all of
which words are derived from mosca. We may also compare the
Span. and E. mosquito; see Mosquito. Der. musket-eer, spelt
musqueteer in Hudibras, pt. i.c. 2, 1, 567, from MF. mousquetaire,
“a musketeer, a souldier that serves with a musket ;’ Cot. ; musket-
oon, ‘a short gun, with a very large bore,’ Kersey, ed. 1715, from
Ital. moschettone, a blunderbuss (Baretti); cf. moschettone, a great
horse-fly (Florio) ; musket-r-y.
MUSLIN, a fine thin kind of cotton cloth. (F.—Ttal.—Syriac.)
Spelt musselin and muslin in Phillips, ed. 1706. —F. mousseline, mus-
lin. Ital. mussolino, muslin; a dimin. form of mussolo, also used in
the same sense.—Syriac Mosul (Webster), the name of a city in
Kurdistan, in the E. of Turkey in Asia, where it was first manu-
factured, according to Marco Polo. The Arab. name of the city is
Mawsil; Rich. Dict. p. 1526.
MUSQUASH, a rodent quadruped. (N. Amer. Indian.) Capt.
Smith has the pl. musquassus, Works, p. 207; in his description of
New England. From the old N. Amer. Indian name.
MUSQUITO, MUSSEL; see Mosquito, Muscle (2).
MUSSULMAN, a true believer in the Mohammedan faith.
(Pers.—Arab.) ‘The full-fed Mussulman;’ Dryden, Hind and
Panther, i. 377. ‘A Musselman, which is a true beleeuer;’ Sandys,
Tray. 1632, p. 56. In Richardson’s Arab. and Pers. Dict., p. 1418,
the form musulman, an orthodox believer, is marked as Persian. ‘The
Arab. form is muslim, answering to Ἐς moslem; see Moslem.
MUST (1), part of a verb implying ‘obligation.’ (E.) This verb
is extremely defective ; nothing remains of it but the past tense, which
does duty both for past and present. The infinitive (mote) is obsolete;
even in AS, the infin. (mdtan) is not found. But the present tense
is common in the Middle-English period. ME. mot, moot, pres. t.,
I am able, I can, I may, I am free to, very seldom with the sense of
obligation; pt. t. moste (properly dissyllabic), I could, I might,
ITought. ‘As euer mote I drinke wyn or ale’=as sure as I can (or
hope to be free to) drink wine or ale; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 834 (A 832).
In Ch. C. T. 734; 737, 749, 744, Tyrwhitt wrongly changed moot into
moste, against both the MSS. and the metre. ‘The right readings are:
‘He moot reherse’=he is bound to relate; ‘he moot telle’ =he will
be sure to tell; ‘He moot as wel’=he is bound as well; ‘ The
wordes mote be’ =the words should be. The pt. t. moste, muste, occurs
in 1. 7145 ‘He muste preche’=he will have to preach; where many
MSS. have the spelling moste. AS. *mdtan, not used in the infinitive;
preterito-pres. t. ic mét, 1 am able, I may, can, am free to, seldom
with the sense of obligation ; new pt. t. ic mdste; see Grein, ii. 265.
+OSax. *modtan (not found) ; pres. t. ik mat, ik muot ; pt. t. tk mdsta;
OFries. pres. t. ik mdt; pt. t. 1k méste; Du. moeten, to be obliged;
pres. τ, 2k moet, pt. t. ik moest; Swed. mdste, I must, both as pres.
and pt. tense; so that the similar use in E. may be partly due to
Scand. influence; (ὦ, miissen, ΜΉ Ὁ, muezen, OHG,. mézan, of which
the old sense was ‘to be free to do’ a thing, to be allowed ; pres. t.
ich muss; pt. t. ich musste; Goth. *métan, not found; pres. t. ik ga-
mot; pt. t. ik ga-mdsta, In Mark ii. 2, Goth. ni gamdstédun =‘ they
could not find room;” so that the orig. sense of mdtan was " to find
room.’ Ββ. Root uncertain; it may be connected with meet, moot;
but this is not at all made out. Some connect it with the E, vb.
mete, to measure.
MUST (2), new wine. (L.) In early use. ME. must, most;
P. Plowman, B. xviii. 368; Layamon, 8723. AS. must, in a gloss
(Bosworth). —L. mustum, new wine; neut. of mustus, young, fresh,
new. Der. must-ard.
MUSTACHE, MUSTACHIO; see Moustache.
MUSTANG, a wild horse of the prairies. (Span.—L.) MSpan.
mestengo, used in the same sense as mostrenco, adj., stray, having no
owner; the spelling mest- shows confusion with meste/io, meaning
(1) belonging to the mesta or graziers, and (2) the same as mostrenco,
i.e., stray; see Minshen, Pineda, Neumann. It is difficult to
estimate the extent to which these words respectively influenced the
form mesfengo. 1, Mostrenco answers to a L. type *monstrinicum,
a stray animal, which the finder was bound to have publicly cried;
from L. monstrare, to show, inform (hence, to cry); see Diez, and cf.
Muster. 2. Mestefio is from Span. mesta, a company of graziers;
from L. mixta, fem, of pp. of miscére, to mingle, to mix; cf. Span.
mestura, a mixture. B. Minsheu shows how much the words were
confused in 1623; he gives: ‘Mesta, a monethly faire among herd-
men; also, the ordinance that all owners and keepers of cattell
MUSTARD
are to observe.’ Also: ‘ Mestengo, or Mostrenco, a strayer.’ Also:
“ Mostrexco, a straier, a bill signed: belonging to shepherds faires.’
MUSTARD, a condiment made from a plant with a pungent
taste. (F.—L.; with Teut. suffix.) ME. mustard, Prompt. Parv. ;
mostard, Ayenbite of Inwyt, ed. Morris, p. 143, 1. 30.—OF. mostarce
(Hatzfeld), later moustarde (Cotgrave), mod. Ἐς, moutarde. Cf, Ital.
and Port, mostarda [Span. mostaza (with a different suffix)]. B. The
suffix -ard (fem. -arde) is of Teut. origin; from G. hart, lit. ‘hard ;’
see Toynbee, Hist. F. Gr. The condiment took its name from the
fact that it was made by mixing the pounded seeds of the mustard-
plant with must or vinegar (Littré). “The name was afterwards given
to the plant itself (L. sizapi). γ. From OF. *most, only found in
the form moust (Supp. to Godefroy), mod. F. mozt, must. Cf. Ital.,
Span., and Port. mosto, "το, mustum, must, new wine; sce Must (2).
MUSTER, an assembling in force, display, a fair show. (F.—L.)
The E. sb. is older than the verb, and is nearly a doublet of monster.
ME. moustre. ‘And the moustre was thretti thousandis of men;’
Wyclif, 3 Kings, v. 13, earlier version ; the later version has summe
[sum]. ‘And made a gode moustre’=and made a fair show; P.
Plowman, B. xiii. 362.—OF. mostre (13th cent.), another form of
ΜΕ. monstre, fem. ‘a pattern, also a muster, view, shew, or sight ;’
Cot. Mod. F. montre, which see in Littré. Cf, Port. mostra, a
pattern, sample, muster, review of soldiers, mostrar, to show; Ital.
mostra, a show, review, display, mostrare, to show. = Late L. monsira,
a review of troops, show, sample.—L. monstrare, to show. = L. mon-
strum, a divine omen, portent. See Monster, which differs in
gender, being orig. neuter. Der. muster, vb., ME. mustren, Romance
of Partenay, ed. Skeat, 30033 muster-master, Cf. OF. moustrer,
variant of monstrer, ONorman mustrer, Gascon mustra, to show.
MUSTY, mouldy, sour, spoiled by damp. (Prov.—L.) ‘Men
shall find little fine flowre in them, but all very mustie branne, not
worthy so muche as to fede either horse or hogges;’ Sir T. More,
Works, p. 649 h (not p. 694, as in Richardson), See Hamlet, iii. 2.
359. Minsheu (1623) has Span. mosto, new wine; mostoso, ‘ mustie,
of sweet wine.’ Godefroy (Supp.) gives OF. muste, moste, moete,
muiste, moite, all as variants of OF, moiste, moist; also moiste and
muste with the sense ‘moisi.? The simplest solution is to take it
as having come straight from Provence, with which we were con-
nected by the wine trade from Bourdeaux.— Prov. mousti, musti
(Gascon), adj., moist, humid (Mistral).—Prov. moxst, must, new
wine; see Must, and cf. “ mors/y ale’ in Chaucer, C. T., H 60. We
may suspect some confusion with OF. moisi, explained by Cotgrave
as ‘mouldy, musty, fusty.’ But to derive the word from OF, mozrsi
is, phonetically, impossible. Der. mzust-i-ly, -ness.
MUTABLE, subject to change. (L.) ME. mutable, Chaucer, tr.
of Boethius, b. iv. pr. 6, 1. 110.—L, mitabilis, subject to change. —L.
mitare, to change; see Moult. For older *moitare; allied to L.
mit-uus, mutual, and to Gk. potros, thanks, favour (Prellwitz);
Goth. maidjan, to change, corrupt; Skt. méth, to associate with.
Der. mutabili-ty, Chaucer, Troilus, i. 851. Also mut-at-ion, ME.
mutacioun, Chaucer, Boeth. b. i. pr. 6, 1. 61, from F. mutation (Cot.),
from L, acc. mutatidnem. Also (from miitare) com-mute, per-mute,
trans-mute, mew (3), moult, Cf. mut-ual,
MUTCHKIN, an E. pint. (Du.) ‘Ix. pyntis and three mutch-
hinnis;’ Acts of Jas. I (1426), c. 80; ed. 1566 (Jam.). The Scotch
pint was 4 E. pints. —MDu. mudseken, ‘our halfe common pinte ;’
Hexham, For *mutseken; lit. ‘small cap;’ a dimin., with suffix
-ken, of MDu. mutse, Du. muts, a cap. Cf. G. miiize,a cap. See
Amice (2).
MUTE (1), dumb, (L.) In Shak. Temp. iv. 1. 126.—L. miitus,
dumb. B. The form is that of a pp, from 4/MEU, to mutter with
closed lips; cf. Gk. pv, alas! μυεῖν, to close; and esp. Skt. mika-,
dumb, Gk. μύδος, dumb; from the notion of attempting to mutter
low sounds; from the imitative L. mu, Gk. μῦ, a muttered sound.
See Mumble, Mutter, Mum. @ The ME. muet (Chaucer,
Troil. v. 194) is from OF. muet ; from a L. type *miit-ett-us, a dimin.
| form. Der. mute-ly, mute-ness ; also mutter.
| MUTE (2), to dung; used of birds. (F.-—MDu.) In Tobit, ii. τὸ
| (A. V.); and in Palsgrave.=MF. mutir, ‘to mute, as a hawke;’
| Cot. Aclipped form of OF, esmeudir, ‘to mute, as birds doe;’ id.
| Spelt esmeltir in the 13th cent. (Littré, s. v. émeutir, who fails to give
| the etymology, which is to be found in Scheler),—MDnu. smelten, also
| smilten, to smelt, to liquefy ; also used of liquid animal discharge, as
| in Hexham. See Smelt.
MUTILATE, to maim. (L.) Formerly a pp. ‘Imperfect or
| mutilate, i.e. mutilated ; Frith, Works, p. go, col. 1.—L. mutildtus,
| pp. of mutilare, to. maim.—L. mutilus, maimed.4-Gk. μίτυλος, also
᾿μύτιλο:, curtailed, docked. Der. mutilat-ion, from F. mutilation,
| ‘a mutilation,’ Cot., from L. acc. mutilationem.
| MUTINY, a rebellion, insurrection, tumult. (F.—L.) Mutin-y
vis allied to the old verb to mutine. ‘If thou canst mutine in a
|
MYRMIDON 393
matron’s bones;’ Hamlet, iii. 4. 83. [Hence were also formed
mutin-er, Cor. i. 1. 2543 mutin-eer, Temp. ili. 2. 403; mutin-ous, Temp.
v. 42.)—MF. mutiner, ‘to mutine ;? Cot.—MF. mudin, ‘mutinous,
tumultuous;’ id. β, MF. mutin stands for meztin, extended from
OF. muete, mute, meute, an armed expedition (Gcdefroy); better
known by the mod, F. derivative émeute. The mod. F. meute, though
the same word, is only used in the sense of ‘a pack of hounds;’
answering to Late L. mdta canum (Ducange).—Late L. movita, a
movement, contention, strife; used in place of L. mdta, fem. of
motus, pp. of mouére,to move; see Move. γ. Thus the orig. sense
is ‘movement,’ well expressed by our ‘commotion.’ Parallel forms
are MItal. mutino, ‘a mutinie’ (Florio), mutinare, ‘to mutinie’ (id.),
whence mod. Ital. ammutinarsi, to mutiny; also Span. molin, a
mutiny, sedition, Port. motim, a mutiny, uproar. Der. mutiny, verb,
As You Like It, i. 1. 24; mutin-er (as above), mutin-eer (as above),
mutin-ous (as above), mudtin-ous-ly, mutin-ous-ness,
MUTTER, to murmur, speak in a low voice. (E.) ME. motrex,
Chaucer, Troil. ii. 541. Also moteren, whence the pres. part.
moteringe, used to tr. L. mussitantes, Wyclif, 2 Kings, xii. 19. The
word is rather E. than borrowed from L. mitire, to mutter. To be
divided as mot-er-en, where -er is the usual frequentative verbal
suffix, and mot- or muf- is an imitative sound, to express inarticulate
mumbling; see Mum. Cf. EFries. motjen, to mutter; Swed. dial.
mutla, muttra, Norw. mutra; also prov. G. mustern, to whisper,
similarly formed from a base must-; L. mut-ire, mutt-ire, muss-are,
to mutter, mut/um, a muttered sound; &c.
MUTTON, the flesh of sheep. (F.—C.) ME. moroun (with one
¢), spelt mofone in Prompt. Parv. In P. Plowman, Β. iii. 24, the
word motown means a coin of gold, so called because stamped with
the image ofa sheep. The older spelling mol/oun is in Gower, C. A.
i. 39; prol. 1060.—OF. moton (mod, F. mouton), a sheep; a still
older spelling is multon (Godefroy).—Low L. multénem, acc. of
multo, a sheep, also a gold coin (as in P. Plowman). Cf. Ital. mon-
tone, ‘a ram, a mutton,’ Florio; where x is substituted for 7, pre-
served in the Venetian form mioltone, cited by Diez. β. Of Celtic
origin; from a Celtic type *mol/os, a sheep; as in Irish and Manx
molt, Gael. mult, W. mollt, Bret. maout, meut (for *molt), a wether,
sheep. See Stokes-Fick, p. 212. Miklosich cites Russ. moli/(e), to
castrate, s. v. moli-. Der. mutton-chop.
MUTUAL, reciprocal, given and received. (F.—L.) ‘Conspy-
racy and muiuall promise ;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 101g 6; mutuall
in Palsgrave.—OF. mutuél, ‘mutuall, reciprocal;’ Cot. Extended
from L. mutu-us, mutual, by help of the suffix -el (<L. -dlis).
B. The orig. sense is ‘exchanged ;’ from L. mitare, to change; see
Mutable. Cf. mort-u-us, from mori-. Der. mutual-ly, mutual-i-ty.
MUZZLE, the snout of an animal, (F.—L.) ME. mosel,
Chaucer, C. T. 2153 (A 2151).—OF. musel (Burguy), muzel (A.D.
1521, Godefroy); later museau, ‘the muzzle, snout, or nose of a
beast ;’ Cot.; Norm. dial. musel (Du Bois). As Diez shows, an
older form morsel is indicated by the Bret. morzee/, which (like Bret.
muzel) means ‘muzzle,’ and is merely a borrowed word from
OFrench, β. Again, the Provengal (according to Diez) not only has
the form mus, but also mursel, in which the r is again preserved ; but
it is lost in Ital. muso, the muzzle, and in the E. Muse (1). y. The
OF. *morsel thus indicated is a dimin. (with suffix -eZ) from a form
*mors; cf. Ital. muso, standing for an older *morso, which may have
meant, ‘muzzle’ as well as ‘ bit, bridle, or snaffle for a horse’
(Florio). Cf. F. mors, ‘a bitt, or biting;’ Cot.—Late L. morsus,
(1) a morsel, (2) a buckle, (3) remorse, (4) 2 beak, snout, in which
sense it is found A.D. 1309; L. morsus, a bite, a tooth, clasp of
a buckle, grasp, fluke of an anchor.—L. morsus, pp. of mordére, to
bite. See Morsel. Disputed; see Korting, §§ 244, 6307, 6411 ;
and add. note on ὃ 244. Der. muzzle, verb, spelt moseld in the Bible
of 1551, Deut. xxv. 4.
MY, possessive pronoun. (E.) ME. mi, formed from ME. min,
mine, by dropping the final x. ‘Ne thenkest nowt of mine opes That
ich haue mi louerd sworen?’ Havelok, 578 ; where grammar requires
‘min louerd’ to answer to the plural ‘miné opes.’ See Mine.
4 The final 7: is often retained before vowels, as in the case of an.
Der. my-self, ME. mi self, a substitution for me self; see Stratmann,
s.v. self.
MYOPIA, shortsightedness. (Gk.) Bailey has: ‘ Myopia, pur-
blindness;’ vol. ii. ed. 1731.=—Gk. μυωπία, shortsightedness. —Gk.
puwr-, from μυώψ, closing the eyes, blinking, shortsighted. —Gk.
pv-w, I am shut, said of the eyes, I wink or wince; and ay, the eye,
face. See Optic.
MYRIAD, ten thousand, a vast number. (Gk.) In Milton, P. L.
i. 87, &c.; Ben Jonson, Fortunate Isles (Johphiel). Englished from
Gk. μυριάδ-, stem of pupids, the number of 10,000.—Gk. μυρίος,
numberless.
MYRMIDON, one of a band of men, (L.—Gk.) Gen. in pl.
394 MYROBALAN
myrmidons; the Myrmidons were the followers of Achilles; in Chap-
man, tr. of Homer, Iliad ii. 604; Surrey, tr. of Aineid, ii. 1. 10; and
Lydgate, Hist. of Troye, fol. M 5. col. 1.—L. Myrmidones, Verg.
/En. ii. 7.— Gk. Μυρμιδόνες, a warlike people of Thessaly, formerly
in Aigina (Homer). There was a fable (to account for the name)
that the Myrmidons were ants changed into men; Ovid, Met. vii.
635-654. Cf. Gk. μυρμηδών, an ant’s nest; μύρμηξ, an ant, cognate
with Pers. mir, L. formica.
MYROBALAN, the dried drupaceous fruit of some Terminalia,
haying an astringent pulp. (F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt mirabolan, Hakluyt,
Voy. ii. 1. 276.—F. myrobalan, ‘an East-Indian plumb;’ Cot.—L.
myrobalanum.=— Gk. pupoBadavos, lit. ‘acorn producing an unguent.’
—Gk. pipo-, for μῦρον, a sweet juice, unguent; and βάλανος, acorn,
allied to L. glans, whence E. gland.
MYRRH, a bitter aromatic gum. (F.—L.—Gk.—Arab.) ME.
mirre, Ancren Riwle, p. 372, 1. 7; now adapted to the L. spelling. =
OF. mirre (11th cent.); mod. I. myrrhe (Littré).—L. myrrha.— Gk.
μύρρα, the balsamic juice of the Arabian myrtle.—Arab. murr,
(1) bitter, (2) myrrh, from its bitterness; Rich. Dict., p. 1381.4
Heb. mdr, myrrh; allied to mar, bitter.
MYRTLE, the name of a tree. (F.—L.—Gk.—Pers.) In Shak.
Meas. for Meas. ii. 2. 117.— MF. myrtil, ‘a mirtle-berrie; also, the
lesse kind of mirtle, called noble mirtle;’ Cot. Dimin. of myrte,
meurte, ‘the mirtle-tree;’ id. — L. murtus, myrtus, myrtle. Gk.
μύρτος. -- Pers. mird, the myrtle; Palmer, col. 617; Rich. Dict.
Daglin 24).
MYSTERY (1), anything kept concealed or very obscure, a
secret rite. (L.—Gk.) ME. mysterie, Wyclif, Rom. xvi. 25. Englished
from L. mystérium, Rom. xvi. 25 (Vulgate).—Gk. μυστήριον, Rom.
xvi. 25.—Gk,. μύστης, one who is initiated. Gk. μυεῖν, to initiate
into mysteries.—Gk. pvew, to close the eyes; suggested by Gk. po,
a slight sound with closed lips; of imitative origin. See Mute,
Mum. Der. mysteri-ous, from F. mysterieux, ‘mysterious,’ Cot. ;
mysteri-ous-ly, -ness. And see mystic, mystify.
MYSTERY (2), MISTERY, a trade, handicraft. (F.—L.)
Cotgrave translates OF. mestier by ‘a trade, occupation, mystery,
handicraft.’ Spenser, Mother Hubbard’s Tale, 221, speaks of the
soldier’s occupation as being ‘the noblest mysterie. This is a
different word from the above, but often confused with it. It should
rather be spelt mistery. Indeed, it owes to the word above not only
the former y, but the addition of the latter one; being an extension
of ME. mistere, a trade, craft, Chaucer, C. T. 615 (A 613).—AF.
mister, Stat. Realm, i. 311 (1351); OF. mestier (as above); mod. F.
métier. [Cognate with Span. menester, want, need, employment,
trade; Ital. mestiere, with same sense.]}—L. ministerium, service,
employment. —L, minister, a servant; see Minister.
MYSTIC, secret, allegorical. (F.—L.—Gk.) Milton has mystick,
P. L. v. 178, ix. 442; also mystical, P. L. v. 620.—F. mystique,
‘mysticall ;’ Cot. L. mysticus. — Gk. μυστικός, mystic. = Gk. μύστης,
fem. μύστις, one who is initiated into mysteries; see Mystery (1).
Der. mystic-al, in Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 222; mystic-ism; and see mystify.
MYSTIF'Y, to involve in mystery, puzzle. (F.—Gk. and L.)
Quite modern; not in Todd’s Johnson.—F. mystifier, to mystify.
An ill-formed jumble, from Gk. μυστι-κός, mystic (not well divided),
and 1, -ficare, for facere,to make. See Littré, who remarks that it
was not admitted into the F. Dict. till 1835 (rather in 1798; Hatzteld).
See Mystic. Der. mystific-at-ion, from mod. Ἐς, mystification.
MYTH, a fable. (Gk.) Now common, but quite a mod. word
and formed directly from Gk. μῦθος, a fable; see Mythology,
which is a much older word in our language. Der. myth-ic, myth-
ic-al, myth-ic-al-ly.
MYTHOLOGY, a system of legends, the science of legends.
(F.—L.—Gk.)
Ctesias. Lydgate has methologies, Hist. Troye, fol. H 2, back, col. 2.
“ΕΠ mythologie, ‘an exposition, or moralising of fables;’ Cot.=—L.
wythologia.= Gk. μυθολογία, legendary lore, a telling of fables. —Gk. |
μῦθο-, for μῦθος, a fable; and λέγειν, to tell. B. The Gk. μῦ-θος is
trom pv, a slight sound, hence a word, saying, speech, tale; sec
Mute, Mum. Der. mytholog-ic, mytholog-ic-al, mytholog-ist.
N
ἽΝ. A few remarks upon this letter are necessary. An initial x, in
English, is very liable to be prefixed to a word which properly
begins with a vowel; and again, on the other hand, an original
initial x is sometimes dropped. A. In the former case, the x is pro-
bably due to the final letter of an or mine; thus an ewt becomes
In Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. i. c. 8, Of
NAIL
a newt, mine uncle becomes my nuncle, and hence newt and nuncle,
used independently. Another example occurs in nickname for eke-name.
In Middle-English, numerous similar examples occur, such as a noke
for an oke, an oak (cf. John Nokes=John an-oaks, i.e. John of the
oaks); a naye=an aye, an egg; thi nye=thin ye, thine eye; thi
nynon=thin ynon, thine eyes; examples of all these are given in
Halliwell, under noke, naye, nye, and nynon respectively. In the case
of for the nonce, the n belongs to the old dat. case of the article, the
older phrase being for then ones; see Nonce. ΒΒ. On the other
hand, an original γι is lost in auger for nauger, in the sense of
a carpenter’s tool; in umpire for numpire, adder for nadder, apron
for anpron, ouch for nouch. See my note to P. Plowman, C.
XX. 300.
WAB, to seize. (Scand.) A dialect word; also found as nap.
Added by Todd to Johnson’s Dict.—Swed. nappa, Dan. nappe, to
catch, snatch at. @ Rich. cites the word nab-cheats from Beaum.
and Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, ii. 1, with the sense of caps. ‘This is
a totally different word; here xab=knob, the head ; cheat =a thing,
in the cant language ; and nab-cheat = head-thing, cap; see Harman’s
Caveat, ed. Furnivall, p. 82.
NABOB, an Indian prince, very rich man. (Hind.— Arab.) See
Burke, Speech on the Nabob of Arcot’s debts. The word signifies
‘deputy’ or vice-roy, esp. applied to a governor of a province of the
Mogul empire (Webster). Also nobobb, a nobleman; so spelt by Sir
T. Herbert, Travels, ed. 1665, p. 104, who assigns it that meaning ‘in
the language of the Mogul’s kingdom, which hath mixt with it much
of the Persian,’ = Hind. xuwwib (pl. of n@ib), ‘vice-gerents, deputies;
nawwab, vulg. nabob;”’ Forbes. But the word is merely borrowed
from Arabic; Devic notes that Hind. often employs Arab. plurals
as sing. Arab. nawwab; which is properly a plural form (used
honorifically), signifying vice-gerents, deputies; pl. of naib, a vice-
gerent, lieutenant, deputy. Cf. Arab. nawb, supplying the place of
another. See Rich. Dict. pp. 1606, 1557, 1608. Palmer’s Pers, Dict.
col. 665, has: Arab. navvab, ‘a viceroy, governor; in Persia, this
title is given to princes of the blood;’ cf. col. 639. Cf. Port. nababo,
a nabob; see Yule.
NACRE, mother-of-pearl. (F.—Span.—Arab.) In Cotgrave.=
F. nacre, ‘a naker, a great and long shell-fish, the outside of whose
shell is rugged . . the inside smooth and of a shining hue ;’ nacre de
perles, ‘mother of pearle, the beautiful shell of another fish, wherein
the best, and most pearles be found;’ Cot.—Span. nxacar.— Arab.
nagrah, a cavity (from the hollow inside of the shell); from Arab.
root xagara, he hollowed out; Rich. Dict., p. 1596.
NADIR, the point of the sky opposite the zenith. (Arab.)
Chaucer uses nadir to signify the point of the zodiac opposite to
that in which the sun is situate; Treatise on the Astrolabe, pt. ii.
sect. 6, 1. 1. - Arab. naziru’s ’samt (or simply nazir), the point of the
sky opposite the zenith. Arab. nazir, over against, corresponding
to; and as’ samt, the azimuth, or rather an abbreviation of as’
samtwr’ras, the zenith. Rich. Dict. pp. 1586, 848. See Azimuth,
Zenith. The Arab. z (or d) here used is the 17th letter of the Arab.
alphabet, an unusual letter with a difficult sound, which came to be
rendered by d in Low L, and E.
NAG (1), a small horse. (MDu.) In Minshen, ed. 1627. ΜΕ.
nagge. ‘Nagge, or lytylle beest, bestula, equillus;’ Prompt. Pary.
‘He neyt (neighed] as a xagge;’ Destruction of Troy, ed. Panton
and Donaldson, 1. 7727.—MDu,. negghe, a small horse (Kilian);
negge, ‘anagg,a small horse,’ Hexham; Du. neg; Du. dial. knagge
(Molema). And compare Low G, nikkel, a nag; and perhaps
Norw. kneggja, Icel. gneggja, hneggja, to neigh.
NAG (2), to worry, tease. (Scand.) Provincial; but a good
word.=—Norw. and Swed. nagga, to nibble, peck; Dan. nage, Icel.
gnaga, to gnaw; LowG., nagen, naggen, to gnaw, vex, nag, gnaggen,
to nag (Berghaus). Allied to Gnaw, q. v.
NAIAD, a water-nymph. (L.—Gk.) In Shak. Temp. iv. 128.=
L. naiad-, stem of naias, a water-nymph. = Gk. vaias (gen. vaia5-os),
a water-nymph.—Gk. νάειν, to flow; Aolic form vavew ( -- νάβειν).
From SNA; cf. Skt. s@, to bathe; Olrish sna@im, I swim. And
see Natation.
NAMA, the horny scale at the end of the human fingers and toes;
a spike of metal. (E.) ME. nail, nayl; the pl. nayles, used of the
human nails, is in Havelok, 2163 ; the pl. zailes, i. 6. iron spikes, is
in Chaucer, C. T. 6351 (Ὁ 769). AS. negel, in both senses, Grein,
ii. 274. [The loss of g is regular, and occurs in hail, sail, &c.}4-Du.
nagel, in both senses; Icel. xag/, the human nail ; nagli, a spike, peg;
Dan. xagle, in both senses; Swed. nage/, in both senses; Goth.
*nagls, only in the derived verb ganagljan, to nail; G. nagel, in both
senses. B. Teut.type *xagloz,m. Allied to Lithuan. zagas, a claw,
nail, Russ. nogot(e), a nail, Skt. nakha-m, n., nakhd-s, m., a nail of
the finger or toe; Pers. nakhun, the same. γ. The Gk. ὄνυξ, a nail,
claw, L. wnguis, Gael. and Irish ionga, Olrish inga, W. ewin, go
|
|
| Added by Todd to Johnson.
i
NAILBOURN
back to forms with a different gradation. Brugmann, §§ 539, 658,
702. Der. nail, vb., AS. neglian, whence the pp. negled, in Grein;
natl-er, Cf. onyx.
WAILBOURN, an intermittent stream. (E.) Given in N.E.D.
s.v. eylebourn, asit was spelt in 1719. But spelt xailbourne in 1667,
and naylborne in 1480. We find in Birch, Cart. Saxon. 11. 172 :—
‘thonne. .. of dune on stream on xeglesburnan. I cannot explain
the form; cf. Phil. Soc. Trans. 1903-6, p. 364.
NAIVE, artless, simple, ingenuous. (F.—L.) A late word; the
ady. naively is used by Pope in a letter; see the quotation in
Richardson. Dryden has: ‘it was so naive,’ and ‘’twas such a
naiveté;’ Marriage a la Mode, iii. 1.—F. naive, fem. of naif, which
Cot. explains by ‘lively, quick, naturall, kindly, . . no way counter-
feit.’ —L. natiuus, native, natural; see Native. The fem, form
naive was chosen, because it appears in the adv. natvement, and in
the sb. naiveté; and, in fact, it is nearer the Latin original than the
mase. naif. Der. naive-ly, for F. naive-ment; and naive-té, sb.,
directly from the French. Doublet, native.
NAKED, bare, uncovered, exposed. (E.) Always dissyllabic.
ME. naked, Chaucer, C. T. 2068 (A 2066). AS. nacod (=nac-od),
which is plainly an old pp., with the pp. suffix -od; Grein, ii. 272.
+0OFries. nakad, naken; Du. naakt; Icel. nakinn, nékvidr ; Dan.
nogen; Swed. naken; ας nackt, MHG, nacket, OHG. nachot, nakot;
Goth. nakwaths (where -aths is the usual pp. suffix). β. Most of
these point to an old pp. form; the Du. -¢, Icel. -idr, G. -t, Goth.
-aths, are all pp. suffixes of a weak verb, and lead us back to the orig.
Teut. type *ndkwathdz (> *ndkwadoz); Idg. type *nog(w)otos.
y. But Icel. nak-inn, Dan. nig-en, Swed. nak-en, OFries. nak-en,
adopt the pp. suffixes of a strong verb from a base NAQ, answering
to an Idg. 4/ NOGw, to strip, lay bare; cf. Skt. nagna-, naked, Russ.
nagoi, naked, Lith. nzgas, naked, L. niidus (=*noudos for *nogwedos).
Further allied words are the Irish and Gael. nochd, naked, bare,
exposed, desolate, W. noeth, Bret. ndaz. 8. Lastly, it is remarkable
that English has evolved a verb from this pp. by back-formation,
viz. ONorthumb. ge-nacian, Mark, ii. 4; ME. xaken. The following
are examples. ‘He nakide the hous of the pore man,’ Wyclif, Job,
xx. 19, early version ; the later version has ‘ he made nakid the hows.’
“O nyce men, why zake ye youre bakkes’=O foolish men, why do
ye expose your backs (to the enemy, by turning to flee) ; Chaucer,
tr. of Boethius, Ὁ. iv. met. 7, 1.45. It is also found much later.
‘Lus. Come, be ready, nake your swords, Think of your wrongs ;’
Tourneur, ‘he Revenger's Tragedy, Act v. sc. I. We even find
a derived verb naknen; ‘A! nu nacnes mon mi lef? =Ah! now men
strip my beloved; O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 283, 1. 10. Cf.
Brugmann, i. § 165; Khys, W. Phil. p. 95. Der. naked-ly, ME.
nakedliche, Ancren Riwle, p. 316; naked-ness, ME. nakidnesse, Wyclif,
Rev. iii. 18. Also stark-naked, q.v. Doublet, nude.
NAKER, a kettle-drum. (F.—Arab.) Chaucer has naters, pl.,
C. T., A 2511.—OF. nacaire (Godefroy). Arab. naggarah, a kettle-
drum; Palmer’s Pers. Dict.
NAMBY-PAMBY, weakly sentimental. (E.) Coined from
Ambrose, i.e. Ambrose Philips (d. 1749), a poet whose style was
ridiculed by Carey and Pope. Johnson, in his Life of Philips says :
‘The pieces that please best are those which, from Pope and Pope’s
adherents, procured him the name of Namby Pamby;’ see Chalmers,
Eng. Poets, xiii. 103.
NAME, that by which a thing or person is called, a designation.
(E.) ME, name (orig. dissyllabic) ; Chaucer, C. T. 3939 (A 3941).
AS. nama, Grein, ii. 273.44 Du. naam; Icel. nafx, namn ; Dan. navn ;
Swed. zamn; Goth. namd; G. name, OHG. namo. Teut. type
*namon-. B. Further allied to L. ndmen; Gk. ὄνομα, Pers. nam, Skt.
naman; and to Irish atnm, W. enw, name; Russ. imia. Brugmann,
i. §§ 399, 425. 4 Not allied to Know; see Prellwitz. Der.
name, vb., AS. nemnan, Grein, ii. 280; nam-er ; name-ly, ME. name-
liche, nomeliche, Ancren Riwle, p. 18, 1. 16; name-less, ME. nameles,
Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b.iv. pr. 5, 1.55 name-less-ly, name-less-ness ;
also name-sake (=name’s sake, the’s being dropped before s following),
i.e. one whose name is given him for the sake of another’s fame,
Dryden, Absalom, pt. ii. 1. 323 (see Sake). Allied words are
nominal, de-nominate. Doublet, noun.
NANKEEN, NANKIN, a kind of cotton cloth. (China.)
So called from Nankin in China. =
| Chinese nxan-hing, ‘south court;’ cf. Pekin, from pe-king, ‘north
| court’ (Yule).
NAP (1), a short sleep. (E.) We now say ‘to take a nap, and
treat nap as a sb. We also say ‘to be caught napping.’ It was
| formerly a verb; ME. nappen, to doze. ‘See! how he nappeth;’
| Chaucer, C. T. 16958 (H 9). AS. hneppian, to nap; hnaeppad is
a gloss upon dormit, Ps. xl. 9, ed. Spelman. Cf. Bavarian knappen,
᾿ἴο nod with the head (Schmeller); OHG. hnaffezen, to nap. Der,
| napp-ing, sb., AS. hnappung, Grein, ii. go.
NARRATION 395
NAP (2), the roughish surface of cloth. (MDu.) In Spenser,
Muiopotmos, 1. 333. Shak. has xapless=threadbare ; Cor. ii. 1. 250.
The older form is xoppe (Palsgrave). ME. noppe; ‘noppe of a cloth,
villus ;? Prompt. Pary. See Way’s note, where he cites passages to
show that xoppe ‘denotes those little knots, which, after cloth has
passed through the fulling-mill, are removed by women with little
nippers; a process termed burling cloth.’ He cites: ‘xoppy, as cloth
is that hath a gross woffe [woof];’ Palsgrave. Also: " Clarisse, the
nopster (esbourysse) can well her craft, syth whan she lerned it, cloth
for to noppe ;? Caxton, Book for Travellers. We now apply the term,
not to the rough surface, but to the sheared surface, by a natural
change in the sense, due to our not seeing the cloth till the process
is completed. Prob, introduced by Du. clothworkers. [AS. *hnoppa
is unauthorised. ]—M Du. xoppe, ‘the nap of wooll or cloath,’ Hexham;
cf. MDu. noppen, ‘to sheare of [off] the nap,’ id. Cf. Du. nop, nap;
Dan. noppe, frizzed nap of cloth; MSwed. nopp, nap; Low ὦ.
nobben, nap; Bremen Worterbuch. Also Norw. xapp, nap, and Norw.
nuppa, to pluck off with the fingers; AS. hnoppian, to pluck, Voc.
480. 23; AS. d-hnéapan, to pluck off ; Goth. dis-hnupnan, to be torn
in pieces ; dis-hniupan, to tear to pieces. All from Teut. base *hneup,
to pluck, pull. Der. napless, as above.
NAPE, the joint of the neck behind. (E.) In Shak. Cor. ii. 1. 43.
ME, nape, Prompt. Parv. ‘Dedly woundid through the παρέ;
King Alisaunder, l, 1347. The orig. sense is projection or ‘knob;’
and the term must have been first applied to the slight knob at the
back of the head, felt on passing the finger upwards from the neck ;
cf. OF ries, halsknap, nape of the neck. It is, in fact, a mere variant of
ME, knappe, a knob, button, P. Plowman, B. vi. 272. Cf. Icel.
knappr, a knob, stud, button; AS. cnep, the top of a hill. See
Knop, Neck.
NAPERY, linen for the table. (F.—L.) ‘ Manie farmers .. .
have learned also to garnish their cupbords with plate, . . and their
tables with fine naperie ;’ Harrison, Descr. of England, ed. Furnivall,
b. ii, c. 12, p. 239. Palsgrave has: ‘ Naprie, store of lynen.’ —OF.
naperie, table-linen (Godefroy) ; orig. the office in a household for
providing table-linen (Roquefort).—Late L. naparia, the same;
Ducange; also spelt mapparia.—Late L. napa, a cloth; corrupted
from L. mappa, a cloth. See Napkin.
NAPHTHA, an inflammable liquid. (L.—Gk.—Pers.) In
Milton, P. L. i. 729. Spelt nephta by Sir T. Herbert, Travels, p. 182
(Todd). =—L. naphtha. — Gk. νάφθα. -- Pers. naft, nift, naphtha; Rich.
Dict. p. 1591. Allied to Zend napta-, moist; Horn, § 1035. Cf.
Arab. na/t, nift, ‘naphtha, bitumen;’ Rich. Dict. p. 1593. The
final letter of the Arab. word is the 16th letter of the alphabet, some-
times rendered by ἐλ ; and the Arab. form is unoriginal; prob. from Gk.
NAPKIN, a cloth used at the table, a small cloth. (F.—L.;
with Ἐς suffix.) ME. napekin. ‘ Napet or napekyn, Napella, manu-
piarium, mapella;’ Prompt. Parv. Both these forms, nap-et and
nape-kyn, are formed with dimin. suffixes from F. nappe, ‘a table-
cloth;’ Cot.; OF. nape, mape (Supp. to Godefroy). — Late L. napa;
corruption of L. mappa, a cloth. See Map. Der. ap-ron (for
nap-ron); nap-er-y, q. Υ.
NARCISSUS, a kind of flower. (L.—Gk.) In Cotgrave, to
translate F. narcisse.—L. narcissus.—Gk. νάρκισσος, the narcissus ;
named from its xarcotic properties ; see Narcotic.
NARCOTIC, producing torpor; an opiate. (F.—Gk.) Chaucer,
has the pl. nercotikes as a pl. sb., C. T. 1474 (A 1472). It is properly
an adj.—F. narcotique, ‘stupefactive, benumning;’ Cot. |The L.
form does not appear. ]—Gk. ναρκωτικός, benumbing. — Gk. ναρκόω,
I benumb; ναρκάω, 1 grow numb.—Gk. νάρκη, numbness, torpor.
For *ovdpxn, i.e. contraction; see Snare. Der. xarcissus, from
vapk-n.
NARD, an unguent from an aromatic plant. (F.—L.—Gk.—Pers.)
In the margin of A. V., Mark, xiv. 3, where the text has spikenard ;
and in Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xii. c. 12. ME. ard, Wyclif, John,
xii. 3. —F. nard, ‘spikenard ;”’ Cot.—L. nardus, Mk. xiv. 3 (Vulgate).
-Gk. νάρδος, Mk. xiv. 3.—OPers. type *xarda- (florn, § 1060),
whence also Heb. xérd, and Skt. nalada-, the Indian spikenard, Nardo-
stachys jatamansi; Benfey. B. The name is Persian; the Arab.
nardin is borrowed, like the Skt. and Heb. forms. The interchange
of J and r is common in many languages. Der. spike-nard.
NARGILEH, NARGILE, NARGILI, a pipe or smoking-
apparatus in which the smoke is passed through water. (Pers.)
‘Making believe to puff at a narghile;’ Thackeray, Van. Fair, bk.
ji.c. 16. From Pers. xargil, a coco-nut; because these pipes were
orig. made with a coco-nut, which held the water; Rich. Dict.,
p. 1548. Cf. Skt. narikera-s, narikela-s. a coco-nut. See Yule and
Devic.
NARRATION, a tale, recitation. (F.—L.) [The verb narrate
is late.) Narration is in Minsheu, ed. 1627. It occurs earlier, in
The Monk of Evesham, p. 65 (1482).—F. narration, ‘a narration;’
396 NARROW
Cot. «Τὸ narritidnem, acc. of narratio, a tale.—L. narrare, to relate,
tell; lit. to make known.—L. narus, another form of gnarus, know-
ing, acquainted with. From “gna-, allied to 4/GEN, to know; cf.
Skt. jua@, to know, Russ. zvate, E. know; see Know. Der. From
L. narrare we also have zarrade, vb., in Johnson’s Dict.; narrat-ive,
adj., from F. xarratif, ‘narrative’ (Cot.); zarrat-ive, sb., Bacon,
Life of Hen. VII, ed. Lumby, p. 54» 1. 14; narrat-or.
NARROW, of little breadth or extent. (E.) ME. xarowe,
narewe, narwe (with one r); Chaucer has zarwe (=narrowly) as an
adv., C. T. 3224; also as an adj., C. T. 627 (A 625). AS. nearu,
nearo, adj.; nearwe, adv., Grein, ii. 287, 288. -+- OSax. naru, adj.,
narawo, ady.; Du. naar, dismal, sad (see Franck). Ἴδα. type
*narwoz. Connected by Curtius (i. 392) with zerve. Der. zarrow-ly,
narrow-ness, narrow-mind-ed,
NARWHAL, the sea-unicorn, (Scand.) In Ash’s Dict., ed.
1775. ‘Teeth of xarwhals;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulgar Errors, bk. iii.
c. 23. § 6. — Dan. and Swed. zarhval; Icel. nahvalr,anarwhal. B. The
latter part of the word is the sameas E. whale. As to the sense of
the prefix, the lit. sense of Icel. x@-hvalr is ‘corpse-whale,’ from Icel.
nar (in compounds πᾶ-), a corpse; and the fish is often of a pallid
colour. Such is the usual explanation ; perhaps it is only a ‘ popular’
etymology.
NASAL, belonging to the nose. (F.—L.) In Kersey, ed. 1715.
Burton uses nasals for medicines operating through the nose; Anat.
of Melancholy, p. 384 (R.); or p. 393 (Todd).—F. nasal, belonging
to the nose; Cot.—Late L. nasalis, nasal; a coined word, not used
in good Latin. — L. zas-us, the nose, cognate with E. nose; see Nose.
Der. nas-turt-ium, q.V.
NASCENT, springing up, arising, (L.) A late word, added by
Todd to Johnson.—L. nascent-, stem of pres. part. of nasci, to be
born, to arise, an inceptive form with pp. xa/us. See Natal.
NASTURTIUM, the name of a flower. (L.) In Ash’s Dict.,
ed. 1775. ‘Cresses tooke the name in Latine nasturtium, a narium
tormento, as a man would say, nose-wring, because it will make one
writh and shrink vp his nosthrils;? Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xix. c. 8.
=L. nasturtium, cress; better spelt xasturcium.—L. nas-, stem of
nasus, the nose; and turc-=¢orc-, from torguére, to twist, torment.
see Nose and Torture.
NASTY, dirty, filthy, unpleasant. (Scand.) In Hamlet, iii. 4.
94. Formerly also (as Wedgwood points out) written xasky. ¢ Mau-
lavé, ill-washed, slubbered, xaskie, nasty, foul;’? Cot. In such cases,
the form with # is the older; cf. ME. zax/y; as in ‘xaxty, and needy,
and nakut ;’? Three Met. Romances, ed. Robson, A. st.xv. Of Scand.
origin; preserved in Swed. dial. zaskug, nasty, dirty, foul (used of
weather); we also find the form naskef, dirty, sullied (Rietz); ef.
Dan. dial. nasken, nasket, old, worn out (said of clothes), Molbech.
B. Perhaps allied to Swed. dial. snaskig, nasty, swinelike; Swed.
snuskig, slovenly, nasty ; Swed, dial. snaska, to eat like a pig, to eat
greedily and noisily, to be slovenly (Rietz); Dan. sxaske, to champ
one’s food with a smacking noise. These words are of imitative
origin, like various other suggestive words of a like character. The
word appears also in Low G., zask, nasty, Bremen Worterbuch ; and
may be allied to Norweg. nask, greedy, naska, to eat noisily. Cf.
Dan. knaske, gnaske, to crunch; and E. grash. Der. nasti-ly, nasti-
ness.
NATAL, belonging to one’s birth. (F.—L.) ‘By natall Joves
feest’=by the feast of Jove, who presides over nativity; Chaucer,
Troilus, 111. 150.—F. natal, in use at least as early as the rsth cent.
(Littré) ; though the true OF. form is néel.—L. natalis, natal, also
presiding over a birth. —L. natws (for gnatus), born. Cf. Gk, -Ύνητος,
in κασί-γνητος, a blood relation. From the base σπᾶ-, allied to
GEN, to beget, produce; see Kin, Genus. Der. From L.
nitus are in-nate, cognate; and see nat-ion, nat-ive, nat-ure.
NATATION, swimming. (L.) Used by Sir T. Browne, Vulgar
Errors, bk. iv. c.6. § 2. From the acc. of L. zatatio, a swimming, =
L. natare, to swim; frequent. of L. nare, to swim. Cf. Gk. νήτχειν,
to swim; Olrish sd-im, Iswim. See Naiad.
ἹΝΑΤΊΟΝ, a race of people. (F.—L.) ME. zation, Chaucer,
C. ΤῸ 4688 (B 268). -- Τὸν nation. —L. natidnem, acc. of natio, a race ;
cf. natus, born; see Natal. Der. nation-al, nation-ally, nation-al-
i-ty, nation-al-ise.
NATIVE, original, produced by nature, due to birth. (F.—L.)
Ὁ native land!’ Surrey, tr. of AZneid, b. ii. 1. 305; where the L.
text has patria; see Spec. of English, ed. Skeat, p. 207.‘ His natiue
countrey ;’ Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 306a.—F. naif, masc. native,
fem. ‘native;’ Cot.—L. ndtinus, natural, native.—L. na@tus, born;
see Natal. Der. native-ly, native-ness ; also nativ-i-ty, ME. natiuitee,
Chaucer, C. T. 14022 (B 3206), from F. nativité, from L. acc,
natiuitatem. Doublet, naive.
NATRON, native carbonate of sodium. (F.—Span.— Arab. —Gk.
—Heb.) F. xatron,.Span. natron.— Arab, xafriin, nitriin, natron,
NAVEW
nitre; Rich, Dict., p. 1585. Gk. νίτρον. - Heb. nether, nitre, Prov.
xxv. 20. Doublet, nitre.
NATTER-JACK, a kind of toad. (E. and F. —L.—Gk. — Heb.)
In Pennant (1769). ‘It has a deep, hollow voice, which may be heard
at a considerable distance ;’ Cent. Dict. Perhaps from prov. Εἰ, natter,
gnatter, to make a rattling noise; see E.D.D. And see Jack.
NATTY, neat. (F.—L.) Formerly zettie ; Tusser, Husbandry,
§ 68,1. 6. From net, adj.; see Net (2), Neat (2).
NATURE, kind, disposition, (F.—L.) ME. nature, in OEng.
Miscellany, Ser. 1.) ed. Morris, p. 35, 1. 20. —F. nature. —L. natira,
nature. LL, natus, born, pp. of nasci, to be born; see Natal. Der.
natur-al, ME, naturel, OEng. Miscellany, Ser. i. p. 30, 1.17, from F,
naturel <L, natiralis; natur-al-ly, natural-ness, natur-al-ism, natur-
al-ise, natur-al-ist (see Trench, Select Gloss.), natur-al-is-at-ion
(Minsheu); also u-natural, preter-natural, super-natural,
NAUGHT, NOUGHT, nothing. (E.) ME. naught, Chaucer,
C.T.758. Older spelling nawikt, Layamon, 473. AS. nawitht, olten
contracted to πᾶλέ, Grein, ii. 274.—AS. πᾶ, no, not; and wiht, a
whit, thing; Grein, ii. 272,703. See Noand Whit. Der. naught,
adj., i.e. worthless, As You Like It, i. 2. 68, 69, iii. 2. 15; whence
naught-y, i.e. worthless (Prov. vi. 12), Sir T. More, Works, p. 155 e;
naught-i-ly, naught-i-ness. Doublet, not.
NAUSEOUS, disgusting. (L.—Gk.) Nauseous and nauseaie
are in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Englished from L. nausedsus,
that produces nausea.—L. nausea, nausia, sea-sickness, sickness. =
Gk. vavoia, sea-sickness. Gk. ναῦς, a ship, cognate with L. nauts ;
see Nave (2). Der. nauseous-ly, -ness; nause-ate, from L. nawse-
atus, pp. of nauseare, to feel sick, from nausea, sickness. We have
also adopted the sb. zausea, which occurs in Phillips, ed. 1706,
NAUTCH, a kind of ballet-dance by women. (Hind. — Prakrit—
Skt.) Spelt xdch by Bp. Heber in 1825, who speaks of ‘ the nach-
women.’ = Hind. (and Mahratti) zach, a dance; Prakrit nachcha. = Skt.
nrtya-, dancing, acting; orig. fut. pass. part. of x7“, to dance, act. (See
Yule.) Der. nautch-girl, a dancing girl.
NAUTICAL, naval, beionging to ships. (L.—Gk.) Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674, has nautical and nautick, the latter being the more
orig. form. = L. nauticus, nautical. Gk. vautixcs, pertaining to ships.
Gk. ναύτης, a sea-man. —Gk. ναῦς, a ship, cognate with L. nauis; see
Nave (2). Der. nautical-ly.
NAUTILUS, a kind of shell-fish. (L.—Gk.) ‘The Nautilus
or Sailer, a shell-fish, that swims like a boat with a sail;’ Phillips,
ed. 1706.—L. nautilus. — Gk. vavtidos, a sea-man, also, the nautilus.
= Gk. ναύτης, a sea-man; see Nautical.
NAVAL, belonging to ships, marine. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave. =
F. naval, ‘navall;’ Cot.—L. naualis, naval.—L. nauis, a ship ; see
Nave (2).
NAVE (1), the central portion or hub of a wheel, through which
the axle passes. (E.) ME. nave (with w=v), Chaucer, C. T. 7848
(Ὁ 2266). AS. nafu, nafa; AElfred, tr. of Boethius, b. iy. pr. 6,
cap. xxxix, 8 7.4-Du. zaaf; Icel. ποῦ; Dan. nav; Swed. naf; G. nabe,
OHG. naba. Teut. type naba, fem. Allied to Skt. nabhi-, the navel,
the nave of a wheel, the centre. See Navel. Der. auger, for
nau-ger,
NAVE (2), the middle or body of a church. (F.—L.) In
Phillips, World of Words, ed. 1706. Spelt xef in Addison, Travels
in Italy, description of the church of St. Justina in Padua.— F. nef,
‘a ship; also, the body of a church;’ Cot. Late L. nauem, acc. of
nauis, the body of a church. The similitude by which the church of
Christ is likened to a ship tossed by waves was formerly common.
See my note to P. Plowman, C. xi. 32, where I cite the passage from
Augustine about ‘nauis, i.e. ecclesia ;” S. Aug. Sermo Ixxv. cap. iil.
ed. Migne, v. 475. —L. néuis, a ship.4-Gk. vats, a ship ; Skt. ndu-,
a ship, boat; Olrish raz. Brugmann, i. ὃ 184; Prellwitz. Der.
nav-al, q.V., nau-ti-c-al, q.V., nau-ti-lus, q. V., argo-nautl, 4. V., Nav-1g=
ate (see navigation), nav-y. From the same root are nai-ad,
nau-sea.
NAVEL, the central point of the belly. (E.) A dimin. of nave (1).
We find nave used for navel, Mach. i. 2. 22; and conversely nauels
(=navels) for the zaves of a wheel, Bible, ed. 1551, 3 Kings, vii. 33+
ME. nauel (=navel), Chaucer, C. T. 1959 (A 1957). AS. nafela,
fElfred, tr. of Orosius, b. iv. c. 1. § 5.4-Du. navel ; Icel. xafli; Dan.
navle; Swed. nafle; G. nabel. Teut. type *natalon-, from *nabd,
anave. Cf. also Pers. naf, navel (Horn, § 1020); Skt. nabfi-, navel,
nave, centre. See Nave (1). β. Further related, with a difference
of gradation, to Gk. ὀμφαλός, navel, L. umbilicus, Olrish imbliu. So
also nave (1) is related to L. umbd, the boss of a shield.
ii. § 76.
NAVEW, the wild turnip. (F.—L.)
BG
gentle ;
napus, a kind of turnip, a navew. Cf. tur-nip,
Brugmann, |
‘Rape-rotes and Nauews;’ |
Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, bk. 11. c. 9.— MF. naveau, ‘the navew "ὦ
Cot.—Late L. napellum, acc. of napellus; dimin. of Le |
{
{
NAVIGABLE
NAVIGABLKE, that may be travelled over by ships. (F.—L.)
In Palsgrave.—F. navigable, ‘navigable;’ Cot.— L.. nauigabilis,
navigable. —L. nauigdre, to navigate; see Navigation. Der.
navigabl-y, navigable-ness,
NAVIGATION, management of a ship. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Macb. iv. 1. 54.—F. navigation, ‘navigation, sailing;’ Cot.—L.
naduigationem, acc. of nduigdtio, a sailing.—L. nauigare, to sail,
manage a ship.—L. ndu-, stem of nduis, a ship; and -ig-, for ag-,
base of agere, to drive. See Nave(2) and Agent. Der. xavigate,
from L, nauigatus, pp. of nduigare, but suggested by the sb. ; navigat-
or, familiarly contracted to navvy, formerly applied to the labourers
on canals for internal navigation, and now applied to labourers on
railways! Also circum-navigate.
NAVY, a fleet of ships. (F.—L.) ME. nauie, Chaucer, Ho. of
Fame, i. 216.—OF. navie, a fleet (Burguy); the orig. sense was a
single ship. —L. xduia, a ship, vessel. L. naui-, decl. stem of nduis,
a ship; see Nave (2).
NAW AB, the same as Nabob.
NAY, no, a form of denial. (Scand.) There was a difference in
usage between nay and no formerly; the former answered simple
questions, the latter was used when the form of the question in-
volved a negative expression. Besides this, nay was the simple, πὸ
the emphatic form, often accompanied by an oath. The distinction
went out of use in the time of Henry VIII; see Skeat, Spec. of Eng.
p- 192,1. 22, and the note; Student’s Manual of the Eng. Language,
ed. Smith, pp. 414, 422. Moreover, παν is of Scand. origin, whilst
noisE. ME. nay, Chaucer, C. T., A 1667, 8693 (Εἰ 817); spelt nei,
nat, Layamon, 13132.—Icel. nei, no, Dan, nei, Swed. nej ; cognate
with E. no; see No. Opposed to Aye.
NAZARITH, a Jew who made vows of abstinence, &c. (Heb. ;
with Gk. suffix.) ‘To vowe a vowe of a Nazarite to separate
[himself] vnto the Lorde;” Geneva Bible, 1561, Numb. vi. 5 (R.);
[rather, vi. 2]. Formed with suffix -ite (=L. -ita, from Gk. -erys)
from Heb. nazar, to separate oneself, consecrate oneself, vow, ab-
stain. Der. Nazarit-ism.
NEAP, scanty, very low; said of a tide. (E.) ME. neep; very
rare. ‘In the neep-sesons,’ i.e. in the neap-tide seasons, when boats
cannot come to the quay; Eng. Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith, p. 425. —
AS. nép, in the term neép-fldd, as opposed to héah-fldd =high flood ;
Voc. 182. 38; also Voc. 1. 14. The spelling xeap indicates an open
@; prob. nép is an OMercian form, for *x@p; from Teut. root *nipan
(*neipan), to pinch; whence Du. nijpen, to pinch, neep, a pinch, nip.
Thus the sense is ‘pinched,’ or ‘scanty.’ Cf. EFries. nép-range, a
pair of pincers. See Phil. Soc. Trans. 1903-6; p. 254. 4] Quite
a distinct word from ebb. Der. neap-tide.
NEAR, nigh, close at hand. (E.) By a singular grammatical
confusion, this word, orig. used as the comparative of nigh, came to
be used as a positive, from which the new comparative xearer was
evolved. In Schmidt’s Shakespeare Lexicon, the explanation is
given wrongly; he says-that near is put by contraction for nearer,
whereas it is the old form of the word. Shak. uses both near and
nearer as comparatives ; both forms occur together, Mach. ii. 3. 146:
ef. ‘nor near nor farther off;’ Rich. II, iii. 2. 64; ‘being ne’er the
near, id. y. 1. 88. The form near-er is late, not found in the 14th
cent., perhaps notin the 15th. Dr. Morris (Outlines of KE. Accidence)
observes that ¢ xear, for nigh, first came into use in the phrase far and
near, in which near is anadverb,’ But it first appears in " comen ner ;’
Genesis and Exod. 2611 (ab. 1250). [He goes on to cite an AS.
neorran, not given in the dictionaries.) It is clear that the precise
form was first of all adverbial; the ME. form of nigher was nerre,
whilst the adv. was xer, or neer. ‘Cometh neer’=come near;
Chaucer, C. T. 841 (A 839). AS. néar, comp. adverb from xéah,
nigh ; Grein, ii. 253. - Icel. ner, adv.; both pos. and comp.; orig.
the latter. See Nigh. Der. zear-ly, Macb. iv. 2. 67; near-ness,
Rich. I], i. 1. 1193 near-sight-ed.
NEAT (1), black cattle, an ox, cow. (E.) ME. nee¢, both sing.
and pl. ; used as pl. in Chaucer, C. T. 599 (A 597). AS. néat, neut.
sb., unchanged in the plural (like sheep, deer, also neuters) ; Grein,
il. 288.+4-Icel. zaut, neut. sb., unchanged in the plural, and gen. used
to mean cattle, oxen; Swed. not; Dan. δά; MHG., néz, neut. sb.,
cattle. Tent. type *zaufom,n. β. So named from their usefulness
and employment. From *naut, 2nd grade of Teut. *xeut-an-, to
employ, as seen in AS. néotan, niotan, to use, employ; Grein, ii. 292;
Icel. njdta, to use, enjoy; MHG. niezen, OHG. niozan, (ἃ. geniessen,
to enjoy, have the use of; Goth. xiutan, to receive joy (or benefit)
from. From Idg. 44NEUD; whence Lithuan. xavdi, usefulness,
naudingas, useful (Nesselman). Brugmann, i. ὃ 221. Der. neat-
erd.
“NEAT (2), tidy, unadulterated. (F.—L.) ‘Neat and fine ;’ Two
Gent. of Verona, i. 2. 10. Also spelt nett; Spenser, F. Q. iii. 12. 20.
“To kepe it cleen and nette:’? Caxton, Godfrey of Boloyne, ch. 6.
NEED 397
=F. net, masc., netée, fem., ‘neat, clean, pure ;’ Cot. [Cf. beast from
OF. beste.) —L. nitidum, acc. of nitidus, shining, clear, handsome,
neat, elegant. — L. nitére, to shine. Der. neat-ly, neat-ness. Doublet,
net (2).
NEB, the beak of a bird, the nose. (E.) In Winter's Tale, i. 2.
183. ME. neb. ‘ Ostende mihi faciam, scheau thi xeb to me’ =shew
me thy face; Ancren Riwle, p. 90. AS. nebb, the face, John, xi.
44.4 Du. ned, bill, beak, nib, mouth; Icel. nef, the nose; Dan. n@eb,
beak, bill; Swed. abd, beak, bill, B. The word has lost an initial
s; we also find Du. sveb, a bill, beak, szavel, a bill; (ἃ. schnabel,
a bill, beak, nib. The MHG. sxabel, a bill, is derived from MHG.
snaben, to snap. And cf. Lith. szapas, a bill. Doublet, nib.
NEBULA, a misty patch of light; a cluster of very faintly
shining stars. (L.) Modern and scientific. —L. nebula, a mist.4-Gk.
νεφέλη, a cloud; dimin. of νέφος, cloud, mist.4G. xebel, mist, fog ;
Du. nevel, Icel. nifl. B. The Gk. νέφος is cognate with W. nef,
OlIrish xem, heaven, Russ. zebo, heaven; Skt. zabhas, sky, atmosphere,
ether. Brugmann, i. § 554. Der. nebul-ar, nebul-ose, nebul-oxs,
nebul-os-i-ty.
NECESSARY, needful, requisite. (F.—L.) ME. xecessarie,
Chaucer, C, 1. 12615 (C 681). —OF. necessaire, ‘necessary.;’ Cot.
— L. necessdrius, needful. —L. necesse, nent, adj., unavoidable,
necessary. PB. The usual derivation from xe, not, and cédere, to give
way, isnot satisfactory. Der. xecessari-ly, also necessity, ME. necessitee,
Chaucer, C. T. 3044 (A 3042), from OF. necessite << L. acc. necessi-
tatem; hence necessit-ous, -ly, -ness, necessit-ate, necessit-ar-ian.
NECK, the part of the body joining the head to the trunk. (E.)
ME. nekke (dissyllabic), Chaucer, C. T. 5859 (D 277). AS. hnecca,
Deut. xxviii. 35.44Du. nek, the nape of the neck; ἃ. gentck, MUG.
genicke. Teut. type *hnakjon-.. Cf. Icel. hnakki, the nape of the
neck, back of the head; Dan. nakke, the same; Swed. nacke, the
same; G. nacken, nape, neck, crag; from Teut. type *hnakkon-.
Cf. Norw, nakk, a knoll, xakke, nape, neck; the orig. sense being
‘projection,’ as in the parallel form nape. Further altied to Trish
cnoc, a hill. Der. neck-cloth, neckerchief (for neck-kerchief, see
Kerchief), neck-band, neck-tie; neck-lace, Winter's Tale, iv. 4. 244,
compounded of neck and lace; neck-verse, Tyndall’s Works, p. 112,
col. 1, on which see my note to P. Plowman, C. xy. 129.
NECROLOGY, a register of deaths. (Gk.) Added by Todd
to Johnson, From Gk. νεκρό-, stem of νεκρός, ἃ corpse; and -Aoyia,
due to λόγος, discourse, from λέγειν, to speak. See Necromancy.
NECROMANCY, divination by communion with the dead.
(F.—L.—Gk.) ‘The history of the word is somewhat concealed by
our modern knowledge of Gk., which enables us to spell the word
correctly. But the ME, forms are nigromaunce, nigromancie, and the
like. Precisely the same ‘ correction’ of the spelling has been made
in modem French, Spelt xygremauncye in King Alisaunder, 1. 138;
nigromancye in P. Plowman, A. xi. 158, on which see my Notes to
P. Pl.,p.246. Trench rightly remarks, in his Eng. Past and Present,
that ‘the Latin medizval writers, whose Greek was either little or
none, spelt the word nigromantia,.as if its first syllables had been
Latin? <OF, nigromance, ‘nigromancy, conjuring, the black art ;’
Cot. Spelt nigromancie in the Vie de S. Aubar, 1. 997.—Late L.
nigromantia, corrupt form of necromantia.— Gk. vexpopavreia, necro-
mancy.—Gk. νεκρό-, for νεκρός, a corpse; and μαντεία, prophetic
power, power of divination. β, The Gk. νεκρός is allied to νέκυς,
a corpse, dead body. =4/NEK, to perish, to kill; whence Skt. παρ,
to perish, xagaya, to destroy, L. necare, to kill, and E. inter-nec-ine,
q-v. y- The Gk. μαντεία is from μάντις, a prophet, seer, inspired
one; cf. Gk. μαίνομαι, 1 rage; see Mania. Der. necromanc-er,
Deut. xviii. 12 (A. V.); necromantic, from Gk. vexpo-, and μαντικός,
prophetic ;.necromantic-al. @3 From the singular confusion with
L. niger, black, above mentioned, the art of necromancy came to
be called the black art!
NECTAR, a delicious beverage. (L.—Gk.) In Spenser, Sonnet
39, 1. 13. —L. nectar.—Gk. νέκταρ, the drink of the gods; Homer,
11. xix. 38, Od. v.93. Perhaps ‘ overcoming death ;’ cf. Gk. vex-vs,
a corpse, and Skt. ¢ar-a-, overcoming. Der. nectar-e-an, nectar-e-ous,
nectar-ous, nectar-y ; also nectar-ine, the name given to a variety of the
peach, orig. an adj., as in ‘Nectarine fruits,’ Milton, P. L. iv. 332.
NEED, necessity, distress. (E.) ME. need, nede, Chaucer, C. T.
4523 (B 103). OMerc. néd; AS. nyd, nied (néad); Grein, ii. 301.4
Du. nood; Icel. naud; Dan. and Swed. nid; Goth. nauths ;G. noth,
OHG. not. B. The Teut. stem is *naxdi- (>*xaudi-); answering
to Idg. stem *nau-/i-; as in OPruss. nautin, need. (But néad re-
presents Teut. *xawdd.) Bragmann,i. § 427 b.. 41 Confused in late
AS. texts with néod, nied, nyd, desire; which is related to OSax.
niud, OHG. niot, earnestness; from the Teut. base *neud-. Der.
need-ful, ME. neodful, Ancren Riwle, p. 260, 1. 10; need-less, need-
less-ly, need-less-ness; need-y, ME. nedy, P. Plowman, B. xx. 40, 41,
47, 48; need-i-ly, need-i-ness. Also need-s, ady., ME. needes, nedes,
398 NEEDLE
Chaucer, C. Τ᾿ 1171 (A 1169), where the final -es is an adverbial |
ending, orig. due to AS. gen. cases in -es; but in this case nedes
supplanted an older form xede, Layamon, 1. 1051, which originated
in AS. nyde, gen. case of τι γα, which was a fem. sb. with gen. in -e.
NEEDLE, a sharp pointed steel implement, for sewing with.
(E.) ME. nedle, nedel, also spelt nelde, neelde; P. Plowman, C. xx.
56, and various readings.. AS. μέ], Grein, ii. 2743; earlier forms
n&dl, népl (OE. Texts).4-Du. naald (for naadl); Icel. nat (by con-
traction); Dan. naal; Swed. nal; G. nadel, OHG. nadela; Goth.
néthla, B. The Teut. type is *x#-zhla, from a base n#=Idg. NE,
to sew, fasten with thread, preserved in OHG. nahen, G, πᾶμε, to |
sew, and also in L, nére, Gk. νήθειν; νέειν, tospin. The suffix denotes
the agent. γ. This is clearly one of the rather numerous cases in
which an initial s has dropped off; the orig. root is 4/SNE; as in
Irish snathad, a needle, snathaim, I thread, or string together, suaidhe,
thread, Gael. snathad, a needle, sath, thread, yarn; Olrish sxim,
a spinning. Stokes-Fick, p. 315; Brugmann, i. § 136. Der. needle-
book, -ful, -gun, -woman, -work.
NEESE, NEEZB, to breathe hard, sneeze. (Scand.) ‘To xeeze’
=to sneeze, Mids. Nt. Dr. ii. 1. 56. The sb. neesing isin Job, xli. 18
(A. V.). ME. nesen, vb., nesing, sb.; see Prompt. Parv., and Way’s
note. Not found in AS. — Olcel. knjdsa; Dan. nyse; Swed.
nysa.$Du. niezen, G. niesen, OHG. niusan. Teut. type *hneusan-.
Like the parallel form sneeze, it is of imitative origin; cf. Skt. Ashu,
to sneeze. J In the later version of Wyclif, Job, xli. 9, the reading
is /nesynge ; this isnot quite the same word, though of similar formation.
The sense of /nesynge is ‘ violent blowing,’ but it also means sneezing ;
cf. AS. fnéosung, sneezing, fuest, a puff, Du. friezen, to sneeze. Cf.
“And fneseth faste’=and puffs hard, Chaucer, C. T., H 62. Teut.
type */ueusan-. It reminds us of Gk. mvéev,to blow. Der. nees-ing,
neez-ing, as above.
NEFARIOUS, unlawful, very wicked. (L.) In Butler, To the
Memory of Du-Val, 1. 20. Englished from L. nefarius, impious,
very wicked; by change of -us to -ous, as in arduous, &c.—L. nefas,
that which is contrary to divine law, impiety, great wickedness. —L.
ne-, for né, not; and fas, divine law, orig. that which is divinely
uttered ; cf. fari, to speak; see Fate. Der. nefarious-/y, -ness.
NEGATION, denial. (F.—L.) In Shak. Troilus, ν. 2. 127.—
F. negation, ‘a negation;’ Cot.—L. acc. negatidnem, from nom.
negatio; cf. negitus, pp. of negare,to deny. B. Negare is opposed
to diere, to affirm; but is unconnected with it. Brugmann, ii. § 774,
explains neg-adre by comparing Lith. ne-g/, not at all; cf. L. neg-
otium. Der. negat-ive, adj., Wint. Tale, i. 2. 274, ME. xegatif,
negative, Usk, Test. of Love, bk. iii. ch. 2. 92, from F. negatif<L.
negitiuus ; negative-ly, negative-ness ; also negative, sb., Twelfth Nt.
ν. 24. From the same L. negare we have de-ny, ab-negate, re-negate,
re-negade.
NEGLECT, to disregard. (L.) Orig. a pp. ‘ Because it should
not be xeglect or left undone;’ Tyndall, Works, p. 276, col. 2. ‘To
neglecte and set at nought ;” Sir T. More, Works, p. 257 g.— L. neg-
lectus, pp. of negligere, to neglect. Negligere =neg-legere.—L. neg-,
a particle of negation, and /egere, to gather, collect, select. See
Negation and Legend. Der. neglect-ful, neglect-ful-ly, neglect-
Sul-ness ; neglect-ion, a coined word, 1 Hen. VI, iv. 3. 49; and see
negligence.
NEGLIGENCE, disregard. (F.—L.) ME. negligence, Chau-
cer, C. Τὶ 1883 (A 1881). - Ἐς negligence, ‘negligence;’ Cot.=L.
negligentia, carelessness. = L. negligent-, stem of pres. part. of negli-
gere, to neglect; see Neglect. Der. negligent, ME. negligent,
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 7398 (D 1816), from F. negligent (Cot.)<L. negli-
gentem, acc. of pres. part. of negligere; negligent-ly ; also negligee,
from Ἐς. xegligé, pp. of negliger, to neglect < L. negligere.
NEGOTIATE, to do business, transact. (L.) In Minsheu,
ed. 1627. ‘She was a busy negociating woman;’ Bacon, Life of
Hen. VU, ed. Lumby, p. 24, 1. 14. “Τοὺς negotiatus, pp. of negotiari,
to transact business.—L,. negdtium, business. Compounded of L.
neg-, negative particle (see Negation) ; and dtium, leisure. Der.
negotiat-or, from L. negotiator; negotiat-ion, from F. negociation,
‘negociation,’ Cot., from L. acc. negotiationem ; negotia-ble; negotiat-
or-y. > The right (historical) spelling is negotiate for the verb,
negociation for the sb. ; but this is not regarded.
NEGRO, one of the black race of mankind. (Span.—L.) In
Shak. Merch. Ven. iii. 5. 42. ‘ Black as negros;’ Hakluyt, Voy. iii.
649.—Span. negro, a black man.—L. nigrum, acc. of niger, black;
see Nigrescent. Minsheu gives the form neger; this is from
the OF. negre (mod. F. négre), ‘a negro’ (Cot.), and answers to
mod. E. nigger, q.v.
NEGUS (1), a beverage of wine, water, sugar, &c. (E.) ‘The
mixture now called xegus was invented in Queen Anne’s time by
Colonel Negus ;’ Malone, Life of Dryden, p. 484 (Todd's Johnson).
Col. Francis Negus died in 1732; N.E.D. The Neguses are a
| empire of Negus ;’ Milton, P. L. xi. 397.
| a king;’ John Pory, tr. Lee’s Hist. Africa, Introd. p. 21 (Stanford
NEREID
Norfolk family; see Notes and Queries, 1 Ser. x. 10, 2 Ser. v. 224;
Gent. Maga. Feb. 1799, p. 119.
NEGUS (2), a title of the kings of Abyssinia (Abyssinian). ‘Th’
‘ Neguz [which signifieth]
Dict.).
NEIF, NEAF, the fist. (Scand.) In Shak. Mids. Nt. Dr. iv.
1.20; 2 Hen. IV,ii. 4. 200. ME. neue (=neve, dat. case), Havelok,
2405. —_Icel. hnefi, the fist ; Swed. nafve; Dan. neve,
NEIGH, to make a noise as a horse. (E.) ME. nez3en, Wyclif,
Isa. xxiv. 14, earlier version, AS. hn#gan, to neigh; /Elfric’s
Grammar, p. 192, 1.8; whence the sb. hn#gung, a neighing, id. p. 4,
1. 15 (Zupitza).4-Low G. neigen (Liibben); MDu. xeyen, to neigh.
Cf. Icel. gneggja, hneggja; Swed. gnigga; Dan. gnegge. An imita-
tive word.
NEIGHBOUR, one who dwells near. (E.) ME. neighebour,
Chaucer, C. T. 9423 (E1549). AS. xéahgebir, a neighbour, John,
ix. 8; so that the trisyllabic form neigh-e-bour in Chaucer is easily
explained. The AS. form néakbair also occurs, but more rarely. =
AS. néah, nigh; and gebir, a husbandman, for which see the Laws
of Ine, sect. vi, in Thorpe’s Ancient Laws, i. 106. The AS. gebiir
or bur is cognate with Du. boer, a boor (the prefix ge- making no
difference). +MHG. ndchgebur, nachbir; mod. G. nachbar. See
Nigh and Boor. Der. neighbour, adj., Jerem. xlix. 18, 1. 40
(A. V.) 3 neighbour-hood, ME. neyghbourhede, Prompt. Parv.; neigh-
bour-ing, All’s Well, iv. 1. 18; netghbour-ly, Merch. Ven. i. 2. 85 ;
neighbour-li-ness.
NEITHER, not either. (E.) ME. neither, Havelok, 458. [Dis-
tinct from noither, nouther, nother (whence the contracted form zor) ;
earlier nowther (Ormulum, 3124), zawther, nauther ; see examples in
Stratmann.] Formed by prefixing ze, not, to ME. either = AS. #gSer
= éghwever, for d+ge+hweder; where ἃ means ‘ever. Thus
neither =no-whether ; see No and Whether. With AS. xe, not,
compare OSax, ne, ni; Goth. and OHG. xz, not.
NEMESIS, retributive justice. (L.—Gk.) In Shak. 1 Hen. VI,
iv. 7. 78.—L. Nemesis. —Gk. νέμεσις, distribution of what is due,
retribution. — Gk. νέμειν, to distribute; see Nomad.
NEMORAL, belonging to a grove. (L.) Phillips (1658) has
‘nemoral or nemorous. = L. nemoralis or nemordsus, woody. =—L.
nemor-, for *nemos, in remus, a grove.+Gk. vépos, a pasture; from
νέμειν, to distribute, to pasture; from 4/NEM. See Nomad.
NENUPHAR, a kind of water-lily. (F.—Pers.—Skt.) ‘ Nenx-
phar, water-lillie τ᾿ Baret (1580); and see the Stanford Dict.— MI’.
nenuphar, ‘nenuphar, the water-lilly, or water-rose ;’ Cot.—Pers.
ninifar, for niliifar, nilupar, niliipal, a water-lily (Devic).—Skt.
nilotpala, a blue lotus. —Skt. xt/a-, blue; utpala-,a lotus, lit. ‘ burst-
ing out,’ from wd, out, and pat, to burst.
NEOLOGY, the introduction of new phrases. (Gk.) Modern.
Compounded from Gk. véo-, for νέος, new; and -Aoyia, from λόγος,
discourse, which is from λέγειν, to speak. See New and Logic.
Der. neologi-c, neologi-c-al, neolog-ise, neolog-ism, neolog-ist.
NEOPHYTE, a new convert, a novice. (L.—Gk.) ‘ There
stands a neophite glazing of his face ;’ Ben Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels,
iii. 2 (Crites). —L. neophytus. = Gk. νεόφυτος, lit. newly planted, hence,
a novice; 1 Tim. 111. 6.—Gk. véo-, for νέος, new ; and φυτόν, a plant,
φυτός, grown, from the vb. φύειν, (1) to cause to grow, (2) to grow,
allied to E.be. See New and Be.
NEOTERIG, recent, novel. (L.—Gk.) Spelt neoterique in Min-
sheu, ed. 1627; but not given in Cotgrave or Littré. — L. nedtericus. =
Gk. νεωτερικός, novel ; expanded from νεώτερος, comp. of νέος, new,
which is cognate with E. new. See New. Der. neoleric-al.
NEPENTHE, NEPENTHES, a drug which lulled sorrow.
(Gk.) Spelt nepenthe in Spenser, F. Ὁ, iv. 3. 433 better nepenthes,
as in Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxi. c. 21.—Gk. νηπενθές, an epithet of
a soothing drug in Homer, Od. iv. 221; neut. of νηπενθῆς, free from
sorrow.=Gk. vy-, negative prefix allied to E. xo; and πένθος, grief,
allied to πάθος, suffering. See No and Pathos.
NEPHEW, a brother’s or sister's son. (F.—L.) An old
meaning is ‘ grandson,’ as in 1 Tim. v. 4, &c. The ph is a substitute
for the older v, often written u. ME. neuew (=nevew), Chaucer,
Legend of Good Women, 1. 2659; neueu (=nevex), Rob. of Glouc.
p- 169; 1. 3529.— OF. neven, a nephew ;’ Cot.—L. nepdtem, acc, of
nepos, a grandson, a nephew.+ Pers. xawdda,a grandson; Skt. napat,
a grandson.+AS. nefa, a nephew; /Elfred, tr. of Beda, b. iii. c. 6
(near the end). [This AS. word was supplanted by the Ἐς form] ;
OHG. nefo, nevo, G. neffe; Du. neef. ldg. type *nepot- ; whence
orig. Teut. type *nefod-, later *nxefon-. The fem. type is Idg. *nepti-,
whence Skt. nati, L. neptis; Teut. type *nefti>*nifti, as in AS.
nift, Du. nicht. Brugmann,i.§ 149. Der. nefot-ism, i.e. favouritism
to relations, from L. stem nepot-, with suffix -ism. See niece.
NERBEID, a sea-nymph. (L.—Gk.) Minsheu has the pl. form
NERVE
Nereides.=L, Néreid-, stem of Néreis (pl. Néreides), a sea-nymph,
a daughter of Nereus.—Gk. Nypeis, a sea-nymph, a daughter of
Nereus. — Gk. Νηρεύς, an ancient sea-god.— Gk. νηρός, wet; an allied
word to vais, ναιάς, a naiad; see Naiad.
NERVE, physical strength, firmness, a fibre in the body conveying
sensation. (F.—L.) ME. nerfe, Chaucer, Troilus, b. ii. 1. 642.—F.
nerf, ‘a sinew, might ;’ Cot.—L. neruum, acc. of neruus, a sinew.
Prob. allied to Gk, νεῦρον, a sinew, string; cf. Gk. veupa, a string ;
Skt. sndva-,a tendon. Der. nerve, verb, not in early use; nerv-ous,
formerly used in the sense of ‘sinewy’ (Phillips), from F. nerveux,
‘sinewy’ (Cot.), which from L. nerwdsws, full of nerve; nervous-ly,
nervous-ness 3 also nerv-y, i. e. sinewy (obsolete), in Shak. Cor. ii. 1.
177; nerve-less; cf. neur-algia.
NESCIENT, ignorant. (L.) Coles (1684) has nescient and
nescience.= L, nescient-, stem of nesciens, pres. part. of nescire, not to
know. =—L. ne-, not; scire, to know. See Nice and Science.
NESH, tender, soft. (E.) Still in use in prov. E. ME, nesh;
“tendre nesh;’ Court of Love, 1. 1092 (16th cent.); ‘That tendre
was, and swithe [very] xeskh;” Havelok, 2743. AS. hnesce, hnesce,
soft ; Grein, ii. 91. — Goth. hnaskwus, soft, tender, delicate, Matt. xi. 8.
NESS, a promontory. (E.) Preserved in place-names, as T’ot-ness,
Sheer-ness. AS. na@ss, ness, (1) the ground, (2) a promontory, head-
land, as in Beowulf, ed. Grein, 1. 1360; the form z@ssa also occurs,
Grein, ii. 277.4 Icel. nes; Dan. nes; Swed. nas. β. The sense of
‘ promontory’ suggests association with AS, πάσα, nose, and E. nose.
NEST, the bed formed by a bird for her young. (E.) ME. περί,
P. Plowman, B. xi. 336. AS. nest, a nest; Grein, ii. 282.4-Du. nest ;
G, nest.4Bret. neiz; Gael. and Irish nead; Olrish net; W. nyth;
L. nidus (for *niz-dus); Lithuan. lizdas (for nizdas), Nesselmann ;
Skt. nida-, a nest, aden. β. Now usually explained as representing
a form *nizdos =*ni-sd-os, ‘a place to sit down in;’ from xi, down,
and the weak grade of the root SED, ἴο 511. Cf. Skt. né-sad, to sit
down. See Sit. Brugmann,i. § 81. Der. nest, vb.; nest-le, AS.
nestlian, to make a nest, a frequentative form, orig. ‘to frequent
anest;’ nest-ling, with double dimin. suffix (= -/-ing), as in gos-ling,
duck-ling.
NET (1), an implement made of knitted or knotted twine for
catching fish, &c. (E.) ME, net, ett, Wyclif, John, xxi. 6. AS.
net, nett, Grein, ii, 282.4+Du. net; Icel. and Dan. net; Swed. nat;
Goth. nati; G. netz. Teut. type *ratjom, n. Cf. L. nassa, a wicker
creel; Icel. not, a net. @ Not connected with knit, which has
initial 4. Der. net, verb, (1) to use a net, (2) to make a net; xett-
ing, net-work.
NET (2), clear of all charges. (F.—L.) Merely a doublet of
neat; see Neat (2). Caxton has: ‘the ayer [air] was pure and net ;’
Troy-book, leaf 95, back, |. 23.
NETHER, lower. (E.) ME. nethere ; ‘the overe lippe and the
nethere’=the upper lip and the lower one, Wright’s Vocab. i. 146,
1. 14. AS. neodera, neodra, Ps. 1xxxvii. 6, ed. Spelman. A com-
parative adj. due to the compar. adv, nider, niodor, downward ;
Grein, ii. 294. Related forms are nide, adv. below, neodan, adv.
below, Grein, ii. 294, 290; but these are really forms suggested
by ni¥er, and not original ones. β. The word is to be divided as
ne-ther, the suffix -ther being comparative, as in o-ther, and answering
to the -/er in af-ter, and the Skt. -tara- (Gk. -repos).4Icel. nedri,
nether, lower; xedarr, adv. lower; cf. nedan, from below; Dan.
neder-, in comp. nederdel, the lower part of a thing; cf. neden, adv.
below, nede, ned, down; Swed. nedre, nether, as in nedre lappen, the
nether lip; cf. nedre, below, neder, ned, down; Du. neder; G. nieder,
nether, lower. Ὑγ. As said above, the base is ni-; cf. Skt. ni-taram,
ady., excessively; a comp. form from xi, downward, into. Cf. also
Russ. nije, lower. Der. nethermost, 1 Kings, vi. 6; a false form, due
to a popular etymology which connected the ending with most; but
really a corruption of AS, niSemesta, in “ἘΠ τα, tr. of Boethius,
b. ii, pr. 2 (cap. vii. § 2); and AS, nt-Se-m-est- is from ni, down,
with the Idg. suffixes -/e-mo- (as in L, op-ti-mus, best) and the usual
AS. superl. suffix -est. Cf. be-neath,
NETTLE, a well-known stinging plant. (E.) ME. neéle, nettle
(better with one ¢); ‘ Nedle in, dokke out ;” Chaucer, Troil. iv. 461.
AS. netele, netle; Cockayne, A. S. Leechdoms, iii. 340.4-Du. netel ;
Dan. nelde (MDan. needle) ; Swed. nassla (MSwed. natla) ; (ἃ. nessel,
OHG. nezzila, nezila, B. A dimin. form; Teut. type *nat-il-dn-, f. 5
the simple form appears in Swed. dial. nd¢a, OHG. nazza, a nettle.
Cf. Olrish nenaid, nettles. Der. netile-rash; nettle, vb., Phillips, ed.
1706.
NEURALGIA, pain in the nerves. (Gk.) Modern; not in
Todd’s Johnson. Coined from Gk. vevp-, stem of νεῦρον, a nerve;
and Gk. ἄλγ-, stem of ἄλγος, pain; with Gk, suffix -ia (1a). Perhaps
the Gk. νεῦρον is allied to L. neruus; see Nerve. Der. neuralg-i-c.
NEUTER, neither, sexless, taking neither part. (L.) ‘The
duke ... abode as: neuter and helde with none of both parties ;’
NEXT 399
Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol. i. c. 252 (R.).—L. neuter, neither.
Compounded of xe, not; and wer, whether of the two; which some
connect with Whether. Der. neutr-al, Macb. ii. 3. 115, from L.
neutralis; neutr-al-ly, neutral-ise, neutral-ts-at-ion; neutral-i-ty=F.
neutralité (Cotgrave), from L. acc. neutrilitatem.
NEVER, not ever, at no time. (E.) ME. newer (with τε for v),
Chaucer, C. Τ᾿ 1135 (A 1133). AS. n@fre; compounded of xe, not,
and @fre, ever; Grein, ii. 275. See Ever. Der. never-the-less,
ME. neuerpeles, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. τό, 1. 9, sub-
stituted for the earlier form napeles=AS. na pi les (=no-the-less,
not the less). In this phrase, the AS. pz, also written py, is the
instrumental case of the def. article se, and is cognate with Goth. thé,
on that account, instrum. case of sa; for examples, see /es in Grein,
ii. 164. See The (2).
NEW, recent, fresh. (E.) ΜΕ. newe (dissyllabic), Chaucer, C. T.
459, 8733 (A 457, E 857). AS. niwe, néowe, niowe, Grein, ii. 298.
Du. nieuw; Icel. nyr; Dan. and Swed. ny; Goth. ninjis; G. neu,
OHG. ninwi; L. nouns; W. newydd; Irish nua, nuadh, Gael. nuadh;
Lithuan. naujas; of which an older form was perhaps nawas (Nessel-
mann) ; Russ. novuii; Gk. véos; Skt. nava-,new. Idg. types *newos,
*newios; Brugmann, i. §§ 120, 318; ii. § 63. Allied to Skt. nz, ni,
now; see Now. Thus zew means ‘that which is now,’ recent.
Der. new-ly,= AS. niwlice, Grein, ii. 299; new-ness, spelt newenesse
in Sir T. Mare, Works, p. 1328 g; new-tsh, new-fashioned ; and see
new-fangled, news, re-new; also nov-el, nov-ice.
NEWEL, the upright column about which a circular staircase
winds, (F.—L.) ‘The staires,... let them bee upon a faire open
newell, and finely raild in;’ Bacon, Essay 45, Of Building. Cot-
graye, 5.0. noyau, spells it nuell, which is an older and better spelling.
The right sense is much the same as that of nucleus, with which
word it is connected. The form seems to show that the word was
| borrowed early. = OF. nuel, noiel (Godefroy) ; later F. noyau, ‘the
stone of a plumme, also, the nuell or spindle of a winding staire ;’
Cot. So called because it is the centre or nucleus of the staircase,
round which the steps are ranged.—L. nucdle, neut. of nucdlis, lit.
belonging to a nut; hence applied to the kernel of a nut or the
stone of a plum. =L. nuc-, stem of ux, a nut; with suffix -ais. See
Nucleus. Cf. F. veil, a nut (dial. of La Meuse).
NEWFANGLED, fond of what is new, novel. (E.) The old
sense is ‘fond of what is new;’ see Shak. L. L. L. i. 1. 106, As You
Like It, iv. 1.152; and in Palsgrave. The final -d is a late addition
to the word, due to a loss of a sense of the old force of -le (see
below); the ME. form is newefangel (4 syllables), fond of novelty,
Chaucer, C. T. 10932 (F 618). So also Gower, C. A. ii. 273;
1. 4366: “ Bot every newe loue quemeth To him, that newefongel is’
=but every new love pleases him who is fond of what is new.
B. Compounded of newe, new; and fangel, ready to seize, snatching
at, formed from the base fang-, to take (occurring in AS. fang-en,
pp. of fon, to take), with the suffix -el (=AS. -ol) used to form
adjectives descriptive of an agent. y. This suffix is preserved in
mod. E. witt-ol=one who knows, sarcastically used to mean an
idiot; ef. :AS..sprec-ol, fond of talking, talkative; wac-ol, vigilant;
and see Nimble. So also αν εἰ =fond of taking, readily adopting,
and new-fangle = fond of taking up what is new ; whence new-fangle-d,
by later addition of d. See Fang. Der. newfangled-ness, for ME.
newefangelnesse, Chaucer, C. T. 10924 (F 610); formed by adding
-nes (-ness) to ME. newe-fangel.
NEWS, what is new, tidings. (E.) Formerly newes, which
does not seem to be older than about A.D. 1400. ‘ Desyrous to here
newes;’ Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol. i. c. 66. ‘What newes he
brought;’ Surrey, tr. of Virgil, Ain. ii. 1.95. ‘I bring the newis
glad;’ James I, The Kingis Quair, st. 179. It is nothing but a
plural, formed from new treated as a sb.; so also tidings. It is
a translation of F. nouvelles, news, pl. of nouvelle, new (Cotgrave) ;
so also L. nowa=new things, i.e. news. In Wyclif, Ecclus. xxiv, 35,
in diebus novorum is translated by ‘in the dayes of newes;’ later
version, ‘of newe thingis.’ See New. Notes on E. Etym., p. 196.
Der. news-boy, -monger, 1 Hen. IV, iii. 2. 25, -paper, -room, -vendor.
NEWT, a kind of lizard. (E.) This is one of the words which
has taken to itself an initial x, borrowed from the indef. art. an; see
remarks on the letter N. A newt=an ewt. ME. newte, ewte.
‘ Newte, or ewte, wyrme, lacertus;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 355. Ewte is
a contraction of the older form euete (=evete). The OF. lesard, a
lizard, is glossed by evete (the MS. prob, has euete), in Walter de
Biblesworth; see Wright’s Vocab. i. 159. AS. efeta; ‘Lacerta,
efeta, in a gloss; Wright’s Voc. i. 78, col. 2. 47 The mod. prov.
E. eft is a contraction of AS. efeta. For further references, see
King Alisaunder, 1. 6126, Mandeville’s Travels, p. 61, 8c; see
Stratmann.
NEXT, nighest, nearest.
which it is an older spelling.
(E.) Next is a doublet of nighest, of
‘When pe bale is hest, penne is pe bote
400 NIAS
nest’ = when the sorrow is highest, then is the remedy nighest; Pro-
yerbs of Hendyng, st. 23. This is often cited in the form: ‘ When
bale is kext, then bote is next;’ and just as hext or hest is a contrac-
tion of ME. hehest (highest), so is zext or nest a contraction of ML.
nehest (nighest). See Stratmann, s.v. neh. The AS. forms are néahst,
néhst, nyhst, nihst, niehst; Grein, ii. 283. See Nigh.
WIAS, a young hawk; also, a ninny. (F.—L.)
Glossary. The correct form of Byas, q.v.
NIB, the point of a pen. (E.) Another form of xeb, which is the
older spelling. The spelling xb is in Johnson’s Dict., but is not
older than 1585. See Neb. Cf. EFries. nibbe, nib, Low G. nibbe,
aneb; Norw. xibba, a sharp point. Der. nipp-le, q.v.
WIBBLE, to eat in small portions. (E.) In Shak. Temp. iv. 1.
62. Not connected with xb, or neb, but with nip, of which it is the
frequentative form, and means ‘to nip often.’ In fact, it has lost an
initial k, and stands for kuibble, just as nip does for knip. G. Douglas
has knyp, with the sense of ‘nibbled ;’ tr. of Virgil, prol. to bk. xii.
1. 94.4-Low G. nibbeln, knibbeln, to nibble, gnaw slightly ; Bremen
Wort.; Westphalian nibbeln, nippeln, to nibble. Cf. also Du. knibbelen,
to cavil, haggle; the same word, differently employed. See Nip.
Cf Du. knabbelen, to nibble, allied to E. knuap. Cotgrave has:
“ Brouter, to knap or nible off.’ Der. nibbl-er.
WICH, hard to please, fastidious, dainty, delicious. (F.—L.) ΜΕ,
nice, foolish, simple; later, it took the sense of fastidious; and
lastly, that of delicious. In Chaucer, C. T. 5508, 6520 (B 1088,
D 938); in the latter passage ‘ wise and nothing nice’ = wise and not
simple at all. So also in P. Plowman, B. xvi. 33. ‘For he was
nyce, and ne couthe no wisdom’=for he was foolish, and knew no
wisdom; Rob. of Glouc. p. 106; 1. 2326.—OF. nice, ‘lazy, slothful,
idle, faint, slack, dull, simple ;’ Cot. The orig. sense was ‘ ignorant.’
—Romanic type *necium (cf. Span. necio); for L. nescium, acc. of
nescius, ignorant.—L. ne, not; and sci-, related to scire, to know.
See INo and Seience. @ The remarkable changes in the sense
may haye been due to some confusion with E. xesh, which sometimes
meant ‘ delicate’ as well as ‘soft.’ Der. nice-ty, ME. nicetee, Chaucer,
C. T, 4044 (A 4046), from OF. nicete, ‘sloth, simplicity’ (Cot.) ;
nice-ness.
NICHE, a recess in a wall, for a statue. (F.—Ital.—L.) In
Minsheu, ed. 1627.—F. niche, ‘a niche;’ Cot. Ital. xicchia, a niche ;
closely allied to zicchio, a shell, hence a shell-like recess in a wall,
so called (probably) from the early shape of it. Florio explains
nicchio as ‘the shell of any shell-fish, a nooke or corner, also such
little cubboords in churches as they put images in or as images
stand in’ =—L. mitulum, mytilum, acc. of mitulus, mytilus, a sea-
muscle. ‘Derived in the same way as Ital. secchia from situla, a
bucket, and Ital. vecchio, from L. uetulus, old; as to the change of
initial, cf. Ital. nespola with L. mespilum, a medlar;’ Diez. A similar
change of initial occurs in E. napkin, due to L. mappa, and in F.
natte,a mat. . Referred by some to Gk. μυτίλος, a muscle; but
the Gk. word may be of Lat. origin. The L. mytilus is also found in
the form mitulus, and is by some connected with musculus, a little
mane, also a sea-muscle. 4 The similarity to E. nick is acci-
ental.
WICK (1), a small notch, a cut. (E.) ‘Though but a stick with
a nick;’ Fotherby, Atheom., p. 62, ed. 1622 (Todd’s Johnson),
‘To nick, to hit the time right; I nick’d it, came in the nick of time,
just in time. ick and notch, i.e. crena, are synonymous words, and
to nick a thing seems to me to be originally no more than to hit just
the notch or mark ;’ J. Ray, pref. to Collection of English (dialectal)
Words, ed. 1691. Palsgrave has: ‘I nycke, 1 make nyckes on a
tayle, or on a stycke;’ where ¢ayle=/ally. Nick is an attenuated
form of nock, and means a little notch; so also tip from top. See
Woek. β. Hence nick, a score on a tally, a reckoning; ‘ out of all
nick’ =past all counting, Two Gent. iv. 2. 76. Der. nick, to notch
slightly, Com. Errors, v. 175.
NICK (2), the devil. (k.—L.—Gk.) In the phrase ‘Old Nick,’
i.e. ‘Old Nickolas’ or ‘Old Nicolas.’ . [Not really connected with
AS. nicor, a water-sprite; Beowulf, ed. Grein, ll. 422, 575, 845,
1427; Icel. γιν 7, a fabulous water-goblin; Dan. nok; OHG. nichxs,
a water-sprite, fem. nicchessa; G. nix, fem. nixe. See Nix in Kluge. |
=F. Nicolas. —L. Nicolaus. Gk. Νικόλαρς ; cf. Acts, νἱ. 5.
WICKEL, a grayish white metal. (Swed.—G.) One of the few
G. words in E. Added by Todd to Johnson’s Dict. From Swed.
nickel; so named by Cronstedt, a Swede, in 1754; he abbreyiated
the G. word kupfernickel to nickel, to denote the metal which he had
discovered in 1751 (Weigand), The origin of the G. name is doubtful.
WICKNACK, the same as Knickknack, 4ν.
NICKNAME, a surname, soubriquet. (E.) In Shak. Romeo,
ij. 1. 12. One of the words which has acquired an unoriginal initial
n; see remarks on the letter N. ME. xekename, corruption of
ekename, an additional name; in later times changed to nickname,
See Nares’
NIGHTINGALE
| from a popular etymology which connected the word with the verb
| nick, which properly means ‘to notch,’ not ‘to clip.’ It may further
be remarked that a nickname is not so much a docking of the name,
as an addition to it, a sur-name. ‘* Neke-name, or eke-name, agnomen ;’
Prompt. Pary. p. 352. Way cites in his note similar glosses, such
as: ‘Agnomen, an ekename, or a surename (sic), Medulla; ‘An
ekname, agnomen ;’ Catholicon. Spelt ekexame, Testament of Love;
bk. ii. ch. 1.96. There can be no doubt as to the purely E. origin
of the word, which has just the sense of L. agnomen, and is parallel
to ME. ¢oname, a to-name, additional name, surname (cognate with
(α. zuname, a nickname), for which see P. Plowman, C. xu. 211,
Layamon, 9383. Thus the word is simply compounded of eke and
name; see Eke, Name.+lIcel. auknafn, a nickname ; from auka, to
eke, and nxafn, a name; Swed. 6knamn, from oka, to eke, and xamn,
a name; Dan. égenavn, from dge, to eke. Der. nickname, verb,
Hamlet, iii. 1. 151.
NICOTIAN, belonging to tobacco, (F.) ‘Your Nicotian [tobacco]
is good too;’ Ben Jonson, Every Man, ed. Wheatley, A. 111, sc. 5,
1. 80. - ΜῈ, Nicotiane, ‘ Nicotian, tobacco, first sent into France by
Nicot in 1560;’ Cot. Coined, with fem. suffix -iane (=L. -idna),
from the Εἰ, name Nicot. Der. Hence also wicot-ine,
NIECES, the daughter of a brother or sister. (F.—L.) The fem.
form of nephew. ME. nece, Rob. of Glouc, p. 353, 1. 72523 spelt
neyce, King Alisaunder, 1. 1712,—OF. niece, mod. F. niéce, Cf.
Prov. nepta, a niece, in Bartsch, Chrestomathie Provencale. = Late L:
neptia, which occurs A, Ὁ. 809 (Brachet). = L. neptis, a granddaughter,
a niece; used as fem. of zepds (stem nepot-) ; see Nephew.
NIGGARD, a miser. (Scand.) ME. xigard (with one g), Chaucer,
C. T. 5915 (Ὁ 333); ef. nigardye, sb., id. 13102 (B 1362), The suffix
-ard is of F, origin, as usual; and the Εἰ, -ard is of OHG. origin ; see
Brachet, Introd. to F. Etym, Dict. 8 196, But this suffix was freely
added to E. words, as in drunk-ard ; and we find a parallel form in
ME. nygun. ‘[He was]a nygun and auarous’=he was a niggard and
an avaricious man; Rob. of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, 1. 5578. We
also find an adj. niggish (Richardson), from the sb. nig, a niggardly
person ; see Plowman’s Tale, 1. 757. Of Scand. origin. = Icel. hnoggr,
niggardly, stingy ; Swed. xjugg, niggardly, scanty ; cf. MDan. nygger,
Swed. dial. nugger, stingy; MDu. nugger, ‘nimble, carefull, or
diligent;’ Hexham; Swed. dial. gnugger, a miser, from guugga, to
be stingy. + AS. hnéaw, sparing. The orig. sense was prob. ‘ scrap-
ing;’ from Teut. base *hneu-, allied to Gk. κνύειν, to scratch,
scrape; see Prellwitz, Der, xiggard, adj., Hamlet, iii. 1. 13;
niggard-ly, Hen. V, ii. 4. 46; niggard-ly, adv., Merry Wives, ii. 2.
205; niggard-li-ness,
WIGGER, a negro. (F.—Span.—L.) ‘He takes us all for
a parcel of negers;’ Garrick, A Peep behind the Curtain, A. i. sc. 2.
—MF. negre, ‘a negro:’ Ἐς négre.—Span. negro, a negro; see
Negro.
NIGGUEB, to trifle, fret, mock. (Scand.) ‘Take heed . . You
niggle not with your conscience ;’ Massinger, Emp. of the East,
A. ν. sc. 3. Cf. Norw. nigla, gnigga, to pinch, spare, save; Low G.
gnegeln, to spare, save ; Norw. gnika, to rub, scrape, save.
NIGH, near, not far off, close. (E.) ME. neh, neih, ney, neigh,
ny; Chaucer, C. T. 1528 (A 1526); Havelok, 464; &c. AS. néah,
neh, Grein, ii, 282, used as adj., ady., and prep. Du. xa, adv., nigh ;
Icel. na@-, ady., nigh ; only used in composition, as nd-biii, a neigh-
bour; Goth. xéhw, néhwa, ady., nigh; whence néhwjan, to draw
nigh; G. nake, adj., nach, prep., nigh, next, ὅς. β. These forms
belong to a Teut. type *x#hwoz, adj., nigh; root unknown. Der.
near, q. V-, neighbour, q. v., next, q.V-
NIGHT, the time of the sun’s absence. (E.) ME, niht, night;
Chaucer, C. T. 22. AS. niht, neht, neaht, Grein, 11. 284.4-Du. nacht;
Tcel. natt, nott; Dan. nat; Swed. natt; Goth. nakts; G. nacht.4-W.
nos; Irish nochd; Lithuan. naktis; Russ. ποολ( εν) ; L. nox (stem noct-) ;
Gk. νύξ (stem vuer-); Skt, nakta-. B. All from the Idg. type
*noki-; whence Teut. *xaht-, Brugmann, i. §§ 420, 658b. Der.
night-cap, -dress, -fall, -jar (from its jarring noise), -piece, -watch ;
also night-ly, ME. nihtliche, Reliquiz Antique, i. 131, night-less,
night-ward ; also numerous compounds in Shak., as -bird, -crow, -dog,
-ν, ~foe, -gown, &c. And see night-mare, night-shade, night-in-gale,
nocturn. Also fort-night, sen-night.
NIGHTINGALE, the bird that sings by night. (E.) The x
before g is excrescent, as in messenger for messager, passenger for
passager, &c. ME, nightingale, Chaucer, C. T. 98; earlier form
| zi3tegale, Reliquiz Antique, i. 241. AS. nihtegale, Voc. 247. 11.
Lit. ‘singer of (or in} the night.’ AS. nite, gen. and dat. case of
niht, neakt, night; and gale =singer, from galan, to sing (Grein).4Dn,
nachtegaal ; Dan, nattergal; Swed. naktergal; (ἃ. nachtigall, OHG,
nahtagala, naktegala, nahtigala. _ 8. The verb galan became galen in.
ME., and occurs in Chaucer, C. T. 6414 (Ὁ 832); it is cognate with
Dan. gale, Swed. gala, to crow as a cock, OHG. alan, to sing ; and
NIGHTMARE
is derived from *gal, 2nd stem of the Teut. verb which appears as E.
yell. See Yell.
NIGHTMARE, an incubus, a dream at night accompanied by
pressure on the breast. (E.) ME. nightemare. ‘ Nyghte mare, or
mare, or wytche, Epialtes, vel effialtes’ {ephialtes]; Prompt. Parv.
= AS. neaht, niht, night; and mare, anight-mare, a rare word, occur-
ring in Cockayne’s Α. 5. Leechdoms, ii 306, 1.12; older forms mera,
m., Epinal gloss., 558; maere, f., Corpus gloss., 1111. Du. nacht-
merrie, a night-mare ; an accommodated spelling, due to confusion
with Du. merrie, a mare, with which the word has no connexion.
A like confusion is probably common in modern English, though
the AS. forms are distinct; Icel. mara, the nightmare, an ogress ;
Swed. mara; Dan. mare; Low G. moor, nagt-moor ; Bremen Worter-
buch, iii. 184, where the editor, against the evidence, confuses moor
with ‘mare;’ OHG. mara, a nightmare, incubus.4+Polish mora,
nightmare. B. The sense perhaps is ‘crusher;’ from a root *mer ;
cf. Icel. merja, to crush (pt. t. mar-d:). The AS., Icel., and OHG.
suffix -a (fem. -e) may denote the agent, as in numerous other cases ;
e.g. AS. hunt-a, a hunter, huntsman.
NIGHTSHADE, a narcotic plant. (E.) AS. nihtscadu, niht-
scada, nightshade; Cockayne’s A. S. Leechdoms, iii. 340. Com-
pounded of πὲλέ, night, and scadu, shade; perhaps because thought
to be evil, and loving the shade of night. See Night, Shade.
B. But this may be ‘ popular’ etymology. Cf. Du. nachtschade, MDu.
nachtschaede, G. nachtschatten, nightshade. But the MHG. for ‘night-
shade’ is nahtschate, and the Swed. dial. form is nattskate-gris, lit.
‘bat-grass,’ from naht-skata, 2 bat. Notes on E. Etym., p. 197.
NIGRESCENT, growing black. (L.) In Todd’s Johnson. =
L. nigrescent-, stem of pres. pt. of nigrescere, to become black,
inceptive form of nigrére, to be black.—L. nigr-, stem of niger,
black. Der. nigritude, from L. nigritido, blackness; see Hood's
Poems, A Black Job, last line but one. Also negro, q. v.
NIHILIST, one who rejects all positive beliefs. (L.) Formed
with suffix -st from L. nihil, nothing.
NILGAU, the same as Nylghau, q. v.
NIMBLE, active. (E.) The ὁ is excrescent. ME. nimel, nimil ;
see ‘ Nymyl, capax’ in Prompt. Parv., and Way’s note. Formed
from AS. nim-an, to take, catch, seize, with the AS. suffix -ol, still
preserved in E. witt-ol, lit. a wise man, used sarcastically to mean a
simpleton. We find the parallel AS. forms numol, numul, numel,
occurring in the compounds scearp-numul, lit. ‘sharp-taking,’ i. e.
efficacious, and ¢eart-numul, also lit. ‘tart-taking,’ i.e. efficacious ;
Cockayne’s A. S. Leechdoms, i. 134, 1. 10, 152, 1. 3, and footnotes ;
these are formed from num-, the weak grade of the same verb niman.
The sense is ‘ quick at seizing,’ hence active, nimble. So also Icel.
nema, keen, quick at learning, from nema, to take ; Dan. nem, quick,
apprehensive, adroit, from nemme, to apprehend, learn. B. The AS.
niman, to seize, is cognate with Icel. nema, Dan. nemme, G. nehmen, Goth.
niman, to take ; a strong verb, with AS. and Goth. pt. t. nam. The orig.
sense is ‘ to take as one’s share.’ -+/NEM, to apportion, distribute,
allot; whence also Gk. νέμειν, to distribute, L. num-erus, a number.
&c.; see Prellwitz. Der. nimbl-y, nimble-ness. From the same root,
nem-esis, nom-ad, num-b-er, num-ism-at-ic. And see Numb.
NIMBUS, a cloud, halo. (L.) L. ximbus, a cloud; allied to
Nebula.
NINCOMPOOP, a simpleton. (L.) ‘An old ninnyhammer,
a dotard, a nincompoop;’ The Guardian, no. 109 (1713). A cor-
tuption (by association with ninny) of L. non compos, short form of
non compos mentis, not in possession of one’s mind. ‘ Bo! the man’s
non compos ;’ Murphy, The Upholsterer, A. i. sc. 3.—L. πῦρ, not;
compos, in control of, from com- (for cum, prep., with) and -fos, allied
to potis, capable ; see Potent.
NINE, a numeral, one less than ten. (E.) ME. xyne, nine,
Chaucer, C.T.24. Here the final -e is the usual pl. ending, and nyne
stands for an older form ni3ene, extended form of nizen, Layamon,
2804. AS. nigon, nigen, Grein, li. 296.4Du. negen; Icel. niu; Dan.
ni; Swed. nio; (ας neun; Goth. niun.4-W. naw; Irish and Gael. παοὶ,
L. nouem; Gk. ἐννέα (=é-véFa); Zend nava, Pers. nuh, Skt. nava.
Idg. type *newan; Brugmann, ii. § 173. Der. xine-fold, nine-pins ;
nine-teen, AS. nigontyne (Grein); nine-ty, AS. nigontig (Grein) ; nin-th,
AS. nigoda, nigeda (id.); nine-teen-th, nine-ti-eth ; nin-th-ly. And
see Novem-ber.
NINNY, a simpleton. (E.) ‘What a pied xinny’s this!’ Temp.
iii. 2. 71. Prov. E. ninny, nonny, or nunny, a simpleton ; ninny-
hammer (the same); E.D.D. Of imitative origin (see below). Cf.
Westphal. ninne, an infant (Woeste) ; Picard ninette (Corblet) ; Ital.
ninno, a child, a dialectal form cited by Diez, not given in Florio
nor in Meadows’ Dict., but the same word with Span. nizio, a child,
infant, one of little experience. Cf. also Span. nene (colloq.), an
infant; Gascon nenet, ninet, an infant (Mistral). Cf. Ital. ninna,
a lullaby, nurse’s song to rock a child to sleep, xinzare, to lull to
NOCK 401
sleep, nazna, ‘a word that women use to still their children with’
(Florio). From the repetition of the syllables xi, xi, or na, na,
in humming or singing children to sleep. Korting, § 6545. See
Nun.
NIP, to pinch, break off the edge or end. (E.) ME. nippen;
“nyppyng hus lyppes ’ = biting his lips, pressing them with his teeth,
P. Plowman, C. vii. 104. For kaip; see G. Douglas, Prol. to XII
Book of the "Eneid, 1. 94. Not found in AS., though the (possibly)
cognate cnif, a knife, occurs; see Knife. "From the weak grade
(knip-) of a Teut. verb *kneipan-, to pinch, as seen in Du. knipen, to
pinch; Dan. knibe, to pinch, nip; Swed. knipa, to pinch, squeeze,
catch; G. kneifen, to pinch, nip; kneipen, to pinch, twitch. Perhaps
allied to Lith. knébti, to pinch; or to Lith. gzyb¢i, to pinch. Der.
nip, sb., a cut, Tam. Shrew, iv. 3. 90; nipp-er, nipp-ers, nibb-le. And
see knife.
NIPPLE, a teat, a small projection with an orifice. (E.) In
Shak. Macb. i. 7. 57; and in Minsheu, ed. 1627. A dimin. of nib,
just as neble is the dimin. of ποῦ. ‘ Neble of a womans pappe, bout
de la mamelle;’ Palsgrave. Nib and neb are the same word; see
Nib, Neb. Cf. Low G. nibbe, a beak; whence OF. nifle, niffle,
a nose, Ital. niffa, niffolo, a snout. Korting, § 6526. Der. nipple-
wort.
WIT, the egg of a louse or small insect. (E.) ME. nite, nyte, also
used to mean a louse. ‘Nye, wyrme, Lens;’ Prompt. Pary. AS.
hnitu, to translate L. lens; Voc. 30. 25 122. 2.4-Du. neet; Icel. nitr,
pl., Olcel. gnit; Dan. gnid; Swed. gnet; G. niss, MHG. niz. Cf.
also Russ. gnida, a nit, Gk. κόνις (stem «dvi5-) ; W. nedd, pl. nits.
B. Teut. base *Anit, which may be the weak grade of the verb seen
in AS. hnitan, only used of an ox, meaning ‘to gore,’ Exod. xxi. 28,
Icel. Anita, to attack, strike. The corresponding Idg. root is KNEID,
appearing in Gk. «view (=xvid-yew), to scrape, tease, make to itch.
See Prellwitz.
NITRE, saltpetre. (F.—L.—Gk.—Heb.) Spelt niter in Minsheu,
ed. 1627. =F, nitre, ‘niter;’ Cot.—L. nitrum.=—Gk. νίτρον, ‘natron,
a mineral alkali, our potassa or soda, or both (not our zitre, i.e.
saltpetre) ;’ Liddell and Scott. This means that the sense of the
word has changed; but the form is the same. — Heb. nether, nitre ;
Prov. xxy. 20; cf. Arab. nifriim, natrin, natron, native alkaline salt ;
Rich. Dict. p. 1585. Der. nitr-ate, nitr-ic, nitr-ous, nitr-i-fy, nitr-
ite. Also nitro-gen, i.e. that which produces nitre, from vizpo-, for
νίτρον, and yev-, base of yiyvew, to produce ; see Generate.
NIZAM, the title of a ruler in the Deccan, in Hindustan. (Hind.
—Pers.—Arab.) Found in 1793; see Stanford Dict. Short for Hind,
nizam-ul-mulk, administrator of the empire (Forbes). - Arab. xi¢gham,
government ; which the Persians pronounce as nizim, ‘Though the
proper sense is ‘ government,’ in the phrase nizam-l- mulk it is used
as a title, meaning ‘governor of the empire.’ First used by Asaf
Jah in 1713 (Yule). From Arab. root nadhama, he arranged or
ordered. See Devic and Richardson.
NO (1), a word of refusal or denial. (E.) ME. no, Will. of
Palemne, 2701, 3115. There is a clear distinction in ME. between
no and nay, the former being the stronger form; see Nay, which is
of Scand. origin. AS. πᾷ, adv., never, no. Compounded of ne, not,
and @, ever. The form ἃ became oo in ME., occurring in Genesis
and Exodus, ed. Morris, 1. 111; but this form was entirely superseded
by the cognate word ai, ay, mod: E. ay, aye, which is of Scand.
origin. See Aye, adv., ever. ΒΒ. The neg. particle ne, signifying
‘not,’ is cognate with OHG. ni, MHG. ne, not; Goth. xi, not;
Russ. ze, not; Irish, Gael., and W. μὲ, not; L. ne, in non-ne ; Skt.
na, not. C. In mod. E. this neg. particle is represented by the
initial 2- of n-ever, n-aught, n-one, n-either, n-ay, n-or, and the like.
@ It is quite a mistake to suppose that the ME. me, not, so common
in Chaucer, is of F. origin. It is rather the AS. xe, which happens
to coincide in form with ΕΝ. ne, of L. origin; and that is all.
NO (2), none. (E.) Merely a shortened form of zone, as a is of
an; see None. Der. xo-body, q.v.
NOBLE, illustrious, excellent, magnificent. (F.—L.) In early
use. ME. noble, O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 273, 1. 16.—
noble. «αἰ, nobilem, acc. of ndbilis (= gnd-bilis), well-known, notable,
illustrious, noble.—L. gnd-, base of noscere (= enoscere), to know,
cognate with E. know; with suffix -bilis. See Know. Der. nobl-y,
adv.; noble-man, in O. Eng. Homilies, as above ; noble-ness (a hybrid
word, with E. suffix), Wint. Tale, ii. 3.12. Also nobil-i-ty, K. John,
v. 2. 42, from OF. nobtlite, nobilitet<L. acc. ndbilitatem.
NOBODY, no one. (E.) In Shak. Merry Wives, i. 4.14. Com-
pounded of xo, short for none, and body; not in early use. It took
the place of ME. no man, which is now less used. See None and
Body.
NOCK, an indentation. (MDu.) ‘The xocke of the shafte ;’
Ascham, Toxophilus, bk. ii. ed. Arber, p. 127. ME. nokke, Prompt.
Parv., p. 357. ‘Nokked and fethered aright,’ said of arrows; Chaucer,
pd
402 NOCTURN
Rom. Rose, 942.—MDu. xocke (Kilian); also nock, ‘een nock.. in
een pijl, a notch in the head of an arrow;’ Hexham.-+-MSwed. nocka,
an incision (Ihre) ; Swed. dial. nokke, nokk, an incision or a cut in
timber (Κεῖ). β. The MSwed. nocka also denotes the same as
Icel. hnokki, i. e. one of the small metal hooks holding the thread in
a distaff. @ Constantly confused with notch, which is a different
word. The Norman dial. xogue (Du Bois), Ital. zocca, a nock (see
Florio), are of Germanic origin.
NOCTURN, the name of a service of the church. (F.—L.)
See Palmer, Origines Liturgice, i. 202, ed. 1832. ‘A nocturne of the |
Psalter ;’ Lord Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol. 11. c. 26 (R.). ME.
nocturne, Ancren Riwle, p. 270, 1. 1.—F. nocturne, nocturnal ; also,
a nocturn. Late L. nocturna, a nocturm ; orig. fem. of L. xocturnus,
belonging to night. B. To be divided as noct-urnus, from noct-, stem
of nox, night, with a suffix imitating di-urnus, See Night. Der.
nocturn-al, spelt nocturnall, Hardyng’s Chron., ch. 95, st. 10; and in
Milton, P. L. iii. 40, viii. 134, from Late L. nocturndlis, extended
from noclurnus; nocturn-al-ly.
NOD, to incline the head forward. (E.) ME. nodden, Chaucer,
C. T. 16996 (H 47). Not found in AS., and difficult to trace.
But it answers to a G. form *notten, found in the frequentative form
notteln, a proy. (ἃ. word, meaning to shake, wag, jog (Fliigel). To
nod is to shake the head by a sudden inclination forwards, as is done
by a sleepy person; to make a butting movement with the head.
Schmeller gives notteln as Bavarian. The orig. notion seems to be
that of butting or pushing; and there is a connexion with Icel.
hnjoda, to hammer, clinch, rivet, hnydja, a rammer for beating turf;
Α΄. nieten, to rivet. Teut. base *hnud-, weak grade of *hneud-.
4 Not connected with L. nuere, to nod (base nu). Der. nod, sb.
INODDLE, a name for the head. (E.) In Shak. Tam. Shrew, i.
1. 64. Wedgwood well says: ‘the noddle, noddock, or niddock is
properly the projecting part at the back of the head, the nape of the
neck, then ludicrously used for the head itself.’ ME. nodle, nodil.
‘ Nodyl, or nodle of the heed, or nolle, Occiput;’ Prompt. Parv.
B. It really stands for knoddel, and is the dimin. of knod, a word lost
in Early E., but preserved in E. dial. zod, nape, and in other languages;
cf. MDu. knodde, a knob (Hexham); Icel. Aniidr, a knob, ball; G.
knoten, a knot, a knob; Du. knod, a club. Cf. Low G. knuddel,
a ball of yarn, a hard swelling under the skin (Berghaus). γ. This
knod is a variant of Knot, q. v.
NODE, a knot. (L.) ‘ Nodes, in astronomy, are the points of the
intersection of the orbit of the sun or any other (!) planet with the
ecliptick ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. ‘Nodus or Node, a knot, or noose,
&c.;’ id.=L. nddus, a knot. Allied to Skt. naddha-, tied, bound,
pp- of zak (for nxadh), to tie. From Idg. root NEDH, to fasten.
Brugmann, i. § 700 (a), note 2. Der. nod-al, adj.; nod-ous, Sir Τὶ
Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iv. c. 4, § 1, Englished from L. ndddsus ;
nod-os-i-ty, id. Ὁ. v. c. 5, § 2, from F. nodosité, ‘knottiness’ (Cot.)
<L. acc. nédésitatem; nod-ule, Englished from L. nddulus, a little
knot, dimin. of nddus.
NOGGIN, a wooden cup, small mug. (Scand.) ‘ Of drinking-
cups. . we have. . mazers, broad-mouthed dishes, xoggins, whiskins,
piggins, &c.;’ Heywood, Drunkard Opened, &c., ed. 1635, Ρ. 45
(Todd). Also in Minsheu, ed. 1627. (Cf. Irish noigin, ‘a noggin,
a naggin, quarter of a pint,’ O’Reilly ; Gael. xoigean, a wooden cup ;
Gael. cnagan, a little knob, peg, pin, an earthen pipkin; Gael.
cnagaire, a knocker, a noggin; all from E. (Macbain).] We also
find Lowl. Sc. noggin, noggie, spelt knoggin by Swift, in Lines to
Dr. Sheridan (1719). For *knoggex, with -ex as in wood-en, from
knog, a small cask, a firkin (E. D.D.), variant of knag,akeg (E.D.D.),
which is prob. the same word as Knag, a knot in wood, a peg; q.v.; |
whence also knaggie, a keg.
NOISE, a din, troublesome sound. (F.—L.—Gk.) In early use.
ME. noise, Ancren Riwle, p. 66, 1. 18.—1'. noise, ‘a brabble, brawle,
debate, .. alsoanoise;’ Cot. B. The OF. form is also nose; and
the Provengal has nxausa, nauza, noisa, nueiza (Bartsch). The origin
is uncertain; it is discussed by Diez, who decides that the Proy.
form nausa could only have been derived from L. nausea, so that
a noise is so called because nauseous; see Nausea. If this be right,
the word is really of Greek origin, So Kérting, § 6471. Der. nois-y,
for which formerly noise-ful was used, as in Dryden, Annus Mirabilis,
st. 40; nois-i-ly, nois-i-ness ; noise-less, -ly,-ness; also noise, verb, ME.
noisen, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. iii. met. 6, 1. 7.
NOISOME, annoying, troublesome. (F.—L.; with E. suffix.)
Formed from ME. πον, annoyance, injury; with E. suffix -some=AS.
-sum, as in Winsome, q.v. We find three forms in use formerly,
viz. noy-ous, Wyclif, 2 Thess. iii. 2; noy-ful, Sir T. More, Works,
p- 481 6; and noy-some, id. p.1389h. B. Noyis a mere contraction
of ME. anoy, anoi; see Romaunt of the Rose, 4404, &c. The deriva-
tion is from the L. phrase zx odid habére, as explained s.v. Annoy,
q-v. f Not connected with L. nocére, to hurt.
1
NONPAREIL
NOLE, NOLL, the head; see Noule.
NOMAD, wandering; one of a wandering tribe. (Gk.) ‘ The
Numidian nxomades, so named of changing their pasture ;’ Holland,
tr. of Pliny, b. v. c. 3.—Gk. νομάδ-, stem of νομάς, roaming, wander-
ing, esp. in search of pasture. — Gk. νομός, a pasture, allotted abode.
—- Gk. νέμειν, to assign, allot. —4/NEM, to assign; cf. Skt. nam, to
bow to, bow, bend, upa-nam, to fall to one’s share. Hence also
nem-esis, nim-ble, num-ber ; and the suffix -zomy in astro-nomy, auto-
nomy, gastro-nomy, anti-nomi-an. Der. nomad-ic.
NOMENCLATOR, one who gives names to things. (L.)
| ‘What? will Cupid turn xomencla‘or ?’ Ben Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels,
A. v. sc. 3 (2nd Masque). In Minsheu, ed. 1627.—L. ndmenclator,
one who gives names, lit. ‘name-caller ;’ fuller form xdmenculdtor. =
L. némen, a name; and calare,to call. See Name and Calendar.
Der. nomenclat-ure, from L. ndmenclatira, a calling by name, naming.
NOMINAL, pertaining to a name, existing only in name.
(L.) ‘One is a reall, another a xominall;’ Tyndal’s Works, p. 104,
col. 1; see Spec. of English, ed. Skeat, p. 176, 1. 316. This refers
to the famous dispute between the Nominalists and Realists; the
founder of the former sect was condemned by a council at Soissons,
A.D. 1092; Haydn, Dict. of Dates.—L. ndminilis, nominal.—L.
nomin-, for ndmen, a name, cognate with E. Name, q.v. See
Nominate.
NOMINATE, to name. (L.) In Shak. L. L. L. i. 2.16. —L.
nominatus, pp. of ndminare, to name.—L. ndmin-, for nomen, a name,
cognate with E. Name, q.v. Der. nominat-ion, Fryth’s Works,
Ῥ. 58, col. 2, from F. nomination, ‘a nomination’ (Cot.) ; nomina-tor ;
nominat-ive, ME. nominatif, Trevisa, i. 327, from OF. nominatif, in
use in the 13th century (Littré), from L. ndmindtiuus. Also nomin-ee,
a term of law, formed as if from a F. verb *xominer, with a pp. nomineé ;
but the real F. verb is xommer.
ΝΟΝ-, prefix, not. (L.) In compounds, such as non-appearance,
non-compliance. «τος ndn, not; orig. none, not one; compounded of
L. ne, not, and oinum, old form of anum, neut. of anus, one (Bréal).
Thus L. 16x is of parallel formation with E. None, q. v.
NONAGE, minority. (F.—L.) In Shak. Rich. IT, ii. 3. 13.
Orig. a law-term. AF. xonage, Stat. Realm, i. 38 (1275). Com-
pounded of F. non, from L. néx, not, and age; see Non-, Age.
NONCE,, in phr. for the nonce. (E.) ME. for the nones, Chaucer,
C. T. 381 (A 379). The sense is ‘for the once,’ for the occasion or
purpose. The older spelling is for then ones, still earlier for then
anes, as in St. Juliana, ed. Cockayne, p. 71. Thus the » really
belongs to the dat. case of the article, viz. AS. Sam, later San, then.
Ones=mod. E. once; see Once. We may note that ones was first
a gen. case, then an ady., and was lastly used as a sb., as here.
NONCHALANYT, careless. (F.—L.) In Κα. North’s Examen,
Ρ. 463 (Davies).=—F. nonchalant, ‘careless,’ Cot.; pres. pt. of OF.
nonchaloir, ‘ to neglect, or be carelesse of ;” Cot.—F. nox, not ; chaloir,
‘to care, take thought for;’ id. Cf. OF. chaloir, calotr, in Bartsch,
orig. ‘to glow,’ hence, to be hot over, be fervent; also Anglo-F.
nunchaler, to be careless, Life of Edw. Conf. 4519.4-L. non, not ;
calére, to glow, be animated. See Caldron. Der. nonchalance, sb.,
Whitehead’s Poems, Variety, 1. 284, from Ἐς nonchalance, careless-
ness, indifference.
NONCONFORMING, refusing to conform. (L.; and F.—L.;
with Ἐς suffix.) The Act of Uniformity came into operation on
24 Aug. 1062; Haydn, Dict. of Dates. Hence arose the name non-
conformist, and the adj. nonconforming. Compounded of L. xox, not ;
and Conform, q. v. Der. nonconform-ist, non-conform-i-ty.
NONDESCRIPT, not yet described, novel, odd. (L.) ‘Such
as are xon-descripts;’ Letters of Eminent Men, ed. Ellis (Cam. Soc.)
p- 203; A.D. 1696. Added by Todd to Johnson’s Dict.—L. non,
not; and descriptus, pp. of describere, to describe ; see Describe.
NONE, not one. (E.) ME. noon, non; as in ‘non other’=no
other, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 5. Before a consonant it
commonly becomes zo, as in mod. E.; but in very early authors we
find nox even before a consonant, as in ‘zone tonge;’ Rob. of Glouc.
p- 285, 1. 5806. AS. xan, none; compounded of xe, not, and an,
one; see No (1) § B, and One.
NONENTITY, a thing that does not exist. (1..)
Tatler, no. 118, § 6 (1710). From Non- and Entity.
NONES, the ninth day before the ides. (L.) Also used of the
old church service at the ninth hour, which is the older use in E.
See P. Plowman, B. v. 378. This ninth hour or nones was orig.
3, P.M., but was changed to midday; whence our zoon. See further
under Noon.
NONJUROR, one who refuses to take the oath of allegiance.
(L.; and F.—L.) First used of those who refused allegiance to
Will. III. in 1689. From Non- and Juror.
NONPAREIL, one without equal, matchless. (F.—L.) In
Shak. Temp. iii. 2. 108.—F. ov, not, from 10. non; and pareil, equal,
In The
NONPLUS
from Late L. pariculus, double dimin. from L. par, equal. See
Apparel, and Par.
NONPULUS, a state of perplexity ; to perplex. (L.) Most com-
monly a verb. ‘ He has non-plus’d me ;’ Dryden, Kind Keeper, iii.
1. The orig. phrase was ‘ to be at a non-plus,’ which occurs in Cot-
grave, s.v. Latin, A half-ludicrous coined term for a state of per-
plexity, in which one can do no more, nor go any further.—L. non
plas, no more. See Non- and Plural.
NONSENSE, language without meaning. (L.; and F.—L.) It
occurs in Cowley, The Mistress; The Incurable, 1. 2. From Non-
and Sense. Der. nonsens-ic-al.
NONSUIT, a withdrawal of a suit at law. (L.; and F.—L.) In
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, which see; and in Baret (1580); AF.
nonsute. From Non- and Suit. Der. nonsuit, verb.
NOOK, a corner, recess. (E.) ME. nak, Havelok, 820; pl. ndkes,
Cursor Mundi, 17675. The comp. feower-ndked = four - cornered,
occurs in Layamon, ii. 500, 1. 21999. The Lowland Sc. form is neuk
(Jamieson) ; whence, probably, Irish and Gael. niuc, a nook, corner.
The AS. *ndc is not found.--Norw. dk, a nook, corner (Supp. to
Aasen, p. 970); cf. Norw. nakke, a corner cut off (Ross) ; and perhaps
even Dan. dial. nogg, a bend in a river.
NOON, midday. (L.) Orig. the ninth hour of the day, or 3 P.M.,
but afterwards the time of the church-service called nones was shifted
back, and the term came to be applied to midday as early as the
twelfth century; see Hampson, Medii A‘vi Calendarium,i.87. ME.
none, Layamon, 17063; nones, pl., P. Plowman, B. v. 378, vi. 147 (see
notes). AS. dn-tid ( =noon-tide), the ninth hour, Mark, xv. 33, 34."
L. nona, for ndna hora, ninth hour; where πῦρια is the fem. of ndnus,
ninth. Nonus =nouimus, from nouem, nine ; cf. decimus from decem,
ten. The L. xouem is cognate with E. Nine, q.v. Der. noon-tide,
AS. non-tid, as above ; noon-day, Jul. Cesar, i. 3. 27. Also nones,
nun-chion.
NOOSE, a slip-knot. (Prov.—L.) ‘Caught in my own xoose ;’
Beaum. and Fletcher, Rule a Wife, iii. 4 (Perez). Cotgrave explains
F. lags courant as ‘a noose, a running knot.’ Imported from Gascony
by sailors.— Gascon nus, Prov. nous, a noose, a loop of cord.—L.
nodus,a knot. Cf. Prov. nous courrént, a running noose ; pl. nouses ;
also nous de l’araire, a noose for mooring ships (whence the nautical
word); see Mistral. Also Gascon nouset, a knot; nousera, to tie
aknot. 4 The F. παρα is from L. acc. nodum; whereas Prov. nous
is from the nom. noddus. See Node. Der. noose, verb.
NOR, neither. (E.) ME. πον, short for ME. nother, nauther ; from
AS. nadhweder (no-whether); but partly confused with other forms
of or. ‘ Vor hor hors were al astoned, and nolde after wylle Sywe
noper spore no brydel’=for their horses were all astonied, and would
not, according to their will, obey zor spur nor bridle; Rob. of Glouc.
p- 396; 1. 8169. For a full account of the word, see N. E.D. See
Or
NORMAL, according to rule. (L.) <A late word; added by
Todd to Johnson.—L. normalis, made according to a carpenter's
square.=—L. norma, a carpenter’s square, rule, pattern. Contracted
from a form *gndrima, and perhaps merely a borrowed word from
Gk. The corresponding Gk. word is γνωρίμη, fem. of γνώριμος, well-
known, whence the sense of ‘exact’ in Latin; allied to Gk. γνώμων,
that which knows or indicates, an index, a carpenter’s square. See
Gnomon. Der. zormal-ly; also e-norm-ous, q. v., ab-norm-al
(modern). We also find xorm, a rule, model; from L. norma.
NORMAN, a Northman. (F.—Scand.) ME. Norman, Rob. of
Glouc. p. 360; 1. 7418.—OF. Normand, ‘a Norman ;’ Cot.—Dan.
Normand ; Icel. Nordmadr (=Nordmannr), pl. Nordmenn, a North-
man, Norwegian. See North. Der. Norman-d-y, ME. Normandy,
Rob. of Glouc. p. 345, 1. 7074, F. Normandie, Dan. Normand, Icel.
Nordmanndi, Normandy, Norman’s land, where the suffix is French
(F. -ie, L. -ia).
NORSKE, Norwegian. (Scand.) Short for Norsk, the Norwegian
and Dan. spelling of Norse=Icel. Norskr, Norse, adj., which appears
in the 14th cent. instead of the older Icel. Norrann. Norsk is short
for *North-isk, i.e. North-ish; see North.
NORTH, the cardinal point opposite to the sun’s place at
noon. (E.) ME. xorth, Wyclif, Luke, xiii. 29, AS. nord, Grein, ii.
300.4 Du. noord ; Icel. nordr; Dan. and Swed. nord; G. nord. Root
unknown. Some compare the Umbrian nertru, on the left hand (to
one looking eastwards) ; Gk. véprepos, lower. Der. north-ern, ME.
northren, Chaucer, C. T. 1989 (A 1987), AS, norSern (Grein), cognate
with Icel. xorr-enn, OHG. nord-r-dni, northern; where the latter suffix
is like the L. -Gneus. Also north-east, -west, &c. Also north-ward;
north-er-ly (short for northern-ly), &c. Also Nor-man, Nor-se.
NOSE, the organ of smell. (E.) ME. nose (orig. dissyllabic),
Chaucer, C. T. 123,152. AS. nosu, Grein, ii. 300.4Du. neus. Tent.
type *nas-a, f., related by gradation to Teut. type *nas-a, f.; cf. AS.
aas-uv, nose; Icel. nds; Dan. nese; Swed. niisa; G. nase; Russ. nos’;
NOTICE 403
Lithuan. xosis.+L. néasus; also ndr-es, pl.; Skt. nasa, dual. Der.
nose-bag’, nose-less ; nose, y., Hamlet, iv. 3. 38; nose-gay, Mids. Nt.
Dr. i. 1. 34, and Palsgrave, with which cf. gay, sb., a gay flower, as
in ‘gayes To make a Posie,’ in Golding’s Ovid, fol. 47, back, 1. 4;
and prov. E. (Essex) gay, a painted picture in a child’s book, derived
from gay, adj. And see nos-tril, nozz-le, nuzz-le.
NOSOLOGY, the science of diseases. (Gk.) In Bailey’s Dict.
-Gk. νόσο-, for νόσος, disease; and -Aoyia, from λόγος, a discourse,
which is from λέγειν, to speak.
NOSTRIL, one of the orifices of the nose. (E.) Nostril = nose-
thrill or nose-thirl. ME. nosethirl, Chaucer, C. T. 559 (A 557). AS.
nosdyrl; the pl. xosdyrla (=nosdyrlu, the sb. being neuter) is used to
translate L. nares in Voc. 157. 15.— AS. nos-, for nosu, the nose; and
Syrel, pyrel, a perforation, orifice, Grein, ii. 613. See further under
Thrill.
NOSTRUM, a quack medicine. (L.) In Pope, Prol. to Satires,
1, 29.—L. nostrum, lit. ‘ our own,’ i.e. a special drug peculiar to the
seller of it. Neut. of zoster, ours, possess. pron. formed from nds, we.
Cf. Skt. nas, us.
NOT (1), a word expressing denial. (E.) ME. not, often spelt
nought or noght, Chaucer, C. T. 304. The less stressed form of
Naught, q. v.
NOT (2), I know not, or he knows not. (E.) Obsolete. ME. not,
noot, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 286 (A 284). AS. at, 1 know not, or he knows
not; Grein, ii. 274. Equivalent to ne wat; from ne, not, and wat,
I know or he knows. See Wot, Wit.
NOT (3), to crop, shear closely ; see Not-pated.
NOTABLE, remarkable. (F.—L.) ME. notable, Chaucer, C. T
13615 (B 1875).—F. notable, ‘notable ;? Cot.—L. notabilis, remark-
able.—L. notare, to mark.—L. nota, a mark, note; see Note. Der.
notabl-y, notable-ness ; notabil-i-ty, ME. notabilitee, Chaucer, C. Ὁ,
15215 (B 4399), answering to F. notabilité, as if from L. acc. *nota-
bilitatem, from nom. *nxotabilitas, a word not recorded.
NOTARY, a scrivener, one who takes notes. (F.—L.) The
pl. xofaryes occurs in the Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 40, 1. 8. Englished
from AF, notarie, Langtoft, ii. 392; OF. notaire, ‘a notary, a
scrivener;’ Cot.—L. notarium, acc. of notarius, a short-hand writer,
one who makes notes; formed with the adj. suffix -rius from nota-,
stem of nota, a mark; see Note.
NOTATION, a system of symbols. (L.) In Ben Jonson’s Eng.
Grammar, cap. viii is on ‘ the notation of a word,’ by which he means
the etymology. The word was really taken directly from Latin, but
was put into a French form, by analogy. Formed as if from a F.
notation (not in Cotgrave); from L. notatidnem, acc. of nofatio, a
designating, also, etymology; cf. notdtus, pp. of notare, to mark ;
from ποέα. a mark; see Note.
NOTCH, to make an indentation, or a small cut in an arrow-
head, &c. (F.—L.) Much confused with nock, with the same sense ;
but it appears to be of different origin. The vb. to nofch seems to be
older than the sb. ; Cotgrave has both (see below). ‘He. . notched
him like a carbonado ;’ Cor. iv. 5. 199. It seems to have acquired
an initial x; from ME. ochen, to cut, as in Morte Arthure, 2365,
4246, where it occurs as ‘he oches in sondire,’ and ‘he ochede it in
sondyre.’= MF. ocher, OF. oschier (hoschier in Godefroy), ochier, ‘to
nick, nock, notch, to cut as a tally;’ Cot. Cognate with Prov. dial.
auscar (Korting), spelt ousca in Mistral, Catalan oscar, to cut into ;
cf. Proy. osco, a notch (Mistral), Catalan osca. = L. *absecare, to cut
off, whence L. absegmen, a piece cut off (Lewis).—L. ab, off; and
secare, to cut; see Section. Der. xotch,sb.; cf. MF. oche, ‘a nock,
nick, or notch,’ Cot. ; Norm. dial. oche, noche, a notch (Le Hericher) ;
Εν hoche. 4 So Korting, § 49; but the MF. ocher also answers to Late
L. occare, to cut (Duc.), L. occare, to harrow; from occa, a harrow.
NOTE, 2 mark, sign. (F.—L.) In early use. ME. note, Chaucer,
C. T. 13477 (B 1737); Layamon, 7000. -- F. note.—L. nota, a mark,
sign, note. The o is short, and perhaps ποία stands for *gnd/a,
allied to ndtus (for gndtus), known. ‘The shortening of the syllable
appears still more decisively in cognitus=cognotus, known (Bréal).
See Notice. Thus a note is ‘a mark whereby a thing is known.’
Der. note, verb, ME. noten, Gower, C. A. iii. 164; bk. vii. 1. 2340;
not-ed, ibid.; not-ed-ly, note-less, not-er ; note-book, Jul. Czes. iv. 3. 98;
note-worthy (=worthy of note), Two Gent. of Verona, i. 1.13. And
see not-able, not-ary, not-at-ion, not-ice, not-ify, not-ion, not-or-t-ous.
NOTHING, absence of being, insignificance. (E.) Merely an
abbreviation, in pronunciation, of xo thing. ‘The words were formerly
written apart. Thus, in Chaucer, C. T. 1756 (Six-text, A 1754),
the Ellesmere and Hengwrt MSS. have zo thyng, where the Camb.
MS. has nopyng. See No (2) and Thing. Der. nothing-ness, in
Bp. Hall, Select Thoughts, § 22 (R.).
NOTICE, an observation, warning, information. (F.—L.) In
Shak. Hen. V, iv. 7. 122.—F. notice, ‘notice;’ Cot.=L. ndtitia, a
being known, knowledge, acquaintance. Extended from xdtus, known,
pd2
NOTIFY
See Note, Know.
404
pp: of xdscere, to know. Der. notice, verb,
notice-able, notice-abl-y,
NOTIFY, to signify, declare. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627;
cf. Oth. iii. 1,31. ME. notifyen, Chaucer, Troil. ii. 1591.—F. notifier,
“to notifie;’ Cot. —L. ndtificare, to make known. =L, ndti-, for notus,
known; and -fic-, for fac-ere, to make. See Notice and Fact.
Der. notific-at-ion.
NOTION, an idea. (F.—L.) Formerly, intellectual power,
sense, mind; see Shak. Cor. v. 6. 107.—F. notion, omitted by Cot-
grave, but given in Sherwood’s Index to the same.—L. ndtidnem,
acc. of ndfio, an investigation, notion, idea; cf. ndtus, known; see
Notice. Der. xotion-al,
NOTORIOUS, manifest to all. (L.) In Shak. All’s Well, i.
1. 111. Notoriously is in Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. g60f. Englished
from L. ndtorius, by changing -us into -ous, as in arduous, &c. This
L. word is only represented in Lewis’s Dict. by the fem. and neut.
forms ndtoria, ndtorium, both used substantively; cf. OF, xofoire,
‘notorious’ (Cot.), which points back to the same L. adj. Formed
from L. ndtor, a voucher, witness ; which again is formed with agential
suffix -tor from nd-, base of noscere, to know, cognate with E. know;
see Know. Der. notorious-ly, -ness.
NOTORIETY, notoriousness. (F.—L.) Used by Addison, On
the Christian Religion (Todd).— MF. noforieté, ‘notoriousness ;’
Cot.; mod. F. notoricté.—Late L. nodtdrietatem, acc. of ndtorietis
(Ducange). —L. notédrius ; see Notorious,
NOT-PATED, closely shorn or cropped. (E. and Late L.) See
Shak. 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 78. Chaucer has xot-heed, a closely
cropped head; (Ὁ. T. prol. tog. Cf. ‘To Notte his haire, comas
recidere ;’ Baret (1580). From AS. Aaot, close shorn, smooth ; and
Pate.
NOTWITHSTANDING, nevertheless. (E.) ME. noght with-
stondende, Gower, C. A. ii. 181; bk. vy, 1611. From xoght=naught;
and withstanding’, pres. part. of withstand. Perhaps suggested by L.
non obstante. See Naught and Withstand.
NOUCH, the same as Ouch, q.v.
NOUGHT, the same as Naught, q.v.
NOULE, NOWL, NOLE, NOLL, a head. (E.)
nole;’ Mids. Nt. Dream, iii. 2. 17 (1623). And see Nares.
nol. AS. hnoll, the crown of the head.-OHG. hkxol, top.
NOUN, the name of a thing. (F.—L.) Used so as to include
adjectives, as being descriptive. Rich. quotes ‘that xowne know-
ledging, and that verbe knowledge’ from Sir T. More, Works,
p: 427 ἃ. Also nowne in Cathol. Anglicum (1483); but the word is
older, and belongs to the 14th cent. ; first appearing in 1398 (N.E.D.).
=—OF. non, nun, nom, num (Godefroy); mod. F. nom, a name,
anoun. In Philip de Thaun, Livre des Creatures, we have the AF.
forms nun, 1, 241, num, 1. 233; see Wright’s Popular Treatises on
Science. —L. nomen, a name, noun; cognate with E. Name, q. v.
Doublet, zame.
NOURISH, to feed or bring up. (F.—L.) In early use. ME.
norisen, norysen, Rob. of Glouc. p. 238, 1. 4901; whence the sb.
norysynge in the preceding line. OF. noris- (mod. Ἐς nourriss-), stem
of parts of the verb xorir (mod. Ἐς xourrir), to nourish. —L. nutrire,
to suckle, feed, nourish. Der. nourish-er, Macb. ii. 2. 40, xourish-
able; nourish-ment, Spenser, F.Q. vi. 9. 20. And see nurse, nurture,
nutri-ment, nutri-ti-ous, nutri-tive.
NOVEL, new, strange. (F.—L.) In Shak. Sonnet 123. It seems
to be less o!d in the language than the sb. novel/y, which is ME.
noveltee, Chaucer, C, T., E rooq. And it follows the OF. spelling
of the sb. = OF. novel (Godefroy), later nouvel, mod. F. nouveau. —L.
nouellus, new; dimin. form from xouus, which is cognate with E.
New, q.v. Der. novel-ty, ME. noveltee (as above), OF. noveliteit,
from L. nouellitatem, acc. of nouellitas, newness; novel, sb., a late
word in the mod. sense, but the pl. zovels (=news) occurs in the
Towneley Mysteries (see Trench, Select Glossary); novel-ist, formerly
an innovator (Trench); and see nov-ice, in-nov-ate.
NOVEMBER, the eleventh month. (L.) In Chaucer, On the
Astrolabe, pt. i. § 10, 1]. 11.—L. November, the ninth month of the
Roman year. L. xouem, nine. See Nine.
NOVICE, a beginner. (I’.—L.) In Shak. Meas. i. 4.18. ΜΕ.
novys, novice, Chaucer, C. T. 13945 (B 3129). —F, novice, ‘a novice,
a young monke or nunne;’ Cot.—L. xouicius, nouitius, new, fresh,
a novice; Juvenal, Sat. iii. 265. Extended from nouus, new; see
Novel, New. Der. noviti-ate, Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, from F.
novitrat, ‘the estate of a novice,’ from Late L. nouitidtus, sb.; see
nourtiar? in Ducange.
NOW, at this present time. (E.) ME. now, Chaucer, C. T. 763
(A 761); also spelt nou, for older nu. AS. ni, Grein, ii. 301.4Dnu.
nu; Icel. ni; Dan, and Swed. nu; OHG. au; Goth. nu. Skt. nu,
“An Asses
ME.
nit, now (Vedic). β, The G. nu-n, Gk. vi-v, L, nu-n-c, are extended
forms from the same source. Brugmann, i. ὃ 1042. Der. now-a- }
NULL
days (=now on days), Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 1. 148, Chaucer, C. T. 16864
(G 1396); see A- (2), prefix. Hence also new, novel.
NOWAY, NOWAYS, in no way. (E.) The older form is
noways, for ME. nanes weies, in no way, by no way, Layamon, 11216.
This answers to AS. ndnes weges, the gen. case used adverbially, as
usual. = AS, nanes, gen. of nan, none; and weges, gen. of weg, a way.
See INo (2) and Way.
NOWHERE, in no place. (E.)
Grein, li. 273-—AS. na, no; and hwer, where.
Where.
NOWISKH, in no way. (E£.) Short for ix no wise, ME. on none
wise, Castell of Love, ed. Weymouth, 573 (Stratmann). Here on =
in, Is a prep.; zone is dat. case of ME. noon, AS. nan, none;
wise=wisan, dat. of AS. wise, a wise, a way. See Io (2) and
Wise, sb.
NOXIOUS, hurtful. (L.) In Milton, Par. Reg. iv. 460.
Englished from L. noxius, hurtful, by change of -us to -ous, as in
ardu-ous, &c.—L. noxa, harm, hurt; cf. xocére, to hurt ; nex (stem
nec-), destruction. —4/NEK, to perish, or cause to perish; whence
also Skt. nag, to be lost, disappear, Gk. νέκυς, a corpse. Brugmann,
i. § 143; ii. § 794. Der. noxious-ly, -ness, From the same root are
nec-ro-mancy, inter-nec-ine, per-nic-i-ous, ob-nox-i-ous, nuis-ance, &c.
NOYAU, a cordial flavoured with orange-peel and kernels of
stone-fruits. (F.—L.) Found in 1818 ; see Stanford Dict. =F. xoyau,
lit. ‘kernel’ of a fruit. L. nucle, neut. of nucdlis, like a παῖ. παν
nuc-, stem of nux,anut. See Newel.
NOZZLE, a snout. (E.) Rare in books. Spelt zozle in Arbuth-
not and Pope, Martinus Scriblerus (Todd) ; nozzle (K.D.D.). Cp.
‘a candylstyk nosled;’ Archzeol. Cantiana, xvi. 315 (A.D. 1500). The
dimin. of ose, with suffix -le (or -el); so also Westphal. niiased,
a nozzle (Woeste). See Nose, Nuzzle.
NUANCE, a shade of a colour, gradation of colour. (F.—L.)
It occurs in 1781; see Stanford Dict.—F. xwance, a shade. —F.
nuer, to shade. - Εἰ nue, a cloud. = Folk-L. *niba, for L. nabés, a cloud.
Allied to L. ximbus, a cloud ; see Nimbus, Nebula.
NUCLEUS, the kernel of a nut, core. (L.) In Phillips, ed.
1706.—L. nucleus, a small nut, a kernel; cf. nucula, a small nut.
Dimin. from L. zux, a nut (stem nxc-). Root uncertain. @ Not
allied to E. nut. Allied to newel, 4. v.
NUDE, naked, bare. (L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627. Taken from
the L. directly; cf. nwde contract, Englished from L. law-term
nudum pactum, Blount’s Nomolexicon.=—L. nudus, naked. L. nudus
=*nugdus, for *nogwedos, allied to Skt. nagna-, naked, and to E.
Naked, q.v. Brugmann, i. § 165. Der. nude-ly; nud-i-ty, spelt
nuditie in Minsheu, from F. nudité, ‘nudity’ (Cot.), from L. acc.
nuditatem,
NUDGE, a slight push. (Scand.) ‘ Kuudge, y. to kick with the
elbow;’ E. D. 5. Glos. B.1; A.D. 1781. Lowland Sc. nodge, ‘a
push or strike, properly with the knuckles, xodge, to strike with the
knuckles ;’ Jamieson; North E. xog, to jog; Lowland Sc. gnidge, to
press, squeeze; Jam. Cf. Norw. gnugga, nugga, to rub, push; allied
to gryggja, nyggja (pt. t. nogg), to push; Swed. dial. nogga, to move
slightly. Also NFries. nocke, to jog. Allied to Knock. Cf. also
Icel. knw, a knuckle, Anyja, to press down with the fists and knees ;
Swed. knoge, a knuckle; Dan, kuuge, to press.
NUGATORY, trifling, vain. (L.) In Bacon, Adv. of Learning,
bk. il. 7. 5.—L. niigatorius, trifling. = L. nugator, a trifler.—L. πὰρ αν],
to trifle-L. pl. ἄρα, trifles. Root unknown. Cf. L. naucum,
a trifle; and perhaps L, ιν, a nut (Bréal).
NUGGET, a lump or mass of metal. (E.) Formerly also niggot.
“After the fire was quenched, they found in xiggots of gold and
silver mingled together, about a thousand talents;’ North, tr. of
Plutarch’s Lives, p. 499; cited in Trench, Eng. Past and Present,
without a statement of the edition used; it is not that of 1631.
I find ‘siluer niggots’ in the same, ed. 1631, p. 425 (Marius). Cf.
prov. E. zug, a block of wood; xigg,a small piece (Essex) ; nog,
knog, a block of wood, knob, peg; allied to Knag. See Noggin.
Ross gives Norw. knugg, a rounded projection, a ‘knot’ on the
body.
NUISANCE, a troublesome or annoying thing. (F.—L.) Spelt
nuissance in Minsheu, ed. 1627; but zisance is better, as in Cotgrave.
ME. nusance, Hoccleve, De Regim. Princ., 810.—F. nuisance, ‘ nuis-
ance, hurt, offence; (οἱ. - Ἐς nuisant, ‘hurtfull, id.; pres. part. of
nuire, to hurt.=—L,. xocére, to hurt; see Noxious.
NULL, of no force, invalid. (F.—L.) In Dryden, tr. of Juvenal,
Sat.i.87. Cf. γιμ λέν, which occurs in Minsheu, ed, 1627. — AF. nul
(in law); Stat. of Realm, i. 334.—L. nullum, acc. of nullus, none, not
any.—L. ne, not, related to Kk. xo ; and allus, any, short for *inulus,
dimin. from ius, one. See No (1) and One. Der. null-i-ty, from
Ἐς nullité, ‘a nullity’ (Cot.), from Late L. acc. nullitatem; nulli-fy,
formed (as if from F. nallizier) from L, nullificare, to make void,
AS, nahwer, nowhere;
See No (1) and
NULLAH
from nu/li-, for nillus, and -fic-, for facere, to make; also null, verb,
Milton, Samson, 935. Also an-nul, dis-an-nul,
NULLAH, a water-course, bed of a torrent. (Hind.) In 1776
(Yule). — Hind. "ἴα, a water-course (Yule); ald, a ravine, rivulet
(Forbes).
INNUMB, deprived of sensation. (E.) The ὁ is excrescent ; spelt
numme in Shak. 1 Hen. VI, ii. 5. 13 (first folio). ME. nome, a
shortened form of zomen, which was orig. the pp. of ME. nimen, to
take. Thus xome=taken, seized, hence overpowered, and lastly,
deprived of sensation. ‘Whan this was seid, into wepinge Sche fel,
as sche that was thurgh-zome With love, and so fer overcome’ = when
this was said, she fell a-weeping, as being thoroughly overcome by
love, &c. ; Gower, C. A. ii. 249; bk. v. 3634. Gower uses the same
word xome elsewhere in the ordinary sense of ‘taken;” C. A, ii. 227
(bk. v. 2993) ; ii. 386 (bk. v. 7524).—AS. numen, pp. of niman, to
take; see Nimble. So also Icel. numinn, the pp. of nema, to take,
is similarly used; as in nwminn mali, bereft of speech ; fjorvi numna,
life-bereft. Der. be-numb, q.v.; also numb, verb, Spenser, F. Q. vi.
11. 45 numb-ness, Wint. Tale, v. 3. 102 (spelt nummesse in the first
folio). Also num-scull,
NUMBER, a unit in counting, a quantity. (F.—L.) The ὁ is
excrescent in the F. form. ME. xombre, noumbre, Rob. of Glouc.
p- 60, 1. 1397; Chaucer, C. T. 718 (A 716).—F. nombre; Norman
Ἐς numbre (see Philip de Thaun, Livre des Creatures, ]. 127, in
Wright, Popular Treatises on Science, p. 24).—L. numerum, acc. of
numerus, a number.—4/NEM,°to distribute; cf. Gk. vép-os, law,
νέμ-ειν, to distribute. Brugmann,i. ὃ 442. Der. number, verb, ME.
nombren, noumbren, Rob. of Glouc. p. 61, 1. 1398; number-er ; number-
less; and see numer-al, numer-ation, numer-ous.
NUMBLES, the entrails of a deer. (F.—L.) ‘Noumbles of
a dere or beest, entrailles ;” Palsgrave. ME. noumbles, Gawaine and
Grene Knight, 1347.—OF. nombles (d'un cerf), ‘the numbles of
a stag,’ Cot.; and see nomble in Godefroy. Nomble is for OF. lomble,
by confusion with F. nombril, navel (from L. umbilicus). See lomble
in Godefroy, who quotes the AF. li mien lumble, Ps. xxvii. 8, where
the Vulgate version has /umbi met, i.e. my reins or loins. L. Jumbulum,
ace. of lumbulus, dimin. of lumbus, loin; see Loin.
NUMERAL, a figure expressing a number. (L.) Orig. an
adj. ‘Numeral, of or belonging to number;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674; and in Palsgrave, p. 372.—L. numeralis, belonging to number.
L. numerus; anumter; see Number. Der. xumeral-ly.
NUMERATION, numbering. (F.—L.) In Sir T. Browne,
Pseudodoxia, iii. 5. § 2.—F. numération; in use in the 15th cent.—L.
numerationem, acc. Of numeratio, a counting out; cf. numeratus, pp.
of numerare, to number.—L. numerus, number; see Number.
Der. numerate (really due to the sb.), formed from L. numerdtus;
numera-tor=L. numerator, a counter, numberer. Also e-numerate,
in-numer-able,
NUMEROUS, many. (F.—L.) In Milton, P. L. i. 675, &c.
-“- MF. numereux, a less usual form than nombreux ; both are in Cot-
grave.—L. numerdsus, numerous. — L. numerus, a number; see
Number. Der. numerous-ly, numerous-ness; also (obsolete) numer-
osity =F, numerosité, ‘numerosity, a great number’ (Cot.). So also
numer-ic, Butler, Hudibras, pt.i.c. 3, 1. 461, as if from L. *numericus
(not used) ; 2wmeric-al, -al-ly.
NUMISMATICGC, relating to coins. (L.—Gk.) The pl. sb.
numismaticks was added by Todd to Johnson’s Dict. Coined from
L. numismat-, stem of numisma, current coin. = Gk. νόμισμα, a custom,
also, current coin. Gk. νομίζειν, to practise, adopt, to use as current
coin.=Gk. νόμος, usage.—Gk. νέμειν, to distribute; see Nomad.
Der. numismatic-s ; numismato-logy, from -Aoyia, which from λύγος,
a discourse, from λέγειν, to speak.
NUN, a female celibate, living in seclusion. (L.) ME. xonne,
Chaucer, C. T. 118; but this is an alteration to the F. spelling; cf.
F. nonne, a nun. The mod, E. agrees with the AS. spelling, and
with ME. une, as found in the Ancren Riwle, p. 316, last line.
AS. nunne, a nun; Laws of /Elfred (political), sect. 8; in Thorpe’s
Ancient Laws, i. 66.—Late L. xnna, more commonly nonna, a nun,
orig. a title of respect, esp. used in addressing an old maiden lady,
or a widow who had devoted herself to sacred duties. The old sense
is ‘mother,’ answering to L. nonnus, father, later, a monk; a word
of great antiquity.Gk. νάννη, vévva, an aunt; νάννας, vevvos, an
uncle; Skt. παρᾶ, a familiar word for mother, used by children ;
see the St. Petersburg Dict. iv. 25; answering to Skt. fata, father.
B. Formed by repetition of the syllable na, used by children to a
father, mother, aunt, or nurse; just as we have ma-ma, da-da or
daddy, and the like. Compare Mamma, and Dad. Der. nunn-er-y,
ME. nonnerie; Rob. of Glouc. p. 291, 1. 5918, from OF. nonnerie,
spelt zonerie in Roquefort, which was formed from OF. nonne, a nun,
from L. nonna.
NUNCHION, a luncheon. (Hybrid; L. and E.) In Butler,
NURSE 405
Hudibras, i. 1. 346.
Cotgrave explains MF. ressie by ‘an after-
noons nunchion, or drinking ;
> and rightly, for the old sense had
relation to drinking, not to eating, as will appear. Florio has:
‘merenda, a repast betweene dinner and supper, a nunchin.’ The
ME. spelling, in one instance at least, is nonechenche. We find that
certain donations for drink to workmen are called in the [London]
Letter-book G, fol. iv (27 Edw. III), nonechenche; see Riley, Me-
morials of London, p. 265, note 7; see my note to P. Plowman, C.
ix. 146. It should rather be spelt noneschenche. B. The etymology
is obvious, viz. from ME. zone, noon; and schenche, a pouring out or
distribution of drink. The none-schenche or ‘noon-drink’ was the
accompaniment to the xone-mete or ‘noon-meat,’ for which see nun-
mete in the Prompt. Parv. p. 360, and Way’s note upon 11. y. The
ME. none, noon, is from L. xdnxa, the ninth hour, as explained
s.v. Noon. δ. ME. schenche, a pouring out of drink, is a sb. made
from ME, schenchen, to pour out drink. ‘Bachus the wyn hem
schenchith al aboute’= Bacchus pours out the wine for them all
round; Chaucer, C. T. (Harleian MS.), ed. Wright, 1. 9596. Tyr-
whitt’s ed. has skinketh, 1. 9596; the Six-text edition (Εἰ 1722) has
skynketh, shynketh, shenketh, schenketh, as various readings. All these
are various forms from the verb skenken, AS, scencan, to pour out
drink, occurring in Beowulf, ed. Grein, 1. 496. This AS. verb is
cognate with Du. schenken, to pour out, fill, give, present, Icel.
skenkja, to serve drink, fill one’s cup, Dan. skjenke, (ἃ, schenken, ein-
schenken. «. The derivation of AS. scencan is very curious; it is
a causal verb, derived with the usual vowel-change of a to e, from
AS. scanc, usually written sceanc, a shank; see Shank. ‘The
explanation is, that a shank also meant a hollow bone, a bone of
the leg, shin-bone, and hence ‘a pipe;’ in particular, it denoted the
pipe thrust into a cask to tap it and draw off the liquor. Thus prov.
E. shank means ‘a tunnel for a chimney’ (Halliwell), i.e. a chimney-
pipe; the MDu. schenkkan means ‘a pot with a pipe or a gullet to
pour out,’ Sewel. A precisely parallel interchange of sense. occurs
in αι. rohr, a reed, tube, pipe; whence rohrbein, the hollow bone of
a leg, shin-bone; rokrbrunnen, a jet of a fountain; rokre, a pipe, also
a funnel, shaft, or tunnel (like the use of prov. E. shank). @] We can
now understand the full force of the quotation in Way’s note from
Kennett’s MS., viz. ‘ Nooning, beavre, drinking, or repast ad nonam,
three in the alternoon, called... in the North parts a noonchion, an
afternoon’s uunchion.’ In many parts, the use of xuncheon was driven
out by the use of bever (lit. a drinking) in the same sense, and in
East Anglia by the more intelligible word nooning. Lastly, by a
curious confusion with the prov. EK. lunch, a lump of bread, nuncheon
was turned into the modern luncheon; see Luncheon. The same
change of initial x to ὦ occurs in lilac, from Pers. nil, blue; see
Lilac. The verb schenchen was afterwards supplanted by skink, and
occurs in Shakespeare in the deriv. under-shinker, 1 Hen. IV, ii.
4. 26.
NUNCIO, a messenger, esp. a papal ambassador. (Ital.—L.)
In Minsheu, ed. 1627; and in Shak. Tw. Nt. i. 4. 28. - Ital. nuncio,
nuntio, an ambassador;’ Florio. L. nuntium, acc. of nuntius, a
bringer of tidings; of doubtful origin. Cf. announce, de-nounce, pro-
nounce, e-nounce, re-nounce.
NUNCUPATIVE, declared by word of mouth. (F.—L.) ‘Nun-
cupative, called, named, pronounced, expresly declared by word of
mouth ;” Blount’s Glos. ed. 1674. It occurs in Cotgrave; also in
the sense of ‘nominal,’ in Hall’s Chron. Hen. VII, an. 11, ὃ 10.—F.
nuncupatif, ‘nuncupative;’ Cot.—Late L. nuncupatiuus, nominal. =
L. nuncupatus, pp. of nuncupare, to call byname. Prob. from xdmen,
a name, and capere, to take (Bréal). We find eup- for cap- in oc-
cup-Gre, to occupy. Der. nuncupat-or-y, formed from L. nuncupator,
a namer, caller by name.
NUPHAR, a yellow water-lily. (Pers.—Skt.) A corrupt form,
due to Nenuphar,q.v. Attributed in the Cent. Dict. to Sir J. E.
Smith, 1806. The form is absurd, as the word can only be (etymo-
logically) divided as nen-uphar; nevertheless, the form nifar (for
ninifar) occurs in Persian; see Rich. Dict., p. 1611.
NUPTIAL, pertaining to marriage. (F.—L.) ‘Our nuptial hour ;’
Mids. Nt. Dr. i. 1, 1.—F. nuptial, ‘nuptiall;’ Cot.—L. nuptialis,
belonging to a marriage.—L. sb. pl. nuptie, a wedding. —L. nupta,
a bride, fem. of xuptus, pp. of nubere, to marry. Lrugmann, i.
§ 877 (a), connects L. niibere with OSlavonic snubiti, to love, to woo.
Der. nuptial, sb., Meas. for Meas, iii. 1. 122, usually in pl. nuptials,
Pericles, v. 3. 80. And see con-nub-i-al.
NURSE, one who nourishes an infant. (F.—L.) Contracted
from ME. xurice,a nurse; Ancren Riwle, p. 82,1. 20. Also norice,
King Alisaunder, 1. 650.—OF. norrice, nurrice (Littré}, later nour-
rice (Cot.),a nurse. L. nutricia, a nurse. = L. nutric-, stem of nutrix,
a nurse, formed with fem. suffix from the same base as nutrire, to
feed, nourish; see Nourish. Der. xurse, verb, Wyatt, To his
Ladie, cruel oner her yelden Louer, 1. 5, in Tottell’s Miscellany, ed.
406 NURTURE
Arber, p. 62; nurs-er, 1 Hen. VI, iv. 7. 46; nurs-er-y, K. Lear, i. 1.
126, Cymb. i. 1. 59, and see Trench, Select Glossary; xurs-ling,
spelt xoursling in Spenser, Virgil’s Gnat, 282, formed with double
dimin. suffix -l-ing, as in duck-ling ; nurs-ing-father, Numb. xi. 12.
And see nurture.
NURTURE, nourishment, education. (F.—L.) ME. norture,
Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 158, 1. 3.—AF. nurture, Stat.
Realm, i. 104; OF. norriture (Godefroy), mod. F. nourriture,
‘nourishment, nutriment,...also nurture;’ Cot. ([Cf. Ital. nutri-
tura, nutriment.]— L. nutritira; from nutrire, to nourish; see
Nourish, Der. nurture, verb, spelt nourter in the Bible of 1551,
Dent. viii. 5; nurtur-er. And see nutriment.
NUT, the fruit of certain trees, a hard shell with a kernel. (E.)
ME. note, Havelok, 419; King Alisaunder, 3293; nute, O. Eng.
Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 79, 1.14. AS. Anutu, to translate L. nux;
Voc. 137. 18.4Du. noot; Icel. knot; Swed. not; Dan. nod; (ἃ. nuss.
Teut. base *hnut-; allied to Irish cau, Gael. cno, W. cneuen, a nut ;
Stokes-Fick, p. 96. @] It cannot be brought under the same form
with L. nux. Der. nut, vetb, to gather nuts; nut-shell, ME. note-
schale, Trevisa, iv. 141; nut-brown, ME. nute-brun, Cursor Mundi,
18846; nut-cracker (Baret); nut-hatch, a bird also called the nut-
jobber or nutpecker, ME. nuthake, Squire of Low Degree, 55. the sense
being nut-hacker, the bird that hacks or pecks nuts, see Hack (1).
And see nut-meg.
NUTMEG, the musk-nut. (Hybrid; E. and F.—L.—Pers.)
ME. notemuge, Chaucer, C. T. 13693 (B 1953); uutmegge, Rom. of
the Rose, 1361. A hybrid word; the former half being Εἰ. nut; see
Wut. β. The latter half is from OF. mugue, musk, standing for
*musgue, which is ultimately from L. muscum, acc. of muscus, musk ;
see Musk. The OF. mugue and muge occur in quotations given by
Godefroy. The form musgue is a Southern Εἰς (Dauphinois) form,
the usual Prov. form being musc; see Mistral. The s also appears
in OF. musguette, by-form of muguette in the phr. notx muguette,
a nutmeg (Godefroy) ; whence MF. muguette, ‘a nutmeg,’ Cot. Cf.
F. noix muscade, ‘a nutmeg,’ id.; Span. nuez moscada, a nutmeg,
Ital. noce moscada, the same; Late L. muscata, a nutmeg, lit. ‘musk-
like,’ formed with suffix -ata from musc-, stem of muscus. The L.
muscus is from the Pers., as shown s. v. musk.
NUTATION, a nodding, vibratory movement of the earth’s axis.
(L.) In Pope, Dunciad, ii. 409, Astronomical. Englished from
L. nitatio, a nodding, swaying.—L. nifare, to nod, frequentative
form of nuere, to nod.4+Gk. νεύειν, to nod. From a base NEU,
signifying ‘to move slightly.” Der. Hence also in-nu-endo.
NUTRIMENT, nourishment, food. (L.) In Milton, P. L. v. 496.
=L. nitrimentum, food; formed with suffix -mentum from nitri-re,
to nourish; see Nourish. Der. nu‘riment-al; and see nutritious.
NUTRITIOUS, furnishing nutriment. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. Englished from L. nutritus, by change of -us to -ous, as
in ardu-ous, &c. The L. word is also (better) spelt niricius. = L.
niitric-, stem of nutrix, a nurse; see Nurse. Der. xutritious-ly,
eness. So also nutrition, Pope, Essay on Man, ii. 64; a coined word.
NUTRITIVE, nourishing. (F.—L.) In Minsheu and Cot-
grave. ME. nutritiff, Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 195.—F. nutritif,
‘nutritive;’ Cot. Formed with suffix -if (<L. -iuus) from nitrit-,
stem of pp. of niiérire,to nourish; see Nourish. Der. nutritive-ly,
“ness,
NUZZLE, to thrust the nose in. (E.) Also spelt nousle; Shak.
Venus, 1115; Pericles, i. 4. 42; nosyll in Palsgrave. A frequentative
verb, with suffix -Je, from the sb. zose. It means ‘to nose often,’
i.e. to keep pushing the nose towards. Cf. Low G. nusseln; EFries.
niisseln, Swed. dial. nosla, with the same sense; Swed. nosa pd all
ting, to thrust one’s nose into every corner (Widegren); Du. neuzelen,
neusen. See Nose, and cf. Nozzle.
NYLGHAU, a large species of antelope. (Pers.) Lit. ‘blue
cow;’ the males being of a bluish colour. = Pers. nilgaw, ‘the
white-footed antelope of Pennant, and antelope picta of Pallas;’
Rich. Pers. Dict. p. 1620. —Pers. nil, blue; and gaw, a bullock, cow,
cognate with E. cow; id. pp. 1619, 1226. See Lilac and Cow.
NYMPH, a bride, maiden. (F:—L.—Gk.) ME. nimphe, Chaucer,
C. T. 2930 (A 2928).—F. nymphe, ‘a nimph ;’ Cot.—L. nympha.=
Gk. νύμφη, a bride. Der. nymph-like, Milton, P. L, ix, 452.
O
O (1), OH, an interjection. (E.) ME. 0, Ancren Riwle, Ῥ. 543
Layamon, 17126. Not in AS.+Du. 0; Dan. and Swed. 0; G. 0;
Goth. 0, Mk. ix. 19.4-L. 0; Gk. ὦ, ὦ, B. A natural exclamatory
sound, akin to Ah! @ There is no particular reason for the
OB
spelling ok, which is not older than 1548. Some make a distinction
in use between o and ok; this is merely arbitrary.
O (2), a circle. (E.) In Shak. Hen. V, prol. 13; Mids. Nt. Dr.
ili. 2. 188. So called because the letter o is of a circular shape.
OAF, a simpleton. (Scand.) ‘You oaf, you!’ Dryden, Kind
Keeper, i. 1; where the old ed. has auph; see ed. 1763, vol. iv.
- 302. In Drayton’s Nymphidia, 1. 79, the old ed. of 1627 has
aulf; Prof. Morley prints oaf. It is the same word as prov. E. awf,
an elf (Halliwell). Again, auf or awf stands for aulf, a dialectal
variety of E. elf.—Icel. alfr, an elf, cognate with E. Elf, q.v.
B. Thus oaf is the Northern or Scand. variant of elf; perhaps in
some counties it resulted from AS. elf.
OAK, the name of a tree. (E.) ME. oke, better ook, Chaucer,
C. T. 3019 (A 3017). AS, dc, Grein, i. 14; the long a changes into
ME. oo, by rule.4+Du. ek; Icel. ek; Dan. eeg, eg; Swed. ek; G.
eiche. β. All from the Teut. type *aiks, f. Root unknown. Cf.
Gk, αἰγ-ίλωψ, a kind of oak. Der. oak-en, adj., AS. acen (Bosworth),
with adj. suffix -en as gold-en, beech-en, &c. Also oak-apple, ME.
oke-appul, Henslow, Medical Werkes, p. 80, 1. 20; oak-/eaf, oak-gall.
{But not acorn, as often wrongly supposed. |
OAKUM, tow, old ropes teased into loose hemp. (E.) Spelt
ockam in Skinner, ed. 1671. Spelt oakam in Dampier’s Voyages, v. i.
p- 295, an. 1686 (R.); okuwm, Naval Accounts (1486); p.18. AS.
aicumba, tow, in a gloss, ed. Napier, 3293; cf. ‘Stuppa, &cumbe,’
Voc. 152.15. [The L. stuppa means ‘tow.’] β. The sense is ‘ that
which is combed off;’ the prefix is the AS. ἅ-, ‘ away, off,’ as in the
OHG. a-chambi, The rest of the word is related to AS. cemban, to
comb, and camb, a comb; see Comb. Mr. Wedgwood says:
“OHG. acambi [achambi], tow; MHG. hanef-dcamb, the combings
or hards of hemp, tow, what is combed out in dressing it; as aswinc,
the refuse swingled out in dressing flax. ‘‘Stuppa pectitur ferreis
hamis, donee omnis membrana decorticatur ;” Pliny, xix. 1. 3, cited
by Aufrecht in Philological Transactions.’ Holland's translation of
the passage is as follows: ‘ Now that part thereof which is ytmost
and next to the pill [peel] or rind, 1s called sow or hurds, and it is
the worst of the line or flaxe, good for little or nothing but to make
lampe-match or candle-wiek; and yet the same must be better
kembed with hetchell teeth of yron, vntill it be clensed from all the
grosse barke and rind among;’ vol. ii. p. 4. Hence a@cumba is used
to gloss L, putamen ; Mone, Quellen, p. 407, col. 1.
OAR, a light pole with a flat blade, for rowing a boat. (E.) ME.
ore, Havelok, 1871; Northern form ar, Barbour’s Bruce, iii. 576,
691. AS. dr, Grein,i. 34; the change from ἃ to long o being quite
regular.+Icel. Gr; Dan. aare; Swed. dra, Teut. type *ara, f.;
whence Finnish airo (Noreen, ὃ 57). 4 A connexion with Gk. ép-
ἕτης, an oarsman, cannot be established. Cf. rather Gk. οἴαξ (for
*oicag), a tiller. Der. oar, verb, Temp. ii. 1. 118; oar-ed; eight-
oar, i.e. eight-oared boat, &c.; oar-s-man, formed like hunt-s-man.
OASIS, a fertile spot in a desert. (L.—Gk.—Egyptian.) First in
1613; and now common.=L. oasis.—Gk. dais, αὔασις, a name of
the fertile islets in the Libyan desert ; Herod. iii. 26. Of Egyptian
origin; cf. Coptic ouwahe, a dwelling-place, oasis; ouih, to dwell;
Peyron, Copt. Lexicon, 1835, pp. 159, 160.
OAST, OAST-HOUSKH, a kiln for drying hops. (E.) Spelt
oast or east in Ray's Collection of South-Country Words, ed. 1691.
(The form east is from Du. eest.] ME. ost; Palladius on Husbandry,
i. 457. AS. ast,a kiln. ‘Siccatorium [i.e. a drying-house], cyln,
vel ast;’ Voc. 185. 30. Thus the word is E., the change from ἃ to
oa being quite regular; cf. AS. ἄς, an oak, ἄγ, an oar.+Du. eest;
MDnu. ast; ‘een ast, a place where barley is dryed to make malt
with ;” Hexham, Teut. type *aistoz, for *a:d-toz. B. Allied to AS.
ad, a funeral pile (Leo), MHG. ert, a fire, oven; just as L. estus,
glow, is related to L. edes, a hearth, house. Cf. Gk. ai#os, a burning
heat; Skt. idk, to burn. —4/EIDH, to kindle; see Ether.
OATH, a solemn vow. (E.) ME. ooth, oth; Chaucer, C. T. 120.
AS. a0, Grein, i. 17 ; the change from ἃ to oa being regular, as in
ac, oak, ar, oar.4Du. eed; Icel. ede ; Dan. and Swed. ed; Goth.
aiths; G. eid; OHG. eit. B. The Teut. type is *aithoz, m.; Idg.
type *oifos; allied to Olrish oeth, oath (Rhys).
OATS, the name of a kind of grain. (E.) ME. ofes,s. pl., Chaucer,
C. T. 7545 (D 1963). The sing. form appears in mod. E. oat-cake,
oat-meal, and the adj. oat-en. AS. Gte; we find Gta as a gloss to
zizania in the Northumb. gloss to Matt. xiii. 38; also @cer-s#d Gten,
an acre-seed of oats, AS. Chron. an. 1124, where @ten is for aan, pl.
Perhaps allied to Icel. eitil?, a nodule in stone, Norweg. eiel, a gland,
knot, nodule in stone, Russ. zadro, a kernel in fruit, bullet, ball, shot,
Gk. οἷδος, a swelling. If this be right, the orig. meaning of oat has
reference to its swollen form; from 4/EID, to swell. Der. oat-en,
adj., with suffix -ex as in gold-en, oak-en ; oat-meal, oat-cake,
OB., prefix. (L.) A common prefix, changing to oc- before c, of-
before f, and op- before 2, as in oc-cur, of-fer, op-pose. L. ob, with
OBDURATE
very variable senses; as, towards, at, before, upon, over, about, near.
Cf. Oscan op, near, Gk. ἔπι, upon ; Brugmann, i. § 557.
OBDURATE, hardened, stubborn. (L.) ‘ Obdurate in malice ;”
Sir T. More, Works, p. 503 b.=L. obdiratus, pp. of obdurare, to
render hard.—L. οὗ, prefix (which hardly affects the sense); and
dirare, to harden, from durus, hard. See Ob- and Dure. Der.
obdurate-ly, -ness; obdurac-y, 2 Hen. RVs 1-25 50%
OBEDIENT, submissive, dutiful. (F.—L.) In early use. ME.
obedient, Ancren Riwle, p. 424, l. 11. OF. obedient, ‘ obedient ; 3, Cot.
—L. obédient-, stem of pres. pt. of obédire, to obey. β. The old L.
form was oboedire.=L. ob-, prefix (of little force); and audire, to
hear, listen to. See Ob- and Audience. Brugmann, i. § 250.
Der. obedient-ly, obedience, O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, reap vies Ni
from bottom, = OF. obedience, L. obedientia. And see obeisance, obey.
OBEISANCE, a bow or act of reverence. (F.—L.) ME.
obeisance, formerly also used in the orig. sense of obedience or act of
obedience, Chaucer, C. T. 8106, 8378 (E 230, 502); cf. Gower, C.A.
i. 370, ii. 219. — OF. obeissance, later obeissance, ‘obedience, obeissance,
a dutiful observing of ;’ Cot. OF. obeissant, pres. pt. of obeir, to
obey. See Obey.
OBELISK, a tall tapering pillar. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Holland,
tr. of Pliny, b. xxxvi.c. 8 and c, g; and in Minsheu, ed. 1627. And
see Trench, Select Glossary. — MF. obelisque, ‘an obeliske ;’ Cot.=—
L. obeliscum, acc. of obeliscus. — Gk. ὀβελίσκος, lit. a small spit, hence
a thin pointed pillar; dimin. of ὀβελός, a spit ; “Eolic and Doric
ὀδελός. Root uncertain. See Obolus.
OBESE, fat, fleshy. (L.) The sb. obeseness is in Bailey, vol. ii. |
ed. 1731. [The sb. obesity is older, and occurs in Cotgrave to trans-
jate MF. obesité, der. from L. ace. obésitatem. |= L. obésus, (1) wasted,
eaten away, (2) fat, lit. ‘that which has eaten away’ from something ;
pp- of obedere, to eat away.=—L. ob, near; edere, to eat. See Ob-
and Eat. Der. obese-ness, obes-i-ty.
OBEY, to submit, yield to, do as bid. (F.—L.) ME. obeyen,
Gower, C. A. ii. 219; bk. v. 2571.—OF. obeir, ‘to obey ;’ Cot.-L.
obédire, to obey ; see Obedience.
OBFUSCATE, to darken, bewilder. (L.) ‘ Obfuscate, or made
darke ;’ Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b. iii. c. 23-—L. obfuscatus,
pp. of obfuscare, to darken over, obscure ; also spelt offuscare. = L. 0b,
over ; and fuscare, to darken, from fuscus, dark, swarthy. See Ob-
and Fuscous.
OBIT, a funeral rite. (F.—L.) Almost obsolete. ‘Men shall |
care little for obites within a whyle ;’ Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 880 d.
ME. obit, Destr. of Troy, 5357-—OF. obit, ‘an obit, obsequy,
buriall;’ Cot.=—L. obitus, a going to, a going down, downfall, death.
—L. obitum, supine of obire, to go near.—L. ob, near; and ire, to go, |
See Ob- and Itinerant. Der. obit-u-al, formed
from EI, to go.
adj.
with suffix -al (=L. -alis) from obitu-, for obitus ; also obitu-ar-y,
relating to a decease, whence obitu-ar-y, sb. notice of a decease.
OBJECT, to offer in opposition, oppose. (L.) ‘The kinges
mother obiected openly against his mariage ;’ Sir T. More, Works,
p- 60, 1. 1.
their defence;’ Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. iii. c. 12.—L.
obiectare, to throw against, oppose ; frequentative of obicere (objicere),
to throw towards.—L. ob, towards, against ; and iacere, to throw.
See Ob- and Jet (1). Der. object, sb.,a thing thrown before or
presented to the senses or mind, Merch. Ven. i. 1. 20 (from the pp.
obiectus) ; object-glass; object-ion, 1 Hen. VI, iv. 1. 129, and in Pals-
grave, from F, objection (obiection in Cotgrave), from L. acc. objec-
lionem ; object-ion-able ; object-ive, in Bailey, vol. ii. ed. 1731, a coined
word, object-ive-ly, object-ive-ness, object-iv-i-ty.
OBJURGATION, a blaming, reproving. (F.—L.) In Min-
sheu, ed. 1627; and in Cotgrave. =F. objurgation, ‘an objurgation,
chiding ;’ Cot.—L. obiurgationem, acc. of obiurgatio, a chiding. =L.
obiurgare, to chide.—L. ob, against; and iurgare, to sue, proceed
against, quarrel, chide. β. L. iurgare stands for iur-ig-are, from
iur-, stem of its, law; and -ig-, for ag-ere, to drive (Bréal). See
Jurist and Agent.
OBLATE, widened at the sides. (L.) Mathematical. = L. oblatus, |
pushed forwards, viz. at the sides, said of a sphere that is flattened
at the poles, and (by comparison) protrudes at the equator. = L. ob,
towards; and Jatus, pushed, lit. borne, for *#/atus (= Gk. TANTOS), ΡΡ.
related to /ollere, to bear, sustain. See Ob- and Tolerate. q Ob-
latus is used as the pp. of offerre, with which it has no etymological
connexion. Der. oblate-ness ; also oblat-ion. (And see prolate.)
OBLATION, an offering. (F.—L.) ‘ Blessed oblacion of the
holy masse ;” Sir Τ᾿ More, Works, p. 338 f. ME. oblacion, Lydgate,
Siege of Troy, ii. 13. 159.—F. oblation, ‘an oblation, an offering ;”
Cot. =—L. oblatiénem, acc. of oblatio, an offering; cf. oblatus, used as
pp. of offerre, to offer. See Oblate.
OBLIGE, to constrain, to bind by doing a favour to, to do
a favour to. (F.—L.) ME. obligen, Rob. of Glouc. p. 12, 1. 280.— |
‘To obiecte [venture] their owne bodyes and lyues for |
OBSERVE 407
F. obliger, ‘ to oblige, tie, bind;” Cot. = L. obligare, to bind together,
oblige. —L. οὗ, to; and ligare, to bind. See Ob- and Ligament.
Der. oblig-ing, used as ad}., Pope, Prol. to Satires, 208 ; oblig-at-ion,
ΜΕ. obligacion, Rob. of Glouc. p. 391, 1. 8042, from F. obligation
<L. acc. obligdtidnem ; oblig-at-or-y, from L. obligatorius ; oblig-at-
or-i-ly, oblig-at-or-i-ness,
OBLIQUE, slanting, perverse. (F.—L.) In Shak. Timon, iv. 3.
18. =F. oblique, “ crooked, oblique ;’ Cot. =—L. obliquus, oblicus, slant-
ing, sideways, awry.—L. ob, towards; and a base *ligu- or *Jic-.
B. The orig. sense of this *Jiguus is ὁ bent ;’ ef. L. licinus, bent, Jimus,
for *licmus, askew; and perhaps Lithuan. Jenkt, to bend. Der.
obliqu-i-ty, from Ἐς, obliquité, ‘ obliquity’ (Cot.), from L. acc, obligui-
tatem ; oblique-ness.
OBLITERATE, to efface. (L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.—L. ob-
literatus, pp. of obliterare or oblitterare, to efface, smear out, —L. οὐ,
over; and littera, a letter; see Letter. β. It seems to have been
associated with L. oblitus, pp. of oblinere, to smear over ; but there is
no etym. connexion. Der. obliterat-ion.
OBLIVION, forgetfulness. (F.—L.) ME. obliuion (for oblivion),
Gower, C. A. ii. 23; bk. iv. 651.—F. oblivion. =L. obliuidnem, acc. of
obliuio, forgetfulness. = L. obliu-, base of the inceptive verb obliuisci,
to forget. Root uncertain ; the prefix is the prep. ob. Perhaps con-
nected with Jinescere, to become livid, turn black and blue (hence,
perhaps, to become dark); see Livid. But Bréal connects it with
oblitus, i.e. effaced, pp. of oblinere, to smear over. Der. oblivi-ous,
Minsheu, oblyvyouse in Palsgrave, from F. obliviewx (Cot.)<L. ob-
liuidsus 3 oblivi-ous-ly, oblivi-ous-ness.
OBLONG, long from side to side. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave.—F.
oblong, ‘ oblong, somewhat long ;” Cot. = L, oblongus, long, esp. long
across. = L. οὔ, across, over; and longus, long. See Ob- and
Long.
OBLOQUY, calumny. (L.) ‘From the great obloguy in which
hee was ;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 44f. Englished from L. obloqutum,
contradiction.<L. oblogui, to speak against.—L. ob, against; and
loqui, to speak. See Ob- and Loquacious.
OBNOXIOUS, offensive, answerable. (L.) Formerly used in
the L. sense of ‘ liable to ;’ as in Milton, Samson, 106 ; P. L. ix. 170,
1094. ‘The perils that you are obnoxious to ;’ Ben Jonson, Silent
Woman, ii. 1. See Trench, Select Glossary. =L. obnoxius, liable to
hurt; confused with L. xoxius, hurtful; whence the LK. word was
formed by change of -us to -ous.=—L,. ob, prefix; and noxa, harm.
See Ob- and Noxious. Der. obnoxious-ly, -ness.
OBOE, a hautboy. (Ital.—F.—L.) The Ital. spelling of hantboy.
=Ital. οδοὺ, a hautboy (Meadows, Eng.-Ital. section).—F. hautbois.
See Hautboy.
OBOLUS, a very small Gk. coin. (L.—Gk.) Sometimes used in
mod. E.—L. obolus. =Gk. ὀβολός, a small coin, perhaps orig. in the
shape of a small rod or nail; a collateral form of ὀβελός, aspit. See
Obelisk.
OBSCENE, unchaste, foul. (L.) In Shak. Rich. 1, iv. I. 131.
Spelt obscexe in Minsheu, ed. 1627. —L. obscénus, obscenus, obscenus,
repulsive, foul. Etym. very doubtful ; as one sense of obscénus is ill-
boding, inauspicious, it may be connected with L, sceuus, left, left-
handed, unlucky, inauspicious. Der. obscene-ness, obscen-i-ty.
OBSCURE, dark, little known. (F.—L.) ‘Now is faire, and
now obscure ;’ Rom. of the Rose, 5348. =F. obscur, ‘ obscure,’ Cot. =
L. obsciirus, dark, lit. ‘covered over.’—L. ob, over; and -scirus,
covered, from 4/SKEU, to cover. Cf. Skt. sku, to cover; and see
Sky. Der. obscure-ly, -ness; obscure, verb, used by Surrey to trans-
late L. caligare in Virgil, Ain. ii. 606; obscur-i-ty, ME.. obscurete,
Caxton, G. Legend, St. Hilary, § 1, from F. obscurité, ‘ obscurity ἡ
(Cot.), from L. ace. obsciiritatem ; also obscur-at-ion, directly from L,
obscuratio.
OBSECRATE, to entreat. (L.) ‘ Obsecrate, heartily to request ; :
Cockeram (1642).—L. obsecrat-us, pp. of obsecrare, to entreat, con-
jure. —L. οὐ, on account of; and sacrare, to treat as sacred, from
sacr-, for sacer, sacred. See Ob- and Sacred.
OBSEQUIES, funeral rites. (F.—L.) ME. obseguies, Chaucer,
C. T. 995 (A 993)-—AF. and OF. obsequies, MF. obseques, ‘ ob-
sequies;’ Cot.—L. obsequias, acc. of obsequie, 5. pl., funeral rites ;
lit. ‘followings ;’ a late form, for exseguias (Lewis). —L. ob, prep.,
near; and segui, to follow. See Ob- and Sequence; also Ob-
sequious.
OBSEQUIOUS, compliant. (L.) See Trench, Select Glossary.
In Shak. Oth. i. 1. 46. [F. obsequieux, ‘ obsequious ;’ Cot. | = L. ob-
sequidsus, full of compliance. = L. obseguium, compliance. =—L, obsequi,
to comply with; lit. ‘to follow near.’=L. ob, near; and segui, to
follow. See Ob- and Sequence. Der. obsequious-ly, -ness.
OBSERVE, to heed, regard, keep. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. obseruen (with
u=v), Chaucer, C. T. 13561 (B 1821). OF. observer, “to observe ;”
Cot.=L. obseruare, to mark, take notice of. = L. ob (scarcely affecting
408 OBSIDIAN
the sense) ; and serzdre, to keep, heed. See Ob- and Serve. Der.
observ-er, observ-able, observ-abl-y, observ-able-ness ; observ-ance, ME.
obseruaunce, Chaucer, C. T. 1502, 10830 (A 1500, F 516), from F.
observance, which from L. obseruantia; observ-ant, Hamlet, i. 1. 71,
from F. observant, pres. part. of the verb observer; observant-ly ; ob-
serv-at-ion, L. L. L. iii. 28, and in Palsgrave, directly from L. obser-
uatio; observ-at-or, observ-at-or-y.
OBSIDIAN, a vitreous stone. (L.) Bailey (1735) has: ‘ Ob-
sidianum marmor, the touchstone ;’ and see Holland, tr. of Pliny,
bk. xxxvi. c. 26.—L. Obsidianus lapis, a false reading for Obsidins
lapis; a stone found by one Obsidius (false reading for Obsius) in
Aethiopia ; in Pliny, lib. xxxvi. c. 26, and lib. xxxvil. c. Io,
OBSOLESCENT, going out of use. (L.) In Johnson’s Dict.,
s. Vv. Hereout.—L. obsolescent-, stem of pres. part. of obsolescere, to
grow old, inceptive form of obsolére, to decay. See Obsolete. Der.
obsolescence.
OBSOLETE, gone out of use. (L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.—
L. obsolétus, pp. of *obsolére, to grow old, decay. β. The etym. of
this word is very doubtful; it is not even known how it should be
divided. Perhaps from οὗ, against, and solére, to be wont, as if
obsolére=to go against custom; cf. ex-solescere, to become disused
to (Tertullian). Der. obsolete-ness ; and see obsolescent.
OBSTACLE, a hindrance. (F.—L.) ME. obstacle, Chaucer,
C. T. 9533 (E 1659).—F. obstacle.—L. obstaculum, a hindrance,
a double dimin. form with suffixes -cu-lu-.—L. obstare, to stand in
the way. =L. οὔ, over against ; and stare, to stand, from 4/STA, to
stand. See Ob- and Stand; also Obstetric.
OBSTETRIC, pertaining to midwifery. (L.) In Pope, Dun-
ciad, iv. 394. Shortened from obstetricious, occurring in Cudworth,
Intellectual System, b. i. c. 4 (R.).—L. obstetricius, obstetric. —L.
obstetric-, stem of obstetrix, a midwife. β. In obste-trix, the suffix
-trix is the fem. suffix answering to masc. suffix -/or; the lit. sense is
“a female who stands near or beside.’= L. obstire, to stand near. =
L. οὔ, near; and stare, to stand. See Obstacle. Der. obstetric-s,
obstetric-al.
OBSTINATE, stubborn. (L.) ME. obstinat, Gower, C. A. ii.
117; bk. iv. 3434. We find the sb. obstinacy 5 lines above, with the
L. obstinacio in the margin. L. obstinatus, resolute, stubborn ; pp.
of obstinare, to set about, be resolved on.—L. 0b, over against ; and
a verb *standre, to cause to stand, set, allied to Cretic στανύω, I set ;
whence also the comp. dé-séina, a support, stay, prop. See Ob- and
Destine. The root is STA, to stand, stand firm. Brugmann,
ii. § 603 (2). Der. obstinate-ly ; obstinac-y, formed by analogy with
legacy from legate, &c.
OBSTREPEROUS, noisy, clamorous. (L.) In Beaum. and
Fletcher, Maid in a Mill, iii. 1. 5.—L. obstreperus, clamorous; with
change of -us to -ous.—L, οὗ, against, near; and strepere, to make
a noise, tattle, roar, perhaps of imitative origin. Der. obstreperous-
ly, -ness.
OBSTRICTION, obligation. (L.) Very rare. In Milton,
Samson, 312. A coined word; made from L. obstrictus, bound,
obliged, pp. of obstringere, to bind, fasten. —L. ob, over against ; and
stringere, to bind. See Ob- and Strict.
OBSTRUCT, to block up a way, &c. (L.) In Milton, P. L. v.
25%, x. 636; and in Cotgrave, s.v. Oppiler. [Probably really due to
the earlier sb. obstruction, occurring in Sir Τὶ Elyot, Castel of Helth,
b. ii. c. 32, a word taken directly from L. obstructio.]—L. obstructus,
pp. of obsérwere, to build in the way of anything. —L. ob, over against ;
and struere, to build. See Ob- and Structure. Der. obstruct-ion,
as above; obstruct-ive, obstruct-ive-ly.
OBTAIN, to get, gain, hold. (F.—L.) ‘Possible for vs in this
life to obtaine;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 7 d. Spelt opteyne, Dictes
and Sayings, pr. by Caxton, fol. 19, 1. 24. —F. obtenir. — L. obtinére,
to hold, obtain. —L. ob, near, close to; and tenére, to hold. See Ob-
and Tenable. Der. obtain-able.
OBTEST, to conjure, call to witness, supplicate. (F. — L.)
‘[They] Obzes¢ his clemency ;’ Dryden, tr. of Virgil, En. xi, 151.
‘He earmestly obtested’ {besought]; Hall’s Chron., Hen. VII, an. 4,
8 8.—MF. obtester, ‘to obtest, conjure, invoke ;’ Cot.—L. obtestari,
to call as witness. L. ob, near; /esfdri, to witness, from festis, a
witness. See Testament.
OBTRUDE,, to thrust upon, thrust in upon. (L.) In Minsheu,
ed. 1627.—L. obtriidere, pp. obtriisus, to thrust against, obtrude on
one.=—L. ob, against; and trudere, to thrust, allied to E. threaten.
See Ob- and Threat. Der. obtrus-ion, obtrus-ive, obtrus-ive-ly ;
from the pp. obtriisus.
OBTUSE, blunt, dull. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.—MF.
obtus, ‘dull, blunt ;? Cot.—L. obtisus, blunt; pp. of obtundere, to
beat against or upon, to dull, deaden. —L. οὗ, upon; and tundere, to
beat, strike, from 4/TEUD, to strike; cf. Skt. ἐμά, to strike. Der.
obtuse-ly, ~ness.
OCTAGON
OBVERSSE, lit. turned towards one, used of the face of a coin,
as opposed to the reverse. (L.) ‘Silver pieces, ... with a rude head
upon the obverse;’ Sir T. Browne, Hydriotaphia, ch. ii. § 7.—L.
obuersus, pp. of obuertere, to turn towards.—L. οὗ, towards ; and
uertere, toturn. See Ob- and Verse. — Der. obverse-ly.
OBVIATE, to meet in the way, prevent. (L.) ‘ Obviate, to meet
with one, withstand, resist ;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627. —L. obuiatus, pp. of
obuiare, to meet in the way, go towards.—L. ob, over against ; and
uia,a way. See Ob- and Voyage. And see Obvious.
OBVIOUS, evident. (L.) Orig. ‘ meeting in the way,’ as
defined by Minsheu, ed. 1627. —L. obuius, meeting, lying in the way,
obvious. πὶ. ob, near; and uia, a way; see Obviate. Der. ob-
vious-ly, -ness.
OCA, a name of Oxalis crenata and Oxalis tuberosa, cultivated for
their tubers. (Span.—Peruvian,) ‘The Papas and Ocas be the chiefe
for nourishment ;’ E. G.; tr. of Acosta, bk. iv. c.18; p. 261.—Span.
cca. = Peruv. occa, an edible root; Peruv. Dict. p. 262.
OCCASION, opportunity, occurrence. (F.—L.) ME. occasion,
occasioun, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 12000 (C 66). —F. occasion. — L. occsiénem,
acc. of occasio, opportunity.—L. oc-, for ob before c; and -casio,
allied to casus, pp. of cadere, to fall, befall; see Ob- and Chance.
Der. occasion-al, occasion-al-ly, And see occident.
OCCIDENT, the west. (F.—L.) Not now common. ME.
occident, Chaucer, C. T. 4717 (B 297). —OF. occident, ‘the occident,
the west ;’ Cot. —L. occidentem, acc. of pres. pt. of occidere, to set (as
the sun), go down. =L. oc- (for ob before c) ; and cadere, to fall; see
Ob- and Chance. Der. occident-al, All’s Well, ii. 1. 166.
OCCIPUT, the back part of the skull. (L.) In Phillips, ed.
1706; and first in 1602. [The adj. occipital is found earlier, in
Minsheu, ed. 1627; and first in 1541.) —L. occiput, the back of the
head. =L. oc- (for ob before c), over against; and caput, the head.
See Ob- and Chief. Der. occipit-al, formed from occipit-, decl.
stem of occiput.
OCCULT, hidden, secret. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674;
first in 1567. (Cf. F. oceulée, ‘hidden ;’ Cot.]—L. occudéws, hidden,
pp. of occulere, to cover over.—L. oc- (for ob before c); and *celere,
to hide (not found), from 4/KEL, to cover, hide, whence also
Olrish cel-im, I hide, and FE. hell. See Ob- and Hell. Der.
occult-ly, -ness; occult, verb, Hamlet, iii. 2. 85, from F. occulter, ‘to
hide’ (Cot.), which from L. occultare, frequentative of occulere. Also
occult-at-ion, in Palsgrave, an astronomical term, borrowed from L.
occultatio, a hiding.
OCCUPY, to keep, hold, fill, employ. (F.—L.) ME. occupien,
Chaucer, C. T. 4844 (B 424); P. Plowman, B. v. 400. -- Ἐς occuper.
=L. occupare, to lay hold of, occupy. L. oc- (for ob before c); and
capere, to seize. See Ob- and Captive. The final -y is due to the
iin the ME. infin, ending -iex, which was substituted for the ordinary
ending -en, probably to strengthen the word; cf. the suffix -iaw for
-an in AS, causal verbs. Der. occupi-er; also occup-at-ion, ME.
occupacion, Gower, C. A. ii. 50, bk. iv. 1452, from F. occupation,
which from L. acc. occupatidnem ; also occup-ant, from F. occupant,
res. pt. of occuper; occup-anc-y.
OCCUR, to happen. (F.—L.) The word occurs in a letter from
Cromwell to Sir Τὶ Wyat dated Feb. 22, 1538 (R.).—MEF. occurrer,
“to occurr;’ Cot.—L. occurrere, to run to meet, meet, appear,
occur.= L. oc- (for ob before c); and currere, to run. See Ob- and
Course. Der. occurr-ent, Bible, 1 Kings, v. 4, from MF. occurrent,
‘occurrent, accidentall’ (Cot.), which from L. occurrent-, stem of
the pres. part. of oceurrere. Also occurr-ence, 1 Hen. V, v. chor. 40,
from MF. occurrence, ‘an occurrence or accident,’ Cot.
OCEAN, the main sea. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. ocegn, occean,
Chaucer, C. T. 4925 (Β 505).—OF. ocean, fem. oceane; Cot. gives
‘la mer oceane, the ocean, or maine sea”—L. dceanum, acc. of
dceanus, the main sea.—Gk. ὠκεανός, the great stream supposed to
encompass the earth, Homer, Il. xiv. 245,xx. 7; a word of unknown
origin. Der. ocean-ic.
OCELOT, a small carnivorous animal. (Mexican.) Described in
a tr. of Buffon, London, 1793, i. 303. ‘Ocelotl, or leopard-cat of
Mexico ;’ Clavigero, Hist. of Mexico, tr. by Cullen, ii. 319. ‘ Ocelot
in Mexican is the name of the tyger, but Buffon applies it to the
leopard-cat ;” id., footnote. — Mex. oce/otl, a tiger, jaguar.
OCHRE, a fine clay, commonly yellow. (F.—L.—Gk.) In
Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxxiii. c. 13. The ch is due to Gk. χ it is
spelt occar in Palsgrave, oker in Cotgrave.—OF. ocre, ‘ painters’
oker;’ Cot.—L, dchra.—Gk. éxpa, yellow ochre, so called from its
pale colour. Gk. ὠχρός, pale, wan, esp. pale-yellow. Root uncertain.
Der. ochre-ous, ochr-y.
OCTAGON, a plane figure with eight sides and angles. (Gk.) In
Phillips, ed. 1706. Spelt octogon in Blount (1656). Coined from Gk,
ὀκτά, for ὀκτώ, eight, cognate with E, eight; and ywvia,an angle, corner,
allied to γόνυ, the knee. See Hight and Knee. Der. octagon-al.
OCTAHEDRON
OCTAHEDRON, a solid figure with eight equal triangular
sides. (Gk.) Spelt octaedron in Phillips, ed. 1706; ed. 1658 has the
adj. octohedrical. The ἃ represents the Gk. hard breathing. Coined
from 6x74, for ὀκτώ, eight, cognate with E. eight; and ἕδρα, a base,
a seat, from the base hed-, cognate with ΕΝ. sit. See Hight and Sit.
And see Decahedron.
OCTANGULAR, having eight angles. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. Formed with adj. suffix -a- (=L. -aris) from L, oct-
angul-us, eight-angled.=L. oct-, for ocfo, eight; and angulus, an
angle. See Hight and Angle.
OCTANT, the aspect of two planets when distant by the eighth
part of a circle. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706.—L. octant-, stem of
octans, an instrument for measuring the eighth of a circle. L. océo,
eight. See Hight.
OCTAVE, lit. eighth ; hence eight days after a festival, eighth
note in music. (F.—L.) [The true old F. form of eight was oi’,
uit, whence ME, utas, an octave (Halliwell); occurring as late
2s in Palsgrave.] ‘ The octauis [octaves] of the Epyphany ;’ Fabyan’s
Chron. an. 1324-5, ed. Ellis, Ὁ. 428.—F. octaves, pl. of octave; Cot.
gives ‘octave, an octave, an eighth; /’octave d'une feste, the octave,
eight days, [or] on the eighth day, after a holyday.’ =L. octaua, fem.
of octauus, eighth. —L. octo, eight; see Eight. Der. octav-o, from
L. octauo, abl. case of octauus; a book was said to be in folio, in
quarto, in octavo, &c.
OCTOBER, the eighth month of the Roman year. (L.) In
Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, pt. i. § 10, 1. 4.—L,. October; from octo,
eight. The origin of the suffix -ber is doubtful.
OCTOGENARIAN, one who is eighty years old. (L.) Added
by Todd to Johnson. Coined from L. octogéndrius, belonging to
eighty. —L. octogéni, eighty each; distributive form belonging to
octoginta, eighty.—L. octo, eight ; and -ginta= -cinta, prob. short for
*decinta, a derivative from decem, ten, cognate with E. fen. See
Bight and Ten. Brugmann, ii. § 164.
OCTOPUS, a cephalopod mollusc with eight arms or feelers.
(L.—Gk.) Pl. octopodes or octopuses, First in 1758.—L. octdpiis. =
Gk. ὀκτώπους (gen. ὀκτὠποδ-οΞῚ, i.e. eight-footed. — Gk. ὀκτώ, eight ;
and πούς (gen. πόδ-ος), foot. See Hight and Foot.
OCTOROON, the offspring of a white person and a quadroon.
(L.) First in 1861. One who is, in an eighth part, black. Coined
from L. octd, eight; in imitation of guadroon. See Quadroon,
OCTOSYLLABIC, having eight syllables. (L.—Gk.) Tyr-
whitt, in his Introd. to Chaucer, § vii, speaks of ‘ the oc/osyllable
metre,’ without the suffix -ic.—L. ocfosyllabus, adj., having 8 sylla-
bles. = Gk. ὀκτώ, eight; and συλλαβή, a syllable. See Bight and
Syllable.
OCTROI, a duty or toll on articles admitted into a town. (F.—L.)
First in 1614; in the sense of ‘grant’—F. octroi; MF. octroy,
‘a grant, a priviledge conferred ;’ Cot.—MF. octroyer, ‘to grant,
allow,’ Cot.; OF. ofreiter, otroier.—Late L. type *axtoridiare, for
Late L. auctorizare, to authorise. —L. auctor, author; see Author.
OCULAR, pertaining to the eye. (L.) ‘Ocular proof;’ Oth.
iii. 3. 360. —L. ocularis, adj., formed from oculus, the eye, a dimin. of
*ocus, the eye, a form not used, but cognate with Gk. ὄμμα, the eye.
Der. ocular-ly, bin-ocular, in-oculate; also ocul-ist, from L. oculus.
ODALISQUE, a female slave in a Turkish harem. (F.—Turk.)
Blount, ed. 1681, has ‘Odalisque, a slave. ‘Sleek odalisques ;’
Tennyson, Princess, ii. 63.—F. odalisque, the same (Littré) ; better
spelt odalique (Devic). = Turk. ddalig, a chambermaid. = Turk. dda(h),
a chamber, a room; Zenker’s Dict. p. 115.
ODD, not even, strange, queer. (Scand.) ΜῈ, odde. ‘Odde or
euen ;’ Gower, C. A. iii. 138 ; bk. vii. 1580. ‘None odde 3erez’=
no odd years, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 426. ‘None odde
wedding’ =no irregular marriage; Myre’s Instructions for Parish
Priests, ed. Peacock, 1. 198. —Icel. oddi, a triangle, a point of land;
metaph. from the triangle, an odd number, opp. to even; also used
in the metaphorical phrase standask i odda, to stand at odds, be at
odds, quarrel. In composition, we find Icel. oddamadr, the odd man,
the third man, one who gives a casting vote; oddatala, an odd
number. Hence it is clear that the notion of ‘ oddness’ arose from
the figure of a triangle, which has ¢wo angles at the base and an odd
one at the vertex. Also oddi is closely related to oddr, a point of
a weapon, which stands for *ozdr, by assimilation.--AS. ord, point
of a sword, point, beginning, chief; Dan. od,a point; odde, a tongue
of land; Swed. udda, odd, not even; udde, a point, cape, promon-
tory; udd, a point, prick; G. ort, a place, region, MHG. ort, an
extreme point. β. The common Tent. type is *vzdoz ; and the orig.
sense seems to have been sharp point or edge, esp. of a weapon.
@ The sense of ‘strange,’ or ‘ queer,’ seems to be a mere develop-
ment from that of uneven. The W. od, notable, excellent, odd, is
merely borrowed from E. The phrase odds and ends means ‘ points
and ends,’ hence, scraps; different from the ME. ord and ende=
OFFICE 409
beginning and end; see Tyrwhitt’s note to Chaucer, C. T. 14639,
and my note to the same line in the Monkes Tale, B 3911.
&PF Quite distinct from Orts, q.v. Der. odd-ly, odd-ness, odd-i-ty,
odd-fellow ; odds, Oth. ii. 3. 185.
ODE, a song. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. L. 1., L. iv. 3. 99.—F.
ode, an ode;’ Cot.—L. dda, ddé.—Gk. gin, a song; contracted
form of dowdy, a song. —Gk. ἀείδειν, to sing; related to ἀηδών, a
nightingale, singing bird. B. The base of ἀείδειν is ἀβειδ, where a
is prosthetic, and fed represents a 4/WEID, to cry out ; whence also
Olrish faed, W. gwaedd, a cry, shout. Stokes-Fick, p. 259. Der.
ep-ode, com-ed-y, trag-ed-y, mel-od-y, mon-od-y, palin-ode, par-od-y,
psalm-od-y, pros-od-y, rhaps-od-y.
ODIUM, hatred. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706. [The adj. odious
is much older; in Chaucer, C. T., D 2190.) - [.. odium, hatred. —L.
édi, Lhate; an old pt. t. used as a present. Cf. Armenian a?-eam,
Ihate. Brugmann, i. § 160. Der. odi-ous, Test. of Creseide, st. 33,
1. 229, and as above, from F. odiewx, ‘ odious’ (Cot.), from L. odidsus,
adj., formed from odium ; odi-ous-ly, -ness. And see annoy.
ODOUR, scent, perfume. (F.—L.) ME. odour, Wyclif, Eph. v.
2; Cursor Mundi, 3701.—AF. odour, OF. odor, F. odeur, ‘an odor,
sent;” Cot.<L. oddrem, acc. of odor, a scent.—4/OD, to smell;
whence also Gk. ὄζειν (=65-ye), to smell; and Lithuan. zdziv,
Ismell. Der. odor-ous, Mids. Nt. Dr. ii. 1. 110, from L. oddrus, by
change of -us to -ows, and throwing back the accent; odor-ous-ly.
Also odori-fer-ous, L. L. L. iv. 2. 128, Lydgate, Assembly of Gods,
336, coined from L. oddri-fer, odour-bearing; which from odori-,
decl. stem of odor, and -fer, bearing, from ferre, to bear; see Bear (1).
And see Olfactory, Osmium, Ozone, Redolent.
CESOPHAGUS, the gullet. (L.—Gk.) ‘ The oesophagus, or
meatpipe ;” P. Fletcher, The Purple Island, c. iv. note 30.— Late L.
oesophagus, — Gk. οἰσοφάγος, the gullet; of uncertain origin.
OF, from, belonging to, among. (E.) ME. of; passim. AS. of,
of; Grein, ii. 308.4Dnu., Icel., Swed., Dan., and Goth. af; G. ab;
OHG. aba.4+L. ab; Gk. ἀπό; Skt. apa, away. Brugmann, i. ὃ δύο.
The E. off is merely another spelling of of; see Off. A compara-
tive form occurs in E. after; see After. And see A- (6), Ab-,
Apo-.
OFF, away, away from. (E.) Merely another form of of, due
to an emphatic or stressed use of it; and in old authors there is no
distinction between the words, the spelling of doing duty for both.
‘Smiteth of my hed’=smite off my head; Chaucer, C. T. 784
(A 782, Harl. MS.). The spelling off for of occurs in Barbour’s
Bruce, i. 27, &c. An early instance occurs in the line: ‘For thou
art mon off strange lond;’ Rob. of Glouc. p.115,1.15; ed. Hearne.
In the 13th century the spelling off is (I believe) never found. See
Of. Der. see below, of-fal, off-ing, off-scouring, off-set, off-shoot, off-
spring.
OFFAL, waste meat, refuse. (E.) See Trench, Select Glossary.
ME. offal; ‘ Offal, that ys bleuit of a thynge, as chyppys, or other
lyke, Caducum;’ Prompt. Parv. Cf. ‘ Offall of trees;” Palsgrave.
Thus it was formerly used of chips of wood falling from a cut log;
and is merely compounded of off and fall; see Off and Fall.4Du.
afval, fall, windfall, refuse, offal; from af, off, and vallen, to fall;
Dan. affald, a fall off, decline, refuse, offal; G. abfail, offal; from ab,
off, and fallen,
OFFEND, to annoy, displease. (F.—L.) ME. offenden, Chaucer,
C. T. 2396 (A 2394).—F. offendre, ‘to offend, hurt;’ Cot.—L.
offendere (pp. offensus), to strike or dash against, hurt, injure. =—L. of
(for ob before 2), against; and *fendere, to strike, only occurring in
compounds. See Defend. Der. offence or offense, ME. offence,
Chaucer, C. T. 5558 (B 1138), from OF. offense (Cot.), from L.
offensa, an offence, orig. fem. of pp. offensus ; offens-ive, K. Lear, iv. 2.
11, from Ε΄, offensif (Cot.), as if from L. *offensiuus (not used) ;
offens-ive-ly, offens-ive-ness ; also offend-er.
OFFER, to propose, present, lay before. (L.) Directly from
Latin. In very early use; found even in AS. ME. offren, Chaucer,
C. T. 12841 (C 907); Rob. of Glouc. p. 14, 1. 325. AS. offrian, to
offer; see exx. in Sweet’s A. 5. Reader. = L. offerre, to offer. =—L. of
(for ob before f), near; and ferre, to bring, to bear, cognate with
E. bear. See Ob-and Bear (1). Der. offer, sb., offer-er ; offer-ing=
AS. offrung, Mark, ix. 49. Also offer-tor-y, ME. offertorie, Chaucer,
C. T. 712 (A 710), F. offertoire (Cot.), from L. offertorium, a place
to which offerings were brought, an offertory, extended from offertor,
an offerer, formed from the verb offer-re with agential suffix -zor.
OFFICE, duty, employment, act of worship, &c. (F.—L.) In
early use. ME. offiz, office. ‘On thin offiz’ =in thy official position ;
Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 1. 2071.—F. office. —L. officium,
duty, service. Perhaps from of (for ob before 7), and ~fic-, for fac-
ere, to do (Bréal). See Ob- and Fact. Der. office-bearer; offic-er,
ME. officere, Chaucer, C. T. 8066 (E 190), from F. officter<Late L.
officiarius, one who performs an office ; officei-al, P. Plowman, B. xx.
410 OFFICINAL
136, from OF. official, ‘an officiall’ (Cot.), which from L. officialis ;
offic-i-al-ly ; offici-ate, in Milton, P. L. viii. 22, from Late L. officidtus,
pp. of officiare, to perform an office, occurring A.D. 1314 (Ducange).
Also offici-ous (see Trench, Select Glossary), used sometimes in a
good sense, Titus Andron. v. 2. 202, from Εἰ, officieux, ‘ officious,
dutifull, serviceable’ (Cot.), which from L. officidsus, obliging ;
offici-ous-ly, offici-ous-ness.
OFFICINAL, pertaining to or used in a shop or laboratory.
(L.) ‘ Officinal, such drugs, plants, &c. as are sold in shops;’
Bailey (1735). Formed with suffix -al (L. -dlis) from L. officin-a,
a workshop, office ; contracted form of opificina (Plautus).— L. opijic-,
decl. stem of opifex, a workman.=L. opi-, for opus, work ; and -jc-,
for facere, to do. See Operate.
OFFING,, the part of the visible sea remote from the shore. (E.)
‘ Offin or Offing, the open sea, that part of it which is at a good dis-
tance from the shore;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Merely formed from off
with the suffix -ing. See Off.
OFFSCOURING, refuse. (E.) Lit. anything scoured off;
hence, refuse. In 1 Cor. iv. 13 (A.V.). From Off and Scour.
OFFSET, a young shoot, &c. (E.) Used in several senses. The
sense ‘shoot of a plant’ occurs in Ray, as cited in Todd's Johnson
(without a reference), From Off and Set.
OFFSHOOT, that which shoots off. (E.) Not in Todd’s John-
son. Used figuratively in The Tatler, no. 157, § 10. From Off
and Shoot.
OFFSPRING, progeny, issue. (E.) ME. ofspring, Rob. of
Glouc. p. 164, 1. 3433. The odd spelling oxspring occurs in Cursor
Mandi, 1. 11415. AS. ofspring, Gen. iii. 15.— AS. of, off, from; and
springan, to spring. See Off, Of, and Spring.
OFFUSCATEH, the same as Obfuscate, q. v.
OFT, OFTEN, frequently. (E.) Oft is the orig. form; this
was lengthened into ofte (dissyllabic), because -e was a common
adverbial ending in the ME. period. Lastly, ofte was lengthened to
often before a vowel or kh in hadde, &c. Thus: ‘Ful ofte tyme,’
Chaucer, C. T. 358 (A 356), where Tyrwhitt prints often unneces-
sarily, the best MSS, having ofte. Again: ‘That often hadde ben,’
id. 312 (A 310); but Cursor Mundi has oftin before a consonant,
3520, &c. AS. oft, Grein, ii. 320.41 cel. oft, opt (pronounced oft) ;
Dan. ofte; Swed. ofta; G. oft; OHG. ofto; Goth. ufta, adv. oft,
Mk. v. 4; used as adj. in the phrase ¢hizd ufta sauhté, frequent
infirmities, 1 Tim. v. 23. Origin unexplained. Der. often, adj.,
esp. in the phr. ofte tyme or often-tyme, Chaucer, C. T. 52, 358 (A 52,
350); often-ness. 3 We now Say often-er, often-est ; the old forms
were oft-er, oft-est.
OGEE, OGIVE, a double curve. (F.—Span.—Arab.) Some-
times absurdly written OG, as if compounded of two letters of the
alphabet. Ogee is another form of ogive (with i as in machine). ‘An
Ogiue or Ogee, a wreath, circlet, or round band in architecture; ἢ
Minshen, ed. 1627. It is now generally used to mean a double
curve —, formed by the union of a convex and concave line. An ogee
arch is a pointed arch, with double-curved sides. —OF. augive, ‘an
ogive, a wreath, circlet, round band, in architecture;’ branches
d@’augives, ‘ branches ogived, or limmes with ogiyes;’ Cot. He also
has: ‘ Ogive, an ogive, or ogee in architecture.’ B. The suggestion
in E. Miiller is perhaps right; he compares the Span. auge, highest
point. Excellent examples of the ogee curve are to be found in
Moorish domes and arches, and we may derive the term from the
pointed top of such domes, &c. Cf. Span. cimacio ogee, an ogee
moulding, where cimacio is derived from cima, a summit, top; Late
L. cymatium, an ogee curve (Vitruvius). Similarly, the F. augive
is derived from Span. auge, highest point, also apogee (Pineda),
which curious word is also found in Port. and Italian. γ. The
Span. auge is from Arab. dwj, top, summit, vertex, altitude or
ascendent of a planet; Rich. Dict. p. 200. Cf. Korting, § 1049;
Devic, s.v. auge. Prob. not an Arab. word, but from Gk.
ἀπόγαιον, apogee. Der. ogiv-al, adj., sometimes oddly corrupted to
ogee- fall.
OGHAM, OGAM, used with reference to the alphabet of twenty
characters employed by the ancient Irish and British. (Irish.) From
Trish ogham, ‘ the occult manner of writing used by the ancient Irish ;’
O'Reilly. Olrish ogum (Windisch). Said to have been devised by
a mythical inventor named Ogma.
OGLE, to look at sideways, glance at. (Du.) Not an old word
in E. In Pope, Rape of the Lock, v. 23. “1 see him ogle still;’
Dryden, Prol. to the Prophetess, 46. ‘They say their wives learn
ogling in the pit;’ T. Shadwell, Tegue o Divelly, Epilogue, p. 80
(1692); where a side-note says: ‘A foolish word among the canters
for glancing.” Certainly of Du. origin; answering to a Du. verb
*oogelen (not in the Dictt.), a regular frequentative of oogen, ‘to cast
sheeps eyes upon one;” Hexham. Such frequentative verbs are
extremely common in Dutch, and may be numbered by hundreds;
OLFACTORY
and we actually find the Low G. oegeln, to ogle, in the Bremen
Worterbuch, used as a frequentative of oegen, to look at; Low G.
ogelen, to ogle (Liibben) ; as well as MDn. oogheler, a flatterer, eye-
servant, i.e. ogler (Oudemans). — Du. ooge, the eye ; cognate with E.
Bye, q.v.
OGRE, a monster, in fairy tales. (F.) Late. Added by Todd to
Johnson’s Dict. The quotation in Todd is from the E. version of
the Arabian Nights (first in 1713), which was taken from the F.
version. =F, ogre, an ogre; first used by Perrault in his Contes, 1697 ;
see N.E.D. Diez proposed to connect it with Ital. orco, ‘a sea-
monster ;” Florio; OSpan. huergo, uerco.—L. orcum, acc. of orcus,
(1) the abode of the dead, (2) the god of the infernal regions, Orcus,
Pluto. But it is difficult to guess what Perrault had in mind.
Der. ogr-ess, from F. ogresse,
OH, a later spelling of O, q.v.
OIL, juice from the olive-tree, a greasy liquid. (F.—L.—Gk.)
{We find in AS. the form e/e, in Goth. alew, forms borrowed ulti-
mately from the Gk., but at a very early period.) The ME. oile
was borrowed from French; it occurs in Chaucer, C. ‘T. 2963
(A 2961); and in Early E. Prose Psalter, Ps. xliv. 9.—AF. oile,
St. Nicolas, by Wace, 636; OF. oile, later huile (Cotgrave).=—L.
oleum, oil; olea, an olive-tree. — Gk. ἔλαιον, oil; ἐλαία, an olive-tree,
also an olive. See Olive. Der. oil, verb; the pp. oyled occurs in
Hall’s Satires, b. iv. sat. 4, 1. 48. Also oil-y, K. Lear, i. 1. 227;
oil-i-ness. Also oil-bag, -cake, -cloth, -colour, -nut, -painting. And
see Oleaginous, Oleaster.
OINTMENT, a greasy substance for anointing wounds, &c.
(F.—L.) The ¢ is due to confusion with ME. ointen, vb., to anoint ;
the ME. form being oinement or oynement. ‘{They] bou3ten [bought]
swete-smelling oynementis, to come and to anoynte Jesu;’ Wyclif,
Mark, xvi. 1. Spelt oiwement in Chaucer, C. T. 633 (A 631).—OF.
oignement, an anointing, also an unguent, liniment; Burguy. Formed
with suffix -ment ( = L.-mentum) from OF. oigner (Godefroy), another
form of OF. (and mod. F.) oindre, to anoint.—L. wagere, to anoint ;
see Unguent, Anoint.
OLD, aged, full of years, ancient. (E.) ME. old, def. form and
pl. olde; Chaucer, C. T. 5240, 10023 (B 820, E 2140). OMerc. ald,
later ald (written ald), Matt. ix. 16 (Rushworth MS.); AS. eald,
ONorthumb. ald, Luke, i. 18.44Du. oud (for old); (ἃ. alt; Goth.
altheis. Teut. type *aldoz ; Idg. type *altos; cf. L. ad-ultus, an adult,
one of full age. B. Like the -wltws in L. adultus, it is a pp. form
from the 4/AL, to nourish, as seen in Goth. alan, to nourish, L. alere,
to nourish; cf. Goth. us-althan, to grow old. It means ‘nourished,
grown up.’ See further under Adult, Altitude. Der. old-en,
Macbeth, iii. 4. 75 ; Cursor Mundi, 18100 (Trin. MS.); apparently
a Scand. word from Icel. aldinn, old, or (more probably) the adj.
suffix -ex was merely tacked on ; cf. gold-en. Also old-ness, K. Lear,
i, 2. 50; cf. eldness, Wyclif, Rom. vii. 6. Also eld, sb., eld-er (1),
eld-est, ald-er-man.
OLEAGINOUS, oily. (L.—Gk.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
—L. oledginus, belonging to olive-oil; by change of -xs to -ows, as
in arduous, &c. An adj. form from olea, the olive-tree. Not a true
L. word, but borrowed from Gk. éAaia; see Oil.
OLEANDER, the rose-bay-tree. (F.—Late L.) “ Oleander,
rose-bay;’ Minsheu.<MF. oleandre, ‘the rose-tree, rose-bay, rose-
lawrell, rose-bay-tree;’? Cot. The same as Ital. oleandro, Span.
eloendro, ‘the rose-bay-tree,’ Minsheu (1623), Port. eloendro, loendro.
All those forms are variously corrupted (it is supposed) from Late L.
lorandrum, a word cited by Isidore of Seville; Origines, xvii. 7.
B. Again, Isidore has suggested that ldrandrum was corrupted from
rhododendron: ‘Rhododendron [v.r. rodandarum] quod corrupte
lorandrum uocatur, quod sit foliis Jauri similibus, flore ut rosa, arbor
uenenata.’ Perhaps we may rather guess lorandrum to represent
lauridendrum (Ducange); from dauri- for L. laurus, laurel, and Gk.
δένδρον, a tree. y. The change from Jérandrum to oleandrum is
clearly due to confusion with olea, an olive-tree.
OLEASTER, the wild olive. (L.—Gk.) In Phillips, ed. 1706.
Spelt oliaster, Palladius on Husbandry, bk. iv. 115.—L. oleaster,
Rom. xi. 17 (Vulgate). Formed with suffix -s-ter (as in poefa-s-ter)
from οἶδα, an olive-tree.—Gk. ἐλαία, an olive-tree. See Oil. See
Bréal.
OLFACTORY, pertaining to smell. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1658.
=L. olfactorius, belonging to one that smells; only appearing in
the fem. and neut. forms, olfactéria, olfactérium, a smelling-bottle.
-L. olfactor, one who smells; (but only the fem. form olfactrix
occurs); cf. olfactus, a smelling, also pp. of olfacere, to smell, to
scent ; of which a fuller form olefacere also occurs. —L. olé-re, to
smell; and facere, to make; hence, to emit ascent. β, It is clear
that olére stands for *odére, whence odor, smell; cf. Gk. 65-7, scent.
The change of d to / is a peculiarity of Latin, as in Ulysses fer
Odysseus, lacruma for dacruma; see Tear (2). See Odour.
OLIGARCHY
OLIGARCHY, government by a few. (F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt
oligarchie in Minsheu, ed. 1627.—F. oligarchie, ‘an oligarchie;’
Cot. —Late L. oligarchia (Ducange).—Gk. ὀλιγαρχία, government in
the hands of a few. —Gk. ὀλίγ-, for ὀλίγος, few, little ; and -apxia,
from ἄρχειν, to rule. Der. oligarchi-c-al; also oligarch, Gk. ὀλι-
γάρνης; oligarch-al.
OLIO, a mixture, medley. (Span.—L.) A mistaken form of olia,
which is an E, spelling of Span. o/la, sounded very nearly as olia, the
Span. 1 answering to E. ly or to E. Ili in million. ‘The mistake
occurs in Eikon Basilike, cap. xv, and is noticed by Milton. ‘ Not
to tax him for want of elegance as a courtier in writing oglio for olla,
the Spanish word;’ Milton, Answer to Eikon Basilike, cap. 15.—
Span. olla, ‘a round earthen pot, an oglio’ (sic); Meadows.
Properly, the latter sense is due to the Span. dish called olla podrida,
a dish of various meats and vegetables, hence a mixture, medley,
olio. —L. olla, a pot; from OL. aula, a pot. Root uncertain.
OLIVE, the name of an oil-yielding tree. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME.
olive (with τε for v), O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, ii. 89, 1. 5 from
bottom. =F, olive. —L. oliua.—Gk. ἐλαία, an olive-tree. Brugmann,
i. § 121. See further under Oil.
OLYMPIAN, belonging to Olympus, celestial. (L.—Gk.)
‘ Above th’ Olympian hill ;’ Milton, P. L. vii. 3. —Late L. Olympianus,
adj., for L. Olympius, Olympian. Gk. ’OAvumia, a sacred region in
Elis, where the Olympian games were held; Ὄλυμπος, a mountain
in Thessaly, the fabled abode of the greater gods of Greece. Der.
Olympia-d (from the same source), a period of four years, from one
celebration of these games to another.
OMADAUN, OMADHAWN, a simpleton. (Irish.) First in
1818. Anglo-Irish.—TIrish amadan, a simpleton. Irish amad (the
same). Irish am-, for an-, negative prefix (cf. Gk. dv-) ; and -mad,
Olrish -met, mind, cognate with L. mens and Εἰ, mind. Cf. L. amens,
mad,
OMBRE, a game at cards. (F.—Span.—L.) In Pope, Rape of
the Lock, i. 56. The game came to England with Charles II, in
1660, A pamphlet called ‘ The Royal Game of Ombre’ was pub-
lished in that year (Chatto, p. 145).—F. hombre, ombre (Hamilton).
—Span. juego del hombre, the game of ombre ; lit. ‘ game of the man;’
see Eing.-Span. part of Meadows’ Dict. The Span. juego is from L.
iocus; see Joke. The Span. hombre is from L. hominem, acc. of
homo, aman; see Human. See Notes on E. Etym., p. 201.
OMEGA, the end. (Gk.) In Rev. i. 8. The sense ‘end’ is due
to the fact that omega is the last letter of the Gk. alphabet. Its
force is that of long 0.—Gk. ὦ, called ὦ μέγα, i.e. great o or longo;
where μέγα is the neut. of μέγας, great, allied to E. mickle; see
Mickle. 4 Opposed to alpha, the first letter; see Alphabet.
OMELET, a pancake made chiefly of eggs. (F.—L.) In Cot-
grave.—F. omelette, ‘an omelet or pancake of eggs;’ Cot. An
older form was aumelette; Cot. also gives: ‘ Aumelette deufs, an
omelet, or pancake made of egges.’ β. The forms of the word
are various; a very common old form, according to Scheler, was
amelette, but this was preceded by the forms alemette, alemelle, and
alumelle.. It is clear that amelette is a corruption from the older
alemette; and it seems that alemette, in its turn, took the place of
alemelle. Ὑ. Now the OF. alemelle signified ‘a thin plate,’ esp.
the blade of a knife, and is still preserved in the mod. F, alumelle
(a corrupted spelling), with the sense of ‘sheathing of a ship,’ as
a nautical term (Hamilton). That is, the omelet was named from its
thin, flat, shape, and has nothing to do with F. wus, eggs, as some have
supposed ; so that the old expression in Cotgrave, viz. aumelette d’ eufs,
is quite correct, not tautological. See alemele, the blade of a knife,
in Godefroy, who has also alemelle; as well as (in the Supp.) the
forms alumette, amelette, omelette, eufmolette (!), aumelete, an omelet ;
s.v. omelette. 8. Lastly, alemelle (or alemele) is a mistaken form,
due to confusion of Ja lemelle (the correct form) with /’alemelle, as if
the article had been elided before a vowel. —L. /amella, a thin plate,
properly of metal; dimin. of /amina, a thin, flat plate; see Lamina.
@ There seems to be no reason for doubting the correctness of this
curious etymology, due to Littré; see the articles in Littré and
Scheler, under the words omelette and aiumelle. Cf. Norm. dial.
amelette, omelette (Moisy).
OMEN, a sign of a future event, prognostication. (L.) In Shak.
Hamlet, i. 1. 123.—L. Omen, an omen; OL. osmen. B. Root
uncertain; Brugmann takes it to stand for *owis-men, which he
connects with Gk. οἵο-μαι, I think, suppose; §§ 877, 352 (3). Der.
omen-ed, chiefly in ill-omened ; omin-ous (Minsheu), imitated from L.
Omin-dsus, adj., formed from dmin-, decl. stem of Omen ; omin-ous-ly,
omin-ous-ness. Also ab-omin-ate.
OMENTUM, ‘a fold or duplication of the peritoneum connect-
ing the stomach with certain of the other viscera, as the liver, spleen,
and colon; the caul;’? N.E.D. (L.) Called: oment in 1547.—L.
omentum,
ONION
OMIT, to leave out, neglect. (L.) ‘Nor omitted no charitable
meane;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 887 e.—L. dmittere, to omit ; lit.
‘to let go.’ For *ommittere, which stands (by assimilation) for
*obmittere. = L. ob (which often scarcely affects the sense); and mit¢ere,
to send, let go. See Ob- and Mission. Der. omiss-ion, Troil. iii.
3: 230, from Ἐς. omission, ‘an omission’ (Cot.), which from L. dmiss-
idnem, acc. of dmissio, allied to the pp. missus. Also omitt-ance,
a coined word, As You Like It, iii. 5. 133.
OMNIBUS, a public vehicle. (L.) The name seems to have
been first used in France, They were used in Paris about 1828 ;
and were so called because intended for the use of all classes. —L.
omnibus, for all, dat. pl. of omnis, all. Root uncertain ; see Supp.
note to Brugmann, § 762.
OMNIPOTENT, almighty. (F.—L.) ME. omnipotent, Chaucer,
C. T. 6005 (D 423).—F. omnipotent ; Cot.—L. omnipotent-, stem of
omnipotens, all-powerful.=L. ommni-, for omnis, all; and potens,
powerful; see Potent. Der. ommipotent-ly, omnipotence, from F.
omnipotence (Cot.).
OMNIPRESENT, everywhere present. (F.—L.) Milton has
omnipresence, P. L. vii. 590, xi. 336. Coined from omni-, for omnis,
all; and Present, q.v. Der. omnipresence.
OMNISCIENT, all-knowing. (L.) In Milton, P. L. vi. 430.
Coined from omni-, for omnis, all; and scient-, stem of sciens, pres.
part. of scire, to know; see Science. Der. omniscience.
OMNIVOROUS, all-devouring, feeding on all kinds of food.
(L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. omniuorus, all-devouring ;
by change of τὴς to -ows.=L. ommni-, for omnis, all; and -worus, de-
youring, from worare, to devour; see Voracious.
OMRAH, a prince, lord. (Hind.— Arab.) ‘ Aigrettes by Omrahs
worn ;’ Scott, Vision of Don Roderick, ii, 31.—Hind. umara,
a noble; lit. ‘nobles,’ pl., used as a title (Forbes). Arab. wmara,
pl. of amir, a prince, emir; see Bmir., Cf. the Arab. title amirzl-
umara, prince of princes (Yule).
ON, upon, at, near. (E.) ME. on; passim. AS. on; passim.
+Du. aan; Icel. ἃ (for an); Dan. an, prep. and ady.; Swed. a,
prep. ; G. an; Goth. ana, to, upon, on.4-Gk. ἀνά; Russ. na. Idg.
type *ana. Der. on, adv. ; on-set, on-slaught, on-ward, on-wards; and
see anon,
ONCE, a single time, at a former time. (E.) ME. ones, oones,
onis, Chaucer, C. T. 5592, 5595 (D 10, 13); cf. at ones, id. 767
(A 765). The final s was voiceless, not pronounced as Ζ ; and this
is why the word is now spelt with ce, which is an attempt to show
this. AS. des, once; orig. gen. case masc. and neut. of an, one ;
the gen, case was sometimes used adverbially, as in need-s, twi-ce,
thri-ce. See One (1). Der. nonce, in the phr. for the nonce; see
Nonce.
ONCE, OUNCE, an animal ; see Ounce (2).
ONE (1), single, undivided, sole. (E.) [The mod. pronunciation
[wun] seems to have arisen in the W. of England ; it is noticed by
Jones, in 1701, as in use ‘in Shropshire and some parts of Wales;’
Ellis, On Early Eng. Pronunciation, p. 1012. It does not appear to
be older in literature than about A.D. 1420; see N.E.D. Tindale
has wons in Mark, vi. 31. At any rate, the ME. pronunciation was
at first with long open o, later with long close 0, whence the sound
of -one, on-, in al-one, at-one, on-ly; we never say wunly. We do,
however, say wuns (with voiceless s) for once.) ME. oon, on; also
00, 0; dative oone, one; Chaucer, C, T. 343, 365, 681, 749 (A 341,
&c.). AS. dz, one; Grein, i. 29.44Du. een; Icel. einn; Dan. een;
Swed. en; G. ein; Goth. ains.4-W. un; Irishand Gael. aon; L. unus;
OL, cinos; Gk. *oivds, one (fem. οἴνη, an ace on adie). Teut. type
*ainoz; Idg. type *oinos. Cf. Lith. vénas, one; Brugmann, ii. § 165.
Der. one-sided, one-sided-ness ; one-ness; and see on-ce, on-ly, al-one, l-one,
al-one; un-ique, un-ite, un-ion, un-animous, uni-son, uni-versal, on-ion ;
also n-one, n-on-ce, an-on (=in one), an-other. Doublet, an or a
(from the unstressed form). = The Gk. εἷς, one (base *sem) cannot
be referred to the same source; Brugmann, i. § 408.
ONE (2), a person, spoken of indefinitely. (.) In the phrase
‘one says,’ the one means a single person. Cf. ‘ One that moche wo
wrou3te, Sleuthe was his name’ =one who wrought much wo, whose
name was Sloth; P. Plowman, B. xx. 157. See Matzner, Engl.
Grammatik. ‘The indefinite one, as in one says, is sometimes, but
wrongly, derived from the F. on, L. homo. It is merely the use of
the numeral one for the older man, men, or me;’ Morris, Hist. Out-
lines of Eng. Accidence, p. 143 ; which see for examples. And see
N.E.D.; One, § 20.
ONEROUS, burdensome. (F.—L.) In the Rom. of the Rose,
1. 5633. - Ἐς onereux, ‘ onerous ;’ Cot.—L. onerdsus, burdensome. —
L. oner-, for *ones, stem of onus, a burden. β. Benfey (Skt. Dict,
p- 19) compares onus with Skt. azas, a cart; and so Brngmann. i.
§ 159. Der. onerous-ly, -ness; also ex-oner-ate.
ONION, the name of a plant. (F.—L.) ME. oynon, Chaucer,
411
419 ONLY
Ὁ. T. 636. =F. ofgnon, ‘an onion;”’ Cot.—L. dinionem, acc. of iinio,
(1) unity, oneness, (2) a single large pearl, (3) a kind of onion. =L.
ainus, one; cognate with E. One, q.v. Doublet, union, esp. in the
sense ‘a large pearl,’ Hamlet, v. 2. 283. |
ONLY, single, singly. (E.) Both adj. and adv. ME. oonli,
earlier oonliche, onliche. ‘ Onliche liue’=solitary life; Ancren Riwle,
p- 152, last line but one. Onliche, adv., Will. of Palerne, 3155. AS.
dnlic, adj., unique, lit. one-like ; Grein, i. 33. AS. dn, one; and lic,
like. See One and Like.
ONOMATOPOSIA, name-making, the formation of a word
with resemblance in sound to that of the thing signified. (Gk.) Esp.
used of words such as click, hiss, and the like; directly imitative of
sounds. Spelt oxomatopeia in Puttenham, Arte of E. Poesie, bk. iii.
ch. 17 (ed. Arber, p. 192, sidenote). Gk. ὀνοματοποιία, the making
of a name; we also find évoparonoinats.=—Gk. dvoparo-, decl. stem
of ὄνομα, a name; and ποιεῖν, to make. See Name and Poem.
Der. onomato-poetic. Also (from Gk. ὄνομαν an-onym-ous, hom-onym,
met-onym-y, par-onym-Ous, Syn-onym.
ONSET, an assault, attack. (E.) In King John, ii. 326. A good
word ; but not in early use. Due to the phrase 20 set on, i.e. to
attack. ‘Percy! and set on!’ 1 Hen. IV, v. 2. 97. See On and
Set.
ONSLAUGHT, an attack. (E.) In Butler, Hudibras, pt. i.
e. 3. ll. 422, 424. ‘Lhe ME. form would be onslaht; but it does not
occur. Compounded of ME. on, on; and slaht, slaght, slaught,
a stroke, blow, also slaughter, as in Gower, i. 348; bk. 111. 2058.—
AS. on, on; and sleaht, a stroke, blow, found in the compounds
mordor-sleaht, wel-sleaht, Grein, ii. 264, 647, and derived from sléan,
to strike. See On and Slaughter.
ONTOLOGY, the science of being. (Gk.) ‘Ontology, an Account
of Beings (sic) in the Abstract ;’ Bailey (1735). Compounded of
Gk. évro-, for ὀντ-, stem of the pres. part. of εἶναι, to be; and
-Aoyia, from λόγος, discourse, from λέγ-ειν, to speak.
ONWARD, ONWARDS, forward. (E.) Not a very old
word. ‘I haue driuen hym onwarde one steppe down ;’ Sir T. More,
Works, p. 400 4. Peculiarly used in Chaucer, C. T., A 970. Com-
pounded of ov and -ward, in imitation of Toward, q.v. So also
onwards, Shak. Sonnet 126, in imitation of towards.
ONYX, a kind of agate. (L.—Gk.) In Holland, tr. of Pliny,
b. xxxvii. c. 6. ME. onix; Wyclif, Ezek. xxviii. 13. —L. onyx.— Gk.
ὄνυξ, a claw, a nail, a finger-nail, a veined gem, onyx, from the
resemblance to the colour of the finger-nail. The stem is ὀνυχ-,
allied by gradation to Skt. nakha-, a nail, Russ. xogote, a nail, and
E. nail ; see Nail.
OOLITE, a kind of limestone. (F.—Gk.) Modern and geological.
A coined word, but coined in France; an Englishman would have
said oolith. =F. oolithe, with th pronounced as E. ¢; in Dict. Acad.
1762. —Gk. wé-, for dév, an egg, cognate with L. duum; and λίθ-ος,
astone. See Oval and Lithography.
OOZE (1), moisture, gentle flow; confused with Ooze (2), soft
mud. (E.) These words have lost an initial w; they should rather
be wooze, or woze; see E.D. D. The vb. to woose is in Golding, tr.
of Ovid, fol. 127. For the loss of τυ, cf. prov. E. ’ooman for woman,
Shropshire ’ood for wood. 1. ME. wose, moisture; ‘alle the othre
woses,’ all the other fluids, Ayenb. of Inwyt, p. 186. AS. τοῦς, juice ;
as in ofetes wos, juice of fruit; Voc. 128. 11.4-Icel. vas, wetness.
Noreen looks upon Icel. vas as from a form *vans; and if so, AS.
wos is from a form *wons. But wos may be allied to OHG. waso,
turf, sod ; see G. wasen in Kluge. 2. ME. wose, soft mud ; ‘in wose
and in donge;’ P. Plowm. C. xiii. 229; and see Prompt. Parv.,
Ρ. 532. AS. wiise, sepia; as in wase-scite, a cuttle-fish, Voc. 181. 7;
wase, mud, Voc. 203. 45.4 Icel. versa, a stagnant pool; Norw. veisa,
mud. ‘Teut. type *wais-dn-, f. Der. from ooze (1), ooze, verb, to
exude, Timon, i. 1. 21; ooz-y.
OPACITY, opaqueness ; see Opaque.
OPAL, a precious stone. (F.—L.—Skt.?) In Holland, tr. of
Pliny, b. xxxvii. c. 6; Tw. Nt. ii. 4.77. =F. opale, ‘the opall stone ;’
(οἵ. Τὸ. opalus, an opal; Pliny, as above. Cf. Gk. ὀπάλλιος, an
opal. Apparently from Skt. upala-s, a stone; cf. tapana-upalas, a
fabulous gem, rasa-upalas, a pearl (Benfey).
OPAQUES, not transparent, dark. (F.—L.) In Milton, P. L. iii.
619; ME. opake, Palladius on Husbandry, ii. 261.—F. opaque,
‘duskie, gloomie, obscure ;’ Cot,—L. opacum, acc. of opacus, shady.
Root unknown, Der. opaque-ness ; also opac-i-ty, Minsheu, from F.
opacité, ‘opacity’ (Cot.), from L. acc. opacitatem.
OPE, to open. (E.) A short form for open, verb; K. John, ii.
536. So also ope is used as a short form for open, adj., as in ‘ the
gates are ope,’ Cor. i. 4. 43. Seldom used except in poetry. See
Open.
OPEN, unclosed, free of access, clear. (E.) The verb is formed
from the adj., as is shown by the old forms, ΜῈ, cpen, Chaucer,
OPOSSUM
C. T. 8666 (E 790). At a later period contracted to ope ; see Ope.
AS. open, open, Grein, ii. 355. Lit. ‘ that which is lifted up;’ the
metaphor being probably taken from the lifting of the curtain of
a tent, or the lifting of a door-latch; cf. dup (=do up), to open,
Hamlet, iv. 5. 53. Allied to AS. up, up; see Up.4+Du. open; op,
up; Icel. opinn, open, also face upwards; upp, up; Dan. aaben;
op, up; ef. the phr. Zuk Doren op, open the door, lit. ‘lock the door
up;’ Swed. éppen; upp, up; G. offen; allied to auf, OHG. wf.
Teut. types *upanoz, *upenoz; allied to Up, q.v. Der. open, verb,
AS, openian, causal verb from adj. open; so also Du. openen, from
open; Icel. opna, Dan. aabne, Swed. dppna, G. dffnen. Also open-ly,
open-ness, open-ing, open-handed, open-hearted.
OPHBRA, a musical drama. (Ital.—L.) ‘An opera is a poetical
tale or fiction,’ &c.; Dryden, pref. to Albion and Albanius; first in
Evelyn, Diary, Nov. 19, 1644. —Ital. opera, work; hence a perform-
ance. —L. opera; see Operate. Der. operat-ic; opera-glass.
OPERATE, to produce an effect. (L.) In Shak. Cymb. v. 5.
197. [Really due to the sb. operation, in much earlier use; ME.
operacion, Chaucer; C. T. 6730 (D 1148); Gower, C. A. iii. 128;
bk. vii. 1282; from F. operation, which from L. acc. operatidnem.] —
L. operatus, pp. of operdri, to work. = L. opera, work ; closely allied
to L. opus (decl. stem oper-), work, labour, toil.4-Skt. apas, work
(Vedic). Der. operat-ion, as above; operat-ive, King Lear, iv. 4. 14,
from Ἐς operatif, ‘ operative’ (Cot.) ; operat-ive-ly ; operai-or, from L.
operator; oper-ant, Hamlet, iii. 2. 184, from oferant-, stem of pres.
part. of operari; oper-ance, Two Noble Kinsmen, i. 3. 63. Also
oper-ose, i.e. laborious, Blount’s Gloss., from L. operd:us; oper-ose-ly,
oper-ose-ness ; oper-os-i-ty, Minsheu, From the same root we have
co-operate, en-ure, in-ure, man-ure, man-euvre.
OPHICLEIDE, a musical instrument. (F.—Gk.) Modern. =
F. ophicléide, ‘an ophicleid, key-serpent ;? Hamilton. An odd name;
due to the old twining musical instrument called ‘a serpent,’ to
which keys were added, thus turning it into a ‘ key-serpent.’ =Gk.
ὄφι-, for ὄφις, a serpent; and κλειδ-, decl. stem of κλείς, a key. See
Ophidian and Clavicle.
OPHIDIAN, relating to serpents. (Gk.) Modern; formed
with E. suffix -an (=L. -dnus) from Gk. *dg.d:-, an imaginary form
wrongly supposed to be the stem of ὄφις, a serpent ; perhaps sug-
gested by the Gk. dimin. form ὀφίδιον. The true stem is ὄφι-, as
seen in ophi-cleide and Ophi-uchus (Gk. ὀφιοῦχος, serpent-holder, from
ἔχειν, to hold), Milton, P. L. ii. 709.
OPHTHALMIA, inflammation of the eye. (Gk.) Spelt oph-
thalmie in Blount’s Gloss., which is borrowed from F. ophthalmie
(Cotgrave).—Gk. ὀφθαλμία, a disease of the eye. —Gk. ὀφθαλμός, the
eye; Bceotian ὄκταλλος ; cf. Doric ὀπτίλος, the eye, ὀπτεύειν, to see,
ὀπτήρ, one who looks, a spy, eye-witness. See Optic. Der. oph-
thalmt-c.
OPINION, a notion, judgement, estimation. (F.—L.) ME.
opinion, Chaucer, C. T. 183; Gower, C. A. i. 267; bk. ii. 3214. —F.
opinion, ‘opinion ;᾿ Cot.—L, opinidnem, acc. of opinio, a supposition.
= L. opinari, to suppose; rarely opinare.—L. opinus, thinking, ex-
pecting ; only in the comp. nec-opinus, in-opinus, unexpected ; perhaps
connected with od, near, as swp-inus is with sub (Bréal). Der. opinion-
at-ive (Johnson), which has taken the place of the older opinative
(Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674), coined from L. opindtus, pp. of opinari,
to suppose; opinion-at-ive-ly, opinion-at-ive-ness. We also use the
coined word opinion-at-ed, a clumsy formation. The verb opine is
a perfectly correct word, from F. opiner, ‘to opine’ (Cot.), which
from L. opinare, more commonly ofinari, as above ; it occurs in
Pope, Moral Essays, iii. 9. The derivatives opin-able, opin-at-ive,
opin-at-or (all in Blount) are obsolete. ;
OPIUM, a narcotic drug. (L.—Gk.) In Holland, tr. of Pliny,
b. xx. c. 18 ; and in Milton, Samson, 630. [The ME. opie, Chaucer,
C. T. 1474 (A 1472), answers to an OF. opie.}—L. opium; Pliny. =
Gk. ὄπιον, poppy-juice, opium ; dimin. from ὀπός, juice,sap. 41 Not
connected with Εἰ. sap; but rather with Skt. ἄρας, pl., waters. Der.
opi-ate, Milton, P. L. xi. 133, spelt opiat in Cotgrave, from F. opiate,
which from Late L. opiatus (Ducange), lit. ‘provided with opium.’
OPODELDOG, a medical plaster, soap liniment. (Partly Gk.)
A name believed to have been invented by Paracelsus, about 1541.
He spelt it oppodeltoch. The first part seems to be Gk. ὀπο-, for
ὀπός, Juice (above).
OPOPANAX, a gum-resin orig. obtained from an umbelli-
ferous plant, the Opopanax Chironium. (L.—Gk.) Spelt opopanac in
Lanfranc’s Cirurgerie, p. 60 (ab. 1400). —L. opopanax, Pliny, xx. 24.
—Gk. ὀποπάναξ, the juice of panax.—Gk. ὁπο-, for ὁπός, juice, sap
(above) ; and πάναξ, lit. all-heal; see Panacea.
OPOSSUM, an American quadruped. (W. Indian.) In a tr. of
Buffon’s Nat. Hist., London, 1792, 1. 214. Orig. opassom, in the
language of the Indians of Virginia; Captain Smith, Works, ed.
Arber, p. 59.
OPPIDAN
OPPIDAN, at Eton, a student who boards in the town, not in the
college. (L.) Formerly in more general use. ‘ Oppidan, a citizen
or townsman ;’ Blount’s Gloss.,ed. 1674.—L. oppiddnus, belonging
to a town.—L. oppidum, a town; OL. oppedum. Cf. L. Pedum, the
name of a town in Latium, Livy, ii. 39.4. B. ‘ The word oppidum
I derive from pedum (cf. Pedum)=Gk. πέδον, ground, country, Skt.
pada-m, tread, step, place, spot, foot-print, track, and ob, on, near,
over, and interpret it accordingly as orig. ‘‘ What lies on or over the
open ground ;” ... hence may well also be derived the old use of
oppida for the barriers of a race-course, which lie on [or] over the
arena ;’ Curtius, ii. 103, 303. Bréal compares Gk. ἔμπεδος, steadfast,
firm (with prefix ἐμ-, for ἐν),
OPPILATION, a stopping up. (F.—L.) Sir T. Elyot has the
pl. oppilations; Castel of Helthe, bk. ii. c. 7 (Of Fygges).—MF.
oppilation, ‘an obstruction;’ Cot.-+L. acc. oppilditidnem, allied to
oppilatus, pp. of oppilare, to stop up.—L. op (for ob), against ; and
pilare, to ram, from pilum, a pestle. L. pilum is for *pinslom, from
pinsere, to pound.
OPPONENT, one who opposes. (L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627. —
L. opponent-, stem of pres. pt. of oppdnere, to oppose, lit. set against.
—L. op- (for ob before p); and ponere, to place. See Ob- and
Position.
OPPORTUNE, seasonable. (F.—L.) Spelt oportune in Lyd-
gate, Siege of Thebes, prol. 139. —F. opportun, ‘timely ;’ Cot. =L.
opportunus, convenient, seasonable; lit. near the harbour.—L,. op-
(for οὐ before p), near; and portus, a harbour, port. Cf. im-portune ;
and 1, Portinus, the protecting deity of harbours. See Ob- and
Port (2). Der. opportune-ly, opportune-ness; also opportun-i-ty, ME.
opportunité, Wyclif, Matt. xxvi. 16, from F. opportunité (Cot.), which
from L. acc. opportiinitatem.
OPPOSE, to resist, withstand. (F.—L. and Gk.) ΜΕ. opposen,
used commonly in the special sense of to contradict in argument, as
an examiner used to do in the schools; see Chaucer, (ἃ, T. 7179
(D 1597), where Tyrwhitt prints apposen ; Gower, C. A. i. 49; bk. i.
225. ‘ Aposen, or oposyn, Oppono ;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 13.—F. opposer ;
teflexively s’opposer, to oppose himself, to resist, withstand, gainsay,
to object, except, or protest against;’ Cot. =F. op-=L. op- (for ob
before 2), against; and F. poser, to place. See Ob- and Pose.
Der. oppos-er, oppos-able,
OPPOSITE, over against, contrary, adverse. (F.—L.) ME.
opposite, Chaucer, C. T., A 1894.—F. opposite, ‘ opposite ;’ Cot. —L.
oppositus, pp. of oppdnere, to set against. L. of- (for ob before p),
against; and ponere, to put, set; see Ob- and Position. Der. op-
posite-ly, opposite-ness ; also opposit-ion, ME. opposition, Chaucer, C. T.
11369 (F 1057), from F. opposition, which from L. acc. oppositidnem.
OPPRESS, to press against, constrain, overburden. (F.—L.)
ME. oppressen, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 11723 (Ε 1411).—F. oppresser, ‘ to
oppresse ;’ Cot. Late L. oppressare, to oppress ; Ducange.=L. op-
press-us, pp. of opprimere, to oppress, press upon, See Ob- and
Press. Der. oppress-ion, Chaucer, C. T. 6471 (Ὁ 880), from F,
oppression, which from L, acc. oppressionem ; oppress-ive, oppress-ive-ly,
oppress-ive-ness ; oppress-or, Hamlet, iii. I. 71.
OPPROBRIOUS, reproachful, disgraceful. (L.) Spelt oppro-
brious in Trevisa, tr. of Higden, vii. 167 ; approbrous, by a misprint,
in The Remedie of Loue, st. 41, pr. in Chaucer's Works, ed. 1561,
fol. 323, back.—L. opprobridsus, full of reproach.—L. opprobrium,
reproach. = L. op- (for ob before p), on, upon; and probrum, disgrace,
infamy. Root uncertain. Der. opprobrious-ly, -ness. The sb. oppro-
brium is also sometimes used, having taken the place of the older
word opprobry,
OPPUGN, to oppose, resist. (F.—L.) ‘The true catholike
faythe is, and ever hath been, oppugned and assaulted ;” Sir T. More,
Works, p. 571 h.=F. oppugner, ‘to oppugne ;’ Cot.=—L. oppugnare,
to buffet, beat with the fists. —L. op- (for ob before p), against ; and
pugnare, to fight, esp. with the fists, from pugnus, the fist. B. Pug-
nus is from a base pug-, appearing in pug-il, a boxer, pugilist. See
Ob- and Pugilist. Der. oppugn-er ; oppugn-anc-y, Shak. Troil. i,
32Ἅ τας
OPTATIVE, wishful, wishing. (F.—L.) The name of a mood
in grammar, sometimes expressive of wishing. In Palsgrave, p. 84;
and in Sherwood’s Index to Cotgrave, where the F. optatif is also
given.—F. optatif.—L. optatiuus, expressive of a wish; the name of
a mood.=—L. optatus, pp. of optare, to wish; a frequentative verb
from a base of-, perhaps connected with ap-isci, to obtain ; cf. Skt.
ap, ap, to obtain, attain. Der. optative-ly; from the same source,
opt-ion, ad-opt.
OPTIC, relating to the sight. (F.—Gk.) Formerly optick.
‘Through optick glass;’ Milton, Ρ. L. i. 288.=F. optique, ‘of, or
belonging to, the eie-sight ;’? Cot.=Gk, ὀπτικός, belonging to the
sight ; ef. ὀπτήρ, a spy, eye-witness. From the base OI (for OQ)
occurring in Ionic 6m-w7-a, 1 have seen, ὄψομαι, I shall see ; Boeotian
ORANGE 413
ὄκ-ταλλος, for *éxrav-Aos (cf. Skt. akshan-, the eye); also Lith.
ak-is, eye, L. oc-ulus, Russ. ok-o, the eye. Der. optic, sb., an eye,
as in ‘ the cleere casements of his own oftiques,’ Howell, Instructions
for Foreign Trayel, last sentence ; optic-s, sb.; optic-al, optic-al-ly,
optic-i-an. Also aut-op-s-y, cat-op-tric, di-op-tric, syn-op-sis; and see
oph-thalmia.
OPTIMISM, the doctrine that all is for the best. (L.; with Gk.
suffix.) Added by Todd to Johnson’s Dict. Coined by adding the
suffix -ism (=Gk. -tcpos) to optim-, stem of L. optimus, best, OL.
opitumus ; see Brugmann, ii. § 73. Perhaps related to L. op-és, riches
(Bréal). Der. optim-ist, with Gk. suffix τιστης.
OPTION, choice, wish. (F.—L.) In Minsheu. = F. opdion,
‘option ;’ Cot.—L. optidnem, acc. of optio, choice. Allied to optare,
to wish; see Optative. Der. option-al, option-al-ly,
OPULENT, wealthy. (F.—L.) In K. Lear, i. 1. 88.=—F. opulent,
‘opulent ;’ Cot.—L. opulentus, wealthy. Extended from op-, stem
of opés, sb. pl., wealth, riches. Cf. Skt. apuas, wealth. Der. opu-
lence; opulenc-y, Timon, v. 1. 38. From the same source are c-op-y,
c-op-t-ous, c-op-ul-ate, &c.
OR (1), conjunction, offering an alternative. (E.) Short for other,
owther, outher, auther, the older forms. ‘Amys other elles’ = amiss
or else; P. Plowman, B. i. 175; where the Trin. MS. (printed by
Wright) has ‘amys owther ellis.’ ‘ Other catell other cloth’ =either
property or cloth; P. Plowman’s Crede, ed. Skeat, 1.116. ‘Auther
to lenge lye, or to longe sitte’=either to lie long, or to sit long;
Gawain and the Grene Knight, 1.88, β. This other or auther is not
the mod. E, other, nor allied to either; but seems to have been sub-
stituted for AS. odde. Cf. AS. odde... odde, either... or. See
N.E.D. Der. n-or.
OR (2), ere. (E.) The use of or for ere is not uncommon; see ‘or
ever I had seen that day;’ Hamlet, i. 2. 183. Particularly in the
phrase or ere, Temp. i, 2. 11; Macb. iv. 3. 173, &c. The forms or,
er, ar occur as exact equivalents in the same passage in the three
texts of P. Plowman, Ὁ. viii. 66, B. v. 459, A. v. 232. All are from
AS. #r, ere, or from its equivalents in various E. dialects. See Ere.
Itis probable that or ere arose as a reduplicated expression, in
which ere repeats and explains or; and this was confused with or
e’er; whence or ever.
OR (3), gold. (F.—L.) A common heraldic term.—F. or, gold.
=L. aurum, gold; see Aureate.
ORACH, ORACHE, a plant of the genus A/riplex, esp. moun-
tain-spinach. (F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt orech in Turner, Names of
Herbes, 5. v. Atriplex; orach in Lyte, tr. of Dodoens, bk. v. ch. 1;
better spelt arache (see N. E. D.).—AF. arasche; in Voc. 559. 13
MF. and F. arroche, Cot. A Picard form (Hatzfeld) for OF. *arreuce
(not found).—L,. atriplicem, acc. of atriplex, orach; Pliny, xix. 6.—
Gk. drpapagis, ἀτράφαξυς, orach; of unknown origin.
ORACLE, the utterance or response of a deity, (F.—L.) ME.
oracle, Chaucer, Ho, of Fame, Ὁ. i, 1. 11.—F. oracle, ‘an oracle ;’
Cot.—L. draculum, a divine announcement; formed with double
dimin. suffix -cu-lu- from ordre, to speak, announce, pray ; from ér-
(for ds), the mouth; see Oral. Der. oracul-ar, due to L. dracularius,
oracular ; oracul-ar-ly, -ness.
ORAL, spoken, uttered by the mouth. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. A coined word; formed with suffix -al (=F. -al, -el, L.
-alis) from Gr-, stem of ὅς, the mouth, B. Allied to Skt. asya-m, the
mouth ; Icel. dss, the mouth of a river. Der. oral-ly; also or-ac-le,
q.V., or-at-ion, q.V., or-at-or, q.V., ori-fice, q.V.; ori-son, q.v.; also
ad-ore, in-ex-or-able.
ORANG-OUTANG, a large ape. (Malay.) ‘ Orang-outang is
the name this animal bears in the E. Indies ; Pongo, its denomination
at Lowando, a province of Congo;’ E. tr. of Buffon, London, 1792.
‘An oran-outang o’er his shoulders hung ;’ Garth, Dispensary, c. v
1. 150 (1699). — Malay drang aitan, ‘the wild man, a species of ape;’
Marsden, Malay Dict., p. 22.— Malay drang, a man, id.; and hitan,
iitan, ‘woods, a forest, wild or uncultivated parts of the country,
wild, whether in respect to domestication or cultivation ;’ id. p. 364,
Thus it means ‘ wild man.’
ORANGE, the name of a fruit. (F.—Ital.—Pers.) The pl.
orenges is in Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. ii. c..7. ‘Colour of
orenge’ occurs in 1. 11 of a 15th-century ballad beginning ‘O mossie
Quince,’ pr. in Chaucer's Works, ed. 1561, fol. 344, back; and see
Oronge in Prompt. Pary. Lydgate has the pl. orengis, Minor Poems,
p- 15; the sing. orenge occurs in Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B, 1044.
—OF. orenge (14th century), Littré; later changed into orange, ‘an
orange;” Cot. [The form should rather have been xarenge, but the
initial 2 was lost, and arenge became orenge under the influence of
F. or (L. aurum), gold; because the notion arose that the name
denoted the golden colour of the fruit.]—-MlItal. xarancia, an orange
(Florio) ; also arancia,id.,as now. Cf, Span. naranja, Port. laranja
(for naranja), an orange. Pers. naranj, narinj, also narang, an
414 ORATION
orange; Rich. Pers. Dict. p. 1548; perhaps from Skt. naranga-s, an
orange-tree. Cf. Pers. nar, a pomegranate.
ORATION, a speech. (F.—L.) In Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 399 a.
—F. oration, ‘an oration, or harang;’ Cot.—L. dratidnem, acc. of
dratio, a speech.—L. drare, to speak, pray; from or-, stem of ds,
mouth. See Oral.
ORATOR, a speaker. (F.—L.) Formerly oratour, but now |
conformed to the L. spelling. ME. oratour, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius,
b. 4. pr. 4, 1. 183.—AF. oratour, F. orateur, ‘an orator ;’ (οἱ. -
L. oratérem, acc. of orator, a speaker.—L. drare, to speak; see
Oration. Der. oratori-c-al, oratori-c-al-ly; orator-y, ME. oratorie,
Chaucer, C. T. 1907 (A 1905), from F. oratoire, ‘an oratory’ (Cot.),
from L. dratorium, a place of prayer, neut. of dratorius, belonging to
prayer; orator-i-o, from Ital. oratorio, an oratory, also an oratorio,
from the same L. drasorius.
ORB, a sphere, celestial body, eye. (F.—L.) In Shak. Merch.
Ven. y. 60; and earlier. —F. orbe, an orb; omitted in Cotgrave, but
given in Sherwood’s Index, and in use in F. in the 13th century
(Littré).—L. crbem, acc. of orbis, a circle, circuit, orb. Root un-
known. Der. orb-ed, Haml. iii. 2. 166; orbi-c-ul-ar, Milton, P. L.
iii. 718, from L. orbicularis, circular ; orbi-c-ul-ar-ly; also orb-it,
Dryden, tr. of Virgil, xii. 1076, directly from L. orbita, a track,
course, orbit, formed with suffix -ta from orbi-, decl. stem of orbis.
Hence orbit-al.
ORC, ORK, a sea-monster. (L.) ‘Seals and orks ;” Milton, P. L.
xi, 835. ‘Epaular, an Orke, a great sea-fish, mortal enemy to the
whale ;’ Cot.=—L. orca, ἃ sea-fish ; perhaps the narwhal; Pliny, ix. 6.
Holland’s translation has: ‘The Orcz, other monstrous fishes...
deadly enemies they be vnto the foresaid whales.’
ORCHARD, a garden of fruit-trees. (L. and E.) ME. orchard,
Ancren Riwle, p. 378, 1. 2 from bottom; orcherd, Layamon, 12955.
AS. orceard, also spelt orcerd, Gen. ii. 8, 16; Wright, Popular Treatises
on Science, p. 10, l. 3. The older form is ortgeard, Alfred, tr. of
Gregory’s Pastoral, c. 40; ed. Sweet, p. 292, 1.4. [We also find
wyrtgeard, to translate L. promptuarium, Ps. cxlili. 16, ed. Spelman.]
Cognate with Goth. aurtigards, a garden, John, xviii. 1; cf. aurtja,
a gardener, husbandman, Luke, xx. 10. B. The latter element is
merely the mod. E. yard; see Yard (1). The former element is
merely borrowed from L. hortus, a garden, both in E, and Gothic;
and, as L. hortus is cognate with E. yard, the form ort-geard merely
repeats the idea of ‘yard.’ @[ So in Brugmann, i. § 767; but some
have considered AS. ort-geard as wholly Teutonic, and have con-
nected it with AS. wyrt-geard above (Dan. urt-gaard, Swed. ortegdrd),
a kitchen-garden, from AS. wyrt, Dan. urt, Swed. ort, a wort. But
the change from wyrt to ort (before A.D. 900) is incredible, and is
now generally abandoned.
ORCHESTRA, the part of a theatre for the musicians. (L.—
Gk.) In Holland, tr. of Suetonius, p. 242 (R.).—L. orchéstra. =
Gk. ὀρχήστρα, an orchestra; which, in the Attic theatre, was a
space on which the chorus danced. —Gk. ὀρχέομαι, I dance, Cf.
Skt. xghaya, torage. Root uncertain. Der. orchestr-al.
ORCHIS, a name for certain plants. (L.—Gk.) In Holland, tr.
of Pliny, b. xxvi. c. 10; and in Swinburne, Trav. through Spain,
(1779), p- 233, 1. 1.—L. orchis (Pliny). —Gk. ὄρχις, a testicle ; hence
applied to a plant with tubers of testicular shape. Der. orchid-
ac-e-ous, a coined word, as if from orchid-, stem of orchis (but the L.
orchis makes gen. orchis, and Gk. ὄρχις makes gen. ὀρχέως) ; also
orchid, similarly coined. 4 A similar mis-coinage is seen in ophidian,
for which see under Ophicleide.
ORDATN, to set in order, arrange, regulate. (F.—L.) ME.
ordeynen ; P. Plowman, B. prol. 119; Rob. of Glouc. p. 236, 1. 4864.
= AF. ordeiner, Stat. Realm, i. 157; OF. ordener, later ordonner, as
in Cotgrave. —L. ordinare, to set in order. —L. ordin-, stem of ordo,
order; see Order. Der. ordin-ance, q.v.; ordin-ate, adj., ME.
ordinat, Chaucer, C. T. 9160 (E1284), from L. pp. ordindtus ; ordin-
ate, sb. (in mathematics); ordin-ate-ly; ordin-at-ion, in Phillips, ed.
1706, formed, by analogy with F. words in -tion, from L. ordinatio,
an ordinance, also ordination.
nance.
ORDEAL, a severe trial, a judgement by test of fire, &c. (E.)
The spelling is artificial; from about A.D. 1605; see N.E.D. It
is also remarkable that this word (from complete ignorance of its
etymology) is commonly pronounced ordé-al in three syllables,
though the -deal is related to the deal spoken of in dealing cards.
ME. ordal, Chaucer, Troilus, iii. 1046. AS. ordél, ordal; the
spelling ordé/ is rare, but occurs in the Laws of Edward and
Guthrum, sect. ix, in Thorpe’s Ancient Laws, i. 172; this form
would answer to mod. E. ordeel, or (by shortening due to want of
stress) toa form ordel. The usual spelling is orda/, as in the Laws
of Ethelred, sect. i (in Thorpe, i. 281), and sect. iv (id. i. 294), and
see numerous references in Thorpe’s Index; this form answers to
And see ordin-al, ordin-ar-y, ord- |
ORGAN
Chaucer’s ordal (the a having been shortened by lack of stress) ;
though the latter part of the word (dal) answers to mod. E. dole.
The orig. sense is ‘a dealing out,’ separation, or discrimination;
hence, a judgement, decision.+OFries. ordél ; OSax. urdéli, a judge-
ment, decision; Du. oordeel, judgement; G. urtheil, OHG. urteili,
judgement. B. The latter part of the word is (etymologically) the
same as Dole; as shown by Du. deel, G. theil. The prefix is the
Du. oor-, OSax. and G, ur-, answering to the OHG. prep. ur, Goth.
us, out, out of, hence, thorough. It was common in AS., in such
words as or-méte, immense, or-mdd, despondent, or-sorg, free from
care, or-trywe, wanting in trust, or-wéna, wanting in hope, &c.; see
Grein, ii. 356-360.
ORDER, arrangement, system. (F.—L.) ME. ordre; occurring
four times on p. 8 of the Ancren Riwle.—F. ordre, substituted for
OF. ordine (Godefroy), by the not uncommon change of x to r; see
Coffer.—L. ordinem, acc. of ordo, order, arrangement. B. Sup-
posed to be connected with L. ord-iri, to begin, esp. to begin to
weave, to lay a warp; see Bréal, and Brugmann, ii. § 128. Der.
order. verb, in Sir T. Wiat, Sat. ii. 1. 87; order-less, K. John, iii. 1.
2533 order-ly, adj., Cymb. ii. 3. 52; order-ly, advy., Two Gent. i. 1.
130; order-li-ness, order-ing. Also dis-order, ordain, ordin-ance,
ordn-ance, ordin-ate, ordin-at-ion, ordin-al, ordin-ar-y, in-ordin-ate,
co-ordin-ate, sub-ordin-ate.
ORDINAL, showing order or succession. (L.) In Phillips,
ed. 1706; chiefly in the phr. ‘an ordinal number.’ “ Ordinall
Numerals; ἡ Minsheu’s Span. Grammar (1623); p. 12.—L. ordindlis,
in order, used of an ordinal number. = L. ordin-, decl. stem of ordo,
order; see Order. Der. ordinal, sb., ‘a book of directions for
bishops to give holy orders,’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, from Late L.
ordinale, neut. of ordinalis.
ORDINANCE, an order, regulation. (F.—L.) ME. orden-
nace, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 83, last line. — OF. ordenance,
later ordonnance (Cotgtave).— Late L. ordinantia, a command.=L.
ordinant-, stem of pres. part. of ordinare, to set in order; see Ordain.
Doublet, ordnance.
ORDINARY, usual, customary. (F.—L.) ‘The ordinary
maner;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 583d. Ordinarily occurs on
p- 582 h.=F. ordinaire, ‘ ordinary ;? Cot.<L. ordindrius, regular,
usual.<L. ordin-, decl. stem of ordo, order; see Order. Der.
ordinary, sb., from F. ordinaire, ‘an ordinary’ (Cot.), L. ordinarius,
an overseer; ordinari-ly. Also extra-ordinary.
ORDINATE, ORDINATION; see Ordain.
ORDNANCE, artillery. (F.—L) The same word as ordi-
nance, which is the old spelling; see K. John, ii. 218; Hen. V, ii.
4.126; cf. Gower, C. A. ii. 195; bk. v. 2040. It sometimes referred
to the bore or size of the cannon; cf. Caliver. ‘Engin de telle
ordonnance, of such a bulk, size, or bore ;’ Cotgrave.
ORDURE, excrement. (F.—L.) In Shak. Hen. V, ii. 4. 39.
ME. ordure, Chaucer, Pers. Tale, De Superbia (Six-text, Group I,
428). =F. ordure, ‘ordure ;’ Cot. OF. ord (fem. orde) ‘ filthy, nasty,
foule,...ugly, or loathsom to behold ;’ Cot. Cf. OF. ordir, ‘to
foule, defile, soile;’ id. [So also Ital. ordura is from the adj. ordo,
dirty, slovenly, soiled, deformed. ]—L. horridus, rough, shaggy, wild,
frightful; see Horrid. So also Ital. ordo answers to MItal. horrido,
mod. Ital. orrido, which Florio explains by ‘ horride, hideous, . . -
euill fauoured, . . . lothesome to behold.’
ORE, crude or unrefined metal. (E.) ME. ore, in Chaucer, C. T.
6646 (D 1064). From AS. dra; ‘hit is €ac berende on wecga drum
ares and isernes,’ it is fertile in ores of lumps of brass and iron;
Elfred, tr. of Beda, lib. i. c. 1. The word dra was, sooner or later,
entirely confused with the (unrelated) AS. ar, brass, also, occurring
in the above quotation; and the dat. case are, meaning ‘bronze,’
occurs in Gregory’s Pastoral, c. 37, ed. Sweet, p. 266. The change
from AS. ἃ to long open o is seen again in E, oar from AS. ar;
whilst the change from AS. 6 to the same is illustrated by AS. flor,
E. floor. B. The AS. dra is cognate with Du. oer. But ἄγ is cognate
with Icel. εἰν, brass; OHG. ér, brass; Goth. aiz, ais, brass, coin,
money, Mark, vi. 8; cf. aizasmitha, a copper-smith, 2 Tim. iv. 14;
L. es, bronze. Cf. Skt. ayas, iron; Max Miiller, Lect. ii. 256.
OREAD, a mountain-nymph. (L.—Gk.) ‘The Nymphs and
Oreades;” Spenser, A Pastorall Aeglogue, 1. 64.—L. Oréad-, stem
of Oréas, a mountain-nymph.—Gk. ‘Opeias (the same). —Gk. ὄρος,
amountain. See Origan.
ORGAN, an instrument, esp. of music. (F.—L.—Gk.) In old
books, the instrument of music is frequently called the organs or
a pair of organs; orgone or orgoon (answering to L. pl. organa)
occurs in P. Plowman, C. xxi. 7; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 14857 (B 4041);
the pl. organs is in Chaucer, C. T. 13602 (G 134); see my note to
P. Plowman, C. xxi. 7. =F. organe, ‘an organ, or instrument where-
with anything may be made or done;’ Cot.—L. organa; orig. pl. of
organum, an implement.—Gk. ὄργανον, an implement; allied to
ORGIES
ἔργον, a work; see Work. And see Orgies. Der. organ-ic,
organ-ic-al, organ-ic-al-ly, organ-ism, organ-ist, organ-ise, organ-ts-
at-ion. ἔξ" The AS. organan, sb. pl., used to translate L. organa in
>s. cxxxvi. 2 (ed. Spelman), can hardly be called an AS. word.
ORGIES, sacred rites accompanied with revelry; revelry, drunk-
enness. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Milton, P. L. i. 415; Drayton, Polyol-
bion, 5. 6, 1, 111. —F. orgies, ‘the sacrifices of Bacchus;’ Cot.=L.
orgia, sb. pl., a nocturnal festival in honour of Bacchus, orgies. — Gk.
ὄργια, sb. pl., orgies, rites; from sing. *épyor, a sacred act; closely
connected with ἔργον, work, action. See above. @ The sing. orgy
is comparatively rare.
ORGULOUS, proud. (F.—OHG.) The reading in modern
editions for orgillous, Shak. Troil. prol. 2. Palsgrave has: ‘ Orguyllous,
prowde, orgueilleux.’ ME. orgeilus, O. E. Misc. p. 30, 1. 23; cf. Sir T.
Malory, Morte Arthure, bk. xxi.c.1. Anglo-F. orguyllus, Langtoft’s
Chron. i. 54.—OF. orguillus (11th cent.), later orgueilleux, ‘proud,’
Cot. OF. orguil, orguel, orgoil, mod. Ἐς, orgueil, ‘pride, 14. [Cf.
Span. orgullo, orig. urgullo, as shown by 1. 1947 of the Poem of the
Cid, Ital. orgoglio, pride.) From a supposed OHG. sb. *urguoli,
pride; formed from OHG. urguol, remarkable, notable (Graff, iv.
153). See Diez, Scheler, Littré. Cf. AS. orgellice, arrogantly, in
fElfred, tr. of Boéthius, c. 18, § 4; though connexion with this is
uncertain. B. The OHG. word is compound ; the prefix ur- answers
to AS, or-, Goth. ws, out, and has an intensive force, as explained
under Ordeal. y. The latter part of the word is not clear; the
vowel suggests a connexion with AS. σοὶ, 2nd grade of galan, to sing
loudly.
ORIEL, a recess (with a window) in a room. (F.—L.) ‘It may
generally be described as a recess within a building; Blount has
oriol, the little waste room next the hall in some houses and mona-
steries, where particular persons dined, and this is clearly an autho-
rised and correct explanation ;”’ Halliwell’s Dict., which see. Spelt
oryall in the Squire of Low Degree, 1. 93; in Ritson’s Metrical
Romances, vol. iii.—OF. oriol, eurieul, a porch, alley, gallery,
corridor ; Godefroy. We find le oriol glossed by ‘de la chambre,’
i.e. the oriel of a chamber, in Wright’s Vocab. i. 166, 1. 9. The
Late L. form is driolum, explained as a portico in Matt. Paris, in
Ducange; see the citations in N. E.D. and Halliwell. B. Also
specially applied to the small apartment in which it was the privi-
lege of sick monks to dine; ‘ut non in infirmaria sed seorsim in
driolo monachi infirmi carnem comederent ;’ Matt. Paris, v. 2593; in
Ducange. Also to an oriel-window, as in the Squire of Low Degree,
1. 93, and in the Erl of Tolouse, 1. 307; Ritson, Met. Rom. vol. iii.
Of unknown origin; but the OF. ez points to orig. L. 0; see N. E. D.
Perhaps the L. dri- is the same as in E. ori-fice; from L. ds, a mouth,
an entrance, an opening; cf. Εἰ usher, q.v. @ There is an article
on the senses of the word Oriel in the Archeologia, vol. xxiii.
ORIENT, eastern. (F.—L.) ME. orient, in Chaucer, C. T.
14320 (B 3504).—F. orient.—L. orient-, stem of ortens, the rising
sun, the east; properly pres. part. of orir?, to rise. See Origin.
Der. orient-al, Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, pt. i. sect. 5,1. 4, from F.
oriental, L. orientalis ; orient-al-ist.
ORIFICH, a small opening. (F.—L.) Spelt orifs in Spenser,
Ε΄ Q. iv. 12. 22.—F. orifice, ‘ orifice ;’ Cot.—L. drificium, an open-
ing, lit. ‘the making of a mouth.’=—L. dri-, decl. stem of ὅς, a
mouth; and -fc-, for facere, to make. See Oral and Fact.
ORIFLAMME, the old standard of France. (F.—L.) ‘The
oryflambe, a speciall relyke that the Frenshe kynges vse to bere before
them in all battayles;’ Fabyan’s Chron. an. 1355, ed. Ellis, p. 467.
— OF. oriflambe, ‘the great and holy standard of France :᾿ (οἱ. --
Late L. auriflamma, the standard of the monastery of St. Denis in
France. . The lit. sense is ‘golden flame,’ hence ‘a golden banner ;’
so called because the banner was a red pennon with streamers, and
was carried on a gilt pole. Cf. L. flammula, a little flame, also
a small banner used by cavalry.—L. auri-, for aurum, gold; and
flamma, a flame. See Aureate and Flame. ἔτ But the
Chanson de Roland, 3093, has orie flambe (L. auream flammam), as
if the flag itself were golden; and a drawing, showing the shape of
the oriflamme, is given in Gautier’s edition, p. 278.
ORIGAN, ORIGANUM, wild marjoram. (F.—L.—Gk.) [An
older name is organy, mentioned in Cotgrave. We also find AS.
organe, for which see Cockayne’s Leechdoms, iii. 340, borrowed
directly from L. origanum.] In Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xx. c. 17;
Spenser, F. Q. i. 2. 40.—F. origan, ‘ garden organy, wild marjerome ;’
Cot.—L. origanum (Pliny).—Gk. ὀρίγανον, dpiyavos, marjoram ; lit.
‘mountain-pride.’—Gk. dpi-, for dpe-, from ὄρος, a mountain; and
γάνος, brightness, beauty, ornament, delight. B. Gk. ὄρος is perhaps
allied to Skt. varshma, height; γάνος is perhaps from the same root
as L. gaudére, to rejoice. Cf. Oread.
ORIGIN, source, beginning. (F.—L.) In Hamlet, i. 4. 26; the
adj. original is much older, in Chaucer, C. T. 12434 (C 500).=—F.
ORPIMENT 415
origine, ‘an originall, beginning ;’ Cot.=—L. originem, acc. of origo,
a beginning.—L. oriri, to arise, begin. Allied to Gk. ὄρνυμι, I stir
up. Der. origin-al (as above), origin-al-ly, origin-al-i-ty, origin-ate,
origin-at-ion, origin-at-or. And see ort-ent, prim-ordial.
ORIOLE, the golden thrush. (F.—L.) Called ‘the golden
oriole’ in a translation of Buffon, London, 1792. The old names
are golden thrush, witwall, wodewale, and heighaw. —OF, oriol, ‘a
heighaw, or witwall;’ Cot.—L. aureolus, golden; extended from
aureus, golden. —L. aurum, gold; see Aureate.
ORISON, a prayer. (F.—L.) ME. oryson, orisoun, Rob. of
Glouc. p. 235, 1. 4846; Chaucer, C. T. 5016 (B 596). —AF. oreison;
OF. orison, oreson, oreison (Burguy), later oraison, ‘ orison, prayer;’
Cot.—L. dratidnem, acc. of dratio, a speech, prayer.—L. drare, to
pray.—L. or-, from ds, the mouth; see Oral. Doublet, oration.
ORLE, in heraldry, an ordinary like a fillet round the shield
within it, at some distance from the edge; in architecture, a fillet.
(F.—L.) F. orle, fem. ‘a hem, selvidge, or narrow border; in
blazon, an urle, or open border about, and within, a coat of arms;’
Cot.; Late L. orla, a border, edge; in use A.D. 1244 (Ducange).
This answers to a L. form *érula, not found, dimin. of dra, border,
edge, margin.
ORLOP, a deck of a ship. (Du.) ‘Orlope, the uppermost deck
of a great ship, lying between the main and missen mast, and other-
wise called the spare-deck; the second and lowest decks of a ship
that has three decks, are likewise sometimes termed orlopes;’
Phillips, ed. 1706. Also ‘the second and lower deck of a ship;”
id., ed. 1658. But properly applied only to the deck over the hold,
which became the lower (or lowest) deck in ships having more decks
than one. Contracted from overlop ; spelt overloppe in Naval Accounts
of Hen. VII, p. 176; 1. 21.— Du. overloop, ‘a running over; de over-
loop van een schip, the deck of a ship, the orlope;’ Sewel. So called
because it runs over or traverses the ship; cf. Du. overloopen, ‘ to run
over, to run from one side to the other;’ Sewel. = Du. over, cognate
with E. over; and loopen, to run, cognate with E. leap. See Over
and Leap.
ΟΕ ΜΟΙ, a kind of brass. (F.—L.) ‘Ormolu, an alloy in
which there is less zinc and more copper than in brass, that it may
present a nearer resemblance to gold. . . . Furniture ornamented
with ormolu came into fashion in France in the reign of Louis XV’
{1715-1774]; Beeton’s Dict. of Univ. Information.—F. or moulu,
lit. pounded gold. =F. or, gold, from L. aurum; and moulu, pp. of
moudre, to grind, pound, OF. moldre, molre, from L. molere, to grind ;
see Aureate and Mill.
ORNAMENT, that which beautifies, adornment. (F.—L.) ME.
ornament; the pl. ornamentes occurs in Chaucer, C. Τὶ 8134 (Six-
text, E 258); where it is remarkable that the Ellesmere and Camb.
MSS. have aornementes, and the Hengwrt MS. has aournementes.
[These forms answer to OF. aornement, an ornament, from the verb
aorner (< L. adornire), to adorn.) Also ornementes, pl., Allit.
Poems, ed. Morris, B. 1799.—F. ornement, ‘an ornament ;’ Cot.—
L. orndmentum, an ornament; formed with sufhx -mentum from
ornare, to adom, β. According to Bréal, a contracted form of
ordinare, to set in order; see Ordain. Der. ornament, verb, added
by Todd to Johnson; ornament-al (in 1646); ornament-al-ly, orna-
ment-at-ion; also (from L. pp. orndtus) ornate; ornate-ly, ornate-necs.
Also ad-orn.
ORNITHOLOGY, the science of birds. (Gk.) [In Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674, where it is noted as being ‘the title of a late book ;’
viz. Fuller’s Ornithologie, or the Speech of Birds; which is a different
usage.] First truly used by Ray (1678) in his tr. of Willughby’s
Ornithologie Libri Tres (1676).—Gk. ὄρνιθο-, decl. stem of ὄρνις,
a bird; and -Aoyia, allied to Adyos,a discourse; see Logic. B. The
Gk. ὄρνις is interesting as being cognate with AS. earn, an eagle,
Matt. xxiv. 28. A shorter form appears in Goth. ara, G. aar, an
eagle; cf. also Russ. orél’, an eagle. Named from its soaring; cf.
Gk. ὄρνυμι, 1 stir up. Der. ornithologi-c-al, ornitholog-ist.
ORNITHORHYNCUS, an Australian mammal. (Gk.) Lit.
‘bird-snout ;’ so called from the resemblance of its snout to a duck’s
bill. Gk. ὄρνιθο-, for ὄρνις, a bird (above); and ῥύγχος, a snout,
muzzle.
ORPHAN, a child bereft of father or mother, or of both parents.
(L.—Gk.) ‘He will not leue them orphanes, as fatherlesse chil-
dren ;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 173 e; with a reference to John, xiv.
(This form supplanted the older F. form orphelin, used by Chaucer,
tr. of Boethius, b. ii. pr. 3, 1. 21.J—L. orphanus, John, xiv. 18
(Vulgate).—Gk. ὀρφανός, destitute, John, xiv. 18; A. V. ‘comfort-
less.’ Cf. Gk. ὀρφός, with the same sense; whence ὀρφόβοτης, one
who brings up orphans. The shorter form ὀρῴός answers to L. orbus,
deprived, bereft, destitute. Der. orphan-age, a coined word.
ORPIMENT, yellow trisulphide of arsenic. (F.—L.) ΜΕ.
orpiment, Chaucer, C. T. 16291 (G 823). Lit. ‘gold paint. =F.
416 ORPINE, ORPIN
orpiment, ‘ orpiment ; > Cot. —L. auripigmentum, orpiment. =L, auri-,
for aurum, gold; and pigmentum, a pigment, paint. See Aureate
and Pigment. Der. orpine.
ORPINE, ORPIN, a kind of stone-crop. (F.—L.) Also
called live-long; whence Spenser speaks of the ‘ orpine growing still,’
i.e. growing continually; Muiopotmos, 1.193. ME. orpyn; Prompt.
Parv.=F. orpin, ‘orpin, or live-long; also orpine, orpiment, or
arsenick;’ Cot. Merely a docked form of F. orpiment, orpiment ;
so called from its yellow flowers. See Orpiment.
ORRERY, an apparatus for illustrating the motions of the
planets, &c. (Ireland.) ‘Constructed at the expense of Charles
Boyle, [second] earl of Orrery, about 1715 [rather 1713];’ Haydn,
Dict. of Dates. Orrery is the name of a barony in the county of
Cork, in Ireland; the chief town in it is Bannevant. It derives its
name from the Orbraighe, or ‘descendants of Orb;’ see Cormac’s
Glossary, ed. Stokes, ed. 1868, p. 128. (A. L. Mayhew.)
ORRIS, the name of a plant. (Ital.—L.—Gk.) ‘The nature of
the orris-root is almost singular;’ Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 863. Spelt
orice in Cotgrave, who explains F. iris by ‘the rainbow, also, a
flowerdeluce; iris de Florence, the flowerdeluce of Florence, whose
root yields our orice-powder.’ The Spanish term for orris-root is raiz
de iris florentina = root of the Florentine iris. In Holland, tr. of Pliny,
b. xxi. c. 7, we read: ‘but as for the flour-de-lis [commonly called
ireos, Holland’s note], it is the root only therof that is comfortable
for the odor.’ It appears that orris, orice, and orrice, are English
corruptions of the Ital. érios or ireos. MItal. irios, ‘a kinde of sweete
white roote called oris-roote:’ Florio, ed. 1598; cf. mod. Ital. ireos,
corn-flag, sword-grass (Meadows). B. The form of the Ital. irios,
ireos is not easy to explain; it occurs as Late L. yreos in Synonima
Bartholomzi, p. 25; but it is certainly connected with L. iris, which
is the very word in Pliny, b. xxi.c. 7; and this is borrowed from Gk.
ipts, ‘the plant iris, a kind of lily with an aromatic root;’ Liddell
and Scott. y. Zreos was specially used of the dried roots of the
iris; see Lyte, tr. of Dodoens, b. ii. c. 35. It is prob. short for
Tpews ῥίζα, where ipews is a variant of the gen. ἴριδις (see Prellwitz).
See Iris.
ORT, a leaving, remnant, morsel left at a meal. (E.) Usually in
the pl. ors, Troil. v. 2. 158; Timon iv. 3. 400. ME. ortes, sb. pl.,
spelt ortus in the Prompt. Parv. p. 371, which has: ‘Ortus, releef of
beestys mete,’ i.e. orts, remnants of the food of animals. Not found
in AS., but it is in general dialectal use, and is found in MDu., Low
G., and Friesic. The Friesic is ort (Outzen) ; the Low G. is ort, esp.
used of what is left by cattle in eating; cf. Low G. ortstro, refuse-
straw; Bremen Worterbuch, iii. 272. The word is solved by the
fuller form found in MDu., viz. oorete, ooraete, a piece left uneaten at
a meal, also nausea due to over-eating ; Oudemans, v. 403. B. This
is a compound word, made up of MDu. oor-, cognate with AS. or-,
OHG. ur- (mod. G. er-), Goth. us, prep. signifying ‘out’ or ‘with-
out;’ and MDu. ἀεί, victuals (Hexham). Thus the sense is ‘ what is
left in eating,’ an ‘ over-morsel,’ if we may so express it. For the
prefix, see further under Ordeal; and see Hat. Cf. AS. #¢, food;
from the 3rd grade of ean, to eat; whence *or-ét. γ. We may par-
ticularly note Swed. dial. or-ate, ur-dte, refuse fodder, orts, from ur-,
or-, the prefix corresponding to Du. oor- above, and Swed. ἅλα,
victuals, food (Rietz). Dan. dial. ored, orret, an ort; cf. also
NFries. ὅγε, to leave remnants after eating. Also Bavarian urGsser,
urezen, to eat wastefully, urass, wrez, refuse ; where ur- is the OHG.
form of the same prefix, and assen=G. essen, to eat ; see Schmeller,
Bay. Wort. i. 134. Also Norw. orreta (for oreta), orts; MDan. crte.
ORTHODOX, of the right faith. (F.—L.—Gk.; or L.—Gk.)
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, has orthodox and orthodoxal; so also in
Cotgrave.—F. orthodoxe, ‘ orthodoxe, orthodoxall;’ Cot.—Late L.
orthodoxus (Lewis). — Gk. ὀρθόδοξος, of the right opinion. = Gk. ὀρθο-,
for ὀρθός, upright, right, true; and δόξα, opinion. B. Gk. ὀρθός is
eognate with L. arduus, high, Irish ard, high. γ. Gk. δόξα is from
δοκεῖν, to seem, allied to L. decet, it is fitting ; see Decorum. Brug-
mann, li. § 143. Der. orthodox-y, Gk. ὀρθοδοξία.
ORTHOEPY, correct pronunciation. (Gk.) The word occurs
in Bp. Wilkins, Essay towards a Real Character, pt. 111. c. 1 (R.).
This work appeared in 1668. Imitated from Gk. ὀρθοέπεια, correct
pronunciation. — Gk. ὀρθό-, for ὀρθός, right, true ; and ἔπ-ος, a word.
See Orthodox and Epic.
ORTHOGRAPHY, correct writing. (F.—L.—Gk.) Inrather
early use. ‘Of this word the true ortographie;’ Remedy of Love
(15th cent.), st..41, 1. 6; pr. in Chaucer's Works, ed. 1561, fol. 323,
back. The word was at first spelt orto-, as in French, but afterwards
corrected. — OF. orfographie; Cot. only gives the verb ortographier,
“to ortographise, to write or use true ortography.’=—L. orthographia,
(Lewis).—Gk. ὀρθογραφία, a writing correctly. —Gk. ὀρθό-, for ὀρθός,
right; and γράφειν, to write; see Orthodox and Graphic. Der.
orthographi-c, -c-al, -al-ly; orthograph-er, -ist.
OSTEOLOGY
ORTHOPTEROUS, lit. straight-winged ; an order of insects.
(Gk.) Modern and scientific: coined from ὀρθός, for ὀρθός, right,
straight ; and πτερ-όν, a wing. See Orthodox and Diptera. So
also orthoptera.
ORTOLAN, the name of a bird. (F.—Ital.—L.) See Trench,
Select Glossary; the word means ‘haunting gardens,’ and Trench
cites orfolan in the early sense of ‘ gardener’ from the State Papers,
an. 1536, vol. vi. p. 534.—OF. hortolan, ‘a delicate bird,’ &c.; Cot.
— Mital. hortolano, ‘a gardiner ; also a daintie bird so called ;’ Florio.
=-L. hortulanus, a gardener, belonging to a garden.—L. hortulus,
a little garden, dimin. of hortus, a garden, cognate with E. yard and
garth; see Court, Garth, Yard (1). 4 The change from u to
o is common in Italian.
ORTS, the pl. of Ort, αν.
OSCILLATEH, to swing. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L.
oscillatus, pp. of oscillare, to swing, sway.—L. oscillum, a swing.
B. Vanicek (with a reference to Corssen in Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, xv. 156)
identifies oscillum, a swing, with oscil/xm, a little mouth, a little
cavity, a little image of the face, mask or head of Bacchus which was
suspended ona tree (Lewis) ; with the remark that it meant a puppet
made to swing or dance. If so, oscillum is a dimin. of osculum, the
mouth, itself a dimin. from ds, the mouth; see Oral. Cf. Verg.
Georg. ii. 389. Der. oscillat-ion, oscillat-or-y. And see osculate.
OSCULATE, to kiss. (L.) In Blonnt’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L.
osculatus, pp. of osculari, to kiss. —L. osculum, a little mouth, pretty
mouth ; double dimin. (with suffix -cu-/u-) from ds, the mouth; see
Oral. Der. osculat-or-y, osculat-ion.
OSIER, the water-willow. (F.—Late L.) In Shak. L. L. L. iv.
2.112. ME, osyere; Prompt. Pary. p. 3713 oyser, K. Alisaunder,
ed. Weber, 6186. =F. osier, ‘the ozier, red withy, water-willow tree ;’
Cot. Cf. AF. osere, an osier ; A. Neckam; in Wright’s Vocab. 1st
Ser. p. 110. B. Origin uncertain ; but obyiously related to Late L.
dsairia, ausaria, a bundle of osiers or twigs of the willow, in Irminon’s
Polyptychum (9th cent.) ; Phil. Soc. Trans., 1902; p. 543. Godefroy
has OF. ausay, an osier.
OSMIUM, a metal. (Gk.) Discovered in 1803 (Haydn). The
oxide has a disagreeable smell; hence the name, coined from Gk.
ὀσμή, a smell; earlier form, ὀδμή. Connected with ὄζειν (=d5-yer),
to smell, and with L. odor; see Odour.
OSPREY, the fish-hawk. (F.—L.) In Shak. Cor. iv. 7. 343 cf.
Two Noble Kinsmen, i. 1.138. In the old texts, it is spelt aspray in
both passages. Spelt osprey, ospreie, orfraie (F. orfraie), in Holland,
tr. of Pliny, b. x. c. 3; all these forms are related to ossifrage, also
occurring in the same chapter. Spelt ospray in Lydgate, Assembly
of Gods, 813. The name signifies ‘ bone-breaker ;’ from the bird’s
strength. B. The form orfraie is from MF. orfraye, ‘the osprey ;’
Cot. The form osprey appears to be an altered form of an OF.
*osfraie (not found, but the form intermediate between F. orfraie and
the L. word); perhaps by confusion with E. prey. All from L. ossi-
fragus, ossifraga, the sea-eagle, osprey. = L. ossifragus, bone-breaking.
—L. ossi-, decl. stem of os, a bone; and frag-,a stem of frangere, to
break, cognate with E. break. See Osseous and Break. Doublet,
ossifrage.
OSSEOUS, bony. (L.) A late word; added by Todd to
Johnson. =L. osseus, bony; by change of -us to -ows (common). —L.
oss-, from os,a bone. β. Allied to Gk. ὀστέον, Skt. asthi, a bone.
Brugmann, i. § 703. Der. ossi-fy, to turn to bone, from ossi-, decl.
stem of os, and F.-fier < L. -ficare (for facere), to make ; ossific-at-ion ;
ossu-ar-y, Sir ΤῸ Browne, Urn-burial, c. v. § 4, from L. ossuarium,
a receptacle for the bones of the dead. Also ossi-/rage, os-prey.
OSSIFRAGE, an osprey; also, the bearded vulture. (L.) In
Levit. xi. 13; Deut. xiv. 12.—L. ossifragus, also ossifraga, a bone-
breaker ; see Osprey.
OSTENSIBLE, that may be shown, apparent. (L.) Late; see
Todd’s Johnson. Coined by adding the suffix -ble (Εἰ, -ble, L. -bilis)
to ostensi-, for ostensus, pp. of ostendere, to show. _ B. Ostendere is for
*ops-tendere, where *ops is related to ob, near, before, and dendere is
to stretch ; hence the sense is ‘to spread before’ one, to show. See
Ob- and Tend. Der. ostensi-bl-y, ostensi-bili-ty ; we also find ostens-
ive=‘that serves to shew,’ a term in logic; see Bacon, Adv. of
Learning, bk. ii. § xiii. 3. And see ostent-at-ion.
OSTENTATION, show, pomp. (F.—L.) ‘ Ostentacion and
shew ;’ Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 1191 c.— F. ostentation, ‘ ostentation ;’
Cot.—L, ostentatidnem, acc. of ostentatio, display. —L. ostentare, in-
tensive form of ostendere, to show; see Ostensible. Der. ostentati-
ous, in 1673; ostentati-ous-ly, -ness. We also find ostent, Merch. Ven.
ii. 2. 205, from L. ostentus, display.
OSTEOLOGY, the science of the bones. (Gk.) Scientific. =
Gk. ὀστέο-, decl. stem of ὀστέον, a bone;. and -Aoyia, equivalent
to λόγος, discourse, from λέγειν, to speak, See Osseous and
Logic.
OSTLER
OSTLER, the same as Hostler, q.v. (F.—L.)
ostiler, an innkeeper, Luke, x. 35.
OSTRACISE, to banish by a vote written on a potsherd. (Gk.)
‘And all that worth from hence did ostracise ;’ Marvell, Lachrymz
Musarum; 1650(R.). {The sb. os¢racisme is in Minsheu, ed. 1627,
and the MF. ostracisme is in Cotgrave.] —Gk. ὀστρακίζειν, to banish
by potsherds, to ostracise. = Gk. ὄστρακον, burnt clay, a tile, potsherd,
tablet for voting; also, a shell, which appears to be the orig. meaning.
B. Closely allied to Gk. ὄστρεον, an oyster, and to Gk, ὀστέον, a bone.
See Oyster and Oszeous, Der. ostracis-m (= F. ostracisme), from
Gk. ὀστρακισμός.
OSTRICH, a very large bird. (F.—L. and Gk.) ME. oystryche,
Squire of Low Degree, 1. 226; in Ritson, Met. Romances, vol. iii.
Earlier ostrice, Ancren Riwle, p. 132, note 6. Ostrice is a weakened
form of ostruce. = OF. ostrusce (12th cent.), ostruche, Palsgrave, ostruce,
Cotgrave, mod. F. autruche; see Littré. Cf. Span. avesiruz, Port.
abestruz, an ostrich. β. All from L. auis striithio, i.e. ostrich-bird.
=L. auis, a bird; and strithio, an ostrich, borrowed from Gk. στρου-
θίων, an ostrich. sy. For the L. ais, see Aviary. The Gk.
στρουθίων is an extension from στρουθός, a bird; which is prob. allied
to Lith. strazdas, a thrush; see Throstle. @] The L. auis also
occurs as a prefix in the singular word bus/ard (= auis tarda); sec
Bustard.
lv. 1. 98.
OTHER, second, different, not the same. (E.) A. The word
second is the only ordinal number of F. origin, till we come to
millionth; it has taken the place of other, which formerly frequently
had the sense of ‘second.’ B. We constantly meet with ‘het on,
thet other = the one, the other (lit. that one, that other); these
phrases are often spelt the ton, the tother, the ¢ being attached to the
wrong word; and this explains the common prov. E. the tother, often
used as dother, without the.
was orig. merely the neut. of the def. article. ‘And euer whyl that
on hire sorwe tolde That other wepte ’= and ever, whilst the one told
her sorrow, the other wept; Chaucer, C. T. ro809 (F 495). AS.
oder, other, second, Grein, ii. 305. The long ὅ- is due to older on-,
for an-, as in gés (goose) for gans; ἐσ (tooth) for tanth; hence dder
stands for *ander.4- Du. ander ; Icel. annarr (for *antharr, by assimila-
tion) ; Dan. anden (neut. andet, pl. andre) ; Swed. andra, next, second,
other; G. ander; Goth. anthar.+Lithuan. aniras, other, second
(Nesselmann); Skt. antara-s, other. B. We also find Skt. anya-s,
other; which at once shows the division of the word. [We must be
careful, by the way, to separate Skt. ansara-s, other, from Skt. antara-s,
interior, connected with axfar (L. inter), within.] In Skt. an-tara-s,
Goth. an-thar, E. o-ther, the suffix is the usual comparative suffix
appearing in Gk. σοφώ-τερ-ος, wiser, &c.; seen also in E. whe-ther,
ei-ther, hi-ther, &c.; the Idg. form being -TER-. sy. The base an-
is perhaps the Idg. pronominal base found in Lithuan. an-as, that one
(Nesselmann, p. 5), and in Russ. ov’, he. Thus the orig. sense is
“more than that,” or ‘ beyond that,’ used in pointing out something
more remote than that which was first contemplated ; hence its use in
the sense of ‘second.’ Der. other-wise, ME. other wise=in another
way, Will. of Palerne, 1. 396 ; an-other.
OTIOSE, unemployed, idle, futile. (L.) First in 1794. —L. d/idsus,
unemployed. = Τὸν otium, leisure.
OTTER, the water-weasel. (E.) ME. ofer (with one ¢); Old
Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 70, 1. 358. AS. ofor, as a gloss to
L. lutria in Elfric’s Gloss., Nomina Ferarum; Voc. 118. 42; spelt
oter, id. 320. 21. Hence the adj. yteren, by vowel-change ; Sweet’s
AS. Reader.4-Du. otter; Icel. ofr; Dan. odder; Swed. utter; ἃ.
otter; Russ. vuidra; Lithuan. udra ; Gk. vipa, a water-snake, hydra.
β. The common Teutonic type is *ofroz, m.; Idy. types *udros, m.,
*udra, f.; closely related to wafer; cf. Gk. ὕδρα, water-snake, with
ὕδωρ, water, The sense is ‘ water-animal.’ See Water, Wet.
Doublet, hydra.
OTTO, a bad spelling of ATTAR, q.v. (Arab.)
OTTOMAN, a low stuffed seat. (F.—Arab.) Εἰ. ottomane, ‘an
ottoman, sofa ;” Hamilton. =F. O¢toman, Turkish, Turk. So named
from Othman or Osman, the founder of the Ottoman or Turkish
empire in A.D. 1299. From Arab. ‘othman (Devic).
OUBIT, a hairy caterpillar. (E.) Also oobit, woubit, woubet; see
The Oubit in Kingsley’s Poems. Spelt woubet, Montgomery’s
Poems, S, T. S., p. 68, 1. 268. ME. woltode, wollebode, ‘ multipes ;’
Catholicon Anglicum.= AS. wall, wool, and budda, a beetle; Voc.
543. 10. See Notes on E. Etym., p. 203-
OUCH, NOUCH, the socket of a precious stone, an ornament.
(F.—OHG.) . The orig. sense is ‘socket of a gem,’ but it is com-
monly used for gem or ornament. The true form is xouch, but the
initial x is often dropped ; see remarks upon the letter N. Spelt
ouches in Exod. xxviii, xxxix; and in Shak. 2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 53;
owches in Sir T. More, Works, p. 337d. ‘As a precious stone in
Wyclif has
N.B. We find also the spelling estridge, 1 Hen. IV, |
| an ounce.
It must be remembered that ¢het or that |
| noun; orig. meaning ‘ of us.’
OUT 417
a riche ouche ;’ Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, Ὁ. 111. c. 30. ME.
nouche, Chaucer, C. T, 8258 (E 382), after a word ending with a con-
sonant ; but az ouch (for a nouch) in C. T. 6325 (D 742). ‘ Nowche,
monile;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 359, and see Way’s note ; he cites : ‘ Fer-
maglio, the hangeyng owche, or flowre that women use to tye at the
chaine or lace that they weare about their neckes,’ W. Thomas, Ital.
Grammar, 1548. So that one sense of the word is exactly mod. I,
‘locket.’ ‘A golden lase or nowche ;’ Wyclif, 1 Macc. x. 89 ; where
the A. V. has ‘a buckle of gold.”— AF. nouche, Stat. Realm, i. 380;
OF. nouche, nosche, nusche, a buckle, clasp, bracelet, given by Gode-
froy, 5.0. oche. [It is, indeed, obvious that the Low L. nouchia,
which occurs in the Inventory of jewels of Blanche of Spain (cited in
Way’s note) is nothing but the F, nouche Latinised.} The more
correct Late L. form is nusca (Ducange). = ΜΗ. nusche, nuske, OUG,.
nusca, nuscha, a buckle, clasp, or brooch for a cloak. Prob. ult. of
Celtic origin; cf. Irish asc, a tie, chain, ring; nasgaim, 1 bind
(Schade, Stokes).
OUGHT (1), past tense of Owe, q.v. (E.)
OUGHT (2), another spelling of Aught, q.v. (E.) Spelt ou5¢
in Wyclif, Luke, ix. 36.
OUNCKH (1), the twelfth part of a pound Troy. (F.—L.) ME. uace,
Chaucer, C, T. 16224, 16589 (G 750, 1121).—OF. unce (12th cent.),
mod. F. once (Littré). = L. uncia, (1) an ounce, (2) an inch. β. The
orig. sense is ‘a small weight;’ allied to Gk. ὄγκος, bulk, mass,
weight. Doublet, inch.
OUNCE (2), ONCE, a kind of lynx. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak.
Mids. Nt. Dream, ii. 2. 30; Milton, P. L. iv. 344; and in Holland,
tr. of Pliny, b. xxviii. c. 8, last section. ME. unce, King Alisaunder,
5228. “Ἐς once, an ounce; OF. lonce, Supp. to Godefroy, s.v. once ;
MF. once, ‘the ounce;’ Cot. Cf. Port. oxga, Span. onza, Ital. lonza,
B. The OF, and MF. lonce show that the mod. F. once
resulted from taking lonce to represent /’once, where / seemed to be
the def. article. So also Florio (1598) gives an Ital. form oxza; but
| lonza is in Dante, Inf, i.32. All froma Late L. popular type */anc:a,
for L. lyncea, f., lynx-like. = L. lync-, stem of lynx, a lynx. —Gk. Avy,
a lynx; see Lynx. For F.0<Gk. », cf. grotto, tomb, torso.
OUPH, OUPHE, an elf. (E.) In Merry Wives, iv. 4. 49.
variant of Oaf, q.v. And see Oaf in E. D. D.
OUR, possessive pronoun of the rst pers. plural. (E.) ME. oure,
older form ure ; Havelok, 1.13. AS. are, gen. pl. of Ist personal pro-
This gen. pl. was used as a possessive
pronoun, and regularly declined, with gen. aires, dat. wrum, &c.; see
Grein, ii. 633. It then completely supplanted the older AS. possess.
pron. iser, usser (Grein, ii, 633), cognate with G. unser and Goth.
unsar. B. Yet are is itself a contracted form for *désere, cognate
with Goth. wzsara, the Gothic form of the gen. pl. of the Ist pers.
pronoun, Here -ara is the gen. pl. suffix, and a shorter form appears
in Goth. uns, equivalent to E. us. Ὑγ. Briefly, our is the gen. pl.
corresponding to the acc. pl. us; see Us. Der. our-s, ME. oures,
Chaucer, C. T. 13203 (B 1463), due to AS. ires, gen. sing. of ure,
when declined as above ; also owr-selves, or (in regal style) owr-self;
see Self. 7 As to the dispute as to whether we should write
ours or our’s, it cannot matter; we write day’s for AS. deges (gen.
sing.), but days for AS. dagas (nom. pl.) ; thus marking the omission,
strangely enough, only where the weaker vowel is omitted. The
apostrophe is merely conventional, and better omitted.
OURANG-OUTANG;; see Orang-Outang. (Malay.)
OUSEL, OUZEL, a kind of thrush. (E.) ME. osel, Wright's
Vocab. i. 164, 1. 33 osu?, Trevisa, tr. of Higden, i. 237. AS. dsle,
gloss upon L. merula, Voc. 260. 26; older form 4sl@, id. 32. 27.
Here, as in AS. d8er, other = Goth. anthar, the long ὃ stands for ax
or am; thus dsle< *ansele or *amsele ; in this case, for the latter.+-G.
amsel, OHG., amsala, a blackbird, ousel. The L. merula (whence E.
merle) can stand for *mesv/a, and may be connected with OHG.
amsala by gradation. See Merle.
OUST, to eject, expel. (F.—L.) The word has come to us
through Law French, ‘Ousted, from the ΕἾ. oster, to remove, or put
out, as ous/ed of the possession (Pecks Case, Mich. g Car. 1. 3 Part
Crokes Rep. fol. 349), that is, removed, or put out of possession ; ’
Blount’s Nomolexicon, ed. 1691.—AF, ouster (Bozon); OF. oster,
“to remove, withdraw,’ Cot. ; mod. F. der. Cf. Proy. ostar, hostan
(Bartsch). β. Of disputed origin; it has been proposed to derive it
from L. obstare, to withstand, hinder, but this does not wholly suit
the sense. Yet this is prob. right. Ducange has obstare vel ostare
viam, to get in one’s way, from which the change to the sense of * to
turn one out of the way’ is not difficult. See Korting, § 6643 ; and
cf. Romaunsch dustar (*de-obstare), to drive away flies, &c.; also
Proy. dousta, to remoye (Mistral), Der. oust-er.
OUT, without, abroad, completely. (E.) ME. out, prep.; ME.
oute, older form ite, adv., ont. ‘Oxt of alle charitee ;? Chaucer,
C.T.,A 452. ‘That hiine ssolde out wende’=that they should not
re
A
418 OUTBALANCE
go out; Rob. of Glouc. p. 170. AS. we, tan, ady., out, without :
Grein, i. 634. Formed with adv. suffix -e (or -an) from AS. it, adv.
‘Fléogan of hiise a/’=to fly out of the house; ‘a of earce’=out
of the ark; Grein, ii. 633. (This shows the origin of the phrase owt
of=out from.) + Du. wit; Icel. a; Dan. ud; Swed. ut; G. aus;
OHG. az; Goth. at; whence ita, adv. (=AS. dite) ; wlana, adv. and
prep. (=AS. ataz).Skt. ud, up, out. It appears also in Gk. ὕστερος
= ὕδ-τερος, corresponding to E. utter, outer. All from Idg. types UD,
UD, up, out. Der. with-out, there-out, out-er, ut-ter, out-m-ost, ut-
m-ost (double superlatives); see Utter, Utmost, Uttermost.
Also as a prefix in numerous compounds, for which see below. (But
not in outrage.)
OUTBALANCE8, to exceed in weight. (Hybrid; E. and F.— |
L.) In Dryden, tr. of Ovid, Met. xiii. 307. From Out and
Balance.
OUTBID, to bid above or beyond. (E.)
4. 363. See Bid (2).
OUTBREAK, an outburst. (E.)
Break.
OUTBURST, a bursting forth. (E.) First in 1657, in imitation
of out-break ; but a good word. Neither in Rich. or Todd’s Johnson.
See Burst.
OUTCAST, one who is cast out, a wretch. (Hybrid; E. and
Scand.) ‘For yif it so be that a wikked wight be. . . the more out
cast (L. abiectior) ;’ Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. iii, pr. 4.1. 31. See
Cast.
OUTCOME, result, event. (E.) An old word; ME. x/cume,
a coming out, deliverance; Ancren Riwle, p. 80. See Come.
OUTCRY, a crying out, clamour. (Hybrid; E. and F.—L.) In
Shak. Romeo, v. 3. 193; and in Palsgrave. See Cry.
OUTDO, to surpass. (E.) In Shak. Cor, ii. τ. 150. See Do.
OUTDOOR, in the open air. (E.) First in 17653; a modern
contraction for out of dnor. See Door.
OUTER, OUTERMOST; see Utter, Uttermost.
OUTFIT, equipment. (Hybrid; E. and Scand.) First in 1769;
added by Todd to Johnson. See Fit. Der. owt/ilt-er, outfitt-ing.
OUTGO, to surpass. (E.) In Shak. Timon, i. 1. 285; and Pals-
rave. See Go. Der. ou/go-ing, sb., expenditure. And see outwent.
OUTGROW, to grow beyond. (E.) In Shak. Rich. 1M, iii. 1.
104. See Grow. :
OUTHOUSE, a small house built away from the house. (E.)
In Beaum. and Fletcher, The Coxcomb, iii. 1: 53. See House.
OUTLANDISH, foreign. (E.) Cf. AS. iitlendisc, exiled, Levit.
xxiv. 22.—AS. ἀξ, out; and /and, land. See Land.
OUTLAST, to last beyond. (E.). In Beaum. and Fletcher, Nice
Valour, iv. τ (Shamont). See Last (3).
OUTLAW, one not under thé protection of the law. (Scand.)
ΜΕ. outlawe, Chaucer, C. T. 17173 (H 224). AS. atlaga, udlah, an |
outlaw; see numerous references in Thorpe, Ancient Laws, index to
νοὶ. i. Borrowed from Ice]. aélagi, an outlaw. See Out and Law.
4 The word Jaw is rather Scand. than E. . Der. outlaw, verb, |
K. Lear, iii. 4. 172, from AS. ailagian, A. S. Chron. an. 1014; |
outlaw-ry (with IF. suffix -rie=-erie), Jul. Czes. ἵν. 3. 173.
OUTLAY, expenditure. (E.) Not in Todd’s Johnson; but a
good word ; orig. Northern; first in 1798. See Lay.
OUTLET, a place or means by which a thing is let out. (E.) |
An old word. ME, uflee, Owl and Nightingale, 1. 1752; lit. ‘a |
letting out.’—AS. a/léian, verb, to let out, let down; Luke, v. 5.
See Let (τ).
OUTLINE, a sketch. (Hybrid; E. axnd F.—L.) Used by
Dryden; Parallel bet. Painting and Poetry; repr. 1882, p. 139; and
in The Tatler, no. 182, § 6. Lit. a line lying on the outer edge,
a sketch of the lines enclosing a figure. See Line.
OUTLIVE, to live beyond. (E.) In Shak. Merch. Ven. iv. 1.
269. See Live.
OUTLOOK, a prospect. (E.) ‘Which owe’s to man’s short
out-look all its charms;’ Young’s Night Thoughts, Night 8,1. 264
from end. See Look. Der. owi-look, verb, to look bigger than,
K. John, v. 2. 115.
OUTLYING, remote. (E.) Used by Sir W. Temple and Wal-
pole; see Richardson. See Lie (1),
OUTPOST, a troop in advance of an army. (Hybrid; E. and
F.—L.) Late; see quotation in Richardson. See Post. |
OUTPOUR, to pour out. (Hybrid; E. and F.) In Milton, Ρ. R. |
iii. 311; Samson, 544. See Pour. Der. outpour-ing.
OUTRAGE, excessive violence. (F.—L.) ME. outrage, to be
divided as owfr-age, there being no connexion with out or rage;
Chaucer, C. T. 2014 (A 2012); Rob. of Glouc. p. 46, 1. 1062. «ΟΕ. |
outrage, earlier oultrage(Godelroy); ME .oudirage, ‘ outrage, excesse;’
Cot. Cf. Ital. oléraggio, outrage. B. Formed with suffix -age (<L. |
-dticum) from OF, oltre, outre, beyond; spelt owltre in Cotgrave ; cf. |
In Shak. 2 Hen. IV, ii. |
See
In Hamlet, ii. i. 33.
| and in Tyndale’s translation (1526).
OVER
Ital. oltra, beyond; from L. wird, beyond. See Ulterior. Der.
outrage, verb, Spenser, F. Ὁ. i. 6. 5; outrag-e-ous, ME. outrageous,
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 3996 (A 3998), from OF. outrageux, spelt oulirageux
in Cotgrave; outrageous-ly, -ness. Also owtré, exaggerated, pp. of
outrer, to pass beyond, from F. ouire, beyond.
OUTREACH, to reach beyond. (E.) In Beaum. and Fletcher,
Love’s Pilgrimage, ν. 4 (Philippo). See Reach.
OUTRIDE, to ride faster than. (E.) In 2 Hen. IV,i. 1.36. See
Ride. Der. outrid-er, one who rides forth, Chaucer, C. T. 166.
OUTRIGGER, a naval term. (E. and Scand.) <A projecting
spar for extending sails, a projecting rowlock for an oar, a boat with
projecting rowlocks (ab, 1840). See Rig.
OUTRIGHT, thoroughly, wholly. (E.) Properly an adverb.
‘The frere made the foole madde outright ;’ Sir T. More, Works,
p- 4835. See Right.
OUTROAD, an excursion. (E.) Lit. ‘a riding out.’ In 1 Mace.
xv. 41 (A.V.). For the sense of road =a riding, see Inroad.
OUTRUN, to surpass in running. (E.) In John, xx. 4 (A. V.);
See Run.
OUTSET, a setting out, beginning. (E.) Used by Burke (R.).
See Set.
OUTSHINE, to surpass in splendour. (E.) In Spenser, F. Q.
y. 9. 21. See Shine.
OUTSIDE, the exterior surface. (E.) In King John, v. 2. 109.
See Side.
OUTSKIRT, the outer border. (E. and Scand.) ‘ All that owt-
skirte of Meathe ;’ Spenser, View of the State of Ireland; Globe ed.
p- 668, col. 1,1. 27. See Skirt.
OUTSTRETCH, to stretch out. (E.) ME. owtstrecchen, pt. t.
outstraughte, Rom. of the Rose, 1515. See Stretch.
OUTSTRIP, to outrun. (E.) In Hen. V,iv. 1.177. From owt,
and sfrip, to run fast. ‘The swiftest Hound, when he is hallowed
[i e. urged on] s/rippes forth; Gosson, School of Abuse, ed. Arber,
Ρ. 58. See Strip.
OUTVIE, to exceed, surpass. (E. and F.—L.) In Tam, of the
Shrew, ii. 387. See Vie.
OUTVOTE, to defeat by excess of votes. (E. and F.—L.)
‘Sense and appetite ou/vofe reason ;’ South’s Sermons, vol. iii. ser. 6
(R.), See Vote.
OUTWARD, towards the outside, exterior. (E.) ME. outward,
earlier utward, ady., Ancren Riwle, Ὁ. 102, 1.3. AS. titeweard,
utewerd, Exod. xxix. 20.—AS. ite, adv., out; and -weard, suffix
indicating direction. See Out and Toward. Der. outward, adj.,
Temp. i. 2. 104; outward, sb., Cymb. i. 1. 23; outward-ly, Macb. i.
3. 543; outward-s, where the -s answers to the ME. adv. suffix -es,
Hamlet, ii. 2. 392; outward-bound, as to which see Bound (3).
OUTWEIGH, to exceed in weight. (E.) In Shak. Cor. 1.6. 71.
See Weigh.
OUTWENT, went faster than. (E.) In Mark, vi. 33 (A. V.).
From Out, and went, pt. t. of Wend.
OUTWIT, to surpass in wit. (E.) ‘To oufwit and deceive them-
selves ;’ South’s Sermons, vol. ii. ser. 7 (R.). See Wit.
OUTWORKS, external or advanced fortifications. (E.) ‘And
stormed the ou/works of his fortress ;’ Butler, Hudibras, pt. iii. c. 1,
1.1136. See Work.
OUZEL, another form of Ousel, q. v.
OVAL, of the shape of an egg. (F.—L.) Spelt ova/l in Minsheu,
ed. 1627. —=MF. oval, ‘ ovall, shaped like an egg;’ Cot. Formed
with suffix -al (<L. -alis) from L. du-um, an egg; there was prob.
a Late Latin dualis, adj., but it is not recorded. B. L. duum 15
cognate with Gk. φόν, an egg ; and they answer to the:Idg. types
*dwom, *dwiom, related by gradation to L. auis,a bird; see Aviary.
| Perhaps connected with E. egg; see Egg. Der. (from L. duwm)
ov-ar-y, Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 28, § 5, from Late L.
| dvaria, the part of the body where eggs are formed in birds (Du-
cange) ; ov-ate, i.e. egg-shaped, L. dudtus, with suffix -Géus like the
| pp. suffix of the Ist conjugation; and see ovi-form.
OVATION, a lesser Roman triumph. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed.
1627.—F. ovation, ‘a small triumph granted to a commander ;’ Cot.
—L. duationem, acc. of dudtio, lit. shouting, exultation.—L. duire, to
shout.4+4Gk, εὐάζειν, to shout, callaloud; from εὐαί, evor, interjections
of rejoicing, esp. in honour of Bacchus.
OVEN, a furnace, cavity for baking bread, &c. (E.) ME. oven
(with u for v), Wyclif, Luke, xii. 28. ~ AS. ofen, ofx, Grein, il. 310.
+Du. oven; Icel. ofv, later om; of which an earlier form ogx is
found; Swed. ugn; G. ofen; Goth. auhns, B. It would appear that
the Teut. types are *uhno-, *ufno-; Idg. type *ugnos. Allied to Skt.
ukha, a pot; and to Gk. imvds, an oven; the older sense is remark-
| ably preserved in AS. ofnet, a pot, a closed vessel.
OVER, above, across, along the surface of. (E.) ME. over (with
u for v), Chaucer, C. T. 3920 (A 3922). AS. ofer (Grein).4-Du.
OVERACT
over; Iccl. yfir3 also ofr, adv., exceedingly ; Dan. over ; Swed. ofver;
G. iiver, OHG. ubar; Goth. ufar; Gk. ὑπέρ; L. super; Skt. upari,
above. β. The prefixed s in L. s-uper has not been satisfactorily ex-
plained ; some think it is equivalent to Gk. ἐξ. ‘The common Idg.
base is *uper-, closely related to *xperos, upper (Skt. upara-, L.
s-uperus, AS. ufera, Grein, ii. 614). y. It is obvious that *up-eros is
a comparative form; the superlative takes a double shape, (1) with
suffix -MO, as in L. summus (from s-upmos), highest, AS. *ufema,
highest (only found with an additional suffix -es¢ in ufemyst, written
for *ufemest, in Gen. xl. 17); and (2) with suffix -TO, as in Gk.
ὕπατος, highest. 8. The positive form is *wpo-; this appears in Skt.
upa, near, on, under, Gk. ὑπό, under, L. sub, under, Goth. uf, under.
A closely related adverbial form occurs. in AS. ufan, above, G. ober,
and E, -ove in ab-ove. The Goth. form uf appears to be further
related to E. up, and G. auf, upon; so that there are two parallel
Teutonic types, viz. UF (Goth. uf, G. oben, E. ab-ove) and UP (E. up,
G. auf); with the parallel comparative forms seen in over and upper.
ε. The senses of ‘under’ and ‘over’ are curiously mixed, as in 1.
sub, under, and super, above; Bréal suggests that L. sub refers to an
upward movement; cf. L. surgere (for *sub-regere) to rise. ζ. We
may further note ME. over, adj., with the sense of ‘ upper,’ Chaucer,
C. Το 133; and ME. overes¢, with the sense of ‘uppermost,’ id. 292
(A 290). Andsee Up, Sub-, Hypo-, Super-, Hyper-, Above,
Sum, Summit, Supreme, Sovereign. Der. verbs, as over-
act, over-awe, &c.; adverbs, as over-board, &c.; sbs., as over-coat,
&c. ; adjectives, as over-due, &c.; see below.
OVERACT, to act more than is necessary. (E. and L.) Used
by Ben Jonson ; Catiline, ii. 3 (Curius). See Act.
OVERALLS, loose trowsers worn above others. (E.) Modern;
from Over and All.
OVERARCH, to arch over. (E. and F.—L.)
i. 304. See Arch.
OVERAWE, to keep in complete subjection. (E. avd Scand.) In
Shak. rt Hen. VI, i. 1. 36. See Awe.
OVERBALANCE, to exceed in weight. (E. and F.—L.) ‘For
deeds always overbalance words;’ South’s Sermons, vol. vii. ser. 13 (R.)-
See Balance. Cf. out-balance. Der. overbalance, sb.
OVERBEAR, to overrule. (E.) Much Ado, ii. 3.
pp. overborne, 1 Hen. VI, iii. 1. 53. See Bear.
ing, adj.
OVERBOARD, out of the ship. (E.) Rich, II, i. 4. 19.
ouer bord; Chaucer, C.T., Bg22. See Board.
OVERBURDEN, to burden overmuch. (E.) Spelt overdurdein,
Sir T. More, Works, p. 824 b. See Burden.
OVERCAST, to throw over, to overcloud. (Εἰ. and Scand.) The
orig. sense is ‘to throw over,’ ME. owerkas‘en, Rob. of Brunne, tr.
of Langtoft, p. 7o. 1. 14. The sense ‘overcloud’ is old; Chaucer,
C..T. 1538 (A 1536). See Cast.
OVERCHARGE, to overburden, charge too much. (E. and
F.—C.) The old sense is ‘to overburden ;’ Gascoigne, Steel Glass,
1062; and Palsgrave. See Charge. Der. overcharge, sb.
OVERCLOUD, to obscure with clouds. (E.) In Dryden, tr. of
Virgil, Ain. xi. 1193. See Cloud.
OVERCOAT, a coat worn above the rest of the dress. (E. and
F.—G.) Modern; see Coat.
OVERCOME, to subdue: (E.) ME. ouercomen, Wyclif, John,
xvi. 33. AS. ofercuman, Grein, ii. 314.— AS. ofer, over; and cuman,
tocome. Cf. Icel. yfrkominn, pp. overcome. See Come.
OVERDO, to do too much, to fatigue, to cook too much. (E.)
ME. ouerdon; ‘That that is owerdon’=a thing that is overdone;
Chaucer, C. T. 16113 (G 645). AS. oferdén.— AS. ofer, over; and
don, todo. See Do.
OVERDOSE, to dose too much. (E. and F.—Gk.) Modern ;
not in Todd’s Johnson. See Dose.
OVERDRAW, to exaggerate in depicting. (11.)
in this sense ; not in Johnson. See Draw.
OVERDRESS, to dress too much. (E. and F.—L.) In Pope,
Moral Essays, iv. 52. See Dress.
OVERDRIVE#, to drive too fast. (E.) In Gen. xxxiii. 13
(A. V.); and in the Bible of 1551. AS. oferdrifan, A‘lfred, tr. of
Orosius, b. 1. c. 7; ed. Sweet, p. 40, 1.1. See Drive.
OVERFLOW, to flood, flow over. (E.) We find the pp. over-
flown, inundated, Spenser, F. Ὁ. iii. 5.17. ME. overjflowen, Wyclif,
Luke, vi. 38. AS. oferflowan, Luke, vi. 38.—AS. ofer, over; and
fldwan, to flow; pt. τ. fléow, pp. flowen ; so that the form overflown
for the pp. is correct. See Flow. Der. overflow, sb. ; overflow-ing.
OVERGROW, to grow over. (E.)) Pp. overgrowen, Sit 1. More,
Works, p. 74d; Gawayn and Grene Knight, 2190. See Grow.
OVERHANG, to project over, impend. (E.) Contracted to
o'erhang, Hen. V, iii. 1.13. See Hang.
OVERHAUL, to draw over, to scrutinise. (E. and F.—G.)
In Milton, P. L.
157 3
Der. overhear-
ME.
First in 1844,
OVERSHOOT 41
ἘΞ
Spenser has overhaile, to hale or draw over; Shep. Kal. Jan. 75.
See Hale, Haul.
OVERHEAD, above one’s head. (E.) In Shak. L. L. L. iv. 3.
281. See Head.
OVERHEAR, to hear without being spoken to. (E.)
Meas. iii. 1.161. See Hear.
OVERJOYED, transported with gladness. (E. and F.—L.) In
Shak. Much Ado, ii. 1.230. See Joy. Der. overjoy, sb., 2 Hen, VI,
In Shak.
iba bake
OVERLADKH, to lade with too heavy a burden. (E.) ‘For
men may ouerlade a ship or barge;’ Chaucer, Legend of Good
Women, Cleop. 42. The pp. overladen is in Ancren Riwle, p. 368,
1.21. See Lade.
OVERLAND, passing over the land. (E.) . First in 1800 ; not
in ‘Todd’s Johnson. See Land.
OVERLAP, to lap over. (E.)
Todd's Johnson. See Lap.
OVERLAY, to spread over, to oppress. (E.) Often confused
with overlie; in particular, the pp. overlaid is often confused with
overlain, the pp. of overlie. Richardson confounds the two, Wyelif
has ‘ouerleiyng of folkis’ for L. pressura gentium; Luke, xxi. 25.
See Lay.
OVERLEAP, to leap over. (E.) ME. oxerlepen, pt. t. owerleep ;
P. Plowman, B. prol. 150, where the true sense is ‘outran,’ in con-
formity with the fact that ME. legen (like G. laufex) commonly
means ‘to run.’ AS. oferhléapan; the pt. t. oferhléop occurs in
/Elfred’s tr. of Beda, b. v. c. 6.— AS, ofer, over; and hléapan, to
run, to leap. See Leap.
OVERLIE, to lie upon. (E.) Often confused with overlay ; the
pp. ouerlein, in the sense of ‘ oppressed,’ occurs in Gower, C, A. ili.
224; bk. vii. 3930. The verb overliggen occurs in O. Eng. Homilies,
ed. Morris, i. 53, 1.16. See Lie (1).
OVERLIVE, to outlive, survive. (E.) ME. ouerliuen, Wyclif,
Exod. xxi. 22 (later text). AS. oferlibban, in Bosworth-Toller’s
Dict. See Live.
OVERLOAD, to load overmuch. (E.) Gascoigne has ouerloding,
Steel Glass, l. 1009. See Load. Doublet, overlade, q.v.
OVERLOOK, to inspect, also to neglect, slight. (E.) ME.
ouerloken, in the sense ‘ to look over,’ or ‘ peruse ;’ Chaucer, Beok of
the Duchess, 1. 222. See Look.
OVERMATCH, to surpass, conquer. (E.) ME. owermacchen,
Chaucer, C. T. 9096 (E 1220). See Match.
@VERMUCH, toomuch. (E.) Spelt overmuchel in Chaucer, tr.
of Boethius, b. iii. pr. 7; 1. 23. See Much.
OVERPASS, to pass over. (E. and F.—L.) ME. ouerpassen,
Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. v. pr. 6; 1. 74.. See Pass.
OVERPAY, to pay in addition. (E. and F.—L.) In-All’s Well,
iii. 7. τό. See Pay.
OVERPUUS, that which is more than enough. (E. ard L.) In
Antony, iii. 7. 51, iv. 6. 22; ME. ouerpluse, Trevisa, tr. of Higden,
i. 407. From E. over; and L. pliis, more; see Nonplus. Doublet,
surplus.
OVERPOWER, to subdue. (E. and F.—L.) Contracted to
oerpower, Rich. II,v. 1.31. See Power. Der. overpower, sb., i.e.
excess of power, Bacon, Ess. 58. ‘
OVERRATEH, to rate too highly. (Εν and F.—L.) -Contr. to
o'errate, Cymb.1. 4. 41. See Rate.
OVERREACH, to reach beyond, to cheat. (E.) ME. ouer-
rechen, P. Plowman, B. xiii. 374. See Reach.
OVERRIDE, to ride over. (E.) ME. onerriden, pp. ouerriden,
Chaucer, C. T. 2024(A 2022). AS. oferridan, to ride across (a ford) ;
/Elfred, tr. of Beda, iii. 14. See Ride.
OVERRULE, to influence by greater authority.
—L.) In K. Lear, i. 3.16. See-Rule. i
OVERRUN, to spread.or grow over, to outrun. (E.) ME. ower
rennen, ob, of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 124, 1. 10. See
Run.
OVERSEE, to superintend. (E.) ME. ouersen, P. Plowman,
B. vi. 115. AS. oferséon, used in the sense to look down on, to
despise ; Alfred, tr. of Boethius, c. 36, sect. 2., See See. »Der.
overse-er, Tyndall, Works, p. 252, 1. 6; over-sight, (1) ‘super-
intendence, Bible, 1551, 1 Chron. ix. 31; (2) omission, 2 Hen. IV,
lin 347
OVERSET, to upset, overturn. (E.) ME. ouersetten, to oppress ;
O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, ii. 51; and see Prompt. Parv. p. 373-
AS. oferséttan, to spread over, cover, Azlfred, tr. of Boethius, Ὁ. ii.
pr. 73.c. xviii. sect. 1.. See Set.
OVERSHADOW, to throw a shadow over. (E.) ME. ower-
schadewen, Luke, ix. 34: AS. ofersceadian, Luke, ix. 34. See
Shadow.
OVERSHOOT, to shoot beyond. (E.)
Spelt over/op in 1726; not in
(E. and F.
The pp. ouershotic
he 2
420 OVERSIGHT
(better overshot) is in Sir T. More, Works, p. 1134h. Palsgrave has |
I overshote my-selfe. See Shoot.
OVERSIGHT; sce Oversee.
OVERSPREAD, to spread over. (E.) ΜΕ. ouerspreden, pt. t. |
ouerspradde, Chaucer, C. T. 2873 (A 2871) ; Layamon, 14188. AS.
oferspr@dan, to overspread (Bosworth). — AS. ofer, over ; and sprédan;
see Spread.
OVERSTEP, to step beyond, exceed. (E.) Contr. to o’erstep,
Hamlet, iii. 2. 21. AS. ofersteppan. See Step.
OVERSTOCK, to stock too full. (E.) O'erstock’d is in Dryden,
The Medal, 102. See Stock.
OVERSTRAIN, tostrain too much. (E.and F.—L.) In Dryden,
Art of Painting, § 54 (R.). See Strain.
OVERT, open, apparent, public. (F.—L.) ‘The wey ther-to is
so ouerte;’ Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, b. ii. 1. 210.—OF. overt (later
ouvert), pp. of ovrir (later ouvrir),to open. B. The exact formation
of the word is uncertain; but Littré’s explanation is now accepted,
that OF. ovrir was a perverted form of OF, avrir, to open; from L.
aperire, to open; the change being due to frequent association with
OF. covrir (Εἰς couvrir), to cover. (So Korting, Hatzfeld.) For L.
aperire,see Aperient. @ Diezcites Prov. obrir, ubrir, MItal. oprire
(Florio), to open, which he distinguishes from Span, abrir, mod. Ital,
aprire, derived directly from L. aperire, to open. As to ovrir, he
supposes this to be a shorter form of OF. a-ourir, a-uvrir, to open,
words of three syllables, occurring in the Livre des Rois. These
forms arose from Prov. adubrir (Raynouard, Lexique Roman, ii. 104),
in which the prefixed a-(<L. ad) does not alter the sense, but is
added as in ablasmar, afranher ; whilst dubrir is from the L. dé-operire,
to open wide, lit. ‘ uncover,’ used by Celsus (White). He supports
this by instancing mod. Prov. durbir, Piedmontese durvi, Walloon
drovi, Lorraine deurvi, all corresponding to the same L. déoperire.
L. operire is for *op-uer-ire, parallel to Lith, u-wer-ii, to shut ; just
as L. aperire (for *ap-uer-ire) is parallel to Lith. at-wer-si, to open ;
Brugmann, i. § 282. Cf. Skt. vy, to cover. Der. overt-ly; overt-
ure, Meaning ‘an open, unprotected place,’ Spenser, Shep. Kal.
July, 28, from OF, overture, later ouverture, ‘ an overture, or opening,
an entrance, hole, beginning made, a motion made [i. 6. proposal },
also an opening, manifestation, discovery, uncovering,’ Cot.
OVERTAKE, to come up with, in travelling. (E. and Scand.)
ME. ouertaken, Havelok, 1816; Ancren Riwle, p. 244, note g.—
AS. ofer, over; and Icel. taka, to take. Cf. Icel. yfirtak, an over-
taking, surpassing, transgression ; which prob, suggested the E, word.
See Take.
OVERTASK, to task too much. (E. and F.—L.) In Milton,
Comns, 309. See Task. δ So also over-tax.
OVERTHROW, to throw over, upset, demolish. (E.) ME.
ouerthrowen, King Alisaunder, 1113. See Throw. Der. overthrow,
sb., Much Ado, i. 3. 69.
OVERTOP, to rise above the top of.
See Top.
OVERTURE, a proposal, beginning. (F.—L.) All's Well, iv.
3. 40. Also ‘a disclosure,’ K. Lear, iii. 7. 89. See Overt.
OVERTURN, to overthrow, upset. (E. and F.—L.)
ouerturnen, Ancren Riwle, p. 356, 1.16. See Turn.
OVERVALUE, to value too much. (E. and F,—L.) Con-
tracted to o’ervalue, Cymb. i. 4.120. See Value.
OVERWEENING, thinking too highly, conceited. (E.) The
pres. part. overweninde occurs in the Ayenbite of Inwyt, ed. Morris,
p- 169, 1. 26; where -inde is the Kentish form for -inge (-ing). Shak.
even uses the verb overween, 2 Hen. IV, iv. 1.149. AS. oferwenian,
to be insolent. ‘Insolesceret, oberwenide;’ Corpus Gloss. 1099;
spelt oberunaenidae, Epinal Gloss. 538. Lit. ‘going beyond what is
customary.’= AS. ofer, beyond; wenian, to be accustomed; see
Wean. Thus it is only remotely connected with ween, q.v.
OVERWEIGH, to outweigh. (E.) ME. owerwejen;
ouerweid hit’ =love overweighs it, Ancren Riwle, p. 386, 1. 25.
Weigh. Der. overweight.
OVERWHELM, to turn over, bear down, demolish. (E.) ME.
(EB) emp. 1: 22 δὲ.
ME.
‘luue
See
ouerwhelmen, Rom. of the Rose, 3775; Rob. of Brunne, tr. of
Langtoft, p. 190, 1. 10. ‘The erthe sall thaim oxer-whelme ;’
St. Cuthbert, 4964. See Whelm.
OVERWISE, wise overmuch. (E.) In Beaum. and Fletcher,
Philaster, last line of Act iv. See Wise. Der. overwise-ly, -ness.
OVERWORK, excess of work. (E.) The verb to overwork is
in Palsgrave. The sb. is, etymologically, the more orig. word. See
Work. Der. overwork, verb; whence the pp. overwrought.
OVERWORN, worm too much. (E.) In Twelfth Nt. iii. 1. 66.
From over; and worn, pp. of wear, See Wear.
OVERWROUGHT, wrought to excess. (E.)
In Dryden, Art
of Poetry, c. i. 1. 50. See Overwork.
OVIFORM, egg-shaped. (L.) Used by T. Burnet, Theory of
OXALIS
the Earth, 1759 (R.).—L. dui-, for duum, an egg; and form-a, form.
See Ovaland Form. { So also cviduct, Phillips, ed. 1706, from
| L. ductus, a conducting, a duct; see Duct. Also ow-parous, Phillips,
ed. 1706, from L. duiparus, egg-producing, from parere, to produce ;
see Parent. Also ovoid, egg-shaped, a clumsy hybrid compound,
from L. duo-, for duum, an egg, and Gk. εἶδος, form.
OW8, to possess; hence, to possess another’s property, to be in
debt, be obliged. (E.) ME. ajen, awen, 032, owen, orig. ‘ta
possess ;’ hence, to be obliged to do, to be in debt. ‘The dette
thet tu owest me’=the debt that thou owest me, Ancren Riwle,
p- 126, 1. 13. ‘Hou myche owis¢ thou?’ Wyclif, Luke, xvi. 5. For
this important verb, see Matzner’s O. Eng. Dict. p. 49, s.v. ajen; or
Stratmann, p. 23; or N.E.D. The sense ‘to possess’ is very
common in Shakespeare; see Schmidt. AS. @gan, to have, possess,
Grein, i. 19. The change from ἃ to ὁ is perfectly regular, as in bax,
bone, sax, stone; the g passes into w after a, as usual.+Icel. eiga,
to possess, have, be bound, own; Dan. εἶθ, to own, possess; Swed.
ἄρα, to own, possess, have a right to, be able to; OHG, eigan, to
possess ; Goth. aigan, to possess. Teut. type *aig-an-. B. Further
related to Skt. ig, to possess, to be able; whence iga-, a proprietor,
owner; the form of the root being EIK. Brugmann, i. ὃ 701.
4 It may be noted that the Goth. aigan has the old past tense aih,
used as a present tense; so also AS. ah.
OUGHT. The pres. tense of AS. agan is ah, really an old past
tense; the past tense is a@hte (Goth. aikta), really a secondary past
tense or pluperfect; this became ME. ahte, agte, aughte, oughte,
properly dissyllabic, as in ‘ ogh/é be,’ Chaucer, C. T. 16808 (G 1340) ;
where Tyrwhitt has the inferior reading ‘ought to be.’ The pp. of
AS, agan was agen, for which see Own (1). Der. ow-ing, esp. in
phr. owing to, i.e. due to, because of. Also own (1), own (2).
OWL, a nocturnal bird. (E.) ME. ole, Chaucer, Parl. of Foules,
3433 pl. oules, id. 599. AS. ile, Levit. xi. 16.4-Du. wil; Icel. ugla;
Dan. ugle; Swed. ugla; G. eule, OHG, iwela. Teut. types *iiwaldn,
uwwalon-, f. Ββ. Allied to L. ulula, an owl, Skt. τὠᾶζα-, an owl.
All from an imitative root, signifying to hoot, howl, screech; cf. Gk.
ὑλάω, I howl, ὀλολύζειν, to howl, ἐλελεῦ, interjection; L. ululare, to
howl, wlucus, a screech-owl. y. With a prefixed hk, added for
emphasis, we get G. heulen, whence OF, huller; see Howl]. Some-
what similar is G. πᾶν, an owl, MHG. hitwe, OHG. hiwo; cf. E.
hoot. Der. owl-et, dimin, form, also spelt howlet, Mach. iv. 1. 17;
owl-ish.
OWN (1), possessed by any one, proper, peculiar, belonging to
oneself. (E.) ME, ajen, awen (North. E. awin), owen; later, con-
tracted to own by omission of e. ‘ Right at min owvé cost, and be
your gyde;’ Chaucer, C. T. 806 (A 804). ‘Thar awyn fre’=their
own free property ; Barbour, Bruce, iii. 752. AS. agen, own, Grein,
i. 20; orig. the pp. of the anomalous strong verb agan, to owe, i.e.
to possess; see Owe.+Icel. eigiz, one’s own; orig. the old pp. of
eiga, to possess; Dan. and Swed. egen, one’s own; Goth. aigin,
property, possessions ; a neut. sb. formed from the adj. which was
orig. the old pp. of aiganx, to possess. Thus the orig. sense is
‘possessed’ or ‘held.’ Der. own, verb, to possess; sce own (2),
own (3).
OWN (2), to possess. (E.) ME, ajnien, ahnien, ohnien, ahnen,
ohnen; see Layamon, 11864, 25359; Ormulum, 5649. AS. agnian,
to appropriate, claim as one’s own; Grein, i. 22. Formed with
causal suffix -ian from agn, contracted form of agen, one’s own; see
Own (1).4Icel. εἴρια, to claim as one’s own; from eigin, own;
Goth. ga-aigindn, to make a gain of, lit. make one’s own, 2 Cor. ii. 11;
from aigin, one’s own property. @f It is thus evident that the verb
is a derivative from the adjective. Der. own-er, ME. o3énere, Ayen-
bite of Inwyt, ed. Morris, p. 37, last line but one; owner-ship.
OWN (3), to grant, admit. (E.) ‘You will not own it,’ i.e.
admit it, Winter’s Tale, iii. 2.60. A peculiar development of owz (2) ;
as if ‘to make one’s own,’ or ‘to take to oneself.’ @ The ME.
unnen (AS, unnan), to grant, comes near to the sense of own (3); but
it does not seem to have influenced it, and soon became obsolete.
OX, a ruminant quadruped. (E.) ME. ox, pl. oxen, Chaucer,
C. T. 889 (A 887) 5 oxts, Wyclif, Luke, xvii. 7. AS. oxa, pl. oxan,
Grein, ii. 360.44Du. os; Icel. uxi, also oxt; pl. yxn, dxn; Dan. oxe,
pl. oxer; Swed. oxe; G. ochse, ochs, pl. ochsen; OHG. ohso; Goth.
auhsa, auhsus.4-W. ych, pl. ychen; Skt. ukshan-, an ox, bull; also,
‘a Vedic epithet of the Maruts who, by bringing rain, i.e. by
sprinkling, impregnate the earth like bulls;’ Benfey. The Maruts
are storms; see Max Miiller, Lectures, ii. 416. Teut. base *ohsan- ;
Idg. base *ukson-. β. The Skt. ukskan is usually derived from uksh,
to sprinkle. Further, wksk is allied to Gk. ὑγρός, moist, as well as
to Icel. vokr, moist, prov. E, wokey, moist (Halliwell); see Brug-
mann, ii. § 114; Benfey, p. 108. See Wake (2). Der. ox-eye,
a plant, ox-eyed, ox-fly, ox-goad ; ox-stall; also ox-lip, q.v.
OXALIS, wood-sorrel. (L.—Gk.) In Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xx.
OXIDE
c. 21.—L. oxalis (Pliny).—Gk. dgadis, (1) a sour wine, (2) sorrel.
So named from its sourness.—Gk. ὀξύς, sharp, keen, cutting, acid.
Allied to L. acer, sharp, pungent ; Brugmann, i. §§ 161, 536. Der.
oxali-c; cf. ox-ide, oxy-gen, oxy-mel, oxy-tone.
OXIDE, a compound of oxygen with a non-acid base. (Gk.)
A coined word; from ox-, short for oxy-, part of the word oxy-gen ;
and -ide, due to Gk. -εἰδής, like, which more commonly appears as
-id, as in ellipso-id, sphero-id, ovo-id, and the like. See Oxygen.
Der. oxid-ise, oxid-is-er, oxid-is-able, oxid-at-ion ; all coined words.
OXLIP, the greater cowslip. (E.) In Mids. Nt. Dr. ii. 1. 250;
Wint. Ta. iv. 4.125. AS. oxanslyppe; see Cockayne’s Leechdoms,
iii. 340.—AS. oxan, gen. case of oxa, an ox; and slyppe, a slop, i.e.
a piece of dung. [This confirms the etymology of cowslip already
given; see Cowslip.] 4 It should therefore be spelt ox-slip.
OXYGEN, a gas often found in acid compounds. (F.—Gk.)
The sense is ‘generator of acids;’ and it is a coined word. The
discovery of oxygen dates from 1774 (Haydn); but the name is
French. =F. oxygéne; in 1787 (Hatzfeld).—Gk. ὀξύ- (written oxy- in
Roman characters), for ὀξύς, sharp, keen, acid; and yev-, to produce,
base of yi-yv-opa, 1 am produced or born. See Oxalis and Gene-
rate. Der. oxygen-ate, oxygen-ise, oxygen-ous ; and see ox-ide.
OXYMEL, a mixture of honey and vinegar. (L.—Gk.) In
early use; it occurs as AS. oxumelle; see Cockayne’s A. 5. Leech-
doms, iii, 368.—L. oxymeli (Pliny). —Gk. dfgvpedr.—Gk. ὀξύ-, for
ὀξύς, acid; and μέλι, honey. See Oxalis and Mellifiuous.
OXYTONE, having an acute accent on the last syllable.
(Gk.) A grammatical term.—Gk. ὀξύτονος, shrill-toned; also, as
a grammatical term.—Gk. d{v-, for ὀξύς, sharp; and τόνος, a tone.
See Oxalis and Tone.
OYER, a term in law. (F.—L.) An OF. law term. ‘ Oyer and
terminer (lit. to hear and determine], is a commission specially
granted to certain persons, for the hearing and determining one or
more causes,’ &c.; Blount’s Law Dict., ed. 1691. Cf. AF. oier et
terminer; Stat. Realm, i. 44 (1276); AF. oyer, as sb., a hearing,
Year-books of Edw. 1. i. 73.— AF. oyer, mod. F. ouir, to hear. =—L,
audire, to hear. See Audience. Der. oy-z.
OYEZ, OYES, hear ye! (F.—L.) MHenryson has: ογας
oyas/ Parl. of Beistis, 1.53. The first word of every proclamation
by a public crier; now corrupted into the unmeaning ΟἹ yes!
“Ὁ yes, a corruption from the F. oyez, i. e. hear ye, is well known to
be used by the cryers in our courts,’ &c.; Blount, Law Dict., ed.
1691.— AF. oyez, 2 p. pl. imp. of oyer, to hear; Stat. Realm, i. 211
(ab. 1286); see Oyer.
OYSTER, a well-known bivalve shell-fish. (F.—L.—Gk.) [The
AS. form ostre was borrowed from Latin; cf. ‘ ostrea, os¢re’ in Voc.
261. 33. The diphthong shows the mod. E. form to be from the
French.] ME. oistre, Chaucer, C. T. 182.— AF. oyster, Liber Albus,
p- 244; OF. oistre, in the 13th cent. (Littré); whence mod. F.
huitre.—L. ostrea, more rarely ostreum,—Gk. ὄστρεον, an oyster; so
called from its shell. —Gk. ὀστέον, a bone, shell; akin to L. os (gen.
ossis), a bone. See Osseous, Ostracise.
OZONE, a substance perceived by its smell in air after electric
discharges. (Gk.) ‘ Ozone, a name given in 1840 by M. Schonbein
of Basel to the odour in the atmosphere developed during the elec-
tric discharge;’ Haydn.—Gk. ὄζων, smelling; pres. pt. of ὄζειν, to
smell. Gk. ὄζειν stands for d5-yew, from the base ὀδ-, to smell,
appearing also in L. od-or, smell; see Odour,
1
PABULUM, food. (L.) ‘Pabulum or food;’ Bp. Berkeley,
Siris (1747), § 197 (Todd). —L. padulum, food. Formed with suffix
-bulu- from pa-, base of pascere, to feed (pt. t. pa-vi); see Pastor.
Der. pabul-ous, Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. iil. c. 21. § 15;
pabul-ar.
PACE, a step, gait. (F.—L.) ME. pas, paas, Rob. of Gloue.
p- 149, 1. 3129; Chaucer, C. T., A 825, 1033.—F. pas. =—L. passum,
acc. of passus, a step, pace, lit. a stretch, i.e. the distance between
the feet in walking. —L. passus, pp. of pandere, to stretch, See Ex-
pand. Der. face, verb, a doublet of Pass, q.v.; pac-er, Spectator,
no, 104.
PACHA, the French spelling of Pasha, q.v.
PACHYDERMATOUS, thick-skinned. (Gk.) Modern and
scientific. — Gk. παχύ-, for παχύς, thick; and δερματ-, stem of δέρμα,
a skin; with suffix -ows (=L. -dsus). β, The Gk. παχύς is cognate
with Skt. baku-, strong. y. Gk. δέρμα is a hide, ‘ that which is flayed
off ;’ from Gk. δέρειν, to flay, tear, cognate with Εἰ. Tear, verb, q.v.
Der. pachyderm, an abbreviation for pachyd2rmatous animal,
PADDLE 421
PACIFY, to appease, make peaceful. (F.—L.) Spelt pacisie,
Sir T. More, Works, p. 871 "Ὁ. =F. pacifier, ‘to pacifie;’ Cot.=L.
Pacificare, pacificari, to make peace.—L, paci-, decl. stem of pax,
peace ; and -ficdre, for facere, to make; see Peace and Fact. Der.
pacifi-er, spelt pacyfyer, Sir T. More, Works, p. 872; pacific-at-ion,
from F. pacification, ‘a pacification’ (Cot.), which from L. acc.
pacificationem, due to pacificare; pacificat-or, Bacon, Life of Hen. VI,
ed. Lumby, p. 52, 1.10, from L. pacificdtor ; pacific, formerly pacifick,
Milton, P. L. xi. 869, from F. pacifigue, ‘ pacificous’ (Cot.), which
from L. adj. pacificus, peace-making ; pacific-al, pacific-al-ly.
PACK, a bundle, burden, set of cards or hounds, &c. (Low αὐ
ME. pakke, P. Plowman, B. xiii. 201; pl. packes, Ancren Riwle,
p- 166, last line.=Low G. pakk, pak; Du. pak, a pack; cf. Icel.
pakki, a pack, bundle; Dan. pakke; Swed. packa; (ἃ. pack. Ββ. It
appears to be a true Teutonic word, though few Teutonic words
begin with Ὁ. There is no proof that it was suggested by the L.
base pac-, as in pp. pac-tus, from pangere, to fasten. [We also find
Irish pac, Gall. pac, from E.; Bret. pac, borrowed from Romanic;
Ital. pacco, F. paqu-et, Late L. paccus, from Teutonic.} Der. pack,
verb, ME, pakken, P, Plowman, B. xv. 184; pack-er, pack-horse,
2 Hen. IV, ii. 4.1773 pack-ing ; pack-man; pack-needle or pack-ing-
needle, ME. pakkenedle or paknedle, P. Plowman, B. v. 212; pack-
saddle, Cor. ii. 1. 99; pack-thread Romeo, vy. 1. 47. Also pack-age,
q-v., pack-et, q.v. τ" Quite distinct from bag.
PACKAGE, a packet, small bundle. (Low G.; with F. suffix.)
Alate word; added by Todd to Johnson; formed by adding F. suffix
-age (<L, -aticum) to pack; see Pack. Cf. packet.
PACKET, a small pack, package. (AF.—Low G.) In Hamlet,
y.2. 15. AF. pacquet, Black Book of the Admiralty, i. 277 (1463) ;
whence MF. pacquet, paquet, ‘a packet, bundle;’ Cot. Formed
with dimin. suffix -e¢ from ME. pakke, a pack; cf. Low ἃ. pakk,
a pack (Bremen Worterbuch); MDu. pack, ‘a pack’ (Hexham) ;
Icel. pakki. See Pack, Der. packet-hboat, a boat for carrying mail-
bags, Evelyn’s Diary, Oct. 10, 1641; now often shortened to packet.
Doublet, package.
PACT, a contract. (L.) In Bacon, Life of Hen. VII, ed. Lumby,
p- 7,1. 19; and p. 27, 1. 30.—L. pactum, an agreement.=—L. pacius,
pp. of paciscere, to stipulate, agree; inceptive form of OLat. pacere,
to agree, come to an agreement about anything. —4/PAK, to bind;
whence also Skt. pag, to bind; cf. Gk. πήγνυμι, I fasten, L. pangere
(pp. pac-tus), to fasten, fix. Brugmann, i. § 200; ii. § 79. Der.
pact-ion, Fox’s Martyrs, p. 272 (R.), from F. paction (Cot.)<L.
pactidnem, acc. of pactio, an agreement. Also appease, com-pact, im-
pact, im-pinge. From the same root we have peace, paci-fy, page (2),
pale (1), pay, pro-pag-ate, peel (3), pole (1), re-pay.
PAD (1), a soft cushion, ὅς. (E.?) ‘He was kept in the
bands, hauing under him but onely a pad of straw ;’ Fox, Martyrs,
p- 854 (R.). Spelt padde, Gascoigne, Fruits of War, st. 177. A
stuffed saddle was called a pad; hence: ‘ Padde, saddle,’ in Leyins,
ed.1570. It also occurs in the sense of ‘bundle;’ see Halliwell.
Of obscure origin. B. In the prov. E. sense of paw, or animal’s
foot, it agrees with MDu., Low G., and Pomeranian pad, sole of the
foot ; perhaps borrowed from Slavonic. Cf. Russ. podoshva, sole of
the foot; podushka, a cushion; also Lith. padas, sole of the foot. And
cf. Pod. Der. pad, verb; padd-ing.
PAD (2), a thief on the high road. (Du.) We now speak of
a foot-pad. The old word isa padder, Massinger, A New Way, ii. 1,
1.15 from end; Butler, Hudibras, pt. ili.c.1, 1.5 from end. This
means ‘one who goes upon the pad or foot-path.’ A pad is also
a ‘roadster,’ a horse for riding on roads; Gay’s Fables, no. 46; also
(more correctly) called a pad-nag, i.e. ‘ road-horse’ (R.).—Du. pad,
a path; MDu. padt (Hexham); cf. Low G. pad. Cognate with E.
path; see Path. @ Many cant words are of Du. origin; see
3eaum. and Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush. Der. pad, v., to tramp along.
PADDLE (1), to finger; to dabble in water. (E.) 1. It means
‘to finger, handle;’ Hamlet, 111. 4. 185; Oth. ii. 1. 259. It is
a parallel formation to patéle, which is the frequentative of pat; and
cf. patter. 2. The sense ‘to dabble in water’ is in Palsgrave, who
has: ‘I paddyl in the myre;’ cf. Low G. paddeln, to tramp about
(Danneil); frequent. of pedden, to tread, or padjen, to take short
steps (Brem. Wort.); from pad, the sole of the foot ; see Pad (1).
Der. paddle, sb., in the sense of broad-bladed oar, but there is
probably some confusion with the word below; paddl-er, Beaum,
and Fletcher, Wit at Several Weapons, i. 1. 20; paddle-wheel.
PADDLE (2), a little spade, esp. one to clean a plough with.
(E.) In Deut. xxiii. 13 (A. V.). It seems to be a parallel form
to spaddle, the dimin. of spade. ‘Others destroy moles with a
spaddle,’ Mortimer’s Husbandry (R.); and see spud and spittle-staff
in Halliwell. Cf. also Irish and Gael. spadal, a plough-staff, paddle ;
words borrowed from English. See Spade. 4 In the sense of
‘ broad-bladed oar,’ sce Paddle (1).
PADDOCK
PADDOCK (1), a toad. (Scand.) In Hamlet, iii. 4. 190;
Macb. i. 1. 9. ME. paddok, King Alisaunder, 6126. Dimin. with
suffix -ok or -ock (as in hill-ock, bull-ock), from ME. padde, a toad,
frog; in Wyclif, Exod. viii. 9 (later version), one MS. has the pl.
paddis for paddokis, which is the common reading.=IJcel. padda,
a toad; Swed. padda, a toad, frog; Dan. padde.4-Du. padde, pad;
EFries. padde. Cf. G. schild-patt, tortoise-shell. Origin obscure.
Der. paddock-stool, a toad-stool.
PADDOCK (2), 2 small enclosure. (E.) ‘Delectable country-
seats and villas environed with parks, paddocks, plantations,’ &c.;
Evelyn (Todd; no reference). Here park and paddock are conjoined ;
and it is certain that paddock is a corruption of parrock, another
form οὐ park. Parrocks (Kent) is now called Paddock Wood;
Hasted, Hist. Kent, 8vo, v. 286. ‘Parrocke,.a lytell parke,’ Pals-
grave. See Way’s note to Prompt. Parv., p. 384. He adds that
“a fenced enclosure of nine acres at Hawsted (Suffolk), in which
deer were kept in pens for the course, was termed the Parrock;’
Cullum’s Hawsted, p. 210. See also parrock in Jamieson, and
parrick in Halliwell. [The unusual change from r to d may have
been due to some confusion with paddock, a toad, once a familiar
word; cf. poddish for porridge.| AS. pearruc, pearroc, a small
enclosure. ‘On Disum lytlum pearroce’= in this little enclosure;
/Elfred, tr. of Boethius, c. xviii. § 2,b. ii. prosa 7. Perhaps formed,
with dimin. suffix -oc (=mod. E. -ock, as in padd-ock (1), hill-ock,
bull-ock), from a verb *pfarran, to shut, enclose; only found in ME.
parren; see Park.
PADDY, rice in the husk. (Malay.) Malay padi, rice in the
straw. (See Yule.) Itseems to have been sometimes confused with
Hind. bhat, boiled rice (Forbes), derived from the Skt. bhakta-,
(properly) boiled rice; orig. pp. of ὁλα), to divide, take, possess
(Benfey).
PADISHAH, great king, emperor. (Turk.—Pers.) A title given
by the Turks to the Sultan and other kings.=— Turk. padishah.—
Pers. padshah, an emperor, sovereign; Rich. Dict., p. 315. The
Pers. pad answers to OPers. pati- (=Skt. pati-), master, lord; and
shah is ‘king.’ See Despot and Shah; also Pasha.
PADLOCK, a loose hanging lock. (E.) A padlock is a loose
hanging lock with a staple, suitable for hampers, baskets, &c., when
the case to which it is affixed is not made of a solid substance. It
occurs in Pope’s Dunciad, iv. 162. Todd quotes from Milton’s
Colasterion (1645): ‘Let not such an unmerciful and more than
legal yoke be pa¢locked upon the neck of any Christian.’ Ben Jonson
has padlock in The Staple of News, Act v. sc. 1 (Picklock). Min-
sheu’s Span. Dict. has: ‘Candado, a hanging locke, a padlocke’
(1623); cf. locchetto, ‘a padlocke’ in Florio (1598). Of uncertain
origin; perhaps formed by adding lock to prov. E. pad, a pannier
(Halliwell), given as a Norfolk word. This word is more commonly
written ped, ME. pedde. ‘Pedde, idem quod panere ;’ Prompt. Parv.
Of unknown origin; see further under Pedlar.
PADUASOY, a richsilk. (F.) ‘Her crimson paduasoy ;’ Gold-
smith, Vicar of Wakefield, ch. iv. § 5. As if ‘Padua silk;’ from
Padua (in Italy); and F. sore, silk, from L. sé/a, a pig’s bristle, hence
strong hair, silk (like Span. seda). But really a popular perversion
of F. pou-de-soie, a silken stuff (Hatzfeld). Godefroy has pout de
soye (1389); poul de soie (1394). The origin of pou- is un-
known.
PAGAN, a hymn in honour of Apollo. (L.—Gk.) ‘I have ever
hung Elaborate peans on thy golden shrine ;’ Ben Jonson, Cynthia’s
Revels, A. v. sc. 2; near the end.=L. pean, (1) a name of Apollo,
(2) a religious hymn, esp. to Apollo. = Gk. Παιάν, Παιών, (1) Peean,
Peon, the physician of the gods, who cured Hades and Ares,
Homer, Il. v. 401, 899; cf. Od. iv. 232; also Apollo; also his son
ésculapius; a deliverer, saviour; (2) a choral song, hymn, chant,
song of triumph. Der, peon-y, ἢ. v.
PASDOBAPTISM; the same as Pedobaptism, q.v.
PAGAN, acountryman, hence, a heathen. (L.) In Shak. Rich. II,
iv. 95. [The ME. form is paien or payen, Chaucer, C.T. 4954 (B 534),
from OF. paien (Burguy) ; which from L. paganus.]—L. paiganus,
(1) a villager, countryman, (2) a pagan, because the rustic people
were supposed to be unconverted at a time when townsmen were
converts. See Trench, On the Study of Words, —L. paganus,
adj., rustic, belonging to a village.—L. pagus, a district, canton.
B. Some connect it with L. pangere (pt. t. pégi), to fasten, fix, set,
as being marked out by fixed limits; see Pact. Der. pagar-ish,
pagan-ism, pagan-ise ; and see paynim, peasant.
PAGE (1), a boy attending a person of distinction. (F.—Low
Lat.—Gk?) ME. page, King Alisaunder, 835; Havelok, 1730. —
F. page, ‘a page;’ Cot. [Cf. Span. page, Port. pagem, Ital. paggio.]
=Late L. pagium, acc. of pagius, a servant (Ducange). @ See
Littré, who does not admit the etymology suggested by Diez, viz.
that Ital. paggio might have been formed from Gk. παιδίον, a little
422
om
PAGODA
boy, dimin. of mais, a boy, child ; for which see Pedagogue. But
Korting accepts this solution.
PAGE (2), one side of the leaf of a book. (F.—L.) ‘If one
leafe of this large paper were plucked off, the more pages took
harme thereby ;” Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xiii. c. 12. [ME. pagine,
Ancren Riwle, p. 286; an older form.|—F. page, ‘a page, a side of
a leafe;’ Cot.—L. pagina, a page, or leaf. β. Orig. ‘a leaf;’
and so called because the leaves were once made of strips of papyrus
fastened together.—L. pangere (base pag-), to fasten; see Pact.
@ We also find ME. pagent (with added 2), Romance of Partenay,
prol. 79. The three forms page, pagine, pagent, from L. pagina,
are parallel to the three forms marge, margin, margent, from L.
marginem. Der. pagin-at-ion, a modern coined word.
PAGEANT, an exhibition, spectacle, show. (Late L.—L.)
A. It orig. meant ‘a moveable scaffold,’ such as was used in the
representation of the old mysteries. A picture of such a scaffold
will be found in Chambers, Book of Days, i. 634. The Chester
plays ‘ were always acted in the open air, and consisted of 24 parts,
each part or pageant being taken by one of the guilds of the city...
Twenty-four large scaffolds or stages were made,’ &c.; Chambers,
as above; see the whole passage. Phillips, ed. 1706, defines pageant
as ‘a triumphal chariot or arch, or other pompous device usually
carried about in publick shows.’ B. ME. pagent; also pagyn, as
in Wyclif’s Works, ed. Arnold, i. 129. The entry ‘pagent, pagina,
occurs in Prompt. Parv. p. 377; where there is nothing to show
whether a pageant is meant or a page of a book, the words being
ultimately the same; see Page (2). But Way’s excellent note on
this entry is full of information, and should be consulted. He says:
‘the primary signification of fageant appears to have been a stage
or scaffold, which was called pagina, it may be supposed, from its
construction, being a machine compaginata, framed and compacted
together. The curious extracts from the Coventry records given by
Mr. Sharp, in his Dissertation on the Pageants or Mysteries per-
formed there, afford definite information on this subject. The term
is variously written, and occasionally appears as pagyn, pagen,
approaching closely to the L. pagina, ‘The various plays or pageants
composing the Chester mysteries . . are entitled Pagina prima, . .
Pagina secunda, . . and so forth; see Chester Plays, ed. Wright.
A curious contemporary account has been preserved of the construction
of the pageants [scaffolds] at Chester during the xvith century,
“which pagiants weare a high scafold with 2 rowmes, a higher and
a lower, upon 4 wheeles;’’ Sharp, Cov. Myst. p.17.. The term
denoting the stage whereon the play was exhibited subsequently
denoted also the play itself; but the primary sense . . is observed
by several writers, as by Higins, in his version of Junius’s Nomen-
clator, 1585: “ Pegma, lignea machina in altum educta, tabulatis
etiam in sublime crescentibus compaginata, de loco in locum portatilis,
aut que vehi potest, ut in pompis fieri solet: Eschaffaut, a pageant,
or scaffold.”’ Palsgrave has: ‘ Pagiant in a playe, mystére;’ and
Cotgrave explains MF. pegmate as ‘a stage or frame whereon
pageants be set or carried.’ See further illustrations in Wedgwood.
C. We may conclude that, just as ME. pagent is used as a variant of
pagine, in the sense of page of a book, so the ME. pagent (or pagiant,
&c.) was formed, by the addition of an excrescent ¢ after x, from an
older pagen or pagin, which is nothing but an Anglicised form of
Late L. pagina in the sense of scaffold or stage. For examples of
excrescent /, cf. ancient, margent, tyrant, pheasant. D. Though this
sense of pagina is not given by Ducange, it was certainly in use, as
shown above, and a very clear instance is cited by Wedgwood from
Munimenta Gildhalliz Londoniensis, ed. Riley, iii. 459, where we
find: ‘parabatur machina satis pulcra . . . in eadem pagina erige-
bantur duo animalia vocata antelops;’ showing that (in 1432) machina
and pagina were synonymous. ἘΠ, The true sense of pagina I take
to have been simply ‘stage’ or ‘platform;’ we find one sense of
L. pagina to be a slab of marble or plank of wood (White). Cf. L.
piginatus, planked, built, constructed (White). Hence the derivation
is from L. pangere (base pag-), to fasten, fix; see Page (2).
@ Note that another word for the old stage was pégma (stem pégmat-,
whence MF. pegmaée in Cotgrave); this is the corresponding and
cognate Greek name, from Gk. πῆγμα (stem πηγματ-), a platform,
stage, derived from the base of Gk. πήγνυμι, I fix, cognate with L.
pangere. Der. pageant, verb, to play, Shak. Troil. i. 3. 151;
pageant-r-y, Pericles, v. 2. 6.
PAGODA, an Indian idol’s temple. (Port.— Pers.) Spelt pagotha
in Sir T. Herbert, Travels, ed. 1665, pp. 69, 393 ; pagod in Skinner,
ed. 1671; pagodes, pl., in Hakluyt, Voy. ii, part 1. 221, 253. —Port.
pagoda, now generally pagode; but both forms are given in the Eng.-
Port. part of Vieyra’s Dict. Adapted from Pers. but-kadah, an
idol-temple; Rich. Dict. p. 241, col. 23 spelt but-kedah in Palmer,
Pers. Dict. col. 70,—Pers. but, an idol, image, God, id. p. 241,
col. 1; and kadah, a habitation, id. p, 1175. β, The initial Pers.
?
PAH, PA
sound is sometimes tendered by 2, as in Devic. Yule suggests
some confusion with Skt. bhagavati, f., lit. ‘venerable,’ as the name
of a goddess.
PAH, PA, a fort. (New Zealand.) A Maori word, signifying
a fort surrounded by a stockade. ‘In Maori, the verb ῥὰ means to
touch, to block up. Pa=a collection of houses to which access is
blocked by means of stockades and ditches; ’ Morris, Austral English.
PAIGLHB, the cowslip. (O. Low G.?) _‘ Paggles, greene and
yelow ;᾿ Tusser’s Husbandry, ὃ 43. 25 (E.D.S.) ‘ Pagyll, a cow-
sloppe;’ Palsgrave. As cowslip, formerly cowslop, orig. meant ὁ cow-
dung,’ it is possible that pfaigle may have meant ‘horsedung.’
Woeste’s Westphal. glossary gives paen-wiamel, a dung-beetle; and
he notes that the Hannover form is pagel-worm, where pagel means
‘dung ;’ evidently from Low G. page, MDu. paghe (Oudemans),
a horse.
PAIL, an open vessel of wood, &c. for holding liquids. (F.—L.)
ME. paile, payle. ‘Payle, or mylke-stoppe [milk-pail] ;’ Prompt.
Parv. AF. paile; glossed by ME. stoppe; Nominale, ed. Skeat,
1. 496.—OF. paele, a pan; ‘a footless posnet,’ i. e. iron cooking-pot ;
saucepan; Cot.—L. patella, dimin. of patina, a pan; see Paten.
B. Or from AS. pegel, occurring as a gloss upon L. gillo in Wright’s
Vocab., where it is misprinted wegel; see Voc. 124. 2, and Toller’s
Α. 5. Dict. It is cognate with Du. and G. pegel, G. peil,a gauge for
liquids; cf. Dan. pegel, half a pint. But it seems to have been
French ; note the final -e. Der. pail-ful.
PAIN, bodily suffering, anguish. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. peine, peyne,
King Alisaunder, 4522.—F. peine, ‘a paine, penalty ;’ Cot.—L. pena,
punishment, penalty, pain.—Gk. ποινή, penalty. B. The L. word
was borrowed from the Gk. very early. Idg. type *goina@; cf. Olrish
cin (Ir. ction), a fault; Zend kaéna-, punishment, Pers. kin, revenge ;
Russ. fsiena, a price; Gk. τίνειν, to pay a price. Brugmann, i.
§ 202. Cf. Pine (1). Der. pain, verb, ME. peinen, Chaucer,
C. T. 139; pain-ed; pain-ful (with E. suffix -ful=full), formerly
used with the sense of ‘industrious,’ see exx. in Trench, Select
Glossary; pain-ful-ly, pain-ful-ness, pain-less, pain-less-ness; also
pains-taking, adj., i.e. taking pains or trouble, Beaum. and Fletcher,
Span. Curate, iv. 5 (Diego) ; pains-taking, sb. And see pen-al, pen-
ance, pen-itent, pun-ish, pine (2).
PAINIM; see Paynim.
PAINT, to colour, describe, depict. (F.—L.) ME. peinten,
Chaucer, C. T. 11946, 11949 (C 12,15); but the word must have been
in use in very early times, as we find the derived words peintunge,
painting, and feinture, a picture, in the Ancren Riwle, p. 392, 1. 17,
p- 242, 1. 14.—OF. peint, paint (mod. F. peint), pp. of peindre,
paindre (mod. F. peindre), to paint.—L. pingere, to paint. Allied
to Skt. piij, to dye, colour; pinjara-, yellow, tawny. B. The form
of the root is PEIG, to colour; perhaps allied to 4/PEIK, to adorn,
form, whence Skt. pic, to adorn, form, péras, an ornament, and Gk.
ποικίλος, variegated. Der. paint, sb. (a late word), Dryden, to
Sir Robert Howard, 1. 8 ; paint-er, Romeo, i. 2. 41; paint-ing, in early
use, ME. peintunge, as above. And see pict-ure, de-pict, pig-ment,
pi-mento, or-pi-ment, or-pine, pint.
PAINTER, a rope for mooring a boat. (F.—L.) ‘Painter,
a rope employed to fasten a boat;’ Hawkesworth’s Voyages, 1773,
vol. i. p. xxix ; spelt paynter, Naval Accounts (1485), p. 37. B. Some
have supposed it to have been corrupted (by assimilation to the
ordinary sb. painter) from ME. panter, a snare, esp. for catching
birds; see Chaucer, Legend of Good Women, 131; Prompt. Parv.
p- 381; spelt paunier, Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 344.—AF. panter
(Godefroy); MF. pantiere, a kind of snare for birds (Roquefort) ;
panthiere, a great swoop-net ;” Cot. Cf. Ital. pantiera, ‘a kinde of
tramell or fowling-net,’ Florio; panthera, ‘a net or haie to catch
conies with, also a kind of fowling-net ;’ id.—L. panthér, a hunting-
net for catching wild beasts; cf. panthéra, an entire capture. Gk.
mav@npos, catching all sorts of animals. — Gk. πᾶν, neut. of πᾶς, every ;
and 6p, a wild beast; seePan-and Panther. @ Thelrish painteir,
Gael. painntear, a gin, snare, are borrowed from F.; the ME. word
occurs as early as the reign of Edw. II. It is remarkable that, in
America, a panther is also called a painter ; see Cooper, The Pioneers,
cap. xxviii. sy. But ME. panter means ‘net’ rather than ‘noose.’
Perhaps painter represents MF. penteur, ‘the name of one of the
ropes which passe over the top of a mast,’ Cot.; or OF. pentoir,
pendoir, in Godefroy, a perch for hanging clothes to dry, part of
a belt to which a sword is hung, also strong cordage; from L.
pendére, to hang. But the history is obscure.
PAIR, two equal or like things, a couple. (F.—L.) ME. peire,
peyre, applied to any number of like or equal things, and not limited,
as now, to two only. Thus ‘a peire of bedes’=a set of beads,
Chaucer, C. T. 159. ‘A pair of cards’=a pack of cards; Ben
Jonson, Masque of Christmas (Carol). ‘A pair of organs’=a set
of organ-pipes, i.e. an organ; see my note to P. Plowman, C, xxi. 7.
PALE 423
‘A pair of stairs’=a flight of stairs. Yet we also find ‘a feyre
hose’=a pair of hose; Rob. of Glouc. p. 390, 1. 8013.—F. paire,
“a paire, or couple of ;” Cot.; F. pair, ‘like, alike, equall, matching,
even, meet;’ Cot.—L. paria, neut. pl., and parem, acc. of par, alike.
See Par, Peer. Der. pair, verb, Wint. Ta. iv. 4.154. Also um-
pire, q.v-
PAJAMAS, PYJAMAS, loose drawers. (Hind. — Pers.)
Modern. Lit. ‘leg-clothing.’= Hind. pa’ejama, pajama, drawers. =
Hind. ρᾶ᾽ ε, leg, pa, foot ; jama, garment (Forbes, Yule). = Pers. pai,
cognate with E. foot; jamah, a garment. (Horn, ὃ 412.) See
pyjammas in Yule.
PAL, a brother, comrade. (Gipsy.) ‘Pal is a common cant word
for brother or friend, and it is purely Gipsy. On the Continent it is
prala or pral;’ C. G. Leland, Eng. Gipsies, vi.
PALACH, a royal house. (F.—L.) ME. palais, King Horn,
ed. Lumby, 1256; pales, Floriz and Blancheflur, 87.—F. palais, ‘a
palace;’ Cot.=<L. palatium, formerly a building on the Palatine
hill at Rome. ‘On this hill, the Collis Palatinus, stood ... the
houses of Cicero and Catiline. Augustus built his mansion on the
same hill, and his example was followed by Tiberius and Nero.
Under Nero, all private houses had to be pulled down on the Collis
Palatinus, in order to make room for the emperor’s residence . . .
called the Palatium; and it became the type of all the palaces of
the kings and emperors of Europe;’ Max Miiller, Lectures on
Language, ii. 276. β. The Collis Palatinus is supposed to have
been so called from Pales, a pastoral deity; see Max Miiller, as
above. Pales was a goddess who protected flocks; and the name
may have meant ‘protector;” cf. Skt. pala-, one who guards or
protects; pa, to protect, cherish. Der. palati-al (Todd), formed
with suffix -al from I. palati-um ; also palat-ine, q.v.; palad-in, q.v.
PALADIN, a warrior, a knight of Charlemagne’s household.
(F.—Ital.—L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed.1674.—F. paladin, ‘a knight
of the round table;” (οἱ. -- 114]. galadino, ‘a warrier, a valiant man
at armes;’ Florio.=L. palatinus; see Palatine. Properly applied
to a knight of a palace or royal household. Doublet, palatine.
PALAGO-; see Paleo-.
PALANQUIN, PALANKEEN, a light litter in which
travellers are carried on men’s shoulders. (Port.—Hind.—Skt.) ‘A
pallamkeen or litter;’ Sir T. Herbert, Travels, 1665, p. 72. Spelt
palankee in Terry’s Voyage to East India, 1655, p. 155 (Todd);
palanquin in Skinner, ed. 1671; pallanchine in Hakluyt, Voy. ii,
part i. 222. Portuguese palanguim.— Hind. palang, a bed, bedstead ;
otherwise palki ; Forbes, Hindustani Dict.; and (in the Carnatic)
pallakki (ΕἸ. H. Wilson); Pali pal/anko (Yule). Cf. Pers. palank,
palang, a bedstead; Rich. Dict. p. 335. All from Skt. paryarka-
(Prakrit pallanka-), a couch-bed, a bed; the change from r to ὦ
being very common. = Skt. pari, about, round (Gk. περί) ; and
anka-, a hook, the flank, &c.. Apparently from the support given to
the body. The Skt. avika- is allied to L. uneus, a hook, AS. angel,
ahook. See Peri- and Angle (2).
PALATE, the roof of the mouth, taste, relish. (F.—L.) In
Cor. ii. 1.61. ME. palet, Wyclif, Lament. iv. 4; Prompt. Parv.
p- 378.—AF. palet, palate, in Nominale, ed. Skeat, 29; OF. palat,
in the r4th century; see Littré.—L. palaium, the palate. Root
uncertain. @ The mod. F. palais answers to a Late L. palatium,
which seems to have been used by mistake for palatum. See remarks
in Max Miiller, Lect. on Lang. ii. 276. Der. palat-al, palat-able,
palat-abl-y. Also palate, verb, Cor. iii. 1. 104.
PALATINE, orig. pertaining to a palace. (F.—L.) Chiefly
in the phr. ‘count paladine, where the adj. follows the sb., as in
French; see Merch. Ven. i. 2. 49.—F. palatin, ‘a generall and
common appellation, or title, for such as have any speciall office or
function in a soyeraign princes palace ;᾿ Cot. He adds: ‘Compte
palatin, a count palatine, is not the title of a particular office, but an
hereditary addition of dignity and honour, gotten by service done in
a domesticall charge.’ = L. palatinus, (1) the name of a hill in Rome,
(2) belonging to the imperial abode, to the palace or court. See
Palace. Der. falatin-ate, from F. palatinat, ‘a palatinaty, the
title or dignity of a count palatine, also a county palatine;’ Cot.
Doublet, paladin.
PALAVER, a talk, parley. (Port.—L.—Gk.) Frequently used
in works of travel, of a parley with African chiefs ; a word introduced
on the African coast by the Portuguese.— Port. palavra, a word,
parole.—L. parabola; from Gk. See Parole, Parable.
PALE (1), a stake, narrow piece of wood for enclosing ground,
an enclosure, limit, district. (F.—L.) ME. paal, Wyclif, Ezek.
xv. 3 (earlier version); the later version has s‘ake; Vulgate, paxillus,
Dat. pale, Wyclif, Luke, xix. 43.—F. pal, ‘a pale, stake, or pole;’
Cot.=—L. palus, a stake. For *pacslus, from pac-, to fasten; as in
pac-isc?, to stipulate. Brugmann, ii. § 76. See Pact. Der. pal-ing,
Blackstone’s Comment. Ὁ. ii. c. 3 (R.); pale, verb, 3 Hen. VI, i. 4.
PALE
Doublet, pole (1).
424
103; im-pale; also pal-is-ade, q. Vv. ger The
heraldic term pale is the same word.
PALE (2), wan, dim. (F.—L.) ME. pale, Chaucer, C. T. 5065
(B 645). —OF. pale, palle (Burguy), later pasle (Cot.), whence mod. F.
pale.—L. pallidum, acc. of pallidus, pale. On the loss of the last
two atonic syllables, see Brachet, Introd. § 50, 51. Allied to Gk.
πολιός, gray, and to E. fallow; see Fallow (2). Der. pale-ly, pale-
ness, pal-ish. Doublet, pallid.
PALEOGRAPHY, the study of ancient modes of whiting.
(Gk.) Modern; coined from Gk. παλαιό-, for παλαιός, old; and |
Παλαιός is from πάλαι, ady., long ago.
γράφ-ειν, to write. i
[ Modern. From Gk.
PALEOLOGY, archeology. (Gk.)
παλαιό-, for παλαιός, old; and -Aoyia, from λόγος, a discourse, |
which from λέγειν, to speak. See Paleography and Logic. |
Der. paleolog-ist.
PALEONTOLOGY, the science of fossils, &c. (Gk.)
Modern. Lit. ‘a discourse on ancient creatures.” Coined from Gk.
πάλαι, long ago; ὄντο-, decl. stem of ὦν, existing ; and -Aoyia, from
λόγος, a discourse, which from λέγειν, tospeak. Sce Paleography,
Sooth, and Logic. Der. paleontolog-ist.
PALESTRA, a wrestling-school. (L.—Gk.) In Lyly, Euphues,
ed. Arber, p. 447; palestr-al, adj., Chaucer, Troilus, v. 304.—L.
palestra.— Gk, παλαίστρα, a wrestling-school. = Gk. παλαίειν, to
wrestle; cf. πάλη, wrestling. Connected with Gk. παλάμη, the palm
of the hand (Prellwitz). See Palm (1). Der. palestr-al, as above.
PALETOT, a loose garment. (F.) Modern. Borrowed from
mod. F. paletot, formerly palletoc, for which see below. However,
the word is by no means new to English ; the ME. paltok is not an
uncommon word ; see numerous references in my note to P. Plowman,
B. xviii. 25, where the word occurs; and see Prompt. Parv., and
Way’s note; cf. AF. paltoke (below). This form was borrowed
from OF, palletoc, ‘a long and thick pelt, or cassock, a garment like
a short cloak with sleeves, or such a one as the most of our modern
pages are attired in;’ Cot. Explained by Diez as palle-togue, a cloak
with a hood; from L. palla, a mantle, and Bret. σὰ, W. foc, a cap.
B. Littré derives OF. palletoc from MDu. paltrok, a mantle; but
Franck says that this MDu. form was taken (with alteration) from
the OF. word. Cf. Bret. paltok, a peasant’s robe; from L. palla and
Bret. 46k, acap. See Pall (1). Way says that ‘Sir Roger de
Norwico bequeaths, in 1370, unum paltoke de ueluete, cum armis |
meis;’ &c.
PALETTE, a small slab on which a painter mixes colours.
(F.—L.) ‘Pallet, a thin oval piece of wood, used by painters to hold
their colours;’ Kersey, ed. 1715. The word is used by Dryden ;
see Todd (who gives no reference).—F. palette, ‘a lingell, tenon,
slice, or flat tool wherewith chirurgians lay salve on plaisters ;
also, the saucer or porringer, whereinto they receive blood out of an
opened vein; alsa, a battledoor ;’ Cot. Thus it orig. meant a flat
blade for spreading things, and afterwards a flat slab for colours.
Cf. Ital. paletta, ‘a lingell, slice [such] as apothecaries vse ;” Florio;
dimin. of pala, ‘a spade;’ id.—L. pala, a spade, shovel, flat-bladed
‘peel’ for putting bread into an oven; see Peel (3). Doublet,
pallet (2).
PALFREY, a saddle-horse, esp. a lady’s horse. (F.—Low L.—
Gk. and C.) In early use. ME, palefrat, O. Eng. Homilies, ed.
Morris, i. 5,1. 203; palfrei, Chaucer, C. T. 2497 (A 2493). =OF. palefrei
(13th century, Littré), MF. palefroy, ‘a palfrey,’ Cot.; mod. F.
palefroi. Spelt palefreid in the 11th century; Littré. — Low L.
paraverédus, a post-horse, lit. ‘an extra post-horse’ (Lewis). Drachet
gives quotations for the later forms paravrédus, parafrédus, and pala-
frédus (10th century); and OF. palefretd=Low L. acc. palafrédum ;
every step being traced with certainty. B. The Low L. paraverédus
is a hybrid formation from Gk. mapa, beside (hence extra); and
Late L. uerédus, a post-horse, courier’s horse (Lewis). y. Here
vercdus stands for *vorédus, from a Celtic type *vo-reidos, a carriage-
horse. -- Celtic *vo (Irish fo, W. go), prep. under, in; and *reida,
Gaulish L. rhéda, réda, a carriage. The Celtic *vo-retdos occurs in
W. gorwydd,a horse. The Celtic *reida is from the verb seen in
Olrish riad-aim, 1 travel, ride, cognate with E, ride (Stokes). 4 The
Low L. parauerédus is also the original of G. pferd, Du. paard,
a palfrey, horse.
PALIMPSEST, a manuscript which has been twice written
on, the first writing being partly erased. (Gk.) Palimpseston in
Phillips (1706).—Gk. παλίμψηστον, a palimpsest (manuscript) ; neut.
of παλίμψηστος, lit. scraped again.—Gk. πάλιμ-, for πάλιν, again,
before the following Ψ ; and ψηστός, rubbed, scraped, verbal adj.
from Ψάειν, to rub, Ionic ψέειν. Cf. Skt. psd, to eat.
PALINDROME, a word or sentence that reads the same back-
wards as forwards. (Gk.) Examples are Hannah, madam, Eve;
Todd quotes subi dura a rudibus from Peacham, Experience in these
Times (1638). ‘Curious palindromes ;’ Ben Jonson, An Execration
PALM
upon Vulcan, Underwoods, Ixi. 1. 34.—Gk. madivdpopos, running
back again.=Gk. πάλιν, back, again; and δρόμος, a running, from
δραμεῖν, to run; see Dromedary.
PALINODE, a recantation, in song. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘ You,
two and two, singing a palinode;’ Ben Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels,
last speech of Crites.—F. palinodie, ‘a palinody, recantation, con-
trary song, unsaying of what hath been said ;’ Cot.=—L. palinddia, =
Gk. παλινῳδία, a recantation, esp. of an ode.—Gk. πάλιν, back,
again; and ῳδή. a song ; see Ode.
PALISADE, a fence made of pales or stakes. (F.—L.) Shak.
has the pl. palisadoes, 1 Hen. 1V, ii. 3. 55; this is a pseudo-Spanish
form; the mod. Span. word is palizada. Dryden has palisades, tr. of
Virgil, b. vii. 1. 214.—F. palissade, ‘a palisadoe ;’ Cot.—F. paliss-er,
“to inclose with pales,’ id.; with suffix -ade<L. -ata.—F. palis, a
“pale, stake, pole,’ id.; extended from pal, a pale. See further
under Pale (1). Der. palisade, verb.
PALL (1), a cloak, mantle, archbishop’s scarf, shroud. (L.) ME.
pal, Layamon, 897, 1296; pl. palles, id. 2368. AS. pall, purple
cloth ; we find pallas and sidan= purple cloths and silks, as a gloss
to L. purpuram et séricum in A‘lfric’s Colloquy (the Merchant); see
Thorpe, Analecta, p. 27.—L. pallium, a coverlet, pall, curtain, toga ;
allied to palla, a mantle, loose dress. Sievers, Gr. ὃ 80. Der.
pall-i-ate, q.v.
PALL (2), to become vapid, lose taste or spirit. (F.—L.) ME.
pallen, ‘Pallyn, as ale and drynke, Emorior ;’ Prompt. Parv. Way,
in the note on the passage, quotes from Lydgate’s Order of Fools:
‘Who forsakith wyne, and drynkithe ale pallid, Such foltisshe foolis,
God lete hem never the’ [prosper]; Minor Poems, p. 168. He also
cites from Palsgrave: ‘I palle, as drinke or bloode dothe, by longe
standyng in a thynge, ze appallys. This drink wy]ll pall (s’appallyra)
if it stande yvncouered all nyght. I palle, I fade of freshenesse in
colour or beautye, ie flaitris.” B. He also has: ‘I appalle, as drinke
dothe or wyne, whan it leseth his colour, je appalys;’ and again:
‘I appale ones colour, je appalis.’ Vhus pall is merely an aphetic
form of appal, which meant both to wax pale and to make pale or to
terrify. See Appal.
PALLADIUM, a safeguard of liberty. (L.—Gk.) ‘A kind of
palladium to save the city;’ Milton, Of Reformation in England,
3. 1 (Todd).—L. Palladium; Virgil, AEn. ii. 166, 183. —Gk. Παλλά-
διον, the statue of Pallas on which the safety of Troy was supposed
to depend.—Gk. Παλλαδ-, stem of Παλλάς, an epithet of Athene
(Minerva).
PALLET (1), 2 kind of mattress or couch, properly one of straw.
(F.—L.) ME. paillet, Chaucer, Troil. ili, 229.—AF. paillete, straw,
Bestiary, 475; I’. paillet, a heap of straw, given by Littré as a pro-
vincial word. Cotgrave only gives pailler,‘a reek or stack of straw,
also, bed-straw.’ Dimin. of F. paille,‘ straw ;’ Cot. —L. palea, straw,
chaff. Allied to Skt. palala-, straw ; Russ. polova, chaff; Lith. pelat,
pl. chaff. See Palliasse.
PALLET (2), an instrument used by potters, also by gilders;
also, a palette. (F.—Ital.—L.) See definitions in N.E.D.; it is,
properly, a flat-bladed instrument for spreading plasters, gilding, &c.,
and for moulding; and is only another spelling of Palette, q.v.
PALLIASSE, a straw mattress, (F.—L.) Not in Todd’s
Johnson. The introduction of i is due to an attempt to represent
the ‘/] mouillés’ of the F. paillasse, which see in Littré. The MF.
form in Cotgrave is paillace, ‘a straw-bed.’? The suffix -ace, asse
(< L. -dceus) is a diminutive one; Brachet, Etym, Dict. Introd.
§ 272: and paill-ace is from paille, straw. —L. palea; see Pallet (1).
PALLIATE, to cloak, excuse. (L.) ‘Being palliated with
a pilgrim’s coat and hypocritic sanctity;’ Sir T. Herbert, Travels,
ed. 1665, p. 341. Properly a pp., as in ‘certain lordes and citezens . .
in habite padliate and dissimuled;’ Hall’s Chron., Hen. IV. introd.
δ 11.—L. palliatus, cloaked, covered with a cloak.—L. pallium,
acloak, mantle. See Pall (1). Der. palliat-ion, palliat-ive.
PALLID, pale. (L.) ‘Pallid death ;’ Spenser, F. Ὁ. v. 11. 45.—
L. pallidus, pale. See Pale (2). Doublet, pale (2).
PALL-MALL, the name of an old game. (F.—Ital.—L.) Dis-
cussed under Mall (2), q.v. See Notes on FE. Etym., p. 204.
PALLOR, paleness. (L.) Used by Bp. Taylor, Artificial Hand-
someness, Ὁ. 2 (Todd).—L. pallor, paleness. = L, pallére, to be pale.
Cf. L. pallidus, pale; see Pale (2).
PALM (1), the inner part of the hand. (F.—L.) ME. paume, the
palm of the hand, P. Plowman, B. xvii. 141, 147, 150, 153. “Ἐς
paume, ‘ the palme of the hand ;’ Cot.—L. palma, the palm of the
hand.-Gk. παλάμη; Skt. pani- (for *palni-).4-AS. folm; Grein,
i. 3113 Olrish Jam; W. llaw. Brugmann, i. § 529 (2). Allied to
AS. folm is E. fumble; see Fumble. Der. palmate, from L. fal-
ma/us, marked with the palm of the hand, shaped like the palm;
palm-ist-ry, in Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, bk. v. ch. 24, pt. 13
ME. pawmestry, Lydgate, Assembly of Gods, 870.
PALM
PALM (2), the name of a tree. (L.) AS. palm, a palm-tree;
borrowed directly from Latin. ‘Palma, palm-twig, vel palm ;’
Wright's Vocab. i. 32, col. 2. So called from some resemblance of
the leaves to the out-spread hand; see Palm (1). 4 We may
note that the L. spelling has prevailed over the French, as in psalm,
&c. Der. palm-er, ME. palmere, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 13, King Horn,
ed. Lumby, 1027, i.e. one who bears a palm-branch in token of
having been to the Holy Land; palm-er-worm, Joel, i. 4, ii. 25,
a caterpillar supposed to be so called from its wandering about like
a pilgrim, and also simply called palmer (see Eastwood and Wright's
Bible Word-book) ; Palm-sunday, ME. palme-suneday, O. Eng. Mis-
cellany, ed. Morris, p. 39,1. 95, AS. palm-sunnandeg, Luke, xix. 29
(margin) ; palm-y, Hamlet, i. 1. 113; falm-ary, i.e. deserving the
palm (as token of a victory). @ The palmer or palmer-worm
might have been named from prov. E. palm, the catkin of a willow ;
but we also find palmer in the sense of wood-louse, and in Holli-
band’s Dict., ed. 1593, a palmer is described as ‘a worme having
a great many feete;’ see Halliwell.
PALPABLE, that can be fe!t, obvious. (F.—L.) In Macb. ii.
1. 40; Chaucer, Ho. Fame, 869.—F. palpable, omitted by Cotgrave,
but in use in the 15th century (Littré), and given by Palsgrave, who
has: ‘Palpable, apte or mete to be felte, palpable.’ ἜΤ. palpabilis,
that can be touched.—L. palpare, to feel, palpari, to feel, handle.
B. An initial s has been lost, if it be related to Gk. ψηλαφάω, I feel ;
Skt. sphalaya, to strike, to touch. Der. palpabl-y, palpable-ness,
palpabili-ty. And see palpitate.
PALPITATE, to throb. (L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627. [It is
not unlikely that the E. verb to palpitate was really due to the sb.
palpitation.|—L. palpitatus, pp. of palpitare, to throb; frequentative
of palpare, to feel, stroke, pat. See Palpable. Der. palpitat-ion,
from F. palpitation, ‘a panting ;’ Cot.
PALSY, paralysis. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. palesy, Wyclif, Matt. iv.
24; pallesye, Rob. of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, 11922; fuller form
parlesy, Prick of Conscience, ed. Morris, 2906. -- Ε΄, paralysie, ‘the
palsie ;’ Cot. =—L. paralysin, acc. of paralysis; see Paralysis. Der.
palsy, verb ; palst-ed, Cor. v. 2. 46.
PALTER, to dodge, shift, shuffle, equivocate. (Scand.) Sze
Macb, v. 8. 20; Jul. Cres. ii. 1.126. Cotgrave, s.v. harceler, has:
‘to haggle, hucke, hedge, or paulter long in the buying of a com-
moditie.’ It also means ‘to babble,’ as in: ‘One whyle his tonge it
ran and faltered of a cat, Another whyle he stammered styll upon
a rat;’ Gammer Gurton, ii. 3. Cf. prov. E. polter, to work care-
lessly, to go about aimlessly, to trifle. Prob. of Scand. origin. Cf.
Swed. dial. pallta, to go about, to hobble about, to toddle ; pallter,
a poor wretch, who goes about aimlessly; from pala, to work
slowly (Rietz). Perhaps of imitative origin; cf. falter.
PALTRY, mean, vile, worthless. (Scand.) In Shak. Merry
Wives, ii. 1. 164; Marlowe, Edw. 11, ii. 6. 57. Jamieson gives
paltrie, peltrie, vile trash ; Halliwell has paltring, a worthless trifle ;
Forby explains Norfolk paltry by ‘rubbish, refuse, trash;” and
Brockett gives palterly as the North. Eng. form of the adj. palery.
It stands for palter-y (North. E. palter-ly), formed with the adj. suffix
-y (or -/y) from an old pl. palt-er (formed like ME. child-er = children,
breth-er =brethren), which is still preserved in Swed. and Danish.
This account is verified by the G. forms; see below. ‘The sense of
palter is ‘rags,’ and that of paltry is ‘ragged,’ hence, vile, worth-
less, or, as a sb., trash or refuse.—Swed. paltor, rags, pl. of pala,
a rag; Ihre gives MSwed. faltor, old rags, with a reference to
Jerem. xxxviii. 11; Dan. pjalter, rags, pl. of pjalt, a rag, tatter ;
hence the adj. pjaltet, ragged, tattered.4-Low G. palte, pulte, a rag,
a piece of cloth torn or cut off; whence the adj. paltrig, pultrig,
ragged, torn; Bremen Worterb. iii. 287; Prov. G. palter (pl. paltern),
arag; whence palterig, paltry (Fliigel). Cf. also MDnu. palt, a piece,
fragment, as, palt brods, a piece of bread (Oudemans, Kilian) ;
NFries. palt, a rag (Outzen). β. The origin is by no means clear;
Thre connects Swed. paltor with MSwed. palt, a kind of garment.
See Rietz, s.v. pallt. Possibly of Slavonic origin; cf. Russ. polotno,
platno, linen; which may be allied to E. fold (as of linen); cf. Skt.
pata-, woven stuff, piece of cloth. Der. paltri-ly, paltri-ness.
PALUSTRAL, PALUSTRINE, of the marshes, marshy.
(L.) Coined from L. paluster, marshy. = L. palus, a marsh, morass.
PAMPAS, plains in South America. (Span.— Peruvian.) Pampas
is the Span. pl. of pampa,a plain. From the Peruv. pampa, a plain;
hence Moyo-bamba, Chugut-bamba, places in Peru, with bamba for
pampa (wrongly). Garcilasso, in his Comment. on Peru, bk. vii. c. 4,
complains that the Spaniards often mispronounced pampa as bamba.
PAMPER, to feed luxuriously, glut. (Flemish.) In Much Ado,
iv. 1. 61. ‘Pampired with ease ;’ Court of Love, 1. 177 (first printed
1561). ‘Oure pamperde paunchys,’ Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 19, 1. 25.
But the word was known to Chaucer; ‘ They ne were nat forpampred
with owtrage;’ A®tas Prima,1].5. Wedgwood quotes from Reliquic |
PANDEMONIUM 425
Antique, i. 41: ‘Thus the devil farith with men and wommen;
First, he stirith him to pappe and pampe her fleisch, desyrynge
delicous metis and drynkis.’ Not found in AS., and prob. imported
from the Netherlands. ‘The form pamp-er is precisely the W. Flemish
pamperen, to pamper (De Bo) ; a frequentative from pamp (as above),
meaning to feed Iuxuriously; and this verb is a causal form from
a sb. pamp, a nasalised form of pap.=Low G. pampen, more com-
monly slampampen, to live luxuriously; Brem. Worterb. iv. 800.—
Low G. pampe, thick pap, pap made of meal ; also called pampelbry,
i.e. pap-broth; and, in some dialects, pappe; id. iii. 287. So also
Low G. (Altmark) pampen, pappen, to cram oneself (Danneil); vulgar
G. pampen, pampeln, to cram, pamper, from pampe, pap, thick broth;
Bavarian pampfen, to stuff, sich anpampfen, vollpampfen, to cram one-
self with pap or broth (Schmeller, i. 392). 81 The use of the prefix
for-in Chaucer is almost enough in itself to stamp the word as being
of Teutonic origin. Der. pamper-er,
PAMPHLET, a small book, of a few sheets stitched together.
(F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt pamflet, Testament of Love, bk. iii. ch. 9.
1. 543 ed. 1561, fol. 317 b, col. 1; pamphlet in Shak. τ Hen. VI,
iii.1.2. [The mod. F. pamphlet is borrowed from English (Littré).]
Hoccleve has the form pamfilet (trisyllabic) in 1. 1 of a poem
addressed to Richard, duke of York. It is obviously formed, with the
F, suffix -e¢, from the name Pamphil-us, as in other similar instances.
Thus the OF. Esop-et meant a book by Esop, Aviov-et meant one
by Avianus (see note to P. Plowman, Bb. xii. 257), and Chaton-et one
by Cato (Godefroy). Similarly, Pamphil-et or Pamfil-et meant
one by Pamphile, i.e. Pamphilus. The allusion is to a medieval
Latin poem (in 780 lines) of the 12th century referred to by Chaucer
inC.T.,F 1110. The title is: ‘ Pamphilt Mauriliani Pamphilus;’
there is an edition by Goldastus. See my note on the passage.
(There was also a Pamphila, a female historian of the first century,
who wrote numerous epitomes; see Suidas, Aul. Gellius, xv. 17, 23;
Diog. Laertius, in life of Pittacus.] The earliest record of the word
in England is in the Late L. panfletus, a little book ; in Richard of
Bury, Philobiblon, c. 8 (A.D. 1344). Cf. F. pamphile, a name for the
knave of clubs (Littré), due to the Gk. name Pamphilus ; whence
Pam, in Pope, Rape of the Lock, 349. Der. pamphlet-eer, Bp. Hall,
Satires, b. ii. sat. 1, 1. 30; pamphlet-eer-ing.
PAN, a broad shallow vessel for domestic use. (E.?) ‘Pannes
and pottes;’ Sir Τὶ Elyot, The Governour, b.i.c. 1. ME. panne,
Chaucer, C. T. 7196 (Ὁ 1614). AS. panne, a pan; ‘ Patella, panne ;’
‘jsen panne’ = an iron pan; fyr-panne =a fire-pan ; Aélfric’s Vocab.
Nomina Vasorum, in Voc. 123. 6; 124.10, 11. And see A®lfred, tr.
of Gregory’s Pastoral, c. xxi, ed. Sweet, p. 162, last line. [Irish
panna, W. pan, are from E.|] Cf. Icel. panna, Swed. panna, Dan.
pande (for panne), Du. pan, G. pfanne; also Low Lat. panna.
B. Perhaps of Teut. origin. If not, it may be a corrupted form of
L. patina, a shallow bowl, pan, bason. Der. brain-pan, with which
cf. ME. panne in the transferred sense of skull, Chaucer, C. T. 1167
(A 1165); knee-pan; pan-cake, As You Like It, i. 2. 67, and in
Palsgrave ; also pannikin, from MDu. panneken, ‘a small panne,’
Hexham; with MDnu. dimin. suffix -4en. Also pan-tile, first in 1640
(N. E. D.).
PAN., prefix, all. (Gk.) From Gk. πᾶν, neut. of πᾶς, all.
stem is παντ-.
PANACEA, a universal remedy. (L.—Gk.) ‘Panacea, a medy-
cine... of much vertue ;’ Udall, pref. to Luke, fol. 8, back. Oddly
spelt panachea, Spenser, F. Q. iii. 5. 32.—L. panacéa.— Gk. πανάκεια,
fem. of πανάκειος, allied to πανακής, all-healing.—Gk. πᾶν, neut.
of πᾶς, all; and ax-, base of ἀκέομαι, 1 heal, ἄκος, a cure,
remedy.
PANCREAS, a fleshy gland under the stomach, commonly
known as the sweet-bread. (L.—Gk.) ‘ Pancreas, the sweet-bread τ᾿
Phillips, ed. 1706.—L. pancreas. —Gk. mayxpeas, the sweet-bread ;
lit. ‘all flesh.’=—Gk. πᾶν, neut. of mas, all; and κρέας, flesh, for
*xpéf-as, allied to Skt. kravya-m, raw flesh, L. crii-dus, raw. See
Pan- and Crude. Der. pancreat-ic, from the stem maykpear-.
PANDECT, a comprehensive treatise, digest. (.—L.—Gk.)
‘Thus thou, by means which th’ ancients never took, A pandect
mak’st, and universal book ;’ Donne, Vpon Mr. T. Coryat’s Crudities,
1. 50. More properly used in the pl. pandects, as in Sir T. Elyot,
The Governor, bk. i. c. 14. § 10.—MF. pandectes, ‘ pandects, books
which contain all matters, or comprehend all the parts of the subject
whereof they intreat;’ Cot.=—L. pandectas, acc. of pl. pandecta, the
title of the collection of Roman laws made by order of Justinian,
A.D. 533; see Gibbon, Rom. Empire, ch. 44. The sing. pandecta
also appears; also pandectés, the true orig. form.—Gk. πανδέκτης,
all-receiving, comprehensive; whence pl. πανδέκται, pandects.—
Gk. πᾶν, neut. of πᾶς, all; and dex-, base of δέχομαι, Ionic δέκομαι,
I receive, contain. See Pan-.
PANDEMONIUM, the home of all the demons, hell. (Gk.)
The
426 PANDER, PANDAR
In Milton, P. L. i. 756. Coined from Gk. πᾶν, all; and δαίμονι-,
from δαίμων, a demon; see Pan- and Demon. :
PANDER, PANDAR, a pimp, one who ministers to another's
passions. (L.—Gk.) Commonly pander; yet pandar is better. Much
Ado, v. 2. 313 used as a proper name, Troil. 1. 1. 98, ME. Pandare,
shortened form of Pandarus; Chaucer uses both forms, Troil. i. 610,
618. —L. Pandarus, the name of the man ‘who procured for Troilus
the love and good graces of Chryseis; which imputation, it may be
added, depends upon no better authority than the fabulous histories
of Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phrygius;’ Richardson. In other
words, the whole story is an invention of later times. — Gk. Πάνδαρος,
a personal name. Two men of this name are recorded: (1) a Lycian
archer, distinguished in the Trojan army; see Homer (IL. ii. 827);
(2) acompanion of /Eneas; see Smith’s Classical Dict. Der. pander,
vb., Hamlet, iii. 4. 88; pander-ly, adj., Merry Wives, iv. 2. 122;
pander-er (sometimes used, unnecessarily, for the sb. pander).
PANDOUBRS, soldiers in a certain Hungarian regiment. (F.—
Low L.—Teut.) ‘ Hussars and pandours (1768),’ Foote, Devil upon
Two Sticks, ii. 1. F. pandour; from a Serbo-Croatian form pandar
(earlier baxdiir), a constable, catchpole, mounted policeman, watcher
of vineyards (N. E. D.).—Low L. bandérius, a follower of a banner,
watcher of vineyards. Low L. bandum, a banner; of Tent. origin ;
see Banner.
PANE, a patch, a plate of glass. (F.—L.) ‘A pane of glass, or
wainscote;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627. ME. pane, applied to a part or
portion of a thing; see Prompt. Parv. p. 380, and Way’s note.
‘Veh pane of pat place had pre 3atez’= each portion of that place
had three gates; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, i. 1034 (or 1033).—F.
pan, ‘a pane, piece, or pannell of a wall, of wainscot, of a glasse-
window, &c.; also, the skirt of a gown, the pane of a hose, of
a cloak, &c.;’ Cot.—L. pannum, acc. of pannus, a cloth, rag, tatter ;
hence, a patch, piece. Allied to panus, the thread wound upon
a bobbin in a shuttle; and to Gk. πῆνος, πήνη, the woof. Also to
Goth. faza, and E. vane; see Vane. Der. pan-ed, in the phr. paned
hose, ornamented breeches, which see in Ναγεβ; also pan-el, ἢ. v.
And see pan-icle.
PANEGYRIC, a eulogy, encomium. (L.—Gk.) Spelt pane-
gyricke in Minsheu, ed. 1627.—L. panégyricus, a eulogy; from pané-
gyricus, adj., with the same sense as in Greek. —Gk. πανηγυρικός, fit
for a full assembly, festive, solemn ; hence applied to a festival oration,
or panegyric.—Gk. πᾶν, neut. of mas, all; and -nyupi-s, related to
ἀγορά, a gathering, a crowd, ἀγείρειν, to assemble. See Pan- and
Gregarious. Der. panegyric, adj. (really an older use) ; panegyric-al,
panegyric-al-ly, panegyr-ise, panegyr-ist.
PANEL, PANNEL, a compartment with a raised border,
a board with a surrounding frame. (F.—L.) In Shak. As You Like
It, iil. 3. 89. ΜΕ. panel, in two other senses: (1) a piece of cloth
on a horse's back, to serve as a sort of saddle, Cursor Mundi, 14982 ;
(2) a schedule containing the names of those summoned to serve as
jurors, P. Plowman, Β. iii. 315. The general sense is ‘a little piece,’
and esp. a square piece, whether of wood, cloth, or parchment, but
orig. of cloth only. OF. panel, MF. paneau, ‘a pannel of wainscot,
of a saddle, &c.;’ Cot.—Late L. pannellus, panellus, used in Prompt.
Pary. p. 381, as equivalent to ME. panele. Dimin. of L. pannus,
cloth, a piece of cloth, a rag; see Pane. Der. em-panel, im-panel ;
see Empanel.
PANG, a violent pain, a throe. (E.) In the Court of Love,
1. 1150, we find: ‘The prang of love so straineth thaim to crye;’
altered, in modern editions, to ‘ The pange of love.’ In Prompt. Paryv.
Ρ. 493, we find: ‘ Throwe, womannys pronge, sekeness, Erumpna ;’
i.e. a throe, a woman’s pang. So also: ‘ These prongys myn berte
asonder thei do rende ;’ Coventry Myst., p. 287. But the pl. pangus
is in The Tale of Beryn, 963. The sense is ‘a sharp stab, severe
prick.’ It is clear that the word has lost an r; for the etymology,
see Prong. β. In Skelton, Philip Sparowe, 1. 44, the word occurs
as a verb: ‘ What heuyness dyd me pange ;’ it is also a sb., id. ]. 62.
Cf. also: ‘For there be in us certayne affectionate pangues of nature ;’
Udall, Luke, c. 4, v. 12. Both sb. and vb. are common in Shake-
speare. Cf. MDu. prange, ‘ oppression, or constraint ;” Hexham.
PANGOLIN, the scaly ant-eater. (Malay.) See C. P. G. Scott
and Yule.—Malay peng-goling. Lit. ‘the creature that rolls itself
up.” From Malay géling, a roller, that which rolls up; with the
denominative prefix pe-, which becomes peng- before g (Marsden,
Scott).
PANIC, extreme fright. (Gk.) When we speak of a panic, it is
an abbreviation of the phrase ‘a panic fear,’ given in Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. Camden has ‘a panicall feare;’ Remaines, chap. on
Poems (R.).—Gk. τὸ Πανικόν, used with or without δεῖμα (=fear),
Panic fear, i.e. fear supposed to be inspired by the god Pan.—Gk.
Πανεκός, of or belonging to Pan. Gk. Πάν, a rural god of Arcadia,
son of Hermes. Cf, Russ. fan’, a lord, Lithuan. ponas, a lord,
PANTALOON
also, the Lord. Cf. Skt. fa, to cherish.
stricken.
PANICLE, a form of inflorescence in which the cluster is irregu-
larly branched. (L.) Moder and scientific.—L. panicula, a tuft,
panicle. Double dimin, form from panus, the thread wound round
the bobbin of a shuttle, a swelling; as to which see Pane. Der.
panicul-at-ed, panicul-ate,
PANNAGE, food of swine in woods ; money paid for such food.
(F.—L.) Obsolete; see Blount’s Nomo-Lexicon, Todd’s Johnson,
ἄς. Also spelt pawnage, and even pounage; see Chaucer, The
Former Age, 7. Anglo-F. ganage, Year-Books of Edw. I, i. 63,
ii. 135. OF. pasnage, ‘ pawnage, mastage, monie . .. for feeding of
swine with mast ;᾿ Cot.—Late L. pasnaticum, short for pastinaticum,
pastiondticum, pannage (Ducange).—Late L. pastidndre, to feed on
mast, as swine. = L. pastidn-, stem of pastio,a grazing, used in Late L.
with the sense of right of pannage.= L. past-um, supine of pascere, to
feed; see Pastor.
PANNEL, the same as Panel, q. v.
PANIIER, a bread-basket. (F.—L.) ME. panier (with one x),
Havelok, 760. =F. panier, ‘a pannier, or dosser ;’ Cot. —L. pandrium,
a bread-basket. —L. panis, bread; allied to pascere (pt. t. pa-ui), to
feed. See Pastor. Der. see pantry and company.
PANNIKTN, dimin. of Pan, q. v.
PANOPLY, complete armour, (Gk.) In Milton, P. L. vi. 527,
760. ‘Than all your fury, and the panoply; ’ Ben Jonson, Magnetic
Lady, A. iii. sc. 4.—Gk. πανοπλία, the full armour of an ὁπλίτης, or
heavy-armed soldier. Gk. πᾶν, neut. of mas, all; and ὅπλ-α, arms,
armour, pl. of ὅπλον, a tool, implement. β. Gk. ὅπ-λον is con-
nected with ἕπω, I am busy about (whence ἕπομαι, I follow); Brug-
mann, ii. § 657. Der. panopli-ed.
PANORAMA, a picture representing a succession of scenes.
(Gk.) Late; added by Todd to Johnson. Invented by R. Barker,
A.D. 1788 (Haydn). Coined to mean ‘a view all round.’ = Gk. πᾶν,
neut. of πᾶς, all; and ὅραμα, a view, from ὁράω, I see, from 4/ WER,
to protect. See Pan- and Wary. Der. panoram-ic.
PANSY, heart’s-ease, a species of violet. (F.—L.) In Hamlet,
iv. 5.176. ME. pensees, pl., Assembly of Ladies, ]. 62 (and note).
‘Pensy floure, pensee;’ Palsgrave.=—F. pensée, ‘a thought ; . . also,
the flower paunsie;’ Cot. Thus, it is the flower of thought or
remembrance ; ef. forget-me-not. The Εἰ, pensée is the fem. of pensé,
pp. of penser, to think.—L. pensdre, to weigh, ponder, consider;
frequentative form of pendére, to weigh (pp. pensus). See Pensive.
PANT, to breathe hard. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. Tw. Nt. iii. 4.
323. ‘To pant and quake ;’ Spenser, F. Q. i. 7. 20. ME. panten ;
Prompt. Parv. p. 381. And see Skelton, Phyllyp Sparowe, 1. 132.
A hawk was said ‘to pante’ when it was short-winded; Book of
St. Alban’s, fol. b6, back. Obviously connected with F. panteler, to
pant, a new formation from OF. pantaisier (below), MF. pantiser,
‘to breath very fast, to blow thick and short;’ Cot. From the same
OF, verb was formed MF. pantois, ‘short-winded, oft-breathing, out
of breath;” pantois, sb., ‘short wind, pursinesse, a frequent breathing,
or a difficult fetching of wind by the shortness of breath; in hawks,
we call it the pantais;’ Cot. (In Sherwood’s index to Cotgrave we
find: ‘The pantasse or pantois in hawkes, le pantats.’| This use of
the term in hawking appears to be old. B. All from AF. pantoiser,
to pant, Vie de St. Auban, 697; OF. panteisier, pantaisier, pantoisier
(Godefroy), to breathe with difficulty; cognate with Prov. pantaisa(r),
to dream, to be oppressed, to pant.—Late L. *phantasiare, by-form
of phantasiari, to dream, see visions in sleep, imagine (Ducange), =
Gk. φαντασία, a fancy; see Fancy. 4 So G. Paris, in Romania,
vi. 628; Korting, § 7111. Cf. Gascon pantaia, to dream, to pant
(Mistral); ME. 2ο panty, Voc. 564. 7.
PANTALOON (1), a ridiculous character in a pantomime, buf-
foon, (F.—Ital.—Gk.) In Shak. As You Like It, ii. 7. 158; Tam.
of Shrew, iii. 1. 37.— F. pantalon, (1) a name given to the Venetians,
(2) a pantaloon; see Littré.—Ital. pantalone, a pantaloon, buffoon.
“The pantalone is the pantaloon of Ital. comedy, a covetous and
amorous old dotard who is made the butt of the piece ;” Wedgwood.
The name, according to Zambaldi (Vocabulario Etimologico) was
applied to the pantaloon as representing the old Venetian merchant ;
and Mahn (in Webster) says that St. Pantaleone was ‘the patron
saint of {rather, a well-known saint in] Venice, and hence a baptismal
name very frequent among the Venetians, and applied to them by
the other Italians asanickname.’ Lord Byron speaks of the Venetian
name Pantaleone as being ‘ her very by-word;’ Childe Harold, c. iv.
st. 14. B. St. Pantaleone’s day is July 27; he was martyred A.D.
303; Chambers, Book of Days, ii. 127. The name is also written
Pantaleon (as in Chambers), which is perhaps better. It is certainly
Gk., and he is said to be known in the Greek church as Panteleémon ;
from παντ-, for πᾶς, all, and ἐλεήμων, pitying, merciful. The pres,
pt. of ἐλεεῖν, to pity, would give a by-form Panteledn. 4 The
Der. panic-struck or panic-
PANTALOONS
etymology advocated by Lord Byron is extraordinary, and indeed
ridiculous, viz. Ital. pianta-leone=the planter of the lion, i.e. the
planter of the standard bearing the lion of St. Mark, supposed to be
applied to Venice; see note 9 to c. iv of Childe Harold. Der.
pantaloons.
PANTALOONS, a kind of trousers. (F.—Ital.—Gk.) ‘And
as the French, we conquered once Now give us laws for. pantaloons ;’
Butler, Hudibras, pt. i. c. 3, 1. 923; on which Bell’s note says:
‘The pantaloon belongs to the Restoration, It was loose in the
upper part, and puffed, and covered the legs, the lower part terminating
in stockings. Jn an inventory of the time of Charles II pantaloons
are mentioned, and a yard and a half of lutestring allowed for them.’
See also Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.— F. pantalon, a garment so called
because worn by the Venetians, who were themselves called Pantaloni,
i.e. Pantaloons (Littré). See Pantaloon.
PANTHHEISM, the doctrine that the universe is God. (Gk.) In
Waterland, Works, vol. viii. p. 8t (R.). Todd only gives pantheist.
Coined from Pan-and Theism. And see Pantheon. Der. so
also pan-theist, from pan- and theist ; hence pantheist-ic, pantheist-tc-al.
PANTHEON, a temple dedicated to all the gods. (L.—Gk.)
‘One temple of pantheon, that is to say, all goddes;’ Udall, on the
Revelation, c. 16. fol. 311 Bs; and in Shak. Titus, i. 242.—L,. pan-
théon, —Gk,. πάνθειον, for πανθείον ἱερόν, a temple consecrated to all
gods. Gk. πάνθειον, neut. of πάνθειος, common to all gods. —Gk.
πᾶν, neut. of mas, all; and θεῖος, divine, from θεός, god. See Pan-
and Theism.
PANTHER, a fierce carnivorous quadruped. (F.—L.—Gk.—
Skt.) ME. pantere, King Alisaunder, 0820; panter, O. Eng. Mis-
cellany, ed. Morris, p. 22. [Cf. AS. pandher (sic); Grein, ii.
361.]—OF. panthere, ‘a panther;’ Cot.=—L. panthéra; also panthér.
=—Gk.7dv@np,a panther. Foreign to Gk., and prob. of Skt. origin. =
Skt. pundarika-s, explained by Benfey as ‘the elephant of the south-
east quarter; but also ‘a tiger,’ according to the St. Petersburg
Skt. Dict. A popular etymology from πᾶν, all, and θήρ, a beast,
gave rise to numerous fables; see Philip de Thaun, Bestiaire, 1. 224,
in Wright’s Pop. Treatises on Science, p. 82.
PANTLER, a servant who has charge of the pantry. (F.—L.)
In Shak. 2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 258. ME. pantlere, Prompt. Parv. ;
pantelere, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 33. Altered from OF.
panetier, ‘a pantler,’ Cot. ; prob. by the influence of but-ler.—Late L.
panétarius (pdnitdrius, Prompt. Parv.).—Late L. panéta, one who
makes bread; see Pantry.
PANTOMIME, one who expresses his meaning by action; a
dumb show. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘ Pantomime, an actor of many parts in
one play,’ &c.; Blount’s Gloss., ed. 16743; so also in Butler, Hudibras,
pt. ili. c. 2. 1287. (Such is the proper sense of the word, though
now used for the play itself.]—F. pantomime, ‘an actor of many
parts in one play,’ &c.; Cot.=—L. pantomimus.—Gk. παντόμιμος, all
imitating, a pantomimic actor. Gk. mavto-, decl. stem of mas, all;
and μῖμος, an imitator, from μιμέομαι, I imitate. See Pan- and
Mimic. Der. pantomim-ic, pantomim-tst.
PANTRY, a room for provisions. (F.—L.) ME. pantrye,
pantrie; Prompt. Parv.—OF. paneterie, ‘a pantry;’ Cot.—Late L.
panétaria, panitaria, a place where bread is made (hence, where it is
kept); Ducange.— Late L. panéta, one who makes bread. =L. pan-,
base of panis, bread. Cf. Skt. pa, to nourish. Der. from the same
base, pann-ier, com-pan-y, ap-pan-age.
PAP (1), food for infants. (E.) An Englishe infant, whiche
liuethe with pappe;’ Hall’sChron. Hen. VI, an. 3. 86. TheME. pappe
is only found in the sense of ‘ breast;”’ we have, however, ‘ papmete
for chylder,’ Prompt. Parv. p. 382. ΤῸ be considered as an E. word,
and perhaps of considerable antiquity, though seldom written down.
B. Of imitative origin, due to a repetition of the syllable pa. “ Words
formed of the simplest articulations, ma and pa, are used to designate
the objects in which the infant takes the earliest interest, the mother
and father, the mother’s breast, the act of taking or sucking food ;’
Wedgwood.+ Du. pap, ‘pap sod with milke or flower;’ Hexham;
G. pappe, pap, paste. +L. papa, pappa, the word with which infants
call for food. Cf. Dan. pap, Swed. papp, pasteboard; also Span.
papa, Ital. pappa, pap, from L. pappa. This is one of those words
of expressive origin which are not necessarily affected by Grimm's
law. See Pap (2), Papa.
PAP (2), a teat, breast. (E.) ME. pappe, Havelok, 2132;
Ormulum, 6441. Probably a native word; see Pap (1). Cf.
MSwed. papp, the breast; which, as Ihre notes, was afterwards
changed to patt. Still preserved in Swed. pat, the breast. So also
Dan. patie, suck, give pale, to give suck. The Swedish dialects
retain the old form pappe, papp (Rietz). So also NFriesic pap,
pape, papke (Outzen); Lithuan. papas, the pap. β. Doubtless
ultimately the same word as the preceding; and due to the infant’s
cry for food.
PARACHUTE 427
PAPA, a child’s word for father. (F.—L.) Seldom written down;
found in Swift, in Todd's Johnson (without a reference, but it occurs
in his Directions for Servants, 1745, p. 13): ‘where there are little
masters and misses in a house, bribe them, that they may not tell
tales to papa and mamma.’ Spelt pappa by Steele in The Spectator,
no. 479, ὃ 4 (1712). Whilst admitting that the word might
easily have been coined from the repetition of the syllable pa by
infants, and probably was so in the first instance, we have no proof
that the word is truly of native origin; the native word from this
source took rather the form of pap; see Pap (1) and Pap (2). In
the sense of father, we may rather look upon it as merely borrowed.
-F. papa, papa; in Moliére, Malade Imaginaire, i. 5 (Littré);
spelt pappa in 1552 (Hatzfeld).—L. papa, found as a Roman
cognomen. Cf. L. pappas, a tutor, borrowed from Gk, πάππας,
papa. Nausicaa addresses her father as mamma giAe=dear papa;
Homer, Od. vi. 57. See Pope.
PAPAL, belonging to the pope. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. papal, papall,
Gower, Ὁ. A.i. 257; bk. 11, 2925.—F. papal, ‘ papall;’ Cot. —Late
L. papalis, belonging to the pope. = L. papa, a bishop, spiritual father.
See Pope. Der. pap-ac-y, ME. papacie, Gower, C. A. i. 256; bk.
ii, 2895, from Late L. papatia, papal dignity, formed from papat-,
stem of papas, pappas, borrowed from Gk. mamas, papa, father.
Also pap-ist, All’s Well, i. 3. 56, from F. pape, pope; the word
pap-ism occurs in Bale’s Apology, p. 83 (R.) ; pap-ist-ic, pap-ist-ic-al,
pap-ist-ic-al-ly,
PAPAW, a fruit. (Span.—WIndian,) ‘The fair papa ;’ Waller,
Battle of the Summer Islands, i. 52.—Span. papaya (Pineda). =
Cuban papaya (Oviedo, qu. by Littré); from the Carib ababai,
explained by ‘grosses papaye’ (sic) in R. Breton, Dict. Caraibe-
Francois (Auxerre, 1665).
PAPER, the substance chiefly used for writing on. (F.—L.—Gk.
—KEgyptian.) ME. paper, Gower,C. A. ii. 8; bk.iv. 198. Chaucer has
paper-white=as white as paper; Legend of Good Women, 1198. —
OF, (and F.) papier.—L. papyrum, acc. of papyrus, paper. See
Papyrus. Der. paper-faced, 2 Hen. IV, v. 4. 123; paper-mill,
3 Hen. VI, iv. 7. 41; paper, adj., paper, vb., paper-ing ; paper-hang-
ings, paper-hang-er, paper-money, paper-reed, Isaiah, xix. 7, paper-
stainer; and see papier-maché.
PAPIER-MACHE, paper made into pulp, then moulded,
dried, and japanned. (F.—L.) First in 1753. Εἰς papier-mdché, lit.
chewed paper. The F. papier is from L. papyrus; and maché is the
pp. of mdcher, OF. mascher, from L. masticare, to masticate. See
Paper and Masticate.
PAPILIONACEOUS, having a winged corolla somewhat like
a butterfly. (L.) Botanical; in Glossographia Nova (1719). Used
of the bean, pea, &c. = L. *papilionaceus, a coined word from papilion-,
stem of papilio, a butterfly. See Pavilion.
PAPILLARY, belonging to or resembling the nipples or teats.
(L.) In 1667; see examples in Todd’s Johnson; Phillips, ed. 1706,
gives the sb. papilla, a teat or nipple.—L. papilla, a small pustule,
nipple, teat; dimin. of papula, a pustule. Again, papulais a dimin.
from a base PAP, to blow out or swell. Cf. Lithuan. papas, a teat,
pampti, to swell, Gk. πομφός, a bubble, blister on the skin. See
Prellwitz, s.v. πέμφιξ. Der. papul-ous, full of pimples ; from papula.
PAPYRUS, the reed whence paper was first made. (L.—Gk.—
Egyptian.) In Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xiii, c. 11 [not 217... 1.
papyrus.— Gk, manvpos, an Egyptian kind of rush or flag, of which
writing-paper was made by cutting its inner rind (βύβλος) into strips,
and pressing them together transversely. The word is not Gk., but
of Egyptian origin. See Bible.
PAR, equal value, equality of real and nominal value or of condition.
(L.) ‘To be at par, to be equal ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. —L. par, equal.
Der. pari-ty, q.v.; also pair, peer (1), ap-par-el, compeer, disparage,
disparity, non-pareil, prial, umpire.
PARA., beside; prefix. (Gk.) A common prefix.—Gk. παρά-,
beside. Allied to Skt. para, away, from, forth, towards, param, be-
yond, paré, thereupon, further, paratas, fuzther, &c. Also to E. far;
see Far.
PARABLE, a comparison, fable, allegory. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME.
parable, Chaucer, C. T. 6261 (D 679); Wyclif, Mark, iv. 2.—OF.
parabole, ‘a parable;’ Cot.—L. parabola, Mark, iv. 2. -- Gk. παραβολή,
a comparison; also a parable, Mark, iv. 2.—Gk. παραβάλλειν, to
throw beside, set beside, compare. = Gk, mapa, beside; and βάλλειν,
to throw, cast. Brugmann, ii. ὃ 713. Doublets, parle (old form of
parley), parole, palaver; also parabola, as a mathematical term, from
L. parabola, Gk. παραβολή, the conic section made by a plane
parallel to a side of the cone. Hence parabol-ic, parabol-ic-al,
parabol-ic-al-ly. And see parley, parole, palaver.
PARACHUTE, an apparatus like an umbrella for breaking the
fall from a balloon. (F.—L.) Modern; borrowed from Εἰ, parachute,
coined from para-, as in para-sol, and chute; lit. that which parries
PARACLETE
or guards against a fall. Para- represents Itai. para- (see Parasol,
Parapet), from Ital. parare, to adorn, to guard; and chute, a fall,
is allied to Ital. caduto, fallen, from L. cadere, to fall.
PARACLETE, the Comforter. (L.—Gk.) ‘Braggynge Win-
chester, the Pope’s paraclete in England ;’ Bale, Image, pt. iii (R.).—
L. paraclétus.— Gk. παράκλητος, called to one’s aid, a helper, the
Comforter (John, xiv. 16).—Gk. παρακαλεῖν, to call to one’s aid,
summon.=—Gk. παρά, beside; and καλεῖν, to call. See Para- and
Calendar.
PARADE, show, display. (F.—Span.—L.) In Milton, P. L.
iv. 780.—F. parade, ‘a boasting appearance, or shew, also, a stop on
horseback ;’ Cot. The last sense was the earliest in French (Littré).
—Span. parada, a halt, stop, pause.—Span. parar, to stop, halt;
a particular restriction of the sense ‘to get ready” or ‘ prepare.’ =
L. parare, to prepare, get ready. B. The sense of ‘display’ in F.
was easily communicated to Span. parada, because Εἰ, parer (=Span.
parar) meant ‘to deck, trimme, adorn, dress,’ as well as ‘to ward
or defend a blow’ (which comes near the Spanish use); see Cot-
rave. See Pare.
PARADIGM, an example, model. (F.—L.—Gk.) Philips, ed.
1658, gives paradigme, the F. form.=—F. paradigme (Littré). - L.
paradigma.—Gk. παράδειγμα, a pattern, model; in grammar, an
example of declension, &c. —Gk. παραδείκνυμι, 1 exhibit, lit. show by
the side of.—Gk. mapa, beside; and δείκνυμι, 1 point out. See
Para- and Diction.
PARADISB, the garden of Eden, heaven. (F.—L.—Gk. — Pers.)
In very early use; in Layamon, ]. 24122.—F. paradis, ‘ paradise ;’
Cot.—L. paradisus.— Gk. παράδεισος, a park, pleasure-ground; an
Oriental word in Xenophon, Hell. 4. 1. 15, Cyr. 1. 3. 14, &c., and
used in the Septuagint version for the garden of Eden. See Gen. ii. 8
(LXX version); Luke, xxiii. 43 (Gk.). Cf. Heb. pardés, a garden,
paradise. β, Of Pers. origin, the Heb. word being merely borrowed,
and having no Heb. root.—Zend pairidaéza, an enclosure, place
walled in.= Zend pairt (=Gk. περί), around; and diz (Skt. diz), to
mould, form, shape (hence to form a wall of earth); from4/ DHEIGH;
see Dough, y. It appears in other forms; cf. mod. Pers. and Arab.
firdaus, a garden, paradise, Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 451, Rich. Dict.
p- 1080; pl. faradis, paradises, Rich. Dict. p. 1075. For the Zend
form, see Justi. And see Max Miiller, Selected Essays, 1881; i.
130. Doublet, parvis.
PARADOX, that which is contrary to received opinion; strange,
but true. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Ben Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, A. ii.
sc. 1 (Amorphus’ second speech). Spelt paradoxe in Minsheu, ed.
1627.—F. paradoxe, ‘a paradox;’ Cot.—L. paradoxum, neut. of
paradoxus, adj.—Gk. παράδοξος, contrary to opinion, strange.—Gk.
napa, beside; and δόξα, a notion, opinion, from δοκεῖν, to seem. See
Para- and Dogma. Der. paradox-ic-al, paradox-ic-al-ly, Sidney,
Apologie for Poetrie, ed. Arber, p. 51,1. 6 from bottom; paradox-
ic-al-ness.
PARAFFINE, a solid substance resembling spermaceti, pro-
duced by distillation of coal. (F.—L.) ‘First obtained by Reichen-
bach in 1830;’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates. It is remarkable for resisting
chemical action, having little affinity for other bodies; whence its
name. =F. paraffine, having small affinity. Coined from L. par-um,
ady., little; and affinis, akin, having affinity. See Affinity.
PARAGOGE, the addition of a letter at the end of a word.
(L.—Gk.) In Glossographia Nova (1719). Examples are common
in English; thus in soun-d, ancien-t, whils-t, tyran-t, the final letter
is paragogic. ‘The word has 4 syllables, the final e being sounded.
-L. paragog?.—Gk. παραγωγή, a leading by or past, alteration,
variety.— Gk. παράγειν, to lead by or past.<Gk. παρ-ά, beside,
beyond; and ἄγειν, to lead, drive, cognate with L. agere. See
Para-and Agent. Der. paragog-ic, paragog-ic-al.
PARAGON, a model of excellence. (F.—Ital.—Gk.) In Shak.
Temp. il. 1. 75; Hamlet, ii. 2. 320.—F. paragon, ‘a paragon, or
peerlesse one;’ Cot. [MSpan. paragon, a model of excellence.}=
Ital. paragone, ‘a paragon, a match, an equal, a touch-stone,’ Florio ;
paragonare, to compare. The latter answers to Gk. παρακονάειν, to
rub against a whetstone (hence, probably, to try by a whetstone, to
compare).—Gk. map-a, beside; ἀκόνη, a whetstone, allied to ἀκίς,
a sharp point. (4/AK.) See Kérting, § 6859; Tobler, in Zt. fiir
roman. Philol. iv. 373. Der. paragon, vb., Oth. ii. 1. 62.
PARAGRAPH, a distinct portion of a discourse; a short pas-
sage of a work. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627. But the
word was in rather early use, and was corrupted in various ways,
into pargrafte, pylcrafte (by change of r to 1), and finally into pilcrow
or pyllcrow. ‘ Pylcrafte, yn a booke, paragraphus;’ Prompt. Parv.
p- 398 ; see Way’s note for further examples. Even the sign @, which
was used to mark the beginning of a paragraph, was called a pilcrow ;
see Tusser’s Husbandry, A Lesson, &c., st. 3.— 1’. paragraphe, ‘a para-
gtaffe, or pillcrow;’
428
Cot.<Late L. paragraphum, acc. of para- |
PARAMOUNT
graphus, occurring in the Prompt. Parv., as above. = Gk. rapaypapos,
a line or stroke drawn in the margin, lit. ‘that which is written
beside.’ —Gk. mapa, beside ; and γράφειν, to write. See Para- and
Graphic. Der. paragraph-ic, paragraph-ic-al.
PARAKEET;; the same as Paraquito, q. v.
PARALLAX, the difference between the real and apparent place
of a star, &c. (Gk.) In Milton, P. R. iv. 40; and Ben Jonson has
‘no parallax at all,’ i.e. no variation; Magnetic Lady, Acti. But
since Milton’s time, the word has acquired special senses; he
may have used it for ‘refraction..—Gk. παράλλαξις, alternation,
change; also, the inclination of two lines forming an angle, esp. the
angle formed by lines from a heavenly body to the earth’s centre
and the horizon. Gk. παραλλάσσειν, to make things alternate. = Gk.
παρά, beside; and ἀλλάσσειν, to change, alter, from ἄλλος, other,
cognate with L. alius. See Para- and Alien. See Parallel.
PARALLEL, side by side, similar. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak.
Oth. ii. 3. 355.—MF. parallele, ‘paralell;’ Cot.—L. parallélus. =
Gk. παράλληλος, parallel, side by side. —Gk. map’ for παρά, beside;
and *dAAnAos, one another, only found in the gen., dat., and acc.
plural. B. The decl. stem ἀλλ-ηλο- stands for ἄλλ᾽ ἄλλο-, a re-
duplicated form; hence the sense is ‘the other the other,’ or ‘ one
another,’ i.e. mutual. ~AAAos is cognate with L. alius, other. See
Para- and Alien. Der. parallel, sb., Temp. i. 2. 74; parallel,
vb., Macb. il. 3. 67 ; parallel-ism ; also parallelo-gram, q.v., parallelo-
piped, q.v-
PARALLELOGRAM, a four-sided rectilineal figure, whose
opposite sides are parallel. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Cotgrave.—OF.
paralelogramme, ‘a paralelogram, or long square ;’ Cot. [He uses
only two /’s.]—L. parallélogrammum, a parallelogram. = Gk. παραλ-
ληλόγραμμον, a parallelogram; neut. of παραλληλόγραμμος, adj.,
bounded by parallel lines. = Gk. παράλληλο-, for παράλληλος, parallel ;
and γραμμή, a stroke, line, from γράφειν, to write. See Parallel
and Graphic.
PARALLELOPIPED, a regular solid bounded by six plane
parallel surfaces. (L.—Gk.) Sometimes written parallelopipedon,
which is nearer the Gk. form. In Phillips, ed. 1706. A glaring
instance of bad spelling, as it certainly should be parallelepiped (with
e, not 0).—L. parallélepipedum, used by Boethius (Lewis).—Gk.
παραλληλεπίπεδον, a body with parallel surfaces.—Gk. παράλληλ᾽,
for παράλληλος, parallel; and ἐπίπεδον, a plane surface. The form
ἐπίπεδον is neut. of ἐπίπεδος, on the ground, flat, level, plane; from
ἐπί, upon, and πέδον, the ground. The Gk. πέδον is from the same
root as πούς (gen. mo5-ds), the foot, and E. foot. See Parallel,
Epi-, and Foot.
PARALOGISM, a conclusion unwarranted by the premises.
(F.—L.—Gk.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.—F. paralogisme, cited by
Minsheu.—L. paralogismus.—Gk. παραλογισμός, a false reckoning,
false conclusion, fallacy.—Gk. παραλογίζομαι, I misreckon, count
amiss. =—Gk. παρά, beside; and λογίζομαι, I reckon, from λόγος, a
discourse, account, reason. See Para- and Logic.
PARALYSE, to render useless, deaden. (F.—L.—Gk.) Modem;
added by Todd to Johnson’s Dict. Todd cites: ‘Or has taxation
chill’d the aguish land And paralysed Britannia’s bounteous hand ?’
London Cries, or Pict. of Tumult, 1805, p. 39.—F. paralyser, to
paralyse ; Littré. Formed from the sb. paralysie, palsy; see further
under Paralysis.
PARALYSIS, palsy. (L.—Gk.) In Blount, ed. 1636.=<L.
paralysis. Gk. παράλυσις, a loosening aside, a disabling of the
nerves, paralysis.—Gk. mapadvew, to loose from the side, loose
beside, relax.—Gk. παρά, beside; and λύειν, to loosen. See Para-
and Lose. Der. paralyt-ic, from F. paralytigue (Cot.), which from
L. paralyticus < Gk. παραλυτικός, afflicted with palsy (Matt. iv. 24).
Doublet, palsy.
PARAMATTA, a fabric like merino, of worsted and cotton.
(New S. Wales.) So named from Paramatta, a town near Sydney,
New South Wales. Also Parramatta, on a river of the same name.
Said to mean ‘plenty of eels;’ others explain it from para, fish,
and maéta, water. See Morris, Austral English.
PARAMOUNT, chief, of the highest importance. (F.—L.) In
Minsheu, ed. 1627. He also gives paravail, the term used in contrast
with it. A lord paramount is supreme, esp. as compared with his
tenant paravail, i.e. his inferior. ‘Let him [the pope] no longer
count himselfe lord paramount ouer the princes of the world, no
longer hold kings as his seruants parauaile;’ Hooker, A Discourse
of Justification (R.). Neither words are properly adjectives, but ad-
verbial phrases ; they correspond respectively to OF. par amont, at
the top (lit. by that which is upwards), and par aval (lit. by that
which is downwards). Both are AF. phrases of law; sce Blount’s
Law Lexicon. The prep. par=L. per; see Per-, prefix. The
F. amont is explained under AMount; and F. aval under Ava-
lanche. Der. paramount, sb., Milton, P. L. ii. 508.
PARAMOUR
PARAMOUR, a lover, one beloved, now usually in a bad sense.
(F.—L.) In Chaucer, C. T. 6036 (D 454). But orig. an adverbial
phrase, as in: ‘ For par amour 1 louede hire first or thou;” id. C. T.
1157 (A 1155).—F. par amour, by love, with love. —L. per, by,
with; and amorem, acc. of amor, love. See Per- and Amour.
PARAPET, a rampart, esp. one breast-high. (F,—TItal.—L.)
In Shak. τ Hen. IV, ii. 3. 55. “παῖς parapet, ‘a parapet, or wall breast-
high ;’ Cot.—Ital. parapetio, ‘a cuirace, a breast-plate, a fence for
the breast or hart; also, a parapet or wall breast-high;” Florio.
Lit. ‘breast-defence.’=Ital. para-, for parare, ‘to adore, . .. to
warde or defende a blow,’ Florio; and petto, the breast. —L. pardre,
to prepare, adorn; and pectus, the breast. See Parry and Pectoral.
PARAPHERNALIA, ornaments, trappings. (L.—Gk.) Ῥτο-
perly used of the property which a bride possesses beyond her
dowry. ‘In one particular instance the wife may acquire a property
in some of her husband’s goods; which shall remain to her after his
death, and not go to his executors. These are called her paraphern-
alia, which is a term borrowed from the civil law; it is derived
from the Greek language, signifying over and above her dower ;’
Blackstone’s Commentaries, b. ii. c. 29 (R.). Formed from Late L.
paraphern-a, the property of a bride over and above her dower, by
adding -alia, the neut. pl. form of the common suffix -a@lis.—Gk.
wapapepva, that which a bride brings beyond her dower. —Gk. παρά,
beyond, beside; and φερνή, a dowry, lit. that which is brought by
the wife, from φέρειν, to bring, cognate with E. bear. See Para-
and Bear (1).
PARAPHRASE, an explanation or free translation. (F.—L.
—Gk.) See Udall’s translation of Erasmus’ ‘ Paraphrase vpon the
Newe Testamente,’ 2 vols. folio, 1548-9.—MF. paraphrase, ‘a
paraphrase ;’ Cot.—L. paraphrasin, acc. of paraphrasis, Gk. παρά-
ppacts, a paraphrase. — Gk. mapappacew, to speak in addition, amplify,
paraphrase. — Gk. παρά, beside; and φράζειν, to speak. See Para-
and Phrase. Der. paraphrase, vb., in Dryden, Cymon, 1. 21;
paraphrast, one who paraphrases, Gk. παραφραστής; paraphrast-tc,
paraphrast-ic-al, paraphrast-ic-al-ly.
PARAQUITO, a little parrot. (Span.—L.—Gk.) In Shak.
1 Hen. IV, ii. 3.88; pl. paragu:toes, Ford, Sun’s Darling, A. i. sc. 1.
=— Span. periquito, a paroquet, small parrot ; dimin. of pertco, a parrot.
B. Prob. the same as Perico, a pet-name for ‘little Peter;’ see
Pineda; a dimin. from Pedro, Peter. See Parrot.
PARASANG, a distance of over three miles. (L.—Gk.—Pers.)
‘Persian myles cauled Parasange;’ KR. Eden, ed. Arber, p. 342.
From L. parasanga (Lewis).—Gk. παρασάγγης ; of Pers. origin.
Mod. Pers. farsang, ferseng, a league (Horn, § 818). See Notes on
KE. Etym., p. 206.
PARASITE, one who frequents another’s table, a hanger-on.
(F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. Rich. 11, ii. 2. 70.—F. parasite, ‘a para-
site, a trencher-friend, smell-feast ;’ Cot.<L. parasitus.—Gk. mapa-
σιτος, eating beside another at his table, a parasite, toad-eater. — Gk.
παρά, beside; and otros, wheat, flour, bread, food, of unknown
origin. 47 The invidious use of the word is unoriginal ; see Liddell.
Der. parasit-ic, from Gk. παρασιτικός;; parasit-ic-al,
PARASOL, a small umbrella used to keep off the heat of the
sun, (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘Upon another part of the wall is the like
figure of another great man, over whose head one officer holds a
parasol ;’ Sir T. Herbert, Travels, ed. 1665, p. 153.—F. parasol,
‘an umbrello;’ Cot.—Ital. parasole, an umbrella (Torriano), = Ital.
para-, for parare, to ward off, parry ; and sole, the sun. See Parry
and Solar. We find also Span. parasol, Port. parasol. 4 Of
similar formation is F, para-pluie, a guard against rain, an umbrella,
from pluie, rain, L. plunia.
PARBOIL, to boil thoroughly. (F.—L.) It now means ‘to
boil in part,’ or insufficiently, from a notion that it is made up of
part and boil. Formerly, it meant ‘to boil thoroughly,’ as in Ben
Jonson, Every Man, iv. 1. 16 (ed. Wheatley) ; on which see, Wheat-
ley’s note. ‘To parboyle, precoguere;’ Levins, ‘ My liver’s par-
boil’d, i.e. burnt up; Webster, White Devil, near the end. ME.
parboilen ; ‘ Parboylyd, parbullitus; Parboylyn mete, semibullio, par-
bullio;’ Prompt. Parv. Here the use of semibullio shows that the
word was misunderstood at an early time. OF. parboillir, to cook
thoroughly, also to boil gently (Godefroy); Cotgrave has: ‘ pour-
bouillir, to parboile throughly.’ = Late L. parbullire (as in the Prompt.
Pary.); L. perbullire, to boil thoroughly. See Per- and Boil (1).
ἐφ For a somewhat similar change in sense, see Purblind.
PARCEL, a small part, share, division, small package. (F.—L.)
ME. parcel, P. Plowman, B. x. 63; parcelle, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of
Langtoft, p. 135, 1. The old sense is ‘ portion.’ =F. parcelle,
‘a parcell, particle, piece, little part;’ Cot. Cf. Port. parcela, an
article of an account. Formed from Late L. particella, preserved in
ital. particella, a small portion, a word given in Florio; a dimin,
of the true L. form particula; see Particle. Der. parcel, vb.
13.
PARENTHESIS 429
PARCENER, a co-heir. (F.—L.) A law term; see Blackstone,
Comment. 11. xi. The old spelling of Partner, q. v.
PARCH, to scorch. (F.—L.—Gk.?) ME. parchen, paarchen.
‘Paarche pecyn or benys [ =to parch peas or beans], frigo, ustillo;’
Prompt. Parv. [Assimilated in form to the ME. perchev, to pierce,
an occasional form of percen, to pierce (F. percer); see Pierce.
‘A knyghte... perchede the syde of Iesu;’ Religious Pieces, ed.
Perry (KE. E. T.S.), p. 42; see another example in Halliwell, 5. v.
perche; and cf. perche, to pierce, Cathol. Anglicum, p. 276. Persaunt,
lit. piercing, was used as an epithet of sunbeams; Lydgate, Compl.
of Black Knight, 1. 28, has: ‘Til fyry Tytan, with his persaunt
hete’ The prov. E. pearch means ‘to pierce with cold;’ cf. Milton,
P.L. ii. 594.—F. (Norm. dial. and Picard) percher, to pierce (Moisy,
Corblet) ; cf. Walloon fercher, to pierce (Sigart); variant of F.
percer; see Pierce.) β. But the sense of percher seems too remote.
I suggest that ME. parchen really meant ‘to dry or harden like
parchment,’ and was formed from OF. parche, a familiar contraction
for parchment ; of which we have sufficient evidence. ‘ Or est issuz
Noe de l’arche, Si con gel truis escrit el parche,’ then Noah went out
of the ark, As I find it written in the parchment ; Bartsch, Chrestom-
athie, 1887, col. 309, 1. 15; whence Span. parche, the parchment
end of a drum, and (probably) Rouchi parche, a page of a book
(Hecart). Ina Vocabulaire du Haut Maine, by Ὁ. R. de M. (Paris,
1859), we are told that a pea that is elsewhere called fois sans
parchemin is there called pots sans parche. Compare with this the
earliest example of the E. verb in 1398 :—‘ Saresines put peper into
an ouen whan it is new igadered and percheth and rostith it so, and
benemeth [take away] the vertu of burginge and of springinge,’ i.e.
of sprouting.
PARCHMENT, the skin of a sheep or goat prepared for
writing on. (F.—L.—Gk.) The ¢ is excrescent. ME. perchemin,
parchemyn; P. Plowman, B. xiv. 191, 193.—F. parchemin, parchment.
—L. pergamina, pergaména, parchment; orig. fem. of Pergaménus,
adj., belonging to Pergamos. [{ Parchment was invented by Eumenes,
of Pergamus, the founder of the celebrated library at Pergamus, about
190 B.C.; Haydn.]—Gk. περγαμηνή, parchment; from the city of
Pergamos in Asia, where it was brought into use by Crates of Mallos,
when Ptolemy cut off the supply of biblus from Egypt (Liddell and
Scott). Crates flourished about B.C. 160, Either way, the ety-
mology is clear.—Gk. Πέργαμος, more commonly Πέργαμον, Per-
gamus, in Mysia of Asia Minor; now called Bergamo,
PARD, a panther, leopard, spotted wild beast. (L.—Gk.) ΜΕ.
pard, Wyclif, Rev. xiii. 2.—L. pardus, a male panther; Rev. xiii. 2
(Vulgate). —Gk. πάρδος, a pard; used for a leopard, panther, or
ounce. An Eastern word; cf. Pers. pars, parsh, a pard; pars, a
panther, Rich. Dict. pp. 316, 325; Skt. prdaku-, a leopard. Der.
leo-pard, camelo-pard,
PARDON, to forgive. (F.—L.) Common in Shakespeare. Rich,
quotes ‘nor pardoned a riche man’ from the Golden Boke, c. 47.
But the verb first appears in 1430, being formed (in English) from
the ME, sb. pardoun, pardun, pardon, a common word, occurring in
Chaucer, C. T. 12860 (C 926). And see Chaucer’s description of
the Pardonere, 1. 689.—F. pardon, sb., due to pardonner, vb., to
pardon.—Late L. perdondre, to remit a debt (used A.D. 819), to
grant, indulge, pardon.—L. per, thoroughly; and déndre, to give,
from donum, a gift. See Per- and Donation. Der. pardon, sb.
(but see above) ; pardon-er, pardon-able, pardon-abl-y.
PARE, to cut or shave off. (F.—L.) ME. paren. ‘To wey pens
with a peys and pare the heuyest’=to weigh pence with a weight,
and pare down the heaviest; P. Plowman, B. v. 243.—F. parer, ‘to
deck, trimme, . . . also to pare the hoofe of a horse;’ Cot.—L,
parare, to prepare. Der. par-ing. From L. parare we have com:-
pare, pre-pare, re-pair (1), se-par-ate, sever, em-per-or, im-per-ial, af-
par-at-us, para-chute, para-pet, para-sol, rampart, &c. And see
Parry, Parade.
PAREGORIG, assuaging pain; a medicine that assuages pain.
(L.—Gk.) _ ‘Paregorica, medicines that comfort, mollify, and
asswage;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.—L. parégoricus, assuaging; whence
neut. pl. paregorica.mGk. παρηγορικός, addressing, encouraging,
soothing. Gk. παρήγορος, addressing, encouraging; cf. παρηγορεῖν,
to address, exhort. = Gk. mapa, beside ; and ἀγορά, an assembly. Cf.
Gk. ἀγείρειν, to assemble; and Gregarious.
PARENT, a father or mother. (F.—L.) In the Geneva Bible,
1561, Ephes. vi. 1 (R.).—F. parent, ‘a cousin, kinsman, allie;’ Cot.—
L. parentem, acc. of parens,a parent, lit. one who produces, formed from
parere, to produce, of which the usual pres. part. is pariens. Brug-
mann,i. § 515. Der. parent-al, from L. parentalis ; parent-al-ly, parent-
less ; also parent-age, in Levins, from Εἰ, parentage, ‘ parentage,’ Cot.
PARENTHESIS, a phrase inserted in another which would
appear complete without it. (Gk.) Spelt parentesis, T. Heywood,
Loye’s Mistris, Act i (last word). And in Cotgrave, to translate
480 PARERGON
MF. parenthese.=Gk. παρένθεσις, a putting in beside, insertion,
parenthesis. Gk. map’, for παρά, beside; év,in; and θέσις, a placing,
from 4/DHF, to place, set. See Para-, In-, and Thesis. Der.
parenthet-ic, extended from Gk. παρένθετος, put in beside, parenthetic ;
parenthet-ic-al, -ly.
PARERGON, an incidental or subsidiary work. (L.—Gk.) 1.
parergon (Pliny).—Gk. πάρεργον, a by-work, subordinate work ;
neut. of πάρεργος, subordinate. Gk. map-, for παρ-ά, beside ; and
épyov, a work, cognate with E. work.
PARGET, to plaister a wall. (F.—L.) Nearly obsolete; once
rather common. In Levins, Baret, Palsgrave, &c. ME. pargeten.
‘ Pargetyn walles, Gipso, linio (sic); Parget, or playster for wallys,
Gipsum, litura;’ Prompt. Parv., and see Way’s note. ΤῈ is frequently
spelt perget.—OF. pargeter, to scatter (Chanson du Roland, 2634) ;
variant of Norm. dial. projeter, to re-plaster (cf. projet, plaster) ; see
Moisy; also spelt (in OF.) porgeter, to roughcast a wall (Godefroy).
[Cf. Walloon porgeté, to parget (Remacle).]—L. praiectare, to cast
forth.<L. pra, forth; and éactdre, to cast. See Pro- and Jet (1).
@ The form pargeter gave rise to a Late L. periactare; cf‘ Perjacto,
Anglice, to perjette ;’ Vocab. 602. 7. See my Notes on E. Etym.,
. 206.
ῬΡΑΒΉΞΙΠΟΝ, a mock sun, a bright light sometimes seen near
the sun. (L.—Gk.) Spelt parkelium and parelium in Phillips, ed.
1706.—L. parélion (Lewis).=—Gk. παρήλιον, a parhelion; neut. of
παρήλιος, adj., beside the sun. Gk. map’, for παρά, beside; and ἥλιος,
the sun. See Para- and Heliacal. @ The insertion of ἡ is due
to the aspirate in ἥλιος ; it hardly seems to be needed.
PARIAH, an outcast. (Tamil.) Spelt paria in the story called
The Indian Cottage, where it occurs frequently. From ‘Tamil
paraiyan, commonly, but corruptly, pariah, Malayalim parayan, a
man of a low caste, performing the lowest menial services; one of
his duties is to beat the village drum (called payai in Tamil), whence,
no doubt, the generic appellation of the caste;’ H. H. Wilson,
Glossary of Indian Terms, p. 401.
PARIAN, belonging to Paros. (Gk.) Paros is an island in the
Aigean sea.
PARIETAL, forming the sides or walls, esp. applied to two
bones in the fore part-of the scull. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706.—L.
parietalis, belonging to a wall.=—L. pariet-, stem of pariés, a wall.
Der. pellitory (1), q.v.
PARISH, a district under one pastor, an ecclesiastical district.
(F.—L.—Gk.) Orig. an ecclesiastical division. ME. parisshe,
Chaucer, C. T. 493 (A 491).—AF. parosse, Laws of Will. I., i. τ;
F. paroisse, a parish.—L. parochia, late form of parecia, a parish,
orig. an ecclesiastical district. — Gk. παροικία, an ecclesiastical district,
lit. a neighbourhood. —Gk. πάροικος, neighbouring, living near to-
gether.—Gk, map’, for mapa, beside, near; and οἶκος, a house,
abode, cognate with L. wicus. See Para- and Vicinage. Der.
parish-ion-er, formed by adding -er to ME. parisshen, P. Plowman,
B. xi. 673 this ME. parisshen< OF. paroissien< Late L. parochianus,
with the same sense as (and a mere variant of) L. parochialis ; see
Parochial. Also paroch-i-al. ἅτ It follows that parishioner
should rather have been spelt parishener ; also that the suffix -er
was quite unnecessary. Indeed Paroissien survives as a proper name ;
I find it in the Clergy List, 1873.
PARITORY, the same as Pellitory (1).
PARITY, equality, resemblance, analogy. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave.
“- F. parité, ‘ parity ;᾿ Cot.—L. paritatem, acc. of parifas, equality. =
L. pari-, decl. stem of par, equal ; with suffix -‘@s. See Par.
PARK, an enclosed ground. (E.) In early use; ME. parc, in
Layamon, 1. 1432 (later text), Park=OF. parc, is a F. spelling,
and is found in F. as early as in the 12th century; but the word is
of E. origin, being a contraction of ME. parrok, from AS. pearruc,
pearroc, a word which is now also spelt paddock. See further under
Paddock (2). We find also Irish and Gaelic pairc, W. park and
parwg (the latter preserving the full suffix), all from E.; and Du.
perk, Swed. and Dan. park, G. pferch (an enclosure, sheepfold) ; also
F. parc, Ital. parco, Span. pargue, all from a Late L. type parricus,
parcus, an enclosure. B. The AS, pearruc and Late L. parricus are
from a base *farr-, which may be Teutonic, and possibly from an
older base *sparr-. We actually find ME. parr-en, to enclose, con-
fine; Havelok, 2439; Iwain and Gawain, 3228 (ed. Ritson). Also
AS. sparrian, to shut, fasten, as in gesparrado dure din, thy door
being shut, Matt. vi. 6 (Lindisfarne MS.). See Spar. Der. park-ed,
I ee iv. 2.45; park-er, i.e. park-keeper (Levins) ; park-keeper ;
im-par .
PARLEY, a conference, treating with an enemy. (F.—L.—Gk.)
1. Shak. has parley as a sb., Macb. ii. 3. 87; also as a verb, Haml.
i. 3. 123. Prob. for parlee, as spelt in Eng. Garner, ed. Arber, ili.
3753 and in Decker, Seven Deadly Sins, ed. Arber, p. 32-—OF.
parlee, sb. f. ‘tour de parole;’ Godefroy.—OF. parlee, pp. f. of
PARROT
F. parler, vb., to speak. 2. Shak. also has the vb. parle, to speak,
Lucrece, l. 100, whence the sb. parle, a parley, Haml. i. 1. 62. This
is also from F. parler. Late L. parabolire, to discourse, talk. — Late
L. parabola, atalk ; L. parabola, a parable. — Gk. παραβολή, a parable ;
see Parable. Der. parl-ance, borrowed from F. parlance, formed
from F. parlant, pres. part. of parler ; parl-ia-ment, q.v., parl-our,
.v. And see parole, palaver.
PARLIAMENT, a meeting for consultation, deliberative as-
sembly. (F.—L.—Gk.; with L. suffix.) ME. parlement, Havelok,
1006; Rob. of Glouc., p. 169, 1. 3519; Chaucer, C.T. 2972 (A 2970).
[The spelling parliamené is due to Late L. parliimentum, frequently
used in place of parlamentum, the better form. ]—F. parlement, ‘a
speaking, parleying, also, a supreme court;’ Cot. Formed with
suffix -ment (=L. -mentum) from F. parler, to speak. See Parley.
4 AF. parlement, Stat. Realm, i. 26 (1275); Late L. parlamentum,
Matt. Paris, p. 696 (under the date 1246); Late L. parliamentum,
Matt. Westminster, p. 352 (1253); see Stubbs, Select Charters, pt.
vi. Der. parliament-ar-y, parliament-ar-i-an,
PARLOUR, a room for conversation, a sitting-room. (F.—L.
—Gk.) ME. parlour, Chaucer, Troil. ii. 82; parlur, Ancren Riwle,
p. 50, l. 17-—OF. parleor (Littré), later parloir, ‘a parlour ;’ Cot. =
F, parl-er, to speak, with suffix -oir (-eor) < L. -dtdrium; so that
parloir answers to a Late L. *parabolatorium, a place to talk in; cf.
ME. dortour, F. dortoir < dormitérium, a place to sleep in. See
further under Parley.
PARLOUS, old form of Perilous. (F.—L.)
Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. τ. 14. See Peril.
PAROCHIAL, belonging to a parish. (L.—Gk.) In the Rom.
of the Rose, 7687.—L. parochidlis. =. parochia, another form of
parecia, a parish. Gk. παροικία ; see Parish.
PARODY, the alteration of a poem to another subject, a burlesque
imitation. (L.—Gk.) ‘Satiric poems, full of parodies, that is, of
verses patched up from great poets, and turned into another sense
than their author intended them ;” Dryden, Discourse on Satire [on
the Grecian Silli]; in Dryden’s Poems, ed. 1851, p. 365. —L. parodia.
“- Gk. mapwiia, the same as παρῳδή, a song sung beside, a parody. =
Gk. map’, for παρά, beside; and wy, an ode. See Para- and Ode.
Der. parody, verb; parod-ist.
PAROLE, a word, esp. a word of honour, solemn promise; a
pass-word, (F.—L.—Gk.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—F. parole,
“a word, a tearm, a saying;’ Cot. The same word as Prov. paraula
(Bartsch), Span. palabra (< parabra< parabla, by the frequent inter-
change of*r and 7), Port. palavra; all from Late L. parabola, a dis-
course, L. parabola, a parable. See further under Parable.
Doublets, parable, parle (old form of parley), palaver.
PARONYMOUS, allied in origin; also, having a like sound,
but a different origin. (Gk.) Rather a dubious word, as it is used in
two senses, (1) allied in origin, as in the case of man, manhood ; and
(2) unallied in origin, but like-sounding, as in the case of hair, hare.
= Gk. παρώνυμος, formed from a word by a slight change; i.e. in
the former sense.=Gk. mapa, beside; and ὄνομα, a name, cognate
with E. name. See Para- and Name. Der. paronom-as-ia, a
slight change in the meaning of a word (in Dryden’s pref. to Annus
Mirabilis), from Gk. παρωνομασία, better παρονομασία. Also paronyme,
i.e. a paronymous word, esp. in the second sense.
PAROXYSM, a fit of acute pain, a violent action. (F.—L.—
Gk.) ‘Paroxisme, the accesse or fit of an ague;’ Minsheu.=F.
paroxisme, ‘the return, or fit, of an ague;’ Cot.—L. paroxysmus. —
Gk. παροξυσμός, irritation, the fit of a disease.—Gk. παροξύνειν, to
urge on, provoke, irritate.—Gk. map’, for παρά, beside ; and ὀξύνειν,
to sharpen, provoke, from ὀξύς, sharp. See Para- and Oxygen.
Der. paroxysm-al.
PARQUETRY, a mosaic of wood-work for floors. (F.—Teut.)
Modern. =F. parqueterie.—F. parqueter, to inlay a wooden floor.=F.
parquet, a wooden floor; orig. a small enclosure; dimin. of F. parc,
a park; see Park.
PARRAKEET;; the same as Paraquito, q.v.
PARRICIDKE, (1) the murderer of a father; (2) the murder of
a father. (F.—L.) 1. The former is the older sense. Both senses
occur in Shakespeare, (1) K. Lear, ii. 1. 48; (2) Mach. ili. 1. 32.—
F. parricide, ‘a parricide, a murtherer of his own father ;’ Cot.—L.
parricida, for an older form parictdas (Brugmann, ii. 190), a murderer
of a relative. —L. pari-,a relative (cf. Gk. més, a relative; Prellwitz,
s.v. πάομαιν ; and -cidas, older form of -cida, i.e. a slayer, from cid-,
a stem of ced-ere (pt. t. ce-cid-i), to cut, toslay. SeeCw@sura. 2. In
the latter sense, it answers to L. parricidium, the murder of a father ;
formed from the same 50. and vb. f There is the same ambiguity
about fratricide and matricide. Der. parricid-al.
PARROT, a well-known tropical bird, capable of imitating the
human voice. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. Merch. Ven. i. 1. 53. Spelt
parat in Levins, ed. 1570; but parrot in Skelton ; see his poem called
© A parlous fear,’
— " — —_ — ee
PARRY
Speke, Parrot.’=F. perrot, ‘a man’s proper name, being a diminu-
tive or derivative of Pierre;’ Cot. Cf. F. perroquet, ‘a parrat,’ Cot.;
also spelt parroguet. B. The Εἰ Perrot or Pierrot is still a name for
a spatrow; much as Philip was the ME. name for the same bird.
The F. perroguet was probably an imitation of, rather than directly
borrowed from, the Span. perichito, which may likewise be explained
as a derivative of Span. perico, meaning both ‘a parrot’ and ‘little
Peter,’ dimin. of Pedro, Peter. γ. For the mod. Ital. parrocchetto
we find in Florio the MItal. forms parochetto, parochito, ‘a kind of
parrats, called a parokito ;? which seems to be nothing but the Span.
word adapted to Italian. We may refer all the names to L. Petrus,
Peter. = Gk. πέτρος, a stone, rock; as a proper name, Peter.
PARRY, a defensive movement, in fencing. (F.—L.) ‘Parrying,
in fencing, the action of saving a man’s self, or staving off the strokes
offered by another;’ Bailey’s Dict., vol. ii. ed. 1731. Older form
parree, a fencing-bout; ‘a parree of wit;’? R. North, Examen, ed.
1740, p. 589 (Davies). —F. parée, used as equivalent to Ital. parata,
a defence, guard; properly fem. pp. of parer, ‘ to deck, trick, trimme,
. . also to ward or defend a blow;’ Cot.—L. parare, to prepare,
deck. See Pare. Der. par-a-chute, q.v., para-pet, q.V., para-sol,
q.-V., ram-part, q.V.
PARSE, to tell the parts of speech. (L.) ‘Let the childe, by
and by, both construe and parse it ouer againe;’ Ascham, School-
master, b. i. ed. Arber, p. 26. An old school term; to parse is to
declare ‘ quze pars orationis’=what part of speech, a word is. It is
merely the L. pars used familiarly. See Part. Der. pars-ing.
PARSEEH, an adherent of the old Persian religion, in India.
(Pers.) Spelt Persee, Sir T. Herbert’s Travels, ed. 1665, p. 55.
= Pers. parsi, a Persian; from Pars, Persia; Palmer's Pers. Dict.
col. 106.
PARSIMONY, frugality. (F.—L.) Spelt parsimonie in Minsheu,
ed. 1627.—MF. parsimonie; Cotgrave.—L. parsiménia, better parci-
monia, parsimony. = L. parci-, for parcus, sparing ; with suffix -mdnia,
formed by joining the Idg. suffixes -mdn-and-ya. Cf. L. parcere, to
spare. Perhaps allied to E. spare; see Spare. Der. parsimoni-
ons, -ly, =ness.
PARSLEY, a well-known pot-herb. (F.—L.—Gk.) Formerly
persely, Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. iii. c. 5. ME. percil, P.
Plowman, B, vi. 288; spelt persely in one of the MSS., id. A. vii. 273,
footnote. F. persil, ‘ parseley ;’ Cot. Spelt peresil in the 13th cent. ;
Wright’s Vocab. i. 139, col. 2.—Late L. petrosillum, at the same
reference; contr. from L. petroselinum, rock-parsley.—Gk. πετρο-
σέλινον, rock-parsley.=Gk. mérpo-, for mérpos, a rock; and σέλινον,
a kind of parsley, whence E. Celery.
PARSNEP, PARSNIP, an edible plant with a carrot-like
root. (F.—L.) Formerly parsnep; the pl. parsnepes occurs in Sir
T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. ii.c.g. Palsgrave rightly drops the r,
and spells it pasneppe; also spelt passenep, Pistyll of Susan, 107.
Corrupted from OF. pastenague, ‘a parsenip ;’ Cot. {For the change
from qu to p, compare Lat. guingue with Gk. πέμπε (five). The r is
due to the sound of the F. a; the te was dropped, and the latter a was
weakened, first to e, and then to 7.] Cotgrave also gives pastenade
and pastenaille with the same sense. = L. pastindca, aparsnip. B. Pas-
tindca prob. meant ‘that which is dug up,’ hence a parsnip, also a
carrot ; the root being the edible part. —L. pastindre, to dig up.=L.
pastinum, a kind of two-pronged dibble for breaking the ground.
4 The change in the final syllable may have been influenced by the
AS. n#p, L. napus, a kind of parsnip; cf. the later word turnep or turnip.
PARSON, the incumbent of a parish. (F.—L.) ME. persone,
Chaucer, C. T. 480(A 478). In the Ancren Riwle, p. 316, persone
means person. It is certain that parson and person are the same
word; for the Late L. perséna is constantly used in the sense of
‘parson.’ See persona in Ducange; it means dignity, rank, a choir-
master, curate, parson, body, man, person; and see Selden’s Table
Talk, s.v. Parson. The sense of parson may easily have been due to
the mere use of the word asa title of dignity; cf. ‘Laicus quidam
magne persone’=a certain lay-man of great dignity; Ducange.
B. The ME. persone is from OF. persone, ‘cure, recteur d’une paroisse,
prieur, dignitaire, bénéficier ecclésiastique ;᾿ Godefroy.—L. persdna
(above). 41 The quotation from Blackstone is better known than
his authority for the statement. Hesays: ‘A parson, persona ecclesia,
is one that hath full possession of all the rights of a parochial church.
He is called parson, persona, because by his person the church, which
is an invisible body, is represented ;’ Comment. b, i. c. 11. This
is the usual sense in E. civil law, but is hardly required by the
etymology. See Person. Der. parson-age, a coined word with
F. suffix, Bp. Taylor, vol. iii. ser. 7 (R.).
PART, a portion, piece. (F.—L.) ME, part, sb., Floris and
Blancheflur, ed. Lumby, |. 522; hence parten, vb., id. 387.—F. part,
‘a part;’ Cot.—L. partem, acc. of pars,a part. From the same root
as portion, Brugmann, i. § 527. Der. part, vb., ME. parten, as
PARTITION
above ; part-ible, from L. partibilis; part-ly, Cor.1. 1. 403 part-ing 3
and see part-i-al, partake, parti-cip-ate, parti-cip-le, parti-cle, part-isan,
part-it-ion, part-ner, part-y; also a-part, com-pari-ment, de-part, im-
part, re-part-ee, par-c-el, parse, port-ion.
PARTAKE, to take part in or of, share. (Hybrid; F.—L.,
and Scand.) For part-take, and orig. used as part take, two separate
words; indeed, we still use sake part in much the same sense. ‘ The
breed which we breken, wher it is not [ἐς ἐξ xot] the delynge, or part
takynge, of the body of the lord?” Wyclif, 1 Cor. x. 16 (earlier ver-
sion; later version omits part). In the Bible of 1551, we find: ‘is
not the breade whiche we breake, partakynge of the body of Christ?’
in the same passage. See further in a note by Dr. Chance in N, and
Q. 4th Series, viii. 481. Similarly, we find Ὁ. theilnehmen=theil neh-
men, to take a part. Indeed, E. partake may have been suggested
by the corresponding Scandinavian word (viz. Dan. deeltage, Swed.
deltaga, to partake, participate) since zake is a Scand. word. See
Part and Take. Der. partak-er, spelt partetaker in Coverdale’s
Bible (1538), Heb. xii. 8; partak-ing, spelt partetakyng, Palsgrave.
PARTERRE, a laid-out garden, a system of plots with walks,
&c. (F.—L.) ‘Thus... was the whole parterre environ’d;’ Eve-
lyn’s Diary, 8 Oct., 1641. -- Ἐς parterre, ‘a floor, even piece of ground,
part of a garden which consists of beds, without any tree;’ Cot.—
Ἐς par terre, along the ground.=L. per ¢erram, along the ground ;
see Per- and Terrace.
PARTHENOGENESIS, reproduction by a virgin. (Gk.) A
term in zoology.=Gk. παρθένο-, for παρθένος, a virgin; and γένεσις,
birth; see Genesis.
PARTIAL, relating to a part only. (F.—L.) Frequently in the
sense of taking one part in preference to others, hence, inclined in
behalf of. ‘That in thine own behalf maist partiall seeme ;’ Spenser,
Ε΄ Q. vii. 6. 35.—F. partial, ‘solitary, .. . also partiall, unequall,
factious;’ Cot.—Late L. partialis; formed with suffix -alis from
L. parti-, decl. stem of pars,a part. See Part. Der. partial-ly ;
partial-i-ty, spelt parcialité, Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 120, from F.
partialité, ‘ partiality,’ Cot.
PARTICIPATS, to partake, have a share. (L.) In Shak.
Tw. Nt. v. 245; properly a pp. or adj., as in Cor. i. 1. 106.—L.
participatus, pp. of participare, to have a share, give a share.=L.
particip-, stem of particeps, sharing in. =L. parti-, decl. stem of pars,
a part, and capere, to take. See Part and Capacious. Der.
participat-ion, ME. participacioun, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. iil. pr.
10, 1. 110, from F. participation, which from L. acc. participationem ;
also particip-ant, from the stem of the pres. part.; also particip-le,
431
q-v.
PARTICIPLE, a part of speech. (F.—L.) So called because
partaking of the nature both of an adjectival substantive and a verb.
In Ben Jonson, Eng. Grammar, c. 6. ME. participle, Wyclif’s
Bible, Prologue, p. 57, 1. 29. The insertion of the 1 is curious,
and perhaps due to a misapprehension of the sound of the F.
word; as in principle and syllable. =F. participe, ‘a participle, in
grammer ;’ Cot.<L. participium, a participle.—L. particip-, decl.
stem of particeps, partaking ; see Participate.
PARTICLE, a very small portion, atom. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Jul. Ces. ii, 1.139. An abbreviation for particule, due to loss of
stress in the last syllable. — F. particule, not in Cot., but in use in the
16th cent, (Littré).—L. particula, a small part; double dimin. (with
suffixes -cu- and -/a) from parti-, decl. stem of pars, a part. Der.
particul-ar, ME. particuler, Chaucer, C. T. 11434 (F. 1122), from F,
particulier, which from L, particuldris, concerning a part; particu-
lar-ly; particular-ise, from F. particulariser, ‘to particularize,’ Cot. ;
farticular-i-ty, from F. particularité, ‘a particularity,’ Cot. Doublet,
parcel,
PARTISAN (1), an adherent of a party. (F.—Ital.—L.)
‘These partizans of faction often try’d;’ Daniel, Civil War, bk. il.
st. 4.- Εν partisan, ‘a partner, partaker;” (οἵ. - Ital. partigiano,
formerly also partegiano, ‘a partner;’ Florio, Cf. Ital. parteggtare,
“to share, take part with,’ Florio; answering to F. partager, to take
part in, The form partigiano answers to a Late L. form *parten-
siainus, not found ; from part-, base of pars, a part; with suffixes -ensi-
and -dnus. See Part, Partition. Der. partisan-ship.
PARTISAN (2), PARTIZAN, a kind of halberd. (F.—
Ital.—L.?) In Hamlet, i. 1. 140.—F. pertuisane, ‘a partisan, or
leading-staffe;’ Cot. B. But the spelling pertuisane is an accom-
modated form, to make it appear as if derived from Εἰ. pertuiser, to
pierce (cf. pertuis, a hole). Ital. partegiana, ‘a partesan, a iauelin,’
Florio; cf. Late L. partesana (occurring A.D. 1488); partisana
(1493) ; pertixana (1468). Supposed to be closely related to the
word above, as if the weapon of a partisan (Korting, § 6882).
PARTITION, a separate part, something that separates. (F. --
L.) In Shak. meaning (1) division, Mid. Nt. Dr. iii. 2. 210; (2) a
party-wall, id. v. 168. Spelt particioune in Lydgate, Minor Poems,
483 PARTNER
Ῥ. 170.—F. partition, omitted by Cot., but occurring in the r4th cent.
(Littré).—L. partitionem, acc. of paréétin, a sharing, partition. —L.
parliri, to divide. =—L. parti-, decl. stem of pars, a part. See Part.
Der. partition, vb. So also partit-ive, from F. partitif (Littré), as if
from L. *fartitiuus, not used; hence partit-ive-ly.
PARTNER, a sharer, associate. (F.—L.) A curious corrup-
tion, due to the eye, i.e. to the misreading of MSS. and books. In
many MSS. ¢ and ¢ are just alike, and the ME. word which appears
as partener or parcener is really to be read as parcener, with c, not ὁ.
The spelling parcener occurs as late as in Cotgrave, as will appear ;
and even in Blackstone's Commentaries, b. ii. c. 12 (R., s.v. parcel).
For the spelling partener, see Wyclif, 1 Cor. ix. 12; for the spelling |
parcener, id. Rey. xviii. 4. —OF. parcener, MV. parsonnier, ‘a parte-
ner, or co-parcener;’ Cot.—Late L. *partitidnarius, not found ;
but we find partidnarius sometimes used in the sense of ‘common’
or ‘mutual,’ which seems to be a contracted form of it, and is the
original of the Ἐς form.=—L. partition-, stem of partitio; see Par-
tition. Thus partner =partitioner. Der. partner-ship.
PARTLET, a gorget or loose collar, a garment for the neck and
shoulders, esp. for women. (F.) ME. patelet, Henryson, Garmond
of Gude Ladeis, st. 7.— OF. patelette, dimin. of patte, a band of stuff
(Godefroy) ; cf. MF, patellette, ‘ the broad piece of leather that runnes
over-crosse, or through, the top of a head-stall [for a horse] ;’ Cot.
Cf. pate, ‘a plate or band of iron for the strengthening of a thing ;’”
Cot. Of obscure origin ; see Notes on Eng. Etym., p. 208. The r
is unoriginal. Perhaps a dimin. of Late L. pata, a kind of ‘limbus’
or border worn by some ecclesiastics (Ducange). Or for *platelette ;
cf. OF. platel, a flat piece (Godefroy) ; see Plateau.
PARTRIDGE, a well-known bird preserved for game. (F.—
L.—Gk.) ME. partriche, pertriche, Richard the Redeles, ed. Skeat,
iii. 38.—ONorm. F. pertrix, in Moisy, Gloss. Comparatif Anglo-
Normand; F. perdrix, ‘a partridge;’ in which the second r is in-
trusive.=—L. perdicem, acc. of perdix.— Gk. πέρδιξ, a partridge; per-
haps named from its cry or its noisy flight, as some connect it with
Gk. πέρδομαι, Skt. pard (Prellwitz).
PARTURIENT, about to produce young. (L.) In Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. parturient-, stem of pres. part. of parturire, to
be ready to bring forth young. Cf. partir-us, fut. part. of parere, to
produce; see Parent.
from L, ace. parturitidnem, which from parturire.
PARTY, a company, faction, assembly. (F.—L.) ME. partie,
King Alisaunder, 4756; parti, party, Cursor Mundi, 7470.—F. partie,
‘a part, share, party, side;” Cot. We also find F. parti, ‘a match,
bargain, party, side;’ Cot. ‘The former is the fem. of the latter.—
L. partita, fem. of partitus, pp. of partir?, to divide. = L. parti-, decl.
stem of pars,a part. See Part. Cf. Ital. partita, a share, part ;
Span. partida, a party of soldiers, crew, &c. Der. party-coloured,
Merch. Ven. i. 3. 89; party-verdict, Rich. II, i. 3. 234.
PARVENU, an upstart. (F.—L.) Modern.—F. parvenu, lit.
one who has arrived at a place, hence, one who has thriven; pp. of
parvenir, ‘ to atchieve, arrive, thrive ;’ Cot.—L. peruenire, to arrive.
—L. per-, through; and entre, cognate with E. come. See Per-
and Come.
PARVIS, a porch; also, a room over a church-porch for aschool.
(F.—L.—Gk.—Pers.) See Halliwell, and Prompt. Parv. p. 385.
ME. paruis (= parvis), Chaucer, C. T. 312 (A 310); see note. —OF. |
parvis, ‘the porch of a church; also (or more properly), the utter
court of a palace or great house;’ Cot. A variant of OF. parevis,
pareis, parais (Low L. paravisus), lit. paradise.—L. paradisus, para-
dise ; also a church-porch, outer court. It is thus the same word as
Paradise, q.v. Diez cites Neapolitan paraviso as a variant of Ital.
paradiso,
exhibited in the church-yard, the porch represented paradise.
v was inserted in OF. pare-is, to avoid hiatus.
4 The
PASCH, the Jewish passover; Easter. (L.—Gk.—Heb.) ME. |
paske, P. Plowman, B. xvi. 139; Ormulum, 15850. AS. pascha; the
gen. pasches is in the A.S. Chron. an. 1122,—L, pascha.— Gk. πάσχα,
the passover, John, vi. 4.—Heb. pesakh, a passing over, the pass-
over; from Heb. root pasakh, he passed over. See Exod. xii. 11,
27. Der. pasch-al, from Εἰ, paschal, ‘paschall,’ Cot., from L. paschdlis;
pasch-flower or pasque-flower. (The Heb. s is samech.)
PASH, to dash, strike hard. (Scand.) ‘As he was pashing it
against atree;’ Ford, Lover’s Melancholy,i. 1. And in Shak. Troil.
ii. 3.213, v.5.10. ME. paschen, P. Plowman, B.xx.g9. Cf. Swed.
dial, paska, to dabble in water, baska, to beat (Rietz); Notweg.
baska, to dabble in water, tumble, work hard, fight one’s way on,
baksa, to box (Aasen) ; Dan. baske, to slap, thwack, drub; baxes, to
box. From Swed. dial. bas-a, to beat. Cf. prov. E. bash, of which
pash isa variant. Also (ἃ. patschen, to strike, to dabble; Low G.
bat, a stroke, a blow. And see Baste (1), Box (3).
Der. partur-it-ion=F. parturition (Littré), |
According to Littré, when the old mystery-plays were |
PASTE
(Pers.) Spelt baskaw in Evelyn’s Diary, Dec. 17, 1684; basha in
Sir Τὶ Herbert, Travels, ed. 1665, p. 139. Pers. basha, badshah, ‘a
governor of a province, counsellor of state, great lord, sometimes the
grand vyazir;’ the same as padshah, ‘an emperor, sovereign, mon-
arch, prince, great lord;’ Rich. Dict. pp. 234, 228, 315.— Pers. pad-,
OPers. pati-, equivalent to the syllable -pot in des-pot; and Pers.
shith, whence the E.shah. See Padishah.
PASQUE-FLOWER;; see under Pasch.
PASQUIN, PASQUINADEH, a lampoon, satire. (F.—Ital.)
Formerly also pasquil, from MF, pasquille, ‘a pasquill;”’ Cot.—F.
pasquin, ‘the name of an image or post in Rome, whereon libels and
defamatory rimes are fastened, and fathered ; also, a pasquill;’ Cot.
{Hence pasquinade, which see in Littré.] — Ital. Pasguino, ‘a statue in
Rome on whom all libels are fathered ;’ Florio; whence pasquinata,
a libel, the original of F. pasquinade. ‘In the 16th century, at the
stall of a cobbler named Pasguin {Pasquino], at Rome, a number
of idle persons used to assemble to listen to his pleasant sallies, and
to relate little anecdotes in their turn, and indulge themselves in
raillery at the expense of the passers-by. After the cobbler’s death
the statue of a gladiator was found near his stall, to which the people
gave his name, and on which the wits of the time, secretly at night,
affixed their lampoons;’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates. ‘The statue still
stands at the corner of the Palazzo Braschi, near the Piazza Navona ;’
note in Gloss. to Bacon, Ady. of Learning, ed. Wright.
PASS, to walk onward, pace, move on. (F.—L.) In early use;
Ancren Riwle, p. 330, 1. 20; Layamon, 1341 (later text). =F. passer,
to pass. Late L. passare, to pass. —L. passus, a step, a pace. Diez
considers passdre to be a frequentative from pandere, to stretch; but
it makes little ultimate difference, since passus is itself derived from
the same verb, and meant, originally, ‘a stretch, hence the difference
of space between the feet in walking. Either way, we are led to L.
passus, pp. of pandere, to stretch. See Pace. Der. pass,sb., Hamlet,
li. 2. 773 pass-book, pass-key, pass-word; pass-able, Cor. ν. 2. 13}
pass-abl-y, pass-able-ness ; pass-age, q. V+; pass-er, passer-by; pass-ing,
Two Gent. i. 2.17; pass-ing, adv., L. L. L. iv. 3. 103 ; passing-bell,
Shak. Venus, 702; pass-over, Exod. xii. 11, 27; pass-port, q. v-3
past; pastime, q.v.
PASSAGE, a journey, course. (F.—L.) ME. passage, King
Horn, ed. Lumby, 1323.—F. passage, ‘a passage ;’ Cot.—Late L.
passaticui.1, a right of passage, occurring A.D. 1095; Ducange. (Cf.
Ital. passaggio, Span. pasage.|— Late L. passare, to pass; see Pass.
Der. passeng-er, in which the x is merely excrescent before the fol-
lowing g, the old spelling being passager, as in North’s Plutarch, ed.
1031, p. 24 (Life of Romulus), where we read that some ‘ hold ἃ false
opinion, that the vulturs are passagers, and come into these parts out
of strange countries.’ See F. passager in Cotgrave.
PASSERINE, relating to sparrows. (L.) Scientific.—L. passe-
rinus, adj., formed from passeri-, decl. stem of passer, a sparrow.
PASSION, suffering, strong agitation of mind, rage. (F.—L.)
In early use. ME. passion; spelt passiun, O. Eng. Homilies, ed.
Morris, i. 119, 1. 6 from bottom, =F. passion, ‘passion, perturbation ;’
Cot.—L. passidnem, acc. of passio, suffering, &c.; cf. passus, pp. of
pati, tosuffer; see Patient. Der. passion-flower, passion-less, passion-
week; passion-ate, Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 2. 220, from Late L. passténatus,
occurring A.D. 1409 (Ducange), with which cf. Ἐς, passtoné (Cot.) ;
passion-ate-ly, passion-ate-ness ; com-passion. Also passible, Ἐς. passible,
from L, passibilis, capable of suffering ; from passi-, for passus, with
suffix -bilis ; hence passibili-ty. And see Passive.
PASSIVE, enduring, unresisting. (F.—L.) In Shak. Timon,
iv. 3. 254.—F. passif, ‘passive, suffering ;’ Cot.—L. fa:siuus, suffer-
ing.—L. passus, pp. of pat?, to suffer. See Passion. Der. passive-
ly, -ness; passiv-i-ty, a coined word, in Bp. Taylor, vol. iii. ser. 10 (R.).
PASSPORT, a permission to travel. (F.—L.) ‘A travelling
warrant is call’d Passport, whereas the original is passe per tout ;’
Howell, Familiar Letters, b. iv. let. 19. ‘They gave us our passe-
port ;> Hakluyt’s Voyages, ed. 1598, vol. i. p. 71. Spelt passeporte,
Gascoigne, Fruites of War, st. 116. [Howell’s remark is wrong; a
passport and a passe-partout are different things ; one is ‘ leave to quit
a port,’ the other is ‘ permission to travel everywhere ;’ he probably
means that the former word came to signify much the same as the
latter. Dryden has: ‘with this passe par tout I will instantly conduct
her to my own chamber ;’ Kind Keeper, Act v. sc. 1.]—F. passe-
port, a passe, or passe-port, or safe conduct ;’ (οἱ. Εν, passer, to
pass; and port, a port, a seaport, from L. acc. portum, a port. See
| Pass and Port (2).
PASTE, dough prepared for pies, flour and water, &c. (F.—L.
-Gk.) ‘Paste for to make;’ P. Plowman, B. xiii. 250.—OF.
paste, ‘ paste, or dough ;’ Cot. Mod. F. pate; Span. and Ital. pasta.
= Late L. pasta, paste, used by Marcellus Empiricus, about A.D. 400
(Lewis).—Gk. παστή, a mess of food; strictly a fem. form from
PASHA, PACHA, PASHAW, BASHAW, a prince, lord. παστύς, besprinkled, salted, adj. formed from πάσσειν,. to strew,
PASTEL
sprinkle, esp. to sprinkle salt. Thus the orig. sense was ‘a salted
mess of food.’ Der. paste-board ; past-y, ME. pastee, Chaucer, C. T.
4344 (A 4346), from OF. pasté (mod. F. pate), ‘a pie, or pastie,’
Cot.; past-r-y, used in Shak. in the sense of a room in which pasties
were made, Romeo, iv. 4. 2 (cf. ‘ Pastrye, pistorium,’ Levins), and
formed accordingly on the model of pant-r-y and butt-er-y (i.e. bottl-
er-y), but now applied to articles made of paste; pastry-cook ; patt-y
(as applied to oyster-patties), from mod. Ε΄. pate.
PASTEL, a roll of coloured paste used like a crayon, a coloured
crayon. (F.—Ital.—L.) An artist's term.—F. pastel, ‘a pastel,
crayon;’ Hamilton. Ital. pastello, ‘a little bit of paste;” Baretti.
Also ‘a pastil;’ Meadows. The pastel was named from being
shaped like a roll of bread. —L. pastillum, acc. of pastillus, a little
loaf or roll. Dimin. of pastus, food.—L. pastus, pp. of pascere, to
feed. See Pastor. φῆ Sometimes written pas/il, very like pastille.
However, pasvel and pastille are doublets: and neither is at all related
to pasty or paste, which are from Gk. Doublet, pastille,
PASTERN, the part of a horse’s foot from the fetlock to the
hoof. (F.—L.) Spelt pasterne in Levins, ed. 1570. Palsgrave has:
‘Pastron of an horse, pasturon,’=—MF. pasturon, ‘the pastern of a
horse ;’ Cot. Mod. F. pdturon. So called because when a horse
was turned out to pasture, he was tethered to a peg bya cord passing
round the pastern ; the tether itself was called pasture in Old French.
‘Le suppliant frappa icellui Godart deux ou trois coups par le costé
dunes cordes appelées pastures’=the petitioner beat this Godart
twice or thrice on the side with cords called pastures; in a passage
dated A.D. 1460, in Ducange, s.v. pasturale, and cited by Littré. =
OF. fasture, ‘pasture, grasse, fodder;’ Cot. See further under
Pasture. Thus OF. pasturon was formed from pasture, a tether,
by adding the suffix -on, which gave various meanings to the sb. ;
see Brachet,Introd. § 231. So also Ital. pasturale, the pastern, from
pastura, a pasture. > Hence we may explain a passage in
Beaum. and Fletcher, The Chances, i. 8. 16, viz. ‘She had better
have worn pasterns.’ It means tethers, or clogs tied to her foot;
i.e. she had better have been tethered up. Indeed Kersey, ed. 1715,
gives: ‘Pastern, the hollow of a beast’s heel, the foot of a horse,
that part under the fetlock to the hoof; also, a shackle for a horse.’
It is remarkable that this sense should have been retained in English,
though unnoticed in Cotgrave’s F. Dict.
PASTILLE, a small cone made of aromatic substances, to be
burnt to purify the air of a room. (F.—L.) Modern. Borrowed
from Εἰ. pastille. Cot. gives: ‘Pastilles, little lumps or loaves of
wood, &c.’—L. pastillum, acc. of pastillus, a little loaf or roll.
Dimin. from pastus, food. Also spelt pastil; cf. Walloon pastil, a
pastille (Remacle). See Pastel, which is a doublet.
PASTIME, amusement. (Hybrid: F.—L.; and E.) In Shak.
Temp. v. 38. For pass-time. Spelt passe-tyme in Sir Τὶ Elyot, The |
Governor, b.i.c. 22. It is a sort of half translation of F. passe- |
temps, ‘ pastime;’ Cot. We also find, in old cuthors, the form
pastaunce or pastans, which is the F. passe-temps Anglicised. Gawain
Douglas has pastans, Prol. to AEneid, bk. xii. 1. 212.
PASTOR, a shepherd. (L.) In Hamlet, i. 3. 47; spelt pastour |
in Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 203, 1. 23.—L. pastor, a shepherd, lit.
feeder ; cf. past-us, pp. of pascere, to feed, an inceptive verb, pt. t.
pa-ui.—4/PA to feed; whence also E. food; see Food. Der.
pastor-al, in Sir P. Sidney, Apology for Poetrie, ed. Arber, p. 43,
1. τό, from F. pastoral, ‘ pastorall, shepherdly,’ Cot., from L. pastor-
lis; pastor-ship; pasture, Cursor Mundi, 18445, from OF. pasture |
(mod. F. pature), * pasture’ (Cot.), which from L. pastira, a feeding,
like pastiirus, fut. part. of pasci, to browze, from pascere, to feed;
fastur-able, from OF. pasturable, ‘ pasturable, Cot.; pastur-age,
from OF. fasturage (mod. F. paturage), ‘ pasturage,’ Cot. And see
pastern, pabulum.
PASTY, a patty, a pie; see Paste.
PAT (1), to strike lightly, tap, (E.) ‘It is childrens sport, to
prove whether they can rubbe upon their brest with one hand, and
pat upon their fore-head with another ;’ Lord Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 63.
ME. pat, sb. ‘ And gafe his sone soche a pat/e;’ Sir Eglamour, 1241
(in Thornton Romances). Of imitative origin; like tap. Not in|
AS. ; but a parallel formation to AS. pletian, to strike. ‘ Hi pletton |
hyne’=they smote him with their hands, John, xix. 3. So also
Swed. dial. pjatta, to pat, to strike lightly and often (Rietz), allied
to Swed. platta, to tap, platt, a tap, pat; MDu. pletten, to beat
(Kilian). Cf. MF. (Gascon) patact, ‘a tack, clack, knock, flap ;’
Cot.; Prov. pata, to beat, to pat, to tap, allied to pa/o, an animal’s |
paw. Also Bavarian pafzen, to pat, fa/zen, a pat on the hand;
Schmeller; see Patrol. And see Patch (1). Korting, § 6917.
Der. pat, sb.; patt-er.
PAT (2), a small lump of butter. (E.) Cf. Irish pait, a hump,
paiteog, a small lump of butter; Gael. part, a hump, paiteach, humpy,
paiteag, a small lump of butter; all from E. fa/. Thus the orig. |
| Com. Err. iii. 1. 32, Merch. Ven. ii. 5. 46; &c.
PATE 433
sense is ‘lump.’
into shape; as dab, a small lump, is from dab, verb.
(Berry) pater, to stick to the shoes, said of mud.
PAT (3), quite to the purpose. (E.) Orig. an ady., as in ‘ Pat he
comes,’ K. Lear, i. 2.146; ‘it will fall [happen] pat,’ Mids. Nt. Dr.
vy. 188; ‘now might I do it pat,’ Haml. iii. 3. 73. This can hardly
be other than the same word as pat, a tap; see Pat (1); cf. dab, an
adept, from dab, verb, and the phrase fo hit pat, to hit with a flat blow;
see exx.in N.E.D. β. But the sense may haye been affected by
Du. pas, pat, fit, convenient, in time, which is used in exactly the
same way as ΕἸ. pat; cf. komt het te pas, ‘if it comes conyenient,’ i.e.
pat, te pas dienen, ‘to serve just at the time;’ Hexham. So also (Ὁ.
pass, pat, fit, suitable; zu passe, apropos; passen, to fit, suit, to be
Just right. These are not true Teutonic words, but borrowed from
F.; cf. ‘se passer, whence il se passe ἃ peu de chose, he is contented,
he maketh shift, he doth well enough ;’ Cot.
PATCH (1), a piece sewn on a garment, a plot of ground. (E.?)
ME. pacche, patche, Wyclif, Mark, ii. 21; Prompt. Parv. p. 377.
The letters ¢ch really appear as cch in old MSS. ; the spelling fch is
of later date, and sometimes due to the editors. The letters cch
answer to an AS. cc, as in ME. strecchen, to stretch, from AS.
streccan. B. It seems to be a by-form of platch. We find: ‘Platch,
a large spot, a patch, or piece of cloth sewed on to a garment to
repair it;’ Dialect of Banffshire, by W. Gregor; cf. prov. E. plack,
a plot of ground, E. D. D.; Low G. plakke, plakk (1), a spot;
(2) a piece, both a piece torn away, and a patch put on; (3) a piece
of land (cf. E. patch of ground); ME, plekke, a plot of ground.
Hence the verb plakken, to patch, fasten. ‘Frisch, from Alberi
Lexicon, cites: ich plack, reconcinno, resarcino; ich sefze einen
placken an, assuo;” Bremen Worterbuch. The orig. sense of plakken
was ‘to strike;”’ cf. MDu. placken, (1) to strike, (2) to plaster,
besmear with lime or chalk, (3) to spot, to stain; placke, mod. Du.
plek, a spot (een moot plek grondes, a fine spot [patch] of ground,
Sewel); see Oudemans. γ. With a change of kk to ¢#, we have
Dan. plette, to strike, AS. plettan, to strike with the hands; and
Goth. plats, a patch, Mark, ii. 21, where Wyclif has pacche. 8] The
AS. place means an open space, lit. ‘a place.’ The phrase ‘in the
corners of the streets’ (Lat. in angulis platearum) is glossed by
‘huommum Sera plecena vel worSum’ in the Northumb. version of
Matt. vi. 5. Here the AS. place is, apparently, merely Englished
from L. platea; see Place. It is remarkable that the Norman
dialect has plache (for place) in the sense of ‘plot of ground.’ Der.
patch, verb, Tw. Nt. i. 5. 52; patch-work.
PATCH (2), a paltry fellow. (E.) In Shak. Temp. iii. 2. 71,
‘In these passages,
the word is by most commentators interpreted . . ‘a domestic fool,’
supposed to be so called from his parti-coloured dress ;’ Schmidt.
‘Wolsey we find had two fools, both occasionally called Patch,
Prob. from the vb. pat, above; as being patted
Cf. prov. F.
| though they had other names; see Douce, Illustrations of Shak.,
| i. 258;᾽ Nares.
“Τὸ Peche, the fole, in rewarde, ὅς. 8d.;”’ Excerpta
Historica, p. 88 (1492). The supposition that patch is a nick-name
from the dress is most probably right; if so, the derivation is from
patch (1); see above. In Mids, Nt. Dr. iii. 2. 9, the word merely
means clown, or an ill-dressed mechanic. @f It is independent of
Ital. pazzo, a fool, madman, which is used in a much stronger sense.
Der. patch-ock, a dimin. form (cf. bull-ock, hill-ock); ‘as very
patchockes [clowns] as the wild Irish,’ Spenser, View of the State of
Ireland, Globe ed. p. 636, col. 2; this is the word spelt pajock in
Shak. Hamlet, iii. 2. 295.
PATCHOULI, the name of a scent. (F.—Dravidian.) F. pat-
chouli; of obscure crigin. Apparently from E. patcha-leaf, i.e.
green leaf, imitating the vernacular (Bengali) pacha-pat, where pat is
Hind. for ‘leaf.’ Or from Dravidian words meaning ‘ green leaf.’
Cf. Tamil pachchai, green, ila’, leaf (Knight); Malayalim pachchila,
green leaf (Gundert); Canarese pachcha, green, yele, leaf (Reeve).
Wilson gives the Telugu name as pachchaku, with the same sense,
from Telugu aku, a leaf.
PATE, the head. (F.—L.) In Spenser, Shep. Kal., June, 1. 16.
ME. pate; ‘bi pate and by polle,’ Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 237,
in a song of the time of Edw. Il. The etymology may be disguised
| by the loss of 7; pate may stand for plate, i.e. the crown of the head.
- MF. pate, not recorded in the special sense here required, but
Cotgrave gives: ‘Pate, a plate, or band of iron, &c. for the
strengthening of a thing;’ which suggests the loss of 1. Cf. ἃ.
platte, a plate, bald pate, in vulgar language, the head (Fliigel) ;
MHG. plate, a plate, the shaven crown of the head. β. Cf. also
Late L, platta, the clerical tonsure from ear to ear (Ducange) ;
MDu. platte kruyne, ‘ flat-crowned, or ball-pated, Hexham; flatte,
the shaven crown, Kilian. y. Even in Irish, we find plata, a plate ;
plait, the forehead, plaitin, a little pate, a skull, the crown of the
head (with the usual change of a to ai); O'Reilly. These words
Ff
484. PATEN
were prob. borrowed from OF. or ME. We may note a similar
change in sense in the word crown, meaning (1) the clerical tonsure,
(2) the top of the head, esp. if bald. See Plate.
PATEN, the plate for the bread in the eucharist. (F.—L.— Gk.)
Spelt patine in Cotgrave; Shak. has patines=plates of metal, Merch.
Ven. v.59. ME, pateyn, a paten, Havelok, 187.—OF. patene, ‘the
patine, or cover of a chalice;’ Cot.—Late L. patena, the paten in
the eucharist; L. patena, patina, a wide shallow bowl, basin. —Gk.
marayn, a kind of flat dish. So named from its flatness; from
# PET, to spread out, whence Gk. πεέτάννυμι, I spread out; cf. 1,
patére, to lie open, spread out, extend; see Patent. Brugmann, i.
§ 120, note. Doublet, par (?).
PATENT, lit. open, hence conspicuous, public; gen. as sb., an
official document conferring a privilege. (F.—L.) The use as an
adj. is less common, but it occurs in Cotgrave. MI. patente, sb,
a patent, Chaucer, C. T, 12271 (C 337). [The patent was so called
because oper to the inspection of all men.]—OF. patent (fem: patente),
“patent, wide open, discovered ;’ Cot.—L. patent-, stem of pres.
part. of pavére, to lie open. 4/PET, to spread out ; whence also Gk.
πετάννυμι, 1 spread out, unfold, unfurl, and E. fath-om. Der. patent,
vb. (modern) ; fatert-ee, where the sufix=F. -€<L. -atus. And see
pace, pass, paten, pan, petal, fathom, ex-pand, compass, surpass, tres-
ass,
PATERA, a flat round ornament, in bas-relief. (L.)
a flat saucer.—L. patére, to lie open. Cf. Paten.
PATERNAL, fatherly. (F.—L.) In Shak. King Lear, i. 1. 115.
=F. paternel, ‘paternal;’ Cot.—Late L. paterndalis, extended from
L. paternus, paternal, fatherly. Formed with Idg. suffix -no- from
pater, a father. Formed with suffix -ter ; but probably vot from 4/PA,
to guard, feed, cherish; cf. Skt. pa, to protect, cherish, and E. fond.
+Gk. πατήρ; E. father; see Father. Der. paternal-ly; also
patern-i-ty, from Ἐς, paternité, ‘ paternity, fatherhood,’ Cot., from L.
acc. paternitatem. Also pater-noster, Chaucer, C. T. 3485, so called
from the first two words, pater noster, i.e. Our Father.
patri-arch, patri-cian, patri-mony, patri-ot, patr-istic, patr-on.
PATH, a way, track, road. (E.) ME. path, pap, P. Plowman, B.
xiv. 300; pl. pabes, Havelok, 268. AS. ped, pad, a path, Grein, ii.
361.4+Du. pad; G. pfad. Der. path-less, path-way.
PATHOS, emotion, deep feeling. (Gk.) In Sonth’s Sermons,
vol. iv. ser. 1 (R.) ; and in Phillips, ed. 1706. [But the adj. pathetical
is in earlier use, occurring in Cotgrave, and is oddly used by Shak.
As You Like It, iv. 1.196, &c.]—Gk. πάθος, suffering, deep feeling ;
from παθεῖν, used as 2 aor. infin. of πάσχειν, to suffer (as if for ἔπάθ-
σκειν). Allied to πένθος, grief; from the weak grade παθ- (for mav@).
Der. path-et-ic, from MF. pathetique, ‘ patheticall, passionate,’ Cot.,
from L. pathéticus (Lewis), from Gk. παθητικός, extended from παθητός.
subject to suffering; path-et-ic-al, path-et-ic-al-ly, path-et-ic-al-ness.
Also patho-logy, in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, from MF. pathologie,
‘that part of physick which intreats of the causes, qualities, and
differences of diseases,’ Cot., from Gk. παθολογεῖν, to treat of diseases ;
which is from πάθο-, for πάθος, and λέγειν, to speak. Hence patho-
log-ic, Gk. παθολογικός, patholog-ic-al, patholog-ist.
ATIENT, bearing pain, enduring, long-suffering. (F.—L.)
ME. pacient, patient, Chaucer, C. T. 486 (A 484).—OF. patient,
‘patient.’—L. patieni-, stem of pres. part. of pat?, to suffer. Der.
patient-ly; patience, ME. pacience, Ancren Riwle, p. 180, from F.
patience, L. patientia. And see passion.
PATINE, a round plate; see Paten.
PATOIS, a vulgar dialect, esp. of French. (F.—L.) In Smollett,
France and Italy, let. 21 (Davies). Borrowed from F. patois, ‘ gib-
ridge, clownish language, rusticall speech ;’ Cot. Patois perhaps stands
for an older (doubtful) parrots; see Godefroy, Diez and Littré. = Late
L. patriensis, one who is indigenous to a country, a native; so that
patois is the ‘speech of the natives.’ = L. pa/ria, one’s native country.
See Patriot.
PATRIARCH, a chief father. (F.—L.—Gk.) The lit. sense
is ‘chief father.’ ME. patriarche, O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris,
1.131, 1. 4; patriarke, P. Plowman, B. xviii. 138.—OF. patriarche,
L. patera,
“a patriarke,’ Cot.—L. patriarcha, also patriarchés. —Gk. πατριάρχης.
the father or chief of a race.—Gk. πατρι-, short for πατριά, a lineage,
race, from πατρι-, for πατήρ, a father; and dpxew, to rule. See
Father and Archaic. Der. patriarch-al, patriarch-ic, patriarch-
ate, 7 ‘The ecclesiastical historian Socrates gives the title of
patriarch to the chiefs of Christian dicceses about A.D. 440;°
Haydn.
PATRICIAN, a nobleman in ancient Rome. (L.) In Shak.
Cor. i. 1. 16, 68, 75. Formed with suffix -an (<L. -dnus) from L.
patrici-us, adj. patrician, noble; sb. a patrician, a descendant of the
patrés, senators, or heads of families. —L. patri-, for pater, a father.
See Paternal. {
PATRIMONY, an inheritance, heritage. (F.—L.) ME. patri-
And see |
| Cot.
PAUNCH
monye, P. Plowman, C. xxiii. 234; spelt patrimoigne, id. B. xx. 233.
-F. patrimoine, ‘patrimony;’ Cot.—L. patrimdzium, an inherit-
ance. Formed (with suffix -mdn-io-=Idg. -mén-yo-) from patri-
decl. stem of pater, a father, cognate with E. father. See Paternal
and Father. Der. patrimoni-al.
PATRIOT, one who loves his fatherland. (F.—Late L.—Gk.)
‘A patriot, or countrey-man;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627.—OF. patriote,
‘a patriot, ones countreyman ;’ Cot.—Late L. parridva, a native. =
Gk. πατριώτης, properly, a fellow-countryman. = Gk. πάτριος, belong-
ing to one’s fathers, hereditary. —Gk. πατρι-, for πατήρ, a father.
Der. patriot-ic. Gk. πατριωτικός, patriot-ic-al-ly, patriot-ism; also
com-patriot, ex-patriate, re-pair (2). 33> The peculiar use of patriot
in its present sense arose in French.
PATRISTIC, pertaining to the fathers of the Christian church.
(F.—Gk.) From Εἰ, patristique, which see in Littré. Coined from
Gk. πατρ-, for πατήρ, a father; with suffix -ἰστικός, J Not a well-
made word.
PATROL, to go the rounds in a camp or garrison; a going of
the rounds. (F.—Teut.) It occurs, spelt patroll, in Phillips, ed.
1706, both as a sb. and verb. ‘And being then upon patrol ;’
Butler, Hudibras, pt. ii. c. 3, 1. 801.— MF. patrouille, ‘a still night-
watch in warre,’ Cot. Lit. a paddling about, tramping about, from
MF. (Picard) patrouiller, to paddle or pudder in the water;’ Cot.
The same word (with inserted r) as patouiller, ‘to slabber, to paddle
or dable in with the feet;’ Cot. β. Formed, as a sort of fre-
quentative verb, from OF. pate (mod. F. patte), ‘the paw, or foot of
a beast;’ Cot. [Cf. Span. pata, a paw, beast’s foot; patullar, to run
through mud; patrulla, a patrol, patrullar, to patrol ; Ital. pattuglia,
patrol, watch, sentry (showing that the r is inserted).] γ. Prob.
from a Teutonic base pat- appearing in Bayar. patzen, to pat; EFries.
patjen, to splash; G. patsche, an instrument for striking the hand,
patsch-fuss, web-foot of a bird, patscken, to strike, dabble, walk
awkwardly. See Pat (1). The suffix -ouiller represents L. -uculare.
PATRON, a protector. (F.—L.) ME. patron, Rob. of Glouc.
p- 471, 1. 9673.—F. patron, ‘a patron, protector.’ = L. patronum, acc.
of patronus, a protector, lit. one who takes the place of a father. = L.
patr-, for pater, a father, cognate with E. father. See Paternal.
Der. patron-age, from MF. patronnage, ‘patronage,’ Cot.; patron-
ess, Cor. ν᾿ 5. 13 patron-ise. Doublet, pattern.
PATRONYMIC, derived from the name of a father or an-
cestor. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘So when the proper name is used to note
one’s parentage, which kind of nouns the grammarians call patro-
nymics;’ Ben Jonson, Eng. Grammar, b. ii. c. 3.— MF. patronymique,
‘derived of the fathers or ancestors names;’ Cot.—L. patrénymicus.
~ Gk. πατρωνυμικός, belonging to the father’s name. —Gk. πατρωνυμία,
a name taken from the father. —Gk. marpo-, for πατήρ, a father; and
ὄνυμα. a name, usually spelt ὄνομα. The ὦ results from the doubling
ofthe o. The Gk. πατήρ is cognate with E. father; and Gk. ὄνομα
is cognate with E. name. Der. patronymic, sb.
PATTEN, a wooden sole supported on an iron ring; a clog.
(F.—Teut.) ‘Their shoes and pattens;’ Camden’s Remaines, On
Apparel (R.). Spelt paten, patin in Minsheu, ed. 1627; paten,
Palsgrave.—F. patin, ‘a pattin, or clog; also, the footstall of
a pillar;’ Cot.—OF. pate, patte, mod. F. patte, ‘the paw or foot of
a beast, the footstall of a pillar;’ Cot. See Patrol. Cf. Ital.
pattino.
PATTER, to strike frequently, as hail. (E.) ‘Or pattering hail
comes pouring on the main;’ Dryden, tr. of Virgil, Ain. ix. gio.
A frequentative of pat, with the usual suffix -er; the double ὁ being
put in to keep the vowel short. See Pat (1). A dialectal (Lonsdale)
variant is pattle, to pat gently (Peacock). Cf. Swed. dial. padra, to
patter as hail does against a window (Rietz). ἐφ It is probable
that ME. pateren, in the sense ‘to repeat prayers,’ was coined from
pater, the first word of the pater-noster. ‘And patred in my pater-
noster ;’ P. Plowman’s Crede, ed. Skeat, 1.6; so also in the Rom. of
the Rose, 1. 6794. Hence patter, to prattle, and patter, sb. talk.
PATTERN, an example, model to work by. (F.—L.) In many
parts, as in Lincolnshire and Cambs., the common people say patron
for pattern; and rightly. ‘Patron, a pattern;’ Peacock, Manley
Words (Lincoln); E.D.S. ME. patron; Chaucer, Book Duch. 910.
‘Patrone, form to werk by, patron or example, Exemplar ;’ Prompt.
Parv. ‘Patrons of blacke paper;’ Eng. Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith,
p- 321.—F. patron, ‘a patron, protector,. . also a pattern, sample ;’
See Patron. Doublet, patron.
PATTY, a little pie. (F.—L.—Gk.) Mod. F. paté; OF. pasté,
a pasty. See Paste. Doublet, pasty. Der. patty-pan.
PAUCITY, fewness in number. (F.—L.) Spelt paucitie in
Minsheu, ed, 1627.—F. paucité, ‘paucity;’ Cot.—L. paucitatem,
acc. of paucitas, fewness. — L. pauct-, for paucus, few; with suffix -tas.
B. Allied to Gk. παῦρος, small; and to E. few; see Few.
PAUNCH, the belly. (F.~L.) ME. paunche, P. Plowman,
PAUPER
B. xiii. 87.0. North F. panche; OF. pance, ‘the paunch, maw,
belly ;’ Cot.—L. panticem, ace. of pantex, the paunch.
PAUPER, a poor person.’ (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706. —L. pauper,
poor. β. The syllable pau- is the same as paw- in paucus, few, Gk.
παῦ-ρος ; see Paucity. The second element in pau-per is prob.
allied to parare. See Pare. Der. pauper-ise, pauper-ism; and see
poor, poverty.
PAUSE, a stop, cessation. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. Hamlet,
ii. 2. 509. Earlier, spelt pawse, in Prompt. Parv. = F. pause,
‘a pause, a stop;’ Cot.—Late L. pausa, a pause. Adapted from
Gk. παῦσις, a pause, stopping, ceasing, end.—Gk, παύω, I make to
cease; παύομαι, I cease. See Few. Der. pause, vb., Much Ado,
iv. 1. 202. Doublet, pose, q.v.
PAVE, to floor, as with stones. (F.—L.) ME. pawen (with u=v),
Chaucer, C. T. 16094 (G 626). — OF. paner, later paver, ‘to pave,’ Cot.
—Late L. *pavire, for L. pauire, to beat, strike, also, to ram, tread down.
Der. pave-ment, ME. pauiment (with τὸ for v, and trisyllabic), Rob. of
Glouc. p. 476, 1. 9791, pauement, Chaucer, C. T. 7686 (Ὁ) 2104),
from F. pavement (Cot.), which from L. paximentum, a hard floor,
from pauire, to ram; also pav-i-or (where the -i- is an English
insertion, as in law-y-er, bow-y-er, saw-y-er, intended to give the word
a causal force), from F. paveur,‘a paver,’ Cot.
PAVILION, atent. (F.—L.) The spelling with i is intended
to represent the sound of the F.1/. ME. pauylon (with u=v), Rob.
of Glouc. p. 272, 1. 5510.—F. pavillon, ‘a pavillion, tent;’ Cot.
So called because spread out like the wings of a butterfly.=—L.
papilidnem, acc. of papilio, (1) a butterfly, (2) a tent. ‘Cubicula aut
tentoria, quos etiam papiliones uocant ;’ Augustine, cited in Ducange.
Der. pavilion-ed, Hen. V, i. 2. 129; also papilion-ac-e-ous, q.v.
PAVIN, PAVAN, a stately Spanish dance. (F.—Span. —L.—
Pers.—Tamil.) See exx. in Nares.—F. pavane, ‘a pavane ;’ Cot. =
Span. pavana, ‘a daunce called a pauin, playing ;” Minsheu. Prob.
from a Late L. *pavdnus, peacock-like, from the row of stately dancers
(Scheler) ; cf. Span. pava, a peahen, favo, a peacock, pavonear, to
walk with affected dignity.— Late L. pavus, L. pauo, a peacock. See
Peacock.
PAVISE, a large shield. (F.—Ital.) Obsolete. See examples in
N.E. D., Halliwell and R. Also spelt pavese, pavish, pauesse, pautce,
pauys. ‘That impenetrable pawice,’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 1179 c.
Spelt pauys, Reliquize Antique, ii. 22; paves, Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 8,
1. 48; pauys, Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 204.—OF. pavais, F. pavois,
‘a great shield,’ Cot. Cf. Span. paves, MItal. pavese (Florio).
—Late L. pavensis, a large shield, occurring A.D. 1299. Usually
said to have been named from the city of Pavia, in the N. of Italy.
Godefroy has the adj. pavinots, paviois, pavois, pavais, ‘de Pavie ;’
escus pavais, shields of Pavia,
PAW, the foot of a beast of prey. (F.—Teut.) ME. fawe, Sir
Isumbras, |. 181,in the Thornton Romances, ed. Halliwell; powe, Rich.
Cuer de Lion, 1. 1082, in Weber’s Met. Romances. [Hence W.
pawen, a paw, claw, Com. paw, a foot (found in the 15th century) ;
Bret. paé, pav,a paw, being from F.]—AF. powe, OF. poe, a paw;
the same word as Prov. pauta, Catalan pota, a paw. Perhaps from
a Teut. source; cf. Low G. pote, a paw (Bremen Worterbuch), the
same word as Du. poot, G. pfote. Perhaps from an imitative root ;
see Pat (1). Or related to potter; see poot in Franck. Der. paw,
verb, Job, xxxix. 21.
PAWL, a short bar, which acts as a catch toa windlass. (F.—L.)
A mechanical term; borrowed from OF. paul (Godefroy), variant of
pal, a stake.—L. palum, acc. of palus, whence also E. pale; see
Pale (1), Pole. Cf. W. pawl, a pole, stake, bar, from E.; Du. pal,
Swed. pall, a pawl; from F. or E. Der. paul-windlass (Halliwell).
PAWN (1), a pledge, something given as security for the repay-
ment of money. (F.) Spelt pauze in Minsheu, ed. 1627; Levins
(ed. 1570) has the verb to paune.—¥F. pan, ‘a pane, piece, or pannel
of a wall; also a pawn, or gage, also the skirt of a gown, the pane
of a hose, of a cloak, &c.;” Cot. B. But we must distinguish the
senses. In the sense of ‘ pane’ or ‘skirt,’ F. pax is of L. origin. =
L. pannum, acc. of pannus, a cloth, rag, piece; see Pane. jy. In
the sense of ‘ pawn or gage,’ OF. pan is rather from Teutonic; from
Du. pand, a pledge; cf. G. pfand, OHG. phant,a pledge. δ. Kluge
connects G.pfand with OF .paner,panner, to seize upon, which Godefroy
connects with OF. panir, pannir, to seize upon, despoil; which looks
like an adaptation of OHG. *phant-jan; cf. MHG. phanten, phenten,
to pledge, also to rob of. I see no reason why all the forms may
not be ultimately referred to L. pannus, a piece of cloth or of clothing,
as being the readiest article to seize upon as a pledge. Der. pawn,
vb., pawn-er, pawn-broker.
PAWN (2), one of the least valuable pieces in chess. (F.—L.)
ME. paune, Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, 1. 661 (Thynne); but
spelt poune, poun in the Tanner and Fairfax MSS. (Chaucer Soc.) =
OF. paon, a pawn at chess (Roquefort); spelt poor in the 12th cent.
PEA 435
(Littré); but also peon, pehon, pedon (Godefroy); whence also F.
pion, explained by Cotgrave as ‘a pawn at chests.’ [Cf. Span. peon,
a foot-soldier, a pawn, Port. pido, one of the lower people, a pawn,
Ital. tedone, ‘a footeman’ (Florio), pedona, ‘a pawne at chesse,’ id. }
=Late L. peddnem, acc. of pedo, a foot-soldier; from ped-, stem of
pes, a foot, cognate with E. Foot. J For the form, cf. E. fawn,
Ε΄ faon; from Late L. féténem. Der. pion-eer, q.v.
PAWNEEH,, drink ; as in brandy-pawnee, Thackeray, Newcomes,
ch. i. (Hind.—Skt.) Hind. pani, water (also in Bengali, and other
dialects) ; Wilson, Gloss. of Indian Terms, p. 397.—Skt. paniya-,
drink (Macdonell), allied to paza-, drinking, beverage (Benfey). =
Skt. pa, to drink; cf. Ἐς potation.
PAX, a thin tablet bearing a picture of Christ, kissed by the con-
gregation. (L.) In Shak. Hen. V, iii. 6. 42. ‘Paxe to kysse;’
Palsgrave.—L. pax, peace; with reference to the kiss of peace.
See Peace. See Hone’s Year-book, 321.
PAXW AX, the strong tendon in the neck of animals. (E.)
Still common provincially; also called paxywaxy, packwax, faxwax,
jixfax. ΜΕ. paxwax, Prompt. Parv.; see Way’s note. He quotes:
‘Le vendon, the fax-wax,’ MS. Harl. 219, fol. 150. Again he says:
‘Gautier de Biblesworth [Bibbesworth] says, of a man’s body, Εἰ st
ad le wenne (fex wex) aw col derere,’ i.e. and he has paxwax at the
back of his neck. The orig. form is fax-wax or fex-wex, and it
exactly corresponds to the equivalent G. haarwachs, lit. ‘hair-growth;’
presumably because the tendon is situate just where the hair ends.
Compounded of ME. fax, hair, as in Fair-fax =fair-hair ; and wax,
growth. AS. feax, fex, hair, Luke, vii. 38; and weaxan, to grow;
see Wax (1). The AS. feax, OHG. faks, is related to Gk. πέκειν,
to comb; see Pectinal.
PAY (1), to discharge a debt. (F.—L.) ME. paven, Ancren
Riwle, p. 108, 1. 9; Layamon, 2340 (later text). It often has the
sense of ‘please’ or ‘content’ in old authors. ‘Be we paied with
these thingis’ =let us be contented with these things, Wyclif, 1 Tim.
vi. 8.—OF. paier (also paer), later payer, ‘to pay, satishe, content ;’
Cot.—L. pacare, to appease, pacify; Late L. pacare, to pay
(A.D. 1338).—L. pac-, stem of pax, peace. See Peace. Der. pay,
sb., ME. paie, satisfaction, P. Plowman, B. v. 556; pay-able, pay-er,
pay-ee (=F. payé, pp.) 5 pay-master ; pay-ment, ME. paiement, Chaucer,
C. T. 5713 (Ὁ 131), from OF. paiement, later payement, ‘a payment,’
Cot.
PAY (2), to pitch the seam of a ship. (F.—L.) A nautical
term, as noticed by Skinner, ed. 1671; and in the proverb: ‘the
devil to pay, and no pitch hot.’ ‘To pay a rope, een kabel teeren,’
lit. to tar a cable; Sewel’s Eng.-Du. Dict. 1754. —AF. *peier,
answering to O. North F. peier, to cover with a plaister (a peculiar
use, in Wace; see Godefroy); OF. poier, to pitch.—L. picare, to
pitch.=—L. pic-, stem of pix, pitch; see Pitch. Cf. ME. peys, pitch,
K. Alisaunder, 1620; from AF. pets, OF. fois, pitch; from L. acc.
picem.
PAYNIM, PAINIM, a pagan. (F.—L.) ‘The paynim bold ;’
Spenser, F. Q. i. 4. 413 cf. Fairfax, tr. of Tasso, xviii. 80. ME.
paynim. ‘The paynymys hii ouercome’= they overcame the pagans ;
Rob. of Glouc. ed. Hearne, p. 401; where the better reading is
paens, i.e. pagans, as ined. W. A. Wright, 1. 8283. This E. use of
the word is due to a singular mistake. A paynim is not a man, but
a country ; it is identical with paganism, which was formerly extended
to mean the country of pagans, or heathen lands. It is correctly
used in King Horn, ed. Lumby, 1. 803, where we find ‘a geaunt
ον fram paynyme’ =a giant from heathen lands. — AF. paenime, heathen
lands, Life of Edw. Conf. 336; OF. paienisme, spelt patanisme in
Cotgrave, who explains it by ‘ paganisme.” [The sense is borrowed
from that of OF. paénie, paiénie, the country inhabited by pagans
(Burguy).] — Late L. paginismus, paganism; formed with suffix
-ismus (Gk. -tcpos) from L. fagan-us, a pagan. See Pagan.
@ When a writer, wishing to use fine language, talks of a paynim,
he had better say a pagan at once.
PEA, a common vegetable. (L.) [We now say pea, with pl. peas.
This is due to mistaking thes of the older form for a plural termina-
tion ; just as when people say shay for chaise, Chinee for Chinese, &c.
Other words in which the same mistake is made are cherry (F. cerise),
sherry (formerly sherris).] ME. pese, pl. pesen and peses. ‘ A pese-lof*
=a loaf made of peas, P. Plowman, B. vi. 181; pl. peses, id. 189;
pesen, id. τοῦ. A later spelling of the pl. is peason ; see examples in
Nares. Shak. has peas-cod=pea-pod, Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 1. 191; and
otherwise only the form fease. We also find pescodes in Lydgate,
London Lyckpeny, st. 9. AS. pise, pl. pisan (Bosworth). Not an
E. word, but borrowed from L. pisa, later by-form of L. pisum, a
pea. [The vowel-change from ἡ to ea occurs again in the case of
pear, q.V.]4+Gk. πίσος, a pea. 4/PEIS, to grind, pound, whence L.
pinsere, to pound, Skt. pish, to grind; with reference to itsround shape.
Cf. Russ. pesok’, sand. Der. pea-pod, peas-cod.
ἘΠ 2
486 PEACE
PEACE, quietness, freedom from war. (F.—L.)_ ME. pais,
occurring as early as in the A. 5. Chron. an. 1135.—OF. fais, later
paix, ‘ peace ;’ Cot.—L. gacem, acc. of pax, peace, orig. a compact
made between two contending parties.—L. pdc-, seen in pac-isci, to
make a bargain; cf. OL. pac-ere, to bind, tocome to an agreement ;
see Pact. Der. peace!, interj.; peace-able, Much Ado, iii. 3. ὅτ;
peace-abl-y, peace-able-ness; peace-ful, K. John, ii. 340, peace-ful-ly,
peace-ful-ness, peace-maker, As You Like It, v. 4. 108 ; peace-offering,
eace-officer. Also ap-pease, pay (1), paci-fy.
PEACH (1), a delicious fruit. (F.—L.—Pers.) ‘Of Peaches ;’
Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. 11. c. 7. ME. peche, peshe, Prompt.
Pary. p. 395; where it is also spelt peske, a form due to Late L.
pesca.= OF. pesche, ‘a peach;’ Cot. (Cf. Port. pécego, Ital. persica,
shorter form pesca, a peach. ]—L. Persicum, a peach, Pliny, xv. 11. 12;
so called because growing on the Persicus or peach-tree ; where Per-
sicus stands for Persica arbor, the Persian tree. = Pers. Pars, Persia.
See Parsee. Der. peach-coloured, peach-tree.
PEACH (2), to inform against. (F.—L.) From ME. apechen,
by loss of a; and apechen is a variant of impechen, to impeach, with
a- (<L. ad) for im- (<L. in); see Impeach.
PEACOCK, a large gallinaceous bird with splendid plumage.
(Hybrid; L.—Gk.—Pers.— Tamil; and E.) ME. fecok, but also
pacok and pocok. In P. Plowman, B. xii. 241, where the text has
pekok, two other MSS. have pokok, pacok. In Chaucer, C. Τὶ 104,
the MSS. have pekok, pokok. We also find fo used alone, Polit.
Songs, ed. Wright, p. 159. The form pekok is due to AS. péa,
variant of AS. pawe, a peacock, which is not a true E. word, but
borrowed from L. pauo. ‘Pauo, Pauus, pawe;’ /Elfric’s Gloss.,
Nomina Avium, in Voc. 131. 9. Here pawe is the AS, form, whilst
pauo, pauus, are L. forms. From L. pauo come also Du. pauuw,
G. pfau, Ε΄ paon, ἅς. β. The L. word is not a native one, but
borrowed from Gk. rads, ταὧν, where the aspirate is a relic of the
digamma, from a form taf@s. See Liddell and Scott, and Curtius,
ii, τοι. The curious change from initial ¢ to p indicates that both
words are from a foreign source.— Pers. tdwus, tdus, Arab. tawiis,
a peacock; Rich. Dict., p. 962.—OTamil /okei, togei, a peacock;
Max Miiller, Lect. i. 233. γ. The latter element of the word is E.
cock, a native word of imitative origin. @ ‘The name is Tamil,
tokei; and the peacock is still called by it in Ceylon;’ Oxford
Helps to the Study of the Bible. Der. pea-hen, similarly formed ;
ME. pehen. pohen, P. Plowman, B. xii. 240.
PEA-JACKET, a coarse thick jacket often wom by seamen.
(Hybrid; Du. and F.) Prob. of modern introduction. The latter
element is the ordinary word jacket. The former element is spelt
so as to resemble pea, a vegetable, with which it has nothing to do.
It is borrowed from Du. ft), pie, a coat of a coarse woollen stuff;
the word jacket being a needless explanatory addition. ‘Een pije,
a pie-gowne, or a rough gowne, as souldiers and seamen weare;’
Hexham, 1658. As the Du. fi is pronounced like E. pie, it should
rather be called a pie-jacket, as the form pie-gowne suggests. The
material of which the jacket is made is called pij-/aken, where laken
is cloth. β. The Du. pije is the same word as Low G. pije, a
woollen jacket, called pigge, pyke in the Osnabriick dialect (Bremen
Worterbuch). Prob. from F. pie, a magpie; cf. E. pied, spotted.
The variant pyke may be immediately from L. pica. See Pie (1).
q_Cf. ME. courtepy (short coat), Chaucer, C. T. 292 (A 290).
PEAK, a sharp point, top. (Low G.?) ‘Seleucia, which is
a great promontory, or peake;’ Udall, on Acts, xiii. 4. Also peake
in Palsgrave. Apparently a variant of pike, q.v. Cf. dial. of
Normandy pec, a hob (or mark) in the game of quoits (Godefroy,
Moisy) ; also Low G. peek, a pike, a pointed weapon. Allied to
Peck, q.v., and Pick, q.v. Der. peak-ed, not quite the same word
as ME. piked (Prompt. Parv.) though used in the same sense; the
ME. form answers rather to mod. E. pike, sb., with the suffix -ed
added. Also (probably) peak, verb, to become thin, dwindle, Macb.
i. 3. 23. Cf. peeked, thin, Dorsetshire (Halliwell).
PEAL, a loud sound, summons, chime of bells, sound of a
trumpet. (F.—L.) ‘A peale of gunnes, &c.;’ Levins. ‘ Peele of
belles;’ Palsgrave. ‘Of the swete pele and melodye of bellys;’
Monk of Evesham, c. lvii, ed. Arber. A shortened form of ME.
apele, lit. ‘appeal ;’ see ‘apele of bellis,’ in Prompt. Parv., p. 13.—
AF, apel, an appeal; ‘Le clerk soune le dreyne apel,’ the clerk rings
the last peal; Wright, Vol. of Vocab., i. 149. —OF, apeler, to call.
We speak of a trumpet’s peal; compare this with F. appel, a call
with drum or trumpet (Hamilton). β. Besides the form apel, mod.
F. appel, there was a later derived form appeau, now used in the
sense of ‘ bird-call’ (Hamilton). Cotgrave has: ‘Appeau, as Appel,
PECCANT
ed. 1627; he has: ‘a peal of bells, from the F. appeller, i.e. vocare.’
See Appeal. Der. peal, verb.
PEAN, the same as Pean, αν. (L.—Gk.)
PEAR, a well-known fruit. (L.) ME. pere, Chaucer, C. T. 10205
(E 2331). AS. pere or peru; AElfric’s Grammar, 6, 9 (Bosworth) ;
spelt pere, Voc. 269. 33. [The AS. pirige, a pear-tree, occurs in
‘Pirus, pirige;’ Alfric’s Gloss., in Voc. 269. 32. Hence ME. pery,
a pear-tree, Chaucer, C. Τὶ τοῖο (E 2325), or pirie, P. Plowman, B.
vy. 16.]— Late L. pira, fem. sing., for L. pira, pl. of L. pirum, a pear,
Pliny, xv. 15, 16; whence also Norm. dial. peire (Moisy); Εἰ. poire.
4 The vowel-change from i to e appears again in Ital. pera, a pear.
Der. pear-tree, perr-y.
PEARL, a well-known shining gem. (F.—L.) ME. perle, Allit.
Poems, ed. Morris, A. I1.—F. perle, ‘a pearle, an union, also a
berrie;’ Cot. β. Of disputed etymology, but prob. Latin. It is
best to collect the forms; we find Ital., Span., Prov. perla, Port.
perola, sometimes perla; OHG. perala, perla, berala, berla. All
prob. from Late L. pirula, point of the nose, found in Isidore of
Seville, in the 7th century. γ. Diez explains pirula as prob. meaning
a little pear, from pirum, a pear; the change of vowel is well seen
in Ital. pera, a pear. See Pear. This is perhaps the best solution;
the change of sense from ‘ pear’ to ‘pearl’ may easily have been
suggested by the use of the L. bacca, which meant (1) a berry,
(2) an olive-berry, (3) any round fruit growing on a tree, (4) a pearl
(Horace, Epod. viii. 14). Diez also draws attention to Span. perilla,
(1) a little pear, (2) a pear-shaped ornament. Perhaps we may add
MiItal. perolo, ‘a little button or tassell of wooll on the top and
middle of a knit cap;’ Florio. And observe the sense of ‘ berry’
which Cotgrave assigns to F. perJe. δ. But it may be that a form
perula (for per’la?) was a corruption of Late L. perna, a pearl (see
perne in Duc.; cf. Norm. dial. perne, a pearl (from Sicil. perna),
Mital. perna, ‘a shell-fish called a nakre;’ Florio.—L. perna, a sea-
mussel. See perne in Moisy. Der. pearl-y, pearl-i-ness ; pearl-ash,
a purer carbonate of potash, named from its pearly colour.
PEARL-BARLEY. (F.—L.; and E.) A translation of F.
orge perleé, lit. ‘pearled barley;’ but this looks like an adaptation
of MF. orge pelé, lit. ‘peeled barley;’ Cot. See Peel (1) and
Barley.
PEASANT, a countryman. (F.—L.) The ¢ is excrescent, as in
ancien-t, tyran-t, but it occurs in OF. In Gascoigne, Steele Glas,
1. 647.— OF. paisant, ‘a peasant, boor;’ Cot.; Norm. dial. paisant
(Moisy). Mod. Ἐς paysax, and the more correct OF. form paisan,
answer to Ital. paisano, Span. paesano, one born in the same country,
a compatriot. B. Formed with suffix -an (=Ital. -ano, L. -dnus)
from OF. pais (mod. F. pays), a country; answering to Ital. paese,
Span. pats, Port. pais, paiz. All these latter forms answer to Late
L. pagensem, acc. of pagensis, for pagensis ager, country. —L. pagus,
a village. See Pagan. Der. peasant-ry, Bacon, Life of Hen. VII,
ed. Lumby, p. 72, 1. 16, a coined word.
PEAT, a vegetable substance like turf, found in boggy places, and
used as fuel. (C.) ‘There other with their spades the peats are
squaring out;’ Drayton, Polyolbion, 5. 25.1. 143. ‘Turf and peat
. » are cheape fuels;’ Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 775. Spelt peit, Gloss.
to Leslie’s Hist. of Scotland (1596); S.T.S. Very common in
Northumbrian. ME. pete, in comp. pefe-pot, a hole out of which
peats have been dug; Wyntown, vili. 24. 46 (Jamieson). Latinised
as peta (IDucange); whence also petdria, a place whence peats were
dug. Ducange quotes: ‘Cum suis .. . turbariis, tresidiis, petariis,’
&c.; and again, ‘Cum... petariis, turbariis, carbonariis’ (1503).
As a peat often meant ‘a piece of cut turf,’ it is likely that the Late
L. peta was a by-form of Late L. petia, ‘a piece,’ from a Celtic source.
We find OGael., ett (Book of Deer), borrowed from British; cf. W.
peth, a thing, a piece; cognate with Gael. cuid, which see in Macbain.
See Thurneysen, Keltoromanisches, p. 76. See Piece.
PEBBLE, a small round stone. (E.) In Shak. Cor. v. 3. 58;
a pebble-stone, Two Gent. ii. 3. 11. ME. pobbel, Allit. Poems, ed.
Morris, A. 117; pibbil-ston, Wyclif, Prov. xx. 17. AS. papol-stan,
a pebble-stone; Azlfric’s Homilies, i. 64, 1. 3. Cf. AS. pabbel,
Birch, Cart. Saxon. ii. 403. Der. pebbl-y, pebbl-ed.
PECCABLEBE, liable to sin. (L.) Rare; Rich. gives quotations
for peccable and peccability from Cudworth, Intellectual System (first
ed. 1678, also 1743, 1820, 1837, 1845), pp. 564, 565. Englished
from L. *peccabilis, a coined word from peccare, to sin. Brugmann,
i. § 585. Der. peccabili-ty. See Peccant.
PECCADILLO, a slight offence, small sin. (Span.—L.) In
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1074.—Span. pecadillo, a slight fault, dimin. of
pecado, a sin.—L. peccatum, a sin; orig, neut. of peccatus, pp. of
also a bird-call; Appeaux, chimes, or the chiming of bells.’ This at | peccare, to sin. See Peccant.
once explains our common use of the phrase ‘a peal of bells.’
long moots; Halliwell. This etymology is noticed by Minsheu,
Note |
also ME. ἀρεῖ, ‘an old term in hunting music, consisting of three |
PECCANT, sinning. (F.—L.) Used in the phrase ‘ peccant
humours;’ Bacon, Advancement of Learning, ed. Wright, bk. i. 4.
Uhumeur
12,5. 12; p. 37, l. 32, p. 43, 1. 28.—F. peccant, ‘sinning;
PECCARY
peccante, the corrupt humour in the body;’ Cot.=L. peccant-, stem
of pres. part. of peccare, to sin. Der. peccant-ly, peccanc-y; and see
pece-able, pecc-ad-illo.
PECCARY, a hog-like quadruped of S. America. (F.—Carib-
bean.) ‘ Pecary, a sort of wild hogs, called here [αἱ Bahia] pica;’
W. Dampier, New Voy. iii. 76; spelt peccary, id. i. 9 (1699).—F.
pécari,a peccary. A 5. American word.—Carib. pakira, the name
used in Guiana; see N. and Ὁ. 9S. iv. 496. Cf. pachira, ‘which is
the name given to this quadruped in Oronoko ;’ Clavigero’s Hist. of
Mexico, tr. by Cullen, 1787, il. 319. It is also called, in different
parts of America, saino, cojametl, and tatabro (id.). And cf. Span.
pacquire (Pineda). See my Notes on Eng. Etymology, p. 209.
PECK (1), to strike with something pointed, to snap up. (E.?)
A mere variant of pick. In Chaucer, C. T. 14973 (Six-text, B 4157)
we have: ‘ Pikke hem up right as they growe,’ in MS. C., where
most MSS. have Pekke or Pek. Pick is the older form; see Pick.
Some Swed. dialects have pekka for pikka; cf. W. Flem. pekken
(De Bo) ; for Du. pikken. Der. peck-er, wood-peck-er.
PECK (2), a dry measure, two gallons. (F.—Low G.?) ME.
pekke, Chaucer, C. T. 4008. Cf. AF. pek, Liber Albus, p. 335; OF. pet
(Godefroy). The word is somewhat obscure, but it is probably
related to peck, to snap up. As in the case of most measures,
the quantity was once indefinite, and prov. E. peck merely means
“a quantity ;” we still talk of ‘a peck of troubles.’ In particular, it
was a quantity for eating; cf. prov. E. peck, meat, victuals, from the
prov. E. verb peck, to eat. ‘We must scrat before we peck,’ i.e.
scratch (work) before we eat; Halliwell. Hence slang Εἰ, pecker,
appetite. β. Similarly Scheler derives pico/in, a peck, a measure,
from the verb jicoter, to peck as a bird does; and picofer is itself
a mere extension from the Teut. root appearing also in E. peck and
ick.
?DECTINAL, comb-like, applied to fish with bones like the teeth
of a comb. (L.) Sir T. Browne speaks of pectinals, i.e. pectinal
fish ; Vulg. Errors, b. iv. c. 1, last section. Coined from L. pectin-,
decl. stem of pecten, a comb.=—L. pectere, to comb.4-Gk. πεκτεῖν, to |
comb; lengthened form from πέκειν, to comb, to card wool, to shear.
B. From +/PEK, to pluck, pull hair, comb; preserved also in
Lithuanian pesz-ti, to pluck, pull hair. From the same root is AS.
εχ, ἃ head of hair, whence Fairfax, i.e. fair hair. Der. Hence also
pectin-ale, pectin-at-ed ; and see paxwax.
PECTORAL, belonging to the breast or chest. (F.—L.) In
Minsheu, ed. 1627.—F. pectoral, ‘pectorall;’ Cot.—L. pectoralis,
belonging to the breast.—L. pector-, for *pectos, stem of pectus, the
breast. Der. pectoral-ly, ex-pector-ate.
PECULATE, to pilfer, steal. (L.) ‘Peculator, that robs the
prince or common treasure;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. peci-
lalus, pp. of peculari, to appropriate to one’s own use. Formed as if
from *peciilum, with the same sense as peciilium, private property,
and allied to pecu-nia, property; see Peculiar, Pecuniary. Der.
peculat-ion. peculat-or.
PECULIAR, appropriated, one’s own, particular. (F.—L.)
In Levins; and in Shak. Oth. i. 1. 60.—MF. peculier, ‘ peculiar ; ἢ
Cot.<L. peciiliaris, relating to property, one’s own.=—L. peciilium,
property; allied to peciinia, property, money, from which it differs in
the suffix. See Pecuniary. Der. peculiar-ly, peculiar-i-ty.
PECUNIARY, relating to property or money. (F.—L.) Spelt
pecuniarie in Minsheu, ed. 1627.— MF. pecuniaire, ‘ pecuniary ;’ Cot.
—L. pecuniarius, belonging to property.—L. peciinia, property.
B. Formed from pecu-, as appearing in OL. pecu, cattle, and in L.
pl. pecu-a, cattle of all kinds, sheep, money; the wealth of ancient
times consisting in cattle.-Skt. pagu, cattle; Goth. faihu, property ;
AS. feoh, G. vieh, cattle. Der. pecuniari-ly.
PEDAGOGUE, a teacher, pedant. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Caxton’s
Golden Legend, St. Eutrope, § 1.—MF. pedagogue, ‘ a schoolmaster,
teacher, pedant;’ Cot.=L. pedagogus, a preceptor. = Gk. παιδαγωγός,
at Athens, a slave who led a boy to school, hence, a tutor, instructor.
=Gk. παιδ-, stem of παῖς, a boy; and ἀγωγός, leading, guiding,
from ἄγειν, to lead. B. The Gk. mats is for mafis, i.e. pau-is, from
a probable »/PEU, to beget, whence L. pu-er, a boy, Skt. pu-tra-,
ason. The Gk. ἄγειν, to lead, is cognate with L. agere, whence E.
Agent, g.v. Der. pedagog-ic; pedagog-y, MF. pedagogie (Cot.).
PEDAL, belonging to the foot. (L.) ‘Pedal, of a foot, measure
or space;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. ‘Pedaills, or low keyes, of
organs;’ Sherwood, index to Cotgrave. Now chiefly used as ἃ sb.,
as the pedal of an organ, i.e. a key acted on by the foot.—L. pedalis,
(1) belonging to a foot, (2) belonging to a foot-measure (whence the
old use, as in Blount).—L. ped-, stem of pés, a foot; cognate with
E. Foot, q.v.
PEDANT, a schoolmaster, vain displayer of learning. (F.—
Ttal.—Gk.?) In Shak. L. L. L. iii. 179. —MF. pedant, ‘a pedant, or
ordinary schoolmaster ; Cot. Borrowed from Italian (Littré). =
PEDIMENT 437
Ital. pedanie, ‘a pedante, or a schoolemaster, the same as pedagogo ;’
Florio. B. Pedante is a pres. participial form as if from a verb
*pedare, which, as Diez suggests, is probably not the MItal. pedare.
“to foote it, to tracke, to trace, to tread or trample with one’s feete’
(Florio), but rather *pedare, an accommodation of the Gk. παιδεύειν, to
instruct, from παιδ-, stem of mats, a boy. See Pedagogue. Diez
cites from Varchi (Ercol., p. 60, ed. 1570), a passage in Italian, to
the effect that ‘ when I was young, those who had the care of children,
teaching them and taking them about, were not called as at present
pedanti nor by the Greek name pedagogi, but by the more honourable
name of ripititori’ [ushers]. Der. pedant-ic, pedant-ic-al, pedant-ry.
PEDDLE, to deal in small wares. (E.) Bp. Hall contrasts
‘pedling barbarismes’ with ‘classick tongues ;’ Satires, bk. ii [vot
1111. sat. 3, 1. 25. Here pedling means ‘petty,’ from the verb peddle
or pedle, to deal in small wares ; a verb coined from the sb. pedlar,
a dealer in small wares, which was in earlier use. See Pedlar.
PEDESTAL, the foot or base of a pillar. (Span.—Ital.—L. and
G.) Spelt pedestall in Minsheu, ed. 1627.—Span. pedestal, ‘the base
or foot of a pillar,’ Minsheu. Cf. MF. pied-stal in Cotgrave. As the
Span. for ‘foot’ is pié, it is not a Span. word, but borrowed wholly
from Ital. piedestallo, ‘a footstall or a treshall [threshold] of a doore ;’
Florio. Lit. ‘ foot-support.’ β. A hybrid compound; from Ital.
piede, ‘a foote, a base, a footstall or foundation of anything’ (Florio),
which is from L, pedem, acc. of pés, a foot; and Ital. sta//o, a stable,
a stall, from OHG. stal, G. stall, a stable, stall, cognate with E. stall.
See Foot and Stall. ἀπ Foorstall (G. fussgestell) is a better
word.
PEDESTRIAN, going on foot; an expert walker. (L.)
Properly an adj. Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, gives the form pedestrial.
Both pedestri-an and pedestri-al are coined words, from L. pedestri-,
decl. stem of pedester, one who goes on foot. Formed, it is supposed,
from *pedit-ter, i. e. by adding the suffix -ter (Idg. -ter) to pedit-, stem
of pedes, one who goes on foot. Ped-it- is from ped-, stem of pés,
a foot; and it-um, supine of ire, to go, from 4/EI, to go. Cf.
com-es (stem com-it-), a companion, one who ‘ goes with’ another.
The L. pés is cognate with E. foot; see Foot. Der. pedestrian-ism.
PEDICEL, PEDICLE, the foot-stalk by which a flower or
fruit is joined onto atree. (F.—L.) Pedicel is modern, from mod. F.
pédicelle; not a good form, since L. pedicellus means ‘a little louse.”
Pedicle is the better word, as used by Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 592.—MF.
pedicule, ‘the staulk of a leafe, or of fruit;’ Cot.—L. pediculum, acc.
of pediculus, a little foot, foot-stalk. Double dimin. from fedi-,
decl. stem of pés, cognate with E. foot. See Foot.
PEDIGREE, a register of descent, lineage, genealogy. (F.—L.)
In Shak. Hen. V, ii. 4.90. Spelt pedegree in Minsheu (1627); pedi-
grew in Levins (1570); petygrewe in Palsgrave (1530). In the
Prompt. Parv., A.D. 1440, we find the spellings pedegru, pedegrw,
pedygru, pedegrewe, petygru, petygrwe, and it is explained by ‘lyne of
kynrede and awncetrye, Stemma, in scalis. In the Appendix to
Hearne’s ed. of Rob. of Gloucester, p. 585, he cites from a MS. of
Rob. of Glouc. in the Herald’s Office, a piece which begins: ‘ A pete-
greu, fro William Conquerour.. vn-to kyng Henry the vi. The
last circumstance mentioned belongs to A.D. 1431, so that the date
is about the same as that of the Prompt. Parv. Wedgwood cites from
the Rolls of Winchester College, temp. Henry IV, printed in Pro-
ceedings of the Archzological Institute, 1848, p. 64, a passage
relating to the expenses ‘Stephani Austinwell..ad loquendum..
de evidenciis scrutandis de pe de gre progenitorum heredum de
Husey.’ Lydgate has peedegrue ; in Polit. Poems, ed. Wright, ii.
138; A.D. 1426; also peedegrewe, Hors, Shepe and Goos, 1. 9; pee
de grewe, ‘Troybook, fol. Ee 1, back, 1. 7. ‘Chus the word does not
appear till the 15th century, β. From AF. pee de grue, lit. ‘ foot
of a crane ;’ sonamed from a three-line mark (like the broad arrow,
or a bird’s foot), which was used in denoting succession in pedigrees;
indeed, the symbol - is still in use as the ‘ pedigree-sign.’ — L. pedem,
ace. of pés, a foot; dé, of ; gruem, acc. of grus, a crane, related to E.
Crane. δ First explained by Mr. C. Sweet, in The Atheneum,
March 30, 1895. See my Notes on Eng. Etymology.
PEDIMENT, an ornament finishing the front of a building.
(F.—L.) ‘Fronton, in architecture, a member that serves to compose an
ornament, raised over cross-works, doors, niches, &c., sometimes
making a triangle, and sometimes part of a circle; it is otherwise
called a pediment, and fastigium by Vitruvius ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.
Evelyn, Hist. of Architecture, 1696, speaks of the fronton, ‘ which
our workmen call pediment.’ The older form was periment, as shown
in the N. E. D.; and this was said to be a workman’s term, and
‘corrupt English.’ B. I think it is likely that a periment was simply
a mistaken way of pronouncing operiment, given in the N. E. 1). with
the sense of ‘a covering,’ and recorded with that sense in Blount’s
Glossographia, ed. 1656, and in Phillips, ed. 1658. —L. operimentum,
a covering. L. oferire, to cover; see Cover. γ. When the
488 PEDLAR
source of (0) pediment was lost sight of, it seems to have been asso-
ciated with the L. (im)pedimentum, whence the form pediment.
PEDLAR, PEDLER, PEDDLER, a hawker, one who travels
about selling small wares. (E.) The verb to peddle, to sell small
wares, is later, and a mere derivative from the sb. We find ped/er in
Cotgrave, to explain F. mercerot, and pedlar in Sherwood’s index,
But a shorter form was peddar or pedder, appearing as late as in
Levins, ed. 1570; although, on the other hand, pedlere occurs as
early as in P. Plowman, B. v. 258; and Lydgate has: ‘ as pedeler to
his pakke;’ Minor Poems, p. 30. The Prompt. Pary. gives :
‘ Pedlare, shapmann, i.e. chapman, hawker. ‘ Peddare, calatharius
[basket-maker], piscarius’ [one who sells fish hawked about in
baskets]; Prompt. Parv. ; formed from pedde, explained by ‘ panere,’
i.e. a pannier; id. See Way’s excellent illustrative note. B. As
Way remarks, in the Eastern counties, a pannier for carrying pro-
visions to market, esp. fish, is called a ped; ‘the market in Norwich,
where wares brought in from the country are exposed for sale, being
known as the ped-market ; and a dealer who transports his wares in
such a manner is termed a pedder,’ Perhaps pedlar is due to a dimin.
from peddle, i.e. little ‘ped,’ which is not recorded. The word
peddar is old, and is spelt peoddare in the Ancren Riwle, p. 66, 1. 17,
where it has the exact sense of pedlar or hawker of small wares,
And see Lowland Sc. peddir, a pedlar (Jamieson), Cf. ‘ A haske is
a wicker pad, wherein they vse to carry fish;’ Gloss by E. Kirke to
Spenser, Shep. Kal. November, 1. 16. See Padlock. Der. peddle,
vb., 4. v-
PEDOBAPTISM, infant baptism. (Gk.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed.1674. A coined word, as if from L. *pedobaptismus, Latinised
form of Gk. ma:doBanrioués ; from παιδο-, decl. stem of wats, a boy;
and βαπτισμός, baptism. See Pedagogue and Baptism. Der.
pedobaptist.
PEDUNCLE, a flower-stalk. (L.) Modern; cf. F. pédoncule ;
used in 1798 (Hatzfeld).—L. pedunculus, variant of pediculus, a foot-
stalk or pedicle. —L. ped-, stem of pés, a foot. See Pedal, Pedicel,
PEEL (1), to strip off the skin or bark. (F.—L.) In Shak. Merch.
Ven. i. 3. 85. [Two F. verbs are mixed up here, viz. F. peler and F.
piller, It is true that peler and piller are now well distinguished in
French, the former meaning ‘to peel, strip,’ and the latter ‘to
plunder,’ a sense preserved in E, pillage. But in OF. they were
sometimes confused, and the same confusion appears in ME. pilien,
pillen, used in the sense of ‘peel.’ ‘ Rushes to pilie’=to peel rushes,
P. Plowman, C. x. 81; pilled=bald, Chaucer, C. T. 3933 (A 3935).
A clear case is in Palsgrave, who has: ‘I pyll rysshes, 76 pille des
foncz,’ For further remarks on pill, see Pillage.] We may con-
sider peel, in the present place, as due to peler only. —F. peler, ‘ to
pill, pare, bark, unrind, unskin ;’ Cot. [Cf. Span. pelar, Ital. pelare,
to strip, peel, MItal. pellare, ‘to vnskin,’ Florio. ]—OF. 26], skin. =
L, pellem, acc. of pellis, skin; see Fell (2). 47 But some senses of
F. peler are due to L, pilare, to deprive of hair, make bald. = L. pilus,
hair. Der, peel-ed ; peel, sb.
PEEL (2), to pillage. (F.—L.) ‘Peeling their provinces,’ i.e.
robbing them; Milton, P. R, iv. 136. This is not the same word as
the aboye, but another spelling of the old verb pill (F. piller), to rob.
See Pillage, and see remarks under Peel (1).
PEEL (3), a fire-shovel. (F.—L.) Once a common word. ‘ Pele
for an ouyn, pelle a four;’ Palsgrave.mF. pelle, also spelt pale,
‘a fire-shovell,’ Cot.—L. pala, a spade, shovel, peel. See Palette,
Der. pal-ette.
PEEL (4), a small castle. (F.—L.) Used by Burns, The Five
Carlins, st. 5; see Jamieson. ME. pel (also pele, pell), Chaucer, Ho.
of Fame, 1. 1310 (iii. 220); peil/, pl. pelis, Barbour, Bruce, x. 137,
147. -- OF. pel (given in Godefroy under pai), a stake, pale, stock,
stockade. (The original peels were stockades or wooden structures ;
the name was retained after stone was used; see an Essay on the
word Peel by G. Neilson, of Glasgow.)—L. palum, acc. of palus,
a stake; see Pale (1). 41 Different from ME. pile, P. Plowman,
C. xxii. 366; cf. “1 dwelle in my pile of ston,’ Torrent of Portugal,
ed. Halliwell, 573; ‘ Grete pylis and castellys ;” Coy. Mysteries, p. 210.
See Pile (2).
PEEP (1), to chirp, or cry like a chicken. (F.—L.) In Isaiah,
Vili. 19, X. 14; see Bible Wordbook, ‘ Now, suete bird, say ones to
me pepe!” Kingis Quair, st. 57. Cf.‘ A pepe of chekennys (chickens) ;’
Book of St. Alban’s, fol. f 7, 1. 4. An imitative word, but it seems
nevertheless to have been borrowed from F.—OF, pepier, ‘to peep,
cheep, or pule, as a young bird in the neast,’ Cot.;- also pipier
(Godefroy). Allied to piper, ‘to whistle, or chirp, like a bird,’ id, ;
ef. pipée, ‘the peeping or chirping of small birds,’ id. The Jatter
form (piper) represents a Folk-L. *pippare, allied to L. pipare,
pipire, to peep, chirp, Of imitative origin; due to repetition of the
syllable PI. Cf. Gk. πιπίζειν, πιππίζειν, to chirp. See Pipe (1).
PEEP (2), to look out (or in) through a narrow aperture, to look
PEEVISH
slily. (F.—L.) ‘Where dawning day doth never peefe ;’ Spenser,
Ε΄ Q.i. 1. 39. ‘To peepe, inspicere ;’ Levins, ed. 1570. It seems
to have arisen from the sound /eep! used as an interjection. In his
Du. dial. Dict., Molema explains how the exclamation piep! is
made (as a slight guide) by a hider in the game of peep-bo, bo-peep,
or hide and seek; whence Du. dial. piepen, (1) to cry piep! (2) to
peep out. Prob. Palsgrave refers to this when he says: ‘I peke or
prie, je pipe hors, i.e. I peep out. The F. piper usually meant ‘ to
pipe;’ Cot. gives: ‘piper, to whistle, chirp like a bird, cousen,
deceive, cheat.’ B, The old phrase ‘at peep of day’ answers to
MF. a la pipe du jour, which Palsgrave explains by ‘ at daye-pype ;’
Ῥ. 804, col. 1; which has reference to the chirping of birds at day-
break. All from L. pipare, to chirp; see Peep (1), Pipe (1). See
my Notes on Eng. Etymology. Der. peep-bo or bo-peep, a game of
hide and seek ; in its simplest form, a nurse says peep to an infant, in
a squeaky voice, with her face behind her apron, and then bo!
suddenly in a louder one, uncovering her face at the same time.
Compare: ‘ Bo, Boe, cucullus lugubris oculos faciemque obstruens ;
Kijke-boe, lusus puerilis, in quo alicuius oculi, manu linteove, etc.,
obtecti, subito infantis in gratiam deteguntur;’ Ten Kate, Anleidning
tot de Kennisse van het verhevene Deel der Nederduitsche Sprake ;
1723, vol. i. p. 279. Also W. Flem. piepbeu, peep-bo (De Bo).
PEER (1), an equal, a nobleman. (F.—L.) The orig. sense is
‘equal ;’ the twelve peers of France were so called because of equal
rank, ME. pere, Chaucer, C.T. toggo (F 678) ; per, Havelok, 2241. —
OF. per, peer, later pair, ‘a peer, a paragon, also a match, fellow,
companion ;’ Cot. ; or, as an adj,, ‘like, equall,’ id. (Cf. Span. par,
equal, also a peer; Ital. pare, pari, alike, pari, a peer.]}—L. parem,
acc. of par, equal. See Par, Pair. Der. peer-ess, a late word, with
fem. suffix -ess, of F. origin, Pope, Moral Essays, ii, 70, iii. 140;
peer-age, used in 1671 (see N. Εἰ. D.) in place of the older word peer-
dom, used by Cotgrave to translate F. pairie; also peer-less, Temp, iii.
I. 47; peer-less-ly, peer-less-ness.
PEER (2), to look narrowly, to pry. (E.?) ‘Peering [quarto,
Piring] in maps for ports;’ Merch. Ven. i. 1. 19. Of obscure
origin; apparently altered, by confusion with peer (3), from ME.
piren. ‘Riht so doth he, whan that he pireth And toteth on hire
wommanhiede ;’ = so does he, when he peers and looks upon her
womanhood; Gower, C, A. iii. 29; bk. vi. 819. ‘And preuylich
pirith till Pe dame passe’ = and privily peers, or spies, till the
mother-bird leaves the nest; Rich. Redeles, ed. Skeat, iii, 48. Cf.
EFries. piren, Westphal. piren, Low G. piren, to look closely; esp.
Westphal, piren na wot, to peer after something, Cf. also the parallel
forms pliren, pliiren; see Bremen Worterbuch. For the loss of /,
cf. Pateh.+Swed. plira, to blink; Dan. plire, to blink. The orig.
sense of Low Ὁ. pliren is to draw the eyelids together, in order to
look closely. And see Peer (3).
PEER (3), to appear. (F.—L,.) Distinct from the word above,
though prob. sometimes confused with it. It is merely short for
appear. ME. peren, short for aperen. ‘There was I bidde, on pain
of death, to pere;’ Court of Love (16th cent.), 1.55. Cf. * When
daffodils begin to peer;’ Shak. Wint. Ta. iv. 3. 1. As the ME.
aperen was usually spelt with one 26, the prefix a- easily dropped off,
as in the case of peal for appeal; see Peal. Cf. Chaucer, Troil.
ii. 909, where to appere is also written sapere; see further under
Appear, @ In F, the simple verb paroir (L. parére) was used in
a similar way. ‘Paroir, to appear, to peep out, as the day in a
morning, or the sun over a mountain; ’ Cot.
PEEVISH, cross, ill-natured, fretful. (E.) ME. peuisch; spelt
peyuesshe in P, Plowman, C. ix, 151, where four MSS. have peuysche ;
the sense being ‘ill-natured.’ It occurs also in G. Douglas, tr. of
Virgil, Afn. xi. 408 (Lat. text), where we find: ‘Sik ane pevyche and
cative saule as thyne’=such a perverse and wretched soul as thine.
And again, Aruns is called ‘thys pewech man of weir’ [war], where
it answers to L. improbus; An. xi, 767. Ray, in his North-country
Words, ed. 1691, gives: ‘Peevish, witty, subtil.’ Florio explains
schifezza by ‘coynes, quaintnes, peeuishnes, fondnes, frowardnes.’
Peevish in Shak. is silly, childish, thoughtless, forward. Peevishnesse
=waywardness, Spenser, F. Q. vi. 7. 37. Thus the various senses
are childish, silly, wayward, froward, uncouth, ill-natured, perverse,
and even witty. All of these may be reduced to the sense of
‘childish,’ the sense of witty being equivalent to that of ‘ forward,’
the child being toward instead of froward. B. A difficult word;
but prob. of onomatopoetic origin, from the noise made by fretful
children. The origin is illustrated by Lowland Sc. peu, to make
a plaintive noise, used in the Complaint of Scotland, ed. Murray,
vi. 39, to denote the plaintive cry of young birds: ‘the chekyns
{chickens] began to pew.’ Peevish answers to MDan. pjeven, tearful ;
adj. from pjeve, to whimper {ΚΑΙ Κατ); and Wedgwood cites Dan.
dial. pieve, to whimper or cry like a child; cf. Low G. pau-en, to
whimper. Cf. F. piauler, ‘to peep or cheep as a young bird, also to
PEEWIT
pule, or howle as a young whelp;’ Cot. Cf. Pewit. In this view,
the suffix -isk has the not uncommon force of ‘ given to,’ as in thiev-
ish, mop-ish. Similarly, from Gael. piug, a plaintive note, we have
piugach, having a querulous voice, mean-looking. Der. peevish-ly,
-7€SS.
PEEWIT, another spelling of Pewit. (E.)
PEG, a wooden pin for fastening boards, &c. (E.?) ME. pegge;
‘Pegge, or pynne of tymbyr;” Prompt. Parv. The nearest form is
Swed. dial. pegg, variant of Swed. pigg (below); cf. Dan. pig (pl.
pigge), weakened form of pik, a pike, peak; Swed. pigg, a prick, spike,
from pik, a pike. Cf. also W. pig,a peak, point; Corn. peg, a prick.
B. Perhaps we may also compare Du. and Low G. pegel, a measure
of liquid capacity, such as was marked by the pegs in a ‘ peg-tankard.’
Der. peg, verb, Temp. i. 2. 295; pegg-ed.
PEISE, PEIZE, to weigh, to poize. (F.—L.) ‘To perze the
time,’ i.e. to weight or retard it; Shak. Merch. Ven. iii. 2. 22. ME.
peisen, to weigh; P. Plowm. A. v. 131.—AF. peiser, Stat. Realm,
1. 218; OF. poiser. See Poise, of which it is a doublet.
PEHEITREL, the AF. form of Poitrel, q.v. In Baret; 1580.
Gaimar has AF. pertrels, pl.; 1. 6385.
PEJORATIVEH, depreciatory. (L.) From Late L, péidrat-us,
pp. of péidrare, to impair.=—L. peidr-, from péior, worse, used as the
comp. of malus, bad. See Pessimist. Cf. mod. F. péjoratif.
PEKOBE, a kind of black tea, (Chinese.) ‘ Pekoe Bohea;’ H.
Carey, Chrononhotonthologos, A. i.= Chinese (Amoy dialect) pek-
ho; trom pek, white, ho, down; the tea being picked young, with
the down still on the leaves (N. E. D.).
PELARGONIUM, a flower of the order Geraniacez. (Gk.)
From Gk. πελαργός, a stork; from the resemblance of the beaked
capsules to a stork’s bill, Perhaps from πελ-ιός, dusky, and ἀργός,
white.
PELERINE, a kind of lady’s tippet. (F.—L.) F. pélerine,
a tippet.— I. pélerin, a pilgrim.—L. peregrinum, acc. of peregrinus ;
see Pilgrim.
PELF, lucre, spoil, booty, gain. (F.) ‘But all his minde is set
on mucky pelfe;’ Spenser, F, Q. ili. 9. 4. ME. pelfyr, pelfrey,
‘Spolium;’ Prompt. Pary. Pelf, property; St. Cuthbert, 5989,
Pelf, to rob, occurs as a verb, Cursor Mundi, 1. 6149.—OF. pelfre,
booty, allied to pelfrer, to pilfer (Godefroy); cf. also OF. peljir, to
pillage. Der. pilfer. Of unknown origin.
PELICAN, a large water-fowl. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Hamlet, iv.
5.146. Spelt pellican, Ancren Riwle, p. 118.—F. pelican, ‘a pel-
lican;’ Cot. L. pelicinus, pelecanus, Gk. πελεκάν (gen. πελεκᾶνος),
πελεκᾶς, πελέκας, strictly, the wood-pecker, the joiner-bird of Aristo-
phanes, Av. 884, 1155; also a water-bird of the pelican kind. The
wood-pecker was so called from its pecking; and the pelican from
its large bill. —Gk. meAexaw, 1 hew with an axe, peck, Gk, πέλεκυς,
an axe, hatchet.4-Skt. paragu-, an axe, hatchet.
PELISSH, a silk habit, worn by ladies. (F.—L.) Formerly a
furred robe. Of late introduction; added by Todd to Johnson.
[The older E. form is pilch, q.v.]—F. pelisse, formerly also pelice,
*a skin of fur;’ Cot.—L. pellicea, pellicia, fem. of pelliceus, pellicius,
made of skins. L. pellis, a skin, cognate with E, fell, a skin; see
Pell and Fell (2). Der. sur-plice. Doublet, pilch.
PELL, a skin, a roll of parchment. (F.-L.) ME. pell, pel
(pl. pellis) ; King Alisaunder, 7081.—OF, pel (Burguy); mod. F. peaw,
a skin. = L. pellem, acc. of pellis,a skin, cognate with Εἰς fell, a skin ;
see Fell (2). Der. pel-isse, pell-icle, pel-t (2), sur-plice, peel (1).
PELLET, a little ball, as of lint or wax, &c. (F.—L.) ME. pelet.
Formerly used to mean a gun-stone, or piece of white stone used as
acannon-ball. ‘As pale as a pele¢,’ P. Plowman, B, v.78, ‘A jpelet
out of a gonne’ [gun], Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, iii. 553.—OF. ῥείοίε,
“a hand-ball, or tennis-ball;’ Cot. Cf. Span. pelota, a ball, cannon-
ball, Ital. pillot¢a, a small ball. All diminutives from L. pila, a ball.
Der. pellet-ed; plat-oon, q.v.
PELLICLE, a thin film, (F.—L.) ‘A pellicle, or litthke mem-
brane;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. iii, ¢. 27, part 10.—F.
pellicule, ‘a little skin;’ Cot.—L. pellicula, a small skin or hide;
donble dimin. from pellis, a skin. See Pell.
PELLITORY (1), PARITORY, a wild flower that grows on
walls. (F.—L.) Often called pellitory of the wall, a tautological
expression; spelt pellitorie of the wall in Baret (1580). Pedlitory
stands for paritory, by the common change of r tol. ME. paritorie,
Chaucer, C. T. 16049 (G 581).—OF. paritoire, ‘pellitory of the
wall;’ Cot.=L. pariefaria, pellitory; properly fem. of adj. parie-
tarius, belonging to walls.—L. pariet-, stem of pariés, a wall.
PELLITORY (2), PELLETER, the plant pyrethrum. (Span,
—L.—Gk.) ME. peletyr, Prompt. Parv. Sometimes called pelleter
of Spain, because it grows there (Prior). It is the Anacyclus pyre-
thrum, the name of which has been assimilated to that of the plant
above, which was earlier known. On account of this it is called by
PEN 439
Cotgrave ‘bastard pellitory, or right pellitory of Spain;’ but the
name is not from MF, pirette (Cot.), but from Span. pelitre, pellitory
of Spain.—L. pyrethrum.—Gk, πύρεθρον, a hot spicy plant, feverfew
(Liddell). So named from its hot taste.—Gk, πῦρ, fire, cognate
with E. fire; with suffix -@po-, denoting the agent. See Fire.
PELL-MELL, promiscuously, confusedly. (F.—L.) In Shak,
K. John, ii. 406.—MF. pesle-mesle (mod. F. péle-méle), ‘ pell-mell,
confusedly, Cot.; also spelt pelle-melle in the 13th cent. (Littré.)
The apparent sense is ‘stirred np with a shovel;’ as if from Ἐς
pelle, a shovel, fire-shovel (E. peel), from L. pala, a spade, peel,
shovel, and OF. mesler, to mix. But orig. it was only a reduplicated
form of mesle; in fact, mesle-mesle and melle-melle also occur. See
Korting, § 6214. From Late L. misculare, extended from miscére, to
mix. See Peel (3) and Medley.
PELLUCDD, transparent. (F.—L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
‘Such a diaphanous pellucid dainty body;’ Howell, Letters, v. i,
sec. I. let. 29 (1621).—F. pellucide, ‘ bright, shining;’ Cot.—L.
pellicidus, transparent.— L. pellucére, perlucére, to shine through. = L.
per, through; and lucére, to shine, allied to ἐς, light. See Per-
and Lucid.
PELT (1), to throw or cast, to strike by throwing, (L.) ‘The
chidden billow seems to pelt the clouds;’ Oth. 11.1.12. ME. pelten,
pilten, pulten, to thrust, strike, drive; pt. t. pelte, pilte, pulte; pp. pelt,
pit, pult. ‘And hire oder eare pilted hire tail per-inne’=and in her
other ear she [the adder] thrusts her tail; O. Eng. Homilies, ed.
Morris, ii. 197. “ Fikenhild ajen hire pelte Wip his swerdes hilte’ =
Fikenhild pushed against her with his sword-hilt; King Horn, ed.
Lumby, 1415. The pp. pi/t=thrust, put, is in Gen. and Exodus,
ed. Morris, 2214. The pp. tpu/t=cast, thrown, is in Layamon,
10839 (later text). See further examples in Stratmann, to which
add, from Halliwell: ‘With grete strokes I shalle hym pelte,’ MS,
Ashmole 61; which comes very near the mod. usage. The sense of
‘drive’ comes out in the common mod. E. phrase full pelt=full
drive. β, The easiest way of interpreting the vowel-sounds is to
refer the word to an AS. form *pyltan, to thrust, drive, not recorded.
This would give ME. pulten or pilten; cf. AS. pyt, a pit, whence
ME. put, pit. The e is a dialectal variety, like Kentish pet for pit,
y. Just as pyt is from L. putews, such a form as AS. *pyltan would
result from *pultjan, from L. pultare, to beat, strike, knock. ὃ, L.
pulldre, like pulsdre, is an iterative form from pellere (pp. pulsus), to
drive; see Pulsate. The simple L. fellere appears, perhaps, in
Havelok, 810; ‘To morwen shal ich forth pelle’ = to-morrow I shall
drive forth, i.e. rush forth. Der, pelt-ing, pelt, sb.
PELT (2), a skin, esp. of a sheep. (F.—L.) Used in the North
for the skin of a sheep; in hawking, a peli is the dead body of
a fowl killed by a hawk (Halliwell), The skin of a beast with the
hair on (Webster). And see E.D. Ὁ, ΜΕ, pelt. ‘Off shepe also
comythe pelt and eke felle’ [skin]; The Hors, Shepe, and Goos,
1. 43 (by Lydgate), in Political, Religious, and Love Poems, ed.
Furnivall. We also find prov. E. peltry, a skin (10, D. D., 5, v. pelt);
formerly peltre-ware, as in Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol. 11. c. 170
(R.); Hakluyt’s Voyages, i. 192, |. 11 from bottom, where it occurs
in a reprint of The Libell of E. Policye, 1. 309. B. As peltry=MF.
pelleterie, ‘the trade of a skinner, or peltmonger;’ Cot., from MF.
pelletier, ‘a skinner;’ so pelt answers to OF, pelete, pellete, a small
skin (Godefroy), the sense ‘sheep’s skin’ being preserved in Norm.
dial. pelette (pron. plet?), a sheep-skin (Moisy). Dimin. of OF, fel,
askin; see Pell,
PELTATE, lit. ‘shield-shaped.’ (L.—Gk.) In botany; said of
a leaf.—L. peltatus, furnished with a pel/a, or light shield. Gk.
πέλτη, a light shield; prob. allied to πέλλα, skin, hide, and to E.
fell (2).
PELVIS, the bony cavity in the lower part of the abdomen. (L.)
In Phillips, ed, 1706. «- L, peluts, lit. a bason; hence, the pelvis, from
its shape. Allied to Gk. méAus, πέλλα, a wooden bowl, cup.
PEMMICAN, a preparation of dried meat. (N. Amer. Indian.)
A Cree word; see Cree Dict. by Lacombe. —Cree pimikkan, pimican,
a bag filled with a mixture of fat and meat; from pimiy, grease.
Cf. Algonkin pimite, grease (Cuoq). The e is an error for ¢.
PEN (1), to shut up, enclose. (L.) ME. pennen, O. Eng.
Homilies, ed. Morris, ii. 43; also piznen, see P. Plowman, C. vii, 219,
and footnote. AS. pennian, only recorded in the comp. on-pennian,
toun-pen. ‘Ac gif sio pynding wierd ozpennad’= but if the water-
dam is unfastened or thrown open; Ailfred, tr. of Gregory’s Pastoral,
ed. Sweet, c. xxxviii, p. 276. Cf. Low G. pennen, to bolt a door, from
penn,a pin, peg. Pennian is thus connected with pin, and is ultimately
of Latin origin. See Pin. Note EFries. penne, pinne, penn, pin,
a peg, a pin. Der. pen, sb., Merry Wives, iii. 4. 41; Allit. Poems,
ed. Morris, B. 322. ᾧξ The verb /o pen seems to have been con-
nected with pindar at an early period; but pindar is related to
a pound for cattle. See Pinfold.
440 PEN
PEN (2), an instrument used for writing. (F.—L.) ME. penne,
Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 156, 1. 15; P. Plowman, B. ix. 39. = OF.
penne, ‘a quill, or hard feather, a pen-feather;’ Cot.—L. penna, a
feather; in Late L. a pen. β. The old form of penna was pesna
(Festus); for *petna or *petsna, formed with suffix -za or -sna from
“PET, to fly; whence also E. feath-er, im-pet-us, pet-it-ion, &c. See |
Feather. Brugmann, i. ὃ 762 (2). Der. pen, vb., Skelton, Phyllyp |
Sparowe, 1. S10; pen-knife, pen-man, pen-man-ship; penn-er, a case |
for pens, Chaucer, C. T. 9753 (E 1879); penn-ate, from L. pennatus,
winged; penn-on, q.v. Also pinn-ac-le, pinn-ate, pin-ion.
in,
?DENAL, pertaining to or used for punishment. (F.—L.—Gk.)
In Levins, 1570.—MF. penal, ‘ penall;” Cot.—L. penalis, penal. =
L. pena, punishment.«aGk. ποινή, a penalty, requital. See Pain.
Der. penal-ty, L. L. L. i, 1. 123, from MF. penalité, not in Cotgrave,
but in use in the 16th century (Littré), coined as if from a L.
*penilitas. Also pen-ance, pen-it-ence, pun-ish. :
PENANCE, repentance, self-punishment expressive of peni-
tence. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. penance, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft,
p: 303, 1. 143 fenaunce, in the sense of penitence or repentance,
Wyclif, Matt. iii. 2.—OF. penance, older form peneance ; formed from
L. penitentia, penitence, by the usual loss of medial ¢ between two
vowels. It is thus a doublet of penitence ; see Penitent.
PENATES, household gods. (L.) L. Pendtes; allied to penes,
with, in the house of; see Penetrate.
PENCHANT, a strong inclination, bias (in favour of). (F.—L.)
In Dryden, Marriage-a-la-Mode, iii. 1.—F. penchant, sb.; orig. pres.
part. of pencher, to lean, lean towards.—Late L. type *pendicare; |
from L. pendére, to hang.
PENCIL, a small hair-brush for laying on colours, a pointed
instrument for writing without ink. (F.—L.) The old use of a
pencil was for painting in colours; see Trench, Select Glossary.
ME. pensil; ‘With sotil pencel was depeynt this storie;’ Chaucer,
C. T. 2051 (A 2049).—OF. pincel (13th century, Littré), later
pinceau, ‘a pensill, a white-limer’s brush;’ Cot.—L, pénicillus, a
small tail, also, a painter’s brush; dimin. of péniculus, a little tail,
which again is a double dimin. of pénis,a tail. For *pes-nis; cf. Skt.
pasa-, Gk. πέος; Brugmann, i. ὃ 877. Der. pencil, vb.; pencill-ed,
Timon, i. 1. 159.
PENDANT, anything hanging, esp. by way of ornament. (F.—
L.) ‘His earerings had pendants of golde;’ Hakluyt’s Voyages, i.
346, 1. 12. ‘It was a bridge .. With curious corbes and pendants
grayen faire;’ Spenser, F. Ὁ. iv. 10. 6.—F. pendant, ‘a pendant ;’
Cot. =F. pendant, hanging, pres. part. of pendre, to hang. —L. pendére,
to hang; allied to pendere, to weigh. β. The L. pendere is further
allied to Gk. σφενδόνη, a sling, Skt. spand, to tremble, throb,
vibrate. —4/SPHED, SPHEND, to tremble, vibrate, Der. pend-ent,
hanging, Latinized form of F. pendant; pend-ing, Anglicized form of
F. pendant, as shown by the F. phrase pendant cela, ‘in the mean
while, in the mean time,’ Cot.; pend-ence (rare); pend-ul-ous, q.v.,
pend-ul-um, q.v., pens-ile, q.v. Also (from L. pendére) ap-pend,
com-pend-i-ous, de-pend, ex-pend, im-pend, per-pend, per-pend-ic-u-lar,
s-pend, sti-pend, sus-pend, δες.
ive, com-pens-ate, dis-pense, ex-pense, pre-pense, pro-pens-i-ty, recom-
pense, sus-pens-ion; see also poise, avoir-du-pois, counter-poise, pans-y,
pent-house, ponder, pound (1), pre-ponderate, spencer.
PENDULOUS, hanging, impending. (L.) In Shak. K. Lear,
iii. 4.69. Englished directly from L. pendulus, hanging, by change
of τὴς to -ous, as in ardu-ous, &c.—L. pendére, to hang; see Pend-
ant. Der. pendulous-ly, -ness.
PENDULUM, a hanging weight, vibrating freely. (L.) ‘That
the vibration of this pendulum ;’ Butler, Hudibras, pt. ii. c. 3, 1. 1024.
—L. pendulum, neut. of pendulus, hanging; see Pendulous.
PENETRATE, to pierce into. (L.) In Palsgrave, ed. 1530.—
L, penetratus, pp. of penetrdre, to pierce into. B. L. pene-trare is
a compound. The part pene- is from the base of penes, with, peni-
ius, within, pen-us, the inner part of a sanctuary; [prob. connected
with penus, stored food, provisions kept within doors, Lithuan. penas,
fodder.] ‘The idea “ stores, store-room,” furnishes the intermediate
step from penus to penetrare;’ Curtius, i. 336. γ. The suffix -trare,
to pass beyond, is the same as in in-/r@re, to enter, connected with
L. in-tra, within, ex-tra, without, ‘rans, across; allied to Skt. ¢ara-,
a crossing. Der. penetra-ble, Hamlet, iii. 4. 36, immediately from
L. penetrabilis; impenetrable; penetrabl-y, penetrable-ness, penetrabili-
ty; penetrat-ing; penztrat-ive, from MF. penetratif, ‘penetrative’
(Cot.); penetrat-ive-ly, penetrat-ive-ness; pene/rat-ion, Milton, P. L.
ili, 585, immediately from L. penetratio.
PENGUIN, PINGUIN, the name of an aquatic bird. (C. ?)
“As Indian Britons were from fenguins;’ Butler, Hudibras, pt. i.
¢. 2,1. 60. It occurs still earlier, in the 15th note (by Selden) to
Urayton’s Volyolbion, song 9, ed, 1613, where we find: ‘ About the
Doublet, |
Also (like pp. pensus) pens-ion, pens- |
PENSILE
year 1170, Madoc, brother to Dauid ap Owen, Prince of Wales,
made this sea-voyage [to Florida]; and, by probability, those
names of Capo de Breton in Norumbeg, and pengwin in part of the
Northerne America, for a white rock and a white-headed bird, accord-
ing to the British, were reliques of this discouery.’ Certainly, the
form penguin bears a striking resemblance to W. pen gwyn, where
pen=head, and gwyx=white ; and if the name was given to the bird
by W. sailors, this may be the solution. We can go still further
back, and show that the word existed in Sir F. Drake’s time. Yule
quotes from Drake’s Voyage by F. Fletcher (Hakluyt Soc.), p. 72,
with reference to the year 1578: ‘In these Islands we founde greate
| relief and plenty of good victuals, for infinite were the number of
| fowle which the Welsh men named Penguin, and Magilanus [Magel-
lan] tearmed them geese.’ In a tract printed in 1588, and reprinted
in An English Garner, ed. Arber, vol. ii. p. 119, we read that: ‘On
the 6th day of January, 1587, we put into the straits of Magellan ;
and on the 8th, we came to two islands named by Sir F. Drake, the
one Bartholomew Island, because he came thither on that Saint’s
day; and the other Penguin Island, upon which we powdered
{salted three tons (!) of penguins for the victualling of our ship ;’
cf. Hakluyt, Voy. iii. 805, 806, 849. We find in the same, iii. 161 :
‘Insula est ea, quam vestri Penguin vocant, ab auium eiusdem nominis
multitudine,’ in a letter dated Aug. 6, 1583. The etymology is
open to the objection that the penguin’s head is black, but the name
may have been transferred to the penguin from the great auk,
which has white patches below its eyes, or the puffin, with a whitish
head. 2. Another story (in Littré) is that some Dutchmen, in 1598,
gave the name to some birds seen by them in the straits of Magellan,
intending an allusion to L. pinguts, fat. But this will not account
for the suffix -in, and is therefore wrong ; besides which the ‘ Dutch-
men’ turn out to be Sir F. Drake’s men, some of whom named the
island at least 20 years earlier than the date thus assigned. The
F. pingouin is derived from the E. word.
PENINSULA, a piece of land nearly surrounded by water. (L.)
Cotgrave has ‘ peninsule, a peninsula.’= L. péninsula, a piece of land
nearly an island.—L. pén-e, pen-e, almost; and imswla, an island ;
see Isle. Der. peninsul-ar, peninsul-ate.
PENITENT, repentant, sorry for sin. (F.—L.) ME. penitent,
Chaucer, C. T. Persones Tale (I 81).—OF. penitent, ‘ penitent ;’
stem of pres. part. of penitére, to cause to repent, frequentative form
of pé&nire, the same as punire, to punish; see Punish. Der.
penitent-ly; penitence, OEng. Homilies, ed. Morris, ii. 61, 1. 5
(doublet, penance); penitent-i-al, penitent-i-al-ly, penitent-i-ar-y.
PENNON, PENNANT, a small flag, banner, streamer. (F.—
L.) Pennant is merely formed from pennon by the addition of ¢ after
n, asin ancien-t, tyran-t. It occurs in Drayton, Battle of Agincourt,
st. 70. Pennon is in Shak. Hen. V, iii. 5. 49. ME. penon, penoun,
Chaucer, C. T. 980 (A.978).—MF-. pennon, ‘a pennon, flag, streamer ;
les pennons d'une fleiche, the feathers of an arrow;’ Cot. [Cf. Span.
pendon, a banner (with excrescent d); Ital. pennone, a pennon, of
which the old meaning was ‘a great plume or bunch of feathers’
(Florio).] Formed, with suffix -on, from L. penna, a wing, feather ;
whence the sense of ‘plume,’ and lastly, of streamer or standard.
See Pen (2). Der. pennon-cel, a dimin. form, from MF, pennoncel,
‘a pennon on the top of a launce, a little flag or streamer ;’ Cot.
PENNY, a copper coin, one twelfth of a shilling. (L.? with
E. suffix.) Formerly a silver coin; the copper coinage dates from
A.D. 16635. ME. peni, Havelok, 705; pl. penies, Havelok, 776, also
pens (pronounced like mod. E. pence) by contraction, P. Plowman,
B. v. 243. The mod. E. pence is due to this contracted form. AS.
pening, a penny, Mark, xii. 15, where the Camb. MS. has penig, by
loss of n before g; the further loss of the final g produced ME. pen:.
A by-form is pending (A.D. 833), Thorpe, Diplomatarium, p. 471,
1. 26; as if formed from the base pand- with dimin. suffix -ing.
B. This pand=Dnu. pand, a pawn, pledge, OHG. pfant, ἃ. pfand ;
a word possibly of L. origin; see Pawn (1). In this view, a penny
is a little pledge, ‘a token.’4Du. penning ; Icel. penningr ; Dan. and
Swed. penning; G. pfennig, OHG. phantinc, phentinc, from pfant.
Der. penny-weight, penny-worth, penni-less.
PENNY-ROYAL, a herb. (F.—L.) In Sir T. Elyot, Castel of
Helth, b. ii. c. 9, it is spelt penxyryall; but the first part of the word
is a singular corruption of the old name puliol or puliall ; we find
Cotgrave translating MF. pulege by ‘ penny royall, puliall royall,’
the name being really due to L. puléium régium, penny-royal (Pliny,
b. xx. c. 14), a name given to the plant (like E. flea-bane) from its
supposed efficacy against fleas; from L. pilex, a flea. The form
puléium is short for pulegium, whence the dimin. *pulegi-olum > OF.
puliol, whence ME. puliol. And régium is the neuter ot regtus, royal;
from rég-, stem of rex,a king. See Puce and Royal. So also
‘ Origanum, puliol real, wde-minte,’ i.e. wood-mint ; Voc. 557. 20.
PENSIGE, suspended. (F.—L.) ‘If a weighty body be pensile ;’
PENSION
Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 763.—MF. pensil, ‘sleightly hanging ;’ Cot.—
L. pensilis, pendent; from *pens-um, unused supine of pendére, to
hang; see Pendant.
PENSION, a stated allowance, stipend, payment. (F.—L.) In
Shak. Κα. Lear, ii. 4. 217; pencyon in Palsgrave.—T*. pension, ‘a pen-
sion;’ Cot.—L. pensidnem, acc. of pensio, a payment. —L. pensus, pp.
of pendere, to weigh, weigh out, pay; orig. to cause to hang, and
closely connected with pendére, to hang; see Pendant. Der. pen-
sion, vb., pension-er, Mid. Nt. Dr. ii. 1. 10; pension-ar-y. And see
Pensive.
PENSIVE, thoughtful. (F.—L.) ME. pensif, Gower, C. A.
ii. 65; bk. iv. 1906.—F. pensif, ‘pensive ;’ Cot. Formed, as if
from a L. *pensiuus, from pensare, to weigh, ponder, consider;
intensive form of pendere (pp. pensus), to weigh; see Pension.
Der. pensive-ly, -ness. And see Pansy.
PENT, for penned, pp. of Pen (1), q. v.
PENTACLE, a magical figure. (F.—Gk.) ‘ Their raven’s wings,
their lights, and pentacles;’ B. Jonson, The Devil an Ass, i. 2. 8.
See Nares. — OF. pentacle, a pentacle; also, a candlestick with five
branches. Variant of ME. pentangel, in the same sense, Gawain
and the Grene Knight, 620.—Gk. πέντε, five, cognate with E. five ;
and L. sutfix -dculum (cf. MItal. pentacolo in Florio), in place of
L. angulus, an angle, as in rect-angle. 4 Ignorance of Gk. caused
the substitution of a pentacle with six points for the pentangle of five
points ; see Notes on Eng. Etym., p. 212.
PENTAGON, a plane figure having five angles. (F.—L.—Gk.)
The adj. pentagonall is in Minsheu, ed. 1627.—F. pentagone, “ five-
cornered ;’ Cot.—L. pentagonus, pentagonius, pentagonal. — Gk.
πεντάγωνος, pentagonal ; neut. πεντάγωνον, a pentagon. Gk. πέντα-, |
for πέντε, fine, cognate with E. five; and γωνία, a corner, angle, lit.
a bend, from γόνυ, a knee, cognate with E. knee. See Five and
Knee. Der. pentagon-al.
PENTAMETER, a verse of five measures. (L.—Gk.) In
Skelton’s Poems, ed. Dyce, i. 193, 1. 6.—L. pentameter.— Gk. πεντά-
petpos.—Gk. πέντα-, for πέντε, five, cognate with E. jive; and
μέτρον, a metre. See Five and Metre.
PENTATEUCH, the five books of Moses. (L.—Gk.) In
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Spelt pentateuches in Minsheu, ed. 1627 ;
penthatheukes in Palsgrave.—L. pentateuchus.—Gk. πέντα-, for πέντε,
five, cognate with Εἰ. jive; and τεῦχος, a tool, implement, in late
Gk., a book. Hence applied to the collection of the five books of
Moses. B. Tedxos is allied to τεύχειν, to prepare, get ready,
make ; allied to τύκος, τύχος, an instrument for working stones with,
a mason’s pick or hammer, whence τυκίζειν, to work stones. Brug-
mann, i. § 780. Der. pentateuch-al.
PENTECOST, Whitsuntide; orig. a Jewish festival on the
fiftieth day after the Passover. (L.—Gk.) ME. pentecoste, OEng.
Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 89,1. 5. AS. pentecosten, rubric to John vi.
44.—L. pentécostén, ace. of pentécosté.—Gk. πεντηκοστή, Pentecost,
Acts, ii. 1; lit. fiftieth, fem. of mevtnxoords, fiftieth (juépa=day,
being understood). = Gk. πεντήκοντα, fifty. — Gk. revrn-,for πέντε, five;
and -κοντα, tenth. Again, -xovra is short for ἔδέκοντα, tenth, from
δέκα, ten, cognate with ΕἸ. ten. See Five and Ten. Der. pentecost-al.
PENTHOUSE, a shed projecting from a building. (F.—L.)
In Shak. Much Ado, iii. 3.110. A corruption of pentice or pentis,
due to an effort at making sense of one part of the word at the
expense of the rest, as in the case of crayfish, kc. ME. pentice,
pentis. ‘ Pentice of an howse ende, Appendicium ;’ Prompt. Parv.
Caxton, in the Boke of the Fayt of Armes, explains how a fortress
ought to be supplied with fresh water, cisterns being provided
“where men may receive inne the rayne-watres that fallen doune
along the thackes of thappentyzes and houses ;’ Part ii. c. 17 (Way’s
note). Here thackes=thatches; and thappentyzes=the appentices,
showing that pertice stands for apentice, the first syllable having been
dropped, as in peal for appeal. Way further quotes from Palsgrave :
‘ Penthouse of a house, appentis;’ and from the Catholicon: ‘A pentis,
appendix, appendicium.’ Also spelt pendize, Met. Homilies, ed. Small,
p. 63. The AF. pl. pentyz occurs in Liber Albus, p. 271; and appen-
tices, pl., at p. 288.—MF. apentis, appentis, ‘a penthouse ;’ Cot. =
L. appendicium, an appendage ; allied to appendix, an appendage ;
see Append. @ Thus a penthouse is an ‘appendage’ or out-
building. See the next word.
PENTROOF, a roof with a slope on one side only. (Hybrid ;
F.—L. and E.) Given in Cent. Dict. I notice it because the -F.
original of this pent- may have affected the sense of penthouse. Com-
pounded of F. pente, a slope; and E, roof. The F. pente is formed
from pendre, to hang, like vente from vendre, to sell.—L. pendére, to
hang; see Pendant.
PENULTIMATHE,, the last syllable but one. (L.) A gramma-
tical term; coined from L. pen-e, almost; and ultima, fem., last.
See Ulterior. Der. penult, the contracted form.
PERCH 441
PENUMBRA, a partial shadow beyond the deep shadow of
an eclipse. (L.) In Kersey, ed. 1721. Coined from L. pen-e,
almost ; and xmbra, ashadow. See Umbrella.
PENURY, want, poverty. (F.—L.) ‘In great penury and
miserye ;’ Fabyan’s Chron. vol. i. c. 157. ‘For lacke and penurye ;’
Caxton, Golden Legend, Moses. ὃ 17. -- MF. penurie, ‘penury ;’ Cot. =
L. péniwria, want, need. Allied to Gk. πεῖνα, hunger. Der. penu-
rious (Levins) ; penuri-ous-ness.
PEON, a foot-soldier, orderly, messenger. (Port.—L.) See quo-
tations in Yule. _[ Also, in Span. America, a serf; from the cognate
Span. peon.]— Port. μιᾷ, a pawn at chess ; one of the lower people.
=Late L. peddnem, acc. of pedo, a foot-soldier; see Pawn (2).
Altered to the Span. spelling.
PEONY, PAHONY, a plant with beautiful crimson flowers.
(L.—Gk.) The mod. E. peony answers to the AS. peonie, Leech-
doms, i. 168; L. padnia. {The ME. forms were pione, pioine,
piane, pianie; P. Plowman, A. v. 1553; B.v. 312; later, peony, Pals-
grave.=OF, ῥίον (mod. F. pivoine); Littré.]—L. pednia, medicinal,
from its supposed virtues; fem. of P@dnius, belonging to Ῥω», its
supposed discoverer. = Gk. Ma:wyv,Pzeon, the god of healing. SeeP@an.
PEOPLE, a nation, the populace, (F.—L.) ME. peple, P. Plow-
man, A. i. 5; spelt poeple, id. B. i. 5; spelt peple, poeple, puple,
Chaucer, C. T. 8871 (Six-text, E. 995). [The spelling with co or oe
is due to AF. people, poeple (later péple).)—OF. pueple, mod. F.
peuple, people. = L. populum, acc. of populus, people. B. Po-pul-us
appears to be a reduplicated form; cf. L. plé-bés, people. Allied to
plé-nus, full, E. full. See πίμπλημι in Prellwitz. And see Populace.
PEPPER, the fruit of a plant, with a hot pungent taste. (L.—
Gk.—Skt.) ME. peper (with only two 7’s), P. Plowman, B. v. 312.
AS. pipor; Α. 5. Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, ili. 341. —L. piper. = Gk.
πέπερι. -- Skt. pippali (1) long pepper; (2) the fruit of the holy fig-
tree; Benfey, p. 552. Cf. Pers. pulpul, pepper ; Palmer’s Dict. col.
114. Der. pepper-corn, pepper-mint.
PEPSINE, one of the constituents of the gastric juice, helpful in
the process of digestion, (F.—Gk.) From mod. F. pepsine, formed
with suffix -ine from Gk. πέψ-, base of πέψις, digestion ; for ἔπέπτις
<*péq-lis, related to πέπτειν, to cook. (4/PEQ). See Cook. Der.
So also pept-ic, i.e. assisting in digestion, from Gk. πεπτικύς ; whence
dys-peptic.
PER.., prefix, through. (L.) L. per, through; whence F. per-,
par-, as a prefix. Orig. used of spaces traversed ; allied to Gk. παρά,
πάρ, by the side of, Skt. para, away, from, forth, param, beyond, and
to E. from. Also to Goth. fair-, G. ver-, prefix. The prefixes para-
and peri-, both Gk., are nearly related. See Curtius, i. 334, 338.
PERADVENTUREH, perhaps. (F.—L.) The d before v is an
insertion, as in adventure. ME. perauenture (with u«=v), Rob. of
Glouc. p. 358, 1. 73733 often shortened to peraunter or paraunter,
spelt parauntre inthe same passage, in MS. Cotton, Calig. A. xi.=— F.
par, by; and aventure, adventure.—L. per, through, by; and see
Adventure.
PERAMBULATE, to walk through or over. (L.) Prob. made
from the earlier sb. perambulation ; Lambarde’s ‘ Perambulation of
Kent’ was printed in 1576. Cf. L. perambuldtus, pp. of perambulare,
lit. to walk through. —L. per, through ; and ambulare, to walk; see
Per- and Amble. Der. perambulat-ion; also perambulat-or, an
instrument for measuring distances, as in Phillips, ed. 1706, but now
used to mean a light carriage for a child, and sometimes shortened
to pram.
PERCEIVE, to comprehend. (F.—L.) ME. perceyuen (with
u=v), also parceyuen, P. Plowman, B. xviii. 241.—OF. perceiv-,
stressed stem of percevoir (Godefroy). Cot. gives only the MF. pp.
perceu. [The mod. F. has the comp. apercevoir, with the additional
prefix a-< L. ad.] — L. percipere, to apprehend.—L. per, through,
thoroughly, and cagere, to take, receive. See Per- and Capacious.
Der. perceiv-er, perceiv-able. Also percept-ion, from F. perception,
‘a perception” (Cot.), from L. perceptionem, acc. of perceptio, like
the pp. perceptus ; also percept-ive, percept-ive-ly, percept-iv-i-ty, per-
cept-ive-ness ; percept-ible, Ἐς perceptible, ‘perceptible’ (Cot.), from
L. perceptibilis, perceivable ; percept-ibl-y, percept-ibil-i-ty. Also per-
cipient, from the stem ofthe pres. part. of percipere.
PERCH (1), a rod for a bird to sit on; a long measure of five and
a half yards. (F.—L.) The orig. sense is ‘rod;’ whether for measur-
ing or for a bird’s perch. ME. perche, Chaucer, C. T. 2206 (A 2204).
=F. perche, ‘a pearch;’ Cot.—L. pertica, a pole, bar, measuring-
rod. Der. perch, vb., Rich. III, i. 3. 71, ME. perchen, Chaucer, Ho.
Fame, 1991; perch-er.
PERCH (2), a fish. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. perche, Prompt. Parv,
p- 393; King Alisaunder, 5446.—F. perche.—L. perca.—Gk. πέρκη,
a perch ; sonamed from its dark marks. — Gk. πέρκος, πέρκνος, spotted,
blackish. +Skt. prgni-, spotted, pied, esp. of cows; Curtius, i. 340.
B. Further allied to OHG. forh-ana, G. for-elle, AS. for-n, a trout.
PERCHANCE
PERCHANCE, by chance. (F.—L.) In Shak. Temp. ii. 2.
17; ME. parchaunce, Hampole, Prick of Conscience, 2489.
{Another ME. phrase is per cas or parcas, Chaucer, C. T. 12819
(C 885); from F. par cas; see Case.|=—F. par, by; and chance,
chance; see Per- and Chance.
PERCIPIENT;; see under Perceive.
PERCOLATE, to filter through. (L.) In Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 396.
Prob. suggested by the sb. percolation, in Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 3.—L.
percolatus, pp. of percdlare, to strain through a sieve.—L. per,
through; and cdlare, to filter, from cdlum, a filter. See Per- and
Colander. Der. jercolat-ion, percolat-or.
PERCUSSION, a shock, quick blow. (L.) Bacon has pereussion,
Nat. Hist. 8 163; percussed, id. 164; percutient, id. 190. Formed,
by analogy with F. sbs. in -ion, from L. percussio, a striking. —L.
percussus, pp. of percutere, to strike violently. —L. per, thoroughly ;
and guatere, to shake, which becomes -cutere in compounds. See
Quash. Der. percuss-ive; percuti-ent, from the stem of the pres.
participle.
PERDITION, utter loss or destruction. (F.—L.) ME. per-
dicioun, Wyclif, 2 Pet. ii. 1.—F. perdition ; Cot.—L. perditionem, acc.
of perditio, destruction; cf. L. perditus, pp. of perdere, to lose utterly,
to destroy. —L. per, thoroughly, or away; and_-dere, to put, place,
representing Idg. *dka, weak grade of 4/DHKE, to place; see Do.
QL. per-dere=E. do for. Der. perd-u, hidden ; from F. perdu, pp.
of perdre, to lose, from L. perdere.
PERDURABLE, long-lasting. (F.—L.) In Shak. Othello, i. 3.
343; Chaucer, C. T., Β 2699.OF. perdurable, ‘ perdurable, per-
petual ;’ Cot.=L. perdira-re, to endure ; with suffix -bilis.—L. per,
through, throughout ; dirdre, to last, from diirzs, hard, lasting. See
Dure. Der. perdurabl-y, perdura-bili-ty.
PEREGRINATION, travel, wandering about. (F.—L.) In
Cotgrave.=—F. peregrination, ‘ peregrination ;’ Cot.—L. peregrinat-
idnem, acc. of peregrindtio, travel.—L. peregrindri, to travel. —L.
peregrinus, foreign, abroad; see Pilgrim. Der. peregrinate, verb,
rare, from L. pp. peregrinatus; peregrinat-or. Also peregrinate, ad)j.,
SE ve Tat.
PEREMPTORY, authoritative, dogmatical.
Spenser, F. Q. iii [vot iv]. 8. 16. AF. peremptorie, Liber Albus,
p- 217; MF. peremptoire, ‘ peremptory ;’ Cot.—L. peremptorius,
destructive; hence, decisive.=L. peremptor, a destroyer; cf. L.
peremptus, pp. of perimere, older form peremere, to take entirely away,
destroy.—L. per, away (like Skt. para, from) ; and emere, to take,
also to buy. See Per- and Hxample. Der. peremptori-ly, -ness.
PERENNIAL, everlasting. {L.) In Evelyn’s Diary, Nov. 8,
1644. Coined by adding -al (= L. -alis) to perenni-, for perennis, ever-
lasting, lit. lasting through the year.—L. per, through ; and annus,
a year, which becomes enni- in compounds. See Per- and Annual.
Der. perennial-ly.
PERFECT, complete, whole. (F.—L.) ME. parfit, perfit,
Chaucer, C. T. 72. [The word has since been conformed to the L.
spelling.|—OF. parfit, parfeit, ME. parfaict (Cot.); mod. F. parfait.
=L. perfectus, complete; orig. pp. of perjicere, to complete, do
thoroughly.—L. per, thoroughly ; and -sicere, for facere, to make.
See Per- and Fact. Der. perfect-ly, -ness ; perfect, vb., Temp.i. 2,
79; perfect-ible, perfect-ibil-i-ty; perfect-er; perfect-ion, ME. per-
fection, Ancren Riwle, p. 372, 1. 9, from F. perfection ; perfection-ist.
PERFIDIOUS, faithless, treacherous. (L.) In Shak, Temp.
i. 2. 68. Not a F. word, but formed (by analogy with words of
F. origin) directly from L. perjididsus, treacherous. = L. perfidia,
treachery.—L. perfidus, faithless, lit. one that goes away from his
faith.-L. per, away (like Skt, parad, from); and jidés, faith. See
Per-and Faith. Der. perfidious-ly, -ness ; also perfid-y in Phillips,
ed. 1706, F. perjidie, in Moliere (Littré}, from L. perfidia.
PERFOLIATE, having the stem passing through the leaf. (L.)
‘ Perfoliata, the herb thorough-wax ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Botanical.
“αι, per, through; and foli-um, a leaf; with suffix -ate (=L. pp.
suffix -dévs). See Per-and Folio. @ Cf. MF. perfoliate, ‘through-
wax, an herb ;’ Cot.
PERFORATE, to bore through. (L.) Bacon uses perforate as
a pp., Nat. Hist. § 470. ‘A cros perforatid, Book of St.
Albans, pt. ii, fol. c 3.—L. perforatus, pp. of perforare, to bore
through.=L. per, through; and forare, to bore, cognate with E.
bore. See Per- and Bore (1). Der. perforat-ion, -or.
PERFORCE, by force, of necessity. (Εἰ τὶ, In Spenser, F.Q.
i. 8. 38; spelt parforce, Lord Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol. ii. c. 38 (R.).
=F. par, by (<L. per); and force, force. See Per- and Force.
PERFORM, to achieve. (F.-OHG.; with L. prefix). ME.
parfournen, P. Plowman, B, v. 607; perfourmen, Wyclif, John, v. 36.
- OF. parfournir, ‘to perform, consummate, accomplish ;’ Cot. =
F. per (<L. per), thoroughiy; and fowrnir, to provide, furnish,
a word of OHG. origin. See Per- and Furnish. @ The ME.
442
@.=L) Τὰ
PERIPATETIC
form parfournen is thus accounted for; the ME. parfourmen is prob.
due to association with form, with which it has no real connexion.
Der. perform-er ; perform-ance, Macb. 11. 3. 33, a coined word.
PERFUME, to scent. (F.—L.) The verb is the original word,
and occurs in Shak. Temp. ii. 1. 48.—F. parfumer, ‘to perfume ;’
Cot, Lit.‘ to smoke thoroughly.’ =F. par (<L. per), through; and
fumer,to smoke, from L. fumdre, vb. formed from fimus, smoke.
See Per- and Fume. Der. perfume, sb., F. parfum ; perfum-er,
perfum-er-y.
PERFUNCTORY, done in a careless way. (L.)
lesse perfunctory way;’ Howell, Foreign Travel, § 4, ed. Arber,
p- 27. Englished from L. perfunctorius, done in a careless way,
done because it must be done; allied to perfunctus, pp. of perfungi, to
perform, discharge thoroughly. —L. per, thoroughly ; and fungi, to
perform. See Per- and Function. Der. perfunctori-ly, -ness.
PERHAPS, possibly. (Hybrid; L. and Scand.) In Hamlet, i.
3.14. A clumsy compound, which took the place of the ME. per
cas, and formed also on the model of perchance; see Perchance.
The per is rather from the F. par than the Τὶ. per, but it makes no
difference. Haps is the pl. of hap, a chance, a word of Scand. origin.
See Hap. Spelt perhapis, Roy, Rede me, ed. Arber, p. 98.
PERI, a fairy. (Pers.) See Moore’s poem of ‘ Paradise and the
Peri,’ in Lalla Rookh. = Pers. pari, a fairy ; Palmer's Pers. Dict. col.
112. See Horn, 8 310.
PERI., prefix, round, around. (Gk.)_ Gk. περί, around, about.+
Skt. pari, round about. Also allied to L. per- in permagnus, &c.
PERIANTH, the floral envelope, whether calyx or corolla, or
both. (Gk.) Botanical. Gk. περί, around; and ἄνθος, flower.
PERIAPT, an amulet. (F.—Gk.) In Shak. τ Hen. VI, v. 3. 2.
= ΜΕ. periapte, ‘a medicine hanged about any part of the body.’ =
Gk. περίαπτον, an amulet ; neut. of περίαπτος, fitted or fastened round.
—- Gk. περιάπτειν, to fasten round. = Gk. περί, round ; ἅπτειν, to fasten.
PERICARDIUM, the sac which surrounds the heart. (L.—Gk.)
In Phillips, ed. 1706. Anatomical. = Late L. pericardium. = Gk.
περικάρδιον, the membrane round the heart.—Gk. περί, round ; and
καρδία, cognate with E. heart. See Peri- and Heart.
PERICARP, a seed-vessel. (Gk.) Botanical. — Gk. περικάρπιον,
the shell of fruit. —Gk. περί, round; and καρπός, fruit, allied to E.
harvest. See Peri- and Harvest.
PERICRANIUM, the membrane that surrounds the skull.
(Late L.—Gk.) The pl. pericraniums occurs in Beaum. and Fletcher,
The Chances, iii. 2. 10.— Late L. pericrainium. —Gk. περικράνιον, neut.
of περικράνιος, passing round the skull. = Gk. περί, round ; and κρανίον,
the skull, See Peri- and Cranium.
PERIGEE, the point of the moon’s orbit nearest the earth. (F.—
L.—Gk.) Scientific. In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Opposed to
apogee.—MF. perigée; Cot.—Late L. perigéum.—Late Gk. περί-
yeov, neut. of περίγειος, near the earth. Coined from Gk. περί,
about (here near); and γῆ, the earth, which appears in geo-graphy, &c.
PERIHELION, the point of a planet's orbit nearest the sun.
(Gk.) Scientific. In Phillips, ed. 1706. Opposed to aphelion. =
Gk. περί, around (here near); and ἥλιος, the sun. See Peri- and
Aphelion.
PERIL, danger. (F.—L.) ME. peril, Ancren Riwle, p. 194,
1. 24.—OF, peril, ‘perill;’ Cot.—L. periclum, periculum, danger ; lit.
atrial, proof.—L, periri, to try, an obsolete verb of which the pp.
peritus, experienced, is common. β, Allied to Gk. πειράω, I try,
prove, mepaw, I press through, pass through, as well as to Goth.
faran, to travel, fare; see Fare. Thus a peril is a trial which one
passes through. Der. peril-ous, Chaucer, C. T. 13925 (B 3109);
pertl-ous-ly, -ness.
PERIMETER, the sum of the lengths of all the sides of a plane
figure. (L.—Gk.) Lit. the ‘measure round.’ In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674.—L. perimeiros (Lewis).— Gk. περίμετρος, the circumference
of a circle ; hence, the perimeter of a plane figure. — Gk. περί, round ;
and μέτρον, a measure; see Peri- and Metre.
PERIOD, the time of acircuit, date, epoch. (F.—L.—Gk.) In
Shak. it often means‘ conclusion, end;’ Rich. III, ii. 1.44; K. Lear,
iv. 7.97, V. 3. 204.— OF. periode, ‘a period, perfect sentence, conclu-
sion;’ Cot.—L. periodus, a complete sentence. — Gk. περίοδος, a going
round, way round, circuit, compass, a well-rounded sentence. = Gk.
περί, round ; and ὁδός, ἃ way. See Peri- and Exodus. 4 The sense
of ‘time of circuit’ is taken directly from the orig. Gk. Der. pertod-
ic; period-ic-al (Blount, 1674), period-ic-al-ly, period-i-ci-ty.
PERIPATETIC, walking about. (L.—Gk.) ‘ Peripatetical,
that disputes or teaches walking, as Aristotle did; from whence he
and his scholars were called peripateticks ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
—L. peripatéticus.— Gk. περιπατητικός, given to walking about, esp.
while disputing; Aristotle and his followers were called περιπατητικοί.
= Gk. περιπατέω, I walk about. = Gk. περί, about ; and πατέω, I walk,
from πάτος, a path, which is allied to L. pons; see Pontoon.
‘Tn a care-
PERIPHERY
PERIPHERY, circumference. (L.—Gk.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. ME. periferie; ‘This air in periferies thre Devided is,’
Gower, C.A. iii. 93 (bk. vii. 265); where the sidenote is: ‘ Nota
qualiter aer in tribus periferiis diuiditur.’—L. periferia, peripheria.—
περιφέρεια, the circumference of a circle.—Gk. περί, round; and
φέρειν, to carry, cognate with E. bear. See Peri- and Bear (1).
PERIPHRASIS, a roundabout way of speaking. (L.—Gk.)
‘ Periphrase, circumlocution ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674; but this is
rather a F. form. ‘The figure periphrasis;’ Puttenham, Arte of Poesie,
bk. iii. ς. 18.—L. periphrasis.—Gk. περίφρασις. -- Gk, περί, round ;
and φρασίς, ἃ speech, phrase. See Peri- and Phrase. Der. periphrase,
yb. ; periphrast-ic, adj., from Gk. περιφραστικός ; periphrast-tc-al.
PERISH, to come to naught. (F.—L.) ME. perisshen, Cursor
Mundi, 8789; perischen, Wyclif, John, vi. 27.—F. periss-, stem of
some parts of the verb perir, ‘to perish;’ Cot. (The stem feriss- is
formed as if from a L. *periscere, an imaginary inceptive form).—
L. perire, to perish, come to naught, —L. per, thoroughly, but with
a destructive force like that of E. for-; and ire, to go; thus perire=
to goto the bad. Tre is from 4/EI, to go; cf. Skt, i, to go. And
see For- (2). Der. perish-able, perish-abl-y, perishable-ness.
PERITONEUM, the membrane lining the abdominal cavity and
investing its viscera, (Gk.) Late L. peritoneum, for Gk. περιτόναιον,
the peritoneum ; neut. of περιτόναιος, stretched around.—Gk, περί,
around, and tov-, 2nd grade of rev-, base of τείνειν (for *rev-yev), to
stretch. See Tone. Der. periton-itis, inflammation of the peritoneum.
PERIWIG, a peruke. (F.—Ital,—L.) In Shak, Two Gent. iv. 4.
196. The: after r is corruptly inserted ; Minsheu, ed. 1627, gives
the spellings perwigge and perwicke. Of these forms, perwigge is a
weakened form of perwicke or perwick; and perwick is a corrupted
form of peruke or perruque; see Perruque. Du Wes has: ‘the
perwyke, la perrucque;’ Supp. to Palsgrave, p. 902, col. i. β, The
form periwig gave rise to a notion that peri- was a prefix, like Gk.
περί; see Peri-. Hence, it was sometimes dropt, the resulting form
being wig, See Wig.
PERIWINKLE, (1), genus of evergreen plants. (L.) Formed
with dimin, suffix -Je, and insertion of ¢, from ME, peruenke ( = per-
venke), a periwinkle; Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p, 218, 1,11. AS.
peruince, as a gloss to L. uinca, in Voc. 322. 32.—L. peruinca, also
called uinca peruinca, or (in one word) uincaperuinca (Lewis), B. The
name was doubtless orig. given to a twining plant, as it is clearly
allied to uincire, to bind; the prefix per being the usual L, prep.
PERIWINKLE (2), a small univalve mollusc. (E.; with Gk.
prefix.) In Levins; and Palsgraye has: ‘ Perivyncle, a shellfysshe.’
A corrupt form, due to a confusion with the word above. The best
name is simply winckle, as in Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. ix. c. 32.
Periwincle is in Drayton, Polyolbion, song 25, 1. 190; and is a cor-
ruption of the AS. name pinewincla; cf. ‘s&-snél, vel pinewinclan,’
i.e. sea-snail, or periwinkles, in Voc. 122. 24. Cf, prov. Εἰ. penny-
winkle, a periwinkle (Εἰ. D. D.) ; directly from AS. pinewincla. The
prefix pine- is from L. pina, Gk. iva, a kind of mussel. See
‘Winkle.
PERJURE, to forswear (oneself), swear falsely. (F.—L.) The
prefix has been conformed to the L. spelling. Shak. has perjured,
Oth. v. 2. 63; also perjure, to render perjured, Antony, iii, 12. 30;
also perjure, a perjured person, L.L.L, iv. 3. 47 3 perjury, L.L. L. iy.
3. 62. Skelton has pariured, perjured; How the Douty Duke of
Albany, &c., 1.125. So also in Dictes and Sayings, pr. by Caxton,
fol. 6, 1. 10,—F. parjurer; whence se parjurer, ‘to forsweare him-
selfe;’ Cot. Cf. Ε, parjure (also MF. perjure), a perjured person ;
Cot.<L. periurare, to forswear; peritrus, a perjured person.—L.
per-, prefix used in a bad sense, exactly equivalent to the cognate E,
for- in forswear ; and iurare, to swear. See Per- and Jury. Der.
perjury, AF. perjurie, Philip de Thaun, Bestiary, 1310, from L.
perturium; perjur-er.
PERK, to make smart or trim. (F.—L.) ‘To be perked up
{dressed up] in a glistering grief;’ Hen. VIII, ii. 3. 21. Prov. E.
perk, a perch; also, to perch, sit; perk up, to become brisk; perked
up, elated; see E, D. D. (Cf. W. perc, compact, trim; percu, to trim,
to smarten ; percus, smart; prob. from E.] ME. perken, to trim its
feathers, as a bird; ‘The papeiayes perken’ (another MS. perchyn);
The Pistill of Susan, 81 (8. T.S.). From thesb. gerke, a perch; cf.
‘an hauk’s perke,’ Cavendish, Life of Wolsey, p.81; ed. F.S, Ellis. =
North F. perque (Norm, dial. pergue, Moisy), a perch.—L, pertica,
a perch. See Perch (1).
PERMANENT, enduring. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q. vii. 6. 2;
and in Skelton’s Poems, ed. Dyce, i. 199, 1.19.—F. permanent, ‘ per-
manent ;’ Cot.—L. permanent-, stem of pres. part. of permanére, to
endure.—L. per, thoroughly; and manére,to remain. See Per- and
Mansion. Der. permanent-ly; permanence,
PERMEATE, to penetrate and pass through small openings or
pores, pervade, (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706. Sir T. Browne has
PERRY 443
‘permeant parts,’ Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. ii. c. 5. § 8 (in speaking of gold).
“Το permedtus, pp. of permedre, to pass through. = L. per, through ;
and meare, to pass, go. See Gk. potros in Prellwitz. Der. permeat-
ton ; permeant (from the stem of the pres. part.) ; permea-ble, from L,
permeabilis.
PERMIAN, an epithet given to a certain system of rocks. (Rus-
sian.) So named from Perm, in E. Russia (ab, 1841).
PERMIT, to let go, let pass, allow. (L.) In Skelton, Magnifi-
cence, 1. 58. ‘Yet hisgrace . . . wolde in no wise permyt and suffre
me so to do ;” State Papers, vol. i. Wolsey to Henry VIII, 1527 (R.).
—L. permittere (pp. permissus), to let pass through, lit. to send
through.<L. per, through; and mittere, to send; see Per- and
Mission. Der. permit, sb.; also (like pp. permissus) permiss-ible,
permiss-ibl-y, permiss-ion, Oth, i. 3. 340; permiss-ive, Meas, for Meas,
1. 3. 383 permiss-ive-ly.
PERMUTATION, exchange, various arrangement. (F.—L.)
ME. permutacion, P, Plowman, B. iii. 256.—F. permutation, ‘ permu-
tation;’ Cot. =—L. permutationem, acc. of permutatio,a changing. = L,
permiitare, to change, exchange.—L. per, thoroughly; and miatare,
to change ; see Per- and Mutation. Der. permute, vb., P. Plow-
man, B. xiii. 110, from L. permiitare; permut-able, permut-abl-y, per~
mutable-ness.
PERNICIOUS, hurtful, destructive. (F.—L.) In Shak. Meas.
for Meas. ii. 4. 150; pernyctouse, Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth,
bk. ii. c. 3.“ Εἰ pernicieux, ‘pernicious;’ Cot.—L. pernicidsus,
destructive.=L. perniciés, destruction.—L. per, thoroughly; and
nici-, for neci-, decl. stem of nex, violent death. See Internecine.
Der. pernicious-ly, -ness.
PERORATION, the conclusion of a speech. (F,—L.) In
Shak. 2 Hen. VI, i. 1. 105.—F. peroration, ‘a peroration ;᾿ (οί, -
L. perdrationem, acc. of perdratio, the close of a speech. -- L. perdrare,
to speak from beginning to end, also, to close a speech,—L. per,
through; and drare, to speak ; see Per- and Oration.
PERPENDICULAR, exactly upright. (F.—L.) ME. per-
pendiculer, Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, pt. ii, § 23, 1. 28.—F. perpen-
diculaire ; Cot. L. perpendicularis, according to the plumb-line. =
L. perpendiculum, a plummet; used for careful measurement. =
L, perpendere, to weigh or measure carefully, consider.—L. per,
through; and pendere, to weigh. See Per- and Pension, Pen-
dant. Der. perpendicular-ly, perpendicular-i-ty. Also perpend, to
consider, Hamlet, 11. 2. 105, from perpendere.
PERPETRATE, to execute, commit. (L.) Orig. a pp.
‘Which were perpetrate and done;’ Hall, Hen. VI, an. 31 (end).—
L. perpetratus, pp. of perpetrare, to perform thoroughly. —L. per,
thoroughly ; and patrare, to make, accomplish. Der. perpetrat-or,
from L, perpetrat-or ; perpetrat-ion.
PERPETUAL, everlasting. (F.—L.) ME. perpetuel, Chaucer,
C. T. Pers. Tale (1 137).—F. perpetuel, ‘ perpetuall;’ Cot.=—L. per-
petualis, universal; later used in same sense as perpefudrius, perma-
nent.=—L. perpetuus, continuous, constant, perpetual.—L, perpet-,
stem of perpes, lasting throughout, continuous. —L. per, throughout ;
and pet-, as in pet-ere, to seek, to direct one’s course. See Per-
and Petition. Der. perpetual-ly, ME. perpetuelly, Chaucer, C. T.
1344 (A 1342); perpetu-ate, Palsgrave, from L. pp. perpetuatus; per-
petu-at-ion; perpetu-i-ty, from F. perpetuité, ‘ perpetuity’ (Cot.),
from L. acc. perpetuititem,
PERPLEX, to embarrass, bewilder. (F.—L.) ‘In such per-
plexed plight ;’ Spenser, F. Ὁ. iii, 1. 59. Minsheu gives only the
participial adj. perplexed, not the verb; and, in fact, the form jer-
plexed was really first in use, as a translation from the French.
Spelt perplexid in Dictes and Sayings, pr. by Caxton, fol. 1,.—F. per-
plex, “ perplexed, intricate, intangled ;’ Cot.—L. perplexus, entangled,
interwoven,—L. per, thoroughly; and plexus, entangled, pp. of
plectere, to plait, braid. See Per- and Plait. Der. perplex-i-ty,
ME. perplexitee, Gower, C, A, iii. 348, bk. viii. 2190, from F. per-
plexité, which from L, ace, perplexitatem.
PERQUISITE, an emolument, small gain. (@.) Applied to a
special allowance as being a thing sought for diligently and specially
obtained. ‘ Perguisite (L. perguisitum) signines, in Bracton, any-
thing purchased, as perquisttum facere, lib. il. c. 30, num. 3, and lib. iv.
c. 22. Perguisites of Courts, are those profits that accrue to a lord
of a manor, by vertue of his Court Baron, over and above the certain
and yearly rents of his land ; as, fines for copyhold, waifes, estrays,
and such like;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. — L. perquisitum, as
above; properly neut. of perquisitus, pp. of perquirere, to ask after
diligently. =—L. per, thoroughly; and qu@rere, to seek; see Per-
and Query.
PERRU QUE, variant of Peruke, q. v.
PERRY, the fermented juice of pears. (F.—L.) In Phillips, ed.
1706. ‘Perrie, drinke of peares;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627. ME. pereye ;
‘Piretum, pereye;” Voc. 603. 11.—OF. peré, perry, supp. to Gode-
444 PERSECUTE
froy ; mod. Τὸ. poiré, ‘perry, drink made of pears; Cot. Cf. Norm.
dial. péré, perry (Robin). Formed with suffix -ὁ (<L. -dtus, i.e.
made of) from OF. peire, F. poire, a pear.—L. pirum, a pear; see
Pear.
PERSECUTE, to harass, pursue with annoyance. (F.—L.)
The sb. persecution is older in Εἰ. than the vb., and is spelt persecucioun
in Wyclif, Second Prologue to Apocalypse, 1.1. Shak. has persecute,
All’s Well, i. 1.16. — MF. persecuter, ‘ to persecute, prosecute ;’ Cot.
Formed as if from a Late L. *perseciitare, from L. perseciitus, pp. of
persequi, to pursue, follow after. —L. per, continually ; and sequi, to
follow. See Per- and Sequence. Der. persecut-ion.
PERSEVERE, to persist in anything. (F.—L.) Formerly
accented and spelt perséver, Hamlet, i. 2.92. ME. perseweren (with
u=v), Chaucer, C. Τ᾿ 15585 (G117).—OF. perseverer, ‘to perse-
vere ;’ Cot.—L. perseuéraire, to adhere to a thing, persist in it. —L.
perseuerus, very strict.—L. per, thoroughly ; and seérus, strict ; see
Per- and Severe. Der. persever-ance, ME. perseuerance, Ayenbite
of Inwyt, p. 168, 1. 22, from OF, perseverance, L. persewerantia.
PERSIFLAGE, light banter. (F.—L.) In Greyille’s Memoirs,
Mar. 15, 1831 (Cent. Dict.) =F. persiflage, banter (1735).—F. persi-
fler, to jeer.—L. per, through, thoroughly ; stbilare, to hiss, from
sibilus, adj., hissing. See Sibilant.
PERSIMMON, a date-plum, the fruit of a tree of the genus
Diospyros. (N. Amer. Indian.) Chiefly in use in N. America; said
to be a Virginian Indian word. ‘The fruit like medlers, they call
puichamins, they cast vppon hurdles on a mat, and preserue them as
pruines ;’ Capt. Smith, Works, ed. Arber, p. 57. (The preceding
sentence treats of fruits that are dried to keep.) Spelt pesstmmuns in
1612 ; not stressed on the second syllable (N. E. D.). ‘The second
element is the suffix -min,’ i.e. grain, small fruit, N. E. D.— Algon-
kin pasimine, to cause fruits to dry; from pas, to be dry (Cuoq).
PERSIST, to continue steadfast, persevere. (F.—L.) In Shak.
All’s Well, iii. 7. 42. —F. persister, ‘to persist ;’ Cot.—L. persistere,
to continue, persist.—L. per, through ; and sistere, properly to make
to stand, set, a causal form from stare, to stand. See Per- and
Stand. Der. persistent, from the stem of the pres. part. ; persistence ;
persistenc-y, 2 Hen. 1V, ii. 2. 50.
PERSON, a character, individual, body. (F.—L.) ME. persone,
(1) a person, Chaucer, Ὁ. T. 10339 (F 25); (2) a parson, id. 480;
earlier persun, Ancren Riwle, p. 126, 1.15.—OF. persone, F. personne,
“a person, wight, creature;’ Cot.—L. persdna, a mask used by an
actor, a personage, character, part played by an actor, a person.
The large-mouthed masks worn by the actors were so called from
the resonance of the voice sounding through them; at any rate, in
popular etymology. Perhaps the long ὅ in perséna was due to the |
Gk. πρόσωπον, a mask, a dramatic character ; but Walde (whom see)
connects it with Gk. ζώνη, α zone. As if from L. personare, to sound
through.—L, per, through ; and sonare, to sound, from sonus, sound.
See Per- and Sound. (3) Doublet, parson, q.v. Der. person-
able, Spenser, F. Ὁ. iii. 4. 5; person-age, id. Ἐς Q. ili. 2. 26, from
MF. personnage (Cot.); person-al, Macb. i. 3. 91, from MF. per-
sonnel, L. persondlis ; person-al-ly ; personal-i-ty, also in the contracted
form personal-ty, with the sense of personal property ; person-ate,
Timon, i. 1. 69, from L. pp. personatus ; person-at-ion, person-at-or ;
person-i-fy, a coined and late word, in Johnson’s Dict.; whence per-
son-t-fic-at-ion.
PERSPECTIVE, optical, relating to the science of vision.
(F.—L.) Properly an adj., as in ‘the perspectiue or optike art ;’
Minsheu, ed. 1627; but common as a sb., accented pérspective, in the
sense of an optical glass or optical delusion ; see Rich. 11, ii. 2. 18;
also Skelton’s Poems, ed. Dyce, i. 25, 1. 22.—F. perspective, sb. f.,
‘the perspective, prospective, or optike art ;’ Cot. —L. *perspectiua
(not found), sb. f., the art of thoroughly inspecting; fem. of *per-
spectiuus, relating to inspection. —L. perspectus, clearly perceived, pp.
of perspicere, to see through or clearly. —L. per, through ; and specere,
to see, spy. See Per- and Spy. Der. perspective-ly, Hen. V, v. 2.
347. And see Perspicacity, Perspicuous.
PERSPICACITY, keenness of sight. (F.—L.) In Minsheu,
ed. 1627; and in Cotgrave.—F. perspicacite, ‘ perspicacity, quick
sight ;’ Cot.=—L. perspicdcitdtem, acc. of perspicdcitas, sharpsighted-
ness.—L. perspicaci-, from perspicax, sharp-sighted ; with suffix -¢ds.
Perspicax is formed with suffix -ax from perspic-ere, to see through ;
see Perspective. Der. perspicaci-ous, a coined word, as an equi-
valent to L. perspicax ; perspicaciously, -ness. And see Perspicuous.
PERSPICUOUS, evident. (L.) In Shak. Troil. i. 3. 324.
Taken immediately (by change of -ws to-ous, as in arduous, &c.) from
L. perspicuus, transparent, clear.—L. perspicere, to see through; see
Perspective. Der. perspicuous-ly, -ness; also perspicu-i-ty, from
F. perspicuité, “ perspicuity,’ Cot.
PERSPIRATION, a sweating. (F.—L.) The verb perspire is
prob. later, and due to the sb.; it occurs in Sir Τὶ Browne, Vulg.
PERUKE
Errors, b. iv. c.7. § 4: ‘A man in the morning is lighter in the scale,
because in sleep some pounds have perspired.’ ‘The sb. is in Cot-
grave ; perspirable is in Minsheu, ed. 1627. —F. perspiration, ‘ a per-
spiration, or breathing through.’=—L. perspirationem, acc. of *per-
spirdtio, not given in Lewis’s Dict., but regularly formed from
perspirare, to breathe or respire all over.—L. per, through; and
spirdre, to breathe ; see Per- and Spirit. Der. perspirat-or-y ;
also perspire, verb, answering to L. perspirare.
PERSUADEH, to prevail on, convince by advice. (F.—L.)
Common in Shak., Meas. for Meas. i. 2. 191; perswade in Palsgrave.
—F. persuader, ‘ to perswade ;’ Cot.—L. persiiadére (pp. persuasus),
to persuade, advise thoroughly.—L. per, thoroughly; and suddére,
to advise ; see Per- and Suasion. Der. persuad-er; also (from
pp: persuasus) persuas-ible, from F. persuasible, ‘ perswasible,’ Cot. ;
persuasible-ness, persuasibili-ty; also persuas-ion, Temp. ii. 1. 235,
Skelton, Garland of Laurel, 1. 34, from F. persuasion, ‘ perswasion,’
Cot. ; persuas-ive, from F. persuasif, ‘ perswasive,’ Cot. ; persuas-ive-ly,
persuas-ive-ness.
PERT, forward, saucy. (F.—L.) In Shak. it means ‘lively,
alert,’ L.L.L. v. 2. 272. ‘ Perte, saucy,’ Palsgrave, p. 320. ME. pert,
which, however, has two meanings, and two sources; and the mean-
ings somewhat run into one another. 1. In some instances, pert is
certainly a corruption of apert, and pertly is used for ‘ openly’ or
“evidently ;’ see Will. of Palerne, 4930, also 53, 96, 156, 180, &c.
In this case, the source is the F. apert, open, evident, from L. apertus,
pp- of aperire, to open; see Aperient. 2. But we also find
‘proud and pert,’ Chaucer, C. T. 3948 (A 3950) ; ‘stout he was and
pert, Li Beaus Disconus, 1. 123 (Ritson). This is likewise short for
τὴ apert, better spelt appert, ‘ expert, ready, prompt, active, nimble,’
Cot.; OF. appert, aspert (Godefroy); from L. expertus, expert; see
Expert. y. It is the latter sense that now prevails. See Mala-
pert. Der. pert-ly, Temp. iv. 58; pert-ness, Pope, Dunciad, i. 112.
PERTAIN, to belong. (F.—L.) ME. partenen, Will. of Palerne,
1419; Wyclif, John, x. 13. Not a common word.=OF. partenir,
to pertain; in Godefroy and Burguy, but not in Cotgrave. (It
seems to have been supplanted by the comp. apartenir ; see Apper-
tain.) —L. pertinére, to pertain. See Pertinent.
PERTINACITY, obstinacy. (F.—L.) Phillips, ed. 1706,
gives both pertinacity and pertinacy ; Minsheu, ed. 1627, has only the
latter form, which is the commoner one in old authors, though now
disused. Pertinacity is from F. pertinacité, omitted by Cotgrave,
but occurring in the 15th century (Godefroy), Pertinacy is from F.
pertinace, cited by Minsheu, but not found in Cotgrave or Littré.
B. Pertinacity is a coined word; pertinacy (Ἐς pertinace) is from 1,.
pertinacia, perseverance.=L. pertindci-, for pertinax, very tenacious.
—L. per-, very; and tenax, tenacious, from tenére, to hold. See
Per- and Tenable. Der. pertinaci-ous, Milton, Apology for
Smectymnuus (R.), a coined word, to represent L. pertinax, just as
perspicacious represents perspicax ; pertinacious-ly, -ness.
PERTINENT, related or belonging to. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Wint. Tale, i. 2. 221.—F. pertinent, ‘ pertinent ;’ Cot. —L. pertinent-,
stem of pres. part. of pertinére, to belong.—L. per-, thoroughly ;
and fenére, to hold, cling to; see Per- and Tenable. Der. perti-
nent-ly, pertinence; and see pertinacity.
PERTURB, to disturb greatly. (F.—L.) ME. perturben,
Chaucer, C. T. go8 (A 906).—F. perturber, ‘to perturb, disturb ;’
Cot.<L. perturbare, to disturb greatly.—L. per, thoroughly; and
turbare, to disturb, from ¢urba, a crowd. See Per- and Turbid.
Der. perturb-at-ion, spelt perturbacyon, Bp. Fisher, On the Seven
Psalms, Ps. 38, ed. Mayor (E. E. T.S.), p. 53, 1. 21, from F. per-
turbation (Cot.), which is from L. acc. perturbatidnem.
PERUKE, an artificial head of hair. (F.—Ital.—L.) The same
word as periwig, which, however, is a corrupt form of the word ; see
Periwig. For the form peruke, RK. refers toa poem by Cotton to
John Bradshaw, 1. 185; and Todd refers to Bp. Taylor, Artificial
Handsomeness, p. 44; and Cooper’s Lat. Dict. (1565) has : ‘ Capilla-
mentum, A false perruke” =F. perruque, ‘a lock of haire;’ Cot.
=—Ital. parrucca, MItal. parucca, ‘a periwigge,’ Florio; who also
gives the form perucca. B. The same word with Span. peluca, a
wig, Port. peruca; Littré also cites Sardinian pilucca, and other
forms. The key to the etymology is in remembering the frequent
interchange of r and/; the true forms are those with 7, such as Span.
peluca, Sardinian pilucca. ‘These are closely related to Ital. piluccare,
now used in the sense ‘to pick a bunch of grapes,’ but formerly ‘ to
pick or pull out haires or feathers one by one;’ Florio. y- The
true old sense of pilucca was probably ‘a mass of hair separated
from the head,’ thus furnishing the material for a peruke. Cf. also
Ital. pelluzo, very soft down, MItal. pellucare, pelucare, ‘to plucke
off the haires or skin of anything, to pick out haires;” Florio. Also
Ἐς peluche, ‘shag, plush, Cot.; see Plush. 8. The MItal.
pelucare and Sard. pilucca are formed (by help of a dimin. suffix
PERUSE
-ucca) from Ital. pel-o, hair. = L. pilum, acc. of pilus, a hair. Doublets,
periwig, wig,
PERUSE, to examine, read over, survey. (Hybrid; L. and F.
—L.) InShak. in the sense ‘ to survey, examine,’ Com. Errors, i. 2.
13; also ‘to read,’ Merch. Ven. ii. 4. 39. ‘ That I perused then ;’
G. Turbervile, The Louer to Cupid for Mercy, st. 12. ‘ Thus hauynge
perused the effecte of the thirde booke, I will likewise peruse the
fourth ;’ Bp. Gardiner, Explication, &c., Of the Presence, fol. 76
(R.). «Τὸ peruse, peruti;’ Levins, ed. 1370, And see Skelton,
Phyllyp Sparowe, 1. 814. β. The older senses of the word are
nearer to the etymology. Thus, in the Naval Accounts of Henry
VIL (1485-8), p. 57, there are notes of a ship’s fittings that were
‘spent and perused,’ i.e. used up, ‘in a voiage into Lumbardye.’
Fitzherbert, in his Husbandry, § 131, 1.15 (E.D.S.) has a similar
usage. In giving directions for stacking faggots, he shows how to
lay them in courses ‘and so to peruse them [go through with them],
tyll thou haue layd all up;’ which shows a truer use of the word.
So also in § 124, 1.35. In § 40, 1. 23, a shepherd is bidden to peruse
all his sheep, i.e. to examine them separately, ‘tyll he haue doone.’
See also ὃ 30, 1. 7. y. A coined word; from Per- and Use. L.;
in imitation of OF. paruser, ‘ user entiérement, achever, consommer;”
Godefroy. He quotes: ‘ paruser sa vie en seureté,’ to lead his life in
safety. The difficulty lies solely in the change of sense. The old
sense seems to have been ‘to go through one by one,’ and so to
‘use up (things) till all were done with.’ Thus, in Cavendish’s Life
of Wolsey, p. 36, some maskers paid certain compliments to all the
ladies in turn, thus ‘ perusyng all the ladys and gentylwomen ;’ and
again, at p. 65, a certain choir was directed to use a particular set of
words in a litany; ‘and so perused the lettany thoroughe.’ It may
further be noted that compounds with per were once far more com-
mon than they are now. I can instance peract, Dr. Henry More,
Poems (Chertsey Worthies’ Library), p. 133, 1. 31; perdure, perjixt,
perplanted, perquire, persway, all in Halliwell; perscrute, pertract,
Andrew Borde, Introduction of Knowledge, ed. Furnivall, p. 144,
1. 32, p. 264, 1. 25; pervestigate, pervigilate, both in Minsheu; per-
action, perarate, percruciate, perduction, perendinate, perflation, perfre-
tation, perfriction, perfusion, pergraphical, perpesston, per plication,
perside, persiringe, perterebrate, pervagation, all in Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. Der. perus-al, Hamlet, ii. 1. go.
PERV ADE, to penetrate, spread through. (L.) ‘ Pervade, to go
over or through ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.—L. peruddere, to go through.
“αὶ per, through; and uddere, to go, allied to E. wade. See Per-
and Wade. Der. per-vas-ive (rare), like the pp. perudsus, Shen-
stone, Economy, pt. 11].
PERVERT, to tum aside from the right, to corrupt. (F.—L.)
ME. perverten (with u for v), Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 1.
1. 9.—F. pervertir, ‘to pervert, seduce;’ Cot.—L. peruertere, to
overturn, ruin, corrupt (pp. peruersus).—L. per, thoroughly ; and
uertere, to turn; see Per- and Verse. Der. pervert-er; also per-
verse, Fabyan’s Chron. vol. i. c. 112, in the description of Brune-
chieldis, from F. pervers, ‘ perverse, cross’ (Cot.), which from L. pp.
peruersus; hence perverse-ly, perverse-ness, pervers-i-ty, pervers-ion.
Also pervert-ible.
PERVICACIOUS, wilful, obstinate. (L.) ‘ Why should you
be so pervicacious now, Pug?’ Dryden, Kind Keeper, A. ii. sc. 2 (ed.
Scott). Coined by adding -ous to peruicaci-, from peruicax, wilful,
stubborn; allied to peruicus, stubborn. β. Perhaps from per-,
thoroughly, and the base wi-, weak grade of wi-, as seen in wi-ci,
pt. t. of uzncere, to conquer (Bréal). See Per- and Victor.
PERVIOUS, penetrable. (L.) In Dryden, tr. of Ovid, Meleager,
1.146. Borrowed directly from L. peruius, passable, by change of
-us to τοῖς, as in arduous, &c.—L. per, through; and πα, a way;
hence, ‘ affording a passage through.’ See Per- and Voyage. Der.
pervious-ly, -ness.
PESETA, a silver coin of modern Spain. (Span.—L.) Worth
2 silver reals, or about 9}d.—Span. pesefa; dimin. of pesa, a weight,
allied to peso,a weight, a Span. dollar. Peso is from L. pensum, a
portion weighed out to spinsters. = L, pensus, pp. of pendere, to weigh;
see Poise.
PESSIMIST, one who complains of everything as being for the
worst. (L.) Modern; not in Todd’s Johnson. Formed with suffix
-ist (=L. -ista, from Gk. -tors) from L. pessim-us, worst. [So also
optim-ist from optim-us, best.| B. Pessimus is connected with comp.
péior, worse; see IMpair. Brugmann, ii. § 73.
PEST, a plague, anything destructive or unwholesome. (F.—L.)
‘The hellish pest;’ Milton, P. L. ii. 735.—F. peste, ‘the plague, or
pestilence ;” Cot. —L. pestem, acc. of pestis, a deadly disease, plague.
Der. pest-house; pesti-ferous, Sir T. Elyot, The Governor, b. i. c. 4.
§ 2, Englished from L. pestiferus (the same as pestifer), from pesti-,
fer pestis, and -fer, bringing, from ferre, to bring, cognate with E.
Bear (1); also pesti-lent, ἢ. v-
PETARD
PESTER, to encumber, annoy. (F.—L.) The old sense is to
‘encumber’ or ‘clog.’ ‘ Neither combred wyth ouer greate multitude,
nor pestered with to much baggage ;’ Brende, tr. of Q. Curtius, fol. 23 Ὁ
(1592). ‘ Pestered {crowded ) with innumerable multitudes of people;’
North’s Plutarch (in Shakespeare’s Plutarch, ed. Skeat, p. 175).
Hence festerous, cumbersome, in Bacon, Life of Hen. VII, ed. Lumby,
p- 196, 1. 29 (wrongly explained as pestiferous). A shortened form οἱ
impester, by loss of the first syllable, as in the case of fence for defence,
sport for disport, story for history, &c. Cotgrave explains the F. pp.
empestré as ‘ impestered, intricated, intangled, incumbered.’ = MF. em-
pestrer, to ‘pester, intricate, intangle, trouble, incumber.’ Mod. F.
empétrer. B. ‘Empétrer signihes properly to hobble a horse while
he feeds afield, and depétrer is to free his legs from the bonds. These
words come from the medieval L. pastorium, a clog for horses at
pasture. Pastorium (derived through pastum from pascere, to feed) is
common in this sense in the Germanic laws : ‘Si quis in exercitu ali-
quid furaverit, pastorium, capistrum, frenum,’ &c. (Lex Bavar. tit. II.
vi. 1). So also in the Lex Longobard. tit. 1. xx.5: ‘Si quis pastorium
de caballo alieno tulerit ;” Brachet. y. Thus empestrer represents
Late L.* impastoriare, regularly formed from zx, prep., and pastorium, a
clog. Pastérium is a derivative from pastus, pp. of pascere, to feed, in-
ceptive form froma base pa-;see Pastor. Unconnected with pest ;
but connected with Pastern, q. v.
PESTIFEROUS; see under Pest.
PESTILENT, bringing a plague, hurtful to health or morals.
(F.—L.) In Hamlet, ii. 2. 315. [The sb. pestilence is much older ;
ME. pestilence, P. Plowman, B. v. 13.])—F. pestilent, ‘pestilent,
plaguy;’ Cot.=—L. pestilent-, stem of pestilens, unhealthy; we also
find an old rare form pestilentus. B. Pestilens is formed as a pres.
part. from a verb *estilére not in use, but founded on the adj. peséilis,
pestilential. This adj. is formed with suffix -/i- from pesti- decl.
stem of pestis, a plague; see Pest. Der. pestilence, sb. (as above),
from F. pestilence< L. pestilentia; pestilent-ly, pestilent-i-al.
PESTLE, az instrument for pounding thingsina mortar. (F.—L.)
ME. pestel, Tale of Gamelyn, 1. 122. ‘ Pestel, of stampynge, Pila,
pistillus, pistellus;’ Prompt. Pary.—OF. pestel (Godefroy), later
pesteil, ‘a pestle or pestell :᾿ Cot. —L. pistillum, a pestle; regularly
formed, as a dimin. of an unused sb. *pistrum, from pistum, supine of
pinsere, to pound, rarely spelt pisere. See Pistil, Piston.
PHT (1), a tame and fondled animal, a child treated fondly. (F. ?)
‘The love of cronies, petts, and favourites ;’ Tatler, no. 266, Dec. 21,
1710. Cf. also peat, as in Shak. Tam, Shrew, i. 1. 78. ‘ Pretty
peat ;’ Gascoigne, Flowers, Hir Question ; Works, ed. Hazlitt, i. 48.
Ray (A.D. 1691) calls pet a North-country word, and explains a pet-
lamb as ‘a cade lamb.’ [Cf. Irish peat, sb. a pet, adj. petted ; Gael.
peata, a pet, a tame animal; borrowed from E.) Of uncertain
origin. Perhaps suggested by MF. peton, ‘a little foot, the slender
stalke of a leafe ; mon peton, my pretty springall, my gentle imp (any
such flattering or dandling phrase, bestowed by nurses on their
suckling boies) ;7 Cot. Used by Rabelais ; see Hatzfeld. Usually
considered as a derivative of F. pied, a foot; from L. ped-em, acc. of
pes, a foot. Cf. also F. petiot, a dear little child (Godefroy) ;
Norm. dial. petiot (Moisy); and see Petty. Der. pet, verb; pett-ed ;
and probably pet (2), q.v.
PET (2), a sudden fit of peevishness. (F.?) ‘Ina pet of tem-
perance;’ Milton, Comus, 721. Shak. has fettish, adj., i.e. capri-
cious, Troil. ii. 3. 139; spelt petish, Levins. There was also an old
phrase ‘to take the pet,’ or ‘to take pet.’ Cotgrave translates F.
se mescontenter de by ‘to take the fet, to be ill satished with.’ The
simplest and most probable derivation is from Pet (1), q.v. A fet
is a spoilt child; hence pettish, capricious ; fo take the pet, to act like
a spoilt child; whence, finally, the sb. pe¢ in its new sense of
‘capricious action’ or peevishness. Der. pett-ish, pett-ish-ly, pett-
Ish-ness.
PETAL, a flower-leaf; part of a corolla. (Gk.) ‘ Petala, among
herbalists, those fine coloured leaves of which the flowers of all
plants are made up;”’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Here fetala is the Greek
plural form, showing that the word was taken from the Greek
immediately. —Gk. πέταλον (pl. πέταλα), a leaf; properly neut. of
mérados, spread out, broad, flat. πΠέτα-λος is formed with suffix
-Aos from the base πετ- (whence also πετ-άννυμι, I spread out). Cf.
L. patulus, spreading, pat-ére, to lie open, be spread out.—/PET,
to spread out; see Fathom. Der. petal-oid.
PETARD, a war-engine, a case filled with explosive materials.
(F.—L.) In Hamlet, iii. 4. 207; spelt pefar in the quarto edd. of
Hamlet, and by all editors down to Johnson. Cotgrave has both
petard and petarre.—F. petart, petard, ‘a petard or petarre; an
engine . . wherewith strong gates are burst open.’ Lit. ‘explosive.’
Formed with suffix -ar¢ or -ard (of Germanic origin, from G. hart,
hard, Brachet, Introd. § 196) from the verb peter, to break wind. =
F. pet, a breaking wind, slight explosion.—L. peditum, a breaking
445
446 PETIOLE
wind.=L, péditus, pp. of pédere (contracted from *pezdere), to break
wind. See Brugmann, i. § 857. 41 The E. form petar arose from
the fact that the OF. pl. of petard was petars.
PETIOLBA, the footstalk of a leaf. (F.—L.) Modern; botanical.
- Εἰ péiole, a petiole. —L. petiolum, acc. of petiolus, a little stem or
stalk. Usually considered as a derivative of L. pés, a foot.
PETITION, a prayer, supplication. (F.—L.) ME. peticion,
petition; Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 313, 1. 18.—F. petition,
‘a petition ;’ Cot.—L. petitionem, acc. of petitio, a suit ; cf. petitus,
pp. of petere, to attack, ask; orig. to fall on.—4/PET, to fly, fall;
whence also E. feather; see Feather, Impetus. Der. petition,
vb., petilion-ar-y, petition-er, petition-ing.
PETREL, PETEREL, a genus of ocean-birds. (F.—G.—
L.—Gk.) For the form peterel, see Todd. ‘The petrel is a Bird
not much unlike a Swallow. They fly sweeping like Swallows, and
very near the water;” W. Dampier, A New Voyage, iii. 97. The
spelling petrel is also used in a translation of Buffon’s Nat. Hist.,
London, 1792, where we are told that the stormy petrels ‘ sometimes
hover over the water like swallows, and sometimes appear to rum on
the top of it;” vol. ii. p. 128. From the latter peculiarity they take
their name.—F. pétrel (sometimes pétérel); Littré cites a letter
written by Buffon, dated 1782, who gives his opinion that pétrel
is a better spelling than pétérel, because the derivation is from the
name Peter, which is pronounced, he says, as Petre. (The usual F.
word for Peter is Pierre.) B. Thus pétrel is formed as a diminutive
of Pétre or Peter; and the allusion is to the action of the bird, which
seems to walk on the sea, like St. Peter. The G. name Petersvogel
(lit. Peter-fowl = Peter-bird) gives clear evidence as to the etymology.
—G. Peter.—L. Petrus, Peter. = Gk. Πέτρος, a rock ; a name given to
the apostle by Christ; see John i. 42, in the orig. Gk. text. See
Petrify. 4 The F. Pétre was prob. borrowed from (ἃ, Peter, not
from the L. directly. Or the F. word may have been borrowed
from E.; in which case Εἰ, petrel is from L. Petrus.
PETRIFY, to tum into stone. (F.—Gk. and L.) Properly
transitive ; also used intransitively. ‘ When wood and many other
bodies do petrify;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, bk. ii. c. 1. § 3.—
F. petrifier, ‘to make stony ;’ Cot. Formed as if from L. *peeri-
Jicire, a coined word, to make stony. = L, petri-, for petra, a rock,
and ~ficare, for facere, tomake. β. The L. petra is merely borrowed
from Gk. πέτρα, a rock; cf. Gk. mérpos, a mass of rock, a stone.
Der. petrifact-ion, as if from a L. pp. *petrifactus, but the older word
is petrification, from F. petrification, ‘a petrification, a making stony’
(Cot.) ; petrifact-ive; also petrific, adj., Milton, P. L. x. 294.
PETROLEUM, rock-oil. (L.—Gk.) Minsheu, ed. 1627,
explains petrol or petroleum as ‘a kind of marle or chaulky clay ;’
this is the same word, differently applied. Coined from L. petr-,
for petra, a rock, a word borrowed from Gk. πέτρα; and L. oleum,
oil, from Gk. ἔλαιον, oil. See Petrify and Oil. Cooper’s
Thesaurus (1565) has the form petroleon. 4 There is a curious
mention of rock-oil in Plutarch’s Life of Alexander; see North’s
Plutarch, ed. 1631, p. 702.
PETRONEL, a large horse-pistol. (F.—L.) ‘Their peeces
then are called fetronels ;’ Gascoigne, Weedes ; The Continuance of
the Author, upon the Fruite of Fetters, st. 7; Works, ed. Hazlitt,
1. 408. Spelt petrionel, in Ben Jonson, Every Man, ed. Wheatley,
iii. 1; some edd. have petronel.— MF. petrinal, ‘a petronell, or horse-
man’s piece;’ Cot. B. Wedgwood remarks that they are said to
have been invented in the Pyrenees ; Godefroy gives also poictrinal
(1585), and says that it was fired by resting the butt-end against
the chest (so also Fairholt). Cf. MItal. pietranelli, souldiers
serving on horseback, well armed with a pair of cuirasses and
weaponed with a fire-locke-piece or a snaphance or a fetronell;’
Florio. From OF, peitrine, poitrine, the chest, allied to AF. peitral,
a poitrel; both are from L. pector-, for *pectos, stem of pectus, the
breast; see Poitrel.
PETTO, the breast. (Ital.—L.) In the phr. in petto, within the
breast, in secret. Ital. petto, breast. = L. pectus, breast.
PETTY, small, insignificant. (F.—C.) Common in Shak.;
see Merch. Ven. i. 1.12, &c. ME. petit, P. Plowman, B. xiv. 242.
—F. petit, ‘little, small, . . meane, petty;’ Cot. B. Perhaps of
Celtic origin ; Diez connects it with Sardinian piticu, little, Wallachian
pitic, a dwarf, Oltal. pitetto, petitto, Prov. and Catalan petit, Walla-
chian fitz, small, little, &c. All from a Gaulish stem *pett- = Celtic
*gett-, which occurs again in Piece. Der. petti-ly; petti-ness,
Henry V, iii. 6. 136; petti-coat, i.e. little coat, As You Like It, i.
3. 15 (see Coat); petti-fogger, Marston, The Malcontent, A. i. sc.
6 (R.), spelt pettie fogger in Minsheu, ed. 1627, whence prov. E.
vg, to hunt in a servile manner, to flatter for gain, used by
Dekker (Halliwell), equivalent to MDu. focker, ‘a monopole, or
an engrosser of wares and commodities,’ Hexham; and focker is
prob, a corruption of the surname Fugger, Englished as fogger
PHALANX
(N.E.D.). Also petti-toes, usually pig’s trotters, sometimes human
feet (jocularly), as in Shirley, Maid’s Revenge, iv. 1; see below.
PETTITOES, pig’s trotters. (F.—C. and L.) Understood as
petty-toes, whence the present sense (see end of last article). But
this is popular etymology. It formerly meant giblets or garbage
(see N. E. D:)—MF. petitose, ‘garbage of fowls,’ Cot.; pl. of
petitoye, the same, Palsgrave, p. 224 ; petite oye, the same, Cot. (5. v.
oye). Here oye (F. oe) is from Late L. auca, a goose ; for L. au’ca,
*aui-ca, from auis, a bird.
PETULANT, peevish. (L.) In Ben Jonson, Epigram 2 (To
My Book), 1. 5.—L. petulant-, stem of petulans, forward, pert,
petulant ; lit. ready to attack in a small way,’ as it answers to the
form of a pres. part. of *petulare, a dimin. of petere, to attack, seek.
See Petition. Der. petulant-ly ; also petulance, from F. petulance,
* petulancy,’ Cot. ; petulanc-y.
PETUNIA, a plant or flower; of the order Solanacee. (F.—
Port.— Brazil.) F. pétunia (Hatzfeld). Formed with suffix -ia from
F. petun, MF. petum, ‘tobacco,’ Cot.—Port. petum (Hatzfeld).—
Guarani (Brazil.) pet?, tobacco (with nasalized i); P. Restivo, Vocab.
de la Lengua Guarani.
PEW, an enclosed seat in a church. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. puwe.
‘Yparroked in puwes’ = enclosed in pews ; P. Plowman, C. vii. 144.
Cf. AF. pui, a stage, platform ; in Liber Custumarum, p. 216.—OF.
puie, an elevated place, MF. puye, f., ‘an open and outstanding
terrace or gallery, set on the outside with rails to lean on;’ Cot.
Cf. Span. poyo, a stone-bench near a door, Ital. poggio, a hillock.
[Prob. orig, applied to a raised desk to kneel at.J}—L. podia, pl.
of podium, an elevated place, a balcony next the arena, where the
emperor and other distinguished persons sat. [The loss of d and
change of po-ia to OF. puie, are regular. ]—Gk. πόδιον, a little foot ;
whence the senses of footstool, support for the feet, gallery to sit
in, &c., must have been evolved; for there can be no doubt asto the
identity of the Gk. and L. words. = Gk. ποδί-, from πούς, a foot; with
dimin. suffix -ov. Gk. πούς is cognate with E. foot; see Foot. Der.
pew-fellow, Rich. III, iv. 4.58. ἔῃ The Du. puye, ‘a pue’ (Hexham),
is borrowed from MF. puye.
PEWET, PEEWIT, the lapwing. (E.) ‘ Pewet or Puet, a kind
of bird;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. ‘Een Piewit-vogel, ofte [or] Kiewit,
a puet, or a lap-winckle;’ Hexham’s Du. Dict., ed. 1658. Spelt
puwyt, Skelton, Philip Sparowe, 1. 430. Named from its cry. So
also Du. piewit or kiewit, (ἃ. kibitz; Westphal. piwik, piwit. See
Peevish.
PEWTER, an alloy of lead with tin or zinc. (F.—E.?) ME.
pewtir, pewtyr. “ Pewtyr, metalle ;’? Prompt. Parv. ‘ Pewter pottes ;’
Lydgate, London Lyckpeny, st. 12. ‘xij pottes de peutre ;’ Earl of
Derby's Expeditions, 1390-1, p. 101.—OF. peutre, peautre, piautre,
a kind of metal (Roquefort). Petre stands, as usual, for an older
form *peltre ; cf. Span. peltre, Ital. peltro, pewter. Diez remarks that
the Italians believe their word feltro was borrowed from England ;
but he rejects this solution, on the ground that the form pewter could
not well become feltro in Italian. ‘he Low L. form is peltrum ; as in
“ vasorum de peltro,’ York Wills, ii. 146 (1450). The solution is, prob-
ably, that the Ital., Span., and OF. forms have lost an initial s, owing
to the difficulty of sounding the initial sp; and the original word really
does appear in E. in the form spelter. ‘ Spelter, a kind of metall, not
known to the antients, which the Germans call zink ;’ Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674; whence OF. espeautre, espiauire, a kind of metal (Godefroy).
Cf. MDu. peauter or speauter, pewter; Hexham. Zinc and pewter
are often confounded. See Spelter. Der. pewter-er, Prompt.
Ie!
PHAETON, a kind of carriage. (F.—L.—Gk.) Properly Phae-
thon, but we took the word from French. Spelt phaééon (trisyllabic)
in Young, Night Thoughts, bk. v. 1. 825.—F. phaéton, a phaeton ;
occurring in a work written in 1792 (Littré).—F. Phaethon, proper
name.=L. Phaethon,—Gk. Φαέθων, son of Helios, and driver of the
chariot of the sun.Gk. φαέθων, radiant, pres. part. of φαέθειν,
to shine; allied to φάειν, to shine. —4/BHA, to shine; see
Phantom.
PHALANX, a battalion of troops closely arrayed. (L.—Gk.)
In Minsheu, ed. 1627; and Milton, P. L.i. 550, iv. 979. ‘ This
legion he called the phalanx;’ Holland, tr. of Suetonius, Nero,
ch. 19.—L. phalanx.—Gk. φάλαγξ, a line of battle, battle-array,
a battalion. See Plank. Der. phalanger, a marsupial mammal,
in a tr. of Buffon, i. 292 (1792); named phalanger (F.) by Buffon
(see Littré) from the structure of the hind feet; trom F. phalange=
PHALLUS
Gk. padayy-, stem of φάλαγξ, the bone between two joints of the
toes. 4] The L. pl. is phalanges.
PHALLUS, an emblem of the generative power in nature,
honoured in Bacchic festivals. (L.—Gk.) ‘Two Phalli;’ Purchas,
Pilgrimage, bk. i. c. 15; p. 79.—L. phallus.—Gk. φαλλός, lit.
membrum virile.Irish ball, a limb, member; Olrish ball, glossed
“membrum,’
PHANTASM, a spectre. (F.—L.—Gk.) Phantasme, Minsheu,
ed. 1627. ME. fantesme, Ancren Riwle, p. 62.—OF. fantasme. =
L. phantasma; see Jul. Ces. ii. 1. 65.—Gk. φάντασμα, a spectre;
see Phantom. Der. phantasm-agoria, lit. a collection of spectres,
as shown by the magic lantern, from Gk. ἀγορά, an assembly,
collection, which from ἀγείρειν, to assemble. Doublet, phantom.
PHANTASTIC, PHANTASY ; see Fantastic, Fancy.
PHANTOM, a vision, spectre. (F.—L.—Gk.) Partly con-
formed to the Gk. spelling. ME. fantome, Chaucer, C. T. 5457
(B 1037); fantum, Wyclif, Matt. xiv. 26.—OF. fantosme, MF.
phantosme, ‘a spirit, ghost;’ Cot.—L. phantasma.=—Gk. φάντασμα,
a vision, spectre, lit. an apparition, appearance.—Gk. φαντάζειν, to
display ; in passive, to appear ; cf. the sb. -φάντης, one who shows,
only used in the compounds ἱερο-φάντης, συκο-φάντης ; see Hiero-
phant, Sycophant.=—Gk. φαν-, as seen in φαίνειν (=av-yew) to
show, lit. ‘to cause to shine;’ where φαν- is an extended form of
Φα-, to shine; cf. paew, to shine, φάος, light. —4/BHA, to shine;
cf. Skt. bha, to shine. Hence also fan-tas-y (shorter form fancy),
hiero-phant, syco-phant, dia-phan-ous, phen-o-men-on, pha-se, em-phas-
is, phaeton, photograph, phosphorus, See Fancy, Phenomenon,
Phase. Doublet, phantasm.
PHARISEE, one of a religious school among the Jews. (F.—
L.—Gk.— Aramaic.) Partly conformed to Gk. spelling ; ME. farisee,
Wyclif, Matt. ix. 11.—OF. pharisee; Godefroy. =—L. phariséus, phari-
saeus, Matt. ix. rr (Vulgate). — Gk. φαρισαΐος, Matt. ix. 11; lit.
‘one who separates himself from men.’— Aram. Perishin, for Heb.
Perishim, pl., ‘separated;’ Smith, Dict. of the Bible. Cf. Heb.
parash, to separate. Der. Pharisa-ic, Pharisa-ic-al.
PHARMACY, the knowledge of medicines ; the art of preparing
medicines. (F,—L.—Gk.) Partly conformed to the Gk, spelling.
ME. fermacy, Chaucer, C. T. 2715 (A 2713).—OF. farmacie, later
pharmacie, ‘a curing, or medicining with drugs ;” Cot. L. pharmacia.
=Gk. φαρμακεία, pharmacy.—Gk. φάρμακον, adrug. B. Perhaps
so called from its bringing help; allicd to φέρειν, to bear, bring,
cognate with E. bear; see Bear (1); cf. Skt. bkytis, nourishment,
service, from bhv, to bear. Der. pharmac-eu-t-ic, formed with suffix
-ic (Gk. -t#os) from φαρμακευτ-ής, a druggist, which again is formed
with suffix -rns from φαρμακεύ-ειν, to administer a drug, from
φαρμακ-εύς, a druggist; hence pharmaceutic-al, pharmaceutic-s. Also
pharmaco-peia, from ποίειν, to make, prepare.
PHARYNX, the cavity forming the upper part of the gullet.
(L.—Gk.) In Phillips’ Dict. ed. 1706. Late L. pharynx ; merely
the Latinized form of the Gk. word. —Gk. φάρυγξ, the joint opening
of the gullet and windpipe; also, a cleft, a bore; closely allied to
φάραγξ, a chasm, gulley, cleft, ravine, and to φαράειν, to plough. All
from the base φαρ-, to bore, cut, pierce, hence, to cleave; allied to L.
fortre and E. bore. —4/BHAR, to bore, cut; see Bore (1).
PHASE, PHASIS, an appearance; a particular appearance of
the moon or of a planet at a given time. (L.—Gk.) The form phase
does not appear to have been borrowed from F. phase, but to have
resulted as an E. singular from the pl. sb. phases, borrowed immedi-
ately from Latin. ‘ Phases, appearances ; in astronomy, the several
positions in which the moon and other planets appear to our sight,
&c.;’ Phillips’ Dict., ed. 1706. ‘ Phasis, an appearance ;’ Bailey,
vol. ii. 1731. And see Todd’s Johnson. = Late L. phasis, pl. phasés ;
merely the L. form of the Gk. word.—Gk. φάσις, an appearance ;
from the base φα-, to shine; cf. φάος, light. —4/BHA, to shine; see
Phantom. ἀφ The Gk. φάσις not only means ‘ appearance,’ as
above; but also ‘a saying, declaration,’ in which sense it is connected
with φημί, 1 speak, declare. from 4/BHA,to speak ; see Ban. This
explains the word em-phaszs.
PHEASANT, a gallinaceous bird. (F.—L.-Gk.) Now con-
formed to the Gk. spelling as far as relates to the initial pk, Formed
with excrescent ¢ (common after x, as in ¢yran-t, ancien-t, parchmen-t)
from ME, fesaun, Will. of Palerne, 183; later form /esaunt, Chaucer,
Parl. of Foules, 357.—AF. fesaunt, Liber Custumarum, p. 304;
OF. faisan, ‘a phesant;’ Cot.—L. phasiana, a pheasant ; for
Phasiana auis=Phasian bird, where Phasiana is the fem. of Phasianus,
adj.; we also find phasi@nus, masc., a pheasant.—Gk. Φασιανός, a
pheasant, lit. Phasian, i. e. coming from the river Phasis (Φᾶσις) in
Colchis. B. The river Phasis is now called the Rioni; it flows
from the Caucasus into the Black Sea.
PHENIX, PHOENIX, a fabulous bird. (L.—Gk.) The word
appears very early. Spelt fenix, it is the subject of an AS. poem
PHIZ
extant in the Exeter book; printed in Grein’s Bibliothek, i. 215.
This poem is imitated from a L. poem with the same title. —L.
phoenix; Pliny, Nat. Hist. x, 2. 2.—Gk. φοίνιξ, a phoenix ; see Hero-
dotus, ii. 73, and Smith’s Classical Dictionary. B. The same word
also means Phoenician or Punic (Gk. goimé=L. Piinicus); also,
a palm-tree; also purple-red. @ Littré supposes that the pheenix
was named from its bright colour; and that the colour was so named
because invented by the Phoenicians.
PHENOMENON, a remarkable appearance, an observed result.
(L.—Gk.) Formerly phenomenon, with pl. phenomena, asin Phillips,
ed. 1706.—L. phenomenon, pl. phanomena.—Gk. φαινόμενον, pl.
φαινόμενα, properly the neut. of the pass. part. of φαίνειν, to show
(pass. φαίνομαι, to be shown, to appear). See Phantom. Der.
phenomen-al, a coined adj,
PHEON, the broad barbed head of an arrow. (F.—Teut.?)
Heraldic ; spelt feon, Book of St. Alban’s, pt. ii. fol. B 5. Perhaps
for *fleon ; from Late 1,. fletonem, acc. of fleto, fletho, an arrow-head
(Ducange). Cf. Du. flits, an arrow.
PHIAL, a small glass vessel or bottle. (F,—L.—Gk.) Formerly
spelt vial, viall, viol; altered to phial (a more ‘learned’ form) in
some mod. edd. of Shakespeare. We find phial as well as vial in
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.— MF. phiole, ‘a violl;’ Cot.—L. phiala.
“- Gk. φιάλη, a broad, shallow cup or bowl (applied in F, to a small
bottle). See Vial.
PHILANDER, a lover. (Gk.) ‘You and your Philander !’
Congreve, Way of the World, v. 1. From the use of the name
Philander for a lover, as e. g. in Beaumont and Fletcher’s Laws of
Candy.—Gk. φίλανδρος, lit. ‘loving men.’ Gk. φιλ-εῖν, to love ;
ἀνδρ-, from ἀνήρ, a man.
PHILANTHROPY, love of mankind. (L.—Gk.) Spelt philan-
thropie in Minsheu, ed. 1627. Englished from L. philanthropia. =
Gk. φιλανθρωπία, benevolence. — Gk. φιλάνθρωπος, loving mankind. =
Gk. φιλ-, for φίλος, friendly, kind; and ἄνθρωπος, a man. [The
words philo-sophy, philo-logy show that φιλ- represents φίλος, adj.,
not φιλεῖν, verb.] See Philosophy and Anthropology. Der.
philanthrop-ic; philanthrop-ist, Young, Night Thoughts, Night 4,
03.
PHILHARMONIC, loving music. (Gk.) Modern; not in
Todd’s Johnson. Coined from Gk. φιλ-, for φίλος, friendly, fond
of; and harmoni-a, Latinised form of Gk. ἁρμονία, harmony; with
suffix -«os; as if from Gk. φιλ-αρμονι-κός. See Philosophy and
Harmony.
PHILIBEG, a kilt (Gaelic). See Fillibeg.
PHILIPPIC, a discourse full of invective. (L.-—Gk.) In
Minshen, ed. 1627; and in Dryden, tr. of Juvenal, sat. x. 1. τού. -
L. Philippicum, used by Juvenal (Sat. x. 1. 125) in the pl. Philippica,
used to denote the celebrated orations of Demosthenes against Philip.
—Gk. φίλιππος, a lover of horses; also Philip, a personal name. =
Gk. φιλ-, for φίλος, fond of; and ἵππος, a horse, cognate with L.
equus. See Philosophy and Equine.
PHILOLOGY, the study of languages. (L.—Gk.) In Skelton,
Why Come Ye Nat toCourte, 514. Spelt philologie in Minsheu, ed.
1627; and in Chaucer, C. T., E1734. Englished from L. philologia,
- Gk. φιλολογία, love of talking ; hence, love of learning and litera-
ture. = Gk. φιλόλογος, fond of talking; also a student of language and
history.—Gk. @ido-, for φίλος, fond of ; and λόγος, discourse, from
λέγειν, to speak. See Philosophy and Legend. Der. philolagi-
c-al, philologi-c-al-ly ; philolog-ist.
PHILOMEL, a nightingale. (L.—Gk.) In Shak. Lucrece,
1079.—L. ¢hiloméla, a nightingale (Virgil). — Gk. Φιλομήλη, daughter
of Pandion, who was changed into a nightingale.
PHILOSOPHY, love of wisdom, knowledge of the causes of
phenomena, (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. philosophie, Rob. of Glouc. p. 130,
1. 2748; Chaucer, C. T. 297 (A 295). —F. philosophie, ‘ philosophy ;’
Cot.—L. philosophia, — Gk. φιλοσοφία, love of wisdom. — Gk. φιλόσο-
os, lit. loving a handicraft or art; also, a lover of true knowledge.
=—Gk. pido-, for φίλος, friendly, also, fond of; and σοφ-, base of
adp-os, skilful, and σοφία, skill (see Sophist). Der. philosophi-c,
philosophi-c-al, philosophi-c-al-ly ; philosoph-ise, a coined word, spelt
philosophize by Cotgrave, who uses it to translate the F. verb philoso-
pher<L. philosophari, from Gk. φιλοσοφεῖν, to be a philosopher.
Also philosoph-er, ME. philosophre, Chaucer, C. T. 299; here the r is
aneedless addition, as the F. word was philosophe, correctly answering
to L. philosophus and Gk. φιλόσοφος.
PHILTRE, a love potion. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Minsheu, ed.
1627.—F. philtre, ‘an amorous potion;’ Cot.—L. philtrum (Juv. vi.
611).—Gk. φίλτρον, a love charm, love potion, drink to make one
love.—Gk. φιλ-, for φίλος, dear, loving ; and suffix -rpoy (Idg. -ter),
denoting the agent.
PHIZ, face, visage. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘What a furious phiz I have!
Congreve, Old Bachelor, iv. 4 (Belinda). Short for phisnomy (ME.
447
448 PHLEBOTOMY
jisnomie), spelt phisnamy in Palsgrave; and phisnomy is short for
Physiognomy, q. v.
PHLEBOTOMY, blood-letting. (F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt phle-
botomie in Minsheu, ed. 1627; flabotomye in Dictes and Sayings, pr.
by Caxton, fol. 17, 1. 10.—F. phlebotomie, “ phlebotomy, blood-
letting;” Cot.=—L. phlebotomia.— Gk. φλεβοτομία, blood-letting, lit.
cutting of a vein. = Gk. pAcBo-, from φλέψ, a vein ; and τομός, cutting.
B. The sb. φλέψ is from φλέειν, to gush, overflow, from the base
φλε-, allied to L. flére, to weep. Brugmann, ii. § 590. y. For Gk.
τέμνειν, see Tome, And see Fleam.
PHLEGM, slimy matter in the throat, sluggishness, indifference.
(F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt flegme in Cotgrave. R. quotes from Ar-
buthnot, On Aliments, c. 6: ‘ Phlegm among the ancients signified
a cold viscous humour, contrary to the etymology of the word, which
is from φλέγειν, to burn ; but amongst them there were two sorts of
phlegm, cold and hot.’ The use of the word was due to the supposed
influence of the four ‘ humours,’ which were blood, choler, phlegm,
and gall; phlegm causing a dull and sluggish temperament. Chaucer,
C. T. 625, has sawceflem, a word formed from L. salsum phlegma, salt
phlegm.—F. phlegme, ‘flegme;’ Cot.—L. phlegma.—Gk. φλέγμα,
base φλεγματ-, (1) a flame, (2) inflammation, (3) phlegm.—Gk.
φλέγειν, to burn. B. Gk. φλέγμα (from φλέγειν) is allied to L.
flamma (for *flagma, from the base flag- in flagrare, to bum). Thus
phlegm is almost a doublet of flame. See Flame, Flagrant. Der.
phlegmat-ic, misused by Mrs. Quickly in Merry Wives, i. 4. 79, from
the Gk. adj. φλεγματικός, from the base φλεγματ- ; phlegmat-ic-al,
phlegmat-ic-al-ly.
PHLOX, the name of a flower. (Gk.) It means ‘ flame,’ from
its colour. In Phillips, ed. 1706.—Gk. φλόξ, a flame. —Gk. φλογ-,
2nd grade of φλεγ-, as in φλέγειν, to burn; see Phlegm.
PHOCINE,, pertaining to the seal family of mammals. (L.—
Gk.) Scientific. L. phdca, a seal.—Gk. φώκη, a seal; Homer, Od.
iv. 404.
PHOSNIX, the same as Phenix, q. v.
PHOLAS, a mollusc that makes holes in stones. (Gk.) Modern.
= Gk. φωλάς, lurking in a hole; allied to φωλεός, a lurking-hole,
aden. From a stem *bhdl-, for *bhdu-l-, where *bhou- is allied to
Teut. *bau-, whence (ἃ. bau-en, to live, and AS, bii-an, to live; see
Booth. (So Prellwitz.)
PHONETIC, representing sounds. (Gk.) Modern ; not in Todd’s
Johnson; the science of sounds was formerly called phonics, spelt
phonicks in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1706.—Gk. φωνητικός, belonging to
speaking. = Gk. φωνέτω, I produce a sound-—Gk. φωνή, a sound;
formed with suffix -νη (Idg.-nd@) from φω-, allied by gradation to φη-
in φημί, 1 speak. —4/BHA, to speak; whence also E. bax. See Ban.
Der. phonetic-al, phonetic-al-ly; also, from sb. φωνή, phon-ics (as
above) ; phono-graphy, from γράφειν, to write; phono-graph, phono-
graph-er, phono-graph-ic, phono-graph-ic-al ; also phonc-logy, from
-Aoyia, a discourse, from λέγειν, to speak ; phono-type, phono-typ-y.
Also, from Gk. φωνή, anthem =anti-phon.
PHOSPHORUS, a yellowish wax-like substance, of inflam-
mable nature. (L.—Gk.) In Phillips, ed. 1706. Discovered in 1667
(Haydn). ‘The very phosphorus of our hemisphere’; Congreve,
Double-Dealer, ii. 1 (Lady Froth). —L. phosphorus. — Gk. φωσφόρος,
bearing, bringing, or giving light.—Gk. φῶς, light, equivalent to
φάος, light, from the base φα-, to shine ; and -dopos, bringing, from
φέρειν, to bring. From 4/BHA, to shine; and 4/BHER, to bring,
bear. With Gk. φῶς, cf. Irish ban, white; and see Bale-fire.
Der. phosphor-ic, phosphor-ous, phosphur-et, phosphur-et-ted, phosphor-
esc-ence,
PHOTOGRAPHY, the art of producing pictures by the
action of light. (Gk.) Modern; Fox Talbot's photographs took
the place of the old Daguerrotypes about 1839 (Haydn).—Gk. φωτο-,
decl. stem of φῶς, light; and γράφ-ειν, to write (hence, to produce
impressions), The Gk. φῶς is equivalent to φά-ος, light (above).
Der. photograph, short for photographed picture ; photograph-ic,
photograph-er. So also photo-meter, an instrument for measuring the
intensity of light; see Metre.
PHRASE, part of a sentence, a short sentence. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Frequent in Shak. Merry Wives, i. 1. 151, i. 3. 33, &C. =F. phrase,
not in Cotgrave, but cited in Minsheu; Littré cites the spelling frase
in the 16th century.—L. phrasis.—Gk. φράσις, a speaking, speech,
phrase.—=Gk. φράζειν ( -- φράδ-νειν), to speak. B. The Gk. base
φραδ- is probably allied to Irish bard, a poet; see Bard. Cf. Gk.
φραδ-ής, shrewd, Der. phrase, vb., Hen. VIII, i. 1. 343 phrase-less,
Shak. Lover’s Complaint, 226; phrase-o-logy, Spectator, no. 616,
a strange compound, in which the ὁ is inserted to fill out the word,
and conform it to other words in -o-logy; phrase-o-logi-c-al. Also
antiphrasis, para-phrase, peri-phrasis.
PHRENOLOGY, the science of the functions of the mind. (Gk.
‘Phrenology, a compound term of modern formation, in very common
PHY TOID
use, but not very clearly explained by those who employ it;’
Richardson. = Gk. φρενό-, decl. stem of φρήν, the mind; and -Aoyia,
from λόγος, a discourse, which from λέγειν, to speak. Der. phreno-
logi-c-al, phrenolog-ist.
PHTHISIS, consumption of the lungs. (L.—Gk.) In Phillips,
ed. 1706. [The disease was formerly called ‘the phshisick,’ as in
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. This is an adjectival form, from L,
phthisica (passio), fem. of phthisicus = Gk. φθισικός, consumptive. The
difficulty of sounding phth was easily got over by the substitution of
ὁ for the compound sound; hence Phillips has ‘ Phthisis, the phthisick
or tissick;’ and it is still called ‘ the tizic’ The spelling tysyk occurs
as early as in Hampole, Pricke of Conscience, 701. So also Ital.
tisica, Span. tistca, tists, consumption. Milton speaks of ‘a broken-
winded ¢izzic ;’ Animadversions on the Remonstrants’ Defence (R.).]
—L. phthisis, — Gk. φθίσις, consumption, a decline, decay. — Gk. φθίειν,
to decay, wane, dwindle. The Gk. $6 answers to Skt. ksh, and
φθίειν is allied to Skt. kski, to destroy, whence pp. kshita-, decayed,
and kshitis=9io1s; Curtius, ii. 370. Brugmann, i. ὃ 652. Der.
phthisi-c, phthisi-c-al.
PHYLACTERY, a charm, amulet, esp. among the Jews, a slip
of parchment inscribed with four passages from scripture. (F.—L.—
Gk.) Spelt philaterie in Tyndall’s version, A. Ὁ. 1526; ME. jilaterie,
Wyclif, Matt. xxiii. 5.—OF. jilatere, jilatiere, forms given in Littré,
5.0. phylactére ; Cotgrave spells it phylacterie. [The c, omitted in
Wyclif and Tyndall, was afterwards restored.J—L. phylactérium,
Sylactérium. = Gk, φυλακτήριον, a preservative, amulet; Matt. xxiii. 5.
— Gk. φυλακτήρ, a guard, watchman.—Gk. φυλάσσειν (fut. φυλάξω,
from ¢vAak-), to.guard. Cf. φύλαξ, a watchman, guard.
PHYLLOPHOROUS, leaf-bearing. (Gk.) Modern.— Gk. φυλ-
Aopdpos, bearing leaves. — Gk. φύλλο-, for φύλλον, a leaf; pop-, 2nd
stem of φερ-, asin φέρειν, to bear, cognate with E. bear(1). β. Gk.
g~urrov=L. folium, a leaf. The prefix fhyllo- occurs in many
scientific words, as in phyllo-xera, the insect that attacks grapes, Jit.
‘leaf-drying ’ or ‘ leaf-withering,’ from Gk. énp-ds, dry.
PHYSIC, the art of healing diseases; hence, a remedy for disease.
(F.—L.—Gk.) ‘Throw physte to the dogs ;’ Macb. ν. 3. 47. ‘A
doctor of phisike ;” Chaucer, C. T. 413. Spelt jisike, Seven Sages, ed.
Weber, 186.—OF. phisike, phisigue. ‘ Phisique est une science par le
[14] quele on connoist toutes les manieres du cors de ’homme, et par
le quele on garde le [14] santé du cors et remue les maladies; ’
Alebrant, fol. 2 (13th cent.; cited in Littré). In Cotgrave’s time, the
word had a more ‘learned’ meaning; he gives ‘ Physique, naturall
philosophy,’ and ‘ Physicien, a naturall philosopher.’ =—L. physica,
physicé, natural science. — Gk. φυσική, tem. of φυσικός, natural, physi-
cal.—Gk. φυσι-, for φύσις, nature, essence of a thing; with suffix
-xos. Ββ. Gk. φύσις -- ἔφύ-τις, formed with suffix -τὶς (Idg. -t-) from
the base φυ- appearing in φύειν, to produce, also, to grow, wax. =
BHEU, to grow, to be; whence also Skt. bhi, to be, L. fore, and
KE. be. See Be. Der. physic, verb, As You Like It, i. 1. 92;
phystc-s, physic-al, phystc-al-ly, physic-ist. Also physic-i-an, ME. fist-
cian, fisicien, spelt ficicion in King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 3504, from
OF. physicien, coined as if from L. *physicianus. Also physiognomy,
q. v.; physiology, 4. v.; cf. phytord.
PHYSIOGNOMY, visage, expression of features. (F.—L. —
Gk.) Lit. ‘ the art of knowing a man’s disposition from his features ;’
but frequently used as merely equivalent to features or face. Some-
times shortened to phiz, as in Congreve, The Old Bachelor, iv. 4
(Belinda). ME. jisnomie, visnomie; also fisnamy, fyssnamy. ‘The
fairest of fyssnamy that fourmede was euer;’ Allit. Morte Arthure,
ed. Brock, 3331; ef. 1. 1114.—OF. phisonomie, which occurs in the
13th century (Littré); Cotgrave has ‘ Physiognomie, physiognomie,
a guess at the nature, or the’ inward disposition, by the feature, or
outward lineaments ;’ and he gives physonomie as an old form of the
word. The mod. F. is physionomie. (Observe that, though the g is
now inserted in the word, it is not sounded ; we follow the F. pro-
nunciation in this respect.] Cf. Ital. and Span. fisonomia, features,
countenance. Formed as if from a L. *physiogndmia, but really
corrupted from a longer form physiogndmonia, which is merely the
L. form of the Gk. word. = Gk. φυσιογνωμονία, the art of reading the
features; for which the shorter form φυσιογνωμία is occasionally
found.—Gk. φυσιογνώμων, skilled in reading features, lit. judging
of nature.—Gk. φυσιο-, extended from φύσι-, from φύσις, nature ;
and γνώμων, an interpreter; see Physic and Gnomon. Der.
phiz, physiognom-ist.
PHYSIOLOGY, the science of nature. (F.—L.—Gk.) In
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—F. physiologie, in Cotgrave.—L. physio-
logia.— Gk. φυσιολογία, an inquiry into the nature of things. —Gk.
φυσιο-, extended from φύσι-, from φύσις, nature; and -Aoyia, a dis-
course, from λόγος, speech, which from λέγειν, to speak. See
Physics and Legend. Der. physiologi-c-al, physiologi-c-al-ly.
PHYTOID, plant-like ; resembling plants. (Gk.) A term
PIACULAR
in zoology.=Gk. φυτό-ν, a plant; and εἷδ-ος, form, appearance.
Gk. φυ-τόν (lit. product’) contains the same base as φύ-σις, nature ;
see Physic, Be.
PIACULAR, expiatory, or requiring expiation. (L.) Little used
now. Blount, ed. 1694, has both piacular and piaculous.—L. pia-
cularis, expiatory.—L. pidculum, an expiation ; formed, with suffixes
-cu-lu-, from piare, to expiate, propitiate, make holy.—L. piws, sacred,
pious ; see Pious, Expiate.
PIANOFORTE, PIANO, a musical instrument. (Ital. —L.)
Generally called piano, by abbreviation. Added by Todd te John-
son’s Dict. “Invented A.D. 1717 ; first made in London, 1766 (Haydn).
So called from producing both soft and loud effects.—Ital. piano,
soft ; and forte, strong, loud. —L. planus, even, level (hence, smooth,
soft) ; and fortis, strong. See Plain and Force (1). Der. pian-ist,
a coined word.
PIASTRE, an Italian coin. (F.—Ital.—L.—Gk.) ‘ Praster, a
coyn in Italy, about the value of our crown;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674.—F. piastre, in Cot.=—Ital. piastra, ‘any kind of plate or leafe
of mettal;’ piastra d’argento, ‘a coine or plate of silver used in
Spaine’ (Florio), [But the form of the word is Italian.] Closely
allied to Ital. piastro, ‘a plaister;’ Florio. Cf. also MItal. plasma,
‘a kind of coine or plate of silver in Spaine,’ id. In fact, the word
is a mere variant of Plaster, q.v. The lamina of metal was likened
to a plaster or ‘ flattened piece.’
PIAZZA, a square surrounded by buildings ; a walk under a roof
supported by pillars. (Ital.—L.) Properly pronounced piatza, as
in Italian, with the Ital. vowel-sounds. First in Foxe (1583) ; described
in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, at which time it was applied to the
piazza in Covent Garden. ‘The piazza or market-stead;’ Foxe,
Martyrs, p. 1621, an. 1555 (R.).—Ital. piazza, ‘a market-place, the
chiefest streete or broad way or place in a town;’ Florio, = Folk-L.
*plattea, for L. platea; see Place. Doublet, place.
PIBROCA, the music of the bag-pipe, a martial tune. (Gaelic
—E.—L.) ‘Pibrochs or airs ;’ Smollett, Humphrey Clinker, letter
dated Sept. 3. ‘ The pibrock resounds, to the piper’s loud number,
Your deeds on the echoes of dark Loch na Garr ;’ Byron, Lachin y
Gair (1807). ‘Pibroch is not a bag-pipe, any more than duet means
a fiddle ;’ Edinb. Review, on the same. = Gael. piobatreachd, ‘ the art
of playing on the bag-pipe, piping; a pipe-tune, a piece of music
peculiar to the bag-pipe,’ &c.—Gael. piobair, a piper.— Gael. piob, a
pipe. a bag-pipe; from E. pipe; see Pipe.
PICA, a kind of printer’s type. (L.) See Pie (1) and (2).
PICADOR, in bull-fighting; a horseman armed with a light
lance. (Span.—Teunt.) Span. picador ; lit. ‘ pricker ;’ from picar, to
prick; see Piceadill.
PICANINNY, PICCANINNY, a baby, a child, esp. among
the negroes, (Span.) Spelt peekeneenee in Stedman’s Surinam, il.
258; dimin. of peekeen, small, little. —Span. pequeno, small ; allied
to Ital. piccolo, small. Of uncertain origin.
PICCADILL, PICKADILL, a piece set round the edge of
a garment, whether at the top or bottom ; most commonly the collar ;
Nares. (F.—Span.—Teut.) See Piccadell in Nares. ‘ Pickadil, the
round hem, or the several divisions set together about the skirt of a
garment, or other thing, also a kind of stiff collar, made in fashion
of a band;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Also in Minsheu, ed. 1627. —
ἘΝ piccadille, picadille ; Cot. explains the pl. piccadilles by ‘ piccadilles,
the several divisions or peeces fastened together about the brimme of
the collar of a doublet.’ The form of the word shows it to be of
Spanish origin; it is formed, with dimin. suffix -il/o, from Span.
picado, pp. of picar, to prick, to pierce with a small puncture
(Neuman). Cf. picada, a puncture, incision made by puncture;
picadura, a puncture, an ornamental gusset in clothes (Neuman). =
Span. pica, a pike, a long lance, a word of Teut. origin; see Pike.
Der. Piccadilly, the street so named, according to Blount and Nares ;
first applied to ‘a famous ordinary near St. James's.’
PICKH, a small copper coin in the E. Indies. (Marathi.) From
Hind. and Marathi parsa, a copper coin, of varying value ; the Com-
pany’s paisa is fixed at the weight of 100 grains, and is rated at 4 to
the ana, or 64 to the rupee; H. H. Wilson, Gloss. of Indian Terms,
p- 389. And see Yule.
PICK, to prick with a sharp-pointed instrument; hence, to peck,
to pierce, to open a lock with a pointed instrument, to pluck, &c, (E.)
The sense ‘ to choose’ or ‘gather flowers’ is due to a niceness of
choice, as if one were picking them out as a bird with its beak.
All |
the senses ultimately go back to the idea of using a sharply pointed |
PICTURE
text edition (B 4157) the Camb. MS. has pikke, where the rest have
pekke. ‘ Get wolde he teteren and pileken mid his bile’ =yet would
tear in pieces and pluck with his bill; where another MS. has pikken
for pileken ; Ancren Riwle, p. 84. B. Allied to ME. piken (with one
k), as in ‘to pykex and to weden it,’ P. Plowman, B. xvi. 17; AS.
pican, to pick. ‘ And lét him pycan it his €agan’=and caused his
eyes to be picked out; Two Saxon Chronicles, ed. Earle, an. 796,
p- 267. From AS, pic, a point, pike; see Pike. y. Cf. also Icel.
pikka, to pick, to prick ; Du. pikken, to pick; G. picken, to pick, peck.
[Also Irish piocaim, I pick, pluck, nibble; Gael. pioc, to pick, nip,
nibble ; W. pigo, to pick, peck, prick, choose ; Corn. piga, to prick,
sting; from E.] Der. pick-er, Hamlet, iii. 2. 348; pick-lock, pick-
pocket, pick-purse, Chaucer, C. T. 1900; also pickax q.v., picket,
q.v., piguet. Also pitch-fork=ME. pykkforke, Prompt. Parv. Perhaps
pick-le, pic-nic. Doublets, peck (1), pitch, verb.
PICK AX, a tool used in digging. (F.—Teut.) A pickax 15
not anax at all, but very different ; the name is an ingenious popular
adaptation of the ME. pikois or pikeys; see my note to P. Plowman,
C. iv. 465. ‘Pykeys, mattokke;’ Prompt. Parv. ‘ Mattok is a
pykeys, Or a pyke, as sum men seys;’ Rob. of Brunne, Handlyng
Synne, 940. The pl. appears as pikoys in the Paston Letters, ed.
Gardner, i. 106; and as pikeyses, Riley, Memorials of London, p. 284.
— AF. *pikeis; OF. picois, MF. picquois, ‘a pickax;’ Cot.—OF.
piquer, ‘to prick, pierce, or thrust into;’ Cot.—F. pic, ‘a mason’s
pickax,’ Cot. ; still called ‘a pick’ by English workmen. = Late L.
pica, a pickax ; of Teut. origin; see Pike.
PICKET, a peg for fastening horses; a small outpost. (F.—
Teut.) The sense of ‘outpost’ is secondary, and named from the
picketing of the horses, i.e. fastening them to pegs. Not in early use ;
in Phillips, ed. 1706.—F. piquet, spelt picquet in Cotgrave, who ex-
plains it as ‘a little pickax, also the peg or stick thrust down into
the earth by a surveyor that measures with cord or a chain.’ Dimin,
of pic, a pickax (above). Der. picket, verb. Doublet, piguet.
PICKLE, a liquid in which some eatables are preserved. (E.?)
ME. pikil, pykyl. ‘ Pykyl, sawce, Picula;’ Prompt. Parv. Cf. Du.
pekel, pickle, brine; Low G. pekel, the same (Bremen Worterb.).
B. Origin uncertain ; the old story that pickle took its name from its,
inventor, whose name is given as William Beukeler in Pennant’s
British Zoology, vol. iii, and as William Boéckel in the Bremen
Worterbuch, is an evident fable; ὁ would not thus become pp. By
way of mending matters, the name is tured into Pokel in Mahn’s
Webster, to agree with G. pékel, pickle; but then Pokel will not
answer to the Du. form pekel. γ. Wedgwood’s suggestion is pre-
ferable to this, viz. that the word is E., and is the frequentative of the
verb to pick, in the sense ‘ to cleanse,’ with reference to ‘the gutting
or cleansing of the fish with which the operation is begun.’
The prov. E. pickle, to pick, to peck at, is still in use; and the
Prompt. Parv. has: ‘ pykelynge, purgulacio,’ derived from ‘pykyn, or
clensyn, or cullyn owte the onclene, purgo, purgulo, segrego.’ Also
‘pykynge, or clensynge, purgacio.’ See Pick. Der. pickle, sb.,
brine ; whence the phr. a rod in pickle, i.e. a rod soaked in brine
to make the punishment more severe; also to be in a pickle, i.e. in
a mess.
PICNIC, an entertainment in the open air, at which each person
contributes some article to the common table. (F.—Teut.) Added
by Todd to Johnson’s Dict. The word found its way into French
as early as 1692 (Ménage), and was then spelt as piquenique. Italso
found its way into Swedish before 1788, as we find in Widegren’s
Swed. Dict. of that date the entry ‘ picknick,an assembly of young
persons of both sexes at a tavern, where every one pays his club,’ i.e.
his share. B. A coined word; from Teut. elements ; there can’ be
little doubt that the first element is MDu. picken, to pick up (as
a bird), to reap; cf. E. pick. y. The latter element is difficult to
explain; in reduplicated words, with riming elements, one of the
elements is sometimes unmeaning, so that we are not bound to find
a sense for it. At the same time, we may, perhaps, assign to nique
the sense of ‘trifle : cf. MF. niquet, ‘a knick, snap with the teeth
or fingers [Du. knikken, to snap], a trifle, matter of small value ;’
Cot. Cf. E. knick-knacks, trifles, spelt nick-nacks in Hotten’s Slang
Dictionary. Indeed Foote calls a picnic a nicknack ; Nabob, Act I;
see Davies, Supp. Glossary.
PICOTEES, a variety of the carnation. (F.—Teut.). Lit. ‘ spotted.’
=F. picoté, spotted; pp. of picoter, to spot.=F. piquer, to prick. =
F. pic, a pickax. Of Teut. origin; see Pike.
PICRIC; as in picric acid, used in dyeing. (Gk.) Formed by
adding -ic to Gk. mxp-ds, bitter, Allied to Gk. πείκειν, to cut,
shear, and to ποικίλος, variegated, AS. fak, variegated (Prellwitz).
PICTURE, a painting, drawing. (L.) ‘The picture of that
lady's head ;’ Spenser, F. Q. ii. 9. 2. Englished (in imitation of
F, peinture, a picture) from L. fictira, the art of painting, also
449
instrument. ME. pikken, picken, Chaucer, C. T. 14973; in the Six- | a picture.—L. pict-us, pp. of pingere, to paint; see Paint. Der,
Gg
450 PICUL
pictur-esgue, in Johnson’s Dict., ed. 1755, s.v. Graphically, Englished
from Ital, pittoresco, like what is in a picture, where the suffix is the
L, -iseus, Gk. τισκος, cognate with AS. -isc, E. ish; hence picturesque-
ly, -ness.. Also pictor-i-al, Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 24.
§ 2, formed with suffix -al from L. pictori-us, pictorial, from pictéri-,
decl. stem of picfor, a painter, allied to pictus, pp. of pingere.
PICUL, the same as Pikul, q. v.
PIDDLE, to trifle with. (Scand.) ‘ Neuer ceasynge piddelynge
about your bowe and shaftes;? Ascham, Toxophilus, ed. Arber,
p. 117. Perhaps a weakened form of pittle, to keep picking at, to
trifle with (see E. D. D.) —Swed. dial. pittla, to keep picking at,
frequent. of Swed. peta, to pick, poke (Rietz). Hence piddling,
paltry, used as an adj.; see E. D. ΠΠῈ
PIE (1), a magpie; mixed or unsorted printer’s type. (F.—L.)
The unsorted type is called pie or pi, an abbreviation of pica; from
the common use of pica-type. It is ultimately the same word as
pie=magpie, as will appear ; see Pie (2). ME. pie, pye,a magpie,
Chaucer, C. T. 10964 (F 650). =F. pie, ‘a pie, pyannat, meggatapy ;’
Cot. (See Magpie.) =—L, pica, a magpie. © B. Doubtless allied to
L. picus, a woodpecker; and prob. to Skt. pika-, the Indian cyckoo.
Note also Irish pighead, Gael. pigheid, a magpie, Gael. pighid, a robin,
W. pi, pia, piog, piogen, a magpie; from E.orL. Der. pi-ed, varie-
gated like a magpie, L. L. L. v. 2.904; pi-ed-ness, variegation, Wint.
Tale, iv. 4.87; and see pie-bald.
PIE (2), a book which ordered the manner of performing the
divine service. (F.—L.) . ‘Moreover, the number and hardness: of
the rules called the pie ;’ Introd. to Book of Common Prayer, 1661.
Here, as in the case of Pie (1), the word pie 15. a F. form of the L.
pica, which was the old name for the Ordinale : ‘ quod usitato voca-
bulo dicitur Pica, sive directorium sacerdotum,’ Sarum Breviary,
fol. 1, cited in Procter, On the Book of Common Prayer, p. 8. The
name fica, lit. magpie, was perhaps given to these rules from their
‘ at appearance, being printed in the old black-letter type on
white paper, so that they resembled the colours of the magpie.
B. The word fica is still retained as a printer’s term, to denote cer-
tain sizes of type ; and a hopeless mixture of types is pie. 4 Inthe
oath ‘ by cock and pie,’ Merry Wives, i. 1. 316, cock is for the name
of God, and pie is the Ordinal or service-book.
PIE (3), a pasty. (F.—L.?) ME. pie, Chaucer, C. T. 386
(A 384). Probably the same as Pie (2); the name may be due to
a medieval pleasantry, as denoting the miscellaneous nature of the
contents. In the Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, pt. ii. p. 37, 1. 51, we
find the. L. pl, pic# (=picae) apparently in the sense of pies or
pasties; the next word is pastilli, i.e. pasties; cf. ‘pyes et pas-
tellis’ in quot. dated 1303 in N.-E. Ὁ, @ Gael. pighe, a pie, is
from E.
PIEBALD, of various colours, in patches. (Hybrid: F.—L.;
and C,) ‘A piebald steed;’ Dryden, tr. of Virgil, A®n. ix. 1. 54.
Richardson quotes it in the form ‘ A pie-ball’d steed ;’ which is a cor-
rect old spelling. Compounded of pie and bald. B. Here pie
signifies ‘like the magpie,’ as in the word pied. Bald, formerly
ball’d or balled, signifies ‘streaked, from W. bal, haying a white
streak on the forehead, said of 2 horse. See further under Pie (1)
and Bald. @ A like compound is skew-bald, ive. streaked in a skew
or irregular way: :
PIECH, a portion, bit, single article. (F.—C.) ME. pece, Rob.
of Glouc, p. 555, 1. 11590; the spelling piece is rarer, but occurs:in
Gower, C. A. i. 295; bk. iii. 465.— OF. piece, mod. F. piéce, a piece.
(Cf. Span. pieza, a piece; Prov. pessa, pesa (Bartsch) ; Port. pera;
Ital. pezza.]— Late L. *pettia, petia; allied to Late L. petium,.a piece
of land, used as early as A.D. 730. From a Gaulish type *pet/-,
answering to OCeltic type *get¢i-, a piece, a portion ; evidenced by
W. peth, a piece, a thing, Corn. peth, Bret. pez, a piece; cf. *gotti-,
as in Irish and Gael. cid, Olrish cuit, a piece, share. So ‘Vhurneysen,
Stokes, Korting. Der. piece, vb., Hen. V, prol. 233 piece-less, piec-er,
ptece-work ; also piece-meal, q.v. 3
PIBCE-MEAL, by portions at a time. (Hybrid; F. and E.)
ME. pece-mele; Rob. of Glouc. has by pece-mele, Ὁ. 216, 1. 4422.
The sense is reduplicated, meaning ‘ by piece-pieces.’ For the first
element, see Piece. β. The second element is the ME. termination
-mele, found also in flokmele, in a flock or troop, lit. ‘in flock-pieces,’
Chaucer, Ο. T. 7962 (E 86) ; lim-mee, limb from limb, lit. ‘ in limb-
pieces,’ Layamon, 25618. A fuller form of the suffix is -melum, as
in wukemelum, week by week, Ormulum, 536; hipyllmelum, by heaps,
Wyclif, Wisdom, xvili. 23. See Koch, Eng. Gram. ii. 292. ME,
-melum= AS, mélum, dat. pl. of m@l, a portion ; see Meal (2).
PIEPOWDER COURT, a summary court of justice formerly
held at fairs. (F.—L.) Explained in Blount’s Nomolexicon, ed.
1691 ; he says,
and suiters to this court are commonly country-clowns with dusty
feet.’ Atany rate, the L. name was curia pedis pulverizali, the court
‘so called because they are most usual in summer, |
PIGMENT
of the dusty foot; see Ducange, s.v. curia. And see AF. pe-poudrous
in Liber Albus, p. 67; i.e. F. pied poudreux. ‘The E. piepowder is an
adaptation of OF. pied pouldré, i.e. dusty foot. =F. pied, a foot, from
L. acc. pedem; and OF. pouldré, dusty, pp. of pouldrer, poudrer, to
cover with dust, from-pouldre, poudre, dust. See Foot and Pow-
der. 41 Blount refers us to the statute 17 Edw. IV. cap. 2; &c.
Cf. ‘Les pletz..qe lem appele pepoudrous ;’ Black Book of the
Admiralty, ii. 22.
PIER, a mass of stone-work. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. Merch.
Ven. i, 1. 19, ME. pere. ‘Pere, or pyle of a brygge [bridge], or
other fundament’ [foundation]; Prompt. Pary. Early E. pere, Birch,
Cart, Saxon. iii. 659.— AF. pere,a stone; Langtoft, 1. 124.—L, petra,
stone; see Petrify. (And see the Supplement.) Der. gier-giass,
orig. a glass hung on the stone-work between two windows.
PIERCE, to thrust through, make a hole in, enter, (F.—L. ?)
ME. percen, Rob. of Glouc. p. 17, 1. 391.—F. percer, ‘to pierce,
gore ;’ Cot. OF. percier (Roland-song). β. Origin uncertain ; the
suggestion in Diez, that percer is contracted from OF, pertuisier, with
the same sense, is ingenious, but somewhat violent ; Hatzfeld equates
percer to a Late L. type *pertisiare, which may have become *pert’-
stare, Pertuister, occurring in the 12th century, is from pertwis,
a hole, and is parallel to Ital. pertugiare, to pierce, from pertugio,
a hole; and to Prov. pertusar, to pierce. y, The Ital. pertugiare
answers to a Late L. type *pertustare, from L. pertisus, pp. of
pertundere, to thrust through, bore through, pierce, a compound of
per, through, and tundere, to beat; see Contuse. 8. The sug-
gestion aboye is supported by these considerations : (1) that the
L. per, through, seems certainly to be involved in F. percer ; and (2)
that L. pertundere gives the right sense, Ennius has Jatu’ pertudit
hasta, which is exactly ‘the spear pierced his side.’ 4 Bartsch sug-
gests a type *per-itiare, to go through; see Korting, §§ 7057, 7082.
Der, pierc-er; also pierce-able, spelt perceable in Spenser, F. Q. i.
Le].
PIETY, the quality of being pious. (F.—L,) In Shak. Timon,
iy. 1.15; Lyly, Euphues, p. 103, —F. pieté, piety; omitted by Cotgrave,
but given in Sherwood’s index,—L. pietdtem, acc. of pietas, piety.
Formed, with suffix -tas, from jpie-, for pius, pious; see Pious.
Doublet, pity. :
PIG, a porker, the young of swine. (E.) ME. pigge, Ancren
Riwle, p. 204, 1.9. Cf. prov. E. peg, a pig (Berks.). Perhaps the
AS. form was *picga (for *peg-joz?). Cf, also the AS. form pecg ;
as in ‘of swinforda οὖ pecges ford;’ Birch, Cart, Saxon. iii. 223.
But the connexion is doubtful, Allied to MDu, pigge, ‘a pigge,’
Hexham ; and perhaps to Du, bigge, big, a pig; Low G. higge, a pig,
also, a little child; ‘de biggen lopet enem under de vote,’ the children
run under one’s feet ; Bremen Worterbuch. Der. pig, verb; pigg-ish,
pigg-er-y; pig-head-ed, used by Ben Jonson, News from the New
World (near beginning), pig-tail; pig-nut, Temp. ii. 2.172. Also
pig-iron: * A sow of iron is an ingot; Pano di metalla, a mass, a sow
or ingot of metal (Florio). When the furnace in which iron is
melted is tapped, the iron is allowed to run into one main channel,
called the sow, out of which a number of smaller streams are made
to run at right angles, These are compared to a set of pigs sucking
their dam, and the iron is called sow and pig iron respectively.
Probably the likeness was suggested by the word sow haying pre-
viously signified an ingot.’—Wedgwood, But probably the original
use of sow and pig referred merely to size. Add to this, that sow may
very well have been applied jocularly to an ingot, owing-to_ its.
bulk and weight. Ray mentions these sows and pigs in his ‘ Account
of Iron-work ;”’ see Ray’s Glossary, ed. Skeat (E. D. 8.), Gloss. B,
15, p. 13.
' PIGEON, the name of a bird, (F.—L.) Spelt pytone ( = pijon) in
the Prompt, Pary. p. 396; tygeor in Caxton, tr, of Reynard the Fox
(1481), ed. Arber, p.58.—F. pigeon, ‘a pigeon, or dove ;’ Cot, [Cf..
Span. pichon, a young pigeon; Ital, piccione, pippione, a pigeon. ]
τι, pipidnem, ace. of pipio, a young bird, lit, ‘a chirper’ or ‘ piper.’
—L. pipire, to chirp, cheep, pipe; see Pipe, Peep. Of imitative
origin, from the cry pi, pi of the young bird. Der, pigeon-hole,
pigeon-hearted ; pigeon-livered, Hamlet, ii. 2. 605. .
PIGGIN, a small wooden vessel. (E.) . ‘ Piggin, a small wooden
cylindrical vessel, made with staves and. bound with hoops like a
pail ;’ Brockett. Cotgrave translates F, trayer by ‘a milking pale,
or piggin’ “Τὶ piggins,’ Lanc,-and Chesh, Wills, p. 113 (1541).
(Cf. Gael. pigean, a little earthen jar, pitcher, or pot; diminutive of
pigeadh (also pige), an earthen jar, pitcher, or pot ; Irish pigiz, a small
pail, pighead, an earthen pitcher; W. picyn, a piggin; all from E.]
Extended from pig, in the sense of ‘earthen vessel,’ as in G, Douglas, :
tr. of Virgil, bk. vii. ch. 14, 1, a5. The suffix is the Ἐς -en, as in
wood-en: or, possibly, Gael. -an, dimin.
PIGHT, old form of pitched; see Pitch (2). ;
PIGMENT, a paint, colouring matter. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
PIGMY
ed, 1674.—L, pigmentum, a pigment; formed with suffix -mentxm
trom pig-, base of pingere, to paint; see Paint. Der. or-fiment,
or-pine. Doublet, pimento.
PIGMY, the same as Pygmy, q.v. (F.—L.—Gk.)
PIKE, a sharp-pointed weapon, a fish. (E.) 1. ME. pike, pyke,
in the sense of a pointed staff, P. Plowman, B. v. 482; spelt fic, in
the sense of spike, Layamon, 30752. AS. pic: ‘ Acisculum, pic ;’
Voc. 3. 13.. And ef. Northumb. horn-pic, as a gloss to L. pinnam.
Luke, iv. 9. (Hence Irish pice, a pike, fork ; picidh, a pike or long
spear, a pickax; Gael. pic, a pike, weapon, pickax ; W. pig, a
point, pike, bill, beak, picell, a javelin; Bret. pik, a pick, pickax.)
B. The orig. sense is ‘sharp point’ or ‘spike.’ Allied to Spike,
Spoke; and see Pick. 2. ME. pike, a fish; ‘Bet is, quod he,
a pyk than a pikerel,’ Chaucer, C. T. 9293 (E1419). So called from
its sharply-pointed jaws; see Hake. The young pike is called
a pikerel, or pickerel (Nares), formed with dimin. suffixes -er and -el,
like cock-er-el from cock. Der. pik-ed, old form of peaked, Rob. of
Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 328,1.8 ; pike-head, Spenser, F. Q.i. 7. 373
pike-man ; pike-staff, i.e. piked-staff or staff with a spike. ME. pyk-
staf, P, Plowman, B. vi. 105. Also pick, vb., peck, pitch, vb. ; pickax ;
piceadill, picket, piguet, picnic. Doublets, peak, pick, sb., pique, sb.
PIKUL, the name of a weight. (Malay.) See Pecul in Yule. =
Malay pikul, the Malay name for the Chinese weight of 100 catties
or katis, About 133% pounds avoirdupois. See Caddy.
PILASTER, a square pillar or column, usually set in a wall.
(F.—Ital.—L.) Spelt pilaster, pillaster in Phillips, ed. 1706. Pilas-
ter in Chapman, tr. of Homer, Od. vii. 121. Also in Cotgrave. =F.
pilastre, ‘a pilaster or small piller;’ Cot. Ital. pilastro, ‘ any kind
of piller or pilaster;’ Florio, Formed with suffix -stro from Ital.
pila, ‘a flat-sided pillar ;’ Florio.=L. pila, a pillar; see Pile (2).
Der. pilaster-ed.
PILAU, an Oriental dish; see Pillau.
PILCH, a furred garment. (L.) For the various senses, see
Ν. Ε. ΤΟ. It orig. meant a warm furred outer garment. ME. pilche,
Ancren Riwle, p. 362, last line. AS. fylce, in Screadunga, ed.
Bouterwek, p. 20, 1. 28; tylece, Voc. 328. 11.—L. pellicea, fem. of
pelliceus, made of skins; see further under Pelisse. Cf. Pelt.
Doublet, pelisse.
PILCHARD, the name of a fish. (E.?) ‘ A Pilcher or Pilchard ;’
Minsheu, ed. 1627; pilchard, Baret, ed. 1580. ‘ Pylcher, a fysshe,
sardine ;’ Palsgrave. Spelt pilcher in Shak. Tw. Nt. iii. 1. 39 (first
folio), Of uncertain origin; cf. Irish pilsefr,a pilchard (from E.).
B. The proy, E. pilch means to filch, to pick; see E. D. D. and
N.E. D.; whence pilch-er might be derived.
PILCROW, a curious corruption of Paragraph, q. v.
Notes on E. Etym., p. 215.
PILE (1), a tumour, lit. a ball; only in the pl. piles.
Piles.
PILE (2), a pillar; aheap. (F.—L.) ME. pile, pyle; P. Plowman,
B. xix, 300; Ὁ. xxii. 366.—F. pile, ‘a pile, heap, or stack ;’ Cot.=—L.
pila, a pillar ; a pier or mole of stone. Der. pile-driver ; also pillar,
4.Υ., pul-aster, q.v. QJ Pile in the heraldic sense is an imitation of
a sharp stake; see Pile (3). In the old phrase cross and file,
equivalent to the modern head and tail, the allusion is to the stamp-
ing of money. One side bore a cross; the other side was the under
side in the stamping, and took its name from the 2116 or short pillar
(L. pila) on which the coin rested. Thus Cot. translates F. pile
(which here = pila, not pila) by ‘the pile, or under-iron of the stamp,
wherein money is stamped ; and the pile-side of a piece of monie,
the opposite whereof is a crosse; whence, 76 n’ay croix ne pile’ =I
haye neither cross nor pile.
PILE (3), a stake. (L.) ME. pile, P. Plowman, B. xvi. 86.
AS. pil, a pointed stick, something pointed.—L. pilum, a javelin;
orig. a pestle. For *pins-lom.=L. pinsere, to pound.4Skt. pish,
pimsh, to pound. 4 The heraldic pile is a sharp stake; from F.
pile, m. ‘a javelin,’ Cot. ; from L. pilum. Brugmann, ii. § 76.
PILE (4), a hair, fibre of wool. (L.) In Shak. All’s Well, iv. 5.
103; cf. ¢hree-piled, L.L. L. v. 2. 407. Directly from L. pilus, a
hair (the F. form being poil). Cf. Gk. πῖλος, felt. Brugmann, ii. § 76.
Der. pil-ose, three-piled. Also de-pil-at-or-y, pl-ush, per-uke, per-i-wig,
And see
See
wig.
PILES, hemorrhoids. (L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627. Spelt pyles in
Sir Τὶ Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. iii. c.9. Small tumours; directly
from L, pila, a ball. .Cf. MF. pile, ‘a ball to play with ;’ Cot.
PILFER, to steal in a small way, filch. (F.) In Shak. Hen. V,
i, 2. 142.—OF. pelfrer, to pilfer.eOF. pelfre, booty, pelf. See
Pelf. Der, pilfer-ings, K. Lear, ii. 2. 151.
PILGRIM, a wanderer, stranger. (Ital.—L.) ME. pilgrim,
Chaucer, C. T. 26; earlier forms pilegrim, pelegrim, Layamon,
30730, 30744. [The final m is put for, by the frequent interchange
between liquids. ]—Ital. pellegrino, ‘a wandrer, pilgrim, stranger ; ἢ
PILOT 451
Florio. (Cf. Prov. pellegrins, a pilgrim (Bartsch), Port. and Span.
peregrino.) =L. peregrinus, a stranger, foreigner ; used in Heb. xi. 13,
where the A.V. has ‘pilgrims.’ Orig. an adj. signifying strange,
foreign, formed from ady. peregri, away from home; allied to the
sb. pereger, a traveller. This sb. was also orig. an adj- signifying
‘on ajourney,’ abroad or away from home, lit. ‘ passing through a
(foreign) country.’—L. per, through; and ager, a land, country,
cognate with E. acre. The vowel-change from a in ager to e in
pereger is regular. See Per- and Acre. Der. pilgrim-age, Chaucer,
C.T.12; formed with suffix -age in imitation of OF. pelerinage, ‘a
peregrination or pilgrimage ;’ Cot. Doublet, peregrine, chiefly
used of the peregrine or ‘foreign’ falcon, Chaucer, C. T. 10742
(F 428). And see Peregrination. @ The form is Italian, not-
withstanding its early use; due to the fact that English pilgrims
frequently went (like King Alfred) to Rome. The OF. pelerin had
no g; but cf. Roumansch pelegrin.
PILL (1), a little ball of medicine. (L.) ‘Pocyons, electuaryes,
or pylles;’ Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. iii. c. 5. . Contracted,
like MDn. pille, a pill, Late L. pilla, from L. pilula (as recipes were
in Latin). The Late L. pilla occurs in Gemma Gemmarum, Colonie,
1507. The same book has the spelling pillula. Cf. OF. pile, a pill;
F. pilule, “a physical pill;’ Cot.—L. pilula, a little. ball, globule,
pill. Dimin. of pila, a ball; see Piles,
PILL (2), to rob, plunder. (F.—L.) Also spelt peel; see Peel (2).
[But the words feel, to strip, and peel, to plunder, are from different
sources, though much confused ; we even find pill used in the sense
‘to strip.’ The sense of ‘stripping’ goes back to L. pellis, skin, as
shown under Peel (1).] ME. pillen, most MSS. pilen, Chaucer,
C.T. 6944 (D 1362); also pilen, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft,
p- 42, 1. 9.—F. piller, ‘to pill, ravage, ransack, rifle, rob;’ Cot. —L.
type *pilidre, for L. pilare, to plunder, pillage; a rare verb, used by
Ammianus Marcellinus; a later use of pilare, to. deprive of hair;
from pilus, a hair. Der. pill-age, plunder; we find ‘such as delyte
them in pyllage and robbery’ in Fabyan, Chron. vol. i..c. 114, ed.
Ellis, p. 87; from F. pillage (as if from a L. *pildticum). Hence
pill-ag-er, for which piller was formerly used, spelt filour in Chaucer,
C. T, 1009 (A 1007).
PILLAGE, plunder ; sce under Pill (2).
PILLAR, a column, support. (F.—L.) Inearlyuse. ME. piler,
O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Mornis, i. 281, 1. 29.—OF. piler (Littré), later
pilier, ‘a pillar;’ Cot. (Cf. Span. and Port. pilar, a pillar.] —Late
L. pilare, a pillar; formed (with adj. suffix) from L. pila, a pier of
stone ; see Pile (2).
PILLAU, PILAU, a dish of meat or fowl with rice and spices.
(Pers.) In Terry, Voy. to India, p. 195 (Pegge).— Pers. pilaw, the
same; Rich. Dict., p. 335.
PILLION, the cushion of a saddle, a cushion behind a saddle.
(C.—L.) _Spenser speaks of a horseman’s ‘ shaunck-pillion (shank-
pillion) without stirrops ;’ View of the State of Ireland, Globe ed.
p- 639, col. 2,1. 2x. [Not the same word as pylion, a kind of hat,
in P, Plowman’s Crede, 839; which is from L. pileus.] ‘Pyllyon for’
a woman to ryde on;’ Palsgrave. Lowl. Sc. pilyane (1503);
N. E. D.; prob. borrowed from Gaelic. Cf. Irish pilliun, pillin,
a pack-saddle; Gael. pillean, pillin, a pack-saddle, riding-cloth ;
allied to Irish and Gael. peall, a skin ; all from L. ellis, ἃ skin.
See Pell, Fell (2). ᾿
PILLORY, a wooden frame with an upright post, to which
criminals were fastened for punishment..(F.) ME. pilory, Polit.
Songs, ed. Wright, p. 3453 jillory, P. Plowman, B. iii. 78, C. iv. 79
(see my note on the line). —F. pilori, ‘a pillory;’ Cot. B. Of
unknown origin; other remarkable variants occur, viz. OF. pilorin,
pellorin, Port. pelourinho, Prov. espitlori, Late L. pillorjcum, spiliorium,
&c., cited by Littré and Scheler. There seems to have been a loss
of initial s. t
PILLOW, a cushion for the head. (L.) - ME. pilwe, Gower, C. A.
i, 142; bk. i. 2986. The change from ME. -we to E. -ow is regular;
cf. arrow, ME. arwe. But it is less.easy to explain the ME. form, as
the usual AS. form is pyle, Alfred, tr. of Orosius, b. v. c. 11. § 1.
However, there is a by-form pylu, which is more correct ; it occurs
in the gloss: ‘ceruical, pylu;’ Napier’s glosses, 29.4. This AS.
pylu is from a type *pulwi-; from L. puluinum, ace. of pulutnus, a
cushion, pillow, bolster; a word of. uncertain origin. B. The L.
puluinus also gave rise to Du. penluw, 2 pillow; OHG. phulwi,
MHG. phulwe, G. pfiihl, a pillow; Westphalian piilf Der. pillow,
vb., Milton, Ode on Christ’s Nativity, 1. 231 5 pillow-case.
PILOT, one who conducts ships in and out of harbour. (F.— Ital.
—Gk.) Spelt pylot in Gascoigne, Voyage into Holland, a.p. 1572,
1. 44; cf. Macb. i. 3. 28.— MF. pilot, ‘a pilot or steersman;’ Cot.
Mod. F. pilote ; whence piloter, to take soundings, a word used by
Palsgrave, ed. 1852, p. 70g. Corrupted from OF. pedot, a pilot
(Godefroy). MItal. pedora, ‘a pilot or guide bysea ;’ Florio, = Late
Gg2
PIMENTO
Gk. ἐπηδώτης, a steersman ; regularly formed, with suffix -τῆς (of the
agent) from πηδόν, a rudder, the blade of an oar. Korting, ὃ 6986.
Der. pilot, vb., pilot-age, pilot-cloth, pilot-jish. ;
PIMENTO, all-spice or Jamaica pepper ; or, the tree producing
it. (Port.—L.) Also called pimenta ; both forms are in Todd's
Johnson. =Port. pimenta, pepper (Vieyra); there is also (according
to Mahn) a form pimento. The Spanish has both pimienta and
pimiento; but the E. word clearly follows the Port. form. B. The
OF. piment meant ‘a spiced drink,’ and hence the ME. pimen?, Rom.
of the Rose, 6027. All these forms are from L. pigmentum, (1) a pig-
ment, (2) the juice of plants. See Pigment.
PIMP, a pandar, one who procures gratification for the lust of
others. (F.—L.?) Not an old word. ‘Fol. Let me see; where
shall I chuse two or three for pimps now?’ Middleton, A Mad World,
Act iii (end). Of unknown origin ; but perhaps suggested by MF.
pimpreneau, pimperneau, ‘a grig (kind of eel) ; also, a knave, rascall,
yarlet, scoundrell ;? Cot. Soalso OF. pimpernel, a small eel, a lively
fellow, in an unfavourable sense (Godefroy). Cf. Norm. dial. pin-
perneau, piperneau, a kind of small eel (Moisy) ; Late L. pipernella,
pipella (Ducange). Or perhaps allied to MF. pimper, ‘to
sprucifie, or finifie it;’ Cot. Allied to the Prov. verb pimpar, to
render elegant, from the Prov. sb. pimpa, equivalent to F. pipeau,
meaning (1) a pipe, (2) a bird-call, (3) a snare ; with an allusion to
an old proverb piper en une chose, to pipe in a thing, i.e. to excel in
it. Hence pimper came to mean (1) to pipe, (2) to excel, (3) to
beautify or make smart. Cf. also F. pimpant, ‘spruce’ (Cot.),
especially applied to ladies whose dress attracted the eye (Littré).
y. Thus pimper is from piper, to pipe; see Pipe.
PIMPERNEL, the name of a flower. (F.—L.) Spelt pympernell
in Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. iii. c.6. ‘ Hec pimpernella, pim-
pernolle ;’ Voc. 645. 10; ‘Piponella, pympernele,’ Voc. 603.7. Also:
* Pinpernele, (AF.) pinpre, (ME.) briddes-tunge;’ Voc. 557. 35."
ME. pimpernelle, pimpinelle, ‘ the burnet,’ Cot.; mod. F. pimprenelle ;
Norm. dial. pimpernelle (Moisy). Cf. Span. pimpinela, burnet; Ital.
pimpinella, pimpernel ; Late L. pipinel/a (Hatzfeld). B. Diez derives
it from L. *bipinella<*bipennula, a dimin. from bipennis, i.e. double-
winged. The pimpernel was confused with burnet (see Prior), and
the latter (Poterium sanguisorba) has a feather-like arrangement of
its leaves. Cf. Rosa pimpinellifolia. y. If this be right (which is
highly doubtful), we trace the word back to δὲς, for bis, twice ; and
penna, a wing; see Bi- and Pen. 8. Diez also cites Catalan
pampinella, Piedmontese pampinela, but regards these as corrupter
forms, since we can hardly connect pimpernel with L. pampinus, a
tendril of a vine.
PIMPLE, a small pustule. (Scand.?) Spelt pimpel in Minsheu,
ed. 1627; pimple in Baret (1580). Prov. E. pumple (E. D. D.).
* Pimples or little wheales ;’ Udall, tr. of Erasmus’ Apophthegmes,
Diogenes, § 6. ‘Pymple, pustule ;’ Palsgrave. [The alleged AS.
pinpel is Lye’s misprint for winpel; Voc. 125. 8.] Apparently not
an E. word, but perhaps Scand. Prob. allied to Norw. pump-en,
swollen up, particularly in the face (Ross). There seems to have
been a Scand. strong verb *pimpa (pt. t. *pamp, pp. *pump-in), of
which traces are found in Swed. dial. pimp-ug, swelling out, full-
pemp-ad, pregnant, Dan. dial. pamp-er, a thickset man, Norw. pump,
asmall fat man (Ross); cf. Bavar. pampfen, to stuff, pumpf-grob, very
coarse or thick, pumpet, thick-set. Hence perhaps also Εἰ. pompette,
“a pumple or pimple on the nose, or chin,’ Cot. Cf. Pamper.
PIN, a peg, a small sharp-pointed instrument for fastening things
together. (L.) ME. pinne, Chaucer, C. T. 196, 10630 (F 316).
AS. pinn, a pin, also a pointed style for writing (Toller). The ME.
pinne or pin often means ‘a peg’ rather than a small pin in the
modern sense. B. We also find Irish pinne, a pin, peg, spigot, stud,
pion, a pin, peg ; Gael. pinne,a pin, peg, spigot; W. pin, a pin, style,
pen; Du. pin, pin, peg; MDu. penne, a wooden pin, peg (Hexham) ;
pinne, a small spit or ironshod staff, the pinnacle of a steeple (id.) ;
Swed. pinne,a peg, Dan. pind, a (pointed) stick; Icel. pinni, a pin;
G. pinnen, to pin; penn, a peg. γ. All borrowed words from
L. pinna, a wing, fin, pinnacle; cognate with E. jix. See Brug-
mann, ii. §66 (note). Der. pin, verb, L. L. L. v. 2.321, ME. pinnen,
Prompt. Parv. ; pin-afore, so called because formerly pinned in front
of a child, afterwards enlarged and made to tie behind; pyn-case,
Skelton, Elinor Rummyng, 529; pin-cushion ; pin-money, Spectator,
NO. 295 ; pin-point ; pinn-er, (1) a pin-maker, (2) the lappet of a head-
dress, Gay, Shepherd’s Week, Past. 5, 1. 58; pin-t-le (=pin-et-el), a
little pin, a long iron bolt (Webster). And see pinn-ac-le, pinn-ate,
pin-i-on. 4 The sense of peg or pointed instrument arose from
that of ‘ pinnacle,’ as in pinnam templi, Luke, iv. 9.
PINCH, to nip, squeeze, gripe. (F.) ME. pinchen, Chaucer,
C. T. 328 (A 326); P. Plowman, B. xiii. 371. _O. North. F. pinchier,
Norm. dial. pincher, Moisy; Guernsey pinchier, Métivier; F. pincer,
“to pinch, nip, twitch ;’ Cot. B. This is a nasalised form of M.Ital.
452
PINK
picciare, pizzare, ‘to pinch, to snip’ (Florio), mod. Ital. pizzicare,
to pinch; see Diez for otherrelated forms. y. These verbs are allied
to the sb. which appears as Ital. pinzo, a sting, a goad, pinzette,
pincers. δ. The orig. sense seems to have been ‘a slight pricking
with some small pointed instrument ;’ the word being formed from a
base pic (probably Tent.) allied to E. pick; see Pick. Cf. Du.
pitsen, pinsen, to pinch (Hexham). Der. pinch-er ; pinch-ers or pinc-
ers, ME. pynsors, Voc. 627. 19; with which cf. F. pinces, ‘a pair of
pincers,’ Cot. And cf. Pink (1).
PINCHBECK, the name of a metal. (Personal name.) It is
an alloy of copper and zinc, to resemble gold. Added by Todd to
Johnson’s Dict. ; also in Ash’s Dict., ed. 1775. So named from the
inventor, Mr. Christopher Pinchbeck, the elder, a London watch-
maker (ab. 1670-1732). See Notes and Queries, Ser. I. vol. xii.
p- 341; Ser. Il. vol. xii. p. 81. Cf. Mason’s Ode to Mr. Pinchbeck
{the younger] on his patent snuffers (1776). B. The name was
probably taken from one of the villages named East and West Pinch-
beck, near Spalding, Lincolnshire.
PINDER, PINNER, one who impounds stray cattle. (E.)
See the anonymous play, ‘ A pleasant conceyted Comedie of George-
a-Greene, the ῥίγιον of Wakefield, London, 1599. Spelt pinder in
the reprint of 1632. ΜΕ. pinder, pinner ; spelt pyndare, pinnar in
Prompt. Parv. p. 400; and see Way’s note. Formed, with suffix -er
of the agent, from AS. pyndan, to pen up; Atlfred, tr. of Gregory's
Pastoral Care, c. xxxix, ed. Sweet, p. 282, 1.13. Pyndan is formed
(with the usual vowel-change from τὸ to y) from the AS. sb. pund, a
pound for cattle; see Pound (2), Pinfold. ¢ The spelling
pinner is due to a supposed connexion with the verb to pen up; but
there is no real relationship. See Pen (2).
PINE (1), a cone-bearing, resinous tree. (L.) ME. pine, Legends
of the Holy Rood, ed. Morris, p. 70, 1. 307; spelt pigne, Gower, C. A.
ii. 161; bk. vy. τοῖο. AS. pin; pin-treow, a pine-tree; Voc. 138. 3.
=L. pinus. B. L. pinus is allied to Gk. πίτυς, a pine, Skt. pitu-
daru-, lit. ‘resin-tree ;’ and to L. pitu-ita, phlegm, also ‘resin’. See
Pip (1). Der. pine-apple, because the fruit resembles a pine-cone,
which was called a pine-apple in ΜΕ. ; cf. Palladius on Husbandry,
bk. iii. 1049, where a pine is called pynappultree ; pine-cone; pin-e-ry,
a place for pine-apples, a coined word. Also pinn-ace.
PINE (2), to suffer pain, waste away, be consumed with sorrow.
(L.) ME. pinen, almost always transitive, signifying ‘to torment ;’
Rom. of the Rose, 3511; Chaucer, C. T. 15065 (B 4249) ; merely
formed from the sb. pie, pain, torment, Chaucer, C. T. 1326 (A 1324).
AS. pinian, to torment, A.S. Chron. an. 1137; AS. pi, pain, torment,
A.S. Chron. an. 1137. See also pipnian, verb, in ‘Toller. B. Not
a Teut. word, but borrowed from L. poena, pain; see Pain. Hence
also Ὁ. pein, Du. ptjn, &c.
PINFOLD, a pound for cattle. (E.) In Shak. K. Lear, ii. 2. 9.
For pind-fold, i.e. pound-fold ; see P. Plowman, B. xvi. 264, C. xix.
282, where we find poundfold, pondfold, pynfold. See Pound (2),
Pinder. The AS. variant pundfold occurs in Birch, Cart. Saxon.
iii. 309.
PINION, a wing, the joint of a wing. (F.—L.) Used in Shak.
to mean ‘feather,’ Antony, iii. 12. 4; he also has nimble-pinioned =
nimble-winged, Rom. ii. 5. 7. ME. pinion. ‘ Pynyon of a wynge,
pennula ;’ Prompt. Parv. =F. pignon, only given by Cotgrave in the
sense of ‘a finiall, cop, or small pinacle on the ridge or top of a
house,’ like mod. F. pignon, a gable-end. The sense of the E. word
was derived from OF. pignon, a feather (Godefroy, 5. v. pennon) ; and
the Span. pijion means ‘ pinion,’ as in English. B. Both Εἰ. pignon
and Span. piton are derivatives from L. pinna, variant of penna, a
wing; whence E. pen (1); confused with L. pinna, a fin! The Late
L. pinna means ‘a peak,’ whence the sense of F. pignon ; the same sense
appears in L. pinndculum. See Pin, Pinnacle. @ The E. pinion,
in the sense of ‘a small wheel working with teeth into another,’ is
really the same word; it is taken from F. pignon, with the same sense
(Littré), which is from L. pinna, in the sense of ‘ float of a water-
wheel.’ Cotgrave gives ‘ pinon, the pinnion of a clock.’ Der. pinion,
verb, lit. to fasten the pinions of a bird, hence, to tie a man’s elbows
together behind him, K. Lear, iii. 7. 23.
PINK (1), to pierce, stab, prick. (E.) Esp. used of stabbing so
as to produce only a small hole, as, for instance, with a thin rapier.
The word, though unusual, is still extant. ‘ Pink, to stab or pierce ;
in the days of rapier-wearing a professed duellist was said to be “a
regular pinker and driller;”’ Slang Dictionary. Todd quotes from
Addison’s Drummer, iv. 2: ‘They grew such desperate rivals for
her, that one of them pinked the other in a duel.’ Cotgrave has:
‘ Eschiffeur, a cutter or pinker.’? Shak. has pink’d porringer, i.e. a
cap reticulated or pierced with small holes, Hen. VIII, v. 4. 50. ME.
pinken, to prick. * Heo pynkes with heore penne on heore parchemyn’”
=they prick with their pens on their parchment; Polit. Songs, ed.
Wright, p. 156. B. It is best to regard pink as the regular nasalised
PINK
form of pick, in the sense ‘to peck, prick;’ see Pick. In fact,
the E. pink, to cut silk cloth in round holes or eyes (Bailey), is
parallel to MF. piquer, with the same sense (Cotgrave). See also
Pinch, which is an allied word.
PINK (2), half-shut, as applied to the eyes. (Du.) Obsolete.
‘Plumpy Bacchus, with pink eyne ;’ Shak. Ant. ti. 7. 121. It means
‘winking, half-shut;’ from MDu. pincken, or pinck-oogen, ‘ to shut
the eyes,’ Hexham; where ooge=eye. The notion is that of bringing
to a point, narrowing, or making small. Cf. prov. E. pink, to con-
tract the eyes. The same notion comes out in the verb to pinch; also
in prov. E. pink, a minnow, i.e. a very small fish. See also Pink
(3). Der. pink-eyed, q.v.
PINK (3), the name of a flower, and of a colour. (E.) Spelt
pincke, as the name of a flower, Spenser, Shep. Kal. April, 1. 136.
|The name of the colour is due to that of the flower, as in the case
of violet, mauve. Again, the phrase ‘ pink of perfection’ is prob. due
to Shakespeare’s ‘ pink of courtesy,’ a forced phrase, as remarked by
Mercutio; Romeo, ii. 4. 61.] The flower seems to have been named
from the delicately cut or peaked edges of the petals; see Pink (1)
and Pink (2). Cf. ‘The iagged pinkes’; Baret (1580). See also
Lyte, tr. of Dodoens, bk. i. c. 7. The use of pink in the sense to
pierce, to cut silk cloth into round holes or eyes, has already been
noted; see Pink (1). We may note ‘ pink’d porringer,’ i.e. cap
ornamented with eyelet-holes, in Shak. Hen. VIII, v. 4. 50. Cf.
MF. pince, ‘a pink,’ Cotgrave (see also pinces); from pincer, to
pinch, nip.
PINK (4), a kind of boat. (Du.) See Nares.
and sloops ;’ Crabbe, The Borough, let. 1, 1. 52. ‘ Pinke, a little
ship;”’ Baret (1580).—Du. pink, a fishing-boat. Short for MDu.
espincke, as shown by Hexham, who has: ‘ Espincke, or pincke, a
pinke, or a small fisher’s boat’ (whence also Ἐς pingue, Span. pingue,
a pink). This is the same word as Swed. esping, Icel. espingr, a long
boat ; formed with suffix -ing from esp-, signifying ‘ aspen,’ of which
wood it must have been first made. Cf. Icel. espi, aspen-wood ; MDu.
espe, ‘an aspe-tree;” Hexham. See Aspen.
PINK-EYED, having small eyes. (Hybrid; Du. and E.)
‘Them that were pinke-eied and had very small eies, they termed
ocelle ;᾽ Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xi. c. 37 (on the Eye). See Nares.
‘Plumpy Bacchus, with pink [half-closed] eyne;” Antony, ii. 7. 121.
= Du. pinken, to wink. Hexham has: ‘ pincke, light, or an eye;
pincken, ofte [or] pinck-oogen, to shut the eyes; pimpooge, ofte Lor}
pimpoogen, pinck-eyes, or pinck-eyed.’ See Pink (2).
PINNACEH, a small ship. (F.—Ital.—L.) In Shak. Merry
Wives, i. 3. 89. =F. pinasse, ‘the pitch-tree ; also, a pinnace;’ Cot. =
Mital. pinaccia, pinazza, ‘a kind of ship called a pinnace ;’ Florio.
So called because made of pine-wood. = L, pinus, a pine; see Pine (1).
@ There is also an OF. espinace, a pinnace (Ducange, 5. ν. spina-
chium), found in 14513; perhaps it obtained its initial es- by con-
fusion with MDu. espincke; see Pink (4). Cf. the form espyne in
Barbour, Bruce, xvii. 719.
PINNACLE, a slender turret, small spire. (F.—L.) ΜΕ.
pinacle, Gower, C, A. ii. 124; bk. iv. 3662; spelt pynacle, Wyclif,
Matt. iv. 5.—F. pinacle, ‘a pinacle, a spire;” Cot.—L. pinnadculum,
a pinnacle, peak of a building; Matt. iv. 5 (Vulgate). Double
dimin. (with suffixes -cu-Ju-), from pinna, a wing, fin; Late L. a
pinnacle (Luke, iv. 9). See Pin.
PINNATH, feather-like. (L.) A botanical term. ‘ Pinnata
folia, among herbalists, such leaves as are deeply indented, so that
the parts resemble feathers;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. —L. pinndatus, sub-
stituted for penndtus, feathered.—L. penna, a feather. See Pen (2).
PINT, a measure for liquids. (F.—Span.—L.) ME. pinte, pynte ;
Prompt. Parv. =F. pinte, ‘a pint ;’ Cot. Span. pinta, a spot, blemish,
drop, mark on cards, pint. So called from the pint being marked
by a mark outside (or inside) a vessel of larger capacity. Late L.
pincta, a pint (A.D. 1249); for L. picta, fem. of pictus, painted,
marked, pp. of pingere,to paint. Cf. Span. pintor,a painter, pintura,
a painting.
PIONEER, a soldier who clears the way before anarmy. (F.—L.)
Formerly written pioner, Hamlet, i. v. 163. This may have been
merely an E. modification, as the whole word appears to be F.
Richardson quotes the spelling pyoner from Berners’ tr. of Froissart,
vol, 1. c. 138.—F. pionnier, ‘a pioner;’ Cot. B. F. pionnier, OF.
peonier, isa mere extension of F. pion, OF. peon, a foot-soldier; with
the more special meaning of foot-soldier who works at digging mines.
For the etymology of OF. peor, see Pawn (2).
PIONY, the same as Peony, q.v.
PIOUS, devout. (F.—L.) In Macb. iii. 6. 12, 27; Hamlet, iii.
i. 48.—F. pieux (fem. piewse) ; ‘pious, godly ;’ Cot. The OF. form
was pius (Littré), directly from L. pius, holy ; not from a form *pidsus.
Brugmann, ii. §643. Der. pious-ly; piety, Timon, iv. 1. 15, a coined
word, and a doublet of pity, q.v.; piet-ist, borrowed from G, pietist,
‘Hoy’s, pinks,
PIQUE
| the name of a Protestant sect in Germany instituted about 1689
(Haydn), and taking their name from their collegia pietatis, the word
being a mere coinage (with suffix -ist) from a part of the stem (piet-)
of L. pietas. And see pity.
PIP (1), a disease of fowls, in which a horny substance grows on
the tip of the tongue. (Du. —L.) ME. pippe, pyppe (once dissyllabic).
‘Pyppe, sekenesse [sickness], Pituita;’ Prompt. Parv. ‘ Pyppe, a
sickenesse, pepye;’ Palsgrave.mMDnu. pippe, the pip; Hexham.
Cf. also Walloon, pipie (Sigart), MF. pepie, ‘pip ;’ Cot.; Norm.
dial. pipie, pip; Span. pepita, the pip (Neuman) ; Ital. pipita, Port.
pevide (in the phrase pevide de gallinhas, the pip). B. All from L.
pituita, phlegm, rheum, the pip; which must have passed into the
form *pitvita, whence *pipita, Late L. pipida, and afterwards into that
of pepida. We find also OHG. phiphis, the pip, cited by Diez;
Du. pip; Swed. pipp, &c. γ. L. pituita is formed (with suffix -ita,
like -itus in crin-itus) from a stem pitu- ; for which see Pine (1).
PIP (2), the seed of fruit. (F.—L.—Gk.) This is nothing but a
contraction of the old name pippin or pepin, for the samething. Pippin
is in Cotgrave ; pepin in Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xv. c. 14, ed. 1634,
p- 438 1; b. xvii. c. 10, p.511 a, b.— MF, pepin, ‘a pippin or kernel,
the seed of fruit ;” Cot. Allied to Span. pepita, a pip, kernel; and
prob. to Span. pepino, a cucumber. B. It is conjectured that the
name was first applied to the pips of the melon or cucumber, and that
the derivation is, accordingly, from L. pepd, a melon, borrowed from
Gk. πέπων, a melon, orig. an adj. signifying ‘ripe.’ The Gk. πέπων
meant ‘ ripened by the heat of the sun,’ lit. ‘cooked,’ from πεπ-, base
of πέπτειν, to cook, allied to Skt. pack, to cook, and to L. coguere ;
see Cook. Kérting, § 7023. 4 The odd resemblance between Span.
pepita, a pip, and pepita, the pip in fowls, is due to mere confusion ;
see Pip (1). They are not connected. See Pippin.
PIP (3), a spot on cards, (F.—L.?) Cf. prov. E. pip, a spot on
a dress, or on the face. But the old spelling is peep, or peepe, as
in Shakespeare, Tam. Shrew, i. 2. 33. It sometimes meant a small
blossom. Perhaps from the verb to peep; cf. prov. E. peep, a peep-
hole, or an eye. See Peep (2).
PIPE, a musical instrument formed of a long tube ; hence, any
long tube, or tube in general. (L.) The musical sense is the orig.
one. ME. pipe, Wyclif, Luke, vii. 32; Chaucer, C. T. 2752. The
pl. pipen is in Layamon, 5110. AS. pipe, a pipe, A.S. Leechdoms,
453
ed. Cockayne, ii. 126, 1. 3; and in comp. sang-pipe, a song-pipe, in
the Glosses to Prudentius, 130. An imitative word; but borrowed
from Latin. Late L. pipa, a pipe; from L. pipare, to chirp. β. It
well denotes a ‘ peeping’ or chirping sound ; the pipe was frequently
used to imitate and decoy birds. It is very widely spread. We
find Irish and Gael. piob, a pipe, flute, tube ; Irish pib, a pipe, tube;
W. pib, a pipe, tube, pipian, to pipe, pibo, to pipe, squirt. Also Du.
pijp, Icel. pipa, Swed. pipa, Dan. pibe, G. pfeife. Cf. also L. pipire,
to peep or chirp as a young bird, Gk. πιπίζειν, to chirp. All from
the repetition pi-pi of the cry of a young bird. Der. pipe, verb,
Chaucer, C. T. 3874 (A 3876); pip-er, pip-ing ; pipe-clay; and see
pip-kin, pib-roch. See also peep (1), peep (2). For pipe, ‘a tun,’ see
below. Doublet, jife.
PIPKIN, a smal! earthen pot. (L.; with E. suffix.) ‘A pipkin,
or little pot;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627. A dimin. (with suffix -kin) of E.
pipe, in the sense ofa vessel, chiefly applied toa cask of wine. ‘I pipe
vinei rubei;’ York Wills, iii. 14 (1400). This particular sense may
have been imported. It occurs in French, Spanish, Provencal, and
Dutch. ‘ Pipe, a measure called a pipe, used for corn as well as wine;’
Cot. Span. pipa, Prov. pipo. ‘Een pijpe met olye ofte wijn, a pipe or
caske with oyle or wine;? Hexham.
PIPPIN, a kind of tart apple. (F.—L.—Gk.?) In Shak. Merry
Wives, i. 2. 13; and in Minsheu, ed. 1627. Cotgrave explains F.
renette as ‘the apple called a pippin, or a kind thereof.’ Spelt pepyr,
Babees Book, p. 122, 1.79. AF. pepynes, pl.; Wright's Vocab., Ist
Ser. p. 150. Sometimes said to be named from pip (3), because of
the spots upon it, which fails to explain the suffix-i. We must
rather connect it with pip (2), of which the old spelling was actually
pippin, as has been shown. That is, it was named with reference to
the pips inside it (not outside) ; ‘ prob. an apple raised from the pip
or seed,’ Wedgwood ; cf. Norm. dial. pepinx, an apple raised from
seed (Robin). See Pip (2). Hence we find; ‘To plante trees of
greynes and pepins;’ Arnold’s Chron., 1502; ed. 1811, p. 167.
4 Hexham has MDn. ‘ pippinck, puppinck, a pipping, an apple so
called ;’ also ‘ pupping, an apple called a pippinck.’ But the Du.
word seems to have been borrowed from E, Thus Sewel’s Du. Dict.
has yet another form p:ppeling, with the example ‘ Engelsche pippe-
lingen, English pippins.’
PIQUE, wounded pride. (F.—Teut.) Oddly spelt pike in Cotgrave,
who is an early authority for it.—MF. picque, pique, ‘a pike; also, a
pikeman ; also a pike, debate, quarrel, grudge; Cot.’ B. Of Tent.
origin ; see Pike. Der. pique, verb; piqu-ant (as in ‘ piquant sauce,’
454 PIQUET
Howell, Familiar Letters, vol. i, sect. 5. let. 38 [not 36], where, by
the way, the spelling is pickant), from F. piquant, pres. part. of piquer,
verb. Hence piguant-ly, pequavc-y.
PIQUET, a game at cards. (F.—Teut.) ‘ Piguet, or Picket, a
certain game at cards, perhaps so called from pigue, as it were a
small contest or scuffle;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. This is ingenious,
and perhaps true ; Littré says the game is supposed to have been
named from its inventor; but Hatzfeld derives it from F. piguer,
vb., to prick, tovex. Darmesteter derives it from the phrases faire
pic, faire repic, employed in the game. Cf. F. pic, ‘a pickax,a
thrust,’ Cot.; MF. picgue, ‘a spade at cards,’ id.; whence prov. E.
pick, a spade (or a diamond) at cards. In any case, piguet is a
doublet of Picket, gq. v.
PIRATE, a sea-robber, corsair. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. Merch.
Ven. i. 3. 25.—F. pirate, ‘a pirat;’ Cot.—L. pirdta. —Gk. πειρατής,
one who attempts or attacks, an adventurer (by sea). Formed with
suffix -τῆς from πειράτω, I attempt.—Gk. πεῖρα, an attempt, trial,
essay. For *mep-ra; and allied to E. ex-per-ience and fare; see
Fare, Experience. Der. pirat-ic-al, pirat-ic-al-ly ; pirate, verb ;
irac-y.
*PIROGUE, a sort of canoe.
spelt piragua, which is the Span. spelling.
Canoa;’ W. Dampier, A New Voyage, i. 3 (1699). Both F. pirogue
and Span. piragua are from the native W. Indian name. The word
is said by Oviedo to be Caribbean. ‘ Llamanlos los Caribes piraguas ;”
Oviedo, 1851, i. 171.
PIROUETTES, a whirling round, quick turn, esp. in dancing.
(F.) Formerly used as a term in horsemanship. ‘ Pirouette, Pircet,
a turn or circumvolution, which a horse makes without changing his
ground ;’ Bailey’s Dict., vol. ii. ed. 1751. —F. pirouette, ‘a whirligig,
also a whirling about ;” Cot. B. Origin unknown, according to
Littré; but in Métivier’s Dict. Franco-Normand appears the Guernsey
word piroue, a little wheel or whirligig, a child’s toy, also Norm.
dial. piroue, a top (Robin), of which pirowette is obviously the dimi-
nutive. [The spelling has prob. been affected by confusion with F.
roue (L. rota), a wheel.) Prob. allied to MItal. pirolo, a peg,a child’s
top; origin unknown. Cf. also ME. pirle, prille, a whirligig, child’s
toy, Prompt. Parv. p. 413; MF. pirevollet, a whirligig (Cot.); MItal.
pirla, ‘a top or a gigge, also a twirle;’ Florio. Der. pirouette, vb.
PISCHS, the Fish; a zodiacal sign. (L.) ME. Pisces, Chaucer,
C. 1. 6286 (D 704).—L. piscés, pl. of piscis, a fish ; cognate with E.
Fish, q.v. Der. pisc-ine; pisc-ina, a basin, from L. pise-ina, a fish-
pool, basin; Pisci-vorous, fish-eating, from L. worare, to devour;
pise-at-or-y, from L. piscatérius, belonging to fishing, from piscator,
a fisherman, formed from fiscari, to fish.
PISH, an interjection, expressing contempt. (E.) In Shak. Oth.
ii. 1. 270; iv. 1.42. Of imitative origin; it begins with expulsion
of breath, as in pook /, and ends with a hiss.
PISMIRE, an ant. (Hybrid; F. and E.) In Shak. 1 Hen. IV,
i. 3.240. ‘The old name of the ant, an insect very generally named
from the sharp urinous smell of an ant-hill;’ Wedgwood. ME. pisse-
mire (four syllables), Chaucer, C. T. 7407 (Ὁ 1825).—ME. pisse,
urine; and mire, an ant, Bestiary, 234. See Piss. B. The AS.
mire, given in Benson’s A.S. Dict., is unauthorised, but may be
correct; still, the usual E. word is emmet or ant. Cf. Du. mier,
MDnu. miere, EF ries. mire, an ant; Teut. type *mir-dn-. ὙΠ ε
also find the somewhat similar (but unrelated?) forms : Swed. myra,
Dan. myre, Icel. maurr, an ant. Also Irish moirbh, W. mor-grugyn,
Bret. merienen, Russ. mur-avet, Gk. μύρ-μηξ, Pers. mir, mor, all
meaning ‘ant.’ The Cornish murrian means ‘ants.’ @[ Wedgwood
notes a similar method of naming an ant in the Low G. miegemke,
an ant; from miegen—L. mingere. And cf. Pomeran. pissmiren, pl.,
pismires.
PISS, to discharge urine. (F.) ME. pissen, Mandeville’s Travels,
ed. Halliwell, ch. 23, p.249.—F. pisser; supposed to be a Romance
word, and of imitative origin. Der. piss, sb., Chaucer, C. T. 6311
(Ὁ 729) $ pis-mire, q.v.
PISTACHIO, PISTACHO, the nut of a certain tree. (Span.
—L.—Gk.—Pers.) In Sir Τὶ Herbert’s Travels, ed. 1665, p. 8ο.
Spelt pistachoe or pistake-nut in Phillips, ed. 1706.—Span. pistacho
(with ch as in English), a pistacho, pistich-nut.<L. pisticium.=
Gk, πιστάκιον, a nut of the tree called πιστάκη. = Pers. pista, pistah,
the pistachio-nut; Rich. Dict. pp. 331, 332. Cf. Ital. pistacchio,
whence the form pistachio.
PISTIL, the female organ in the centre of a flower. (L.) In
Ash’s Dict., ed. 1775. Named from the resemblance in shape to the
pestle of a mortar. = L. pistillum, a small pestle ; dimin. of an obsolete
form *pistrum, a pestle.—L. pistum, supine of pinsere, to pound. Cf.
Skt. pish, to pound. (4/ PIS.) SeePestle. Doublet, pestle.
PISTOL, a small hand-gun. (F.—Ital.) In Shak; Merry Wives,
v. 2.53; and as a proper name.=F. jisfole, ‘a pistoll, a great
(F.—W. Indian.) Sometimes
‘ Pereago, or large
PITCHER
horseman’s dag;* Cot. [Here dag is an old name for a pistol.]
Shortened from F. pistolet, the same. B. We also find Ital.
pistolese, ‘a great dagger,’ in Florio; and it seems to be agreed that
the two words are closely connected; that the word fistolese is the
older one; and that the name was transferred from the dagger
to the pistol, both being small arms for similar use. The E. name
dag for pistol confirms this ; since deg must be the F. dague, a dagger.
y. The Ital. pistolese is known to have been named from a town in
Tuscany, near Florence, now called Pistoja, The old name of the
town must have been Pistolia; and this is rendered extremely
probable by the fact that the old Latin name of the town was
Pistdrium, which would easily pass into Pistolia, and finally into
Pistoja. ‘ Pistols were first used by the cavalry of England about
1544;’ Haydn. Der. pistol, vb., Tw. Nt. ii. 5. 42; pistol-et.
Doublet, pistole.
PISTOLE, a gold coin of Spain. (F.—Ital.) In Dryden, The
Spanish Friar, A. v. Sc. 2. The dimin. form pistole¢ is, in Beaum. and
Fletcher, The Spanish Curate, Act i. sc. 1 (Jamie). Yet the word is
not Spanish, but French. The forms pistole and pistolet, in the sense
of ‘ pistole,’ are the same as pisfole and pistolet in the sense of pistol.
=~ MF. pistolet, ‘a pistolet, a dag, or little pistoll, also, the gold coin
tearmed a pistolet;’ Cot. Diez cites from Claude Fanchet (died
1599) to the effect that the crowns of Spain, being reduced to a
smaller size than French crowns, were called pis¢olets, and the smallest
pistolets were called bidets; cf. ‘ Bidet, a small pistoll;’ Cot. Thus
the name is one of jocular origin; and the words pisfole and pistol
are doublets. Pistol, being more Anglicized, is the older word in
English.
PISTON, a short cylinder used in pumps, moving up and down
within the tube of the pump. (F.—ltal.—L.) In Bailey’s Dict.,
vol. ii. ed. 1731.—F. piston, ‘a pestell, or pounding-stick ;” Cot. In
mod. F. ‘a piston.’ Ital. pistone, a piston ; the same word as pesfone,
a large heavy pestle. Ital. pestare, to pound.—Late L. pistare, to
pound ; allied to pistus, pp. of pinsere, pisere,to pound. See Pestle,
Pistil, Pea.
PIT, a hole in the earth. (L.) ME. pit, Wyclif, Luke xiv. 5; put,
Ancren Riwle, p. 58,1. 4. AS. pyt, pyit; Luke xiv. 5.—L. puteus,
a well, pit; Luke xiv. 5 (Vulgate). B. Perhaps orig. a well of pure
water, a spring; and so connected with L. putus, pure, from the
same root as purus; see Pure. Der. pit, verb, to set in competition,
a phrase taken from cock-fighting. ‘A pit is the area in which
cocks fight ; hence, to pit one against the other, to place them in
the same pit, one against the other, for a contest;’ Richardson.
The pit of a theatre was formerly called a cock-pit ; Hen. V, prol. 11.
Also pit-fall, Macb. iv. 2. 35; pit-man, pit-saw; cock-pit.
PITAPAT, with palpitation. (E.) In Dryden, Epilogue to
Tamerlane. A repetition of pat, weakened to pit in the first in-
stance. Sir T. More says the old folks ‘ walked pit-pat upon a paire
of patens;’ Works, p. 94d. See Pat.
PITCH (1), a black sticky substance. (L.) ME. pich, pych;
Rob. of Glouc. p. 410, 1. 8485; O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, 1. 251,
1. 245 older form pik, id. i. 269, 1. 22. AS. pic, Exod. ii. 3.—L. pic-,
stem of pix, pitch. Hence also G. peck. B. Allied to Gk. πίσσα
(for wix-ya). Cf. Pine (1). Der. pitch, verb; pitch-y, All’s Well,
iv. 4.24. Also pay (2).
PITCH (2), to throw, to fall headlong, to fix a camp, &c. (E.)
Spelt pytche in Palsgrave. <A palatalized form of fick, to throw,
Cor. i. 1. 204; esp. used of throwing a pike or dart. ‘I pycke with
an arrowe, Je darde;’ Palsgrave. It was particularly used of
forcibly plunging a sharp peg into the ground; hence the phrase ‘ to
pitch a camp,’ i.e. to fasten the poles, tent-pegs, palisades, &c. ‘At
the eest Judas schal picche tentis;’? Wyclif, Numb. ii. 3, where the
later version has ‘ sette tentis.? The old pt. t. was pihte or pighte,
pp. piht, pight. ‘A spere that is pight into the erthe,’ Mandeville’s
Travels, ed. Halliwell, p. 183. ‘He pighte him on the pomel of his
heed ’=he pitched [fell] on the top of his head; Chaucer, C. T. 2691
(A 2689). ‘Ther he pihte his stef’=there he fixed his staff ;
Layamon, 29653. Allied to zick, verb; and probably related to
pike. See Pick, Pike. Der. pitch, sb., Tw. Nt. i. 1. 12; pitch-
Jork, allied to ME. pikforke = pick-fork, Prompt. Parv. ; pitch-pipe.
PITCHER, a vessel for holding liquids. (F.—OHG.—L.)
ME. picher, pycher; English Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith, p. 354, 1. 12;
pychere, Sir Perceval, 1. 454, in Thornton Romances, ed. Halliwell. =
OF, picher, pecher, a pitcher ; spelt pichier in Cotgrave, who gives it
as a Languedoc word. Cf. OProv. pichiers, pechiers (Bartsch); Prov.
pichié, pechité (Mistral) ; Haut-Maine piche; Span. and Port. pichel,
a tankard, Ital. pecchero, bicchiere, a goblet, beaker. OHG. pechari
(G. becher).—Late L. bicarium, a goblet, beaker, wine-cup. The
suggested connexion with Gk. Géxos, an earthen wine-vessel, is by
no means certain. See Beaker, which is a doublet. Der. pitcher-
plant.
PITH
PITH, the soft substance in the centre of stems of plants, marrow.
(E.) ME. pith, pithe, Chaucer, C. T. 6057 (Ὁ 475). AS. pida,
"lfred, tr. of Boethius, c. xxxiv. § 10; lib. iil, pr. 11.4-Du. pit, pith;
MDn. pitte (Hexham) ; Low G. peddik, pith (Bremen Worterbuch).
Der. pith-y, Tam. Shrew, ili. 1. 68 ; pith-i-ly, pith-i-ness ; pith-less,
1 Hen. VI, ii. 5. 11.
PITTANCEH, an allowance of food, a dole, small portion. (F.)
ME. pitance (with one ¢), pifaunce, P. Plowman, C. x. 92; Ancren
Riwle, p. 114, 1. 5.—F. pitance, ‘meat, food, victuall of all sorts,
bread and drinke excepted ;’ Cot. B. Of disputed etymology ;
cf. Span. pitanza, a pittance, the price of a thing, salary; Ital.
pietanza, a pittance, portion. In all probability the Ital. pretanza is
a popular corruption, due to a supposed connexion with piefa, pity,
mercy, as if to give a pittance were to give alms. The Lombard form
is still pitanza (Diez). Diez connects pitance with OF. pite, a thing
of little worth, which he further connects with petit, small; see
Piece. y. The Span. gitar means to distribute allowances of
meat, &c., and is clearly a connected word; this seems at once to
set aside any connexion with piety or pity. But Ducange gives the
Late L. pictantia as a pittance, a portion of food (given to monks) of
the value of a picta, which he explains to be a very small coin issued
by the counts of Poitiers (moneta comitum Pictavensium). This
answers to OF. pite, ‘ the half of a maille, a French farthing ;’ Cot.
δ. This brings us back to the same OF. pite, but suggests a different
origin for that word, viz. Late L. picta,a Poitiers coin. And this
L. picta is supposed to be due to Late L. Pictava, i.e. Poitiers (5th
cent.).
PITY, sympathy, mercy. (F.—L.) ME, μέ, Floriz and
Blauncheflor, ed. Lumby, 529; Ancren Kiwle, p. 368, 1. 14.—OF.
pite (pité), 13th cent. (Littré); pitet, 12th cent. (id.)—L. pietatem,
acc, of pietis; see Piety. Der. pity, verb, As You Like It, ii. 7.
117; piti-able, piti-abl-y, piti-able-ness ; piti-ful, All’s Well, iii. 2. 130;
piti-ful-ly, piti-ful-ness ; piti-less, As You Like It, iii. 5. 40; piti-less-ly,
piti-less-ness ; pity-ing-ly. Also pite-ous, a corruption of ME. pit-ous,
Chaucer, C. T. 8956 (E 1080), spelt pitos, Rob. of Glouc., p. 204,
1, 4180, from OF. piteus, mod. F. pitewx, ‘ pitiful, merciful,’ Cot. ;
from Late L. pietdsus, merciful. And hence piteous-ly.
PIVOT, a pin upon which a wheel or other object turns. (F.—
Xal.—Late L.) In Cotgrave.—F. pivot, ‘the pivot or, as some call
it, the tampin of a gate, or great doore, a piece of iron, &c., made,
for the most part, like a top, round and broad at one end and sharp
at the other, whereby it enters into the crappaudine [iron wherein the
pivot plays}; and serves as well to bear up the gate as to facilitate
the motion thereof;’ Cot. Formed, with dimin. suffix -of, from Ital.
piva, a pipe. —Late L. pipa, a pipe; connected with L. pipare, pipire,
to chirp as a bird; see Pipe. B. The Ital. piva meant (1) a pipe,
(2) a tube with a fine bore; and so came to mean a solid peg, as well
shown in the MItal. dimin. form pivolo, or piviolo, ‘a pin or peg of
wood, a setting or poaking sticke to set ruffes with, also a gardeners
toole to set herbes with called a dibble;’ Florio. Much disputed ;
see Diez; and see the articles piva and pivolo or piviolo in Florio,
PIX, an old form of Pyx, q. v.
PIXY, a fairy (Scand.). ‘Ifa pixie, seek thy ring ;’ Scott, Pirate,
ch. 23 (song). Also pisky, which is an older form.—Swed. dial.
pysk, pyske, a little goblin (Rietz) ; cf. Norw. pjusk, an insignificant
person (Ross). See Notes on Ἐν Etym., p. 218; and E. D. D.
PLACABLE, forgiving, easy to be appeased. (L.) In Minsheu,
ed. 1627; and in Milton, P. L. xi. 151, Taken directly from L.
placabilis, easily appeased; formed with suffix -bilis from placare, to
appease. Allied to placére;see Please. Der. placabl-y, placable-
ness. Also placabili-ty, Sir T. Elyot, The Governor, b. ii. ς, 6.
PLACARD, a bill stuck up as an advertisement. (F.—Du.) In
Minsheu, ed. 1627; he notes that it occurs in the 2nd and 3rd years
of Philip and Mary (1555, 1556).—F. placard, plaquard, ‘a placard,
an insc:iption set up; also a bill, or libell stuck upon a post; also,
rough-casting or pargetting of walls;’ Cot. The last is the orig.
sense. Formed with suffix -ard (of OHG., origin, from G. hart=K.
hard) from the verb plaguer, ‘to parget or to rough-cast, also, to clap,
slat, stick, or paste on;’ Cot.= Du. plakken, to paste, glue; formerly
also ‘to dawbe or to plaister,” Hexham. [The Du. plakkaat, a pla-
card, is merely borrowed back again from the French.] The Du.
flakken is prob. of imitative origin (Franck). Der. placard, verb.
And see plack, plaque, placket.
PLACE, a space, room, locality, town, stead, way, passage in a
book. (F.—L.—Gk.) Inearly use. In King Horn, ed. Lumby,
718.—F. place, ‘a-place, room, stead, .. a faire large court ;’ Cot.—
Folk-L. *plattia ; 1.. platea, a broad way in a city, an open space,
courtyard. Sometimes /latéa, but properly platéa, not a true L.
word, but borrowed. Gk. πλατεῖα, a broad way, a street; orig. fem.
of πλατύς, flat, wide.+Lithuan. platus, broad; Skt.. prthu-, large,
great; cf. Skt. prath, to spread out. And prob, allied to Flat.
PLAINT 455
Hence also plant, q.v. Der. place, verb, K. Lear, i. 4. 156; plac-ers
place-man, added by Todd to Johnson. And see plaice, plant.
Doublet, piazza.
PLACENTA, a substance in the womb. (L.) Called placenta
uterina in Phillips, ed. 1700.—L. placenta, lit. a flat cake.-Gk.
πλακοῦς, a flat cake; cf. πλάξ, a flat surface. Der. placent-al.
PLACID, gentle, peaceful. (F.—L.) In Milton, P. R. iii. 217.
-F. placide, ‘calm ;’ (οἵ. “Το, placidus, gentle, lit. pleasing.=L.
flacére, to please; see Please. Der. placid-ly; placid-i-ty, directly
from L. placiditas, the F. placidité being late.
PLACK, a small copper coin, worth 4 pennies Scots. (F.—
Du.) First used, spelt plak, of a somewhat different coin, in the
reign of James III of Scotland (1460-88). Ducange has placa asthe
Latinized form (1426).—F. plague, a coin; ‘En ce temps (1425)
couroit une monnoie a Paris nommee plagues;’ qu. in Hatefeld,
Also a flat plate (Cot.),—F. plaguer, ‘to lay flat upon;’ Cot.—Du.
plakken, to paste, glue, &c. Cf. MDu. placke, ‘a French sous;’
Hexham. See Placard.
PLACKET, an apron, petticoat, a woman; a slit in a petti-
coat. (Du.) See Troil. and Cress. ii. 3. 22; K. Lear, iii. 4. 100.
A variant of placard; seeN.E.D.—Du. plakkaat, a placard; from
Du. plakken, to stick up; with Εἰ, suffix -ard; see Placard.
PLAGIARY, one who steals the writings of another, and passes
them off as hisown. (F.—L.) Spelt plagiarrie in Minsheu, ed. 1627,
with the same definition as in Cotgrave (given below). [Sir T.
Browne uses the word in the sense of plagiarism, Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. i.
c. 6. § 7, yet he has plagiarism in the very next section. Bp. Hall has
plagiary as an adj., Satires, b. iy. sat. 2.1. 84.)—F. plagiaire, ‘ one
that steals or takes free people out of one country, and sels them in
another for slaves; .. also a book-stealer, ‘a book-theef;’ Cot.—L.
plagiarius, a man-stealer, kidnapper.—L. plaginm, kidnapping;
whence also plagiare, to steal or kidnap a free person ; lit. to ensnare,
net.—L. plaga,anet. Der. plagiar-ize, plagiar-ism, plagiar-ist.
PLAGUE, a péstilence, a severe trouble. (F.—L.) ME. plage
(not common), Wyeclif, Rev. xvi. 21, to translate L. plagam; the pl.
plagis (=plages, plagues) is in Wyclif, Gen. xii. 17, where the Vul-
gate has the L, abl. plagis.—OF. plage, plague (Godefroy). But the
E. word was prob. taken directly from Latin, and spelt with final -xe
at a later date.—L. plaga, a stroke, blow, stripe, injury, disaster.
Gk. πληγή, a blow, plague, Rev. xvi. 21. From the base πληγ-,
as in πληγ-ή, a blow, and in πλήσσειν (for *rAny-yev), to strike; cf.
Lithuan. plakti, to strike; L. plangere, to strike. See Brugmann, i.
§ 569. 581 The spelling plage occurs as late as in the Bible of 1551,
Rev. xvi. 21. The w was introduced to keep the g hard. Der.
plague, vb., Temp. iv. 192; spelt plaghe in Caxton’s Reynard the Fox,
Ῥ. 79, 1. 9; plague-mark, plague-spot. And see Plaint.
PLAIC#H, a kind of flat fish. (F.—L.) ME. plaice, playce;
Havelok, 896. Spelt place, plaive in Minsheu, ed. 1627.—OF. plais,
noted by Littré, 5. v. plie; he also gives plaise as a vulgar F. name of
the fish, the literary name being plie. as in Cotgrave.—Late L.
platisa, platissa (Voce. 40. 7,94. 28) ; for L. platessa, a plaice (Lewis);
whence the F. forms by the regular loss of ¢ between vowels, and
before a stressed vowel. B. So called from its flatness; from the base
PLAT, flat, which appears also in Gk. mAar-vs, flat, broad. See
Place. Cf. Flounder and Flawn.
PLAID, a loose outer garment of woollen cloth, chiefly worn by
the Highlanders of Scotland. (Gael.—L.) Spelt plad in Sir T.
Herbert, Travels, p. 313, who speaks of a ‘Scotch plad ;’ also in
Phillips, ed. 1706, and in Kersey, ed. 1715. ‘ Heland [Highland]
jlaidis ;’ Ane littil Interlud (Bannatyne MS.); 1. 32. Plaid is in
Johnson. —Gael. plaide, a blanket; cf. Irish plaide, a plaid, blanket.
B. Macleod and Dewar consider plaide to be a contraction of Gael.
(and Irish) peallaid, a sheep-skin. Cf: Gael. peallag, a shaggy hide,
alittle covering. These words are from Gael. (and Irish) peall, a skin,
hide, also a covering or coverlet. All from L. pellis, a skin ; cognate
with E. fell. See Fell (2). Der. plaid-ed.
PLAIN, flat, level, smooth, artless, evident. (F.—L.) ME.
plein, plain. ‘Thing that I speke it moot be bare and fleyn;’
Chaucer, Ο. T. 11032 (F 720). ‘The cuntre was so playne;’ Will.
of Paleme, 2217. ‘ Upon the pleyn of Salesbury;’ Rob. of Glonc.
p. 7.1. 155; where it is used as a sb. =F. plain, ‘plain, flat ;’ Cot. =
L. plain-um, acc. of planus, plain, flat. B. Idg. type *pla-nos; cf. Celtic
type *pld-ros, flat surface, ΝΥ. llawr; see Floor. Prob. *flda- is
lengthened from *pel- ; see méA-avos in Prellwitz; Der. plain, sb.,
plain-ly, plain-ness ; plain, adv. ; plain-dealer, Com: of Errors, ii. 2.
88; plain-deal-ing, adj., Much Ado, i. 3. 33; plain-deal-ing, sb.,
Timon, i. 1. 216; plain-hearted ; tlain-song, Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 1. 134;
plain-spoken, Dryden, Preface to All for Love, § 3; platn-work.
Also ex-plain. And see plan, plane (1), planisphere, placenta, piano.
PLAINT, a lament, mouming, lamentation. (F.--L.) ME.
fleinte, Hayelok, 134 ; Ancren-Riwle, p. 96, 1. 18. OF. pletnte (11th
456 PLAINTIFF
century, Littré), later plainte, ‘a plaint. complaint ;’ Cot.— Late L. |
plancta, a plaint; closely allied to L. planctus, lamentation. Both
are allied to planctus (fem. plancta), pp. of plangere, to strike, beat,
esp. to beat the breast as a sign of grief, to lament aloud. A
nasalized form from the base PLAG, to strike; see Plague. Der.
plaint-iff, q.V.5 plaint-ive, q.v.; also com-plain. The verb to plain,
i.e. to mourn, is perhaps obsolete; it is equivalent to F. plaindre
from L, plangere ; see K. Lear, ili. I. 39.
PLAINTIFF, the complainant in a law-suit. (F.—L.)_ It
should have but one f. ME. plaintif; spelt playntyf, Eng. Gilds,
ed. Toulmin Smith, p. 360, 1. 18.—F. plaintif, ‘a plaintiff ;’ Cot.
Formed with suffix -if (L. -iwus) from L. planct-us, pp. of plangere, to
lament, hence, to complain; see Plaint. Doublet, plaintive.
PLAINTIVE, mournful. (F.—L.) Really the same word as
the above, but differently used. In Daniel, Sonnet iv, To Delia.
=F. plaintif, fem. plaintive, adj., ‘lamenting, mournful ;’ Cot. See
Plaintiff. Der. plaintive-ly, -ness.
PLAIT, a fold, braid; to fold together, interweave. (F.—L.
Minsheu, ed. 1627, has ‘ to platte or wreath.’ Shak. has plat, Romeo,
i. 4. 89. For plaited, in K. Lear, i. 1. 183, the quartos have pleated,
the folios plighted. Cotgrave translates F. plier by ‘ to fould, plait.’
ME. plaiten, pleten, verb; plait, sb. ‘Playte of a clothe, Plica;
Playtyd, Plicatus ; Playtyn, Plico ;? Prompt. Pary. The pt. t. plaited
is in P. Plowman, B. v. 212; spelt pletede, id. A. ν. 126. The verb
is formed from the sb., which alone is found in French. = OF. ploit,
pleit, plet, a fold (Burguy ; Godefroy gives ploit only); the mod. F.
word is pli; Littré, s.v. pli, gives an example of the use of the form
ploit in the 13th century.—Late L. plic’tum, for plicitum, by-form of
L. plicdtum, acc. of plicdtus, pp. of plicére, to fold. The F. verb
plier =L. plicare, and also appears as ployer, ‘to plie, Cot. See Ply.
Der. plait-er. Doublets, pleat, plight (2).
PLAN, a drawing of anything on a plane or flat surface ; esp. the
ground-plot ofa building ;a scheme. (F.—L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706;
Pope, Essay on Man, i.6.—F. plan, ‘the ground-plat of a building ;’
Cot.—F. plan, adj. (fem. plane), flat, which first occurs in the 16th
century (Littré) ; a ‘learned’ form of F. plain. A late formation
from L. planus, plain, flat; the earlier F. form being plain; see
Plain. Der. plan, verb, Pope, Satires from Horace, Ep. 11. i. 374.
Hence plann-er.
PLANE (1), a level surface. (F.—L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706,
who speaks of ‘a geometrical plane,’ ‘a vertical plane, &c.=—F.
plane, fem. of the adj. plan, flat; with the E. sense of ‘a plane,’ it
occurs in Forcadel, Eléments d’Euclide, p. 3 (Littré), in the 16th
century. See Plan. We also find E. plane as an‘adj., as ‘a plane
surface.” See Plane (2). Der. plani-sphere, q.v.
PLANE (2), a tool; also, to render a surface level. (F.—L.)
1. The carpenter’s plane was so called from its use; the verb is older
than the sb. in Latin. We find ME. plane, sb., a carpenter’s tool, in
the Prompt. Pary. This is the F. plane (Cot.), from Late L. plana,
a carpenter’s plane (Lewis). 2. The verb is ME. planen, Chaucer,
C. T., D 1758; spelt planyn in the Prompt. Parv.—F. planer, to
plane. —L. plandre, to plane (Lewis). 4 Lewis gives Corippus as
the authority for the verb plandre: Prof. Mayor gives me a re-
ference to St. Augustine, de gen. c. Manich. I. §13. See Plain.
PLANE (3), PLANE-TREE, the name ofa tree, with spread-
ing boughs. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. plane; Wyclif, Gen. xxx. 37;
Squire of Low Degree, ed. Ritson, 1. 40; plane-leef, leaf ot a plane,
Trevisa, tr. of Higden, i. 187, 1. 9.—F. plane, ‘the great maple;’
Cot.—L. platanum, acc, of platanus, a plane.=Gk. πλάτανος, the
oriental plane; named from its broad leaves and spreading form
(Liddell). —Gk. πλατύς, wide, broad. See Brugmann, i. ὃ 444.
Sometimes called platane (an inferior form) from L. platanus; ME.
platan, Trevisa, tr. of Higden, ii. 303.
PLANET, a wandering star. (F.—L.—Gk.) So called to dis-
tinguish them from the fixed stars. ΜΕ, planete, Rob. of Glouc.,
p- 112, l. 2436. —OF-. planete, 13th cent. (Littré); mod. F. planéte. = L.
planéta.— Gk. πλανήτης, a wanderer; lengthened form of πλανής, a
wanderer, of which the pl. πλάνητες was esp. used to signify the
planets. —Gk. mAavaw, I lead astray, cause to wander ; pass. πλανάομαι,
1 wander, roam. =Gk. πλάνη, a wandering about. Der. planet-ar-y,
Timon, iv. 3. 108; planet-oid (see Asteroid); planet-stricken or
planet-struck, see Hamlet, i. 1. 162.
PLANE-TREE; see Plane (3).
PLANGENT, clashing, dashing, resounding, striking.
CL.)
Rare. In Sir H. Taylor, Philip van Artevelde, Part I,i. 1.97. 1
plangent-, stem of plangens, pres. pt. of plangere, to strike; see Plaint. |
PLANISPHERIH,, a sphere projected on a plane. (Hybrid; L.
and Gk.) ‘ Planisphere, a plain sphere, or a sphere projected ix plano ;
as an astrolabe;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. A barbarous hybrid
compound. From plani-, for L. planus, flat; and sphere, a word of
Gk. origin. See Plain and Sphere.
PLAT
PLANK, a board. (F.—L.) ME. planke, Will. of Palerne,
2778; Rob. of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, 5261.—North F. (Picard)
planke ; Norm. dial. plangue.—L. planca, a board, plank. So called
from its flatness; it is a nasalized form from the base PLAK, with
the idea of flatness. Cf. Gk. πλάξ (gen. mAak-ds), a flat stone;
mAak-ivos, made of board. See Placenta. Der. plank, verb.
ἀπ The Central F. form planche accounts for planched, Meas. for
Meas. iv. I. 30.
PLANT, a vegetable production, esp. a sprout, shoot, twig, slip.
(L.) ME. plante, Chaucer, C. T. 6345 (D 763). AS. plante; the
pl. plantan occurs in the entry ‘ Plantaria, gesawena plantan’ in Voc.
149. 22.—L. planta, a plant; properly, a spreading sucker or shoot.
From the base PLAT, spreading, seen in Gk. πλατύς, spreading,
broad. See Place. @ The L. planta also means the flat sole of
the foot ; hence ‘to plant one’s foot,’ i.e. to set it flat and firmly
down. Der. plant, verb, Chaucer, C. 1’. 6346 (D 764) ; AS. geplantian,
Mercian version of Psalm, ciii. 16; plant-er ; plant-at-ion, see Bacon,
Essay 33, Of Plantations, from L. plantatio, a planting, which from
plantare, to plant. Also plant-ing, plant-ain, planti-grade.
PLANTAIN (1), the name of a plant. (F.—L.) ME. plantain,
Chaucer, C. T. 16049 (G 581).—F. plantain, ‘ plantain, waybred ;’
Cot. —L. plantiginem, acc. of plantaigo,a plantain; Pliny. B. So
named from its flat spreading leaf, and connected with planta; see
Plant. So also arose the ME. name waybred, AS. wegbréde,
‘properly way-broad, but called way-bread,’ Cockayne’s A.S. Leech-
doms, vol. ii. Glossary; however, the AS. -bréde represents the sb.
br@du, breadth. So also the (ἃ. name wegebreit.
PLANTAIN (2), a tree resembling the banana. (F.—Span.—L.)
‘ Oranges and plantans, which is a fruit that groweth upon a tree; ’
Hakluyt, Voy. vol. ii. pt. 2, p. 129.—OF. plantain, variant of
platane, orig. a plane-tree (Godefroy). Span. plantano, a plantain ;
variant of platano, (1) a plane-tree, (2) a plantain. = L. platanum, acc.
of platanus, a plane. See Plane (3).
PLANTIGRADE, walking on the sole of the foot. (L.)
Scientific. Coined from planti-, for planta, the sole of the foot,
also a plant ; and grad-i, to walk. See Plant and Grade. For
the form planti-, cf. L. planti-ger, bearing shoots.
PLAQUE, an ornamental plate, a (metal) tablet for a wall.
(F.—Du.) Modern; F. plague, sb.; from plaguer, vb., to plate;
MF. flaguer, to fix, fasten up.—Du. plakken, to paste up; see
Plack, Placard.
PLASH (1), a puddle, a shallow pool. (E.) ME. placche, Allit.
Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 2798; Prompt. Parv. AS. plese, Birch,
Cart. Saxon. iii. 356 ; now Plask Park, near Cardington, Salop; cf.
EFries. plas, plasse, a shallow pool.--MDnu. plasch; ‘een plas ofte
{or} plasch, a plash of water: een plasregen, a sudden flash [flush] of
raine ; cf. plasschen in't water, to plash, or plunge in the water ;’
Hexham. Hence OF. plascg, plassis, a pool (Godefroy). BuiGt
also G. platschen, to splash, dabble, Dan. pladske (for *platske), to
| splash, dabble about, Swed. plaska (for *platska), to dabble, showing
that a ¢ has been lost betore 5, the Du. plasch standing for *plat-sch.
y- The various forms are extensions from the base PLAT, to strike,
beat, appearing in AS. plettan, to strike with the palm, slap, John,
xix. 3; also in Swed. dial. plaita, to strike softly, slap, whence the
frequentative plattsa, to tap with the finger-points (Rietz).
PLASH (2), another torm of Pleach, q.v. In Nares.
PLASTER, a composition of lime, water, and sand, for walls;
an external medical application for wounds. (L.—Gk.) ME. plascre,
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 10950 (F 636). [This is a F. spelling, from OF.
plastre, used in the 13th and 14th century (Littre), The spelling
plaister in English answers to the occasional r4th cent, F. spelling
plaistre.] AS. plaster, a plaster for wounds; Cockayne’s Leech
doms, i. 298, 1. 12.—L. emplastrum, a plaster; the first syllable
being dropped; cf. Late L. plastreus, made of plaster (Ducange).—
Gk. ἔμπλαστρον, a plaster; a form used by Galen instead of the
usual word ἔμπλαστον, a plaster, which is properly the neut. of
ἔμπλαστος, daubed on or over. Gk. ἐμπλάσσειν, to daub on.—Gk.
ἐμ- for ἐν, in, before the following 7; and πλάσσειν, to mould, form
in clay or wax. See In and Plastic. f Cf. ME. emplaster, sb.,
Reliq. Antiq. i. 54. Der. plaster, verb, ME. plasteren, Prompt.
Pary., from MF. plastrer (F. pldtrer), ‘to plaister,’ Cot. Also
plaster-er, plaster-ing. And see piastre.
PLASTIC, capable of moulding; also, capable of being
moulded. (L.—Gk.) Used in the active sense by Pope, Essay on
Man, iii. 9; Dunciad, i. 1ot.—L. plasticus.4+Gk. πλαστικός, fit for,
or skilful in moulding. Formed with suffix -:*-os from πλαστ-ύς,
formed, moulded. Gk. πλάσσειν, to mould. B. Gk. πλάσσειν
| appears to be put for *mAdr-ye, and to be related to E. fold, vb.
Der. plastic-i-ty, from mod. F. plasticité (Littré).
PLAT (1), PLOT, a patch of ground. (E.) Now commonly
written plot, which is also the AS. form. Spelt plat in 2 Kings ix.
PLAT
26, A.V.
Hesperides ; to Anthea. ‘A garden latte ;’ Udall’s Erasmus, Luke
xxiii. 50, fol. 182, b. See further under Plot, Patch. ἄτη" The
spelling plat is prob. due to ME. plat, F. plat, flat; for which see
Plate.
PLAT (2), to plait. (F.—L.) In Shak. Romeo, i. 4. 89. The
same as Plait, q.v.
PLATANE, a plane-tree; see Plane (3).
PLATE, a thin piece of metal, flat dish. (F.—L.) ME. plate,
Chaucer, C. T. 2123 (A 2121).—OF. and F. flare, in use in the 12th
century; see Littré. Hamilton, s.v. plat (flat), gives ‘ Vaisselle plate,
hammered plate; particularly, plate, silver plate.’ Plate is merely
the fem. of F. plat, flat. Cf. Late L. plata, a lamina, plate of metal ;
Ducange ; and esp. Span. plata, plate, silver (whence La Plata). But
the Span. word was derived from the French; Littre.—Late L.
platta, a lamina, ‘plate of metal;’ fem. of Folk-L. *plattus, flat ;
whence Du. and Dan. plat, G. and Swed. plait, are borrowed.
Allied to Gk. πλατ-ύς, broad; see Place. Der. p/ate, vb., Rich. II,
i. 3. 28; plate-glass, plat-ing. And see platt-er, plat-eau, plat-form,
plat-ina, plat-it-ude.
PLATEAU, a flat space, tableland. (F.—L.) ‘A rising
ground or flattish hill. . . called a plateau;’ Annual Register (1807),
p- 11,60]. 2.—F. plateau; Cotgrave gives the pl. plateaux, ‘ flat and
thin stones.’ The mod. F. plateau also means ‘tableland;’ Hamilton.
OF. platel, a small plate, used in the 12th century; Littré. Dimin.
of plat, a platter, dish, which is a sb. made from the adj. plat, flat.
See Plate. Doublet, flatter, q.v.
PLATFORM, a flat surface, level scaffolding. (F.—L.) In
Shak. meaning (1) a terrace, Hamlet, i. 2. 213; (2) a scheme, plan,
1 Hen. VI, ii. τ. 77.—F. plateforme, ‘a platform, modell ;᾿ Cot.=
F. plate, fem. of plat, flat; and forme, form; so that the sense is
‘ground-plan.’ See Plate and Form.
PLATINA, a heavy metal. (Span.—F.—L.) Added by Todd |
to Johnson’s Dict.—Span. platina, so called from its silvery appear-
ance. =Span. plata, silver. See Plate. Now called platinum.
PLATITUDE, a trite or dull remark. (F.—L.) | Modern.
Not in Todd’s Johnson. = Εἰ platitude, flatness, insipidity (Hamilton).
A modern word, coined (on the model of latitude) from F, plat, flat.
See Plate.
PLATOON, a group of men, sub-division of a company of
soldiers. (F.—L.) ‘ Platoon, a small square body of 40 or 50 men,’
&c.; Bailey’s Dict., vol. ii. ed. 1731. Adapted from F. peloton,
‘pronounced flo-tong, a ball, tennis-ball, group, knot, platoon ;’
Hamilton. Formed, with suffix -on, from MF, pelote, a ball ; whence
also E. pellet. See Pellet.
PLATTER, a flat plate or dish. (F.—L.) ME. plater (with
one ¢), Wyclif, Matt. xxiii. 25. AF. plater; N. Bozon, p. 33. A
parallel formation to OF. platel, a plate (Burguy), which is the
origin of mod. F. plateau, still used in the sense of ‘ waiter, tray, tea-
board;’ Hamilton. See Plateau.
PLAUDIT, applause. (L.) The form plaudit is due to mis-
reading the L. plaudite as if it were an E. word, in which the final
e would naturally be considered as silent. Sometimes the pronuncia-
tion in three syllables was kept up, with the singular result that the
suffix -i/é was then occasionally mistaken for the ordinary Εἰ. suffix
-ity. Hence we find 3 forms; (1) the correct Latin form, considered
as trisyllabic. ‘ After the plaudite stryke up Our plausible assente ;’
Drant, tr. of Horace, Art of Poetry, Av. (2) The form in -ity. ‘ And
give this virgin crystal plaudities;’ Cyril Tourneur, The Revenger’s
Tragedy, Act ii. sc. 1 (Ν.). (3) The clipped E. form. ‘ Not only
the last plaudit to expect ;’ Denham, Of Old Age, pt. iv. 1. 44.—L.
plaudite, clap your hands; a cry addressed by the actors to the
spectators, requesting them to express their satisfaction. It is the
imperative pl. of plaudere, to applaud, also spelt plodere; see
Plausible. Der. plaudit-or-y, an ill-coined word, neither French
nor Latin.
PLAUSIBLE, deserving applause, specious. (L.) In Shak. it
means ‘ contented, willing;’ Meas. iii. i. 253. Englished from L.
flausibilis, praiseworthy. Formed, with suffix -bilis, from plausi-,
for plausus, pp. of plaudere, plodere, to strike, beat, clap hands,
applaud. Der. plausibl-y, plausibili-ty, plausible-ness. And see
flaudit, ap-plaud, ex-plode.
PLAY, agame, sport, diversion. (E.) ME. play, Chaucer, C. T.
8906 (E1330). AS. plega, a game, sport, Grein, ii. 361. B. We
may note how frequently the AS. plega was used in the sense of
fight, skirmish, battle. Thus e@sc-plega, ash-play, is the play of
spears, i.e. fighting with spears; sweord-plega, sword-play, fighting
with swords. Even in the Bible, 2 Sam. ii. 14, 10 play really means
to fight; but this is due to the use of Judere in the L. version;
Wyclif uses the same word. To play on an instrument is to strike
upon it. Cf. ‘tympanan plegiendra’ = of them that strike the timbrels ;
‘So three in one small plat of ground shall ly ;’ Herrick, |
PLEBEIAN 457
AS. version of Ps. Ixvii. 27, ed. Spelman. And again, ‘ plegaS mid
handum’=clap hands; Ps. xlvi. 1. hus the orig. sense of plega is
a stroke, blow, and flegian is to strike, toclap hands. Perhaps of
imitative origin. 4 Εἰ. Miiller connects AS. plega with G. pflege,
care; the form answers, and the verb may have meant ‘ to be busy
with.’ See note in N.E.D.; and see Plight. Der. play, verb,
ME. pleyen, Chaucer, C. T. 3333, AS. plegian (above). Also play-
bill, -book, -fellow, -house (AS. pleg-hiis, in Mone, Quellen, p. 366),
-mate, -thing ; play-er, play-ing, play-ing-card; play-ful, ME. plein,
Old Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 205, 1. 20; play-ful-ly, -ness.
PLEA, an excuse, apology. (F.—L.) ME. plee, Chaucer, Parl.
of Foules, 485; ple, Rob. of Glouc. p. 471, 1. 9679; play, Ing.
Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith, p. 350,1.13.—AF. plee, N. Bozon, p. 157;
OF. ple, plai, occasional forms of OF. plait, plaid, a plea. Littré
cites the pl. forms flez, plais, plaiz (12th century) from Ducange, s. v.
Placitum. Cotgrave gives plaid, ‘ sute, controversie, . . also a plea,
or a pleading, also, a court of pleading.’= Late L. placitum, a judge-
ment, decision, decree, sentence ; also a public assembly, conference,
or council, so called because of the decisions therein determined on ;
L. placitum, an opinion. [The order of ideas is: that which is
pleasing to all, an opinion, decision, conference for obtaining
decisions, public court, law-court, proceedings or sentence in a law-
court, and finally pleading, plea. The word has run a long career,
with other meanings beside those here cited; see Ducange.]—L.
placitum, neut. of placitus, pp. of placére, to please; see Please.
Der. plead.
PLEACH, PLASH, to intertwine boughs in a hedge, to
strengthen a hedge by enweaving boughs or twigs. (F.—L.) ‘The
hedge to plash;’ Hood, The Lay of the Labourer, st. 5. ‘The
pleached bower ;’ Much Ado, iii. 1. 7. ME. plechen, used in the
sense ‘to propagate a vine;’ Palladius on Husbandrye, ed. Lodge,
b. iii. 1. 330. = OF. plescier, plessier, later, plesser, ‘to plash, to bow,
fold, or plait young branches one within another, also, to thicken
a hedge or cover a walk by plashing;’ Cot. Norm. dial. plesser
(Moisy). Formed from a Late L. type *plectiare, later plessare, to
pleach; from Late L. *plectia, later plessa, a thicket of interwoven
boughs, occurring A.D. 1215 (Ducange). We also find plessetwm,
a pleached hedge; and numerous similar forms. B. All from L.
plectere, to weave. Plec-t-ere is extended from the base PLEK, to
weave, appearing in Gk, πλέκ-ειν, to weave, and in L. plic-are, to
fold. See Ply, Plait. The form leach answers to an OF. dial.
form plechier.
PLEAD, to urge an excuse or plea. (F.—L.) ME. pleden.
‘ Pledoures shulde peynen hem to flede for such’ =pleaders should
take pains to plead for such; P. Plowman, B. vii. 42. [We also
find the form pleten, id. vii. 39.] Also plaiden, Owl and Nightingale,
184.—<OF, plaider, ‘ to plead, argue, or open a case before a judge,
also, to sue, contende, goe to law;’ Cot.—OF. plaid, a plea; see
Plea. 4 The form fleten is due to OF. plet, an occasional form of
plaid which preserves the ¢ of L. placitum. Der. plead-er=ME.
pledour, as above, from F. plaideur, ‘a lawyer, arguer, pleader,’ Cot.
Also plead-ing, plead-ing-ly.
PLEASE, to delight, satisfy. (F.—L.) ME. plesen, P. Plowman,
B. xiv. 220; Chaucer, C. T. 11019 (F 707).—OF. plesir, plaisir,
mod. F. plaire, to please. L. placére, to please. Allied to placare,
to appease. Der. pleas-er, pleas-ing, pleas-ing-ly. Also pleas-ant,
ME. plesaunt, Wyclif, Heb. x. 8, from OF. plesant, pres. part. of
plesir, to please. Hence fleas-ant-ly, -ness; also pleasant-r-y,
Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting, vol. i. c. 3 (R.), from F. plaisan-
terie, ‘jeasting, merriment,’ Cot. And see pleas-ure, plac-able, plac-id,
com-pla-cent, dis-please, plea, plead.
PLEASURE, agreeable emotion, gratification. (F.—L.) For-
merly plesure, as in The Nut-brown Maid (about A.D. 1500), 1. 93;
see Spec. of Eng. ed. Skeat, p. 102. Also pleasure, Skelton, Phyllyp
Sparowe, 1004; id. p. 147. Formed, by the curious change of -ir
into -ure, from ME. flesir (spelt plesyr), Flower and Leaf, 1. 113;
playsir, Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 331.—F. plaisir, pleasure; the
same change occurs in Jeis-ure, whilst in /reas-wre the suffix takes the
place of-or. The object seems to have been to give the word an
apparent substantival ending. B. Again, the F. plaisir is merely
a substantival use of the OF. infin. plaisir, to please; just as F.
loisir (leisure) is properly an infinitive also. See Please. Der.
pleasure, verb, in Tottell’s Miscellany, ed. Arber, p. 128, 1. 16 of
Poem on the Death of Master Deuerox; also pleasure-boat, pleasure-
ground ; pleasur-able, a coined word; pleasur-abl-y, pleasur-able-ness,
PLEAT, the same word as Plait, q.v.
PLEBEIAN, pertaining to the common people, vulgar. (F.—L.)
In Shak. Cor. i. 9. 73 ii. 1. 10; &c.—OF. plebeien, mod. F. plébéien;
omitted by Cotgrave, but in use in the r4th century; Littré. Formed
with suffix -ex (<L. -anus) from L. plébéius, plebeian. = L. plebé-, old
stem of plébés, more usually plebs (stem /ébi-), the people. B. Ple-bs
458 PLECTRUM
orig. meant ‘a crowd, a multitude,’ and is connected with plé-rigque,
very many, flé-nus, full; Gk. πλῆθος, amultitude, wAnpys. full. See
Plenary. Der. plebeian, sb.
PLECTRUM, a small instrument for plucking the strings of a
lyre or harp. (L.—Gk.) Το, plectrum. = Gk. πλῆκτρον, an instrument
to strike with.-Gk. πλήσσειν (for *rA7jy-yer), to strike; cf. pt. t.
mé-mAny-a. Allied to πληγ-ῆ, a stroke, L. pléga; see Plague.
PLEDGE, a security, surety. (F.—OLowG.) ME. plegge, a
hostage, Trevisa, iii. 129, 1. 6, and 321, 1. 8; Eng. Gilds, ed.
Toulmin Smith, p. 382, 1. 26; also a security, Prompt. Parv.—OF.
plege, ‘a pledge, a surety,’ Cot.; mod. F. pleige, Connected with
OF. plevir (Burguy), later plewvir, ‘to warrant, assure,’ Cot. ; see
Replevy. β. Of uncertain etymology; but Kluge proposes to
derive it from OSax. flegan, to attend to, to promise, to pledge
oneself; cf. OHG. pflegan, to answer for (G. pflegen); also AS.
pléon, to risk; pleoh, risk (Franck). See Plight (1). Der. pledge,
verb, 3 Hen. VI, iii. 3. 250; pledg-er.
PLEIAD, one of the group of stars in the constellation Taurus,
called the Pleiades. (L.—Gk.) ‘The sweet influences of Pleiades ;”
Job xxxviil. 31.—L. Pléiades, pl. Gk. Πλειάδες, a group of seven
stars in the constellation Taurus ; Ionic Πληϊάδες, (Not, as fabled,
allied to πλέειν, to sail.)
PLEIOCENE, more recent; PLEISTOCENE, most recent.
(Gk.) Terms in geology referring to strata. Coined from Gk.
πλείω-ν, more, πλεῖστο-ς, Most ; and καινός, recent, new. Bp. Gk.
πλείων, πλεῖστος are comp. and superl. forms from πολύς, much,
allied to πλέ-ως, full; see Plenary. The adj. καινός is allied to
Skt. kanya, a maiden; Brugmann, i. § 647.
PLENARY, full, complete. (Late L.—L.) Spelt plenarie in
Minsheu, ed. 1627. Englished from Late L. plénarius, entire,
occurring in St. Augustine (N. E. D.); which is extended, with suffix
-arius, from L, plénus, full. B. L. plé-nus is connected with Gk. mAé-ws,
full, πίμ-πλη-μι, I fill; from the base *plé, to fill. 4/PEL; cf. E.
Full, q.v. Der. pleni-potent-i-ar-y, q.v., pleni-tude, q.v., plent-y, q.v.
From the same root are com-plete, com-ple-ment, de-plet-ion, ex-plet-ive,
im-ple-ment, re-plete, re-plen-ish, sup-ple-ment, sup-ply, ac-com-plish,
pleb-eian, plu-ral, &c. Also (of Gk. origin) ple-o-nasm, ple-thora,
plei-o-cene, police. Also full, q.v.
PLENIPOTENTIARY, having full powers. (L.) Some-
times used as a sb., but properly an adj., as in ‘the plenipotentiary
ministers’ in Howell, Famil. Letters, bk. ii. let. 44. Dec. 1, 1643.
Coined from L. pléni-, for plénus, full; and potenti-, decl. stem of
potens, powerful; with suffix -drius. See Plenary and Potent.
4 Milton has plenipotent, P.L. x. 404,
PLENITUDE,, fulness, abundance. (F.—L.) In Shak. Com-
plaint, 302.—OF. plenitude, ‘plenitude ;’ Cot.—L. plénitado, fulness.
—L. pléni-, for plenus, full; with suffix -tido. See Plenary,
Plenty.
PLENTY, abundance. (F.—L.) In early use. ME. flenteé,
plentee, Ancren Riwle, p. 194,1.6.—OF. plente, plentet, later plenté,
‘plenty ;” Cot.—L. plénitatem, acc. of plénitis, fulness. —L. pléni-, for
plénus, full; with suffix -t@s. See Plenary, Plenitude. Der.
plente-ous, ME. plenteus, Rob. of Glouc. p. 23, 1. 531, frequently spelt
plentiuous (= plentivous), Wyclif, Matt. v. 12, 1 Thess. iii, 12, from
OF. fplentivos; this form appears to be made with suffix -os (=L.
-Osus) from OF. plentif, answering to a L. form *lénitiuus. Hence
plenteous-ly, -ness, Also plentiful, Hamlet, ii. 2, 202; plenti-ful-ly,
mess,
PLEONASM, redundancy of language. (L.—Gk.) Spelt pleo-
nasme in Minsheu, ed. 1627. — L. pleonasmus (Lewis). Gk. πλεονασμός,
abundance, pleonasm. — Gk. πλεονάζειν, to abound, lit. to be more. —
Gk. πλέον, neut. of πλέων, πλείων, more. See Pleiocene. Der.
pleonast-ic, from Gk. ἐπλεοναστικός, redundant ; pleonast-ic-al-ly.
PLESIOSAURUS, an extinct genus of Reptilia. (Gk.) The
name signifies ‘like a lizard..—Gk. πλησίο-ς, near, allied to πέλας,
near; and σαῦρος, a lizard.
PLETHORA, excessive fulness, esp. of blood. (L.—Gk.) ‘Ful-
nesse, in greke plethora, in latyne plenitudo;’ Sir T. Elyot, Castel of
Helth, b. iii. c. 1. The ὁ is long. A Latinized spelling of Gk.
πληθώρη. fulness. Gk. πλῆθ-ος, a throng, crowd; with the suffix
-w-pn. B. Gk. πλῆ-θος (like πλή-ρης, full) is from the base An, seen
in πίμ-πλη-μι, 1 fill; see Plenary. Der. plethor-ic.
PLEURISY, inflammation of the levra, or membrane which
covers the lungs. (F.—L.—Gk.) [Quite different from plurisy, q.v.]
Spelt pleurisie in Baret, ed. 1580, and in Cotgrave.—MF, pleuresie,
‘a pleurisie;” Cot.—L. pleurisis, another form of pleuritis.—Gk.
πλευρῖτις, pleurisy.— Gk. πλευρά, a rib, the side, the ὁ pleura.’ Der.
pleurit-ic, from Gk, πλευριτικός, suffering from pleurisy ; plewrit-ic-al.
Also plewro-pneumon-ia, inflammation of the pleura and lungs, from
Gk. πνεύμων, ἃ lung; see Pneumatic.
PLIABLE, PLIANT, PLIERS; see under Ply.
PLOT
PLIGHT (1), an engagement, promise; usually as a verb, to
pledge. (ἢ) ME, pliht, pligt (1) danger, Layamon, 3897; (2)
engagement, Story of Genesis and Exodus, ed. Mortis, 1269. AS.
pliht, risk, danger, used to translate L. pertculum in A®lfric’s Colloquy,
in the Merchant’s second speech ; whence the verb flihtan, to endanger
(and later, to promise under peril of forfeiture); see Toller. β. The
sb. pliht is formed with the substantival suffix -t (Idg. -to-) from the
strong verb pléon (<*fleh-an), to risk, imperil, in Atl fred’s tr. of
Gregory’s Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 229, 1. 20; the pt. τ, pleah
occurs in the same, p. 37, 1. 7.4-OFries. flicht, peril, risk, care;
we also find the OFries. fle, pli, danger, answering to AS. plioh,
danger, in A‘lfred, tr. of Gregory, p. 393, 1.9; MDu. plicht, ‘ duty,
debt, obligation, administration, office, custom, or use ;” Hexham;
cf. plegen, ‘to be accustomed, to experiment, or trie’ [i.e. to risk] ;
id.; G. pflicht, duty, obligation, faith, allegiance, oath; from the
OHG. strong verb flegan, to promise or engage to do, 4] The
base is pleh, whence *pleh-t>plih-t ; pethaps the same base occurs in
pleg-an, toplay. Der. plight, verb, ME. pli3ten, plihten, P. Plowman,
B. vi. 35, AS. pliktan, weak verb, to imperil, Laws of King Cnut
(Secular), § 67, in Thorpe’s Ancient Laws, i. 410; plight-er, Antony,
iii. 13. 126.
PLIGHT (2), to fold; as sb., a fold; also, a state, a condition.
(F.—L.) Shak. has ‘ plighted cunning,’ K. Lear, i. 1. 283 ; where the
quarto editions have fleated. Spenser has ‘with many a folded
plight ;’ F. Q. ii. 3. 26; also plight (=plighted) as a pp. meaning
‘folded’ or.‘ plaited,’ F..Q. ii. 6. 7, vi. 7. 43. Palsgrave has: “1
plyght or folde ; I plyght a gowne, I set the plyghtes in ordre.’ B. The
word is really misspelt, by confusion with plight (1), and should be
plite, without gh, Chaucer has the verb fliten, to fold, Troilus, ii. 697,
1204. It is clearly a mere variant of plait or pleat, due to the feminine
form of the L. pp.; whereas plait is from the masculine. See Plait.
γ. ME. flyte, state, condition, is the same word; ‘To bringe our
craft al in another plyte;’ Chaucer, C. T.,G 952. Palsgrave has:
* Plyte or state. —AF. flyte, state, condition; given by Godefroy as
a doubtful word in Littleton, Instit. 306; but it is merely the fem.
of OF, ploit,a fold, plait, also " maniére d’étre, situation ;” Godefroy.
See Littleton’s Tenures, ed. 1612, foll. 69 and 83 back; and see
Roquefort, who explains plyte, pliste, as ‘ condition, state.’ = Folk-L.
type *plecta, for plicita, by-form of plicdta, fem. of plicatus, pp. of
plicare, to fold. Cf. Ἐς lite L. lectum, QJ‘ Plite of lawne, &c.,
seemeth to be a certaine measure, or quantitie thereof. Anno 3
Edw. IV, cap. 5 ;’ Minsheu.
PLINTH, the lowest part of the base of a column, (L.—Gk.)
‘ Plinthe, the neather part of a pillars foot, of the forme of a four-
square bricke or tile;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627. Cotgrave gives F. plinthe,
‘a plinth, &c.—L. plinthus,—Gk. πλίνθος, a brick or tile, a brick-
shaped body, a plinth. Cognate with E. Flint, q.v.
PLIOCENE: see Pleiozene,
PLOD, to trudge on laboriously, labour unintermittingly. (E.)
In Shak, Sonnet 50, Merry Wives, i. 3. 91, All’s Well, iii. 4.6. ‘The
primitive sense of flod is to tramp through the wet, and thence,
figuratively, to proceed painfully and laboriously ;᾿ Wedgwood. 1
particularly means to wade through pools ; the Εἰ. D.D. gives plodder,
mud; also, to walk through mud; pload, plowd, to walk through
mire and water. The ME. sb. plod (dat. plodde) meant a filthy pool
or puddle; ‘Ina foul glodde in the strete suththe me hym slong’ =
people then threwe him into a foul puddle in the street; Rob. of
Glouc. p. 536,1. 11677. Soalso Northern piud, a puddle; E. D. D. ;
cf. Irish plod, plodan, a pool, standing water, plodach, a puddle ; Gael.
plod, a pool, standing water, plodan, a small pool; the Irish and
Gael. forms being from ME. plod (Macbain). Cf. also EFries.
pludern, to splash about in water; Dan. dial. pludder, Dan. pladder,
mud; Low (ὦ. pladdern, to splash about in water (cf. plad, to wade,
in Nares). Of imitative origin; see Plash (1). Der. plodd-er, plodd-
ing, plodd-ing-ly.
PLOT (1), aconspiracy, stratagem. (F.—L.) An early instance of
the word seems to be in Spenser, F. Q. vii. 6. 23 (about A.D. 1590) ;
he also has plot as a verb, id. iii. 11. 20. | Perhaps shortened from
complét, used in exactly the same sense, both as a sb. and verb.
The sb. complét is in Shak, Rich. III, iii. 1. 192; and the pp. com-
plotted in Rich. II, i. 1. 96. We have numerous examples of the loss
of an initial syllable, as in fence for defence, sport for disport, story for
history. Shak. has both plot and compiot, and both words are em-
ployed by him both as sb. and verb. Minsheu, ed. 1627, gives com-
plot, but does not recognise plot, except'as a ground-plan.—F. com-
lot, “ἃ complot, conspiracy ;’ whence comp/loter, ‘to complot, con-
spire,’ Cot. The OF. complot means (1) crowd, in the 12th century,
(2) a battle, (3) a plot; and is of disputed origin. B.. Complot and
plot are neatly of the same date, and were sometimes associated.
Shak. has: ‘To glot, contrive, or cémplot any ill;’ Rich. II, i. 3. 189.
Chapman has: ‘All plots and cdémplots of his villany ;’ Alphonsus,
PLOT, PLAT
v.4. y- But it isnot unlikely that plot was sometimes an abbre-
viation of glotform, a variant of platform, i.e. ἃ plan, orig. a map or
sketch of a place ; it occurs in Gascoigne’s Art of Venerie, 1. 40 (1575).
It is certain that pla¢ was used as an abbreviation of platform, a map;
as in Higgins, Mirror for Mag., ed. 1815, i. 315 (1574). Cf. ‘Iam
devising a platform in my head;’ Lyly, Campaspe, Act v. Sc. 4.
‘The gla/t and fabrick of our purpose ;’ Letters of Eminent Men, ed.
Sir H. Ellis (Camden Soc.), p. 155. ‘The Captain did plat out and
describe the situation of all the ilands;’ Hakluyt, Voy. iii. 98 (we
now say plot out). See Platform; and see Notes on E. Etym.,
». 219. Der. plot, verb; plott-er.
PLOT (2), PLAT, a small piece of ground. (E.) A plot is a
patch of ground; and it also meant, in ME., a spot on a garment.
‘Many foule plot/es’ =many dirty spots (on a garment) ; P. Plowman,
B. xiii. 318. [In the Prompt. Parv. p. 405, we are told that plot
means the same as lek; and we also find ‘ Plecke, or plotte, portiun-
cula.” Way’s note adds that ‘Pleck is given by Cole, Ray, and
Grose as a North-Country word, signifying a place, and is likewise
noticed by Tim Bobbin;’ and he correctly refers it to AS. plac, Matt.
vi. 5 (Northumb. version).] The expression ‘plot of floures faire’
occurs in the Flower and the Leaf, 1. 499 (15th century). AS. plot,
a patch of ground; A. S. Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, iii. 286, 1. 19
(the same passage is in Schmid, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, App.
XI, 1.5; p. 408, ed. 1858). Cf. Goth. plats, a patch, Mark ii, 21;
MDnu. lets, ‘a peece or a patch of cloth;’ Hexham; Dan, flet, a
spot, plot; gr@s-plet, a grass-plot. We also find AS. splott, a plot
of land (Toller). 4] For the spelling plat, see Plat (1).
PLOUGH, an instrument for turning up the soil. (E.) ME.
plouk, plou, plow ; Chaucer, C. T. 889 (A 887); Havelok, 1017. The
traces of it in AS. are but slight; we find plak=a plough-land, in
Α. 5. Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, iii. 286, 1. 19, where is the phrase
‘ne plot ne ploh’ =neither plot of ground nor plough-land. EFries.
plog.+Icel. plogr, a plough (the usual Norse word being ardr) ; Swed.
flog; Dan. plov. We find also OFries. ploch, G. pflug, OHG.
pfluoe. The Lithuan plugas, Russ. gluge, a plough, are borrowed
words from the Teutonic. Der. flough, verb, Cor. iii, 1. γι;
plough-er, see Latimer’s Sermon on the Ploughers; plough-able;
plough-boy ; plough-tron, 2 Hen. 1V, v. 1. 20 ; plough-man, ME. tlow-
man, Chaucer, C. T., 531 (A 529); plough-share, spelt plowh-schare in
Trevisa, ii. 353, and derived from the verb to shear.
PLOVER, the name of a wading bird. (F.—L.) ME. plouer
(with z for v), P. Plowman’s Crede, ed. Skeat, 764; Gower, C. A.
ili. 33; bk. vi.943; Prompt. Parv. OF. plovier, in the 13th century
(Littré), later pluvier, ‘a plover;’ Cot. Formed asif from a Late L.
type *pluvarius, equivalent to L. pluuialis, belonging to rain, because
these birds were said to be most seen and caught in a rainy season. =
L. pluuia, rain. L. pluit, it rains. See Pluvial. ‘ We derive it
from the F. fluvier, pour ce qu’on le prend mieux en temps pluvieux
qwen nulle autre saison ;’ Belon, Oyseaux, 260; cited in Pennant,
Zoology, vol. ii (R.). Perhaps it was only a fancy. Wedgwood
remarks that the G. name is regenpfeifer, the rain-piper.
PLUCK, to pull away sharply, to snatch. (E.) ME. plukken,
P. Plowman, B. ν. 591; xii. 249; Wyclif, Matt. xii. 1. AS. pluccian,
Matt. xii. 1.44Du. plukken; Icel. tlokka, plukka, perhaps a borrowed
word; Dan. plukke; Swed. plocka; G. pfliicken. B. Some think the
word to be not orig. Teutonic, but borrowed from Late L. *piluccare
(whence Ital. piluccare, to pluck out hair), from L. filus, a hair; see
Pile (2). This is doubtful. Der. pluck, sb., a butcher’s term for
the heart, liver, and lights of an animal, prob. because they are plucked
out after killing it ; Skinner, ed. 1671, has ‘ pluck, a sheep’s pluck, i. 6.
cor animalis,’ an animal's heart. Hence pluck in the sense of ‘spirit,
courage;”’ whence the adj. plucky. Cf. the phrase ‘ ¢luck up thy
spirits,’ Tam. Shrew, iv. 3. 38; ‘ luck up, my heart,’ Much Ado,
v. I. 207.
PLUG, a block or peg used to stop a hole. (Du.) Skinner, ed.
1671, has ‘a plug, or splug;’ but that the initial s is a true part
of the word may be doubted. The word is also in Hexham, ed.
1658, and was probably borrowed from Dutch.—MDu. plugge, ‘a
plugge, or a woodden pegg;’ also pluggen, ‘to plugge, or pegge;’
Hexham. Mod.Du. plug, a peg, bung. We find also Swed. plugg,
a plug; G. pffock, a wooden nail, plug, peg, pin; Low G. plugge,
plagge, a peg (Liibben). Der. plug, verb.
PLUM, the name of a fruit. (L.—Gk.) ME. ploume, plowme,
Prompt. Parv. ‘ Piries and plomtrees’ = pear-trees and plum-trees, P.
Plowman, B. v.16. AS. plime, A‘lfric’s Grammar, ed. Zupitza, p. 20;
cf. pliim-sld, lit. plum-sloe, pliim-treow, plum-tree, in AE lfric’s Gloss.,
Nomina Arborum. Here flim-sla translates L. priiniculus, and pliim-
treow translates prinus. B. The AS. pliime is a mere variation of L.
prina, pl. of primum, a plum, with, change of r to /, and of n to m.
The change from r to 1 is very common, and hardly needs illustration ;
the Span. coronel = E. colonel ; cf. Westphal. plime, prame, a plum; and
PLUMP 459
L. plimum in the Corpus Glossary, 1. 1609. The change from n to
m is not infrequent, as in dime-tree for line-tree, venom for L. uenénum,
vellum from i. velin, megrim from F. migraine. ‘Thus plum is a
doublet of prune; see Prune, which is of Gk. origin. The Swed.
plommon, Dan. blomme, G. pflaume, are all alike due to prinum.
Der. plum-iree, as above ; plum-cake, plum-pudding. Doublet, prune
(2).
PLUMAGE, the whole feathers of a bird. (F.—L.) ‘Pruning
his plumage, cleansing every quill;’ Drayton, Noah’s Flood (the
dove); plumage, Book of St. Alban’s, fol.a 7, back.=—F. plumage,
‘feathers ;’? Cot. =F. plume, a feather; see Plume.
PLUMB, a mass of lead hung ona string to show a perpendicular
direction. (F.—L.) ‘Plumbe of leed [lead], Plumbum ;’ Prompt.
Parv. The older spelling is plomb, shortened to plom in the comp.
jlomrewle, a plumb-rule, Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, ed. Skeat, pt. ii.
§ 38, 1. 6.—F. plomb, ‘lead, also, a carpenter’s plummet or plomb-
line;’ Cot.—L. plianbum, lead. B. Probably cognate with Gk.
μόλιβος, μόλυβδος, lead. Der. plum), verb, to sound the depth of
water with a plumbeline, from F. plomber, ‘to sound,’ Cot.; plumb-
line, plumb-rule, used by Cot. to translate Εἰ, plombet ; plumb-er, also
spelt plummer, as by Cot. to translate F. plombier ; plumb-er-y, i.e.
plumber’s shop, Bp. Hall, Satires, Bk. v. sat. 1,1. 5 fromend. Also
plumb-e-an, plumb-e-ous, leaden, both formed from 1.. plumbeus, leaden.
Also plumb-ago, q.v.; plumm-et, q.v.; plump (2), plunge.
PLUMBAGO, black-lead. (L.) A mineral resembling lead,
but really different from it. In Ash’s Dict., ed. 1777, but only as a
botanical term, ‘lead-wort. —L. plumbago, a kind of leaden ore ;
black-lead. —L. plumbum, lead. Cf. lumb-ago, from L. lumbus.
PLUME, 2a feather. (F.—L.) In Shak. Cor. iii. 3. 126; the
ΜΕ. pl. glumes occurs in Richard the Redeles, iii. 49.—F. plume, ‘a
feather, plume of feathers ;’ Cot.=—L. pliima, a small soft feather,
piece of down. β. Prob. so called from its floating in the air;
from 4/PLEUGH, to fly; see Fly (1). Brugmann, i. § 681 (d).
Der. plume, verb, esp. in pp. plumed, K. Lear, iv. 2. 57, Oth. iii.
3. 349; plum-ose; also plum-age, q.v.
PLUMMET, a leaden weight, a plumb-line. (F.—L.) ME.
plommet, Wyclif, Deeds [Acts], xxvii. 28. OF. plommet (Godefroy) ;
MF. plombet, “ἃ plummet,’ Cot. Dimin. of plomb, lead; it thus
means ‘a small piece of lead.’ See Plumb.
PLUMP (1), full, round, fleshy. (E.) ‘ Plump Jack,’ 1 Hen. 1V,
ii. 4. 527; ‘ plumpy Bacchus,’ Antony, ii, 7.121. ME. plomp, rude,
clownish (as in Dutch), Caxton, tr. of Reynard the Fox, ed. Arber,
p- 100, ]. 12. The word is in rather early use as a sb., meaning
“a cluster, a clump,’ applied either to a compact body of men, or to
aclump of trees. ‘Presede into the plumpe’=he pressed into the
throng; Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 2199. Though it cannot be
traced much further back, the word may be E., as the radical verb
is preserved in the prov. E. pilim, to swell, to swell ont; used in
many dialects ; so also prov. E. plum, plump, to swell; see Εἰ. D.D.
B. Hence plump means orig. ‘swollen,’ and since that which is
swollen becomes tight and firm, we find plump further used in the
sense of ‘hard;’ as ‘the ways are plump’=the roads are hard
(Kent); E. Ὁ. 8. Gloss. B. 11; C. 5. In Oxfordshire the word
plim is also used as an adj., in the sense of plump. The word ap-
pears in other Teutonic tongues. Cf. EFries. and Low G. plump,
bulky, thick. + MDu. plomp, ‘rude, clownish, blockish, or dull;’
Hexham. This is a metaphorical use, from the notion of thickness;
Swed. plump, clownish, coarse; Dan. plump, clumsy, vulgar; G.
plump, heavy, clumsy, blunt. Der. plump-ly, plump-ness. Also
plump-er, a vote given at elections, when a man who has a vote for
two separate candidates gives a single vote to one, thus (in my
opinion) swelling out that candidate’s number of votes as compared
with the rest; see Todd’s Johnson. Also plump-y, as above. Also
plump, sb., a cluster, as above ; plump or plump out, verb, to swell out.
PLUMP (2), straight downward. (F.—L.) Formerly also plum,
plumb. ‘ Plumb down he drops,’ Milton, P. L. ii. 933; cf. ‘ Which
thou hast perpendicularly fell,’ K. Lear, iv. 6. 54. ‘They do not
fall plumb down, but decline a little from the perpendicular ;’
Bentley, Serm. 2 (Todd). Of French origin; but altered to plump
by the influence of plump (3) below. Really due to plumb, and
derived from F. plomb, L. plumbum, lead. ‘To fall like lead’ must
have been a favourite metaphor from the earliest times, and Diez
shows, in his article on Ital. piombare, to fall like lead, that this
metaphor is widely spread in the Romance languages. Cf. Ital.
cadere a piombo, to fall plump, lit. like lead; F. ἃ plomb, ‘down-
right ;’ ἃ plomb sur, ‘direct, or downright;’ Cot. See plumb in
N.E. D., and Plumb (above).
PLUMP (3), vb., to fall heavily down. (E.) ‘It will give you
a notion how Dulcissa plumps into a chair ;’ Spectator, No. 492.
Apparently of imitative origin; cf. prov. E. plump, a plunge ; also,
to plunge heavily, to sink. ME. plumpen; ‘ Plump hym in water ;’
460 PLUNDER
Liber Cure Cocorum, p. 51.--EFries. plumpen, to fall heavily,
plempen, to plunge into water; so also Du. plompen, (ἃ. plumpen,
Swed. plumpa, to fall heavily. Under the influence of this word, the
adv. plumb, ‘straight downward,’ became plump; see Plump (2).
PLUNDER, to rob, pillage. (G.) A note in Johnson’s Dict.
(ed. Todd) says that ‘ Fuller considers the word as introduced into
the language about 1642.’ R. gives a quotation for it from Prynne,
Treachery and Disloyalty, pt. iv. pp. 28, 29 (not dated, but aiter
A.D. 1642, as it refers to the civil war). He also cites a quotation
dated 1642; but it first occurs in 1632, in the Swedish Intelligencer,
ii. 179 (N.E.D.). Hexham, in his Du. Dict., ed. 1658, gives
MDu. plunderen, plonderen, ‘to plunder, or to pillage ;’ the mod.
Du. spelling is plunderen. It is one of the very few G. words in
English, and seems to have been introduced directly rather than
through the Dutch. =G. fliindern, to plunder, pillage, sack, ransack ;
provincially, to remove with one’s baggage. Derived from the ἃ.
sb. plunder, trumpery, trash, baggage, lumber; the E. keeping the
vowel of the sb. B. Connected with Low G. plunnen, formerly
also plunden, rags; Bremen Worterbuch. The orig. sense of the sb.
was ‘rags,’ hence, worthless household stuff ; the verb meant, accord-
ingly, to strip a household even of its least valuable contents. The
Dan. plyndre, Swed. plundra, Du. plunderen, are all alike borrowed
from the G. or Low G. @ See Trench, Eng. Past and Present.
He says that ‘plunder was brought back from Germany about the
beginning of our Civil Wars, by the soldiers who had served under
Gustavus Adolphus and his captains.’ And again, ‘ on plunder,
there are two instructive passages in Fuller's Church History, b. xi.
§ 4, 333 and b. ix. § 4; and one in Heylin’s Animadversions there-
upon, p. 196.’ Der. plunder, sb., which seems to be a later word in
E., though really the original word ; plunder-er.
PLUNGE, to cast or fall suddenly into water or other liquid.
(F.—-L.) ME. ploungen; ‘and wenen [imagine] that it be might
blisful thing to plowngen hem in voluptuous delyt ;’ Chaucer, tr. of
Boethius, b. ii, pr. 2,1. 29.—F. plonger, ‘to plunge, dive, duck ;’
Cot. Formed from a Late L. type *p/umbicdre, not found, but the
existence of which is verified by the Picard plonguer, to plunge, dive,
due to the same form; see Diez, s.v. prombare. B. Thus plonger
is a frequentative of plomber, to cover with lead, to sound the depth
of water; from F. plomb, lead; see Plumb. Cf. Ital. prombare,
“to throw, to hurle,... to fall heauilie as a plummet of leade ;’
Florio; also Roumantsch plumbar, to fall heavily (Carigiet). Cf.
AF. se plunge, plunges, Bestiary, 832. See also Plump(2). Der.
plunge, sb., plung-er, plung-ing.
PLUPERFECT, the name of a tense in grammar. (L.) In the
Grammar prefixed to Cotgraye’s F. Dict. will be found the expres-
sion ‘the preterpluperfect tense ;’ he gives ‘ }’avoies esté, I had been,’
as an example. The E. word is a curious corruption of the L. name
for the tense, viz. plusguamperfectum. We have dropped the syllable
quam, and given to plus the F. pronunciation. —L. plas, more; guam,
than ; and perfectum, perfect. See Plural and Perfect.
PLURAL, containing or expressing more than one. (F.—L.) A
term in grammar. In Shak. Merry Wives, iv. 1. 59. ME. plural ;
“pe plural nombre ;’ Trevisa, ii. 171, 1. 25; plurel, id. ii. 173, 1. 11.
—OF. flurel (12th century, Littré) ; mod. F. pluriel. = L. pliralis,
plural ; because expressive of ‘more’ than one.=—L. plir-, decl.
base of 215, more, anciently spelt plous. Connected with Gk. mAé-ws,
full, πλείων, more; see Plenary. Brugmann, ii. § 135. Der.
plural-ly, plural-ist, plural-ism, Also plural-i-ty, ME. pluralite, P.
Plowman, C. iv. 33, from F. pluralité, ‘plurality, or morenesse,’ Cot.,
which from L. acc. pliralitatem. And see plurisy.
PLURISY, superabundance. (L.; misformed.) Shak. has plurisy
to express ‘ plethora,’ Hamlet, iv. 7. 118. So also in Massinger, The
Picture, iv. 2 (Sophia): ‘A plurisy of ill blood you must let out.’
And in The Two Noble Kinsmen, v. 1. 66; and in Ford, Fancies
Chaste and Noble, A. iy.sc.1 ; ‘Into a plurisy of faithless impudence.’
Formed as if from L. pliri-, decl. stem of plas, more; by an extra-
ordinary (prob. an ignorant) confusion with Pleurisy, q.v.
PLUSH, a variety of cloth-like velvet. (F.—L.) ‘Waistcoats of
silk plush laying by ;” Chapman, tr. of Homer's Iliad, b. xxiv, 1. 576.
And in Cotgrave.—F. peluche, ‘shag, plush ;’ Cot. [Thus the E.
has dropped e; the word should be pelush. The form pluche occurs
in Walloon (Remacle) ; and Godefroy gives pluchine as a variant of
the dimin. form peluchine.| Cf. Span. pelusa, down on fruit, nap on
cloth; Ital. peluzzo, fine hair, soft down. All from the fem. of a
Late L. type *pilicius, hairy (not found), from L. pilus, hair. See
Peruke. q The Du. pluis, fluff, plush, G. pliisch, are mere bor-
rowings from French.
PLUVIAL, rainy. (F.—L.) Little used. ‘ Pluuiall, rainie;’
Minsheu, ed. 1627. —F. pluvial, ‘rainy; Cot.—L. pluuialis, rainy. =
L. plunia, rain. = L. plu-it, it rains. —4/PLEU, to float, swim. Cf.
Gk. πλέειν, to swim, Brugmann, i. § 381. Der. We also find
POCK
plivious, Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. v, c. 24. part 4, Englished
from L. pluuius, rainy. And see plover.
PLY, to bend, to work at steadily, urge. (F.—L.) ME. plien, to
bend, Chaucer, C. T. 9045; to mould, as wax, id. 9304 (E 1169,
1430). Since moulding wax, &c. requires constant and continued
application of the fingers, we might hence obtain the metaphor of
toiling at; asin to ply a task, to ply an oar; but these extensions
are really due to the use of plien for ME. aflien, to apply. =F. plier,
‘to fold, plait, ply, bend, bow, turne ;’ Cot.—L. plicare, to fold.
Gk. mAexew, to weave; Russ. pleste, to plait, wind; ἃ. flechien,
strong verb, to braid, plait, twist, entwine. ΑἹ] from4/PLEK, to
weave, plait. Der. pli-able, spelt plyable in Fabyan’s Chron. b. i,
c. 147, ed. Ellis, p. 133, 1. 31, from F. pliable, ‘ pliable,’ Cot.; pliabl-y,
pliabili-ty, pliable-ness ; pli-ant, Oth. i. 3. 151, from F. pliant, pres. part.
of plier ; pliant-ly, pliant-ness or plianc-y ; pli-ers or ply-ers, pincers for
bending wire. From L, plicare we also have ap-ply, im-ply, re-ply ;
accom-plice, ap-plic-at-ion, com-plic-ate, com-plex, ex-plic-ate, ex-plic-it,
im-plic-ate, im-pli-cit, in-ex-plic-abie, per-plex ; also de-ploy, dis-play,
em-ploy. Also sim-ple, sim-plic-ity, sim-pli-fy; dou-ble, du-plic-ity,
du-plic-ate ; tri-ple, tri-plet, tre-ble; quadru-ple, multi-ple, multi-ply,
&c. Also plait, pleach, pleat, plight (2), splay, sup-ple, sup-plic-ate,
sup-pli-ant, &c. And see flax. See also Apply.
PNEUMATIC, relating to air. (L.—Gk.) Bacon speaks of
‘ pneumaticall substance in some bodies;’ Nat. Hist. § 842.—L.
pneumaticus. = Gk. πνευματικός, belonging to wind, breath, or air. —
Gk. mvevpar-, stem of πνεῦμα, wind, air.—Gk. πνέειν, to blow,
breathe ; for πνέβειν (base mvev-). See Neesing. Der. pueumatic-
al, -al-ly ; pneumatic-s. And see pneumonia.
PNEUMONIA, inflammation of the lungs. (Gk.) Modern.
Todd adds to Johnson only the word ‘ pnewmonicks, medicines for
diseases of the lungs;’ but omits pxewmonia. The o is short.—Gk.
πνευμονία, a disease of the lungs. Gk. πνευμον-, stem of πνεύμων
(also πλεύμων), a lung. —Gk. mvéew, to breathe. See Pneumatic
and Pulmonary. Der. pneumon-ic.
POACH (1), to dress eggs. (F.—OLow G.) Formerly poche.
‘Egges well poched are better than roasted. They be moste hole-
some whan they be pocked ;’ Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. ii,
c.17. Spelt potchin Palsgrave; Levins ; Bacon, Nat. Hist. ὃ 53 ; and
in Cotgrave. =F. pocher ; Cotgrave gives ‘ Poché, poched, thrust or
digged out with the fingers; oeuf poché, a potched egge.’ Here two
verbs have been confused; for the former sense see Poach (2).
B. Littré unhesitatingly derives pocher from F. poche, a pouch,
pocket ; and Scheler explains that ‘a poached egg’ means ‘an egg
dressed in such a manner as to keep the yolk in a rounded form,’
and that the sense rests upon that of ‘pouch.’ In this view, it is, in
fact, ‘a pouched egg.’ Hatzfeld explains it still more simply by
supposing that the egg is likened to a pouch, because the art is to
dress it in such a way as not to let the yolk escape. Cf. ‘eyron en
poche,’ i.e. eggs in pouch; Two Cookery Books, ed. T. Austin,
p- 24. See Pouch.
POACH (2), to intrude on another's preserves, for the purpose
of stealing game. (F.—OLow G.) ‘ His greatest fault is, he hunts too
much in the purlieus. Would he would leave off poaching !’ Beaum.
and Fletcher, Philaster, iv. 1 (Thrasiline). =F. pocher; ‘ pocher le
labeur d’autruy, to poch into, or incroach upon, another man’s im-
ploiment, practise, or trade;’ Cot. B. There is here some
difficulty in assigning the right sense to F. pocher. Cotgrave gives
it only as meaning ‘to thrust, or dig at with the fingers ;’ perhaps
from Low G. poken, to thrust into; see Poke (2). Cf. prov. E.
poach, to tread into holes. y. The MF. pocher is also spelt poucher,
as if from pouce, the thumb; see Littré. Cf. Picard pocher, ‘ tater
un fruit avec le pouce ;’ peucher, ‘ presser avec le pouce;’ Corblet ;
perhaps from L. pollicem, acc. of pollex, the thumb; cf. OF. pochier,
poucier, the thumb, from the L. adj. pollicaris. Der. poach-er.
POCK, a small pustule. (E.) We generally speak of ‘ the small
pox ;’ but the spelling pox is absurd, since it stands for pocks, the
pl. of pock, a word seldom used in the singular. [We might as well
write sox asthe pl. of sock; indeed, I have seen that spelling used
for abbreviation.] The word pock is preserved in the adj. pocky,
Hamlet, ν. 1. 181. The term small pox in Beaum. and Fletcher,
Fair Maid of the Inn, ii. 2 (Clown), is spelt pocks in the old edition,
according to Richardson. Cotgrave explains F. morbille by ‘ the
small pox,’ but in Sherwood’s Index it is ‘the small pockes ;’ and
in fact, the spelling pocks is extremely common. The pl. was once
dissyllabic. Fabyan has: ‘he was vysyted with the sykenesse of
pockys;’ vol. ii. an. 1463, ed. Ellis, p. 653. ME. pokke, pl. pokkes,
P. Plowman, B. xx. 97. AS. poc, pocec,a pustule. ‘ Gif poc sy on
éagan’=if there be a pustule on the eye; A.S. Leechdoms, ed.
Cockayne, iii. 4. The nom. pl. is poccas; Voc. 520. 25.4+EFries.
pok, pokke; Du. pok; G. pocke,a pock. Perhaps related to Poke (1),
with the notion of ‘bag.’ @[ Macbain derives Gael. bucaid, a pustule,
POCKET
from Brittonic L. buccatus, from L. bucca, the puffed cheek. If
this be so, it is unconnected with E. pock. Der. pox (= pocks) ;
pock-y.
POCKET, a small pouch. (F.—Teut.) ME. poket, Prompt.
Parv. ‘Cered pokets’=small waxed bags; Chaucer, C. T. 16276
(G 808). From North F. (Norm. dial.) *poguette, variant of
pouquette, a little bag; also in the form pouquet, m.; Moisy. Métivier
gives the modern Guernsey form as pougquette, dimin. of pouque, a
sack or pouch. He cites a Norman proverb: ‘Quant il pleut le
jour Saint Marc, Il ne faut ni pougue ni sac’=when it rains on St.
Mark’s day (April 25), one wants neither poke nor bag. It is there-
fore a dimin. of Ὁ. North F. pogue, Parisian F. poche.—Icel. poki, a
bag; MDu. poke, a bag, Hexham; see Pouch, Poke (1). Der.
pocket, verb, Temp. ii. τ. 67; pocket-book, pocket-money.
POD, a husk, a covering of the seed of plants. (E.) ‘ Pod, the
husk of any pulse;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Perhaps it merely meant
‘bag ;’ being related to pad, a cushion, i.e. a stuffed bag, and to
pudding, of which the old meaning was ‘sausage,’ i.e. stuffed skin.
B. The nearest word, in form, is MDu. puden, pl. ‘huskes, pilles, or
shales,’ i.e. shells. Cf. also AS. puduc, a wen (Toller); Westphal.
puddek, a lump, a pudding ; Low G. puddig, thick, E. dial. poddy.
Der. fod-ware, plants having pods; R. Scot, Disc. of Witchcraft,
b. xii, c. 6. See Pudding.
POEM, a composition in verse. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Hamlet, ii.
2. 419.—F. poéme, ‘a poeme;’ Cot.—L. poéma.—Gk. ποίημα, a
work, piece of workmanship, composition, poem. - ΟΚ. ποιεῖν, to
make; see Poet.
POESY, poetry,a poem. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. poesie, Gower,
C.A, il. 36, bk. iv. 1038. — MF, poésie, ‘ poesie ;᾿ Cot.— L. poésin, ace.
of poésis, poetry. — Gk. ποίησις, a making, poetic faculty, poem.—Gk.
ποιεῖν, to make; see Poet. Der. Hence ‘a posy on a ring,’ Hamlet,
ili, 2. 162, because such mottoes were commonly in verse ; see ex-
amples in Chambers, Book of Days, i. 221. Posy stands for poesy, by
contraction, See Posy.
POET, a composer in verse. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. poete, Wy-
clif, Deeds [Acts], xvii. 28; Gower, C. A. iii. 374, note; bk. vili.
2942*.—F. poéte, ‘a poet, maker;’ Cot.—L. poéta.—Gk. ποιητής, a
maker, composer, versifier; formed with suffix -τῆς (Idg. -ta-) de-
noting the agent, from ποιεῖν, to make. Der. poet-ic, Gk. ποιητικός ;
poetic-al, As You Like It, iii. 3. 16; poetic-al-ly; poet-ize, a coined
word. Also foet-aster, in Ben Jonson, as the name of a drama.
answering to a L. form *foé/aster, formed from poét-a with the
double suffix -as-ter, with which cf. MF. poét-astre, ‘an ignorant
poet,’ Cot. Also poet-ess, North’s Plutarch, pt. ii. p. 25 (R.), formed
with F. suffix -ess(e} = L. -issa=Gk. -taaa. Also poet-r-y, ME. poetrye,
Prompt. Parv., from MF. poéterie, ‘ poetry,’ Cot. From the same
Gk. verb, onomato-peia, pharmaco-peia.
POIGNANT, stinging, sharp, pungent. (F.—L.) ME. poinant,
Chaucer, C. T. Pers. Tale, Group I, 130; now conformed to the F.
spelling. Ἐς poignant, ‘ pricking, stinging,’ Cot.; pres. part. of F.
poindre, to prick. =—L,. pungere (pt. t. pu-pug-i),to prick ; base PEUG.
See Pungent, Point. Der. poignant-ly, poignanc-y. Doublet,
pungent.
POINT, (1) a dot, prick; (2) a sharp end. (F.—L.) 1. ME.
point, Ancren Riwle, p. 178, 1. 7.—F. point (poinct in Cotgrave), ‘a
point, a prick, a centre;’ Cot.=—L. punctum, a point; orig. neut. of
pp. of pungere, to prick, pt. t. pupugii See Pungent. 2.
ME. point, Chaucer, Good Women, 1795.—F. pointe, MF.
poincte, ‘the point of a weapon;’ Cot.—L. puncta, fem. of
pp. of pungere. The two forms are confused in E. Der. point,
verb, ME. pointen, P. Plowman, C. ix. 298; point-ed, point-ed-ly,
point-ed-ness ; point-er, a dog that points; point-ers, pl., the stars that
point to the pole, Greene, Looking-glass for London, ed. Collins,
lii. 1. 67; point-ing ; point-less ; point-s-man, a man who attends to the
points onarailway. Also point-device, L. L. L. v. 1. 21, shortened form
of the phrase at point device=with great nicety or exactitude, as:
‘With limes [limbs] wrought at poynt-devys ;’ Rom. of the Rose,
1. 830; a translation of OF. ἃ point devis, according to a point [of
exactitude] that is devised or imagined, i.e. in the best way imagin-
able. (The OF. a point devis does not appear, but see a point in the
Supp. to Godefroy.) Also point-blank, with a certain aim, so as not
to miss the centre, which was a blank or white spot in the old butts
at which archers aimed ; Merry Wives, iii. 2. 34.
POISE, to balance, weigh. (F.—L.) ME. poisen, peisen, to
weigh, P. Plowman, Bb. v. 217 (and various readings). —OF. poiser
(Supp. to Godefroy, s.v. peser), later peser, ‘to peise, poise, weigh ;’
Cot. (Cf. OF. pois, peis, a weight; now spelt poids, by confusion
with L. fondus, from which it is not derived.] —L. pensdre, to weigh,
weigh out.—L. pensum, a portion weighed out as a task for spinners,
atask; Late L. pensum, pensa, a portion, a weight.—L. pensus, pp.
of pendere, to weigh, weigh out; allied to pendére, to hang; see
POLICE 461
Pendent, Pensive. Der. poise, sb., used in the sense of weight,
Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. ii. end of c. 33. Also avoir-du-pois,
-v. The form peise is from AF. peiser= OF. poiser.
POISON, a deadly draught. (F.—L.) Merely ‘a potion;’ the
bad sense is unoriginal. In early use; spelt poyson, Rob. of Glouc.
p- 122, 1. 2605 ; puisun, Hali Meidenhad, ed. Cockayne, p. 33, 1. τό.
=F. potson, ‘poison;”’ Cot.=—L. potidnem, acc. of polio, a drink,
draught, esp. a poisonous draught.—L. pdtare, to drink; podtus,
drunken. B. Potus is formed with Idg. suffix -to- from pa-, a grade
of 4/P0, to drink; cf. Skt. pa, to drink; Gk. πό-σις, drink, πῶ-μα,
drink. Brugmann, i. § 172. Der. poison, verb, ME. poisonen, K.
Alisaunder, 600; poison-er, poison-ous, poison-ous-ly, -ness. Doublet,
otion.
POITREL, PEITREL, armour for the breast of a horse.
(F.—L.) Poytreil (Palsgrave); also pewtrel in Levins. (ME.
peitrel, Chaucer, C. T. 16032 (Ὁ 564).]—OF. fottral, MF. poictral,
poictrail, ‘a petrel for a horse ;’ Cot.—L. pectorile, belonging to the
breast ; neut. of pectoralis. See Pectoral. @ The form peitrel is
from AF. peitrel, Gaimar, 6385.
POKE (1), a bag, pouch. (Scand.) ‘Two pigges in a poke’=
two pigs in a bag, Chaucer, C. T. 4276 (A 4278). Havelok, 555.
[Cf. Irish ρος, ἃ bag; Gael. poca, a bag; from E. or Scand.] Prob.
from Icel. poki, a bag; cf. MDu. poke, ‘a poke, sack,’ Hexham.
The relationship to AS. poha, pohha, a bag, is not clear. Der.
pock-et. Doublet, pouch.
POKE (2), to thrust or push, esp. with something pointed. (E.)
ME. poken, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 4167 (A 4169); pukken, P. Plowman, B.
y. 620, 643. [Not in AS.; cf. Irish poc, a blow, a kick ; Corn. ρος,
a push, shove; Gael. puc, to push, justle; from E.j4-Du. poken; E.
Fries. pokern, frequent., to keep on poking about ; Low G. poken, to
thrust into; Pomeran. poken; G. fochen. Cf. MDu. poke, a dagger,
lit. ‘a thruster,’ Hexham. Teut. base *puk; perhaps imitative.
Der. poke, sb., pok-er ; and see puck-er.
POLACK, a Pole, an inhabitant of Poland. (Polish.) In Shak.
Hamlet, ii. 2. 63.—Pol. Polak, a Pole. Cf. Polska, Poland. = Pol.
pole; Russ. polé, a field, plain, flat country ; allied to E. field.
POLDAVY, POLEDAVY, a coarse cloth or canvas. (Breton).
See Ναγεβ, s.v. Polldavy; and Halliwell. Named from Bret. Powl-
david, a small village near Douarnenez, in Finistere.— Bret. poul,
pool ; David, David.
POLK (1), a stake, long thick rod. (L.) ME. pole, P. Plowman,
B. xviii. 52. The E. long o presupposes an AS. @, as in stone from
AS. stan, &c, Thus pole=AS. pal. We find ‘ Palus, pal’ in Voc.
334. 2; where the a is long in both words. Merely a borrowed word,
from 1,. palus, a stake. Cf. W. pawl, a pole. See Pale (1).
q Similarly the G. pfahl, a stake, is merely borrowed from the Latin.
Doublets, pale (1), pawl.
POLE (2), a pivot, either end of the axis of theearth. (F.—L.—
Gk.) ‘The north pole;’? L.L.L. v. 2.699. ME. pol, Chaucer, On
the Astrolabe, pt. i. § 14, 1.6.—MF. pol, ‘a pole; pol artique, the
north pole;’ Cot.—L. polum, acc. of polus,a pole.—Gk. πόλος, a
pivot, hinge, axis, pole. — Gk. πέλειν, to be in motion ; the poles being
the points of the axis round which motion takes place. Allied to
Russ. koleso, a wheel, (4/QEL). Brugmann, i. § 652. Der. pol-ar,
Milton, P. L. ν. 269, from L, polaris; hence folar-i-ty, polar-ize,
polar-iz-at-ion.
POLE-AXE, akind of ax. (E.; also L. and E.) Spelt polaxe in
Palsgrave. ME. pollax, Chaucer, C. T. 2546 (A 2544); Rich. Coer
de Lion, 6870. B. Axe (more correctly ax) is from AS. #x ; see Ax.
y. The prefix has changed ; orig. poll-ax, a weapon for striking one on
the poll or head. But later altered to fole-ax, and in the cognate
Westphal. 7dl-exe, it is clearly Westphal. ¢a/,a pole; denoting an
ax fastened to a pole. The Low G. follexe (as if from folle, the poll,
the head) is also spelt bollexe, which seems to represent the obs.
E. bole-ax (N. E.D.), Icel. boloxi, from the bole of a tree. See Poll.
POLE-CAT, a kind of weasel which emits a disagreeable odour.
(Hybrid; F.—L. and E.) ME. polcat, Chaucer, C. T. 12789
(C 855); also pulkat, Voc. 601. 13. For the latter syllable, see Cat.
The former syllable, ME. pol-, pul-, represents the OF. pole, poule, a
hen ; the form pole occurs in OF, poletier, variant of pouletier, a seller
of poultry; and the mod. E. poul-try is sounded with the poul-=
pole- in pole-cat. The pole-cat is well known as a chicken-thief; cf. the
quotation from Chaucer above. See further under Poult.
POLEMICAL, warlike, controversial. (Gk.) In Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674. Formed with suffix -al (=L. dlis), from Gk.
πολεμικός, warlike. = Gk. πόλεμος, war. B. Formed with suffix -e-pos
(like av-e-pos = L. an-i-mus) from moA-; perhaps allied to L. pell-ere, to
drive. Der. polemic-al-ly; also polemic-s, from Gk. πολεμικ-ός.
POLICE, the regulation of a country with respect to the preser-
vation of order; hence, the civil officers for preserving order. (F.—
L.-—Gk.) The expression the police signifies the folice-force, i.e.
462 POLICY
the force required for maintaining police, or public order. The sb, is
in Todd’s Johnson; but we already find the expression ‘so well a
policed [regulated] kingdome’ in Howell, Instructions for Foreign
Travel, ed. Arber, p. 78, last line but one; A.D. 1642.—F. police,
‘policy, politick regiment, civill government ;’ Cot.—L, politia.—
Gk. πολιτεία, citizenship, polity, condition of a state. —Gk. πολίτης,
a citizen, — Gk. πολι-, for πόλις, a city ; with suffix -7ys. B. Related
to Gk. woA-vs, much; Skt. puri-, a town, From the same root as
Plenary, With Skt. puri-, cf. Indian ~poor in Bhurt-poor, Futteh-
poor, &c. And sec Full. Der. folic-y, ME. police, Chaucer, C. ils
12534 (C 600), answering to OF. policie (< L. politia), a learned
form of F. folice. Also polity, in Hooker, Eccl. Polity, from L.
folitia; polil-ic, spelt politick in Minsheu, from L. politicus, Gks
πολιτικός ; polit-ic-ly; folitic-s, spelt politickes in Minsheu ; polit-ic-al,
Minsheu; polit-ic-al-ly ; polit-tc-i-an, used as adj. in Milton, Samson,
1195. And see acro-polis, metro-polis, cosmo-polite,
POLICY, a warrant for money in the public funds, a writing con-
taining a contract of insurance, (F.—Late L.—Gk.) [Quite distinct
from policy as connected with Police, q.y.] ‘A policy of insurance
is a contract between A and B;’ Blackstone, And see Phillips’
Dict., cd. 1706. The form is prob, due to confusion with folicy in
the other sense, or the final syllable may have been due to the Span.
or Ital. form.—F. police, a policy; police d’assurance, policy of in-
surance; Hamilton. Cf. Span. poliza, a written order to receive a
sum of money; poliza de seguro, a policy of insurance; MItal. poliza,
a schedule (Florio); Ital. polizza, a bill, ticket, inyoice. B, The
Port. form is apélice, a government security (Vieyra) ; MSpan. poliga
(Minsheu). These forms (and MItal. péliza, polisa) prob. represent
Late L. afdédissa, apédixa, ‘cautio de sumpta pecunia;’ Ducange,
Cf. Port. apodixe, a plain proof. All from Late Gk. ἀπόδειξις, a
showing forth, a proof.—Gk. ἀποδείκνυμι, I point out.—Gk. ἀπό,
from, forth ; δείκνυμι, 1 show. (See Korting, § 629..}. 41 This is to
be preferred to the solution in Diez, who refers it to Late L. polypty-
chum, a register; Gk. πολύπτυχον, a piece of writing in many folds,
a long register; from πολύ-, much, and mruxo-, for πτύξ, a fold, leaf,
πτύσσειν, to fold. See Notes on E. Etym., p. 220.
POLISH, to make smooth, glossy, or elegant. (F.—L.) ME.
polischen, Chaucer, C. T. 9456 (E 1582); sometimes contracted to
polscken, as in P. Plowman, B, v. 482. ‘A marble stone polyshed ;’
Caxton, Reynard the Fox, ed. Arber, p. 11.—F, poliss-, stem of
polissant, pres. part. of polir, to polish. L. polire, to polish, to make
smooth. Der, polish-er; also polite, in Phillips, ed. 1706, from L.
politus, pp. of polire; polite-ly, polite-ness.
POLKA, a dance, (Polish.) Said to have been first danced by
a Bohemian peasant-girl in 1831, and to have been named folka at
Prague in 1835.—Pol. Polka, a Polish woman. Similarly, another
dance is called the Polonaise, lit. Polish woman ;
Crocovienne, lit. woman of Cracow; another the Mazurka, q.v.
POLL, the head, esp. the back of it, a register of heads or persons,
the voting at an election. (OQLow G.) ΑἹ] the meanings are
extended from foll, the rounded part of the head; hence, a head,
person, &c. ME, fol, pl. polles. ‘Pol bi pol’=head by head,
separately, P. Plowman, B. xi. 57. ‘Bi pate ant by polle’=by pate
and poll; Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 237, in a MS, of the reign of
Edw. 11. [Not in AS.] An OLow ἃ. word, found in MDu, polle,
pol, or bol, ‘the head or the pate,’ Hexham ; also in Low G. polle, the
head, Bremen Worterbuch; Swed. dial. pul] (Reitz), Dan. puld (for
pull), the crown of the head. Cf. EFries. pol, round, full, fleshy.
Der. poll, verb, to cut off the hair, Num, i. 2, iii. 47; poll-tax, a tax
by the head, i.e. on each person. Also pole-axe, formerly pollax,
Chaucer, C. T. 2546, OLow G, pollexe, Bremen Worterbuch, from
OLow (ἃ, folle, the poll, head, and exe, an ax (later altered to
pole, with reference to the handle); hardly the same as Icel. boloxi,
which is rather an ax for lopping branches, from bolr, bulr, the
trunk of atree. Also foll-ard, used as a sb. in Bacon, Nat. Hist.
§ 424, and in Sir T. Browne, Cyrus Garden, ς. iii. § 13, in which
the use of the suffix -ard gives the sense of ‘round-headed ;” it is,
etymologically, the same as in drunk-ard, i.e, Ἐς -ard, from OHG.
-hart, hard, And see Pole-axe,
POLLEN, the powder on the anthers of flowers, (L.) In John-
son; it is also used for fine flour. L. follen, pollis, fine flour. Con-
nected with Gk. πάλη, fine sifted meal; L. pal-ea, straw ; pul-uis, dust.
POLLOCK, POLLACK, a kind of codfish, the whiting. (E.)
In Carew (Survey of Cornwall) ; Todd’s Johnson, Cf. Gael. pollag,
a kind of fish, the gwyniad (i.e. whiting); Irish pullog, a pollock ;
borrowed from E. Prob. from poll, the head (above); cf, E. poll-ard,
which is a name of the chub, (Doubttful.)
POLLUTEH, to defile, taint, corrupt. (L.). In Shak. Lucrece,
854, 1063, 1726. Milton has pollute as a pp., Hymn on Christ’s
Nativity, 41; but we already find poluted in Skelton, Ware the Hauke,
44, 161, 1743 pollutyd in the Coventry Mysteries, p. 1543; and folut
another the |,
' Gk. ending “ποὺς as if it were -7os.
POLYTHEISM
in Chaucer, tr, of Boethius, bk. i. pr. 4. 180.=L. polliitus, pp. of
polluere, to defile. L. pol-, a prefix, of which the older form was
por- or port-, towards; and *Juere, to defile (distinct from Juere, to
wash), the origin of the sb. μᾶς, filth. Der. pollut-ion, Lucrece,
1157, from L. acc, pollationem.
POLO, a game; hockey on horseback, (Balti.) ‘It comes from
Balti; polo being properly, in the language of that region, the ball
used in the game ;’ Yule, Balti is in the high valley of the Indus.
POLONWY, a kind ofsansage. (Ital.) In Thackeray, Newcomes,
xviii. § 1, A corruption for Bologna sausage ; which city is ‘famous
for sausages;’ Evelyn’s Diary, May 21, 1645. So also ‘ Bologna
sausages;’ Chapman, The Ball, Act iii. And Bolony, Bologna;
Webbe’s Trav., ed, Arber, p. 30. See Hotten’s Slang Dict.
POLTROON, a dastard, coward, lazy fellow. (F.—Ital.—L.)
In Shak. 3 Hen. VI, 1. 1. 62. Earlier, spelt pultrowne, in Skelton,
The Douty Duke of Albany, 1. 170.—F. poltron, ‘a knave, rascall,
yarlet, scowndrell, dastard, sluggard ;’ Cot.—TJtal. pol/rone, ‘a pol-
troon, an idle fellow, a lazy companion, a dastard;’ Torriano. = Ital.
poliro, ‘a colt,,,..alsoa bed or a couch;’ Florio. He also gives
foltrare, poltrire, poltreggiare, poltroneggiare, ‘to play the coward,
to loll or wallowe in idlenes, to lie idlie a bed.’ B. The old sense is
clearly a sluggard, one who lies in bed; from foltro, a bed, couch.
Poltro orig. meant ‘a colt;’ and afterwards a bedstead; cf. MF.
poutre, ‘a filly,’ Cot.; F. powtre, a beam, from the support it gives
(like E. clothes-horse),—Late L. pullitrum, acc. of pullitrus, a colt
(Ducange). =L. pullus, a colt, a foal; see Foal. For the change of
sense, cf. pulley, chevron. Der. poliroon-er-y, a clumsy word; it
should rather be poltroon-y=F, poltronie, ‘ knavery,’ Cot.
POLY.-, many; prefix, (L.—Gk.) L. poly-, for Gk. modu-, from
πολύ-, for πολύς, much, Cognate with Skt. puru-, much; and closely
allied to Gk. πλέως, full, and E. full; see Full.
POLYANTHUS, a kind of flower. (L.—Gk.) A kind of
primrose bearing many flowers; lit. ‘ many-flowered.’ In Thomson,
Spring, 532. A Latinized form of Gk. πολύανθος, more commonly
πολυανθήῆς, many-flowered, - Οἷς. moAv-, many; and ἄνθος, a flower.
See Poly- and Anther,
POLYGAMY, marriage with more than one wife. (F.—L.—
Gk,) Polygamie in Minsheu, ed. 1627.—F. polygamie, ‘ poligamy,
the having of many wives;’ Cot.<J.. folygamia. = Gk. πολυγαμία,
a marrying of many wiyes,=—Gk. πολυ-, much, many; and -yapia, a
marrying, from γάμος, marriage, See Poly- and Bigamy. Der.
polygam-ous, polygam-ist,
POLY GLOT, written in or speaking many languages. (Gk.)
‘Howell applies it to a man; ‘A polyglot, or linguist;’ Familiar
Letters, b. iii, let. 8, near the end. Coined from poly-=Gk. πολυ-,
many ; and γλῶττα -- γλῶσσα, the tongue. See Poly- and Glottis.
POLYGON, a plane figure having many angles. (L.—Gk.)
| Spelt polygone in Blount’s Gloss., ed, 1674.—L. golyganum (White).
| —Gk., πολύγωνον, a polygon.—Gk. modv-,
many; and γων-ία, a
corner, angle, allied to γόνυ, the knee; see Poly- and Knee. Der.
polygon-al, polygon-ous. We also find polygon-y, knot-grass, Spenser,
F. Q, iii. 5. 32, from L. polygonium or polygonon, Gk. πολύγονον, knot-
grass, so called from its many bends or knots.
POLYHEDRON, a solid body with numerous sides. (Gk.)
Mathematical; coined from foly-=Gk. πολύ-, many; and -ἕδρον,
from ἕδρα, a base, from ἕδ-, cognate with E. st. See Poly- and
Sit. Der. polyhedr-al.
POLYNOMIAL, an algebraical quantity having many terms.
(Hybrid; F,—L. and Gk.) Mathematical; an ill-formed word, due
to the use of binomial ; from F. polynéme, bindme.— Gk. moAv-, many ;
and 1,. ném-en, a name. It should rather have been folyndminal,
and even then would be a hybrid word. See Poly- and Binomial.
POLYPUS, an animal with many feet ; &c, (L.—Gk.) The
pl. polypi is in Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. ix. c. 30, near beginning. =
L. polypus (gen. sing. and nom. pl. polypi), a polypus. = Gk. πολύπος,
occasional form of πολύπους, lit. many-footed.—Gk. moAv-, many ;
and ποῦς, cognate with E. foot. See Poly- and Foot. 4 Cf. F.
polype, Ital, and Span. podipo; all false forms, due to treating the
Cf. poly-podi-um, a fern.
POLYSYLLABLE, a word of many syllables. (Gk.). In
Blount’s Gloss,, ed, 1674. A coined word; ultimately of Gk.
origin. The spelling syllable is due to French. See Poly- and
Syllable. Der. polysyllab-ic, from L. folysyllabus= Gk. πολυσύλ-
AaBos, having many syllables.
POLYTECHNIC, concerning manyarts. (F.—Gk.) From F.
polytechnique (1705). “- Gk. πολυ-, many; and τεχνικ-ός, belonging to
the arts, from τέχνη, art; see Technical.
POLYTHEISM, the doctrine of a plurality of gods. (Gk.)
In Johnson’s Dict. Coined from Gk. roAv-, much, many ; and θε-ός,
a god; with suffix -ism=Gk. τισμος, See Poly- and Theism.
Der. polythe-ist, polythe-ist-ic-al.
POMADE, POMMADE
POMADE, POMIMADE, a composition for dressing the
hair, (F,—Ital.—L.) Properly with two m’s. ‘ Pommade, an oynt-
ment used by ladies;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—F, pommade,
“pomatum, or pomata, an ointment ;’ Cot. So called because orig.
made with apples; ef. F. pomme, an apple. =Ital. pomada, pomata,
“a pomado to supple ones lips, lip-salue ;’ Florio. Formed with
participial suffix -a¢a from pom-o, an apple.—L. pomum, an apple,
the fruit of a tree. Doublet, pomatum, Ben Jonson, Sejanns, il. 1,
which is a Latinized form. And see pome-granate, pomm-el.
POMANDER, a globe-shaped box for holding perfumes.
(F.—L, and Span.—Arab.) Spelt pomaunder, Skelton, Garl. of
Laurel, 1027; ‘Pommaundre, to smell to;’ Palsgrave. For po-
mamber; spelt pomeamber in Bullein, Dial. against Fever (1578) ;
Ῥ. 49, 1. 25, but also pomeander, p. 53, 1. 29. ME. pomum ambre;
Medical Workes of 14th Cent., ed. Henslow, p. 122.—AF. pomme
ambre, for OF. pomme d’ambre, ‘apple of amber;’ see my Notes on
E. Etym., p, 223. See Pommel and Amber.
POMEGRANATE, a kind of fruit. (F.—L.) ‘ Of pomegran-
ates ;’ Sir T, Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. ii. c, 7. ME. pome-garnade,
Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 15; pomgarnet, ‘lrevisa, 1. 107, ]. 7."
OF. pome grenate, which was turned into pome de grenate by some
confusion or misunderstanding of the sense. In Li Contes del Graal,
a poem of the 12th century, we find ‘ Dates, figues, et noiz mugates,
Girofle et pomes de grenates ;’ see Bartsch, Chrestomathie Frangaise,
col. 172, ll, 4, 5. Cf. Ital. pomo granato, a pomegranate ; Florio. =
L. pomum, an apple; and grandtum, used also alone to signify a
pomegranate. B. Granaium is neut. from granftus, filled with
grains or seeds; the fruit abounding in hard seeds. Granatus is
formed, with pp. suffix -@us, from graz-um, a grain, seed. See
Grain.
POMMEL, a knob, the knob on a sword-hilt, a projection on
a saddle-bow. (F.—L.) ME. pomel, a boss; P. Plowman’s Crede,
1. 562.—OF. pomel (Burguy), later pommeau, ‘the pommell οἵ ἃ
sword, &c.;’ Cot. Lit. ‘small apple.’ Formed with dim. suffix -el
(L, -ellus) from pomum, an apple. Der. pommel, verb, to beat with
the handle of a sword or any blunt instrument or with the fists. Cf.
‘(He]... all too poumleed the same with his handes ;’ Udall, tr. of
Erasmus’s Apophthegmes, Aug. Cesar, § 7.
POMP, great display, ostentation. (F.-L.—Gk.) ME. pompe,
in Chaucer, C. T., A 525.—F. pompe, ‘pomp ;’ Cot.—L. pompa, a
solemn procession, pomp.—Gk, πομπή, 8. sending, escorting, solemn
procession,—Gk. πέμπειν, to send. Der. pomp-ous, in Palsgrave,
from F. pompeux, L. pompdsus, full of pomp; pompous-ly, -ness;
pomp-os-i-ly.
POMPELMOOSE, a shaddock. (Du,) In Stedman’s Surinam,
i, 22.— Du. pampelmoes, a shaddock (Calisch).
PONCHO, a sort of cloak, resembling a narrow blanket with
a slit in the middle for the head to go through, (Span. —Arauean.)
The form poncho is Spanish; but it is adapted from an Araucan
name poxtho or poncho; D, D. Granada, Vocab, of La Plata words
(Montevideo, 1890). The Araucans are the Indians in the S. of
Chili, (Notes on Eng. Etym,, p. 224.)
POND, a pool of water, (E.) ME. pond, ponde, Trevisa, i. 69,
1. 4; pl. pondus, id. i. 61,1.5. Pond is a pool of standing water ;
strictly, one caused by damming water up. It is a variant of pound,
an inclosure, Thus the Irish pont (borrowed from E,) means both
‘a pound for cattle’ and ‘a pond,’ See Pound (2).
PONDER, to weigh in the mind, consider, (L.) _ ‘In balance of
unegall [unequal]-weight he [Love] pondereth by aime ;’ Surrey,
Description of the Fickle Affections, 1. 8; in Tottell’s Miscellany,
1557, ed. Arber, p, 6; and see Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 132, 1. 1,
Lydgate has ponder, imp, s,, in Assembly of Gods, 1. 134.—L.
ponderare, to weigh.=L. ponder-, decl. base of pondus,a weight ; see
Pound (1). Der. ponxder-er. From the stem ponder- we also have
ponder-ous, Sir T. Elyot, The Goyernour,-b. i. c. 1, from F. pon-
dereux, L. ponderdsus; ponder-ous-ly, -ness; ponderos-i-ty, from F.
ponderosité, ‘ ponderosity,’ Cot., from L, acc. ponderdsitatem. Also
ponder-able, in Sir Τὶ Browne, Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. iii. c. 27, part 11, from
L, ponderabilis, that can be weighed ; ponderabil-i-ty ; im-ponderable.
PONENT, westem. (F,—L.) In Levins; and in Milton, P. L,
x. 704.—F. ponent, ‘the west ;’ Cot.—L. panent-, stem of pres, part.
of ponere, to lay, abate; with reference to sunset. See Position.
PONIARD, a small dagger. (F.—L, ; with G. suffix.) In Hamlet,
v. 2. 157.—F, poignard, ‘a poinadoe, or poniard;’ Cot. Formed,
with suffix -ard<OHG. hart (lit, hard), from F. joing, the fist.
Similarly, Ital, pugnale, a poniard, is from pugno, the fist. Cf. also
Span. pufio, fist, handful, hilt, pufal, a poniard, pujiada, a blow
with the fist, B. The F, poing, Ital. pugno, Span. puro, are from
L. pugnus, the fist ; see Pugnacious.
PONTIFF, a Roman bigh-priest, the Pope. (F.—L.) The pl.
pontifes is in Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 771.—F. ponti/, pontife, ‘a chief
POPE
bishop ;’ Cot.—L. pontificem, ace. of pontifex, pontufex, a Roman
high-priest ; in eccl. Lat., a bishop.=L. ponti-, decl. stem of pons,
orig. a path, way, later a bridge ; and-fex (stem -ic-), a maker, from
facere, to make. Cf. Gk, πόντος, the sea. Brugmann, i. § 140.
4 The reason for the name is not known; the lit. sense is ‘ path-
maker ;’ hence, perhaps, one who leads to the temple, or leads the
way in a procession. Der. pontific-al, in Levins, from F. pontifical,
L. pontificdlis, from the stem pontific- 3 pontific-ate, from Ἐς, pontificat,
‘a prelateship,’ Cot., from L. pontificatus,
PONTOON, a buoyant vessel, for the quick construction of
bridges. (F.—L.—C.) Formerly ponton. ‘Ponton, a floating
bridge;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.—F. ponton, ‘a wherry, or ferry-boat ;’
hence, a bridge of boats; Cot.—L. pontonem, acc, of ponto, a boat ;
hence, a bridge of boats, Of Celtic origin; see Punt,
PONY, a small horse. (F.—L.) In Johnson. Explained as ‘a
little Scotch horse’ in Boyer’s Dict., A.D. 1727 (Wedgwood). “ΟἿ,
poulenet, a little colt (Godefroy); dimin. of poulain, a colt. = Late L.
pullanus, a colt (Ducange).—L. pullus, a foal, The ὦ is lost before
n, as in Colney Hatch. Cf. Low], Sc. powney. See Foal.
POODLE, a fancy dog with curly hair (G.) One of the very
few G. words in English. Modern; not in Johnson. It occurs in
Miss Swanwick’s tr. of Goethe's Faust, 1864, p, 37.—G. pudel
(Goethe), a poodle; Low G. pudel, pudel-hund, so called (it may be
presumed) because he looks fat and clumsy on account of his thick
hair; allied to Low Ο. pudeln, to waddle, used of fat persons; cf.
Low G. pudel-dikk, unsteady on the feet, puddig, thick; Bremen
Worterbuch. Danneil gives Low G. puddel, a little dog just be-
ginning to walk. .
POOK, an interjection of disdain. (F.) Spelt puk/ Marston,
What You Will, A. ii. sc. 1. Adapted from MF. pouac, ‘ faugh!’
Cot. Cf Icel. pu, pooht Cf. puf. ‘ Puf, said the foxe;’ Caxton,
tr. of Reynard the Fox, ed. Arber, p. 59. 80. also buf! Chaucer,
C. T. 7516 (D 1934); baw! P. Plowman, 13. xi, 135. Due to blowing
away from one. See Puff.
POOL (1), a pond, small body of water. (E.) ME. fol, pool ;
dat. pole, Layamon, 21748; pl. poles, Havelok, 2101. AS. pol,
fElfred, tr. of Gregory’s Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 278, 1. 15.
[Irish poll, pull, a hole, pit, mire, dirt; Gael. poll, a hole, pit, mire,
bog, pond, pool; W. pwil, a pool; Corn. pol, a pool, pond, mire,
pit; Manx, poyl; Bret. poull; are all borrowed words,]+Du. poel,
a pool; G. pfukl; OHG,. pfuol. Teut. type *pdloz; ct. Lith. bala,
aswamp. Brugmann, i. § 567.
POOL (2), the receptacle for the stakes at cards. (F.—L.) For-
merly also spelt poule, as in Todd’s Johnson,—F. poule, (1) a hen,
(2) a pool, at various games; Hamilton. It seems to be so named,
because the stakes are regarded as eggs, to be gained from the hen.
= Late L, pulla, a hen (Ducange) ; fem, of pud/us, a young animal,
allied to Gk, πῶλος, and E. foal ; see Foal, Pony.
POOP, the stern of a ship; a deck above the ordinary deck in the
after-part of a ship. (F.—Ital.—L.) In Shak. 1 Hen. IV, iii. 3, 29.
Surrey (iy. 746) has poupe to translate L, puppi in Virgil, Ain. iv.
534. “5 Ἐς poupe, pouppe, ‘the poop or hinder part of a ship.’=Ital.
poppa, poop (Hatzfeld).—L. puppim, acc. of puppis, the hinder part
ofa ship, aship. Der. poop, verb, to strike a ship in the stern, to
sink it, Pericles, iv. 2, 25.
POOR, possessed of little, needy, weak. (F.—L.) In early use.
Also pover, as in Roy, Kede Me, ed. Arber, p. 76 (1528). ME.
poure (perhaps =poure), O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, 2nd Ser. p. 47,
1. 18; Ancren Riwle, p. 260, 1. 3.—OF. povre, poor; cf. F. dial.
poure (Berry). —L. pauperem, acc. of pauper, poor. B. L. pau-per
means £ proyided with little,’ or “ preparing little for oneself;’ from
pau-, little, few, as seen in L. pau-cus, Gk. wav-pos, E, féw ; and -per,
providing, connected with L. par-are, to provide, prepare. Der.
poor-ly, poor-ness, poor-house, -laws, -rate, -spirited ; poverty, q. Vv.
POP, to make a sharp, quick, sound; to thrust suddenly, move
quickly, dart. (E.) ‘ Popped in between th’ election and my hopes ;’
Hamlet, ν. 2.65. ‘A pops me out from 500 pound;’ K, John, i. 68.
“Τὸ poppe, coniectare;’ Levins. ‘I poppe, or stryke in-to a thyng 5”
Palsgrave. Chaucer has ‘A joly popper,’ i.e. thruster, dagger;
C. T. 3929 (A 3931). The word is of imitative origin; and allied
to ME, poupen, to make a loud sound, as in blowing a horn ; see
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 15405 (B 4589). Hence powpe in the sense of ¢ pop-
gun;’ Prompt. Parv. Cf. Puff. Der. pop, sb.
POPE, the fathcr of a church, the bishop of Rome. (L.)
ME. pope, Owl and Nightingale, 746. In Layamon, 14886, the
older version has the dat. gapen, where the latter version has pope.
These forms show that the word was not taken from the F. pape, but
from AS, papa (dat. papan), which was borrowed immediately from
the Latin. The AS. homily on the Birthday of S. Gregory (ed.
Elstob) begins with the words ‘Gregorius se halga papa’ = Gregory,
the holy pope, = L. papa.Gk, πάπα, πάππα, voc, of πάπας, πάππας,
463
464 POPINJAY
papa, father. See Papa. Der. pope-dom, AS. papedom, A.S. Chron.,
an. 1124; pop-ish, Titus Andron., v. 1. 76; pop-er-y.
POPINJAY, a parrot ; a mark like a parrot, put on a pole to be
shot at; a coxcomb. (F.—G. and L.; with modified suffix.) ME.
popingay, Chaucer, C. T. 13299, where the Ellesmere MS. has pape-
iay (=papejay); Six-text ed., Group B, 1559. The pl. papeiayes
occurs in Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 1465. Thus the # is ex-
crescent, as in other words before a j-sound; cf. messenger for
messager, passenger for passager, δῖς. -- AF. papeiay, Royal Wills, ed.
Nichols, p. 35 (1355); OF. papegai, papegay, ‘a parrot or popin-
jay; also a woodden parrat, . . whereat there is a generall shooting
once every year;’ Cot. Mod. F. papegai, papegaut; the last
spelling has a needless suffixed ¢, and is due to OF. papegau, found
in the 13th century (Littré). Cf. Span. papagayo (whence Arab.
babagha), Port. papagaio, Ital. papagallo, a parrot. B. It is clear
that we have here two distinct forms; (1) F. papegat, Span. papa-
gayo, papagaio, in which the base papa- is modified by the addition
of F. -gai, Span. -gayo, due to a popular etymology which regarded
the bird as chattering like the jay; and (2) OF. papegau, Ital.
papagallo, in which the bird is regarded as a kind of cock, L. gallus ;
and the latter form appears to be the older ; i.e. jay was substituted
for ‘cock,’ because the jay seemed to come nearer than the cock to
the nature of a parrot. y. I adopt the suggestion of Wedgwood,
that the syllables pa-pa- are imitative, and were suggested by the
Bavarian pappeln, pappelen, or pappern, to chatter, whence the sb.
pappel, a parrot, lit. a babbler ; Schmeller, i. 398, 399. δ. Bavar.
pappeln is cognate with E. Babble, q.v. Cf. bubblyjock (i.e. babble-
jack), the Lowland Scotch name for a turkey-cock ; so named from
the gobbling sound which it makes.
POPLAR, a kind of tall tree. (F.—L.) ME. poplere, Chaucer,
C. T. 2923 (A 2921); popler, Palladius on Husbandry, b. iii. 1. 194.
“ΟΕ. poplier (13th cent.), mod. F. pewplier, a poplar; Littré. Formed
with suffix -1er (L. -arius) from OF. *pople (not recorded), later form
peuple, ‘the poplar;’ Cot. Cf. prov. E. popple,a poplar; Ναγεβ, ed.
Halliwell. —L. papulum, acc. of populus,a poplar. Cf. OF. popelin,
poupelin, a poplar; Godefroy.
POPLIN, a fabric made of silk and worsted. (F.) Added by
Todd to Johnson’s Dict.—F. popeline, of which an older form was
papeline, first mentioned in A.D. 1667 (Littré). B. Origin un-
known ; it has been supposed to be connected with F. papal, papal,
because it may have been first made at Avignon, where there was
once a papal court, A.D. 1309-1408. The chronology does not bear
out thissuggestion. Cf. Span. popelens, populina, poplin. γ. The
spelling papeline separates it from Poppeling or Popperingen, near
Ypres, in W. Flanders ; with which some would connect it.
POPPY, the name of a flower with narcotic properties. (L.)
ME. popi (with one 2), Gower, C. A. ii. 102; bk. iv. 3c07. AS.
popig; ‘Papauer, popig,’ Voc. 134. 33; also popeg, Voc. 16. 17.
Merely borrowed from L. papauer,a poppy, by change of u (w) to g,
and loss of -er.
POPULACE, the common people. (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘And
calm the peers, and please the populace ;” Daniel, Civil Wars, b. vii.
st. 78.—F. populace, ‘the rascall people ;’ Cot.—Ital. popolazzo,
popolaccio, ‘the grosse, base, vile, common people; ’ Florio. Formed
with the depreciatory suffix -azzo, -accio, from Ital. popol-o, the
people. =—L. populum, ace. of populus, the people ; see People.
POPULAR, belonging to, or liked by the people. (F.—L.)
In Temp. i. 2. 92.—F. populaire, ‘ popular;’ Cot.—L. popularis,
adj., from populus, the people; see People. Der. popular-ly, -i-/y,
~ize.
POPULATE, to people. (L.) In Levins, ed.1570. ‘Great
shoales of people, which goe on to populate ;’ Bacon, Essay 58.—
Late L. populatus, pp. of populdre, to people ; (whereas the classical
L. popularit means to ravage, destroy).—L. populus, people; see
People. Der. popzulat-ion, in Bacon, Essay 29, 8 5, from Late L.
populationem, acc. of populdtio, a population (White). Also popul-
ous. Rich. H, v. 5. 3, from F. populeux, ‘ populous,’ Cot., which
from L. populdsus, full of people ; popul-ows-ly, -ness.
PORCELAIN, a fine kind of earthenware. (F.—Ital.—L.) In
Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, st. 29; spelt porcellan, Sir T. Herbert,
Travels, ed. 1665, pp. 391, 396; porcedlane, Hakluyt, Voy. ii. 1.
229, 1. 4; and see extract from Florio below. Porcelain was so
named from the resemblance of its finely polished surface to that of
the univalve shell of the same name, called in English the Venus’
shell; as applied to the shell, the name goes back to the 13th
century, when it occurs in the F. version of Marco Polo in place of
the Ital. name (Littré). Cotgrave gives porcelaine, pourcelaine, ‘ the
purple fish, also, the sea-snail, or Venus shell.’=Ital. porcellana,
“a purple fish, a kinde of fine earth called porcelane, whereof they
make fine China dishes, called porcellan dishes ;* Florio, ed. 1598.
B. Again, the shell derived its name from the curved shape of its
PORPHYRY
upper surface, which was thought to resemble the raised back of
a little hog. [It is very easy to make a toy-pig with a Venus’ shell
and some putty; and such toys are often for sale.]—Ital. porcelda,
‘a sow-pig, a porkelin ;’ porcello, ‘a yong hog, or pig, a porkelin;’
Florio. Dimin. of Ital. porco, a hog.—L. poreum, ace. of porcus,
a pig; see Pork.
PORCH, a portico, covered way or entrance. (F.—L.) ME.
porche, Rob. of Glouc., p. 271, 1. 5841.—F. porche, a porch. =L.
porticum, acc. of porticus, a gallery, arcade, porch; for the letter-
changes, see Brachet. Cf. E. perch, from F. perche, L. pertica.
B. Sometimes derived from porti-, for porta, a gate, door ; see Port
(3); but this is doubtful; see Walde. Doublet, portico.
PORCINE, relating to swine. (L.) In Todd’s Johnson, who
quotes an extract dated 1660.—L. porcinus, adj., formed from porcus,
a pig; see Pork.
PORCUPINE, a rodent quadruped, covered with spines or
quills. (F.—L.) a. In Shakespeare, old edd. have porpentine; a
spelling which also occurs in Ascham, Toxophilus, ed. Arber, p. 31.
Levins has porpin. Huloet has: ‘ Porpyn, beaste, havinge prickes
on his backe.’” ‘The Prompt. Parv. has: ‘ Poork-poynt, porpoynte,
perpoynt, beste, Histrix;’ p. 409. ‘Porkepyn, a beest, porc espin;’
Palsgrave. B. We thus see that the animal had two very similar
names, (1) porkepyn, shortly porpin, easily lengthened to porpint by
the usual excrescent ¢ after x, and finally altered to porpentine as a
by-form of porkepyn; and (2) pork-point, porpoint; the latter of
which forms would also readily yield porpentine. γ. We conclude
that porpentine is late; that porkpoint was little used, and simply
meant a ‘ pork’ or pig furnished with points or sharp quills; and
that the modem porcupine is due (by substitution of obscure u for
obscure e) to the ME. form porképyn, pronounced in three syllables,
and with they long. δ. The ME. porképynis obviously derived from
OF. pore espin, a word known to Palsgrave, A.D. 1530, but now
obsolete, and supplanted by porcepic, in the 13th century porc esti
(Littre), a form which is also given by Cotgrave, who has: ‘ Porc-
espi, a porcupine.’ e. Thus the OF. names for the animal were
also double; (1) porc-espi=porc-espic, the pig with spikes (see
Spike); and (2) porc-espin, the pig with spines. The English has
only to do with the latter, which, though obsolete in French, is pre-
served in Span. puerco espin, Port. porco espinho. ζ. Finally, the
Ε΄ porc is from L. porcus; and OF. espin is a by-form of OF. espine
(F. épine), from L. spina, a thorn, See Pork and Spine.
4 Holland, in his tr. of Pliny, b. viii. c. 35, has pork-pen, where
pen, i.e. quill, is an ingenious substitution for -epine.
PORE (1), a minute hole in the skin. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. pore,
Prompt. Parv. p. 409; Lanfranc, Cirurgie, p. 43, 1.11. The pl.
poorus (=pores) is in Trevisa, 1. 53.—F. pore, ‘a pore;’ Cot.=—L.
porum, acc. of porus, a pore. Gk. πόρος, a ford, passage, way, pore.
-+/PER, to fare; see Fare. Brugmann, i. ὃ 474. Der. por-ous,
from F. poreux, ‘pory,’ Cot. ; porous-ly, -ness ; por-os-i-ty, pori-form.
PORE (2), to look steadily, gaze long. (E.?) ME. poren,
Chaucer, C. T. 185, 5877, 16138 (A 185, D 295, G 670). Ap-
parently a native word; cf. prov. E. pore, to cram, to thrust, to
intrude; North Fries. porre, to stick, stir, provoke; Du. porren, to
poke, thrust; EFries. puren, porren, to stick, thrust, bore, stir, vex ;
Low G. purren, to poke about, clean out a hole; Norw. pora, to
finger, poke, stir, thrust; W. Flem. peuren, to poke after (De Bo) ;
Swed. dial. pora, pura, para, to work slowly and gradually, to do
anything slowly; Rietz. B. The idea seems to be that of poking
or thrusting about in a slow and toilsome way, as in the case of
clearing out a stopped-up hole; hence to pore over a job, to be a
long while about it. γ. We also find Gael. purr, to push, thrust,
drive, urge, Irish purraim, I thrust; from ME. pouren, poren; cf.
Lowl. Sc. porr, to stab.
PORK, the flesh of swine. (F.—L.) ME. pork, Rich. Coer de
Lion, 3049.—F. pore, ‘a pork, hog; also pork, or swines flesh ;’
Cot.—L. porcum, acc. of porcus, a pig.-Lithuan. parszas, a pig
(Nesselmann), Irish orc, with the usual loss of initial p.4-AS. fearh,
a pig; whence E. farrow. Brugmann, i. § 486. See Farrow.
Der. pork-er, a young pig, Pope, tr. of Homer, Od. xvii. 201; lit.an
animal that supplies pork; substituted for the older term pork-et,
from OF, porguet, ‘a young pork,’ Cot., dimin. of pore. Also porc-
ine, q.v. And see porc-u-pine, por-poise, porc-el-ain.
PORPHYRY, a hard, variegated rock, of purple and white
colour. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. porphirie, Chaucer, C. T. 16243
(ἃ 775).—OF. *porphyrie (?), not found; Cotgrave has only por-
phyre, ‘porphiry;’ but the E. form appears fuller and older. Ab-
breviated from L. porphyrites, porphyry. Gk. πορφυρίτης, porphyry ;
so named from its purple colour. Formed with suffix -ἰτῆς, signify -
ing ‘resemblance,’ from moppup-, πορφύρα, the purple-fish, purple-
dye ; cf. πορφύρεος, purple; see Purple. Der. forphyrit-ic, from
L. porphyrit-es.
PORPOISE, PORPESS
PORPOISE, PORPESS, the hog-fish. (F.—L.) Spelt porpesse
in Ray, On the Creation, pt. i. (R.); porpaise, porpuis, in Minsheu ;
porcpisce, Spenser, Colin Clout, 1. 249. ME. purpeys, Prompt. Parv.
= AF. purpeys, Liber Albus, p. 236 ; porpets (Godefroy, 5. v. porpois) ;
OF. por pois, a porpoise ; a term now obsolete in Ε΄. (except Guernsey
pourpeis), and supplanted by the name marsouin (lit. mere-swine),
borrowed from G. meerschweinx. For *porc-peis.—L. porcum, acc. of
porcus, a pig; and piscem, acc. of piscis, a fish, cognate with E. fish.
See Pork and Fish. So also Mital. pesce-porco, ‘a sea-hogge,
a hogge-fish ;’ Florio. The mod. Ital. name is porco marino, marine
pig; Span. puerco marino. Cf. Guernsey fourpets, a porpoise.
PORRIDGE, a kind of broth. (F.—Teut.) In Shak. Temp. ii. 1.
1o. Apparently it took the place of the older word pottage (Pals-
grave), ME. potage, occurring as early as in Ancren Riwle, p. 412;
whence also prov. E. poddish, Cotgrave has F. potage, ‘ pottage,
porridge ;’ formed, with suffix -age (L. -aticum) from Low L. pottus,
a pot, of Teut. origin.—Low G. pott, Du. pot; see Pot. [There
was an intermediate form, represented by proy. E. poddish and by
podech in Tyndale’s Obedience of a Christian Man, 1528, fol. 109,
qu. in Brand’s Antiq., ed. Ellis, iii. 384.) B. It may have been
influenced by ME. forree, poré, also with the sense of ‘ pottage.’
We find, ‘ Porré, or purré, potage,’ Prompt. Parv.; and Way's note
gives the spelling porray. Way adds: ‘this term implies generally
pease-pottage, still called in French purée; . . according to the
Ortus, it seems to have denoted a pottage of leeks; poratum est cibus
de poris factus, Anglicé porray;’ he also notes the Late L. form
porrata.—OF. porée, porrée, ‘ beets, also pot-herbs, and thence also,
pottage made of beets or with other herbs;’ Cot.—Late L. porrata
(also porrecta), broth made with leeks; Ducange. Cf. Ital. porrata,
leek-soup. Formed, with L. pp. fem. suffix -a/a, from L. porr-um
or porr-us, a leek. y- Porrum stands for an older form *forsum,
as shown by the cognate Gk. πράσον, a leek. Der. porring-er, q. v.
PORRINGER, a small dish for porridge. (F.—Teut.) In
Shak. Tam. Shrew, iv. 3. 64; Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 31. ‘16
porengers, temp. Hen. VIII, in Strutt, Manners and Customs, iii.
65; poreger, Bury Wills, p. 115 (1522); porrynger, id., p. 136;
poddinger, id., p. 142. The last is the intermediate form between
pottanger and porringer. Suggested by, or corrupted from, pottanger
(Palsgrave), a dish for pottage ; spelt potenger ab. 1450, Excerpta
Historica, p. 418, ]. 1 (ed. 1831). For *pottager, with inserted τι, as in
messenger for messager. Cf. F. potager, ‘of, or belonging unto,
pottage;” Cot. The ME. potagere meant ‘a maker of pottage;’
Piers Plowman, B. ν. 157. See Porridge.
PORT (1), demeanour, carriage of the body. (F.—L.) ME. port,
Chaucer, C. T. 69, 138.—F. port, ‘the carriage, behaviour, or de-
meanor of a man;’ Cot. Cf. Ital. porto, carriage; Span. porte,
deportment. A sb. due to the F. verb porter, to carry.—L. portare,
to carry. Allied to Fare. Der. port, verb, to carry, little used
except in the phr. ‘ to port arms,’ and in Milton's expression ‘ ported
spears, P. L. iv. g80. Also port-able, Macb. iv. 3. 89, from L.
portabilis, that can be carried or borne; port-able-ness ; port-age,
Prompt. Parv., from F. portage, ‘portage, carriage,’ Cot. Also
port-er, in the sense of ‘carrier of a burden’ (Phillips, ed. 1706),
substituted for ME. portour (Prompt. Parv.), from OF. portour, F.
porteur, ‘a carrier,’ Cot. And hence porter, the name of malt-
liquor, so called because it was a favourite drink with London
porters, supposed to be not older than A.D. 1750, see Todd’s
Johnson; also porter-age, a coined word. Port-folio,a case large
enough to carry folio paper in, a coined word, with which cf. F.
portefeuille. Port-manteau, Middleton, Widow, iv. 2, from F. port-
manteau (Cot.), lit. that which carries a mantle (see Mantle) ; but
we also find port-mantua, Dryden, Kind Keeper, Act i. sc. 1, and
portmantue, used by Cot. to translate Εἰ, portmanteau; here port-
mantua is not quite the same word, but is derived from F. port-er
and Mantua, q.v. Also port-mantle, Howell, Letters, vol. i. sec. 3,
let. 15. Also port-ly, Merc. of Ven. i. 1.9; port-li-ness. From the
L. portare we also have com-port, de-port, de-port-ment, dis-port (and
sport), ex-port, im-port, im-port-ant, pur-port, re-port, sup-port, trans-
ort.
PORT (2), a harbour, haven. (L.) ME. port; Rob. of Glouc.
speaks of ‘ the fif portes,’ now called the Cinque Ports, p. 51, 1. 1169.
The pl. porz (for ports) occurs in Layamon, 24415. AS. port; ‘to
0am porte’=to the haven, /Elfred, tr. of Beda, b. iv. c. 1, near the
end.—L. fortus, a harbour; cognate with E. Ford. B. Closely
allied to L. porta, a gate; see Port (3). Der. (from L. portus),
im-port-une, op-port-une.
PORT (3), a gate, entrance, port-hole. (F.—L.) ‘So, let the
ports be guarded ;’ Cor.i. 7.1. ME. port, Trevisa, tr. of Higden,
i. 213.—F. porte, ‘a port or gate;’ Cot.—L. porta, a gate.
B. Formed with suffix -ta from the base por- seen in Gk. πόρος, a
ford, way; from 4/PER, to pass through, fare, travel; see Fare. |
| that portend is ‘to stretch out towards,’ or point out.
POSE 465
4 Though port is not common in ME., there is an AS. form porte
(Grein), borrowed directly from L. porta. Der. port-er, ME. porter,
Floriz and Blauncheflur, ed. Lumby, 1. 138, from OF. portier, L.
portarius (Lewis); whence (with fem. suffix -ess=F’. -esse< L. -issa,
Gk. -100a), porter-ess, or shortly port-r-ess, Milton, P. L. ii. 746.
Also port-al, Hamlet, iii. 4. 136, from OF. portal (Burguy), L.
portale, a vestibule, porch. Also port-hole, Dryden, Annus Mirabilis,
st. 188. Also port-cullis, q.v. (but perhaps not porttco, porch). And
see port (1), port (2), port (4), and porte,
PORT (4), a dark purple wine. (Port.—L.) So called from
Oporto, in Portugal ; port being merely an abbreviation from Oporto
wine. = Port. 0 porto, the port; where o is the def. art.=Span. lo
<L. illum ; and porto is from L. portum, acc. of portus,a port. See
Port (2).
PORTCULLIS, a sliding door of cross-timbers pointed with
iron, let down to protect a gateway. (F.—L.) ME. porte-colys,
Rom. of the Rose, 4168.—AF. porte colice, Excerpta Historica, p. 73
(A.D. 1250); OF. porte coleice (13th cent., Littré), later porte coulisse,
or simply coulisse, ‘a portcullis;’ Cot.—F. porte, from L. porta, a
gate ; and OF, coleice, answering to a Late L, *cdlaticia (not found),
with the sense of flowing, gliding, or sliding, regularly formed from
colatus, pp. of cdlare, to flow, orig. to strain through a sieve. Sec
Port (3) and Colander and Cullis. We find the Late L. forms
coladissus, colactus, porta colacia (port-cullis) from the same source.
PORTH, the Turkish government. (F.—L.) The Turkish
government is ‘officially called the Sublime Porte, from the port
(gate) of the sultan’s palace, where justice was administered ;’
Webster. See Port (3). It is ‘a perverted F. translation of
Babi Ali, lit. “‘the high gate,’ the chief office of the Ottoman
government ;’ Wedgwood. Cf. Arab. bab, a gate, ‘aliy, high;
Rich. Dict, pp. 224, 1027.
PORTEND, to betoken, presage, signify. (L.) In K. Lear, 1.
2. 113 3 Spenser, F. Ὁ. v. 7. 4.—L. portendere, to foretell, predict. —
L. por-, for OL. port, towards; and tendere, to stretch forth; so
See Position
and Tend. Der. portent, Oth. v. 2. 45, F. portente, ‘a prodigious
or monstrous thing,’ Cot., which from L. portentum, a sign, token ;
formed from portentus, pp. of portendere. Hence portent-ous, from F.
portenteux, ‘prodigious,’ Cot., which from L. portentosus.
PORTER (1), a carrier. (F.—L.) See Port (1).
PORTER (2), a gate-keeper. (F.—L.) See Port (3).
PORTER (3), a dark kind of beer, orig. porter’s beer (Wedg-
wood) ; see Port (1).
PORTESSE, PORTOS, PORTOUS, a breviary. (F.—L.)
Spelt portesse in Spenser, F. Q. i. 4.19. ‘Poortos, booke, portiforium,
breviarium ;’ Prompt. Parv. ME. portous, portos, porthos, porthors,
P. Plowman, B. xv. 122, and footnotes ; and see note to the line for
further examples. All various corruptions of OF. porte-hors, i.e. that
which one carries abroad, a word compounded as the F. equivalent
of L. portiforium, a breviary. This OF. portehors is given by
Godefroy ; and occurs in La Clef d’Amors, 1. 102. Compounded of
F. porter, from L. portare, to carry; and F. hors, older form fors,
out of doors, abroad, from L. foris, abroad, adv., due to sb. pl. fores,
doors. See Port (1) and Door.
PORTICO, a porch. (Ital.—L.) In Chapman, tr. of Homer,
Od. iv. 405, 410.—Ital. portico. —L. porticum, acc. of porticus, a
porch; see Porch. Doublet, porch.
PORTION, a part, share. (F.—L.) ME. portion, portioun,
porcioun, Wyclif, Luke xv, 12.—F. portion.—L. portidnem, acc. ot
portio, a share, lit. ‘a sharing ;’ closely allied to part-, stem of pars,
a part; see Part. Der. portion, vb. ; portion-ed, portion-er, portion-
less; and see apportion.
PORTLY, orig. of good demeanour ; see Port (1).
PORTRAIT, a picture of a person. (F.—L.) In Shak. Merch.
of Ven. ii. 9. 543 spelt pourtraict, Spenser, F.Q. ii. 1. 39.—MF.
pourtraict, ‘a pourtrait ;’ Cot.—MF. pourtraict, pourtrait, pp. of
pourtraire, to portray ; see Portray.
PORTRAY, to draw, depict. (F.—L.) ME. purtreye, Chaucer.
C. T. 96; purtreyen, King Alisaunder, ]. 1520.—OF. portraire, later
pourtraire, ‘to pourtray, draw,’ Cot.; mod. F. portraire.—Late L.
protrahere, to paint, depict ; L. protrahere, to drag or bring forward,
expose, reveal.—L. prd-, forward; and trahere, to draw; see Pro-
and Trace (1). Der. portrait, q.v.; whence portraiture, ME. pour-
treture, Gower, C. A. ii. 83, bk. iv. 2421, from OF. portraiture, MF.
pourtraicture, ‘a pourtraiture,’ Cot., as if from L. profractiira. And
see protract.
POSE (1), a position, attitude. (F.—L.—Gk.) We speak of
‘the pose of an actor;’ see Webster. Quite modern; not in Todd’s
Johnson ; but the word is of importance. =F. pose, ‘attitude, posture,’
Hamilton; MF. pose, ‘a pawse, intermission, stop, ceasing, repose,
resting ;’ (οἵ. - Ἐς poser, ‘to place, set, put,’ Hamilton; ‘to put,
Hh
466 POSE
pitch, place, to seat, settle, plant, to stay, or lean on, to set, or lay
down ;’ Cot.—Late L. pausdre, to cease ; also, to cause to rest, and
hence used in the sense of Li panere, to place (Ducange) ; L. fausare,
to halt, cease, pause, to repose (in the grave), as in the phr. fausat in
pace =(here) rests in peace (Lewis).—L. pausa, a pause ; a word of
Greek origin; see Pause. Cf. Ital. posare, to put, lay down, rest,
from posa, rest ; Span. fosar, to lodge, posada, an inn. 84] One of the
most remarkable facts in F. etymology is the extraordinary substitu-
tion whereby the Late L. ausare came to mean ‘to make to rest, to
set,’ and so usurped the place of the L. fénere, to. place, set, with
which it has no etymological connexion. And this it did so
effectually as to restrict the F. fondre, the true equivalent of L.
ponere, to the sense of ‘to lay eggs;’ whilst in all compounds it
completely thrust it aside, so that compausdre (i.e. F. composer) took
the place of L. componere, and soon throughout. 2. Hence the extra-
ordinary result, that whilst the E. verbs compose, depose, impose, pro-
pose, δίς. exactly represent in sense the L. componere, deponere, im-
ponere, proponere, &c., we cannot derive the E. verbs from the L.
ones, since they have (as was said) no real etymological connexion.
Indeed, these words are not even of L. origin, but Greek. 8. The
true derivatives from the L. poxere appear in the verbs compound, ex-
pound, &c., in adjectives such as ponent, component, and in the substan-
tives, such as position, composition, deposition; see under Position.
Der. pose, verb, to assume an attitude, merely an E. formation from
the sb. pose, an attitude, and quite modern. Also (from F. poser)
the compounds ap-pose, com-pose, de-pose, dis-pose, ex-pose, im-pose,
inter-pose, op-pose, pro-pose, pur-pose, re-pose (in which the sense of
L. pausa appears), sup-pose, trans- pose.
POSH (2), to puzzle, perplex by questions. (F.—L.andGk.) ‘Say
you so? then I shall pose you quickly ;’ Meas. for Meas. ii. 4. 51.
Here, as in the case of peal, the prefixed syllable ap- has dropped
off ; the older form of the verb was commonly to appose, ME. apposen,
aposen ; see examples in N. E. D., or in Richardson, s.v. Appose. To
appose was to question, esp. in a puzzling way, to examine. ‘ When
Nicholas Clifforde sawe himselfe so sore aposed [posed, questioned },
he was shamfast;’ Berners, Froissart’s Chron. c. 373 (R.). ‘She
would appose mee touching my learning and lesson;’ Stow’s
Chronicle, an. 1043. And see Chaucer, C, ‘IT. 7179, 15831 (D 1597,
G 363); P..Plowman, B. i. 47, iii, 5, vii. 138, xv. 376. β. The
word appears at first sight to answer to F. apposer, but that verb is
not used in any such sense; and it is really nothing but a corruption
of oppose, which was used conyertibly with it. Thus we find ‘A poser,
or oposynx, Opponere,’ Prompt. Parv., p. 13. “1 oppose one, I make
a tryall of his lernyng, or I laye a thyng to his charge, Ze apose. I
am nat to lerne nowe to oppose a felowe, ἃ apposer ung gallant ;’
Palsgrave. [Here the OF. aposer, apposer, is, in the same way, a
corruption of F. opposer.) ‘ Bot sche, which al honour supposeth,
The falsé prestés than opposeth [questions], And axeth [asks],’ &c. ;
Gower, C. A. i. 71, bk. 1. 879. γι The word arose in the schools;
the method of examination was by argument, and the examiner was
the umpire as to questions put by an opponent ; hence to examine was
also to oppose, or pose. ‘Opponere, in philosophicis vel theologicis
disputationibus contra argumentari; argumenter contre quelqu’un ;’
Ducange, ed. Migne. For the etymology, see Oppose. δ. Lastly,
the confusion can be accounted for, viz. by confusion of opponere, to
question, argue, with the word apposite, applied to a neat answer;
see Apposite, which really answers to L. appasitus. Der. pos-er,
Bacon, Essay 32; on which Mr. Aldis Wright says: ‘an examiner,
one who poses or puts questions ; still in use at Eton and Winchester.’
Hence also ME. posen, to put a case, Chaucer, C. T. 1164 (A 1162),
Der. puzzle, q.v.
POSE (3), a cold inthehead. (C.) Probably obsolete; noted by
Ray (1691). ME. fose, Chaucer, C. T. 4150 (A 4152). AS. ge-pos,
a cough; ‘wid geposu, for coughs; L. ad tussim gravem;’ A.S.
Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, i. 148. Not an E. word; but borrowed
from an OBritish word represented by W. pas or pesweh, a cough;
allied to Irish cas-achdach, Russ. kash-ele, prov. E. hoas-t, a cough ;
Skt. kas, to cough. (4/ QAS; the g becomes c in Irish, but 2 in
Welsh.)
POSITION, a situation, attitude, state, place. (F.—L.) In
Shak. Tw, Nt. ii. 5. 130. ME. posiciown, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius,
Ὁ. v. pr. 4, l. 30.—F. position, ‘a position ;’ Cot. =—L. positidnem, ace.
of posilio, a putting, placing ; cf. L. positus, pp. of ponere, to place, put.
B. L. ponere (pp. positus) is generally thought to stand for *pos-sinere
(Bréal), where *pos- is a variation of what appears to be an old prep.
(port); and sinere (pp. situs) is to let, allow, on which see Site.
The prefix por-, port-, is prob. allied to Gk. προτί, towards. Der.
com-position, de-position, dis-position, im-position, inter-position, op-
position, pro-position, sup-position, trans-fosilion. Also (from 1,.
ponere) pon-ent, com-ponent, de-ponent, ex ponent, op-ponent; caom-
pound, ex-pound, post-pone. And see ap-posite, com-posite, de-posit,
POST
| ex-posit-or ; also post, positive, post-ure, com-fost, im-postor, fro-vost,
ἅς. sx And see remarks under Pose (1).
POSITIVE, actual, undoubted, decisive, certain. (F.—L.) The
lit. sense is ‘settled;’ hence, certain. ME. ositif, Chaucer, C. T.
1169 (A 1167).—F. positif, omitted by Cotgrave, but in use in the
14th century.—L. positiuus, settled, esp. by agreement. L. positus,
pp- of ponere, to place; see Position. Der. positive-ly, -ness. Also
positiv-ism, due to Comte, born in 1798, died 1857.
POSNET, an iron pot, saucepan. (F.—Low G.) A dialect
word; see E.D.D. ME. posnet, Prompt. Parv.; Way’s note quotes
the form possenet from Horman ; spelt focenet, Rel. Antiq. i. 54.
=—OF. pogonet (Godefroy), dimin. of pogon, posson, a pot. Late L.
type *pottionem, acc. of *pottio; from Late L. pott-us, a pot.— Low
G. pott. See Pot.
POSSE, power.. (L.) See Butler, Hudibras, iii. 2. 1166. ‘ Posse
comitatus, or power of the county ;’ Blount’s Nomo-lexicon, ed. 1691.
“Τρ, posse, to be able; used as sb. See Possible.
POSSESS, to own, seize, have, hold. (L.) The verb is probably
due to the sb. possession, which was in earlier use, occurring in
Chaucer, C. ‘I’. 2244 (A 2242), and in Robert of Brunne, tr. of Lang-
toft, p. 239, 1. 19. Possess is extremely common in Shak.; see
L.L. L. v. 2. 383, &c.—L. possessus, pp. of possidére, to possess, to
have in possession. B. Prob. derived from L. *port-, towards; and
sedére, to sit, remain, continue; as if the sense were ‘to remain near,’
hence to have in possession. See Position, § B, and Sit. Der.
possess-ed, Much Ado, i. 1. 193; possess-or, Merch. Ven. i. 3. 75, from
L. possessor; possess-ive, from L. possessiuus; jfossesstve-ly. Also
possess-ion, ME. possessioun, possession, as above, from F. possession,
‘possession,’ Cot., from L. acc. possessionem. Also ME. possession-er,
P. Plowman, B. v. 144.
POSSET, a drink composed of hot milk, curdled by some strong
infusion. (F.andE.) In Shak. Merry Wives, 1. 4.8; ν. 5. 180; Macb. ii.
2.6. ME. possyt, Voc. 666. 9; posset, Voc. 793.153 poshet, Voc.
507.22; cf. MF. possette, ‘a posset of ale and mylke;’ Palsgrave
(not otherwise known), B. But we also find what is prob. an older
form ; ME. poshoofe, Voc. 625. 18; poshote of milke, Cookery Books,
ed. Austin, p. 15 ; poshote of ale, id., p. 36. γ. The latter element
seems to be the ME. hote, E. hot; cf. ME, possot in Prompt. Parv.
But this leaves the former element unexplained, unless it can be
equated to Norm, dial. pous, pap, OF. pous, pouls, pols, L. puls, pap.
Cf. prov. Εἰ pulse, pottage ; and (for the phonology) cf. ME. possen, to
push about, from OF. poulser (L. pulsare). [Cf. W. posel, curdled
milk, posset; Irish pusoid, a posset; from E.] Der. posset, vb., to
curdle, Hamlet, i. 5. 68.
POSSIBLE, that may be done, that may happen. (F.—L.) ME.
possible, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 8832 (E 956).—F, possible, ‘likely, possible,’
Cot.—L. possibilis, that may be done, possible. B. Not well formed;
it should rather have been *potibilis; the form possibilis is due to the
influence of posse, to be able, whence possum, Iam able. L. possem
(short for potissum) is due to potis, powerful, properly ‘lord’ or
‘master,’ cognate with Skt. pati-,a master, owner, governor, lord,
husband, Lithuan. fatis, a husband (Nesselmann), Russ. -pode as seen
in gos-pode, the Lord. Brugmann, i. ὃ 158. See Potent. And see
Host (1). Der. possibl-y; possibil-i-ty, ME. possibilitee, Chaucer,
C. T. 1293 (A 1291), from F. possibilité (Cot.), which from L. acc.
posstbilitatem.
POST (1), a stake set in the ground, a pillar. (L.) ΜΕ, post, a
pillar; see Chaucer, C. T. 214. In very early use; see Layamon,
28032. AS. post; ‘ Basis, post,’ Voc. 164. 32; and see Judges, xvi.
3.—L. postis, a post, a door-post. B. The orig. sense was ‘some-
thing firmly fixed ;’ cf. L. postus,a form used by Lucretius for posttus,
pp. of fonere, to place, set; see Position, and see Post (2).
POST (2), a military station, a public letter-carrier, a stage on a
road,&c. (F.—L.) Shak. has post, a messenger, Temp. ii. 1. 248;
a post-horse, Romeo, vy. 1.21. ‘A post, runner, Veredarius ;’ Levins,
ed. 1570. Post ‘ originally signified a fixed place, as a military post;
then, a fixed place on a line of road where horses are kept for
travelling, a stage, or station; thence it was transferred to the person
who travelled in this way, using relays of horses, and finally to any
quick traveller ;? Eastwood and Wright, Bible Wordbook. See Job,
ix. 25; Jer. li. 31, Four men are mentioned in 1491 as ‘lying as
posts,’ ie. messengers; Excerpta Historica, p. 113.—F. poste, masc.
‘a post, carrier, speedy messenger,’ Cot.; fem. ‘ post, posting, the
riding post, as also, the furniture that belongs unto posting ;’ id. Cf.
Ital. posta, a post, station; Span. posta, post, sentinel, post-house, post-
horses. = Late L. posta, a station, site ; fem. of postws, a shortened form
(used by Lucretius) of positus, placed, pp. of poxere, to place. See Posi-
tion, and Post (1). Der. post, vb., L. L. L. iy. 3. 188; post, adv.,in
the phr. ‘ to travel post ;’ post-boy, -chaise, -haste, -horse, -man, -mark,
-master, -office,-paid, -town. Also fost-al,a modern coined word, from
Ik. postal, also modern. Also post-age, an E, coinage, not used in
POST-
French, but used by Dryden ; see his Spanish Friar, A. ii. sc. 2 (end).
And see post-tlion.
POST-, prefix, after, behind. (L.) L. post, prep., after, behind.
POST-DATE, to date a thing after the right time. (L.) ‘ Those,
whose post-dated loyalty now consists only in decrying that action ;’
South, vol. iii. ser. 2 (R.). From Post-and Date. Similarly are
formed post-diluvial, post-diluvian, δες.
POSTERIOR, hinder, later, coming after. (L.) In Shak.
L.L.L.v. 1. 94, 96, 126.—L. posterior, comp. of posterus, coming
after, following. =L. post, after; see Post-, prefix. 41] Bacon, Nat.
Hist., end of § 115, has posterfour, answering to MF. posterieur, “ pos-
terior, hinder,’ Cot., from the L. acc.. posteridrem. Der. posterior-s,
s. pl., for posterior parts ; posterior-ly, posterior-i-ty. And see posterity,
postern, posthumous, postil.
POSTERITY, succeeding generations, future race of people.
(F.—L.) Spelt posteritie, Spenser, Ruines of Rome, 434; posterydé,
in Caxton, Golden Legend, Adam, § 7.—MF. fosterité, ‘ posterity ;’
Cot.—L. posterita/em, acc. of posteritas, futurity, posterity. — L.
posteri-, for posterus, following after ; see Posterior.
POSTERN, a back-door, small private gate. (F.—L.) ME.
posterne, Rob. of Glouc. p. 19, 1. 447; spelt postorne, Καὶ. Alisaunder,
4502.“ OF. fosterle, also posterne (by change of J to x), Burguy;
later folerne, ‘a posterne, or posterne-gate, a back-door to a fort,’
Cot.<L. posterula, a small back-door, postern ; formed with dimin.
suffix -la from posteru-s, behind; see Posterior.
POSTHUMOUS (better POSTUMOUS), born after the
father’s death, published after the author’s decease. (L.) ‘The spell-
ing with ἃ is false; see below. Shak. has Posthumus as a name in
Cymb. i. 1. 41, &c. Sir T. Browne has ‘ posthumous memory ;’ Um-
burial, c. v. § 12.—L. postumus, the last; esp. of youngest children,
the last-bom; hence, late-born, and, as sb., a posthumous child.
B. In accordance with a popular etymology, the word was also
written posthumus, asif deriyed from fost humum, lit. after the ground,
which was forced into the meaning ‘after the father is laid in the
ground or buried ;’ and, in accordance with this notion, the sense of
the word was at last chiefly confined to such a usage. Hence also
the F. spelling posthume, Port. posthumo; but Span. and Ital. have
postumo ; all in the usual sense attached to E. posthumous. y. The L.
postumus =* post-tu-mus, a superlative formed from fost, behind; cf.
L. op-tu-mus, best. See Posterior. Der. fost-humous-ly.
POSTIL, an explanatory note on the Bible, marginal note or
commentary. (F.—L.) ME. postille, Wyclif, gen. prologue to
Isaiah, ed. Forshall and Madden, p. 225; the word is now obsolete,
except in theological writings. =F. postille, ‘a postill, glosse, com-
pendious exposition ;’ Cot. [Hence, with prefix ap- (=L. ad before
p) was formed MF. appostille, ‘an answer to a petition, set down in
the margent thereof; and, generally, any small addition unto a great
discourse in writing ;’ Cot.)—Late L. postilla, a marginal note in a
bible, in use A.D. 1228; Ducange. B. The usual derivation, and
doubtless the correct one, is that of Ducange, viz. from L. fost tla,
i.e. post illa verba, after those words ; because the glosses were added
afterwards. - Cf. Ital. and Port. fostilla, Span. postila, a marginal
note. Der. fostil, verb, to write marginal notes, to comment on,
annotate, Bacon, Life of Hen. VII, ed. Lumby, p. 193, 1. 3.
POSTILLION, a post-boy, mder of post-horses in a carriage.
(F.—Ital.—L.) ‘Those swift postillions, my thoughts;’ Howell,
Famil. Letters, vol. 1. let. 8; A.D. 1619. And in Cotgrave. = F.
posiillon, ‘a postillon, guide, posts-boy ;’ Cot. Introduced in the
16th cent. from Ital. postiglione, ‘a postilion,’ Florio (and see
Brachet). Formed with suffix -iglione (=L. -il-i-dnem) from Ital.
ost-a, a messenger, post ; see Post (2).
POST-MERIDIAN, POMERIDIAN, belonging to the
afternoon. (L.) Howell uses the form pomeridian, speaking of his
‘privat pomeridian devotions ;’ Famil. Letters, vol. i. sect. 6. let. 32.
=L. pamerididnus, also postmeridianus, belonging to the afternoon.
-L.. post, after; and meridianus, belonging to midday. See Post-
and Meridian.
POST-MORTEM, after death. (L.) A medical term. =L.
post, after; mortem, acc. of mors, death. See Post- and Mortal.
POST-OBIT, a bond by which a person receiving money under-
takes to repay a larger sum after the death of the person who leaves
him money. (L.) A law term. Shortened from L. post abitum,
after death. See Post and Obit.
POSTPONE, to put off, delay. (L.) Postponed is in Blount’s
Nomolexicon, ed. 1691, q.v. ‘ Postpone, to let behind or esteem less,
to leave or neglect;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. ‘*Thow did postpone ;’
How Dumbar was. desyred to be ane Freir, 1. 28. [Formerly, the form
was also postpose, which occurs in Howell, Famil. Letters, vol.i.sect. 4.
let. 15, cited by Richardson with the spelling postpone. This is from
FP, ‘fostfoser, ‘to set or leave behind;’ Cot. He also has: ‘ Post-
posé, postposed.’]—L. postponere, to put after.—L. post, after; and
POTATION 467
ponere, to put; see Post- and Position. Der. postfone-ment, a
clumsy word, with F. suffix -ment.
POSTSCRIPT, a part added to a writing after it was thought
to be comiplete. (L.) In Shak. Hamlet, iv. 7.53. From L. fost-
scriptum, that which is written after; from post, after, and scriptus,
p. of scribere, to write. See Post- and Seribe.
POSTULATE, a proposition assumed without proof, as being
self-evident. (L.) “ Postulates and entreated maxims;’ Sir T.
Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. vi. c. 6. § 6.—L. postulatum, a thing de-
manded ; hence also, a thing granted; neut. of postuldatus, pp. of
postulare, to demand. B. It seems probable that postulare. stands
for *por-stlare, allied to poscere, for *por-scere, to ask. y. It is
further proposed to assume for foscere a still older form *porc-scere,
thus bringing it into alliance with 4/PREK, to pray, whence Skt.
pracch, to ask, L. precari, to pray; see Pray. Brugmann, i.
§§ 483(7), 502. Der. postulate, verb, Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors,
b. ii. c. 3 [uot 4], last section ; postulat-or-y, id. Ὁ. ii. c. 6. § 2.
POSTURE, position, attitude. (F.—L.) In Shak.. Wint. Tale,
Vv. 3. 23.—F. posture, ‘posture ;’ (οἵ. “Τὸ positira, position,
arrangement; allied to posit-us, pp. of panere, to place; see Position.
Der. posture-master ; posture, verb.
POSY, a verse of poetry, a motto, a bouquet or nosegay.. (F.—
L.—Gk.) The word, in all its senses, is merely a contraction of
Poesy, q.v. 1. Jt was usual to engrave short mottoes on knives
and on rings; and as these were frequently in verse, they were called
posies. Thus, in Shak. Merch. Ven. v. 148, we have: ‘a ring...
whose posy was... like cutler’s poetry Upon a knife, Love me, and
leave me not ;’ see note to the line in Wright’s edition. So also in
Hamlet, ‘the posy of a ring;’ iii. 2. 162. See Chambers, Book of
Days, i. 221, for examples, such as ‘In thee, my choice, I do re-
joice;’ &c. As these inscriptions were necessarily brief, any short
inscription was also called a posy, even though neither in verse nor
poetically expressed. Thus, Udall, on. St. Luke, c. 23, v. 38,
speaking of the handwriting above the cross, calls it ‘a super-
scripcion or poisee written on the top of the crosse’ (R.). So also
in the following: ‘And the tente was replenished and decked with
this poysie, After busie laboure commeth victorious reste;’ Hall’s
Chron. Hen. V, an. 7. § 2. And see Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 65,
1. 20. [Another old name for a motto was a reason; see Fabyan’s
Chron. Hen. V, an. 8, ed. Ellis, p. 587.) 2..Mr. Wedgwood well
accounts for posy in the sense of bouquet, as follows: ‘A nosegay
was probably called by this name from flowers being used enig-
matically, as is still common in the East. Among the tracts men-
tioned in the Catalogue of Heber’s MSS., no. 1442, is ‘* A new yeares
guifte, or a posie made upon certen flowers presented to the Countess
of Pembroke; by the author of Chloris, &c.;” see Notes and
Queries, Dec. 19, 1868 (4. 5. ii. 577). So also in Beaum, and
Fletcher, Philaster, Acti. sc. 1 [sc. 2 in Darley’s ed.]; ‘‘ Then took
he up his garland, and did shew What every flower, as country
people hold Did signify ;” and see Hamlet, iv. 5.175.’ ‘To this I
may add, that a posy was even sometimes expressed by precious
stones; see Chambers, as above. The line ‘And a thousand
fragrant posies’ is by Marlowe; The Passionate Shepherd, st. 3.
See Puttenham, Arte of E. Poesie, bk. i. c. 30. Doublet, poesy.
POT, a vessel for cooking, or drinking from. (E.) ME. pot, Ancren
Riwle, p. 368, l. 21. (Ct. Irish pota, potadh, a pot, vessel ; Gael.
poit; W. pot; all from E.] AS. pott ; Leechdoms, i. 378.--EFries.
Du. pot; Low Ὁ. pott; Icel. pottr, Swed. potta, Dan. potte. Teut.
type *puttoz. Hence Low L. pottus, also spelt potus (as if from L.
potare, to drink) ; F. pot, Bret. pod, Span. pote. 4 The phrase
“to go to pot’ meant to be put into the cooking-pot; see Squire of
Low Degree, 448; my Notes on Eng. Etym., p. 226; Brand, Pop.
Antiq., ii. 58. Der. pot-ash, i.e. ash obtained from the pot, so called
because the alkaline salt was obtained by burning vegetable sub-
stances; Chaucer mentions fern-ashes, as used for making glass, C. T.
10569 (F 255); ‘ Pot-ashes (anno 12 Car. 2. cap. 4) are made of the
best wood or fern-ashes,’ Blount’s Nomolexicon, ed. 1691 ; perhaps
from Du. potasch (from pot and asch, ashes), G. pottasche (from a:che,
ashes) ; Latinized in the form potassa, whence potass-ivm. We find
pol-asshes in Arnold’s Chron. (1502); ed. 1811, p. 187. Also pot-
herb, pot-hook, pot-sherd (see Sherd). Also pot, verb; pott-er, ME.
potter, Cursor Mundi, 16536 (cf. Irish potoir, a potter) ; potter-y, from
F. poterie (Cot.). And see pot-een, pott-age, poti-le, pot-walloper.
POTABLE, that may be drunk. (F.—L.) In Shak, 2 Hen. IV,
iv. 5. 163.—F. potable, ‘ potable, drinkable ;” Cot.=L. patabilis,
drinkable ; formed with suffix -bilis from po/d-re, to drink. = L. potus,
drunken; formed with suffix -¢zs from a base ρῦ-, as in Gk. πῶ-μα,
drink; cf. Skt. pa, to drink, Gk. πό-τος, a drinking, πό-σις, drink.
Der. potable-ness ; and see potation, potion.
POTASH, POTASSIUM; see under Pot.
POTATION, a draught. (L.) Not a Τὸ word. In Shak, Oth.
Η ἢ 2
POTATO
ii. 3. 56. Spelt potacion, Coventry Myst., p. 138.—L. potationem,
acc. of potatio, a drinking. = L. pdtare, to drink. = 0. potus, drunken ;
see Potable.
POTATO, a tuber of a plant much cultivated for food; the plant
itself. (Span.—Hayti.) In Shak. Merry Wives, v. 5. 21. ‘ Potatoes,
natives of Chili and Peru, originally brought to England from Santa
Fé, in America, by Sir John Hawkins, 1563; others ascribe their
introduction to Sir Francis Drake, in 1586; while their general cul-
ture is mentioned by many writers as occurring in 1592;’ Haydn,
Dict. of Dates. They are also mentioned by Ben Jonson, Cynthia’s
Revels, Act ii. sc. 1.—Span. patata, a potato ; also batata, which is
a better form.—Hayti batata. ‘Peter Martyr, speaking of Haiti,
says (in Decad. 2. c. 9), “‘Effodiunt etiam e tellure suapte natura
nascentes radices, indigenz batatas appellant, quas ut vidi insubres
napos existimavi, aut magna terre tubera.” ... Navagerio, who was
in the Indies at the same time, writes in 1526, ‘‘ Io ho vedute molte
cose dell’ Indie ed ho avuto di quelle radice che chiamano bavatas, e
le ho mangiate; sono di sapor di castagno.’”’ Doubtless these were
sweet potatoes or yams, which are still known by this name in
Spanish.—Wedgwood. Spelt botata (as a Hayti word) in R. Eden’s
books on America, ed. Arber, p. 131; also battata, p. 159.
POTCH, to thrust, poke. (F.—L.) In Shak. Cor. i. 10. 15.
merely a variant of Poach (2).
POTEEN, whisky illicitly distilled in Ireland. (Irish—E.) From
Trish poitiz, a little pot; dimin. of poite, a pot.=mE. pot; see
468
Pot.
POTENT, powerful. (L.) In Shak. Temp. i. 2. 275. Rich.
gives a quotation from Wyatt, showing that the word was used in
1539-.—L. potent-, stem of potens, powerful, pres. part. of possum, I
am able; see Possible. Der. potenc-y, Hamlet, ili. 4.170, a coined
word, due to L. potentia, power ; potent-ral, ME. potencyal, Chaucer,
House of Fame, b. iii. 1.5 [but only in Thynne’s edition of 1532, and
later edd.; MSS. poetica/], from F. potentiel, ‘strong, forcible,’ Cot.,
which from L, pofentialis, forcible (only found in the derived ad-
verb potentialiter), formed with suffix -@lis from the sb. potentia ;
whence fotential-ly, potential-i-ty. Also potent-ate, L.L.L. v. 2. 684,
from Εἰ, potentat, ‘a potentate, great lord,’ Cot., which from Late L.
potentatus, a supreme prince (Ducange), from potentare, to exercise
authority (id.). Also omni-potent, q.v.; and armi-potent, Chaucer,
Ὁ. T. 1984 (A 1982). Doublet, puissant, q. v.
POTHER, bustle, confusion, constant excitement. (E.) In Pope,
Horace, Sat. ii. 2.45. ‘To make a pother, to make a noise or bustle;’
Bailey’s Dict., vol. i.ed. 1735. Older form pudder, ‘ Pudder, noise,
bustle; to keep a pudder about trifles;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Spelt
poother in ed. 1623 of Shak. Cor. ii. 1. 234; pudder in K. Lear, iil. 2.
50. ΜΕ. puderen, apparently in the sense ‘to poke about;’ see
Ancren Riwle, p. 214, note c. Another form is potter; ‘ To potter,
to stir or disorder anything ;’ Bailey, vol. i. ‘ Potter, to stir, poke,
confuse, do anything inefficiently ;’ also ‘ Pother, to shake, to poke,
West;’ Halliwell. See Potter. The sense ‘to stir about’ seems
the orig. one; hence that of ‘turmoil’ as the result of stirring.
4 Prob. confused with poother, pudder, dust, dialect forms of powder ;
indeed, Butler has pother in Hudibras, i. 1. 32, but powder in the
same, ill. 1. 1055. See Powder. And see Bother.
POTION, a drink. (F.—L.) In Shak. Romeo, v. 3. 244. ME.
pocion, K. Alisaunder, 3509. —F. potion, ‘a potion;’ Cot.—L.
potionem, acc. of podtio, a drink; see Poison. Doublet, poison.
POTTAGE, broth, thick soup. (F.—Teut.) ME. potage, Ancren
Riwle, p. 412, 1. 27.—F. potage, ‘pottage, porridge ;’ Cot. Formed,
with suffix -age (L. -aticum), from F. pot, which is from a Teut.
source; see Pot. Doublet, porridge.
POTTER, to go about doing nothing. (E.) <A provincial word,
but in common use. ‘ Potter, to go about doing nothing, to saunter
idly; to work badly, do anything inefficiently ; also, to stir, poke,
North ; also, to confuse, disturb, Vorksh.;’ Halliwell. ‘ To stir or
disorder anything ;’ Bailey’s Dict., vol. i. ed. 1735. It is the fre-
quentative form, with the usual suffix -er, of E. put, to thrust; see
Put. Cf. also MDu. poteren, ‘to search one thoroughly’ (Hexham),
from the notion of poking a stick into every corner ; Du. peuteren, to
fumble, to poke about; Norw. pota, MSwed. potta, to poke. See
Pother. And cf. E. dial. polter, to potter abont.
POTTLE, a small measure, basket for fruit. (F.—Teut.) ME.
potel, to translate L. laguncula; Wyclif, Isaiah, x. 33.—OF. potel,
a small pot, a small measure (Godefroy); cf. AF. potel, Stat. Realm,
i. 321. Dimin. of F. pot, from Low G. pott; see Pot.
POTWALLOPER, lit. one who boils a pot. (Hybrid; E. and
F.—Teut.) ‘ Potwalloper, a voter in certain boroughs in England,
where all who boi (wallop) a pot are entitled to vote ;’? Webster.
Corrupted to pot-wabblers (Halliwell); also found as pot-walliners,
given as a Somersetshire word in Upton’s MS. additions to Junius
(Halliwell). Wallop, to boil fast, is from ME. walopen, to gallop.
POUND
Golding has: ‘ seething a-wallop,’ i.e. boiling rapidly; tr. of Ovid,
fol. 82. (Prob. confused with ME. wallen, AS. weallan, to boil.)
See Pot and Gallop.
POUCH, a poke, or bag. (F.—Scand.) ME. pouche, Chaucer, C.T.
3929 (A 3931). —OF. pouche, found in the r4th cent. as a variant
of poche, ‘a pocket, pouch, or poke;’ Cot. See Littré ; and pouche,
variant of Norm, dial, pougue, a pouch; Moisy. Of Scand. origin ;
see Poke (1). Der. pouch, verb. Doublet, poke (1).
POULT, a chicken, fowl. (F.—L.) Poult is used by W. King
(died A.D. 1712), ina poem on The Art of Cookery, 1. 33. Also in
Chapman, Revenge for Honour, i. 1. 21. ME. pulte, Prompt. Parv.
=F. poulet, ‘a chicken;’ Cot. Dimin. of poule, a hen. —Late L.
pulla, a hen; fem. of pullus, a young animal, cognate with E. Foal,
q.v. Der. poult-er, one who deals in fowls, t Hen. IV, ii. 4. 480,
ME. pulter, Prompt. Parv., AF. pulleter, Liber Albus, p. 465 ;
whence the later form powlt-er-er (Dekker, Honest Whore, pt. 11, iii. 3),
by the unnecessary reduplication of the suffix -er, denoting the
agent. Also poult-r-y, ME. pultrie, Prompt. Parv., AF. poletrie,
fultrie, Liber Albus, p. 231, formed with F. suffix -er-ie, as in the
case of pani-r-y, &c. And see Pullet. Doublet, pullet.
POULTICE, a soft plaister applied to sores. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Romeo, ii. 5. 65. Gascoigne, Steel Glas, 997 (ed. Arber, p. 77),
has the pl. form pultesses. Burton has the pl. pultises, Anat. Mel. 11.
4.i.5. Formed, with suffix -ice (-esse, -is) trom MF. pulte, ‘a poul-
tice,” Cot.—L. pultem, acc. of puls, a thick pap, or pap-like substance.
+Gk. πόλτος, porridge. @ Godefroy also has OF. pols, pous, from
L. nom, puls, pap; sometimes used in the sense of ‘poultice ;’ as,
ΟἹ qui... metent ... lor ols mollificatives sor toutes plaies.’
Cf. Ital. poltiglia, ‘a pultis;’ Florio. The form may have been due
to L. pl. pultes. Der. poultice, verb.
POUNCKH (1), to seize with the claws, as a bird, to dart upon
suddenly. (F.—L.) Orig. a term in hawking. A hawk’s claws
were called pounces, as in Spenser, F.Q. i. 11. 19 ; hence ¢o pounce
upon, to seize with the claws, strike or pierce with them. G.
Douglas speaks of an eagle’s punsys, Ain. xiii. ch. 5 (nearend); and
a hawk’s pownces are mentioned in the Book of St. Alban’s, fol. a8.
The orig. sense of the verb was ‘ to pierce,’ to prick, to adorn with
pierced work. A pounce is also a punch or stamp; see Nares. In
Chaucer, Pers. Tale, De Ira, Group I, 1. 421, we read of ‘ pownsoned
and dagged clothynge’ in three MSS., whilst two others have
‘ pounsed and dagged clothyng.’ B. Here pownsoned has the same
sense, but is a derivative word, being made from the sb. pounson or
punsoun, a bodkin or dagger ; for which see Barbour’s Bruce, i. 545,
and my note on the line. The form pounson answers to Late L.
acc. punctionem, OF. pongon, F. poingon, a punch or puncheon for
piercing holes. We must refer the verb pounsen and the sb. pounce to
the OF. pone-on (above). [The mod. F. poncer is related to Pounce
(2).] y. We have, however, parallel forms in other languages, viz.
Span. punchar, to prick, punch, puncha, a thorn, prickle, sharp point,
exactly equivalent to the pounce or talon of the hawk; mod. Prov.
pouncha, to prick; Ital. punzecchtare, to prick slightly (which pre-
supposes a form punzare, to prick); punzone, a puncher. δ. The
OSpan. puncar, Span. punchar, answer to a Late L. *punctiare,to prick,
not found, but readily formed from punctus, pp. of pungere, to prick.
See Point, Pungent, Punch (1).
POUNCE (2), fine powder. (F.—L.) Merely a doublet of
pumice, and orig. used for powdered pumice-stone, but afterwards ex-
tended to other kinds of fine powder, and to various uses of it.
‘Long effeminate pouldred [powdered] pounced haire;” Prynne,
Histrio-Mastix, pt. i. Act vi. sc. 15. ‘Pounce, a sort of powder
strew'd upon paper to bear ink, or to soak up a blot;’ Phillips,
ed. 1706.—F. ponce ; ‘ pierre ponce, a pumis stone,’ Cot. ‘ Ponce,
pumice ;’ Hamilton.—L. pimicem, acc. of piuimex, pumice ; whence
ponce (=pom'ce) is regularly formed. Der. pounce, to sprinkle with
pounce (F. poncer) ; pounce-box ; pounc-et-box, 1 Hen. IV, i. 3. 38.
Doublet, pumice.
POUND (1), a weight, a sovereign. (L.) Thesense of ‘ weight’
is the orig. one. ME. pund, later pound, frequently with the pl. the
same as the singular, whence the mod. phrase ‘a five-pound note.’
‘An hundred pund’ =a hundred pounds, Havelok, 1633. AS. pund,
pl. pund, a weight, a pound; see Luke xix. 16, John xii. 3.—L.
pondé, a pound, used as an indeclinable sb., though orig. meaning
“by weight;’ allied to pondus, a weight. Hence also were borrowed
G. pfund, &c. Allied to pendere, to weigh; and to pendére, to hang;
see Pendant. Der. jound-age; see Blount’s Nomolexicon, ed.
1691. And see ponder.
POUND (2), an enclosure for strayed animals. (E.) The same
word as pond. ‘Which thus in pownd was pent ;’ Gascoigne, A
Deuise for Viscount Mountacute ; see Gascoigne’s Works, ed. Haz-
litt, i. 84, 1. 1. Rich. has the reading pond. ME. pond; in the
comp. pond-folde (other readings ponfolde, punfolde, pounfolde, pyn-
POUND
fold), P. Plowman, B. v. 633; with the sense ‘ pinfold’ or ‘ pound.’
AS. pund, an enclosure; the compound pund-breche, explained by
infractura parci=the breaking into an enclosure, occurs in the Laws
of Hen. I., c. 40; see Thorpe’s Ancient Laws, vol. i. p.540. Hence
AS. forpyndan, to shut in, repress; Grein, i. 329. Cf. Icel. pynda,
to shut in, torment. [Irish pont, a pound for cattle, a pond, is
borrowed from E.] Der. pound, verb, Cor. i. 4. 173 im-pound.
Also pin-fold, K. Lear, ii. 2. 9, for pind-fold = pound-fold, as shown
by ME. pynfold cited above, the vowel ἐ being due to the y in the
derived AS. pyndan; as also in pind-ar, q.v. Doublet, pond.
POUND (3), to beat, bruise in a mortar. (E.) Here the d is
excrescent ; it stands for pour, from an older form pan. Cf. soun-d
for ME. soun; gown-d, vulgar form of gown. ME. pounen, to bruise,
Wyclif, Matt. xxi. 44, earlier version. AS. pinian, to pound, Liber
Scintillarum, p. 95, 1. 18; the pp. gepiinod occurs as a various
reading for gecnucud (=knocked, pounded) in Cockayne’s Leech-
doms, i. 176, footnote 4. Der. pound-er.
POUR, to cause to flow, send forth, utter, flow. (F.—L.) ‘Ipoore
out the lycoure ;” Palsgrave. ME. pouren, P. Plowman, B. ν. 220;
often used with out, Gower, C. A. i. 302; bk. iii. 679. The orig.
sense in F. was to purify, clarify, esp. by wringing or squeezing out ;
cf. Lowl. Sc. poor, to drain off water, E. Ὁ. D.—OF. purer, to
clarify, also to pour out or to drip; so also depurer, to drip or run
out ; Norm. dial. purer, to pour, flow, drip, as in puis soit celle eaue
puree en un autre vaissel, let this water be then poured into another
vessel; Guernsey, 70 l’cidre qui pure dans l’auge, 1 hear the cider
pouring into the trough (Moisy).—Late L. pirare, to purify.—L.
purus, pure. @ The development of the vowel is exceptional ;
observe that it rimes with shower, flower, in Pope, Messiah, 13,
and in Gay, The Fan, i. 97; cf. E. flower from AF. flur; the sound
may have been affected by pore, sb., and pore, verb. See Pure.
POURPOINT, PURPOINT, a quilted doublet. (F.—L.)
ME. purpoynt; Paston Letters, i. 482.—F. pourpoint, ‘a dublet ;’
Cot. A corruption of OF. parpoint (Godefroy); by the frequent
confusion of pour and par.—Late L. perpunctum.—L. perpunct-us,
pp. of perpungere, to pierce with a needle; hence, to quilt.—L. per,
through; pungere, to prick. Cf. Norm. dial. parpointer, to quilt.
POURTRAY, the same as Portray, q.v.
POUT (1), to look sulky or displeased, to puff out the lips or
cheeks. (E.) In Shak. Cor. v. 1. 52. ME. pouten, in Reliquiz
Antique, ii. 211. [Cf. W. pwdu, to pout, to be sullen, which I
suppose to be a form borrowed from English.] For the derivative
e2l-pout, see Pout (2) below. We also find Du. pwit-aal, an eel-
pout, puit, a frog (from its swollen shape); Swed. puta, a cushion,
Dan. pude,a pillow. Cf. Swed. dial. puta, to be blown out, to be
swollen out (Rietz). Der. pout (2), pout-er, pout-ing.
POUT (2), a kind of fish. (E.) ‘It has the power of inflating
a membrane which covers the eyes and neighboring parts of the
head ;” Webster. ‘ Powt, or eel-powt;’ Minsheu. We find AS.
éle-piitan, eel-pouts, in A®lfric’s Colloquy (Fisherman), in Voc. 94. 7.
Pita is lit. ‘pouter,’ from a verb *putan, to pout, found in the
cognate Swed. dial. puta, to be blown out or inflated (Rietz) ; and
see EFries. put-al, an eel-pout, in Koolman. Cf. Skt. bud-bud-a-,
a bubble, from an imitative root BEU-; cf. the root BHEU in Gk.
φυσάω, I puff ont. @] The Sc. pout, chicken (Jamieson) = powlt, q.v.
POVERTY, the state of being poor. (F.—L.) In early use.
ME. pouerté (with u=v), O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 143, last
line. = OF. poverte, later povreté, ‘ poverty,’ Cot. Mod. F. pauvrete.
=L. paupertatem, acc. of paupertis, poverty.—L. pauper, poor; see
Poor.
POWDER, dust. (F.—L.) ME. poudre, Rob. of Glouc. p. 345,
1. 7o80.—F. poudre, * powder,’ Cot., who also gives the spelling
pouldre. OF. poldre, puldre, in Burguy and Supp. to Godefroy.
Formed with excrescent d after 7; the oldest form is polre.—L.
puluerem, acc. of puluis, dust. Allied to pollen, fine meal, palea,
chaff; Gk. maA-n, meal. See Pulverise. Der. powder, verb, ME.
pouderen, Rich. Redeles, Pass. i. 1. 46 ; powder-y.
POWER, might, ability, strength, rule. (F.—L.) ME. poér,
Popular Treatises on Science, ed. Wright, p. 133, 1. 36; also powér,
Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 1654. Hence power, where the w is
used to avoid the appearance of an hiatus; Prick of Conscience,
5884.—AF. pocr, Stat. Realm, i. 28; OF. poér, also pooir, and (in
order to avoid hiatus) povoir, power; mod. F. pouvoir. The OF.
poér stands for poter, as shown by Ital. potere, power; cf. also Span.
poder, power. B. The word is merely due to a substantival use of
an infinitive mood, as in the case of leisure, pleasure ; the Ital. potere,
Span. poder, are both infinitives as well as sbs., with the sense ‘to
be able.’ = Late L. potére, to be able, which (as shown by Diez) took
the place of L. posse in the 8th century. The L. posse is itself a con-
traction for pof-esse, used by Plautus and Lucretius; and fot-esse,
again, stands for poti-esse, to be powerful; from pots, powerful, and
PRANK
esse, to be. See Possible and Essence.
Spenser, F. Ὁ. iv. 10. 36; power-ful-ly, power-ful-ness; power-less,
power-less-ly, power-less-ness. Doublet, posse.
POX, an eruptive disease. (E.) Written for pocks, pl. of pock, a
pustule ; see Pock. Cf. ‘small pockes;’ Sir T. Elyot, Castel of
Helth, bk. iv. [iii. in the head-line], ch. 6.
PRACTICE, a habit of doing things, performance. (F.—L.—
Gk.) Spelt practyse in Palsgrave. A back-formation from the verb
to practyse (in the same).—OF. practiser, to practise (Godefroy). =
Late L. type *practiciaire, for Late L. practicare, to practise. = L.
practicus (below). B. But the older form of the sb. was praktike.
ME. praktike, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 5769 (D187); practigue, Gower, C. A.
ii. 89; bk. iv. 2612. OF. practique, ‘ practise, experience,’ Cot. =
L. practica, fem. of practicus.—Gk. πρακτικός, fit for business,
practical ; whence ἡ πρακτική (ἐπιστήμη), practical science, practice.
= Gk. πρακτός, to be done ; verbal adj. of πράσσειν (=*mpaxyey), to
do, to accomplish. From a base mpa-«; Brugmann, ii. § 86.
Der. practise, verb, K. John, i. 214, as above (cf. practisour =
practis-er, in Chaucer, C. T. 424); practis-er. Also practic-able,
used by Bp. Taylor, vol. iii. ser. 2 (R.), formed from MF. practiquer,
“to practise,’ Cot.; hence practic-abl-y, practic-abil-i-ty ; also practic-
al, North’s Plutarch, pt. ii. p. 18 (R.), practic-al-ly, -ness. Also
practition-er, formed with a needless suffixed -er from the older term
practician, with the same sense (both practician and practitioner are
in Minsheu), from MF. practicien, ‘a practicer or practitioner in law,’
Cot. And see pragmatic.
PRATOR, PRETOR, a Roman magistrate. (L.) In Shak.
Jul. Ces, i. 3. 143.—L. pretor, lit. a goer before, a leader; con-
tracted form of *pre-itor.—L. pre, before ; and *itor, a goer, from
it-um, supine of ire, to go, which is from 4/EI,togo. See Pre- and
Itinerant. Der. pretor-ium, the pretor’s hall, Mark xv. 16;
pretor-i-an; pretorship.
PRAGMATIC, well-practised, fit for business, active. (F.—L.—
Gk.) ‘These pragmatic young men ;’ Ben Jonson, The Devil is an
Ass, Act i. sc. 3, end of Fitzdottrel’s long speech. ‘ Pragmaticall,
practised in many matters;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627.—F. pragmatique ;
chiefly in the phrase la pragmatique sanction, ‘a confirmation of a
decree made in the councill of Basil,’ &c., Cot.—L. pragmaticus. =
Gk. πραγματικός, skilled in business. — Gk. πραγματ-, stem of πρᾶγμα
( = *mpax-pa), a deed, thing done. — Gk.mpaccew (=*npax-ye), to do ;
see Practice. Der. pragmatic-al, -al-ly. Note also praxis, an
example for exercise, from Gk. πρᾶξις, a deed, action.
PRAIRIE, an extensive meadow or tract of grass. (F.—L.) A
word imported from America in the 18th cent. ‘The wondrous,
beautiful prairies ;’ Longfellow, Evangeline, part ii. iv. 12.—F.
prairie, ‘a medow, or medow ground;’ Cot.—Late L. prataria,
meadow-land; used a.D. 832; Ducange.—L. prat-um, a meadow ;
with adj. fem. suffix -aria.
PRAISE, commendation, tribute of gratitude. (F.—L.) ME.
preis, preys, Chaucer, C. T. 14565 (B 3837). [The verb presen, to
praise, is found much earlier, in the Ancren Riwle, p. 64, 1. 22.] --
OF. preis, price, value, merit; from OF. preisier, to praise. —L.
pretiare, to price, prize, value; from pretium, price, value; see
Price. Der. prais-er ; pratse-worthy, Much Ado, v. 2. 90 ; praise-
worthi-ness. Also ap-praise, dis-praise, ap-preci-ate, de-preci-ate; preci-
ous. Doublets, price, prize (2).
PRAM, a flat-bottomed boat. (F.—Du.—Slav.) Spelt prame in
Johnson’s Dict.—F. prame (1752), Hatzfeld ; but AF. prame occurs
in The Earl of Derby’s Expeditions, p. 42, 1. 24.—Du. praam. =
OChSlavon. pramii; Polish pram, a boat, vessel; from the Idg.
4 PAR, whence also Goth. far-an, to travel, E. fare (Kluge).
PRANCE, to strut about ; in mod. E., to bound gaily, as a horse.
(E.) Spelt praunce in Spenser, where it is used of a giant stalking
along; F.Q.i. 7.11. In Shak. it is used of a young man, 1 Hen. VI,
ii. 1. 24. The old sense is to strut about, as if for display ; and the
word is a variant of prank. Used of a horse, Skelton, Bowge of
Courte, 1. 411. ME. prauncen; ‘the horse may pryk and praunce,’
Lydgate, Horse, Sheep, and Goose, 1. 29. Also prancen, Gower,
C. A. πὶ. 413 bk. vi. 1191. Allied to prank (below) ; cf. Dan.
dial. prandse, pranse, to go proudly, as a prancing horse; pransk,
proud; Swed. dial. pranga, Swed. prunka, to show off; Dan. dial.
pranje, pranne, to prance. So also MDu. pronken, ‘to make a fine
show, to brag, strut; Jangs straat gaan pronken, to strut along, to walk
proudly along the streets;’ Sewel. See Prank. Der. pranc-ing.
PRANK (1), to deck, to adorn. (E.) The old senses are to
display gaudily, set out ostentatiously, to deck, dress up. ‘Some
prancke their ruffes;’ Spenser, F. Q. i. 4. 14. ΜΕ. pranken;
* Prankyd, as clothes, plicatus,’ Prompt. Parv. ‘I pranke ones gowne,
I set the plyghtes [pleats] in order, ie mets les plies dune robe ἃ poynt.
Se yonder olde man, his gowne is pranked as if he were but a yonge
man;’ Palsgrave. ‘ Pranked with pletes;” Skelton, Elinour Rum-
469
Der. power-ful,
470 PRANK
myng, 69; prank, a fold, pleat. Prompt. Parv. β. Closely connected
with prizk, used in the same sense; see examples in Nares. ‘ But
marke his plumes, The whiche to princke he dayes and nights con-
sumes;” Gascoigne, Weeds, Farewell with a Mischief, st. 6, ed.
Hazlitt. [Here Rich. reads pranke.] Prixk is a nasalised form of
prick; cf. Lowland Scot. preek (lit. to prick), to be spruce; ‘a bit
preekin bodie, one attached to dress, self-conceited,’ Jamieson ;
prick-me-dainty, finical; prink, primp, to deck, to prick. See Prick.
y. Allied words are MDu. pronck, ‘shewe, or ostentation,’ Hexham;
proncken, to display one’s dress, pronckepinken, pronckeprincken, to
glitter in a fine dress, Oudemans. Without the nasal, we have
MDn. pryken, ‘to make a proud shew;” Sewel. Cf. also Low G.
prunken, to make a fine show, prunk, show, display, Bremen Worter-
buch; G. prunk, show, parade; Dan. and Swed. prunk, show,
parade; and perhaps G. prangen, Dan. prange, to make a show.
3. The forms suggest a Teut. type *prenkan, str. vb. (pt. t. “prank,
pp- *prunkanoz). Der. prank (2), prance.
PRANK (2), atrick, mischievous action. (E.) In Shak. Hamlet,
iii. 4.2; K. Lear, i. 4. 259, Oth. ii. 1. 143 ; Skelton, Why Come Ye
Nat to Courte, 365. ‘ Pranke, four, finesse ;’ Palsgrave. Mr. Wedg-
wood well says: ‘A prank is usually taken in a bad sense, and
signifies something done in the face of others that makes them stare
with amazement.’ It is, in fact, an act done ‘to show off;’ and is
the same word as prank, show ; see above.
PRATEH, to talk idly. (Low G.) ME. praten, Lydgate, Minor
Poems, ed. Halliwell, p. 155 ; Coventry Plays, ed. Halliwell, 353
(Stratmann). Cf. MSwed. prata, to talk (Ihre) ; Dan. prafe, to prate ;
also Swed. prat, Dan. prat, talk, prattle.—MDu. praten, ‘to prate,
Hexham; mod. Du. fraat, tattle; Low G. praten, to prate, praat,
tattle, Bremen Worterbuch. Perhaps of imitative origin, from a
base *prat. Der. prate, sb., prat-er, prat-ing. Also pratt-le, Temp. iii.
1. 57, the frequentative form, with the usual suffix -Je; ef. Low G.
prateln, to prattle (Schambach) ; pratéle, sb., Rich. II, v. 2. 26;
prattl-er.
PRAWN, a small crustacean animal, like the shrimp. (Scand. ?)
ME. prane, Prompt. Parv. Of doubtful origin. Florio has: ‘ Par-
nocchie, a fish called shrimps or praunes;’ where parnocchie can
hardly be other than a dimin. form of L. perna, a sea-mussel (lit.
a ham), whence MItal. perna, ‘a shell-fish called a nakre or anarre,’
Florio; also Span. gerna, flat shell-fish. But we cannot connect
prawn with L. perna. B. We find also proy. E. prankle, a prawn,
and prankle, to prance (Isle of Wight}. This suggests a connexion
between prawn and prance ; with a possible allusion to its bright
appearance or quick movements; cf. Jutland pranni, to strut,
prannis, a showy person (Feilberg).
PRAY, to entreat, ask earnestly. (F.—L.) In early use. ME.
preien, preyen; O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 287, 1. 9; Havelok,
1440.—AF. and OF. preter, later prier, ‘to pray,’ Cot.—L. precari,
to pray.—L. prec-, stem of prex, a prayer; see Precarious. Der.
pray-er, ME. preiere, preyere, Chaucer, C. T. 231, 1206 (A 1204),
from OF. preiere, proiere, mod. F. priére (Ital. preghiera), from L.
precaria, fem. of precarius; see Precarious. Hence prayerful,
prayer-less.
PRE,, prefix, beforehand. (L.; or F.—L.) Used both as a F. and
L. prefix; OF. pre-, L. pre- (in pre-hendere), usually pre.—L. pre,
prep., before; for *prai, a locative form. Closely connected with
pro; see Pro-. Also allied to the prefixes per-, para-, pur-.
Hence numerous compounds, of which several, like pre-caution, are
of obvious origin.
PREACH, to pronounce a public discourse on sacred matters.
(F.—L.) ME. prechen, Ancren Riwle, p. 70, ll. 22, 24.—OF.
prechier (prescher in Cot.), mod. F. précher. = L. predicare, to make
known in public, declare publicly.—L. pre, before, before men,
publicly ; and dicare, to proclaim, allied to dicere, to say. See Pre-
and Diction. Der. preach-er, preach-ing ; preach-ment, 3 Hen, VI,
i. 4. 72. Doublet, predicate, vb.
PREAMBELE, an introduction, preface. (F.—L.) ME. preamble,
Chaucer, Ὁ. T. 6413 (Ὁ 837).— OF. preambule, ‘a preamble, preface,
prologue; Cot.=—L. preambulus, adj.; from preambulare, to walk
before.—L. pre, before; and ambulare, to walk; see Pre- and
Amble. Der. preambul-at-ion, Chaucer, C. T. 6419 (D 837).
PREBEND, a portion received for maintenance by a member of
a cathedral church. (F.—L.) Defined in Minsheu, ed. 1627.—
OF. prebende, ‘a prebendry,’ Cot,; mod. F. prébende, a prebend. =
L. prebenda, a payment to a private person from a public source;
fem. of prebendus, fut. pass. part. of prebére, to afford, supply, give.
“αν pre, before ; and habére, to have; whence prehibére, to hold
forth, proffer, offer, contracted to prebére. See Pre- and Habit.
Der. prebend-al; prebend-ar-y, Spenser, Mother Hubbard’s Tale,
422.
PRECARIOUS, uncertain, held by a doubtful tenure. (L.)
PRECOCIOUS
‘Powers which he but precartousty obeys;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg.
Errors, Ὁ. i. c. 10, near end of § το. Formed (by change of -us to
-ous, as in numerous instances) from L. precarius, obtained by prayer,
obtained as a favour, doubtful, precarious. —L. precari, to pray. = L.
prec-, stem of prex, a prayer.-G. frag-en, to ask; Goth. frath-nan,
AS. frig-nan, to ask; Lith. praszyti; Russ. prosife; Pers. persidan ;
Skt. pracch, to ask; W. erchi (for *perchi), to ask. (4/PREK).
Brngmann,i. § 607. Der. precarious-ly, -ness.
PRECAUTION, a caution taken beforehand. (F.—L.) In
Minsheu, ed. 1627.— ΜῈ, precaution, ‘a precaution,’ Cot. Mod. F.
précaution.=—L. precautionem, acc. of precautio; comp. of pre, before,
and cautio,a caution; see Pre- and Caution. Der. precautionary.
PRECEDE, to go before. (F.—L.) In Hamlet, i. 1.122; and
in Palsgrave.— MF. preceder, ‘to precede,’ Cot. ; mod. F. précéder.
=L. pracédere, to go before ; comp. of pre, before, and cédere, to
go; see Pre- and Cede. Der. preced-ence, L. L. L. iii, 83, from
MF. precedence, ‘ precedence,’ Cot., which from L. precédentia, a
going forward, an advance; preced-enc-y. Also precéd-ent, adj.,
Hamlet, iii. 4. 98, from MF. precedent, ‘ precedent, foregoing,’ Cot. ;
preced-ent-ly. Hence, with a change of accent, préced-ent, sb., Temp.
ii. I. 291 (spelt presidente, Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 7,1. 23), precedent-ed,
un-precedent-ed: preced-ing. Also precess-ion, q.v-
PRECENTOR, the leader of a choir. (L.) In Todd’s Johnson,
with a quotation dated A.D. 1622.—L. precentor, a leader in music,
precentor.—L. pre, before; and cantor, a singer, from cantare, to
sing, chant; see Pre- and Chant.
PRECEPT, a rule of action, commandment, maxim. (F.—L.)
ME. precept, Wyclif, Acts, xvi. 24.—OF. precept; MF. precepte,
“a precept,’ Cot.; mod. F. précepte.—L. precepium, a precept, rule ;
orig. neut. of preceptus, pp. of precipere, to take beforehand, also, to
give rules. —L. pre-, before; and capere, to take; see Pre- and
Capture. Der. precept-ive; precepi-ial, Much Ado, y. I. 24;
precept-or, from L. preceptor, a teacher ; precept-or-ial, precept-or-y,
precept-r-ess.
PRECESSION, a going forward. (L.) Chiefly in the phrase
precession of the equinoxes, defined in Phillips, ed. 1706. From L,
precessionem, acc. of precessio, a late word; cf. precessus, pp. of
precédere; see Precede.
PRECINCT, a territorial district. (L.) Spelt precynctin Fabyan,
Chron. vol. i. c. 172, ed. Ellis, p. 168, 1. 27; precinct, Will of Hen.
VI, Royal Wills, ed. Nichols, p. 299.—Late L. precinctum, a boun-
dary ; Ducange. - L. precinetum, neut. of precinctus, pp. of precingere,
to enclose, surround, gird about.—L. pre, before, used as an aug-
mentative, with the sense of ‘fully ;’ and cizgere, to gird; see Pre-
and Cincture.
PRECIOUS, valuable, costly, dear. (F.—L.) ME. precious,
P. Plowman, A. ii. 12 (footnote) ; Wyclif, 1 Pet. ii, 6.—OF. precios,
precieus, mod. F. précieux, precious. —L. pretidsus, valuable. = L. pre-
tium, a price, value; see Price. Der. precious-ly, -ness.
PRECIPICEH, a very steep place, an abrupt descent. (F.—L.)
In Minsheu, and in Shak. Hen. VIII, v. 1. 140.—MF. precipice, mod.
F. précipice (Littré).—L. precipitium, a falling headlong down; also,
a precipice. = L. precipiti-, decl. stem of preceps, head-foremost.=L.
pre, before ; and cagiti-, dec]. stem of caput, the head; see Pre- and
Capital. Der. precipit-ous, Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b, iii. c. 6.
last §, from MF. precipiteux, ‘ headlong,’ Cot. ; preci pit-ous-ly, -ness.
Also precipit-ate, adj., properly a pp., from L. precititare, to cast
headlong; used as a verb in Minsheu, and in Shak. K. Lear, iv. 6.
50; precipit-ate-ly; precipit-ant; precipit-ance, precipit-anc-y; also pre-
cipit-at-ion, from MF, precipitation, ‘ precipitation,’ Cot.
PRECISE, definite, exact. (F.—L.) We find presysely, adv., in
Fabyan, Chron. yol. i.c. 245; ed. Ellis, p. 287, 1. 44.—OF. precis,
fem. precise, ‘strict, precise;’ Cot. Mod. F. précis.—L. precisis,
cut off, shortened, brief, concise ; the sense of ‘ strict’ arose from that
of ‘concise, because an abstract is precise, to the exclusion of
irrelevant matter.—L. precidere, to cut off near the end.—L. pre,
before, in front ; and c@dere,to cut. See Pre- and Cesura. Der.
precise-ly, -ness; precis-ion, a late word. Also precis-ian, a precise
person; a coined word; see Nares.
PRECLUDE, to hinder by anticipation, shut out beforehand.
(L.) First in 1618; used by Pope and Burke; see Todd’s Johnson
and Richardson.—L. preclidere, to close, shut up, hinder from
access. —L. pra, in front; and claudere, to shut; see Pre- and
Clause. . Der. preclus-ion, preclus-ive.
PRECOCIOUS, premature, forward, (L.) ‘Many precocious
trees;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. ii. c. 6. part 4. [Evelyn, as
cited in R., uses precoce, answering to mod. F. précoce.} A coined
word; from precoci-, decl. stem of precox, ripe before its time, pre-
mature ; also spelt precoguus, precoguis.—L. pre, before ; and coguere,
to cook, to ripen; see Pre- and Cook. Der. precocious-ly, -ness5
precoci-ty.
PRECONCEIVE
PRECONCEIVE, to conceive beforehand. (F.—L.) Used by
Bacon, Colours of Good and Evil, sec. 5, § 2. Coined from Pre-
and Conceive. Der. freconcept-ion; from Pre- and Con-
ception.
PRECONCERT, to concert or plan beforehand. (F.—Ital.—
L.) ‘Some preconcerted stratagem ;’ Warton, Hist. of E. Poetry, iii.
138, ed. 1840. Coined from Pre- and Concert.
PRECURSOR, a forerunner. (L.) In Shak. Temp. i. 2. 201,
-L. precursor, a forerunner. L. pre, before; and cursor, a runner,
from currere, torun; see Pre- and Course. Der. frecur-sor-y ;
note also precurse, a forerunning, Hamlet, i, 1. 121.
PREDATORY, given to plundering. (L.) Rich. gives a quota-
tion from Reliquize Wottonianz, p. 455. First in Puttenham, Arte
of E. Poesie, bk. i. c. 18. Englished from L. predatorius, plundering ;
from predator, a plunderer.= L. predari, to plunder, get booty. =L.
preda, prey, booty; see Prey.
PREDECESSOR, one who has preceded another in an office.
(L.) In Shak. Hen. V, i. 1. 181; also an ancestor, Hen. V, i. 2.
248. Spelt predecessour (as if from F.) in Du Wes; printed with
Palsgrave, p. 897, 1. 3.—L. predécessor, a predecessor. —L. pre,
before; and décessor, one who retires from an office; cf. décessus,
pp. of décédere, to depart, which is compounded of dé, from, away,
and cédere, to go. See Pre-, De-, and Cede.
PREDESTINE, to destine by fate. (F.—L.) [We find ME,
predestinacioun in Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. iv. pr. 6, 1.19. Pre-
destinate is well used as a pp. in: ‘ They were predestynate to suffre
yet more plagues,’ Hall’s Chron. Hen. V, an. 4. § 2.) ‘From our
predistin’d plagues that priuileged be;” Drayton, Polyolbion, song 2.
Predistin’d is Englished from MF. predestiné, ‘predestined, pre-
destinated;’ Cot.—L. predestindtus, pp. of predestinare, to deter-
mine beforehand.=L. pre, before; and destinare, to destine; see
Pre- and Destine. Der. predestin-ate, as above, from L. pre-
destinalus ; predestin-at-or, predestin-at-ion, as aboye, from MF, pre-
destination. Also predestin-ar-i-an, a coined word.
PREDETERMINE, to determine beforehand. (F.—L.) ‘ But
he did not predetermine him to any evil;’ Bp. Taylor, vol. i. ser. 9
(R.).. Coined from Pre- and Determine. Der. predetermin-ate,
predetermin-at-ion.
PREDICATE, to affirm one thing concerning another. (L.) A
term in logic. ‘Which may as truely be predicated of the English
play-haunters now, as of the Romans then ;’ Prynne, Histrio-Mastix,
pt. i. Act vi.sc. 2 (R.).—L. predicatus, pp. of predicaire, to publish,
proclaim; see Preach. Der. predicat-ion, predica-ble, predicat-ive,
Also predica-ment, one of the most general classes into which things
can be distributed ; see Tyndale, Obedience of a Christian Man
(1528), in Specimens of English, ed. Skeat, p. 176, 1. 317, from Late
L. predicamentum. Doublet, preach.
PREDICT, to tell beforehand, prophesy. (L.) In Milton, P. R.
iii. 356. Shak. has predict as a sb., with the sense of ‘ prediction ;’
Sonnet xiv. 8.—L. predictus, pp. of predicere, to tell beforehand. —
L. pre, before; and dicere, to say; see Pre- and Diction. Der.
predict-ton, Macb. i. 3. 55, from MF. prediction, ‘a prediction,’ Cot. ;
and this sb. probably suggested the verb to predict, as it is in earlier
use. Also predict-ive, from L. predictiuus.
PREDILECTION, a choosing beforehand, partiality, choice.
(F.—L.) A late word, added by Todd to Johnson’s Dict. —F. pré-
dilection (first in 1519). Coined from L. pre, before, beforehand;
and dilectio, choice, love, from diligere, to choose out from others, to
love. Diligere is compounded of di-, for dis-, apart; and legere, to
choose. See Pre-, Dis-, and Legend.
PREDISPOSE, to dispose beforehand.
Phillips, ed. 1706.—F. prédisposer (15 cent.). Coined from L. fre,
beforehand; and F. distoser. See Pre- and Dispose. Der.
predispos-it-ton (but see Pose and Position, where the difference
in origin of these two words is explained).
PREDOMINATE, to rule over, reign. (L.) In Shak. Merry
Wives, ii. 2. 294; Timon, iv. 3. 142. Coined from Pre- and
Dominate. Der. fredomin-ant, in Minsheu, ed. 1627, from domin-
ant-, stem of pres, part. of dominari, to rule; predomin-ance ; predomin-
anc-y, Bacon, Colours of Good and Evil, vii. § 3.
PRE-EMINENCE, eminence above the rest. (F.—L.) Spelt
preemynence in Palsgrave; preheminence, Bacon, Essay ix. § 12; pre-
emynence, Skelton, Why Come Ye Nat to Court, 406.—MF. pré-
eminence, ‘ preheminenee,’ Cot. (‘The insertion of h was due to a wish
to avoid the hiatus.]—L. preéminentia, a surpassing, excelling. πος,
pre, before ; and @minentia, eminence; see Pre- and Eminence.
Der. pre-eminent, from L, preéminent-, stem of the pres. part. of pre-
éminére, to excel; pre-eminent-ly,
PRE-EMPTION, a purchasing before others. (L,) ‘Right of
preemption of first choice of wines in Bourdeaux ;’ Howell, Famil.
Letters, Ὁ. ii. let. 55 [mot 14]; dated 1634. Coined from L. pre,
(F.—L. and Gk.) In
PRELATE 47]
| before; and emptio, a buying, allied to emptus or emtus, pp. of emere,
to buy; see Pre- and Example.
PRE-ENGAGE, to engage beforehand. (F.—L.) Todd gives
two quotations for this word from Dryden, both without references.
The former is from Cymon, 1. 246, From Pre- and Engage.
Der. pre-engage-ment.
PRE-EXIST, to exist beforehand. (L.) ‘ But if thy pre-existing
soul ;’ Dryden, On Mrs. Killigrew, 1.29, From Pre- and Exist,
Der. pre-exist-ent, pre-exist-ence,
PREFACH, the introduction to a book. (F.—L.) In Shak.
1 Hen. VI, v. 5. 11; Chaucer, C. T., G 271. OF, and ΜῈ, preface,
fem. ‘a preface,’ Cot.; mod. F. préface. Cf. Ital. prefazio, Span.
prefacio, corresponding to an OF. preface of the masc. gender.
Suggested by L. prefaiio, a preface, which produced. the Ital, pre-
fazione and Span. prefacion, and would have given a F. form préfaison.
-L. prefar?, to say beforehand,=L. pre, before; and fart, to speak.
See Pre- and Fate. Der. preface, verb; prefat-or-y, as if from
a L. *prefatorius.
PREFECT, a governor, one placed in office, president. (F.—L.)
ME. prefect, Chaucer, C. T. 15830 (G 362), (where he is translating
from Latin).—OF. and MPF, prefect ; mod. F. préfet.—L. prefectus, a
prefect, one set over others.=L. pre, before; and factus, made, set,
pp. of facere, to make; see Pre- and Fact. Der. prefect-ship;
also prefect-ure, from mod, F. préfecture, L. prefectiira, a prefectship.
PREFER, to regard before others, esteem more highly, to
advance or exalt. (F.—L.) Common in Shak. Cor. iii, 1. 152, &c.;
spelt preferre in Palsgrave.—OF. preferer, ‘to prefer, like better,’
Cot.—L,. preferre (pres. t. prefero), to carry in front; also to set in
front, prefer.—L. pre, before; and ferre, cognate with E. bear; see
Pre- and Bear (1). Der. prefer-able, from MF. preferable, ‘ pre-
ferrable,’ Cot., also written preferr-ible; prefer-abl-y, prefer-able-ness ;
prefer-ence, from MF. preference, ‘ preferment ;’ Cot.; prefer-ment,
Oth. i, 1. 36.
PREFIGURE, to suggest by types. (F.—L.) ‘ Prefygured by
the temple of Solomon ;’ Bale, Ymage of both Churches (1550), pt.
i(R.). From Pre- and Figure; but suggested by Late L. pre-
Jigurare (Lewis), Der. prefigure-ment, prefigurat-ion, prefigurat-ive,
PREFIX, to fix beforehand. (F.—L.) ‘I prefixe, 76 prefixe;’
Palsgrave, Spenser has the pp. prefixed, Sonnet 46,1.1; Lydgate
has prefyxyd, Assembly of the Gods, 549. This’ is due to the MF.
prefix, ‘prefixed, limited;’ Cot.—L. prefixus, pp. of prefigere, to
fix in front. L. pre, before; and figere, to fix; see Pre- and Fix,
Der. prefix, sb., lit. that which is prefixed.
PREGNANT (1), pressing, urgent, cogent; as a proof or
reason. (F.—L.) ‘A preignant argument ;’ Chaucer, Troilus, b. iv.
1179.—OF, preignant, pregnant, ‘pregnant, pithy;’ Cot, Here
preignant is the pres, pt. ot OF. preindre, prembre, to press (Gode-
froy).—L. premere, to press ; see Press.
PREGNANT (2), fruitful, with child; imaginative. (F,—L.)
In Milton, Ρ. L. ii. 779.—L. pregnantem, acc. of pregnans, pregnant.
Pregnans has the form of a pres. part. from a verb *pregnare, to be
before a birth, to be about to bear.—L. pre, before; and *gnare, to
bear, of which the pp. grdtwus, usually spelt xa@tus, born, is in common
use. See Pre- and Natal. Der. pregnant-ly; pregnanc-y, 2 Hen,
EVs ἱ..2..192:
PREHENSILE, adapted for grasping. (L.) Modern; not
in Todd’s Johnson. Coined with suffix -2Jis from prehens-us, usually
prensus, pp. of prehendere, also prendere, to lay hold of.—L. pre-, for
pre, before; and (obsolete) -hendere, to seize, get, cognate with E.
get; see Pre- and Get. Der. prison, prize (1).
PRE-HISTORIC, before history. (F.—L.)
Pre- and Historic.
PREJUDGE, to judge beforehand. (F.—L.) In Bacon, Life
of Hen. VII, ed. Lumby, p. 8, 1. 17.— MF. prejuger, ‘to prejudicate,
prejudge,’ Cot.—L. freiidicare; from pre, before; and iidicare, to
judge; see Pre- and Judge. Der. prejudicate, All’s Well, i. 2. 8,
from L. preiiidicdtus, pp. of preitdicare; prejudicat-ion, prejudicat-
ive; and see prejudice.
PREJUDICE, a prejudgement, an ill opinion formed before-
hand. (F.—L.) In Shak. Hen, VII, i. 1, 182, ii. 4.154. ME.
Modern; from
prejudice, Shoreham’s Poems (Percy Soc.), p. 36, 1. 21.—OF. pre-
judice, ‘a prejudice,’ Cot.—L. preiidicium, a judicial examination
previous to a trial; also, a damage, prejudice.—L. pre, before; and
iudicium, a judgement. See Prejudge; also Pre- and Judicial
Der. prejudice, verb, 1 Hen. VI, iii. 3. 91; prejudic-ial, 3 Hen. VI,
1.1. 144; prejudic-ial-ly,
PRELATE, a bishop, church dignitary. (F.—L.) In early use;
in Layamon, 24502; pl. prelaz (for predats), Ancren Riwle, p. 10,
1. 8.—OF. prelat, ‘a prelate,’ Cot.—L. prelatus, set above, used as
pp: of the verb preferre, to prefer, advance, but from a different
root.—L. pre, before; and /atus, for ¢latus (=Gk. rAntés), from
PRELIMINARY
TEL, to lift; see Pre- and Blate. Der. prelat-ic, little used ;
prelat-ic-al, Milton, Reason of Church Government, b. ii. sect. 3.
ch. 1 (R.); prelat-ic-al-ly , prelat-ist ; prelac-y, Skelton, Why Come
Ye Nat to Courte, 500.
PRELIMINARY, introductory. (F.—L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. ‘Some preliminary considerations ;’ Bp. Taylor, vol. iii.
ser. 3 (R.). Coined from Pre-, q.v., and MF. liminaire, ‘set before
the entry, or at the beginning of, dedicatory,’ Cot. From L. Jimi-
narem, acc. of liminaris, of or belonging to a threshold, coming at the
beginning. =L. Jimin-, decl. stem of limen, a threshold, allied to /imes,
a boundary; see Limit. Der. preliminari-ly.
PRELUDE, an introduction to a piece of music, a preface. (F.
—L.) The L. form preludium was once in use, and is the form given
in Minsheu, Cotgrave, and Blount. In Dryden, Britannia Rediviva,
187, prelude seems to be used as a verb. MF. prelude, a preludium,
preface, preamble,’ Cot. Late L. *prélidium, *praliidium, a prelude,
perhaps a coined word ; it is not in Ducange.=—L. pr@ludere, to play
beforehand, also, to give a prelude beforehand, which is just Dryden’s
use of it.—L. pre, before; and ladere, to play; see Pre- and
Ludicrous. Der. prelude, verb; prelus-ive, from pp. preliis-us,
with suffix -ive.
PREMATURE, mature before the right time, happening before
the proper time. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Not F., but
Englished from L. premdtirus, too early, untimely, premature. —L.
pre, before; and matirus, ripe; see Pre- and Mature. 41 Cotgrave
only gives the MF, sb. prematurité, ‘ prematurity.’ Der. premature-
ly, prematur-i-ty, premature-ness.
PREMEDITATE, to meditate beforehand. (L.) In Shak.
Hen. V, iv. 1. 170.—L. premeditatus, pp. of premeditari; see Pre-
and Meditate. Der. premeditat-ion, in Sir T. Elyot, The Governour,
b.ii. c. I. § 13, from MF. premeditation, ‘ premeditation,’ Cot., from L.
acc. premeditationem.
PREMIER, chief or first, a chief, a prime minister. (F.—L.)
The law-phrasé premier seisin, first possession, was in use in common
law; Minsheu notes this use of it, A.D. 1627. Rich. quotes ‘ the
Spaniard challengeth the premier place’ from Camden’s Remains. =
F. premier, ‘prime, first,’ (οί. οἱ. primdrium, acc. of primarius,
chief, principal; formed with suffix -arius from prim-us, first. See
Prime (1). Der. premier-ship.
PREMISE, PREMISS, a proposition, in logic, proved or
assumed for the sake of drawing conclusions ; one of the two pro-
positions in a syllogism from which the conclusion is drawn. (F.—
L.) The spelling premise stands for premisse, the true F. spelling ;
the spelling premiss is perhaps due to the L. form, but may also be
for premisse. Minsheu has ‘the premises ;’ but the correct pl. pre-
misses is in Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. iii, pr. ro, 1. 83.—OF.
premisse (mod. F. prémisse), omitted by Cotgrave, but in use in the
14th century (Littré).—L. premissa (sententia being understood), a
premiss, lit. that which is sent or put before.—L. pre, before; and
missus, pp. of mittere, to send; see Pre- and Missile. Der. pre-
mise, verb, orig. ‘to send before,’ as in Shak, 2 Hen. VI, v. 2. 41,
from F. pre- (<L. pre), before; and mis (fem. mise), pp. of mettre
(<L. mittere), to send, toput. Also premises, s. pl., the adjuncts of
a building, a sense due to the custom of beginning leases with the
premises setting forth the names of the grantor and grantee of the
deed, as well as a description of the thing granted ; later, the sense
was transferred from the description of these to that of the thing
leased only, and came to be used in the present vague way; so in
Blount’s Nomolexicon, 1691. Wedgwood explains it more simply
‘from the use of the term in legal language, where the appurtenances
of a thing sold are mentioned αὐ full in the first place, and subse-
quently referred to as the premises,’ i.e. the things premised or men-
tioned above. Thus, in Lady Margaret’s Will (1508) we find: ‘ All
which maners, londs, and tenements, and other the premisses, we late
purchased ;’ Royal Wills, ed. Nichols, p. 378. See examples in
Caxton’s print of the Statutes of Hen. VII; fol. a6, &c.
PREMIUM, profit, bounty, reward, payment for a loan, &c. (L.)
In Blount’s Gloss., where he not only explains it by ‘recompence,’
but notes the mercantile use of it in insurances. = L. premium, profit,
lit. ‘ataking before;’ for *pr@-imium (<*pre-emium).— L. pre, before;
and emere, to take, also to buy; see Pre- and Example.
PREMONISG, to wam beforehand. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed.
1627. A coined word, from pre-, before; and monish, a corrupted
form of ME. monesten, to warn, Wyclif, 2 Cor. vi. 1; just as admonish
is corrupted from ME. amonesten. See Pre-, Admonish, and
Monition. Der. premonit-ion, Chapman, tr. of Homer, Od. ii. 321,
coined from pre- and monition. Also premonit-ive; premonit-or, from
L. premonitor ; premonit-or-y, premonit-or-i-ly, Also premonish-ment
(obsolete), used by Bale (R.).
PRENTICE; short for Apprentice, q. y.
PREOCCUPY, to occupy beforehand. (F.—L.)
472
|
|
In Shak. Cor. |
PRESCIENCE
ii. 3. 240.— MF. preoccuper, ‘to preoccupate, anticipate,’ Cot.—L.
preoccupare; from pre, before, and occupare, to occupy; see Pre-
and Occupy. 4 The peculiar ending of occupy is discussed under
that word. Der. preoccupat-ion, from MF. preoccupation (Minsheu),
“a preoccupation,’ Cot.; also preoccup-anc-y.
PREORDAIN, to ordain beforehand. (F.—L.) In Milton
Ρ. R.i.127.. From Pre- and Ordain; cf. MF. preordonner, ‘to
preordinate, or fore-ordain,’ Cot. 4 The adj. preordinate (L. pra-
ordinatus) occurs in Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b. ii. c. 12. ὃ 3;
and see Palsgrave. Der. preordin-at-ion, used by Bale (R.) ; MF.
preordination (Hatzfeld) ; from MF. pre- and ordination.
PREPARE, to make ready beforehand, arrange, provide. (F.—
L.) In the Bible of 1551, Luke iii. 4; and in Palsgrave.—MF.
preparer, ‘to prepare,’ Cot.=<L. preparare; comp. of pra, before-
hand, and parare, to get ready ; see Pre- and Parade. Der. pre-
par-er, prepar-ed, prepar-ed-ly,-ness. Also prepar-at-ion, Sir T. Elyot,
The Governour, Ὁ. ii. c. I. § 1, from MF. preparation, ‘a prepara-
tion,’ Cot.; prepar-at-ive, ME. preparatif, Lydgate, Minor Poems,
p- 168, from MF. preparatif, ‘a preparative, or preparation,’ Cot. ;
prepar-at-ive-ly; prepar-at-or-y, suggested by MF. preparatoire, ‘a
preparatory,’ Cot. Also prepare, sb., 3 Hen. VI, iv. 1. 131.
PREPAY, to pay beforehand. (F.—L.) Modern; not in
Todd’s Johnson, From Pre- and Pay. Der. prepai-d, pre-pay-
ment,
PREPENSE, premeditated, intentional. (F.—L.) 1. As if
from F. pre- (L. pre), beforehand, and F. penser, to think. 2. But
in the phrase ‘ malice prepense ;’ formerly written ‘ malice prepensed,
it is an altered form of AF. purpensé, pp. of purpenser, to meditate
on, with prefix pur- (F. pour-), from L. pro. See my Notes on
Eng. Etym., p. 230; Elyot’s Governor, ed. Croft, ii. 375; and the
Laws of Will. I. § 2. The expression‘ prepensed murder’ occurs in
the Stat. 12 Hen. VII, cap. 7; see Blount’s Nomolexicon, ed. 1691.
‘Malice prepensed is malice forethought ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
See Pansy. Der. prepense-ly.
PREPONDERATE, to outweigh, exceed in weight or influ-
ence. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. preponderatus, pp. of
preponderare, to outweigh.—L. pre, before, hence, in excess ; and
ponderare, to weigh, from ponder-, decl. base of pondus, a weight ;
see Pre- and Ponder. Der. preponder-at-ion ; preponder-ant, pre-
ponder-ance.
PREPOSITION, a part of speech expressing the relation be-
tween objects, and governing a case. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed.
1627; and in Palsgrave, p. xxiv. = MF. preposition, ‘a preposition,
in grammar ;’ Cot.—L. prepositidnem, acc. of prepositio, a putting
before ; in grammar, a preposition.—L. pre, before; and positio, a
putting, placing; see Pre- and Position. Der. preposition-al.
PREPOSSESS, to possess beforehand, preoccupy. (L.) ‘ Pre-
possesses the hearts of His servants; ’ Bp. Taylor, vol. iii. ser. 10 (R.).
From Pre- and Possess. Der. prepossess-ing, prepossess-ion.
PREPOSTEROUS, contrary to nature or reason, absurd. (L.)
‘ Preposterouse, preeposterus ;’ Levins, ed. 1570.—L. praposterus, re-
versed, inverted ; lit. the last part forwards, hind side before.=L.
pre, before, in front; and posterus, latter, coming after; see Pre-
and Posterior. Der. preposterous-ly, -ness.
PREROGATIVE, an exclusive privilege. (F.—L.) In Spenser,
F.Q. iv. 12. 31; ME. prerogatif, Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 118.—
MF. prerogative, ‘a prerogative, privilege,’ Cot.—L. prerogatiua, a
previous choice or election, preference, privilege. Orig. fem. of
prerogitiuus, one who is asked for an opinion before others. =—L.
pre, before ; and -rogatiuus, allied to rogatus, pp. of rogare, to ask.
See Pre- and Rogation.
PRESAGE, an omen. (F.—L.) In Shak. King John, i. 28; as
a verb, Merch. Ven. iii. 2. 175.—MF. presage, ‘a presage, divining ;’
Cot.=—L. presagium, a presage.—L. presagire, to perceive before-
hand.=L. pre, before ; and sagire, to perceive quickly. See Pre-,
Sagacious. Der. presage, verb, answering to MF. presagier ;
presag-er, Shak. Sonn. 23.
PRESBYTER, a priest, elder of the church. (L.—Gk.) ‘ Presby-
ters, or fatherly guides ;’ Hooker, Eccl. Polity, b. v. s. 78 (R.).=L.
presbyter. τὸ Gk. πρεσβύτερος, elder ; comp. of πρέσβυς, old; see τ Pet.
y. 1. Cf. L. priscus, ancient. See Priest. Der. Presbyter-ian, a
term applied to tenets embodied in a formulary A.D. 1560, Haydn,
Dict. of Dates, which see; Presbyter-ian-ism. Also presbyter-y,
τ Tim. iv. 14, where the Vulgate has presbyterium, from Gk. mpeo-
Buré prov.
PRESCIENCEH, foreknowledge. (F.—L.) In Chaucer, tr. of
Boethius, b. v. pr. 3, 1. 17.—OF. prescience, ‘a prescience,’ (οἵ. --
L. prescientia, foreknowledge.—L. pre, before; and scientia,
knowledge; see Pre- and Science. Der. prescient, Bacon (see R.),
a later word, from prescient-, stem of pres. part. of prescire, to know
beforehand.
PRESCRIBE
PRESCRIBE, to give directions, appoint by way of direction.
(L.) In Levins, ed. 1570.—L. prescribere, to write beforehand,
appoint, prescribe.—L. pre, before ; and scribere, to write; see
Pre- and Scribe. Der. prescrib-er; prescript (= prescribed),
More’s Utopia (English version), Ὁ. ii. c. 5, ed. Arber, p. 89, from
L. pp. prescript-us; hence also prescript, sb., prescript-ible. Also
prescript-ion, Cor. ii, 1. 127, from MF. prescription, ‘a prescription,’
from L, acc. prescriptionem, from nom. prescriptio, a prescribing,
precept, whence the medical use readily follows. Also prescript-ive,
from L. prescriptiuus.
PRESENCE, a being present or within view, mien, personal
appearance, readiness. (F.—L.) ME. presence, Chaucer, C. T.
5095 (B 675).—OF. presence.—L. presentia, presence.—L. pre-
sent-, stem of pra@sens, present; see Present (1). Der. presence-
chamber.
PRESENT (1), near at hand, in view, at this time. (F.—L.)
ME. present, Wyclif, 1 Cor. iii, 22.—<OF. present.=L. present-,
stem of prasens, present, lit. being in front, hence, being in sight. =
L. pre, before, in front; and -sens, being (cognate with Skt. sant-,
being), for *es-ens, pres. pt. of es-se, to be. (4/ES); see Pre-,
Absent, and Sooth. Der. present-ly, Temp. i. 2. 125; presence,
q-v. ; present (2), q.v-
PRESENT (2), to give, offer, exhibit toview. (F.—L.) ME.
presenten, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 63, 1. 21; Chaucer,
C. T. 12190 (C 256).—OF. presenter, ‘to present,’ Cot.—L. pre-
sentare, to place before, hold out, present; lit, ‘to make present.’ =
L. present-, stem of prasens, present; see Present (1). Der.
present-er, present-able, present-at-ion, As You Like It, iv. 4. 112,
from MF, presentation, ‘ a presentation,’ Cot., from L. acc. presenta-
lidnem ; present-ee, one who is presented to a benefice, from MF. pp.
presenté (Cot.) ; present-ment, Hamlet, iii. 4. 54, and (as a law-term)
in Blount’s Nomolexicon, ed. 1691. Also present, sb., ME. present,
Ancren Riwle, p. 114, 1. 2, p. 152, 1. 12; from OF. present, ‘a
present, gift,’ Cot.
PRESENTIMENT, a perceiving beforehand, a conviction of
some future event. (F.—L.) ‘A fresentiment of what is to be here-
after ;’ Butler, Analogy of Religion, pt. i. c. 6. § 11. OF. presenti-
ment, ‘a fore-feeling,’ Cot.; suggested by L. presentire, to perceive
beforehand ; see Pre- and Sentiment.
PRESERVE, to guard, keep, save. (F.—L.) ME. preseruen
(with w=v), Gower, C. A. iii. 221; bk. vii. 3856. —OF. preserver,
“to preserve,’ Cot.<L. pre, beforehand ; and serudre, to keep; see
Pre- and Serve. Der. preserve, sb. ; preserv-er; preserv-at-ion,
Temp. ii. 1. 7, from OF. preservation, omitted by Cotgrave, but in
use in the 14th century (Littré) ; preserv-at-ive, Sir T. Elyot, The
Governor, b. iii. c. 4. § 1, Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 91, from MF.
preservatif, ‘ preservative,’ Cot. ; preserv-at-or-y.
PRESIDE, to superintend, have authority over others. (F.—L.)
In Cotgrave. -- MF. presider, ‘to preside, govern,’ Cot. =L. prasidére,
to sit before or above, to preside over.—L. pra, before ; and sedére,
to sit, cognate with Εἰ, sit; see Pre- and Sit. Der. presid-ent,
Wyclif, Deeds [Acts], xxiii. 24, 26, from OF. president, ‘a president,’
Cot., from L. president-, stem of pres. part. of presidére ; president-
ship ; prestdenc-y ; president-ial.
PRESS (1), to crush strongly, squeeze, drive forcibly, urge, push.
(F.-L.) ME. pressen, presen (with voiceless s), Chaucer, C. T.
2582 (A 2580).—F. presser, ‘to press, strain,’ Cot.—L. pressare, to
press; frequentative formed from press-um, supine of premere, to
press. Der. press, sb., ME. presse, Chaucer, Fortune, 1. 52, Ancren
Riwle, p. 168, last line, from F. presse, ‘a prease, throng,’ Cot. ;
press-er, press-ing, press-ing-ly ; press-ure, Prompt. Parv., from OF.
pressure, ‘pressure,’ Cot., from L. pressiira, allied to pp. pressus.
Also press-fat, a pressing-vat, Haggai, ii. 16; see Fat(2) and Vat.
Also print, im-print.
PRESS (2), to hire men for service, to engage men by earnest-
money for the public service, to carry men off forcibly to become
sailors or soldiers. (F.—L.) Itis certain, as Wedgwood has shown,
that press is here a corruption of the old word prest, ready, because
it was customary to give earnest-money to a soldier on entering
service, just as to this day a recruit receives a shilling. This
earnest-money was called pres/-money, i.e. ready money advanced,
and to give a man such money was to imprest him, now corruptly
written impress. ‘At a later period, the practice of taking men for
the public service by compulsion made the word to be understood as
if it signified to force men into the service, and the original reference
to earnest-money was quite lost sight of;’ Wedgwood. B. Prest
was once a common word for ready money advanced, or ready
money on loan. ‘And he sent thyder iii, somers [sumpter-horses]
laden with nobles of Castel [Castile] and floreyns, to gyve in frest
[as ready money] to knyghtes and squyers, for he knewe well otherwyse
he sholde not haue them come out of theyr houses;’ Berners, tr. of
PRETERIT, PRETERITE 473
Froissart, vol. ii. c. 64 (R.). ‘ Requiring of the city a pres¢ [an ad-
vance] of 6000 marks ;’ Bacon, Life of Hen. VII, ed. Lumby, p. 18,
1. 28. See also Skelton, Colin Clout, 350-354, and Dyce’s note;
North’s Plutarch, ed. 1594, p. 638. Both prest-money and imprest-
money are in Minsheu, ed. 1627; and Cotgrave explains MF. im-
prestance by ‘ prest, or imprest money, received and to be imployed
for another.’=MF. prester, ‘to lend, also, to trust out [advance] or
sell unto daies’ (unto an appointed time], Cot. Cf. OF. prest,
‘prest, ready, full dight, furnished, ... prompt, nere at hand,’ id.
Ital. prestare, ‘ to lend,’ Florio; imprestare, ‘ to lend or give to lone,”
id. (Mod. F. préter.)—L. prestare, to come forward or stand
before, surpass, to become surety for, give, offer, furnish, provide.
=L. pre, before; and stare, cognate with E. stand; see Pre- and
Stand. Der. im-press, im-press-ment 5 also press-gang, q.V-
PRESS-GANG, a gang of men employed to ‘ press’ sailors
into the public service. (F.—L.; and E.) In Johnson’s Dict.
This word seems to be of rather late formation, and also to be
associated with the notion of compulsion or pressing; at the same
time, it certainly took its origin from the verb press, in the sense of
“to hire men for service;’ see therefore Press (2), as orig. quite
distinct from Press (1). Cf. press-money, K. Lear, iv. 6.87. And
see Gang.
PRESTIGE, a delusion; also, influence due to former fame or
excellence. (F.—L.) This word is in the very rare position of
having achieved a good meaning in place of a bad one; the reverse
is more usual, as noted in Trench, Study of Words. Cf. mod. F.
prestige, ‘fascination, magic spell, magic power, prestige,’ Hamilton.
In some authors it had a bad sense, in E. as well as in F., but it is
not an old word with us. ‘ Prestiges, illusions, impostures, juggling
tricks ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.—F. prestige; Cot. gives pl. prestiges,
‘deceits, impostures, juggling tricks.’ —L. prestigium, a deceiving
by juggling tricks, a delusion, illusion ; we also find L. pl. prestigia,
tricks, deception, trickery. B. For *prestrigium, the second r
being lost; Brugmann, i. ὃ 483.—L. prestringere, to bind fast, to
dull, dim, blind.=L. pre, before; and stringere, to bind. See
Stringent.
PRESTO, quickly. (Ital.—L.) ‘Well, you'll come? Presto!’
Ben Jonson, The Case is Altered, i. 1.—Ital. presto, adv., quickly. =
| L. presto, at hand, ready, present.—L. pre, before; and stare, to
stand. See Pre- and State.
PRESUME, to take for granted, suppose, to act forwardly.
(F.—L.) ‘ When she presumed tasten of a tree ;’ Occleve, Letter of
Cupid, st. 51. 1. 355 (A.D. 1402). [Presumption, ME. presumcioun,
occurs earlier, spelt presumciun, Ancren Riwle, p. 208, 1. 20.]—OF.
presumer, ‘to presume, or think too well of himselfe, . .. to presume,
think, ween, imagine;’ Cot.—L. prasumere, to take beforehand,
anticipate, presume, imagine. = L. pra, before ; and simere, to take;
where siimere is from emere, to take, buy; the prefix was prob.
subs-. See Pre- and Example. Der. presum-ing, presum-able,
presum-abl-y; presumpt-ion (as above), from OF. presumpcion (13th
cent., Littré), later presomption, ‘presumption,’ Cot., from L. pre-
sumptionem, acc. of presumptio, allied to presumptus, pp. of pre-
stiimere, Also presumpt-ive, Daniel, Civil War, Ὁ. iii. st. 17, from
MF. presomptif, ‘likely,’ Cot.; presumpt-ive-ly; presumpt-u-ous,
Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 131, 1. 160, Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 175,
spelt presumptiouse in Levins, from OF. presomptiieux (13th cent.
presumptuouse, 14th cent. presumptueux, Littré), which from L. pre-
sumptudsus, prasumptiosus. Hence presumptuous-ly, -ness.
PRESUPPOSE, to suppose beforehand. (F.—L. and Gk.)
‘ Wherefore it is to presuppose ;’ Fabyan, Chron. an, 1284-5, ed. Ellis,
p- 389; and in Palsgrave.—OF. presupposer, ‘to presuppose;’ Cot.
See Pre- and Suppose. Der. presuppos-it-ion (really from a
different root ; see Pose, Position).
PRETEND, to affect to feel, to feign. (F.—L.) ME. pre-
tenden, to lay claim, Chaucer, Troilus, b. iv. 1. g22.—OF. pretendre,
‘to pretend, lay claim to;’ Cot.—L. pretendere, to spread before,
hold out as an excuse, allege, pretend.=—L. pre, before; and tendere,
to stretch, spread; see Pre- and Tend. Der. pretend-er, esp. used
of the Old and Young Pretenders, so called because they laid claim
to the crown. Also pretence, Macb. ii. 3. 137 (first folio), a mistaken
spelling for pretense, from Late L. pretensus, pp. of pretendere (the
usual L. supine is pretentum, but tendere gives both tenswm and
tentum) ; the right spelling pretense is in Spenser, F. Ὁ. iv. 5. 23, with
which cf. pretensed, i.e. intended, in Robinson’s tr. of More’s Utopia,
ed. Arber, p. 20, 1. 7. Cf. MF. pretente, ‘a pretence ;’ Cot. Also
pretension, Bacon, Of a War with Spain (R.), formed as if from L.
type *pretensio.
PRETER., prefix, beyond. (L.; or F.—L.) OF. preter-, pre-
fix, from L. preter, beyond, which is a compar. form of pre, betore,
with Idg. suffix -fer-.
PRETERIT, PRETERITE, past; the past tense. (F.—L.)
474 PRETERMIT
ME. preterit, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. v. pr. 6, 1. 13, —OF. pre-
terit, m. preterite, fem. ‘past, overpast,’ Cot.<L. preteritus, pp. of
preterire, to pass by.=<L. preter, beyond ; and ire, to go, from
7 EI, to go. ;
PRETERMIT, to omit. (L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.—L.
pretermittere, to allow to go past, let slip.—L. preter, past, beyond ;
and mittere, to let go, send; see Preter- and Mission. Der.
pretermiss-ion, from MF, pretermission, ‘a pretermission,’ Cot., from
L. acc. pretermissionem,
PRETERNATURAL, supernatural, extraordinary, (L.) ‘Sim-
ple aire, being preterna‘urally attenuated ;’ Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 30.
From Preter- and Natural. 4 So also preter-perfect, preter-
imperfect, preter-pluperfect.
PRETEXT, a pretence, false reason. (F.—L.) In Shak, Cor.
v. 6. 20.—MF. pretexte, τὰ. ‘a pretext, Cot.—L. pretextum, a
pretext ; orig. neut. of pretextus, pp. of pretexere, lit. ‘to weave in
front. =—L. pre, before; and fexere, to weave; see Pre- and
Text.
PRETOR, PRETORIAL; see Pretor.
PRETTY, pleasing, tasteful, beautiful. (E.; or L.—Gk.) Spelt
pretie in Minsheu and Levins. ME. prati, praty, Prompt. Parv. ;
Destruction of Troy, ed. Panton and Donaldson, 2622, 10815, 13634.
The old senses are ‘comely’ and ‘cleyer,’ as used in the above
passages ; but the true sense was rather ‘tricky,’ ‘cunning,’ or ‘ full of
wiles;’ though the word has acquired a better sense, it has never
quite lost a sort of association with pettiness. AS. pretig, preitig,
tricky, deceitful; ‘ Wille ge béon prettige, tr. of L. ‘ Vultis esse
versipelles ;” A®lfric’s Colloquy, in Voc, ior. 1. A rare word;
formed with the usual suffix -ig (as in stdn-ig, E. ston-y) from a sb.
pret, preit, deceit, trickery; see pratias, as a gloss to L. artés (ina
bad sense), Mone, Quellen, p. 347, col. 1. So also we have Low-
land Scotch pratty, pretty, tricky, from prat, a trick, used by ἃ.
Douglas (Jamieson).4EFries. prettig, jocose, droll, pleasant, from
pret, a trick; W. Flem. prettig; Icel. prettugr, tricky, from pretir,
a trick, pretta, to cheat, deceive; Norweg. pretten, prettevis, tricky,
roguish, from pretta, a trick, piece of roguery, preta, to play a trick
(Aasen). SoalsoMDn. pratte, perte, Du. part, a trick, deceit. 8] Pos-
sibly all from L. practica; cf. E. practice, in the sense of ‘ guile.”
Der. pretti-ly, spelt pretily, Court of Love, 420; pretéi-ness, Hamlet,
iv. 5. 189; also pretty, adv.
PREVAIL, to overcome, effect, have influence over. (F.—L.)
Spelt prevayle in Levins; preuaile in Minsheu.—OF. prevail, t p. pr.
of prevaloir, ‘to prevaile,’ Cot.—L. preualére, to have great power.
-L. pre, before, hence expressive of excess; and ualére, to be strong,
have power; see Pre- and Valiant, Der. prevail-ing; preval-ent,
Milton, P. L. vi. 411, from L. preualent-, stem of pres. part. of pra-
ualére ; preval-ence, from OF. prevalence (Cot.), from Late L. pre-
valentia, superior force ; prevalenc-y, Also prevail-ment, Mids. Nt.
Drwol/ 35:
PREVARICATE, to shift about, to quibble. (L.) ‘When any
of us hath prevaricated our part of the covenant,’ i.e. swerved from
it, Bp. Taylor, vol. 11. ser. 5 (R.). [Prewaricator and preuarication
are both in Minsheu’s Dict.; but not the verb.]—L. praeudricatus,
pp- of preuaricari, to spread the legs apart in walking, to straddle,
to walk crookedly ; hence to swerve, shuffle, &c.—L. pre, before,
here used as an intensive prefix ; and waricus, straddling, extended
(with suffix -ic-) from wdarus, bent, grown awry (esp. of the legs).
Cf. L. Varus as a proper name, orig. a nickname. See Varicose.
Der. prevaricat-or ; prevaricat-ion, trom MF. prevarication, ‘ prevari-
cation,’ Cot.
PREVENT, to hinder, obviate. (L.) The old sense is ‘to go
before, anticipate ;’ Tw. Nt. iii. 1. 94, Hamlet, ii. 2. 305; Spenser,
F. Q. vi. 1. 38, vi. 8.15; and in Palsgrave. Cf. MF. prevenir, ‘ to
prevent, outstrip, anticipate, forestall;’ Cot.<L. preuent-us, pp. of
preuenire, to come or go before. —L. pre, before ; and wenire, cognate
with E. come; see Pre- and Come. Der. prevent-ion, from MF.
prevention, ‘a prevention, anticipation,’ Cot. Also prevent-ive, adj.,
Phillips, ed. 1706, a coined word ; prevent-ive, sb.
PREVIOUS, going before, former. (L.) ‘Som previous medita-
tions;’ Howell, Famil. Letters, vol. i. sect. 6. let. 32, § 3; A.D.
1635. Englished (by change of -us to -ous, as in ardu-ous, &c.) from
L. preuius, on the way before, going before.—L. pre, before ; and
uia, a way; see Pre- and Voyage. Der. previous-ly.
PREW ARN, to warn beforehand. (Hybrid; L. and E.) ‘ Comets
prewarn;’ Two Noble Kinsmen, ν. 1.51. A coined word; see Pre-
and Warn.
PREY, booty, spoil, plunder. (F.—L.) ME. preie, preye, Rob.
of Glouc. p. 270, 1. 5466; p. 303, 1. 6163; praie, O. Eng. Homilies,
ed. Morris, i. 273, 1.6.—OF. praie, preie; mod. F. proie, prey.—L.
prada, booty. B. Preda is thought to stand for *prai-hid-a, that
which is got or seized beforehand; from pre, before, and hed-, base
PRIG
of -hendere, to seize, cognate with E. get. Similarly prendere is short
for prehendere, as is well known. See Pre- and Get. See Pre-
datory. From L. preda we also have W. praidd, flock, herd, booty,
prey, Gael. and Irish spreidh, cattle of any kind. Der, prey, vb.,
Rich. JII, i. 1. 133.
PRIAL, three of a sort, at cards.
corruption of pair-royal, See Pair-royal in Nares, who fully illus-
trates it. Fuller has: ‘that paroyal of armies;’ Pisgah Sight of
Palestine, bk. iv. ch. 2. § 22.
PRICE, value, excellence, reeompence. (F.—L.) ME. pris,
Hayelok, 283; Ancren Riwle, p. 392, 1. 15.—OF. pris, freis ; mod.
F. prix.—L. pretium, price. See Precious. Der. price-less; prec-
i-ous, prize (2), verb. Doublet, praise.
PRICK, a sharp point, puncture, sting, remorse. (E.) ME.
prike, pricke, prikke, Ancren Riwle, p. 228, last line. AS. pricu, a
point, dot, Ailfred, tr. of Boethius, b. ii. pr. 7, cap. xviii. § 1; frica,
a point, jot, tittle, Matt. v. 18; prician, v., to prick, Aélfric’s Hom.
ii. 88.4-MDu. prick, a prickle, whence mod. Du, prikkel; see
Kilian; Dan, prik, a dot; prikke, to mark with dots; Swed. prick,
a point, dot, prick, tittle; pricka, to point, to mark with pricks;
Low G. prik, a dot; prikken, to prick. Apparently from a Teut.
base *prek-, to prick, dot; cf. OSax. prek, a thorn (Gallée) ; MDu.
prekel, a prick (Hexham) ; Cornwall preckle, to prick. Der. prick,
verb, ME. priken, prikien, Havelok,, 2639, P. Plowman, B. xviii. 11;
AS. prician (above); hence prick-er. Also prick-le, ONorthumb. pricle,
Matt. v.18 (Lindisfarne MS.), a dimin. form, with the orig. sense
“a little dot? or ‘speck.’ Hence prick-l-y, which seems to be formed
from prickle rather than from prick with suffix -ly; prick-l-i-ness.
Also prick-et, Spenser, Shep. Kal., Dec. 1. 27, a buck in his second
year, so named from his young horns; also prick-song, Rom. and
Juliet, ii. 4, 21, for pricked song, i.e. song pricked down or written,
spelt prykked songe, Bury Wills, p. 18, 1. 27.
PRIDE, the feeling of being proud. (F.—L.?) ME. pride, pryde,
P. Plowman, B. v. 15 ; spelt pruide,id. A. v.15; prude, id.C. vi. 118,
Ancren Riwle, p. 140, 1.6. AS. pryte, pride, Aflfric’s Homilies, ii.
220, 1,32. (Thus pride is a weakened form of prite.) B. The AS.
pryte is regularly formed from the adj. priit, proud, with mutation of
u to 7; see Proud. We find also AS, pritung, pride; Mone,
Quellen, p. 355, col. 1. Cf Icel. prydi, an omament, from pridr,
proud ; both borrowed from E., but they exhibit the length of the
vowel. Der. pride, yb. reflexive.
PRIEST, a presbyter, one in holy orders, above a deacon and
below a bishop. (L.—Gk.) ME. preest, Chaucer, C. T. 505;
preost, Ancren Riwle, p. 16, 1. 25. AS. préost, Laws of K. Edgar,
i. 2 (see Thorpe’s Ancient Laws, i. 262); and, earlier, in the Laws
of Ethelbert, § 1 (id. p. 2). Contracted from L. presbyter (<Gk.
πρεσβύτερος), as clearly shown by the OF. prestre (13th cent.), mod.
F. prétre; OSax. préstar, G. priester. Cf. Prester John in Mande-
ville’s Travels, where prester (like AS. préost) seems to have arisen
from *prev'ster, for *preb(y)ster, a mistaken form of presbyter.
B. Πρεσβύτερος is comp. of mpéo-Bus, Doric mpéo-yus, old; cf. L.
pris-cus, ancient. Der. priest-ess (with F. suffix); priest-hood, AS.
préost-had, Ailfred, tr. of Beda, b. i. c. 7 (near beginning); priest-
craft; priest-ly, Pericles, 111. I. 703; priest-li-ness; priest-ridden.
Doublet, presbyter.
PRIG (1), to steal. (E.) Thisis a cant term of some antiquity ;
prig, sb., a thief, occurs in Shak, Wint. Ta. iv. 3. 108. It arose in
the time of Elizabeth, and is merely a cant modification of E. prick,
which orig. meant to tide, as in Spenser, F. Q. i, 1. 1, P. Plowman, B.
xviil. II, 25. Hence it came to mean to ride off, to steal a horse,
and so, generally, to steal. This we learn from Harman’s Cayeat,
1567, where we find: ‘ to prygge, to ryde,’ p. 84, col. 3; and at p. 42:
‘a prigger of prauncers be horse-stealers; for to prigge signifieth in
their language to steale, and a prauncer is a horse.’ Again, at p. 43,
he tells how a gentleman espied a pryggar, and charged ‘this prity
prigging person to walke his horse well’ for him; whereupon ‘ this
peltynge priggar, proude of his praye, walkethe his horse yp and
downe tyll he sawe the Gentleman out of sighte, and leapes him
into the saddell, and awaye he goeth a-mayne.’ ‘That is how it
was done. We find a similar weakening of # to g in Lowl. Sc.
prigga-trout, a banstickle, or stickleback (evidently for pricker-trout),
and in Lowl. Sc. prigmedainty, the same as prickmedainty, one who
dresses in a finical manner (or as we now say, a prig). Halliwell
also gives prygman, a thief, which occurs in Awdelay’s Fraternyte of
Vacabondes, ed. Furnivall, p. 3; and prig, to ride, in Dekker’s
Lanthorne, sig. C, ii. So also trigger stands for tricker.
PRIG (2), a pert, pragmatical fellow. (E.) ‘A cane is part of
the dress of a prig ;’ Tatler, no. 77 (1709). From the verb to prick,
in the sense to trim, adorn, dress up; Latimer (Works, i. 253, Parker
Soc.) speaks of women having ‘ much pricking,’ and inveighs against
their ‘ pricking up of themselves.’ Cf. Lowl. Sc. prig-me-dainty for
(F.—L.) An unmeaning
PRIM
prick-me-dainty, a prig, which occurs in Udall, Roister Doister, ii. 3,
ed. Arber, p. 36. See Prig (1).
PRIM, precise, affectedly neat or nice. (F.—L.) Bailey (vol. i. ed.
1735) has: ‘to prim, to set the mouth conceitedly, to be full of
affected ways.’ Phillips, ed. 1706, has: ‘to prim, to be full of
affected ways, to be much conceited.’ An older example is prym,
sb. a neat girl, in Barclay’s Fifth Eclogue, cited in Nares. [From
the E. word are derived the Lowland Scotch primp (with excrescent
2), to assume prudish or self-important airs, to deck oneself in a stiff
and affected manner (Jamieson); and primzie, demure, in Burns,
Hallowe'en, st. 9.7 B. The sense of ‘slender’ or ‘delicate’ is the
orig. one, as shown in Cotgrave.—MF. prim, masc., prime, fem.,
‘prime, forward;’ also prin, ‘thin, subtill, piercing, sharp;’ also
prime, both masc. and fem., ‘thin, slender, exile, small; as chevenx
primes, smooth or delicate hair;’ Cot. This last example comes
sufficiently near to the E. use. y. The MF. prim (corrupter form
prin) is from the L. masc. acc. primum; the form prime answers to
the L. fem. prima. The nom. case is primus, first, chief; see
Prime (1). So also mod. Prov. prim, m., primo, f., fine, delicate
(Mistral). Cf. also prov, E. prime, to trim trees; and the phrase
‘to prime agun;’ see Prime (2). @ The sense of ‘thin’ as derived
from that of ‘first’ or ‘foremost’ is hard to account for; perhaps
there is an allusion to the growth of newly grown shoots and buds ;
cf. filer prim, ‘to run thin, or by little and little; Cot. In E., it is
possible that the sense of prim was affected by some confusion with
the old verb prink, to adorn, dress well, be smart and gay, to be
pert or forward (Halliwell) ; which is merely a nasalised form of the
verb fo prick, used in the sense of ‘to trim’ by Palsgrave and others ;
cf. Lowland Scotch prickmaleerie, stiff and precise, prickmedainty,
finical (Jamieson). Der. prim-ly, prim-ness.
PRIME (1), first, chief, excellent. (F.—L.) ME. prime, pro-
perly an adj. (as in Temp. i. 2. 72), but almost always used of
‘prime,’ the first canonical hour, as in Ancren Riwle, p. 20, Chaucer,
C. T. 12596 (Ὁ 662), &c. =F. prime, ‘the first houre of the day,’
Cot. [A fem. form, the OF. masc. being prim.]—L. prima, i.e.
prima hora, the first hour; fem. of primus, first. B. Pri-mus is a
superl. form, and stands for *pris-mus; cf. fris-cus, ancient; Brug-
mann, i. § 868, ii. § 72. The suffix is the same as in miin-i-mus
(where -mu- is the Idg. superl. suffix -mo-, appearing also in AS.
for-ma, Goth. fru-ma, first. See Prior. Der. prime,sb.,as already
explained ; prime-number, prime-minister ; prim-ar-y, Phillips, ed.
1706, from L. primdarius; prim-ar-i-ly. Also prim-ate, ME. primat,
Layamon, 29736, from OF. primat, ‘a primat or metropolitan,’ Cot.,
which from L. primatem, acc. of primds, a principal or chief man ;
primate-ship ; prim-ac-y, from AF, primacie, Polit. Songs, ed. Wright,
p- 311; cf. MF. primace, ‘primacy,’ Cot. Also frim-er, P. Plow-
man, C. vi. 46, from OF. primer, variant of premier (see Supple-
ment to Godefroy), from L. primarius, primary; and hence, an
elementary book. Also prima-donna, from Ital. prima, first, chief,
and donna, lady, L. domina; see Dame. Also prim-al, Hamlet, ili.
3. 373 prim-y, id. i. 3. 7; prim-er-o,q.v. And see prim-eval, prim-
it-ive, primo-geni-ture, prim-ordial, prim-rose, prince, prior, pristine,
priest, presbyter, premier, and prime (2).
PRIME (2), to put powder on the nipple of a fire-arm, tomake
a gun quite ready. (F.—L.) ‘Neither had any [of us] one piece of
ordinance primed ;’ Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. ii. pt. ii, p. 61. It is
not quite clear how the word came into use; perhaps we may look
upon prime as expressing ‘to put into prime order,’ to make quite
ready; from frime in the sense of ‘ready;’ see Ναγεβ. But what-
ever the exact history may be, we may be sure that the etymology is
from the E. adj. prime. Cf. prov. E. prime, to trim trees (Halliwell),
See Prime (1),andPrim. Der. prim-ing.
PRIMERO, an old game at cards. (Span.—L.) Cotgrave
translates MF. prime by ‘primero at cards, &c.; and see Shak.
Merry Wives, iv. 5. 104.—MSpan. primera, ‘the game called
Primero at cards,’ Minsheu (1623); the E. form being incorrect.
Fem. of Span. primero, first. But the game is obsolete, and little
is known about it; it probably derives its name from some chief or
principal card.<L. primdrius, primary; from primus, first; see
Prime (1).
PRIMEVAL, original, lit. belonging to the first age. (L.)
Also spelt primeval. In Pope, Dunciad, iv. 630. A coined word;
an older form was primevous, in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L.
primaeuus, primeval. —L. prim-, for primus, first; and euum, an age.
See Prime (1) and Age.
PRIMITIVE, original, antiquated. (F.—L.) In Shak. Troil.
ν. I. 60.—F. primitif, masc., primitive, fem., ‘ primitive,’ Cot.—L,.
primitiuus, earliest of its kind; extended from primus, first. See
Prime (1). Der. primttive-ly, -ness.
PRIMOGENITURE, a being born first, the right of inherit-
ance of the eldest-born, (F.—L.) Blount, in his Gloss., ed. 1674,
PRISM 475
says that the word is used by Sir T. Browne; sce his Vulgar Errors,
bk. vil, c. 5.§ 2.—MF. primogeniture, ‘the being eldest, the title of
the eldest,’ Cot. Formed as if from a L. *primogenitiira.=—L. primo-
genitus, first-born.—L. primo-, for primus, first; and genitus, pp. of
gignere (base genx), to beget, produce. See Prime (1) and Genus.
PRIMORDIAL, original. (F.—L.) Used as a sb., with the
sense of ‘ beginning,’ by Skelton, Why Come Ye Nat to Courte,
1. 486.—F. primordial, ‘ originall,’ Cot.—L. primordialis, original.
= L. primordium, an origin. =L, prim-, for primus, first; and ordir?,
to begin, allied to ordo, order. See Prime (1) and Order.
PRIMROSE, the name of aspring flower. (F.—L.) A. ‘Two
noble primeroses ;’ Ascham, Scholemaster, pt. i., ed. Arber, p. 66.
Cf. ‘ Prymerose, primula ;’ Prompt. Parv. =F. prime rose, lit. first rose,
so called because it comes early in the spring. —L. prima rosa; see
Prime (1) and Rose. B. The above is the popular and obvious
etymology of the word as it stands; but primrose is, historically, a
corruption (due to popular etymology) of ME. primerole, a primrose,
Chaucer, C. T. 3268; from OF. primerole (Godefroy). This answers
to a Late L. type *primerula, a regular dimin. of Late L. primula, a
primrose (see Prompt. Parv.), now the botanical name. Again,
primula is a dimin, form from primus; see Prime (1), as before.
@ The name primrose was sometimes given to the daisy.
PRINCE, a chief, sovereign, son of a king. (F.—L.) ΜΕ,
prince, St. Marharete, ed. Cockayne, p. 2,1. 15.—F. prince. Cf. Ital.
principe. L. princitem, acc. of princeps, taking the first place, hence,
a principal person. = L. prin- (for prim- before c), from primus, first ;
and capere, to take. See Prime (1) and Capital. Der. prince-
dom; prince-ly, Temp. i. 2. 86, prince-ly, adv., prince-li-ness. Also
princ-ess, ME. princesse, Prompt, Pary., from F. princesse, Cot. And
see Principal, Principle.
PRINCIPAL, chief. (F.—L. ME. principal, princypal, Rob.
of Glouc., p. 446, l. 9154.—F. principal, ‘ principall,’ Cot. = L. princip-
alis, chief; formed, with suffix -alis, from princip-, stem of princeps ;
see Prince. Der. principal-ly; principal-i-ty, ME. principalitee,
Prompt. Parv., from OF. principalité, which from L. acc. prin-
cipalitatem, orig. meaning ‘excellence.’
PRINCIPLE, a fundamental truth or law, a tenet, a settled
tule of action. (F.—L.) Used by Spenser with the sense of
‘beginning ; F.Q. v. 11. 2. The/ is an E. addition to the word, as
in participle, syllable.—F. principe, ‘a principle, maxime; also, a
beginning,’ Cot.—L. principium, a beginning. L. principi-, decl.
stem of princeps, chief; see Prince. Der. principl-ed, un-principl-ed.
PRINT, an impression, engraving, impression of type on paper.
(F.—L.) It would appear that print is short for emprint, or rather
for the F. form empreinte; cf. in emprinte, i.e. in print, in Dictes
and Sayings, pr. by Caxton, fol. 73 back,1]. 3. The use of the word
is much older than the invention of printing. ME. printe, prente,
In Chaucer, C. T. 6186, Six-text, D 604, the Wife of Bath says:
ΕἸ hadde the prente of seynt Venus 5661. In three MSS. it is spelt
printe; in one MS. it is preente. It is also spelt preente, preynte in
the Prompt. Parv. ‘And to a badde peny, with a good preynte;”
Plowman, C. xviii. 73. Formed, by loss of the first syllable, from
OF. empreinte, ‘a stamp, a print,’ Cot., in use in the 13th century
(Littré). OF. empreinte, fem. of empreint, pp. of empreindre, ‘to
print, stamp,’ Cot, —L. imprimere, to impress. = L. im-, for in before
p, upon; and premere, to press. See Im- (1) and Press. 4 The
MDu. print, a print, was prob. borrowed from English rather than
from French. Der. print, verb, ME. preenten, Prompt. Parv., later
printe, Surrey, in Tottel’s Miscellany, ed. Arber, p. 7, 1.14. Also
print-er, print-ing, im-print.
PRIOR (1), former, coming before in time. (L.) The use of
prior as an adj. is modern; see example in Todd’s Johnson.—L,
prior, sooner, former. B. It is a comparative form from a positive
pris-; cf. Gk. mpd-rep-os, former, Skt. pra-ta-ma-, first ; and see Pro-.
Der. prior-i-ty, Cor. i. 1. 251, from F. priorité, ‘ priority,’ Cot., from
Late L. acc. prioritatem. And sce Prior (2), Pristine.
PRIOR (2), the head ofa priory or convent. (F.—L.) Now
conformed to the L. spelling. ME. priour, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of
Langtoft, p. 333, 1. 10.—OF. priour, later prieur, ‘a prior,’ Cot.—
L. pridrem, acc. of prior, former, hence, a superior; see Prior (1).
Der. prior-ess, Chaucer, C. T. 118, from OF. prioresse, given by
Littré, s.v. priewre. Also prior-y, ME. priorie, Havelok, 2581;
prior-ship.
PRISE, PRIZE, a lever. (F.—L.) ‘Prise, a lever;’ Halli-
well. It occurs in the legend of St. Erkenwald, 1. 70. Hence ‘to
prise open a box,’ or, corruptly, ‘to pry open.’ This seems to be
nothing but a derivative of F. prise in the sense of a grasp, or hold;
cf. prise, ‘a lock or hold in wrestling, any advantage,’ Cot.—F.
prise, fem. of pris, pp. of prendre, to seize. —L. prendere, prehendere,
to seize; see Prehensile. See Prize (1).
PRISM, a solid figure whose ends are equal and parallel planes,
476 PRISON
and whose sides are parallelograms. (L.— Gk.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674.—L. prisma. = Gk. πρίσμα (stem mpicpar-), a prism, lit. a
thing sawn off. — Gk. πρίειν (for *mpic-ev), tosaw. (Gk.4/mpis). Der.
prism-at-ic, Pope, Essay on Criticism, 311; prism-at-ic-all, Blount ;
prism-at-ic-al-ly. ᾿
PRISON, ἃ gaol, a place of confinement. (F.—L.) ME. prison,
prisoun, Rob. of Glouc., p. 37, 1. 8753; prisun, Ancren Riwle,
Ῥ. 126, 1.1; A. 8. Chron. an. 1137.—OF. prisun, prison; F. prison,
‘a prison;’ Cot. Cf. OProy. preizos (Bartsch); Span. priston, a
seizure, prison; Ital. prigione.—L. acc. prensidnem, acc. of prensio, a
seizing; with loss of x before 5. B. Prensio is short for prehensto,
formed from prekensum, supine of prehendere, toseize; see Prehensile.
Der. prison-er, Will. of Palerne, 1267 ; in Gen. and Exod., ed. Morris,
2042, it means ‘ the keeper of a prison,’ a gaoler.
PRISTINE, ancient, former. (F.—L.) In Macb. v. 3. 52.
({Formerly, the word pristinate was also in use; Sir Τὶ Elyot, The
Governor, b. i. c. 2. § 13-)—MF. pristine, ‘former, old, ancient ;’
Cot.=—L. pristinus, ancient, former. B. The syllable pris- occurs
also in pris-cus, ancient ; cf. Gk. mpéo-Bus, old ; and see Prime (1).
y. The suffix -tinus is the same as in cras-tinus, diii-tinus; perhaps
from fen-, base of ten-ére, to hold.
PRIVATE, apart, retired, secret, not publicly known. (L.)
Common in Shak.; and see Minsheu and Levins.—L. priuatus,
apart ; pp. of priuare, to bereave, make single or apart.—L. priuus,
single. Der. private-ly, private-ness ; privat-ive, causing privation, in
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, from F. privatif, or directly from L.
priuatiuus ; privat-ive-ly ; privac-y, Minsheu, a coined word, the MF.
word being privauté (Cot.). Also privat-ion, from F. privation,
‘privation,’ Cot. Also privat-eer, in Phillips, ed. 1706, an armed
private vessel; acoined word. And see privilege, de-prive. Doublet,
privy, ἡη.ν.
PRIVET, a half-evergreen shrub. (F.—L.) Also called prim-
print, prim, and primet. “ Mondihout, privet, prime-print, or white-
withbinde;’ Hexham’s Du. Dict. ‘ Privet or primprint ;’ Holland's
Pliny, Index to vol. ii, ‘ Privet or primprint;’ Topsell’s Hist. of
Serpents, p. 103 (Halliwell). ‘Priuet or primpriuet [misprinted
prunpriuet| tree;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627. Cotgrave explains MF.
fresillon and troesne by ‘privet, primprint.’ Florio, ed. 1598,
explains Ital. ligustro by ‘the priuet or primeprint tree.’ In Tusser's
Husbandry, ed. Herrtage (E.D.S.), § 15. st. 42, we find the forms
priuie and prim. In the Grete Herball (as cited in Prior, Popular
Names of British Plants), we find the form primet applied to the
primrose ; the confusion being due to the fact that the Lat. ligustrum
was applied to both plants. ‘ Ligustrum, a primerose;’ Voc. 592.
41; so also OF. primerole, ‘ligustrum;’ Godefroy. β. It thus
appears that the orig. short name was prim, whence the dimin.
prim-et, corruptly priv-et, or (by elision of the e) frim’t or print.
The form prim-print (= prim-prim-et) isareduplicated one. And the
syllable prim- is clearly due to a connexion with OF. primerole ;
perhaps from association with spring-time. See Prime (1). y.
Sometimes said to be so named from its being formally cut and
trimmed; cf. prov. E. prime, to trim trees; see Prim}; but this
seems to be baseless, and will not explain why the OF. name was
primerole. The mod. Prov. primet, adj., means ‘very small.’ @ No
connexion with the river called Pryfetes-fldd, A. S. Chron. an. 755,
or with Privet, near Petersfield, Hants.
PRIVILEGE, a prerogative, peculiar advantage. (F.—L.) ME.
priuilege (with u=v); earliest form priuilegie, A. S. Chron. an. 1137.
-OF,. privilege, ‘a priviledge;’ Cot.—L. priuilégium, (1) a bill
against a person, (2) an ordinance in favour of a person, a privilege.
B. Properly a law relating to a single person.—L. priui- for priuus,
single; and /égi-, decl. stem of lex, a law. See Private and
Legal.
PRIVY, private. (F.—L.) ME. priue, priuee (with u=v),
Layamon, 6877, later text.—OF. prive, preve (mod. F. privé); a pp.
form.—L. priudtus, private; see Private. Der. privy-council,
privy-council-lor, privy-purse, privy-seal. Also privy, sb., ME. priue,
priuee, Chaucer, C. T. 9828 (E 1954); privi-ly; privi-ty, ME. priuite
(= privitee), Ancren Riwle, p. 152, 1. 14.
PRIZE (1), that which is captured from an enemy, that which is
won in a lottery or acquired by competition. (F.—L.) ‘As his
owne prize ;’ Spenser, F. Q. iv. 4. 8.—F. prise, ‘a taking, a seizing,
...a booty, or prize ;’ Cot. Orig. fem. of pris, pp. of prendre, to
take.—L. prendere, prehendere, to take, seize; see Prehensile.
Der. prize-court, -jighter, -money.
PRIZE (2), to value highly. (F.—L.) In Shak. Temp. i. 2. 168.
ME. prisen, to set a price on, Prompt. Parv.—F. priser, ‘ to prise,
esteem, ... to set a price on.’ —OF. pris, ‘a price, rate,’ id.; mod.
Ἐς prix.—L. pretium; see Price. Der. prize, sb., Cymb. iii. 6. 77.
PRIZE (3), to open a box; see Prise,
PRO., prefix, before, forward, in front. (L.; οὐ" Gk.; or-F.—L.)
PROCRASTINATE
This prefix may be either F., L., or Gk. If F., it is from Latin. =
L. pro-, prefix, before; whence pro (=préd), an ablative form, used
as a preposition.-+Gk. mpo-, prefix, and πρό, prep., before; Skt.
pra-, prefix; pra, before, away. All allied to E. for, prep.; see
For (1). Der. Cf. pre-, prefix; pro-ne, prow, provost, &c.
PROA, PROW, PRAU, a small vessel or ship. (Malay).
Sir T. Herbert, Travels, ed. 1665, p. 385, notes praw as a Malay
word. ‘Prawes and boats ;’ (1599) J. Davis, Voy., Hakluyt Soc.
p- 143. It is gen. spelt proa in mod. books of travel. Malay prix,
“a general term for all vessels between the sampan or canoe, and the
kapal or square-rigged vessel ;” Marsden’s Dict., p. 222.
PROBABLE, that may be proved, likely. (F.—L.) In Shak.
As You Like It, iii. 5. r1.—F. probable, ‘ probable, proveable ;’ Cot.
—L. probabilem, acc. of probabilis, that may be proved; formed with
suffix -bilis from proba-re, to prove; see Prove. Der. probabi-y;
probabili-ty, from Ἐς. probabilité, ‘ probability;’ Cot. And see
probation,
PROBATION, a trial, time of trial or of proof. (F.—L.) In
Shak. even used with the sense of ‘ proof, Macb. iii. 1. 80. ME.
probacion, Caxton, Golden Legend, Of the Resurrection, ὃ 1.—F.
probation, ‘a probation, proof;’ Cot.—L. probatidnem, acc. of pro-
batio, a trial, proof.—L. probire, to prove; see Prove. Der.
probation-al, probation-ar-y, probation-er. Also probate, proof of a
will ; ‘ probates of testaments,’ Hall’s Chron., Hen. VIII, an. 17, § 21,
from L. probatus, pp. of probare. Also probat-ive, probat-or-y. And
see probable, probe, probity.
PROBE, an instrument for examining a wound. (L.) ‘ Probe,
a chirurgians proofe,’ &c.; Minsheu, ed. 1627. Apparently a coined
word; cf. L. proba, a proof.—L. probare, to prove; see Prove.
@ Similarly, Span. tiexta, a probe, is from L. ¢entare, to search into.
Der. probe, verb, Dryden, Hind and Panther, iii. 80.
PROBITY, uprightness, honesty. (F.—L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674.—F. probité, ‘honesty ;᾿ Cot.—L. probitatem, acc. of pro-
bitas, honesty. —L. probi-, for probus, honest ; with suffix -t@s. Root
uncertain. See Prove.
PROBLEM, a question proposed for solution, esp. a difficult
one. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. probleme, Chaucer, C. T. 7801 (D 2219).
— OF. probleme, ‘a problem,’ Cot. Mod. F. probléme. —L. probléma.
— Gk. πρόβλημα, anything thrown forward, a question put forward
for discussion. —Gk, πρό, forward; and βλῆμα, a casting, formed
with suffix -ya from BAn-, lengthened grade of BeA-, whence also
βάλλειν, to cast. See Pro- and Belemnite. Der. problemat-ic,
from the stem προβληματ- ; problemat-ic-al, -ly.
PROBOSCIS, the trunk of an elephant. (L.—Gk.) ‘Their
long snoute or trunke, which the Latins call a proboscis ;’ Holland,
tr. of Pliny, b. viii. c. 7.—L. proboscis. — Gk. mpoBooxis, an elephant’s
trunk ; lit. ‘a front-feeder.’ = Gk. πρό, before, in front; and βόσκειν,
to feed. See Pro- and Botany.
PROCEED, to advance. (F.—L.) ME. proceden, Gower, C. A.
i. 17; prol. 405.—OF. proceder, ‘to proceed, Cot.—L. ¢récédere. =
L. pré-, before ; and cédere, to go; see Pro- and Cede. Der. pro-
ceed-ing, Two Gent. 11. 6. 41; proced-ure, from MF. procedure, ‘a
procedure,’ Cot.; proceed-s, sb. pl. Also process, ME. processe,
Chaucer, C. T. 2969 (A 2967), OF. proces (14th cent.), later procés
(mod. ἘΝ. procés), ‘a proces or sute,’ Cot., from L. processum, acc.
of processus, a progress, which from processus, pp. of procédere. Also
process-ion, ME. processiun, processiun, Layamon, 18223, from F.
procession< LL, ace. processionem, an advance. Hence process-
ton-al.
PROCLAIM, to publish, announce aloud. (F.—L.) ME. pro-
clamen, Gower, C. A. i. 6; prol. 88.—F. proclamer, ‘to proclame,’
Cot.—L. proéclamare.—L. pré-, before ; and clamare, to cry aloud;
see Pro- and Claim. Der. proclaim-er ; proclam-at-ion, All's Well,
i, 3. 180, from F. proclamation< L. acc. proclimationem.
PROCLITIC, a monosyllable which is so closely connected with
the following word as to have no independent accent. (Gk.) In
Greek grammar; from a form ἔπροκλιτικός, coined (like ἐγκλιτικός)
from προκλίνειν, to lean forward.—Gk. πρό, before, forward ; and
κλίνειν, to lean, cognate with E. Jean; see Lean (1).
PROCLIVITY, a tendency, propensity. (L.) Spelt procliuvitie in
Minshen, ed. 1627; he also has the obsolete adj. procliue =proclive.
Englished directly from L. prdcliuitas, a declivity, propensity. =
L. précliuus, sloping forward or downward.=L. prd-, before ; and
cliuus, a slope, hill, allied to clinare, to bend, incline, which is
allied to E. Jean. See Pro-, Declivity, and Lean (1).
PROCONSUL, orig. the deputy of a consul. (L.) In Cymb.
ili. 7. 8 ; and in Caxton, Golden Legend, St. John, § 6. —L. prdconsul.
-L. pré-, in place of; and consul; see Pro- and Consul.
q Similarly, pro-pretor. Der. proconsul-ate, proconsul-ar.
PROCRASTINATE, to postpone, delay. (L.) In Shak. Com.
Errors, i. 1. 159. —L. procrastinat-us, pp. of procrastindre, to put off
PROCREATE
till the morrow, delay. —L. pra-, forward, hence, off ; and crastin-us,
put off till the morrow, belonging to the morrow. B. Crastinus is
compounded of cras, to-morrow, and -tinus. perhaps allied to tenus,
lit. stretching or reaching onward, from 4/TEN, to stretch. Der.
frocrastinat-ion, from F. procrastination, ‘a procrastination, delay,’
Cot.<L. acc. procrastinatidnem ; procrastinat-or.
PROCREATEH, to generate, propagate. (L.) In Minsheu, ed.
1627.—L. pricreatus, pp. of procreare, to generate, produce. —L, pro-,
forth; and credre, to create, produce; see Pro- and Create.
Der. procreat-ion, Chaucer, C. T. 9322 (E 1448), from OF. pro-
creation<L. acc. procreationem. Also procreat-or, procreat-ive; pro-
creant, Macb. i. 6. 8, from prdcreant-, stem of pres. part. of L.
procreare.
PROCTOR, a procurator, an attorney in the spiritual courts, an
officer who superintends university discipline. (L.) In Minsheu, ed.
1627. ME. proketour, spelt proketowre in Prompt. Parv., where it is
explained by L. prédcirdator. And, whilst proctor is a shortened
form of prokétour (in three syllables), the latter is in its turn an
abbreviated form of prdcurator. See furtherunder Procure. Der.
proctor-ship; proctor-i-al; proxy. Doublet, procurator.
PROCUMBENT, prostrate, lying on the ground. (L.) Kersey,
ed. 1715, gives procumbent leaves as a botanical term.—L. procumb-
ent-, stem of pres. part. of prdcumbere, to incline forward.=—L.
pré-, forward ; and -cumbere, to lean or lie upon (only used in com-
pounds), a nasalized form of cubare, to lie down. See Pro- and
Incubus.
PROCURE, to obtain, cause, get. (F.—L.) ME. procuren,
Rob. of Brunne, p. 257, 1. 20.—F. procurer, to procure, get.=—L.
procirare, to take care of, attend to, manage.—L. pro-, for, in be-
half of; and curGre, to take care of, from ciira, care. See Pro- and
Cure. Der. procur-able, procur-er, procur-ess, procure-ment. Also
procur-at-or, ME. procuratour, also procutour, procatour, Chaucer,
C. T. 7178 (Ὁ 1596, Six-text edition), from OF. procurator,
in use in the 13th century (Littré), mod. F. procurateur, from
L. préciratérem, acc. of prdcurator, a manager, agent, deputy,
viceroy, administrator; the more usual F. form is procureur (see
Cotgrave), and the more usual E. form is the much abbreviated
proctor, q.v. Also procurat-ion, Minsheu, ed. 1627, from F. pro-
curation, ‘a procuration, a warrant or letter of atturny,’ Cot. Also
proxy, 4.ν.
PROD, a pointed stick for making holes, a skewer, peg. (Scand.)
A variant of brod, a goad, short nail, awl. ‘A brod, stimulus;’
Catholicon Anglicum (1483).— Norw. and MSwed. brodd, Icel. broddr,
a prick, goad; see Brad. Der. prod, vb. ‘ to poke.’
PRODIGAL, wasteful, lavish. (F.—L.) Spelt prodigall in
Levins and Palsgrave. ‘Some prodigallie spend and waste all their
gooddes ;’ Golden Boke, c. 45. [The sb. prodegalite (so spelt)
occurs in Gower, C. A. ili. 153; bk. vii. 2026.) —F. prodigal,
‘prodigall,’ Cot.—Late L. *prodigalis, not found, though the sb.
prodigalitas occurs ; see Ducange.—L.' pradigus, wasteful.=L. pro-
digere, to drive forth or away, squander, waste. - L. préd, forth, older
form of 2γδ, allied to pro-, prefix; and agere, to drive. See Pro-
and Agent. Der. prodigal-ly ; prodigal-i-ty, from F. prodigalité,
‘prodigality,’ from L. acc. prodigalititem.
PRODIGY, a portent, wonder. (F.—L.) In Shak. Jul. Ces. i.
3. 28, ii. 1. 198. Formed from F. prodige, ‘a prodigy, wonder,’
Cot.; by the addition of the -y so often appearing in words bor-
rowed from French ; thus we have continency, excellency, fragrancy, as
well as continence, excellence, fragrance; the E. form answering to a
possible AF. form *frodigie.—L. prédigium, a showing beforehand,
sign, token, portent. . Of uncertain origin; but prob. for prod-
agium, where préd, forth, before, is an old form of pro, before ; and
*agium means ‘a saying,’ as in the compound ad-agium, a saying,
adage. Brugmann, i. ὃ 759. In this case, the orig. sense is
‘a saying beforehand,’ hence a sign, prophecy, or token. See Pro-
and Adage. Der. prodigi-ous, Spenser, F. Q. iv. 1. 13, from F.
prodigieux, ‘ prodigious, Cot., which from L. prodigidsus; prodigious-
ly, -ness.
PRODUCE, vo lead or bring forward, bear, yield, cause. (L.)
In Shak. All’s Well, iv. 1. 6; and in Palsgrave.—L. prédiicere, to
bring forward.—L. pra-, forward; and diicere, to lead, whence E.
duke. See Pro-, Duke. Der. produc-er; produce, sb., formerly
prodtice, as shown by an extract from Dryden, Ep. to John Dryden,
118, in Todd’s Johnson. Also produc-ible, produc-ible-ness. Also
product, sb., Pope, Messiah, 94, accented prodzict, Milton, P. L. xi.
683, from productus, pp. of prédiicere. Also product-ion, from F.
production, ‘a production, proof, evidence,’ Cot., which from L. acc.
productionem, orig. a lengthening, but in Late L., the production
of a document and even the document or proof itself. Also product-
ive, product-iv2-ly, product-ive-ness.
PROEM, a prelude, preface. (F.—L.—Gk.) Chaucer has the
PROG 477
spelling proheme, C.T. 7919 (E 43), where the ἃ is merely inserted
to keep the vowels apart. OF. proéme, ‘a proem, preface,’ Cot. ;
mod. F. proéme.—L. proemium.—Gk. προοίμιον, an introduction,
prelude.—Gk. πρό, before; and οἶμος, a way, from oi-, 2nd grade
of EI, to go, with Idg. suffix -mo-. See Pro- and Itinerant.
PROFANE, unholy, impious. (F.—L.) Commonly spelt pro-
phane in the 16th century; see Rich. II, v. i. 25 (first folio); and
Robinson’s tr. of More’s Utopia, ed. Arber, p. 145, 1. 6.—F. profane,
‘prophane ;” Cot.—L. prd/anus, unholy, profane. B. The orig.
sense seems to have been ‘ before the temple,’ hence, outside of the
temple, secular, not sacred.<L. prd-, before; and fanum, a fane,
temple. See Pro-and Fane. Der. profane, verb, Rich. 11, iii. 3.
813; profane-ly, profane-ness; profan-at-ion, Meas. for Meas. ii. 2. 128,
from F. profanation, ‘a prophanation or prophaning,’ Cot., from L.
δος. profanationem. Also profan-i-ty, Englished from L. prafanitas.
PROFESS, to own freely, declare openly, undertake to do.
(F.—L.) Not orig. from F. professer, for this is a late form, in
Palsgrave, The ME. word is professed, used as a pp. ; ‘ Which in
hire ordre was professed,’ Gower, C. A. ii. 157; bk. v. 890. This is
Englished from OF. profes, masc., professe, fem., applied in the same
way ; ‘ Qui devant iert nonain professe’ =who was before a professed
nun; Rom. de la Rose, 8844 (Littré).—L. prafessus, manifest, con-
fessed, avowed; pp. of prajitéri, to profess, avow.=—L. pra-, before
all, publicly ; and fatéri, to acknowledge. See Pro- and Confess.
Der. profess-ed (see above); profess-ed-ly ; profess-ton, ME. profes-
sioun, professiun, Ancren Riwle, p. 6, 1. 20, from Εἰ, profession ; pro-
fess-ion-al, profess-ion-al-ly; profess-or, 1 Hen. VI, v. 1. 14, ME.
professour, Trevisa, tr. of Higden, i. 7, from L. pra@fessor, a public
teacher; profess-or-ial, profess-or-ship.
PROFFER, to offer, propose for acceptance. (F.—L.) ME.
profren (with one f), Chaucer, C. T. 8028 (E 152); proferen,
Κ. Alisaunder, 3539.—OF. profrir, porofrir (Godefroy), also AF.
profrer (Bozon). —OF. por-, prefix, L. pro; and ofrir, offrir, from L.
offerre, to offer. See Pro- and Offer. δ Not from ΜΕ. pro-
ferer, ‘to produce,’ Cot.; as the sense and usage show. The senses
of proffer and offer are very near together. Der. proffer-er.
PROFICIENT, competent, thoroughly qualified. (L.) In Shak.
t Hen. IV, ii. 4. 19. —L. prajicient-, stem of pres. part. of prdficere,
to make progress, advance. —L. prd-, forward; and facere, to make;
see Pro-, Fact, and Profit. Der. proficience, proficienc-y.
PROFILE, an outline, the side-face. (Ital.—L.) [Not a F.,
but an Ital. word. The F. word was formerly spelt porjil or pourfil,
which forms see in Cotgrave; hence ME. purfiled, bordered, Chaucer,
C. T. 193.] ‘ Draw it in progile ;’ Dryden, Parallel of Poetry and
Painting, § 9. ‘Profile (Ital. profilo) that design which shows the
side, .. . a term in painting ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. =Ital. profilo,
‘a border, a limning or drawing of any picture ;’ Florio. Hence
profilare, ‘to draw, to limne, to paint;’ id.—TItal. γος, before
(=L. pré-); and filo, ‘a thread, a line, a strike’ [stroke], Florio;
from ἵν. filum, a thread. Thus the sense is a ‘ front-line’ or outline.
See Pro- and File (1). 4 The mod. F. profil is (like the E. word)
from theItalian. Der. profile, vb. ; and see purl (3).
PROFIT, gain, benefit. (F.—L.) ME. profit, P. Plowman, B.
prol. 169.—F. profit, ‘profit;’ Cot. (Cf. Ital. profitto.]—L. pra-
fectum, acc. of profectus, advance, progress.—L. prdfectus, pp. of
proficere, to make progress, advance, be profitable. = L. pro-, before ;
and facere, to make; see Pro- and Fact. Der. profit, vb. ME.
profiten, Wyclif, Heb. iv. 2, from F. profiter ; prosit-able, Wyclif,
2 Tim. iii. 16; profit-abl-y, profit-able-ness; profit-ing,, profit-less.
PROFLIGATE, dissolute. (L.) Minsheu gives; ‘to profligate,
to ouerthrow, to vndoe, to put to flight ;’ ed. 1627. But it is pro-
perly a pp. used asanadj. Cf. ‘thy father, ... which hath profligate
{put to flight] and discomfited so many of them ;’ Hall’s Chron.,
Hen. VI, an. 31.—L. prdfligitus, pp. of pradfligare, to dash to
the ground, overthrow ; whence préfligatus, cast down, abandoned,
dissolute. —L. pra-, forward ; and fligere, to strike, dash. See Pro-
and Afflict. Der. profligate-ly, -ness, profligac-y.
PROFOUND, deep, low, abstruse, occult. (F.—L.) In Early
Eng. Poems and Lives of Saints, ed. Furnivall (Phil. Soc.), xvii. 221 ;
and in Fisher’s Works, ed. Mayor, p. 37, ll. 12, 16.—F. profond,
‘profound, Cot.—L. prdfundum, acc. of profundus, deep. = L. pro,
forward, hence, downward, far, deep; and fundus, the ground,
bottom, cognate with E. bottom. See Pro-, Found (1), and
Bottom. Der. profound-ly, profound-ness; also profund-i-ty, for-
merly profoundyte, Fisher, On the Seven Psalms, Ps. cil., p. 138,
1. 28, from F. profondité, ‘ profundity,’ Cot.
PROFUSE, liberal to excess, lavish. (L.) ‘A rhetoric so profuse ;’
Chapman, tr. of Homer, Od. iii. 172. —L. profasus, pp. of profundere,
to pour out.—L. prd-, forth; and fundere, to pour; see Pro- and
Fuse. Der. profuse-ly, profuse-ness ; profus-ion, from L. prafusio.
PROG, to search for provisions; as sb., provisions. (L.) The sb.
PROGENITOR
is from the verb. Orig. ‘to beg, demand ;” see Todd’s Johnson.
App. a weakened form of ME. prokken; ‘ Prokkyn, or styfly askyn,
procor;’ Prompt. Parv. Prob. a monkish word; adapted from L.
procare, procdri, to demand.—L. procus, a suitor. L. proc-, 2nd
grade of prec-, in prec-iri, to pray. See Pray. Perhaps in-
fluenced by ME. procren, proker, to procure, obtain; see Gloss. to
Dest. of Troy and to Alexander and Dindimus, short for procuren ;
and a doublet of E. Procure.
PROGENITOR, a forefather, ancestor. (F.—L.) Now con-
formed to the L. spelling ; but formerly progenytour, Sir Τὶ Elyot,
Castel of Helth, b. ii.c. 7; Fabyan, Chron. an. 1336-7, ed. Ellis,
p- 416; Caxton, Reynard, p. 91.—F. progeniteur, ‘a progenitor,’
Cot.=—L. prdgentidrem, acc. of progenitor, an ancestor.—L. pro-,
before; and genitor, a parent, from 4/GEN, to beget, with suffix
denoting the agent; see Pro- and Genus. See Progeny.
PROGENY, descendants, a race, offspring. (F.—L.) ME.
progenie, Gower, C. A. ii. 166; bk. v. 11613 progenye, Wyclif, Gen.
xliii. 7.—OF. progenie, ‘a progeny ;’ Cot.—L. prageniem, acc. of
progeniés, lineage, progeny.—L. prd-, forth; and stem gen-, as in
gen-us, kin, from 4/GEN, to beget. See Progenitor.
PROGNOSTIC, a foreshowing, indication, presage. (F.—L.—
Gk.) ‘The whiche. . they adjudged for pronostiguykys and tokens of
the kynges deth;’ Fabyan, Chron. b. i. c. 246; ed. Ellis, p. 289.—
OF. pronostique (14th cent.), prognostigue, Cot.; mod. F. pronostic
(Littré).—L. progndsticon.—Gk. προγνωστικόν, a sign or token of
the future.—Gk. πρό, before; and γνωστικόν, neut. of γνωστικός,
good at knowing, which from γνωστός, γνωτός, known, γνῶναι, to
know. See Pro- and Gnostic. Der. prognostic, adj. from Gk.
προγνωστικός ; prognostic-ate, spelt pronostycate in Palsgrave; pro-
gnostic-at-ion, spelt pronostication in Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth,
b. iii. c. 4, from OF. pronostication or prognostication, ‘a prognosti-
cation,’ Cot.; prognostic-at-or.
PROGRAMME, PROGRAM, a public notice in writing, a
sketch of proceedings. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘The etymological spelling is
programme, according to F. programme; but it is quite-a modern
word. We find the L. form programma in Phillips, ed..1706, and
in Todd’s Johnson. = Gk. πρόγραμμα, a public notice in writing. — Gk.
προγράφειν, to give public notice in writing.—Gk.. πρό, before,
publicly ; and γράφειν, to write. See Pro- and Graphic.
PROGRESS, advancement. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q. iii. 11.
20; Court of Love, 1067.—MF. progrez, ‘a progression, going for-
ward,’ Cot. Mod. F. progrés.=—L. progressum, acc. of progressus,
an advance. L. progressus, pp. of progredi, to advance. =L. pra-,
forward; and gradi, to walk, step, go. See Pro- and Grade.
Der. progress, vb., accented progress, K. John, v. 2. 46; progress-ion,
Chaucer, C. T. 3015 (A 3013), from F. progression (not in Cotgrave,
but found in 1425, see Hatzfeld), from L. acc. progressionem ;
progress-ion-al, Blount, ed. 1674; progress-ive, Phillips, ed. 1706;
progress-ive-ly, -ness.
PROHIBIT, to hinder, check, forbid. (L.) In Minsheu, ed.
1627, and in Palsgrave.—L. prohibitus, pp. of praohibére, to prohibit ;
lit. to hold before or in one’s way.—L. pra-, before ; and habére, to
have, hold; see Pro- and Habit. Der. prohibit-ion, Cymb. iii.
4. 79, from F. prohibition, ‘a prohibition, from L. acc. prahibitionem ;
prohtbit-ive; prohibit-or-y, from L, prahibitorius.
PROJECT, sb., a plan, purpose, scheme. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Much Ado, iii. 1. 55.— MF. project, ‘a project, purpose,’Cot. Mod.
F. projet.—L. prodiectum, acc. of proiectus, pp. of proicere (prajicere),
to fling forth, cast out, hold out, extend; whence the sense to set
forth, plan, not found in classical Latin.=L. prd-, forward; and
iacere, to throw; see Pro- and Jet (1). Der. project, verb, to cast
forward, Spenser, F. Q. vi. 1. 45; also, to plan, accented project,
Antony, ν. 2. 121 ; project-ion, also in the sense of‘ plan’ in Hen. V,
ii. 4. 46, from F. projection, ‘a projection, . . extending out,’ Cot.;
project-or ; project-ile, in Phiilips, ed. 1706, a coined word.
PROLATH, extended, elongated in the direction of the polar axis.
(L.) Chiefly in the phrase ‘ prolate spheroid,’ Bailey’s Dict., vol. i.
ed. 1735. (Prolate is used as a yerb by Howell; see Rich. and
Todd's Johnson. ]=—L. prolatus, lengthened, extended.—L. prd-, for-
ward; and Jatus (for tlatus), borne, from oa TEL, to lift, bear ; see
Pro- and Oblate.
PROLEPSIS, anticipation. (L.—Gk.) A rhetorical term; in
Phillips, ed. 1706. (Blount, ed. 1674, gives prolepsie, from MF.
prolepsie in Cotgrave. |= L. prolépsis.— Gk. πρόληψις, an anticipation
or anticipatory allusion.Gk. πρό, before; and λῆψις, a seizing,
catching, taking, from λήψτομαι, fut. of λαμβάνειν, to seize. See
Pro- and Catalepsy. Der. prolep-t-ic, as in ‘proleptick disease,
a disease that always anticipates, as if an ague come today at
4 o'clock, tomorrow an hour sooner,’ Phillips, ed. 1706, from Gk.
προληπτικός, anticipating ; prolep-t-ic-al, Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674;
prolet-t-ic-al-ly.
478
PROMONTORY
PROLETARIAN, belonging to the lower orders, vulgar. (L.)
‘Low proletarian tything men;’ Butler, Hudibras, i. 1. 720.
Formed with suffix -an from. L. prélé/ari-us, a citizen of the lowest
class, but regarded as useful as being a parent.—L. prdlé-, for prolés,
offspring ; with suffix -t-arius ; see below.
PROLIFIC, fruitful. (F.—L.) Spelt prolifick, in Phillips, ed.
1706, and in Bp. Taylor, vol. i. ser. 23 (R.).—F. prolifique, ‘ fruitful,”
Cot.—Late L. *prdlificeus, not recorded, though Ducange gives the
derivatives prélificatio and prolizicdtiuus ; it means ‘ producing off-
spring. =L. proli-, for prélés, offspring; and -ficus, making, from
facere, to make; see Fact. B. L. pralés=*pro-olés ; from pro-,
before; and *olere, to grow, whence the inceptive form olescere,
appearing in ad-olescere, to grow up; see Adolescent, Adult.
Cf. sub-olés, ind-olés, Der. prolific-al, Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
PROLIX, tedious, lengthy. (F.—L.) ‘A longe and prolixe ex-
hortacion ;’ Hall’s Chron., Hen. VII, an. 6. § 3. G. Douglas has the
corrupt form prolixt, Palace of Honour, pt. ii. st.18,ed. Smali. [The
sb. prolixity, ME. prolixitee, is in Chaucer, C. Τὶ 10719 (F 405), and
Troilus, b. ii, 1. 1564.)—F. prolixe, ‘prolix,’ Cot.—L. prélixus,
extended, prolix. B. Prélixus must be compared with élixus,
soaked, boiled, allied to OL, Jixa, water, and ligui, liquére, to flow.
We then get the true sense ; prdlixus means ‘ that which has flowed
‘beyond its bounds,’ and the usual sense of ‘ broad’ or ‘extended’ is
clearly due to the common phenomenon of the enlargement of a
pond by rain.=L. pra-, forward ; and -lixus, supplying the place of
the unrecorded pp. of ligu?, to flow. See Pro- and Liquid. Der.
prolix-i-ty (see above), from OF. prolixite, in use in the 13th cent.
(Littré) ; from L. ace. prélixitatem, Brugmann, i. § 665.
PROLOCUTOR, the speaker, or chairman of a convocation.
(1,.) ‘ Prolocutour of the Conuocation house, is an officer chosen by
persons ecclesiasticall, publickly assembled by the Kings Writ at
euery Parliament ;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627.—L. prélociitor, an advocate.
=L. pra-, before, publicly ; and Jocutor, a speaker, allied to locus,
p. of ogui, to speak. See Pro- and Loquacious.
PROLOGUE, a preface, introductory verses to a play. (F.—L.
—Gk.) ME. prologue, Gower, C. A. prol. And see MSS. of the
Cant. Tales.=—F. prologue, ‘a prologue, or fore-speech, Cot.—L,
prologus. = Gk. πρόλογος, a fore-speech. — Gk. πρό, before; and
λόγος, a speech ; see Pro- and Logic.
PROLONG, to continue, lengthen out. (F.—L.) ME. prolongen.
* Purlongyn or prolongyn, or put fer a-wey;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 417.
=F. prolonger, ‘to prolong, protract,’ Cot.—L. prolongare, to pro-
long. L. pré-, forward, onward ; and longus, long. See Pro- and
Long. Der. prolong-at-tion, from Εἰ, prolongation, ‘a prolongation,’
Cot.; cf. L. pp. prdlongatus. Doublet, purloin.
PROMENADE, a walk, place for walking. (F.—L.) In
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, we find both promenade and pourmenade. =
F. promenade, formerly pourmenade; Cot. gives only the latter form.
Formed from OF. pourmener or promener, to walk, both of which
forms are given in Cotgrave, the prefix being really the same (L.
prod) in either case. The suffix -ade is borrowed from the Proy.
suffix -ada, for L, -aa, the fem. form of -dtus, the pp. suffix of the
1st conjugation. = L. prominare, to drive forwards, orig. to drive on
by threats. —L. prd-, forward; and Late L. minare, to drive on,
allied to L. mindri, to threaten. See Pro- and Menace. Der.
promenade, verb. ΟἿ, e-minent, im-minent.
PROMINENT, projecting, conspicuous, eminent. (F.—L.)
‘Some prominent rock ;’? Chapman, tr. of Homer, Iliad, xvi. 389.—
F. prominent, “ prominent ;’ Cot.—L. prominent-, stem of pres. part.
of prdminére, to project.—L. prd-, forth ; and -minére, to jut, project.
See Menace. Der. prominent-ly; prominence, from F. prominence,
‘a prominence,’ Cot.
PROMISCUOUS, mixed, confused. (L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627 ;
and in Cotgrave, to translate F. promiscué.—L. promiscuus, mixed.
=L. pré-, lit. forward, but here of slight force ; and musc-ére, to mix,
whence E. mix. See Pro- and Miscellaneous. Der. promis-
cuous-ly, -ness.
PROMISE, an engagement to do a thing, an expectation. (F.—
L.) For promes or promesse. ‘And this is the promise that he hath
promised vs;’ Bible, 1551, 1 John, ii. 25. ‘Fayre behestis and
promysys;” Fabyan, Chron. an. 1336-7.—F. promesse, ‘a promise,’
Cot. (Cf. Span. promesa, Ital. promessa, a promise. ]—=L. promussa,
fem. of prdmissus, pp. of prdmittere, to send or put forth, to promise.
=L. pro-, forth; and mittere, to send; see Pro- and Mission,
Der. promise, verb (as above) ; promis-er, promis-ing, promis-ing-ly ;
promiss-or-y, formed with suffix -y (<L. -ius) from the (rare) L.
prdmissor, a promiser.
PROMONTORY, a headland, cape. (L.) In Shak. Temp. v.
46. Englished from L. prdmoxtdrium, a mountain-ridge, headland ;
cf. Ἐς promontoire (Cot.).—L. pré-, forward; mont-, stem of mons, a
| mountain ; and the adj. neut. suffix -driwm. See Pro- and Mountain,
PROMOTE
PROMOTE, to further, advance, elevate. (L.) ‘A great fur-
therer or promoter ;? Fabyan, Chron. an. 1336-7, ed. Ellis, p. 445.
“He was promoted to so high an office ;’. Grafton, Chron. Hen. VI,
an. 14 (R.).—L. prométus, pp. of promouére, to promote, further. =
L. pré-, forward; and mouére, to move; see Pro- and Move.
Der. promot-er; promot-ion, ME. promocion, Prompt. Parv., from
F. promotion, from L, acc. promotidnem.
PROMPT, prepared, ready, acting with alacrity. (F.—L.) ‘She
that was prompte and redy to all euyll;’? Fabyan, Chron. vol. i.
c. 116; ed. Ellis, p. 91,1. 1. Cf. ‘Promptyd, Promptus;’ Prompt.
Parv.—F. prompt, ‘prompt ;’ Cot.—L. promptum, acc. of promptus,
promtus, brought to light, at hand, ready, pp. of promere, to take or
bring forward.—L. pré-, forward; and emere, to take; whence
promere, for prad-imere. See.Pro-and Example. Der. prompt-ly,
prompt-ness; prompt, verb, ME. prompten, Prompt. Parv. ; prompt-er,
ME. promptare, Prompt. Parv. ; prompt-ing ; prompt-i-tude (Levins),
from Εἰ, promptitude, ‘promptness,’ Cot., from Late L. promptitido,
which occurs A.D. 1261 (Ducange).
PROMULGATE, to publish. (L.) In Shak. Oth.i. 2. 21 ; and
both as vb. and pp.in Palsgrave. — L. prémulgdtus, pp. of promulgare,
to publish. B. Of unknown origin; the prefix is pro-, as usual.
Some refer it to OLat. promellere, ‘litem promouere,’ which is not
satisfactory. Der. promulgat-or, promulgat-ion,
PRONE, with the face downward, headlong, inclined, eagerly,
ready. (F.—L.) In Shak. Wint. Tale, ii. 1. 108.—F. prone, ‘prone,
ready,’ Cot.=L. pronum, acc. of prénus, inclined towards. β. Pro-
nus has been compared with Ionic Gk. πρηνής, Doric πρᾶνης, head-
long; and is connected with the prep. prd-, prod ; whence *préd-nus.
See Pro-. Der. prone-ly, prone-ness.
PRONG, the spike of a fork. (E.) ‘Iron teeth of rakes and
prongs; Dryden, tr. of Virgil, Georg. ii. 487. ‘ A prong or pitch-
forke;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627. ‘A prongue, hasta furcata;’ Levins,
166. 47, ed. 1570. The ME. pronge,a pang, sharp pain (Prompt.
Pary.) is the same word. Cf. ME. franglen, to constrain, Havelok,
639; from a Teut. base *prang-, to compress, nip, push, pierce.
Hence also Du. prangen, to press; G.pranger,a pillory; Goth. ana-
praggan (=ana-prangan), to press; Low G. prange, a stake; MDu.
prange, ‘a horse-mussle (muzzle) ; ashackle or a neck-yron; oppres-
sion or constraint;’ Hexham; Dan. prange, to crowd sail. See
Pang.
PRONOUN, a word used in place of a noun, to denote a person.
(F.—L.) In Ben Jonson, Eng. Grammar, c. xv; Shak. Merry
Wives, iv. 1. 41. Spelt pronowne in Palsgraye, p. xxiv. Com-
pounded of Pro- and Noun; and suggested by L. prondmen, a pro-
noun, or by F. pronom, a pronoun, found in 1482 (Hatzfeld). Cf.
Span. pronombre, Ital. pronome. Der. pronomin-al, from frondmin-,
stem of L. prondmen.
PRONOUNCE, to utter, express, speak distinctly. (F.—L.)
ME. pronouncen, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 16767 (ἃ 1299).—F. prononcer, " to
pronounce,’ Cot.—L. prdnuntiare, to pronounce.—L. prd-, forth ;
and nuntidre, totell. See Pro-and Announce. Der. pronounc-er,
pronounce-able, pronounc-ing ; pronunci-at-ion, from MF, pronontiation,
‘pronunciation,’ Cot., from L. acc. pronuntiationem.
PROGSMIUM, a proem ; see Proem.
PROOF, a test, demonstration, evidence. (F.—L.) The vowel
has undergone some alteration ; we find the spelling profe in the
Bible of 1551, 2 Cor. ii. 9. ME. preef, in many MSS. of Wyclif,
2 Cor. ii. 9, later text, where the reading of the text itself is preuyng.
Earliest spelling preoue, Ancren Riwle, Ρ. 52,1. 13; where eo is put
for F. eu, as in E, people for F. peuple. F. preuve, ‘a proofe, tryall,’
Cot.—Late L. proba, a proof (Lewis); which seems to be merely
formed from the verb probare, to prove; see Prove. Cf. Port. and
Ital. prova, Span. prueba, a proof.
PROP, a support, stay. (E.) The sb. appears earlier than the
verb.. ME. proppe, a long staff; Prompt. Parv. [Whence were bor-
rowed Irish propa, a prop; propadk, propping; Gael. prop, a prop,
support, prop, to prop, pp. propta, propped.] Not in AS.+Du.
proppe, ‘ an yron branch, propper, to prop, stay, or beare up,’
Hexham ; and with a change of meaning to fastening or stopping
up, Dan. prop, Swed. propp, G. pfropf, a cork, stopple, ἃ. pfropfen,
to cram, stuff, or thrust into. All from a Tevt. base *prup-, to stop
up, to support ; cf. MDan. pripfuld, Dan. propfuld, chokeful; Swed.
dial. primpa, prippa, to cram (oneself). δ] In the sense of ‘ graft,’
Ὁ. pfropf is due to L. propago; see Propagate. Der. prop, verb.
PROPAGATE, to multiply plants by layers, extend, produce.
(L.) In Shak, Per. i. 2.73 ; and in Levins, ed. 1570. —L. propagatus,
pp- of propagare, to peg down, propagate by layers, produce, beget ;
allied to propages, propago, a layer, and from the same root as
com-paiges, a joining together, structure.—L. prd-, forward; and
-pag-es,a fastening, pegging, from fag-, base of pangere, to fasten,
set (hence, to peg down); see Pro- and Pact. Der. fropagat-or ;
PROPOSE 479
propagat-ion, Minsheu; propagand-ism, propagand-ist, coined words
from the name of the society entitled Congregatio de Propaganda
Fide, constituted at Rome, A.D. 1622 (Haydn). And see prune (1).
PROPEL, to drive forward, urge on. (L.) ‘The blood... that
is propelled out of a vein of the breast ;’ Harvey (died 1657); cited
in Todd’s Johnson, without a reference. ME. propellen, Palladius
on Husbandry, bk. i. 1034. [But the word propulse was sometimes
used instead of it; see Richardson.]—L, prapellere (pp. propulsus),
to propel.=L. fra-, forward; and pellere, to drive; see Pro- and
pee Der. propell-er; propuls-ion, propuls-ive, like the pp.
propulsus.
PROPENSITY, an inclination. (L.; with F. suffix). ‘ Pro-
pension or Propensity ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. [The old word was
propension, as in Minsheu, and in Shak. Troil. ii, 2. 133, from F.
propension, ‘a propension or proneness,’ Cot.) A coined word, with
suffix -ity (F. -ité), from L. prdpens-us, hanging forward, inclining
towards, prone to; pp. of propendére, to hang forwards. =—L. pro-,
forwards; and pendére, to hang; see Pro- and Pendent. And
see Prepense.
PROPER, one’s own, belonging to, peculiar, suitable, just,
comely. (F.—L.) ME. propre, whence propremen=proper man,
Ancren Riwle, p. 196, 1. 15 ; propreliche= properly, id. p. 98, 1. 11. —
F. propre, * proper,’ Cot.=—L. proprium, acc. of proprius, one’s own.
B. Etym. doubtful; Bréal connects it with the phr. prd priud, for
one’s own; from priuus, single, peculiar; whence also Private.
Der. properly ; also proper-ly, ME. propreté, Gower, C. A. i. 239; bk.
ii. 2377, from OF. propreté, explained as ‘fitness’ by Cotgrave, but
found in old texts with the sense of ‘ property’ (Littré), from L. acc.
profrietatem; see Propriety.
PROPHECY, a prediction. (F.—L.—Gk.) The distinction in
spelling between profhecy, sb., and frophesy, verb, is unoriginal
and arbitrary; both should be prophecy. ME. prophecie, Ancren
Riwle, p. 158, 1. 15.—OF. prophecie, variant of prophetie, ‘a pro-
phesie,’ Cot.—L. prophétia.—Gk. προφητεία, a prediction. — Gk.
προφήτης, a prophet; see Prophet. Der. prophesy, verb, ME.
prophecien, Trevisa, i. 421, l. 33.
PROPHET, one who predicts, an inspired teacher. (F.—L.—
Gk.) ME. prophete, Rob. of Glouc. p. 38, 1. 893; Ormulum, 5195.
=OF. prophete.—L. prophéta.—Gk. προφήτης, one who declares
things, an expounder, prophet.—Gk. πρό, publicly, before all; also,
before ; and φη-, base of φημί, I say, speak ; with suffix -r7s, de-
noting the agent. From 4/BHA, to speak; see Pro- and Fame.
Der. prophet-ess, prophet-ic, prophet-tc-al, prophet-ic-al-ly ; also pro-
phec-y, q.v.
PROPHYLACTIC, preventive, defending from disease. (F.—
Gk.) From F. prophylactique, employed by Rabelais; see Hatzfeld.
—Gk. προφυλακτικός, guarding from.—Gk. προφυλάσσειν, to keep
guard before.=Gk. πρό, before; φυλάσσειν, to guard. See Phy-
lactery.
PROPIN#, to drink to one’s health, give, offer. (L.—Gk.)
‘The lovely sorceress mix’d, and to the prince Health, joy, and
peace propin’d ;’ C. Smart, The Hop-garden, i. 228.—L. propinare,
to drink to one’s health, give.—Gk. προπίνειν, the same.—Gk. πρό,
before; πίνειν, to drink.
PROPINQUITY, nearness. (F.—L.) ME. propinguitee,
Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. ii. pr. 3, 1. 24.—OF. fropinguité (Gode-
froy).—L. propinguitalem, acc. of frofinguitds, nearness.—L. fro-
pingui-, for propinguus, near, with suffix -tas. B. Propinguus =
*propi-n-cus, extended from frofe, near. Der. from the same source,
ap-proach, re-proach, prox-imily.
PROPITIOUS, favourable. (L.) [The old adj. was profice,
from OF. propice, ‘ propitious ;’ see exx. in R.] In Minshen, ed.
1627. Englished, by change of -vs to -ows, as in arduous, &c., from
L. propitius, favourable. B. Prob. a term of augury; it seems to
mean ‘flying forwards ;’ the form shows the derivation from prd-,
forwards, and petere, orig. to fly, from+/PET, to fly. See Pro-
and Feather. Der. propitious-ly, -ness. Also fropiti-ate, orig.
used as a pp., as in a quotation from Bp. Gardner, Explication of
the Sacrament, 1551, fol. 150, cited by R.; from L. propitiatus, pp. of
propitiare, to render favourable. Hence propitiat-ion, Minsheu, from
F. propitiation, ‘a propitiation,’ Cot. ; propitiat-or-y, ME. proficia-
torte, Wyclif, Heb. ix. 5, from L. propitiatorium, Heb. ix. 5.
PROPORTION, relation of parts, equality of ratios, analogy,
symmetry. (F.—L.) ME. proporcioun, Chaucer, C. T. 11598
(Ε 1286).—F. proportion, “ proportion,’ Cot.—L. praportidnem, acc.
of prdportio, comparative relation. —L. prd-, before, here used to
signify as regards or in relation to; and fortio, a portion, part; see
Pro- and Portion. Der. proportion, vb.; proportion-able, pro-
portion-abl-y, proportion-al, -al-ly, -ate, -ale-ly.
PROPOSE, to offer for consideration. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak.
Tam. Shrew, v. 2. 69. [We also find propone, whence profoning in
480 PROPOSITION
Sir T. More, Works, p. 1107 g; this is from L. proponere, and is
really a different word; see Propound.] =F. proposer, ‘to purpose,
also, to propose,’ Cot. Compounded of pro-, prefix; and F. poser,
which is not from L. ponere, but is of Gk. origin, as shown under
poe; see Pro- and Pose. Littré remarks that in this word, as in
other derivatives of F. poser, there has been confusion with L. fonere.
Der. profos-er ; propos-al, spelt proposall in Minsheu, a coined word,
like bestow-al, refus-al, &c. Doublet, purpose (1), q.v. és But
profound, proposition, are unrelated.
PROPOSITION, an offer of terms, statement of a subject,
theorem, or problem. (F.—L.) ME. proposicioun, in the phrase
looues of proposicioun, to translate L. panes propositionis, Wyclif,
Luke vi. 4.—F. froposition, ‘a proposition,’ Cot.—L. propositionem,
acc. of propositio, a statement; cf. frdpositus, pp. of proponere, to
propound; see Propound. Der. proposition-al.
PROPOUND, to offer for consideration, exhibit. (L.) Used
as equivalent to propose, but really distinct, and of different origin.
Formed with excrescent d from the old verb to propone, Sir T. More,
Works, p. 1107 g. ‘ Artificially proponed and oppugned ;’ Hall’s
Chron. Hen. VII, an. 6. § 4. ‘ The glorie of God propouned ;’ Bale,
Image, pt. iii (R.).—L. prodpdnere, to set forth.—L. prd-, forth ; and
ponere, to put, set, pp. positus ; see Pro- and Position. Der. pro-
pound-er ; proposit-ion, gq. v. Also purpose (2), q.v.
PROPRIETY, fitness. (F.—L.) ‘Proprietie, owing, specialtie,
qualitie, a just and absolute power over a free-hold ;’ Minsheu.
l.e. it had formerly the sense of property, of which it is a doublet ;
see Robinson, tr. of More’s Utopia, ed. Lumby, p. 62, 1, 32.—F. pro-
prieté, ‘a property, propriety, .. . a freehold in; also, a handsome or
comely assortment, &c.;’ Cot.—L. proprietatem, acc. of proprietas,
a property, ownership; also proper signification of words, whence
the mod. sense.—L. froprius, one’s own. See Proper. Der.
propriet-or, an incorrect substitute for proprietary, from MF. proprie-
taire, ‘a proprietary, an owner,’ Cot., from L. proprietarius, an
owner. Cf. also MF. proprietaire, adj. ‘ propristary,’ Cot. Doublet,
property.
PROPULSION, PROPULSIVE;; see Propel.
PROROGUE, to continue from one session to another, defer.
(F.—L.) Spelt prorogue in Minsheu, ed. 1627 ; earlier spelling
proroge, Levins, ed. 1570; and in Hardyng, Chron. ch. 36. st. 3.—
Ἐς froroger, ‘to prorogue,’ Cot.—L. prorogare, to propose a further
extension of office, lit.‘ to ask publicly ;’ hence to prorogue, defer. =
L. pré-, publicly; and rogare, to ask; see Pro- and Rogation.
Der. prorog-at-ion, from F. prorogation, ‘a prorogation,’ Cot. ; from
L. acc. prorogationem.
PROS., prefix, to, towards. (Gk.) Properly Gk., but also ap-
pearing in F, and L. words borrowed from Gk. = Gk. πρός, towards ;
fuller form προτί, extended from πρό, before.4Skt. prati, towards ;
extended from pra, before, forward, away. See Pro-. Der. pros-
elyte, pros-ody, pros-opo-f@ia.
PROSCENIUM, the front part of a stage. (L.—Gk.) Not in
Todd’s Johnson; merely L. proscénium.—Gk. προσπκήνιον, the place
before the scene where the actors appeared.—Gk. πρό, before; and
σκηνή, a scene; see Pro- and Scene.
PROSCRIBE, to publish the name of a person to be punished,
to outlaw or banish, prohibit. (L.) In Levins, ed. 1570.—L. pro-
scribere, pp. proscriptus, lit. ‘to write publicly.’—L. prd-, forth,
publicly ; and scribere, to write; see Pro- and Seribe. Der. pro-
script-ion, Jul. Cres. iv. 1. 17, from F. proscription, ‘a proscription,’
Cot., from L. acc. proscriptidnem ; proscript-ive.
PROSE, straightforward speech, not poetically arranged. (F.—
L.) ME. prose, Chaucer, C. T. 4516 (B 96).—F. prose, ‘ prose,’ Cot.
-L. présa, for prorsa, in the phr. prorsa ordtio, straightforward (or
unembellished) speech; fem. of prorsus, forward, a contracted form
of prouersus, lit. turned forward.—L. prd-, forward; and wersus, pp.
of uertere, to turn. See Pro- and Verse. 4 The result, that prose
is partly derived from L. uersus, whence E. verse, is remarkable.
Der. prose, vb., pros-er, pros-y, pros-i-ly, pros-i-ness ; pros-a-ic, from
L. provaicus, relating to prose.
PROSECUTE, to pursue, continue, follow after, sue. (L.) In
Levins, ed.1570. Spelt ¢roseguude, Robinson’s tr. of More’s Utopia,
ed. Lumby, p. 132, 1. 17, p. 133, 1. 32.—L. proseciitus, prosequitus,
pp. of prosequi, to pursue ; see Pursue. Der. prosecut-ion, Antony,
iv. 14, 65, from L. acc. proseciitioOnem; prosecut-or=L. proseciitor ;
prosecut-r-ix, formed with suffixes -r (<-or) and -ix, as in L. testat-
r-ix. Doublet, pursue.
PROSELYTE, a conyert. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. proselite,
Wyclif, Deeds [Acts], ii. 10; afterwards conformed to the L,
spelling with y.—OF. proselite, ‘a proselite, Cot.—L. prosélytum,
acc. of prosélytus.— Gk. προσήλυτος, one who has come to a place,
hence, as sb, a stranger, esp. one who has come over to Judaism, a
convert, Acts ii. 10. Allied to Gk. perf. tense προσελήλυθα, znd aor,
PROTEST
προσῆλθον (=mpoo-ndvOov) ; of which the pres. tense (προσέρχομαι)
is from a different root.—Gk. πρός, to; and ἠλυθ-, as in ἤλυθον,
I came, of which the fut. tense is ἐ-λεύσομαι, from 4/LEUDH ;
whence also Skt. ruh, orig. rudh, to grow, increase, Goth. liudan, to
grow. Der. proselyt-ise, proselyt-ism.
PROSODY, the part of grammar that treats of the laws of verse.
(F.—L.—Gk.) In Ben Jonson, Eng. Grammar, c. 1. Spelt prosodie
in Minsheu, ed. 1627; prosodye, Coventry Mysteries, p. 189.—F.
prosodie, in use in the 16th cent. (Littré).—L. prosddia. —Gk.
προσῳδία, a song sung to an instrument, a tone, accent, prosody. =
Gk. πρός, to, accompanying ; and wd7, an ode, song; see Pros- and
Ode. Der. prosod-i-al, prosodi-c-al, prosodi-an, prosod-ist.
PROSOPOPQGSIA, personification. (L.—Gk.) Spelt prosopopeia,
Sir P. Sidney, Apology for Poetry, ed. Arber, p. 24.—L. trosdpo-
feia, — Gk. προσωποποΐα, personification, = Gk. προσωποποιεῖν, to per-
sonify.—Gk. προσωπο-, for πρόσωπον, a face, person; and ποιεῖν, to
make. β. Gk. πρόσωπον is from πρός, towards ; and ὠπ-, stem of dy,
face, appearance. See Pros-, Optic, and Poet.
PROSPECT, a view, scene, expectation. (L.) In Shak. Much
Ado, iv. 1. 231; and in Levins.—L. prospect-us, a look out, distant
view, prospect.—L. prospectus, pp. of prosficere, to look forward. =
L. pro-, before; and spicere, specere, to look; see Pro- and Spy.
Der. prospect, vb., in Levins ; prospect-ive, MI. trospective, Chaucer,
C. T. 10548 (F 234), from F. prospective, ‘the prospective, perspec-
tive, or optick art,’ Cot., from L. adj. prospectiuus; prospect-ive-ly ;
prospect-ion ; also prospectus (modern) = L. prospectus.
PROSPEROUS, according to hope, successful. (L.) In Levins ;
and in Surrey, tr. of Virgil, A‘n.iv.773 (L. text, 579). Englished, by
change of -us to -ous, as in arduous, &c., from L. prosperus, also spelt
prosper, according to one’s hope, favourable.—L. prd-, for, according
to; and spa-, weak grade of sfé-, as in spé-s, hope ; with suffix -ro-.
B. Spés is related to E. speed; see Brugmann, i. § 156, ii. § 74.
Der. prosperous-ly; prosper, verb, Bible of 1551, 3 John, 2, and in
Palsgrave, from MF. prosperer, ‘to prosper,’ Cot., which from L.
trosperare, v., from prosper, adj. Also prosper-i-ty, in early use; ME.
prosperite, Ancren Riwle, p. 194, 1. 14, from OF. prosperite< L. acc.
prosperitatem.
PROSTHETIC, prefixed. (Gk.) Modern; as if for Gk.
προσθετικός, lit. disposed to add, giving additional power; allied to
Gk. πρόσθετος, added, put to; cf. πρόσθεσις, a putting to, attaching.
=-Gk. πρός-, to; θε-τός, placed, put, verbal adj. from the base θε-,
weak grade of θη-, to place; see Theme. Cf. Gk. ἐπι-θετικός -- Τ,.
adiectiuus.
PROSTITUTE, to expose for sale lewdly, to sell to lewdness,
devote to shameful purposes. (L.) Minsheu, ed. 1627, has proséi-
tute, verb, and prostitution. The verb is in Shak. Per. iv. 6. 201 ; and
in Palsgrave.—L. prostitit-us, pp. of prostituere, to set forth, expose
openly, prostitute. —L. pré-, forth; and statuere, to place, set; see
Pro- and Statute. Der. prostitute, sb.<L. prostitita, fem. ;
prostitut-ton, from F. prostitution, ‘a prostitution,’ Cot., from L. ace.
prostitutionem ; prostitut-or = L. prostiitor.
PROSTRATE, lying on the ground, bent forward on the
ground. (L.) ‘It is good to slepe prostrate on their bealies;’ Sir
T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. 11. c. 30. ‘ Prostrat byfore thi person’ ;
Coventry Mysteries, p. 75.—L. prostratus, pp. of prosternere, to throw
forward on the ground.=L. pré-, forward; and s/ernere, to throw on
the ground. See Pro- and Stratum. Der. prostrate, vb., Spenser,
F. Q. i. 12. 6; prostrat-ion, from F. prostration, ‘a prostrating,’ Cot.,
from L. acc. prostratidnem.
PROTEAN, readily assuming different shapes. (L.—Gk.) ‘The
Protean transformations of nature ;’ Cudworth, Intellectual System,
p- 32 (R.). Coined, with suffix -an (<L. -anus), from L. Prote-us,
a sea-god who often changed his form; cf. Roy, Rede me, p. 118.—
Gk. Πρωτεύς, a sea-god ; cf. πρῶτος, first, chief.
PROTECT, to cover over, defend, shelter. (L.) In Shak. Tw.
Nt. ii. 4. 75. [We find ME. protectour, Henrysoun, Test. of
Creseide, 1. 556; protecctoun, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 2365 (A 2363).]—L.
protect-us, pp. of protegere, to protect.—L. prd-, before; and segere,
to cover; see Pro- and Tegument. Der. protect-ion, from F.
protection, ‘protection,’ Cot., from L. acc. prdlecttOnem ; protect-ion-ist ;
protect-ive; protect-or, formerly protecteur, from F. protecteur, ‘a
protector,’ from L. acc. prétectdrem; protect-or-al, protect-or-ship,
protect-or-ate; protect-r-ess, ME. protectrice, Lydgate, A Ballad in
Commendacion of Our Ladie, 1. 57, from F. protectrice, ‘a protec-
trix,’ Cot., formed from the acc. case of a L, *protectrix, a fem. form
similar to festatrix. Also protégé, borrowed from mod. F. protege,
pp. of protéger, to protect, from L, protegere ; fem. form protégée.
PROTEST, to bear public witness, declare solemnly. (F.—L.)
In Spenser, F. Ὁ. ii. 10. 28, and Palsgraye; the sb. frotest occurs in
The Tale of Beryn, ed. Furnivall, 1. 3905. —F. protes/er, ‘to protest,’
Cot. —L. frétestare, prote:tari, to protest.—L. pré-, publicly; and
PROTHALAMIUM
testari, to bear witness, from ‘¢esfis, a witness. See Pro- and
Testify. Der. protest, sb., protest-er; Protest-ant, from HF. pro-
testant, pres, part. of protester ; Protest-ant-ism ; protest-at-ion, Chaucer,
C. T. 3139 (A 3137), from F. protestation, ‘a protestation,’ from L.
acc, profestationem.
PROTHALAMIUM, a song written on the occasion of a
marriage. (L.—Gk.) See the Prothalamion written by Spenser. =
Late L. prothalamium, or prothalamion, = Gk, προθαλάμιον, a song
written before a marriage; not in Liddell and Scott, but coined (with
prefix mpo-) as a companion word to Epithalamium, q. v.
PROTOCOL, the first draught or copy of a document. (F.—L,
—Gk.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.—MF, protocole, also protecole, ‘ the
first draught or copy of a deed,’ Cot. (Cf. Ital. protocollo, ‘a booke
wherein scriveners register all their writings, anything that is first
made, and needeth correction ;’ Florio,]|—Late L. prdtocollum. =
Late Gk. πρωτόκολλον, not in Liddell and Scott, but explained by
Scheler. It meant, in Byzantine authors, orig. the first leaf glued on
to MSS., in order to register under whose administration, and by
whom, the MS. was written ; it was afterwards particularly applied
to documents drawn up by notaries, because, by a decree of Justinian,
such documents were always to be accompanied by such a first leaf
or fly-leaf. It means ‘ first glued-on,’ i.e. glued on at the beginning.
-Gk. πρῶτο-, for πρῶτος, first; and κολλᾷν, to glue, from Gk.
κόλλα, glue. B. Gk. πρῶτος is a superl. form from πρό, before ; see
Pro-. The root of κόλλα is unknown; cf. Russ. ἀϊεῖ, glue.
PROTOMARTYR, the first martyr. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘The
holy prothomartyr seynt Alboon ;’ Fabyan, Chron. vol. i. c. 141 ;
ed. Ellis, p.138.— MF. protomartyre, ‘ the first martyr,’ Cot. = Late L.
protomartyr.—Gk. mpwrdpaptup; coined from πρῶτο-, for πρῶτυς,
first, superl. of πρό, before; and μάρτυρ, a martyr, later form of
μάρτυς, a witness. See Pro- and Martyr.
PROTOTYPE, the original type or model. (F.—L.—Gk.)
‘There, great exemplar, prototype of kings ;’ Daniel, A Panegyric to
the King’s Majesty, l. 177. Andin Minsheu. =F. prototype, ‘ the first
form, type, or pattern of, Cot.—L. prdtotypum, neut. of prdtotypus,
adj., original. Gk. πρωτότυπον, a prototype; neut. of πρωτότυπος,
according to the first form. Gk. mp@to-, for πρῶτος, first, superl. of
πρό, before; and τύπος, a type. See Pro- and Type. So also,
with the same prefix, we have proto-plasm, proto-phyte, 8c.
PROTRACT, to prolong. (L.) ‘ Without longer protractyng of
tyme;’ Hall’s Chron., Henry VI. an. 38. § 6; and in Shak.=—L.
protract-us, pp. of protrahere, to draw forth, prolong.—L. pro-,
forth; and ¢trahere, to draw; see Pro-, Trace, Portray. Der.
protract-ion (not ἘΝ}; protract-ive, Shak. Troil. i. 3. 20; protract-or.
PROTRUDE, to push forward, put out. (L.) In Sir Τὶ Browne,
Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 20, § 4.—L. protridere, to thrust forth. =—L.
pro-, forth; and /riidere, to thrust, allied to E. shreat; see Pro- and
Threat. Der. protrus-ion, coined from L. pp. protriisus; pro-
trus-ive,
PROTUBERANT, prominent, bulging out. (L.) ‘ Protuberant,
swelling or puffing up ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Phillips, ed. 1706,
has both protuberant and protuberance. The rare verb frotuberate
sometimes occurs; see Rich.=L. prdtiberant-, stem of pres. part. of
protiberare, to bulge out.—L. prd-, forward ; and tuber, a swelling ;
see Pro- and Tuber. Der. protuberance.
PROUD, haughty, arrogant. (E.; or F.?) ME. prud (with long x),
Havelok, 302; Ancren Riwle, p. 176, 1. 17; later proud, P. Plowman,
B. iii. 178. Older form prut (with long ~), Ancren Riwle, p. 276,
1. 19; Layamon, 8828 (earlier text ; later text, prout). AS. prat,
proud; a word of which the traces are slight; the various reading
prittne for rancne in the AS. Chron. an. 1006, is only found in MS. F,
of the 12th century ; see Earle, Two AS. Chronicles, notes, p. 336. It
occurs also in the Liber Scintillarum, § 17, p. 85, and § 46, p.152; and
we find the derived words fritung, pride, Mone, Quellen, p. 355, and
pryte in AElfric’s Homilies, ii. 220, formed by the usual vowel-change
from ἃ to y;see Pride. B. Moreover, we find Icel. pradr, proud,
borrowed from AS.; with which cf. Dan. prud, stately, magnificent.
y. Borrowed (according to Kluge) from OF. prod, prud (fem. prode,
prude), valiant, notable (taken in a bad sense); see further under
prowess. But the occurrence of pryte in AElfric makes this very
doubtful. Der. proud-ly ; also pride, q. v.
PROVE, to test, demonstrate, experience. (L.) In old authors,
it commonly means ‘to test,’ as ‘ prove all things,’ 1 Thess. v. 21.
ME. prouen, preuen (with u for v), P. Plowman, B. viii. 120, A. ix.
115. Older spelling preoven, Ancren Riwle, p. 390, 1. 22. AS.
frofian (below). [Cf. also OF. prover, pruver, later prouver, ‘to
prove, try, essay, verifie, approve, assure, &c.’; Cot.]—L. probare, to
test, try, examine, orig. to judge of the goodness of a thing.=L.
probus, good, excellent. β. From the L. probare are also derived,
not only Port. provar, Span. frobar, Ital. provare, but also AS.
frofian, Laws of Ine, § 20, in Thorpe’s Ancient Laws, i. 116, Du.
PROWESS 481
proeven, Icel. profa, Swed. préfva, Dan. prove, G. proben, probiren
The mod. E, prove seems to be due to AS., in which the o was
arbitrarily lengthened. Der. prov-able, prov-abl-y, provable-ness ; and
see proof, probable, probation, probe, probity, ap-prob-ation, ap-prove,
dis-ap-prove, dis-prove, im-prove, re-prove, re-prieve, re-pro-bate.
PROVENDER, dry food for beasts, as hay and corn. (F.—L.)
In Shak. Hen. V, iv. 2.58; Oth. i. 1.48. The final γ is an OF. addi-
tion. OF. provendre (Godefroy) ; usually provende, ‘ provender,
also, a prebendry,’ Cot., whence ME. prouendé, provendeé, orig. a
trisyllabic word. Shak. has also the shorter form provand, Cor. ii.
1. 267. The ME. prouende also meant ‘ prebend,’ as in : ‘ Prowende,
rent, or dignite ;’ Rom. of the Rose, 6931. According to Stratmann,
provende occurs in the sense of ‘provender’ in Robert Manning's
Hist. of England, ed. Furnivall, 1. 11188. [In OF. it also has the
sense of ‘prebend;’ see Littré.]—L. prebenda, a payment; in Late
L. a daily allowance of provisions, also a prebend ; Ducange. Fem.
of prebendus, pass. fut. part. of prebére, to afford, give; see Pre-
bend. Note also ME. prouendre, which meant ‘a prebendary,’
or person enjoying a prebend. See the passages quoted in Richard-
son, esp. from Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 81, 1. 2, p. 210,
1.27. But it also means ‘ prebend ;’ as in Trevisa, tr. of Higden,
ii. 171.
PROVERB, a short familiar sentence, an adage, a maxim. (F.—
L.) ME. prouerbe (with u=v), Wyclif, John, xvi. 29.—F. proverbe,
‘a proverb.’=L, prouerbium, a common saying, proverb.—L. prd-,
publicly; and uwerbum,a word. See Pro- and Verb. Der. pro-
verb-i-al, from L. prouerbialis, formed from prouerbi-um with suffix
-alis ; proverb-t-al-ly.
PROVIDE, to make ready beforehand, prepare, supply. (L.)
In Shak. Com, Errors, i. 1. 81; and in Palsgrave.—L. prouidére,
to act with foresight, lit. to foresee.—L. prd-, before; and widére,
to see. See Pro- and Vision. Der. frovid-er, Cymb. iii. 6. 53.
Also provid-ent, Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 11, 1. 139, from L. prouident-,
stem of pres. part. of prouidére ; provid-ent-ly ; also provid-ence, ME.
frouidence, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. v. pr. 6, 1. 83, from F. provi-
dence. <L. prouidentia ; whence providenti-al, providenti-al-ly. Also
(like L. pp. prowis-us) provis-ion, Sir T. Elyot, The Governor, b. ii.
c. 12, ὃ 4, from F. provision<L. acc. prduisidnem ; provis-ion, verb,
provis-ion-al, provis-ion-al-ly ; provis-or, ME. prouisour, P. Plowman,
B. iv. 133, from F. proviseur, ‘a provider,’ Cot.<L. acc. prouisorem ;
provis-or-y, provis-or-t-ly. Also provis-o, τ Hen. 1V, i. 3. 78, from the
Late L. law-phrase proviso quod=it being provided that, in use
A.D. 1350 (Ducange) ; pl. provisos. Doublet, purvey; doublet of
provident, prudent.
PROVINCE, a business or duty, a portion of an empire or state,
a region, district, department. (F.—L.) ME. prouynce, prouince
(with «=v), Wyclif, Deeds [Acts], xxiii. 34.—F. frovince, ‘a pro-
vince,’ Cot.=—L. prduincia, a territory, conquest. B. Of unknown
origin ; Bréal says that the primary sense was ‘ obligation ;’ possibly
from prd-, prefix, and wincire, to bind. (But see Walde.) Der.
provinci-al, Meas. for Meas. v. 318; provinci-al-ly, provinci-al-ism.
PROVISION, PROVISO: see under Provide.
PROVOKE, to call forth, excite to action or anger, offend, chal-
lenge. (F.—L.) ME. prouoken, Prompt. Parv.—F. provoquer, ‘to
provoke,’ (οἱ. “Το. prduocare, to call forth, challenge, incite, pro-
voke.=L. pré-, forth ; and uocare, to call; allied to udc-, stem of
uox, the voice. See Pro- and Vocal. Der. provok-ing, provok-
ing-ly; provoc-at-ion, in Fabyan’s Chron, vol. i. c. 64, from F.
provocation, ‘a provocation,’ Cot., from L. acc. prduocationem ;
provoc-at-ive, Henrysoun, Test. of Creseide, 1. 2265; provoc-at-ive-
ness.
PROVOST, a principal or chief, esp. a principal of a college or
chief magistrate of a Scottish town, a prefect. (L.) ME. prouost
(with w=v), Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. i. pr. 4, 1. 435 prouest,
Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 268, 1. 7. AS. prafost, Exod.
v.15; profost, ΖΕ τὶς, Hom. ii. 172. (Cf. MF. frevost, ‘the pro-
vost or president of a college ;’ Cot.]}—L. prefositus, a prefect ; lit.
‘one who is set over,’ pp. of prefdnere,to set over. “τι pre, before ;
and ponere, to place. See Pre-and Position. In Italian we
find both prevosto and preposto ; showing that v is due to the older p.
Der. provost-marshal, provost-ship.
PROW, the fore-part of a ship. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Minsheu, ed.
1627.— OF. proué (mod. F. prove), ‘ the prow, or forepart of a ship;’
Cot. (Cf. Ital. proda, prua.J}—L. prora, the prow of a ship; the
second r disappearing in order to avoid the double trill. [Cf. Prov.
Span., Port. proa, Genoese prua.J}—Gk. mpdpa (also mpwipa), the
prow ; connected with πρό, before ; see Pro-.
PROWESS, bravery, valour. (F.—L.) Originally ‘ excellence.’
ME. prowes, prowesse, Rob. of Glouc. p. 12,1. 279; p. 112, 1. 2418 ;
pruesse, King Horn, ed. Lumby, 1, 556. OF. prowesse, ‘ prowesse,’
Cot.; formed with suffix -esse (<L. -itia) from OF, frou, brave,
1
489 PROWL
mod. F. preux, ‘hardy, doughty, valiant, full of prowess;’ Cot.
B. The etym. of OF. frou is much disputed; it occurs also in the
forms prod, prud, pros, proz, &c., fem. prode, prude; we also find
Proy. proz, Ital. prode. y. But, besides the adj. prou, we also
find a sb. prou, formerly prod, in the sense of ‘ advantage ;’ thus bon
prou leur Jace=much good may it do them. This is the common
ME. prow, meaning profit, advantage, benefit, as in Chaucer, C. T.
12234, 13338 (C 300, B 1598). δ. It is certain that provesse was
used to translate L. probitas, and that prou was used to translate
probus, but the senses of the words were, nevertheless, not quite the
same, and they seem to have been drawn together by the influence of
a popular etymology which supposed prow to represent frobus. But
the d is very persistent ; we still find the fem. prude even in mod. E.,
and we must observe that Ital. prode means both ‘advantage’ and
‘valiant,’ whilst the F. rud’homme simply meant, at first, ‘ brave
man,’ e. It seems best to accept the suggestion that the word is
due to the L. prep. prod-, appearing in L. prdd-esse, to be useful to,
to do good, to benefit. This would also explain the use of OF.
prod, prou, as an adverb, Cot. has: ‘ Prow, much, greatly, enough ;’
cf. Korting, § 7451. See Pro- and Prude.
PROWL, to rove in search of plunder or prey. (OLow G.) ‘To
proule for fishe, percontari; To proule for riches, omnia appetere ;’
Levins. ME. prollen, to search about; Chaucer, C. T. 16880
(G 1412). § Prollyn, as ratchys (dogs that hunt by scent], Scrutor,’
Prompt. Pary. ‘ Prollynge, or sekynge, Perscrutacio, investigacio,
scrutinium ;’ id. ‘ Purlyn, idem quod Prollyn;’ id. ‘I prolle, I go
here and there to seke a thyng, ie ¢racasse. Prolyng for a promo-
cyon, ambition ;’ Palsgrave. ‘ Prolle, to search, or prowl about; to
rob, poll, or steal; to plunder;’ Halliwell. Of uncertain origin.
Perhaps, like plunder, it meant ‘to filch trifles;’ from Low G. prull,
prulle, a trifle, thing of small value (Bremen). Cf. Du. prul, ‘a
bawble’ (Sewel), prudlen, ‘lumber, luggage, pelf, trumpery, toys’
(id.) ; prullen-kooper, a ragman (Calisch); EFries. priille, priill,
a trifle.
PROXIMITY, nearness. (F.—L.) Spelt proximitie in Minsheu,
ed. 1627.—F. proximité, ‘proximity;’ Cot.—L. proximitaitem, ace.
of proximitas ; formed with suffix -/as from proximi-, for troximus,
very near, which is a superl. form from profe, near; see Propin-
quity. Der. Also proxim-ate, rather a late word, see exx. in R.
and Todd’s Johnson, from L. proximatus, pp. of proximare, to
approach, from proximus, very near; proxim-ate-ly.
PROXY, the agency of one who acts for another; also an agent.
(F.—Late L.—L.) ‘ Vnles the King would send a proxie;’ Foxe,
Martyrs, p. 978, an. 1536 (R.). Proxy is merely a contraction for
ME. prokecye, itself a contracted form of procuracy, which is pro-
perly an agency, not an agent. ‘ Procurator is used for him that
gathereth the fruits of a benefice for another man; An. 3 Rich. II,
stat. I. cap. 2. And procuracie is used for the specialtie whereby he
is authorized, ibid;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627. Procuracy is from AF.
procuracie, Liber Albus, p. 423, 1. 1.—Late L. frocuratia, a late
form used as equivalent to L. proctiratio, amanagement. Similarly,
proctor is a contraction for prédciirator, a manager; see Proctor,
Procure, The contracted forms proketour and prokecye, later
proctor and proxy, seem to have come into use at the close of the
14th century. Cf. ‘ Prokecye, procuracia ; Proketowre, Procurator;’
Prompt. Pary. Also frockesy, Palsgrave. It thus appears that the
syllable -ra- was dropped, whilst u was first weakened to e and
afterwards disappeared.
PRUDE, a woman of affected modesty. (F.—L.) In Pope, Rape
of the Lock, i. 63, iv. 74, v. 36; Tatler, no. 102, Dec. 3, 1709.—F.
prude, orig. used in a good sense, excellent, as in ‘ preude femme, a
chast, honest, modest matron,’ Cot. MF. prude; from OF. freuz,
objective case prev, valiant, excellent; the etymology of which is
discussed under Prowess, q.y. B. The mod. F. frud’ homme
arose from misunderstanding the OF. preu d’homme ; and hence was
made a MF. preude femme, prude femme (for preu de femme) ; whence
the fem. form prude was evolved. See Hatzfeld. Der. prud-ish ;
prud-ish-ly, Pope, Dunciad, iv. 194; prud-e-ry, Pope, Answer to
Mrs. Howe, 1. 1, from F. pruderie.
PRUDENT, discreet, sagacious, frugal. (F.—L.) ME. prudent,
Chaucer, C. T. 12044 (C 110).—F, prudent, ‘prudent,’ Cot.=L. tri-
dent-em, acc. of priidens, prudent. β. Pradens is a contracted form
of prouidens; see Provident. Der. prudent-ly; prudence, ME.
prudence, Wyclif, 1 Cor. i. 19, from F. prudence<L. priidentia;
prudenti-al, Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, coined from L. priidentia.
PRUNE (1), to trim trees, divest of what is superfluous. (F.—
L.) The old form is proine, proin; see exx. of proin in Nares and
Jamieson. In Chaucer, C. T. 9885 (E 2011), it is said of Damian,
when dressing himself up smartly: ‘He kembeth him [combs
himself], he proyneth him and pyketh,’ where the Harl. MS. has
fruneth. It here means to trim, trick out, adorn. Gascoigne speaks
PTARMIGAN
of imfs, i.c. scions of trees, which ‘ growe crookt, bycause they be
not proynd,’ i.e. pruned; Steel Glas, 458. It was esp. used of birds,
in the sense ‘to pick out damaged feathers and arrange the plumage
with the bill’ (Schmidt), Cymb. v. 4. 118; cf. L.L.L. iv. 3. 183.
B. Tyrwhitt, with reference to proinen in Chaucer, says: ‘It seems
to have signified, originally, to take cuttings from vines, in order to
plant them out. From hence it has been used for the cutting away
of the superfluous shoots of all trees, which we now call pruning ;
and for that operation, which birds, and particularly hawks, perform
upon themselves, of picking out their superfluous or damaged
feathers. Gower, speaking of an eagle, says: ‘‘ For there he pruneth
him and piketh As doth an hauke, whan him wel liketh ;”’ Conf.
Amant. 111. 75; bk. vi. 2203.” y. Hence the etymology is from
OF. proignier, to prune (Godefroy), Norm. dial. progner (Moisy) ;
the same as MF. provigner, ‘to plant or set a stocke, staulke, slip,
or sucker, for increase; hence to propagate, multiply,’ &c. ; Cot.
Littré gives the Berry forms of provigner as preugner, progner,
prominer, This verb is from the F. sb. provin, ‘a slip or sucker
planted,’ Cot. ; OF. provain (Hatzfeld); cf. Ital. ¢ropaggine, a vine-
sucker laid in the ground.—L. propaiginem, acc. of tropago, a layer,
sucker. See Propagate. Der. prun-er.
PRUNE (2), a plum. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Sir T. Elyot, Castel of
Helth, b. ii. c. 7.—F. prune, ‘a plum,’ Cot.<L. ¢riinum, a plum. =
Gk. mpodvoy, shorter form of προῦμνον, a plum; προῦνος, shorter
form of mpovuvos, a plum-tree. Der. prun-ella, or trun-ello, Pope.
Essay on Man, iv. 204, the name of a strong woollen stuff of a dark
colour, so named from prinella, the Latinized form of Εἰ, prunelle,
ἃ 5106, dimin. of prune. Doublet, plum.
PRURIENT, itching. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L.
pririent-, stem of pririens, pres. part. of frérire, to itch, orig. to
burn ; cognate with E. freeze; see Freeze. Brugmann, i. ὃ 562.
Der. prurtence, prurienc-y.
PRY, to search inquisitively. (F.—L.) ME. pryen, prien, Chaucer,
C. T. 3458; P. Plowman, B. xvi. 168; Will. of Palerne, 5019; Polit.
Songs, ed. Wright, p. 222, 1. 11. —OF. prier, preer, preier, to pillage
{to search for plunder]. —Late L. prédare, to plunder, also to investi-
gate; Ducange.—L. preda, prey; see Prey.
PSALM, asacred song. (L.—Gk.) ME. psalm, frequently salm,
in very early use, Layamon, 23754. AS. sealm; see Sweet's AS.
Reader. —L. psalmus.— Gk. ψαλμός, a touching, a feeling, esp. the
twitching of the strings of a harp; hence, the sound of the harp,
a song, psalm.—Gk. ψάλλειν, to touch, twitch, twang; from base
PSAL, for SPAL. Perhaps allied to Skt. sphalaya (with ἃ), to
strike, to touch. See Prellwitz. Der. psalm-ist, Levins, Ἐς psalmiste
(Cot.), from L. psalmista, Late Gk. ψαλμιστής ; psalm-ody, spelt
psalmodie in Minsheu, Εἰ, psalmodie (Cot.), from Late L. psalmodia,
from Gk. ψαλμῳδία, a singing to the harp, whichis from YaAp-, stem
of ψαλμός, and wy, a song, ode (see Ode) ; psalmodi-c-al, psalmod-
ist. Also psaltery, q.v.
PSALTERY, a kind of stringed instrument. (F.—L.—Gk.)
In Shak. Cor. v. 4. 52. ME. sautrie, Chaucer, C. T. 3213.—OF.
psalterie, in use in the 12th cent.; see Littré, 5, v. psaltérion, which is
the mod. F. form.=—L. psaliérium.=—Gk. ψαλτήριον, a stringed in-
strument.—Gk. ψαλτήρ, a harper; formed from ψαλ-, base of ψάλ-
λειν, to harp; with suffix denoting the agent. See Psalm. Der.
psalter, ME. sauter, Hali Meidenhad, ed. Cockayne, p. 3, from OF.
psaltier, ‘a psaulter, book of psalms,’ Cot. from L. psaltérium, (1) a
psaltery, (2) a song sung to the psaltery, the Psalter.
PSEUDONYYM, a fictitious name. (F.—Gk.) Modern; not in
Todd’s Johnson. Borrowed from F. psexdonyme, used by Voltaire,
A.D. 1772 (Littré). — Gk. ψευδώνυμος, adj., called by a falsename. =
Gk. ψεῦδο-, for ψεῦδος, a falsehood (cf. ψευδής, false) ;.and ὄνυμα,
ὄνομα, a name. B. The Gk. ψεῦδος is allied to ψυδρός (base ψυδ-),
false; and to ψύθ-ος, a lie, orig. a whisper; cf. ψυθίζειν, to whisper.
y. For the Gk. ὄνομα, see Name. Der. pseudonym-ous.
PSHAW, interjection of disdain. (E.) ‘A peevish fellow...
disturbs all... with pishes and pshaws;’ Spectator, no. 438 (1712).
An imitative word, like pish ; from the sound of blowing. Cf. also
pooh.
PSYCHICAL, pertaining to the soul. (L.—Gk.) Modern;
formed with suffix -al from psychic-us, the Latinized form of Gk.
ψυχικός, belonging to the soul or life.—Gk. yvy-7, the soul, life,
orig. breath. Gk. ψύχ-ειν, to blow; extended from the base yv-,
from a 4/SPEU, to blow. Der. psycho-logy, where the suffix -logy
=Gk. suffix -Aoyia, from λόγος, discourse, which from λέγειν, to
speak; hence, psycholog-i-c-al, -al-ly; psycholog-ist. Also met-em-
psychosis, q.v.
PTARMIGAN, a species of grouse. (Gaelic.) ‘The ptarmigan
grous’ is mentioned in an E. translation of Buffon’s Nat. Hist.,
London, 1792, vol. ii. p. 48. Formerly fermagant. ‘ Heath-cocks,
capercailzies, and termagants ;’ Taylor the Water-Poet, The Penniless
PTERODACTYL
Pilgrimage, 1618 (ed. Hindley); cited in Palmer's Folk-Etymology,
p- 386. Spelt termigant in 1617; Newton, Dict. of Birds, p. 392.
The singular spelling prarmigan, with a needless initial 2, appears in
Littré’s Dict. Gael. tarmachan, ‘the bird ptarmigan;’ Irish far-
mochan, ‘ the bird called the termagant.’ I do not know the sense
of the word; the Gael. verb tarmaich means ‘to originate, be the
source of, gather, collect, dwell, settle, produce, beget.’ Cf. Olrish
tor-mag-im, I increase; cognate with L. mag-nus, great.
PTERODACTYL,, an extinct reptile. (Gk.) Scientific. Coined
from Gk. mrepé-v, a wing ; and δάκτυλος, a finger, a digit ; from the
long digit which helped to spread the wing. Gk. πτερόν is from πτ-,
weak grade of 4/PET, to fly ; and see Dactyl.
PUBERTY, the age of full development, early manhood. (F.—
L.) Spelt pubertie in Minsheu, ed. 1627.—F. puberté, ‘ youth,’ Cot.
—L. pubertatem, acc. of pibertas, the age of maturity. —L. pubes, the
signs of manhood, hair, β. Allied to pi-pus, a boy, pa-pa, a girl;
from 4PEU, to beget; see Puppet, Pupil. Der. pub-esc-ent,
arriving at puberty, from piibescent-, pres. part. of pibescere, inceptive
verb formed from sb. piib-es; pubescence. Cf. puerile.
PUBLIC, belonging to the people, general, common to all.
(F.—L.) ‘ Publike toke his [115] begynnyng of feople;’ Sir T.
Elyot, The Governour, b. i. c. 1. § 2. And in Palsgrave. = MF.
public, masc., publique, fem., ‘ publick,’ Cot.—L. publicus, public;
OLat. poublicos, foplicos (in inscriptions). Formed from populus,
people; see People. Der. public-ly, public-house, public-ist, one
skilled in public law; public-i-ty, a modern word, from F. publicité,
coined as if from a L. acc. *publicitatem. And see public-an, public-
at-ion, publish.
PUBLICAN, atax-gatherer ; inn-keeper. (L.) ME. publican,
Ormulum, 10147 ; spelt pupplican in Wyclif, Luke, iii. 12, where it
is used to translate L. publicanus, with the sense of tax-gatherer.
[The sense of ‘inn-keeper’ is modern.] —L. publicdnus, a farmer of
the public revenue, from publicdnus, adj., belonging to the public
revenue, Extended from publicus, public; see Public.
PUBLICATION, a publishing, that which is published. (F.
—L.) In Shak. Troil. i. 3. 326.=—F. publication, ‘a publication,’
(οἵ. “ἰῷ publicatidnem, acc. of publicitio.mL. publicare, to make
public. —L. publicus, public ; see Public.
PUBLISH, to make public. (F.—L.) ME. publischen, pup-
lischen, ‘He was ri3tful, and wolde not puplische hir;’ Wyclif,
Matt. i. 19. Also publishen, Chaucer, C. T. 8291 (E 415). This is
a new formation, conformed to other E. verbs in -isk, which are
usually formed from F. verbs in -ir making the pres. part. in -issant.
It is founded on F. publier, ‘to publish,’ Cot.—L, publicare, to make
public. —L. publicus, public. See Public. Der. publish-er.
PUCK, the name of a colour. (F.—L.) ‘ Puce, of a dark brown
colour ;’ Todd’s Johnson.—F. puce, a flea; couleur puce, puce-
coloured ; Hamilton. Thus it is lit. ‘flea-coloured.? The older
spelling of puce was pulce (Cotgrave).—L. pilicem, acc. of pilex,
a flea.+Gk. ψύλλα (=yuUA-ja), a flea. 4 Todd wrongly says
that puce is the same as puke, an old word occurring in Shak. in
puke-stocking, 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 78. Todd also cites ‘Cloths...
puke, brown-blue, blacks’ from Stat. 5 and 6 Edw. VI, c. vi.
‘ Blackes, pukes, or other sad colours; ’ Hakluyt, Voy. i. 357. ‘That
same gowne of puke ;’ Paston Letters, iii. 153. The form puke is
difficult to explain; the Picard and Walloon form of puce is puche.
See Puke.
PUCK, a goblin, mischievous sprite. (E.) In Shak. Mids. Nt.
Dr. ii. 1. 40. ME. pouke, P. Plowman, C. xvi. 164, on which
passage see my note. It also appears in Richard Coer de Lion,
1. 566, in Weber, Met. Romances, ii. 25. AS. piica, a goblin; ‘lar-
bula, μμοα, OE. Glosses, ed. Napier, 23. 2; whence the dimin.
picel (Toller). Hence also were borrowed Irish puca, an elf, sprite,
hobgoblin ; W. pwea, pwci, a hobgoblin.4Icel. paki, a wee devil, an
imp. See Pug.
PUCKER, to gather into folds, to wrinkle. (Scand.) ‘ Pucker, to
shrink up or lie uneven, as some clothes are apt to do;’ Phillips, ed.
1706. ‘Saccolare, to pucker, or gather, or cockle, as some stuffes do
being wet ;’ Florio, ed. 1598. ‘ He fell down; and not being able
to rise again, had his belly puckered together like a sachel, before the
chamberlain could come to help him;’ Junius, Sin Stigmatised
(1639), p. 19; in Todd’s Johnson. The allusion is here to the top
of a poke or bag, when drawn closely together by means of the
string ; cf. ‘to purse up the brows,’ from purse, sb., and Ital. saccolare
from sacco; and Norm. dial. pocher, to crease, to pucker, from
poche, a bag (Moisy). A frequentative form due to prov. E. pook,
poke, a bag; from Icel. poki, a bag. Cf. Norm. dial. pougue, a bag
(F. poche). See Poke (1). Der. pucker, sb.
PUDDING, an intestine filled with meat, a sausage ; a soft kind
of meat, of flour, milk, eggs, &c. (E.) ME. pudding, P. Plowman,
Β, xiii. 106 ; puding, as a gloss to tucetum, Wright's Voc. p. 104
PUISSANT 483
(ab. 1200). The older sense was doubtless ‘bag,’ from a Teut.
base *pud-, to swell out, similar to *pat-, to swell out (see Pout).
Cf. AS. pud-uc, a wen (Toller); and see Poodle. Hence also
prov. E. puddle, short and fat, poddy, round and stout in the belly,
pod, a large protuberant belly (Halliwell). Cf. also E. pad, pod; see
Pad, Pod. B. The Low G. pudding has much the same sense
as E. pudding ; and is clearly related to Low G. pudde-wurst, a thick
black-pudding, and to puddig, thick, stumpy ; Westphal. puddek,
a lump, a pudding, y. For the parallel base *put-, cf. Gael. put,
a buoy, an inflated skin; W. fwtog, a short round body; Corn.
pot, a bag, a pudding; all borrowed from Teutonic. The Irish
putog, Gael. putag, a pudding, are borrowed from E. pudding.
PUDDLE (1), a small pool of muddy water. (E.) ME. podel,
Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 54,1. 5. Spelt poddell in Pals-
grave. Dimin., with E. suffix -el, from AS. pudd, a ditch, a furrow
(Toller). Der. puddle (2).
PUDDLE (2), to make muddy; to make thick or close with
clay, so as to render impervious to water ; to work iron. (E.) Shak.
has puddle, to make muddy or thick, Com. Err. v. 173; Oth. iii. 4.
143. Hence the various technical uses. From Puddle (1). Der.
puddl-er, puddl-ing.
PUERILE, childish. (F.—L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706. [The sb.
puerility is in much earlier use, occurring in Minsheu, ed. 1627. ]
- MF. pueril, omitted by Cotgrave, but in use in the 16th cent.
(Littré) ; mod. F. puéril.—L. puerilis, boyish.=L. puer, a boy, lit.
‘one begotten.’ = 4/PEU, to beget; cf. Skt. pota-, the young of any
animal, putra-,ason. Der. pueril-i-ty, from F. puerilité, ‘ puerility,’
Cot. So also fuer-peral, relating to child-birth, from L. puerpera,
fem. adj., child-bearing; from puer-, stem of puer,a child, and parere,
to bear, produce, for which see Parent.
PUFF, to blow. (E.) ME. puffer, Ancren Riwle, p. 272, 1. 1. Not
found in AS., but the vb. pyffan, to puff, blow away (in Napier’s
Glosses) suggests a sb. *puf; of imitative origin. Cf. G. puffen, to puff,
pop, strike, Dan. puffe, to pop, Swed. puffa, to crack, to push; also
W. puff, a puff,a sharp blast, pwffio, to come in puffs (borrowed
from E.). Also G. puff, a puff; pugf/ interjection, &c. Der. puff-er,
puff-er-y, puff-y, puff-i-ly, puff-i-ness. Also puff-in, q.v.
PUFFIN, the name ot a bird. (E.) ‘ Puffin, a fowle so called;’
Minsheu, ed. 1627. ‘ Puffin, a sort of coot or sea-gull, a bird sup-
posed to be so called from its round belly, as it were swelling and
puffing out ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. And in Skelton, Phylyp Sparowe,
454. (The F. puffin is borrowed from E.) Puffin Island, near
Anglesea, abounds with these birds, or formerly did so; but the
W. name for the bird is gal. The reason assigned by Phillips is
prob. the right one; Webster thinks it is named from its peculiar
swelling beak, which somewhat resembles that of the parrot. The
suffix is apparently diminutival, answering to E. -en in hitt-en.
PUG, a monkey, small kind of dog. (E.) The orig. sense is
‘imp’ or ‘little demon,’ as in Butler, Hudibras, pt. ii. c. 3, 1. 635,
and in Ben Jonson’s play The Devil is an Ass, in which ‘ Pug, the
lesser devil,’ is one of the characters. A weakened form of Puck,
ιν. Cf. Dan. dial. puge, a ‘puck,’ sprite; and (perhaps) Dan. dial.
pugge,atoad. ‘A pug-dog is a dog witha short monkey-like face ;’
Wedgwood.
PUGGRY, PUGGERY, a scarf round the hat. (Hind.) From
Hind. pag7i, a turban (Forbes).
PUGILISM, the art of boxing. (L.) Pugilism and pugilist are
late words, added by Todd to Johnson’s Dict. Coined from L. pugil,
a boxer. Allied to L. pig-nus, Gk. πύγ-μη, the fist. And see
pugnacious,
PUGNACIOUS, combative, fond of fighting. (L.) Rather
alate word. R. quotes ‘a furious, pugnacious pope as Julius II,’
from Barrow, On the Pope’s Supremacy. [The sb. pugnacity is
in Bacon, Ady. of Learning, book II. viii. 4.] A coined word (with
suffix -ous=L, -dsus) from L. pugnact-, decl. stem of pugnax, com-
bative.=L. pugnd-re, to fight, allied to pugnus, the fist; and Gk.
πυγ-μή, the fist; mug, ady., with the fist. Der. pugnactous-ly; also
pugnacity, from L. acc. pugndacitatem. And see ex-pugn, im-pugn,
op-pugn, re-pugn-ant, pug-il-ist, pont-ard.
PUISNE, inferior in rank, applied to certain judges in England.
(F.—L.) Alawterm, ‘ Puisne or punie, ysed in our common law-
bookes . . for the younger ; as in Oxford and Cambridge they call
Junior and Senior, so at Innes of Court they say Puisne and Ancient ;’
Minsheu, ed. 1627. The same word as Puny, q.v.
PUISSANT, powerful, strong. (F.—L.) In Skelton, ed. Dyce,
i. 203, 1. 3 from bottom. ‘ This is so puyssant an enemy to nature ;’
Sir Τὶ Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. iii. c. 12.—F. puissant, ‘ puissant,
mighty,’ Cot. Cf. Ital. possente, powerful. B. The Ital. form
suggests that the F. word is formed froma barbarous L. type *possiens,
for *possens (stem possent-), substituted for the true form fotens,
powerful ; see Potent. y. This barbarism was due to confusion
112
484 PUKE
between the pres. part. fofers and the infin. fosse, to be able, have
power; see Possible. Der. puissant-ly ; puissance, Lydgate, Minor
Poems, p. 25, from Ἐς puissance, power. Doublet, potent.
PUK (1), to vomit. (E.?) In Shak. As You Like It, ii. 7. 144.
Prov. E. puke, E.D.D. Prob. imitative; and partly suggested by
the verb to spew, with the same meaning. Cf. G. spucken, to spit.
See Spew, Spit; and cf. OF. esput, a spitting, L. sputare, to
spit.
PUKE (2), the name of a colour; obsolete. (MDu.) Explained
by Baret as a colour between russet and black. ‘ Pewke, a colour,
pers;’ Palsgrave. See Nares and Halliwell; and cf. Puce (above),
from which it certainly differs. It prob. referred at first to the
quality of the cloth ; see Privy Expenses of Eliz. of York, pp. 120,
254.—MDu. puijck, ‘wollen cloath,’ Hexham; puyck, pannus
laneus, Kilian; Du. puik, choice, excellent.
PULE, to chirp as a bird, whine like an infant, whimper. (F.)
In Shak. Cor. iv. 2. 52; Romeo, iii. 5. 185.—I. piauler, ‘to
peep, or cheep, as a young bird; also, to pule or howle, as a young
whelp;’ Cot. In Gascon, pioula. Cf. Ital. pigolare, to chirp,
moan, complain. These are imitative words; cf. L. pipilare, to chirp,
pipare, to chirp.
PULL, to draw, try to draw forcibly, to pluck. (E.) ME. pullen,
P. Plowman, B. xvi. 73; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 68. ‘And
let him there-in pulle’ =and caused him fo be thrust into it ; lit. and
caused (men) to ¢hrust him into it; Legends of the Holy Rood, ed.
Morris, p. 60. Prob, an E. word; the AS. pudlian and the pp.
Gpullod, given in Somner’s Dict., are correct forms; @pullud is in
AS. Leechdoms, i. 362, 1. το. B. We find, also, Low (ἃ. pulen,
to pick, pinch, pluck, pull, tear, which is the same word; Brem.
Worterb. iii. 372; Dan. dial, pulle, to pull. Cf. also Low G. pullen,
to drink in gulps (E. ¢o take a pull), Der. pull, sb., Chaucer, Parl.
of Fowls, 1. 164.
PULLET, a young hen. (F.—L.) ME. polete (with one J),
P. Plowman, B. vi. 282.—OF. polete (13th cent., Littré), later
poulette, ‘a young hen,’ Cot. Fem. form of F. poulet, a chicken,
dimin. of poule, a hen.—Late L. pulla, a hen; fem. of pullus, a
young animal, cognate with E. Foal, q.v. Doublet, poulé, q. v.
PULLEY, a wheel turning on an axis, over which a cord 1s
passed for raising weights. (F.—L.—Gk.?) Spelt pulley in
Minsheu, ed. 1627; polley in Caxton, tr. of Reynard the Fox, ed.
Arber, p. 96, 1. 6 from bottom. ([But, in the Prompt. Parv., we
have the form poleyne; and in Chaucer, C. T. 10498 (F 184), we
find polyué (polive), riming with dryué (drive). B. The last form is
difficult to explain; but we may derive poleyne from F. poulain, ‘a
fole, or colt, also the rope wherewith wine is let down into a seller,
a pully-rope,’ Cot. ‘ Par le poulain on descend le vin en cave ;’
Rabelais, Garg. i. 5 (Littré).—Late L. pullanum, acc. of pullinus, a
colt. L,. pullus, a young animal; see Pullet (above). Cf. Late L.
polanus, a pulley or pulley-rope. -y. The transference of sense
causes no difficulty, as the words for ‘ horse’ or ‘goat’ are applied
in other cases to contrivances for the exertion of force or bearing a
strain; thus MF. poutre, a filly, also means ‘a beam’ (( οἱ.) ; and F.
chévre, a goat, also means a kind of crane. The Late L. words for
‘colt’ are remarkably numerous, including (besides pullanus) the
forms pulinus, pullenus, pulletrum, polassus, poledrus, polenus, poletus ;
also poleria, polina, a filly.) δ. But the mod. E. pulley is from F.
poulie,‘a pulley;’ Cot. OF. poulie, polie, pollye, Supp. to Godefroy ;
cf. Late L. poledia, a crane, Ital. puleggia, a pulley. Perhaps from
Late L. *pdlidia, pl. of *palidium, representing Late Gk. ἐπωλίδιον,
a little colt, dimin. of Gk. πῶλος, a colt. Cf. OF. poulier, a pulley,
answering to Late Gk. mwAdpioy, a little colt. @ Diez derives
i. pulley from F. poulie, and then, conversely, Εἰ, poulie from E.
pull; which is very unlikely. Οὐ. Paris (Romania, July, 1898, p. 486)
suggests Gk. *roAidiov, dimin. of πόλος, a pivot, axis; see Pole (2).
PULMONARY, affecting the lungs. (L.) Blount, Gloss., ed.
1674, has pulmonarious, diseased in the lungs. Englished from L.
pulmonarius, belonging to the lungs, diseased in the lungs. —L.
pulmon-, stem of pulmo,alung. β. The L. pulmo is cognate with
Gk. πλεύμων, more commonly πνεύμων, a lung; the change to the
latter form being due to association with πνεῦ-μα, breath, from
πνέειν (for πνέβειν), to blow. But pulmo (for *plu-mo?) and Gk,
πλεύμων are from a root PLEU; whence also Lith. plauczei, pl. the
lungs (Prellwitz). Der. pulmon-i-c, from L. pulméni-, decl. stem of
pulmo.
PULP, the soft fleshy part of bodies, any soft mass. (F.—L.)
‘The pulpe or pith of plants ;’ Minsheu.—F. pulpe, ‘the pulp or pith
of plants ;’ Cot.—L. pudpa, the fleshy portion of animal bodies, pulp
of fruit, pith of wood. Der. pulp-y, pulp-i-ness; pulp-ous, pulp-
OUS-Ness,
PULPIT, a platform for speaking from. (F.—L.) ME. pulpit,
P. Plowman’s Crede, ed. Skeat, 1. 661 ; pulpet, Chaucer, C. T.12325
PUN
(C 391).=OF. fulpite, (a pulpit,’ Cot.—L. pulpitum, a scaffold,
platform, esp. a stage for actors.
PULSATE, to throb. (L.) A modern word, directly from 1,
pulsdtus, pp. of pulsare, to beat. It is no doubt due to the use of the
sb. pulsation, in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, from F. pulsation; from
L. pulsationem, acc. of pulsatio, a beating; from the same verb.
B. The orig. sense of pulsare was simply ‘to beat ;’ it isa frequenta-
tive verb, formed from puls-us, pp. of pellere, to drive. L. pello is
for *pel-no; cf. Gk. πίλ-να-μαι, “1 draw near quickly;’ Brugmann,
ii. § 612. Der. pulsat-ion, as above; pulsat-ive, pulsat-or-y; pulse
(1), q.y. From the L. pellere we have also ap-peal, peal, com-pel,
dis-pel, ex-pel, im-pel, inter-pell-at-ion, pro-pel, im-pulse, re-peal, re-
pel, re-pulse; and see pelt (1), pursy, pulse (1), push.
PULSE (1), a throb, vibration. (F.—L.) Puls in Palsgrave.
ME. pous (in which the / is dropped), P. Plowman, B. xvii. 66.—F.
pouls, ‘the pulse,’ Cot.—L. pulsum, acc. of pulsus, a beating; also
the beating of the pulse, a pulse.—L. pulsus, pp. of pellere, to drive;
see Pulsate.
PULSE (2), grain or seed of beans, pease, &c. (L.) ME. puls.
‘All maner puls is goode, the fitche outetake’=every kind of pulse
is good, except the vetch ; Palladius on Husbandry, b. i. 1. 723.—L.
puls, a thick pap or pottage made of meal, pulse, &c., the primitive
food of the Romans before they became acquainted with bread
(White). Cf. Gk. πόλτος, porridge. @ Perhaps through the inter-
mediate OF. fols, pous (Norm. dial. pouls), porridge; cf. Somersets.
pulse, pottage. Der. poultice, q.v.
PULVERISE, to pound to dust. (F.—L.) ‘To pulverate or to
pulverize, to beate into dust;” Minsheu, ed. 1627.— MF. pulverizer,
‘to pulverize,’ Cot. —Late L. puluerizare, to pulverise ; L. puluerdre,
to scatter dust, also to pulverise.—L. puluer-, decl. base of puluis,
dust. The suffix -ise answers to the usual Εἰ. -iser (occasional -izer),
Late L. -izare, imitated from Gk. -:few. B. L. puluis is allied to
L. pollis, pollen, fine meal; Gk. πάλη, meal, dust. See Powder.
PUMA, a large carnivorous animal. (Peruvian.) ‘The American
animal, which the natives of Peru call puma, and to which the
Europeans have given the denomination of lion, has no mane ;’ tr. of
Buffon’s Nat. Hist., London, 1792.— Peruvian puma.
PUMICE, a hard, spongy, volcanic mineral. (F.—L.) ME.
pomeys, pomyce, Prompt. Parv. [AS. pumic-stan, pumice-stone ; Voc.
148. 3.] But the ME. pomyce is from OF. pomis (Godefroy). —L.
pumicem, acc. of pimex, pumice. β. So named from its light,
spongy nature, resembling sea-foam. From an Idg. base *spoim-,
whence also AS. fam, foam; see Spume. Doublet, founce (2).
PUMMEL, the same as Pommel, q. v.
PUMP (1), a machine for raising water. (F.—Teut.) ME.
pumpe, Prompt. Pary.—F. fompe, ‘a pump;’ Cot, Of Teut. origin.
— Low Ὁ. pumpe, a pump; of which a fuller form is plumpe, which is
likewise an imitative form, Cf. prov. G. plumpen, to pump. The
Low G. plumpen also means to plump, to fall plump, to move suddenly
but clumsily ; so that the sense of ‘ pumping’ arose from the plunging
action of the piston or, as it is sometimes called, the plunger, esp.
when made solid, as in the force-pump. Allied to Plump (3), of
imitative origin. Cf. prov. E. plump, a pump, plumpy, to pump
(Comwall); also Du. pomp, Swed. pump, Dan. pumpe, and even
Russ. pompa, a pump; all borrowed words from Teutonic. Also
the imitative forms Span. and Port. bomba, a pump, a bomb ; and
Hamburg piimpel, a piston (Richey). Der. pump, verb; spelt pumpe
in Palsgrave.
PUMP (2), a thin-soled shoe. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. Mids.
Nt. Dr. iv. 2. 37; explained by Schmidt to mean ‘a light shoe, often
wom with ribbons formed into the shape of flowers.’ So called
because worn for ‘pomp’ or ornament, by persons in full dress. =F.
pompe, ‘ pomp, state, solemnity, magnificence, ostentation ; ἃ pied de
plomb et de pompe, with a slow and stately gate’ [gait]; Cot. The
use of this MF. proverb connects the word particularly with the foot
and its ornament. Cf. Low G. pump, pomp; whence pump-boxe,
old-fashioned large stockings (Bremen). See further under Pomp.
PUMPION, ‘PUMPKIN, a kind of gourd. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Spelt pumkin in W. Dampier, A New Voyage (1699), i. 203. The
form pumpkin is a corruption from the older word pompon or pumpion,
in which the suffix, not being understood, has been replaced by the
E. dimin. suffix -Ain. Pumpion is in Shak. Merry Wives, iii. 3. 43.
Better pompon, as in Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xix. c. 5.— MF. pompon,
‘a pumpioa, or melon;’ Cot. [114]. popone (Florio).] Formed,
with inserted m, from L. fepdnem, acc. of fepo, a large melon,
pumpkin. Gk. πέπων, a kind of melon, not eaten till quite ripe. —
Gk. πέπων, cooked by the sun, ripe, mellow; from the base πεπ-,
seen in πέπτειν, to cook; see Cook, and Pip (2).
PUN, to play upon words. (E.) ‘A corporation of dull punning
drolls ;’ Dryden, Art of Poetry, 1. 358. The older sense of pun was
to pound, to beat; hence to pun is to pound words, to beat them
PUNCH
into new senses, to hammer at forced similes. ‘He would pun thee
into shivers with his fist;’ Shak. Troil. ii. 1. 42; and see Nares.
Pun is a dialect form of pound, to bruise; see Pound (3) ; cf.
Swed. dial. punna, to slap one playfully; punn, a playful slap on
the back (Rietz). Der. pun, sb., Spectator, no, 61; punn-ing ; pun-
ster, Guardian, no. 29, a coined word, like ¢rick-ster.
PUNCH (1), to pierce or perforate with a sharp instrument.
(F.—L.) ‘Punch, or Punching-iron, a shoemaker’s tool to make
holes with ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. In Shak. Rich, III, y. 3, 125.
ME. punchen, to prick; see Prompt. Parv. his verb seems to have
been coined from the older sb, punchion or punchon, spelt punchon in
Prompt. Parv., denoting the kind of awl used for punching or
perforating ; shortened to punche, spelt poxche, Wills and Invent., i.
365 (1572). See further under Puncheon (1), Der. punch, a
kind of awl, as above. @sy Distinct from punch (2), q. v.
PUNCH (2), to beat, bruise. (F.—L.) In the phrase ‘to punch
one’s head,’ the word is not the same as punch (1), but is a mere ab-
breviation of punish. In fact, ‘to punish a man about the head’ has
still the same meaning. This is clearly shown by the entries in the
Prompt. Parv., p. 416. ‘ Punchyn, or chastysyn, punysshen, Punio,
castigo ;’ and again, ‘ Punchynge, punysshinge, Punicio.’ So also:
‘Punchyth me, Lorde,’ i.e. punish me; Coy. Myst., p. 75. See
Punish. 4 Forthe suppression of the z in punish, cf. ME. pulshen,
to polish, P. Plowman, A. y. 257, foot-notes ; and vanshen, to vanish,
id. C. xv, 217. In the present instance, punchen was readily sug-
gested by the like-sounding word bunchen, with much the same
sense. Hence the entry: ‘ Punchyn, or bunchyn, Trudo, tundo;’
Prompt. Parv.
PUNCH (3), a beverage composed of spirit, water, lemon-juice,
sugar, and spice. (Hindi—Skt.) ‘ Punch, a strong drink made of
brandy, water, lime-juice, sugar, spice, &c.;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.
Wedgwood cites two most interesting quotations. ‘At Nerule is
made the best arrack or Nepo da Goa, with which the English on
this coast make that enervating liquor called pounche (which is
Hindostan for five) from five ingredients ;’ Fryer, New Account of
East India and Persia, 1697. ‘Or to drink palepuntz (at Goa) which
is a kind of drink consisting of aqua-vitae, rose-water, juice of citrons,
and sugar ;’ Olearius, Travels to the Grand Duke of Muscovy and
Persia, 1669. It was introduced from India, and apparently by the
way of Goa; and is named from consisting of five ingredients. =
Hindi panch, five ; Bate’s Dict., 1875, p. 394; cf. Hindustani panj.—
Skt. panchan, five, cognate with E. jive; see Five. @ Perhaps it is
interesting to observe that, whereas we used to speak of four elements,
the number of elements in Sanskrit is yive; see Benfey, p. 658, col. 2,
1.5; cf. Skt. pavchatva-, the five elements ; pavichaka-, consisting of
five. It is, at any rate, necessary to add that the Hindi and Skt.
short a is pronounced like E. « in mud or punch; hence the E. spell-
ing. See Punch in Yule.
PUNCH (4), a short, hump-backed fellow in a puppet-show.
(Ital.—L.) In this sense, Punch is a contraction of Punchinello. In
the Spectator, no. 14, the puppet is first called Punchine/lo, and after-
wards Punch. ‘ Punch, or Punchinello, a fellow of a short and thick
size, a fool in a play, a stage-puppet ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. The pl.
Punchinellos occurs twice in Butler, Sat. on our Imitation of the
French, Il. 26, 99; it occurs as early as A.D, 1666 (Nares). B.
Punchinello is a corruption of Ital. pulcinello, by the change of J ton
(cf. Palermo from L. Panormus) ; and the E, sound of chi corresponds
to Ital. cf. Pulcinello was a character in Neapolitan comedy repre-
senting a foolish peasant who utters droll truths (Scheler) ; Baretti
and Meadows only give the fem. pudcinella, ‘ punch, buffoon of a
puppet-show.’ These are dimin. forms of Ital, puleino, a yoong
chicken,’ Florio; fem. pulcina, The latter form is from the same
source (with a different suffix) as Ital. pulcella, a girl, maiden
(F. pucelle), and all the words are from L. pullus, the young of any
animal, whence also F. poule (from Late L. pulla), a young hen.
Thus the lit. sense of Ital. pulcinello is ‘little chicken,’ See further
under Pullet. Perhaps the E. form is due to confusion with
prov. E. punch, short, fat, punchy, pot-bellied (Halliwell) ; words
which are prob. closely connected with Bunch, q.y. ‘Did hear
them call their fat child Punch, ...a word of common use for all
that is thick and short;’ Pepys’ Diary, Apr. 30, 1669. In the
phrase ‘ Punch and Judy,’ Judy is the usual abbreviation from Fudith,
once common as a female name.
PUNCHEON (1), a steel tool for stamping or perforating; a
punch. (ONorth F.—L.) Our mod. sb. punch is a familiar contrac-
tion of puncheon, which occurs rather early. ME. punchon, Prompt.
Pary. Punsoune, a dagger, occurs in Barbour’s Bruce, i. 545; see my
note on the line. ONorth-F. ponchon (Supp. to Godefroy, s. v.
foingon), also poinchon (as in mod. Norman dial.) ; corresponding to
OF. pfoingon, MF. poinson, ‘a bodkin, also a puncheon, also a stamp,
mark, print, or seale;’ Cot. Mod. F. potngon ; cf. Gascon pounchoun
PUNK
(Moncaut), Prov. pounchoun (Mistral), Span. punzon, a punch; Ital.
punzone, ‘a bodkin, or any sharp pointed thing, also a piece [ wine-
vessel ], a barell,’ Florio, —L. punctidnem, acc. of punctio, a pricking,
puncture ; Diez remarks that this sb., which in L. is feminine,
changes its gender to masc. in F,, &c., whilst changing its sense
from ‘pricking’ to the concrete ‘ pricking-instrument.’ Allied to
punctus, pp. of pungere, to prick; see Pungent. Der. punch (1).
And see below.
PUNCHEON (2), a cask, a liquid measure of 84. gallons.
(ONorth-F.—L.) ‘Butte, pipe, puncheon, whole barrell, halfe
barrell, firken, or other caske;’ Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol, i. p. 273.—
ONorth-F, ponchon (see Norm. dial. poinchon in Moisy, OF. poingon
in Supp. to Godefroy); MF. foinson, ‘a wine-vessell;’ Cot. B. It
is not certain that OF. poingon, MF. poinson, a bodkin, and foinson,
a cask, are the same word. It is gen. supposed that they are quite
distinct, owing to the wide difference in sense. But I am inclined to
think that F. poingon remains the same word in all its senses, the
wine-vessel being so named from the ‘stamp, mark, print, or seale’
upon it, the stamp being produced by a puncheon or stamping-
instrument. That is, I regard Puncheon (2) as identical with
Puncheon (1). Cf. MItal. punzone, ‘a bodkin, barell, hogshead
for wine, goldsmith’s pouncer, little stamp ;’” Florio,
PUNCHINELLO, the same as Punch (4), q.y.
PUNCTATE, PUNCTATED, punctured. (L.) A botanical
term. Coined with suffix -ate (=L. -dtus) from L. punct-um, a point,
dot. See Puncture, Pungent.
PUNCTILIO, a nice point in behaviour. (Span.—L.) ‘ Your
courtier practic, is he that is yet in his path, his course, his way, and
hath not touched the punctilio or point of his hopes;’ Ben Jonson,
Cynthia’s Revels, Act ii. sc. 1 (Amorphus). Rather from Span,
puntillo, a nice point of honour, than from the equivalent Ital.
puntiglio. In fact, the word is spelt punctillo in Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674. Thec isan E, insertion, due to confusion with punctuate, 8&c.
The / represents the sound of the Span, JJ. B. Span, puntillo is a
dimin. of punto, a point.=L, punctum, a point; see Point. Der.
punctili-ous, -ly, -ness.
PUNCTUAL, exact in observing appointed times. (F.—L.)
Minshenu, ed. 1627, has functuall and the sb. punctualitie. See Trench,
Select Glossary. =F. ponctuel, ‘ punctuall,’ Cot. = Late L. *punctualis,
not recorded ; but the adv. punctudliter, exactly, occurs A.D. 1440;
Ducange. = L. punctu-, for punctum, a point; with suffix -alis. (Per-
haps punctalis, from the stem punct-, would have been more correct.)
See Point. Der. punctual-ly, punctual-i-ty.
PUNCTUATHEH, to divide sentences by marks. (L.) A
modern word; added by Todd to Johnson's Dict. Suggested by
Ε΄ punctuer, ‘to point,. . mark, or distinguish by points;’ Cot. =
Late L. punctuare, to determine, define. Formed from L. punctu-,
for punctum, a point; see Point. (Perhaps punctate, from the stem
punct-, would have been a more correct form.) Der, punctuat-ion,
from F, punctuation, ‘a pointing ;’ Cot.
PUNCTURE, a prick, small hole made with a sharp point.
(L.) ‘Wounds and punctures ;’ Sir Τὶ Browne, Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. ii.
c. 3. § 28. ME. puncture, Lanfrank, Science of Cirurgie, p. 16, 1. 9.
=L. punctiira, a prick, puncture. Allied to punctus, pp, of pungere,
to prick; see Pungent, Point. Der. puncture, verb.
PUNDIT, a learned man. (Skt.) Not in Todd’s Johnson. = Skt.
pandita- (with cerebral πὶ and d), adj., learned; sb. a wise man,
scholar, = Skt. pund, to heap up or together, q The E. w repre-
sents Skt. short a, as in Punch (3).
PUNGENT, acrid to taste or smell, keen, sarcastic. (L.) In
Phillips, ed, 1706. Pungency occurs earlier, in Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674.—L. pungent-, stem of pres. part. of pungere, to prick, pt. t.
pu-pug-i, pp. punctus; from the base PEUG, to prick. See Point.
Der. pungent-ly, pungenc-y. From the L. pungere we also have
point, with its derivatives; also punct-ate, ἢ. v., punct-ilio, q. v.,
punct-u-al, q.V., punct-u-ate, q.v., punct-ure, q.v. Also com-punct-
fon, ex-punge, pounce (1), punch (1), puncheon (1). Doublet, poignant.
PUNISH, to chasten, chastise. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. punischen,
P. Plowman, B. iii. 78.—F. puniss-, stem of pres. part, of punir, to
punish. = L, pinire, to punish, exact a penalty; ΟἹ αἵ. poenire.—L,
poena, a penalty.—Gk. ποινή, a penalty; whence E, Pain, 4. ν.
Der. punish-able, from Ἐς punissable, ‘ punishable,’ Cot,; punish-
ment, L. L. L. iv. 3. 63, 2 coined word, substituted for ME. punicion
(spelt punyssyon in Berners, tr, of Froissart, ν. il. c. 39), which is
from F, punition, ‘a punishment,’ Cot., from L. acc, pinitionem,
Also punish-er ; and (from L, punire) im-punity. And see penance,
penitence, punch (2).
PUNK, a prostitute. (Low G.) In Shak. Merry Wives, ii. 2. 141.
Cotgrave explains F. gouge as ‘ a souldier’s pug, or punk,’ Evidently
a slang word, and probably imported by soldiers from the Low
Countries. According to the Bremen Worterbuch, it may have
485
486 PUNKAH
come (ultimately) from Bremen ; for Punken-diek was the name of
a dike, with houses near it on the river Weser, in the eastern suburb
of Bremen, which was formerly notorious for evil-livers ; whence
probably the E. word punk. (According to Schmeller, the Bavarian
word punken meant a kind of cabbage.)
PUNKAH, a large fan. (Hind.—Skt.) Hind. pankha, a fan ;
allied to pankh, a wing, feather; Forbes. —Skt. paksha-,a wing. Cf.
Pers. pankan, ‘a sieve, a fan;’ Rich. Dict. p. 338.
PUNT (1), a ferry-boat, a flat-bottomed boat. (L.—C.) ‘ Ulysses
in a punt, or small bottom ;’ Holland’s Pliny, bk. 35, ch. x. p. 537 a.
AS. punt; ‘Pontonium, punt ;’ Voc. 166. 2; ‘Caudex, punt ;’ Voc.
181. 31. (Caudex means a boat hollowed out of a tree.) Abbre-
viated from L. fonto, a punt, Czesar, Bellum Civile, iii. 29; also,
a pontoon. Of Celtic origin ; Celt. type *gontos ; Stokes-Fick, p. 62.
Given by Cesar as a Gaulish word.
PUNT (2), to play at the game of cards called basset. (F.—
Span.—L.) ‘I would punt no more;’ Pope, The Basset-table,
1. 68. ‘Punter, a term used at the game of cards called
basset ;” Phillips, ed. 1706.—F. fonfe, ‘a punter; a punt;’ also
ponter, ‘to punt;’ Hamilton. Hatzfeld gives Εἰ. ponte as a term in
the game of ombre, meaning an ace of hearts or diamonds. —Span.
punto, a point, also, a pip at cards.—L. punctum, a point; see
Point. q Perhaps immediately from Spanish.
PUNY, small, feeble, inferior in size or strength. (F.—L.) In
Shak. Rich, IT, iii. 2. 86; also puisny, As You Like It, iii. 4. 46. And
see Trench, Select Glossary.—AF. puné, Year-books of Edw. I, i.
83; spelt puisne, iii. 317; MF. puisné, ‘puny, younger, born after,’
Cot. Mod. F. puiné, younger. Thus the lit. sense is ‘ born after ;’
hence, younger, junior, inferior. —L. post natus, born after. See
Posterior and Natal. Doublet, puisne, q. v.
PUPA, a chrysalis. (L.) A scientific term.—L. pupa, a girl,
doll, puppet ; hence, the sense of undeveloped insect. Fem. of piipus,
a boy, child. Allied to pu-tus, pu-er, a boy; from 4/PEU, to beget;
see Puerile. Der. pup-il, pupp-et, pupp-y-
PUPIL (1), a scholar, a ward. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q. ii.
8. 7.—MF, pupile, ‘a pupill, ward;’ Cot. Mod. F. pupille. Pro-
perly a masc. sb.—L. pupillum, acc. of pupillus, an orphan-boy,
orphan, a ward; dimin. from pipus, a boy; see Pupa. Der.
pupil-age, Spenser, Verses to Lord Grey, 1. 2; pupill-ar-y, from F.
pupilaire, ‘ pupillary,’ Cot., L. pupillaris, belonging to a pupil. Also
pupil (2).
PUPIL (2), the central spot of the eye. (F.—L.) Spelt pupill
in Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 868.—F. pupille, the pupil (Hatzfeld).
A fem. sb.; which distinguishes it from the word above.=—L.
purilla, a little girl; also, the apple of the eye, or pupil. Fem. of
pupillus ; see Pupil (1). @ The name seems to be due to the
small images seen in the pupil; cf. the OE. phrase ‘to look babies
in the eyes.’
PUPPET, a small doll, little figure. (F.—L.) ME. fofe?,
King Alisaunder, 1. 335; Chaucer, C. T. 13631 (B 1891).—OF.
poupette, Godefroy; MF. poupette, ‘a little baby, puppet ;’ Cot.
Dimin. from L. puppa, a doll; variant of pupa; see Pupa.
PUPPY, (1) a whelp; (2)a dandy. (F.—L.) 1. In Shak.
Oth. i. 3. 341; a puppy-dog, K. John, ii. 460. Here (as in Jev-y,
jur-y) the final -y answers to F. -ce.—F. poupée, ‘a baby, a puppet ;’
Cot. Here, by ‘ baby,’ Cotgrave means a doll; but it is clear that
in E. the word was made to mean a lap-dog; cf. ‘smale ladies
popis;’ Book of St. Alban’s, fol. f 4,back. The F. poupée (as if
from L. *puppata) is due to L. pupa; see Puppet. 2. In the sense
of ‘dandy,’ puppy occurs in the Guardian (Todd's Johnson). ‘his
is the same word, used in contempt, as in Henry VIII, v. 4. 30;
perhaps affected by the MF. poupin or popin, ‘spruce, neat, trimme,
fine,’ Cot. Cf. se popiner, ‘to trimme or trick up himself,’ id. ;
mod. F. faire le poupin, to play the fop. This word answers to
a Late L. *puppinus (not found), and is a derivative from L. pipus,
a boy. Der. puppy-ism. Also pup, which is an abbreviation for
puppy ; whence pup, verb, formerly puppy, as in Holland, tr. of Pliny,
DEXXx: 6» Τῆς
PUR., prefix. (F.—L.) E. pur- answers to OF. pur-, F. pour-,
prefix, which is the F. prep. pour, for, a curious variation of L. pré,
for. Thus pur- and pro- are equivalent ; and words like purvey and
provide are mere doublets. q In the word pur-blind, the prefix
has a different value.
PURBLIND, nearly blind. (Hybrid; F.—L., and E.) This
word has suffered a considerable change of sense, almost parallel to
the strange change in the case of Parboil, q.v. The orig. sense
was wholly blind, as in Rob. of Glouc., p. 376, 1. 7713: ‘ Messolde
pulte oute bope is eye, and makye him pur blind’ =they should put
out both his eyes, and make him quite blind. See Spec. of Eng.
ed. Morris and Skeat, p. 14, 1. 390. Sir T. Elyot writes poreblynde,
The Goyernour, b, 111. c. 3. 8.3; so also in Levins. In Wyclif,
PURL
Exod. xxi. 26, the earlier version has /2e blynde, where the later has
oon ijed (i.e. one-eyed), and the Vulgate has Juscos. So also ‘ pur-
blynde, luscus ;? Prompt. Parv. Even in Shak. we have both senses :
(1) wholly blind, L. L. L. iii. 181, Romeo, ii. 1. 12; and (2) partly
blind, Venus, 679, 1 Hen. VI, ii. 4. 21. B. It is clear that
‘wholly blind’ is the orig. sense, and that which alone needs an
etymology ; whilst ‘ partly blind’ is a secondary sense, due perhaps
to some confusion with the verb ¢o pore, as shown by the spelling
poreblind; or to a mistaken derivation from Gk. mapés, blind.
Purblind =pure-blind, i.e. wholly blind; see Pure and Blind.
For the use of pure as an adv., cf. ‘pure for his love’=merely for
his love, Tw. Nt. v. 86. Der. purblind-ly, purblind-ness,
PURCHASE, to acquire, obtain by labour, obtain by payment.
(F.—L.) ΜΕ. purchasen, purchacen, Rob. of Glouc. p. 16, 1. 360;
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 610 (A 608). The usual sense is ‘ to acquire.’ =OF.
purchacer, later pourchasser, ‘eagerly to pursue, . . purchase, pro-
cure,’ Cot.—OF. pur, F. pour, for; and chasser, to chase. Formed
after the analogy of F. poursuivre (Scheler), See Pur- and
Chase; also Pursue. Der. surchase, sb., ME. purchas, pourchas,
Chaucer, C. T. 258 (A 256), from OF. purchas, later pourchas,
‘eager pursuit,’ Cot.; purchas-er, purchas-able.
PURE, unmixed, real, chaste, mere. (F.—L.) ME. pur, Rob.
of Glouc., p. 8,1. 184; where it rimes with f=fire. Pl. puré (dis-
syllabic), Chaucer, C. T. 1281 (A 1279).—F. pur, masc., pure,
fem., ‘ pure,’ Cot.—L. piirum, acc. of purus, pure, clean. —4/PEU,
to purify, cleanse; cf. Skt. pa, to purify; see Fire. Der. pure-ly,
pure-ness; pur-ist, pur-ism (coined words); and see four, purge,
pur-i-fy, pur-i-t-an, pur-i-ty, spurge. From the same root, jire,
bureau, com-pute, de-pute, dis-pute, im-pute, re-pute, am-pfut-ate, de-
put-y, count (2), &c.
PURFLE, the older form of purl ; see Purl (3).
PURGE, to purify, clear, carry away impurities. (F.—L.)
ME. purgen, Chaucer, C. T. 14953 (B 4143).—<F. purger, ‘to
purge,’ Cot.—L. purgare, to cleanse, purge. B. L. purgare=
purigare (Plautus has expirigatio) ; from fir-, stem of furus, pure,
and -ig-, weakened form of ag- (ag-ere), to do, make, cause. See
Pure and Agent. Der. purg-at-ion, ME. purgacioun, Wyclif,
Heb. i. 3, from F. purgation< L. acc. purgitionem, from purgare;
purgat-ive, orig. adj., Macb. v. 3. 55, from L. purgatiuus ; purgat-
or-y, ME. purgatorie, Ancren Riwle, p. 126, 1. 8, from F. purgatoire
(of which an old form was prob. *purgatorie), which from L. purga-
torius, adj., cleansing, purifying ; purgat-or-i-al; purg-ing, sb., ex-
purg-ate. And see spurge.
PURIFY, to make pure. (F.—L.) ME. purifien, Wyclif,
Deeds [Acts], xxi. 26. =F. purifier, ‘to purifie, Cot.=—L. piirificare,
to make pure. “Τὺ. puri-, for pirus, pure ; and jic-, for fac- ( facere), to
make. Der. purifi-er, purify-ing; also purific-at-ion, ME. purifica-
cioun, Wyclif, John, iii. 25, from F. purification, from L. acc. firifi-
catidnem ; purific-at-or-y, a coined word, as if from a L. adj,
*pirificatorius.
PURIM, an annual Jewish festival ; the feast of lots. (Heb. —
Pers.) In Esther, iii. 7; ix. 26.—Heb. piirim, lots; pl. of pur, a
lot. Of Pers. origin (Gesenius).
PURITAN, one who pretends to great purity of life. (L.) The
name was first given, about A.D. 1564, to persons who aimed at
greater purity of life, &c., than others (Haydn). Frequently in
Shak. All’s Well, i. 3. 56, 98; Tw. Nt. ii. 3. 152,155, 150; Wint.
Tale, iv. 3. 46; Pericles, iv. 6.9. A barbarous E, formation, with
suffix -an (=L. -dnus), from the word pyrit-y or the L. purit-as.
See Purity. Der. Puritan-i-c-al, Puritan-ism. Φ6{ The F. puritain
is borrowed from E,
PURITY, the condition of being pure, pureness. (F.—L.}
ME. pureté, Ancren Riwle, p. 4,1. 21; the e (after 7) was afterwards
altered toi, to bring the word nearer to the L. spelling. —F. pureté,
‘purity,’ Cot.—L. piritatem, acc. of puritas, purity; formed with
suffix -tas from puri-, for pirus, pure ; see Pure.
PURL (1), to flow with a soft murmuring sound. (Scand.)
‘A pipe, a little moistened, .. maketh a more solemne sound, than
if the pipe were dry ; but yet with a sweet degree of sibillation, or
purling ;’ Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 230. The word is rather Scand.
than E., being preserved in Norw. purla, to well up, MSwed. porla
(Ihre), Swed. porla, to purl, bubble as a stream. B. But it is
merely a frequentative form, with the usual suffixed -/ from the
imitative prov. E. word pirr or purr, for which see Purr. Cf.
Trish and Gael. bururus, a purling noise, a gurgling; Du. borrelen,
to bubble up, Low (ἃ. burreln, purreln, to bubble up, AS. bur-na,
a well; see Bourn (2. @ Purl, to curl, Shak. Lucr. 1407, is
from the rippling of a purling stream.
PURL (2), spiced or medicated beer or ale. (F.—L.?) ‘ Purl,
a sort of drink made of ale mingled with the juice of wormwood ;’
Phillips, ed. 1706. ‘A double mug of purle;’ Spectator, no. 88.
PURL
But I suppose the spelling to be a mistaken one, due to confusion
with Purl (1). It should surely be pearl, from F. perle, a pearl:
see Pearl. See perlé, adj., and perler, verb, in Littré. The word
was a term in cookery; thus swcre perlé is sugar boiled twice;
bouillon perlé, jelly-broth (Hamilton). So also Du. parelen, paarlen,
to pearl, sparkle, rise in small bubbles, like pearls (Calisch); G.
perlen, to rise in small bubbles like pearls, to pearl (Fliigel) ; ferle,
a pearl, drop, bubble. Hence purl, a drink with bubbles on the
surface.
PURL (3), to form an edging on lace, to form an embroidered
border, to invert stitches in knitting. (F.—L.) ‘ Needlework purled
with gold;’ An Eng. Garner, ed. Arber, ii. 37 (1532). Just as the
word above should be spelt pearl, it is found, conversely, that the
present word is often misspelt pearl; by the same confusion. It is
a contraction of the old word to furjle, to embroider on an edge.
‘ Purfled with gold and pearl of rich assay ;’ Spenser, Εἰ Ὁ. i.
2.13. ME. purfilen, Chaucer, C. T. 193.—OF. porfiler, later pour-
filer.‘ Pourfiler d'or, to purfle, tinsell, or overcast with gold
thread, &c.;” Cot.—OF. por, F. pour, from L. prd, from (which is
often confused, as Scheler remarks, with F. par, L. per, throughout,
and such seems to be the case here); and F. filer, to twist threads,
from fil, a thread. See Pur- and File (1). ΖΦ] Cotgrave also
gives MF. pourfil in the sense of profile; profile and purl (3) are
really the same word, the difference in sense being due to the
peculiar use of the F. prefix pour- as if it were=L. per. To purl is
‘to work along an edge,’ or ‘to overcast all along with thread.’
Doublet, profile.
' PURL (4), to upset. (E.) A slang term; a huntsman who is
thrown off his horse is purled or spilt. Prov. E. pirl, to spin round,
to tumble; E.D.D. Purl should rather be pirl; from ME. pirle,
a whirligig, formed by the frequentative suffix -ἰ from the imitative
word pirr, to whirl. So also MItal. pirda, a whipping-top ; pirlare,
“το twirle round;’ Florio. Allied to Purl (1).
PURLIBEU, the borders or environs of any place (orig. only of a
forest); esp. when used, as is usual, in the plural. (F.—L.) ‘In
the purlieus of this forest ;’ As You Like It, iv. 3. 77. ‘ Purlieu, or
Purlue, is all that ground neere any forest, which being made forest
by Henry II, Rich. I, or King John, were, by perambulations granted
by Henry III, seuered again from the same; Manwood, par. 2 of his
Forest Lawes, cap. 20. And he calleth this ground either pourallee,
i.e. perambulationem, or purlieu and purluy, which, he saith, be but
abusively taken for pourallee;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627. Manwood’s de-
finition is: ‘ Purliew is a certain territorie of ground adjoyning unto
the forest, meared [marked] and bounded with immoveable marks,
meeres, and boundaries ;’ Reed’s note on As You Like It.‘ Pur-
lieu: land which having once been part of the royal forest has been
severed from it by perambulationem (pourallée, OF. puralee) granted
by the crown. The preamble of 33 Edw. I. c. 5 runs: ‘‘Cume
aucune gentz que sount mys hors de forest par /a puralee ... aient
requis a cest parlement quils soient quites...des choses que les
foresters lour demandent.” In the course of the statute mention is
made of ‘terres et tenements deaforestes far la puralee.” These
{lands] would constitute the purliew. A purlieu-man or purlie-man is
a man owning land within the purlieu, licensed to hunt on his own
land ;’ Wedgwood. . It is thus clear that purliew was ‘land
set free’ from the forest laws, and hence called pur liew (L. piirus
locus). y. The perambulation itself was denoted by the OF.
puralee or poralee. This OF. puralee appears to be a mere
translation of L. perambulatidnem, by that confusion whereby OF.
pur (F. pour), though really answering to L. prd, is made to do duty
for the L. per, as in several instances noted by Scheler. See AF.
pouralee (to translate perambulatio) in Liber Custumarum, p. 197;
from OF. pur=L. pro; and OF. alee, a going, for which see Alley.
PURLOIN, to steal, plagiarise. (F.—L.) In Shak. Lucrece,
1651. ME, purloynen; the pp. is ill spelt perloyned in the York Plays,
p- 271. Cf. ME. purlongen; ‘ Purlongyn, or prolongyn, or put fer awey,
Prolongo, alieno;’ Prompt. Parv. Thus the orig. sense is simply
to prolong, put away, keep back, or remove. [( OF. esloigner
(<L. élongare), ‘to remove, banish, drive, set, put, far away ;’
Cot.) =OF. porloignier, purloignier, to prolong, retard, delay ;
Godefroy.—L. prolongare, to prolong; see Prolong. Der. pur-
loin-er. Doublet, prolong.
PURPLE, a very dark-red colour. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Spenser,
F. Q. i. 2. 7. For ME. purpre, by change of r to J, as in ME.
marbre, now marble, and in Molly, Dolly, for Mary, Dorothy. The
ME. purpre is in early use, occurring in Layamon, 1. 5928.—OF.
porpre (13th cent., Littré), later pourpre, ‘purple,’ Cot. Cf. Ital.
portora, Span. purpura.—L. purpura, the purple-fish, purple-dye. =
Gk. πορφύρα, the purple-fish; cf. G. πορφύρεος, purple. B. The
orig. sense of Gk. πορφύρεος, as an epithet of the sea, seems to have
been ‘troubled’ or ‘raging,’ hence dark, and lastly purple. The sea
PURSUE 487
dark with storms was also called olvop, wine-coloured, wine-dark ;
apparently from the dark shade of brooding clouds. Hence the ety-
mology is from Gk. πορφύρειν, to grow dark, used of the surging sea ;
a reduplicated form (=*op-pup-ev =*pup-pup-ev) of Gk. φύρειν, to
mix up, mingle, confound, orig. to stir violently. Allied to Skt.
root bhur, to be active, L. furere, to rage; see Fury. @f The AS.
purfur is borrowed directly from Latin. So also (ἃ. purpur, &c.
Der. purple, verb. And see porfthyry.
PURPORT, to imply, mean, intend. (F.—L.) In Bacon, Life
of Hen. VH, ed. Lumby, p. 146, 1. 27. . (And prob. a much older
word.) —OF. porporter, pourporter, to intend, whence the sb. purport,
tenour. Not in Cotgrave; but Godefroy gives the verb porporter,
pourporter, to declare, inform, and the sb. purport, tenour; and notes
the phrase selon le purport, according to the purport.—OF. pur,
Ἐς pour, from L. pré, according to; and Εἰ, porter, to bear, carry,
from L, portare, to carry. A similar application of F. porter occurs
in E. import. See Pur- and Port (1). Der. purport, sb., used by
Spenser with the sense of ‘disguise,’ F. Q. iii. 1. 52, the lit. sense
being rather ‘declaration’ or ‘ pretext.’
PURPOSE (1), to intend. (F.—L.—Gk.; with F. prefix.) ME.
purposen, Gower, C. A. i. 5, prol. 53.—OF. porposer (Godefroy), a
variant of proposer, to propose. ‘Thus purpose and profose are
doublets; see Propose, which is strictly from L. pausare, of Gk.
origin, though there has been confusion with L. ponere. J Dis-
tinct in origin from Purpose (2), though much confounded with it
in association. Doublet, propose.
PURPOSE (2), intention. (F.—L.) Though from a different
origin, this sb. has become altogether associated with the verb to
purpose, owing to the extraordinary confusion, in French, of the
derivatives of pausdre and ponere. ME. purpos, Chaucer, C. T. 3979
(A 3981) ; spelt porpos, Rob. of Glouc., p. 121, 1. 2572. —OF. pourpos
(of which another form was porpost), a resolution, design (Godefroy) ;
a variant of F. propos, ‘a purpose, drift, end,’ Cot.—L. propositum,
a thing proposed, design, resolution. —L. prdpositus, pp. of proponere,
to propose; see Propound. Der. purpose-ly, purpose-less ; also
a-propos, q.v-
PURR, PUR, to utter a murmuring sound, asacat. (E.) ‘A
pur ..of fortune’s cat;’ All’s Well, v. 2. 20; ‘ Pur, the cat is gray ;”
King Lear, iii. 6. 47. An imitative word, not unlike buzz. Cf.
Scotch pirr, a gentle wind, Icel. byrr, wind; also Irish and Gael.
burburus, a gurgling sound. Intended to imitate the sound ofa gentle
murmur. Der. pur-/ (1), a frequentative form.
PURSE, a small bag for money. (L.—Gk.) ME. purs, burs ;
Prompt. Parv. p. 417. Spelt pors, P. Plowman, A.v.110. In early
use; the pl. porses occurs in the later text of Layamon, 1. 5927. AS.
purs; Engl. Studien, xi. 65. [Cf. OF. borse (Burguy), later bourse,
‘a purse,’ Cot.|—Late L. bursa, a purse; Ducange.=Gk. Bupon, a
hide, skin; of which purses were made. The change from initial
b to p is rare, but accords with Grimm’s Law, and we find similar
examples in E. apricot as compared with F. abricot, and mod. E.
gossip as compared with ME. gossib, Chaucer, C. T. 5825 (D 243).
Der. purs-er (doublet, burs-ar, q.v.); purs-er-ship; purse-proud ;
purse-bearer, Tw. Nt. iii. 3. 47. Also purse, verb, to wrinkle like a
bag drawn together, Oth. iii. 3. 113.
PURSLAIN, PURSLANE, an annual plant, sometimes used
in salads. (F.—L.) Spelt purselaine, Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. ii. pt.
ii. p. 109, 1. 43; pourslane, Sir Τὶ Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. il. c. 8.
ME. purslane, to translate L. portulaca, Prompt. Parv., p. 417.—OF.
porcelaine (Godefroy). (Cf. Ital. porcellana, ‘the hearbe called
purcelane ;’ Florio.] Formed from L. porcilaca, purslain, Pliny,
b. xx. c. 20; the usual form of the word being portulaca. Walde
derives portulaca from portula, dimin. of porta, a door, with reference
to some peculiarity of the seed-capsules.
PURSUE, to follow after, chase, prosecute. (F.—L.) ME,
pursuen, Wyclif, John, xv. 20, where the AV. has persecute; also in
P. Plowman, B. xix. 158.—OF. porsuir, toursuir; Norm. dial. por-
suir; mod, F. poursuivre, ‘to pursue, prosecute, persecute, Cot.
Cotgrave gives the spellings poursuir, poursuyr, and poursuivre.—OF.
pur, por, mod. F. four, answering to L. pro-; and Late L. sequere,
in place of L. segui, to follow; so that poursuir=L. prdsequi, to
prosecute. See Prosecute; also Pur- and Sue. β. Owing to
the confusion between the F. prefixes pour (pro) and far (per), the
verb poursuivre also had the sense of persecute; we even find in OF.
(11th cent.) the expression ἃ persuir son apel=to pursue his appeal
(Littré). See Persecute. Der. pursu-er, which in Scots law
means ‘a plaintiff,’ lit. a prosecutor. Also pursu-ant, ‘following,
according, or agreeable to,’ Phillips, ed. 1706, formed with the F.
pres. part. suffix -ant from OF. pursu-ir, though the usual form of
the pres. part. was pursuivant or poursuivant (see below) ; pursu-ance,
Phillips, ed. 1706, apparently coined from the adj. pursuant. Also
pursuit, spelt poursuitt in Spenser, F. Q. ii. 4. 1, pursuyt in Trevisa,
PURSY
tr. of Higden, i. 195, from F. poursuite, fem. sb., a participial form
answering to L. fem. pp- proseciita ; pursuiv-ant, an attendant on
heralds, lit. ‘one who is following,’ Rich. III, iii. 4. 90, ME. pur-
seuaunt, Chaucer, House of Fame, 1321, from F. poursuivant darmes,
‘herauld extraordinary, or young herauld,’ Cot., from Ἐς, poursuivant,
pres. part. of poursuivre.
PURSY, short-winded. (F.—L.) In Shak. Timon, v. 4. 12.
Spelt pursy and pursif in Levins. ME. purcy (for pursy), Prompt.
Pary. ‘Purcyfe, shorte-wynded, or stuffed aboute the stomacke,
pourcif;’ Palsgrave.—MF. pourcif, in Palsgrave, as just cited;
which is a variant (by change of J to r) of MF, pouls:f, ‘ pursie,
short-winded,’ Cot. Mod. F. foussif. Formed, with suffix -if
(<L. -itius), from MF. poulser (mod, F. pousser), ‘to push,’ Cot.
Cotgrave also gives the form pousser, which he explains not
only by ‘to push,’ but also by ‘to breathe or fetch wind.’=L.
fulsare, to beat, push; see Push. The word has reference to the
pantings or quick pulsations of breath made by a pursy person, Der.
urst-ness.
PPURTENANCE, that which belongs to; the intestines of a
beast. (F.—L.) In Exod. xii. 9; the usual translation of the same
Heb. word being ‘inwards.’ Spelt pertenaunce in Coverdale’s trans-
lation. ‘ Portenaunce of a beest, fressevre;’ Palsgrave. In P. Plow-
man, B, ii. 103, where most MSS. have purtenaunces, MS. W. has
appurtinaunces, Thus purtenance is merely an abbreviation of appur-
tenance, from AF. apurtenance, Langtoft’s Chron., i. 438; variant of
apartenance (Burguy), from OF. apartenir, to appertain. Cotgrave
has: ‘appartenance, an appurtenance, an appendant.? β, The
variation in the syllable pur, par, is due to the frequent confusion
between OF. pur (L. pro), and par (L. per). In the present case,
the syllable is due to L. per. See Appurtenance, Appertain.
PURULENT, PURULENCE;; see Pus.
PURVEY, to provide. (F.—L.) A doublet of provide. ME.
purueien; porueien (with u=v), Rob. of Glouc. p. 39, 1.911; Rob. of
Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 74.—AF. purveier, to provide, Liber
Custumarum, p. 216; OF. porvoir (Burguy), mod. Εἰ, pourvoir, to
provide.—L. prouidére ; see Provide. β. The F. voir, to see, has
numerous forms in OF., such as veoir, veor, veir, veer, veeir, veier,
&c.; see Burguy. The E. spelling -vey answers to AF. veier; cf.
E. sur-vey. Der. purvey-ance, ME, porueance, Rob. of Glouc. p. 457,
1. 9387, from AF. purveaunce, Polit. Songs, p. 231, answering to
ME. pourvoyance, ‘providence, forecast,’ Cot.; and therefore a
doublet of providence. Also purvey-or, ME. purveour, P. Plowman,
B. xix. 255, footnote, from AF. purveour, Stat. Realm, i. 137 (1300),
answering to MF. pourvoyeur, ‘a provider or purveyor,’ Cot.
Doublet, provide.
PURVIEW, a proviso, enactment. (F.—L.) Now applied to
the enacting part of a statute as opposed to the preamble, and so
called because it formerly began with the words purvew est, it is pro-
vided. Spelt purview in Blount.—AF. purveu, Polit. Songs, p. 231;
MF. pourven, provided, Cotgrave; mod. F. pourvu. Pp. of AF.
purveter, OF. porvoir, Ἐς pourvoir; see Purvey.
PUS, white matter issuing from a sore. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706.
{The adj. purulent is in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.)—L. pis (gen.
piir-is), matter.4-Gk. πῦτον, matter; Skt. piya-, pus; from pity, to
stink. —4/PEU, to be corrupt, stink ; whence also pu-trid, &c. Allied
to Foul. Brugmann, i. § 113. Der. pur-u-lent, from F. purulent,
‘mattary, corrupt,’ Cot., from L. pirulentus, full of matter, from the
stem pir- and suffix -lentus. Hence purulence.
PUSH, to thrust against, urge, drive forward. (F.—L.) ΜΕ.
possen, pussen; infin. posse, K, Horn, ed. Lumby, 1. 1011 ; pt. t. puste,
K. Horn, ed. Ritson, 1. 1079; possed, P. Plowman, B. prol. 151. At
a later time fuss became push, by change of double s to sh, as in
anguish from anguisse, brush from Εἰ, brosse, embellish from F.
embelliss-, &c.— OF. pousser, MF. poulser, ‘to push, thrust,’ Cot. = L.
pulsare, to beat, strike, thrust; frequentative form of pellere (pp.
pulsus), to drive. See Pulse (1), Pulsate. Der. push, sb.,
Spenser, F. Ὁ. i. 3. 35; push-ing 3 push-pin, L.L. L.iv. 3.169. 4] The
prov. E. push, a pustule, is spelt poushe in Sir Τὶ Elyot’s Castel of
Helth, bk. iii. c. 6; from the same verb.
PUSILLANIMOUS, mean-spirited. (L.) “ Womanish and
pustllanimous,’ Chapman, tr. of Homer, Ὁ. i. Commentary, note 7.
From L. pusillanimus, mean-spirited, by change of -us to -ous, as
frequently ; the more usual form is pusillanimis.—L. pusill-, stem of
pusillus, very small; and animus, mind, soul. β, Pusillus is allied
to pusus, a little boy, pu-er,a boy; see Puerile. For L. animus,
see Animosity. Der. pusillanimous-ly, -ness. Also pusillanim-i-ty,
ME. pusillanimitee (shortened to pusillamité), Gower, C. A. ii. 12;
bk. iv. 314; from F. pusillanimité<L. acc. pusillanimitatem.
PUSS, a cat, a hare. (E.) Spelt pusse in Minshen, ed. 1627 ; pus-
cat, in Friar Bacon’s Prophecie (Hazlitt, E. Eng. Popular Poetry,
iv. 274). This may be called an E. word, though it is widely
488
ἘΠΠΗΥ
spread. Prob, imitative, from the sound made by a cat spitting
(Wedgwood). Soalso Du. poes, Low (ἃ. puus, puus-kaite, a puss, puss-
cat ; Swed. dial. pus, a cat (Rietz), &c.; Irish and Gael. pus, a cat.
B. That the word is imitative, appears from its occurrence in Tamil.
* Pusei, a cat, esp. in the 5. Tamil idiom. In the Cashgar dialect of
the Affghan, pusha signifies a cat;’ Caldwell, Comp. Grammar of
Dravidian Languages, p. 465; cited in N. and Q., 3S. ix. 288,
Lithuan. puz, a word to call a cat.
PUSTULE, a small pimple. (F.—L.) ‘A pustule, wheale, or
blister ;” Minsheu, ed. 1627. ME. pustulis, pl., in Lanfrank, Science
of Cirurgie, p. 197, 1. 17.—F. pustule, ‘a push, blain, wheale, small
blister ;’ Cot.—L. pustula, another form of pisula, a blister, pimple.
Allied to Lith. puslé, a bladder, pimple ; ftsti (1 pers. sing. puttu),
to blow; Gk. φυσαλίς, φύσκη, a bladder, pustule, φυσάω, I blow,
Skt. pupphusa-, phupphusa-, the lungs. Note that pustule has
nothing to do with pus, with which it is associated by Richardson,
and even in White, Der. pustul-ous, pustul-ate, pustul-ar.
PUT, to push, thrust, cast, set, lay, place, &c. (E.) ME. putten,
puten; pt. t. putte, pp. put, i-put; P. Plowman, A. iii. 75, B. ili. 84;
Havelok, 1033, 1051; the pt. t. putte occurs in Layamon, 18092.
AS. potian, to thrust ; /Elfric’s Homilies, i. 522, 1. 25; also *putian,
whence the sb. putung, instigation (Napier). [Hence Gael. put,
to push, thrust; W. pwrio, to push, to poke; Corn. poot, to kick
like a horse.] The orig. sense seems to have been to push, cast ; cf.
‘to put a stone.’4-Du. poten, to plant, set; poot, a twig, MDu. fote,
a scion, plant (see Franck); NFries. putje, Dan. putte, to put, place ;
Swed. dial. putta, to push; Pomeran. putten, to drive on. Der.
pott-er, verb, q.v.
PUTATIVE, reputed, supposed. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.
—F. putatif, ‘ putative, Cot. —L. putatinus, imaginary, presumptive.
Formed with suffix -iuus; cf. L. putdtus, pp. of putare, to think.
The orig, sense was to make clean or clear; hence, to come to a
clear result. —L. putus, clean. (4/PEU.) Cf. Pure.
PUTREFY, to make or become corrupt. (F.—L.) ‘Grosse
meate ... makyth putrifyed matter ;’ Sir Τὶ Elyot, Castel of Helth,
b. ii, c. 1. ‘Apte to receyue putryfaction;’ id. Ὁ. ii. c. 1. (The
spelling with ὦ was prob, due to confusion with putrid.) =F.
putrefier, ‘to putrifie,’ Cot. Formed by analogy with other verbs in
fier as if from L. *putreficare; but the true L. forms are putrefacere,
to make putrid; and putrefieri, to become putrid. —L. putre-, as seen
in putrére, to be rotten, with which cf. puter, putris, rotten; and
facere, to make, or fieri, to become. See Putrid. Der. putrefac-
tion, from Ἐν putrefaction, from L. acc. putrefactidnem (Lewis) ;
regularly formed from putrefacere. Also putrefact-ive, Also putres-
cent, becoming putrid, from L. putrescent-, stem of pres. part. of
putrescere, inceptive form of putrére; whence putrescence.
PUTRID, stinking, rotten, corrupt. (F.—L.). In Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674; and in Cotgrave.—F. putride, ‘ putride,’ Cot, —L.
putridus, putrid. Extended from L. putri-, decl. stem of put-er,
put-ris, rotten; allied to putrére, to be rotten. Allied to pit-ére, to
nr from 4/PEU, to stink. Cf. Skt. piy, to stink; see Pus and
Foul.
PUTTOCK, a kite, kind of hawk. (E.?) In Shak. Cymb. i. 1,
140; see Nares and Palsgrave. ME. puttocke, Book of St. Alban’s,
fol. b 2; potok, Voc. 762.5. Of unknown origin. It seems to have
been used in a contemptuous sense, AS. Puttoc occurs as a name or
nickname; Birch, Cart. Saxon., iii. 668.
PUTTY, an oxide of tin, or lead and tin, for polishing glass;
more commonly a cement of whiting and oil, for windows. (F.—
Low G.) Putty, a powder made of calcin’d tin;’ Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. ‘ Putty, pottain, and pot-brass...seem all to mean the
same thing;’ Rich. Dict.; this opinion is supported by extracts
from Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxxiv. c. 9, and Boyle, Works, i. 721.
Pliny explains that in brass-founding, it was often found desirable to
add to the ore collectaneum, i.e. bits of old vessels, called by Holland
‘ pottain or old metall,’ or ollaria, called by Holland ‘ pot-brasse ;*
showing that pottain simply means the metal of old pors, B. The
difficulty is in the history of the word rather than in its etymology.
The old sense of it was ‘ powder made of calcin’d tin,’ as in Blount,
resembling what is now called putty powder. ‘ Putty powder, a pul-
verised oxide of tin sometimes mixed with oxide of lead ; extensively
used in glass and marble works, and the best kinds are used for
polishing plate ;’ Weale’s Dict. of Terms used in the Arts, 4th ed.,
1873. The same work tells us that putty is ‘composed of whiting
and linseed oil, with or without white lead.’ It thus appears that
the successive senses are (1) calcin’d tin or oxide of tin, (2) the
same, with oxide of lead, or (3) with white lead, (4) a preparation
containing white lead, the name being continued even after the
white lead was omitted. The result is that the mixture xow called
putty frequently contains nothing that could be called putty in the
older sense. y. Adapted from MF. fotée, ‘ brasse, copper, tin,
PUZZLE
pewter, &c., burnt or calcinated ; also, a pot-full of anything ;’ Cot.
The mod. F. potée means ‘ putty,’ showing a similar change of
meaning. ‘Potee d'étain, tin-putty;’ Hamilton. The mod. F.
folée also means (as formerly), a potful. Cf. also MF. pottein,
‘broken pieces of metall, or of old vessels, mingled one with
another;’ Cot. Also MF. pottin, ‘solder of mettall;’ id. β. Potee
is formed with suffix -ée (<L. -ata), from Εἰ, pot, a pot, of Teutonic
origin; see Pot. Der. putty, vb.
PUZZLE, a difficult question, embarrassment, problem, per-
plexity. (F.—L. and Gk.) Asa verb in Shak, Hamlet, iil. 1. 80;
and it was prob, regarded as a frequentative form of pose, with suffix
-le, But this was not the way in which the word arose; and, in
fact, the suffix -/e is not usually added to words of F. origin, It
was orig. a sb,, and stands for opposal, which is used in the ordinary
sense of ‘opposition’ in Sir T. Herbert's Travels, p. 81 (R.). Ithas
been shown, s.v. Pose, that pose is short for appose, which again is
a corruption of oppose. From the F. opposer was formed ME.
opposaile, a question for solution; whence mod. E. puzzle. ‘And
to pouert she put this opposayle’ [question], Lydgate, Fall of
Princes, ed. Wayland, sig. B. iii, leaf Ixvi; cited in Dyce’s Skelton,
ii. 304. Hence corruptly, apposaile. ‘Made vnto her this yncouth
apposayle, \Vhy wepe ye so?’ id., sig. B. v, leaf cxxviti (Dyce).
‘Madame, your appose/le is wele inferrid,’ i.e. your question is well
put; Skelton, Garland of Laurel, 1. 141; where the MS. copy has
opposelle (Dyce). The ME. opposaile seems to have been a coined
word, like dent-al, refus-al, &c. The loss of the first syllable is due
to the loss of the same in pose, For the etymology, see Oppose,
Pose (2). See A Student’s Pastime, p. 129. Der. puzzle, verb.
PYGARG, a white-rumped antelope. (L.—Gk.) In Deut.
xiv. 5. ‘A kinde of fallow Deere called Pygargi;’ Holland, tr. of
Pliny, bk. viii. c. 53.—L. pygargus; Deut. xiv. 5.—Gk. πύγαργος,
a kind of antelope. —Gk. πυγ-ή, rump ; ἀργός, shining, white.
PYGMY, a yery diminutive person or thing. (F.—L.—Gk.)
ME. pigmey, Trevisa, i. 11, 1. 7.— MF. pygme, adj., ‘dwarfie, short,
low, of a small stature;’ Cot.—L. pygmaeus, adj., dwarfish, pygmy-
like; from pl. Pymaei, the race of Pygmies. — Gk. Πυγμαῖοι, the race
of Pygmies, fabulous dwarfs of the length of a πυγμή, which was
reckoned from the elbow to the fist or knuckles, containing about
134 inches. —Gk. πυγμή, the fist ; allied to L. pugnus ; see Pugna-
cious.
PYLORUS, the lower orifice of the stomach. (L.—Gk.) In
Phillips, ed. 1706.—L. pylorus.—Gk. πυλωρός, a gate-keeper; also
the pylorus, because it is gate-keeper to the intestines, or at the
entrance to them. Contracted from ἔπυλα- ωρός (Prellwitz), — Gk.
πύλ-α-- πύλ-η, a gate; and *Fwpos, allied to οὖρος, a keeper, watcher.
B. The Gk. πύλη is perhaps allied to Gk. πόλις, a city ; see Prellwitz.
y. The Gk. οὖρος is from ὄρο-μαι (-- ξόρομαι), 1 heed, guard, from
A WER, to guard; see Wary. Der. pylor-ic,
PYRAMID, a solid figure with triangular sides meeting in an
apex, upon a triangular, square, or polygonal base. (L.—Gk.) The
word was rather taken directly from the Latin than from the French.
Thus Shak. has the sing. pyramis, 1 Hen. VI, i. 6. 21 ; pl. pyramides
(four syllables), Antony, y. 2. 61; as well as pyramid, Macb. ἵν. 1.
57. Cotgrave strangely translates F, piramide by ‘a pyramides.’ =
L. pyramid-, stem of pyramis.—Gk. πυραμίς (gen. πυραμίδος), a
pyramid. Prob. of Egyptian origin. Der. pyramud-al, pyramid-ic-al.
PYRE, a pile of wood for burning a body. (L.—Gk,) In Sir T.
Browne, Urn Burial, cap. v. § 13-—L. pyra.— Gk. πυρά, a pyre ; allied
to πῦρ, fire; cognate with E. Fire, q.v. And see pyrethrum,
pyretic, pyr-ites, pyrotechnic,
PYRETHRUM, aplant; feverfew. (L.—Gk.) L. pyrethrum.
- Gk. πύρεθρον ; so named from the hot spicy taste of the root.—
Gk. πῦρ, fire. Doublet, pellitory (2).
PYRETIC, feverish, relating to fever. (Gk.) For pyrectic. —
Gk. πυρεκτικός, feverish. Gk. πυρέσσειν, to be in a fever; allied to
πυρετός, burning, heat, fever.— Gk. πῦρ, fire.
PYRITES, a stone which gives out sparks when struck with
steel. (L.—Gk.) ‘ Pyrites,a marchasite or fire-stone ;’ Phillips, ed.
1706,—L, pyrifes.— Gk. πυρίτης, a flint, pyrites; orig. an adj., be-
longing to fire. Gk. πῦρ, fire; cognate with E. Fire, q.v. Der.
yril-tC.
: PYROTECHNIG, pertaining to fireworks. (Gk.) Pyrotech-
nick, adj., and pyrotechny are given in Phillips, ed. 1706. Coined
from Gk, mupo-, used in compounds in place of πῦρ, fire, cognate
with Εν fire; and τεχνικός, artistic, technical, from τέχνη, an art,
craft. See Fire and Technical. Der. pyrotechnic-s, pyro-techny
(short for pyrotechnic art); pyro-technist, So also pyro-meter, a fire-
measurer (see Metre) ; pyro-gen-ous, produced by fire, from Gk.
base yev, to produce (see Genus).
PYTHON, a large serpent. (L.—Gk.) ‘The raging Python;’
Prior, Hymn to the Sun, st. 3. —L. Python, a serpent slain by Apollo
489
near Delphi. Gk. Πύθων (the same), —Gk. Πυθώ, a former name of
Delphi.
PYX, the sacred box in which the host is kept after consecration;
at the mint, the box containing sample coins. (L.—Gk.) Spelt
pixe in Minsheu, ed. 1627. Abbreviated from L. pyxis, a box.—
Gk. πυξίς, a box; so-called because orig. made of box-wood.= Gk,
πύξος, box-wood. Allied to Box (1) and Box (2).
O
c~y
QUACK (1), to make a noise like a duck, (E.) An imitative
word. ‘The goos, the cokkow, and the doke also So cryden “ kek /
kek!” “cuckow!” quek, quek!” hye;’ Chaucer, Parl. of Foules,
499- Here the cry kek! kek / is assigned to the cackling goose, and
quek ! quek! to the quacking duck. In Ch, C. T. 4150 (A 4152),
the dat. case guakke is used to mean ‘hoarseness.’-Du, kwaken,
kwakken, to croak, quack, chat; G. guaken, to quack, croak ; Icel.
kvaka, to twitter; Dan, kvekke, to croak, quack, cackle. Cf. L.
coaxare, to croak, Gk. κοάξ, a croaking; Lithuan, Awakéti, to croak ;
QUADRILLE
kwakséti, to cackle. Cf. Cackle, Der. quack (2), q.v. Also
quail (2), q.v.
QUACK (2), one who cries up pretended nostrums. (Du.)
Abbreviated from the older word gwacksalver (below). Hence
also quack, vb., to act as a quack, to sing the praises of a nostrum,
to pretend to medical skill. ‘To guack off universal cures ;’ Butler,
Hudibras, pt. ili. c. 1. 1.330. We find also guack-salver, Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674, i.e. one who puffs up his sa/ves or ointments,
borrowed from Du. kwak-zalver, a quack, charlatan, cf. Du, kvak-
zalven, to quack, puff up salves (see Salve) by quacking or prating
about them; see also guack-salvers, in Ben Jonson, Every Man,
ii, 1. 1233 guack-doctor, a later word which took the place of
quack-salver, Pope, note to Dunciad, iii, 192. Hence also guack
=quack-doctor; quack-er-y.
QUADRAGESIMA, the forty days of Lent. (L.) ‘ Quadra-
gesima Sunday is six weeks before Easter ;’ Tables in the Book of
Common Prayer. [Hence quadragesimal, adj.,= Lenten, Milton,
Areopagitica, ed, Hales, p. 5, 1. 8.J—L. quadragésima, lit. ‘fortieth,’
fem. of quadrdgésimus, fortieth ; in Jate authors used to mean ‘ Lent.”
Older form quadragensumus ( = *quadrigenti-mus).—L. quadraginta,
forty. L. quadr-us, square, fourfold, related to quater, four times,
quatuor, four; and -ginta, for *de-kin-ta, tenth, from decem, ten.
See Four and Ten; and Forty. Der. quadragesim-al,
QUADRANGLE, a square figure, or plot of ground. (F.—L.)
In Shak. 2 Hen. VI, i. 3. 156; and in Levins.—F. quadrangle, ‘a
quadrangle ;’ Cot.—L. quadrangulum, sb.; neut. of quadrangulus,
four-cornered.—L. quadr-us, square, allied to quatwor, four; and
angulus, an angle. See Four and Angle. Der. quadrangul-ar.
Also quad, quod, a court (in Oxford), short for quadrangle.
QUADRANT, the fourth part of acircle. (L.) Chiefly used of
an instrument for measuring angles (like a sextant), graduated with
degrees along the arc, ME. quadrant, Prompt. Parv.=—L. quadrant-,
stem of quadrans, sb., a fourth part. Formed like the pres. part. of
quadrare, to make square; from quadr-ws, square, allied to quatuor ;
seeFour. Der. guadrant-al. From the same source are guarrel (2),
quarry (1), squad, squadron, square.
QUADRATE, squared, well-fitted. (L.) Used as a vb, in
Levins ; as adj. and vb. in Minsheu; as sb. in Milton, P. L. vi. 62,
to mean‘ square phalanx.’ L, guadratus, squared, pp. of quadrare,
to make or be square. L. quadrus, square ; see Quadrant. Der.
quadrat-ic; quadrat-ure, Milton, P. L, x. 381; Ben Jonson, New
Inn, As ilicse. 2:
QUADRENNIAL, once in four years. (L.) More correctly
quadrtennial, as in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Formed with adj. suffix
-al (L. -dlis) from quadrienni-um, a space of four years. —L, quadri-,
for quadrus, square, fourfold; and annus,a year. See Quadrant,
Biennial, Annual.
QUADRILATERAL, having four sides. (L.) In Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. quadrilater-us, four-sided ; with suffix -al (=L.
-dlis),— L. quadri-, for quadrus, square ; and later-, decl. stem of latus,
aside. See Quadrant and Lateral.
QUADRILLE, 1. the name of a game at cards; 2. the name
ofa dance. (F.—Span.—L.) The name of the dance dates from
about 1773; it is added by Todd to Johnson; so called because
danced by 4 persons, or by sets of four. Not improbably suggested
by the game at cards, which was a game for 4 persons with 40 cards ;
see Pope, Moral Essays, iii. 76; Sat. i. 38. [But the Span. name
was affected by confusion with F. qguadrille, ‘a squadron containing
25 (or fewer) souldiers,’ Cot.; borrowed from Ital. guadriglia, short
490 QUADRILLION
for MItal. squadriglia, ‘a route, a troop, a crue, a band of men,’
Florio; which is connected with Squadron, q.v.} On the other
hand, F. quadrille, the game at cards, was masc.; and like ombre, is
prob. of Span. origin.Span. cuadrillo, a small square, allied to
cuadrilla, ‘a meeting of four or more persons,’ Neuman.—Span.
cuadra, a square. LL, quadra, fem. of quadrus, fourfold; see
Quadrant. Cf. L. guadrula, a little square.
QUADRILLION, a million raised to the fourth power. (L.)
An oddly coined word ; made by prefixing guadr- (short for quadrus,
square, fourfold) to -il/ion, which is the word million with the m left
out. See Billion and Quadrant.
QUADROOVN, the child of a mulatto and a white person.
(Span.—L.) Better guarteroon or quartroon ; and spelt guarteron in
1707. So called because of having black blood only in a fourth
part. Modern; and imported from America.—Span. cuarteron, the
child of a creole and Spaniard (Neuman); also, a fourth part.
Formed with suffixes -er- and -on from cuarto, a fourth part. —L.
quartum, acc. of quartus, fourth. See Quart, Quartern.
QUADRUPED, a four-footed animal. (L.) The adj. guadru-
pedal is in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674; quadruped, sb., is in Phillips,
ed. 1706; the pl. guadrupedes is in Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors,
bk. iil. c. 1. § 2.—L. quadruped-, stem of qguadrupés, quadripés, four-
footed. —L. guadru-, fourfold, four times; and 285, a foot. See
Quadrant and Foot. Der. qguadruped-al.
QUADRUPLE, fourfold. (F.—L.) Asa verb in Chapman,
tr. of Homer, Iliad, i. 129. As adj. in Minsheu, ed. 1627.—F.
quadruple, ‘ quadruple;’ Cot.—L. quadruplum, acc. of quadruplus,
fourfold. —L. quadru-, four times ; and -flus, signifying ‘fold’ See
Quadrant and Double. Der. qguadrufle, verb. Also quadruplic-
ate, from L. quadruplicatus, pp. of quadruplicire, to multiply by four.
Cf. Complicate.
QUAFF, to drink in large draughts. (E.) In Shak. Tw. Nt.
i. 3. 14; &c. And in Levins. Apparently of Northern origin.
{In later times, it seems to have affected the spelling of the Lowl.
Sc. quaich, quech, a cup, which became queff in 1711 ; see quaich in
Jamieson, and Quaigh.} ‘I quaught, 1 drinke all oute;’ Palsgrave.
Spelt guaft by Sir Tl. More; N. E.D. Later forms are quaf, quaff.
B. A Southern form of Lowl. Sc. waucht, to quaff, from waucht, sb.
a deep draught (Jamieson). From ONorthumb. *wahkt= AS. weaht,
moistened (Genesis, 1922), pp. of weccan, to moisten (Daniel, 577).
Cf. Icel. vekja, to moisten ; from vak-, base of vokr, moist ; Icel. vékua
sig, to moisten oneself, to drink, quaff. Allied to Du. wak, moist,
wak,a hole inice. See Wake (2). Der. quaff-er.
QUAGGA, a quadruped of the horse tribe. (Hottentot.) The
name is said to be Hottentot; and is supposed to be imitative, from
the noise made by the animal. The name is now current in the
Xosa-Kaffir form igwara, with clicking Φ and guttural r. See
Atheneum, 19 May, 7001 ; N. and Q. 9S. v. 3.
QUAGMIRE, boggy, yielding ground. (E.) In Shak. K. Lear,
iii. 4.54. From quag, variant of quake; and equivalent to quake-
mire; see Quake and Mire. ‘It is spelt guake-mire in Stanihurst’s
Descr. of Ireland, p. 20; qguave-myre, in Palsgrave;’ Halliwell, s. v.
quave-mire,q.v. Cf. ME. quauen ( =quaven), to quake; P. Plowman,
B. xviii. 61. So also quagg-y (i.e. quak-y), adj., used of boggy
ground,
QUAIGH, QUAICH, a kind of drinking-cup in Scotland,
usually made of small wooden staves hooped together, with two
handles. (C.—L.) See Jamieson and E. D. Ὁ. First found as
quech in 1673.— Gael. cuach,a cup (cf. Olrish ctiach, W. cawg). = L.
caucus, a cup; cf. Gk. καῦκα, a cup. q Also spelt quaff, as in
Smollett, Humphrey Clinker, Sep. 3, 1771.
QUAIL (1), to cower, shrink, fail in spirit. (F.—L.) An old
meaning of quail was ‘to suffer decline, pine, fail, wither away ;’
hence to faint, esp. used of the spirits. ‘My false spirits qzail,’
Cymb. v. 5. 149; ‘their quailing breasts;’ 3 Hen. VI, ii. 3. 54.
‘ The braunch once dead, the budde eke nedes must quaile,’ i.e. die ;
Spenser, Shep. Kal. November, 91. ‘This deuise quailed;’ Sir T.
More, Life of Rich. III, ed. Lumby, p. 65. The phonology shows that
the word was prob. of F. origin, and not from the ME. quwelen (AS.
cwelan), to die; though this may have been confused with it.
B. And, in spite of the change in sense, I suppose it to be ultimately
the same word as the prov. E. quail, to curdle, used of milk ; for
which see Prompt. Parv. p. 418, and Way’s note. [We also find
confusion between quail, to fail, and quedl, to kill, as in ‘to quail
and shake the orb,’ Antony, v. 2. 85. Cf. Devonshire queal, to faint
away ; Halliwell.]|| The ME. quailen, to curdle, coagulate, is from
OF. coailler, quailier, later cailler, to curdle (see Littré, and Supp.
to Godefroy); from L. codgulare; see Coagulate. y. Note Ital.
cagliare, MItal. quagliare, ‘to cruddle as milk, to begin to be
afraid ;’ Torriano. Meadows explains it by ‘to curdle, congeal; to
want courage, to begin to fear.’
QUARANTINE
QUAIL (2), a migratory bird. (F.—Low L.—Low G.) ΜΕ.
quaille, Chaucer, C. T. go82 (E1206) ; quayle, Wright's Vocab. i. 177,
1, 13.—OF. quaille (13th cent., Littré), mod. F. caille. Cf. Ital.
quaglia, a quail.—Low L. quaquila, a quail.—MDu. quackel, ‘a
quaile ;’ Hexham. Lit. ‘a quacker.’—MDu. guacken, ‘to croake,’
id. ; cognate with E. Quack (1), q.v.
QUAINT, neat, odd, whimsical. (F.—L.) ME. queint, Chaucer,
C. Τὶ 10553 (F 239); commonly with the sense of ‘famous, ex-
cellent.’ Also spelt guoynt, Rob. of Glouc. p. 72, 1. 1635. Also
cwoint, Ancren Riwle, p. 140, 1. 21; coint, coynt, Will. of Palerne,
653, 1981 ; koynt, 4090. —AF, queint, Vie de S. Tomas, i. 194; OF.
coint, ‘quaint, compt, neat, fine, spruce, brisk, trim ;’ Cot. Cf. Ital.
conto, ‘ known, noted, counted ;’ Florio. Certainly derived from L.
cognitum, acc. of cognitus, known, well-known, famous; though
perhaps confused (more in F. than in E.) with L. comptus, neat,
adorned, pp. of cOmere, to arrange, adorn. B. Cognitus is used as
the pp. of cognoscere, to know, and is compounded of co- (for com=
cum, with) and -gnitus (for -gnotus=gnotus), known, used as pp. of
gnoscere, noscere, to know; see Cognition. Ὑ. I may add that L.
comere=co-imere, comp. of co- (for com=cum), and emere, to take.
q In F. the word took the sense of ‘trim,’ as noted; in E. it meant
famous, remarkable, curious, strange, &c. Der. quaint-ly, qguaint-ness,
ac-quaint.
QUAKE, to shake, tremble. (E.) ME. quaken, Chaucer, C. T.
11172 (F 860); earlier cwakien, Ancren Riwle, p.116,1. 20, AS.
cwacian, to quake; “ΖΕ τε, tr. of Orosius, b. ii. c. 6. § 3. Cf. AS.
cweccan, to wag, Mark, xv. 29. Also EFries. guakkelen, to be un-
steady. We find variants, such as quag, quap, quave, quab, all
meaning ‘to shake about.’ The author of P. Plowman has the
strong pt. t. guook; P, Pl., C. xxi. 64. Der. quak-er, q.v.
QUAKER, one of the Society of Friends. (E.) ‘ Quakers, orig.
called Seekers, from their seeking the truth, afterward Friends. Jus-
tice Bennet, of Derby, gave the Society the name of Quakers in 1650,
because G. Fox (the founder) admonished him, and those present, to
quake at the word of the Lord;’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates. But the
name seems to have been used a little earlier, in 1647. From the
vb. above; see Quake. Der. Quaker-ism.
QUALIFY, to render suitable, limit, abate. (F.—L.) Frequent
in Shak. Meas. i. 1. 66, &c.; and in Levins. Latimer has qualifyeth ;
Seven Sermons, ed. Arber, p. 107 (last line). —F. qualifier, ‘ to quali-
fie;’Cot.—Late L. qualificare, to endue with a quality. =—L. quali-,
for qualis, of what sort; and fic-, for fac-ere,to make. See Quality
and Fact. Der. qualific-at-ion, due to Late L. qualificat-us, pp. of
qualificare.
QUALITY, property, condition, sort, title. (F.—L.) ME.
qualite, qualitee, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 153, 1. 11.—F. qualité, ‘a
quality ;’ Cot. —L. qualitatem, acc. of qualitas, sort, kind. L, quali-,
for qualis, of what sort, allied to Ε, Which,q.v. Der. qualit-at-ive,
a coined word.
QUALM, a sudden attack of illness, prick of conscience. (E.)
ME. qualm, often in the sense of pestilence, mortal illness ; Chaucer,
C. T. 2016 (A 2014). AS. cwealm, pestilence, Luke, xxi. 11.4-OSax.
qualm, destruction, death; Du. kwalm, only in the sense ‘ thick
vapour,’ from its suffocating properties; Dan. kvalm, suffocating air ;
kvalme, qualm, nausea; Swed. qvalm, sultriness; G. gualm, vapour.
Teut. type *kwal-moz, masc.; from *kwal, 2nd grade of *kwel-an-,
AS. cwelan, to die. Allied to Lith. gel-t’, to pain; gel-a, pain. From
idg. root g(w)el; see Brugmann, i. ὃ 656. Der. qualm-ish.
QUANDARY, an evil plight. (Perhaps L.) In Beaum. and
Fletcher, Knight of the Burning Pestle, Act i. sc. 1 (Humphrey).
‘Leaving this olde gentleman in a great quandarie;’ Lily, Euphues,
ed. Arber, p. 45. Stanihurst has guandare (accent on a), Ain. iv. 1.1,
ed. Arber, p. 94. Conjectured to be a corruption of some term of
scholastic Latin. Expressly said by Mulcaster, in 1582, to be a
word ‘of a Latin form, .. vsed English like;’ see A. J. Ellis,
E. E. Pronunciation, p. 912, col. 2. Perhaps for quantum dare,
‘how much to give.’
QUANTITY, size, bulk, large portion. (F.—L.) ME. quantite,
quantitee; Chaucer, C. T. 4662 (B 242). —F. quantité, ‘ quantity ;’
Cot.—L. quantitatem, acc. of quantitas, quantity. —L. guanti-, for
quantus, how much; with suffix -/@. Related to L. quam, and to
quis, who; see Who. Brugmann, i. § 413. Der. quantit-at-ive.
QUARANTINE, a space of forty days. (F.—Ital.—L.) Spelt
quarentine in Minsheu, who gives it the old legal sense, viz. a space
of forty days during which a widow might dwell unmolested in her
husband’s house after his decease. Blount gives this form and sense,
and derives it from OF. quarantine. He also gives quarantain,
meaning (1) Lent, (2) a forty days’ truce or indulgence, (3) ‘ the
forty days which a merchant, coming from an infected port, stays on
shipboard for clearing himself;’ the last sense being the usual one
in mod, E.—OF. quarantine (Roquefort), usually guvarantaine, ‘Lent,
QUARREL
a term of forty days,’ &c.; Cot.—Ital. guarantina, also quarantana,
quarantena, the space of forty days that travellers from infected
places are forced to live in outhouses (Torriano).—Ital. guaranta,
forty, answering to F. qguarante; this guaranta being nothing but a
shortened form of L. quadraginta, forty. See Quadragesima.
Cf. also Ital. fare la qguarantana, ‘to keepe lent, . . . to keepe fortie
daies from company, namely if one come from infected places, as
they vse in Italy;’ Florio. See Pepys, Diary, Noy. 26, 1663.
QUARREL (1), a dispute, brawl. (F.—L.) It should rather be
querrel, but has been assimilated in spelling to the word below.
ME. querele (with one r), Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. iii. pr. 3, 1. 49.
=—OF. querele, later querelle, ‘a quarrel;’ Cot. (He gives both
forms.)—L. queréla, a complaint.—L. gueri, to complain, lament.
See Querulous. Der. quarrel, verb, Romeo, i. 1. 39, 59, &c.;
quarrel-er ; quarrel-some, As You Like It, v. 4.85; quarrel-some-ness;
quarrel-ous, Cymb. iii. 4. 162.
QUARREL (2), a square-headed cross-bow bolt. (F.—L.)
Nearly obsolete. In Spenser, F. Q. ii. 11. 24. ME. quarel, King
Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1594, 2781.—OF. quarrel, later quarreau,
‘a diamond at cardes, a square tile, a quarrell or boult for a crosse-
bow ;’ Cot. Mod. F. carreau.— Late L. quadrellum, acc. of quad-
rellus, a quarrel, a square tile.—L. quadr-us, square; with dimin.
suffix. See Quadrant.
QUARRY (1), a place where stones are dug, esp. for building
purposes. (F.—L.) In Shak. Oth. i. 3.141. The proper sense is a
place where stones are squared for building purposes; hence, a place
where stones are procured which are afterwards squared for building ;
lastly, a place where stones are dug, without any reference to squar-
ing. A better form was quarrer, but we also find quarry; which is
distinct from quarry, sometimes used as a variant of quarrel, a square
pane of glass (Halliwell). ME.quarrere, quarrer, Will. of Palerne,
2232, 2281, 2319, 4692; spelt quarere, quarer, quarrye, quar in
Prompt. Parv.—OF. quarriere, ‘a quarry of stone;’ Cot. Mod. F.
carriére. = Late L. guadraria, a quarry for squared stones. — L.
quadrare, to square,— L. quadr-us, square; see Quadrant.
Ἵ The sense was suggested by L. quadratarius, a stone-squarer,
a stone-cutter; from the samesource. Der. quarry, vb., quarry-man,
uarri-er.
"QUARRY (2), a heap cf slaughtered game. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Cor, i. 1. 202; Haml. v. 2. 375. ΜΕ, querré, Sir Gawain and the
Grene Knight, 1324; qguwrré, Sir Tristram, 499. Altered from OF.
cutree (Supp. to Godefroy), curee, certain parts of a slain animal ;
the part which was given to the hounds. Cotgrave has: ‘ Curée,
a dogs reward, the hounds fees of, or part in, the game they have
killed.” So called because wrapped in the skin; see Relig. Antiq.
i. 153.—F. cur, a skin, hide. —L. corium, skin. See Cuirass.
QUART, the fourth part of a gallon. (F.—L.) ME, quart,
quarte, Chaucer, C. T. 651 (A 649).—F. quarte, ‘a French quarte,
almost our pottle ;’ Cot.—L. quarfa (i. e. pars), a fourth part ; fem.
of guartus, fourth. Related to L. guatuor, cognate with Εἰ, Four,
q: ν. Der. quart-an, quart-er, quart-ern, quart-ette, quart-o ; and
see quatern-ary, quatern-ion, quatrain.
QUARTAN, recurring on the fourth day. (F.—L.) Said of an
ague or fever. ‘ Feuer qguartain ;’ Cursor Mundi, 11828. ‘ Quarteyne,
fevyr, Quartana;’ Prompt. Parv.—F. quartaine, quartan, only used
of a fever; in use in the 13th cent. ; Littré.—L. quartana (febris),
a quartan fever; fem. of guwarfanus, belonging to the fourth;
formed with suffix -@uus from quart-us, fourth ; see Quart.
QUARTER, a fourth part. (F.—L.) ME. quarter, Rob. of
Glouc. p. 528, 1. 10875.—OF. quarter (12th cent., Littré), also
quartier, as in mod. F.—L. quartarius, a fourth part, quarter of a
measure of anything; formed with suffix -arius from quart-us, fourth ;
see Quart. Der. quarter-day, -deck, -ly, -master, -sessions, -staff.
Also quarter-n.
QUARTERN, a fourth of a pint, a gill. (F.—L.) Short for
quarteron. ME. quarteroun, quartroun, quartron, P. Plowman, b.
ν. 217, and footnotes. —OF. guarteron, ‘a quarter of a pound, also
a quarterne :᾿ Cot.—Late L. quarterdnem, acc. of quartero, a fourth
part of a pound; extended from Late L. quarter-us, which is
from guartus; see Quarter. Cf. Norm. dial. guvarteron, a fourth
art.
QUARTET, QUARTETTE, a musical composition of four
parts. (Ital.—L.) First in 1790; the speiling quartetie is Ἐς, but
the word is really Italian. — Ital. guvarte/to, a dimin. form from quarto,
fourth ; see Quart, Duet.
QUARTO, having the sheet folded into four leaves. (L.) In
Johnson. First in 1589. The word is due to the L. phr. ix
quarto, i.e.in a fourth part of the orig. size; where quarto is the
abl. case of guartus, fourth; see Quart. Andsee Folio. Der.
quarto, sb.
QUARTZ, a mineral composed of silica. (G.) Added by Todd
QUEASY 491
to Johnson. = G. guarz, rock-crystal; the G. z being sounded as fs.
MHG. quarz; of unknown origin.
QUASGH, to crush, annihilate, annul. (F.—L.) ME. quaschen;
see ‘ Quaschyn, quasso’ in Prompt. Parv. Properly transitive; but
used intransitively in P. Plowman, C. xxi. 64. And see Owl and
Nightingale, 1388.—AF. quasser, Year-books of Edw. I, 1292-3,
p. 111; OF. quasser, later casser, ‘to breake, . . quash asunder ;’ Cot.
(He gives both spellings.) —L. guassare, to shatter; frequentative
of quatere (supine guassum), to shake. Root uncertain. q The
OF. quasser also means ‘to abrogate, annul’ (Cot.), as in E. ‘to
quash an indictment.’ The slight likeness to AS. cwisan, to break,
is accidental. Der. (from L. quatere) casque, cask, con-cuss-ion,
dis-cuss, fer-cuss-ion.
QUASSIA, a South-American tree. (Personal name.) Added by
Todd to Johnson. Botanical names in -ia are formed by adding the
L. suffix -ia to a personal name, as in dahl-ia, fuchs-ia. Quassia was
named by Linnzus after a negro named Quass’, who first pointed out
the use of the bark as a tonic about 1730; see the portrait of him in
Stedman’s Surinam, ii. 347. Waterton quotes a Barbadoes song in
Journey 4, cap. ii: ‘ Quashi scrapes the fiddle-string, And Venus
plays the flute ;’ these lines are altered from the finale to ἃ. Colman’s
Inkle and Yarico. Quassi is, in fact, quite a common negro name,
generally given to one who is born on a Sunday. See Notes and
Queries, 6. 5. i. 104, 141, 166; 8 5. viii. 388 ; 9 S. iii. 146.
QUATERNARY, consisting of fours. (L.) Rare; see exx.
in Richardson. Cf. F. quaternaire, ‘every fourth day;’ Cot.=—L.
quaternarius, consisting of four each,—L. quaternt, pl., four at a
time ; from guatuor, four; see Four.
QUATERNION, a band of four soldiers, a band of four. (L.)
In Acts, xii. 4 (A.V. and Wyclif) ; Milton, P. L. v. 181.—L. quater-
nion-, stem of quaternio, used in Acts, xii..4 (Vulgate); it means
“the number four,’ or ‘a band of four men.’ = L. quaterni, pl. ; see
Quaternary.
QUATRAIN, a stanza of four lines. (F.—L.) Used by
Dryden, in his letter to Sir R. Howard, prefixed to Annus Mirabilis,
which is written in quatrains.—F. quatrain, ‘a staffe or stanzo of
4 verses;’ Cot. Formed with suffix - αὐτὶ (L. -Gnus) from F. quatre
<L. guatuor, four. See Four.
QUATREFOIL, lit. having four leaves. (F.—L.) ‘With
quarter-foyles gilt;’ Fabyan, Hist., ed. Ellis (1811), p. 600. From
OF. quatre, four; and foil, a leaf.—L. quatuor, four; folium, a leaf;
see Foil.
QUAVER, to shake, to speak or sing tremulously. (E.) In
Levins ; and in Minsheu, ed. 1627. It is the frequentative form, with
suffix -er, of guave. ME. quauen (with u=v), to tremble; Prompt.
Pary. And see P. Plowman, B. xviii. 61. It first occurs as a various
reading in St. Marharete, ed. Cockayne, p. 48, 1. 3 from bottom.
Allied to Low G. quabbeln, to tremble (Brem. Wort.), Norw.
kveppa, to be shaken (Aasen). Also to ME. quappen, to palpitate,
Chaucer, Trol. iii. 57, Legend of Good Women, 865. B. From
a base KWAF, variant of KWAP, to throb, which is parallel to
KWAK, to quake; see Quake. Der. quaver, sb., lit. a vibration,
hence a note in music. Also guiver (1), q.v.
QUAY, a wharf for vessels. (F.—C.) Spelt guay and kay in
Phillips, ed. 1706; key in Cotgrave; keie in Minsheu, ed. 1627.
ME. key, spelt keye, Eng. Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith, p. 374, 1. 23;
and see Prompt. Parv.— AF. kaze, Gloss. to Liber Albus; MF. quay
(F. quai), ‘the key of a haven;’ Cot. The orig. sense is ‘en-
closure,’ a space set apart for unloading goods. Of Celtic origin. —
Bret. kaé, an enclosure ; W. cae, an enclosure, hedge, field, of which
the old spelling was cai (Rhys) ; cognate with Olrish cae, a house ;
whence OIr. cerdd-chae, ‘ officina.’ Celtic type *kaion, a house;
from the same root as E. home. Stokes-Fick, p. 65.
QUEAN, a contemptible woman, a hussy. (E.) In Shak. Merry
Wives, iv. 2. 180, A word very closely related to queen; the orig.
sense being ‘woman.’ The difference in spelling is due to a
difference in the length of the AS. vowel. The best passage to
illustrate this word is in P. Plowman, C. ix. 46, where the author
says that in the grave all are alike; you cannot there tell a knight
from a knave, or a queen from a quean. AS, cwene,a woman, quean ;
cognate with OHG, quena, and Goth. kwind, a woman. The former
ὁ in cwene is short; whence, by lengthening, the Tudor E, ea. Teut.
type *kwen-dn-, a lengthened form of the stem *k1wen-=Idg. *g(w)en- ;
whence also Idg. *g(w)ena, as in Gk. γυνή, Russ. jena, a wife, Irish
ben, Pers. zan, a woman. See Queen.
QUEASY, sickly, squeamish, causing or feeling nausea. (Scand. ?
or F,?) ‘His queasy stomach;’ Much Ado, ii. 1. 399. ‘ A queysy
mete ;’ Skelton, Magnificence, 2295. ‘ Quaisyas meate or drinke is,
dangereux;’ Palsgrave. Quaysy is used as a sb., in the sense of
‘nausea,’ in Polit., Religious, and Love Poems, ed. Furnivall,
pa 515: 1: Perhaps formed as adj. from a Scand. source. =
22.
492 QUEEN
Norw. ἀνεὶς, sickness after a debauch (Aasen) ; Icel. kveisa, a whit-
low, boil; idra-kveisa, bowel-pains, colic; Swed. dial. kuvesa, a
pimple, soreness, blister. Cf. Swed. kvdsa, to bruise, wound; Low G.
guése, a blood-blister, guésig, troubled with blisters (Schambach). |
B. But the form coisy also occurs, and the earliest sense seems to be
ticklish or unsteady; as in: ‘here is a coysy werd’ (world); and
‘the werlde is ryght qgwesye ;’ Paston Letters, i. 497, iii. 4. This
points to a F. origin; cf. OF. coissié, coisié, wounded, injured
(Godefroy). γ. Perhaps this is allied to MF, cwissant, ‘smarting,
itching,’ and to F. cuire, ‘to seeth, boyle, bake, itch, smart,’ Cot.
Cf. Ital. cocere, cuocere, ‘to concoct, boyl, burn, grieve, molest;’
Torriano. From L. coguere, to cook. Der. gueasi-ness, 2 Hen. IV,
1 1. 196.
QUEEN, a woman, a female sovereign. (E.) ME. queen, queene ;
P. Plowman, C. ix. 46. AS. cwén (common).+Icel. kuin, a wife;
Goth. kwéns, kweins, a woman, wife. Teut. type *hwéniz, f.; from
the 3rd grade of Teut. base *kwen-, as seen in *kwen-dn-, a woman ;
for which see Quean. Idg. type *g(w)éni-; whence also Skt.
-jani- (in compounds), wife. Der. queen-ly, queen-mother. Allied to
uean,
"QUEER, strange, odd. (O. LowG.) ‘A queer fellow;’ Spectator,
no. 474, 8.2. Much earlier, in Dunbar’s Flyting: ‘ our awin gueir
clerk ;’ 1. 218. A cant word; and prob. introduced rather from
Low than High German. —Low G. queer, across ; guere, obliquity.
In Awdeley’s Fraternity of Vagabonds, ed. Furnivall, p. 4, ‘a quire
fellow’ is one who has just come out of prison; cf. the slang phrase
“to be in gueer street ;’ and Low G., in der quere liggen, to lie across,
lie queerly.+G. quer, transverse; querkopf, a queer fellow. The
OHG, form is twer, transverse; cf. Dan. ‘ver, cross-grained, sullen,
perverse (Larsen), Swed. ¢vdr, cross, rude; Icel. Averr, whence E.
thwart. See Thwart. Der. queer-ly, queer-ness.
QUELL, to crush, subdue, allay. (E.) ME. quellen, to kill;
Chaucer, C. T. 12788 (C 854). AS. ewellan, to kill, Grein, i. 174.
OSax. quellian, to torment, causal of guelan, to suffer martyrdom ;
Du. kwellen, to plague, vex; Icel. kvelja, to torment ; Swed. συᾶϊ)α,
to torment; Dan. kvele, to strangle, choke; to plague, torment.
B. Teut. type *Awaljan-, causal form, ‘to make to die;’ from *kwal,
2nd stem of *kwel-an-, to die. Allied to Lith. gel-ti, to pain; gel-a,
ain. From Idg. root *g(w)el ; Brugmann, i. ὃ 656. See Qualm.
QUENCH, to extinguish, check, put out. (E.) ME. quenchen,
Wyelif, Matt, iii, 12. (Quench is formed from an obsolete verb
quink, to be put out, to be extinguished ; just as drench is from drink.)
AS. cwencan, in the comp. dewencan, to extinguish utterly, Mark,
ix. 44. Causal of AS. cwincan; the pt. τ. @-cwanc (=was extin-
guished) occurs in a various reading in /Elfred, tr. of Beda, b. ii.
c. 7, ed. Whelock. B. Further, the verb cwincan is an extension
of a shorter form cwinan, to be extinguished (which is a strong verb,
with pt. τ. cwan, pp. cwinen); hence ‘Set fyr dcwinen wees and
adweesced ’=the fire was put out and extinguished; Beda, ii. 7 (as
above). Cf. OFries. kwinka, to be extinguished. Der. quench-able,
-less.
QUERIMONIOUS, fretful, discontented. (L.) ‘Most queri-
moniously confessing ;’ Denham, A Dialogue, 1. 2. Formed with
suffix -ous (=F. -eux, L, -dsus) from guerimonia, a complaint.—L,
queri, to complain; with Idg. suffixes -mdn-ya. See Querulous.
Der, querimonious-ly, -ness.
QUERN, a handmill for grinding grain. (E.) ME. querne,
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 14080 (B 3264). AS. cweorn, cwyrn, Matt. xxiv. 41.
Ἔα. kweern; Icel. kvern; Dan. kvern; Swed. gvarn; Goth.
kwairnus. Teut. base *kwer-n-, from Idg. root *g(w)er, to grind (?) ;
whence also Lith. gerna,a stone in a handmill ; Russ, jernov(e), a mill-
stone, Irish bro, W. brevan, a mill-stone; Skt. gravan-, a stone.
Brugmann, i. § 670.
QUERULOUS, fretful. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1658. Englished
from Late L. queruldsus or Τ,. querulus, full of complaints. =L. gueri,
to complain. The pt. t. guestus sum points to an older form *guesi.
+Skt. ¢vas, to pant, to hiss, to sigh. —4/K WES, to wheeze; whence
also E. Wheeze, q.v. Der. guerulous-ly, -ness. And see quarrel (1),
querimonious, cry.
QUERY, an inquiry, question. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706.
Formerly guere, as used by Warner, Albion’s England, b. vi. c. 30,
1. 238; Ben Jonson, New Inn, A. ii. sc. 2. Put for quere, seek thou,
inquire thou, 2 p. imp. of L. gu@rere, to seek. B. Querere is for
*quaesere (=*quai-sere); cf. L. queso, I beg. Brugmann, ii. ὃ 662.
Der. query, verb ; quer-ist ; also quest, q.v., guest-ion, quest-or. Also
(from querere), ac-quire, con-quer, dis-quis-it-ion, ex-quis-ite, in-quire,
in-quis-it-ive, per-quis-ile, re-quest, re-quire, re-quis-ite,
QUEST, a search. (F.—L.) In Levins. ME, queste, P. Plow-
man, B, xx. 161. - OF. queste, ‘a quest, inquirie, search ;” Cot. F.
quéte.—Folk-L. questa; for L. guesita, a thing sought; fem. of
quaesitus, pp. of querere, to seek; see Query.
QUILL
QUESTION, an inquiry. (F.—L.) ME. questioun, Wyclif,
John, ili, 25.—F. question. = L. questionem, acc. of questio, a seeking,
a question ; formed with suffix -/io from gua@s-, base of *gues-ere, old
form of gu@rere, to seek; see Query. Der. question, verb, Hamlet,
iil, 2. 244; question-able, id. i. 4. 43; question-abl-y, question-able-ness ;
question-less, Merch, Ven. i. 1. 176; guestion-tst (Levins), Also questor
(Levins), from L. guestor ; questor-ship (id.).
QUEUE, a twist of hair formerly worn at the back of the head.
(F.-L.) In late use. Added by Todd to Johnson.—F. guene, ‘a
taile;’ Cot. —L. cauda, a tail. See Cue.
QUIBBLE, an evasion, shift. (L.) ‘This is some trick; come,
leave your guiblins, Dorothy ;’ Ben Jonson, Alchemist, iv. 4 (Face,
to Dol). A dimin. of guib, with suffix -/e. ‘ Quib,a taunt or mock,’
Coles (Halliwell) ; but the word is not in ed. 1684 of Coles’ Dict.
Perhaps guzb is a weakened form of quip or quippy. See Quip.
B. The peculiar sense of evasion is prob. due to association with
quiddity and quillet; see those words. Der. quibble, verb ; quibbl-er.
QUICK, living, moying, lively. (E.) ME. quik, Chaucer, C.T.
1017 (A 1015). AS. cwic, sometimes cuc, Grein, i. 1753; also cwicu,
cucu. Du, kwik ; Icel. kuikr, kykr; Dan. kvik ; Swed. quick ; Prov. G.
queck, quick, quick, lively (Flugel). B. All from a Tent. type
*kwikwoz, lively, which took the place of an older form *kwiwoz ;
this older type occurs in Goth. kwivs, living, cognate with L. uinus,
Lith. gywas, Russ. jivot, alive, living ; Irish beo, W. byw, alive; Idg.
type *g(w)iwos, Further allied to Skt. iv, to live, L. uiuere, and
Gk. Bios, life. See Vivid, Brugmann, i. §§ 85, 318, 677. Der.
quick, sb., quick-ly, quick-ness; quick-lime; quick-sand, 3 Hen. VI,
v. 4. 20; guick-silver, Chaucer, C. T. 16240 (G 772), AS. cwic-
seolfor ; quick-set, i.e, set or planted alive ; guick-sighted. And see
quick-en. 4 The prov. Ε, quitch-grass=quick-grass; it is also
spelt couch-grass, where couch is due to the occasional AS. ctcu.
QUICKEN, to make alive. (E.) ME. quikenen, quiknen,
Wyclif, John, vi. 64; Chaucer, C. T. 15949 (G 481). The true form
is guik-nen, and the suffix -rex =Goth. -nan, which was used only to
form intransitive verbs ; so that the true sense of guiknen is rather ‘to
become alive,’ as in King Lear, iii. 7. 39. But this distinction was
early lost, and the suffixes -ien, -uen were used as convertible. The
Goth. keeps them distinct, having gakwiu-jan, to make alive, gakwiu-
nan, to become alive. From AS. cwic, alive; see Quick. Cf. Icel.
kvikna, Swed. gvickna, intr., to quicken, come to life.
QUID, a mouthful of tobacco. (E.) A dialectal variant of cud;
© Quid, the cud’ (Halliwell) ; AS. cwidu, It occurs in Bailey’s Dict.,
vol. ii. ed, 1731; and see E.D.D. See Cud.
QUIDDITY, a trifling, nicety, cavil. (L.) A term of the
schools. ‘ Their predicamentes, . . guidities, hecseities, and relatives!’
Tyndal, Works, p. 104, col. 1, 1. 8 (and in Spec. of Eng., ed. Skeat,
p- 176, 1. 318). Englished from Late L. guidditas, the essence or
nature of a thing, concerning which we have to investigate ‘ what it
is’ (quid est).—L. guid, what, neuter of guis, who ; see Who.
QUIDNUNG, an inquisitive person. (L.) Applied to one
who is always saying—‘ what’s the news?” ‘ The laughers call me
a quidnunc ;’ The Tatler, no. 10, ὃ 2.—L. quid nunc, what now?
QUIESCENT, still, at rest. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
—L. quiescent-, stem of pres, part. of guiescere, to be at rest, See
Quiet. Der. quiescence.
QUIET, still, at rest, tranquil. (L.) ‘A quyet and a pesible
lijf;’ Wyclif, 1 Tim.ii. 2; where the Vulgate has guiétam. [Rather
from L, than from F.; the F. form is Coy, q.v.]=—L. quétus, quiet;
orig. pp. of *guiére, only used in the inceptive form quiescere, to rest.
Cf, quié-s, rest. β. Allied to OPers. shiyati-, a place of delight,
home; Pers. shad, pleased; and to KE. While. Brugmann, i. §§
130, 675; Horn, ὃ 767. Der. quiet, sb., ME. qguiete, Chaucer, C. T.
9269 (E 1395) ; quiet, verb, 1 Hen. VI, iv. 1, 115 ; quiet-ly, quiet-ness ;
quiet-ude, from Late L, quietiido (White), a contraction for *guiétitido.
Also guiet-us, a final settlement, from L. guiétus, adj.; gquiet-ism,
quiet-ist, From L, quiescere we also have ac-quiesce; and sce re-
quiem, quit, quite, re-quite, ac-quit, dis-quiet. Doublet, coy.
QUILL (1), a feather of a bird, a pen. (E.) ME. quille, quylle.
‘ They take a guil’ (tube?) ; Lydgate, Troy-book, fol, E 2, col. 2.
‘ Quylle, a stalke, Calamus;’ Prompt. Parv. Halliwell gives: ¢ Quill,
the stalk of a cane or reed, the faucet of a barrel.’ This is a
difficult and doubtful word ; probably the sense of ‘ hollow stalk’ was
the original one. The word appears to be E., and of Teut. origin.
+Low G., hiil, a goose-quill (Berghaus); kil (Schambach) ; West-
phalian kwiele (Woeste) ; G. Aiel, Bavarian and MHG, 2il,
QUILL (2), to pleat a ruff. (F.—L.; or E.) ‘What they called
his cravat, was a little piece of white linen guwilled with great exact-
ness;’ Tatler, no. 257, Nov. 30, 1710. 1. Supposed to be so
called from being folded as if over quills; or, to form into small
folds resembling quills. See Quill (1). 2. Wedgwood quotes
from Métivier the Guernsey word enguiller, to pleat, gather, wrinkle,
QUILLET
which Meétivier derives from OF. cuillir, to gather, collect, cull;
whence also E. Cull, q.v. I do not know which is right. € The
phrase in the quill, in Shaks. 2 Hen. VI. i. 3. 4, certainly means ‘in
the collection’ or ‘in a body ;’ where quill (variant of coil) is from
OF, cuillir, L. colligere, to collect, to cull.
QUILLET, a sly trick in argument. (L.) ‘ His quiddities, his
quillets;’ Hamlet, v. 1. 108. There is also a form quiddit; the
N.E.D. cites from Greene (in Harl. Misc. ii. 232), ‘such quibs
and quiddits.’ Prob, quillet is for quiddit, shortened from quiddity ;
see Quiddity. Note that, in Torriano (1688) we find Ital. quidita,
quidditt, ‘the quiddity, the whatness, or substance of any thing ;’
and, just below, quilité, guillitd, ‘a quillity ;’ which seems to prove
the change from d to J.
QUILT, a bed-cover, a case filled with wool, flock, down, &c.
(F.—L.) ME. quilte, quylte. ‘Unum quylt, York Wills, iii. 3
(1395). A. Neckam has L, culcitra, glossed by AF, quilte ; Wright's
Vocab. i. 100. ‘ Quylte of a bedde, Culcitra ;’ Prompt. Parv. = OF.
cuilte (12th cent., Littré, 5. v. couette), also spelt cotre (Burguy), and
coutre, as in coutrepomncter, to quilt (Cotgrave).—L. culcita (also
culcitra, giving OF. cotre), a cushion, mattress, pillow, quilt. Root
uncertain. Der. quilt, verb. And see Counterpane (1).
QUINARY, consisting of or arranged in fives. (L.) The L.
form guindrius, as a sb., is in Phillips, ed. 1706; quinary is in
Cudworth’s Intellectual System, p. 625 (R.). —L. quinarius, arranged
by fives. = L. guini, pl. adj., five each. For *quinc-ni, where guinc =
quingue, five, which is cognate with E. Five, q.v. See Quin-
quagesima.
QUINCE, a fruit with an acid taste. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Romeo,
iv. 4.2. Spelt quince, wince, Pistill of Susan, 102 ; quence in Prompt.
Parv. [Cf. MF. cotgnasse, ‘a female quince, or pear-quince, the
greatest kind of quince ;᾿ Cot.; coignacier, ‘ the great, or pear, quince-
tree;’ id.} For quins; orig. the pl. of quin or quyne, a quince; but
the usual ME. form is coine, or coin; Rom. of the Rose, 1374. Cf.
quyns-tre, Voc. 573. 48; quoyn-ire, id. 646. 35. Walter de Bibbes-
worth has AF. coigner, glossed by coyn-tre, quince-tre; Wright's
Vocab. 1. 163. ‘ Quyne-aple tre, coingz;’ Du Wes, in Palsgrave,
P- 914; qQuynce, p. 260.—OF. coin, mod. F. coimg, a quince. [Cf. Prov.
codoing, Ital. cotogna (Littré).]—L. *cotdnium, for *cydonium ; (the
Ital. cofogna representing L. cyddnia, a quince).—Gk. κυδωνία, a
quince-tree; κυδώνιον μῆλον, a quince, lit. a Cydonian apple. —Gk.
Κυδωνία, Kvdwvis, Cydonia, one of the chief cities of Crete, named
from the Κύδωνες (Cydones), a Cretan race. See Smith’s Classical
Dict.
QUINCUNX, an arrangement by fives. (L.) Applied to trees,
&c., arranged like the five spots on the side of a die marked 5. See
Sir T. Browne, Garden of Cyrus, c. 5. §12.—L. guincunx, an arrange-
ment like five spots on a die. L. quinc-, for quingue, five, cognate
with Ἐς Five; and uxcia, an ounce, hence a small mark, spot on a
die; see Ounce (1).
QUININE, extract of Peruvian bark. (F.—Span.—Peruvian.)
Ab. 1820. Borrowed from F. quinine, an extension (with suffix
-ine<L. -ina) from Εν, quina.—Span. quina, quinaquina, a Span.
spelling of Peruvian kina, or kina-kina, which is said to mean ‘ bark,’
and is applied to that which we call Peruvian bark. Granada, in his
Vocab. Rioplatense, gives quina,a thorny shrub, good against fever ;
and quinaquina, a large tree with medicinal bark.
QUINQUAGESIMA, the next Sunday before Lent. (L.) So
called because about 50 days before Easter. = L. quinquagésima (diés),
fiftieth day ; fem. of guinquagésimus, fiftieth. — L. quingua-, for quinque,
five ; and -gésimus, for *-gensimus, tenth, ultimately from decem, ten.
See Five and Ten.
QUINQUANGULAR, having five angles. (L.) Formed
from quingue, five, just as guadrangular is from quadrus, fourfold.
See Quadrangular.
QUINQUENNIAL, lasting five years, recurring in five
years. (L.) Formed from quingue, five, and annus, a year; see
Biennial.
QUINSY, inflammatory sore throat. (F.—Gk.) ‘ The throtling
quinsey;’ Dryden, Palamon, 1682. A contraction of the older form
squinacy OF squinancy, spelt squinancie in Minsheu, ed. 1627. Sir T.
Elyot has ‘sguynances, or quinces in the throte ;’ Castel of Helth, bk.
jill. c. 7. ME. squynacy, squynancy, Trevisa, iii. 335. —OF. quinancie
(Supp. to Godefroy, 5. ν. esquinance); also sguinancie; mod. F.
esquinancie, Cot. gives esquinance, ‘ the squincy or squinancy,’ and
squinance, ‘ the squinancy or squinzie.’ B. Formed (sometimes with
prefixed s- or es-, for OF. es-, L. ex, very) from Gk. κυνάγχη, lit. ‘a
dog-throttling,’ applied to a bad kind of sore throat.—Gk, κυν-,
stem of κύων, a dog, cognate with E. Hound; and ayx-ev, to
choke, throttle, from ANGH, to choke; see Anger.
QUINTAIN, a post with arms, set up for beginners in tilting to
run at. (F.—L.) In As You Like It, i. 2. 263. ‘ When, if neede
QUIT 493
were, they could at guinfain run ;’ Sidney, Arcadia, b. i (song, 1. 56).
ME, quaintan (for quintan), Destr. of Troy, 1627. -- Ἐς quintaine, ‘a
quintane, or whintane, for country youths to run at;’ Cot. Cf.
Prov. guintana, Ital. quintana (Littré). From Late L. quinténa,
a quintain, Matt. Paris, v. 367; also guintana, a quintain, also a
certain measure of land, also a part of a street where carriages could
pass (Ducange). B. The form of the word is so explicit that we
may connect it with L. guintina, a street in the camp, which inter-
sected the tents of the two legions in such a way as to separate the
fifth maniple from the sixth, and the fifth turma from the sixth ; here
was the market and business-place of the camp (White). We can
hardly doubt that this public place in the camp was sometimes the
scene of athletic exercises and trials of skill, whence it is an easy
step to the restriction of the term to one particular kind of exhibition
of martial activity. And quintana is the fem. of quintainus, formed
with suffix -@aus from quintus, fifth, which is for *guinc-tus, from
quinque, five. See Five. Picard quintaine; described by Corblet.
UINTAL, a hundredweight. (F.— Span. — Arab. — L.)
‘Twelve pence upon euerie guintall of copper;’ Hakluyt’s Voyages,
i. 137, 1. 18; also kinéal, id. ii. (part 2). 162. Spelt quyntall, Pals-
grave.—F. guintal, ‘a quintal or hundred-weight ;’ Cot.—Span.
quintal, a quintal, hundred-weight.—Arab. gintar, a weight of 100
pounds of twelve ounces each; Rich. Dict. pp. 1150, 737.—L.
centum, a hundred; see Cent, And see Kilderkin.
QUINTESSENCE, the pure essence of anything. (F.—L.)
‘Aristoteles.. hath put down... for elements, foure; and for a
fifth, quintessence, the heavenly body which is immutable ;’ Holland,
tr. of Plutarch, p. 662 (R.). Palsgrave has guyntessence. Misspelt
quyntencense, Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 51. And see The Book of
Quinte Essence or the Fifth Being, about a.p. 1460, ed. Furnivall,
1866 (E. E. T.S.).—F. quintessence, ‘a quintessence, the vertue, force,
or spirit of a thing extracted ;’ Cot.—L. quinta essentia, fifth essence
or nature. =, quinta, fem. of quintus (for *quinc-tus), from quinque,
five; see Five. And see Essence. 4 The idea is older than
Aristotle; cf. the five Skt. bhiitam’s, or elements, which were earth,
air, fire, water, and wether. Thus the fifth essence is xther, the
most subtle and highest; see Benfey, Skt. Dict., p. 658, col. 1.
QUINTILLION, the fifth power of a million. (L.) Coined
from L. guint-us, fifth ; and -illion, part of the word million; see
Quadrillion, Billion.
QUINTUPLE, fivefold. (F.—L.) In Sir T. Browne, Cyrus’
Garden, c. 5. § 3.— Ἐς quintuple, in use in the 15th cent. (Hatzfeld), -
— L. *quintuplus, a coined word; formed from quintus, fifth, just as
duplus is from duo, two. See Quintessence and Double. Der.
quintuple, verb.
QUIP, 2 taunt, cavil. (L.) ‘This was a good quip that he gave
unto the Jewes;’ Latimer, Sermon on Rom. xiii. an. 1552 (R.).
Sir T. More has: ‘this goodly guyppe agaynste me ;’ Works, p. 709.
We also find guppy, as in Drant’s tr. of Horace, bk. ii. sat. 1. --
L. quippe, forsooth (used ironically). For *quid-te; Brugmann,
i. § 585. Der. quibb-le, q.v.
QUIRE (1), a collection of so many sheets of paper, often 24.
(F.-L.) Also quair, as in The Kingis Quair, i.e. small book.
Spelt guayer, Trevisa, tr. of Higden, ii. 193. In the Ancren Riwle,
p- 248, last line but 1, we find the curious form cwaer, in the sense of
a small book or pamphlet.—AF. quaer, as a gloss to qguaternus; A.
Neckam, in Wright’s Vocab. i. 116, 1. 6; OF. quaier (13th cent.,
Littré) ; spelt guayer, cayer, in Cotgrave, who explains it ‘a quire of
written paper, a peece of a written booke.’? Mod. F. cahier.=— Late
L. quaternum, a collection of four leaves, a small quire; from L.
quaterni, nom. pl., four each, which from guatuor, four, cognate with
E. Four. Cf. Ital. guaderno, a quire of paper ; and the instance of
F. enfer from L. infernum shows that the suffix -zwm would easily be
lost.
QUIRES (2), a band of singers. (F.—L.—Gk.) Another spelling
of Choir, q.v. Der. guir-ister (for chorister) ; Nares.
QUIRK, a cavil, subtle question. (Scand.—G.) In Minsheu,
ed. 1627. The orig. sense seems to have been ‘ angle ;’ cf. prov. E.
quirk, a twist, a clock in a stocking, a quibble. ‘ The quiddities and
queerks of logique darke;’ Drant, tr. of Horace, Sat. i. 5. Being
found in many dialects, it may be a Scand. word. β. Prob. from
Icel. kverk, the angle below the chin, the inner angle of an ax
(Vigfusson); Molbech gives Dan. guerk (kverk) as an angle in
a knee-timber of a ship (cf. E. quirk, an angle or groove in a
moulding); see N.E.D. and E.D.D.; Jutland kverke, the angle
between two rows of houses (Feilberg), Not of Scand. origin; but
borrowed from G. quer, transverse ; see Queer. Cf. MHG. twerh,
G. zwerch, going across; AS. AJwearh ; see Thwart. Distinct from
Icel. Averkr, pl., the throat.
QUIT, freed, released, discharged from. (F.—L.) In the phr. ‘ to
be quit,’ the word is really an adj., though with the force of a pp.
491 QUITE
The verb ἐο quit is derived from it, not vice versd; as is easily seen
by comparing the F. quitter (OF. quiter) with F. quitte (OF. quite).
In the phrases ‘guit rent” and ‘guit claim,’ the old adjectival use is
retained, and the latter represents an OF’. verb quite-clamer. More-
oyer, the adj. was introduced into E. before the verb, appearing as
cwite in the Ancren Riwle, p. 6,1. 12. Cf.‘ Tho was Wyllam our
kyng all guyt of thulke fon,’ i.e. all free of those foes ; Rob. of Glouc.
Ρ. 392, 1. 8062. [Hence was derived the verb quyten, to satisfy a
claim, pay for. ‘He mai quiten hire ale’=he will pay for her ale,
Old Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 190, 1. 77; and see Chaucer,
C. T. 772 (A. 770).]—OF. quite, ‘ discharged, quit, freed, released ;’
Cot. Mod. F. quitte; Span. quito, quit.—Late L. quitus, quittus,
popular forms of L. quiétus, at rest, hence free, satisfied. Thus quit
is a shorter form of quiet. See Quiet. Der. quit, verb, from OF.
quiter, ‘to quit,’ Cot. (mod. F. quitter). And hence quitt-ance, ME.
quitaunce, spelt cwitaunce in Ancren Riwle, p. 126, 1. 7, from OF.
quitance, ‘an acquittance,’ Cot.; cf. Late L. quiétantia. And see
uite.
QUITE, entirely. (F.—L.) ME. quite, quyte. ‘And chaced
him out of Norweie guyte and clene;’ Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Lang-
toft, p. 50. This is merely an adverbial use of the ME. adj. quyte,
now spelt quit. Thus the sense is ‘ freely,’ hence ‘entirely.’ See
Quit.
QUIVER (1), to tremble, shiver. (E.) Possibly allied to quaver,
q.v- Itdoes not appear very early, yet is probably old. ‘A quiv’r-
ing dart ;’ Spenser, F.Q. iii. 5. 19. “1 quyver, I shake ;” Palsgrave.
‘Dido quyuered and shoke;’ Caxton, Eneydos, ch. 27, p. 103.
Allied to the obsolete adj. quiver, full of motion, brisk, Shak. 2 Hen.
IV, iii. 2. 301; which occurs, spelt cwiner (=cwiver) in the Ancren
Riwle, p. 140, 1. 21; also as AS. cwifer, as in the adv. cwiferlice,
anxiously, eagerly ; Rule of St. Benet, ed. Schréer, p. 133, 1. 38.
Prob. of imitative origin; cf. guaver and quake. Cf. also EFries.
kwifer, lively, kwifern, to be lively (Koolman); MDu. kuyven, kuyveren,
to quiver (Kilian).
QUIVER (2), a case for arrows. (F.—OHG.) ‘ Thair arwes in
a quiuer sente;’ E. E. Metr. Psalter, x. 3. ‘ Quyver, Pharetra ;’
Prompt. Parv. OF. cuivre, cuevre, coivre, a quiver. And see Diez,
s. V. couire,— OSax, cokar,a quiver; OHG. kohhar (cited by Diez),
mod. G. kocher, a quiver. Cognate with AS. cocur, cocer, a quiver,
Gen. xxvii. 3. Teut. type*kukuro-, whence Med. L. cucurum, a quiver.
Der. quiver-ed.
QUIXOTIC, absurdly chivalrous. (Spanish.) Formed as adj.,
with suffix -ic, from the name Don Quixote, or Quijote, the hero of
the famous novel by Cervantes. (The OSpan. x is now commonly
written as ἡ; the sound of the letter is guttural, something like that
of G. ch.)
QUIZ, an eccentric person; one who ridicules oddities; a hoax.
(E.) History obscure; said to have been coined by one Daly in
1791; yet already in 1782 Madame D’Arblay, Early Diary, p. 24,
has: ‘He’s a droll quiz.’ The toy also called a bandalore was
known as a quiz in 1790; which suggests a connexion with whiz.
It seems, in any case, to have been a coined word. Perhaps sug-
gested by in-quis-itive. See Davies, Supp. Glossary ; Notes on E.
Etym., p. 238.
QUOIF, a cap or hood. (F.—-MHG.—L.) In Shak. Wint. Tale,
iv. 4. 226. The same word as Coif, q.v.
QUOI, a technical term, orig. a wedge. Used in architecture,
gunnery, and printing. (F.—L.) The orig. sense is ‘ wedge ;’ and,
as a verb, ‘to wedge up.” ‘ A printers guoyn, Cuneus ;’ Levins, 215.
17. Merely another spelling of Coin, q.v. <A like change of ¢ to
qu occurs in quoit. Der, quoin, verb.
QUOIT, COIT, a ring of iron for throwing at a mark in sport.
(F.—L.?) The older spelling is coit. ‘ Coy/e, Petreluda ; Coyter, or
caster of a coyte, Petreludus ;’ Prompt. Parv. ‘ Casting of coitis,’ Pecock’s
Repressor (A.D. 1449) ; in Spec. of Eng., ed. Skeat, p.51, 1.70. AF.
coytes, pl. (1388); N.E.D. β. We find W. coetan, a quoit (where
W.oe=E. οἱ nearly) ; but this is borrowed from E., having no radical,
and therefore does not help us. γ. We also find, on the other
hand, the Lowland Scotch coit, to justle or push about, occurring in
Fordun’s Scotichronicon, ii. 376; much like the OF. coiter. We
there read of a woman who ‘ Gangis coifand in the curt, hornit like
a gait’ [goat]. δ. The spelling coit suggests a F. origin; and
the word is prob. connected with the curious OF. coiter, to press,
to push, to hasten, incite, instigate (Burguy); cognate with mod.
Prov. coucha, couita, coita, to drive before one (Mistral) ; the Span.
coitarse is to hurry oneself, to hasten. If the OF. coiter could have
had the sense ‘ to drive,’ as seems possible, we may look on a quoit as
being a thing driven or whirled; but of this we have no evidence.
Coit, to push along the ice, as in the game of curling (Jamiescn),
may have been the older sense in English, which may help. ε. The
origin of OF. cotter is very doubtful; hardly from L. coactare, to
RABBIT
force, from coactus, pp. of cdgere; see Cogent. It ought rather to
represent a Late L. type *coctaire, a frequentative of L. coquere, to
cook, which in late authors also meant to harass or vex the mind
(Lewis). See Korting, § 2297. Der. quot, verb, 2 Hen. IV, ii.
. 266.
QUORUM, a number of members of any body sufficient to trans-
act business. (L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627. ‘Be of the quorum;’
Stat. of Hen. VII, fol. b5, 1.6. It was usual to enumerate the mem-
bers forming a committee, of whom (in L., quorum) a certain number
must be present at a meeting. L. gudrum is the gen. pl. of qui, cog-
nate with E. who; see Who.
QUOTA, a part or share assigned to each member of a company.
(L.) Used by Addison; Spectator, No. 439, § 2.—L. quota (pars),
how great (a part), how much; fem. of guotus, how many. =L. quot,
how many; allied to gui, cognate with E. Who. Cf. Ital. quota, a
share (Baretti). Der. (from L. quotus) quote, q.v., quoti-dian ; (from
L. quot) quot-ient.
QUOTE, to cite, repeat the words of any one. (F.—L.) In
Shak. Hamlet, ii. 1. 112. Sometimes written cofe (Schmidt).—MF.
quoter, ‘to quote;’ Cot. Mod. F. cofer, which is also in Cotgrave.
-Late L. quotare, to mark off into chapters and verses; thus the
real sense of quote is to give a reference; see coted, Trevisa, tr. of
Higden, viii. 205 (L. quotavit). The lit. sense of quotare is ‘ to say
how many,’ with reference to the numbering of chapters. —L. quota
(pars), fem. of guotus, how much, how many; see Quota. 4 Some-
times from L, guotare, immediately ; esp. in early instances. Der.
quot-able, quot-er, quot-at-ion.
QUOTH, he says, he said. (E.) Properly a pt. t., though some-
times used as a present. The form of the infin. is gueath, only used
in the comp. bequeath. ME. quoth, quod; Chaucer, C. T. 790 (A 788);
and common in both forms. AS. ctvedan, to speak, say; pt.t. cwed,
pl. cwédon; pp. cweden; Grein, i. 173.4+Icel. Aveda; pt. τ. kvad, pp.
kvedinn; OSax. quedan; OHG. quedan, pt. t. quat, quad; Goth.
kwithan, to say, pt. t. kwath. B. All from a Teut. type *hwethan-,
to say, pt. t. *Awath. Allied to Skt. gad, to speak, gada-s, m. speech.
Der. quotha, for quoth he.
QUOTIDIAN, daily. (F.—L.) ME. quotidian, spelt cotidian,
Gower, C. A. li. 142; bk. v. 464.— OF. cotidian (13th cent., Littré) ;
later guotidien, ‘ daily ;’ Cot.<L. quotidianus, daily.—L. quoti-, for
quotus, how many; and di-és, a day; with suffix -auus. Hence
quotidianus = on however many a day, on any day, daily. See Quota
and Diurnal.
QUOTIENT, the result in arithmetical division. (F.—L.; or
L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627. [Perhaps directly from Latin. ]=F.
quotient, ‘the part which, in the division of a thing among many,
fals unto every ones share;’ Cot.—L. *guotient-, the imaginary
stem of L. quotiens, which is really an adv., and indeclinable ; it
means ‘ how many times.’=L. guot, how many; see Quota.
R
RABBET, to cut the edges of boards so that they overlap and
can be joined together. (F.—L.) ME. rabet, sb.; see Prompt.
Parv. ‘Many deep rabbotted incisions ;’ Holland, tr. of Plutarch,
p- go2 (R.). ‘ Rabettyng of bordes, rabetture ;’ Palsgrave. The
Halifax gibbet, in Harrison’s Descr. of England, b. ii. c. 11, ed.
Furnivall, p. 227, is described as having a block of wood ‘ which
dooth ride vp and downe in a slot, rabet, or regall betweene two
peeces of timber.’ Bailey has: ‘ Rabbet, to channel boards;’ and
also ‘Rebate, to channel, to chamfer.’ Apparently from OF.
rabatre, ‘to abate, deduct, diminish,’ Cot.; hence, to thin down;
mod. F. rabatire.—F. re- (L. re-), again, back; and OF. abatre, to
abate. See Abate. B. Confused, as above, with rebate, q.v.
Also, as shown by the spelling rabboted, with F. raboter, ‘to plane,
levell, make or lay even,’ Cot.; from F. rabot, ‘a joyners plane,’ id.
See Rebate.
RABBI, RABBIN, sir, a Jewish title. (L.—Gk.—Heb.) ‘ Rabi,
that is to seye maister;’ Wyclif, John,i.38. Also in the AS. ver-
sion.—L,. rabbi (Vulgate).—Gk. ῥαββί; John, i. 38.—Heb. rabbi,
lit. my master; from rab, great, or as sb. master, and i, my. We
also find Rabboni, John, xx. 16; of similar import. ‘Rabbi was
considered a higher title than Rab; and Rabban higher than Rabbi ;’
Smith, Dict. of the Bible, q. v.— Heb. root rabab, to be great.
Cf. Arab. rabb, being great; or, as sb.,a master; rabbi, my lord ;
Rich. Dict. p. 719. The form rabbin is French. Der. rabbin-ic-al,
rabbin-ist.
RABBIT, a small rodent quadruped. (Walloon—MDu.) ME.
rabet; Prompt. Parv. The older word is cory. It is a dimin. form
RABBLE
only found in Walloon robett (Remacle) ; formed with Εἰ, suffix -et
from MDu. robbe, ‘a rabet;’ Hexham; see also Kilian and De Bo.
Kilian also gives the dimin. form robbeken, Origin unknown; per-
haps cf. Norw. rabba, to snatch, snap up ; rabben, snatching, tearing,
quick (Ross). See Notes on E. Etym., p. 239.
RABBLE, a noisy crowd, mob. (MDu.) Levins has rabil, rable,
rablement. Halliwell has: ‘ rabble, to speak confusedly,’ with an
example of ME. rablen used in the same sense; also: ‘ rabblement,
a crowd, or mob.’ ΜΕ. rabel, a rout, Gawain and the Grene
Knight, 1703,1899. So named from the noise which they make; cf.
MDu. rabbelen, ‘to chatter, trifle, toy;’ Hexham. So also prov. G.
rabbeln, to chatter, prattle; Fliigel. So also Gk. ῥαβάσσειν, to
make a noise; whence ἀρράβαξ, a dancer, a brawler. The suffix -le
gives a frequentative force ; a rabble is ‘ that which keeps on making
a noise.’ And see Rapparee. Der. rabble-ment (with F. suffix),
Jul. Cesar, i. 2. 245.
RABID, mad, furious. (L.) ‘All the rabid flight Of winds
that ruin ships;” Chapman, tr. of Homer, Odyss. b. xii. 1. 418.—
L. rabidus, furious. L. rabere, to rage; see Rage. Der. rabid-ly,
~ness,
RACA, a term of reproach. (Chaldee.) Matt. v. 22. ‘Critics
are agreed in deriving it from the Chaldee réka, with the sense of
worthless ;’ Smith, Dict. of the Bible.
RACCOON, RACOON, a carnivorous animal of N. America.
(N. American Indian.) It occurs in a tr. of Buffon, London, 1792.
The name of the animal in Buffon is raton; but this is only a
Ἐς corruption of the native name, just as racoon is an E.
corruption, Spelt rackoon in Bailey, 1735. ‘ Arathkone, a beast
like a fox ;? in a glossary of Indian words at the end of A Historie
of Travaile into Virginia, by Wm. Strachey ; ab. 1610-12 ; published
by the Hakluyt Society in 1849. ‘A beast they call aroughcun,
much like a badger;” Capt. Smith, Works, ed. Arber, p. 59.
Evelyn speaks of ‘the Egyptian racoon;’ Diary, May 18, 1657.
From the old Virginian dialect of Algonquin. The F. raton is
assimilated to F. rafon, a rat.
RACE (1), a trial of speed, swift course, swift current. (E.)
ME. ras, a Northern form. ‘Ina ras;’ Met. Homilies, ed. Small;
p- 141. ‘In a raiss;’ Barbour, Bruce, v. 638. [The corresponding
Southern form is ME, rees, res (with long e), Gower, C. A. i. 335;
bk. 11.167; Tale of Gamelyn, ]. 543 (Wright), or 1. 547 (Six-text) ;
from AS, rés, a rush, swift course ; Luke, viii. 33.]+4Icel. ras, a race,
running. Cf. Icel. rasa, torush headlong; Du. razen (G. rasen), to
tage. β. The form of the Teut. base is *rés-. Cf. Gk. é-pw-7, a
quick motion. Der. race, verb ; race-course, race-horse, rac-er.
RACE (2), a lineage, family, breed. (F.) In Spenser, F. Q. i. 10. 60,
=F. race, ‘arace, linnage, family;’ Cot. Cf. Port. raga, Span. raza,
Ital. razza. Of unknown origin; not from OHG. reiza, a line, stroke,
mark; as suggested by Diez. See Korting (§ 7716), who suggests
rather a L, type *raptia. Der. rac-y, q.v.
RACE (3), ἃ root. (F.—L.) ‘A race of ginger;’ Wint. Tale,
iv. 3. 50; spelt raze, 1 Hen. IV, ii. 1. 27.—OF. rats, raiz, a root
(Burguy) ; cf. Span. raiz, a root. —L. radicem, acc. of rddix,a root ;
see Radix.
RACEME, a cluster. (F.—L.) <A botanical term; borrowed
from F, racéme, a cluster, in botany.—L. racémum, acc. of racémus,
a cluster of grapes. Der. racem-ed. Doublet, raisin,
RACK (1), a grating above a manger for hay, an instrument of
torture; a frame-work, a toothed bar. (MDu.) The word rack is
used in a great many senses, see Rack (2), &c., below; and, in
several of these, the origin is quite different. The word rack is seldom
to be found in early hterature, in any sense. The oldest E. word
etymologically connected with rack (1) is AS. reccan, to stretch.
B. The radical sense of rack isto extend, stretch out ; hence, asa 50.»
that which is extended or straight, a straight bar (cf. G. rack, a rail,
bar; hence, a frame-work, such as the bars in a grating above
a manger, a frame-work used as an instrument of torture, a straight
bar with teeth in which a cog-wheel can work. The ME. forms are
rakke, rekke. ‘A peyre rakkes of yryne;’ E. Eng. Wills, ed. Furni-
vall, p. 56, 1. 27; ‘rakkes and brandernes of erne’ [iron]; id.,p. 57,
1, 27; A.D. 1424; ‘pro i. pari de rakkez,’ in a kitchen inventory,
York Wills, ili. 15; A.D. 1400. ‘A rakke, Preesepe,’ i.e. a rack for
hay; Prompt. Parvy. ‘Rekke and manger’=rack and manger;
Romance of Partenay, ]. 913. —MDu. recke, ‘a perch ora long pole,’
Hexham; Low G. rakk, a rack, frame-work for hanging things on,
a shelf (as in E.). Related words are Icel. rekja, to stretch, trace,
rekkja, to strain, rakr, straight; MDu. recken, ‘to stretch, reach out,
also to racke,’ Hexham; Swed. rak, straight; G. rack, a rack, rail,
prov. (ἃ. reck, a scaffold, wooden horse, reckbank, a rack for torture,
recke, a stretcher, recken, to stretch. See below.
RACK (2), to stretch a person's joints, to torture on the rack.
(MDu.) Allied to Rack (1) above. The verb seems to have been
RACY
introduced before the sb. ‘As though I had ben racked ;’ Skelton,
Phillip Sparowe, 1. 47. ‘Worthi to been enhangid .. Or to be
rakkid ;’ Lydgate, St. Edmund, ed. Horstmann, bk. ii. 277.—MDu.
racken, ‘to rack, to torture,’ variant of recken, ‘to racke,’ also ‘to
stretch, reach out, or to extend,’ Hexham; Low G. rekken, to stretch.
ἜΤΕΙ. rekja, to stretch; Goth. uf-rakjan, to stretch out ; AS. reccan,
to stretch, extend. Teut. type *raf-jan-, from *rak, 2nd grade of
Teut. *rek=Idg. 4/REG, as in Gk. ὀρέγ-ειν, to stretch, L. reg-ere;
see Regent. Brugmann, i. 8 474. | Der. rack, sb.; rack-rent, ice.
a rent stretched to its full value, or nearly so.
RACK (3), light vapoury clouds, the clouds generally. (Scand.)
‘Still in use in the Northern counties, and sometimes there applied
to a mist;’ Halliwell. Used in Shak. of floating vapour; see
Hamlet, ii. 2. 505, Antony, iv. 14.10, Sonnet 33, 1.6. So also (pro-
bably) in the disputed passage in the Tempest, iv. 156; where
Halliwell hesitates, though he gives instances of its use in earlier
English. Thus we find: ‘ As Phebus doeth at mydday in the southe,
Whan every rak and every cloudy sky Is voide clene;’ Lydgate,
MS. Ashmole 39, fol. 51. ‘ The rac dryuez’ =the storm-cloud drives ;
Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 433; a decisive passage. ‘A rac
{driving storm] and a royde wynde ;’ Destruction of Troy, 1984.
“The windes in the vpper region, which move the clouds above
(which we call the racke) and are not perceived below ;’ Bacon,
Nat. Hist. 8 115. [Frequently confused with reek, but this is quite
a different word.] It is the same word with wrack, and allied to
wreck ; but wrack is to be taken in the sense of ‘ drift,’ as rightly ex-
plained in Wedgwood.=—Norw. rak, Swed. dial. rak (Swed. vrak,
Dan. vrag), wreckage, that which is drifted about ; cf. Icel. rek, drift,
motion; given in Vigfusson only in the sense ‘a thing drifted
ashore;’ but Wedgwood cites isrnn er ἢ reki, the ice is driving ;
skyrek, the rack or drifting clouds; cf. ‘racking clouds’ = drifting
clouds, 3 Hen. VI, ii. 1. 27. From Icet. reka, to drive, toss, thrust,
cognate with Swed. uraka, to reject, and E. wreak; see Wreak.
Cf. Swed. skeppet vraker, the ship drifts. Der. rack, for wrack ; as in
the phr. ‘to go to rack and ruin;’ see Wrack.
RACK (4), to pour off liquor from the lees. (Prov.) See Halli-
well. In Minsheu, ed. 1627, who speaks of ‘rack wines, i.e. wines
cleansed and purged.’ ‘The reboyle to rakke to the lies;’ Russell,
Boke of Nurture, 115; in Babees Book, ed. Furniyall, p. 125.
Like some other words connected with the wine-trade, it is of
Gascon origin. —OProv. arracar, Proy. arraca (Gascony), to decant
wine (Mistral). Wedgwood quotes Languedoc araca le bi, to decant
wine. = Proy. raca, mod. raco, draco, lees, husks left after pressing out
wine or oil. Hence also MF. ragué ; Cotgrave explains vin raqué as
“small, or corse wine, squeezed from the dregs of the grapes, already
drained of all their best moisture.’ Of uncertain origin; but initial
d may have been dropped, as in Rankle, q. vy. The mod. Prov. draco
answers to OF. drache, husks of grapes; perhaps of Teut. origin.
Cf. ME. drast, dregs (N. E.D.); and KGrting, § 3100.
RACK (5), a short form of Arrack, q.v. Cf. Span. rague,
arrack.
RACK (6), ἄς. We find (6) prov. E. rack, a neck of mutton;
from AS. hracca, neck, according to Somner; but this is prob. an
error. The AS, ‘hreacca, occiput’ in OE. Texts (see p. 549) seems
to be miswritten for hvecca; still, we find ‘ Occiput, kracca,’ in Voc.
463. 21. Also (7) rack, for reck, to care; see Reck. Also (8)
rack, a pace of a horse (Palsgrave) ; of uncertain origin. Also (9)
rack, a track, cart-rut; cf. Icel. reka, to drive; see Rack (3).
RACKET (1), RAQUET, a bat with network in place of a
wooden blade. (F.—Span.—Arab.) ME. rakket. ‘Sa mony rak-
ketis ;? Dunbar, Poem xiv. 1. 66 (ed. Small).—MF. raguetle, ‘a
racket;’ Cot. [The game of ‘fives,’ with the hands, preceded
rackets; to this day, tennis is called in French pawme = game of the
palm of the hand.]—Span. raguve/a, a racket, battle-dore (Minsheu).
Perhaps from Arab. rafa(t), the palm of the hand; Rich. Dict.
p- 714. See Devic, in Supp. to Littré ; who suggests that the Span.
raqueta may have been confused with Port. rasqueta, the wrist, OF.
rachete, rasquette; which also is prob. of Arab. origin, viz. from
Arab. rusgh, the wrist joint; Rich. Dict. p. 733.
RACKET (2), a noise. (Ε.) ‘ After all this Racket ;’ Spectator,
no. 336, § 3. Of imitative origin; cf. prov. E. raétick, to rattle;
rackle, noisy talk; also rabble. The Gael. racaid, racket, is merely
the E. word borrowed ; but cf. Irish racan, noise, riot; Gael. rac,
to make a noise like geese or ducks ; Rouchi raque, ric-rac, words
imitating noises.
RACOON ; see Raccoon.
RACY, of strong flavour, spirited, rich. (F.—L. (2); with FE.
suffix.) Racy means indicative of its origin, full of the spirit of its
race; and so is a derivative from Race (2); esp. in the sense of
a characteristic flavour or ‘raciness’ of a wine, supposed to be due
to the soil; see N. E. D. ‘ Fraught with brisk racy verses, in which we
495
496 RADDLE
The soil from whence they came taste,
An Answer to a Copy of Verses sent
With respect to a pipe of Canary wine,
right race?’ Massinger, New Way to pay Old Debts, i. 3. το.
ract-ness.
reference to L. radix; but race (2) is not derived from radix, which
appears only in Race (3).
me from Jersey, ll. 7, 8.
Greedy asks ‘Is it of the
Der.
smell, and see;’ Cowley, |
τ Probably sometimes used with some notion of |
RADDLE, red ochre; for marking sheep. (E.) Fitzherbert has |
radel-marke, i.e. mark made with red ochre; Husbandry, § 52.
Allied to red; see Red. And see Ruddle.
RADIAL, RADIANT; see Radius.
RADICAL, RADISH; see Radix.
RADIUS, a ray. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1710. Chiefly used in
mathematics. =L. radius, a ray; see Ray. Der. radi-al, from F.
radial, ‘ of, or belonging to, the upper and bigger bone of the arme,’
Cot., formed with suffix -alis from L. radius, sometimes used to
mean the exterior bone of the fore-arm. Also radi-ant, spelt radyaunt
in Fisher, On the Seven Psalms, Ps. 130, ed. Mayor, p. 231, last line,
from radiant-, stem of pres. part. of L. radidre, to radiate, from
radius; and hence radi-ant-ly, radiance. Also radiate, from 1,.
radidtus, pp. of radiare. Also radiat-ion, in Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 125,
near the end, from F. radiation, ‘a radiant brightness,’ Cot., which
is from L. radiatidnem, acc. of radiatio, a shining, from radtare.
RADIX, a root, a primitive word, base of a system of logarithms.
(L.) L. radix (stem radic-), a root; chiefly used as a scientific
term.4+Gk. ῥάδιξ, a branch, rod. Cognate with E. Root, 4. v.
Der. radic-al, spelt radycall in Sir Τὶ Elyot, Castle of Helth, b. iii.
c. 3, from F. radical, ‘radicall,’ Cot., formed with suffix -al (<L.
-alis) from rdadic-, stem of radix; radic-al-ly, radic-al-ness; also
radic-le, a little root, a dimin, form from the stem radic-. Also
radish, called ‘ radishe rootes’ by Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth,
b. ii. c. 9, from F. radis, ‘a raddish root,’ Cot.; not a true F. word,
but borrowed from Proy. radi/z (Littré), or from Ital. radice (Hatz-
feld), from L. rdadicem, acc. of radix. From L. radix we also have
e-radic-ate and rash (3). Doublets, radish, race (3).
RAFFLE, a kind of lottery. (F.—G.) ME. raffle (a game at
dice), Chaucer, C. T. Pers. Tale, De Avaritia ; Group 1, 1. 793
(Six-text).— MF, raffle (spelt raffle in Cotgrave),‘a game at three
dice, wherein he that throwes all three alike, winnes whatsoever is
set ; also, a rifling ;’ Cot.—F. raffer, ‘ to catch, or seise on violently ;’
Cot. Perhaps from G. raffeln, to snatch up ; frequentative of raffen,
‘to raff, sweep, carry away, carry off hastily,’ Fliigel. Cognate
with Icel. ἄχαρα, to hurry; see Rap (2). Der. raffle, verb.
RAFT, a collection of spars or planks, tied together to serve as
a boat. (Scand.) ME, raft; spelt raffe, and used in the sense of
‘spar’ or ‘rough beam;’ Avowing of Arthur, st. 25, in Robson’s
Met. Rom. p. 69. The orig. sense is ‘ rafter.’—Icel. raptr (pron.
raftr, in which x is merely the sign of the nom. case), a rafter; Dan.
raft, a rafter; see Rafter.
RAFTER, a beam to support a roof. (E.) ME. rafter,
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 992 (A gg0). AS. refter, Elfred, tr. of Beda, b. iii.
c. 16. An extension (with Idg. suffix -ro-) from the base RAFT
appearing in MSwed. raft, Dan. raft, Icel. raptr (raftr), a rafter,
beam. Again, Dan. raft is an extension (with suffix -to-) from the
base RAF related to Icel. raf, refr, a roof, which is cognate with
OHG. rafo, a spar, a rafter. Further allied to Gk. ἐρέφ-ειν, to
cover; ὄροφος, a roof. (4/REBH). Der. rafter, verb. And see
raft. ¢# It does not seem to be allied to roof, which has an
initial 2; AS. ἀγα,
RAG, ashred of cloth. (Scand.) ME. ragge, Gower, C. A.i. 100;
bk. 1. 1723. ‘A ragged colt’ =a shaggy colt, King Alisaunder, 684.
We only find AS. raggie, adj. rough, shaggy; ‘ Setosa, raggie,’
Mone, Quellen, p. 436; as if from a sb. *ragg. = Norw. ragg, rough
hair, whence ragged, shaggy (E. ragged) ; Swed. ragg, rough hair;
raggig, shaggy; Swed. dial. raggi, having rough hair, slovenly ;
Icel. rogg, shagginess; raggadr, shaggy. Thus the orig. sense is
that of shagginess, hence of untidiness) Root unknown. The
resemblance to Gk. faxos, a shred of cloth, is accidental. Der.
ragg-ed, as above, also applied by Gower to a tree, Conf. Amant. ii.
1773 bk. v. 1509; ragg-ed-ly, ragg-ed-ness; rag-stone (a rugged
stone), spelt rags‘on in Riley, Memorials of London, p. 262; rag-
wort, spelt rag-worte in Levins and in a Glossary (in Cockayne’s
Leechdoms) apparently of the 15th century.
RAGE, fury, violent anger. (F.—L.) ME. rage, King Alisaunder,
ed. Weber, g80.—F. rage.— L. rabiem, acc. of rabiés, madness, rage.
—L. rabere, to rave, to be mad. Der. rage, verb, rag-ing, rag-ing-
ly. Also en-rage, rave.
RAGOUT, a dish of meat highly seasoned. (F.—L.) Spelt
ragoo in Phillips and Kersey, to imitate the F. pronunciation.
Butler has ragusts, pl.; Hudibras, pt. ii. c. 1. 598.—F. ragott, a
seasoned dish.—F. ragotiter, to bring back to one’s appetite, with
RAKE
reference to one who has been ill. L. re-, back; F. a<L, ad, to;
and gevit, taste; see Re-, A- (5), and Gout (2).
RAID, a hostile invasion, inroad. (North E.) A Northern border
word; and merely a doublet of the Southern E. road. Cf. ‘ That,
when they heard my name in any road,’ i.e. raid ; Greene, George-a-
Greene, ed. Dyce, vol. ii. p. 169; ed. Collins, A. i. sc. 3. Jamieson
gives the Sc. pl. radis from Wyntown, viii. 34. 34. | North. form of
AS. rad; cf. Icel. reid, a riding, a raid; Dan. red, Swed. redd, a
road. See Road, Ride. Doublet, road.
RAIL (1), a bar of timber, an iron bar for railways. (F.—L.)
ME. rail ; dat. raile, Gower, C. A. iii. 753 bk. vi. 2201. Not found
in AS.—OF, reille, a rail, bar; Norm. dial. raile (Moisy).—L.
regula, a bar; see Rule. Cf. Low G. regel, a rail, a cross-bar ;
Swed. rege/, a bar, bolt; Ὁ. riegel, OHG. rigil, a bar; if these are
from Latin; but Franck (s.v. regel) considers them to be Teutonic,
and therefore distinct. Der. rail, verb, rail-ing, rail-road, rail-way.
RAIL (2), to brawl, to use reviling language. (F.—L.) In Skel-
ton, Poems Against Garnesche ; see Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 130, ll. 119,
137. ‘Rayler, a jestar, raillevr;’ Palsgrave.—F. rarller, ‘to jest,
deride, mock ;’ Cot. [Cf. Span. rallar, to grate, scrape, molest,
vex; Port. ralar, to scrape; apparently from L. rallum, a scraper
(Pliny); for a Lat. type *rad-lum, from radere, to scrape. The
change of sense from scraping to vexing is in accordance with the
usual course of metaphors.] The F. ratller answers toa Late L. type
*yadulare, from L. radula, a scraper (Lewis), formed from radere, to
scrape. See Rase. See Littré and Scheler; and Korting, §§ 7719,
7733. Der. raill-er-y=F. raillerie, ‘jeasting, merriment, a flowt, or
scoff,’ Cot. Also rally (2).
RAIL (3), a genus of wading birds. (F.) Given by Phillips, ed.
1710, as ‘a sort of bird.’ Spelt rayle in Levins, and in the Catholicon
Anglicum; but raale in the Book of St. Alban’s, fol. f7, back.
= OF. raale, raalle (Hatzfeld) ; MF. rasle, ‘ the fowle called a rayle ;’
Cot. Mod. F. rale. Littré notes raale as the 14th cent. spelling ;
also that the Picard form is ref//e, showing that the mod. E. word
agrees rather with the Picard than the Central F. form. β. Pro-
bably the bird was named from its cry; but we can hardly connect
the form raale with the OF. raller, ‘to rattle in the throat,’ Cot.,
mod, F, raler.
RAIL (4), part of a woman’s night-dress. (E.) For hrail.
Obsolete; see Halliwell. ‘ Rayle fora womans necke, crevechie/, en
quartire doubles ;’ Palsgrave. ME. re3el, Owl and Nightingale, 562 ;
see hre}el inStratmann. AS. hregl, hregl, swaddling-clothes, Luke,
ii. 12.4-OFries. hreil, rel, a garment; OHG., hregil, a garment,
dress. Teut. type *hragilom, neut. Root unknown.
RAIMENT, clothing. (F.—L. and Scand. ; with Ἐς suffix.) * With
ruffled rayments ;’ Spenser, F. Q. i. 6. 9. ME. raiment, Plowman’s
Tale, pt. iii. st. 30, 1. 936 (date uncertain). Short for arraiment, of
which the ME. form was araiment, and the initial a easily fell away.
“Rayment, or arayment, Ornatus;’ Prompt. Pary. Cf. MF. arree-
ment, ‘good array, order, equipage ;’ Cot. See Array.
RAIN, water from the clouds. (E.) ME, rein; spelt reyne, P.
Plowman, B. xiv. 66. AS. regn, frequently contracted to réx, Grein,
i. 371.44Du. regen; Icel., Dan., and Swed. regn; G. regen; Goth.
rign, Ββ. All from Teut. types *reg-noz,m., *reg-nom,n. Prob.
not allied to L. rigare, to moisten; nor even to Lith. roke, sb.,
drizzling rain. Der. rain, verb, AS. hregnian, regnian, Matt. v. 45
(Northumb. version); rain-y, AS. rénig, Grein, 1. 3723; rain-bow,
AS. rénboga, Gen. ix. 133 rain-gauge.
RAINDEER, the same as Reindeer, q. v.
RAISE, to lift up, exalt. (Scand.) A Scand. word; the E. form
is rear. ME. reisen, Wyclif, John, xi. 11; spelt rej3senn, Ormulumn,
15599.—Icel. reisa, to raise, make to rise; causal of risa (pt. t. reis),
to rise. So also Dan. reise, Swed. resa, to raise, though these
languages do not employ the verb ‘to rise;’ Goth. ratsjan, causal of
reisan, See Rise. Doublet, rear.
RAISIN, a dried grape. (F.—L.) ME. reisin; spelt reisyn,
Wyclif, Judges, viii. 2 (later version) ; King Alisaunder, 5193. —OF.
raisin, ‘a grape, raisin, bunch, or cluster of grapes;’ Cot. Cf. Span.
racimo, a bunch of grapes. Folk L. ractmum, for L. racémum, acc.
of racémus, a bunch of grapes; see Raceme. Doublet, raceme.
RAJAH, aking, prince. (Skt.) In Sir T. Herbert’s Travels,
p. 53, ed. 1665. Of Skt. origin; from Skt. raja, nom., a king; from
the stem rajan, a king. The Skt. rajan is allied to L. rex; see
Regal. See Yule and Stanford Dict.
RAJPOOT, a prince. (Hind.—Skt.) Hind. rajpis, a prince,
lit. the son of a rajah; Wilson, Gloss. of Indian Terms, p. 434. —Skt.
raj-a, a king; putra-, a son; so that the lit. sense is ‘son of a king.’
See Yule and Stanford Dict.
RAKE (1), an instrument for scraping things together, smoothing
earth, &c. (E.) ΜΕ. rake, Chaucer, C. T. 289 (A 287). AS. raca,
to translate L. rastrum in /Elfric’s Gloss., 1. 9.44Du. rakel, a dimin,
RAKE
form ; Dan. ragé, a poker ; Swed. raka, an oven-rake (with base rak-) ;
allied to Icel. reka, a shovel, (ἃ. rechen, a take (with base rek-).
B. From the notion of collecting or heaping up. The root appears
in Goth. rikan (Teut. type *rekan-, pt. t. rak), to collect, heap up,
Rom. xii, 20. Perhaps allied to L. rog-us, a funeral pile. Der.
rake, verb, from Icel. raka, to rake.
RAKE (2), a wild, gay, dissolute fellow. (E.) ‘A gay, dissipated
rake;’ Sheridan, Duenna, ii. 3. First in 1653. Abbreviated from
rake-hell; which see in Nares. The latter is usually explained to be
a ‘corruption’ of ME. rakel, rash ; but the examples in the N. E. Ὁ.
show that this is unfounded. And in fact rake-hell is really com-
pounded of rake and hell. It arose from the phrase given in Udall,
Apophthegmes of Erasmus, p. 116 b:—*‘Suche a feloe as a manne
should rake helle for. Hence it meant, as it were, the off-scouring
of hell, i.e. one who is very wicked. See Rake (1) and Hell.
Der. rak-ish, rak-ish-ly.
RAK (3), the projection of the extremities of a ship beyond the
keel; the inclination of a mast from the perpendicular. (Scand.) ‘In
sea-language, the rake of a ship is so much of her hull or main body,
as hangs over both the ends of her keel ;’ Phillips, ed. 1710. Evi-
dently from rake, to reach; Halliwell. Of Scand. origin; preserved
in Swed. dial. raka, to reach; raka fram, to reach over, project ; see
raka (3) in Rietz. The Dan. rage, to project, protrude, jut out, is
borrowed from G. ragen, to project; perhaps the Swed. word is the
same.
RAKEHELL, a rascal. (E.) See Rake (2).
RAKY, arrack, spirits. (Turk.— Arab.) See Stanford Dict. Turk.
ragi, arrack. Arab. ‘arag, arrack. See Arrack.
RALLENTANDO, in music, a direction to play slower; gradu-
ally. (Ital.—L.) Ital. rallentando, pres. part. of rallentare, to
slacken, retard. Ital. re-, again ; and allentare, to slacken. = L. re-,
again; ad-, to; and lextare, to prolong, from Jentus, slow. Cf.
relent, q. V-
RALLY (1), to gather together again, reassemble. (F.—L.)
Properly a trans. verb; also used as intransitive. Spelt rallie in Cot-
grave. It stands for re-ally; and Spenser uses re-allie nearly in the
same sense as rally; F. Q. vii. 6. 23. =F. rallier, ‘to rallie τ᾿ Cot. =
L. re-, again; ad, to; and ligare, to bind; see Re- and Ally. Cf.
prov. Ἐς raller, to rally, grow convalescent; dial. de la Meuse
(Labourasse), The form rely in Barbour’s Bruce, iii. 34, &c., is
used in the same sense; and is the same word, with the omission of
L. ad.
RALLY (2), to banter. (F.—Teut.) ‘ Rally, to play and droll
upon, to banter or jeer;’ Phillips,ed. 1710. He also gives : ‘ Rallery,
pleasant drolling.’ Here rallery is another form of raillery, and to
rally is merely another form of ¢o rail, which agrees more closely
with F. railler. See Rail (2).
RAM, a male sheep. (E.) ME. ram, Chaucer, C. T. 550 (A 548).
AS. ram, rom, Grein ; also ramm.4+Du. ram; OHG.ramm. Cf. Icel.
ramr, strong. Der. ram, verb, to butt as a ram, hence to thrust
violently forward, ME. rammen, Prompt. Parv., p. 422. Also ramm-
ish, fetid, Chaucer, C. T. 16355 (G 887). Also ram-rod, ramm-er.
RAMADAN, a great Mohammedan fast. (Arab.) Spelt Rama-
zan, in Sandys, Trav., p. 56; see Stanford Dict. So called because
kept in the ninth month, named Ramadan. = Arab. Ramadan, pron.
Ramazan in Turkish and Persian. As it is in the ninth month of
the lunar year, it may take place in any season; but it is supposed
to have been first held in a hot season. The word implies ‘ con-
suming fire;’ from the Arab. root ramada, it was hot. See Devic
and Richardson.
RAMBLE, to stray, rove, roam. (E.) The frequentative of a
form rame, of which there are no clear traces. ‘ Rame, to gad about,
to sprawl, to spread out too much ;’ Holderness Glossary (E. D.S.);
but this is usually ream or raum. ΤῈ does not occur till after 1600,
though we find ME, romblynge, rambling, as a variant of romynge,
roaming, in P, Plowman, C. vi. 11; cf. Shropsh. romble, to ramble.
Hence it may have arisen as a frequentative of roam.‘ Nor is this
lower world but a huge Inn, And men the rambling passengers ;’
Howell, Poema, prefixed to his Familiar Epistles, and dated Jan. 1,
1641. And the pl. sb. rambles is in Butler, Hudibras, pt. iil. c. 2.
1016 (ed. Bell, vol. ii. p. 161, 1. 34). The ὁ is excrescent ; and
ram-b-le is for ramm-le. ‘Rammle, to ramble;’ Whitby Glossary.
@ Perhaps it has been somewhat influenced by the words ramp and
romp; the metaphorical sense ‘to wander in talk,’ presents no
difficulty. Der. ramble, sb., rambl-er, rambl-ing.
RAMIFY, to divide into branches. (F.—L.) ‘To ramify and
send forth branches; Sir Τὶ Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. ii. c. 5. part 6.
=F. ramifier, ‘to branch, put ont branches;” Cot. Formed as if
from L. *ramificare; from rami-, for ramus, a branch ; and -ficare,
due to facere, tomake. B. Probably ramus =*wrad-mus; allied to
Gk, ῥάδαμνος, a young branch; and to L, radi; Brugmann, i. § 529.
RANCOUR 497
Der. ramijic-at-ion (as if from L. *ramifieare, whence sb. *ramifi-
cd-tio). Also-(from 1). ram-us) ram-ous, ram-ose, ram-e-ous,
RAMP, to leap or bound, properly, to climb, scramble, rear.
(F.—Teut.) ‘ Ramp, to rove, frisk or jump about, to play gambols
or wanton tricks ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706; and in Palsgrave. Not much
used, except in the deriv. rampant. ME. rampen, used by Chaucer
in the sense ‘ to rage, be furious with anger 3’ C. T. 13910 (Ὁ 3094).
Cf. mod. E. romp, which is the same word. Gower uses rampend,
rearing, said of a dragon, in the same way as the F. pp. rampant;
C. A, ii. 743 bk. vi. 2182. Cf. Prick of Conscience, 2225.—F.
ramper, ‘to creep, run, crawl, or traile itself along the ground; also,
to climb;’ Cot. B. From a Teut. source. Cf. Bavarian rampfen,
explained by Schmeller, ii. 96, by the G. raffen, to snatch. Scheler,
following Diez, says that the old sense of F'. ramper was to clamber,
preserved in mod. IF. rampe, a flight of steps; and that it is allied to
Ital. rampa, a claw, grip, rampare, to claw, and rampo, a grappling-
iron. yy. The Ital. rampare (appearing in Prov. in the form rapar)
is, according to Diez, a nasalised form of rappare, only used in the
comp. arrappare, to snatch up, carry off, seize upon; and the base is
Teut. RAP, to be in haste, found in Low ἃ. rappen, to snatch hastily
(Bremen Worterbuch), Dan. rappe, to hasten, make haste, Dan. rap,
quick, Swed. rappa, to snatch, rapp, brisk, G. raffen, to snatch;
see Rape (1). δ. But Korting derives Ital. rampa,a grip, from
Low G. ramp (Liibben), Bavar. rampf, a cramp, seizure; which is
allied to OHG. rampf, and grade of OHG, rimpfan, to cramp. Cf.
Ripple (2), Rimple. Der. ramp-ant, chiefly used of a lion
rampant, as in Skelton, Against the Scottes, 135, from F. rampant,
pres. part. of ramper ; hence rampant-ly, rampanc-y.
RAMPART, a mound surrounding a fortified place. (F.—L.)
We frequently find also rampire, rampier, or ramper. Spelt rampyre,
Tottell’s Miscellany, ed. Arber, p. 172, 1. 18 (Assault of Cupid,
st. 5) ; rampart, Gascoigne, Fruites of Warre,st. 45. Rampire stands
for rampar (without the final ¢).— MF, rempart, rempar, ‘a rampier,
the wall of a fortresse ;’ Cot. Cf. remparer, ‘to fortifie, enclose
with a rampier;’ id. B. The OF, rempar, rampar (Supp. to
Godefroy), is the true form ; in rempart, the ¢ is excrescent. Rempar
corresponds (nearly) to Ital. riparo, a defence, and is a verbal sb.
from remparer, to defend, answering (nearly) to Ital. riparare, to
defend. σγ. F. remparer is ‘to put again into a state of defence ;’
from re-, again, em for en, in, and parer, to defend, borrowed from
Ital. parare, which is from L. pardre, to prepare, make ready. ‘The
Ital. riparare is the same word, with the omission of the preposition.
See Re-, Em-, and Parry.
RAMPION, a species of bellflower, sometimes used for salads.
(F.—L.?) In Tusser’s Husbandrie; § 40. Apparently evolved
from rampions, which was taken to be plural. =F, raiponce, ‘ram-
pions ;’ Cot. The m may have been suggested by the Ital. ram-
ponzoli, pl. (Florio). Kluge, s.v. rapunzel, cites Late L. rapuncium,
which he connects with L. rapa, a turnip. So also in Korting,
§ 7759. Hatzfeld thinks the connexion with rapa unlikely,
RAMSONS, broad-leaved garlic. (E.) For hramsons, “ Allium
ursinum, broad-leaved garlic, ramsons ;᾿ Johns, Flowers of the Field.
Ramsons = rams-en-s, a double pl. form, where -ex represents the old
AS. plural, as in Εἰ, ox-en, and -s is the usual E. plural-ending. We
also find ME, ramsis, ramzys, ramseys, Prompt. Parv. p. 422; and
Way says that Gerarde calls the Allium ursinum by the names ‘ram-~
sies, ramsons, or buckrams,’ Here again, the suffixes -is, -eys, -ies are
pl. endings. AS. hramsan,ramsons; Gloss. to Cockayne, AS. Leech-
doms; a pl. form, from sing. kramsa.-4-OLow G. hramsa, sing. (Gal-
lée) ; Swed. rams-lék (lok=leek), bear-garlic; Dan. rams, or rams-
lig (lg = leek); Bavarian ramsen, ramsel (Schmeller) ; Lithuan.
hermuszé, kermuszis, wild garlic (Nesselmann). Further allied to
Gk. κρόμυον, an onion, Irish creamh, garlic, W. craf; Stokes-Fick,
p. 98; Brugmann, i. § 647. All from an Idg. base *krem- (*krom-).
RANCH, RANCHO, a cattle-breeding farm. (Span.—Teut.)
Ranch is the Anglicised form of Span. rancho, a mess, a set of persons
who eat together; applied in America to the ranchos, or rude huts
for herdsmen to lodge and mess together. Minsheu gives Span.
rancho with the sense of ‘a ranke, an order or place where euery one
is to keep or abide ;’ mod. rancheria, ‘a cottage where labourers
mess,’ Allied to F. rang; see Rank (1). From OHG. hring,
a ring; also (like Span. rancho) a clear space in the midst of a ring
of people. So in Korting, ὃ 8088. See my Notes on E. Etym.,
ΠΤ
PRANCID, sour, having a rank smell. (L.) <A late word; in
Bailey, vol. i. ed. 17353 first found in 1646.—L. rancidus, rancid. =
L. *rancére, to stink ; only used in the pres. part. rancens, stinking.
q This word has probably influenced the sense of the E. adj. rank ;
see Rank (2). Der. rancid-ly, -ness ; also ranc-our, q.v.
RANCOUR, spite, deep-seated enmity. (F.—L.) ME. ran-
cour, Chaucer, C. T. 2786 (A 2784). — OF. rancour, * rankor,
Kk
RANDOM
hatred ;* Cot.—L. rancérem, acc. of rancor, spite, orig. rancidness.
=—L. *rancére, to be rancid; see Rancid. Cf. Norm. dial.
ranceur (Moisy). Der. rancor-ous, rancor-ous-ly.
RANDOM, done or said at hazard, left to chance. (F.—Teut.)
The older form is randon, or randoun; and the older sense is ‘force,’
impetuosity, &c., the word being used as a sb. It was often used
with respect to the rush of a battle- -charge, and the like. ‘ Kyng
and duyk, eorl and baroun Prikid the stedis with gret raundoun ;’
King Alisaunder, 1. 2483. It often formed part of an adverbial
phrase, such as ix a randoun, in a furious course, Barbour’s Bruce, vi.
139, Xvii. 694, xviii. 130; intill a randoun, id. xix. 596; in randoun
richt, with downright force, id. v. 632. So also at randon, orig. with
tushing force, hence, left without guidance, left to its own force,
astray, &c. ‘The gentle lady, loose at randon lefte, The greene-wood
long did walke, and wander wide At wilde adventure, like a forlorne
wefte;’ Spenser, F. Ὁ. iii. 10. 36. [The change from final -7 to -m may
have been due to the influence of whilom, seldom ; so also ransom.) —
OF. randon, ‘the swiftnesse and force of a strong and violent
stream; whence aller a grand randon, to goe very fast, or with a
great and forced pace;’ Cot. Thus the E. ady. at random answers
to F. ἃ randon. B. A difficult word ; Diez compares OF. randir,
to press on, Span. de rendon, de rondon, rashly, intrepidly, abruptly
(nearly like E. at random), OF. randonner, ‘to run swifily, violently,’
Cot., and refers them all to G. rand, an edge, rim, brim, margin.
Hence also Ital. a randa, near, with difficulty, exactly ; of which the
lit. sense is ‘close to the edge or brim,’ Span. randa, lace, border of
a dress. y- The difficulty is in the connexion of ideas ; but Cot-
grave really gives the solution, viz. that randon refers to the force of
a brimming river. Whoever has to cross a mountain-stream must
feel much anxiety as to whether it is full or not ; at one time it is a
mere rill, a few hours later its force sweeps all before it. ‘This com-
mon and natural solution is probably the right one. Cf. G. bis am
rande voll, full to the brim; am rande des Todes, on the brink of
death, at death’s door ; eine sache zu rande bringen, to bring a thing to
the brim, to fulfil or accomplish it. So also OF. sang respandus ἃ
gros randons, blood shed ‘by great gushes, or in great quantity,’
Cot. ; lit. in brimming streams. δ. The G, rand is cognate with
AS. rand, rim, rim ofa shield, verge (Grein), Icel. rénd, a rim, border,
Dan. rand, a rim, streak, Swed. rand, a stripe; all from a Tent.
base *rand-, Idg. *ram-t- (Kluge) ; allied to Rim and to Rind.
Cf. prov. G. ranft, a crust, a margin (Fliigel); OHG. ram/t, rind.
RANEE, RANI, a Hindoo queen. (Hind.—Skt.) Hind. rani,
queen (Forbes). —Skt. rajni, queen; fem. of raja, king. See Yule.
See Rajah.
RANGE, to rank, or set in a row, to set in order, to rove. (F.—
OHG.) The sense of ‘to rove’ arose from the scouring of a
country by small troops or ranks of armed men; the orig. sense is
‘to set in a rank,’ to array. ME. rengen (corresponding to OF.
renger, the form used in the 14th cent., according to Littré), Rob.
of Brunne, p. 40,1. 26. ‘ The helle liun rengeth euer abuten’=the
lion of hell is always ranging (roving) about ; Ancren Riwle, p. 164.
Also rangen : ‘rangit all on raw,’ arrayed all in a row; Barbour,
Bruce, xi. 431.—F. ranger (OF. ranger, renger), ‘to range, rank,
order, array;’ Cot.—F. rang, ‘a ranke, id. See Rank (1).
Der. range, sb., Antony, iii. 13. 5. Also, rang-er, esp. one who
ranges a forest, Minsheu, ed. 1627 (see his explanation); rang-er-ship.
RANK (1), row or line of soldiers, class, order, grade, station.
(F.—OHG.) Spelt ranck, Spenser, F. Q. iii. 6. 35 (the verb to
ranck is in the same stanza). [The ME. form is reng, Chaucer,
C. T. 2596 ; also renk, St. Brandan, ed. Wright, p. 12 (Stratmann); see
reng inStratmann. Reng became renk, altered afterwards to rank in
accordance with a similar change made in the F. original.]—OF.
reng, later rang, ‘a ranke, row, list, range;’ Cot. He gives both
forms; and Godefroy (in Supp.) has renc, reng, rang. Scheler
gives the Picard form as ringue, Proy. renc. = OHG. hring or
hrinc, a ring ; cognate with E, Ring, q.v. And see Harangue.
The sense changed from ‘ring’ of men to a ‘row’ of men, or a
file irrespective of the shape in which they were ranged. The
Bret. renk is borrowed from OF., and the other Celtic forms from
F. or E. The G. rang is borrowed back again from F. rang.
Der. rank, verb (Spenser, as above); also range, q.v.; also ar-range,
de-range.
RANK (2), adj., coarse in growth, very fertile, rancid, strong-
scented. (E.) The sense ‘rancid’ or ‘strong-scented’ is late, and
perhaps due to association with L. rancidus, E. rancid, or with
OF. rance, ‘musty, fusty, stale,’ Cot.; but the sense may have been
developed independently of this. ‘As rank as a fox;’ Tw. Night,
ii. 5. 136. ΜΕ. rank, ronk. ‘Ronk and ryf;’ Allit. Poems, ed.
Morris, A. 843 (or 844). Often with the sense of ‘ proud’ or
‘strong ;᾿ thus rozke is a various reading for stronge, Ancren Riwle,
p- 268, note ς. AS. ranc, strong, proud, forward; Grein, ii. 363.4
498
RAP
Du. rank, lank, slender (like things of quick growth) ; MDu. ranck,
slender; Low G. rank, slender, grown high; whence (perhaps),
NFries. rank, Icel. rakkr (for *rankr), straight, slender ; Swed. rank,
long and thin; Dan. rank, erect. B. Perhaps allied to OSax.
rink, AS. rinc, a grown man, a warrior (N.E.D.). Apparently
from *renk, nasalised form of *rek, to stretch out; see Rack (2).
RANKLE, to fester. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Levins; spelt rankyll
in Palsgrave. It is rare in ME., but appears in Sir Beves of Hamp-
toun, ed. Kolbing, 2832; also in the Boke of St. Alban’s, fol. a 3,
back: ‘make the legges to rankle. The corresponding AF. verb
is rancler; the f. pp. ranclee, festered, occurs in the Life of Edw.
Confessor, 4166; whence aranclee, putrefied, in the same, 2615.
The verb is formed from the sb. rancle, a festering sore, Reliq. Antiq.
i. 52; from AF. rancle, Edw. Conf. 2677.—OF. rancle, raoncle,
forms which have lost an initial d, Godefroy gives draoncle, raoncle,
drancle, rancle, an eruption on the skin; and the verb draoncler,
rancler, to suppurate, rankle.—Late L. dracunculus, a kind of ulcer
or cancer; lit. ‘little dragon;’ called also dranculus morbus
(Ducange), as dragons were thought to be venomous. Dimin. from
L. draco, a dragon; see Dragon. See my Notes on E. Etym.,
p- 243. Corblet gives the Picard draoncler, to fester, and its
etymology
RAWNSACK, to search thoroughly. (Scand.) ME. ransaken,
Chaucer, C. T. 1007 (A 1005); Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris,
2323.—Icel. rannsaka, to search a house, to ransack ; Swed. ransaka,
Dan. ransage.Icel. rannx, a house, abode; and -saka, allied to
s@ekja, to seek. B. The Icel. rann stands for rasnz, by the assimi-
lation so common in Icelandic; and is cognate with Goth. razx,
a house, AS. ern, a cot; from Teut. base *ras, to dwell; see
Rest (1). Icel. sekja is cognate with AS. sécan, to seek; sce
Seek. Cf. Guernsey and Norm. dial. ransaquer, Gael. rannsaich ;
from Scand. Not connected with AS. raz, Icel. ran, plunder,
which is quite different from Icel. rann.
RANSOM, redemption, price paid for redemption, release.
(F.—L.) ME. ransoun, raunson, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1178 (A 1176).
The change from final x to final m is not uncommon; cf. random.
Spelt vaunsun, Ancren Riwle, p. 124, 1. 24.—OF. raenson (12th
cent., Littré), MF. ranxgon, ‘a ransome,’ Cot.—L. redemptionem,
acc. of redemptio, redemption, by the usual loss of d between two
vowels and preceding an accented syllable. See Redemption.
Der. ransom, vb. ; ransom-er. Doublet, redemption.
RANT, to use violent language. (Du.) In Hamlet, v. 1. 307.
Also in the form raxd; as in Marston, Malcontent, iv. 4.—MDu.
ranten; ‘randen, or ranten, to dote, or to be enraged ;’ Hexham.
Cf. Low G. randen, to attack any one, to call out to one; West-
phal. raxtern, to prate; prov. E. randy, wild, unmanageable, mad.
+G. ranzen, to toss about, to make a noise, to couple (as animals).
Root uncertain. Der. rant-er.
RANTIPOLE, a romping child. (MDu. or Low G.) See
E. Ὁ. Ὁ. First known in 1700 (N. E. D.). The word is a mere
variant of frampold. The former element appears in EFries. wrante-
pot, also frante-pot, a peevish man; cf. MDu. wranten, to chide,
MDu. wrantigh, quarrelsome. The second element is prob. E.
poll, head. See Frampold. Rantipole also means a see-saw
(E. Ὁ. D.); the second element is then prob. E. pole.
RANUNCULUS, a genus of plants, including the buttercup.
(L.) In Evelyn’s Diary, Apr. 1, 1644. —L. ra@nunculus, a little frog ;
also, a medicinal plant. Formed with double dimin. suffix -cu-lu-s
from ran-un-, extended from raza, a frog.
RAP (1), to strike smartly, knock; as sb., a smart stroke. (E. or
Scand.) ‘Rappe,a stroke;’ Palsgrave. ME. rap, sb., rappen, vb.,
Prompt. Parv. Cf. Dan. rap, a rap, tap; Swed. rapp, a stroke,
blow ; rappa, to beat; G. rappeln, to rattle. From a base RAP,
allied to RAT, the base of ratz-le; ofimitative origin. Cf. rat-a-dat-
tat, a knocking at a door. Der. rapp-er.
RAP (2), to snatch, seize hastily. (Scand. ; partly L.) There is
some confusion in the forms and senses. a. The ME. rappen, to
hasten, is obsolete. It occurs in P. Plowm., A. iv. 23: ‘ rappynge
swipe,’ hastening greatly; related to Dan. rappe sig, to make haste,
Swed. rappa sig; and to Swed. rapp, quick, swift. Allied to Icel.
hrapa, MSwed. rapa, to hasten; whence ME. rapen, as in ‘rape pe
to shrifte,’ hasten to confession; P. Plowm. B. ν. 399; which is
also obsolete. B. We also find the allit. phrase rappe and rende,
to snatch up and carry off, as in Roy, Rede Me, ed. Arber, p. 74;
but Chaucer has rape and renne, C. T., G 1422. Here rap answers
to Swed. rappa, to pilfer, allied to G. raffen, to snatch; but rape
seems to correspond to AF. raper, rapper, to seize upon, carry off,
which may be from L. rapere, to seize; see Godefroy. Palsgrave
has: ‘I rappe, I rauysshe;’ also, ‘I rapfe or rende, je rapine.’
y. Shak. has: ‘What, dear sir, thus raps you?’ Cymb. i. 6. 51.
Here the verb rap is almost certainly a back-formation from the
RAPACIOUS
pp- rapt (from L. raptus, pp. of rapere, above); cf. ‘How our
partner ’s rapt!’ Macb. i. 3.142. See Rapt.
RAPACIOUS, ravenous, greedy of plunder. (L.) In Milton,
P.L. xi. 258. ‘Who more rapacious ?’ Cowley’s Prose Works, ed.
Lumby, p. 68,1. 10, A coined word, formed with suffix -ous from
L. rapaci-, decl. stem of rapax, grasping. = L. rapere, to seize, grasp ;
see Rapid. Der. rapacious-ly, -ness ; also rapac-i-ty, from F. rapa-
cité ‘rapacity,’ Cot., which from L. acc. rapacitatem.
RAPE (1), a seizing by force, violation. (L.) Levins has:
‘a rape, raptura, rapina;’ and “10 rape, rapere.’ Caxton has:
‘murdre, rape, and treson;’ Reynard the Fox, ed. Arber, ch. 33;
p- 95. The word is apparently from L. rapere, to seize; whence
AF. rap, sb., rape, Stat. Realm, i. 211 (and see Britton); cf. F.
rapt, ‘a violent snatching,’ Cot. B. Perhaps affected by the
(obsotete) ME. rape, haste, occurring in the old proverb ‘ ofte rap
reweth’ =haste often repents, Proverbs of Hendyng, 1. 256, in Spec.
of Eng. ed. Morris and Skeat, p. 42. Chaucer accused Adam
Scrivener of ‘negligence and rape,’ i.e. haste. And see King Horn,
ed. Lumby, 1418; P. Plowman, B. v. 333; Gower, C. A. i. 296;
bk. iii. 517. From Icel. Arapa, vb., to hasten; cf. hrapadr, a hurry ;
Swed. rapp, Dan. rap, brisk, quick. See Rap (2). Der. rape,
verb.
RAPE (2), a plant nearly allied to the turnip. (L.) ME. rape,
Prompt. Parv.—L. rapa, a turnip, rape; also spelt rapum; whence
also MF. rave, ‘a rape;’ Cot.4-Gk. ῥάπυς, a turnip; cf. ῥαφανίς,
atadish; Russ. riepa, a turnip; G. riibe. Der. rape-oil, rape-cake.
RAPE (3), a division of a county, used in Sussex. (E.) 511 in
use. It occurs in Arnold’s Chron. (1502), ed. 1811, p. 181; and
also in Domesday Book in the form rap (N.E.D.). It is prob. a
native word. It cannot be borrowed from Icel. kreppr, a district, as
suggested by Vigfusson. The spelling rope, occurring in 1380,
suggests an AS. form *rap; sothat a connexion with AS. rap, a rope,
is possible; cf. prov. E. rope, a measure, a rood (of land).
RAPID, swift. (F.—L.; or L.) In Milton, P. L. ii. 532, iv. 227.
“ἘΠ rapide, ‘ violent;’ Cot. [Ordirectly from Latin.] —L, rapidum,
acc. of rapidus, rapid, quick; lit. snatching away.—L. rapere, to
snatch. Brugmann, i. ὃ 477. Der. rapid-ly, -ness; rapid-i-ty, from
F, rapidité< L. acc. rapiditatem. And see rap-ine, rav-age, rav-en (2),
rav-ine, rav-ish, rapt-or-t-al, rapt-ure, rapt.
RAPIER, a light, narrow sword. (F.) In Shak. Temp. v. 84.
In A.D. 1579, ‘the long foining rapier’ is described in Bullein’s
Dialogue between Sorenesse and Chirurge as ‘a new kynd of instru-
ment ;’ see note in Ben Jonson’s Every Man, ed. Wheatley, introd.
pp: xliv, xlv.—F. rapiere (mod. F. rapiére), ‘an old rusty rapier ;’
Cot. B. Of unknown origin, see Scheler and Littré; but Mr.
Wheatley’s note shows that, in 1530, /a rapiere was ‘the spanische
sworde ;’ see Supp. to Palsgrave, p. go8, 1. 1. This makes it
probable that Diez’s solution (rejected by Littré) is right, and that
rapiere is for raspiere, a name given in contempt, meaning a rasper
or poker. Hence also ‘a proking-spit of Spaine’ means a Spanish
rapier (Nares). So also mod. Prov. raspiero, rapiero, a rapier, an old
sword (Mistral), allied to raspo, a rasp, a dough-knife (id.). Cf.
Span. raspadera, a raker (Neuman), from raspar, to rasp, scrape, file,
scratch; also raspa, a shoemaker’s knife (Pineda), as well as a rasp;
see Rasp.
RAPINE, plunder, violence. (F.—L.) In Shak. Titus, v. 2. 59.
ME. rapyxe, Hoccleve, De Regimine Principum, 4834. —F. rapine,
‘rapine, ravine, Cot.—L. rapina, plunder, robbery.—L. rapere, to
seize; see Rapid. Doublet, ravine.
RAPPAREEH, an Irish robber.
themselves into many bodies . . . called rapparees,’ &c.; Burnet,
Hist. of Own Time, b. ν. an. 1690 (R.). ‘ Rapparees and banditti ;’
Bolingbroke, A Letter on Archbp. Tillotson’s Sermon (R.). = Trish
rapaire, a noisy fellow, sloven, robber, thief; cf. rapal, noise, rapach,
noisy. So also Gael. rapair, a noisy fellow. All perhaps from E.
rabble. See Rabble.
RAPPEB, a kind of snuff. (F.-OHG.) Notin Todd’s Johnson.
“Tis good rapee;’ Garrick, High Life below Stairs, A. i. Sc. 2.—F.
rapé, lit. rasped; Littré quotes: ‘J’ai du bon tabac. .j'ai du fin et
du rapé;’ Lattaignant, Chanson. Pp, of raper, to rasp, of Teut.
origin. See Rasp.
RAPT, carried away. (L.) ‘ Rapt in a chariot drawn by fiery
steeds;” Milton, P. L. iii. 522. Where Higden (i. 196) has ‘a Iove
raptam,’ the 15th c. E. trans. has ‘rapte by Iupiter.’—L. raptus, pp.
of rapere, to seize, snatch away; see Rapid. And see Rap (2).
RAPTORIAL,, in the habit of seizing. (L.) Used of birds of
prey. Formed with suffix -al (<L. -alis) from raptori-, decl. stem
of raptor, one who seizes.—L. rapere, to seize; see Rapture,
Rapid.
RAPTURE, transport, ecstasy. (L.) In Shak. Troil. ii. 2.
122; iii. 2.138. The word seems to be a pure coinage; there is no
(Irish.) “Τῆς Irish formed
RASHER
F. rapture, nor Late L. raptira. Formed with suffix -ure (as in
conject-ure, &c.) from rapt-us, pp. of rapere, to seize; see Rapid.
Der. raptur-ous, raptur-ous-ly,
RARE, thin, scarce, excellent. (F.—L.) In Levins, ed. 1570.—
F. rare, ‘rare;’ (οἵ, - Τὸ. rarum, acc. of rarus, rare. Cf. Gk. ἀραιός,
thin. Der. rare-ly, rare-ness. Also rari-fy, from MF. rarefier,
‘to rarifie,’ Cot., as if from L. *rareficare, but the classical L. word
is rarefacere, from facere, to make. Also rarefact-ion, from F. rare-
faction, ‘a making thin, Cot.<L. acc. *rarefactidnem, from rarefacere.
Also rar-i-ty, Temp. ii. 1. 58, from F. rarité, ‘ rareness, rarity,’ Cot.,
from L. acc. rarilatem.
RASCAL, aknave, villain. (F.) ME. raskaille, used collectively,
‘the common herd,’ Morte Arthur, ed. Brock, 2881. See Prompt.
Pary., and Way’s note. ‘The route of rascaile,’ i.e. the rabble;
Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 276. ‘Certain animals, not
accounted as beasts of chace, were so termed; .. the hart, until he
was six years old, was accounted rascayle;’ Way. He also cites:
‘plebecula, lytell folke or raskalle; plebs, folk or raskalle.” Cf.
* Rascall, refuse beest ;’ Palsgrave. B. As the word was a term
of the chase, and as it has the F. suffix -aille, it must needs be of F.
origin. AF. rascaille, Gaimar, 1826; AF. raskayle, rabble, Lang-
toft, 1. 136 (Εἰ racaille) ; OF. rascaille, rescaille (Supp. to Godefroy) ;
‘the rascality or base and rascall sort, the scumme, dregs, offals,
outcasts, of any company,’ Cot. y- Of unknown origin; but the
form rescaille suggests a comparison with mod. Prov. rascala, rescala,
rascalha (Mistral), to take off the inner skin of the chestnut, i.e. to
‘re-scale ;’ as if it were a sb. formed from OF. re-, again, and escaille,
a scale (F. écatlle). Hatzfeld, s.v. écaille, notes that this is a Nor-
manno-Picard form. Cf. Seale (1). Moisy gives Norm. écaler, to
shell oysters, to break or tear to pieces. The sense of ‘ fragments’
or ‘second scalings’ would be appropriate; in fact, we find ME.
“rascaly, or refuse, Caducum,’ in Prompt. Pary., and mod. F.
racaille, trash, rubbish. Der. rascal-ly, rascal-i-ty.
RASE, to scrape, efface, demolish, ruin. (F.—L.) Often spelt
raze, esp. in the sense to demolish; but it makes no real difference.
See Raze. ME. rasen, to scrape; Prompt. Parv.=F. raser, ‘to
shave, sheere, raze, or lay levell, to touch or grate on a thing in
passing by it,’ Cot.—Late L. rasare, to demolish, graze; frequenta-
tive verb formed from rasum, supine of L. radere, to scrape.
Allied to rédere, to gnaw.—4/RAD, to scratch; cf. Skt. rad, to
split, divide, rada-s, a tooth. Fick, i. 739. Der. ras-ure, from F.
rasure, ‘a razing out,’ Cot. ; ab-rade ; e-rase, q.v., €-ras-ure ; ras-or-
i-al, q.V.; raz-or, q.v.; rash (2), q.v. And see rodent, rat.
Doublet, raze.
RASH (1), hasty, headstrong. (E.) ME. resh, rasch, Allit. Poems,
ed. Morris, A. 1166 (or 1167). The final -sch suggests as AS. form
*rasc, with AS. sc=Scand. -sk, as usual.4-Dan. and Swed. rask, brisk,
quick, rash; Icel. raéskr, vigorous; Du. rasch, quick; G. rasch,
quick, vigorous, rash; NFries. radsk, quick. Brugmann, i. § 795,
connects this word with OHG. rado, AS. rade, quickly. Der.
rash-ly, -ness; perhaps rash-er. Cf. rush (2).
RASH (2), a slight eruption on the body. (F.—L.) In Johnson’s
Dict. ‘A pimple or a rash;’ Tatler, no. 38, § 11.—MF. rasche,
“a scauld, or a running scurfe, or sore; a Languedoc word,’ Cot. ;
also spelt rasque. F. rache, an eruption on the head, scurf (Littré).
Cf. Prov. rasca, the itch (Littré). So called because it is scratched ;
cf. Prov. rascar, Span. rascar, to scratch, scrape, formed from
a Late L. type *rasicare, to scratch, due to L. rdsum, supine of
radere, to scrape. See Rase.
RASH (3), to pull, or tear violently. (F.—L.) ‘ Rash, to snatch
or seize, to tear or rend;’ Halliwell. ‘The second he took in his
arms, and rashed him out of the saddle ;’ Arthur of Little Britain,
ed. 1814, p. 83 (R.). Cf. ME. aracen, afterwards shortened to
racen. ‘The children from hir arm they gonne arace,’ i.e. tore
away; Chaucer, C. Τ᾿ 8979 (E 1103). ‘Hur heere of can she race’
=she tore off her hair (Halliwell, 5. v. race).—F. arracher, ‘to root
up, to pull away by violence,’ Cot. = L. exradicare = éradicare, to root
up; see Eradicate, Radix.
RASH (4), a kind of inferior silk. (F.—L.) See exx. in Nares.
Adapted from F.; with sh for s.— MF. ras, ‘the stuffe called
serge. [The same as Ital. raso, ‘the stuffe called sattine ; also
shauen, smooth ;’ Florio.] Named from its smoothness. =F. ras,
‘shaven ;’ Cot.—L. rasus, pp. of radere, to scrape. See Rase.
4 Not from Ital. rascia, which Florio (perhaps wrongly) explains to
mean ‘ silke rash ;” see N. E. Ὁ.
RASHEER, a thin slice of broiled bacon. (E.?) In Shak. Merch.
Ven. iii, 5. 28. ‘Rasher on the coales, quasi rashly or hastily
roasted ;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627. This etymology is prob. the right one ;
cf. rashed, burnt in cooking, by being too hastily dressed,’ Halliwell;
and see his examples. ‘In my former edition of Acts and Monu-
ments, so hastily rashed vp at that present, in such err of
KK2
499
500 RASORIAL
time;’ Foxe, Martyrs, ἢ. 645, an. 1439 (R.).. See Rash (1). β. If
it meant ‘ slicé,’ it is from rask, v., to cut, variant of Rase, q. v.
RASORIAL, the name of a family of birds. (L.) It includes
birds which, like hens, scrape the ground for food. Coined with
suffix -al (= L. -alis) from rasort-, decl. stem of; a@sor, one who scrapes ;
see Razor.
RASP, to scrape, rub with a coarse file. (F.—OHG.) ME.
raspen, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris. B. 1545.—OF. rasper, mod. F.
raper, to rasp.—OHG. raspon, whence mod. G. raspeln, to rasp,
a frequentative form. Cf. OHG. hrespan, MHG. respen, to rake
together. Der. rasp, sb. ; rasper; and perhaps rapier. Also rasp-
berry, q.V-
RASP-BERRY, a kind of fruit. (F.—OHG.; and E.) The
word berry is-E.; see Berry. The old name was raspis-berry or
raspise-berry; see Richardson. ‘Raspo, a fruit or berie called
raspise;” Florio. ‘ The raspis is called in Latin Rubus Ideus ;’ Hol-
land, tr. of Pliny, Ὁ. xxiv. c. 14; thechapter is headed: ‘ Of Cynos-
batos, and the rasprce.’ ‘ Ampes, raspises;’ Cot. B. Raspice,
raspise may have been due to MF. raspeux, ‘ rough as a raspe,’ Cot. ;
but this should have given a form raspous. But the word was
evidently confused with the forms raspise, raspice, respice, which was
the name of a thin wine; spelt respice in The Squire of Low
Degree, 755. γ. This is also a difficult form, but answers to
Late L. raspecia, raspis-wine, in Ducange; closely allied to Late L.
raspetum, and to OF. raspé, raspeit, with the same sense, in Supp. to
Godefroy ;-cf. Span. vino raspado, ‘a small liquor made by putting
water to the gtapes after the wine is pressed out, and pressing them over
again ;’ Pineda. All from Late L. raspa,a grape (properly, pressed
grapes) ; ef. OF. rasfe, pressed grapes (Supp. to Godefroy). The
connexion with E. rasp is shown by the Prov. raspa, to rasp, to
scrape the ground, to’ glean grapes (Mistral). Hence this form
rasptse also goes back to the verb to rasp. ὃ. Lastly, raspise became
raspis, raspes, and was taken to be a pl. form, whence raspe, rasp.
Indeed, the prov. E. name for rasp-berries is rasps, to this day; and
raspes is used by Bacon, Essay 46. The Ital. raspo also means a rasp.
See Rasp.
RAT, a rodent quadruped. (E.) ME. rat, or ratte, P. Plowman,
B. prol. 200. AS. ret, Aélfric’s Gloss., Nomina Ferarum; in Wright’s
Voc. p. 22, col. 2.-MDu. ratte, ‘a ratt;’ Hexham; Du. rat;
Dan. rotte; Swed. rdtta; (ἃ. ratte, ratz. Cf. also Low L. ratus,
rato, Ital. ratto, Span. rato, F. rat. Also Irish and Gael. radan,
Bret. raz. B. Perhaps from 4/RAD, to scratch; see Rodent.
Cf.. Skt. rada-s, a tooth, elephant; vajra-rada-s,a hog. Der. rat,
verb, to desert one’s party, as rats are said to leave a falling house.
Also rat’s-bane, ratten.
RATAFTA, the name of a liquor.. (F.—Malay.) In Congreve,
Way of the World, i. 1. See Stanford Dict. ‘ Ratafiaz, a delicious
liquor made of apricocks, cherries, or other fruit, with their kernels
bruised and steeped in brandy ;’ Phillips, ed. 1710. —F. ratajia, the
same; cf. F. fafa, rum-arrack. The etymology is perhaps that
pointed out in Mahn’s Webster.— Malay arag, ‘ arrack, a distiiled
spirit,’-Marsden’s Dict., p. 5; and ¢afia, ‘a spirit distilled from
molasses (the French name for rum) ; arag bram tafia, three kinds
of spirit, enumerated in an old Malayan writing,’ id. p. 65. Again,
at p. 39 of the same we find araq, bram, tafta, arrack, bram, and
rum. Omitting bram, we have araq tafia, whence ra‘afia is an easy
corruption, esp. when it is remembered that araq is also called rag,
in Spanish rague, or in English rack; see Rack (5). B. The use
of both words together is explicable from the consideration that araqg
is a Yery general term, and is not a true Malay word, being borrowed
from Arabic; see Arrack. Thus γαίαβα may mean ‘the rack (spirit)
called tafia.’
RATCH, a rack or bar with teeth. (G.?) ‘ Ratch, in clock-work,
a wheel with twelve large fangs,’ &c.; Phillips, ed. 1710. It is the
wheel which makes the clock strike. It seems to answer to G.
ratsche (N.E.D.). Weigand gives G. ratsche, a watchman’s rattle,
also, a clapper used during Passion Week instead of a bell in a clock-
tower. From the verb ra¢schen, to rattle, MHG. ratzen, allied to G.
rasseln, to rattle, and to E. rattle; a verb of imitative origin. The
Low G. ratsch means ‘ the sound made by tearing a thing forcibly.’
Cf. Bavarian: ratschen, to rattle, &c. in Schmeller. Hence also the
dimin. rafch-et, in watch-work, ‘the small teeth at the bottom of
the fusee or barrel that stop it in winding up’ (Phillips); but here
the -et is clearly due to the F. word rochet, as in Ja roue ἃ roche?, the
ratchet-wheel of a clock (Hatzfeld); this is a different word, and
cognate with Ital. rocchetfo, a bobbin to wind silk on, a rocket or
squib, the wheel ‘about which the cord or string of a clock goeth,
Torriano. From OHG. rocco, G. rocken, a distaff; see Rock (3)
and Rocket.
RATE (1), a proportion, allowance, standard, price, tax. (F.—L.)
In Spenser, F. Ὁ. iv. 8. 19. = OF. rate, price, value (Roquefort); not |
RATTLE
in Cotgrave.—L. rata, fem. of ratus, determined, fixed, settled, pp. of
reor, I think, judge, deem. Both ratum and rata occur as 505. in
Late L. Cf. Brugmann, i. § 200. Der. rate, verb; rat-able, rat-
abl-y, rat-able-ness, rate-payer. And see ratio, ration, reason, rat-i-fy.
RATE (2), to scold, chide. (F.—L.) In Shak. Merch. Ven. i.
3. 108. Sometimes supposed to be a peculiar use of the word above,
as though to rate meant to ¢ax, and so to chide. But, if this were so,
we should expect to find rate, to value, in earlier use ; whereas, on
the contrary, the present word is the older of the two, being found in
the 14th century. Palsgrave distinguishes between ‘I rate one, I set
one to his porcyon or stynte, and ‘ I rate or chyde one.’ ME. raten,
to chide ; ‘ He shal be rated of his studying’ =he shall be scolded for
his studying, Chaucer, C. T. 3463. Moreover, we find the fuller
form araten, to reprove; see P. Plowman, B. xi. 98 ; ‘rebuked and
arated, id. xiv. 163.— OF. aratter, variant of areter, to accuse (Gode-
froy) ; also rater, variant of reter, repter, to accuse, blame (id.).—L.
*adreputare; from ad, to (prefix).and reputare, to repute, which in
Late L. meant to impute to, ascribe to (Lewis). See Repute.
RATH, early, RATHER, sooner. (E.) Rather, sooner, earlier,
is the comp. form of rath, soon, now obsolete. We also find rathes?,
soonest. ME. rath, early, ready, quick, swift, rathe, adv., soon;
comp. rather ; superl. rathest, soonest. ‘ Whyrise ye so rathe’ = why
rise ye so early, Chaucer, C. T. 3766 (A 3768). The word has lost
an initial 2, and stands for hkrath. AS. hrade, adv., quickly, comp:
hrador, superl. hradost ; from the adj. hred, kre’, also written hred,
hred, quick, swift, Grein, ii. 99, 100.4 Icel. kradr, swift, fleet ; MHG.
hrad, quick ; (perhaps) Du. rad, switt.
RATIFY, to sanction, confirm, (F.—L.) In Levins; and in
Skelton, Colin Clout, 716. Spelt ratyfye in Palsgrave.=—F. ratifier,
‘to ratifie ;’ Cot.— Late L. ratificare, to confirm. =L. rati-, for ratus,
fixed; and -ficdre, for facere, to make. See Rate (1) and Fact.
Der. ratific-at-ion.
RATIO, the relation of one thing to another. (L.) Mathematical;
in Phillips, ed. 1706.—L. ratio, calculation, relation; cf. L. ratus,
determined, pp. of reor, I think, deem. See Rate(1). Doublets,
ration, reason.
RATION, rate or allowance of provisions. (F.—L.) In Phillips,
ed. 1706.—F. ration, a ration; see Littré. = L. ratidnem, acc. of ratio,
a calculation, reckoning; so that a ration is a computed share for
soldiers, &c., according to the reckoning of their number; cf. ratwus,
determined; see Rate (1). Der. ration-al, reasonable, Minsheu, ed.
1627, from Εἰ. rational, ‘reasonable,’ Cot.; hence, ration-al-ly, ration-
al-ise, -ism, -ist, -ist-ic ; ration-al-i-ty. Also ratio-cin-at-ion, Minsheu,
from Ἐς. ratiocination, ‘a discoursing, discussion,’ from L. ratio-
cindtiOnem, acc. Of ratiocinadtio, which from ratiocina@ri, to reckon,
compute, a verb formed from the sb. ratiocinium, a computation =
ratio-ci-ni-um, formed by various suffixes from the base of ratio.
Doublets, ratio, reason.
RATLINES, RATLINS, RATTLINGS, the small trans-
verse ropes traversing the shrouds of a ship and forming a ladder.
(F.2) ‘ Rare-lines or Ratilings, in a ship, those lines with which are
made the steps ladderwise to get up the shrouds,’ &c.; Phillips, ed.
1710. But the old form was raddelyne, or radelynyng of the
shrowdes, Naval Accounts (1485-97), ed. Oppenheim, pp. 185, 277.
Perhaps the same as prov. E. raddlings, or raddles, long rods twisted
between upright stakes (which the ra¢dins resemble). Raddle appears
to be the same word as radyll, the rail of a cart (Palsgrave), er-
haps from AF. reidel, OF. ridelle, rudelle (Supp. to Godefroy, s.v.
ridelle), Ἐς ridelle, ‘raile ofa cart, Cot. B. The Du. word is weeflijn,
i. e. weaving line or web-line, prob. because they cross the shrouds
as if interwoven with them. Rare-lines, i.e. thin lines, is obviously
a corruption.
RATTAN, a Malacca cane. (Malay.) In Sir T. Herbert, Travels,
ed. 1665, p. 95. Spelt rattoon in Pepys, Diary, Sept. 13, 1660.
See Stanford Dict. Spelt rafax in Todd’s Johnson. - Malay rétan,
‘the rattan-cane, Calamus rotang ;’ Marsden’s Dict., p.152. Made
of the peeled stem of a climbing palm. = Malay raut, to peel, pare.
RATTEN, to take away a workman’s tools for not paying his
contribution to the trades’ union, or for having offended the union.
(F.—Late L.—Teut.) Modern; in Halliwell. The word was fre-
quently used in connexion with Sheffield, where rater is the local
word for a rat. ‘Ratten, a rat;’ Hunter’s Hallamshire Glossary.
The usual sense is ‘to do secret mischief,’ which is afterwards attri-
buted to the rattens or rats. ‘I have been rattened; I had just put a
new cat-gut band upon my lathe, and last night the rats have carried
it off;’ Notes and Queries, 3 S. xii, 192; see E.D.D. β. The
prov. Ἐς ratten is the same as ME. raton, ratoun, a rat, P. Plow-
man, B. prol. 158.—F. rafon, ‘a little rat ;’ Cot.—Late L. ratonem,
acc. of rato, the same as ratus, a rat; a word of Teut. origin. See
Rat.
RATTLE, to clatter, to make a din. (E.) For Arat¢le, initial ἃ
RAUCOUS
being lost.
AS. *hretelan, only preserved in. AS. hretele, hratele, or hratelwyrt,
rattle-wort, a plant which derives its name from the rattling of the
seeds in the capsules; A, 5. Leechdoms, ed, Cockayne, iii. 333.
Du. ratelen, to rattle; ratel, a rattle; G. rasseln, to rattle; rassel, a
rattle, β. The form of the word is frequentative: and the sense is
“to keep on making a noise represented by the syllable hraz,’ this
syllable being of imitative origin ; allied to Gk, κραδαίνειν, to shake.
Cf. rat-a-tat-tat as the imitation of a knock at a door. So also Gk.
κρότος, a loud knock, κροτεῖν, ta knock, make to rattle, κροταλίζειν,
to rattle; κρόταλον, arattle. Der. rattle, sb.; rattle-snake, a snake
with a rattle at the end of its tail; in Capt, Smith’s Works, ed.
Arber, p. 955; also raétle-traps, small knick-knacks, from traps
=goods; see Trap (2).
RAUCOUS, hoarse. (L.)
raucus, hoarse; by changing -us to -ous (as often),
rauus, hoarse, Skt. ru, to sound; cf. Rumour.
Bacon, Nat. Hist, § 700.
RAUGHT, pt. τ. and pp, of Reach, q. v.
RAVAGE, plunder, devastation, ruin. (F.—L.) The sb, is the
more orig. word. Both sb, and verb are in Minshen, ed, 1627.—F.
ravage, ‘ravage, havocke, spoil;’ Cot. Formed, with the usual
suffix -age (<L. -aticum), from rav-ir, to bear away suddenly; the
sb. rqu-age was esp. used of the devastation caused by storms and
torrents; see Littré.—Folk L, *rapire, for L. rapere, to seize,
snatch, bear away; see Ravish. Der. ravage, vb., from F,
ravager, ‘to ravage,’ Cot.; ravag-er.
RAVE, to be mad, talk likea madman. (F.—L.) ME, raven,
Chaucer, C. T. 16427 (ἃ 959).—OF. raver, cited by Diez (5. v.
réver), as a Lorraine word ; the derivative ravasser, ‘to rave, to talk
idly,’ is given in Cotgrave, who also explains resver (F, réver) by ‘ to
taye, dote, speak idly.’ Godefroy has OF. resver, raver, rever, to
stroll about, also to rave; cf. F. raver, dial. de la Meuse (Labourasse) ;
mod. Prov. rava, to rave (Mistral). . The word presents great
difficulties ; see réver in Diez and Scheler; but the solution offered
by Diez is plausible, viz. that OF. raver is allied to Span. rabiar, to
taye, both verbs being formed from the Late L. and Span. radia,
tage, alliedto L, rabiés, rage. From L. rabere, to rage. See Rage.
RAVEL, to untwist, unweave, entangle. (MDu.) _ The orig,
sense has reference to the untwisting of a string or woven texture, the
ends of the threads of which become entangled together in a confused
mass. To wnravel is to disentangle, to separate the confused threads,
‘The ravelled sleave [the entangled floss-silk] of care ;’ Mach. ii. 2.
37. Τὸ ravel out is hardly to disentangle (as in Schmidt), but
rather to unweave. ‘ Must Iravel out My weaved-up folly ;’ Rich. II,
iv. 228; cf. Haml, iii. 4. 186; and see examples in Richardson. ‘To
rauell or untwist ;’ Minshen, ed, 1627,— MDn. ravelen, ‘to ravell, or
cadgell,’” Hexham; he also explains verwerren by ‘to embroile,
to entangle, to bring into confusion or disorder, or to cadgill.’ The
same as mod, Du. rafelen, EF ries. rafelu, to fray out, to unweave;
Low G. reffeln, to fray out, ravel, pronounced rebeln or rebbeln in
Hanover and Brunswick (Bremen Worterbuch) ; Pomeranian rabbeln,
uprabbeln, to ravel out ; Low Ὁ. rebbeln ut, to ravel out (Danneil).
We even find AS. a-rafian, to unrayel; Gregory’s Pastoral Care, ed.
Sweet, p. 245, |, 22. Der. un-ravel.
RAVELIUN, a detached work in fortification, with two embank-
ments raised before the counterscarp. (F.—Ital.) ‘In bulwarks,
ravlins, ramparts for defence ;” Ben Jonson, Underwoods, xiii, On
the Poems of Sir J, Beaumont, 1. 4.—F. ravelin, ‘a ravelin;” Cot.
Cf. Span. rebellin, Port. rebelim, Ital. rivellino, a ravelin. B, It is
supposed that the Ital. word is the original, as seems indicated by
the old spelling in that language. MItal. ravellino, revellino, ‘a
rauelin, a wicket, or a posterne-gate; also the uttermost bounds of
the wals of a castle, or sconces without the wals;’ Florio. sy, But
the origin of the Ital. word is unknown. The suggestion, from L.
re-, back, and wal/um, a rampart, is unlikely ; see Korting, § 8046.
RAVEN (1), a well-known bird, (E.) For hraven, an initial ἃ
being lost, ME. raven, Chaucer, C. T. 2146 (A 2144). AS. hrefn,
hrefn, a raven, Grein, ii. 100.4-Du. raaf, raven; Icel. hrafn; Dan.
ravn; OLow G. hratan (Gallée); G. rabe, OHG, hraban. Teut.
type *krabnoz, τ, β. No doubt named from its cry. Cf. L, crepare,
to rattle.
RAVEN (2), to plunder with violence, to devour voraciously.
(F.—L,) | Quite unconnected with the word above, and differently
pronounced, The verb is made from an obsolete sb., viz. ME.
ravine, plunder, which accounts for the spelling ravix in Shak, Meas.
for Meas. i, 2, 133. ‘Foules of ravyne’=birds of prey, Chaucer,
Parl. of Foules, 1,323. So also rauyne, plunder, Ch. tr. of Boethius,
b.i.pr. 4,1. 51; rauiner, a plunderer, id. b.i. pr. 3, 1.57, AF. ravine,
plunder; Liber Custumarum, p. 18; 1. 26; OF. ravine, rapidity,
impetuosity (Burgny); mod. Εν ravine; see Ravine. [This OF.
Added by Todd to Johnson,=—L,
Allied to L,
Der, raxc-ity,
ME. ratelen, Arthur and Merlin, 7858 (Stratmann). = |
? ‘ - ν'
“occurs in red-eem, red-integrate, red-olent, red-dition,
REACH
ravine must orig. have had the sense of plunder, as in AF.]=—L.
rapina, plunder, pillage; see Rapine. Der, raven-ing ; raven-ous,
ME. ravynous, Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 159, from F. ravineux,
‘ravenous, violent, impetuous, like a forcible. stream,’ Cot.; raven-
ous-ly, -ness. | Note that ME. ravine, mod, Εἰ. ravine, and E. rapine
are all one and the same.
RAVINE, a hollow gorge among mountains. (F,—L.)
Modern; added by Todd to Johnson.—F. ravine, a hollow worn
away by floods; explained by Cotgrave to mean ‘aq great floud, a
rayine or inundation of waters ;’ showing that, even in E., a ravine
was a flood, In still older French, it means impetuosity, violence,
=—L, rapina, plunder, hence violence; see Rapine, And see
Raven (2).
RAVISH, to seize with violence, fill with ecstasy. (F.—L.)
ME. rauischen (with u for v), Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. i. pr. 3,
1. 253 rauissen, id. b. iv. pr, 5,1. 16; b. i, met. 5, 1. 3.—F. raviss-,
stem of pres, part. of ravir, to ravish, snatch away hastily. Cf, Ital,
rapire.— Folk L, *rapire, for L. rapere, to snatch; with a change of
conjugation; see Rapine, Rapid, Der, ravish-er, ravish-ing,
Maeb. ii. 1. 55; ravish-ment, All’s Well, iv. 3. 281, from F. ravisse-
ment, ‘a ravishing, a ravishment,’ Cot. F
RAW, uncooked, unprepared, sore. (E.) For kraw, an initial h
being lost. ME, raw, K. Alisaunder, 4932. _ AS. hréaw 3 spelt
hréw, Cockayne’s Leechdoms, i. 254, 1. 4.4 Du. raauw; Icel, hrar;
Dan. raa, raw, crude; Swed. ra, raw, green ; OHG, rao (declined as
rawer, rouwer), MHG. rou, G. roh, ‘Teut. types *hrawoz, *hréwoz,
B. Allied to L. criidus, raw, and to Skt. kriira-, sore, cruel, hard; also
to Gk, κρέας (for *«péfas), raw flesh, Skt. krayvya-, raw flesh ; L.cruar,
blood; Russ. krove, Lith. kraujas, Irish cra, ΝΥ. crax, blood, Brug-
mann, i. § 492. (4/KREU.) See Crude, Der. raw-ly, raw-ness,
raw-boned, ‘
RAY (1), a beam of light or heat. (F.—L.) ME. ray, Early E,
Allit, Poems, ed. Morris, A τόρ. The pl. ‘rayes or beames’ occurs
in Sir Τὶ Elyot, The Goyernour, Ὁ. ii. c. 12. ὃ 2,—=OF. raye, ‘a ray;
line,’ Cot.; mod. F. rai. Cf. Span. rayo, Ital. raggio.—L, radium,
acc. of radius, a ray, radius, Doublet, radius.
RAY (2), a class of fishes, such as the skate, (F,-—L.) ΜΕ.
raye. ‘Hee ragadia, raye;’ Wright’s Voeab. i, 222, col. 2, 1. 2,—_
AF. raie, Liber Albus, p. 234; OF. raye, ‘a ray, skate,’ Cot.;
mod, F. raie,—L. raia, a ray; Pliny, ix, 24. j
RAY (3), a dance. (MDu.) ‘Pipers of the Duche: tonge, To
lerne . . reyes;’ Chaucer, Ho. Fame, 1290, - MDn. rey, reye, ‘a
round dance;” Hexham. Du. rei; see Franck.
RAYAH, a person, not a Mahometan, who pays the capitation=
tax; a word in use in Turkey. (Arab,) In Byron, Bride of Abydos,
il. 20. It may be explained as ‘subject,’ though the real meaning
is ‘a flock,’ or pastured cattle.— Arab, ra‘iyah, a flock; from-ra‘y,
pasturing, feeding, tending flocks ; Rich. Dict. pp. 716, 739. Doublet,
ryol, q.v, ‘
RAZE, to lay level with the ground, destroy. (F,-L,) In Shak,
Meas. ii. 2. 171. Also ‘to graze, strike on the surface,’ Rich, III,
iii. 2,11. Also ‘to erase,’ K. Lear, i. 4. 4. All various uses of
the verb which is also spelt rase; see Rase. Der. raz-or, q-y-;
ras-ori-al, q. V. ἜΤ]
RAZOR, a knife for shaving, (F.—L.) ME, rasour, Chaucer,
C. T. 2419 (A 2417). Lit. ‘a shaver;’ OF. rasor, rasour, from F,
raser, to shave; closely allied to mod. Ε΄. rasoir, from Late L,
rasorium. See Rase, Raze. Der. razor-strop.
RAZZIA, a sudden raid. (F.—Arab.) Ε΄, razzia, razia; bor-
rowed from an Algerine raza, a peculiar pronunciation of Arab,
ghazia, a raid, an expedition against infidels (Devic) ; cf. Arab.
ghazi, a hero, a leader of an expedition, — Arab. ghazw, making war;
Rich. Dict., pp. 1041, 1059. Φ| Spelt ghrazzie in 1826 (N. E. D,),
RE-, RED-, prefix, again. (¥.—L.; or L.) Εἰ re-, red-; from
L, re-, red-, again. The form re- is most common, and is prefixed
even to E. words, as in re-bellow, re-word (Shak,), but this is unnsual ;
remarkable words of this class are re-mind, re-new. The form red-
The true ety-
mology of this prefix is still unsolyed. 4 As this prefix can be
arbitrarily set before almost any verb, it is unnecessary to give all the
words which are found with it. For the etymology of re-address, re~
adjust, re-arrange, re-bellqw, &c., &c., see the simple forms address,
adjust, arrange, &c.
REACH (1), to attain, extend to, arrive at, gain. (E.) ME.
rechen, pt. t. raghte, raughte, pp. raught; P. Plowman, B. xi. 353;
Chaucer, C. T. 136. We even find raught in Shak. L. L. L. iy. 2.
41, ἅς, AS. récan, récean, to reach; pt. t. r@hte; Grein, ii, 364,
Ἔα, reiken; OFriesic reka, retsia, resza; G. reichen. B. Further
connected with the rare sb. ge-réc, occasion, due time, occurring in
Ps. ix. 9, ed, Spelman. This would give the orig; sense ‘to seize
the opportunity’ or ‘to attain to;’ Teut. type *raikjan-, Perhaps
501
REACH
allied to rice, sb., power, and to the adj. rice, powerful; G. reich,
502
kingdom. Der. reach, sb., Oth. 11. 3. 219; also a ‘stretch’ of
a river.
REACH (2), to try to vomit; see Retch.
READ, to interpret, esp. to interpret written words. (E.) ME.
reden, pt. t. redde, radde, pp. red, rad; P. Plowman, B. iii. 334;
Chaucer, C. T. 6371, 6373 (D 789, 791). AS. rédan, to discern,
advise, read ; a weak verb, pt. t. rédde, pp. geréd, Grein, ii. 366.
Allied to AS. réd, counsel, advice, id. 365. Also to AS. rédan,
to advise, persuade; a strong verb, with the remarkable redupli-
cated pt. t. réord. B. This strong verb answers to Goth. rédan,
in comp. garédan, to provide, a strong verb; also to Icel. rada, to
advise, pt. t. r@d, pp. radinn; also to G. rathen, pt. τ. rieth, pp.
gerathen, Observe also (ἃ. berathen, to assist. All ultimately from
the Teut. type *r@dan-. Allied to Skt. rddh, to make favourable,
propitiate, to be favourable to; Russ. radiete, to take care. Brug-
mann, i. §136,149. Der. read-able, read-abl-y, read-able-ness ; read-
er, read-ing, read-ing-book, read-ing-room. Also ridd-le.
READY, dressed, prepared, prompt, near. (E.) ME. redi, redy;
spelt redi, Layamon, 8651 (later text read) ; redi}, Ormulum, 2527.
AS. r@de, ready, Grein, ii. 366. [In this instance the suffix -e was
turned into -i by confusion with the AS. suffix -ig (answering to
ME. -i, -y, E. -y)]. The MSwed. adj. reda, ready, is cognate, and
is connected with reda, to prepare. So also Dan. rede, ready ;
OHG. reiti, ready ; mod. G. bereit, B. The Icel. greidr (=ga-reidr),
ready, only differs in the prefix and suffix; so also Goth. garaifs,
commanded. These adjectives are closely related to Icel. reidi,
harness, outfit, implements, gear, and to OHG, reita, Icel. reid, a
raid. We may look upon ready as expressing either ‘ prepared for
a raid’ or ‘prepared for riding, equipped.’ All from a Teut. base
raid, 2nd stem of Teut. *reidan-, to ride; see Ride, Raid. Cf.
Ὁ. fertig, ready; from fahren, to go. @ The use of ready in the
sense of ‘dressed’ is found as late as the beginning of the 17th cen-
tury. ‘Is she ready?’=is she dressed; Cymb. ii, 3. 86. Der.
readi-ly, readi-ness, ready-made.
REAL (1), actual, true, genuine. (L.) Spelt real/ in Levins;
and in Tyndall’s Works, p. 104, col. 1, 1. 5, where it is opposed to
nominall, ME, real; Prompt. Parvy. The famous disputes between
Realists and the Nominalists render it probable that the word was
taken immediately from the familiar Late L. realis rather than the
MF. real, ‘reall,’ given by Cotgrave. The mod. F. form is reel,
also given by Cotgrave. β. The Late L. redilis, ‘ belonging to the
thing itself,’ is formed from ré-, stem of rés, a thing, with suffix
-alis.4Skt. rai-, property, wealth; cf. rz, to give, bestow. Der.
real-ly; real-ise, from MF. realiser, ‘to realize, Cot.; real-is-able;
real-is-at-ion, from MF, realisation, ‘a realization, a making reall,
Cot.; real-ism, real-ist, real-ist-ic; real-i-ty, from Ἐς, realité (Littré).
REAL (2), a small Spanish coin. (Span.—L.) In Swinburne’s
Travels through Spain (1779), letter 9, p. 56. And see Stanford
Dict.—Span. real, lit. ‘a royal’ coin.—L. régalis, royal. See
Regal.
REALGAR, red arsenic. (F.—Span.—Arab.) | A term in
chemistry and alchemy. Spelt resalgar, Chaucer, C. T. Group G,
1. 814 (1. 16282).—F. réalgar; cf. the Low L. risigallum.—Span.
rejalgar.— Arab. rahj al-ghar, powder of the mine, mineral powder.
=Arab. rahj, dust, powder; al, the; and ghar, a cavern, hence a
mine. See Rich. Dict., pp. 759, 1040. This etymology is due to
Dozy ; and see Devic, supp. to Littré.
REALM, a kingdom. (F.—L.) ME. realme, Gower, C. A. iii.
199; bk. vii. 3179; ryalme, Sir Gawain and the Grene Knight,
1. 691 ; reaume, Will. of Palerne, 1964; rewme, Rom. of the Rose,
495. — OF. realme, reaume, roialme (Burguy); mod. F. royaume,
a kingdom; answering to a Late L. form *régalimen (not found), =
L. régalis, regal; see Regal.
REAM, a bundle of paper, usually twenty quires. (F. —Span.—
Arab.) In Skelton, Works, i. 131, 1.1743; spelt reme. Spelt reame,
in Minsheu, ed. 1627, and in Levins. We even find ME. reeme in
Prompt. Pary. p. 429; and ‘j rem papiri’ in the Earl of Derby’s
Expeditions, 1390-3 (Camd. Soc.), p. 154. — OF. raime, rayme,
(Littré), a ream; mod. F. rame. Palsgrave has: " Reame of paper,
ramme de papier.’ — Span. resma, ‘a reame of paper;’ Minsheu.
(Cf. Ital. risma.)— Arab. rizma(t), (pl. rizam), a bundle, esp. a
bundle of clothes ; Rich. Dict. p. 731. See Littré, Devic’s supp. to
Littré, and Scheler’s note on Diez; all agree that this etymology has
been completely established by Dozy. Devic remarks that we even
find the F. expression coton en rame, cotton in a bundle, and that
it is hopeless to connect this, as Diez proposes, with the Gk. ἀριθμός,
number. Cotton paper was manufactured in Spain, where it was
introduced by the Moors.
REAP, to cut, as grain, gather a crop. (E.)
ME. repen, some-
times a strong verb ; pt. t. rep, pl. ropen, P. Plowman, B. xiii. 374; |
REBATE
pp. ropen, Chaucer, Leg. of Good Women, 74. OMere. reopan,
Vesp. Psalter, Ps. 125.5; AS. repan, pt. t. rep, pt. t. pl. r@pon.
{But a commoner form is AS. ripan (pt.t.rap) ; allied to E. ripe; see
Ripe. The occurrence of these two strong verbs with the same
sense is remarkable. |4Pomeran. reepen, to reap.
REAR (1), to raise. (E.) ME. reren, Rob. of Glouc. p. 28,1. 657.
AS. réran, to rear, Deut. xxviii. 30. The form réran exhibits the
common substitution of r for 5, and is cognate with Icel. reisa (mod.
E. raise). It is the causal of rise; and means ‘to make to rise.’
Teut. type *raisjan-, from *rais, 2nd stem of *reisan-, to rise. See
Rise. Doublet, raise.
REAR (2), the back part, last part, esp. of an army. (F.—L)
“Τὸ the abject rear;’ Troil. iii. 3. 162. But usually in phr. ‘in the
rear, Hamlet, i. 3.34. ME. rere, but perhaps only in the com-
pounds rereward (see Rearward) and arere, adv., also spelt arrere,
P. Plowman, B. v. 354.—OF. riere, ‘backward, behind,’ Cot. The
ME. arere, in the rear, answers to OF. ariere (Burguy), F. arriére,
‘behind, backward,’ advy.—L. retro, backward; whence ad retro>
OF. ariere. See Retro-. Der. rear-admiral, rear-guard, rear-rank ;
also rear-ward, q. Vv.
REAR (3), insufficiently cooked. (E.) (For hrear.) Obsolete,
except provincially. Dryden has: ‘roasted rare;’ Baucis and
Philemon, 98. ME. rere; Prompt. Parv., p. 430. ‘If they [eggs]
be rere ;’ Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. 11. c. 17. AS. hrér, half-
cooked, AS. Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, ii. 272. Cf. Skt. grat, to
cook.
REARMOUSE, the same as Reremouse, q. v.
REARWARD, the rear-guard. (F.—L. and G.) Spelt rereward,
1 Sam, xxix. 2, Isaiah lii. 12, lviii. 8 ; this is merely the old spelling
preserved. [Not to be read re-reward, as is sometimes done.} ME.
rerewarde, Gower, C. A. i. 220; bk. ii. 1827; Morte Arthure, ed.
Brock, 1430. Cf. AF. rerewarde, a rearguard, Langtoft, i. 18; rere-
gard, id., li, 282. Short for arere-warde, compounded of ME. arere,
behind, and warde,a guard; see Rear (2) and Ward. Warde is
an OF. form of garde; cf. arriere-garde, ‘the reregard of an army,’
Cot. Dcublet, rear-guard.
REASON, the faculty of mind by which man draws conclusions
as to right and truth, motive, cause, justice. (F.—L.) ME. resoun,
Chaucer, C. T. 37; reisun, Ancren Riwle, p. 78, last line. —OF.
raisun, reson; mod. F. raison.—L. ratidnem, acc. of ratio, reckon-
ing, reason; allied to L. ratus, pp. of reor, Ithink. See Rate (1).
Der. reason, verb, reason-er, reason-ing ; reason-able, ME. resonable,
P. Plowman, C. i. 1763 reason-abl-y, reason-able-ness. Doublet,
ration.
REASTY, rancid, as applied to bacon. (F.—L.) ‘ Much bacon
is reastie;’ Tusser, Husbandry, ὃ 20. 2. ‘ Restie, attainted;’ Baret.
ME. reest, also resty; Prompt. Pary. In Wright’s Vol. of Vocab.
i. 155, the AF. chars restez is glossed by resty flees, i.e. flesh. Hence
resty is from AF, resté, left over, not eaten; and therefore not fresh.
“- OF. rester, to remain; see Rest (2). 47 Sometimes ingeniously
altered to rusty ; ‘ you rusty piece of Martlemas bacon ;’ Middleton,
A Fair Quarrel, iv. 1. N.B. I now find that Wedgwood gave the
same solution long ago.
REATA, a rope of raw hide, for picketing animals; a lariat.
(Span.—L.) Spelt riata by Bret Harte; Cent. Dict.; Stanford
Dict.—Span. reafa, a rope for tying.=—Span. reatar, to tie.=—L. re-,
back ; apfare, to fit together; see Apt.
REAVE, to rob, take away by violence. (E.) Not common in
mod. E., except in the comp. be-reave, and in the pt. t. and pp. reft.
Reaves his son of life;’ Shak. Venus, 766. And see Com. Errors,
i.1.116, Much Ado, iv. 1. 198; &c. ME. rewen (with w=v), Chaucer,
C. T. 4009 (B 3288); pp. raft, reff, 11329 (F 1017). AS.
réafian, to spoil, despoil, Exod. iii. 22; lit. to take off the clothes,
despoil of clothing or armour.—AS. réaf, clothing, spoil, plunder,
Exod. iii. 22. — AS, *réaf, 2nd stem of *réof-an, to deprive, a strong
verb (pt. t. rééf, pp. rofen), only in the comp. biréofan, beréofan
(Grein). Cf. Icel. raufa, to rob, from sb. rauf, spoil; which from
rjifa (pt. τ. rauf, pp. rofinn), to break, rip up, violate; (ἃ. rauben,
to rob, from raub, plunder. Cf. Goth. biraubon, to despoil. B. All
from the Tent. strong verb *reudan-, pt. τ. *raud. Allied to L. rum-
pere, to break ; see Rupture. Brugmann, i. ὃ 466. Der. be-reave;
and see robe, rob. Doublet, rob.
REBATE, to blunt the edge of a sword. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Meas. i. 4. 60. ME. rebate=abate, Coventry Mysteries, p. 76.—
OF. rebattre (Hatzfeld) ; MF. rebatre, ‘to repell, repulse, beat or
drive back again;’ Cot. = Εἰ re- (L. re-), back ; and OF, batre (mod. F.
battre), to beat, from L. battere, batere, popular forms of batuere, to
beat. Der. (from OF. batre) a-bate,q.y. Also rebate, sb., discount ;
rebate-ment, a diminution, narrowing, 1 Kings, vi. 6, margin, where
the A. V. has ‘narrowed rests.’ Cf. also rebato, rabato, a kind of
ruff, Much Ado, iii. 4. 6, where the final -o seems to be an E.
REBECK
addition, as the word is not Span. or Ital., but French; from F.
rabat, ‘a rebatoe for a womans ruffe’ (Cot.), which from rabattre, to
turn back, for re-abattre.
REBECK, a three-stringed fiddle. (F.— Arab.) ‘And the jocund
rebecks sound ;” Milton, L’Allegro, 94. Hugh Rebeck is a proper
name in Romeo, iv. 5. 135. An old woman is called ‘an old
rebekke,’ and again, ‘an old ribybe, in Chaucer, C. T. 7155, 6959
(D 1573, 1377).—OF. rebec, ‘the fiddle tearmed a rebeck;’ Cot.
Also spelt rebebe (Hatzfeld, Roquefort).—Arab. rabab, rababa(t), a
rebeck, an instrument played with a bow; Devic.
REBEL, adj., rebellious, opposing or renouncing authority.
(F.—L.) The verb is from the sb., and the sb. was orig. an adj.
ME. rebél, rebellious, Rob. of Glouc. p. 72, 1. 1625. ‘ And alle that
he rébel founde;” King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1. 3033. ‘Avaunt!
rebél!’ Lydgate, Minor Poems, Percy Soc., p. 35.—F. rebelle, adj.,
rebellious, wilful. —L. rebellem, acc. of rebellis, rebellious, lit. re-
newing war.—L. re-, again; and bell-um, war. See Re-, Belli-
gerent, and Duel. Der. rebel, verb, Barbour, Bruce, x. 129
(Edinburgh MS.) ; rebell-ion, Wyclif, 3 Kings, xi. 27, from F. re-
bellion, ‘ rebellion, Cot. ; rebell-i-ous, Rich. II, v. 1.5; rebell-i-ous-ly,
“NESS.
REBOUND, to bound back. (F.—L.) ‘I rebounde, as a ball
dothe, je bondys;’ Palsgrave. And in Surrey, The Lover describes
his state, 1, 19; in Tottell’s Misc., ed. Arber, p. 24. Trevisa has
reboundynge, sb., tr. of Higden, i. 189.—F. rebondir, ‘ to rebound, or
leap back ;’ Cot.—F. re-, back; and bondir, to leap, bound. See
Re- and Bound (1). Der. rebound, sb., Antony, v. 2. 104; and in
Palsgrave.
REBUFYF, a sudden check or resistance, repulse. (Ital.) ‘The
strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud;’ Milton, P. L. ii. 936.=—
Ital. rebuffo, ribuffo, ‘a check, a chiding, a taunt, a skoulding, a rating ;’
connected with Ital. ribuffare, ‘to check, to chide ;’ Florio. Mod.
Ital. ribuffo, a reproof; ribuffare, to repulse.—Ital. ri- (<L. re-),
back ; and buffo, a puff, a word of imitative origin, like E. puff. See
Re- and Puff. Der. rebuff, verb.
REBUKE, to reprove, chide. (F.—L.) ME. rebuken, P. Plow-
man, B, xi. 419. “5 AF. rebuker, Langtoft, ii. 108; ONF. rebuker, to
defeat (a plan), Chardry, Vie des Set Dormans, 1. 1589; rebukier,
OF. rebuchier, the same (Godefroy).—OF. re- (L. re-), again; and
ONF. bucquer, buskier, OF. buschier, to beat, to knock, orig. to cut
trees, to cut logs for the fire, to lop (Godefroy, s. v. buschier), mod. F.
bucher, ‘ to rough-hew, to destroy,’ Hamilton. B. This OF. buschier,
¥. biicher, is from OF. busche, Ἐς, biiche, a log ; from Late L. busca,
alog (Ducange). Cf. Picard busker, buker, to beat, strike, knock
(Corblet) ; Walloon busquer, buquer, to strike, bugue, a log (Sigart) ;
Norm. dial. briquette, a billet. Orig. ‘to cut back.’ Der. rebuke, sb.,
Sir Degrevant, 863 ; rebuk-er.
REBUS, an enigmatical representation of words by pictures of
things. (L.) ‘As round as Gyges’ ring, which, say the ancients,
Was a hoop-ring, and that is, round asa hoop. Lovel, You willhave
your rebus still, mine host;”? Ben Jonson, New Inn, Act i. sc. 1.
‘Excellent have beene the conceipt({s] of some citizens, who, wanting
armes, have coined themselves certaine devices as neere as may be
alluding to their names, which we call rebus;’ Henry Peacham
(1634), The Gentleman’s Exercise, p. 155, ὃ 2, B. 3. It refers to
representing names, &c., by things; thus a bolt and ‘un expresses
Bolton; and so on.—L. rébus, by things, by means of things ; abl. pl.
of rés, a thing; see Real. @ Cf. omnibus.
REBUT, to oppose by argument or proof. (F.—-MHG.; with L.
prefix.) ‘Rebutit of the prey ’=driven away from the prey, repulsed ;
Dunbar, The Golden Targe, ]. 180.—AF. reboter, OF. rebouter, ‘to
repulse, foyle, drive back, reject,’ &c.; Cot. =F. re-(=L. re-), back ;
and bouter, to thrust. See Re- and Butt (1). Der. rebutt-er, a
plaintiff’s answer to a defendant’s rejoinder, a law term.
RECALL, to call back. (Scand.; with L. prefix.) In Shak.
Lucrece, 1671. From Re-and Call. Der. recall, sb., Milton, P. L.
v. 885.
RECANT, to retract an opinion. (L.) ‘Which duke... did
recant his former life;’ Contin. of Fabyan’s Chron., an. 1553; ed.
Ellis, p. 712.—L. recantire, to sing back, re-echo, also to recant,
recall (Horace, Od. i. 16. 27); the orig. sense was perhaps to reverse
a charm. =L, re-, back ; and cantare, to sing ; see Re- and Chant.
Der. recant-er, recant-at-ion. t= This throws some light on the
word cant, and renders the derivation of cant from L. cantire more
easy and probable.
RECAST, to cast or mould anew. (Scand.; with L. prefix.)
Also, to throw back again; ‘they would cast and recast themselves
from one to another horse ;’ Florio, tr. of Montaigne, bk. i. c. 48.
From Re- and Cast.
RECEDE, to retreat. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1658. - L. recédere, to
give ground, retreat. See Re- and Cede. Der. recess, in Hall,
RECKON 503
Hen. VIII, an. 34. § 7, from L. recessus, a retreat, which from
recessus, pp. of recédere. Also recess-ion, from L. recessio.
RECEIVE, to accept, admit, entertain. (F.—L.) ME. receiuen,
receyuen (with τε forv). ‘He that receyueth other recetteth hure ys
recettor of gyle;’ P. Plowman, C. iv. 501.— AF. receiv-, a stem of
receivre, OF. recoivre; mod. F. recevoir.—L, recipere (pp. receptus), to
receive. = L. re-, back; and capere, to take; with the usual vowel-
change from a to i in composition. See Re- and Capacious.
Der. receiv-er. Also receipt, ME. receit, Chaucer, C. T. 16821
(G 1353), from AF. recette, Year-books, 1304-5, p. 295, OF.
recete, recepte, recoite (Littré), MF. recepte, ‘a receit,’ Cot., mod. F. re-
cette<L. recepta, a thing received, fem. of receptus. And see receptacle,
recipe.
RECENT, new, fresh, modern. (F.—L.) In Minsheu.—MF.
recent (F. récent), ‘recent, fresh.’—L. recent-, stem of recens, fresh,
new. Der. recent-ly, -ness.
RECEPTACLE, a place in which tostore thingsaway. (F.—L.)
In Shak. Romeo, iv. 3. 39.—ME. receptacle, ‘a receptacle, store-
house, Cot.—L. receptaculum, a receptacle; formed with dimin.
suffixes -cu-lo- from receptdre, frequentative form of recipere, to re-
ceive; see Receive. Der. (like pp. receptus) recept-ion, formerly
a term in astrology, Gower, C. A. iii. 67, bk. vi. 1962, from F.
reception, ‘a reception,” Cot., from L. acc. receptidnem; also recept-
ive, from OF. receptif (Godefroy) ; hence recept-iv-i-ty, from mod. F.
réceptivité, a coined word.
RECESS, RECESSION ; see Recede.
RECHEAT, a signal of recall, in hunting. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Much Ado, i. 1. 242.—AF. rechet, ONorth F. rechet, variant of
recet, a retreat, hence, a note of retreat; see Godefroy, and cf. Norm.
dial. recheveir, to receive (Moisy).—L. receptum, acc. of receptus, a
retreating, a retreat.—L. recepius, pp. of recipere, to receive; see
Receive. Influenced by OF. racheter (< L. re-ad-captaire), to
reassemble, to rally (Godefroy).
RECIPH, a medical prescription. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706;
he rightly explains that it is so called because it begins with the
word recife, i.e. take so and so. B. Jonson has the pl. recipes,
Alchemist, ii. 1. 443.—L. recipe, imp. sing. of recipere, to take. See
Receive. So also recipi-ent, one who receives, from the stem of
the pres. part. of recipere.
RECIPROCAL, acting in return, mutual. (L.) In King Lear,
iv. 6. 267. Formed by adding -al to L. reciproc-us, returning,
alternating, reciprocal; whence also MF. reciproque, and obsolete
E. reciproque, of which see examples inR. Lit. ‘ directed backwards
and forwards ;’ from L, *re-co-, backwards, and *pro-co-, forwards,
allied to procul, afar off. Brugmann, ii. § 86. Der. rectprocal-ly ;
also reciproc-ate, given in Phillips as a grammatical term, from reci-
procatus, pp. of reciprocare, to go backwards and forwards, to recipro-
cate; rectproc-at-ion, from F. reciprocation, ‘a reciprocation, returning,’
Cot. ; reciproc-i-ty, from mod. F. reciprocité.
RECITE, to repeat aloud, narrate. (F.—L.) In Levins, ed.
1570. ‘ Reciteth in the gospell;’ Caxton, Golden Legend, St. John
Evang. § 5.- Εἰ reciter, ‘to recite, repeat,’ Cot.—L. recitare, to re-
cite; see Re- and Cite. Der. recit-al, North’s Plutarch, p. 14 (R.),
recit-er ; recit-at-ion, from F. recitation, in use in the 15th cent. (Littré),
though omitted by Cotgrave ; recit-at-ive, mod. F. récitatif, from Ital.
recitativo, recitative in music.
RECK, to regard. (E.) ME. rekken, frequently also recchen,
Chaucer, C. T. 1400, 2259; P. Plowman, B. iv. 65. The vowel has
been shortened, being orig. long. AS. reccan, also récan (for *rocian) ;
‘pu ne récst’=thou carest not, Mark, xii. 14.44OSax. rdkian ; Icel.
rekja; Pomeran. réken; MHG. ruochen, OHG. rohhjan, ruohhjan, to
reck, heed, have a care for. B. The é results, as usual, from ὃ
followed by ἡ in the next syllable. The verb is a denominative, i.e.
from asb. The sb. exists in MHG. ruoch, OHG. ruah, ruok, care,
heed, answering to a Teut. type *rdk-oz, m. From Teut. *rok-, 2nd
grade of *rak-, as seen in Icel. rék, a reason, AS. racu, account,
reckoning, OSax. raka, an affair, OHG. rahha, subject, thing. See
Reckon. Der. reck-less, AS. recceléas, AElfred, tr. of Gregory's
Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, p. 4, 1. 23, spelt réceléas, id. p. 5, 1. 23; cf.
Du. roekeloos ; reck-less-ly, reck-less-ness.
RECKON, to count, account, esteem. (E.) ME. rekenen,
reknen; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1956 (A 1954); P. Plowman, B. ii. 61, AS.
ge-recenian, to explain, Grein, i. 440; the prefixed ge-, readily added
or dropped, makes no real difference. A derivative verb; allied to
AS. ge-reccan, reccan, to rule, direct, order, explain, ordain, tell;
Grein, i. 440, ii. 369.4Du. rekenen; (whence Icel. reikna, Dan.
regne, Swed. rézna); G. rechnen, ΜΉ. rechenen, OHG. rehhanon,
to compute, reckon. β. All from Teut, base *rak-, asin AS. rac-u,
account, Icel, ré#, neut. -pl., a reason, ground, origin, cognate with
MHG. racha, OHG. rahha, a thing, subject. Der. reckon-er; also
reck-on-ing, cognate with G, rechnung.
RECLAIM
RECLAIM, to tame, bring into a cultivated state, reform. (F.—
L.) ME, recleimen, reclaimen, esp. as a term in hawking; Chaucer,
C, T. 17021 (H 472).—OF. reclaim-, a stem of reclamer, ‘to call
often or earnestly, exclaime upon, sue, claime;’ Cot. Mod. F.
réclamer,—L, reclamare, to cry out against.—L. re-, back, again;
and clamare, to cry out. See Re- and Claim. Der. reclaim-able ;
also reclam-at-ion, from MF. reclamation, ‘a contradiction, gain-
saying,’ Cot., from L, acc. reclamatidnem, a cry of opposition.
RECLINE, to lean back, lie down. (L.) In Milton, P. L. iv.
333-—L. reclinare, to lean back, L. re-, back; and clinare, to lean,
cognate with E. ean (1).
RECLUSE, secluded, retired, (F.—L.) ME, reclus, masc.;
Fifty Early E. Wills, ed. Furnivall, p. 7,1. 31 (1395). The form
recluse is properly feminine, and it first appears with reference to
female anchorites. | ME, recluse, Ancren RKiwle (Rule of Female
Anchorites), p. 10, 1. 5.—OF. reclus, masc., recluse, fem., ‘closely
kept in, or shut up as a monk or nun;’ Cot, Pp, of OF. reclorre,
‘to shut or close up again;’ Cot.—L. reclidere, to unclose, but in
504.
late L. to shut up.—L. re-, back ; and claudere, to shut, See Re-
and Clause,
RECOGNISE, to know again, acknowledge. (F.—L.) In
Levins. The MF. yerb is recognoistre in Cot., mod. F, reconnaitre.
The E. verb is not immediately derived from this, but is merely made
out of the sb. recognisance, which was in rather early use, and occurs
in Chaucer as a legal term, C. T. 13260 (B 1520). — AF, reconisaunce,
Stat. Realm, i. 53 (1283); OF, recoignisance (13th cent., Littré),
later recognoissance, ‘a recognizing, also an acknowledgement of
tenure,’ Cot, OF. reconoissant, pres. part. of reconoistre (F, recon-
nattre).—L. recognoscere.L, re-, again; and cognascere, to know.
See Re- and Cognisance. Der, recognis-able; also recognit-ion,
in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, from L, acc. recognitidnem, nom, recog-
nitig, allied to recognit-us, pp. of recognoscere. And see reconnoitre,
RECOIL, to start back, rebound, (F,—L.) ME. recoilen, used
transitively, to drive back, Ancren Riwle, p, 294, 1. 6, Also recule ;
41 recule, 1 go back, ie recule;’ Palsgraye, Cf. AF. pres. pt.
recuillant, Langtoft, ii. 176.—F. reculer, ‘to recoyle, retire, defer,
drive off,’ Cot, Lit. to go backwards.—F. re- (=L. re-), back;
and οἰ, the hinder part, from L, οἴη, acc. of cuilus, the hinder part,
the posteriors. Der. recoil, sb., Milton, P. L, ii. 880.
RECOLLECT, to remember, (F.—L.) Used in Shak, in the
lit. sense ‘to gather,’ to collect again, Per. 11. 1, 54. From Re- and
Collect. Der, recolleci-jon.
RECOMMEND, to commend to another, (F.—L.) ME,
recommenden, Chaucer, C, T. 16012 (ἃ 544), From Re- and
Commend; in imitation of F, recommander, ‘to recommend,’ Cot.
Der. recommend-able, recommend-at-ion, recommend-at-or-y,
RECOMPENSH, to reward, remunerate, (F.—L.) ME, re-
compense, Gower, C, A. ii, 278; bk. γι 4505.— OF. recompenser (F,
recompenser), ‘to recompence;’ Cot,—L, re-, again; and compen-
sare; see Re- and Compensate, Der, recompense, sb., Timon, vy. I.
153.
RECONCILE, to restore to friendship, cause to agree. (F.—L.)
ME, reconcilen, Gower, C, A, iii, 138 ; bk. vii. 1578, — OF, reconcilier,
‘to reconcile, Cot,—L. reconcilidre, to reconcile, lit. to bring into
counsel again, See Re- and Conciliate, Der, reconcil-er, recon-
cil-able ; reconciliat-ion, from OF. reconciliation (Cot, <L, acc. re-
conciliationem.
RECONDITE, secret, profound. (L,) In Phillips, ed. 1706. =
L. reconditus, put away, hidden, secret; pp. of recondere, to put
back again. = L. re-, again; and condere, to put together, β. The
L. condere (in which the prefixis con-, for com-=cum, with), contains
the weak grade of the 4/DHE, to put, place, Brugmann, i. ὃ 573.
Cf, abs-cond. And see Do.
RECONNOITRE, to survey, examine from a military point
of view, (F.—L,) ‘She reconnoitres fancy’s airy band;’ Young,
Night Thoughts, Nt. ii. 1.265. See Spectator, no. 165, ὃ 5.—OF,
reconaistre (Littré), mod. F. reconnaitre, ‘to recognize; .. also, to
take a precise view οἵ: Cot, See Recognise, Der, recon-
naiss-ance, from mod, F, reconnaissance ; of which recognisance is a
doublet.
RECORD, to register, enrol, celebrate. (F.—L.) ME, recorden,
to repeat, remind, Ancren Riwle, p, 256, 1. 19; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 831
(A 829).—OF, recorder, ‘to repeat, recite, report,’ Cot.<L. recor-
dare, more usually recordari, to call a thing to mind.=—L. re-,
again; and cord-, stem of cor, the heart, cognate with E. heart,
See Re- and Heart. Der. record, sb., Chaucer, C, Τὶ 7631 (Ὁ
2049), from OF, record, ‘a record, witnesse,’ Cot.; record-er,
record-er-ship.
RECOUNT, to tell again, narrate, (F.—L.) In Skelton, Philip
Sparowe, 1. 613. ‘ Who may recounte,’ &c.; Caxton, G. Legend, St.
Pawlyne, ὃ 8.—OF. reconter, to tell again (Godefroy), Krom Re-
RECTILINEAL, RECTILINEAR
and Count. The F. conter often has the sense ‘ to relate;’ the F.
compound verb is written raconter, which Cotgraye explains by ‘to
tell, relate, report, rehearse ;’ where the prefix ra- represents L,
re-ad-.
RECOUP, to diminish a loss by keeping back a part asa claim
for damages. (F.—L. and Gk.) Spelt recoupe in Phillips, ed, 1706;
whom see, It means lit, to secure a piece or shred, —F. recoute, ‘a
shred,’ Cot,—F, recouper, to cut again, FF. re- (=L, re-), again;
and couper, to cut, a word of Gk, origin. See Re- and Coppice.
RECOURSE, a going to or resorting to for aid. (F.—L.) ΜΕ,
recours, Chaucer, C, T, 10389 (F 75).—F. recours, ‘a recourse,
refuge,’ Cot.<L. recursum, acc, of recursus, a running back, re-
turn, retreat,—L. recursus, pp, of recurrere. See Recur and
Course.
RECOVER, to get again, regain. (F.-L.) ΜῈ, recoeuren (with
uforv), P, Plowman, B. xix. 239; also recoveren, rekeneren, id. C.
xxii. 245; King Alisaunder, 5835.—OF. recourer, recuvrer (Burguy),
F. recouvrer, ‘to recover ;’ (οἱ. “ἴον recuperdre, to recover; also to
recruit oneself. B. A difficult word; not connected with Sabine
cuprus, good. Also spelt reciperare, and extended from recipere, like
tolerare from follere. From re-, back again, and capere, to take.
Cf. Brugmann, i. § 244 (4), For the vowel τὶ, cf, oc-cup-are, Der.
recover-able; recover-y, All’s Well, iv. 1. 38. Doublet, re-
cuperate.
RECREANT, cowardly, apostate, (F.—L.) ME. recreant,
Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 9, 1. 243 recreaunt, P, Plowman,
B, xviii. 100,—OF. recreant, ‘tired, toyled, faint-hearted,’ Cot.;
properly the pres. part. of recroire, ‘to beleeve again ; also, to restore,
deliver, or give back ;’ id,; (hence, to give in). And cf. MF. recreu,
‘tired, wearie, faint-hearted,’ id, |B, The pres, part. recreant and
pp. recreu partook of the sense of Late L. recrédere, fram which
MF. recroire is derived. This yerb, lit. to believe again, or to alter
one’s faith, was also used in the phrase se recrédere, to own oneself
beaten in a duel or judicial combat, The same sense reappears
in Ital. ricreduto, ‘a miscreant, recreant, a misheleeying wretch;’
Florio. = L, re-, again ; and crédere, to believe; see Re- and Creed.
Der, recreanc-y, And see mis-creant,
RECREATION, amusement. (F.—L.) ME, recreation, Gower,
C, A, ili, 100; bk, vii. 477,.—F. recreation, ‘recreation, pastime ;’
(οἵ. “εἴ, recredtionem, ace, of recredatio, recovery from illness (Pliny) ;
ef. L, recredtus, pp, of recreaire, to refresh, revive; whence the sense
of to amuse by way of inyigorating the system or mind. Lit. ‘to
create anew. See Re- and Create, Der. recreate, in Palsgrave,
from L, pp. recredtus, Also recreat-ive.
RECRIMINATE, to accuse in return, (L.) In Phillips, ed,
1706.—L, re-, again; and criminatus, pp. of crimindri, to accuse of
crime; from crimin-, stem of crimen; see Crime, Der, recrimin-a!-
ion, from MF, recrimination, ‘a recrimination,’ Cot. ; recriminat-or-y,
recriminat-ive.
RECRUDESCENCE, a reopening, renewal. (L.) In North’s
Examen, ed, 1740, p. 632, From L. recriidescent-, stem of pres.
part. of recriidescere, to become raw again, to open again (as a
wound).=L, re-, again; and cridus, raw; see Crude.
RECRUIT, to enlist new soldiers, (F.—L.) ‘To recrute and
maintain their army when raised;’ Prynne, Treachery and Dis-
loyalty, pt, iv. p. 33 (R.). ‘A recruit [supply] of new people;’
Howell, Famil. Letters, vol, i. pt, i, let. 38, § 7.—F, recruter, not
given in Cotgrave, but explained by Littré by ‘to levy teoops.’ He
tells us that it is an ill-formed word, first found in the 17th century.
Formed from *recru¢e, a mistaken or proyincial form for recrue, fem,
of recrd, pp. of recrotire, to grow again. See also Hatzfeld. The
sb. recru¢ occurs in Roumansch, B. The word reerve is used asasb.,
and means ‘a leyy of troops,’ [The ¢ appears in MF. recroist, ‘ a re-
increase, a new orsecond growth,’ Cot.; cf. recroistre, ‘ to re-encrease,’
id,J—F, re-, again; and croéfre (OF. croistre), to grow.—L, re-,
again; and crescere, to grow; see Re- and Crescent, Der.
recruit, sb.; recruit-er, recruit-ing.
RECTANGLE, a four-sided figure, of which all the angles are
right angles. (F.—L,) In Phillips, ed, 16:8; he says it was used ta
denote a right angle. F. rectangle, ‘a stra:t or even angle;’ Cot. τὸ
Το rectangulus, having a right angle. —L. reci-us, right; and angulus,
an angle; see Rectify and Angle, Der, rectang/-ed, rectangul-ar,
RECTIFY, to make right, adjust, (F.~L.) ‘To reciy/ye and
amend;’ Skelton, Colin Clout, 1265. ME. rectifier, Lanfrank,
Cirurgie, p. 80, 1. 3.—F. rectifier, ‘to rectifie;’ Cot.—Late L,
rectificare, to make right.—L, recti-, for rectus, right, cognate with
E. right; and -fie-, for fac-ere, to make, See Right and Fact,
Der. rectifi-able, rectific-at-ion, rectifi-er.
RECTILINEAL, RECTILINEAR, bounded by right or
straight lines, (L.) Spelt recti/ineal in Phillips, ed. 1706. Formed
| with suffix -al (<L. -dlis) or ταῦ (<L. -aris) from reetiline-us,
RECTITUDE
rectilineal.—L. recti-, for rectus, right; and dine-a, a line,
Right and Line.
RECTITUDE, uprightness. (F.—L.) ‘ By the rectitude of his
justice ;’ Golden Book, let. 15 (R.).—F. rectitude, omitted by Cot-
grave, but used in the 14th cent. (Littre). = L. rectitiido, straightness,
uprightness ; formed with suffix -¢ado from rectj-, for rectus, straight,
cognate with E. Right, q.v. 4] So also rect-or, lit, a ruler, All’s
Well, iy. 3. 69, from L, rector, a ruler; which is for *reg-tor ; from
regere, to rule; see Regiment, Hence rector-ship, Cor. 11, 3. 2133
rector-ate, rector-al, rector-y,
RECUMBENT, lying back or upon, reclining. (L.) Recumbency
is in Phillips, ed. 1710. Recumbent seems later; it is in Cowper, The
Needless Alarm, 1. 47.1. recumbent-, stem of pres. part. of recum-
bere, to recline. =L, re-, hack; and see Incumbent. Der, re-
cumbenc-y.
RECUPERATIVE, tending to recovery. (L.) Reeuperable, i.e.
recoverable, is in Levins, but is now disused. Recuperacion (sic) is
in Caxton, Godeffroy of Boloyne, p. 4, 1. 16, Recuperator is in
Phillips, ed.1706. Recuperative appears to be modern, = L, recupera-
tiuus, (properly) recoyerable,—L, recuperdtus, pp. of recuperare, to
recover; see Recover.
RECDUR, to resort, return to the mind, happen again at stated
intervals. (L.) In Phillips, ed,1706. Recurrent is in Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674.—L. recurrere, to run back, return, recur,=L. re-, back;
and currere, to run; see Re- and Current. Der. recurr-ent, from
the stem of the pres. part.; whence recurr-ence; also recourse, .V.
RECUSANT, opposing an opinion, refusing to acknowledge
supremacy. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.—MF. recusant, ‘re-
jecting, refusing,’ Cot.; pres, part. of recuser.—L, reciisare, to reject ;
properly, to oppose a cause or opinion, = L. re-, back, hence, with-
drawing from; and caussa, a cause; see Re- and Cause. β, The
same change takes place in accuse (accusare), also from L. cazssa,
Der. recusanc-y.
RED, one of the primary colours, (E,) ME. reed (with long
vowel), sometimes rede, red; Chaucer, C, T. 637. AS, réad, red;
Grein, ii. 373.4-Du, rood; Icel, raudr; Dan, rod; Swed, réd; G.
roth; Goth. rauds. β, All from Teut. type *raudoz; Idg. type
*roudhos, Further allied to Skt. rudhira-, blood, Gk, ἐρεύθειν, to
redden, ἐρυθρός, red, Irish and Gael, ruadh, W. rhudd, L. ruber, red.
Note also the strong yerb appearing as AS, réodan, Icel. rja0q (pt. t.
raud), to redden. (4/REUDH,) Der, red-ly, red-ness; redd-en
(with -en as in strength-en, length-en); redd-ish, redd-ish-ness; red-
breast (a bird with red breast), Skelton, Phillip Sparrow, 399, Lyd-
gate, Floure of Curteisie, st. g; red-shank (a bird with red shanks or
legs); red-start (a bird with a red tail, from AS. steort, a tail, Exod,
iv. 4), in Levins; red-hot, red-heat, red-lead, red-letter, red-tape.
Allied words are ruby, rubescent, rubric, ruddy, russet.
REDACT, to reduce, to edit. (L.) Becon has redact in the sense
“reduced ;? Works, i. 46 (Parker Soc,),=L, redactus, pp. of redigere,
to bring back, reduce,=L, red-, back; and agere, to bring; see
Agent. Der. redact-ion.
REDDITION, a rendering, restoring, (F.—L.) In Cotgrave ;
and Minshen, ed. 1627.—F. reddition, ‘a reddition;’ Cot.—L. red-
ditiOnem, acc. of redditio, a rendering; cf, redditus, pp. of reddere,
to restore; see Render. Der. reddit-ive.
REDEEM, to ransom, atone for. (F,—L.) Τάς. to buy back,
Latimer has redemed and redeming, sb., Seven Sermons, ed, Arber,
p- 202. Wyclif has redempcion, Luke, i. 68. =F, redimer, ‘to redeem,
ransom,’ Cot. [But the change of vowel is remarkable ; perhaps
partly due to L, emere.|—L, redimere, to buy back, redeem, = L. red-,
back; and emere, to buy, orig. to take, from 4/EM, to take. See
Re- and Example. Der. redeem-er, redeem-able; redempt-ion,
from F. redemption< L. acc. redemptiénem, nom. redempfio, allied to
redempt-us, pp. of redimere ; redempt-ive, redempt-or-y. Doublet (of
redemption), ransom,
REDGUM, a disease of infants, (E.) Fully explained in my
Notes to P. Plowman, C, xxiii. 83, p. 444. ME. reed gounde,
Prompt. Pary.— AS. réad, red; gund, matter of a sore.
REDINTEGRATION, renovation. (L.) Minsheu has redin-
tegration and redintegrate, yetb,eL, redintegritio, sb.; allied to
redintegratus, pp. of redintegrdre, to restore, renovate. —L, red-,
again; and infegrare, to renew, from integr-, for integer, whole, See
Re- and Integer.
REDOLENT, fragrant. (F.—L.) In the Tale of Beryn, ed,
Fumivall, 1, 2765. — MF, redolent, ‘redolent ;’ Cot. = L. redolent-, stem
of pres. part. of redolare, to emit odour. = L. red-, again ; and olére,
to be odorous, See Re- and Olfactory, Der. redolence, Lydgate,
Assembly of Gods, 1611; redolenc-y,
REDOUBLE, to double again. (F,—L,) ‘I redoubyll, Idoubyll
agayne, je redouble ;’ Palsgrave.—F.redoubler ; from re- and doubler,
to double. See Re- and Double.
See
REEL 505
REDOUBT, an intrenched place of retreat. (I’.—Ital.—L.) Used
by Bacon, according to ‘Todd’s Johnson; Ben Jonson has redouts;
Under-woods, Ixxxix; 1.8. Phillips, ed. 1706, gives the spellings
reduit (which is a F. form) and reduct (which is Latin), =F. redoute.
= Ital. ridotto, ‘a withdrawing-place ;’ Florio. Formed as sb. from
ridotio, ‘reduced, brought or Jed vnto, brought back safe and sound
againe;’ Florio. This is the same word as ridut‘o, pp. of ridurre,
to bring back, bring home. = L. redicere, to bring back ; see Reduce.
q The spelling redoubt is due to confusion with MF, redoubter, to
dread, as if a redoubt were a place into which men retire out of fear !
See Redoubtable,
REDOUBTABLE, terrible. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave; the verb
to redoybt, to fear, was formerly in use, as in Minsheu. ME. re-
doutable, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, Ὁ. iv. pr. 5, 1, 6.—OF. redoutable ;
MF. redoubtable, ‘ redoubtable,’ Cot. OF. and F. redouter, to fear.
See Re- and Doubt.
REDOUND, to abound, he replete with, result. (F.—L.) ‘ Re:
dounding teares ;’ Spenser, F.Q. 1, 3.8. “1 redownde, je redonde;’
Palsgrave. And in Caxton, Siege of Troye, lf. 205, back, 1.19. —F.
redonder, ‘to redound ;’ Cot.—L. redundare, to overflow, abound.
-L. red-, again, back, hence over; and wndare, to surge, flow,
abound, from τρια, a wave. See Re- and Undulate, Der. re-
dund-ant, from the stem of the pres. part. of redundare ; redund-ant-
ly, redund-ance, redund-anc-y.
REDRESS, to set right again. (F.—L.) ME. redressen,
Chaucer, C. T. 8307 (E. 431).—F. redresser, ‘to redresse, straighten,’
(οἱ, “ΕΝ re- (<<L. re-) again; and dresser; see Re- and Dress,
Der. redress, sb., Skelton, Magnificence, 2438; redress-ible, redress-ive.
REDUCE, to bring down, subdue, arrange. (L.) In Palsgrave.
Used in the sense ‘to bring back ;” Rich. III, v. 5, 36.—L. redzicere,
to bring back, restore, reduce.—L, re-, back; and ducere, to lead,
bring. See Re- and Duct, Duke. Der. reduc-ible, spelt reduce-
able in Levins; also reduct-ion, from MF. reduction, ‘a reduction,
reducing, Cot., from L, acc. reductidOnem, from nom, reductio, allied
to reduct-us, pp. of rediicere.
REDUNDANT; see under Redound.
REDUPLICATEH, to multiply, repeat. (L.)
reduplicatus, pp. of obsolete reduplicire, to redouble.
Duplicate.
RE-ECHO, to echo back. (L. and Gk.) In Spenser’s Fairie
Queene, Mutability, c. vi. st. 52. From Re- and Echo.
REECHY, dirty. (E.) Lit. ‘smoky;’ another form of reeky.
In Shak, Cor. ii. 1. 225, Hamlet, iii. 4.184; Much Ado, iii. 3. 143.
Cf. ‘Auld reekie’ as a name for Edinburgh. See Reek.
REED, a common name for certain grasses, (E.) ME. reed,
Wyclif, Matt. xi. 7. AS. hréod, Matt. xi. 7.4-Du. riet; ΕΑ. riet, ried.
Teut. type *Areudom, neut. Der. reed-ed, reed-y.
REEF (1), a ridge of rocks. (Du.) Formerly rif. ‘A riff or
ridge of rocks;’ Dampier’s Voyages, vol. i. an. 1681; pp. 47, 50
(R.). Of late introduction. = Du. rif, a reef, riff, sand. Sewel (ed.
1754) explains it by ‘a flatin sea, a rig’ Hexham has sf, rife, ‘ a
foard, or a shallow place.’+4Icel. rif, a reef in the sea; Dan. rev, a
reef, bank; cf. revle, a shoal; Swed. ref, a sandbank; Pomeran,
ref. The G. riff, a reef, is prob. borrowed from Dutch. B. The
Du. and Icel. rif, Dan. rev, n., may represent a Teut. type *rebjom,
n, Perhaps allied to Rib, q.v. Cf. Norw. ribbe, a mountain-ridge,
MF. cosée, ‘a τί, also a little hill, or descent of land;’ Cot. Der.
reef-y.
REEF (2), a portion of a sail that can be drawn close together.
(Du.) Fully explained in Phillips, ed. 1706. ‘Up, aloft, lads;
come, reef both topsails;’ Dryden, Enchanted Island, Acti. sc. 1
(R.). ΜΕ. riff, Gower, C. A. iii, 341; bk. viii. 1953.— Du, reef,
‘a riff in a sail;’ Sewel, ed. 1754. MDu. rif, also rift (Kilian),
‘ Een rif van een zeyl inbinden, to binde up a peece ofa saile when the
wind blowes too hard;’ Hexham. Hence is formed Du. reven, to
reeve.+Low G. reff, riff, a little sail, which is added to a large one
when there is little wind; cf. reffen, to reeve; EFries. ref, réf;
Pomeran. raff, a little extra sail, a bonnet; Swed. ref, a reef; refua,
to reeve; Dan. reb, a reef; rebe, to reeve; Icel. rif, a reef in .a sail.
Of uncertain origin ; cf. Icel. retfa, to swaddle, AS. réfan, to wrap
up. Der, reef, verb; also reeve, verb, q.v.
REEK, vapour, smoke. (E.) ME. reke, Cursor Mundi, 2744;
where the Trinity MS. has reech. AS. réc, vapour; Grein, ii. 369;
OMere. rée (O. E, Texts) ; OF ries. rék.4-Du. rook; Icel. reykr; Swed.
rok; Dan, rég; G.rauch; OHG. royk. B. Teut. base *rauk-; from
*rauk, 2nd grade of the str. vb. *reukan-, to smoke, as in AS.
réocan, Icel, rjuka, OHG. riohhan, G. riechen. Brugmann, i. § 217.
Der. reek, verb=AS. récan, weak verb (Grein) ; reek-y ; also reech-y,
In Levins. —L.
See Re- and
q.v.
REEL (1), a small spindle for winding yarn, (E.) ME. rele.
‘Hoc alabrum, a rele ;’ Wright’s Voc., p. 269, col. 1. At p. 180 of
506 REEL
the same vol., alabrum is again glossed by reele. AS. hréol ; “ alibrum
(sic), hreol;’ Wright’s Voc. p. 59; riul, p. 66. Ducange explains the
Late L. alabrum asareel. (Not Icel. hrzll or rell, a weaver’s rod or
sley; EFries. rel; North Fries. reel (Outzen). Kluge derives AS.
hréol from a form *hrdehil, but this would give a form *hrél; see Eng.
Studien, xi. 512.] Der. reel, verb, ME. relien, relen, orig. to wind on
a reel (P. Plowman, C. x. 81, Prompt. Parv.), hence to turn round
and round (Allit. Poems, C. 147), and so to stagger, Temp. v. 279.
‘ They relyd bacward;’ Malory, Morte Arthur, bk. vii. c. 16, 1. 49.
Cf. NFries. reele, to wind ona reel. 7 Not allied to roll.
REEL (2), 2 Highland dance. (Scand.?) Commonly called ‘a
Scotch reel.’ Todd gives the following : ‘ Geilles Duncane did goe
before them, playing this reil2 or daunce upon asmall trump ;’ News
from Scotland (1591), sig. B. iii; hence Gael. righil, a reel, a
Scottish dance ; also written ruithil. Perhaps a Scand. word. Cf.
Dan. dial. riel, riil, a reel, dance; described at length by Molbech,
but perhaps from E. So also Norw. ri (pron. riil); Aasen. Or
possibly from reel, verb; see Reel (1).
RE-ELECT, RE-EMBARK, RE-ENACT, RE-EN-
FORCE, RE-ENTER, RE-ESTABLISH, RE-EX-
AMINE; see Elect, Embark, &c.
REEST, the mould-board or breast of a plough. (E.) Also
(wrongly) wreest; see E.D.D. AS. réost; ‘sules réost, dentale ;’
Bosworth +OLow G. rios¢er, a share-beam (Gallée).
REEVE (1), to pass the end of a rope through a hole or ring.
(Du.) A nautical word; not in Todd’s Johnson.—Du. reven, to
reeve.— Du. reef, a reef; because a reeved rope is used for reefing.
See Reef (2). @ The pt.t. is usually rove; but this is a mere
invention, as the verb, like all other verbs derived from sbs., is pro-
perly a weak one; made by analogy, like hove from heave.
REEVE (2), an officer, steward, governor. (E.) See Chaucer’s
Reve’s Tale. AS. geréfa, an officer, governor ; Grein, i. 441. The
orig. sense was perhaps ‘ numberer’ or registrar (of soldiers); as if
for *ge-rdf-ja, from -rdf, a host (as in secg-rdf), a host of men, Cf.
OHG. *ruoba, ruova, a number. See Kemble, Saxons in England,
ii. 154. @ Not allied to G. graf. Der. borough-reeve, port-reeve ;
sheriff, q-V-
REEVE (3); a bird, the female of the ruff; see Ruff (2).
REFECTION, refreshment, a repast. (F.—L.) ‘With a litle
refection ;’ Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b. iii. c. 22. § 4; Caxton,
Siege of Troy, leaf 81, 1. 6.—F. refection, ‘a refection, repast;’
Cot.=—L. refectiinem, a restoring, refreshment ; lit. a remaking; cf.
L. refectus, pp. of reficere, to remake, restore.—L. re-, again, and
facere, to make. See Re- and Fact. Der. refector-y, Dryden,
Hind and Panther, iii. 530, spelt refectorie in Minsheu, from Late L.
refectorium, a hall for meals in a convent.
REFEL,, to refute. (L.) In Shak. Meas. v. 94; and Palsgrave. =
L. refellere, to show to be false, refute. —L. re-, back again, in reply ;
and fallere, to deceive, &c. See Re- and Fail, False.
REFER, to reduce, assign, direct to an umpire. (F.—L.) ‘ Re-
ferre you’=betake yourself; Henrysoun, Test. of Creseide, st. 43,
1. 297. —OF. referer (14th cent., Littré), F. référer, to refer. —L. re-
ferre, to bear back, relate, refer.—L. re-, back ; and ferre, cognate
with E. bear. See Re- and Bear (1). Der. refer-able, also spelt
referr-ible (see exx. in N.E. D.) ; refer-ee, in which the suffix answers to
F. pp. suffix -é, as in other cases; refer-ence, Oth. i. 3. 238; refer-
end-ar-y,i. e. a referee, Bacon, Essay 49, from MF. referendaire, which
see in Cotgrave.
REFINE, to purify, make elegant. (F.—L.) In Spenser,
Hymn 2, 1. 47. Coined from re- and fine, but imitated from F.
raffiner, ‘to refine,’ Cot. The F. raffiner is from re- and affiner, ‘ to
Tefine, to fine asmetalls,’ Cot.; where af = L. af-, for ad, to, before
f following ; also ~jiner is due to F. fin, fine. The E. word ignores
the secondelement. See Re- and Fine (1). Der. refin-er, refin-er-y }
also refine-ment, imitated from F. raffinement, ‘a refining,’ Cot.
REFLECT, to throw or bend back, to ponder, think. (L.) In
Shak. Rich. IIT, i. 4. 31. ‘I reffecte, as the sonne beames do;’
Palsgrave. [The sb. reflexion is in Chaucer, C. T. 10544 (F. 230). ]
ιν reflectere, to bend backwards.—L, re-, back ; and flectere, to
bend. See Re- and Flexible. Der. reflect-ing ; reflect-or; re-
flective, also reflect-ion, for reflex-ion ; reflex-ive, from F. reflexif, ‘ re-
flexive, reflexing,’ Cot. ; reflect-ive-ly, -ness ; reflex, adj., from L, reflexus,
pp: of reflectere ; reflex-ible, reflex-ibil-i-ty.
REFLUENT, flowing back. (L.) Rare; in Pope, Odyss.
ν. 550.—L. refluent-, stem of pres. part. of refluere, to flow back.
—L. re-, back; and fluere, to flow; see Re- and Fluent. Der.
reflux, sb., in Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 194; from F. reflux, ‘the
ebbe of the sea,’ Cot. ; see Flux.
REFORM, to shape anew, amend. (F.—L.) ME. reformen,
Gower, C. A. i. 273; bk. ii. 3404. —F. reformer, ‘to reforme, Cot. =
L. re-, again ; and formare, to form, from forma, form; see Re- and
REFUSE
Form. Der. reform-er; reform-at-ion, Skelton, Garland of Laurel,
411, from F. reformation, ‘ reformation,’ Cot.<L. ace. reforma-
tionem, from reformare ; reform-at-ive, reform-at-or-y.
REFRACT, to bend aside rays of light. (L.) ‘ Visual beams
refracted through another’s eye;’ Selden, Introd. to Drayton’s Poly-
olbion (R.).—L. refractus, pp. of refringere, to break back, hence, to
turn aside.—L. re-, back; and frangere, to break; see Fragile.
Der. refract-ion, Chapman, Monsieur D’Olive, Act ii. sc. 1 (Van-
dome’s 6th speech), from F. refraction, ‘a rebound,’ Cot.; refract-ive,
refract-ive-ness. Also refract-or-y, Troil. ii. 2. 182, a mistaken form
for refractary, from MF. refrectaire, ‘refractary,’ Cot.<L. refracta-
rius, stubborn, obstinate. Hence refract-or-i-ly, refract-or-i-ness.
Also refrang-ible, a mistaken form for refring-ible, from L. refringere;
refrang-ibil-i-ty, Phillips, ed. 1706; cf. mod. Ἐς réfrangible, réfrangi-
bilité; but the F. words were borrowed from English works on
optics. And see refrain (2).
REFRAGABLE, that may be refuted. (L.) In Bailey ; who also
has refragability ; see Irrefragable.
REFRAIN (1), to restrain, forbear. (F.—L.) ME. refreinen,
refreynen ; Wyclif, James, i. 26.—OF. refrener, ‘to bridle, repress ;’
Cot. (Cf. E. ordain<F. ordener.|—L. refréndre, to bridle, hold in
with a bit.—L, re-, back ; and frénum, a bit, curb, pl. fréna, curb and
reins, a bridle. B. The L. fré-nwm may be for L. *frend-num ; from
frendere,to champ. 4 As Littré well remarks, Cotgrave also has
ΜΕ. refreindre, ‘to bridle, restraine, hold in ;’ this is from L. re-
fringere, to break back, and it seems probable that refrener and
refreindre were sometimes confused ; see Refract and Refrain (2).
REFRAIN (2), the burden of a song. (F.—L.) ME. refraine,
Chaucer, Troil. ii. 1571. The sb. refraining, i.e. singing of the
burden of a song, occurs in the Rom. of the Rose, 749. —F. refrain ;
‘refrain d'une balade, the refret, or burden of a ballade,’ Cot. Cf.
Prov. refranhs, a refrain, refranher, to repeat (Bartsch) ; mod. Prov.
refrin, refrein, refrain (Mistral); Port. refrdo, Span. refran, a pro-
verb, short saying incommon use. So called from frequent repetition ;
the OF. refreindre, to hold in, pull back (Cotgrave), is the same
word as Prov. refranher, to repeat; both are from L. refringere, to
break back, hence, to pull back (and so to come back to, to repeat).
B. So also the MF. refret, OF. refrait (12th c.), used in the same
sense (whence E. refret, as in Cotgrave above), is from the L. re-
fractus, pp. of refringere; see Refract. y. The Prov. refranhs has
its a from L. frangere. Korting, § 7894.
REFRESH, to enliven, revive. (F.—L. and G.) ME. refreshen,
refreschen; Chaucer, C. T. 5620 (D 38); Gower, C. A. iii. 25; bk.
vi. 710.— OF. refreschir, ‘ to refresh, coole ;’ Cot.—F. re- (=L. re-),
again; and OHG., frise (6. frisch), cognate with E. fresh, q. v.
@ The element fresh is, in fact, also native English; but the com-
pound refresh was nevertheless borrowed from French, as shown
further by the early use of the derived sb. refreshment. Der. refresh-
ment, in the Testament of Love, pt. 111. ch. 7, 1. 3%, OF. refresche-
ment; cf. MF. refreschissement, ‘a refreshment,’ Cot.
REFRIGERATE, to cool. (L.) ‘Their fury was asswaged
and refrigerate ;’ Hall, Chronicle, Henry VII, an. 4. § 1; where it is
used asa pp. Spelt refrigerat, Caxton, G. Legend, St. Silvester, § 1.
-L. refrigeratus, pp. of refrigeradre, to make cool again. —L. re-,
again; and frigerare, to cool, from frigus, sb., cold. See Re- and
Frigid. Der. refrigerat-or, refrigerat-ion, refrigerat-ive, refrigerat-
or-y; also refriger-ant, from the stem of the pres. part. of refrigerare.
REFT, pt. t. and pp. of Reave, q.v.
REFUGE, a shelter, retreat. (F.—L.) ME. refuge, Chaucer,
C. T. 1722 (A.1720).—F. refuge, ‘a refuge,’ Cot.—L. refugium, an
escape, a tefuge.—L. refugere, to flee back, retreat. —L. re-, back ;
and fugere, to flee. See Re- and Fugitive. Der. refug-ee, Dryden,
tr. of Juvenal, Sat. iii. 129, from F. réfugié, pp. of se réfugier, to
take shelter.
REFULGENT, shining, brilliant. (L.) In Ben Jonson, The
Barriers, Opinion’s 4th speech. — L. refulgent-, stem of pres. part. of
refulgére, to shine back, glitter.—L. re-, back ; and fulgére, to shine.
See Re- and Fulgent. Der. refulgent-ly, refulgence.
REFUND, to repay. (L.) ‘Refund, to melt again, reflow, cast
out again, pay back ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. [The sense answers
to that of MF. refonder, ‘ to restore, pay back,’ Cot. Perhaps it was
borrowed from French, and accommodated to the L. spelling. |—L.
refundere, to pour back, restore. —L. re-, back ; and fundere, to pour.
See Re- and Fuse (1). Perhaps allied to refuse, q.v.
REFUSBH, to reject, deny a request. (F.—L.) ME. refusen,
Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 103, 1. 21.—OF. refuser, ‘to
refuse,’ Cot. Ci. Port. refusar, Span. rehusar (for refusar), Ital.
rifusare. B. Of disputed origin. Diez supposes it to have arisen
as another form of refute (L. refutare), by confusion with L. reciisare,
to refuse. But Scheler well suggests that F. refuser clearly answers
toa Late L, form *refisare, a frequentative form of refundere (pp.
REFUTE
refusus). The L. refundere meant to pour back, repay, restore, give
back; and the sense of ‘ refusing’ may have arisen from giving back
a present. See above. Cf. confuse. Korting, ὃ 7897. Der. réfuse,
sb. (Levins), ME. refuce, Prompt. Parv., from MF. refus, ‘ refuse,
outcasts, leavings,’ Cot.; from the vb. Cf. OF. mettre en refus,
faire refus ἃ, to abandon, reject (Godefroy). Also refus-al (Levins),
in which the suffix was added by analogy with propos-al, &c.
REFUTE, to oppose, dispose. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed.
1627.—MF., refuter, ‘to refute, confute” Cot.—L. refitare, to repel,
repress, rebut, refute. ‘The orig. sense was probably ‘to pour back.’
See Re- and Confute; also Futile. Der. refut-able ; refut-at-ion,
from MF, refutation, ‘a refutation,’ Cot.; refut-at-or-y, from L. adj.
refiitatorius.
REGAIN, to gain back. (F.—L. and Teut.) The sb. regainyng
is in Hall’s Chron. Hen. VI, an. 15. § 5.—MF. regaigner, ‘to
regaine;’ Cot.; F. regagner.—¥F. re- (=L. re-, again); and MF.
gaigner (F. gagner), to gain, a word of German origin, as shown
under Gain (2).
REGAL, royal, kingly. (F.—L.) Regall occurs as a sb. in The
Plowman’s Tale, st. 19, 1. 202; and as an adj. in Levins, ed. 1570.
— MF. regal, ‘ regall, royal,’ Cot. =L. régalis, royal, kingly. = L. rég-,
stem of rex, a king, with suffix -dlis.—L. regere, to rule.—4/REG,
to stretch, to govern ; whence Skt. raj, to govern. Cf. Skt. rajan-,
a king; Olrish ri, a king. Brugmann, i. §§ 135, 549c. Der.
regal-ly, regal-i-ty; also regal-ia, q.v. From the same root are
numerous words, such as cor-rect, di-rect, e-rect, rectangle, rect-itude,
rect-ify, rect-or ; rajah; reach, right, rack (1); rig-id, reg-ent, regi-
cide, regi-men, regi-ment, reg-ion, reg-ular, regnant, reign, rule; also
dress, address, adroit, alert, dirge, escort, insurgent, insurrection, inter-
regnum, real (2), realm, resource, resurrection, rule, sortie, source, surge,
unruly; cf. rajah, rich, right. Doublet, royal.
REGALE, to entertain, refresh. (F.—Ital.?) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. - Εἰ régaler, to entertain; see Littré. Cotgrave only gives
se regaler, ‘to make as much account of himself asif he were a king;’
evidently in order to connect the word with F. régal, regal, royal ;
but this can hardly be right. Godefroy has OF. regallir, to feast.
B. The word offers great difficulties. Minsheu’s Span. Dict. gives
regalar, ‘to cocker, to make much of, to melt.’ Diez takes the
sense ‘ to melt’ to be the orig. one; whence to warm, cherish, enter-
tain. He makes the Span. regalar=L. regelare, to thaw, to melt,
supposing that it was a very old word, adopted at a time when g had
the same sound before both a ande. ‘The L. regelare is from re-,
again, back, and gedare, to freeze; the orig. sense being ‘to unfreeze,’
i.e. to thaw. See Re- and Gelatine. y. But Hatzfeld connects
F. régaler with Ital. regalare, to give presents to, from gala, mirth ;
cf. Span. gala, parade. See Gala. See further in Diez, Korting,
and Littré. Der. regale-ment.
REGALIA, insignia of a king. (L.) In Blount (1656). Merely
L. régalia, lit. royal things, neut. pl. of régalis, royal; see Regal.
REGARD, to observe, respect, consider. (F.—L. and OHG.)
In Palsgrave, spelt regarde. The sb. regard seems to be in earlier
use in E., occurring in Chaucer, in the phr. at regard of, Pers. Tale,
(Six-text, Group I, 788); but the verb is the orig. word in French. =
F. regarder, ‘to look, eye, see, view;’ (οἵ. - Ἐν re-, again; and
garder, ‘to keep, heed, mark ;’ Cot. See Re-and Guard. Der.
regard, sb., as above; regard-er; regard-ful ; regard-ful-ly, Timon,
iv. 3. 81; regard-less, regard-less-ly, -ness. Doublet, reward, vb.
REGATTA, a rowing or sailing match. (Ital.) Properly a
rowing match; a Venetian word, as explained in the quotation from
Drummond’s Travels, p. 84, in Todd’s Johnson; a book which Todd
dates A.D. 1744, but Lowndes in 1754. —Ital. regatta, rigatta, ‘a
strife or contention for the maistrie;’ Florio. Cf. MItal. rigattare,
“to wrangle, sell by retail as hucksters do, to contend, to cope or
fight;’ Florio. This is allied to Span. regatear, to haggle, retail
provisions, also to rival in sailing (Neuman); Span. regaieo, a
haggling, a regatta. Of unknown origin.
REGENERATE, to renew, produce anew. (L.) In Caxton,
G, Legend, St. Genevefe, § 2.—L. regeneritus, pp. of regenerare, to
generate again. = L. re-, again ; and generare; see Re- and Gene-
rate. Der. regenerat-ion, ME. regeneracioun, Wyclif, Matt. xix. 28,
from OF. regeneration (14th cent., Littré)<L. ace. regenerationem ;
regenerat-ive.
REGENT, invested with authority for an interim period. (F.—
L.) In Skelton, Against the Scottes, 1. 114.—MF. regent, ‘aregent,
protector, vice-gerent;’ Cot.—L. regent-, stem of pres. part. of
regere, to rule. See Regal. Der. regent-ship; also regenc-y,
formed with suffix -y from F, regence, ‘the regency,’ Cot.
REGICIDEH, the slayer of a king ; or, the slaying of a king.
(F.—L.) 1. The former is the older sense. ‘ Regictde, a king-
killer ;’ Minsheu.—F. regicide, omitted by Cotgrave, but cited by
Minsheu. Coined from L. régi-, from rex, a king; and -cida, a
REIGN 507
slayer, as in fratri-cida, mazri-cida. See Fratricide, Matricide,
Parricide. 2. The latter answers to a word coined from L, régi-
and -cidium, a slaying. Der. regicid-al.
REGIMEN, a prescribed rule, rule of diet. (L.) In Phillips,
ed. 1706; ME. regimen, Lanfrank, Cirurgie, p. 60.—L. regimen,
guidance ; formed with suffix -men from regere, to rule; see Regal.
REGIMENT, a body of soldiers commanded by a colonel.
(F.—L.) Shak. has it in this sense, All's Well, ii. 1. 42; and also
in the sense of ‘government,’ or sway; Antony, iii. 6.95. In the
latter sense, the word is old, and occurs in Gower, C. A. i, 218 ; bk.
ii. 1751. — MF, regiment, ‘a regiment of souldiers,’ Cot. In older F.,
it meant ‘ government :᾿ see Littré.—L. regimentum, rule, govern-
ment; formed with suffixes -men-to- from regere, to rule; see
Regimen, Regal. Der. regiment-al.
REGION, a district, country, (F.—L.) ME. regioun, King
Alisaunder, 1. 82. -- MF. region, ‘a region,’ Cot. —L, regionem, acc. ot
regio, a direction, quarter, district (Bréal).—L. regere, to rule, direct.
See Regal.
REGISTER, a written record of past events. (F.—L.) ME.
registre, Ῥ. Plowman, b. xx. 269.—F. registre, ‘a record, register ;’
Cot. Cf. Ital. and Span. registro, Port. registro, registo, the last
being the best form.—Late L. registrum, more correctly regestum,
a book in which things are recorded (regeruntur) ; see Ducange. =
L, regestum, neut. of regestus, pp. of regerere, to record, lit. to bring
back.—L. re-, back; and gerere, to bring; see Re- and Jest.
Der. register, verb, L.L. L. i. 1. 2, and in Palsgrave ; registr-ar, ME.
registrere, P. Plowman, B. xix. 254; registr-ar-ship ; registr-ar-y (Late
L. registrar-ius) ; registr-y ; registr-at-ion.
REGLET, a strip of wood, less than type-high, used in printing
for making blanks between lines. (F.—L.) F. réglet (Hatzfeld) ;
dimin. of régle, a rule.—L. régula, a rule; see Rule.
REGNANT, reigning. (L.) Mere Latin. =L. regnant-, stem of
pres. pt. of regnare, to reign.—L. regnum, a kingdom; see Reign.
Der. regnanc-y.
REGRESS, return. (L.) In Shak. Merry Wives, ii. 1. 226; and
in Minsheu, ed. 1627.—L. regressus, a return. —L. regressus, pp.
of regredi, to go back.—L. re-, back; and grad?, to go. See
Re- and Grade. Der. regress, verb; regress-ion (L. regressio) ;
regress-ive.
REGRET, sorrow, grief. (F.—L. and Scand.?) The verb is in
Pope, Epitaph on Fenton, 1. 8. ME, regretten, The Pearl, 243.
Thesb. is in Spenser, F. Q.i. 7. 20. ‘Hie regrate And still mourning;’
Henrysoun, Test. of Creseide, st. 57, 1. 397.—F. regret, ‘ desire,
wille, also griefe, sorrow ;’ Cot. He also gives: ἃ regret, ‘loathly,
unwillingly, with an ill stomach, hardly, mauger his head, full sore
against his will;’ Cot. Cf. regretter, ‘to desire, affect, wish for,
bewaile, bemoane, lament;’ id. The Εἰ, regretter corresponds to an
OF. regrater, of which Scheler cites two examples; cf. AF. regretant,
pres. pt., bewailing, in Wace, St. Nicholas, 1. 187. B. The
etymology is much disputed; but, as the word occurs in no other
Romance language, it is prob. of Teut. origin, the prefix re- being,
of course, Latin. Perhaps from the Scand. verb which appears in
Icel. grata, to weep, bewail, mourn, Swed. grdta, Dan. grede, allied
to Goth. grétan, AS. grétan, ME. greten, Lowland Sc. greit. See
Greet (2). Wedgwood well cites from Palsgrave: ‘I mone as a
chylde doth for the wantyng of his nourse or mother, je regrete.’
Others suggest L. requiritari, but quiritari became F. crier; see
Cry. See the whole discussion in Scheler; and Korting, § 7989.
Der. regret, verb, as above; regretful, regret-ful-ly.
REGULAR, according to mle. (L.) ‘And as these chanouns
regulers, i.e. regular canons; Rom. of the Rose, 6694. Rather
directly from L. regularis than from OF. regulier. = L. régula, a rule.
L. reg-ere, to rule, govern; see Regal. Der. regular-ly; regular-
i-ty, from OF, regularité (14th cent., Littré); regul-ate, from L.
regulatus, pp. of regulare; regul-at-ion, regulat-ive, regulat-or.
REHEARSE, to repeat what has been said. (F.—L.) ME.
rehercen, rehersen; P. Plowman, C. xviii. 25; A.i. 22.—OF. reherser,
‘to harrow over again,’ Cot.; better spelt rehercer, as in AF. rehercer,
to repeat, in A Nominale, ed. Skeat, 1. 405. From the sense
of harrowing again we easily pass to the sense of ‘ going again over
the same ground,’ and hence to that of repetition. Cf. the phrase
“to rake up an old story. =F, re- (=L. re-), again; and hercer, ‘to
harrow,’ Cot., from herce, a harrow. The sb. herce, whence E. hearse,
changed its meaning far more than the present word did; see Re-
and Hearse. Der. rehears-al, spelt rehersall in Palsgrave; ME.
rehersaille, Chaucer, C. T., G 852.
REIGN, rule, dominion. (F.—L.) ME. regne, Chaucer, C. T.
1638 ; spelt rexgne, King Horn, ed. Lumby, ΟΟΙ, 908. = OF. regne, ‘a
realme,’ Cot.—L. regnum, a kingdom.=—L. reg-ere, to rule; see
Regal. Der. reign, verb, ME. regnen, Havelok, 2586, from OF.
regner, from L. regnare, to reign. And see regn-ant.
508 REIMBURSE
REIMBURSE, to refund, repay for a loss. (F.—L. and Gk.) |
| laid not In one fresh dog ;”’ Ben Jonson, Sad Shepherd, Act i. sc. 2.
In Cotgrave; and in Phillips, ed. 1706. An adaptation of F. rem-
bourser, made more full in order to be more explicit; the F. prefix
rem- answering to L. re-im-, where im- stands for in before ὁ follow-
ing. ‘Rembourser, to re-imburse, to restore money spent;’ Cot. For
the rest of the word, see Purse. Der. reimburse-ment, from F, rem-
boursement, ‘a re-imbursement τ᾿ Cot.
REIN, the strap of a bridle. (F.—L.) ME. reine, reyae, King
Alisaunder, 786, = OF. reine, ‘ the reigne of a bridle;’ Cot, Mod, F,
réne. The OF, also has resne, redne, corresponding to Ital, redina,
and to Span, rienda (a transposed form, for redina); and these
further correspond to a Late L. type *retina (MItal. retina), easily
eyolved from L. retinére, to hold back, restrain, whence was formed
the classical L. retinaculum, a tether, halter, rein. See Retain,
Der, rein, verb, rein-less.
REINDEER, RAINDERER, a kind of deer. (Scand. and E,)
Spelt raynedere, Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 922. Perhaps the obscure
word vor, in An Old Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 92, 1.71, means
a reindeer, as suggested by Stratmann, Formed by adding deer (an
E. word) to Icel. kreinn, a reindeer, answering to MSwed. ven, and
to AS, kran, in Aglfred’s tr. of Orosius, i. 1. § 15. [The AS. hran
accounts for ME. ron (above),] We find also Dan, rensdyr, Du.
rendier, (ἃ. rennthier, all borrowed forms. A genuine Teut, word, as
the forms show. Teut. type *hrainoz. B. Diez refers us to the
Lapp and Finnish word raingo, but this is a mere misspelling of
Swed. renko, lit. ‘rein-cow,’ the female of the reindeer. The true
Lapp word for reindeer is patso, and the word reino, pasturage or
herding of cattle, does not help us.
REINS, the lower part of the back. (F.-—L.) ME. reines; spelt
reynes in Wyclif, Wisdom, i. 6, later version ; reenus, earlier version,
- OF. reins, ‘the reines;’ Cot.=L. rénés, s. pl., the kidneys, reins,
loins. Hardly allied to Gk. φρήν, the midriff ; pl. φρένες, the parts
about the heart or liver. See Frenzy. Der, rev-al.
REINSTATE, REINVEST. REINVIGORATE, RE-
ISSUE, REITERATE; sce Instate, Invest, &c.
REJECT, to throw away or aside. (¥.—L,) ‘I rejecte, I caste
awaye, je rejecte;” Palsgrave, ed, 1530.—MF. rejecter; mod. F. re-
jeter. The Εἰς word was spelt rejecter in the 16th century, and our
word seems to have been borrowed from it rather than from Latin
directly ; the still older spelling in OF. was regeter.— OF, re- (=L.
re-), back; and OF, geter, getter, mod. F. jeter, to throw, from L.
iactare, See Re- and Jet (1). Cf. L, rejectus, pp. of reicere, to
reject, compounded of re- and zacere,to throw. Der, reject-ion, from
MEF, rejection, ‘a rejection;’ Cot.
REJOICE, to feel glad, exult, (F.—L.) ME, reiojsen, reioicen
(with ¢=7), to rejoice; Chaucer, C.T. 9867 (E 1993); P. Plowman,
C, xviii. 198. OF, resjois-, stem of pres. part, of resjotr, mod, F.
réouir, to gladden, rejoice. OF, re- (=L, re-), again; and esjotr
(mod. F. éjouir), to rejoice, used reflexively. B. Again, the OF .esjoir is
from L, ex-, and the yb, joir (mod. F. jouir), derived, like Ital. godere,
from L. gaudére, to rejoice, See Re-, Ex-, and Joy. Der, rejoic-
ing, rejoic-ing-ly,
REJOUS, to join again. (F.—L.) Esp. used in the legal sense
‘to answer toareply.’ ‘I rejoyne, as men do that answere to the
lawe and make answere to the byll that is put up agaynst them ;’
Palsgrave,—F. rejoign-, a stem of rejoindre, ‘to rejoine;’ Cot.
See Re- and Join. Der. rejoinder, Sir T. Elyot, The Governour,
Ὁ. i. c. 14. § 8, which is the F. infin. mood used substantively, like
attainder, remainder,
REJUVENATE, to make young again, (L.) From L, re-,
again; and iuwen-, for inuenis, young; with pp, suffix -d/ws, See
Juvenile.
RELAPSE, to slide back into a former state, (L.) As sb. in
Minsheu, ed. 1627, and in Shak, Per, iii, 2. 110, Cotgrave translates
the MF, relaps by ‘relapsed,’ [There is no classical L. sb. relapsus. |
=-L. relapsus, pp, of relabi, to slide back. See Re- and Taapse.
Der, relapse, sb.
RELATE, to describe, tell. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F, Q. iii. 8. 51;
and in Palsgrave.—F. relater, ‘to relate;’ Cot.—Late L. relatare, to
relate, —L. relatwm, used as supine of referre, to relate; which is,
however, from a different root,—L, re-, back; and datum, supine,
latus, pp., for tlatys, pp. of collere, to lift, bear, See Re-; and see
Elate. Der, relat-ed; relat-ion, P, Plowman, C, iv. 363, from F.
relation, ‘a relation,’ Cot.; relat-ive, ME. relatif, P. Plowman, C. iy.
301, from F, relatif; relat-ive-ly.
RELAX, to slacken, loosen. (L.) In Milton, P, L, vi. 599.
{Bacon has relax as an adj., Nat. Hist. § 381,]—L, relaxGre, to re-
lax.—L, re-, back; and laxare, to loosen, from /axus, loose; see
Re- and Lax. Der. relax-at-ion, in Minsheu, from F, relaxation,
‘a relaxation, Cot. Doublet, release,
RELAY (1), a set.of fresh dogs or horses, a fresh supply, (F.—
RELIQUARY
L.) Orig. used of dogs. ‘What redays set you? None at all, we
ME. relaye, in the same sense, Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, 362. —
Ἐς relais, a relay; par relais, ‘by turnes, i.e. by relays, Cot. He
also gives: ‘ chiens de relais, dogs layd for a backset,’ i.e. kept in
reserve; ‘chevaux de relais, horses layed in certain places on the
highway, for the more haste making.’ He explains relais as ‘a seat
or standing for such as hold chiens de relais,’ i.e. a station, See OF.
relais, that which remains, in Godefroy. B. The word presents
some difficulty. Mr. Wedgwood quotes from Torriano: ‘ Cani di
rilasso, fresh hounds laid for a supply set upon a deer already hunted
by other dogs.’ Also spelt rilascio, and allied to Ital, rilasciare
(from L. relaxare), OF. relaissier, to relinquish, and E. Relax,
Release, q.v. Korting, § 7930. Cf. ‘a re/ais, spared, at rest, that
is not used,’ Cot, γ. It will be seen that re/ay was a new singular,
due to a mistaken notion that the F. relais was a plural. So also
in French, an OF. verb redayer was made out of a false sing. *relai.
The OF. relais, though usually sing., is sometimes treated as a
plural, preceded by /es instead of le. See Relish.
RELAY (2), to lay again. (Hybrid; L. and E.) Simply com-
pounded of Re- and Lay; and distinct from the word above.
RELEASE, to set free, relieve, let go. (F.—L.) ME. relessen,
P. Plowman, B. iii, 58; relesen, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 8029 (E 153)-- OF,
relessier, MF. relaisser, ‘ to release,’ Cot.—L. relaxare, to relax; see
Relax. Der. release, sb., OF. reles, for relais. Doublet, relax.
RELEGATE, to consign to exile. (L.) ‘ To relegate, ar exile ;’
Minsheu, ed, 1627.—L. relegatus, pp. of relegare, to send away,
dispatch, remove,—L, re-, back, away; and lega@re, to send. See
Re- and Legate. Der, relegat-ion, from MF, relegation, ‘a relega-
tion,’ Cot.
RELENT, to grow tender, feel compassion. (F.—L.) In The
Lamentacion of Mary Magdalene, st. 70, 1. 489. Altered from F.
ralentir, ‘to slacken,,.to relent in;’ Cot. Cf. L. relentescere, to
slacken. =F. re- and a (shortened to ra-), from L. re- and ad- ; and
lentus, slack, slow, also tenacious, pliant, akin to E. lithe; see Lithe,
The L. relentescere is simply from re- and Jentus, omitting ad, Der.
relent-less, -ly, -ness.
RELEVANT, relating to the matter in hand. (F.—L,) ‘To
make our probations and arguments relevant ;’ King Chas. I,Letter
to A. Henderson, p. 55 (R.). It means ‘assisting’ or helpful. =F.
relevant, pres. part, of relever, ‘to raise up, also to assist;’ Cot. =
L. releuare, to lift up again.—L. re-, again ; and lewdre, to lift, from
leuis, light; see Re- and Levity. Der. relevance, relevanc-y ; ir-
relevant.
RELIC, a memorial, remnant, esp. a memorial of asaint. (F.—L.)
Chiefly in the plural; ME, relykes, 5. pl., Rob. of Glouc, p. 177,
1. 3688 ; Chaucer, C. T. 703 (A 7or). =F. reliques, 5. pl., ‘ reliques;’
Cot. —L. reliquias, acc. of religuie, pl., remains, relics, = L, relinguere
(pt. τ. religui, pp. relictus), to leave behind,=—L, re-, back, behind ;
and linguere, to leave, allied to E. Joan. See Re- and Loan, And
see Relinquish, Relict. Der. religu-ar-y, ἢ. v.
RELICT, a widow. (F.—L.) In Phillips, ed. 1658. First in
1545(N.E.D.). = OF, relicte, f.,a widow (Godefroy). = L. relicta, fem.
of relictus, left behind, pp. of relinguere; see Relic, Relinquish.
RELIEVE, to ease, help, free from oppression. (F.—L.) ME,
releuen (with «=v), P. Plowman, B. vii. 32; Chaucer, C. T. 4180
(A 4182), =F, relever, ‘to raise up, relieve,’ Cot.—L. releudre, to
lift up.—L. re-, again ; and Jeware, to lift, from deués, light. See Re-
and Lever. Der, relief, ME. relief, Gower, C. A, iii, 23, bk. vi.
640; from OF, relef, mod, Ἐς, relief, a sb, due to the verb relever ;
hence bas-relief; also rilievo, from Ital. rilievo, the relief or pro-
jection of a sculptured figure, And see relev-ant.
RELIGION, piety, the performance of duties to God and man.
(F.—L.) In early use. Spelt religiun, O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris,
ii. 49, 1.13; Ancren Riwle, p. 8.—F. religion. —L. religionem, ace.
of religio, piety. Allied to religens, fearing the gods, pious, [And
therefore not derived from religare, to bind.| The opposite of nég-
ligens, negligent; see Neglect. Allied also to dz-ligens, diligent.
B. ‘It is clear that ἀλέγω is the opposite of L. nec-lego [neglego,
negligo|], and θεῶν ὄπιν οὐκ ἀλέγοντες (Homer, 1], xvi. 388) is
the exact counterpart of L, religens and religio;’ Curtius, i. 454.
Thus religion and neglect are from the same root LEG, which
appears also in Gk, ἀλέγειν, to have a care for, to heed; cf, also Gk.
ἄλγος, care, sorrow. Der. religion-ist; religi-ous, from F, religieux,
‘religious,’ Cot,, which from L, religidsus; religi-ous-ly.
RELINQUISH, to leave, abandon. (F.—L.) In Levins, ed.
1570.—MF. relinguiss-, stem of pres. part, of relinguir (Burguy) ; οἵ.
Norm. dial, relenquir (Moisy). = L. relinguere, to leave ; by a change
of conjugation, of which there are several other examples, See
Relic, Dar, relinguish-ment,
RELIQUARY, a casket for holding relics. (F.—L,) In
RELIQUE
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—F. reliquaire, ‘a casket wherein reliques
be kept;’ Cot.—Late L. reliquiare, nent. sb., or reliquidrium, a
reliquary ; Ducange.—L. reliquid-, stem of reliquie, relics. See
Relic.
RELIQUH, the same as Relic, ἡ. v.
RELISH, orig. an after-taste; hence, as verb, to have a pleasing
taste, to taste with pleasure. (F.—L.) The verb is in Shak. Temp.
ν. 23; Wint. Tale, v. 2. 132. The sb. is in Tw. Nt. iv. 1. 64; and
in Palsgrave. ME. reles, an after-taste, Sir Cleges, 208; reles, ‘ tast
or odowre,’ Prompt. Parv. OF. reles, relais, that which is left be-
hind; alsoa relay; see Relay (1). Cf. mod. Prov. relats, a slight
return of a disease. See Notes on Eng. Etym. p. 246.
RELUCTANT, striving against, unwilling. (L.) In Milton,
P. L. iv. 311. —L. reluctant-, stem of pres. part. of reluctare, reluctari,
to struggle against.—L. re-, back, against ; and Juctar?, to struggle,
wrestle, from Jucta, a wrestling. B. Luc-ta stands for *lug-ta; cf.
Gk. Avy-i¢ev, to bend, twist, writhe in wrestling, overmaster; Lith.
lugnas, flexible. (4/LEUG.) Der. reluctant-ly, reluctance, Milton,
P. L. ii. 3373 reluctanc-y.
RELY, to rest or repose on, trust fully. (F.—L. ; influenced by E.)
The mod. sense suggests that it is a barbarous word, compounded of
L. re- and Ἐς lie, verb, to rest; but if this were so, the pt. t. would
be relay, and the pp. relain. Shakespeare is an early authority for
it, and he always uses it with the prep. ov (five times) or upon (once).
He also has reliance, followed by ox, Timon, ii. 1. 22. So also to
rely on, Drayton, Miseries cf Ὁ. Margaret, st.123 ; Dryden, Epistle to
J. Dryden, 139; relying in, P. Fletcher, Eliza, an Elegy, 1. 34; reliers on,
Beaum. and Fletcher, Woman's Prize, i. 3 (Petruchio’s 24th speech).
Thus to rely on often suggests the notion of to lie back on, to lean
on. β. But the right origin is rather the OF. relier, from the L.
religare, lit. to bind again. —L. re-, again; and ligare, to bind; see
Ligament. The E. verb signified at first ‘to rally,’ whence the
sense of to trust to, depend upon, ὅς. F. Hall, in his work on
Eng. adjs. in -able, givesexamples. Thus we find: ‘ Therefore[they ]
must needs relye their faithe upon the sillie ministers;’ H.‘T.; in
Anth. Wotton’s Answer to a Popish Pamphlet, 1605, p. 19.
‘ Whereon these [men]... rest and relye themselves;” A World of
Wonders, 1607; p. 23. Der. reli-able, a compound adj. which has
completely established itself, and is by no means a new word, to
which many frivolous and ignorant objections have been made; it
was used by Coleridge in 1800, in the Morning Post of Feb. 18; see
Ἐς Hall, On Eng. Adjectives in -able, with special reference to Re-
liable, p. 29. Hence reli-abil-i-ty, used by Coleridge in 1816; reli-
able-ness, also used by the same writer. Also reli-ance, in Shak., as
above, from OF. reliance (<L. religantia), in Godefroy. Also
reli-er, as above.
REMAIN, to stay or be left behind. (F.—L.) Spelt remayne in
Palsgrave. Due to the OF. 1 p. pres. sing. je remain; cf. the
impers. verb il remaint, as in the proverb ‘beaucoup remaint de ce que
fol pense, much is behind of that a fool accounts of, a foole comes
ever short of his intentions,’ Cot. The infin. remaindre is preserved in
our sb. remainder; cf. E. rejoinder from F. rejoindre, ἘΣ. attainder
from F. attaindre. Cf. L. remanet, it remains ; remanére, to remain.
=L. re-, behind; and manére, to remain; see Re- and Manor.
Der. remains, s. pl., Titus Andron., i. 81; remain-der, Temp. v. 13,
see above. And see remnant.
REMAND, to send-back. (F.—L.) ‘ Wherevpon he was re-
maunded ;’ Berners, tr. of Froissart, v. ii. c. 206 (R.). — OF. remander,
*to send for back again ;’ Cot.—L. remanddre, to send back word.
—L. re-, back; and mandare, to enjoin, send word ; see Re- and
Mandate.
REMARK, to take notice of. (F.—L. and Teut.) Shak. has
remark’d, Hen. VIII, v. 1. 33; and remarkable, Antony, iv. 15. 67.—
Ἐς remarquer, ‘to mark, note, heed ;’ Cot.—L. re-, again; and
marquer, to mark, allied to marque, sb., a mark, OF. merc (Hatzfeld) ;
which is from G. marke, cognate with E. mark; see Re- and Mark
(1). Der. remark-able, from F. remarquable, ‘ remarkable,’ Cot. ;
remark-abl-y; remark-able-ness.
REMEDY, that which restores, repairs, or heals. (F.—L.) ME.
remedie, Chaucer, C. T. 1276 (A 1274); Ancren Riwle, p. 124, 1. 22.
=AF,. remedie, Stat. Realm, i. 28 (1275); cf. MF. remede, mod. F.
reméde, a remedy. ([Cf. OF. remedier, verb, to remedy.}=L.
remedium, a remedy; lit. that which heals again.—L. re-, again ;
and medéri, to heal; see Re- and Medical. Der. remedy, verb
(Levins, Palsgrave), from F. remedier ; remedi-able (Levins) ; remedt-al,
a coined word ; remedi-al-ly.
REMEMBER, to recall to mind. (F.—L.) ME. remembren,
Chaucer, C. T. 1503 (A 1501).—OF. remembrer, used reflexively,
‘to remember ;” Cot. Formed, with excrescent ὁ after m, due to
stress, from L. rememordri, to remember; which gave rise to *re-
mem’rer in OF, = L. re-, again; and memorare, to make mention of,
REMUNERATE
from mentor, mindful. See Re- and Memory. Der. remembr-
ance, Chaucer, C. T. 8799 (E 923), from F. remembrance; remem-
branc-er, Mach. iii. 4. 37.
REMIND, to bring to the mind again, (Hybrid; L. and E.) A
barbarous compound; from L. re-, again; and E. mind. Rather a
late word ; in Bailey’s Dict. vol. ii. ed. 1731. See Re- and Mind.
REMINISCENCE, recollection. (F.—L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. Spelt reminiscens, Puttenham, E. Poesie, ed. Arber, b. iii.
C. 25; Ρ. 212. -- ΜΈ, reminiscence, ‘remembrance of things ;’ Cot. —L.
reminiscentia, remembrance.—L. reminiscent-, stem of pres. part. of
reminisci, to remember, an inceptive verb, with suffix -sci.«L. re-,
again; and min-, as in me-min-i, I remember, think over again,
from 4/MEN, to think. Allied to Gk. μέ-μον-α, I yearn, Skt. man,
to think. Brugmann, i. § 431 (2). See Re- and Mental.
REMIT, to pardon, abate. (L.) ‘ Whether the consayle be good,
I remytte (leave] it to the wyse reders;’ Sir Τὶ Elyot, The Gover-
nour, b. ili, c. 27 (near the end). ‘ Remyttinge [referring] them
. «to the workes of Galene ;’ id., Castel of Helth, b. iii. c. 1.—L.
remittere, to send back, slacken, abate. =L. re-, back; and mittere,
to send; see Re- and Mission. Der. remitt-er, remitt-ance, re-
mitt-ent ; remiss, adj. (spelt remysse, Barclay, Ship of Fools, ii. 243),
from L. remissus, pp. of remittere ; remiss-ly, remiss-ness 5 remiss-ible,
from L. remissibilis; remiss-ibil-i-ty; remiss-ive. Also remiss-ion,
ME. remission, Ancren Riwle, p. 346, 1. 21, from MF. remission
(Cot. )<L. ace. remissionem, from nom. remissio.
REMNANT, a remainder, fragment. (F.—L.) ME. remenant,
remenaunt, King Alisaunder, 5707. OF. remanant, MF. remenant,
remanent, ‘a remnant, residue;’ Cot.—L. remanent-, stem of pres.
part. of remanére, to remain; see Remain.
REMONSTRATE, to adduce strong reasons against. (L.) See
Trench, Select Glossary. See Milton, Animadversions upon the
Remonstrant’s Defence. The sb. remonstrance is in Shak. Meas. v.
397-— Late L. remonstratus, pp. of remonstrare, to expose, exhibit;
used A.D. 1482 (Ducange); hence, to produce arguments.—L. re-,
again; and monstrare, to show, exhibit; see Re- and Monster.
Der. remonstrant, from the stem of the pres. part.; remonstrance,
from MF, remonstrance, ‘a remonstrance,’ Cot., Late L.remonstrantia.
REMORA, the sucking-fish. (L.) ‘A little fish, that men call
remora;’ Spenser, Visions of the World’s Vanitie, 1. 108. Cf. MF.
remore, ‘the suck-stone; a little fish, which cleaving to the keele of
a ship, hinders the course of it;’ Cot. Such was the old belief. = L.
remora, a hindrance, delay ; afterwards used as the name of the fish.
-L. re-, back; and mora, delay.
REMORSE, pain or anguish for guilt. (F.—L.) ME. remors.
‘But for she had a maner remors ;’ Lydgate, Storie of Thebes, pt.
iii (Of the wife of Amphiorax). ‘Som remors of conscience ;’
Chaucer, Troil. i. 554.—OF. remors, ‘remorse;’ Cot.—Late
L. remorsus (also remorsio), remorse; Ducange.—L. remorsus,
pp- of remordére, to bite again, vex.—L. re-, again; and mordére, to
bite; see Re- and Mordacious. @ Chaucer has the verb remord
(<OF,. remordre), tr. of Boethius, b. 4, pr. 6, 1. 182. Der. remorse-
ful, Rich. III, i. 2. 156; remorse-ful-ly ; remorse-less, Hamlet, ii. 2.
609 ; remorse-less-ly, -ness.
REMOTE, distant. (L.) In Spenser, F. Q. iii. 4.6. [Cf MF.
remot, m., remote, f., ‘remote, removed;’ Cot.] Directly, from L.
remotus, pp. of remouére, to remove; see Remove. Der. remote-ly,
-ness; also remot-ion=removal, Timon, iv. 3. 346.
REMOUNT, to mount again. (F.—L.) Also transitively, to
cause to rise again, as in ME. remounten, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius,
b. iii, pr. 1, 1. 6.—F. remonter, ‘to remount,’ Cot.—F. re-, again;
and monter, to mount; see Re- and Mount (2).
REMOVE, to move away, withdraw. (F.—L.) ME. remeuen
(remeven), Chaucer, Troil. i, 691, where remeve rimes with preve, a
proof. Just as we find ME. remeven for mod. E, remove, so we find
ME. preven for mod. E. prove, preve for proof. Palsgrave uses
remeve and remove convertibly: ‘I remeve, as an armye . . . removeth
from one place to another.’ = OF, removoir, ‘to remove, retire;’ Cot. =
F. re-, again; and OF. movoir, to move; see Re- and Move. 4 The
ME. remewen, to remove, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 10495 (F 181), has nearly
the same sense, but is quite a different word, answering to OF, remuér,
‘to moye, stir,’ Cot., from L. re- and masare, to change. Der.
remov-able (Levins), remov-abil-i-ty; remov-al, a coined word ; remov-
er, Shak. Sonn. 116, remov-ed-ness, Wint. Tale, iv. 2. 41. Also
remote, q.V.
REMUNERATE, to recompense. (L.) In Shak. Titus, i. 398.
=L. remiineriitus, pp. of remiinerare, reminerari, to reward. —L, re-,
again; and miinerare, minerari, to discharge an office, also to give,
from miner, 460]. stem of manus, a gift. See Re- and Munificent.
Der. remuner-able, remunerat-ion, L. L. L. iii. 133, ME. remuneracion,
Dictes, pr. by Caxton, fol. 6, from MF. remuneration, ‘a reraunera-
tion,’ Cot. L. reminerationem, acc. of remiineratio; remunerat-ive,
509
510 RENAISSANCE
RENAISSANCE, a revival; esp. used of the revival of the
classical art and letters, chiefly at the end of the fifteenth century.
(F.—L.) Also called revascence, which is the L. form. =F. renais-
sance, a new birth; Cot.—L. re-, again; and zascentia, birth (Vitru-
vius), from nascent-, pres. pt. stem of nasci, to be born; see
Nascent.
RENAL, pertaining to the reins. (F.—L.) Medical.—MF. renal,
“belonging to the kidneyes;’ Cot.=<L. réndlis, adj., formed from
rén-és, the reins: see Reins.
RENARD, a fox; see Reynard.
RENASCENT; from Re- and Nascent.
RENCOUNTER, RENCONTRE, a meeting, collision,
chance combat. (F.—L.) Now commonly rencontre; formerly ren-
counter, used as a verb by Spenser, F. Ὁ. i. 4. 39; and as a sb., iil.
1. 9.—F. rencontre, ‘a meeting, or incounter . . by chance;’ Cot.
Cf. rencontrer, verb, ‘to incounter, meet;’ id. Contracted forms
for *reéncontre, *reéncontrer.—F. re- (=L. re-), again ; and encontrer,
to meet; see Re- and Encounter. @ Hence the spelling reencounter
in Rerners, tr. of Froissart, v. ii. c. 29 (R.).
REND, to tear, split. (E.) ME. renden, pt. t. rente, pp. rent;
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 6217 (D 635). AS. hrendan, rendan, not common.
In the ONorthumb. versions of Luke, xiii. 7, succidite [cut it down]
is glossed by hrendas vel scearfad in the Lindisfarne MS., and by
ceorfas vel rendas in the Rushworth MS. Again, in Mark, xi. 8, the
L. cedebant [they cut down] is glossed by gebugun vel rendon. Thus
the orig. sense seems to be to cut or tear down.+4OFries. renda,
randa, to tear, break. B. The AS. hrendan answers to a theoretical
form *krandian, which may be connected with hrand, the pt. τ. of
hrindan, to push (Grein), Icel. hrinda, to push, kick, throw, which may
be referred to /QERT, to cut. Cf. Skt. ἀγέ, to cut down (base of
the present tense, krnta); Lithuan. kirsti, to cut, hew (see kertu in
Nesselmann). Cf. also Skt. kyvntana-m, neut. sb., a cutting. Der.
rent, sb., Jul. Cesar, iii. 2. 1793 rent, vb., ME. renten, Chaucer,
Leg. Good Women, 843; both formed from the pp. rent.
RENDER, to restore, give up. (F.—L.) ME. rendren, P. Plow-
man, B. xv. 601.—F. rendre, ‘to render, yield;’ Cot.—Late L.
rendere, nasalised form of L. reddere, to restore, give back. =L. red-,
back; and dare, to give. See Re-, Red-, and Date (1). Der.
render-ing. Also rent (2), q.v.3 redd-it-ion ; rendez-vous, q.v.
RENDEZVOUS, an appointed place of meeting. (F.—L.)
In Hamlet, iv. 4. 4.—F. rendezvous, ‘a rendevous, a place appointed
for the assemblie of souldiers;’? Cot. A substantival use of the
phrase rendez vous, i. e. render yourselves, or assemble yourselves, viz.
at the place appointed. B. Rendez is the imperative plural, 2nd
person, of rendre, to render; and vous (<L, wds) is the pl. of the znd
pers. pronoun. See Render.
RENEGADE, RENEGADO, an apostate, vagabond. (Span.
—L.) Massinger’s play called The Renegado was first acted in 1624.
In Shak. Tw. Nt. iii. 2. 74, the first folio has ‘a verie Renegatho ;’ a
spelling which represents the sound of the Spanish d. The word
was at first renegado, and afterwards renegade by loss of the final
syllable. —Span. renegado, ‘an apostata,’ Minsheu; lit. one who has
denied the faith; pp. of rexegar, ‘to forsake the faith,’ id. —Late L.
renegare, to deny again.=L. re-, again; and negare, to deny; see
Re- and Negative. 41. The word was not really new to the
language, asit appears in ME. as renegat; but the ME. renegat having
been altered to runagate, the way was cleared for introducing the
word over again; see Runagate. 2. The odd word renege (with
g hard), in King Lear, ii. 2. 84,=Late L. renegare; cf. ME. reneye,
P. Plowman, B. xi. 120; from OF. reneier. Doublet, runagate.
RENEW, to make new again. (Hybrid; L. and E.) ME.
renewen, Wyclif, 2 Cor. iv. 16 ; where the L. renoudtur is translated
by ts renewid. From Re- and New. Der. renew-al, a coined
word ; renew-able, also coined. Doublet, renovate.
RENNET (1), the prepared inner membrane of a calf's stomach,
used to make milk coagulate. (E.) ‘ Renet, for chese, coagulum ;’
Levins. ME. rennet; ‘ Lactis, rennet, or rennynge ;’ Voc. 591. 19 ;
cf. 574.13. The word is found with various suffixes, but is in each
case formed from ME, rennen, to cause to run, because rennet
causes milk to run, i. 6. to coagulate or congeal. This singular use of
E. run in the sense ‘to coagulate’ is not always noticed in the
Dictionaries. Pegge, in his Kenticisms (E. D. S. Gloss. C. 3) uses it ;
he says: ‘ Runnet, the herb gallium [ Galium verum], called in Derby-
shire erning, Anglicé cheese-runnet ; it ruxs the milk together, i.e.
makes it curdle.’ ‘ Earn, Fearn, to coagulate milk; earning, yearn-
ing, cheese-rennet, or that which curdles milk;’ Brockett. Here
earn (better ern) is put, by shifting of r, for ren; just as AS. yrnan
(irnan) is a causal form of rinnan, torun. Cf. Gloucestersh. running,
rennet (E. 1). S. Gloss. B. 4). ‘ Revlys, or rendlys, for mylke, [also ]
renels, Coagulum ;’ Prompt. Parv. ‘As nourishing milk, when runnet
is put in, Runs all in heaps of tough thick curd, though in his nature
REPAST
thin ;’ Chapman, tr. of Homer, Il. ν, near the end. So also AS,
‘ rynning, coagulum ; gerunnen, coagulatus ;’ Wright’s Vocab. i. 27,
last line, 1. 28, first line. All from AS. rinzan, torun. See Run.
+MDu. rinsel, runsel, or renninge, ‘curds, or milk-runnet,’ Hexham ;
from rinnen, ‘to presse, curdle;’ id. Cf. geronnen melck, ‘ curded or
rennet milke;’ id. Cf. G. rinnen, to run, curdle, coagulate.
RENNET (2), a sweet kind of apple. (F.—L.) Formerly spelt
renat or renate, from a mistaken notion that it was derived from L.
renatus, renewed or born again. ‘The renat, which though first it
from the pippin came, Grown through his pureness nice, assumes
that curious name;’ Drayton, Polyolbion, song 18; 1. 671.—F.
reinette, rainette, a pippin, rennet; Hamilton. Scheler and Littré
agree to connect it with MF. rainette, ‘a little frog’ (Cot.), the dimin.
of raine, a frog, because the apple is speckled like the skin ofa
frog. (So also Hatzfeld.) From L. raza, afrog. See Ranunculus.
RENOUNCE, to give up, reject, disown. (F.—L.) ME. re-
nouncen, Gower, C. A. i. 258; bk. 11. 2931.—F. renoncer, ‘to
renounce ;” Cot.—L. renunciare, better renuntiare, to bring back a
report, also, to disclaim, renounce.—L. re-, back; and nuntiare, to
bring a message, from nuntius, a messenger ; see Re- and Nuncio.
Der. renounce-ment, Meas. for Meas. i. 4. 35; renunciation, q. Vv.
RENOVATE, to renew. (L.) In Thomson’s Seasons, Winter,
704; Hakluyt, Voy. ii.1.37. The sb. renovation is in Bacon, Life of
Henry VII, ed. Lumby, p. 203, 1. 33. —L. renoudtus, pp. of renouare,
to renew. —L. re-, again; and nouus, new, cognate with E. new ; see
Re-and New. Der. renovat-ion, from MF. renovation, ‘a renovation,’
Cot. ; renovat-or. Doublet, renew.
RENOWN, celebrity, fame. (F.—L.) ME. renoun, Chaucer,
C. T. 14553 (B 3825); Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 131, 1.5 ;
King Alisaunder, 1448. [But also renomeé, renommé, in three syllables,
with final e as F. €; Gower, C. A. ii. 43; bk. iv. 1250; Barbour’s
Bruce, iv. 7743 renownee, Barbour’s Bruce, viii. 290.] In Bruce, ix.
503, one MS. has the pp. renxownit, spelt renommyt in the other. — AF.
renoun, Lib. Custum. p. 23 ; OF. renon; MF. renom [also renommee],
‘renowne, fame;’ Cot. Cf. renommé, ‘renowned, famous;’ Cot.
(Cf. Port. renome, renown ; Span. renombre, renown, also a surname ;
and Span. renombrar, to renown.)—F. re- (=L. re-), again; and
AF. noun, F. nom, a name; hence renown =a renaming, repetition or
celebration of aname. See Re-and Noun. Der. renown, verb, in
Barbour, as above.
RENT (1), a tear, fissure, breach. (E.) See Rend.
RENT (2), annual payment for land, &c. (F.—L.) In early use;
occurring, spelt rente, in the A. S. Chron. an. 1137; see Thorpe’s
edition, p. 383, 1. 12.—F. rente, ‘rent, revenue;’ Cot. Cf. Ital.
rendita, rent; which shows the full form of the word. From a
nasalised form (rendita) of L. reddita, i. 6. reddita pectinia, money
paid; fem. of redditus, pp. of reddere, to give back, whence F. rendre,
and E. render. Rent=that which is rendered; see Render. Der.
rent-er, rent-roll; also rent-al, P. Plowman, B. vi. 92.
RENUNCIATION, a renouncing. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave. It
is neither true Ἐς nor true L., but prob. taken from F., and modified
by a knowledge of the L. word. =F. renonciation, ‘a renunciation ;’
Cot.—L. renuntiitionem, acc. of renuniiatio, a renouncing; cf. re-
nuntiditus, pp. of renuntiare ; see Renounce.
REPAIR (1), to restore, fill up anew, amend. (F.—L.) ‘ The
fishes flete with new repaired scale;’ Lord Surrey, Description of
Spring, 1. 8.—OF. reparer, ‘to repaire, mend;’ Cot.—L. reparare,
to get again, recover, repair.—L. re-, again; and parare, to get,
prepare; see Re- and Parade. Der. repair, sb., repair-er ; repar-
able, in Levins, from MF. reparable, ‘ repairable,’ Cot., from L.
reparabilis ; repar-abl-y ; repar-at-ion, Palsgrave, from MF. reparation,
‘a reparation,’ Cot.; repar-at-ive.
REPAIR (2), to resort, go to. (F.—L.) ME. repairen, Chaucer,
C. T. 5387 (B 967).—F. repairer, ‘to haunt, frequent, lodge in;’
Cot. Older form repairier (Burguy) ; cf. Span. repatriar, Ital. ripatri-
are, to return to one’s country.—L, repatridre, to return to one’s
country.—L. re-, back; and patria, one’s native land, from fatri-,
decl. stem of pater, a father, cognate with E. father. See Re- and
Father. Der. repair, sb., Hamlet, v. 2. 228.
REPARTEE, a witty reply. (F.—L.) A misspelling for
repartie or reparty. ‘Some reparty, some witty strain;’ Howell,
Famil. Letters, b. i. sect. I. let. 18.—F. repartie, ‘a reply ;’ Cot.
Orig. fem. of reparti, pp. of MF. repartir, ‘to redivide, to answer a
thrust with a thrust, to reply;’ Cot.—F, re- (=L. re-), again; and
partir, to part, divide, also to dart off, rush, burst out laughing, from
L. partire, partiri, to share, from part-,stem of pars, a part. See Re-
and Part.
REPAST, a taking of food; the food taken. (F.—L.) ME.
repast, P. Plowman, C. x. 148; Gower, C. A. iii. 25 ; bk. vi. 698.—
OF. repast (Littré), later repas, ‘a repast, meale;’ Cot.—F. re-
(=L. re-), again; and OF. past, ‘a meale, repast,Cot., from L. fastwmy,
REPAY
ace. of pastus, food; cf. pastus, pp. of pascere, to feed. See Re- and
Pasture. Der. repast, vb., Hamlet, iv. 5. 157.
REPAY, to pay back, recompense. (F.—L.) Spelt repaye in
Palsgrave, —OF. repayer, to pay back; given in Palsgrave and in
use in the 15th cent. (Littré); obsolete. See Re- and Pay. Der.
repay-able, repay-ment.
REPEAL, to abrogate, revoke. (F.—L.) ME. repele(x), Hoc-
cleve, Reg. of Princes, 2960. AF. repeler, Langtoft, ii. 352. Altered
(by putting re- for F. ra-) from OF. rapeler, F. rappeler, ‘to
repeale, revoke,’ Cot.—F.r-, for re- (=L. re-), again, back ; and OF.
apeler, later appeler, to appeal. Thus repeal is a substitution for re-
appeal; see Re- and Appeal. Der. repeal, sb., Cor. iv. 1. 41;
spelt rapeell, i.e. recall, Caxton, Troy-book, fol. 294, bk.; repeal-er,
repeal-able,
REPEAT, to say or do again, rehearse. (F.—L.) ‘I repete,
I reherce my lesson, je repete ;” Palsgrave.— MF. repeter, ‘to repeat ;’
Cot.—L. repetere, to attack again, reseek, resume, repeat; pp.
repetitus.—L.re-,again ; and petere, toseek ; see Re- and Petition.
Der. repeat-ed-ly, repeat-er ; repet-it-ion, from MF. repetition, ‘a re-
petition,’ Cot., from L. ace. repetitionem.
REPEL, to drive back, check. (L.) ‘I repelle, I put backe
(Lydgat) ;’ Palsgrave, who thus refers us to Lydgate. —L. repellere,
to drive back; pp. repulsus. —L. re-, back ; and fellere, to drive ; see
Re- and Pulse. Der. repell-ent, from the stem of the pres. part. ;
repell-er; and see repulse.
REPENT, to feel sorrow for what one has done, to rue. (F.—L.)
ME. repenten, King Alisaunder, 4224.—F. repentir, reflexive verb,
‘to repent;’ Cot.—L. re-, again; and Folk-L. *penitire, for L.
peenitére, used impersonally in the sense ‘repent;’ see Re- and
Penitent. Der. repent-ant, ME. repentant, Rob. of Glouc., p. 291,
1. 5917, from F. repentant, pres. part. of repentir ; repent-ance, Rob.
of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 55, from F. repentance.
REPERCUSSION, reverberation. (¥.—L.). ‘That, with the
repercussion of the air ;’ Drayton, The Owl ; 1. 1137. ‘Salute me with
thy repercussive voice ;’ Ben Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, Act i. sc. I
(Mercury). — MF. repercussion, ‘ repercussion;’ Cot.—L. acc. reper-
cussionem; see Re- and Percussion. Der. regercuss-ive, from MF.
repercussif, ‘repercussive,’ Cot.
REPERTORY, a treasury, magazine. (F.—L.) Formerly also
a list, index. ‘A repertorie or index ;’ Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxx.
c. 1 (Of Hermippus). Altered from MF. repertoire, ‘a repertory,
list, roll;’ Cot.—L. repertérium, an inventory.—L. repertor, a dis-
coverer, inventor ; cf. repertus, pp. of reperire, to find out, invent. —L.
re-, again; and parire (Ennius), usually parere, to produce; see Re-
and Parent.
REPETITION ; see under Repeat.
REPINE, to be discontented. (L.) Spelt repyne in Palsgrave ;
compounded of re- (again) and pine, to fret. No doubt pine was, at
the time, supposed to be a true E. word, its derivation from the Latin
having been forgotten. But, by a fortunate accident, the word is not
hybrid, but wholly Latin. See Re- and Pine (2).
REPLACE, to put back. (F.—L.) ‘To chase th’usurper, and
replace their king; Daniel, Civil War, b. iii.st.30. From Re- and
Place. Suggested by F. remplacer, ‘to re-implace;’ Cot. Der.
replace-ment.
REPLENISG, to fill completely, stock. (F.—L.) ME. re-
plenissen. ‘ Replenissed and fulfillid ;’ Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. i.
pr. 4, 1. 197. —OF. repleniss-, stem of pres. part. of replenir, to fill up
again (Burguy); now obsolete. —L. re-,again; and a L. type *plénire,
formed as a verb from plénus, full. See Re- and Plenitude.
Der. replenish-ment. And see replete.
REPLETE, quite full. (F.—L.) Chaucer has replete, C. Τὶ
14963 (B 4147); repletion, id. 14929 (B 4113).—MF. replet, m.,
replete, f., ‘repleat ;᾿ Cot.—L. replétum, acc. of replétus, filled up,
pp. of replére, to fill again.—L. re-, again; and plére, to fill; see
Plenary. Der. replet-ion, from MF. repletion, ‘ a repletion,’ Cot.
REPLEVY, to get back, or return, goods detained for debt, on
a pledge to try the right ina law-suit. (F.—L.and Teut.) ‘ Replevie,
to redeliver to the owner upon pledges or surety; it is also used for
the bailing a man ;’ Blount, Nomolexicon, ed. 1691. Spelt replevie,
Spenser, Ἐν Q., iv. 12. 31. Butler has replevin as a verb, Hudibras,
The Lady’s Answer, 1. 4.—F. re- (=L. re-), again ; and plevir, ‘to
warrant, be surety, give pledges, Cot. The E. word follows the
form of the pp. plevi. Cf. AF. replevi, pp., replevied, Stat. Realm,
i, 361 (1311). See Re- and Pledge. Der. replev-in, properly a
sb., from F. re- and OF. flevine, ‘a warranty,’ Cot.
REPLY, to answer. (F.—L.) ME. replien, replyen ; Chaucer,
Prol. to Legend of Good Women, 343.—OF. replier, the old form
which was afterwards replaced by the ‘learned’ form repfliguer, to
reply. =—L. replicare (pp. replicatus), to fold back; as a law term,
to reply.=L. re-, back; and plicare, to fold. See Re- and Ply.
REPRISAL
Der. reply, sb., Hamlet, i. 2. 121; replic-at-ion, Chaucer, C. T. 1848
(A 1846) ;<L. ace. replicatidnem, from nom. replicatio, a reply, a law-
term, asat first introduced. Also replica, a copy, lit. a repetition, from
Ital. replica, a sb. due to replicare, to repeat, reply.
REPORT, to relate, recount. (F.—L.) ME. reporten, Chaucer,
C. T. 4572 (B 152).—F. reporter, ‘to recarrie, bear back ;’ Cot. —L.
reportare, tocarry back. See Re-and Port (1). Der. report, sb.,
Chaucer, Troilus, i. 593; report-er.
REPOSE, to lay at rest, to rest. (F.—L. and Gk.) ‘ A mynde
With vertue fraught, reposed, voyd of gile ;’ Surrey, Epitaph on Sir
T. W., 1. 24; Tottell’s Misc., ed. Arber, p. 29.—F. reposer, ‘to
Tepose, pawse, rest, or stay,’ Cot. Cf. Ital. riposare, Span. reposar,
Port. repousar, Prov. repausar (Bartsch); all answering to Late L.
repausare, whence repausitio, a pausing, pause (White).=—L. re-,
again; and pausare, to pause, from pausa, a pause, of Greek origin ;
see Re- and Pause. @ This word is of much importance, as it
appears to be the oldest compound of pausare, and gave rise to the
later confusion between L. pausdre (of Gk. origin), and the pp.
positus of L. ponere. See Pose. Der. refose, sb., Spenser, F. Ὁ.
iii. 4. 6, from Εἰ. repos, ‘repose,’ Cot. ; repos-al, King Lear, ii. 1. 70.
REPOSITORY, a place in which things are stored up, store-
house. (F.—L.) Spelt repositorie in Levins and Minsheu. Altered
from MF. repositoire, ‘a store-house,’ Cot. —L. reposi/drium, a reposi-
tory. Formed with suffix -dr-i-um from refosit-us, pp. of reponere, to
lay up. See Re- and Position.
REPOUSSE, raised in relief by being beaten up from the under
side ; said of metal-work. (F.—L.) F. regoussé, lit. pushed back ;
p. of repousser, =F. re-, back ; and pousser, to push; see Push.
REPREHEND, to blame, reprove. (L.) ME. reprehenden,
Chaucer, Troilus, i. 510. It must have been taken from L., as the
OF. form was reprendre in the 12th century.—L. reprehendere (pp.
reprehensus), to hold back, check, blame.—L. re-, back; and pre-
hendere, to hold, seize. See Re- and Comprehend. Der. repre-
hension, Chaucer, Troil. i. 684, prob. direct from L. acc. reprehen-
sidnem, though the OF. reprehension occurs in the 12th century
(Hatzfeld) ; reprehens-ive; reprehens-ible, from L. reprehensibilis;
reprehens-ibl-y, And see reprisal.
REPRESENT, to describe, express, exhibit the image of, act
the part of. (F.—L.) ME. representen, Rom. of the Rose, 7402.
— OF. representer, ‘to represent, express;’ Cot.—L. representare,
to bring before one again, exhibit. —L. re-, again ; and presentare,
to present, hold out, from prasent-, stem of presens, present. See
Re-and Present (1). Der. represent-able, represent-at-ion, represent-
at-ive.
REPRESS, to restrain, check. (F.—L.) ME. repressen, Gower,
C. A. iii. 166; bk. vii. 2410. Coined from Re- and Press (1),
with the sense of L. reprimere, pp. repressus. Der. repress-ion,
repress-ive. And see reprimand.
REPRIEVE, to delay the execution of a criminal. (F.—L.)
In Spenser, F. Ὁ. iv. 12.31. It is formally the same word as reprove,
of which the ME. form was commonly repreuen (=repreven), with
the sense to reject. Palsgrave has repreve for reprove. ‘The stoon
which men bildynge repreueden’=the stone which the builders
rejected; Wyclif, Luke, xx. 17. Cf. OF. repreuve, 3rd pers. sing.
indic. of reprover (F. réprouver), to reprove. Cf. Schwan, § 348 (4).
B. But the sense is really due to the obs. verb to repry, as in ‘ they
were repryed,’ lit. ‘taken back,’ but used to mean ‘ reprieved ;’
Fabyan, Chron., ed. Ellis, p. 389. And again, ‘the sayd Turbyr-
uyle was repryed to pryson;’ id. p. 672.—OF. repris, pp. of
reprendre, ‘to resume, receive, take back; also to reprehend ;’ Cot.
See Reprehend, Reprisal. Der. reprieve, sb., Cor. v. 2. 52.
Doublet, reprove.
REPRIMAND, a reproof, rebuke. (F.—L.) In the Spectator,
no. 112.—F. réprimande, formerly reprimende, ‘a check, reprehension,
reproof,’ Cot.—L. reprimenda, a thing that ought to be repressed :
fem. of fut. part. pass. of reprimere, to repress; see Re- and Press
(1). Der. reprimand, verb.
REPRINT, to print again. (F.—L.) Prynne refers to a book
‘printed 1599, and now reprinted 1629;’ Histrio-mastix, part i.
p- 358 (R.). From Re-and Print. Der. reprint, sb.
REPRISAL, anything seized in return, retaliation. (F.—Ital.—
L.) It means ‘a prize’ in Shak. 1 Hen. IV, iv. 1. 118. Spelt re-
prisels, pl., in Minsheu, ed. 1627.—MF. represaille, ‘a taking or
seising on, a prise, or a reprisall;’ Cot. [The modern vowel is
due to the obsolete verb reprise, to seize in return, Spenser, F. Q. iv.
4. 8, from the pp. repris of OF. reprendre<L. reprehendere.|—
Mital. ripresaglia, ‘booties, preyes, prisals, or anything gotten by
prize, bribing, or bootie;’ Florio.=TItal. ripresa, ‘a reprisall or
taking again ;’id. Fem. of ripreso, pp. of riprendere, ‘ to reprehend,
also to take again, retake ;’ id.—L. reprehendere; see Reprehend,
Reprieve. And see Prize (1).
511
512 REPROACH
REPROACH, to upbraid, revile, rebuke. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Meas. for Meas. ν. 426. The sb.is spelt reproche in Skelton, Bowge
of Courte, 1, 26. We find ME. reproce, sb., Early E. Psalter, xxx
(xxxi). 143; and reprocen, vb., id., xxxiv (xxxv). 8.—F. reprocher, ‘to
reproach, . .. object or impute unto,’ Cot.; whence the sb. reproche,
‘a reproach, imputation, or casting in the teeth;’ id. Cf. Span.
reprochar, vb., reproche, sb.; Prov. repropchar, to reproach (cited by
Diez). We also find Prov. repropchiers, reprojers, sb., a proverb
(Bartsch). β. The etymology is disputed, yet is hardly doubtful ;
the Late L. appropiare became OF. aprocher and E. approach, so that
reproach answers to a L, type *repropiare, not found, to bring near to,
hence to cast in one’s teeth, impute, object. From L. re-, again;
and propi-us, adv., nearer, comp. of prope, near; see Propinquity.
See Diez, who shows that other proposed solutions of the word are
phonetically impossible. γ. Scheler well explains the matter, when
he suggests that *repropidre is, in fact, a mere translation or equiva-
lent of L. obicere (objicere), to cast before one, to bring under one’s
notice, to reproach. So also the G. vorwerfen, to cast before, to
reproach. δ. And hence we can explain the Prov. repropchiers, lit.
a bringing under one’s notice, a hint, a proverb. Der. reproach,
sb.; reproach-able, reproach-abl-y; reproach-ful, Titus Andron., i.
308 ; reproach-ful-ly.
REPROBATE, depraved, vile, base. (L.) Properly a pp. used
as an adj., Trevisa, tr. of Higden, vi. 407; also in L.L. L. i. 2. 64;
also as sb., Meas. iv. 3. 78.—L. reprobatus, censured, reproved, pp.
of reprobare; see Reprove. Der. reprobat-ion, a reading in the
quarto editions for reprobance, Oth. v. 2. 209, from MF. reprobation,
omitted by Cotgrave, but in use in the r4th cent. (Hatzfeld)<L. acc.
reprobatiOnem,
REPRODUCEK, to produce again. (L.) In Cotgrave, to trans-
late F. reproduire. From Re- and Produce. Der. reproduct-ion,
reproduct-ive,
REPROVE, to condemn, chide. (F.—L.) ME. reprouen (re-
proven), P. Plowman, C. iv. 389. [Also spelt repreuen; see Re-
prieve.]=OF. reprover, mod. F. réprouver, to reprove; Littré. =
L. reprobare, to disapprove, condemn. +L. re-, again; and probare,
to test, prove; hence ‘to reprove’ is to reject on a second trial, to
condemn. See Re- and Prove. Der. reprov-er; reprov-able, re-
prov-abl-y. Also reproof, ME. reprove, reproef, Gower, C. A. iii.
230, bk. vii. 4108; see Proof. And see reprob-ate. Doublet,
reprieve.
REPTILE, crawling, creeping. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave. ME.
reptil, Gower, Conf. Amant. iii, 118; bk. vii. IO1I.—F. repéile,
‘reptile, creeping, crawling ;’ Cot.—L. reptilem, acc. of reptilis,
creeping ; formed with suffix -ilis from rept-us, pp. of répere, to creep.
+Lithuan. rezloti, to creep (Nesselmann). Der. reptil-i-an.
REPUBLIC, a commonwealth. (F.—L.) Spelt republique in
Minsheu, ed. 1627. --ἰ MF. republique, ‘the commonwealth ; ’ Cot.—L.
réspublica, a commonwealth; for rés publica, lit. a public affair. See
Realand Public. Der. republic-an, republic-an-ism.
REPUDIATE, to reject, disavow. (L.) In Levins. Used asa
pp- or adj. in Harding’s Chron. ch. go, st. 4.—L. repudiatus, pp. of
repudiaire, to put away, reject.—L. repudium, a casting off, divorce,
lit. a rejection of what one is ashamed of.—L. re-, away, back; and
pud-, base of pudére, to feel shame, pudor, shame; cf. prd-pudium, a
shameful action. Der. repudiat-or ; repudiat-ion, from MF. repudia-
tion, ‘a refusall,’ Cot.
REPUGNANT, hostile, adverse. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed.
1627; and in Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, Ὁ. ii. c. 11. § 4. The
word is rather F. than L.; the sb. repugnance is in Levins, ed. 1570,
and occurs, spelt repungnaunce, in Skelton, Garland of Laurell, 211.
The verb 20 repugn was in rather early use, occurring in Wyclif, Acts,
vy. 39; also in Palsgrave.—MF. repugnant, pres. part. of repugner,
‘to repugne, crosse, thwart ;’ Cot.—L. repugnare, lit. to fight against.
=L. re-, back, hence against; and pugnare, to fight; see Re- and
Pugnacious. Der. repugnance, from MF. repugnance, ‘repug-
nancy,’ Cot.
REPULSE, to repel, beat off. (L.) Surrey translates L. repulsi
in Virgil, En. ii. 13, by repulst. ‘Oftentymes the repulse from
promocyon is cause of dyscomforte;’ Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth,
b. iil. ον 12.—L. repulsus, pp. of repellere, to repel; see Repel.
B. The sb. answers to L. repulsa, a refusal, repulse; orig. fem. of
the pp. repulsus. Der. repulse, sb., as above; repuls-ive, -ly, -ness;
repuls-ion.
REPUTE, to estimate, account. (F.—L.) ‘1 repute, I estyme,
or judge, Je repute;’ Palsgrave. The sb. reputation is in Chaucer,
C. T. 12536 (Ὁ 602).—OF. reputer, ‘to tepute;” Cot. (And in
Godefroy.) —L. repuédre, to repute, esteem.—L. re-, again; and
putare, to think; see Re- and Putative. Der. reput-able, reput-
abl-y, reput-able-ness ; reput-ed-ly ; reput-at-ion, from MF. reputation,
‘reputation, esteem,’ Cot. Also repute, sb., Troil. i. 3. 337.
RESEMBLE
REQUEST, an entreaty, petition (F.—L.) ME. requeste,
Chaucer, C. T. 2687 (A 2685).—OF. regueste, ‘a request ;’ Cot. =
L. requisiéa, a thing asked, fem. of pp. of reqguirere, to ask ; see Re-
and Quest; and see Require. Der. request, verb, Two Gent.
5: Ἐπ3.
REQUIEM, a mass for the repose of the dead. (L.) ‘The
requiem-masse to synge;’ Skelton, Phylyp Sparowe, 401. The Mass
for the Dead was so called, because the anthem or officium began
with ‘Reguiem zeternam dona eis, Domine,’ &c.; Procter, On the
Common Prayer. L. requiem, acc. of requiés, rest.—L. re-, again;
and quiés, rest; see Re- and Quiet. And see Dirge.
REQUIESCENCEH, repose, qniet. (L.) From L. re-, again ;
and guiescentia, quietness, from quiescent-, stem of pres. part. of
quiescere, to rest; see Quiescent.
REQUIRE, to ask, demand, (F.—L.) Spelt requyre in Pals-
grave. ΜΕ. reguiren, Chaucer, C. T. 8306 (E 430); in 1, 6634
(Ὁ 1052), we find requere, riming with ¢here. The word was taken
from F., but influenced by the L. spelling. MF. requerir, ‘to re-
quest, intreat,’ Cot.; OF. reguerre, with 1 pers. sing. ind. reguier. =
L. requirere, lit. to seek again (pp. requisttus).—L. re-, again; and
querere, to seek; see Re- and Quest. Der. requir-able; require-
ment, a coined word ; requis-ite, adj., Wint. Tale, iv. 4. 687, from L.
pps requisitus ; requis-ite, sb., Oth. li. 1. 251; requis-it-ion, from MF.
requisition, ‘a requisition,’ Cot.; reguis-it-ion-ist.
REQUITE, to repay. (F.—L.) InShak. Temp. v. 169. Surrey
(Ain. ii. 205) translates si magna rependam (En. ii. 161) by ‘requite
thee large amendes.’ The word ought rather to be requit ; cf. ‘ hath
requit it, Temp. iii. 3. 71. But just as quite occurs as a variant of
quit, so requite is used for requit; see Re- and Quit. Der. requit-
al, Merry Wives, iv. 2. 3.
REREDOS, a screen at the back of an altar. (F.—L.) ‘A
reredosse in the hall;’ Harrison, Desc. of Eng. b. ii. c 12; ed.
Furnivall, p. 240. Hall, in his Chronicle (Henry VIII, an. 12.
§ 22), enumerates ‘ harths, reredorses, chimnays, ranges; ’ Richardson.
Spelt reredos, Earl of Derby’s Expeditions in 1390-3 (Camd. Soc.),
p- 219, 1. 8. Compounded of rear, ME. rere, i.e. at the back, and
F. dos (<L. dorsum), the back; so that the sense is repeated. See
Rear (2) and Dorsal.
REREMOUSH, REARMOUSE, a bat. (E.) Still in use in
the South and West of England; E.D.D. The pl. reremys occurs
in Rich. the Redeles, ed. Skeat, iii 272. AS. hréremiis, a bat;
Wright’s Vocab., p. 77, col. 1, last line. β. Apparently due to a
popular etymology (like prov. E. #litter-mouse, a bat) from the
flapping of the wings; from AS. hréran, to agitate, a derivative of
hror, motion (with the usual change from 6 to δ), allied to hror, adj.,
active, quick; see Grein, ii. 102, 108. Cf. Icel. hrera, Ὁ, riihren,
to stir; Icel. hrera tungu, to wag the tongue. B. But the early
form is kréatha-mis, a bat; Epinal Gloss., 978; spelt hraedemuus,
Corpus Gloss., 2103; hreadaemus, hreadamus, Ep. Gl. 1098. Cog-
nate with OLow G. kréda-mis, a bat (Gallée).
REREW ARD, the same as Rearward, q. v.
RESCIND, to repeal, annul. (F.—L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674.—F. rescinder, ‘to cut or pare off, to cancell;’ Cot.—L. re-
scindere, to cut off, annul.=L. re-, back; and scindere (pp. scissus),
to cut; see Re- and Schism. Der. resciss-ion, from MF, rescision,
“a rescision, a cancelling,’ Cot., from L. ace. rescissidnem.
RESCRIPT, an official answer, edict. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave. =
MF. rescript, ‘a rescript, a writing back, an answer given in writing ;’
Cot.—L. rescriptum, a rescript, reply; neut. of rescriptus, pp. of
rescribere, to write back; see Re- and Scribe.
RESCUE, to free from danger, deliver from violence. (F.—L.)
ME. rescouen, rescowen, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. iv. met. 5, l. 15.
—OF. rescourre, ‘to rescue;’ Cot. [The same word as Ital. ri-
scuotere.|}= Late L, rescutere, which occurs A.D. 1308 (Ducange); it
stands for reéxcutere. So also the OF. rescousse, a rescue, answers to
Late L. rescussa< L. reéxcussa, fem. pp. of the same verb; and mod.
Ἐς recousse is from recussa, the same sb. with the omission of ex.
B. From L, re-, again; and excutere (pp. excussus), to shake off,
drive away, comp. of ex, off, and quatere, to shake; see Re-, Ex-,
and Quash, Der. rescue, sb., ME. rescous, Chaucer, C. T. 2645
(A 2643), from the OF, rescousse, ‘rescue,’ Cot. @ We find AF.
rescure, vb., Vie de St. Auban, and rescusse, id. In the Coventry
Myst., p. 114, is the sb, rescu. Either this sb. was formed anew
from the vb., or the AF. rescusse (ME. rescous) was supposed to be
apl. form. Mrs. Quickley says: ‘bring a rescue or two;’ 2 Hen. 1V,
11: 1.162.
RESEARCH, a careful search. (F.—L.) ‘ Research, a strict
inquiry ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. From Re- and Search. Cf. MF.
recerche, ‘a diligent search,’ Cot.; Norm. dial. recerche; mod. F.
recherche.
RESEMBLEB, to be like. (F.—L.) ME. resemblen, Gower, C. A.
RESENT
iii. 117 ; bk. vii.g82.—OF. resembler, ‘to resemble ;’ Cot. Mod. F.
ressembler.—F. re-, again; and sembler, ‘to seem, also to resemble,”
id.—L. re-, again; and similare, more generally simuldre, to imitate,
copy, make like, from similis, like; see Re- and Similar. Der.
resembl-ance, ME. resemblaunce, Gower, C. A. ii. 83, bk. iv. 2424,
from OF. resemblance, ‘a resemblance ;’ Cot.
RESENT, to take ill, be indignant at. (F.—L.) Orig. merely to
be sensible of a thing done to one; see Trench, Select Glossary. In
Joseph Beaumont, Psyche, canto iv. st. 156. Used in the modem
sense, Milton, P. L. ix. 300. ‘To resent, to be sensible of, or
to stomach an affront;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Blount’s Gloss. has
only the sb. resentment, also spelt ressentiment.—MF. resentir,
ressentir, ‘Se ressentir, to taste fully, have a sensible apprehension
of; se ressentir de tniure, to remember, to be sensible or desire a re-
venge of, to find himself aggrieved at a thing;’ Cot. Thus the orig.
sense was merely ‘to be fully sensible of,’ without any sinister
meaning. =F. re-, again; and sentir, to feel, from L. sentire, to feel ;
see Re- and Sense. Der. resent-ment, from F. ressentiment; re-
sent-ful, -ly.
RESERVE, to keep back, retain. (F.—L.) ME. reseruen (with
u=v), Chaucer, C. T, 188.—OF. reserver, ‘to reserve, Cot.—L.
reserudre, to keep back.—L. re-, back; and seruare, to keep ; see
Re- and Serve. Der. reserve, sb., from OF. reserve, ‘store, a
reservation,’ Cot.; reserv-ed, reserv-ed-ly, -ness; reserv-at-ion; also
reserv-oir, a place where any thing (esp. water) is stored up, Evelyn’s
Diary, 17 Oct., 1644, from F. reservoir, a store-house,’ Cot., which
from Late L. reseruatorium (Ducange).
RESIDE, to dwell, abide, inhere. (F.—L.) See Trench, Select
Glossary. In Shak. Temp. iii. 1. 65. [The sb. residence is much
earlier, in Chaucer, C. Τὶ 16128 (G 660).)—MF. resider, ‘to reside,
stay,’ Cot.=—L. residére, to remain behind, reside. =L. re-, back ; and
sedére, to sit, cognate with E. st; see Re- and Sit. Der. resid-ence,
as above, from F. residence, ‘a residence, abode,’ Cot.; resid-ent,
Bemers, tr. of Froissart, vol. ii. c. 210, and c. 129 (R.); resid-ent-i-al,
resid-enc-y; resid-ent-i-ar-y. And see resid-ue.
RESIDUE, the remainder. (F.—L.) ME. residue, P. Plow-
man, B. vi. 102. AF. residue, fem., Royal Wills, p. 39 (1360); cf.
ΜΕ. residu, ‘ the residue, overplus,’ Cot.—L. residuum, a remainder;
neut. of residuus, remaining; the AF. residue answers to the fem.
residua, =, resid-ére, to remain, also to reside; see Reside. Der.
residu-al, residu-ar-y. Doublet, residuum, which is the L. form.
RESIGN, to yield up. (F.—L.) ME. resignen, Chaucer, C. T.
5200 (B 780). = OF. and MF. resigner, ‘to resigne, surrender ;’ Cot.
—L. resignare, to unseal, annul, assign back, resign. Lit. ‘to sign
back or again.’ See Re- and Sign. Der. resign-at-ion, from MF.
resignation, ‘a resignation ;’ Cot.
RESILIENT, rebounding. (L.) ‘ Whether there be any such
resilience in Eccho’s;’ Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 245.—L. resilient-, stem
of pres. part. of resilire, to leap back, rebound. —L. re-, back; and
salire, to leap; see Re- and Salient. Der. resilience. Also result, q.v.
RESIN, ROSIN, an inflammable substance, which flows from
trees. (F.—L.—Gk.) Resin is the better form. ‘Great aboundance
of rosin ;’ Holland, tr. of Plutarch, b. xvi. c. 10. ME. roseyne, Earl
of Derby’s Expeditions, 1390-3 (Camden Soc.), p. 64, 1. 63 recyn,
recyne, Wyclif, Jer. li. 8.— OF. resine, ‘rosin;’ Cot. Mod. F. résine;
Norman dial. rousine (Moisy). —L. résina, Jer. li. 8 (Vulgate); Late
L. rosina, Voc. 714. 32. β. Borrowed from Gk. ῥητίνη (with long ὃ),
resin, gum from trees. For the change from τ to s, cf. Doric φατί
as compared with Attic φησί, he says, and Gk. ov for L. tz, thou.
Moreover, there is a place called Retina, of which the mod. name is
Resina (White). y. Perhaps allied to Gk. ῥέειν, to flow; see
Prellwitz. Der. resin-ous, from MF. resineux, ‘full of rosin,’ Cot.;
resin-y.
RESIST, to stand against, oppose. (F.—L.) Spelt resyste in
Palsgrave; resys¢ in Skelton, On the death of Edw. IV, 1. 11; resyste
in Caxton, G. Legend, St. Peter, § 4.—OF. resister, ‘to resist ;”
Cot.—L. resistere, to stand back, stand still, withstand.<L. re-,
back; and sistere, to make to stand, set, also to stand fast, a causal
verb formed from stare, to stand, cognate with Ἐς stand. See Re-
and State. Der. resist-ance, ME. resistence, Chaucer, C. T. 16377
(G 999), from OF, resistence (later resistance, as in Cotgrave, mod.
F. résistance), which from L. resistent-, stem of pres. part. of resistere ;
resist-ible, resist-ibil-i-ty, resist-less, resist-less-ly, resist-less-ness.
RESOLVE, to separate into parts, analyse, decide. (L.) Chaucer
has resolved (with ~=v) in the sense of ‘thawed;’ tr. of Boethius,
b. iv. met. 5,1. 20. —L. resoluere, to untie, loosen, melt, thaw. —L. re-,
again; and soluere, to loosen; see Re- and Solve. Der. resolv-
able; resolv-ed; resolv-ed-ly, All’s Well, v. 3. 3323 resolv-ed-ness.
Also resolute, L.L.L. v. 2. 705, from the pp. resoliitus ; resolute-ly,
resolute-ness ; resolut-ton, Macb. v. 5. 42, from MF. resolution, ‘a
resolution,’ Cot.
REST 515
RESONANT, resounding. (L.) In Milton, P. L. xi. 563.—L.
resonant-, stem of pres. part. of resondre, to resound. Cf. MF. reson-
nant, ‘resounding ;’ Cot. See Resound. Der. resonance, sug-
gested by MF. resonnance, ‘a resounding ;’ Cot. ᾿
RESORT, to go to, betake oneself, have recourse to. (F.—L.)
‘Al T refuse, but that I might resorte Unto my loue;’ Lamentation
of Mary Magdalene, st. 43, 1. 299; Hoccleve, Reg. of Princes, 1397.
The sb. resort is in Chaucer, Troilus, iii. 134.—OF. resortir, later
ressortir, ‘to issue, goe forth againe, resort, recourse, Tepaire, be
referred unto, for a full tryal,..to appeale unto; and to be re
moveable ont of an inferior into a superior court ;’ Cot. (It was
thus a law term.) Hence the sb. resort, later ressort, ‘the authority,
prerogative, or jurisdiction of a sovereign court,’ Cot. Cf. Late L.
resortire, to be subject to a tribunal. It looks like a compound of
L. re-, again; and sorfir?, tu obtain; as if to re-obtain, gain by
appeal ; and this may have affected the sense. The L. soriiri is 11.
‘to obtain by lot ;” from sorti-, decl. stem of sors,a lot. See Re-
and Sort. B. But this does not well account for the development
of the senses ; and it is probable that the Ital. risorto, jurisdiction,
is allied to Ital. risor/o, pp. of risorgere (L. resurgere), to rise again ;
see Resurrection. So also MF. ressort means ‘the spring of
a lock,’ Cot.; and F. sortir means ‘to go out. The latter is from
*surctus, short for surrectus, pp. of surgere, to rise. Cf. MSpan.
surtir, ‘to rise, to rebound ;’ Minsheu. See sortire in Diez, Sortir (1)
and (2) in Hatzfeld, and Korting, § 8018. See Source. Der. resort,
sb., as above.
RESOUND, to echo, sound again. (F.—L.) The final d is ex-
crescent after 2, as in the sb. sound, a noise. ME. resounen, Chaucer,
C. T. 1280 (A 1278). -- Οἷς, resonner, resoner, omitted by Cotgrave,
but in use in the 12th cent. (Littré) ; mod. F. résonner.—L. resonare.
—L. re- ; and sondare, to sound, from sonus, a sound; see Re- and
Sound (3). Der. reson-ant, q.v.
RESOURCE, a supply, support, expedient. (F.—L.) In Cot-
grave, to translate F. ressource ; he also gives the older form resource,
“a new source, or spring, a recovery.’ The sense is ‘new source,
fresh spring ;’ hence, a new supply or fresh expedient. Compounded
of Re- and Source.
RESPECT, regard, esteem. (F.—L.) In The Court of Love (not
earlier than A.D. 1500), 1. 155.—F. respect, ‘respect, regard ;’ Cot.
—L. respectum, acc. of respectus, a looking at, respect, regard. = L. re-
spectus, pp. of respicere, to look at, look back upon.—L. re-, back;
and specere, to see, spy. See Re- and Spy. Der. respect, verb,
Cor. ili. I. 307, and very common in Shak.; respect-able, from F.
respectable, ‘ respectable,’ Cot. ; respect-abl-y, respect-abil-i-ty ;_ respect-
Sul, respect-ful-ly ; respect-ive, from F. respectif, ‘respective,’ Cot. ;
respect-ive-ly. Doublet, respite.
RESPIRE, to breathe, take rest. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q. iii.
3. 36.—F. respirer, ‘to breathe, vent, gaspe ;’ (οί. τ... respirare, to
breathe. —L. re-, again; and spirare, to blow; see Re- and Spirit.
Der. respir-able, respir-abil-i-ty ; respir-at-ion, from F. respiration, ‘a
respiration,’ Cot.; respir-at-or, respir-at-or-y.
RESPITE, a delay, pause, temporary reprieve. (F.—L.) ‘Thre
dayes haf respite;’ Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 275, 1. 2.
Better spelt res¢¢ (with short 7).—OF. respit (12th cent.), ‘a respit,
a delay, a time or term of forbearance ; a protection of one, three, or
five yeares granted by the prince unto a debtor,’ &c.; Cot. Mod. F.
répit. The true orig. sense is regard, respect had to a suit on the
part of a prince or judge, and it is a mere doublet of respect.— L. acc.
respectum; see Respect. Der. respite, verb, Chaucer, C. T. 11886
(F 1582). Doublet, respect.
RESPLENDENT, very bright. (L.) (Not from OF., which
has the form resplendissant; see Cotgrave.) ‘ Resplendent with glory;’
Craft of Lovers, st. 5, 1.3; in Chaucer’s Works, ed. 1561, fol. 341. —
L. resplendent-, stem of pres. part. of resplendére, to shine brightly,
lit. to shine again. —L, re-, again ; and splendére, to shine ; see Re-
and Splendour. Der. resplendent-ly, resplendence.
RESPOND, to answer, reply. (F.—L.) ‘For his great deeds
respond his speeches great,’ i.e. answer to them; Fairfax, tr. of Tasso,
b. x. c. 40.—OF. respondre, ‘to answer; also, to match, hold cor-
respondency with ;” Cot.—L. respondére (pp. responsus), to answer.
“ΤΟ re-, back, in return; and spondére, to promise; see Re- and
Sponsor. Der. respond-ent, Tyndall, Works, p. 171, col. 2, 1. 47,
from L, respondent-, stem of pres. part. of respondére ; response, ME.
response, spelt respons in Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 98, 1. 14,
from OF. response, ‘an answer,’ Cot., from L. responsum, neut. of
Pp. responsus ; respons-ible, respons-ibl-y, respons-ibil-i-ty ; restons-ive,
Hamlet, v. 2. 159, from MF. responsi, ‘ responsive, answerable,’
Cot. ; respons-ive-ly. Also cor-respond, q. Vv.
REST (1), repose, quiet, pause. (E.) ME. reste (dissyllabic),
Chaucer, C. T. 9729 (Ε 1855). The finale is here due to the form
of the oblique cases of the AS. sb. AS. rest, rest, fem. sb., rest,
L
δ14 REST
quiet; but the gen., dat., and acc. sing. take final -e, making reste,
reste; see Grein, ii. 372.4-Du. rust; Dan. and Swed. rast; Icel.
rést, the distance between two resting-places, a mile; Goth. raséa,
a stage of a journey, a mile; OHG. rasfa, rest; also, a measure of
distance, B. From the Teut. type *rastja, fem., ‘a halting-place ;’
from Teut. base *ras, to dwell, as seen in Goth, raz-ns, a house.
See Ransack. Brugmann, i. ὃ 903 c. Cf. W. aros, to tarry;
Stokes-Fick, p. 235. Der. rest, verb, AS. restan, Grein, ii. 3733
rest-less, rest-less-ly, rest-less-ness.
REST (2), to remain, be left over. (F.—L.) Perhaps obsolete ;
but common in Shak. ‘Nought rests for me but to make open pro-
clamation ;’ 1 Hen. VI, i. 3. 70. The sb. rest, remainder, is still
common ; it occurs in Surrey, tr. of Virgil, Ain, ii. 856 (651 of the
L. text).—F. rester, ‘to rest, remaine;’ Cot.—L. restare, to stop
behind, stand still, remain. —L. re-, behind, back; and stare, to
stand, cognate with E. stand; see Re- and Stand. Der. rest, sb.,
as above, from F. reste, ‘a rest, residue, remnant ;’ Cot. And see
rest-ive,ar-rest. Rest-harrow (Baret) =arrest-harrow (F. arréte-beuf).
And see reasty.
RESTAURANT, a place for refreshment. (F.—L.) Borrowed
from mod. F, restaurant, lit. ‘restoring ;’ pres. part. of restaurer, to
restore, refresh; see Restore. Cot. has: ‘ restaurant, a restorative.’
REST-HARROVW ; sce under Rest (2).
RESTITUTION, the act of restoring. (F.—L.) ME. restitu-
cion, P. Plowman, B. v. 235, 238. —OF. restitution, ‘a restitution.’ =
L. restitiitionem, acc. of restitiitio, a restoring; cf. restitutus, pp. of
restituere, to restore.—L. re-, back ; and szatwere, to place; see Re-
and Statute. Der. restitwe, verb, in P. Plowman, b, ν. 281 (obso-
lete); from F. restituer.
RESTIVE, unwilling to go forward, obstinate. (F.—L.) Some-
times confused with reséless, though the orig. sense is very different.
In old authors, it is sometimes confused with res/y, adj., as 1f from
rest (1); but properly resty or restie stands for OF. restif (Εἰ. rétif).
‘The restiff world ;’ Dryden, Hind and Panther, iii. 1026. ‘ Grow
restie, nor go on;’ Chapman, tr. of Homer, Iliad, v. 234. ‘ When
there be not stonds, nor restiveness in a man’s nature;’ Bacon,
Essay 40, Of Fortune. See further in Trench, Select Glossary. =
OF. and ΜΕ. restif, ‘ restie, stubborn, drawing backward, that will
not go forward;’ Cot.—F. rester, ‘to rest, remain;’ Cot. See
Rest (2). @ Thus the true sense of restive is stubborn in keeping
one’s place ; a restive horse is, properly, one that will not move for
whipping; the shorter form resty is preserved in prov. E. rusty,
restive, unruly (Halliwell) ; to ¢urn rusty is to be stubborn. Der.
restive-ness.
RESTORE, to repair, replace, return. (F.—L.) ME. restoren,
Rob. of Glouc., p. 500, 1. 10287.—OF. restorer (Burguy), also MF.
restaurer, ‘ to restore,’ Cot. —L. restaurdre, to restore. — L. re-, again ;
and *staurare (not used), to set up, establish, make firm, a verb
derived from an adj. *staurus=Gk, σταυρός, that which is firmly
fixed, a stake. Cf. Skt. sthavara-s, fixed, stable. Idg. root *stex,
allied to4/STA, tostand. Brugmann,i. ὃ 198. See Re- and Store.
Der. restor-at-ion, ME, restauracion, Gower, C. A. iii. 23, bk. vi. 637,
from F. restauration, from L. acc. restauratidnem ; restor-at-ive, ME.
yestauratif, Gower, C. A. iii. 30, bk. vi. 859. Also restaur-ant,
ave
“RESTRAIN, to hold back, check, limit. (F.—L.) ME. re-
streinen, restreignen, Gower, C. A. iii. 206, bk. vii. 3396; Chaucer,
C. T. 14505 (B3777).—OF. stem restraign-, as in restraign-ant, pres.
pt. of restraindre, ‘to restrain, Cot.; mod. F. restreindre.—L. re-
stringere, to draw back tightly, bind back.—L. re-, back; and strix-
51: to draw tight; see Re- and Stringent. Der. restraint,
urrey, Prisoned in Windsor, 1. 52, from MF, restraincte, ‘a re-
straint,’ Cot., fem. of restrainct, old pp. of restraindre. Also restrict,
in Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, p. 1173 (R.), from L. restrictus, pp.
of restringere ; restrict-ion, tr. of More’s Utopia, ed. Arber, b. ii (Of
their iourneyng), p. 105, 1. 9, from F. restriction, ‘a restriction,’
Cot. ; restrict-ive, restrict-ive-ly.
RESULT, to ensue, follow as a consequence. (F.—L.) In Levins,
ed. 1570.—MEF, resulter, ‘to rebound, or leap back ; also, to rise of,
come out of ;’? Cot.—L. resul¢are, to spring back, rebound; fre-
quentative of resilire, to leap back; formed from a pp. resultus, not
inuse. See Resilient. Der. result, sb., a late word ; result-ant, a
mathematical term, from the stem of the pres. part.
RESUME, to take up again after interruption. (F.-L.) ‘I
resume, | take agayne;’ Palsgrave.—MF. resumer, ‘to resume ;’
Cot.=—L. restimere, to take again.—L, re-, again; and siimere, to
take. See Assume. Der. resum-able, resumpt-ion, formed from L.
resumptio, which is from the pp. resumptus,
RESURRECTION, a rising again from the dead. (F.—L.)
ME. resurrectioun, resurexioun; P. Plowman, B. xviii. 425.—OF.
resurrection, ‘a resurrection,’ (οἵ. τοῖο acc. resurrectionem, fromnom.
RETIRE
resurrectio; cf. resurrectus, pp. of resurgere, to rise again.=L, re-,
again; and surgere, to rise; see Re- and Source.
RESUSCITATEH, to revive. (L.) Orig. a pp. as adj.,as in:
‘our mortall bodies shal be resuscitate ;’ ΒΡ. Gardner, Exposicion,
On the Presence, p. 65 (R.). ‘ Resuscitate from death to lyfe ;’ Hall,
Chron., Hen. VI, an. vii. § 9.—L. resuscitatus, pp. of resuscitare, to
raise up again.—L, re-, again; and suscitare, to raise up, for *sub-
citare, compounded of sub, up, under, and cifare, to summon, rouse.
See Re-, Sub-, and Cite. Der. resuscitat-ion; resuscitat-ive, from
ME. resuscitatif, ‘ resuscitative,’ Cot.
RET, to steep flax-stems in water. (MDu.) Also rait ; E.D. D.=
Du. reten, to ret, break, soak hemp; MDu. reten, reeten. Cf.
Pomeran. réten, Swed. rita, Norw. γῦγία, to ret; Dan. dial. rade.
Lit. ‘to make rotten;’ formed by mutation from Teut. *raut-, second
grade of Teut. *rewt-an-, to rot. See Rotten.
RETAIL, to sell in small portions. (F.—L.) In Shak. L.L.L.
y. 2. 317. Due to the phrase to sell by retail. ‘Sell by whole-sale
and not by retaile ;? Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. i. p. 506, 1. 34. ΤῸ sell
by retail is to sell by ‘the shred,’ or small portion,.—OF. retaille
(Hatzfeld); MF. retail, ‘a shred, paring, or small peece cut from
a thing;’ Cot.—OF. retailler, ‘to shred, pare, clip;’ id.—F. re-
(=L. re-), again; and failler, to cut; see Re- and Tailor. Der.
retail, sb. (which is really the more orig. word) ; cf. AF. a retail,
by retail; Stat. Realm, i, 178 (1318). Cf. de-¢ail.
RETAMTN, to hold back, detain. (F.—L.) In Skelton, Phylyp
Sparrow, l. 1126. ‘ Of them that list all uice for to retaine;’ Wyatt,
Sat. ii, 1. 21. Spelt redayne in Palsgrave ; reteyne, Caxton, Godfrey
of Bologne, p. 88,1. 28.—OF. reteing, retien, as in 1 p.s. pres. of
retenir, ‘ to retaine, withholde ;’ Cot. =—L. retinére, to hold back. —L.
re-, back ; and tenére, tohold; see Re-and Tenable. Der. retain-
able; retain-er, Hen. VIII, ii. 4.1135; retent-ion, q.v., retin-ue, q.v.
RETALIATEH, to repay. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. -
L. retaliatus, pp. of retdliare, to requite, allied to alo, retaliation in
kind. Cf. L. lex tdlidnis, the law of retaliation. B. It is usual to
connect these words with L. ¢a@/is, such, like; but they are obviously
allied to W. ¢al, payment, Irish ¢aille, wages, Gael. ¢aileas, wages ;
Com. taly, to pay. Hence retaliate=repay. Der. retaliat-ion, ἃ
coined word ; retaliat-ive, retaliat-or-y.
RETARD, to make slow, delay, defer. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed.
1627, ‘To retarde you;’ A.D. 1467 ; Excerpta Historica, p. 187.—
ΜΕ. retarder, ‘to foreslow, hinder ;’ Cot. —L. retardare, to delay.—
L. re-, back; and ¢ardare, to make slow, from tardus, slow. See
Re- and Tardy. Der. retard-at-ion.
RETCH, REACH, to try to vomit. (E.) Sometimes spelt
reach, but quite distinct from the ordinary verb to reach. In Todd’s
Johnson; without an example. ‘Reach, to retch, to strive to vomit;’
Peacock, Gloss. of words used in Manley and Corringham (Lincoln).
AS. hré@can, to try to vomit; whence: ‘ Phtisis, wyrs-hr&cing,’ Voc.
113. 8; also Ar@c-gebre@c, Voc. 112. 30. From AS. hraca, spittle,
A.S. Leechdoms, ii. 260.4Icel. hrejka, to retch; from hraki, spittle.
Prob. of imitative origin.
RETENTION, power to retain, or act of retaining. (F.—L.)
In Shak. Tw. Nt. ii. 4. 99; v. 84.—MF. retention, ‘a retention ;’
Cot. =L. retentionem, acc. of retentio, a retaining; cf. retentus, pp. of
retinére; see Retain. Der. retent-ive, retent-ive-ly, -ness.
RETICENT, very silent. (L.) Modern; the sb. reticence is in
Holland, tr. of Plutarch, p. 841 (R.).—L. reticent-, stem of pres.
part. of reticére, to be very silent.—L. re-, again, hence, very much;
and tacére, to be silent ; see Re- and Tacit. Der. reticence, from
MF. reticence, ‘ silence,’ Cot., from L. reticentia.
RETICULE, a little bag to be carried in the hand. (F.—L.)
Modern; not in Todd’s Johnson. Borrowed from F. réticule, a net
for the hair, a reticule; Littré. —L. réticulum, a little net, a reticule ;
double dimin. (with suffix -cw-l) from ré¢i-, decl. stem of réve, a net.
€ Formerly also ridicule, both in F. and E., by confusion with
ridicule (Littré). Cf. prov. F. rédicule, a reticule, dial. of Verdun
(Fertiault); and Rouchi (Heécart). Der. reticul-ar, reticul-ate,
reticul-at-ed ; also reti-ar-y, i.e. net-like; reti-form, in the form of
a net; also reti-na, q.v.
RETINA, the innermost coating of the eye. (L.) Called ‘ Reti-
formis tunica, or Retina,’ in Phillips, ed. 1706. So called because it
resembles a fine network. A coined word; from ré/i-, decl. stem of
réte, a net; see Reticule.
RETINUE, a suite or body of retainers. (F.—L.) ME. retenne,
Chaucer, C.T. 2504 (A 2502). -- ΟΕ. retenue, ‘aretinue;’ Cot.; fem.
of retenu, pp. of retenir, to retain ; see Retain.
RETIRE, to retreat, recede, draw back. (F.—L. and Teut.) In
Shak. Temp. iv. 161.—OF. retirer, ‘to retire, withdraw ;’ Cot.—F.
re-, back; and λίγον, to draw, pull, pluck, a word of Teut. origin.
See Re- and Tirade. Der. retire-ment, Meas. for Meas. v. 130,
from Ἐς, retirement, ‘a retiring,’ Cot.
RETORT
RETORT, a censure returned ; a tube used in distillation. (F. —
L.) In both senses, it is the same word. ‘The chemical refort is so
called from its ‘twisted’ or bent tube; a re/ort is a sharp reply
‘twisted’ back or returned to an assailant. ‘ The re¢ort courteous;’
As You Like It, v. 4.76. ‘She wolde re/orte in me and my mother;’
Henrysoun, Test. of Creseide, st. 41, 1. 286.—F. retorte, ‘a retort,
or crooked body,’ Cot. ; fem. of retort, ‘twisted, twined, . . retorted,
violently returned,’ id. ; pp. of retordre, ‘to wrest back, retort ;’ id.
“ΤΙ, retorquére (pp. retortus), to twist back.—L. re-, back; and
torquére, to twist; see Re- and Torsion.
RETOUCH, RETRACE; from Re- and Touch, Trace.
RETRACT, to revoke. (F.—L.) In Levins, ed. 1570. [The
remark in Trench, Study of Words, lect. iii, that the primary mean-
ing is ‘ to reconsider,’ is not borne out by the etymology; ‘to draw
back’ is the older sense.}—MF. retracter, ‘to recant, revoke,’ Cot.
-L. retractare, to retract ; frequentative of retrahere (pp. retractus),
to draw back. L. re-, back; and trahere, to draw; see Re- and
Trace. Der. retract-ion, from MJ’. retraction, ‘a retraction,’ Cot.;
retract-ive, retract-ive-ly ; also retract-ile, i.e. that can be drawn back,
a coined word. And see retreat.
RETREAT, a drawing back, a place of retirement. (F.—L.)
Spelt re¢reit in Levins. ‘ Betre isto make a beaw retret’=it is better
to make a good retreat; Gower, C. A. iii. 356; bk. viii. 2416. “ΟἿ,
retrete (Littré), later retraite, spelt retraicte in Cotgrave, ‘a retrait,
a place of refuge ;’ fem. of retret, retrait, pp. of retraire, ‘to with-
draw ;’ Cot.=—L. retrahere, to draw back; see Retract. Der.
retreat, verb, Milton, P. L. ii. 547.
RETRENCH, to curtail expenses. (F.—L.) In Phillips, ed.
1706.—MF. retrencher, ‘to cut, strike, or chop off, to curtall,
diminish ;” Cot. Mod. F. retrancher. =F. re- (=L. re-), back ; and
OF. trencher, ‘to cut;’ Cot. SeeRe-and Trench. Der. retrench-
ment, Phillips.
RETRIBUTION, requital, reward or punishment. (F.—L.)
In Minsheu, ed. 1627. Spelt retrybucion, Caxton, G. Legend,
Pentecost, 8 3.—MF. retribution, ‘a retribution, requitall ;’ Cot.
“Το. retribiitionem, acc. of retributio, recompense ; cf. retribiitus, pp.
of retribuere, to restore, repay. —L. re-, back ; and tribuere, to assign,
give; see Re- and Tribute. Der. retribut-ive.
RETRIEVE, to recover, bring back to a former state. (F.—L.
and Gk.) “1 retreve, 1 fynde agayne, as houndes do their game, je
retrouue;’ Palsgrave. Levinshas: ‘retrive, retrudere ;’ he must mean
the same word. Spelt re¢riue, Book of St. Albans, fol. b 4; cf. retriuer,
a retriever (dog), id. fol. b3, back. Just as in the case of contrive,
the spelling has been altered ; probably retreve was meant to repre-
sent OF. retrewve, a stem of the OF. retrover, later retrouver.—F.
retrouver, ‘to find again;’ Cot.—F. re-, again; and frowver, to
find. See Contrive and Trover. Thus the successive spellings
are retreve (for retrenve), retrive, retrieve. Der. retriev-er, retrievable.
RETRO., backwards, prefix. (L.; or F.—L.) L. retrd-, back-
wards. A comparative form, with comp. suffix -#rd, as in wul-trd,
ct-trd, in-trd; from red- or re-, back. Thus the sense is ‘ more
backward.’ See Re-. Cf. Goth. -Jrd in Ja-frd, thence ; Brugmann,
il. § 75.
RETROCKESSION, a going back. (L.) A coined word, and
not common; see an example in Richardson. As a math. term, in
Phillips, ed. 1706. Formed with suffix -ion (=F. -ion, L. -idnem)
like retrdcess-us, pp. of retracédere, to go backwards; see Retro-
and Cede. 4 he classical L. sb. is retrdcessus.
RETROGRADE, going backwards, from better to worse. (L.)
In early astronomical use, with respect to a planet's apparent back-
ward motion. ME, retrograd, Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, ed. Skeat,
pt. ii. § 4, 1. 33; 8.25, 1. 12.—L. retrogradus, going backward; used
of a planet. —L. retrogradi, to go backward.=L. retrd-, backward ;
and gradi, to go; see Retro- and Grade. Der. retrograde, verb,
from MF. retrograder, ‘to recoyle, retire,’ Cot. ; retrogress-ton, in
Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. vi. c. 3, last section, as if from L.
*retrogressio (but the classical form is retrdgressus), like retrogressus,
pp. of retrogradi. Hence retrogress-ive, -ly. Also retrograd-at-ion,
Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. ii. c. 17, from MF. retrogradation, ‘a retro-
gradation,’ Cot., formed from retrdgradatus, pp. of retrogradare,
collateral form of retrdgradi.
RETROSPECT, a contemplation of the past. (L.) Used by
Steele in The Spectator, no. 374, § 1. Pope has retrospective, adj.,
Moral Essays, Ep. i. 1. 99. Swift has retrospection (Todd; no
reference). ‘ Retrospect, or Retrospection, looking back;’ Phillips, ed.
1706. Coined from L. retrospectus, unused pp. of retrospicere, to
look back. = L. retré-, backward ; and specere, to look; see Retro-
and Spy.
RETROUSSE, turned up at the end, as a nose. (F.) Modern.
=F. retroussé, pp. of retrousser, to turn up; lit. to truss up. =F. re-,
again ; and ¢rousser, to pack; see Truss.
REVERE 515
RETURN, to come back to the same place, answer, retort.
(F.—L.) ΜΕ. returnen, retowrnen, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 2097 (A 2095) ;
Rom. of the Rose, 382, 384.—F. retourner, ‘to return;’ Cot.—F.
re-, back ; and dovrner, to turn; see Re- and Turn. Der. return,
sb., King Alisaunder, 1. 600. Der. return-able.
REUNION, REUNITE;; see Re- and Unit.
REVEAL, to unveil, make known. (F.—L.) — Spelt revele,
Spenser, I’. Ὁ. iii. 2. 48.-- ΜῈ. reveler, ‘to reveale;’ Cot.—L,
revelare, to unveil, draw back a veil.—L. re-, back; and uélare, to
veil, from wélum, a veil; see Re- and Veil. Der. revel-at-ion,
ME. reuelacioun, Wyclif, Rom. xvi. 23, from MF, revelation, ‘a re-
velation.’ Cot., from revélationem, acc. of reuélatio, allied to reuélatus,
pp. of rewélare.
REVEILLE, an alarum at break of day. (F.—L.) ‘Sound a
reveillé, sound, sound ;’ Dryden, The Secular Masque, 61. ‘Save
where the fife its shrill reveil/é screams ;’ Campbell, Gertrude, pt.
ill. st. 7. ‘So soon love beats revellies in her breast;’ Davenant,
Gondibert, b. iii. c. 5. st. 1. A trisyllabic word. ‘The true F. word
is réveil, an awaking, reveille ; as in batire le réveil, sonner le réveil,
to beat, to sound the reveille (Hamilton). But the E. word was
originally reveillez; see Brand’s Antiq. ed. Ellis, ii. 176. This was
taken as a pl. form, and the final z was dropped. - MF. resveillez vous,
awake ye; imper. pl. of resveiller, to awake, arouse. Cf. MF.
resveil, ‘a hunt’s-up or morning-song for a new married wife, the
day after the marriage.’—F. re- (=L. re-), again; and OF. esveiller,
to waken (Cot.), from Late L. *exuigilare, not found, but a mere
compound of ex, out, and wigilare, to wake, watch, from uigil, wake-
ful. See Re-, Ex-, and Vigil. See the full account in Notes
on E, Etym., p. 247. The F. reverllez is used as a sb., in the E.
sense, in the dialect of Forez, near Lyons (Graz).
REVEL, to carouse, indulge in boisterous festivities, to frolic.
(F.-L.) ME, revelen; Poems and Lives of Saints, ed. Furnivall,
xxx. 15. OF. reveler, to rebel, revolt, also to rejoice noisily, rejoice
greatly (Godefroy). = L. rebellare, to rebel; see Rebel. Der. revel,sb.,
ME, revel ( =revel), Chaucer, C. T. 2719 (A 2717), Legend of Good
Women, 2255; P. Plowman, B. xiii. 442; Will. of Palerne, 1953.
{On the strength of Chaucer’s expression, ‘And made revel al the
longe night’ (C. T. 271g), Tyrwhitt explained revel as ‘an enter-
tainment, properly during the night.’ ‘Vhis is an attempt at forcing
an etymology from F, réveiller, to wake, which is wrong. In Will.
of Palerne, 1953, the revels are distinctly said to have taken place in
the forenoon ; and in Chaucer, Legend of Good Women, 2255, we
read that “ This revel, full of songe and ful of daunce, Lasteth a fourte-
night, or litel Jasse,’ which quite precludes a special reference to the
night. ]—OF, revel, which Godefroy explains by ‘ rebellion, revolt,
pride, also great rejoicing, joy, amusement.’ ‘ Plains est de joie et
de revel’=is full of joy and revelry; Le Vair Palefroy, 1. 760;
Roquefort. ‘La dougors de tens novel Fait changier ire en revel’
= the sweetness of the fresh season changes anger into sport; Bartsch,
Chrestomathie, col. 323, 1. 28. Also revell-er, ME. revelour, Chaucer,
C.T. 4389 (A 4391); revel-ry. 4 Note also ME. revelous, full
of revelry, full of jest, Chaucer, C. T. 12934 (B 1194)=OF.
reveleux, revelos, riotous. Korting, § 7526.
REVENGE, to injure in return, avenge. (F.—L.) In Palsgrave.
‘To revenge the dethe of our fathers;’ Berners, tr. of Froissart,
vol. ii. c. 240 (R.).—OF. revengier (Supp. to Godefroy, 5.ν. re-
vancher) ; MF. revenger (Palsgrave), later revencher, ‘ to wreak, or
revenge himselfe,’ Cot., who gives the form revengé for the pp.;
mod. F. revancher; whence the phrase ex revanche,in return, to make
amends ; by a bettering of the sense. =F. re-, again; and venger, older
form vengier, to take vengeance. from L. uindicdre. See Re- and
Vengeance; also Avenge, Vindicate. Der. revenge, sb.,
Spenser, F. Q. i. 6. 443 revenge-ful, Hamlet, iii. 1. 126 ; revenge-
ul-ly ; revenge-ment, 1 Hen. 1V, ili. 2. 7. Doublet, revindicate.
REVENUE, income. (F.—L.) Lit. ‘that which comes back or
is returned to one.’ Often accented revénue ; Temp. i. 2. 98.—OF.
revenue, ‘ revenue, rent ;’ Cot. Fem. of revenu, pp. of revenir, to re-
turn, come back.—F. re-, back; and venir, to come.—L. re-, back ;
and wenire, to come, cognate with E. come, See Re- and Come.
REVERBERATE, to re-2cho, reflect sound. (L.) In Levins, ed.
1570.—L. reverberatus, pp. of reuerberare, to beat back. —L. re-,
back ; and uerberare, to beat, from verber, a scourge, lash, whip; cf.
Gk. faBdos,a rod. Der. reverberat-ion, ME. reuerberacioun, Chaucer,
C. T. 7816 (Ὁ 2234), from F. reverberation, ‘a reverberation,’ Cot.,
from L. acc. reuerberationem. Also reverberat-or-y; and reverb (a
coined word, by contraction), K. Lear, i. 1. 156.
REVERE, to venerate, regard with awe. (F.—L.) Notan early
word, fo reverence being used instead. In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
-- ΜΕ. reverer (mod. révérer), ‘to reverence,’ Cot.—L,. reueréri, to
revere, stand in awe of.—L. re-, again (here intensive) ; and weréri,
to fear, feel awe (corresponding to the E. phrase to be wary, to
1} 2
516
beware), from the same root as wary. See Re- and Wary. Der.
rever-ence, in early use, ME. reuerence, Kob. of Glouc., p. 553,
1.11547, King Alisaunder, 793, from OF. reverence, ‘ reverence,’
Cot., from L. reuerentia, respect. Hence reverence, vb., Minsheu,
ed. 1627, P. Plowman, C. xiv. 248, from OF. reverencer, ‘to rever-
ence,’ Cot.; reverenti-al, from MF. reverential, ‘ reverent,’ Cot. Also
rever-ent, Chaucer, C. T. 8063 (E 187), from OF, reverent (14th
century, see Littré, s.v. révérend), which from L. rewerendus, fut.
pass. part. of reveréri: later form rever-end, Frith’s Works, p. 105,
col. 2. 1. 40.
REVERIE, REVERY, a dreaming, irregular train of thought.
(F.—L.?) ‘ When ideas float in our mind without any reflection or
regard of the understanding, it is that which the French call resvery ;
our language has scarce aname for it;’ Locke, Human Understanding,
Ὁ. ii. c. 19 (R.). ‘In a reverrye;’ Godfrey of Boloyne, ch. 116;
p-174. AF. reverye, raving; Langtoft, ii. 168. —F. réverie, formerly
resverie, ‘a raving, idle talking, dotage, vain fancy, fond imagina-
tion;’ Cot.—F. réver, formerly resver, ‘to rave, dote, speak idly,
talke like an asse;’ id. B. The F. réver has the same sense as
the Lorraine raver, whence Εἰ, rave; see Rave. Hence the form
ravery, raving, rage, as a variant of revery (N.E.D.). Sorting,
§ 7607.
REVERSE, opposite, contrary, having an opposite direction.
(F.—L.) The adj. use seems to be the oldest in E. ; it precedes the
other uses etymologically. ME. rewers (=revers). ‘ A vice rewers
unto this’=a vice opposite this; Gower, C. A. i. 167; bk. ii. 222.
“ΑἹ the reuers seyn’ =say just the contrary; Chaucer, C. T. 14983
(B 4167). —OF. revers, ‘strange, uncoth, crosse;’ Cot.—L. rewersus,
lit. turned back, reversed, pp. of revertere, to turn backward, return.
=L. re-, back ; and wertere, to turn; see Re- and Vers2. Der.
reverse, verb, Gower, C, A. i. 3; prol. 30; reverse, sb., Merry Wives,
ii. 3. 27, from F. revers, a back blow,’ Cot. Cf. F. les revers de
fortune, ‘the crosses [reverses] of fortune;’ id. Also revers-ion,
Levins, from MF. reversion, ‘a reverting,’ Cot.; hence revers-ion-ar-y.
Also revers-al, Bacon, Life of Hen. VII, ed. Lumby, p. 15, 1. 26;
revers-ible. And see revert.
REVERT, to return, fall back, reverse. (F.—L.) In Spenser,
F. Ὁ. iv. 6. 43. Also in Caxton; see gloss. to Eneydos.—MF.
revertir, ‘to revert, returne;’ Cot. —L. type *revertire, for L. reuertere,
to return; see Roverse. Der. revert-ible.
REVIEW, to view again, look back on, examine carefully. (F.—
L.) ‘To reuiew, to recognise, or revise ;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627. And
see Shak. Sonn. 74; Wint. Tale, iv. 4.680, From Re- and View.
Der. review, sb., review-er, review-al.
REVILE, to calumniate, reproach. (F.—L.) ME. reuilen (with
u=v), Gower, C, A, ili. 247, bk. vii. 4635; Rob. of Brunne, tr. of
Langtoft, p. 161, 1. 11. AF, reviler (Gower); OF. reviler, to
revile (Godefroy).—F. re- (L. re-), again; and F. vil, from L.
uilis, cheap, of small value. Cf. OF. aviler (mod. F. avilir), ‘to
disprise, disesteeme, imbase, make vile or cheap,’ &c.; Cot.; where
the prefix is F.a,L. ad. See Vile. Der. revil-er.
REVISE, to review and amend. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed.
1627.—MI*. reviser, to revise; omitted by Cotgrave, but in early
use (Littré).—L. rentsere, to look back on, to revisit. L. re-, again ;
and uisere, to survey, frequent. form of uidére (supine uisum), to see.
See Re- and Vision. Der. revise, sb., revis-al, revis-er ; revis-ion,
from F. revision, ‘a revision, revise, review,’ Cot.
REVISIT, to visit again. (F.—L.) In Hamlet, i. 4. 53.
Re- and Visit.
REVIVE, to return to life, consciousness, or vigour, recover.
(F.—L.) In Palsgrave; and in K. Lear, iv. 6. 47. ‘ His spyrite
reuyued ;’ Caxton, G. Legend, Joseph, § 14. Also used actively,
as: ‘to revive the ded’=to reanimate the dead; Spenser, F. Q. ii. 3.
22.—F. revivre, ‘to revive, recover, return unto life,’ Cot.—L.
reuiuere, to live again. —L. re-, again; and uiuere, to live; see Re-
and Vivid. Der. reviv-al, revival-ist, reviv-er. Also reviv-ify, from
re- and vivify; reviv-i-fic-at-ion,
REVOKE, to repeal, recall, reverse. (F.—L.) Levins, ed. 1570,
has both revoke and revocate. ‘I revoke, je reuocque ;’ Palsgrave.
Spelt reuoke, Dictes, pr. by Caxton, fol. 24, 1. 11.—MF,. revocquer
(omitted by Cotgrave), to revoke; mod. F. révoquer.—L. reuocire,
to call back. L. re-, back; and ποοᾶγε, to call. See Re- and
Voice. Der. revoc-at-ion, from MF. revocation, ‘a revocation,’
Cot., from L. ace, renocatidnem; revoc-able, from MF. revocable,
‘revokable,’ Cot., from L. reuocabilis ; revoc-abl-y; ir-revoc-able.
REVOLT, a turning away, rebellion. (F.—Ital.—L.) In Shak.
Merry Wives, i. 3. 111.—MF. revolie, ‘a revolt, a rebellion,’ Cot.—
MiItal. revolta (mod. rivolta), ‘a revolt, turning, an ouerthrow;’
Florio, Fem. of revol/o, ‘turned, revolted, ouerthrowne, ouerturned,’
&c.; Florio. This is the pp. of revolvere, ‘to revolve, ponder, turne,
ouerwhelme ;’ id. See Revolve. Der. revolt, verb, K. John, iii.
REVERIE, REVERY
From
RHEUM
I. 257, from MF. revolter, MItal. revoltare; revolt-er ; revolt-ing,
revolt-ing-ly.
REVOLVE, to roll round, move round a centre. (L.) ‘ This
meditacion by no waie reuolue;’ Test. of Love, b. i, ch. 8, 1. 4.—L.
reuoluere, to roll back, revolve.—L. re-, back; and wuoluere (pp.
uolatus), to roll. See Re- and Voluble. Der. revolv-er; revolut-
ion, ME. reuolucion, Gower, C. A. ii. 61, bk. iv. 1783, from OF.
revolution, from L. acc. reuolitiénem, nom. reuoliitio, a revolving,
allied to rewolutus, pp. of rewoluere. Hence revolution-ar-y, -ise, -ist.
And see revolt.
REVULSION, a tearing away, sudden forcing back. (F.—L.)
Used by Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 66, to mean the withdrawal of blood
from one part to another in the body.— MF, revulsion, ‘a revulsion,
plucking away ; also, the drawing or forcing of humours from one
part of the body into another;’ Cot.—L. reuulsidnem, acc. of
reuulsio, a tearing away; cf. reuulsus, pp. of reuellere, to pluck
back.=—L. re-, back; and wellere, to pluck. Der. revuls-ive. And
see con-vulse.
REWARD, to requite, recompense, give in return, (F.—L. and
Teut.) ΜΕ. rewarden, verb, P. Plowman, B. xi. 129, Wyclif, Heb.
xi, 26. Also reward, sb., used exactly in the sense of regard, of
which it is a mere doublet. ‘Took reward of no man’= paid regard
to no one, P. Plowman, C. v. 40; see Chaucer, Legend of Good
Women, prol. 399; Hampole, Pricke of Conscience, 1881; Will. of
Palerne, 3339.—=AF. rewarder, Langtoft, i. 176; OF. rewarder, the
same as regarder, to regard (Burguy).— OF. re- (=L. re-), back;
and warder, the same as ρα εν, a word of Teut, origin. See Re-
gard, Guard, Ward. The orig. sense is to mark or heed, as a
lord who observes a vassal, and regards him as worthy of honour or
punishment; hence, to requite. Der. reward, sb., OF. reward, the
same as regard. & Not connected with guerdon, as suggested in
Richardson. Doublet, regard.
REYNARD, RENARD, a fox. (F.—Teut.) In Dryden, The
Cock and the Fox, 581, 662, 721, 700, 794, 805. ‘Hyer [here]
begynneth thystorye [the history] of reynxard the foxe ;’ Caxton, tr. of
Reynard the Fox, A.b. 1481. See the Introductory Sketch to The
History of Reynard the Fox, ed. Arber.— MF. rezard, regnard (mod.
F, réxard), ‘a fox;’ Cot. β. Of Teut. origin; the famous epic is
of Low G., origin, and was composed in Flanders in the 12th cen-
tury; see the edition, by Herr Ernst Martin, Paderborn, 1874, of
Willems, Gedicht von den vos Reinaerde (poem of the fox Reynard).
Thus the E. and Ἐς, words are due to the Flemish name reinaerd or
reinaert, ‘This isthe same asthe OHG. reginhart, used as a Christian
name, meaning literally ‘strong in counsel,’ an excellent name for the
animal. sy. The OHG. regin, ragin, counsel, is the same as Goth.
ragin, an opinion, judgement, advice, decree. This is not to be con-
nected with L. regere, to rule, but with Skt. rachanda, orderly arrange-
ment, from rach, to arrange; see Uhlenbeck. δ. The OHG. hart,
strong, lit. hard, is cognate with E. Hard, q.v. ‘The OHG.
reginhart became later reinhart, a reynard, fox. We also meet
with the mod. G, reinecke, a fox; this is a dimin. of Rein-.
RHAPSODY, a wild, disconnected composition. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Ben Jonson uses ‘a rhapsody Of Homer's’ to translate Iliacum car-
men, Horace, Ars Poctica, 1. 129. Spelt rapsodie in Minsheu, ed.
1627.—F, rapsodie, ‘a rapsodie,’ Cot. L. rhapsédia. — Gk. ῥαψῳδία,
the reciting of epic poetry, a portion of an epic poem recited at
a time, also, a rhapsody, tirade. Gk. ῥαψῳδός, one who stitches or
strings songs together, a reciter of epic poetry, a bard who recites
his own poetry. - ‘he term merely means ‘ one who strings odes or
songs together,’ without any necessary reference to the actual stitch-
ing together of leaves.—Gk. fay-, stem of fut. tense of ῥάπτειν, to
stitch together, fasten together ; and @5y, an ode, for which see Ode.
Der. rhapsodi-c, Gk. ῥαψῳδικός, adj., rhapsodi-c-al, rhapsodi-c-al-!y ;
rhapsodi-st, sb.
RHETORIC, the art of speaking with propriety and elegance.
(F.-L.—Gk.) ME. reforyzé (4 syllables), Chaucer, C. T., 7908.
(Ε 32).—OF. rhetorique, ‘rhetorick,’ Cot.L. rhétorica, for rhétorica
ars, i.e. rhetorical art; fem. of rhétoricus, rhetorical. —Gk. ῥητορική,
for ῥητορικὴ τέχνη, 1 6. rhetorical art; fem. of ῥητορικός, rhetorical.
— Gk. ῥητιρι-, decl. stem of ῥῆτωρ, an orator. For *fpy-rwp, re-
lated by gradation to eipew (for *Fép-yew), to say, of which the pt. t..
is εἴςρη-κα. Formed with the suffix -rwp (=L. -tor) of the agent;
the sense being ‘speaker.’ β. The base of efpew is Fep =4/\V ER,
to speak; whence also the E. verb and word; see Verb, Word.
See Curtius, i. 428. Der. rheforic-al, -al-ly; rhetoric-ian.
RHEUM, discharge from the lungs or nostrils caused by a cold.
(F,—L.—Gk.) | Frequent in Shak, Meas, iii. 1.31; &c. ‘ Reumes
and moystures do increase ;’ Sir Τὶ Elyot, Castel of Helth, b.ii. c. 24.
Spelt rewme, Palsgrave.—OF. reume, MF. rheume, ‘a rheume,
catarrh;’ Cot. (Εἰς rhwme).—L. rheuma.—Gk. ῥεῦμα (stem fevpar-),
a flow, flood, flux, rheum.—Gk. fev-, occurring in ῥεύ-σομαι, fut. t.
RHINOCEROS
of ῥέειν, to flow, which stands for Ἐσρέβειν ; the base or the verb being
*apev-, to flow, cognate with Skt. sru, to flow.—4/SREU, to flow;
see Stream. Brugmann, i. § 462; Fick, i. 837; Curtius, i. 439.
Der. rheum-y, Jul. Czesar, ii. 1. 266; rheumat-ic, Mids, Nt. Dr. ii. 1.
105, from L. rhewmaticus, from Gk. ῥευματικός, adj. ; rheumat-ic-al ;
rheumat-ism, from L. rheumatismus, from Gk. ῥευματισμός, liability to
theum.
RHINOCEROS, a large quadruped. (L.—Gk.) In Shak.
Macb, iii. 4. 101. Named from the remarkable horn (sometimes
double) on the nose.—L. rhinoceros (Pliny).—Gk. ῥινόκερως, a
thinoceros, lit. ‘ nose-horned.’ = Gk. fuvo-,decl. stem of pis (gen. ῥινός),
the nose ; and «ép-as, a horn, allied to E. horn; see Horn. # See
the description of the rinocertis and monoceros, supposed to be different
animals, in Κι. Alisaunder, 6529, 6539; cf. Wright, Popular Treatises
on Science, p. 81.
RHIZOME, a root-like stem, (F.—Gk.) Modern; in botany. =
F. rhizome. Gk. ῥίζωμα, root. —Gk. ῥιζοῦν, to cause to take root.—
Gk. ῥίζα, root ; see Root.
RHODODENDROJN, a genus of plants with evergreen leaves.
(L.—Gk.) Lit. ‘rose-tree.’ In Phillips, ed. 1706.—L. rhododendron
(Pliny).—Gk, ῥοδόδενδρον, lit. ‘rose-tree.’=— Gk. ῥοδο-, for ῥόδον, a
rose; and δένδρον, a tree. B. As to ῥόδον, see Rose. δέν-δρον
appears to be a reduplicated form, connected with δρῦς, a tree, and
therefore with E. tree; see Tree.
RHODOMONTADE;; the same as Rodomontade, q. v.
RHOMB, RHOMBUS, a quadrilateral figure, having all its
sides equal, but not all its angles right angles. (F.—L.—Gk.; or
L.—Gk.) The F. form rkomb is now less common than the L. form
rhombus ; but it appears in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, and in Milton,
P.R. iii, 309.—F. rhombe, ‘a spinning wheel; also, a figure that
hath equall sides and unequall angles, as a quarry of glass,’ &c.;
Cot.<L. rhombus. —Gk. ῥόμβος, anything that may be spun or
twirled round, a spinning-wheel; also a rhomb, or rhombus, from a
certain likeness to a whirling spindle, when the adjacent angles are
very unequal. —Gk. ῥέμβειν, to revolve, totter. Allied to Wrinkle
(Prellwitz). See also Rumb. Der. rhomb-ic; rhombo-id, i.e.
thomb-shaped, from ῥόμβο-, for ῥόμβος, and εἶδ-ος, form, shape;
rhombo-id-al. Doublet, rumb, q. v.
RHUBABB, the name of an edible plant. (F.—Late L.—Gk.)
Spelt reubarbe by Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. iv. c. 1; also
Reubarbarum, id. Ὁ. iii. c. 6; rubarbe, Skelton, Magnificence, 2385 ;
rubarb, Libell of E. Policy, 1. 362.—OF. reubarbe, MF. rheubarbe,
‘rewbarb;’ Cot. Mod. F. rhubarbe. Cf. Ital. reobarbaro, rhubarb ;
spelt rabbarbaro in Florio. The botanical name is rhéum.—Late L,
rheubarbarum ( =rhéum barbarum),used by Isidore of Seville (Brachet).
—Gk. ῥῆον βάρβαρον, rhubarb; lit. ‘the Rhéum from the barbarian
country.’ B. Gk. ῥῆον is an adjectival form, from fa, the Rha-
plant, i.e. reubarb, which was also called Rha Ponticum; and Rha
took its name from the Rha or Volga, the name of a river in Pontus.
Cf. the Linnean name Rhéum Rhaponticum, which is tautological.
‘Huic Rha uicinus est amnis, in cujus superciliis quaedam uegetabilis
eiusdem nominis gignitur radix, proficiens ad usus multiplices me-
delarum ;” Ammianus Marcellinus, xxii. 8. 28; a passage which
Holland translates by: ‘Neere unto this is the river Rha, on the
sides whereof groweth a comfortable and holsom root, so named,
good for many uses in physick.’ See Taylor’s Words and Places,
Lewis's Lat. Dict (5. v. rha), and Richardson.
RHUMB, the same as Rumb, q. v.
RHYME, the same as Rime (1), 4. ν.
RHYTHM, flowing metre, true cadence of verse, harmony.
(F.—L.—Gk.) Formerly spelt rithme, as in Minsheu, ed. 1627. —F.
rithme, ‘rime, or meeter;’ Cot.—L. rhythmum, acc. of rhythmus.—=
Gk. ῥυθμός, measured motion, time, measure, proportion ; Tonic form,
pucpos. Cf. Gk. ῥύσις, a stream, ῥύμα, a stream, ῥυτός, flowing; all
from the base ῥυ-; cf. ῥέειν (for ἔσρέβειν), to flow.—4/SREU, to
flow; see Rheum. Brugmann, ii. § 72, iii. § 691. @ See also
Rime (1). Der. rhythm-ic, Gk. ῥυθμικός; rhythm-ic-al.
RIATA ; see Reata.
RIB, one of the bones from the back-bone encircling the chest.
£E.) ME. ribbe, Rob. of Glouc., p. 22, 1. 518; P. Plowman, B. vi.
180. AS. ribb, Gen. ii. 21.44Du. rib; Icel. rif; Swed. ref-been, a
tib-bone; Dan. rib-been; Pomeran. ribbe; OHG. rippi, G. rippe.+-
Russ. rebro. B. The AS. ribb answers toa Teut. type *reb-jom, neut.
Perhaps allied to G. reb-e, a tendril; from the notion of winding
round (Kluge). Cf. OHG. hirni-reba, the brain-pan, skull. Der.
rib, verb; ribb-ing; spare-rib; rib-wort, Palsgrave, a plantain, called
simply ribbe (rib) in AS.; see A. S. Leechdoms, Glossary.
RIBALD, a low, licentious fellow. (F.—Teut.) ME. ribald, but
almost always spelt ribaud, P. Plowman, Β. xvi. 151, v. 512; King
Alisaunder, 1578; pl. ribawz, O. Eng, Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 279,
last line but one.—OF. ribald, ribaud (ribauld in Cot.), a ribald,
RICK
tuffian ; mod. F. ribaut, The Late L. form is ribaldus ; see Ducange.
And see a long note in Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, 1839, p. 369.
We also find Late L. ribalda, fem., a prostitute. B. The suffix
-ald shows the word to be Teutonic; it answers to OHG. walt,
power, and was (1) a common suffix in Frankish proper names, and
(2) a common suffix in F. words, where it is used as a masc. termina-
tion denoting character, and commonly has a depreciatory sense,
as in the present instance. γ. Diez connects ribald with OHG,
hripa, MHG. ribe, a prostitute, and cites from Matthew Paris:
‘fures, exu'es, fugitiui, excommunicati, quos omnes ribaldos Francia
uulgariter consueuit appellare.’ Hence also OF. riber, to be wanton ;
which fully explains the sense. Cf. Korting, § 4019. Der. ribaldry,
ME. ribaldrie, commonly written ribaudie, P. Plowman, C. vii. 435.
RIBAND, RIBBAND, RIBBON, a narrow strip, esp. of
silk. (F.) Spelt riband from a fancied connexion with band, with
which it may possibly be connected; also ribband, Spenser, F. Ὁ.
iv. 10.8, But the d is excrescent and is not always found in the ME.
period, though occurring in the Prompt. Parv. ME. riban, P. Plow-
man, B, ii. 16; ‘with ribanes of red golde’=with golden threads.
‘Ragges ribaned with gold’ =rags adorned with gold thread; Rom.
of the Rose, 4752. Again, in Rom. of the Rose, 1077, Riches wears
a purple robe, adorned with ον" εἰς (gold-embroidery) and ribaninges.
{Irish ribin, a ribbon; ribe, a flake, a hair, a ribbon; Gael. ribean, a
riband, fillet, rib, ribe, a hair, rag, clout, tatter, gin, snare, whence
also ribeag, a hair, little hair, small rag, tassel, fringe, bunch of any-
thing hairy; W. rhibin, a streak, rhib,a streak, are all from ME.
rviban.] Ββ. From Ἐς ruban, spelt riban in 1394 (Supp. to Godefroy),
ruben in Cotgrave, rubant in Palsgrave. The form riban occurs also
in mod. Proy., and in the Norman and Guernsey dialects (Mistral,
Moisy, Méiivier). Ducange also gives the form reband; see Voc.
792.20. y. The suffix seems to be Du. and G. band, a band; see
Band (1). The ri- or re- perhaps occurs in EFries. rif-band, ref-
band, a reef-band (Koolman). The old sense of reef (in a sail) was
‘strip;’ cf. MSwed. rif, ‘fascia;’ Swed. dial. rejv, Norw. reiv, a
swaddling-band, lit. ‘ strip.’
RIBIBE, the same as Rabeck, q. v.
RICE, a kind of edible grain. (F.—Ital.—L.—Gk.—OPers.)
In Shak. Wint. Tale, iv. 3. 41; spelt rize in Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 49;
rice in Levins; ryce in Palsgrave. ME. ryz, Mandeville, ch. 31,
p- 310. — OF. ris, ‘ rice,’ Cot. ; mod. F. riz. — Ital. riso, L. oryza, rice.
—Gk. ὄρυζα, also ὄρυζον, rice; both the plant and grain. B. Doubt-
less borrowed from an OPers. form, preserved in the Pushto
(Afghan) wrijzey, wrijey, rice (Raverty). Hence also Arab. uruzz,
ruzz, whence Span, arroz, rice. Allied forms are Pers. birinj,
Armenian brinj, rice; Skt. vrihi-, rice. (Horn, § 208; Yule.)
RICH, wealthy, abounding in possessions. (E.) ME. riche (12th
cent.), O. Eng. Homilies, i. 53, 1. 10; Ancren Riwle, p. 66; Laya-
mon, 128. (Not borrowed from F., but an E. word.) AS. rice,
tich, powerful; Luke, i. 52; Mark, x. 25. The change from final c
to ch is just as in Norwich from Nordwic, pitch from AS. pic, &c.;
see Matzner, i. 145.4Du. rijk; Icel. rikr; Swed. rik; Dan. rig;
Goth. retks; G. reich. B. All from a Teut. type *rikjoz, lit. power-
ful, ruling; from the base *rik- as seen in Goth. reiks, a ruler.
This is cognate with the Celtic base *rig-, as in Gaulish rix, a king
(ef. Olrish rz (gen. rig), a king, W. rhi, a chief); unless the Teut.
retks is merely borrowed from the Celtic rix (for *réx), as Uhlenbeck
suggests. All from 4/REG, to rule; see Regent. Brugmann, i.
§§ 135, 549c. J The fact that the word might have come into the
language from F. riche, which is from ΜΗ. riche (G, reich), does
not do away with the fact that it has always existed in our language.
But the deriv. riches is really of F. origin; see Riches. Der.
richly, AS. riclice, Luke, xvi. 19; rich-ness, ME. richnesse, Rob. of
Brunne, tr. of Langtott, p. 155, 1.14. Also -rie in bishop-ric, where
-ric= AS. rice, a kingdom, dominion; cf. Icel. ri#i, Goth. rethi, G.
reich. sb., dominion, allied to L. reg-num and E, realm.
RICHES, wealth. (F.—OHG.) Now often regarded as a pl.
50. Shak. has it as a pl. sb., Timon, iv. 2. 32, Per. i. 1. 52; but
usually as a sing sb., Oth. ii. 1. 83, iii. 3. 173, Sonnet 87. ME.
richesse, a sing. sb.; ‘ Mykel was the richesse,’ Rob. of Brunne, tr. of
Langtoft, p. 30, 1.24. The pl. is rickesses, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 24,
1. 21; Ancren Riwle, p. 168, 1.13. The word first appears (spelt
riches) in Layamon, 8091.—F. richesse, ‘riches, wealth;’ Cot.
Formed with suffix -esse (cf. Port. and Span, rigu-eza, Ital. ricch-ezza)
from the adj. riche, rich. MHG. riche, OHG. rikhi (Ὁ, reich), rich;
cognate with E. Rich, αν. 7
RICK, a heap or pile of hay or wheat. (E.) The mod. E, rick is
from AS. hrycce, as in corn-hrycce, a corn-rick ; AElfric’s Hom. ii. 178.
It also occurs as reek. ΜΕ. reek, Prompt. Parv. p. 428, col. 1, last
line; AS. hréac, to translate L. aceruus,a heap; Voce 313. 33-F
Icel. kraukr, a rick, small stack. Teut. types *hruk-jon-, *hraukoz,
m, Cf. OJrish cruach, a heap; and see Ridge. Brugmann, i.
517
518 RICKETS
§ 637. Doublet, prov. E. ruck, a heap, the Scand. form; see
Ruck (2).
RICKETS, a disease of children, accompanied with softness of
the bones and great weakness. (E.) The name was first given to
this disease, about 1620, by the country-people in Dorsetshire and
Somersetshire. This we learn from a treatise by Dr. Glisson, De
Rachitide, cap. 1. He used the form rachitis (it should have been
rhachitis) to denote the fact that it is sometimes accompanied by
spinal disease, or, in Greek, ῥαχῖτις, founded on Gk. ῥάχις, the spine.
This was easily confused with the prov. E. rick, wrick, to sprain,
twist, wrench; whence the form rickets. ‘Cavil 7. Hospitals
generally have the rickets... . 4 Answer. Surely there is some other
cure for a ricketish body than to kill it;” Fuller, Worthies of England,
1662 ; repr. 1840, vol. i. p. 47. A still earlier notice of rickets is in
Fuller, Meditations on the Times (first pub. 1647), xx. p. 163, in
Good ‘Thoughts, &c., Oxford, 1810; see N. and Q. 6S. ii. 219. The
proy. E, ‘rickety (unsteady) table’ is well known. B. Formed,
with pl. suffix -e/s, from E. wrick, ME. wrikken, to twist, used in
the phr. ‘to wrick (i.e. to twist) one’s ancle.’ Thus the word
denotes a disease accompanied by distortion. ‘The deuel wrikked
her and ther,’ i.e. the devil (when seized by St. Dunstan) twisted
hither and thither; Spec. of Eng., ed. Morris and Skeat, p. 22,1. 82.
Allied to AS. wringan, to wring; see Wring.4Du. wrikken, to
stir to and fro; de bank wrikt nog, ‘the bench stands totteringly
still’ (i. e. is rickety); Sewel. See Wriggle.
RICOCHET, the rebound of a cannon-ball fired at a slight eleva-
tion. (F.—Prov.—L.) Not in Todd’s Johnson.—F. ricochet, ‘the
sport of skimming a thin stone on the water, called a Duck and a
Drake;’ Cot. Rabelais (Pantagruel, iii. 10) has chanson du ricochet,
which Cot. explains: ‘an idle or endlesse tale or song ;᾿ and Hatzfeld
45: ‘a song with much repetition.’ Littré quotes from a writer of the
15th century: ‘ Mais que il cede je cederai, et semblablement respond
Vautre, et ainsi est Ja fable du ricochet. B. There is also a F. verb
ricocher, to ricochet, make ducks and drakes; and Scheler and Littré
derive ricochet from ricocher. But Hatzfeld says that the derivation
tuns the other way. γ. However, mod. Prov. has the F. sb. ricou-
chet, and the vb. ricouca, recauca, to skip, to repeat ; from L. re- and
Prov. couca, cauca, to tread upon, from L. calcare; and, as L. recal-
care means to tread upon again, to retrace, and also to repeat, the
sense of ‘repetition’ is easily explained from the L. source. Thus
ricocher is from Prov. ricouca; cf. ΜΈ. caucher, to tread (L. calcare).
Der. ricochet, verb.
RID (1), to free, deliver. (E.) ME. ridden, to separate two com-
batants, Gawain and the Grene Knight, 2246; also to deliver, O. Eng.
Homilies, i. 273; also spelt redden, id. ii. 19, 1. 20. (Rid stands for
red, and that for hred), AS. hreddan, to snatch away, deliver; Grein,
ji. 101.4 OFriesic hredda; Du. redden ; Dan. redde ; Swed. radda;
Ὁ. retten. Teut. type *hrad-jan-,a causal form. Cf. Skt. grath, to
untie, loose. Der. ridd-ance, Spenser, Daphnaida, 364; a hybrid
word, with F. suffix -ance (L. -antia).
RID (2), to clear, esp. land. (Scand.). Prov. E. rid, to remove
litter, to grub up. ME, ruden (pt.t. rid). ‘The schal ruden thine
weie to-fore the,’ who shall clearthy way before thee; O. E. Homi-
lies, ii. 133.—Icel. rydja, to rid, to clear out; Dan. rydde, to clear,
grub up land. EFries. and Low G. riiden. Teut. type *rud-jan-;
from *rud-, weak grade of *reud-an- (G. reuten), to clear out.
Confused with Rid (1).
RIDDLE (1), a puzzling question, enigma. (E.) The word has
lost a final s, and stands for riddles, with a plural riddles-es, if it were
rightly formed. ‘The loss of s was easy and natural, as it must have
appeared like the sign of the plural number. ME. redels; we find F.
un devinal explained by a redels in Wright’s Vocab. i. 160. ‘The
kynge putte forth a rydels,’ other MSS. redels ; Trevisa, iii. 181 ; and
see P. Plowman, B. xiii. 184. AS. rédels, also rédelse, pl. rédelsan,
/Elfred, tr. of Boethius, c. xxvii. § 3 (bk. iii. pr. 4), c. xxxv. § 5 (bk.
ili. pr. 12), where it means ‘ ambiguity.’ The pl. rédelsas also occurs,
Numb. xii. 8, where the A. V. has ‘dark speeches.’ The lit. sense
is ‘something requiring explanation.’ Formed with suffixes -el-s
(for -isloz) from AS. r@d-an, to read, interpret; we still use the phr.
‘to read a riddle.” See Read.+Du. raadsel (for *raad-is-lo-), from
raden, to counsel, to guess; G. réthsel (for *rath-is-lo-), from rathen.
Also O. Low G. radislo (Gallée). Der. riddle, verb.
RIDDLE (2), a large sieve. (E.) For hriddle, by loss of initial ἃ.
ME. ridil, Prompt. Parv. p. 433. The suffixes -i/ (or -el) and -er
being of equal force, we find the corresponding word in the AS.
hridder, a vessel for winnowing corn; Voc. 141. 12; older form
hrider, Voc. 1. 12. Cognate forms appear in Irish creathair, Gael.
eriathar, Corn, croider; L. cribrum, a sieve. Lit. sense ‘ separater.’
All from the Idg. 4/QREI, to separate; cf. Gk. xpi-vev. See
Critic. Der. riddle, verb; cf. AS. hridian, to sift, Luke xxii. 31.
RIDB, to be borne along, esp. on a horse. (E.) ME. ryden, pt. t.
RIFLE
rood, pp. riden (with short?); Chaucer, C. T. 94, 169, &c. AS.
ridan, pt. t. rad, pp. riden, Grein, ii. 378. - Du. rijden; Icel. rida;
Dan, ride; Swed. rida; G. reiten; OHG. ritan. Teut. type *reid-
an-. Cf. also Olrish riad-aim, I drive, ride; also L. réda (a Celtic
word), a four-wheeled carriage. From 4/REIDH. Brugmann, i.
§ 210. Der. ride, sb., rid-er, rid-ing ; also bed-ridden, q. ν., raid, q. ν.ν
ready, q. v., road, q.v. And see Palfrey.
RIDGE, anything resembling the top of a quadruped’s back, an
extended protuberance. (E.) ME. rigge, a back, esp. a quadruped’s
back, King Alisaunder, 5722 ; whence mod. EK, ridge. The Northern
form is rig. We find ‘upon his rig’=upon his back, Havelok,
1755. Wealso find rug, Ancren Riwle, p. 264; pl. rugges, Layamon,
540. The double form is due to the AS. y. AS. Arycg, the back of
a man or beast; Grein, ii. 109. + Du. rug, back, ridge; Dan. ryg ;
Swed. rygg; Icel. kryggr; G. riicken; OHG. hrukki. The Teut.
type answering to AS. hrycg is *hrug-joz,m. Cf. Olrish croccenn,
(1) hide, (2) the back; Skt. krusich, to be crooked. Der. ridg-y.
Doublet, rig (3).
RIDICULOUS, laughable, droll. (L.) In Shak. Temp. ii. 2.
169. Englished (by the common change from -us to -ous) from L.
ridiculus, Jaughable.—L. ridére, to laugh; see Risible. Der.
ridiculous-ly, -ness, Also ridicule, orig. ridicle, as in Foxe, Acts and
Monuments, pp. 132, 747 (R.), from L. ridiculum, a jest, neut. of
ridiculus, but changed to ridicule by confusion with F. ridicule, ridicu-
lous, which is not a sb. but an adj.
RIDING, one of the three divisions of the county of York.
(Scand.) For thriding ; the loss of the th being due to the mis-
division of the compound word North-thriding ; cf. East-thriding, and
West-thriding. Blackstone explains the thridings; Comment.;
Introd. § 4. And note that the word ¢hriding was Latinised as
tridingum, Liber Custumarum, p. 353. Cf. Estriding (for Est-triding)
in Birch, Cartul. Saxon. iii. 676.—Icel. Aridjungr, the third part of
a thing, the third part of a shire ; see Cleasby and Vigfusson. = Icel.
fridi, third, cognate with E. Third, q.v. Cf. Norweg. tridjung,
a third part, from ¢ridje, third; Aasen.
RIFE, abundant, prevalent. (Scand.) ME. rif (with long i), also
rife, rive, ryfe, ryue; adv. riue, ryue. ‘Pere was sorwe riue’=there
was abundant sorrow, Will. of Palerne, 5414. ‘ Balu per wes riue’
=evil was abundant there; Layamon, 20079. Late AS. rife,
Leechdoms, iii, 164.—Icel. rifr, munificent, abundant; cf. rifligr,
large, munificent ; MSwed. rif, rife. B. Allied to MDu. rijf, rijve,
‘abundant, copious, or large,’ Hexham; Low G. rive, abundant,
munificent, extravagant. Cf. Icel. reifa, to bestow, reifir, a giver;
reifr, glad. Der. rife-ly, rife-ness.
RIFF-RAFF, refuse, rubbish, the off-scourings of the populace.
(F.—Teut.) ‘Lines, and circles, and triangles, and rhombus, and
rifferaffe ;’ Gosson, School of Abuse, 1579, ed. Arber, p. 49, 1. 26.
Due to ME. rif and raf, every particle, things of small value. ‘ The
Sarazins, ilk man, he slouh, alle rif and raf’ = He slew the Saracens,
every man of them, every particle of them; Rob. of Brunne, tr. of
Langtoft, p.151. And again: ‘ That noither he no hise suld chalange
rif no raf’ = That neither he nor his should claim a single bit of it;
id. p. 111, 1. 2.—F. rif et raf; as, 1] ne luy lairra rif ny raf, he will
strip him of all ;’ Cot. Cf. Walloon rif, raf; WFlem. rifraf. So
also: ‘On n’y a laissé ne rifle, ne raffle, they have swept all away,
they have left no manner of thing behind them ;’ id. The lit. sense
of rif is ‘a piece of plunder of small value;’ it is closely related to
F. rifler, ‘to rifle, ransack, spoile, make havock or clean work,
sweep all away before him;’ id. So also MF. raffler, ‘ to rifle, ravage,
to sweep all away,’ id. The connected E. words are Rifle (1) and
Raffle, q.v. Cf. MItal. raffola ruffola, ‘by riffraffe, by hooke or
crooke, by pinching or scraping;’ Florio.
RIFLE (1), to carry off as plunder, spoil, strip, rob. (F.—Teut.)
ME. riffen, P. Plowman, B. v. 234.—OF. and MF. rifler, ‘to rifle,
ransack, spoile, make havock,’ Cot. Norm. dial. rifler (Duméril).
A word prob, due to the Norse sea-kings. Formed asa frequentative
from Icel. hrifa, to catch, to grapple, seize, rifa (usu. spelt hrifa), to
pull up, scratch, grasp ; related to which are hrifsa, to rob, pillage,
hrifs, sb., plunder. @ The F. rifler (from Icel. hrifa) and rafler
(from (ἃ. raffen) were not connected in the first instance, but the
similarity of sound drew them together, as recorded in the E. rif-raff,
q.v. Der. riff-er.
RIFLE (2), a musket with a barrel spirally grooved to give the
bullet a rotary motion. (Low G.) A modern word; riffe and riffe-
man appear in Todd’s Johnson, ed. 1827. ‘ Rifled arms were known
on the continent about the middle of the 17th century; they do not
appear to have been introduced into the British service till the time
of the American revolutionary war;’ Engl. Cycl. B. The sb. rifle
is a short form for rifled gun, and is due to the technical word rifle, to
groove; particularly, to groove in a spiral manner. = Low G. rifeln,
EFries. riffeln, to furrow, chamfer; EFries. riffel, a grove; cf. Dan.
RIFT
rifle, to rifle, rifle, a groove; Swed. reffla, to rifle; cf. reffelbéssa, a
rifled gun. — Low G. (KFries.) rifen, to scratch; Swed. rifva, to scratch,
tear, grate, grind; Icel. rife, to rive; see Rive. So also G. riefe,
a furrow, riefen, to rifle (from Low G.). J The AS. geriflian does
not correspond to E. riffe, but to the old verb rivel, to wrinkle ; sec
Rivel. It is, however, a related word. Der. riffe-man.
RIFT, a fissure. (Scand.) In Spenser, F. Q. i. 2. 30. ME.
reft, Rom. of the Rose, 2661; ryfte, Prompt. Parv. p. 433.— Dan.
rift, a rift, rent, crevice, from rive, to rive; Norw. rift, a rift; Icel.
ript, a breach of contract, from rifa, to rive. Cf. Swed. refua, a rift,
strip, cleft, gap ; from Swed. rifva, to tear, rive. See Rive. Der.
rift, verb, Temp. v. 45, spelt ryf¢ in Palsgrave.
RIG (1), to fit up a ship with tackle. (Scand.—Low G.) Also to
dress up a person, but this is the jocular use of the word, and not the
old sense, as supposed by Johnson. In Shak., only in the nautical
sense; Temp. i. 2. 146, v. 224, ὥς. ‘High riggéd ships;’ Surrey,
tr. of Virgil, iv. 525; L. text, celsas naues, AEn. iv. 397. ‘I rygge
a shyppe, I make it redye;’ Palsgrave. Of Scand. origin ; the traces
of the word are slight. —Norweg. rigga, to bind up, wrap round ; in
some districts, to rig a ship; rigg, sb., rigging of a ship; Aasen.
Cf. Swed. dial. rigga fd, to harness a horse, put harness on him. Allied
to Pomeran. rigen, Westphal. riggen, to tack together; Du. rijgen,
to tack together, reef sails, from rij, a row; Ὁ. reihen, to tack
together, to arrange, from reihe, a row. Cf. Low G. rige, a row,
rank, arrangement. See Row (1). Der. rig, sb., rigg-ing.
RIG (2), a frolic, prank. (E.?) ‘Of running sucha rig ;? Cowper,
John Gilpin. ‘Rig, a frolic;’ Halliwell. Riggish, wanton ; Shak.
Antony, il. 2. 245. The verb rigge, to be wanton, occurs in Levins,
col. 119, 1. 6. Certainly connected with Wriggle. Cf. Norw.
rigga, to rock; EFries. wriggen, to wriggle; Du. wrikken, to stir to
and fro, wriggelen, to wriggle. And see Rickets.
RIG (3), a tidge. (E.) ‘ Amang the rigs o’ barley;’ Burns. ME.
(Northern) rig, a ridge; see Ridge.
RIGADOON, a lively dance for a single couple. (F.— Prov.)
‘Trish jig, and ancient rigadoon;’ Byron, The Waltz, 110. In
Bailey (1735).—F. rigaudon, rigodon; spelt rigodon in 1696 (Hatz-
feld). Said to be from Rigaud, the name of a dancing-master
(Hatzfeld). Rigaud is a Prov. name, and Mistral, 5. v. Rigaudoun,
a rigadoon, says that Rigaud, the dancing-master, lived at Marseilles,
and that the dance was prohibited by the parliament of Provence in
1664 (April 3).
RIGHT, erect, straight, correct, true, just, proper, exact. (E.)
ME. right, Wyclif, Matt. iii. 3; &c. AS. riht, adj., Grein, ii. 378. +
Du. regt; Icel. réttr (for *rehir); Dan. ret; Swed. rat; G. recht,
OHG. reht; Goth. raihts. B. All from Teut. type *rehtoz, Idg. type
*rektos, as in L. rectus. Cf. also W. rhaith, sb., right, Olrish recht,
law. The Idg. *rektos is for *reg-tos, from 4/REG, to rule. See
Regent. See Rectitude. Der. right, adv., AS. rihte; right,
sb., AS. riht; right-ly, right-ness, AS. rihtnes ; right, verb, AS. riktan;
right-ful, P. Plowman, B. prol. 127; right-ful-ly, right-ful-ness. Also
right-eous, well known to be a corruption of ME. rightwis, Pricke of
Conscience, 9154, AS. rikiwis, Grein, ii. 381, a compound of riht and
wis = wise, i.e. wise as to what is right. Palsgrave has the curious
intermediate form ryghtwous. Hence right-eous-ly, AS. rihtwislice
(Grein) ; right-eous-ness, ME. righiwisnesse, Wyclif, Matt. vi. 1, Luke,
i. 75, AS. rihtwisnes (Grein). From the same root are rect-i-tude,
rect-i-fy, rect-or, rect-angle, rect-i-lineal, as well as reg-al, reg-ent, &c. ;
also cor-rect, di-rect, e-rect. Also regent.
RIGID, stiff, severe, strict. (L.) In Ben Jonson, Epistle to a
Friend, Underwoods, lv. 17.—L. rigidus, stiff.—L. rigére, to be stiff.
Brugmann, i. ὃ 875. Der. rigid-ly, -ness, rigid-i-ty. Also rig-our,
Chaucer, C. T. 11087 (F 775), from OF. rigour (mod. Ἐς rigueur)
<L. rigorem, acc. of rigor, harshness; rtgor-ous, Cor. iii. 1. 267, from
F. rigorewx, ‘rigorous,’ Cot. ; rigor-ous-ly, -ness.
RIGMAROLE, a long unintelligible story. (Hybrid: E. and
F.—L.) The word is certainly a corruption of ragman-roll, once
a very common expression for a long list of names, hence a long
unconnected story. See my note to P. Plowman, C. i. 73, where it
occurs as rageman; Anecdota Literaria, by T. Wright, 1844, p. 83,
where a poem called Ragman-roll is printed ; Wright's Homes of
Other Days, p. 247; Jamieson’s Dict., where we learn that the
Scottish nobles gave the name of ragman-rolls to the collection of
deeds by which they were constrained to subscribe allegiance to
Edw. I, A.D. 1296; Towneley Mysteries, p. 311, where a catalogue
of sins is called a rolle of ragman; Skelton, Garl. of Laurell, 1. 1490,
and Dyce’s note; P. Plowman’s Crede, ]. 180 ; Cowel’s Law Dict.,
and Todd’s Johnson, s.v. rigmarole. Also the long note on ragman-
roll in Halliwell. B. The precise meaning of ragman (oldest
spelling rageman, but apparently with hard g) is not known. It
first occurs as ‘the name given to a statute of 4 Edw. I (appointing
justices to hear and determine complaints of injuries done within 25
RIND 519
years previous), and to certain articles of inquisition associated with
proceedings of Quo Warranto under this statute ;’ N.E.D., q.v.
We also find rageman used to mean the devil; see P. Plowman, C.
xix. 122, and the note. y. The word roll is F.; see Roll. With
raggeman we may perhaps compare Icel. ragmenni, a craven person,
coward, ragmennska, cowardice; from Icel. ragr, a coward, and
madr (=mannr),a man, Cf. Swed. raggen, the devil; Rietz cites
ON. ragvetir, an evil spirit, lit. ‘a cowardly wight,’ where veitr is
our E. wight=G. wicht in bésewicht, a bad spirit. To call a person
ragr was to offer him the greatest possible insult. q The word
roll was sometimes pronounced row (see Jamieson); hence we find
in Levins, ed. 1570: ‘ Ragmanrew, series,’ where rew=row.
RIGOL, a circlet. (Ital.—G.) In Shak. 2 Hen. IV, iv. 5. 36.—
Ital. rigolo, ‘a little wheel under a sledge;’ Torriano, Dimin.
from Ital. rigo, riga, a line. —OHG. riga, a line, also, a circum-
ference of a circle (G. reihe). Allied to E. row; see Row (1). See
Notes on E. Etym., p. 240.
RILEB, to vex; see Roil.
RILL, a streamlet, small brook. (Low G.) ‘The bourns, the
brooks, the becks, the rills, the rivulets;? Drayton, Polyolbion,
Song i. 78. (He also has the dimin. rill-et in the same Song, 1. 264.)
= Low Ὁ. rille, used in the sense of a small channel made by rain-
water running off meadows, also, a rill; see Bremen Worterbuch. So
also EFries, and Dan. dial. rille, a streamlet. B. Rille would appear
to be a contraction from Teut. *ride/e, a dimin. of AS. ride or ride,
a stream, a common word ; cognate with O. Low G. ride, a water-
course, NFries. ride or ride, a stream or rill. y- The AS. i in ride
was probably long, as there are numerous streams in N. Germany
with the name reide (Leo); and Halliwell gives South E. rithe,
a small stream. Robin (p. 432) gives the Norm. dialect risle, rille,
as the name of a small stream, which appears in old charters as
Ridula, Risila, Risla. See my Notes on E. Etym., p. 249. Cf. L.
ri-uus,a stream. Der. rill-et, rill, verb.
RIM, a border, edge, verge. (E.) 1. ME. rim, rym. ‘Rym of
a whele ;’ Prompt. Parv. AS. rima, rim; in the comp. s@-rima, sea-
shore, lit. sea-rim ; A.S. Chron. an. 897 ; see Sweet, A. S. Reader,
Cf. W. rhim, rhimp, rhimyn, a rim, edge.+4Icel. rimi, a strip of land.
Perhaps allied to G. rand,a rim; andto Rind (Kluge). Brugmann,
i. § 421. 2. We also find rim used in the sense of peritoneum or
inner membrane of the belly, as in Shak. Hen. V, iv. 4. 15; and see
Pricke of Conscience, 1. 520, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,
1343; the sense may be ‘border,’ hence envelope or integument.
Cf. EFries. rim, rim, margin, border.
RIME (1), verse, poetry ; the correspondence of sounds at the
ends of verses. (F.—L.—Gk.) Usually spelt rhyme, by confusion
with rhythm, which is a later form of the same word. But the ME.
form was rime; and I have not found an instance of the spelling
rhyme before A.D. 1550; or hardly so soon. Dr. Schmidt omits to
state that the first folio of Shak. has the spelling rime, Two Gent. of
Verona, iii. 2. 69, Merry Wives, v. 5.95, L.L.L.i. 2. 190; &c. It
is rime in Minsheu, ed. 1627, and in Cotgrave ; ryme in Palsgrave.
ME. rime, ryme, Chaucer, C. T. 13639 (B 1899).—OF. rime, F.
rime, found in the 12th cent. (Hatzfeld). From L. acc. rhythmum,
which became fem.; from nom. rhythmus.—Gk. ῥυθμός, measured
motion, time, measure; see Rhythm. From the same classical
source was derived MHG. rim, in the sense of verse ; which is quite
a distinct word from OHG, rim, a number, cognate with AS. rim,
number, which is of true Teutonic origin, and cognate with W. rhif,
number. The OF. rime, in very early use, was the source of Ital.,
Span., Port. rima; and even of Du. rym, G. reim, Icel. rima. Der.
rime, verb (usually rhyme), ME. rymen, rimen, Chaucer, C. T. 1461
(A 1459) 3 rimeless (usually rhyme-less); rim-er (usually rhymer),
spelt rimer in the first folio ed. of Shak. Antony, v. 2. 215; rime-ster
(usually rhyme-ster), the suffix of which is discussed under Spinster.
RIME (2), hoarfrost, frozen dew. (E.) The word has lost initial
h, and stands for hrime. ME. rime, ryme. ‘ Ryme, frost, pruina;’
Prompt. Parv. AS. hrim, to translate L. pruina; Ps. exviil. 83, ed.
Spelman (margin).-Du. rijm; Icel. hrim; Dan. riim; Swed. rim.
Cf. also G. reif, MHG. rife, OHG. hrifo, hoar-frost; Du. rijp,
hoar-frost. Der. rim-y.
RIMER, a tool for enlarging holes in metal. (E.) From AS.
ryman, to enlarge, make room. —AS. rim, room; see Room.
RIMPLE, to ripple, as the surface of water. (E.) ‘The rimpling
of the brook ;’ Crabbe, Parish Register, pt. 1 (ed. 1802). Cf. ME.
rimpled, wrinkled; Rom. Rose, 4495. From AS. hrymp-, mutated
form of hrump-, weak grade of hrimpan, to wrinkle; cf. the gloss:
‘rugosa, pere gehrumpnan;’ Voc. 521.10. See Ripple (2).
RIND, the external covering, as the bark of trees, skin of fruit.
(E.) ME. rind, rinde; Ancren Riwle, p. 150, ll. 4,8. AS. rinde,
the bark of a tree, Voc. 216.5; also, a crust (of bread), Aélfric’s
Hom. ii. 114, last line but one.4+MDu. rinde, ‘the barke of a tree;’
(
520
RIN DERPEST
Hexham; G. rinde, OHG. rinta, f. Prob. allied to G, rand, a rim,
and to Rim (Kluge).
RINDERPEST, an infectious disease of cattle. (G. and L.)
Modern. —G. rinderpest, cattle-disease.—G. rinder, pl. of rind, an
ox; and pest, a pest, plague, from L. pestis. Rind is allied to E.
rother; see Rother and Pest.
RING (1), a circle. (E.) Fev hring, initial h being lost. ΜΕ.
ring, Chaucer, C. T. 10561 (F 247). AS. hring ; Grein, ii. 106.4
Du. ring; Low Ο. ring, rink, Bremen Worterbuch ; Icel. hringr ;
Swed. and Dan, ring ; G. ring, OHG. hrinc. Teut. type *hrengoz ;
Idg. type *krenghos. Allied by gradation to the Idg. type *khronghos,
as in OBulg. kragit, Russ. krug(e), a ring, circle. See also
Rank, Harangue. Note that the ὁ of Teut. *hrengoz is pre-
served in Finn. revgas, a ring, an early loan-word from Teutonic
(Streitberg). Der. ring, verb, K. John, iii. 4. 31; ring-dove, so
named from the ring on its neck ; ring-ed ; ring-lead-er, 2 Hen. VI,
il. 1. 170; ring-let, used to mean ‘a small circle,’ Temp. v. 37;
ring-straked, i.e. streaked with rings, Gen. xxx. 35; ring-worm, a
skin disease in which rings appear, as if formed by a worm, Levins,
ed. 1570. Doublet, rink.
RING (2), to sound a bell, tinkle. (E.) ME. ringen, Chaucer, C.T.
a894. AS. hringan, to clash, ring; byrnan hringdon, breastplates
clashed, Leowulf, 327, ed. Grein; ringden Ja belle, they rang the
bells, A. S. Chron. an. 1131. The verb is weak, as in Scand., but
mod. E, has pt. t. rang, pp. rung (by analogy with sing); we also
find pp. rongen, rungen, in Allit. Morte Arthure, Il. 462, 976, 1587.
+ Du. ringen; Icel. hringja; cf. hrang, sb., a din; Dan, ringe;
Swed. ringa. Imitative. Der. ring, sb., ring-er.
RINK, a space for skating on wheels, a course for the game of
culing. (E.) The former use is modern; the latter is mentioned in
Jamieson’s Dict. It appears to be a dialectal variant of ring ; com-
pare the use of ring in the compound prize-ring. As to the form,
we may compare the Low G. rink used as a variant of ring ; see the
Bremen Worterbuch; NFries. rink, variant of ring; and vulgar E.
anythink =anything, See Ring (1).
RINSE, to cicanse with clean water, make quite clean. (F.—L.?)
Prov. E. rinch, rench; E.D.D. ‘He may rynse a pycher ;’ Skelton,
Magnificence, 2194. ‘ Rynce this cuppe ;’ Rel. Antiq. i. 7, col. 1.
‘ Rense thyn teyth; ’ Medical Works of 14th cent., ed. Henslow, p. 35,
1, 13.—OF. raincer (Littré), MF. rinser, ‘to reinse linnen clothes;’
Cot. ; mod. F. rincer. B. Of doubtful ongin. The forms rincer,
raincer, seem to be contractions of OF. recincier, to rinse (Godefroy) ;
cf. Picard rechincher, to rinse. Korting (§ 7988) derives this OF.
verb from a L. type *requinguiare, due to L. quinguare, to cleanse,
purify, a verb cited in the 4th century (Lewis). Cf. mod. Prov.
rinsar (Mistral); OProy. rezensar (Bartsch).
RIOT, tumult, uproar. (F.) ME. riote, Chaucer, C. T. 4390;
Ancren Riwle, p. 198, last line. =F. riofe, a brabbling, brawling ;’
Cot. Cf. Proy. riota, dispute, strife (Bartsch) ; Ital. riotta, quarrel,
dispute, riot, uproar. B. The orig. sense seems to be ‘ dispute ;’
of uncertain origin. See Diez and Korting. Der. riot, verb, ME.
rioten, Chaucer, C. T. 4412 (A 4414), from F. rioter, ‘to chide,’
Cot. ; riot-er, ME, riotour, Chaucer, C. T. 12595 (C 661) ; riot-ous,
id. 4406, from F. rioteux 3 riot-ous-ly, -ness.
RIP, to divide by tearing open, cut open, tear open for searching
into. (Scand.) ‘Rip up griefe;’ Spenser, F. Q. 1. 7. 39. [It does
not seem to be the same word as ME. rippen, used in the Ormulum
in the sense of ‘seize;’ this is a variant of ME. ruppen, to rob,
Layamon, 10584, and allied rather to G. rupfen, to pluck, than to
the present word.] It corresponds to Mk. ripen, used in the
secondary sense of to grope, probe, search into, also used occasion-
ally (like the mod. word) with the prep. up. ‘Rypande .. the
reynes and hert’=searching the reins and heart (said of God), Allit.
Poems, B. 592. ‘To rype vpe the Romaynes’=to search out the
Romans, Morte Arthure, 1877. ‘ The riche kinge ransakes .. and
up rypes the renkes’=the rich king seeks for and searches out the
men, id. 3940. ‘To ripe thair war’=to search their ware (where
two MSS. have ransake), Cursor Mundi, 4893. ‘I rype in olde maters,
je fouble;’ also, ‘I ryppe a seame that is sowed;’ Palsgrave.
A Northern word, of Scand. origin. Norweg. rifa, to scratch,
score with the point of a knife (Aasen) ; Swed. dial. ripa, to scratch,
also to pluck asunder (cf. E. rip open), Rietz; Swed. repa, to
scratch, to ripple flax; repa upp, to rip up; repa, sb., ascratch; Dan.
oprippe, to rip up; WFlem. ofen-rippen, to rip up; Low G, repen, to
ripple flax (Liibben). Allied to Ripple (1), and Ripple (3).
Der. rit, sb.; ripp-le (1), ἡ. ν.» ripple (3), q.v.
RIPE, developed, mature, arrived at perfection. (E.) ME.
ripe, rype, Chaucer, C. T. 17032 (H 83). AS. ripe; ‘and swa swa
ripe yr fortreddon’ =and trod [all] down like ripe corn; A&lfred,
tr. of Beda, i. 12. This adj. signifies ‘ fit for reaping,’ and (like the
sb. rip, harvest) is derived from the strong verb ripan, to reap; see
RISK
Reap.+Du. rijp; whence rijpen, to ripen; G. ref, OHG. riff;
whence reifen, to ripen. Der. ripe-ly, -ness; also ripen, verb, from
AS. riptan, Gen. xviii. 12.
RIPPLE (1), to pluck the seeds from stalks of flax by drawing
an iron comb through them. (E.) A Northern word; see Jamieson.
ME. ripplen, ripelen. ‘Rypelynge of flax, or other lyke, Avulsio ;’
Prompt. Parv. ‘Hoc rupeste, a repylle-stok,’ i.e, an implement for
cleaning flax; Voc. 795. 16. An early example is ripling-combe, in
A Nominale, ed. Skeat, 1.545. Thecleaning of flax wasalso termed
ribbing (a weakened form of ripping); see Prompt. Parv., p. 432,
note 2. B. Ripple is not to be taken as the frequentative form of
rip, but as formed from the sb. ripple, a flax-comb (Jamieson); and
this sb. is derived from rip- (weak giade of the strong AS. verb
rip-an, to reap, cut) by help of the suffix -/e, sometimes used to
express the instrument by which a thing is done, as in beet-le=a
beat-er ; sfopp-le, used for stopping, Jad-le, used for lading out,
gird-le, used for girding. So ripple=an instrument for ripping off
the flax-seeds; cf. Swed. repa, to ripple flax; see Rip.4Du. repel,
a ripple, from repen, to beat flax (Hexham); whence repelen, to
ripple; Low G. repe,a ripple, in the dialect of Brunswick called
repel, reppel, Bremen Worterbuch; Pomeran. rapeln, to ripple flax.
The Du. repel is from the 2nd grade *raip- (Franck) of Teut. *reipan-,
to reap; see Ripe. Cf. ἃ. riffel, a ripple; whence riffeln, to strip
flax. See Ripple (3).
RIPPLE (2), to cause or show wrinkles on the surface, like
running water. (E.) The essential idea in the rippling of water is
that it shows wrinkles on the surface. The earliest quotation in
Richardson and Johnson is the following: ‘ Left the Keswick road,
and turned to the left through shady lanes along the vale of Eeman,
which runs rippling over the stones;’ Gray, to Dr. Wharton,
Oct. 18,1769. But Dampier has: ‘a great ripling ;’ A New Voyage
(1699); ii. pt. 2. p. 10. As pointed out by Richardson, it is a
by-form or contraction of the older verb to rimple; ‘ As gilds the
moon the rimpling of the brook,’ Crabbe, Parish Register, part 1,
ed. 1807; where the edition of 1834 has rippling. ME. rimplen, to
wrinkle, whence the pp. rymflyd, explained by ‘ Rugatus’ in Prompt.
Pary.; cf. ‘a rimpled vecke’=a wrinkled old woman, Rom. of the
Rose, 4495. ‘This verb is from the sb. rimple or rimpil ; ‘ Rympyl, or
rymple, or wrynkly, Ruga;’ Prompt. Parv. AS. hrympel, to trans-
late L. riga,a wrinkle, in a gloss; Voc. 531. 4 (where it is mis-
written Arypel). See Rumple.+MDu. rimpel, ‘a wrinckle, or
a folde,’ Hexham; rimpelen, ‘to wrinckle;’ id. B. The AS.
hrympel is from the weak grade (hrump-) of krimpan, to wrinkle, of
which the pp. ge-Arumpen occurs in a gloss; Voc. 521. 10.4-OHG.
hrimfan, MHG. rimpfen, to bend together, crook, wrinkle; cf.
mod.G., riimpfen, to crook, bend, wrinkle. From Teut. base *hremp-.
Cf. the similar base *kremp-, as in Crimp, q.v. Der. ripple, sb.
RIPPLE (3), to scratch slightly. (Scand.) In the Whitby
Glossary, by F. K. Robinson (E. D.S.). ‘Having slightly rippled
the skin of his left arm;’ Holland, tr. of Ammianus, p. 264; see
Trench, Select Glossary (where it is wrongly connected with the
word above). ‘Apple, rescindere;’ Levins. This is merely a
frequentative (or diminutive) form of Rip, q.v.
RISE, to ascend, go upward. (E.) ME. rise, pt. t. roos (pl.
risen), pp. risen; Chaucer, C. Τ 825, 1501 (A 823, 1499). AS.
risan, pt. t. ras (pl. rison), pp. risen ; Grein, ii. 382.4Du. rijzen, orig.
‘to move,’ and in MDu. ‘to fall,’ contrary to the E. sense; Icel.
risa; OHG, risan, to move up, rise; also to move down, fall;
Goth, reisanx, pt. t. rats (pl. risum), pp. risans; only in the
comp. ur-reisan. B. All from Teut. type *reisan- (pt. t. rais, pp.
risenoz), to slip away, orig. expressive of motion only; cf. Skt. ri,
to distil, ooze (we speak of the rise of a river); see Rivulet.
The MDu. rijzen also means ‘to fall;’ het loof rijst, the leaves
fall (Hexham). Der. rise, sb., Hen. V, iv. I. 289; a-rise, q. Vv. ;
ris-ing, a tumult, also a tumour, Levit. xiii. 2; also raise, q. v.,
rear, q.V.
RISIBLB, laughable, amusing. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.
=F. risible, ‘fit or worthy to be laughed at;’ Cot.—L. risibilis,
laughable. ταὶ, risi-, from ris-um, supine of ridére, to laugh; with
suffix -bilis. See Ridiculous. Der. risibl-y, risibil-i-ty. From the
same L. verb (pp. risus) are ar-ride (rare, = L. arridére, to laugh at),
de-ride, de-ris-ion, de-ris-ive, ir-ris-ion, rid-ic-ul-ous.
RISK, hazard, danger, peril. (F.—Ital.—L.) Spelt risque in
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—F. risque, ‘ perill;’ Cot. [Cf. Ital. ristco,
(in Ariosto, risco), formerly risigo, as in Florio; Span, riesgo, risk ;
Late L. ristgus, riscus, risk.] Borrowed from Ital. risico (rischio,
risigo), hazard, peril (Torriano). This seems to be the same word
as Span. risco, a steep abrupt rock; from whence the sense of
‘danger’ may easily have arisen among sailors. Hence Span.
arriesgar (arriscar in Minsheu), to venture into danger, lit. ‘to go
against a rock,’ where the prefix αν- stands for L. ad- before r follow-
RISSOLE
ing, as usual; also arriscado, bold, forward (lit. venturesome); Ital.
arrischiarsi, to venture oneself, arrischiato, hazardous. = L. resecare,
to cut back, to cut off short or abruptly ; whence the Span. sb. risco
(Ital. risico) was formed in the same way as E. scar, an abrupt rock,
is formed from the root of the verb to shear or cut off.—L. re-, back ;
and secdre, to cut ; see Re- and Section. β. This suggestion is due
to Diez; he supports it by citing mod. Prov. rezegue, risk, rezegd, to
cut off; resega, risk, also a saw, in the dialect of Como; Port. risco,
risk, also a rock, crag, 1lso a dash with the pen, riscar, to raze out
with the pen (<L. resecare, i.e. to cut out). And cf. Ital. risico,
tisk, with risega, a jutting out, risegare, risecare, to cast off; &c.
4 Devic suggests a connexion with Arab rizq, riches, good fortune,
Rich, Dict. p. 731, but a risk is bad fortune; and, when he cites the
Span. arriesgar as showing a prefix ar-= Arab, def. article al-, he
forgets that the verbal prefix better represents the L. ad. Besides,
the Ital. word is risico, spelt risigo in Florio. Mistral has mod. Prov.
risque, risco, risk; Gascon arrisque. See Kérting, § 7995. Der.
risk, verb, risk-y.
RISSOLE, a dish of minced meat or fish with bread-crumbs, &c.,
fried. (F.—L.) AF. russole, Chron. Monasterii de Abingdon, ed.
Stevenson, ii. 308. Mod. F. rissole ; OF. roissole (Godefroy), roussole.
“ΤΙ type *russeola; from L. russeus, reddish, or rather brownish ;
from the colour. = L. russus, red; see Russet,
RITE, a religious ceremony. (L.) ‘ With sacred rites ;’ Spenser,
F. Ὁ. i. 12. 36.—L. ritus, a custom, esp. a religious custom. Cf.
Skt. riti-, a going, also way, usage, manner; from 77, to go, flow.=
REI, to go, run, let flow. Cf. Brugmann, ii. § 498. 4 The F. rit
or rite seems to have been little used ; though found as rif in the 14th
cent. (Hatzfeld). Der. ritu-al, from F. ritual, ‘rituall,’ Cot., from
L. ritu-dlis, from ritu-, stem of ritus; ritu-al-ly; ritu-al-ism, ritu-
al-ist.
RIVAL, a competitor. (F.—L.) For the sense, see Trench,
On the Study of Words. In Shak. Two Gent. ii. 4. 174. =F. rival,
sb., ‘a rival, corrival, competitor in love ;’ Cot.—L. riwalis, sb., one
who uses the same brook as another, a near neighbour, a rival. —L.
riualis, adj., belonging to a brook, = L. riu-us, a brook, stream; with
suffix -alis. See Rivulet. Der. rival, adj., rival, verb, K. Lear,
i. 1. 194; rival-ry,a coined word.
RIVE, to split, tear, slit, rend. (Scand.) ME. riven, ryuen (with
u=v), Chaucer, C. T. 12762 (C 828).—Icel. rifa, pt. t. rei, pp.
rifinn (=E. riven), to rive, tear; Dan. rive; Swed. rifva, to scratch,
tear. B. Allied to Gk. ἐρείπειν, to throw or dash down, tear down;
L. ripa, a bank, a shore. Teut. base *reif-; Idg. base *reip-. Der.
rif-t, q.v. And see rifle (2), rivel; also riv-er.
RIVEL, to wrinkle. (E.) ‘Praise from the rivell’d lips of
toothless, bald Decrepitude ;’ Cowper, Task, b. ii. 1. 488. ‘And
rivell’d up with heat;’ Dryden, Flower and the Leaf, 378. ME.
riuelen (with uw for v); ‘Al my face... So riueled;’ Gower, C. A.
iii. 370; bk. viii. 2829. AS. ge-riffian, to wrinkle (Napier’s Glosses) ;
rifelede, gloss on L. rugosus (id.). A frequentative form ; from *rif-,
weak grade of Teut. *reif-an-, as seen in Icel. rifa, to rive; see
above. Cf. AS. gerifod, wrinkled, Aélfric’s Hom. i. 614.
RIVER, a large stream of running water. (F.—L.) ΜΕ, riuer
(with πε =v) ; Chaucer, C. T. 3026 (A 3024) ; Rob. of Glouc., p. 1, 1.14.
= AF. rivere; OF. riviere, mod. F. rivitre,a river, stream. It is the
same word as Span. ribera, a shore, strand, sea-coast, Port. ribeira, a
meadow near the bank of a river (whence ribeiro, a brook), Ital.
riviera, ashore, a bank, also a river.—Late L. riparia, (1) sea-shore
or river-bank, (2) a river (Ducange) ; fem. of riparius, adj., formed
from ripa,a bank. Allied to Gk. ἐρίπ-νη, a broken cliff, scaur (hence,
a steep edge or bank), from the base KEIP, to rive, rend, tear off,
seen in Gk. ἐρείπειν, to tear down, and in E, rive; see Rive. Ct.
E. rift, a fissure, from the same source. Der. river-horse, the hippo-
potamus, Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. viii. c. 25. Also (from L. ripa)
ar-rive,q.v. 7 Not allied to rivulet.
RIVET, an iron pin for fastening armour, &c. together. (F.—
Scand.) ‘The armourers, With busy hammers closing rivets up ;’
Hen. V, iv. chor. 13. ‘With a palsy-fumbling at his gorget Shake
in and out the rivet;” Troil.i. 3.175. Ryvet, revet, Palsgrave. ME.
ryvette; Voc. 573. 37-—F. rivet, ‘the welt of a shooe,’ Cot. It also
meant a rivet, as in the Supp. to Godefroy. Cf. Walloon rivet, a
running noose (Sigart). In Hamilton’s F. Dict. rivet is explained by
‘rivet? and marked as a farrier’s term.=—F. river, ‘to rivet, or clench,
to fasten or turne back the point ofa naile, &c.; also, to thrust the
clothes of a bed in at the sides;’ Cot. B. The word is Scand., as
shown by the Aberdeen word riz, to rivet, clench, Shetland riv, to sew
coarsely and slightly ; which see in Jamieson.—Icel. rifa, to tack
together, sew loosely together; rifa saman, to stitch together, an
expression which occurs in the Edda, i. 346.440. Low G. ridilon,
rebolon, to patch, sew together (Gallée). Perhaps allied to Icel.
reifa, to swaddle. Der. rivet, verb, Hamlet, iii. 2. 90; Palsgrave
ROB 52]
has: ‘I revet a nayle, Fe riue;’ also: ‘ Ryvet this nayle, and then
it wyll holde faste.’
RIVULET, a small stream. (L.) In Milton, P. L. ix. 420;
Drayton, Muses’ Elysium, Nymph. 6. 1.90. Not F., but an E.
dimin., formed with suffix -et from L. riuul-us,a small stream, dimin.
of riuus, a stream, river, Cf. Ital. rivoletto (Torriano). See Rival.
Der. (from L. riu-us) riv-al, q.v., de-rive,q.v. And see rite,
RIX-DOLLAR, the name of a coin. (Du.—G.) ‘He accepted
of a rix-dollar ;” Evelyn's Diary, Aug. 28, 1641 ; Evelyn was then at
Leyden. = Du. rijks-daalder, arix-dollar. Hexham gives rijcksdaelder,
‘a rix-daller, a peece of money of five schillings, or 50 stivers.’ = G.
reichsthaler, ‘a dollar of the empire.’=G. reichs, gen. case of reich,
empire, allied to reich, rich, powerful ; and ¢haler, a dollar; see Rich
and Dollar.
ROACH, a kind of fish. (F.—Teut.) Allied to the carp, but
confused with the ray and the skate ; fish-names being very vaguely
used. ME. roche. ‘ Roche, fysche, Rocha, Rochia ;’ Prompt. Parv.
-ONorth F. and Walloon roche, OF. roce, MF. rosse (Cot.).—MDu.
roch, ‘a fish called a scait;’ Hexham; Du. rog.4Dan. rokke, a ray ;
Swed. rocka, a ray, thorn-back ; Low G. ruche, whence G. roche,
a roach, ray, thorn-back; cf. AS. reokhe, a kind of fish. Teut. base
*ruhh- ; Franck. Cf. AS. rik, rough.
ROAD, a way for passengers. (K.) Also used of a place where
ships ride at anchor; this is the same word, the F. rade being bor-
rowed from Teutonic. Also used in the sense of raid or foray ; 1 Sam.
xxvii. 10, Shak. has the word in all three senses; (1) Much Ado, v.
2. 33; (2) Two Gent. i. 1. 533 (2) Cor. iil. 1. 56. ME. roode (for
ships), Prompt. Parv.; rode (for horses); Cursor Mundi, 11427.
AS. rad, a journey, riding expedition, road; Grein, ii. 362. [The
sense of ‘road’ only appears in compounds ; as swan-rad, swan-road,
i.e. the sea; Béowulf, 200.) From the 2nd grade of Teut. *reid-an-,
to ride; cf. AS. rad, pt. t. of ridan, to ride; see Ride. Der. road-
stead, road-way, road-ster (forthe suffix, see Spinster) ; alsoin-road,
Doublet, raid.
ROAM, to rove about, to ramble, wander. (F.—L.) ME. romen,
P. Plowman, B. xi. 124; K. Alisaunder, 7207; Seven Sages, 1429
(in Weber’s Met. Romances, vol. iii); Havelok,64; Will. of Palerne,
1608. Prob. coined from F. Rome, Rome; from L. Roma. Due to
the frequent pilgrimages to that great city. Cf. OF. romier, a pilgrim
to Rome; OF. romel, a pilgrim, romeree, a pilgrimage; Span.
romero, a pilgrim. So also not only the Ital. romeo, a pilgrim, is
derived from Roma, Rome, and denoted a pilgrim to Rome; but even
in P. Plowman we have religious romares= religious pilgrims, B. iv.
120, which the author probably himself regarded as an equivalent to
Rome-renneres=runners to Rome, B. iv. 128 (only 8 lines below).
Cf. OF ries. rumera, rumfara, a pilgrim to Rome. Der. roam-er.
ROAN, the name of a mixed colour, bay, sorrel, or chestnut, with
grey hairs interspersed. (F.—Span.—L.) ‘ Roen, colour of an horse,
roven;’ Palsgrave. In Shak. Rich. 11, v. 5. 78; 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4.
120. Explained by Schmidt as ‘dark dappled-bay.’—OF. roan; as
in ung destrier roan, a roan horse, Supp. to Godefroy; MF. rouén ;
“Cheval rouén, a roane horse,’ Cot.; mod. F. rowan.—Span. roano,
sorrel-coloured, roan; OSpan. raudano.—L. type *ravidanum ; from
Late L. ravidus, grey (Ducange).—L. riauus, gray-yellow, tawny.
ROAN-TREE, ROW AN-TREE, the mountain ash. (Scand.)
A Northern term, and of Scand. origin. Spelt roun-tree, roan-tree,
rowan-tree in Jamieson. Swed. rénn, MSwed. γε, runn (Ihre), the
mountain-ash; Dan. réx, the service, sorb, mountain-ash; Icel.
reynir, the same. Also Νοῦν. rogn, raagn, raun; Swed. dial.
rdgna, the roan-tree. The Icel. reynir is for *reydnir, from *raxudnir,
a deriv. of raudr, red (Noreen, § 232). From the colour of the
berries. See Red.
ROAR, to cry allow, bellow. (E.) ME. roren, Wyclif, Rev. x.
3. AS. rarian, AElfric’s Homilies, i. 66, 1. 18; and in Sweet’s A. S.
Reader.4+MDu. reeren, Hexham; MHG. réren. Cf. Lithuan. ré-ju,
I scold, chide; Brugmann, ii. §§ 465, 741. Imitative. Der. roar,
sb.; roar-ing. But not up-roar.
ROAST, to cook meat before a fire. (F.—G.) ME. rosten,
Legends of the Holy Rood, ed. Morris, p. 58, 1. 504 ; Legend of St.
Christopher, 1. 203; Chaucer, C. T. 385 (A 383).—OF. rostir, ‘to
rost, broile, tost,’ Cot. Mod. F. rétir. Prob. from OHG. rdstan, to
roast, a weak verb formed from rés¢, a grate, gridiron. β. We also
find Irish rofstix, a gridiron, rosdaim, I roast, rost, roast meat; Gael.
rost, roist, W.rhostio; all borrowed from E.; and Bret. rosta, from F.
Der. roast, sb.; roast-meat (=roast-ed meat).
ROB (1), to plunder, steal, spoil. (F.—OHG.) In early use.
ME. robben, Havelok, 1958; Ancren Riwle, p. 86, 1. 13.—OF.
robber, ‘to rob,’ Cot. Usually spelt rober. The orig. sense was to
despoil the slain in battle, to strip, disrobe; so that the verb is
merely formed from the sb. robe, spelt robbe in Cotgrave, a robe.
See Robe. 4 The Εἰ verb reave (usually bereave) is formed, in
22 ROB
a precisely similar way, from the AS. sb. réaf, clothing. Der. robb-er,
ΜΕ. robbour, Rob. of Glouc., p. 94, 1. 2091, from OF, robbeur, ‘a
robber,’ Cot. ; robb-er-y, ME. roberie, O.Eng. Homilies, ii. 61, 1. 27,
from OF. roberie, F. robberie, ‘robbery, Cot. Doublet, reave.
ROB (2), a conserve of fruit. (F.—Span.—Arab.—Pers.) In
Phillips (1706).—F. rob, ‘the juice of black whortleberries pre-
served ;’ Cot.—Span. rob, juice of fruit thickened with honey. =
Arab, rubb, ‘a decoction of the juice of citrons and other fruits,
inspissated juice, rob ;’ Rich. Dict.; p. 719.— Pers. rub (the same) ;
Devic.
ROBBINS, ROBINS, ropes for fastening sails. (E.) Lowl. Sc.
raibandis, pl., Complaint of Scotland, ed. Murray, p. 40, 1. 30.
EFries. ra-band, where ra=yard of a ship. Cf. Icel. ra, Dan. raa,
Swed. rd, G. rahe, yard; and see Band (1). Cf. G. ragen, to
project. See my Notes on Eng. Etym., p. 252.
ROBE, a garment, dress. (F.—OHG.) ME, robe, Rob. of Glouc.,
p- 313, 1. 6390; P. Plowman, B. ii. 15.—F. robe, a robe ; spelt rcbbe
in Cotgrave.—MHG. roub, roup, OHG. raup (G. raub), booty, spoil ;
hence, a garment, because the spoils of the slain consisted chiefly of
clothing. AS. réaf, spoil, clothing; Icel. rau/, spoil. Teut. type
*raubom, neut.; from *raub, 2nd grade of Teut. *reud-an-, to reave ;
see Reave. Der. robe, verb; rob-ed, K. Lear, iii. 6. 38. Also
rob (1), q.v.
ROBIN, a singing-bird, the red-breast. (F.-OHG.) ‘ Robyn
redbrest;’ Skelton, Phyllyp Sparowe, 399; Holland’s Howlat,
1.647. ‘ The most familiar of our wild birds, called Robin red-breast,
from Robin (the familiar version of Robert), on the same principle
that the pie and the daw are christened Mag (for Margery) and ack.
In the same way the parrot takes its name from Pierrot, the familiar
version of Pierre ;’ Wedgwood. Robin Hood is mentioned in P.
Plowman, B. v. 402.—F. Robin, a proper name (Cotgrave); a pet
name for Robert, which was early known in England, because it was
the name of the eldest son of Will. 1. B. Robert isa Frankish name,
from OHG, Ruodperht (G. Ruprecht, whence our Rupert), meaning
‘ fame-bright,’ i.e. illustrious in fame. γ. The syllable perht is cog-
nate with E. Bright, q.v. The syllable Ruod- is cognate with
Icel. krddr, praise, fame ; it occurs also in Rud-olf, Rud-iger, Ro-ger.
Cf. Goth. hrétheigs, victorious, triumphant, 2 Cor, ii. 14. And see
Hobgoblin.
ROBUST, vigorous, in sound health. (F.—L.) ‘A _ robust
boysterous rogue knockt him down;’ Howell, Famil. Letters, b. i.
sect. 3. let. 21; dated 1623.—F. robuste, ‘ strong, tough ;” Cot, =L.
robustus, strong; formed by adding -tus (Idg. -to-) to OL. rdbus
(later rdbur), strength. Der. robust-ly, robust-ness. Also (obsolete)
robust-i-ous, Shak. Haml. iii. 2. 10, better spelt robusteous, as in
Blount, directly from L, rdbusteus, oaken (hence, strong), by the
change of -us into -ovs, as in numerous other words.
ROC, a huge bird. (F.— Pers.) Inthe Arabian Nights’ Entertain-
ment. - Ἐς rock (Littré).—Ders. rukh, the name of a huge bird ; per-
haps of Assyrian origin (Devic). Cf. Nis-roch, 2 Kings, xix. 37.
ROCHET, asurplice worn by bishops. (F.—OHG.) Inthe Rom.
of the Rose, 4754.—F. rochet, ‘a frock, loose gaberdine; . . also,
a prelates rochet;” Cot. MHG. roc (G. rock), a coat, frock.4-Du.
rok, OF ries. rokk, AS. rocc, Icel. rokkr. Teut. type *rukkoz, masc.,
a coat, frock.
ROCK (1), a large mass of stone. (F.) The pl. rockes or rokkes
occurs in Chaucer, C. T. 11305 (Ε 993).—OF. roke (13th cent.
Littré) ; also rogue, commonly roche, a rock; the masc. form roc is
later, and only dates from the 16th century. Cf. Guernsey rogue,
Walloon roc, Languedoc roguo (D’'Hombres), Proy. roca, Span. roca,
Port. roca, rocha, Ital. rocca, roccia, a rock. Also Late L. rocca ;
Ducange. (The Celtic forms are borrowed from E. or F.) We also
find late AS. sfdan-roce (Napier’s Glosses). Of unknown origin.
4 The ME. roche, in Gower, C. A. i. 314 (bk. ili. 1048), is from F.
roche. Der. rock-pigeon, -salt, -work; rock-y, rock-i-ness.
ROCK (2), to move backward and forward, to cause to totter, to
totter. (E.) ME. rokken, Chaucer, C. T. 4155 (A 4157); Ancren
Riwle, p. 82,1.19. AS. roccian (Clark Hall) ; NFries. roche; O. Low
G. rukkian (Gallée).+Dan. rokke, to rock, shake; allied to Dan.
rykke, to pull, tug, from ryk, a pull, a tug ; Swed. dial. rukka, to wag,
to rock, allied to rycka, to pull, ryck, a pull, jerk. Cf. Icel. rykhja,
to pull roughly and hastily, rykkr, a hasty pull, also a spasm.
Also 6. riicken, to move by pushing ; from ruck, a pull, jolt, jerk,
Du. ruk, a jerk. Teut. types *rukkdjan-, *rukkjan-, to jolt, jerk
(Franck). The base *rukk (for *runk Ὁ) may be related to *renkan-, to
shake, as seen in Swed. dial. rinka, to shake (pt. rank, supine runkit),
Rietz; Swed. runka, to shake, rankig, rickety (Widegren). Der.
rock-er, rock-ing-chair.
ROCK (3), a distaff. (Scand.) In Dryden, tr. of Ovid, Metam.
b. viii., Meleager, 1. 257. ME.rokke. ‘ Rokke, ofspynnyng, Colus ;’
Prompt. Pary.=Icel. rokkr, a distaff; Swed. rock; Dan. rok.+G.
ROGUE
rocken, MHG. rocke, OHG. roccho, a distaff; Du. rok, rokken.
type *rukkon-,m. Der. rock-et (1), q.v.
ROCKET (1), a kind of fire-work. (Ital.—G.) In Skinner’s
Dict., ed. 1671. Dekker has the pl. rockets; London Triumphant,
speech of Envy (1612).—Mltal. rocchetto, ‘a bobbin to winde silke
upon ; also, any kinde of squib of wilde fier ;” Florio. The rocket
seems to have been named from its long thin shape, bearing some
resemblance to a quill or bobbin for winding silk, and so to a distaff.
‘The Ital. rocchetto is the dimin. of rocca, ‘a distaffe or rocke to
spinne with ;’ Florio.—MHG. rocke, a distaff; see Rock (3).
ROCKET (2), a plant of the genus Eruca. (F.—Ital.—L.) In
Levins. Spelt rokat in Sir T. Elyot, Castle of Helth, b. ii. c. 9. =F.
roguette, ‘the herb rocket;’ Cot.—Ital. ruchetta, ‘the herb called
rocket;’ Florio. Dimin. of ruca, eruca, rocket, Baretti; (only the pl.
eruche appears in Florio).—L. ériica, a sort of cole-wort ; whence
also the G. rauke, rocket.
ROCOCO, a variety of ornamentation, characterized by mean-
ingless scrolls and shell-work. (F.) F. rococo; of the time of
Louis XIV. Playful variant from the base of F. roc-aille, rockiness,
rock-work (Hatzfeld).—F. roc, rock; see Rock.
ROD, a slender stick. (E.) ME. rod, Gower, C. A. i. 310; bk.
iii. 910. Chaucer has lym-rod, a rod covered with bird-lime, C. T.,
B 3574. The word is a mere variant of rood, by a shortening of the
vowel-sound of which we have a few other examples, viz. in gosling
from AS. gésling, blossom from AS. blostma, fodder from AS. fodor ;
not very dissimilar are blood, mother, from AS. bldd, médor, In the
Owl and Nightingale, 1. 1644 (or 1646), we have rod used in the
sense of rood or gallows. ‘Thou seist that gromes the i-fod, An
heie on rodde the an-hod’=thou (the owl) sayest that men take thee,
and hang thee high on a rod (rood), See further under Rood. Cf.
Pomeran. rode, a rod; MDu. roede, a rod. Doublet, rood.
RODENT, gnawing. (L.) A scientific term.—L. rddent-, stem
of pres. part. of rddere, to gnaw. Akin to rddere, to scratch; see
Rase. Cf. Skt. rada-s, a tooth. Der. (from L. rédere) cor-rode,
e-rode. And see rostrum, rat.
RODOMONTADE, vain boasting. (F.—Ital.) ‘Crites. And
most terribly he comes off, like your rodomontado;’ Ben Jonson,
Cynthia’s Revels, Act ν. sc. 2. ‘And triumph’d our whole nation
In his rodomant fashion; ’ id., Masque of Owls, Owl 5.—F. rodomont-
ade, ‘a brag, boast;’ Cot.—Ital. rodomontada, ‘a boaste, brag ;’
Florio. A proverbial expression, due to the boastful character of
Rodomoate, in the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto, bk. xiv; called Roda-
monte by Bojardo, Orlando Innamorato, ii. 1. 56. Said to be coined
from Lombard rodare (=Ital. rotare), to turn about, and monte, a
mountain. See Rotary and Mount (1).
ROE (1), a female deer. (E.) ME. ro; Chaucer, C. T. 4084
(A 4086), purposely gives the Northern E. raa. AS. raha, ra, m.;
rege, f. (so that ME. ro was masc.). See Voc. 11. 33.4 cel. ra;
whence rabukkr, a roe-buck; Dan. raa; whence raabuk, a roe-buck,
raadyr, roe-deer ; Swed. rd ; whence rabock, roe-buck ; Du. ree; reebok,
roe-buck; O. Low G. rého, m. (Gallée); G.reh; rehbock. ‘eut. base
*raihon-, m.; of unknown origin. Der. roe-buck, ME. roobukke,
Trevisa, i. 337; see Buck,
ROK (2), the eggs or spawn of fishes. (Scand.) The form roe is in
Shak. Rom, ii, 4. 39. But it is due to a curious mistake. The true
form is roan (with oa as in oak), but it seems to have been regarded
as a plural, like oxen, eyne (eyes), shoon (shoes), so that the » was
dropped. This is unusual (perhaps unique) in the case of apparent
plurals in -ex or -z, but common with plurals (or rather supposed
plurals) in -s; as shown under cherry, sherry, pea. ‘ Roan, the roe of
a fish;’ Peacock’s Glossary (Lincoln), ‘ Rownd, roe,’ Whitby
Glossary ; where the word has actually acquired an excrescent d.
ME. rowne, Prompt. Parv.—Icel. hrogn, Dan. rogn, Swed. rom, roe,
spawn.+G. rogen, roe (whence F. rogue, roe). B. Teut. type *hrug-
on-, or *hrugno-. masc.
ROGATION, supplication. (F.—L.) Particularly used in the
phr. Rogation-days ; see the Prayer-book ; Hooker, Eccl. Polity, b. v.
s. 41, Foxe, Acts and Monuments, p. 914, Hen. VIII (R.). Also
‘ Rogation weke;’ Palsgrave. =F. rogation; pl. rogations, ‘ rogation-
daies;’ Cot.—L. rdgatidnem, acc. of rogatio, a supplication, an
asking. —L. rogire, toask. Der. rogation-days. Also (from rogare)
ab-rogate, ar-rogate, ar-rogant, de-rogale, inter-rogate, pre-rogat-ive,
pro-rogue, super-e-rogat-ton, sur-rogate.
ROGUE, aknave, vagabond. (F.—Low G.) The word sometimes
meant merely a wandering mendicant; see K. Lear, iv. 7. 39, and
Trench’s Select Glossary. Shak. also has roguing, roguish, vagrant ;
Per, iv. 1. 97; K. Lear, iii. 7. 104. Cotgrave has: ‘ Roder, to roam,
wander, vagabondize it, rogue abroad.’ But the Εἰ. roguish also has
the sense of arch, pert, and this can only be due to F. rogue, ‘ arro-
gant, proud, presumptuous, malapert, saucie, rude, surly;’ Cot.
Thus the sense of ‘ surly fellow’ would seem to be the original one,
Teut.
ROIL, RILE
easily transferred to beggars as a cant term; and then the verb éo
rogue abroad would mean ‘to go about as a beggar.’ B. That a
rogue was a common cant term may be seen in Harman’s Caueat,
ed. Furnivall; he devotes cap. iv (pp. 36-41) to the description of
‘a roge,’ and cap. v to the description of ‘a wylde roge.’ He con-
cludes by saying: ‘I once rebuking a wyld roge because he went
idelly about, he shewed me that he was a beggar by inheritance ; his
grandfather was a begger, his father was one, and he must nedes be
one by good reason.’ γ. The F. rogue is referred by Diez to Icel.
hrokr, but this word means lit. ‘a rook,’ and secondarily, a croaker,
long-winded talker; which does not suit the sense. It answers
rather to Low G. rook, which not only means the bird, but also an
arch-thief (Brem. Wort.). Cf. E. rook, to cheat ; and Dan. raage, a
rook, See Rook (1). Der. rogu-ish, -ly, -ness; rogu-er-y.
ROIL, RILE, to vex. (F.2—L.?2) Rile seems to be the same
word as roil, to vex; similarly foil, soil, are occasionally pronounced
tile, sile. But the old word roil seems to show two distinct meanings :
(1) to disturb, vex, trouble, and (2) to wander about, to romp. I
have given examples in my note to P. Plowman, C. vi. 151; and
five occur in Davies, Suppl. Glossary. ‘The lamb down stream
roiled the wolf’s water above;’ North, Examen, p. 359 (1740).
Prov. E. roil, rile, to make turbid, to scold; E.D.D. Evidently of
F. origin. Perhaps from OF. roeillier, roelier, roillier, to roll about,
to roll the eyes, to beat (Godefroy); mod. F. rouiller, to roll the
eyes; MF. rouiller, to pummel (Cot.). From a Lat. type *rotelliare,
to roll. —L. rotella, dimin. of rota, a wheel; see Rotary.
ROISTERING, turbulent, blustering. (F.—L.) Todd cites
from Swift (no reference): ‘Among a crew of roist’ring fellows.’
Shak. has roisting, Troil. ii. 2. 208; and Levins has royst, vb. We
have Udall’s play of Roister Doister, written before 1553; and the sb.
roister is in the Mirror for Magistrates (Nares). Roisfer, a bully, a
ruffian or turbulent fellow, seems to be the orig. word which gave
rise to the verb roist on the one hand, and the adj. roistering, i. e.
tuffianly, on the other. —F. rustre, ‘2 ruffin, royster, hackster, swag-
gerer, sawcie fellow;’ Cot. This Littré explains as being another
form of OF. ruste, a rustic, the r being ‘epenthetic.’—L. rusticum,
acc. of rusticus, rustic, hence clownish. See Rustic.
ROLL, to turn on an axis, revolve, move round and round. (F.—
L.) In carly use; ME. rollen, Layamon, 22287, later text; Chaucer,
C. T. 12772 (C 838). Partly (see Hatzfelc) from OF. roler, roller,
later rouler, to roll.—Late L. rofulare, to roll, revolve.—L. rotula,
a little wheel ; dimin. of rota, a wheel. And partly from OF, rozler,
to roll, from the sb. roele, a little wheel. —L. rotella, dimin. of the
same L. rota. See Rotary. Der. roll, sb., ME. rolle, Ancren
Riwle, p. 344, l. 11, from OF. rolle, later rowle,‘a rowle,’ Cot., which
from Late L. retulum, acc. of rotulus, a roll (preserved in the phrase
custos rotulorum). Also roll-er, roll-ing, roll-ing-pin, rolling-press.
Also (from F. roule) roul-ean, roul-ette. Also cont-rol, q.v.
ROMANCE, a fictitious narrative. (F.—L.) The French origi-
nals from which some E. poems were translated or imitated are often
referred to by the name of the romance. Rob. of Glouc. (p. 487,
1. 9987), in treating of the history of Rich. I, says there is more about
him ‘in romance ;’ and, in fact, the Romance of Richard Cuer de
Lion is extant in E. verse; see Weber's Met. Romances. =OF.
romanz, romans, a romance (Godefroy). This peculiar form is
believed to have arisen from the Late L. adv. rdmanicé, so that
romanicé loqui was translated into OF. by parler romans. It then
became a sb., and passed into common use. The Proy. romans
occurs (1) as an adj.=L. Roméanus, (2) as a sb., the ‘ Roman’
language, and (3) asasb.,aromance. B. By the ‘Roman’ language
was meant the vulgar tongue used by the people in everyday life, as
distinguished from the ‘ Latin’ of books. We now give the name of
Romance Languages to the languages which are chiefly founded on
Latin, or, as they are also called, the Neo-Latin languages. y. The
Late L. Romanicé, i.e. Roman-like, is formed from the adj. Romanus,
Roman.=—L. Roma, Rome. Der. romance, verb, romanc-er. Also
(from Rdmanus) Roman, Roman-ist, Roman-ism, Roman-ise; also
roman-esque, from F. romanesque, ‘ Romish, Roman,’ Cot., from Ital.
Romanesco, Romanish. Also (from Roma) Rom-ish. And see
Romaunt.
ROMAUNT, a romance. (F.—L.) The Romaunt of the Rose,
usually attributed to Chaucer, though only 1705 lines of it are really
his, is a well-known poem. It is a translation of the French poem
Le Roman de la Rose. Thus romaunt answers to F. roman. The
final ¢ is found in F. as well as E.; the OF. form was (in the oblique
case) romant, or even rowmant. Another OF. form of the same
word was romanz (whence E. romance), so that romanz, roman,
romant are three forms of the same word. See further under
Romance. Der. romant-ic, spelt romantick in Phillips, ed. 1706,
from mod. F. romantigue, romantic, an adj. formed from romant,
another form of roman, as explained above ; romant-ic-al-ly,
ROOST 523
ROMMANY, vipsy; a gipsy; see Rum (2).
ROMP, to play noisily. (F.—Teut.) In the Spectator, no. 187,
we find ‘a romping girl,’ and rompishness. The older spelling was
Ramp, q.v. The intermediate form raumpe occurs in Caxton’s
print of Malory’s Morte Arthure, bk. ix. c. 1, with reference to
a ‘raumpynge lyon.’ Der. romp, sb., Tatler, no. 15, romp-ish, romp-
ish-ly, romp-ish-ness.
RONDEAU, a kind of poem. (F.—L.) Borrowed from mod.
F. rondeau. The ME. word was Roundel, q.v. Doublet, roundel.
RONYON, a mangy person. (F.) In Shak. Merry Wives, iv. 2.
195; Macb. i. 3.6. Prob. formed (with suffix -ox) from MF, rongne,
I. rogne, ‘scurf, scabbiness, the mange;’ Cot. Cf. Ital. rogna,
scab; Span. rovia, scab, dirt, fraud ; Port. roxha, scab, craftiness ; mod.
Proy. rougne, scab; meichanto rougno, ‘mauvais drdle,’ Mistral.
From a Late L. type *rdnea; Korting, § 8141.
ROOD, the holy cross; a measure of Jand. (E.) The same word
as rod, as shown under Rod. Hence its use as a measure of land,
because measured with a measuring-rod or ‘ pole,’ of the length of
54 yards, giving a square rod of 30} square yards, and a square rood
of 40 square rods, or a quarter of an acre. For the sense of ‘ cross,’
see Legends of the Holy Rood, ed. Morris. AS. rad, a gallows,
cross, properly a rod or pole; Matt. xxvii. 40, John, xix. 17.4
OFries. rode, OSax. rdda, gallows, cross; Du. roede, a rod, perch,
wand, yard ; G. ruthe, OHG, ruota, a rod, arod of land. Teut. type
*roda, fem., a rod, a pole. The prime grade is *rad-. Der.
rood-loft (Nares).
ROOF, the covering of a house. (E.) For hroof, initial ἃ being
lost. ME. rof, Havelok, 2082; rhof, Ormulum, 11351. AS. hraf,
a roof, Mark, ii. 4; OFries. hrdf.4-Du. roef,a cabin; Icel. hraf,a
shed under which ships are built or kept. Teut. type *hrafo-, Idg.
type *krapo-. Cf. Irish crd,a hovel; W. craw, a pig-sty; Bret. crou,
a stable; Stokes-Fick, p. 96. Der. roof, verb; roof-ing, roof-less.
ROOK (1), a kind of crow. (E.) ME. rook, Prompt. Parv. AS.
hroc; Ps, 146, 10; ed. Spelman.+Icel. hkrokr; Dan. raage; Swed.
réka; MHG, ruoch, OHG. hruoh ; cf. G. ruchert, a jackdaw (Fliigel).
Teut. type *hrokoz, τὰ B. The word means ‘ croaker;’ cf. Goth.
hritkjan, to crow as a cock; Gk. κρώζειν (for *xpwy-yev), tocaw. A
word of imitative origin. Der. rook-er-y.
ROOK (2), a castle, at chess. (F.—Pers.) ‘Roke of the chesse,
roc;’ Palsgrave. ME. rook, Prompt. Parv. =F. roc, ‘a rook at chesse,’
Cot. [Cf. Span. rogue, Ital. rocco.]—Pers. rokh, ‘the rook or
tower at chess;” Rich. Dict. p. 727. The remoter origin of this
word is unknown; Devic cites d’Herbelot as saying that in the
language of the ancient Persians, it signified ‘a warrior’ who sought
warlike adventures, a sort of knight-errant. The piece was orig.
denoted by an elephant carrying a castle on his back; we have
suppressed the elephant. There seems to be nothing to connect this
with the famous bird called the roc or rukh; except that the same
form rukh, in Persian, means ‘a hero, a knight-errant (as in
d’Herbelot), a rhinoceros, the name of a bird of mighty wing, a
beast resembling the camel, but very fierce,’ &c.; Rich. (as above).
ROOM, space, a chamber. (E.) The older meaning is simply
“space ;” hence a place at table, Luke, xiv. 7. ME. rowm; ‘and hath
roum and eek space,’ Chaucer, Legend of Good Women, 1999. AS.
rim; ‘neldon rim’=they had no room, Luke ii. 7. We also find
AS. rim, adj., spacious; ‘se weg is swide rim’ =the way is very
broad or spacious, Matt. vii. 13.4-Du. ruim, adj., spacious; sb.,
room ; Icel. riimr, spacious; rim, space; Dan, and Swed. rum, adj.
and sb.; Goth. riims, adj. and sb., Matt. vii. 13; Luke, ii. 7; G.
raum, OHG, rim, space. β. All from the Teut. type *ramoz, adj.,
spacious ; whence the sb. forms are derived. Allied to L. γᾶς, open
country, Russ. raviina, a plain, Zend ravank, wide, free, open, ravan,
a plain; Fick, i. 197; Olrish roe, a plain. See Rural. Der.
room-y, Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, st. 153, 1. 609, a late word, sub-
stituted for the ME. adj. rowm (room); room-i-ly, room-i-ness. Also
room-th (Nares), obsolete. Also rumm-age, q.v.
ROOST, a place where fowls rest at night. (E.) Frequently
applied to the perch on which fowls rest; as to which see below.
Most common in the phr. fo go 10 roost, i.e. to seek a sleeping-place.
‘They go to roust;’ Skelton, Elynour Rummyng, 191.‘ Roost for
capons or hennes;’ Palsgrave. AS. hrost; Lye gives henna hrost, a
hen-roost ; Geréfa, § 11 (in Anglia, ix. 262); and hrdst appears
again (in composition) in an obscure passage in the Exeter-book ;
see Grein. B. We also have OS. hrdst in the Heliand, 2316, where
the palsied man healed by Christ is let down through the roof; or,
as in the original, thurh thes hiises hrdst, through the wood-work of
the house-top.4+MDnu. roest, or hinnen-kot, ‘a hen-roest;’” roesten,
‘to goe to roest, as hens;” Hexham. y. In the Heliand, the sense
of hrast comes close to that of ‘roof;” and it is certainly related to
Goth. hrat, Icel. hrdt, a roof; cf. also Lowl. Scotch roost; the inner
roof of a cottage, composed of spars reaching from one wall to the
524 ROOT
The orig. roosting-place for fowls was on the
This is how roost acquired the sense of
other (Jamieson).
rafters of the inner roof.
perch. Der. roost, verb.
ROOT (1), the part of a plant in the earth, which draws up sap
from the soil, a source, cause of a matter. (Scand.) ME. rote,
Chaucer, C. T. 2; Ancren Riwle, p. 54, 1. 12,—Icel. rd¢, a root; Swed.
rot; Dan. rod. B. Hence Icel. rata, to root up, rout up, as a
swine, corresponding to prov. E. wrowt, to dig up like a hog (I. D.S.
Gloss. B. 7), ME. wroten, a word used by Chaucer of a sow, Persones
Tale (Six-text, Group I, 157), AS. wrdtan; see Root (2). This
proves that the Icel. rd¢ stands for *wrét, it being a characteristic of
that language to drop w in the (initial) combination wr. y: Fur-
ther, rd¢ is allied to Goth. waurts, a root, AS. wyrt, a wort, a root;
see Wort. It is also cognate with L. rad-ix, a root ; the Teut. base
*wrdt- answering to 1, *(w)rad-- See Radix, Rhizome. Brug-
mann, i. § 350 (2). Der. root, verb, Wint. Tale, i. 1. 25; also root,
vb., in the sense ‘to grub up,’ see Root (2); root-less, root-let.
Doublets, radix, wort.
ROOT (2), ROUT, to grub up, as ahog. (E.) In Shak. Rich.
Ill, 1. 3. 228. AS. wrdtan, to grub up, ΖΕ] το Grammar, ed.
Zupitza, p. 176, 1. 12.4-MDnu. wroeten, ‘to grub or root in the earth
as hogs doe;’ Hexham; Icel. rata, to grub up, from rdt, a root;
Dan. rode, to root up, from rod, a root. See Root (1).
ROPE, a thick twisted cord. (E.) ME. rope, roop; spelt rop,
Rob. of Glouc., p. 448, 1. 9212. AS. rap, Judges, xv. 14, xvi. 9.
Du. reep; Icel. reip; Swed. rep; Dan. reb; G. reif, a circle, hoop
(of a barrel), ring, wheel, ferrule; occasionally, a rope; Goth.
skauda-raip, shoe-latchet. B. All from the Teut. base *raip-,
prob. with the sense of ‘strip,’ whence ‘string.’ Perhaps from the
2nd grade of Teut. *reip-an-, to cut (pt. t. *raip); see Reap
(Franck). And cf. Ripe, Rip. Der. rope, vb., rop-er, a rope-
maker, P. Plowman, B. v. 336, rop-er-y, rope-maker, rope-walk; also
rop-y, adj., stringy, glutinous, adhesive, lit. rope-like, Skelton, Elinour
Rummyng, 24; rop-ing, Hen. V, iii. 5. 23; stirrup, q.v.
ROQUELAURE, a kind of cloak. (F.) In Gay’s Trivia, i. 51.
Named after the duke of Roguelaure (ab. 1715) ; Todd’s Johnson.
RORQUAL, a kind of large whale. (F.—Scand.) F. rorgual
(Littré),—Norw. réyrkval (Aasen); prob. short for réyder-kval,
‘reddish whale;’ from Norw. raud, red, and kval,a whale. Cf. Icel.
reyOr-hvalr ; from raudr, red, and hvalr, whale.
ROSE, the name of a flower. (L.—Gk.—OPersian.) ME. rose;
the old plural was rosen, as in Ancren Riwle, p. 276, 1. 12. AS.
rose, pl. rosan; Grein, ii. 384.—L. rosa, a rose. B. This is not
a true L. word, but borrowed from Gk. ῥόδον, a rose, whence a
form *fodia (not found), AZolic *fofa>L. rosa; cf. L. Clausus
with Claudius, y. Again, the Gk. ῥόδον, Aolic form βρόδον (for
*Fpddov), is not a Gk. word, but borrowed from OPers. varia,
a rose; whence also the Armen. and Arab. ward. Rich. Dict.
1638; altered in mod. Persian to the form gal; for which see
Julep. (Horn, § 927; Brugmann, i. 772b.) Der. ros-ac-e-ous,
from L. rosaceus (Pliny); ros-ar-y, ME. rosarie, Chaucer, C. T.
16897 (G 1429), from OF. *rosarie (not recorded), later form rosaire,
from Late L. rosarium, a chaplet, also the title of a treatise on
alchemy by Arnoldus de Villa Nova and of other treatises ; ros-e-ate,
a coined word ; ros-ette, from Ἐς. rosette, ‘a little rose,’ Cot. ; rose-
water, rose-wood, ros-y, ros-t-7ess,
ROSEMARY, a small evergreen shrub. (F.—L.) In Skelton,
Garl. of Laurel, 980; and in Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. ii. c. 9.
Gower has the form rosmarine, C. A. iii. 132 (bk. vii. 1407), where
the L. marginal note has rosa marina.—OF. rosmarin, ‘ rosemary,’
Cot. (and in Hatzfeld); mod. F. romarin. = L. rdsmarinus, rdsmarinum,
rosemary ; lit. marine dew, or sea-dew; called in Ovid rds maris,
Metam. xii. 410. —L. rds, dew; and marinus, marine. Russ. rosa, dew ;
Lithuan. rasa, dew (Nesselmann).+4Skt. vasa-s, juice, essence; cf. ras,
to taste. And see Marine. @ Named from some fancied con-
nexion with ‘sea-spray;’ in English, it seems to have been altered
to rosemary from a popular etymology connecting rose with Mary.
ROSIN, the same as Resin, q. y.
ROSTER, a military register. (Du.) The o is properly long;
pron. roaster.—Du. rooster, a gridiron; also, ‘a list, roll, table’
(Calisch); said to be from the resemblance of the lines in a list to
the bars of a gridiron.— Du. roosten, to roast ; see Roast.
ROSTRUM, a platform for an orator to speak from. (L.)
‘Before the Rostra;’ P. Holland, tr. of Suetonius, Nero, ch. 13.
‘ Rostrum, the beak of a bird, prow of a ship, nose of an alembic ;’
Phillips, ed. 1706.—L, rostrum, a beak, prow ; pl. roséra, the Rostra,
an erection for speakers in the forum, so called because adorned with
the beaks of ships taken from the Antiates, A.U.C. 416; Livy, viii.
14 (White). For *réd-trum, as being the organ wherewith the bird
pecks.—L. radere, to gnaw, peck; see Rodent. Der. rostr-ate,
rostri-form,
ROTTEN
ROT, to putrefy. (E.) A weak verb; pt. t. rotted; pp. rotted, as
in Shak. Mid. Nt. Dream, ii. 1. 95. This pp. is little used, its place
being supplied by roéten, a Scand. form; see Rotten. ME. roten,
rotien, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 4405 (A 4407); pt. t. rotede, Genesis and
Exod., ed. Morris, 3342; pp. roted, Will. of Palerne, 4124. AS.
rotian, pt. t. rotode, pp. rotod; Exod. xvi. 24.+-Du. rotten; OHG.
rozén. B. Further allied to Icel. rotna, Swed. rutina, Dan.
raadne, to become rotten, verbs which are allied to the old strong
pp. appearing in Icel. rotinn, Swed. ruften, Dan. raaden, rotten.
See Rotten, which belongs to a more original type. Der. rot, sb.,
dry-rot,
ROTARY, turning like a wheel. (L.) A modern coined word ;
in Bailey’s Dict., vol. ii. ed. 1731. As if from a L. type *rotarius,
from rota, a wheel.+Gael. and Irish roth, W. rhod, a wheel;
Lithuan. ratas,a wheel; pl. ratai, a cart, wheeled vehicle ; G. rad,
awheel. Cf. Skt. ratha-s, a car, chariot, vehicle. All from4/RET,
to run along; as in Olrish rith-im, I run; Lith. ritu, I roll, turn
round; Brugmann, i. § 159. Der. rot-ate, from L. rotatus, pp. of
rolare, to revolve like a wheel; rot-at-ion, from L. acc, rotatiOnem ;
rot-at-or-y, formed with suffix -y from L. ro/aor, a whirler round.
And see rotund-i-ty, rond-eau, round, round-el, rund-let, roué, roll,
row-el, rouleau, roulette.
ROTKH (1), routine, repetition of the same words. (F.—L.) ‘And
euery statute coude he plaine δὲ rote’=and he knew the whole of
every statute by rote; Chaucer, C. T. 329. ‘[He] can nou3t wel
reden His rewle.. . but be pure rote'=he cannot well read the rule
of his order except merely by rote; P. Plowman’s Crede, 377. —OF.
rote (Godefroy), mod. F. route, a road, way, beaten track; Norm.
dial. rote, a little path (Duméril). Hence the dimin. OF. rotine,
mod. F. routine, as in the proverbial expression par rotine, ‘by rote;’
Cot. Hence by rote=along a beaten track, or with constant
repetition ; see Rut (1). B. The orig. sense of OF. rote is ‘a
great highway in a forest,’ Cot., cognate with Ital. rotfa, which,
however, means a breaking up, a rout, defeat. The OF. rote is
really the fem. of rof, old pp. of rompre, to break, and thus ro/e=L.
rupta, lit. broken. As Diez says, the Ἐς roue, a street, way =uia
rupta, a way broken through, just as the OF. brisée (lit. broken)
means a way. Orig. applied to a way broken or cut through a
forest.mL. rupta, fem. of ruptus, pp. of rumpere, to break; see
Rupture. By rote has nothing to do with OF. rote, a musical
instrument, as some suppose; see Rote (2). By way of further
illustration, we may note that the Dict. of the French Academy
(1813) gives: ‘ Rower, habituer quelqu’un a une chose, l’y exercer.
Les cartes se routent, pour dire qu’on a beau les méler, les mémes
combinaisons, les mémes suites de cartes reviennent souvent.’ And
again: ‘ I] ne sait point de musique, mais il chante par routine ;’ id.
The latter passage expressly shows that to sing by rote is to sing
without a musical instrument. Der. ro¢-ed, Cor. iii. 2.553 cf ‘1
roote in custome, je habitue,’ Palsgrave. Doublets, route, rout (1),
rut (1).
ROTE (2), the name of an old musical instrument. (F.—G.—C.)
‘Wel coude he singe and plaien on a rote ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 236.
‘Playing on a rote;’ Spenser, F. Ὁ. iv. 9. 6.—OF. rote, a musical
instrument mentioned in Le Roman de la Rose, as cited by Roque-
fort. Burguy explains that there were two kinds of rotes, one a sort
of psaltery or harp played with a plectrum or quill, the other much
the same as the F. vielle, which Cotgrave calls ‘a rude instrument
of music, usually played by fidlers and blind men, i.e. a kind of
fiddle, [Roquefort absurdly connects rote with the L, rota, as if it
were a kind of hurdy-gurdy, which it never was, and this has pro-
bably helped on the notion that E. ro¢e in the phr. by rote must also
have to do with the turning of a wheel, which is certainly not the
case. ]—OHG. hrota, rota, MHG., rotte, a rote; spelt chrotta in Low
Lat. (Ducange). Of Celtic origin; Olrish crot, W. crwth, Gael.
cruit, a harp, violin; see Crowd (2). Stokes-Fick, p.g9. τ See
Lacroix, Arts of the Middle Ages, p. 217 of E. translation.
ROTHER, an ox. (E.) In Shak. Timon, iv. 3. 12. ME.
rotheren, pl., P. Ploughman’s Crede, 431; ruderen, pl., Layamon, 8106,
Late AS. hrideru, pl., Kemble, Cod. Dipl. iv. 275. Earlier AS.
hrider, hryder (Bosworth); and in comp., hrid-. The base hrid- is
for *hrinth-, cognate with G. rind, ox. Teut. type *hrinthis, n., ox
(Kluge). The ME. rother, Du. rund, are (more probably) connected
with Teut. type *hrunthis, n.; see Kluge and Franck. Perhaps
allied to AS, hrindan (pp. hrunden), Icel. hrinda, to push, to thrust ;
see Rend. And see Runt. See my Notes on Eng. Etym., p. 253.
ROTTEN, putrid. (Scand.) ME. roten, Chaucer, C. T. 4404
(A 4406) ; Ancren Riwle, p. 84, note d, where the text has rofed. =
Icel. rotinn, rotten; Swed. rutten; Dan. raaden. B. Apparently
Icel. rotinn is the pp. of a lost verb *rjota, pr. t. *raut, to wet, to
decay, allied to AS. réotan, OHG. riuzan, to weep, shed tears.
Teut. type *reutan-, pt. t. *raut, pp. *rutanoz, From 4/REUD;
ROTUNDITY
whence also Lith. raudoti, Skt. rud, to weep, L. rudere, to bellow.
See Ret. And see Rot. Der. rotten-ness.
ROTUNDITY, roundness. (F.—L.) In K. Lear, iii. 2. 7.
Adapted from F, rotondité, (οἵ. “Τὸ. rotunditatem, acc. of rotunditas,
roundness.=—L. rofundus, round; see Round. Der. (from L.
rotundus), rotund ; rotund-a, a round building.
ROUBLE, RUBLE, a Russian coin. (Russ.) Spelt rubble,
Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. i. p. 256; roble, id. i. 280, under the date
Aug. I, 1556. —Russ. ruble,a rubdle, 100 copeks; worth about 35. 4d.
Perhaps from Pers. rapiya, a rupee (Miklosich). See Rupee.
ROUB, a profligate. (F.—L.) Merely F. rowé, lit. broken on the
wheel; a name given, under the regency (A.D. 1715-1723), to the
companions of the duke of Orleans, men worthy of being broken on
the wheel ; a punishment for the greatest criminals. Pp. of rouer,
lit. to turn round (L. rotare).—F. roue, a wheel. —L. rota, a wheel.
See Rotary.
ROUGH, red paint. (F.—L.) Modern; added by Todd to
Johnson. =F. rouge, rede L. rubenm, acc. of rubeus, red ; whence
rouge is formed like rage from L. rabiem (Littré). Allied to ruber,
red; see Red, Ruby. Dev. rouge, verb.
ROUGH, shaggy, not smooth, uneven, violent, harsh, coarse,
rugged, (E.) In Chaucer, C. T. 3736 (A 3738), the MSS. have
rough, rogh, row. Other spellings are ruk, rugh, ru, rou, ru}; see
Stratmann, 5. ν. ruk. AS. rah, rough, hairy ; 3 Gen. xxvii. 11; also
rig. Cf. AS. riwan, pl.; Gen, xxvil. 23.4-Du. ruig, hairy, rough,
harsh, rude; MDu. ru (Oudemans); Dan. ru; Low G. ruug (Bremen
Worterbuch) ; OHG. rah, MHG. rich, hairy; G. rauh, rough.
Also Skt. riksha-, rough. B. Cf. also Lithuan. raxkas, a fold,
wrinkle, rukti, to wrinkle; the orig. sense may have been uneven,
like something wrinkled. 47 Distinct from raw. Der. rovgh-ly,
-ness ; rough, verb, rough-en; rough-hew (rougheheawe in Palsgrave) ;
rough-ish, rough-rider. And see rug.
ROULEAU, a roll of coins in paper. (F.—L.) See Stanford
Dict. In Pope, The Basset-table, 1. 81. From F. rouleau, ‘a roll of
aper;”’ Cot. Rouleau stands for an OF. *roulel, *rolel, in Froissart
roliel (Hatzfeld), a diminutive from OF. role, later rowle, a roll; see
Roll
ROULETTE, a game of chance, (F.—L.) See Sandford
Dict. From F. rill tte; named from the ball which rolls on a
turning table. For Ἐ ΟΕ δε, OF, ruelete (Hatzfeld) ; dimin. οἱ
rouelle, alittle wheel, dimin. of roue,a wheel (L. rota). See Rowel.
ROUN, ROWN, ROUND, to whisper. (E.) Shak. has
rounded, whispered, Κα. John, ii. 566; but the d is excrescent. ME.
rounen, Chaucer, C. T. 5823 (Ὁ 241); P. Plowman, B. iv. 13.
AS. runian, to whisper; riimedon=L. susurrabant, Ps. xl. 8, ed.
Spelman. = AS. rin, a rune, mystery, secret colloquy, whisper; see
Rune.
ROUND, circular, globular. (F.—L.) ME. round, Chaucer,
C. T. 3932 (A 3934). — OF. roond, mod. F. roxd, round. - L.
rotundus, round; formed, with suffix -udus, from rot-a, a wheel;
see Rotary. Der. round, sb., round, verb; round-about, in Levins;
round-head, from the Puritan fashion of having the hair cut close
to the head; round-house; round-ish, round-ly, round-ness. Also
round-el, q.v., rond-eau, q.v., rund-let, q.v
ROUNDEL, a kind of ballad. (F. eT) The mod. F. form is
rondeau; see Rondeau. ME. roundel, Chaucer, C. T. 1531
(A 1529); Legend of Good Women, 423.-OF. rondel, later ron-
deau, which Cotgrave explains as ‘a rime or sonnet that ends as it
begins.’ For a specimen of a roundel, in which the first two lines
recur after the fifth, see Chaucer’s poem of Merciless Beauty. So
called from the first line coming rouzd again. Dimin. from F.
rond, round; see Round. Der. roundel-ay, Spenser, Shep. Ka-
lendar, June, 49, from F. rondelet, dimin. of OF. rondel (Cot.) ; the
E. spelling is prob. due to confusion with Jay, a song.
ROUSSH (1), to raise up, excite, awaken, rise up. (Scand.)
rouse a deare’ [deer]; Levins.
‘To
Tt was a term of the chase; cf.
Rich, II, ii. 3. 128. ‘Some like wilde bores, late rouz’d out of the
brakes ;’ Spenser, Εἰ Q. ii. 11. το. But it was orig. intransitive.
“I rowse, I stretche myselfe;” Palsgrave.—Swed. rusa, to rush;
rusa fram, to rush forward ; rusa upp, to start up; MSwed. rwusa, to
tush, go hastily (Ihre) ; Dan. ruse, to rush. Allied to AS. hréosan,
to rush, also to fall down, ‘to come down with a rush; ” Grein,
ii. 104. B. Teut. base *hreus- ; the orig. sense was prob. to start
forward suddenly, to burst out. See further under Rush (1), which
is not quite the same word as the present, but allied to it. Hence
also rouse is to wake a sleeper, viz. by a sudden movement. Der.
a-rouse, with a prefix suggested by a-rise.
ROUSSE (2), a drinking-bout. (Scand.) In Shak. Hamlet, i. 2.
L273 15 4: Osiidle Let5 Shs Oth. ii. 3. 66.—Swed. rus, a drunken fit,
drunkenness; rusa, to fuddle ; ; Dan. rus, intoxication, sove rusen πὰ
(to sleep out one’s rouse), to sleep oneself sober. We find also Du.
ROWLOCK, ROLLOCK, RULLOCK 525
roes, drunkenness ; eenen roes drinken (to drink a rouse), ‘to drink
till one is fuddled’ (Sewel) ; but it does not seem to be an old word
in Dutch, being omitted by Hexham. Cf. EFries, riise, noise,
uproar, ‘row;’ riisev, to make a noise; Low G. rise, noise.
q Uhat we got the word from Denmark is shown by a curious
quotation in Todd’s Johnson: ‘Thou noblest drunkard Bacchus,
teach me how to take the Danish rowza;’ Brand’s Pop. Antiq. ii.
228 (ed. Bohn, ii. 330). See Row (3).
ROUT, (1) a defeat, (2) a troop or crowd of people. (F.—L.)
Notwithstanding the wide difference of sense, the word is er one.
More than that, it is the same word as Route, q.v. 1. Shak. has
rout, i.e. disordered flight, 2 Hen. VI, v. 2.31; Cymb. v. 3.41; and
rout, verb, to defeat and ’put to disorderly flight, Cymb. v. 2. 12.
This does not seem to occur much earlier. 2. ΜΕ. route, a
number of people, troop, Chaucer, C. T. 624 (A 622), Will. of
Palerne, 1213; Layamon, 2598, later text.—F. rou/e, ‘a rowt, over-
throw, defeature; . . also, a rowt, heard, flock, troope, company,
multitude of men or beasts; . . “also, a rutt, way, path, street,
course; Cot.—L. rupta, fem. of rupitts, broken. B. ‘The different
senses may be thus explained. 1. A defeat isa breaking up ofa host,
a broken mass of flying men. 2. A small troop of men is a frag-
ment or broken piece of an army; and the word is generally used in
contempt, of a companv in broken ranks or disorderly array.
3. A route was. originally, a way broken or cut out through a wood
or forest. See Route. @ The G. rotte, a troop, is merely bor-
rowed from the Romance languages. Cf. Ital. rotta, Span. rota,
a rout, defeat. It is remarkable that the mod. F. route has lost the
senses both of ‘defeat’ and ‘troop.’ Der. rout, verb, as above.
ROUTE, a way, course, line of march. (F.—L.) Not much
used in later authors, but it occurs very early. ME. route, spelt rute,
Ancren Riwle, p. 350, 1. 1.—F. route, ‘a way, path, street, course . .
also, a glade in a wood;’ Cot. B. The sense of ‘glade’ is the
earliest ; it meant a way broken or cut through a forest. —L. rupta,
fem. of ruptus, pp. of rumpere, to break. See Rote (1), Rout,
Rupture. Der. rou/-ine. Doublets, rote (1), rout, rut (1).
ROUTINE, a beaten track, a regular course of action. (F.—L.)
Modern.=—F. routine, a usual course of action; lit. a small path,
pathway; dimin. of rowze, a route, way; see Route.
ROVER, a pirate, wanderer. (Du.) ME. rover, rovare. ‘ Robare,
or robbar yn the see, rovare, or thef of the se, Pirata;’ Prompt.
Parv. p. 437. ‘A rovere of the see;’ Gower, C. Α. 1. 359; bk. iii.
2369.— Du. roover, ‘a rober, a pyrate, or a theef;”? Hexham.—Du.
rooven, to rob,— Du. roof, ‘spoile;’ id. B. The Du. roof is cognate
with AS. réaf, spoil, plunder. See Reave, Rob. Der. rove, verb ;
“To roue, robbe, Rapere; to reve about, Errare, vagari;’ Levins.
The second sense was easily developed; the sb. rover is the older
word in English though etymologically due to the verb. The Icel.
rafa, to rove, stray, is prob. not related.
ROW (1), aline, rank, series. (E.) ME. rowe, Amis and Amiloun,
1900 (Weber’s Met. Rom. vol. ii); rewe, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 2868
(Α 2866) ; raw, Barbour’s Bruce, v. 590. AS. raw, réw, a row; a
scarce word. ‘Panon on pa r@we;’ Kemble, Cod. Diplom. v. 275;
‘on .. hege-réwe, to the hedge-row, id. ii. 54. Allied to Du. ri,
MDu. rig, rijge (Oudemans), Low G. rige, rege, ας rethe, a row.
The Ὁ. reihe is from OHG., rikan, to string together, to arrange
things (as beads) by passing a string or rod through them; a strong
verb, of which the Teut. type is *reihwan-, pt. τ. *rathw, whence the
sb. *rai(g)wa, f., Teut. type of AS. raw, a form which occurs in A. 5.
Leechdoms, ii. 238. Further allied to Skt. rékha@, a line; from root
*reikh, with labio-velar kh.
ROW (2), to propel a boat with oars, (E.) ME. rowen, Polit.
Songs, ed. Wright, p. 254; Wyclif, Luke, viii. 26. AS. rowan, to
row, sail, Luke, vili. 23, 26.4-Du. roezjen; Icel. rda; Swed. ro;
Dan. roe; MHG. riiejen. Allied to Olrish ram, L. rémus, an oar ;
and further, to Skt. aritra-, a rudder, orig. a paddle; Lithuan. irtt,
torow; Gk. éperpds, a paddle, oar. 4/ERE. Der. row, sb., row-er.
Also rudder, q. v.
ROW (3), an uproar. (Scand.) Shortened from rouse, drunkenness,
uproar, the older form being obsolete ; see Todd’s Johnson. The loss
of s is as in pea, cherry, sherry, &c. See Rouse (2).
ROWAN-TREE, the saine as Roan-tree, q. v.
ROWEL, a little wheel with sh-rp points at the end of a spur.
(F.—L.) ‘A payre of spurres, with a poynte without a rowell ;’
Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol. ii. c. 245. (R.) ‘ Rowell of a spurre;’
Palsgrave. =F. rowelle, ‘a little flat ring, a wheele of plate or iron, in
horses bitts;’ Cot. [He gives mollette as the MF. word for a
rowel; on the other hand, Spenser uses rowe/ for a part of a horse’s
bit ; F, Q. i. 7. 37-)— Late L. rotella, a little wheel, dimin. of rota,
a wheel ; see Rotary.
ROWLOCK, ROLLOCK, RULLOCK. (E.) The history of
this word is impertectly known ; in Ashe’s Dict. (1775) it is oddly
526 ROYAL
spelt rowlack. It is an alteration of oar-lock, due to confusion
with the vb. fo row. See Oarlockin N.E. D. The true AS. word
was Grloc (Ettmiiller); we find ‘columbaria, ar-locu,’ Voc. 288. 6.
Hence ME. orlok, Liber Albus, pp. 235, 237, 239. This word is
compounded of AS. ar, an oar, and Joc, cognate with G. loch, a hole,
as is evident from comparing G. ruderloch or rudergat, a rowlock,
rullock, or oar-hole. The AS. loc is also allied to AS. Joca= the
modern E. Jock, in the sense of ‘ fastening;’” and is derived from Joc-,
weak grade of the strong verb Jiican, to lock, fasten ; see Lock (1).
The orig. oar-fastenings or rullocks were, at least in some cases,
actual holes; and hence at a later period we find them called oar-
holes. Ina Nominale pr. in Voc. 737. 32, we find: ‘ Hoc columber,
are-hole,’ whereupon the editor notes that it means ‘an air-hole,
a small unglazed window.’ This is wrong; are is the Northern form
of oar, and columber is for L. columbare. In Hexham’s Du. Dict. the
MDn. riemgaten and roeygaten are explained by ‘ the oare-holes to put
out the oares.’ Hence, in the word rullock, we know that -lock
signifies ‘hole.’ And, as to the whole word, I believe it to be
nothing but another form of ME. orlok, i.e. oarlock. The shifting of
r is common in English ; and, in this instance, it was assisted by
confusion with the verb zo row, and (possibly) with the MDu. roeygat.
If so, the spelling rowlock is merely due to popular etymology ; it
does not express the pronunciation, Worcester’s Dict. gives the
form rollock.
ROYAL, kingly. (F.—L.) ME. real, Chaucer, C. T. 1020
(A 1018), where some MSS. have roial.—OF. real, roial ; spelt royal
in Cotgrave, and explained as ‘ royall, regall, kingly.’=—L. régalis,
regal, royal; see Regal. Der. royal-ist; royal-ty, ME. realte,
Gower, C. A, iii. 220; bk. vii. 3810, from OF. realte, reialte, spelt
royaulté in Cotgrave, from L. acc. régalitatem. And see real (2).
Doublet, regal.
RUB, to move over a surface with pressure, scour, wipe. (E.)
ME. rubben, Chaucer, C. T. 3745 (A 3747); P. Plowman, B. xiii. 99.
Not in AS. Cf. EFries. rubben, Dan. rubbe, Norw. rubba, to rub, to
scrub. Also Norw. rubben, rough, uneven; [Fries. rubberig, rough ;
Du. robbelig, ‘rugged,’ Sewel. Also W. Flem. wrobbelen, wrubbelen,
to scrub, wash clothes by rubbing. The Teut. base is apparently
*wreub. Der. rub, sb., Macb. iii. 1.134; rubb-er. ¢ Not con-
nected with G. reiben, which is froma Teut. base *wreid; cf. Du.
wrijven, torub. But they may be parallel formations.
RUBASSBH, a variety of rock-crystal, with a red tinge. (F.—L.)
F. rubace; from the base of L. rub-eus, reddish ; see Ruby.
RUBBISH, broken stones, waste matter, refuse; nonsense.
(AF.—Scand.) Proy. E. rubbage, as in Norfolk (Forby). Palsgrave
has ‘robrisshe of stones, plastras;’ and Cotgrave explains the F.
plastras by ‘rubbish, clods or pieces of old and dry plaister.’ Hor-
man, in his Vulgaria (as cited by Way, note to Prompt. Parv., p. 435)
says that ‘Battz [brick-bats] and great rubbrysshe serueth to fyl up in
the myddell of the wall.” These quotations show that rubbrish was
used in the exact sense of what we now usually call rubble; and the
two words, rubble and rubbish, are closely connected. B. In the form
rubbrish, the latter r is intrusive, since it disappears in earlier, as well
as in later English. The ME. form is robows, or robeux ; as, ‘ Robows,
or coldyr, Petrosa, petro,’ where coldyr is an old word for rubble;
Prompt. Pary. Way adds: in the Wardrobe Account of Piers
Courteys, Keeper of the Wardrobe 20 Edw. IV (1480), occurs a pay-
ment to ‘ John Carter, for cariage away of a grete loode of robeux,
that was left in the strete after the reparacyone made uppon a hous
apperteigning unto the same Warderobe;’ Harl. MS. 4780. γ. The
spelling robeux furnishes the key to the solution of the word. It is
an AF. plural form, from a sing. *robel, i.e. rubble. Here *robel is
exactly the ME. robel (see Rubble), and the pl. robeux (or robeaux)
became robows, as in the Prompt. Parv., and was easily corrupted
into rubbage and rubbish, and even into rubbrish (with intrusive r).
In this view, rubbish is the pl. of rubble, and was accordingly at first used
in the same sense. ὃ. At what time the word robeux first appeared
in English I have no exact means of knowing, but I find an earlier
trace of it in the fact that an allied word was Latinised as rubbésa
(as if it were a neuter plural), in accordance with its plural form, as
early as A.D. 1392 or 1393. Blount, in his Nomolexicon, s. v. lastage,
cites an act against throwing rubbish into the Thames, in which are
the words ‘aut fimos, fimaria, sterquilinia, sordes, mucos, rubbosa,
lastagium, aut alia sordida;’ Claus. 16 Rich. II. dors. 11. And
this rubbdsa answers to the AF. robous, robouse, rubbish, in the Liber
Albus, pp. 579, 581. See further below.
RUBELE, broken stones, rubbish. (Scand.) ‘Rubble, or
rubbish;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627. ‘Rubble, or rubbish of old houses ;’
also, ‘carrie out rubble, as morter, and broken stones of old build-
ings ;’ Baret’s Alvearie, ed. 1580. ME. robell ; ‘Oon parte of lyme
and tweyn of robell have;’ Palladius, bk. i. 340. Grammatically,
rubble scems to be the singular of robeux, the old form of rubbish ; see
RUE
above. The traces of the word are slight, but it seems to be of
Scand. origin. —Norw. rubl (Ross), with the same sense as rubb
(below); cf. Du. robbelig, rugged (Sewel) = prov. E. rubbly, lumpy,
gritty. — Norw. rubb (Aasen), in the phr. rubb og stubb; Dan. rub, in
the phr. rub og stub, ‘bag and baggage ;’ including even articles of
the least value; Icel. rubbi, rubb, rubbish, refuse. Stub=a stub,
bit, piece. So prov. E. stoup and roup, ‘entirely,’ or ‘every bit.’
Prob. Dan. rub orig. meant ‘a broken bit,’ a lump.
RUBRIC, a direction printed in red. (F.—L.) ME. rubryke, St.
Cuthbert, 1318 (Surtees Soc.). The rubrics in the Book of Common
Prayer, and (earlier) in the Missal, &c., were so called from being
usually written or printed in red letters. [ME. rubriche, Chaucer,
C. T. 5928 (D 346); this is an OF. form; cf. rubriche, ‘rudle,
oaker ;’ Cot.) =F. rubrique, <a rubrick ; a speciall title or sentence of
the law, written or printed inred;’ Cot. —L. rubrica, red earth ; also
a rubric, a title of law written in red. Formed as if from an adj.
*rubricus, extended from rubri-, from ruber, red; see Ruby.
RUBY, a red gem. (F.—L.) ME. ruby, P. Plowman, B. ii. 12.
“-- OF. rubi (13th cent., Littré), also rubis, ‘a ruby,’ Cot. [The s is
the old sign of the nom. case, and is still preserved in writing, though
not pronounced.] Cf. Span. rubi, rubin, Port. rubim, Ital. rubino,
a ruby; Late L. rubinus. Allied to L. rubeus, red, ruber, red; cf.
rubére, to be red. Allied to Gk. ἐρυθρός, red; see Rouge, Red.
Der. (from L. rub-ére) rub-esc-ent, growing red, from the pres. part.
of inceptive vb. rubescere ; rub-i-c-und, ruddy, from F. rubicunde, very
red (Cot.), which from L, rubicundus, very red, with suffixes -c- and
-undus ; rub-r-ic, q.v. Also e-rub-esc-ent.
RUCK (1), a fold, plait, crease. (Scand.) ‘ Ruck, a fold or plait,
made in cloth by crushing it ;’ Yorksh. Gloss., A.D. 1811 (E. D. 5.
Glos. B. 7).—Icel. krukka, a wrinkle on the skin, or in cloth; cf.
hrokkinn, curled, wrinkled, pp. of hrékkva, to recoil, give way, also
to curl; Norw. rukka, a wrinkle. Cf. Swed. rynka, Dan. rynke, a
wrinkle, also to gather, wrinkle. From Teut. base *hrenk (Noreen).
Der. ruck-le, to rumple (Halliwell).
RUCK (2), a heap. (Scand.) Cf. Norw. and MSwed. ruka, a
heap; also Icel. hraukr, a rick. See Rick.
RUDD, a fish like a roach. (E.) ‘A kind of bastard small Roach
men call them Ruds;’ I. Walton, Angler, ch. 17. Named
from the deep red colour of the lower fins, Cf. AS. rud-u, redness ;
see Ruddy. MDan. rude, a rudd; Dan. rudskalle.
RUDDER, the instrument whereby a ship is steered. (E.) Orig.
a paddle, for rowing as wellas steering ; hence the etymology. ME.
roder, or (more usually) rother, Gower, C. A. i. 243; bk. il. 2494;
Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 419. AS. rdder, a paddle; ‘Palmula,
rodres bled’ = blade ofa paddle; ‘ Remus, stéor-rdfer,’ lit. a steering-
paddle; Voc. 167. 1,166.13. β. Here rd-der =rowing-implement ;
from AS, réw-an, to row, with suffix -der (Idg. -ter-), denoting the
agent or implement.4Du. roer (for *roder), an oar, rudder; Swed.
roder, also contr. to ror; Dan. ror (for *roder); G. ruder. See
Row (2).
RUDDOCEK, a red-breast. (E.) ME. ruddok, Chaucer, Parl. of
Foules, 1. 349. AS. rudduc; Voc. 131. 26; allied to rud-ig, ruddy.
Hence W. rhuddog, Corn. ruddoc, a red-breast. See Ruddy.
RUDDY, reddish, (E.) ME. rody, P. Plowman, B. xiii. 99;
rodi, Wyclif, Matt. xvi. 2. AS. rudig, in Napier’s Glosses; formed
with suffix -ig from rud-, weak grade of réodan, to redden. Allied to
AS. réad, red; see Red. Cf. Icel. rodi, redness, allied to razdr,
red. @ We also find AS. rudu, i.e. redness, applied to the com-
plexion (of the face), Voc. 156. 19; this is ME. rode, complexion,
Chaucer, C. T. 3317. Der. ruddi-ly ; ruddi-ness, Wint. Tale, v. 3.
81. Also ruddle, a kind of red earth; spelt ruddel in Holland, tr. of
Pliny, bk. xxxv. ch. 6. § 1.
RUDB, rough, uncivil, harsh. (F.—L.) ME. rude, Chaucer,
C. T. 14814 (B 3998); Cursor Mundi, 23911.—F. rude, ‘ rude;’
Cot. = L. rudem, acc. of rudis, rough, raw, rude, wild, untilled. Allied
to L. raudus, rough ore; Russ. ruda, ore; Icel. raudi, red iron ore
(from raudr, red); Skt. dha-s, iron. Allied to Red. Der. rude-ly,
rude-ness; also rudi-ment, As You Like It, v. 4. 31=F. rudiment
(omitted by Cot., but in use in the 16th century, Littré), from L.
rudimentum, a thing in the rough state, a first attempt ; rudiment-al,
rudiment-ar-y. Also e-rud-ite, e-rud-it-ion.
RUE (1), to be sorry for. (E.) For *hrue, initial ἃ being lost.
ME. rewen, Chaucer, C. T. 1865 (A 1863); Havelok, 967. AS.
hréowan, Grein, ii, 104. + OSax. hrewan; OHG. hrinwan, G. reuen.
B. AS. hréowan is a strong verb, with pt. t. kréaw; so also OSax.
hrewan, pt. τ. hrau; Teut. type *hrewwan-; pt. t. *hraw(w), to pity ;
whence also Icel. hryggr, grieved, afflicted, krygd, ruth, grief, sorrow.
Der, rue-ful, P. Plowman, B. xiv. 148; rue-ful-ly ; rue-ful-ness, ME.
reoufulnesse, Ancren Riwle, p. 368, 1. 12. And see ruth.
RUE (2), a plant with bitter taste. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. rue,
Wyclif, Luke, xi. 42.—F. rue, ‘rue, herb grace;’ (οἵ. ὦ. rita,
RUFF
rue; Luke, xi. 42.—Gk. ῥυτή, rue; a Peloponnesian word. The
AS. ride (Luke, xi. 42) is merely borrowed from L. rita,
RUFF (1), a kind of frill, formerly much worn by both sexes. (..)
In Shak. Tam. of the Shrew, iv. 3. 56; Spenser, F.Q. i. 4. 14. Also
asa verb: ‘Whilst the proud bird, ruffing [ruffling | his fethers wyde ;’
Ε΄ Ὁ. ili. 11. 32. “Ἀπ of a shirt;’ Levins. Pl.ruffes; Gascoigne,
Steel Glas, 1. 373. β. So called from its uneven surface ; perhaps
a shortened form of Ruffle (1). Der. ruff (2).
RUFF (2), the name ofa bird. (E.?) Said to be so named from
the male having a ruff round its neck in the breeding season; see
Ruff (1); which I doubt. The female is called a reeve, apparently
formed by vowel-change ; this is a very remarkable form, but has not
been explained. Cf. ‘ The pheasant, partridge, godwit, reeve, ruffe,
raile ;’ Herrick, A Panegyric to Sir L. Pemberton, 1. 65. The AS.
form should be *rdf, fem. *réfe.
RUFF (3), a fish. (E.) ΜΕ. ruffe, Prompt. Parv., p. 438. Lit.
‘rough ;’” from the spines on the back. Cf. Ital. aspredo (<L. asper,
rough), ‘a fish called a ruffe;’ Florio.
RUFF (4),a game at cards. (F.) Mentioned in Cotgrave, and
in Florio (1598); and see Nares. Now applied to the act of trump-
ing instead of following suit, but orig. the name of a game (called
also trump) like whist. Evidently a modification of Ἐς. ronfle, ‘ hand-
ruffe, at cards ;’ jouer ὦ la ronfle, * to play at hand-ruffe, also to snore;’
Cot. So also Ital. ronfa, ‘a game at cards called ruffe or trumpe ;’
ronfare, ‘to snort, snarle ; also, to ruff or trump at cards;’ Florio.
Prob. of jocular origin, the trumping (when perhaps unexpected)
being likened to a snarl, or the spitting of a cat; cf. ronfamenti,
“snortings, snarlings, or tuffings of a cat;’ Florio. Of imitative
origin ; cf. Ital. ronzare, ‘to humme or buzze,’ Florio ; Span. roncar,
‘to snore, also, to threaten, boast, brag,’ Cf. brag as the name of a
game, slam, also a game, and trump, i.e. triumph.
RUFFIAN, a bully, violent, brutal fellow. (F.—Ital. —Teut.)
‘A commune and notable rujian or thefe;’ Sir T. Elyot, The
Govyernour, b. ii. c. 12.§ 7.—MF. rufien, ruffien, ‘a bawd, a pandar,’
Cot.=—Ital. ruffiano, roffiano, ‘a pandar, a ruffian, a swaggrer,’
Florio. = Late L. type *rugflanus; formed with L. suffix -anxus from
Low G. ruffel-n, to act as pandar; see Ruffle (2). Cf. MDu.
roffen, to pandar (Oudemans). Der. ruffian-ly, ruffian-ism.
RUFFLE (1), to wrinkle, disorder a dress. (E.) ,1 ruffle clothe
or sylke, I bring them out of their playne foldynge, Fe plionne;’
Palsgrave. ΜΕ. ruffelen; ‘ Ruffelyn, or snarlyn |i.e. to entangle or
run into knots], Innodo, illaqueo;’ Prompt. Parv. The pp. ruffeld
occurs in the Cursor Mundi, 26391. ‘The word is probably E.; it
is parallel to MDu. ruyffelen, ‘to ruffle, wrinckle, or crumple,’ Hex-
ham; cf. ruyffel, ‘a wrinckle, a crumple, or a ruffle,’ id. Also
iFries. rugfeln, to pleat. The verb may be from the sb. ruffle; and
both from Teut. *ruf-, weak grade of Teut. *rewfan-, to break, tear;
see Reave. β. The Lithuan. ruple, the rough bark on old trees, is
a cognate word; so also is rauple, a rough scab or blister; both of
which are allied to Lithuan. rupas, rough, uneven. See Ruff (1).
Der. rvffle, sb., a wrinkle, a ruff (unless the vb. is from the sb.).
RUFFLE (2), to be noisy and turbulent, to bluster. (MDu.) ‘To
ruffle in the commonwealth of Rome ;’ Titus Andron. i. 313. Cf.
‘the ruffle [bustle] . . . of court;” Shak. Lover's Complaint, 58.
‘Twenty or more persons were sleyne in the rvffle;’ Hall's Chron.
Hen. VIII, an. 19. 8 18. Nares has: ‘ A ruffler,a cheating bully, so
termed in several acts of parliament,’ particularly in one of the 27th
year of Hen. VIII, as explained in Harman’s Caveat, ed. Furnivall,
Ρ. 29. They were highway robbers, ready to use violence; any law-
less or violent person was so named. 71 seems to have been a cant
term, not in very early use; and borrowed, like several other cant
terms, from the Low Countries. —MDu. roffelen, to pandar, of which
the shorter form roffen is also found (Oudemans); so also Low G.
ruffeln, to pandar, to reproach, ruffeler, a pimp, a person who carries
on secret intrigues (Bremen Worterbuch) ; prov. G. rujfeln, to pimp
(Fliigel) ; Dan. ruffer, a pandar, from Low G., roffen, ruffen, to be
lewd (Liibben). B. The words ruff-ler and ruff-ian are closely re-
lated and mean much the same thing; see Ruffian. Der. ruffi-er,
as above.
RUG, a coarse, rough woollen covering, a mat. (Scand.) ‘ Ap-
parelled in diuers coloured rugs ;’ Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. il. pt. ii.
p- 87, last line but one. ‘Irish rug,’ Baret (1580). —Swed. rugg,
rough entangled hair; cf. MSwed. rugg-ig, rough, hairy; Icel. rogg,
shagginess. See Noreen, § 246.2. The orig. sense of Swed. rugg
was, doubtless, simply ‘ rough,’ as it is cognate with Low G, ruug,
Du. ruig, rough; EFries. rag, rough, ruge, roughness, a rough side
of a skin, ruger, a furry animal (as a cat). Allied to AS. rah
(gen. riiwés), rough; Skt. rukska-, rough; see Rough. And see
Rugged. Der. rugg-ed; also rug-headed, Rich. II, ii. 1. 156.
RUGGED, rough, shaggy. (Scand.) ME. rugged, Prompt.
Parv. Chaucer has ruggy, C. T. 2885 (A 2883). The latter form
RUMB, RHUMB 527
is from Swed. ruggig, rugged, rough, hairy; cf. rugga, to raise the
nap on cloth, i. 6. to roughen it. Swed. rugg, rough entangled hair ;
orig. ‘rough,’ cognate with E. Rough, q.v. See also Rug. Der.
rugged-ly, rugged-ness,
RUGOSE, full of wrinkles. (L.) The form rugosous is in Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674 ; Phillips has the sb. rugosity. —L. rigdsus, wrinkled.
-L. riiga, a wrinkle. Cf, Lith, raukas, a wrinkle, runk-i, I grow
wrinkled. Brugmann, ii. § 628. Der. rugos-i-ty.
RUIN, destruction, overthrow. (F.—L.) ME. ruine, Chaucer,
C. T. 2465 (A 2463). —F. ruine, ‘ruine ;’ Cot.—L. ruina, overthrow.
-L. ruere, to fall down, tumble, sink in ruin, rash. Cf. Gk. ἐ-ρύειν,
to drag, pull down; Brugmann, ii. § 529. Der. ruin, verb, Rich. 11,
iii. 4. 453 ruin-ous, Timon, iv. 3. 465, from F. raineux, ‘ruinous,’
Cot. ; ruin-ous-ly. Also ruin-ate (obsolete), Titus Andron. v. 3. 204.
RULE, a maxim, state, order, government. (F.—L.) ME. reule,
Chaucer, C. T. 173. Earlier riwle, as in the Ancren Riwle= Rule of
(female) Anchorites.— AF. rewle, OF. riule, reule; mod. F. régle, a
rule. Το regula, a rule (whence also was borrowed AS. regol, a
rule).—L. regere, to govern; see Regent. Der. rule, verb, ME.
reulen, earlier riwlen, Ancren Riwle, p. 4; rul-er, rul-ing.
RUM (1), a kind of spirituous liquor. (E.) In Dampier’s Voy-
ages; Voyage to Campeachy, an. 1675; see quotation in R. [We
find also Port. rom, Span. ron, Ital. rum, F. rhum; allfromE.] For-
merly rvmbo, as in Smollett, Peregrine Pickle, ch. ii and ch. ix (1751).
The earliest form was rwmbullion. A MS.‘ Description of Barbados’
in Trin. Coll., Dublin, written ab. 1651, says:—‘ The chief fudling
they make in the island is Rumbullion, alias Kill-devil,. . made of
sugar-canes distilled, a hot, hellish, and terrible liquor.’ Later, it
was called rumbowling (Cent. Dict.), and then shortened to rumbo,
and to rum, Rumbullion is a Devon. word meaning ‘ great tumult,’
or disturbance; perhaps allied to prov, E. rumpus, an uproar, ram-
page, and romp; or else allied to E. rumble. See my Notes on E.
Etym., p. 253; and N. Darnell Davis, in The Academy, Sept. 5,
1885. @ Lhe F. name is guildive, a modification of E. Kill-devil
(above).
RUM (2), strange, queer. (Hindi.) ‘Rum, gallant; a cant word ;’
Bailey’s Dict., vol. i. ed. 1735. Isuppose that rum means no more
than ‘ Gypsy ;᾿ and hence would mean ‘ good’ or ‘ gallant’ from a
Gypsy point of view, and ‘strange’ and ‘suspicious’ from an out-
sider’s point of view. Hence rome bouse, wine, Harman’s Caveat, ed.
Furnivall, p. 83, spelt rambooz in Phillips; rome mort, the queen, id.
p- 84 (where mort=a female). Cf. rom, a husband, a Gypsy, rom-
mant, adj. Gypsy. The Gypsy word rom answers to the Hindi word
dom (with initial cerebral d); see English-Gipsy Songs, by Leland,
Palmer, and Tuckey, pp. 2,269. Cf. Skt. domba- (with cerebral d),
‘a man of a low caste, who gains his livelihood by singing and
dancing ;’ Benfey. Also Hindustani dom, ‘the name of a low caste,
apparently one of the aboriginal races;’ H. H. Wilson, Gloss. of
Indian Terms, p. 147.
RUMB, RHUMB, a line for directing a ship’s course on a
map; a point of the compass. (F.—Span.—L.—Gk.) This is
a very difficult word, both to explain and derive. The view which 1
here present runs counter to that in Littré and Scheler, but is recog-
nized as possible by Diez. ‘ Rumb or Rhumb, the course of aship.. .
also, one point of the mariner’s compass, or 11} degrees . . . Rumb-
line, a line described by the ship’s motion on the surface of the sea,
steering by the compass, so as to make the same, or equal angles
with every meridian. These rumbs are spiral lines proceeding from
the point where we stand, and winding about the globe of the earth,
till they come to the pole, where at last they lose themselves; but in
Mercator’s charts, and the plain ones, they are represented by straight
lines,’ &c.; Phillips, ed. 1706. These lines are called rumb-lines.
See Rumb in the Engl. Encyc. (Div. Arts and Sciences), where it is said
to be a Portuguese word, and where we find: ‘a rumb certainly
came to mean any vertical circle, meridian or not, and hence any
point of the compass. . . . To sail on a rumb is to sail continually on
one course. Hence a rumb-line isa line drawn in [on?] the sphere,
such as would be described by a moving point which always keeps
one course; it is therefore the spiral of Mercator’s projection, and is
that which is also called the loxodromic course.’ It is spelt roomb,
roumb, and roumbe in Minsheu, ed. 1627.—F. rumb, ‘a roomb, or
point of the compasse, a line drawn directly from wind to wind ina
compasse, travers-boord, or sea-card;’ Cot. He adds the phr.
voguer de rumb en rumb, ‘to saile by travers.’—Span. (and Port.)
rumbo, ‘a course, a way ; rumbo derecho, the right course; ’ Minsheu’s
Span. Dict., ed. 1623; also, a point of the compass, intersection of
the plane of the horizon, represented by the card of a compass, the
course of a ship; Neuman. Cf. Port. rumbo, rumo, a ship’s course;
quarto do rumo, a point of the compass; Ital. rombo.—L. rhombum,
acc. of rhombus, a magician’s circle, a rhombus (Lewis).—Gk.
ῥόμβος, a top, a magic wheel, whirling motion of a top, swoop of an
528 RUMBLE
eagle; also, a rhombus; see Rhomb. β, In this view, the sense
of circular or spiral motion comes first ; then the delineation of such
motion on a chart; and lastly, the sense of a point of a compass;
which is the simple and natural order, Milton has the very word
rhomb in the sense of the revolution of the sphere; see Paradise
Lost, viii. 134, and uses wheel asa synonym. That the word arose
among the early Spanish and Portuguese navigators, is in the highest
degree probable. The view taken by Scheler and Littré seems
to me obviously wrong; they refer Ἐς rumb (also spelt rum) to the
Du. ruim, E. room, on the ground that a rumb is the ‘room’ or
space between two winds; thus taking the last sense first. I cannot
find that the Du. ruim ever had this sense; indeed Sewel, as late as
1754, can only render rumb into Dutch by een punt van’t kompas; and
Hexham mentions no such use of the MDu. ruym. Perhaps Littré
and Scheler are thinking of quite another matter, viz. the MF. rum,
‘the hold of a ship,’ Cot. This is certainly the Du. ruim, since
Sewel gives the very phrase ruim van een schip, the hold of a ship,
i.e. its room, capacity for stowage. Korting, § 8063. Der. rumb-
line. Doublet, rhomb.
RUMBLE, to make a low and heavy sound. (E.) ME. romblen,
to mutter, Chaucer, C. T. 14453 (B 3725); to rumble like thunder,
Legend of Good Women, 1218, Cf. prov. E. rommle, to speak low
or secretly (Halliwell) ; rummle, to rumble; id. The word romblen
likewise stands for romlen, the ὁ being excrescent, as usual after m ;
and the suffix -/en has the usual frequentative force. Thus the word
signifies ‘to repeat the sound rom or rum;’ from the base RUM,
significant of a low sound ; which is from 4/R EU, tomake a humming
or lowing noise. Cf. Skt. ru, to hum, to bray; L. ad-riim-are, to
make a murmuring noise (Festus); see Rumour.+Dnu. rommelen,
to rumble, buzz; Low G. rummeln, rumpeln, to rumble ; Dan. rumle,
torumble. And cf. Swed. rama, to rattle, Ital. rombare, to rumble,
hum, buzz; MDnu. rammelen, ‘to make a noise, or to rumble,’ Hex-
ham. Der. rumble, sb., rumbl-ing.
RUMINATE, to chew the cud, meditate. (L.) ‘Lethym...
ruminate it in his mynde a good space after ;’ Sir T. Elyot, Castel of
Helth, b. iii. ch. 11. - τὸ, riimindtus, pp. of riiminare or riminari, to
chew the cud, ruminate. = L. raimin-, decl. stem of riimen, the throat,
gullet; cf. rimdare, used (according to Festus) in the same sense as
ruminare. Cf. also L. riigire,to roar, bray. From 4/REU, to hum,
bray. See Rumble, Rumour. Der. rwm/inai-ion, As You Like
It, iv. 1. 19, from L. ace. raminatidnem ; also rumin-ant, from the
stem of the pres. part. of rimindre.
RUMMAGE, to search thoroughly among things stowed away.
(E.; with Ἐς suffix.) ‘Searcheth his pockets, and takes his keyes,
and so rummageth all bis closets and trunks;’ Howell, Famil.
Letters, vol. i. sect. 5. let. last. This is altogether a secondary sense ;
the word is merely due to the sb. room-age, formed by suffix -age (of
F. origin) from E, room, space. Roomage is a similar formation to
stowage, and means much the same thing. It isan old nautical term
for the close packing of things in a ship; hence was formed the verb
to roomage or romage, i.e. to find room for or stow away packages;
and the mariner who attended to this business was called the roomager
or romager. Ββ. The history of the word is in Hakluyt’s Voyages.
‘To looke and foresee substantially to the roomaging of the shippe ;’
vol.i. p. 274. ‘They might bring away [in their ships] a great deale
more then they doe, if they would take paine in the romaging ;’
vol. i. p. 308. ‘The master must prouide a perfect mariner called a
romager, to raunge and bestow all merchandize in such place as is
conuenient ;’ vol. iii. p. 862. ‘To rummage (sea-term) to remove
any goods or luggage from one place to another, esp. to clear the
ship’s hold of any goods or lading, in order to their being hand-
somely stowed and placed; whence the word is us’d upon other
occasions, for to rake into, or to search narrowly;’ Phillips, ed.
1706. Spelt rumidge in ed. 1658. See further under Room. Cf. Du.
ruim, room, also the hold of a ship; ruimen, to empty, clear, lit. to
make room, Der. prov. E. rummage, litter, lumber, rubbish, as
after a clearance.
RUMMER, a sort of drinking-glass. (W.Flem.—Dnu.) ‘Rummer,
a sort of drinking-glass, such as Khenish wine is usually drunk in;
also, a brimmer, or glass of any liquor filled to the top;’ Phillips,
ed. 1706. ‘Rhenish rummers walk the round;’ Dryden, Ep. to Sir
G. Etherege, 1. 45.—W. Flem. rummer, rommer (De Bo); Du.
roemer, romer, a wine-glass (Sewel) ; spelt roomer in Hexham; Low
Ὁ. rémer, a sort of large wine-glass (Brem. Worterbuch). So also
G, rémer; Swed. remmare. [The G. rimer also means ‘Roman;’
and some say that the glasses were so called because used in former
times in the Rémersaal at Frankfort, when they drank the new
emperor’s health; but this is an error; see Franck.] From Du.
roem, boasting, praise; hence ‘a glass to drink in praise of a toast ;’
Franck. Cf. G. ruhm, praise ; OSax. hrdm; also Icel. hrodr, praise,
hros, praise; Gk. κήρυξ, a herald. And note O. Low G., hrémian, to
]
RUNG
praise (Gallée). Der. rumkin, romekin, W.F lem. rummerken, dimin.
of rummer (above).
RUMOUR, report, current story. (F.-L.) ME. rumour,
Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. 11. pr. 7, 1. 81.—AF. rumour, Liber
Albus, p. 462; F. rumeur, ‘a rumor;’ Cot. L. acc. rimérem, from
nom. rémor, a noise, ramour, murmur. Cf. L. riimificire, to pro-
claim ; riimitare, to spread reports; all from the base rié-m-, signifi-
cant of a buzzing sound.—4/REU, to make a humming or braying
noise. See Rumble. Der. rumour, verb, Rich. III, iv. 2. 51.
RUMP, the end of the backbone of an animal with the parts
adjacent. (Scand.) ME. rumpe, Prompt. Parv.—Icel. rumpr; Swed.
rumpa; Dan, rumpe.4-MDu. rompe, ‘the bulke of a body or corps,
or a body without a head;’ Hexham; Du. romp; Low G. rump,
trunk (of the body); G. rumpf. The orig. sense was ‘ stump ;’ cf.
Norw. ramp, an old tree-stem. Der. rump-steak.
RUMPLE, to wrinkle, crease. (E.) Cotgrave explains F. foupir
by ‘to rmmple, or crumple” The ME. form is rimplen ; rimple and
rumple are allied forms, like wrinkle and prov. E. runkle. Of these,
rimple is derived from the AS. hrimpan, to wrinkle, and rumple from
hrump-, weak grade of the same; see further under Ripple (2).
+MDu. rompelen, or rompen, ‘to wrinckle,’ Hexham; rompel, or
rimpel, ‘a wrinckle;’ id. And cf. G. riimpfen, to crook, bend,
wrinkle; OHG. hrimfan, strong vb. Teut. base *kremp-; cf.
Olvish cromm, W. crwm, bent. Der. rumple, sb.
RUN, to move swiftly, flee, flow, dart. (E.) ME. rinnen, rennen,
pt. t. raz, pp. runnen, ronnen; Chaucer, C. T. 4098, 4103 (A 4100,
4105). The mod. E. verb has usurped the vowel of the pp. through-
out, except in the pt. t. ran. By the transposition of r, we also find
ME. ernen, eornen, to run; Ancren Riwle, pp. 42, 74, 80, 86, 332,
360. ΑΒ. rinnan, pt. t. rann, pp. gerunnen; Grein, ii. 382; also
found in the transposed form irnan, yrnan, pt. t. arn; id. 146.4-Du.
rennen; Icel. renna, rinna; Dan. rinde (for *rinne) ; Swed. rinna;
Goth. rinnan; G. rennen. Teut. type *rennan-, pt. t. *rann, pp.
*runnanoz. See Brugmann, i. § 993; ii. §654. Der. run, sb., Tam.
Shrew, iv. 1.16; run-away, Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 2. 4053 runn-er, runn-
ing. Also runn-el, a small stream, Collins, Ode on the Passions,
1. 63 (AS. rynel); run, a small stream. Also renn-et (1); old form
also runn-et.
RUNAGATE, a vagabond. (F.—L.) In Ps. Ixviii. 6, Prayer-
Book version ; Shak. Rich. III, iv. 4. 465. ‘The A. V.has rebellious,
as in Isaiah xxx. 1, which is quoted by Latimer (Remains, p. 434) in
this form: ‘* Wo be unto you, runagaie children;” Bible Word-book.
In the Coventry Mysteries, p. 384, it is written renogat: ‘ Ys there
ony rexogat among us;”’’ id. B. It so happens that gate in
many E. dialects signifies a way; whilst at the same time the ME.
verb rennen passed into the form ruz,as at present. Hence the ME.
renegat, a renegade, was popularly supposed to stand for renne a gate,
i.e. to run on the way, and was turned into runagate accordingly ;
esp. as we also have the word runaway. But it is ceitain that the
orig. sense of ME. renegat was ‘apostate’ or ‘ villain ;’ see Chaucer,
C. T. 5353 (B 934).—OF. renegat, ‘a renegadoe, one that ab-
jures his religion;’ Cot.—Late L. renegatus, pp. of renegare, to
deny again, to deny the faith. See Renegade. q It is re-
markable that when rezegate had been corrupted into runagate, we
borrowed the word over again, in the form renegade, from Span.
renegado.
RUNDLET, RUNLET, a small barrel. (F.—L.) Runlet is
a later form, corrupted from the older rundelet or runlet; spelt rundlet
in Levins, ed. 1570. ‘ Rundelet, or lytle pot, oreula ;’ Huloet (cited
by Wheatley). ME. rondelet (1393); in Wylie, Hist. Hen. IV.
iv. 179. ‘ Roundlet, a certaine measure of wine, oyle, &c., con-
taining 184 gallons; An. 1. Rich. III. cap. 13; so called of his
roundness ;’ Minsheu. Formed with dimin. suffix -et from OF.
rondelle, rondele, a little tun (Godefroy); cf. rondelle, a buckler or
round target (shield), in Cotgrave. This is again formed, with
dimin. suffix -ele, -elle, from ronde, a circle, or from rond, round ; see
Round.
RUNE, one of the old characters used for inscriptions cut upon
stone. (E.) ME. rune, counsel, a letter, Layamon, 25332, 25340,
32000 ; later roun, whence roun or round in Shakespeare; see Roun.
AS. rin, a rune, mystery, secret colloquy, whisper; Grein, ii. 385.
The orig. sense seems to be ‘ whisper’ or ‘ buzz;’ hence, a low talk,
secret colloquy, a mystery, and lastly a writing, because written
characters were regarded as a mystery known to the few.+Icel. run,
a secret, a rune; Goth. ria, a mystery, counsel; OHG. rina, a
secret, counsel, whence (ἃ. raunen, to whisper; Olrish run, W.
rhin,a secret. Tdg. type *rana, fem. Cf. Gk. épevvaw, I search
out : ἔρευνα, f., an inquiry. Der. run-ic, roun.
RUNG, one of the rounds of a ladder. (E.) Also a staff (Halli-
well); one of the stakes of a cart,a spar (Webster). ME. ronze,
P. Plowman, B. xvi. 44; Chaucer, C. T. 3625 (where Tyrwhitt’s
RUNNEL
edition wrongly has renges for ronges). AS. hruxg, apparently a
pole supporting the tilt of a cart; Grein, ii. 109.-MDu. ronge,
‘the beam upon which the coulter of a plough, or of a wagon rests;’
Hexham ; G, runge, a short thick piece of iron or wood, a pin, bolt ;
Goth. hrugga (=*hrunga), a staff, Mark, vi. 8. [We find also
Irish ronga, a rung, joining spar, Gael. rong, a joining spar, rib of
a boat, staff; borrowed from English.] Cf. also Icel. réxg, a rib in
a ship. The sense seems to have been ‘rounded staff.’ Psob.
connected by gradation with AS. hring, a ring ; see Ring.
RUNNEL, a small stream ; see Run.
RUNT, a bullock, heifer. (Du.) Florio (1598) has ‘a runt,a
bullocke ;’ s.v. Giouenco.—MDu. rund, ‘a runt, a bullock,’ Hex-
ham; Du. rund. From Teut. base *hrunth-, weak grade of *hrinth-,
*hrenth-; see Rother. See my Notes on Eng. Etym., p. 255.
RUPEE, an Indian coin, worth about two shillings. (Hind. —Skt.)
“In silver, 14 roopees make a masse;’ Sir Τὶ Herbert, Travels, ed.
1665, p. 46; cf.p.67. The gold rupee is worth about 29s. = Hindustani
ripiyah, a rupee; Rich, Arab. and Pers. Dict. p. 753. —Skt. raipya-m,
neut. sb., silver, wrought silver, or wrought gold; orig. neut. of
riépya-s, adj., handsome.—Skt. ripa-m, n., natural state, form,
beauty. Allied by gradation to Skt. varpas, form, figure (Uhlerbeck).
RUPTURE, a bursting, breach, breakage. (F.—L.) ‘No peryll
of obstruction or rupture ;’ Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. ii. c. 32.
-F. rupture, ‘a rupture, breach;’ Cot.—L. ruptira, fem. of fut.
part. of rumpere (pt. t. rupi), to break, burst.— 4/REUP, to break,
violate, rob; cf. Lithuan. rupas, rough, AS. réofan, to reave, Skt.
rup, to confound, /up, to break, destroy, spoil. Brugmann, i. ὃ 466.
See Reave. Der. rupture, verb. From the same root are ab-rupt,
bank-rupt, cor-rupt, dis-ruption, e-ruption, inter-rupt, ir-ruption, pro-
ruption, rote (1), route, rout, rut. Also loot; and perhaps ruff,
ruffle (1).
RURAL, belonging to the country. (F.—L.) ‘In a person rurail
or of a very base lynage ;’ Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b.i. c. 3. §3-
ME. rurall, Lydgate, Assembly of Gods, 1724.—F. rural, ‘rurall;’
(οἵ. “Τὸ. ruralis, raral.=—L. rir-, for γᾶς (gen. riris), the country; see
Rustic. Der. rural-ly, rural-ise.
RUSA, a kind of deer. (Malay.)
Babirusa.
RUSBE, a trick. (F.—L.) Used by Ray; Works of Creation,
p- 137 (Cent. Dict.). Phillips, ed. 1706, gives the adj. rusy, full of
tricks. =F. ruse, a stratagem.—F. ruser, ‘to beguile, use tricks ;’
Cot. B. This F. ruser is a contraction of OF. reiiser, to refuse,
recoil, retreat, escape; hence, to use tricks for escaping (Burguy). =
Late L. type *refisare, to refuse (Hatzfeld, Kérting, § 7807). See
Refuse. @ But Scheler derives it from L. reciisdre, to refuse, with
loss of ς as in OF, seiir, F. stir, from L. secirus. See Recusant.
RUSH (1), to move forward violently. (E.) ME. ruschen, rushen,
Chaucer, C. T. 1641; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 368; Sir Gawayn
and the Grene Knight, 2204. Partly from AS. Aryscan, to rustle
shrilly, roar (as wind); Napier’s Glosses, i. 3740, 5006.4-MSwed.
ruska, to rush; Ihre gives the example: ‘ Tha kommo the alle
ruskande inn,’ then they all came rushing in; Chron. Rhythm. p. 4o.
This is clearly connected with MSwed. rusa, to rush; whence E.
Rouse (1), q.v. Another sense of MSwed. ruska (like G. rauschen)
is to rustle. So also Low G. rusken, (1) to rustle, (2) to rush about,
Bremen Worterbuch ; cf. Du. ruischen, to murmur as water, to rustle ;
Pomeran. ruuschen, to make a noise in running about. Der. rusk, sb.
RUSH (2), a round-stemmed plant of grass-like aspect, common
in wet ground. (E.) Prov. E. rish, resh, rash, ME. rusche, rische,
resche, P. Plowman, B. iii. 141. AS. risce, resce,resc, Gloss. to A.S.
Leechdoms; oldest form rise (O.E. Texts). Cf. Low G. rusk,
risch, a rush, Brem. Worterbuch; Du. rusch, rush; EFries. riiske ;
NFries. rusken, pl. rushes. B. Some think these are non-Teutonic
words, and perhaps merely borrowed from L. ruscum, butcher's
broom; yet the sense is very different, and rash, resh, cannot come
from ruscum. Ὑ. Rather cf. OHG. rasc, rash, quick, MHG. resch,
quick, MHG. risch, quick, rosc, quick, lively; EFries. rask, rash,
quick, risk, quick, upright, slender; Low G. rusch, quick (Liibben).
I take rush to be a native name for a plant of quick, upright, slender
growth. SeeRash. 4 Notconnected with Goth, raus,G. rohr,a
reed. Der, rush-y. Also bul-rush, ME. bulrysche, Prompt. Parv.
p- 244; in which word the first part is prob. Icel, body, bulr, a stem,
trunk, Dan. bul, trunk, stem, shaft of a column, Swed. ba/, a trunk, so
that the sense is ‘stem-rush,’ from its long stem; see Bulwark,
Bole ; cf. bull-weed ( =bole-weed, ball-weed), knapweed ; bulrush often
means the reed-mace. Also rush-candle, Tam. Shrew, iv. 5. 143
rush-light.
RUSK, a kind of light, hard cake or bread. (Span.) ‘ The lady
sent me divers presents of fruit, sugar, and rusk ;’ Ralegh, cited by
Todd (no reference). ‘A basket-full of white ruske;’ Hakluyt,
Voy. li. pt. I. p. 186.—Span. rosca de mar, sea-rusks, a kind of
Malay risa, a deer; see
SABBATH 529
biscuit, Meadows; rosca, a roll of bread, Minsheu, ed. 1623.
Minsheu also has rosguete, a pancake, rosquilla, ‘a clue of threed,
a little roll of bread, also lying round like a snake.’ Cf. Port.
rosca, the winding of a serpent, a screw; fazer roscas, to wriggle.
Thus the rusk was orig. a twist, a twisted roll of bread. Origin
unknown (Diez).
RUSSET, reddish-brown; a coarse country dress. (F.—L.) ME.
russet, P, Plowman, A. ix. 1; B. viii. 1.— AF. russet, Stat. Realm,
i. 381 (1363); ‘ma robe de russet,’ Royal Wills, p. 30 (1360) ; OF.
rosset, rousset (Godefroy); MF. rousset, ‘russet, brown, ruddy ;’
Cot. Hence applied to a coarse brown rustic dress. Dimin. of
F. roux (fem. rousse), ‘reddish ;? Cot.—L. russus, reddish. B. 1
russus is from a type *rudzho- (Brugmann, i. § 759); from the base
rudh appearing in Gk. ἐ-ρυθ-ρός, red; see Red, Ruddy. Der.
russet-ing, a russet apple.
RUST, a reddish-brown coating on iron exposed to moisture. (E.)
Prov. E. roust (Yks.). ME. rust, Wyclif, Matt. vi, 19, 20; roust,
Trevisa, tr. of Higden, iii, 445. AS. rast, rust; whence rastig,
rusty, Ailfred, tr. of Orosius, Ὁ. v. c. 15. § 4.4+Du. roest; Dan.
rust; Swed. rost; G. rost. Teut. type *rusto-; for Idg. *rudhs-to-,
from Teut. base rud-, Idg. base rudh-; see Ruddy. Brugmann,
i. § 759 (note). Allied to AS. rud-u, ruddiness, and to E.
ruddy and red; cf. Icel. ryd, rust, lit. redness; MHG. rof, rust,
allied to G. roth, red. So also Lithuan. rudis, rust, ridas, reddish 5
W. riwd, trust. See Red. Der. rust, verb; rust-y, AS. ristig, as
above ; rust-i-ly, rust-i-ness.
RUSTIC, belonging to the country. (F.—L.) Spelt rusticke,
Spenser, F. Q. introd. to Ὁ. 111. st. 5. =F. rustique, ‘rusticall;’ Cot. =
L. rusticus, belonging to the country; formed with double suffix
-ti-cus from riis, the country. B. The L. γᾶς is thought to be
allied to Russ. raviina, a plain, Zend ravan, a plain, and to E.
room; see Room. Der. rustic-al-ly, rustic-ate, rustic-at-ion 3 rustic
i-ty, from Ἐς. rusticité, ‘rusticity,’ Cot. And see rur-al, roister-ing.
RUSTLE, to make a low whispering sound. (Low G.) In
Shak. Meas. for Meas. iv. 3. 38. The form is frequentative; and
it seems best to connect it with the base rus-; see Rouse. Du.
dial. russeln, to rustle as clothes do (Molema); Low G. and Pomeran.
russeln, to rustle. Also MDu. ruyselen, ‘to rustle,’ Hexham; also
spelt reuselen. Der. rustle, sb.; rustl-ing.
RUT (1), a track left by a wheel. (F.—L.) ‘And as from hills
rain-waters headlong fall, That all ways eat huge ruts ;’ Chapman,
tr. of Homer, Iliad, iv. 480. The word is merely a less correct spel-
ling of route, i.e. a track. =F. rowte, ‘a rutt, way, path, street, . .
trace, tract, or footing, Cot. See Route. Der. rut, verb.
RUT (2), to copulate, as deer. (F.—L.)\ ME. rutyen, rutien;
P. Plowman, C. xiv. 146; cf. ix rotey tyme=in rut-time, id. B. xi.
329. Like other terms of the chase, it is of Norman-French origin.
The ME. rotey answers to OF. ruté, spelt ruité in. Cotgrave; he
gives venaison ruiteé, venison that’s killed in rut-time. The verb rutien
is formed from the sb. rut.—F. rut (so spelt even in the 14th century,
Littré), also ruit, as in Cotgrave, who explains it by ‘the rut of
deer or boars, their lust, and the season wherein they ingender.’—
L. type *rugitum, for L. riigitum, acc. of rtigitus, the roaring of
lions ; hence, the noise of deer in rut-time. Cf. Ἐς ruir, ‘to roar,’
Cot., from L. rigire, to roar.—4/REU, to make a noise, whence
also Lithuan. rijja, rutting-time; see Rumour.
RUTH, pity, compassion. (Scand.) ME. reuthe, rewthe, Chaucer,
C. T. 916 (A 914); reouthe, Ancren Riwle, p. 32, 1.85 p. 54, 1.12.
Formed like the Scand. sb., but with a vowel borrowed from the
E. verb to rue.—Icel. hryggd, hrygd, affliction, sorrow. Cf. Icel.
hryggr, grieved, sorrowful. = Teut. base HREU, to grieve, appearing
in AS. hréowan, to rue; see Rue (1). Der. ruth-less, Meas. for
Meas. iii. 2. 121; ruth-ful, Troilus, v. 3. 48.
RYE, a kind of grain. (E.) ME. reye, Chaucer, C. T. 7328
(Ὁ 1746); ruze, Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p.152. AS. ryge, Voc.
47-4-4+Du. rogge; Icel. riigr; Dan. rug; Swed. rag; G. roggen,
OHG, rocco. Further allied to Lithuan. pl. sb. rugge:, rye; OPruss.
rugis; Russ. roj(e), rye. Streitberg, § 131. Der. rye-grass.
RYOT, a Hindoo cultivator or peasant. (Hind.—Arab.) Hind.
raiyat, H. H. Wilson; p. 433. From Arabic. See Yule. The
same word as Rayah, q. v.
SAS ὦ»
SABAOTH, hosts, armies. (Heb.) In phr. ‘the Lord of Sabaoth;’
Rom. ix. 29; James, v. 4.—Heb. fsebadth, armies ; pl. of tsaba, an
army. = Heb. “aba, to go forth as a soldier. ᾿
SABBATH, the day of rest. (L.—Gk.—Heb.) ME. sabot,
Wyclif, Mark, ii. 27; Cursor Mundi, 11997.—L. sabbatum. — Gk.
Mm
530 SABLE
σάββατον. «- Heb. shabbath, rest, sabbath, sabbath-day.=— Heb. skab-
ath, to rest from labour. @ The mod. E. word is a compromise
between sabbat (the L. form) and shabbath (the Heb. form). Der.
Sabbat-ar-i-an, sabbat-ic-al.
SABLE, an animal of the weasel kind, with dark or black fur;
also, the fur. (F.—Slavonic.) ME. sable, Chaucer, Compl. of
Mars, 284; the adj. sabeline occurs much earlier, O. Eng. Homilies,
ed. Morris, i. 181, 1. 362.—OF. sable, the sable (Burguy); ‘the
colour sables, or black, in blazon;’ Cot. Cf. Low L. sabelum, the
sable ; sabelinus, sable-fur, whence the OF. sebelin, ME. sabeline ;
the mod. F. zibeline (from Ital.), properly an adj., is also used for
the animalitself. Of Slavonic origin. — Russ. sobol(e), the sable, also
a boa or fur tippet; Pol. sobol. Cf. Turk. samir, sable; Rich. Dict.
p- 943-- Der. sable, sb. and adj. The best fur being black, sable
also means black, as in heraldry ; see Hamlet, ii. 2. 474, iii. 2. 137,
iv. 7. 81. So ‘sable and asure ;’ Caxton, tr. of Reynard, c. 32, ed.
Arber, p. 81 (1481). J It is sometimes said that the name of the
sable is taken from Siberia, where it is found. The Russ. sobole,
a sable, does not resemble Sibire, Siberia; nor does the adj. form
sabeline (in OF.) approach Stbirskit or Sibiriak’, Siberian.
SABOT, a wooden shoe. (F.) From ἘΝ sabot, a word of un-
known origin.
SABRE, SABER, a kind of sword. (F.—G.—MGk.?) A late
word. ‘Sable or Sabre, a kind of simetar, hanger, or broad sword ;’
Phillips, ed. 1706; MDu. sabel, ‘a sable, or short broad sword ;’
Hexham. =F. sabre, a sabre. = G, sibel (formerly also sabel), a sabre,
falchion. B. Thus Diez, who says that at least the F. form was
borrowed from German; cf. Ital. sciabla, sciabola, Span. sable.
y. He adds that the G. word was also borrowed; and compares
Hungarian szdblya, Servian sablja, Wallachian sabie, a sabre. All
(according to Diez) from MGk. (aBés, crooked. 1 find Hung.
szablya, a sabre, szabni, to cut, szabo, a cutter, in Dankoysky,
Magyar Lexicon, 1833, p. 327; at p. 862, Dankovsky considers
szabni, to cut, to be of Wallachian origin. Der. sabre-tash, F.
sabretache, from (ἃ. sibeltasche, a sabretash, loose pouch hanging
near the sabre, worn by hussars (Fliigel) ; from G. sabel, a sabre,
and ¢asche, a pocket.
SACCHARINE, sugar-like. (F.—L.—Gk.—Skt.) In Todd’s
Johnson.—F. saccharin, ‘of sugar;’ Cot. Formed with suffix -in
(=L. -inus) from L. sacchar-on, sugar (Pliny).—Gk. σάκχαρον,
sugar.= Pali sakkhara, for Skt. garkara, candied sugar; see Sugar.
SACERDOTAL, priestly. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627. —
F. sacerdotal, ‘sacerdotall;’ Cot. — L. sacerdétalis, belonging to a priest.
= L. sacerdot-, stem of sacerdds, a priest; lit. ‘ presenter of offerings
or sacred gifts’ (Corssen).—L. sacer, sacred; and dare, to give
(Bréal) ; cf. L. dds (gen. ddtis), a dowry, from the same verb. The
fem. form sacerdota, a priestess, occurs in an inscription. See Sacred
and Date (τὴ. Brugmann, i. ὃ 241 (a). Der. sacerdotal-ly, -ism.
SACHEM, a W. Indian chief. (Amer. Indian.) In Phillips
(1658). ‘The Massachusets call .. their kings sachemes ;’ Capt.
Smith, Works, ed. Arber, p. 939. See Sagamore.
SACK (1), a bag. (L.—Gk.—Heb.—Egyptian.) ME. sak,
Chaucer, C. T. 4org (A 4021). AS. sacc, Gen. xlii. 25, 28.=—L.
saccus.= Gk. σάκκος. Heb. saq, stuff made of hair-cloth, sack-cloth ;
also, a sack for corn. B. A borrowed word in Hebrew, and
prob. of Egyptian origin ; cf. Coptic sok, sack-cloth, Gen. xxxvii. 34,
Matt. xi. 21 ; see Peyron’s Coptic Lexicon. E. Miiller cites sak as
being the Aithiopic form. y. This remarkable word has trayelled
everywhere, together (as I suppose) with the story of Joseph; the
reason why it is the same in so many languages is because it is, in
them all, a borrowed word from Hebrew. We find Du. zak, G.
sack, Icel. sekkr, Swed. sikk, Dan. sek, Goth. sakkus (sack-cloth,
Matt. xi. 21), Ital. sacco, Span. and Port. saco, F. sac, Irish and
Gael. sac, W. sach. And see Sack (2). Der. sack-cloth, Gen.
xxxvlie 34; ME. sakcloth, Lydgate, Assembly of Gods, 290; sack-ing,
cloth of which sacks are made, coarse stuff ; sack-full. Also sack (2),
q.v. 5 satch-el, q.v. Doublet, sac, a bag or receptacle for a liquid,
borrowed from F. sac.
SACK (2), plunder; as a verb, to plunder. (F.—L.—Gk.—
Heb.—Egyptian.) ‘The plenteous houses sackt ;’ Surrey, Eccle-
siastes, c. v.; 1. 45. Formed from the sb. sack, pillage. ‘And
Helen, that to utter sack both Greece and Troié brought ;’? Turber-
vile, Dispraise of Women, st. 34.—F. sac, ‘a sack, waste, ruine,
havock, spoile;’ Cot. Cf. F. saccager, ‘to sack, pillage,’ Cot. ;
also MF. sacguer, ‘to draw hastily, to pull out speedily or apace ;’
Cot. We also find Low L. saccare, to put into a bag; a common
word ; and Low L. saccus, a garment, robe, treasure, purse. fB. There
seems to be little doubt that the F. sac, pillage, is connected with,
and due to, the F. sac, a sack, from L. saccus ; see Sack (1). The
simplest solution is that in Wedgwood, ‘from the use of a sack in
removing plunder ;’ though the sense is probably rather metaphorical
SACRIFICE
than exact. In the same way we talk of bagging, 1.e. pilfering a
thing, or of pocketing it, and of baggage as a general term, whether
bags be actually used or not. Thus Hexham gives MDn. zacken,
‘to put in a sack, or fill a sack;’ zacken ende packen, ‘to put up
bagg and baggage, or to trusse up.’ Cotgrave has: ‘ ἃ sac, ἃ sac,
the word whereby a commander authorizeth his souldiers to sack
a place.’ y- The use of MF. sacguer (OF. sachier) is remarkable,
as it seems to express, at first sight, just the opposite to packing
up; but perhaps it meant, originally, to search in a sack, to pull out
ofa purse; for the sacking of a town involves the two processes :
(1) that of taking things out of their old receptacles, and (2) that
of putting them into new ones; note the Low L. saccus in the
senses of ‘treasure’ and ‘purse.’ Burguy notes that the OF. desacher,
lit. to draw out of a sack, was used in the same way as the simple
verb. 8. It deserves to be added that Cotgrave gives 17 pro-
verbs involving the word sac, clearly proving its common use in
phrases. One of them is: ‘ On luy a donné son sac et ses quilles, he
hath his passport given him, he is turned out to grazing, said of a
servant whom his master hath put away ;’ hence the E. phrase, ‘ to
give one the sack,’ And again: ‘ Acheter un chat en sac, to buy
a pig in a poak.’
SACK (3), the name of an old Spanish wine. (F.—L.) See the
account in Nares. He notices that it was also called seck, a better
form : ‘It is even called seck, in an article cited by bp. Percy from
an old account-book of the city of Worcester: “ Anno Eliz. xxxiiij.
Item, for a gallon of claret wine, and seck, and a pound of sugar.”’
Spelt secke, A. Borde, Dyetary, ch. x. ed. Furnivall, p. 255 (1542).
By Sherris sack, Falstaff meant ‘sack from Xeres,’ our sherry; see
Sherry. Sack was a Spanish wine made from grapes dried by the
sun, and so sweet rather than dry in the mod. E. sense. See Min-
sheu; and note to Tw. Night, ed. W. A. Wright; A. ii. sc. 3. 178.
=F. sec, dry; in the phrase vin sec; Sherwood (in his index to
Cotgrave) has: ‘ Sack (wine), vin d’Espagne, vin sec.’ Cf. Span.
seco, dry.—L. siccum, acc. of siccus, dry. 4 We may note Du. sek,
sack, a sort of wine (Sewel), as illustrating the fact that sack stands
for seck ; this also is from F. sec. So also ἃ. sekt, sack ; Swed. seck
(Widegren).
SACKBUT, a kind of wind instrument. (F.—L.— Gk. — Chaldee.)
In Dan. iii. 5. The sack-but resembled the modern trombone, and
was a wind instrument ; but the word is used to translate the Chald.
sabbeka (with initial samech), Gk. σαμβύκη, L. sambiica, which was
a stringed instrument. And these forms must be regarded as giving
the real origin of the E. word, which was borrowed from French.
Thus Ascham has: ‘Iutes, harpes, all maner of pypes, barbitons,
sambukes ;’ Toxophilus, ed. Arber, p. 39. And in Dan. iii. 5, Wyclif
has sambukes.—OF. sambugue (Roquefort).—L. sambiica, —Gk.
σαμβύκη. —Chald. sabbeka (as above); Dan. ili. 5. β. Sir T. Elyot
mentions sackboé‘es as wind instruments, Castel of Helth, Ὁ. ii. ch. 33.
“- Εἰ saqguebute,a sackbut, trombone, Littré ; a popular perversion, due
to confusion with OF. sagueboute, which was really a lance with a hook,
for pulling a man off his horse (Godefroy), and then applied to a
trombone from its being drawn in and thrust out (F. sacquer, to pull,
bouter, to push). y- A similar perversion occurs in Span. saca-
buche (nautical word), a tube or pipe which serves as a pump; also,
a sackbut (Neuman) ; as if from Span. sacar, to draw out, with
reference to the tube of the instrument; and buche, the maw, crop,
or stomach of an animal, and, colloquially, the human stomach.
Hence the suggestion in Webster, that sacabuche means ‘ that which
exhausts the stomach or chest ;’ a name possibly given (in popular
etymology) from the exertion used in playing it.
SACRAMENT, a solemn religious rite, the eucharist. (L.) ME.
sacrament, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 9576 (E 1702). —L. sacramentum, an en-
gagement, military oath; in ecclesiastical writers, a mystery, sacra-
ment. Formed with sufhx -mentum from sacrare, to dedicate, consecrate,
render sacred or solemn.=L. sacr-, for sacer, sacred; see Sacred.
Der. sacrament-al, sacrament-al-ly,
SACRED, made holy, religious. (F.—L.) Sacred is the pp.
of ME. sacren, to render holy, consecrate, a verb now obsolete. We
find sacreth=consecrates, in Ancren Riwle, p. 268, 1. 5. The pp.
i-sacred, consecrated, occurs in Rob. of Glouc. p. 330 (1. 6762),
where the prefix ἐ- (= AS. ge-) is merely due to the Southern dialect.
‘He was... sacryd or enoynted emperoure of Rome;’ Fabyan’s
Chron. cap. 155, last line. [Hence too sacring-bell, Hen. VIII, iii.
2. 295.]—OF. sacrer, ‘to consecrate ;’ Cot.—L. sacrare, to conse-
crate.—L. sacr-, for sacer, sacred, holy.—L. base sac-, appearing in
ἃ nasalised form in sancire, to render inviolable, establish, confirm ;
see Saint. Brugmann, ii. § 744. Der. sacred-ly, sacred-ness;
and see sacra-ment, sacri-fice, sacri-lege, sacrist-an, sext-on; sacer-
dotal ; con-secrate, de-secrate, ex-ecrate, ob-secrate ; sanct-ify.
SACRIFICE, an offering to a deity. (F.—L.) ME. sacrifise,
Ancren Riwle, p. 138, ll. 9, 113 also sacrifice.+=F. sacrifice, ‘a sacri-
SACRILEGE
fice ;” Cot. L. sacrifictum, a sacrifice, lit. a rendering sacred; cf.
sacrificare, to sacrifice. L. sacri-, for sacro-, from sacer, sacred; and
facere, to make; see Sacred and Fact. Der. sacrifice, vb.,
sacrific-er ; sacrific-er; sacrifict-al.
SACRILEGE, profanation of what is holy. (F.—L.) ME.
sacrilege, Gower, C. A. ii. 374, 11. 5, 14; bk. v. 7165, 7174.—MF.
sacrilege, ‘a sacriledge, or church-robbing ;’ Cot. —L. sacrilegium, the
robbing of a temple, stealing of sacred things.—L. sacrilegus, a
sacrilegious person, one who steals from a temple.—L. sacri-, for
sacro-, from sacer, sacred ; and /egere, to gather, steal, purloin; see
Sacred and Legend. Der. sacrileg-i-ous, Macb. ii. 3. 72, a coined
word ; sacrileg-t-ous-ly, -ness.
SACRISTAN, SEXTON, an officer in a church who has
charge of the sacred vessels and vestments. (F.—L.) The cor-
ruption of sacristan into sexton took place so early that it is not easy
to find the spelling sacristan, though it appears in Blount’s Glosso-
graphia, ed. 1674. Cf. ME. sekesfeyn in Rob. of Brunne, Handlyng
Synne, 1. 11100. The duties of the sacristan have suffered altera-
tion; he is now the grave-digger rather than the keeper of the
vestments. The form sexteyn is in Chaucer, C. T. 13942 (B 3126) ;
the collateral form Saxton survives as a proper name; I find it in
the Clergy List for 1873. =F. sacristain, ‘a sexton, or vestry-keeper,
in a church ;’ Cot. Formed as if from Late L. *sacristanus, but the
usual word is simply sacrista, without the suffix; cf. ‘Sexfeyne,
Sacrista,’ Prompt. Pary.; and see Ducange. Formed with suffix
-ista (=Gk. -torns) from L. sacr-, from sacer, sacred ; see Sacred.
Der. sacrist-y, from F. sacristie, ‘a vestry, or sextry in a church,’
Cot.; cf. ‘ Sextrye, Sacristia,’ Prompt. Parv.
SAD, heavy, serious, sorrowful. (E.) ‘Sadde, tristis ;? Levins.
ME. sad, with very various meanings; Halliwell explains it by
‘serious, discteet, sober, heavy (said of bread), dark (of colour),
heavy, solid, close, firm (said of iron and stone).’ The W. sad
means ‘ firm, steady, discreet ;’ and may have been borrowed from
E. during the ME. period. B. But the oldest meaning is ‘sated.’
Thus, in Layamon, 20830, we have ‘sad of mine londe’=sated, or
tired, of my land. Hence seem to have resulted the senses of
satished, fixed, firm, steadfast, &c.; see examples in Stratmann and
in the Glossary to Will. of Palerne, &c. The mod. E. sad is from
the sense of sated, tired, weary. AS. sed, sated, satiated; Grein,
ii. 394.44 OSax. sad, sated; Icel. saddr, old form sadr, sated, having
got one’s fill; Goth. saths, full, filled, sated; G. sat#, satiated, full,
satisfied, weary. y- All from the Teut. pp. type *sa-doz, sated,
Fick, ili. 318. Cognate words are found in Lithuan. sotus, satiated ;
Russ. suitost’, satiety; L. satur, sated, also deep-coloured (like E.
sad-coloured), well filled, full; Olrish sa-ith, satiety, sa-thech, sated;
Gk. d-pevar, to satiate. From4/SA, SA, to satiate; Brugmann,
i. §196. See Satiate, Satisfy. q In no way connected with
set, which is quite a different word ; nor with L. sédare, which is
allied to E. set. Der. sad-ly, -ness. Also sadd-en, verb, from ME.
sadden, to settle, confirm, P. Plowman, B. x. 242; cf. AS. gesadian,
to fill (Grein), AS. sadian, to feel weary or sad, Atlfred, tr. of
Boethius, cap. xxxix. § 4.
SADDLE, a leather seat, put on a horse’s back. (E.) ME.
sadel (with one d), Chaucer, C. T. 2164 (A 2162). AS. sadol ;
Grein, ii. 387.4-Du. zadel ; Icel. sodull ; Swed. and Dan, sadel; G.
sattel; OHG. satul. Cf. also Russ. siedlo; L. sella (for *sed-la).
B. Teut. type *saduloz. The form of the word is abnormal; some
suppose it not to be Teutonic, but borrowed from some other Idg.
language, probably Slavonic. Cf. Lower Sorbian sod/o, a saddle;
OSlav. sedlo, a saddle. We may safely refer it, and all its cognates
(or borrowed forms), to 4/SED, to sit; cf. (Vedic) Skt. sad, to sit
down, Skt. sadas, a seat, abode. Der. saddle, verb, AS. sadelian,
fElfric’s Grammar, ed. Zupitza, p. 165, 1. 10; saddl-er, saddl-er-y ;
saddle-bow, ME. sadel-bowe, Proverbs of Alfred, 1. 229.
SADDUCEE, the name of a Jewish sect. (L.—Gk.—Heb.)
The ME. pl. Saduceis is in Wyclif, Deeds [ Acts], xxiii. 8; &c.—L. pl.
Sadducei.—Gk. pl. Σαδδουκαῖοι. -- Heb. pl. tsedugim, in the Mishna;
see Smith, Concise Dict. of the Bible. Supposed to mean ‘the
righteous.’ From the Heb. root ¢sadaq, to be just.
SAFE, unharmed, secure, free from danger. (F.—L.) ME. sauf,
Will. of Palerne, 868, 1329; we also find the phr. sauf and sound, id.
868, 2816. —F. sauf, ‘safe ;’ Cot.—L. saluum, ace. of saluus, whole,
safe. Brugmann, i. § 860 c. Der. safe-ly, safe-ness; safe, sb. ; safe-
conduct, Hen. V, i. 2. 297, ME. sauf conduit, Gower, C. A. ii. 160;
bk. v. 994; safe-guard, Rich. III, v. 3. 259. ME. sauf-garde, Cax-
ton, tr. of Reynard, ch. 3; vouch-safe, q.v. Also safe-ty, Καὶ. John,
ili. 3. 16, suggested by F. sauvete, ‘safety,’ Cot., from Late L. acc.
saluitatem. And see Salvation, Sage (2), Salute, Save.
SAFFRON, the name of a plant. (F.— Arab.) ‘Maked geleu
mid saffran’=made yellow with saffron; O. Eng. Homilies, ed.
Morris, ii. 163, 1. 32.—AF. saffran, Liber Albus, p. 224; F. safran,
SAKE 531
saffran, saffron ; Cot. Arab. za‘faran, saffron; Palmer's Pers. Dict.
col. 321.
SAG, to droop, be depressed. (Scand.) Prov. E. sag, seg. ME.
saggen, Prompt. Parv. p. 440.—Norw. sakka, sekka, to sink; Swed.
sacka, to settle, sink down; Dan. sakke (as a nautical term), to have
stern-way ; Jutland sakke, to sink, settle down (Kok); whence Du.
zacken, to sink. β. The MSwed. sacka is used of the settling of
dregs; so also Low G, sakken, in the Bremen Worterbuch. Rietz
gives Swed. dial. sakka, to sink; sakka, to sag, droop. Cf. Icel.
sakka,a plummet. All from the Scand. base *sakk-, a form allied
to *sank-, 2nd grade of Teut. *senkan-, to sink ; see Sink.
SAGA, a tale, story. (Scand.) The E. word is saw. Saga is
merely borrowed from Icel. saga, a story, tale; cognate with E.
saw; see Saw (2).
SAGACIOUS. (L.) In Milton, P. L. x. 281. Coined, asif from
L. *:agacidsus, from sagaci-, decl. stem of sagax, of quick perception,
keen, sagacious; from a base SAG, to perceive clearly, perhaps to
scent. Cf. sagire, to perceive by the senses. Allied to: Seek, q. v.
Brugmann, i. § 187. @ Not allied to Sage (1). Der. sagacious-ly,
sagacious-ness. Also sagac-i-ty, in Minsheu, ed. 1627, formed (by
analogy) from L. sagacitds, sagacity. And see pre-sage.
SAGAMORE, a W. Indian chief. (Amer. Indian.) In Phillips
(1658). ‘A tall savage. . He was a sagama;’ Capt. Smith, Works,
ed. Arber, p. 754. The name of a chief among some American
Indian tribes. Micmac sakamow, a chief (S. T. Rand). See
Sachem.
SAGE (1), discerning, wise. (F.—L.) In Shak. Tw. Nt. iii. 4.
413.—F. sage, ‘sage, wise;’ Cot. [Cf. Span. sabio, Ital. saggio,
wise.]—Late L. *sabium, not found, for L. sapium, acc. of sapius,
wise; only found in comp. e-sapius, unwise (Petronius).—L. sapere,
to be wise; see Sapience. { Not allied to Sagacious. Der.
sage, sb., sage-ly, sage-ness.
SAGE (2), the name of a plant. (F.—L.) ME. sauge, sawge;
Prompt. Parv.—AF. sauge, Voc. 555. 13: spelt sau/ge in Cot.—L.
saluia, sage; so called from its supposed healing virtues. - L. saluus,
sound, in good health; see Safe.
SAGITTARIUS, the archer. (L.) The name of a zodiacal
sign. In Phillips (1658).—L. sagit/arius, an archer. —L. sagitéa, an
arrow.
SAGO, a starch prepared from the pith of certain palms. (Malay.)
See Yule. Mentioned in the Annual Register, 1766, Chronicle,
p- 110; see Notes and Queries, 3. Ser. viil. 18. Spelt sagu, and
called a Javanese word ; Hakluyt, Voy. iii. 742. — Malay sagu, sagi,
‘sago, the farinaceous and glutinous pith of a tree of the palm kind
named rumbiya ;’ Marsden’s Malay Dict. p. 158.
SAHTIB, sir, master; a title. (Hind.—Arab.) Spelt sakab in
Fryer’s New Acct. of E. India (1673); p. 417 (Yule). —Hind. sahib,
lord, master, companion (Forbes).—Arab. sahib, lord, master; orig.
‘companion ;’ Rich. Dict. p. 924.
SATL, a sheet of canvas, for propelling a ship by the means of
the wind. (E.) ME. ser, seyl, Chaucer, C. T. 698 (A 696) ; Havelok,
7i1. AS. segel, segl (Grein).+-Du. zeil ; Icel. segl; Dan. seil; Swed.
segel; G. segel. B. All from Teut. type *seg/om, n., a sail (Fick, iii.
316); which Fick ingeniously connects with Teut. base SEG=
A SEGH, to bear up against, resist; so that the sailis that which resists
or endures the force of the wind. Cf. Skt. sak, to bear, undergo, endure,
be able to resist; Gk. ἔχειν, to hold, ἔχειν νῆας, to urge on ships,
Od. ix. 279; from the same root. Der. sail, verb; sail-cloth, sail-er,
sail-or (spelt saylor in Temp. 1. 2. 270, doubtless by analogy with
tail-or, though there the ending in -or is justifiable, whilst in sail-or
it is not); sail-ing ; also sai-yard, AS. seglgyrd, Voc. 288. το.
SAINFOIN, a perennial herb, cultivated as a forage plant.
(F.—L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706.—F. sain forn, sainct foin, ‘Spanish
trefoly;’ Cot.; s.v. Foin. —L. sinum fenum, lit. healthful hay. —L.
sadnum, n. of sanus, sane, healthful; fenum, hay. J Turned into
saint foin, ‘holy hay,’ by popular etymology. See Hatzfeld.
SAINT, aholy man. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. seint, saint, seinte ; τ" seinte
paul’=Saint Paul, O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 131, 1. 15.—
AF, seint ; Ἐς saint.—L. sanctum, acc. of sanctus, holy, consecrated. =
L. sanctus, pp. of sancire, to render sacred, make holy. Allied to L.
sac-er, sacred; whence Sacred, Sacerdotal. Der. saint-ed, saint-
like.
SAKE, purpose, account, cause, end. (E.) ME. sake, purpose,
cause; ‘for hire sake’ =for her (its) sake ; Ancren Riwle, p. 4, 1. 16.
It also means dispute, contention, law-suit, fault. ‘For desert of
sum sake’ =on account of some fault ; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, C.
84. AS. sacu, strife, dispute, crime, law-suit, accusation (Bosworth).
Ἔα. zaak, matter, case, cause, business, affair; Icel. sdk, a charge,
guilt, crime; Dan. sag; Swed. sak; G. sache. β. All from Teut.
type *saka, f., a contention, suit at law (Fick, iii. 314), from the
base SAK, appearing in Goth. sakan (a strong verb, pt. t. sdk), to
Mm 2
532 SAKER
contend, rebuke.’ Hence also Goth. sakjo, strife. ~ Perhaps allied to
Olrish saig-im, I say, I speak. Der. seek, q.v.
SAKER, a kind of falcon; a small piece of artillery. (F.—Span.
—Arab.) ‘ Sacres, wherewith they shot;’ Hakluyt, Voy. ii. 1. 79.
The gun was named after the falcon. ‘ Sacre, a hauke;’ Palsgrave.
= MEF. sacre, ‘asaker ; the hawk, and the artillery so called ; 2 «Gots
=—Span. sacre; in both senses. = Arab, sagr, a hawk; Rich. Dict.
p- 938. Not of L. origin (Engelmann). See Devic; and Korting,
§ IgI4
SALAAM, SALAM, peace; a salutation. (Arab.) ‘ This low
salam;’ Byron, Giaour, see note 29; and in Herbert’s Travels,
ed. 1665, p- 142.—Arab. salam, ‘saluting, wishing health or peace;
a salutation; peace;’ Rich. Dict. p. 842.—Arab. salm, saluting ;
Cf. Heb. shelém, peace; from the root shalam, to be
SALAD, raw herbs cut up and seasoned. (F.—Ital.—L.) ME.
salade, Flower and the Leaf, 1. 412.—F. salade, ‘a sallet of herbs;
Cot.—Mltal. salata, ‘a salad of herbes;’ Florio. Fem. of Ital.
salato, ‘salt, powdred, sowsed, pickled, salted;’ Florio, This is
the pp. of salare, ‘to salt;’ id.—TItal. sal, sale, salt.—L. sal, salt.
See Salt.
SALAMANDER, a reptile. (F.—L.—Gk.) InShak. 1 Hen. IV,
lil, 3. 53-—F. salamandre, ‘asalamander;’ Cot.—L. salamandra.
-“- Gk. σαλαμάνδρα, a kind of lizard, supposed to be an extinguisher
of fire. ἘΣ Eastern word; cf. Pers. samandar, a salamander ; Rich.
Dict. p. 8
SALARY, stipend. (F.—L.) ME. salarye, P. Plowman, B. ν.
433-— AF. salarie, Liber Albus, Ρ. 48; F. salaire, ‘ asalary, stipend ;’
Cot. =—L. salarium, orig. salt-money, Ὁ or money given to the soldiers
for salt. —L. salarium, neut. of salarius, belonging to salt; adj. from
sal, salt. See Salt. Der. salari-ed.
SALE, a selling for money. (E.) ME. sale, Prompt. Parvy. AS.
sala, asale; Voc. 180. 16.4Icel. sala, fem., sal, neut., a sale, bar-
gain; Swed. salu; Dan. salg. OHG. sala.
or ‘delivery.” Hence sell, v.; see Sell.
hand-sel or han-sel.
SALIC, SALIQUE, pertaining to the Salic tribe of the Franks.
(F.—OHG.) In Shak. Hen. V, i. 2. 11.—F. Salique, belonging to
the Salic tribe (Littré). The Salic tribe was a Frankish (High Ger-
man) tribe, prob. named from the river Sala (now the Yssel, flowing
into the Znyder Zee). There are several rivers called Saale or Saar;
οἵ. Skt. salila-m, sarira-m, flood, water.
SALIENT, springing forward. (L.) In-Pope, Dunciad, ii. 162.
But the older form was saliant (Skinner, Phillips), which was an
heraldic term for animals represented as springing forward; and this
was due to F. saillant, pres. part. of satllir, to leap; corresponding
to L. salient-, pres. part. of L. salire, to leap, sometimes used of
water. —4/SAL, to leap; whence Gk. ἅλλομαι, I leap. Brugmann, i.
§ 514(3)- Der. salient-ly. From the same root are as-sail, as-sault,
de-sult-or-y, ex-ult (for ex-sult), in-sult, re-sili-ent, re-sult, sally, sal.
mon, salt-at-ion; salt-ire, q.v-
SALINE, containing salt. (F.—L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706; and
see Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.— Ἐς salin, fem, saline, saline; Littré. =
L. salinus, only found in neut. salinum, a salt-cellar, and pl. saline,
salt-pits.— L. sal, salt. See Salt.
SALIVA, spittle. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706.—L. saliua, spittle ;
whence also Oltish saile, W. haliw, saliva. Der. saliv-ate, saliv-at-
ton; saliv-al, saliv-ar-y.
SALLET, a kind of helmet. (F.—Ital.—L.) In Shak. 2 Hen. VI,
iv. 10. 12; and in Baret (1580). Palsgrave has: ‘Salet of har-
nesse, salade.’ ‘A saleit with a vysour;’ York Wills, iii. 205 (1472);
salet, Paston Letters, i. 265 (1454). Sallet is a corruption of salade,
due to the fact that a salad of herbs was also called sallet.—MF.
salade, ‘a salade, helmet, headpiece; also a sallet of herbs;” Cot.
{ Here the spellings salade and sallet are interchanged ; however, the
two words are of different origin.]=Ital. celata, a helmet.—L.
calata, that which is engraved or ornamented; Diez cites cassis
calata, an ornamented helmet, from Cicero. [Cf. Span. celar, to
engrave, celadura, enamel, inlaying, celada, a helmet.] 1. celdata is
the fem. of the pp. of celare, to engraye, ornament.—L. celum,
a chisel, graver; allied to cedere, to cut. Brugmann,i. ὃ 944. See
Cesura.
SALLOW (1), SALLY, a kind of willow. (E.) ME. salwe,
Chaucer, C. Τ᾿ 6237 (D655). ‘ Salwhe, tree, Salix;’ Prompt. Pary.
OMerce. salh; AS. sealh; we find ‘ Amera, sealh; Salix, welig’ men-
tioned together in Voc. 269. 35, 36. The suffix -ow=ME. -we=
AS. -ge, suffix of the dat. case from nom. in -h, just as E. farrow is
from AS. fearh, and the prov. Εἰ. barrow-pig from AS. beark. In
Lowland Sc. the word became sauch, saugh, by loss of 1.4Icel. selja;
Swed. salg, salj; Dan. selje; G. sahlweide ( (OHG. salaha, whence F.
saule), the round-leaved willow; see Fick, iil.
Orig. ‘a handing over,’
Der. sale-able, sales-man ;
3320..Ἐ1.. salix, a |
SALTIER, SALTIRE
willow; Gael. seileach, a willow; Irish. sail, saileach ; W. helyg, pl.,
willows; Gk. ἑλέκη, a willow.
SALLOW (2), of a pale, yellowish colour. (E.) ME. salow (with
one 1); we find: ‘ Salwhe, salowe, of colour, Croceus;’ Prompt. Parv.
p- 441. AS. salu, sallow, Grein, ii. 388; whence. the compounds
saloneb, with pale beak, salupad, with pale garment, sealobriin,
sallow-brown; id.Dn, zaluw, tawny, sallow; Icel. sélr, yellowish ;
MHG. sal, OHG. salo, dusky (whence F. sale, dirty). Teut. type
*salwoz. Brugmann, i. ὃ 375 (9). Der. sallow-ness.
SALLY, to rush out suddenly. (F.—L.) ‘ Guyon salied forth to
land ;’ Spenser, F. Q. ii. 6. 38. ME. salien, to dance, is the same
word; Prompt. Parv. p. 441; P. Plowman, B. xiii. 233.=F. saillir,
‘to go out, issue, issue forth; also to leap, jump, bound ;’ Cot.=—L.
salire, to leap; see Salient. Der. sally, sb., with which cf. F.
saillie, ‘a sally,’ Cot.; from the fem. of the pp. sailli, Also sally-
port, a gate whence a sally may be made.
SALMAGUNDI, a seasoned hodge-podge or mixture. (F.—
Ital.—L.) ‘ Salmagundi, or Salmigund, an Italian dish made of cold
turkey, anchovies, lemmons, oil, and other ingredients; also, a kind
of hotch-potch or ragoo,’ &c.; Phillips, ed. 1706. But the form is
French. =F. salmigondis ; spelt salmigondin in Cotgrave, who describes
the dish. B. Etym. disputed; but probably of Ital. origin, as stated
by Phillips. We may fairly explain it from Ital. salami, pl. of
salame, salt meat, and condito, seasoned. ‘This is the more likely,
because the pl. salami was once the term in use. Thus Florio has:
‘Saldmi, any kinde of salt, pickled, or powdred meats or souse,’ &c.
y. This also explains the F. salmis (not in Cotgrave), which has
proved a puzzle to etymologists; I think we may take salmis
(=salted meats) to be a double plural, the s being the F. plural, and
the i the Ital. plural; that is, the Ital. salami became F. salmi, and
then the s was added. δ. The derivation of Ital. salami is clearly
from L. sal, salt, though the suffix is obscure; cf. L. salgama, pl.,
pickles. The F. -gondi, for Ital. condito (or pl. conditi), is from L.
conditus, seasoned, savoury, pp. of condire, to preserve, pickle, season.
Thus the sense is ‘ savoury salt meats.’
SALMON, a fish. (F.—L.) ME. saumoun, King Alisaunder,
1. 5446 ; salmon, salmond, Barbour’s Bruce, ii. 576, xix. 664; samon,
Trevisa, i. 335. [The introduction of the/ is due to our knowledge
of the L. form ; we do not pronounce it.] OF. sawmon, spelt saulmote
in Cot. —L. salmdnem, acc. of salmo, a salmon. B. It has been
conjectured that salmo means ‘leaper;’ from salire, to leap; which
well accords with the fish’s habits. See Salient. (Otherwise in
Walde.) Der. salmon-leap, ME. samoun-lepe, Trevisa, i. 369.
SALOON, a large apartment. (F.-OHG.) A late word; added
by Todd to Johnson.—F. salon, a large room. =F, salle, a room,
chamber. - OHG. sal (G. saal), a dwelling, house, hall, room. +Icel-
salr, a hall; AS. s@l, sele,a house, hall. The orig. sense is ‘abode ;’
cf. Goth. saljan, to dwell.
SALT, a well-known substance. (E.) ME. salt, P. Plowman, B.
xv. 423. OMerc. salt; O. E. Texts; AS. sealt, Grein, ii. 434.4-Du.
zout (with z for 1); Icel. salt; Dan. and Swed. salt; ἃ. salz; Goth.
salt. B. All from Teut. adj. type *sal-toz, salt; Fick, iii. 321. On
comparing this with L. sai, salt, we see that the Teut. word is *sal-
toz, where -toz is the usual Idg. pp. suffix, of extreme antiquity.
Accordingly we find that AS. seal¢ (E, salt) is also used as an adj,,
in the sense of ‘salted’ or ‘full of salt,’ as in sealt weter =salt
water; Grein, ii. 434. So also Icel. saltr, adj., salt; Du. zout, adj. 5
Dan. and Swed. salt, adj.; W. hall-t, L. sal-sus. γ. Removing the
suffix, we find cognate words in L. sai, salt, Gk. ἅλς, Russ. sol(e), W
halan, Olrish salann, salt. Brugmann, i. § 182. Der. salt-ly, salt-
ness ; salt-cellar, q.v.; salt, vb., salt-er, salt-ish, salt-less, salt-mine, salt-
pan; salt-petre,q.v. Also (from L, sal) sal-ine, sal-ary, sal-ad, sauce,
sausage, salmagundi.
SALTATION, dancing. (L.) Rare; in Sir Τὶ Browne, Vulgar
Errors, bk. v. c. 3. 8.2. Formed (by analogy with F. words in -ion)
from L. saltatio, a dance, a dancing. = L. saltdre, to dance, frequent.
of salire,to leap; seeSalient. Der. saltat-or-y, from L. saltatérius,
adj. Cf. saltire.
SALT-CELLAR, a vessel for holding salt. (E.; and F.—L.)
The word salt is explained above. Cellar is an absurd corruption of
AF. saler, Lib. Custumarum, p. 46 ; equivalent to F.saliére. Thus
we find: ‘ Saliere, a salt-seller;’ Cot. Cf. Ital. saliera,a salt-cellar.
© Hoc selarium, celare ;’ Voc. 658.16. ‘A saltsaler of sylver;’ A.D.
1463, in Bury Wills, ed. Tymms, p. 23, 1. 8. Formed from L, sal,
salt; see Salary and Salt. @ Hence salt-cellar=salt-salt-
holder ; ; a tautological expression,
SALTIER, SALTIRE, in heraldry, a St. Andrew's cross. (----
L.) Spelt sawtyre, Caxton, Golden Legend, St. Alban, ὃ 1. St.
Andrew’s cross is one in this position X ; when charged on a shield,
it is called a saltier. The ME. sawtyre is due to an AF. *sautier,
representing Late L. saltarium, a piece of wood placed transversely,
SALT-PETRE
which men (but not cattle) could get over; from L. saléare, to dance | ordinance ;’
(hence, to jump over); see below. In the Roll of Caerlaverock
(1300), 1. 13, the form is sawfour, variant of sauteur (Godefroy),
a saltire, also used like Late L. saltarium. Still commoner is the OF.
sautoir, a saltire; MF. saultoir, ‘Saint Andrew’s crosse, tearmed
so by heralds;’ Cot. The old sense of OF. sawtoir was stirrup
(Littré, 5. ν. sautoir) ; the cross seems to have been named from the
position of the side-pieces of a stirrup, formerly made in a triangle A ;
or it may have been suggested by the saltarium. — Late L. saltatorium,
a stirrup, a common word; Ducange.=L. saltatorius, belonging to
dancing or leaping, suitable for mounting a horse. —L. saliator, a
dancer, leaper. = L. saltare, to dance, leap ; frequentative of salire ; see
Salient. Φ Inthe Book of St. Alban’s, pt. ii. fol. f 5, we find ME.
sawtre, OF. saultier, and Late L. saltatérium, all meaning ‘ saltire.’
SALT-PETRE, nitre. (F.—L. and Gk.) In Shak. 1 Hen.
IV, i. 3. 60. For the former part of the word, see Salt. The E.
word is a modification of ME. salpeter, Chaucer, C. T., G 808. —
OF. salpetre (Supp. to Godefroy).—Late L. salpetra, salt-petre,
which represents L. sal petra, lit. ‘salt of the rock.’ Lastly, L.
petra is from Gk. πέτρα, a rock ; see Petrify.
SALUBRIOUS, healthful. (L.) A lateword. In Phillips, ed.
1706. Coined as if froma L. *saliibridsus, extended from L, salibris,
healthful. β. The suffix -bris is explained in Brugmann, ii. § 77.
γ. Sala- is the base of sali-ti-, stem of salis, health; and is allied
to saluxs, sound, in good health, whence E. safe; see Safe. Der.
salubrious-ly, Also salubri-ty, Minsheu, from F. salubrité (Cot.), from
L. ace. salitbritatem.
SALUTARY, healthful, wholesome. (F.—L.) In Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674.—F. salutaire, ‘healthful;”’ Cot.—L. salizaris,
healthful. —L. saliit-, stem of salas, health (above).
SALUTE, to wish health to, to greet. (L.) In Spenser, F. Q.
i. 1. 30; and in Palsgrave.—L, salitare to wish health to, greet. =
L. salut-, stem of salis, health (above). Der. salutat-ion, ME.
salutacioun, Wyclif, Luke, i. 41, from F. salutation (Cot.), from L.
acc. salita/idnem. And see Salutary.
SALVAGE, money paid for saving ships. (F.—L.) In Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674. “ΟἹ. and MF. salvage ; ‘ droict de salvage, a tenth
part of goods which were like to perish by shipwrack, due unto him
who saves them ;’ Cot.—OF. salver, F. sawver, to save.—L. saluare,
to save ; see Save.
SALVATION, preservation. (F.—L.) ME, sauacioun, Chaucer,
C. T. 7080(D 1498); spelt sauvacion, Ancren Riwle, p. 242, 1]. 26.—
OF. sauvacion; Ἐς, salvation. L. saludtidnem, ace. of saludtio, a sav-
ing. = L. saluaire, to save; see Save.
SALVE, ointment. (E.) ME. salue (=salve), Chaucer, Ὁ. T.
2714 (A 2712); older form salfe, Ormulum, 6477. OMerc. salf,
salb, O. E. Texts; AS. sealf, Mark, xiv. 5; John, xii. 3.4-Du. zal/;
G. salbe. β. AS. sealfis from the Teut. type *saléa, f., Fick, iii.
321. The orig. sense was prob. ‘ oil’ or ‘ grease ;’ it answers in form
to Gk, oAmn, an oil-flask, related by gradation to the rare Gk. word
ἔλπος, oil, in Hesychius; cf. also Skt. sarpis, clarified butter. 4 The
-ve is due to AS. sealf-e, gen., dat., and acc. of sealf. Der. salve,
verb, from AS. sealfian, cognate with Goth. salbén.
SALVER, a plate on which anything is presented. (Span.—L.)
Properly salva, but misspelt salve by confusion with the old word
salver in the sense of ‘preserver,’ or one who claims salvage for
shipping. This is shown by the following. ‘ Salver, from salvo, to
save, is a new fashioned piece of wrought plate, broad and flat, with
a foot underneath, and is used in giving beer, or other liquid thing,
to save or preserve the carpit or clothes from drops ;’ Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. This invented explanation does not affect the etymology.
=—Span. salva, a salver, a plate on which anything is presented ; it
also means ‘ pregustation, the previous tasting of viands before they
are served up.’ There is also the phrase hacer salva, ‘to taste meat
or drinke, . . as they do to princes;’ Minsheu’s Span. Dict. (1623).
We also find the dimin. sa/villa, a salver.—Span. salvar, ‘to save.
free from risk; to taste, to prove the food or drink of nobles;’
Neuman. =L, saludre, to save; see Save, Safe. @ Mr. Wedg-
wood says: ‘as salva was the tasting of meat at a great man’s table,
salvar, to guarantee, to taste or make the essay of meat served at
table, the name of sa/ver is in all probability from the article having
been used in connexion with the essay. The Ital. name of the essay
was credenza, and the same term was used for a cupboard or side-
board ; credentiere, credenzere, a prince’s taster, cup-bearer, butler, or
cupboard-keeper (Florio). F. credence d'argent, silver plate, or a
cupboard of silver plate; Cot.’ Thus a salver was the name of
the plate or tray on which drink was presented to the taster, or to the
drinker of a health.
SALVO, a general discharge of guns, intended as a salute.
(Ital.—L.) So spelt in 1733 (Stanford Dict.); but more correctly
salva, in 1591.—Ital. salva, ‘a sauing, keeping; a yolie or tire of
SAND 533
Florio. L. saluare, to save, keep; salxé, hail!=L.
saluus, safe. See Safe.
SAMBO, the offspring ofa negro and a mulatto. (Span.—L.—Gk.)
In An Eng. Garner, ed. Arber, v. 95, the men of a certain tribe are
called samboses. And see Stedman’s Surinam, i. 89.—Span. zambo,
formerly gambo (Pineda), bandy-legged ; used as a sb. as a term of
contempt. = Late L. scambus.— Gk. σκαμβός, crooked ; said of the legs
(Diez).
SAME, of the like kind, identical. (E.) ME. same, Chaucer,
C. T. 16923 (G 1455). AS. same, only as adv., as in swi same swi
men, the same as men, just likemen; Afélfred, tr. of Bocthius, c. xxiii.
§ 4 (bk. iii. met. 9). The adjectival use is Scand.; cf. Icel. samr,
Dan. and Swed. samme, the same.4~-OHG. sam, adj., sama, adv.;
Goth. sama, the same ; cf. samana, together.-+ Russ. samuii, the same;
Gk. ὅμός ; Skt. sama-, even, the same. From the same base is the
Skt. sam, with (Vedic); also the L. simul, together, similis, like
(whence E. Simultaneous, Similar); also Gk. ὁμοῖος, like
(whence E. Homceopathy). See Curtius, i.400, Der. same-ness ;
and see semi-, similar, simulate, semblance, as-semble, dis-semble, re-
semble. Also some, -some.
SAMITE, a rich silk stuff. (F.-—L.—Gk.) ME. samit, spelt
samyte, Ly beaus Disconus, 833 (ed. Ritson, vol. ii); King Alisaunder,
1027. And see two examples in Halliwell, who explains it by ‘a
very rich silk stuff, sometimes interwoven with gold or silver thread.’
— OF. samit,a silk stuff; Burguy. See samy in Cotgrave.—Late L.
examitum, samite ; Ducange.= Late Gk. ἑξάμιτον, cited by Burguy,
supposed to have been a stuff woven with six threads or different
kinds of thread; from Gk. ἕξ, six (cognate with E. six), and μίτος, a
thread of the woof. See Dimity, which is a word of similar origin.
The mod. G. sammet, sammt, velvet, is the same word.
SAMOVAR, a kind of tea-urn. (Russ.) It occurs in 1884. —
Russ. samovar’, a tea-urn; see Stanford Dict. Said to be of Tatar
origin (Cent. Dict.).
SAMPAN, a kind of skiff, used in the East. (Malay—Chinese.)
Spelt champana in 1516 (Yule). The Stanford Dict. quotes sampan,
as occurring in 1622.—Malay sampan.—Chin. sanpan, lit. ‘three
boards.’ Yule notes that another boat is called in Chinese wupan,
i.e. ‘five boards.’
SAMPHIRE, the name of a herb. (F.—L. and Gk.) Spelt
sampire in K. Lear, iv. 6. 15; and in Minsheu, ed. 1627; and this is
a more correct spelling, representing a former pronunciation. So
also Sherwood, in his index to Cotgrave, who gives herbe de S. Pierre
as a F. equivalent. Spelt sampier in Baret (1580), which is still
better. —F. Saint Pierre, St. Peter; Cotgrave, 5. ν. herbe, gives:
‘Herbe de S. Pierre, sampire.’=L. sanctum, acc. of sanctus, holy ; and
Peirum, ace. of Petrus, Peter, named from Gk. πέτρος, a stone, πέτρα,
a rock.
SAMPLE, an example, pattern, specimen. (F.—L.) ME. sample,
Cursor Mundi, 9514; spelt asaumple (for esaumple), Ancren Riwle,
p- 112, l. 16.—OF. essemple, example. — L. exemplum. See Hxample.
Doublets, exsample, example. Der. sampler, Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 2.
205, from OF. examplaire (14th cent., Littré), another form of OF.
exemplaire, ‘a pattern, sample, or sampler,’ Cot., from—L. exemplar.
See Exemplar, which is a doublet.
SANATORY, healthful. (L.) Not in Todd's Johnson. [Phillips
has the allied word sanative, used of medicinal waters, now nearly
obsolete ; it occurs in Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 787.] Coined as if from
a L. *sanatdrius, extended from saxdtor, healer. We find also L.
sGnatiuus, healing. L. sdndre, to heal,—L. sanus, in good health;
see Sane.
SANCTIFY, to consecrate. (F.—L.) Spelt sanctifie, Tyndall’s
Works, p. 11, col. 2, 1. 6; seintefie, Gower, C. A. iii. 2345 bk. vii.
4247. - Ἐν sanctifier, ‘ to sanctifie;’ Cot. —L. sanctificare, to make holy.
=L. sancti-, for sanctus, holy; and -fic-, for facere, to make. See
Saint and Fact. Der. sanctific-at-ion, from F. sanctification (Cot.) ;
sanctifi-er.
SANCTIMONY, devoutness. (F.—L.) In Shak. Troil. v. 2.
139.— MF. sanctimonie ; Cot. = L. sanctimonia, sanctity. — L. sancti-, for
sanctus, holy; with Idg. suffixes -mdn-, -ya. See Saint. Der.
sanctimoni-ous, -ly, -ness.
SANCTION, ratification. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave.—F. sanction,
‘sanction ;’ Cot.—L. sanctidnem, acc. of sanctio, a sanction; cf.
sanctus, pp. of sancire, to render sacred. See Saint.
SANCTITY, holiness. (L.) As You Like It, iii. 4.14. Formed
(by analogy) from L. sanetitdtem, acc. of sanctitis, holiness. = L.
sancti-, for sanctus, holy ; see Saint. ,
SANCTUARY, a sacred place. (F.—L.) ME. seintuarte, a
shrine; Chaucer, C. T.12887 (Ὁ 953). —AF. saintuarie, Stat. Realm,
i. 298 (Ε΄ sanctuaire), a sanctuary.—L. sanctuarium, a shrine. L.
sanctu-s, holy ; see Saint.
SAND, fine particles of stone. (E.) ME, sand, sond, Chaucer,
534. SANDAL
AS. sand; Grein, ii. 390.4+Du. zand; Icel.
B. All
C. T. 4929 (B 509).
sandr; Swed. and Dan. sand; G. sand; Bavarian sambd.
from the Teut. types *sam(a)doz, m.; *sam(a)don, n. Idg. type
*samadhos; cf. Gk. ἄμαθος, sand. Brugmann, i. § 421. Der. saxd-
eel, -glass, -heat, -martin, -paper, -piper, -pit (Palsgrave), -sfone;
sand-y, AS, sandig ; sand-i-ness.
SANDAL, a kind ofshoe. (F.—L.—Gk.—Pers.) ME. sandalies,
pl., Wyclif, Mark, vi. 9.—F. sandale, ‘a sandall, or sendall;’ Cot. =
L. sandalia, pl. of sandalium.= Gk. σανδάλιον, dimin. of σάνδαλον
(A£olic σαμβάλον), a wooden sole bound on to the foot with straps,
a sandal. Supposed to be of Pers. origin; cf. Pers. sandal, a sandal,
sort of slipper, Rich. Dict. p. 853.
SANDAL-WOOD, afragrant wood. (F.—L.—Gk. — Pers. — Skt.)
« Sandal or Saunders, a precious wood brought out of India ;’ Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674. Spelt sanders in Cotgrave, and in Baret (1580) ;
this form seems to be an E. corruption. =F. sandal, ‘ sanders, a sweet-
smelling wood brought out of the Indies ;” Cot. Also santal (Hatz-
feld).—Late L. santalum.—Gk. σάνταλον, σάνδαλον. — Pers. sandal ;
also chandal, ‘ sandal-wood ;” Rich. Dict., p. 544. Also spelt chandan,
id.—Skt. chandana-, sandal, the tree; which Benfey derives from
chand, to shine, allied to L. candére.
SAND-BLIND, semi-blind, half blind. (E.) In Shak., Merch.
Ven. ii. 2. 37. A corruption of sam-blind, i.e. half-blind. ME.
sam-, as in sam-rede, half red, sam-ripe, half ripe, P. Plowman, C. ix.
311, and footnote. AS. sam-, as in sam-cucu, half alive, Luke, x. 30.
The AS. sam- is cognate with L. sémi-, Gk. ἡ μι- ; see Semi-, Hemi-.
SANDWICH, two slices of bread with ham between them. (E.)
So called from John Montague, 4th Earl of Sandwich (born 1718,
died 1792), who used to have sandwiches brought to him at the
gaming-table, to enable him to go on playing without cessation.
Sandwich is a town in Kent; AS. Sandwic = sand-village.
SANE, of sound mind. (L.) A late word. In Todd’s Johnson.
= L. sinus, of sound mind, whole. Prob. allied to Icel. sdn, ἃ.
siithne, atonement (Kluge). Der. sane-ness ; san-at-ive, san-at-or-y (see
Sanatory) ; <an-i-ty, Hamlet, ii. 2. 214, formed (by analogy) from
L. ace. sanitatem ; san-i-ta-ry, a coined word ; san-icle, q. v.
SANGUINE, ardent, hopeful. (F.—L.) The use of the word is
due to the old belief in the ‘four humours,’ of which b/ood was one;
the excess of this humour rendered people of a hopeful ‘ tempera-
ment’ or ‘complexion.’ ME. sanguin; ‘Of his complexion he was
sanguin ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 335 (A 333).—F. sanguin, ‘sanguine,
bloody, of a sanguine complexion;’ Cot.—L. sanguineum, acc. of
sanguineus, bloody. — L. sanguin-, stem of sanguis, blood. Root un-
certain. Der. sanguine-ly, -ness; sanguin-e-ous, Englished from L.
sanguineus ; sanguin-ar-y, Dryden, Hind and Panther, pt. ili. 1. 679,
from Εἰ. sanguinaire, *bloudy,’ Cot. from L. sanguinarius.
SANHEDRIM, the highest council of the Jews. (Heb. —Gk.)
In ‘Yodd’s Johnson, who cites from Patrick’s Commentary on Judges,
iv. 5. Spelt saxhedrin, Purchas’s Pilgrimage, bk. ii. ch. 12. § 3.
=—Late Heb. sanhedrin, not a true Heb. word.—Gk. συνέδριον, a
council; lit. a sitting together, sitting in council. — Gk. σύν, together;
and ἕδρα, a seat, from ἕζομαι (fut. €5-odpar), I sit, cognate with E. sit,
See Syn- and Sit.
SANICLE, a plant of the genus Sanicula. (F.—L.) ME. sanycle,
Voc. 613. 33.— OF. sanicle (Hatzfeld), — Late L. sanicula, named from
healing wounds. = L. sdnus, whole ; see Sane.
SANITARY, SANITY; see Sane.
SANS, without. (F.—L.) In Shak. As You Like It, ii. 7. 166. —
Ἐς sans (OF, sens), without; the final s is unoriginal (see Diez). =
L. sine, without.—L. si xe, if not, unless, except.
SANSKRIT, lit. ‘symmetrical language.’ (Skt.) ‘The word
Sanskrit (Skt. samsky/a) is made up of the preposition sam, “ together,”
and the pp. ἀγία-, ‘‘ made,” an euphonic s being inserted. The com-
pound means ‘carefully constructed,” ‘‘symmetrically formed” (con-
fectus, constructus). In this sense, it is opposed to the Prakrit (Skt.
prakrta-), ‘““common,” “natural,” the name given to the vulgar
dialects which gradually arose out of it, and from which most of the
languages now spoken in upper India are more or less directly de-
rived; ? Monier Williams, Skt. Grammar, Ὁ. xix. Sam is allied to
E. same; and ky, to make, to L. creare; see Same and Create.
SAP (1), the juice of plants. (E.) ME. sap, Kentish zep, Ayenbite
of Inwyt, p. 96, 1. 5. AS. sep, sap: Grein, ii. 397-4+-MDnu. sap,
‘sap, juice, or liquor ;’ Hexham; OHG. saf; 6. καῇ (with added).
Not connected with Gk. ὀπός, juice ; but perhaps borrowed from L.
sapa, new wine boiled thick. Der. sap-less, sapp-y, sapp-i-ness ; sap-
ling, a young succulent tree, Rich. IH, iii. 4. 71; sap-green.
SAP (2), to undermine. (F.—Late L.) ‘Sapping or mining;’
Howell, Famil. Letters, vol. ii. let. 4. MF. sapper (Εἰ. saper), ‘to
undermine, dig into;’ Cot.—OF. sappe (15th cent., Littré), a kind
of hoe; mod. F. sae, an instrument for mining. Cf: Span. zapa, a
spade; Ital. zappa, ‘a mattocke to dig and delue with, a sappe;’ |
SARDINE
Florio; Late L. sapa, a hoe, mentioned A.D. 1183 (Ducange).
B. Diez proposes to refer these words to Gk. σκαπάνη, a digging-tool,
ahoe; from σκάπτειν, to dig. He instances Ital. zolla, which he
derives from OHG. skolla (with z from sk). Der. sapp-er.
SAPAJOU, a spider-monkey. (F.—Brazil.) F. sapajou; of
Brazil. origin (Hatzfeld), It occurs in French in 1614.
SAPID, savoury. (L.) Sir T. Browne has sapidity, Vulg. Errors,
b. ili. c. 21. § 6; and sapor, id. § 8. All the words are rare. —L.
sapidus, savoury. L. sapere, to taste, also, to be wise. See Sa-
pience. Der. sajid-i-ty; also sap-or, from L. sapor, taste. And
see savour, in-stpid.
SAPIENCEH, wisdom. (F.—L.) [The adj. sapient is a later
word.| ME. sapience, P. Plowman, B. iii. 330; Gower, C. A. ii. 167;
bk. v. 1205.—F. sapience, ‘sapience ;’ Cot.—L. sapientia, wisdom. =
L. sapient-, decl. stem of pres. part. of sapere, to be wise, orig. to
taste, discern. Der. (from L. sapere) sapi-ent, K. Lear, iii. 6. 24;
sapi-ent-ly, sage (1); and see sapid.
SAPONACEOUS, soapy. (L.—Teut.) In Bailey’s Dict., vol.
ii, ed. 1731. Coined asif from L. *sapondceus, soapy, from L, sapéon-,
stem of sapo, soap (Pliny). B. It is doubtful whether sa¢o (Gk.
σάπων) is a L. word; it is the same as Εἰ. soap, and was probably
borrowed from Teutonic (not Celtic, as Pliny inadvertently says) ;
see Soap. See Pliny, Nat. Hist. bk. xxviii. c. 12.
SAPPHIC, a kind of metre. (L.—Gk.) ‘Meter saphik;’ G.
Douglas, Palace of Honour, pt. ii. st. 4.—L. Sapphicus, Sapphic,
belonging to Sappho, the poetess.—Gk. Sampw, a poetess born at
Mitylene in Lesbos, died about 592 B.c.
SAPPHIRE, a precious stone. (F. —L.—Gk. —Heb. —Skt.) ME.
saphir, Old Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 96, 1. 115.—F. saphir,
‘a saphir stone ;” Cot.—L. sapphirus.—Gk. σάπφειρος, a sapphire.
— Heb. sappir, a sapphire (with initial samech),—Skt. ganipriyam, a
sapphire ; lit. ‘ beloved of Saturn ;” gems being often connected with
names of planets. —Skt. gani-s, Saturn; and priya-s, dear, from fri,
to love. (Uhlenbeck.) Cf. Pers. saffir, a sapphire; Rich. Dict.,
p. 836. See the note in Schade, O. H. G. Dict., p. 1412.
SARABAND, a kind of dance. (F.—Span.—Pers.) In Ben
Jonson, The Devil is an Ass, iv. 1 (Wittipol). Explained as ‘a
Spanish dance’ in Johnson. = F. sarabande (Littré). Span. zarabanda,
a dance; of Moorish origin. Supposed to be from Pers, sarband,
of which the lit. sense is ‘a fillet for fastening the ladies’ head-dress;’
Rich. Dict. p. 822.—Pers. sar, head, cognate with Gk. κάρα ; and
band, a band. See Cheer and Band (1).
SARACEN, one of an Eastern people. (L.—Gk.—Arab.) ME.
saracen, Rich. Coer de Lion, 2436; sarezyn, 2461.—L. saracénus, a
saracen ; from Late Gk. Σαρακηνός ; lit. ‘ one of the eastern people.’
— Arab. shargiy, oriental, eastern; sunny ; Rich. Dict. p. 889. Cf.
Arab. sharg, the east, the rising sun; id. From Arab. root sharaqa,
itrose. (Doubtful ; see note in Gibbon, Rom. Empire, c. 50.) Der.
Saracen-ic; also sarcen-et, q.v.; sirocco, q.v.
SARCASM, a sneer. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674.—F. sarcasme, ‘a biting taunt;’ Cot.—L. sarcasmus, sarcasmos.
- Gk. σαρκασμός, a sneer.— Gk. σαρκάζειν, to tear flesh like dogs, to
bite the lips in rage, to sneer. = Gk. σαρι-, stem of σάρξ, flesh. Der.
sarcas-t-ic, Gk. σαρκαστικός, sneering ; sarcas-t-ic-al-ly.
SARCENET, SARSNET, a fine thin silk. (F.—L.—Arab.)
In Shak. 1 Hen. 1V, ili. 1. 256. Spelt sarzinett in 1373; Wardrobe
Acct. 47 Edw. III; N. and Q. 8S. i. 129. OF. sarcenet, a stuff
made by the Saracens (Roquefort). Formed from Low L. saracéni-
cum, sarcenet (Ducange).—Low L. Saracéni, the Saracens; see
Saracen.
SARCOPHAGUS, a stone receptacle for a corpse. (L.—Gk.)
In Holland, tr. of Plinie, b. xxxvi. c. 17; it was the name of a kind
of lime-stone, so called ‘ because that, within the space of forty daies
it is knowne for certaine to consume the bodies of the dead which
are bestowed therein.’ —L, sarcophagus. Gk. σαρκοφάγος, cami-
vorous, flesh-consuming ; hence a name for a species of lime-stone,
as above. — Gk. σαρκο-, from σάρξ, flesh (see Sarcasm); and
φαγεῖν, to eat, from 4/BHAG, to eat.
SARDINES (1), a small fish. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Cotgrave. ME.
sardyn, Earl of Derby’s Exped. (C.S.), p. 228, 1. 31.—F. sardine,
also spelt sardaine in Cotgrave, and explained as ‘a pilchard,
or sardine.’ = L. sardina, also sarda, a sardine. —Gk. capdivn, σάρδα,
a kind of fish ; explained as ‘a kind of tunny caught near Sardinia’
(Liddell), Perhaps named from Gk. Σαρδώ, Sardinia.
SARDINE (2), a precious stone. (L.—Gk.) ME. sardyn,
Wyclif, Rev. iv. 3; AF. sardine, Gaimar, 1. 4888.—L. *sardinus,
the L. equivalent of Gk. capdivos. The Vulgate has sardinis in
Rey. iv. 3 as a gen. case, from a nom. sardo.=—Gk. σαρδίνος, a sar-
dine stone, Rey. iv. 3. Also capdw; also σάρδιον. So called from
Sardis, capital of Lydia in Asia Minor, where it was first found ;
Pliny, Ὁ. xxxvil. c. 7. Der. sard-onyx, q.v.
SARDIUS
SARDIUS, a gem. (L.—Gk.) In Rev. xxi. 20.—L. sardius |
(Vulgate).—Gk. σάρδιος, Rev. xxi. 20; the same as σάρδιον, a gem
of Sardis (above). See the note in Schade, O. H.G. Dict., p. 1418.
SARDONIGC, sneering, said of a laugh or smile. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Only in the phr. ‘ Sardonic laugh’ or ‘ Sardonic smile.’ In Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674, it is a ‘ Sardonian laughter.’ So also ‘Sardonian
smile ;’ Spenser, F. Ὁ. v. 9. 12. -- Εἰ sardonique, used in the 16th cent.
(Littré) ; but usually MF. sardonien. Cotgrave has: ‘ris sardonien,
a forced or causelesse mirth.’—L. Sardonicus, for the more usual
Sardontus, Sardinian. = Gk. σαρδόνιος, also σαρδάνιος ; hence σαρδάνιον
γελᾶν, to laugh bitterly, grimly. ‘Prob. from σαίρειν (to draw back
the lips and show the teeth, grin); others write σαρδόνιος, deriving it
from σαρδόνιον, a plant of Sardinia (Sapéw), which was said to screw
up the face of the eater, Servius, on Virg. Ecl. vii. 41, and in Latin
certainly the form Sardonius has prevailed ;’ Liddell. ‘Immo ego
Sardois uidear tibi amarior herbis;’ Virgil (as above).
SARDONYX, a precious stone. (L.—Gk.) In Holland, tr. of
Plinie, b. xxxvii. c. 6.—L. sardonyx.—Gk. σαρδόνυξ, the sard-onyx,
i.e. Sardian onyx.—Gk. cap5-, for Σάρδεις, Sardis, the capital of
Lydia; and ὄνυξ, the finger-nail, also an onyx. See Sardine (2)
and Onyx. See the note in Schade, O. H. ἃ. Dict., p. 1420.
SARGASSO, gulf-weed, a kind of sea-weed. (Port.) ‘Sargasso,
for many miles floating upon the western ocean ;’ Sir T. Browne,
Garden of Cyrus, ch. iv. § 13.— Port. sargago, sea-weed, sea-wrack. =
Port. sarga, a sort of grapes. The gulf-weed has berry-like air-
vessels, and is also called the sea-grape.
SARK, a shirt. (Scand.—Slavonic.) ME. serke, P. Plowman,
B. v. 66; serk, Havelok, 603.—Icel. serkr, a shirt; Swed. sark; Dan.
serk, [Also AS. serc, serce (Bosworth) ; but sark is from Norse. | --
Slav. type *sorka; whence OSlay. sraka, a garment, Russ. sarochka,
a shirt (Miklosich).
SARONG, a kind of body-cloth orkilt. (Malay.—Skt.) Modern.
= Malay sdrung.—Skt. sdraiga-s, ¢araiga-s, adj. variegated; sb. a
garment. =—Skt. ¢dara-s, variegated. See Yule.
SARSAPARILLA, the name of a plant. (Span.) ‘ Sarsa-
parilla, a plant growing in Peru and Virginia .. commonly called
prickly bind-weed ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Spelt sassaparilla in Capt.
Smith, Works, ed. Arber, p. 582.—Span. zarzaparilla. B. The
Span. zarza means ‘ bramble,’ and is of Basque origin, from Basque
sartzia, a bramble; see Larramendi’s Dict., p. 506. y. The
origin of the latter part of the name is unknown; it has been sup-
posed that parilla stands for parrilla, a possible dimin. of parra, a
vine trained against stakes or against a wall. Others ascribe the
name to a physician surnamed Parillo,
SARSNET; see Sarcenet.
SASH (1), a case or frame for panes of glass, (F.—L.) ‘A
Jezebel .. appears constantly dressed at her sash;’ Spectator, no.
175 (A.D. 1711). ‘Sash, or Sash-window, a kind of window framed
with large squares, and corruptly so called from the French word
chassis, a frame;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.—MF. chassis, ‘a frame of
wood for a window;’ Cot.; Εἰ, chassis. Extended from OF. chasse
(F. chasse), a shrine, case.—L. capsa, a box, case; see Chase
(3), Case (2). @ The F. chassis was formerly represented by E.
chassis, a window-sash (N.E.D.); and the F. chasse by Lowl. Sc.
chess, a sash (E. D. D.).
SASH (2), a scarf, band. (Pers.) Formerly spelt shash, with the
sense of turban. ‘His head was wreathed with a huge shash or
tulipant [turban] of silk and gold ;’ Sir Τὶ Herbert, Travels, 1638,
p- 191; cited in Trench, Select Glossary. See also Sandys, Trav.
(1632), p. 63. ‘All these Tulbents [turbans of Turks] be of pure
white ; but the. . Christians .. weare Shasses, that is, striped linnen
ον wound about the skirts of a little cap;”’ Fynes Moryson, Itin.
(1617), pt. iii. bk. 4, ch. 2, p. 174. ‘So much for the silk in
Judeea, called shesh in Hebrew, whence haply that fine linen or silk
is called shashes, worn at this day about the heads of Eastern people;’
Fuller, Pisgah Sight of Palestine, b. ii, c. 14, § 24. But it does not
seem to be a Hebrew word. Trench, in his Eng. Past and Present,
calls it a Turkish word ; which is also not the case. The solution
is, that the word is Persian. — Pers. shast, ‘a thumb-stall worn by
archers, . . a girdle worn by the Magi,’ &c., Rich. Dict. p. 891.
In Vullers’ Pers. Dict. ii. 425, 426, we find: shest, a thumb, archer’s
thumb-ring (to guard the thumb in shooting), a fish-hook, plectrum,
fiddle-string, scalpel ; also ‘ cingulum idolatorum et igniscultorum,’
i.e. a girdle worn by idolaters and fire-worshippers, thus accounting
for our sash,
SASSAFRAS, a kind of laurel. (F.—Span.—L.) In Phillips,
ed. 1706. ‘The tree that is brought from the Florida, whiche is
called sassafras ;’ J. Frampton, Joyfull Newes (1577), fol. 46.—F.
sassafras, = Span, sasafras, sassafras; from MSpan. sassifragia, the
herb saxifrage (Minsheu); we find also Span. salsafras, salsifrax,
salsifragia, saxifrage (Neuman), all various corruptions of sassi-
SATURNINE 535
fragia. ‘The same virtue was attributed to sassafras as to saxifrage,
of breaking up the stone in the bladder;’? Wedgwood. See
Saxifrage.
SATAN, the devil. (Heb.) Lit. ‘the enemy.’ Called Sathanas
in Wyclif, Rev. xii. 9; spelt Sa¢anas in the Vulgate ; and Σατανᾶς in
the Greek. — Heb, sa/az, an enemy, Satan; from the root satan (with
sin and teth), to be an enemy, persecute. Der. Satan-ic, Satan-ic-al.
SATCHEL, a small bag. (#.—L.—Gk.—Heb.—Egyptian.)
ME. sachel, Wyclif, Luke, x. 4.—AF. sachel (Bozon); OF. sachel,
a little bag (Koquefort, with a citation).—L. saccellum, acc. of
saccellus, dimin, of seccus, a sack, bag; see Sack.
SATE, SATIATE, to glut, fill full, satisfy. (F.—L.) In Hamlet,
i. 5. 56; we find sated, Oth. i. 3. 356. Save is for *satie.— OF. satier, to
satiate (Godefroy).—L. satiare, to satiate. Sated was used like
satiate in a participial sense, i.e. with the sense of satiated. B. We
find saciate thus used in Du Wes, Sup. to Palsgrave, p. 1077, 1. 21.
Cf. ‘ That satiate yet unsatisfied desire ;’ Cymb. i. 6. 48.—L. satiatus,
pp. of satiare, to sate, satiate, fill full, Cf. L. satur, full; sat, satis,
sufficient. Allied to E.sad; seeSad. Der. satiat-ion; sat-i-e-ty, from
Ἐς, satieté, ‘satiety, fulnesse,’ Cot., from L. satietatem, acc. of satietas.
Also sat-is-fy, 4. ν. ; sat-ire, q.v., sat-ur-ate, q.v., sotl (3), 4. ν.
SATELLITE, a follower, attendant moon. (F.—L.) ‘Satellite,
one retained to guard a man’s person, a yeoman of the guard, ser-
geant, catchpoll;’ Blount, ed. 1074.—F. satellite, ‘a sergeant, catch-
pole, or yeoman of the guard;’ Cot.—L. satellitem, acc. of satelles,
an attendant, life-guard. Pope uses the L, pl. satellites (four syllables),
Essay on Man, i. 42.
SATIN, a glossy silk. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. satin, Chaucer, C. T.
4557 (Β 137).—F. satin, ‘satin;’ Cot. (Cf. Ital. setino, ‘a kind of
thin silke stuffe;’ Florio. Also Port. setim, satin.] — Late L. satinus,
sétinus, satin (Ducange). Extended from L. séta, a bristle; we find
the Late L. séta in the sense of silk (Ducange) ; also Ital. seta, ‘ any
kind of silke,’ Florio. B. Similarly Span. pelo, hair, also means
fibre of plants, thread of wool or silk, &c.; and the L. séa or saeta
was used of the human hair as well as of the bristles of an animal ;
see Diez. Allied to AS. sada, a cord, a snare; see Brugmann, i. § 209.
Der. satin-et, satin-y, satin-wood.
SATIRE, a ridiculing of vice or folly. (F.—L.) In Shak. Much
Ado, v. 4. 103.—F. satire; Cotgrave has: ‘ Satyre,a satyr, an invec-
tive or vice-rebuking poem.’ =L. satira, also satura, satire, a species
of poetry orig. dramatic and afterwards didactic, peculiar to the
Romans (White). B. It is said that the word meant ‘a medley,’
and is derived from satura lanx, a full dish, a dish filled with mixed
ingredients ; satura being the fem. of satur, full, akin to satis, enough,
and to satire, to satiate ; see Sate. Der. satir-ic-al, spelt saturicall,
Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 130, 1. 139; satir-ise, satir-ist.
SATISFY, to supply or please fully. (F.—L.) ‘Not al so
satisfide;’ Spenser, F. Q. i. 5.15. ‘I satysfye, I content, or suffyce,
Te satisfie;’ Palsgrave.—OF., satisfier, to satisfy (as in Palsgrave) ;
afterwards displaced by satisfaire; see Littré. Formed as if from
a Late L. *satisficare, substituted for L. satisfacere, to satisfy. —L.
satis, enough; and facere, to make. See Sate and Fact. Der.
satisfact-ion, ME. satisfaccioun, Wyclif, 1 Pet. iii. 15, from Εἰ, satis-
faction, ‘satisfaction, Cot.; satisfact-or-y, from F. satisfactoire,
‘satisfactory,’ Cot.; satisfact-or-i-ly, -ness.
SATRAP, a Persian viceroy. (F.—L.—Gk.—Pers.) In Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674. We find ME. satraper, Allit. Romance of Alexander,
1913, 1937-—F. satrape, ‘a great ruler;’ Cot.—L. satrapam, ace. of
satrapes; we also find nom. satraps (acc. satrapem).—Gk. σατράπης,
the title of a Persian viceroy or governor of a province. B. Cer-
tainly an OPers. word, Littré, citing Burnouf (Yagna, p. 545),
compares the Gk, pl. ἐξαιθραπεύοντες, found in inscriptions (Liddell
and Scott give the form égarpamns), and the Heb. pl. achashdarpnim,
satraps. —OPers. khsatra-pava, guardian of a province ; from kAsatra,
province, and pa, to protect ; F. Spiegel, Die altpersischen Keilin-
schriften, p. 26. Cf. Skt. kshatra-, dominion, allied to kshaya, to
rule; and pa, to protect.
SATURATE, to fill to excess. (L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.—
L. saturatus, pp. of saturare, to fill full.—L. satur, full; allied to
satis, enough; see Sate. Der. satur-at-ion ; satur-able.
SATURDAY, the seventh day of the week. (L. and E.) ME.
Saterday, P. Plowman, B. v. 14, 367. AS, Seter-deg, Luke, xxiii.
54; also spelt Setern-deg, Exod. xvi. 23; Seternes deg, rubric to
Matt. xvi. 28, xx. 29. The name Seter or Setern is borrowed from
L. Saturnus, Saturn; cf. L. Saturnt diés, Saturday; Du. zaturdag,
Saturday. See Saturnine,
SATURNINE, gloomy of temperament. (F.—L.) ‘ Saturnine,
of the nature of Saturn, i.e. sterne, sad, melancholy ;’ Minsheu. =
ME. Saturnin, a form noticed by Minsheu; and Littré has saturnin
as a medical term, with the sense of ‘relating to lead; ᾿ lead being
a symbol of Satum. The more usual form is F. Saturnien, ‘sad,
536 SATYR
sowre, lumpish, melancholy ;” Cot. Both adjectives are from L.
Saturnus, the god Saturn, also the planet Saturn.
sense is due to the supposed evil influence of the planet Saturn in
astrology; see Chaucer, C. T. 2455-2471. y. Saturnus (OL.
Saeturnus) is said to mean ‘the sower;’ cf. sé-men, seed; from the
root sé-, to sow; see Seed. Der. (from Saturnus) Saturn-alia, 5. pl.,
the festival of Saturn, a time of licence and unrestrained enjoyment ;
Saturn-ian, pertaining to the golden age of Saturn, Pope, Dunciad,
1. 28, iii. 320, iv. 16. Also Satur-day, q.v.
SATYR, a sylvan god. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. Hamlet, i. 2.
140. =F. satyre, ‘a satyr, a monster, halfe man halfe goat ;’ Cot.=
L. satyrus.— Gk. σάτυρος, a Satyr, sylvan god, companion of Bacchus.
Der. satyr-ic.
SAUCE, a liquid seasoning for food. (F.—L.) ME. sauce,
Chaucer, C. T. 353; P. Plowman, B. xiii. 43.—F. sauce, ‘a sauce,
condiment ;’ Cot. =L. salsa, a salted thing; fem. of salsws, salted,
salt, pp. of salire, to salt.—L. sal, salt; see Salt. Der. sauce-pan ;
sauc-er, a shallow vessel orig. intended to hold sauce, L. L. L. iv. 3.
98; we find Late L. salstrium, glossed by ME. sauser, in Alex.
Neckam, in Wright's Vocab. i. 98, 1. 5 ; sauce, verb, to give a relish
to, often used ironically, as in As You Like It, iii. 5. 69 ; sauc-y, i.e.
full of salt, pungent, Twelfth Nt. iii. 4. 159; sauc-i-ly, K. Lear, i. 1.
22, ii. 4. 413 sauc-i-ness, Com. Errors, ii. 2. 28. Also saus-age, q.v.
SAUNTER, to lounge. (F.—L.) ‘ By sauntering still on some
adventure ;’ Hudibras, pt. iti. c. 1. 1. 1343 (ed. Bell, ii. 111). Not
in early use. We find however, in the Romance of Partenay, ed.
Skeat, 1. 4653, that Geoffrey ‘ santred and doubted,’ i.e. hesitated
and doubted as to whether he was of the lineage of Presine. And
see gloss. to York Mystery Plays. In the dialect of Cumberland the
word is sanfer. ‘Santer, saunter; [also], an oald wife santer=an
unauthenticated tradition ;? Dickinson’s Cumberland Glossary.
B. From AF. sauntrer, to venture forth, to go forth. It occurs in
the Year-book of Edw. III, of the 11-12 year of his reign, p. 619
(Rolls Series) ; where we find mention of a man ‘ qe sauntre en ewe,’
who ventures upon the water, or who puts tosea. It represents a
Late L. form *ex-adventurare, to venture out. See Ex- and
Adventure. The ME. aunter, adventure, is not uncommon. See
Notes on E. Etym., p. 256. Der. saunter-er.
SAURIAN, one of the lizard tribe. (Gk.) A modern geological
term; formed from Gk. cavp-a or caip-os, a lizard; with suffix -ian
=L. -i-anus).
SAUSAGE, an intestine of an animal, stuffed with meat salted
and seasoned. (F.—L.) Better sausige. Spelt saulsage, Gascoigne,
Art of Venerie; Works, ed. Hazlitt, ii. 308, 1. 3 from bottom;
sausedge in Palsgrave. — AF. *sauciche (Guernsey sauciche); F. saucisse
(also saulcisse in Cotgrave), ‘a saucidge;’ Cot.—Late L. salsicia,
fem. of salsicius, adj. (Georges), made of seasoned meat; a sausage.
Cf. ‘ Salcice, Gallice sauchises ;’ Wright’s Vocab. i. 128,1.1.—L.salsi-,
for salsus, salted; with suffix -ci-a. See Sauce. See Notes on E.
Etym., p. 257.
SAUTERNE, a kind of wine. (F.) From Sauterne, a place in
France, in the department of Gironde.
SAVAGE, wild, fierce, cruel. (F.—L.) Lit. it merely means
‘living in the woods,’ rustic; hence, wild, fierce; spelt salvage,
Spenser, F. Ὁ. iv. 4. 39; ὅς. ME. sauage (with τ τεῦ), King Ali-
saunder, 1. 869; spelt salvage, Gower, ii. 77; bk. iv. 2202.—OF.
salvage, savaige, mod. F. sauvage, ‘savage, wild;’ Cot. And see
Burguy. — Τὸ, siluaticus, belonging toa wood, wild. —L. silva, a wood.
See Silvan. Der. savage-ly, -ness.
SAVANNA, SAVANNAH, a meadow-plain of America.
(Span.—Carib.) ‘Savannahs are clear pieces of land without
woods ;’? Dampier, Voyages, an. 1683 ; ed. 1699, i. 87; R. Eden, ed.
Arber, p. 148. =—Span. sabana (with 6 sounded as bi-labial v), a large
plain ; said to be of Caribbean origin (Oviedo). @ The Span. is
sabana (whence F, savane) ; distinct from sdbana, a sheet for a bed,
an altar-cloth, which is from L. sabana, orig. pl. of sabanum, a linen
cloth, towel. — Gk. σάβανον, a linen cloth, towel.
SAVE, to rescue, make safe. (F.—L.) ME. sauuen (=sauven),
Ancren Riwle, p..98, .1. 10; sawen (=saven), Chaucer, C. T. 3534.—
F. sauver, ‘to save;’ Cot.—L. saludre, to secure, make safe. =L.
saluus, safe; see Safe. Der. sav-er, save-all, sav-ing, sb., sav-ings-
bank, a bank for money saved ; sav-i-our, ME. saveoure (=saveour),
P. Plowman, B. v. 486, from OF. saveor, salueor (Burguy), from L.
acc. saluatérem, a saviour. Also save, prep., ME. saue (=save),
P. Plowman, B. xvii. 100, from F. sau/, in such phrases as sauf mon
droit, my right being reserved; see Cotgrave. Also sav-ing, prep.,
K. John, i. 201.
SAVELOY, CERVELAS, a kind of sausage. (F.—Ital.—L.)
Now corruptly spelt saveloy, but formerly cervelas or cervelat. The
spelling cervelas is in Phillips, Kersey, and Ashe; Bailey, ed. 1735,
has: ‘ Cervelas, Cervelat, a large kind of Bolonia sausage, eaten cold
B. The peculiar |
SAY
in slices.’ = MF, cervelat (now cervelas), ‘an excellent kind of drie
saucidge,’ &c.; Cot.—Ital. cervelatta, a thick short sausage. So
called because it contained pigs’ brains (Zambaldi).—Ital. cervello,
brain. — L. cerebellum, dimin. of cerebrum, brain; see Cerebral.
SAVIN, SAVIWE, SABINE, anever-green shrub. (L.) ME.
saveine, Gower, C. A. iii. 130; bk. vil. 1353. AS. safine, sauine,
savine ; A.S. Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, i. 34. —L. sabina, or Sabina
herba, savin; lit. Sabine herb (F. sabine). Kem. of Sabinus, Sabine.
The Sabines were a people of central Italy.
SAVORY, a plant of the genus Satureia, (F.—L.) ME. sauereye ;
‘Satureia, sauereye’; Voc. 609. 32.—OF. savereie (Godefroy). —L.
saturéia, savory. β. We find also MF. savorée, ‘the herb savory ;’
Cot. App. due to confusion with MF. savouree, fem. of savouré,
‘savoury, that hath a good smack or taste;’ Cot.; orig. fem. pp. of
MF. savorer, ‘to savor;’ Cot.—OF. savour, savour; see Savour.
SAVOUR, odour, scent, taste. (F.—-L.) ME. sauour (savour),
Chaucer, C. T. 15697, 15711 (ἃ 229, 243).—OF. savour (Burguy) ;
saveur, ‘savour;’ Cot.—L. sapdrem, acc. of sapor, taste.—L. sapere,
to taste; see Sapid. Der. savour, vb., ME. saueren, Wyclif,
Rom. xii. 3; savour-y, ME. sauery, Wyclif, Mark, ix. 49; savour-
i-ness ; savour-less.
SAVOY, a kind of cabbage. (F.) ‘ Savoys, a sort of fine cabbage,
first brought from the territories of the dukedom of Savoy ;’ Phillips,
ed. 1706,
SAW (1), an instrument for cutting, with a toothed edge. (E.)
ME. sawe, P. Plowm. Crede, 1. 753; Voc. 628. 12. AS. saga;
‘Serra, saga;’ Voc. 151. 2.4+Du. zaag; Icel. sg; Dan. sav; Swed.
sdg; G. sage. β. All from Tent. type *saga, f., lit. ‘a cutter;’
from Tent. base *sag, 2nd grade of Teut. root *seg, to cut. = 4/SEQ, to
cut; cf. L. see@re, to cut; see Secant. Der. saw, verb, ME. sawen,
sawyn, Prompt. Parv.; saw-dust, saw-fish, saw-mill, saw-pit; also
saw-y-er (formed like bow-y-er from bow, the y being due to a ME.
verb *saw-i-en =saw-en), spelt sawer, Wright’s Vocab. i. 212, col. 2;
sawyer, Caxton, Godfrey of Boloyne, ch. 57. Also see-saw, q.V.
SAW (2), a saying, maxim. (E.) In As You Like It, ii. 7. 156.
ME. sawe, Chaucer, C. T. 1165 (A 1163). AS. sagu, a saying ;
Grein, ii. 387. Allied to AS. secgan, to say.-+-Icel. saga, a saga,
tale; Dan. and Swed. saga; G. sage. See Say. Doublet, saga. |
SAXHORN, a kind of horn. (F. and E.) Named after the in-
ventor, Adolphe Sax, a Frenchman; ab. 1840. ,
SAXIFRAGE, a genus of plants. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave and
Minsheu and Palsgrave. =F. saxifrage, ‘the herb saxifrage, or stone-
break;” Cot.—L. saxifraga, spleen-wort (White). The adiantum
or ‘maiden-hair’ was also called saxifragus, lit. stone-breaking,
because it was supposed to break stones in the bladder. ‘ They
have a wonderful faculty . . - to break the stone, and to expel it out
of the body ; for which cause, rather than for growing on stones and
rocks, I believe verily it was .. called in L. saxifrage;’ Pliny,
b. xxii. ο. 21 (Holland’s translation). L. saxi-=saxo-, for saxum, a
stone, rock; and frag-, base of frangere, to break, cognate with E.
break. Doublet, sassafras.
SAXON, the name of one of acertain Teutonic race. (L.— Tent.)
Late L. Saxonés, pl. Saxons; also Saxo, sing., a Saxon.—AS.
Seaxan, pl., Saxons; so called because armed with a short sword. =
AS. seax, OF ries. sax, a knife; lit. ‘cutter;’ cf. L. saxum, a stone
implement. —4/SEQ, to cut; see Secant. Brugmann, i. § 549 ¢.
SAY (1), to speak, tell. (Ε) ME. seggen, P. Plowman, B. ν.
617; also siggen ; and often seen, sein, seyn, sain, Chaucer, C. T. 1153
(A 1151); saye, sete, id. 781. AS. secgan, secgean, to say (pt. t.
segde, sede, pp. gesegd, sed), Grein, ii. 421.4Icel. segja; Dan.
sige; Swed. saga; G. sagen; OHG. sagén. β. All these are weak
verbs, from a Teut. base *sag, allied to Idg. 4/SEQ, to say. Cf.
Lithuan. sakyti, to say, sakau, I say; Gk. ἕννεπε (for *€v-cem-e) ;
OL. in-sec-e, imp. s., tell, say. And see Sweet, N. E. Gram., § 1293.
From the same root is W. eb, an utterance; see Stokes-Fick, p. 296.
Der. say-ing, L. L. L. i. 2. 21; sooth-say-er; and see saga, saw (2).
SAY (2), a kind of serge. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘Say, a delicate serge
or woollen cloth ;’ Halliwell. ‘ Saye clothe, serge ;’ Palsgrave. ME.
saie; in Wyclif, Exod. xxvi. 9, the later version has say where the
earlier has sarge, i.e. serge.— OF. saie; Cotgrave has saye, ‘a long-
skirted jacket, coat, or cassock ;’ also sayete, ‘ the stuffe sey.” [Florio
has Ital. saio, ‘a long side coate,’ and saie¢ta, ‘a kind of fine serge or
cloth for coates; it is also called rash.’ Neuman has Span. saya,
sayo, a tunic; sayete, a thin light stuff.] B. The stuff say was so
called because used for making a kind of mantle called in L. sagum
(pl. saga, as f. sing.>F. saie); cf. Late L. sagum (1), a mantle, (2)
a kind of cloth (Ducange).—Gk. σάγος, a coarse cloak, a soldier’s
mantle; cf. cay or σάγη, harness, armour, σάγμα, a pack-saddle,
also a covering, a large cloak. These Gk. words are not of Celtic
origin, as has been said, but allied to Gk. carrey (fut. σάξω), ta
pack, to load. See Prellwitz. See Sumpter.
SAY
SAY (3), to try, assay. (F.—L.) In Pericles, i. 1. 59; asa sb., in
K. Lear, v. 3. 143. Merely an abbreviation of Assay or Essay ;
see Essay.
SBIRRO, an Italian police-officer. (Ital.—L.—Gk.) Modern.
Byron has the pl. sbirrt; The Two Foscari, A. ii. sc. 1 (Marina).
=Ital. sbirro (with unoriginal s); formerly birro, ‘a catchpoale,’
Florio. So called from wearing a cloak.—L,. birrus, a cloak to
keep off rain ; by-form of burrus, ‘reddish’ (because of its colour). =
Gk. πυρρός, reddish. — Gk. πῦρ, fire. See Bureau. (PI. sbirri.)
SCAB, a crust over a sore. (Scand.) ME. scab, Chaucer, C. T.
12292 (C 358). Of Scand. origin; as shown by the sc=sk.—Dan.
and Swed. skabb.-F AS. sceab, sceb (whence E. shabby). β. The lit.
sense is ‘itch ;” something that is scratched; cf. L. scabiés, scab, itch,
from scabere, to scratch. From the Teut. base *skad-, to scratch,
whence mod. E. shave; see Shave. Der. scabb-ed, scabb-y, scabb-i-
ness. Also shabb-y, q.v.
SCABBARD, a sword-sheath. (F.—Teut.) Spelt scabberd in
Baret (1580). Scabbard is a corruption of ME. scaubert (v. τ. scau-
berc), Rob. of Glouc. p. 273, 1. 5538. In Prompt. Parv. p. 443, we
find all three forms, scawberk, scawhert, scauberd. The form scau-
berk also appears as scaberke, Trevisa, v. 373; and is palatalised to
scaberge, Romance of Partenay, 2790. B. Scauberk is obviously,
like hauberk, a French word of Teutonic origin ; but it does not appear
in O. French texts; except that Wedgwood cites vaginas, glossed by
AF. escaubers, from Johannes de Garlandié. Godefroy quotes the
same; from a sing. form escaubere ; where -berc (as in OF . hau-berc)
means ‘protection.’ [Note that the OF. halberc or hauberc, a
hauberk, is also spelt haubert, just as scauberk is also scaubert; and
corresponding to the form scaberge we have haberge-on.] γ. The
prefix appears to answer to OF. escale, mod. F. écale, a scale, husk,
derived from OHG. scala, G. schale. G. schale means a shell, peel,
husk, rind, scale, outside, skull, cover of a book, haft (of a knife),
bowl, vase. In.composition schal means cover or outside; as in
schalbrett, outside plank (of a tree), scha/holz, outside of a tree cut
into planks, schalwerk, a lining of planks. Cf. schalen, to plank,
inlay ; messer schalen, to haft knives. δ. The prob. sense is ‘ scale-
protection,’ or ‘covet-cover ;’ it is one of those numerous redupli-
cated words in which the latter half repeats the sense of the former.
The notion of putting a knife to a halt is much the same as that of
putting a sword into a sheath. I conclude that scabbard = scale-berk,
with the reduplicated sense of ‘cover-cover.’ See Scale (1) and
Hauberk. Distinct from scabbard, variant of scale-board, a very
thin board. See Notes on E. Etym., p. 257.
SCABIOUS, a plant. (F.—L.) ME. scabiose; Voc. 609. 36. -
MF. and F. scabieuse, f.—L. scabidsa (herba), a plant supposed to
be good for skin-eruptions. —L. scabiés, anitch. —L. scabere, to scrape,
scratch. Cf. E. scabrous, rough, F. scabreux, from L. scabrosus, rough,
from scaber, rough.
SCAFFOLD, a temporary platform. (F.—Gk. and Teut.) ME.
scaffold, scafold, Chaucer, C. T. 2533, 3384.—ONorth F. *escafalt,
found as escafaut, mod. F. échafaud. A still older form was escadaf-
fault (Ducange), for *eseadafalt ; with which cf. Span. catafalco, a
funeral canopy over a bier, Ital. catafalco, a funeral canopy, stage,
scaffold (whence mod. F. catafalque) ; showing that the form arose
from prefixing es- (from L. ex, prep.) to the form cada/alt, the
equivalent of Span. and Ital. catafalco. β. The word catafalco is a
hybrid one; the orig. sense was ‘a wooden erection crowning walls,
and projecting from them on both sides; thence the besieged com-
manded assailants beneath;’ N. E. D., s.v. catafalgue. Perhaps
from Gk. κατά, down; and OHG. balcho, OSax. balko, a balk, a
beam. y. But Hatzfeld derives F. chafaud (the equivalent of Ital.
catafalco) from Gk. κατά, down, and a Late L. type *falicum, from
L. fala, a kind of scaffold. (Doubtful.) Der. scaffold, verb;
scaffold-ing.
SCALD (1), to burn with a hot liquid, to burn. (F.—L.) ME.
scalden, pp. yscalded, Chaucer, C. T. Six-text, A 2020; Tyrwhitt (1.
2022) reads yskalled, but the 6 best MSS. have yscalded. ‘ Schaldinde
water, scalding water;’ Ancren Riwle, p. 246, 1. 3.—ONorth F.
escalder, corresponding to OF. eschalder (Marie de France, Equitan,
261), later form eschauder, ‘to scald;”’ Cot. Norm. dial. écauder
(Moisy) ; mod. F. échauder.—L. excaldare, to wash in hot water. =
L. ex, out, very; and caldus, hot, contracted form of calidus, hot;
ef. calére, to be hot. See Hx-and Caldron. Der. scald, sb.
SCALD (2), scabby. (Scand.) In Shak. Hen. V, ν. I. 5. Con-
tracted form of scalled, i.e. afflicted with the scall; see Scall. ME.
scalled, Chaucer, C. T. 629 (A 627). Cf. Dan. skaldet, bald.
. SCALD (3), a Scandinavian poet. (Scand.) ME. seald, Ormulum,
2192.—Icel. skald, a poet; older form skald (Noreen). Perhaps
allied to scold; but the long vowel is against this.
SCALE (1), a shell, small thin plate or flake on a fish, husk.
(F.~OHG,) ME. scale; ‘fisshes scales,’ Gower, C. A. i. 275 ; bk. il.
SCAMMONY 537
3456; scale (or shale), the shell of a nut, P. Plowman, C. xiii. 145,
and footnote.—OF. escale (F. écale).—OHG. scala (G. schale), a
seale, husk.-AS. scealu, a shell or husk; Dan. and Swed. skal,
a shell, pod, husk. Cf. Goth. skalja,a tile. (The AS. form gave
the ME. form shale; with sh. } B. All from Tent. type *skala, f.,
lit. ‘a flake,’ that which can be peeled off; from Teut. base *skal,
2nd grade of strong verb *skel-an-, to cleave, divide;. see Skill
Der. scale, verb; scal-ed, scal-y, scal-i-ness. Allied to Scale (2),
ue Seall, Scull, Skill. And see scall-op, scal-p. Doublet,
shale.
SCALE (2), a bowl or dish of a balance. (F.—Teut.) ΜΕ.
skale, schale (also scoale), a bowl, Ancren Riwle, p. 214, note 1;
scale, |ayamon, 5368. [The form scoale is from Icel. skal, scale.]
= OF. escale, a cup (Godefroy). —Icel. skal, Dan. skaal, Swed. skal,
a bowl; cf. Du. schaal, scale, bowl. Allied to Seale (1); being
from Teut. base *sk#l-, 3rd grade of Teut. *skelan-, to cleave
(above). Der. scole (obsolete); as in ‘ Lanx, the scole of a balance,’
Nomenclator, 1585 (Nares, ed. Wright and Halliwell); ‘ Then Jove
his golden scoles weighed up;’? Chapman, tr. of Homer, Iliad,
b. xxi. 1. 180; answering to the ME. form scoale above.
SCALE (3), a ladder, series of steps, graduated measure, gra-
dation. (L.) ME. scale, Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, pt. i. § 12.
Borrowed immediately from L. scd/a, usually in pl. scala, a flight of
steps, ladder. (Hence also F. échelle.) B. L. sca-la represents
*scan(t)sla, i.e. *scand-sla, that by which one ascends or descends ;
ef. L. scandere, to climb; see Scan. Brugmann, i. ὃ 414. Der.
scale, verb, to climb by a ladder; Surrey translates ‘ Hzerent
parietibus scale, postesque sub ipsos Nituntur gradibus’ (Aéneid, ii.
442) by ‘ And rered vp ladders against the walles, Under the win-
dowes scaling by their steppes ;’ clearly borrowed from Ital. scalare,
to scale. See Escalade.
SCALENE, having three unequal sides, said of a triangle. (L.—
Gk.) Phillips, ed. 1706, has: ‘Scalenum, or Scalenous Triangle,’ =
L. scalénus, adj. Gk. σκαληνός, scalene, uneven. Perhaps allied to
σκολιός, crooked.
SCALL, a scab, scabbiness, eruption on the skin. (Scand.) In
Levit. xiii. 30. ‘ Thou most haue the skalle ;’ Chaucer, Lines to Adam
Scrivener. . Gen. used with ref..to the head. ‘ On his heued he has
the skalle ;? Cursor Mundi, 11819.—Icel. skalli, a bare head. The
lit. sense may be ‘having a peeled head;’ cf. Swed. skallig, bald,
skala, to peel. Τῇ so, it is nearly related to Dan. and Swed. skal, a
husk ; see Seale (1). Der. scald (2), q.v.
SCALLION, a plant allied to the garlic and onion. (F.—L.—
Gk. —Pheenician.) Phillips, ed. 1706, gives both scallion and shalot.
ME. scalone, P. Plowman, C. ix. 310.—ONorth ἘΝ escalogne, a
scallion; see further under Shallot.
SCALLOP, SCOLLOP, a bi-valvular shell-fish, with the edge
of its shell in a waved form, (F.—Tent.) Holland’s Pliny, b. ix.
c. 33, treats "ΟἹ Scallops.’ ME. scalop (with one 1), Prompt. Parv.,
p- 442.— OF, escalope,a shell ; a word used by Rutebuef ; see quota-
tions in Godefroy ; and ef. F-. escalope in Littré. β. Of Teut. origin ;
cf. MDn. schelpe (Du. schelp), a shell; Hexham. Hexham has also:
«σ΄, Iacobs schelpe, S. James his shell;’ and the shell worn by pilgrims
who had been to St. James’s shrine was of the kind which we call ‘a
scallop-shell;? Chambers, Book of Days, ii. 121. Thus Palsgrave
has: ‘ scaloppe-shell, quocquille de saint Iacques.’ Cf. G. schelfe,
ahusk. y. The forms schel-pe, schel-fe are extensions from the form
which appears in E. as shell; see Seale (1), Shell. | Der. scallop,
verb, to cut an edge into convex lobes or scallop-like curves. And
see Sealp.
SCALP, the skin of the head on which the hair’ grows.
(Scand.) ‘Her scalpe, taken out of the charnel-house ;’ Sir T. More,
p- 57a. ME. scalp, ‘And his wiknes in his scalp doune falle;’
Early Eng. Psalter, ed. Stevenson, vii. 17; where scalp means the
top of the head, Lat. wertex. Evidently a Scand. word, due to a form
allied to that whence we also have MDu. schelpe, a shell, and OF.
escalope, a shell; see Seallop. β. We may compare MSwed.
skalp, a sheath, Icel. skalpr, a sheath; Dan. dial. skalp, a husk, pod.
y- The orig. sense is shell or scull (head-shell) ; and the word is allied
to scale; see Seale(1). Florio has Ital. scalpo della testa, ‘the skalp
of ones head ;’ but this is merely borrowed from Teutonic. Der.
scalp, verb; which may have been confused with L. scalpere (see
Sealpel).
SCALPEL, a small surgeon’s knife for dissecting. (L.) Phillips,
ed.1706, has scalper or scalping-iron; Todd’s Johnson has scalpel.
Scalpel is from L. scalpellum,a scalpel ; dimin. of scalprum,a knife. ὦ
L. scalpere, to cut, carve, scratch, engrave; (whence E. scalping-iron).
Allied to L. sculpere; see Sculpture.
SCAMBLE; see Secamper, Scramble, Shamble.
SCAMMONY, a cathartic gum-resin. (F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt
scamony in Arnold’s Chron. (1502), ed. 1811, p. 164,1. 16; skamonye,
SCAMP
Libell of Eng. Policy, 1. 360.—OF. scammonie, scammonée, ‘scam-
mony, purging bind-weed;’ Cot.—L. scamménia.—Gk. σκαμμωνία,
or rather σκαμωνία, scammony, a kind of bind-weed. It grows in
Mysia, Colophon, and Priene, in Asia Minor; Pliny, b. xxvi, c. 8.
SCAMP;; see Scamper.
SCAMPHR, to run with speed, flee away. (F.—L.) ‘ We were
forc’d to... scamper away as well as we could;’ Dampier’s
Voyages, an. 1685 (R.). The suffix -er is, as usual, frequentative, so
that the orig. form is scamp; but this is only found as a sb. in the
sense of ‘ worthless fellow,’ or ‘ cheat,’ though the orig. meaning is
merely ‘ fugitive’ or ‘ vagabond,’ one given to frequent shifts or de-
campings.=ONorth F. escamper, or rather s’escamper, ‘to scape,
flie;’ Cot.; OF. eschamper (Godefroy).—L. ex, out; and campus, a
field, esp. a field of battle. A parallel formation to decamp, q. v.
See Ex- and Camp. Der. scamper, sb.
SCAN, to count the measures in a poem, to scrutinise. (L.) In
Shak. Oth. iii. 3. 245; Skelton, Bowge of Court, 245. In common
use in the pp., which was frequently spelt scand, as in Spenser, F. Q.
vii. 6. 8, where it is used in the sense of ‘climbed.’ The verb should
rather have been scand, but the pp. was formed as scand (for scanded),
and then the final d was taken to be the pp. termination, and was
accordingly dropped. —L. scandere, to climb; also, to scan a verse.
Cf. Skt. skand, to spring, ascend. Der. scans-ion, formed (by analogy)
from L, scansio, a scanning, like the pp. scansus. Also scans-or-i-al,
formed for climbing, from scansdrius, belonging to climbing. From
the same root, a-scend, a-scent, de-scend, de-scent, con-de-scend, tran-
scend ; scale (3), e-sca-lade. See notes on E. Etym., p. 259.
SCANDAL, opprobrious censure, disgrace, offence. (F.—L.—
Gk.) ME. scandal; spelt scandle, Ancren Riwle, p. 12, 1. 12.—F.
scandale, ‘a scandall, offence;’ Cot. We also find OF. escandle
(Burguy) ; whence ME. scandle.—L. scandalum.=Gk. σκάνδαλον, a
snare; also scandal, offence, stumbling-block. The orig. sense
seems to be that of σκανδάληθρον also, viz. the spring of a trap, the
stick on a trap on which the bait was placed, which sprang up
and shut the trap. Prob. from 4/SQAND, to spring up; see Scan.
Der. scandal-ise, from F. scandaliser, formerly scandalizer, ‘ to scan-
dalize,’ Cot: Also scandal-ous, from F. scandaleux, ‘scandalous,
offensive,’ Cot. ; scandal-ous-ly, -ness. Doublet, slander.
SCANSION, SCANSORIAL; see Scan.
SCANT, insufficient, sparing, very little. (Scand.) ME. scant,
Prompt. Parv. Chaucer speaks of ‘the inordinate scantnesse’ of
clothing; Pers. Tale, De Superbia (Six-text, I 414). Scant has been
substituted for scamt.—Icel. skamt, neut. of skammr, short, brief;
whence skamta, to dole out, apportion meals (and so, to scant or
stint). Cf. also Icel. skamir, sb., a dole, share, portion (hence, short
or scant measure). In Norwegian, the mt changes to xt, so that we
find skantad, pp. measured or doled out, skanta, to measure narrowly,
reckon closely; skant, a portion, dole, piece measured off (Aasen).
The m is preserved in the phrase ‘to scamp work,’ i.e. to do it in-
sufficiently, and in the prov. E. skimping, scanty (Halliwell). Der.
scant, adv., Romeo, i. 2. 1043 scant, verb, Merch. Ven, ii. I. 17 ;
scant-ly, Antony, ili. 4.63 scant-y, scant-i-ly, scant-i-ness.
SCANTLING, a piece of timber cut of a small size, sample,
pattern. (F.—L.—Gk.; with L. prefix.) Here -ing is for -on, Pals-
grave has scantlon. ME. scantilone, Rom. Rose, 7064; skantulon,
Voc. 606.16, The word has doubtless been confused with scant and
scanty; but the old sense is ‘pattern,’ or ‘sample,’ or a small piece ;
with reference to the old word cantle. As used in Shak. (Troil. i. 3.
341) and in Cotgrave, it is certainly allied to OF. eschanteler,
and answers to ONorth Εἰ, escantillon, corresponding to OF, eschan-
tillon, ‘a small cantle or corner-piece, also a scantling, sample,
pattern, proof of any sort of merchandise;’ Cot. Cf. also Εἰ, eschante-
ler, ‘to break into cantles,’ to cut up into small pieces ; Cotgrave,
Burguy. —OF. es-, prefix, from L, ex, out; and ONorth Εἰ, cantel
(Burguy), a cantle, corner, piece, OF. chantel, chanteau, ‘a corner-
peece, or piece broken off from the corner;’ Cot. Hence E. cantle,
scantle, I Hen. IV, iii. 1.100. See Cantle. 4 Cf. ME. scantilon,
a measure, Cursor Mundi, 2231.
SCAPE (1), a leafless stalk bearing the fructification. (L.)
Modern. =L. scdpus, a shaft, stalk, stem ; allied to Sceptre.
SCAPH (2), short for escape, ‘Help us to scape ;’ Chaucer, C. T.,
A 3608. See Escape.
SCAPEGOAT, a goat allowed to escape into the wilderness.
(F.—L.; and E.) Levit. xvi. 8. From scape and goat; scape being
a mutilated form of escape, in common use; see Temp. ii. 2. 117, &c.
See Escape and Goat. So also scape-grace, one who has escaped
grace or is out of favour, a graceless fellow.
SCAPULAR, belonging to the shoulder-blades. (L.) In Blount's
Gloss., ed. 1674. [He also gives it as a sb., equivalent to the word
generally spelt scapulary; see below.]—Late L. scapularis, adj.
formed from L, pl. scapul@, the shoulder-blades, froma sing. scapula,
538
SCARF
not in use. Der. scapular-y, spelt scapularie in Minsheu, a kind ot
scarf worn by friars and others, so called from passing over the
shoulders; ME. scaplorye, scapelary, Prompt. Parv., chapolory, P.
Plowman’s Crede, 1. 550; from Εἰ, scapulaire, Late L. scapulare.
SCAR (1), the mark of a wound, blemish. (F.—L.—Gk.)
‘ Scarre of a wounde, covsture;’ Palsgrave. Spelt skarre, Gascoigne,
Fruites of Warre, st. 40, and st. 90; ME. scar, Wyclif, Lev. xxii. 22.
- MF. escare, a skar or scab;’ Cot. (Cf. Span. and Ital. escara,
sear, scurf, crust.]—L. eschara, a scar, esp. one produced by a burn.
- Gk. ἐσχάρα, a hearth, fire-place, grate for a fire, brazier, scar of a
burn. Der. scar, verb, Rich. II, v. 5. 23.
SCAR (2), SCAUR, a rock. (Scand.) ME. scarre, Wyclif,
1 Kings, xiv. 5; skerre (Halliwell) ; Lowland Sc. scar, scaur (Jamie-
son); Orkney skerry, a rock in the sea (id.).—Icel. sker, a skerry,
isolated rock in the sea; Dan. skjer, Swed. skar. Cf. Icel. skor, a
rift in a rock, So called because ‘cut off’ from the main land or
‘cut down;’ see Shear. Doublet, share; and cf. score.
SCARAB, a beetle. (F.—L.) ‘They are the moths and scarabs
of astate;’ Ben Jonson, Poetaster, iv. 6. 16.— MF. scarabee (Hatz-
feld).—L. scarabeum, acc. of scarabeus,a beetle. Der. scarab-ee
(F.) ; scarab-aeus (L.).
SCARAMOUCH, a buffoon. (F.—Ital.—Teut.) ‘ Scaramouch
and Harlequin at Paris;’ Dryden, Kind Keeper, A.i.sc.1. ‘Th’
Italian merry-andrews took their place . . . Stout Scaramoucha with
rush lance rode in;”’ Dryden, Epilogue to Silent Woman, spoken by
Mr. Hart, 11. 11-15. ‘ Scaramoche, a famous Italian zani, or mounte-
bank, who acted here in England 1673;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
Blount, writing at the time, is certainly right. The name was taken
from a famous Italian buffoon, mentioned again in the Spectator, no.
283. He died at Paris in 1694; Chambers, Book of Days, ii. 671.
His name was (rightly) Scaramuccia, altered by Dryden to Scara-
moucha, and in French to Scaramouche (Littré).—F. scaramouche. =
Ital. Scaramuccia, proper name; lit, ‘a skirmish,’ a word derived
from Teutonic; see Skirmish.
SCARCE, rare, not plentiful. (F.—L.) ME. scars, Rob. of
Glouc. p. 334,1. 6862. Chaucer has the adv. scarsly, C. T. 585
(A 583).—ONorth F. escars (Burguy), OF. eschars, ‘ scarce, needy,
scanty, saving, niggard ;’ Cot. Cf. Ital. scarso, scarce ; mod. Εἰ, échars
(Littré). β. Derived by Diez from Late L. scarpsus, shorter form of
excarpsus, used A.D. 805 as a substitute for L. excerptus, pp. of ex-
cerpere, (prob. also excarpere in Low Latin), to pick out, select, extract.
The lit. sense is selected, extracted, or picked out, hence ‘select,’
and so scarce; and Diez remarks that excarpsus is found just with the
sense of Ital. scarso.—L. ex, out ; and carpere, to pluck, allied to E.
harvest. See Excerpt; also ἘΠῚ - and Harvest. Der. scarce-ly,
ME. scarse-liche, K. Alisaunder, 3552; scarce-ness, Deut. viil. 9, ME.
skarsnesse, Gower, C. A. ii. 284; bk. v. 46743 scarc-i-ty, ME. scarseté,
K. Alisaunder, 5495, from OF. escarsete (escharsete in Burguy).
4 Cf. AF. escars, niggard, Philip de Thaun, Bestiary, 602 ; and AF.
escarseté, scarcity, Political Songs, ed. Wright, p. 186.
SCARE, to frighten away. (Scand.) ME. skerren, skeren, Prompt.
Parv. p. 4573; Destruction of Troy, 13404. Cf. ‘the skerre hors’ =
the scared horse, Ancren Riwle, p. 242, note d. The ME. verb
appears to be formed from the adj. skerre, scared, timid. = Icel. skjarr,
shy, timid; skjarrt hross, a shy horse, just like ME. skerre hors, and
Sc. scar, skair, timorous (Jamieson). Cf. Icel. skirra, to bar, prevent ;
reflexive, skirrask, to shun, shrink from ; skirrast vid, to shrink from;
Norw. skjerr, shy, skjerra, to scare; Swed. dial. skjarra, to scare.
Further connexions doubtful. Der. scare-crow, something to scare
crows away, Meas, for Meas. ii. I. 1.
SCARF (1), a light piece of dress worn on the shoulders or about
the neck. (Du.—Low ἃ.) Spenser has scarfe, F. Q. v. 2. 3; and
so in Baret.—Du. scherf, a shard, a shred; the sense being supplied
from Low (ἃ. scherf, a military scarf, girdle (Brem. Wort.) ; or we
may say that the Low G. word was influenced by Du. pronunciation.
B. Wealso find the form skarp ; as in ‘ with a skarpe about her neke ;’
Machyn’s Diary (C.S.), p. 180 (1558). This is borrowed from
ONorth F. eskarpe (Godefroy), MF, escharpe, ‘a scarf, baudrick ;’
Cot. It also meant a scrip fora pilgrim, and is derived from MDu.
schar pe, schaer pe, scer pe, a scrip, pilgrim’s wallet (Oudemans) ; Low G.
schrap, a scrip (Bremen Worterbuch); and see Scrip, Scrap.
y. With Du. scherf, a shard, shiver, fragment, cf. (ἃ, scherbe,
a fragment, also ‘a scarf’ in the sense of scarf (2) below. This
suggests that the form skarp was influenced by scarf (2). Φ The
G., schiirpe, a scarf, sash, Swed. skarp, Dan. skjer/, skjerf, are not
true Teut. words, bnt borrowed from French. Der. scarf, verb,
Hamlet, v. 2. 13; scarfskin, the epidermis or outer skin (Phillips).
Double‘s, scrip, scrap.
SCARF (2), to join pieces of timber together. (Scand.) ‘In the
joining of the stern, where it was scarfed;’ Anson’s Voyage, b. ii.
c.7(R.). The pp. skarvyd occurs in 1531-23; Strutt, Manners and
SCARF
Customs, iii. 53. And in Phillips, ed. 1706. The word is Swedish.
—Swed. skarfva, to join together, piece out.—Swed. skarf, a scarf,
seam, joint; cf. scarfyxa, a chip-axe.4 Bavarian scharben, to cut a
notch in timber, (ἃ. scharben, OHG. scarbdn, to cut small. From
Teut. *skard, 2nd grade of *skerdan-, to cut ; asin AS. sceorfan (pt. τ.
scearf), to scrape. Cf. Du. scherf, a shard; see Scarf (1).
SCARF (3), a cormorant. (Icel.) A local name ; also, corruptly,
scarth, scart. = Icel. skarfr, Swed. skarf, Dan. skarv, a cormorant.
+G. scharbe, OHG, scarba.
SCARIFY, to cut the skin slightly. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘ Of Scari-
Sying, called boxyng or cuppyng ;’ Sir Τὶ Elyot, Castel of Helth,
b. ili. c. 7. Ἐς scarifier, ‘to scarifie ;’ Cot.— L. scarificdre, to scarify,
scratch open ; longer form of scarifare, which also occurs (Lewis).
B. Not cognate with, but absolutely borrowed from Gk. σκαρτφάομαι,
1 scratch or scrape up.—Gk. oxapipos, a style for drawing outlines
(a sharp-pointed instrument). Cognate with L. scribere, to write;
see Scribe. Der. scarific-at-ion, from Ἐς. scarification (Cot.).
SCARLET, a bright-red colour. (F.—Pers.) ME. scarlat,
Ο. Eng. Miscellany, p. 92, 1. 69; skarlet, p. 168, 1. 10; scarlet, P.
Plowman, B. ii. 15.—OF. escarlate, ‘scarlet ;’ Cot. [Mod. F. écar-
late; Span. escarlata; Ital. scarlatto.}—Pers. sagalat, sigalat, or
suglat, scarlet cloth. Cf. Pers. sag/iitiin, saglatin, scarlet cloth, saglan,
cloth; Rich. Dict. p. 837. B. The Pers. saglatiin is clearly the
origin of ME. ciclatoun, Chaucer, C. T. Group B, 1924, on which
see my note, and Col. Yule’s note to his edition of Marco Polo, i. 249.
He remarks that swgla¢ is applied, in the Punjab trade returns, to
broad-cloth ; it was used for banners, ladies’ robes, quilts, leggings,
housings and pavilions... We find also Arab. sagarlat, a warm woollen
cloth ; Rich. Dict. p. 836; also Arab. siglat, a fine painted or figured
cloth, a canopy over a litter. It seems to have been the name ofa
stuff, which was frequently of a scarlet colour; and hence to have
become the name of the colour. Cf. ‘ scarlet reed ;’ Chaucer, Prol.
456. So also Telugu sakalati, sakalatu, woollen or broad-cloth;
Wilson, Gloss. of Indian Terms, p. 455. This can hardly be from
English, as Wilson suggests, but corresponds to the Pers. and Ital.
forms, @ The Turkish iskerlat, scarlet, is merely a loan-word from
Italian ; Zenker, p. 49. Der. scarlet-runner,a climbing plant with
scarlet flowers; scarlat-ina, a disease named from the scarlet rash
which accompanies it, Ital. scarlattina, from Ital. scarlatto, scarlet.
SCARP, part of a fortification. (F.—Ital.—Teut.) Formerly
written scarf, as in Cotgrave, but this is an E. adaptation, by con-
fusion with scarf, ‘ Scarp, the inward slope of the moat or ditch of
a place ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.—F. escarfe, ‘a scarf, or little wall
without the main rampire of a fort ;᾿ Cot. Ital. scarpa, ‘a counter-
scarfe or curtein of awall;’ Florio. B. Perhaps from OHG. scarpon,
to cut; with regard to the steep face presented. Or from Du. scherp,
Low G. scharp, sharp; cognate with E. Sharp, q.v. Der. counter-
scarp, escarp-ment,
SCATCHES, stilts. (F.—Low G.) See Skate (2).
SCATHE,, to harm, injure. (Scand.) In Romeo, i. 5. 86. ME.
scafen, Prompt. Pary. [The sb. scathe, harm, is in Chaucer, C. T.
448 (A 446) ; Havelok, 2006.] The sc (=sk) shows that the word
is Scand., not E.—Icel. skada; Swed. skada; Dan, skade.4AS.
sceaban, pp. scdd; G. and Du. schaden; Goth. gaskathjan, str. vb.,
pt. t. gaskoth, pp. gaskathans. B. All from Teut. base *skath, to
harm; Fick, iil. 330. Cf. Gk. ἀ-σκηθής, unharmed. Brugmann,
i. § 791. Der. scathe, harm, injury, also spelt scath, Rich. III, i.
3- 317, from Icel. skadi;. scath-ful, Tw. Nt. v. 59; scathe-less, or
scath-less, ME. scatheles, Rom. of the Rose, 1550.
SCATTER, to disperse, sprinkle. (E.) ME. scateren (with one
2), Chaucer, C. T. 16382 (ἃ 914) ;. skatered, pt. t., Early E. Psalter,
xvil. 15. The frequentative of prov. E. scat, (1) to scatter, (2) to
break to pieces, to shatter. Scatter is the Northern form corre-
sponding to E. Shatter, q.v.. Cf. Gk. σκεδάννυμι, I sprinkle,
scatter, σκέδασις, a scattering, L. scandula, a shingle for a roof, Skt.
kshad, skhad, to cut. Der. scatter-ling, a vagrant, one of a scattered
tace, Spenser, F. Ὁ. ii. 10.63. Doublet, shatter, q.v.
SCAUP-DUCK, a duck so named because she frequents musse/-
scaups or mussel-scalps, i.e. beds of rock or sand on which mussels
collect ; see Newton, Dict. of Birds. (Scand. and E.) Scalp (see
E.D. D.) means (1) skull, head . . (4) a bank of sand or mud un-
covered at low tide, esp. a mussel-bed. Scaup is a dialectal variant
of Sealp, q. v.
SCAUR;; see Sear (2).
SCAVENGER, one who cleans the streets. (ONorth F.—Teut.)
Spelt scavengere, Bp. Hall, Satires, Ὁ. iv. sat. 7.1. 48. The word
appears in the Act of 14 Ch. II, cap. 2 (Blount), As in the case of
messenger (for messager) and passenger (for passager), the x before
g is intrusive, and scavenger stands for scavager. B. The scavager
was an officer who had formerly very different duties; see Riley’s
tr. of Liber Albus, p. 34, which mentions ‘the scavagers, ale-con-
SCHISM 539
ners, bedel, and other officials.’ Riley says: ‘ scavagers, officers
whose duty it was originally to take custom upon the scavage, 1.6.
inspection of the opening out, of imported goods. At a later date,
part of their duty was to see that the streets were kept clean; and
hence the modern word scavenger, whose office corresponds with that
of the rakyer (raker) of former times.’ As a fact, the old word for
scavenger is always rakyer; see P. Plowman, v. 322, and note. That
the scavagers had to see to the cleansing of the streets, is shown in
the Liber Albus, p. 313. Wedgwood cites the orig. French, which
has the spelling scawageour. y. Scavage or scawage is an AF,
derivative, signifying ‘inspection ;’ formed, with the suffix -age
(< L. -aticum), from ONorth F. escauwer, to look, inspect. —OSax.
skawon, to behold; cognate with AS. sceawian, to look at, and E.
show. See Blount’s Nomolexicon, where the various spellings
scavage, schevage, schewage, and scheawing (showing) are cited; he
says: ‘In a charter of Hen, II it is written scewinga and (in Mon.
Ang. 2 par. fol. 890 b.) sceawing, and elsewhere I find it in Latin
tributum ostensorium, Some of these forms are due to confusion
with ME. schewen, to show. See further in Riley, p. 196, “Οἱ
scavage;’ again, ‘Scauage is the shewe,’ &c., Arnold’s Chron.
(1592), ed. 1811, p. 99, 1.1; and see Sceawing in the Glossary to
Diplomatarium /Zyi Saxonici, ed. Thorpe. See Show. And see
Notes on E. Etym., p. 259.
SCENE, stage of a theatre, view, spectacle, place of action. (L. —
Gk.) Common in the dramatists. ‘A scene, or theater;’ Minsheu.
The old plays, as, e.g., that of Roister Doister, have the acts and
scenes marked in Latin, by Actus and Scena or Scena; and we cer-
tainly Anglicised the Latin word, instead of borrowing the F. one,
which Cotgrave actually omits. —L. scéxa.—Gk. σκηνή, a sheltered
place, tent, stage, scene ; cf. Skt. chhdya (for *skaya), shade. Der.
scen-ic, Gk. σκηνικός ;Σ scen-er-y, written scenary by Dryden (R.),
from L. scéna@rius, belonging to a play.
SCENT, to discern by the smell. (F.—L.) The spelling is
false ; it ought to be set, as when first introduced. A similar false
spelling occurs in scythe; so also we find scite for site, scitwation for
situation, in the £7th century. ‘ Z’o sen¢, to smell;’ Minsheu, ed.
1627. ‘I sent the mornings ayre;’ Hamlet, i. 5. 58 (ed. 1623).
‘ Delycious of sent ;’ Barclay, Ship of Fools, i. 100.—F. sentir, ‘to
feel, also to sent, smell;’ Cot.—L. sensire, to feel, perceive. See
Sense. Der. scent, sb., spelt sent, i.e. discernment, Spenser, F. Q.
i. 1. 43, last line; and in Barclay (above).
SCEPTIC, doubting, hesitating; often as sb. (F.—L.—Gk.)
‘ The Philosophers, called Scepticks ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, s.v.
Sceptical.—F, sceptique, ‘one that is ever seeking, and never finds ;
the fortune, or humour of a Pyrrhonian philosopher ;’ Cot.=—L.
scepticus.— Gk. σκεπτικός, thoughtful, inquiring ; σκεπτικοί, pl., the
Sceptics, followers of Pyrrho (died abt. B.c. 285).—Gk. root *skep-,
as in σκέπτομαι, I consider. Allied to Scope. Der. sceptic-al
(Blount) ; sceptic-ism.
SCEPTRE, a staff, as a mark of royal authority. (F. —L.—Gk.)
ME. ceptre, Chaucer, C. T. 14379 (B 3563).—F. sceptre, ‘a royall
scepter;’ Cot.=L. scéptrum.—Gk. σκῆπτρον, a staff to lean on;
also, a sceptre.<Gk. oxnmrey, to prop; also, to lean on. Cf.
σκηπτός, a gust or squall of wind; σκήπτειν is also used in the sense
to hurl, throw, shoot, dart. Allied to L. sc@pus,a shaft, stem. Der.
sceptr-ed, Rich. II, ii. 1. 40.
SCHEDULE, an inventory, list. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. L.L.L.
i. 1. 18; spelt sceduwle in the first folio. MF. schedule, or cedule, ‘a
schedule, scroll, note, bill;’ Cot.—L. schedula, a small leaf of
paper; dimin. of scheda, also scida (Cicero, Att. i. 20 fiz.), a strip
of papyrus-bark. β, The Gk. σχέδη, a tablet, leaf, may have been
borrowed from L. scheda (see Liddell); but we find also Gk. σχίδη,
a cleft piece of wood, a splint, which is the true original of L.
scida. (ChisnotaLatinsymbol.) From Gk. σχίζειν (= *oxid-yew),
to cleave; from 4/SKHEID, to cleave; cf. Skt. chhid, to cut. See
Schism.
SCHEME, a plan, purpose, plot. (L.—Gk.) ‘ Scheme (schema),
the outward fashion or habit of anything, the adorning a speech with
thetorical figures;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Borrowed directly,
as a term in rhetoric, from L. schéma. = Gk. σχῆμα, form, appearance ;
also, a term in rhetoric. Gk. σχη-, base of σχή-σω, future of ἔχειν,
to hold, have. The orig. base is gex-; from 4/SEGH, to hold;
whence also Skt. sak, to bear, endure. Der. scheme, vb.; schem-er,
schem-ing. And see sail, hectic.
SCHERZO, a playful movement in music. (Ital.— Teut.) Modern,
Ital. scherzo, play, sport.=-MHG., (and G.) scherz, sport. Der.
scherz-ando, playfully.
SCHIEDAM, Holland gin. (Du.)
Rotterdam.
SCHISM, a division, due to opinion. (F.—L.—Gk.) Tyndall
has ‘ schismes that were among our clergy;’ Works, p. 176, col. I.
Made at Schiedam, near
ὅ40 SCHIST
ME, scisme, Gower, C. A. i. 15; prol. 348. —F. schisme, MF. scisme,
“a scisme, a division in, or from, the church ;’ Cot.—L. schisma. =
Gk. σχίσμα, a rent, split, schism.—Gk. σχίζειν (fut. xic-w, base
oxt5-), to cleave. —4/SKHEID, to cleave; Skt. chhid, L. scindere, to
cut. Der. schism-at-ic, from MF. scismatique, ‘scismaticall,’ Cot.,
L. schismaticus, Gk. σχισματικός, from σχισματ-, stem of σχίσμα;
hence schism-at-ic-al, -ly. And see schist, schedule, ab-scind, re-scind.
SCHIST, rock easily cleft, slate-rock. (Gk.) In geology. = Gk.
σχιστός, easily cleft. —Gk. σχίζειν, to cleave. See Schism.
SCHNAPPS, aname for spirit, esp. gin. (G.—Du.) ἃ. sehnapps.
= Du. szads, a dram, lit. mouthful. Du. snappen, to snap up. See
Snap.
SCHOOL (1), a place for instruction. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. scole,
Chaucer, C. T. 125; Layamon, 9897. The sch=ME. sc (=sh)
shows that this form is of F. origin, not from Latin before the
Conquest.—AF. escole, Stat. Realm, i. 103 (1285) ; OF. escole.—L.
schola, a school. Gk. σχολή, rest, leisure, spare time, employment
of leisure, disputation, philosophy, a place where lectures are given,
aschool. The orig. sense is a resting or pausing; from the base
oxo-, a grade of σχε- (in σχέ-σις), allied to ἔχειν, to hold, check,
stop.—4/SEGH, to hold; see Scheme. Der. school, verb, As
You Like It, i. 1. 173; schol-ar, ME, scoler, Chaucer, C. T., A 260,
from AF. escoler, altered to scholar to agree with L. adj. scholaris ;
scholar-ly, scholar-ship ; schol-ast-ic, from L. scholasticus = Gk. σχολα-
στικός ; schol-i-um, a Latinised form of Gk. σχόλιον, an interpretation,
comment, from σχολή in the sense of ‘discussion ;’ scholi-ast, from
Gk. σχολιαστής, a commentator; scholi-ast-ic. Also school-man,
school-master, school-mistress.
SCHOOL (2), a shoal of fish. (Du.) ‘A scole of Dolphins ;’
Sandys, Trav., p. 100. -- ΤῊ. school visschen, ‘a shole of fishes ;’
Sewel. See Scull (3), Shoal (1).
SCHOONER, SCOONER, a two-masted vessel. (Scand.)
The spelling schooner is a false one; it should be scooner. The
mistake is due to a supposed derivation from the Du. schooner,
a schooner, but, on the contrary, the Du. word (like G. schoner) is
borrowed from E. There is no mention of Du. schooner in Sewel’s
Du. Dict., ed. 1754. The E. schooner occurs in Ash’s Dict., ed.
1775; and earlier in the following: ‘ Went to see Captain Robinson's
lady ... This gentleman was first contriver of schooners, and built
the first of that sort about 8 years since;’ extract from a letter
written in 1721, in Babson’s Hist. of Gloucester, Massachusetts ;
cited in Webster’s Dict., whence all the information here given is
copied. ‘ The first schooner . . . is said to have been built in Gloucester,
Mass., about the year 1713, by a Captain Andrew Robinson, and to
have received its name from the following trivial circumstance: When
the vessel went off the stocks into the water, a bystander cried out,
“Ὁ how she scoons/” [i.e. glides, skims along]. Robinson in-
stantly replied, ‘A scooner let her be ;” and from that time, vessels
thus masted and rigged have gone by this name. The word scoon is
popularly used in some parts of New England to denote the act of
making stones skip along the surface of water. .. . According to the
New England records, the word appears to have been originally
written scooner ;* Webster. The New England scoon was imported
from Clydesdale, Scotland; being the same as Lowland Sc. scon,
‘to make flat stones skip along the surface of water ; also, to skip
in the above manner, applied to flat bodies ; Clydesdale; ’ Jamieson.
So also scun in Εὖ, ΤῊ. D.—Icel. skunda (trans.), to speed, to hasten.
Allied to Shunt, q. v. és As arule, derivations which require
a story to be told turn out to be false; in the present case, there seems
to be no doubt that the story is true.
SCHORL, black tourmaline. (F.—G.) F. schorl (Littré).=—G.
schorl, schorl.
SCIATIC, pertaining to the hip-joint. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘ Sciatick
vein;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. ‘ Veyne that is clepid sciatica; ’
Lanfrank, Cirurgie, p. 177. {The sb. sciatica is in Minsheu, ed.
1627.]—F. sciatique, ‘of the sciatica; veine sctatiqgue, the sciatica
vein, seated above the outward ankle;’ Cot.—Late L. sciaticus,
corruption of L. ischiadicus, subject to gout in the hip (White).—
Gk. ἐσχιαδικός, subject to pains in the loins. Gk. ἰσχιαδ-, stem of
ἰσχιάς, pain in the loins. —Gk. ἐσχίον, the socket in which the thigh-
bone turns. Der. sciatica, fem. of L. sciatteus.
SCIENCE, knowledge. (F.—L.) ME. science, Chaucer, C. T.
11434 (F 1122); P. Plowman, B. x. 214,—F. science, ‘science;’
Cot. =L. scientia, science, knowledge.—L. scient-, stem of pres. part.
of scire, to know, orig. to discern. Der. scienti-fic, from F. scientifique,
‘scientificall,’ Cot., from L. scientificus, made by science, where the
suffix -ficus is from facere, to make; scientific-al, -ly. Also a-scit-it-
i-ous, scio-[-ist.
SCIMETAR, CIMETER, acurved sword. (F. or Ital. — Pers. ?)
Spelt sem:tar, used of a pointed sword ; Titus Andron., iv. 2. 91. -- Ἐπ
cimeterre, ‘ascymitar, or smyter, a kind of short and crooked sword,
SCOLD
much in use among the Turks ;’ Cot. This accounts for the spelling
cimeter. Also Ital. scimitarra, scimitara, ‘a turkish or persian crooked
sword, a simitar;’ Florio. This accounts for the spelling scimetar.
B. It was fully believed to be of Eastern origin. If so, it can hardly
be other than a corruption of Pers. shimshir, shamshir, ‘a cimeter,
a sabre, a sword, a blade ;’ Rich. Dict. p. gog. Lit. ‘ lion’s claw.’ =
Pers. sham, a nail; and shér, a lion; id. pp. 907, 921; Vullers, ii.
404. y. The Span. is cimitarra, explained by Larramendi from
Basque cimea, a fine point, and ¢arra, belonging to; prob. a mere
invention, like his Basque etymology of cigar.
SCINTILLATION, a throwing out of sparks. (F.—L.) In
Minsheu, ed. 1627. [The verb scintillate is much later.)—F. scintil-
lation, ‘a sparkling ;’ (οἵ. “ΤῸ. scintillatidnem, acc. of scintillatio. =
L. scintillare, to throw out sparks. —L. scintilla, a spark; a dimin.
form, as if from *scinta. Perhaps allied to AS. scin-an, to shine; see
Shine. Der. stencil, tinsel.
SCIOLIST, one whose knowledge is superficial. (L.) ‘Though
they be but smatterers and meer sciolists ;’ Howell, Famil. Letters,
b. ili. let. 8 (about A.D. 1646). Formed with suffix -is¢ (L. -ista, Gk.
-.a77s) from L, sciolus, a smatterer. Here the suffix (in scio-/us) has
adimin. force, so that the sense is ‘knowing little.’ = L. seius, knowing.
—L. scire, to know ; see Science.
SCION, a cutting or twig for grafting; a young shoot, young
member of a family. (F.—L.) Spelt scion, Minsheu, ed. 1627.
Also spelt ston, syon, cion, ‘ Syon, a yong sette, i.e. slip or graft;
Palsgrave. ‘Cyun of a tre, Surculus, vitulamen ;’ Prompt. Parv.
Spelt s‘owx, Poems and Lives of Saints, ed. Furnivall, xxxv. 74.—F.
scion, ‘a scion, a shoot, sprig, or twig;’? Cot. Spelt cionin the 13th
cent. (Littré); Picard chion. Diez connects it with F. scier, MF.
sier, to cut, to saw, which is from L. secare, to cut. If so sci-on
means ‘a cutting,’ just as a slip or graft is called in E. a cutting,
and in G. schnittling, from schnitt, a cut. See Section. (Doubtful.)
SCIRRHOUS, pertaining to a hard swelling. (L.—Gk.) In
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Englished as if froma L. *scirrhdsus, adj.
formed from scirrhus, a Late L. medical term given in Blount and
Phillips, used in place of L. scirrhdma, a hard swelling. = Gk. oxippos,
better oxipos, a hardened swelling, a ‘scirrhus ;’ also called σκίρρωμα,
or σκίρωμα ; from the adj. σκιρός, hard.
SCISSORS, a cutting instrument with two blades fastened
together at the middle. (f.—L.) Spelt cissers in Levins ; sycers in
Palsgrave. ‘ Cysowre, forpex;’ Prompt. Parv. ME. sisoures (timing
to houres), Chaucer, House of Fame, 690.—OF. cisotres, shears,
scissors (Roquefort). [The more usual F. form is ciseaux, ‘ sizars or
little sheers ;’ Cot. The latter is the pl. of ciseau, older form cise/,
a chisel, cutting instrument. See Chisel.]—L. cisdrium, a cutting
instrument (Vegetius).—L. cis-, for c@s-, as in cesus, pp. of cedere,
to cut. B. It is clear that the mod. E. spelling of scissors is
due to a supposed etymology (historically false) from L. scissor,
a cutter, allied to scissus, pp. of scindere, to cleave. It is re-
markable, however, that the L. scissor meant ‘a person who cuts,’
a carver, a kind of gladiator (White); whilst the Late L. scissor
meant a carver, a butcher, and scisor meant a coin-engraver, a tailor.
y. There is absolutely not the slightest evidence for the use of
scissor for a cutting instrument, and still less for the use of a plural
scissores, which could only mean a couple of carvers, or butchers,
or tailors. But popular etymology has triumphed, and the spelling
scissors is the result. @ With L. scindere we may connect ab-
scind, ab-scissa, re-scind; and see schism. With L. cedere we may
connect circum-cise, con-cise, de-cide, de-cis-ion, ex-cis-ion, fratri-cide,
homi-cide, in-cise, infanti-cide, matri-cide, parri-cide, pre-cise, regi-cide,
sui-cide ; ces-ura; chisel, scissors. Vor the derivatives of secare, see
Section.
SCOFTF, an expression of scorn, a taunt. (Scand.) ME. scof,
skof, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 128, 1. 3 from bottom; ‘nom a skof’=
took it in scorn, K. Alisaunder, 6986; skof, id., 667. Cf. OFries.
schof, a scoff, taunt (Richtofen).—MDan. skof, skuf, a scoff; skufe,
to scoff, mock (Kalkar); Swed. dial. skoff-, as in skoffs-ord,
words of abuse, skoffsera, to abuse (Rietz); cf. Icel. skaup, later
skop, mockery, ridicule. Cf. also MDu. schobben, schoppen, to scoff,
mock (Hexham); Icel. skeypa, skopa, to scoff. B. The orig. sense
was probably ‘a shove’ or ‘a push;’ cf. Swed. skugf, a push;
ΜΗ. schupfen, to push, allied to E. shove. See Shove. Or
allied to Gk. σκώπ-τειν, to mock. Der. scoff, verb, Rich, UH, iii. 2.
163; scoff-er, As You Like It, iii. 5. 62.
SCOLD, to chide, rail at. (E.?) ME. scolden, P. Plowman, B. ii.
815 scolde, sb., a scold, id. xix. 279. Not in AS. Hardly an E.
word; perhaps Frisian. From the weak grade *skald of the Teut.
strong verb *skeldan-, to scold (pt. t. *skald, pp. *skald-anoz). It
appears as OFries. skelda, Du. schelden, G. schelten, to scold ; cf. Dan.
weak verb skjelde, skelde, to scold. Perhaps allied to OSax. scaldan,
to push off a boat (Kluge); OHG. scaltan, the same. Der. scold,
SCOLLOP
sb., Tam. Shrew, i. 2. 188, and in Palsgrave and P. Pl. (as above);
scold-er. And see scald (3).
SCOLLOP, the same as Scallop, q.v.
SCONCES (1), a small fort, bulwark. (F.—L.) In Shak. Hen. V,
lil. 6. 76; also applied to a helmet, Com. Errors, ii. 2. 37; and to
the head itself, Com. Errors, i. 2. 79. [Cf. MDu. schantse (Du. schans),
‘a fortresse, or a sconce;’ Hexham; Swed. skans, fort, sconce,
steerage; Dan. skandse, fort, quarter-deck ; G. schanze, a sconce, fort,
redoubt, bulwark; but none of these words are original. | B. All
from OF. esconse, a hiding-place, sconce; orig. fem. of escons, pp. =
L. absconsa, fem. of absconsus, used (as well as absconditus) as pp. of
abscondere, to hide; see Abscond. The Span. esconder, Ital.
ascondere, to hide, are directly from the infin. abscondere; with the
reflexive sense, we find Span. esconderse, to hide oneself; and the E.
to ensconce oneself simply means to lie hid in a corner, or to get into
a secure nook. y. Diez derives the Ital. scancia, a book-case, from
Bavarian schanz=G. schanze, which is doubtless right ; but the G.
schanze may be none the less a borrowed word. It is singular that
we also find G. schanze in the sense of ‘chance ;’ and there can be
no doubt as to its being borrowed from F. when used in that sense;
for it is then from OF. or E. chance,chance. And see Sconce (2).
Der. ensconce, coined by prefixing en-; see En-.
SCONCE (2), a candle-stick. (F.--L.) Palsgrave has: ‘ Scons,
to sette a candell in, /anterne a mayn.’ ME. sconce. ‘ Sconce, Sconsa,
vel absconsa, lanternula;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 450. ‘Hec absconsa, a
scons;’ Voc. 721.12. This clearly shows that the word was used
to mean a concealed or closely covered light; as we also find from
Roquefort.—OF. esconse, a dark lantern, L. absconsa; Roquefort.
= L. absconsus, pp. of abscondere; see Abscond. And see
Sconce (1).
SCONE, SCON, a thin soft cake of wheat or barley-meal.
(Dan.—Low ἃ.) The pl. sconnis is in Douglas, tr. of Virgil, AEn.
vii. 109.—M Dan. skon-roggen, a muffin of bolted rye-flour (Kalkar).
— Low G. schon-roggen, in Hamburg, a three-cornered loaf or bun. =
Low ἃ. schin, schoon, fine; roggen, rye.
SCOOP, a hollow vessel for ladling out water, a large ladle. (F.
—Scand.) ME. scope. ‘Scope, instrument, Vatila, Alveolus;’
Prompt. Parv. The pl. scopes, and the verb scopen, to ladle out
water, occur in Manning’s Hist. of England, ed. Furnivall, 8164,
8168 (Stratmann).—OF. escope (F. écope), a scoop (Hatzfeld). =
Swed. skopa, a scoop; MSwed. skopa, with sense of L. haustrum
(Ihre).+-MDu. schoepe, a scoop, Hexham; MHG. schuofe. Cf. ἃ.
schopfen, to draw water.— Teut. *skop, 2nd grade of Teut. *skap-, as
in OSax. skeppian (for *skap-jan), Du. scheppen, OHG. schephan (pt. τ.
scuof), to draw up water. Der. scoop, vb., ME. scopen, as above ;
coal-scoop.
SCOPE, view, space surveyed, space for action, intention. (Ital.
—Gk.) In Spenser, F. Q. iii. 4.52. ‘Wherein . . . we haue giuen
ouer large a skope ;’ Gascoigne’s Works, ed. Hazlitt, i. 460. Florio
has Ital. scopo, ‘a marke or but to shoote at, a scope, purpose, intent.’
We seem to have taken it from Ital., as it is not a F. word, and has
a more limited sense in Gk.=Gk. σκοπός, a watcher, spy; also
a mark to shoot at.=Gk. *skop-, second grade of *skep-, as in
σκέπτομαι, I consider, see, spy. Cf. Sceptic.
SCORBUTIC, pertaining to, or afflicted with scurvy. (Low L.—
Scand.?) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, we find : ‘ Scorbute (scorbutus),
the disease called the scurvy; scorbutical, pertaining, or subject to
that disease.’ Cf. ‘the Scuruie or Scorbute;’ Purchas’s Pilgrimage,
bk. ix. c. 13. § ii (1617); p. 1086. Formed with suffix -ic from
Low L. scorbiitus, a Latinized form which some think was de-
rived from MDu. scheuren, to break, and bot, a bone (Weigand);
which is very unlikely. B. It appears rather to have been formed
with L. suffix -itus (cf. ac-iitus) from Swed. skorf (Dan. skurv,
ME. scurf), 1.6. ‘scurf;’ so that scorbiitus would express (1)
scurvy, adj., and (2) scurvy, sb. This L. form was further debased
so as to give Low G. schorbock, scurvy, also spelt scharbuuk,
scharbock; see Bremen Worterbuch, s.v. scharbuuk. Cf. MDu.
scheur-buyck, ‘the scurvie in the gumms,’ Hexham; Du. scheurbutk.
Also Ὁ. scharbock, scurvy, tartar on the teeth. sy. The Low G.
schirbuuk is due to a popular etymology; viz. from scheren, to
separate, part aside, tear, rupture, and buuk, the belly; so also Du.
scheur-buik, from scheuren, to tear, rend, crack, and buik, the belly.
The verbs are allied to E. Shear. The Low G. buuk, Du. buik, G.
bauch, are the same as Icel. bukr, the trunk of the body, for which
see Bulk (2). But see Seurvy. Der. scorbutic-al.
SCORCH, to burn slightly, burn the surface of a thing. (F.—L.)
ME. scorchen, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, bk. ii. met. 6,1. 18 (foot-
note), as a variant of scorklen; Romans of Partenay, 3678. —OF.
escorcher, escorcer, ‘to flay or pluck off the skin;’ Cot. Cf. Span.
escorchar, Ital. scorticare, to flay. B. These are due to Late L.
excorticare, to take off the skin; Ducange.=L. ex, off; and cortic-,
SCOUNDREL 541
stem of cortex, bark, rind, husk. But the peculiar sense was prob.
due to confusion with ME. scorklen, to scorch (above), and ME.
scorened, dried up, parched, Ormulum, 8626. These words seem to
be of Scand. origin, and allied to Norw. skrokkna, to shrivel, skrokken,
shrunken; which are further allied to Shrink. Perhaps further
confused with ME. scorch (scortch), to score, scratch; see Notes on
E. Etym., p. 259. Cf. prov. E. scorch, to shrivel up, and scorch, to
scratch. See Scotch.
SCORE, a notch or line cut; a reckoning; twenty. (Scand.) ME.
score; ‘ten score tymes;’ P. Plowman, B. x. 180. It is supposed
that, in counting numbers by notches on a stick, every twentieth
number was denoted by a longer and deeper cut or score. At
Lowestoft, narrow passages cut in the side of the slope towards
the sea are called scores. AS. scoru, twenty ; which occurs, according
to Napier, in a MS. of the AS. version of the Rule of St. Bennet,
but is borrowed from Scandinavian.—Icel. skor, skora, a score,
notch, incision; Swed. skdéra, Dan. skaar, the same. From Teut.
*skor-, weak grade of *skeran-, to shear, cut; see Shear. Der.
score, to cut, Spenser, F. Ὁ. i, 1. 2; also to count by scoring,
Chaucer, C. T. 13346 (B 1606).
SCORIA, dress, slag from burnt metal. (L.—Gk.) In Holland,
tr. of Pliny, b. xxxili, c. 4.—L. scdria.—Gk. oxwpia, filthy refuse,
dross, scum. =Gk. ox@p, dung, ordure.4 AS. scearn, dung.
SCORN, disdain, contempt. (F.—OHG.) ME. scorn (dat.
scorne), O. Eng. Homilies, ii. 169, 1. 1; schorn (scharn), Ancren
Riwle, p. 126, 1. 24; (skarn), Ormulum, 4402; (scarn), scorn, Laya-
mon, 17307.—OF. escorne, scorn; Cot.—OF. escorner, to humiliate,
mock at ; orig. ‘to deprive of horns ;’ from L, ex, out (of), and cornu,
ahorn, B. But the ME. scarz in the same sense is from the OF.
escarn, scorn, derision, Burguy; whence OF. escarnir, escharnir, to
deride. We find OF. pp. pl. escharnys, glossed by E. scornid, in
Wright’s Vocab. i. 144, 1. 8. Cf. Ital. scherno, derision. —OHG.
skern, mockery, scurrility ; whence OHG. scernon, to deride. Der.
scorn, verb, ME. scornen, P. Plowman, B. ii. 81; skarnen, Ormulum,
7397, from OF. escarnir, escharnir; also scorn-ful, K. Lear, ii. 4.
168 ; scorn-ful-ly ; scorn-er, P. Plowman, B. xix. 279:
SCORPION, a stinging insect, a sign of the zodiac. (F.—L.—
Gk.) ME. scorpion, K, Alisaunder, 5263. —F. scorpion, ‘a scorpion ;’
(οἵ. “Τὸν scorpidnem, acc. of scorpio, another form of scorpius, a
scorpion. Gk. σκορπίος, a scorpion, a prickly sea-fish, a prickly
lant.
SCOTCH, to cut with narrow incisions. (Scand.) In Shak. Cor.
iv. 5. 198; Macb. iii. 2. 13; cf. scotch, sb., a slight cut, Antony, iv.
7.10. ΜΕ. scocchen; as in ‘scocched it with knyues, cut it about
with knives ; Hoccleve, De Regim. Princ., p. 134, 1. 3727. In the
Babees Book, p. 80, we find: ‘ With knyfe scortche not the boorde,’
do not score the table with your knife. It seems to be an extension
from scor-en, to score, affected by the verb scorch, to flay; perhaps
even by the verb scutch, See Notes on E. Etym., p. 259. See
Score. Cf. prov. E. scorch, to scotch; in E.D. Ὁ.
SCOT-FREE, free from payment. (Hybrid; F.—Teut. and E.)
Scot means ‘ payment ;’ we frequently find scot and lot, as in Shak.
1 Hen. IV, v. 4. 115; Ben Jonson, Every Man, ed. Wheatley, iii. 7.
II; see a paper by D. P. Fry on scot and lot, Phil. Soc. Trans. 1867,
p- 167. The phrase occurs in Thorpe, Ancient Laws, i. 491, in the
Laws of Will. I. ὃ v; ‘omnis Francigena, qui tempore Eadwardi
propinqui nostri fuit in Anglia particeps consuetudinum Anglorum,
quod ipsi dicunt ax hlote et an scote, persolvat secundum legem
Anglorum.’ Here ax=on, in, by. See also Liber Albus, ed. Riley,
pp- 128, 269. Scot is a F. form.—AF, and OF. escot (F. écot),
a payment, esp. a payment into a common fund, into which it is
shot ; whence escotéer, ‘every one to pay his shot, or to contribute
somewhat towards it,’ Cot. ; disner ἃ escot, ‘a dinner at an ordinary,
or whereat every guest pays his part,’ id.; so that scot=a tavern-
score, is certainly the same word; cf. ‘Simbolum, escot de taverne,’
Wright’s Voc. i. 134.—Icel. skof, a shot, a contribution.+Du. schot ;
G. schoss, a scot, shot; AS. sceot, which gave the form shot.—Teut.
*skut-, weak grade of *skeut-an-, to shoot. See Shoot. 4 The
phrase scot and lot, as a whole, presents some difficulty, and has been
variously interpreted; the lit. sense is ‘contribution and share ;’ I
suppose that originally scot meant a contribution towards some
object to which others contributed equally, and that Jot meant the
privilege and liability thereby incurred; mod. Εἰ. subscription and
membership. See Mr. Fry’s paper, which is full of information.
Doublet, shot.
SCOUNDREL, a rascal, worthless fellow. (E.) In Shak. Tw.
Nt. i. 3. 36; and in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Not common in old
authors; used by Cotgrave to translate F. maraud. Formed, with
agential suffix -el, from prov. E. and Scottish skunner or scowner, to
loathe, shun ; also, to cause loathing ; with excrescent ὦ after. This
word scunner was also used as a sb., to express an object of dislike.
542 SCOUR
B. Thus Brockett gives: ‘Scunner, to nauseate, feel disgust, to
loathe, to shy, as a horse in harness. It is also applied, figuratively, |
to a man whose courage is not at the sticking place, one who shrinks
through fear.’ So also Jamieson has: ‘ Scunner, Scouner, to loathe,
shudder, hesitate, shrink back through fear; Scunner, Skonner, sb.,
loathing, a surfeit; also, any person or thing which excites disgust.’
Also: ‘Scunner, vb. trans., to disgust, cause loathing.’ To which
the suffix -el has been added; cf. cocker-el, Ὑ. The verb scunner is
the frequentative form from a verb=AS. scunian, to shun; the sk
sound being preserved (as usual) in the North of England. Hence
scoun-d-r-el =scun-er-el, one Whom one constantly shuns, or merely
“a shunner,’ a coward. The word is rather Scand. than E. ; having
sc, not sk. In Barbour’s Bruce, xvii. 651, we have: ‘ And skunnyrrit
tharfor na kyn thing’=and did not shrink through fear one bit on
that account; where the Edinb. MS. has scounryt; showing that
skunnyr =scouner. And again, in the same, v. 211, where one MS.
has schonand (shunning), the other has skownrand (scunnering), both
words meaning ‘ dreading ;” showing that skowner is the frequenta-
tive of scun=shun. Cf. Icel. skunda, to speed, to hasten, Swed. dial.
skunna sig, to hasten away. See Shun.
SCOUR (1), to cleanse by hard rubbing, to make bright. (L.)
ME. scouren; ‘scowryn awey ruste;’ Prompt. Parv. ‘As any bason
scoured newe;” Rom. of the Rose, 540. Cf. OF. escurer, ‘to scowre;’
Cot.; also Span. escurare; Mltal. scurare, ‘to skoure dishes, to
tub or cleanse harnesse,’ Florio. [Hence also Swed. skura, Dan.
skure, to scour; the word not occurring in Icelandic. ]—L. exciirare,
to take great care of, of which the pp. excurdtus occurs in Plautus;
see Diez.—L. ex, here used as an intensive prefix; and cirare, to
take care, from cura, care. See Ex- and Cure. 4 The ow in
MEE. scouren is much better explained by supposing a derivation
from L. excuirare directly; or rather, from Late L. scurare, to scour
(Due.), a monkish form of the same. Der. scour-er.
SCOUR (2), to run hastily over. (F.—L.) ‘ When swift Camilla
scours the plain ;’ Pope, Ess. on Criticism, 372. ‘Apon the moss a
scurrour sone fand he ; To scour the land Makfadgane had him send;’
Blind Harry, Wallace, vii. 796.—OF. escourre, escorre, to run, run
out. —L. excurrere, to run out, make excursions. = L. ex, out ; currere,
to run. See Excursion. Der. ME. scurr-our (=scour-er); cf.
Ital. scorridore, a scout. See Notes on Eng. Etym., p. 261; and
p- 264 (5. v. Scur).
SCOURGE, a whip, instrument of punishment. (F.—L.) ME.
scourge, Wyclif, John, ii..15; schurge, O. E. Homilies, i. 283, 1. 11;
Ancren Riwle, p. 418.—AF. escorge, Langtoft, ii. 430; OF. escorgie
(see Littré), mod. F. escourgee, écourgée, a scourge. Cot. has escourg’ée,
“a thong, latchet, scourge, or whip.’ Cf. MItal. scoria, a whip,
scourge,’ scoriare, ‘to whip,’ scoriata, scoriada, ‘a whipping; also,
the same as scoria,’ i.e. a whip; Florio. B. The Mltal. scoriata
answers to L. excoriita, lit. flayed off, hence a strip of skin or shred
of leather for a whip ; pp. of excoriare, to strip off skin. —L. ex, off;
and corium, skin; see #ix- and Cuirass. y. We might explain
the MItal. verb scoriare directly from L. excoriare, to excoriate, to
flay by scourging. Der. scourge, ME. scourgen, Rob. of Glouc.
p- 263, 1. 5304.
SCOUT (1), a spy. (F.—L.) ME. scoute (spelt scout, but
timing with oufe), Seven Sages, ed. Wright, 1. 2218. —OF. escouce,
“a spie, eave-dropper, also, a scout, scout-watch ;’ Cot. Verbal sb.
from escouter, ‘to hearken;’ id.—L. auscultare, to hearken; see
Auscultation. B. The transfer in sense, from listening to
spying, causes no difficulty ; the OF. escoute means both listener
and spy.
SCOUT (2), to ridicule, reject an idea. (Scand.) In Todd's
Johnson ; noted as a vulgar word. Cf. Lowland Scotch scout, ‘to
pour forth any liquid forcibly ;’ Jamieson. The latter sense is closely
related to shoot.—Icel. skuta, skiiti, a taunt; cf. skiita, to jut out,
allied to skota, skotra, to shove, skot-yrdi, scoffs, taunts, and to the
strong verb skjo¢a (pt. t. skaut, pl. skutu, pp. skotinn), to shoot. Cf.
Swed, skjuta, (1) to shoot, (2) to shove, push ; skjuta skulden pa, to
thrust the blame on; Dan. skyde, (1) to shoot, (2) to shove; skyde
skylden paa, to thrust the blame on; skyde vand, to repel water. Thus
the sense is to shoot, push away, reject. See Shoot.
SCOUT (3), a projecting rock. (Scand.) In place-names, as
Raven-Scout. ‘The steep ridges of rocks on Beetham-fell (West-
moreland) are called scouts ;’ A Bran New Wark (E. D.S.), 1. 193,
footnote. —Icel. skiita, to jut out; see Scout (2).
SCOWL, to look angry, to lower or look gloomy. (Scand. )
ME. scowlen; spelt scowle, Prompt. Parv. The devils who gather
round a dying manare said to ‘skoul and stare;’ Pricke of Conscience,
2225.— Dan. skule, to scowl, cast down the eyes. Cf. Icel. skolla, to
skulk, keep aloof, skolli, a skulker, a fox, the devil; Du. schuilen, to
skulk, lurk, lie hid. That these are connected words is shown by
Low G. schulen, to hide oneself, not to let oneself be seen, and the
SCRAWL
prov. G. (Ditmarsch) schulen, to hide the eyes, to look slily as if
peeping out of a hiding-place, look out. B. From the sb. seen
in EFries. schiil, Du. schuil, Dan. skjul, shelter (whence Dan. skjule,
to hide), Icel. skjol, a shelter, cover. Teut. base *skeul-, *skil-; from
SKEU, to cover. Thus the sense is ‘to peep out of a hiding-
place,’ or to look from under the covert of lowering brows. Der.
scowl, sb.; also scul-k, q. v.
SCRABBLB, to scrawl. (Scand.) In 1 Sam. xxi. 13; where the
marginal note has ‘made marks.’ Cf. prov. E. scrabble, to scratch,
frequentative of scrab, to scratch, i.e. to scrape (Halliwell).= Norw.
skrabba, to scrape (Ross); Dan. skrabe, to scrape; Du. schrabben.
Variant of prov. E. scrapfle, to scrape (E. D. D.); which is a
frequentative of Serape, q.v. Cf. scrabble, to scribble; E.D.D.
SCRAGGY, lean, rough. (Scand.) Cotgrave translates F.
escharde by ‘a little, lean, or skraggie girle, that looks as if she were
starved.’ Cf. Prov. E. scrag, a crooked, forked branch, also, a lean
thin person (Halliwell) ; shrags, the ends of sticks. Allied to
prov. E. scrog, a stunted bush, scroggy, abounding in underwood,
scrogs, blackthorn, scroggy, twisted, stunted, scrog-legs, bandy-legs
(id.). ME. scroggy, covered with underwood, or straggling bushes.
‘The wey toward the Cite was strong, thorny, and scroggy;’ Gesta
Romanorum, ed. Herrtage, p. 19, 1. 19.—Swed. dial. skragger, a
weak old man, skragga, to walk with difficulty; Norw. skrage, a
poor weak creature, skraggen, scraggy (Ross). Cf. Icel. skroggsligr,
scraggy; North Fries. skrog, a lean man; Dan. skrog, a carcase,
a poor creature. See Shrug, Snrink. Der. scraggi-ness.
SCRAMBLE, to catch at or strive for rudely, struggle after,
struggle. (E.) ‘And then she’ll scramble too;’ Beaum. and Fletcher,
Mons. Thomas, i. 3. ‘I'll scramble yet amongst them;’ id. Captain,
ii. I (Jacomo). ‘The cowardly wretch fell down, crying for succour,
and scrambling through the legs of them that were about him;’
Sidney, Arcadia, b. ii. (R.). Not found in ME, A frequentative
form of proy. E. scramb, to pull, or rake together with the hands,
scramp, to catch at, to snatch at; E.D.D. It may also be regarded
as a nasalised form of prov. E. scrabble, to scramble (Somersets.),
allied to scraffle, to scramble, and scrapple, to grub about,
which is the frequentative of prov. E. scrap, to scratch. Halliwell
cites ‘to scrappe as a henne dose’ from a MS. Dict. of A.D. 1540;
which is merely E. scrape. And see Scrabble. Der. scramble, sb. ;
scrambl-er.
SCRANNEL, thin, poor, wretched. (Scand.) In Milton, Lycidas,
124. Cf. prov. E. scrannel, lean, wretched, weak (of the voice) ;
scranny, meagre. =Swed. dial. skran, weak; Norw. skran, thin, lean,
dry; skranaleg, lean (Ross); Dan. skranten, sickly, weakly. Cf.
Swed. dial. and Norw. skrinn, thin, lean, weak, dry. And cf. AS.
scrimman (pt. scramm), to shrink.
SCRAP, a small piece, shred. (Scand.) ME. scrappe. ‘And
also 3if 1 my3t gadre eny scrappes of the releef of the twelf cupes,’
i.e. any bits of the leavings of the twelve baskets (in the miracle of
the loaves) ; Trevisa, tr. of Higden,i. 15. (Rather Scand. than E.)
—Icel. skrap, scraps, trifles, from skrapa, to scrape, scratch ; Dan.
skrab, scrapings, trash, from skrabe, to scrape; Swed. afskrap,
scrapings, refuse, dregs, from skrapa, to scrape. See Scrape.
SCRAPE, to remove a surface with a sharp instrument, shave,
scratch, save up. (Scand.) ΜΕ. scrapien, scrapen, also shrapien,
shrapen (Stratmann). ‘But ho so schrape my mawe’=unless one
were to scrape my maw; P. Plowman, B. v. 124. Spelt shreapien,
Ancren Riwle, p. 116, 1.15. (Rather Scand. than E.) —Icel. skrapa,
to scrape; Swed. skrapa; Dan. skrabe.4+-Du. schrapen, to scrape.
From Teut. *skrap-, 2nd grade of the strong vb. *skrep-an-, to scrape,
as in AS. screpan, pt. t. screp, to scratch ; O. E. Texts. Der. scrap-
ing, scrap-er ; also scrap, q.vV., scrabb-le, q. v., scramb-le, q. v.
SCRATCH, to scrape with a pointed instrument or with the nails.
(1. Scand.; 2. MDu.—MHG.) Scraéch has resulted from the confusion
of ME. scratten, to scratch, with MI. cracchen, with the same sense.
1. ME. scratten, to scratch, Prompt. Parv.; Pricke of Conscience,
7378; Ancren Riwle, p. 186, note 6. This form scratten appears to
be for s-kratten, made by prefixing AF. es- (for L. ex), intensive
prefix, to the Swed. kratia, to scrape (see below). 2. ME. cracchen,
P. Plowman, B. prol. 154, 186. | Apparently for *cratsex.—MDu.
kratsen, to scratch (Hexham); whence Du. krassen, Swed. kratsa,
and Dan. kradse, to scrape.—MHG. kraizen, OHG. chrazzon, to
scratch.4-Swed. kratta, to rake, scrape, scratch, cf. kratta, sb., a
rake. All from a Teut. base *krat, perhaps from a Teut. str.
vb. *kret-an- (pt. t. *krat, pp. *krot-anoz); cf. Icel. Arof-a, to en-
grave. @ Hence scratten and cracchen are from the same base
and mean much the same thing, so that confusion between them
Was easy enough. Der. scratch, sb., scratch-er. Doublet, grate (2).
SCRAWL, to write hastily or irregularly. (1) A late word,
used by Swift and Pope (Rich., and Todd), The aw (=ax) denotes
a long vowel or diphthong; better spelt scral2, with a as in all.
SCREAM
-€To scrall, or scrawl, to scribble, to write after a sorry careless
manner;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. It appears to be a contraction of
Scrabble, q.v. Cf. also E. scribble, and prov. E. scribble-scrobble,
scribbling (North) ; and North Fries. skrawe, by-form of skrape, to
scrape. Or perhaps proy. E., from Dan. skrolle, a poor worthless
book (Larsen); MDan. skrold, a diffuse, poor letter (Kalkar).
B. The form seems due to confusion with prov. E. scrawl, to
crawl (West) in Halliwell; he cites ‘To scrall, stir, motito’ from
Coles, Lat. Dict. To which add: ‘ The ryuer shall scraule [swarm]
with frogges,’ Exod. viii. 3; in Coverdale’s version. This word is
merely E. crawl, with prefixed s (AF. es-, L. ex) added in some cases
with the idea of giving greater emphasis; seeCrawl. Der. scrawl,
sb., scrawl-er.
SCREAM, to cry out shrilly. (Scand.) ME. scremen, Polit.
Songs, p. 158, 1. 9; screamen, Hali Meidenhad, p. 37, last line but
one. = Icel. skrema, to scare, terrify; Swed. skramma, Dan. skremme,
to scare. B. Hence it appears that the E. word has preserved
what was doubtless another sense of these Scand. words, viz. ‘to
cry aloud,’ as the means of imposing or of expressing terror; we still
commonly use scream with especial reference to the effects of sudden
fright. Cf. Swed. skran, a scream, skrana, to scream, to whimper,
which is merely a parallel form; Jutland skreme, to whine, to speak
hoarsely (Kok). Cf. Screech, Shriek. Der. scream, sb.
SCREECH, to shriek, cry aloud. (Scand.) ‘ Whilst the screech-
owl, screeching loud ;’ Mids. Nt. Dr. v. 383; where the first folio has
scritch-owle, scritching. Also spelt scrike, Spenser, F. Q. vi. 4. 18.
Baret (1580) has scriek. ME. scriken, skryken, schrichen, schriken,
Chaucer, C. T. 15406 (B 4590); spelt skriken, O. E. Homilies, ii.
181, 1.2. Also skriche, Seven Sages, ed. Weber, 1290. Cf. Lowl.
Sc. scraik,—Icel. skrekja, to shriek; cf. skrikja, to titter (said of
suppressed laughter); Swed. skrita, to shriek; Dan. skrige, to
shriek ; skrige af Skrek, to shriek with terror. Cf. Gael. sgriach,
sgreuch, to screech, scream. See Shriek.4+Gk. κρίζειν (for *«piy-
yew), to shriek; κριγ-ή, κριγ-μός, a shrieking. Der. screech, sb.,
answering to Swed. skrik, Dan. skrig, Irish sgreach, Gael. sgreuch ;
also screech-owl. And see shrike. Doublet, shriek, which is merely
a variant, due to the alteration of sc to sk at the beginning and the
preservation of αὶ at the end.
SCREED, a shred, a harangue. (E.) The Northern form of
Shred, q. v.
SCREEN, that which shelters from observation, a partition;
also, a coarse riddle or sieve. (F.—Teut.) 1. ME. scren; spelt
screne, Prompt. Parv., p. 450; Wright’s Vocab. i, 197, col. 2.—OF.
escren (Littré); MF. escran, ‘a skreen to set between one and
the fire, a tester for a bed;’ Cot. Mod. F. écran. Also found as
OF. escranne (Godefroy). Prob. from OHG. skrank, G. schranke,
a barrier, rail, fence, limit, place railed off. In the sense of coarse
sieve, it is spelt skreme in Tusser’s Husbandry, sect. 17, st. 16
(E. Τὸ. S.), and is the same word as the above. ‘A screen for
gravel or corn is a grating which wards off the coarser particles
and prevents them from coming through ;’ Wedgwood. Der.
screen, verb, Hamlet, iii. 4. 3.
SCREES, the loose debris on the side of a mountain. (Scand.)
For screethes, the th being lost as in clothes. =Icel. skrida, a land-slip
on a hill-side.—Icel. skrid-, weak grade of skrida, to creep, glide ;
cognate with Dan. skride and G. schreiten. See E. D. D., s.v.
scree, and s.v. scriddan ; and Notes on E. Etym., pp. 262, 263.
SCREW (1), a cylinder with a spiral groove or ridge on its sur-
face, used as a fastening or as a mechanical power. (F.—L.?) Better
spelt scrue, as in Cotgrave; the spelling screw is due to association
with dew, flew, &c. Spelt screw in Minsheu, ed. 1627. ME. screx;
‘unum screw ferreum;’ York Wills, i. 194 (1393).—OF. escroe,
Godefroy ; MF. escroue, ‘a scrue, the hole or hollow thing wherein
the vice of a presse, &c. doth turn ;’ Cot. Mod. F.écrou. B. Of
uncertain origin. Diez derives it from L. scrobem, acc. of scrobs,
a ditch, trench, also a hole; but the derivation (in Kiuge) from L.
scrofa, a sow, is far more likely ; from the action of sows in rooting
things up. Cf. ‘scrobs: fossa quam scrofe maxime faciunt . . Hic
scrobs, a swyn-wroting ;” Cathol. Anglicum, p. 99, note 11. The
Teut. words (G. schraube, Du. schroef, Low G. skruve) seem to be
late and unoriginal. See Scrofula. @ For the loss of f, see
Scroyles. ‘The E. word is certainly from the F.,as Scheler rightly
remarks. Der. screw, verb, Macb. i. 7. 60; screw-driv-er, screw-
propell-er, screw-steamer.
SCREW (2), a vicious horse. (E.) A well-known term in modern
E., not noticed in Johnson or Halliwell. The same word as shrew,
a vicious or scolding woman, spelt screwe in Political Songs, ed.
Wright, p. 153, 1. 13; and cf. prov. E. screw-mouse, a shrew-mouse.
See Shrew. The sc (for sh) is due to Scand. influence. Doublet,
shrew.
SCRIBBLE, to write carelessly. (L.; with Ἐπ suffix.) ‘ Scribled
SCROYLES 543
forth in hast at aduexture ;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 56e. Formed
with the frequentative suffix -Je from scribe, sb., or from L, scribere,
to write. Similarly, we find G. schreibler, a scribbler, from schreiben,
to write. See Seribe. Der. scribble, sb., scribbl-er.
SCRIBE, a writer, a clerk, an expounder of the Jewish law. (L.)
First in use as a scriptural term, and taken directly from Latin;
Littré does not trace the F. scribe beyond the 16th century. ME,
scribe, Wyclif, Matt. viii. 19.—L. scriba, a writer, Matt. viii. 19
(Vulgate). —L. scribere, to write (pp. scriptus), orig. to scratch marks
on a soft surface, to cut slightly. Cf. Searify. Der. scribb-le, q.v.;
and see scrip (2), script, script-ure, scriv-en-er. Also (from L. scribere),
a-scribe, circum-scribe, de-scribe, in-scribe, pre-scribe, pro-scribe, sub-
scribe, tran-scribe (for trans-scribe); also (from pp. scriptus) a-script-
ton, circum-script-ion, con-script, de-script-ion, in-script-ion, manu-script,
non-de-script, pre-script-ion, pre-script-ive, pro-script-ion, post-script, re-
script, sub-script-ion, super-script-ion, tran-script, tran-script-ion, &c.
Also shrive, shrift, Shrove-tide.
SCRIMMAGE, the same as Skirmish, q. y.
SCRIP (1), a small bag or wallet. (E.) ME. scrippe, King
Horn, ed. Lumby, 1061; Chaucer, C. T. 7319 (D 1737). AS.
scripp, Elfric, Hom. i. 394.4Icel. skreppa, a scrip, bag; Norweg.
skreppa, a knapsack (Aasen) ; Swed. dial. skrappa, a bag (Rietz),
Swed. skrappa, a scrip; MSwed. skreppa (Ihre); Low G. schrap,a
scrip (Brem. Wort.) ; NFries. skrap. The orig. sense is ‘ scrap,” be-
cause made of a scrap or shred of skin or other material. See Scrap,
Scarf (1). The sound of the AS. sc was affected by the Norse sk.
SCRIP (2), a piece of writing, a schedule. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Mids. Nt. Dr. i. 2. 3. The same word as script, the ¢ dropping off in
common talk; see Script.
SCRIPT, a piece of writing. (F.—L.) ‘This loving script ;’
Beaum. and Fletcher, A Wife for a Month, i. 2.—MF. escript, ‘a
writing ;’ Cot. =—L. scriptum, a thing written, neut. of scriptus, pp. of
scribere, to write; see Scribe. Der. manu-script, re-script, tran-script.
SCRIPTURE, writing, the Bible. (F.—L.) Scripture, in the
sense of ‘ bible,’ is short for holy scripture, or rather, The Holy Scrip-
tures. ME. scripture ; the pl. scripturts is in Wyclif, Luke, xxiv. 27.
“- OF. escripture, ‘ writ, scripture, writing; ’ Cot.<L. scriptura, a
writing ; cf. L. scriptirus, fut. part. of scribere, to write; see Scribe.
Der. scriptur-al.
SCRIVENER, a scribe, copyist, notary. (F.—L.) Properly
a scriven; the suffix -er (of the agent) is an E. addition. ME.
skrivenere, Lydgate, Complaint of Black Knight, st. 28, 1. 194;
formed with suffix -ere from ME. scriuveyn, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 44,
1. 30.—OF. escrivain, ‘a scrivener;’ Cot. (Cf. mod. F. écrivain,
Span. escribano, Ital. scrivano.]—Late L. scribanum, acc. of scribanus,
a notary; extended from scriba, a scribe ; see Scribe.
SCROFULA, a disease characterised by chronic swellings of the
glands. (L.) Called ‘ the king’s evil,’ because it was supposed the
touch of a king could cure it; see Phillips, Dict., &c. In Phillips,
ed. 1706; Blount (1674) has the adj. scrofulous.—L. scrafula;
usually in pl. scr@fule, scrofulous swellings. The lit. signification of
scrofula is alittle pig; dimin. of scrdfa, a breeding sow. The reason
for the name is not certainly known, but perhaps it is from the
swollen appearance of the glands. It is remarkable that the Gk.
name (χοιράδες) for swollen or scrofulous glands appears to be simi-
larly connected with χοῖρος, a pig. β. The L. scrdfa has been
explained as ‘a digger,’ from the habit of swine, who are fond of
‘rooting’ or turning up the earth; allied to scrobis, a ditch. But
we can hardly connect - with -ob-. Der. scroful-ous; and see
screw (1).
SCROLL, a roll of paper or parchment, a schedule. (F.—Teut.)
Scroll, formerly also scrow/, is a contraction of scrow-el, a dimin. form
(with suffix -el) of scrowe or scroue, the earlier form of the word.
ME. scrowle, Voc. 682. 26; but the ME. scroue, scrowe, is older.
Palsgrave (A. Ὁ. 1530) gives both scrolle and scrowe, and equates both
to F. rolle. Fabyan also has both forms: ‘ He (Rich. II.] therfore
redde the scrowle of resygnacyon hymselfe,’ an. 1398 (ed. Ellis, p. 547) ;
‘ wherefore, knowynge that the sayd Baylly vsed to bere scrowys and
prophecye aboute hym,’ an. 1449 (id. p. 624). ME. scroue, scrowe ;
spelt scrow, Prompt. Pary. ; pl. scrowis, Wyclif, Matt. xxiii. 5 (earlier
version only) ; scrowe, Ancren Riwle, p. 282, last line. —OF. escroue,
‘a scrowle;’ Cot. Spelt escroe in the 14th cent. (Littré) ; mod. F.
écrou; the Low L. escréa occurs A.D. 1386 (Ducange). To which
must be added that the dimin. form escroele actually occurs, in the
sense of strip, as cited by Littré, 5. v. écrou ; thus proving the origin
of E. scroll beyond all doubt. B. Of Teut. origin. — MDu. schroode,
a strip, shred, slip of paper (Oudemans) ; allied to schroden, to cut
off (id.). Cf. OHG. scrot, the same; and E. screed. See Shred,
Shard.
SCROYLES, scabby fellows, rascals. (F.—L.) In King John,
ii. 1. 373 ; and see Nares. = OF. pl. escroelles (see écrouelle in Hatzfeld),
544 SCRUB
ME. escrouelles,‘the king’s evil,’ Cot.; i.e.scrofula; hence, men afflicted
with scrofula.—Late L. type *scrdfellas, acc. pl.; for L. scrofulas, acc.
pl. of scrafula. See Scrofula. See Notes on Eng. Etym., p. 263.
SCRUB (1), brushwood. (Scand.) Prov. E. scrub ; and cf. Worm-
wood Scrubbs. The Scand. equivalent of E. shrub. =MDan. skrubbe,
Dan. dial. skrub, brushwood; Norw. skrubba, dwarf cornel. See Shrub.
Der. scrubb-y, ‘dwarfed, mean; scrub-bed, insignificant, Merch. Ven.
vy. 162, And note Lowl. Se. sertubber’ ‘a handful of heath tied
tightly together for cleaning culinary utensils ;’ Jamieson. Prob.
allied to scrub (2), as broomis to the plant so called. Cf. serublanda,
i.e. scrub-land; Liber Custumarum, p. 658.
SCRUB (2), to rub hard. (Scand. ) Atk, scrobben. to rub down a
horse ; King Alisaunder, 4310. Not foundin AS. =—MDan. skrubbe
Swed. shribba: to scrub; cf. Dan. skrubbet, rough, ‘ scrubby. ἀπ τος ἐς
schrobben, to scrub, wash, rub, chide; Low G. schrubben; N Fries.
skrobbe. According to Franck, it is allied, by gradation, to Du. and
EFries. schrabben, to scratch; see Scrabble, Scrape. And see
Scrub (1).
SCRUFF, SCRUFT, the nape of the neck.
scuff, scuft. See Scuft.
SCRUPLE, a small weight, a doubt, perplexity, reluctance to
act. (F.—L.) ‘A serupil weieth a peny; ili. serwpilis maken a
dragme ;’ Medical Workes, ed. Henslow, p. 131. ‘It is no con-
sience, but a foolish scruple;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 1435 c¢-
“Would not haue bene too scrupulous ;’ Frith, Works, p. 143, col. 2
“- ἘΞ scrupule, ‘a little sharp stone falling into a mans shooe, and
hindering him ‘in his gate [gait]; also, a scruple, doubt, fear,
difficulty, care, trouble of conscience; also, a scruple, a weight
amounting unto the third part of a dram;’ Cot. —L. seriipulum, acc.
of scriipulus, a small sharp stone; hence, a small stone used asa
weight, a small weight; also, a stone in one’s shoe, an uneasiness,
difficulty, small trouble, doubt. Dimin. of scriipus, a sharp es
Scri-pus is allied to scri-ta; see Scrutiny. Der. scruple, vb.,
make a scruple of; serupul-ous, from F. scrupu-leux, ‘scrupulous,’ Go.
from L. scriipuldsus 3 scrupul-ous-ly, -ness.
SCRUTINY, a strict examination, careful inquiry. (L.) Spelt
scruteny, Skelton, Garl. of Laurel, 782; cf. MF. scrutine, ‘a scrutiny ;’
Cot. Englished from L. serttintum,a careful inquiry.—L. scritari,
to search into carefully, lit. to search among broken pieces. L.
scrata, broken pieces, old trash; allied to AS. scréade, a shred ; see
Shred. Der. scrutin-ise, scrutin-eer. And see in-scrut-able.
SCOD, to run quickly, run before the wind in a gale. (Scand.) In
Shak. Venus, 301. ‘Scuddyng from place to place ;’ Udall, tr. of
Erasmus’ Apophthegmes, Pompeius, § 2. We also have prov. E.
scud, a slight rapid or flying shower of rain (Shropshire, and else-
where); Lowland Sc. scuddin-stanes, thin stones made to skim the
surface of water, as an amusement, answering exactly to Dan. skud-
steen,a stone quoit. A frequentative of scud is prov. E. scuté/e, to walk
fast, to hurry along, often used with precisely the same force as scud ;
also scuddle, to runaway quickly, is given in Bailey, vol. i, ed. 1735.
Hence seud is a weakened form of scut or scoot; cf. prov. E. ‘to go
like scooter, i.e. very quick, East’ (Halliwell); and scoot is only a
Scand. equivalent of shoot. Precisely the same voicing of ¢ to doccurs
in Danish, and the nautical term to scud is of Danish origin. — Norw.
skudda, to push, shove; cf. Dan. skyde, to shoot, to push, to shove ;
skyde i fro, to run to seed; skyde vand, to repel water; skyde over
steun (lit. to shoot over the stem), to shoot ahead, i. 6. scud along, as
a nautical term; Dan. skud-, a shooting, used in compounds, as in
skud-aar, leap-year, skud-steen, a ‘scudding-stane.” Cf. Swed. dial.
skudda, to shoot the bolt of a door; Swed. skufta, to leap, Swed. dial.
skuta, a sledge (Rietz), allied to Swed. skyuta, to shoot, and to Icel.
skjéta, to shoot, also to slip or scud away, abscond. See Shoot.
Der. scutt-le (3), q-v.
SCUFFLE, to struggle, fight confusedly. (Scand.) In Beaum.
and Fletcher, Philaster, v.1. The frequentative form of scuff, pre-
served in proy. E. scuff, to shuffle in walking, West; Halliwell. =
Swed. skuffa, to push, shove, jog; allied to E. shove.4-MDnu. schuf
Jelen, to drive on, also, to run away, i.e. to shuffle off; allied to Du.
schuiven, to shove. Thus io « scuffle is ‘to keep shoving about.” See
Shuffle, Shove. Der. scuffle, sb., Antony, i. 1. 7
SCUFT, SCUFF, SCRUFT, SCRUFF, the nape of the
neck. (Scand.) The orig. form seems to have been scuft; a form
which occurs even in Gothic. ‘ δον of the neck ;* Grose’s Gloss.
(1790).—ONorse skopt (pron. skoft), hair of the head; mod. Icel.
skott, a fox’s tail; NFries. skuft, nape of a horse’s neck.G. schopf,
a tuft of hair; OHG. scuft, hair; Goth. skuft, hair of the head.
Allied to Sheaf; cf. Icel. skau/, a fox’s brush.
SCULK, SKULK, to hide oneself, lurk. aa ») ME. pallet)
skulken, Pricke of Conscience, 1788; Gower, C. A. ii. 93; bk.
2720; whence the sb: scolkynge, Rob. of G die p: 256, 1. pete -
Dan. skulke, to sculk, slink, sneak ; Norw. skulka; Swed. skolka, to
More correctly
SCUR
play the truant. Allied to Icel. skolla, to ‘sculk, keep aloof. -Ex-
tended from the Teut. base seen in Du. schuilen, Low G. schulen, to
sculk, to lurk in a hiding-place; allied to Dan. skjul, Icel. skjal, a place
of shelter; see further under Scowl, which exhibits the shorter form.
SCULL (1), the cranium; sce Skull.
SCULL (2), a small, light oar. (Scand.) “ Scull, a little oar, to
row with; Sculler, a boat rowed with sculls, or the waterman that
manages it;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Also in the phrase ‘ rowing scull,’
Hnudibras, pt. i. c. 3,1. 351. We also find ‘the old scwller,’ 1. 6.
Charon; Ben Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, i. 1 (Cupid’s 7th speech).
Dryden oddly uses sculler with the sense of ‘ boat;’ tr. of Virgil,
Georg. b. iv. 1.735. ‘Scull to rowe with, auiron ; ; Scullar, batellier ;’
Palsgrave. ‘To rowe . . with a skulle;’ Piers of Fulham, 1. 278 ;
in Hazlitt’s Early E. Pop. Poetry, ii. 12. β. Prob. named from the
slightly hollowed blades. G. Douglas has scwll in the sense οἱ
“cup;’ tr. of Virgil, bk. iii. ch. r. 1.125. Cf Swed. skal, a basin,
bowl; hufrnd-sal, Scull (of the head); vag-skal, the scale of a
balance; skalig, concave. Also Norw. skul, a husk, shell of fruit.
Larsen gives “Dan. skullermand, a waterman, Der. scull, verb;
scull-er as above. See Skull.
SCULL (3), a shoal of fish. (Du.). In Shak. Troilus, v. 5. 22.
ME. sculle, Prompt. Pary. A variant of School (2), q. v.
SCULLERY, a room for washing dishes, and the like. (F. —L.)
Sherwood’s Index to Cotgrave has: ‘The scullery, escueillerie.
Spelt scollery; Cavendish, Life of Wolsey, ed. F. S. Ellis, p. 23.
Formed with suffix -‘e (cf. pantr-y) from OF. escuelier, one who has
charge of the dishes and plates (Godefroy) ; cf. escuelerie, the office of
keeping the dishes (id.).— Late L. scutellarius, the same (Ducange). =
L. scutella, a dish (whence OF. escuelle, Ἐς, écuelle); dimin. of scutra,
a tray. @ Godefroy also has esquelier (=escuelier); hence ME.
‘ squyllare, dysche wescheare,’ i. e. dish-washer; in Prompt. Parv.
Cf. ‘ The sguyler of the kechyn;’ Rob. of Brunne, Handlyng Synne,
1. 5913. ‘ The pourvayours of the buttlarye [buttery] and . . of the
squylerey ;? Ordinances and Regulations of the Royal Household,
4to, 1790, p. 77; ‘ Sergeaunt-squylloure,’ in the same, p.81. And see
Halliwell. Scullion is of different origin ; see below.
SCULLION, a kitchen menial. (#.—L.) In Shak. Haml. ii. 2.
616. ‘Their smooked scolions faces, handes, and feete;’ Barnes,
Works, p. 341, col. 2. ‘Scoulyon of the kechyn, souillon;’ Palsgrave.
This word has undoubtedly been long understood as if it were con-
nected with scwllery, and the connexion between the two words in
the popular mind may have influenced its form and use. But it is
impossible to connect them etymologically; and Wedgwood well
says that ‘it has a totally different origin,’ which he points cut. —MF.
escouillon, ‘a wispe, or dishclout, a maukin or drag, to cleanse or
sweepe an oven ;’ Cot. ‘In the same way malkin, mawkin, is used
both for a kitchen-wench and for the clout which she plies;’ Wedg-
wood. β. The ΜΕ. escouillon is the same as escouvillon, Cot... ‘The
latter form answers to Span. escobillon, aspongefora cannon’; formed
with suffix -o (L. -idnem) from escobilla, a small brush, dimin. of
escoba (OF, escouve), a brush, broom, which is cognate with Ital.
scopa, a broom, a birch-tree.—L. scépa, used in pl. scope, thin twigs,
a broom of twigs. Allied to L. scapus, a stem, stalk ; andto Sceptre.
SCULPTURE, the art of carving figures, (F.—L.) ME.
sculpture, Gower, C. A. ii. 83; bk. iv. 2422. —F. sculpture, for which
Littre cites nothing earlier than the 16th century; but it must have
been in earlier use; see Hatzfeld.—L. sculpiura, sculpture; cf. L.
sculptiirus, fut. part. of sculpere, to cut out, carve in stone; allied to
scalpere, to scratch, grave, carve, cut; whence E. scalp-el. Der.
sculpture, verb; sculpt-or, from L. sculptor ; sculptur-al,
SCUM, froth, reuse on the surface of liquids. (Scand.) “ Scome
or scum of fletynge [floating], Spuma;’ Prompt. Pary. ‘Scaummyn
lycurys, Despumo ;’” id. - Dat. scome, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 44, 1. 23.
— Dan. skum, scum, froth, foam; Icel. skim, foam (in Egillson’s
Dict.) ; Swed. skum.--OHG. sciim, G. schaum (whence Εἰ, écume) ;
Du. schuim. Ββ. Lit. ‘a covering.’ =4/SKEU, to cover; Fick, iti,
330. | The L. spama is related to E. foam, not to seum. Der.
scum, verb 3 scumm-er ; skim.
SCUPPER, a hole in the side of a ship to carry off water from
the deck. (F.—Scand.) ‘Scuppers, the holes through which the
water runs off the deck;’ Coles, ed. 1684. Called scoper-holes ;
Phillips (1706). ‘Our galley’s scupper-holes;’ Marston, Antonio
and Mellida, i. 1. 13. ‘ Skopper-lethers and skopper-uayles ;’ Naval
Accounts (1497); p. 298. The sense is ‘ scaoper-hole.’=OF. escope,
escoppe, a scoop for baling out water (Supp. to Godefroy).—Swed.
skopa, a scoop. Cf. MDu. schoepe, a shovel; Hexham. | See
Scoop. Cf. Prov. E. scupper, a scooper, a scoop; scewppit, a small
shovel or scoop.
SCUR, to run rapidly over. (F.—L.)
corn;’ Beaum. and Fletcher, Bonduca, i. 1.
skirr and scour ; see Scour (2). Der. scurry.
*Scur o'er the fields of
The same word as
SCURF
SCURF, small flakes of skin ; flaky matter on the skin. (Scand.)
ME. scurf. ‘ Scurf of scabbys, Squama ;’ Prompt. Parv. ; Cursor
Mundi, 11823.—Swed. skorf; Dan. skurv, scurf; Icel. skurfur, pl.+-
AS. scurf, scurf (from Norse), A. S. Leechdoms, i. 116. Cf. ‘mycel
sceorfa on his heafde hefde’ = he had much scurf on his head;
4Elfred, tr. of Beda, b. v. c. 2. Du. schurft, scurf; G. schorf.
B. From Teut. *skurf-, weak grade of *skeyfan-, as in AS, sceorfan
(pt. t. scearf, pt. t. pl. scurfon), to scarify, gnaw. Der. scur-fy,
scurf-i-ness. Also scurv-y, q.V.
SCURRIBLE, buffoon-like. (L.)
scurrilis, buffoon-like.=—L. scurra, a buffoon.
scern, derision; seeScorn. Der. scurril-i-ty, L. L. L. iv. 2.
L. acc. scurrilitatem ; scurril-ous, Wint. Tale, iv. 4. 215;
ous-ly,
SCURVY, afflicted with scurf, mean. (Scand.) ‘ All scuruy with
scabbes;’ Skelton, Elinour Rumming, 140. The same word as
scurfy, with change from f to v; cf. Swed. skorfvig, scurfy, from
skorf, scurf. See Scurf. Hence, as aterm of contempt, vile, mean,
Temp. ii. 2. 46, and very common in Shak. Cf. Low G. schorjig,
schorvig, adj. ; from schorf, scurf; Dan. skurvet,scurfy. Der. scurvy,
Phillips, ed. 1706, the name of a disease, from the pitiful condition
of those afflicted with it; and hence, probably, the Low L. medical
term scorbiius; see Scorbutiec. Also scurvi-ly, -ness.
SCUTAGE, a tax ona knight's fee. (Late L.—L.) See Cowel’s
Interpreter and Blount’s Nomolexicon.—Med. Latin sciitagium, a
form of *scutaticum, due to OF. escuage, with the same sense.—L.
sciitum,a shield. See Esquire.
SCUTCH, to dress flax. (F.—Scand.) From the sb. scutch, an
instrument for beating flax; Cent. Dict.—OF. escouche, eschuche, a
swingle (Godefroy); Norm. dial. écouche, écoche (Moisy). Cf.
escucher, vb.; Wright, Voc. i. 156.—Norw. skuku, skoka, a swingle.
Otherwise in Hatzfeld ; 5. v. écouche.
SCUTCHEON, a painted shield. (F.—L.) ME. scotchyne,
scochone, Prompt. Parv. The same as Escutcheon, q. v.
SCUTIFORM,, shield-shaped. (F.—L.) In Blount, ed. 1674.
‘ Scutiforme os, the whirl-bone of the knee ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.—MF.
scutiforme, ‘fashioned like a scutcheon, shield-fashion;’ Cot.—L.
sciiti-, for sctitum,a shield ; and form-a, form, shape: see Escutcheon
and Form,
SCUTTLE (1), a shallow basket, a vessel for holding coal. (L.)
ME. scotille. ‘Hec scutella, a scotylle;’ Wright's Vocab. i. 257,
col. 1. A Northern form. Cf. Icel. skutill; AS. scutel, a dish,
bowl. ‘Catinus, scwtel ;’ Wright's Voc. i. 290, col. 1.—L. scutella,
a salver or waiter; dimin, of scutra, a tray, dish, or platter, also spelt
scuta. Der. coal-scuttle. Doublet, skillet.
SCUTTLE (2), an opening in the hatchway of a ship. (F.—
Span.—Teut.) ‘ Scuttles, square holes, capable for the body of a man
to pass thorough at any hatch-way, or part of the deck, into any room
below; also, those little windows and long holes which are cut out
in cabbins to let in light;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. And in Cotgrave.
‘ The skottelles of the haches;’ Naval Accounts (1497); p. 323.—
MF. escoutilles, pl., ‘the scuttles, or hatches of a ship; th’overtures
or trap-doors, whereat things are let down into the hold ;’ Cot.
Mod. F. écoutille. = Span. escotilla, escotillon, ‘a hole in the hatch of a
ship, also the hatch itselfe,’ Minsheu. β. The word appears to be
Spanish ; and we find another form in esco/adura, the large trap-door
of a theatre or stage (Neuman). Another sense of escotadura is the
sloping of a jacket or pair of stays; and the form of the word is such
as to be due to the verb escofar, to cut out a thing so as to make it
fit, to slope, to hollow out a garment about the neck (a different
word from Span. escofar, to pay one’s reckoning, for which see Scot-
free). The orig. sense is ‘to cut a hole in a garment to admit the
neck,’ from the sb. escote, the sloping of a jacket, a tucker such as
women wear above the bosom. This sb. is derived, as Diez points
out, from the Teutonic; cf. Goth. skauts, the hem of a garment, Du.
schoot, the lap, the bosom, G. schooss, the same; so that the orig.
sense of Span, escofe is ‘a slope to fit the bosom,’ a hole for the neck.
4 So in Diez; see Sheet. Der. scuttle, verb, to sink a ship by
cutting scutdles or holes in it.
SCUTTLE (3), to hurry along, scud away. (Scand.) Cf. Swed.
skutta, to leap; Swed. dial. skutta, to take a long jump; allied to
scuddle (Bailey), which is the frequentative of Scud, q.v. ‘How
the misses did huddle, and scuddle, and run ;” Anstey’s New Bath
Guide, letter 13 (Davies). Davies also gives scutter, a hasty run.
SCYTHE, a cutting instrument for mowing grass. (K.) The
intrusion of the letter ¢ is due to false spelling; it should be sythe or
sithe. Spelt sythe in L.L.L. i. 1. 6 (first folio, ed. 1623). ME.
sithe, P. Plowman, C. iv. 464; syJe, Havelok, 2553. AS. side, sife,
a scythe; ‘ Falcastrum, siZe,’ Wright’s Vocab. i. 85, 1. 3. The AS.
side is for sigde (a form actually found in the Epinal gloss), and the
long ¢ shows the loss of g; it means ‘the cutting instrument.’ From
In Shak. Troil. i. 3. 148.—L.
Allied to OHG,.
55, from
scurrtl-
SEARCH
the Teut. base SEG, to cut=4/SEQ, to cut. See Saw (1),
Section. Fick, iii. 314.4Du. zers; Icel. sigdr, sigd, a sickle; Low
Ὁ. seged, segd, also seed, seid, a kind of sickle; Brem. Worterbuch.
From the same root we have OHG. segansa, MHG. segense, G. sense,
ascythe; OHG. seh, MHG. sech, a ploughshare ; as well as E. saw,
sickle. Der. scythe, verb, Shak. Complaint, 1. 12; scythe-tusked, Two
Noble Kinsmen, i. 1. 79.
SE-, away, apart, prefix. (L.) From L. sé-, short for sed, without,
which is retained as a prefix in sed-ition. Séd is mentioned by
Festus as having been used with the sense ‘ without.’ Der. se-cede,
se-clude, se-cret, se-cure, sed-ition, se-duce, se-gregate, se-lect, se-parate ;
and see sever.
SEA, a large lake, ocean. (E.) ME. see, Chaucer, C. T. 3033
(A 3031). AS. s#, sea, lake.4-Du. zee; Icel. ser; Dan. s6; Swed.
sjo; G. see; Goth. saiws. B. All from a Teut. type *saiwiz, sea.
Der. sea-board, from F. bord, the shore = Du. boord, edge, brim (see
Border) ; sea-coast, sea-faring, sea-girt, -green, -horse, -kale, -king,
-level, -man, -man-ship, -mark, -room, -serpent, -shore, -sick, -side,
-unicorn, -urchin, -ward, -weed, -worthy; &c.
SEAL (1), a stamp for impressing wax, impressed wax, that which
authenticates. (F.—L.) ME. seel (better than sele), Chaucer, C. T.
10445 (F131). ‘Seled with his seale,’ Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Lang-
toft, i. 29, 1. 12.— OF. seel, ‘a seal, or signet;’ Cot. Mod. F.
sceau; Span. sello, sigilo; Ital. sigillo.—L. sigillum, a seal, mark ; lit.
‘a little sign;” allied to signwm,a sign, mark; see Sign. Der.
seal, verb, ME, selen, as above ; seal-engraving, seal-ing-wax.
SEAL (2), a sea-calf, marine animal. (E.) ME. sele, Havelok,
755; which represents AS. séole, dat. of AS. seolh, a seal; Grein, ii.
438.4Icel. selr; Dan. sal; also selhund (seal-hound) ; Swed. sjal,
sjailhund; OHG, selah. Teut. type *selhoz.
SEAM (1), a suture, a line formed by joining together two pieces,
a line of union. (E.) ME. seem, Wyclif, John, xix. 23. AS. séam,
fElfric’s Hom. i. 20,1. 4 from bottom.+Du. zoom; Icel. saumr ; Dan,
and Swed. som; G. saum. B. All from a Teut. type *saumoz, m.,
a sewing, suture (Fick, iii. 325); formed, with suffix -moz, from sau,
2nd grade of root ἴδεν, *siw; Idg. root SIW, to sew. Cf. L. su-ere,
to sow, Skt. st-tra-,a thread; see Sew. Der. seam-less, seam-y;
also seam-str-ess, q.V.
SEAM (2), a horse-load. (Late L.—Gk.) ME, seem; dat. seme,
P. Plowman, B, iii. 40. AS. seam. Borrowed (like (ἃ. saum) from
Late L. sawma, late form of sagma, a horse-load.=Gk. caypa, a
pack-saddle. See Sumpter.
SEAMSTRESS, SEMPSTRESS, a woman who sews seams.
(E.; with Ἐς suffix.) ‘Seamster, and Seamstress, a man or woman
that sows, makes up, or deals in linnen-clothes ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.
Only seamster is given in Minsheu, ed. 1627. The suffix -ess is a F.
fem, suffix, F. -esse (from L. -issa, Gk. -toga), as in princ-ess, mar-
chion-ess. ME. semster, Destruction of Troy, ed. Panton and Donald-
son, 1. 1585. AS. séamestre. We find: ‘Sartor, seamere,’ and
‘ Sartrix, seamestre;’ Wright’s Vocab. i. 74. [Whence s#mestres,
Diplomatarium ‘Evi Saxonici, ed. Thorpe, p. 568, 1. 10.) Formed
from AS. séam, a seam, by the addition of the AS. suffix -estre, ex-
plained under Spinster. See Seam (1).
SEANCE, a sitting, session. (F.—L.) Modern. =F. séance, a
session. = Εἰς séant, pres. pt. of seoir, to sit. L. sedére, tosit. See Sit.
SEAR, SERE, withered. (E.) Spelt sere, Spenser, Shep. Kal.
Jan. 37. ME. seer; spelt seere, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 18,
1. 25; seer, Rom. Rose, 4749. AS. séar, sere; best preserved in the
derived verb; see below.4--ODu. sore, dry (Oudemans); zoor, ‘dry,
withered, or seare;’ Hexham; Low G. soor, dry; Brem. Wort.
B. Teut. type *savzoz; Idg. type *sausos. Allied to Russ. suxoi,
dry; Lith. savsas, dry; Gk. αὖος (for *cavaos), dry; Skt. gush (for
*sush), to become dry. (4/SEUS.) From the same root is Gk.
ave, to parch, αὐστηρός, dry. rough, whence E, austere. The Zend
hush, to dry, proves that SEUS is the root; Curtius, i. 490. Brug-
mann, i. 213. Der. sear, verb, to dry up, cauterise, render
callous, Rich. III, iv. 1. 61, ME. seeren, Prompt. Parv., AS. séarian,
to dry up, to wither or pine away, AZlfred, tr. of Orosius, iv. 6. 15.
See Austere; and Sorrel (2).
SEARCH, to seek, examine, explore. (F.—L.) ME. serchen,
Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 268, last line but one; better
spelt cerchen, as in Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 159, Mandeville’s
Travels, p. 315.—AF. cercher, Stat. Realm, i. 219; sercher, id. 274.
-OF, cercher (Burg ty); mod. F. chercher, to seek. Cf. Norm.
dial. sercher, cercher. Ital. cercare, to seek, to search; Prov. cercar,
cerquar, sercar, to search (Bartsch); Span. cercar, to encircle,
surround. = L, circdre, to go round; hence, to go about, explore.=—L,.
circus, a circle, ring; circum, round about. See Cireum-, Circus,
Ring. Note AF. sercher, ME. serchex; A Nominale, ed. Skeat,
ll. 434, 435. Der. search, sb., Temp. iii. 3. 103 search-ing, search-er,
search-warrant. Also re-search, shark.
045
Nn
546 SEASON
SEASON, proper time, fit opportunity. (F.—L.) ME. sesoun,
Chaucer, C. T. 1045 (A 1043); P. Plowman, B. prol. 1; seysoun,
King Alisaunder, 5251.—OIF. sesov, seison, saison; mod. F. saisox,
‘season, due time;’ Cot. Cf. Span. sazoz, Port. βαζῶο, sezdo;
OProy. sadons, sasos, sazos (Bartsch).—Late L. satidnem, acc. of
satio, a season, time of year, occurring A.D. 1028 (Ducange). The
same as L. satio, a sowing, planting, Verg. Georg. i. 215, ii. 319
(hence, the time of sowing or spring-time, which seems to have been
regarded as the season, par excellence). Allied to L. satus, pp. of
serere,tosow. From 4/SE, to cast, sow ; whence also seminal, seed,
sow. See Sow (1). 4 Besides the word season, we also find Span.
estacion, used in the sense of ‘season’ or time as well as ‘station ;’
and Ital. stagione, ‘a season or time of the yeere,’ Florio. These
are, of course, from L. statidnem, acc. of statio, a station, hence
applied, we must suppose, to the four stations, stages, or seasons of
the year; see Station. And it is probable that the use of this word
affected and extended the senses of season, I have been informed
that the prov. E. season is still occasionally used in Kent in the sense
of ‘sowing-time.’ Moreover, AF. seson occurs with the sense
‘sowing-time;’ see Royal Wills, ed. Nichols, pp. 34, 35. Der.
season, verb, Merch. Ven. v. 107, Ascham, Toxophilus, b. ii. ed.
Arber, p. 124; season-able, season-abl-y, season-able-ness ; also season-
ing, that which ‘seasons,’ or makes food more suitable and palat-
able.
SEAT, a chair, bench, &c., to sit on. (Scand.) ME. seve; spelt
seete, Wyclif, Rev. ii. 13.—Icel. seti, a seat; Swed. sate; Dan. sede.
=Icel. sa¢-, 3rd grade of sitja, to sit; see Sit. [The usual AS.
word is se¢l, for which see Settle.j|4-MDu. saet, sate; MUG. saze.
Der. seat, verb, Macb. i. 3. 1363; dis-seat, Macb. v. 3. 21; un-seat.
SEBACEOUS, pertaining to tallow, fatty. (L.) From L.
sébace-us, fatty. L. sébwn, tallow, fat. Prob. allied to E. soap.
See Soap.
SECANT, a line that cuts another, or that cuts a circle. (L.) In
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. secant-, stem of pres. part. of secire,
to cut; see Section. (4/SEQ.) Brugmann, i. ὃ 635. See Saw,
Scythe, Sickle, Sedge.
SECEDE, to withdraw oneself from others, go apart. (L.) A
late word; in Todd’s Johnson.=L. sécédere, pp. sécessus, to go
away, withdraw.—L. sé-, apart; and cédere, to go, go away. See
Se- and Cede. Der. seced-er; also secess-ion, in Minsheu, ed.
1627, from L. acc. sécessidnem, nom. sécessio, formed from pp.
S€CeSSUS.
SECLUDE, to keep apart. (L.) ‘ Secluded from the Scriptures ;’
Frith’s Works, p. 3, col. 2.—L. sécliiderc, to shut off.—L. sé-, apart;
and claudere, to shut; see Se- and Clause, Close (1). Der.
seclus-ion, formed like séclisus, pp. of sécliidere.
SECOND, next after the first, the ordinal number corresponding
to two. (F.—L.) ME. second; spelt secounde, Wyclif, John, iv. 54;
secunde, Rob, of Glouc. p. 282, 1.5724. Not a very common word,
as other was usually employed instead, in early times; second being
the only ordinal number of F. origin. (See Other.)=—F. second,
masc., seconde, fem., ‘ second ;’ Cot. = L. secundus, following, second ;
so called because it follows the first. Formed from sec-, from the
base of segui, to follow, with gerundive suffix, with the force of a
pres. part. Brugmann, ii. ὃ 69 (2). See Sequence. Der. second,
sb., used with reference to minutes, or first small subdivisions of an
hour, &c., from F. seconde, ‘the 24 part of a prime, a very small
weight used by goldsmiths and jewellers,’ Cot. Also second, verb,
Merry Wives, i. 3. 1143; second-er ; second-ar-y, second-ar-i-ly, Tyndall,
Works, p. 120, col. 1; second-ly; second-hand, i.e. at second hand;
second-sight.
SECRET, hidden, concealed, unknown. (F.—L.) Spelt: secrette
in Palsgrave. The ME. form is almost invariabiy secree, Chaucer,
C. T. 12077 (Ὁ 143); spelt secre, P. Plowman, A. iii. 141; but we
find secret in P. Plowman, B. iii. 145, C. iv. 183.—OF. secret (fem.
secreie, Burguy), ‘secret ;’ Cot.=L. sécrétus, secret; orig. pp. of
sécernere, to separate, set apart.—L. sé-, apart; and cernere, to
separate, sift; see Se- and Concern. Der. secret, sb., ME. secree,
Chaucer, C. T. 16915 (G 1447), from L. sécrétum, sb., orig. neuter
of sécrétus; secret-ly, secret-ness; secrec-y, Hamlet, i. 2. 207, a coined
word, by analogy with constancy, &c.; secrete, verb, formed from L.
sécrétus, considered as pp. of secernere ; secret-ion, from MF. secretion,
‘a separating, also a thing separated or set apart,’ Cot.; secret-ive,
secret-ive-ly, secret-ive-ness, secret-or-y; also secret-ar-y, ἢ. V-
SECRETARY, orig. a private amanuensis, confidant. (F.—
I.) ‘The sense of the word is now much widened; it is frequently
ysed where liitie privacy is intended. In Shak. Hen. VIII, ii. 2. 116,
iv. ¥, 102. Palsgrave has: ‘ Seeretarye, secretayre ;’ secretarye also
oceurs in a 15th-century poem called The Assemble of Ladies, 1. 337.
=F. secretaire, ‘a secretary, clerk ;’ Cot.—Late L. séerétarium, acc.
of sécrétirius, a confidential officers cf. L. sécrétarium,a secret place,
SEDITION
consistory, conclave.=L. sécrét-us, secret; with suffix -drius; see
Secret. Der. secretary-ship; secretari-al.
SECT, a party who follow a particular teacher, or hold particular
principles, a faction. (F.—L.) Itis tolerably certain that the sense
of the word has been obscured by a false popular etymology which
has connected the word with L. secire, to cut; and itis not un-
common for authors to declare, with theological intolerance and in
contempt of history, that a sect is so called from its being ‘cut off”
from the church. But the etymology from secdre is baseless. Pals-
grave weil defines secte as ‘a company of one opynion.’ ME. secte,
used convertibly with saute (=suite) in P. Plowman, C. viii. 130,
B. v. 495 3 see my note on the line. Both secte and sude are here
used in the sense of ‘ suit of clothes.’=F. secte, ‘a sect or faction ;
a rout or troup ; a company of one (most commonly bad) opinion ;’
Cot.—Late L. secta, a set of people, a following, suite ; also, a quality
of cloth, a suit of clothes ; also, a suit or action at law; L. secta,
a party, faction, sect, lit. ‘a following.’ =—L. sec- (as in sec-undus),
base of segui, to follow, with suthix -ta. Cf. Gk. ἑπέτης, a follower,
attendant, from ἕπομαι, I follow; see secta in Bréal, s.v. seguor. See
Sequence. Der. sect-ar-y, Hen. VIII, v. 3. 70, from IF. sectaire,
‘a sectary, the ringleader, professor, or follower of a sect,’ Cot. ;
sect-ar-t-an, sect-ar-i-an-ism. |Doublets, sept, set.
SECTION, a cutting, division, parting, portion. (F.—L.) In
Minsheu, ed. 1627, and Cotgrave.—F. section, ‘a section, cutting.’ =
L. sectidnem, acc. of sectio, a cutting ; cf. sectus, pp. of secare, to cut.
= 4/SEQ, to cut; whence also Russ. steche, to hew, Lithuan. sykis,
a stroke, cut, and E. saw, sickle, scythe, sedge. Brugmann, i. § 635.
Der. section-al, section-al-ly; also. sec-tor, from L. sector, a cutter,
used in Late L. to mean a sector (part) of a circle; seg-ment, q. v.
From the same root are sec-ant, co-sec-ant ; bi-sect, dis-sect, inter-sect,
tri-sect ; in-sect ; also saw, sickle, sedge, scythe, risk.
SECULAR, pertaining to the present world, not bound by
monastic rules. (F.—L.) In Levins. ME, secular, seculer, seculere ;
Chaucer, C. T. 9127, 15456 (E 1251, Β 4640).—AF. seculer, Year-
books of Edw. I, i. 59, 133; MF. seculier, ‘secular, lay, temporall ;’
Cot.—L. seculdris, secular, worldly, belonging to the age.—L.
seculum, a generation, age. B. Better written sécxlum; from
«5Ε, to sow (Bréal); see Sow. Der. secular-ly, -ise, -is-at-ion, -ism.
SECURE, free from care or anxiety, safe, sure. (L.) In Levins;
accented sécure in Hamlet, i. 5. 61.—L. séctirus, free from care. — L.
sé-, free from; and cura, anxiety; see Se- and Cure. Der. secure-
ly, -ness3 secur-able; secur-i-ty, from MF, securi/é, ‘ security,’ Cot.,
from L. acc. séciiritatem. Doublets, sicker, sure.
SEDAN, SEDAN-CHAIR, a portable vehicle, carried by two
men. (F.) In Dryden, tr. of Juvenal, sat..i. 186. Named from
Sedan, a town in France, N. E. of Paris; first seen in England, A.D.
1581; regularly used in London, A. Ὁ. 1634 (Haydn). Evelyn speaks
of ‘ sedans, from hence [Naples] brought first into England by Sir
Sanders Duncomb;’ Diary, Feb. 8, 1645. Cf. Εἰ sedan, cloth made
at Sedan (Littré).
SEDATE, guiet, serious. (L.) In Phillips,ed. 1706; Blount (ed.
1674) has sedateness and sedation, of which the latter is obsolete.—
L. sédatus, composed, calm; pp. of séedare, to settle, causal of
sedére, to sit, cognate with E. sit; see Sit. Der. sedate-ly, -ness.
Also sedat-ive, i.e. composing, from F, sédaéif, ‘ quieting, asswaging ;’
Cot. And see sedentary, sediment, see (2). ἡ
SEDENTARY, sitting much, inactive. (F.—L.) Spelt seden-
tarie, Minsheu, ed. 1627 ; and oceurring in Cotgrave. =F. sédentaire,
‘ sedentary, ever-sitting ;’ Cot. —L. sedentirius, sedentary. = L. sedent-,
pres. part. of sedére, to sit, cognate with ΕἸ. sit; with suffix -arius;
see Sit. Der. sedentari-ly, -ness.
SEDGE, a kind of flag or coarse grass in swamps. (E.) ME.
segge, Prompt. Parv.; Voc. 570. 48. The pl. segges occurs as late
as in Baret (1580). Segge represents AS. secge, g., dat., and acc. of
secg, sedge; Gloss. to A.S. Leechdoms, vol. iii. Low G. segge, sedge ;
in the dialect of Oldenburg; Bremen Worterbuch. And cf. Irish
seasg, seisg, sedge; W. hesg. B. The AS. cg=gg; Teut. type
*sag-jd, f.; lit. sense, ‘ cutter,’ i.e. sword-grass, from the sharp edge
or sword-like appearance; cf. L. gladiolus, a small sword, sword-
lily, flag. From the Teut. base *say-, 2nd grade of Teut. root *sex,
to cut=4/SEQ, to cut; see Saw (1), Section. Der. sedg-ed,
Temp. iv. 129; sedg-y.
SEDIMENT, dregs, that which settles at the bottom of a liquid.
(F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed, 1627.—MF. sediment, ‘a sitting or setling
of dregs;’ (Οἵ. “Τὸν sedimentum, a settling, subsidence. L. sedére,
to sit, settle; with suffix -»mentwm. See Sit. Der. sediment-ar-y.
SEDITION, insurrection, rebellions conduct against the state.
(F.—L.) ΜΕ. sedicitoun, Wyclif, Mark, xv. 7, in some MSS.; others
have seducioun. = OF. sedition, ‘a sedition, mutiny ;’ Cot. = L.
séditionem, acc. of séditio, dissension, civil discord, sedition, B. Lit.
‘a going apart,’ hence dissension; just as amb-ition is ‘a going.
SEDUCE
about.’=L. séd-, apart; and it-wm, supine of ire, to go, from EI,
to go. See Se- and Ambition. Der. sediti-ous, Com. Errors, i.
1. 12, from MF. seditieux, ‘ seditious,’ Cot. ; sediti-ous-ly.
SEDUCE, to lead astray, entice, corrupt. (L.) In Levins, ed.
1570; Fryth’s Works, p. 95, 1. 16; Surrey, Ps. 73, 1. 5 from end. =
L. sédicere, to lead apart or astray; pp. séductus.—L. sé-, apart ;
and dicere, to lead; see Se- and Duct. Der. seduc-er; seduce-ment,
a coined word; seduct-ion, from MF. seduction, ‘ seduction,’ Cot.,
from L. acc. séductidnem, allied to the pp. s@ductus. Also seduct-
ive, a coined word, from the pp. séductus ; seduct-ive-ly,
SEDULOUS, diligent, constantly attentive. (L.) Used by Bp.
Taylor, vol. iit. ser. 4 (R.). [The sb. sedulity is in Minsheu and Cot-
grave.) Englished from L. sedulus, diligent, by change of -us into
-ous, as in arduous, &e. Cf. séduld, adv. busily ; from sé, apart from,
and dold, abl. of dolus, fraud. Brugmann, i. § 244. Der. sedulous-
ly, -ness; also sedul-i-ty, from MF. sedulite, ‘sedulity,’ Cot., from L.
acc. sédulitatem.
SEE (1), to perceive by the eye. (E.) ME. seen, sen, se; pt. sei,
sey, Say, seigh, sigh, sei}, saugh, sauh, saw; pp. sein, sejen, sen, seien,
seve; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 193, ὅς. AS. séon; pt. t. séah, pl. siwon,
pp: gesegen, gesewen; Grein.4-Du. zien, pt. t. zag, pp. gezien; Icel.
sjd, pt. t. sd, pp. séun; Dan. se; Swed. se; OHG. sehan ; G. sehen ;
Goth. saihwan, pt. τ. sahw, pl. séhwum, pp. saihwans. B. All from
a Teut. type *sehwan- (pt. t. *sahw); Fick, iii. 315; Brugmann,
i. § 665. Der. se-er, lit. one who sees, hence, a prophet, 1 Sam,
ix. 9, spelt sear in the edit. of 1551; see-ing. And see sight.
SEE (2), the seat of a bishop. (F.—L.) Used by Spenser in the
sense of ‘seat’ or throne; F. Q. iv. ro. 30. ME. se, Chron. of
England, 363, in Ritson, Met. Rom. vol. ii; Trevisa, tr. of Higden,
ii. 119; P. Pl. Crede, 558.—OF. sed, se, a seat, see (Burguy).=—L.
sédem, acc. of sédes, a seat. —L. séd-, as in séd-i, pt. of sedére, to sit ;
cognate with E. Sit, q. v.
SEED, a thing sown, germ, first original or principle, descendants.
(E.) ME. seed, Chaucer, C. T. 598 (A 596). AS. séd, seed;
Grein, ii. 304. ἘΠ). zaad; Icel. sedi, sad; Dan. sed; Swed. sid;
G, saat. Cf. Goth. mana-séths, the world, lit. ‘man-seed ;’ L. sé
men, seed. The AS, s#d_answers to the Teut. type *s#-dom, neut. ;
from Teut. *s#-=Idg. SE,to sow. See Sow. Der. seed-bud, -ling,
-lobe, -s-man, -time; also seed-y, looking as if run to seed, hence
shabby.
SEEK, to go in search of, look for, try to find. (E.) ME.
seken, Chaucer, C. T. 17. ΑΘ. sécan, to seek, pt. t. sdhte, pp.
gesoht ; Grein, ii. 418.4-Du. zoeken; Icel. sekja, written for soekja;
Dan. soge ; Swed. soka; OHG. suohhan, MHG. suochen, G. suchen;
Goth. sokjan ; Teut. type *sdk-jan-; from *sok-=Idg. sag-, as in L.
sag-ire, to perceive, Gk. ἡγέομαι, I consider. Cf. Olrish sagim, I
seek for. Seek is a weak verb, with mutation from 6 to δ in the
infin. mood. Der. seek-er, be-seech.
SEEL, to close up the eyes. (F.—L.) ‘Come, seeling night ;’
Macb. iii. 2. 46. Spelt cele in Palsgrave. Orig. a term in falconry,
to close up the eyelids of a hawk (or other bird) by sewing up the
eyelids; see Sealed-dove in Halliwell, and seel in Nares. = MF. siller ;
stller les yexx, ‘to seel, or sow up, the eie-lids, thence also, to hood-
wink, blind ;” Cot. Also spelt ciller, ‘ to seele or sow up the eie-
lids;” id. The latter is the better spelling. —OF. cil, ‘the brimme
of an eie-lid, or the single ranke of haire that growes on the brim;’
14. —L. célizm, an eye-lid, an eye-lash; perhaps allied to Gk. τὰ
xvAa, the parts under the eyes. See Supercilious.
SEEM, to appear, look. (E.) The old sense ‘to be fitting’ is
preserved in the derivative seemly. ME. semen, Chaucer, C. T.
10283 (E 2409). AS. seman, geséman, to satisfy, conciliate ; Grein.
Hence the idea of ‘suit,’ whence that of ‘appear suitable,’ or simply
‘appear.’ These senses are probably borrowed from the related
adj. seemly, which is rather Scand. than E.; see Seemly.+Icel.
sema, for soema, to honour, bear with, conform to; closely related
to semr, adj., becoming, fit, and to sdma, to beseem, become, befit.
B. Here δ is (as usual) the mutation of 6, and the Teut. type is
*som-jan ; from som, and grade of sam-,as in E. same; cf. Icel.
soma, to beseem, and Icel. sama, to beseem, samr, same; see further
under Seemly. Der. seem-ing ; also seem-ly, 4. ν. ; be-seem, 4. ν.
SEEMLY, becoming, fit. (Scand.) ME. semlich, Ancren
Riwle, p. 94, note z; semli, semely, Chaucer, C. T. 753 (A 751).—
Icel. semiligr, seemly, becoming; a longer form of semr, becoming,
fit, with suffix -lig answering to AS. -lic, like, and E. -ly; where
sem-is the mutated form of *sém- (as in Icel. soma, to befit), 2nd
grade of *sam-, as in Icel. sama, to beseem, befit, become ; cognate
with Goth. samjan, to please, lit. ‘to be the same,’ hence to be like,
to fit, suit, be congruent with.—Icel. samr, the same, cognate with
E. Same, q. v. @ Thus seemly=same-like, agreeing with, fit;
and seem is to agree with, appear like, or simply, to appear; the
AS. séman, to conciliate, is the same, with the act. sense ‘to make
SELDOM 547
like,” make to agree.
Prompt. Pary.
SEER, a prophet, lit. ‘one who sees.’ (E.) See See.
SEESAW, motion to and fro, or up and down. (E.) In Pope,
Prol. to Satires, 323. A reduplicated form of saw; from the action
of two men sawing wood (where the motion is up and down), or
sawing stone (where the motion is to and fro). See Saw (1). It
is used as adj., verb, and sb.; the orig. use was perhaps adjectival,
as in Pope.
SEETHE, to boil. (E.) The pt. t. sod occurs in Gen. xxv. 29 ;
the pp. sodden in Exod. xii. 9. ME. sethen, Chaucer, C. T. 385
(A 383); pt. t. sing. seeth, id. 8103 (E 227), pl. sothen, soden,
P. Plowman, B. xv. 288, C. xviii. 20; pp. soden, sothen, id. B.
xv. 425. AS. séodan, pt. t. séad, pp. soden; Grein, ii. 437.4-Du.
zieden; Icel. yada, pt. t. saud, pl. sudu, pp. sodinn ; Dan. syde; Swed.
sjuda; OHG. siodan; G. sieden. Teut. type *seuthan-, pt. t. *sauth,
pp. *sud-anoz. Allied to Goth. sauths, sauds, a burnt-offering,
sacrifice, Mark, xii. 32. Der. sod, suds.
SEGMENT, a portion, part cut off. (L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.
—L. segmentum, a piece cut off; for *sec-mentum.= L. sec-dre, to cut;
with suffix -mentum; see Section.
SEGREGATE, to separate from others. (L.) Not common.
In Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 428d; where it occurs as a pp., meaning
‘separated.’ —L. ségregatus, pp. of ségregare, to set apart, lit. ‘to
set apart from a flock.’=L. sé-, apart; and greg-, stem of grex,
a flock; see Se- and Gregarious. Der. segregat-ion, from MF.
segregation, ‘a segregation,’ Cot., from L, acc. ségregationem.
SEGUIDILLA, a lively Spanish dance. (Span.—L.) Moore
has the F. form seguadille; Remember the Time, 1]. 5.—Span.
seguidilla, a merry Spanish tune and dance, with a refrain. Dimin.
of seguida, a continuation, succession (of the refrain).—Span. seguir,
to follow.—L. segui, to follow. See Sequence.
SEIGNIOR, a title of honour. (F.—L.) ME. seignour, King
Alisaunder, 1458; the derived word seignory is much commoner,
as in Rob. of Brunne, p. 24,1. 18, Rob. of Glouc. p. 186, 1. 3855.—
OF. seignour, MF, seigneur, ‘a lord, sir, seignior ;’ Cot. —L. senidrem,
acc. of sentor, elder, hence, an elder, a lord; see Senior. Der.
seignior-y, as above, from OF. seignorie, MF. seigneurie, ‘ seigniory,’
Cot.
SEINE, a large fishing-net. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. seyne; Wright’s
Vocab. i. 159.—F. seine. L. sagéna, —Gk. σαγήνη, a large fishing-
Der. seemly, adv. (for seem-li-ly) ; seemli-ness,
| net.
SEIZE, to lay hold of, grasp, comprehend. (F.—OHG.) ΜΕ.
saysen, seysen, orig. a law term, to give seisin or livery of land, to put
one in possession of, also to take possession of; hence, to grasp; see
Havelok, 251, 2513, 2518, 2931.—OF. seisir, saisir, to put one in
possession of, take possession of (Burguy).— Low L. sacire, to take
possession of. Usually referred to Teut.*satjan-, OHG. sazzan (Goth.
satjan, AS, setta), to set, put, place, cognate with E.Set. This may
have given the Low L. form, though it would not give the OF. form
directly. Der. setz-er, seiz-able, a coined word; se:z-ure, Troil. i. 1.57,
a coined word, answering to the Εἰ, infin. satsir just as pleasure does
to plaisir. Also seis-in, seiz-in, possession of an estate, a law term,
ME. seisine, spelt seysyne in Rob. of Glouc. p. 382, 1. 7851, from
OF. seisine, the same as sazsine, ‘ seisin, possession,’ Cot. ; where the
suffix -ine answers to L. -ina; cf. Ital. sagina, seisin, possession.
SEJANT, sitting ; aterm in heraldry. (F.—L.) AF. secant, pres.
pt. of AF. sefer, variant of OF. seoir, to sit (Godefroy). —L. sedére, to
sit. See Séance, Sit.
SELAH, a pause. (Heb.) In Ps. iii. 2; and elsewhere in the
psalms. The meaning οἱ the word is unknown, and cannot be
certainly explained. _ Usually taken to indicate ‘a pause.’ See
Smith, Dict. of the Bible.
SELDOM, rarely, not often. (E.) ME. seldom, P. Plowman,
A. vii. 1243 selden, B. vii. 137; selde, Chaucer, C. T. 1541 (A 1539).
AS. seldan, seldon, seldum, seldom; Grein, ii. 426. B. The AS.
seldum is formed with an adverbial suffix -1m which was orig. the in-
flectional ending of the dat. plural; just as in hwil-um, mod. E. whil-
om, lit. ‘at whiles’ or at times, wundr-um, wondrously, /ytl-um, little,
micl-um, much, and the like; see March, A.S. Gram. ὃ 251. This
form easily passed into seldox or seldan, just as AS. onsundr-on,
asunder, stands for on sundrum,. Ὑ. This takes us back to an adj. seld,
rare, only found as an adverb. “ pet fole wundrab pees pe hit seldost
gesihd’=the people wonder at that which it most seldom sees;
AElfred, tr. of Boethius, cap. xxxix. § 3; where se/dost is the superl.
form of the adverb. We also find such compounds as se/d-ctid, rare,
seld-sine, seldom seen; Sweet, A. 5. Reader.4 Du. zelden, adv.; Icel.
sjaldan, ady., seldom ; Dan. sjelden, adv. ; Swed. sallan (for saldan),
ady.; G. sellen; OHG. seltan. ὃ. All these are adverbial forms
froma Teut. adj. *seldoz, rare, strange, appearing in Goth. sida- in
comp. silda-leiks, wonderful, orig, perhaps ‘ of strange form,’
Nn2
548 SELECT
SELECT, choice. (L.) In Shak. Haml. i. 3. 74.—L. sélectus,
select, chosen ; pp. of séligere, to choose.— L. :é-, apart; and legere,
to choose. See Sc- and Legend. Der. selec'-ness; also selec’,
yerb, Cor. i. 6. 81; select-ion, sb., from L. acc. sélectiGnem.
SELF, one’s own person. (E.) ME. self, sometimes used in the
sense of ‘same’ or ‘very;’ dat. selue; ‘right in the selve place’=
just in the very place, Chaucer, C. T. 11706 (F 1394). AS. self, also
seolf, silf, siolr, sylf, self; Grein, ii. 427, where numerous examples
are given. Du. zelf; Icel. sjalfr; old form sjelfr; Dan. selv ; Swed.
sjelf; Goth. silba; G. selbe, selb-st. The origin is unknown. Der.
selj-denial, self-evident, self-existent, self-posses:ion, self-righteous, sel/-
same, self-sufficient, self-willed. Also sel/-ish, in Hacket’s Life of
Archbp. Williams, pt. ii. p. 144 (Trench, Eng. Past and Present) ;
self-ish-ness, Butler, Hudibras, pt. i. c. 2. 1. 1052. Also my-self, AS.
min sel‘, where min is the possessive pron. of the Ist person; ‘hy-self,
AS. fin self, where fix is the possessive pron. of the second person ;
him-self, where the AS. phrase is hé self, nom., his selfes, gen., him
selfum, dat., hine selfne, acc. (see Grein); her-self, due to AS. hyre
selfre, dat. fem.; &c. For the use of these forms in ME. and AS.,
see examples in Stratmann and Grein. Also selv-age, q. v-
SELL (1), to hand over or deliver in exchange for money or some
other valuable. (E.) ME. sellen, Wyclif, Luke, xii. 33; sillen,
Matt. xix. 21. AS. sellan, sillan, syllan, to give, hand over, deliver ;
Grein, ii. 429.-4-Icel. seljc, to hand over to another; Dan. selge;
Swed. salja; ΜΗ. sellen ; OHG. saljan.4Goth. saljan, to bring an
offering, to offer a sacrifice. β. All froma Teut. type *saljan-, to
offer, deliver, hand over. This is a causal form, allied to the sb.
which appears in E. as Sale, q.v. Der. seller.
SELL (2), a saddle. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q. ii. 2. 11, 3. 12.
ME. selle, a seat, Wyclif, 2 Macc. xiv. 21.—OF. selle, ‘a stool,
a seat, also, a saddle;’ Cot.=—L. sella, a seat. For *sed-la,
from sedére, to sit; see Settle (1), and Sit. Brugmann, i.
§ 415.
SELVAGE, SELVEDGE, a border of cloth, forming an edge
that needs no hem. (Du.) In Exod. xxvi. 4, xxxvi. 11; spelt
seluege in the edit. of 1551; selvage in G. Douglas, Prol. to Aen. xii.
1. 16. It merely means selj-edge, but it was borrowed from Dutch.
‘ The self-edge makes show of the cloth ;’ Ray’s Proverbs, ed. 1737.—
MDu. selfegge, the selvage, spelt selfegghe in Kilian; from self, self,
and egge, edge. [The more usual Du. word is zelfkant, for selfkant.]
‘Egge, an edge, or a selvage; kant, the edge, brinke, or seame of
anything; de zelfkant, the selvage of cloath;’ Hexham. See Self
and Edge.
SEMAPHORE, a kind of telegraph. (F.—Gk.) A late word, not
in Todd’s Johnson. A F.name (ab. 1803) fora telegraph worked with
arms projecting from a post, the positions of the arms giving the
signals. Coined from Gk. σῆμα, α sign; and φορά, a carrying, from
φέρειν, to bear, carry, cognate with E. Bear, vb.
SEMBLANCE, an appearance. (F.—L.) ME. semblaunce, Rom.
of the Rose, 425.—OF. semblance, ‘a semblance, shew, seeming ;’
Cot. Formed, with suffix -ance (=L. -antia) from sembl-er, ‘ to seem,
or make shew of; also, to resemble;’ Cot.—L. simulare, to assume
the appearance of, simulate; see Simulate. Cf. re-semblance.
SEMTI., half. (L.) L. sémi-, half; reduced to sém- in L. sémésus.
ἜΚ. ἡμι-, half; AS. sam-, half; as in sam-wis, half wise, not very
wise ; Grein, il. 388, 390; Skt. sami, half; which Benfey connects
with sadmya-, equality, from sama-, even, same, equal, like, cognate
with E. Same. Thus semi- denotes ‘in an equal manner,’ referring
to an exact halving or equitable division ; and is a mere derivative of
same. Doublet, hemi-.
SEMIBREVE, half a breve, a musical note. (Ital. —L.)
From Ital. semibreve, ‘a semibriefe in musike;’ Florio, ed. 1598. =
Ital. semi-, half; and breve, a short note. See Semi- and Breve.
@ Similar formations are seen in semi-circle, semi-circumference, semi-
colon, semi-diameter, semi-fluid, semi-quaver, semi-tone, semi-transparent,
semi-vocal, semi-vowel ; all coined words, made by prefixing semi-, and
presenting no difficulty.
SEMINAT, relating to seed. (F.—L.) Sir T. Browne has
seminality, sb., Vul. Errors, b. vi. δ. 1. § 3.— MF. seminal, adj. ‘ of
seed;’ Cot.—L. séminalis, relating to seed. —L. sémin-, stem of
<émen, seed. =L. base sé-, appearing in <é-ui, pt. t. of serere, to sow;
and suffix -men. Serere is cognate with E. Sow, 4. ν- Der. semin-
ar-y,q.v. Also semin-at-ion (rare), from L. sémin-atio, a sowing,
which from séminare, to sow, derived from sémen.
SEMINARY, a place of education. (L.) The old sense was
a seed-garden. ‘ Asconcerning seminaries and nourse-gardens ;’ Hol-
land, tr. of Pliny, b. xvii. c. 10.—L. séminarium, a seed-garden,
nursery garden, seed-plot; neut. of sémindrius, belonging to seed. -
L. sémin-, stem of sémen, seed ; and suffix -drius. See Seminal.
SEMOLINA, large grains left after the finer flour has passed
SEN NIGHT
m., small seed, paste for soups, dimin. of semola, bran. =L. simila, fine
wheaten flower.4+-Gk. σεμίδαλις, the same. See Simnel.
SEMPITERNAL,, everlasting. (F.—L.) In Minsheu and Cot-
grave. Altered from F. sempiternel, ‘sempiternall ;’ Cot. L. semgi-
tern-us, everlasting ; with suffix -alis.—L. sempi-, for semper, ever ;
with suffixes -fer- and -nus; cf. noc-tur-nus (for *noct-tur-nus) from
the stem noci-. B. L. sem-per is perhaps for *sem-terti, ‘in one
(continuous) part, in one sequence, ever;’ from sem- ‘one,’ as in
semel, once, and *fer?i, allied to ‘ part.’ Brugmann, i. § 1023 (12);
li. § 160 (1).
SEMPSTER, SEMPSTRESS, the same as Seamstress, q.v.
SENARY, belonging to six. (L.) The senary scale (scale by
sixes) is a mathematical term. =L. sénarius, consisting of six each.
=—L. séni, six each; for *seo-ni.mL. sex, six, cognate with E. six;
see Six.
SENATE, a council of elders. (F.—L.) ME. senat; spelt
senaht, Layamon, 25388.—OF, senat, ‘a senat;’ Cot.—L. senatum,
acc. of senaius, the council of elders. —L. sen-, base of sen-ex, old,
sen-ium, old age; with pp. suffix -dtus; so that sen-a@tus=grown old.
Cf. Vedic Skt. sana-, old (Benfey), OGk. évos, old; Goth. sin-eigs,
old, siz-ista, eldest; Olrish sen, Irish and Gael. sean, W. hen, old.
See Senior. Der. senat-or, ME. senat-our, Chaucer, C. T. 5430
(B roro), from OF. senatour (Littré), from L. acc. senatorem; altered
to senafor to make it like the L. nom. case. Hence senator-ship,
senator-i-al, senator-i-al-ly. Brugmann, i. § 117.
SEND, to cause to go, despatch. (E.) ME. senden, pt. t. sende,
sente; pp. sent; Chaucer, C. T. 5511 (B I0g1), AS. sendan, pt. t.
sende, pp. sended, Grein, ii. 431.4Du. zenden; Icel. senda; Dan.
sende; Swed. sanda; Goth. sandjan; MHG. senten, G.senden. Teut.
type *sandjan, for *santhjdn-, by Verner’s Law; from *santh, 2nd
grade of *senthan-, to go. Hence serd is a causal verb; lit. ‘to make
to go.’ B. The Teut. *sexthan-, to go, pt. t. *santh, is a lost str. vb.
of which the prime grade appears in Goth. sinths (for *senthoz), AS.
sid (for *sind), a journey, way ; Teut. type *sexthoz, m.; Idg. *sentos,
a way, as seen in Olrish sé (for *sen?), W. hynt, Bret. hent (for *sent),
a way. Cf. G. gesinde, followers; Goth. gasinthja, a travelling
companion. See Sense.
SENDAL, CENDAL, a kind of rich thin silken stuff. (F.—
Low L.—Skt.) See Sendall and Cendal in Halliwell. ME. sendal,
P. Plowman, B. vi. 11; Chaucer, C. T. 442 (440).—OF. sendal
(Roguefort) ; also cendal (Burguy). Cf. Port. cendal, fine linen or
silk; Span. cexdal, light thin stuff ; Ital. zendalo, zendado, ‘a kind of
fine thin silken stuffe, called taffeta, sarcenett, or sendall,’ Florio. =
Low L. cendalum ; also spelt cendale, cendatum, sendatum, sendadum,
cindadus, cindatus, Cf. also Gk. σινδών, finelinen. So called because
brought from India. Skt. sindhu-, the river Indus, the country along
the Indus, Scinde. See Indigo.
SENESCHAL, a steward. (F.—Teut.) In Spenser, F. Q. iv.
I. 12. ME. seneschal, P. Plowman, C. i. 93.—OF. seneschal, ‘a
seneschall, the president of a precinct ;’ Cot. Cf. Span. senescal,
Ital. siniscalco, a seneschal, steward. The orig. signification must
have been ‘old (i. e. chief) servant,’ as the etymology is undoubtedly
from the Goth. sins, old (only recorded in the super]. sin-ista, eldest),
and skalks, a servant. The Goth. sins is cognate with L. sen-ex, old.
The word mar-shal is a similar compound. See Senior and
Marshal.
SENILE, old. (L.)
senilis, Old.=L. sen-, base of sen-ex, old, with suffix -ilis.
Senior. Der. senii-i-ty.
SENIOR, elder, older. (L.) In Shak. L. L. L.i. 2. 10; cf.
sentor-junior, L. L. L. iii. 182; spelt seniour, Tyndale, Mark, vil. 3
(1526); senyor, Monk of Evesham (ab. 1412), c.-x. ed. Arber, p. 31.
-L. senior, older; comparative from the base sex-, old, found in
sen-ex, old, sen-ium, old age. From the Idg. type *senos, old; see
Senate. Der. sen:or-i-ty. Doublets, signor, senor, seignior, sire,
sir.
SENNA, the dried leaflets of some kinds of cassia, (Ital. — Arab.)
Spelt seza in Phillips, ed. 1706 ; the older name is seny or senie, ME.
senee, Libell of E. Policy, 1. 362, which is a F. form, from OF. senné
(Cot.). Minsheu’s Span. Dict. has ‘ sen, seny ; ed. 1623. — Ital. sena
(Florio). = Arab. sana, senna; Palmer’s Pers. Dict., col. 361; Rich.
Dict. p. S51.
SENNET, a signal-call on a trumpet. (F.—L.) In stage-direc-
tions ; see King Lear, i. 1. 33, and Wright’s note. And see Nares.
Also spelt cyzet, sinet, synnet, signate.— OF. sinet, senet, segnet (Gode-
froy, s.v. segnet), lit. a signet, a little sign (hence, signal) ; dimin.
of F. seing, signe. —L. signum, a sign; see Sign. See Notes on
Eng. Etym., p. 264.
SENNIGHT, a week. (E.) Spelt senyghtin Palsgrave: synyght,
Sir Amadas, 590 (Weber) ; a contraction of seven night; see Seven
A late word; in Todd’s Johnson. —L.
See
through thesieve. (Ital.—L.) Modem; forsemolino. = Ital. semolino, | and Night.
SENSE
SENSE, a faculty by which objects are perceived, perception, dis-
cernment. (F.—L.) It does not appear to be in early use; Pals-
grave gives sensualness and sensualyte, but not sense. Levins has
sensible and sensual, but also omits sense. Yet it is very common in
Shakespeare. ‘ And shall sensive things be so sencelesse as to resist
sence?’ Sir P. Sidney, Arcadia, poem ix. 1.137; ed. Grosart, ii. 25.—
F. sens, ‘ sence, wit;’ Cot.—L. sensum, acc. of sensus, feeling, sense ;
cf. sensus, pp. of sentire, to feel, perceive. B. From the Idg. base
*sent-, to direct oneself towards, whence also not only G. sinn, sense,
G. sinnen, to think over, reflect upon, but also Idg. *sentos, a way,
and E, send; see Send. Der. sense-less, sense-less-ly, sense-less-ness ;
sens-ible, Gower, C. A, iii. 88; bk. vii. 127, from F. sensible, ‘sen-
sible,’ Cot., from L. sensibilis; sens-ibl-y, sensible-ness, sensibil-i-ty.
Also sevs-it-ive, from F, sensitif, ‘ sensitive,’ Cot.; sens-it-ive-ly, sens-
it-ive-ness; sens-at-ion, Phillips, from L. *sensatio, a coined word from
L. sensatus, endued with sense ; sezs-at-ion-al, sens-at-ion-al-ism. Also
sens-or-i-um, from Late L. sensdrium, the seat of the senses (White) ;
sens-or-i-al. And see sens-u-al, sent-ence, sent-i-ment. From the same
source we also have as-sent, con-sent, dis-sent, re-sent; in-sens-ate,
non-sense, pre-sent-i-ment, scent.
SENSUAL, affecting the senses, given to the pleasures of
sense. (L.) In Levins; Palsgrave has sensualness and sensualyte
(sensuality) in his list of sbs.; and sezswall in his list of adjectives.
From Late L. sensualis, endowed with feeling; whence sensudlitas,
sensibility (White). Formed (with suffix -dlis), from sensu-, for
sensus, sense; see Sense. Der. sensual-ly; sensual-i-ty, from F.
sensualité, ‘sensuality,’ Cot.; sensual-ness, sensual-ise, sensual-ism,
sensual-ist. Also sensu-ous, a coined word, used by Milton; see Rich.
and Todd's Johnson.
SENTENCE, an opinion, maxim, decree, series of words con-
taining a complete thought. (F.—L.) ME. seztfence, Ancren Riwle,
p- 348, l. 14. “Ἐπ. sentence, ‘a sentence,’ Cot.—L. sententia, a way of
thinking, opinion, sentiment. For *sentientia, from the stem of the
pres. part. of sendire, to feel, think; see Sense. Der. sentence, vb.,
Meas. for Meas. ii. 2. 55; sententi-ous, As You Like It, v. 4. 66,
from F. sententieux, ‘sententious,’ Cot., from L. sententiosus; sen-
tenti-ous-ly, -ness. Also sentient, feeling, from stem of pres. part. of
sentire, to feel.
SENTIMENT, thought, judgement, feeling, opinion. (F.—L.)
ME. sentement, Chaucer, Prol. to Legend of Good Women, 1. 69.
[Afterwards conformed to a supposed LL. form *sentimentum, not
used.]=OF. sentement, ‘a feeling;’ Cot.; F. sentiment. Formed
as if from L. *sexti-mentum, a word mae up of the suffix -mentum
and the verb senti-re, to feel. See Sense. Der. sentiment-al,
sentiment-al-ly, sentiment-al-ism, -ist.
SENTINEL, one who keeps watch, a soldier on guard, (F.—
Ital.—L.) Spelt centonell, Spenser, F. Ὁ. i. 9. 41; centronel, Mar-
lowe, Dido, ii. 1. 3233 sentinel, Macb. ii. 1. 53.—MF. sentinelle,
‘a sentinell, or sentry ;” Cot.—Ital. sentinella, ‘a watch, a sentinell,
a souldier which is set to watch at a station;’ Florio. Cf. Span.
centinela, a sentinel; MF. sentinelle, a watch-tower (Godefroy).
Usually explained from L. sentire, to perceive; as if a sentinel meant
a watcher, scout; but this doesnot account for the -im-. See Korting,
§§ 8597, 8611. β. Derived by Wedgwood from OF. sentine, a path
(Roquefort), due to L. sémita, a path; this does not help us; for the
word is Italian, not French. At the same time, it would be possible
to derive the form cenfronel (in Marlowe) from OF. seniron, a path
(Godefroy). See Sentry. y- Perhaps from Ital. sentina, in the
sense of ‘rascal rout of camp-followers,’ or ‘a place where such used
to congregate ;’ if the sentinel had to watch them; see Florio and
Lewis.
SENTRY, a sentinel, soldier on guard. (F.—L.) Spelt sentrie,
in Minsheu, ed. 1627 ; senteries, pl., Milton, P. L. ii. 412; sentry in
Cotgrave, s.v. sentinelle. Perhaps from MF. sentier, adj., ‘ of, or in,
a path;’ Cot. Or from OF. senteret, a path ; with reference to the
sentinel’s beat, or his guarding the approaches. The former answers
to Late L. sémitarius, adj. (Lewis); whence the neuter sémitarium (F.
sentier), a path (Ducange).—L. sémita (whence OF. sente), a path.
Der. sentry-box.
SEPAL, a calyx-leaf, division of a calyx; in botany. (F.—L.)
F. sépale, a sepal. Coined (to pair with pet-al, F. pétale) by
taking part of L. sép-ar, separate, and adding -a/e. Thus sepal is
(practically) short for *sépar-al, where sépar- was regarded as a part
of L. sépar-dre, to separate. See Separate.
“SEPARATE, to part, divide, sever. (L.) We should have
expected to find separate first used as a pp., in the sense ‘ set apart ;’
but I find no very early example. Levins, Shakespeare, and Min-
sheu recognize only the verb, which occurs as early as in Tyndale,
Workes, p. 116, col. 2; see Richardson. =L. ségaratus, pp. of séparare,
to separate.—L. sé-, apart; and parare, to provide, arrange. See
Se-and Parade, Pare. Der. separate, adj., from pp. sépardatus ;
SEQUENCE 549
separate-ly; separat-ion, from MF. separation, ‘separation,’ Cot.;
separat-ism, separat-tst. Also separ-able, from L. séparabilis; separabl-y.
Doublet, sever.
SEPIA, ink from the cuttlefish.
σηπία, cuttlefish, sepia.
SEPOY, one of the native troops in India. (Pers.) ‘Segoys (a
corruption of sipahi, Hindostanee for a soldier), the term applied to
the native troops in India ;” Haydn, Dict. of Dates. The word is,
however, a Persian one.— Pers. sipahi, ‘a horseman, one soldier ;’
properly an adj., ‘military, belonging to an army;’ Rich. Dict.
p- 807.—Pers. sipah, supah, an army ; sipah, supah, sapah, an army ;
id. pp. 807, 808; Horn, § 699. @ The Pers. ἃ being sounded
nearly as E. au in maul, the spelling sepoy gives the right sound very
nearly.
SEPT, a clan. (F.—L.) It is chiefly used of the Irish clans.
Spenser has ‘ the head of that sept ;’ and again, ‘ whole nations and
septs of the Irish ;’ View of the State of Ireland, Globe ed., p. 611,
col. 1. ‘The Irish man. . termeth anie one of the English sept,’ &c. ;
Holinshed, Descr. of Ireland, cap. 8. ‘Five of the best persons of
every sept’ [of the Irish] ; Fuller’s Worthies ; Kent (R.). ‘ All of the
old Irish septs of Ulster ;’ Clarendon, Civil Wars, iii. 430 (R.).
Wedgwood says: ‘a clan or following, a corruption of the synony-
mous sect.” He cites from Notes and Queries (2nd Series, ili. 361,
May 9, 1857), two quotations from the State Papers, one dated A.D.
1537, which speaks of ‘M’Morgho and his kinsmen, O’Byme and his
septe, and another dated A.D. 1336, which says ‘there are another
secte of the Berkes and divers of the Irishry towards Sligo.’ = OF. septe,
variant of secte, a sect; Supp. to Godefroy. See Sect. Wedg-
wood adds: ‘ The same corruption is found in Prov. cepte. ‘‘ Vist
que lo dit visconte non era eretge ni de lor cepte’’=seeing that the
said viscount was not heretic nor of their sect ; Sismondi, Litt. Pro-
venc. 215.’ Ducange has Late L. septa for Ital. setta (<L. secta).
47 Perhaps influenced by L. septum, an enclosure ; from sépire, sépire,
to hedge in, from séfes, setes,a hedge. Doublet, sect.
SEPTEMBER, the ninth month. (L.) ME. Septembre, Chaucer,
On the Astrolabe, pt. i. § 10.1.3. Itseems to be meant for the Latin,
not the French form; the other months being mostly named in Latin.
—L. September, the name of the seventh month of the Roman year. =
L. septem, seven, cognate with E. seven; and the suffix -ber, of uncertain
origin. See Seven.
SEPTENARY, consisting of seven. (L.) In Sir T. Browne,
Vulg. Errors, iv. 12. 12. A mathematical term.—L. septéndrius,
consisting of seven.—L. sepféni, pl., seven apiece, by sevens; for
*septem-ni. = L, septem, seven. See Seven.
SEPTENNIAL, happening every seven years, lasting seven
years. (L.) Used by Burke; see Todd’s Johnson. Formed, with
suffix -al, from L. sep/enni-um, a period of seven years. = L. septenni-s,
adj., of seven years.—L. sept-, for septem, seven; and annus, a year.
See Seven and Annual. Der. septennial-ly.
SEPTIC, putrefying. (Gk.) Modern.—Gk. σηπτικός, charac-
terised by putridity.—Gk, σηπτός, rotten; from σήπειν, to cause
to rot.
SEPTUAGENARY, belonging to seventy years. (L.) In Sir
T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. 111. c. 9, § 4, last line. — L. septuagéndrius,
belonging to the number seventy.—L. septudgéni, seventy each ;
distributive form of septuagintd, seventy.—L. septud-, due to septem,
seven ; and -ginfa=-cinta, short for *decinta, tenth, from decem, ten.
See Seven and Ten. Der. sepiuagenari-an. So also septuagesima,
lit. seventieth, applied to the Third Sunday before Lent, about 7o
days before Easter; from L. septuagésima (diés), fem. of septudgési-
mus, seventieth, ordinal of septuagintad, seventy. Also sepiua-gint, the
Greek version of the Old Testament, said to have been made by 70
translators ; used by Burnet (Johnson).
SEPULCHRE, a tomb. (F.—L.) ME. sepulcre, in early use ;
O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, ii. 95, 1. 11.—OF. sepulere, MF.
sepulchre, ‘a sepulcher, tomb;’ Cot.—L. sepulcrum (also ill-spelt
sepulchrum), a tomb.—L. sepul-, appearing in sepul-tus, pp. of sepe-
lire, to bury; with suffix-crum. Der. sepulchr-al, from F. sepulchral,
“sepulchral,’ Cot.; also sepult-ure, Rob. of Glouc. p. 166, 1. 3466,
from MF. sepulture, ‘sepulture, a burying,’ Cot., from L. sepultura,
burial, due to pp. sepultus. Ἶ E
SEQUEL, consequence, result. (F.—L.) Spelt sequele in Levins,
and by Surrey; see Tottell’s Miscellany, ed, Arber, p. 218, 1. 8;
and in Dictes and Sayings, pr. by Caxton, fol. 3 b, 1. 10.—OF.
sequele, ‘a sequell;’ Cot.—L. seguéla, that which follows, a result.
= L. segui, to follow; see Sequence.
SEQUENCE, order of succession, succession. (F.—L.) In
Shak. K. John, ii. 96; Gascoigne, Works, ed. Hazlitt, i. 422,1.5.—
OF. sequence, ‘a sequence at cards;’ sequences, pl., ‘answering
verses,’ Cot.; with which cf. the passage in Gascoigne. =L. sequentia,
sb., a following. =L. seguent-, stem of pres. part. of segui, to. follow.
(EG)... Ltsepiae= ΕΙΣ
550 SEQUESTER
- (SEQ, to follow; whence Skt. sach, to follow; Lith. sek-2i, to
follow, Irish seich-im, I follow; Gk. ἕπομαι, I follow. Der. sequent,
following, from the pres. part. of segui. Also (from segui) con-sec-ut-
ive, cor-sequ-ence, ex-ec-ule (for ex-sec-ute), ex-equ-ies (for ex-sequ-ies),
ob-sequ-ies, per-sec-uie, pro-sec-ute, sequ-el, sequ-ester, sub-sequ-ent.
Also as-soc-tate, dis-soc-iate, soc-iable, soc-ial, soc-iety; intrin-sic.
Also sect, sec-ond, sue, en-sue, pur-sue, puresuiv-ant; suit, suit-a-ble,
suit-or, suite, pur-suit, See Sue. Brugmann, i. § 118.
SEQUESTER, to set aside or apart. (F.—L.) ‘ Him hath God
the father specially seguestred and seuered and set aside ;’ Sir T. More,
Works, p. 1046 f. And see sequestration in Blount’s Nomolexicon.
We find also: ‘ Hic sequestarius, a sequesterer,’ in the 15th century;
Wright's Vocab. i. 210, col. 2; and see Wyclif, 1 Macc. xi. 34.—MF.
sequesirer, ‘to sequestrer (sic), or lay aside;’ Cot.—L. seguestrare, to
surrender, remove, lay aside; cf. L. sequester, a mediator, agent or
go-between, also a depositary or trustee. Allied to segu7, to follow
(Bréal). Der. sequester-ed, set apart, retired ; sequester, sb., seclusion,
Oth. 11. 4. 40; also sequestr-ate, sequestr-at-or, sequestr-at-ion.
SEQUIN, a gold coin of Italy. (F.—Ital.—Arab.) Also spelt
chequin, Shak. Pericles, iv. 2.28; also zechin, which is the Ital. form.
=F. sequin, ‘a small Italian coin ;’ (Οἱ. -- 118]. zecchino, ‘a coin of
gold currant in Venice ;’ Florio.—TItal. zecca, ‘a mint or place of
coyning;’ id. Arab. sikka(t), pronounced sikkah, ‘a die for coins;’
Rich. Dict. p. 838. Hence also sicca rupee (Yule).
SERAGLIO, a place of confinement, esp. for Turkish women.
(Ital.—L.) A. The peculiar use of this word, in mod. E., is due
to a mistake. The orig. sense is merely an enclosure, and it was
sometimes so used. ‘I went to the Ghetto [in Rome], where the
Jewes dwell as in a suburbe by themselves . . I passed by the Piazza
Judea, where their seraglio begins; for, being inviron’d with walls,
they are lock’d up every night ;’ Evelyn, Diary, Jan. 15, 1645. We
find it in the modern sense also: ‘ to pull the Ottoman Tyrant out of
his seraglio, from between the very armes of his 1500 concubines;’
Howell, Foreign Travel (1642), sect. ix; ed. Arber, p. 45.—Ital.
-serraglio, ‘an inclosure, a close, a padocke, a parke, a cloister or
secluse ;’ Florio, ed. 1598. B. There was at that date no such
restricted use of the Ital. word as our modern sense indicates.
Cotgrave, indeed, translates MF. serra: by ‘ the palace wherein the
great Turk mueth up his concubines;’ yet he also gives serrail d’un
huis, the bolt of a door, which is the older sense. y. The Ital.
serraglio is formed with suffix -aglio (L. -aculum) from the verb
serrare, ‘to shut, lock, inclose;” Florio. Cf. Late L. seracula, a
small bolt.—Late L. sera@re, to bar, bolt, shut in. —L. sera, a bar,
bolt. —L. serere, to join or bind together; see Series. B. It is
clear that the modern use of seraglio was due to confusion with Pers.
(and Turkish) saray or serai, ‘a palace, a grand edifice, a king’s
eourt, a seraglio;’ Rich. Dict. p. 821. See Horn, ὃ 727. It is
equally clear that the Pers. word is not the real source of the Italian
one. See Serried.
SERAIT, a court for the accommodation of travellers, a caravan-
seray. (Pers.) Also used to mean ‘seraglio,’ as in Byron, The
Giaour: ‘ When Leila dwelt in his Serat.’ From Pers. seri, lit. a
palace. Horn, § 727. See Seraglio, B.
SERAPH, an angel of the highest rank. (Heb.) Spenser has
seraphins, Hymn of Heavenlie Beautie, 1. 94. The A. V. has
seraphims, Isa. vi. 2; seraphim being the Hebrew plural, out of
which has been evolved the E. sing. seraph. — Heb. seraphim, seraphs,
exalted ones. ‘ Gesenius connects it with an Arabic term meaning
high or exalted; and this may be regarded as the generally received
etymology ;’ Smith, Dict. of the Bible. Cf. Arab. sharaf, ‘ being
high or noble;’ Rich. p. 888. Der. seraph-ic, seraph-ic-al, seraph-
fc-al-ly,
SERASKIER, a Turkish general. (F.— Turk. — Pers. and Arab.)
In Byron, Don Juan, viii. 98.—F. sérasguier (Littré).—Turk.
ser‘ask(i}er, general (where the i is slight). — Pers. ser, head; and
Arab. “asker, army (Devic) ; i.e. ‘head of the army.’
SERE (1), withered; the same as Sear, q. v.
SERE (2), a bird’s claw ; the catch of a gunlock. (F.—L.) For
‘bird’s claw,’ see sere in Nares. ‘ Tickled [read tickle, i.e. ticklish]
οὐ the sere;’ Hamlet, ii. 2. 337 (see Wright’s note) ; i.e. like a gun-
lock of which the catch is easily released. —MF. serre, ‘a hawkes
talon,’ Cot. ; because it holds fast.—F. serrer, ‘to bind fast, lock ;’
Cot.<L. serrare, to lock; see Serried.
SERECLOTH, waxed cloth; see Cerecloth, Cere.
SERENE, calm. (L.) In Milton, P. L. iii. 25, v. 123, 734.—L.
serénus, bright, clear, calm (of weather). See Brngmann, i. § 920 (4).
Der. serene-ly, -ness ; seren-i-ty, from MF, serenité, ‘serenity,’ Cot.,
from L. ace. serénitatem. Also seren-ade, in Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674, from MF, serenade (Cot.), which from Ital. serenata, ‘ music
given under gentlewomens windowes in a morning or euening,’
Florio ; properly pp. of Ital, serenare, ‘to make cleere, faire, and
SERVAL
lightsome, to looke cheerfullie and merrilie,’ id. Milton uses the
Ital. form serenate, P. L. iv. 769. Hence serenade, verb.
SERF, a slave attached to the soil. (F.—L.) Given in Ash’s
Dict., ed. 1775. It occurs in Caxton’s Golden Legend, St. John
Evang., ὃ 5.—F. serf, ‘a servant, thrall;’ Cot.—L. seruum, acc. of
seruus, a slave ; see Serve. Der. serf-dom, a coined word, with E.
suffix -dom.
SERGE, a cloth made of twilled worsted or silk. (F.—L.—Gk.—
Chinese.) Now used of stuff made of worsted; when of silk, it is
called silk serge, though the etymology shows that the stuff was orig.
of silk only. In Shak. 2 Hen. VI, iv. 7. 27.—F. serge, ‘the stuff
called serge;’ Cot.—L. sérica, fem. of séricus, silken; we also find
sérica, neut. pl., silken garments.—L. Séricus, of or belonging to the
Séres, i.e. Chinese.—Gk. Σῆρες, pl. Chinese. Cf. onp, a silkworm,
From the Chinese se, sez, silk. See Silk.
SERGEANT, SERJEANT, a lawyer of the highest rank;
a non-commissioned officer next above a corporal. (F.—L.) Orig. a
law-term, in early use. ME. sergantes, pl., officers, Ὁ. Eng. Homi-
lies, ed. Morris, ii. 177, 1.25 sergeant, Chaucer, C. T. 311 (A 309).
- OF, sergant, serjant (Burguy), later sergent, ‘a sergeant, officer ;’”
Cot.—Late L. serutentem, ace. of serurens, a servant, vassal, soldier,
apparitor; Ducange. The Late L. seruiens ad legem=sergeant-at-
law. =L. serwiens, pres. part. of serzire, to serve; see Serve. Der.
sergeant-major, sergeanc-y, sergeant-ship. Doublet, servant.
SERIES, a row, order, succession, sequence. (L.) In Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. seriés, a row, series.=—L. serere, pp. sertus, to
join together, bind.-Gk, εἴρειν, to fasten, bind (for *cépyev; cf.
Lith. séris, thread ; Icel. sérvt, a necklace; Skt. sarit, thread). Der.
seri-al, arranged in a series ; modern, not in Todd’s Johnson ; hence
serial-ly. Der. (from same root) ser-aglio, serr-i-ed. Also (from pp.
sertus) as-sert, con-cert, de-sert (1), dis-sert-at-ion, exert (for ex-sert),
in-sert.
SERIF, the short cross-line at the end of a stroke of a printed
letter. (Du.) Letters made without this cross-stroke are called sans-
serif (from ἘΝ. sans, without). Most probably, ser- represents the E.
(or F.) equivalent of Du. schr- in schreef, a dash, a short line; MDu.
schreve, a line. Allied to OHG. screvon, to scratch, incise. Cf.
Low G. schreve, a line to mark how far one goes; aver’n schreve,
over (beyond) the stroke, too far.
SERIOUS, weighty, solemn, in earnest. (F.—L.) ‘So serious
and ernest remembrance;’ Sir T. More, p. 480g. ‘Seryouse, ernest,
serieux ;’ Palsgrave.—OF. seriewx (mod. F. sérieux), omitted by
Cotgrave, but recorded by Palsgrave, and in use in the 14th cent.
(Littré).—Late L. séridsus, serious; Ducange.—L. sérius, grave,
earnest, B. Root uncertain; the long e in sérivs induces Fick to
compare it with G. schwer (OHG. swiri), weighty, heavy; cf.
Lith. swaris, heavy ; see Fick, i. 842. Der. serious-ly, -ness.
SERMON, a discourse on a Scripture text. (F.—L.) ME. ser-
moun, sermun; in early use; see Old Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris,
p. 186, title. The verb sermonen, to preach, occurs in O. E. Homilies,
1. 81. 1. 14.—F. sermon, ‘a sermon;’ Cot.—L. sermonem, acc. of
sermo, a speech, discourse. For *swer-mo ; and allied to E. Swear.
See Walde, Et. Dict.
SEROUS, adj. ; see Serum.
SERPENT, a reptile without feet, snake. (F.—L.) ME. serpent,
Chaucer, C. T. 10826 (F 512).—F. serpent, ‘a serpent;’ Cot. =—L.
serpentem, acc. of serpens, a serpent, lit. a creeping thing ; pres. part.
of serpere, to creep. —4/SERP, to creep ; whence Skt. s7p, to creep,
Gk. ἕρπειν, to creep, Skt. sarpa-, a snake. Brugmann, i. § 477.
Der. serpent-ine, adj., Minsheu, from F. serpentin, L. serpentinus ;
serpent-ine, a name for a kind of gun, Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 124,
1. 159.
SERRATED, notched like a saw. (L.) <A botanical term ; see
examples in R.=—L. serratus, notched like a saw. =L., serra, a saw.
Der. serrat-ion.
SERRIED, crowded, pressed together. (F.—L.) ‘ Their serried
files;” Milton, P. L. vi. 599. Spelt serred in Blount. =F. serrer, ‘to
close, compact, presse neer together, to lock ;’ Cot. —Late L. serare,
to bolt.=L, sera, a bar, bolt.—L. serere, to join or bind together ;
see Series; and cf. Seraglio.
SERUM, whey, the thin fluid which separates from the blood
when it coagulates. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706.—L. serum, whey,
serum.+-Gk. ὀρός, whey ; Skt. sara(s), adj. flowing; sb. whey. (But
see Brugmann, i. ὃ 466.) Der. ser-ous.
SERVAL, the S. African tiger-cat. (F.—Port.—L.) A name
now applied to the tiger-cat of S. Africa. But in a tr. of Buffon
(1792), ch. xx, we read :—‘ The marapudia, which the Portuguese in
India call serval (says Vincent Maria) is a wild and ferocious animal,
much larger than the wild cat.” The word is therefore Portuguese.
Vieyra gives lobo cerval, ‘the lynx ;” where /obo means wolf (L. lupus),
and cerval (like Span. cerval) is said to be an adj., from cerva, a hind.
SERVE
=L.cerua,ahind, Cf. L. lupus ceruarius
(Pliny) ; because it hunts deer. See Hart.
SERVE, to attend on another, wait upon obediently. (F.—L.)
ME. seruen, Havelok, 1230; serwien, Ancren Riwle, p. 12, 1. 4 from
bottom. =F. servir, to serve.—L. seruire, to serve. Cf. L. seruus,a
servant, slave, serware, to keep, protect. Der. serv-ant, ME. seruaunt,
seruant, Chaucer, C. T. 11104 (F 792); Ancren Riwle, p. 428, 1. 9,
from F. servant, serving, pres. part. of servir, to serve; seru-er;
serv-ice, ME, seruise, Layamon, 8071, from OF. servise, service, from
Το seruitium, service, servitude ; service-able, Levins; dis-service. Also
serv-ile, Levins, from L, seruilis; servile-ly, servil-i-ty; serv-it-or, prob.
suggested by ἘΝ. seruiteur, ‘a servant, servitor’ (Cot.), rather than
borrowed directly from L., seruitor ; serv-it-ude, spelt servitute, Chaucer,
Ὁ. T. 8674 (E 798), from F. servitude, from L. acc. seruitiidinem.
Also serf, sergeant ; con-serve, de-serve, dis-serve, mis-serve, ob-serve,
pre-serve, re-serve, sub-serve; de-sert (2), un-de-serv-ing,, un-de-serv-ed,
&e.
SERVICE-TREE, a kind of wild pear-tree. (L. and E.) Here
service is a curious substitution for ME. serves (in Northern dialect
servis), which is the pl. of a form *serf or *serve (not used) repre-
senting the AS. syrfe, a service-tree, also called in AS. syrf-treow.
Here syrf is not an E. word, but adapted from L, sorbus, a service-
tree. The ΜΕ. serves=L. sorba, berries of the same. For details
see Notes on Eng. Etym., p. 266.
SESSION, the sitting or assembly of a court. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Oth. 1. 2. 86; -π Εἰ, session, not noticed by Cotgrave, though in use in
the 12th cent. (Littré).—L. sessidnem, acc. of sessio, a sitting, session;
cf. sessus, pp. of sedére, to sit, cognate with E. Sit, q.v.
SET (1), to place, fix, plant, assign. (E.) ME. setten, pt. t. sette,
pp: set. ‘ Thei setter Jhesu on hym;’ Wyclif, Luke, xix. 35. AS.
settan, to set; Grein, ii. 432. Causal of AS. sittan, to sit; for
*satian, from sat, oldest form of pt. t. of sittan. See Sit.4-Du.
zetten ; Icel. setja; Dan. sette ; Swed. séitte; G. setzen; Goth. satjan.
Teut. type *satjan-; from *sat, 2nd grade of *se/jan-, to sit. Der.
set, sb., Rich. III, v. 3. 193 set-off, sb., sett-er, sb., sett-ing. Also
sett-ee, a seat with a long back (Todd’s Johnson), of which the origin
is by no means clear; it seems to be an arbitrary variation of the
proy. E. settle, used in the same sense, with a substitution of the
suffix -ee for -Je ; this suffix (=F. -é, L. -atus) is freely used in English,
as in refer-ee, trust-ee; but it makes no good sense here. See
Settle (1).
SET (2), a number of like things. (F.—L.) ‘A set of beads ;’
Rich. H, iii. 3. 147. When we speak of ‘a set of things,’ this is a
peculiar use of Sect, q.v. (Not allied to the verb fo set.)—OF.
sette, variant of OF. secte, a sect; Supp. to Godefroy. —L. secta,
which often had the sense of ‘set’ in old wills. Cf. Ital. setta. See
my Notes on E. Etym., p. 269. A set=a suit; see Suit.
SETON, an artificial irritation under the skin. (F.—L.) £ Seton,
is when the skin of the neck, or other part, is taken up and run thro’
with a kind of pack-needle, and the wound afterwards kept open
‘with bristles, or a skean of thread, silk, or cotton,’ &c.; Phillips, ed.
1706.—F. sefon, in use in the 16th cent.; Littré cites ‘une aiguille ἃ
seton enfilée d’un fort fil’=a needle with a seton, threaded with a
strong thread ; where seton isathickthread. Formed froma Late L.
type *séo (acc. sétdnem); derived from L. séta, a bristle, thick stiff
hair, which in Late L. also meant silk (Ducange). See Satin.
SETTEH, a kind of seat. (E.) * The soft settee”; Cowper, The
Task, i. 75; see under Set (1).
SETTLE (1), a long bench with a high back. (E.) Also used
generally in the sense of ‘seat’ or ‘bench;’ see Ezek. xliii. 14, 17,
20, xlv. 19. ‘Setle,a seat ;? E.D.S. Gloss. B.17. ΜΕ. sefel, setil.
‘Opon the se¢il of his magesté’=upon the seat of His majesty, i.e.
upon His royal seat ; Pricke of Conscience, 6122. ‘On pe seéle of
unhele’=in the seat of ill-health; O. Eng. Hom, ii. 59. ΑΒ. se¢/,
a seat, Grein, ii. 432.4+Goth, sit/s, a seat, throne; OHG. sezzal; G.
sessel; Du. zetel. β. All from Teut. root *set, Idg. 4/SED, to sit ;
‘cf. L. sel-la (for *sed-la), whence E. sell, a saddle; see Sell (2)
and Sit. Der. setile (2). Doublet, 5611 (2).
SETTLE (2), to fix, become fixed, adjust. (E.) Two distinct
words haye been confused ; in the peculiar sense ‘to compose or ad-
just a quarrel,’ the source is different from that of the commoner
verb, and more remote. A. ME. setlen, trans. to cause to rest, intrans.
to sink to rest, subside. ‘ Til pe semli sunne was seéled to reste’ =
till the seemly sun had sunk to rest, Will. of Palerne, 2452. ‘Him
thoughte a goshauk.. . Seflith on his beryng’=it seemed to him
that a goshawk settles down on his cognisance (?), King Alisaunder,
484; and see 1. 488. AS. serlan, to settle down, to fix. “ Se/lap sx-
mearas *= the matiners fix (or anchor) their yessels (Grein), Cf. AS.
setl-gang, the going to rest of the sun, sunset ; from AS. serel, aseat ;
Grein, ii. 432. Thus the lit. sense of settle is ‘ to take a seat’ or ‘to
set as in a fixed seat.” See Settle (1. B. At the same time, the
F. loup cervier), a lynx
SEWER 551
peculiar sense ‘to settle a quarrel’ appears to have been borrowed
from ME. sa3ilen, sahtlen, saujtlen, to reconcile, make peace, P.
Plowman, B. iv. 2 (footnote), ‘Now saghtel, now strife’ = now we
make peace, now we strive; Pricke of Conscience, 1470. Sa3tled=
appeased, reconciled, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 230, 1139. AS.
sahtlian, to reconcile; ‘gdde men. .. sahtloden heom’=good men
reconciled them; A. S. Chron. an. 1066; MS, Laud 636, ed. Thorpe,
i. 3373 see also p. 384, 1. 19. —AS. sakt, reconciliation; A. S. Chron.
ed. ‘Thorpe, i. 385, 1. 2; a word borrowed from Icel. sat, sett, re-
conciliation, peace; which Noreen (§ 73) connects with L. sanctus,
holy. Also sometimes spelt seht, the verb occurring as sehilian
(Toller). B. That these two verbs were actually confused, we have
evidence in the fact that, conversely, the ME. sa3tlen, to reconcile,
was also used in the sense of subside or become calm. ‘pe se
saztled therwith’=the sea subsided; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, C.
232. We even find the intermediate form sattle; ‘Muche sor3e
penne satteled vpon segge Ionas’=much sorrow then settled on the
man Jonah; id. C. 4090. Der. settl-er; settle-ment, with F. suffix
-ment.
SEVEW, a cardinal number, six and one. (E.) ME. seuen,
seuene; P. Plowman, B. iy. 86. ‘The final -e is prob. the mark of a
pl. form; both forms occur. AS. seofon, also seofone, seven; Grein,
li. 437; the final -e marks the plural, and is unoriginal; early form,
sthun.+Du. zeven ; Icel. 570, sau; Dan. syv ; Swed. sju; OHG. sibun,
G,. sieben; Goth. sibun.-L. septem; Gk. ἑπτά; W. saith; Gael.
seachd; IJrish seacht; Russ. sem(e); Lithuan. septyni; Skt. saptan.
B. All from Idg. type *septam, seven; origin unknown. Der. seven-
fold, AS. seofon-feald ; seven-teen, AS. seofon-tyne, from seofon, seven,
and fyn, ten; seven-teen-th, AS. seofon-téoda, but formed by analogy,
by adding -th to seventeen; seven-ty, AS. hundseofontig (by dropping
hund, for which see Hundred) ; seven-ti-eth. Also seven-th, formed
by adding -th; AS. seofoda.
SEVER, to separate, cut apart. (F.—L.) ‘I sever, I departe
thynges asonder, Je separe ;’ Palsgrave. ME. seueren, Gawain and
the Grene Knight, 1797.—OF. sevrer (Burguy). Cf. Ital. severare,
sevrare.=—L,. ἐδραγᾶγε, to separate; see Separate. Der. sever-al,
sever-al-ly, of which Sir T. More has sexerally, Works, p. 209 h;
from OF. several, Late L. séparale, a thing separate or a thing that
separates (Ducange); as if from a L. adj. *séparalis. Also severance ;
dis-sever ; dis-sever-ance ; cf. OF. dessevrance (Burguy). Doublet,
separate
SEVERE, austere, serious, strict. (F.—L.) In Shak. Oth. ii. 3.
301.— OF. severe, ‘ severe,’ Cot.; mod. Εἰ, sévére. = L. seuérus, severe ;
orig. reverenced, respected (of persons), hence serious, grave (in
demeanour). Der. severe-ly ; sever-i-ty, from MF. severité, ‘severity ;’
Cot.
SEW (1), to fasten together with thread. (E.) Pronounced so.
ME. sowen, P. Plowman, B. vi. 9; more commonly sewer, id. C. ix.
8; Wyclif, Mark, ii. 21. AS. siwan, Mark, ii. 21; Gen. iii, 7.4
Icel. syja; Dan. sye ; Swed. sy; OHG., siuwan, siwan; Goth. siujan.
+L. suere; Lithuan. suti; Russ. shif(e); Skt. stv, to sew, whence
siitra-, thread. Cf, Gk. κασ-σύειν, to sew together. And see
Hymen. β. All from the SIW,tosew; Fick, i. 229. Der.
sew-er, Sew-ing ; also seam, q.v.
SEW (2), to follow; the same as Sue, q.v.
SEWER (1), an underground passage for water, large drain.
(F.—L.) Frequently spelt shore, which represented a common
pronunciation ; still preserved in Shore-ditch = sewer-ditch, in London.
Spelt sure, Troil. v. 1. 83, ed. 1623. [To be kept distinct from the
verb sew, to drain, to dry. ‘Sewe ponds’=drain ponds, Tusser’s
Husbandry, cap. 15. ὃ 17 (E.D.S.); p. 32. Note also sew, sb., as
in ‘the townesinke, the common sew,’ Nomenclator, ed. 1585, Ὁ. 391;
cited in Halliwell, s.v. sewgh. These are prob. from OF. esswier,
esuer, to dry (Burguy) ; gen. used in the sense ‘to wipe dry,’ but the
true etym. sense is to drain dry, deprive of moisture, as in English.
Cot. has essuier, ‘to dry up.’=—L. exsiicare, exsuccare, to deprive of
moisture, suck the juice from.—L. ex, out, away; and siicus, juice,
moisture, from the same root as L. siigere, to suck, and Εἰ. suck; see
Suck.] Ββ. But sewer, sb., is really an adaptation of OF. seuwiere,
a sluice of a fishpond, for letting off water; also spelt sewiere; see
examples in Godefroy, 5. v. sewiere, and in Ducange, 5. v. seweria. =
L. *ex-aquaria; like E. ewer from L. aquaria. Cf. Late L. exaqua-
torium, a channel for draining ; from ex out, and aqua, water. Der.
sewer-age ; also sew-age, formed directly from the verb sew. J The
F. suffix -age in these words is an indication of the F. origin of sew
and sewer.
SEWER (2), the officer who formerly set and removed dishes,
tasted them, &c. (F.—L.) In Halliwell. Baret (1580) has: ‘ The
Sewer of the kitchin, Anteambulo fercularius ; The Sewer which tasteth
the meate, Escuyer de cuisine.’ ‘ Seware, at mete, Depositor, dapifer,
sepulator ;’ Prompt. Parv., p. 454. On the same page we have:
552 SEX
‘Sewyn, or sette mete, Ferculo, sepulo;’ and: ‘ Sew, cepulatum.’
A. It is therefore clear, that, in the 15th century, the word sew-er
was regarded as being formed from a verb to sewe, that had really
been evolved from sewer, sb. But we find, in the N. E. Dict, s.v.
asseour, that the two forms asseour and sewer were used to denote
“one who sets meat on a table;’ evidently allied to sewyn, to set
meat, above. Of these asseour is the fuller form.—OF. asseour, used
in speaking of the service of a table ; ‘gui fait asseoir ;’ Godefroy. =
OF. asseoir, to seat, set.—L. assidére, to sit beside, to attend upon ;
cf. Assiduous. = L. ad, near ; and sedére, to sit, cognate with E. sit.
Hence sewer is ‘one who sets a table ;’ of F. origin ; possibly confused
with the native sb. sew, pottage, from AS. séaw, juice.
SEX, the distinction between male and female, characteristics of
such a distinction. (F.—L.) In Shak. Temp. iii. 1. 49.—F. sexe, ‘a
sex, or kind;’ Cot.—L. sexum, acc. of sexus, sex. Cf. secus, n., Sex.
Perhaps orig. ‘a division ;” from secare, to cut. Der. sex-u-al, a late
word, from L. sexu-dlis, formed with suffix -alis from sexu-, decl.
stem of sexus ; sex-u-al-ly, sex-u-al-i-ty.
SEXAGENARY, belonging to sixty. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706.
—L. sexagénarius, belonging to sixty.—L. sexagéni, sixty each; dis-
tributive form from sexaginta, sixty.—L. sex, six; and -ginta, for
-cinta, short for *decinta, tenth, from decem, ten. See Six and Ten.
Der. sexagenari-an, Phillips.
SEXAGESIMA, the second Sunday before Lent. (L.) So
called because about the sixtieth day before Easter. In Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674; and earlier, in Prayer-books.—L. sexagésima, lit.
sixtieth ; agreeing with drés, day, understood. Fem. of sexagésimus,
sixtieth. Allied to sexaginta@, sixty. See Sexagenary. Der.
sexagesim-al.
SEXENNTAL, happening every six years, lasting six years.
(L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Formed, with suffix -al, from
L. sexenni-um, a period of six years.—L. sex, six; and annus, a year
(becoming exni- in composition), See Six and Annals. Der.
sexennial-ly.
SEXTANT, the sixth part ofa circle. (L.) Chiefly used to
mean an optical instrument, furnished with an arc extending to
a sixth part ofa circle, But in earlier use in other senses. ‘ Sextant,
a coin less than that called guadrant by the third part .. the sixth
part of any measure;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. τατος sextant-, stem
of sextans, the sixth part of an as, a coin, weight. Formed with
suffix -ans (like that of a pres. part. of a verb in -@re) from sext-,
stem of sextus, sixth, ordinal of sex, six. See Six. Der. (from
sext-us) sext-ile, Milton, P. L. x. 659; also sextuple, q.v.
SEXTON, a sacristan; see Sacristan.
SEXTUPLE, sixfold, having six parts. (L.) ‘Whose length . .
is sextuple unto his breadth ;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iv. c. 5.
812. Coined from sextu-s, sixth, just as guadru-ple is from guadru-
(used for guartus) with the sense of fourth. The suffix -ple answers
to L. -plic-, stem of -plex, as in du-plex, com-plex. See Quadruple
and Sextant,
SFORZANDO, with special emphasis; in music. (Ital.—L.)
Ital. sforzando, lit. ‘ constraining’ or ‘ forcing ;’ pres. part. of sforzare,
to force, lit. ‘to force out.’—L. ex, out, strongly (whence Ital. s-) ;
and Late L. fortia, force (Ital. forza), from L. fortis, strong. See
Sia
SHABBY, mean, paltry. (E.)
the usual change of AS, sc to E. sh. Shabby is the native E. equiva-
lent of the Scand. scabby. ‘They were very shabby fellows, pitifully
mounted, and worse armed ;’ Lord Clarendon, Diary, Dec. 7, 1688.
Cf. ‘They mostly had short hair, and went in a shabbed condition ;’
A. Wood, Athen. Oxon. Fast. ii. 743 (Todd). We find shabbyd for
scabbed in P. Plowman, C. x. 264. From AS. sceab, sceb, a scab, itch.
See Scab. Der. shabbi-ly, shabbi-ness.
SHACKLE, a fetter, chain to confine the limbs, clog. (E.) ME. |
schakkyl, schakle, Prompt. Parv. ; pl. scheakeles, Ancren Riwle, p. 94,
1,25. AS. sceacul, a bond ; Voc. 107. 10. For anolder form *scacul.
+lcel. skokull, the pole of a carriage; Swed. skakel, the loose shaft
of a carriage; Dan. skagle, a trace (for a carriage); MDu. schatkel,
‘the links or ringes [read link or ring] of a chaine;’ schakelen van een
net, ‘the masches [meshes] of a net ;’ Hexham. B. The orig. sense
is a loose band or bond, hence a trace, single link of a chain, loose-
hanging fetter. Perhaps named from its shaking about, as distinct
from a firm bond; cf. Low G. schake, shank. From AS. sceacan,
scacan, to shake. See Shake. Cf. Icel. skokull, from skaka;
Dan. skagle, from skage, to shift, orig. to shake; Swed. dial. skak,
Merely a doublet of scabby, by
SHAKE
a chain, link (Rietz). Der. shackle, verb, ME. schaklen, Prompt.
Parv.
SHAD, a fish. (E.) ‘Like bleeding shads ;’ Beaum. and Fletcher,
Love’s Cure, Act ii. sc. 2 (Clara). ‘And there the eel and shad
sometimes are caught;’ John Dennys, Secrets of Angling (before
A.D. 1613); in Eng. Garner, ed. Arber, i. 171. ‘A shadde, a fishe,
acon;’ Levins. AS. sceadd, a shad; Thorpe, Diplom. A®vi Saxonici,
p- 544. Cf. prov. G. schade, a shad (Fliigel). We also find Irish
and Gael. sgadan, OIrish scatdn, with the sense of ‘herring;’ W.
ysgadan, pl. herrings.
SHADDOCEK, a tree of the orange genus; also its fruit. (E.)
Sir H. Sloane mentions the shaddock-tree in his Catalogus Plantarum
(1696). In Stedman’s Surinam (1796), i. 22, he tells us that it was
brought to the W. Indies by a Captain Shaddock ; this was in the
17th century (before 1696).
SHADE, SHADOW, obscurity, partial darkness. (E.) These
are but two forms of one word ; the latter form representing the dat.
case. ME. schade, Will. of Palerne, 22; schadue, id. 754. From
AS. sceadu, shadow, fem. (Grein, ii. 398, 401), we have the ME,
schade, E, shade. From AS. dat. sceadwe we have ME. schadwe, E.
shadow ; cf. also ME. scheadewe, Ancren Riwle, p. 190, |. 24.4-Du.
schaduw, shadow ; G. schatten, shade; OHG. scato (gen. scatewes),
shade; Goth, skadus.+ Irish and Gael. sgath, shadow, shade,
shelter; Olrish scath, Corn. scod, shade ; Gk. σκότος, σκοτία, dark-
ness, gloom, B. All from Idg. base *skot-. Der. shade, verb,
Court of Love, 1. 1272; shad-er; shad-y, Spenser, F. Q. i. 1. 7;
shad-i-ly, -ness; shadow, verb, ME. schadowen, Allit. Poems, ed.
Morris, A. 42, AS. sceadwian, scadwian, Ps. xc. 4 (ed. Spelman) ; over-
shadow, AS. ofersceadwian, Mark, ix. 7; shadow-y, ME. shadewy,
Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. iii. pr. 4, 1. 40. Doublet, shed (2).
SHADOOF, a contrivance for raising water. (Arab.) From
Arab. shadaif (not in Rich. Dict.) ; an Egyptian-Arabic word ; see
Lane’s Modern Egyptians.
SHAFT, an arrow, smoothed pole, column, cylindrical entrance
toa mine. (E.) ‘The orig. sense is ‘shaven’ rod, a stick smoothed
into the shape of a spear-pole or an arrow. ME. shaft, schaft, an
arrow, Chaucer, C. T. 1364 (A 1362); Parl. of Foules, 180. AS.
sceaft, a shaft of a spear, dart; Grein, ii. 403. For scaf-t, formed
with suffix -¢ (Idg. -to-) from scaf-, stem of pp. of scafan, to shave ;
see Shave.+Du. schacht (for scha/t, like Du. lucht for luft, air) ;
from schaven, to smooth, plane; Icel. skapt, better skaft, a shaved
stick, shaft, missile; Dan. skaft, a handle, haft; Swed. skaft, a
handle; G. schaft. Teut. types *skaf-toz, m., *skaf-tom, n. Prob.
further allied to Gk. σκῆπ-τρον, a sceptre, Dor. σκᾶπ-τον, a staff,
sceptre; L. scap-us, a shaft, stem, stalk. 4/SQAP ; as in Lith. skap-
ott, to shave, cut. 4 The ME. scha/ft, in the sense of ‘ creature,’
is from AS. sceppan, to shape, make; see Shape. Der. shaft-ed.
SHAG, rough hair, rough cloth. (E.) ‘Of the same kind is the
goat-hart, and differing only in the beard and long shag about the
shoulders ;᾿ Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. viii. c. 33 (Of the shag-haired
and bearded stagge like toa goat). ‘With rugged beard, and hoarie
shagged heare;’ Spenser, F. Q.iv. 5.34. Shak. has shag for shaggy,
Venus, 295 ; also shag-hatred, 2 Hen. VI, iii. 1. 367. 1 know of
no instance in ME, AS. sceacga; ‘Coma, feax, sceacga ; Comosus,
sceacgede;’ Voc. 379. 41; 380. 14.4Icel. skegg, Swed. skigg, a
beard; Dan. skje@g, a beard, barb, awn, wattle; cf. Icel. skaga, to
jut out, project; whence also Icel. skagi, a low cape or head-land
(Shetland skaw). The orig. sense is ‘roughness.’ See Shaw.
Der. shagg-y, shagg-i-ness; also shagg-ed, as above. Shag tobacco
is rough tobacco; cf. Shakespeare’s ‘fetlocks shag and long;’
Venus, 295.
SHAGREEN, a rough-grained leather, shark’s skin.
Turkish.) ‘ Shagreen, a sort of rough-grained leather;’ Phillips,
ed. 1706. He also spells it chagrin. F. chagrin, shagreen. It was
orig. made of the skin (of the back only) of the horse, wild ass, or
mule; afterwards, from the skin of the shark. See the full account
in Devic, Supp. to Littré. = Turk. saghri, saghri, the back of a horse ;
also, shagreen, Zenker, Turk. Dict. p. 561; and Devic. Cf. Pers.
saghrz, shagreen ; Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 354. See Chagrin.
SHAH, a king of Persia. (Pers.) Spelt shaw in Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674, and in Herbert's Travels, ed. 1665.— Pers. shah, a king;
Palmer, Pers. Dict. col. 374. Remarkably shortened from OPers.
khsayathiya, a king; prob. orig. an adj., signifying ‘mighty;’ and
formed (with lengthened ἃ) from khsayathi, might, sb. ; allied to
Skt. &shatra-m, dominion. OPers, khst (Skt. ksh), to rule, have
power. Cf. Gk. κτάομαι, I possess. Horn, ὃ 772; Brugmann, i.
§ 920. Der. check, check-er, check-ers, check-mate, chess; also pa-sha
or pa-cha. Doublet, check, sb.
SHAKE, to agitate, jolt, keep moving, make to tremble ; also to
shiver, tremble. (E.) ME. schaken, shaken; pt. t. schook, shook,
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 2267 (A 2265); pp. schaken, shaken, shaké, id. 408.
(Ε.--
SHAKO
AS. sceacan, scacan, pt. t. scdc, pp. sceacen, scacen; Grein, ii. 401.
+Icel. skaka, pt. τ. skok, pp. skakinn ; Swed, skaka; Dan. skage, to
shift, veer. Teut. type *skakan-.
fro, hence, to churn ; from 4/SKAG, to move to and fro. Fick,
lil. 329, i. 804. Der. shake, sb., a late word, Herbert, Church
Porch, st. 38 ; shak-y, shak-i-ness; shack-le. Also Shake-speare. Also
shock, q.v., shog, 4. ν., jog, q-V., shank, q. v.
SHAKO, a kind of military cap. (F.—Hung.—Slav.) Modern;
Ἐς shako or schako (Littré). Hungarian csako (pron. chaako), a cap,
shako ; see Littré and Mahn’s Webster. Spelt /sa40, and explained
as a Hungarian cap, in Dankovsky’s Magyar Lexicon, ed. 1833,
p- 900. He supposes it to be of Slavonic origin, not a real Magyar
word. Miklosich (p. 27) gives the OSlay. form as cakoninzi.
SHALE, a rock of a slaty structure. (G.) A term of geology,
borrowed (like gneiss, quartz, and other geological terms) from
German.=G. schale, a shell, peel, husk, rind, scale ; whence schal-
gebirge, a mountain formed of thin strata. Cognate with E. shale, a
shell, Shak. Hen. V, iv. 2. 18; prov. E. shale, thin strata (E. D. D.) ;
also with scale; see Seale (1). Der. shal-y. Doublet, scale (1).
SHALL, I am bound to, I must. (E.) ME. shal, schal, often
with the sense of ‘is to;’ Chaucer, C. T. 733 (A 731) ; pt. t. sholde,
scholde, shulde (mod. E. should), id. 964 (A 962). AS. sceal, an old
past tense used as a present, and thus conjugated ; ic sceal, Jit scealt,
he sceal; pl. sculon, sculun, or sceolun. Hence was formed a pt. t.
scolde, or sceolde, pl. sceoldon. The form of the infin. is seulan, to
owe, to be under an obligation to do a thing; Grein, ii. 413.
Hence mod. E. 7 shall properly means ‘I am to,’ I must, as dis-
tinguished from J will, properly ‘I am ready to,’ I am willing to;
but the orig. sense of compulsion is much weakened in the case of
the first person, though its force is retained in thou shalt, he shall,
they shall. The verb following it is put in the infin. mood; as, ic
sceal gan=I1 must go; hence the mod. use as an auxiliary verb.
Dn. ik zal, I shall; ik zoude, I should; infin. zullen; Icel. skal, pl.
skulum; pt. t. skyldi, skyldu; infin. skulu; Swed. skall; pt. t. skulle ;
infin, skola; Dan, skal; pt. t. skulde; infin. skulle; G. soll, pt. τ.
sollte; infin. sollen (the & being lost, as in Dutch); Goth. skal, pl.
skulum ; pt. t. skulda; infin, skulan. B. All from Teut. type *skal,
I owe, am in debt, am liable ; a sense which is clearly preserved in
AS. scyld, guilt, i.e. desert of punishment, G. schuld, guilt, fault,
debt. We also find Lithuan. sel, I am indebted, skelet:, to owe,
be liable. See Fick, iii. 334. y. Probably further allied to L.
scelus, guilt, and Skt. skhal, to stumble, err, fail.
SHALLOON, a light woollen stuff. (F.) ‘Shalloon, a sort of
woollen stuff, chiefly used for the linings of coats, and so call’d from
Chalons, a city of France, where it was first made;’ Phillips, ed.
1706. We find chalons, i.e. a coverlet made at Chalons, even in
Chaucer, C. T. 4138 (A 4140),.—F. Chalons, or Chalons-sur-Marne,
a town in France, 100 miles E. of Paris. ‘Sa seule robe. . était de
ras de Chalons;’ Scarron, Virg. iv. (Littré, 5. v. ras, 8. 9). Cf, AF.
Chalouns, cloth of Chalons, Liber Albus, pp. 225, 231. Chalons
takes its name from the tribe of the Catalauni, who lived in that
neighbourhood.
SHALLOP, a light boat. (F.—Du.) In Spenser, F. Q. iii. 7. 27.
=F. chaloupe, ‘a shallop, or small boat :’ Cot.—Du. sloep,a sloop ;
MDnu. sloepe, ‘a sloope ;’ Hexham. @ Hence also Span. chalupa
(also Port. chalupa), ‘a small light vessel, a long boat,’ Neuman.
Minsheu’s Span. Dict., ed. 1623, has chalupa, ‘a flat-bottomed boat.’
The occurrence of shallop in Spenser’s F. Q. shows that it is rather
an old word in our own language. The Ital. form is scialuppa.
Doublet, sloop, q.v.
SHALLOT, SHALOT, a kind of onion. (F.— L.—Gk.—Heb.)
Added by Todd to Johnson; it isalso spelt eschalot.—M¥. eschalote,
eschalotte, ‘a cive or chive,’ i.e. a kind of onion; Cot. Mod. F.
échalote, The form eschalote is a variant, or corruption, of OF.
escalogne, a shallot; Roquefort.—L. ascalénia, a shallot; fem. of
Ascalonius, adj., belonging to Ascalon. ‘ Ascalonza, little onions or
scalions, taking that name of Ascalon, a city in Jury ;’ Holland, tr.
of Pliny, b. xix. c. 6.—Gk. ᾿Ασκάλων, Ascalon, one of the chief
cities of the Philistines, on the W. coast of Palestine ; Smith, Class.
Dict.—Heb. Ashgelin. See Joshua, xiii. 3; &c.
SHALLOW, not deep. (E.) ME. schalowe. ‘ Schold, or schalowe,
no3te depe;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 447; Trevisa, ili. 131, 1. 7; shald,
Barbour, Bruce, ix. 354. Not found in AS.; but evidently from a
base *scea/-, which occurs again in ME. schol-d, schal-d (above), of
which the AS. form was sceald, shallow. This AS. sceald 1s not in
the Dictt., but frequently occurs in A.S. Charters; as shown by
Mr. Stevenson, Phil. Soc. Trans., 1895-8, p. 532. Thus, in Birch,
Cart. Saxon. ii. 485, we find: ‘ on scealdan ford ;’ and in the same,
i. 593, we have: ‘ cet scealdan fléote. AS, sceald represents a Teut.
type *skal-fdz (Idg. type *skaltés). Cf. also prov. E. shall, shaul,
shallow. Perhaps allied to Low G. schaal, schalig, G. schal,
Cf. also Skt. Ahaj, to move to and |
SHAMPOO
553
insipid, stale, said of liquids when little is left in the vessel. Der.
shallow-ness. And see shoal (2).
SHALM, the same as Shawn, q. v.
SHAM, to trick, verb; a pretence, sb. (E.) ‘ Sham, pretended,
false ; also, a flam, cheat, or trick; 710 sham one, to put a cheat or
trick on him ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. ‘A meer skam and disguise ;’”
Stillingfleet, vol. iv. ser.g (R.). ‘They.. found all this a sham;’
Dampier’s Voyages, an. 1688 (R.). Earlier, in 1 77, we find:
‘ Shamming is telling you an insipid, dull lye with a dull face, which
the sly wag the author only laughs at himself; and making himself
believe ’tis a good jest, puts the sham only upon himself;’ Wycherley,
The Plain Dealer, iii. τ. We find also the slang expression ‘to
sham Abraham’ =to pretend to be an Abraham-man, or a man from
Bedlam hospital; see Abrakam-men in Nares, and in Hotten’s Slang
Dictionary. To sham appears to be merely the Northern E. form of
to shame, to put to shame, to disgrace, whence the sense ‘to trick’
may easily have arisen. Sham for shame is very common in the
North, and appears in Brockett, and in the Whitby, Mid-Yorkshire,
Swaledale, and Holderness Glossaries (E.D.S.). ‘ Wheea’s sham is
it’=whose fault is it? Whitby Gloss. Cf. Icel. skomm,a shame,
outrage, disgrace. See Shame. @ The explanation in North’s
Examen, 1740, p. 256, is neither clear nor helpful; he confuses
sham with ashamed.
SHAMBLE, to walk awkwardly. (E.) A weakened form of
scamble, to scramble; cf. prov. E. scambling, sprawling, Hereford
(Hall.). “ΒΥ that shambling in his walk, it should be my rich old
banker, Gomez;’ Dryden, Span. Friar, Act i. sc. 2. Scamble, to
scramble, struggle, is in Shak. Much Ado, v. 1. 94; K. John, iv.
3. 146; Hen. Ν, 1. 1. 4. It seems to be an E. word; see Shamble and
Scamble in the E.D.D. But it is difficult to find cognate words in
other languages. Cf. skimble-skamble, wandering, wild, confused,
τὸ Hen: LV, iligt.) 154.
SHAMBLES, stalls on which butchers expose meat for sale ;
hence, a slaughter-honse. (L.) ‘ As summer-flies are inthe shambles ;’
Oth. iv. 2. 66. Shambles is the pl. of shamble, a butcher’s bench or
stall, lit. a bench; and shamble is formed, with excrescent 6, from
ME, schamel, a bench, orig. a stool ; see Ancren Riwle, p. 166, note e.
AS. scamel, a stool; fol-scamel, a foot-stool; Matt. ν. 35.—L.
scamellum, a little bench or stool (White) ; allied to scamnum, a step,
bench, scabellum, a foot-stool. The orig. sense is ‘prop.’ Cf. L,
scapus, a shaft, stem, stalk ; Gk. σκήπτειν, to prop, also to throw.
Brugmann, i. § 241 (a).
SHAME, consciousness of guilt, disgrace, dishonour. (E.) ME.
schame, shame, Wyclif, Luke, xiv. 9. AS. sceamu, scamu, shame ;
Grein, ii. 403.4Icel. skémm (stem skamm-) a wound, shame; Dan.
skam; Swed. skam; G. scham. B. Teut. type *skama, f., shame ;
Fick, iil, 332. Allied to Goth. skanda, shame, G. schande. Der.
shame, verb, AS. sceamian, scamian, Grein; shame-ful, spelt scheome-
ful, Ancren Riwle, p. 302, 1. 23 ; shame-ful-ly, shame-ful-ness ; shame-
less, AS. scam-léas, /Elfred, tr. of Gregory’s Past. Care, c. xxxi (ed,
Sweet, p. 204) ; shame-less-ly, shame-less-ness ; also shame-faced, q. ν.
And see sham.
SHAMEFACED, modest. (E.) <A corruption of shamefast,
by a singular confusion with face, due to the fact that shame is
commonly expressed by the appearance of the face; see Face. We
find shamefastness in Spenser, I’. Q. 1v. 10. 50; shame-faced in Shak.
Rich. III, i. 4. 142, where the quarto ed. has shamefast (Schmidt).
ME. schamefast, shamefast, Chaucer, C. T. 2057 (A 2055). AS.
scamfest, A‘lfred, tr. of Gregory’s Past. Care, c. xxxi (ed. Sweet,
Ῥ. 204).— AS. scamu, shame ; and fast, fast, firm; see Shame and
Fast. Der. shamefaced-ness.
SHAMMY, SHAMOY, a kind of leather. (F.—G.) So called
because formerly made from the chamois. ‘ Shamots, or Chamois, a
kind of wild goat, whose skin, being rightly dressed, makes our true
Shamots leather ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. ‘ Shamoy, or Shamoy-
leather, a sort of leather made of the skin of the Shamoys ;’ Phillips,
ed. 1706.—F. chamois, ‘a wilde goat, or shamois; also the skin
thereof dressed, and called ordinarily shamois leather ;’ Cot. Cf. F.
chamoiser, to prepare chamois leather; Littré. See Chamois.
Taylor professes to correct this etymology, and, without a word
of proof, derives it ‘from Samland, a district on the Baltic,’ with
which it has but two letters, a and m,in common. There is no
difficulty, when it is remembered that shamoy-leather could only have
been prepared from the chamois αὐ first; other skins were soon
substituted, as being cheaper, when a larger demand setin. I see no
force in Wedgwood's objection, that chamois skins were too scarce
for general use. Imitations are always common. Cf. G. gemsen-
leder, chamois leather ; from gemse, a chamois!
SHAMPOO, to squeeze and rub the body of another after a hot
bath ; to wash the head thoroughly with soap and water. (Hindu-
stani.) A modern word; the operation takes its name from the
554 SHAMROCK
squeezing or kneading of the body with the knuckles, which forms
a part of it, as properly performed.— Hind. champna, ‘(1) to join,
(2) to stuff, thrust in, press, to shampoo or champoo;” Shakespear,
Hind. Dict. ed. 1849, p. 846. The initial letter is rightly ch, as in
church. Yule notes that E. shampoo may represent Hind. champo,
the imperative of the above verb.
SHAMROCK, a species of clover. (C.) ‘Yf they founde a
plotte of water-cresses or shamrokes ;’ Spenser, View of the State of
Treland, Globe ed., ἢ. 654, col. 2.—Irish seamrog, trefoil, dimin.
of seamar, trefoil ; Gael. seamrag, shamrock, trefoil, clover.
SHANK, the lower part of the leg, a stem. (E.) ME. shanke,
schanke, Havelok, 1903. AS. sczanca, scanca; John, xix. 31, 32.
Esp. used of the bone of the leg. Du. schonk, a bone; Dan. skank,
the shank ; Swed. skank, leg. Allied to G. schinken, the ham, schenkel,
the shank, leg ; Low G. schake, shank. Perhaps ultimately related
to Shake. Der. skink-er, nun-cheon.
SHANTY, a hut. (Irish.) From Irish sean, old, and #oigh,
a house. Similar compounds, beginning with seaz, are common in
Irish ; and the compound seantoigh, an old ruinous hut, is in actual
use (Archiv f.n. Sprachen, cvii. 112).
SHAPE, to form, fashion, adapt. (E.) Formerly a strong verb.
ME. shapen, schapen; pt. t. shoop, Chaucer, C. T. 16690 (G 1222);
pp- shapen, shape, id. 1227 (A 1225). A new formation from the
ME. sb. schap (AS. ge-sceap) ; or from the pp., on the analogy of
sceacan, to shake. The AS. verb is scieppan, sceppan, which has
a weak infin. (= Goth. skapjan or ga-skapjan). But the verb is strong,
with pt. t. scdp, scedp, and pp. scapen, sceapen.+Icel. skapa, pt. τ.
skop; Swed. skapa; Dan. skabe; G. schaffen, to create; pt. t. schuf,
pp- geschaffen; cf. Goth. gaskapjan, Teut. type *skapan- (also
skapjan-), pt. t. *skdp. Cf. Lith. skabéz?, to cut, hew. Brugmann, i.
§ 7o1. Der. shape, sb., AS. gesceap, a creature, beauty, Grein;
chap-able ; shap-er ; shapely, ME. schaply, Chaucer, C. T. 374 (A 372) ;
shape-li-ness ; shape-less, shape-less-ness. ence also the suffix -ship,
AS, -scipe (as in friend-ship, i.e. friend-shape), cf. G. freund-schaft ;
and the suffix -scape in land-scape, q. v.
SHARD, SHERD, a fragment. (E.) Commonly in the comp.
pot-shard. ‘Shardes of stones, Fragmentum lapidis; a shard of an
earthen pot ;’ Baret (1580). The pl. shards is in Hamlet, v. 1. 254.
ME. scherd, Prompt. Parv. p. 445. AS. sceard, a fragment; ®lfred,
tr. of Boethins, c. xviii. § 1 (bk. ii. pr. 7); cf. sceard, cut, notched.
Lit. ‘cut thing;’ from Teut. *skar, 2nd grade of *sker-an-, to cut.
See Shear. Cf. Icel. skard, anotch, skardr, sheared, diminished.
SHARE (1), a portion, part, division. (E.) Spelt schare in Pals-
grave ; very rare in ME. in this sense ; schar, i.e. the groin, Wyclif,
2 Kings, ii. 23, is the same word. AS. scearu, arare word ; occurring
inthe comp. Jand-scearu, a shareof land; Grein. From Teut. *skar,
2nd grade of *sker-an-, to shear; see Shear. And see below.
Der. share, verb, Spenser, F. Q. iv. 8. 5; shar-er, share-holder.
SHARE (2), plough-share. (E.) ME. schare, share; P. Plow-
man, B. iii. 306. AS. scear, a plough-share; AElfric’s Gloss., Ist
word. From Tent. *skar, 2nd grade of *sker-an-, to shear; see
Shear.
SHARK, a voracious fish, hound-fish. (F.—L.) The name of
the fish is from the Tudor E. verb shark, to prowl; to shark fora
dinner, to try to get one; to shark for a living. ‘ Because they
should not think I came to sharke Only for vittailes;’ Times’
Whistle (E. E. T.S.), p. 85. ‘They skark for a hungry diet ;’ Ben
Jonson, Mercury Vindicated. Prob. from North F. (Picard) cherguier,
equivalent to OF. cercher (EK. search), mod. F. chercher. Cf. cher-
cher le broust, ‘to hunt after feasts;? Cot. Godefroy has two
exx. of the spelling cherquier. Cf. also Ital. cercare del pane, ‘to
shift for how to live, i.e. to shark (Torriano).—L. circdre, to go
round, go about. =L. circus,a ring; see Circus. And see Search.
Thus shark is only a variant of search, but was used in a special
sense. Hence shark (1), a greedy fellow, one who lives by his wits,
described in ch. 14 of Earle’s Micro-cosmographie (1628); (2) a
greedy fish (in Florio, 5. ν. Citaro). Der. shark-ing, voracious,
greedy, prowling; one of the Dramatis Personze of Love’s Cure (by
Beaum. and Fletcher) is ‘ Alguazeir, a sharking panderly constable ;’
shark up=to snap up, Hamlet, i. r. 98. And hence shkark=a
sharper, asa slangterm. 3 Some connect the last word with G.
schurke, arogue; but without any attempt to explain the difference
of vowels. Sewel’s Du. Dict. has: ‘schurk,a shark, a rascal;” but
this is merely a translation, not an identification.
SHARP, cutting, trenchant, keen, severe, biting, shrewd. (E.)
ME. sharp, scharp, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1653. AS. scearp; Grein, ii. 404.
Ἔα. scherp; Icel. skarpr ; Swed. and Dan. skarp; (ἃ. scharf. Teut.
type *skarpoz. Perhapsallied to scrape. See Scrape. Der. sharp-ly,
sharp-ness; sharp-er, one who acts sharply, a cheat; sharp-set,
esighted, -witted; sharp-en, to make sharp, Antony, ii. 1. 25.
HATTER, to break in pieces. (E.) The Southern E. form of
SHEAR
scatter; with a difference of meaning.
dash, said of a falling stream ; Gawayn and Grene Knight, 2083.
AS. scaterian, to seatter, squander; A. S. Chron. an. 1137. Milton
uses sha/ter with the sense of scatter at least twice; P. L. x. 1066,
Lycidas, 5 ; so also prov. E. shatter, to scatter (Kent), See Scatter.
Doublet, scatier. :
SHAVE, to pare, strip, cut off in slices, cut off hair. (E.) ME.
shaven, schaven, formerly a strong verb; pt.t. schoof(misspelt schoofe),
Wyclif, 1 Chron. xix. 4, earlier text; the later text has skanyde.
The strong pp. skaven is still in use. AS. sceafun, scafan; pt. t. scdf,
pp: scafen; the pt. t. scdf occurs in Ailfred, tr. of Beda, ἢ. i. c. 1,
near the end. Du. schaven, to scrape, plane wood ; Icel. skafa ; Swed.
skafva, to scrape; Dan. skave, to scrape; Goth. skaban, 1 Cor. xi. 6;
G. schaben. B. All from Teut. base SKAB, answering to 4/SQAP,
to cut, dig, whence Lithuan. skapoti, to shave, cut, Russ. skopite, to
castrate, Gk, σκάπτειν, to dig. Brugmann, i. §§ 569, yor. Der.
shav-er, shav-ing; also shave-l-ing, with double dimin, suffix, expres-
sive of contempt, applied to a priest with shaven crown, in Bale,
King John, ed. Collier, p. 17, 1.16. Also scab, shab-by, shaf-t.
SHAW, athicket, small wood. (E.) ME. schawe, shawe, Chaucer,
C. T. 4365 (A 4367). AS. scaga, a shaw; Diplomatarium A®vi
Saxonici, ed. Thorpe, p. 161, 1. 5.-4Icel.. sk@gr, a shaw, wood;
Swed. skog; Dan. skov. Allied to Icel. skagi, a ness (Noreen) ;
NFries. skage, a nook of land; cf. Icel. skaga, to jut out. Allied to
Shag.
SHAWL, a covering for the shoulders. (Pers.) Added by Todd
to Johnson’s Dict. Pers. shal, ‘a shawl or mantle, made of very fine
wool of a species of goat common in Tibet ;* Rich. Dict. p. 872.
See Yule. The Pers. ἃ resembles E. aw, showing that we borrowed
the word immediately from Persian, not from F. chdle.
SHAWM, SHALM, a musical instrument resembling the
clarionet. (K.—L.—Gk.) It was a reed-instrument. In Prayer-
Book version of Ps. xcviii, 7. ‘ With shaumes and trompets, and with
clarions sweet ;’ Spenser, Εις Ὁ. i. 12. 13. The pl. form shalmyes
occurs in Chaucer, House of Fame, iii. 128. Shalmye appears to
have been abbreviated to shalme, shaume.—OF. chalemie, ‘a little
pipe made ofa reed, or of a wheaten or oaten straw ;’ Cot. Also
chalemelle, chalumeau; Cot. All allied to F.chaume (for *chalme),
straw, a straw.—L. calamus, a reed; borrowed from Gk., the true
Lat. word being culmus. —Gk. κάλαμος, a teed; καλάμη, a stalk or
straw of corn. Cognate with E.Haulm, q.v. J The G. schalmei
is also from French. Doublet, haulm.
SHE, the fem. of the 3rd pers. pronoun. (E.) ME, she, sche,
sheo; Chaucer, C. T. 121; sko, Havelok, 125; scho, id. 126; also
sce, A. S. Chron. an. 1140. In the Northumbrian dialect, we find
ME. scho used as a dem. pronoun, though the AS. séo is the fem. of
the def. article. β. The AS, séo should have become see, but this
form never occurs; rather it became sid (John iv. 23, Lindisfarne
MS.); whence (perhaps influenced by the Icel. dem. pron. 57, that)
came Northumb. ME. scho, sho; and this seems to have suggested the
Midland sche, she, the true Southern forms being heo, he, which
actually occur, and were easily confused with he, masc. Ὑγ. The AS.
séo, iem. of se, used as def. article, was orig. a demonstrative pro-
noun, meaning ‘ that.’4+Du. zij, she; Icel. sa, sja, fem. of sa,-dem.
pron.; G. se, she; Goth. sé, fem. of sa, dem. pron. used as def.
article; Gk. 4, fem. of 6, def. art.; Skt. δῶ, she, fem. of sas, he.
For Icel. sja, see Noreen, § 399. And see Sweet, E. Gr. § 1068.
SHEAF, a bundle of things collected together, esp. used of
grain, (E.) ME. scheef, shef (with long e), Chaucer, C. T. 104.
AS. scéaf, Gen. xxxvii. 7 ; spelt scéabin the 8th cent., Corpus Gloss.,
197-4 Du. schoof; Icel. skauf; G. schaub, The sense of ‘sheaf’ is
a bundle of things ‘shoved’ together. Teut. type *skaudoz, m.
From *skaub, 2nd grade of *skiiban-, to shove ; see Shove. J The
pl. sheaves answers to AS, pl. scéafas. Der. sheaf, verb,-As You
Like It, iii. 2, 113 5 sheaf-y.
SHEAL, a temporary summer hut. (Scand.). In Halliwell;
Jamieson has also shei/, shielling, sheelin ; spelt shieling in Campbell,
O'Connor's Child, st. 3. Spelt βολεῖ, Henrysoun, Upland Mouse,
st. 6. Connected in the Icel. Dict. with Icel. skali, Norweg. skaale,
a hut; but rather from Icel. skjol, a shelter, cover, Dan. skjul, a
shelter, Swed. skjul, a shed, shelter; cf. Icel. sk7li, a shed, shelter,
skyla, to screen, shelter, skyling, a screening. ‘These words are from
the 4/SKEU, to cover; cf. Skt. sku, to cover; Fick, iii. 337. See
Sky. 4 For the form, cf. Icel. skola, a pail or bucket, called
in Scotland a skiel or skeel.
SHEAR, to cut, clip, shave off. (E.) ME. scheren, sheren, pt. t.
schar, shar, pp. schoren, now contracted to shorn; Chaucer, C. T.
13958 (B 3142). AS. sceran, sciran, pt. t. scer, pl. se@ron, pp.
scoren; Gen. xxxviii. 13; Diplomatarium Afyi Saxonici, ed. Thorpe,
p. 145, 1.14.4-Du. scheren; Icel.skera; Dan. skere; G. scheren. Teut.
type “skeran-, pt. t. *skar, pp. *skor-anoz. Allied to OIrish scar-aim,
ME. schateren, to scatter, to
SHEATH
I separate; Gael. sgar, to sever; W. ysgar,to part; Gk. κείρειν (for
oxepyetv).—4/SQEk, to cut. Brugmann, i. § 631. Der. shear-er ;
shears, ME. sheres, P. Plowman, C. vii. 75, pl. of shear = AS. sceara,
used to translate L. forfex, Voc. 336. 27; shear-ling, a sheep only
once sheared, formed with double dimin. suffix -J-ing. Allied words
are Sear (2), Share, Sheer (2), Shard, Shore, Short, Score,
Skerry, and others.
SHEATH, a case for a sword or other implement, case, scab-
bard. (E.) ME. schethe, Wyclif, John, xviii. τι. AS, sc#d, scéd,
scéad, a sheath; Grein, ii. 399.4+Du. scheede; Icel. skeidir, fem. pl. ;
Dan. skede ; (Swed. skida] ; G. scheide. Teut. type *skaitha, f., orig.
‘that which separates,’ applied to the husk of a bean, as in Swed.
skida, which also means ‘a husk.’ Since such a husk has two sides,
we see why the Icel. skeidir is only used in the plural; and these
sides of a case must be separated before a knife or sword can be
introduced, if the material of the scabbard is at all loose. All from
Teut. base *skaith- [except Swed. skid-a<weak grade *skith-]; for
which see Shed (1). Der. sheathe, verb, Macb. v. 7. 20; spelt
shethe in Palsgrave; sheath-ing.
SHEAVE, a wheel of a pulley. (E.) A technical term; see
Webster. A variant of prov. E. shive, a slice (Halliwell) ; see
E. D. D., and see further under Shive, Shiver (2).
SHEBEEN, a liquor-shop. (Irish.—E.) Apparently a dimin.
(with suffix -ix) of Irish seapa, a shop. —E. shop; see Shop.
SHED (1), to part, scatter, cast abroad, pour, spill. (E.) The
old sense ‘to part’ is nearly obsolete, except in water-shed, the
ridge which parts river-systems. ‘Shed, to distinguish,’ Ray, Gloss.
Β. 15 (E. D.5.). Spelt shead in Baret (1580). ME, scheden, Rob.
of Glouc. p. 57, 1. 1332; P. Plowman, B. vi. 9; pt. t. shadde, shedde,
P. Plowman, B. xvii. 288; pp. shad, Gen. and Exodus, ed. Morris,
148; also shed. AS. sceddan, scidan, to part, separate, distinguish
(hence, to scatter); pt. t. se@d, scead, pp. scedden, sciden; a strong
verb; Grein, ii. 398 ; but we find the weak pt. t. shadde and the pp.
shad as early as in the Ormulum, 1]. 3200, 4939. The vowel of the
mod. E. word has been shortened, as in red from AS. réad, bread from
bréad, and head from héafod ; this shortening began in the weak pt. t.
shedde and the pp. shed.4-OSax. skédan, OF ries. skétha, scéda, to part ;
G. schetden; Goth. skaidan. Cf. Lithuan. skédziu, I separate; L.
scindere, Gk. σχίζειν, to cleave, split, part. All from Teut. base
*skaith, varying to *skaid (see Shide); allied to Idg. base *skhid,
to cleave. See Brugmann, i. §§ 201, 599. Der. shedd-er.
SHED (2), a slight shelter, hut. (E.) Allied to shade. ‘Sheds
stuffed with lambs and goats ;’ Chapman, tr. of Odyssey, ix. 314;
ef. prov. E. cow-shade, a cow-shed (Leic.). It appears to be a Kentish
form, like OKentish bend for band, mere for mare, leddre for ladder,
&c.; see Introd. to Ayenbite of Inwyt, ed. Morris, pp. v, vi. In
the same work, p. 95, |. 28, we find ssed (=shed) for shade; ssede,
dat. p. 97, 1. 1; and ssed in the sense of ‘shadow,’ p. 137, 1. 15.
AS. scead, sced, shade; fig. shelter (Toller) ; allied to AS. sceadu,
shade. See Shade. B. Or shed may be a Kentish form of
prov. E. shud, a shed (E. D. D.), ME. schudde, a shed, Prompt.
Parv., which answers to an AS. form *scydd.
SHEEN, fairness, splendour. (E.) ‘ The sheen of their spears ;’”
Byron, Destruction of Sennacherib. And in Hamlet, iii. 2.167. But
properly an adj., signifying ‘fair,’ as in Spenser, F. Q. ii. 1. 10, ii. 2.
40. ME. schene, adj., fair, beautiful, Chaucer, C. T. 974 (A 972).
AS. scéne, scéone, scione, scyne, fair; Grein, ii. 416. Lit, ‘showy,’ fair
to sight, and allied to Show, q.v. (But doubtless frequently
supposed to be allied to shine, which the vowel-sound shows to be
impossible ; observe the cognate forms.)--OSax. scdni, adj.; Du.
schoon, adj.; G. schin, adj.; Goth. skauns, beautiful. Teut. type
*skau-niz (Kluge); or *skau-n-joz (Streitberg). See Fick, iii. 336.
SHEEP, a well-known animal. (E.) ME. scheep, sheep, pl. scheep,
sheep; Chaucer, C. T. 498 (A 496). AS. scéap, scép, pl. scéap, scép, a
neuter sb., which is unchanged in the plural, like deer ; Grein, ii. 404.
+OSax. skip; Du. schaap, asheep, a simpleton; G. schaf; OHG.
scaf. Teut. type sképom, n. Origin unknown; the Pol. skog, Lith.
skapas, sheep, are borrowed from Teutonic. Der. sheep-cote, sheep-
fold; sheep-ish, -ly, -ness; sheep-master, shearer, -shearing, -walk.
Also shep-herd.
SHEER (1), bright, clear, pure, simple, perpendicular. (Scand.)
© A sheer descent’ is an unbroken one, orig. a clear one; the old
meaning being ‘ bright.’ Andsee Trench, Select Glossary. ‘ Sheer,
immaculate, and silver fountain ;’ Rich. II, v. 3.61. ME. scheere,
shere. ‘The sheresonne;’ Lydgate, Storie of Thebes, pt. i (How
Edipus expouned the probleme). [Rather Scand. than E, The
initial sh is due to AS. scir (below).] —Icel. skerr, bright, clear; Swed.
skér; Dan. sker, bright, pure; Teut. type *skairiz. Allied to Icel.
skirr, clear, bright (which is cognate with AS. scir, bright (Grein),
Goth. skeirs, G. schier); Teut. type *skeiroz. B. Here *skai-riz is
from *skai-, the 2nd grade, and *skei-roz from *skei-, the prime grade,
SHELF 555
of Idg. root SKEI, to shine. Cf. Icel. ski-na (= AS. sci-nan), to shine ;
so that the orig. sense is ‘shining.’ See Shine. Der. sheer, adv. ;
also Sheer-Thursday, the old name of Maundy Thursday, lit. ‘pure
Thursday ;’ cf. Icel. skira, to cleanse, baptize, Skirdagr or Skiripors-
dagr, Sheer-day or Sheer-Thursday, Dan. Skertorsdag. See my note
on P. Plowman, B. xvi. 140; p. 379 of " Notes.’
SHEER (2), to deviate from one’s course. (Du.) A nautical
term. ‘Among sea-men, aship is said to sheer, or go sheering, when
in her sailing she is not steadily steered, &c. ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.—
Du. scheren, to shear, cut, barter, jest; to withdraw, or go away ; to
warp, stretch. ‘Scheerje van hier, away, get you gone;’ Sewel.
This answers to mod. Εἰ, sheer off! ‘Thus sheer is only a particular
use of Du. scheren, cognate with E. Shear. So also G, schere dich
weg, get you gone; schier dich aus dem Wege, out of the way!
(Fliigel).
SHEET, a large piece of linen cloth; a large piece of paper; a
sail; a rope fastened to a sail. (E.) ME. schete, shete, Chaucer,
C. T. 4138 (A 4140). AS. scéte, seyte; ‘Sindo, scyte,’ Voc. 124. 24;
‘Sindonem, scétan’ (Kentish Glosses), Voc. 86. 35 ; ‘Sandalium, scéte,’
Corpus gloss., 1776. ‘On scéte minum,’ in my bosom (L. in sinu meo) ;
Ps, Ixxxviii. 49, ed. Spelman. ‘ Onclénre scytan befeold’ = enfolded
in a clean sheet ; Gospel of Nicodemus, c. xiii. ed. Thwaites, p. 6.
‘On scétan bewunden,’ wound in a sheet; The Shrine, p. 69.
Sheet answers to the Kentish and QOMerc. form scéfe, not to
Wessex scyte. The sense of ‘bosom’ is due to the use of scyte to
signify the fold of a garment. It is closely allied to AS. scéat,a much
commoner word, meaning (1) a projecting corner, angle, nook of
ground, (2) fold of a garment; Grein, ii. 405. B. The orig. sense is
‘projection,’ or ‘that which shoots out,’ then a corner, esp. of a
garment or of a cloth; after which it was extended to mean a whole
cloth or sheet. The nautical senses are found in AS. scedta, ex-
plained ‘ pes veli;’ scéat-line, explained ‘ propes,’ Voc. 288. 24, 25.
y. The vowels é, y, are due to a mutation from éa; and all may be
compared with AS. scéat, pt. t. of scéotan, to shoot; see Shoot.
Cognate with the form scéat- are Icel. skaut, a sheet, corner of a
square cloth, corner, sheet or rope attached to the corner of a sail,
skirt or sleeve of a garment, a hood ; Swed. skot, the sheet of a sail;
Du. schoot, a shoot, sprig, sheet, bosom, lap; G. schoosz, flap of
a coat, lap, bosom; Goth. skauts, the hem of a garment; all from
Teut. *skaut, 2nd grade of *skeutan-, to shoot; see Shoot. Der.
sheet, verb, Hamlet, i. 1. 115, Antony, i. 4. 65; sheet-ing; sheet-
lightning, lightning which spreads ont like a sheet. Also sheet-
anchor, the same as shoot-anchor, an anchor to be shot out or
lowered in case of great danger; ‘This saying they make their
shoot-anker, Abp. Cranmer, Ans. to Bp. Gardiner, p.. 117 (cited by
Todd); also in Roister Doister, i. 1. 28. The form sheet-anchor is
due to ME. schéten, to shoot; see Shoot.
SHEIK, a chief. (Arab.) In books of travel.— Arab. sheikh, an
elder, a chief; Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 394; shaykh, a venerable
old man, a chief; Rich. Dict. p. 920. The orig. sense is ‘ old.’
SHEKEL, a Jewish weight and coin. (Heb.) See Exod.
xxx. 13. The weight is about half an ounce; the value about
half a crown.—Heb. shegel, a shekel (weight).—Heb. skagal, to
weigh. [Both ees are short. ]
SHEKIN AH, SHECHINAH, the visible glory of the Divine
presence. (Heb.) Not in the Bible, but in the targums ; it signifies
the ‘dwelling’ of God among His people. — Heb. shek(h)inah,
dwelling, the presence of God. = Heb. shak(h)an, to dwell.
SHELDRAKE, a kind of drake. (E.) ME. scheldrak; ‘Hic
umnis, scheldrak ;’ Voc. 762. 39. For sheld-drake, i.e. variegated or
spotted drake ; hence the ME, form shelde-drake, Rel. Antiq. ii. 82,
col. 2. ‘ Sheldapple [prob. for sheld-dapple}, the chaffinch ;’ Halli-
well. ‘Sheld, flecked, party-coloured;’ Coles’ Dict., ed. 1684.
Sheld in this case is just the same as ME, sheld,a shield; and the
allusion is, probably, to the ornamentation of shields, which is
doubtless of great antiquity. The AS. scyld or scild is a shield; but
is also used, in a curious passage, to denote a part of a bird’s
plumage. ‘Is se scyld ufan freetwum geféged ofer pees ftigles bec’
=the shield above is curiously arranged over the bird’s back ; Poem
on the Pheenix, 1. 308 (Grein). So also Icel. skjéldungr,a sheldrake,
allied to skjaldottr, dappled, from skjéldr, a shield, spot, patch; Dan.
en skjoldet ko, a brindled cow, from skjold, a shield; G. schildern, to
paint, depict, from G. schild, a shield, escutcheon. See Shield,
SHELF, a ledge, flat layer of rock. (E.) ME. schelfe, shelfe; pl.
shelves, Chaucer, C. T. 3211. AS. scylfe (for scilfe), a plank or
shelf; Grein, ii. 416.44+Low G. schelf, a shelf, Bremen Worterbuch ;
allied to schelfern, to scale off, peel. Cf. Lowland Sc. skelve, a thin
slice, skelve, to separate in laminz (Jamieson); Du. schilfer,a scale;
prov. Ὁ. schelfe, a husk, shell, paring; schelfen, schelfern, to peel off.
Closely allied to shell and scale; the orig. sense is ‘a husk,’ thence
a flake, slice, thin board, flat ledge, layer. See Shell. The Gael.
556 SHELL
sgealb, a splinter, or (as a verb) to split, is from the same root.
@ We occasionally find shelf, not only in the sense of a layer of
rock, but in the sense of ‘sand-bank’ or ‘shoal.’ Iryden speaks of
‘a shelfy coast’ as equivalent to ‘shoaly ground ;’ tr. of Virgil,
Ain. y. 1125,1130. He adds that Afneas ‘steers aloof, and shuns
the shelf, 1. 1132. There is confusion here with the verb to
Shelve, q.v. Cf. ‘ shelvy and shallow,’ Merry Wives, iii. 5. 15.
SHELL, a scale, husk, outer covering, a bomb. (E.) ME. schedle,
shelle; P. Plowman, B. v. 528; Gower, C. A. iii. 76; bk. vi. 2228.
AS. scell, scyll; Grein, ii. 399.4Du. schel; Icel. skel; Goth. skalja,
atile; Luke, v. 19. Teut. type *skalja, f. The sense is ‘thin
flake;’ cf. Swed. skala, to peel off; see Skill. And see Scale
(1). Der. shell-fish, -work ; shell, verb ; shell-y.
SHELTER, a place of protection, refuge, retreat, protection.
(E.) ‘his curious word is perhaps due to a corruption of ME.
sheld-trume, a body of troops used to protect anything, a guard,
squadron. The corruption took place early, possibly owing to some
confusion with the word sguadron (of F. origin), with which it seems
to have been assimilated, at least in its termination. Thus she/d-
trume soon became scheldtrome, sheltrome, shelirone, shellroun, the force
of the latter part of the word being utterly lost, so that at last -rown
was confused with the common suffix -er, and the word shelter was
the result. B. See examples in Stratmann, s. v. schild. To which
add; schiltrum, Barbour’s Bruce, xii. 429; scheltrone, sheliron,
sheltrun, Allit. version of Destruction of Troy, 3239, 5249, 5804,
10047; Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 1813, 1856, 1992, 2106, 2210,
2922. It occurs also in Trevisa’s description of the battle of
Hastings, and was quite a common word, known from Aberdeen to
Cormwall. Loss of the true form caused loss of the true sense, so
that it came to mean only a place of protection, instead of a body-
guard or squadron. Note the use in P. Plowman, B. xiv. 81:
‘make owre faithe owre scheltroun,’ make our faith our defence. Also:
‘scheltrun schouris to shelde,’ shelter to keep off showers (Halliwell).
A sense of its derivation from shield survives in modern use. From
AS, scild-truma, lit. a shield-troop, troop of men with shields or
selected for defence; compounded of AS. scild, a shield, and
truma, a band of men, Jos. xi. 10. The word truma does not
appear to be a mere modification of the L. turma, but is allied to
AS. trum, firm, getrum, a cohort, band of men (Grein); and to E.
trim. See Shield and Trim.
SHELVE, to slope down, incline downwards gradually. (E.)
We speak of a shelving shore, i. e. a shallow or sloping shore, where
the water’s depth increases gradually. ‘The shore was shelvy and
shallow ;’ Merry Wives, iii. 5.15. We have shelving in Two Gent.
of Verona, ili. I. 115, which is explained by Schmidt as ‘ projecting
like a shelf.” It seems to be from shelf, sb., but the connexion is
not clear. A shelf sometimes meant a sand-bank; and the sense of
‘slope’ may refer to the sloping sides of the same. Cf. ‘tawny
sands and skelves:’ Milton, Comus, 117. ‘ What bark beares sayle
in tempeste on the skelues?’ Higgins, Mirror for Magistrates ;
Severus, st. 8. In Lowl. Sc. we find skelf, a shelf, a ledge in a
cliff, and ske’ve, vb., to shelve, to tilt; also skelvy, adj., applied to
rocks that form a shelf or ledge. B. Torriano explains MItal.
stralare by ‘to shelve or go aside, aslope, awry ;’ a sense which may
have been suggested by MDu. scheel, awry, G. schel, scheel, Bavar.
schelb, awry. See Shelf.
SHEPHERD, a sheep-herd, pastor. (E.) ME. schepherd, shep-
herd, Chaucer, C. T. 506 (A 504). AS. scéaphyrde, a keeper of
sheep, Gen. iv. 2. AS. scéap, a sheep; and hyrde, a herd, i.e.
guardian. See Sheep and Herd (2). Der. shepherd-ess, with
F. suffix.
SHERBET, akind of sweet drink. (Arab.) In Herbert's Travels,
ed. 1665, pp. 203,327; Sandys, Trav., p. 136. — Arab. sharbat, a drink,
draught, sherbet, syrup; Rich. Dict. p. 887.— Arab. root shariba, he
drank; id. Allied to syrup, q.v. Also to shrub, in the term ‘ rum-
shrub;’ see shrub (2).
SHERD, SHARD, a fragment. (E.) See Shard.
SHERE-THURSDAY; see Sheer (1).
SHERIFF, an officer in a county who executes the law. (E.)
ME. shirreve, Chaucer, C. T. 361 (A 359). AS. sctr-geréfa, a shire-
reeve. In Ailfric’s Glossary we find: ‘Consul, geréfa;’ also ‘ Pro-
consul, under-geréfa;’ also ‘Preetor, burh-geréfa;’ and ‘ Preses,
scir-geréfa;’ Voc. col. 110.— AS. scir, a shire; and ge-réfa, a reeve,
officer; see Shire and Reeve. Der. sheriff-ship, sheriff-dom.
Also. sheriff-al-ty, generally written shrievalty, spelt shrevalty in
Fuller, Worthies of England (R.); the suffix is F.,as in common-al-ty.
Dryden has the extraordinary adj. shriev-al, The Medal, 14.
SHERRY, a wine of Spain. (Span.—L.) Formerly skerris,
2 Hen. ΙΝ, iv.3.111. The final s was dropped, from a fancy that it
was the pl. ending, just as in the case of pea for pease, &c. So called
from the town of Xeres, in Spain, whence it was brought. There
SHILLYSHALLY
are two towns of that name; but the famous one is Xeres de la
Frontera, in the province of Sevilla, not far from Cadiz. The
Spanish x is now a guttural letter (like G. ch) ; but formerly was
like the E, sh. B. Dozy shows that Xeres=L. Casaris, by loss of
the syllable -ar-, much as Caesar Augusta became, by contraction,
Saragossa; see Dozy, Recherches sur Vhistoire et la littérature de
l’Espagne, Leyden, 1865, i. 314. Ca@saris is the gen. case of L.
Caesar, Der. sherris-sack, i.e. dry sherry, 2 Hen. IV, iv. 3. 104;
see Sack (3).
SHEW, the same as Show, q. v.
SHIBBOLETH, the criterion or test-word of a party. (Heb.)
In Milton, Samson Agonistes, 289. See the story in Judges, xii. 6.
— Heb. shibbdleth, (1) an ear of corn, (2) a river. From the obsolete
root shabhal, to increase, grow, flow. @f Any word beginning with
sh would have done as well to detect an Kphraimite.
SHIDE, a thin piece of board. (E.) ‘ Shide, a billet of wood,
a thin board, a block of wood ; still in use ;’ Halliwell. Spelt shyde
in Palsgrave. ME. shide, schide, Gower, C. A. i. 3143 bk. iii. 1033;
P. Plowman, B. ix. 131. AS, scid, a billet of wood, in a gloss ; Voc.
266. 33; whence scid-weall, a fence made of palings; Voc. 146. 28.
«ἜΤΕΙ. skid, a billet of wood; (ἃ. scheit, the same. Cf. Olrish sciath,
a shield. From the same root as Sheath and Shed. Fick,
ili. 335. Thus the orig. sense is ‘a piece of cleft wood, a log,
billet.” Doublet, skid.
SHIELD, a piece of defensive armour held on the left arm. (E.)
ME, schelde, sheelde, Chaucer, C. T. 2506 (A 2504). AS. scild,
sceld, a shield ; Grein, ii. 407.4-Du. schild ; Icel. skjoldr, pl. skildir ;
Dan. skjold; Swed. skold; Goth. shildus; G. schild. B. All from
a Teut. type *skelduz,a shield; Fick, iii. 334. The root is doubtful ;
it is usual to connect it with shell and scale, as denoting a thin piece
of wood; cf. Lith. ske/é?, to split. Fick suggests a connexion with
Icel. skella, skjalla, to clash, rattle, from the ‘ clashing of shields’ so
often mentioned ; cf. G. schelle, a bell, allied to schallen, to resound.
This seems unlikely. Der. shield, verb, K. Lear, iv. 2. 67 ; shield-
bearer, shield-less. Also shel-ter, q. v., shill-ing, q. v.
SHIELING, the same as Sheal, q. v.
SHIFT, to change, change clothes, remove. (E.) The old sense
was ‘to divide,’ now lost. ME. schiften, shiften, to divide, change,
remove. In the Prompt. Parv. p. 446, it is explained by ‘ part
asunder,’ or ‘deal,’ i.e. divide, as well as by ‘ change.’ ‘ Hastilich
he schifte him’=hastily he removed himself, changed his place,
P. Plowman, B. xx. 166. And see Chaucer, C. T. 5686 (D 104).
AS. sciflan, scyftan, to divide; ‘ béo his &ht gescyft swide rihte’=
let his property be divided very justly; Laws of Cnut (Secular),
§ 71; in Thorpe, Ancient Laws, i. 414, 1. 1.4-Du. schiften, to
divide, separate, turn ; Icel. skipta (for ski/ta), to part, share, divide ;
also to shift, change; so that the mod. use of shift is prob. Scandi-
navian ; Swed. skifta, to divide, to change, shift; Dan. skifte (the
same). β. The sense of ‘ divide’ or ‘ part’ is the orig. one. Allied
to Icel. skifa, to cut into slices, Icel. skifa, a slice, and prov. E. shive,
aslice. See Shiver (2). Cf. also Icel. skifa, to arrange, appoint ;
which may have influenced the sense. Der. shift, sb., a change,
Timon, i. 1. 84; esp. a change of linen, and commonly restricted to
the sense of chemise ; shift-less ; shift-y.
SHILLELAGH, an oaken stick used as a cudgel. (Irish.) In
The Rejected Addresses (Living Lustres, st. 9). Named from Shille-
lagh, a barony in Wicklow famous for oaks, The Irish name Siol-
Elaigh means ‘the descendants of Elach.’=TIrish sio/, seed, descen-
dants; and Elach, proper name. See Joyce, Irish Local Names.
The Olrish sil, seed, is from 4/SE, to sow.
SHILLING, a silver coin worth 12 pence. (E.) ME. shilling,
shillyng ; P. Plowman, B. xii. 146, ΑΘ. scilling, scylling, Luke, xv. 9.
4+Du. schelling; Icel. skillingr; Dan. and Swed. skilling; Goth.
skilliggs (for skillings) ; G. schilling. B. The suffix -l-ing is a double
diminutive, the same as in AS. feord-ling (or feord-ing), a farthing.
The base is perhaps SKEL, to divide, as in Lith. skel-ti, to split, Icel.
skilja, to divide ; see Skill. y. The reason for the name is not
certain; Ihre suggests that the old coins were marked with a cross,
for the convenience of dividing them into four parts, as suggested by
the AS. name feordling, a fourth part or farthing. It is more likely
that the word merely meant ‘small piece,’ as AS. stycce, a mite
(Mark, xii. 42), merely means a ‘bit’ or ‘small piece.’ δ. The
derivation from SKEL is strongly supported by the occurrence of
Swed. skiljemynt, Dan. skillemynt, in the sense of ‘ small change’ or
‘small money;’ and by the occurrence of numerous other derivatives
from the same base. Cf. Gk. «ép-ya, small coin, from κείρειν, to
cut.
SHILLYSHALLY, to act irresolutely. (E.) Coined from the
phr. shill I, shall I, which is a reduplicated form of shall J, used
interrogatively. ‘I thought it would be foolish to stand shilli shalli
any longer;’ Macklin, Love ἃ la Mode, Act i; Sir Callaghan
SHIMMER
(reads a letter).
Wilfull).
SHIMMER, to glitter, shine faintly. (E.) ME. shimerer; whence
shimeryng, Chaucer, C. Τ 4295 (A 4297); spelt shemering in ‘Tyr-
whitt. AS. scimrian, to glitter (Toller). It is the frequentative
form of scimian, to shine, Luke, xvii. 24 (Lindisfarne MS.), and
Grein, ii. 408.— AS. sctma, a light, brightness, Grein, ii. 408. From
the base sci- of sci-nan, to shine; see Shine.+Dnu. schemeren, to
glimmer; Swed. skimra, to glitter; G. schimmern, to glimmer ; from
OHG., sciman, to shine, scimo, a bright light. And cf. Icel. skimi,
skima, a gleam of light, Goth. skeima, a torch or lantern; Irish
sgeimh, sgiamh, beauty, OIrish sctam.
SHIN, the large bone of the leg, front of the lower part of the
leg. (E.) ME. shine; dat. shinne, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 388; pl. shinnes,
id. 1281 (A 386, 1279). AS. scinu, Voc. 216. 3; ‘ Tibiae, scina, οὔδα
scin-bain’ (shin-bones] ; id. 160.19. Allied to AS. scia, shin, O. E.
Texts, p. 54; so that the Teut. base is *skei-.4+Du. scheen; Swed.
sken-ben, shin-bone; Dan. skinne-been, shin-bone; (ἃ. schiene; OHG.
scina, scena. B. Origin uncertain; but note the use of G. schiene, a
splint, an iron band, Dan. skinne, the same, Dan. hiulskinne, the tire
of a wheel. It is probable that shiz and skin are allied; the orig.
sense may have been ‘ thinslice ;’ from 4/SQEI, to cleave, split ; cf.
L. dé-sci-scere, to separate oneself from. ‘ The shin-bone [is] so called
from its sharp edge, like a splint of wood. The analogous bone
in a horse is called the splint-bone ;’ Wedgwood. See Skin.
SHINE, to gleam, beam, glow, be bright. (E.) ME. schinen,
shinen; pt. t. schone (better schoon), Wyclif, Matt. xvii. 2, pl. shinen
(with short ὃ), Gower, C. A. iii. 68; bk. vi. 1985; pp. shinen (rare).
AS. scinan, pt. t. scan, pp. scinen, to shine, Grein, 11. 408.4Du.
schijnen; Icel. skina; Dan. skinne; Swed. skina; Goth. skeinan; G.
scheinen. Teut. type *skeinan-. B. All from Teut. base SKEI, to
shine ; cf. Skt. chhaya-, faint light. Der. shine, sb., Timon, iii. 5.
101; shin-y, Antony, iv. 9. 3. Also sheer (1), shimmer.
SHINGLE (1), a wooden tile. (L.) Formerly a common word;
a shingle was a piece of wood, split thin, and cut into a square
shape; used like modern tiles and slates, esp. for the fronts of houses.
ME. shingle; spelt shyngil, K. Alisaunder, 2210; hence ‘shyngled
shippe,’ P. Plowman, b. ix. 141. ‘Scindula, shyngul;’ Voc. 610.
13. A corrupt pronunciation for shindle or shindel, as shown by the
corresponding (ὦ. schindel, a shingle, splint. [Both E. shingle and
G. schindel are non-Teutonic words.]—L. scindula (as if from scin-
dere, to cleave); but really a later spelling of scandula, a shingle,
wooden tile. Minsheu (1627) has the form shindle ; and see Holland,
tr. of Pliny, bk. xvi. c. 10: Of Shindles.
SHINGLE (2), coarse round gravel on the sea-shore. (E.) I
find no early use of the word. Phillips, ed. 1706, notes that shingles
is ‘the name of a shelf or sand-bank in the sea, about the Isle of
Wight ;’ which is a confused statement. But the older spelling was
chingle (with ch). G. Douglas has ‘a dry chyngill or bed of sand,’
tr. of Virgil, Ain. bk. x. ch. 6.34. Cf. prov. E. chingle, shingle;
Lowl. Sc. chingle, sometimes pronounced channel. Prob. from the
vb. to chink, from the sound made when one walks on it. Ββ. Per-
haps influenced (as to sound) by the synonymous Norw, sing! or
singling, coarse gravel, small round stones (Aasen) ; named from the
crunching noise made in walking along it. Cf. Norw. sing/a, to
make a ringing sound, like that of falling glass or a piece of money
(Aasen) ; Swed. dial. singla, to ring, rattle; stngel-skalla, a bell on a
horse’s neck, singel, the clapper of a bell (Rietz). The verb sixgla
is merely the frequentative of Swed. dial. singa, Swed. sjunga, Icel.
syngja, to sing; see Sing.
SHINGLES, an eruptive disease. (F.—L.) ‘ Shingles, how to be
cured ;’ Index to vol. ii of Holland’s tr. of Pliny, with numerous
references. It is a peculiarity of the disease that the eruption often
encircles the body like a belt, for which reason it was sometimes
called. in Latin zona, i.e. a zone, belt. A form of sengles, pl. of the
old word sengle, a girth. —ONorth F. chengle, chingle ; OF. cengle, ‘a
girth ;’ also spelt sangle, ‘a girth, a sengle;’ Cot. See cengle in
Godefroy. Mod. F. sangle.—L. cingula, a belt, girdle. —L. cingere,
to surround; see Cincture. Cf. the old word surcingle, a long
upper girth (Halliwell).
SHIP, a vessel, barge, large boat. (E.) ME. schip, ship; pl.
shiptes, Chaucer, C. T. 2019 (A 2017). AS. scip, scyp, pl. scipu;
Grein, ii. 409.4 Du. schip; Icel. skip; Dan. skib ; Swed. skepp ; Goth.
skip; G. schiff; OHG. scif. B. All from Teut. type *ski~om, n.
Root unknown. Der. ship, verb, Rich, II, ii. 2. 42 ; shipp-er; ship-
board, ship-broker, -chandler, -man, -master, -mate, -ment (with ἘΝ
suffix -ment).; ship-money, -wreck, -wright, -yard; shipp-ing, And
see equip. Doublet, skiff; (of shipper), skipp-er, q.v-
SHIRE, a county, division of land. (E.) ME. schire, shire;
Chaucer, C. T. 586 (A 584). AS. τοῖν, A. 5: Chron. an. 1010;
older sense, office, charge, administration; see Bosw. and Toller,
And in Congreve, Way of the World, iii. 3 (Sir
SHOAL 557
A. S. Dict. ‘Procuratio, sciir ;? Voc. 40. 32 (8th century). Allied
to OHG. scira, business; see Schade. Root unknown. The vowel-
sound shows that it is in no way allied to Shear or Share, as
has been repeatedly alleged. Note that the oldest sense is ‘ busi-
ness.” Cf. AS. scirtan, to distribute, assign, appoint, allot; G.
schirrmeister, a steward; anschirren, to harness a horse. See Notes
on E. Etym., p. 270. Der. sher-iff, for shire-reeve, see sheriff; also
shire-mote, for which see meet.
SHIRK, to avoid, get off, slink from. (F.—L.) Formerly spelt
sherk, which appears to be merely the same word as shark, to cheat,
swindle ; see Nares. Abp. Laud was accused of fraud in contracting
for licences to sell tobacco; and it was said of him, ‘ that he might
have spent his time much better... than thus sherking and raking in
the tobacco-shops ;’ State-Trials, 1640, Harbottle Grimstone (R.).
See Shark. So also clerk as compared with Clark, a proper name ;
ME. derk= mod. E. dark; ME. berken, to bark, &c.; also mod. E.
shirt from ME. sherte. Shirk =sherk, shark; Ἐς Ὁ. Ὁ.
SHIRT, a man’s garment, worn next the body. (E.) ME. schirte,
shirte, also sherte, shurte. Spelt shirte, Havelok, 768 ; sherte, Chaucer,
C. T. 1566; shurte, O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, ii. 139, 1. 16.
AS. scyrte (Toller). AS. scort, short.4Icel. skyrta, a shirt, kirtle;
Swed. skjorta; Dan. skjorte; G. schurz, schiirze, an apron; cf.
schiirzen, to tuck up. β. So called from its being orig. a short gar-
ment; see Short. Der. shirt-ing, stuff for making shirts. Doublet,
skirt.
SHITTAH-TREE, SHITTIM-WOOD. (Heb. — Egyptian.)
Shittim is a plural form, referring to the clusters of groups of the
trees ; we find shtttim-wood in Exod. xxv. 10, &c. The sing. shittah-
tree only occurs once, Isaiah, xli. 19.—Heb. shit:ah, pl. shittim, a
kind of acacia. [The medial letter is teth, not sav.) For *shintah ;
ef. Arab, sant, a thorn, acacia; Rich. Dict., p. 853. Of Egypt.
origin. — Egypt. shonte, shonti: Gesenius, ed. 8, p. 830.
SHIVE, a slice; SHEAVE, a pulley; see Shiver (2).
SHIVER (1), to tremble, shudder, quiver. (E.) Spelt sheuer
(=shever) in Baret (1580). This word seems to have been assimi-
lated to the word below by confusion. It is remarkable that the
ME. forms are distinct, viz. (1) cheueren or chiueren (chiveren), to
tremble, and (2) shezxeren or shiueren, to splinter. Whereas the
latter word truly begins with sh, the present word is alliterated with
words beginning with ch, and is spelt with ch, appearing as chiueren,
cheueren, and chiuelen. ‘ Lolled his chekes; Wel sydder than his
chyn, pei chiveled for elde’=his cheeks lolled about, (hanging down)
even lower than his chin; and they shivered through old age; P.
Plowman, B. v. 193 (where other MSS. have chyueleden, cheuerid).
‘Achilles at tho choise men cheuert for anger’ = Achilles shivered
(shook) with anger at those choice men; Destruction of Troy, 9370.
“And 1 haue cheueride for chele’=and I have shivered with cold ;
Morte Arthure, 3391. ‘The temple-walles gan chivere and schake ; ’
Legends of the Holy Rood, p. 144, 1. 2386. ‘ Chyueren in yse’=to
shiver in ice; O. Eng. Miscellany, p. 177, 1.142. ‘Heo quakeden
and chyxereden faste,’ they quaked and shivered fast; South E.
Legendary, p. 210,1.1. β. The persistence of the initial ch is re-
markable; and takes us back to an earlier form *keveren, *kiveren,
to shake continually, the suffix -er being frequentative. From an
AS. base *cef- or *cif- (Teut. *ked or *kid), of which we have no
clear trace; perhaps cf. Du. kevelen, to move the jaw continually.
Prob. an imitative word, like guiver. Perhaps cf. also Norw. and
Swed. dial. kippa, to snatch, twitch with the limbs, quiver convulsively
(Aasen, Rietz). The resemblance to MDu. schoeveren,‘ to shiver,
or to shake’ (Hexham), appears to be accidental.
SHIVER (2), a splinter, small piece, esp. of wood. (E.) The
verb fo shiver means to break into shivers or small pieces; the sb.
being the older word. A shiver is a small piece, or small slice ; gen.
now applied to wood, but formerly also to bread. ME. shiuer (with
u=v); ‘And of your softe breed [bread] nat but a shivere ; , Chaucer,
C. T. 7422 (Ὁ 1840). The pl. scifren, shivers, pieces of wood, is in
Layamon, 45373 spelt sciuren (=scivren), id. 27785. B. Shiver is
the dimin. of shive, a slice; ‘ Easy it is of a cut loaf to steal a shive,
Titus Andron. ii. 1.87. Spelt ‘a sheeve of bread ;” Warner's Albion’s
England (R.). ‘A shive, or shiver, Segmen, segmentum ;’ Baret
(1580). This shive is the same as the technical E. word sheave, a
pulley, orig. a slice of a tree, disc of wood. Notin AS. Cf, EFries.
schife, schive, schif, NFries. skiv, skeev.4Icel. skifa, a slice; cf.
skifa, to cut into slices; Du. schiif, Dan. skive, Swed. skifva, G.
scheibe, aslice. y. Teut. base *skeib; Idg. root *skeip; whence Gk.
σκοῖπ-ος, a potter's disc (Hesychius). The G. schiefer, a slate, a
splinter, is a related word, from the same base; and note OHG.
scivero, a shiver. Der. shiver, verb, ME. schiueren, shiueren, Chaucer,
C. T. 2607 (2605) ; shiver-y, easily falling into fragments. And see
Shift.
SHOAL (1), a multitude of fishes, a troop, crowd. (E.) Gen.
558 SHOAL
applied to fishes, but also to people. ‘A shole of shepeheardes ;’
Spenser, Shep. Kalendar, May, l. 20. The same word as AS. scolu,
or sceolu, a troop, throng, crowd. [Distinct from AS, scéZ, school ;
see School.] B. A Germanic word; cf. OSax. skola,a troop. Cf.
ἐᾷ scoll of fysh;’ Book of St. Alban’s, f 7, col. 1. So also Du.
school, a shoal; and the sailors’ phrase ‘a school of fishes,’ given by
llalliwell as a Lincolnshire word. So also Irish sgol, ‘a scull or
great quantity of fish.’ See Scull (3). Teut. type *skula, f., prob.
“a division ;’ from *skzl-, weak grade of *skel-an-, to divide. Der.
shoal, verb, Chapman, tr. of Homer's Iliad, b. xxi. 1. 191.
SHOAL (2), shallow; a sandbank, (E.) Properly an adj. mean-
ing ‘shallow ;’ and, indeed, it is from the same base as shallow.
Spelt shole, adj., Spenser, On Mutability, c. vi. st. 40. Spelt schold
(an older form), in the Prompt. Parv., which has: ‘ Schold, or
schalowe, no3te depe.’ The orig. final d is also found in Lowland
Sc. schald, shallow, also spelt schawd. ‘Quhar of the dik the
schawdest was’ = where was the shallowest part of the dike, Barbour’s
Bruce, ix. 354; where the Edinb. MS. has shaldest. Another Sc.
form is shaul; as ‘shaul water maks mickle din,’ Sc. proverb, in
Jamieson. The forms skaul, shoal result from the loss of the final d.
AS. sceald, shallow; found in place-names. ‘On scealdan ford,’ to
the shallow ford; Birch, Cart. Sax. ii. 485 ; whence Shalford, Surrey.
See Shallow. Cf. Pomeran. scholl, shallow water. Hence the use
of shoal as a sb., meaning (1) a shallow place; (2) a sandbank, from
its sloping. It has the former sense in Hen. VIII, iii. 2. 4373; the
latter in Macb.i. 7.6. Cf. shcld, a sandbank; Hakluyt, Voy. iii.
547- Der. shoal, verb, to grow shallow; shoal-y, adj., Dryden, tr.
of Virgil, Ain. v. 1130; shoal-i-ness,
SHOAR, a prop; the same as Shore (2).
SHOCK (1), a violent shake, concussion, onset, offence. (E.) We
find only ME. schokken, verb, to shock, jog, move or throw with
violence, Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 1759, 3816, 3852, 4114, 4235.
Not found in ΑΒ. ; but the form is English. Cf. EFries. schokken,
to shock, jolt. Also Du. schok, a shock, jolt; schokken, to jolt,
agitate, shake; Icel. skykkr, a jolt, only used in dat. pl. skykkjum,
tremulously ; Low (ἃ. schokken, schukken ; OHG, scoc, sb. (whence F.
choc, sb., choguer, vb.) ; Low G. schocken, to swing (Liibben), whence
G. schaukel, a swing. See Du. schok in Franck. Der. shock, sb.,
shock-ing. Doublet, shog, q.v.
SHOCK (2), a pile of sheaves of corn. (E.) ‘A shocke of
core in the field;’ Baret (1580). ME. schokke, Prompt. Parv. ;
pl. schockes, Nominale, ed. Skeat, 1.314. Not found in AS. How-
ever, itis found in MDu. sckocke, ‘a shock, a cock, or a heape,’
Hexham; whence schocken, ‘to shock, to cock, or heape up.’ So
also Swed. skock, a crowd, heap, herd. The orig. sense must have
been a heap violently pushed or tossed together, from MDu. schocken,
Du. schokken, to jolt, move, agitate; and the word is doubtless allied
to Shock (1). Similarly skeaf is formed from the verb shove.
B. A shock (cf. Dan. dial. shok, NFries. skock, a set of 6 sheaves)
generally means 12 sheaves; but G. schock, Dan. skok, Swed. skock
mean threescore or 60,
SHOCK (3), a rough, shaggy-coated dog. (E.) A not uncommon
name foradog. Spelt shovgh in Macb. iii. 1.94. ‘ My little shock ;’
Nabbes’ Bride, 1640, sig. H (Halliwell). Shock-headed is rough-
headed, with shaggy or rough hair. Perhaps from shock, a heap,
pile (above).
SHODDY, a material obtained by tearing into fibres refuse
woollen goods. (E.) Prob. so called from being, at first, the waste
stuff shed or thrown off in spinning wool (Chambers). Cf. Devon
shod, shed, spilt; ME. schode, division of the hair, Chaucer, C. T.
2009 (A 2007); Lowland Se. shoad, a portion of land. See Shed.
q Another similar material is called mungo; perhaps ‘ mixture,’ from
AS. ge-mang, a crowd, lit. a mixture; allied to mingle.
SHOB, a covering for the foot. (E.) ME. scho, shoo, Chaucer,
C. T. 255 (A 253); pl. shoon, schon, shon, Will. of Palerne, 14,
Havelok, 860; also sceos, O. Eng. Homilies, i. 37, 1. 4 from bottom.
AS. sced, pl. sceds, AElfric’s Gloss., in Wright’s Vocab. i. 26, col. 1.
We also find pl. gescy, Matt. iii. 11; and gescygian, verb, to shoe,
Diplomatarium, p. 616.4-Du. schoen; Icel. skor, pl. skiar, skor ;
Swed. and Dan. sko; Goth. skdks; G, schuhk, OHG. scah, scuoch.
The Teut. type is *skdhoz, m. Der. shoe, verb, K. Lear, iv. 6. 188 ;
shod (for shoe-d) ; shoe-black, -horn.
SHOG, to shake, jog, move off or away. (E.)
off?” Hen. V, ii.1.47. ‘1 shogge, as a carte dothe,’ i.e. jolt; Pals-
grave. ‘The boot . . was schoggid with wawis ;’ Wyclif, Matt. xiv.
24. Avariant of ME. schokken, to shock, jolt. See Shock (1).
SHOOT, to dart, let fly, thrust forward. (E.) Palsgrave has
shote; but ME. has the by-form shéten, schéten ; spelt shete, Chaucer,
C. T. 3936 (A 3938). Just as ME. chesen, to choose, is from AS.
ceosan, whilst E. choose represents cedsan (with ed for é0), so here.
Lhe mod. E. shoot is from AS. scedtan, but ME. scheten is from AS.
‘Will you shog
SHOVE
scéotan, to shoot, dart, rush ; pt. t. sc@at, pp. scofew. (The pp. scoten is
preserved in shotten herring, a herring that has spent its roe, 1 Hen. IV,
li. 4. 143.)4+Du. schietex, pt. t. schoot, pp. geschoten; Icel. skjota,
pt. t. skaut, pp. skotinn; Dan. skyde; Swed. skjuta; G. schiessen. All
from a Teut. type *skeutan-, pt. τ. *skaut, pp. *skutanoz. Brugmann,
i. § 623. Der. shoot, sb., ME. schote, Morte Arthure, 3627 ; offshoot,
q- Vv. ; shoot-er, L. L. L. iv. 1. 1163; shoot-ing ; and see shot, shut,
shuit-le, sheet, scot, scud, skitt-ish, skitt-les.
SHOP, a stall, a place where goods are sold. (E.) ME.
schoppe, shoppe, Chaucer, C. T. 4420 (A 4422). AS, sceoppa, a stall
or booth; but used to translate L. gazophilacixm, a treasury, Luke,
xxi. I. Allied to AS. scypen, a shed for cattle; ‘ne seypene his
néatum ne timbrep’=nor builds sheds for his cattle, Alfred, tr. of
Beda, b, i. c. 1.44Low G. schup, a shed; Brem. Worterb.; G.
schuppen, a shed, cart-house; OHG. scopf, whence OF. eschoppe,
eschope, ‘a little low shop, Cot. Der. shop, verb; shop-li/t-ing, stealing
from shops, for which see Lift (2); shop-walker.
SHORE (1), the boundary of land adjoining the sea or a lake,
a strand. (E.) ME, schore, Allit. Poems, A. 230; Gawain and the
Grene Knight, 2161. Notin AS. The orig. sense is ‘edge,’ or part
shorn off; from scor-ex, pp. of sceran, to shear, Cf. scoren clif
(= shorn cliff), a precipice, 4lfred, tr. of Gregory’s Past. Care, c. 33,
1. 43 mod. E. Shorncliff (Kent). See Shear, Score. Der. shore,
verb, to set on shore, Wint. Tale, iv. 4. 869.
SHORE (2), SHOAR, a prop, support. (E.) ME. schore.
‘ Schore, under-settynge of a thynge pat wolde falle, Suppositorium ; ’
Prompt. Parv. ‘ Hit hadde skories to shoue hit vp’=it (a tree) had
props to keep it up; P. Plowman, C. xix. 20. Shorier is a sb.
formed from schorien, verb, to under-prop, which (by its form) is a
denominative verb from the sb, schore. Not found in AS.; but an
Ἐς word. Cf, EFries. schdr, schore, a prop. Cf, AS. scorian, to pro-
ject, jut out.4+Du. schoor, a prop; MDu. sckooren, to underprop.
Cf. also Icel. skorda, a stay, prop, esp. under a ship or boat when
ashore; whence skorda, verb, to under-prop, shore up ; Norw. skorda,
skora, a prop (Aasen). Der. shore, verb.
SHORE (3), a corruption of Sewer, q. v.
SHORT, curt, scanty, not long, cut down, insufficient. (L.) ME.
schort, short, Chaucer, C. T. 748 (A 746). AS. sceort, short, Grein,
ii. 407. Cf. Icel. skorta, to be short of, to lack, skortr, shortness,
want; OHG. scurz, short. Teut. type *skurtoz; which looks like a
derivative (with suffix -foz) from the weak grade of Teut. base *sker-,
to shear; see Shear. Cf. also Icel. skardr, diminished, cut down,
@ But as the G. kurz, short, is from L, curt-us, short, it is usual to
explain E. short as if from a Late L. type *ex-curtus ; from the same
Idg. oSQER. Der. short-ly, adv., ME. shortly, Chaucer, C. T.
717 (A 715), from AS. sceortlice; short-ness; short-coming, -hand,
-sight-ed, -wind-ed, Also short-en, verb, cf. ME. shorten, Chaucer,
C. T. 793 (A 791), AS. sceortian (Bosworth); where, however,
the mod. final -ex does not really represent the ME. suffix -en,
but is added by analogy with ME. verbs in -xen, such as waknen, to
waken; this suffix -ez was at first the mark of an éntransitive verb,
but was afterwards made to take an active force.
SHOT, a missile, aim, act of shooting. (E.) ME. schot, shot,
a missile, Chaucer, C. T. 2546 (A 2544). AS. ge-sceot; ‘nim pin
gesceot’ = take thy implements for shooting; Gen. xxvii. 3. Cf. AS.
scot-, stem of pp. of scéotan, to shoot; see Shoot.4+OFries. skot, a
shot ; Icel. skot, a shot, a shooting; Du. sckot, a shot, shoot; ἃ.
schoss, schuss,a shot. All from Teut. *skwé-, weak grade of *skeutan-,
to shoot. A doublet of scot, a contribution; see Scot-free. Der.
shot, verb, to load with shot; shoét-ed.
SHOULDER, the arm-joint, joint in which the arm plays. (E.)
ME, shulder, shuldre, Havelok, 604. AS. sculder, sculdor, Gen. ix.
23.+Du. schouder; Swed. skuldra; Dan. skulder; (ἃ. schulter.
Perhaps allied to OHG., skerti, the shoulder. Root unknown. Der.
shoulder, verb, Rich. III, iii. 7. 128 ; shoulder-blade, -belt, -knot.
SHOUT, a loud outcry. (E.) Spelt shoute, showte in Palsgrave.
ME. shoutex, Chaucer, Troil. ii. 614. The AS. form *sciitian does
not occur. Perhaps we may compare it with Icel. skita, skati, a
taunt. (The Icel. skata, vb., means to jut out.) See Seout (2).
Der. shout, sb. shout-er.
SHOVE, to push, thrust, drive along. (E.) ME. shouen, schouen ;
“to shove hit vp’=to propitup; P. Plowman, Ὁ. xix. 20. The usual
strong form is schouuen, shownen (with latter u=v), Chaucer, C. T.
3910 (A 3912), pt. t. sof (printed shove in some editions), id. Parl.
of Foules, 154; pp. shouen (shoven), shoue, id. C. T. 11593 (F 1281).
AS. sciifan, pt. t. scéaf, pl. seufon, pp. scofen, Grein, ii. 412.44Du.
schuiven; Icel. skifa, skyfa; Dan. skuffe; Swed. skuffa; (ἃ. schieben,
pt. t. schob, pp. geschoben ; OHG, sciupan ; Goth. skiuban. Teut. type
*skeuban-, or *skuban, pt. t. *skauh, pp. *skubanoz. Allied to Lith.
| skubis, quick, hasty, industrious; Skt. kshubh, to become agitated ;
the causal form signihes to agitate, shake, impel; hence sshobha-,
SHOVEL
agitation. ‘Fhus the primary sense was ‘to shake’ or ἡ push.’ Der.
shove, sb.; shove-groat, agame in which a groat (piece of money) was
shoved or pushed about ona board ; also skov-el, q.v.; sheaf, q.v.
SHOVEL, an instrument with a broad blade and a handle, for
shoving and lifting; a sort of spade. (5.) ME. schouel (with u=
v). ‘With spades and with schoweles;’ P. Plowman, B. vi. 192.
AS. scoff; ‘Trulla, scofl,’ Wright’s Voc. i. 289. Cf. AS. scof-, base
of pp. of sciifan, to shove ; with suffix -l.--Du. schoffel ; Westphal.
schufel; cf. G. schaufel. See Shove. Der. shovel, verb, Wint. Tale,
iv. 4, 469. Also shovel-er, a kind of duck, Holland, tr. of Pliny,
b. x. c. 40; shouelar, Skelton, i. 63; named from its broad beak.
SHOW, SHEW, to exhibit, present to view, teach, guide, prove,
explain. (E.) Skew is the older spelling ; sometimes sew is used to
denote the verb, and show for the sb., but without any difference of
pronunciation in mod. English. ME. schewen, shewen; Chaucer,
C. T. 9380. (E 1506) ; P. Plowman, B.i. 2. AS. scéawian, to look, see,
behold; the later sense is to make to look, point out. ‘Scéawiad pa
lilian’= behold the lilies; Luke, xii. 27.- 1). schouwen, to inspect,
view; Dan. skue, to behold; G. schauen, to behold, see. Cf. Goth.
us-skaws, cautious, wakeful. Teut. base *skaw-; Idg. base *sqou;
cf. Gk. @vo-cxdos, an inspector of an offering; L. cau-ére, to take
heed, cau-tus, watchful; Gk. κοέω, I observe; Skt. hav-i-, wise.
From the same root we have cau-iious. Brugmann, i. §§ 163, 650.
Der. show, sb., ME. schewe, Prompt. Parv.; show-bill; shew-bread,
Exod. xxv. 30; show-y, Spectator, no. 434; show-i-ly; show-i-ness ;
Shee-n ; scav-enger. :
SHOWER, a fall of rain. (E.) Orig. a monosyllable, like
flower. ME. shour, schour, Chaucer, C. T. τ. AS. scir, Grein, il.
414.4-Du. schoer ; Icel. skir; Swed. skur; Goth. skiira, a storm;
skiira windis, a storm of wind, Mark, iv. 37; G.schauer ; OHG. scar.
Teut. type *ski-roz, m. Perhaps allied to Lith. szaw-ti, to shoot.
Brugmann, i. § 627 (1). Cf. Lith. szaurys, north wind. Der. shower,
verb, Hen. VIII, i. 4. 63; shower-y.
SHRAPNEL, a bursting shell charged with bullets. (E.)
Named. after the inventor, Gen. Shrapnel, who died in 1842. See
Dict. Eng. Biog. The date of the invention is about 1803; it was
used in 1804.
SHRED, a strip, ‘fragment, piece torn or cut off. (E.) The
vowel was once long, as in the variant screed (Halliwell). ME.
shréde, Havelok, 99. AS. scréade, a piece, strip. ‘ Sceda, scréade;’
also ‘Presegmina, praecisiones, scréadan’ (plural); Voc. 164. 6;
151. 20; whence AS. scréadian, to shred.-MDu. schroode (Kilian) ;
whence schrooder, ‘a lopper or pruner of trees,’ Hexham ; G. schro’,
a piece, shred, block; whence sckrofex, to grind, cut, saw. β. All
from a Teut. base *skraud, 2nd grade of *skreud-; for which see
Shroud. Allied to L. scrita, broken pieces; see Scrutiny.
Der. shred, verb, ME. shredden, Chaucer, C. I. 8013 (Ε 227), AS.
scréadian; also scroll, q:v. Doublet, screed.
SHREW, a scold, scolding woman. (E.) ME. shrewe, schrewe,
adj., wicked, bad; applied to both sexes. The Wife of Bath said
her fifth husband was ‘the moste skrewe,’ the most churlish of all;
Chaucer, C. T. 6087 (D 505). Cf. P. Plowman, B. x. 437; Prompt.
Parv. Spelt skrewe, Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 154,14. AS.
scréawa, a shrew-mouse; ‘Mus araneus, scréawa;’ Voc. 122. 20,
Somner explains scréawa as ‘ a shrew-mouse, which, by biting cattle,
so envenoms them that they die,’ which is, of course, a fable. But
the fable is very old; the L. name araneus means ‘ poisonous as
a spider;’ and Aristotle says the bite of the shrew-mouse is dan-
gérous to horses, and causes boils; Hist. Anim. viii. 24. ‘In Italy
the hardy shrews are venomous in their biting;’ Holland, tr. of
Pliny, b. viii.c. 58. β. The ME. schrewen, to curse, whence E. be-
shrew, is merely a derivative from the sb., with reference to the
language used by a shrew. ; @[ Wedgwood refers to a curious
passage in Higden’s Polychronicon, i. 334. The L. text has mures
nocentissimos, which Trevisa translates by wel schrewed mys =very
harmful mice. Der. shrew-d, be-shrew; also shrew-ish, Com. Errors,
lii. 1. 2; shrew-ish-ly, -néss ; also screw (2). ;
SHREWD, malicious, wicked; cunning, acute. (E.) The older
sense is malicious, mischievous, scolding or shrew-like, as in Mids.
Nt. Dr. iii. 2. 323, &c. ME. schrewed, shrewed, accursed, depraved,
wicked ; ‘ schrewede foik’=wicked people, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius,
bk. i. pr. 4. 1.136; cf. schrewednesse, wickedness, id. 1. 139.
Schrewed is lit. ‘accursed,’ pp. of schrewen, to curse, beshrew;
Chaucer, C. T. 15432 (B 4616); and the verb is formed from the
ME. adj. schrewe, evil, malicious; see Shrew. Der. shrewd-ly,
“NESS, a :
. SHREW-MOUSE, ananimal like a mouse; see Shrew.
SHRIEK, to screech, cry aloud, seream. (E.) A doublet of
screech. Spenser has shriek, F. Q. vi. 4.8; but also serike, vi. 4. 18.
Baret (1580) hasscriek. ME. skriken, Chaucer, C. T. 15406 (B 4590) ;
where other spellings are schrichen, schriken; also shryke, Polit.
SHROVE-TIDE, SHROVE-TUESDAY 559
Songs, p. 158. An E. form. See Sereech. Der. shriek, sb.;
Macb. iv. 3. 108. Also shrike, q. v. Doublet, screech. :
SHRIEVALTY, sheriffalty ; see Sheriff.
SHRIFT, SHRIVE:; sce Shrove-tide.
SHRIKE, the butcher-bird. (E.) Named from its shrill ery. A
native form; AS. scric, Voc. 52.13. Cf. Westphal. schrik, a shrike;
Icel. skrikja,a shrieker, also, the shrike or butcher-bird, from skrikja,
to titter, but properly to shriek, and allied to Icel. skrekja, to screech.
See Shriek, Screech.
SHRILL, acute in sound, piercing, loud. (E.) ΜΕ. shril, schril;
pl. shrille, Chaucer, C. T. 15401 (B 4585); also shirle, in Levins and
Palsgrave. The Southern form of Lowland Sc. skirl, a shrill cry;
skirl, to cry shrilly. Cf. AS. scralletan, to make a loud outcry (Grein).
Also Low G. schrell, shrill, Bremen Worterbuch ; prov. G. schrill,
shrill, sckrillen, to sound shrill (Fliigel). B. Tae form skirl is
Scand. ; cf. Norw. skryla, skrela, to cry shrilly. y. From Teut,
root *skrel, to cry loudly; AS. scrall-etan is from the second grade
*skral. δ. We also find a Teut. str. vb. *skel/-an-, to resound
(OHG., scellan), pt. t. *skall; whence not only G, sckallen, to resound,
schall, an echo, but also ME, schil, skil, shrill. We find the adv.
shulle, shrilly (with various readings schille, schrille), in P. Plowman,
C, vii. 46. The base SKEL is also represented by the Icel. strong
verb skjalla, skeila, pt. τ. skall, pp. skolinn. Cf. Lithuan, skaliti, to
bark, give tongue, said of a hound. Der. shrill-y, shrill-ness.
SHRIMP, a small shell-fish. (E.) ME. shrintp, Chaucer, C. T.
13961 (B 3145). Cf. Lowland Sc. scrimp, to straiten, pinch;
scrimp, scanty; ‘scrimpit stature’=dwarfish stature, Burns, To Jas.
Smith, 1.14. Itis an E. word; but, instead of *scrimpan, we find
AS. scrimman, used as equivalent to scrincan, to shrink, A. S.
Leechdoms, ii. 6, 1. 15. Shrimp is just a parallel form to shrink.
B. Rietz makes no doubt that there was an OSwed. skrimpa, to
contract, a strong verb, as well as a shorter form skrina. ‘Traces
of OSwed. skrimfa occur in Swed. skrumpen, Dan. skrumpen,
shrivelled. Dan. dial. skrimpe, a lean cow; Norw. skrampen,
lean, skrampa, skrumpa, an old lean animal (Ross). See Shrink,
γ. Even in English we have clear traces of the same strong verb,
since (besides shrimp) we find prov. E. shrammed, benumbed with
cold, prov. E. skrxmp, to shrug, shrink, and serump, to shrivel,
So also G. schrumpel, a wrinkle, schrumpfen, to shrink; MHG.
schrimpfen, to shrink; Westphal. schremfex, toshrivel. Cf. Westphal.
krimpe, a shrimp.
SHRINE, a place in which sacred things are deposited, an altar.
(L.) ME. schrin; dat. schryne, K. Alisaunder, 4670. AS. scrin,
the ark (of the covenant), Jos. iii. 8, iv. 7.—L. scrinium, a chest,
box, case. Der. en-shrine.
SHRINK, to wither, contract; to recoil. (E.) ME. shrinken,
to contract, draw together; pt. t. shronk, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius,
b. i. pr. I, 1.9; pp. shrunken, Gower, C. A. i. 98; bk. 1. 1683. AS.
scrincan, pt. t. scranc, pp. scruncen, to contract, shrivel up; chiefly in
comp. for-scrincan, pt. t. forscranc, Mark, iv. 6.4+MDnu. schrinken,
‘to grow lesser or to shrinke,’ Hexham. And cf. Swed. skrynka, a
wrinkle ; skrynkla, to wrinkle, to rumple ; Norw. skrékka, to shrink.
Teut. type *skrinkan-, pt. t. *skrank, pp. *skrunkanoz, to shrivel,
wrinkle, draw together; parallel to the base appearing in Shrimp,
4: ν. ; and see Secraggy. Further allied to Shrug.
SHRIVE, to confess; see Shrove-tide.
SHRIVEL, to wrinkle, crumple up. (E.) Shak. has shrivel up,
Per. ii. 4.9. It does not seem to appear in Middle English. It is
a frequentative form, with the usual suffix -el, from an AS. base
*scruf- ; as shown by the cognate Swed. dial. skryvla, to shrivel up,
to wrinkle; and skryvla, a wrinkle. Allied to Swed. skrof, Swed.
dial. and Norw. skrov, a carcase; prov. E. scriff, scruff, to shrink
together. Possibly allied to Shrub (1). Cf. scrubby.
SHROUD, a garment, the dress of the dead. (E.) The word
had formerly the general sense of garment, clothing, or covering.
ME. shroud, schroud, P. Plowman, B. prol. 2; skrud, Havelok, 303.
AS. scriid, a- garment, clothing, Grein, ii. 412.4+Icel. skrud, the
shrouds of a ship, furniture of a church; Norweg. skrud, dress,
ornament ; Dan. and Swed. skrud, dress, attire. B. Closely allied
to shred; and the orig. sense was a shred or piece of cloth or stuff,
a sense nearly retained in that of winding-sheet. Chapman has
shroud in the very sense of shred or scrap of stuff, tr. of Homer’s
Odyssey, b. vi. l. 274. Moreover, a shred is a piece roughly cut off ;
cf. G. schrot, a cut, a piece, schrolen, to cut. The Teut. base is
*skreud, to cut; the 2nd grade *skraud appears in Shred. Der.
shroud, verb, AS. serydan, Matt. vi. 30; en-shroud. Also shrouds,
s. pl., K. Jobn, v. 7. 53, part of the rigging of a vessel.
SHROVE-TIDE, SHROVE-TUESDAY, a time or day
(Tuesday) on which shrift or confession was formerly made. (L. and
E.) Shrove-tide is the tide or season for shrift; Shrove- Tuesday is the
day preceding Ash Wednesday or the first day of Lent. Shrove is
560 SHRUB
here used as a sb., conformed to shrove, the pt. t. of the verb fo
shrive; except in the two above compounds, the sb. invariably takes |
the form shrift. B. The verb éo shrive (pt. t. shrove, pp. shriven) is
ME. schriven, shriven, of which we find the pt. t. shrof, shroof in
P. Plowman, B. iii. 44 (footnote), and the pp. skrizen in Chaucer,
C. T. 7677 (Ὁ 2095). AS. scrifan, to shrive, to impose a penance
or compensation, to judge; pt. t. scraf, pp. scrifen; Grein, ii. 411.
Teut. type *shreiban-, pt. τ. *skraib, pp. *skribanoz. y. But although
it thus appears as a strong verb, it does not appear to be a true
Teut. word. It was rather borrowed (at a very early period) from
L. scribere, to write, to draw up a law (hence, prescribe) ; whence
also G. schreiben (also conjugated as a strong verb), to write. See
Scribe. B. The sb. shrift is ME. shrift (dat. shrifie), P. Plowman,
C. xvii. 30; AS. scrift, confession, Laws of A#thelred, pt. v. § 22,
pt. vi. § 27, in Thorpe, Anc. Laws, i. 310, 322 ; and just as the AS.
verb scrifan is due to L. scribere, so AS. scrift may be due to the
L. pp. scriptus. The Icel. skript or skrift, Swed. skrift, Dan. skrifte,
shrift, are all borrowed from AS.
SHRUB (1), a low dwarf tree. (E.) ME. shrob, schrub, P. Plow-
man, C.i. 2. AS. scrybb, a shrub; see Bosworth-Toller, and Mr.
Stevenson’s remarks in Phil. Soc. Trans. 1895-8, p. 536. (Cf. E.
shut, from AS. scy/tan.) We also have the place-name Wormwood-
scrubbs, near London.+Norweg. skrubba, the dwarf cornel (Aasen).
Dan. dial. skrub, brushwood ; MDan. skrubbe, a thicket (Kalkar).
B. Cf. also prov. E. shruff, light rubbish wood, scroff, refuse of wood.
Possibly related to Shrivel. Der. shrubb-y; shrubb-er-y, a coined
word, by the analogy of vin-er-y, pin-er-y, and the like. Also scrub,
.ν.
‘SHRUB (2), a drink made of lemon-juice, spirit, sugar, and water.
(Arab.) Chiefly made with rum, In Johnson’s Dict. = Arab. shirb,
shurb, a drink, a beverage.— Arab. root shariba, he drank; Rich.
Dict. p. 887. Doublet, syrup. And see sherbet.
SHRUG, to draw up, contract. (Scand.) In Temp. i. 2. 367;
Cor. i. 9. 4. Generally used of drawing up the shoulders, but the
true sense is to shrink. ‘The touch of the cold water made a pretty
kinde of shrugging come over her body ;’ Sidney’s Arcadia, b. ii. ed.
1638, p.138. ‘ Shruggyn, Frigulo;’ Prompt. Parv. An adaptation
(with sk for sk) from the Scand., as shown by ggy<kk<nk, Cf.
Dan. skrugge, skrukke, to stoop; skruk-rygget, humpbacked ; Swed.
dial. skrukka, skruga, to huddle oneself up, to sit in a crouching
position, allied to skrinka, to shrink (Rietz); see Shrink. Cf.
Icel. skrukka, an old shrimp; Norw. skrukken, shrunken.
SHUDDER, to tremble with fear or horror. (OQLowG.) ‘Alas!
they make me shoder ;’ Skelton, Colin Clout, 68. ME. shoderen,
schuderen ; pt. t. schoderide, Morte Arthure, 2106; pres. part. schud-
rinde, Seint Margaret, ed. Cockayne, p. 15, 1. 12. Not found in
AS. It is a frequentative verb, formed with the usual suffix -er from
the Teut. base *skud-, to shake, appearing in OSaxon skuddian.
‘ Skuddiat it fan iuwun skohun’ = shake it {the dust] from your shoes ;
Heliand, 1948. MDnu. schudden, ‘to shake or to tremble,’ Hexham;
he also gives ‘ schudden een boom, to shake a tree, schudden van koude,
to quake for colde ; schudden het hooft, to shake or nod ones head;
schudderen, to laugh with an open throate that his head shakes;’
Dan. dial. skuddre, to shake (one) violently ; EFries. schiidden, to
shake, schiiddern, to tremble, shudder.-OHG. scuttan, (ἃ. schiitten,
to shoot corn, pour, shed, discharge ; schii¢tern, to shake, tremble,
quake. The G. schaudern is borrowed from Low (. schuddern.
Der. shudder, sb.
SHUFFHE, to push about, practise shifts. (Scand.) ‘ When
we have shuffled off [pushed or shoved aside] this mortal coil ;’
Hamlet, iii. 1.67. Merely a doublet of Seuffle, and the frequenta-
tive of shove; but of Scand., not E. origin, as shown by the double Κα
The sh is modified from Scand. sk. Cf. EFries. schuffeln, to shuffle
along, from schufen, to shove, push. ‘The sense is ‘to keep pushing
about,’ as in ‘ shuffle the cards.’ [It seems to have taken up some-
thing of the sense of skiftiness, with which it has no etymological
connexion.] See Scuffle, Shove. Der. shuffle, sb. ; shuffl-er.
SHUN, to avoid, keep clear of, neglect. (E.) ME. shunien,
shonien, P. Plowman, B. prol. 174. AS. scunian, not common except
in the comp. on-scunian, to detest, refuse, reject, Gen. xxxix. 10, In
Ps. Ixix. 2, ed. Spelman, the L. revereantur is translated by andracian,
with the various readings sconnyn, forwandian, and scunian. The pp.
gescunned is in Diplomatarium A‘vi Saxonici, ed. Thorpe, p. 318, last
line. Cf. proy. E. scun, toshun; scunner, to loathe; see Scoundrel.
Der. shun-less, Cor. ii. 2. 116; schoon-er ; scoundrel.
SHUNT, to turn off upon a side-rail. (E.) As a word used
on railways, it was borrowed from prov. E. shunt, to turn aside.
But the word itself is old. ME. shunten, to start aside, Gawayn and
the Grene Knight, 1902; schounten, schownten, schonten, schunten,
Morte Arthur, 736, 1055, 1324, 1759, 2106, 2428, 3715, 3816, 3842;
shunt, Destruction of Troy, 600, 729, 10377, 10998.
Ifvat 3e! |
SIBYL
shap 30w to shount’=if ye intend to escape; Wars of Alexander,
2143; and see Ancren Riwle, p. 242, note d. B. Shunten seems
to be a modification of shunden, being easier to pronounce quickly.
The orig. sense is to speed, hasten, flee, escape. AS. scyndan, to
hasten (Beowulf, 2570), also to urge, incite.Icel. skunda, to speed.
It seems to be a nasalised form of Scud.
SHUT, to fasten a door, close. (E.) ME. shutten, shitten. ‘To
close and to shutte;’ P. Plowman, B. prol. 105. ‘ The jatis weren
schit’ =the gates were shut; Wyclif, John, xx. 19. AS. scyttan, to
shut ; ‘ sero, ic scytte sum loc odde hepsige,’ i.e. I shut a lock or
hasp it ; A£lfric’s Grammar, ed. Zupitza, p.220. To shut a door was
to fasten it with a bolt or sliding bar, called a shuttle or shit/le (see
Shuttle), which took its name from being shot across. We still
say ‘to shoot a bolt.” The AS. scyttan stands for *scut-ian (by the
usual change from x to y) ; derived from Teut. *skut-, weak grade of
*skeutan-, to shoot. See Shoot.4Du. schutten, to shut in, lock
up; schut, a fence, screen, partition, MDu. schut, an arrow, dart
(Hexham), from schieten, to shoot; G. schiitzen, to protect, guard,
shut off water; schutz, a guard, sluice, flood-gate, OHG, seuz, a
quick movement, from schiessen, OHG. sciozan, to shoot. Der.
shutt-er ; shutt-le, q. v-
SHUTTLE, an instrument for shooting the thread of the woof
between the threads of the warp in weaving. (E.) In Job, vii. 6.
So called from its being shot between the threads. ‘An honest
weaver. . As e’er shot shuttle;’ Beaum. and Fletcher, The Coxcomb,
Act v. sc. 1. Also spelt shittle; in Palsgrave, ‘shyttell for a wevar.’
ME. schitel; spelt scytyl, Prompt. Parv. p. 447, also schetyl, id.
p- 470, 1. 2. The same word as ME. schitel, a bolt of a door,
similarly named from its being shot across. ‘ Schyttyl, of sperynge
{sparring, barring], Pessulum ;’ Prompt. Parv. The AS. form was
scyttel (also scyte/),in the sense of bar, bolt; also found in the longer
form scyttels, pl. scyttelsas. See Toller. B. The word scyftel or
scytel (for *skut-il-) is trom Teut. *skut-, weak grade of *skeut-an, AS.
scedtan, to shoot ; see Shut, Shoot.+ Dan. sky/te, skytte/, a shuttle;
Swed. dial. skyttel, skottel; cf. Du. schiet-spoel, a shuttle, lit. ‘ shoot-
spool,’ Swed. skottspole, a shuttle, ‘shoot-spool.’ Der. shuttle-cock,
q. Vv.
SHUTTLE-COCK, a piece of wood or cork stuck with
feathers, used as a plaything. (E.) Spelt shyttelcocke in Palsgrave ;
shuttelcock, Spenser, Mother Hubbard's Tale, 804. Prob. called
cock from being stuck with feathers and flying through the air.
(Not shuttle-cork, as Todd fancies, contrary to evidence and pro-
bability ; for they were most likely at first made of wood, and struck
with a wooden battledore. See Strutt, Sports and Pastimes, bk. iv.
ch. 1. § 22.] Called shuttle from being shot backwards and forwards
like a weaver’s shuttle. ‘ Schytle, chyldys game, Sagitella ;’ Prompt.
Parv. See Shuttle; and see Skittles.
SHY, timid, cautious, suspicious. (Scand.) In Shak. Meas. iii.
2.138; v.54. ME. skyg, scrupulous, careful to shun (evil), Allit.
Poems, Β. 21. It is rather a Scand. than an E. word, with sh for sk;
we also find ME. schey, skey, shy (said of a horse), Prompt. Parv.
P- 444; spelt scheouh (also of a horse), Ancren Riwle, p. 242, 1. 9;
answering to the rare AS. scéoh, timid, Grein, ii. 405.— Dan. sky,
shy, skittish ; Swed. skygg, skittish, starting, shy, coy; Swed. dial.
sky, the same (Rietz).-EFries, schoi; Du. schuw; G. scheu, shy,
timid, MHG. schiech. Teut. types *skewh-joz, *skeuh-oz. β. Hence
OHG. scivhan, to frighten, or (intransitively) to fear, shy at, whence
(through the French) we have E. eschew. Der. shy-ly, shy-ness; shy,
verb (cf. Swed. sky, to shun) ; and see eschew, skew.
ot beep ἢ
SIAMANG, a large ape. (Malay.) Malay siamang.
SIB, related. (E.) In Spenser, F. Ὁ. iii. 3.26. See further under
Gossip. Der. gos-sip.
SIBILANT, making a hissing sound. (L.) We call s and z
‘sibilant’ letters. Bacon has‘ sibilation or hissing sound ;’ Nat. Hist.
§ 176.—L. sibilant-, stem of pres. part. of sibilare, to hiss. - L. sibilus,
adj. hissing ; formed from a base *sib-, which is probably imitative
of a whistling sound. Der. sibil-at-ion.
SIBYL, a pagan prophetess. (L.—Gk.) Shak. has both Sibyl
and Sybilla; Oth. iii. 4.70; Merch. Ven. i. 2. 116. Cotgrave has:
‘Sybille, Sybill, one of the τὸ Sybille, a prophetesse.’ Trevisa
translates L. Sibylla by Sibil ; ii. 399. The word was rather borrowed
directly from L. than through the F., being known from Virgil. =—L.
Sibylla, a Sibyl; Virgil, Afn. vi. 10.—Gk. Σίβυλλα, a Sibyl. Origin
uncertain; see Max Miiller, Lectures, 8th ed, i. 109. Postgate
SICCA
compares it with L. per-sibus, very wise (Festus) and L. sap-ere, to
be wise ; so that σίβ-υλλα would mean ‘ wise woman.’ Der. sibyll-
ine, adj.; from L. Sibyllinus,
SICCA, in phr. sicca rupee, newly coined rupee. (Hind.— Pers.—
Arab.) Hind. sikka, a die for coining. = Pers. sikka(h), the same. =
Arab. sikka(h), the same. Rich. Dict. p. 839. See Sequin.
SICK, affected with disease, ill, inclined to vomit. (E.) ME.
stk, sek; pl. seke, Chaucer, C. T. 18. AS. séoc; John, xi. 1.4-Du.
ztek; Icel. sjuikr; Dan. syy; Swed. sjuk; G. siech; Goth. siuks.
B. All from a Teut. type *sewkoz, ill; from the Teut. base *seuk-, to
be sick or ill, appearing in the Goth. strong verb sivkan, to be ill,
pt. τ sauk, pp. sukans, Fick, iii. 325. Der. sick-ness, AS. séocnes,
Matt. viii. 28; sick-en, verb (intrans.), Macb. iv. 3. 173, (trans.)
Hen. VIII, i. 1. 825 sick-ish, -ly, -ness ; sick-ly, adj., ME. sekly, Will.
of Palerne, 1505 ; sick-li-ness, Rich. II, ii. 1. 142.
SICKER, SIKER, certain, secure. (L.) Siker is a well-known
Lowland Sc. word. ME, siker, Chaucer, C. T. 11451 (F 1139);
Layamon, 15092. AS. sicor, Nota Teut. word, but borrowed from
a Late L. sécurus, for L. sécirus; see Secure. The OFries.
stker, sikur, Du. zeker, G. sicher (OHG. sichur), Swed. saker, Dan.
stkker, W. sicr, are all borrowed from the Latin, which accounts
for their strong likeness in form to one another. Doublets, secure,
sure.
SICKLE, a hooked instrument for cutting grain. (L.) ΜΕ.
stkil, Wyclif, Mark, iv. 29. AS. sicol, Mark, iv. 29.—L. secula, a
sickle (White) ; formed, with suffix -z-/a@ of the agent, from sec-are,
to cut; see Secant. @ The G. sichel is also from Latin; the
native words from the same root are saw (1), scythe, and sedge.
SIDH, the edge or border of a thing, region, part, party. (E.)
ME, side, syde, P. Plowman, B. prol. 8; Chaucer, C. T. 560(A 558).
AS. side, John, xix. 34, xx. 20.4Du. zijde; Icel. sida; Dan. side ;
Swed. sida; G. seite, OHG. sita. Teut. type *siddn-, f. It is pro-
bable that the orig. sense was ‘that which is extended,’ as it certainly
seems to be closely connected with AS. sid, long, wide, spacious,
ME. siid, spelt syyd in the Prompt. Pary., but now obsolete; Icel.
sidr, long, hanging down. Der. side-board, Milton, P. R. ii. 350;
side-box, one-sid-ed, many-sid-ed, side-saddle, side-ways, side-wise, sid-ing.
Also side, verb, Cor. i. 1. 197, iv. 2. 2; side-ling, side-long, adv.,
Milton, P. L. vi. 197, ME. sideling, sidlinges, spelt sydlyngs, Morte
Arthur, 1039, where the suffix -ling or -long is adverbial, as explained
under Headlong. Hence sidelong, adj. Also a-side, q.v., beside,
q. ν. Also side-s-men, officers chosen to assist a churchwarden,
Blount, Nomolexicon, where a ridiculous explanation from synods-
men (!) is attempted, quite unnecessarily ; see Notes and Queries,
5 S.xi. 504. They were also called side-men or quest-men; Halliwell.
Cf. L. assessor, one who sits beside another.
SIDEREAL, starry, relating to the stars. (L.) Milton has
sideral, P. L. x. 693. Phillips, ed. 1706, has sidereal, siderean.
Sideral is from L., sideralis, and is a correct form ; sidere-al is coined
from L. sidere-us, adj. All from sider-, for *sides-, stem of sidus,
a constellation, also, a star. Der. (from L. sidus) con-sider.
SIEGE, a sitting down, with an army, before a fortified place, in
order to take it. (F.—L.) The lit. sense is merely ‘seat;’ see
Trench, Select Glossary. We find it in this sense in Shak. Meas. iv.
2. Tol; Spenser, F. Q. ii. 2. 39. ME. sege, (1) a seat, Wyclif,
Matt. xxv. 31; (2) a siege, Barbour’s Bruce, iv. 45, ix. 332. In
Ancren Riwle, p. 238, I. 1, sege means ‘a throne.’ = AF. sege, Gaimar,
3110, also siege; OF. siege, masc., a seat, throne; mod. F. siege.
cf. Ital. sedia, fem., seggio, masc., a chair, seat. Not immediately
from L. sedes, but from a verb answering to a L. type *sedicdre ; we
find also Late L. assedium, a siege, which (like L. obsidiwm, a siege)
is from L. sedére, to sit, cognate with E. Sit, q.v. Der. be-siege.
SIENNA, a pigment used in painting. (Ital.) Raw sienna and
burnt sienna are the names of two pigments, made from earth, and
properly from earth of Sienna, which is the name of a place in Tus-
cany, due S. of Florence.
SIERRA, a chain of hills. (Span.—L.) Span. sierra, a saw,
ridge of hills. —L. serra, a saw. See Serrated.
SIESTA, orig. a noon-day nap. (Span.—L.) ‘ What, sister, at
your siesta already?’ Elvira, A.i; Dodsley’s Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt,
xv.22. Now usually applied toa nap in the afternoon. —Span. siesta,
‘the hottest part of the day, the time for taking a nap after dinner,
generally from 1 to 3 o’clock ;’ Neuman.=L. sexta, 1. e. sexta hora,
sixth hour, noon; reckoning from 6 A.M.; so that the orig. sense
was ‘noonday nap.’ Sexta is fem, of L. sextus, sixth. —L. sex, six;
see Six. Fora shifting of time in the reverse direction, see Noon.
SIEVE, a strainer for separating coarse particles from fine ones.
(E.) ME. sive, Chaucer, C. T. 16408 (G 940) ; her-seve, a hair-sieve,
Liber Cure Cocorum, ed. Morris, p. 7. AS. sife; ‘Cribra, vel
cribellum, sife,’ Voc. 330. 323 spelt οὐδὲ in the 8th cent., id. 16. 3.4
Du. zeef; G. sieb, MHG. sip. Teut. types *sides, *sibos,n. Cf. Lith.
SILK 564
sijoti, to sift. Perhaps allied to AS. stan, séon, (ἃ. seihen, to filter.
See Kluge. Der. sif-t, q. v.
SIFT, to separate particles as with a sieve. (E.) ME. siften,
Chaucer, C. T. 16409 (ἃ 941); sive (=sieve) being in the line above.
AS. siftan, syftan, Exod. xii. 34.— AS. sif-e, a sieve.4Du. ziften, to
sift, 2if?, a sieve ; from zeef, a sieve. See Sieve. β. We also find
Dan. sigte, to sift, sigte, sb., a sieve or riddle ; Swed. sikéa, to sift,
sikt, a sieve; Icel. sikéa, sigta, to sift; all from (ἃ. sichten, to sift;
which again is from Du. z/flen.
SIGH, to inhale and respire with a long deep breadth. (E.) ME.
sighen, sizen, siken; in P. Plowman, B. xviii. 263, we have syked, with
various readings sizede, sizhede ; also syhede, st3te, id. C. xxi. 276;
sighte, Chaucer, Troil. iii, 1080. The ME. szken thus made sigh-le
as one form of the pt. t., whence a new infin. sigh-en was evolved by
back-formation. From AS. sican, to sigh; A‘lfred, tr. of Orosius,
ii. 8; ed. Sweet, p. 92, 1. 35. It is a strong verb; pt. t. sac, pp.
sicen ; with a frequentative form siccettan, to sigh, sob. β. Prob. of
imitative origin; cf. Swed. sucka, Dan. sukke, to sigh, groan. Der.
sigh, sb., ME, stke, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 11176 (F 864).
SIGH-CLOUT;; see Notes on E. Etym., p. 271.
SIGHT, act of seeing, that which is seen, view, spectacle. (E.)
ME. sight, Chaucer, C. T. 4982 (B 562). AS. sihé, or rather ge-siht,
/Elfred, tr. of Boethius, b. v. pr. 4; cap. xli. § 4. But it is almost
always spelt gesthd, gesiehd, gesyhd ; Grein, i. 454. From Teut. type
*seh-ipa, fem. (Sievers) ; allied to séox (Goth. sathwan, for *sehwan),
to see; see See.4+Du. gezigt; Dan. sigte; Swed. sigt; G. sicht;
ΟΗΟ. siht. Der. sight, verb ; sight-ed, Wint. Tale, i. 2. 388; sight-
hole, 1 Hen. IV, iv. 1. 71; sight-less, Macb. i. 5. 50; sight-ly,
K. John, ii. 143; sight-li-ness.
SIGN, a mark, proof, token, omen, notice. (F.—L.) ME. signe,
Chaucer, C. T. 10365 (F 51); Ancren Riwle, p. 70, 1. 1.—OF. signe,
‘a signe, mark;’ Cot.—L. signum, a mark, token. Brugmann, i.
§ 762 (3). Der. sign, verb, K. John, iv. 2. 222; sign-board, sign-
manual, sign-post. Also sign-at-ure, from F. signature, ‘ a signature,’
Cot.; from L. signatira, from signare, to sign, from signum. And
see sign-al, sign-et, sign-i-fy, re-sign.
SIGNAL, a token, sign for giving notice. (F.—L.) ME,
signal, Gower, C. A. iii. 57; bk. vi. 1668.—F. signal, ‘a signall;’
(οἱ. “Ταῖς L. signale, neut. of L. signalis, belonging to a sign. =L.
signum,asign; see Sign. Der. signal, verb; signal-ly, signal-ise.
SIGNET, a seal, privy-seal. (F.—L.) _ In Hamlet, v. 2. 49;
and in Palsgrave. ME, signeit, Mandeville, Trav. c. viii. p. 82.—F
signet, ‘a signet, seal, stamp;’ Cot. Dimin. of F. signe; see Sign.
SIGNIFY, to indicate, mean. (F.—L.) ME. signifien; spelt
signefye, Rob. of Glouc. p. 345, 1. 7075. And see O. Eng. Miscel-
lany, ed. Morris, p. 28, ll. 3, 8, 11, 12.—F. signifier, ‘to signifie,
betoken ;’ Cot.—L. significire, to show by signs.= L. signi-, for
signum, a sign; and ~jic-, for facere, to make ; see Sign and Fact.
Der. signific-ant, from L. significant-, stem of pres. part. of significare ;
hence significant, sb., 1 Hen. VI, ii. 4. 26; significance, from F. signi-
Jicance (Cot.), a false form which supplanted the true OF. signifiance
(Cot.), whence ME. signefiance, O. Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 28,
1. 20, all from L. significantia; stgnificat-ion, ME. significactoun,
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 14985 (B 4169), from F. signification< L. acc. signi-
ficationem ; signific-at-ive, from L. significatiuus.
SIGNOR, SIGNIOR, sir. (Ital.—L.) Spelt signtor, Two Gent.
iii. 1. 2793 &c.—Ital. signore, sir, a lord. —L. senidrem, acc. of senior,
an elder; see Senior. q Cf. ΜΕ. seignour, King Alisaunder,
1458; from French. Span. sejior, fem. sefiora. Der. signor-a, from
Ital. siguora, a lady, fem. of signore. Doublets, sir, sire, sefior, senior,
sergnior.
SILENCE, stillness, muteness. (F.—L.) In early use. ME.
silence, Ancren Riwle, p. 22, 1. 6.—F. silence, ‘silence,’ Cot.—L.
silentium, silence, a being silent.—L. silent-, stem of pres. part. of
silére, to be still.4-Goth. silanx, only in the compound ana-silan, to
become silent, Mark, iv. 39. Thus the base is SIL. Der. silen¢ (in
later use, though etymologically a more orig. word), L. L. L. ii. 24,
from 1, . silent-, stem of pres. part. of silére ; silent-ly.
SILEX, flint, quartz. (L.) Merely L. silex, flint (stem siic-).
Brugmann, i. § 980. Der. silic-a, silic-i-ous, coined from the stem.
SILHOUETTE, a shadow-outline or profile filled in with a dark
colour. (F.) This cheap and meagre form of porirait, orig. made
by tracing the outline of a shadow, thrown on to a sheet of paper,
was named, in derision, after Etienne de Silhouette, minister of
finance in 1759, who introduced several reforms which were con-
sidered unduly parsimonious. See Trench, Eng. Past and Present ;
Sismondi, Histoire des Francais, tom. xix. pp. 94, 95-
SILK, the delicate, soft thread produced by certain caterpillars,
and the stuff woven from it. (L.—Gk.—Chinese.) ME. silk, Chaucer,
C. T. 10927 (F 613). AS. seole (for *siluc, as meole for *miluc), silk.
‘Bombix, seole-wyrm; Sericum, seolc ;’ Wright’s Vocab. i. 40, col. 1,
00
562 SILL
Cf. Icel. :ilki, Swed. silke, Dan. silke ; all of which, like AS. seolc, are
adaptations of L, séricum, silk, by the common change of r into /.
B. L. séricum is the neut. of Séricus, of or belonging to the Séres. —
Gk. Σῆρες, pl., the name of the people from whom the ancients first
obtained silk ; gen. supposed to be the Chinese. Professor Douglas
writes: ‘The L. Séres and Séricum are probably derived from the
Chinese word for sit, which is variously pronounced se (English δ),
sei, sai, sat, sz’, &c.; see Williams, Chin. Dict. p. 835.’
Miiller, Lectures, ii. 182. γ. Kluge derives Icel. silki from Slavonic ;
but Miklosich derives OSlav. shelkii, Russ. shelk’, from the Scandina-
vian. The true source is L. séricwm, whence also Olrish siric, silk.
Der. silk-mercer, silk-weaver ; silk-worm, AS. seolc-wyrm, as above ;
silk-en, AS. seolcen, Voc. 151.9; silk-y, silk-i-ness. Also serge, q. V.
SILL, the timber or stone at the foot of a door or window. (E.)
The true sense seems to be ‘ base’ or ‘ basis;’ sometimes ‘ floor.’
ME. sille, sylle. ‘Sylle of an howse, Silla, soliva;’ Prompt. Parv.
Spelt sedle, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 3820 (A 3822), which is a Kentish form.
AS. syll, a base, support. ‘ Basis, sy/;’ Voc. 8.27; in a later gloss:
‘ Bassis, sulle ;’ Voc. 552.12.4Icel. syll, svill, asill, door-sill; Swed.
syll; Swed. dial. svill (Rietz); Dan. syd, the base of a frame-work
building; G. schwelle, OHG. swelli, a sill, threshold, beam. Cf.
Goth. gasuljan, to found, lay a foundation for, Matt. vii. 25; Luke,
vi. 48. β. The OHG. swelli is from a Teut. base *swal, but AS.
syll from a weak grade *swul; implying a strong verb *swel-an-, to
found (?), pt. t. *swal, pp. *swulanoz. AS. syll represents *swul-ja,
fem. y. The connexion with L. solea, the sole of the foot, is doubt-
ful. @ Not to be confused with AS. sy/, a pillar, column, in
fElfred, tr. of Orosius, b. i. c. 1. § 4; this isa different word, with
a different sense, though possibly connected ; it answers to ἃ. saule,
a pillar. Der. ground-sill, q. v.
SILLABUB, SYLLABUB, a mixture of wine with milk and
sugar. (E.) Spelt si//ébub in Minsheu, ed. 1627, who derives it from
swilling bubbles. But the formis corrupt, a better form being sillibouk.
‘ Sillibouke or sillibub, Laict aigre ;’ Sherwood, index to Cotgrave.
Cotgrave gives: ‘Laict aigre, whay; also, a sillibub or merri-
bowke.’ Halliwell gives ‘ si/lybauk, a sillabub,’ as α Lincolnshire
word. It is obvious that a corruption from bouk to bub is easy,
whereas a change from bub to bowk is unlikely. We may therefore
assume sillibouk as the older form, at the same time noting that
another name for it is merribouk, Cf. ‘merrybauks, a cold posset,
Derbyshire ;’? Halliwell. B. The prov. E. bouk is a well-known
word for ‘ belly ;’ Mr. Peacock notes bowk as the Lincolnshire form ;
so that merri-bouk =‘ merry belly,’ and perhaps sili-bouk =‘ happy
belly,’ from an old sense of silly (below). Itis evidently a jocose name.
SILLY, simple, harmless, foolish. (.) The word has much
changed its meaning, It meant ‘timely ;’ then lucky, happy, blessed,
innocent, simple, foolish. ME. se/y, Chaucer, C. T. 3601, 4088
(A 4090), 5952 (Ὁ 370); Havelok, 477; P. Plowman’s Crede, 442 ;
and see sely, seely, seilye in Gloss. to Spec. of English, ed. Skeat.
AS. sélig, more usually ges#lig (the prefix ge- making no difference),
happy, prosperous, fortunate; see Sweet, A. S. Reader. Formed
with the common adj. suffix -ig (ΕἸ -y) from AS. sa’/, a time, season,
occasion, happiness (very common); Grein, ii. 395.4-Du. zalig,
blessed; Icel. sell, blest, happy; sela, bliss; Swed. sail, blest,
happy; G. selig, OHG., salik, good, excellent, blest, happy ; Goth.
séls, good, kind. β. All from a Teut. base *s#-: of unknown
origin. Der. silli-ly, -ness.
SILO, a pit for storing grain or fodder. (Span.—L.—Gk.) Span.
stlo, ‘a granier to lay up corne in;’ Minsheu (1623).—L. sirum,
acc. of sirus.—Gk. στρός, a pit for keeping corn in. Der. en-sil-age.
SILT, sediment, sand left by water that has overflowed. (Scand.)
ME. silte, badly spelt cilte. ‘ Cilte, soonde [sand], Glarea ;’ Prompt.
Parv. Ρ. 77. It can hardly be other than the MSwed. sylta, mud,
also a marshy place (Ihre) ; Dan. syl¢, a salt marsh (Larsen); Dan.
dial. sy/t, a stretch of low coast-land, over which the sea sometimes
flows; Norw. sylta, the same (Ross). Cf. Low G. site, a brine-pit ;
G. siilze, brine, also brine-pit. All froma Teut. base *sut-, which is
a weakened form of *salt-, i.e. salt. See Kluge. So also we find
Du. zilt, adj. salt, related to Du. zou, salt; and AS. syltan, to salt,
from sealt, salt. Cf. prov. E. silt, a salting-tub. 1t must have re-
ferred orig. to salt deposited as a sediment by sea-water in brine-pits
or very shallow pools.
SILVAN, SYLVAN, pertaining to woods. (L.) ‘All sylvan
offsprings round;’ Chapman, tr. of [lomer, Od. xix. 599. [The
spelling with y is false, and due to the habit of spelling L. silva
with y, in order to derive it from Gk. ὕλη, a wood, with which it is (at
most) only cognate.]—L. siluanus, belonging to a wood, chiefly used
of the wood-god Silvanus. —L, οἵα, a wood.4-Gk. ὕλη, a wood (Ὁ).
The relationship of the L. and Gk. words is doubted by some, and
the root is uncertain; see Brugmann, i. ὃ 102 (1), note. Der. (from
L. silua) savage, q. v.
Cf. Max |
SIMPER
SILVER, a well-known white metal. (E.) ME. silver, Chaucer,
C. T. 16707 (ἃ 1239). OMere. sy/fur, Matt. x. 9 (Rushworth MS.);
AS. seolfor; early torm siolefr.4 Du. zilver; Icel. silfr; Dan. silv;
Swed. silfver; G. silber ; Goth. silubr.4-Russ. serebro. The origin is
wholly unknown; Uhlenbeck thinks the Teut. forms are from Slavonic.
Miklosich (p. 336) gives the Slav. type as *strebro, with varying
forms in all the Slav. languages. Der. silver, verb; silver-ing ;
silver-ling, a small piece of silver, with double dimin. -/-ing (as in
d.ck-l-ing), Isaiah, vii, 23, also in Tyndale’s version of Acts, xix. 19,
and Coverdale’s of Judges, ix. 4, xvi. 5, the AS. form being sylfring,
Gen. xly. 22; silver-smith; silver-y. Also silver-n, adj., in some MSS.
of Wyclif, Acts, xix. 24, AS. syl/ren, Gen. xliv. 2. J A possible
guess is that which derives silver from Gk. Ῥξαλίβη, old torm of
᾿Αλύβη, a town on the S. coast of the Black Sea, which, according to
Homer (Iliad, ii. 857), was the home of silver.
SIMILAR, like. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627, and in Cot-
grave.—F. similaire, ‘similar;’ Cot. As if from L. *similarts, ex-
tended from simil-is, like, by the suffix -aris. Allied to simul, to-
gether, Gk. ἅμα, together, and E. same; from the Idg. base *samo-,
the same; see Same. Cf. Olrish samail, W. hafal, like; Gk. ὁμαλός,
even. Also L. sem-el, once, Goth. sim-l@, once ; Gk. ἅπαξ, once, ἕν»
neut., one; &c. Der. similar-ly, similar-i-ty; also simile, q.v.,
simili-tude, q.v. And see simul-ate, simul-ta-ne-ous, semblance, as-
semble, dis-semble.
SIMILE, a comparison. (L.) In Shak. As You Like It, ii. 1.
5.-L. simile, a like thing ; neut. of similis, like; see Similar.
SIMILITUDE, a comparison, parable. (F.—L.) ME. simili-
tude, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 10794 (F 480); Wyclif, Luke, viii. 4.—F.
similitude, ‘a similitude ;’ Cot. =—L. similitiidinem, acc. of similitido,
likeness. = L. similis, like; see Similar,
SIMIOUS, monkey-like. (L.) Coined from L. simia, an ape. =
L. simus (Gk. ocpds), flat-nosed.
SIMMER, to boil gently. (E.) Formerly also simber (see
Richardson) and simper. Halliwell cites: ‘Simper, to simmer, East ;’
also ‘ the creame of simpering milke, Florio, p. 189,’ which is wrong
as regards the edit. of 1598, which has; ‘Cremore, the creme or
simpring of milke when it seethes.’ “1 symper, as lycour dothe on
the fyre byfore it begynneth to boyle;’ Palsgrave. A frequentative
form, with the usual suffix -er, and with excrescent f or ὁ in some
authors, from a base *simm or *symm, im.tative of the sound of gentle
boiling. Cf. Dan. summe, G. summen, Swed. dial. summa, to hum,
to buzz; Bavar. semmern, to whimper.
SIMNEL, a kind of rich cake. (F.—L.) See Simnel in Halliwell.
ME. simnel, Prompt. Varv.; simenel, Havelok, 779.— OF. simenel,
bread or cake of fine wheat flour; Roquefort.—Late L. siminellus,
bread of fine flour ; also called simel/a; Ducange. β. Here siminellus
stands for *similellus, as being easier to pronounce ; both *simiél-ellus
and simel-la being derived from L, simila, wheat flour of the finest
quality. Allied to Gk. σεμίδαλις, fine flour. And cf. G. semmel,
wheat-bread.
SIMONY, the crime of trafficking in ecclesiastical preferment.
(F.—L.—Gk.—Heb.) In early use; spelt symonye, O. Eng. Mis-
cellany, ed. Morris, p. 89, 1. 7.—F. simonie, ‘simony, the buying or
selling of spirituall functions or preferments ;’ Cot. Late L. siménia ;
Ducange. Named from Simon Magus (Gk. Σίμων), because he
wished to purchase the gift of the Holy Ghost with money; Acts,
viii. 18.—Heb. Shim‘én, Simeon, Simon, lit. hearing, obedience;
one who hears. = Heb. root shama‘, to hear. Der. simoni-ac, simont-
ac-al.
SIMOOM, a hot, poisonous wind. (Arab.) See Southey, Thalaba,
b. ii, last stanza, and the note.— Arab. samiim, a sultry pestilential
wind, which destroys travellers; Rich. Dict. p.850. So called from
its poisonous nature. = Arab, root samma, he poisoned ; id. p. 847.
SIMPER, to smile sillily or affectedly, to smirk. (Scand.) ‘Yond
simpering dame ;’ K. Lear, iv. 6. 120. ‘With a made countenance
about her mouth, between simpering and smiling ;’ Sidney, Arcadia,
b.i. (R.). Cotgrave explains Εἰ, coguine by ‘a begger woman, also a
cockney, simperdecockit, nice thing.’ We find traces of it in Norweg.
semper, fine, smart (Aasen) ; Dan. dial. semper, simper, ‘affected, coy,
prudish, esp. of one who requires pressing to eat: as, she is as semper
as a bride;’ Wedgwood. Also MSwed. semper, one who affectedly
refrains from eating. B. All these are formed (with a suffix -er
which appears to be the same as the E. suffix -er of the agent) from
a base *simp-, which is a nasalized form of *sip-. Without the nasal,
we find MSwed. sipp (also simp), a woman who affectedly refuses to
eat (Ihre) ; Swed. spp, adj., finical, prim ; Dan. sippe, a woman who
is affectedly coy (Molbech). And note particularly Low G. sipp, ex-
plained in the Bremen Worterbuch as a word expressing the gesture
of a compressed mouth, and affected pronunciation ; a woman who
acts thus affectedly is called ‘fumfer Sipp, Miss Sipp, and they say of
her, ‘She cannot say sipp.. Also Low G. den Mund sipp trekken, to
δ. -.
SIMPLE
make a small mouth; De Bruwt sitt so sipp, the bride sits so prim.
OF imitative origin. @ We find also prov. G. zimpern, to be
affectedly coy, zipp, prudish, coy (Fliigel); but these are most
likely borrowed from Low German, as the true High G. z answers
to E.¢. Der. simper, sb.
SIMPLE, single, elementary, clear, guileless, silly. (F.—L.) In
early use. ME. simple, The Bestiary, 1. 790; in O. Eng. Miscellany,
ed. Morris.—F. simple, ‘simple;’ Cot.—L. simplicem, acc. of sim-
flex (stem simplic-), simple; lit. ‘one-fold, as opposed to duplex,
two-fold, double. —L. sim-, appearing also in L. sin-guli, one by one,
sem-per, always alike, sem-el, once, sim-ul, together ; and -flic-, as in
flic-are, to fold. See Simulate and Ply. Der. simple-ness,
simpl-y. Also simples, 5. pl., simple herbs; whence simpl-er, simpl-
ist, both in Minsheu, ed. 1627. Also simplic-i-ty, Mids. Nt. Dr. i. 1.
171, from F. simflicité, from L. acc. simplicitatem; simpli-fy, in
Barrow’s Sermons, vol. ii. ser. 34 (Todd), a coined word, answering
to late F. simplifier (Littré), where the suffix -fier =L. -Ποᾶγε, from
facere, to make; see Fact. Hence simplific-at-ion. Also simfle-
ton, q.v. Brugmann, i. § 431 (1).
SIMPLETON, a foolish fellow. (F.—L.) ‘A country farmer
sent his man to look after an ox; the simpleton went hunting up and
down;’ L’Estrange (Todd's Johnson). “Ὁ ye pitiful simpletons ;’
Lady Alimony (16:9), A. v. sc. 2. Formed with the F. suffix -on
(<L. acc. -dnem) from Εἰ, simplet, masc., simplette, fem., a simple
person (Littré). Cotgrave only gives the fem. simplette, ‘a little,
simple wench, one that is apt to believe, and thereby soon deceived ; ἢ
but Godefroy has OF. simflet, simple, credulous; and Corblet has
Picard simplet, a foolish person. Cf. Span. simplon, a simpleton.
These are formed from simfle, simple, with the dimin. suffix -e¢ or
-ette. Thus simple-t-on exhibits a double suffix -t-on, which is very
rare; yet there is at least one more example in the old word musk-et-
oon, a kind of musket, F. mousqu-et-on. B. There is also a phrase
simple tony, with the same sense, as in Falstaff’s Wedding, by
Kenrick, A. iv. sc. 4 (near the end); A.D. 1766. But this seems to
be later. We also find Tony (for Anthony) used in the same sense of
‘foolish fellow ;’ as in Middleton, The Changeling, i. 2. Cf. prov. E.
tdle-ton, in E. D. Ὁ).
SIMULATE, to pretend, feign. (L.) Shak. inas simulation, Tw.
Nt. ii. 5. 151. Simulate first occurs with the force of a pp. ; ‘ because
they had vowed a simulate chastyte ;’ Bale, Eng. Votaries, pt. ii (R.).
—L. simulatus, pp. of simuldre, also similare, to feign, pretend, make
like. —L. similis, like. See Similar. Der. simulat-ion, from F.
simulation, ‘simulation,’ Cot., from L. acc. simulatidnem, a feigning ;
simulat-or, Also dis-simulat-ion. And see semblance, as-semble, dis-
semble. Also simultaneous.
SIMULTANEOUS, nappening at the same moment. (L.)
“Whether previous or simultaneous ;” Hammond’s Works, vol. iv.
ser. 2(R.); p. 570 (Todd). Englished directly from Late L. simul-
taneus, by change of -us to -ous, as in ardu-ous, strenu-ous, &c.
Formed from Late L. simuilt-im, at the same time, by analogy with
L. moment-aneus; and cf. ΕἸ, instantaneous. B. The Late L. simultim
is extended from L. simu/, together, with adv. suffix -¢im, as in minita-
tim. See Simulate, Similar. Der. simul-taneous-ly.
SIN, wickedness, crime, iniquity. (E.) ME. sinne, synne; pl.
synnes, Wyclif, Matt. ix. 2, 5,6. AS. synn, sinn; gen., dat., and
acc. synne; Grein, ii. 518.4-Du. zonde; Icel. synd, older form synd ;
Dan, and Swed. synd; G. siinde, OHG. suntea. β. Thus the AS.
synn represents a Teut. type *sundja, fem., or rather an Idg. type
*santjd ; where *sant is the weak grade of sent : sont. It is the abstract
sb. allied to L. sovs (stem sondi-), sinful, guilty, orig. ‘ being,’ real;
and Curtius refers this (along with Icel. sannr, true, very, Goth.
sunja, the truth, sooth) to the 4/ES, to be; remarking that ‘the
connection of son(¢)s and sonticus with this root has been recognized
by Clemm, and established (Studien, iii. 328), while Bugge (iv. 205)
confirms it by Northern analogies. Language regards the guil’y
man as the man who it was;’ Gk. Etym.i.470. Cf. lon. Gk. ἐτόντ-,
stem of ἐών (for *éo-wy), being; pres. pt. of εἰμί, 1am. See Sooth.
Der. sin, verb, ME. sinnen, but also singen, sungen, sinegen (see
P. Plowman, A. ix. 17, B. vili. 22, C. xi. 23), from AS. syngian,
gesyngian, Grein, ii. 519. Also sin-ful, AS. synfull (Grein) ; sin-
ful-ly, sin-ful-ness ; sin-less, AS. synléas ; sin-less-ly, sin-less-ness ; sinn-
er, sin-offering.
SINCE, alter that, from the time that, past, ago, (E.) Since is
written for sins, to keep the final s sharp (voiceless); just as we
write pence for pens, mice for mys, twice for twies, and the like. Again,
sins is an abbreviation of ME. sithens, also spelt sithence in later
English, with the same intention of showing that the final s was
voiceless. Sithence is in Shak, Cor. iii. 1. 47; All’s Well, i. 3. 1245
sithens in Spenser, F. Q. i. 4. 51. B. Next, the word sithen-s
arose from the addition of -s or -es (common as an adverbial ending,
as in need-s, twi-es, thri-es) to the older form sithen, which was
SINGE 563
sometimes contracted to sin. We find sifen, Havelok, 399; sithen,
Wyclif, Luke, xiii. 7; ἐκ, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 5234 (B 814); and see
numerous examples in Stratmann, 5. v. sijhan. Ὑ. Lastly, sithen or
sifen is for sifpen, the oldest ME. form, whence were made sifen,
sitthen, sithen-es, sithen-s, as well as (by loss of -1 or -en) sithe, βεῤῥε,
sith, and (by contraction) siz or sen.—AS, siddan, siddon, syddan,
seoddan, sioddan, after that, since (very common), Grein, ii. 445.
This sidan is a contraction from sid dan, for sid don, after that;
where don, that, is the instrumental case masc, of the demonstrative
pronoun, also used as a def. article, for which see That. The AS.
sid, after, used as a prep., was orig. an adj., meaning ‘ late,’ but here
represents a comparative ady., meaning ‘later, after.’ We find sid,
after, later, both as adj. and ady., Grein, ii. 444. [Not the same
word as AS. s70, journey, time (Grein, ii. 443), which is cognate with
Goth. sinth, discussed under Send.| This AS. sid is cognate with
Goth. secthus, late, whence the adv. seithu, late, Matt. xxvii. 57,
John, vi. 16; also with G, seit, OHG. sit, after. The G. seit-dem,
since, is exactly the AS, sid-dan; in Gothic we find a somewhat
similar compound in the expression ni thana-seiths, no longer, Mark,
ix. 8. Other allied words are Olrish sir, long, W. dir, long, tedious ;
L. séro, late, Skt. s@yam, adv. in the evening. Stokes-Fick, p. 294 ;
Sievers, §§ 323, 337-
SINCERE, true, pure, honest, frank. (F.—L.) ‘Of a very sincere
life ;’ Frith’s Works, p. 117, last line. = OF, sincere, syncere, ‘ sincere ;’
Cot. Mod. F. sincére.—L. sincérus, pure, sincere. If, as some have
thought, sincérus means sine céra, ‘without wax,’ it was orig.
applied to honey (Bréal). Der. sincere-iy; sincer-i-ty, from F.
sincerité, ‘sincerity,’ Cot., from L. acc. sincéritatem.
SINCIPUT, the fore-part of the head, from the forehead to the
top. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706. Used as distinct from o-ciput, the
back part of the head. The lit. sense is ‘ half-head’ —L. sinciput,
half a head; contracted from sémi-, half; and caput, the head.
Brugmann, i. § 121. See Semi- and Capital. Compare
Megrim.
SINDER, the correct spelling of Cinder, q.v. ‘Thus all in
flames I sinder-like consume;’ Gascoigne, Dan Bartholomew; Works,
i. 117. ‘Synders of the tyre;’ Palsgrave. Note that the AS. sinder
is cognate with Gk. ἄνθραξ, coal; from the common base *sendhro-
(Prellwitz).
SINE, a straight line drawn from one extremity of an are or
sector perpendicular to the radius at the other extremity. (L.) In
Phillips, ed. 1658. Englished from L. sinus, a bosom, properly a
curve, fold, coil, curl, esp. the hanging fold of the upper part of a
toga. ‘The use of the word in the math. sense is peculiar. We may
note the Arab. jayb, ‘cutting, traversing,’ as also having (like L.
sinus) the two meanings of ‘ breast of a garment’ and ‘sine’ in geo-
metry. The L. sinws may have translated the Arabic. Doublet,
sinus, αν.
SINECURE, an ecclesiastical benefice without the cure of souls,
salary without work. (L.) ‘One of them is in danger to be made
a sine cure;’ Dryden, Kind Keeper, Act ii. sc. 2, Englished from
L. sine cara, without cure of souls.—L. sine, prep. without, lit. ‘if
not,’ compounded of si, if, and ne, not; and cura, abl. case of cura,
cure; see Cure. Der. sinecur-ist, one who holds a sinecure.
SINEW, a tendon, that which joins a muscle toa bone. (E.)
ME. sinewe ; spelt synewe, Prompt. Parv. AS. sinu, seonu, stonu (dat.
sinwe), a sinew; Grein, ii. 439.4 Du. zenuw; Dan, sene ; Swed. sena; ἃ.
sehne; OHG. senawa, senewa,sennwa, Andcf. Ice). sin,asinew, pl. σέναν.
B. The Teut. type is *sinawa, f. Perhaps allied to Skt. sxava(s), a
tendon, which (however) answers better to (ἃ, schnur, a string. Der.
sinew, verb, 3 Hen. VI, ii. 6. οἵ; sinew-y, L. L.L. iv. 3. 308.
SING, to resound, to utter melodious sounds, relate musically or
in verse. (E.) The orig. sense is simply to ring or resound. ‘We
hear this fearful tempest sing;’ Rich. II, ii. 1. 263. ME. singen,
pt. t. sang, song, pl. sungen, pp. sungen, songen ; Chaucer, C. T. 268,
1511 (A 266, 1509). AS. singan, pt. t. sang, pl. sungon, pp. sungen ;
Grein, ii. 432.4+Du. zingen, pt. t. zong, pp. gezongen; Icel. syngja,
pt. t. saung’, sing, pp. sunginn; Dan. synge; Swed. sjunga; Goth.
siggwan (written for *singwan); (ας singen, B. All from Idg. root
*sengh(w), with labio-velar gh; so that the Gk. ὀμφή, voice, may be
related. Brugmann, i. 88 676, 797. Der. sing-er, in place of the
AS. sangere (which would have given a mod. E. songer) ; see Song-
stress. Songer, Sanger, Songster, Sangster occur assurnames. Also
sing-ing, sing-ing-master, sing-song ; singe. And see Song.
SING, to scorch, burn on the surface. (E.) Forsenge. ME.
sengen; spelt seengyx, Prompt. Pary.; seuge, Chaucer, C. T. 5931
(Ὁ 439). The curious pp. seid occurs as a substitute for senged ;
Chaucer, C. T. 14851 (B 4035). AS. sengan, to singe, burn;
occurring in the comp. besengan, Alfred, tr. of Orosius, ii. 8. § 4;
A.S. Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, ii. 124, 1. 18. In Matt. xiii. 6,
the Lindisfarne MS. has besenced (for besenged), scorched, burnt or
002
564 SINGLE
dried up. The AS. sengan stands for *sang-ian, causal of singan
(pt. t. sang), to sing. Thus the lit. sense is ‘ to make to sing,’ with
reference to the singing or hissing noise made by singed hair, and
the sound given out by a burning log; see Sing.+Dnu. zengen,
to singe, scorch, causal of zingen, to sing; G. sengen, to singe,
scorch, parch, burn, causal of sizgen, to sing. Cf. Icel. sangr,
singed, burnt.
SINGLE, sole, separate, alone. (L.) ‘So that our eye be single ;’
Tyndale’s Works, p. 75, col. 1. He refers to Matt. vi. 22, where the
Vulgate has simplex, and Wyclif has simple.—L. singulus, single,
separate, in Late Latin; in classical Latin we have only the pl. singui,
one by one. B. Singuli stands for *sin-culi or *sin-cli, where *sin-
corresponds to sim- in sim-plex, and is allied to sem-el, once, and to E.
same; see Simple, Same. Der. single, verb, L.L.L. v. 1. 85;
singl-y; single-ness, Acts, ii. 46; single-heart-ed, single-mind-ed ; also
single-stick, prob. so called because wielded by one hand only, as
distinguished from the old quarter-staff, which was held in both
hands. And see singul-ar. Q Spelt sengle in ME. and OF.
SINGULAR, single, alone, uncommon, strange. (F.—L.)
ME. singuler; Gower, C. A. iii. 184; bk. vii. 2931. ‘ A singuler
persone’ =an individual, Chaucer, Tale of Melibee, Group B, 2625.
=F. singulier, ‘singular, excellent;’ Cot.—L. singuldris, single,
separate. Formed with suffix -aris from singul-i, one by one; see
Single. Der. singular-ly ; singular-i-ty, from Ἐς singulari/é, ‘ singu-
larity, excellence,’ Cot., from L. acc. singularitatem.
SINISTER, on the left hand, inauspicious, evil. (F.—L.)
Common as an heraldic term. ‘Some secret sinister informacion ;’
Sir T. More, Works, p. 1447 b. ‘ By eny sizistre or euil temptacion;’
Dictes of Philosophers, pr. by Caxton, fol. 7, 1. 27.—F. sinistre,
‘sinister, unlucky ;’ Cot.—L. sinistrum, acc. of sinister, left, on the
left hand, inauspicious or ill-omened, as omens on the left hand
were supposed to be. Cf. Dexter. Der. sinistr-ous, sinistr-al.
SINK, to fall down, descend, be overwhelmed ; also, to depress.
(E.) We have merged the transitive and intransitive forms in one;
properly, we ought to use sizk intransitively, and the trans. form
should be sench or senk; cf. drink, drench. 1. ME. sinken, intrans.,
pt. t. sank, pp. sunken, sonken. The pt. t. sank is in P. Plowman,
B. xviii. 67. This is the original and strong verb. AS. sincan, pt. t-
sanc, pl. suncon, pp. suncen; Grein, ii. 451.4 Du. zinken ; Icel. sokkva
(for *sinkva), pt. t. sokk (for *sank), pp. sokkinn ; Dan. synke; Swed.
sjunka ; G. sinken; Goth. sigkwan, siggkwan (written tor *sinkwan,
*singhwan). ‘Teut. type *senkwan-. Brugmann, i. ὃ 421 (3).
2. The trans. form appears in the weak ME. senchen, not common,
and now obsolete. ‘ Hi bisenched us on helle’=they will sink us
into hell; O. Eng. Homilies, i. 107, ]. 18. AS. sexcan, to cause to
sink; ‘bisenced on s&s grund’=caused to sink (drowned) in the
bottom of the sea, Matt. xviii. 6. For *sancian, formed from the
2nd grade sanc, as in the pt. t. of sincan, to sink. Cf. Goth. sagg-
kwan, causal form of siggkwan. This verb still exists in Swed. sanka,
Ian. senke, G. senken, to immerse.-4-Lith. βολεῖ (pres. senki), to be
drained away; cf. Skt. sich, to sprinkle. Brugmann, i. § 677;
Streitberg, § 203. Der. sink-er. Also sink, sb., a place where refuse
water sinks away, but orig. a place into which filth sézks or in which
it collects, Cor. i. 1. 126.
SINOPLE,, green, in heraldry. (F.—L.—Gk.) English heralds
call ‘ green’ vert; the term sizople is rather F. than E. It occurs in
Caxton, tr. of Reynard the Fox: ‘ of gold, of sable, of siluer, of
yelow, asure, and cynope, thyse sixe colowrs;’ ed. Arber, p. 85;
and, spelt cinople and distinguished from greze, in Lydgate, Siege of
Troy, b. ii. c. 11; fol. G1.—F. sixople, ‘sinople, green colour in
blazon ;’ Cot.—Late L. sinépis, signifying both reddish and greenish
(Littré).—L. sindpis, a kind of red ochre, used for colouring. —Gk.
σινωπίς, σινωπική, a red earth found in Cappadocia, and imported
into Greece from Sinope.—Gk. Σινώπη, Sinope, a port on the 5.
coast of the Black Sea.
SINUS, a bay of the sea, &c. (L.) Phillips, ed. 1706, gives:
‘Sinus, ..a gulph or great bay of the sea.... In anatomy, sinus is
taken for any cavity in or between the vessels of an animal body. In
surgery, it is when the beginning of an imposthume or ulcer is nar-
row, and the bottom large,’ &c.—L. sinus, the fold of a garment, a
bay, the bosom, a curve; &c. Der. sinu-ows; ‘a scarfing of silver,
that ran sinwously in works over the whole caparison,’ Chapman,
Mask of the Middle Temple, § 5; from F. sinuéux, ‘intricate,
crooked, full of hollow turnings, windings, or crinkle-crankles,’
Cot.; from L. sinudsus, winding, full of curves. Hence sinwos-i-ty,
from Ἐς sinuosité, a hollow turning or windinz; Cot. Also sinu-ate,
witha waved margin (botanical) ; stzu-at-ion ; in-sinu-ate, in-sinu-at-ion.
Doublet, sine.
SIP, to sup or drink in small quantities, to taste a liquid. (E.)
ME. sippen, Chaucer, C.T. 5758 (D 176). It answersto AS. sypian,
to absorb moisture (Toller), derived from swp-, weak grade of
SIRRAH
stipan, to sup; see Sup. And cf. Sop.4MDu. sippen, ‘to sip, to
sup, to tast little by little,” Hexham; from MDu. zuypen, Du. zuipen,
to sup ; Swed. dial. syppa, to sup. Der. sip, sb.; sipp-er. And see
sipp-et.
SIPHON, a bent tube for drawing off liquids. (F.—L.—Gk.)
In Phillips, ed. 1706.—F. siphon, ‘the cock or pipe of a conduit,’
ὅς. ; Cot. (He notes its use by Rabelais.) —L. siphdnem, acc. of
siphd, a siphon. = Gk. σίφων, a small pipe or reed.
SIPPET, a little sip, a little sop. (E.) Properly, there are two
separate words. 1. A little sip. ‘And ye wyll gyue me a syppet
Of your stale ale;’ Skelton, Elinour Rummyng, 367. This is the
dimin. of sip; with suffix -et, of F. origin. 2. A little sop, a piece
of sopped toast. ‘Green goose! you’re now in sippets;’ Beaum.
and Fletcher, Rule A Wife, iv. 1, last line. This seems to be
more immediately from AS. sypian, to absorb moisture ; and allied
to sop. Palsgrave has: ‘ Syppet, a litell soppe.’
SIR, SIRE, a respectful title of address. (F.—L.) Sire is the
older form. ME. sire, as in ‘ Sire Arthure,’ Layamon, 22485.—AF.
sire, Polit. Songs, p. 232 (before 1307); Εἰ, sire, ‘sir, or master ;’
Cot. Formed from L. senior, nom., lit. older; the F. seigneur being
due to the accus. senidrem of the same word. It is now well estab-
lished that the L. senior produced an OF. senre, of which sire is an
attenuated form; the same word appears in the curious form sendra
in the famous Oaths of Strasburg, A.D. 842; see Bartsch, Chrest.
Francaise, col. 4, 1.17. See Littré, Scheler, and Diez. B. The
last remarks that the word is prob. of Picard or Northern origin.
since Picard sometimes puts γ for xdr or 2, as in ¢erons for tiendrons,
tere for tendre. @ It may be added that this word gave the old
French etymologists a great deal of trouble; the word was even
written cyre to make it look like the Gk. κύριος, a lord! The
Proy. sira, sire, Span. ser, Ital. ser, are merely borrowed from
French; and Icel. stra, from Prov. or E.; see Sirrah. Doublets,
senior, seignior, senor, signor ; though these really answer only to the
acc, form senidrem.
SIRDAR, a military commander. (Hind.—Pers.) Used in 1808
(Yule).— Hind. sardar (Forbes).—Pers. sardar, a chief. = Pers. sar,
head (cf. Gk. κάρα, Skt. ciras) ; -dar (suffix), possessing, holding.
SIREN, a fabulous nymph who, by singing, lured mariners to
death. (L.—Gk.). ME. sereiz, which is from OF. sereine, ‘a mer-
maid,’ Cot. ‘Men clepen hem sereins in Fraunce;’ Rom. of the Rose,
684. But we took the mod. E. word immediately from the Latin,
Spelt siren, Com. of Errors, iii, 2. 47.— L. sirén.—Gk. σειρήν, anymph
on the S. coast of Italy, who enticed seamen by the magic sweetness
of her song, and then slew them. At first the sirens were but two in
number; Homer, Od. xii. 39, 167. It also means a wild bee, a
singing-bird. B. Usually derived from cepa, a cord, rope, as if
they enticed mariners by pulling them; this is more likely to be
a bad pun than an etymology. ‘The orig. sense was probably ‘ bird ;’
see an article on ‘Sirens,’ by J. P. Postgate, in the Journal of
Philology (Cambridge), vol. ix. Cf. G. schwirren, to chirp.
SIRLOIN, an inferior spelling of Surloin, q. v.
SIRNAME, a corruption of Surname, q. v.
SIROCCO, a hot, oppressive wind. (Ital.—Arab.) In Milton,
P. L. x. 7¢6. Spelt xirocgue by E. G., tr. of Acosta, bk. 111. ch. 5
(1604). -- τὰ]. sirocco, ‘the south-east wind;’ Florio. Cf. Span.
siroco.— Arab. sharg, the east; Rich. Dict. p. 889. The etymology
is well discussed in Devic, Supp. to Littré, who remarks that the
introduction of a vowel between r and g, when the Arabic word was
borrowed by European languages, presents no difficulty. Or there
may have been some confusion with the closely-allied word shuraq,
rising (said of the sun). The Eastern wind in the Mediterranean is
hot and oppressive.— Arab. root sharaga, (the sun) arose; Rich.
Dict. p. 889. See Saracen.
SIRRAH, a term of address, used in anger or contempt. (Prov.
—F.—L.) Common in Shak. Temp. v. 287; ὅς. Schmidt re-
marks that it is never used in the plural, is used towards compara-
tively inferior persons, and (when forming part of a soliloquy) is
preceded by ah; as ‘ah, sirrah;’ As You Like It, iv. 3. 166; ‘ak,
sirrah, quoth-a, 2 Hen. IV, v. 3. 17; cf. Romeo, i. 5. 31, 128. Min-
shew has: ‘ Sirra, a contemptuous word, ironically compounded of
Sir and a, ha, as much as to say ah, sir, or ah, boy.’ Minsheu is not
quite right ; for the form sira is Provencal. It is also spelt sirrha in
Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxxv. c. 10 (in a story of Apelles), ed. 1634,
vol. ii. p. 538, 1. 7 from bottom. = Prov. sira, sirrah, a term of con-
tempt; formerly sir, in a good sense ; borrowed from F. in the 15th
cent., or earlier. Not the true OProy. form (which was sexher, with
variants), but borrowed from F, sire. —L. senior; see Sir. B. The
fact that it was used contemptuously is the very thing that shows its
Prov. origin; for Mistral (5. ν. sire) quotes from Thierry to show
that sire (formerly sira) was a term of contempt applied by the men
of Provence to the Jords and governors from Paris. When St. Louis
SIR-REVERENCE
(Louis IX) was taken prisoner in the 13th century, the men of
Marseilles sang a Te Deum for their deliverance (for the time) from
the government of these sires. For two good examples of the offen-
sive use of Prov. sira by two men who are disputing, see Bartsch,
Chrest. Prov. (1875), 397- 34, 398. 13.
SIR-REVERENCEH,, save your reverence. (L.) InShak. Com.
Errors, iii. 2. 93. See Save-reverence in Nares, who shows that it was
used also in the form save-reverence and save-your-reverence; the latter
is in Romeo, i. 4.42. ‘ This word was considered a sufficient apology
for anything indecorous;’ Nares. A translation of L. salud reuerentia,
reverence to you being duly regarded. —L. salud, fem. abl. of saluus,
safe; and reuerentia, abl. of renerentia, reverence; see Safe and
Reverence.
SIRUP, another spelling of Syrup, q. v.
SISKIN, a migratory song-bird. (Du.—Low G.—Slavonic.)
Mentioned in a tr. of Buffon, Nat. Hist., London, 1792, ii. go; and
in Kilian. Spelt s‘sken in Phillips (1658). The Carduelis spinus;
better Spinus viridis (Newton) ; also called aberduvine; also Fringilla
spinus.=MDu. cijsken, sijsken, Anglice siskix (Kilian); later Du.
cysje (Sewel), with dimin. suffix -je for the older dimin. suffix -ken ;
Du. sijsye (Calisch). Low G. zieske, ziseke (Bremen). = Polish czyzik,
dimin. form of czy, a siskin; cf. Sloven. chizhek, Russ. chi)’. See
Miklosich, p. 36. 41 Thus the Du. form should have been cijske ;
it was a mistake to turn -#e into the dimin. suffix -ken ; and a greater
one to substitute -je.
SISTER, a girl born of the same parents with another. (E.)
ME. suster, Chaucer, C. T. 873 (A 871) ; rarely sister, syster, as in
Prompt. Parv., and in Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 766. It is
extremely remarkable how the Scand. form sister has modified the
E. form suster. AS, sweostor, swuster (whence ME, suster) ; Grein,
li. 5¢g; modified by Icel. systir, Swed. syster (Dan. séster).4 Du.
zuster ; Goth. swistar; G. schwester; OHG. swester, swister. B. The
Teut. forms are all from the base *swestr-, answering to an Idg. base
*swesr- (without the 7). Further related to Lithuan. sessz# (gen.
sesseres) ; L. soror (for older *swesor) ; Skt. svasa, nom.; Olrish
siur; W. chwaer. Der. sister-hood, -like, -ly; sister-in-law. Also
cou-sin, q. Vv.
SIT, to rest on the haunches, rest, perch, brood. (E.) ME. sitten,
pt. t. sat; pl. sefex, Chaucer, C. T. 10406 (F 92; where Tyrwhitt
prints saten); pp. seten, siten, id. 1454 (where Tyrwhitt prints s7tt γι).
AS. sittan, pt. t. set, pl. séton, pp. se‘en; Grein, il. 454.- Ὁ ὰ.
zitten; Icel. sitja, pt. t. sat, pp. setinn; Dan. sidde; Swed. sitta;
Goth. sitan; ἃ. sitzen; OHG. sizzan. Teut. type *setjan-, pt. t.
*sat, pp. *sefanoz. From Idg.4/SED, to sit, whence Skt. sad,
Gk. ἕζομαι (for €5-youar), L. sedére, Lithuan. sédéti, Russ. sidiet(e),
to sit. Der. sitt-er, sitt-ing. Also (from L. sedére) as-sess, as-sid-
uous, as-size, dis-pos-sess, dis-sid-ent, in-sid-ious, pos-sess, pre-side, re-
side, re-sid-ue, sed-ate, sed-entary, sed-iment, sess-ile, sess-ion, sub-side,
sub-sid-y ; super-sede; also siege, be-siege, seize, size (1), size (2),
siz-ar. Also (frcm Gk. ἕζομαι) octa-hedron, tetra-hedron, poly-hedron,
cath-(h)edral ; chair, chaise. Also (from Teut. SET) set, settle (1) ;
settle (2), in some senses; -also seat, dis-seat, un-seat, soot; and see
saddle.
SITE, a locality, situation, place where a thing is set down or
fixed. (F.—L.) ‘After the site, north or south;’ Chaucer, On the
Astrolabe, pt. ii. c. 17.—F. site, MF. sit, ‘ Sit, a site, or seat;” Cot.
=L. situm, ace. of situs, a site. Perhaps allied to L. situs, pp. of
sinere, to permit, of which an older meaning may have been to put,
place. So Bréal. But see Brugmann, i. §§ 761, 920; where situs,
sb., is compared with Gk. κτίσις, a foundation, and Skt. Ashiti-, an
abode, from shi, to dwell. The L. ponere (=*po-sinere) is certainly
a derivative of sinere. Der. situ-ate, situ-ation (see below) ; also the
derivatives of ponere, for which see Position. @ We frequently
find the odd spelling scite.
SITH, since. (E.) In Ezek. xxxv. 6. See Since.
SITHE, the correct spelling of Scythe, q. v.
SITUATE, placed. (L.) In Shak. L. L. L. i. 2. 142.—Late L.
situatus, pp. of situare, to locate, place; a barbarous word, found
A.D. 1317 (Ducange).=—L. situ-, stem of situs, a site; see Site.
Der. situat-ion, 2 Hen. IV, i. 3. 51, from F. situation, ‘a situation,’
Cot.
SIX, five and one. (E.) ME. six, sixe, P. Plowman, B. v. 431.
AS. six, syx, siex 3 Grein, ii. 454.4-Du. zes ; Icel., Dan., and Swed.
sex; G. sechs; OHG. sehs ; Goth, saths.+ Russ. shest(e) ; W. chwech ;
Gael. and Irish se; L. sex; Gk. ἕξ (for *oe¢); Lithuan. szeszi;
Pers. shash; Palmer’s Dict. col. 382; Skt. shash. Idg. type *sweks.
See Brugmann, ii. ὃ 170. Der. six-fold, six-pence. Also six-teen,
AS. six-tine, six-tyne (see Ten); six-teen-th; six-ty, AS. six-tig
(see Forty); six-ti-eth; six-th, AS. six-ta, whence ME. sixte,
sexte, Gower, C. A. iii. 121, bk. vii. 1052; P. Plowman, B, xiv.
300, now altered to sixth by analogy with four-th, seven-th, eigh-th,
SKATE, SCATE 565
nin-th, ten-th, just as fif-th is altered from AS. fif-ta. Also (from L.
sex) sex-agenarian, sex-agesima, sex-ennial, sex-tant, sex-tuple.
SIZAR, a scholar of a college in Cambridge, who pays lower fees
than a pensioner or ordinary student. (F.—L.) Spelt sizer in Todd’s
Johnson. There was formerly a considerable difference in the social
rank of a sizar, who once had to perform certain menial offices. At
Oxford the corresponding term was servitor, defined by Phillips as
“a poor university scholar that attends others for his maintenance.’
Formed from the sb. size. ‘Size is a farthings worth of bread or
drink, which scholars in Cambridge have at the buttery, noted
with the letter S., as in Oxford with the letter Q. for half a
farthing, and Qa. [Quadrans] for a farthing. And whereas they say
in Oxford, to battel in the buttery-book, i.e. to set down on their
names what they take in bread, drink, butter, cheese, &c., in
Cambridge they call it sizing ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. The
word size is also in Minsheu, and is a mere abbreviation of assize,
i.e. quantity or ration of bread, &c. ‘ Assise of bread, i.e. setting
downe the price and quantitie of bread;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627. See
Assize, and Size (1).
SIZE (1), an allowance or ration of food; hence, generally,
magnitude. (F.—L.) ‘To scant my sizes,’ K. Lear, ii. 4. 178; see
Sizar. ‘ Syse of bredde and ale;’ Palsgraye. Size is merely short
for assize, ME. assise, the usual old word for an allowance, or settled
portion of bread, &c., doled out for a particular price or given to a
dependent. We even find it used, at a very early period, almost as
a general word for provisions. ‘ Whan ther comes marchaundise,
With corn, wyn, and steil, othir [or] other assise;’ K. Alisaunder,
7074. Hence size came to mean dimension, magnitude, &c., as at
present ; also bulk, as in Merry Wives, ili.5.12. For the etymology,
see Assize. Der. siz-ar, q.v.
SIZE (2), weak glue, a stiffening gluey substance. (Ital.—L.)
In Minsheu, ed. 1627. ‘Syse for colours;’ Palsgrave. Hence blood-
sized, rendered sticky with gore; Two Noble Kinsmen, i. 1. 99;
‘o’er-sized with coagulate gore,’ Hamlet, ii. 2. 484. Cotgrave has:
‘assiette ἃ dorer, size to gild with, gold size.’ It is not a F. word,
but borrowed, like some other painters’ terms, from Italian. = Ital.
sisa, ‘a kind of syse or glew that painters vse;’ Florio, ed. 1598.
And Ital. sisa is an abbreviation of assisa, ‘size that painters vse;
also, an assise or manner; also, a liuerie, a guise or fashion, an assise
or session;’ id. He also gives assisare, ‘to sise, to sesse, to assise,
to sute well;’ and assiso, ‘seated, situated.’ Assisa is the verbal sb.
from assisare, which in its turn is from assiso, pp. of assidere, to
situate. The sense is ‘that which makes the colours lie flat,’ so that,
in Florio’s phrase, they ‘sute well.’ The Ital. assidere is from L.
assidére, to sit at or near.=L. ad, near; and sedére, to sit, cognate
with E, Sit. We speak of ‘making a thing sit,’ which is just the
idea here required. @ Thus sise (2), size (1), and assize are all,
really, the same word. See Size (1), and Assize.
SJAMBOK, a whip. (Cape Du.—Malay.—Pers.) Modern.
The Cape Du. sjambok seems to have been adopted from Malay
chiabok (Port. chabuco). = Pers. chabuk, alert, active ; as sb., a horse-
whip. See N. and Q., 9S. iv. 456; Chawbuck in Yule, and Chabouk,
Chawbuck in N.E. D.
SKAIN, SKENE, SKEIN, a dagger, knife. (Irish.) ‘Skain,
a crooked sword, or scimetar, used formerly by the Irish;’ Halli-
well, He cites the expression ‘ Iryshmen, armed. . with dartes and
skaynes’ from Hall, Hen. V, an. vi. § 3. ‘Carrying his head-peece, his
skeane, or pistoll;’ Spenser, State of Ireland; Globe ed., p. 631,
col. 2. ‘Skeyne, a knyfe;’ Palsgrave. ‘j. baslard vocatum Iresch
skene;” (1472), York Wills, iii. 202,—Irish (and Gael.) sgian, a
knife; Olvish scian.W. ysgien, a slicer, scimetar ; cf. ysgi,a cutting
off, a parer. β. Apparently from a base *ské; cf. Gk. oxaw, 1
scratch. See Stokes-Fick, p. 309. Der. (possibly) skains-mate, a
companion in arms, comrade, Romeo, ii. 4. 162 ; but see Skein.
SKATE (1), a large flat fish of the ray family. (Scand.) Spelt
scate in Levins, ed. 1570. ME. scate, Prompt. Parv.—Icel. skata, a
skate; Norweg. skata (Aasen) ; Dan. skade. Wee find also Irish and
Gael. sgat, a skate (from E.). Φ4 The AS. sceadd is a shad, not a
skate.
SKATE (2), SCATE, a frame of wood (or iron) with a steel
ridge beneath it, for sliding on ice. (Du.—F.—Low G.) The word
should be skates, with a pl. skateses; the final s has been mistaken for
the pl. suffix, and so has dropped off, just as in other words ; see Pea,
Sherry, Cherry. Nares quotes the pl. sca‘zes in 1695. Spelt
scheets in Evelyn’s Diary, Dec. 1, 1662; skeates in Pepys’ Diary,
same date. ‘Scate, a sort of pattern, to slide upon ice;’ Phillips,
ed. 1706. Cotgrave explains OF, eschasses by ‘stilts, or scatches to
go on;’ here scafches is merely another form of skateses; ‘ the point
in which stilts and skates agree is that they are both contrivances
for increasing the length of stride,’ Wedgwood.—Du. schaatsen,
‘skates,’ Sewel ; where -en is the pl. suffix, so that the word itself is
566 SKEIN, SKAIN
schaats, as in ‘schaatsryder, a skates-slider;’ Sewel [misprinted
schaarsryder by an obvious error]. MDnu. schaetsen, ‘skates [with]
which they slide upon the yce in Holland ;’ Hexham, ed. 1658.—
OF. eschace (with ce pron. as ¢se), a stilt (12th cent.); whence F.
échasse.= Low G. type *skak-ja (Latinised as scacia in Ducange), a |
shank, leg; Low G. schake, the same. Compare E. skank, which in-
serts the nasal sound γι; see Shank. Note the Low G. phrase de
schaken voort teen, to go swiftly, lit. ‘to pull one’s shanks out ;’ and
AS. sceacan, scacan, to shake, to go swiftly, to flee; see Shake,
with which 1, shank is allied. As to the sense, the words sca‘ches
and skates merely mean ‘shanks,’ i.e. contrivances for lengthening
the leg. 81 The Dan. skdite, a skate, older form skejte (Kalkar) is
from E.; the Swed. word is skridsko or skid (see Skid).
SKEIN, SKAIN, a knot of thread or silk. (F.—C.?) Gene-
rally defined as ‘a knot of thread or silk,’ where probably ‘ knot’
means a quantity collected together; a skeix is a quantity of yarn,
folded and doubled together. ‘ Layde downe a skeyne of threde, And
some a skeyxe of yarne;’ Skelton, Elinor Rumming, 310. ME.
skeyne, Prompt. Parv.<OF. escaigne (Godefroy), a skein (1354);
MF. escaigne, ‘a skain;’ Cot. Prob, of Celtic origin; cf. Irish
sgainne, ‘a skein or clue of thread.’ Cf. Gael. sgeinnidh, flax or
hemp thread, small twine. If these are true Celtic words, they
may be allied to Gk. σχοῖνος, a rope, a cord (Macbain). Der.
(perhaps) skains-mates, companions in winding thread, companions,
Romeo, ii. 4. 162; but see Skain. This solution is advocated in
Todd’s Johnson, which see; and cf. the phrase ‘as thick [intimate]
as inkle-weavers,’ i.e. weavers of tape.
SKELETON, the bony frame-work of an animal. (Gk.) ‘ Skelitons
of ev'ry kinde;’ Davenant, Gondibert, ii. 5. st. 32. See Trench,
Select Glossary. Spelt skeleton, sceleton in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
= Gk. σκελετόν, a dried body, a mummy; neut. of σκελετός, dried
up, parched. =—Gk. σκέλλειν (for σκέλ-γειν), to dry, dry up, parch.
Der. :kele/on-key.
SKELLUM, a cheat. (Du.—G.) ‘A Dutch skelum;’ Coryat’s
Crudities; in Addit. to Nares.< Du. schelm, ‘a rogue, a villaine;’
Hexham.=—G. schelm, a rogue; OHG. scelmo, scalmo, a pestilence,
carrion; hence a rogue (as a term of abuse). See Notes to Eng.
Etym., p. 271.
SKEPTIC, the same as Sceptie, q. v.
SKERRY, an insulated rock. (Scand.) In Scott, The Pirate;
song in ch, xii. Icel. sker (dat. skeri), a skerry; see Scar (2).
SKETCH, a rough draught of an object, outline. (Du.—Ital.—L.
—Gk.) In Phillips, ed. 1706. ‘To make a sketch ;’ Dryden, Parallel
between Painting and Poetry (R.). Not used much earlier,—Dn.
schets, ‘a draught, scheme, model, sketch;’ Sewel. [The E. shetch
is a mere corruption of the Du, word, and stands for ske‘s.} The
same word as G, skizze, a sketch; which was prob, borrowed from
the Dutch, who, as being fond of painting, introduced the term from
the Italian. At any rate, both Du. schets and G. skizze are from Ital.
schizzo, ‘an ingrosement or first rough draught of anything ;’ Florio.
-L. schedium, an extemporaneous poem, anything hastily made.—
L. schedius, adj., made hastily. —Gk. σχέδιος, sudden, offhand on
the spur of the moment; also near, close to. Cf. Gk. σχεδόν, near,
hard by, lit. ‘holding to.” These words, like σχέ-σις, habit, state,
σχε-τι-κός, retentive, are from the Gk. base oxe-, to hold, appearing
in Gk. σχεῖν (-- σχέ-ειν), 2 aorist infin. of ἔχειν, to hold, and in E.
sche-me. See Scheme. β. Thus scheme and sketch, the meanings
of which are by no means remote, are from the same root, but by
different paths. Der. sketch, verb; sketch-y, sketch-i-ness.
SKEW, oblique, wry. (MDu.) ‘To look skew, or a-skew, to
squint or leer;’ Phillips, ed.1706. It seems first to have been used
chiefly asa verb, “ΤῸ skue, or walk skuing,to waddle, to go sideling
along;’ Phillips. ‘Zo skewe, linis oculis spectare;’ Levins, ed.
1570. ‘ Our service Neglected and look’d lamely on, and skew'd at;’
Beaum. and Fletcher, Loyal Subject, A. ii, sc. 1 (Putskie). ‘This
skew'd-eyed carrion ;’ id., Wild-goose Chase, iv. 1 (Mirabel). ME.
skewen, to turn aside, slip away, escape; Morte Arthure, ed. Brock,
1562, Prob, of MDu. origin; not from Icel. skeifr, awry.—MDu,
schouwen, ‘to avoid or to shunne,’ also as Du. schuwen, Hexham ;
Low G. schouen, schuwen, to avoid.4-OHG. sciuhen, MHG., schiuhen,
to avoid, get out of the way, G. scheuen, to shun, avoid (whence α.
scheu, shy); derived from the adj. appearing as MHG, schtech,
timid. Thus ME. skewen, to escape, is really the yerb corresponding
to the adj. shy; to skew or skue is to shy as a horse, to start aside
from. Cf. WFlem. schui, schu, shy ; schuien, schuen, to avoid. See
further under Shy, Eschew. Der. a-skew, q.v. Also skew-
bald.
SKEWBALD, piebald. (Hybrid; MDu. azdC.) In Halli-
well. It means marked or spotted in a skew or irregular manner.
From Skew and Bald, q.v. And cf. pie-bald, @ We find, how-
ever, ME. skewed, piebald (see Stratmann) ; perhaps from skew, ME.
SKIN
variant of skie, a cloud, sky. If this is right, then skew-bald is con-
nected with Sky rather than Skew.
SKEWEB, a pin of wood or iron for holding meat together.
(Scand.) In Dryden, tr. of Homer, Iliad, i. 633. Spelt skwer in
1411; Nottingham Records, vol. ii. Skewer is a by-form of prov. E.
shiver, askewer, E.D.D; ef, sk-ver-wood, dogwood, of which skewers
are made; Halliwell. And skiver is the Northern form of shiver, a
splinter of wood, dimin. of Icel. skifa, Swed. skifva, a slice, a shive ;
see Shiver (2), ‘The form skiver corresponds to Dan. sktfer,
Swed, skiffer, a slate, MDan. skever; MDu. scheversteen, ‘a slate or
a slate-stone,’ Hexham; similarly named from its being sliced into
thin flakes. Cf. Dan. dial. skivrt, small sticks ; Norw. skivra, to cut
into splinters (Ross). 41 The spelling skiver occurs in W. Dampier,
A New Voyage (1699) ; vol. ii. pt. 1, p. 31. Doublet, shiver (2).
Der. skewer, verb.
SKID, a contrivance for locking the wheel of a carriage. (Scand.)
Halliwell gives: ‘ skid-pan, the shoe with which the wheel of a car-
riage is locked.’ Ray has: ‘To skid a wheel, rotam sufflaminare,
with an iron hook fastned to the axis to keep it from turning round
upon the descent of a steep hill; Kent.’ The latter sense is merely
secondary, and refers to a later contrivance; the orig. skid was a
kind of shoe placed under the wheel, and in the first instance made
of wood, [The word skid is merely the Scand. form corresponding
to the ME. schide, a thin piece of wood; see Shide.)—Icel. skid, a
billet of wood; also, a kind of snow-shoe; Norw. skid, a snow-shoe
(Aasen) ; MSwed. skid, a thin flat piece of wood (Ihre) ; Swed. skid,
‘a kind of scate or wooden shoe on which they slide on the ice,’
W idegren.
SKIFF, a small light boat. (F.—Ital.-OHG.) ‘ Olauus fled in
a litle skiffe;’ Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. i. p. 14. And in Minsheu.
= MF. esguif, ‘a skifle, or little boat,’ Cot.—Ital, schifo, ‘a skiffe ;’
Florio. —OHG., skif, schif, G. schiff, a ship; cognate with E. Ship,
Der, skiff, verb, to cross in a skiff, Two Noble Kinsmen, i. 3.
Doublet, ship.
SKILL, discernment, discrimination, tact. (Scand.) ME. sil,
gen. in the sense of ‘reason,’ Ancren Riwle, p. 204, 1. 22; shile, id.
p- 306, 1. 17. —Icel. skil, a distinction, discernment ; cf. stilja, to part,
separate, divide, distinguish; Dan. skjel, a separation, boundary,
limit ; ef. skidle, to separate ; Swed. skal, reason ; cf. skilja, to separate.
B. From /SQEL, to separate, divide, orig. to cleave, as appears by
Lithuan. skelti, to cleave. Cf. Swed. stala, to peel. See Shell,
Scale. Der. shil-ful, ME. skilfulle, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Lang-
toft, p. 311, 1.175 skil-ful-ly, shil-ful-ness; skil-less, Ormulum, 3715 ;
skill-ed, i.e. endowed with skill, Rich. III, iv. 4.116. Also skill,
verb, in the phr, ἐξ skills not =it makes no difference, Tam. Shrew, iii.
2. 134; from Icel. skilja, to separate, which is frequently used im-
personally, with the sense ‘ it differs.’
SKILLET, a small pot. (F.—L.) In Othello, i. 3. 273. Spelt
skellet, Skelton, Elinour Kumming, 250. Halliwell explains it as a
small iron or brass pot, with a long handle. = OF. escuellette, ‘a little
dish;” Cot. Dimin. of OF. escuelle, a dish. L. scutella, a salver;
dimin. of scutra, scuéa,a tray, dish, platter. Hardly allied to scutum,a
shield. Doublet, scuttle (1). ὅτ The Suffolk word skillet, mean-
ing a thin brass perforated implement used for skimming milk (Moor,
Nall), perhaps acquired its peculiar sense from confusion with the
Icel. skilja, to separate; but the sense of ‘dish’ will suffice, as the
orig, skimmer must have been a simple dish. The fancy in Phillips,
that a shilet [except when it means ‘ a bell’) is derived from Late L.
skeletia, a little bell (from Du. schel, a bell], on the ground that
skillets are made of bell-metal, is to be rejected. Othello’s helmet
can hardly have been made of bell-metal, and a skillet is usually of
brass or iron.
SKIM, to clear of scum, to pass lightly over a surface. (Scand.)
‘Stim milk;’ Mids. Nt. Dr. ii. 1. 36. A derivative of scum; the
change of vowel from u to i (y) is precisely what we should expect ;
but we only find a change of this character in the cognate EFries.
schimen, to skim; and G. schaumen, to skim, from schaum, scum.
Of Scand, origin; cf. Dan. skwnme, to skim, from skum, scum;
Swed, skumma τη} 0 Δ, to skim milk, from skum, scum. The right
form appears in MSwed. skymma, to overshadow, from skumm,
obscurity; which seems to be from the same root as skum, scum.
Note also Dan, dial. skimme/, a thin film on milk; and even Irish
sgem-im, | skim, from sgeim, foam, scum. See Scum. q We
find a similar vowel-change in dint, ME. dunt; in fill, derived from
full; in list, verb, from lust, sb.; in trim, verb, from AS. trum; &c.
Der. skimmer; skim-milk, i.e. skimmed milk,
SKIMP, to curtail, stint. (Scand.) See E. D. D.; and cf. serimp,
which may have affected it. It seems to be founded on Icel. skemma,
to shorten; from skamr, short. See Scant. So also Eng. dial.
skimp, to joke, is from NFries. skempe, Icel. skemta, to amuse.
SKIN, the natural covering of the body, hide, bark, rind. (Scand.)
SKINK
ME. skin, Chaucer, C. T. 3809 (A 3811); bere-skin or beres skin, a
bear-skin, id. 2144 (A 2142). Spelt skine, Rel. Ant. ii. 79, col. 1.—
Icel. skinn, a skin; Swed. skinn; Dan. skind. Β. The Icel. skinn
stands for *skinf-, by the assimilation common in that language; so
also the Swed. skinz. — Teut. type *skinfom, neut.; Idg. type
*skéntom. Hence also G. schinden, to skin, flay; OHG. scintan,
scindan, sometimes a strong verb, with pt. t. schant, pp. geschun-
den. Cf. also W. cen, skin, peel, scales; ysgen, dandriff. Der. skin,
verb, Hamlet, iii. 4. 147 ; skin-deep ; skinn-er ; shin-flint, a miser who
would even skin a flint, if possible ; skinn-y, Macb. i. 3. 453; skian-i-
ness.
SKINK (1), to draw or serve out wine. (Scand.) Obsolete.
Shak. has under-skinker, 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 26. Dryden has ckinker,
tr. of Homer, Iliad, i. 803.—Icel. skenkja, to serve drink; cognate
with AS. scencax. The latter verb is fully explained under
Nunchion, q.v.
SKINK (2), a kind of lizard. (Gk.) ‘Th’ Alexandrian skink ;’
Sylvester, tr. of Du Bartas, i. 6 (Ὁ. D.).—Gk. oxiyxos, a kind of
lizard ; whence L. scincus (Pliny, viii. 25); written <civke in Holland’s
translation; spelt scinc, scinque in Cotgrave.
SKIP, to leap lightly, pass over quickly. (Scand.) ΜΕ, shippen,
Chaucer, C. T. 3259; King Alisaunder, 768; pt. t. skipte, P. Plow-
man, Bb. xi. 103 ; scep, skyp, scope, Cursor Mundi, 19080. Of Scand.
origin. Cf. Swed. dial. skopa, to skip, leap (as an animal), dance
(Rietz) ; who cites MSwed. skuppa, skoppa, in the same sense ; Norw.
skopa, to skipaway (Ross); MDan. skobe,todance, skip (Kalkar). Icel.
skoppa, to spin like a top, whence skoppara-kringla, a top, North E.
scopperil spinner, a teetotum (Whitby Glossary), named from its
skipping about. And cf. MHG. sciiften, to gallop. (The E.7 is for
y, mutation of u.) Perhaps MSwed. pp represents mp; cf. Swed.
dial. skimpa, skumpa, to jump about. Der. skip, sb., skipp-ing-rope.
SKIPPER, the master of a merchant-ship. (Du.) ‘In ages
pass'd, as the skipper told me, ther grew a fair Jorrest in that chanuel
where the Texel makes now her bed;’ Howell, Famil. Letters,
vol. i. let. 5, dated from Amsterdam, April 1, 1617. Thus Howell
picked up the word in Holland. Found much earlier, spelt skypper ;
Karl of Derby’s Expeditions (1390); Camden Soc., p. 37. Du.
schipper, ‘a marriner, a shipper, a saylour, a navigatour ;’ Hexham.
Formed, with suffix -er (=E. -er) of the agent, from Du. schip,
cognate with E. Ship, 4. ν. So also Swed. skeppare, from skepp,
a ship (Ihre).
SKIRMISH, an irregular fight, contest. (F.-OHG.) Also
spelt scrimmage ; and even scaramouch is but the Ital. form of the
ME. 50. ‘This sb. appears as ME. scarmuch, a slight battle,
Chaucer, Troil. ii. 934. Spelt scarmoge, Spenser, F. Ὁ. ii. 6. 34.—
OF. escarmouche, ‘a skirmish, bickering ;’ Cot. B. But the mod.
form of the sb. is due to the ME. verb skirmishen, spelt skirmysshe in
Trevisa, tr. of Higden, iv. 399.—OF. eskermiss-, a stem of eskermir,
to fence, to fight; whence also the ME. skirmen, to fence or skirmish ;
the pt. t. skirmden occurs very early, in Layamon, 8406. Cf. MF.
escrimer, ‘to fence, or play at fence, also, to lay hard about him ;’
Cot.—OHG. scirman, MHG. schirmen, to defend, fight; especially,
to defend oneself with ashield.—OHG. scirm, schirm, G. schirm, a
shield, screen, shelter, guard, defence. y. It thus appears that the orig.
sense of skirmish is ‘to fight behind cover,’ hence to take advantage
of cover or slight shelter in advancing to fight. 6. Diez and Scheler
show clearly that the F. escarmouche, Ital. scaramuccia, are due to
OHG, skerman, which is a mere variant of scirman. The ending of
Ital. scaramuccia is a mere suffix; we find also Ital. scherm-nugio,
a skirmish, scherm-ita, fencing, schermire, schermare, to fence, schermo,
a defence, arms; also OF. escarm-ie, answering to Ital. scherm-ita.
Der. skirmish-er. Doublets, scrimmage, scaramouch,
SKIRR, the same as Scur, q.v.
SKIRRET, SKERRET, a plant like the water-parsnep. (F.—
Span.—Arab.) ME. skyrwyt; Voc. 567. 31; 580. 38. Also skirwhit.
skirwhite ; Sinonima Bartolomei, ed. Mowat, p. 20, 1. 4; p. 33, 1. 25.
Spelt as if from Icel. skir Avitr, pure white. But this is probably
a popular etymology ; prob. adapted from OF. eschervis (Godefroy) ;
ΜΕ. chervis, ‘the root skirret or skirwicke;’ Cot. The OF. eschervis
is from Span. chirivia; from Arab. karawia (Devic); which is also
the origin of our word caraway. See Notes on E. Etym., p. 271.
And see Caraway.
SKIRT, the part of a garment below the waist, edge, border,
margin. (Scand.) This is a doublet of shirt, but restricted to the
sense of the Jower part of the shirt or garment. Spelt skort, Hall’s
Satires, Ὁ. iv. sat. i. 1.28. ME. skyrt. ‘Skyrt of a garment, Trames;’
Prompt. Parv. —Icel. skyrta, a shirt, a kind of kirtle; Swed. skjorta,
MDan. skyrt, Dan. skyorte,a shirt. β,. The cognate G. schurz has
the sense of ‘apron;’ and special attention was called to the /ower
part of the shirt by the etymological sense, which signifies ‘a short
garment ;’ see Shirt. And see remarks on Kirtle, The general
SKY 567
sense of ‘edge’ comes from that of ‘lower edge,’ or place where the
garment is cut short. Der. skirt, verb, Milton, P. L. v. 282.
SKIT, a taunt, a lampoon; see Skittish (below).
SKITTISHO, frisking, full of frisks, said of a horse or unsteady
person, fickle. (Scand.) ‘ Unstaid and skittish in all motions else ;”
Tw. Nt. ii. 4. 18. ‘Some of theyr skyttyshe condycyons ;’ Fabyan’s
Chronicle, an. 1255-6, ed. Ellis, p. 339. ‘Thy skittish youthe ;’
Hoccleve, de Regim. Principum, 590. Formed from the verb 20 skit,
a Lowland Sc. word, meaning ‘to flounce, caper like a skzttish horse,’
Jamieson. Of Scand. origin. We find nearly related words in Swed.
skutta, to leap, Swed. dial. skutta, skotta, to leap, Swed. dial. skytéa,
to go a-hunting, to be idle, sky/t/a, to run to and fro; all of which
(as Rietz says) are mere derivatives from Swed. skjuta, to shoot. To
skit is a secondary verb, of Scand. origin, from the verb to shoot ;
and means to be full of shootings or quick darts, to jerk or jump
about; hence the adj. skittish, full of frisks or capers. Cf. ‘If she
skit and recoil,’ i.e. is shy ; Chapman, May Day, ii. 3. Sce further
under Shoot. B. We may also note Swed. skytt, Icel. skyti, skytja,
skytta, Dan, skytte, an archer, marksman (lit. ‘a shooter’), whence
the verb /o skit also means ‘to aim at’ or reflect upon a person.
‘Skit, verb, to reflect on;’ E. D,S. Gloss. B.1; A.D. 1781. We
even find MDan. skytte-vers, a jeering verse (Kalkar). This
explains the sb. skit, ‘an oblique taunt,’ Jamieson. Cf. Dan. skotte
til, to cast a sly look at (Larsen) ; AS. on-scyte, an attack, a calumny.
Vigfusson notices E. skit with reference to Icel. skiti, skita, sketing,
a scoff, taunt ; perhaps these also may be referred to the same prolific
Tent. base *skeut-. 47 The surname Skeat, ME. skeet, swift, in King
Alisaunder, 5637, Icel. skdtr, swift, fleet, is likewise from Icel. skjota
to shoot; and is closely related.
SKITTLES, a game in which wooden pins are knocked down
by a ball. (Scand.) Formerly keels or kayles or kails; see Kails.
Also ketile-pins or skittle-pins. Todd cites: ‘When shall our kittle-pins
returm 2gain into the Grecian skyttals?’ Sadler, Rights of the King-
dom, 1649, p. 43. Halliwell gives kettle-pins, skittles. ‘ The Grecian
skyttals’ is an invention, evidently suggested by Gk. σκυτάλη, a stick,
staff, from which Sadler probably imagined that skittles was ‘de-
rived,’ in the old-fashioned way of ‘ deriving’ all English words from
Latin and Greek. As hit/le-pins never came from Greek, there is no
reason why it should be expected to ‘return’ to it. B. From
comparison of skittles with kittle-pins, we may infer that the old name
was skittle-pins, i.e. pins to be knocked down by a shi¢éle or projectile.
Skittle is, in fact, a doublet of shuttle, signifying, originally, anything
that could be skot or thrown; thus the ME. schitel meant the bolt
of a door. Cf. ME. schytle, a child’s game, L. sagitella, Prompt.
Parv. ; though there is a doubt whether this refers to skitéles or to
shutile-cock. y- Shuttle is the English, but skittJe the Scand. form,
= Dan. skyttel, a shuttel, Swed. dial. skyt/el, skotfel, an earthen ball
for a child’s game (Rietz); MDan. skyf‘el, a shuttle, an earthen or
stone ball to play with; shyttelleg, the game of skittles, skyttelbane,
a skittle-track ; Icel. skwsill, an implement shot forth, a harpoon, a
bolt or bar of a door.—Teut. and Icel. skut-, weak grade of the
strong verb shjdta, to shoot, cognate with E. Shoot, q.v. And
see Shuttle. Also see Skittish. It follows that the skittle
was orig. the ball which was aimed at the pins or ‘ skittle-pins ; ’
and the skittle-alley was the course along which the ball ran.
SKUA, a bird, a kind of gull. (Scand.) “ Lestris cataractes, the
common skua ;’ Engl. Encycl. s.v. Laride, Shetland skooi; Faroese
skiuir (1604); see Newton, Dict. of Birds; Dan. skua (Larsen).
Apparently a corruption of Icel. skiifr, a skua; also called skimr,
‘the skua, or brown gull ;’ Icel. Dict. I suppose the reference is to
the colour; cf. Icel. skimi, shade, dusk; Swed. skum, dusky ;
Norweg. skum, dull, dusky, chiefly used of the weather, but sometimes
of colour. Perhaps allied to Sky.
SKUE, old spelling of Skew, q. v.
SKULK, the same as Seulk, q.v.
SKULL, SCULL, the bony casing of the brain, the head,
cranium. (Scand.) ME. skulle, sculle, Chaucer, C. T. 3933 (A 3935) 3
spelt schulle, Ancren Riwle, p, 296, 1. 4; scolle, Rob. of Glouc. p. 16,
1, 374. Named from its shell-like shape. Swed. dial. skulle, variant
of skollt, scull; Norw. skult, scull. From Teut. *skul, weak grade of
*skelan- (pt. t. *skal), to cleave, divide. From the base *skal we
have Swed. hufvud-skalle, the skull, Dan, hjerne-skal, skull. See
further under Seale (2). Der. scull (2), 4. ν. ; also skull-cap.
SKUNK, a N. American quadruped. (N. American Indian.)
Modern ; imported from N. American. ‘Contracted from the Abenaki
seganku;’ Webster. But this is an incorrect form of segongw; see
N. and Q., 10S. iii. 386, Abenakiisa dialect of the Algonquin race
of N. American Indians, spoken in Lower Canada and Maine.
SKYY, the clonds, the heavens. (Scand.) ME. skie, skye, in the
sense of ‘cloud ;’ Chaucer, Ho. of Fame,iii.510. Used in the mod.
general sense, King Alisaunder, 318.—Icel. sky, a cloud; Dan. and
568 SLAB
Swed. sky, a cloud. Allied to AS. scéo, OSax. scio,a cloud ; AS. sciia,
scuwa, a shade, Grein, ii. 412; Icel. skuggi, shade, shadow. All
from the 4/SQEU, to cover; whence also scu-m, show-er, hide, and
ob-scu-re; Fick, iii, 337. Cf. Skt. sku, to cover; L. ob-scu-rus.
Der. sky-blue, -lark, -light, -rocket, -sail; sky-ward, toward the sky.
Also sky-ey, adj., Meas. for Meas. 111. 1. 9.
SLAB (1), a thin slip or flat piece of stone or wood. (F.—Teut.)
Now gen. used of stone; but formerly also of timber. ‘S/ab, the
outside plank of a piece of timber, when sawn into boards;’ Ray,
North-Country Words, ed. 1691; also written slap (Halliwell).
Also used of pieces of tin; Ray, Account of Preparing Tin. ‘Saue
slab of thy timber for stable and stie ;’ Tusser, Husbandry, sect. 16,
st. 35. (E.D.S.) ME. slab, rare; but we find the expression
“a slab of ire,’ i.e. a piece of iron, in Popular Treatises on Science,
ed. Wright, p. 135, 1. 141. Cf. also Prov. E. slappel, a piece, part,
or portion, given as a Sussex word in Ray’s South-Country Words;
also slape, a flag-shaped slate (10. 1). D.). The form slape was prob.
the original one. —OF. esclage, ‘ éclat; de menus esclapes de bois,’
i.e. thin slabs of wood (Godefroy). Hence Low L. sclapa,a shingle
(Ducange). Cf. Prov. esclapo, a piece of cut wood, esclapa-bos, a
wood-cutter, and esclapa, vb., to split wood (Mistral); Ital. schiap-
pare, to cleave wood (Florio). Perhaps from the prefix es- (L. ex),
an intensive; and Low G. klappen, to clap, to make an explosive
sound (hence, to cleave noisily) ; cf. G. klaffen, to split. See Korting,
§ 5282. Cf. Helat.
SLAB (2), viscous, slimy. (Scand.) ‘ Make the gruel thick and slab ;’
Macb. iy. 1. 32. ‘Slabby, sloppy, dirty ;’ Halliwell. From prov.
E. slab, a puddle; whence, probably, Irish slab, slaib, Gael. slaib,
mire, mud left on the strand of a river; Gael. slaibeach, miry. —Icel.
slabb, dirt from sleet and rain; Swed. dial. and Norw. slabb, MDan.
slab, mire (whence slab, slippery). Cf. ME. slabben, to wallow;
EFries. slabben, Du. slabben, to lap up ; Swed. dial. s/abba, to splash,
to soil. And see Slabber (below).
SLABBER, to slaver, to let the saliva fall from the mouth, to
make wet and dirty. (E.) The forms slabber, slobber, slubber, are
mixed up. Slubber (q.v.) is the Scand. form. Again, we have also
the form slaver; also of Scand. origin; see Slaver. ‘ Her milke-
pan and creame-pot so slabbered and sost’ [dirtied} ; Tusser’s Hus-
bandry, April, sect. 48, st. 20. (E.D.S.) ME. slaberen. ‘Then
come sleuthe al bislabered’=then came Sloth, all be-slabbered ;
P. Plowman, B. v. 392; where another MS. has byslobred. Not
found in AS. A frequentative form, with the usual suffix -er, from
ME. slabben: ‘hy ine helle slabbeth, they wallow in hell; Shore-
ham’s Poems, p. 151; see Slab (above). Cf. MDan. slabre, to
slabber ; Swed. dial. slabbra i seg, to eat greedily and carelessly ;
EFries. and Westphal. slabbern, to lap, sup, or lick up; Low G.
slabbern, slubbern, to slabber, lap, sip, frequent. of slabben, to lap; G.
schlabbern, schlabben, to lap, to slabber. Also MDu. slabben, be-
slabben, to slaver ; een slabbe, or slab-doeck, a child’s bib, or slavering
clout [where doeck=G, tuch, cloth]; Hexham. Hexham also gives
slabben, ‘ to lappe as dogges doe in drinking, to sup, or to licke;’
with the frequentative slabberen, ‘to sup up hot broath.’ So also prov.
E. slap, to slop; Dan dial. slabbe, slappe, to lap up. Of imitative
origin; cf. slobber, slubber, slaver.
SLACK, lax, loose. (E.) ΜΕ. slak. ‘With slakke paas’ =with
slow pace ; Chaucer, C. T. 2903 (A 2901). AS. sleac, slack, slow,
Grein, ii. 455. ‘ Lentus, vel piger, sleac ;’ Voc. 170. 1.4Icel. slakr,
slack ; whence slakna, to slacken, become slack; Swed. and Dan.
slak; Provincial G. schlack, slack (Fliigel); MHG. slack, OHG.
slah. B. All from a Teut. type *slakoz. Allied to Lag and to
ax. Brugmann, i. 8 193. Der. slack-ly, slack-ness. Also slack,
verb, Oth. iv. 3. 88, spelt slacke in Palsgrave; of which slake is
a doublet; see Slake. Also slack-en, properly ‘to become slack,’
though often used in the trans. sense; the ME. form is slekken
(Stratmann), Also slag, 4. v., slug, 4. ν.
SLADB, a dell, glade, valley. (E.) Common in prov. E.; also
in the form slad. ‘My smoother slades;’ Drayton, Polyolbion,
Song 13; 1. 28 from end. Gower has the pl. slades ; Conf. Amant.
ii. 93; bk. iv. 2727. AS. sled (dat. slade), a strath, a valley.
Westphal. slade, a ravine; Dan. dial. sfade, a flat piece of land;
Norw. slade, a slope, sladna, to slope down; Aasen says there is
evidence of a strong verb with the stems *sled, *slad, *slod, to slope;
parallel to Slide. See Sled.
SLAG, the dross of metal, scoria. (Swed.) ‘Another furnace
they have, . . . in which they melt the slags, or refuse of the litharge ;’
Ray, On the Smelting of Silver (1674); in reprint of Ray’s Glos-
saries, Glos. B. 15, p. το. (E.D.S.) It also occurs in Stanyhurst,
tr. of Virgil (1582), Amn. 111. 576; ed. Arber, p. 89,1. 4. The word
is Swedish.—Swed. slagg, dross, dross of metal, slag; jiirnslagg,
dross of iron; slaggvarp,a heap of dross and cinders (Widegren) ;
allied to Norw. slagga, to flow over. So called from its flowing
SLANG
over when the metal is fused ; cf. Icel. slagna, to flow over, be spilt,
slag, slagi, wet, dampness, water penetrating walls. Cf. Dan.
slakker, slag (Larsen); Low G. slakke, G. schlacke, scoria. These
suggest a connexion with Slack. 4 Not allied to Swed. slag, a
blow. Der. slagg-y.
SLAKE, to slacken, quench, mix with water. (E.) To slake or
slack lime is to put water to it, and so disintegrate or loosen it.
‘Quick-lime, taken as it leaves the kiln, and thrown into a proper
quantity of water, splits with noise, puffs up, produces a large dis-
engagement of vapour, and falls into a thick paste ;’ Weale, Dict,
of Terms in Architecture, &c. Slake is an older spelling than slack
(verb), of which it is a doublet. ME. slaken, to render slack, to
slake. ‘His wrappe for to slake;’ Will. of Palerne, 728; spelt
slakie, Layamon, 23345, later text. AS. sleacian, to grow slack or
remiss ; found in the comp. dsleacian, /Elfric’s Homilies, i. 610,
1. τό, ii. 98, 1. 15.— AS. sleac, slack; see Slack. Perhaps affected
by the cognate MDu. slaken, ‘to slack, let slip, soften, become
liquid, B. There is also a ME, slekken, to quench, extinguish,
Prompt. Pary. This is from AS. sleccan, Grein, ii. 455, which is a
causal form. Cf. Icel. slékva, to slake; which, however, was orig. a
strong verb, with pp. slokinn; still it is from the same Teut. base
*slak-. Also Swed. slacka, to quench, put out, allay, slack ; a causal
form, from slak, slack.
SLAM, to shut with violence and noise. (Scand.) ‘To slam one,
to beat or cuff one strenuously, to push violently; he slamm’d-to
the door; North ;’ Grose’s Provincial Glossary, ed. 1790. —Norweg.
slemba, to smack, bang, bang or slam a door quickly ; also spelt
slemma, slamra; Swed. dial. slamma, to slam, strike or push hastily,
to slam a door (Aasen, Rietz); Icel. slamra, slambra, to slam.
Cf. Swed, slamra, to prate, chatter, jingle ; slammer, a clank, noise.
To slam is to strike smartly, and is related to Slap; see Slap. Of
imitative origin; note prov. E. slam-bang, slap-bang, violently ;
Halliwell.
SLANDER, scandal, calumny, false report, defamation, (F.—
L.—Gk.) <A doublet of scandal, as will appear. ME. sclaundre,
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 8598 (E 722); sclaundre, Wyclif, Matt. xiii. 41; K.
Alisaunder, 757.—OF. esclandre, ‘a slander;’ Cot. (We find the
OF. forms escandele, escandle, escandre (Burguy) ; and lastly, by in-
sertion of 1, the form esc/andre.) —L. scandalum ; see Scandal. Der.
slander, verb, ME. sclaundren, Wyclif, Matt. xiil. 21; slander-er ;
slander-ous, from OF. esclandreux (Cot.); slander-ous-ly. Doublet,
scandal,
SLANG, low, vulgar language, a colloquial and familiar mode of
expression. (Scand.) Not in early use. In the Slang Dict., the
earliest known instance is given as follows. ‘Let proper nurses be
assigned, to take care of these babes of grace [young thieves]...
The master who teaches them should be a man well versed in the
cant language commonly called the slang patter, in which they should
by all means excel;’ Jonathan Wild’s Advice to his Successor;
London, J. Scott, 1758. The same Dict, gives: ‘Slang, to cheat,
abuse in foul language; Slang-whanger, a long-winded speaker; also,
out on the slang, to travel with a hawker’s licence; slang, a watch-
chain, a travelling-show.’ [But the existence of this book (of 1758)
is doubted. In 1762, Foote has; ‘ay, but that’s all slang [pretence],
I suppose ;’ The Orators, A. i. sc. 1.] Probably derived from slang,
2nd grade of the verb to sling, 1. e. to throw, cast. This is shown by
Wedgwood, following Aasen. β. We find, for example, Norweg.
sleng, a slinging, also an invention, device, stratagem ; also, a little
addition, or burthen of a song, in verse and melody ; eétersleng (lit.
after-slang), a burthen at the end ofa verse of a ballad; slenga, to
dangle (which shows why slang sometimes means a watch-chain);
slengja, to sling, cast, slengja kjeften (lit. to sling the jaw), to use
abusive language, to slang; slengjenamn, a nickname (lit. a slang-
name), also, a name that has no just reason; slengjeord (lit. a slang-
word), an insulting word or allusion, a new word that has no just
reason, or, as Aasen puts it, fornarmelige Ord eller Hentydninger, nye
Ord som ikke have nogen rigtig Grund. The use of slang in the sense
‘to cheat’ reminds us of Icel. slyngr, slunginn, versed in a thing,
cupning. And that all the above Norweg. and Icel. words are deri-
vatives from sling is quite clear; see Sling. I see no objection to
this explanation. Note also Swed. slanger, gossip. J Taylor,
in his Words and Places, gives, without any proof or reference,
the following explanation. ‘A slang is a narrow strip of
waste land by the road-side, such as those which are chosen
by the gipsies for their encampments. [This is amplified from
Halliwell, who merely says: ‘Slang, a narrow piece of land,
sometimes called slanket.’] To be out on the slang, in the lingo used
by thieves and gipsies, means to travel about the country as a hawker,
encamping by night on the roadside slangs. [Amplified from the
Slang Dict., which says not a word about these night-encampments.
A travelling-show was also called a slang. It is easy to see how the
SLANT
term slang was transferred to the language spoken by hawkers and
itinerant showmen.’ To this I take exception; it is not ‘easy to
see.’ On the other hand, it is likely that a slang (from the verb sling,
to cast) may have meant ‘a cast’ or ‘a pitch ;’ for both cas¢ and pitch
are used to meana camping-place, or a place where a travelling-show
is exhibited; and, indeed, ‘a narrow slip of ground’ is also called
a slinget or slanget ; E. D. D.
SLANT, to slope. (Scand.) ‘ Fortune beginneth so to slant,’ i.e.
fail; Libell of E. Policie, 1.757. We also have slant, adj. sloping ;
the verb should rather take the form 20 slent. Lowland Sc. sclent,
sklent, sklint, to give a slanting direction, to dart askance (in relation
to the eyes), to pass obliquely, to render sloping (Jamieson). ME.
slenten, to slope, to glide; ‘it [a blow] slented doune to the erthe,’
Malory, Morte Arthure, bk. xvii. c. 1; leaf 345. ‘A fote ynto the
erthe hyt sclente ;” MS. Camb. Ff. ii. 38, fol. 113; cited in Halliwell,
p- 711. [The insertion of c, as in sclenten, occurs again in ME.
sclendre for mod. Εἰ slender.|—Norw. slenta, to fall aside, or fall
slanting (Ross); Swed. dial. slenta, slanta, lit. ‘to cause to slide ;’”
causal form of the strong verb slinta (pt. t. slant, pp. sluntit), to slide,
slip with the foot (Rietz). Cf. MSwed. slinta, to slip with the foot
(Ihre) ; Swed. s/inta, to slip, miss one’s step, to glance (as a chisel
on a stone), to slip or glance (as a knife) ; Widegren. Also MDan.
slanten, slack ; slente, to slip aside, be slack ; Swed. slutta ( =slunta),
to slant, slope. β. The E. adj. s/ant, sloping, answers to the Swed.
dial. slant, adj. slippery, esp. used of a path; the connexion between
sloping and slippery, in this case, is obvious. Der. slant-ly, slant-
wise; also a-slant, q. v.
SLAP, to smack, to strike with the flat open hand. (E.) Rare in
literature ; but we find ME. s/appe, sb., a smart blow; Palladius on
Husbandry, b. iv. 1. 763. It seems to be an E. word; it occurs
both in Low and High German.-+Low G. slapp, the sound of a blow,
a sounding box on the ears. ‘Slapp! sloog tk em an de snute, I hit
him on the snout, slap!’ Bremen Worterbuch ; (ἃ. schlapp, inter).,
slap! schlappe, sb.,aslap; schlappen, verb, toslap. (Quitea different
word from Swed. slapp, lax, loose, Dan. slap, slack, &c.] β. An
imitative word, to express the sound of a blow; allied to slam; cf.
prov. E, slam-bang, slap-bang, violently (Halliwell). Der. slap, sb.,
ME. slappe, as above ; slap, ady., slap-bang, violently.
SLASH, to cut witha violent sweep, cut at random or violently.
(F.—Teut.) ME. slashen; rare. In Wyclif, 3 Kings, v. 18, the
L. dolauérunt is translated by han ouerscorchide in the earlier text,
with the various reading han slascht; the later text has hewiden.
‘Hewing and slashing ;’ Spenser, F. Q.ii. 9. 15. ‘Here’s snip, and
nip, and cut, and slisk, and slash ;’ Tam. Shrew, iv. 3. go. ‘ But
presently slash off his traitorous head ;’ Green, Alphonsus, Act ii;
ed. Dyce, vol. ii. p. 23. ‘Slash, a cut or gash, Vorksh. ;’ Halliwell.
Slashed sleeves are sleeves with gashes in them, as is well known.
OF. esclachier, to break in pieces (Godefroy).—OF. es- (<L. ex),
very; and Teut. type *klakjan, MHG,. klecken, to break with a
‘clack ;’ cf. F. clague, a clack, from MHG., lac, a clack, sudden
noise. See Korting, § 5280. B. Perhaps confused with OF.
escleschier, esclicier, to slice; see Slice. 4 The Swed. slaska, to
splash, accounts only for prov. E. slashy, wet, Lowland Sc. slash,
to work in wet, slatch, to dabble in mire, sclatch, to bedaub; which
are words unrelated to the present one, but allied to prov. E. slosh
and slush. Der. slash, sb. Slash, to whip, is perhaps an intensive
form of Lash, q. v.
SLAT, a long, narrow strip of wood, a lath. (F.—Teut.) The
same word as Slate (below). Cf. prov. E. slat, a slate ; ME. slat,
a slate, Prompt. Parv.
SLATE (1),a well-known stonethat is easilysplit,a piece of such
stone. (F.—Teut.) ME. s/at, usually sclat, Wyclif, Luke, v. 19.
So called from its fissile nature. —OF. esclat, ‘a shiver, splinter, or
little piece of wood broken off with violence; also a small thin lath
or shingle,’ Cot. [A shingle is a sort of wooden tile.] —OF. esclater ;
whence s’esclater, ‘to split, burst, shiver into splinters;’ Cot. This
answers to a Late L. type *ex-clapitare, to break with a clap; from
L. ex, very, and Low G, Alapp,a clap, klappen, to clap. Orting,
§ 5282. See Slab (1). The OF. esclat=mod. F. éclat; hence
éclat is the same word. Der. slate-pencil, slat-er, slat-ing, slat-y.
Doublets, éclat, slat.
SLATE (2), to set on a dog, to bait, damage, abuse. (E.) ‘ Of
bole slating, bull-baiting; King Alisaunder, 200. AS, sletan, to
cause to rend. = AS, slat, 2nd grade of slitan, to slit, tear; see Slit.
SLATTERN, a sluttish, untidy woman. (Scand.) It is used
both by Butler and Dryden; Todd’s Johnson (no reference). The
final -2 is difficult to account for; it is either a mere addition, as in
bitter-n, or slattern is short for slatterin’=slattering ; unless it was
borrowed directly from MDan. slatten, untidy, dirty; slatten-
spad, a slattern (Kalkar). Kay, in his North-Country Words,
has: ‘Dawgos, or Dawkin, a dirty slatternly woman.’ Kersey
SLEAZY 569
(1721) has: Svaélern, a slattering woman.’ Grose’s Supp. (1790)
has slatterkin. The word is formed from the verb éo slatter, to
waste, use wastefully, be untidy. ‘Slatter, to waste; or rather,
perhaps, not to make a proper and due use of anything ; thus they
say, take care, or you'll slatfer it all away; also, to be negligent and
slovenly ; ᾿ Halliwell. ‘Slatter, to wash in a careless way, throwing
the water about ;’ Forby. Slatter is the frequentative (with the
usual suffix -er) of prov. E. slat, to splash, to dash; cf. Icel, sletta, to
slap, dab (liquids). Perhaps from slaét-, as seen in Norw. sletéa, str.
verb (pt. t. s/att), to dangle, to hang loose (as clothes do); also, to
be idle (Aasen) ; by-form of s/enta, to slip, fall aside; see Slant.
Allied words are Dan. slat, a slop ; slat, slatten, slattet, loose, flabby ;
slattes, to become slack ; slate, a slattern; Low G. slatje, a slattern.
Also Icel. slattari,a tramp. Der. slatiern-ly. ἄτῃ" Distinct from
slut, but perhaps allied to it.
SLAUGHTER, a slaying, carnage, butchery. (Scand.) ME.
slaghter, Pricke of Conscience, 3367; also slautir, spelt slawtyr in
Prompt. Parv. The word is strictly Scand., from Icel. s/atr, a slaugh-
tering, butcher's meat, whence s/atra, verb, to slaughter cattle. See
Noreen, § 224. If the E. word had been uninfluenced by the Icel.
word, it would have taken the form slaght or slaught; in fact, the
commonest forms in ME. are sla3t, Rob. of Glouc. p. 56, 1. 1286;
slawhte, Gower, C. A. i. 348; directly from AS, sleaht, Grein, ii. 455.
B. The AS. sleaht is cognate with Du. and Swed. slagt, G. schlacht.
Teut. types *slah-toz, m., *slah-ta, f., a slaying (Fick, iii. 358); the
Icel. slatr is a neut. sb., closely related, with the same sense. γ. All
from the base SLAH, whence E. slay; see Slay. Der. slaughter,
verb, K. John, iii. 1. 302; slaughter-man, -house ; slaughter-ous, Macb.
v. 5.14; slaughter-er.
SLAVE, a serf, one in bondage. (F.—L.—Gk.—Slavonic.) In
Chaucer, Troil. iii. 391. In A Deuise of a Maske for the right
honourable Viscount Mountacute, Gascoigne introduces the words
slaue and slaueries; see Works, ed. Hazlitt, i. 82, ll. 15, 20; i. 81,
l. 13.—F. esclave, ‘a slave;’ Cot.—Late L. sclavus, a Slavonian
captive, a slave. Late Gk. Σχλάβος, ᾿Εσκλαβήνος, a Slavonian, one
of Slavonic race captured and made a bondman, ‘ From the Euxine
to the Adriatic, in the state of captives or subjects . . . they [the
Slavonians] overspread the land ; and the national appellation of the
Slaves has been degraded by chance or malice from the signification
of glory to that of servitude;” Gibbon, Decline of the Roman
Empire, c. 55. β. Gibbon here supposes s/ave to be allied to Russ.
slava, glory, fame; but the true ongin of Slavonian is unknown;
Miklosich, p. 308. Der. slave, verb, K. Lear, iv. 1. 71; slav-er,
slav-er-y, slav-ish, -ly, -ness; slave-trade; also en-slave.
SLAVER, to slabber. (Scand.) ‘His mouthe slavers;’ Pricke
of Conscience, 784. Slaveryt (for slaveryth| is used to translate F.
bave; Walter de Bibbesworth, 1. 12, in Wright’s Vocab. i. 143. —Icel.
slafra, to slaver ; cognate with Low (ἃ. slabbern, to slaver, slabber ;
see Slabber. Der. slaver, sb., from Icel. slafr (also slefa), sb.;
slaver-er. Doublet, slabber.
SLAY (1), to kill. (E.) Orig. to strike, smite. ME. sleen, slee,
Chaucer, C. Τ᾿ 663 (A 661) ; pt. t. slowh, slou (slew in Tyrwhitt), id.
989 (A 987); pp. slain, id. 994 (A992). AS. sléan (contracted form
of *slahan), to smite, slay; pt. t. sloh, slog, pl. slogon; pp. slegen ;
Grein, ii. 455, 456.4Du. slaan, pt. t. sloeg, pp. geslagen; Icel. sla;
Dan. slaae; Swed. sla; Goth. slahan; G. schlagen; OHG. slahan.
B. All from Teut. type *slah-an-, to smite; Fick, iii. 358. Cf.
Olrish slig-im, I strike. Der. slay-er, ME. sle-er, Chaucer, C. Τὶ
2007(A 2005); also slaugh-t-er,q.v.; slay (2),q. Vv. ; sledge-hammer,
Live
a SLAY (2), SLEY, a weaver’sreed. (E.) ‘ Slay, an instrument
belonging to a weayer’s loom that has teeth like a comb;” Phillips.
‘ Slay, a wevers tole;’ Palsgrave. — AS. sl#; ‘Pe(c}tica, sl#;’ Voc.
262. 21; also slege, Voc. 188. 5; also (in the 8th century) ‘ Pectica,
slahae, id. 39. 19. So called from its striking or pressing the web
tightly together. AS. *slah-, base of sléan, to strike, smite; see
Slay (1). ‘ Percusso feriunt insecti pectine dentes ;’ Ovid, Metam.
vi. 58. Cf. Icel. s/@, a bar, bolt. See Camb. Phil. Trans. 1899,
p- 139 (231).
SLEAVE, SLEAVE-SILK, soft floss silk. (Scand.—G.)
‘Rayell’d sleave,’ i.e. tangled loose silk, Macb. ii. 2. 37. See Ναγεβ
and Halliwell. — Dan. dial. sléve,a knot, twist, tangle (in thread); Dan.
dial. s/éfgarn, yarn that runs into knots; Dan. sldife, a bow, a knot;
EFries. sléve, sléfe, a slip-knot.—G. (dial.) schldufe, a slip-knot ;
with the same sense as G. schleife (Kluge). Cf. OHG. sloufan,
causal of sliofan, to slip. See Slip.
SLEAZY, poor, light, said of a material. (Silesia.) ‘Such sleazy
stuff ;? Howelt’s Letters, vol. i. let. 1. ‘ Sleazie Holland, common
people take to be all forrain linnen, which is sleight [slight] or ill
wrought ; whenas that only is properly Slesia or Silesia linnen cloth,
which is made in, and comes from the Countrey Silesia in Germany ;’
570 SLED, SLEDGE, SLEIGH
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1681. In fact, it is called Silesia still; see
Silesia in C. D., where the name is said to be used in the United
States; but it is used in England also.
SLED, SLEDGE, SLEIGH, a carriage made for sliding over
snow orice. (Du.) ME. slede, Prompt. Parv. PI. sledis, Wyclif,
1 Chron. xx. 3; spelt s/eddis in the later text. MDu. sledde, a sledge ;
Du. slede. We also find Icel. sledi, Swed. slade, Dan. slede. These
forms are evidently from a Teut. root *sled, whence would be formed
the 2nd grade *slad, and a weak grade *slud, giving the strong verb
*sledan-, pt. t. *slad, pp. *sludanoz ; quite distinct from E. slide, though
a parallel formation and having asimilar sense. Franck connects Du.
slede with Εἰς slide, without explaining the vowel. But it is obvious
that the Norw. slodde, a kind of rude sledge (Larsen), cannot be re-
lated tothe form slide. Cf. Irish and Gael. slaod,a sledge, from slaod,
to slide. B. The different spellings may be thusexplained. 1. The
tight form is sled, 2. The form sledge (perhaps from the pl. sleds)
appears to be due to confusion with the commoner word sledge in
the sense of ‘hammer ;’ see Sledge-hammer. 3. The form sleigh
is due to contraction by the loss of d. Thus the Norwegian and
Low G, have both slede and slee; so also Du. sleekoets, a sleigh-
coach, stands for sledekoets. The final gh is unmeaning.
SLEDGE-HAMMER, a mallet or heavy hammer. (E.)
Properly sledge ; sledge-hammer means ‘hammer-hammer, and shows
reduplication, Sledge represents ME. slegge, Komans of Partenay,
3000; Treyisa, tr. of Higden, vi. 199. AS. slecg (dat. slecge), a heavy
hammer; Voc, 448. 1. Lit, ‘a smiter;’ for *slag-ja, fem.; from
slag-, for slah-, base of AS. sléan, to smite, slay ; see Slay (1).4Du.
slegge, slei, a mallet; Swed. slagga,a sledge; Icel.sleggja. Cf. also
G. schlagel, Du. slegel,a mallet; from the same verb. We even find
G. schlag-hammer, with hammer suffixed, as in English.
SLEEK, SLICK, smooth, glossy, soft. (Scand.) ‘I slecke, I make
paper smothe with a s/eke-stone, Je fais glissant ;’ Palsgrave. ‘ And
if the cattes skyn be s/yk and gay;’ Chaucer, C. T. (D 351), Elles-
mere MS, ; other readings slike, sclyke. Tyrwhitt prints sleke, 1. 5933.
Spelt slike, adv., smoothly, Havelok, 1157. There is no AS. slic
(see Napier); only AS. slician, to make smooth. =Icel. s/ikr, sleek,
smooth; whence s/iki-steinn, a fine whetstone (for polishing). Cf.
MDnu. sleyck, ‘ plaine, or even;” Hexham. β. The Du. s/ijk, Low G.
slikk, (ἃ. schlick, grease, slime, mud, are closely related words; so
also is the strong verb which appears in Low G. sliken (pt. t. sleek,
pp- sleken), (ἃ. schleichen (pt. t. schlich, pp. geschlichen), OHG. slihhan,
to slink, crawl, sneak, move slowly (as if through mire); see Slink.
The Teut. type of the verb is *sleikan-, pt. t. *slaik, pp. *slikanoz.
The orig. sense of sleek is ‘greasy,’ like soft mud. In exactly the
same way, from the base *slip, we have Icel. sle‘pr, slippery (North
E. slape), and slipa, to make smooth, to whet, Du. slijpen, to polish,
Ὁ. schleifen, to glide, to whet, polish.
SLEEP, to slumber, repose, (E.) ME. slepen, Chaucer, C. T. 10.
Properly a strong verb, with pt. τ. slép, which has become s/ep in
Proy. E., and occurs in Chaucer, C. T. 98. AS. slépan, slépan, pt. τ.
slép; Grein, li, 455.4-Du. slapen; Goth. slépan, pt. τ, sai-slép (with
reduplication); (ἃ. schlafen; OHG. slafan. β. In connexion with
these is the sb. which appears as E. sleep, AS. slép, Du. slaap, Goth.
sléps, G. schlaf, OHG, slaf; of which the orig. sense is drowsiness,
numbness, lethargy; as shown more clearly by the related adjective
in Low G, slapp, G. schlaff, lax, loose, unbent, remiss, flabby. Cf.
Russ. slabuii, weak, feeble, faint, slack, loose; also L. Jabi, to glide;
labire, to totter. The Teut. type of the sb, is *slépoz, m.; and of
the verb, *s/@pan-, Brugmann, i. §§ 200, 567. Der. a-sleep, q.v.;
sleep-er, sleep-less, sleep-less-ly, sleep-less-ness; sleep-walk-er, sleep-
walk-ing ; sleep-y, sleep-i-ly, -ness,
SLEEPER, a block of wood on which rails rest. (E.) From
the verb above, Cf, F. dormant, a sleeper, from dormir, to sleep.
And see Coles.
SLEET, rain mingled with snow or hail. (E.) ME. sleet, Chaucer,
C, Τὶ 11562 (F 1250). The word is English; answering to OMerc.
*sléte, AS, *sliete, *slyte, not found. Cf. EFries. s/aite, hail; Low G.
sloten, pl., hailstones (Liibben) ; G. schlosse, hailstone. The E. word
would result regularly from the Teut. type *slautja, orig. sense un-
known, Cf. Norw. s/litr, sleet (Ross); from the related Teut. base
*slit- (appearing in the Du. sluiten, to close, shut; so that the orig.
sense may have been ‘ blinding,’ or closing the eyes).
SLEEVE, part of a garment, covering the arm. (Ε.) ME, sleeue,
sleue (with u=v); Chaucer, C. T. 193. OMerc. sléf; AS. slyf (for
earlier slief). ‘On his twa sléfan,’ in his two sleeves; Blickling
Hom., p. 181, l. 17. ‘On his twam s/yfum’=in his two sleeves;
fElfric’s Homilies, i. 376. Sléf-léas, sleeveless; Voc. 151. 35.
“Manica, slyf;’ id. 328. 13; pl. slyfa, id. 125. 5. We also find the
verb sléfan, to put on, to clothe; Life of St. Guthlac, c. 16. The
long e (6) results from a mutation of AS, éa=Teut. au, pointing back
to a Teut. type *slaudja, f., from Teut. root *slewb-, variant of *sleup-,
SLIM
whence MHG. sloufe, a cover, allied to MHG. sloufen, to let slip, to
cover. Cf. Goth. sliupan (pt. t. slaup), to slip, creep into. It is
thus allied to slip; from the slipping off and on of the sleeve, in
dressing and undressing; compare the history of Smock. See
Slip, and Slop (2).4-MDu. sloove, ‘a vaile, oraskinne ; the turning
up of anything ;’ whence s/ooven, ‘to turne up ones sleeves, to cover
ones head;’ Hexham. Also MDnu. sleve, ‘asleeve,’ id.; G. schlaube,
a husk, shell (Fliigel). Der. sleeve-less, AS. sléfléas, as above.
Horne Tooke explains a sleeveless errand (Troil. v. 4. 9) as meaning
‘without a cover or pretence,’ which is hardly intelligible ; I suspect
it to mean simply ‘imperfect,’ hence ‘ poor,’ like a garment without
sleeves; cf. AS. sléfléas, said of a garment. We find: ‘slevelesse
wordes,’ Usk, Test. of Love, ii. 8. 77; ‘sleeveless rhymes,’ Hall,
Sat. iv. 1. 34; ‘a sleveles reson,’ Rel. Antiq. i. 83; ‘any sleenelesse
excuse ;’ Lyly’s Euphues, p. 114. In each instance it means ‘imper-
fect, poor.’
SLEIGA, the same as Sled, q.v. Modern; Du. slee, for slede.
The gh is unmeaning. See Notes on E, Etym., p. 273.
SLEIGHT, cunning, dexterity. (Scand.) ME, sleighte, Chaucer,
C. T. 606 (A 604); sleizte, sleithe, P. Plowman, C. xxii. 98; sleizpe,
Will. of Palerne, 2151; slehJe, Layamon, 17212 (later text, where
the first text has iste, the E. word). —Icel. slegd (for slegd), slyness,
cunning. Formed, with suffix -d, from slegr (for slegr), sly ; see
Sly. Swed. slégd, mechanical art, dexterity (which is one sense of
E. sleight); from slog, handy, dexterous, expert; Widegren.
B. Thus sleight (formerly sleighth) is equivalent to sly-th, i.e. slyness.
Der. sleight-of-hand. See Sloid.
SLENDER, thin, narrow, slight, feeble. (F.-OLow G.) ME.
slendre, Chaucer, C. T. 589 (A 557), Richard Cuer de Lion, 3530.—
OF. esclendre, ‘sklendre,’ Palsgrave, p. 323.—MDnu. slinder, ‘slender,
or thinne;’ Hexham. The same word is also used as a sb., mean-
ing ‘a water-snake ;’ whilst s/inderen or slidderen means ‘to dragge
or to traine.’ Allied to G. schlender, the train of a gown, an easy
lounging walk ; schlendern, to saunter, loiter ; also to LowG., slender,
a long, easy, trailing gown, slindern, to slide on the ice, as children
do in sport. B. Prob, nasalised derivatives from the base of the
verb to slide; see Slide. But to some extent confused with Du.
slenteren, to saunter along, and Swed. slinta, to slip, glance; see
Slant and Slim. Der. slender-ly, -ness.
SLEUTH-HOUND. Explained under Slot (2).
SLICE, a thin, broad piece. (F.—OHG.) The sb. slice seems to
be older than the verb. ME. slice, sclice, a thin piece, shiver, splinter.
‘ They braken speres to sclyces;’ King Alisaunder, 3833. —OF. esclice,
a shiver, splinter, broken piece of wood; from the verb esclicier, to
slit, split, break (Godefroy). — OHG. *slizjan, slizzen, related το slizan,
to slit; cognate with E. Slit, q.v. Der. slice, verb; ‘sliced into
pieces,’ Chapman, tr. of Homer’s fliad, b. xxii. 1. 298; slic-er.
SLICK, the same as Sleek, q. v.
SLIDE, to glide, slip along, fall. (E.) ME. sliden, slyden,
Chaucer, C. T. 7958 (Ε 82); pt. t. slood, Wyclif, Lament. iii. 53,
later text; pp. sliden, spelt slyden, ibid., earlier text. AS. s/idan, pt. τ.
slad, pp. sliden; only found in compounds. The pt. t. et-slad is in
fElfric’s Homilies, ii. 512, 1. 10; the pp. a-sliden in the same, i. 492,
1. τα. From the Teut. base SLEID, to slide (Fick, iii. 359) ; whence
also AS. slide, a slip, slidor, slippery, Icel. slidrar, fem. pl., a
scabbard (into which a sword slides); (ἃ, schlitten, a sledge,
schlittschuh, a skate (lit. slide-shoe) ; MDnu. slinder, a water-snake,
slinderen, slidderen, ‘to dragge or to traine,’ Hexham; &c. See
Slender. β. Further related to Irish and Gael. slaod, to trail,
Lithuan. s/idus, slippery. Der. slide, sb., slid-er; also sled, sledge,
or sleigh (under Sled); also slender, ἡ. v.
SLIGHT, trifling, small, weak, slender. (OQLow G.) ME. sli3t.
sly3t. ‘So smope, so smal, so seme s/y3t,’ said of a fair young girl;
Allit. Poems, A. 190. ‘lhe orig. sense is even, flat, as a thing
made smooth. —M Du. slicht, ‘ even, or plaine ;’ slech?, ‘ slight, simple,
single, vile, or of little account ;’ slecht ende recht, ‘simple and right,
without deceit or guile;’ Hexham. ‘Thus the successive senses are
flat or even, smooth, simple, guileless, vile ; by a depreciation similar
to that which changed the sense of silly from that of ‘guileless’ to
that of ‘half-witted.’ The verb ἐο slight was actually once used in
the sense of ‘ to make smooth ;’ thus Hexham explains MDnu. slichten
by ‘to slight, to make even or plaine.’4-OLow G. sligt, even, smooth,
simple, silly, poor, bad; Icel. slét¢r, flat, smooth, slight, trivial,
common; Dan. sled, flat, level, bad; Swed. s/at, smooth, level, plain,
wretched, worthless, slight ; Goth. s/athts, smooth ; Luke, iii. 5; G.
schlecht, bad; OHG. sleht, smooth; G. schlicht, smooth, sleek, plain,
homely. β. Ali from Teut. type *sleh-toz, smooth. Of doubtful
origin. Der. slight-ly, slight-ness; slight, verb, to consider as worth-
less.
SLIM, weak, slender, thin, slight. (Du.) Not in early use.
Noticed in Skinner’s Dict., ed. 1671, as being in common use in
SLIME
Lincolnshire. Halliwell has: ‘Slim, distorted or worthless, sly,
cunning, crafty, slender, thin, slight;’ also s/am, tall and lean, the
slope of a hill. The orig. sense was ‘lax’ or ‘bending,’ hence
‘oblique,’ or ‘transverse ;’ then sly, crafty, slight, slender (in the
metaphorical sense of unsubstantial) ; and hence slender or slight in
the common sense of those words. Thus Barrow, On the Pope’s
Supremacy, says: ‘that was a slim (slight, weak] excuse ;’ Todd.
Perhaps the earliest instance in which it approaches the modern
sense is: ‘A thin slim-gutted fox made a hard shift to wriggle his
body into a henroost ;’ L’Estrange [in Todd]. Perhaps the use of
the word has been influenced by confusion with the (unrelated) word
slender, which sounds somewhat like it. ‘Slim, naughty, crafty,
Lincolnsh.; also, slender;’ Bailey, vol. i. ed. 1735.—MDu. slim,
‘awry, or byas-wise; craftie,’ Hexham; [Dan. and Swed. slem, bad,
vile, worthless; from German]; (ὦ. schlimm, bad, evil, sad, unwell.
arch, cunning. Der. slim-ness.
SLIME, any glutinous substance, viscous mire, mucus. (E.) ME.
slime, slyme, or slim (with long ἢ) ; Gower, C. A. iii. 96 ; bk. vii. 338;
spelt slim, Ancren Riwle, p. 276, 1. 18. AS. slim; as a various
reading in Ps. Ixviii, 2 (Speliman).+Du. slijm, phlegm, slime; Icel.
slim ; Swed. slem; Dan. sliim, mucus; G.schleim. Cf. L. lima, a file;
limare, to file smooth; and Jimus, mud. Brugmann, i. ὃ 877.
Allied to Lime (1) and Loam. Der. slim-y, slim-i-ness.
SLING, to fling, cast with a jerk, let swing. (Scand.) ME. slingen;
pt. t. slang, Shoreham’s Poems, ed. Wright, p. 132, 1. 2; pp. slongen;
Sir Percival, 672, in the Thornton Romances, ed. Halliwell. = Icel.
slyngva, slingva, pt. t. sling, slaung, pp. slunginn, to sling, fling,
throw; MDan. slinge, to sling, cast, twist; Swed. dial. slinga (pt. t.
slang), to sling. Cf. Dan. s/yyge, weak verb; Swed. slunga, weak
yerb.4G. schlingen, pt. t. schlang, pp. geschlungen, to wind, twist,
entwine, sling. Teut. type *vengwan-; pt. t. *slang. Allied, for-
mally, to Lith. slinkti, to creep. Brugmann, i. § 424 (4). 4 AS.
slingan (rare), to creep, seems to bea variant of slincan (below). Der.
sling, sb., King Alisaunder, 1191; sling-er. Also slang, q.v.
SLINK, to sneak, crawl away. (E.) ‘That som of 3ew shall be
ri3t feyn to sclynk awey and hyde;’ Tale of Beryn, 3334. AS.
slincan, Gen. vi. 7. A nasalised form of an AS. *slican, to creep,
not found, but cognate with the strong Low G, verb sliken (pt. t.
sleek, pp.sleken) and the G, schleichen (pt. τ. schlich, pp. geschlichen), to
slink, crawl, creep, move slowly; see Sleek. Cf. Swed. dial. slinka
(pt. t. slank), to hang loose, toslip. B. The AS. slincan was ἃ strong
verb; we still use s/unk as the past tense ; see Titus Andron. iv. 1. 63.
Allied to Skt. lang, to limp, L. languére, to be languid. Perhaps
allied to Sling.
SLIP, to creep or glide along, to slink, move out of place, escape;
also, to cause to slide, omit, let loose. (E.) We have confused the
strong (intransitive) and weak (transitive) forms; or rather, we have
preserved only the weak verb, with pt. t. slipped, pp. slipped or slipt.
The strong verb would have become *:/ipe, pt. τ, *slofe, pp. *slippen,
long disused ; but Gower has him slipeth (used reflexively), riming
with wipeth, C. A. ii. 347; bk. v. 6530, Gower also has he slipie
(wrongly used intransitively), from the weak verb slippen; C. A.
il. 72; bk. iv. 2109 ; the pp. slipped (correctly used) is in Sir Gawayn
and the Grene Knight, 244. ME. slippen, transitive weak verb,
derived from an AS, strong verb *slizan (not found; pt. t. *slap,
pp. *sligen), to slip, glide. The AS. adj. sliper, slippery, is from
the weak grade of the pp.; it occurs in Aélfriz’s Homilies, ii. g2.
1. 16. {It must further be remarked that there is another form of
the verb, with a different root-vowel, occurring as AS. <lipan (pt. t.
sleap, pp. slopen) ; Grein, ii. 457.]4Du. slippen (weak), to slip,
escape; Dan. slippe (pt. t. slap), to let go, also to escape; Swed.
slippa (weak), to get rid of, also to escape: OHG. slipfan, MHG.
slipfen, to glide away; a weak verb, from OHG. slifan, G. schleifen,
to slide, glance, also to grind, whet, polish (i.e. make slippery or
smooth). In the last sense, to polish, we find also Du. sliypen,
Swed. slipa, Dan. slibe, Icel. slipa ; the forms require careful arrange-
ment. B. All these are from a Teut. base *s/e/p-, to slip, glide.
Lut the usual form of the base is *s/evp; whence Goth. sliupan
(pt. t. slaup, pp. slupans), to slip or creep into, 2 Tim, iii. 6; AS.
slipan, as above; Du. sluipen, to sneak; G. schlipfen, to slip, glide.
The base *sleup corresponds to an Idg. base SLEUB, whence L.
lib-ricus, slippery ; see Lubricate. Cf. Brugmann, i. §§ 553, 563.
Der. slip, sb. ; slip-knot, slip-shod; also slipp-er, a loose shoe easily
slipped on, K. John, iv. 2. 197, called in AS. slype-scoh, a slip-shoe ;
Voc. 277. 29. Also slipp-er-y, adj., formed by adding -y (=AS.
-ig) to ME. sliper (AS. sliper), slippery, which occurs, spelt slipper,
as late as in Shak. Oth. ii. 1. 246, and Spenser, Shep. Kal., Nov.
153; slipper-i-ness. Also slope, q. v., sleeve, q. ν., slops, q. Vv.
SLIT, to split, tear, rend, cut into strips. (E.) Just as we make
slip do duty for two forms s/ip and slipe (see Slip), so we use s/it in
place of both slit and slite. ME. sli/ten, weak verb, Chaucer, C. T.
SLOPE 571
14402 (B 3674); from ἠλέει, strong verb, whence the pp. slityn
(with short ὁ), Prompt. Parv. The latter is derived from AS. slitan,
pt. t. slat, pp. sli¢en (short i); Grein, ii. 456.4Icel. slita, pt. t. sleit,
pp- slitinn, to slit, rend; Dan. slide; Swed. slita, to tear, pull, wear;
Du. slijten, to wear out, consume; OHG. slizan, G. schleissen, to
slit, split; whence the weak verb schlitzen, to slit, slash. cleave.
B. All from Teut. type *sleitan-, pt. t. *slait, pp- slifanoz, Der. slit,
sb., AS. slite, Matt. ix. 16. Also slice, q. Vv.
SLIVER, a splinter, twig, small branch broken off, slice. (E.)
In Hamlet, iv. 7. 174. ME, sliver, Chaucer, Troil. iii. 1013,
Sliver is the dimin. of slive, just as shiver is of shive, and splinter of
splint. Prov, E. slive, a slice, chip, from the verb slive, to cut or
slice off; Halliwell. ‘I slyve a .. floure from his braunche ;’
Palsgrave. The verb slive is ME. sliuen, to cleave, spelt :lyvyn in
Prompt. Parv.=—AS. slifan (pt. t. slaf, pp. slifen), to cleave; as in
to-slif, Voc. 406. 29. This verb appears to be exactly parallel to
AS. slitan (pt. t. slat, pp. slifen) ; see Slit.
SLOBBRER, to slabber, drivel, do carelessly. (E.) ME. sloberen
(Stratmann). A variant of Slubber, q.yv.
SLOKB, a small sour wild plum. (E.) ME. slo, pl. slon (with
long 0), King Alisaunder, 4983. AS. sla, pl. slan. ‘Moros, s/an;’
Voc. 269. 7. Also slah, sing.; A.S. Leechdoms, ii. 32.4-Du. slee,
formerly sleew; Dan. slaaen; Swed. slan; G. schlehke; OHG. sléha.
Teut. type*s/aiha, Fick comparesit with Lithuan, slywa,a plum; Russ,
sliva, a plum; the suffixes do not correspond. B. Sloe is ‘ the
small astringent wild plum, so named from what we call setting the
teeth on edge, which in other languages is conceived as blunting
them; see Adelung;’ Wedgwood. Cf. MDu. sleeww, ‘sharpe or
tart;’ slee or sleeuw, ‘ tender, slender, thinne or blunt ;’ de sleeuwig-
heydt der tanden, ‘the edgnesse or sowrenesse of the teeth ;’ Hexham.
The Du. sleeuw is the same word as E. :/ow; as if the sloe is the
slow (i.e. tart) fruit. But the forms do not correspond (except in
Dutch) ; and it can hardly be right. γ. The Russ. sliva seems to be
related to L. liu-idus, blue; with reference to the colour; and sloe
may be connected with /ivid likewise.
SLOGAN, a Highland war-cry. (Gaelic.) Englished from Gael.
sluagh-ghairm, ‘the signal for battle among the Highland clans.’
= Gael. sluagh, a host, army (W. Jlu, Olrish sliag); and gairm,
a call, outery, from gairm, to call, cry out, crow as a cock. Cf,
Trish gairm, W. garm, outcry; Olrish gair, W. gawr, clamour,
allied to L. garrire, to prate. See Stokes-Fick, pp. 106, 320. The
sense is ‘ cry of the host.’
SLOID, SLOYD, mechanical skill, esp. in wood-carving.
(Swed.) Modern. —Swed. slijd, sleight, skill; cognate with E.
sleight, q.v.
SLOOP, a one-masted ship. (Du.—Low G.) ‘Sloop, a small
sea-vessel ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Mentioned in Dampier, Voyages,
an. 1680 (R.); and in Hexham.—Du. sloep ; MDu. sloepe, sloepken,
‘a sloope, or a boate,’ Hexham, ed. 1658. From Low G. sluup,
slute, a sloop; whence also F. chaloupe, whence E. shallop; see
Shallop. The Low G. sb. is usually derived (as in the Bremen
Wort.) from Low G. slupen, to glide along, orig. to slip ; see Slip.
Shallop seems to be older than sloop, as far as English usage is
concerned. Doublet, shallop.
SLOP (1), a puddle, water or liquid carelessly spilt. (E.) ME,
sloppe, a poo], Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 3923. AS. -sloppe, -slyppe,
the sloppy droppings of a cow; occurring in ci-sloppe, a cow-slop
(now cowslip), and oxan-slyppe, an ox-slop (now oalip) ; Voc. 135. 26.
We also find AS. slype, a viscid substance, A. S. Leechdoms, ed,
Cockayne, ii. 18, 1, 27, spelt siife in the next line. B. From
Teut. *slup, AS. slop-, weaker grade of sliipan, to slip; see Slip.
‘pa weard heora heorte /0-slopen '=then was their heart dissolved,
made faint; Joshua, v. 1. y- Similarly, slop (2) is from a closely
related verb. Perhaps slop, a pool, merely meant ‘a slippery place,’
a place slippery with wet and mire. Der. slop, verb, to spill
water, esp. dirty water; slopp-y, slopp-i-ness. Also cow-slip, q. v.,
ox-(s)lip, q. Vv.
SLOP (2), ἃ loose garment. (Scand.) Usually in the pl. s/ops,
large loose trousers, 2 Hen. IV, i. 2. 34. ME. sloppe, Chaucer,
C. T. 16101 (ἃ 633). We find ‘in stolum vel on oferslopum’ = in
stoles or over-slops, as a gloss to in sfolis in the Northumbrian
version of Luke, xx. 46. The word is Scand. rather than E., the
AS. word being oferslype (dative case), Alfric’s Homilies, i. 456,
1. 19.—Icel. sloppr, a slop, gown, loose trailing garment; whence
yfirsloppr, an outer gown or over-slop.=Icel. slup-, weak grade of
sleppa, to slip, a strong verb; so called from its looseness or its
trailing on the ground, Cf. Du. slepen, to trail on the ground.
Related to the AS. type *slipan (?) ; see Slip. Cf. Streitberg, § 203.
SLOPE, an incline. (E.) ‘Slope, or oblique;’ Minsheu. ME.
slope. ‘For many times I have it seen That many have begiled been
For trust that they have set in hope Which fell hem afterward
572 SLOT
a-slope;' Rom. of the Rose, 4464. Here a-slope, lit. on the slope,
means ‘ contrary to expectation,’ or ‘in a disappointing way.’ It is
the same idiom as when we talk of ‘ giving one the slip.’ It isa
derivative of the verb ἠο slip; formed from the Teut. *slup- (in AS.
slop-en, pp.), weaker grade of the verb appearing as AS. slipan ;
see Slip. Thus a-slope is ‘ready to slip;’ and slope means an
‘incline.’ Der. slope, verb, Macb. iv. 1. 57; a-slofge.
SLOT (1), a broad, flat wooden bar which holds together larger
pieces, bolt of a door. (Du.) ‘Still in use in the North, and
applied to a bolt of almost any kind;’ Halliwell. ‘Slotte of a
dore, locquet ;’ Palsgrave. Spelt slot, sloot ; Prompt. Parv. = Du. s/ot,
a lock (Sewel) ; de sloten van kisten, ‘ the locks of chests ;’ de sloten
van huysen, ‘the closures of houses;’ Hexham. ‘The Du. s/of also
means a castle. From Teut. *slut- (Du. slot-), weak stem of Teut.
*slutan- (Du. sluiten), to shut (pt. t. sloot, pp. gesloten). So also
OF ries. slot, from slita, to shut; Low G. slot, trom sliiten. B. The
Teut. type *slitan-, to shut, appears in Du. sluiten; OFries. sluta ;
Low G. sluten; Swed. sluta (pt. t. slét, pp. sluten); G. schliessen,
MHG. sliezen, OHG. sliozan. y. Cognate with L. claudere, to
shut ; from 4/SKLEUD; Brugmann, i. § 795 (2). See Close (1).
4 Slot, with the sense of groove or slit, appears to be from Du.
sloot, Low G. sloot, a ditch, trench, furrow; perhaps so called from
its use as enclosing a field or piece of land; from sloot, 2nd grade of
the same verb. Or perhaps the sense was affected by ME. sliten
(pt. t. sloof), to slit.
SLOT (2), the track of a deer. (AF.—Scand.) In Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674.—AF. esclot, the track of a deer (Godefroy).
Modified from ME, slooth, sloth ; also spelt slewth, as in the deri-
vative Lowland Sc. sleuth-hound (Jamieson). ME. sleuth, a track,
Barbour’s Bruce, vii. 21; whence slewth-hund, sleuth-hund, slooth-
hund, a hound for tracking deer, id. vi. 36, 484, 669. Also sloth,
Cursor Mundi, 1254; Ormulum, 1194.—Icel. s/o0, a track or trail
in snow or the like; cf. sleda, to trail, s/edur, a gown that trails on
the ground. Swed. dial. slo, a track; prov. E. slood, a cart-rut.
SLOTH (1), laziness, sluggishness. (E.) Lit. ‘slowness.’ ME,
slouthe, Chaucer, Ο, T. 15726 (G 258). For *slow-th; formed
directly from the adj. slow. In P. Plowman, B. v. 392, we find
the form sleuthe, from AS. sl@w), sloth; from AS. slaw, slow (with
mutation). Der. sloth, sb., an animal (below) ; sloth-ful, 1 Hen. VI,
iii, 2. 7; sloth-ful-ly ; sloth-ful-ness.
SLOTH (2), a name sometimes given to the glutton (Gulo
luscus); but usually to a 5. American tardigrade edentate mammal
that moves with difficulty on the ground. (E.) The same word as
sloth (1) above. Prob. suggested by Span. perezoso, (1) slothful,
(2) a sloth (Neuman, 5. v. Sloth). Phillips (1706) has: ‘ Pigritia,
slothfulness ; also an American beast call’d a Sloth.’
SLOUCH, to have a clownish look or gait. (Scand.) Nowa verb;
but formerly also a sb, ‘Slouch, a great, vnwieldie, ill-fashioned
man ;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627. ‘ Slouch, a great lubberly fellow, a meer
country-bumpkin ;’ Phillips. The ch is for k; Levins has: ‘Slouke,
iners, ignarus.’ Cf. also [ον]. Sc. sloatch, slotch, a lazy fellow.—
Icel. slékr, a slouching fellow ; Norw. s/ok, a lazy fellow; cf. sloka,
to be sluggish (Aasen) ; also slékje, the same as slok (Ross) ; Swed.
sloka, to hang down, droop, flag, slokig, hanging, slouching. = Icel.
*slok-, 2nd grade of *slak-, as in slakr, slack. See Slack. Per-
haps influenced by OF. eslocher, e:lochier, to loosen, also, to become
loose (Godefroy) ; from L. ex, and G. locker, loose.
SLOUGH (1), a hollow place filled with mud, a mire. (E.)
ME. slogh, slough, Chaucer, C. T. 7147, 14804 (D 1565, B 3988).
AS. slok (stem slog); Kemble’s A. 5. Charters, 59, 123, 354, 554
(Leo). The formation of slough is precisely parallel to that of
clough, which is related to the OHG. lingo, with the same sense.
In like manner, the AS. slohk is due to an older form *slonh, corre-
sponding to a Teut. base *slony-, for *slany-, from the strong verb
which appears in the G. schling-en, to devour; so that the original
sense was ‘that which swallows up.’ B. Similarly, G. schlund,
a chasm, gulf, is derived from MHG. s/inden, to devour, with a like
sense; and Schmeller gives Bavar. schlung, with the same sense as
G. schlund, i.e. a chasm; so also Bavar. schlunk=G. schlund;
cf. Westphal. slenke, a ravine. The long o in sldh shows the loss of γι.
See Clough. And see schlingen in Kluge; where it appears to be
doubtful if the sense ‘ to devour’ is of early date.
SLOUGH (2), the cast-off skin of a snake; the dead part which
separates from a sore. (Scand.) Pronounced sluf. Spelt slougth,
Stanyhurst, tr. of Virgil, Ain. ii. 483; ed. Arber, p. 58. ME. slouh,
slow, Pricke of Conscience, 520 (footnote), where it is used in the
sense of caul or integument. ‘ Slughe, squama; slughes of eddyrs
(snakes), exemie;’ Cathol. Anglicum, p. 345; see the note.
Spelt slughe, slohu, slou3ze, in the sense of skin of a snake; Cursor
Mundi, 745. From its occurrence in these Northern poems we
may presume that the word is Scandinayian.
It answers in form |}
SLUG
to MDan. slug, a gap, opening, mouth, swallow; Dan. dial. slug,
slough on an animal’s horn. ‘The Swed. dial. sluv, slough, is
a different word. B. [With the latter form slvv we may compare
Low G, slu, sluwe, a husk, covering, the pod of a bean or pea, husk
of anut; answering to the Cleveland word slough, the skin of a goose-
berry (Atkinson) ; MDu. sloove, ‘a vaile ora skinne;’ Hexham; cf.
slooven, ‘to cover ones head;’ id.; G. schlaube (provincial), ‘a
shell, husk, slough.’ The etymology of the latter set of forms is from
the Teut. base *slewb, noticed under Sleeve, q.v. The sense is
‘that out of which a snake slips,’ or a loose covering. } y- But
the E. slough and Jutland slug are allied to Dan. slug, gullet, sluge,
to swallow ; Norw. sluka, Low G. sluken, G. schlucken, to swallow,
and, further, to G. schlauch, a skin, bag; MHG. slick, a skin, bag.
Cf. Olrish slucc-im, I swallow.
SLOVEN, a careless, lazy fellow. (Du.) Spelt sloven, slovyn, in
Palsgrave. ‘Some sluggysh slouyns, that slepe day and nyght ;’
Skelton, Garland of Laurel, 191. ME. sloveyn, Coventry Myst.
p- 218. The suffix -eyx=F. -ain, from L. -anus, as in ME, scriv-ein
=OF-. escriv-ain, from Late L. scrib-dnus; see Scrivener. This
OF. suffix may have been added at first to give the word an ad-
jectival force, which would soon be lost.—MD2u. slof, sloef, ‘a care-
less man, a sloven, or a nastie fellow,’ Hexham; whence sloefach-
tiglick, ‘negligent, or slovenly,’ id. We also find the verb sloeven,
“to play the sloven;’ id. Sewel gives Du. slof, careless ; 5107, sb., an
old slipper, slof, sb., neglect, sloffen, to draggle with slippers. + Low G.
sluf, slovenly ; sluffen, sluffern, to be careless; sluffen, to go about in
slippers, slugfen, slippers. Der. sloven-ly, sloven-li-ness.
SLOW, tardy, late, not ready. (E.) ME. slow, Wyclif, Matt.
xxv. 26; slaw, Prompt. Parv. (where it has the sense of blunt, or
dull of edge). AS. slaw, Matt. xxv. 26.4-Du, sleeuw; Icel. sler,
sljor ; OSax. sléu; OHG., sléo, blunt, dull, lukewarm. Teut. type
*slaiwoz, blunt, weak, slow; Fick, iii. 358. Some think it allied
to L. leuus, Russ. lievuiz, Gk. λαιός, left (of the hand); which is
doubtful. Der. slow-ly, slow-ness. Also slo-th (for slow-th), q. v.
SLOW-WORM, a kind of snake. (E.) The allied words show
that it cannot mean ‘slow worm,’ but the sense is rather ‘ slayer’ or
‘striker,’ from its (supposed) deadly sting. Indeed, the Swedish
word is equivalent to an E. form worm-slow, i.e. ‘worm-striker’ or
stinging serpent, showing clearly that the word is compounded of
two substantives. It was (and still is) supposed to be very poison-
ous. I remember an old rime: ‘If the adder could hear, and the
blind-worm see, Neither man nor beast would ever go free.’ But it is
quite harmless. Lowl. Sc. slayworm. ME. slowerme, Voc. 571. 33;
slowurme, id. 766. 15. AS. sla-wyrm. We find: ‘Stellio, sla-wyrm;’
Voc. 122. 15; 321. 26. Here sla is (I suppose) contracted from
slah-, from *slahan, usually sléan, to smite; the sb. slag-a, a striker,
occurs in Exod. xxii. 2; see Slay.+Swed. s/d, usually orms/d,
a blindworm (where orm=E. worm); from sid, to strike (Rietz,
p- 618, where the dialectal form s/o is given) ; Norweg. slo, a blind-
worm; also called ormslo (Aasen); from slaa, to strike. Cf.
Icel. slegr, kicking, vicious (as a horse); from sla, to strike.
(Doubtful.) Quite distinct from Swed. s/é, blunt, dull, the
cognate form with slow.
SLOYD, the same as Sloid, q. v.
SLUBBER, to do carelessly, to sully. (Scand.) “1 slubber, I
fyle [defile] a thyng ;’ Palsgrave. And see Shak. Merch. Ven. ii. 8.
39; Oth. 1. 3. 227.—Dan. slubbre, to slabber ; Swed. dial. slubbra, to
be disorderly, to slubber, slobber with the lips, a frequentative verb
with suffix -ra (for -era) from slubba, to mix up liquids in a slovenly
way, to be careless (Rietz).4-Du. slobberen, ‘to slap, to sup up;’
Sewel ; Low G, slubbern, to lap, sip. From the weak grade (*s/ub-)
of *s/ab- in slabber; see Slabber.
SLUDGE, soft, greasy mud. (E.) ΜΕ. sluche ; Destr. of Troy,
1, 12529; apparently a corrupt form of sliche, with the same sense,
spelt slicche, id., 1. 13547; prov. E. slutch, also sleech, sletch, slitch.
North E. slik, Barbour, Bruce, xiii. 352. An E. word ; cognate with
North Fries, slick, EFries. slik, slime.4Du. slijk, prov. G. schlick,
grease, Westphal. slick. See Sleek. 4 The may be due to prov.
E. slud, mud, mire, Icel. sludda, a clot of mucus.
SLUG, to be inactive. (Scand.) ‘To slug in slouth ;’ Spenser,
Ἐς Ὁ. ii. 1. 23. ME. sluggen, Prompt. Pary.; where we also find
slugge, adj., slothful; sluggy, adj., the same; sluggydnesse, slugnes,
sloth, Sluggi, adj., Ancren Riwle, p. 258. ‘I slogge, I waxe slowe,
or draw behind ;’ Palsgrave. The verb is now obsolete. — Dan. slug,
voiced form of sluk, appearing in slugdret, slukoret, with drooping
ears; Swed. dial. slogga, to be sluggish; allied to Norweg. sloka, to
go heavily, to slouch, Swed. sloka, to hang down, droop. Cf. Icel.
slokr, a slouching fellow; and see Slouch. Note also Low G.
slukkern, slakkern, to totter, slukk, melancholy, downcast ; from the
weak grade of slakk, slack. See Slack. Der. slugg-ish, Spenser,
F. Q.i. 5. 10; slugg-ish-ly, slugg-ish-ness. Also slugg-ard, Rich. 111,
SLUG-HORN
Vv. 3. 225, with the F. suffix -ard (=OHG. -hart, cognate with E.
hard) ; slugg-ard-y, ME, slogardie, Chaucer, C. T. 1044 (A 1042).
Also slug, sb.
SLUG-HORN. (C.) An absurd perversion, by Chatterton
(Battle of Hastings, pt. ii. st. 10) and Browning (Childe Roland) of
Lowl. Sc, slogorne, in (ἃ. Douglas, tr. of Eneid, bk. vii. c. xi. 1. 87.
And slogorne is a bad spelling of slogan, a battle-cry; see Slogan.
Hence a ‘slug-horn’ is not a horn, but a cry; L. ‘tessera.’
SLUICE, a sliding gate in a frame for shutting off, or letting out,
water; a floodgate. (F.—L.) In Shak. Venus, 956; Lucrece,
1076. ME, scluse, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 255.—OF. escluse, ‘a sluce,
floudgate ;’ Cot. Cf. Span. esclusa, a sluice, floodgate.—Late L.
excliisa, a floodgate ; lit. ‘shut off (water) ;’ Hist. Mon. de Abingdon,
ii. 92.—L. excliisa, fem. of excliisus, pp. of excliidere, to shut out;
see Exclude.
SLUMBER, to sleep lightly, repose. (E.) The 6 (after m) is
excrescent. ME. slumeren, Bestiary, 576; slumberen, slombren, P.
Plowman, A. prol. 10, B. prol. το. Frequentative form of ME.
slumen, to slumber, Layamon, 17995, 18408, 32058. And this verb
is from the sb, slwme, slumber, spelt sloumbe in Allit. Poems, C. 186.
AS. sliima, sb., slumber ; Grein, ii. 457. This is formed, with the
substantival suffix -ma, from a Teut. base *slew-, to be silent; cf.
Goth. slawan, to be silent, from the 2nd grade *slau-.4- Du. sluimeren ;
Dan. slumre, frequentative of slumme, to slumber; Swed. slumra,
verb; slummer, sb.; G. schlummern, verb; schlummer, 50. Der.
slumber, sb., slumber-er, slumber-ous.
SLUMP, a sudden fall, failure in stocks. (E.) From prov. E.
slump, to fall suddenly, esp. into a ditch. Cf. Swed. and Dan. slump,
a chance, an accident, Low G. slump. Ofimitative origin; cf. Norw.
slump, the noise made by plumping into water. See Slip.
SLUMS, dirty back-streets. (E.) Prob. allied to prov. E. slump,
a muddy place, and (by gradation) to prov. E. slamp, wet, Low G.
slam, mire (Liibben) ; Dan. and Swed. slam, from (ἃ. schlamm, mire.
Cf. Bavarian schlumpen, to be dirty; prov. E. slammock, a slattern ;
Low G. slummerke, a slattern (Schambach).
SLUR, to soil, contaminate, reproach, pass over lightly with slight
notice. (MDu.) ‘With periods, points, and tropes he slurs his
crimes ;’ Dryden (in Todd). ‘They impudently slur the gospel;’
Cudworth, Sermons, p. 73 (Todd). ‘ Without some fingering trick
or slur;’ Butler, Misc. Thoughts ; Works, ed. Bell, iii. 176. Cf.
ME. sloor, slore, mud, clay, Prompt. Pary.; whence slooryyd, muddy,
id. Prov. E. slur, thin washy mud; Halliwell, Forby. The orig.
sense is ‘to trail,’ or draggle; hence, to pass over in a sliding or
slight way, also, to trail in dirt, to contaminate.—MDu. slewren,
slooren, to drag, trail, Du. slewren, to trail; cf. MDu. sloorigh, ‘ filthie,’
Hexham. Also Low G. sliiren, sliren, to draggle, Swed. dial. slora,
to be negligent; Norw. sléra, to be negligent, to sully; 1 1165.
sluren, sliiren, to go about carelessly and noisily. From ἃ base
*sleu-; perhaps the same as that in Slumber (Franck). Der.
slur, sb.
SLUSH, mire, mud. (Scand.) Perhaps from MDan. slus, (1)
sleet; (2) mud (Kalkar); Dan. dial. sluus, sleet. Or rather from
Norw. slusk, mud, dirty roads or weather (Ross); related by grada-
tion to Swed. slask, sloppiness, wet weather, slaska, to splash, to
dabble in water; cf. prov. E. slosh, slush; slash, to splash.
SLUT, a slovenly woman, slattern. (Scand.) ME, slutte, Coven-
try Plays, 218 (Stratmann) ; and in Palsgrave. ‘ Slutte, Cenosus,
Cenosa;’ Prompt. Pary, Slutte occurs also in Hoccleve, Letter of
Cupide, st. 34; 1. 237. Hence sluttish, Chaucer, C. T. 16104
(ἃ 636).—Swed. dial. sld¢a, an idle woman, slut, s/d¢er, an idler ;
Norweg. slott, an idler. Cf. Icel. slota, to droop, Swed. dial. s/oéa,
to be lazy, Norweg. sluta, to droop; allied to Dan. slat, loose,
flabby, slate, a slattern (Ferrall). β. The root-verb appears in
Norweg. sletia (pt. t. slatt, pp. slcttet), to dangle, hang loose like
clothes, to drift, to idle about, be lazy (Aasen); and ἐξ represents xt.
Cf. Swed. dial. slinta (pt. t. slant, pp. sluntit), to slide, glide, slip
aside, with its derivatives slanta, to be idle, and slunt, ‘a lubber,
lazy sturdy fellow,’ Widegren. γ. Thus Ἐς slattern and Dan. slatte
may be referred to slatt, slant, 2nd grade of sletta, slenta (whence also
Icel. slentr, sloth); while E. slut, Norw. s/ott, may be referred to slott-,
slunt-, weak grade of the same ; cf. Low G, sluntje,a slut. All from
the Teut. str. vb. *slentan-, to slip aside, pt. t. *slant, pp. *sluntanoz.
See Slant. Der. sluét-ish, -ly, -ness.
SLY, cunning, wily. (Scand.) ME. sleigh, Chaucer, C. T. 3201;
sley, Havelok, 1084 ; slek, Ormulum, 13498. = Icel. slegr (for slegr),
sly, cunning; Swed. slég, cunning, dexterous. The Icel. slegr is
from a Teut. type *slog-joz (Noreen, ὃ 360), where *slog- may
represent the 2nd grade of Teut. *slahan-, to strike; see Slay.
‘From the use of a hammer being taken as the type of a handicraft ;’
Wedgwood; and see Fick, iii. 358, who adduces G. verschlagen,
cunning, crafty, subtle, sly, from thesameroot. @ But Swed. slug,
SMART 573
cunning, Dan. slu, Du. sluw, G. schlau, sly, are unrelated. Der.
sli-ly, sly-ness. Also sleight (i.e. sly-th), αν.
SMACK (1), taste, flavour, savour. (E.) ME. smak, a taste;
Prompt. Parv, AS. smec, taste; Grein, 11. 4573 whence the verb
smecgan, sma@ccan, to taste. ‘Gusto, ic gesmecge, Voc. 109. 11;
tc smecce, /Elfric’s Grammar, ed. Zupitza, p. 166, 1. 6.4-MDu.
smaeck, ‘tast, smack, or savour;’ smaecken, ‘to savour,’ Hex-
ham; Du. smaken, to taste; [Dan. smag, taste, smage, to taste,
Swed. smak, taste, smaka, to taste, from Low G. smakk, taste ;] G.
geschmack, taste, schmecken, to taste. Der. smack, verb.
SMACK (2), a sounding blow. (Scand.) We find smack, sb., a loud
kiss, Tam. Shrew, iii. 2, 10. But the word does not seem to be at
all old, and its supposed connexion with Smack (1) is disproved
by the forms found. It has been confused with it, but is quite dis-
tinct. It seems to be of imitative origin, and may be an E. word,
unless borrowed from Scandinavian. B. The related words are
Swed. smacka, to smack [distinct from smaka, to taste]; Swed. dial.
smakka, to throw down noisily, smakk, a light quick blow with the
flat hand, smakka, to hit smartly ; Dan. sma@kke, to slam, bang [dis-
tinct from smage, to taste], sm@ek, a smack, rap [distinct from smag,
taste]. Also Low G. smakken, to smack the lips [distinct from
smekken, to taste]; MDu. smacken, Du. smakken, to cast on the
ground, fling, throw [distinct from Du. smaken, to taste]; Du. smak,
aloud noise. And see Smash. Apparently of imitative origin, as
seen in Du. smak, Dan. smek; allied to Lith. smog-ti, to strike,
smack ; smag-dti, to strike with a whip. Cf. knack, crack. Der. smack,
verb; cf. smatt-er, ἢ. v., smash, q. ν.
SMACK (3), a fishing-boat. (Du.) In Sewell’s Du. Dict.
Doubtless borrowed from Dutch, like hoy, skipper, boom, yacht, &c.
-MDnu. smacke, ‘a kind of a long ship or boate,’ Hexham; smak,
“a hoy, smack,’ Sewel, ed. 1754.44 Low Οἱ. smakk, a smack. B. Gene-
rally supposed to be a corruption for snack, allied to snake ; cf.
AS. snacc, a smack, small vessel, A. 5. Chron. an, 1066, in the Laud
MS., ed. Thorpe, p. 337; Icel. snekkja,a kind of sailing-ship, so
called from its sxake-like movement in the water. So also Swed.
snicka, Dan. snekke (or snekke). @ For the interchange of sm- and
sn-, see Smatter.
SMALL, little, unimportant. (E.) ME. smal; pl. smale,
Chaucer, C. T. 9. AS. smel, small, thin; Grein, ii. 457.4-Du.,
Dan., and Swed. smal, narrow, thin; Goth. smals, small; G. schmal,
narrow, thin, slim. ‘leut. type *smaloz. Further allied to Icel.
smali, small cattle, sheep; Gk. μῆλον, a sheep; Russ. maluit, small.
4 We also find Icel. smar, Dan. smaa, Swed. smd, OHG. smahi,
small. Der. smaill-ness ; small-pox (see Pox) ; smaill-age, q.v.
SMALLAGE, celery. (Hybrid; E.and¥.—L.) In Minsheu,
ed. 1627. ‘Smallage, a former name of the celery, meaning the small
ache or parsley, as compared with the great parsley, olus airum. See
Turner’s Nomenclator, A.D. 1548, and Gerarde’s Herbal ;’ Prior,
Popular Names of Dritish Plants. ME. smalege, Voc. 711. 15;
smalache, Lanfrank, Cirurgie, p. 94.— AS. smal, small (see above) ;
and Ε΄, ache, parsley, from L. apium, parsley.
SMALT, glass tinged of a deep blue, used as a pigment. (Ital. —
OHG.) ‘Smalt, a kind of blew powder-colour, us’d in painting ;
blue enamel ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Also in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
=Ital. smalto, ‘amell [enamel] for goldsmiths,’ Florio; allied to
smalzo, butter. — Low G. smalt (Liibben), dial. form of G. schmaiz,
fat, butter; OHG. *smalzi, smelzi, smalt. From the 2nd grade (sma/z)
of OHG. smelzan, str. vb., to become liquid; whence also OHG,
smelzen, (ἃ. schmeltzen, weak vb., tosmelt. See Smelt (1). 4 The
Du. smalt (in the present sense) is borrowed from Italian. See
Weigand.
SMARAGDUS, a precious stone, emerald. (L.—Gk.—Skt.—
Semitic.) Also smaragd; ME. smaragde, An O. E. Miscellany,
p- 98, 1.174.—L. smaragdus.—Gk. σμάραγδος, an emerald; also found
in the form μάραγδος, which is from Skt. marakata(m), marakta(m),
an emerald, Hence (says Uhlenbek) a Prakrit agma maragada, lit. ©
emerald stone (from Skt. agmd, a stone); whence Gk. *cpapapaydos,
shortened to σμάραγδος by loss of -μα- (repeated). Further, the Skt.
marakata(m) is from Semitic *barag?, as in Heb. bareget, an emerald,
from baraq, to flash. See Schade, OHG. Dict., p. 1430. See
Emerald. Doublet, emerald.
SMART, to feel a pain, to be punished. (E.) ME. smerten,
Havelok, 26473 spelt smeorten, Ancren Kiwle, p. 238, last line.
Once a strong verb; the pt. t. smeart occurs in O. Eng. Homilies, ii.
21,1. 27. AS. smeortan (Toller). The AS. pt. t. would be *smeart,
and the pp. *smorten.4-Du. smarter, to give pain; smart, pain; Dan.
smerte, vb. and sb.; Swed. smarta, yb. and sb.; OHG, smerzan,
sometimes used as a strong verb (pt. t. smarz), G. schmerzen, to
smart; OHG. smerza, G. schmerz, smart, pain.--L. mordere (with
lost initial s), to bite, pain, sting; Skt. mzd, to τὰ, grind, crush.
B. All from 4/SMERD; see Kick, i. 836. Whence also Gk.
574 SMASH
σμερδαλέος, terrible. See Mordacity. Der. smart, sb., ME. smert,
Chaucer, C. T. 3811 (A 3813); also smart, adj., ME. smerte, i. e.
painful, Havelok, 2055. ‘The use of the adjective has been extended
to mean pungent, brisk, acute, lively, witty. Hence smart-ly, smart-
ness.
SMASH, to crush, break in pieces. (E.) A late word, added by
Todd to Johnson. According to Webster, it is used by Burke. It
is well known in the North (see Brockett and Jamieson), and is clearly
a dialectal word transferred to more polite speech. Prob. due to E.
mash, to mix up; by prefixing s-, intensive prefix, from OF. es-, L.
ex, And prob. influenced by prov. E. smatter, in the sense ‘ to smash.’
See Smattering. 4 We may perhaps also notice the prov.
Swed. smiska, to slap, occurring in the very sense of ‘to smash glass’
or to smash a window-pane, which is the commonest use of the word
in ordinary E. conversation. Still nearer is the Norw. smaska, to
smash ; sla i smask, to break to bits (Ross). Cf. Smack (2).
SMATTERING, a superficial knowledge. (Scand.) From the
old verb ἐο smatier, to have a slight knowledge of; the orig. sense
was ‘to make a noise;’ also, ‘to prate.’ ‘I smatter of a thyng, I
have lytell knowledge in it;’ Palsgrave. ‘For I abhore to smatter
Of one so deuyllyshe a matter;’ Skelton, Why Come Ye Nat to
Courte, 711. ME. smateren, to make a noise; Songs and Carols, ed.
Wright, no. Ixxii (Stratmann).—Swed. smatira, to clatter, to crackle.
+G. schmettern, to smash, to resound. From a repetition of the
imitative sound smat; cf. Smack (2). Cf. MHG. smetzen, to prattle.
[Parallel to prat-tle, chat-ter. Note also Swed. snattra, Dan. snadre,
to prattle; Swed. sxakka, Dan. snakke, to prate, G. schnacken.}
SMEAR, to daub with something greasy or sticky. (E.) ME.
smerien, smeren, Ormulum, 994; also smirien; also smurten, Ancren
Riwle, p. 372, 1. 6. AS. smerian, Ps. xliv. 9 ; smyrian, Mark, xvi. 1.
A weak verb, from the sb. smeru, fat, Levit. vili. 25, whence ME.
smere, fat, fatness, Genesis and Exodus, 1573.#Du. smeren, to
grease, from smeer, fat; Icel. smyrja, to anoint, from smjor, smor,
grease ; Dan. smére, from smor, sb.; Swed. smorja, from smor, sb. ;
G. schmieren, from schmeer, sb., OHG. smero. β. The general
Tent. form of the sb. is *smerwom, n., fat, grease; Fick, ili. 356;
allied to which are Goth. smairthr, fatness, smarna, dung. All from
a base SMER;; cf. Lithuan. smarsas, fat; Gk. μύρον, an unguent;
Olrish smir, marrow; W. mér, marrow. Der. smear, sb., at present
signifying the resu!t of smearing, and a derivative of the verb; not
in the old sense of ‘ grease.” And see smir-ch.
SMELL, an odour. (E.) ME. smel, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 2429
(A 2427), Ancren Riwle, p. 104, 1.16; also smul, O. Eng. Homilies,
ii. 99,1. 1. Not found in AS., but prob. a true Eng. word. Allied
to Du. smeulen, ‘to smoke hiddenly,’ i.e. to smoulder; EFries.
smalen, Low G. smelen, to smoulder. β, The idea is evidently taken
from the vapour given oft by smouldering wood. See further under
Smoulder. Der. smell, verb, ME. smellen, Chaucer, C. T. 3691,
smullen, O. Eng. Hom. ii. 35, 1. 3.
SMELT (1), to fuse ore. (Scand.) In Phillips, ed- 1706; but not
noticed by Skinner, ed. 1671. I have little doubt that the word is
really Swedish, as Sweden was the chief place for smelting iron ore,
and a great deal of iron is still found there; (cf. Slag). —Dan.
smelte, to fuse, smelt ; Swed. smalta, to smelt, run, liquefy; smalta
malm, to smelt ore; Widegren.-MDu. syilten, smelten, ‘to melt,
mollifie, make liquid, or to found;’ Hexham, (Note here the use
of found where we should now say smelt). G. schmelzen, OHG.
smalzjan, to smelt. B. All these are secondary or weak verbs,
connected with an older strong verb appearing in the Swed. smalia,
to melt, i.e. to become liquid, for which Rietz gives the pt. t. smale
and supine smultid, and cites OSwed. smailta (pt. t. smalt, pp.
smultin). Italso appears in G. schmelzen (pt. t. schmolz), to melt, dis-
solve, become liquid; Westphal. smelten (pt. t. smalt). sy. From
the Teut. str. vb. *smeltan- (pt. t. *smalt, pp. *smultanoz) ; whence
also MDu. smalt, ‘ grease or melted butter ;’ smailts, smalsch, ‘ liquid,
soft, or fatt’ (Hexham); OHG. smalz, fat, grease; see Smalt.
δ. We may also compare Gk. péAdopar, I become liquid ; Gk. μέλδειν,
to melt, render fluid. Brugmann, i. § 475. See Melt. Der.
smalt, q.v.; enamel,q.v. And see mute (2).
SMELT (2), a kind of fish. (E.) ME. smelt, Prompt. Parv. AS.
smelt, ‘Sardina, smelt,’ in a list of fish; Voc. 262. 4; ‘ Sardas,
smeltas,’ id. 45. 3.4+Dan. smelt; Norweg. smelta (1), a mass, lump ;
(2) the name of various kinds of small fish, as Gadus minutus, also a
small whiting. B. The name prob. means ‘ smooth;”’ cf. AS. smeolt,
smylt, serene, smooth (of the sea), orig. liquid; from the verb to
smelt ; see Smelt (1). Also prov. E. smelt, a smooth spot on water
(as caused by oil); smolt, smooth, shining, polished; smout (for
smolt), the fry of salmon, The sand-smelt is also called silver-sides
(C. D.). See Smolt.
SMEW, a small diving-bird. (E.) Also called smee (E. D. D.),
and smeeth or smeath.
Drayton has ‘ the smeath ;’ Polyolbion, song | vb. *smeuk-an-, pt. t. *smank, pp. *smukanoz.
SMOKE
25, 1.67. [We find also EFries. sméxt, Du. smient, smew. The Du.
smient is explained as ‘small duck,’ from ODu. *smehi anud, small
duck; where sméhi is cognate with OHG, smahi, Icel. smar, small;
and *anud (*anid) is cognate with AS. ened, G. ente, duck. Cf. G.
schmalente, small wild-duck.] But smeeth resembles AS. sméde,
smooth; and smee may be the prov. E. smee, smooth,
SMILE, to laugh slightly, express joy by the countenance. (Scand.)
ΜΕ. smilen, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 4044 (A 4046); Will. of Palerne, 991.
Not a very old word in E.—Swed. smila, to smirk, smile, fawn,
simper; Dan. smile.++MHG, smielen, smieren, smiren, to smile; L.
mirari, to wonder at; mirus, wonderful; cf. also Gk. μειδάω, I
smile; Skt. smi, to smile; Russ. smiekh’, alaugh. (4/SMEI.) Der.
smil-er, Chaucer, C. Ἵν 2001 (A 1999); smile, sb., St. Brandan,
1. 80: see smir-k.
SMIRCH, to besmear, dirty. (E.) ‘ And with a kind of umber
smirch my face ;’ As You Like It, i. 3. 114. Allied to the old word
smore. ‘I smore ones tace with any grease or soute | soot], or such
lyke, Te barbouille ;’ Palsgrave. And since smore is related to smear,
it is clear that smirch (palatalised form of smer-k) is an extension
from ME. smeren, to smear; see Smear.
SMIRK, to smile affectedly, smile, simper. (E.) ME. smirken;
St. Katharine, 356. AS. smercian, Alfred, tr. of Boethius, cap. xxxiv.
§ 12 (lib. ili, pr. 11). Cf ONorthumb. smerdon, ‘ deridebant ;’
Matt. ix. 24; MHG. smieren, tosmile; see Smile. Der. smirk, sb. ;
also obsolete adj. smirk, trim, neat, Spenser, Shep. Kal., Feb, 1. 72.
SMITE, to strike, beat, kill. (E.) ME. smiten, pt. τι smat, smot,
pp: smiten. ‘The pt. t. is spelt smoot, Wyclif, Luke, xxii. 50; with pl.
smyten (=smiten), id. xxiii, 48. AS. smitan, pt. t. smat, pp. smiten ;
Grein, ii. 458.4 Du. smijten; MSwed. smita, to smite; Dan. smide,
to fling; G. schmeissen, to smite, fling, cast; OHG. smizan, to throw,
to stroke, to smear. Cf. Goth. bismeitan, to anoint, besmear, John,
ix. 11. B. The orig. sense would appear to be ‘ to rub’ or smear
over, a sense which actually appears in the OHG. and Gothic; and
even in AS. this sense is the usual one; note MSwed. sme/a, tosmear
(Ihre), Icel. sma, to steam from being fat or oiled. The connexion
between ‘to rub’ and ‘to smite’ is curious, but the former sense is
satirical ; we had the phrase ‘ to rub down with an oaken towel,’ ie. to
cudgel ; and, in the Romance of Partenay, 1. 5653, a certain king is
said to have been ‘so well axoynted’ that he had not a whole piece of
clothing left upon him; the orig. French text says that he was bien
oingt. Der. smit-er.
SMITH, a worker in metals. (E.) ΜΕ. smith, Chaucer, C. T.
2027. AS. smid; Grein, ii. 457.-Du. smid; Icel. smidr ; Dan. and
Swed. smed; G. schmied; MHG. smit, smid; Goth. -smitha, in comp.
aiza-smitha, copper-smith. β. All from the Teut. type *smithoz, a
smith; Fick, ili. 357. {It was once usual to explain this (after the
method of Horne Tooke, which is known to be wrong) as ke that
smiteth, from ‘the sturdy blows that he smites upon the anvil;’
Trench, Study of Words. But there is no support for this notion to
be had from comparative philology.] y. Cf. further Icel. smid,
smith’s work; Du. smijdig, G. ge-schmeidig, malleable (with 7).
From the obs. Tent. str. vb. *smetthan-, pt. t. *smatth, pp. *smidanoz,
to forge, only preserved in Swed. dial. smida, to forge (pt. t. smed,
pp- smiden), Rietz; and in OSwed. smifa, to forge (Noreen). Hence,
as weak verbs, Swed. smida, Dan. smede, to forge. Cf. also OHG.
smida, metal, Gk. σμί-λη, a graver’s tool. (4/SMEI.) Brugmann,
i. § 849. Der. smith-y, ME. smidde, Ancren Kiwle, p. 284, 1. 24, AS.
smidde, Voc. 141.225 Icel. smidja. Also gold-smith, silver-smith ; &c.
SMOCK, a shirt for a woman. (E.) ME. smok, Chaucer, C. T.
3238. AS. smoc. ‘Colobium, smoc vel syrc’ [sark]; Voc. 125. 1.
For smoce ; Teut. type *smugnoz ; and so called because ‘crept into;’
from *smug, weak grade of *smeng, to creep; ef. smogen, pp. of the
strong verb smiigan, occurring in /Elfred, tr. of Boethius, cap. xxiv.
§ 4 (lib. iii. pr. 2). Cf. Shetland sm-ok, ‘to draw on, as a glove ora
stocking ;” Edmondston.+Icel. smokkr, a smock ; allied to smoginn,
pp. of smjiga, ‘to creep through a hole, to put on a garment which
has only a round hole to put the head through.’ Cf. MSwed. smog,
a round hole forthe head; Ihre. Also Icel. smeygja, to slip off one's
neck, causal of smjiiga; OFries. in-smuge, sb., a creeping into. See
further under Smug and Smuggle. Brugmann, i. ὃ 899 (1).
SMOKE, vapour from a burning body, esp. wood or coal. (E.)
ME. smoke, Chaucer, C. T. 5860 (D 278). AS. smoca (rare). ‘Pone
wlacan smocan waces flesces’=the warm smoke of weak flax; Be
Domes Dege, ed. Lumby, l. 51. Cf. AS. smoc-, stem of smocen, pp.
of the strong verb sméocan (pt. t. sméac), to smoke, reek, Matt. xti.
20. [Hence also the various forms of the sb., such as sméac, smyc ;
the latter oceurs in A#lfric’s Homilies, ii. 202, 1. 4 from bottom.
The secondary verb smucigan (derived from the sb. smoca) occurs on
the same page, l. 24.]-4-Du. smook, sb.; Dan sm g, sb.; smége, weak
verb, to smoke; G. schmauch, smoke. B. All from a Tent. str.
Cf. Lith, smaug-iu,
SMOLT
Ichoke ; allied to Gk. σμύχειν (2 aor. ἐ-σμύγ-ην), to burn slowly ina
smouldering fire. Brugmann, i. § 849. Der. smoke, vb., AS. smoci-
gan, as above ; smok-er, smok-y, smok-i-ness.
SMOLT, a salmon in its second year, when it has assumed its
silvery scales. (E.) From AS. smolt, serene, gentle; the prov. E.
smolt not only means fair, serene, but also smooth, shining, and
polished. See Smelt.
SMOOTH, having an even surface. (E.) ME. smothe, Rom. of
the Kose, 542; alsocommon in the form smethe, due to vowel-change
from 6 to ὦ (=é), Rob. of Glouc. p. 424, 1. 8781; Pricke of Con-
science, 6349. AS. sméde, Luke, iii. 5, where the Northumb.
versions have smoede; cf. ‘ Aspera, unsmdde,’ Voc. 350. 29 ; un-smodi,
Corpus Gloss., 232. The preservation of the (older) vowel ὅ in mod.
E. is remarkable. β. The form smdde, with long 0, shows that (as
in other, tooth, goose) an η has been lost; the form of the base is
*smonth-, for an older form *smanth-, corresponding to an Idg. base
*smant. γ. This Idg. base is remarkably exemplified in the G.
Schmant (Bavar. schmand), a dialectal word corresponding to late
MHG. smant, cream; allied to Bohem. smetana, cream; Miklosich,
p- 189. Cf. Skt. manthaya-, butter; from manth, math, to churn.
The Hamburgh sméden, to smoothe (Richey) may be related. Der.
smooth, verb, from the adj. ; cf. AS. smédian, Voc. 130. 36; smooth-
ly ; smooth-ness, AS. smédnys, Voc. 177. 5.
SMOTHER, a suffocating smoke, thick stifling dust. (E.)
Smother stands for smorther, having lost an r, which was retained
even in the 14th century. ME. smorther; spelt smorfre, smorpur,
P. Plowman, C. xx. 303, 305 (some MSS. have smolder, id. B. xvii.
321). Smor-ther is ‘ that which stifles ;” formed, with the suffix -ther
(Idg. -ter) of the agent, from AS. smor-ian, to choke, stifle, Matt.
xiti. 7 (Rushworth MS.), preserved in Lowland Sc. smoor, to stifle ;
see burns, Brigs of Ayr, 1. 33. B. Cognate with AS. smorian are
Du. smoren, to suffocate, stifle, stew, and G. schmoren, to stew. Cf.
MDnu. smoor, ‘smoother, vapour, or fume’ (Hexham); Du. smeuren,
to smother. Apparently from a root *smeur, from an older root
SMEU; see Smoulder, Smoke. Der. smother, verb, ME. smor-
theren, O. Eng. Homilies, i. 251, 1.7. And see smoulder.
SMOULDER, to burn with a stifling smoke. (K.) ‘I smolder,
as wete wood doth; JZ smolder one, or I stoppe his brethe with
smoke ;᾿ Palsgrave. ME. smolderen, Allit. Poems, B. 955; from
the sb. smolder, a stifling smoke. ‘ Smokeand smolder,’ P. Plowman,
B. xvii. 321; where the later text has ‘smoke and smorfer’ (=E,
smother), id. C. xx. 303; and see Palladius on Husbandry, i. 929.
{The Dan. smuldre, to crumble, moulder, from smul, dust, may be
ultimately related, but is not the original of the E. word, being too
remote in sense.] β. The E. smoulder (for *smol-ther) is closely
connected with Low G. smélen, smelen, to smoulder, as in dat holt
smelet weg=the wood smoulders away (Bremen Worterbuch) ; Du.
smeulen, ‘to smoak hiddenly,’ Sewel; Low G. smdln, to give out
fumes (Danneil). See Smell. From a root *smeul, from an older
root SMEU; see Smother (above).
SMUDGE, to sully, to smear with dirt. (Scand.) ME. smogen,
in Halliwell; a voiced form of smutch. Cf. Dan. smuds, smut, dirt,
smudse, to soil; from (ἃ. schmutz, smut, dirt; MHG. smuz. Also
ΜΕ. smod, dirt, Allit. Poems, ii. 711 ; EFries. and Low G. smudden,
to soil; Du. smoddig, dirty. See Smut.
SMUG, neat, trim, spruce. (Low G.) In Shak, Merch. Ven. iii.
1. 49; &c. ‘I could have brought anoble regiment Of smug-skinnde
Nunnes into my countrey soyle ;’ Gascoigne, Voyage into Holland.
A.D. 1572; Works, i. 393. Spelt smoog, Stanyhurst, tr. of Virgil,
/En, ii. 484; ed. Arber, p. 59. A voiced form of smuk.—MDan.
smug, smooth, pliable (Kalkar) ; and Outzen (5. v. smock) notices
a South Dan. form smugg; from Low G. smuk, neat, trim; cf.
MDu. smucken, ‘to be smugg,’ Hexham. Hence also G. schmuck,
trim, spruce. PB. The MHG. smucken meant not only to clothe, adorn,
but also to withdraw oneself into a place of security, and is an in-
tensive form from the older strong verb smiegen, to creep into (G.
schmiegen, to wind, bend, ply, cling to). This MHG. smiegen is
cognate with AS. smagan,to creep. y. This links smug with smock,
which has the same change from g to ἦν as shown under that word.
A smock, orig. so named from the hole for the neck into which one
crept, became a general term for dress, clothes, or attire, as in the
case of G. schmuck, attire, dress, ornament, adornment, &c.; and
smug is merely the corresponding adjective, meaning ‘ dressed,’ hence
spruce, neat, &c. See further under Smock and Smuggle.
SMUGGLE, to import or export secretly, without paying legal
duty. (Low G.) Phillips, ed. 1706, gives the phrase ‘to smuggle
goods.’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, has: ‘Smuglers, stealers of cus-
toms, well known upon the Thames.’ Sewel’s Du. Dict., ed. 1749,
gives : ‘ Sluyken, to smuckle ; sluyker, asmuckler.’ [The word is not
Dutch, the Du. smokkelen, to smuggle, being modern, and unnoticed
by Sewel and Hexham. It is, however, plainly a sailor’s word, and
SNAP
or
37
of Low G, origin. ] Low G. smuggeln (whence also Dan. smugle), to
smuggle ; a frequentative form (with usual suffix -le) from the weak
grade of the old strong verb found in Norweg. smjuga (pt. t. smaug),
to creep; whence also Dan. i smug, adv., secretly, privately, and
smughandel, contraband trade. Closely allied to Dan. smoge, a
narrow (secret) passage, Swed. smuga, a lurking-hole (Widegren),
Icel. smuga, a hole to creep through, smugall, smugligr, penetrating.
B. All from the weak grade of the strong verb found in Icel. smjiga
(pt. t. smaug, pl. smugu, pp. smoginn), to creep, creep through a
hole, put on a garment which has only a round hole to put the head
through ; cf. Swed. smyga, to sneak, to smuggle. Cognate with AS.
smiigan, to creep (pt. t. sméag, pl. smugon, pp. smogen); MHG.
smiegen, strong verb, to press into (Fick, iii. 357); all from Teut.
base SMEUG, tocreep. Cf. Lithuan. smukti, to glide (pr. τ. smunkit,
I glide), i-smuksi, to creep in. See Streitberg, § 203, note 1. Der.
smuggl-er ; see smock, smug.
SMUT, a spot of dirt, esp. of soot. (E.) From the base smut-,
ME. smot-, as in i-smotted, smutted, Trevisa, tr. of Higden, i. 359;
bi-smot-ered, besmutted, Chaucer, C. T. 76. Cf. G. schmutz, dirt.
B. Hence the form smutch. ‘ Smutche on ones face, barboyllement ;’
Palsgrave. ‘Hast smutched thy nose;’ Winter's Tale, i. 2. 121.—
Swed. smuts, smut, dirt, filth, soil; whence smutsa, verb, to dirt. to
sully. Cf. Dan. smuds, filth; whence smudse, to soil, dirty, sully.
The Dan. form (not old) resembles E. smudge, to smear, to soil
(Halliwell), and ME. smoge, with the same sense (id.); see
Smudge. γ. The Swed. smuts, Dan. smuds, were borrowed from
Ε. schmutz (above). 41 Perhaps allied to Du. smet, a spot, and to
ME. smitten, to contaminate ; from a base *smet. Der. smut, verb;
smutt-y, smutt-i-ly, smutt-i-ness.
SNACK, a part, portion, share; see Snatch.
SNAFFLE, a bridle with a piece confining the nose, and with a
slender mouth-piece. (Du.) ‘A bitte or a snaffle ;’ Baret (1580).
Short for snafffe-piere = nose-piece. ‘With a snaffle and a brydle;’
Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 1366 e. And in Shak. Antony, ii. 2. 63.
“A snaffle, Camus; to snaffle, rudere ;’ Levins. = Du. snavel, a horse’s
muzzle; MDu. snabel, snavel, ‘ the nose or snout of a beast or a fish;’
Hexham. Dimin. of MDu. snabbe, snebbe, ‘the bill or neb of a
bird ;” id.-G. schnabel, bill, snout ; Lith. szapas, a bill. Allied to
Web, q.v. And see Snap.
SNAG, an abrupt projection, as on a tree where a branch has
been cut off, a short branch, knot, projecting tooth. (Scand.)
‘Which with a staffe, all full of litle svags;’ Spenser, F. Q. ii.
11. 23; cf. iv. 7. 7. [The word kag, which has much the same
sense, occurs as knagg in Swedish; see Knag.| Hence the prov. E.
verb szag, to trim, to cut off the twigs and small branches from
a tree; the tool used (a kind of bill-hook) is called a snagger ;
hence also the Kentish sxaggle, to nibble (Halliwell). —Norw, snag,
a projecting point or end, a spike; cf. Norw. sxage, a projecting
tongue of land; Icel. snag-hyrndr, with spiky hetns; Icel. snag,
a clothes-peg ; Norw. snaga, to stick out (Koss).
SNAIL, a slimy creeping gastropod. (E.) ME. snayle, Prompt.
Pary. The? (y) is due to an earlier g, precisely as in hail (1), nail.
AS. snegl, snegel; Voc. 121. 31, 321. 29; snegl, Voc. 30. 18.
Snagl (=*snag-il) is a diminutive, with g for c, from AS. snaca,
a snake, a creeping thing ; see Snake. ‘The lit. sense is ‘a small
creeping thing,’ or little reptile. Cf. ME. snegge (prov. E. snag),
a snail, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 32; and G, schnecke, a snail, Swed.
sniicka. +I cel. snigill, a snail; Dan. snegl, a snail; Swed. snigel,
a slug; Westphal. sndel, a snail; Low G. snigge, a snail; NFries.
snegge. Teut. types *snagiloz, snegiloz, masc. See Noreen, § 252.
SNAKE, a kind of serpent. (E.) The lit. sense is ‘a creeping
thing,’ which is also the sense of serfent and of reftile. ME. snake,
Wyclif, Rom. iii. 13. AS. snaca, to translate L. scorpio, Luke, x. 19.
The sense is ‘creeper,’ but the related verb is only found in
OHG. snahkhan, pt. t. snvoh, which presupposes a Tent. type *sxak-
an-, to creep, pt. t. *svdk.4Icel. snakr; also sndkr, Dan. snog,
Swed. snok (from the base *sxdk); MDu. snake,a snake. And cf.
Skt. naga-s,a serpent. See Sneak. Der. snail.
SNAP, to bite suddenly, snatch up. (Du.) In Shak. Much Ado,
ν. I. 116. ‘A snappfer-up of unconsidered trifles ;’ Wint. Tale, iv.
3.26. ‘I snappe at a thing to catche it with my tethe ;’ Palsgrave.
Not an old word. = Du. szappen, to snap, snatch ; ‘ to snap up, or to
intercept,’ Hexham.4 Dan. snappe, Swed. sxappa, from Low G. snap-
pen; G.schnappen, MHG. snappen, tosnap,snatch. β. All from Teut.
base *snap; see Snaffle. Der. snapp-ish, i.e. ready to bite orsnap ;
snapp-ish-ly, -ness. Also snap-dragon, a plant, so called because the
lips of the corolla, when parted, snap together like a dragon’s
mouth ; also a game in which raisins are snapped out of a flame, as
if from a fiery dragon. Also snap-hance, a fire-lock (Nares), from
Du. snaphaan, a fire-lock, MDu. snaphaen, ‘a robber that snaps
upon one in the highway, or a sxap-haunce’ (Hexham); from Du.
576 SNARE
snappen, to snap, and haan, a cock, also a cock of a gun, allied to
E. Hen, q.v. Also snaffle, q.v. And see snip. ᾷξν" It may be
added that there may have been an old strong Teut. vb. *sned-an,
pt. t. *suab, pp. *suubanoz. Rietz, indeed, gives a similar verb as
still found in Swed. dialects, viz. infin. sxippa, pt. t. suapp, old pp.
snuppit, with the sense to snap,to snatch. This at once accounts for
ἘΝ snip; cf. also snub, and snuff (2), to snap or snip off the end of
the wick of acandle. And cf. Snip, Snatch.
SNARE, a noose, trap. (E.) Properly a noose, a trap formed
with a looped string. ‘ Hongide himself with a snare;’ Wyclif,
Matt. xxvii. 5. AS. smear, a cord, string; Grein, ii. 459.4-Du.
snaar, a string; Icel. sara, a snare, halter; Dan. snare; Swed.
snara; OHG. snarahha, a noose; cited by Fick, iii. 350, Curtius,
i. 392. B. From the Teut. base *snarh- (the hk being preserved in
OHG.); and this is from the 2nd grade of the Teut. strong verb
*snerhan-, appearing in OHG, snxerhan, to bind tightly, to twist
tightly; whence also Icel. szara, to turn quickly, twist, wring
(though this is a weak verb). y. The Teut. SNERH answers to
Idg. SNERK, to draw together, contract, whence Gk. νάρκη, cramp,
numbness; see Narcissus. 8. The Idg. SNERK is an ex-
tension from4/SNER, to twist, wind; whence Lithuan. ner-ti, to
thread a needle, draw into achain. ε. And we may further note
the Olrish sndthe, thread ; from the 4/SNE, to wind, spin, whence
L. nére, to spin, G. schnur, a string. Cf. Skt. snava(s), a tendon,
sinew. Der. snare, verb, Temp. ii. 2. 174, ME. snarenx, Prompt.
Parv. ; snar-er, en-snare. Also (obsolete) sxar-l, a noose, Trevisa,
ii. 385.
SNARL, to growl as a surly dog. (E.) In Shak. K. John, iv.
3.150. The -ἰ is a frequentative suffix; the sense is ‘to keep on
snarring.’ ‘I snarre, as a dogge doth under a door whan he sheweth
his tethe,’ Palsgrave ; spelt szar, Spenser, F. Ὁ. vi. 12. 27. Of
OLow G. origin; perhaps E., though not found in AS. Cf. MDu.
snarren, ‘to brawl, to scould, or to snarle ;’ Hexham; G. schnarren,
to rattle the letter R, to snarl, speak in the throat; MHG. sxar,
a growling. Cf. also Icel. snédrgla, to rattle in the throat; snérgl
(pronounced svérl), a rattling sound in the throat. Evidently
related to Sneer; and see Snort.
SNATCH, to seize quickly, snap up. (E.) ME. snacchen, Wars
of Alisaunder, 6559; spelt snecchen, Ancren Riwle, p. 324, 1]. 27.
Snacchen is a palatalised form of *snakkex, and may be considered as
an E. word, though not found in AS. The & is preserved in the sb.
snack, a portion, lit. a snatch or thing snatched up; Lowland Scotch
snak, a snatch made by a dog at a hart, a snap of the jaws, Douglas,
tr. of Virgil, xii. 754 (L. text). ‘ Snack, a share; as, to go snacks
with one;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.4+Du. sxakken, to gasp, desire, long,
aspire; ‘de Visch snackt na het water, the fish gasps for water ;’
Hexham. B. From a Teut. base *sxak-, to catch at with the
mouth, move the jaws, parallel to *sap- (as in E. snap). These
bases are imitative, with the notion of a movement of the jaws.
Der. snatch, sb.; body-snatcher. Also snack, sb., as above. Also
prov. E, sneck, the ‘snap’ or latch of a door.
SNEAK, to creep or steal away slily, to behave meanly. (E.)
In Shak. Troil. i. 2. 246. Variant of ME. sniken. ‘Sniked in ant
ut neddren’=adders creep in and out; O. Eng. Homilies, i. 251 ;
which is from AS. snican, to creep; Grein, ii. 459. Supposed to be
a strong verb (pt. τ. *sna@c, pp. *snicen) ; the Icel. pp. sxikinn occurs,
from an obsolete verb *snika, with the sense of covetous, hankering
after. We also find Icel. sxikja (weak verb), to hanker after, to beg
for food silently, as a dog does; Dan. snige sig, to sneak, slink.
Also Swed. dial. sniga, to creep, strong verb (pt. t. sneg); snika, to |
hanker after, strong verb (pt. t. sve). B. All from a Teut. verb
*snetkan- (pt. τ. *snak, pp. snikanoz), to creep. Cf. Irish and Gael.
snaigh, snaig, to creep, crawl, sneak (from E.). The mod. E. sneak
would result from an AS. *su@can, a derivative from the second
grade *snac; whence also ME. snoken, to creep about; Wyclif,
Works, ed. Arnold, ii. 83. Der. snake, q.v., snail, q.v.
SNEAP, to pinch, check. (Scand.) See Snub.
SINNEER, to express contempt. (Scand.) ‘Sweer, to laugh foolishly
or scornfully;’ Phillips, ed. 1706; prov. E. sneering-match, a grin-
ning match (Forby). Rare. ME. sneren,to deride. ‘ pai snered me
with sxering swa, Bot gnaisted over me with thaire tethe tha’ =they
derided me so with sneering, also they gnashed upon me with their
teeth; Early Eng. Psalter, ed. Stevenson (Surtees Soc.), Ps. xxxiv.
16; and see Ps. ii. 4.—Dan. snerre, to grin like a dog; Hunden
snerrede ad hem, the dog showed its teeth at him (Molbech); cf.
MDan. sxarre, the same. Closely allied to the obsolete E. suar ;
for which see Snarl.
SNEEZE, to eject air rapidly and audibly through the nose. (E.)
‘Looking against the sunne doth induce sneezing;’ Bacon, Nat.
Hist. § 687. ME. snesen, Trevisa, v. 389 (Stratmann). In Chaucer,
Group H, |. 62 (1. rzorr, ed. Tyrwhitt), the right reading is fneseth,
| The Committee (1665); A. iv. sc. 1 (Song).
SNOOZE
not sneseth. But snesen is doubtless either a modification of fnesen,
or a parallel form to it; the initial s is perhaps due to Dan. suse, to
sniff, for which see Snout. B. We find also fnesynge, violent
blowing, Wyclif, Job, xli. 9. — AS. fnéosan, to sneeze; whence
/néosung, sternutatio; Voc. 162. 40. Allied to AS. fuest, a puff,
blast, Grein, i. 307; Icel. fnasa, to sneeze, snort.-Du. fniezen, to
sneeze ; Swed. fnysa, Dan. fnyse, to snort. y- We thus arrive at
a Teut. base *fneus-, Idg. PNEUS, evidently a mere variant of
HNEUS, to sneeze, Fick, iii. 82; for which see Neese. Cf. Gk.
mvew, 1 breathe; see Pneumatic. Der. sneeze, sb. And see
neese.
SNIFF, to scent, draw in air sharply through the nose. (Scand. )
Not common in old books. Johnson defines snuff, sb., as ‘ resent-
ment expressed by snifting.’ ME. sneuien or sneuen (with u=v),
O. Eng. Homilies, ii. 37, 1. 25 ; ii. 207, 1. 16; this would give a later
E. *sneeve, whence was formed sneevle, to snivel, given in Minsheu.
—Icel. *snefja, a lost verb; whence the pp. sxafdr, sharp-scented,
(Acts, xvii. 21) ; snefill, a slight scent; Dan. suive, to sniff, snuff.
Note MDan. snifte (Kalkar), Dan, sndfte, to sniff (whence E. snift,
above), from MDan. snift, air, breath, And cf. Icel. snippa, to
sniff with the nose, sapa, to sniff. Der. sniff, sb.; sniv-el, q.v.
SNIP, to cut off, esp. with shears or scissors. (Du.) Shak. has
snip, sb., L. L. L. iii. 22 ; also syipt, pp., All’s Well, iv. 5. 2. He
connects it with snap, L. L. L. v. 1. 63.—Du. snippen, to snip, clip.
Allied to Du. snappen, ‘to snap up, or to intercept,’ Hexham ; see
Snap. + EFries. snippen; Low (ἃ. snippeln, to cut small; G.
schnippen, to snap; schnappen, to snap, to catch. Cf. also EFries.
snip, sharp; snip, snippe, a small piece of land; Hamburg schnippen,
to cut into small bits (Richey). | @f It has probably been influenced
in use by the similar word nif. Der. snip, sb.; snipp-et, a small
piece, dimin. of snip, sb., Butler’s Hudibras, pt. ii. c. 3.1. 824. Also
snip-snap, Pope, Dunciad, ii. 240.
SNIPE, a bird with a long bill, frequenting marshy places.
(Scand.) ME. snype. ‘Snype, or snyte, byrde, Ibex ;’ Prompt.
Pary. ‘Hic ibis, or hic ibex, a snype;’ Voc. 701. 39. ‘Snipe, or
snite;” Baret (1580). [Snipe and smite are parallel names for the
same bird ; it is possible that the vowel of supe has been affected by
that of szite, which is the older word, found as AS. snite, Voc. 3. 28.]
=Icel. snifa, a snipe, found in the comp. myri-snipa, a moor-snipe.
Cf. Dan. sneppe, a snipe, Swed. snappa, a sandpiper; from Du. snip,
snep, MDu, snippe, sneppe, snipe (Hexham); G. schnepfe, snipe.
B. The word means ‘a snipper’ or ‘asnapper;’ the standard form
appears in MDu. szeppe, formed by the addition of a suffix -pe (for
-ya) and vowel-change, from the Teut. base SNAP, to snap up; see
Snap. Cf. MDu. snabbe, snebbe, ‘the bill of a bird,’ Hexham;
a word with the same sense of ‘ snapper.’ See Snaffle.
SINITE (1), to wipe the nose. (E.) See Snout.
SNITE (2), a snipe. (E.) See under Snipe.
SNIVEL, to sniff continually, to have a running at the nose, to
whimper. (Scand.) Formerly snevil; spelt sneuyll, Skelton, Colin
Clout, 1223. ME. sneuelen (with u=v), P. Plowman, B. v. 135,
footnote; other MSS. have nyuelynge, neuelynge. Also snuvelen
(Stratmann); answering to an AS. form *snyflan; whence the
derived sb, snyflung, in Napier’s additions. — AS. snoff, mucus; A.S.
Leechdoms, ii. 24. Cf. Low G, snuven, to sniff; Swed. sndfla, Dan.
snovle, to snuffle, which is a parallel form; see Snuffle. And cf.
Snuff. Der. syivell-er, snivel, sb.
SNOB, a vulgar person. (Scand.) ‘That old snob;’ Howard,
Prov. E. snob, a
vulgar ignorant person; orig. a journeyman-shoemaker (Suffolk) ;
see Εν Τὴ. Ὁ. ‘Snap,a lad or servant, now mostly used ludicrously ;’
Thoresby’s letter to Ray, 1703 (E.D.S. Gloss. B. 17); ‘ Snape, a
pert youth, North,’ Halliwell. Lowland Sc. sxab, a shoemaker’s or
cobbler’s boy (Jamieson). Of Scand. origin. Dan. dial. snopp,
snupp, bashful, silly; MDan. sxa@b, foolish (Kalkar) ; Icel. snapr,
a dolt, idiot, with the notion of impostor or charlatan, a boaster,
used as a by-word; Swed. dial. sndpp, a boy, anything stumpy.
The same Icel. word means the pointed end of a pencil ; both senses
may be explained from Swed. dial. sndppa, to cut off, make stumpy,
hence to snub. Cf. Swed. sxopen, out of countenance, ashamed.
See Snub, Snubnosed.
SNOOD, a fillet, ribbon. (E.) ‘Her satin snood;’ Sir W. Scott,
Lady of the Lake, c. i. st. 19; and see note 25 (31). ΜΕ. sndd (12th
century); Voc. 540. 39. AS. sndd. ‘Vitta, sudd;’ Voc. 107. 35.
The orig. sense is ‘a twist ;’ cf. Olrish snathe, thread ; from the Idg.
root *sné, *sna, to spin, to twist; whence also G. schnir, a string.
Cf. Skt. sndva-s, a tendon, a muscle; Gk. véw, I spin, νῆμα, thread,
L. nére, to spin. Note W. noden, a thread; ysnoden, a fillet. See
Snare.
SNOOZE, to doze, to nap. (Scand.) Rietz gives Swed. dial.
cnusa, (1) to take snuff; (2) to draw breath loudly in sleep, like a
SNORE
child. Cf. Dan. snuse, to snuff, to sniff, to poke one’s nose into a
thing ; just as the prov. E. snoozle not only means ‘to doze,’ but also
‘to sniff and poke with the nose,’ like a dog. Cf. also Low G. snuss,
with the same sense as snute, a snout; snusseln, to poke with the
nose; W. Flem. snuisteren, snoesteren, to sniff after, like a dog.
Allied to Dan. and Swed. snus, snuff; and prob. of imitative origin,
like Sniff, Snuff.
SNORE, to breathe hoarsely in sleep. (E.) ME. snore, Chaucer,
C. T. 5210 (B 790). Substituted for *fnoren. Cf. AS. fnora, as in
‘ Sternutatio, fnora ;’ Wright’s Voc. 48. 14. The change from fx to
sm occurs again in the case of the allied word sneeze (AS. fnéosan).
In Chaucer (as above), MS. E, has snoreth, MS. C. has snortith, and
MSS. Hn. Cp. have fnorteth. B. Formed from the weak grade
Jnor- (<*fnus), as seen in fnor-en, pp. of fnéosan, to sneeze; pre-
cisely as the word frore, frozen (Milton, P. L. ii. 595) is the pp. of
fréosan, to freeze. See further under Sneeze; and Notes on E.
Etym., p. 273. Influenced by Snort. Der. snore, sb., snor-er.
SNORT, to force air violently through the nose, as a horse.
(Scand.) ME, snorten, to snore, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 4161 (A 4163). Cf.
Low G, snurten, snarten, to make an explosive noise. From the base
*snur-; as in Low G. sxurren, to hum; MDu. sxorrex, to murmur.
Cf. also (with ἃ for) Dan. snorke, to snort; Swed. snorka, to threaten
(orig. to snort, fume, be angry); Du. sxorken, to snore, snort; G.
schnarchen, to snore, snort, bluster; Swed. snarka, to snore; prov.
E. snork, to snort. And see Snarl. Der. snort-er; snort, sb.
SNOT, mucus from the nose. (E.) ME. snotte, snothe, Prompt.
Parv. AS. ge-snot; A. 5. Leechdoms, ii. 54. OFries. snotte.4-Du.
snot; Low (ἃ. snotte; Dan. snot. Supposed to be allied to the pp.
snoten of a lost strong verb, which would appear as AS, *sniitan;
see further under Snout.
SNOUT, the nose of an animal. (E.) ME. snoute, Chaucer,
C. T. 14911 (B 4095); snute, King Horn, ed. Lumby, 1082. AS.
*snut ; whence snytan, vb., to snite, was formed by vowel-change ;
see Snite. EFries. sniite.4Swed. snut, a snout, muzzle; Dan.
snude; Low G. snute; Westphal. snite; Du. snuit, G. schnauze.
B. From a Teut. str. vb. *sniitan-, to sniff, pt. t. *snaut, pp. *snutanoz.
From the prime grade *sniit- we have E. snout; also Icel. snyta, to
wipe the nose, Swed. snyfa, Dan. snyde, the same, AS. sn¥tan, whence
E. snite, to blow the nose (Halliwell). From the 2nd grade we have
G. schnauze; and from the weak grade E. snot, mucus. y. We find
shorter forms in Dan, snue, to sniff, snuff, snort, Low G. szau, prov.
G. schnau,a snout, beak; all from a base SNEU. And it is clear
that prov. G. schnuff, a snout, E. snuff, sniff, snivel, Dan. snuse, to
snuff or sniff, go back to the same base, which seems to have indicated
a sudden inspiration of the breath through the nose. Cf. Lithuan.
snukkis, a snout.
SNOW, a form of frozen vapour. (E.) ME. snow; hence snow-
white, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 8264 (E 388). AS. snaw; Grein, ii. 458.4Du.
sneeuw ; Icel. sn@r, snjar, snjor ; Dan. snee ; Swed. sé; Goth. snaiws ;
G. schnee.4-Lithuan. snégas ; Russ. snieg’; L. nix (gen. niuis) ; Gk. acc.
vipa, whence νιφάς, a snow-flake; Irish and Gael. sneachd; W. nyf.
B. All from the 4/SNEIGwWH, to snow, whence L. ningit, it snows
(with inserted πὴ), Lithuan. snigti, sningti, to snow, Greek veiper,
vipe, it snows, Zend. gnizk, to snow; Fick, i. 828. Brugmann, i.
§ 394. Der. snow, verb; snow-blind, -drift, -drop, -plough, -shoe,
-slip; also snow-y, snow-t-ness.
SNUB, to check, scold, reprimand. (Scand.) ‘To sub one, to
take one up sharply ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706; spelt snubbe in Levins, ed.
1570. Another form 15 sneb or snib; spelt snebbe, Spenser, Shep.
Kal. Feb. 1. 126; stb, id. Mother Hubberd’s Tale, 372. ME. snibben,
Chaucer, C. T. 523.— Dan. snubbe, to nip off, to snub (Larsen) ; also
snibbe, ‘to set down, blow up,’ i. 6. reprimand (whence E. snib) ; Swed.
snubba, to snub, to check; NFries. sxubbe, Icel. snubba, to snub,
chide. The orig. sense was to snip off the end of a thing; cf. Icel.
snubbotir, snubbed, nipped, the pointed end being cut off; Swed.
dial. saubba, to snip or clip off; EFries. subbeln, to snatch away, to
snap. B. A form allied to szub appears in sneap, to check, pinch,
nip, L.L. L.i. 1.100; Wint. Tale, i. 2.13. This is from Icel. sneypa,
orig. to castrate, then used as a law-term, to outrage, dishonour, and
in mod. usage to chide or snuba child; whence sneypa, a disgrace.
This is a related word, and cognate with Swed. sndpa, to castrate,
Swed. dial. sndppa, to cut off, to snuff a candle ; Icel. snupra, to snub,
chide. Der. snub, sb.; also snub-nosed, q. v.
SNUB-NOSED, having a short nose, (Scand. and E.) Added
by Todd to Johnson. It means, literally, with a short or stumpy
nose, as if cut off short. Cf. snubbes, 5. pl., the short stumpy pro-
jections on a staff that has been roughly cut and trimmed, Spenser,
F.Q. i. 8.7. Snub is from the Swed. dial. sxubba, to clip, snip;
whence Swed. dial. snubba, a cow without horns or with cut horns,
Icel. snubbottr, snipped, clipped, with the end cut off. See Snub
above, And see Nose.
SOAR
SNUFF (1), to sniff, draw in air violently through the nose, to
smell. (Du.) ‘ As if you snuffed up love by smelling love;’ L.L.L.
iii, 16. Spelt snugfe in Levins, ed. 1570; snoffe and snuffe in Pals-
grave.=MDu. snuffen, ‘to snuffe out the filth out of one’s nose’
(Hexham); cf. Du. sxuf, smelling, scent, sxuffelen, to smell out;
allied to MDu. snuyven, Du. snuiven, to snort.4+-Swed. snufva, a cold,
catarth ; snufven, a sniff or scent of a thing ; Swed. dial. snavla, snofla,
snuffia, to snuffle (which is the frequent. form) ; Dan. snévle, to snuffle ;
G. schnauben, schnaufen, schnieben, to snuff, snort; from a Teut. base
*sneub-; Idg. base *sneup-. We also find G. schnupfen, a catarrh,
schnupfen, to take snuff; prov. G. schnuffeln, schniiffeln, to snuffle, to
smell (Fliigel). Der. snuff-le, the frequentative form ; snuff, sb.,
powdered tobacco ; sxuff-box, snuff-y.
SNUFF (2), to snip the top off a candle-wick. (E.) ME. snuffen,
to snuff out a candle, Wyclif, Exod. xxv. 38, note y (later version) :
the earlier version has: ‘ where the snoffes ben quenchid’=where
the candle-snuffs are extinguished. B. This form snuffen is a
parallel form to *snuppen, *snoppen, which agrees with prov. E. snop,
toeat off, ascattle do young shoots (Halliwell). = Swed. dial. snoppa,
to snip or cut off, esp. to snuff a candle (Rietz) ; cf. Norw. snuppa,
snubba, to dock, cut off a top (Ross); supp, a stump (Aasen) ;
Hamburg sniiffe, the peak of a shoe (Richey); Dan. snubbe, to
nip off, the same word as E. snub; see Snub. Der. snuff (of a
candle), sb., ME. snoffe, as above; snuff-dishes, Exod. xxv. 38;
snuff-ers, Exod. xxxvii. 23.
SNUG, comfortable, lying close and warm. (Scand.) ¢ Where
you lay snug ;’ Dryden, tr. of Virgil, Past. iii. 24. Shak. has ‘ Snug
the joiner ;’ Mids. Nt. Dr. i. 2. 66. Cf. prov. E. snug, tight, hand-
some, Lancashire (Halliwell) ; sxog, tidy, trimmed, in perfect order
(Cleveland Glossary). Of Scand. origin; cf. Icel. snoggr, smooth,
said of wool or hair; MSwed. snygg, short-haired, smooth, trimmed,
neat, Swed. snygg, cleanly, neat, genteel; Norweg. snxogg, short,
trim; Dan. snég (also snyg), neat, smart, tidy (Molbech); EFries.
sniigge, snigge, smooth, neat. Cf. Norw. snxugga, to arrange, get
ready. β. The orig. sense was ‘trimmed’ or ‘cropped;’ cf. prov.
E. snag, to trim; South Εἰ. snig, to cut or chop off, whence Devon.
snig, close and private (i. 6. snug); see Halliwell. See Snag. Der.
snug-ly, snug-ness.
SO, thus, in such a manner or degree. (E.) ME. so, Chaucer, C. T.
11; Northern sa, Barbour’s Bruce (passim) ; also swa, Chaucer, C. T.
4028 (A 4030), where the Norther dialect is imitated. AS, swa, so;
Grein, ii. 497.4 Du. zoo; Icel. sud, later svd, svo, so; Dan. saa; Swed.
s@; G. so; Goth. swa, 50 ; swé, just as; swa-swé, justas. Teut. types
*swe, swo, swa. Cf. Gk. ὡς. B. From an oblique case of the Teut.
*swaz, Idg. *swos, one’s own (a reflexive pronominal base) ; whence
Skt. sva-, one’s own self, own, L. suus, one’s own. Thus so=‘in
one’s own way.’ See Prellwitz (5. v. ὧς); Brugmann, i. § 362.
SOAK, to steep ina fluid. (E.) It also means to suck up, im-
bibe. ‘A sponge, that soaks up the king’s countenance ;’ Hamlet,
iv. 2. 16. This is the orig. sense ; the word is a derivative of to suck.
ME. soken, (1) to suck, (2) to soak; ‘Sokere, or he that sokythe,
sugens ;’ Prompt. Pary. ‘ Sokyn yn lycure, as thyng to be made softe,’
id. From AS. soctan, to soak, tr. and intr.; see Bosworth-Toller.
Allied to AS. soc-, weak grade of siican, to suck. Cf. AS. Gstican,
asigan, to suck dry, whence the pp. Gsocene, dsogene; Grein, i. 43.
B. There is also the sb. soc, or gesoc, a sucking, Gen. xxi. 7, 8. See
Notes on E. Etym., p. 273. See Suck. Der. soak-er.
SOAM, a horse-load. (Late L.—Gk.) The Western E. equivalent
of E. seam, AS. seam; see Seam (2).
SOAP, a compound of oil or fat with soda or potash, used for
washing. (E.) ME. sope, Rob. of Glouc. p. 6, 1. 143. [The long ο
is due to AS. ἄ, as in stone from AS. stan, &c.] AS. sape, soap;
Allfric’s Homilies, i. 472, 1. 6.44Du. zeep; [Icel. «ἄρα, Dan. sabe,
Swed. sdpa; borrowed from AS.]; G. seife, OHG. seifa. β, Teut.
type *saipon, f.; from *saip, 2nd grade of Teut. *seipan, to trickle
(MHG. sifen, Low G. sipen, to be moist, OFries. sifa) ; see Seife in
Kluge. y. The L. sapo (see Pliny, xxviii. 12. 51) was borrowed
from the Teutonic, not (as Pliny says) from Celtic. (From the L.
acc. saponem came Εἰ, savon, Ital. sapone, Span. xabon, &c.) The
truly cognate L. word would appear to be sébum, tallow, grease. The
W. sebon, Gael. stopunn, siabunn, Irish siabunn, seem to be borrowed
from the L. acc. siponem. Der. soap, verb; soap-y.
SOAR, to fly aloft. (F.—L.) ME. soren. ‘As doth an-egle,
whan him list to sore;’ Chaucer, C. T. 10437 (F 123). A term of
hawking, and accordingly of F. origin. =F. essorer, ‘ to expose unto,
or lay out in, the weather ; also, to mount or sore up;’ Cot. Cf.
Ital. sorare, ‘to soare in the aire;’ Florio.—Late L. *exaurare (not
found), to expose to the air; regularly formed from ex, out; and
aura, a breeze, the air. β, The Lat. aura was probably borrowed
from Gk. αὔρα, a breeze; it is formed with the suffix -ra, from AW,
to blow. The 4/AW is allied to 4/ WE, to blow; see Air.
EY
577
578 SOB
SOB, to sigh convulsively, with tears. (E.) ME. sobben. ‘Swowed
and sobbed and syked’ [sighed]; P, Plowman, B. xiv. 326. Related
to AS. siofian, séofian, to lament; Atlfred, tr. of Boethius, c. xxxvi.
§ 1, lib. iv. pr. 1; from *sud, weak grade of *seud, yariant of Teut.
*seup, to sup, suck in, The word represents the convulsive sucking
in of air. B. This is clearly shown by the allied (ἃ. seufzen,
ΜΗ. siuften, stiften, OHG. siifton, to sigh, formed from the OHG.
sb. sft, a sigh, sob; this sb. being again related to OHG. siifan, to
sup, sip, cognate with E. sup; see Sup. So also Icel. syptir
(=sy/ftir), a sobbing. Der. sob, sb.
SOBER, temperate, sedate, grave. (F.—L.) ME, sobre, Chaucer,
C. T. 9407.—F. sobre, ‘sober;’ Cot.—L. sdbrium, acc. of sobrius,
sober. Compounded of sd-, prefix; and -brius, as in é-brius, drunken ;
both possibly related to the rare L, bria, a wine-vessel. ‘The pre-
fix sd-, as in sd-cors, signifies apart from, or without ; and sdbrius,
not drunken, is thus opposed to ébrius. S0- is related to sé-, which
before a vowel appears as séd-, as in séd-itio, lit. ‘a going apart.’
See Se-, prefix, and Ebriety. Der. sober-ly, sober-ness; also
sobrie-ty, from F. sobrieté, ‘sobriety,’ Cot., from L. ace. sdbrietatem.
SOBRIQUET, a nickname, assumed name. (F.—L. and C.)
Sometimes spelt soubriquet, but sobriquet is the mod. F. form.
Modern, not in Todd’s Johnson. Borrowed from F. sobriquet, ‘a
surname, nickname, a quip or cut given, a mock or flowt bestowed,
a jeast broken on a man;’ Cot, Another form is so¢briguet, also in
Cotgrave. β. Etym. disputed and uncertain. Cotgrave also spells
the word soubriquet, and Littré and Scheler note the occurrence of
soubzbriquet in a text of the 14th century with the sense of ‘a chuck
under the chin.’ Here sowbz (mod. F. sous) answers to L, subtus,
below ; and briguet isthe Norm. dial. form of F. brechet, brisket; see
Moisy. Hence sobriquet, properly a knock on the breast, hence, a
chuck under the chin, and then ‘a quip or cut given, a mock or
flout, a jeast broken on a man,’ [finally] ‘a nickname;’ Cotgrave.
‘Percussit super mentonem faciendo dictum le soubriquet;’ Act
A.D. 1355 in Archives du Nord de la France, iii. 35. ‘ Donna deux
petits coups appeléz soubzbriquez des dois de la main soubz le. men-
ton;’ Act A.D. 1398, ibid. in Ducange, s.v. Barba. In the
same way soubarbe, ‘the part between the chin and the throat, also
a check, twitch, jerk given to a horse with his bridle, endurer une
soubarbe, to indure an affront;’ Cot. If so, the sense is ‘ chuck
under the chin,’ hence, an affront, nickname. At the same time,
Cotgrave’s sotbriguet must be due to some popular etymology (prob.
from sot, foolish).
SOC, SOCAGE, law-terms. (E.) See Soke.
SOCIABLE, companionable. (F.—L.) In Shak. K, John, i. 188.
=F. sociable, ‘sociable ;? (οἵ. “Τὸ. sociabilis, sociable ; formed with
suffix -bilis from socid-re, to accompany. =—L. socius, a companion,
lit. ‘a follower.’—L. base soc-, second grade of seg-, appearing in
sequi, to follow; all from 4/SEQ, to follow; see Sequence. Der.
sociabl-y, sociable-ness, sociabili-ty. From L. soctus is also formed the
adj. socialis, whence E. social, with the adv. social-ly, also social-i-ty,
social-ise, social-ist, social-ism. Also socie-ty, L.L.L., iv. 2. 166,
from MF, societé,‘ society,’ Cot., which from L, acc. societatem. Also
dis-sociate, as-sociate,
SOCK, a sort of half stocking, buskin. (L.) “ΜῈ. socke, Prompt.
Parv,; see Way’s note. AS. socc; ‘Soccus, socc;’ Voc. 47. 22.—L.
soccus, a light shoe, slipper, sock, worn by comic actors, and so taken
as the symbol of comedy, as in Milton, L’Allegro, 132. Der. sock-et.
SOCKET, a hollow into which something is inserted. (F.+Dnu.)
‘Soket of a candylstykke or other lyke;’ Prompt. Parv. ΜΕ,
soket, King Alisaunder, 4415.—OF. soket, given by Roquefort only
as (1) a dimin. of F. soc, a ploughshare, and (2) a dimin, of F.
souche, a stump or stock of a tree. β. [Of these, the F. soc is of
Celtic origin; cf. ὟΝ. swch, a (swine’s) snout, a ploughshare (Thur-
neysen, p. 112), and with this word we have here nothing to do.]
But souche appears in the Norman dial. as chouque (see Moisy), and is
allied to the Ital. ciocco, a stump or stock of a tree; see Florio. Cf.
Walloon sokett, a stump; F. dial. soguette, a stump of dead wood,
patois de la Meuse (Labourasse); MF. chougquet, ‘a block ;’ Cot.;
OF. chocguet, a support (socket) for an arblast (Godefroy) ; F. dial.
chouquet, a block on which one cuts wood, dimin. of chougue, a
stump, patois du pays de Bray (Decorde) ; Picard choke, a block
(Corblet); Walloon chogue, stump of a tree (Sigart). Prob. of
Teut. origin; perhaps from MDu. schocke, ‘a shock, a cock, or a
heape,’ Hexham. See Shock (2). 4 The Du, sch- may have
caused difficulty ; hence Ital. zocco=ciocco. Note ‘une souche de
fourment,’ a shock of corn; Supp. to Godefroy.
SOD, turf, a surface of earth covered with growing grass. (E.)
‘A sod, turfe, cespes;’ Levins, ed. 1570. Perhaps so called because
the turf was used as fuel for boiling (Weigand) ; or because sodden.
Cf, AS. ge-sod, a cooking ; sod-en, pp. of seodan, to seethe. That the
connexion with the verb to seethe is real is apparent from the cognate
SOIL
terms.+Du. zode, sod, green turf; MDu. zode, ‘ seething or boiling,
also, ‘a sodde ora turfe ;’ Hexham. Also contracted to zoo in both
senses ; ‘zoo, a sod; het water is aan de zoo, the water begins to
seeth ;” Sewel. Note also MDu. sood, a well (Hexham) ; so named
from the bubbling up of the water, and cognate with AS. séad,a well,
a pit, from the same verb (seethe).-EFries. sod, a well ; sode, a cut
turf, also boiling, cooking ; Dan. dial. sodd, saadd, a sod; OFries.
satha, sada, sod, turf, allied to sath, sad, a well ; Low G., sode, sod,
allied to sood, a well; G. sode, sod, turf, allied to G. sod, broth, also,
a bubbling up as of boiling water. See Seethe, Suds.
SOD, SODDEN;; sce under Seethe.
SODA, oxide of sodium. (Ital.—L.) Modern; added by Todd
to Johnson. —Ital. soda, soda; MItal. soda, ‘a kind of fearne ashes
wherof they make glasses;’ Florio. Fem. of Ital. sodo, ‘ solide,
tough, fast, hard, stiffe;’ Florio. This is a contracted form of Ital,
solido, solid; see Solid. So called, apparently, from the firmness or
hardness of the products obtained from glass-wort; cf. OF. soulde,
‘saltwort, glasswort,’ from the L. solida (fem. of solidus), which
Scheler supposes must have been the L. name of glass-wort. B.-Note
that the Span. name for soda is sosa, which also means glass-wort;
but here the etymology is different, the name being given to the plant
from its abounding in alkaline salt. Sosa is the fem. of Span. soso,
insipid, orig.‘ salt;’ from L. salsus, salt; seeSauce. Der. sod-inm,
a coined word.
SODER,, the same as Solder, ιν.
SODOMY, an unnatural crime. (F.—L.—Gk.—Heb.) In Cot.
Cf. ME. sodomyte, Lydgate, Assembly of Gods, 708 ; also sodomite,
Cursor Mundi, 1. 27950.—F. sodomie, ‘ sodomy;’ Cot. So called
because it was imputed to the inhabitants of Sodom; Gen. xix. 5. —
F. Sodome, Sodom.—L. Sodoma.—Gk. =d5opa,.—Heb. Sedom (with
initial samech) ; explained to mean ‘ burning’ in Stanley’s Sinai and
Palestine, cap. vii; but this is quite uncertain. Gesenius gives the
sense ‘ enclosure,”
SOFA, a long seat with stuffed bottom, back, and arms, (Arab.)
‘He leaped off from the sofa in which he sat;’ Guardian, no, 167
(not 198], Sept. 22, 1713. The story here given is said to be trans-
lated from an Arabian MS. ; this may be a pretence, but the word is
Arabic, = Arab. suffa(t), suffah, ‘a sopha, a couch, a place for reclining
upon before the doors of Eastern houses, made of wood or stone ;’
Rich, Dict., p. 936.— Arab. root sagfa, to draw up in line, put a seat
to a saddle; ibid.
SOFFIT, the under side of an architrave or arch, also a ceiling.
(F.—Ital.—L.) F. soffite (Hatzfeld).—Ital. soffitta, a garret, a ceil+
ing (Barretti). Orig. fem. of the pp. sofftto, fixed beneath ; from
sof- (from L. sub, under), and jitto, pp. of figgere, to fix, from L.
figere, to fix. Thus it is (practically) a doublet of suffix.
SOFT, easily yielding to pressure, gentle, easy, smooth. (E.)
ME. softe, Wyclif, Matt. xi. 8; Chaucer, Ὁ. Τὶ 12035 (C 101).
AS. sdfte, gen. used as an ady., Grein, ii. 464. The adj. form is com-
monly séfte (id. 423), where the ὅ is further modified to @.-4-OSax.
safto, softly, only in the compar. saftur, Heliand, 3302; G. san/t,
soft; OHG. samfto, adv., softly, lightly, gently; Du, zacht (for
*za/t), whence ἃ. sacht. Teut. type *samftoz ; from *samjan- (Goth.
samjan), to please. Cf. Olrish saim, mild, sam, rest; Gk. ἥμερος,
tame, mild; Skt. sdman, mildness. Der. soft-ly, ME. softely (three
syllables), Chaucer, C. T. 4209 (A 4211) ; soft-ness, Layamon, 25549.
Also soft-en, in which the final-ex is added by analogy with length-en,
&c.; the ME. softex would only have given a later E. verb to soft;
cf. softed in Ancren Riwle, p. 244, 1. 27. The right use of soften is
intransitive, as in Shak. Wint. Tale, ii. 2. 40.
SOHO, a cry of sportsmen, to call attention to the hunted animal.
(F.) ‘Soho! soho!’ Two Gent. of Verona, iii, 3. 189. ME. soko,
King Alisaunder, 3712. A better form is sa ho, as in Middleton,
Trick to Catch the Old One; A. iv. sc. 4. ‘Sohow is [as] moche to
say as sahow ; for because that it is short [i.e. easier] to say, we say
alwey sohow;’ Venery de Twety, in Relig. Antiq. i. 154; ‘sa, sa, cy,
adesto, sohow,’ id. 152.—F. ga, ‘hither, . . follow hoe, come after,’
Cot.; and ho/ interj. The F. ρα is from the popular L. ecce hac,
behold! this way! See Hatzfeld.
SOIL (1), ground, mould, country, (F.—L.) ME. soile; spelt
soyle, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, Β. 1039,.—AF. soil, Year-books of
Edw. I (1304-5), Ρ- 533 (1305), p. 9; (allied to OF. soel, suel, MF.
sueil, ‘the threshold of a door ;’ Cot., from L. solium),—L. solea, a
covering for the foot, a sole, sandal, sole of the foot, timber on
which wattled walls are built. The Late L, solea also means ‘ soil, or
ground,’ by confusion with L. so/wm, ground, whence F. sol, ‘ the soil,
ground ;’ Cot. B. We cannot derive E. soil from F, sol, on account
of the diphthong; but it makes little difference, since L. solea, sole
of the foot, and so/um, ground, are closely connected words. γ. The
root of I. sol-ea, sol-um is uncertain; they may be allied to Sill,
Doublets, sole (1), sole (2).
SOIL
SOIL (2), to defile, contaminate. (F.—L.) ME. soilen, Ancren
Riwle, p. 84, 1.23; P. Plowman, B. xiv.2. The sense is to cover with
mire ; fo take soil, lit. to betake oneself to muddy water, was a term
of the chase; see Halliwell. ‘To go to soyle’ was said of the hart ;
Book of St. Albans, fol. e 4, back. —AF. soyler, Walter de Bibbes-
worth, in Wright’s Vocab. i. 171; OF. soillier (12th cent., Littré), F.
souiller, ‘to soil,’ Cot.; whence ‘se souiller (of a swine), to take
soile, or wallow in the mire;’ id. OF. soil, souil ; ‘soil, or souil de
sanglier, the soile of a wilde boare, the slough or mire wherein he
hath wallowed;’ Cot. Cf. MItal. sogliare, ‘to sully, defile, or pol-
lute,’ Florio ; also sogliardo (mod. Ital. sugliardo), ‘ slovenly, sluttish,
or hoggish ;? id. Diez also cites Prov. solh, mire, sulhar, to soil;
and sulha, a sow, which last is (as he says) plainly derived from L.
sucula, a young sow, dimin. of sus,a sow. SeeSow. β. Similarly,
he explains the Ἐς souil from the L. adj, suillus, belonging to swine,
derived from the same sb.—L. siis, a sow; see Sow. Karting,
§ 9247. Ὑ. It will be observed that the difference in sense be-
tween soil (1)=ground, and soil (2), sb.=mire, is so slight that the
words have doubtless frequently been confused, though really from
quite different sources. There is yet a third word with the same
spelling ; see Soil (3). Der. soil, sb., a spot, stain, a new coinage
from the verb ; the old sb. sod, a wallowing-place (really the original
of the verb), is obsolete. ἄν The AS. sol, mire, is not the orig.
of Ε΄ soi, but of prov. E. soal, sole, a dirty pool, Kent; E. 1), 5.
Gloss. C. 3. See Sully.
SOIL (3), to feed cattle with green grass, to fatten with feeding.
(F.—L.) See Halliwell; the expression ‘ soiled horse,’ i.e. a horse
high fed upon green food, isin King Lear, iv. 6.124. [Quite dis-
tinct from the words above.] Also spelt σου ; Halliwell gives ‘ soul,
to satisfy with food.’=—OF. soeler, saoler (Supp. to Godefroy, s. v.
saouler) ; cf. AF. sauler, P. de Thaun, Bestiary, 1. 527, later saouler,
‘to glut, οἷον, fill, satiate;” Cot. Mod. F. sotiler.—AF. saul, satis-
fied, Vie de St. Auban; OF. saol, adj. (Burguy), later saonl, ‘ full,
cloied, satiated,’ Cot. Mod. F. βοὴ. αὶ... satullum, acc. of satullus,
filled with food; a dimin. form from sazur, full, satiated, akin to
satis, enough. See Sate, Satiate, Satisfy.
SOIREE, an evening party. (F.—L.) Borrowed from French.
‘A friendly swarry;’ Pickwick Papers, c. 36; spelt soiree in the
heading to the chapter. —F. soirée, ‘ the evening-tide,’ Cot.; hence a
party given in the evening. Cf. Ital. serata, evening-tide. Formed
as a fem. pp. from a (supposed) Late L. verb *serare, to become
late; from L. sérus, late in the day, whence Ital. sera, F. soir,
evening. Cf. Olrish sir, W. hir, long.
SOJOURN, to dwell, stay, reside. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. soiornen,
Rob, of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 3, last line; sofowrnen, Chaucer,
C. T. 4568 (B 148). (Here i=j.) ΔῈ, sojourner, Stat. Realm,
i. 277 (1336); OF. sojorner, sojourner, to sojourn ; also spelt sejorner,
sejourner (Burguy). Mod. Ἐς séjourner; cf. Ital. soggiornare. This
verb answers to a Late L. type *subdiurnaire, composed of L, sub,
under, and diurndre, to stay, last long, derived from the adj. diurnus,
daily ; see Sub- and Diurnal or Journal. Der. sojourn-er;
sojourn, sb., K. Lear, i. 1. 48, ME. sotorne, soiorn, Barbour’s Bruce,
ix. 369, vii. 385. The AF. sb. appears both as sojourn and
sojour.
SOKE, SOC, a franchise, land held by socage. (E.) “δὸς, signi-
fies power, authority, or liberty to minister justice and execute laws ;
also the shire, circuit, or territory, wherein such power is exercised
by him that is endued with such a priviledge or liberty ;’ Blount’s
Nomolexicon, ed. 1691. [Blount rightly notes the word as ‘Saxon,’
but under socage gives a wrong derivation from F, soc, a plough-share. }
“Sac and Séc; sac was the power and privilege of hearing and de-
termining causes and disputes, levying of forfeitures and fines, exe-
cuting laws, and administering justice within a certain precinct; see
Ellis, Introduction to Domesday Book, i. 273. Sdc or Sdcn was
strictly the right of investigating or seeking, or, as Spelman defines
it, Cognitio quam dominus habet in curia sua, de causis litibusque
inter vassallos suos exorientibus. It was also the territory or pre-
cinct in which the sacu and other privileges were exercised ;” Gloss.
to Thorpe’s Diplomatarium, at p. 369 of which we find: ‘ic an
heom perofer saca and sdcna’=I grant them thereover the privileges
of sacu and sdcn. See further in Schmidt, Die Gesetze der Angel-
sachsen, ed. 1858, p. 653. ‘Soka, sute of court ; and therof cometh
Sokene; but Sokene otherwhile is for to aske lawe in the gretter court ;’
Trevisa, tr. of Higden, ii. 95. β. Etymologically, sac (AS. sacz) is
the same word as E. sake; the orig. sense is ‘contention,’ hence a
law-suit, from AS. sacan, to contend; see Sake, Soken (AS. sdcn,
sdcen) is ‘an enquiry;’ closely connected with mod. E. seek, to in-
vestigate, and derived from AS. sdc, 2nd grade of sac-, as seen in sdc,
pt. t. of the same verb sacan; see Seek. Cf. Goth. sokns, enquiry ;
sokjan, to seek; sakan, to contend. Hence Portsoken (ward) in
London, which Stow explains by ‘ franchise at the gate.’ Der. soc-
SOLE 579
age, a barbarous law-term, made by adding the F. suffix -age (L.
-aticum) to AS. séc-. (The o is long.)
SOLACE, a comfort, relief. (F.—L.)° ME. solas, King Ali-
saunder, 1. 15; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 13712 (B 1972).—OF. solaz, solace;
Burguy. (Here z=¢s.)—L. sdlacium, a comfort; as if from an adj.
*sdlax; allied to the verb sdlari, to console, to comfort, Allied to
L. sollus, Gk. ὅλος, whole (Bréal, Prellwitz) ; Skt. sarva(s), whole,
Der. solace, verb, ME. solacen, P. Plowman, B. xix. 22, from OF.
solacier, solacer, to solace (Burguy). And see con-sole.
SOLAN-GOOSKH, the name of a bird. (Scand. and E.) The E.
goose is an addition; the Lowland-Scotch form is soland, which
occurs in Holland's poem of the Houlate (Owlet), about A. D. 1450;
- 700. [Here the d is excrescent, as is so commonafter x ; cf. sound
from F, son.]—Icel. sila, also haf-sila, a gannet, solan goose (see
below) ; Norweg. swla, havsula, the same (Aasen). The Norweg. hav
(Icel. haf) means ‘sea.’ B. As the Icel. sala is feminine, the
definite form is si/an =the gannet ; which accounts for the final x in
the E. word. Similarly, Dan. sol =sun, but solex =the sun ; whence
the Shetland word sooleen, the sun (Edmonston).
SOLAR, belonging to the sun. (L.) ‘The solar and lunary
year ;’ Ralegh, Hist. of the World, b. ii. c. 3 (R.).—L. solaris, solar.
=-L. sal, the sun.+Icel. sél; Goth. sauil; Lithuan. sdulé; Russ.
solntsé; W. haul (for saul) ; Irish sil; Gk, ἥλιος, Homeric ἠέλιος,
Doric ἀέλιος, Cretan ἀβέλιος (with long a); cf. Skt. sura(s). Brug-
mann, i. ὃ 481. Der. so/-séice, q. v.
SOLDER, a cement made of fusible metal, used to unite two
metallic substances. (F.—L.) Sometimes spelt soder, and usually
pronounced sodder [sod‘ur]. Rich. spells it sowlder. “ΤῸ soder such
gold, there is a proper glue and soder;’ Holland, tr. of Pliny,
Ὁ. xxxiil. c.5. “1 sowder a metall with sowlder, Ie soulde ;’ Palsgrave.
ME. sowdere ; sb. ‘Soldatura, sowdere;’ Voc. 612. 33.—OF, soudure
(14th cent., Littré), later also souldure, ‘a souldering, and particularly
the knot of soulder which fastens the led [lead] of a glasse window ;’
Cot. Mod. F. soudure, solder; Hamilton. —OF. souder, soulder
(orig. solder), ‘to soulder, consolidate, close or fasten together ;’
Cot. [Hence also ME. souden, scwden, to strengthen ; ‘anoon hise
leggis and hise feet weren sowdid togidere ;’ Wyclif, Acts, iii. 7.]—
L. solidare, to make firm.—L. solidus, solid, firm; see Solid. And
see Soldier. Der. solder, verb, formerly soder, as above. it It
is usual to derive, conversely, the sb. solder from the verb; this is
futile, as it leaves the second syllable entirely unaccounted for. The
OF. verb souder yielded the ME. verb souden, as shown above, which
could only have produced a modern E. verb sod or sud. In no case
can the E, suffix -er be due to the ending -er of the F. infinitive.
The French for what we call solder (sb.) is soudure, and in this we
find the obvious origin of the word. The pronunciation of final -wre
as -er occurs in the common word jigure, pronounced [δ 91], whicb
is likewise from the F. sb. figure, not from a verb.
SOLDIER, one who engages in military service for pay. (F.—
L.) The common pronunciation of the word as sodger [soj‘ar] is pro-
bably old, and may be defended, the 7 being frequently dropped in
this word in old books. [Compare soder as the usual pronunciation
of solder; see the word above.] ME. soudiour, Will. of Paleme,
3954; souder, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p.109,1.14; schavaldur,
sodiour, souldier, Barbour’s Bruce, vy. 205, and various readings. So
called from their receiving soulde (i.e. pay). ‘He wolde paye them
their souldye or wagis .. . [he] hadde goten many a sowldyour ;’
Reynard the Fox (Caxton’s translation), ed. Arber, p. 39.—OF.
soldier (Burguy), also soldoier, surdoier ; Cot. has souldoyer, ‘a soul-
dier, one that fights or serves for pay.’ Cf. OF, soulde, ‘pay or
lendings for souldiers;” id. Also F. soldat,a soldier. β. Of these
words, OF. soldier answers to Late L. soldadrius, a soldier; cf.
* Soldarius, a sowdeour ;’ Voc. 612. 32. The OF. soulde is from Late
L. soldum, pay; and F. soldat =soldatus, pp. of Late L. soldare, to
pay. All from Late L. solidus, a piece of money, whence is derived
(by loss of the latter part of the word) the OF. sol, ‘the French
shilling,’ Cot., and the mod. F. sou. We still use L. s. d. to signify
libre, solidi, and denarii, or pounds, shillings, and pence. The orig.
sense was ‘solid’ money.—L. solidus, solid; see Solid. Der.
soldier-like, soldier-ship, soldier-y.
SOLE (1), the under side of the foot, bottom of a boot or shoe.
(L.) ME. sole. ‘Sole of a foot, Planta; Sole of a schoo, Solea;’
Prompt. Parv. AS. sole, pl. solen (for solan). ‘ Solen, sole ;’ Voc.
125. 25.—L, solea, the sole of the foot or of a shoe.—L, solwm, the
ground. See Soil (1). Doublet, soil (1), which is the F. form.
Der. sole, verb.
SOLE (2), a kind of flat fish. (F.—L.) ME. sole. ‘ Sole, fysche,
Solia ;᾽ Prompt. Pary. ; cf. AF. soel, Liber Albus, p. 244. =F. sole,
*the sole-fish ;᾽ Cot.—L. solea, the sole of the foot, the fish called
the sole. The sole of the foot is taken as the type of flatness. See
Sole (1).
Pp 2
580 SOLE
SOLE (3), alone, only, solitary, single. (F.—L.) ME. sool,
Lydgate, Troy-book, bk. i. ch. i. 1. 29; AF. sole, f., Liber Albus,
p- 219.—OF. sol, mod. F. seul, sole.=L. sdlum, acc. of sdlus,
alone. Perhaps the same word as OL. sollus, entire, complete in
itself (hence alone); Bréal. Or allied to L. sé- (in sé-brius) and
sé-d- in séd-itio (Walde); see Sober. Der. sole-ly, sole-ness. From
L. sdlus are also de-sol-ate, soli-loguy, sol-it-ar-y, soli-tude, solo.
*SOLECISM, impropriety in speaking or writing. (F.—L.—Gk.)
In Minsheu and Cotgrave. — MF. soloecisme, ‘a solecisme, or incon-
gruity ;’ Cot. —L. solecismum, acc. of solecismus.—Gk. σολοικισμός,
50. -- Gk. σολοικίζειν, to speak incorrectly. - Gk. adj. σόλοικος, speak-
ing incorrectly, like an inhabitant of Σόλοι (Solo?) in Cilicia, a place
colonised by Athenian emigrants, who soon corrupted the Attic
dialect which they at first spoke correctly. Others say it was
colonised by Argives and Lydians from Rhodes, who spoke a corrupt
dialect of Greek. See Diogenes Laertius, i. 51; and Smith, Class.
Dict. Der. solec-ist, solec-ist-ic-al.
SOLEMN, attended with religious ceremony, devout, devotional,
serious. (F.—L.) ME. solempne. ‘In the solempne dai of pask;’
Wyclif, Luke, ii. 41. Hence solempnely, adv., Chaucer, C. Τὶ 27
(A 274).—OF. solempne (Roquefort); the mod. F. has only the
derivative solennel.—L. sdlemnem, acc. of sdlemnis, later forms
sdlennis, sollennis, as if it meant occurring annually like a religious
rite, religious, festive, solemn; from soll-us, entire, complete, and
annus, a year, which becomes -ennus in composition, as in E. δὲ-
ennial, tri-ennial. But the latter part was orig. -emnis, perhaps from
amb-, around. B. The OL. sollus is cognate with W. holl, entire,
Gk. ὅλος (Ion. οὖλος), whole; Skt. sarva(s), all, whole. Brugmann,
i, § 417. Der. solemn-ly, solemn-ness ; solemn-ise, spelt solempnyse in
Palsgrave; solemn-is-er, solemn-is-at-ion; also solemn-i-ty, ME.
solembnitee, Chaucer, C. T. 2704 (A 2702).
SOL-FA, to sing the notes of the gamut. (L.) ME. solfye, solfe ;
ΡῚ Plowman, B. v. 423; Reliquize Antique, i. 292. ‘They. . solfa
so alamyre’=they sol-fa so a-la-mi-re; Skelton, Colin Clout, 107.
To sol-fa is to practise singing the scale of notes in the gamut, which
contained the notes named wt, re, mi, sol, fa, la, si. These names are
of Latin origin; see Gamut. Der. solfeggio, from Ital. solfeggio,
sb., the singing of the sol-fa or gamut. Also sol-mi-s-at-ion, a word
coined from the names of the notes sol and mi.
SOLICIT, to petition, seek to obtain. (F.—L.) ME. soliciten ;
spelt solycyte in Caxton, tr. of Reynard the Fox, ed. Arber, p. 70, 1. 24.
= ΜΕ. soliciter, ‘to solicit; Cot.=L. sollicitare, to agitate, arouse,
excite, incite, urge, solicit. —L. sollicitus, lit. wholly agitated, aroused,
anxious, solicitous.—L. solli-, for sollus, whole, entire; and citzs,
pp- of ciére, to shake, excite, cite; see Solemn and Cite. Der.
solictt-at-ion, Oth. iv. 2. 202, from MF. solicitation, ‘a solicita-
tion,” Cot. Also solicit-or (solicitour in Minsheu), substituted for
MF. solictteur, ‘a solicitor, or follower of a cause for another,’
Cot.; from L. acc. sollicitatorem. And see Solicitous. (Spelt
solliciter in ἘΝ.
SOLICITOUS, very desirous, anxious, eager. (L.) In Milton,
P. L. x. 428. Englished from L. sdlicitus, better spelt sollicitus, by
change of -us to -ows, as in ardu-ous, strenu-ous, &c. See Solicit.
Der. solicitous-ly ; solicit-ude, q.v.
SOLICITUDE, anxious care, trouble. (F.—L.) In Sir T.
More, Works, p. 1266 h.m MF. solicitude, ‘ solicitude, care ;’ Cot. =
L. sdlicitidinem, acc. of sdlicittido (better sollicitudo) anxiety.—L.
sollicitus, solicitous ; see Solicitous.
SOLID, firm, hard, compact, substantial, strong. (F.—L.) ME.
solide, Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, pt. i. 817,1. 15.—F. solide, ‘solid;’
Cot. —L.solidum, acc. of solidus, firm, solid. Allied to Gk. ὅλος, whole,
entire, and Skt. sarva(s), all, whole; see Solemn. Der. solid-ly,
solid-ness. Also solid-ar-i-ty, ‘a word which we owe to the F. Com-
munists, and which signifies a fellowship in gain and loss, in honour
and dishonour, ..a being, so to speak, all in the same bottom,’
Trench, Eng. Past and Present; Cotgrave has the adj. solidaire,
“solid, whole, in for [or] liable to the whole.’ Also solid-i-fy, from
mod. F, solidifier, to render solid ; solid-i-fic-at-ion. Also solid-i-ty,
from Εἰ. solidité, which from 1.. acc. soliditatem. From L. solidus
are also con-solid-ate, con-sols, sold-er (or sod-er), sold-ier, soli-ped.
And cf. catholic (from Gk. ὅλος), holo-caust.
SOLILOQUY, a speaking to oneself. (L.) Spelt soliloguie in
Minsheu, ed. 1627. Englished from L. sdliloguium, a talking to
oneself, a word formed by St. Augustine; see Aug. Solilog. 11. 7,
near the end.=L. sdli-, for sdlus, alone; and Jogut, to speak; see
Sole (3) and Loquacious. Der. solilogu-ise, a coined word.
SOLIPED, an animal with an uncloven hoof. (F.—L.) ‘ Solipeds
or firm-hoofed animals;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulgar Errors, b. vi.c. 6. § 9.
A contraction for solidiped, which would be a more cortect form. =
OF. solipede (Godefroy); F. solipéde (Hatzfeld).—L. solidiped-, stem
of solidipés, solid-hoofed, whole-hoofed; Pliny, x. 65; x. 73.—L.
SOME
solidi-, for solidus, solid; and μᾶς, a foot, cognate with E. foot; see
Solid and Foot.
SOLITARY, lonely, alone, single. (F.—L.) ME. solitarie,
P. Plowman, C. xviii. 7.—AF. solitarie, Langtoft’s Chron. i. 176 ;
usually solitaire, as in mod. F.—L. sdlitdrium, acc. of sdlitarius,
solitary. B. Formed as if contracted from *sdlitatarius, from
solitat-, stem of sélitas, loneliness ; a sb. formed with suffix - ἐς
from sdli-, for sdlus, alone; see Sole (3). Cf. heredit-ary, milit-ary
from the stems herédit-, milit-; also propriet-ary, similarly formed
from the sb. proprietas. Der. solitari-ly, -ness, Also solitaire, from
Ἐς, solitaire. And see soli-tude, sol-o.
SOLITUDE, loneliness. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627. =F.
solitude, ‘ solitude ;’ Cot. —L. sdlitiido, loneliness. —L. sdli-, for sdlus,
sole ; with suffix -tado. See Sole (3).
SOLO, a musical piece performed by one person. (Ital.—L.)
‘Solos and sonatas;’ Tatler, no. 222; Sept. 9, 1710.—Ital. solo,
alone. = L. sdlum, acc. of sdlus, sole; see Sole (3).
SOLMISATION, a singing of sol-mi; see Sol-fa.
SOLSTICE, one of the two points in the ecliptic at which the
sun is at his greatest distance from the equator ; the time when the
sun reaches that point. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.—F. solstice,
‘the solstice, sun-stead, or stay of the sun ;’ Cot.—L. solstitium, the
solstice; lit. a point (in the ecliptic) at which the sun seems to stand
still. —L. sol, the sun; and *szi¢-wm, for statum, supine of sistere, to
make to stand still, a reduplicated form from stare, to stand, cognate
with E. stand; see Solar and Stand. Der. solstiti-al, adj., from
MF. solstitial or solsticial (Cot.) ; F. solsticial.
SOLUBLE, capable of being dissolved. (F.—L.) Spelt soluble
and solubil in Levins, ed. 1570.—F. soluble (13th cent., Littré).—L.
soliibilem, acc. of solwbilis, dissolvable. Formed, with suffix -bilis,
from soli-, found in soli-tus, pp. of solwere, to solve, dissolve ; see
Solve. Der. solubili-ty, a coined word.
SOLUTION, a dissolving, resolving, explanation, discharge.
(F.—L.) ME. solucton, Gower, C. A. ii. 86; Dk. iv. 2515; it was
a common term in alchemy.=F. solution, ‘a discharge, resolution,
dissolution ;’ Cot.—L. solitionem, acc. of solitio, lit. a loosing; cf,
solit-us, pp. of soluere, to loose, resolve, dissolve ; see Solve.
SOLVE, to explain, resolve, remove. (L.) Not an early word.
In Milton, P. L. viil. 55.—L. solvere, to loosen, relax, solve; pp.
solitus. A compound verb; compounded of so-, allied to sé-,
apart ; and Juere, to loosen. For the prefix, see Sober. Luere is
from Ju-, weak grade of LEU, to set free, appearing also in Gk.
λύ-ειν, to set free, release; see Lose. Brugmann, i. § 121. Der.
solu-able, from Εις, solvable, orig. ‘payable,’ Cot. Also solv-ent,
having power to dissolve or pay, from L. solwent-, stem of pres.
part. of solwere; and hence solv-enc-y. Also solv-er; ab-solve, ab-
solute, as-sotl; dis-solve, dis-solute; re-solve, re-solute. And see
soluble, solution,
SOMBRE, gloomy, dusky. (F.—L.) A late word; in Todd’s
Johnson.—F. sombre, ‘close, dark, cloudy, muddy, shady, dusky,
gloomy ;* Cot. It answers to Span. adj. sombrio, adj., shady, gloomy,
from the sb. sombra, shade, dark part of a picture, also a ghost. So
also Port. sombrio, adj., from sombra, shade, protection, ghost. And
cf. Span. a-sombrar, to frighten, terrify; mod. Prov. souloumbrous,
dark. B. Diez refers these words to a L. form *sub-umbrare, to
shadow or shade; a conjecture which is supported by the occur-
rence of Prov. sotz-ombrar, to shade (Scheler). There is also an
OF. essombre, a dark place (Burguy), which is probably due to a
L. form *ex-umbrare, and this suggests the same form as the original
of the present word, a solution which is adopted by Littré. We
may conclude that sombre is founded upon the L. umbra, a shadow,
with a prefix due either to L. ex or to L. sub, See Korting, § g211.
See Umbrage. Der. sombre-ness.
SOMBRERO, a broad-brimmed hat. (Span.—L.) ‘ With
a great Sombrero or shadow ouer their heads ;’ Hakluyt, Voy. ii.
pt. 1. p. 258.—Span. sombrero. Span. sombra, shade (above).
SOME, a certain number or quantity, moderate in degree. (E.)
ME. som, sum; pl. summe, somme, some. ‘ Summe seedis’=some
seeds ; Wyclif, Matt. xili. 4. ‘ Som in his bed, som in the depe see’
=one man in his bed, another in the deep sea; Chaucer, C. T. 3033
(A 3031). AS, swm, some one, a certain one, one; pl. sume, some ;
Grein, ii. 493.4-Icel. swmr; Dan. somme, pl.; Swed. somlige, pl.
(=some-like) ; Goth. sums, some one; OHG. sum. B. All from
a Teut. type *sumoz, some one, a certain one; from *swm-, weak
grade of *sam-, as in Εἰ same; see Same. The like change from
a to κι (ΟἹ occurs in the suffix -some, which see. Der. some-body,
Merry Wives, iv. 2. 121; some-how; some-thing=AS. sum ding;
some-time, ME. somtime, Chaucer, C. T. 1245 (A 1243); some-times,
formed from sometime by the addition of the adverbial suffix -s, the
sign of the gen. sing., not of the nom. pl. (cf. need-s, whil-s-t, twi-ce,
&c.) ; some-what, ME. somhwat, Ancren Riwle, p. 44. 1. g=AS. sum
-SOME
hwat; some-where, ME. som-hwer, Ormulum, 6929; some-whither,
Titus Andron. iv. 1. 11.
-SOME,, suffix. (E.) AS. -swm, as in wyn-sum (lit. love-some), E.
win-some, A stronger grade of the same suffix appears in Icel. frid-
samr, peaceful, G. lang-sam, slow. See Some, above; and see
Same.
SOMERSAULT, SOMERSET, a leap in which a man turns
heels over head, (F.—Prov.—L.) Commonly pronounced swnmer-
set, where -sef isan unaccented {orm of -saul¢ or -saut. Spelt sum-
mersaut in Drayton's Polyolbion, song 6. 1. 52; somersault in
Palsgrave ; somersaut in Harington’s Ariosto, xxxv. 68 (Nares) ; see
further in Rich. and Nares.—OF. sombresaut (in 1393, Supp. to
Godefroy), MF. soubresault, ‘a sobresault or summersault, an active
trick in tumbling ;’ Cot. ; F. soubresaut. —Proy. sobresaut (Hatzfeld) ;
ef. Ital. soprasalto; where sopra=‘ above, ouer, aloft, on high,’ and
salto=‘a leape, a skip, a iumpe, a bound, a sault;’ Florio. —L.
supra, above ; and saltum, acc. of saltus, a leap, bound, formed like
saltus, pp. of salire, to leap. See Supra and Salient.
SOMNAMBULIST, one who walks in his sleep. (L.; with
Gk. suffix.) A coined word ; an early example is given in Todd’s
Johnson, from Bp. Porteus’ Sermons, Α. Ὁ. 1789. The suffix -ist = F.
-iste, from L. -tsta=Gk, -corns; as in bapt-ist.—L. somn-us, sleep;
and ambul-are, to walk. See Somniferous and Ambulation.
Der. somnambul-ism.
SOMNIFEROUS, causing sleep. (L.) ‘ Sommniferous potions;’
Burton, Anat. of Melancholy, pt. i. sect. 2. memb. 1, subsect. 5.
Coined by adding suffix -ous (properly=F. -ewx, from L. -dsus) to
L. somnifer, sleep-bringing. —L. somni-, for somnus, sleep ; and -fer,
bringing, from ferre, to bring, cognate with E. Bear, verb. B. The
L. somnus represents an older form *swepnos, cognate with Skt.
svapna-, sleep, and allied to sop-or, sleep ; from 4/SWEP, to sleep ;
see further under Soporiferous. Brugmann, i. § 121.
SOMNOLENCE, sleepiness. (F.—L.) ME. somnolence,
spelt sompnolence, Gower, C. A. ii. 92 5 bk. iv. 2703. —F. somnolence
(Littré) ; OF. somnolence (Hatzfeld).—L. somnolentia, also somnu-
lentia, sleepiness. = L. somnulentus, sleepy ; formed with suffix -lentus
(as in tému-lentus, drunken) from somnu-s, sleep, allied to sopor, sleep ;
see Somniferous, Soporiferous. Der. somnolent, adj., from
F. somnolent, L. somnulentus.
SON, a male child or descendant. (E.) ME. sone (properly a
dissyllable) ; Chaucer, C. T. 79 ; older form sune, Ancren Riwle, p. 26,
1.1. AS. sunu,a son; Grein, ii. 496.4-Du. zoon; Icel. sunr, sonr ;
Dan. sén; Swed. son; G. sohn; OHG. sunu; Goth. sunus, Teut.
type *sunuz. Cf. Lithuan. sanus; Russ. suin’; Gk. vids (for *ouds) ;
Skt. stimu-, a son, from Skt. si, su, to beget, bear, bring forth; cf.
Olrish su¢h, birth. Brugmann, i. §§ 104, 292. Thus son = one who
is begotten, a child. Der. son-in-law; son-ship ; a coined word.
SONATA, a kind of musical composition. (Ital.—L.) ‘An
Ttalian sonata ;’ Addison, Spectator, no. 179. ‘Of a sonata, on
his viol;’ Prior, Alma, iii. 436.—Ital. sonata, ‘a sounding, or fit
of mirth;’ Florio. Hence used in the technical sense. = L. sonata, fem.
of sondtus, pp. of sonare, to sound; see Sound (3),and Sonnet.
SONG, that which is sung, a short poem or ballad. (E.) ME.
song, Chaucer, C. T. 95. AS. sang ; varied to song ; Grein, li. 390.
Cf. AS. sang, 2nd grade of singan, to sing; see Sing.+Dnu. zang;
Icel. songr ; Swed. sang; Dan. and G, sang; Goth. saggws ( =sangws).
Cf. Gk. ὀμφή, voice. Der. song-ster, used by Howell, L’Estrange,
and Dryden (Todd, no references); from AS. sangystre (better
sangestre), Voc. 308. 12, as a gloss to L. cantrix ; formed with double
suffix -es-tre from sang, a song; as to the force of the suffix, see
Spinster. Hence soxgstr-ess, Thomson’s Summer, 746 ; a coined
word, made by needlessly affixing the F. suffix -esse (L. -issa, from
Gk. -ἰσσαὺ to the E. songster, which was orig. used (as shown above)
as a feminine sb. Also sizg-song, Fuller’s Worthies, Barkshire (R.);
a reduplicated form.
SONNET, a rimed poem, of fourteen lines. (F.—Ital.—L.) In
Shak. Two Gent. iii. 2. 69. See ‘Songes and Sonettes’ by the Earl
of Surrey, in Tottell’s Miscellany. =F. sonnet, ‘a sonnet, or canzonet,
a song (most commonly) of 14 verses;’ (οἵ. - 114]. sonetto, ‘a
sonnet, canzonet;’ Florio. Dimin. of sozo, ‘a sound, a tune;’
Florio. —L. sonum, acc. of sonus,a sound; see Sound (3). Der.
sonnet-eer, from Ital. sonettiere, ‘a composer of sonnets,’ Florio ; the
suffix -eer (Ital. -iere) is due to L. suffix -arius.
SONOROUS, loud-sounding. (L.) Properly sondérous ; it will
probably, sooner or later, become sdnorous. ‘Sondrous metal ;’
Milton, P. L. i. 540; and in Cotgrave. Doubtless taken directly
from the L. sondrus, loud-sounding, by the change of τὴς to -ous, as
in arduous, strenuous, and numerous other words. [The F. soxoreux,
‘ sonorous, loud,’ is in Cotgrave; this would probably have produced
an E. form sdnorous, the length of the Latin penultimate being lost
sight of.]=—L. sonor (gen. sondr-is), sound, noise; allied to sonus,
SOPHIST 581
sound; see Sound (3). Der. sonorous-ly, -ness. The ME. form
sonowre occurs in the Book of St. Albans, fol. d 3.
SOON, immediately, quickly, readily. (E.) ME. sone (dissyllabic) ;
Chaucer, C. T. 13442 (B 1702). AS. sdna, soon; Grein, ii. 465.4
OSax. sana, sino; also OF ries. san, son; OSax. sin; OHG. san.
B. We find also Goth. suns, soon, at once, immediately, Matt. viii. 3.
SOOT, the black deposit due to smoke. (E.) ME. so¢ (with
long 0); King Alisaunder, 6636. AS. sdt, soot; ‘ Fuligine, soote,’
Voc. 404. 32; we also find ge-solig, adj. sooty (Toller).4Icel. sar;
Swed. sot; Dan. sod (for sot).-Lithuan. sddis, soot; usually in the
pl. form sédzei ; whence the adj. sodzotas, sooty, and the verb apsddinti,
to blacken with soot, hesmut. β. The Lithuan. form is valuable as
showing that the form soot is truly Teutonic; and suggests a deriva-
tion from Idg. séd-, the 6-grade of 4/SED, to sit, rest upon. See
Sit. (Noreen, ὃ 146; Streitberg, § 95.) Der. soot-y, soot-i-ness.
SOOTH, acj., true; sb., truth. (E.) The adjectival sense is the
older one. ME. soth (with long o), adj., true; Pricke of Conscience,
7687. Commoner as a sb., meaning ‘the true thing,’ hence ‘the
truth ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 847 (A 845). AS. sdd, adj., true (very
common); Grein, ii. 460. Hence s0d, neuter sb., a true thing, truth ;
id. 462. The form sd0 stands for ἔβαν δ, the x being lost before the th,
as in £00, a tooth, which stands for *and.+4Icel. saxnr (for *sandr) ;
Swed. sanz; Dan. sand. B. All from Teut. type *santhoz, true;
Fick, iii. 318; Idg. type *sontos, short for *es-ont-, orig. signifying
‘being,’ or ‘that which is,’ hence that which is real, truth; a present
participial form from the /ES, to be. The same loss of initial e
occurs in the L. -sezs as found in pre-sens (stem pre-sent-), preserved
in E. pre-sent; and again in the Skt. satya-, true (for *es-ant-ya) ; so
also we have G. sind=L. sunt=Skt. santi, they are, all answering to
Idg. *esanti. The meaning ‘true,’ ‘ real,’ appears already in the
Skt. participle sat, a weaker form of sont=(e)sont. γ. Hence we
conclude that the very interesting word sooth meant orig. no more
than ‘being,’ and was at first the present participle of ES, to be.
See Are, Essence, and Suttee. Der. j/or-sooth, =for a truth,
AS. for sod, as in ‘ wite pi for s6d’=know thou for a truth, Alfred,
tr. of Boethius, lib. ii. pr. 2, cap. vii. § 3. Also sooth-fast, true
(obsolete), from AS. sddfest, Grein, ii. 463, where the suffix is the
same as in sfead-fast and shame-fast (now corrupted to shame-faced).
And see sooth-say, and soothe.
SOOTHE, to please with gentle words or flattery, to flatter,
appease. (E.) The orig. sense is ‘to assent to as being true,’ hence
to say yes to, to humour by assenting, and generally to humour.
‘Sooth, to flatter immoderatelie, or hold vp one in his talke, and
affirme it to be true, which he speaketh ;’ Baret (1580). ‘Is’t good
to soothe him in these contraries?’ Com. of Errors, iv. 4. 82. ‘ Sooth-
ing the humour of fantastic wits ;’ Venus and Adonis, 850. Cf. the
expression ‘ words of sooth,’ Rich. II, iii. 3. 136. ‘I shall sooth it,’
I must confirm it, Faire Em, A. iii. sc. 11. ME. sodien, to confirm,
vetify ; whence sodet, confirmed, O. Eng. Homilies, i. 261,1.8. AS.
ge-sddian (where the prefix ge- makes no difference), to prove to be
true, confirm ; Dooms of Edward and Guthrum, sect. 6, in Thorpe’s
Ancient Laws, i. 170. Cf. AS. gesdd, a parasite, flatterer, in a gloss
(Bosworth). —AS. sad, true; see Sooth. Cognate verbs occur in
the Icel. sanna, Dan. sande, to verify, confirm.
SOOTHSAY, to foretell, tell the truth beforehand. (E.) In
Shak. Antony, i. 2. 52. Compounded of sooth and say; see Sooth
and Say. We find the sb. soothsayer, spelt zop-zigger (in the
OKentish dialect) in the Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 256, 1. 3 from
bottom ; spelt sohsaier, Gower, C. A. iii. 164; bk. vii. 2348. We
also find the AS. sb. sddsegen, a true saying, in A‘lfric’s Homilies, ii.
250, 1. 11; and the adj. sddsagol, truth-speaking, Voc. 316.9. Der.
sooth-say-er ; sooth-say-ing, Acts, xvi. 16.
SOP, anything soaked or dipped in liquid to be eaten. (E.) ME.
sop, soppe; ‘a sop in wyn,’ Chaucer, C. T. 336 (A 334); spelt soppe,
P. Plowman, B. xv. 175. AS. *soppe, not found; but we find the
strong form sopp (Napier’s Glosses, 56. 10); the derived verb soppi-
gan, to sop, A. S. Leechdoms, ii. 228, last line; and the compound
sb. sop-cuppe (written sdp-cuppe), a sop-cup, in Thorpe’s Diploma-
tarium Ἔν: Saxonici, pp. 553, 554; so that the word is certainly
English. From Teut. *sup-, weak grade of siipan-, to sup, as seen
in AS. siipan, to sup; see Sup.+lcel. soppa, f., a sop; soppa af vini
=a sop in wine; cf. sopinn, pp. of stipa, to sup; cf. also sopi, a sup,
sip, mouthful. Cf. MDu. soppe,‘asop;” Hexham. 4 Soup isa
F. form from the same root, and has been borrowed back again into
some Teutonic tongues, as e.g. in the case of G. suppe, soup, broth.
Der. sop, verb, spelt soppe in Levins, from AS, soppigan, to sop, men-
tioned above. Also sopp-y, soaking, wet ; sops-in-wine (see Nares).
Also milk-sop =one who sups milk; see Milksop. And see Soup.
SOPHIST, a captious reasoner. (F.—L.—Gk.) Bacon refers to
the Sophists; Ady. of Learning, bk.ii.c.xiv.§ 6. But the form most
in use in old authors was not sophist, but sophister. Frith has sophisme,
582 SOPHY
SORTIE
sophistry, and sophister all in one sentence; Works, p. 44, col. 2. | an herbe;’ Palsgrave.— OF, sorel, ‘the herb sorrell or sour-dock ;’
Shak. has sophister, 2 Hen. VI, v. 1. 191; Palsgrave has sophyster.
The final -er is needlessly added, just as in philosoph-er, and was
due to an OF. form sophistre (sofistre in Godefroy, x. 689), substi-
tuted for the true form sophiste.—F. sophiste, ‘a sophister ;’ Cot.—
Late L. sophista.—Gk. σοφιστής, a cunning or skilful man; also, a
Sophist, a teacher of arts and sciences for money; see Liddell
and Scott.—Gk. σοφίζειν, to instruct, lit. to make wise.—Gk.
σοφός, wise. Brugmann, i. § 339. Der. sophist-r-y, ME. sophis-
trie, Chaucer, Leg. of Good Women, 137, from F. sophisterie,
‘sophistry, Cot. Also sophist-ic, from L. sophisticus, which from
Gk. σοφιστικός ; sophist-ic-al, sophist-ic-al-ly; sophist-ic-ate, used in
the pp. sophisticatid by Skelton, Garland of Laurell, 110, from Late L.
sophisticatus, pp. of sophisticdre, to corrupt, adulterate ; cf. ‘ sophisticate
and countrefeted ;” Maundeville, Trav. ch. v. p. 52. Also sophism
(used by Frith as above), from F. sophisme, ‘a sophisme, fallacy,
trick of philosophy,’ Cot., which from L, sophisma=Gk. σόφισμα,
a device, captious argument. Also philo-sophy, q. v.
SOPHY, a (former) title of the Shah of Persia. (Pers.— Arab.)
In Shak. Merch. Ven. ii. 1. 25; Tw. Nt. ii. 5. 197.— Pers. Safi, used
as a title, A.D. 1505-1736; ‘so named from Ismael Saf, the first
monarch of this house .. from a private ancestor of that prince,
called Safiyu’d’din (the purity of religion), who was contemporary
with Tamerlane ;’ Rich. Dict. p. 938.— Arab. safiy, pure. 4 Not
to be confused with Sxfi,a Moslem mystic; from Arab. siifiy, in-
telligent. See Devic; and Notes on E. Etym., p. 273. But see
Yule, who says that Saf was also a Sufi (devotee).
SOPORIFEROUS, causing or inducing sleep. (L.) ‘ Sopori-
ferous medicines;’ Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 975. Coined by adding the
suffix -ous (properly=F. -ewx, from L. -dsus) to L. sopérifer, sleep-
inducing. = L. sopdri-, decl. stem of sopor, sleep; and -fer, bringing,
from ferre, cognate with E. Bear, verb. B. L. sopor is from
ASWEP, to sleep, appearing in Skt. svap, to sleep, Gk. ὕπνος, sleep,
AS. swefen, a dream; see Brugmann, i. § 551. See soporific and
somntiferous.
SOPORIFIC, inducing sleep. (L.) ‘ Soporific or anodyne vir-
tues;” Locke, Human Understanding, b. ii. c. 23 (R.). A coined
word, as if from L. *soporificus ; from sopori-, decl. stem of sopor,
sleep ; and -ficus, causing, from facere, tomake. See Soporiferous
and Fact. And see Somniferous.
SOPRANO, the highest kind of female voice. (Ital.—L.) A
musical term. = Ital. soprano, ‘ soveraigne, supreme, also, the treble in
musicke;’ Florio. Late L. superdnus, sovereign; see Sovereign.
Doublet, sovereign.
SORB, the fruit of the service-tree. (F.—L.) Palsgrave has:
*Sorbe, a kynde of frute, [F.] sorbe.’—L. sorbum, the fruit of the
service-tree; cf. sorbus, the service-tree. See Service-tree.
SORCERY, casting of lots, divination by the assistance of evil
spirits, magic. (F.—L.) ME. sorcerie, Chaucer, C. T. 5175 (B755) ;
‘King Alisaunder, 478.—OF. sorcerie, casting of lots, magic. —OF.
sorcier, a sorcerer. Late L. sortidrius, a teller of fortunes by the
casting of lots, a sorcerer; Late L. sortiare, to cast lots, used A.D.
1350 (Ducange); cf. L. sortiri, to obtain by lot.—L. sorti-, decl.
stem of sors, a lot; see Sort. Der. sorcer-er, Shak. Temp. iii. 2.
49, where the final -er is needlessly repeated, just as in poulter-er,
upholster-er ; the form sorcer would have sufficed to represent the OF.
sorcier mentioned above; cf. ME. sorser (for sorcer), a sorcerer ;
Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 1579. Also sorcer-ess, coined as a fem.
form of sorcer-er by the addition of -ess (F. -esse, Lat. -issa, Gk. -taoa)
to the short form sorcer as appearing in sorcer-y; the ME. sorceresse
occurs in Gower, C. A. iii. 49; bk. vi. 1434; from AF. sorceresse,
French Chron. of London (Camden Soe.), p. 3.
SORDID, dirty, mean, vile. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q. v. 5. 23.
=F. sordide, ‘sordid ;’ Cot.—L. sordidus, vile, mean, orig. dirty. =
L. sordi-, from sordés, dirt, smuttiness, orig. blackness; allied to
Russ. sor’, filth. See Brugmann, i. p. 1092. Der. sordid-ly, -ness.
SORE, wounded, tender or susceptible of pain, grieved, severe.
(E.) ME. sor (with long 0), grievous, Ancren Riwle, p. 208, 1. 2;
commoner as sore (dissyllabic), adverb, Chaucer, C. T. 7961 (E85).
AS. sar, painful; Grein, ii. 391; the change from ὦ to long o being
regular, as in stone, bone, from AS. stan, ban.4-Du. zeer, sore; also
as adv. sorely, very much ; Icel. sar, sore, aching; Swed. sdr ; OHG.
sér, wounded, painful; cf. OHG. séro, mod. (ἃ. sehr, sorely, ex-
tremely, very; Ὁ. ver-sehren, to wound, lit. to make sore. β. All
from Tent. type *sairoz, sore; Fick, iii. 313. Cf. Olrish sdeth, sdeth,
tribulation. Der. sore, adv., ME. sore, AS. sare, Grein; sore-ly,
sore-ness. Also sore, sb., orig. a neuter sb., and merely the neuter of
the adjective, occurring in AS. sar (Grein), cognate with Du. zeer,
Icel. sar, Swed. sdr, Goth. satr, OHG. sér, all used as sbs. Also
sorr-y, q.V.
SORREL (1), a plant allied to the dock. (F.-MHG.) ‘ Sorell,
| Cot.
Mod. F. surelle (Littré). So named from its sour taste ;
formed with the suffix -el (L. -ellus) from MHG, sur (G. saver),
sour, cognate with E. Sour, q.v. Hence also we find AS. sire,
sorrel, Cockayne’s Leechdoms, Gloss. to vol. ii; from AS. sur,
sour.
SORREL (2), of a reddish-brown colour. (F.—Teut.) ‘ Sorrell,
colour of an horse, sorrel;’ Palsgrave. He also gives: ‘ Sorell, a
yonge bucke;’ this is properly a buck of the third year, spelt sore/,
L. L. L. iv. 2.60, and doubtless named from its colour. ME. sowreld,
Book of St. Albans, fol. e 4.— OF, sorel, a sorrel horse ; Chanson de
Roland, 1379. A dimin, form from OF. sor, a sorrel horse, id. 1943; F.
saur, adj. ‘sorrell of colour, whence harenc saw, a red herring,’ Cot.
Hence saure, sb. m., ‘a sorrell colour, also, a sorrell horse;’ id. Cf.
Ital. soro, a sorrel horse, also spelt sawro; see Diez. —Low G. soor,
sear, dried, dried or withered up; Du. zoor, ‘dry, withered, or seare,’
Hexham; cognate with E. Sear, adj., q.v. The reference is to the
brown colour of withered leaves; cf. Shakespeare’s ‘the sear, the
yellow leaf,’ Macb. v. 3.23. The F. harenc saur, explained by Cot-
grave as a red herring, meant originally a dried herring; indeed
Cot. also gives Εἰ, sorer, ‘to dry in the smoak,’ formed from Low G.
soor. See soures, sorrels; Chaucer, Book of the Duchess, 429.
SORROW, grief, affliction, (E.) ME. sorwe, Chaucer, C. T.
1221 (A 1219); also sorze, Will. of Shoreham, p. 32,1.7. AS. sorg,
sorh, sorrow, anxiety; gen. dat. and acc. sorge (whence ME, sorje,
sorwe); Grein, ii. 465.4Du. zorg, care, anxiety; Icel. sorg, care ;
Dan. and Swed. sorg; G. sorge; Goth. saurga, sorrow, grief; whence
saurgan, to grieve. β. All from Teut. type *sorga, f., care, solici-
tude; Fick, iii. 329. Related to Lithuan. sirgti (1 Ὁ. 5. pr. sergu),
to be ill, to suffer; whence sarginti, to take care of a sick person,
like G. sorgen, to take care of. And ef. Olrish serg, sickness.
y. It is quite clear that sorrow is entirely unconnected with sore, of
which the orig. Teut. type was *sairoz, from a 4/SEI (probably ‘to
wound’); but the two words were so confused in English at an early
period that the word sorry owes its present sense to that confusion ;
see Sorry. Der. sorrow-ful, answering to AS. sorgful, Grein, ii.
406 ; sorrow-ful-ly, sorrow-ful-ness.
SORRY, sore in mind, afflicted, grieved. (E.) Now regarded as
closely connected with sorrow, with which it has no etymological
connexion at all, though doubtless the confusion between the words
is of old standing. The spelling sorry with two r’s is etymologically
wrong, and due to the shortening of the 0; the o was orig. long;
and the true form is sor-y, which is nothing but the sb. sore with the
suffix -y (AS. -ig), formed exactly like ston-y from stone, bon-y from
bone, and gor-y from gore (which has not yet been turned into gorry).
We find the spelling soarye as late as in Stanyhurst, tr. of Virgil,
δι. ii. 651, ed. Arber, p. 64, 1. 18. The orig. sense was wounded,
afflicted, and hence miserable, sad, pitiable, as in the expression ‘in
a sorry plight.’ Cf. ‘a salt and sorry [painful] rheum;’ Oth. iii.
4.51. ME, sory (with long o and one r), often with the mod. sense
of sorrowful; ‘Sori for her synnes,’ P. Plowman, B. x. 75. Also
spelt sary, Pricke of Conscience, 3468. AS. sdrig, sad; ‘sarig for
his synnum’=sorry for his sins, Grein, ii. 392; sdr-nys, sorrow,
lit. soreness, Elfric’s Saints’ Lives, vi. 321. Cf. sar-lic, lit. sore-
like, used with the same sense of ‘sad.’ Formed with suffix -ig (as
in stan-ig =ston-y) from AS. sar, a sore, nent. sb., due to the adj.
sar, sore. See Sore. Cognate words appear in Du. zeerig, full of
sores, Swed. sdrig, sore; words which preserve the orig. sense. Der.
sorri-ly, sorri-ness.
SORT, a lot, class, kind, species, order, manner. (F.—L.) ‘ Sorte,
a state, sorte;’ Palsgrave. A fem. sb., corresponding to which is
the masc. sb. sort, a lot, in Chaucer, C. T. 846 (A 844). —OF. sorte,
sb. fem. ‘sort, manner, form, fashion, kind, quality, calling ;” Cot.
Related to F. sort, sb. masc. ‘a lot, fate, luck,’ &c.; id. Cf. Ital.
sorta, sort, kind, sorée, fate, destiny ; Florio gives only sorte, ‘ chance,
fate, fortune, also the state, qualitie, function, calling, kinde, voca-
tion or condition of any man,’ whence the notion of sort (= kind)
easily follows. ‘Sort was frequently used in the sense of a company,
assemblage (as in Spenser, F. Q. vi. 9. 5), as Jo¢ is in vulgar lan-
guage ;’ Wedgwood. All the forms are ultimately due to L. sortem,
ace. of sors, lot, destiny, chance, condition, state. Probably allied
to serere, to connect, and to seri@s, order; see Series. Brugmann,
i. § 516 (1). Der. sort, verb, L. L. L. i. 1. 2615 as-sort, q.v.; con-
sort, q.v. Also sort-er, sb.; sort-ance, 2 Hen. IV, iv. 1. 115 sore-
er-y, 4.ν.
SORTITE, a sally of troops. (F.—L.) A modern military term,
and mere French. F. sortie, ‘an issue, going forth;”’ Cot. Fem. of
sorti, ‘issued, gone forth,’ id.; which is the pp. of sortir, ‘to issue,
sally, id. Cf. Span. surtida, a sally, sortie; from. Span. surtir, ‘to
tise, rebound,’ Minsheu, obsolete in this sense. Also Ital. sortita, a
sally; from sortirve, to make a sally, go out. B. According to
SOT
Diez and others, Ital. soréire, to sally, is quite a different word from
sortire, to elect (the latter being plainly connected with L. sortiri,
to obtain by lot); whereas Ital. sortire, to sally, MSpan. surtir, to
tise, answer to a L. type *swrrectire, to rouse or rise up, formed
from surrectum, supine of surgere, to rise; see Source. We may
further note Ital. sorto, used as the pp. of sorgere, to rise; showing
that the contraction of *surrectire to sordire presents no difficulty ;
ef. Span. surto, pp. of surgir, to rise; and see Resort.
SOT, a stupid fellow, a drunkard. (E.) ME. so/, in early use;
Layamon, 1442; Ancren Riwle, p. 66,1. 1; in the sense of ‘foolish.’
We find sotsctpe =sot-ship, i.e, folly, in the A.S. Chron. an. 1131;
ed, Earle, p. 260, 1.8. Spelt soft, Ailfric, Saints’ Lives, 13. 132.
The entry ‘ Sottus, sof,’ is in an A. S. Glossary of the 11th century;
in Voc. 316. 7; also ‘Stolidos, sof,’ in Napier’s Glosses, 56. 173.
Prob. a true Teut. word, though first appearing in the Late L,
sottus, ab. A.D. 800 (Ducange) ; whence also F. sot. B. We also
find MDu. zot, ‘a foole or a sot, Hexham; and MHG. sote.
y- Franck connects it with Du. zwet-sen, to tattle, to brag, G.
schwatzen, to tattle; from *sot-, weak grade of *swe/-. It is known
that Theodulf, bishop of Orleans, punned upon the words Scotus
and sottus (Scot and sot), in a letter to Charles the Great; see
Ducange, s. ν. sotius. @ Distinct from Span. zote, a blockhead,
Ital. zotico, for which see Korting, § 4700. Der. sott-ish, sott-ish-ly,
sott-ish-ness.
SOU, a French copper coin, five centimes. (F.—L.) Merely bor-
rowed from Εἰ sou; Cotgrave uses sous as an Εν word.—OF. sol,
later sou, ‘the sous, or French shilling, whereof ten make one of
ours;’ Cot. The value varied. —L. solidus, adj. solid; also, as sb.,
the name of a coin, still preserved in the familiar symbols J, 5. d. (=
libre, solidi, denarii), See Solid and Soldier. Der. soldier, q. v.
SOUBRETTEH, a maid-servant, in French comedy. (F.—Prov.
—L.). F. soubrette (see Hatzfeld).— Prov. soubreto, fem. of soubret,
affected ; allied to soubra, vb., to pass over, leave on one side, also
to exceed, surpass. = L. superdre, to surpass, surmount. =L, superus,
upper; allied to super, above; see Super- (prefix). Cf. the E.
phr. ‘a superior person.’
SOUBRIQUET, a nickname; see Sobriquet.
SOUCHONG, ἃ kind of tea. (Chinese.) Yule (p. 691) explains
it from Cantonese siv-chung, for Chin. siao-chung, ‘little sort.’
Donglas (Dict. of Amoy vernacular) gives it as sid-chidng-té,
souchong tea; and explains chidng as meaning, literally, ‘ seed.’
SOUGH, a sighing sound, as of wind in trees. (Scand.) Stany-
hurst has sowghing, sb., tr. of Virgil, AEn. ii, 631, ed. Arber, p. 63.
‘ My heart, for fear, gae sough for sough;’ Burns, Battle of Sheriff-
muir, 1.7. Wealso find ME. swough, Chaucer, C. T. 1981 (A 1979),
3619; better swogh, as in Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 759, where it
has the sense of ‘swaying motion;’ formed as a sb, from the AS.
verb swogan, to sound, resound, make a noise, as in swogad windas =
the winds whistle; Grein, ii, 516. [The AS. sb. is swég, with
mutation of 6 to 8.17 Cf. OSax. swégan, to rustle (Heliand) ; Icel.
-sigr; as in arn-sigr, the rushing sound of an eagle’s wings.
Probably (Jike sigh, sob) of imitative origin. See Surf.
SOUL, the seat. of life and intellect in man. (E.) ME. soule,
Chaucer, C, T. goto (E1134); also saule, Layamon, 27634; gen.
sing. soule, Gower, C. A. i. 39; prol. 1052; pl. soulen, Ancren
Riwle, p. 30, 1. 16, AS, sawel, sdwol, sawul ; also sawl, sawle ; gen.
sing. sawle; Grein, ii. 392.4-Dnu. ziel; Dan. sal; Swed, sjal; ἃ.
seele; Goth, saiwala. B. All from Teut. type *saiwaldn-, f., the
soul, See Brugmann, i. § 200. Der. soul-ed, high-soul-ed, soul-less.
» SOUND (1), adj., whole, perfect, healthy, strong. (E.) ME.
sound, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 5570 (B 1150). AS. sund, sound; Grein, ii.
494.4 Du. gezond (with prefix ge-); Swed. and Dan, sund; ἃ.
gesund (with prefix ge-). By some connected with L. sanus, used
with like meanings; see Sane, But it is rather for *swundoz, from
the weak grade swunfJ- of Teut. *swenf-, whence Teut. *swenfoz,
Goth. swinths, AS. swif, strong, Der, sound-ly, sound-ness.
SOUND (2), a strait of the sea, narrow passage of water, (E.)
ME. sound, King Horn, 628, in Ritson’s Met. Romances, ii. 117 ;
spelt sund, Cursor Mundi, 621. AS, sund, (1) a swimming, (2)
power to swim, (3) a strait of the sea, so called because it could be
swum across; Grein, ii. 494. Hence AS. sund-hengest, a ‘sound-
horse,’ i.e. a ship.Icel., Dan., Swed., and G, sund, B. From
the Teut. type *swwm-doz ; formed, with suffix -doz, from swum-,
weak grade of AS. swimman, to swim; see Swim. Fick, iii. 362.
Der. sound, the swimming-bladder of a fish; spelt sounde, Prompt.
Parv. p. 466; this. is merely another sense of the same word;
Shetland soond ; MDan. sund; cf. Icel. sund-magi, lit. sound-maw,
the swimming-bladder of a fish.
SOUND (3), a noise. (F.—L.) The final d (after x) is ex-
crescent, just as in the vulgar gownd for gown, in the nautical use of
bound for ME. boun (ready), and in the obsolete round, to whisper,
SOUTH 583
for roun, ME, soun, Chaucer, C. T. 4983 (B 563); King Ali-
saunder, 772; spelt soz, Will. of Palerne, 39.—F. sox, ‘a sound ;’
Cot, L. sonum, acc. of sonus, a sound.4+Skt, svana-, sound ; AS.
ge-swin (<*swen-), melody. From 4/SWEN, to sound, resound;
cf. Skt. suaz, to sound; Fick, i. 256. Brugmann, ii. § 519. Der.
sound, verb, ME, sounen, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 567 (A 565), from F.
sonner, L, sonare. Also see son-ata, sonn-et, son-or-ous, per-son,
par-son, as-son-ant, con-son-ant, dis-son-ant, re-son-ant, re-sound,
uni-son.
SOUND (4), to measure the depth of water with a plummet, to
probe, test, try. (F.—Scand.) ‘I sownde, as aschyppe-man sowndeth
in the see with his plommet to knowe the deppeth of the see, He
pilote;’ Palsgrave. ME, sounden, Chaucer, Troil. ii. 535.—F,
sonder, ‘to sound, prove, try, feel, search the depth οἵ; Cot., ef.
sonde, ‘a mariner’s sounding-plummet,’ id. b. Diez supposes
that this answers to a L. form *subundare, to submerge; a similar
contraction possibly occurs in the instance of sombre as connected
with sub umbra. If 50, the etymology is from L. sub, under; and
unda, a wave; see Sub- and Undulate. y. But the Span.
sonda means, not only a sounding-line, but also a sound or channel ;
and it is far more likely that the F. sonder was from the sb. sonde,
and that this was taken from the Scand, word sund, a narrow strait
or channel of water; see Sound(2). This seems to be corroborated
by the following entries in A®lfric’s Glossary, pr. in Voc. 182. 34,
35: ‘Bolidis, sudgyrd;’ and ‘ Cataprorates, sund-line.’ So also:
‘Bolidis, sundgyrd in scipe, dd0e rap, i. met-rap’ =a sounding-rod in
a ship, or a rope, i.e..a measuring rope; id. 358. 17. Here bolidis
represents Gk. βολίς (gen. βολίδος), a missile, a sounding-lead ; and
sund-gyrd=sound-yard, i.e. sounding-rod. Similarly sund-line must
mean a sounding-line, let down over the prow (κατὰ πρῷραν).
Moreover sund-gerd is a very old word, as it occurs in the Corpus
Gloss. 319 (8th cent.). There is always a probability in favour of
a nautical term being of Scand. or E, origin, But it is remarkable
that there is no trace of the verb except in French, Span., and
Portuguese; so that we may have taken the verb from French;
while this again was borrowed from the Scand. sund=AS, sund,
a sound. Der. sound-ing.
SOUNDER, a herd of wild swine. (E.) ‘ Sownder, a term used
by hunters for a company of wild Bores;’ Phillips (1658). [Not
a single boar, as sometimes erroneously said.] ME. sounder,
Gawain and Grene Knight, 1440. AS. sixor; ONorthumb. sunor,
Luke, viii. 32; OMerc. stéier, Matt. viii, 32 (Rushworth MS.),
+OHG. swaner, a sounder. See Notes on E, Etym., p. 274.
SOUP, the juice or liquid obtained from boiling bones, &c.,
seasoned, (F.—Teut.) In Pope, Moral Essays, iv. 162.—F. soupe,
“a sop, potage or broth, brewis;’ Cot, —F. souper, ‘to sup;’ Cot.
— Low G. supen, to sup; cf. Du. χείρονι, AS. sipan; see Sup.
SOUR, having an acid taste, bitter, acrid. (E.) ‘Sour dou3,’
leaven; Wyclif, Matt. xiii. 33. AS. sir; ‘sir meole’=sour milk,
Voc. 129. 1.4-Du. zuur; Icel. sirr; Dan. suur; Swed. sur; OHG.
str; G. sauer, . All from Teut. type *siroz, sour; Fick,
iii. 327. Further related to W. sur, sour; Russ. surovuii, raw,
coarse, harsh, rough; Lithuan. swrus, salt. Brugmann, i, ὃ 114.
Der, sour-ly, sour-ness; sour, yerb, Cor. vy. 4. 18; sour-ish. Also
sorr-el (1).
SOURCE, rise, origin, spring. (F.—L.) ME. sours, Chaucer,
C. T. 7925 (E 49); said of the ‘rise’ of a bird in flight, id. 7520
(Ὁ 1938).—OF, sorse, surse, sorce, surce, later source, ‘a source,’ Cot.
Here sorse is the fem. of sors, the old pp. of sordre (mod. F. sourdre),
to ris. The OF. sordre is contracted (with intercalated 4) from
L. surgere, to rise. See Surge, Der. re-source; and see sortie,
re-surrection, Souse (2).
SOUSE (1), pickle. (F.-L.) ‘A soused [pickled] gurnet ;’
1 Hen. IV, iv, 2. 13. ME. sowse, souse. ‘Succidium, Anglice
souse;’ Voc. 614. 20, Hence also ME. sowser, another form of
saucer; id. 661.17. In fact, souse isa mere doublet of sauce, OF.
sause, later sauce, ‘a sauce;’ see Sauce. Der. souse, verb, to
pickle, immerse in brine. ‘I sowse fyshe, I laye it in sowse to pre-
serve it;’ Palsgrave.
SOUSE (2), SOWSEH, to swoop down upon. (F.—L.) ‘Spread
thy broad wing, and souse on all mankind ;’ Pope, Epil. to Satires,
Dial. ii. 15. See Shak. K. John, v. 2. 150; Spenser, F. Ὁ. 1. 5. 8.
It was a term of falconry, and orig. applied, not to the downward,
but the upward rapid flight of a bird of prey; see Chaucer, C, T.
7520 (D 1938); House of Fame, ii. 36; where it is spelt sours.
But the x is lost in the Book of St. Albans, fol. d 1, back, where
a hawk is said to take a bird ‘ at the mount or at the souce.’ This
ME, sours is the same word as the mod. E. source. See Source.
See Notes on E. Etym., p. 275. 4 Quite distinct from Swed.
susa, to rustle, G. sausen, &c.
SOUTH, the point of the compass where we see the sun at
584. SOUVENIR
mid-day. (E.) ME. south, Chaucer, C. T. 4913 (B 493). AS. sid,
Grein, ii. 492; also sada, sb. masc., the south, southern region;
sidan, ady., from the south.4-Du. zuid, south ; zuider, southern (as
in Zuider Zee, southern sea); zuiden, the south; Icel. sudr, old
form also sunar, south; sunnan, ady., from the south; cf. sudrey,
southern island, pl. Sudreyjar, Sodor, the Hebrides.-Dan. syd,
south, sonden, southern; Swed. syd, south, sdder, the south,
sunnan, the south; OHG. sund, south, mod. G. sid; OHG. sundan,
the south, also, from the south, (ἃ. siiden. B. All from the Teut.
base *sunth-; perhaps allied to Sun, q.v. 4 The loss of x before
th is regular in AS.; so that sid is for *sund. Der. south-east,
south-east-ern, south-east-er-ly; south-west, south-west-ern, south-west-
er-ly; south-ward (see Toward). Also south-ern, ME. sothern,
Chaucer, C. T. 17353 (I 42), AS. suderne (Grein) ; cognate with
Tcel. sudrann and OHG. sundréni; see Northern. Hence south-
er-ly, for south-ern-ly, Also southernwood, a kind of wormwood,
AS. siiderne wudu, as coming from southern Europe.
SOU VENTR, a remembrancer, memorial. (F.—L.) Modern. =
F. souvenir, sb., ‘a remembrance;’ Cot. It is merely the infin. mood
souvenir, ‘to remember,’ used substantively; cf. Leisure, Pleasure.
=L, subuenire, to come up to one’s aid, to occur to one’s mind. —L.
sub, under, near; and περιῆγε, cognate with E. come; see Sub- and
Come.
SOVEREIGN, supreme, chief, principal. (F.—L.) The g is
well known to be intrusive; as if from the notion that a sovereign
must have to do with reigning. We find ‘ soueraigne power ;’
Hamlet, ii. 2. 27 (first folio); but the spelling with g does not seem
to be much older than about Α. Ὁ. 1570, when we find soveraygne in
Levins. Palsgrave (A.D. 1530) has soverayne. ME. souerein (with
u=v), Chaucer, C. T. 6630 (Ὁ) 1048).—OF. soverain (Burguy) ;
later souverain, ‘ soveraign, princely;’ Cot.—Late L. acc. super-
dnum, chief, principal; formed with suffix -anus from L. super,
above; see Super-. Der. sovereign, sb., a peculiar use of the adj. ;
sovereign-ty, ME. sonerainetee, Chaucer, C. T. 6620 (Ὁ 1038),
from OF. soverainete, later souveraineté, ‘soveraignty,’ Cot. See
Soprano.
SOW (1), to scatter seed, plant. (E.) ME. sowen, Wyclif, Matt.
xili. 3 ; strong verb, pt. t. sew, id. xiii. 31 ; pp. sowen, sowun, id. xiii.
19. AS. swan, pt. τ. sow, pp. sawen ; Grein, ii. 392. The longa
becomes long o by rule; the pt. t. now in use is sowed, but the
correct form is sew (in prov. E.); the like is true for the verb to
mow (AS. mawan).4Du. zaaijen; Icel. sa; Dan. saa; Swed. sa;
OHG. sawen, G. sden; Goth. saian. B. All from a Teut. root
*s#-=Idg.4/SE, to sow. Further related to W. hau, to sow;
Lithuan. séti (pres. sing. séju, I sow); Russ. sieiat(e), to sow; L.
serere (pt. t. sé-ui, pp. sa-tum); Gk. tne (for Ἐσί-ση-μι), I send,
throw, The orig. sense of the root was prob. ‘to cast.’ Brugmann,
I. §§ 132, 310. Der. see-d, q.v. ; and, from the same root, se-min-al,
dis-se-min-ate,
SOW (2), a female pig; an oblong piece of metal in a lump larger
than a pig of metal. (E.) ME. sowe, Chaucer, C. T. 2021 (A 2019) ;
spelt zoje (for soghe), Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 61; swwe, Ancren
Riwle, p. 204. The w is substituted for an older g. AS. sugu,
contracted form si; Grein, ii. 492.44Du. zog; Icel. syr; Dan. so;
Swed. sugga, so; OHG. sw; G. sau. Also W. hwch; Irish suig ;
L, «ἄς; Gk. is or ots; Zend. hu, a boar (Fick, i. Sor). All from
the 4/SU, to produce; as in Skt. sv, to generate, to produce, sish,
to bring forth; from the prolific nature of the sow. 2. In the
sense of ‘a large mass of metal,’ see explanation under Pig; we
find ‘sowe of leed’ in Palsgrave. Der. sow-thistle, sowethystell
(Palsgrave); AS. sugefistel, Gloss. to vol. iii. of A. S. Leechdoms,
ed. Cockayne; also soil (2). And see swine.
SOWANS, SOWENS, flummery ; made by steeping the husks
of oatmeal in water. (C.) ‘Sowens, with butter instead of milk to
them, is always The Halloween Supper;’ Burns, note to last st. of
Halloween. Pronounced (suu‘anz).—Gael. siighan, ‘the juice of
sowens;” Macleod. —Gael. siigh, juice; allied to sigh, vb., to drain,
to suck in. +L. sigere, to suck; AS. stican, to suek ; cf. AS. socian,
to soak. The sense is ‘ soakings.’
SOY, a kind of sauce. (Japanese.) ‘Japan, from whence the true
soy comes ;’ W. Dampier, A New Voyage, ed. 1699, ii. pt. 1. p. 28.
And see tr. of Thunberg’s Travels, vol. iv. p. 121, ed. 1795 (Todd).
‘The Japanese... prepare with them [the seeds of the Dolichos
soja, a kind of bean] the sauce termed sooja, which has been cor-
rupted into soy;’ English Cyclopedia. The Japanese word is
properly shayu, which is the name for the sauce made from a bean
called daidzu, See Notes on E. Etym., p. 277; C. P. G. Scott,
Malayan Words, p. 65.
SPA, a place where there is a spring of mineral water. (Belgium.)
Called spaw in Johnson’s Dict., and in Bailey, ed. 1735. The name,
now generally used, is taken from that of Spa, in Belgium, S.W. of
SPANGLE
Liége, where there is a mineral spring, famous even in the 17th cen-
tury. ‘The spaw in Germany ;’ Fuller’s Worthies, Kent. ‘ Spaw,
Spa, a town in Liege, famous for medicinal waters ;’ Coles’ Dict.,
ed. 1684. ‘The Spawe ;’ Gascoigne, Works, ed. Hazlitt, i. 376 (15,72).
SPACE, room, interval, distance. (F.—L.) ME. space (dis-
syllabic), Assumption of Mary, ed. Lumby, 178 ; Chaucer, C. T. 35.
— F. espace, ‘space ;’ Cot.—L. spatium, a space; lit. ‘that which is
enlarged ;’ cf. Skt. spha@y, to swell, increase, sphata-, enlarged. See
Speed. Der. space, verb; spac-i-ous, from F. spacieux (for which
Cot. has ‘ spatienx, spacious’), from L. spatidsus, roomy ; spac-i-
ous-ly, spac-i-ous-ness. 4 The prefixed e in F. espace is due to the
difficulty of sounding words beginning with sp in French ; in English,
where there is no such difficulty, the e is dropped.
SPADE (1), an instrument to dig with. (E.) ME. spade (dis-
syllabic), Chaucer, C. Τὶ 555 (A 553); Ancren Riwle, p. 384, 1. 16.
AS. spedu; ‘ Vanga, vel fossorium, spedu;’ Voc. 333. 393 later
spade, id. 550. 26. Also spadu, id. 106. 19.4+-Du. spade; Icel. spadi ;
Dan. and Swed. spade; G. spate, spaten; Gk. σπάθη, a broad blade,
of wood or metal, a spatula, blade of an oar, blade of a sword,
spathe or sheath of a flower (whence L, spatha was borrowed, which
further gave rise to F. épée, OF. espee, a sword). Der. spade (at
cards) ; spaddle, the same word as paddle (2), q.v. 5 spat-u-la, q.v.;
spad-ille, spelt spadillio in Pope, Rape of the Lock, iii. 49, the ace of
spades at the game of quadrille, F. spadille, borrowed from Span.
espadilla, a small sword, the ace of spades, dimin. of spada, a sword,
from L. spatha<Gk. σπάθη. And see epaulet.
SPADE (2), a suit at cards. (Span.—L.—Gk.) The name
spade is really a substitution for the Spanish name espada, meaning
(1) a sword, (2) a spade at cards ; compare the etymology of spadille,
given under Spade (1). The Spanish cards have swords for spades ;
see Strutt, Sports and Pastimes, Ὁ. iv. c. 2, § 20; Archeologia, viii.
135. @ Spade (1) and spade (2) are cognate, though one is E.,
and the other Gk.
SPALPEEN, a mean fellow. (Irish.) ‘The poor haryest-men
who now pass in troops from Ireland to England are now called
spalpeens, with a show of contempt or disrespect ;” MS. ab. 1740, in
N. and Q. 3 5. viii. 307. And see under Buckeen in Davies, Suppl.
Glossary. Sometimes introduced into novels relating to Ireland. =
Trish spailpin, a mean fellow, rascal, stroller ; from spailp, a beau,
also pride, self-conceit.+Gael. spailpean, a beau, fop, mean fellow ;
from spailp, pride, self-conceit; cf. spailp, verb, to strut, walk
affectedly.
SPAN, to measure, extend over, grasp, embrace. (E.) ME,
spannen, very rare. ‘Thenne the kinge spanes his spere’=then the
king grasps his spear; Avowyng of Arthur, st. xiii. 1. 1. AS. spannan
(pt. t. spenn), to bind; gespannan, to bind, connect ; Grein, ii. 467, i.
450.-OUG. spannan, to extend, connect, a strong verb, pt. t. spian ;
hence G. spannen, weak verb. Further related words appear in the
Du. spannen, pt. t. spande (weak), but pp. gespannen (strong), to
stretch, span, put horses to; Dan. spende (for spenne), to stretch,
strain, span, buckle; Swed. spanna, to stretch, strain, draw, extend ;
Icel. spenna (=spannja, a causal form), to span, clasp. B. All
from the Teut. verb *spannan-, to extend, orig. a reduplicating verb
with pt. t. *spespann ; Fick, iii. 352. The base SPAN is extended
from 4/SPA, to span, extend; cf. Gk. σπάειν, to draw, draw out;
Brugmann, li. § 661. Perhaps allied to Spin. Der. span, sb., a
space of about 9 inches, the space from the end of the thumb to the
end of the little finger when the fingers are most extended, also, the
stretch of an arch or a space of time, from AS. span (better spann) ; we
find ‘span, vel hand-bred’ =span, or hand-breadth, in Voc. 158.11; so
also Du. span, Icel. spinn, Dan. spand (for spann), Swed. spann, G.
spanne. Hence span-long, Ben Jonson, Sad Shepherd, Act ii. sc. 2,
1, 23 from end ; span-counter, a game, 2 Hen. VI, iv. 2. 166. @ For
Span-new, see that word, which is unconnected with the present one.
SPANCEL, a kind of fetter for a horse or cow. (E.) Ray has:
‘ Spancel, a rope to tye a cow’s hinder legs ;” as a N. Country Word.
From ME. spann-en, to tie, fasten; and the equivalent of AS. sal,
ME, sol, prov. E. sole,a rope. The latter vowel is prob. due to AS.
s®l-an, vb., to tie (for *sal-ian), or to Icel. seil, a rope; cf. prov. E.
seal, to bind with a rope.+-Du. spansel, G. spannseil, a spancel. See
Notes on E. Etym., p. 277.
SPANDREL, the triangular space included between the arch of
a doorway, &c., and a part of a rectangle formed by the outer mould-
ings over and beside it. (F.—L.) History obscure; an architectural
term. Older forms spaundre (Halliwell); splaundrel (Ogilvie’s
Dict.). Lit. ‘level space.’ From OF, esplan-er, to flatten, to level.
-L. ex, out; and planare, to make flat, from planus, flat; see
Plain and Esplanade. The F. sb. was prob. founded on Ital.
spianatura, a levelling (Barretti).
SPANGLE, a small plate of shining metal. (E.) ME. spangel,
of which the sense seems to have been a lozenge-shaped spangle
SPANIEL
used to ornament a bridle; see Prompt. Parv., p. 313, note 3, and
p- 467, note τ. It is the dimin. of spang, a metal fastening ; with suffix
-el (which is commonly French, but occasionally English, as in kern-
el from corn). ‘Our plumes, our spazgs and al our queint aray ;’
Gascoigne, Steel Glas, 377; ‘ With glittering spangs that did like
starres appeare,’ Spenser, F. Q. iv. 11. 45. AS. spange, a metal
clasp or fastening, Grein, ii. 467; also gespong, id. i. 456.4+MDu.
spange; ‘een spange van mefael, a thinne peece of mettle, or a
spangle ;’ Hexham; ‘een spange-maecker, a buckle-maker or a
spangle-maker,’ id. ; Icel. spéng, explained by ‘spangle,’ though it
seems rather to mean a clasp; G. spange, a brooch, clasp, buckle,
ormament. β. Cf. Gk. σφηκ-οῦν, to bind tight, pinch in; opiyyew,
to bind tight, σφιγκτήρ, a lace, band.
SPANIEL, a Spanish dog. (F.—Span.—L.) ME. spaniel,
Chaucer, C. T. 5849; spelt spaynel in five MSS., Group D, 267;
spanejeole, Voc. 638. 10. Cf. ME. Spaynyell, a Spaniard, Trevisa,
tr. of Higden, iv. 419.—OF. espagneul, ‘a spaniel ;’ Cot.—Span,
espaviol, Spanish. Span. Espavia, Spain. L. Hispania, Spain, The
origin of the name of the country is unknown.
SPANK, to beat or slap. (E.) ‘Spank, a hard slap; to move
energetically ; Spanker, a man or animal very large, or excessively
active; Spanking, large, lusty, active, &c.; Halliwell. An E. word,
though not found in old authors. NFries. and Dan. spanke, to strut,
to stalk ; Low G. spakkern, spenkern, to runand spring about quickly.
B. From a Teut. base SPAK, significant of quick motion or violent
action; cf. EFries. spaken, to split, burst with heat. Der. spank-er,
an after-sail in a barque.
SPAN-NEW, entirely new. (Scand.) ME. spannewe, Havelok,
968 ; Chaucer, Troilus, iii. 1665 ; spon-neowe, K. Alisaunder, 4055.
(The term is prob. Scand., not E.; otherwise we should rather have
expected a form sfoon-new or spon-new, ‘spoon-new,’ which is the cor-
responding E. form, as will appear.)=—Icel. spannyr, also spanyr,
span-new ; compounded of spann, a chip, shaving, made by a plane,
knife, or axe; and nyr, new, cognate with E. New,q.v. Another
sense of Icel. spann is a spoon ; see Spoon.4MHG. spanniiwe ; from
ΜΗ. span, G. span, a chip, splinter, and nuwe or neu, new. B. We
also use the phrase spick and span new, which is also of Scand. origin:
see the very numerous phrases of this character in Swed, dialects, as
given by Rietz, who instances spik-spangende ny, completely new,
answering to Swed. #ill splint och span ny, with its varying forms
spingspdngande ny, sprittsprangande ny, splittspangande ny, and 18
more of the same character. So also Du. sprkspeldernieuw, lit. spick-
and-spill-new; since speld is a spill or splinter. So also Swed.
spillerny, lit. spill-new. So also Dan. splinterny, lit. splinter-new.
The Swed. and Du. spik are forms of Spike; hence spick and span
new=spike and chip new. All the terms ‘ signify fresh from the
hands of the workman, fresh cut from the block, chip and splinter
new ;’ Wedgwood.
SPAR (1), a beam, bar, rafter; a general term for yards, gaffs,
&c. (E.) ME. sparre (dissyllabic), Chaucer, C. T. 992 (A 990).
The AS. sb. is not found, but the word is doubtless E.; we find the
derived verb sparrian, to fasten with a bar, to bolt, as in ‘ gesparrado
dure ’=the door being fastened, Matt. vi. 6 (Lindisfarne MS.).+4Du.
spar; Icel. sparri; Dan. and Swed. sparre; OHG. sparro; MHG.
sparre; G. sparren. Cf. also Gael. and Irish sparr, a spar, joist,
beam, rafter (from E.). β. The orig. sense seems to have been
stick or pole; perhaps related to Spear, q.v. Der. spar, verb, to
fasten a door, bar it, P. Plowman, B. xix. 162 (footnote).
SPAR (2),a kind of mineral. (E.) Anold prov. E. mining-term ;
spelt sparr in Manlove’s Liberties and Customs of the Lead-mines,
A.D. 1653, 1. 265 (E. D. S. Gloss. B. 8). AS. sper, found in the
compound spfer-stan (spar-stone) ; ‘ Creta argentea, sper-stan ;’ Voc.
146. 23; “ Gipsus, speren,’ id. 24. 20 (8th cent.). Cf. G. sparkalk,
plaster. β. The true G. name is spat or spath; which is a different
word. Der. sparr-y.
SPAR (3), to box with the hands, dispute, wrangle. (F.—Teut.)
“To sparre, as cocks do, confligere ;’ Levins (1570). It was thus a
term in cock-fighting, and orig. used of striking with the spurs, as
cocks do. “ΟΕ, esparer, ‘to fling or yerk out with the heels, as a
horse in high manage;’ Cot. Mod. F. éparer, little used (Littré) ;
which Littré connects with Ital. sparare, of which one sense is ‘to
kick;’ but this must be a different word from Ital. sparare (=L.
exparare), to unfurnish, to let off a gun. B. I suppose OF.
esparer to be of Teut. origin; cf. Low G. sparre, sb., a struggling,
striving, Bremen Worterbuch, iv. 945. Cf. G. sich sperren, to strug-
gle against, resist, oppose. Perhaps allied to Lithuan. spirti, to
stamp, kick, strike out with the feet, resist. See Spur, Spurn.
Der. sfarr-er, sparr-ing.
SPARABLE, a kind of headless nail used for boots. (E.) A
contraction of sparrow-bill; the old name. ‘And sparrowbils to
clout Pan’sshoone;’ (1629) T. Dekker, London’s Tempe (The Song).
SPATTER
SPARE, frugal, scanty, lean. (E.) ΜΕ. spar (rare) ; ‘ vpon
spare wyse ’=in a sparing manner, temperately; Gawain and the
Grene Knight, gor. AS. sper, spare, sparing, as a gloss to L. parcus,
Liber Scintillarum, p. 52, 1.6; also found in the compounds sper-
hynde, sparing, sper-ltc, frugal, spernis, frugality, all in various
glosses (Leo) ; the derived verb sparian, to spare, is not uncommon;
Grein, il. 467.4Icel. sparr, sparing ; Dan. spar- in sparsom, thrifty;
Swed. spar- in sparsam ; G. spar-in sparlich. Cf. L. parum, little,
parcus, sparing, parcere, to spare; which seem to have lost initial s.
Der. spare, verb, ME, sparen, Chaucer, C. T. 6919 (D 1337), from
AS. sparian (Grein), as above; cognate with Du. and G. sparen, Icel.
and Swed. spara, Dan. spare, and perhaps allied to L. parcere. Also
spare-ness, spare-rib ; spar-ing, spar-ing-ly.
SPARK (1), asmall particle of fire. (E.) ME. sparke, Havelok, 91.
OMerc. sperca, Voc. 46.8; AS. stearca, ΖΕ τε, tr. of Boethius, lib. iii.
C., 125 cap, xxxv. ὃ 5.--MDnu. sparcke (Hexham); Low G. sparke;
Brem. Wort. B. Perhaps so called from the crackling of a fire-
brand, which throws out sparks ; Icel. spraka, Dan. sprage, to crackle.
Cf. Lithuan. spragéti, to crackle like burning fir-wood, Gk. σφάραγος,
a cracking, crackling. Brugmann, i. § 531. Der. spark-le, a little
spark, with dimin. suffix -/e for-el (cf. kern-el from corn), ME. sparcle,
Chaucer, C. T. 13833 (B 2095); also spark-le, verb, ME. sparklen,
C. T. 2166 (A 2164).
SPARK (2), a gay young fellow. (Scand.) In Shak. All’s Well,
ii, I, 25, The same word as prov. E. sprack, lively. ME. sparklich,
adv., also spelt sprackliche ; P. Plowman, C. xxi. 10, and footnote. =
Icel. sparkr, lively, sprightly ; also sprekr. Hence Icel. sprekligr,
whence ME. sprackliche, adj.4-Swed. dial. spraker, sprak, sprag,
cheerful, talkative (Rietz) ; Norweg. sprek, ardent, cheerful, lively
(Aasen). β. Perhaps the orig. sense was ‘talkative,’ or ‘ noisy ;’
cf. Speak, and Spark (1). 47 The prov. E. sprack is pronounced
sprag by Sir Hugh, Merry Wives, iv. 1. 84.
SPARROW, a small well-known bird. (E.) ME. sparwe, Chau-
cer, C. T. 628 (A 626); sparewe, Wyclif, Matt. x. 29. OMerc.
*sparwa; AS. spearwa, Matt. x. 29.4Icel. sporr (rare); Dan. spurv;
Swed. sparf; OHG. sparo (gen. sparwen), also sparwe; MHG. spar;
whence G. sper-ling, a sparrow, with double dimin. suffix -l-ing;
Goth. sparwa. B. All from Tent. type *sparwon-, m., a sparrow;
lit. ‘a flutterer;’ from 4/SPER, to quiver, hence, to flutter; see
Spar (3). Cf. Lithuan. sparnas, a bird’s wing, a fish’s fin, the leaf
of a folding door (from the movement to and fro). Der. sparrow-
hawk, ME. sperhauke, P. Plowman, B. vi. 199, AS. spearhafoc, Voc.
132. 26; cf. Icel. sparrhaukr (where sparr- is the stem of sporr),
Swed. sparfhok (from sparf), Dan. spurvehog (from spurv).
SPARVER, SPARVISE, the canopy or tester of a bed. (F.}
In 1473: ‘j sparvour with j pelew’ [pillow]; York Wills, iii. 216.
See Nares. = OF. espervier, esprevier, ‘l'ensemble des piéces qui com-
posent le coucher,’ Godefroy; but it may mean ‘ canopy.’ Apparently
the same as OF. espervier, a sparrow-hawk, also ‘a sweep-net’ (Cot.) ;
hence, a canopy. Cf. Ital. sparauiere, ‘any kinde of hauke; also
a sparvise of a bed;’ Florio.
SPARSE, thinly scattered. (L.) Modern; yet the verb sparse,
to scatter, occurs as early as 1536 (see Todd): and Spenser has
‘spersed ayre, F. Q. i. 1. 39.—L. sparsus (for *sparg-sus); pp. of
spargere, to scatter, sprinkle. —4/SPERG, to sprinkle; an extension
of SPER, to scatter (Gk. σπείρειν, for *omép-yew) ; see Sperm.
Der. sparse-ly, -ness. Also a-sperse, di-sperse, inter-sperse.
SPASM, a convulsive movement. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘Those who
have their necks drawne backward . . with the spasme;’ Holland’s
Pliny, b. xx. c. 5; ed. 1634, ii. 41 d; ΜΕ. spasme, Lanfrank,
Cirurgie, p. 309, 1. 19.—F. spasme, ‘the cramp;” Cot.—L. spasmum,
acc. of spasmus. — Gk. σπασμός, a spasm, convulsion. Gk. σπάειν, to
draw, pluck. —4/SPA,todraw. Der. spasm-od-ic, formed with suffix
-ic from Gk, adj. σπασμώδ-ης, convulsive ; spasm-od-ic-al, spasm-od-ic-
al-ly,
SPAT (1),a blow, aslap. (E.) In Cent. Dict. Of imitative origin ;
cf. slap, pat.
SPAT (2), the young of shell-fish. (E.) In Cent. Dict. Formed
from spat-, to eject, the base of spatter ; see Spatter. And compare
Spot; also Du. spat, a spot, speck, splash.
SPATE, a river-flood. (F.—Tenut.) ‘ While crashing ice, borne
on the roaring spate;’ Burns, Brigs of Ayr. And see Jamieson. Cf.
Trish speid (borrowed from E. spate), a great river-flood. Also spelt
speit. G. Douglas has spait, a torrent; cf. Verg. Ain. ii. 496.—AF.
*espeit=OF. espoit, a spouting out (Godefroy).—EFries. spetten,
speuten, spoiten, WF lem. speeten, Du. spuiten, to spout; see Spout.
SPATS, gaiters. (E.) Shorter for spatterdashes, gaiters to keep off
the spatterings of mud that are dashed against the wearer ; cf. dash-
board or splash-board of a carriage.
SPATTER, to besprinkle, spit or throw out upon. (E.) 1. ‘Which
th’ offended taste With spattering noise rejected;’ Milton, P. L. x.
85
Or
586 SPATULA
567. Here Milton uses it for sputier, the frequentative of Spit (2),
4 τ: 2. The usual sense is 20 be-spot, and it is a frequentative
form, with suffix -er, formed from a base spat- ;-cf. prov. E. spat, to
spit; EFries. spatter, to burst, fly out, spirt.4-Du. spatten, to throw,
spatter, splash. Cf. Gk. σφενδόνη, a sling.
SPATULA, a broad-bladed knife for spreading plasters. (L.—
Gk.) Spelt spatwle in Holland’s Pliny, b. xxiii. c. 7 [mot 17], 1. 24
from the end. ThisisF. spatule, asin Cot. —L. spatula, also spathula ;
dimin. of spatha, an instrument with a broad blade.—Gk. σπάθη,
a broad blade, a spatula, a paddle; cognate with E. Spade (1), q.v.
SPAVIN, a swelling near the joints of horses, producing lameness.
(F.—Teut.) In Shak. Hen. VII, i. 3. 12. ME. spaveyne, ‘ horsys
maledy ;’ Prompt. Parv.<OF. esparvin (13th cent., in Hatzfeld),
ME. esparvain, ‘a spavin in the leg of a horse, Cot. Cf. MItal.
spavano, ‘a spavin,’ Florio ; Ital. spavenio ; Span. esparavan (1) spavin,
(2) a sparrow-hawk ; Port. esparavao; mod. F. éparvin. B. A com-
parison of the forms (of which MItal. spavano is for sparvano) shows
that they answer to a Late L. type *sparvanus, parallel to Late L.
sparvarius, a sparrow-hawk (F. éparvier), And just as sparvarius is
formed with suffix -arius from OHG. sparwe, a sparrow (or is
Latinised from OHG. sparwari, a sparrow-hawk, which comes to
the same thing), so Late L. *sparvanus is formed with suffix -Grus
from the same base (sparwe). The lit. sense is, accordingly, ‘spar-
tow-like,’ from the hopping or bird-like motion of a horse afflicted
with spavin. The OHG. sparwe is cognate with E. Sparrow, q.v.
@ Ménage, who is followed by Diez and Littré, gives-:much the same
explanation, but says that the disease is named from the sparrow-
hawk (not the sparrow) because the horse lifts up his legs after the
manner of sparrow-hawks. It is obvious that the sparrow is
much more likely than the sparrow-hawk to have been the subject of
a simile, and it is also clear that sparvanus may have been formed
from sparwe directly. It makes better sense.
SPAW, the same as Spa, q.v.
SPAWL, spittle. (E.) ‘In the spawl her middle finger dips ;’
Dryden, tr. of Persius, ii. 63. AS. spald, Elene, 300 (sic in MS.) ;
variant of OMerc. spadl, Matt. xxvii. 30; AS. spail, spittle, allied to
spettan, to spit. See Spit (2).
SPAWN, the eggs of fish or frogs. (F.—L.) ‘ Your multiplying
spawn ;’ Cor. ii. 2. 82. ‘Spawne of afysshe;’ Palsgrave. The
verb occurs in Prompt. Parv., p. 467: ‘Spawnyn, spanyn, as fyschys,
Pisciculo.? Short for *spaunden, and certainly (as Wedgwood sug-
gests), from OF. espandre, ‘to shed, spill, poure out, to spread, cast,
or scatter abroad in great abundance ;’ Cot. (So also Ital. spandere,
to spill, shed, scatter.) ββ. The etymology is proved by a gloss in
Wright’s Voc. i. 1643 cf. N. and Q.6S. v. 465. The AF. phrase
‘Sofiret le peysoun en ewe espaundre,’ i.e. let the fish spawn in the
water, occurs there ; and espaundre is glossed by scheden his roune, i.e.
shed his roe, in the MS.; though misprinted scheden him frome.
From L, ex-pandere; see Expand, Der. spawn-er.
SPAY, to render sterile. (F.—L.—Gk.) See Todd’s Johnson. =
OF. *espeer, not found; [but of the same form as OF. espeer, to
pierce with a sword (Godefroy), from OF. espee (=Ital. spada),
a sword}. Hence the OF. *espeer would represent the Late L.
stadare, for spadonire, to geld. —L. spad-o (gen, spadonis), a eunuch.
=Gk. σπάδων, a eunuch. =Gk. σπά-ειν, to draw, tear, rend.
SPEAK, to utter words, say, talk. (E.) This word has lost an
r, and stands for spreak. We can date the loss of the r as having
taken place before A.D. 1100. The MSS. of the A.'S. Gospels have
sometimes sprecan and sometimes specan, so that the letter was fre-
quently dropped as early as the 11th century, though it appears
occasionally in the /atest of them; the same is true for the sb.
spre or spc, mod. Εν, speech (for spreech); see John, iv. 26, &c.
ME. sfeken, pt. t. spak, pp. spoken, spoke; Chaucer, C. T. 792, 914
(A 790, 912). AS. sprecan (later specan), pt. t. spree (later spec),
pp: sprecen; Grein, 11. 472.4Du. spreken; OHG. sprehhan; G.
sprechen, pt. t. sprach. B. All from Tent. base SPREK, to speak,
of which the orig. sense was merely to make a noise, crackle, cry
out, as seen in Icel. spraka, Dan, sprage, to crackle, Dan. sprekke, to
crack, burst; see Spark (1). Cf. Gk. opdpayos, a cracking, crack-
ling. Cf. Lowland ὅς. crack, a talk, Der. speak-er ; speak-er-ship ;
speech, q.v.3 spokes-man, q.v.
SPEAR, a long weapon, spiked pole, lance. (E.) ME. spere
(dissyllabic), Chaucer, C. T, 2551 (A 2549). AS. spere, John, xix.
34.4+Du. speer; Icel. spjor; Dan. sper; G. speer; OHG. sper.
Cf. L. sparus, a small missile weapon, dart, hunting-spear. Perhaps
related to spar; a beam (hence, a pole). See Spar (1). Der.
spear-man, Acts, xxiii. 233; spear-grass, 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 340;
spear-mint ; spear-wort, AS, sperewyrt, A. S, Leechdoms, Gloss. to
vol. iii.
SPECIAL, particular)distinctive. (F.—L.) ME. special, speciale,
Ancren Riwle, p. 56, 1. 22. Short for especial; see Especial;
SPEED |
and Species (below). Der.
Doublet, especial.
SPECIES, a group of individuals having common character-
istics, subordinate to a genus,a kind. (L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627;
the ME. form was spice (see Spice). —L. speciés, a look, appearance,
kind, sort.—L. specere, to look, see.4--OHG. spehon (G. spahen), to
spy. Cf. Skt. pag, spas, to spy.—4/SPEK, to see. Bragmann,
i. § 551. See Spy. Der. sfeci-al, q.v. Also specie, money. in
gold or silver, a remarkable form, evolved as a sing. sb. from the old
word sfecies=‘money paid by tale,’ as in Phillips, ed. 1706;
probably by confusion with the I.. ablative specié, as if paid in
specié=paid in visible coin. Also speci-fy, q.v., Speci-men, q.v.,
speci-ous, q.v. Also espect-al (doublet of special); fronti-spiece, q.v.
Doublet, spice. -
SPECIFY, to particularise. (F.—L.) ME, specifien, Gower,
C. A. i. 333 prol. 866.—OF. specifier, ‘ to specify, particularize ;”
Cot.—Late L. *specificare, to specify (Ducange) ;. pp. specificatus, —
L. adj. specifieus, specific, particular.—L. speci-, for speciés, a
kind; and -fcws, i.e. making, from L. facere, to make; see
Species and Fact. @ It thus appears that specific is a more
orig. word, but specify is much the older word in English. Cf.
specific, MF. specifique, ‘speciall,’ Cot., from L. specificus, special, as
above ; whence sfecific-al, specific-al-ly, specific-ate, specific-at-ion.
And hence specify, verb (as above).
SPECIMEN, a pattern, model. (L.) ‘Specimen, an example,
proof, trial, or pattern ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. specimen, an
example, something shown by way of sample.=—L. speci-, for specere,
to see: with suffix -men. See Species.
SPECIOUS, showy, plausible. (F.—L.) ME. specious, sightly,
beautiful; see Trench, Select Glossary.—MF. specieux, ‘specious,
fair;’ Cot.—L. specidsus, fair to see.—L. speci-, for specere, to
behold ; with suffix -dsus; see Species. Der. specious-ly, -ness.
SPECK, a small spot, blemish. (E.) Specke in Levins, ed: 1570.
© Speckid sheep,’ i.e. spotted sheep; Wyclif, tr. of Gen. xxx. 32.
‘Spekke, clowte, Pictacium,’ i.e. a patch; Prompt. Pary. AS.
specea, a spot, mark, pl. speccan ; ‘ Note, speccan,’ Voc. 34. 25. Cf.
Low G. spaken, to be spotted with wet, spakig, spotted with wet; Brem.
Wart. iv. 931; MDu. spickelen, ‘to speckle, or to spott,’ Hexham.
B. The MDu. spickelen is obviously the frequentative of MDu. spicken,
to spit, and Wedgwood’s suggestion that ‘the origin lies in the
figure of spattering with wet’ is prob. correct. Cf. Du. spikkel,
a speckle, spot. Hardly allied to L. pingere, to paint (Franck),
Der. speck, verb, Milton, P. L. ix. 429. Also speck-le, a little spot,
dimin. form, Spenser, tr. of Virgil’s Gnat, 250; οἵ, Du. spikkel, a
speckle. Hence speckle, verb. :
SPECTACLE, a sight, show. (F.—L.) ME. spectacle, Wyclif,
1 Cor. iv. 9.—F. spectacle, ‘a spectacle ;’ Cot. —L. spectaiculum, a
show. Formed with suffixes -cu-lu- (<-cu-lo-) from L. specta-re, to
see.—L. spectum, supine of specere, to see; see Species. Der.
spectacles, pl. glasses for assisting the sight, pl. of ME. sfectacle,
a glass through which to view objects, Chaucer, C. T. 6785
(Ὁ 1203); hence sfectacl-ed, Cor. ii. 1..222. And see spectator, spectre,
speculate.
SPECTATOR, a beholder. (L.; or F.—L.) In Hamlet, iii.
2. 46; spelt spectatour, Spenser, F. Ὁ. ii. 4. 27. [Perhaps from F.
spectateur, ‘a spectator;’ Cot.|—L. spectator, a beholder; formed
with suffix -tor from specti-re, to behold.—L. spectum, supine of
specere, to see; see Spectacle, Spy.
SPECTRE, a ghost. (F.—L.) In Milton, P. R. iv. 430. =F.
spectre, ‘an image, figure, ghost;” Cot.—L. spectrum, a vision.
Formed with suffix -érum from spec-ere; to see; see Spectacle,
Spy. Der. spectr-al. Doublet, spectrum, a mod. scientific term,
directly from L. spectrum.
SPECULAR, suitable for seeing, having a smooth reflecting
surface. (L.) ‘This specular mount;’ Milton, P. R.-iv. 236.—L.
specularis, belonging to a mirror.—L. speculum, a mirror. = L. spec-ere,
tosee; see Spy. @ Milton’s tise of the word is due to L. specula,
fem. sb., a watch-tower, a closely allied word. Der. ‘sfecul-ate,
from L, speculdtus, pp. of specularz, to behold, from specula; a watch-
tower; hence specul-at-ion, Minsheu, ed: 1627, from F. speculation,
‘speculation,’ Cot., which from L.-acc. speculatidnem; specul-at-
or=L,speculator; specul-at-ive, Minsheu, from L. speculatiuus. We
also use specul-um =L, speculum, a mirror. ᾿
SPEECH, talk, language. (E.) ME. speche (dissyllabic),
Chaucer, C. T. 8729 (E 853). For spreche, by loss of r. AS. spéc,
later form of spré@c; Grein, li. 471.—AS. spr@c-, 3rd grade of
sprecan, to speak; see Speak.4-Du. spraak, from spreken; G.
sprache, from sprechen. Der. speech-less, Merch. Ven. i: 1. 1643
speech-less-ly, =ness. Ρ =
SPEED, sucvess, velocity. (E.) The old sense is ‘ success” or
‘help.’ ME. sped (with long δ) ‘iuel sped’=evil speed, ill suc+
special-ly, special-i-ty, special-ty,
SPEIR
cess, Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 310. AS. spéd, haste, suc-
cess; Grein, ii. 467. Here ὃ is due to 6, by the usual change (as in
foot, AS. fot, pl. feet, AS. 76), and sféd is due to a Teut. type
*spodiz.4-OSax. spad, success (Heliand) ; Du. spoed, speed; OHG.
spuot, spot, success. B. All from Teut. type *spadiz, speed,
success (Fick, iii. 355). Here the -di- is a suffix, answering to Idg.
-ti- (by Verner’s law). Allied to Skt. spha-ti-, increase, growth;
and sphka-ta-s, pp. of sphdy, to increase, enlarge; Benfey, p. 1087.
y- The AS. sféd is, accordingly, from the AS. strong verb spowan, to
succeed, Grein, ii. 471; and the OHG. spuot is allied to the verb
spuon, to succeed, an impersonal weak verb, 8. Further allied to
L. spatium, room, spés, hope, prosper, prosperous, Lithuan, sféfas,
leisure, opportunity. Brugmann, i. §§ 156, 223 (3, note). Der.
speed, verb, AS. spédan, weak verb, pt. t. spédde, Grein, ii. 468 ;
speed-y, AS, spedig, id.; speed-i-ly, speed-i-ness.
SPEIR, to ask. (E.) See Spur.
SPELICANS, a game played with thin slips of wood. (Du.)
Imported from Holland, which is famous for toys. Englished from
MDu. spelleken, a small pin (Hexham); formed with the MDu.
dimin. suffix -ken (=G. -chen, E. -kin) from MDu. spelle, a pin,
splinter of wood, allied to E. Spell (4), 4.ν.
SPELL (1), a form of magic words, incantation. (E.) ME. spel,
dat. speile, Chaucer, C. T. 13821 (B 2083). AS. spel, spell, a saying,
story, narrative; Grein, ii. 469.4Icel. spjal/, a saying; OHG. spel,
‘a narrative; Goth. spill, a fable, tale, myth. Teut. type *spellom, n.
Der. spell (2), q.v.; go-spel, q.v.
SPELL (2), to tell the names of the letters‘of a word. (F.—Teut.)
ME. spellen; ‘Spellyn letters, Sillabico; Spellynge, Sillabicacio ;
Spellare [speller], Sillabicator;’ Prompt. Pary. ‘ Lere hem litlum
and lytlum .. . Tyl pei couthe speke and spelle,’ &c. =teach them by
little and little till they could pronounce and spell; P. Plowman,
B. xv. 599, 600. — OF, espeler, ‘to spell, to speale, to join letters or
syllables together ;’ Cot. Of Teut. origin. From Du. spellen, to
spell; the same as AS. spellian, to relate, declare, tell, speak;
ΜΗ. spellen, to relate, Goth. spilldn, to narrate. All these are
denominative verbs ; thus Du. spellen is from OSax. spel, a word
(see Heliand, 572); AS. spellian is from AS. spell, a tale; and
Goth. spillén, from spill, a fable; see Spell (1). 4 Ε΄ spell does
not appear to be directly from AS. spellian, but seems rather to have
been borrowed from French. Certainly the word was sooner or later
confused with the old and prov. E. sfe/d, in the sense of a splinter of
wood, as though to sfell were to point out letters with a splinter
of wood. Thus Palsgrave has ‘ festue to spell with ;’ where festue
is F. festu, ‘a straw, rush, little stalk or stick’ (Cot.), from L.
festuca; and Halliwell cites from a Dict. written about A.D. 1500
the entry ‘ To speldyr, Syllabicare,’ agreeing with the form ‘ spelder
of woode’ in Palsgrave ; indeed, speldren, to spell, occurs in the
Ormulum, 16347, 16449. So even in Hexham’s MDu. Dict. we
have ‘ spelle, a pin,’ with a striking resemblance to ‘ spellen, to spell
letters or words.’ See Spell (4). Der. spell-er, spell-ing’, spell-ing-book.
SPELL (3), a turn of work. (E.) ‘70 Doa Spell, in sea-language,
signifies to do any work by turns, for a short time, and then leave it.
A fresh spell, is when fresh men come to work, esp. when the rowers
are relieved with another gang ; fo give a spell, isto be ready to work
in such a one’s room;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Not found in ME., but
‘it is almost certainly due to AS. sfelian, to supply another’s room, to
act or be proxy for (Bosworth). Whelock, in his edition of A‘lfred’s
tr. of Beda, p. 151, quotes the following sentence from a homily :
‘Se cyning is Cristes sylfes speligend’ =the king supplies the place of
Christ himself. So also the following: ‘ Nees Séah Isaac ofslegen,
ac se ramm hine sfelode’ = Isaac, however, was not slain himself, but
the ram supplied his place, or took his spell; A‘lfric’s Hom. ed.
Thorpe, ii. 62. Cf. AS. gespelia, a vicar, deputy (Toller). B. The
AS. spelian is perhaps allied to spilianx, to play, to sport; and the
latter is cognate with Du. spelen, G. spielen, to play, act a part;
these being denominative verbs, formed from the sb. which appears
as Du. spel, G. spiel, OHG. spil, a game.
SPELL (4), SPILL, a thin slip of wood, splinter; a slip of
paper for lighting candles. (E.) This word has been assimilated to
the verb ¢o spell, from the use of a slip of wood, in schools of the
olden times, to point out letters ina book. See remarks on Spell (2).
The true form is rather speld. ME. speld,a splinter; pl. speldes,
splinters of a broken spear, Will. of Palerne, 3392; hence the dimin.
spelder, a splinter (Palsgrave), spelt spi/dur, Avowynge of Arthur,
xiii. 6, AS. speld, a torch, spill used as a torch (Bosworth).+-Du.
speld, a pin (cf. spil, the pin of a bobbin, spindle, axis); Icel.
speld, speldi, a square tablet, orig. a thin slice of board; spilda,
a flake, a slice; Goth. spilda, a writing-tablet; ΜΗ. spfelte, a
splinter. B. All from the Teut. verb *spaldan- (G. spalten), to
cleave ;-a reduplicating verb, like OHG. spaltan, to cleave, split.
Cf. Shetland speld, to split (Edmondston) ; Skt. sphat (for *sphalt),
SPHINX
to burst open. See Spelicans, Spill (2). Thus the orig. sense
is ‘that which is split off,’ a flake, slice, ὥς. Der. spelicans, qev-
SPELT, a kind of corn. (L.) Called “ spelt corne’ in Minsheu,
587
ed. 1627. Not found in ME. AS. spelé. ‘Faar [i.e. L. far),
spelt;” Voc. 273. 20. Cf. Du. spelt; G. spelz, spelt, All from
Late L, spelta, spelt (ab. A.D. 400) ; whence also Ital. spelta, spelda,
Ε΄ épeautre, spelt.
SPELTER, pewter, zinc. (Low G.) ‘ Spelter, a kind of metall,
not known to the antients, which the Germans call zinc ;’ Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674. I cannot find an early example of the word, but
it is prob. Teutonic, in any case, and occurs again in Low Ὁ.
spialter, pewter, Bremen Worterbuch; cf. Du. spiauter, MDu.
speauter, from OF. espeautre (Godefroy); which suggests an older
form *espeltre. It is obviously allied to Ital. peltro, pewter, and to
E. pewter. See (in Ducange) Late L. pestrum (error for peltrum ?)
and peutreum. Hexham has: ‘ Peauter, or Speauter, Pewter, or
fine Tinne.’ Godefroy has OF. pialire (12th cent.), s.v. peautre ; and
note that the earlier forms are without the initial s- or es-. See
Pewter ; where correct the note that initial s has been lost.
SPENCER, a short over-jacket. (F.—L.) Much worn about
A.D. 1815 ; see Notes and Queries, 4 S. x..356. ‘ Two noble earls,
whom, if I quote, Some folks might call me sinner, The one invented
half a coat, The other half a dinner ;’ Epigram quoted in Taylor,
Words and Places, The reference is to Earl Spencer and Earl Sand-
wich. It thus appears that the spencer was named after the cele-
brated Earl Spencer, viz. John Charles Spencer, third earl, bom 1782,
died 1845. See further under Spend.
SPEND, to lay out (money), consume, waste. (L.) ME.
spenden, Chaucer, C. T. 302 (A 300). AS. spendan; occurring in
the compounds @-spendan and for-spendan ; see examples in Sweet’s
A.S. Reader. Not an AS. word, but merely borrowed from Late
L. dispendere, to spend, waste, consume. Cf. Late L. dispendium,
dispensa, expense, of which the shorter forms spendium, spensa are
also found. We also find Late L. spendibilis monéta, spending
money, i.e. money for current expenses, occurring as early as
A.D. 922 (Ducange). So also Ital. spendere, to spend, spendio,
expense, where spendio = L. dispendium, Observe also OF. de-
spendre, ‘to dispend, spend, expend, disburse,’ Cot. ; despenser, ‘to
dispend, spend,’ id.; despensier, ‘a spender, also a cater [caterer],
or clarke of a kitchin,’ id. B. In exactly the same way, the OF.
despensier became ME. spencere or spensere, explained by cellerarius
in the Prompt. Pary., and now preserved in the proper name Spencer
or Spenser, formerly Despenser. Trevisa, tr. of Higden, iv. 33,
translates L. dispensator by spenser. Hence even the buttery or
cellar was called a spence, as being under the contro) of this officer;
‘ Spence, botery, or celere,’ Prompt. Parv. y. The L. dispendere is
compounded of dis-, apart, and pendere, to weigh; see Dis- and
Pendant. q The etymology sometimes given, from L. ex-
pendere, is less likely; the s here represents dis-, not ex-; precisely
the same loss occurs in sfort for disport. Der. spend-er ; spend-thrift,
i.e. one who spends what has been accumulated by thrift, Temp.
ii. 1. 24 3 spencer (above).
SPERM, animal seed, spawn, spermaceti. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME.
sperme, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 14015 (Β 3199).—F. sperme, ‘sperm, seed ;”
Cot.=—L. sperma. —Gk. σπέρμα, seed. — Gk. σπείρειν (= σπέρ-νεινῪ, to
sow; orig. to scatter with a quick motion of the hand. (4/SPER.)
And see Sparse. Der. spermat-ic, Gk. σπερματ-ι-κός, from
omeppat-, stem of σπέρμα; sfermat-ic-al, Also sperm-oil, sperm-
whale; spermaceti, spelt parmaceti in 1 Hen. IV, i. 3. 58, from L.
sperma céti, sperm of the whale, where οδέϊ is the gen. case of
célus = Gk. κῆτος, a large fish ; see Cetaceous. And see spor-ad-ic,
spore.
SPEW, SPUE, to vomit. (E.) ME. spewen, P. Plowman, Β, x.
40. AS. speowan, stiwian, weak verbs; spiwan, strong verb, pt. t.
spaw, pp. spiwen; Grein, ii. 470. Cf. MDu. spouwen (Hexham);
Icel. spyja; Dan. spye; Swed. spy; OHG. spiwan; G. speien; Goth.
speiwan.4+-L. spuere; Lithuan. spjauti; Gk. πτύειν (for *onwev).
B. All from 4/SPIW, to spit forth. Expressive of the sound of
spitting out; cf. puke (1), spit (2). Brngmann, i. ὃ 567.
SPHERE, a globe, orb, circuit of motion, province or duty. (F.
—L.—Gk.) ME. spere, Chaucer, C. T. 11592 (Εἰ 1280). Later sphere,
Spenser, F. Q. i. 10. 56.— OF. espere, a sphere (Littré); MF. sphere,
‘a sphere ;’ Cot.=L. sphera.—Gk. σφαῖρα, a ball, globe. B. Gk.
σφαῖρα -- Ἐσφάρ-να =*orap-ya; perhaps ‘ that which is tossed about ;”
see Spar (3). Der. spher-ic, Gk. σφαιρικός, like a sphere ; spher-ic-
al, spher-ic-al-ly, spher-ic-t-ty ; spher-o-id, that which is like a sphere,
from σφαῖρο-, for σφαῖρος, round, and εἶδος, form, shape, appearance
(from 4/WEID, to see). Hence spheroid-al.
SPHINX, a monster with a woman's head and the body of a
lioness, who destroyed travellers that could not solve her riddles.
(L.—Gk.) ‘Subtle as Sphinx ;’ L.L. L. iv. 3. 342. Spelt Spinx by
588 SPICE
Lydgate, Storie of Thebes, pt. i.—L. sphinx (gen. sphingis). —Gk.
opiyé (gen. σφιγγός), lit.‘the strangler,’ because she strangled the
travellers who could not solve her riddles; from Gk. σφίγγειν, to
throttle, strangle. @f But most likely, this is merely a popular
etymology, and the word is foreign to Greek. In fact, the legend is
Egyptian; Herodotus, ii. 175, iv. 79.
SPICH, an aromatic vegetable for seasoning food, a small quantity
or sample. (F.—L.) A doublet of species. ‘Spice, the earlier form
in which we made the word our own, is now limited to certain
aromatic drugs, which, as consisting of various kinds, have this name
of spices. But spice was once employed as species is now;” Trench,
Select Glossary, q.v. ‘ Species, used by the druggists of the Middle
Ages for the four kinds of ingredients in which they traded—saffron,
cloves, cinnamon, nutmegs;’ Bréal, Semantics. ME. spice.
“‘Absteyne 30u fro al yuel spice,’ Wyclif, 1 Thess. ν. 22; where the
Vulgate has ‘ab omni sfecié mala.’ In early use. ‘ Hope is a swete
spice;’? Ancren Riwle, p. 78, last line. — OF. ‘ espice, spice;’ (οἵ. --
L. speciem, acc. of speciés, a kind, species; in Late Latin, a spice,
dmg; see Species. Der. spice, verb; spic-ed, Chaucer, C. T. 528
(A 526) ; spic-er, an old word for spice-seller, answering to the mod.
grocer, P. Plowman, B. ii. 225; spic-er-y, from OF. espicerie, ‘a
spicery, also spices,’ Cot.; spic-y, spic-i-ly, spic-i-ness.
SPICK AND SPAN-NEW, quite new. (Scand.) In North’s
Plutarch, p. 213 (R.); Howell, Famil. Letters, vol. i. sect. 4, let. 2
(Jan. 20, 1624). Lit. ‘spike and spoon new,’ where spike means a
point, and spoon a chip; new as a spike or nail just made and a chip
just cut off. See further under Span-new. And see Spike and
Spoon.
SPIDER, an insect that spins webs. (E.) ME. spither, spelt
spipre, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 164, 1. 6 from bottom. Apparently
this is the sense of AS. spider, A. 5. Leechdoms, iil. 42; with -der
for -fer; from *spin-fer; the loss of x before 2 being of regular
occurrence in AS, As -Jer (Idg. -¢er) is an agential suffix, the sense
would be spinner, which is also a name for the spider; see E. 1). D.
From the verb to spin; see Spin.+Dnu. spin, a spider; Dan. spinder
(for spinner), a spider, from spinde (for spinne), to spin; Swed.
spinnel, a spider, from spinna, to spin; G. spinne, a spider, spinner.
SPIGOT, a pointed piece of wood for stopping a small hole in a
cask. (Prov.—L.) ΜΕ. spigot, Wyclif, Job, xxxii. 19. Spelt
spygotte, Voc. 724. 10; spyket, id. 573. 30. A term due to the
Bourdeaux wine-trade. Apparently from an OProv. “*estigote;
Mistral gives the mod. Prov. espigoun, espigou, the step of a ladder,
the bar of a chair, also a spigot. Evidently derived from OProy.
espiga, mod. Proy. espigo, an ear of corn. All from L. spica, an
ear of corn; see Spike. Cf. also OF. espigeot, a bad ear of corn
(Godefroy) ; Walloon spigot, the peak of a shoe. Also Port. espicho,
a spigot; from L. spiculum, a little spike, point, dart, dimin. of
spica (above). Torriano gives Ital. spigo, spico, the herb spikenard,
also a spigot. @ The Irish spiocaid, W. ysbigod, are from E.
SPIKE (1), a sharp point, large nail. (Scand.) ‘Iron for
spikes ;’ Bacon, Advice to Sir G. Villiers (R.). ‘ Spykynge, nayle ;’
Prompt. Parv. Somner gives an AS. spicing, a large nail; from
Α. 5. Leechdoms, 111. 200. From Icel. spit, Swed. spik, a spike;
cf. Low Ὁ. spike, a wooden peg (Schambach); Du. spiyker, a nail.
Thought to be distinct from Spike (2), and allied, by gradation,
to Spoke, q.v. Der. spike, verb, spiked, spik-y.
SPIKE (2), an ear of corn. (L.) ME. spik, P. Plowman, C. xiii.
180.—L. spica, an ear of corn. Der. spike-nard, q. v.; spig-ot, q.v.
SPIKEN ARD, an aromatic oil or balsam. (Hybrid; F.—L.
and F.—L,.—Gk.—Pers.) “ Precious oynement spikenard ;’ Wyclif,
Mark, xiv. 3; where the Vulgate has ‘alabastrum unguenti zardi
spicati pretiosi.’ [Thus spike-nard should rather be spiked nard; it
signifies nard furnished with spikes, in allusion to the mode of
growth. ‘The head of Nardus spreads into certain spikes or eares,
whereby it hath a twofold vse, both of spike and also of leaf; in
which regard it is so famous;’ Pliny, Nat. Hist. b. xii. c. 12 (in
Holland’s translation).] However, we borrowed it from OF. spique-
nard (Godefroy). = L. spica, an ear of com; and nardi, gen. of nardus,
nard; see Nard, The L. spicd/us, furnished with ears, is derived
from spica, an ear of com; see Spike (2).
SPILE, a peg for a vent-hole. (E.) Not in Todd’s Johnson; but
in many E, dialects; see E.D.D. Cognate with Dn. spzjl, a spile,
bar; Low G., spile,a bar, also a skewer (Schambach) ; cf. G. speiler,
askewer. Teut. types *sp7-la@, *spi-lo- (Franck); alliedto Spire (1).
SPILL (1), a splinter, thin slip of wood. (E.) ‘Spills, thin slips
of wood or paper, used for lighting candles;’ Halliwell. ‘The
spill of wood;’ Holland’s tr. of Pliny, bk. viii. c. 16; i. 203. ME.
spille; Life of Beket, ed. W. H. Black, 1845, 1. S850: ‘hit nis no3t
worp a spille’=it is not worth a splinter or chip. The same word
as Spell (4), q.v.
SPILL (2), to destroy, mar, shed. (Scand.) Often explained by
SPINSTER
‘spoil,’ with which it has no etymological connexion. It stands for
spild, the ld having passed into J by assimilation. ME. spillen,
commonly in the sense to destroy or mar; also, intransitively, to
perish ; see Chaucer, C. T. 6480, 5235 (D 898, B 815); Hamlet, iv.
5.20. In mod. E., only to shed, pour out, effuse. Cf. AS. spillan,
to destroy; Grein, ii. 470; apparently borrowed from Icel. spilla,
to destroy; Swed. spilla (Dan. spilde, for *spille), to spill. These
are assimilated forms, with 11 for /d; as shown by the (native) AS.
spildan, to destroy, OSax. spildian. Teut. type *spelthjan- ; allied to
(ἃ. spalten, to split. Cf. Skt. sphat, sphut, to burst; Brugmann, i.
§ 530. See Spell (4). Der. spill-er ; spil-th (=AS. spild), Timon,
ii. 2. 169.
SPIN, to draw out into threads, cause to whirl rapidly. (E.) The
second sense comes from the rapid motion of the spinning-wheel.
The former sense is original. ME. spinnen, strong verb, pt. t. span,
Pp: sponnen; P. Plowman, B. v. 216. ΑΘ, spinnan, pt. t. spann, pp.
spunnen; Matt. vi. 28.-4-Du. spinnen; Icel. and Swed. spinna; Dan.
spinde (for spinne) ; G. spinnen; Goth. spinnan (pt. t. spann). B. All
from Teut. base *spen-, to draw out. Allied to Lith. pin-ti, to
weave; OSlav. peti, to stretch out (span); Miklosich, p. 237. See
Span, a related word. Der. spinn-er; spinn-ing ; spin-d-le, q.v.;
spin-ster, q.V.; Spi-der, q.V.
SPINACH, SPINAGE, an esculent vegetable. (F.—Span. —
Arab.—Pers.) ‘Spinage is a ‘“‘ voiced” form of spinach, as it was
formerly written. Spelt spinache in Levins, ed. 1570. ‘ Spynnage,
an herbe, espinars;’ Palsgrave. ME. speneche; MS. Harl. 2378,
p- 247; in Henslow, p. 113. — OF. espinache, espinage (also espinoche) ;
Godefroy. [Cf. Ital. spinace, ‘the hearbe spinage,’ Florio; mod. Ἐς.
épinard (with excrescent 4), OF. espinars, espinar (Cotgrave).]—Span.
espinaca. = Arab. aspanakh, isfangy; of Pers. origin (Devic). β. But
referred, by popular etymology, to L. spina, a thorn, a prickle; be-
cause ‘the fruit is a small round nut, which is sometimes very prickly ;’
Eng. Cyclopedia. See Spine.
SPINDLE, the pin or stick from which a thread is spun. (E.)
The d is excrescent, as is so common in English after x; cf. soun-d,
thun-d-er; and spindle stands for spin-le. ‘Spinnel, a spindle;
North;’ Halliwell. In Walter de Bibbesworth (in Wright's Vocab.
i. 157, 1. 6) we meet with ME, spinel, where another MS. has
spindele. AS. spinl; ‘ Fusus, spinl,’ Wright’s Voc. i. 82, col. 1; 281,
col. 2. Formed, with suffix -/, denoting the agent, from AS. spinn-
an, to spin; see Spin.+M Du. spille (Hexham) ; by assimilation for
*spinle ; OHG. spinnila, MHG. spinnel; whence G. spindel (with in-
serted d), as well as G. spille (by assimilation). Der. spindle-shanks,
with shanks as thin asa spindle. Spindle-tree (Euonymus), because
used for spindles or thin rods, named in German spindelbaum for a
like reason; from its use for making skewers it was formerly called
prick-wood, i.e. skewer-wood, or prick-timber; see prickwood and
spindle tree in Phillips. Also spindl-y, thin (like a spindle or
skewer).
SPINDRIFT, spray blown from the tops of waves by a strong
wind. (Hybrid; L.axdE.) <A variant of spoon-drift (Worcester) ;
and spoon (as in Bailey) is for spoom, before d. Hence it is really
spoom-drift, i. e. spume-drift, from L. spima, foam. See Spoom,
SPINE, a prickle, the backbone of an animal. (F.—L.) ‘ Roses,
their sharp spines being gone;’ Two Noble Kinsmen, first line. =
MF. espine, ‘a thorn, prick, prickle;’ Cot.—L. spiza, a thorn,
prickle ; also, the spine, the backbone. Closely allied to L. spica,
an ear of corn; see Spike (2). @ Observe that, in the sense of
‘backbone,’ the word is Latin, rather than French; from the use of
Latin in medical treatises. Der. spin-al; spin-y, spin-t-ness ; spin-ous ;
spin-ose ; also spin-et, q.V.; Spinn-ey, q.v.
SPINET, a kind of musical instrument, like a harpsichord.
(F.—Ital.—L.) Obsolete. It was so called because struck with
a spine or pointed quill. In Phillips, ed. 1706.—MF. espinette, ‘a
paire of virginals;’ Cot. = Ital. spinetta, ‘a paire of virginals; also,
a little tap, spigot, or gimblet, a prick, a thorne;’ Florio. Dimin.
of Ital. spina, a thorn. L. spina, a thorn; see Spine.
SPINK, a finch, small bird. (Scand.) Lowland Sc. and prov. E.
spink, chiefly used of the goldfinch. ME. spink. ‘ Hic rostellus,
Anglicé, spynke;’ Voc. 640. 38.—Swed. dial. spink, a field-fare,
sparrow 3 gul-spink, a goldfinch (Rietz) ; Dan. dial. stinke, Norweg.
spikke (by assimilation for spinke), a small bird, sparrow, finch.
Gk. ontyyos, a finch; cf. σπίζειν, to pipe, chirp as a small bird.
Also σπίζα, a finch; oniv-os,a small bird. Doublet, finch.
SPINNEY, a kind of thicket. (F.—L.) ‘Or shelter’d in York-
shire spinneys;’ Hood, Miss Kilmansegg, Her Accident, st. 4. See
Spmet in Nares. ME. spenné, Gawain and Grene Knight, 1709. =
OF. espenet, espinot, m., Godefroy; cf. MF. espinoye, ‘a thicket,
grove, or ground full of thorns, a thorny plot;’ Cot.—L. spinétum,
a thicket of thorns.=L. spina, a thorn; see Spine.
SPINSTER, a woman who spins, an unmarried female, (E.)
SPIRACLE
Formerly in the sense of a woman who spins. ‘She spak to spynne-
steres to spynnen it oute;’ P. Plowman, B. ν. 216. Formed from
the verb to spiz (AS. spinnan) by means of the suffix -estre (mod. E.
-ster). Φ4{ This suffix (often imperfectly explained) presents no real
difficulty; it is due to the conjunction of the Idg. suffixes -es- and
-ter; cf. L. min-is-ter. B. This AS. suffix -es-tre was used to denote
the agent, and was conventionally confined to the feminine gender
only, a restriction which was gradually lost sight of, and remains
only in the word spinster in mod. English. Traces of the restriction
remain, however, in semp-ster-ess or sempstress, and song-ster-ess OT
songstress, where the F. fem. suffix -ess has been superadded to the E.
fem. suffix -ster. The restriction was strictly observed in AS., and is
retained in Dutch; cf. Du. spin-ster, a spinster, zangster, a female
singer (fem. of zanger), bedriegster, a female impostor (fem. of
bedrieger), inwoonster, a female inhabitant (fem. of inwoner); &c.
y. Examples in AS. are the following: ‘Textrix, webbestre,’ a
webster, female weaver, fem. of ‘Textor, webba,’ answering to
Chaucer’s webbe (Prol. 364), and the name Webb. ‘ Citharista, hear-
pestre, a female harper, fem. of ‘ Citharedus, hearpere,’ a harper ;
Voc. 190. 6. So also: ‘Fidicen, fidelere; Fidicina, jipelestre ;
Saltator, hleapere; Saltatrix, hleapestre;’ id. 311. 24, 32. A strik-
ing example is afforded by AS. witegestre, a prophetess, Luke, ii. 36,
the word being almost always used in the masc. form witega, a
prophet. See further under Spin.
SPIRACLE, a breathing-hole, minute passage for air. (F.—L.)
ME. spyrakle, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 408.—F. spiracle, ‘a
breathing-hole ;’ Cot.=L. spiraculum, an air-hole; formed with
suffix -cu-lum, from spirdre, to breathe; see Spirit.
SPIRE (1), a tapering body, sprout, point, steeple. (E.) ME.
spire, used of a blade of grass or young shoot just springing out of the
ground. ‘ Thilke spire that in-to a tree shulde wexe,’ Test. of Love,
bk. iii. ch. vy. 1. 9. ‘Oras an ook comth of a litel spyr ;’ Chaucer,
Troilus, ii. 1335; spelt spir, P. Plowman, C. xiii. 180. AS. spir
{rare) ; ‘hreodes spir,’ a spike (or stalk) of a reed, A. 8. Leechdoms,
ii. 266, 1. 10.4-Icel. spira, a spar, a stilt ; Dan. spire, a germ, sprout ;
Swed. spira, a sceptre, a pistil; G. spiere, a spar; Westphal.
spir, a blade of grass. Distinct from Spire (2); but allied to
Spike (1), Spile. Der. spire, verb, to germinate, spring up,
Spenser, F. Ὁ. iii. 5. 52, spelt spyer in Palsgrave; spir-y, spelt spirie
in Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 592.
SPIRE (2), a coil, wreath. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘ Amidst his circling
spires;” Milton, P. L. ix. 502. [Perhaps directly from L. spira.] =
Ἐς, spire, ‘a rundle, round, or circle, a turning or winding compasse ;’
Cot.=L. spira, a coil, twist, wreath.<Gk. σπεῖρα, a coil, wreath.
For *onép-ya. From 4/SPER, to wind or twine round; whence also
Gk. σπυρ-ίς, a basket, ondp-rov, arope. Der. spir-al, from F. spiral,
circling,’ Cot., L. spiralis ; spir-al-ly ; spir-y, Dryden, tr. of Virgil,
Georgic i. 1. 334.
SPIRIT, breath; the soul, a ghost, enthusiasm, liveliness, a
spirituous liquor. (F.—L.) The lit. sense is ‘ breath,’ but the word
is hardly to be found with this sense in English. ME. spirit,
Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 1. 203; pl. spirites, Chaucer, C. T.
1371 (A 1369).—OF. espirit (Littré), later esprit, ‘the spirit, soul,’
Cot.=L. spiritum, acc. of spiritus, breath, spirit.—L. spirare, to
breathe. Der. spirit-ed, Hen. V, iii. 5. 21; spirit-ed-ly, -ness; spirit-
less, 2 Hen. IV, i. 1. 703 spirit-stirring, Oth. iii. 3. 3525 spirit-u-al,
from Εἰ spirituel, ‘ spirituall,’ Cot., from L. spiritu-alis, formed with
suffix -alis from spiritu-, decl. stem of spiritus ; spiritu-al-ly; spiritu-
al-i-ty, ME. spiritualte, P. Plowman, B. v. 148; spiritu-al-ise, spiritu-
al-ism, spiritu-al-ist ; spiritu-ous. Also (from L, spirare) a-spire, con-
spire, ex-pire (for ex-spire), in-spire, per-spire, re-in-spire, re-spire,
su-spire, tran-spire; also di-spirit; and see spir-a-cle, spright-ly.
Doublet, sprite.
SPIRT, the same as Spurt, q. v.
SPIT (1), a pointed piece of wood, skewer, iron prong on which
meat is roasted. (E.) ME. spite, spyte. ‘And yspited him thoru-out
mid an yrene spite;’ Rob. of Glouc. p. 207; 1. 4213. See also
Octovian Imperator, 1. 122, in Weber, Met. Romances, vol. iii. =
AS. spitu, a spit; ‘ Veru, spitu;’ Voc. 127. 11; later spite, id. 548.
25.4-Du. spit; Dan. spid; Swed. spett; MHG. spiz, G. spiess, a spit.
Teut. type *spituz,m. Cf. G. spitze, a point, top. Der. spit, verb,
ME. spiten, spyten, asin Rob. of Glouc., above. Also prov. E, spit,
the depth a spade goes in digging, about a foot (Halliwell), with
reference to the point, i. e. blade of the spade; cf. AS. spittan, to dig,
spit-el, a kind of spade, Du. spitten, to dig (lit. to spit) ; quite distinct
from spade.
SPIT (2), to throw out from the mouth. (E.) Spelt spet in Baret
(1580). ME. spitten, P. Plowman, B. x. 40; pt. t. spette, Wyclif,
John, ix. 6. AS. spittan, Matt. xxvii. 30 (Rushworth MS.) ; akin to
sp®tan, with the same sense, pt. t. sp#tte, Mark, xv. 19, John, ix. 6;
as if froma Teut. root *speit-. Apparently allied to Icel. spyta;
SPLENDOR, SPLENDOUR 589
Dan. spytte, to spit, to sputter; Swed. spotta; prov. G. spiitzen (with
which cf. G. spucken in the same sense); though these are from
a Teut. base *spzt-, allied to Spout. Perhaps both these Teut. bases
are allied to an Idg. root *spya; whence E. spew. See Brugmann,
§§ 279 (1), 299, 507. Der. spitt-le, spyttell in Palsgrave, formerly
spettle (Baret), also spatéle, spelt spatyll in Palsgrave, spotil in Wyclif,
John, ix. 6; AS. spatl, John, ix. 6; spitt-oon, not in Todd’s Johnson,
an ill-coined word. § Note that spat is not the orig. past tense of
spit, but is due to AS. s¢@¢te above, used with the same sense as the
true pt. t. spit (Meas. for Meas. ii. 1. 86).
SPITCH-COCK, orig. to split a fat eel, and broil it on a skewer.
(G.) The pp. spitch-cock’d occurs in 1651, in T. Cartwright, The
Ordinary ; in Dodsley’s Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, xii. 239. See exx. in
Palmer, Folk-Etym., where it occurs also as spits-cocked. Here spits-
is from MHG. spiz, a spit, as in MHG. spiz-braten, G. spiess-braten,
meat roasted on a spit; and G. kochen, to cook. It merely means
‘ spit-cooked ;’ cf. Du. spit-aal, ‘a spitch-eel ;’ Kalisch.
SPITE, vexation, grudge, ill-will. (F.—L.) ME. spyt; ‘boute
spyt more ’= without further injury, Gawayn and Grene Knight, 1444.
It is merely a contraction of ME. despit, mod, E. despite. This is
best shown by the phrase in spite of, formerly in despite of, as in Shak.
Merry Wives, v. 5. 132, Much Ado, ii. 1. 398, iii. 2. 68, 111. 4. 89, &c.
So also we have sfort for disport, spend for dispend, ME. spenser for
dispenser. And observe ME, spitous, Rom. of the Rose, 979, as a
form of despitous, Chaucer, C. T. 6343 (D 761). See further under
Despite. Der. spite, verb, Much Ado, v. 2. 70; spiteful, Macb.
lil. 5. 12, short for despiteful, As You Like It, ν. 2. 86; spite-ful-ly,
-7ess.
SPITTLE (1), saliva. (E.) See Spit (2).
SPITTLE (2), a hospital. (F.—L.) ‘A spittle, hospitall, or
lazarhouse ;’ Baret, 1580. ME. spitel. Spitel-vuel =hospital evil, i.e.
leprosy ; Ancren Riwle, p. 148, 1. 8.— OF. ospital (Burguy), the same
as OF. hospital, a hospital; see Hospital. 4 The loss of initial ο
must have been due to an E. accent on the ἢ; cf. W. yspytty, a spittle
(from E.) ; Icel. spital. Doublet, hospital.
SPLASH, to splash about water or mud, to bespatter. (Low G.)
‘To splash, to dash any liquid upon ; Splashy, wet, watry ;’ Bailey’s
Dict., vol. i. ed. 1731. Coined by prefixing s (OF. es-=L. ex, used
for emphasis, as in sqguench (Richardson) for guench), to plash, in the
same sense. ‘ Plashy waies, wet under foot ; to plash in the dirt; all
plash’d, made wet and dirty; to plasha traveller, to dash or strike up
the dirt upon him;” MS. Lansd. 1033, by Bp. White Kennett, died
A.D.1728. Stanyhurst (1582) has plash for ‘a splashing noise ;” tr.
of Virgil (Ain, i. 115), ed. Arber, p. 21,1. 17. ME. plasche, a pool;
Allit. Morte Arthure, 2798. Cf. Low G. flasken, tosplash ; short for
*platsken, as shown under Plash (1), q.v.; cf. MDu. plasch, a pool.
Der. splash, sb.; splash-y; splash-board, a board (in a vehicle) to
keep off splashes.
SPLAY, to slope or slant (in architecture); to dislocate a
shoulder-bone. (F.—L.) A contraction of display; cf. sport for
disport, spite for despite, spend for dispend, &c. The sense ‘to dis-
locate’ is due to the fact that display formerly meant to carve or cut
up a crane or other bird, by disjointing it and so displaying it upon
the dish in several pieces. ‘ Dysplaye that crane;’ ‘splaye that
breme ;” The Boke of Keruynge, pr. in 1513, repr. in 1867; see The
Babees Boke, ed. Furnivall, p. 265. In architecture, to display is to
open out, hence to slope the side of a window, &c. ‘And for to
splaye out hir leves on brede;’ Lydgate, Complaint of Black Knight,
1. 33. ‘Here colere splayed,’ her collar displayed; Cov. Myst.
p. 242. See further under Display. Der. splay-foot-ed, in Minsheu,
and in Ford, The Broken Heart, Act v. sc. 1. 1. 13, i.e. with the foot
displayed or turned outward, as if dislocated at the knee-joint ; short-
ened to splay-foot, as in ‘ splay-foot rhymes,’ Butler, Hudibras, pt. i.
ce. 3. 1. 1923 splay-mouth, a mouth opened wide in scorn, a grimace,
Dryden, tr. of Persius, sat. 1, 1. 116.
SPLEEN, a non-glandular, highly vascular organ situate in the
abdomen, supposed by the ancients to be the seat of anger and ill-
humoured melancholy. (L.—Gk.) ME. splen, Gower, C. A. iii. 99 ;
bk. vii. 449.—L. spléxu.—Gk. σπλήν, the spleen.+Skt. plihan-,
plihan-, the spleen (with loss of initial 5). The true L. word is liéz
(with loss of initial sp). Brugmann, 1. § 549 (c). Der. splen-et-ic,
from L. splénéticus ; splen-et-ic-al, splen-et-ic-al-ly; splen-ic, from L,
splénicus 2 spleen-it-ive, Hamlet, v. 1. 285; spleen-ful, 2 Hen. VI, iii.
2. 128; spleen-y, Hen. VIII, iii. 2. go.
SPLENDOR, SPLENDOUR, magnificence, brilliance. (L.;
or F.—L.) Spelt splendor in Minsheu, ed. 1627. According to
Richardson, it is spelt sp/erdour in Ben Jonson, Elegy on Lady Jane
Pawlet, in Underwoods, no. 100, 1. 32.—F. splendeur, ‘splendor,
light ;’ Cot.=—L. splenddrem, acc. of splendor, brightness. [Or di-
rectly from L. nom. splendor.| —L. splendére, to shine. Root unknown.
Der. splend-id, Milton, P. L. ii. 252, directly from L. splendidus,
SPLENT
shining, bright; splend-id-ly. Also splend-ent, spelt splendant in
Fairfax, tr. of Tasso, Ὁ. viii. st. 84, 1. 3, but from L. splendent-, stem
of pres. part. of splendére. And see re-splendent.
SPLENT, the same as Splint, q. v.
SPLEUCHAN, a tobacco-pouch. (Gael.) In Burns, Death and
Dr. Hornbook, st. 14.—Gael. spliuchan, a tobacco-pouch; Irish
spliuchan, a bladder, pouch, purse.
SPLICH, to join two rope-ends by interweaving the strands.
(Du.) In Phillips, ed.1706, Like many sea-terms, borrowed from
Dutch.—MDu. splissenx, ‘to wreathe or lace two ends together, as of
aroape;’ Hexham. So named from the splitting of the rope-ends
into separate strands before the splicing is begun; from Du. sflitser,
to splice (which is really the older form). Formed by the addition
of s to split-, weak grade of Du. sflijten, to split, MDu. sflijten
(Hexham). See Split. Cf. Dan. splidse, spledse, to splice (voiced
form of Du. splitsen) ; splitte, to split. Cf. Swed. splissa, to splice ;
G. splissen, to splice, spliss, a cleft, spleissen, to split. Der. splice,
sb., Phillips, ed. 1706.
SPLINT, SPLENT, a thin piece ofsplit wood. (Scand.) For-
merly usually splent. ‘ A little splent to staie a broken finger ;’ Baret
(1580). ‘Splent for an house, Jaite;’ Palsgrave. It also meant a
thin steel plate, forarmour. ‘ Splent, harnesse for the arme, garde de
bras;’ Palsgrave. ME. splent, Lanfrank, Cirurgie, p. 63; Morte
Arthure, ed. Brock, 2061; answering to OF. esplente, a thin steel
plate (Godefroy).—Swed. splint, a kind of spike; esp. (in nautical
language) a forelock, i.e. a flat piece of iron driven through the end
ofa bolt, to secure it. Soalso Dan. splint, asplinter; NFries, splint,
splenn.++Low G. splinte, a forelock; G. splint, a thin piece of iron
or steel, a forelock, perhaps borrowed, Cf. Swed. splinta, to splinter ;
ultimately allied to Dan. splitte, Swed. splitta, to split. See Split.
Der. splint-er, Beaum. and Fletcher, Maid in the Mill, Act i. sc. 3
(Ismenia), to split into shivers, a frequentative form (with the usual
frequentative suffix -er) from Swed. splinta, to split, shiver; we
actually find the frequentative form in Dan, splintre, to splinter, Du.
splinteren, to splinter. Also spflint-er, sb., a shiver, small piece or
chip, Cor. iv. 5. 115, with which cf. Du. and EFries. splinter, a
splinter, splinterig, full of splinters; splint-er-y, adj. Also splint-
armour, armour made with long and narrow overlapping plates.
‘SPLIT, to cleave lengthwise, to tear asunder, rend apart. (Du.)
Spelt split in Minsheu, ed. 1627; Shak. Winter’s Tale, i. 2. 349.
[Palsgrave has: ‘I splette a fysshe a-sonder, 76 ouwers ;’ but this 15
rather ME. splatten, to lay open, lay flat, asin Palladius on Husbandry,
b. ii. 1. 123. ]—MDu. splitten, to split ; cf. Dan. splitte, to split; Swed.
dial. splitta, to disentangle or separate yarn (Rietz). From the weak
grade split- of the Teut. strong verb *spleitan-, as seen in OFries.
splita, Westphal. splitan, Du. splijten, tosplit; G. spleissen. We also
find Dan. split, Du. spleet, a slit, split, rent, Swed. split, discord (a
sense not unknown to English), G. spletsse, a splinter, a shiver, MDu.
splete, ‘a split or a cleft’ (Hexham). Compare also prov. E. sprit,
to split, Swed. spricka, to split. Der. split, sb. ; also splint, q.v.,
splice, αν.
SPLUTTER, to speak hastily and confusedly. (E.) Added by
Todd to Johnson ; and see Halliwell. A by-form of spuiter, which
is the frequentative, with the usual suffix -er, of spout, to talk fluently,
orig. to squirt out; see Sputter and Spout. In the sense ‘to
talk,’ the latter word occurs in Beaum. and Fletcher, The Coxcomb,
Act iv. sc. 4: ‘ Pray, spout some French, son.’ To splutter is to talk
so fast as to be unintelligible. The old Leicest. word spiréle, to
sprinkle, used by Drayton (Evans) is similarly formed as the fre-
quentative of Spurt. Cf. Low G. sprutten, to spout, spurt, sprinkle.
SPOIL, to plunder, pillage. (F.-L.) ΜΕ. spoilen, Wyclif,
Mark, iii. 27. [The sb. spoile occurs even earlier, in King Alisaunder,
986.]—F. spolier, ‘to spoile, despoile ;’ Cot.=—L. spoliare, to strip
of spoil, despoil.—L. spolium, spoil, booty; the skin or hide of an
animal stripped off, and hence the dress of a slain warrior stripped
from him. Root uncertain. Some have connected it with Gk.
σκῦλον, spoil. q It is probable that spoil has been to some
extent confused with its compound de-spoil, q.v. Cf. ‘ Dyspoylyn or
Spoylyn, Spolio;’ Prompt. Parv. Der. spoil, sb., ME. spoile, as
above ; spotl-er ; spoli-at-ion, from F. spoliation, ‘a spoiling,’ Cot.,
from L. acc. spoliationem ; spoli-ate (rare), from pp. spoliatus.
SPOKE, one of the bars of a wheel, from the nave to the rim.
(E.) ME. spoke, Chaucer, C. T. 7839 (D 2257). AS. spaca, pl.
spacan ; " Radii, spacan,’ Voc. 106. 28. [The change from ἃ to long
o is perfectly regular; cf. sfax, a stone, ban, a bone.]--Du. speek,
a spoke; G. speiche, OHG, speicha. Teut. types *spaikon-, *spaikon- ;
allied by gradation to spike; see Spike (1). Der. spoke-shave
(Palsgrave).
SPOKESMAN, one who speaks in behalf of others. (F.) In
Shak. Two Gent. ii. 1. 152; and in Exod. iy. 16 (A.V.). The form
ci the word is hardly explicable ; we should rather have expected to
590
SPORADIC
meet with speak-s-man, formed by analogy with hunt-s-man, or else
with speech-man. As it is, the pp. spoke (for spoken) has been sub-
stituted for the infin. speak; see Speak and Man,
SPOLIATION. (F.—L.) See under Spoil.
SPONDEE, in classical poetry, a foot containing two long sylla-
bles. (L.—Gk.) Called spondeus in Puttenham, Art of Eng. Poesie,
ed. 1589, pt. ii. c. 3. Ben Jonson has: ‘ The steadie spondges’ to
translate ‘ Spondeos stabiles’ in his tr. of Horace’s Art of Poetry,
1, 266. Englished from L. spondeus or spondéus. = Gk. σπονδεῖος, in
metre, a spondee, so called because slow solemn melodies, chiefly in
this metre, were used at σπονδαί. «« ΟΚ. σπονδαί, a solemn treaty
or truce; pl. of σπονδή, a drink-offering, libation to the gods (such
as were made at a treaty).—Gk. σπονδ-, 2nd grade of σπένδειν, to
pour out, make a libation. Perhaps allied to Sponsor. Brug-
mann, i. § 143, ii. 8 802, Der. spond-a-ic, L. spondaicus, Gk.
σπονδειακός.
SPONGE, the porous framework of an animal, remarkable for
sucking up water. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. sponge, Ancren Riwle,
p- 262, 1. 2.—OF. esponge, ‘a spunge, Cot. Mod. F. éfonge.—L.
spongia, = Gk, σπογγιά, a sponge; another form of σπόγγος (Attic
apoyyos), a sponge.L. fungus, a fungus, from its spongy nature.
4 Also AS. sponge, Matt. xxvii. 48, directly from Latin. Der.
sponge, verb; spong-y, spong-i-ness; also sponge-cake; spunk, q.v.
Allied to fungus.
SPONSOR, a surety, godfather or godmother. (L.) In Phillips,
ed. 1706,—L. sponsor, a surety, one who promises for another ; cf.
spons-us, pp. οἵ spondére, to promise. Probably allied to Gk.
σπονδαί, a treaty, truce, and σπένδειν, to pour a libation, as when
making a solemn treaty; see Spondee, Der. sponsor-i-al, sponsor-
ship. And see spouse. Also (from L. spondére) de-spond, re-spond,
cor-re-spond.
SPONTANEOUS, voluntary, acting on one’s own impulse.
(L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Englished from L. spontaneus,
willing; by change of -xs into -ows, as in arduous, strenuous, &c.
Formed with suffix -a@zeus from spont-, appearing in the gen. spontis
and abl. sfonte of a lost sb. *spons. Sponte is used to mean " of one’s
own accord;’ and spontis occurs in the phrase su@ spontis esse, to be
at one’s own disposal, to be one’s own master. Der. spontaneous-ly ;
spontane-i-ty, a coined word,
SPONTOON, a half-pike formerly used by officers of infantry.
(F.—Ital.—L.) ‘You have never a spontoon in the house?’ Foote,
Mayor of Garrat, i. I.—F. sponton, esponton (Hatzfeld).—Ital. spon-
tone, ‘a gleaue, a iauelin,a partisan;’ Florio. It was orig. a blunted
weapon. = Ital, spontare, ‘ to abate the edge or point of anie weapon ;’
Florio. — Late L. *expunctare, to blunt a point (Korting). —L. ex, off,
away; and punctum, a point. See Ex- and Point,
SPOOL, a reel for winding yarn on. (MDu.) ME. sfole, Prompt.
Parv. p. 470; also in W. de ibbesworth, in Wright’s Voc. i. 157.
Imported from the Netherlands, with the Flemish weavers. —MDnu.
spoele (Hexham); Du. 5ῤοεῖ, a spool, quill; Low G. spole (Bremen
Worterbuch).+-Swed. spole, a spool, spoke; Dan. spole; ἃ. spule, a
spool, bobbin, quill; OHG. spuolo, spuola. Perhaps allied to Icel.
spolr (base spal-), a rail, a bar.
SPOOM, to run before the wind. (L.) An old sea-term; see ex-
amples in Nares. Lit, ‘to throw up foam’ by running through the
water. As Nares remarks, it means to sail steadily rather than
swiftly. From spume, foam (L. spina); see Spume. Corruptly
also spoon ; ‘ spooning before the wind,’ Capt. Smith, Works, p. 878.
Hence spoondrift>spindrift. See Spin-drift.
SPOON, an instrument for supping liquids. (E.) The orig. sense
was simply ‘a chip,’ then a thin slice of wood, lastly a spoon (at
first wooden). ME. spon (with long 0), Chaucer, C. T. 10916
(F 602). AS. spéx, a chip, a splinter of wood; see examples in
Bosworth. In Voc. 149. 30, the L. fomes, a chip for firewood, is
glossed by ‘gesw&lud spoon, vel tynder,’ i.e. a kindled chip, or
tinder. Du. spaan, a chip, splint; Icel. spann, spdnn, a chip, shaving,
spoon; Dan. spaan, a chip; Swed. spdn,a chip, splint; G. spahn,
OHG. span, a very thin board, chip, splint, shaving, B. The Teut.
type is *spénuz, a chip. Cf. Gk. σφήν, a wedge. Der. spoon-bill,
a bird; spoon-ful, spelt spoorefull in Minsheu, ed. 1627, sponeful in
Sir T. More, Works, p. 617 (R.). ME, sponful, in MS. Harl. 2378,
p- 25 (see Henslow, Med. Wks., p. 78); the pl. is spoonfuls, see exx.
in R.; spoon-meat, Com, of Errors, iv. 3. 61. Brugmann, i. § 552.
SPOOR, a trail. (Du.) Modern; not in Todd’s Johnson. Intro-
duced from the Cape of Good Hope.=— Du. spoor, a spur; also a trace,
track, trail. Cf. Low G. spaor,a spoor (Danneil). Allied to Speir
and Spur.
SPORADIC, scattered here and there. (Gk.) ‘ Sporadici Morbi,
diseases that are rife in many places;’ Phillips, ed. 1706, _ It thus
arose asa medical term. The Late L. sporadicus is merely borrowed
from Gk. σποραδικός, scattered. Gk. σποραδ-, stem of σπυράς,
SPORE
scattered.—Gk. σπορ-, 2nd grade of σπείρειν, to sow, to scatter
abroad. See Sperm.
SPORE, a minute grain which serves as a seed in ferns, &c.
(Gk.) Modern and botanical.—Gk. σπόρος, seed-time ; also, a seed.
- Gk. σπορ-, 2nd grade of σπείρειν, to sow. See above.
SPORRAN, a leathern pouch, worn with the kilt. (Gael. —L.—
Gk.) In Scott’s Rob Roy, c. xxxiv.=— Gael. sporan, a purse, pouch
worn with the kilt; Irish sparan, a purse, a pouch; Mlrish sboran ;
for *s-burr<*burs, from L. bursa, a purse, from Gk. βύρση, a hide;
see Purse (Macbain).
SPORT, play, mirth, merriment, jest. (F.—L.) ‘ Sporte, myrthe ;’
Palsgrave, _ Merely a contracted form of disport, desport, by loss of
di- or de-} just as we have splay for display, spend for dispend. Strat-
mann Cites sport as occurring in the Coventry Plays, ed. Halliwell,
p. 185. Disport is in Chaucer, C.T. 777 (A 775); see further under
Disport. Der. sport, verb, spelt sporte (also disporte) in Palsgrave ;
sport-ing; sport-ful, Tw. Nt. v. 3733. sport-ful-ly, sport-ful-ness ;
sport-ive, All’s Well, iii. 2. 109, sport-ive-ly, -ness3 sport-s-man
(coined like hunt-s-man), sport-s-man-ship.
SPOT, a blot, mark made by wet, a discoloured place, small
space, stain. (E.) ME. spot, Prompt. Parv. ; pl. spottes, P. Plowman,
B, xili. 315. [1 suspect that spa¢ in Ancren Riwle, p. 104, note e, is
a misprint for swat.| Prob. a native word; cf. EF ries. spot, a spot,
MDu. spotten, to spot, stain. Also Norw. spott, a spot, also a small
piece of land, Icel. spotti, spottr, a small piece, bit. Perhaps also
allied to Swed. spots, spittle, spotta, to spit. (Distinct from G. spoét,
mockery, derision.) Apparently from Teut. *sput-, weaker grade of
*spiitan-, to.spout. See Spout. Der. spot, verb, chiefly in the pp.
spott-ed, as in Spenser, F. Ὁ. i. 6. 26, Wyclif, Gen. xxx. 35; spott-y;
spott-i-ness ; spot-less, Rich. II, i. 1. 178, spot-less-ly, spot-less-ness.
And see spatt-er.
SPOUSE, a husband or wife. (F.—L.) One of the oldest words
in the language of F. origin. ME. spuse, fem. sb., O. Eng. Homilies,
ed. Morris, iit. 13, 1. 5; the comp. sb. spiskad, spousehood, also
occurs in the 11th century, O. Eng. Hom. i. 143, 1. 24, having
already acquired an E, suffix. The form is rather fem. than masc.
“- OF. espous (Burguy), later espoux (cpoux), ‘a spouse, bridegroome,’
Cot. ; fem. form espouse (épouse), ‘a spouse, a wife;’ id. The former
answers to L. sponsum, acc. of sponsus, a betrothed, a bridegroom ;
the latter to sporsa, fem., a betrothed woman.—L. sponsus, pro-
mised, pp. of spondére, to promise; see Sponsor. Der. espouse,
verb, q.v.; also spous-al, ME. spousaile, Gower, C. A. i. 181; bk.
ii. 642; a doublet of espousal, ME. espousaile, Gower, C. A. ii. 322;
bk. v. 58155 see under espouse.
SPOUT, to throw out a liquid violently, to rush out violently as
a liquid from a pipe. (E.) ME. spouten, Chaucer, C. T.. 4907
(B 487). Prob, from an AS. form *spi/an, not found. But cf. Du.
yut-spuiten, to spout out (with ui= AS. a, by rule); also Swed. sputa,
given by Widegren as equivalent to Swed. sprufa, to squirt, spout,
spurt; MDu. spuyten, ‘to spout out water,’ Hexham. Also Icel.
spyta, to spit, sputter. The Teut. type is *spitan-, to spit out, with
a weaker grade *sput-; see Franck. q It is probable that spout
is a by-form of sprout; compare D. spuit, a spout, squirt, syringe,
fire-engine, with Swed. spruta, a squirt, syringe, fire-engine. See
Sprout, For loss of r after sp, cf. speak. Der. spout, sb., ME.
spoute, spelt spow/e in Prompt. Parv. And see sputter.
SPRACK, SPRAG, quick, lively. (Scand.) See Spark (2).
SPRAIN, to overstrain the muscles ofa joint. (F.—L.) A late
word, _ Phillips, ed. 1706, gives it as asb. The older word, with
much the same sense is s/rain ; and sprain is related to OF. espreindre
just as strain is to OF. estreindre. — OF, espreign-, a stem of espreindre,
‘to. press, wring, strain, squeeze out, thrust together;’ Cot. Mod.
¥. épreindre. = L. exprimere, to press out ; whence espreivdre is formed
by analogy with F. forms trom L. verbs in -ingere.—L. ex, out; and
premere, to press: see Ex- and Press. And cf. Express. Der.
sprain, sb.; cf. OF. espreinte, ‘a pressing, straining,’ Cot., from the
pp. espreint,
SPRAT, a small sea-fish. (E.) ME. sprot or sprotte. ‘Hec
epimera, a sprott,’ in a list of fishes; Voc. 704. 39; also ‘ Emiperus,
sprot;’ Voc. 580. 6. AS. sprott(Toller). Cf. AS. sprot, a sprout, twig.
+Du sprot, ‘a sprat, a fish;’ Hexham. He also gives ‘ sprot, a
sprout, or a sprigg of a tree, or the younge of every thing ;” which
is the same word. ‘Sprat, a small fish, considered as the fry of the
herring ;’ Wedgwood. Cf. prov. E. sprats, smallwood (Halliwell) ;
lit. sprouts, All from Teut. *sprut- (AS. sprot-), weak grade of
*spritan-, to sprout; with the sense of ‘fry,’ or young one. See
Sprout.
SPRAWL, to toss about the limbs, stretch the body carelessly |,
when lying. (E.) ME. spraulen, Gower, C, A. ii. 5; bk. iv. 111
(footnote) ; Havelok, 475.
palpitet.’4+Norw. sprala, Dan, spralle, spralde, Swed. dial. sprala,
AS. spreawlian; Toller cites ‘Spreawlige, ||
SPRINGAL 591
spralla, NFries. sprawle. Perhaps allied to Swed. sprai¢la, to sprawl;
or to Icel. sprokla, spraukla, to kick with the feet, to sprawl. If
so, a dental or guttural has been lost before 1.
SPRAY (1), foam tossed with the wind. (Low G.) ‘Commonly
written spry. ‘‘ Winds raise some of the salt with the spray;”
Arbuthnot ;” Johnson’s Dict. But no example of the spelling spry
is given,.and it is not easy to find one. Bailey has spray (1735).
From Low G. spre, a slight drizzle (Schambach); in Coburg, spre;
cf. Bavar. spreen, to drizzle (Schmeller), Thiiringen sprdken (Hertel),
MHG. spra@jen, sprewen; allied to G. spriihen, to drizzle, to form
spray, Du. sproeien (see, Franck).
SPRAY (2), a sprig or small shoot of a tree. (E.) ME. spray,
Chaucer, C. T. 13700 (B 1960); Floriz and Blancheflur, ed. Lumby,
275; answering to AS. *spreg, allied to sprec,a shoot, spray; cf.
Dan. sprag, a sprig, spray (Molbech) ; Swed. dial. spragge, spragg, a
spray (Rietz). B, Allied to Icel. sprek, a stick (whence sméa-sprek,
small sticks, twigs, sprays) ; AS. sprec, a shoot; ‘ Sarmentum, spraec;’
Voc. 44. 29. Cf. Lithuan. sprogti, to crackle, split, sprout or bud
as a tree; whence sproga, a rift, a sprig or spray of a tree, spurgas,
a knot or eye ina tree. Also Gk. ἀσπάραγος, asparagus, of which
the orig. sense was perhaps merely ‘sprout’ or shoot. See Brug-
mann, i. 523,531. Doublet, sprig (and perhaps asparagus).
SPREAD, to scatter abroad, stretch, extend, overlay, emit, diffuse.
(E.) ME. spreden, pt. t. spradde, spredde, pp. sprad, spred, P. Plow-
man, B, iii. 308; pt. t. spradde, Gower, C. A. i. 1823; bk. ii. 684.
AS. sprédan, to spread out, extend, a rare word. It occurs as
gespraed, imper. sing. = extend thou, stretch out, in the Northumb.
version of Matt. xii. 13; and the comp. ofer-sprédan, to spread over,
is in the Rule of St. Bennet, ed. Schroer, p. 109, 1. 7.4Du. spreiden,
to spread, scatter, strew; Low G. spreden, spreén, spreien; G.
spreiten, ‘Teut. type *spraidjan-, a causal form, from the older base
SPREID, to become extended, spread out. Der. spread, sb. ;
over-spread.
SPREBE, a merry frolic. (Scand.?) Modern and colloquial. Sir
W. Scott, has spree, St. Ronan’s Well, ch. xx. § 11; also spray,
Introd. to Legend of Montrose. Cf. Irish spre, a spark, flash of fire,
animation, spirit. Cf. Irish sprac, a spark, life, motion, spraic,
strength, vigour, sprightliness, Gael. spraic, vigour, exertion, spracadh,
sprightliness ; not Celtic, but from Icel. sprekr, lively. See Spry.
See Notes on E. Etym., p. 278.
SPRIG, a spray, twig, small shoot of a tree. (E.) ME. sprigge,
a rod for beating children, stick ; P. Plowman, C. vi. 139 (footnote).
Allied to AS. sprec, a spray, twig; Voc. 44. 29.4 Icel. sprek, a stick ;
Low G. sprikk, a sprig, twig, esp. a small dry twig or stick; EFries.
sprikke, sprik, a stick, twig. Allied to Dan. sprag, a spray (Molbech) ;
see further under Spray (2).
SPRIGHTLY, SPRITELY, lively. (F.—L. ; with E. suffix.)
The common spelling sprightly is wrong; gh is a purely E. com-
bination, whereas the present. word is French, The mistake was
due to the very common false spelling spright, for sprite, a spirit ;
see Sprite. The sufhx -ly is from AS. -lic, like; see Like. Der.
spright-li-ness.
SPRING, to bound, leap, jump up, start up or forth, issue. (E.)
ME. springen, strong verb, pt. t. sprang, pp. sprungen, sprongen };
Chaucer, C. ΤῸ 13690 (B 1950). AS. springan, sprincan; pt. t.
sprang, Spranc, pp. sprungen. ‘The spelling springan is the usual one,
Matt, ix. 26, But we find sprincd =springs, Alfred, tr. of Boethius,
cap, xxv (lib. iii. met. 2). And in Matt. ix. 26, where the AS.
yersion has ‘pes hlisa sprang ofer eall pat land’=this rumour
spread abroad over all the land, the Northumbrian version has
spranc.$- Du. springen, pt. t. sprong, pp. gesprongen; Icel. springa,
to burst, split; Swed. springa; Dan. springe; G. springen. B. All
from the Teut. type *sprengan-, pt. t. *sprang, pp. *sprunganoz.
Allied to Gk. σπέρχειν, to drive on; Brugmann, i. § 602.
(4/SPERGH.) y- We still say of a cricket-bat that is cracked
or split, that it is sprung; and cf. Prov. E. (Eastern) sprinke, a crack
or flaw (Halliwell), where we even find the original Εἰ, final £; also
Essex sprunk, to crack, split, E. Anglian sprank, a crack; E.D.D.
The sense ‘ to split, burst’ is that of Icel. springa. Der. spring, sb.,
a leap, also the time when young shoots spring or rise out of the
ground, also a source of water that wells up, a crack in a mast, &c.;
spring-y ; spring-bok, a kind of antelope, from Du. bok, a he-goat, a
buck ; sprizg-halt (in horses), Hen. VIII, i. 3. 13; spring-time, AS
You Like It, v. 3. 203 spring-flood, ME. spring-flod, Chaucer, C. Τὶ
11382 (F 1070) ; spring-tide; day-spring, off-spring, well-spring. Also
springe,a snare that is provided with a flexible rod, called a springe
in ME,, as in P. Plowman, B. v. 41. And see sprinkle. 41 To
spring a mine is to cause it to burst; cf. Swed. spranga, to cause to
burst, causal of springa, to burst.
SPRINGAL, a youngster. (E.; with Ἐς suffix.) In Spenser,
F, Ὁ. v.10. 6. Spelt springall in Minsheu; spring-ald in Levins
592 SPRINKLE
(1570). From spring, i.e. to be alert ; with suffix -ald, of F. origin,
from OHG. -wald, as in her-ald, &c.
SPRINKLE, to scatter in small drops. (Du.?) In Spenser,
F.Q. iii. 12. 13. A better form is sprenkle, written sprenkyll by
Palsgrave, and sprenkelyn in the Prompt. Pary. Perhaps borrowed
from Du. sprenkelen, to sprinkle. Cf. G. sprenkeln, to speckle,
from MHG. sprenkel, a spot, allied to Icel. sprekla, Swed. sprakla,
a little spot. See Kluge, s.v. sprenkel (who denies a connexion
with spring). It seems to be allied to Skt. py¢-ni-, speckled ; see
Perch (2). Brugmann,i.509(1). f Distinct from ME. sprengen,
to scatter, cast abroad, sprinkle. ‘Sgrenged ou mid hali water’
=sprinkle yourselves with holy water, Ancren Riwle, p. 16, 1. 9.
From AS. sprengan, to sprinkle, scatter abroad, Matt. xxv. 24,
Exod. xxiv. 8; A.S. Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, i. 264, 1.15. This
sprengan is the causal of AS. springan, to spring, leap abroad,
regularly formed by the change of a (in the pt. t. sprang) to e, as if
for *sprangjan. See Spring. Der. sprinkle, sb., a holy-water
sprinkler, see Spenser, F. Ὁ. iii. 12. 13 5 sprinkl-er.
SPRINT, to run at full speed; see Spurt (2).
SPRIT, a spar set diagonally to extend a fore-and-aft sail. (E.)
The older sense is merely a pole or long rod, and an older spelling
is found in ME. spret. ‘ A spret or an ore’=a sprit or an oar; Will.
of Palerne, 2754; spelt spreot, King Alisaunder, 858. AS. spréot,
a pole. ‘Contus, spréot;’ Voc. 139. 39; cf. 14. 22. ‘ Trudes,
spréotas,’ in a list of things belonging to a ship; id. 166.15. The
orig. sense is ‘a sprout,’ or shoot, hence a branch, pole, &c. Allied
to AS. spriitan, to sprout, cognate with G. spriessen; see further
under Sprout.4Du. spriet, a sprit; MSwed. sprote; Dan. spryd,
spréd. Der. sprit-satl, bow-sprit. Doublet, sprout.
SPRITE, SPRIGHT, a spirit. (F.—L.) The false spelling
spright is common, and is still in use in the derived adj. sprightly.
Spelt sprite in Spenser, F. Ὁ. i. 1. 40, 43; but spright, id. i. 2. 2.
‘Legions of sprights, id. i. 1. 38. ME. sprit, sprite, spryte; ‘the
holy spryte,’ Rich. Coer de Lion, 394.—F. esfrit, ‘ the spirit,’ Cot. =
L. spiritum, acc. of spiritus. It is a doublet of Spirit, q.v. Der.
spright-ly or sprite-ly ; spright-ed, haunted, Cymb. ii. 3.144 ; spright-
ful or sprite-ful, K. John, iv. 2.1773 spright-ful-ly, Rich. II, i. 3. 3;
spright-ing, Temp. 1. 2. 298. Doublet, spirit.
SPROUT, to shoot out germs, burgeon, bud. (E.) Spelt sprut
in Fitzherbert, Husbandry, § 13, 1. 38 (E.D.S.). ME. spruten,
Cursor Mundi, 11216; O. Eng. Homilies, ii. 217, 1. 23. From AS.
spritan, found in the pp. G-sproten; OFris. spriita, strong verb,
pp- spruten, to sprout (Richtofen).--Low G. spriiten, to sprout ;
Du. spruiten; G. spriessen, to sprout, pt. t. spross, pp. gesprossen.
The cognate Swed. spruta is only used in the sense to spout or
squirt out water, and perhaps is the word whence E. spout is derived,
by loss of r; see Spout, Spurt (1). B. All from a Teut. type
*spriitan-, pt. t. *spraut, pp. *sprutanoz. We may also notice that
E. sprout as a sb. is related to Du. spruit, Icel. sproti, G. spross,
a sprout; cf. also AS. sprot, sprota,a sprout ; and that E. sprit, q.v.,
is allied to the same words. Cf. Goth. sprautd, quickly. Der.
sprout, sb. And see spout, sprit, sprat.
SPRUCE, fine, smart, gaily dressed. (F.—G.) In Shak. L. L. L.
y. 1. 14; and in Minsheu, ed. 1627. ‘It was the custom of our an-
cestors, on special occasions, to dress after the manner of particular
countries. The gentlemen who adopted that of Prussia or Spruce
seem, from the description of it, to have been arrayed in a style, to
which the epithet spruce, according to our modern usage, might have
been applied with perfect propriety. Prussian leather (corium
Prusctanum) is called in Baret by the familiar name of spruce;’
Richardson ; see Baret, art. 781. Richardson then quotes from Hall’s
Chron. Hen. VIII, an. 1, ὃ 25, as follows: ‘ And after them came
syr Edward Haward, than Admyral, and wyth hym Syr Thomas
Parre, in doblettes of crimosin veluet, voyded lowe on the backe,
and before to the cannell-bone, lased on the breastes with chaynes of
siluer, and ouer that shorte clokes of crimosyn satyne, and on their
heades hattes after dauncers fashion, with feasauntes fethers in
theim: They were appareyled after the fashion of Prusia or
Spruce.” There may have been special reference to the leather
worn ; the name of spruce was certainly given to the leather because
it came from Prussia. Levins has: ‘ Corium pumicatum, Spruce ;’
col, 182, 1. 14. ‘Spruce leather, corruptly so called for Prussia
leather ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. ‘ Spruce leather, graauw leer, Pruysch
leer,’ i.e. gray leather, or Prussian leather ; Sewel’s Eng.-Du. Dict.,
1749. [E. Miiller objects that it is difficult to see why Prussia
should always be called Spruce, not Pruce, in this particular in-
stance; but the name, once associated with the leather, would easily
remain the same, especially as the etymology may not have been
very obvious to all. It is a greater difficulty to know why the s
should ever have been prefixed, but it may be attributed to the
English fondness for initial s; or it may have arisen from the G.
SPUNK
| das Preussen.| It is sufficient to make sure that Spruce really did
mean Prussia, and really was used instead of Pruce. Of this we
have positive proof as early as the 14th century. ‘ And yf ich sente
| ouer see my seruaunt to brugges, Oper in-to prus my prentys’=and
if I sent my servant over the sea to Bruges, or sent my apprentice to
Prussia ; P. Plowman, C. vii. 279; where two MSS. read spruce for
prus, and one MS. has pruys-lond = Prussian land, the land of Prussia.
In the corresponding passage of P. Plowman, B. xiii. 393, three
MSS. have pruslonde, pruys londe, and pruce-lond respectively; but
a fourth has spruce-land, Pruce is the form in Chaucer, C. T. 53
(a well-known passage), β. Further, we find Sprwys-chyst (Spruce
chest) in Paston Letters, ili. 407, but prowce-kyst in Records of
Nottingham, ii. 86; spruce hutche in the Bury Wills (1493), p. 82,
but pruce hutche (1448), p. 12. And Prussia is called Sprucia as
late as 1614; see Eng. Gamer, ed. Arber, iv. 329, 345. y. We
conclude that to dress sprucely was to dress after the Prussian man-
ner; that Spruce was early used in place of Pruce, particularly with
reference to Prussian leather; and consequently that spruce is due to
OF. Pruce, mod. F. Prusse, Prussia. —G. Preussen, Prussia (or from
an older form of the same). Der. spruce-ly, spruce-ness.
SPRUCE-BEER, a kind of beer. (G.; confused with F. and E.)
‘ Spruce-beer, a kind of physical drink, good for inward bruises ;’
Phillips, ed. 1706. ‘ Spruce-beer, and the beer of Hambur ;’ Colyn
Blowbol’s Testament, 332, in Hazlitt, E. Eng. Popular Poetry, i. 106.
‘ Essence of spruce is obtained from the young shoots of the black
spruce fir... . Spruce beer is brewed from this essence. ... The
black beer of Dantzig is similarly made from the young shoots of
another variety of fir;” Eng. Cycl., Supp. to Arts and Sciences.
“A decoction of the young shoots of spruce and silver fir was much
in use on the shores of the Baltic as a remedy in scorbutic, gouty,
and rheumatic complaints. The sprouts from which it was made
were called sprossen in German and jopen in Dutch, and the de-
coction itself sprossen-bier [in German] or jopenbier [in Dutch].
From the first of these is spruce-beer. See Beke in N.andQ. Aug. 3,
1860. And doubtless the spruce-sir, G. sprossenjichte, takes its name
as the fir of which the sprouts are chiefly used for the foregoing
purpose, and not from being brought from Prussia, as commonly
supposed ; ” Wedgwood. B. The above explanation may be ad-
mitted; but with the addition that the reason why the G. word
sprossen-bier was turned into spruce-beer in English is precisely
because it was commonly known that it came from Prussia; and
since sprossen-bier had no sense in English and was not translated
into sprouts-beer, it was natural to call it Spruce-beer, i.e. Prussian
beer. The facts, that Spruce meant Prussia as early as the 14th
century, and that spruce or spruce-leather was already in use to signify
Prussian leather, have been proved in the article above; see Spruce.
Thus spruce-beer for sprossen-bier Was no mere corruption, but a
deliberate substitution. Accordingly, we find in Evelyn’s Sylva,
ch. 22, the remark: ‘For masts, &c., those [firs] of Prussia which
we call Spruce.’ y. With this understanding, we may admit that
spruce-beer is one of the very few words in English which are derived
immediately from German. = G. sprossenbier, spruce-beer, lit. ‘sprouts-
beer;’ ἃ. sprossenfichte, spruce-fir ; sprossenessenz, spruce-wine. —G.
sprossen, pl. of sprosse,a sprout, cognate with E. sprout; and bier,
cognate with E. beer; see Sprout and Beer. Note also Du. joopen-
bier, “ spruce-beer;’ Sewel’s Du. Dict. ed. 1754. The word spruce=
Prussia, is French, from G. (das) Preussen, as shown above.
SPRY, active, nimble, lively. (E.) Added by Todd to Johnson.
Given by Halliwell as a Somersetsh. word, but general ; see E. Ὁ. D.
Perhaps E. Cf. Swed. dial. sprygg, very lively, skittish (as a horse),
Rietz; allied to Swed. dial. sprag, spradk, or spraker, spirited,
mettlesome. Compare also prov. E. sprag (Halliwell) ; and sprack.
active, a Wiltshire word. See Spree and Spark (2).
SPUD, an instrument for weeding. (Scand.) See E.D. Ὁ. It
formerly also meant a knife or dagger; see Ναγεβ. ME. spudde,
‘cultellus vilis;’ Prompt. Parv. Prob. from Dan. spyd, MDan.
spyd, spjud ; cognate with Swed. spjut, Icel. spjot, a spear, lance.+
G. spiess, a lance. 41 Distinct from Spit (1).
SPUE, the same as Spew, q.v.
SPUME, foam. (L.) Not common. ME. spume, Gower, C. A.
ii. 265; bk. v. 4122.—L. spiima, foam. For *spotma; Brugmann,
i. § yor. Allied to Skt. phéna-, foam, Russ. piena, foam, AS. fam ;
see Foam. Der. spoom, verb, q.v.; pum-ice,g.v.; pounce (2), q.V.
Doublet, foam.
SPUNK, tinder; hence, a match, spark, spirit, mettle. (C.—L.
—Gk.) Also sponk; see examples in Jamieson and Halliwell. ‘In
spunck or tinder ;’ Stanyhurst, tr. of Virg. A®n. i. 175; ed. Arber,
p- 23. The orig. sense is tinder or touchwood.= Irish sponc, Gael.
spong, sponge, tinder, touchwood ; applied to touchwood from its
spongy nature. =L. spongia, a sponge ; hence pumice-stone, or other
porous material. = Gk. σπογγία, σπόγγος, a sponge; see Sponge.
SPUR
SPUR, an instrument on a horseman’s heels, for goading on a
horse, a small goad. (E.) ME. spure, spore, Chaucer, C. T. 475
(A 473); P. Plowman, B. xviii. 12. AS. spura, spora. ‘Calcar,
spura;’ Voc. 275. 33. Cf. hand-spora, a hand-spur, Beowulf, 986
(Grein).4Du. spoor, a spur; allied to spoor, a track; see Spoor;
Icel. sport; Dan. spore; Swed. sporre; OHG. sporo; MHG. spor;
G, sporn. B. All from *spor-, weak grade of Teut. *sper-an-, to
kick. Brugmann, i. § 793 (2). From 4/SPER, to quiver, to jerk,
which appears in G. sich sperren, to struggle against; one sense of
this root is to kick, jerk out the feet, as in Lithuan., spirti, to resist,
to kick out as a horse; cf. Skt. sphur, sphar, to throb, to struggle.
Hence the sense of spur is ‘kicker.’ y. A closely allied word
occurs in AS. stor, a foot-trace, Du. spoor, Icel. spor, G. spur (see
Spoor); whence was formed the verb appearing as AS. spyrian,
Icel. spyrja, G. spitren, to trace a foot-track, to investigate, enquire
into, represented by Lowland Sc. sfeir, to enquire, ask, search
out. Der. spur, verb, ME. spurien, sporien, Layamon, 21354,
Romance of Partenay, 4214. Also spur-wheel; and see spoor, speir,
spurn,
SPURGE, a class of acrid plants. (F.—L.) ‘Spurge, a plant,
the juice of which is so hot and corroding that it is called Devil’s
Milk, which being dropped upon warts eats them away ;’ Bailey’s
Dict., vol. i. ed. 1735. And hence the name. ME. sporge, Prompt.
Parv. ; spowrge, Voc. 645. 15.—AF. spurge, a form given in Voc.
557- 73 more commonly OF. espurge, ‘ garden spurge ;’ Cot. “ΟΕ,
espurger, ‘to purge, cleer, cleanse, rid of; also, to prune, or pick
off the noysome knobs or buds of trees;’ Cot. Hence, to destroy
warts. =—L. expurgare, to expurgate, purge thoroughly. —L. ex, out,
thoroughly ; and purgare, to purge; see Ex- and Purge.
SPURIOUS, not genuine. (L.) In Milton, Samson, 391.
Englished from L. spurius, false, spurious, by the common change of
-us to -ous,as in arduous, &c. The orig. sense is ‘ of illegitimate
birth ;’ perhaps allied to Gk. σπορά, seed, offspring, σπείρειν, to sow
(Corssen); see Sperm. Der. spurious-ly, -ness.
SPURN,, to reject with disdain. (E.) Properly ‘to kick against,’
hence to kick away, reject disdainfully, ME. spurnen, to kick
against, stumble over, Ancren Riwle, p. 188, 1. 2. ‘Spornyng, or
Spurnyng, Calcitracio;’ Prompt. Parv. AS. spornan, spurnan,
gespornan, to kick against; cf. also @t-spornan, Matt. iv. 6, John,
xi.g. A strong verb; pt. t. spearn, pl. spurnon, pp. spornen.+Icel.
sperna, pt. t. sparn, to spurn, kick with the feet; L. spurnere, to
spurn, despise (a cognate form, not one from which the E. word is
borrowed, for the E. verb is a strong one). B. All from the Idg.
base *spern, to kick against, an extension from 4/SPER, to quiver,
jerk, also to kick against; see Spur and Spar (3). Der. spurn,
sb., Timon, i. 2. 146 ; Chevy Chase (oldest version), near the end.
SPURRY, the name of aherb. (F.—G.—Late L.) In Cotgrave.
=- MF. spurrie, ‘spurry or frank, a Dutch herb, and an excellent
fodder for cattle ;? Cot. By ‘ Dutch’ he prob. means ‘ German ;’
we find Du. spurrie, ‘the herb spurge,’ in Hexham; but this can
hardly be other than the F. word borrowed. The etymology of the
F. word is doubtful, but it may be German, as Cotgrave seems to
suggest. We find in German the forms spark, spergel, sporgel, all
meaning spurry.—Late L. spergula; A.D. 1482 (Weigand). It
looks as if it might be connected with L. spargere, to scatter.
SPURT (1), SPIRT, to spout, jet out, as water. (E.) ‘With
toonge three-forcked furth spirts fyre;’ Stanyhurst, tr. of Virgil, AEn.
ii. ed. Arber, p. 59. The older meaning is to sprout or germinate,
to grow fast; as in Hen. V, iii. 5. 8. We even find the sb. spirt, a
sprout ; ‘These nuts... haue in their mids a little chit or spirt;’
Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xv.c. 22. Cf. ‘from Troy blud spirted;’
Stanyhurst, tr. of Virgil, “Ἐπ. i. ed. Arber, p. 35. ΒΥ the common
metathesis of r (as ME, brid for bird) spurt stands for sprut; as in
ME. sprutten ; ‘Pe widi pet sprutted ut’ =the willow that sprouts or
shoots out; Ancren Riwle, p. 86. AS. spryttan, spritten; ‘ spritte
s€o eorde growende gers’=let the earth shoot out growing grass;
Gen. i. 11. A causal verb, allied to the AS. strong verb spritan, to
sprout; see Sprout. Cf. prov, E. sprit, to sprout; E.D.D.; and
see Spout.
SPURT (2), a violent exertion. (Scand.) Used by Stanyhurst in
the sense of ‘space of time;’ as, ‘Heere for a spirt linger,’ tr. of
Virgil, AEn. iii. 453. Not the same word as the above, though
perhaps confused with it.—TIcel. spretér, a spurt, spring, bound, run ;
from the strong verb spretta (pt. t. spratt), to start, to spring; also
to spout out water; also to sprout. Cf. Swed. spritta, to start,
startle; prov. E. sprit, to run quickly a short way (E.D.D.). The
Teut. base is *sprent (tt<nt); hence also E. sprint, to run a quick
short race ; which is the doublet of spurt, vb., to run fast. Cf. Swed.
dial. sprinnta, to burst (as a bud); to run fast, tojump. The orig.
n of the base SPRENT is also preserved in prov. E. sprunt, a con-
vulsive struggle, Warwickshire (Halliwell).
SQUALL 593
SPUTTER, to keep spouting or jerking out liquid, to speak
rapidly and indistinctly. (K.) ‘And lick’d their hissing jaws, that
sputter’d flame ;’ Dryden, tr. of A&neid, ii. 279 (ii. 211, Lat. text).
The frequentative of Spout, q.v.; so that the sense is ‘to keep on
spouting.’ From sput-, weaker grade of Teut. *spiitan-, to spout.
Cf. Du. dial. (Groningen) spéttern, to sputter; Low G. sputtern;
Norw. sputra, to spout. — @f Not to be confused with spatter, which
is a different word, and allied to sfot.
SPY, to see, discover. (F.-OHG.) Short for espy. ME. spien,
Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 40, 1.14. [The ME. spie, sb., a
spy, occurs in Floriz and Blancheflur, ed. Lumby, |. 332.] Thesame
word as ME, espien, Chaucer, C. T. 4744 (B 324); House of Fame,
1. 706. -- OF, espier, to espy.— OHG. spehdn, MHG, spehen (mod. G.
spahen), to watch, observe closely.4L. specere, to look; Skt. pag,
spag, to spy; used to form some tenses of dy¢, to see. —4/SPEK, to
see; Brugmann, i. § 551. Der. spy, sb., as above; spy-glass; also
(from espy) espi-on-age, espi-al. From L. specere we have spice, spec-i-
es, spec-i-al, espec-i-al, spec-i-men, spec-i-fy, spec-i-ous, spec-u-late ;
au-spice, con-spic-u-ous, de-spic-able, fronti-spiece, per-spic-u-ous, su-spic-
i-ous, tran-spic-uous; de-spise, de-spite; a-spect, circum-spect, ex-pect, in-
spect, intro-spect-ion, per-spect-ive, pro-spect, re-spect, dis-re-spect, ir-re-
spect-ive, retro-spect, su-spect, spect-a-cle, spect-a-tor, spect-re, spect-rum ;
also spite, respite.
SQUAB, 1. to fall plump; 2. a sofa; a young bird. (Scand.)
‘ Squab, an unfledged bird, the young of an animal before the hair
appears (South) ; a long seat, a sofa; also, to squeeze, beat (Devon) ;’
Halliwell. Halliwell also cites from Coles: ‘A sguob to sit on, pul-
vinus mollicellus ;’ this is not in the edition of 1684. Syguab, a sofa, is
in Pope, Imitation of Earl of Dorset, 1. το. Johnson also explains
squab as ‘unfeathered ; fat, thick and stout ;’ and gives squab, adv.,
‘with a heavy, sudden fall, plump and flat,’ with a quotation from
Lestrange’s Fables: ‘ The eagle took the tortoise up into the air, and
dropt him down, squab, upon a rock ;’ also squab, verb, to fall down
plump or flat; cf. prov. E. squap, to strike. In all senses, the word
is of Scand. origin. 1. The Swed. dial. sguapp, a word imitative of
a splash (Rietz), explains Lestrange’s sguab and the verb ‘to fall
plump,’ hence to knock, beat; cf. G. schwapp,a slap, E. swap, to
strike; see Swap and Squabble. 2. The senses ‘ fat,’ ‘ unfledged,”
and ‘soft’ (as a sofa) are best explained by Swed. dial. syvabb, loose
or fat flesh, sqvabba, a fat woman, sqvabbig, flabby; from the verb
appearing in Norweg. sqvapa, to tremble, shake (hence, to be flabby).
Cf. also Norweg. kveppa (pt. t. kvapp), to slip suddenly, shake,
shudder, and the ME. quappen, to throb, mentioned under Quaver,
q.v. And note Icel. kuap, jelly, jelly-like things. See, in Rietz, the
Swed. dial. str. vb. skuimpa (pt. t. skvamp, pp. skuumpen), to shake,
agitate; and cf. Swed. squvalpa, MDan. ΝΕ to shake.
SQUABBLE, to dispute noisily, wrangle. (Scand.) 1n Shak.
Oth. ii. 3. 281.—Swed. dial. skvabbel, a dispute, a squabble (corre-
sponding to a verb *skvabbla, not given); Rietz. Allied to Swed.
dial. skvappa, to chide, scold slightly, lit. make a splashing; from
the sb. skvapp, a splash, an imitative word from the sound of
dabbling in water; Rietz. Cf. Icel. skuampa, to paddle in water.
We may also further compare Norweg. svabba, to dabble in water
(Aasen), prov. E. swap, a blow, the noise of a fall, to strike swiftly,
swab, to splash over, swabble, to squabble, swobble, to swagger in a
low manner (East). ‘ Swablynge, swabbyng, or swaggynge;’ Prompt.
Parv. Also G. schwabbeln, to shake fluids about. See Swap.
4 The interchange of initial sgu and sw is common; Levins writes
squayne for swain. Der. squabble, sb., squabbl-er.
SQUAD, a small troop. (F.—Ital.—L.) We speak of ‘an awk-
ward squad,’ = MF. esquadre, escadre, ‘a squadron of footmen ;’ Cot.
—Ital. sguadra, ‘a squadron;’ Florio. See Square. Der. squad-
7:01.
SQUADRON, a troop of soldiers, a body of cavalry, number
of ships. (F.—Ital.—L.) In Oth. i. 1. 22; Spenser, F. Q. ii. 8. 2.—
MF. esquadrox, ‘a squadron, a troope of souldiers ranged into a
square body or battalion,’ Cot.—Ital. sguadrone, ‘a squadrone, a
troupe or band of men;’ Florio. The augmentative form (with
suffix -one<L. ace. -dnem) of Ital. sguadra, ‘a squadron, also a
square, squire, or carpenter’s ruler, also a certain part of a company
of souldiers of 20 or 25 [25 is a square number], whose chiefe is a
corporal;’ id. Doubtless so called, at first, from a formation into
squares ; see further under Square. And see squad.
SQUALID, filthy, dirty. (L.) In Spenser, F. Ὁ. v. 1. 13.—L.
squalidus, stiff, rough, dirty, foul.—L. squalére, to be stiff, rough, or
parched, to be dirty. Bréal connects it with sgud-ma, a shell; but
cf. Russ, al’, ordure, Der. squalid-ly, -ness, Also squal-or (rare),
from squal-ére.
SQUALL, to cry out violently. (Scand.) ‘The raven croaks,
the carrion-crow doth squall ;? Drayton, Noah’s Flood, ]. 150 from
end.—Icel. skvala, to squeal, bawl out; skval, a squalling; Swed,
94
594 SQUANDER
sqvala, to stream, gush out violently; sqgval, an impetuous running of
water; sgval-regn, a violent shower of rain (whence E. squall, sb., a
burst of rain) ; Dan. sgvaldre, to clamour, bluster; sqvalder, clamout,
noisy talk. Cf. Swed. dial. skvala, skvdla, to gush out with a violent
noise, to prattle, chatter; Gael. sgal,a loud cry, sound of high wind,
sgal, to howl; cf. W. chwalu, to babble. B. From a base *shkzwal,
expressive of the outburst of water; allied to Teut. base SKAL, to
resound, as in (ἃ. schallen, Icel. skjalla (pt. τ. shall). Der. squall, sb.,
as above; sqguall-y. And see squeal.
SQUANDER, to dissipate, waste. (Scand.) Now used only of
profuse expenditure, but the orig. sense was to scatter or disperse
simply, as still used in prov. E. ‘ His family are all grown up, and
squandered [dispersed] about the country,’ Warwicksh. (Halliwell).
© Squandered [scattered] abroad;’ Merch. of Ven. i. 3. 22. ‘Spaine
. . « hath many colonies to supply, which lye squandered up and
down ;’ Howell, Foreign Travel, sect. ix, ed. Arber, p. 45. ‘All
along the sea They drive and sgwander the huge Belgian fleet ;’ Dry-
den, Annus Mirabilis, st. 67. Mr. Wedgwood’s solution of this
curious word is probably the right one, viz. that it is a nasalised
form (as if for *sguanter) of Northumb. squatter, sguather, to scatter,
dissipate, or squander, to act with profusion (Jamieson). This is
the same as prov. E. swatter, swather, to throw water about, as geese
do in drinking, also, to squander, waste; also as prov. 12, swatile, to
drink as ducks do water, to waste; see E.D.D. These are fre-
quentatives from Dan. sgvatte, to splash, spurt; figuratively, to
dissipate, squander; cf. sgvat, sb., a splash. So also Swed. sqguditra,
to squander, lavish one’s money (Widegren) ; frequentative of sguatta,
to squirt (id.); Swed. dial. skwiitta, a strong verb (pt. t. skwatt,
supine skwuttid), to squirt. Note also Icel. skvetta, to squirt out
water, properly of the sound of water thrown out of a jug, skvetir, a
gush of water poured out. The d appears in MDu. swadderen, ‘to
dabble in the water as a goose or duck,’ Hexham; and in Swed. dial.
skvadra, verb, used of the noise of water gushing violently out of a
hole (Rietz). The word is now used metaphorically, but the orig.
sense was merely to splash water about somewhat noisily. The
Icel. skvet(a is for *skwenta (Noreen); and may even be allied to Gk.
σπένδειν, to pour out. A somewhat similar word is E, scatter, Der.
squander-er.
SQUARE, having four equal sides and angles. (F.—L.) ME.
square (dissyllabie), Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1078 (A 1076); Cursor Mundi,
19843.— OF. esquarré, ‘square, or squared,’ Cot. ; esguarre, sb., a
square, or squareness. The sb. is the same as Ital. sqguadra, ‘a
squadron, also a square, squire, or carpentet’s ruler;’ cf. Ital.
squadrare, ‘to square, id. All formed from a Late L. verb *exquad-
rare, not found, but a mere intensive of L. guadrare, to square, make
four-cornered, by prefixing the prep. ex. The verb guadrare is from
quadrus, four-cornered, related to guatuor, four, cognate with E.
four, See Ex-, Quarry, Quadrant, and Four. Der. square,
sb., square, verb, square-ly, -ness. Also squire (2), q.v. squad,
sqguadr-on.
SQUASH, to crush, to squeeze flat. (F.—L.) a. No doubt
commonly regarded as an intensive form of guash; the prefix s-
answering to OF, es-=L, ex-. Cf. OF. esquasser, to break in pieces ;
from es- (L. ex), intensive prefix, and quasser, casser, to break; see
Quash. Ββ. But it commonly keeps the sense of ME. sqguachen,
Barlaam and Josaphat, 1. 663, pr. in Altenglische Legenden, ed. Horst-
mann, p. 224. —OF. esqguacher, to crush (Roquefort, who gives a quota~
tion) ; also spelt escacher, ‘ to squash, beat, batter, or crush flat ;’ Cot.
Mod. F. écacher. ‘This answers to Span. acachar, agachar, only used
reflexively, in the sense to squat, to cower (Diez). The F. cacher
answers to a Late L. type *co-act-icare, to press together (KOrting,
§ 2272). ‘The prefix es-=L. ex-, extremely; hence es-cacher is ‘to
press extremely,’ crush flat, squash.—L. ex-; and coact-us, pp. of
cogere (=co-agere), lit. to drive together; see Ex-, Cogent; also
Con- and Agent. And see Squat, a closely allied word, Der.
squash, sb., a soft, unripe peascod, Tw. Nt. i. 5. 166.
SQUAT, to cower, sit down upon the hams. (F.—L.) ‘To
squatte as a hare doth ;” Minsheu, ed. 1627. Here squat is to lie flat,
as if pressed tightly down; and the old sense of squat is, occasionally,
to press down, crush, much like the sense of Squash, which is a
closely related word.
below.) ‘His grief deepe squatting,’ where the L. text has premit;
Stanyhurst, tr. of Virgil, Afn. i, 209. ME. squatlen, to press or
erush flat. ‘The foundementis of hillis ben togidir smyten and
squat’ =the foundations of the hills are smitten together and crushed ;
Wyclif, 2 Kings, xxii. 8. ‘Sywat sal he hevedes’=he shall crush
the heads (L. conguassabit capita), Early Eng. Psalter, ed. Stevenson,
Ps. cix. (or cx.) 6. This explains proy. Εἰ, squat, to make flat, and
squat, adj., flat. It is important-also to note that gat is used in the
same sense as squat ; indeed, in the Glossary to the Exmoor Scolding,
the word squat is explained by ‘to guat down;’ which shows that
[This is well exemplified in Spanish; sce |
SQUIB
the s- in squat 15 ἃ prefix, OF. esquatir, to flatten, crush (Roquefort).
— OF, es-, from L. ex-, extremely; .and guatir, to press down, hence,
reflexively, to press oneself down, to squat, cower. ‘Ele se guatist
deles Jun de pilers’=she squatted down beside one of the pillars;
Bartsch, Chrestomathie Francaise, col. 282, }. 16. The correspond-
ing word is Span. acachar, agachar, whence acacharse, ‘to crouch,
lie squat” (Meadows), agacharse, ‘to stoop, couch, squat, cower’
(id.). Minsheu’s M. Span. Dict. has: ‘agachar, to squat as a hare or
conie.’ Without the prefix, we find Span. cacho, gacho, bent, bent
downward, lit, pressed down; Ital. guatto, ‘squatte, husht, close,
still, lurking’ (Florio), quattare, ‘to squat, to husht, to lye close’
(id.). Diez shows that OF. guatir and Ital. guatto are due to L.
coact-us, pressed close together (whence also F. 56 cacher, to squat,
cacher, to hide). Thus the etymology of squat is from L. ex-, co-
for cum, together, and act-us, pp. of agere, to drive. See Ex-,
Con-, and Agent; and see Squash. Der. squatt-er. Gy Any
connexion of squat with Dan. sqvatie, to splash, is entirely out of
the question; the E. word related to Dan. sqvatte is Squander,
q. Vv:
SQUAW, a female, woman. (N. Amer. Indian.) It occurs in
J. Mather, Remarkable Providences (1684); repr. by Offor, p. 33-
“Squaw, a female, woman, in the language of the Indian tribes of the
Algonkin family. — Massachusetts squa, eshqua; Narragansett squaws ;
Cree iskwew ; Delaware ochqueu and khqueu; used also in compound
words (as the names of animals) in the sense of female ;’ Webster ;
and Cent. Dict.
SQUEAK, to utter a shrill sharp cry. (Scand.) In Hamlet, i. 1.
116. ‘ The squeaking, or screeking of a rat ;’ Baret (1580). —MSwed.
sgweka, to squeak (Ihre); Swed. sguaka, to croak; cf. Norweg.
skvaka, to cackle (Aasen) ; Icel. skvakka, to give a sound, as of water
shaken in a bottle, skak, a noise. And cf. Swed. squala, to squeal.
Allied to Squeal, Quack, Cackle ; expressive of the sound made.
So also G. quaken, to quack; quaken, quieken, to squeak. Der.
squeak, sb.
SQUEAL,, to utter a shrill prolonged sound. (Scand.) In Jul.
Cees. ii. 2. 24. ME. sguelen, Cursor Mundi, 1. 1344.—MSwed.
sqwela, to squeal (Ihre) ; Swed. squala, to squeal ; Norweg. skvella,
to squeal (Aasen). Used as a frequentative of sgueak; the sense is
‘to keep on squeaking ;’ see Squeak. Notwithstanding the
close similarity, squall is not quite the same word, though the words
are now confused. Both, however, are expressive of continuous
sounds. See Squall. Der. squeal, sb.
SQUEAMISBH, scrupulously fastidious, over-nice. (F.) ‘To be
squamish, or nice, Delicias facere;’ Baret (1580). ME. skeymous,
sweymous. ‘ Sweynious, or skeymouse, Abhominativus;’ Prompt. Parv.,
p- 482; also written queymows, p. 419. Sguaimous, in Chaucer,
C. Τ᾿, A 3337, means fastidious, sparing, infrequent, with occasional
violent exceptions; see 1. 3805 (A 3807). ‘ Squaymose, verecun-
dus;’ Catholicon Anglicum (1483); squaymus, Trevisa, tr. of
Higden, vii. 461; squeymous, Lay Le Freine, 62. In a version of
the Te Deum from a 14th-century primer given by Maskell (Mon.
Rit. ii. 12) we have ‘ Thou were not skoymus of the maidens wombe ;’
see Notes and Queries, 4S. iii. r81.—AF. *eskeimous (with AF. δὲ
for F, 07), spelt escoymous in Bozon, Contes Moralisés, p. 158, with
the sense of ‘sparing in eating, fastidious, nice as to food.’ Of
unknown origin. It might answer, as to form, to a Late L. type
*schématosus, or *schémdsus (since L. δ gave AF. οἱ, F. oi; Schwan,
§§ 39, 299); from Late L. schéma, fashion, manner; from. Gk.
σχῆμα, a scheme, figure, mien, air, fashion; the sense being ‘ full of
airs or affectations.”? See Scheme, Der. squeamish-ly, -ness.
SQUEEZE, to crush or press tightly, to crowd. (E.) “Τὸ squise,
or thrust together ;’ Baret (1580). The initial s is prefixed for
emphasis, being due to the OF. es- << L. ex-, an intensive prefix ; to
squeeze=to queeze out. Late ME. queisen; ‘queyse out the jus’=
squeeze out the juice, Reliq. Antique, i. 302. It answers, in form,
to OMere. cwésan, for AS. ewiesax, to squeeze, crush, generally
written cwysaa, and used in the compound fécwysan, to crush to
pieces, squeeze to death, A®lfric’s Homilies, i.-60 ; ii. 26, 166, 294,
510, Also cwésan; in Luke, xx. 18, where the earlier version has
locwyst (for t6-cwysd), the latter has ¢dcwést (for tocwésd). B. Cognate
with Low G, gudsen (Brem. Worterbuch). Froma Teut. root *kweus.
Der. squeeze, sb.
SQUIB, (1) a paper tube, filled with combustibles, like a small
rocket; also (2) alampoon. (Scand.) 1. ‘ Can he tie sqguibs i’ their
tails, and fire the truth out?” Beaum. and Fletcher, The Chances, v.
2.6, ‘A sguibbe, a ball or darte of fire;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627. Spenser
has it in the curious sense of ‘ paltry fellow,’ as a term of disdain ;
Mother Hubbard’s Tale, 371. Squibs were sometimes fastened
slightly to a rope, so as to run along it like a rocket ; ‘ The squib’s
run to the end of the line, and now for the cracker’ [explosion] ;
Dryden, Kind Keeper, Act y. sc. 1. ‘Hung up: by the heels like
SQUID
meteors, with sguébs in their tails ;’ Ben Jonson, News from the New
World (2nd Herald). B. Squib is a voiced form of sguip, and
prov. E. squib, to squirt, answers to Norw. skvipa, to squirt (Ross).
Tt seems to be allied to swip, a word significant of swift smooth
motion. Cf. ME. sguippen, swippen, to move swiftly, fly, sweep,
dash; ‘the squyppand water’=the dashing or sweeping water,
Anturs of Arthur (in Three Met. Romances), st. vy. ‘When the
saul fra the body swippes,’ i.e. flies; Prick of Conscience, 1. 2196.
‘ Tharfor pai swippe [dart] purgh purgatory, Als a foul [bird] that
Jiyes smerily ;’ id. 1. 3322. ‘Zswipt ford’=hurried away, snatched
away, Ancren Riwle, p. 228, 1. 4. Swip is from Icel. suipa, to flash,
dart, of a sudden but noiseless motion; svipr, a swift movement,
twinkling, glimpse ; Norweg. svipa, to run swiftly (Aasen) ; ef. also
Dan. svippe, to whisk, to run (Larsen). The Teut. base SWIP was
also used to express the swift or sweeping motion of a whip; as in AS.
swipe, a whip (John, ii. 15), Du. zweep, a whip, G. schwippe, a
whip-lash. Note also Dan. svippe, to crack a whip, suif, an instant,
i et svip, in a trice, Swed. dial. suipa, swepa, to sweep, swing, lash
with a whip. y- All from Teut. base SWEIP, to move with
a turning motion, move swiftly, sweep along (Fick, iii. 365); see
‘urther under Swift. Cf. ‘swypyr, agilis’ in Prompt. Parv. 2. A
squib also means a political lampoon; but it was formerly applied,
not to the lampoon itself, but to the writer of it. ‘ The squibs are
those who, in the common phrase of the world, are call’d libellers,
lampooners, and pamphleteers; their fireworks are made up in
paper ;’ Tatler, no.88; Nov.1,1709. It has been noted above that
Spenser uses squib as a term of derision. 3. The sense of child’s
squirt is directly from Norw. skvipa, to squirt (above).
SQUID, a kind of cuttlefish. (Scand.) So named from its squirt-
ing out sepia; cf. prov. E. sguiddle, to squirt. A voiced form,
with d for Scand. ¢; allied to Swed. dial. sgvitta, strong verb, to
squirt ; Icel. skvet/a, to squirt out. (Teut. base *skwez.)
SQUILL, a genus of bulbous plants allied to the onion. (F.—L.—
Gk.) ME. sqwille. ‘ Squylle, herba, Cepa maris, bulbus;’ Prompt.
Pary. - MF, squille, ‘the squill, sea-onion ; also, a prawn, shrimp ;’
Cot.=—L. squilla, also scilla, a sea-onion, sea-leek ; a kind of prawn.
- Gk. oxidda, a squill; cf. σχῖνος, a squill.
SQUINANCY, the old spelling of Quinsey, q.v.
SQUINT, to look askew. (E.?) Palsgrave has ‘a-squynte, en
lorgnant;’ p. 831. The earliest quotation is the following :
« Biholded o luft and asquint?=looks leftwards and askew; Ancren
Riwle, p. 212, 1. 4. Apparently due to asquint (above), with loss of
a; see Asquint in N.E. D. ΤῈ is improbable that itis anative word,
but it is difficult to say how we came by it. It seems to be allied to
askance; see Askance in N.E. Ὁ. B. Cf. Dan. paa skins, aslant ;
Swed. dial. p& skons, aslant ; Low G. schiens, schiins, obliquely ; Du.
schuin, oblique, wry, schuinen, to slope; schuinte, obliquity; in de
schuinie, aslant; EFries. schiinx, oblique, schiinte, obliquity.
SQUIRE (1), the same as Esquire, q.v. (F.—L.) It occurs,
spelt sguiere,as early as in King Horn, ed. Lumby, |. 360. Doublet,
esquire.
SQUIRE (2), a square, a carpenter’s rule. (F.—L.) In Shak.
L.L.L.v. 2. 474. ME. squire, Floriz and Blancheflur, ed. Lumby,
325. = OF. esquire, MF. esquierre, ‘a rule, or square ;’ Cot. Mod. F.
équerre. Merely another form of OF. esquarre, a square; see Square,
Doublet, square, sb.
SQUIRREL, a nimble, reddish-brown, rodent animal. (F.—L.—
Gk.) ME. squirel (with one r), Seven Sages, ed. Weber, 1. 2777.
Also sewrel. ‘ Hic scurellus, a scurelle;’ Voc. 759. 20. - OF. escurel,
escuirel (Godefroy) ; spelt escuriew in Cotgrave. Mod. F. écureutil.—
Late L. sciirellus (as above), also scuriolus (Ducange). For *sciirel-
lus, *scitiriolus, diminutives of sciurus, a squirrel. Gk. oxioupos,
a squirrel; lit. ‘shadow-tail,’ from his bushy tail.—Gk. ox-, for
oxia, a shadow, and οὐρά, a tail. But this explanation of the Gk.
word is prob. due to popular etymology. The AF. form was
esquirel ; Liber Albus, pp. 225, 231.
SQUIRT, to jet, throw or jerk out water. (E.) “1 squyr/e with
a sguyrte, aninstrument ;’ Palsgrave. The prov. E. swirt, to squirt,
is the same word, with sw for syu; we even find bilagged wit swirt-
ing = dirtied with squirting, in Walter de Bibbesworth, Wright's
Voc. i. 173, 1. 1. Cf. Low Ὁ. swirten, to squirt; orig. an extension
of swirenx, to whirr, turn about quickly, G. schwirren; see Swarm.
So also EFries. Awirtjen, to squirt out, to dart about, from kwirt,
turing quickly about; see Whir. Der, squirt, sb., in Palsgrave.
STAB, to pierce with a sharp instrument. (Scand.) ‘I stabbe in
with a dagger or any other sbarpe wepyn;’ Palsgrave. ME. s¢abbe,
sb.; ‘ Stabbe, or wownde of smytynge, Stigma ;’ Prompt. Parv.
Apparently from Swed. dial. stabbe, a thick stick or stump; Icel.
stabbi, a stub, stump, allied to stafr, a staff; Dan. dial. stabb, a
short peg. Cf. Irish sfobaim, 1 stab; Gael. stob, to thrust or fix
astake in the ground, to stab, thrust, from sfob, a stake, a pointed iron
| dwelling-house ;’ Cot.
STAGNATE 595
or stick, a stub or stump. This Gael. stobis similarly borrowed from
Icel. stobbi, astub; see Staff, Stub. Der. stab, sb., Temp. iii. 3. 63.
STABLE (1), a stall or building for horses. (F.—L.) ME.
stable, King Alisaunder, 778.— OF. estable,‘a stable ;’ Cot. Mod. F.
étable. = L, stabulum, astanding-place, abode, stall, stable. Idg. type
*stadh-lom ; cf. AS. stad-ol, a foundation, support, position. See
Stall. Brugmann, §§ 483 (9), 573. Formed with suffix -b(«)lum
(b<dk), from the weak grade of stare, to stand, cognate with E,
Stand, q.v. Der. stable, verb, stabl-ing.
STABLE (2), firm, steady. (F.—L.) ME. stable, Rob. of
Glouc., p. 54, 1. 1245.—OF. estable, stable (Burguy).—L. séabilem,
| acc. of stabilis, stable, standing firmly; formed with suffix -bilis
from the weak grade of sd-re, to stand, cognate with E. Stand,
qv. Idg. type *stadhlis. Der. stabl-y; stable-ness, Mach. iv. 3. 92;
stabili-ty, spelt stabilytye, Wyatt, tr. of Ps. 38, coined from L.
stabilitas, firmness, Also stablish, ME, stablisen, Chaucer, C, T. 2997
(A 2995), the same word as establish, q.v.
STACK, a large pile of wood, hay, com, &c. (Scand.) ME.
stac, stak. “ Stacke or heep, Agger ;’ Prompt. Parv. Stac in Havelok,
814, is prob. merely our stack, [Stacke, Chaucer, Persones Tale, De
Luxuria (Tyrwhitt), is an error for sfaxk; see Group I, 841.]—Icel.
stakkr, a stack of hay; cf. Icel. stakka, a stump, as in our chimney-
stack, and in stack, a columnar isolated rock; Swed. stack, a rick,
heap, stack ; Dan. stak. B. The Teut. type is *staknoz (Noreen).
The sense is ‘a pile,’ that which is set up; the allied E. word is
Stake, q.v. Cf. Russ. sfog’, a heap, a hay-rick. Der. stack, verb,
as in Swed, stacka, Dan. stakke, to stack ; stack-yard, answering to Icel.
stak-gardr, a stack-garth (garth being the Norse form of yard) ; also
hay-stack, corn-stack,
STAFF, a long piece of wood, stick, prop, pole, cudgel. (E.)
ME. staf, pl. staxes (where τευ). ‘Ylyk a staf;’ Chaucer, C. T.
594 (A 592). ‘Two staues;’ P. Plowman, B. v. 28. AS. s/ef, pl.
stafas, Exod, xxi. 19, John, vii. 15. The pl. stafas also meant
letters of the alphabet; this meaning seems to have originated
staves as a musical term.+-Du. staf; Icel. stafr, a staff, also a
written letter (see Icel. Dict.) ; Dan. sfab, stav; Swed. staf; G. stab;
Goth. stafs, a letter; hence, an element, rudiment, Gal. iv. 3. B. The
|} word is allied to Ὁ. Church Slav. stobordé, a pillar, Lith. stobrys,
a stump of a tree; from an Idg. root STEBH, whence Skt. stambh,
to make firm, set fast. Cf. EFries. staf, unmoved. See Stub,
Stab. Der. distaff (for dis-staf), q.v. Doublet, stave, sb., q.v.
STAG, a male deer. (Scand.) Late AS. stagga, from Norse; as
in ‘regalem feram, quam Angli sfaggon appellant ;’ Thorpe, Anc.
Laws, i. 429. The word was also applied to the male of other
animals. ‘ S/agge, ceruus;’ Levins. ‘ Steggander {| =steg-gander,
male gander], anser;’ id. Lowland Sc. stag, a young horse;
prov. E, stag, a gander, a wren, a cock-turkey.—Icel. steggr, steggt,
a he-bird, a drake, a tom-cat. Teut. type *stagjoz. Not allied to
Icel. stiga. Der. stag-hound.
STAGH, a platform, theatre; place of rest on a journey, the dis-
tance between two such resting-places. (F.—L.) ME. stage, Floriz
and Blancheflur, ed. Lumby, 255; King Alisaunder, 7684.—OF.
estage, ‘a story, stage, loft, or height of a house; also a lodging,
Mod. F. étage ; Ital. staggio, a prop ; Prov.
estatge, a dwelling-place (Bartsch). Formed as if from a L. type
*staticum (not found), a dwelling-place ; allied to L. stat-um, supine
of stare, to stand, with suffix -icum. See Stable (1), Stand. Der.
stage-coach, a coach that runs from stage to stage; stage-player ;
stag-ing, a scaffolding.
STAGGER, to reel from side to side, vacillate ; also, to cause to
reel, to cause to hesitate. (Scand.) ‘I s‘aggar, I stande not sted-
fast ;’? Palsgrave. Stagger is a weakened form of sfacker (spelt
stakker in Palsgrave), ME. stakeren. ‘She rist her up, and stakereth
heer and there;’ Chaucer, Legend of Good Women, 1. 2687.—Icel.
stakra, to push, to stagger; frequentative of sfaka, to punt, to push,
also, to stagger; οἱ, Norw. stakra, staka, to stagger; Swed. dial.
stagra; Dan. dial. stagle, stagge. Perhaps staka, to push, is allied
to Swed. stake, a stake; see Stake. Cf. Dan. stage, to punt with
a pole, from stage, a pole, a stake. Thus the orig. sense was
“to keep pushing about,’ to cause to vacillate or reel; the intran-
sitive sense, to rcel, is later.4-MDu. staggeren, to stagger as a
drunken man (Hexham); frequent. of staken, staecken, to stop or
dam up (with stakes), to set stakes, also ‘to leave or give over
worke, id. In this latter view, to stagger might mean ‘ to be always
coming to a stop,’ or ‘often to stick fast.’ Either way, the etymology
is the same. Der. staggers, s. pl., vertigo, Cymb. v. 5. 234.
STAGNATH, to cease to flow. (L.) A late word; stagnate and
stagnant are in Phillips, ed. 1706.—L, s/agndtus, pp. of stagnare, to
be still, cease to flow, to form a still pool.—L. stagnum, a pool, a
stank. See Stank. Der. stagnat-ion ; also stagnant, from L. stag-
nant-, stem of pres. pt. of sfagnare. Also stanch, 4. ν.
Qq 2
ὅ96 STAID
STAID, steady, grave, sober. (F.—MDu.) It may be observed
that the resemblance to steady is accidental, though both words are
ultimately from the same root, and so have a similar sense. Staid
stands for stay’d, pp. of stay, to make steady ; and the actual spelling
stayd is byno meansuncommon. ‘ The strongest man o’ th’ empire,
Nay, the most stay’d . . . The most true;’ Beaum. and Fletcher,
Valentinian, y. 6. 11. ‘The fruits of his stay’d faith;’ Drayton,
Polyolbion, song 24 (R.). Spenser even makes the word dissyllabic ;
‘Held on his course with stayéd stedfastnesse,’ Εἰ Ὁ. ii. 12. 29. See
Stay (1). Der. staid-ly, staid-ness.
STAIN, to tinge, dye, colour, sully. (F.—L.) An abbreviation
of distain, like sport for disport, spend for distend. ME. steinen,
Gower, C. A. i. 225, bk. ii. 1963; short for disteinex, Chaucer,
Legend of Good Women, 255.—OF. destein-, a stem of desteindre,
“to distain, to dead or take away the colour οἵ; Cot. ‘I staynea
thynge, Ze destayns,’ Palsgrave. Thus the orig. sense was ‘to spoil
the colour of,’ or dim; as used by Chaucer.—L, dis-, away; and
tingere, to dye. See Dis- and Tinge. Der. stain, sb. ; stain-less,
Tw. Nt. i. 5. 278.
ST ATR, a step for ascending by. (E.) Usually in the plural.
{The phrase ‘a pair of stairs’=a set of stairs; the old sense of pair
being a set of equal things; see Pair.] ME. steir, steire, steyer.
‘Ne steyers to steye [mount] on;’ Test. of Love, i. τ. 44. ‘ Heih is
pe steire’=high is the stair; Ancren Riwle, p. 284, 1. 8; the pl.
steiren occurs in the line above. AS. st#ger, a stair, step; ‘ Ascen-
sorium, sf#ger,’ Voc. 126. 9. [The g passes into y as usual, and
just as AS. deg became day, so AS, st#ger became stayer, steyer,
steir.] The lit. sense is ‘a step to climb by,’ ‘a mounter;’ formed
(with mutation of ἃ to 49) from stag, 2nd grade of stigan, to climb.
+Du. steiger, a stair; allied to stegel, a stirrup, steg, a narrow
bridge ; all from stijgen, to mount. Cf. also Icel. stigi, stegi, a step,
ladder (whence prov. E. stee, a ladder), stigr, a path, foot-way (orig.
an uphill path), from stiga, to mount; Swed. sfeg, a round of a
ladder, stege, a ladder, from stiga, to mount; Dan. stige, a ladder,
sti, a path, from stige, to mount; G. sfeg, a path, from steigen, to
mount. β. All from Teut. str. vb. *steigan-, to climb, pt. t. *s/aig,
pp- *stiganoz ; from Idg. 4/STEIGH, to climb, ascend, whence also
Skt. stigh, to ascend, Gk. στείχειν, to ascend, march, go, Goth. séeigan,
to ascend; also E. stile, q.v., stirrup, q.v. Der. stair-case ; stair-
work, Wint. Tale, iii. 3. 75.
STAITHE, a landing-place. (E.) <A provincial word; also
spelt staith, stathe (Halliwell). AS. sted, a bank, shore (Grein) ;
also AS. sted, Thorpe, Diplomatarium Avi Saxonici, p. 147, 1. 5.
Cf. Icel. s#0d, a harbour, road-stead; MDnu. stade, a haven. Allied
to Stead, q.v.
STAKE, a post, strong stick, pale. (E.) ME. stake, Chaucer,
C. T. 2620 (A 2618). AS. staca, a stake, Alfred, tr. of Orosius,
b. vy. cap. 5; also a sharply pointed pin, Thorpe, Diplomatarium,
p- 230, 1. 14. The latter sense is important, as pointing to the etymo-
logy. From the Teut. base *stak, 2nd grade of the strong verb
*stekan-, to pierce, stick into. See Stick (1). Thus, the orig.
sense is ‘a piercer,’ the suffix -a marking the agent, asin AS. hunt-a,
a hunter; hence a pin, a sharply pointed stick.-+MDu. stake, staeck,
“a stake or a pale, a pile driven into water, a stake for which one
playeth ;” Hexham (Du. staak). Cf. steken, to stab, put, stick, prick,
sting; id.Icel. s¢jaki, a stake, punt-pole; Dan. stage, a stake ;
Swed. stake, a stake, a candle-stick. And cf. G. stachel, a prick,
sting, goad. ΒΒ. The sense of a sum of money to be played for may
be borrowed from Dutch, being found in MDutch, as above. It
occurs in Wint. Tale, i. 2. 248; and the phr. at stake or at the stake
occurs five times in Shak. (Schmidt). In this sense, a stake is that
which is ‘ put’ or pledged; cf. MDu. hemselven in schuldt steken, ‘to
runne himself into debt ;’ Hexham. @ A closely allied word is
stack, a pile, a thing stuck up; see Stack.
STALACTITE, an inverted cone of carbonate of lime, hanging
like an icicle in some caverns. (F.—Gk.) Modern. Byron (wrongly
has stylact-i-tes (4 syllables); The Island, iv. 7. 23.—F. stalactite
(A.D. 1752). So called because formed by the dripping of water.
Formed, with suffix -ite (Gk. -trns), from σταλακτ-ός, trickling: cf.
σταλακτίς (base σταλακτιδ-), that which drops.—Gk. σταλάζειν
(=oarTaddy-yev), to drop, drip ; lengthened form of σταλάειν, to drip.
See Stalagmite.
STALAGMITES, a cone of carbonate of lime on the floor of
a cavern formed by dripping water. (F.—Gk.) Modern.=F.
stalagmite, Formed with suffix -ite (Gk. -.rns), from στάλαγμ-α,
a drop; from σταλάζειν (=oTaddy-yev), to drip. See Stalactite.
STALE (1), too long kept, tainted, vapid, trite. (F.—Teut.)
1. Stale is also used as a sb., in the sense of urine. Palsgrave gives
it in this sense; and see escloy in Cotgrave. Mares do not stop to
stale; see Holland’s Pliny, i. 222.—OF. es/aler, to make water (in
Gcdefroy, s. v. estaler (2), but wrongly explained). Of Teut. origin.
STALLION
Cf. EFries. and Low G. stallen, Swed. stalla, to put into a stall, also
to stale (as cattle and horses); Dan. stalde, to stale (as a horse),
also to stall-feed. From Stall, sb. 2. Stale, adj., is in Chaucer,
C. T. 13694 (B 1954), as applied to ale. We may explain séale,
adj., as ‘too long exposed for sale,’ as in the case of provisions left
unsold; cf. MF. estaler, ‘to display, lay open wares on stalls’ (Cot.),
from estal, ‘ the stall of a shop, or booth, any place where wares are
laid and shewed to be sold.’ But since this F. estal is mercly
borrowed from the Teutonic word s¢all, it comes to much the same
thing. Cf. MDu. stel, stale; stel-bier, stale beer; stel-pisse, urine
(Hexham); Du. s¢el, a stall. See Korting, §§ 9014, 9015.
47 Wedgwood, following Schmeller, explains stale, sb., from stopping
the horse to let him stale; and cites Swed. stalla en hest, to stop a
horse. But, here again, the Swed. s¢alla is derived from Swed. stall,
orig, a stopping-place ; while ‘ to stale’ is Swed. s¢alla. Der. stale,
verb, Antony, il. 2. 240; stale-ness, Per. v. 1. 58.
STALE (2), a decoy, snare. (E.) ‘Still as he went, he crafty
stales did lay;’ Spenser, F. Q. ii. 1. 4. Note AF. estale,a decoy-
bird (Bozon), Adapted from AS. st@l-, as in stel-hran, a decoy
reindeer, allied to ME. stale, theft; hence stealth, deceit, slyness,
or a trap; it occurs in Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 9, 1. 24. Compare the
phrase cumen bi stale=to come by stealth, to surprise; O. Eng.
Homilies, i, 249, 1. 20. From AS. stalu, theft, Matt. xv. 19.—
Teut. *stal, 2nd grade of *stelan-, as in AS. stelan, to steal; see
Steal.
STALE (3), STEAL, a handle. (E.) Chiefly applied to the
long handle of a rake, hoe, &c.; spelt Steale in Halliwell. Stale
also means a round of a ladder, or a stalk (id.). ME. stale. ‘A
ladel... with a long stele’ (2 MSS. have stale); P. Plowman, C.
xxii. 279. From AS. stela, stela, steola; the dat. pl. stelum (in
another MS. stelum) occurs in A. S. Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, 1,
154, in the sense of ‘stalks.’4+Du. steel, a stalk, stem, handle. (G.
stiel, ΜΉΤ. stil, a handle, seem distinct.] Allied to 51 and
stall; the stale being the handle whereby the tool is firmly held. Cf.
further Gk. oradis, a stake to which nets are fastened, στελεόν,
στειλεόν, στειλειόν, a handle or helve of an ax. See Stalk. Der.
stalk (1) and (2), q.v.
STALK (1), a stem. (E.) ME. stalke, of which one sense is
the stem or side-piece of a ladder. ‘To climben by the ronges
{rungs ] and the s¢alkes;’ Chaucer, C. T. 3625. A dimin. form, with
suffixed -ke, of ME. stale, stele, a handle, AS. stela, stela, a stalk ;
see Stale (3). [Icel. stilkr, a stalk, goes with G, stiel.] Cf.
also Gk. στέλεχος, a trunk, stem (of a tree), allied to στελεόν, a
handle. Der. stalk (2), qv.
STALK (2), to stride, walk with slow steps. (E.) ΜΕ. stalken,
to walk cautiously. “ Stalkeden ful stilly ;’ Will. of Palerne, 2728.
‘With dredful foot [timid step] then stalketh Palamoun ;’ Chaucer,
C. T. 1481 (Az479). AS. stealcan, to go warily ; stealcung, a stalk-
ing. These forms are in Toller, with references for bestealcian and
stealcung ; Somner gives the forms stelcan and stelcung.-+ Dan. stalke,
to stalk. Cf. AS. stealc, lofty, high (Grein), The notion is that of
walking with lifted feet, so as to go noiselessly ; the word is prob.
connected with Stilt, q.v., and with Stalk (1) above. Halliwell
has Stalk, the leg of a bird; stalke, to go slowly with, a quotation
from Gower, C. A. i. 187; also s¢il#, the handle of a plough, which
(like stalk) is an extension of Steal ; see Stale (3). We may explain
stalk, verb, as to walk on lengthened legs or s/alks, to go on tiptoe
or noiselessly. Der. stalk-er; stalk-ing-horse, a horse for stalking
game, explained in Dictionarium Rusticum, 1726, quoted at length
in Halliwell.
STALL, a standing-place for cattle, shed, division of a stable, a
table on which things are exposed for sale, a seat in a choir or
theatre. (.) All the senses are from the notion of a fixed or settled
place or station. Indeed, station is from the same root. ME, stal;
dat. stalle, Chaucer, C. T. 8083 (E 207). AS. steal, steall, a place,
station, stall; Grein, ii. 480; also ste, id. 477.4Du. stal; Icel.
stallr, a stall, pedestal, shelf; cf. séal/i, an altar; Dan. stald (for
stall), a stable; Swed. stall; G. stall; OHG. stal. Teut. type *stalloz,
perhaps for *stad-loz ; cf. E. stead, Gk. σταθ-μός, α stall ; L. stab-ulum
(for *stadh-lom). See Stead. Brugmann, i. ὃ 593 (4). Der.
stall-age, from MF. estallage, ‘stallage,’ Cot., where estal, a stall,
is borrowed from Teutonic, and the suffix -age answers to L. -aticum.
Also stall, verb, Rich. III, i. 3. 206; stall-ed, fattened in a stall,
Prov. xv. 17, from Swed. stalla, Dan. stalle, to stall-feed, feed in a
stall. Also stall-feed, verb; stall-fed, Chapman, tr. of Homer,
Odys. xiv. 161. Also stall-t-on, q.v. Doublet, stable.
STALLION, an entire horse. (F.-OHG,) Spelt stalland in
Levins, with excrescent d; stal/ant in Palsgrave, with excrescent ¢.
ME. stalon, Voc. 638. 3; Gower, C. A. ili. 280; bk. viii, 160.—OF.
estalon, ‘astalion for mares;’ Cot. Mod. F. éalon; cf. Ital. stallone,
a stallion, also a stable-man, ostler. So called because kept in ἃ.
STALWART
stall and not made to work; Diez cites eguws ad stallum from the
Laws of the Visigoths.-OHG. stal, a stall, stable; cognate with
E. Stall (above). β. The i may have been suggested by the Ital,
stallione, given by Torriano as a variant of s¢allone, and explained
by ‘a horse long kept in the stable without being ridden or used ;
also, a stallion,’
STALWART, sturdy, stout, brave. (E.) A corruption of ME.
stalworth, Will. of Palerne, 1950; Pricke of Conscience, 689; Have-
lok, 904. The intermediate form stalward occurs in Treyisa, tr. of
Higden, iii. 439 (note). It is noticeable that e sometimes appears
after the 7; as in stelewurde, O. Eng. Hom. i. 25, 1. 12; stealewurde,
Juliana, p. 45, 1. 11; stalewurde, St. Margaret, p. 15, 1. 3 from
bottom. AS. stelwyrde (plural), A. S. Chron. an. 896. β,. In the
A.S. Chron, it is applied to ships, and means ‘serviceable ;’ we are
told that the men of London went to fetch the ships, and they broke
up all they could not remove, whilst those that were serviceable
(stelwyrde) they brought to London. Sievers shows that the ὦ was
long (A. S. Grammar, ὃ 202); and s‘é@/- is contracted from stapol-,
just as ge-st@lan is for ge-staPol-ian, and stilian for stapolian, The
AS. stafol means ‘ foundation,’ and stapolwyrde means ‘firm.’ Cf.
AS. stadol-fest, stedfast. For the latter part of the word, see
Worth, Worthy.
STAMEN, one of the male organs of a flower. (L.) The lit.
sense is ‘thread.’ A botanical term. [The pl. stamina, lit. threads,
fibres, is used in E. (almost asa sing. sb.) to denote firm texture, and
hence strength or robustness,]—L. st@men (pl. stamina), the warp in
an upright loom, a thread. Lit. ‘that which stands up;’ formed
with suffix -men from stare, to stand; see Stand. Cf. Gk. στῆμα,
a stamen ; also ἱστός, a warp, from the same root. Der. s/amin or
tammy.
STAMIN, TAMINE, TAMINY, TAMIS, TAMMY,
a kind of stuff. (F.—L.) The correct form is stamin or stamine ;
Palsgrave has s‘amyne ; the other forms are corruptions, with loss of
initial s, as in tank (for stank). ME. stamin, Ancren Riwle, p. 418,
]. 20.—OF, estamine, ‘the stuffe tamine;” Cot.—L. stimineus, con-
sisting of threads.—L,. stdmin-, decl. stem of stamen, a thread,
stamen; see Stamen,
STAMMER, to stutter, to falter in speech. (E.) ME. stameren,
in Reliquize Antique, i. 65; Arthur and Merlin, 2864 (Stratmann).
AS. stomrian (for stamrian), to stammer, The Shrine, p. 42. Formed
as a verb from AS, stamer or stamur, adj., stammering. ‘ Balbus,
stamer,’ Voc. 161. 373 ‘ Balbus, stamur,’ id. 314. 38; stamor, id. 275.
20. The suffix -er, -wr, or -or is adjectival, expressive of ‘fitness or
disposition for the act or state denoted by the theme;’ cf. bit-or,
bitter, from bitan, to bite; March, A. S. Grammar, § 242. Thus
stamer signifies ‘disposed to come to a stand-still,’ such being_ the
sense of the base stam-, which is an extension of the 4/STA, to
stand; cf. prov. E. stam, to amaze, confound, related by gradation
to (ἃ. stumm, dumb.+Du. stameren, stamelen, to stammer; Icel.
stamr, stammering; stamma, stama, to stammer; Dan. stamme, to
stammer; Swed. stamma (the same); (ἃ. stammern, stammeln (the
same), from OHG. stam, adj., stammering; Goth. stamms, adj.
stammering, Mark, vii. 32. Der. stammer-er.
STAMP, to strike the foot firmly down, tread heavily and vio-
lently, to pound, impress, coin. (E.) ME. stampen, Chaucer, C. T.
12472 (C 538). ‘Ard stamped heom in a mortar;’ King Ali-
saunder, 332. AS. stempen, for *stampian; A.S. Leechdoms, ed.
Cockayne, i. 378, 1. 18.4Du. stampen; Icel. stappa (for *stampa, by
assimilation) ; Swed. stampa; Dan. stampe ; G. stampfen (whence OF.
estamper, Ἐς étamper); cf. G. stampfe, OHG. stamph, a pestle for
pounding.4+Gk. στέμβειν, to stamp. Der, stamp, sb., Cor. ii. 2. 111;
stamp-er ; also stamp-ede, q.v.
STAMPEDE, a panic, sudden flight. (Span.—Teut.) ‘ Stamp-
ede, a sudden fright seizing upon large bodies of cattle or horses, ...
leading them to run for many miles; hence, any sudden flight in
consequence of a panic;” Webster. Thee represents the sound of
Span. i.—Span. (and Port.) estampido, ‘a crash, the sound of any-
thing bursting or falling;’ Neuman. Formed as if from a verb
*estampir, akin to estampar, to stamp. ‘The reference appears to be
to the sound caused by the blows of a pestle upon a mortar. The
Span. estampar is of Teut. origin; see Stamp.
STANCE, a station, site ; see Stanza.
STANCH, STAUNCH, to stop the flowing of blood. (F.—L.)
ME. staunchen, to satisfy (hunger), Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. iii.
pr. 3; δ. iii. met. 3; to quench (flame), Gower, C. A. i. 15;
prol. 345.—OF. estancher, ‘to stanch, stop an issue of blood, to
slake or quench hunger, thirst, &c.;* Cot. Cf. Walloon stanchi
(Remacle), Span. es/ancar, to stop, check. — Late L. stancare, to stop
the flow of blood. The Late L. stancare is a variant of a Late L.
type *stagnicare, from L. stagnare, also used in the same sense of to
stop the flow of blood (Ducange). See Stagnate. Korting (§ 9099),
STANK 597
suggests that the sense may have been influenced by G. stange, a bar.
Der. stanch or staunch, adj., firm, sound, spelt staxche in Palsgrave
(Ρ. 325); Phillips (ed. 1706) gives stanch, ‘ substantial, solid, good,
sound ;’ this is derived from the verb, which Baret (1580) explains
by ‘to staie, or stanch blood, . . also to staie, to confirme, to make
more strong ;’ it was suggested by the F. pp. estancheé, ‘ stanched,
stopped, stayed’ (Cot.), or (as a nautical term) by OF. estanche,
water-tight (Supp. to Godefroy), mod. F. étanche; cf. Span. stanco,
water-tight, not leaky, said of a ship. Hence stanch-ly or staunch-
ly ; stanch-ness or staunch-ness. Also stanch-less, Macb. iv. 3. 78.
STANCHION, a support, an upright beam used as a support, a
bar. (F.—L.) ‘ Stanchions (in a ship), certain pieces of timber which,
being like pillars, support and strengthen those call’d waste-trees ;’
Phillips, ed. 1706. Spelt stanchon, staunchon in Palsgrave.—
ONorth F. estanchon, Norm. dial. etanchon; MF. estangon, estanson,
‘a prop, stay;’ Cot. MIF. estangon (mod. F, étangon) is not derived
from OF. estancher, to stanch, also used (by confusion) in the sense
‘to prop;’ but is a dimin, of OF. estance, a situation, condition
(Burguy), also used, according to Godefroy, in the sense of stanchion.
=Late L. stantia, a house, chamber (Ducange) ; lit. ‘that which
stands firm.’=L. stant-, stem of pres, part. of s¢are, to stand, cognate
with E. Stand. See Stanza.
STAND, to be stationary or still, to rest, endure, remain, be firm,
&c. (Ε.) ME. standen, pt. t. stood, stod, pp. stonden, standen. The
pp. stonden is in Chaucer, C. T. 9368 (ΕἸ 1494); and in the Earl of
Tolouse, 1. 322, in Ritson’s Met. Romances, vol. 111, AS. standan,
stondan, pt. t. stdd, pl. stddon, pp. standen; Grein, i. 475.4Icel.
standa; Goth, standan, pt. t. stoth. Cf. Du. staan, pt. t. stond; G.
stehen, pt. t. stand; Swed. std, pt. t. stod. Teut. type *standan-,
pt. t. *stdth; base *stadh, *stad, the n being orig. characteristic of
the present tense. Allied to L. stare; Gk. ἔστην (I stood); Russ.
stoiat(e), to stand; Skt. stha, to stand. All from Idg. 4/STA, to
stand; one of the most prolific roots. See State. Der. stand, sb.,
Merch. Ven. v. 77; stand-er, Troil. iii. 3. 845; stand-er-by (the same
as by-stand-er), Troil. iv. 5. 190; stand-ing, Wint. Tale, i. 2. 431;
stand-ing-bed, Merry Wives, iv. 5. 7; standish (for stand-dish), a
standing dish for pen and ink, Pope, On receiving from Lady Shirley
a Standish and two Pens; spelt standysshe in Cavendish, Life of
Wolsey, ed. Ellis, p. 92. Also under-stand, with-stand. Also (from
L. stare) sta-ble (1), sta-ble (2), sta-bl-ish, e-sta-bl-ish, stage, staid,
sta-men, con-sta-ble, stay (1) ; ar-re-st, contra-st, ob-sta-cle, ob-ste-tric,
re-st (2); (from supine stat-um) state, stat-us, stat-ion, stat-ist, stat-ue,
stat-ute, estate, armi-stice, con-stit-ute, de-stit-ute, in-stit-ute, inter-stice,
pro-stit-ute, re-in-state, re-stit-ut-ion, sol-stice, sub-stit-ute, super-stit-ion ;
(from pres. part., base stant-) circum-stance, conestant, di-stant, ex-
tant (for ex-stant), in-stant, in-stant-an-e-ous, in-stant-er, stanz-a, sub-
stance, sub-stant-ive. Also (from L. sistere, causal of stare) as-sist,
con-sist, de-sist, ex-ist (for ex-sist), in-sist, per-sist, re-sist, sub-sist.
Words of Gk. origin are sta-t-ics, apo-sta-sy, ec-sta-sy, meta-sta-sis,
sy-st-em,
STANDARD, an ensign, flag, model, rule, standing tree. (F.—
L.) ME. standard, in early use; it occurs in the A. S. Chronicle,
an. 1138, with reference to the battle of the Standard, —OF. estan-
dart, ‘a standard, a kind of ensigne for horsemen used in old time ;
also the measure... which we call the Standard ;”’ Cot. But also
spelt estendart, Supp. to Godefroy, in the sense of ‘ flag, ensign.’
The two forms represent two different ideas; but they were early
confused; see Standardum in Ducange. 1. The former refers rather
to the pole on which the flag was borne; and was formed with
suffix -art (=G. -hart, suffix, the same word as hart, adj., cognate
with E. hard, Brachet, Introd. § 196) from OHG. stand-an, to stand,
now only used in the contracted form stehen. This OHG. standan
is cognate with E. Stand, q.v. 2. The OF. estendard (also in Cot-
grave) is from OF, estendre<L.. extendere, to extend; see Extend.
This is supported by the Ital. form stendardo and the Prov. esten-
dart-z (Bartsch). On the other hand, we have E. standard, Span.
estandarte; and the E. standard of value and standard-tree certainly
owe their senses to the verb to stand. So also MDu. standaert,
a standard, or a great ensigne, a pillar or a column, a mill-post ;’
Hexham. ;
STANG, a pole, stake. (Scand.) Spelt stanguve in Levins (with
added -we, as in tongue). ME. sfange, Gawain and Green Knight,
1614. [Rather from Scand. than from AS. steng (Grein).]—Icel.
sting (gen. stangar), a pole, stake; Dan. stang ; Swed. stang.4+-Du.
stang ; G.stange. From the 2nd grade ofthe verb sting; see Sting.
Cf. Icel. stanga, to goad. :
STANK, a pool, atank. (F.—L.) A doublet of sank, of which
it is a fuller form. Once a common word; see Halliwell. ME.
stank; spelt stanc, Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 1018; see Spec. of
English, pt. ii. p. 162, 1. 1018.—OF. estanc (Sup. to Godefroy),
also estang, ‘a great pond, pool, or standing water;’ Cot. Cf.
598 STANNARY
Walioon stank, Prov. esianc, Span. esfanque, Port. fanque. In-
directly from L. stagnum, a pool of stagnant or standing water;
affected by the vb. *stagnicdre, to render stagnant, for which see
Stanch. See Stagnate, Stanch, Tank. Der. stagn-ate,
stanch, stanch-ion. Doublet, tank.
STANIWARY, relating to tin-mines. (L.) ‘ The Stannary courts
in Devonshire and Cornwall;’ Blackstone, Comment. b. iii. c. 6 (R.).
‘ Stannaries in Cornwall;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627.—Late L. stannaria,
a tin-mine (Ducange).=—L. stannum, tin; also, an alloy of silver and
lead; which seems to be the older sense, Pliny, b. xxxiv. c. 16.
B. Also spelt stagnum, whence stagneus, adj. ; and it is thonght to
be another sense of L. sfagnum, a pool, applied perhaps to a mass
of fused metal. Cf. Ital. stagno, tin, also, a pool. See Stank.
Cf. Corn. stean, W. ystaen, Bret. stean, Irish stan, Gael. staoin, Manx
stainney; all from L. stannum, tin. And see Tin.
STANZA, a division of a poem. (Ital.—L.) Used by Drayton
in his Pref. to the Barons’ Wars. We find stanzo (mod. editt.
stanza) and stanze (now stanza) in Shak. As You Like It, ii. 5. 18,
L.L.L. iv. 2. τοῦ ; Minsheu has stanze, ed. 1627. ‘ Staffe in our
vulgare poesie . . . the Italian called it stanza, as if we shonld say a
resting-place ;” Puttenham, Art of Eng. Poesie, ed. 1580, Ὁ. ii. c. 2.
—Ital. stanza, MItal. staniia, ‘a lodging, chamber, dwelling, also a
stance or staffe of verses or songs ;’ Florio.
or halt at the end of it.—Late L. s/antia, an abode. =L. stant-, stem
of pres. part. of stare, to stand, cognate with E. Stand, q.v. And
see Stanchion. Doublet, stance, a station, site; OF. estance<L.
stantia,
STAPLE (3), a loop of iron for holding a pin or bolt. (E.)
ME. stapel, stapil ; spelt stapyile in the Prompt. Parv.; stapil, stapul
in Cursor Mundi, 8288 ; s/apel, a prop or support for a bed, Seven
Sages, ed. Weber, 201. AS. stapul. ‘Patronus, stapul;’ Voc.
126. 8. (Here patronus=a defence; the gloss occurs amongst
others having reference to parts of a house.) The orig. sense is
a prop, support, something that furnishes a firm hold, and it is
derived from the base *sfap- of the AS. strong verb ste@ppan, to step, |
to tread firmly. Cf. E. stamp; and see Step. And see Staple (2). |
+Dn. stagel, a staple, stocks, a pile, allied to stappen, to step;
MDu. stapel, ‘ the foot or trevet whereupon anything rests;’ Hex-
ham; Dan. sfabel, a hinge, a pile; Swed. stapel, a pile, heap, stocks,
staple or emporium ; cf. stappla, to stumble (frequentative form) ;
G. staffel, a step of a ladder, a step; provincially, a staple or em-
porium ; s¢apel, a pile, heap, staple or emporium, stocks, a stake;
cf, stapfen, stappen, to step, to strut.
STAPLE (2), a chief commodity, principal production of a
country. (F.—Low G.) ‘A curious change has come over this
word ; we should now say, Cotton is the great staple, i.e. the estab-
lished merchandise, of Manchester; our ancestors would haye reversed
this and said, Manchester is the great staple, or established mart, of
cotton;’ Trench, Select Glossary. ‘ Staple signifieth this or that
towne, or citie, whether [whither] the Merchants of England by
common order or commandement did carrie their woolles, wool-fels,
cloathes, leade, and tinne, and such like commodities of our Jand,
for the vtterance of them by the great’ [wholesale]; Minsheu, ed.
1627. ME. staple, a market; Trevisa, tr. of Higden, viii. 488, 571.
“ΟΕ. and MF. estaple, later estape, ‘a staple, a mart or generall |
market, a publique store-house,’ &c.; Cot. Mod. F. éape. -- LowG.
stapel, a heap, esp. one arranged in order, a store-house of certain
wares in a town, where they are laid in order; whence such wares
were called s/apel-waaren; Brem. Worterbuch, q.v.
same word as Staple (1), the meanings of which are very various;
it has the sense of ‘heap’ in Du., Dan., Swed., and G., though
not in English; showing that this particular use of the word was
derived through the French. Prob. the word came into use, in
the special sense, in the Netherlands, where were the great com-
mercial cities. @ It is clear that the F. word was of Low G.,
not High G., origin. The word stapel, in mod. G., is clearly bor-
rowed from Low G., the true G. form being staffel. As E. Miiller
well remarks, the successive senses were prop, foundation or
support, stand for laying things on, heap, heaped wares, store-
house. ‘The one sense of ‘ firmness’ or ‘ fixedness’ runs through all
these.
STAR, a heavenly body, not including the sun and moon. (E.)
ME. sterre, Chaucer, C. T. 2063 (A 2061). AS. steorra; Grein,
ii. 482.4Du. ster (in composition, sferre); OHG. sterro. {There
are also forms with final -n- (πα), viz. Icel. stjarna, Swed. stjerna,
Dan. sijerne, Goth. s‘airno, G. stern.) +L. stella (for *ster-Ja, a dimin.
form; the L. astrum is borrowed from Gk.); Gk. ἀστήρ, gen.
dorép-os, with prosthetic a; Com. and Bret. steren; W. seren (for
*steren) ; Skt. tard (for *stara). Original sense uncertain; though
some connect it with Skt. s/y, to spread, hence, to sprinkle (light) ;
Max Miiller, Lect. on Lang. ii. 237 (8th ed.). Cf, Brugmann,
So named from the stop |
This is the |
STARK-NAKED
i. § 473 (2). Der. star, verb; star-fish, star-gaz-er, star-light ;
starr-ed; starr-y 3; day-star, lode-star. And see aster, stellar.
STARBOARD, the right side of a ship, looking forward. (E.)
Spelt starboord in Minsheu, ed. 1627. ME. sterebourde, Morte
Arthur, 7453 stereburde, id. 3665. AS. stéorbord, ALlfred, tr. of
Orosius, b. i. c. 1, where it is opposed to becbord, i.e. larboard; see
Sweet’s A. S. Reader. There is no doubt that stéorbord=steer-
bord, and that the steersman stood on the right side of the vessel
to steer; in the first instance, he used a paddle, not a helm. The
Icel. stjOrm means steerage, and the phr. ἃ stjarn, lit. at the helm
(or steering-paddle), means on the right or starboard side. Thus
the derivation is from AS. εἶδον, a rudder (whence also stéor-
mann, a steersman) and bord, a board, also the side of a ship; see
Steer and Board.+Du. stuurboord, from stuxr, helm, and boord,
board, also border, edge; Icel. s¢jdrnbordi, starboard, from stjorn,
steerage, and bord, a board, side of a ship; cf. bordi, a border;
Dan. siyrbord, from styr, steerage, and bord; Swed. styrbord (the
same).
STARCH, a gummy substance for stiffening cloth. (E.) ‘ Starche
for kyrcheys,’ 1.6. starch for kerchiefs; Prompt. Parv. So named
because starch or stiff ; starch being properly an adjective, represent-
ing ME, sterch, strong, O. E. Misc., ed. Morris, p. 156, 1. 11. AS.
*sterce, adj., from stercan, to strengthen, stiffen; which appears in
sterced-ferhd, strengthened in mind (Grein, ii. 480). The vb. stercan
(for *stare-ian) is regularly formed from OMerc. *starc, AS. stearc,
rigid; see Stark. Cf. G. sédrke, (1) strength, (2) starch; from
stark, strong. Der. starch, adj., in the sense of ‘ formal,’ due
tather to s/arch, sb., than to ME. sterch; rare; see an example
in Todd’s Johnson; hence starch-ly, formally, and starch-ness; also
starch-y. Also starch, verb, to stiffen with starch, as in ‘ starched
beard,’ Ben Jonson, Every Man out of his Humour, A. iv. sc. 4
(Carlo).
STARE (1), to gaze fixedly. (E.) ME. staren, Chaucer, C. T.
13627 (B 1887). AS. starian, to stare; Grein, ii. 477. A weak
verb, from a Teut. type *staroz, adj., fixed; appearing in AS. ster-
blind, quite blind; cf. G. starr (for *sfar-roz), stiff, inflexible, fixed,
staring; cf. Icel. stara, to stare; Low G. and Du. staren, OHG.
starén, to stare. Prob. allied to Gk. στερεός, στερρός, firm.
@ Hence to stare is also ‘to be stiff, as in ‘makest . . . my hair
to stare,’ Jul. Ceesar, iv. 3. 280. Der. stare, sb., Temp. iii. 3. 95.
And see sterile, stereoscope.
STARE (2), to shine, glitter. (E.) ME. staren. ‘Staryn, or
schynyn, and glyderyn, Niteo, rutilo;’ Prompt. Parv. ‘ Starynge, or
schynynge, as gaye thyngys, Rutilans, rntulus;’ id. We still speak
of staring, i.e. very bright, colours. The same word as Stare (1).
The Prompt. Pary. also has: " Staryn withe brode eyne, Patentibus
oculis respicere.’ From the notion of staring with fixed eyes we
pass to that of the effect of the stare on the beholder, the sensation
of the staring look. See Stare (1). @ No original connexion
with star, of which the ME. form was sterre.
STARE (3), a starling; see Starling.
STARK, rigid, stiff; gross, absolute, entire. (E.) ‘Stiff and
stark ;’ Romeo, iv. 1. 103. ΜΕ. stark, stiff, strong, Chaucer, C. T.
9332 (E1458). AS. stearc (for *stare), strong, stiff; Grein, ii. 481.
+ Du. sterk; Icel. sterkr; Dan. sterk; Swed. and G. stark. B. In
most of these languages, the usual sense is ‘strong ;’ but the orig.
sense may very well have been rigid or stiff, as in English; ef. Goth.
gastaurknith, lit. becomes dried up, used to translate Gk. ξηραίνεται
in Mark, ix. 18; and Lithuan. strégti, to stiffen, to freeze, become
rigid; also Russ. strogii, severe, Pers. su/urg, big, strong. The Idg.
form of the root is STREG, extended from 4/STER, to be fixed; cf.
Gk. orep-eds, firm, MDu. s/erren, ‘to be stiffe or stubborne,’ Hexham.
See Stare (1). Der. stark-ly, Meas. for Meas. iv. 2. 703; stark-ness,
Also stark, ady., wholly,as in stark mad. Also starch, q.v. ¢3 But
not stark-naked, q.v.
STARK-NAKED, quite naked. (E.) In Tw. Nt. iii. 4. 274;
spelt starke-naked, Palsgrave, p. 842. This phrase is doubtless now
used as if compounded of stark, wholly, and naked, just as in the case
of stark mad, Com. of Err. ii. 1. 59, v. 2813 but itis remarkable that
the history of the expression proves that it had a very different origin,
as regards the former part of the word, It is an ingenious substitu-
tion for s/art-naked, lit. tail-naked, i. 6. with the hinder parts exposed.
Startnaked occurs in The Castell of Love, ed. Weymouth, 1. 431;
also in the Ancren Riwle, pp. 148, 260, where the editor prints s/erc-
naked, steorc-naked, though the MS. must have séert-naked, steort-naked,
since stark is never spelt steore. The same remark applies to sfeore-
naket in St. Marharete, p. 5, 1. 19, where the editor tells us (at p. 109)
that the MS. may be read either way. In St. Juliana, pp. 16, 17,
we have steort-naket in both MSS. Β. The former element is, in
fact, the ME, sterf, a tail, Havelok, 2823, from AS. s/eor?, a tail,
Exod. iy. 4. ΤῈ is still preserved in E. redstart, i.e. red tail, as the
STARLING
name of a bird.4-Du, s/ert, a tail; Icel. stert-; Dan. stjert; Swed.
start; (ἃς slerz. Cf. Gk. στόρθη, a spike. 4 The phrase was
early misunderstood ; see Trevisa, iii. 97, where we have strei3t blynde
= wholly blind, with the various readings start blynde and stark blynde :
here start-blynde is really nonsense. There is also s¢areblind, Owland
Nightingale, 1. 241, AS. sterblind, Voc. 45. 22; but this answers to
Dan. sterblind, from ster, a cataract in the eye. We may also note
prov. G. sterzvoll (lit. tail-fnll), wholly drunk, cited by Schmeller,
Bavar. Dict. col. 785, 1. 48.
STARLING, the name of a bird. (E.) In Shak. 1 Hen. IV, i.
3. 224. ΜΕ. sterlyng, Voc. 640. 7; formed (with double dimin.
suffix -/-ing) from ME, stare, a starling, Chaucer, Patl. of Fonles,
1. 348. AS. ster, a starling. ‘Turdus, ster;’ Voc. 132. 8;
‘Sturnus, ser ;” id. 48. 16. It also means a sparrow, Matt. x. 29
(Lind. MS.). We also find the forms stern, stearn, meaning ‘a
tern.’ ‘ Beatica, stearn,’ Voc. 8. 36; ‘Stronns [storaus ?], sterz,’ id.
132. 7.4-I cel. starri, stari; Dan. ster; Swed. stare; G. staar.
L, sturnus, a starling. See Tern.
‘START, to move suddenly, to wince, to rousesuddenly. (E.) ME.
sterten, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1046 (A 1044). We also find s¢ert, sb., astart,
quick movement, Chaucer, C. T., A. 1705; Havelok, 1873.
Cf. |
The |
verb does not appear in AS., but we find the pt. t. stirte, Havelok, |
373; spelt starte, storle in Layamon, 23951. We may call it an E.
word ; the AS. form may have been *styrtan (for *sturt-jan) ; from a
Tent. base *s¢ert.
it; there are traces of it in Icel. stertimadr, a man who walks proudly
and stiffly, and Icel. uppstertr, an upstart, both given in Egilsson.
B. Allied words are Du. storten, to precipitate, plunge, spill, tall,
rush; Dan. styrte, to fall, precipitate, hurl; Swed. storta, to cast
Stratmann cites an Olcel. s¢erta, but I cannot find |
down, ruin, fall dead; (ἃ. stwrzen, to hurl, precipitate, ruin, overturn. |
Note also Swed. dial. stjaréa, to run wildly about (Rietz); Low G.
steerten, to flee; MDu. séeerten, to flee, to run away. The G. stiirzen
is derived from the sb. sturz, a sudden fall, tumble, precipice, water-
fall, from a Tent. base *stert ; cf. Norw. sterten, adj., striving against.
But the further history is obscure. Der. sfart, sb., ME. stert, as
above ; start-er; start-up, an upstart, Much Ado, i. 3. 69; up-start,
q.v. Also start-le, the frequentative form, ME. stertlen, to stumble
along, Debate of Body and Soul,], 120, pr. in Alteng. Sprachproben,
ed. Matzner, i. 94, and in Mapes’ Poems, ed. Wright, p. 3353 from
AS. steartlian, to stumble.
STARVE, to die of hunger or cold, to kill with hunger or cold.
(E.) Orig. intransitive, and used in the general sense of ‘to die,’
without reference to the means. ME. steruen (with u=v), strong
verb; pt. 1. starf, Chaucer, C. T. 935 (A 933), pp- sloruen, or
i-storuen, id. 2016 (A 2014). AS. steorfan, to die, pt. t. stear/, pp.
storfen ; ‘stearf of hungor,’ died of hunger, A. 8. Chron. an. 1124.
Hence was formed the AS. weak verb sferfan, to kill, weak vb.,
appearing in the pp. asterfed, Matt. xv. 13 (Rushworth gloss.). The
mod, E. has confused the two forms, making them both weak.+Du.
sterven, pt. t. suerf, storf; G. sterben, pt.t. starb. Teut. type *sterban-,
pt. t. *s/ard. Der. s/arve-l-ing, with double dimin. suffix, expressive
of contempt, 1 Hen. IV, ii. 1.76. Also starv-ation, a hybrid form,
but now common, used by Mr. Dundas, the first Viscount Melville,
in an American debate in 1775. ‘ That it then jarred strangely on
Inglish ears is evident from the nickname S¢arvation Dundas, which
in consequence he obtained. See Letters of H. Walpole and Mann,
vol. ii. p. 396, quoted in N. and Ὁ. no. 225;’ Trench, Eng. Past
and Present.
STATE, a standing, position, condition, an estate, province, rank,
dignity, pomp. (F.—L.) See Trench, Sel. Glossary. ME. stat,
Ancren Riwle, p. 204.—OF-. estat, ‘ estate, case, nature,’ Cot.—L.
statum, acc. of status, condition. = L. statum, supine of stare, to stand;
cognate with E. stand; see Stand. From 4/STA, to stand. Der.
stale, verb (late) ; sfat-ed, stat-ed-ly, state-ment (a coined word) ; state-
paper, state-room, &c.3 state-s-man, coined like hunt-s-man, sporl-s-
man ; states-man-like, states-man-ship. Also state-ly, ME. estat-lich,
C. T. 140, a hybrid compound; state-li-ness, And see stat-ion, stat-
ist, stat-ue, stat-ure, stat-ute. Doublets, estate, sdat-us.
STATICS, the science that treats of the properties of bodies at
rest. (Gk.) Spelt s¢aticks in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Formed as a
pl. from the adj. statick. ‘The statick aphorisms of Sanetorius;’ Sir
T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, bk. iv. c. 7. § 2.—Gk. στατικός, at a stand-
still ; ἡ στατική (sc. ἐπιστήμη), Statics. — Gk. στατ-ός, placed, stand-
ing, verbal adj. from ora-, weak grade of the root of ἴστημι, I stand.
=—7STA, to stand; see Stand. Der. Aydro-statics.
STATION, a standing, post, assigned place, situation, rank.
(F.—L.) ME. station, Gower, C. A. iii. 91; bk. vii. 204. —F. station,
‘a station;’ Cot.—L. statidnem, acc. of statio, a standing still, = L.
statum, supine of stare, to stand; see State. Der. sfation-ary, from
MF. stationnaire (Cot.), L. adj. stationa@rius. Also station-er,a book-
seller, Minsheu (1627), spelt s/acyoner in Palsgrave, but orig. merely
STAY 599
one who had a séation or stand in a market-place for the sale of books;
see Trench, Select Glossary ; hence stationer-y.
STATIST, a statesman, politician, (F.—L.; with Gk, suffix.)
So in Shak. Hamlet, y. 2. 33. A hybrid word, coined from the sb,
state by adding -ist (F. -iste<L -ista<Gk. -torns). See State,
Der. stat-ist-ic, i.e. relating to the condition of a state or people;
whence sta/istic-s (like static-s from static),
STATUE, an upright image, (F,—L.) Sometimes s:atué (tri-
syllabic), in which case it is generally printed sfatua in mod. edd, of
Shakespeare, as if from L. statua directly. But Cotgraye writes
statué for the MF’. form, However, statua occurs in Bacon, Essays
27, 37, 45. ME. statue, Chaucer, C, T. 14165 (B 3349).—OF.
stalué, a statue; Cot.—L. satva,a standing image.=L, statu-, decl,
stem of s/afus, a standing, position; see State. Der. statu-ar-y, from
MF, statuatre, ‘a statuary, stone-cutter,’ Cot., from L. sfa‘narius, a
maker of statues (Pliny); statu-e/te, from Ital, s/atnetta, dimin, of
statua; statu-esque, formed with the F. suffix -esque=Ital. -esco<L,
-ISCUS,
STATURE, height. (F.—L.) Used with special reference to
the upright posture of a human being. ME, s/ature, Chaucer, C. T.
8133 (E 257).—F. stature, ‘stature,’ Cot.—L. statara, an upright
posture, height, growth.—L. stat-um, supine of s/dre, to stand; see
State.
STATUS, condition, rank. (L.) A late word; not in Todd’s
Johnson. =L. status, condition; see State. Doublets, s/a/e, estate.
STATUTE, an ordinance. (F.—L.) ME. statute, Gower, C. A.
i. 217; bk. ii. 1741.—F. statut; Cot.—L. statitum, a statute ; neuter
of s/atutus, pp. of s/atuere, to set, establish. —L. statu-, dec]. stem of
status, state; see State. Der. stasut-able, a coined word; statut-
abl-y statut-ory, a coined word. Here belong also con-stitute, de-
stitute, in-stilute, pro-sti{ute, sub-stitute 3 re-stitut-ion,
STAUNCH, adj. and verb ; see Stanch.
STAVE, one of the pieces of a cask, a part of a piece of music, a
stanza. (E.) 1. Merely another form of staff, due to the dat. sing.
staue (= stave), Owl and Night., 1165, and the pl. staves (=sfaves),
Wyclif, Mark, xiv. 48. Perhaps the special sense is rather Scand.
than E. Cf. Icel. stafr, a staff, also a stave; Dan. stav, a staff, stave,
a stave. 2. A stanza was formerly called a staff, as forming a part
of a poem ; prob. suggested by the older use of AS. stef, Icel. stafr,
G. buchstab, in the sense of a letter or written character. Cf. Icel.
stef, a stave in a song; Goth, stafs, a letter, element, rudiment, Gal.
iv. 3. ‘Staffe in our vulgare poesie I know not why it should be so
called, vnless it be for that we ynderstand it for a bearer or supporter
of a song or ballad;’ Puttenham, Art of Eng. Poesie, b. ii. ο, 2.
See Staff. Der, stave, verb; usually 20 stave in, to break into a
cask, or 20 s/ave off, to ward off as with a staff; the verb readily puts
v for f, as in strive from strife, live from life. Doublet, staff.
STAVESACRE, a species of larkspur; Delphinium staphisagria.
(F.—L.—Gk.) | Marlowe has stavesaker ; Dr, Faustus, i. 4; see
Nares. Englished from MF. stafhisaigre, ‘stavesaker, lice-bane ;’
Cot.—L. staphisagria.—Gk. oragis ἄγρια ; where ἄγρια is the fem.
of ἄγριος, wild, from ἀγρός, a field (E. acre) ; and σταφίς is for ἀσταφΐίς,
raisins.
STAY (1), to remain, abide, wait, prop, delay. (F.—MDn.)
‘ Steyyn {=slayen], stoppyn, styntyn, or cesyn of gate, Restito,
obsto;’ Prompt. Pary. ‘The pt. t. sfayd occurs in London Lick-
penny, st. 2.—OF. estayer, ‘to prop, shore, stay, underset;’ Cot.
Mod, Ἐς étayer. — OF. estaye, sb. fem., ‘a prop, stay, supporter, shore,
buttresse.’ This is mod. F, éfai,a prop; used as a masc. sb., by
confusion with the nautical term éai; see Stay (2). Thus the orig.
use was to support, whence the senses to hold, retain, delay, abide,
were easily deduced. B. The OF. estaye is from MDu. stade, or
slaeye, ‘a prop ora staye;’ Hexham, Healso gives staey, ‘stay, or
leisure ;’ geen staey hebben, ‘to have noe time or leisure.’ So also
mod. Du. stade, in the phr. te stade komen, to come in due time (lit.
‘to the right place’).4-OHG., stata, a fit place or time, opportunity.
These words are closely allied to Du. stad, a town; Dan. stad, a
town ; Swed. stad, a town; G. stadt, a town, slat, a place, stead ;
Goth. staths, a place, stead. Alsoto E. staithe and stead; see Stead.
y- The loss of medial d is common in Dutch, and occurs in many
words ; δ, g. breér for broeder, a brother (Sewel), éeer for teder or
teeder, tender (id.). Der. stay, sb., spelt sfaye in Wyatt, tr. of Ps. 130
(R.), from OF, estaye, as above; this is really a more orig. word in
Ἐς, though perhaps later introduced into English. Also statd, q. v. ;
for s/ay'd=stayed, pp. Also stay-s, pl., lit. supports; it is remarkable
that bodice is also, properly, a plural form.
STAY (2), as a nautical term, a large rope supporting a mast. (E.)
Rare in old books. Cotgrave uses it to translate MF. estay, which is
the same word, the F. word being of Teut. origin. ME. stey; ‘ one
foresteye, one couple of baksfeye;’ Riley, Memorials of London,
P- 370 (1373). AS. steg,a stay; ina list of the parts of a ship in
600 STEAD
Voc. 288. 26. The change from AS. steg to E. stay is just the same
as that from AS. deg to E. day.4-Du. stag; Icel., Dan., and Swed.
stag; G. stag. Perhaps from Teut. *stak-= Idg. *stak-, to resist ; see
Steel. @ It is difficult to say whether this E. stay is a survival of
AS. steg, or is from OF. estaye, a prop; see Stay (1). Der.
stay-sail,
STEAD, a place, position, place which another person had or
might have. (K.) ME. stede, in the general sense of place. ‘In
twenti stedes’=in twenty places; Havelok, 1846. AS. stede, a
place; Grein, ii. 478. Closely allied to AS. sted, sted, a bank,
shore; see Staithe.4+Du. stede, stee,a place; MDu. stede, a farm.
Closely allied to Du. stad, a town ; Icel. stadr, a stead, place, stada,
a place; Dan. and Swed. stad, a town; Dan. sted,a place; G. stadt,
statt, a town, place; OHG, stat; Goth. staths, a stead, place. Cf.
L. statio, a station; Gk. στάσις ; Skt. sthiti-, a standing, residence,
abode, state. AllalliedtoStand,q.v. Der. stead fast, q.v., stead-y,
4. ¥., home-stead, q.v.; bed-stead. And see stay (1), staithe, station.
STEADFAST, STEDFAST, firm inits place, firm, constant,
resolute. (E.) ME. stedéfast, appearing as a trisyllable in Gower,
C. A. iii. 115; bk. vii. 906; and in the Ormulum, 1. 1597. AS.
stedefast, firm in one’s place, steadfast; Battle of Maldon, 127, 249;
see Sweet’s A. S. Reader. AS. stede,a place; and fest, fast. See
Stead and Fast.4+MDn. stedevast, ‘steadfast,’ Hexham; from MDu.
stede, a farm (orig. a place), and vast, fast; Icel. stadfastr, from stadr,
a stead, and fastr, fast; Dan. stadfast,
STEADY, firm, fixed, stable. (E.) Spelt sfedye in Palsgrave.
A new formation from ME, sted-e, a stead; with suffix -y (AS. -ig) ;
suggested by stead-fast. The AS. word is steddig, steady, appearing
in unsteddig, unsteady, giddy, ΖΕ] γος Homilies, i. 480, last line.
Cf. MDu. stedigh, ‘continuall, firme,’ Hexham; from stede, a stead.
Also Icel. stédugr, steady, stable, from stadr, a place; Dan. stadig,
steady, from sfade, a stall, stad, a town, orig. a place; Swed. stadig,
from stad, a place; ἃ. stdtig, continual, from s/att, a place. Der.
steadi-ly, -ness. Also steady, verb.
STEAK, a slice of meat, esp. beef, ready for cooking. (Scand.)
ME. stetke; spelt steyke in Prompt. Parv.—Icel. steik, a steak ; so
called from its being roasted, which was formerly done by placing it
upon a wooden peg before the fire; cf. Icel. ste‘kja, to roast, esp. on a
spit or peg; cf. sftkna, to be roasted or scorched. In the words
steikja, stikna, the ‘et and i indicate a lost strong verb.” The weak
grade of this lost strong verb appears in the AS. stic-iaz, to stick;
see Stick (1). And cf. Icel. séka, a stick, stika, to drive piles. A
steak is a piece of meat, stuck on a stick to be roasted.-Swed. stek,
roast meat; sfeka, to roast; cf. stick, a stab, prick, sticka, to stick,
stab; Dan. steg (for *stek), a roast ; ad vende steg, to turn the spit;
stege, to roast ; cf. stik,a stab, stikke, to pierce ; stikke astick. Der.
beef-steak ; whence F. bifteck.
STEAL, to take away by theft, to thieve. (E.) ME. stelen,
Chaucer, C. T. 564 (A 562); pt. t. stal, id. 3993 (A 3995); pp.
stolen. AS. stelan, pt. t. steal, pl. st@lon, pp. stolen; John, x. 10.4
Du. stelen ; Icel. stela ; Dan. stjzle; Swed. stjala; G. stehlen ; OHG.
stelan; Goth. stilan. Teut. type *stelan-, pt. τ. *stal, pp. *stulanoz.
B. Connexion with Gk. στέρομαι, I am deprived of, orepéw, I de-
prive, is doubtful, but is accepted by some. Der. steal-th, ME.
stalfe, Rob. of Glouc. p. 197, 1. 4057; cf. Icel. stuldr, Swed. stéld,
theft. Hence stealth-y, stealth-i-ly, -ness. Also stale (2).
STEAM, vapour. (E.) ME. steem, which also meant a flame or
blaze. ‘Steem, or lowe of fyre, Flamma; Steem, of hotte lycure,
Vapor;’ Prompt. Parv. [In Havelok, 591, stem is a ray of light,
described as resembling a sun-beam. ‘Two stemynge eyes’=two
flaming eyes; Sir T. Wiat, Sat. i. 53.) AS. stéam, a vapour, smell,
smoke; Grein, il. 480.4-Du. stoom, steam. Teut. type *staumoz, m.;
as if from a base *steu-. Root unknown. Can it be allied to
Stove? Der. steam, verb, ME. stemen, Chaucer, C. T. 202, AS.
stéman, as in be-stéman, Grein, i. 94; steam-boat, -engine; steam-er,
steam-y.
STEARINE, STEARIN, one of the ingredients of animal
fats. (F.—Gk.) Modern; F. stéarine ; formed, with suffix -ine, from
Gk. στέαρ, tallow, hardened fat. Allied to Gk. στῆ-ναι, to stand, be
firm. Brugmann, ii. § 82. See Statics.
STEATITE, soap-stone, a variety of tale. (F.—Gk.)
Modern; F. stéatite; formed with suffix -ite (Gk. -erns) from Gk.
στέατ-, as in στέατ-ος, gen. of στέαρ, fat (above).
STEED, a horse, esp. a spirited horse. (E.) ME. stede, Chaucer,
C. T. 13831 (B 2093); Havelok, 1675. AS. stéda, masc., a stud-
horse, stallion, war-horse; /Elfric’s Homilies, i. 210, 1. 14; also
gestéd-hors, used as convertible with s¢éda in A£lfred’s tr. of Beda, Ὁ. ii.
¢. 13, where it is also opposed to myre, a mare, as being of a different
gender. Cf. AS, stddmyre, a stud-mare, Laws of A®lfred (political),
8 16, in Thorpe, Ancient Laws, i. 71. β. By the usual vowel
change from 6 to ὃ (as in fot, a foot, pl. fet, feet, and in a great
STEEP
| number of instances), stéda (for *stdd-jon-) is derived from stdd, a
| stud; with the addition of the masc. nom. suffix -a (from -jon).
Thus stéd-a = ‘studder,’ i.e. stud-horse or stallion, for breeding foals.
See Stud (1). Allied to G. stute, a mare, Icel. stedda, a mare,
stodhesir, a stallion, stddmerr, a stud-mare or brood-mare,
STEEL, iron combined with carbon, for tools, swords, &c. (E.)
ME, steel, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 10300 (E 2426). Also spelt stiel, Gower,
C. A. vi. 1814; style, Sir Ferumbras, 4433. OMerc. sféli; Epinal
Gloss. 49; AS. style, Grein, ii. 490; and in the compounds sfyl-ecg,
steel-edged, and s/ylen, made of steel; Grein, ii. 490. “The OMerc.
stéli is for *stehli, from *stahli-; see below.4+Du. staal; Icel. stal;
Dan. staal; Swed. stal; G. stahl, contracted from OHG, stahal.
B. The OHG. form furnishes the clue to the etymology; all the
forms are due to Teut. types *stahlo-, *stahli-, formed from the Teut.
base STAH, answering to an Idg. base STAK, to be firm or still,
appearing in Skt. stak, to resist, Zend stax-ra-, strong (Horn, § 714),
and esp. in OPruss. panu-stakla, steel for kindling fire. Thus the
long vowel in steel is due to loss of kh before 1. Der. steel, verb, from
AS. stylan, to steel; cf. Icel. stela, to steel (derived from οὐαὶ by the
usual yowel-change), G. stahlen (from stahl).
STEELYARD (1), a meeting-place, in London, for German
merchants from the Hanse towns. (E.) ‘Next to this lane [Cosin
Lane}, on the east, is the Sveelyard, as they term it, a place
for merchants of Almayne [Germany], that use to bring hither . .
steel, and other profitable merchandises;’ Stow’s Chronicle, ed.
Thoms, p. 67; see the whole passage. The Steelyard was a factory
for the Hanse Merchants, and was in Dowgate ward, That the
English really called this place the steel-yard appears from a docu-
ment dated 1394, in which it is Latinised as Curia Calibis (= Chaly-
bis); see N. and Ὁ. 10S. vi. 413. In 1475 it is ‘called the Stilehofe,
otherwise called the Stileyerd.’ Here stile is a ME. variant of steel ;
see above. ‘The marchauntes of the styliarde’ are mentioned in
Fabyan's Chron., an. 1527-8. And see Stilyard in Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. B. But it is explained, in the Bremen Worterbuch, that
the Low G. name was Staal-hof, for which ‘steel-yard’ was a mis-
taken substitution; kof being correctly translated by ‘yard.’ The
mistake obyiously arose from the fact that both Low G. staal and
MDnu. stael had a double meaning, viz. (1) steel, and (2), sample,
pattern; and the /atter was really meant. Both Low ἃ. staal, a
sample, and MDu. sfae/, a sample, are from OF, estaler, to display
wares on a stall (OF. estal).—Du. stal, G. stall, a stall; see Stall.
γ- Cf. Du. staal-hof, ‘ pattern-office, where the samples of cloth were
stamped ;’ Calisch.
STEELYARD (2), a kind of balance, with unequal arms.
(E.) The form is due to a popular etymology from steel and
yard, as if ‘a bar of steel.’ But, as a fact, it was merely shortened
from stilyard-beme, meaning the ‘ beam’ or balance used in the Sveel-
yard (as explained above). Hence the word yard, oddly enough,
does not refer to the shape of the balance, but to the place wherein it
was used; so that it is derived from yard (1), not from yard (2).
‘The beam of le Hanzes Hangis, called the Stilliarde Beme;’ Letters
and Papers Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, vol. v. p. 104, col. 2;
see N. and Ὁ. 10S. vi. 331. Later shortened to stilliard ; Cotgrave,
s. v. Crochet, calls it ‘a Roman beame or sfelleere;’ Phillips (1706)
has stelleer; and Torriano, 5. ν. stadera, has ‘a pair of stilliards.’
Hence prov. 10, stillur, stuliard.
STEENBOK, a S. African antelope. (Du.) Du. steenbok, lit.
‘rock-goat.’ Du, steen, stone, rock; and bok, he-goat. See Stone
and Buck (1).
STEEP (1), precipitous. (E.) ME. step, steep. ‘Theo path..
was narwe and stepe;’ King Alisaunder, 7o41. AS. stéap, steep,
high, lofty; Grein, ii. 481. Cf Icel. steypdr, steep, rising high.
Both AS, stéap and Icel. steypdr are from a common Teut. base
*staup. B. The Icel. steyzdr is allied to steypa, to overthrow, cast
down, lit. to make to stoop, causal of the rare verb stipa, to stoop,
which is the same word as Swed. stupa, (1) to fall, (2) to tilt. Cf.
Swed. stupande, sloping, stupning, a leaning forward; whence it
appears that steep is allied to stoop, and meant, originally, tilted for-
ward, sloping down. So also Norweg. stupa, to fall, tumble head-
long, stup, a steep cliff. See Stoop (1), and Stoup. Der. steep-
ly, -ness; steep-le, q.v.; steep-y, Timon, i. 1. 743 steep (2).
STEEP (2), to dip or soak in a liquid. (Scand.) ΜΕ. stepen.
‘ Stepyn yn water or other licure, Infundo, illiqueo;’ Prompt. Pary.
Spelt stege, Palladius, b. ii. 1. 281.—Icel. steypa, to make to stoop,
overturn, to pour out liquids, to cast metals; causal of stupa, to
stoop; see Stoop, and see Steep (1). So also Swed. stépa, to cast
(metals), to steep, to sink; s/épa korn, ‘to steep barley in water’
(Widegren); Dan. stébe, to cast, mould (metals), to steep (corn),
stéb, the steeping of grain, steeped corn. The succession of senses is:
to make to stoop or overturn, to pour out or cast metals, to pour
water over grain.
STEEPLE
STEEPLE, a pointed tower of a church or building. (1...)
ME. stepel, Rob. of Gloucester, p. 528, 1. 10860. AS. s/ypel, a lofty
tower, Luke, xiii. 4; the Hatton MS. has stépel. So called from its
‘steepness,’ i.e. loftiness or height; from AS. stéap, lofty, bigh,
mod. E. steep. The yowel-change from δα to Merc. δ, Wessex ie,
later y, is regular; see Steep (1). Also spelt s/éapol ; OE. Texts,
p- 616. Der. steeple-chase, modern, not in Todd’s Johnson.
STEER (1), a young ox. (E.) ΜΕ. steer, Chaucer, C. T. 2151
(A 2149). AS. stéor ; " Juvencus, vel vitula, steor ;’ Voc. 120. 28.4
Du. and G, stier, a bull; Icel. stj6rr; Goth. stiur, Tent. type
*steuroz,m, Another Teut. type is *¢heuroz, from Idg. *teuros; as
in Icel. Ajorr, Swed. Gur, Dan. tyr, a steer; allied (by gradation) to
L. taurus, Gk. ταῦρος, from Idg. *tauros. B. The orig. sense is
‘full-grown’ or ‘large,’ as in Skt. sthila- (for sthura-), great, large,
powerlul, sthira-, a man, sthiri, a pack-horse; cf. Zend staora-,
Pers. sutur, a beast of burden. Brugmann, i. §§ 196, 230; Horn,
§ 720. y. We even find the allied adj. in Teutonic, yiz. AS. stor,
large, Icel. stérr, Dan. and Swed. stor; Idg. type *sthar-os, large.
Thus a steer is a firm, full-grown animal, esp, a young bull. See
also Steer (2). Der. stir-#, a young bullock or heifer ( Jamieson),
AS. styric, Luke, xv. 23, formed with dimin. suffix -ic, and consequent
vowel-change from ὅο to νυ.
STEER (2), to direct, guide, govern. (E.) ME. steren, P. Plow-
man, B. viii. 47. AS. stéoran, styran, to direct, steer, Grein, ii. 481,
491.4Du. sturen; Icel. styra; Dan. styre; Swed. styra; (ἃ. steuern,
OHG., stiurjan, stiuran ; Goth. stiurjan, to establish, confirm. B. All
from the Teut. weak verb *sfeur-jan-, to steer (orig. to strengthen,
confirm, hence, hold fast, direct), This is a denominative verb,
from the sb. of which the base is *stewr-, a rudder (lit. that which
holds fast). This sb. is now obsolete in E., but appears in Chaucer
as stere, C. T. 4868 (B 448); AS. stéor, Du, stuur, a rudder, Icel. styri,
a rudder, Dan. styr, steerage, G. stever, a rudder, OHG. stiura, a
prop, a staff, a paddle or rudder. It is still retained in E. in the
comp. sfar-board, i.e. steer-board, AS, stéor-bord (rudder-side of a
ship). y- Closely allied to this sb. is Icel. staurr, a post, stake,
Gk. σταυρός, an upright pole or stake. Noreen, § 143; Brugmann,
i. § 198. The Teut. sb. meant, accordingly, a pole to punt with or
a paddle to keep the ship's course right, then a rudder; whence the
verb to steer, to use a stake or paddle, to use a helm. Der. steer-
age, Romeo, i. 4. 112, with F. suffix; sfeer-s-man, Milton, P. L. ix.
513, formed like Aunt-s-man, sport-s-man; also star-board, q.v.,
stern, q.v. And see Store.
STELLAR, belonging to the stars. (L.) ‘Stellar vertue;’
Milton, P. L. iv. 671.—L. stellaris, starry.—L. stella, a star; short
for *ster-Ja, a contracted dimin. from the same source as Εὖ. s/ar; see
Star. Der. (from sfella) stell-ate, stell-at-ed; stell-ul-ar, from the
dimin. sfellula, a little star. Also sfell-i-fy, obsolete; see Chaucer,
Ho. of Fame, ii. 78.
STEM (1), the trunk or stalk of a tree or herb, a little branch.
(E.) ME. stem, a trunk of a tree, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft,
p- 296, 1.8. AS. stefn, stefn, stemn, (1) a stem of a tree, (2) the
stem or prow of a vessel, (3) a stem or race of people, Grein, ii. 479.
[The change from fx to mn is regular; so also AS. hlafmeasse is now
Lammas.| We also find a weak form stefna, stefna, a stem or prow
of a ship (Grein). Both these forms are apparently allied to AS.
stef, a staff; a stem of a tree is the s/aff or stock, or support of it ;
the stem of a vessel is the upright post in front of it. See further
under Staff.4Du. stam, a trunk, stem, stock; steven, prow; Icel.
stafn, later stamn, the stem of a vessel (from stafr, a staff), also
written sfefni, stemnt, also stofn, stomn, the stem of a tree; Dan.
stamme, the trunk of a tree; steun, the prow ofa vessel; Swed. stam,
trunk; staf, prow; framsiam, fore-stem, prow, bakstam, back-stem,
stern ; (ἃ. stamm, a trunk ; steven or vorder steven, the stem, prow-post ;
cf. hinter steven, stern-post.
STEM (2), the prow of a vessel. (E.) Spelt stam in Morte Ar-
thure, 1. 3664; but this is rather the Scand. form; the pl. stemmes is
in Baret (1580). It is precisely the same word as when we speak of
the stem of a tree; see further under Stem (1). 4 As the orig.
signification was merely ‘ post,’ there was no particular reason (be-
yond usage) why it should have been used more of the prow-post
than of the stern-post ; accordingly, the Icel. s/afn sometimes means
‘prow,’ and sometimes ‘stern; ’ and in G. the distinction is made by
saying vorder steven (fore-stem) for stem or prow-post, and hinter
steven (hind-stem) for stern or stern- post.
STEM (3), to check, stop, resist. (E.) ‘S/em, verb, to oppose (a
current), to press forward through ; fo stem the waves, 3 Hen. VI, ii.
6. 36; stemming it, J. Cesar, i. 2. 109 ;’ Schmidt, Shak. Lexicon. Cf.
Icel. stemma, to dam up; Dan. stemme, to stem; (ἃ, s/emmen, to dam
up water. Teut. type *sfemjan-; a verb derived (by vowel-change of
a to e) from a base *stam-, with the idea of ‘ obstruction;’ see
Stammer.
STEPPE 601
STENCH, a bad smell. (E.) ME. stench, Rob. of Glouc. p. 405,
1, 8354. AS. stenc, dat. stence, a strong smell, common in the sense
of sweet smell or fragrance; Grein, ii. 479. —AS. stanc, 2nd grade of
stincan, to smell, to stink; see Stink. (Stench from stink, like
drench from drink. |4-G. ge-stank, a stench (from stinken).
STENCIL, to paint or colour in figures by means of a stencilling-
plate. (F.—L.) In Webster; he defines a stencil (as a stencilling-
plate is sometimes called) as ‘a thin plate of metal, leather or other
material, used in painting or marking; the pattern is cut out of the
plate, which is then laid flat on the surface to be marked, and the
colour brushed over it” Various guesses have been made at the ety-
mology of this word, all worthless. I think it probable that to
stencil is from OF. estenceler, to sparkle, also to cover with stars, to
adorn with bright colours (Godefroy), MF. estinceller, ‘to sparkle,
...to powder, or set thick with sparkles;’ Cot. It was an old
term in heraldry. Littré gives a quotation of the 15th century;
‘L’aurmoire estoit tute par dedans de fin or estincelee’ =the box (?)
was all (covered) within with fine gold scattered in stars. This
peculiar kind of ornamentation (star-work) is precisely what
stencilling must first have been used for, and it is used for it still.
Since the pattern is cut quite through the plate, it must all be in
separate pieces, so that no better device can be used than that which,
to quote Cotgrave, is se¢ thick with sparkles. Cf. ‘ With his sternes
[stars] of gold, stanseld on-stray,’ i.e. stencilled at random; Aunters
of Arthure, st. 31.—OF. estencele, a spark; in Walter de Bibbes-
worth, in Wright’s Vocab. i. 171. —L. type *s¢incilla, mistaken form
of L. scintilla, a spark. See Scintillation ; also Tinsel. 4 The
note to Aunters of Arthur, st. 31, quotes from the Wardrobe accounts
of Edw. HI: ‘harnesium de bokeram albo, extencellato cum
argento,’ 1. 6. starred with silver.
STENOGRA PHY, short-hand writing. (Gk.) Not a very new
word; spelt sfexographie in Minsheu, ed. 1627. Coined from Gk.
otevo-, for στενός, natrow, close ; and -γραφία, writing (as occurring
in ὀρθογραφία, orthography), from γράφειν, to write. Der. steno-
graph-er, stenograph-ic, -ic-al, -ic-al-ly,
STENTORIAN, extremely loud. (Gk.) See Ben Jonson, Staple
of News, very near the end; and Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674; he
tightly explains it with reference to the voice of Stentor. —Gk.
Στέντωρ, Stentor, a Greek at Troy, famous for his loud voice, Homer,
lliad, v. 785.—Gk. στέν-ειν, to groan, make a noise; with suffix
-twp of the agent, as in L. ama-tor, a lover.—4/STEN, to make
a noise; cf. Skt. stan, to sound, to thunder, Cf. E. stun. Stentor =
stunner.
STEP, a pace, degree, round of a ladder, foot-print. (E.) ΜΕ.
steppe, in the sense of foot-step, Ywaine and Gawin, 2880, in Ritson’s
Met. Romances, vol. i; Mandeville’s Travels, ed. Halliwell, p. 81.
OMere. stepe (Sweet); AS. st@pe, a pace, Jos. x. 12.—AS. steppan,
to go, advance, a strong verb with a weak infinitive, pt. t. stop, pp.
stapen. The pt. t. stop occurs frequently; see Grein, ii, 476. ὃ
The orig. sense is ‘to set the foot down firmly ;’ from a Teut. base
STAP; see further under Stamp, which is merely the nasalised
form, Allied to Du. stap, G. stapfe, a footprint, footstep. Der.
foot-step ; door-step ; stepp-ing-stone, in Wright’s Voc. i. 159, where it
is miswritten seping-stone, by an obvious error.
STEPCHILD, one who stands in the relation of child through
the marriage of a parent. (E.) The pl. step-childre occurs in Early
Eng. Psalter, ed. Stevenson, Ps. xciii. 6. Stepmoder is in Gower,
C. A. 1. 104; bk. i. 1844. AS. stéopeild, Exod. xxii. 22; John,
xiv. 18, q.v. For cild, see Child. B. The prefix stéop- occurs
also in s/éopbearn, a stepbairn, stepchild, stéopfeder, stepfather,
stéopmoder, stepmother, s/éopsunu, stepson, and stéopdohtor, step-
daughter ; see Voc. 9. 10; 34. 27; 22. 23; 88. 20. y- The
sense of s/op is ‘ orphaned,’ or ‘ deprived of its parent ;’ so that it
was first used in the compounds stepchild, stepbairn, stepson, step-
daughter, and afterwards extended, naturally enough, so as to form
the compounds stepfather, stepmother, to denote the father or mother
of the child who had lost one of its first parents. Thus the Lat.
‘Fiant filii ejus orfani’ is translated in the Vespasian Psalter by
‘sien bearn his dastéapte;’ Ps. cviii. 9, ed. Sweet. ‘ Astépnes,
orbatio,’ occurs in a gloss (Bosworth). δ. The Teut. type is
*steupoz, adj., with the sense of ‘ orphaned’ or ‘ deprived ;” the root
is unknown; Fick, iii. 347. We only know that it is wholly un-
connected with step above; it may, however, be related to Stoop (1),
q.v--4-Du. stiefkind; so also stiefzoon, stiefdochter, stiefvader, sttef-
moeder; Icel. stjuipbarn, a step-bairn ; so also stjupson, -dottir, -fadir,
-mddir ; Dan. sledbarn,a corrupt form ; Swed. s/yfbarn ; G, stiefkind ;
so also stiefsohn, -tochter, -vater, -mutter; cf. OHG. stiuf->G. stief-,
and OHG. s/iufan, to deprive of parents, also to deprive of children.
See also Steep (1).
STEPPE, a large plain. (Russ.) In Webster. Perhapsin Mids.
Nt. Dream, ii. 1. 69, such being the reading of the first quarto;
602 STEREOSCOPE
most edd. have steep. — Russ. stepe (with final e mute), a waste, heath,
steppe.
ST'EREOSCOPE, an optical instrument for giving an appearance
of solidity. (Gk.) Modern. First constructed in 1838. Coined
from Gk. oreped-, for orepeds, stiff, hard, firm, solid; and σκοπ-εῖν, to
behold. B. Gk. στερεός is cognate with Ὁ. starr, stiff, and perhaps
with Skt. sthira-s, firm ; and σκοπεῖν is allied to σκέπτομαι, I look
round; see Stare (1) and Scope or Sceptic. Der. stereoscop-ic,
-te-al, -ic-al-ly.
STEREOTYPE, a solid plate for printing. (Gk.) “ Stereotype
was invented (not the ‘hing, but the word) by Didot not very long
since ;’ Trench, Eng. Past and Present, 4th ed. 1859. —Gk. στερεό-,
for στερεός, hard, stiff; and type. See Stereoscope and Type.
Der. stereotype, verb.
STERIGE, unfruitful, barren. (F.—L.) Spelt sferi? in Levins.
=—MF., sierile, ‘sterile ;’ Cot.—L. sterilem, aec. of sterilis, barren.
From the base STER appearing in Gk. στερεός, στερρός, hard, stiff,
firm, sterile; cf. G. starr, rigid; for which see Stare (1). Cf. also
Gk. στεῖρα (for *orep-ya), a barren cow; Goth. 'sfairo, a barren
woman. Brugmann, i. ὃ §38. A sterile soil is a hard, stony, unpro-
ductive one. Der. steril-i-ty, from F. sterilité, ‘ sterility,’ Cot.. from
L. acc. sterilititem.
STERLING, genuine, applied to money. (E.) ME. starling,
sterling, Chaucer, Ὁ. T. 12841 (C 907); P. Plowman, 'B. xv. 342;
Rob. of Glouc. p. 294, 1. 5949. In all these passages it is a sb.,
meaning ‘a sterling coin,’ a coin of true weight. Thus Rob. of
Glouc. speaks of ‘ Four pousend pound of sterlynges.’ Of E. origin;
the MHG. sterlinc, cited by Stratmann, is borrowed from it. First
applied to the E. penny, then to standard current coin in general.
Wedgwood cites from Ducange a statute of Edw. 1, in which we
meet with ‘ Denarius Anglize, qui vocatur Sterlingus ;‘ also a Charter
of Hen. III, where we have ‘In centum marcis bonorum nouorum
et legalium s¢erlingorum, tredecim solid. et 4 sterling. pro qualibet
marca computatis.’ That is, a mark is 13s. and 4d., a sterling being
here a penny. B. Wedgwood adds: ‘The hypothesis most
generally approved is that the coin is named from the Easterlings
or North Germans, who were the first moneyers in England.
Walter de Pinchbeck, a monk of Bury in the time of Edw. I, says:
“sed moneta Anglize fertur dicta fuisse a nominibus opificum, ut
Floreni a nominibus Florentiorum, ita Sterlingi a nominibus Ester-
lingorum nomina sua contraxerunt, qui hujusmodi monetam in Anglia
primitus componebant.”’ This notable passage proves only that
the name Esterlingi, as applied to a people, goes back to the
14th century; and it is difficult to prove that it is much older.
y. But Ducange quotes from a document dated 1184, which has: ‘in
Anglia unus sferlingus persolvetur.’ Indeed, the E. sterling is even
older than this, as Wace (d. ab. rr80) has: ‘ por ses estérlins rece-
voir;” Roman de Ron, 6873. 8. The word appears to be native
English ; there are two theories as to its origin. (1) From AS.
*steorling, ‘little star,’ with reference to a very small star on some
early coins, as, e.g. on some of Will. 11; or (2) from AS. sterling,
a starling (Clarke Hall), ME. sterling (Voc. 640. 7, 761. 28; Cursor
Mundi, 1789), dimin. of AS. star, ME. ster (Voc. 542. 45), a star-
ling; see Starling. Ducange quotes from Lyndwode to the effect
that the reference may be to the four birds conspicuous on most coins
of Edward the Confessor.
STERW (1), severe, harsh, austere. (E.) ME. sterne, Wyclif,
Luke, xix. 21, 22; also sturne, Rob. of Glouc. p. 27, 1. 628. AS.
styrne, stern, Grein, ii. 492; where we also find styrn-mdéd, of stern
mood, stern-minded, styrnan, to be severe.
comes ME. u, as in AS. wyrm, ME. wurm, a worm; AS. fyrs, ME.
furs or firs, furze. Certainly stern should rather be spelt stury; it
has been assimilated to the word below. Still we find the AS. y
becoming mod. E. ὁ in kernel< AS. cyrnel.] Teut. type *sturnjoz.
Perhaps allied to OHG. stornén, to be astonished, sfurni, stupor.
B. The suffix -n- is adjectival (Idg. -no-), as in L. Africa-nus; the
base stzr- seems to be the weak grade of the base STIR, as seen in
Gk. orep-eds, solid, stiff. Cf. Goth, azd-staurran, to murmur
against, G. sforrig, morose, stubborn, starr, stiff, rigid; Du.
stuursch, stern; Icel. stara, to mope. See Stare (1). The idea of
sternness is closely allied to those of stiffness and austerity of
manner. Der. s/ern-ly, -ness.
STERN (2), the hinder part of a vessel. (Scand.) ME. sterne,
P, Plowman, B. viii. 35, footnote; other MSS. have sere, steere,
stiere, meaning a rudder. Spelt steorne, a rudder, id. A. ix. 30. —Icel.
sijorn, a steering, steerage ; hence the phr. sitja vid stjorn, to sit at
the helm ; whence stern became recognised as a name for the hinder
part of the vessel. Extended from s/jor- (occurring in séjoré, a steerer,
ruler), which answers to ME, steve, a rudder. See Steer (2).
Compare Icel. sjornbordi with E. starboard ( =steer-board). Thus
stern is allied to s/eer, in the obsolete sense of ‘rudder.’ Der. stern-
{The AS. y often be- |
STICK
most 5 stern-sheets, where sheet had once (I suppose) the nautical
sense of ‘ rope.’
STERNUTATION, sneezing. (L.) In Sir T. Browne, Vulg.
Errors, b. iv. c. 9, 1. 1. L. sterniidatidnem, ace. of sterniitatio, a
sneezing. = L. sterniilare, to sneeze, frequent. of sternuere, to sneeze.
Allied to Gk. πτάρνυσθαι, to sneeze. B. The bases ster-, πταρ-,
seem to be from an imitative base *fster-, expressive of sneezing,
Der. sternutat-or-y.
STERTOROUS, snoring. (L.) Modern. Coined (as if from
L, *stertordsus) from stertere, to snore. Prob, of imitative origin ; cf.
Sternutation. Der, stertorous-ly.
STETHOSCOPE, the tube nsed in auscultation, as applied to
the chest. (Gk.) Added by Todd to Johnson. Modern ; lit. ‘ chest-
examiner. Coined from Gk. στῆθο-. for στῆθος, the chest; and
σκοπ-εῖν, to consider, examine. B. The Gk. στῆθος is allied to
Skt. stanxa-s, the female breast, a nipple. Cf. Gk. στηνίον = στῆθος
(Hesychius). For -scofe, see Seope or Sceptic. Der. stethoscop-ic.
STEVEDORE, one whose occupation it is to load and unload
vessels in port. (Span.—L.) Webster has stevedore, which is a well-
known word in the mercantile world, and steve, verb, to stow, as
cotton or wool in a vessel's hold. The word is Spanish, Spain being
a wool-producing country and once largely engaged in sea-traffic. =
Span. estivador, ‘a packer of wool at shearing;’ Neuman. It may
also mean a stower of cargo, as will be seen. Formed with suffix
-dor (<L. acc. -térem) from estiva-r, to stow, to lay up cargo in the
hold, to compress wool.=L. stipare, to crowd together, press to-
gether; allied to Stiff. The verb appears also in Ital. stivare, to
press close, Port. estivar, to trim a ship. There is also a verbal
58.) viz. Ital. s/iva, ballast of a ship, Span. estiva, the stowage of
goods in a ship’s hold, MF. estive, ‘the loading or lading of a
ship;’ Cot. From the same root are stip-end, stip-ul-at-ion, con-stip-
ate, co-stive.
STEW (1), to boil slowly with little moisture. (F.—Teut.) ME,
stuwen. ‘ Strwyn, or stuyn mete, Stupho ; Stuwyn or bathyn, or stuyn
in a stw, Balneo;’ Prompt. Parv. The older sense was to bathe; and
the verb was formed from the old sb. stew in the sense of bath or
hot-house (as it was called), which was chiefly used in the pl. stews,
with the low sense of brothel-house. See Liber Albus, ed. Riley,
p- 277 (242 in the translation). The old spelling of the pl. sb. was
stues, stuwwes, stewes, stives, stuyves, stywes, P. Plowman, B. vi. 72,
A. vii. 65, all variously Anglicised forms of OF. estuve, of which
Cotgrave explains the pl. estuves by ‘stews, also stoves or hot-
houses.’ [Cf. Ital. stufa, Port. and Span. estufa, a stove, a hot-
house; mod. F. étuve. | B. Of Teut. origin. The OHG. form is
stupa, a hot room fora bath; the mod. G, stuwbe merely means a room
in general. The corresponding E. word is Stove, q.v. We may
particularly note MDn, s/ove, ‘a stewe, a hot-house, or a baine’
[bath], een stove om te baden, ‘a stewe to bathe in;’ Hexham. The
stews in Southwark were chiefly filled with Flemish women. Der.
stew, sb., in the sense of stewed meat; this is merely a derivative
from the verb. The pl. sb. stews is treated of above; εἴ, ‘The
bathes and the sfewes bothe,’ Gower, C. A. iii. 291; bk. viii. 484.
STEW (2), afish-pond. (Du.) ME. stewe, Chaucer, C. T., A 350,
— MDnu. sfouwen, to drive forward ; Du. stouwen, stuwen, to stow; cf.
Low G. stax, a dam, stauen, to keep water back. Allied to Stow.
STEWARD, one who superintends another’s estate or farm. (E.)
ME. stiward, Havelok, 666; Ancren Riwle, p. 386,1. 5 from bottom.
AS. stigweard, in a will (Toller); also stiweard, Voc. 223. 7; spelt
stiward, A. S. Chron. an. 1093,and an.1120. “ Economns, stiward;’
Voc. 129. 13 ; also in Thorpe, Diplomatarium, p. 570, 1. 12. The
full form of the word was stigweard, lit. a sty-ward; from AS.
stig-o, a sty, and weard, a guardian, warden, keeper. The orig.
sense was one who looked after the domestic animals, and gave
them their food; hence, one who provides for his master’s table,
and generally, one who superintends household affairs for another.
See Sty and Ward. B. For the change of sound, cf. the name
Seward, formerly Siward, Macb. iii. 6. 31. The Icel. stivardr, gen.
assigned as the origin of E. steward, occurs but rarely; the Icel.
Dict. gives but one reference, and adds the remark that it is ‘ from
the English.’ y. Grein (ii. 484) draws especial attention to the
parallel form séigwita, also stiwita, in the same sense of steward,
the suffix being the AS. wita, a wise man, one who is skilled. Der.
steward-ship, Luke, xvi. 2; steward-ess, with Εἰ, suffix.
STICK (1), to stab, pierce, thrust in, to fasten by piercing; to
adhere, (E.) The orig. sense is to stab or pierce (cf. sting), hence
to fasten into a thing by thrusting it in; hence, the intransitive use,
to be thrust into a thing and there remain, to cling or adhere, to be
set fast, stop, hesitate, &e. ‘Two verbs are confused in mod. E., viz.
(1) stick, to pierce, and (2) stick, to be fixed in. 1. STRONG
FORM. ΜΕ. steken, strong verb, to’ pierce, fix, pt. t. stak, Rom. of
the Rose, 458; pp. steken, stiken, stoken (see Stratmann), also stoke,
STICK
Gower, C. A. i. 60, bk. i. 538 3 which= mod. E, stuck. This answers
to AS. *stecan, not found; pt. t. *stac, pp. *stecen ; a strong verb,
which does not appear in AS., though found both in OFries. steka,
and in OSaxon, where we find the pt. t. stat, Heliand, 5707. And
compare Sting. Cognate words are Low G. steken, to pierce,
stick, pt. t. stak, pp. steken; and (Ὁ. stechen, to sting, pierce, stick,
stab, pt. t. stack, pp. gestochen. Teut. type *stekan-, pt. t. *stak,
pp. *stakanoz; transferred to the e-series from the older type
*steikan-, pt. τ. *staik, pp. *stikanoz. Cf. Goth. staks, a mark,
stigma ; s/zks, a point, a moment of time. B. The latter strong
verb is from the Idg. 4/STEIGw, to pierce (Brugmann, i. § 633) ;
whence Gk. στίζειν ( -- στίγ-γειν), to prick, L. instigdre, to instigate,
Skt. tigma-, sharp, ¢ij, to be sharp, fejaya, to sharpen; see Stigma,
Instigate, Sting. 2. WEAK FORM. ME. stikien, to be in-
fixed, to stick into, cling to, adhere; a weak verb; also used in
atrans. sense. ‘And anoon he stykede faste’=he stuck fast, Seven
Sages, ed. Wright, 1246; pp. ystiked, Chaucer, C. T. 1565. AS.
stician, pt. t. sticode, both trans. and intrans,, Grein, ii. 482. Cog-
nate words are Icel. stika, to drive piles, Dan, stkke, to stab, Swed.
sticka, to stab, sting, stitch, prick, G. stecken, to stick, set, plant,
fix, also, to stick fast, remain. Thus the sense of ‘stick fast’
appears in G. as well as in E., but G. restricts the strong form
stechen to the orig. sense, whilst steckex has both senses. Der.
stick (2), q.v.; stick-y, spelt stickie in Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 583, stick-
i-ness ; stick-le-back, q.v.3 stitch, q.v.; and see sting, stang, stack,
stake, steak, From the same root are di-sting-uish, di-stinct, ex-
ting-uish, ex-tinct, in-stinct, pre-stige, in-stig-ate, sti-mu-late, style (1),
stig-ma.
STICK (2), a staff, small branch of a tree. (E.) ME. stikke,
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 16733 (ἃ 1265). AS. sticca, a stick, also a peg or
nail, Judges, iy. 21, 22. So called from its piercing or sticking into
anything; the orig. sense was ‘ peg,’ then any small bit of a branch
ofa tree. ‘ Se teldsticca sticode purh his heafod’ =the tent-peg stuck
through his head, Judges, iv. 22.4Icel. stika, a stick; EFries. stitke,
stik; allied to Du. stek, G. stecken, a stick. See Stick (1), Steak,
and Stake. Der. stick-le-back. And see stitch. Also single-stick;
see under quarterstaff.
STICKLEBACK, a small fish. (E.) So called from the
stickles or prickles on its back ; cf. thornback. ME. stykylbak, Reliq.
Antiquz, i. 85. Corruptly sticklebag, Walton’s Angler, p. i. c. 5
(R.); and still more corruptly ¢i¢¢/ebat (Halliwell). In the Prompt.
Pary., and in Voc. 610. 30, there is mention of a fish called a
stikling or stykelyng. The sb. stikel or stickle is from AS. sticel,
a prickle, sting, used of the sting of a gnat in Alfred, tr. of Boethius,
b. ii. pr. 6, cap. xvi. ὃ 2.—AS. stician, to stick; just as prickle is
from prician, to prick. See Stick (1) and Stiteh. The suffix -el
denotes the instrument ; it is not (in this case) a diminutive, as is
often imagined ; see March, A. S. Grammar, § 228. For back, see
Back. Cf. Du. stekelvisch, a stickleback; MDu. stickel, ‘a prick
or asting;’ Hexham ; also EFries. stikel, a thorn.
STICKLER, (formerly) one who parts combatants or settles dis-
putes between two men fighting. (E.) Nearly obsolete; once com-
mon; see Halliwell, Nares, and Trench, Select Glossary. ‘ Like
sticklers of the war;’ Dryden, Oliver Cromwell, 41. Now only used
in the sense of a man who insists on etiquette or persists in an opinion.
See Troil. v. 8.18. The verb ¢o stickle meant to part combatants,
act as umpire. ‘I s¢ycky/l betwene wrastellers, or any folkes that
prove mastries [try conclusions] to se that none do other wronge, or
I parte folkes that be redy to fyght;” Palsgrave. It is common to
explain this word (with profound disregard for the 7 in it) by saying
that the umpire must have parted combatants by means of sticks, or
else that the umpire arbitrated between men who fought with sixgle-
sticks. Both assertions are mere inventions; and a stickle is not a
stick at all, but a prickle. If this were the etymology, the word
would mean ‘ one who uses prickles.’ B. It is probable that stickle
represents the once common ME. stighilen or stightilen, to dispose,
order, arrange, govern, subdue, &c. It was commonly used of a
steward, who disposed of and arranged everything, and acted as a
master of the ceremonies; see Will. of Palerne, 1199, 2899, 3281,
3841, 5379; Destruction of Troy, 117, 1997, 2193, 13282; Gawayn
and Grene Knight, 2137; &c. ‘ When pay com to fe courte, keppte
wern pay fayre, Sty3tled with pe steward, stad in pe halle;’ Allit.
Poems, B. 90. ‘To sty3tle the peple’=to keep ordes among the
people; P. Plowm. Crede, 315; and cf. P. Plowman, C. xvi. 40.
We also find stighill (without 2, York Myst. (glossary); and the sb.
is stiteler in the Coy. Myst. p. 23. γ- This ME. stz3¢len is the fre-
quentative of AS. stihtan, stiktian. ‘Willelm weolde and stihte
Engleland’= William ruled and governed England, A. S. Chron. an.
1086 (Thorpe renders it by ‘ held despotic sway’).4+MDu. stichten,
‘to build, edefie, bound, breed or make (a contention), impose or
make (a lawe),’ Hexham; mod. Du, stichten, to found, institute,
STILL 603
establish, excite, edify. Further allied to Dan. siifte, to found,
institute, establish; stifte forlig=to reconcile, s‘ifte fred =to make
peace (just exactly fo stickle) ; Swed. stifta, also stikta, similarly used ;
G, stiften, to found, institute, cause, excite; Freundschaft stiften=to
make friendship. Cf also Icel. st颢 (from *stih¢i-), 2 foundation,
base. Kluge derives stik-, stif-, from a Teut. base *stihw (=Idg.
*stiq), to build, found; ef. OSax. stihtan, to build.
STIFF, rigid, obstinate, formal. (E.) The vowel was once long;
and remains so in North E. sé¢ive, muscular, and in the derivative
stifle. ME. stif, Chaucer, C. T. 7849 (D 2267); the superl. is spelt
styuest, steuest, steffest, stiffest, P. Plowman, Ὁ. vii. 43. AS. sfif,
stiff (Toller); this form is verified by the derivatives stifian and
Gstifian. ‘ Heora hand astifedon’ = their hands became stiff ; ΖΕ] οἷς
Homilies, i. 598, 1. 11. ‘ Obrigesco, ἐς stifi2z” Voce. 118. 20.4Du.
stif, stiff, hard, rigid, firm; Dan. stiv; Swed. styf; Low ἃ. stif
(Danneil) ; Westphal. stif. [The G. steif is supposed to be borrowed
from Low G.] B. Allied to Lithuan. stipris, strong, stipti, to be
stiff, L. stipes, a stem, trunk of a tree, stipare, to pack tight ; s#pulus,
firm. See Stipulation. Der. stiffly, -ness, stiff-en (Swed. stifna,
Dan. stivne), Hen. V, iii. 1, 7, stiff-neck-ed, Acts, vii. 51; stif-le.
STIFLE, to suffocate. (Scand.) “ΔΙ, δε, suffocare ;’
Levins. ‘Smored {smothered] and stifed;’ Sir T. More, Works,
Ρ. 68 f.—Icel. stifa, to dam up, prop. used of water; hence, te
block up, choke; Norweg. stivla, to stop, hem in, check, lit. ‘to
stiffen ;” cf. stivra, to stiffen ; both are frequent. forms of stiva (Dan.
stive), to stiffen. [Cf. also ME. stiuen, to stiffen, Will. of Palerne,
30333; Swed. styfva, Du. stijven; (ἃ. stetfen, to stiffen,] All these
words are derived from the adj. appearing as AS. sfif, stiff; the vowel
of which was once long, and is still so in prov. E. Halliwell gives
“ Stive, strong, muscular, North:’ which is nothing but ME, stye,
an occasional spelling of stiff; see Stiff. The loss of the adj.
‘stiff’ in Icel. is remarkable, as it is preserved in Swed., Dan., and
Norwegian ; the Olcel. form was stif, cited by E. Miiller. 4 We
cannot derive stifle from the verb stive, to pack close, the change
from v to f being contrary to rule; but it is very probable that stifle
has been frequently confused with stive, which, though it properly
means to pack close, came to have much the same sense, as in proy.
E. stvy, close, stifling (Worcestershire). Stive is a F. word, from
OF. estiver<L. stipare, to compress, pack tight, as explained under
Stevedore. Note that FE. stiff and L. stipare are closely related
words, from the same root.
STIGMATISE, to brand with infamy, defame publicly. (F.—
Late L.—Gk.) ‘ Stigmatised with a hot iron;’ Burton, Anat. of
Melancholy, p. 470 (R.). [Shak. has stigmatic, naturally deformed,
2 Hen. VI, v. 1. 215; stigmatical, Com. Errors, iv. 2. 22.]—F. stig-
matiser, in Cotgrave stigmatizer, ‘to brand, burn, or mark with ared
hot iron, to defame publicly.’— Late L, stigmatizaire, to mark; see
Higden, ii. 146.— Gk. στιγματίζειν, to mark or brand. — Gk. orvypar-,
base of στίγμα, a prick, mark, brand. From the base στιγ-, as in
στίζειν (=ar7ly-yev), to prick. From Idg. 4/STEIGw, to prick ;
whence also E. stick; see Stick (1). Der. (from Gk. o7typar-)
stigmat-ic, stigmat-tc-al. We also use now stigma, sb., from Gk.
στίγμα.
STILE (1), a step or set of steps for climbing over a fence or
hedge. (E.) ΜΕ. stile, style, Chaucer, C. T. 10420 (F 106). AS.
stigel, a stile; Thorpe, Diplomatarium, p. 146, 1.6. Formed with
suffix -e/, denoting the means or instrument, from stig-, weak grade
of AS. stigan, to climb, mount. See Sty (1). The AS, stigel first
became s¢i3el, and then stile; so also AS. tigul became mod. E. tile.
+OHG. stigtla, a stile (obsolete), from OHG. stigan, to climb;
ΜΠ). stichel (Hexham). And cf. Shetland stiggy, a stile (Edmons-
ton); from the same root.
STILE (2), the correct spelling of Style, q. v.
STILETTO, a small dagger. (Ital.—L.) In Minshen, ed. 1627;
Heywood, Eng. Traveller, A.i.sc. 2, Ital. stiletto, ‘a little poyniard ;’
Florio. Dimin. of séilo, MItal. s‘i/lo, now a gnomon, formerly a dagger
(Florio). = L, stilum, acc, of stilus, a style; see Style (1).
STILL (1), motionless, calm, silent. (E.) ME. sfille, Chaucer,
C. T. 11782 (F 1472). AS. stille, still, Grein, ii. 484. Allied to
AS. stillan, verb, to rest, be still, id.; lit, ‘to remain in a stall or
place ;” a sense well shown by the ady. s¢i//=continually. Teut.
type *steljoz ; allied to AS, stellan,to place. From Teut. base *stal-,
as in AS. steal, stel, a place, station, stall; see Stall.4Dnu. stil,
still, stillen, to be still; stellen, to place, from sta/, astall; Dan. stille,
still, hushed, sfid/e, to still, also, to set, post, station, put in place,
allied to stald (formerly stall), a stall; Swed. stilla, still, stil/a, to
quiet, allied to stall; G. still, still, stillen, to still; stellen, to place,
from s¢all, The sense of s#ill is ‘ brought to a stall or resting-place.’
Der. still, adv., ME. stile, silently, Havelok, 2997, from AS. stile
(Grein); this adverb has preserved the sense of ‘continually’ or
“abidingly,’ and has come to mean always, eyer, as in the strange
604 STILL
compound still-vexed=always vexed, Temp. i. 2. 229. Also still,
verb, AS. stillan; stil-ly, adj., ME. stillich (=still-like), Layamon,
23743 stil-ly, adv.; still-ness; still-born, 2 Hen. IV, i. 3. 64; séill-
stand, 2 Hen. IV, ii. 3. 645 stand-still.
STILL (2), to distil, to trickle down. (L.; or F.—L.) In some
cases, sill represents L. stilla@re, to fall in drops; as, 6. g., in Spenser,
F. Q. iv. 7. 35. Cf. ‘stile hem in a sfillatory;’ Medical Works of
the 14th Century, ed. Henslow, p.117. But it is more often a mere
contraction for disél, just as sport is for disport, spend for dispend, and
spite for despite. Thus Tusser writes: ‘The knowledge of stilling is
one pretie feat;’ May’s Husbandry, st. 33; where stilling plainly
stands for distilling. See Distil. Deer. still, sb., an apparatus for
distilling, equivalent to ME. sfillatorie, in the same sense, Chaucer,
C. T. 16048 (G 580), answering to a Late L. *sé:llatdrium, from
stillare. And see di-stil, in-stil.
STILT, a support of wood with a foot-rest, for lengthening the
stride in walking. (Scand.) ΜΕ. stilte. ‘Stylte, calepodium, ligni-
podium ;’ Prompt. Parv.—Swed. stylta, Dan. stylte; cf. Norweg.
stylira, a stilt, Dan. s/yl/e, to walk on stilts, also to stalk, walk slowly.
We also find Swed. dial. stylt, a prop (Rietz).Du. s/el¢, a stilt;
Westphal. stele; G. stelze,a stilt; ΟἿ. stelza, a prop, a crutch.
B. We may particularly note Lowl. Sc. studt, a crutch; this, like
Swed. s/ylta, is from the Scand. base s/ult-, as in Swed. dial. s/ullta,
to stagger about, S. Swed. stulta, the same (Moller). -y. I suppose
this form to have arisen from the addition of -t- to the base stull-, as
seen in Swed. dial. stull-a, stul-a, tostagger about. Cf.OHG. stullan
(pt. t. s¢ul/a), to come to a halt, to stop, allied to OHG, stulla,a
moment (whence Ital. /ra-stuilo, ‘a pastime, quietnes,’ Florio). From
the weak grade *s/u/l of a lost Tent. strong verb *s#://an, pt.t. *stall,
pp. *stullanoz; Grimm, Gram. ii. 57. Prob. the AS, s/yltan, to be
amazed, hesitate (come to a stand), is closely allied. δ. We can
then explain Du. sfel/, (ἃ. stelze, as allied to (ἃ. gestal/, shape, form,
allied to OHG, stellan, to place, fix, cause to halt (pp. gestalt).
Der. sfilt-ed,
STIMULATE, to instigate. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
(The sb. stimulation is in Minsheu, ed. 1627.]—L. stimulatus, pp. of
stimulare, to prick forward.—L. stimulus, a goad; perhaps for
*stimmulus, for *stig-mulus; and formed with suffixes -mmu-lo-, from
*stig-, weak grade of 4/STEIGw, to stick, to prick; see Stick (1).
Der. stimulat-ion, from Εἰς, stimulation, ‘a pricking forward,’ Cot. ;
stimulat-ive; stimulant, from L, stimulant-, base of pres. part. of
stimulare. We also now use L. stimulus as an E. word.
STING, to prick severely, pain acutely. (E.) ME. stingen, strong
verb; pt. t. stang, stong; pp. stungen, stongen, Chaucer, C. T. 1081
(A 1079). AS. stingan, pt. t. stang, pp. stungen; Grein, li. 484.4
Dan. stinge ; Swed. stinga; Icel. stinga, pt. t. stakk (for *stang’), pp.
stunginn. Cf. Goth. us-sttggan (for us-stingan), to push out, put out,
Matt. v.29. Teut. type *stengan-, pt. t. *stang, pp. *stunganoz. Per-
haps allied, ultimately, to Stick (1); cf. prov. E. sfang, a pole,
with E. stake. SeeStang, Stake. Der. sting, sb., AS., Dan., and
Swed. sting. Also sting-y, q.v.
STING Y, mean, avaricious. (E.) Pronounced (stinji). ‘ Stingy,
niggardly ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706, ‘A stingy, narrow-hearted fellow ;’
L’Estrange (Todd). It is the same word as proy. E. stingy [pro-
nounced sfizji], common in Norfolk in the sense of ‘nipping, un-
kindly,’ and esp. used of a cold East wind. Forby defines it: (1)
cross, ill-humoured, (2) churlish, biting, as applied to the state of
the air. See Stingy in Ray's Glossary (Εἰ D.S. B. 16), and my notes
upon it, esp. at p. xix; see also E.D.D. ΤῈ is merely the adj.
formed from sting, sb., by the addition of -y, and means (1) stinging,
keen, (2) churlish; by an easy transition of sense, which is exactly
parallelled by the Swed. sticken, pettish, waspish, fretful, from sticka,
to sting. Cf. MDan, stinge, adj., contrary to. B. The sounding of
g as j causes no difficulty, as it is still common in Wiltshire, where
a bee’s sting is called a stinge [stinj]; cf. also Shropsh. stinge, a
grudge; as ‘I ow’d him a stinge.’ See Sting. Der. stingi-ly,
-NeSS.
STINK, to smell strongly. (E.) ME. stinken, strong verb; pt. t.
stank, stonk, Chaucer, C. T. 14535 (B 3807); pp. stonken, AS.
stincan, pt. t. stanc, stonc, pp. stuncen, Grein, ii. 484. This verb not
only means to stink, or to be fragrant, but has the singular sense of
to rise as dust or vapour. ‘ Diist stone to heofonum’=dust rose up
to heaven.4Du. stinken ; Icel. stakkva, pt. t. stékk (for *sténk), pp.
stokkinn (for *stonkinn), to spring up, take to flight; the pp. stokkinn
means bedabbled, sprinkled; Dan. stinke; Swed. stinka; (ἃ. stinken.
Cf. Goth. stiggkwan (=*stingkwan), to strike, smite, thrust; whence
bistuggkw, a cause of offence, 2 Cor. vi. 3. The form of the Teut.
base is *stengg. Possibly allied to L. -stinguere, as in ex(s)tinguere,
to thrust out; and if so, allied further to 4/STEIGw, to pierce, as in
L. in-stig-are, to instigate. 4 There are difficulties as to the sense;
and it is not certain that the Icel. and Goth. forms belong here. If
STITH
not, then the connexion with L. -stinguere fails.
connexion with Gk, ταγγός, rancid, see Prellwitz.
stink-pot; also stench, q.v.
STINT, to limit, restrain. (E.) Properly ‘to shorten,’ or ‘curtail.’
ME. stinten, stynten, gen. in the sense to stop, cause to cease, P, Plow-
man, B. i. 120; also, intransitively, to pause, id. v. 585. Allied to
ME. stenten, to cease, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 905 (A 903). AS. s/yntan, to
make dull, Voc. 25. 28; for-s/yntan (=L. contundere), in a gloss
(Bosworth). [Also gestentan, to warn, perhaps to restrain, Elfric’s
Homilies, i. 6, 1. 24.] The proper sense is rather ‘to make dull,’ as
it is a causal verb, formed (by vowel-change from u to y) from the
adj. stunt, dull, obtuse, stupid, Matt. v. 22; cf. stuntscipe, folly,
Mark, vii. 22.4-Icel. stytfa (by assimilation for *s¢ynta), to shorten,
from the adj. stuttr (for *stuntr), short, stunted ; Swed. dial. stynta,
to shorten, from stunt, small, short (Rietz) ; Norweg. styt/a, s/utta,
to shorten, tuck up the clothes, from s¢u/t, small, short (Aasen) ; cf,
Dan. dial. styzte, to crop. β. The E. word comes nearer to the
sense of the Icel. word; the AS. stunt is used metaphorically, in the
sense of ‘short of wit.’ However, /o stint is certainly formed from
Stunt by vowel-change; see further under Stunted.
STIPEND, a salary, settled pay. (L.) ‘ Yearly stifendes;’ Ascham,
Toxophilus, b. ii, ed. Arber, p. 130.—L. s/ipendium, a tax, impost,
tribute, stipend. For *stip-pendium or *stipi-pendium, a payment of
money ; from stip- or stipi-, base of s¢ips, small coin or a contribution
in small coin, and -pendium, a payment, from pendere, to weigh out,
to pay. For pendere, see Pendant. Der. stipendi-ar-y, from L.
stipendiarius, receiving pay.
STIPPLE, to engrave by means of dots. (Du.) Added by Todd
to Johnson’s Dict. ; he calls it a modern term in art.— Du. stippelen,
to speckle, cover with dots. —Du. stippel, a speckle, dimin. of stip, a
point. Hexham gives stip, stup, or stippelken, ‘a point, or a small
point;” also stippen, ‘to point, or to fixe ;” stippen or sticken met de
naelde, ‘to stitch with the needle,’ stip-naelde, ‘a stitching-needle.’
Allied to Low G, stippelen, to drip as raindrops (Danneil) ; stippen,
to speckle; G. stepten, to stitch, G. stift, a peg, pin.
STIPULATION, a contract, agreement. (F.—L.) In Minsheu,
ed. 1627. [The verb 10 stipulate is prob. later, but is used by Cot-
grave to trans'ate F, s/ipuler.)—F. stipulation, ‘a stipulation, a cove-
nant ;’ Cot.—L. stipulationem, acc. of stipulatio, a covenant, bargain.
=L. s/ipulari, to settle an agreement, bargain; lit. to make fast. —
OL. stipulus, fast, firm; ‘stipulum apud ueteres firmum appella-
batur,’ Justiniani Institutiones, iii. 15 (Lewis). Allied to stipes, a
post; and to E. Stiff. Der. (from L. stipulatus, pp. of stipulari)
stipulate, verb. ts The story about sfipula, a straw, noticed in
Trench, Study of Words, is needless ; stipulate simply keeps the sense
of the root. It may be noted that L. stipula=E, stubble.
STIR, to rouse, instigate, move about. (E.) ME, stiren, sturen
(and even steren, but properly always with one 7), Chaucer, C. T.
12280, 16746 (C 346, G 1278). ΑΘ. styrian, to move, to stir, Gen.
vii. 21, ix. 3; Grein,ii.491, [Various torms are given in Ettmiiller,
which seem to have been altered and accented in order to bring the
word into connexion with steer; but its true connexion is rather
with sform. Grein keeps styrian, to stir, and slyran, stieran, to
steer, quite distinct.] Allied to Icel. styrr, a stir, disturbance, Du.
storen, to disturb, interrupt, vex, Swed. stéra, G. stéren, to disturb,
OHG, steren, stdren, to scatter, destroy, disturb. Teut. types
*sturjan-, *staurjan- (Franck). See Storm, Der. stur-geon; and
see s/or-m.
STIRK, dimin. of Steer (1), q.v.
STIRRUP, a ring or hoop suspended from a saddle. (E.) For
sty-rope, i.e. a rope to climb by; the orig. stirrup was a looped rope
for mounting into the saddle. Spelt s/yrop in Palsgrave. ME. stirop,
Chaucer, C. T. 7247 (Ὁ 1665). AS. stirap. ‘Scansile, stirap ;’
Voc. 120. 2; fuller form stigrap, id. 332. 11.—AS. stig-, weak
grade of stigan, to climb, mount; and rap,a rope. See Stile (1)
or Sty (1), and Rope.+MDu. stegel-reep, or steegh-reep, ‘a stir-
rope-leather,’ Hexham. [This is another use of the word; that
which we xow call; stirrup is called in Du. stijbeugel, i.e. ‘the little
bow or loop whereby to mount.’] Similarly formed from Du.
stijgen, to mount, and reep,a rope. Also Icel. stig-reip, from stiga
and reip; G. stegreif, a stirrup, from sfeigen and reif; cf. steigbiigel,
a stirrup.
STITCH, a pain in the side, a passing through stuff of a needle
and thread. (E.) The sense of ‘pain in the side,’ lit. ‘ pricking
sensation,’ is old. ME. stiche. ‘ Styche, peyne on pe syde ;’ Prompt.
Pary. AS. stice, a pricking sensation; A.S. Leechdoms, i. 370.
§ 10.— AS. stician, to prick, pierce ; see Stick (1). So also G. stich,
a prick, stitch, from stechen, to prick ; also sticken, to stitch, from the
same. Der. stitch, verb; also stich-wort, a herb good for the stitch,
spelt stichworte in Palsgrave ; stitch-er, stitch-er-y, Cor. 1. 3. 75.
STITH, an anvil. (Scand.) ‘ Vulcan’s stith ;’ Hamlet, iii. 2. 89;
As to the possible
Der. stink, sb.,
STIVER
some edd. have stithy. ME. stith, Chaucer, C. T. 2028 (A 2026);
Havelok, 1877.—Icel. stedi, an anvil. Allied to stadr, a place,
i.e. fixed stead ; and so named from its firmness.--Swed. stad, an
anvil; MDu. stiet. From the same root as Stead, q.v. Der.
eo also used with the sense of anvil, like ME, ste¢hi, Cursor
undi, 23237.
STIVER, a Dutch penny. (Du.) In Eyelyn’s Diary, Oct. 2, 1641.
Also in Arber’s Eng. Garner, iii. 404 (ab. 1594).— Du. stuiver, for-
merly stuyver, ‘a stiver, a Low-Countrie peece of coine, of the value
of an English penny ;’ Hexham. B. Hence G. stiiber, a stiver.
Perhaps the orig. sense was ‘ bit’ or small piece. Franck connects it
with Low G, stuuf, stumpy; Icel. s/afr, a stump, s¢7/fa, to cut off.
STOAT, an animal of the weasel kind. (E.) ‘Stoat, a stallion-
horse, also, a kind of rat ;’ Bailey’s Dict., vol. i. ed. 1735. Spelt
stote, Phillips, 1706; Levins, 1570. Cf. prov. E. stoot (Suffolk) ;
stot (Hants.), a weasel (E. D. D.); also s/of, stofe, a young bull,
a young horse (E.D.D.). ME. stot; in the Coventry Mysteries,
ed. Halliwell, p. 218, 1. 14, a scribe says to the woman taken in
adultery: ‘ Therfore come forthe, thou stynkynge sfoft;’ and in 1. 19:
“To save suche stof/ys, it xal [shall] not be.’ Here the sense is
probably stoat. The ΜΕ. stot means (1) a stoat, (2) a horse or
stallion, (3) a bullock; see Chaucer, C. T. 617 (A 615); and my
note to P. Plowman, C. xxii. 267. The reason is that the word is
a general name for a male animal, and not confined to any one
kind ; the word s‘ag is in the same case, meaning a hart, a gander,
and a drake; see Stag. The pl. s/o/des, stallions, occurs in the Owl
and Nightingale, 495; AS. sfot/as, ‘equi uiles’ (Napier). Allied to
Icel. οὐδέν, a bull; Swed. stut, a bull, also a hard blow with a rod;
Dan. sfud, a bullock ; Swed. dial. stut, (1) a young ox, (2) a young
man; Norweg. stut, (1) a bullock, (2) an ox-horn. From *s¢ut-,
weak grade allied to Teut. *stautan-, to push, strike. Cf. Du.
stooten, to push, thrust, whence Du. séoofer, sb., a thruster, also
a stallion, stootig, adj., butting, goring; Swed. sto/a, to push, Dan.
stode, (ἃ. stossen (strong verb), Goth. stautan, to strike. See
Stutter.
STOCCADO, STOCCATA, a thrust in fencing. (Ital. — Teut.)
Stoccado, Merry Wives, ii. 1. 234. Stoccata, Romeo, iii. 1. 77. Stoc-
cado is an accommodated form, prob. from MF. esfoccade, with the
same sense, with a final o to imitate Spanish ; cf. Shakespeare’s barri-
cado with E. barricade. [The true Span. form was es/ocada, ‘a stocada
or thrust with a weapon ;’ Minsheu.] Stoccata is the better form. =
Ital. stoccata, ‘a foyne, a thrust, a stoccado given in fence;’ Florio.
Formed as if from a fem. pp. of a verb *sfoccare, which is made
from the sb. sfocco, ‘a truncheon, a tuck, a short sword, an arming
sword ;᾿ Florio.—G. s/ock, a stick, staff, trunk, stump; cognate
with E, Stock, q.v. And see Stoke. Cf. MDu. stock, ‘a stock-
rapier;’ Ilexham.
STOCK, a post, stump, stem, &c. (E.) In all its senses, it is the
same word. ‘The sense is ‘a stump;’ hence a post, trunk, stem
(metaphorically a race or family), a fixed store or fund, capital,
cattle, trunk or butt-end of a gun; the pl. stocks signify a place
where a criminal is set fast, or a frame for holding ships fast, or
public capital. See Trench, Study of Words, which partly follows
Horne Tooke’s Diversions of Purley, pt. ii. c. 4. ME. s¢ok, trunk of
a tree, Pricke of Conscience, 676; pl. sokkes, the stocks, P. Plowman,
B. iv. 108. AS. stocc, a post, trunk; Deut. xxviii. 36, 64.4-Du.
stok, stick, handle, stocks; MDu. stock ; whence MDu. stockduyue,
a stock-dove, stockvisch, stock-fish ; stockroose, ‘a rose so called
beyond the sea,’ i.e. stocks; Hexham; Icel. stokkr, trunk, log,
stocks, stocks for ships; Dan. stok, a stick; Swed. stock, a beam,
log; ἃ. stock; OHG, stoch. Teut. type *stukkoz, τὰ. The orig.
sense may have been ‘ stump of a cut tree;’ cf. AS. stycce, (ἃ. stiick,
a bit, fragment ; also Low (ἃ, stuke, a stump, Norw. stauka, tostrike,
hack. Some connect it with Skt. ἐπ, to strike; just as Icel. stata,
to push, is allied to Skt. zud, to strike. Der. stock, verb, ME.
stokken, Chaucer, Troilus, b. iii. 1. 3803 stock-broker ; stock-dove,
Skelton, Philip Sparowe, 1. 429; stock-exchange, stock-holder, stock-
jobbing ; stock-fish (prob. from Du. stokvisch), Prompt. Parv., and
Temp. iii. 2. 795 stock-ish, i.e. log-like, Merch. Ven. v. 81 ; stock-
still, i.e. still as a post (cf. MDu. stock-stille, ‘stone-still, or im-
moveable,’ Hexham) ; stock, a flower, called stocke-gyllofer (stock-
gilliflower) in Palsgrave ; stock-ing, q.v., stoke, q.v. Also stocc-ado,
stocc-ata.
STOCK ADE, a breast-work formed of stakes stuck in the ground.
(Span.—Teut.) A modern word ; it occurs in Mason’s Eng. Garden,
b. ii. 1. 293, spelt stoccade (A.D. 1777). The pl. stockadoes occurs
ab. 1602; see Arber, Eng. Garner, vii. 175. A mistaken form, due
to association with stock. —Span. estacada, ‘a place palisadoed, or
hemm/’d in with stakes ;’ see Don Quixote, pt. ii. c. 66 (Pineda). =
Span. estaca, a stake. MDu. stake, a stake ; see Stake. See Notes
on E. Etym. p. 283.
STOOL 605
STOCKING, a close covering for the foot and leg. (E.) ‘A
stocking, or paire of stockings ;’ Minsheu, ed.1627. Formerly called
stocks ; ‘ Our knit silke sfockes, and Spanish lether shoes ;’ Gascoigne,
Stele Glas, 1. 375. ‘He rose to draw on his strait stockings, and, as
the deuill would, he hit vpon the letter, bare it away in the heele of
his s¢ocke,’ &c. ; Holinshed, Chron. of Ireland, an. 1532 (R.). ‘Un
bas de chausses, a stocking, or nether-stock ;’ Cot. Healsohas: ‘ Un
bas de manches, a half-sleeve ;’ which we may compare with ‘ Manche
Lombatde, a s/ock-sleeve, or fashion of halfe sleeve ;’ id. B. ‘ The
clothing of the legs and lower part of the body formerly consisted of
a single garment, called hose, in F. chausses. It was afterwards cut
in two at the knees, leaving two pieces of dress, viz. knee-breeches,
or, as they were then called, upper-stocks, or in F. haut de chausses,
and the xetherstocks or stockings, in F. bas de chausses, and then
simply bas. In these terms, the element s¢ock is to be understood in
the sense of stump or trunk, the part of a body left when the limbs
are cut off. In the same way G. strumpf, a stocking, properly sig-
nifies a stump ;” Wedgwood, Similarly, a s/ock-sleeve is a truncated
sleeve, a half-sleeve. y. To this I may add that sfock-ing is a
dimin. form; the nether-stock being the smaller portion of the cut
hose; it was sometimes called s/ock simply, but also nether-stock or
stock-ing (= little stock) ; and the last name has alone survived. See
Stock.
STOIC, a disciple of Zeno. (L.—Gk.) Spelt Stoick, Milton,
P. R. iv. 280; cf. Stoa, id. 253. From L. Stoicus.—Gk. Στωϊκός,
a Stoic; lit. belonging to a colonnade, because Zeno taught under
a colonnade at Athens, named the Peecilé (ποικίλη). -- ΟΚ. στοά
(Ionic στοιά, Attic στωά), a colonnade, place enclosed by pillars.
The Tonic στοιά is for *orof-ya; allied to στῦ-λος, a pillar. See
Style (2). Der. stoic-al, stoic-al-ly, stoic-ism.
STOKER, one who tends a fire. (Du.) We have now coined
the verb to stoke, but only the sb. appears in Phillips, Bailey, &c.
‘ Stoaker, one that looks after a fire and some other concerns in a
brew-house ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. The word is Dutch, and came in
asa term in brewing.— Du. sfoker, ‘a kindler, or a setter on fire ;’
Hexham. - Du. s/oken, ‘to make or kindle a fire, to instigate, or to
stirreup;’ id. [This is the same word as OF. estoquer, ME. stoken,
to stab; see Chaucer, C. T., Group A, 2546 (Six-text), altered in
Tyrwhitt to stske, 1. 2548.] Allied to MDu. stock, a stick, stock,
also a stock-rapier (stabbing rapier); no doubt from the use by the
sloker of a stock (thick stick) to stir the fire with and arrange the
logs. The MDnu. s/ock (Du. stok) is cognate with E. Stock, q.v.
Der. stoke, in the mod. sense (as distinct from ME. stoken, to stab,
which is from OF, estoquer).
STOLE, a long robe, a long scarf for a priest. (L.—Gk.) In
very early use. AS. stole; ‘Stola, stole ;’ Voc. 327. 23.—L. stola.
- Gk. στολή, equipment, a robe, a stole. —Gk. a7oA-, 2nd grade of
στέλλειν, to equip, lit. to set in order.
STOLID, dull, heavy, stupid. (L.) A late word. ‘ Stolid,
foolish;’ Bailey, vol. 1. ed. 1735.—L. stolidus, firm, stock-like ;
hence, dull, stupid. Prob. allied to L. stul-tus, foolish; see
Stultify. And see Stout. Der. séolid-i-ty, coined from L.
stoliditas.
STOMACH, a more or less sac-like portion of the body, wherein
food is digested. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. stomak, Prompt. Parv. [Now
accommodated to the Gk. spelling.|=—F. estomac, spelt estomach in
Cotgrave. - L. stomachum, acc. of stomachus. = Gk.oT6paxos, a mouth,
opening, the gullet, the stomach; dimin. of στόμα, the mouth.
Brugmann, i. § 421 (5). Der. stomach, verb, to resent, Antony, iii.
4. 12, from the use of stomach in the sense of anger, 1 Hen, VI, iv.
1. 141 3 stomach-er, an ornament for the breast, Wint. Tale, iv. 4. 226 ;
Paston Letters, 111. 325 ; stomach-ic.
STONE, a hard mass of mineral matter, piece of rock, a gem.
(E.) ΜΕ. ston, stoon, Chaucer, C. T. 7997 (E 121). AS. stan
(common); the change from @ to long ὁ is usual, as in bax, a bone,
bar, a boar.4+Du. steer; Icel. steinn; Dan. and Swed. sten; G.
stein; Goth. stains. B. All from Teut. type *stainoz, m. Cf.
Russ. stiexa, a wall; Gk. oria, a stone, pebble. Curtius, i. 264.
Der. stone, verb; sone-blind, as blind as a stone; stone-bow, used for
shooting stones, Tw. Nt. ii. 5. 513 stone-chat, a chattering bird ;
stone-crop, Baret (1580), ME. ston-croppe, Voc. 712. 353 stone-cutter,
K. Lear, ii. 2. 633 stone-fruit ; stone-still, K. John, iv. 1. 77 3 stone-
ware; stone's cast or stone’s throw, the distance to which a stone can
be cast or thrown; ston-y, AS. stanig; ston-y-heart-ed, 1 Hen. IV,
ii. 2. 28. Also stan-iel, q. v.
STOOK, a number of corn-sheaves; usually twelve. (Scand.)
Also stouk, in Prov. E.; see E. Τὴ. D. Spelt stowke in Cathol.
Anglicum (1483) ; q.v.—Swed. dial. stuke, a shock of sheaves; Dan.
dial. stuke (Kok).4-Low (ἃ. stuke, a heap, a shock. Allied to E.
Stake, Stock, q.v. See Notes on FE. Etym., p. 284.
STOOL, a seat without a back. (E.) ME. stool, Prompt. Parv. ;
606 STOOP
dat. stole, P. Plowman, B. v- 394. AS. stdl, a seat, a throne ; Grein,
ii. 485.-+ Du. s/oel, a chair, seat, stool; Icel. sté/l; Dan. and Swed.
stol, a chair; Goth. stdls, a seat; G. stuhl, OHG. stuol, stual.
Teut. type *stdloz,m. Teut. 6=Idg. ἃ. From4/STA, to stand,
stand firm, Brugmann, i. § 191; Streitberg, § 153 (5). Cf.
Stow, Stand. Der. stool-ball, a game played witha ball and one
or two stools, Two Noble Kinsmen, v. 2; see stool-ball in Halliwell.
STOOP (1), to bend the body, lean forward, condescend. (E.)
ME, stoupen, Wyclif, John, xx. 5. AS. stipian, A®Mred, tr. of
Orosius, b. vi. c. 24. 8 1.44-MDu. stuypen, ‘to bowe;’ Hexham;
Icel. stapa (obsolete) ; Swed. stwpa, to fall, to tilt; ef. stupande,
sloping, stwpning, a leaning forward. B. From a Teut. base
*stip, apparently meaning to lean forward; see steep (1) and
steep (2), the latter of which is the causal of stoop. And perhaps
the sfep- in step-child is from the same root. Der. steep (1);
steep (2).
STOOP (2), a beaker; see Stoup.
STOP, to obstruct, hinder, restrain, intercept, tocease. (L.) ΜΕ.
stoppen, Ancren Riwle, p. 72,1. 19. AS. stoppian, in the comp. for-
stopptax, to stopup; A. S. Leechdoms, ii. 42. Soalso Du. stoppen, to
fill, stuff, stop; Swed. stoppa, to fill, stuff, cram, stopup; Dan. sfoppe,
to fill, stuff, cram, &c.; G. stopfen; OSax. stuppon, Ps. 57. 5. Not
a Teut. word, but the same as Ital. stoppare, to stop up with tow,
Late L. stuppare, to stop up with tow, also used in the general sense
of cram, stop. . All from L. stipa, stufpa, the coarse part of flax,
hards, oakum, tow; cognate with Gk. στύπη, στύππη, with the same
sense. Hence also E. Stuff. Der. stop, sb., K. John, iv. 2. 239;
stop-cock; stopp-age (with F. suffix), stopp-er; also stopp-le, ME.
stoppel, Prompt. Parv. (with E. suffix, signifying the instrument).
Doublets, esfop, to impede, bar, a law term, borrowed from AF.
reg (mod. I’. étouper), from Late L. stuppare, as above; also stuff,
verb.
STORAX, a resinous gum. (L.—Gk.) In Holland, tr. of Pliny,
b. xil. c. 25, heading. = L. storax, styrax.—Gk. στύραξ, a sweet-smell-
ing gum produced by the tree called στύραξ; Herodotus, iii. 107.
STORH, provision, abundance, stock. (F.—L.) ME. stor, stoor,
Chaucer, C. T. 600 (A 598); Rob. of Glouc. p. 395, 1. 8138; the de-
rived verb storen occurs as early as in Layamon, 1. 13412, later text.
‘ Stoor, or purvyaunce, Staurum;’ Prompt. Pary. OF. eséor, store,
provisions (Godefroy).—Late L. staurum, the same as instanrum,
store. L. instaurare, to construct, build, restore, renew; Late L.
instaurare, to provide necessaries. Cf. OF. estorer, ‘to build, make,
edifie; also to store;’ Cot.—L.in, prep. as prefix; and *staurare, to
set up, place, found also in the comp. restaurare, to restore. B. This
form *staurare, orig. ‘to erect, is due to a lost adj. *staurus, allied
to Skt. sthdvara-s, fixed, stable, and Gk. σταυρός, an upright pole
or stake, orig. ‘upright.’ See Steer (2). Brugmann, i. § 1098.
Der. store, verb, ME. storen, OF. estorer, as above ; stor-age, with
F. suffix -age<L. -aticum ; store-house; also re-store, ἢ. v-3 sfor-y
(2), 4. ν-
STORK, a wading bird. (E.) ME. stork, Chaucer, Parl. of
Foules, 361. AS. store, Voc. 13. 7.4-Du. stork ; Icel. storkr; Dan.
and Swed. stork; G. storch, OHG, storah, stork. Ββ. Root uncertain ;
but almost certainly the same word as Gk. répyos, a large bird (vul-
ture, swan); Fick, iii. 346; which Fick considers as allied to E.
stark, as if the orig. sense were ‘the strong one.’ Cf. Pers. suturg,
large. See Stark. Der. stork’s-bill, a kind of geranium, from the
shape of the fruit.
STORM, a violent commotion, tempest. (E.) ME. storm,
Chaucer, C. T. 1982 (A 1980). AS. storm, Grein, ii. 485.--Icel.
stormr; Du., Swed., Dan., storm; G, sturm. Teut. type *stur-moz,
m. Allied to Stir, q.v. We also find Gael. and Irish stoirm, Bret.
stourm, a storm (borrowed forms), Der. storm, verb, AS. styrman,
with vowel-change; storm-y, storm-i-ness.
STORY (1), a history, narrative. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. storie,
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1203, 15503 (A1201,G@35); Havelok, 1641; Ancren
Riwle, p. 154, 1. 24.— AF. sforie (Bartsch) ; OF. estoire, a history, a
tale; F. histoire, history.—L. historia.—Gk. ἱστορία, history; see
History. Der. stori-ed, i.e. painted with stories, representing tales,
Milton, Il Pens. 159; cf. MF. kistorié, ‘ beautified with story-work,’
Cot. Doublet, history.
STORY (2), the height of one floor in a building, a set of rooms
at one level. (F.—L.) Bacon, in his Essay 45 (On Building), speaks
of ‘ the first story,’ ‘the under story,’ ‘the second story, ὅς. ‘A
floure [floor] or stuorie;’? R. Eden, First Three Books on America
(1526) ; ed. Arber, p. 257. In Rob. of Gloucester, p. 181, 1. 3756
(footnote), the word storys seems to mean ‘ buildings;’ but other
MSS. have a verb here. Orig. ‘a thing built;’ it represents OF.
estorée, a thing bnilt. ‘ Estorée, built, made, erected, edified; also
furnished, stored;’ Cot. This is the pp. of estorer, to build,
to store ; see Store. 4 Wedgwood adds: “1 cannot find that
STRAIGHT
estorée was ever used in the sense of E. story.’ This is prob. right;
the sense in E. seems to have been at first simply a thing built,
a building; the restriction of the word to one floor only is peculiar ta
English. Just in the same way, a floor is properly only a boarded
_ (or other) covering of the ground, but was used, by an easy extension
of meaning, as synonymous with story. Cf. Picard chambre étorée,
a furnished room (Corblet). There can be little doubt as to the
derivation. Der. clear-story or clere-story, Skelton, Garland of
Laurel, 479, a story lighted with windows, as distinct from the blind-
| story, as the triforium was sometimes called (Lee, Gloss. of Litur-
gical Terms (Oxford), Glossary, p. 57).
STOT, (1) a stallion; (2) a bullock. (E.) See Stoat.
STOUP, STOOP, a vessel or flagon. (Scand.) In Hamlet, v. 1.
68. ME. stope. ‘Hec cupa, a stofe;’ Voc. 728. 28. Lowl. Sc.
stowp, Dunbar, ed. Small, p. 161.—Icel. staup, a knobby lump, also
a stoup, beaker, cup.-+- Du. stoop ; Low G. stoop; AS. stéap, a beaker,
cup; MHG., stouf, G. stauf, a cup. [Or else, from the MDnu. stoop.]
The Teut. base is *staup-; cf. Icel. s’ey/a, to cast metals, pour out,
&c. See Steep (1) and Stoop. @ The Latinised form stopa
occurs in 1390, in the Earl of Derby’s Accounts (Camden Soc.),
p- 9, 1. 23. This looks more like the Du. form. For the form
stoop, cf. E. loose<Icel. laus.
STOUT, bold, strong, robust. (F.—OLow G.) ME. stout,
Chaucer, C. T. 547 (A 545).—OF. estout, stout, furious, also rash,
stupid (Burguy).—MDn. stolt, stout, ‘stout, bolde, rash;’ Hexham.
Low Ὁ. stolt, the same ; cognate with G. stolz, proud. B. Perhaps
a Teut. word; or else early borrowed from L, stultus, foolish. It
answers better, in sense, to L. stolidus, firm. Der. stout, sb.,a strong
kind of beer; stout-ly, -ness.
STOVE, a hot-house, an apparatus for warming a room. (E.)
‘This word has much narrowed its meaning ; [a] bath, hot-house . .
was a stove once;’ Trench, Select Glossary. ‘A stowe, or hot-
house ;? Minsheu, ed. 1627. AS. stofa; ‘ Balneum, stofa,’ Voc. 8. 33.
+MDu. stove, ‘a stewe, a hot-house, ora baine;’ Hexham; LowG.
stove, stave, the same; Icel. stofa, stufa, a bathing-room with a stove,
aroom; G, stube,a room; OHG., stupa, a heated room. β. Root
unknown; supposed to be a Teut. word, but even this is doubtful.
Cf. Ital. stufa, Span. estufa, F. étuve. See Stew. δ Perhaps lost
in ME., and re-introduced from Dutch,
STOVER, fodder for cattle. (F-—L.?) In Shak. Temp. iv. 63.
ME. stower (with v=), Seven Sages, ed. Weber, 2606. —OF. estover,
estovoir, necessaries, provisions; orig. the infin. mood of a verb which
was used impersonally with the sense ‘it is necessary;’ Burgny,
Diez. On the difficult etymology see Diez, who refersit to L. studére,
to study, endeavour, desire; see Student. Or perhaps from L. est
opus, there is need (Tobler).
STOW, to arrange, pack away. (E.) ME. stowen, Allit. Poems,
B13. Lit. ‘to put in a place;’” cf. ME. stowe, a place, Layamon,
1174. AS. stdwigan, Voc. 43.12. From AS. stow, a place, Mark, i.
45; OFries. sto, a place. We also find Icel. std, in the comp. eldsté,
a fire-place, hearth. Cognate with Lithuan. stowa, the place in which
one stands; from s/d¢i, to stand. B. All from the ./STA, to
stand; see Stand. Der. stow-age, with F. suffix, Cymb. i. 6 192;
whence Low L. stowagium, Earl of Derby's Accounts (1394) ; Cam-
den Soc. p. 155, 1. 32. Also be-stow, q. v.
STRADDLE, to stand or walk with the legs wide apart. (E.)
In Baret, ed. 1580. Spelt striddil and stridle in Levins, ed. 1570.
The frequentative of stride, used in place of striddle. See Stride.
Cf. prov. E. striddle, to straddle ; Halliwell.
STRAGGLE, to stray, ramble away. (Scand.) Formerly stragle,
with one g, Chapman, tr. of Homer, Iliad, b. x. 1.158; and in Min-
sheu, ed. 1627; and in Baret (1580). Palsgrave has stragler, sb.
Cf. Norw. stragla, to walk unsteadily and with difficulty ; frequent.
of MDan. strage, to rove, wander. Allied to strackle; cf. prov. E.
strackling, a loose wild fellow (North); strackle-brained, dissolute,
thoughtless ; Halliwell. Apparently the frequentative of ME. stra-
ken, to go, proceed, roam ; ‘ Pey ouer lond strakeS’ = they roam over
the land; P. Plowman’s Creed, ]. 82 ; and cf. Cursor Mundi, 1. 1845,
Trin. MS. ‘To strake about, circumire;’ MS. Devonsh. Gloss.,
cited in Halliwell. Cf. also prov. E. strag, a vagabond; Icel. strakr,
a vagabond. G Notallied to stray, Der. straggl-er.
STRAIGHT, direct, upright. (E.) Spelt strayght in Palsgrave.
It is identical with ME. strei3t, the pp. of strecchen, to stretch. ‘ Sithe
thi flesche, lord, was furst perceyued And, for oure sake, laide strez3t
in stalle;’ Political, Religious, and Love Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 252,
1. 46. AS. streht, pp. of streccan, to stretch; see Stretch. 2. The
adverbial use is early ; ‘ William streijt went hem to ;’ Will. of
Palerne, 1. 3328; spelt straght, Gower, C. A. iii. 36; bk. vi. 1030.
Der. straight-ly, straight-ness ; straight-forward, -ly; straight-way=
in a straight way, directly, spelt strezghtway, Spenser, F. Ὁ. i. 10. 633
straight-en, verb, a late coinage. a Distinct from strait.
STRAIN
STRAIN (1), to stretch tight, draw with force, overtask, constrain,
filter, (F,—L.) ΜΕ. streinen, Chaucer, C. T. 9627 (E 1753).—OF.
estraign-, estreign-, a stem of estraindre, estreindre, MF. estraindre,
“to straine, wring hard;’ Cot.=L. stringere, to draw tight; pt. t.
strinxt, pp. strictus. See Stringent. Der. strain, sb., strain-er ;
con-stratn, di-strain, re-strain; and see strait, stringent, strict.
STRAIN (2), a race, stock, breed. (E.) ‘The noblest of thy
strain;” Shak, J. Cesar, v. 1. 59. ME. streen; Chaucer, C. T.,
E157. AS. stréon, gain, product, whence, in ME., lineage, progeny,
asin Layamon, 2737 ; whence strienan, strynan, to beget. Cf. OHG.
striunan, to acquire.
STRAIT, strict, narrow, rigid. (F.—L.) ME. streit, Chaucer, C. T.
174; Layamon, 22270.—AF. estreit, Bozon, p. 124; OF. estroict,
“strait, narrow, close, strict;’ Cot. Mod. F. étroit.—L. strictum,
acc. of strictus, strict, strait. See Strict. Der. strait, sb., used to
translate MF. estroict, sb., in Cotgrave; strait-ly, -ness; strait-laced ;
strait-en, a coined word, Luke, xii. 50. Doublet, strict.
STRAND (1), the beach of the sea or of a lake. (E.). -ME,
strand, often strond, Chaucer, C. T. 5245 (B 825). AS. strand,
Matt, xiii, 48.4-Du. strand; Icel. strind (gen. strandar), margin,
edge; Dan., Swed., and G. strand. Root unknown. Der. strand,
verb; cf. Du. stranden, ‘to arrive on the sea-shoare,’ Hexham.
STRAND (2), one of the smaller strings that compose a rope.
(F.—OHG.) _‘ Strand, in sea-language, the twist of arope;’ Phillips,
ed. 1706. The d is cxcrescent, as commonly in E. after » final.
Spelt strain, Hakluyt, Voy. iii, 108.—ONorman F. eséran, a strand;
Wace, Rom. de Brut, 11486; see Moisy.—OHG. streno (G. striihne),
acord. Cf. MDu., strene, a string (Kilian); Du. streen, ‘a skain,
Sewel. Parallel to Du. striem, OHG. strimo, a stripe.
STRANGE, foreign, odd. (F.—L.) ME. strange, Rob. of Glouc.
Ρ. 16, 1. 379 ; Chaucer, C. T. 1. 13.—OF. estrange, ‘strange ;’ Cot.
(Mod. F. étrange; Span. extraiio, Ital. estranio, estraneo.)—L. ex-
traneum, acc. of extraneus, foreign; lit. ‘that which is without. =
L. extra, without, outside; see Extra. Der. s/range-ly, -ness;
strang-er, from OF, estrangier, ‘a stranger,’ Cot. Also estrange, q.v.
Doublet, extraneous.
STRANGLE, to choke. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. stranglen, Have-
lok, 640. = OF .estrangler, ‘to strangle, choake ;’ Cot.=—L, strangulare,
to throttle, choke.—Gk. στραγγαλόειν, to strangle; also o7pay-
γαλίζειν. -- Gk. στραγγάλη, a halter. Gk. στραγγός, twisted. Allied
to Strict ; and see below. Der. strangl-er ; strangulat-ion, from F.
strangulation, ‘a strangling,’ Cot., from L. acc. strangulationem.
STRANGURY, extreme difficulty in discharging urine. (L.
—Gk.) In Ben Jonson, The Fox, A. ii. sc. 1.—L. strangiria. —Gk.
orpayyoupia, retention of the urine, when it falls by drops.— Gk.
orparyy-, base of orpayé, that which oozes out, a drop; and οὖρ-ον,
urine. The Gk. orpayé is allied to orpayyés, twisted, compressed.
See Strangle and Urine,
STRAP, a narrow strip of leather. (L.) Frequently called a
strop in prov. E., and this is the better form. ME. strope, a noose,
loop; ‘a rydynge-knotte or a strope,’ Caxton, tr. of Reynard the
Fox, ed. Arber, p. 33. ‘A thonge, . . a strope, or a loupe,’ Elyot,
1559; cited in Halliwell. AS. stropp. ‘Struppus, strop, vel ar-
widde;’ Voc. 181. 42,—L. strupjus,a strap, thong, fillet. From the
same L. word are borrowed Du. strop, a halter, F. érope, &c.
Doublet, strop.
STRAPPADO, a species of torture. (Ital.—Teut.) In 1 Hen. IV,
ij. 4. 262. The word has been turned into a Spanish-looking
form, but it is rather Italian. In exactly the same way, the Ital.
stoccata also appears as stoccado; see Stoccado.—Ital. strappata,
a pulling, wringing ; the strappado. Ital. strappare, to pull, wring.
— High-German (Swiss) straffen, to pull tight, allied to Ὁ. straff,
tight (Diez). From Low G. or Du.; cf. Du. straffen, to punish,
from straf, severe. Cf. EFries. strabben, to be stiff ; strabbig, strappig,
severe.
STRATAGEM, an artifice, esp. in war. (F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt
stratageme, Sir P. Sidney, Apology for Poetry, ed. Arber, p. 37.—
MF. stratageme, ‘a stratagem ;’ Cot.—L. stratégéma.—Gk. στρατή-
‘nea, the device or act of a general.—Gk. στρατηγός, a general,
leader of an army.—Gk. στρατ-ύς, an army; and ay-ew, to lead.
B. The Gk. στρατός means properly an encamped army, from its
being spread out over ground, and is allied to Gk. στόρνυμι, I spread
out, and L, sternere; see Stratum. The Gk. ἄγειν is cognate with
L. agere; see Agent. Der. strateg-y, from Gk. στρατηγία, general-
ship, from orpatny-és, a general ; strateg-ic, Gk. στρατηγικός ; straleg-
ic-al, -ly ; strateg-ist.
RATH, a flat valley. (C.) In Leslie, Hist. Scotland (1595);
p- 12. Common in Scot. place-names, as Strath-spey, valley of the
Spey.= Gael. srath, a flat valley, low-lying country beside a river;
Trish srath, sratha, fields beside a river, bottom of a valley; W.
ystrad. Allied to Stratum.
STRESS 607
STRATUM, a layer, esp. of earth or rock. (L.) In ‘homson,
Autumn, 745.—L. séraéwm, that which is laid flat or spread out,
neut. of stratus, pp. of sternere. Allied to Gk. στόρνυμι, 1 spread
out; Skt. stv, to spread. —4/STER, to scatter, spread out. Der.
strati-fic-at-ion, strat-i-fy, coined words, And see street, con-ster-nat-
ion, pro-straie, strat-agem; also strew, straw.
STRAW, a stalk of corn when thrashed. (E.) ME. straw,
Chaucer, C. T. 11007 (F 695); also stre, stree, id. 2920 (A 2918).
AS. streaw, streow; see Toller; it also occurs in streawberige, a
strawberry, Voc. 298.11, and in the derivative streaw-ian, streow-ian,
to strew, as below.-+-Du. stroo; Icel. stra; Dan. straa; Swed. stra;
G. stroh, OHG. strow, strau. Allied to Goth. straujan, to strew.
From Teut. base *strau- (cf. Lat. pt. t. str@ué), extended from
o/STER, to spread out, scatter. Der. straw-y; strew, verb, 4ᾳ.υ-;
straw-berry, AS. streawberige, as above, from its propagation (or
strewing) by runners, See Stratum.
STRAY, to wander, rove, err. (F.—L.) ME. straien: the deri-
vative a-straied, pp., is in Gower, C. A. ii. 132; bk. v. 1453 and see
the Prompt. Parv. OF. estraier, to stray, See Diez, who compares
Prov. estradier, one who roves about the streets or ways, one who
strays, from Prov. estrada, a street; also OF. estree, a street. This
is confirmed by MItal. stradiotto, ‘a wandrer, gadder, traueller,
earth-planet, a highwaie-keeper, Florio; from Ital. strada, a street.
B. Thus the lit. sense is ‘to rove the streets.’ All from L, strata, a
street; see Street. Cf. mod. F. batteur d’estrade, a loiterer
(Hamilton), Der. stray, sb., oddly spelt streyue, strayue, in P.
Plowm. B. prol. 94, C. i. 92, old form also eséray (Blount, Nomo-
lexicon), AF. estray (Britton), from OF. estraier, to stray, as above.
STREAK, a line or long mark on a differently coloured ground.
(Scand.) ME. streke, Prompt. Parv.; prob. of Scand. or Low G.
origin. Swed. streck, MSwed. strek, a stroke, streak, line; Norw.
sirek, streek (cf. EF ries. streke, Du. streek) ; Dan. streg. From Teut.
*strik, weak grade of *s/reikan-, to strike; see Strike. B. We
also find the (native) ME. strike, a stroke, Chaucer, On the Astrolabe,
pt. i.§ 7; AS. strica (cognate with G. strich, Goth. striks, a stroke
with the pen); from *sérik-, weak grade of Teut. *streikan-; see
Strike. Further allied to L. striga, a line, furrow, and to L.
stringere; see Stringent. q It may be noted that ME. striken
sometimes means to go or come forward, to proceed, advance; see
Gloss. to Spec. of Eng., ed. Morris and Skeat, and P. Plowman,
B. prol. 183. A streak is properly a stroke made by sweeping
anything along. Der. streak, verb, Mids, Nt. Dr. ii. 1. 2573
streak-y,
STREAM, a current or flow. (E.) ME, streem, Chaucer, C. T,
406, 3893 (A 464, 3895). AS. stréam, Grein, ii. 488.4-Du. stroom;
Icel. straumr; Swed. and Dan. strom; (ἃ. strom; OHG. straum,
stroum, B. All from the Teut. type *s¢rax-moz, m. The word
means ‘that which flows,’ from the Teut. base STREU, to flow.
The Idg, root is 4/SREU, to flow; cf. Skt. sru, to flow, Gk. ῥέειν
(for σρέβειν), to flow, Irish sruaim,a stream. The ¢ seems to have
been inserted, for greater ease of pronunciation, not only in Teutonic,
but in Slavonic; cf. Russ. s¢ruia,a stream. See Rheum. Brug-
mann, i. §§ 462, 816. From the same root we have rheum, rhythm,
ruminate,catarrh, Der. stream, verb, ME. stremen, streamen, Ancren
Riwle, p. 188, note e; stream-er, Hen. V, iii. chor. 6 ; stream-l-et,
a double diminutive ; stream-y.
STREET, a paved way, a road in a town. (L.) ME. srete,
Wyclif, Matt. xii. 19. ΑΒ, str#@t, Grein, ii. 487.—L. strata, for
strata uia, a paved way ; strata is fem. of stratus, pp. of sternere, to
strew, scatter, pave.m4/STIER, to spread out; see Stratum.
@ The G. strass is likewise borrowed from Latin; so also Ital.
strada, &c. Der. stray, q.v.
STRENGTH, might. (E.) ME. strengthe, Chaucer, C. T. 84.
AS. strengdu, Grein, ii. 487; for *strang-i-du.— AS, strang, strong;
see Strong. Der. strength-en.
STRENUOUS, vigorous, active, zealous. (L.) In Minshen, ed.
1627- Englished from L. strénwus, vigorous, active. Allied to Gk.
στβῥηνής, strong, στηρίζειν, to make firm, στερεός, firm; see Stereo-
scope. Der. sirenuous-ly, -ness.
STRESS, strain, force, pressure, (F.—L.) 1. Used m the sense
of distress, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 321, last line. ‘ Stresse,
or wed take { pledge taken] by strengthe and vyolence, Vadimonium ;’
Prompt. Pary. Here stresse is obviously short for ME, destresse, in
the sense ‘ distress for rent ;’ and stress may sometimes be taken as
a short form of distress; see Distress. 2. ‘ Stresse, or streytynge,
Constrictio;’ Prompt. Parv, ‘I séresse, I strayght one of his liberty
or thrust his body to-guyther, Ze estroysse;’ Palsgrave. This is from
OF. estrecier (later estrecir, estrotssir), ‘to straiten, pinch, contract,
bring into a narrow compass,’ Cot. This answers to a Folk.-L.
type *strictiare, not found, a derivative of strictus, drawn together ;
see Strict. We may regard stress as due, in general, to this verb,
608 STRETCH
or else to *di-strictiare; it comes to much the same thing. @ The
loss of the initial di- occurs also in sport, splay, spend, &c.; and is
therefore merely what we should expect.
STRETCH, to draw out, extend. (E.) ME. strecchen, Chaucer,
C. T..15937 (G 469); pt. t. straughte, id. 2918 (A 2916); pp.
straught or streight, whence mod. E. straight. AS. streccan, John,
xxi. 18; pt. t. strehte, Matt. xxi. 8; pp. strekt. Formed as a causal
verb from AS. sfrec, strec, strong, violent, of which the pl. strece
occurs in Matt. xi. 12, and the form strc, severe, in Gregory’s Past.
Care, c. xvii (heading), ed. Sweet, p. 107. The sense of stretch is,
accordingly, to make stiff or hard, as in tightening a cord.Du.
strekken; Dan. strekke, to stretch; strek,a stretch; Swed. stracka;
G, strecken, from strack, adj., tight, straight; cf. stracks, straightway,
immediately. Cf. also L. stringere, to draw tight, which is related ;
Gk. στραγγός, twisted tight. Other nearly related words are string
and strong; also strain, strait, stringent, strangle, strict. Der. stretch,
sb., stretch-er, straight.
STREW, STRAW, to spread, scatter loosely. (E.) Spelt
straw, Matt. xxi. 8. ME. strawen, strewen, Chaucer, C. T. 10927
(F 613). AS. streawian, streowian, Matt. xxi. 8; Mark, xi. 8; streaw,
straw; see Straw.+Dnu. strootjen, to scatter; allied to strco, straw.
Cf. Icel. stra, Swed. stré, Dan. stroe, G. strenen, to strew ; also Goth.
straujan, to strew (pt. t. strawida). The last of these is from a Teut.
base *strau, extended from 4/STER, to strew, spread; as in L.
ster-n-ere (pt. t. siraui); Gk. στόρ-ν-υμι, Ispread; Skt. sty, to spread.
See Stratum. Brugmann,i. ὃ 570. Der. be-strew.
STRIATED, streaked, marked with streaks. (L.) Scientific and
modern. —L. stridlus, pp. of striare, to furrow or channel. = L, stria,
a furrow, channel, groove.-+-G. strieme, a stripe.
STRICKEN, advanced (in years); see Strike.
STRICT, strait, exact, severe, accurate. (L.) In Meas. for Meas.
i. 3. 19.—L. sirictus, pp. of stringere, to tighten, draw together; see
Stringent. Der. strict-ly, -ness; strict-ure, from L. strictira,
verbal sb. allied to strict-us, pp. of stringere. Der. stress. Doublet,
strait, adj.
STRIDBH, to walk with long steps. (E.) ΜΕ. striden, Cursor
Mundi, 10235; Layamon, 17982; pt. t. s‘rade, Ywaine and Gawin,
3193, in Ritson’s Met. Rom. vol.i; cf. bestrode, bestrood, in Chaucer,
C. T. 13831 (B 2093). AS. stridan, to stride; rare, but in Epinal
Glos. 1086; the pt. t. be-strad is in /Elfric’s Hom. ii. 136. Pt. t.
strad, pp. striden, as shown by mod, E. strode, and the derivative
striddle, cited under Straddle. β. That the word should have
meant both to sfrive and to stride is curious; but is certified by the
cognate Low G. striden (pt. t. streed, pp. streden), meaning (1) to
strive, (2) to stride; with the still more remarkable derivative be-
striden, also meaning (1) to combat, (2) to bestride, as in dat Peerd
bestriden, to bestride the horse ; Bremen Worterbuch, pp. 1063, 1064.
[Precisely the same double meaning reappears in Low G. streven,
(1) to strive, (2) to stride, and the sb. streve, (1) a striving, (2) a
stride. Hexham notes MDnu. streven, ‘to force or to strive, to walke
together ;’ which points to the meaning of stride as originating from
the contention of two men who, in walking side by side, strive to
outpace one another, and so take long steps. y- Other cognate
words are Du. strijden (pt. t. streed, pp. gestreden), G. stretten (pt. τ.
stritt, pp. gestritten), Dan. stride (pt. t. stred), only in the sense to
strive, to contend ; cf. also the weak verbs, Icel. s/riéa, Swed. strida,
to strive. Teut. type *streidan-, pt. t. *straid, pp. *stridanoz. Cf.
Skt. sridh, to assail. Der. stradd-le, q.v.; stride, sb. ; a-stride, adv.,
King Alisaunder, 4445; be-stride.
STRIDENT, grating, harsh. (L.) Dryden has: ‘And stridor
of her wings ;’ tr. of Virgil, xii. 1258. Chapman has; ‘ grasshoppers
are stridulous;’ tr. of Homer’s Iliad, iii. commentary, note 2.
Strident seems to be modern.—L. strident-, stem of pres. pt. of
stridére, also stridere, to creak, rattle, grate; of imitative origin.
Cf. Gk. τρίζειν, to creak. Der. stridor, sb., from L. stridor, a creak-
ing; strid-ulous, adj., from L. strid-ulus, creaking, harsh.
STRIFE, contention, dispute, contest. (F.—Scand.) In early
use ; Layamon, 24966, later text; Ancren Riwle, p. 200, last line
but one. — OF. estrif, ‘ strife, debate;’ Cot.—Icel. s/rid, strife, con-
tention ; by the change of τὰ to f, as in Shakespeare's jill-horse for
thill-horse; strida, to strive; weak verb allied to Du. strijden, to
strive, AS. stridan, to stride; see Stride (above).4-OSax. and
OF ries. s/rid, strife; Du. strijd; Dan. and Swed. strid; G. streit;
OHG. strit. Der. strive, q. ν.
STRIGIL, a flesh-scraper. (L.) L. strigilis; allied to stringere,
to graze; see Strike. ῃ
STRIKE, to hit, dash, stamp, coin, givea blowto. (E.) ΜΕ.
striken, orig. to proceed, advance, esp. with a smooth motion, to flow ;
hence used of smooth swift motion, to strike with a rod or sword.
“Ase strem pat strike stille’=like a stream that flows gently; Spec.
of Eng., ed. Morris and Skeat, p. 48, 1. 21. ‘ Sirek into a studie’=
STROKE
fell into a study; Will. of Palerne, 4038. ‘Amous... Stroke forth
sternly ’=a mouse advanced boldly ; P. Plowman, prol. 183. Strong
verb, pt. t. strak, strek, strok, mod. E. struck; pp. striken, later stricken,
mod. E. struck. The phr. ‘stricken in years’=advanced in years;
Luke, i. 7. AS. strican, to go, proceed, advance, pt. t. strac, pp.
stricen. “ Rodor striced ymbitan’=the firmament goes round, 1.e.
revolves; Grein, ii. 489.4-Du. strijkex, to smooth, rub, stroke, spread,
strike; G. streichen, pt. t. sirich, pp. gesirichen, to stroke, rub,
smooth, spread, strike. β. Teut. type *streikan-, pt. τ. *straik, pp.
*strikanoz. Cf. Goth. striks, a stroke, dash with a pen, cognate
with L. striga, a row, a furrow. [We also find Icel. strjuka, pt. t.
strauk, pp. strokinn, to stroke, rub, wipe, to strike, flog; Swed.
stryka, to stroke, wipe, strike, rove; Dan. stryge, the same ; froma
related type *strewkan- (with a different gradation). } γ. The Idg.
root is STREIG, related to L. stringere, which is equivalent to AS.
strican, when used in the sense to graze, or touch slightly with a
swift motion. But L. stringere,to draw tight, seems to bea different
word; sce Stringent. Der. strik-er, strik-ing ; also stroke, q.v.;
streak, q.v. Also strike, sb., the name of a measure, orig. an instru-
ment with a straight edge for levelling (striking off) a measure of
grain; ME. strik, Liber Albus, p. 243.
STRING, thin cord. (E.) ΜΕ. string, streng, Chaucer, C. T.
7649 (D 2067). AS. streng, John, ii. 15. From its being strongly
or tightly twisted ; allied to AS. strang, strong, violent. Du. streng ;
cf, streng, adj., severe, rigid; Icel. strengr, string; strangr, strong ;
Dan. streng, Swed. strang, G. strang, string. Cf. Gk. στραγγάλη,
a halter ; from στραγγός, hard twisted. See Strong. Der. string,
verb, properly a weak verb, being formed from the sb., but the pp.
strung also occurs, L. L. L. iv. 3. 343, formed by analogy with flung
from fling, and sung from sing.. And Dryden has the pt. t. strung,
Epist. to J. Dryden, 1. 89. Also string-ed; string-y ; bow-string ;
heart-string.
STRINGENT, urgent, strict. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706.—L.
stringent-, stem of pres, part. of stringere, to draw tight, compress,
urge, &c.; pp. sérictus. From the Idg. root STREIG, to draw or
twist tight. See Strong. Der. stringent-ly, stringenc-y; and see
strict, strait, a-stringent, a-striction, strain, con-strain, di-strain, re-
strain, stress, di-siress,
STRIP, to tear off, skin, render bare, deprive, plunder. (E.) ME.
stripen, strepen, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1008, 8739 (A 1006, E 863) ; pt.t.
strepte, spelt struple, Juliana, p. 63, 1. 16; pp. strept, spelt i-struped,
Ancren Riwle, p. 148, note g. AS. striepan, strypan, in comp.
bestrypan, to plunder, A. S. Chron. an. 1065.4-Du. s/roopen, to
plunder, strip; EFries. stropen; MDu. stroopen, ‘to flea [flay], to
skin, or to pill,’ Hexham ; OHG. stroufen. Teut. type *straupyjan- ;
from *straup, 2nd grade of the strong verb *streupan- ; for which cf.
Norw. striipa, to grip, to throttle (pt. t. séraup), Der. The sb.
strip, a piece, is often understood as being ‘a piece stripped off ;’
but it seems to belong rather to stripe (below).
STRIPE, a streak, a blow with a whip. (Du.) Not a very old
word, and apparently borrowed from Dutch; prob. because con-
nected with the trade of weaving. ME. séripe, Prompt. Parv.—MDu.
stripe, as in strijp-kleedt, ‘a parti-coloured sute,’ Hexham; cf. Du.
streep, a stripe, streak.-+-Norw. sériza, Dan. stribe, a stripe, streak ;
Low Ὁ. stripe, a stripe, strip; sfripen, to stripe; sfriped Tiig, striped
cloth; G. streifen, MHG. streif, a stripe, streak, strip. Cf. also
Olrish sriab, a stripe. Similarly E. streak is connected with E.
strike; from the mark of a blow. Der. séripe, verb. Also strip,
which is rather a variant of s/ripe than allied to strip, vb. Cf. Low
G. stripe, (1) a stripe, (2) a strip of cloth; Prov. Εἰ. stripe, a strip ;
stripe, a stream, of which sfrippet (noted under Stripling) is a
diminutive.
STRIPLING, a youth, lad. (E.) In Shak. Tam. Shrew, i. 2.
144. ‘He is but an yongling, A stalworthy s¢ryplyng;’ Skelton, Why
Come Ye Nat to Courte, 345. Also ME. siriplynge, Mandeville,
Trav. ch. 27, p. 278. A double dimin. from stripe; the sense is
‘one as thin as a stripe,’ a growing lad not yet filled out. Cf. ‘you
tailor’s yard, you sheath, you bow-case;’ 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 273.
Similarly a sérippet is a very narrow stream; ‘a little brooke or
strippet ;’ Holinshed’s Descr. of Scotland, c. 10. § 2. See Stripe.
STRIVE, to struggle, contend. (F.—Scand.) ME. striuen, a
weak verb, pt. t. s¢rived, Will. of Palerne, 4099. Made into a strong
verb, with pt. t. s¢rof, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1040 (A 1038); mod. E.
strove, pp. striven; by analogy with drive (drove, driven).—OF.
estriver, ‘to strive,’ Cot. OF. estrif, strife. See Strife.
STROKE (1), a blow. (E.) ΜΕ. strok, strook, Chaucer, C. T.
1709. From AS. strac, 2nd grade of strican, to strike; with the
usual change of atolongo. See Strike. So also G. stretch, a
stroke, from G, streichen, to stroke, to whip.
STROKE (2), to rub gently. (E.) ME. stroken, Chaucer,
C. T. 10479 (F 165). AS. stracian, to stroke; Elfred, tr. of
STROLL
Gregory’s Past. Care, ed. Sweet, p. 303, 1.10. A causal verb; from
strac, 2nd grade of AS. strican, to go, pass swiftly over, mod. E.
strike. See Strike. So also G. streicheln, to stroke, from streichen,
to rub, strike.
STROLL, to rove, wander. (F.—Teut.) A late word. ‘When
stroulers durst presume to pick your purse;’ Dryden, 5th prol. to
Univ. of Oxford, 1. 33. ‘Knowing that rest, quiet, and sleep, with
lesser meat, will sooner feed any creature than your meat with liberty
to run and stroyle about ;’ Blith’s Husbandry, 1652 ; cited by Wedg-
wood. Formed by prefixing s- (for OF. es-, L. ex) to troll, in the
sense to range, rove. Cotgrave has MF. troller (Εἰ. tréler), ‘to
trowle, raunge, or hunt out of order,’ of hounds; cf. Norm. dial.
treuler, to wander; dial. of Verdun ?réler, trauler, to rove;
Guernsey ¢treulat (=estrenlé), adj., idle, vagabond (Métivier);
Picard trolewse, a wandering woman (Corblet); see Troll.
Schmeller gives the forms stralen, strolen, to stroll, as Bavarian ; and
Wedgwood quotes Swiss strielen, strollen, strolchen, to rove about.
Ross has Norw. sfrolla, to go about wilfully and idly. Der. stroll,
sb.; stroll-er.
STRONG, forcible, vigorous, energetic. (E.) ME. strong,
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 2137 (A 2135), &c. ‘Strong and stark ;’ Havelok,
608. AS. strang, strong ; Grein, ii. 485.4-Du. streng ; Tcel. strangr ;
Dan, streng; Swed, strang ; OHG. strang, strangi, G. streng, strict.
B. All from Teut. types *strangoz, *strangjoz, adj., strong. Cf.
Gk. orpayyés, tightly twisted, whence στραγγάλη, a halter (E.
string), and L. stringere, in the sense ‘to draw tight;’ hence
the identity in meaning between L, strictus and G. streng. Der.
strong-ly, strong-hold; string, q.v.; streng-th, q.v.3 strength-en.
Related words are stringent, strain, strict, strait, stretch, straight,
strangle, &c.
STROP, a piece of leather, &c. for sharpening razors. (L.)
Merely the old form of strap; from L, struppus ; see Strap.
STROPHE, part of a song, poem, or dance. (Gk.) Formerly
used also as a rhetorical term ; ‘ Strophes, wilely deceits, subtilties in
arguing, conversions, or turnings ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. —Gk.
στροφή, a turning, twist, trick; esp. the turing of the chorus,
dancing to one side of the orchestra; hence, the strain sung during
this evolution ; the strophé, to which the antistrophe answers. = Gk.
στροφ-, 2nd grade of στρέφειν, to turn. Der. anti-strophe, apo-strophe,
cata-strophe, epi-strophe.
STROW, the same as Strew, vb., q.v.
STRUCTURE, a building, construction, arrangement. (F.—L.)
In Minsheu, ed. 1627.—F. structure, ‘a structure ;’ Cot.—L. struc-
tura, a building ; allied to structus, pp. of sérwere, to build, orig. to
heap together, arrange. From the base STREU, allied to Goth.
straujan, G. streuen, to strew, lay; allied to 4/STER, to spread out.
Der. (from struere) con-strue, con-struct, de-stroy, de-struction, in-
struct, in-stru-ment, mis-con-strue, ob-struct, super-structure.
STRUGGLE, to make great bodily efforts. (Scand.) ME.
strogelen, Chaucer, C. T. 10248 (E 2374). Palsgrave not only
gives: ‘1 stroggell with my bodye,’ but also: ‘I strogell, 1 mur-
mure with wordes secretly, je grommelle.’ The latter, however, is
merely a metaphorical sense, i.e. to oppose with words instead of
deeds. ME. strogelen is a frequentative verb formed from the
Scand. base strug-, appearing in Swed. dial. strug, contention, strife,
dispute ; Rietz notes that draga i strug, to draw with difficulty, is
used of horses. Related words are Swed. dial. séruug, revengeful,
Norw. stru, refractory, Dan. dial. struende, reluctantly. B. The
Idg. form of the root is STREUGH ; or with loss of s, TREUGH ;
the latter appears in Icel. Jriiga, Swed. truga, to force, compel, AS.
‘pryccan, to force, G. drucken, to print; and in EFries. triiggeln, to
struggle against, as a restive horse; cf. MDu. truggelen, Du.
troggelen, to beg persistently. Der. struggle, sb.
STRUM, to thrum on a piano. (Scand.) ‘The strum-strum [a
musical instrument] is made like a cittern ;’ Dampier’s Voyages, an.
1684; see A New Voyage (1699), i. 127. The word is imitative,
and made by prefixing s- (F. es-, from L. ex), intensive prefix, to the
imitative word ¢rum, variant of thrum, asin Low G. trummen, Du.
trommen, to drum. Cf. Norw. sfrumla, to rumble, rattle. See
Thrum and Drum. So also s-plash for plash.
STRUMPET, a prostitute. (F.—L.; or F.—Teut.) ME.
strompet, P. Plowman, C, xy. 42; also spelt strumpet, Polit. Songs,
p- 153 (temp. Edw. II). 1. If the m in this word be an
E. addition, it is a strengthened form of *strup-et, in which the -et is
a Ε΄. dimin. suffix; and the derivation is from OF. strupe, noted by
Roquefort as a variant of OF. stupre, concubinage.—L. stuprum,
dishonour, violation. B. The curious position of the r causes no
difficulty, as there must have been a Late L. form *strupare, used
conyertibly with L. stuprare. This is clear from Ital. strupare,
variant of stuprare, Span. estrupar, variant of estuprar, to ravish, and
from the OF. strupe quoted above. Perhaps the E. word was
STUD 609
formed directly from an OF. *sérupée, from Late L. *strupata=
stuprata, fem. of the pp. of stuprare. The verb stuprare is from the
sb. stuprum. y. We find also Irish and Gael. striopach, a strum-
pet; this is to be referred to the same Late L. *serupare. “The
history is unknown. 2. The form of the word answers better to
MDu. strompe, Low (ἃ. strump, a stocking (but there is πὸ con-
nexion) ; or to Norw. strumpen, adj., stumbling (Ross), Low G. strum-
fen, strumpeln, to stumble; strumpelig, staggering, tottery in gait ;
MDu. strompelen, ‘to stagger, to trip, or to reele” Hexham. We
might perhaps then explain strumpet as ‘one who trips,’ or makes
a false step. The above words are allied to ἃ. strampeln, to kick.
It is remarkable that the prov. E. (Hants.) strumpet means a fat,
hearty child, esp. a baby; where the sense ‘ little kicker’ is appro-
priate. A Germanic origin seems probable.
STRUT (1), to walk about pompously. (Scand.) ME. strouten,
to spread ont, swell out. _‘ His here (hair] strouted as a fanne large
and brode ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 3315. “ Strowtyn, or bocyn owt [to boss
out, swell out], Turgere;’ Prompt. Parv. In Havelok, 1779, to
stroute is to make a disturbance or to brag. = Dan. strutte, strude, to
strut, Swed. dial. srut‘a, to walk with a jolting step (Rietz). The
Norweg. strut means a spout that sticks out, a nozzle; the Icel.
stritr is a sort of hood sticking out like a horn; the Swed. strut is
a cone-shaped piece of paper, such as grocers put sugar in, The
orig. notion of strut seems to be ‘to stick out stiffly ;’ cf. prov. E.
strut, rigid. Note further Low (ἃ. strutt, rigid,’ stiff, G. strauss,
a tuft, bunch, strotzer, to be puffed up, to strut, The prov. E.
sirunt, to strut (Halliwell), is a nasalised form of strut. Der.
strut, sb.
STRUT (2), a support for a rafter, &c. (Scand.) ‘Strut, with
carpenters, the brace which is framed into the ring-piece and principal
rafters ;’ Bailey, vol. 11. ed. 1731. The orig. sense is a stiff piece of
wood; cf. Low G,. strut, rigid; prov. E. strut, rigid. It is,
accordingly, closely allied to Strut (1).
STRYCHNINE, a violent poison. (Gk.) Modern. Formed
with suffix -ine (F.-ine, L. -ina, -inus) from Gk. στρύχνος, nightshade,
oison.
"STUB, the stump of a tree left after it is cut down. (E.) ‘Old
stockes and stubs of trees ;’ Spenser, F. Q. i. 9.34. ME. stubbe,
Chaucer, C. T. 1980 (A 1978). AS. stybb, stubb (Toller); spelt
stub in Birch, Cart. Saxon. i. 316, iii. 353; EFries. stubbe. From
a base *stuf-.4-Du. stobbe; Icel. stubbi, stubbr; Dan, stub; Swed.
stubbe. Ββ, Allied to Icel. stiifr,a stump ; and Gk. στύπος, a stub,
stump; Skt. stupa-s, m., a heap. Allied to Stump. Der. stub,
verb, to root out stubs; stubb-y, stubb-ed, stubb-ed-ness; and see
stubb-orn, stump.
STUBBLE, the stalks of cut com. (F.—L.) ME. stobil,
Wyclif, Job, xiii. 25; Chaucer has stubbel-goos, C. T. 4351.—OF.
estouble, ‘stubble, Cot.; also estuble (Littré, s. v. éteule). = Late L.
stupula, stupla, stubble, a variant of L. stipula, stubble, due to the
influence of Low G. stoppel, stubble (Liibben) ; Du. and EFries.
stoppel, cognate with MHG. stupfel, OHG. stupfila, stubble.
STUBBORN, obstinate, persistent. (E.) ME. stoburn, also
stiborn. ‘Styburne, or stoburne, Austerus, ferox,’ Prompt. Parv. ;
stiborn, Chaucer, C.T, 6038 (D 456). Cf. styburnesse, sb., Prompt.
Parv. As the AS. y is represented in later English both by ¢ and x
(as in AS. cyssan=E, hiss, AS. fyrs=E. furze) we at once refer
stibborn or stubborn to AS. stybb, a stub, with the sense of stub-like,
hence immovable, stiff, steady, &c. B. The suffix -orn is to be
regarded as adjectival, and stands for -or, the -z being merely added
afterwards, by taking stubor-ness as stubborn-ness ; -or being the same
adj. suffix as in AS. bit-or, Ἐς bitt-er.. We should thus have, from
AS. styb, an adj. *stybor =stub-like, stubborn, and the sb. *stybornes.
y- This is verified by the forms in Palsgrave; he gives the adj. as
stoburne, but the sb. as stubbernesse and stubblenesse, the latter of
which could have arisen from an AS. form *stybol, with suffix -ol as
in wac-ol, vigilant. @ The suffix -ern in xorth-ern admits of a
different explanation. Der. stubborn-ly, -ness.
STUCCO, a kind of plaster. (Ital.-OHG.) In Pope, Imit.
of Horace, ii. 192. —Ital. stucco, " glutted, gorged, . . dride, stiffe, or
hardned; also, a kind of stuffe or matter to build statue or image-
worke with, made of paper, sand, and lyme, with other mixtures; the
imagerie-work at Nonesuch in England in the inner court is built of
such;’ Florio. —OHG. ‘stucchi, a crust; Graff, vi. 631 (Diez),
the same as G. stiick, AS. stycce, a piece (hence, a patch). Allied to
Stock. ei
STUD (1), a collection of breeding-horses and mares, (E.) ME.
stod, Gower, C. A. iii. 2043 bk. vii. 3345; cf. stod-mere,-a stud-
mare, Ancren Riwle, p. 316, 1. 15. AS. s#éd, a stud ; spelt stood,
Voc. 119. 39; stad, Thorpe, Diplomatarium, p. 574; 1. 20.+4Icel.
st0d; Dan. stod ; G.gestiit; ΜΗ. stuot, Cf. Russ. stado, a herd or
drove; Lith. stodas, a drove of horses. B. All from ‘Teut. base
Rr
610 STUD
*sto-d- ; the orig. sense is ‘an establishment,’ as we should call it ;
from 4/STA, to stand. Der. stud-horse ; also steed, q. v.
STUD (2), a nail with a large head, large rivet, double-headed
button. (E.) Α stud is also a stout post; ‘the upright in a lath
and plaster wall,’ Halliwell. Also, a stiff projection, a boss, &c.
ME. stode; L. bulla is glossed ‘a stode,’ also ‘ nodus in cingulo,’
Voc. 623. 3; ‘stode, or stake, Palus;’ Voc. 600. 4. AS. studu,
a post, Atlfred, tr. of Beda, 1. 111. c. 10; written stuu in one MS.+
Dan. sféd, in the sense of stub, stump; Swed. std, a prop, post;
Icel. stod, a post; whence stoda, stydja, to prop; G. stiitze, a prop.
B. The Teut. base is *stu-, weak grade of *steu-, Idg. 4/STEU ; cf.
Gk. στῦ-λος, a pillar, orav-pés, a stake, Skt. sthiiza, a post; Gk.
στύ-ειν, to erect. Der. stud, verb; studd-ed, Shak. Venus, 37.
STUDENT, a scholar, learner. (L.) In Shak. Merry Wives, iii.
I. 38.—L. student-, stem of pres. part. of studére, to be eager about,
to study. B. Some have thought that studére is allied to Gk.
σπεύδειν, to hasten, to be eager about; but this is very doubtful,
though the senses of L. studium and Gk. σπουδή are curiously
similar ; see Curtius, ii. 360. See Study.
STUDY, application to a subject, careful attention, with the
wish to lean, (F.—L.) ME. studie, Will. of Palerne, 2981, 4038,
4056.—AF. estudie; OF. estudie, later estude, mod. F. étude, study
(Littré).—L. studium, eagerness, zeal, application, study. Der.
study, verb, ME. studien, Chaucer, C. T. 184; studi-ed; studi-ous,
from Εἰ, studieux, ‘studious,’ from L. studidsus ; studi-ous-ly, -ness.
Also studio, Ital. studio, study, also a school, from L. studium.
STUFF, materials, household furniture. (F.—L.) 1. See Luke,
xvii. 31 (A.V.). ‘The sayd treasoure and stugfe;’ Fabyan’s Chron.
c. 123, ὃ 2. ME. stuf; ‘Stuf, for a chapman;’ Lydgate, Minor
Poems, p. 166. — OF, esfoffe, ‘stuffe, matter;’ Cot. [Mod. F. éoffe ;
Ital. stoffa; Span. estofa, quilted stuff; Walloon sfoff (Rémacle).]
Derived from L, stupa, stuppa, the coarse part of flax, hards, oakum,
tow (used as material for stuffing things or for stopping them up);
but, instead of being derived directly, the pronunciation of the L.
word was Germanised before it passed into French. See Diez.
Hence also G. stoff, stuff; but English retains the L. p in the verb
to stop; see Stop. 2. The sense of the L. word is better shown
by the verb to stuff, i.e. to cram. Skelton has the pp. stuffed,
Bowge of Court, 180; pres. t. stuffeth, Trevisa, tr. of Higden,
vii. 401. —OF. estoffer, ‘ to stuffe, to make with stuffe, to furnish or
store with all necessaries;? Cot. This answers to ἃ. stopfen, to
fill, to stuff, to quilt (note the Span. estofa, quilted stuff, above),
which is a Germanised pronunciation of Late L. stipare, stuptare,
to stop up with tow, to cram, to stop; see Stop. 8. We also
use ΕἸ. stuff-y in the sense of ‘close, stifling ;’ this sense is due to
OF. estouffer, ‘to stifle, smother, choake, stop the breath,’ Cot.
Mod. F. étouffer. The etymology of this last word is disputed ;
Diez derives it from OF. es- (<L. ex-) prefix, and Gk. τῦφος, smoke,
mist, cloud, which certainly appears in Span. tufo, warm vapour
from the earth. Scheler disputes this view, and supposes OF.
estouffer to be all one with OF. estoffer; which seems reasonable.
In E., we talk of ‘ stopping the breath’ with the notion of suffocating.
Littré says that the spelling étouffer is in Diez’s favour, because the
F. word for s/op is étouper, with p, not f; but this is invalidated by
his own derivation of F. étoffe from L. stupa. In E., we seem to
regard all the senses of stuff as belonging to but one word ; ‘I stuffe
one up, I stoppe his breathe ;’ Palsgrave. See Korting, §§ 3538,
9136.
STULTIFY, to cause to seem foolish. (L.) A mod. word;
coined (as if with F, suffix -/y, F. -fer) from a L. form *s¢ultificare,
to make foolish.—L. stulti-, for stultus, foolish; and -ficare, for
facere, to make. B. The L. stultus is closely allied to stolidus,
with the like sense of fixed, immovable ; hence, stupid, dull, foolish.
See Stolid. Der. stuliific-at-ion, also a coined word.
STUMBLE, to strike the feet against obstacles, to trip in walk-
ing. (Scand.) ME. stumblen, Wright’s Voc. i. 143,1. 20; stomblen,
Chaucer, C. T. 2615 (A 2613). The ὁ is excrescent, as usual after
m, and the better form is stomelen, or stumlen. In the Prompt. Parv.
pp- 476, 481, we have stomelyn, stummelyn, with the sbs. stomelare or
stumlere, and stomelynge or stumlynge. The form stomeren also occurs,
in the same sense, in Reliquize Antique, ii. 211 (Stratmann). B. The
forms stomelen, stomeren (stumlen, stumren), are frequentatives from a
base stum-, which is a weak grade allied to the base stam-, as seen
in Goth. stamms, stammering, and E. stammer. The word seems to
be of Scand. origin.—Dan. dial. stumle, Icel. stumra, to stumble ;
Norweg. stumra, the same (Aasen) ; cf. Swed. dial. stambla, stammla,
stomla, stammra, to stumble, to falter, go with uncertain steps
(Rietz). γ. Thus the word is related to stammer, with reference to
hesitation of the step instead of the speech; cf. E. falter, which ex-
presses both. Cf. OSax., Mid. Dan., OHG. stum, mute. See
Stammer. 4 TheG. stiimmeln, to mutilate, isnot the same thing,
STUTTER
though it is an allied word; it means to reduce to a stump, from G.
stummel, a stump, dimin. of a word not now found in G., but repres
sented by Norweg. stumme, a stump, allied to G. stamm, a stock,
trunk ; we are thus led back to the base of stem (1). Der. stumble,
sb., stumbl-er, stumbl-ing-block, 1 Cor. i. 23.
STUMP, the stock of a tree, after it is cut down, astub. (Scand.)
ME. stumpe, Prompt. Parv.; stompe, Joseph of Arimathea, 681.
Not found in AS.—Icel. stumpr, Swed. and Dan. stump, a stump,
end, bit.4-EFries. stump; MDu. stompe, Du. stomp; G. stumpf,
a stump, trunk, stem. Allied to G. stump, blunt, stumpy; Du. stomp,
blunt, dull; Skt. stambha-s, m., a post. Allied to Stamp and
Staple and Stub. Der. stump, verb, to put down one’s stumps, in
cricket.
STUN, to make a loudgdin, to amaze with a blow. (E.) ME.
stonien, Romance of Partenay, 2940; sfownien, Gawayn and Grene
Knight, zor. AS, stunian, to make a din, resound, Grein, ii. 490.
Cf. AS. gestun (the prefix ge- making no difference), a din, Grein, i.
459. Cf. pt. τ. Gsten (rugiebam) in the Blickling Glosses.+4Icel.
stynja, to groan; stynr, a groan; G. stéhnen, to groan. From Teut.
*stun-, weak grade of Idg. 4/STEN, as in Lithuan. stenéti, Russ.
stenat(e), Gk. στένειν, to groan, Skt. stan, to sound, to thunder. Brug-
mann, i. ὃ 818 (2). See Stentorian.
STUNTED, hindered in growth. (Scand.) ‘Like stunted hide-
bound trees;’ Pope, Misc. Poems, Macer, 1. 11. Allied to the AS.
adj. stunt, dull, obtuse, stupid, hence, metaphorically, short of wit;
also, not well grown; but this sense seems to be Scandinavian. The
proper form of the verb is stint, made from stunt by vowel-change ;
see Stint. Cf. Icel. stuttr (for *stuntr by assimilation), short,
stunted ; MSwed, stunt, cut short (Ihre); showing that the peculiar
sense is rather Scand. than E. See E. D. D.
STUPEFY, to deaden the perception, deprive of sensibility.
(F.—L.) Less correctly stupify. Spenser has stupefide, F. Q. v. 3.
17.—F. stupéfier, to stupefy, found in the 16th cent., but omitted by
Cotgrave (Littré). This verb is due to the F. pp. stupéfait, formed
from L. stupefactus, stupefied; there being no such L. word as stupe-
ficare, but only stupefacere, and even the latter is rarely found except
in the pp. and in the pass. form.—L. stupe-, allied to stupére, to be
amazed; and facere (pp. factus), to make. See Stupendous and
Fact. Der. stupefact-ion, from Ἐς stupéfaction, from L. acc, stupe-
Sactidnem ; also stupefact-ive.
STUPENDOUS, amazing. (L.) In Milton, P. L. x. 351.
Englished from L., stupendus, amazing, to be wondered at, fut. pass.
part. of stupére, to be amazed, to be struck still with amazement.
Note Skt. stubh, stumbh, to stupefy (Benfey). Der. stupendous-ly,
-ness; also stup-or, sb., Phillips, ed. 1706, from L. stupor, sb., amaze-
ment ; and see stup-id, stupe-fact-ion.
STUPID, insensible, senseless, dull. (F.—L.) In Wint. Tale,
iv. 4. 409.—F. stupide, ‘stupid;’ Cot.—L. stupidus, senseless. —L.
stupére, to be amazed; see Stupendous. Der. stupid-ly, stupid-
ness; also stupid-i-ty, from Εἰ, stupidité, ‘stupidity,’ Cot., from L. acc.
stupidititem.
STURDY, resolute, stout, firm. (F.—Teut.?) The sense of the
word has suffered considerable change; it seems to have been influ-
enced by some notion of relationship with stout, with which it is
not connected. ‘The true sense is rash or reckless. ME. sturdy, in-
considerate, Chaucer, C. T. 8574 (E 698); stordy, stourdi, Rob. of
Glouc. p. 157, 1. 3287; stourdy, p. 186, 1. 3842.—OF. estourdi,
‘dulled, amazed, astonished . . heedless, inconsiderate, unadvised,
«ον rash, retchless, or careless;” Cot. Pp. of estourdir, ‘ to astonish,
amaze;’ id. Mod. F. étourdir; Span. aturdir, Ital. stordire, to stun,
amaze, surprise. B. Of unknown origin; Koérting mentions the
suggestion of a derivation from OHG. sturzan (for *sturtjan), to over-
throw, averb allied to OHG. sturz, a fall; Du. storten, to spill, shed,
hurl down, ruin. This is allied to E. start-le, to astonish. See
Start. Cf. ME. sturt, impetuosity. Der. sturdi-ly, -ness.
STURGEON, a large fish. (F.-OHG.) ME. sturgiun, Have-
lok, 753.—OF. esturgeon, estourgeon, ‘a sturgeon;’ Cot.; Low L.
sturidnem, acc. of sturio, a sturgeon. B. Of Teut. origin ; the lit.
sense is ‘stirrer,’ from its habits. ‘From the quality of floundering
at the bottom it has received its name; which comes from the G.
verb stéren, signifying to wallow inthe mud ;’ E. tr. of Buffon, pub.
at London, 1792. —OHG. sturo, sturjo, MHG. stir, G. stér, a stur-
geon; cf. OHG. stéren, to spread, stir, G. stéren, to trouble, disturb,
rake, rmmmage, poke about. 80 4150 Swed. and Dan. sfér, a sturgeon ;
Swed. stéra, to stir. This etymology is favoured by the AS. form of
the word, viz. styria, a sturgeon, also spelt styriga, Voc. 16, 13; 261.
31. This word seems to mean ‘stirrer,’ from AS, styrian, to stir,
agitate; see Stir. The AS. styria is the oldest known name of the
fish ; it occurs in the Epinal Glos., no. 809.
STUTTER, to stammer. (E.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627. It is the
frequentative of stut, which was once commonly used in the same
STY
sense. ‘Her felow did stammer and stut;’ Elynour Rummyng,
1. 339. ‘I stutte, I can nat speake my wordes redyly ;’ Palsgrave.
ME. stoten; the F. s’yl ne bue is glossed ‘bote he stote’=unless he
stutter; Wright’s Voc. i. 173, 1.6. Cf. EFries. stuttern, to stutter;
Du. stotteren. From Teut. *stut-, weak grade of Teut. root *steut-;
cf. Du. stuiten, to stop. The second grade staut- occurs in Icel. stauta,
to beat, strike, also, to read stutteringly ; Swed. stota, to strike, push,
hit against ; Dan. stéde, to push, jolt, jog, trip against, stumble on;
G. stossen, to strike; Goth. stautan, to strike. B. Thus the orig.
sense of stut is to strike, strike against, trip; and stutter =to keep on
tripping up. From 4/STEUD, to strike; whence also L. tundere,
to beat (pt. t. tu-tud-i), Skt. ἐμά, to strike, the initial s being lost in
Skt.and L. See Brugmann, i. § 818 (2). Der. stutter-er, stutter-ing.
From the same root are con-tuse, ob-tuse; also stoat, q.v., stot.
STY (1), an enclosure for swine. (E.) ΜΕ. stie, stye, Chaucer,
C. T. 7411 (Ὁ 1829). Sti, Ancren Riwle, p. 128, 1.1. AS. stigo, a
sty. Ina glossary printed in Voc. 271, we find : ‘ Incipit de suibus,’
followed by: ‘ Vistrina, stigo;’ where a sty is doubtless meant.
Older form stigu, a pen for cattle; Voc. 7. 35.4Icel. stia, sti, a sty,
akennel ; svinsti, a swine-sty; stia, to pen; Dan. s¢é, a path, also,
a sty, pen; Swed. stia, ‘a sty, cabbin to keep hogs or geese in;
whence gdsstia (a goose-pen), svinstia (a swinesty),’ Widegren;
MSwed. stia, stiga (Ihre); Swed. dial. sti, steg, a pen for swine,
goats, or sheep (Rietz). Rietz also cites Du. suijn-stijge.-G. steige,
a stair, steps, stile, stair-case; also a hen-roost, chicken-coop;
OHG. stiga, a pen for small cattle. B. Teut. types *stiga, stiga,
a pen for cattle; Fick, i. 348. Ihre notes that the word was used to
mean a pen for any kind of domestic animal; and its application to
pigs is prob. later than its other uses. The reason for the name is not
clear, though it may have been from the ladder-like arrangement of
the laths of a hen-coop, or the use of laths or sticks placed in rows;
cf. Gk. orotxos below. Just as Ettmiiller derives AS. stigo from
stigan, to climb, so Rietz derives Swed. stia from stiga, to climb, and
Fick (iii. 348) derives G. steige from G. steigen, to climb. y- The
verb to sty, ME. sti3en, to climb, was once common in E., but is now
obsolete ; the forms of it are AS. stigan, Du. stijen, Icel. stiga, Swed.
stiga, Dan. stige, G. steigen, Goth. steigan, and it is a strong verb.
Further cognate with Gk. στείχειν, to climb, to go; from the second
grade is the sb. στοῖχος, a row, a file of soldiers, also (in Xenophon)
a row of poles with hunting-nets into which the game was driven
(i.e. a pen or sty),—4/STEIGwH, to climb; Fick, i. 826; Brug-
mann, i. § 632. Der. (from same root) sty (2), stile (1), stirrup,
stair, acro-stic, di-stich, ve-stige.
STY (2), a small inflamed tumour on the edge of the eye-lid.
(I.) The AS. name was stigend. This is shown by the entry ‘ Or-
deolus, stigend’ in Voc. 114.10; where ordeolus = L. hordeolus, a sty
in the eye. This stigend was orig. the pres. part. of stigan, to climb,
rise, and signifies ‘ rising,’ i.e. swelling up. For the verb stigan, see
Sty (1). B. We also meet with ‘ s/yaxye, or a perle in the eye,’
Prompt. Pary.; ‘the styonie, sycosis, Levins, ed. 1570 (which is a
very late example) ; also ‘ Styony, disease growyng within the eye-
liddes, sycosis,’ Huloet (cited in Wheatley’s ed. of Levins). Cf. prov.
E. stine, styon, a sty; also stiony, which seems to have been resolved
into s/y-on-eye in some dialects; see E. D. Ὁ. y- Cognate words
are Low G. stieg, stige,a sty in the eye, from stigen, to rise ; EFries.
stiger; Norweg. stig, stigje, sty, also called stigkyna (where koyna=
a pustule), from the verb stiga, to rise.
STYLE (1), a pointed tool for engraving or writing, mode of
writing, manner of expression, way, mode. (F.—L.) ME. stile,
Chaucer, C. T. 10419 (F 105), where it rimes with s¢ile in the sense
of way over a hedge.—MF. stile, style, ‘a stile, form or manner of
indicting, the pin of a pair of writing tables;’ Cot.—L. stilus, an
iron-pointed peg used for writing on wax tablets; also, a manner of
writing. Perhaps allied to L. sti-mulus. 4 The spelling style is
false ; it ought to be stile. The mistake is due to the common error
of writing the L. word as stylus. This error was due to some late
writers who imagined that the Gk. στῦλος, a pillar, must be the
original of L. stilus. B. But note, that when the Εἰ. styZeis used, as
it sometimes is, in botany or dialling, it then represents the Gk.
στῦλος ; see Style (2). Der. style, verb, styl-ish, -ly, -ness.
STYLE (2), in botany, the middle part of a pistil of a flower.
(Gk.) 1. ‘Style, or stylus, among herbalists, that middle bunching
out part of the flower of a plant, which sticks to the fruit or seed ;’
Phillips, ed. 1706. —Gk. στῦλος, a pillar, a long upright body like a
pillar ; cf. Skt. sthazd, a pillar, post; from 4/STEU, to erect ; cf. Gk.
στύειν, to erect. Not connected with L. stilus, as is often imagined.
2. Another sense may be noted; ‘in dialling, style is a line whose
shadow on the plane of the dial shows the true hour-line, and it is the
upper edge of the gnomon, cock, or needle ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.
Here style orig. meant the gnomon itself, and answers rather to Gk.
στῦλος than to L, stilus. Some difficulty has resulted from the need-
SUBJECT
less confusion of these two unrelated words. Der. styl-ar, pertaining
to the pin of a dial.
STYPTIC, astringent, that stops bleeding. (F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt
styptick in Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxiv. c. 13, and in Cotgrave.
ME. stiptik, Lanfrank, Cirurgie, p. 98, 1. 16.—F. styptique, ‘ styptick,’
Cot. “Το, stypticus, Gk. στυπτικός, astringent. —Gk. στύφειν, to con-
tract, draw together, also, to be astringent ; allied to στῦψις, contrac-
tion; and prob. to E. Stop.
SUASION, advice. (F.—L.) In Sir T. More’s Works, p. 157 a,
1. 5.—F. swasion, " persuasion,’ Cot.—L. suisidnem, acc. of suasio,
persuasion; allied to L. sudsus, pp. of suddére, to persuade ; allied to
L. suduis (for *suad-vis), sweet. See Suave. Der. suas-ive, a
coined word ; suas-ive-ly, suav-ish-ness; see also dis-suade, per-suade.
SUAVE, pleasant, agreeable. (F.—L.) Not common; the
derived word szavity is in earlier use, in Cotgrave. = F. suave, ‘sweet,
pleasant,’ Cot.—L. suduis, sweet; for *suad-vis, and allied to E.
Sweet, q.v. Brugmann,i. ὃ 187. Der. suav-ity, from Εἰ. suavité,
‘suavity,’ Cot., from L, acc. swauitatem.
SUB.-, a common prefix. (L.; or F.—L.) 1. sub-, prefix (whence
F. sub-); L. sub, prep., under. The L. sup-er, above, is certainly a
comparative form from sub (orig. *sup), and corresponds, in some
measure, to Skt. upari, above. As to the connexion of super with
upart there can be no doubt, but the prefixed s in L. s-uper is difficult ;
perhaps it resulted from a prefixed ex, prep.; cf. Gk. é¢-vmep0e ;
Brugmann, i. § 761. Certainly L. super is allied to E. over. See
further under Over. B. ‘ Sub, it is true, means generally below,
under; but, like the Gk. ἀγῥρό (ὑπό), it is used in the sense of ‘ from
below,’ and thus may seem to have two meanings diametrically
opposed to each other, below and upward. Submittere means to place
below, to lay down, to submit ; swblevare, to lift from below, to raise
up. Summus, a ΘΈΡΕΙ]. of sub, hypatos (ὕπατος), a superl. of hypd
(ὑπό), do not mean the lowest, but the highest;’ Max Miller,
Lectures, ii. 310, ed. 1875. And see Hypo-, Hyper-. γἪὙ. Sub-,
prefix, becomes suc- before c following, suf- before f, sug- before g,
sum- before m, sup- before p (though sup is rather the orig. form),
sur- before r. And seeSus-. Der. sub-ter-, prefix; sup-er-, prefix ;
sup-ra-, prefix; sur-, prefix (French); and see sum, supreme, soprano,
sovereign, sup-ine. Doublet, hypo-, prefix.
SUBACID, somewhat acid. (L.) Richardson gives an example
from Arbuthnot, Of Aliments, c. 3.—L. subacidus, somewhat acid,
lit. funder acid.’ See Sub- and Acid.
SUBALTERN, subordinate, inferior to another. (F.—L.) ‘Sub-
altern magistrates and officers of the crown ;’ Sidney, Arcadia, b. iii.
(R.). § Subalterne, vnder another ;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627. -- Εἰ, subalterne,
adj., ‘subalterne, secondary;’ Cot.—L. subalternus, subordinate. =
L. sub, under, and alter, another; with adj. suffix -nus (Idg. -no-).
See Sub- and Alter. Der. subaltern, sb., a subordinate ; for sub-
altern officer.
SUBAQUEOUS, underwater. (L.) In Pennant’s Brit. Zoology,
on swallows (R.). A coined word; from L. sub, under, and aqua,
water; see Sub- and Aquatic. The true L. word is subaquaneus,
SUBDIVIDE, to divide again into smaller parts. (L.) “ Sub-
divided into verses;’ Fuller's Worthies, Kent (R.).—L. subdiuidere,
lit. to divide under. See Sub- and Divide. Der. subdivis-ion.
SUBDUE, to reduce, conquer, tame, soften. (F.—L.) In Pals-
grave; and in Sir T. More, Works, p. 962a, 1.4. The ME. form
was soduen, and this was afterwards altered to subduen for the greater
clearness, by analogy with the numerous words beginning with sub-.
We find ‘schal be sodued’ in Trevisa, iii. 123, 1. 7, where two other
MSS, have soduwed, sudewide, but Caxton’s (later) edition has sub-
dued. See also the same, ii. 153, 407; iii. 19; &c. The pt. t.
sodu-ed was adapted from AF, *subdut, occurring in the pl. subduz
(=subduts), ‘subdued ;’ Stat. Realm, i. 339 (A.D. 1353)-— Late L.
*subdutus, for L. subditus, subdued, pp. of subdere, to subdue, subju-
gate.—L, sub, under; -dere, to put, from the weak grade of 4/DHE,
to put. @ For the form *subdutus, cf. Late L. *perdutus (Ital.
perduto, Ἐς perdu), and such Ital. past participles as cad-uto (from
cad-ere), ved-uto (from ved-ere), ten-uto, sap-uto, bev-uto, &c. It is
impossible to derive subdue from L, subdicere, with an alien sense.
Der. subdu-er, subdu-al, subdu-able.
SUB-EDITOR;; from Sub- and Editor.
SUBJACENT, lying beneath. (L.) In Boyle’s Works, vol. i.
p- 177 (R.).=—L. subiacent-, stem of pres. part. of subiacére, to lie
under.—L. sub, under; and iacére, to lie. Jacére is allied to iacere,
to cast, throw. See Sub- and Jet (1); and see Subject.
SUBJECT, laid or situate under, under the power of another,
liable, disposed, subservient. (F.—L.) The spelling has been
brought nearer to Latin, but the word was taken from French. The
OF. word was also, at one time, re-spelt, to bring it nearer to Latin.
ME. suget, adj., Wyclif, Rom. xiii. 1; sugget, subget, sb., Chaucer,
C. T. 8358 (E 482). OF, suget (Hatzfeld), later subiect, ‘a subject,
Rr2
611
612 SUBJOIN
yassall;’ Cot. Mod. F. sujet.—L. subiectus, subject ; pp. of subicere,
to place under, put under, subject.=L. sub, under; and iacere, to
cast, throw, put. See Sub- and Jet (1). Der. subject, sb., ME.
subget, as above ; subject, yerb, spelt subiecte in Palsgrave ; subject-ion,
ME. subiecttoun, Chaucer, C. T. 14384 (B 3656), from OF. subiec-
tion, ‘ subjection,’ Cot., from L. acc. subiectidnem ; subject-ive, from L.
subiectinus ; subject-ive-ly, subject-ive-ness ; subject-iv-i-ty, a late coinage.
SUBJOIN, to join on at the end, annex, affix. (F.—L.) In Cot-
grave. -- MF, subioign- (subjoign-), a stem of MF. subioindre, ‘ to sub-
join;’ Cot.=—L, subiungere, to subjoin, See Sub- and Join, And
see subjunct-ive.
SUBJUGATE, to bring under the yoke. (L.) In Palsgrave.
=L, subiugitus, pp. of subiugare, to bring under the yoke. = L. sub-,
under ; and iugum, a yoke, cognate with E. yoke, and allied to iungere,
to join (above); see Sub- and Yoke. Der. subjugat-or, from L.
subiugator; subjugat-ion, from F. subjugation, ‘a subduing,’ Cot.,
from L. acc. *subiugationem, not used.
SUBJUNCTIVE, denoting that mood of a verb which ex-
presses contingency. (L.) Spelt subiunctixe, Minsheu, ed. 1627;
Palsgraye, p. 380. —L. subiunctinus, subjunctive, lit. joining on at the
end, from its use in dependent clauses. —L. subiunct-us, pp. of sub-
iungere, to subjoin; see Subjoin.
SUBLEASE, an under-lease. (F.—L.; with L. prefix.) From
Sub- and Lease.
SUBLET, to let, as a tenant, to another.
From Sub- and Let (1).
SUBLIME, lofty, majestic. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q. v. 8. 30.
{As a term of alchemy, the verb fo sublime is much older; Chaucer
has subliming, C. T. 16238 (G 770); also sublimatorie, id. 16261
(ἃ 793); these are rather taken directly from L, sublimare and sub-
limatorivm than through the F., as it was usual to write on alchemy
in Latin. ]—F. sublime, ‘sublime,’ Cot.—L. sublimis, lofty, raised on
high. β. A difficult word; prob. it means passing under the lintel
or cross-piece of a door, hence reaching up to the lintel, tall, high ; ifso,
the part -Jimis is connected with /imen, a lintel, or a threshold. See
Brugmann, ii. § 12 (stems in -2-). See Sub- and Limit. Der.
sublime-ly; sublim-i-ty, from Ἐς sublimité, ‘ sublimity,’ Cot., from L.
acc. sublimitatem. Also sublime, verb, in alchemy=L. sublimare,
lit. to elevate ; sublim-ate, verb and sb., sublim-at-ton, sublim-at-or-y.
SUBLUNAR, under the moon, earthly. (L.) In Milton, P. L.
iv. 777. Coined from Sub-and Lunar. Der. sublunar-y, Howell,
Instructions for Foreign ‘Travel (1642), sect. vi. parag. 7.
SUBMARINE, under or in the sea. (Hybrid; L. and F.—L.)
Rich, gives a quotation from Boyle’s Works, vol. iii. p. 342. It
occurs in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, where it is said to have been used
by Bacon. Coined from Sub- and Marine.
SUBMERGE, to plunge under water, overflow with water.
(F.—L.} In Shak. Antony, ti. 5. 94. — Ἐς submerger, ‘to submerge ;’
Cot, —L. submergere (pp. submersus); see Sub- and Merge, Der.
submerg-ence ; submers-ion, from F. submersion, ‘ a submersion,’ Cot.,
from L. acc. submerstonem ; also submerse, from the pp. submersus;
submers-ed.
SUBMIT, to refer to the judgment of another, yield, surrender.
(L.) ‘1 submyt myselfe, Ie me submets;’ Palsgrave. ‘ Ye been sub-
mitted;’ Chaucer, C. T. 4455 (B35). It may have been taken from
F. in the first instance, but, if so, was early conformed to the L.
spelling. = L. submittere, to let down, submit, bow to. L, swb-, under,
down; and mittere, to send (pp. missus); see Sub- and Missile.
Der. submission, AF. submission, MF. soubmission,‘ submission,’ Cot.,
from L. acc. submissténem ; submiss-ive, -ly, -ness; submiss, Spenser,
F. Q. iv. 10. 51, from L. pp. swbmissus.
SUBORDINATE, lower in order or rank. (L.) ‘Inferior and
subordinate sorts ;’ Cowley, Essay 6, Of Greatness (R.). ‘ His next
subordinate ;’ Milton, P. L. v. 671. Coined from Late L. subordina-
tus, pp. of subordinare, coined from sub ordinem, under the order or
rank, Ordinem is the acc. of ordo, order, rank. See Sub- and
Order. Der. subordinate, as sb., subordinate-ly; subordinat-ion,
Howell, Instructions for Foreign Travel (1642), sect. vi. parag. 8;
whence in-subordinat-ion.
SUBORN, to procure privately, instigate secretly, to cause to
commit perjury. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Ὁ. i. 12.34. Sir T. More
has subornacion, Works, p. 211 h. =F. suborner, ‘to suborn,’ Cot, —L.
subornare, to furnish or supply in an underhand way or secretly. —L.
sub, under, secretly; and ornare, to furnish, adorn. See Sub- and
Ornament. Der. suborn-er; subornat-ion, from F. subornation, ‘a
subornation,’ Cot.
SUBPOSNA, a writ commanding a person to attend in court
under a penalty. (L.) Explained in Minsheu, ed. 1627; and much
older. = L. sub pend, under a penalty. —L. svb, under; and pena, abl.
of pena, a pain or penalty. See Sub-and Pain. Der. sub-pena,
yerb,, to serve a subpcena.
(Hybrid ; L. and E.)
SUBTER-
SUBSCRIBE, to write underneath, to sign one’s name to. (L.)
© And subscribed their names vndre them ;’ Sir Τὶ More, Works, p. 3 ἢ.
‘ My lettre subscribed;’ Will of Hen. V; Royal Wills, p. 238.—L.
subscribere, to write under, sign one’s name to.—L. sub, under;
and scribere, to write. See Sub- and Scribe. Der. sub-scrib-er;
subscript, from the pp. subscriptus ; subscript-ion, from MF. soubscrip-
tion, ‘a subscription or subscribing,’ Cot., from L. acc, subscriptionem.
SUBSECTION, an under-section, subdivision of a subject.
(Hybrid; L. and F.—L.) From Sub- and Section.
SUBSEQUENT, following after. (L.) In Shak. Troil. i. 3.
334, and Milton, Samson, 325." L. subseguent-, stem of pres. part. of
subsegui, to follow close after.—L. sub, under, close after; and segui,
to follow. See Sub- and Sequel. Der. subsequent-ly.
SUBSERVE, to serve subordinately. (L.) In Milton, Samson,
57. Englished from L. subseruire, to serve under a person.=L.
sub, under; and seruire, to serve; see Sub- and Serve. Der.
subservi-ent, from L, subseruient-, stem of pres. part. of subseruire ;
subservient-ly, subservience.
SUBSIDE, to settle down. (L.) Dryden has subsides, tr. of Virgil,
fEn. i, 212; Phillips, ed. 1706, has subside, subsidence. L, subsidere,
to settle down.—L, sub, under; and sidere, to settle, allied to
sedére, to sit, which latter is cognate with E. sit. For *si-zd-ere,
where zd- is the weak grade of the root SED, to sit. See Sub- and
Sit. Der. subsid-ence, from L. subsidentia, a settling down. And
see subsidy.
SUBSIDY, assistance, aid in money. (F.—L.) In Shak. 2
Hen. VI, iv. 7.25; 3 Hen. VI,iv. 8.45. ME. subsidie, The Crowned
King, 1. 36, in App. to P. Plowman, C-text, p. 525; the date of the
poem is ab. A.D. 1415.—AF. subsidie (in Godefroy); though the
usual F. form is subside, as in Cotgrave and Palsgrave. = L. subsidium,
a body of troops in reserve, aid, assistance, The lit. sense is ‘that
which sits [remains] behind or in reserve;’ from L. sub, under,
behind, and sedére, to sit, cognate with E, sit; see Sub- and Sit;
and see Subside. Cf. L. pre-sidium, ob-sidium, from the same
verb, Der. subsidt-ar-y, from 1.. subsidiarius, belonging to a reserve ;
subsid-ise, a coined verb.
SUBSIST, to live, continue. (F.—L.) In Shak. Cor. v. 6. 73.—
F. subsister, ‘to subsist, abide;’ Cot.—L. subsistere, to stand still,
stay, abide. =L. sub, under, but here used with very slight force ; and
sistere, orig. to set, make to stand, but also used in the sense to
stand. Sistere is the causal of stare, to stand (cf. Gk. ἵστημι, for
*oi-ornut); and stare is from 4/STA, to stand; see Sub- and
Stand. Der. subsist-ence, from F. subsistence, ‘subsistence, con-
tinuance,’ Cot., from L. subsistentia; subsist-ent, from the stem of the
pres. part. of swhsistere.
SUBSOIL, the under-soil. (Hybrid; L. and F.—L.) From Sub-
and Soil.
SUBSTANCE, essential part, matter, body. (F.—L.) ME. sub-
stance, substaunce, Chaucer, C. T. 14809 (B 3993).—F. substance,
‘substance ;’ (οἵ. ἴον substantia, essence, material, substance. —L.
subsiaut-, stem of pres. part. of subsfare, to be present, exist, lit. to
stand beneath.—L. sb, beneath ; and s’are, to stand, from 4/STA,
tostand. See Sub-andStand. Der. substanti-al, ME. substancial,
Gower, C. A. iii, 92; bk. vii. 226; from F. substantiel, from L.
adj, substantialis; substanti-al-ly; substanti-ate, a coined word. Also
substant-ive, ME, substantif, P, Plowman, C. iv. 345, from Εἰ, sub-
stantif (Littré), from L. substantiuus, self-existent, that which denotes
existence, used of the ‘ substantive’ verb esse, and afterwards extended,
as a grammatical term, to nouns substantive as distinct from nouns
adjective,
SUBSTITUTE, one person put in place of another. (F.—L.)
Orig, used asa pp. ‘ This pope may be deposed, and another substi-
tute in his rome;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 1427 f. Hence used as a
verb. ‘They dyd also substytute other;” id. p, 821 d.—F. substitut,
‘a substitute;’ Cot.—L. substitiitus, one substituted; pp. of sub-
stituere, to lay under, put in stead of.—L. sub, under, in place of;
and statuere, to place, pp. statitus; see Sub- and Statute.
Der. substitute, verb, as above; substitut-ion, Gower, C, A. iii.
178, bk. vii. 2769, F. substitution (Cot.), from L. acc. substt-i-
tidnem,
SUBSTRATUM, an under stratum. (L.) 10. substratum, neut.
of substratus, pp. of substernere, to spread under. See Sub- and
Stratum.
SUBTEND, to extend under or be opposite to. (L.) Phillips,
ed. 1706, gives subtended and subtense as mathematical terms ; subtense
is in Blount, ed. 1674,—L. subtendere (pp. subtensus), to stretch be-
neath. L. sub, under ; and ¢endere, to stretch ; see Sub- and Tend.
Der. subtense, from pp. subtensus, And see hypotenuse.
SUBTER., under, secretly. (L.) Formed from L. swb, under, by,
help of the suffix -¢er, which is properly a comparative suffix, as in
in-ter; see Inter-, Other.
SUBTERFUGE
SUBTERFUGE, an evasion, artifice to escape censure. (F.—L.)
In Bacon, Life of Hen. VII, ed. Lumby, p. 182, 1. 18.—F. subter-
Suge, ‘a subterfuge, a shift;’ Cot. —Late L. subterfugium, a subter-
fuge (Ducange).—L. sublerfugere, to escape secretly.—L. subter,
secretly; and fugere, to flee; see Subter- and Fugitive.
SUBTERR AN, SUBTERRANEOUS, underground.
(L.) Both forms are in Phillips, ed. 1706. Blount, ed. 1674, has
subterrany and subterraneous. Bacon has subterrany, Nat. Hist. § 603.
Both are formed from L. subterraneus, underground ; the former by
adding -an (=L. -dnus) after -e-, the latter by changing -us to -ous.
“Το sub, under; and ferr-a, the earth; with suffix -dn-eus. See
Sub- and Terrace.
SUBTLE, fine, rare, insinuating, sly, artful. (F.—L.) Pronounced
[591]. The word was formerly spelt without ὁ, but this was some-
times inserted to bring it nearer to the L. form. We also meet with
the spellings subtil, subtile. ME. sotil, sotel, Chaucer, C. T. 1056,
2051; the Six-text edition has the spellings so/il, sotyl, subtil, subtile,
sotel, soutil, Group A, 1054, 2049.—OF. sutil, soutil (Burguy), later
subiil, ‘subtill,’ Cot.—L. subtilem, acc. of subtilis, fine, thin, slender,
precise, accurate, subtle. B. It is gen. thought that the orig. sense
of subtilis was ‘finely woven ;’ cf. sub, beneath (=closely ?), and
tela, a web. See Sub- and Toil (2). Der. subtl-y (sometimes
subtile-ly), subtle-ness (sometimes subtile-ness) ; also subtle-ty or subtil-ty,
ME. soteltee, sotelte, P. Plowman, C. xv. 76, from OF. sotilleté
(Littré), also subsilité, from L. acc. subtilitatem, {Note that the
pronunciation without 6 agrees with the orig. ME. form.
SUBTRACT, to take away a part from the whole. (L.) In
Minsheu, ed. 1627. —L. subtract-us, pp. of subtrahere, to draw away
underneath, to subtract. L. svb, under ; and trakere (pp. tractus), to
draw. See Sub- and Trace. Der. subtract-ion (as if from Εἰ, *sub-
traction, not used), from L. acc. subtractidnem ; subtract-ive; also
subtrahend, in Minsheu, a number to be subtracted, from L. subtra-
hend-us, fut. pass. part. of subtrahere.
SUBURB, SUBURBS, the confines of a city. (F.—L.) Com-
monly used in the pl. form. ‘The suburbes of the towne ;’ Fabyan’s
Chron. c. 219; Chaucer, C. T., G657.— AF. suburbe, Stat. Realm,
i, 97 (1285).—L. suburbium, the suburb of a town. =—L. sub, under
(here, near) ; and urbi-, decl. stem of urbs, a town, city; see Sub-
and Urban. Der. suburb-an, from L. suburbdnus.
SUBVENTION, a subsidy, a pecuniary grant in aid. (F.—L.)
In Cotgrave. =F. subvention, ‘ subvention, help, aid ; also, a subsidy ;’
Cot.—L. subuentionem, acc. of subuentio, assistance; cf. subuentus,
pp- of subuenire, to come to one’s aid, assist, relieve, succour. = L.
sub, under (by way of help); uenire, to come. See Sub- and
Venture. Der. We also find subvene, vb., from subuenire; and
the adj. subvent-itious.
SUBVERT, to overthrow, ruin, corrupt. (F.—L.; or L.) ME.
subuerten, Wyclif, Titus, iii, 11.—F. subvertir, ‘to subvert ;’ Cot.—
L. subuertere (pp. subuersus), to tum upside down, overthrow, lit. to
turn from beneath. —L. sub, from under; and wertere, to turn. See
Sub- and Verse. Der. subvers-ion, AF. subversion, Stat. Realm,
i. 300, F. subversion, ‘a subversion,’ Cot., from L. ace. subuersidnem ;
subvers-ive.
SUCCEED, to follow next in order, take the place of, to pros-
per. (F.—L.) Better spelt succede. ME. succeden, Chaucer, C. T.
8508 (E 632).—F. succeder, ‘to succeed;’ Cot.—L. succédere
(pp. successus), to go beneath or under, follow after. —L. suc- (for
sub before c), under; and cédere, to go; see Sub- and Cede.
Der. success, an issue or result, whether good or bad (now chiefly
only of a good result), as in ‘good or ill successe,’ Ascham, School-
master, pt. i, ed. Arber, p. 35, from MF. succes, ‘ success,’ Cot.,
from L. successum, acc. of successus, result, event; success-ful,
success-ful-ly. Also success-or, ME. successour, Rob. of Glouc.
p- 507,1. 10440, F. successeur, from L. acc. successdrem, one who
succeeds ; success-ion, F. succession, ‘succession,’ Cot., from L. acc.
successionem 3 success-ion-al; success-ive, Ἐς, successif, ‘successive,’
from L. successiuus ; success-ive-ly. Also succed-an-e-ous, explained
by Phillips, ed. 1706, as ‘succeding, or coming in the room of
another,’ from L. swecédaineus, that which supplies the place of
another ; succed-an-e-um, sb., neut. of succédaneus.
SUCCINCT, concise. (L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627. —L. succinctus,
prepared, short, small, contracted ; pp. of succingere, to gird below,
tuck up, gird up, furnish. —L. suc- (for sub before c), under, below ;
and cingere, to gird; see Sub- and Cincture. Der. succinct-ly,
succinct-ness.
SUCCORY, chicory. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘Of cykorie or suckorie,’
Sir T. Elyot, Castle of Helth, Ὁ. ii. c. 8. Minsheu gives succory,
cichory, and chicory. Succory is a corruption of cickory, now usually
called chicory; see Chicory. :
SUCCOUR, to assist, relieve. (F.—L.) ME. socouren, Will. of
Palerne. 1186.—OF. sucurre, soscorre (Burguy), MF. secourir, as in
SUDS 613
Cotgrave; this change to e is no improvement.=L. subcurrere,
succurrere, to run under, run up to, run to the aid of, aid, succour. =
L. sub, under, up to; and currere, to run; see Sub- and Current.
Der. succour-er. Also succour, sb., ME. sucurs, Ancren Riwle,
p- 244, 1. 9, from OF. socors, later secours,as in Cotgrave, from L.
subcursus, succursus, pp. of succurrere. @ The spelling is prob.
due to that of the AF. succour, sb., in Langtoft’s Chron. i. 302, also
spelt soccours, i, 16; and not from AF, sucure, vb.,.as used in the
Vie de St. Auban.
SUCCULA, a wanton female demon, (L.) In Beaum. and
Fletcher, Knight of Malta, ν. 2 (Norandine).—L. swecuba,—L.
succubare, to lie under. —L. suc- (for sub), under ; cubare, to lie down,
See Sub- end Covey. Der. succubus, a masc. form; Webster,
Westward Ho, iv. 2.
SUCCULENT, juicy. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.—F.
succulent, succulent ;’ Cot.—L. succulentus, sticulentus, full of juice ;
formed with suffix -Jentus from succu-s, siicu-s, juice (the gen. is succz,
but there is a collateral form with u-stem, found in the gen. pl.
sucuum). Allied to E. Suck.
SUCCUMB, to yield. (L.) In Butler, Hudibras, pt. i. c. 3,
1. 459. —L. succumbere, to lie or fall under, yield. L, suc- (for sub
before δ), under; and *cwmbere, to lie, a nasalised form allied to
cubare, to lie. See Sub- and Incubus, Incumbent, Covey.
SUCH, of alike kind. (E.) ME. swulc, swilc, swilch, swich, such
(with numerous other forms, for which see Stratmann). We find
swule, swile in Layamon, 31585, 13753 swilch, Reliquie Antique,
1. 1313 swich, such, Chaucer, C. T. 3 (see Six-text). 16 will thus be
seen that the orig. Z was lost, and the final ¢ palatalised to ch.
The forms swzlc, swile are from AS. swyle, swilc, swele, such,
Grein, ii. 513.44-OSax. sulik ; OF ries. selic, selk, sullik, sulch, suk ;
Du. zulk; Icel. slikr ; Dan. slig; Swed. slik; MSwed, salik (Ihre) ;
G. solch; OHG. solich; Goth, swaleiks. B. The Goth. swaleiks
is simply compounded of swa, so, and leiks, like; and all the Teut.
forms admit of a similar explanation. Thus such is for so-like, of
which it is a corruption. See So and Like; and cf. Which. _
SUCK, to draw in with the month, imbibe, esp. milk. (E.)
ME. souken, Chaucer, C. T. 8326 (E 450); once a strong verb,
with pt. t. sek or sec, Ancren Riwle, p. 330, 1. 6, pp. i-soke. (for
i-soken), Trevisa, iii. 267, 1. 12. AS. stcan, strong verb, pt. t.
séac, pp. socen; Grein, ii. 492; Deut. xxxii. 13; Luke, xi. 27. [There
is also a form siigan, and there is a double form of the Teut. base,
viz. SEUK and SEUG. Of the former, we find examples in AS.
siican, E. suck, cognate with L. sigere. Of the latter, we have
examples in AS. sigan, Icel. sjiga, siiga (pt. t. saug, pp. soginn),
Dan. suge, Swed. suga, G. saugen, OHG. sigan; which is the pre-
vailing type in Teutonic.] We find also W. sugno, to suck, sug,
juice; Irish sughaim, I suck in, sugh, juice; Gael. sug, to suck,
sugh, juice; ct. L. sticus, succus, juice. B. The Idg. root of E.
suck is SEUG. See Brugmann, i, § 112. The word succulent is
elated. Der. suck, verb, suck-er, sh. ; suck-le, Cor. i. 3. 44, ἃ fre-
quentative form, with the usual suffix -le; suck-l-ing, ME. sokling
or sokeling, spelt sokelynge in Prompt. Parv., formed with dimin.
suffix -ing from the form sokel =one who sucks, where the -el is the
suffix of the agent (so that it is hardly a parallel form to duck-l-ing,
which is merely a double dimin. from duck). Also -honey-suckle, q.v. ;
suc-t-ion, q.V.3 soak, q.v.
SUCTION, the act or power of sucking. (F.—L.) In Bacon,
Nat. Hist., § 191.—F. suction, ‘a sucking;’ Cot. Formed, as if
from L, *suctio; cf. suctus, pp. of stigere, to suck; see Suck.
SUDATORY, asweating bath. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
Rare. Rich. gives an example from Holyday, Juvenal, p. 224.—L.
sadatorium, a sweating-bath ; neut. of sidatorius, serving for sweating.
=L. sudatéri-, decl. stem of sudator, a sweater.—L. sidare, to
sweat, allied to E. Sweat, q.v.; with suffix -tor of the agent. See
sudortfic.
SUDDEN, unexpected, abrupt, hasty. (F.—L.) ME. sodain,
sodein, soden, Chaucer, C. T. 4841 (B 421); sodeynliche, suddenly,
King Alisaunder, 3568.—OF. sodain, sudain, mod. F. soudain,
sudden. Cf, Prov. soptament, suddenly (Bartsch) ; Ital. subitano
(also subitaneo).—Late L. *subitanus, for L. subitdneus, sudden ; exe
tended from subitus, sudden, lit. ‘that which has come stealthily,’
orig. pp. of subzre, to go or come stealthily. = L. sub, under, stealthily ;
and ire, to go, from »/ EI, to go. See Sub- and Itinerant. Der.
sudden-ly, -ness.
SUDORIFIC, causing sweat. (F.—L.) ‘ Sudorifick herbs;’
Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 706.—F. sudorifique, causing sweat, Cot.=—L,.
siidorificus, the same. - L. suddri-, decl. stem of stidor, sweat; and
-ficus, making, from facere, to make. See Sweatand Fact. Der.
sudorific, sb.; and see sudatory.
SUDS, boiling water mixed with soap. (E.) ‘Sprinkled With
suds and dish-water;’ Beaum. and Fletcher, Wit without Money,
614 SUE
’
A. iii. sc. τὸ Suds means ‘things sodden; ᾿ and is formed as a pl.
from sud, derived from Teut. *sud-, the weak grade of Teut.
*seuthan-, to seethe; see Seethe. ence Gascoigne uses suddes
metaphorically, in the sense of ‘ worthless things;’ see Gascoigne’s
Works, ed. Hazlitt, ii. 310, 1. 9. In the suds=in the middle of
a wash, is a proverbial expression for being in a sulky temper; cf.
prov. E. sudded, flooded. Cf. MDu. zode, a seething, boiling,
Hexham; Icel. sod, water in which meat has been sodden; and
see Sod.
SUE, to prosecute at law. (F.—L.) The orig. sense is merely to
follow; it was technically used as a law-term. Spelt sewe in Pals-
grave. ME, suen, Wyclif, Matt. vili. 19, 225; also sewen, suwen,
P. Plowman, B. xi. 21; swwen, Ancren Riwle, p. 208, 1. 5. —OF. su-
(as in pr. pl. su-ent, pres. pt. su-ant), a stem of OF, sivir, siuwir,
suivir (Godefroy, with several other forms), mod. F. suivre, to
follow. Cf. Prov. segre, seguir (Bartsch), Ital. seguire, to follow. =
Late L. seguere, to follow, substituted for L. segui, to follow ; see the
changes traced in Brachet. See Sequence. Der. en-sue, q.v., pur-
sue; suit, suite, q.V.
SUET, the fat of an animal about the kidneys. (F.—L.) ME.
suet. ‘ Swéte [where w=uu], suét (due sillabe), of flesche or fysche
or oper lyke, Liguamen, sumen ;’ Prompt. Pary. Formed with dimin.
suffix -et from OF. sex, Norman siex, Walloon sew (Littré), mod. F.
suif, suet, fat. Cf. Span. sebo; Ital. sevo, ‘ tallow, fat, sewet,’ Florio.
=—L. sébum, also séuum, tallow, suet, grease. Prob. allied to L. sapo,
soap ; see Soap.
SUFFER, to undergo, endure, permit. (F.—L.) ME. soffren,
suffren, in early use; Chaucer, C. T. 11089 (F 777); Layamon,
24854 (later text).-<OF. soffrir, suffrir, mod. F. souffrir.—¥Folk-L,
*sufferire, for L. sufferre, to undergo, endure. = L. suf- (for sub before
f), under ; and ferre, to bear, cognate with E. bear. See Sub- and
Bear (1). Der. suffer-er, suffer-ing ; suffer-able; also suffer-ance
or suff-rance, ME. suffrance, Chaucer, C, T. 11100 (F 788), OF.
soffrance, later souffrance, ‘sufferance,’ Cot., from Late L. sufferentia
(Ducange).
SUFFICE, to be enough. (F.—L.) ME. suffisen, Chaucer,
C. T. 9908 (E 2034).—F. suffis-, occurring in suffis-ant, stem of
pres. part. of suffire, to suffice; cf. ME. suffisaunce, sufficiency,
Chaucer, C. T. 492 (A 490), from F. suffisance, sufficiency. =L.
sufficere, lit. to make or put under, hence to substitute, provide,
supply, suffice. —L. suf- (for sub before f), and facere, to make; see
Sub- and Fact. Der. suffici-ent, Merch. Ven. i. 3. 17, from L.
sufficient-, stem of pres. part. of sufficere; suffici-ent-ly; suffictenc-y,
Meas. for Meas. i. 1. 8.
SUFFIX, a letter or syllable added to a word. (L.) Modern;
used in philology. —L. suffixus, pp. of suffigere, to fasten on beneath.
-L. suf- (for sub before 7), and figere, to fix; see Sub- and Fix.
Der. suffix, verb.
SUFFOCATE, to smother. (L.) Orig. used asa pp. ‘ May he
be suffocate,’ 2 Hen. VI, i. 1. 124.—L. suffocatus, pp. of suffocare, to
choke. Lit. ‘to put something under the gullet, to throttle.’ =—L.
suf- (for sub- before p), and fauc-, stem of faucés, s. pl., the gullet,
throat. [The same change from au to @ occurs in focale, a neck-
cloth.] Perhaps allied to Skt. bhuka, a hole, the head of a fountain.
Der. suffocat-ion, from F. suffocation, ‘ suffocation,’ Cot., from L. acc.
suffocationem.
SUFFRAGE, a vote, united prayer. (F.—L.) In Shak. Cor.
ii. 2. 142; Caxton, Siege of Troy, fol. 51b, 1. 10; sofragys, pl.,
Monk of Evesham (ab. 1482), c. 44, ed. Arber, p. 92. =F. suffrage,
‘a suffrage, voice;’ Cot.—L. suffragium, a vote, voice, suffrage.
Suffragium has been ingeniously explained as ‘a broken piece’
such as a pot-sherd, &c., whereby the ancients recorded their votes
(Vaniéek, Bréal). If this be right, swf- is the usual prefix (=sub),
and -frigium is connected with frangere, to break, cognate with E,
Break. Cf. L. nau-fragium, a ship-wreck. B. But Walde
connects it with L. frag-or, noise, din, i.e. outcry; and further,
with AS. spréc, E. speech; see Speech. Der. suffrag-an,
ME. suffragan, Vrevisa, ii, 115, 1.9, from F. suffragant, ‘a suffra-
gant, or suffragan, a bishop’s deputy,’ Cot., from L. suffragant-,
stem of pres. part. of suffragari, to vote for, support, assist ; but
suffragan may also represent the Late L. suffragdneus, a suffragan
bishop.
SUFFUSE, to overspread or cover, as with a fluid. (L.) ‘Her
suffused eyes ;’ Spenser, F. Ὁ. iii. 7. 10.—L. suffiisus, pp. of suffund-
ere, to pour beneath, diffuse beneath or upon.—L. suf- (for sub
before 7), and fundere, to pour; see Sub-and Fuse. Der. suffus-
ion, from Εἰ, swffusion, ‘a suffusion, or powring upon,’ Cot., from L.
acc. suffustOnem.
SUFI, a Moslem mystic; see under Sophy.
SUGAR, a sweet substance, esp. that obtained from a kind of
cane. (F.—Span.— Arab, —Pers.—Skt.) ME. sugre, Chaucer, C. T.
SULKY
10928 (F 614) ; in P. Plowman, B. v. 122, two MSS. read sucre, of
which sugre is a ‘voiced’ form.=F. sucre, ‘sugar ;’ Cot.—Span.
azucar, sugar. — Arab. sakkar, sokkar, sugar; Palmer’s Pers. Dict.,
col. 357, Freytag’s Arab, Dict. ii. 334.5; whence, by prefixing the
article al, the form assokkar, accounting for the prefixed a in the
Span. form, Pers. shakar, sugar; Palmer’s Pers. Dict., col. 385. —
Skt. garkara, gravel, a soil abounding in stony fragments, clayed or
candied sugar; Benfey, p. 936. Prob. allied to Gk. κροκάλη, a
pebble on the sea-shore, 8. From the Pali form sakkhara are
derived Gk. σάκχαρ, σάκχαρον, and L. saccharum. It is a mistake
to derive Εν sucre (as Brachet does) from L, saccharum directly.
See Saccharine. Der. sugar, verb, Palsgrave; sugar-y, sugar-
cane, sugar-candy (see candy) ; sugar-loaf, Paston Letters, iii. 37.
SUGGEST, to introduce indirectly, hint. (L.) In Shak. Rich. IT,
i. I. ΤΟΙ, iii. 4. 75. —L. suggestus, pp. of suggerere, to carry or lay
under, furnish, supply, suggest.—L. sug- (for sub before g); and
gerere, to carry; see Sub- and Jest. Der. suggest-ion, Chaucer,
C. T. 14727 (B 3607), from Ἐς suggestion, ‘a suggestion, from L.
acc. suggestionem; suggest-ive, a coined word ; suggest-ive-ly.
SUICIDE, self-murder; one who dies by his own hand. (F.—L.)
The word was really coined ix England, butonaF.model. See note
at the end of the article. In Blackstone’s Commentaries, b. iv. c. 14
(R.); in the latter sense. Rich. gives a quotation for it, in the
former sense, from a tr. of Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws, b. xiv.
c. 13; the first E. translation appeared in 1749, immediately after its
appearance in France. Littré says that suicide is in Richelet’s Dict.
in 1759, and is said to have been first used in French by Desfontaines
not much earlier (1738). As remarked under Homicide, the same
form has two senses, and two sources. 1. F. suicide, a coined word,
from L, sui, of oneself, gen. case of sé, self; and -cidium, a slaying
(as in homi-cidium), from c@dere, to slay. 2. F. suicide, coined
from L, sui, of oneself, and -cida, a slayer (as in homi-cida), from
cedere, to slay. Der. suicid-al, -ly. 4 Trench, in his English
Past and Present, observes that Phillips notices the word, as a mon-
strous formation, in 1671, long before its appearance in French ;
and it is given by Blount, ed. 1674. It seems to have been suggested
by the queer words suist, a selfish man, and suicism, selfishness,
which had been coined at an earlier date, and were used by Whitlock
in an essay entitled The Grand Schismatic, or Suist Anatomised ;
cf. his Zootomia, 1654. The word is clumsy enough, but we
may rightly claim it. Littré’s objection, that the form of the
word is plainly French, is of no force. We had the words homi-
cide, patri-cide, matri-cide, fratri-cide, already in use; and sui-cide
was coined by analogy with these, which accounts for the whole
matter simply enough. It may be added that, though the translator
of Montesquieu uses the word, the original has only homicide de
SOl-meme,
SUIT, an action at law, a petition, a set, as of clothes. (F.—L.)
ME, suite, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 2875 (A 2873).—_F. suite (also suitte in
Cotgrave), ‘a chase, pursuit, suit against, also the train, attendants,
or followers of a great person;’ Cot.—Late L. type *seguita,
variant of secta (L. seciita), a following, a sect (whence the sense
of suite or train); in Late L. extended to mean a suit at law, a
series, order, set, a suit of clothes, &c.; see Ducange. From the
base of segu-i, to follow, as noted under Sect, q.v. Cf. ‘ secta
vestium,’ a suit of clothes; Liber Albus, p. 29. ‘Sex cochliaria
eiusdem sect@,’ six spoons of the same set; York Wills, iii. 3 (1395).
Der. suit, verb, to clothe, As You Like It, i. 3. 118, also to fit,
adapt, agree, accord, id. ii. 7. 81, Macb. ii. 1. 60; ‘to suit is to
agree together, as things made on a common plan,’ Wedgwood.
Also suit-or, L.L. L. ii. 34; suit-adle, Timon, iii. 6. 92, suit-abl-y,
suit-able-ness. Doublets, suite, q.v., sect, sept, set (2).
SUITE, a train of followers. (F.—L.) ‘ With fifty in their
suile to his defence ;’ Sidney (in Todd’s Johnson; no reference). =F.
suite; see further under Suit, of which suite is a doublet.
SULCATED, furrowed, grooved. (L.) ‘Sulcate, to cast up in
furrows, to till;’ Blount, ed. 1674. Chiefly scientific. —L. sulcatus,
pp. of sulcare, to furrow.—L. sulcus, a furrow.4-Gk. ὁλκός, a furrow,
from ἕλκειν, to draw along; cf. AS. sulh, a plough.
SULKY, obstinate, silently sullen. (E.) The word is rare in old
books, and the Dictionaries omit it, till we come to Todd’s Johnson,
where ‘the sulkiness of my disposition’ is quoted from a Letter of
Gray to Dr. Clarke, A.D. 1760, It is an incorrect form, and should
rather be sudken ; it arose from misdividing the sb. sulken-ness as sulke-
nness, by analogy with happi-ness from happy, &c. The sb. appears
as a-swolkenesse, i.e. sloth, O. Eng. Hom. i. 83, 1.25; and is not un-
common in AS., which also has the true old form of the adj.— AS.
solven, orig. slothful, remiss; in the comp. dsolcen, slothful, remiss,
lazy, Elfric’s Homilies, ed. Thorpe, vol. 1. p. 306, 1. 11, Ὀ. 349, last
line; also ii. 220,1. 23, where it means ‘disgusted.’ The sb. dsolcen-
nes is quite a common word ; see Elf. Hom. i. 602, 1. 8, ii. 46, 1. 11,
SULLEN
ii, 218; 1. 22, ii, 220; 1) 21,3 Thorpe, Diplomatarium, p. 240, 1. 12;
the sense comes very near to that of mod. E. sulkiness. ‘ Accidiosus,
vel tediosus, dsolcen;’ Voc. 190. 14. Another trace of AS. solcen
occurs in the comp. besolcen, used as a pp., with the sense of ‘ stupe-
fied;’ Alfred, tr. of Gregory’s Past. Care, c. 35, ed. Sweet, p. 238,
1.3. β. We further know that solcen was the pp. of a strong verb
seolcan (pt. t. sealc, pp. solcen), appearing in the comp. Gseolcan (pt. t.
asealc, pp. asolcen), for which Leo refers to Alf. Hom. ii. 592, the re-
ference, unluckily, being wrong. We find the verb again, spelt
asealcan, in Cxedmon, ed. Grein, 2167; see Grein, i. 41. γ. There
Is even a cognate OHigh G, word, viz. the verb arselhan, Graff, vi.
216, where the prefix ar-=AS. d-. Thus the Teut. type is *se/kan-,
from a base *selk-, answering to an Idg. base SELG,. δ. It is
remarkable that the Skt. s7j means ‘to let loose, abandon,’ and the
pp: syshta is ‘abandoned,’ which comes very near the sense of AS.
solcen. Der, sulki-ness, really for sulken-ness, as explained above.
@ Ettmiiller, p. 753, gives a form Gswolcen, but the MS. has Gsolcen,
Liber Scint. § 16, p. 79, 1. 5; also Gsolcenysse, id. § 24, p. 98,1. 1.
SULLEN, gloomily angry, morose. (F.—L.) ME. solein, solain,
orig. merely ‘solitary,’ then ‘hating company,’ or morose, as ex-
plained in the Prompt. Parv. ¢ Soleyne of maners, or he that lovythe
no cumpany, Solitarius ;’ Pr. Pary. A mess of meat for one person
was also called soleyne, as explained on the same page. ‘By hym-
self as a soleyne,’ i.e. a lonely person; P. Plowman, B. xii. 205, In
the Rom. of the Rose, 3896, solein means ‘sullen,’ but in Chaucer,
Book of the Duchess, 982, and Parl. of Foules, 607, it means
‘solitary’ or ‘lonely.’ OF. solain, lonely, solitary, of which the only
trace I find is in Roquefort, where solain is explained as ‘a portion
served out to a religious person,’ a pittance, doubtless a portion for
one; so also in Ducange, 5. v. solatium (5). E. Miiller and Mahn
cite Prov. solan, solitary. These Romance forms presuppose a
Late L, *sdlanus, solitary, but it does not occur ; however, it is a mere
extension from L, sdlus, sole, alone; see Sole. Cf. OF. soltain,
solitary (Burguy), which answers, similarly, to a Late L. *solitanus.
Der. sullen-ly, -ness.
SULLY, to tarnish, spot, make dirty. (F.—L.) Shak. has sullied,
Sonnet 15; also the infinitive form sully; Merry Wives, ii. 1. 102.
(We also find the ME. solwed, soiled, Cursor Mundi, 1. 22491, spelt
sullowed in 1608 (Nares). From ME. solwen, spelt solwyn, solowyn
in Prompt. Parv., to soil, bemire; from AS. solw-e, g., d., and
acc. of solu, f., mire, by-form of AS, sol, mire (below). And also
ME, sulien; whence sulie}=sullieth, Owl and Nightingale, 1238;
pp. ysuled = sullied, P. Plowman’s Creed, 752, Ancren Riwle, p. 396,
1.1. AS. sylian, to sully, defile with dirt or mud. ‘Sio sugu hi wile
sylian on hire sole xfter Sem Se hio ASwegen bid’=the sow will
wallow [lit. sully herself] in her mire after she is washed; Ailfred,
tr. of Gregory’s Past. Care, ed. Sweet, c. liv. p. 419, 1.27. This
form is from AS. sol, mire, mud, for which see the quotation
above.4Swed. sdla, to bemire; Dan. sdle, to bemire, sédle, οὶ,
mire; Goth, bisauljan, to sully, render impure; G, siihlen, to sully,
sich herum sihlen, to wallow, from sukle, slough, mire, MHG, sol,
mire. Cf. Norw. saula, mire. } B. Nevertheless, the modern verb
to sully is a doublet of the earlier verb fo soil. — MF, souiller, ‘ to soil,
slurry, durty, smutch; se souiller, (of a swine) to wallow in the
mire ;” Cot.—OF, souil, for which see Soil (2). Doublet, soil (2).
SULPHUR, brimstone. (L.) [ME. soulfre (an OF. form, cf. F.
soufre) ; Chaucer, Ho. of Fame, iii. 418.] In Spenser, F. Q. i. 5. 31.
A term in alchemy, from L, sulphur, also spelt sulfur, Der, sulphur-
e-ous, from L. sulphureus or sulfureus, adj.; sulphur-ous, from F.
sulphureux, ‘sulphurous,’ Cot., from L. adj. sulphurdsus or sulfurdsus ;
also the coined words sulphur-ic, sulphur-et, sulphur-ett-ed, and sulph-
ate (used for *sulphur-ate).
SULTAN, an Eastern ruler, head of the Ottoman empire. (F.—
Arab.) In Shak. Merch. Ven. ii. 1. 26.—F. sultan, a sultan or
souldan,’ Cot.— Arab. sultan, victorious, also a ruler, prince; cf.
sultat, dominion ; Rich. Dict. pp. 843, 844. B. The word occurs
early, in the ME. form soudan, Chaucer, C. T. 4597 (B 177); this
is from OF. soudan, souldan, both in Cotgrave, which are derived
from the same Arab, word. Der. sultan-ess, with F. suffix;
sultan-a, Dryden, Kind Keeper, i. 1, from Ital. sultana, fem. of sultano,
a sultan, from Arab. sultan.
SULTRY, SWELTRY, very hot and oppressive. (E.) Sultry
and sweltry, both in Phillips, ed. 1706, are the same word; the latter
being the fuller and older form. Shak, has sultry, Hamlet, v. 2. 101 ;
also swelter’d = caused to exude by heat, Macb. iv.1.8. The we has
passed into x; cf. so from AS. swa, and mod. E. sword, where the τὸ
is entirely lost. The -y (=AS. -ig) is an adjectival suffix, and sweltr-y
is short for swelter-y, formed from the verb to swelter. ‘ Swelirynge
or swalterynge, or swonynge, Sincopa,’ Prompt. Parv.; where the
sense is ‘a swooning with heat.’ ‘ Swalteryn for hete, or febylnesse, or
other cawsys, or swownyn, Exalo, sincopizo,’ id. p. 481. β. Again,
SUMMON
swelter is a frequent. form (with the usual suffix -er) from ME.
swelten, to die, also to swoon away or faint. ‘Swowe or swelte’=
swoon or faint, P. Plowman, B. v. 154. From AS. sweltan, to die,
Grein, ii. 505.4Tcel. svelta, to die, starve (pt. t. svalt, pl. sultu, pp.
soltinn ; Dan. sulte; Swed. svalia; Goth. swiltan, to die. Cf. Icel.
sultr, Dan. sult, hunger, famine; from the weak grade *swult>*sult,
Also OHG, schwelzan, to burn, to be consumed by fire or love.
y- All from Teut. base *swelt-, to die; prob. an extension of the
base *swel-, to burn, glow, be hot, from which the E. word has un-
doubtedly received its present sense; this appears in AS. swelan, to
burn, ME. swelen, swalen, prov. E. sweal, to waste away under the
action of fire, allied to G. schwelen, to burn slowly, schwiil, sultry,
with the extended forms OHG. swilizo, heat, swilizon, to burn slowly ;
Lith. swil-ti, to shine, burn. Der. sultri-ness.
SUM, the amount, whole of a thing, substance, total, summary,
fulness. (F.—L.) ME. somme, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 11537 (F 1225).—
AF, summe, a sum, Vie de St. Auban, ed. Atkinson; Εἰ, somme, ‘a
summe of money,’ Cot.—L. swmma, sum, chief part, amount; orig.
fem. of summus, highest, chief, principal. Summus stands for *sup-
mus, uppermost, superl. form from *sup, old form of sub (cf. sup-er) ;
the sense of ‘under’ and ‘over’ are curiously mixed; see Sub-.
Allied to Gk. ὕπα-τος, highest, with a different suffix. Brugmann,
i. § 762. Der. sum, verb, ME. sommen, Trevisa, 111, 261, 1. 15, F.
sommer, from L. summéare; summ-at-ion, from Εἰ, sommation, ‘the
summing of money,’ Cot., due to L. summdre; summ-ar-y, sb.,
answering to F. sommaire, ‘a summary,’ Cot., from L. summarium,
a summary, epitome, which presupposes an adj. *summdarius;
summary, adj. answering to F. sommaire, adj., ‘summary,’ Cot. ;
summ-ar-i-ly, summz-ar-i-ness; summ-ar-ise, a coined word. Also
summ-it, q.v. And see supreme, sovereign, soprano.
SUMACH, a tree. (F.—Span.—Arab.) ‘Sumach or Sumack, a
kind of rank-smelling shrub that bears a black berry made use of by
curriers to dress their leather ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706, Spelt sumack,
sumake, sumague in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, with a similar definition.
ME. sumac, Lanfrank, Cirurgie, p. 218, 1. 19.—F. sumac, formerly
spelt sumach; Littré. Span. zumaque. Arab. summaq, a species of
shrub; Rich, Dict. p. 847. Another Arab. name is samdqil (id.) ;
this will account for another Εἰ, form sommail, noticed by Littré.
SUMMER (1), the warmest season of the year. (E.) ME. somer,
sumer (with one m), Chaucer, C. T. 396 (A 394). ΑΒ. sumor,
sumer, Matt. xxiv. 32.44Du. zomer; Icel. sumar; Dan. sommer ;
Swed. sommar; G. sommer; OHG. sumar, _ B. From a Teut. type
*sum-rus, m. (Franck) ; connected with Irish and OWelsh ham, W.
haf, summer (the initial # standing, as usual, for 5), Skt. sama, a
year, Zend hama,summer. Brugmann, i. § 436. Der. summer, verb,
to pass the summer, Isaiah, xviii. 6; summer-house, Amos, iii. 15.
SUMMER (2), a beam. (F.—Low L.—Gk.) See Sumpter.
SUMMERSET, the same as Somersault, q.v.
SUMMIT, highest point, top. (F.—L.) In Shak. Haml.i. 4. 70,
iii. 3. 18; K. Lear, iv. 6. 57. Caxton has sommete, Godfrey of
Boloyne, p. 251, 1. 21.—F. sommet, ‘the top,’ Cot. Dimin., with
suffix -ef, of OF. som, the top, esp. of a hill; see Burguy, Littré. =
L. summum, highest point, neut. of summus, highest ; see Sum.
SUMMON, to cite to appear, call with authority. (F.—L.) The
examples in the Glossary to Layamon, s. v. somnien, show that two
distinct words were early confused, viz. AS. samnian, somnian, to
collect together (a derivative verb from saman, together, from sam,
together) and OF. somoner, semoner, mod. F. semondre. But since
summons, sb., and summoner are both Εἰ, words, and the word to
summon properly belongs to the law-courts, we need only here con-
sider the F. form. We find let somony =caused to attend, in Rob. of
Gloue. p. 377, 1. 77393; and the word somne in Chaucer, C. T. 6943
(Ὁ 1361), clearly refers to the mod. Εἰ, sense of summon, though its
form would suit the AS. somnian equally well. —OF. somoner
(Roquefort), in which form it is rare, having been early corrupted to
semoner or semondre. Cotgrave gives F, semondre, ‘to bid, invite,
summon, warn, cite.’ Littré gives an 11th-cent. example of the
form sumoner; and Roquefort gives an excellent example in which
the OF. somoner is used with the orig. sense of ‘to admonish,’ the
word somonoit being used to translate L. admonéret ; Dial. de Saint
Grégoire, liv. 2. chap. 5. Cf. Prov. somonre, to summon, ἃ common
word (Bartsch).=—L. summonére, to remind privily.—L. sum- (for
sub before m) ; and monére, to advise; see Sub- and Monition.
Der. summon-er, ME. sompnour, Chaucer, C. T. 625 (represented by
mod, ΕἸ Sumner as a proper name), also somonour, Ῥ. Plowman,
B. iii. 133 (footnote), from the AF. sumenour, Laws of Will. I. § 47,
MF. semonneur, ‘a summoner, citer, apparitor,’ Cot. Also sum-
mon-s, ME. somouns, Allit. Morte Arthure, 91, from the AF. somonse,
f. Stat. Realm, i. 29 (1295), MF. semonce, ‘a warning, citation,
summons,’ Cot. ; Littré explains that the F. semonce, formerly semonse
(somonse), is the fem, of semons (somons), the pp. of semondre (so-
615
616 SUMPITAN
mondre), tosummon. Cf. Prov. somonsa, asummons, cited by Littré ;
we also find Proy. somos, somosta, semosta used in the same sense.
ἅτ» Thus the s at the end of summons is not due to the L. sum-
mnonedis, as some have supposed.
SUMPITAN, a blow-pipe. (Malay.) Malay sumpitan. —Malay
sumpit (also menyumpit), to blow; with suffix -an.
SUMPTER, a horse for carrying burdens, a pack-horse. (F.—
Late L.—Gk.) Two forms of the word were once in use, viz. ME.
somer, King Alisaunder, 850, and sumpter, id. 6023. The former,
once the commoner form, is now lost; but it is necessary to ex-
plain it first. 1. From OF, somier, sommier (Burguy), a pack-horse ;
formed, with suffix -ier of the agent, from OF. somme, some, saume,
sume, a pack, burden. [Cotgrave gives OI. somnier, a sumpter-
horse, also the piece of timber called a summer.”]— Late L. salma,
corrupt form of sagma,a pack, burden; whence sagmdarius, salmarius,
a pack-horse (>F. sommier).—Gk. σάγμα, a pack-saddle. —Gk.
σάττειν (-- ἔσάκ-γειν, fut. cafe), to pack, put a burden on a horse,
fasten on a load, orig. to fasten. Allied to Gk. σάγη, housings,
σάγος, a soldier’s cloak. 2. The etymology of sumpter is similar ;
it orig. meant, not the horse, but the horse’s driver; and such is the
sense in King Alisaunder, 6023, where the sumpters are reckoned
among the squires and guides belonging to anarmy. Hence, also,
the mod. E. sumpter-horse, i. e. a baggage-carrier’s horse, the addi-
tion of horse being necessary to the sense, whereas the ME. somer
was used alone, in the same sense. Sumpter is, accordingly, from
OF. sommetier, a. packhorse-driver (Roquefort). This answers to a
Low L. *sagmatarius, not found, but formed from the Gk. σαγματ-,
the true stem of σάγμα, just as sagmarius is formed from σάγμα.
3. The E. word summer, noticed by Cotgrave (above) as meaning ‘a
beam,’ is worth notice. It occurs in Barbour’s Bruce, xvii. 696, and
is given in Halliwell; being so called from its bearing a great burden
or weight ; cf. Norman dial. sommier, a summer (Duméril). Hence
also the E. breast-summer (gen. pronounced bressomer), defined in
Webster as ‘a summer or beam placed breast-wise to support a
superincumbent wall.’ @= Note that sumpter in K. Lear, ii. 4. 219,
does not mean ‘a packhorse,” but a packhorse-driver.
SUMPTUARY, relating to expenses. (L.) In Cotgrave, to
translate E. somptuaire. It is rather Englished from L. sumptudrius,
belonging to expenses, than borrowed from French. Formed, with
suffix -arius, from sumptu-, decl. stem of sumptus, expense, cost; see
Sumptuous.
SUMPTUOUS, expensive, costly. (F.—L.) ‘Sumptuous ex-
penses of the meane people;’ Sir Τὶ Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. ii.
c. 28. =F. somptueux, ‘sumptuous,’ Cot. = L. sumpiudsus, costly. = L.
sumptu-, decl. stem of sunzptvs, expense, cost.—L. szmptus, pp. of
sumere, to take, spend, consume. B. Stimere (*sups-emere) is a
derivative of emeré, to buy, orig. to take. Brugmann,i.§ 240. See
Sus- and Example. Der. swmptuous-ly, -ness.
SUN, the celestial body which is the source of light and heat.
(E.) ME. sonne, two syllables, Chaucer, C. T. 7. AS. sunne, a
fem. sb., Exod. xvi. 21, xvii. 12 (common).+Du. zon, fem. sb.; Icel.
sunna, fem., only in poetry, the common word being sol; (ἃ. sonne,
fem., OHG. sunna; Goth. sunna, masc., sunnd, fem. β. The Teut.
type is *sunndn-, fem. Here -ndn is a suffix (as in Teut. *ster-non-,
a star) ; and the base *swn- is the weak grade of a root *swen, which
is prob. allied to the root *sau, *si, ‘to shine,” whence Goth.
sau-il, L. s6-1, the sun, Icel. sd-2, the sun. See Solar. Der. sun,
verb ; sun-beam, AS. sunnebéam; sun-burnt; sun-rise, spelt sonne ryse
in Palsgrave ; sun-set, spelt sonne sette in Palsgrave, ONorthumb.
sun-set, Matt. xxiv. 27 (Lindisfarne MS.). Also Sun-day, AS. sunnan
deg, lit. day of the sun,’ where suznan is the gen. case. Other com-
pounds are sun-fish, -flower, -shine, -stroke, sunn-y, sun-less, sun-ward ;
and see south.
SUNDER, to part, divide. (E.) ME. sundren, Ancren Riwle,
p- 270, last line. AS. sundrian, gesundrian, Grein, i. 459; also
syndrian, in comp. asyndrian, Matt. x. 35; lit. to put asunder.’ =
AS. sundor, adv., asunder, Grein, ii. 495.+Icel. szndra, to sunder,
from sundr, adv., asunder; Dan. séndre, to sunder, from sonder,
ady.; Swed. sdndra, from sénder, adv.; G. sondern, from sonder,
adj., separate. And cf. Goth, swudrd, adv., separately; Du. zonder,
conj., but. B. All allied to Gk. d-rep (for *santer), without, Skt.
san-utar, aside, far from (Macdonell) ; so that -der in sun-der, adv., is
a suffix. Further allied to Olrish sain, separate, L. sin-e, without.
Brugmann, i. § 500. ° Der. a-sunder, q.v.3 sundr-y, adj., separate,
hence several, divers, ME. sundry, sondry, Chaucer, C. T. 4601
(B 181), from AS. syndrig, Luke, iv. 40, for *sunderig, and formed
with suffix -ig (mod. E. -y) from sundor, adv., as above.
SUP, to imbibe, as a liquid, gradually; also, to eat a supper. (E.)
Once a strong verb; the short τὲ is prob. due to association with
supper, q.v. ME. soupen, P. Plowman, B. ii. 96, vi. 220. AS. siipan
(strong verb, pt. t. s@ap, pl. supon, pp. sopen), AZlfred, tr. of Gregory’s
SUPERFINE
Past. Care, c. 58, ed. Sweet, p. 447, 1. 1.4+Du. zuipen ; Low G. supen;
Icel. siipa (pt. t. saup, pp. sopinn); Swed. supa; OHG. stifan.
B. All from Teut. type *supan- (pt. t. saup, pp. swpanoz), to drink in,
sup up. 4 Partly from OF. souper, to sup; it makes but slight
difference. Der. sup, sb., sop, sip; also soup, q.v., supp-er, q.v.
SUPER., prefix, above. (L.) L. super, above, prep.; orig. a
comparative form of *sup, orig. form of sub; see Sub-. Orig. a loca-
tive case of superus, adj., upper (for s-uperus, where s- is a weak form
of ex); whence Superior.4+Gk. ὑπέρ, above; orig. a locative
case of ὕπερος, upper, comparative from ὑπό (E. hypo-) ; see Hyper-,
Hypo-; allied to Skt. upari, above, locative of Vedic upara-,
compar. of upa, near, close to, under. See Over. Der. super-ior,
supreme, in-super-able ; super-b, super-n-al. Doublet, hyper-, prefix.
And see supra-, prefix.
SUPERABOUND, to be more than enough. (F.—L.) In
Cotgrave; and Howell, Famil. Letters, Ὁ. iv. let. 39, § 3.—F. super-
abonder, ‘to superabound,’ Cot.—L. superabundare, to be very
abundant.—L. super and abundire; see Super- and Abound.
Der. superabundance, from Ἐς. superabondance, ‘ superabundance,’ Cot.,
L, superabundantia; also superabundant, adj., from the stem of the L.
pres. part.; swperabundant-ly,
SUPERADD, to add over and above. (L.) In Phillips, ed.
1706; and earlier, see Richardson.—L. superaddere; see Super-
and Add. Der. superaddit-ion (not in Cotgrave).
SUPERANNUATHE, to disqualify by length of years. (L.)
Bacon has superannate=to live beyond the year, used of annual
plants; Nat. Hist. § 448. This is cited by Richardson, who mis-
spells it. Howell has ‘ superannuated virgin ;” Famil. Letters, vol. i.
let. 123 A.D. 1619. Blount, ed. 1674, has both superannate and
superannuate, An ill-coined word, prob. suggested by annu-al, annu-
ity; Bacon’s superannate is countenanced by Late L. superannatus,
that has lived beyonda year; hence F. suranner, ‘ to passe or exceed
the compass of a year; also, to wax very old;’ Cot. Thus super-
annuate is for superannate; coined from super, above, and annus, a
year. See Super- and Annual. Der. superannuat-ion.
SUPERB, proud, magnificent. (F.—L.) Quite a late word; in
Prior, Alma, c. i. 1. 383.—F. superbe, ‘proud;’ Cot.=—L. superbum,
acc. of superbus, proud. B. Lit. ‘one who thinks himself (or is)
above others;” for *super-fu-os, ‘being above,’ from super, above,
and fu-, as in 1, fu-i, I was. Brugmann, ii. ὃ 4. See Super-,
Der. superb-ly.
SUPERCARGO, an officerin a merchant-ship. (L.; and Span.
—C.) ‘ Supercargo, a person employed by the owners of a ship to
go a voyage, to oversee the cargo,’ &c. ; Phillips, ed. 1706. Partially
translated from Span. sobrecargo, a supercargo, by substituting L.
super for Span. sobre, which is the Span. form of the same word.
See Super- and Cargo.
SUPERCILIOUS, disdainful. (L.) ‘ Supercilious air ;” Ben Jon-
son, Underwoods, xxxii (Epistle to a Friend, Master Colby), 1. 19.
Coined with suffix -ous (Εἰ -eux, L. -dsus) from L. supercili-um, (1) an
eyebrow, (2) pride, haughtiness, as expressed by raising the eyebrows.
=L. super, above; and cilium, an eyelid, perhaps allied to Gk. τὰ
κύλα, the parts under the eyes (Prellwitz). Der. supercilious-ly,
-neSs.
SUPEREMINENT, excellent above others. (L.) In Chap-
man, tr. of Homer, Odys. b. vi. 1. 305.—L. superéminent-, stem of
pres. part. of superéminére, to be eminent above others. See Super-
and Eminent. Der. supereminence, from MF. supereminence, ‘ super-
eminence,’ Cot., from L. superéminentia.
SUPEREROGATION, doing more than duty requires. (L.)
‘Works of supererogation;’ Articles of Religion, Art. 14 (1562).
From Late L. superérogatio, that which is done beyond what is due.
=L. superérogare, to pay out beyond what is expected. —L. super,
above, beyond; δ, out; and rogare, to ask. The L. érogare=to lay
out, expend money (lit. to ask out, require). See Super-, E-, and
Rogation.
SUPEREXCELLENT, very excellent. (L.; and F.—L.)
Used by Spenser in a postscript to a letter to G. Harvey (R.).=—L.
super, above; and MF. excellent; see Super- and Excellent.
SUPERFICIES, the surface of a thing. (L.) In Minshen, ed.
16273; and in Cotgrave, to translate F. superficie and surface. —L.
superficiés, upper face, surface. —L. super-, above; and faciés, a face;
see Super- and Face. Der. superjici-al, in Lydgate, Assembly of
the Gods, 1. 538, from F. superficiel, ‘superficiall,’ Cot., from L.
superficidlis ; superfici-al-ly, -ness; also superfici-al-i-ty, spelt super-
jicialyte in Palsgrave, from MF. superficialité, recorded by Palsgrave.
Doublet, surface.
SUPERFINE, extremely fine. (L.; and F.—L.) ‘Many
innentions are so swperfine ;’ Gascoigne, Works, ed. Hazlitt, i. 500;
also in Steel Glas, &c., ed. Arber, p. 31. Coined from super and
πε; see Super-and Fine (1).
vil
SUPERFLUOUS
SUPERFLUOUS, excessive. (L.) ‘A superfluous abundaunce ;’
Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. iii.c. 1. [Palsgrave gives superflue
as an E. word, from F. superflu, superfluous.] Englished from L.
superfluus, overflowing.—L. super, over; and flvere, to flow; see
Super- andFluent. Der. superfluous-ly ; superflu-i-ty, ME. super-
fluite, Gower, C. A. ii. 201, bk. v. 2217, from F. superfluité, ‘super-
fluity,’ Cot., from L. acc. superfluitatem.
SUPERHUMAN, more than human. (L.; and F.—L.) Spelt
superhumane in Phillips, ed. 1706. Coined from Super- and
Human.
SUPERIMPOSE, SUPERINCUMBENT, SUPERIN-
DUCE; see Super- and Impose, Incumbent, Induce.
SUPERINTENDENT, an overseer. (F.—L.) In Minsheu,
ed. 1627.—MF. superintendant, ‘a superintendent, Cot.—L. super-
intendent-, stem of pres. part. of superintendere, to superintend. = Τὸ.
super, over, above ; and intendere, to attend to, apply the mind. See
Super- and Intend. [The verb superintend is directly from the
Latin.] Der. superintendence, from MF. superintendance, ‘a super-
intendency,’ Cot.
SUPERIOR, higher in rank, &c. (F.—L.) Now spelt so as to
resemble Latin; spelt swperyour in Palsgrave; superior in Caxton,
Golden Legend, Adam, ὃ 6.—MF. superieur, ὁ superiour,’ Cot. —L.
superiorem, acc. of superior, higher, comp. of superus, high, which is
itself an old comp. form from sub (orig. *sup). Hence sup-er-ior is a
double comparative ; see Super- and Sub-. Der. superior-i-ty, from
MF. sxperiorite, ‘superiority,’ Cot., from Late L. acc. superidritdatem.
SUPERLATIVE, superior, extreme, supreme. (F.—L.) In
Minsheu, ed. 1627; and in Palsgrave, p. xxviii.—F. superlatif,
‘superlative,’ Cot. —L. superlatiuus, superlative, as a gram. term. =
L. superlat-us, excessive ; with suffix -iuus, lit. ‘ carried beyond,’ ex-
aggerated. —L. super, beyond; and /atus, carried, or borne. Latus<
*tlatus; see Super- and Tolerate. Der. superlative-ly.
SUPERNAL, placed above, heavenly. (F.—L.) “ Supernal
judge ;’ K. John, ii. 112.—MF. supernel, ‘supernall,’ Cot. As if from
Late L. *superndlis, not in use; formed with suffix -alis from supern-
us, upper, extended by help of suffix -xus from super, above ; see
Super-.
SUPERNATURAL, miraculous. (F.—L.) In Macb. i. 3. 130;
and in Palsgrave.—MF. supernaturel, ‘supernaturall;” Cot. See
Super- and Natural. Der. sugernatural-ly.
SUPERNUMERARY, above the necessary number. (F.—L.)
In Cotgrave. — MF. supernumeraire, ‘supernumerary,’ Cot. = L. super-
numerarius, excessive in number.—L. super, beyond; and numer-us,
number; see Super- and Number.
SUPERSCRIPTION, something written above or without.
(F.—L.) ME. suferscriptioun, Henrysoun, Test. of Creseide, 1. 604.
=MPF. superscription, ‘a superscription;’ Cot. Late L. superscriptid-
nem, acc. of superscriptio, a writing above, Luke, xxiii. 38 (Vulg.) ; cf.
superscriptus, pp. of superscribere, to write above. = L. super, above ;
and scribere, to write; see Super- and Scribe. @ The verb
superscribe is coined directly from L. swperscribere.
SUPERSEDE, to displace by something else, to come in place
of something else. (F.—L.) The word has much changed its
meaning, both in L. and E. Supersede in old authors means to de-
sist, forbear, stay proceedings, &c. Thus Rich. quotes from the
State Trials, 19 Hen. VIII, an. 1528: ‘He [Hen. VIII] desired the
bishop of Paris to certify Francis, that if the Pope would swpersede
from executing his sentence, until he had indifferent [impartial]
judges sent who might hear the business, he would also supersede
from the execution of what he was deliberated to do in withdrawing
his obedience from the Roman see.’ ‘ Supersede, to suspend, demurr,
put off or stop an affair or proceeding, to countermand ;’ Phillips.
Thus, the sense was to stay a proceeding, whence, by an easy
transition, to substitute some other proceeding for it. A writ of
supersedeas is, in some cases, a writ to stay proceedings, and is men-
tioned in P. Plowman, C. iii. 187, on which see my ποία. “ΟΕ,
superseder, superceder (mod. F. superséder), ‘to surcease, leave off.
give over;’ Cot.—L. supersedére, pp. supersessus, lit. to sit upon,
also to preside over, to forbear, refrain, desist from.—L. super,
above; and sedére, cognate with E. sit. See Super- and Sit.
Der. supersession, from MF, supersession, ‘a surceasing, giving over,
the suspension of an accompt upon the accomptant’s humble suit ;’
Cot.—L. *supersessionem, acc. of *supersessio, not used, but regularly
formed like supersessus, pp. Of supersedére. Doublet, surcease, q. v.
SUPERSTITION, excessiveness in religious worship or belief.
(F.—L.) Skelton has supersticyons, s. pl., Philip Sparowe, 1. 1350;
the adj. superstitious occurs in Acts, xvii. 22, in the bible of 1551 and
in the A. V.; also, spelt supersticious, in Lydgate, Storie of Thebes,
pt. iii, How the bishop Amphiorax, &c.=—F. superstition, ‘ supersti-
tion;’ Cot.—L. superstitionem, acc. of superstitio, a standing still
over or near a thing, amazement, wonder, dread, religious scruple. =
SUPPLY 617
L. superstit-, stem of superstes, one who stands near, a witness.—L.
super, near, above; and statum, supine of stare, to stand, which is
cognate with E. stand. See Super-and Stand. Der. superstiti-
ous, as above, from F. superstitieux, ‘ superstitious,’ Cot., from L. adj.
superstiliosus ; superstiti-ous-ly.
SUPERSTRUCTURE, the upper part of a building. (L.)
‘Tn som places, as in Amsterdam, the foundation costs more than
the superstructure ;’ Howell, Famil. Letters, vol. i. sect. 2. let. 15,
May I, 1622. From Super- and Structure.
SUPERVENE, to occur or happen in consequence of, to oc-
cur, happen. (L.) ‘ Supervening follies ;’ Bp. Taylor, vol. i. ser. 12
(R.).—L. superuenire, to come upon or over, to come upon, to
follow ; pp. superuentus, = L. super, over, upon, near; and xenire, to
come, cognate with E. come. See Super- and Venture or
Come. Der. supervent-ion, regularly formed like the pp. super-
uentus.
SUPERVISE, to inspect, oversee. (L.) In Shak. L.L. L. iv. 2.
135.—L. super, above; and uisere, to survey, formed from sis-um,
supine of uidére, tosee. See Super- and Visit or Vision. Der.
supervise, sb., Hamlet, v. 2. 23; supervis-or, Oth. iii. 3. 395 (First
Quarto) ; supervis-ion, ibid. (Folio editions) ; supervis-al.
SUPINE, lying on one’s back, lazy. (L.) Sir T. Browne has
supinity, Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. i. c. 5, § 3. “ Supine felicity ;’ Dryden,
Astrea, 107. As a term in grammar; Palsgrave, p. xxxvii.—L.
supinus, backward, lying on one’s back; extended, with suffix -inus,
from *sup, orig. form of sub, under, below; hence, downward. Cf.
sup-er, from the same source, So also Gk. ὕπτιος, bent backwards,
backward, lying on one’s back, from ὑπό, under. See Sub-. Der.
supine, sb., as a grammatical term, L. supinum, of which the applied
sense is not very obvious (perhaps positive, absolute, like Gk. θέτικον,
absolute, as applied to verbal forms); supine-ly, supine-ness; also
supin-i-ty, as above, prob. obsolete.
SUPPER, a meal at the close of a day. (F.—Teut.) ME. soper,
super; spelt super, Havelok, 1762.—OF. soper, super, later souper,
‘a supper;’ Cot. It is the infin. mood used as a substantive,
exactly as in the case of dinner.—OF. soper, super, later souper, to
sup, to eat ameal of bread sopped in gravy, &c. [| Cf. OF, sope, soupe,
later soupe, ‘a sop, a piece of bread in broth, also pottage or broth,
wherein there is store of sops or sippets, Cot.]— Low G. supen, to
sup or sip up; Icel. stipa, Swed. supa, to sup; cognate with E. Sup,
q. v.
SUPPLANT, to take the place of, displace, undermine. (F. —
L.) ΜΕ. supplanten, Gower, C. A. i. 239, bk. ii. 2369. —_F. sup-
planter, ‘to supplant, root or trip up; Cot.—L..supplantare, to put
something under the sole of the foot, to trip up the heels, overthrow.
=L. sup- (sub); and planta, the sole of the foot, also a plant. See
Sub- and Plant. Der. supplant-er, spelt supplantour, in Gower,
C. A. i. 261, bk. 11. 3024.
SUPPLE, pliant, lithe, fawning. (F.—L.) ME. souple, Chau-
cer, C. T. 203; Rob. of Glouc. p. 223, 1. 4577.—F. souple, spelt
soupple in Cotgrave, who explains it by ‘supple, limber, tender,
pliant.’=—L. supplicem, acc. of supplex, in the old orig. sense of
‘bending under,’ hence submissive, which is the usual sense in
Latin. The OF. soplier, vb., also kept the orig. sense, though the
classical L. supplicare only means to beseech; hence Cotgrave has
‘sousplié, bent or bowed undemeath, subject unto,’ B. The for-
mation of souple from supplicem is precisely like that of E. double
from duplicem, treble from triplicem, simple from simplicem. Ὑγ. The
L. supplex is from sup- (sub) and the base flic-, as seen in plic-are, to
fold. See Sub- and Ply; alsoSupplicate. Der. supple-ness.
SUPPLEMENT, that which supplies, an addition. (F.—L.)
In Skelton, Garl. of Laurell, 415.=F. supplément, ‘a supplement ;’
Cot.—L. supplémentum, a supplement, filling up.—L, supplé-re, to
fill up; with suffix -men-tum.—L. sup- (sub), up; and plére, to fill ;
see Supply. Der. supplement-al, supplement-ar-y.
SUPPLIANT, entreating earnestly. (F.—L.) In Rich. II, v.
3. 75.—F. suppliant, ‘suppliant;’ Cot. ; pres. pt. of supplier, ‘humbly
to pray, id.—L. supplicére, to supplicate; see Supplicate.
Doublet, supplicant.
SUPPLICATE, to entreat. (L.) In Blount, ed. 1674; it
seems to be quite a late word, though supplication, spelt supplicacion,
is in Gower, C. A. iii. 348, bk. viii. 2184, and supplicant in Shak.
Complaint, 276.—L. supplicat-us, pp. of supplicire, to supplicate. =
L. supplic-, stem of supplex, bending under or down, hence beseech-
ing, suppliant; see Supple. Der. supplic-ant, from the stem of
the pres. pt. of supplicare; supplicat-or-y; supplicat-ion (as above),
from F, supplication, ‘a supplication,’ Cot., from L, ace. supplicationem.
Also suppliant, q.v.
SUPPLY, to fill up a deficiency. (F.—L.) In Shak. Tw. Nt.
i. 1.38. Levins (1570) spells it svpploy, and Huloet has supploye ;
Palsgrave has supplye.—OF. supploier; F. suppléer, ‘to supply ;”
618 SUPPORT
Cot.—L. supplére, to fill up.—L. sup- (sub), up; and plére, to fill;
see Sub- and Plenary. Der. supply, sb., Hamlet, ii. 2. 24; and
see supple-ment.
SUPPORT, to endure, sustain. (F.—L.) ME. supporten,
Wyclif, 2 Cor. xi. 1.—F. supporter, ‘to support;” Cot.—L. sup-
portare, to carry, bring, or convey to a place; in Late L., to endure,
sustain. —L. sup- (sub), near; and portare, to carry ; see Sub- and
Port (1). Der. support, sb., ME. support, Gower, C. A. iii. 193,
bk. vii. 3207, from F. support, ‘a support,’ Cot. ; support-er, sup port-
able, support-abl-y.
SUPPOSE, to assume as true, imagine. (F.—L. and Gk.) ME.
supposen, Chaucer, C. T. 6368 (D 786). —F. supposer, ‘to suppone,
to put, lay, or set under, to suborn, forge; also to suppose, imagine ;’
Cot.—F. sup-, prefix< L. sup- (sub), prefix, under; and F. poser, to
place, put. Thus the orig. sense is ‘ to lay under, put under,’ hence
to substitute, forge, counterfeit ; all of which are senses of L. sup-
ponere. B. The F. poser is not from L. ponere, but from Gk.,
though it (with all its compounds) took up the senses of L. pdnere.
See further under Pose; and note Cotgrave’s use of the verb to
suppone, now obsolete. Der. suppos-er, suppos-able; but not sup-
position, q.v.
SUPPOSITION, an assumption, thing supposed. (F.—L.) In
Shak. Merch. Ven. i. 3. 18. —F. supposition, omitted by Cotgrave, but
in use in the 14th cent. (Littré).—L. suppositidnem, acc. of suppositio,
properly ‘a substitution,’ but extended in meaning according to the
extension of meaning of the verb supponere (pp. suppositus) from
which it is derived.—L. sup- (sub), under, near; and pdnere, to
place; see Sub- and Position. Der. supposit-it-i-ous, spurious,
substituted, from L. suppositicius, formed with suffix -ic-i-us from
supposit-, stem of pp. of suppdnere, of which one sense was ‘ to sub-
stitute.’ Also supposit-or-y, as in ‘suppositoryes are used where the
pacyent is weake,’ Sir Τὶ Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. ili. c. 5, from
L. suppositorius, that which is placed underneath. (See note on
Suppose. )
SUPPRESS, to crush, keep in, retain, conceal. (L.) The in-
stance of suppressed, cited by Rich. from Lydgate, Storie of Thebes,
pt. ii, The Answer of Ethiocles, is not to the point; it is clearly an
error for surprised. For the verb suppress, see Palsgrave.—L. sup-
pressus, pp. of supprimere, to press under, suppress.—L. sup- (sub),
under ; and premere, to press; see Sub- and Press. Der. suppress-
or, L. suppressor; suppress-ion, printed supression in Sir T. More,
p- 250 f, from F. suppression, ‘ suppression,’ Cot., from L. acc. sup-
pressidnem. Also suppress-ive, a coined word.
SUPPURATHEH, to gather pus or matter underneath. (L.) In
Minsheu, ed. 1627.—L. suppurdatus, pp. of suppiirare, to gather pus
underneath.—L,. sup- (sub), beneath; and pur-, decl. stem of pis,
matter; see Sub- and Pus. Der. suppurat-ion, from F. suppura-
tion, ‘a suppuration,’ Cot., from L. acc. suppuratiOnem ; suppurat-ive,
adj., from Ἐς suppuratif, ‘ suppurative,’ Cot., a coined word.
SUPRA., prefix, above. (L.) L. supra-, prefix; from supra,
ady. and prep., short for superd, the orig. form, Lucretius, iv. 674;
orig. abl. fem. of superus, adj., above. —L. super, above ; see Super-,
Sub-.
SUPRAMUNDANES, situate above the world. (L.) ‘Supra-
mundane deities ;’ Waterland, Works, i. 86 (R.); and in Blount, ed.
1674. A coined word; from Supra- and Mundane. Simi-
larly formed is supralapsarian, antecedent to the fall, from supra,
above, and /aps-um, acc. of laps-us, a fall; with suffix -arian; see
Lapse.
SUPREME, greatest, most excellent. (F.—L.) Accented
supreme, Cor. ili. 1. 110; usually supréme, K. John, 111. 1. 155.—F.
supreme, omitted by Cotgrave, but in use in the 16th cent. (Littré) ;
now written supréme. κα L. suprémus, supreme, highest. Formed
with superl. suffix -mus from *swpré-, an adverb allied to L. super,
above. Brugmann, ii. § 75. See Super-. Der. supreme-ly; also
suprem-a-cy, K, John, iii. 1. 156 (cf. F. swprématie, Littré, not in Cot-
grave), a word arbitrarily formed on the model of primacy (OF.
primacie, Late L. primatia) from primate.
SUR- (1), prefix. (L.) For sub- before r following; see Sub-.
Only in swr-reptitious and sur-rogate.
SUR- (2), prefix. (F.—L.) F. sur, prep., contr. from L. super,
upon, above. Exx. swr-cease, sur-charge, sur-face, &c.
SURCEASE, to cease, to cause to cease. (F.—L.) Itis obvious,
from the usual spelling, that this word is popularly supposed to be
allied to cease, with which it has no etymological connexion. It is
a corruption of sursis or sursise, and is etymologically allied to
supersede. It was very likely misunderstood from the first, yet
Fabyan spells the word with s for c, correctly. ‘ By whiche reason
the kyngdome of Mercia surseased, that had contynued from their
firste kynge ;’ Fabyan, Chron. c. 171, § 5. “ΤῸ sursese and leve of’
[leave off]; Paston Letters, i. 390. B. But the verb is really due
SURF
to the sb. surcease, a delay, cessation, which was in use as a law-
term, and prob. of some antiquity in this use, though I do not know
where to find an early E. example. It occurs in Shak. Macb.
i. 7. 4, and (according to Richardson) in Bacon, Of Church Con-
troversies ; Nares cites an example from Danett’s tr. of Comines
(published in 1596 and 1600),—AF. sursise, a surcease , ‘ Ki le cri
orat e sursera, la swrsise enuers li rei amend;’ in Latin, ‘qui,
clamore audito, insequi supersederit, de swrsisa erga regem emendet;’
Laws of Will. I, § 50; F. sursis, masc., sursise, fem., ‘surceased,
intermitted ;’ Cot. Littré quotes ‘ pendant ce sursis’=during this
delay, from Ségur, Hist. de Nap. x. 2. Sursis is the pp. of AF.
surseer (pr. pl. subj. surseis-ent), Stat. Realm, i. 49, 300; MF.
surseoir, ‘ to surcease, pawse, intermit, leave off, give over, delay or
stay for a time,’ (οἱ. “Το, supersedére, to preside over, also to for-
bear, refrain, desist from, omit; see Supersede. The word also
appears in F, as superséder, spelt also superceder in Cotgrave, and
explained by ‘to surcease, leave off, give over.’ This shows that
not only was surcease wrongly connected in the popular mind with
cease, but that, even in F., superséder was similarly connected with
L. cédere, from which cease is derived. Der. surcease, sb., really the
older word, as shown above.
SURCHARGE, an over-load. (F.—L.) ‘A surcharge, or
greater charge;’ Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 228.—AF. surcharge, Year-
books of Edw. I. 1304-5, p. 45; F. surcharge, ‘a surcharge, or a
new charge ;’ Cot. =F. sur, from L. super, over ; and charge, a load ;
see Sur- (2) and Charge. Der. surcharge, vb., from F. surcharger,
*to surcharge τ᾿ Cot.
SURCINGLEB, a girth for a horse, a girdle. (F.—L.) ‘Sur-
senglys and crowpers’ |cruppers]; Malory, Morte Arthure, bk. vii.
ch. 16; leaf 119, back. OF. sourcengle, surcengle (Godefroy), MF.
sursangle, ‘a sursengle, or long girth;’ Cot.—F. sur-, above; and
OF. cengle, ‘a girth,’ Cot.—L. super, above; and cingula, a belt.
See Sur- and Shingles.
SURCOAT, an outer garment. (F.—L. and G.) ME. surcote,
Chaucer, C. Τὶ A 617.—AF. surcote, Liber Custumarum, p. 226.
See Sur- (2) and Coat.
SURD, inexpressible by a rational number or having no rational
root. (L.) Cotgrave translates nombre sourd by ‘a surd number.’
A term in mathematics, equivalent to irrational, in the math. sense. =
L. surdus, deaf; hence, deaf to reason, irrational. The word is
frequently applied to colours, when it means dim, indistinct, dull;
thus surdus color=a dim colour, Pliny, Nat. Hist. b. xxxvii. c. 5.
So likewise L. sordére = to be dirty. See Sordid. Brugmann, i. ὃ 362.
Der. surd, adj., irrational; absurd, q.v.
SURE, certain, secure. (F.—L.) See Trench, Select Glossary.
ME. sur, Will. of Palerne, 973; seur, Seven Sages, ed. Weber, 2033.
“- OF, sur, seiir, oldest form segur (Burguy); mod. Ἐς, stir. L, sécitrus,
secure, sure; see Secure. Der. sure, adv., sure-ly; sure-ty, ME.
seurte, Will. of Palerne, 1463, also seurtee, Chaucer, C. T. 4663
(B 243), from OF, seiirte, segurtet, from L, acc. sécuritatem. Hence
sure-ti-ship, Prov. xi. 15. Doublets, secure, sicker.
SURF, the foam made by the rush of waves on the shore. (E.)
This is a difficult word, being disguised by a false spelling ; the r is
unoriginal, just as in the word hoarse, which is similarly disguised.
The spelling surf is in Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, ed. 1719, pt. i, in
the description of the making of the raft. ‘My Raft was now strong
enough... my next care was. . . how to preserve what I laid upon
it from the Surf of the Sea.’ But the earlier spelling is suffe, with
the sense of ‘rush,’ in a remarkable passage in Hakluyt’s Voyages,
ed. 1598, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 227, where we are told that certain small
rafts are carried to the shore by the force of the in-rushing wave;
‘the Suffe of the Sea setteth her [the raft’s] lading dry on land.’
So also: ‘so neere the shore, that the counter-suffe of the sea would
rebound against the shippes side ;’ id. iii. 848. B. This suffe is,
I believe, a phonetic spelling of the word usually spelt sough, i.e.
‘rush’ or ‘rushing noise ;’ see sough οὐ the sea in Jamieson, who
also spells it souf and souch, And see sough, souff, suff, in E.D. D.
The word sough has lost a w after the s; the Middle-English
spelling is swough or swow, in the sense of ‘rush,’ or ‘rushing
sound.’ ‘For swoughe of his dynttez’=for the rushing sound of
his blows; Morte Arthure, 1127. But it was particularly used of
the swaying or rushing of the sea; ‘ with the swoghe of the see’=
with the swaying motion [surf] of the sea; id. 759. Halliwell notes
prov. E. swowe, ‘to make a noise, as water does in rushing down
a precipice; also, to foam or boil up,’ &c. Cf. ‘ swowynge of
watyre,’ rushing of water, accompanied by noise; Morte Arthure, 931.
y. The ME. verb swowen or swojen answers to AS, swogan, to make
a rushing noise, &c., treated of under Swoon, q.v. The derived
sb. in AS. took the form swég (with vowel-change from @ to δ), and
this word answers in force, though not in form, to E. sough. Hence
a secondary form swégan, with much the same sense as the primary
SURFACE
verb swogan. In Luke, xxi. 25, we might almost translate swéeg by
surf; ‘for gedréfednesse s&s sw2ges and ypa’=for confusion of the
sound [surf] of the sea and waves; L. pre confusione soni‘us maris.
In AElfric’s Hom. i. 566, 1. 7, we have: ‘com séo s& fxrlice swé-
gende,’ which Thorpe translates by ‘the sea came suddenly sounding ;’
but it rather means rushing in, as appears by the context. In
AElfric’s Hom, i. 562, 1. 14, we read that a spring or well of water
“swegde iit,’ i.e. rushed out, or gushed forth, rather than ‘sounded
out,’ as Thorpe translates it, δι. There is thus plenty of authority
for the use of ME. sougk with the sense of ‘rush’ or ‘ noisy gush,’
which will well explain both Hakluyt’s safe and mod. E. surf,
I believe this will be found to be the right explanation, ἘΠΕ
may connect surf with Norweg. sog in some of its senses, viz. (1) a
noise, tumult, rushing sound; and (2) a current in a river, the
inclination of a river-bed, where the stream is swift, i.e. a rapid.
[This is distinct from Norweg. sog in the sense of ‘sucking.’]
q The usual explanation of swf from F, surflot (L. super-fluctus],
‘the rising of billow upon billow, or the interchanged swelling of
severall waves,’ as in Cotgrave, is unlikely; for (1) it interprets f as
equivalent to a whole word, viz. F. jfot, and (2) it is contradicted by
the form suffe, which involves no r at all.
SURFACE, the upper face of anything. (F.—L.) In Minsheu,
ed. 1627.—F. surface, ‘the surface, the superficies;’ Cot. Not
directly derived from Τ,. superficies, but compounded of F. sur (from
L. super, above), and face (from L. faciem, acc. of faciés, the face) ;
see Sur- (2) and Face. However, it exactly corresponds to L.
superficiés, which is compounded in like manner of super and faciés.
Hence the words are doublets. Doublet, super/icies.
SURFEIT, excess in eating and drinking. (F.—L.) ME. surfet,
P. Plowman, A. vii. 252; surfait, id. B. vi. 267.—AF. surfet, a
surfeit, A Nominale, ed. Skeat, 1. 343; OF. sorfait, excess (Bur-
guy); orig. pp. of sorfaire, later surfaire, ‘to overprise, to hold
at an overdeer rate ;᾿ Cot.—OF. sor, Ἐς sur, from L. super, above ;
and F. fait (pp. of faire), from L. factus (pp. of facere), to make,
hence, to hold, deem. See Sur- (2) and Fact. Der. surfeit, verb,
spelt surfet in Palsgrave; surfeit-ing, sb.
SURGE, the swell of waves, a billow. (F.—L.) The orig. sense
was ‘a rising’ or rise, or source. ‘All great ryuers are gurged and
assemblede of diuers surges and springes of water ;’ Berners, tr. of
Froissart, vol. i. c. 1 (R.). ‘Wyndes and sourges ;’ Sir T. Elyot,
Castel of Helth, bk. ii. c. 14. ‘Thus with a surge of teares be-
dewde ;’ Turbervile, The Louer to his carefull Bed. “ Surge of the
see, uague;’ Palsgrave. Coined from OF. stem sourge-, as in sourge-
ant, pres. pt. of sourdre, to rise.—L. surgere, to rise. Cf. MF.
sourgeon, ‘the spring of a fountain, or the rising, boyling, or
sprouting out of water in a spring,’ Cot., which is likewise derived
from the same L. verb. The proper F. sb. is source, E. source; see
Source. B. The L. surgere makes pt. t. surrexi, showing
that it is contracted from surrigere; from L. sur- (for sub before
r), and regere, to rule, direct ; thus the orig. sense was ‘to direct or
take one’s way from under,’ hence to rise up. See Sub- and
Regent. Der. surge, verb, surg-y. Also (from surgere) in-surg-
ent, re-surrect-ton, source, re-source, sortie.
SURGEON, a chirurgeon, one who cures diseases by operating
upon the patient. (F.—L.—Gk.) A very early contraction of
chirurgeon. ME, surgien, P. Plowman, B. xx. 308; surgeyn, surgen,
id. C. xxiii. 310, 313 ; spelt cirurgian, Rob. of Glouc. p. 566, 1. 11925.
-OF. surgien (Godefroy); variant of cirurgien, serurgien, a sur-
geon; see Littré, s.v. chirurgien; the AF. forms surigien, surrigien,
sirogen, cyrogen, all occur in Langtoft, Chron. ii. 104, 158; and
surgion is in Britton, i. 34.—OF. cirurgie, later chirurgie, surgery ;
with suffix -er<L. -anus. See further under Surgery.
SURGERY, the art practised by a surgeon, operation on a
patient. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. surgerie, Chaucer, C.T. 415 (A 413). A
variation of OF. cirurgie, sirurgie, later form chirurgie, surgery. We
have, in fact, turned cirurgy or sirurgyinto surgery; perhaps through
a form surgeon-ry; for the spelling surgenry occurs as a reading in
P. Plowman, B. xvi. 106.—Late L. chirurgia.—Gk. χειρουργία, a
working with the hands, handicraft, skill with the hands. = Gk. χείρο-,
from χείρ, the hand; and épyev, to work, allied to E. work; see
Chirurgeon and Work. Der. surgeon, short for cirurgien, old
form of chirurgeon. Der, surgi-c-al, short for chirurgical, formed
with suffix -al (Εἰ -el, L. -alis) from Late L. chirurgic-us, an extended
form of chirurgus =Gk. χειρουργός, working with the hand, skilful ;
hence surgi-c-al-ly,
SURLOIN, the upper part of a loin of beef. (F.—L.) Fre-
quently spelt sirloin, owing to a fable that the loin of beef was
knighted ‘ by one of our kings in a fit of good humour ;’ see Johnson.
The ‘king’ was naturally imagined to be the merry monarch
Charles II, though Richardson says (on no authority) that it was ‘so
entitled by King James the First.’ Both stories are discredited by
SURRENDER
the use of the orig. F. word surlonge in the fourteenth century; see
Littré. | Indeed, Wedgwood cites ‘A surloyn beeff, vii.d. from an
account of expenses of the Ironmongers’ Company, temp. Henry VI;
with a reference to the Athenaeum, Dec. 28, 1867 (p. 902). Cot-
grave explains MF’, haut coste by ‘ ἃ surloine.’ =F, surlonge, ‘a sirloin,’
Hamilton; see Littré for its use in the 14th cent.—F. sur, from L,
super, above, upon; and longe, a loin; see Super- and Loin.
SURLY, morose, uncivil. (E.) In Shak. K. John, iii. 3. 42; &c.
‘ The orig. meaning [or rather, the meaning due to popular etymo-
logy] seems to have been sir-like, magisterial, arrogant. For
shepherds, said he, there doen leade As Lordes done other-where ᾿ς.
Sike syrlye shepheards han we none;” Spenser, Sheph. Kal. July,
185-203. Ital. signoreggiare, to have the mastery, to domincer;
signoreggevole, magisterial, haughty, stately, surly; Altieri. Faire
du grobis, to be proud or surly, to take much state upon him;
Cotgrave:’—Wedgwood. I give the quotation from Cotgrave
slightly altered to the form in which it stands in ed. 1660. As to the
spelling, it isremarkable that while Spenser has syrlye, the Glosse to
the Sheph. Kal. by E. K. has ‘surly, stately and prowde.’ Drant
(1566) has ‘ His surly corps in rytche array ;’ tr. of Horace, Sat. 3.
Minsheu has surlie. Cotgrave has: ‘ Sourcilleux, ... surly, or proud
of countenance.’ It answers to prov. E. soorlike, ill-tempered, cross,
surly, lit. ‘sour-like’ (Εἰ. D. D.); and the has been shortened before
rl, as in burly from an AS, form *bar-lic; see Burly. Cf. prov. E.
sour, ill-tempered, surly, cross (E.D.D.); and Baret has ‘sowre,
morose.” See Sour. Cf. Ὁ. saver, sour, surly; MSwed. sur (the
same); Swed., Dan. syrlig, sourish, And note ME. surdagh, sour
dough ; Voc. 663. 22. Der. surli-ly, surli-ness.
SURMISE, an imagination, suspicion, guess. (F.—L.) Levins
has surmise both as sb. and vb.; so has Baret (1580). Caxton has:
‘xxxm_ li, that he had surmysed on hym to haue stolen;’ Golden
Legend, Th. Becket, § 4. Halliwell gives the obs. verb swrmit, with an
example, — OF. surmise, an accusation, charge ( Roquefort) ; properly
fem, of surmis, pp. of surmettre, to charge, accuse, lit. ‘to put upon,’
hence to lay to one’s charge, make one to be suspected οἱ. - Ἐς sur,
from L, super, upon, above; and F. mettre, to put, from L. mittere,
to send; see Super- and Mission. Der. surmise, verb; surmis-al,
Milton, Church Government, ii., Int.
SURMOUNT, to surpass. (F.—L.) ME. surmounten, spelt
sormounten, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. iii. pr. 8,1. 19.—F. sur-
monter, ‘to surmount; Cot. From Sur- (2) and Mount (2).
Der. surmouni-able, in-surmount-able.
SURNAME, a name added to the Christian name. (Hybrid ;
¥.—L.; and E.) In Trevisa, iii. 265, 1.10. See Trench, Study of
Words. A partial translation of ME, surnom, spelt sournoun in
Chron. of Eng. 982 (in Ritson, Met. Romances, ii. p. 311), from F,
surnom, ‘a surname ;” Cot.—F. sur, from L. super, over, above; and
E. name. See Super- and Name; and see Noun. So also Span.
sobrenombre, Ital. soprannome. Der. surname, verb.
SURPASS, to go beyond, excel. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q.i.
10. 58.—F. surpasser, ‘to surpasse,’ Cot. From Sur- (2) and Pass,
Der. surpass-ing, surpass-able, un-surpass-able.
SURPLICH, a white garment worn by the clergy. (F.—L.)
Spelt surplise, surplys, in Chaucer, C. T., A 3323. —F. surplis, ‘a sur-
plis;” Cot.—Late L. superpelliceum, a surplice.—L. super, above ;
and pelliceum, neut. of pelliceus, pellicius, made of skins; see Super-
and Pelisse. Cf. ‘surplyce, superpellicium ;’ Prompt. Pary. So
also Span. sobrepelliz.
SURPLUS, overplus, excess of what is required. (F.—L.) ME.
surplus, Gower, C. A. iii. 24; bk. vi. 682. —F. surplus, ‘a surplusage,
overplus ;’ Cot.—L. super, above ; and pliis, more; see Super- and
Plural. Der. surplus-age, Spenser, F. Q. ii. 7.18; Lydgate, Storie
of Thebes, pt. iii, Of a tame tiger, &c.; see Richardson.
SURPRISE, a taking unawares. (F.—L.) In Shak. Mer. Wives,
y. 5. 131. The verb (though from the F. sb.) occurs earlier, Rom.
of the Rose, 3235.—OF. sorprise, surprise (Burguy), MF. surprinse,
‘a surprisall, or sudden taking;”’ Cot. Properly fem. of sor pris,
surpris (surprins in Cot.), pp. of sorprendre, surprendre, ‘to surprise,
to take napping,’ Cot.—F. sur, from L, super, above, upon ; and
prendre, from L, prehendere, to take; see Super- and Prehensile.
Cf. Ital. sorprendere, to surprise. Der. surprise, verb, surpr’s-al (in
Cotgrave, as above), surpris-ing, -ing-ly.
SURREBUTTER;; see Surrejoinder.
SURREJOINDER, a rejoinder upon, or in answer to, a re-
joinder. (F.—L.) ‘The plaintiff may answer the rejoinder by a
surrejoinder ; wpon which the defendant may rebut ; and the plaintiff
answer him by a surrebutter;’ Blackstcne, Comment., b. ill, ¢. 20
(R.). And in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. The prefix is F. sur, upon,
hence, in answer to; see Sur- (2) and Rejoin. And see Rebut.
SURRENDER, to render up, resign, yield. (F.—L.) ‘I sur-
render ie surrends:’ Palsgrave.—OF. surrendre, to deliver up into
619
620 SURREPTITIOUS
the hands of justice, Roquefort, Palsgrave ; not in Cotgrave. =F. sur,
upon, up; and rendre, torender; see Sur-(2) and Render. Der.
surrender, sb., Hamlet, i. 2. 23.
SURREPTITIOUS, done by stealth or fraud. (L.) ‘A soden
surrepticious delyte ;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 1278 (miscalled 1276) g.
=L. surreptitius, better surreptictus, stolen, done stealthily.—L.
surrept-um, supine of surripere, to pilfer, purloin.=L. sur- (for sub
before 7), under, secretly; and rapere, to seize. See Sur- (1) and
Rapid. Der. surreptitious-ly.
SURROGATE, a substitute, deputy of an ecclesiastical judge.
(.) Jn Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. surrogatus, pp. of surrogare,
to substitute, elect in place of another. —L. sur- (for sub before r),
under, in place of; and rogare, to ask, elect. See Sur- (1) and
Rogation.
SURROUND, to encompass. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.
Altered in sense by association with round; but the orig. sense was
“to overflow.’ ‘ The waters more abounded, And. . all abroad
surrounded ;’ Marlowe, tr. of Ovid, bk. iii. Elegy 6. “ Oultrecouler, to
surround or overflow ;’ Cot. Orig. suround (with one σὺ : ‘ by then-
crease of waters dyuers londes and tenementes in grete quantite ben
surounded and destroyed ;” Stat. of Hen. VII (1489) ; pr. by Caxton,
fol. c 7.—OF. souronder, soronder, surunder, to overflow (Godefroy).
=L. super, over; undare, to flow, from unda, a wave. So also red-
ound, ab-ound, from OF. red-onder, ab-onder. See Notes on E. Etym.,
. 286.
PSURTOUT, an overcoat, close frock-coat. (F.—L.) In Dryden,
tr. of Juvenal, Sat. iii. 250. ‘Surtoot, Surtouf, a great upper coat;’
Phillips, ed. 1706. Worn over all. =F. sur ¢out, over all. = L. super
totum, over the whole ; see Super- and Total.
SURVEILLANCE, inspection. (F.—L.) Modern; not in
Todd’s Johnson.—F. surveillance, superintendence ; Hamilton.=—F.
surveillant, pres. part. of surveiller, to superintend.=F. sur, from
L. super, over; and veiller, from L. uigilare, to watch ; see Sur- (2)
and Vigil. F. vetllance<L. uigilantia.
SURVEY, to look over, inspect. (F.—L.) ‘To suruey, or
ouersee ;’ Minsheu, ed. 1627. The obs. sb. surveance, surveyaunce, is
in Chaucer, C. T. 12029 (C 95). —AF. surveier, Liber Albus, 512. —
F. sur, over; and OF, veeir, veér, later veoir, ‘to see,’ Cot.—L.
super, over ; and uidére, to see; see Super- and Vision. And see
Supervise. Der. survey, sb., Ail’s Well, v. 3. 165 survey-or
(survyowre in Prompt. Parv.), AF. surveour, Stat. Realm, i. 289
(1340), suxvey-or-ship.
SURVIVE, to overlive, outlive. (F.—L.) Spelt survyve in
Palsgrave. =F. survivre, ‘to survive ;’ Cot.—L. superuiuere, to outlive.
=L. super, above ; and uiuvere, to live; see Super- and Victual.
Der. surviv-al, a coined word, Chapman, tr. of Homer, Odys. b. i.
638 ; surviv-or, Hamlet, i. 2.903 surviv-or-ship.
SUS,, prefix. (L.) L. sus-, prefix; for *sups, an extended form of
*sup, old form of sub, under; so also Gk, ὕψει, aloft, ty-os, height,
from im-d; see Sub-. Der. sus-ceptible, sus-pend, sus-pect, sus-tain.
SUSCEPTIBLE, readily receiving anything, impressible. (F.—
L.) In Cotgrave.—F. susceptible, ‘susceptible, capable;’ Cot.—
L. *susceptibilis, ready to undertake. — L. suscepti-, for susceptus, pp. of
suscipere, to undertake; with suffix -bilis.—L. sus-, for *sups-, exten-
sion of ἕξη, orig. form of sub, under; and capere, to take ; see Sus-
and Captive. Der. susceptibili-ty, a coined word; susceptive, from
L. *susceptinus, capable of receiving or admitting.
SUSPECT, to mistrust, conjecture. (F.—L.) See Trench,
Select Glossary. The word was orig. a pp.,as in Chaucer, where it
is used adjectivally, with the sense of ‘ suspicious,’ C. Τὶ 8417 (E 541).
=F. suspect, ‘suspected, mistrusted ;’ Cot.—L, suspectus, pp. of sus-
picere, to look under, look up to, admire, also to mistrust. L. sv-,
for sus-, *sups-, extension of *sup, orig. form of sub, under; and
specere, to look; see Sub- and Spy. Der. suspic-i-on, ME, sus-
pecioun, K. Alisaunder, 453, OF. suspezion (Burguy), later souspegon,
‘snspition,’ Cot. (mod. F. soupgon), from L. suspicidnem, acc. of
suspicio, suspicion; hence suspic-i-ous, ME, suspecious, Chaucer, C. T.
8416 (E 540); suspic-i-ous-ly, -ness. > Observe that the old
spellings suspecion, suspecious, have been modified so as to accord
more closely with the L. originals.
SUSPEND, to hang beneath or from, to make to depend on,
delay. (F.—L.) ME. suspenden, Rob. of Glouc., p. 563, 1. 11818.
=F. suspendre, ‘ to suspend ;” Cot.—L. suspendere (pp. suspensus), to
hang up, suspend. = L. sus-, for *sups-, extension of *sup, orig. form
of sub, under; and pendere, to hang; see Sus- and Pendant.
Der. suspend-er. Also suspense, properly an adj, or pp., asin Spenser,
F. Q. iv. 6. 34, from F. suspens, ‘doubtful, uncertain,’ Cot., from L.
PP. suspensus, suspended, wavering, hesitating; suspens-ion, from F.
suspension, “ἃ suspension or suspending,’ Cot., from L. acc. suspen-
sidnem ; suspens-or-y, from MF. suspensoire, ‘ hanging, suspensory, in
suspence,’ Cot.; suspens-or-y, sb., a hanging bandage, &c.
SWAGGER
SUSPICION ; see under Suspect.
SUSTAIN, to hold up, bear, support. (F.—L.) ME. susteinen,
susteynen, Rob. of Glouc., p. 111, 1. 2412,.—AF,. sustein-, a stem of
OF, sustenir, sostenir, spelt soustentr in Cot.; mod. F. soutenir.—L.
sustinére, to uphold. L. sus-, for *sups-, extension of *sxp, orig. form
of sub, wp; and tenére, to hold; see Sus- and Tenable. Der.
sustain-er, sustain-able; also sustenance, ME. sustenaunce, Rob. of
Glouc., p. 41, 1. 975, from OF. sustenance, spelt soustenance in Cot-
grave, from L. sustinentia ; also sustent-at-ion, Bacon, Essay 58, from
L, acc. sustentationem, maintenance, from sustentire, frequent. form of
sustinére (pp. sustentus).
SUTLER, one who sells provisions in a camp. (Du.) In Shak.
Hen. V, ii. 1. 116.—Du. soetelaar (Sewel), usually zoetelaar ; in
Hexham zoefelaer, ‘a scullion, or he that doth the druggerie in a
house, a sutler, or a victualler.’ Formed with suffix -aar of the
agent (cf. L. -arius) from zoetelen, ‘to sullie, to suttle, or to vic-
tuall;’ Hexham. B. This frequent. verb is cognate with Low G.
suddeln, to sully, whence suddeler, a dirty fellow, scullion, and some-
times a sutler (Brem. Wort.) ; Dan. sudle, besudle,to sully, G. sudeln,
to sully, daub. All these are frequent. forms, with the usual fre-
quent. suffix -e/-; the simple form appears in Swed. sudda, to daub,
stain, soil; whence Swed. dial. sudda, sb., a dirty woman (Rietz).
These are obviously connected with Icel. suddi, steam from cooking,
drizzling rain, suddaligr, wet and dank; all from Teut. *sud-, weak
grade of Teut. verb *seuthan-, to seethe (Icel. sjoda). Further allied
to Ἐς suds, a derivative of seethe; with which cf. G. sud, a seething,
brewing, sudel, a puddle, sudeln, to daub, dabble, sully, sudelkoch, a
sluttish cook; all from the same weak grade. The ¢ (for d) is
abnormal, and due to High G. influence. Cf. Bavarian suttern,
sottern, to boil over, MHG., εμέ, boiling liquid.
SUTTEE, a widow who immolates herself on the funeral pile of
her husband ; also the sacrifice of burning a widow. (Skt.) ‘The E.
τι tepresents Skt. short a, which is pronounced like τε in mud. The
word is properly an epithet of the widow herself, who is reckoned as
‘true’ or ‘virtuous’ ifshe thus immolates herself.—Skt. safi, a vir-
tuous wife (Benfey, p. 63, col. 2); fem. of sanf-, being, existing, true,
tight, virtuous. Sant-is short for *as-ant-, pres. part. of as, to be. =
(ES, to be ; see Sooth and Is.
SUTURE, a seam. (F.—L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.—F. suture,
‘a suture or seam;’ Cot.—L. saiira, a suture; cf. situs, pp. of
suere, to sow; cognate with Εἰ, Sew.
SUZERAIN, a feudal lord. (F.—L.) Not in Johnson; used by
Scott, Quentin Durward, ch. 35.—F. swzerain, ‘ sovereign, yet subal-
tern, superior, but not supreme;’ Cot. A coined word; made from
Ἐς sus (L. siisum or sursum, above), in the same way as sovereign is
made from L, super ; it corresponds to a Late L. type *suseranus, for
*surserdnus. B. The L. sursum is contracted from *su-worsum,
where su- is for sub, up, and worsum (E. -ward) means ‘turned,’ from
L. uertere, to turn; see Sub-and -Ward, suffix. Der. suzerain-ty,
from F. swzeraineté, ‘ soveraigne, but subaltern, jurisdiction,’ Cot.
SWAB, to clean the deck of a vessel. (Du.) Shak. has swabber,
Temp. ii. 2. 48; whence the verb to swab has been evolved. The sb.
is borrowed directly from Du. zwabber, ‘a swabber, the drudge of a
ship 5’ Sewel. Cf. Du. zwabberen, to swab, do dirty work.+Swed.
svabb, a fire-brush, svabla, to swab; Dan. svabre, to swab; G.
schwabber, a swabber, schwabber-stock, a mop-stick ; schwabbern, to
swab. Cf. also Norw. svabba, to splash about, Pomeran. swabbeln,
to splash about; Low G. swappen, to shake about (said of liquids;
Danneil); G. schwabbeln, to shake to and fro. Allied to Lith.
sup-ti, to rock; Slovenian svep-ati, to totter (Miklosich, p. 330).
Of imitative origin. Cf. ME. quappen, to palpitate; E. swap, swash.
Der. swabb-er.
SWADDLE, to swathe an infant. (E.) ‘I swadell a chylde;’
Palsgrave. Also spelt swadil, swadle in Levins. Swadel stands for
swathel, and means to wrap in a swathel or swaddling-band. ME.
swepelband, a swaddling-band; spelt suefelband, suadiling-band,
swapeling-bonde in Cursor Mundi, 1343; whence the pp. suedeld,
swetheled =swaddled, id, 11236.—AS. swedel, a swaddling-band ;
spelt suaedil in the Corpus Gloss., 833. The sense is ‘ that which
swathes ;’ formed with suffix -e/, -ἰἰ (Idg. -/o-), representing the agent,
from the verb to swathe; see Swathe. Der. swaddl-ing-band;
swaddl-ing-clothes, Luke, ii. 7.
SWAGGER, to hector, to be boisterous. (Scand.) . In Shaks.
Mids. Nt. Dr. 11. 1.79. ‘To swagger in gait is to walk in an affected
manner, swaying from one side to the other;’ Wedgwood. It is the
frequentative of swag, now almost disused. ‘I swagge, as a fatte
persons belly swaggeth as he goth;’ Palsgrave. ‘Swag, to hang
loose and heavy, to sag, to swing about;’ Halliwell. Norweg.
svagga (Ross), allied to svaga, to sway; Aasen. Cf. Icel. svergja,
to cause to sway; Norw. svagg (Ross), Dan. sugg, a big, thumping
fellow (Larsen). Allied to Sway. Der. swagger-er.
SWAIN
SWAIN, a young man, peasant. (Scand.) ME. swain, Chaucer,
C. T. 4025 (A 4027); swein, Havelok, 273. [The form is Scand.,
not E.; the AS. form was swan, Grein, ii. 500, which would have
given a mod. Εἰ, swone, like stone from stan. We do, indeed, find
swein in the A.S. Chron, an, 1128, but this is borrowed from Scand. }
—Icel. sveinn, a boy, lad, servant ; Dan. svend, a swain, journeyman,
servant ; Swed. sven, a young man, a page. Low G. sween, a swine-
herd, Hannover (Brem. Wort.); OHG. swein, a servant. B. The
Teut. type is *swainoz; which may (formally) be allied by gradation
to AS. swin, a swine, with the sense of ‘swine-herd;’ as in Low G.
sween. But if it be allied to Lith. swaine, a sister-in-law, it is from
another source. Der. boat-swain, cox-swain.
SWALLOW (1), a migratory bird. (E.) ME. swalowe, Prompt.
Pary.; Chaucer, C. T. 3258. AS. swalewe, a swallow; Voc. 132.
28.4Du. zwaluw; Icel. svala, for *svalva, gen. svilu; Dan, svale ;
Swed. svala; G. schwalbe; OIG. swalawa. 8, The Teut. type is
*swalwon, f. Cf. EFries. swalke, Low G. swaalke, a swallow.
The prob. sense is ‘tosser about,’ or ‘mover to and fro;’
allied to Gk. σαλεύειν, to shake, to move to and fro, to toss like a
ship at sea; σάλος, the tossing rolling swell of the sea, See Swell.
Fick, i. 842. Cf. MDu. swalpen, ‘to flote, to tosse, beate against
with waves,’ swalpe, a tossing, swalcke, a swallow; Hexham.
SWALLOW (2), to absorb, ingulf, receive into the stomach.
(E.) ME. swolowen, swolwen, Chaucer, C. T. 16985 (H 36); also
swolhen, Juliana, p. 74, 1. 4; swoljhken, Ormulum, 10224 (written
swoll3henn in the MS.). Thus the final w stands for an older guttural.
It is a secondary form, modified from the AS. strong verb swelgan,
to swallow, pt. t. swealg, pp. swolgen; Grein, ii. 505.--Du. zwelgen ;
Icel. svelgja, pt. t. svalg, pp. solginn; also as a weak verb; Dan.
svelge; Swed. svilja; (ἃ. schwelgen, to eat or drink immoderately.
The strong and weak forms are confused. The strong verb is of
the Teut. type *swelgan-; pt. t. *swalg, pp. *swulganoz. Der.
ground-sel, q.V.
SWAMP, wet spongy land, boggy ground. (E.) Not found in
old books. ‘ Swamp, Swomp, a bog or marshy place, in Virginia or
New England ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. This points to its being a prov.
E. word. According to Rich., it occurs in Dampier’s Voyages, an.
1685. Prob. a native word.+Du. zwamp, a swamp (Calisch).
With a change to a weak grade, we have prov. E, sump (for *swump),
a puddle, G. sumpf, a swamp (whence Du. somp). We also find
prov. E. swank, swang, a swamp; Norw. and Swed. dial. swank.
Connexion with Dan. and Swed. svamp, a sponge, fungus, AS.
swamm, G. schwamm, Goth. swamms, sponge, is not clear. Cf. Gk.
σομφός, spongy. Der. swamp, vb., swamp-y, swamp-i-ness.
SWAN, a large bird. (E.) ME. swan, Chaucer, C. T. 206. AS.
swan, Grein, ii. 500.4-Du. zwaan; Icel. svanr; Dan. svane; Swed.
svan; G. schwan, ‘The Teut. types are *swanoz, *swanon-. The
form suggests connexion with Skt. swan, to resound, sound, sing; cf.
L, sonare, to sound, ‘ Argutos.. olores;’ Vergil, Ecl. ix. 36.
SWAN-HOPPING, taking up swans to mark them. (E.)
A mistaken form of swan-upping (Halliwell). Swans, esp. on the
Thames, are annually taken up for the purpose of marking them by
certain nicks made upon their bills. That the old word was really
upping is shown by a tract dated 1570, printed in Hone’s Every-day
Book, vol. 11. col. 958-962. In sect. 8 there is mention of ‘the
upping-daies.’ Insect. 15—‘ the swan-herdes . . shall vp no swannes,’
&c. Insect. 14—‘that no person take vp any cignet unmarked ;’
and in sect. 28—‘the maister of the swannes is to have for every
white swanne and gray upping, a penny.’
SWAP, to strike. (E.) ME. swappen; ‘ Swap of his heed’ =strike
off his head; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 15834 (G 366). ‘ Beofs to him swapte’
=Beofs went swiftly to him; Layamon, 26775 (later text). An E.
word.+EFries. swappen, to strike noisily, from swap, the sound of a
blow ; prov, G. (dial. of Thiiringen, by L. Hertel) schwappen, to
make swinging movements, to cut; G. schwapp, schwapps, Low G.
swaps, inter]. slap, smack! crack! said of a blow. Imitative; cf.
E. slap, whap, prov. E. swack, a blow. Cf. Swoop.
SWARD, green turf, grassy surface of land. (E.) It formerly
meant also skin or covering; the green-sward is the turfy surface of
the land; the prov. E. sward-pork is bacon cured in large flitches or
flakes (Halliwell, Forby). ‘Swarde, or sworde of flesch, Coriana ;
Swarde of be erpe, turfeflag, or sward of erth, Cespes;’ Prompt. Pary.
pp. 482, 506. AS. sweard, skin; Voc. 265. 9.4-Du. zwoord, skin of
bacon; Icel. svérdr, skin, hide of the walrus, sward or surface of the
earth; jardar-svérdr, earth-sward, grassvordr, grass-sward; Dan.
jlesksver, flesh-sward, skin of bacon; gréxsver, green-sward; ἃ.
schwarte, rind, bark, skin, outside-plank. B. The Teut. type
perhaps is *swarduz, with the sense of ‘rind.’ Root unknown. Der.
sward-ed, green-sward.
SWARM, a cluster of bees or insects. (E.) ME. swarm, Chaucer,
C, T. 15398 (B 4582); AS. swearm (Bosworth).4+Du. zwerm; Icel.
SWEAR
svarmr; Dan. sverm; Swed. suarm; G. schwarm; ΜΗ. swarm,
B. Teut. type *swarmoz, where -moz is a noun-suffix, as in bloo-m,
doo-m. ‘The sense is ‘that which hums,’ from the buzzing made by
a swarm of bees. Cf. Lithuan. swrma, a pipe or fife, from the sound
it makes; Russ, sviriele, a pipe, G. schwirren, to buzz, whiz, surren,
to hum, buzz.—4/SWER, to hum, buzz; whence Skt. suv, to sound,
svara-, a sound, voice; L. susurrus, a hum, whisper. Brugmann, i.
§ 375 (8). Der. swarm, verb, AS. swierman, swyrman, A, S. Leech-
doms, i. 384, 1. 21. And see swear.
SWART, SWARTHY, black, tawny. (E.) The proper form
is swart; thence a less correct form swarth was made, occurring in
Chapman, tr. of Homer, Odyss. b. xix. 1. 343; and hence swarth-y
(=swart-y) by the help of suffix -y (AS. -ig) occasionally added to
adjectives (as in murk-y). Shak. has swarth, Titus, ii. 3.723 swarthy,
Two Gent. ii. 6. 26; swarty, Titus, ii. 3. 72, in the quarto editions.
ME. swart, spelt suart in Rob. of Glouc., p. 490, 1. 10049. AS.
sweart, black; Grein, ii, 507.4-Du. zwart; Icel. svartr; Dan. sort;
Swed, svart; G. schwarz; OHG. swarz, suarz; Goth. swarts. β. The
Teut. type is *swartoz; allied to L. sordes, dirt, sordidus, dirty, and
prob. to L. surdus, dim-coloured. The Norse god Surtr, i.e. Swart,
is the god of fire; this suggests a connexion with Skt. svar, the
sun. Perhaps swar-t meant ‘blackened by fire.’ Der. swarth-y
or swart-y, as above; swarth-i-ly, swarth-i-ness, And see serene,
solar.
SWASH, to strike with force. (E.) ‘Thy swashing blow,
Swashing is also swaggering, and a swasher is a
62
Romeo, i. I. 70.
swaggerer, a bully; As You Like It, i. 3. 122, Hen. V, iii. 2. 30.
Of imitative origin ; cf. Swed. dial. svasska, to make a ‘ squashing’
or ‘swashing’ noise, as when one walks with water in the shoes
(Rietz). β. By the interchange of ks and sk (as in prov. E. axe=to
ask), svasska stands for *svak-sa, an extension from a base SWAK.
Norweg. svakka, to make a noise like water under the feet; Aasen.
Cf. prov. E. swack, a blow or fall, swacking, crushing, huge; swag,
the noise of a heavy fall (Halliwell). Der. swash-buckler, in Fuller,
Worthies of England, iii. 347 (Cent. Dict.); one who strikes his
buckler with a swashing blow, hence, a noisy ruffian.
SWATH, a row of mown grass. (E.) ME. swathe. ‘A mede
. . . In swathes sweppen down’=a meadow, mown (lit. swept)
down in swaths; Allit. Morte Arthure, 2508. ‘Cam him no fieres
swade ner’ =no track (or trace) of fire came near him; Genesis and
Exodus, ed. Morris, 3786. AS. swed, swadu, a track, trace, Grein,
ii, 500, 501. EFries. swad.4Du. zwaad, a swathe; also zwad,
zwade, ‘a swath, a row of grass mowed down,’ Sewel; G. schwad, a
row of mown grass. B. The sense ‘row of mown grass’ is the orig.
one, whence that of track or foot-track easily follows. This appears
by comparing Low G, swad, a swath, with swade, a scythe; see
Brem. Worterbuch, pt. iy. 1107, where the EFriesic swade, swae,
swah, a scythe, is also cited. y. The earliest meaning may have
been a ‘shred’ or ‘slice;’ cf. Norw. swada, vb. act. and neut., to
shred or slice off, to flake off. See Du. zwad in Franck.
SW ATHE, to bind in swaddling-cloths, to bandage. (E.) Shak.
has swath, (1) that which the mower cuts down with one sweep of
the scythe, Troil. v. 5.25; (2) aswaddling-cloth, Timon, iv. 3. 252;
also swathing-clothes, 1 Hen. IV, iii. 2. 112; swathing-clouts, Haml.
li, 2. 401; enswathed, Complaint, 49. ME. swathen, pt. t. swathed,
Cursor Mundi, 11236. From a base swad- ; whence also AS. swedian,
in comp. beswedian, to enwrap, John, xix. 40 (Lindisfarne MS.);
A. S. Leechdoms, ii. 18,1. 8; and AS. swed-el, swed-il, a swaddling
band; see Swaddle. q Perhaps (see Swath) the AS, swad-u
meant orig. a shred; hence (1) as much grass as is mown at once,
(2) a shred of cloth used as a bandage. Der. swadd-le (for
swath-le).
SWAY, to swing, incline to one side, influence, rule over. (E.)
ME, sweyen, Gawain and Green Knight, 1429; Allit. Poems, ed.
Morris, C. 151. It also means to go, walk, come, Allit. Poems,
B. 788, C. 429; spelt sweze, id. (, 72,236. Cf. Swed. suvaja, to jerk;
Dan. svaie, to swing to and fro, to sway; Du. zwaaijen, to sway,
swing; EFries. swaien, Low (ἃ. swajen. B. All from the Teut. base
SWAG, to sway, swing, well preserved in Norweg. svaga, to sway,
swing, reel, stagger (Aasen). Allied to Swagger; and perhaps
even to Swing. Der. sway, sb., Jul. Cesar, i. 3. 3, ME. sweigh,
Chaucer, C. T. 4716 (B 296).
SWEAL, to singe, scorch slightly. (E.) See under Sultry.
SWEAR, to affirm to be true, to affirm with an oath, to use oaths
freely. (E.) ME. sweren, strong verb, pt. t. swor, swoor, Rob. of
Glouc. p. 33, 1.776; pp. sworen, sworn, Havelok, 439. AS. swerian,
pt. t. swor, pp. swore, to swear, Grein, ii. 506. We also find AS.
swerian, with the simple sense of speak or declare, conjugated as a
weak verb, particularly in the comp. anxdswerian, to declare in retarn,
to answer. The orig. sense was simply to speak aloud, declare.
Du, zweren, pt. t. zwoor, pp. gezworen; Icel. sverja, pt. t. sor, pp.
622 SWEAT
svarinn ; Dan. sverge; Swed. svarja; G. schworen. And cf. Goth.
swaran, Icel. svara, Dan. svare, Swed. svara, to answer, reply.
B. All from 4/SWER, to hum, buzz, make a sound; whence also
Skt. suv, to sound, to praise, svara-, sound, a voice, tone, accent, L.
susurrus, a humming, and E. swarm; see Swarm. Brugmann, i.
§ 121. Der. swear-ing, for-sworn; an-swer.
SWEAT, moisture from the skin. (E.) ME. swoot (Tyrwhitt
prints swete), Chaucer, C. Τὶ 16046 (G 578) ; whence the verb sweten,
id. 16047 (ἃ 579). AS. swat, Grein,ii. 501. (By the usual change
from ὦ to long ο, AS. swat became ME. swoot, and should have been
swote in mod, E.; but the word has been altered in order to make
the sb. accord with the derived verb, viz. AS, sw@tan, ME. swéten,
mod. E. sweat, with the ea shortened to the sound of e in Jet (ME.
leten< AS, l@tan). The spelling swet would, consequently, be better
than sweat, and would also be phonetic.)-4Du. zweet; Icel. sveit?;
Dan. sved; Swed. sve/t; G. schweiss; OHG. sweiz. B. The Teut.
stem is *swaito-, sweat, cognate with Skt. svéda-, sweat; from Teut.
base SWEIT, to sweat, of which we find (weak-grade) traces in
Icel. sviti, sweat, G. schwitzen. This answers to Idg. 4/SWEID, to
sweat, whence Skt. suid, to sweat, L. sudor (for *swoidor), sweat, Gk.
i5-pws, sweat, W. chwys, sweat. Brugmann, i. § 3316. Der. sweat,
verb, AS, swétan, as above ; sweat-y, sweat-i-ness; and see sud-at-or-y,
sud-or-i-fi-c.
SWEEP, to brush, strike with a long stroke, pass rapidly over.
(E.) ΜΕ. swepen, Chaucer, C. T. 16404 (ἃ 936); pp. sweped, Pricke
of Conscience, 4947. A weak secondary verb from the base
swep-, as in sw&@pd, 3rd p.s. pres. t. of AS. swapan, to sweep, a
strong verb with pt. t. swéop, Grein, ii. 500. Cf. ge-sw#pa, pl.
sweepings, Voc. 464.20. [This AS. swapan is represented in mod. E.
by the verb to Swoop, q.v.] Cf. also OFries. swépa, to sweep ;
EFries. swépen (pt. t. swép-de), to swing, sway, vibrate. Also
MSwed. swepa, Swed. sopa, Icel. sdpa. From Teut. base *swaip,
2nd grade of Teut. root *sweip, See Swipe. Cf. Icel. sveipa, to
sweep along, a wk. vb., from an old verb svipa (pt. t. sveip); also
OHG., sweifan (pt. t. swief), whence G. schweifen, to rove, stray,
sweep along. Brugmann, i. § 701. Der. sweep, sb., Timon,
i, 2. 1373 sweep-er, chimney-sweep-er (often used in the forms sweep,
chimney-sweep, cf. AS. hunta, ME. hunte, a hunter); sweep-ings;
sweep-stake, the same as swoop-stake, sweeping off all the stakes at
once, Hamlet, iv. 5. 142, whence sweep-stakes, sb., the whole money
staked at a horse-race that can be won or swept up at once.
SWEET, pleasing to the senses, esp. to the taste. (E.) ME.
swete, Chaucer, C. T. 3206; with the by-forms swofe, sote, id. 3205.
AS. swéte, Grein, ii. 506.4-OSax. swati; Du. zoet; Icel. setr, seir ;
Dan. séd; Swed. sot; G. siisz; OHG. suozi; Goth. sits. B. The
AS. δ is a modified 6; cf. the 6 in Dan. sod, Swed. sot. The AS.
swéte is for *swdtjoz, adj.; where *swt- is the 2nd grade of *swat-,
answering to Idg.4/SWAD, to please, to taste nice, whence also
Skt. svad, svad, to taste, to eat, to please, svddu-, sweet, Gk. ἡδύς,
sweet, L, suauis (for *suaduis), pleasant, suadere, to persuade. Der.
sweet-ly, sweet-ness ; sweet-bread, the pancreas of an animal, so called
because sweet and resembling bread ; sweet-briar, Milton, L’ Allegro,
47 3 sweets, pl. sb., Cor. 111. 1. 157 ; sweet-ish, sweet-ish-ness ; sweet-en,
to make sweet, Rich. II, ii. 3. 13; sweef-en-er, swect-en-ing ; sweet-ing,
formed with a dimin. suffix -ing, a term of endearment, Oth. ii. 3. 252,
also a kind of sweet apple, Romeo, ii. 4. 83 ; sweet-pea, sweet-potato ;
sweet-william, Bacon, Essay 46, § 6 (from thename William). Also
sweet-meat, lit. sweet food, chiefly in the pl., ME. swete metes,
Henrysoun, Test. of Creseide, 1. 420; see Meat. And see sweet-
heart, below.
SWEETHEART, a lover or mistress. (E.) Used as a term
of endearment. The derivation is simply from sweet and heart; it
is not an absurd hybrid word with the F. suffix -ard (= OHG. -hart),
as has been supposed. Creseide calls Troilus her ‘ dere herte’ and
her ‘ swete herte’ both; Chaucer, Troil. 111. 1181-1183. Again, he
calls her my sweté herté deré, id. iii. 1210; and in the last line of
bk. iii we read: ‘Is with Creseide his owén herté sweté” Further
examples are needless, but may easily be found in the same poem
and elsewhere.
SWELL, to grow larger, expand, rise into waves, heave, bulge
out. (E.) ME, swellen, strong verb, pt. t. swal, Chaucer, C. T.
6549 (D 967), pp. swollen, id. 8826 (Ε 950). AS. swellan, pt. t.
sweall, pp. swollen, Exod. ix. 10; Grein, ii. 505.4Du. zwellen, pt. τ.
zwoll, pp. gezwollen; Icel. svella, pt. t. sval, pp. sollinn; Swed.
svalla; G. schwellen. B. All from Teut. type *swellan-, pt. t.
swall, pp. *swullanoz. Cf. Goth. uf-swalleins, a swelling up. Brug-
mann, i. § 903. Perhaps allied to Gk. σαλεύειν, to toss, wave.
Der. swell, sb., Antony, 111. 2. 49; swell-ing. Also sill, q.v.,
ground-sill,
SWELTER, to be faint with heat, also, to cause to exude by
excess of heat. (E.) See further under Sultry.
SWING
SWERVE, to depart froma right line, turn aside. (E.) Palsgrave
has swarve. ME. sweruen (swerven), Gower, C. A. iii. 7, 923 bk. vi.
168, bk. vii. 232. Once a strong verb, with pt. t. swarf, swerf (Strat-
mann). AS. sweorfan, to tub, to file, to polish, pt. t. swearf, pp.
sworfen, Grein, ii, 509; whence the sb. geswearf, geswyrf, filings,
A.S. Leechdoms, i. 336, note 15.4+Du. zwerven, to swerve, wander,
rove, riot, revel ; OSax. swerban, pt.t. swarf, to wipe; OFries. swerva,
to rove; Icel. sverfa, to file; pt. t. suarf, pp. sorfinn ; Goth. bi-swairban,
to wipe, af-swairban, to wipe off. B. Teut. type *swerban-, to
wipe, pt. τ. *sward, pp. *swurbanoz. Cf. EFries. swarven, to wander,
Swed. svarfva, to turn; also prov. E. swarve in the sense of ‘to
climb a tree devoid of side-boughs,’ by swarming up it.
SWIFT, extremely rapid. (E.) ME. swift, Chaucer, C. T. 190.
AS. swift, Grein, ii. 513. From swif-, weak grade of AS. swifan, to
move quickly, with suffixed - (Idg. -/os, participial). Cf. Icel.
svifa, to rove, turn, sweep; OHG. sweibdn, to move or turn quickly.
Teut. base *sweid. Cf. Teut. base *sweip ; see Sweep. Der. swift,
sb., swift-ly, -ness. And see swivel.
SWILL, to wash dishes; to drink greedily. (E.) The proper
sense is to wash dishes. ME. swilien, swilen; ‘dishes swilen’=
wash dishes, Havelok, 919. AS. swilian, to wash, in the Lambeth
Psalter, Ps. vi. 6 (Bosworth). Der. swill, hog’s-wash, whence swill-
ing-tub, Skelton, Elinor Rummyng, 173. Hence the verb to swill,
to drink like a pig, as in ‘ the boar that .. . swills your warm blood
like wash,’ Rich. III, v. 2. 9; there is no reason for connecting
swill with swallow, as is sometimes done. Hence swill-er.
SWIM (1), to move to and fro on or in water, to float. (E.)
ME. swimmen, Chaucer, C. T. 3575. AS. swimman, pt. t. swamm,
swomm, Grein, ii. 515.4+Du. zwemmen; Icel. suimma, pt. t. svamm,
pp. summit; Dan. svimme; Swed. simma; G. schwimmen, pt. t.
schwamm. B. All from Teut. type *swemman-, pt. t. *swamm, pp.
*swummanoz. Der. swim, sb., swimm-er, swimm-ing, swimm-ing-ly.
SWIM (2), to be dizzy. (E.) ‘My head swims’=my head is
dizzy. The verb is from the ME. sqwime, sb., dizziness, vertigo, a
swoon; spelt swyme, suime, Cursor Mundi, 14201; swym, Allit.
Morte Arthure, 4246. AS. swima, a swoon, swimming in the head,
Grein, ii. 515; whence Gswamian, verb, to fail, be quenched, and
asw&éman, verb, to wander, id. i. 43, 44.-4-Du. zwijm, EFries. swim,
a swoon; cf, Icel. suimi, a swimming in the head ; whence sveima,
verb, to wander about ; Dan. svimle, to be giddy, svimmel, giddiness,
besvime, to swoon ; Swed. svimma, to be dizzy. B. The AS. swima
probably stands for swi-ma; the base is sw?- (Teut. *swei-) ; whence
also OHG, swinan, to decrease, disappear; to which are allied
Swed. svindel, dizziness, G. schwindel, dizziness, schwinden, to disap-
pear, dwindle, decay, fail, schwindsucht, consumption ; Swed. for-
svinna, to disappear, Icel. svina, to subside (said of a swelling).
The primary sense is that of failing, giving way. Der. swin-dler,q.v.
SWINDLER, a cheat. (G.) ‘ The dignity of the British mer-
chant is sunk in the scandalous appellation of a swindler ;’ V. Knox,
Essay 8 (first appeared in 1778); cited in R. One of our few loan-
words from High-German.=G, schwindler, an extravagant projector,
a swindler.=G. schwindeln, to be dizzy, to act thoughtlessly, to
cheat. = G. schwindel, dizziness. —G. schwinden, to decay, sink, vanish,
fail; cognate with AS. swindan (pt. t. swand), to languish. See
Swim (2). Der. swindle, verb and sb., evolved from the sb.
swindler rather than borrowed from G.
SWINE, a sow, pig; pigs. (E.) ME. swin, with long i, pl.
swin (unchanged). ‘ He sleep as a swyx’ (riming with τύνη, wine) ;
Chaucer, C. T. 5165 (B 745). ‘A flocke of many swyne ;’ Wyclif,
Matt. viii. 30. AS. swin, pl. swin, Grein, ii. 515. The AS. swin is
a neuter sb. with a long stem, and therefore unchanged in the plural,
by rule.+Du. zwijnx, a swine, hog; Icel. svia, pl. svin, neuter sb. ;
Dan, sviin, neut., pl. sviin; Swed. svin, neut.; G. schwein, OHG.
swin; Goth. swein, neut. Teut. type *swinom, neut. Cf. Russ.
svin(e)ya, a swine, dimin. svinka, a pig, svinoi, adj., belonging to
swine, svinina, pork. B. Fick conjectures that the form was orig.
adjectival, like that of L. swinws, belonging to swine, an adj. noted
by Varro (Vanitek, p. 1048); this adj. is regularly formed from
sus,a sow. See Sow (2). Brugmann, i. ὃ 95. Der. swin-ish, -ly,
-ness; swine-herd, ME. swyyne-herd, Prompt. Parv.; swine-cote, ME.
swyyne-kote, id. ; swine-sty, ME. swinysty, id., spelt swynsty, Pricke of
Conscience, 9002.
SWING, to sway or move to and fro. (E.) ME. swingen, strong
verb, pt. t. swang, swong, pp. swungen; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris,
A. 1058 (or 1059), Havelok, 226. AS. swingan, pt. t. swang, pp-
swungen, to scourge, also, to fly, flutter, flap with the wings;
Grein, ii. 515.4-Swed. svinga, to swing, to whirl; Dan. svinge, to
swing, whirl; G. schwingen, to swing, soar, brandish ; also, to
swingle or beat flax; pt. t. schwang. Cf. also Goth. afswaggwjan,
to cause to doubt or despair. B. All from Teut. base *swengw-,
Idg. *sweng. Der. swing, sb.; swinge, q.Vv.; swingle, q. Vv.
SWINGE
SWINGE, to beat, whip. (E.) In Shak. Two Gent. ii. τ. 88,
&c. ME. swengen, to beat; see Prompt. Parv. AS. swengan, to
shake, toss; cf. sweng, a stroke, blow ; see Bosworth. AS. swengan
is the causal form of swingan, to swing, to flourish a whip, to beat.
See Swing.
SWINGKLE, a staff for beating flax. (MDu.) ‘To swingle, to
beat, a term among flax-dressers;’ Phillips. The verb is ME.
swinglen, Reliquiz Antique, ii. 197; formed from the sb. swingle.
In Wright’s Voc. i. 156, near the bottom, we find swingle, sb.,
swinglestok, sb., and the phrase ‘to swingle thi flax.2 From MDu.
swingelen, or swingen, ‘to beate flax;’ Hexham. Cf. Du. zwingel,
a swingle for flax, a flail ; zwingelen, to swingle ; also AS. swingele,
a scourging; Laws of Ine, § 48, in Thorpe, Anc. Laws, i. 132;
from AS. swing-an, to beat, to swing. A swingle is ‘a swinger,’
a beater; and swingle, verb, is ‘to use a swingle.’ See Swing.
Der. swingle, verb. Also swingle-tree, q.v.
SWINGLETREE, the bar that swings at the heels of the
horses when drawing a harrow, &c. (E.) See Halliwell. Also
applied to the swinging bar to which traces are fastened when a
horse draws a coach. [Corruptly called single-tree, whence the term
double-tree has arisen, to keep it company. ‘A single-tree is fixed
upon each end of another cross-piece called the dowble-tree, when
2 horses draw abreast,’ Haldeman (in Webster).] ME. swingle-tre,
spelt swyngletre in Fitzherbert, On Husbandry, §15 (E.D.S.). The
word tree here means a piece of timber, as in axle-tree. The word
swingle means ‘a swing-er,’ a thing that swings; so named from the
swinging motion, which all must have observed who have sat behind
horses drawinga coach. See Swingle, Swing.
SWINK, to toil; obsolescent. (E.) Once an extremely common
word; Milton has ‘swink’d hedger’=hedger overcome with toil,
Comus, 293. ME. swinken, pt.t. swank, Havelok, 788 ; pp. swunken,
Ormulum, 6103. AS. swincan, pt. t. swanc, pp. swuncen, to toil,
labour, work hard. This form, so curiously like AS. swingan,
pt. t. swang, pp. swungen, is perhaps a parallel form to it. Cf. Du.
zwenk, a swing, a turn; G. schwanken, to totter, stagger, falter.
SWIPE, to strike with a sweeping stroke. (E.) Cf. prov. E.
swipple, the striking part of a flail. Thei has prob. been lengthened;
cf. ME. swipe, swip, a stroke, Layamon, 7648; swippen, vb., to
swipe, strike, Layamon, 878. AS. swipian, swippan, to beat (Grein) ;
swipe, a whip. From *swip-, weak grade of Teut. *sweipan-; see
Sweep. Cf. Icel. suipa, to whip; suipa, a whip.
SWIRL, to whirl in an eddy. (Scand.) ‘ Swirl, a whirling wavy
motion, East;’ Halliwell. A proy. E. word, now used by good
writers, as C. Kingsley, E. B. Browning, &c.; see Webster and
Worcester. = Norweg. svirla, to wave round, swing, whirl (Aasen),
frequent. of sverra (Dan. svirre), to whirl, turn round, orig. to make
a humming noise. Cf. Swed. svirra, to murmur; G. schwirren, to
whir; Skt. svy, to sound. Formed from the Idg. root SWER, to
hum, just as whir-/ is from whir; see further under Swarm.
SWITCH, a small flexible twig. (Du.—G.) In Romeo, ii.
4-735 Dr. Schmidt notes that old editions have swits for the pl.
switches. Not found in ME., and perhaps borrowed from Du. in the
16th cent. Switch or swich is a palatalised form of swick.—MDu.
swick, ‘a scourge, a swich, ora whip;’ Hexham. It also means a
wooden vent-peg (Hexham); Low G, swikk, zwikk, a twig, a vent-
peg. Nota Low G. word, but borrowed from High G. = Bavarian
zwick, the lash of a whip, or a stroke with the same; variant of
G. zwecke, a tack, a small wooden peg; Bavar. zweck, a splinter,
a tapering piece of wood. From MHG. zwec, a nail, bolt, peg,
esp. a peg in the centre of a target, called in E. the prick or the pin,
which explains why G. zweck means ‘an aim.’ Further allied to
Ὁ. zwicken, to pinch, to tweak; which is allied to E. twitch; see
Kluge. The fact that the MDu. s in this word answers to High
G. z= Low Ὁ. ¢, is pointed out by Franck. No other E. word has
initial s from ἡ. @ Icel. svigi, a switch, seems to be unrelated.
Der. switch, verb.
, a ring or link that turns round on a pinorneck. (E.)
Spelt swivell in Minsheu, ed. 1627. Not found in ME.; it corre-
sponds to an AS. form *swifel, not found, but regularly formed, with
the suffix -el of the agent, from the weak grade (swif-) of AS. swifan,
to move quickly, revolve; for which see Swift. Related words are
Icel. sveifa, to swing or spin in a circle, like a top, svif, a swinging
round, from svifa, to ramble, to tum. The sense is ‘that which
teadily revolves.’ Cf. Brugmann, i. § 818 (2).
SWOON, to faint. (E.) ME. swownen, Chaucer, C. T. 5478
(B 1058); also swoghenen, King Alisaunder, 5857; also swowenen
(Stratmann). A comparison of the forms shows, as Stratmann
points out, that the standard ME. form is *swojnen, the 9 being
Tepresented either by gk, τὸ, or πὶ; and this is a mere extension of a
form *swojen, with the same sense. The x is the same formative
element as is seen in Goth. verbs ending in -nan; cf. E. awaken from
SYCOPHANT 623
awake, &c. B. The form *swojen appears, slightly altered, as
swowen (with τὸ for }), to swoon, P. Plowman, B. v. 154, xiv. 326;
also as sowghen, soghen, to sigh deeply, Romans of Partenay, 1944,
2890. This is a weak verb, closely allied to the ME. strong verb
swojen, to make a loud or deep sound, to sigh deeply, droop, swoon,
pt. t. swe}, pp. iswojen or iswowen. ‘Sykande ho swejze doun’=
sighing, she drooped down; Gawain and Green Knight, 1796.
‘ Adun he feol iswo3e”=down she fell in a swoon, King Horn, ed.
Lumby, 428. From AS. swogan, to move or sweep along noisily, to
sough, to sigh, orig. used esp. of the wind, ‘Swogad windas’ =the
winds sough, Grein, ii. 516; cf. aswogen, pp. choked, Aélfred, tr. of
Gregory’s Past. Care, § 52, ed. Sweet, p. 411, 1.17. Mr. Cockayne
points out that the form geswowung,a swooning, occurs in A, S.
Leechdoms, ii. 176, 1. 13; and that in A#lfric’s Hom. ii. 356, we
find: ‘Se leg. . geswogen betwux dam ofslegenum’=he lay in a
swoon amongst the slain. Here AS. geswogen>ME., iswojen, as
cited above. This AS, swogan is represented by mod. E. Sough,
q-v. It will thus be seen that the final x is a mere formative
element, and unoriginal. Cf. Low G. swoégen, to sigh, swugten, to
sigh, also to swoon; Brem. Wort. Der. swoon, sb. Also swoun-d,
with excrescent d, and soun-d, with loss of w. Palsgrave has ‘I
swounde,’ i.e. I swoon.
SWOOP, to sweep along, to descend with a swift motion, like
a bird of prey. (E.) Shak. has swoop, sb., Macb. iv. 3. 219. ME.
swopen, usually in the sense to sweep. In Chaucer, C. T. 16404,
where Tyrwhitt prints swepe, the Corpus MS. has swope (Group G,
1. 936) ; two lines lower, in place of ysweped, the Lichfield MS. has
yswopen, The ME. swopen was orig. a strong verb, with pt. t. swep,
and pp. yswopen (as above). AS. swapan, to sweep along, rush;
also, to sweep; a strong verb, pt. t. swéop, pp. swapen; Grein, ii.
500. ‘Swapendum windum’=with swooping (rushing) winds;
fElfred, tr. of Beda, iii, 16, ed. Smith, p. 542, 1. 37. ‘Swift wind
swaped’=a swift wind swoops; Aélfred, tr. of Boethius, met. vii
(Ὁ. ii, met. 4). (The AS. ὦ became ME. open 6, but this became
close 6 under the influence of the w.)4Icel. sveipa, to sweep, swoop ;
cf. svetp, pt. τ, of an obsolete strong verb svifa; sveipinn, pp. of the
same, Also Icel. sdpa, weak verb, tosweep. And cf. G. schweifen,
to rove, ramble; Goth. sweipains, in the comp. midja-swetpains, a
deluge, Luke, xvii. 27. β. The AS. swapan answers to a Teut.
*swaipan-, from the Tent. root *sweip, for which see Swipe. Der.
swoop, sb.; also sweep, 4. ν. ; and see swift, swiv-el.
SWORD, an offensive weapon with a long blade. (E.) ME.
swerd, Chaucer, C. T., A 1700. AS. sweord, Matt. xxvi. 47.4+Du.
zwaard; Icel, sverd; Dan. sverd; Swed. svard; (ἃ. schwert. The
Teut. type is *swerdom, neut. Of unknown origin. Der. sword-
cane, -fish, -stick; sword-s-man, formed like hunt-s-man, sport-s-man ;
sword-s-man-ship.
SYBARITH, an effeminate person. (L.—Gk.) In Blount's
Gloss., ed. 1674; he also has the adj. Sybaritical, dainty, effeminate.
-L. Sybarita.—Gk. Συβαρίτης, a Sybarite, an inhabitant of Sybaris,
a luxurious liver, voluptuary; because the inhabitants of this town
were noted for voluptuousness. The town was named from the
river Sybaris (Gk. Σύβαρις), on which it was situated. This river
flows through the district of Lower Italy formerly called Lucania.
Der. Sybarit-ic, Sybarit-ic-al.
SYCAMINE, the name of a tree. (L.—Gk.—Heb. ?) In Luke,
xvii. 6 (A.V.). = ον sycaminus,— Gk. συκάμινος ; Luke, xvii. 6. It is
gen. believed to be the mulberry-tree, and distinct from the sycamore ;
Thomson, in The Land and the Book, pt. i. c. 1, thinks the trees
were one and the same. β. That the word has been confused with
sycamore is obvious, but the suffix -ine (-wos) is difficult to explain.
Thomson’s explanation is worth notice; he supposes it to be nothing
more than a Gk, adaptation of the Heb. plural. The Heb. name for
the sycamore is shigmah, with the plural forms shigmdth and shigmim;
from the latter of these the Gk. συκάμινος may easily have been
formed, by partial confusion with Gk. συκόμορος, a sycamore; see
Sycamore.
SYCAMORE, the name of a tree. (L.—Gk.—Heb.?) The
trees so called in Europe and America are different from the Oriental
sycamore (Ficus sycomorus). The spelling should rather be sycomore ;
Cotgrave gives sycomore both as an E, and a F. spelling. Spelt
sicomoure in Wyclif, Luke, xix, 4,—L. s¥comorus. = Gk. συκόμορος,
as ifit meant ‘fig-mulberry’ tree. As if from Gk. συκο-, decl. stem
of σῦκον, a fig; and μόρον, a mulberry, blackberry ; but it seems to
have been a popular adaptation of Heb. shigmah, sycamore. See
Sycamine.
SYCOPHANT, a servile flatterer. (L.—Gk.) See Trench,
Select Glossary; he shows that it was formerly also used to mean
‘an informer.’ ‘That sicophkants are counted iolly guests;’ Gas-
coigne, Steel Glas, 207. Cotgrave gives the F. form as sycophantin.
—L. sycopkanta, an informer, tale-bearer, flatterer, sycophant. = Gk.
624 SYLLABLE
συκοφάντης, lit. ‘a fig-shower,’ said to mean one who informs against
persons exporting figs from Attica, or plundering sacred fig-trees ;
hence, ἃ common informer, slanderer, also, a false adviser. ‘The
lit. signification is not found in any ancient writer, and is perhaps
altogether an invention;’ Liddell and Scott. That is, the early
history of the word is lost, but this does not affect its obvious
[perhaps only a popular] etymology.—Gk. σῦκο-, decl. stem of
σῦκον, a fig; and -φαντης, lit. a shower (appearing also in ἱεροφάντης,
one who shows or teaches religious rites), from φαίνειν, to show.
See Sycamore and Phantom. Der. sycophant-ic, -ic-al, -ism ;
sycophanc-y.
SYLLABLE, part of a word, uttered by a single effort of voice.
(F.-L.—Gk.) ME, sillable, Chaucer, C. T. 10415 (F 101). —OF.
stllabe (Littré), later syllabe and syllable, with an inserted unoriginal
1=—L. syllaba. —Gk. συλλαβή, lit. ‘that which holds together,’ hence
a syllable, so much of a word as forms a single sound.=Gk. συλ-
(for σὺν before following A), together; and AaB-, base of λαμβάνειν,
to take, seize (aorist infin, λαβεῖν). See Syn- and Cataleptic.
Der. syllab-ic, from Gk, συλλαβικός, adj.; syllab-ic-al, syllab-i-fy.
Also syllabus, a compendium, from Late L. syllabus, a list, syllabus
(White), from Late Gk. σύλλαβος, allied to συλλαβή.
SYLLOGISM, a reasoning from premises, a process in formal
logic.. (.—L.—Gk.) ME, silogime, Gower, C. A. iii. 366; bk.
vill, 2708. — OF. silogime (Littré), later sillogisme, spelt syllogisme in
Cotgrave.—L. syllogismum, acc. of syllogismus,— Gk. συλλογισμός, a
reckoning all together, reckoning up, reasoning, syllogism. Gk.
συλλογ-ίζομαι, I reckon together, sum up, reason.—Gk. συλ- (for
συν before A following), together; and λογίζομαι, I reckon, from
Ady-os, a word, reason, reasoning. See Syn- and Logic. Der.
syllogise, spelt sylogyse in Lydgate, Assembly of the Gods, 19.
From ovAdoyi{-opa ; syllogis-t-ic, from L, syllogisticus< Gk. συλλογ-
tatxos ; syllogis-t-ic-al, -ly.
SYLPH, an imaginary being inhabiting the air. (F.—Gk.) ‘Ye
sylphs and sylphids;’ Pope, Rape of the Lock, ii. 73; and see Pope’s
Introduction to that poem (A.D. 1712). Pope tells us that he took
the account of the Rosicrucian philosophy and theory of spirits from
a French book called Le Comte de Gabalis.—F. sylphe, the name
given to one of the pretended genii of the air; Hatzfeld quotes 165
sylfes from a work of the 16th or 17th century.—Gk, σίλφη, used by
Aristotle, Hist. Anim. 8. 17. 8, to signify a kind of beetle or grub.
B. It is usually supposed that this word suggested the name sy/ph,
which is used by Paracelsus, The other names of genii are gnomes,
salamanders, and nymphs, dwelling in the earth, fire, and water re-
spectively ; and, as all these names are Greek, it is likely that sy/ph
was meant to be Greekalso. The spelling with y causes no difficulty,
and is, indeed, an additional sign that the word is meant to be
Greek. It is not uncommon to find y (called in F. y Grec) used in
words derived from Gk,, not only where it represents Gk. v, but
even (mistakenly) where it represents Gk.c; thus syphon occurs
instead of siphon both in F. and E. y- Littré (followed by Hatz-
feld) accounts for the word quite differently. He says that Ἐς sylphe
is a Gaulish (Celtic) word signifying genius, and that it is found in
various inscriptions as sufi, sylfi, sylphi, or, in the feminine, as suleve,
sulevie (which are, of course, Latinised and plural forms) ; he cites
‘Sulfis suis qui nostram curam agunt,’ Orel. Helvet. 117. And he
supposes that Paracelsus revived these names. Scheler, on the
contrary, has no doubt that the word is Greek. Der. sylph-id, from
F. sylphide, a false form, but only explicable on the supposition that
the word sylph was thought to be Gk., and declined as if the nom.
was σίλφις (stem σίλφιδ-).
SYLVAN, a common mis-spelling of Silvan, q.v.
SYMBOL, a sign, emblem, figurative representation. (F.—L.-
Gk.) See Trench, Select Glossary. In Shak. Oth. ii. 3. 350. -- Ε΄
symbole, ‘a token, &c.; Cot.—L,. symbolum, — Gk. σύμβολον, a token,
pledge, a sign by which one infers a thing. Gk. συμβάλλειν (aor.
infin. συμβαλεῖν), to throw together, bring together, compare, infer.
- Gk. cup- (for σὺν before 8), together; and βάλλειν, tothrow. See
Syn-. Der. symbol-ic, from Gk. συμβολικός, adj. 3 symbol-ic-al, -Ly ;
symbol-ise, from F. symboliser, spelt symbolizer in Cot., and explained
by ‘to symbolize;’ symbol-is-er; symbol-ism, symbol-ist.
SYMMETRY, due proportion, harmony. (F.—L.—Gk,) Spelt
simmetrie in Minsheu, ed. 1627.—F, symmetrie, ‘simmetry,’ Cot. -
L. symmetria. — Gk. συμμετρία, due proportion, = Gk. σύμμετρος, adj.,
measured with, of like measure with.—Gk. συμ- (for σὺν before 1),
together; and μέτρον, a measure. See Syn- and Metre. Der.
symmetr-ic-al, a coined word ; symmetr-ic-al-ly; symmetr-ise, a coined
word,
SYMPATHY, a feeling with another, like feeling, (F,—L.—
Gk.) Spenser has sympathie and sympathize, Uymn in Honour of
Beautie, 11. 199 and 192.—F. sympathie, ‘sympathy ;’ Cot.—L. sym-
pathia.—Gk. συμπάθεια, like feeling, fellow-feeling. —Gk. συμπαθής,
SYNECDOCHE
adj., of like feelings. —Gk. oup- (for σὺν before 7), together; and
παθ-, base of παθ-εῖν, aor. infin. of πάσχειν, to suffer, experience, feel.
See Syn- and Pathos, Der. sympath-et-ic, a coined word, sug-
gested by pathetic; sympath-et-ic-al, -ly; sympath-ise, from Εἰ. sym-
pathiser, ‘to sympathize,’ Cot. ; sympath-is-er.
SYMPHONY, concert, unison, harmony of sound. (F.—L.—
Gk.) There was a musical instrument called a symphony, ME. sim-
phonie or symphonye ; see my note to Chaucer, C. Τὶ Group B,
1, 2005. And see Wyclif, Luke, xv. 25.—F. symphonie, ‘ harmony ;’
Cot.—L. symphénia, Luke, xv. 25 (Vulgate).—Gk. συμφωνία, music,
Luke, xv. 25.—Gk. σύμφωνος, agreeing in sound, harmonious. =
Gk. συμ- (for σύν before ~), together; and φωνεῖν, to sound, φωνή,
sound. See Syn- and Phonetic. Der. symphoni-ous ; symphon-ist,
a chorister, Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
SYMPOSIUM, a merry feast. (L.—Gk.) Blount, Gloss., ed.
1674, has symposiast, ‘a feast-master,’ and sympostagues, ‘books
treating of feasts.’ Symposium is in Sidney, Apol. for Poetrie, p. 57.
—L. symposium.—Gk. συμπόσιον, a drinking-party, banquet. —Gk.
συμ- (for σύν before πὴ), together; and the base πο-, todrink, appear-
ing in pt. t. πέτπω-κα, I drank, aor. ἐ-πό-θην, I drank, and in the sb.
πό-σις, drink. See Syn- and Potable.
SYMPTOM, an indication of disease, an indication. (F.—L.—
Gk.) Properly a medical term. In Cotgrave, to translate MF. sympt-
ome. — L, sympioma. — Gk. σύμπτωμα, anything that has befallen one,
a casualty, usu. in a bad sense. —Gk. συμπίπτειν, pt. t. συμ-πέ-πτωκα,
to fall together, to fall in with, meet with.<Gk. σύμ- (for σύν
before 7), together, with ; and πίπτειν (i-mr-ew) to fall, from 4/PET,
to fall. See Syn- and Asymptote. Der. symptomat-ic, Gk.
συμπτωματικύς, adj., from συμπτωματ-, stem of σύμπτω-μα; sympto-
mat-t-cal, -ἶν.
SYN, prefix, together. (L.—Gk.; or F.—L.—Gk.) A Latinised
spelling of Gk. σύν, together. Cf. Gk. ξύν, together; a form not
clearly explained. B. The prefix σύν becomes συλ- (syl-) before
1, συμ- (sym-) before ὁ, m, p, and ph, and av- (sy-) before s or z;
as in syllogism, symbol, symmetry, sympathy, symphony, system, syzygy.
SYN ASRESIS, the taking of two vowels together, whereby they
coalesce into a diphthong. (L.—Gk.) A grammatical term. Spelt
sineresis in Minsheu.mL. syn@resis.= Gk. συναίρεσις, lit. a taking
together. —Gk. σύν, together ; and αἵρεσις, a taking, from αἱρεῖν, to
take. See Syn- and Heresy. Cf. Diwresis.
SYNAGOGUE, a congregation of Jews. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME.
synagoge, Wyclif, Matt. iv. 23.—F. synagogue, ‘a synagogue ;’ Cot.
—L. synagoga. = Gk. συναγωγή, a bringing together, assembly, con-
gregation.=—Gk. σύν, together; and dywyn (=dy-wy-7), a bringing,
from ἄγειν, to bring, drive; a reduplicated form, from 4/AG, to
drive.
SYNALCEPHA, a coalescence of two syllables into. one.
(L.—Gk.) A grammatical term; in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L.
synalepha.= Gk. συναλοιφή, lit. a melting together. — Gk. σύν, to-
gether; and ἀλείφειν, to anoint with oil, to daub, blot out, efface,
whence ἀλοιφή, fat. The Gk. ἀλείφειν is allied to λίπ-ος, fat; cf.
Skt. Zi, to besmear, anoint.
SYNCHRONISM, concurrence in time. (Gk.) Blount, ed.
1674, says the word is used by Sir W. Raleigh. = Gk. συγχρονισμός,
agreement of time.—Gk. σύγχρον-ος, contemporaneous ; with suffix
τισμος, from -ίζειν. -« Gk. σύγ- (written for σύν before x), together ; and
χρόνος, time. See Syn- and Chronicle. Der. synchronous. adapted
from Gk, avyxpovos, adj.
SYNCOPATE, to contract a word. (L.—Gk.) In Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. syncopatus, pp. of syncopare, of which the
usual sense is ‘to swoon.’=L. syncope, syncopa, a swooning; also
syacope, as a gram. term.=Gk. συγκοπή, a cutting short, syncope in
grammar, a loss of strength, a swoon.=Gk. ovy- (written for σύν
before «), together; and κοπ-, base of κόπτειν, to cut. See Syn-
and Apocope. Der. syxcopat-ion, a musical term, which Blount
says is in Playford’s Introd. to Music, p. 28. Also syncope, as a
grammat. term, also a swoon, spelt sincopin (acc.), Lanfrank, p. 205,
from L. syncope<iGk. συγκοπή, as above.
SYNDIC, a government official, one who assists in the trans-
action of business. (F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt sindick in Minsheu, ed.
1627.—F. syndic, ‘a syndick, censor, controller of manners ;’ Cot. =
L. syndicus.—Gk, σύνδικος, adj., helping in a court of justice; as
sb., a syndic.—Gk. σύν, with; and δίκη, justice. The orig. sense
of δίκ-η is a showing, hence a course, custom, use, justice; from
dic-, weak grade of 4/DEIK, to show, See Syn- and Diction.
Der. syndic-ate, a coined word.
SYNECDOCHE, a figure of speech whereby a part is put for
the whole. (L.—Gk.) Spelt sinecdoche in Minsheu, ed. 1627; but
synecdoche, Caxton, Golden Legend, The Resurrection, ὃ 1.—L.
synecdoché. = Gk. συνεκδοχή, lit. a receiving together. — Gk. συνεκδέχο-
μαι, I join in receiving. = Gk. ody, together ; and ἐκδέχομαι, 1 receive,
SYNOD
compounded of ἐκ, out, and δέχομαι (Ionic δέκομαι), I receive, from
4/DEK, to take. See Syn-, Ex-.
SYNOD, a meeting, ecclesiastical council. (F.—L.—Gk.)
* Synodes and counsayles ;’ Sir T. More, Works, p, 406 ἢ. =F. synxode,
“a synod ;” Cot.—L. syxodum, acc. of synodus,— Gk. σύνοδος, a
meeting, lit. a coming together.—Gk, σύν, together ; and ὁδός, a way,
here, a coming, from 4/SED, to go. See Method. Der. synod-ic,
from Gk. συνοδικός, adj. 3 synod-ic-al, synod-ic-al-ly,
SYNONYM, a word having the same sense with another.
(F.—L.—Gk.) The form is French ; in old books it was usual to
write synonima, which, by a curious blunder, was taken to be a fem.
sing. instead of a neut. pl., doubtless because the L. synonyma was
only used in the plural; and, indeed, the sing. is seldom required,
since we can only speak of synonyms when we are considering more
words than one, Synonima is used as a sing. by Cotgrave and
Blount. =F. syzonime, ‘a synonima, a word having the same signifi-
cation which another hath;’ Cot. - L. synényma, neut. pl., synonyms;
or like name.=—Gk. σύν, with; and ὄνομα, a name, cognate with E.
name ; see Syn- and Name. Der. synonymous, Englished from L.
adj. syndnymus, as above ; synonymous-ly; synonym-y, L. syxdnymia,
from Gk. συνωνυμία, likeness of name.
SYNOPSIS, a general view of a subject. (L.—Gk.) Spelt
sinopsis in Minsheu, ed. 1627. —L. synopsis. —Gk. σύνοψις, a seeing
all together.—Gk. σύν, together; and ὄψις, a seeing, sight; οἷ
ὄψ-ομαι, fut. from base ém-, to see. See Syn- and Optics. Der.
synopt-ic, from Gk. adj. συνοπτικός, seeing all together; syxopt-ic-
al, -ly.
SYNTAX, the arrangement of words in sentences. (L.—Gk.)
In Ben Jonson, Eng. Grammar, b. ii. c. 13 spelt sizéaxis in Minsheu,
ed. 1627.—L. syntaxis.—Gk. σύνταξις, an arrangement, arranging.
—Gk. σύν, together; and τάξις, order, from τάσσειν (for ἔτάκ-γειν),
to arrange, See Syn- and Tactics. Der. syntact-ic-al, due to
Gk. συντακτός, adj., put in order ; syxtact-ic-al-ly.
SYNTHESIS, composition, combination. (L.—Gk.) In Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674, s.v. Synthetical. L, synthesis.—Gk. σύνθεσις, a
putting together.—Gk. σύν, together; and θέσις, a putting; see |
Syn- and Thesis, Der. syn¢het-ic-al, due to Gk. adj. συνθετικός,
skilled in putting together, from συνθέτης, a putter together, where
θε- is the weak grade of 67-, to put, and -77s is the suffix denoting the
agent (Idg. -ta-); sythet-ic-al-ly.
SYPHON, SYREN, inferior spellings of Siphon, Siren,
q.v. Cot. has the F. spelling syphox; also siphon.
SYRINGE, a tube with a piston, for ejecting fluids. (F.—L.
—Gk.) The g was prob. once hard, not as j7. Cot., however,
already has siringe.— MF. syringue, ‘a siringe, a squirt ;’ Cot.—L.
syringem, acc, of syrinx, a reed, pipe, tube.—Gk. σῦριγξ, a reed,
pipe, tube, shepherd’s pipe, whistle. From the Gk. base oup-, to
perforate; with suffix -:yé as in φόρμ-ιγξ, wAdot-ryg. Brugmann,
i. § 230. Der. syring-a, a flowering shrub so named because the
stems were used for the manufacture of Turkish pipes; see Eng.
Cycl., s.v. Syringa,
SYRUP, SIRUP, a kind of sweetened drink. (F.—Span.—
Arab.) ‘Spicery, sawces, and siropes ;’ Fryth’s Works, p. 99, col. 1.
— MF. syrop, ‘sirrop;’ Cot. Mod. F. sirop; OF. ysserop (Littré). =
MSpan, xarope, a medicinal drink (Span, jarope) ; the OF. ysserop is
due to a Span. form axarope, where a represents al, the Arab.
article. Arab. sharab, shurab, wine or any beverage, syrup; lit. a
beverage; Rich. Dict. p. 886,—Arab, root shariba, he drank; id.
Ρ. 887. See Sherbet.
SYSTEM, method. (L.—Gk.) It is not an old word in F.,
and seems to have been borrowed from Latin directly. Spelt systeme
in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. systéma.—Gk. σύστημα (stem
gvoTnpat-), a complex whole, put together; a system. —Gk. ov-
(for σύν before σὺ, together; and the base στη-, to stand; with
suffix -yat- (Idg. -mant-). The base στη- occurs in στῆναι, to
stand; from 4/STA, to stand; see Stand. Der. system-at-ic,
from Gk. adj. συστηματικός, adj., formed from ovorypar-, stem of
σύστημα; system-at-ic-al, -ly; system-at-ise, a coined word* system-
at-is-ere
SYSTOLE, contraction of the heart, shortening of a syllable.
(Gk.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Englished (with y for v) from
Gk. συστολή, a contracting, drawing together. Gk. συστολ-, and
grade of συστέλλειν, to draw together, contract.—Gk. ov- (for σύν
before σὺ), together; and στέλλειν, to equip, set in order. See Syn-
and Stole.
SYZYGY, conjunction. (Gk.) A modern term in astronomy, =
Gk. συζυγία, union, conjunction. Gk. σύζυγος, conjoined. Gk. ov-
(for σύν before ¢), together ; and (vy-, weak grade of ζεύγνυμι, Tjoin
(cf. @yov, a yoke), from the 4/YEUG, to join. See Syn- and
Yoke; and conipare Conjunction.
TABOUR, TABOR
ΤΆΣ
TAB, a small flap or strip, usually attached at one end. (E.)
Prob, allied to ¢ape; cf. AS. zeppe, a tape, fille. See Tape.
TABARD, a sleeveless coat, formerly worn by ploughmen,
noblemen, and heralds, now by heralds only. (F.—L.?) ME. 2α-
bard, Rob, of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 280, 1, 2; Chaucer, C. T.
543 (A §41).=OF, abart, tabard; see a quotation in Roquefort with
the spelling ¢abar¢; mod, F. tabard (Hamilton, omitted in Littré),
Ducange gives an OF. form ¢ribart. Cf. Span. and Port. tabardo ;
Ital, ¢abarro, The last form (like MF. ¢abarre in Cotgrave) has lost
afinaldor ¢ [The ΝΥ. ¢abar is borrowed from English.] We also
625
| find a MHG. ¢apfart, taphart; and even a mod. Gk, ταμπάριον.
from the adj. syndnymus, synonymous. = Gk. συνώνυμος, of like meaning |
B. Etym, unknown ; Diez suggests L, ¢apét-, stem of tapéte, hangings,
painted cloths; but this is unlikely, Cf. MItal. and 1, trabea, a
robe of state.
TABBY, a kind of waved silk. (F.—Span.—Arab.) Chiefly
retained in the expression ‘ a ¢abby cat,’ i. 6. a cat brindled or diversi-
fied in colour, like the markings on ¢abby. “ Tabby, akind of waved
silk ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.—F. zabis, in use in the 15th century
(Littré) ; also OF. atabis, Godefroy. — Span, zabi, a silken stuff ; Low
L. (or rather OSpan.) attabi, where at was supposed (but wrongly)
to represent the Arab. article al, and so came to be dropped. Cf
“ἢ panno Attaby’ (mispr. Accaby); Earl of Derby’s Expeditions,
Camden Soc., p. 283, 1. 24.— Arab. “‘utabi, a kind of rich undulated
silk; Rich. Dict. p. 992. See Devic, who calls it an Arab. word
(Rich. marks it Pers.). He adds that it was the name of a quarter
of Bagdad where this silk was made (Defrémery, Journal Asiatique,
Jan. 1862, p. 94); and that this quarter took its name from prince
Attab, great-grandson of Omeyya (Dozy, Gloss. p. 343). 4 Hence
perhaps tabin-et, spelt ¢abbinet in Webster, and explained, as ‘a more
delicate kind of tabby ;’ from Ital. zabin-o, tabine, tabby (Torriano).
But Trench, Eng. Past and Present, tells us that it was named from
M, Tabinet, a French Protestant refugee, who introduced the making
of ¢abinet in Dublin; for which statement he adduces no reference or
authority. Cf. ¢abine, in ‘ Cloth of tissue or ¢abine,’ Middleton, Any-
thing for a Quiet Life, ii. 2 (Ὁ. D.).
TABERNACLE, a tent used as a temple, a tent. (F.—L.)
ME. tabernacle, Rob. of Glouc. p. 20,1. 466. - Ἐς tabernacle, ‘ a taber-
nacle,’ (οἱ. - Τι. tabernaculum, double dimin. of ¢aberna, a hut, shed ;
see Tavern.
TABID, wasted by disease. (F.—L.) Rare; in Phillips, ed. 1706.
“Εν abide, consuming, wasting; Cot.—L, ¢abidus, wasting away,
decaying, languishing.— L. ¢abés, a wasting away; tabére, to waste
away, languish. Allied to Gk. τήκειν, in the same sense; and to E.
thaw. See Thaw. Der. /abe-fy, to cause to melt, Blount’s Gloss.,
from MF. ¢abifier, to waste (Cot.), due to L. ¢abefacere, to cause
to melt.
TABLE, a smooth board, usually supported on legs. (F.—L.)
ME. ¢able, Chaucer, C. T. 355 (A 353).<F. table. mL. tabula, a
plank, flat board, table. Der. table-s, pl. sb., a kind of game like
backgammon, played on flat boards, Rob, of Glouc. p. 192, 1. 3965;
table, verb, Cymb. i. 4. 6; table-book, Hamlet, ii. 2. 1363 zable-talk,
Merch, Ven. iii. 5. 93 ¢able-land, land flat like a table; ¢abl-et,
Cymb. ν. 4. 109, from Εἰ, ¢ablette, ‘a little table,’ Cot., dimin. of F.
table. Also tabul-ar, tabul-ate, from L. tabula. Also tabl-eax,
borrowed from F. tableau, dimin. of table, Also taffer-el, q.v. ; en
tabla-ture.
TABOO, TABU, to forbid approach to, forbid the use of.
(Polynesian.) ‘ Z'aboo, a political prohibition and religious consecra-
tion interdict, formerly of great force among the mhabitants of the
islands of the Pacific ; hence, a total prohibition of intercourse with,
or approach to anything ;’ Webster. ‘ South-Sea-Isle¢aboo;’ Tenny-
son, Princess, iii. 261. Kotzebue mentions the ‘ Tabu, or interdict ;”
New Voyage round the World, 1830, ii. 178. The E. pron. of New
Zealand (Maori) ¢apu, consecrated or forbidden ; pron. ¢ambu in the
Solomon Isles. See E. E. Morris, Austral. Dict.
TABOUR, TABOR, a small drum. (F.—Span.—Arab.) ME.
tabour, Havelok, 2329.—OF, and MF. ¢abour,‘a drum, a tabor;’
Cot. Mod. F. tambour ; Littré gives the spellings tabur, 11th cent. ;
tabour, 13th to 16thcentury. Cf. Prov. ¢abor, ¢anbor (cited by Littré) ;
Span. ¢ambor, MSpan. atambor (Minsheu) ; Ital. samburo. The F.
word was most likely borrowed from Span. zambor, also called
atambor, where the prefix a- stands for the Arab, def. art. al, showing
that the word was borrowed from the Moors. = Arab, Zambir, ‘a kind
of lute or guitar with a long neck, and six brass strings; also, a
drum;” Rich. Dict., p. 976. He gives it also as a Pers. word, and
$s
626 TABULAR, TABULATE
Devic seems to think that the word was borrowed from Persian.
The initial letter is the 19th of the Pers. alphabet, sometimes written
th, not the ordinary ὁ. On the same page of Rich. Dict. we also find
Pers. Zumbuk, a trumpet, clarion, bagpipe, fambal, a small drum ; also
Arab. fabl, a drum, a tambourin, Pers. ¢ablak, a small drum, p. 964.
Also Pers, ¢abir (with the ordinary 2), a drum, kettle-drum, a large
pipe, flute, or hautboy, p. 365; taburak, a drum, tabour, tambourin,
a drum beaten to scare away birds, p. 364. See the account in
Devic, who considers the form fambir as derived from Pers. ¢abir ;
and the form ¢abirak to be dimin. of Pers. *¢abur, a form not found.
β. It will be observed that the sense comprises various instruments
that make a din, and we may note Port. a¢abale, a kettle-drum, from
a for al, the Arab. article, and Pers. ¢ambal,a drum. All the above
words contain a base ¢ab, which we may regard, with Mr. Wedgwood,
as being of imitative origin, like the English dub-a-dub and tap. This
is rendered likely by the occurrence of Arab. Zabtabat, the sound
made by the dashing of waterfalls ; Rich. Dict. 963; cf. Arab. ¢abbal,
a drummer, ibid. Der. tabor-er, Temp. ili. 2. 160; sabour-ine,
Antony, iv. 8. 37, from F. ¢abourin, ‘a little drum,’ Cot.; /abour-et,
Bp. Hall, Sat. iv. 1. 78, a dimin. form; shortened to ¢abre?, Gen.
xxxi. 27. And see zambourine.
TABULAR, TABULATE; see Table.
TACHE (1), a fastening. (F.—Teut.) In Exod. xxvi. 6. ‘A
tache, a buckle, a claspe, a bracelet, Spinter;’ Baret, s.v. Claspe.
A palatalised form of tack; cf. beseech for beseek, church for kirk, &c. 3
esp. the derived words att-ach, de-tach. Minsheu, ed. 1627, gives:
‘To tache, or tacke.” ME. tache, Voc. 564. 2. We find AF. ¢aches,
pl., pegs, Year-books of Edw. I., 1304-5, p. 53.— OF. tache, a nail,
fastening (Godefroy).—EFries. (Low G.) fake, a point, prick, thorn,
allied to tak, takke, a pointed thing, a twig; Low G. ¢akk, a pointed
thing. See Tack.
TACHE (2), a blot, blemish; see Tetchy.
TACIT, silent. (L.) In Milton, Samson, 430. No doubt directly
from L., though Cot. gives F. ¢acite, ‘silent. =L. ¢acitus, silent.
=L. tacére, to be silent. Cognate with Goth. ‘hakan, to be silent,
Icel. Jegja, Swed. tiga, to be silent. Der. facit-urn, from Εἰ, taci-
turne, ‘silent,’ Cot. ; tacit-urn-i-ty, Troilus, iv. 2. 75, from F, tacitur-
nité, ‘taciturnity, Cot.; from L. ace. taciturnitatem, Also re-ticent.
TACK, asmall nail, a fastening; to fasten. (F.—Teut.) ME. ¢akke.
‘Takke, or botun, Fibula,’ Prompt. Parv.; where we also find:
* Takkyn, or festyn to-gedur, or some-what sowyn to-gedur.’ The sb.
is spelt tak, Legends of Holy Rood, ed. Morris, p.145,1.419. [The
Trish faca, a peg, pin, nail, fastening ; Gael. ¢acaid, a tack, peg, stab;
Breton tach, a nail, tacha, to fasten with a nail, are borrowed words. }
“0. North Εἰ taque (OF. tache), a fastening, nail (Godefroy) ; a peg,
clothes-peg (Moisy, 5. ν. ¢aqgue).—EFries. and Dan. takke, Low G.
zakk, a tine, a pointed thing; Westphal. /acke, a tack; G. zacke,a
tooth, tine, prong, twig. Allied to EFries. ¢ak, a twig,a bough, Du.
tak, a twig. 2. The nautical use of ¢ack is from the same source.
‘In nautical language a ¢ack is the rope which draws forward the
lower corner of a square sail, and fastens it to the windward side
of the ship in sailing transversely to the wind, the ship being on the
starboard or larboard tack according as it presents its right or left
side to the wind; the ship is said ¢o ¢ack when it turns towards the
wind, and changes the ¢ack on which it is sailing ;’ Wedgwood.
See Tache (1) and Zigzag. Cf. to tack, to sew slightly, fasten
slightly. Der. ¢ache, q.y.; and see ¢ack-le. Also tack-et, a small
nail (Levins).
TACKLE, equipment, implements, gear, tools. (Low G.) ME.
takel, Chaucer, C. T. 106; Gen. and Exodus, ed. Morris, 883 ; ¢aki/,
the tackle of a ship, Gower, C. A. iii., bk. viii. 470.—Low G.
takel, tackle; takeln, to equip; MDu. ¢aeckelen, the tackling of ships,
taeckel, ‘munition, riggings,’ Hexham; Du. Ζαζεῖ, tackle, takelen, to
rig; whence Swed. and MSwed. tackel, tackle of a ship (Ihre), tackla,
to rig; Dan. takkel, tackle, takle, to rig. B. The suffix -el is used
to form substantives from verbs, as in E, se¢¢-Je, sb., a thing to sit on,
from sit, stopp-le from stop, shov-el from shove, shutt-le from shoot,
gird-le from gird, and denotes the implement. Tack-Je is that which
takes or grasps, holding the masts, &c. firmly in their places; from
Icel. taka, MSwed. taka (mod. Swed. taga), to take, seize, grasp,
hold, which had a much stronger sense than the mod. Εἰ. ¢ake; cf.
Icel. ¢ak, a grasp in wrestling, ¢aka, a seizing, capture; and observe
the wide application of ¢ackle in the sense of implements or gear.
Cf. MDnu. éaeckel, ‘a rope to drawe a boate ;” Hexham. y- Often
derived from W. ¢acl, an instrument, tool, tackle; but the W. word
was borrowed from E. Der. tackl-ing, Rich. III, iv. 4. 233.
TACT, peculiar skill, delicate handling. (L.) Modern; Webster
gives examples from Macaulay. ‘Todd says: ‘ Tact, touch, an old
word, long disused, but of late revived in the secondary senses of
touch, as a masterly or eminent effort, and the power of exciting
the affections.’ He then cites a passage containing ‘ sense of fact,’
TAIL
i.e. touch, from Ross, Arcana Microcosmi (1652), p. 66.—L. /actus,
touch.<L. zactus, pp. of fangere, to touch; see Tangent. Der.
tact-able, that may be touched, Massinger, Parl. of Love, ii. 1.8, a
coined word, made to rime with ¢ractable; tact-ile, from L. tactilis,
tangible; tact-ion, a touching, Blount.
TACTICS, the art of arranging or manceuvring forces. (Gk.)
‘ And teaches all the ¢actics;’ Ben Jonson, Staple of News, iv. 1
(Lickfinger).—Gk. τακτικά, sb. pl., military tactics. Gk. τακτικός,
adj., fit for arranging, belonging to tactics. Gk. τακτός, ordered,
arranged ; verbal adj. from τάσσειν (<7ax-yew), to arrange, order.
Of uncertain origin; Curtius, ii. 328. The base is either TAK,
Fick, i. 588; or TAG (Prellwitz). Der. /actic, adj., from Gk.
τακτικός 3 tactic-i-an, a coined word.
TADPOLE, a young frog in its first stage, having a tail. (E.)
‘Young frogs, . . . whiles they be ¢adpoles and have little wriggling
tailes;” Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxxii. c. 10. ME. zadpolle, Voc.
766. 20; taddepol, 569. 7. Called bull-head in Cotgrave ; he has:
‘Chabot, the little fish called a gull, bull-head, or miller’s thumbe ;
also the little water-vermine called a bull-head. Also: ‘ Testard,
the pollard, or chevin fish, also the little black water-vermine called
a buill-head.’ Observe that F. chabot is from L. caput, a head (cf. L.
capito, a fish with a large head); that ¢estard is from OF. teste, a
head; that chevin is from F. chef,a head ; and that bull-head contains
the E. head; the striking feature about the adpfole is that it appears
nearly all head, with a little tail attached which is afterwards
dropped. See Wedgwood, who adducesalso E. dial. poll-head, Lowl.
Sc. pow-head, a tadpole (which merely repeat the notion of head), E.
dial. polwiggle, pollywig, a tadpole, with which we may compare
wiggle or waggle, to wag the tail. B. Hence ¢ad-pole=toad-poll,
the oad that seems all poll; see Toad and Poll. The former part
is from AS. /ad-ige, a toad, with loss of suffix, and shortening of ἃ
before dp.
TAEL, a Chinese weight, about 1} 0z.; the chief Chinese money
ofaccount. (Malay.) Called Jiang in Chinese ; see Yule. A Malay
word, = Malay ahil, a certain weight.
TAENTA, a fillet, a tape-worm. (L.—Gk.) L. ¢aenia, —Gk.
ταινία, a band, fillet, strip. Gk. τείνειν, to stretch. Allied to Thin.
TAFFEREL, TAFFRAIML, the upper part of the stern of
a ship. (Du.—L.) ‘ Tafferel, the uppermost part, frame, or rail
of a ship behind, over the poop;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. — Du. tafereel,
a pannel, a picture; Hexham explains it by ‘a painter’s table or
board,’ and adds the dimin. tafereelken, ‘a tablet, or a small board.’
The ¢affrail is so called because it is flat like a table on the top, and
sometimes ornamented with carved work; cf. G. τἀ εἰ, boarded
work, flooring, wainscoting. B. The Du. ¢afer-eel stands for
*tafel-eel, a dimin, from Du. tafel, a table ; just as G. ¢afelet is from
G, tafel, a table. The Du. and G, ¢afel are not to be considered as
Teut. words; the MHG. form is ¢avele, OHG. tavela, borrowed from
L. tabula, a table. See Table. 4 The spelling ¢affrail is prob.
due to confusion with Εἰ. rail.
TAFFETA, TAFFETY, a thin glossy silk stuff, with a wavy
lustre. (F.—Ital.—Pers.) ‘ Tafata, a maner of sylke, ‘¢affetas ;’
Palsgrave. ME. faffata, Chaucer, C. T. 442 (A 440). Taffata
occurs in 1324; Wardrobe Acct. 18 Edw. II. 24. 17, Q. R.; see
N. and Q. 8 8. i. 120.- Ε΄ taffetas, ‘taffata;’ Cot. Ital. /affeta,
“taffeta ;’ Florio.— Pers. ¢aftah, ‘twisted, woven, a kind of silken
cloth, taffeta;’? Rich. Dict. p. 356.—Pers. ¢aftan, to twist, to spin,
curl, &c.; see Horn, ὃ 372. See Tapestry.
TAG, a point of metal at the end of a lace, anything tacked on at
the end of a thing. (Scand.) ‘An aglet or sag of a poynt;’ Baret,
ed. 1580. ‘Are all thy points so voide of Reasons faggs?’ Gas-
coigne, Fruites of War, st. 61. A ‘point’ was a tagged lace; cf.
‘ Tag of a poynt, Ferretum ;’ Levins. Swed. ‘agg, a prickle, point,
tooth; Norw. ¢agge,a tooth, cog.4Pomeran. tagg, a point, tack ;
Low G. takk, a point, tooth. B. The Low G. takk is the same
word as Εν tack, a small nail, and G, zacke, a tooth, tine, prong.
See Tack, Tache. Der. tag, verb; ‘ag-rag, used by Stanyhurst
(tr. of Virgil, ed. Arber, p. 21) to mean ‘to small pieces,’ but usual
in the sense of ‘ every appendage and shred,’ a shortened form of tag
and rag, as in ‘they all came in, both tagge and ragge,’ Spenser,
State of Ireland, Globe ed., p. 662, col. 2. So also tag and rag,
Whitgift’s Works, i. 315 (Parker Soc.). So also tag-rag-and-bobtail,
where bobtail=short or bunchy tail, from bob, a bunch; see Bob.
TAIL (1), the end of the back-bone of an animal, a hairy ap-
pendage, appendage. (E.) ME. fail, tayl, Chaucer, C. T. 3876
(A 3878). AS. tegl, tegel, a tail, Grein, ii. 523.4+Icel. tag, Swed.
tagel, hair of the tail or mane; Goth. ¢ag/, hair, Mark, i.6; G.
zagel, a tail. B. Root uncertain; it has been compared with Skt.
daca, the fringe ofa garment. Der. ¢ail-piece, a piece or small draw-
ing at the tail or end of a chapter or book. Also ¢ail-ed, Rich. Coer
de Lion, 1. 1868.
TAIL
TAIL (2), the term applied to an estate which is limited to
certain heirs. (F.—L.) Better spelt ¢ai/le. ‘This limitation, or
taille, is either general or special ;’ Cowel, in Todd’s Johnson ; see
the whole article.—F, ¢aille, ‘a cutting,’ &c.; Cot.; see Tally.
TAILOR, one who cuts out and makes cloth garments. (F.
—L.) Properly ‘a cutter.’ ME. ¢ailor, taylor, Rob. of Glouc.
p- 313, 1. 6394.—OF. tailleor, later tailleur, ‘a cutter;’ (οἱ. “Ἐς
tailler, to cut; cf. F. ¢aille, an incision, a slitting. — Late L. ἑα] ἄγε, to
cut; cf. ¢dlea, a thin rod, stick, also a cutting, slip, layer (an
agricultural word). See Diez, who cites from Nonius, 4. 472;
‘taleas scissiones lignorum vel prasegmina Varro dicit de re rust.
lib. I.; nam etiam nunc rustica voce intertaleare dicitur dividere vel
exscindere ramum.’ This verb intertaleare is preserved in the
Span. entretallar, to slash. Der. tailor-ing. And see tally, de-tail,
en-tail, re-tatl.
TAINT, a tinge, dye, stain, blemish. (F.—L.) In Shak. Macb.
iv. 3. 124. Cf. ME. faint, taynt, a disease in hawks; Book of
St. Albans, fol. b 2, back.=F. teint; MF. teinct, ‘a tincture, die,
stain ;” Cot. =F. teint, pp. of teindre, ‘to stain,’ id.—L. tingere; see
Tinge. Der. taint, vb., Romeo, i. 4. 76. @ Perhaps confused
with attaint, from tangere.
TAKE, to lay hold of, seize, grasp, get. (Scand.) ME, taken,
pt. t. tok, pp. taken, Chaucer, C. T. 572 (A 570); pp. ¢aké, id.
2649 (A 2647). Late AS. taken, A.S. Chron. an.1127. Nota true
AS. word, but borrowed from Norse.—Icel. taka, pt. t. 20k, pp.
tekinn, to lay hold of, seize, grasp (a very common word); Swed.
taga, MSwed. taka; Dan. tage.4Goth. ¢ékan, pt. t. taitok, pp.
tékans, to touch. Der. tak-ing, tak-ing-ly. Allied words are tack,
tache, tag, tack-le, attach, at-tack, de-tach.
TALC, a mineral occurring in thin flakes. (F.—Span. — Arab.)
* Oil of talc ;’? Ben Jonson, Epigram to the Small-pox; Underwoods,
ii. 11, And see Nares.—F. talc (Cot.).—Span. talco.— Arab. falq,
‘talc, mica;” Rich. Dict. p. 974.
TALE, a number, reckoning, narrative. (E.) ME. fale; see
Chaucer, Cant. Tales. AS. tel, a number, falu, a narrative; Grein,
ii. 521.4 Du. ¢aal, language, tongue, speech; Icel. ¢al, talk, a tale;
tala, a number, a speech; Dan. tale, speech; Swed. tal, speech,
number; G. zahl, number; OHG. zala. It is probable that Goth.
untals, uninstructed, ¢alzjan, to instruct, are related words. Der.
tale-bear-ing, tale-bear-er, tell-tale (Sherwood’s Index to Cotgrave
has ‘a tale-bearer or tell-tale’) ; tale-tell-er, P. Plowman, B. xx. 297.
Also ¢ell, q.v., talk, q.v.
TALENT, a weight or sum of money, natural gift or ability,
inclination. (F.—L.—Gk.) See Trench, Study of Words, and
Select Glossary. We derive the sense of ability from the parable in
Matt. xxv, our ¢alents being gifts of God. The ΜΕ, talent occurs
in the sense of will or inclination, from the figure of the inclination
or tilting of a balance. ME. ‘alent; whence mal-talent, ill-will,
Rom. of the Rose, 273, 330; and see Wyclif, Matt. xxv. 15; King
Alisaunder, 1280. =F. éalent, ‘a talent in mony ; also will, desire, an
earnest humour unto;’ Cot. =—L. talentum.— Gk. τάλαντον, a balance ;
a weight, weight or sum of money, talent. Named from the notion
of lifting and weighing; allied to τάλας (stem ταλαντ-Ὸ, bearing, en-
during, L. foll-ere, to lift, sustain, Skt. ἐμ, to lift, weigh, ¢ulana-,
lifting, ¢wda, a balance, weight. All from 4/TEL, to lift. See
Tolerate. Der. talent-ed, endued with talent, added by Todd to
Johnson, with the remark that the word is old ; he gives a quotation
from Archbp. Abbot, in Rushworth’s Collections, p. 449; which
book first appeared between 1659 and 1701, and treats of matters
from 1618-1648 ; see an excellent note on talented in Modern English,
by F. Hall, p. 70. Brugmann, i. § 580.
TALISMAN, a spell. (Span.—Arab.—Gk.) ‘In magic, ¢alis-
man, and cabal;’ Butler, Hudibras, pt.i.c. 1.1. 530. The F. is
also talisman, but is a late word; both F. and Ἐς words were prob.
taken directly from Spanish. —Span. ¢alisman, a magical character ;
also a doctor of the Mohammedan law, in which sense Littré notes
its use in French also.— Arab. ¢ilsaman, properly the pl. of ¢ilsam,
or filism, ‘a talisman or magical image, upon which, under a certain
horoscope, are engraved mystical characters, as charms against en-
chantment;’ Rich. Dict. p. 974.—Gk. τέλεσμα, a payment; used
in Late Gk. to mean initiation or mystery (Devic); cf. τελεσμός, an
accomplishment or completion. = Gk. τελέειν, to accomplish, fulfil,
complete, end; also, to pay.=Gk. τέλος, end, completion ; also,
initiation into a mystery ; whence the sense of the derived sb. τέλεσμα.
Der. talisman-ic.
TALK, to discourse. (E.) ME. talken, Wyclif, Luke, xxiv. 15 ;
and much earlier, in St. Marharete, p. 13, Ancren Riwle, p. 422.
Cf. EFries. talken, to talk ; ¢alke, a short tale. We may note that
the Harl. MS. actually has /alken in Chaucer, C. T., where the Six-
text (A 772) has falen in all the MSS. And we may compare the
Low Ὁ. taalke, (1) ajackdaw, (2) α talkative woman. B. Apparently
TAMBOUR
627
extended (like wal-k, q.v.) from AS. tal-, as in éal-u, a tale, tal-ian,
to account, with suffix -4, which seems to give a frequentative force.
Cf. Icel. ¢al-a, Swed. /al-a, Dan. tal-e, to talk. See Tale. So
also AS. ¢am-c-ian, to tame (Napier); from fam, tame. Der.
talk-er ; talk-at-ive, a strangely coined word, spelt ¢alcatife in The
Craft of Lovers, st. 4, pr. in Chaucer’s Works, ed. 1561, fol. 341.
Hence talk-at-ive-ly, -ness.
TALL, high in stature, lofty. (E. or C.) Two distinct words
appear with this spelling: (1) fall, in the sense of ‘serviceable,’ or
‘valiant,’ which is obsolescent; and (2) ¢all, in the sense of ‘high in
stature.’ 1, The former is English ; see Trench, Select Glossary.
ME. tal. ‘Tal, or semely, Decens, elegans;’ Prompt. Pary. ‘So
humble and ¢al/e ;’ Chaucer, Compl. of Mars, 1. 38, where the sense
appears to be ‘ obedient or docile, or obsequious.’ In old plays it
means “ valiant, fine, bold, great;’ Halliwell. In the Plowman’s
Tale, st. 3, uztall seems to mean ‘ poorly clad.’ Allied to AS. ge-tal,
quick, prompt; AS. -¢@/, as in léof-tel, friendly. Also to OHG.
gi-zal, quick; and further, to Goth. ¢als, only used in the comp.
un-tals, indocile, uninstructed. Note also the forms un-tala, un-tale,
bad, used to gloss mali in the Northumb. Gospels, Matt. xxvii. 23.
2. Perhaps, in the sense of ‘lofty,’ the word may be Celtic. We
find al, tall, high, both in W. and Cornish; Williams instances tal
carn, the high rock, in St. Allen. It is remarkable that the Irish
talla means ‘ meet, fit, proper, just.’ Further light is desired as to
this dificult word. Der. tall-ness.
TALLAGHE, a tribute; see Tally.
TALLOW, fat of animals melted. (E.) ME. ¢algh, Reliquice
Antiq. i. 53; ¢alw3, Eng. Gilds, p. 359, 1. 11; talwgh, Rich. Coer
de Lion, 1552. Cf. EFries. ¢alg, tallig, tallow.4+MDu. talgh, talch,
tallow, Hexham; mod. Du. ¢alk, Low G. talg; Dan. and Swed.
talg; Icel. tolgr, also tolg, tolk, The G. talg is borrowed from
Low 6. B. There is an AS. ¢elg, telg, a stain, dye, but its
connexion with ¢a//ow is very doubtful. If tallow meant ‘ hardened’
fat, cf. Goth. ¢ulgus, steadfast, firm. See Stearine.
TALLY, a stick cut or notched so as to match another stick,
used for keeping accounts; an exact match. (F.—L.) ME. ¢aille,
Chaucer, C. T. 572 (A 570); whence faillen, verb, to score on a
tally, P. Plowman, B. v. 429.—F. daille, ‘a notch, nick, incision,
notching, nicking; ... also, a tally, or score kept on a piece of
wood ;’ (οἵ. «Εἰ, tailler, to cut.—Late L. taleare, to cut; cf. L.
ialea, a slip of wood ; see Tailor. It is probable that the final -y
in ¢all-y is due to the frequent use of the F. pp. ¢aillé, ‘ cut, nicked,
notched,’ as applied to the piece of wood scored, in place of the sb.
taille. The final -y in lev-y, jur-y, pun-y is likewise due to the F.
pp. suffix. Der. ¢ally, verb; dally-shop. Also tallage, a tribute ;
ME. daylage, Chaucer, The Former Age, 54; OF. taillage
(Godefroy); from F. tailler, to cut, ‘also, to levy tributes on,’
Cot. And see en-tail, de-tail, tail-or.
TALMUD, the body of Hebrew laws, with comments. (Chaldee.)
See Talmud in Index to Parker Society. Spelt talmud, thalmud in
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674; talmud in Minsheu, ed. 1627 ; thalmud in
Cotgrave. —Chaldee ¢almiid, instruction, doctrine; cf. Heb. ¢almid,
a disciple, scholar, from Jamad, to learn, limmad, to teach.
TALON, the claw of a bird of prey. (F.—L.) Spelt talant in
Palsgrave (with excrescent¢ after). He gives: " Talant of a byrde,
the hynder clawe, ¢alon.’? Thus the talon was particularly used of
the bird’s hind claw. ME. /alon, Allit. Romance of Alexander,
54543 taloun, Mandeville’s Travels, in Spec. of Early English, part 11.,
p- 174, l. 130.—F. talon, ‘a heel;’ Cot.—Late L. ¢alonem, acc. of
talo, a heel. L. talus, heel.
TAMANDUA, an ant-eater. (Brazil.) From Guarani faman-
dud, (where ἃ is nasal) ; see Granada, Vocabulario Rioplatense.
TAMARIND, the fruit of an E. Indian tree. (F. —Span. — Arab.
and Pers.) Spelt ¢amarinde in Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. iii.
c. 6.—MF, tamarind, ‘a small, soft, and dark-red Indian date ;’ Cot.
Also tamarinde, ‘the Indian date-tree ;’ id. Span. tamarindo, (Cf.
Ital. ¢amarindo; Florio gives the Ital. pl. ¢amarindi, and Minsheu
the Span. pl. ¢amarindos, without mention of the sing. form.) - Arab.
tamr, a ripe date, a dry or preserved date ; and Hind, India; whence
tamy’ul Hind, a tamarind, lit. date of India; Rich. Dict. pp. 446,
1691. The Arab. ¢amr is allied to Heb. ‘amar, a palm-tree, occurring
in the Bible as Tamar, a proper name. The word Hind is borrowed
from Persian (which turns initial s into k), and is derived from Skt.
sindhu-, the river Indus ; see Indigo.
TAMARISK, the name of a tree. (L.) Spelt ¢amariske in
Minsheu, ed. 1627. Cf. MF. ¢amaris, ‘tamarisk, in Cot.; but the
E. word keeps the 4.—L. t¢amariscus, also tamarix, tamaricé, a
tamarisk. (The Gk. name is μυρίκη.) Hardly a L. word; perhaps
due to, or connected with Skt. amalaka-s, tamala-s, a tree with a
dark bark ; allied to tamas, darkness ; Fick, i. 593. See Dim.
TAMBOUR, a small drum-like circular frame, for embroidering.
$s 2
628 TAME
(Ὁ. —Span.— Arab.—Pers.?) In Todd’s Johnson.—F, tambour, a
drum, atambour; broder au tambour, to do tambour-work; Hamilton.
See further under Tabour. Der. tambour-ine, spelt tamburin in
Spenser, Shep. Kalendar, June, 1. 59, from F. tambourin, a tabor
(Hamilton), dimin. of F. tambour.
TAME, subdued, made gentle, domesticated. (E.) ME. tame,
Wyclif, Mark, ν. 4. AS. tam, Matt. xxi. 5 ; whence temian, vb.,
to tame, in Aélfric’s Colloquy (section on the Fowler), in Voc. p. 95.
Ἔα. tam; Icel. tamr; Swed. and Dan. tam; G. zahm. Cf. Goth.
gatamjan, to tame ; a causal verb. B. All from Teut. type *tamoz,
tame. Allied to Skt. dam, to be tame, also to tame, Gk. δαμάειν,
L. domare,totame. Der. tame, vb. ; tame-ly, -ness ; tam-er, tam-able ;
also (from same root) dawnt, q.v., ix-dom-it-able.
TAMMY, the same as Stamin, q.v. See Tamine in Nares.
TAMPER, to meddle, practise upon, play with. (F.—L.) ‘You
have been tampering, any time these three days Thus to disgrace
me;’ Beaum. and Fletcher, The Captain, iv. 2 (Jacomo). The same
word as ¢emper, but used in a bad sense; to temper is to moderate,
allay by influence, but is here made to mean to interfere with, to
influence in a bad way. Prob. Southern Ἐς Mistral gives ¢ampera
as the Limousin form of mod. Prov. tempera, vb., to temper. Godefroy
has tamprure asa variant of OF. ¢empreure, moderation. See Temper.
Doublet, temper.
TAMPION, a kind of plug. (F.—Teut.) ‘ Tampyon for a gon
[gun], tampon ;’ Palsgrave.—F. tampon, ‘a bung or stopple;’ Cot.
A nasalised form of tapon, ‘a bung or stopple;’ id. Formed with
suffix -on (L. -dnem) from OF. tampe, tape, a bung. Cotgr. gives
the Picard vb. taper (or ¢apper), ‘to bung, or stop with a bung.’ =
Du. fap, ‘a bunge or a stopple, Hexham; Low G. tappe, a tap,
bung. See Tap (2).
TAN, oak-bark or other bark used for converting hides into
leather. (F.—G.) The sb, is, etymologically, the orig. word, but
is rarely seen in books ; Levins has only fax as a verb. Rich. quotes
‘skinnes in ¢aw-tubs’ from Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. iii. p. 104.
The ME. ¢axuen, verb, to tan, occurs in Eng. Gilds, p. 358, 1. 16,
and the sb. ¢anner is common, as in P. Plowman, C. i. 223, &c.—F.
tan, ‘the bark of a young oak, wherewith leather is tanned ;’ Cot.
Cf. Bret. ¢ann, an oak, occasionally used (but rarely) with the sense
of tan; Legonidec.—G. tanne, a fir-tree; the names of oak and fir
seem to have been confused ; the OHG. tanna meant both " fir’ and
‘oak’ (Kluge). A High 6. form; cf. Du. den, a fir-tree, MDu.
dan, ‘abies, in Mone, Quellen, p. 302; Low (ἃ. danne, a fir-tree
(Liibben). Cf. Skt. dhanva, a bow. Der. tan, verb, as above;
tann-er ; tann-er-y, from F. tannerie, ‘tanning, also a tan-house,’
Cot. Also tann-ic, a coined word; tann-in, F. ¢anin (Hamilton),
a coined -word ; ¢an-ling, one scorched by the sun, Cymb. iv. 4. 29.
Also tawn-y, q.v- Also tan, to beat; Norm. dial. ¢anner la peau, to
tan one’s skin; Dubois.
TANDEM, applied to two horses harnessed one before the other
instead of side by side. (L.) So called because harnessed αὐ length,
by a pun upon the word in university slang Latin. —L. ¢audem, at
length.=L. tam, so, so far; and suffix -dem, allied to -dam in
qui-dam.
TANG (1), a strong or offensive taste, esp. of something ex-
traneous. (Scand.) ‘ Itis said of the best oyl that it hath no tast, that
is, no ang, but the natural gust of oyl therein ;’ Fuller, Worthies,
England (R.). ME. tang, a sting; Cath. Angl. (1483). See
Tang (2). Soalso ME. ‘ongge, ‘scharpnesse of lycure intastynge ;’
Prompt. Pary. Cf. MDu. ‘anger, ‘sharpe, or tart upon the tongue;
tangere kaese, tart or byting cheese;” Hexham. The lit. sense of
tanger is ‘ pinching ;’ from Du. ‘ang,a pair of tongs, pincers, nippers ;
cognate with E. tongs. See E.D.D. Cf. MHG. zanger, sharp,
sharp-tasted ; AS. ge-tixgan, to press hard upon (pt. t. ge-tang).
TANG (2), the part of a knife which goes into the haft, the
tongue of a buckle, the prong of a fork. (Scand.) See Halliwell;
who cites: ‘A tange of a knyle, piramus;’? see Cath. Angl. (1483).
It also meansa bee’s sting. ‘ Pugio,atange;’ Voc. 703. 27. “ Tongge
of a bee, Acweus; Tougge of a knyfe, Pirasmus;? Prompt. Parv.—
Icel. ¢angi, a spit or projection of land; the pointed end by which
the blade of a knife is driven into the handle, allied to tong (gen.
tangar), a smith’s tongs; ¢engja, to fasten. So called because it is
the part nipped and held fast by the handle; so the tongue of a buckle
(corrupted from fang of a buckle) nips and holds fast the strap; the
bee’s sting nips or stings. The form ‘org in the Prompt. Pary.
answers to the sing. of E. gongs. See Tongs.
TANG (3), to make ashrillsound. (E.) Shak. has it both as
50. and verb, ‘A tongue with a ‘ang,’ i.e. with a shrill sound,
Temp. ii. 2.52. ‘Let thy tongue ¢ang,’ i.e. ring out; Tw. Nb ii.
5. 163, ili. 4. 78. An imitative word, allied to tizg, whence the
frequentative tingle; also to tink, whence the frequent. tinkle. Cf.
Prov. E. ting-tang, the saints-bell ; ingle-tangle, a small bell, which
TANSY
occurs in Randolph’s Amintas (1640); Halliwell. So also MDu.
tinge-tangen, totinkle; Hexham. Cf. MF. ¢antan (τ με ate , ‘the
bell that hangs about the neck of a cow;’ Cot. See Tingle,
Tinker, Twang.
TANG (4), sea-weed; see Tangle.
TANGENT, a line which meets a circle, and, being produced,
does not cut it. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. tangent-,
touching, stem of pres. part. of tangere (base tag-), to touch; pp.
tactus.+Gk. base tay-, to touch, seen in τεταγών, taking. Der.
tangent-i-al, in the direction of the tangent, Tatler, no. 43 ; tangenc-y ;
also (from pp. tactus) tact. And see tang-ible, task, taste, tax. Also
attain, attainder, attaint, con-tact, con-tagion, con-taminate, con-tiguous,
con-tingent, entire, in-teger, redintegration.
TANGIBLE, perceptible by the touch, that can be realised.
(F.—L.) In Cotgrave. =F. tangible, ‘tangible ;’ Cot.—L. tangibilis,
touchable; formed with suffix -bilis from éangere, to touch; see Tan-
gent. Der. tangibl-y, tangibili-ty.
TANGLE, to interweave, knot together confusedly, ensnare.
(Scand.) ‘I ¢angell thynges so togyther that they can nat well be
parted asonder, Fembrouille;’ Palsgrave. Levins has the comp.
entangle. To tangle is ‘to keep twisting together like sea-weed ;’
a frequentative verb from zang, 50. (also ‘angle, sb.), sea-weed,
a Northern word. Cf, tangle, a stalk of sea-weed ; in Leslie’s Hist.
of Scotland, i. 62 (1596; S.T.S.).—Dan. fang, Swed. tdng, Icel.
ang, kelp or bladder-wrack, a kind of sea-weed ; whence the idea of
confused heap. We also find the dimin. Icel. Adngull, sea-weed ;
Norw. ¢ongul, a tangle-stalk. Cf. Norman dialect zangon (a Norse
word), explained by Métivier as Fucus flagelliformis. (The G.
tang, sea-weed, was borrowed from Scand. ; for it begins with ¢, not
d.) All from Teut. base *thang-; see Tight. B. We also find
tangle in the sense of sea-weed (Halliwell); and the verb to tangle
may have been made directly from it. It makes no great difference ;
cf. Icel. Jongull, as above; Norw. tengel, a stalk of sea-weed. Der.
tangle, sb., which seems to be a later word than the verb, Milton,
P. L. ix. 6325 en-tangle, q.v.
TANIST, a presumptive heir to a prince. (Irish.) Spelt éaniscik
in Spenser, View of Ireland, Globe ed., p. 611.—Irish tanaiste, the
presumptive or apparent heir to a prince. — Olrish ¢anaise, second in
rank, See Macbain. Der. fanist-ry, a coined word, to signify the
custom of electing a ¢anis¢; also in Spenser, as above.
TAWK, a large cistern. (Port.—L.) In Sir T. Herbert, Travels,
ed. 1665, p. 66; and at p. 43 in another edition (Todd). Also in
Dryden, Don Sebastian, ii. 2. The same word as Stank, αν.
The form tank is Portuguese, which is the only Romance language
that drops the initial s.— Port. ¢angue, a tank, pond; the same word
as Span. estangue, OF. estanc, Prov. estanc, stanc, a pond, dam of
water; from Port. and Span. estancar, to stanch, stop.—Late L.
stancare, to stanch. Ultimately from L. stagnum, a pool; see
Stank, Stanch, Stagnant. 4 See 7 νὰ in Yule.
TANKARD, a large vessel for holding drink. (F.—Teut.)
ME. tankard, used to translate L. amphora, Voc. 563. 28; also in
Lydgate, Ballad of Jack Hare, st. 2; and in Prompt. Parv.—MF.
tanquard, ‘a tankard, in Rabelais;’ Cot. Cf. MDu. tanckaert, ‘a
wodden [wooden] tankard,’ Hexham; a word borrowed from F.
B. The suffix -ard is common in OF., showing that the word was
really, at some time, French. [Irish ¢axcard must have been
borrowed from E.] Prob. from Swed. stdx#a, ‘a large wooden can’
(Widegren), ‘a tankard’ (Oman); with F. suffix -ard. The Swed.
stanka is a dimin. of stdnna, sténda, a vat (Rietz); note the aa in
Norw. zaankar (also tankar), an oil-can. Cf. also Westphal. s/ande,
stanne, a vessel broader at the bottom (Woeste); Low G. stande
(corruptly, stazne), the same; whence E. standard, a tankard, a
standing bowl. ‘Frolic, my lords, and let the standards walk;’
Greene, A Looking-glass, ed. Dyce, p. 141. See Notes on E. Etym.,
p- 290. All from the vb. fo stand.
TANSY, a tall plant, with small yellow flowers. (F.—Late L.
—Gk.) ME. fansaye,a tansy-bed; ‘Hoc tansetum, éansaye,’ Voc.
712. 33. ‘Tansey, an herbe, tanasie,’ Palsgrave.—OF. zanaste, as in
Palsgrave, later ¢anarsie, ‘the herb tansie;’ Cot. Other forms are
OF. athanasie, Cot.; MItal. atanasia, ‘the herb tansie,’ Florio; Port.
alanasia, athanasia, [Late L. tanacétum (spelt tansétum above)
means properly ‘a bed of tansy;’ as remarked in Prior, Popular
Names of British Plants.] The OF. athanasie, MItal. atanasia, and
Port. atanasia, athanasia, answer to a L. form athanasia, which is
only the Gk. ἀθανασία, immortality, in Latin spelling. B. Prior says
that athanasia was ‘the name under which it was sold in the shops
in Lyte’s time.’ The plant is bitter and aromatic, and was (and is)
used in medicine, whence, probably, the name. Prior thinks there
is a reference to ‘Lucian’s Dialogues of the Gods, no. iv, where
| Jupiter, speaking of Ganymede, says to Mercury, ἄπαγε αὐτὸν, ὦ ἙἝ ρμῆ,:
Nene ΞΡ 5 aa eet , aed Ξ
καὶ πιόντα τῆς ἀθανασίας ἄγε οἰνοχοήσοντα ἡ μιν, take him away, and
TANTALISE
when he has drunk of immortality, bring him back as cupbearer to
us: the ἀθανασία here has been misunderstood, like ἀμβροσία in other
passages, for some special plant.’ Cf. MItal. atanato, ‘the rose
campion,’ Florio; lit. ‘the immortal.’ y. The Gk. ἀθανασία is
allied to ἀθάνατος, immortal; from 4, negative prefix, and θανεῖν,
2 aor. of θνήσκειν, to die. See Lyte’s Dodoens, bk. i. c. 10.
TANTALISH, to tease or torment, by offering something that is
just out of reach and is kept so. (Gk.) ‘ What greater plague can
hell itself devise, Than to be willing thus to tantalize?’ Answer to
Ben Jonson’s Ode (Come leave the loathed Stage), by T. Randolph,
st. 2; printed in Jonson’s Works, after the play of The New Inn.
Formed with the suffix -ise (F. -iser, L. -izare, Gk. -c¢ew) from the
proper name Tantal-us, Gk. Τάνταλος, in allusion to his story. The
fable was that he was placed up to his chin in water, which fled
from his lips whenever he desired to drink. This myth perhaps re-
lates to the sun, which evaporates water, but remains, as it were,
unsated. Allied to τανταλεύειν, to sway to and fro, and to τάλ-αντον,
a balance; see Talent. Der. tantal-ism (with F. suffix -isme<L.
-isma<Gk. -tcpa), Beaum. and Fletcher, Wit at Several Weapons,
act ii. sc. 2, 1. 10 from end.
TANTAMOUNT, amounting to as much, equal. (F.—L.) Rich.
points out, by 2 quotations from Bp. Taylor, Episcopacy Asserted,
§§ 9 and 31, that it was first used as a verb; which agrees with the
fact that amount was properly at first a verb. It meant ‘to amount
to as much.’=AF. fant amunter, to amount to as much, Yearbooks
of Edw. I., 1292-3, p. 31; cf. F. tant, so much, as much; and E.
Amount, q.v. β. The F. fant is from L. sanium, neut. of fantus,
so great; formed from pronominal base ¢o-, he, the, so as to answer
to quantus, from the base gwo-, who. See The,
TAP (1), to strike or knock gently. (F.—Teut.) ME. éappen,
to tap; the imperative appears as ¢ep (for fap), Ancren Riwle, p. 296,
1. 4; cf. tappe, sb., a tap, Gawain and the Grene Knight, 2357.—F.
taper, tapper, ‘to tap, strike, hit, bob, clap;’ Cot. Of Teut. origin;
Low G., (and G.) tappen, to grope, to fumble, EFries. /appen, to tap,
lap, a light blow. So also Icel. ¢afsa, to tap. Prob. of imitative
origin; cf. Russ. topaze, to stamp with the foot; Malay ¢abak, to beat
out corn, ‘apuk, to slap, pat, dab (Marsden’s Dict. pp. 69, 77); Arab.
tabl, a drum; E. dub-a-dub, noise of a drum, E. dab, a pat. Der.
tap, sb. And see tip (2).
TAP (2), a short pipe through which liquor is drawn from a cask,
a plug to stop a hole in a cask. (E.) ME. fappe, Chaucer, C. T.
3890. AS. teppa, a tap (Toller); whence éeppere, one who taps
casks; ‘Caupo, tabernarius, teppere, Voc. 129. 9.4+Du. tap, sb.,
whence tappen, verb; Icel. tappi, sb., tappa, vb.; Dan. tap, sb.,
tappe, vb.; Swed. ¢app, a tap, handful, wisp, whence ¢appa, vb. ;
G. zapfen, sb. and vb.; OHG. zapho, sb. β. Teut. type *tappon-.
The Swed. tapp means a wisp, handful, and G, zapffen is bung,
stopple. Prob. the orig. idea (as Wedgwood suggests) was a bunch
of some material to stop a hole with, a tuft of something. We may
connect it, as Fick does, with E. top, G. zopf; the G. zopf means a
top of a tree, a weft or tuft of hair, a ‘pig-tail;’ and the Icel. toppr
means, first of all, a tuft or lock of hair. Der. ap, vb., Merry
Wives, i. 3. 11; tap-room; tap-root, a root like a tap, i.e. conical,
cf. G. zapfen, a tap, cone of a fir, zapfenwurzel, a tap-root. Also
tapster, ME. tapstere, Chaucer, C. T. 241, AS. teppesire, fElfric’s
Grammar, ed. Zupitza, p. 36, 1. 13, a fem. form of AS. ‘eppere,
a tapper, as above ; for the suffix -sfer, see Spinster. Also /ampion,
q-v. And see Tip (1).
TAPE, a narrow band or fillet of woven work, used for strings,
&c. (L.—Gk.) ME. tape, Chaucer, C. T. 32415; also ¢appe. ‘ Hec
tenea, fappe;’ in a list of ornaments, Voc. 655. 15. AS. te@ppe, a
tape, fillet. ‘Tenia, seppan vel dol-smeltas,’ where teppan is a pl.
form; Voc. 107. 33. The orig. sense may have been ‘a strip of
stuff :’ it is closely allied to AS. ¢eppet, a tippet, ME. ¢apet, a piece
of tapestry; and the use of the pl. ¢eppan is suggestive of strips of
stuffor cloth. Not an E.word, but borrowed from L. tapéte, cloth,
hangings, tapestry, a word borrowed from Greek. See Tapestry,
Tippet. In like manner we find OHG. ‘epih, teppi (mod. G.
leppich) tapestry, with the same sense as OHG. tepid, from the same
L. word. Der. ¢ape-worm.
TAPER (1), a small wax-candle. (E.) ME. taper, Rob. of
Glouc., p. 456, 1. 9350. AS. ¢apor, taper, a tapers; Voc. 267. 12;
202.35. Cf. Irish ¢apar, a taper; W. ¢ampr, ἃ taper, torch.
TAPER (2), long and slender. (E.) ‘ Her taper fingers ;’ Dry-
den, tr. of Ovid, Metam. bk. i. 1.676. Here the fingers are likened
to dapers or small wax-candles ; and the word is nothing but a sub-
stitution for faper-like. This appears more clearly from the use of
taper-wise, i. e. in the form of a taper, in Holland’s tr. of Pliny, b. xvi.
c. 16: ‘the French box [box-tree] . . . groweth taper-wise, sharp
pointed in the top, and runneth vp to more than ordinarie height.’
As wax tapers were sometimes made smaller towards the top, the
TARE 629
word dape* meant growing smaller towards the top, not truly cylin-
drical; whence the adj. ¢apering with the sense of taper-like, and
finally the verb to taper. Note also ‘tapering top’ im Pitt, tr. of
Virgil, Ain. bk. v. 1. 489 of L, text. Der. taper-ing, taper, vb.
TAPESTRY, a kind of carpet-work, with wrought figures, esp.
used for decorating walls. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘A faire and pleasaunt
lodginge, hanged with riche Aresse or ¢apestrie;’ Sir T. Elyot, The
Governour, b. lii.c. 2. § 2. Lydgate has /apeery ; Minor Poems, p. 6.
Tapestrye is a contraction of tapisserye ; Palsgrave gives: ‘ Tappysserye
worke, ¢apisserie. =F, tapisserie, ‘tapistry;’ Cot.=—F. tapisser, ‘to
furnish with tapistry;” id. —F. tapis, ‘tapistry hangings;’ id. (Cf.
Span. fapiz, tapestry, tapete, small floor-carpet ; Ital. tappeto, a car-
pet, ¢appezzare, to hang with tapestry; ¢appezzeria, tapestry.)—
Late L. tapétium, tapestry (Korting); cf. tapéte, cloth, hangings. =
Gk. ταπήτιον, dimin. of τάπης, a carpet, woollen rug. Cf. Pers. /aba-
stah, a fringed carpet or cushion, Rich. Dict., p. 362 ; ¢abidan, to spin ;
taftah, tafieta; see Taffeta. Horn, ὃ 372. Thus the Gk. word is
prob. of Pers. origin. See also Tape, Tippet. Der. We say ‘on
the ¢apis ;’ from F. tapis, carpet.
TAPIOCA, the glutinous and granular substance obtained from
the roots of the Cassava plant of Brazil. (Port.—Brazilian.) Not in
Todd’s Johnson. ‘ The fecula or flour [of the cassava] .. is termed
mouchaco in Brazil. . .. When it is prepared by drying on hot plates, it
becomes granular, and is called ¢apioca;’ Eng. Cyclopedia, art.
Tapioca. — Port. tapioca. Brazilian tipioka, ‘the Tupi-Guarani [Bra-
zilian] name of the poisonous juice which issues from the root of the
manioc [cassava] when pressed τ᾿ Littré. [He refers to Burton, ii. 39,
who follows The Voyage to Brazil of the Prince de Wied-Neuwied,
i. 116.) B. The Tupi (native Brazilian) ¢ipi-dka means ‘dregs
squeezed out ;’ from pi, ‘residue, dregs,’ and the verbal root og,
δὲ, to take by force, pluck, pull, hence also, to squeeze (Cavalcanti).
See Notes on E. Etym., p. 340.
TAPIR, an animal with a short proboscis, found in S. America.
(Brazilian.) Called the ¢apir or anéa in a tr. of Buffon’s Nat. Hist.,
London, 1792, i. 250; where the animal is said to be a native of
Brazil, Paraguay, and Guiana,—Brazilian ¢apira, tapyra, a tapir.
See Notes on E. Etym., p. 340.
TAR, a resinous substance of a dark colour, obtained from pine-
trees. (E.) ME. ¢erre, Prompt. Parv.; spelt ‘arve, P. Plowman,
C. x. 262. AS. ¢eoru, tar; the dat. teorwe occurs in A. S. Leechdoms,
ii, 132, 1. 5; also spelt ¢erw in a gloss (Bosworth) ; also ¢yrwa, Gen.
vi. 14; Exod. ii. 3. We also find the comp. scip-teora, -teara, -tara,
-tera, ship-tar (Toller).-Du. ¢eer; Icel. tjara; Dan. tjere; Swed.
ἐᾶγα. And cf. Ὁ. theer, prob. borrowed from Low G. ¢ar or Du. teer.
{We find also Irish zearr, borrowed from E.; as the word is cer-
tainly Teutonic.) B. We also find Icel. ¢yri, tyrfi, a resinous fir-
tree: whence ¢yrvidr, tyrvitré, with the sense of ‘tar-wood.’ Allied
to Lithuan. darwa, derwa, resinous wood, particularly the resinous
parts of the fir-tree that easily burn (Nesselmann) ; and this is allied
to Russ. drevo, a tree, derevo, a tree, wood, timber, W. derw, an oak-
tree, and E. Tree, q.v. γ. Thus the orig. sense was simply ‘ tree’
or ‘ wood,’ esp. resinous wood, as most in request for firing; hence
the resin or tar itself. Der. ¢arr-y; also ¢ar-pauling, 4. Vv.
TAR (2), a sailor; in Swift’s Poems, To the Earl of Peter-
borow, st. 11. It is simply short for Tarpauling, q.v.
TARANTELLA, the name of a dance. (Ital.) Both Ital.
tarantella, the dance, and Ital. ¢arantola, a tarantula or large spider,
derive their names from Taranto, a town in S. Italy (L. Tarenium).
TARAXACUM, the dandelion. (Arab.) ‘ Taraxacum or Tarax-
acon, the herb dandelion or sow-thistle;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. The
common dandelion is Leontodon taraxacum. ‘The etymology of this
strange word is given by Devic, Supp. to Littré. He shows that it
is not Greek, but Arabic or Persian. We find Pers. tarkhashgin,
wild endive; Rich. Dict. p. 967; but Devic says he can only find, in
Razi, the statement that ‘the ‘arashagitg is like succory, but more
efficacious,’ where he thinks we evidently ought to read farashaqin,
and to explain it by dandelion or wild succory. In Gerard of Cre-
mona he finds Arab. ¢arasacon, explained as a kind of succory ;
and a chapter on ¢araxacon in a Latin edition of Avicenna, Basle,
1563, p- 312. :
TARBOOSH, a round cap much worn by Arabs and Turks.
(Arab. —Pers.) Arab. farbiish, a kind of red cap (Devic). Devic
takes it to be of Pers. origin. = Pers. sav-pash, a head-dress ; properly,
for women. = Pers. sar, head; posh, a cover; see Rich. Dict., pp. 340,
818, 522.
TARDY, slow, sluggish, late. (F.—L.) In Shak. As You Like
It, iv. 1. 51.—F. éardif, ‘tardy,’ Cot. Cf. Ital. ¢ardivo, tardy.
These forms correspond to Late L, */ardiuus, formed with suffix
eiuus from L. tard-us, slow. Der. éardi-ly, -ness; (from L. tardus)
re-tard,
TARE (1), a plant like the vetch. (E.) ME. ¢are, Chaucer, C. T.
630 TARE
3998 (A 4000); pl. aris, i.e. darnel, Wyclif, Matt. xiii. 25. Pals-
grave has: ‘taare, a corne lyke a pease, lupins ;’ also: ‘tarefytche
‘The mod, E. tare is, in fact, short
for tare-vetch, lit. ‘wheat-vetch,’ or ‘darnel-vetch.’-+MDu. ferwe,
Du. ¢arwe, ow G. tarve, wheat. Cf. Lithuan. dirwa, a corn-field,
Skt. diirva, a kind of grass. See Notes on E. Etym., p. 291.
TARE (2), an allowance made for the weight of the package in
which goods are contained, or for other detriment. (F.—Span.—
Arab.) A mercantile term; explained in Phillips, ed. 1706.—F.
tare, ‘losse, diminution, . . waste in merchandise by the exchange
or use thereof;’ Cot.—Span. /ara, tare, allowance in weight. (Cf.
Ital. and Port. fara, the same.) — Arab. ¢arha (given by Devic) ; from
tarh, throwing, casting, flinging. Richardson, Pers. Dict. p. 967,
gives Arab. ¢irh, turrah, thrown away, from fark. The orig. sense is
‘that which is thrown away,’ hence loss, detriment. From the Arab.
root ¢araha, he threw prostrate, threw down; Rich., as above.
TARGET, a small shield, buckler, a mark to fire at. (F.—
Scand.) The mark to fire at is named from its resemblance to a
round shield. It is remarkable that the g is hard; indeed, the pl. is
spelt targattes in Ascham, Toxophilus, bk. i. ed. Arber, p. 69, 1. 28;
and we find ¢erga¢e in Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, bk. i. c. 18, § 2.
‘This may be accounted for by derivation from OF. ¢arguete, a small
shield (Godefroy) ; dimin. of OF. ¢argue, as in Cot. [The mod. F.
targe is from OF. targe (with g=E. 7); but cf. mod. Prov. targueto,
dimin. of ¢argo, OProv. targa.] We also had ¢arge as a F. word,
Rob. of Glouc., p. 361, 1. 7462; and see Chaucer, C. T. 473 (A 471).
The dimin. suffix -et is the usual F. dimin. so common in ΕΝ. =Icel.
targa, a target, small round shield; OHG. zarga, a frame, side of
a vessel, wall; G. zarge, a frame, case, side, border. Cf. also AS.
targe, a round shield, pl. ¢argan, A.D. 970; Thorpe, Diplomatarium,
p- 516. (We find also F. ¢arge, ‘a kind of target or shield, Cot. ;
Port. farja, an escutcheon on a target, a border; Span. tarja, a
shield ; Ital. targa, a buckler; words which Diez explains to be of
Teut. origin.} The Irish and Gael. ¢argaid, a target, shield, must
have been taken from ME. targat; cf. Rhys, Lect. ii. 4 Among
the words of Teut. origin Diez includes the Port. and Span. adarga;
the Port. adarga is a short square target, and the Span. adarga is ex-
plained by Minsheu to be ‘a short and light target or buckler, which
the Africans and Spaniards doe vse.’ But this word is plainly
Moorish, the a being for al, the Arab. article, and the etymology is
from Arab. darga(t), daraga(t), ‘ a shield or buckler of solid leather ;’
Rich. Dict., p. 664. Note the Late L. adarca, a shield (1099) in
Ducange ; and the Late L. tarcheta, a target (1443). Itis remarkable
that Cotgrave explains F. ‘arge as ‘a kind of target or shield, almost
square, and much in use along the Spanish coast, lying over against
Africk, from whence it seems the fashion of it came.’ He seems to
be thinking only of the Moorish square shield; but the OF. targe
is as old as the 11th cent., and the AS. ¢arge as old as the roth;
so that the Teut. and Moorish words would seem to be distinct. But
if the AS. sarge can be of Moorish origin, the G. zarge is prob.
unrelated.
TARGUM, a Chaldee paraphrase of the Old Testament.
(Chaldee.) See Targums in Index to Parker Society. In Phillips,
ed. 1706. ‘The Thargum or paraphrase of Jonathan ;’ Sir T. Browne,
Vulg. Errors, b. i. c. 1. § 4.— Chaldee sargum, an interpretation; from
targem, to interpret (Webster). Cf. Arab. tarjuman, an interpreter ;
for which see Dragoman,
TARIFF, a list or table of duties upon merchandise. (F.—Span.
—Arab.) ‘ Tariff, a table made to show. ..any multiple or pro-
duct ... a proportional table. ..a book of rates agreed upon for
duties,’ &c. ; Phillips, ed. 1706.—MF. tariffe, ‘arithmetick, or the
casting of accompts ;’ Cot.—Span. tarifa, a list of prices, book of
rates. — Arab. ¢a‘rif, giving information, notification (because a ¢ariff
does this); Rich. Dict. p. 416. = Arab. ‘irf, knowing, knowledge;
from Arab. root ‘arafa, he knew; Rich. Dict. p. 1003. See further
in Devic, Supp. to Littré.
TARLATAN, a kind of thin muslin. (F.) Ἐν ¢arlatane,
formerly spelt tarnatane, in 1723 (Hatzfeld). Of unknown origin.
TARN, a small Jake, a pool. (Scand.) In Levins. ME. terne,
Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, Β. 1041.—Icel. djérn (gen. tjarnar), a tarn,
pool; Swed. dial. tjarn, tarn, a tarn, pool without inlet or outlet
(Rietz) ; Norweg. tjorn, tjonn, kjonn, tjodn, kjodn, a tarn (Aasen). Cf.
Skt. dara-, a cavity.
TARNISG, to soil, diminish the lustre of, to dim. (F.—OHG.)
Also to grow dim, as in Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, 249;
this appears to be the orig. sense in E.—F. terniss-, stem of pres.
part. of se ternir, ‘to wax pale, wan, discoloured, to lose its former
luster τ᾿ Cot. Cf. ¢erni, pp. ‘wan, discoloured, whose luster is lost;’
id.—MHG. ternen, OHG. tarnan, to obscure, darken; cf. sarnhut,
tarnkappe, a hat or cap which rendered the wearer invisible. From
OHG. tarni, secret (whence Εἰ, terne, dim). AS. dernan, dyrnan, to
{ =tare-vetch], a corne, lupyn.’
TARTAN
hide, Gen. xlvy. 1; causal verb from derne, dyrne, hidden, secret,
Grein, i. 214; and this adj. is cognate with OSax. derni, OFries,
dern, hidden, secret. See Darn.
TARPAULING, TARPAULIN, a cover of coarse canvas,
tarred to keep out wet. (Hybrid; E. and L.) Tarpawling is in
Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, st. 148. It was once oddly used to
denote also a sailor, whence our modern Zar, in the same sense,
tather than from an extension of ¢ar to mean a man daubed with
tar; though it makes little ultimate difference. ‘ Tarpawling, or
Tarpaulin, a piece of conyass tar’d all over, to lay upon the deck of
a ship, to keep the rain from soaking through; also a general name
for a common seaman, because usually cloathed in such canvass ;’
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674; Phillips, ed. 1706. And see Trench,
Select Gloss., who gives two quotations for tarpaulin =sailor, viz.
from Smollett, Rod. Random, vol. i. c. 3, and Turkish Spy, letter 2.
The pl. tarpaulins occurs in Lady Alimony, Act iii. sc. 1; in
Hazlitt’s Old Plays, xiv. 325 (1659). Compounded of tar and palling.
B. A palling is a covering, from pall, verb, to cover, which from
pall, sb., L. palla; see Pall. ‘Come, thick night, And pall thee in
the dunnest smoke of hell;’ Macb.i. 5.52. ‘Pauling, a covering
for a cart or waggon, Lincolnshire ;’ Halliwell.
TARRAGON, the name of a plant. (Span.—Arab.—Gk.)
‘ Tarragon, a certaine hearbe, good to be eaten in sallads with let-
tuce;’ Baret (1580); Taragon in Levins.—Span. taragona (Diez) ;
usually ¢aragontia; Minsheu also gives the form faragoncia, which
he explains by ‘an herbe called dragons.’ [Hence also F. targon,
‘the herb tarragon ;’ Cot.]—Arab. ¢arkhiin, ‘dragon-wort ;’ Rich.
Dict. p. 389.—Gk. dpaxwy, a dragon; see Dragon. See Devic,
s.v. estragon. Thus the strange form /arragon is nothing but dragon
in a form changed by passing through an Oriental language, and
decked in Spanish with a Latin suffix (viz. -tia). The botanical
name is Artemisia dracunculus, where dracunculus is a double dimin,
from L. acc. draconem.
TARRE, to incite, set on. (E.) In Shak. Hamlet, ii. 2. 37.
ME. tarien, terien, to provoke ; see Tarry (below).
TARRY, to linger, loiter, delay. (E.) The present form is
due to ME. /arien, to irritate, provoke, worry, vex; later, to hinder,
delay ; affected by ME. targen, to delay. The mod. sense goes with
the latter form, 1. ME. ¢arien, derien, to irritate, vex, provoke.
‘I wol nat ¢arien you, for itis pryme;’ Chaucer, C. T. 10387 (F 73),
where it may fairly be explained by ‘delay.’ In the Prompt. Parv.
we have : ‘teryyn, or longe abydyn, Moror, pigritor;’ but also ‘ teryyn,
orertyn, Irrito.” AS. fergan, to vex; a rare word, Trevisa has ¢arry,
to provoke, annoy; tr. of Higden, v. 355. ‘ Tredad pec and tergad
and heora torn wrecad’=they will tread on thee and vex thee and
wreak their anger; Guthlac, 1. 259. Usually tirgan.4+-MDu. tergen,
‘to vexe’ (Hexham); Low G. targen, tarren, to provoke. So also
prov. G. zergen, Dan. terge, to irritate; answering to a Teut.
type *targjan-; to which Russ. dergat(e), to pluck, pull, draw, may
be related. 2. ME. targen, to delay, tarry. ‘That time thought
the king to ¢arge no lenger;’ Alexander, fragment A, 1. 211, pr.
with Will. of Palerne.—OF. targer, to tarry, delay; allied to tarder,
with the same sense; Cot.—Late L. tardicare, an extension of L.
tardare (=F. tarder), to delay.—L. tardus, slow ; see Tardy.
TART (1), acrid, sour, sharp, severe. (E.) ‘ Very ¢arte vinegar ;”
Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b. iii. c. 22. § 11. Spelt ¢arte also in
Palsgrave. ‘ Poudre-marchant tart’ =a sharp (tart) kind of flavouring
powder; Chaucer, C. T. 381 (A 383). AS. ¢eart, tart, sharp,
severe ; /Elfric’s Hom. ii. 344, 1. 4 from bottom ; ii. 590, |. 4 from
bottom. Perhaps lit. ‘ tearing,’ just as bitter is from the notion of
biting. AS, *tar (ter), pt. τ, of teran, to tear; see Tear (1). Der.
tart-ly, -ness.
TART (2), a small pie. (F.—L.) ME. ‘arte; pl. tartes, Rom.
of Rose, 7o41.—OF, zarte, ‘a tart ;’ Cot. Perhaps so called from
the paste being twisted together ; it seems to be the same word as
Ἐς tourte, a tart, OF. torte, a kind of bread; whence the dimin.
forms fortel, a cake (Roquefort), ¢orteau, a pancake (Cotgrave).
Godefroy gives also OF. éarteau, a little tart, with the same sense
as torteau. [So also Ital. tartera, ‘a tarte,’ Florio, ¢orta, a pie,
tart, Span. /orta, a round cake; Dn. ¢aart, Dan. terte, G, torte, not
Teutonic words, }=L. torta, fem, of tortus, twisted, pp. of torquére,
to twist 5 see Torture, Der. ¢art-let, from Ἐς ¢artelette, ‘a little
tart; ’ Cot.
TARTAN, a woollen stuff, chequered, much worn in the High-
lands of Scotland. (F.—L.—Tatar.) In Jamieson; spelt ¢artane in
1474; also blew ¢artane; at first all of one colour; the chequered
patterns are comparatively modern. Spelt ¢artar in 1488. Borrowed
from French. At first applied to various cloths from the East, and
also to fine silk ; see my note to Piers Plowman, C. xvii. 299. —AF.
tartayn; as in ‘un vestiment de blank ¢artayn;’ Will of Lady
Clare (1355), in Royal Wills, p. 31.—Late L. *7artanus, by-form
TARTAR
of Tarténus, as in ‘de pannis Tarfenis ;’ Liber Custumarum, p. 209.
B. More commonly Tartarinus (OF. Tartarin), Tatar [Tartar] cloth ;
a general term for various Eastern cloths, including such as came
through Tartary from China; see Marco Polo, ed. Yule. Cf. ‘the
third (standard ] was of yelowe tarterne ;’ Hall’s Chron,, Hen. VII,
an. 1. § 3. ‘Corteyns of grene ¢artren,’ in 1453 ; Cambridge Antiq.
Soc., vol. iv. p. 357; ‘aulter clothes of grene artren;’ ibid. ‘ Blue
tartourne ;’ Cambridge Churchwardens’ Accounts, ed. J. Εἰ, Foster,
p- 7 (1504). ‘Hec linostema, farteryne;’ Voc. 655. 6. y. The
form fartar is from OF. Tartaire, Late L. Tartara; with the same
meaning. All from the name of the country ; see Tartar (2).
TARTAR (1), an acid salt which forms on the sides of casks
containing wine; a concretion which forms on the teeth. (F.—Low
L.—Arab.) This is one of the terms due to the alchemists.
Called sal tartre in Chaucer, C. T. 16278 (G 810); and simply
tartre, id. 16281 (G 813). —F. ¢artre, ‘ tartar, or argall, the lees or
dregs that stick to the sides of wine-vessels, hard and dry like a crust;’
Cot. = Low L. tartarum (perhaps confused with Tartarus, whence the
mod. E, spelling ¢artar),—Arab. durd, ‘dregs, sediment, the tartar
of wine, the mother of oil ;’ Rich. Dict. p. 662 ; where it is marked
as a Pers, word, though, according to Devic, of Arab. origin. Rich.
also gives Pers. durdi, Arab. durdiy, ‘sediment, dregs ;’ p. 663.
Note also Arab. darad, a shedding of the teeth, darda, a toothless
woman; which Devic explains with reference to the tartar on teeth.
Der. fartar-ic, tartar-ous.
TARTAR (2), a native of Tartary. (Tatar.) Chiefly used in the
phr. ‘to catch a Tartar,’ to be caught in one’s own trap. ‘The
phrase is prob. owing to some particular story ;’ Todd’s Johnson,
with the following quotation. ‘In this defeat they lost about 5000
men, besides those that were taken prisoners :—so that, instead of
catching the Tartar, they were catched themselves ;’ Life of the
Duke of Tyrconnel, 1689. ‘ Tartar, a native of Tartary,... the
people of which are of a savage disposition : whence the proverbial
expression to catch a Tartar, i.e. to meet with one’s match, to be
disappointed, balked, or cowed ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Shak. has
‘the Tartar’s bow,’ Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 2. 101. Sir J. Mandeyille pro-
fessed to have travelled in Tartarye ; see prol. to his Travels. See
Trench, Eng. Past and Present, where he explains that the true
spelling is Z'atar, but the spelling Tartar was adopted from a false
etymology, because their multitudes were supposed to have pro-
ceeded out of Tartarus or hell.— Pers, Tatar, ‘a Tartar, or Scythian;’
Rich. Dict. p. 351; a word of Tatar origin.
TARTAR (3), Tartarus, hell. (L.—Gk.) ‘To the gates of
Tartar ;’ Tw. Nt. ii. 5. 225.—L. Tartarus, —Gk. Τάρταρος, Tartarus,
the infernal regions; apparently conceived to be a place of extreme
cold. Cf. Gk. ταρταρίζειν, to shiver with cold. Der. ¢artar-e-ous,
‘the black tartareous cold;’ Milton, P.L. vii. 238; tartar-e-an, id.ii. 69.
TASK, a set amount of work imposed upon any one, work. (F.—
L.) Lit. a tax. ΜΕ, task, taske, Cursor Mundi, 5872.—ONorth F.
tasque, Norm. dial. tasque, OF. tasche, ‘a task;’ Cot. Mod. F.
tdche.= Late L. tasca, a tax; the same word as taxa, a tax. . (For
a similar metathesis cf. E. ask with prov. E. ax.)—L. taxare, to
rate, value; see Tax. Der. task, vb., task-er, sb.; ‘to task the
tasker, L.L, L. ii. 20; task-master, Milton, Sonnet i.14. Doublet,
tax,
TASSEL (1), a hanging ornament consisting of a bunch of silk
or other material. (F.—L.) ME. tassel, a fastening of a mantle,
consisting of a cord ending in a tassel, Cursor Mundi, 4389. Cf. ‘a
Mantle of Estate, . . . with strings dependant, and /asselled;’ Guillim,
Display of Heraldry (1664), p.271; a wood-cut on p. 272 shows the
tassel, ornamented with strings and dots, that divide it into squares
like the ace on a die.mOF. tassel, a fastening, clasp; mod. F,
tasseau, only in the sense of bracket. We also find Late L. tassellus,
used in the Prompt. Parv. as equivalent to E. tassel. The OF. ¢assel
also meant a piece of square stuff, used by ladies as an ornament ;
see Godefroy. Cf. Ital. ¢assello, a collar of a cloak, a square. —L.
taxillum, acc. of taxillus, a small die; dimin. of ¢alus, a knuckle-
bone, also a die orig. made of the knuckle-bone of an animal. We
may conclude that the ¢assel was a sort of button made of a piece of
squared bone, and afterwards of other materials. B. The curious
form faxillus shows that talus is a contraction for *taxlus; origin
unknown. Taxillus may have been confused with L. fessel/a, dimin.
of tessera, a die; cf. the entry: ‘Tessera, ¢aso/,’ Epinal Gloss. 998.
See Notes on E. Etym., p. 292. Der. tassell-ed, ME. tasseled,
Chaucer, C. T. 3251.
TASSEL (2), the male of the goshawk.
160. The same as Tercel, q.v.
TASTE, to handle, to try, to try or perceive by the touch of the
tongue or palate, to eat a little of, to experience. (F.—L.) Thesense
of feel or handle is obsolete, but the ME. fasten meant both to feel
and to taste. ‘I rede thee lat thyn hand upon it falle, And fas¢e it
In Shak, Romeo, ii. 2.
TATTOO 631
wel, and ston thou shalt it finde ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 15970 (G 502).
‘Every thyng Himseolf schewith in ¢astyng ;’ King Alisaunder, 4042.
— OF. faster, ‘to taste or take an assay of; also, to handle, feele,
touch ;’ Cot. Mod. F. td/er; Ital. ¢astare, ‘to taste, to assaie, to
feele, to grope, to trye, to proofe, to touch;’ Florio. We find also
Late L. ἑαχία, a tent or probe for wounds; whence Ital. ¢asta, ‘a
tent that is put into a sore or wound, also a taste, a proofe, a tryall,
a feeling, a touch;’ Florio, B. The Late L. zaxta is short for
*taxita, and prob, points, as Diez says, toa Late L. verb */axifare,
not found, but a mere iterative of L. taxdre, to feel, to handle
(Gellius). This ἑαχκᾶγε (<*tagsiire) is an intensive form of tangere
(pp. tactus), to touch; see Tax, Tangent. Hence the orig. sense
of taste was to keep on touching, to feel carefully. Der. ¢as¢e, sb.,
ME. taste, Gower, C. A. iii. 323 bk. vi. 9253 tast-er, tast-able,
taste-ful, taste-ful-ly; taste-ful-ness, taste-less, -less-ly, -less-ness;
tast-y, tast-i-ly.
TAT, to make trimming. (Scand.) North E. ¢az, to entangle.
Cf. MSwed. ¢dtte, Dan. dial. tat; Norw. ¢aatt, a thread, a strand of
a rope, whence Norw. ¢eié/a, to interweave. Also Icel. Jattr, Swed.
tat, Dan. tot, a filament ; G. docht, a wick.
TATTHER, a shred, loose hanging rag. (Scand.) ‘Tear a passion
to tatters ;” Hamlet, iii. 2. 11 ; spelt ¢of/ers in quarto edd. So also
totters in Ford, Sun’s Darling, i. 1, 2nd Song; and see fottered in
Nares. It is remarkable that the derived word fattered occurs
earlier, spelt fatered, P. Plowman’s Crede, 753, where it means
‘jagged ;’ tatird, ragged, Pricke of Conscience, 1537.—Icel. téturr,
pl. ‘otrar, better spelt ¢étturr, pl. tattrar; the pl. signifies tatters,
rags ; Norweg. ¢otra, pl. totror, ¢ottrur, also taltra, tultre, pl. taltrar,
tultrer, tatters, rags.-- Low G, faltern, tatters, rags; to taltren riten,
to tear to tatters; ¢altrig, tattered; EFries. ¢alze, a rag. B. It
will be seen that an ὦ has been lost; and this is why the Icel. word
should be spelt with double ¢, for /6¢turr =*tolturr, by assimilation.
Hence fatter stands for *talter ; the assimilation of /¢ to ¢¢ being due
to Scand, influence. I suppose fatter to be closely allied to totter =
to wag, vacillate, shake about; and that fatter meant orig. a
shaking rag, a fluttering strip. At any rate, offer is in the like case
as regards letter-change, since it stands for fol/er. See Totter.
4 We find also AS. tettec, tettic, a rag; the relationship of which
is not clear. Der. /atter-ed, as above ; tatter-demallion, Massinger,
Virgin Martyr, iii. 3 (Hircius) ; see my Notes on E. Etym., p. 292.
TATTLE, to talk idly, prattle. (E.) In Shak. Much Ado, ii.
1.11. ‘Every fattling fable ;’ Spenser, Mother Hubbard's Tale, 724.
ME, fofelen, variant of tateren, to tattle, Prompt. Parv.; pp. 498,
487. We may consider it E.; it is closely allied to /ittle, to tell
tales, talk idly, which is equivalent to ME. siteren, whence titerere
(also ¢itelere), a tatler, teller of tales, P. Plowman, B. xx. 297. The
verbs fatt-le, titt-le, and ME. tat-eren, tit-eren, are all frequentatives,
from a base TAT, expressive of the sound of talking or repeating
the syllables ¢a ta ta (Wedgwood). Allied words are Du. ‘ateren,
to stammer, MDu. /ateren, ‘to speake with a shrill noise, or to sound
faratantara with a trumpet,’ Hexham; Low G, ¢ateln, to gabble as
a goose, to tattle; diteltateln, to tittle-tattle, ¢ateler, a tattler ; taat-
goos, a gabbling goose, chatterer ; ¢d¢erletat, an interjection, the noise
of a child’s trumpet ; and even Ital. fattamella, chat, prattle, tattame-
lare, to prattle, which clearly show the imitative origin of the word.
Allied to Titter, q.v. Der. tattle, sb. ; tittle-tattle, sb. and vb., see
Wint. Tale, iv. 4. 248; tiddle-taddle (Fluellen’s pronunciation),
Hen. V, iv. 1. 71. And see ¢wadd-le (formerly twattle).
TATTOO (1), the beat of drum recalling soldiers to their
quarters. (Du.) ‘If they hear but the ¢aé‘oo;’ Prior, Alma, ς. i.
454. ‘Tattoo, Taptoo (also Taptow), the beat of drum at night for all
soldiers to repair to their tents in a field, or to their quarters; also
called T'he Retreat;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. ‘To beat the ¢aptow, de
Aftogt slaan;’ Sewel, Eng.-Du. Dict., 1754. A later edition (in
1766) has: de taptoe slaan, ‘to beat the tap-tow.’ ‘The ¢apftoo is
used in garrisons and quarters by the beat of the drum ;’ Silas Taylor,
On Gavelkind, ed. 1663, p. 74.— Du. taptoe, tattoo (Calisch) ; whence
de taptoe slaan, to beat the tattoo.—Du. fap, a tap; and foe, put to,
shut, closed. The sense is ‘ the tap is closed ;’ cf. Du. Is de deur toe
=is the door closed? doe het boek toe=shut the book; haal’t venster
toe=shut the window (Sewel), Hexham has ¢oe s/aen, to shut, con-
clude. The ¢attoo was thus the signal for closing the taps of the
public-houses. B. So also G. zapfenstreich, the tattoo (lit, tap-
stroke), where zapfen is a tap of a cask; and Low G, tappenslag, the
tattoo (lit. a tap-shutting). Cf. Low G, sappen to slaan=to close
a tap, an expression used proverbially in the phrase Wi wilt den
Tappen to slaan=we will shut the tap, put the tap to, i.e, we will
talk no more of this matter. This last expression clearly shows that
‘a tap-to’ was a conclusion, a time for shutting-up. q Ido not
think that Span, ¢apatan, the sound of a drum, has anything to do
with the present matter.
632 TATTOO
TATTOO (2), to mark the skin with figures, by pricking in
colouring matter. (Tahitian.) ‘They have a custom ... which they
call tattowing. They prick the skin so as just not to fetch blood,’ &c. ;
Cook, First Voyage, b. i. c. 173 id. ib. b. iii. c. 9 (R.). Cookis
speaking of the inhabitants of Tahiti. Tahitian ¢afau, signifying
tattoo-marks on the human skin ; derived from ἦα, a mark, design ;
see Littré, who refers us to Berchon, Recherches sur le Tatouage.
See E. E. Morris, Australasian Diet. ; Notes on E. Etym., p. 293.
TAUNT, to scoff, mock, tease. (F.—L.) ‘I ¢awnte one, I check
hym, 76 farde ;’ Palsgrave. ‘Smacco,...a check or tant ina woord
or deede;’ Florio. The old sense had less of mockery in it, and
sometimes meant merely to tease. ‘For a proper wit had she, ...
sometime faunting without displesure and not without disport ;’ Sir
T. More, Works, p.57 b. Perhaps the vb. is due to thesb. ‘ Which
liberall ¢awnfe that most gentill emperour toke in so good part ;” Sir
T. Elyot, The Governour, b. ii. c. 5. § 17. ‘Gave mea ¢aunte, and
sayde I was to blame;’ Skelton, Bowge of Courte, 70. a. The verb
answers in form, but hardly in sense, to OF. tanter (Burguy), occa-
sional form of ¢enter, ‘to tempt, to prove, try, sound, essay, attempt ;
also to suggest, provoke, or move unto evill;’ Cot. From 1, entire,
to try, prove, test, attack, assail, agitate, disquiet,&c. See Tempt.
B. We may rather, perhaps, look upon the sb, as the original ; it
may have arisen from the phrase taunt pour taunt, i.e. tit for tat.
This occurs in: ‘ Geuyng vnto the same /aunt pour taunte, or one for
another ;’ Udall, tr. of Erasmus’ Apophthegmes, Diogenes, § 68.
Cf. also : ‘ Mery conceipted and full of pretie ¢auntes ;” id., Philippus,
§ 29. If this is right, éaunt arose from F, tant, so much. =L. fantum,
neut. of ¢antus,so much. Cf. ME. ataunt,as much as (Εἰς, antant) ;
N.E.D. Godefroy has OF. ante donner, to give such great blows.
Der. taunt-er, taunt-ing-ly.
TAURUS, the bull; the 2nd zodiacal sign. (L.) In Chaucer,
On the Astrolabe, pt. i. § 8, 1. 2.—L. taurus, a bull.4-Gk. ταῦρος, a
bull.4-AS. stéor, a young ox, a steer; see Steer (1). Der. ‘aur-ine,
from L. faurinus, adj., belonging to bulls.
TAUT, tight, firm. (E.) ME. togt, toght. ‘Made it soght,’ i.e.
made it sure; Allit. Poems, A. 522. ‘ With bely stif and ¢oght As
any tabour;” Chaucer, C. T., D 2267. It seems to be the weak pp.
of ME. ¢o3en, to pull, tow, tug; so that the orig. sense was ‘ pulled
tight.” See Tow (1). See Notes on E. Etym., p. 294.
TAUTOLOGY, needless repetition, in the same words. (L.—
Gk.) ‘With ungrateful taxtologies;’ Fuller’s Worthies, Kent (R.)
=L. tautologia (White).—Gk. ταὐτολογία, a saying over again of
the same thing. —Gk. ταὐτολόγος, repeating what has been said. =
Gk. ταὐτό, contracted from τὸ αὐτό, or τὸ αὐτόν, the same; and
-doyos, speaking, allied to λέγειν, to speak, for which see Legend.
Der. tautolog-ic, tautolog-ic-al, -ly; tautolog-ise.
TAVERN, an inn, house for accommodating travellers and sell-
ing liquors. (F.—L.) ME. ¢averne (with u=v), Rob. of Glouc.
p. 195, 1, 4024.—F. ¢averne, ‘a tavern ;’ Cot. =L. taberna, a hut, orig.
ἃ hut made of boards, a shed, booth, tavern. Usually said to be
allied to L. tab-vla, a plank, board; see Table. But Walde takes
it to stand for *traberna; from trabs,a beam; see Trave,
TAW (1), TEW, to prepare skins, so as to dress them into
leather, to curry, to toil. (E.) Spelt awe and tewe; Levins. Pals-
grave has both ‘I tawe leather’ and ‘I ewe leather.’ ME. tewen, to
prepare leather, Prompt. Parv.; fawenz, Ormulum, 15908. AS.
tawian, to prepare, dress, get ready, also, to maltreat. ‘Séo deoful
éow tawode, =the devil maltreated you; A£lfric’s Hom. ii. 486, 1. 4
from bottom. “ ΤῸ yrm¥e ge/awode’ = reduced to poverty; 5. Vero-
nica, p. 34, 1. 18. Cf gefawe, implements, Grein, i. 462.4Du.
touwen, to curry leather; OHG. zouwan, to make, prepare; Goth.
ga-téwjan, to appoint, faujan, to do, cause. See Tool. Der. taw-
yer, ME. tawier, tawer, Wyclif, Deeds, ix. 43, early version, where
the later version has curiour, i.e. currier; cf. bow-yer, law-yer.
TAW (2), a game at marbles. (Gk.) ‘A game of marbles not
unlike our modern taw;’ The Tatler, no. 112, Dec. 27, 1709. In
the United States, faz means ‘a line or mark from which the players
begin a game of marbles;’ Webster. A similar mark is also called
atee. The easiest way of marking an exact spot on the ground is to
draw the letter T, which defines the point where a stroke meets a
cross-stroke. The T is named zee in English, and ¢aw in Greek.
Hence ‘¢au and chuck-farthing’ in Additions to Nares. See Notes on
E. Etym., p. 294.
TAWDRY, showy, but without taste, gaudy. (E.) ‘A tawdrie
lace ;’ Spenser, Shep. Kal., April, 135 ; ‘a tawdry lace,’ Wint. Tale,
iv. 4. 253; ‘tawdry-lace,’ Beaum. and Fletcher, Faithful Shep-
herdess, Act iv. sc. 1 (Amarillis). ‘Seynt Audries lace, cordon ;’
Palsgrave. Thus it was first used in the phr. tawdry Jace=a rustic
necklace; explained in Skinner (following Dr. Hickes) as being a
necklace bought at δὲ. Awdry’s fair, held in the Isle of Ely (and else-
where) on St. Awdry’s day, Oct. 17. (See Palsgrave, as above.)
TEAL
Wedgwood doubts the ancient celebrity of this fair (which T do not),
and accepts in preference the alternative account in Nares, that St.
Audry ‘died of a swelling in the throat, which she considered as a
particular judgment, for having been in her youth much addicted to
wearing fine necklaces ;” see Nich. Harpsfield, Hist. Eccl. Anglicana,
See. Sept. p. 86; Brady, Clavis Calendaria, Oct. 17. B. In any
ease, Tawdry is a contraction from Sf. Audry; and Audry is a cor-
ruption of E¢heldrida, the famous saint who founded Ely Cathedral.
y. Again, Etheldrida is the Latinised form of the AS. name el-
fry; see Sweet, O. E. Texts, p. 638. From AS. eel, noble; and
pry or fry}, strength, The latter element is allied to the OHG.
word which appears in the name Ger-trude. See Thridhr in Schade.
In the Latin text of Beda, Hist. Eccl. iv. 3, it is spelt Aedilthryd.
See Notes on E. Etym., p. 295.
TAWNY, 2 yellowish brown. (F.—Teut.) Merely another spell-
ing of taxny, i.e. resembling that which is tanned by the sun, sun-
bumt. By heraldic writers itis spelt tenny or tenné. ‘Tawny .. in
blazon, is known by the name of ¢enne;” Guillim, Display of
Heraldry, sect. i. cap. 3. ME. tannzy. ‘ Tanny colowre, or tawny ;’
Prompt. Parv. ‘Unum goun de fawné ;’ Excerpta Historica, p. 24
(1375).—F. tanné, ‘tawny ;” Cot. It is the pp. of F. tanner, taner,
to tan.—F. tan, tan; see Tan. Der. tawni-ness. Doublet, tenné
or flenny.
TAX, a rate imposed on property, anything imposed, a task.
(F.—L.) ME. tax, Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 151, 1. 4 (temp.
Edw. Il).—F. taxe, ‘a taxation;’ Cot.—F. taxer, ‘to tax, rate,
assess ;’ Cot.—L. taxdre, to handle ; also to rate, value, appraise ;
whence Late L. ¢axa, arating, a taxation. For *tagsare; from ἑαρ-,
the base of tangere, to touch; see Tangent, Tact. Der. ‘ax, verb,
F. taxer 3 tax-able, tax-abl-y; tax-at-ion, from F. taxation, ‘a taxation,’
from L. acc. taxiitidnem. Doublet, task.
TAXIDERMY, the art of preparing and stuffing the skins of
animals. (Gk.) Modern; coined from Gk. τάξι-, decl. stem of τάξις,
order, arrangement; and δέρμα, a skin. B. Τάξις (<*rax-ys) is
from τάσσειν (<*7ax-yew), to arrange; see Tactics. Gk. δέρμα,
a skin, is that which is form or flayed off; formed with suffx -pa
from δέρ-ειν, to flay, cognate with E. tear; see Tear (1). Der.
taxiderm-ist.
TAZZA, a cup, bowl. (Ital.—Arab.—Pers.) Ital. ¢azza, a cup,
bowl (F. ¢asse).— Arab. fass, ¢assa(¢), a cup, bason; Rich. Dict.,
p- 970. Derived by Devic from Pers. ¢as?, a cup; Rich. gives Pers.
tasht, a bason; p. 403. So Horn, ὃ 389. Cf. also Pers. ἐᾷς, a cup ;
P- 355
TEA, an infusion made from the dried leaves of the tea-tree, a
shrub found in China and Japan. (Chinese.) Formerly pronounced
tay [tei], just as sea wascalled say; it rimes with obey, Pope, Rape of
the Lock, iii. 8,and with away, id. 1.62. ‘I did send for a cup of tee
(a China drink) of which I never had drank before ;’ Pepys, Diary,
Sept. 28, 1660. Also spelt cha in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, with a
reference to Hist. of China, fol. 19; also chaz, Dampier’s Voyages,
an.1687(R.). ‘That excellent. . China drink called by the Chineans
tcha, by other nations Tay, alias tee;’ The Gazette, Sept. 9, 1658 ;
qu. in N, and Q. 8 S. vi. 266. Prof. Douglas writes : ‘ The E. word
tea is derived from the Amoy pronunciation of the name of the plant,
which is ¢é. In the other parts of the empire it is called ch’a, fs’a,
&c. 3 see Williams, Chinese Dict., p. 5. Cf. 26, tea; Chinese Dict.
of the Amoy Vernacular, by Rev. C. Douglas, 1873, p. 481. This
accounts for the old spelling cha, and for the Ital. cra, tea. Cf. F.
thé, G. thee, pronounced as tea was in Pope’s time. So also Malay
téh, tea; Marsden, Malay Dict., p. 97. Der. tea-caddy ; see Caddy.
TEACH, to impart knowledge, show how to do. (E.) ME.
techen, weak verb, pt. t. taught? (properly dissyHabic), Chaucer, C. T.
499 (A 497); pp. taught. AS. ti#can,t#cean, to show, teach, pt. t.
tehte, pp. ἐπέ, get®ht; Grein,ii.522. Formed (with change of ἃ to
ὦ before ἢ, as in Teut. */aikjan-) from tac- (Teut. *taik-) base of AS.
tacen, a token. From 4/DEIK, to show; cf. G. zeigen, to show;
see further under Token. Der. ¢each-able, teach-able-ness, teach-er.
TEAK, an E. Indian and African tree, with very hard wood.
(Malayalam.) Modern; notin Todd’s Johnson. = Malayalam dékka,
the teak tree; Tamil sékku ; ΗΓ. H. Wilson, Gloss. of Indian Terms,
p- 516. ‘The best ‘eat is from the mountains of the Malabar Ghauts ;
also found on the Coromandel coast ; Eng. Cycl.
TEAL, a web-footed water-fowl. (E.) Teale; Levins. ME. #ele,
Prompt. Parv.; Squire of Low Degree, 1. 320, in Ritson, Met. Rom.
vol. ili, p. 158; used to translate OF. cercele in Walter de Bibbes-
worth, pr. in Wright’s Voc. i. 151,1. 12; 1.165, 1. 15. This takes
us back to the close of the 13th cent., and the word is prob. E.;
certainly Low German, in any ease.-+ Du. ‘aling, teling, a generation,
production, also, teal; derived from ¢elen, to breed, produce; i.e. if
teling is the same word in both senses. Μὰ. teelingh, a teal (Kilian).
Cf. MDn. feelen, to propagate, to till; Low G. feling, a progeny,
TEAM
telen, to breed, The AS. base would be */#/-; sce Du. ¢aling in
Franck. Perhaps connected with the verb to jill; see Till (1).
Der. atteal, a kind of teal, N. E. D.; Prof. Newton, Dict. of Birds,
cites a ‘ Scandinavian” form atteling-and; s.v. Teal.
TEAM, a family ; a set; ἃ number of animals harnessed in a row.
(E.) ME. tem, teem, team; ‘a teme [of] foure gret oxen,’ P. Plow-
man, By xix. 2573; tem=a family, Rob. of Glouc. p. 261, 1. 5241.
AS. team, a family, offspring, Genesis, 1613; Grein, ii. 526.+-Du.
toom, the rein of a bridle ; the same word, from the notion of guiding ;
Icel. saumr, a rein; Low G. toom, a progeny, team, also, a rein;
Dan. tomme, Swed. tom, a rein; G. zawm, a bridle, MHG. zoum.
Teut. type *tax-moz, for *faug-moz (Noreen) ; from *taxh, 2nd grade
of *teuhk-an-, to draw, lead. See Tow (1). From Idg. 4/DEUK.
But see Brugmann, i. § 630. In the sense of ‘feam of horses,’ the
AS. form is ge-tyme; Luke, xiv. 19. Der. teem, verb, q.v. Also
team-ster (Webster, not in Johnson), with suffix -ster; for which sce
Spinster. .
TEAPOY, a small tripod table. (Hybrid ; Hind. and Pers.) Also
tepoy, tinpoy (1844); see Yule.—Hind. /in, three (Forbes) ; and Pers.
pai, foot (Palmer).
TEAR (cr), to rend, lacerate. (E.) ME. teren, strong verb, pt. t.
tar, Seven Sages, ed. Weber, 1. 472, pp. foren, id. 782. AS. teran,
pt. τ. ter, pp. toren, Grein, ti. 525.4-Goth. ga-fairan, to break, de-
stroy, pt. t. ga-tar ; Lithuan. dirt, to flay; Gk. δέρειν, to flay; Russ.
drat(e), to tear; cf. αἶγα, a rent, a hole ; Zend dar, to cut ; Pers. dari-
dan, to tear; Skt. daraya, to tear; cf. W.dar-n, a fragment. Teut.
type *teran-, pt. t. *tar, pp. *taranoz. Idg. 4/DER, to burst, tear
open. The G. zehren, Low G. deren, Icel. ‘gra, to consume, are weak
verbs, from the same root. Brugmann, i. ὃ 594. Der. ear, sb.
(Goth. gataura), Chevy Chase, 1. 134, in Spec. of Eng. ed. Skeat,
Ρ. 75. Also ¢ar-t (1); and (from same root) epi-der-mis, taxi-der-my.
TEAR (2), a drop of the fluid from the eyes. (E.) ME. ¢ere,
Chaucer, C. T. 8960 (E ro84). AS. féar, ἐῶν, Grein, ii. 526; also
teagor ; ONorthumb. teher.+Icel. tar ; Dan. taar, taare; Swed. ἐᾶν;
Goth. tagr; OHG. zakar, pl. zaheri, whence G. zahre. B. All
from a Teut. base *tah-r-, Idg. *dak-r-. Further allied to OL.
dacrima, usually lacrima, lacruma (whence F. larme), a tear; Gk.
δάκρυ, δάκρυον, δάκρυμα, a tear; W. dagr, a tear; Olrish dér,
Brugmann, i. § 178. Der. tear-ful, 3 Hen. VI, v. 4. 8; tear-ful-ly,
tear-ful-ness; tear-less. And see train-oil,
TEASE, to comb or card wool, scratch or raise the nap of cloth;
to vex, plague. (E.) ME. éesen, Cathol. Auglicum ; also ¢atsen, of
which the pp. ¢aysed is in Gawain and the Grene Knight, 1169. But
the more common form is ¢osen or toosen. ‘ They foose and pulle ;’
Gower, C. A. i. 17; Prol. 400. “ Tosyx, or tose wul’ [tease wool];
Prompt. Pary. We also find ¢o-toserx, to tease or pull to pieces, Owl
and Nightingale, l. 70, AS. é#saz, to pluck, pull, A‘lfric’s Grammar,
ed. Zupitza, p.170,1.13. The ME. tosex would answer to a by-form
*tasan, not recorded.4-MDnu. teesen, to pluck; wolle teesen, ‘to pluck
wooll,’ Hexham; Dan. te@se, ¢esse, to tease wool; Bavarian zaisen, to
tease wool, Schmeller; he also cites ΜΗ. zeisen, to tease, a strong
verb, with pt. t. zies, pp. gezeisen. B. The form of the base is
Teut. *fets. Der. teas-el, ἡ...
TEASEL, a plant with large heads covered with crooked awns
which are used for teasing cloth. (E.) ME. tesel, Voc. 559. 7; also
fasel, P. Plowman, B. xv. 446. AS. t#sl, t#sel, a teasel, A. 5.
Leechdoms, i. 282, note 26. Formed with suffix -ἰ (--) from
t#s-an, to tease; the sense is ‘an instrument to tease with.’ See
Tease.
TEAT, the nipple of the female breast. (F.—Low 6.) [Also
called tit, which is the native word.] ME. ¢ete, Chaucer, C. T.
3704; also ¢ette, Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 2621.— OF. Ζεέε,
teat; F. tette, teat.—Low G. titte, MDu. Zitte, a teat; Hexham.+
G. zitze. {Cf also Span. tea, Ital. tetta, words of Teut. origin. ]
Also W. did, didi, a teat. These words have much the appearance
of being reduplicated from a base TI (Idg. DI). β. Besides these,
there is a second form represented by Gk. τίτθη, τιτθός ; of these the
Gk. τίτθη, τιτθύς, have been explained from 4/DHEI, to suck; cf.
Skt. dhé, to sack, Goth. daddjan, to suckle. See Tit (2).
TEAZLE, the same as Teasel, q.v.
TECHNICAL, artificial, pertaining to the arts. (Gk.; with L.
suffix.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Formed with suffix -al (<L.
-alis), from Gk. rexvix-és, belonging to the arts.—Gk. τέχνη, art;
allied to τέκτων, a carpenter.—4/TEK, to prepare, get ready; cf.
Skt. taksh, to prepare, form, cut wood, ¢akshan-, a carpenter; see
Text. Der. technical-ly, technical-i-ty;.techno-logy, with suffix=
Gk. -λογέα, from λέγειν, to speak. Also (from the same source)
archi-iect, pyro-technic; and see text, text-ure.
TECHY, the same as Tetchy, q.v.
TED, to spread new-mown grass. (Scand.) ‘I teede hey, I tourne
it afore it is made in cockes;” Palsgrave. “ΤῸ ¢edde and make hay;’
TEETOTUM, TOTUM 633
Fitzherbert, Book of Husbandry, § 25. ‘Gras .. unteddid;’ Wyclif's
Works, ed. Arnold, ii. 301.—TIccl. tedja (pp. /addr), to spread
manure; from ¢ad, manure. Cf. Icel. dada, hay grown in a well-
manured field, a home-field; /ddu-verk, making hay in the in-field.
Also Norw. zedja, to spread manure; from éad, manure; Aasen. So
also Swed. dial. tada, vb., from dad. Bavarian zeé/en, to strew, to let
fall in a scattered way, Schmeller, p. 1159; cf. G. verzetteln, to
scatter, spill, disperse. Cf. also MHG. zeé/en, to scatter, derived
from OHG. zafa, allied to zota (mod. (ἃ. zotte, a rag) ; see Schade.
B. All these words can be derived from asb. of which the Teut. base
is *tad-. Cf. Gk. δατ-έομαι,1 distribute. Cf. Tod.
TEDIOUS, tiresome, from length or slowness, irksome. (L.)
Spelt tedyouse in Palsgrave. Coined immediately from L. tedidsus,
irksome.—L. fedium, irksomeness.—L. tadef, it irks one. Der.
tedious-ly, -ness. We also use tedium, the sb.
TEE, a mark, a starting-point. (E.) From the use of a T to
mark an exact spot. Cf. tee-totum; and see Taw (2).
TEEM (,), to bring forth, bear, or be fruitful; be pregnant, full,
or prolific. (.) ‘Hyndre [her] of teming;’ Sir T. More, Works,
p- 644g. ME. temen, to produce, Ancren Riwle, p. 220, 1. 15.
Obviously from ME. zeme,ateam,a progeny; see Team. The AS.
verb is tieman, tyman, to teem, Gen. xxx. 9; formed (with the usual
vowel-change from δα to ie, later y) from AS. téam, a team, a pro-
geny. Teut. type *tawmjan-, vb., from *éaumoz, sb.
TEEM (2), to think fit. (OQLow G.) Rare, and obsolete; but
Shak. has the comp. beteem, to be explained presently. ‘I coulde
teeme it [think fit] to rend thee in pieces;’ Gifford’s Dialogue on
Witches, A.D. 1603. ‘Alas, man, I could teeme it to go;’ id. See
both quotations in full, in Halliwell, 5. ν. Teem.—Low G. tamen,
temen, to fit; also, to allow; as, ‘ He tamet stk een good Glas Wien,
he allows himself a good glass of wine ;’ allied to betamen, to be fit,
and to ¢amen, to tame; EFries. /emen, to find fitting, to allow one-
self. B. Related words are easily found, viz. in Goth. gatémiba,
fitly, from the strong verb gatiman (pt.t. gatam), to suit, agree with;
Luke, v. 36; Du. tamen, ‘to be comely, convenient, or seemely,’
Hexham ; tamelick, or tamigh, ‘ comely, convenient,’ id.; whence het
betaemt, ‘it is convenient, requisite, meete, or fitting,’ id.; mod. Du.
betamen, to beseem ; G. ziemen, to be fit; ziemlich, passable, lit. suit-
able; OHG. zeman, to fit, closely related to zeman, zamjam, to tame.
Allied to Tame, q.v. 2. We can now explain be/eem in Shak.
Mids. Nt. Dr. i. 1. 1313 Hamlet, i. 2,141. It means to make or
consider as fitting, hence to permit, allow; a slightly forced use of
the word. In Golding’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a.D.
1587, we have ‘could he not beteeme’=he did not think fit, would
not deign; the L. text has dignatur, Metam. x. 158. Spenser uses it
still more loosely: ‘So woulde 1... Beteeme to you this sword’ =
permit, grant, allow you the use of this sword; F. Q. ii. 8. 19.
TEEM (3), to empty, pour out. (Scand.) See Halliwell.—Icel.
tema, to empty, from ¢dmr,empty ; Dan. ¢6mme, to empty, from tom,
empty; Swed. d:mma, from tom; see Toom,
EEN, vexation, grief. (E.) In Shak. Temp. i. 2.64; ὅς. ME.
zene, Chaucer, C. T. 3108 (A 3106). AS. ¢éona, accusation, injury,
vexation, Grein, ii. 528. — AS. ¢éon, contracted from tikan, to accuse ;
see Grein, ii. 532, 5. ν. ¢ihaz. [To be distinguished from zéon (=
téohan), to draw.|+4Goth. gatethan, to tell, announce, make known
to, point out (as distinct from gatiuvhan, to lead); G. zethen, to
accuse (as distinct from ziehen, to draw).-+-L. dicare, to make known.
~/DEIK, to show. See Token. 4 The successive senses of
teen are making known, public accusation, reproach, injury, vexation.
We have indication and inditement from the same root. The word
teen also occurs as Old Saxon Ziono, injury ; Icel. ‘jan, loss.
TEETOTALLER, a total abstainer, (F.—L.; with Ἐς prefix
and suffix.) A teetotaller is one who professes total abstinence from all
spirituous liquors; the orig. name was éofal abstainer. The adj. tee-
total is an emphasized form of total, made on the principle of redupli-
cation, just as we have L. ¢e-igi as the perfect of tangere. The word
‘originated with Richard Tumer, an artisan of Preston, who, con-
tending for the principle at a temperance meeting about 1833, asserted
that “nothing but ¢e-¢e-tofal will do.” The word was immediately
adopted. He died 27 Oct., 1846. These facts are taken from the
Staunch Teetotaller, edited by Joseph Livesey, of Preston (an origin-
ator of the movement in August, 1832), Jan. 1867 ;’ Haydn, Dict.
of Dates. And see Teetotum. @ 7vetotal may have been sug-
gested by Zeefotum. In N. and Q. 5. 5. ν. 18, it is asserted that tee-
total was in use, as an intensive of total, before 1832.
TEETOTUM, TOTUM, a spinning toy. (L.) Not in Todd’s
Johnson. I had a teefotum (about A.D. 1840) with four sides only,
marked P (Put down), N (Nothing), H (Half), T (Take all). These
were very common, and the letters decided whether one was to put
into the pool or to take the stakes. (Strutt gives the same account,
in his Sports and Pastimes, bk. iy. c. 4. § 6.) I suppose that these
TEG
letters took the place of others with Latin explanations, such as P
(Pone), N (Nil), D (Dimidium), T (Totum). ‘The toy was named,
accordingly, from the most interesting mark upon it ; and was called
either a totum or a T-totum. Ash’s Dict., ed. 1775, has: “ Totum,
from the Latin, a kind of die that turns round, so called because
the appearance of one lucky side [that marked T] entitles the player
that turned it to the whole stake.’ ‘ J'otum, a whirl-bone, a kind of
die that is turned about;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Dunbar alludes to
this game: ‘ He playis with ¢otwm, and I with nichil;’ Works, ed.
Small, p. 106, 1. 74. Teetotums are now made with the thickest
part polygonal, not square, which entirely destroys the original
notion of them; and they are marked with numbers instead of
letters. —L. ¢d¢um, the whole (stake) ; neut. of ¢d/us ; see Total.
TEG, a young sheep of the first year, a ewe. (Scand.) PI. teggys;
Skelton, Against Garnesche, 31. Cf. Swed. tacka, a ewe (Widegren,
Thre).
TEGUMENT, a covering. (L.) Rare; commoner in deriv. in-
tegument. In Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. ii. c. 6. § 5.—L. fegu-
mentum (also tegimentum, tegmentum), a covering.—L, tegere (or
*stegere), to cover.4-Gk. στέγειν, to cover.—4/STEG, to cover ;
whence also Skt. sthag, to cover, Lithuan. stégti, to thatch; Olrish
tech, W. 15, a house. Brugmann, i. § 632. And see Thatch.
Der. in-tegument; also (from tectus, pp. of tegere), de-tect, pro-tect ;
and see tile, toga, thatch, deck.
TEIL-TREBE, a linden tree. (F.—L.; and E.) ‘A ¢eil-tree;’
Isaiah, vi. 13 (A.V.). —OF. teil, the bark of a lime-tree (Roquefort) ;
cf. mod. F, ¢ille, bast. [The added word ¢ree is E.] = L, tilia, a lime-
tree; also, the inner bark of a lime-tree.-+-Irish ei/e,
TEIND, a tithe. (Scand.) A Lowl. Sc. form. ‘ Bot tak his
teind;’ Sir D. Lyndesay, The Monarche, bk. iii. 4690. —Icel. ¢iund,
a tenth, tithe. —Icel. ¢ix, ten; see Ten.
TELEGRAPH, an apparatus for giving signals at a distance, or
conveying information rapidly. (Gk.) Modern; in Richardson’s
Dict. M. Chappe’s telegraph was first used in France in 1793; see
Haydn, Dict. of Dates. Coined from Gk. τῆλε, afar off; and
γράφειν, to write. The Gk. τῆλε, τηλοῦ, afar, are from an adj. form
*77-dos, not in use. Gk. γράφειν is cognate with Carve. Der.
telegraph-ic, telegraph-y, telegraph-ist. Also tele-gram, a short
coined expression for ‘telegraphic message,’ from γράμμα, a letter of
the alphabet, a written character. So also fele-phone; from Gk.
φωνή. voice, sound,
TELESCOPE, an optical instrument for viewing objects at a
distance. (Gk.) Galileo’s telescopes were first made in 1609.
Milton alludes to the ¢elescope, P. R. iv. 42. Coined from Gk. τῆλε,
afar; and σκοπεῖν, to behold; see Telegraph and Scope. Der.
tele-scop-ice So also tele-pathy, sympathy at a distance; from Gk.
-naeia, from πάθος, suffering, feeling.
TELL, to count, narrate, discern, inform. (E.) ME. ¢ellen, pt. t.
tolde, pp. told; often in the sense ‘to count,’ as in P. Plowman,
B. prol. 92. ‘Shal felle tales tweye;’ Chaucer, C. T. 794 (A 792).
AS. tellan, to count, narrate ; pt. t. ‘ealde, pp. teald; Grein, il. 524.
weak verb, formed from the sb. ¢alu, a tale, number; so that fellan
is for *¢aljan, with mutation of a to e. See Tale.+Du. ¢ellen,
from tal, sb.; Icel. ¢elja, from tala, sb. ; Dan. telle, from tal; Swed.
talja, from tal; G. zahlen, from zahl. Der. tell-er ; tell-tale, Merch.
Ven. v. 123.
TELLURIC, belonging to the earth. (L.) Rare, and scientific.
Coined with suffix -c (L. -cus), from L. telliri-, decl. stem of tellus,
earth. Allied to Irish talamh, Olrish talam, earth, Skt. tala-m,
surface. Der. telluri-um, a rare metal, discovered in 1782 (Haydn).
TEMERITY, rashness. (F.—L.) Spelt temeritie in Minsheu, ed.
1623.—MF. temerité, ‘temerity,’ Cot.—L. temerititem, acc. of
temeritas, rashness. = L. temeri- for *temerus, rash, only used in the
adv. demere, rashly. The orig. sense of temere is ‘in the dark,’
hence blindly, rashly ; cf. Skt. ‘amas, dimness, darkness, gloom.
TEMPER, to moderate, modify, control, qualify, bring to a
proper degree of hardness. (L.) ME. temprien, tempren, Rob. of
Glouc., p. 72, 1. 1684; Gower, C. A. i. 266; bk. ii, 3178. AS.
temprian, for which see Toller.—L. temperare, to apportion, mode-
rate, regulate, qualify ; allied to /emperi or tempori, ady., seasonably,
and to /empus, fit season, time. See Temporal. (Perhaps modi-
fied by MF, temperer, to temper; also from L. ¢emperare). Brug-
mann, ii. § 132. Der. temper, sb., Oth. v. 2. 253, Merch. Ven. i. 2.
20 (see Trench, Study of Words, and cf. L. temperiés, a tempering,
right admixture) ; temper-ance, ME. temperaunce, Wyclif, Col. iii. 12,
from F. temperance< L. temperantia ; temper-ate, Wyclif, 1 Tim. iii. 3,
from L. temperatus, pp. of temperare; temper-ate-ly, temper-ate-ness 5
temper-at-ure, from Εἰ, temperature, ‘a temper, temperature,’ Cot.,
from L. temperatura, due to temperdre; temper-a-ment, in Trench,
Select Glossary, from L, ‘emperamentum. Also dis-temper, q.vV., at-
temper. Doublet, tamper.
634
TEN
TEMPEST, bad weather, violent storm, great commotion. (F.—
L.) ME, tempest, Rob. of Gloue. p. 50, 1. 1151.—OF. tempeste, ‘a
tempest, storm, bluster;’ Cot. Mod. F. tempéte. —Late L. *tempesta,
not found (though ¢empestus, adj., and tempestare, verb, both appear) ;
for L. tempestds, season, fit time, weather, good weather; also bad
weather, storm; allied to ¢empus, season, time; see Temporal.
3rugmann, li. §§ 102,132. Der. tempest, verb, Milton, P. L. vii.
412, from MF. tempester, ‘to storm;’ Cot. Also tempest-u-ous,
1 Hen. VI, v. 5. 5, from MF. tempestuéux, ‘ tempestuous,’ Cot., from
L. tempestudsus ; tempestuous-ly, -ness.
TEMPLE (1), a fane, edifice in honour of a deity or for religious
worship. (L.) ME. temple, Chaucer, C. T. 10167, 10169 (E 2293,
2295). AS. templ, tempel (common), John, ii, 20.—L. templum, a
temple. Formed (with excrescent p after m) from an older form
*tem-lum (Walde).--Gk. τέμενος, a sacred enclosure, piece of
ground cut off and set apart for religious purposes; allied to Gk.
τέμ-ν-ειν (fut. τεμῶν, to cut. Der. ¢empl-ar, one of a religious order
for the protection of the ¢emple and Holy Sepulchre, founded in
1118, suppressed in 1312 (Haydn), ME. templere, P. Plowman,
B. xv. 509, from Late L, templarius (Ducange). Also templet, a
pattern or model indicating the outline of a baluster, &c., from F.
templet, the same (Littré), dimin. of F. temple, in the same sense,
from L, zemplum, a small timber, the same word as templum, a
temple. Also con-templ-ate, q. v.
TEMPLE (2), the flat portion of either side of the head above
the cheek-bone. (F.—L.) Gen. used in the plural. ME. templys,
pl., Voc. 626. 16. Gower has temples, C. A. iii. 370; bk. viii.
1, 2819.—OF. temples, ‘the temples ;” Cot.; Norm. dial. temples ;
Mod. F. ¢empe, sing. Formed, with the common change from r to
1, from L. tempora, pl., the temples. Der. ¢empor-al, adj., from F.
temporal, ‘ of or in the temples,’ Cot., from L. ¢empordalis, (1) temporal,
(2) belonging to the temples.
TEMPORAL (1), pertaining to this world only, worldly, secular.
(F.—L.) ΜΕ. temporal, Wyclif, Matt. xiii. 21.—OF. temporal,
usually temporel, ‘temporall;’ Cot.—L. ¢emporalis, temporal. - L.
tempor-, for lempus, season, time, opportunity. Der. temporal-ly;
temporal-i-ty, spelt temporalitie, Sir T. More, Works, p. 232 e, from
Late L. tempordalitas, revenues of the church (Ducange). Also
tempor-ar-y, Meas. for Meas. v. 145 (where it seems to mean respect-
ing things not spiritual), from L. temporarius, lasting for a time;
tempor-ar-i-ly, tempor-ar-i-ness, Also tempor-ise, Much Ado, i. 1.
276, from Ἐς temporiser, ‘to temporise it, to observe the time,’ Cot. ;
tempor-is-er, Wint. Tale, i. 2. 302. Also con-tempor-an-e-ous, con-
tempor-ar-y, ex-tempore. And see temper, tempest, tense (1).
TEMPORAL (2); for which see Temple (2).
TEMPT, to put to trial, test, entice to evil. (F.—L.) ME.
tempten, Ancren Riwle, p. 178. — OF. tempter, later ¢enter, ‘to tempt,
prove, try, sound, provoke unto evill;’ Cot.=—L. temptire, oc-
casional spelling of tentare, to handle, touch, feel, try the strength
of, assail, tempt. Frequentative of ¢endere, to stretch (pp. tentus) ;
Bréal. [But ¢emptare may have been written as fentare by error ; if
so, the words are unconnected.] Der. tempt-er, Wyclif, Matt. iv. 3 ;
tempt-r-ess, Ford, The Broken Heart, v. 1, from MF, tenteresse, ‘a
tempteresse, a woman that tempts,’ Cot. ; /empt-ing, tempt-ing-ly ;
tempt-at-ion, ME. temptacioun, Wyclif, Matt. xxvi. 41, from OF.
temptation, usually tentation, ‘a temptation,’ Cot., from L. acc.
tentationem. Also at-tempt. Doublet, tent (2), vb.
TEMULENT, drunken. (L.) Rare.=—L. fémulentus, drunken.
Allied to ¢@métum, intoxicating drink. See Abstemious. Cf. Skt.
zamya, to be exhausted.
TEN, twice five. (E.) ME. ten, Wyclif, Matt. xxv. 1. OMerc.
tén; AS. tien, tyn. Usually tyn, Matt. xxv. 1.4¢Du. tien; Icel.
tiu, ten, tigr,a decade; Dan. ti; Swed. tio; Goth. tathun; (ἃ. zehn,
OHG., zehan.4L. decem (whence F. dix, Ital. diect, Span. diez) ;
Gk. δέκα ; Lithuan. dészimtis; Russ, desiat(e); W. deg; Irish and
Gael. deich; Pers. dak (Palmer’s Dict. col. 278); Skt. daga.
B. All from Teut. type *tehan; Idg. type *dekam, Brugmann,
li, § 174. Origin unknown, Der. ten-fold, O. Eng. Homilies,
ii. 135, 1. 19 (see Fold); ten-th, ME. tenJe, Will. of Palerne, 4715,
also teonJe, O. Eng. Homilies, i. 219, 1. 17; also ¢ende, Ormulum,
2715, due to a confusion of AS. /éoda, tenth, with Icel. tiundi,
tenth; the true E. word is “ithe, q.v. Hence tenth-ly. From the
same base we have decim-al, decim-ate, duo-decim-al, deca-de , deca-gon,
deca-hedron, deca-logue, deca-syllabic, decem-vir, dec-ennial, do-deca-
gon, do-deca-hedron, dime. 4 The suffix -teexn, ME. -tené (dissyl-
labic), answers to OMere. -téne, AS. -tiéne, -t7ne, as in eahta-tyne,
eighteen, Judg. iii. 14; formed by adding the pl. suffix -e to én or
dyn, ten. Hence thir-teen (AS. Jréotyne); four-teen (AS. féower-
tyne); fif-teen (AS. fif-tyne); six-teen (AS, six-tyne); seven-teen
(AS. seofon-tyne); eigh-teen, miswritten for eight-teen (AS. eahta-
tyne) ; nine-teen (AS, nigon-tyne). @ The suffix -ty, ΜΕ. -ty=
TENABLE
AS. -tig, as in twen-ty (AS. twén-tig), &c. This suffix appears
also in Icel. sex-tigir, sex-tugr, sex-togr, sixty, and in Goth. saihs-
tigjus, G. sech-zig, sixty, &c.; all from a Teut. base *tegu-, allied
to Ten.
TENABLE, that can be held, kept, or defended. (F.—L.) In
Hamlet, i. 2. 248.—F. tenable, ‘holdable;’ Cot. Coined from F.
tenir, to hold.=L. tenére, to hold, keep, retain, reach, orig. to
stretch or extend, a sense retained in per-tinére, to extend through to.
-7/TEN, to stretch, extend; see Thin. Cf. Gk. τείνειν (for
*rév-yev), to stretch, Skt. ¢an, to stretch. Der. (from L. tenére)
abs-tain, abs-tin-ence, ap-per-tain, ap-pur-ten-ance, attempt, con-tain,
con-tent, con-tin-ent, con-tin-ue, coun-ten-ance, de-tain, de-tent-ion,
dis-con-tin-ue, dis-con-tent, dis-coun-ten-ance, enter-tain, im-per-tin-
ent, in-con-tin-ent, lieu-ten-ant, main-lain, main-ten-ance, mal-con-
tent, ob-tain, per-tain, per-tin-ac-i-ous, per-tin-ent, pur-ten-ance, rein,
re-tain, re-tent-ion, re-tin-ue, sus-tain, sus-ten-ance, sus-tent-at-ion; and
see ten-ac-i-ous, ten-ac-i-ty, ten-ant, tend (with its derivatives), tend-er,
tend-on, ten-dril, ten-e-ment, ten-et, ten-on, ten-or, tent (2), ten-u-ity,
ex-ten-u-ate, ten-ure, tempt, tent-acle, tent-at-ive. And see tone.
TENACIOUS, holding fast, stubborn. (L.) ‘So tenacious of
his bite;’ Howell, Famil. Letters, b. ii. let. 2, July 3, 1635.
Coined as if from L. *tenacidsus, from tendci-, decl. stem of tenax,
holding fast. —L. tenére, to hold. See Tenable. Der. tenacious-ly,
-ness,
TENACITY, the quality of sticking fast to. (F.—L.) Spelt
tenacitie in Minsheu, ed. 1627. -- ΜῈ, tenacité, ‘ tenacity ;᾿ Cot. =—L.
tendcitatem, acc. of tendcitas.—L. tenaci-, decl. stem of tenax; see
Tenacious.
TENANT, one who holds land under another.
ME. fenant, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 19, 1. 1o.—F.
tenant, holding ; pres. part. of tenir, to hold; see Tenable. Der.
tenanc-y, Bp. Hall, Satires, b. iv. sat. 2, 1. 25 from end ; tenant-able,
tenant-less, tenant-ry (a coined word). Also lieu-tenant, q.y. And
see tenement.
TENCH, a fish of the carp kind. (F.—L.) ME. fenche, Prompt.
Parv. OF. tenche, ‘a tench;’ Cot. Mod. F. tanche.—L. tinca, a
tench. Cf. Gascon ¢enco, a tench.
TEND (1), to aim at, or move towards, to incline, bend, to con-
tribute to a purpose. (F.—L.) In Hamlet, iii. 1. 170.—F. tendre,
‘to tend, bend;’ Cot.—L. tendere, to stretch, extend, direct, tender.
Allied to tenére, to hold; see Tenable. From 4/TEN, to stretch;
see Thin. Brugmann, ii. § 696 (3). Der. tend-enc-y, formed by
adding -y to the obsolete sb. tendence, signifying ‘ inclination,’ for
which see Richardson; and the sb. tendence was coined from L.
tendent-, stem of the pres. part. of tendere. Also tense (2); tend-er
(2). Also (from L. tendere, pp. tensus and tentus), at-tend, tend (2),
at-tent-ion, co-ex-tend, con-tend, dis-tend, ex-tend, ex-tens-ion, ex-tent,
in-tend, in-tense, in-tent, ob-tend, os-tens-ible, os-tent-at-ion, por-tend,
pre-tend, pro-tend, sub-tend, super-in-tend ; and see tense (2), tens-ile,
tender (3), tend-on, tent (1), tent-er, toise. Doublet, tender (2).
TEND (2), to attend, take care of. (F.—L.) In Hamlet, i. 3.
83, Much Ado, i. 3.17. Coined by dropping the initial a of OF.
atendre, to wait, attend. It is, in fact, short for Attend, q.v. Der.
tend-ing, sb. (for attending), Macb.i. 5. 36; tend-ance (for attendance),
Timon, i. 1. 57. And see tender (3).
TENDER (1), soft, delicate, fragile, weak, feeble, compassion-
ate. (F.—L.) ME. tendre, Ancren Riwle, p. 112, 1. 11.—F. tendre,
‘tender;’ Cot. Formed (with excrescent d after γι) from L. tene-
rum, ace. of fener, tender; orig. thin, fine, allied to tenuis, thin.
-4+/TEN, to stretch; see Thin. Der. tender-ly, -ness; tender-
heart-ed, Rich. I, iii. 3. 160; tender-heft-ed, K. Lear, ii. 4. 17
(Folio edd.), where heft=haft, a handle; so that tender-hefted=
tender-handled, tender-hilted, gentle to the touch, impressible ; see
Haft. Also tender, vb., to regard fondly, cherish, Rich. II, i. 1. 32,
and in Palsgrave ; a word which seems to be more or less confused
with fender (2), q.v. Hence tender, sb., regard, care, K. Lear,
i, 4. 230. And see fendr-il.
TENDER (2), to offer, proffer for acceptance, show. (F.—L.)
In Shak. Temp. iv. 5.—F. tendre, ‘to tend, bend, .. . spread, or dis-
play .. also, to tender or offer unto;’ Cot.—L. tendere, to stretch,
&c. See Tend (1), of which tender is a later form, retaining the r
of the F. infinitive; cf. attainder=F. attaindre. Der. tender, sb., an
offer, proposal. Doublet, tend (1).
TENDER (3), a small vessel that attends a larger one with
stores; a carriage carrying coals, attached to a locomotive engine.
(F.—L.) ‘A fireship and three tenders ;’ Dampier's Voyages, an.
1685 (R.). Merely short for attender = attendant or subsidiary
vessel; see Tend (2).
TENDON, a hard strong cord by which a muscle is attached to
a bone. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave.—F. tendon, ‘a tendon, or taile of a
muscle ;’ Cot. Cf. Span. tendon, Port. tend&o, Ital. tendine, a tendon.
(F.—L.)
TENSE
From a Late L. type */endo, with gen. case both ¢enddnis and ten-
dinis ; formed from L. tendere, to stretch, from its contractile force,
See Tend (1). Der. tendin-ous (R.), from F. tendineux, ‘of a
tendon ;’ Cot.
TENDRIL,, the slender clasper of a plant, whereby it clings to a
support. (F.—L.) Spelt texdrell in Minsheu, ed. 1627; and in
Drant, tr. of Horace, Bk. ii. Sat. 4, fol. G 8, back (1566). In
Milton, P. L. iv. 307. | Shortened from MF. tendrillons, s. pl. ‘ ten-
drells, little gristles;” Cot. Or from an OF. *tendrille or *tendrelle,
not recorded. Cot. also gives F. tendron, ‘a tender fellow, a car-
tilage, or gristle ; also a ¢endrell, or the tender branch or sprig of
a plant.’ Allthese forms are from F. tendre, tender ; see Tender (1).
So also Ital. ¢enerume, a tendril, from ¢enero, tender. @ Not from
tenére, to hold, nor from ¢endere, to stretch.
TENEBROUS, TENEBRIOUS, gloomy, dark. (F.—L.)
Tenebrous is in Cotgrave, and in Hawes, History of Grand Amour
(1555), ch. 3 (Todd). “ Tenebrious light’? is in Young, Night
Thoughts, Night 9, 1. 966. The latter is a false form.—F. tene-
breux, ‘tenebrous ;’ Cot.—L. tenebrosus, gloomy. = L. tenebra, 5. pl.,
darkness. Allied to Skt. ¢amisra-, darkness, tamas, gloom. 4/TEM,
to choke. Brugmann, i. §§ 413, 590.
TENEMENT, a holding, a dwelling inhabited by a tenant.
(F.—L.) ME. tenement, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 34,
last line. =F. tenement, ‘a tenement, inheritance,’ &c. ; Cot. = Late L.
tenementum, a holding, fief; Ducange.—L. fenére, to hold; see
Tenable and Tenant. Der. tenxement-al, adj.
TENET, a principle which a person holds or maintains. (L.)
‘The tenet must be this;’ Hooker, Eccl. Polity, b. viii. (R.).—L.
tenet, he holds; 3 p.s. pres. tense of fenere, to hold; see Tenable.
Cf. audit, habitat, exit, and other similar formations.
TENNIS, a game in which a ball is driven against a wall (or
over a cord) by rackets, and kept continually in motion. (F.—L.)
First mentioned in Gower’s Balade to King Henry IV, st. 43,1. 295;
printed in Chaucer’s Works, ed. 1532, fol. 377, col. 2; ed. 1561,
fol. 332, col. 1, where it is spelt tennes; but the Trentham MS. has
tenétz. Other spellings are ¢eneis, tenyse. ‘ Teneys, pley, Teniludus,
manupilatus, tenisia. T'eneys-pleyer, Teniludius;’ Prompt. Parv.
Spelt texyse, Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b.i. c. 27, 8. 7. ‘ Tenyse-
ball, pelote : Tennys-play, jeu de la paulme;’ Palsgrave. Turbervile
has a poem ‘to his friend P., Of Courting, Trauailing, and Tenys.’
It is spelt tenes in 1494; Excerpta Historica, p. 98. B. The AF.
tenetz, Ἐς, tenez (<L. tenétis, 2 Ὁ. pl. indic. of tenére, to hold) was
also used for L. tenéte, 2 p. pl. imperative; with the sense ‘take
this ;’ and we may conjecture that it was used by the player who
served, like our ‘ play!’ @ This seems the only possible ex-
planation of the form fenéiz, which was accented on the 2nd syllable,
as the rhythm shows :—‘ Of the fené/z to winne or lese a chace.’
The word (as a sb.) is AF., not OF. In N. and 0. 9 5. ix. 27, is
the following note. ‘M. Jusserand quotes from Lusus Puerilis,
Paris, 1555, and deduces that the excipe of Cordier and the acctpe of
Erasmus were the Latin version[s] of the French fenez, an exclama-
tion used in commencing play.’ The AF. tevez, ‘take or receive
this,’ is addressed to one person only in the Chanson de Roland, 387.
TENNY, the colour of orange, in heraldry. (F.—G.) Also
spelt fenney, tawney; see Boutell’s Heraldry.—OF. tenné, variant
of tané, tanné, tawny, tan-coloured (Godefroy). The same word as
Tawny, q.v.
TENON, the end of a piece of wood inserted into the socket or
mortice of another, to hold the two together. (F.—L.) In Levins.
ME. tenown, tenon; Prompt. Parv.—F. tenon, ‘a tenon; the end of
a rafter put into a morteise; /exons, pl. the vice-nailes wherewith the
barrel of a piece is fastened unto the stock; also the (leathern)
handles of a target;’ Cot. All these senses involve the notion of
holding fast. Formed, with suffix -on (L. acc. -dnem), from ten-ir, to
hold. —L. tenére; see Tenable.
TENOR, the general course of a thought or saying, purport ;
the highest kind of adult male voice. (F.—L.) ME. fenour.
‘Tenour, Tenor;’ Prompt. Parv. ‘Anothir lettre. . of a more
bitter fenour ;’ King Alisaunder, 2977. ‘Many. . ordenauncis were
made, wherof the ¢enoure is sette out in the ende of this boke;’
Fabyan’s Chron. an. 1257, ed. Ellis, p. 343. ‘ Tenour, a parte in
pricke-songe, feneur;’ Palsgrave.—F. feneur, ‘the tenor part in
musick; the tenor, content, stuffe, or substance of a matter;’
Cot. —L. tendrem, acc. of tenor, a holding on, uninterrupted course,
tenor, sense or tenor of a law, tone, accent.—L. tenére, to hold;
see Tenable. 4 The old (and proper etymological) spelling
is tenour, like honour, colour, &c. The éeror in music (Ital. tenore)
is due to the notion of holding or continuing the dominant note
(Scheler).
TENSE (1), the form of 2 verb used to indicate the time and
state of the action. (F.—L.) In Levins. Spelt tence and tense by
635
636 TENSE
Palsgrave, On the Verb. Shoreham has tense, in the sense of
‘time ;’ p. 39. In Chaucer, C. Τὶ 16343 (G 875), the expression
‘that futur femps’ ought to be explained rather as ‘that future ¢ense ’
than ‘that future time ;’ see my note on the line. —F. temps, time,
season; OF, tens (Burguy). —L. tempus, time; also a tense of a verb;
see Temporal.
TENSE (2), tightly strained, rigid. (L.) ‘Her forehead was
tense;’ Goldsmith, Vicar of Wakefield, ch. 28, § 1.—L. tensus,
stretched, pp. of tendere; see Tend (1). Der. tense-ly, -ness; tens-
ion, in Phillips, ed. 1706, from L. tensidnem, acc. of tensio, a stretching;
tensor, in Phillips, used as a variant of extensor; tens-ile, in Blount,
ed. 1674, a coined word; ¢ens-i-ty, a coined word. Also in-tense, toise.
TENT (1), a pavilion, a portable shelter of canvas stretched
out with ropes. (F.—L.) ME. tente, Rob. of Glouc., p. 203,
1. 4156. —F. tente, ‘a tent or pavillion; ’ Cot.— Late L. ¢enta,a tent ;
Ducange. Properly fem. of ¢entus, pp. of tendere, to stretch ; see
Tend (1). Obviously suggested by L. tentdrium, a tent, a derivative
from the same verb. Der. tent-ed, Oth. i. 3. 85.
TENT (2), a roll of lint used to dilate a wound. (F.—L.) See
Ναγεβ, Properly a probe; the verb ¢o fet is used for to probe,
Hamlet, ii. 2.626. ME. ¢ente. ‘ Tente of a wownde or a soore,
Tenta;’ Prompt. Parv. =F. tente, ‘a tent fora wound;’ Cot. Due
to the L. verb ¢tenfare, to handle, touch, feel, test; cf. F. ¢enter, ‘to
tempt, to prove, try, sound, essay;’ Cot. See Tempt. Cf. Span.
tienta, a probe, ziento, a touch. Der. dent, verb, as above.
TENT (3), a kind of wine. (Span.—L.) ‘ Tent or Tent-wine, is
a kind of Alicant,...andis a general name for all wines in Spain
except white; from the Span. vino tinto, i.e. a deep red wine;’
Blount, ed. 1674. —Span. vino ἐϊπίο, red wine ; ἐϊπίο, deep-coloured,
said of wine. =L. tinctus, pp. of tingere, to dye; see Tinge.
TENT (4), care, heed. (F.—L.) ‘Took ¢en¢;’ Burns, Death and
Doctor Hombook, st. 3. Short for atient or attention ; see Attend.
Der. fent, verb.
TENTACLE, a feeler of an insect. (L.) Modern. Englished
from Late L. *tentaiculum, which is also a coined word, formed from
tentare, to feel; see Tempt. Cf. L. spirdculum, from spirare.
Der. tentacul-ar.
TENTATIVE, experimental. (L.) ‘ Falsehood, though it be
but tentative ;’ Bp. Hall, Contemplations, b. xx. cont. 3. 8. 21.—L.
tentatiuus, trying, tentative. L. fentatus, pp. of tentare, to try; see
Tempt.
TENTER, a frame for stretching cloth by means of hooks. (F.—
L.) Properly tenture; but a verb ¢ent was coined, and from it a sb.
tenter, which took the place of tenture. The verb occurs in P. Plow-
man, B. xv. 447; or rather the pp. ytented, suggested by L. tentus.
ME. tenture. ‘Tenture, Tentowre, for clothe, Tensorium, extensorium,
tentura;” Prompt. Parv. ‘ Tentar for clothe, tend, tende ; Tenterhoke,
houet ;* Palsgrave. =F. tenture, ‘a stretching, spreading, extending ;’
Cot. —L. tentiira, a stretching ; cf. tentus, pp. of tendere, to stretch ;
see Tend (i). Der. tenter-hook, spelt tenterhoke in Palsgrave, a hook
orig. used for stretching cloth.
TENUITY, slenderness, thinness, rarity. (F.—L.) Spelt tenuitie
in Minshen, ed. 1627. -- ΜΈΝ tenuité, ‘tenuity, thinness ;” Cot.—L.
tenuitatem, acc. of. tenuitds, thinness. —L. tenuis, thin. —4/TEN, to
stretch; see Thin. Der. (from L. tenuis) ex-tenu-ate.
TENURE, a holding of a tenement. (F.—L.) In Hamlet, v.
1. 108.—F. zenure, ‘a tenure, a hold or estate in land;’ Cot. —Late
L. tentira (in common use); Ducange.=L. ¢enére, to hold; see
Tenable.
TEOCALLI, a Mexican temple. (Mexican.) Mex. eacalli. Mex.
teotl, a god (which loses ¢ in composition) ; and calli, a house.
TEPID, moderately warm. (L.) In Milton, P. L. vii. 417.—L.
tepidus, warm.=—L. tepére, to be warm.—4/TEP, to be warm, to
glow ; whence Skt. ¢af, to be warm, to warm, to shine, ¢apas, fire;
Russ. zopit(e), to heat ; Irish ἐδ, hot. Der. tepid-i-ty, from MF. tepidité,
‘luke-warmnesse,’ Cot., as if from L. acc. *tepiditatem; tepid-ness.
TERAPHIM, idols, images, or household gods, consulted as
oracles. (Heb.) See Judges, xvii. 5, xviii. 14; Hosea, iii. 4 (A.V.).
= Heb. teraphim, 5. pl., images connected with magical rites.
TERCEH, the same as Tierce, q. v.
TERCEL, the male of any kind of hawk. (F.—L.) Corruptly
spelt fassel, Komeo, ii. 2. 160; rightly ¢ercel, Troilus, iii. 2. 56. See
Tassel in Nares, ME. tercel ; ‘ the tercel egle,’ Chaucer, Assembly of
Fowls, 393. Also ¢ercelet, a dimin. form; Chaucer, C. T. 10818
(F 504).— OF, ¢ercel, diercel (Godefroy), whence MF. dimin. éiercelet,
‘the tassell, or male of any kind of hawk, so tearmed because he is,
commonly, a third part lesse then the female;’ Cot. Cf. Ital. ¢erzolo
(now spelt terzuolo), ‘a tassell-gentle of a hanke;’ Florio. Derived
(with dimin. suffix -e/) from OF. tiers, tierce, third ; just as Ital. ¢erzolo
is from Ital. ¢erzo, third. —L. ¢ertius, third; see Tierce and Three.
4 Burguy gives a different reason, viz. that, in popular opinion,
TERN
every third bird hatched was a male; he refers to Raynouard’s Pro-
vencal Dict., v. 412. Either way, the etymology is the same.
TEREBINTHO, the turpentine-tree. (L.—Gk.) — Teribinth; in
Spenser, Shep. Kal., July, 86.—L. ¢erebinthus.— Gk. τερέβινθος, the
turpentine-tree. Der. turpent-ine.
TEREDO, a wood-worm. (L.—Gk.) L. ¢erédo.—Gk. τερηδών,
a wood-worm; so named from boring into wood.—Gk. τερ-, base of
τείρειν (for *ré€p-yerv), to bore. See Trite, Termite.
TERGIVERSATION, a subterfuge, fickleness of conduct.
(F.—L.) In Cotgrave.—F. tergiversation, ‘ tergiversation, a flinch-
ing, withdrawing ;’ Cot. Lit. a turning of one’s back.—L. ter-
giuersationem, acc. of tergiuersatio, a subterfuge. L. tergiuersiri, to
turn one’s back, decline, refuse, shuffle, shift.—L. fergi-, for tergum,
the back ; and wersdri, to turn oneself about, pass. of uersare, to turn
about, frequentative of uertere (pp. versus), to turn; see Verse.
TERM, a limited period, a word or expression. (F.—L.) ME.
terme, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 316, 1. 21.—F. terme, ‘a
term, time, or day ; also, a tearm, word, speech ;’ (οἵ. «ον terminum,
acc. of terminus, a boundary-line, bound, limit (whence also Ital. ¢er-
mine, termino, Span, termino). Cf. OL. termen, with the same sense ;
Gk. τέρμα, a limit.—4/TER, to pass over, cross, fulfil; cf. Skt.
taraya, to cause to pass over. Der. term, vb., Temp. v. 15; and see
termination. Also (from L. terminus) termin-al, adj., from L. ter-
mindlis; con-termin-ous, de-termine, ex-termin-ate, pre-de-termine.
And (from the same root) en-ter; thrum (1).
TERMAGANT, a boisterous, noisy woman. (F.—Ital.—L.)
ME. Termagant, Termagaunt, Chaucer, C, Τὶ 13739 (B2000). Ter-
magant was one of the idols whom (in the medieval romances) the
Saracens are supposed to worship; see King of Tars, in Ritson’s
Metrical Romances, ii. 174-182; Lybeaus Disconus, in the same,
ii. 55. See Nares, who explains that the personage of Termagant
was introduced into the old moralities, and represented as of a
violent character. In Ram Alley, we have the expression: ‘that
swears, God bless us, Like a very termagant ;’ Dodsley’s Old Plays,
ed. Hazlitt, x. 322; and see Hamlet, iii. 2.15. So also: ‘this hot
termagant Scot;’ I Hen. IV, v. 4. 114. It has now subsided into
the signification of ascolding woman. ‘So must all our tavern ¢ar-
magons be used, or they'll trepan you;’ Lady Alimony, Acti. sc. 4
(1659). The name isa corruption of OF. Tervagant, Tervagan, or
Tarvagan; spelt Teruagant in Layamon’s Brut, 1. 5353, where he is
a Roman (!) god; and Yervagan in the Chanson de Roland, 1. 611,
where it signifies a Saracen idol.—Ital. Trivigante, the same,
Ariosto, xii. 59 (see Nares, s.v. 7rivigant); more correctly, Triva-
gante. It has been suggested that Trivagante or Tervagante is the
moon, wandering under the three names of Selene (or Luna) in heaven,
Artemis (or Diana) in earth, and Persephone (Proserpine) in the lower
world, Cf. dea trivia as an epithet of Diana. =L. ¢er, thrice, or ¢ri-,
thrice ; and wagant-, stem of pres, part. of uwagari, to wander. See
Ternary and Triform, and Vagabond. GJ See also my note
to the line in Chaucer and Tyrwhitt’s note; Ritson, Met. Rom.
iii. 260; Quarterly Review, xxi. 515; Wheeler, Noted Names of
Fiction; Trench, Select Glossary; &c. Perhaps Ital. Trivigante is
of Eastern origin.
TERMINATION, end, limit, result. (F.—L.) In Much Ado,
ii, 1. 256, where it is used with the sense of term, i.e. word or ex-
pression. F, fermination, ‘a determining, limiting ;’ Cot.=—L. ters
mindtionem, acc. of terminatio, a bounding, fixing, determining. =L,
terminare, to limit. =L. terminus, a bound, limit; see Term. Der.
termination-al. Also (from L, terminare) termin-ate, termin-able, ter-
min-at-iue, terminat-ive-ly. We also use L. terminus, sb., as an E.
word; Marlowe, Dr. Faustus, A. ii. sc. 2.
TERMITE, a white ant. (F.—L.) F. dermite, used in 1812
(Hatzfeld).—L. ¢ermitem, acc. of termes, more commonly tarmes, a
wood-worm. Allied to /erédo, a wood-worm; from the same root.
See Teredo.
TERN, an aquatic fowl. (Scand.) Not in the old dictionaries.
I find it in a translation of Buffon’s Nat. Hist., London, 17923 and
it was, doubtless, in much earlier use.— Dan. terne, terne, a tern;
Swed. arna; Icel. Jerna, a tern, occurring in the local name Jerney
(tern-island), near Rejkjavik in Iceland. Widegren’s Swed. Dict.
(ed. 1788) has ¢araa, ‘ tern.’ B. It is remarkable that Dan. terne,
Swed. ¢arna, Icel. ferna, also mean a hand-maid, maid-servant; cf
G, dirne ; but the words are unrelated (see dirnein Kluge). 64 The
scientific L. name Sterna was taken from E. s/ern, a name for the
black tern used by Turner (1544). ‘The field is Azure, a Cheuron
betweene three Sternes,’ the said birds being figured in the accom-
panying wood-cut; Guillim, Display of Heraldry, ed. 1664, p. 216.
Evidently from AS. stearn; ‘ Beacita, vel sturnus, stearn,’ in a list
of birds, Voc. 131, 11 ; ‘ Beacita, stearz ;’ Corpus Gloss., 284. The
forms stern, stare (for starling), and L. sturnus, are related ; and so
| also (with loss of initial s) Icel. Jerna, Dan. terme, Swed. tarna. The
TERNARY
form ¢ern is Scand., because the cognate E. form would be *thern or
stern. Cf. Norfolk starn, atern; Εἰ. D. D.
TERNARY, proceeding by, or consisting of threes. (L.) ‘A
senary, and a ¢ernary;’ Holland, tr. of Plutarch, p. 652 (R.)—L.
ternarius, consisting of threes. —L. terni, pl., by threes. Allied to fer,
thrice, and to /rés, three ; the latter being cognate with E. three. See
Three. Der. (from L. ferni), tern-ate, arranged in threes, a coined
word.
TERRA-COTTA, a kind of hard pottery. (Ital.—L.) From
Ital. ¢erra cotta, baked (lit. cooked) earth.—L. ¢erra, earth (see
Terrace) ; cocta, fem. of coctus, cooked, pp. of coguere, to cook; see
Cook.
TERRACE, a raised level bank of earth, elevated flat space.
(F.—Ital.—L.) Frequently spelt farras, as in Spenser, F. Ὁ. v.
9. 21; here ar is put forer, as in parson for person, Clark for clerk ; &c.
— MF. terrace, F. terrasse, ‘a plat, platform, hillock of earth,a terrace,
or high and open gallery;’ Cot.—TItal. ¢erraccia, terrazza, ‘a ter-
race;’ Florio. Formed with suffix -accia, usually with an augmenta-
tive force, from Ital. err-a, earth. L. zerra, earth. β. L. terra
stands for an older form *¢ersa, and signifies dry ground or land, as
opposed to sea. Allied to Gk. ταρσός (Attic ταρρός), a stand or
frame for drying things upon, any broad flat surface; τέρσεσθαι, to
become dry, dryup. Also to Irish tir, land, tirmen, main land, tirim,
dry ; W. tir, land ; Gael. tir, land (whence ceanntire, headland, land’s
end, Cantire). Cf. also L. ¢orrere, to parch.—4/TERS, to be dry;
whence Skt. ivsk, to thirst, Goth. ¢haursus, dry, G. diirr, dry. See
Thirst and Torrid. Brugmann,i. § 881. | Der. ¢erra-cotta, q. ν.
Also terr-aqueous, consisting of land and water; see Aqueous. And
see ferr-een, terr-ene, terr-estri-al, terr-t-er, terr-it-or-y. Also fumi-iory,
in-ter, medi-terr-an-e-an, tur-meric.
TERREEN, TUREEN,a large dish or vessel, esp. for soup.
(F.—L.) Both spellings are poor; it should rather be ¢errine ;
tureen is the commoner, and the worse, spelling. So called because
orig. made of earthenware. Spelt tureen, Goldsmith, The Haunch
of Venison; terrixe in Phillips, ed. 1706.—F. ferrine, ‘an earthen
pan;’ Cot. Formed, as if from a L. adj. *terrinus, earthen, from
terra, earth; see Terrace.
TERRENE, earthly. (L.) In Shak. Antony, 111. 13. 153.—L.
terrénus, earthly. —L. terra, earth; see Terrace.
TERRESTRIAL, earthly. (L.) Spelt zerestryall, Skelton,
Of the Death of Edw. IV, 1.15. Coined by adding -al (L. -adis) to
L. terrestri-, decl. stem of zerresiris, earthly.—L. terra, earth: with
suffix -st-tri-; see Terrace.
TERRIBLE, awful, dreadful. (F.—L.) Spelt ¢erryble in Pals-
grave.=F. ferrible, ‘terrible ;’ Cot.=—L. ¢erribilis, causing terror.—
L. terrére, to terrify; with suffix -bil’s. Allied to L. terror, terror:
see Terror. Der. terribl-y, terrible-ness.
TERRIER, a kind of dog; also a register of landed property.
(F.—L.) In both senses, the word has the same etymology.
1. ME. terrere, terryare, hownde, Terrarius;’ Prompt. Parv. The
dog was so called because it pursues rabbits, &c., into their burrows.
Terrier is short for terrier-dog, i.e. burrow-dog.=—T'. ¢errier, as in
chien terrier, ‘a terrier ;” Cot. = Late L. terrarius, belonging to earth.
“αὶ, terra, earth. Cf. MF. terrier, ‘the hole, berry, or earth of a
conny or fox, also, a little hillock ;’ Cot.—Late L. terrarium, a little
hillock ; hence, a mound thrown up in making a burrow, a burrow.
2. A legal term; spelt ¢errar in Blount’s Nomolexicon; ¢errere, Bury
Wills, p. 78 (1478). =F. papier terrier, ‘the court-roll or catalogue
of all the names of a lord’s tenants,’ &c.; Cot.—Late L. terrarius, as
in ¢errarius liber, a book in which landed property is described.
Formed with suffix -drivs from L. ferr-a, as above. See Terrace.
TERRIFIC, terrible, inspiring dread. (L.) Spelt terrifick, Mil-
ton, P. L. vii. 497. — L. ¢errificus, causing terror. —L. ¢erri-, appearing
in terri-tus, pp. of ¢errére, to frighten; and -ficus, causing, from
facere, to make; see Terror and Fact. Der. ¢errijic-ly. Also
terrify, formed as if from a F. *¢errifier (given in Littré as a new
coinage), from L. ferrifcare, to terrify.
TERRINE, the same as Terreen, q. v.
TERRITORY, domain, extent of land round a city. (F.—L.)
In As You Like It, iii. 1.85; ¢errytorie in Caxton, Siege of Troy,
If. 68, back. Adapted from F. territoire, ‘a territory; ’ Cot.—L.
territorium, a domain, the land round a town. Formed from L.
terra, land; as if from a sb. with decl. stem Zerritori-, which may be
explained as possessor of land. See Terrace. Der. ferritori-al,
adj.
TERROR, dread, great fear, (F.—L.) Formerly written fer-
rour, All’s Well, ii. 3. 4 (first folio}; but also zerror, Meas. for Meas.
i. 1, 103 ii. 1. 4 (id.). ME. terrour, Libell of E. Policy, 1. 935.—F.
terreur, ‘terror;’ Cot.—L. ¢errérem, acc. of terror, dread. Allied
to éerrére, to frighten, to scare; orig. to tremble. B. Terrére
stands for *fersére (like ¢erra for *tersa); cognate with Skt. /ras, to
TESTER 637
tremble, be afraid, whence /rasa-, terror; Gk. τρέειν (for *rpéo-exv),
to tremble ; Lithuan. zriszé#i, to tremble, Russ. trias¢(e), to shake,
shiver. Allied to Tremble. Brugmann, ii. § 657. Der. éerror-
ism. And (from same root) ferri-ble, terri-fic, de-ter.
TERSE, concise, compact, neat. (L.) ‘So ¢erse and elegant were
his conceipts and expressions;’ Fuller, Worthies, Devonshire (R.).
Used also in the sense of smooth: ‘ many stones also, . . although
terse and smooth;’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. ii. c. 4. § 3.—L.
tersus, wiped off, clean, neat, pure, nice, terse. Tersus is pp. of
tergere, also tergére, to wipe, rub off, wipe dry, polish a stone
(whence Sir Τὶ Browne’s use of ¢erse). Der. terse-ly, -ness.
TERTIAN, occurring every third day. (F.—L.) Chiefly in the
phr. ¢ertian fever or tertian ague. ‘ A feuer terciane;’ Chaucer, C. T.
14965 (B 4149). -- Εἰ éertiane, ‘a tertian ague;’ Cot.=L. tertiana, a
tertian fever; fem. of ¢ertidnus, tertian, belonging to the third. =L.
tertius, third. = L. ter, thrice ; trés, three, cognate with E. Three, q. v.
And see Tierce.
TERTIARY, of the third formation, (L.) Moderm.=—L. ter-
tidrius, properly containing a third part; but accepted to mean
belonging to the third.—L. ¢erti-us, third; with suffix -arius; see
Tertian.
TESSELATE, to form into squares or lay with checker-work.
(L.) Chiefly used in the pp. desselated, which is given in Bailey’s
Dict. vol. 11. ed. 1731. ‘ Tesseled worke;’ Knolles, Hist. of the
Turks, 1603 (Nares).—L. dessellatus, furnished with small square
stones, checkered. = L. ¢essella, a small squared piece of stone, a little
cube, dimin. of ¢essera, a squared piece, squared block, most com-
monly in the sense of a die for playing with. B. Root uncertain ;
sometimes referred to Gk. τέσσαρες, four, from its square shape ; but
such a borrowing is very unlikely, and a ¢essera was cubical, having
six sides.
TEST, a pot in which metals are tried, a critical examination,
trial, proof. (F.—L.) The fest was a vessel used in alchemy, and
also in testing gold. “ Test, is a broad instrument made of maribone
ashes, hooped about with iron, on which refiners do fine, refine, and
part silver and gold from other metals, or as we use to say, put them
io the test or trial;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. ME. test, Chaucer,
C. T. 16286 (G 818). —OF. fest, mod. F. ἠδέ, a test, in chemistry
and metallurgy (Hamilton). Cf, OF. ¢este, sometimes used in the
sense of skull, from its likeness to a potsherd; mod. F. ¢ée. It is
probable that OF. /est and teste were sometimes confused; they
merely differ in gender; otherwise, they are the same word. Test
answers to a L, festa, ¢estum, an earthen pot (Lewis); whilst deste
answers to Late L. ¢esfa, used to denote a certain vessel in treatises
on alchemy ; a vessel called a esta is figured in Theatrum Chemicum,
iii. 326. In Italian we find the same words, viz. testo, ‘ the test of
silver or gold, a kind of melting-pot that goldsmiths vse,’ Florio ;
also testa, ‘a head, pate, . . a “est, an earthen pot or gallie-cup,
burnt tile or brick, a piece of a broken bone, a shard of a pot or tile.’
B. All allied to L. ¢esta, a brick, a piece of baked earthenware,
pitcher, also a potsherd, piece of bone, shell of a fish, skull. Some
make it an abbreviation of */ersta, i.e. dried or baked, with reference
to clay or earthenware; allied to ¢erra (<*tersa), dry ground. =
a TERS, to be dry; see Terrace. Or perhaps cognate with Pers,
tasht, a bason ; see Tazza. Der. fest, verb; cf. ‘ tested gold,’ Meas.
for Meas, ii. 2. 149. Also ¢es¢-ac-e-ous, test-er, test-y, q. V-
TESTACEOUDS, having a hard shell. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674. Englished from L. tes/dceus, consisting of tiles, having
a shell, testaceous.—L. festa, a piece of dried clay, tile, brick. See
Test.
TESTAMENT, a solemn declaration in writing, a will, part of
the bible. (F.—L.) ME, testament, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft,
p- 20,1.9; Ancren Riwle, p. 388.—F. testament, ‘a testament or
will;’ Cot.—L. ¢estamentum, a thing declared, last will. —L. testa-ri,
to be a witness, depose to, testify; with suffix -mentum.—L. testis,
a witness. Root uncertain. Der. testament-ar-y; in-test-ate, q. V.;
test-at-or, Heb. ix. 16, from L. testator, one who makes a will;
testatr-ix, L. testatrix, fem. form of testator. And see éestify, testimony.
(From L, testis) at-test, con-test, de-test, pro-test.
TESTER, a sixpence; a flat canopy over a bed or pulpit. (F.—
L.) 1. The sense ‘sixpence’ is obsolete, except as corrupted to
tizzy; see Shak. 2 Henry IV, iii. 2. 296. The zester was so called
from the head upon it; it is a short form of festerne, as in Latimer’s
Sermons, 1584, fol. 94 (Todd). Again, ¢estern is, apparently, a cor-
ruption of feston (sometimes /esfoon), which was ‘a brass coin covered
with silver, first struck in the reign of Hen. VIII. The name was
given to shillings and sixpences, and Latimer got into trouble by
referring to the newly coined shilling or /eston; see Latimer, Seven
Sermons, ed. Arber, p. 85, where it is spelt ‘estyox. In 1560 the
teston of 6d. was reduced to 44d. The name Zeston was given to the
new coins of Louis XIL. of France because they bore the head of that
638 TESTICLE
prince; but Ruding observes that the name must have been applied
to the E. coin by mere caprice, as all money of this country bore the
head of the sovereign;’ H. B. Wheatley, note to Ben Jonson, Every
Man in his Humour, iv. 2. 104, where ¢eston occurs. =F. teston, ‘a
testoon, a piece of silver coin worth xviijd. sterling ;’ Cot.—OF.
teste,a head ; mod. F. ἐδέο. - L. testa, of which one sense was ‘ skull;’
see further under Test. 2. ‘Testar for a bedde;’ Palsgrave.
{Allied to ME, tester, a head-piece, helmet, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 2501
(A 2499).] Cf. ‘Teester of a bed;’ Prompt. Parv.=—OF. ¢esire,
tester of a bed (Godefroy) ; cf. MF. ¢estiere, ‘ any kind of head-piece ;’
Cot. OF. teste, a head; as above.
TESTICLE, a gland in males, secreting seminal fluid. (F.—L.)
In Cotgrave. =F. ¢esticule, ‘a testicle ;’ Cot.=L. testiculum, acc. of
testiculus, dimin. of ¢estis, a testicle.
TESTIFY, to bear witness, protest or declare. (F.—L.) ME.
testifien, P. Plowman, C, xiii. 172,—F. testifier, ‘to testify ;’ Cot.—
L. testificari, to bear witness. — L. testi-, decl. stem of testis, a witness ;
and -fic-, for facere, to make; see Testament and Fact. Der.
testifi-er.
TESTIMONY, evidence, witness. (L.) In K. Lear, i. 2. 88.
Englished from L. ¢estimonium, evidence. L. testi-, decl. stem of
testis, a witness; see Testament. The suffix -monium =Idg. -mon-
yo-. 4 The F. word is #émoin, OF. tesmoing. Der. testimoni-al,
in Minsheu, from Εἰ. ¢estimonial, ‘a testimoniall,’ Cot.; from L.
testimonials, adj.
TESTY, heady, fretful. (F.—L.) In Palsgrave; and in Jul. Ces.
iv. 3. 46. ME. ¢estif, Chaucer, C. T., A 4004.—OF. *testif (not
found) ; allied to MF. ¢estu, ‘ testy, heady, headstrong ;’ Cot. —OF.
teste, the head; mod. F. zéte. See Test. Der. testi-/y ; testi-ness,
Cymb. iv. I. 23.
TETANUS, a disease characterised by rigid spasms. (L.—Gk.)
Late L. ¢etanus.—Gk. τέτανος, a strain, convulsive spasm ; allied to
teravés, adj., stretched. Reduplicated forms (with prefix 7e-)
ae to τείνειν (for *rév-yewv), to stretch.—4/TEN, to stretch. See
in.
TETCHY, TECHY, touchy, fretful, peevish. (F.—Low G.)
In Rich. III, iv. 4. 168; Troil. i. 1.99; Rom. i. 3. 32. The sense
of tetchy (better techy) is full of tetches or teches, i.e, bad habits,
freaks, whims, vices. The adj. is formed from ME. tecche or tache,
a habit, esp. a bad habit, vice, freak, caprice, behaviour, ‘ Tetche,
tecche, teche, or maner of condycyone, Mos, condicio;” Prompt.
Pary. ‘A chyldis ¢atches in playe, mores pueri inter ludendum ;’
Horman, Vulgaria; cited by Way. ‘ Offritie, crafty and deceytfull
taches;’ Elyot’s Dict. ‘ Of the maners, ¢acches, and condyciouns of
houndes ;’ MS. Sloane 3501, c.xi; cited by Way. ‘ pe sires ¢acches’
=the father’s habits; P. Plowman, B. ix. 146. Techches, vices;
Ayenbite of Inwyt, Ὁ. 32, 1. 15.—OF. tache, ‘a spot, staine, blemish ;
also, a reproach, disgrace, blot unto a man’s good ‘name ;’ Cot.
Also spelt faiche, teche, teque, tek, a natural quality, disposition, esp.
a bad disposition, vice, ill habit, defect, stain (Burguy). Mod. F.
tache, only in the sense of stain, mark. [Cf. Ital. ¢acca, a notch,
cut, defect, stain, Port. and Span. ¢acha, a defect, flaw, crack, small
nail or tack.] Of Low ἃ. origin. See Tache (2) and Tack.
Cf. at-tach and de-tach, from the same source. We even find the
E. form tack, a spot, stain; Whitgift’s Works, ii. 84 (Parker Soc.).
Now corrupted to ¢ouch-y, from the notion of being sensitive to
the touch. This is a mere adaptation, not an original expression ;
see Touchy. (The double form in OF., viz. tache, teche, causes
difficulty and doubt ; two or more sources may have been confused
together. See Kérting, §§ 9331, 9346, 9420.)
TETHER, a rope or chain for tying up a beast. (E.) Formerly
written zedder. ‘Live within thy zedder,’ i.e. within your income’s
bounds; Tusser, Husbandry, sect. 10, st. 9 (sidenote). ‘ Teddered
cattle,’ id. sect. 16, st. 33 (E.D.S. p. 42). ME. tedir; ‘ Hoc liga-
torium, a tedyre;’ Wright’s Voc. i. 234, col. 2, Not found earlier
thanthe 13thcentury. The corresponding AS. form would be */éoder,
as shown by OFries. tiader, tieder, NFries. tjdder, tjiidder, EFries.
tiidder ; cf. also Mid. Du. ¢uyer, ‘a line, a shackle, or roape to tye
beasts in a pasture;” Hexham. B. We might explain the AS.
*téoder as standing for */éoh-der; from the base téoh-=G, zieh-, to
draw; cf. Goth. tizhan, to pull, cognate with L. diic-ere. If this be
right, the original sense was ‘ puller ;’ from its restraint. Cf. OHG.
zeotar, ΜΉ. zieter, a thill, shaft (ofa cart). γ. We also find Icel.
tjodr, a tether, Low G. tider, tier, a tether, Norw. tjoder (Aasen),
Swed. ¢juder, Dan. ¢éir; all similarly formed. See Tie. The
suffix -der answers to Gk. -τρον, L. -trum, and denotes the agent.
Cf. Bahder, p. 147; Brugmann, ii. ὃ 62. Der. tether, verb.
TETRAGON, a figure with four angles. (F.—L.—Gk.) “ Tetra-
gonal, that is, four-square, as a ze/ragon or quadrangle;” Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674,.—MF. tetragone, adj., ‘of four comers;’ Cot.—L.
tetragonus, — Gk. τετράγων-ος, four-angled, rectangular, square. = Gk,
TH
rétpa-, for τεταρα-, prefix allied to τέτταρες, Attic form of τέσσαρες,
four, which is cognate with E. Four, q.v.; and γωνία, an angle,
corner, allied to Gk. γόνυ, a knee, cognate with E. Knee. Cf. L.
prefix guadri-, similarly related to guaiuor, four. Der. tetragon-al,
adj., as above.
TETRAHEDRON, a pyramid, a solid figure contained by
four equilateral triangles. (Gk.) Spelt ¢etraedron and tetrahedron in
Phillips, ed. 1706.—Gk. τέτρα-, prefix allied to τέσσαρες, four; and
-€5pov, from ἕδρα, a base, which from €5-, cognate with E. sit. See
Tetragon; and see Four and Sit. Der. tetrahedr-al, adj.
TETRARCH, a governor of a fourth part of a province. (L.
—Gk.) ME, éetrark (ill spelt tetrak), Wyclif, Luke, ix. 7.—L.
tetrarcha, Luke, ix. 7.—Gk. τετράρχης, a tetrarch.—Gk. τέτρ-, pre-
fix allied to τέσσαρες, four; and ἄρχ-ειν, to be first. Cf. Skt. arh, to
be worthy. See Tetragon ; also Four and Arch-. Der. ¢etrarch-
ate; tetrarch-y, Gk. τετραρχία.
TETRASYLLABULE, a word of four syllables. (F.—L.—
Gk.) <A coined word; from MF. ¢etrasyllabe, ‘ of four syllables ;’
Cot. =—Late L. ¢etrasyllabus (not in Ducange).— Gk. τετρασύλλαβος,
of four syllables. Gk. τέτρα-, prefix allied to τέσσαρες, four; and
συλλαβή; a syllable. See Tetragon; also Four and Syllable.
Der. tetrasyllab-ic.
TETTER, a cutaneous disease. (E.) In Hamlet, i. 5.71; and in
Baret (1580). ΜΕ. eter, Trevisa, ii. 61. “ες serpedo, a ¢etere;’
Voc. 791.14. AS. deter. ‘Impetigo, teter;’ Voc. 26.12. Cf. G.
zittermal, a tetter, ring-worm, serpigo; OHG. zitaroch (Bavar.
zitteroch). Allied to L. derbidsus, scabby ; Skt. dadru-, a tetter.
TEUTONIC, pertaining to the Teutons or ancient Germans.
(L.—Teut.) Spelt Teutonick in Blount, ed. 1674.—L. Teutonicus,
adj., formed from Teutones, the Teutons, a people of Germany. The
word J'eutones means no more than ‘men of the nation;’ or ‘the
people,’ being formed with L. suffix -ones (pl.) from *teuta, pre-
Teutonic form of Goth. ¢hinda, a people, nation; cf. Irish twath, a
people. See further under Dutch. Brugmann, i. § 218.
TEW, to taw, to scourge. (E.) A variant of Taw, q.v.
TEXT, the original words of an author; a passage of scripture.
(F.—L.) ME. texte, Chaucer, C. T. 17185 (Η 236). -- ἘΞ texte, ‘a
text, the originall words or subject of a book;’ Cot. —L. textum,
that which is woven, a fabric, also the style of an author; hence, a
text. Orig. neut. of ¢extus, pp. of texere, to weave.-+-Skt. taksh, to
cut wood, prepare, form. Furtherallied to Technical, q.v. Der.
text-book ; text-hand, a large hand in writing, suitable for the text of
a book as distinct from the notes; ¢ext-u-al, ME. ¢extuel, Chaucer,
C. T. 17184 (H 235), from F. zextuel, ‘of, or in, a text,’ Cot.,
coined as if from a Late L. *¢extudlis, adj.; textu-al-ly, textu-al-
ist. And see text-ile, text-ure below. From the same root are ¢ech-
nic-al, q.v.; con-text, pre-text. Also sub-tle, toil (2), tissue; and
cf. toxicology.
TEXTILE, woven, that can be woven, (L.) ‘The warp and
the woofe of zextiles;’ Bacon, Nat. Historie, § 846.—L. ¢extilis,
woven, textile.—L. ¢extus, woven, pp. of ¢exere;. see Text. See
also texture, tissue.
TEXTURE, anything woven, a web, disposition of the parts.
(F.—L.) In Cotgrave.=F. texture, ‘a texture, contexture, web; ἢ
Cot.—L. ¢extiira, a web; cf. textus, pp. of texere, to weave; see
Text. And see ¢extile above.
dE.
TH. This is a distinct letter from ἡ, and ought to have a distinct
symbol. Formerly, we find AS. ἢ and ὃ used (indiscriminately) to
denote both the sounds now represented by 7h; in Middle-English,
ὃ soon went out of use (it occurs in Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris),
whilst p and ἐᾷ were both used by the scribes. The letter } was
assimilated in shape to y, till at last both were written alike; hence
y®, yt (really the, that) are not unfrequently pronounced by modern
Englishmen like ye and yat; it is needless to remark that * man was
never pronounced as ye maz in the middle ages.
For greater distinctness, the symbol 8 will be used for AS. words
(and tk for ME. words) corresponding to mod. E. words with the
‘voiced’ ¢h, as in thou; and the symbol p for AS, and ME. words
corresponding to mod. E. words with the ‘voiceless’ ἐλ, as in thin.
It is useful to note these three facts following. 1. When ἐλ is initial,
it is always voiceless, except in two sets of words, (a) words etymo-
logically connected with that; and (Ὁ) words etymologically con-
nected with ¢hou. 2. When Zh is in the middle of a word or is final,
it is almost always ‘voiced’ when the letter e follows, and not
otherwise ; cf. breathe, with breath. A remarkable exception occurs
THALER
in smooth. 3. No word beginning with zh (except ¢hurible, the base
of which is Greek) is of Latin origin; most of them are E., but
some (easily known) are Greek; thummim is Hebrew. Inthe G.
thaler (below), the ἐλ is sounded as ¢.
THALER, a dollar. (G.) 6. thaler, a dollar; see Dollar.
THAN, a conjunction placed, after the comparative of an adjective
or adverb, between things compared. (E.) Frequently written then
in old books; extremely common in Shakespeare (1st folio). ME.
thanne, thonne, thenne; also than, thon, then. AS. Donne, than;
“betera Jonne Scet réaf’=better than the garment; Matt. vi. 25.
Closely allied to the demonst. pronoun; see That. See March,
A. S. Grammar, ὃ 252.4-Du. dan, than, then; Goth. than, then,
when, allied to the demonst. pron, with neut. ‘hata; (ἃ. dann, then,
denn, for, then, than, allied to der. Cf. L. tum, then; -tud in L.
is-tud, @ The same word as then ; but differentiated by usage.
THANE, a dignitary among the English. (E.) In Macb. i. 2.
45. ΜΕ. fein, Havelok, 2466. AS. Jegen, Jegn, often Jen (by con-
traction), a thane; Grein, ii. 578.4Icel. Jegn ; G. degen, a warrior.
Teut. type *thegnoz, m. Allied to Gk. τέκνον, a child, which is
from tex-, as in τεκ-εῖν, 2nd aorist infin. of τίκτειν, to beget.
(WTEK.) Brugmann, ii. § 66.
HANK, an expression of good will; commonly used in the pl.
thanks, (E.) Chaucer uses it in the sing. number. ‘And haue a
fank ;’ C. T. 614 (A 612). So also Gower: ‘ Althogh I may no
Bonk deserve ;’ C. A. i. 66; bk. i. 738. AS. απο, often also Jone,
thought, grace or favour, content, thanks. The primary sense of
‘thought’ shows that it is closely allied to Think, q.v. The verb
fancian, to thank (Mark, viii. 6), is a derivative from the sb.4Du.
dank, sb., whence danken, vb.; Icel. φῦλα (<pink), gen. pakkar,
whence Jakka, vb.; Dan. tak, sb., whence fakke, vb.; cf. tanke,
a thought, idea; Swed. tack, sb., whence tacka, yvb.; Goth. thagks
(for *thanks), thank, Luke, xvii. 9, where the s is the usual suffix of
the nom. sing. ; cf. thagkjan, to think ; G. dank, sb., whence danken,
verb. Teut. type *thankoz, m.; from *thank, 2nd grade of *thenkan-,
to think; see Think. Der. thank, verb, as above; thank-ful,
AS. fancful, spelt doncful and glossed ‘ gratiosus,’ Voc. 191. 15;
thank-ful-ly, thank-ful-ness ; thank-less, Cor. iv. 5. 76, thank-less-ly,
thank-less-ness, thank-offer-ing, thank-worthy, 1 Pet. ii. 19. Also
thanks-giving, i.e. a giving of thanks, L. L. L. ii. 193 ; shanks-giver.
THAT, demonst. and rel. pronoun and conjunction. (E.) ME.
that. AS. det, orig. neut. of demonstrative pronoun, frequently
used as neut. of the def. article, which is merely a peculiar use of the
demonst. pronoun. [The masc. sé, and fem. séo, are from a different
base; see She.] In late MSS., we meet with a corresponding
masc. form de, as in ‘de hearpere’=the harper, A®lfred, tr. of
Boethius, c. xxxy. § 6, lib. 111. met. 12, where the Cotton MS. has
‘se hearpere.’ Also with a corresponding late fem. form déo, as in
‘8a ὅδο sawul hebban sceal ’= which the soul is to have ; Adrianus
and Ritheus, in Ettmiiller’s A. 5. Selections, p. 40, 1. 43. The neut.
det is from the Teut. pronominal base THA=Idg. TO, meaning
‘he’ or ‘that.’ The suffix -¢ in ¢ha-¢ is merely the mark of the
neut. gender, as in wha-t from who, ἐπέ (formerly hi-¢) from he; it
answers to L. -d as seen in is-tu-d, qui-d, t-d, illu-d. B. From Idg.
TO are Skt. /at, it, that, and numerous cases, such as tam, him (acc.
masc.), ¢@m, her (acc. fem.), ἐξ, they, &c. Also Gk. τό, neut. of def.
art., and the gen. τοῦ, τῆς, dat. τῷ, τῇ, acc. τόν, THY, τό, &c. Also
the latter part of L. is-te, is-ta, is-tud. So also Lithuan. ¢as, m., α,
f., fat, n., that; Russ. fot’, masc., ¢a, fem., fo, neut., that; Du. de,
masc. and fem., the; dat, conj., that; Icel. Jat, neut., the; Dan.
den, masc. and fem., det, neut., the; Swed. den, masc. and fem., det,
neut., this; G. der, masc., die, fem., das, neut., the ; dass, conj., that ;
Goth. thata, neut. of def. article.
For the purposes of E. etymology it is necessary to give the AS.
def. art. in full. It is as follows, if we put sé and séo (the usual
forms) in place of de, dé0, SING. NOM. sé, séo, Jet; GEN. das, dére,
d@s; DAT. dam, dére, dam; ACC. done, δᾶ, dat; INSTRUMENTAL,
oy (for all genders). PLUR. NOM. AND ACC. 0a; GEN. dara; DAT. dam.
4 Allied words all begin with ‘voiced’ th; as there, than, then,
the (1), the (2), they, their, them; thence, thither; these, those,
thus.
THATCH, a covering for a roof. (E.) A palatalised form of
thak. Cf. prov. E. thack, a thatch, ¢hacker, a thatcher ; ME. fak,
Prompt. Parv. AS. ας (dat. Jece), thatch, Grein, ii. 564; whence
peccan (for *pac-ian), to thatch, cover, Grein, ii. 577.- Πα. dak, sb.,
whence dekken, verb (whence E. deck is borrowed) ; Icel. Jak, sb.,
pekja, v.; Dan. tag, sb., tekke, v.; Swed. tak, sb., takke, v.; G. dach,
s., decken, v. B. Teut. type *Jak-om, neut. From *Jak, 2nd
grade of Teut. root *thek, to cover =Idg. 4/TEGw, STEGw;; cf. Gk.
τέγος, variant of στέγος, a roof. From the same root we have Skt.
sthag, to cover, Gk. στέγειν, to cover, L. tegere, to cover, Lithuan,
stégti, to cover, Olrish tech, Irish teagh, a house, Gael. teach, tigh,
THEIR 639
a house, Gael. a stigh, within (i.e. under cover), W. 27, a house
Der. thatch, vb., as above; thatch-er, spelt thacker, Pilkington’s
Works, p. 381 (Parker Soc.). Also (from L, tegere) teg-u-ment, tile.
Also (from Du. decken) deck. Brugmann, i. § 632.
THAUMATURGY, magic. (Gk.) Cf. F. thaumaturgie (1878);
Hatzfeld, — Gk. @avparoupyia, a working of wonders. —Gk. θαυματ-,
stem of θαῦμα, a wonder, marvel; and €py-ov, a work, cognate
with E. Work, q.v.
THAW, to melt, as ice, to grow warm after frost. (E.) Prov. E.
thow, rhyming with snow. ME. owen, in comp. of-fowed, pp.
thawed away, Chaucer, House of Fame, iii. 53. Spelt Aowyn,
Prompt. Ῥασν. AS. Jawian; ‘se wind to-wyrpd and Jawad’ =the
{south] wind disperses and thaws; Popular Treatises on Science,
ed. Wright, p. 17, last line. A weak verb.4Du. dooijen, to thaw ;
cf. doot, thaw; Icel. Jeyja, to thaw; Aa, a thaw, thawed ground ;
cf. Jeyr, a thaw; Dan. ἐὅε, to thaw; (ὃ, a thaw; Swed. “δα, to
thaw; ἐδ, a thaw. Cf. MHG. douwen, G. verdauen, to concoct,
digest. B. Prob. allied to L. 2abés,a melting, tabescere, to dissolve,
Gk. τήκειν, to melt; Skt. ἐῦγα-, water; W. ¢awdd, melted, toddi, to
melt, és In no way connected with dew,
THE (1), def. article. (E.) ME.the. AS. de, substituted in Late
AS, for sé, the nom. masc. of the def. article; the πὶ. sé, f. séo, being
replaced by m. de, f. deo, by the influence of neut. det, and the forms
of the oblique cases. Thus we find de hearpere=the harper; see
quotation under That. The real use of AS. de was as an inde-
clinable relative pronoun, in extremely common use for all genders
and cases ; see several hundred examples in Grein, ii. 573-577. See
further under That.
THE (2), in what degree, in that degree. (E.) Whenwe say ‘ the
more, ¢he merrier’ we mean ‘in what degree they are more numerous,
in that degree are they merrier.’ This is not the usual def. article,
but the instrumental case of it. ME. the; as in ‘neuer the bet’=
none the better, Chaucer, C. T. 7533 (Ὁ 1951). AS. dy, 0%, as in
dy bet =the better; see numerous examples in Grein, ii. 568. This
is the instrumental case of the def. article, and means ‘on that
account’ or ‘on what account,’ or ‘in that degree’ or ‘in what
degree.’ Common in the phrase for dy, on that account ; ef. for
hwy, on what account. See That; and see Why.+Goth. ¢ké,
instrumental case of def. article ; Icel. Avi, Ai, dat. (or inst.) case of
pat. Cf. Skt. déna, instr. case of tad, sometimes used with the sense
of ‘therefore ;’ Benfey, p. 349, 85:0. tad, sect. iv.
THEATRE, a place for dramatic representations. (F.—L.—
Gk.) ME. theatre, Chaucer, C. T. 1887 (A 1885); spelt teatre,
Wyclif, Deeds [Acts], xix. 31.—MF. theatre, ‘a theatre ;’ Cot. —
L. theatrum.—Gk. θέατρον, a place for seeing shows, &c.; formed
with suffix -rpoy (agential) from θεά-ομαι, I see. Cf. θέα, a view,
sight, spectacle ; see Prellwitz. Der. theatr-ic-al, adj., theatr-ic-al-ly ;
theatr-ic-al-s, s. pl. ; amphi-theatre. And see theorem, theo-ry.
THEE (1), acc. of Thou, pers. pron., which see.
THEE (2), to prosper, flourish, thrive. (E.) Obsolete; ME.
Peon, usually 26 or Jee, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 7789 (D 2207). ‘ Theen, or
thryvyn, Vigeo;’ Prompt. Parv. AS. δον, pion (for *Jihan), pt. t.
jah, peak, pp. Jigen, pogen, also ge-fungen, to thrive.+Goth. thethan,
to thrive, increase, advance; Du. gedijen, to thrive, prosper,
succeed ; G. gedeihen, OHG. dihan, to increase, thrive. Another
allied form is OSax. ge-fengian, to fulfil. The old AS. pp. gefungen
shows that the AS. ἔτλαν resulted from an earlier form *Jinhan ;
from the Teut. root *finy, *Jenx, answering to Idg.4/TENK;
which appears in Lith. ¢enka, it suffices; whence also Olrish ¢ocad,
prosperity, W. ¢yzged, luck ; cf. Lith. ¢eAdi, to suffice (pres. t. tenkit,
Thave enough). Brugmann, i. § 421 (3). See Tight.
THEFT, the act of thieving, stealing. (E.) ME. Jefte, Chaucer,
C. T. 4393 (A 4395). Theft is for thefth, as being easier to pro-
nounce. AS. iefde, Jeofde, Ayfde (with f sounded as v, and 6
voiced), theft; Laws of Ine, §§ 7 and 46; Thorpe, Ancient Laws,
i. 106, 130. Formed with suffix -(z)de (Idg. -ita) from AS. Jeof, piof,
or 28, a thief, or from Jéofian, to steal; see Thief.+OFries.
thiufthe, theft; cf. thiaf, a thief: Icel. Ayfd, sometimes Ay/t ; cf. fjafr,
a thief.
THETR, belonging to them. (Scand.) The word their belongs to
the Northern dialect rather than the Southern, and is rather a Scand.
than an AS. form. Chaucer uses hire or here in this sense (<AS.
hira, of them); C. T. 32. ME. thair, Pricke of Conscience, 52,
1862, &c.; thar, Barbour, Bruce, i. 22, 23 ; Je33re, Ormulum, 127.
The word was orig. not a possess. pron., but a gen. plural ; more-
over, it was not orig. the gen. pl. of he (he), but of the def. article. =
Tcel. Jeirra, Olcel. Jeira, of them; used as gen. pl. of hann, hon, pat
(he, she, it), by confusion ; it was really the gen. pl. of the def. article,
as shown by the AS. forms. (The use of that for it isa Scand.
peculiarity, very common in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambs.)+AS.
ὄῶγα, also dara, gen. pl. of def. art.; see Grein, ii. 565; G.der, gen.
640 THEISM
pl. of def. art.; Goth. thizé, fem. ¢hizd, gen. pl. of sa, so, ἐλαία. See
further under They and That. Der. their-s, Temp. i. 1. 58;
spelt Je33ress, Ormulum, 2506; cf. Dan. deres, Swed. eran theirs ;
formed by analogy with our-s, your-s.
THHISM, belief in the existence of a God. (Gk.) “ All religion
and theism ;’ Pref. to Cudworth, Intellectual System (R.). Coined,
with suffix -ism (Gk, -xcpos), from Gk. θε-ός, a god. Prob. for *#ec-ds;
cf. Olrish dess, God (Stokes-Fick, p. 151) ; also Gk. θέσ-φατος, spoken
bya god. See Prellwitz. @ Notrelated to L. deus. Der. the-ist
(from Gk. Oe6s) ; the-ist-ic, the-ist-ic-al; a-the-ist, q.v.; apo-the-os-is,
q. v. And see theo-crac-y, theo-gon-y, theo-log- , the-urg-y.
THEM, objective case of They, q.v. Der. them-selves.
THEME, a subject for discussion. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME, teme,
P. Plowman, B. iii. 95, v. 61, vi. 235. Ata later period spelt ¢heme,
Mids. Nt. Dr. v. 434.-OF. teme, MF. theme, ‘a theam,’ Cot.=—L.
thema. = Gk. θέμα, that which is laid down, the subject of an argu-
ment.—Gk. base @e-, to place, weak grade of 67-, as in τίθημι, I
place. —4/DHE, to place, put; whence Skt. dha, to put; &c. See
Thesis.
THEN, at that time, afterward, therefore. (E.) Frequently spelt
than in old books, as in Shak. Merch. Ven. ii. 2. 200 (First folio) ;
it rimes with began, Lucrece, 1440. Orig. the same word as than,
but afterwards differentiated. ME. thenne, P, Plowman, A. i. 56;
thanne, B. i. 58. AS. denne; also danne, donne, then, than; Grein,
li. 562, 563. See Than.
THENCE, from that place or time. (E.) ME. thennés (dis-
syllabic), Chaucer, C. T. 4930 (B 510); whence (by contraction)
thens, written thence in order to represent that the final s was voice-
less, and not sounded as z. Older forms thonne, thenne, thanne, Owl
and Nightingale, 132, 508, 1724; also ¢hanene, Rob. of Glouc.,
p- 377, 1. 7743. Here thanne is a shorter form of ¢hanene (or
thanen) by the loss of 2. AS, danan, danon, thence; also dananne,
Janonne, thence, Grein, ii. 560, 561. It thus appears that the fullest
form was dananne, which became successively ¢hanene, thanne, thenne,
and (by addition of 5) thennes, thens, thence. S was added because
-es was a favourite ME. adverbial suffix, orig, due to the genitive
suffix of sbs. Again, da-nan, Va-nan-ne, is from the Teut. base
THA=Idg. TO, he, that; see That. March (A. S. Grammar,
§ 252) explains -vaz, -nanne, as an oblique case of the (repeated)
adj. suffix -za, with the orig. sense of ‘ belonging to;’ cf. L. super-
no-, belonging (super) above, whence the ablative adverb super-ne,
from above. He remarks that belonging to and coming from are
near akin, but the lost case-ending inclines the sense to from.
©The Goth. in-naza, within, u/-axa, without, hind-ana, behind, do
not have the plain sense from, Pott suggests comparison with
a preposition (Lettish xo, from). Here belong éast-an, from the
east; @ft-an, aft; jfeorr-an, from far; &c.’ Compare also
Hence, Whence.+G. dannen, OHG. dannana, thence; from
G. base da-. Der. thence-forth, thence-forward. not in early use.
THEOCRACY, the government of a state immediately by God ;
the state so governed. (Gk.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—Gk.
θεοκρατία, the rule of God; Josephus, Against Apion, ii. 16 (Trench,
Study of Words). Formed (by analogy with demo-cracy, aristo-
cracy, &c.), from Gk. θεο-, for Θεός, a god; and -κρατια, -κρατεια (as
in δημο-κρατία, δημο-κράτεια), i.e. government, power, from xpatus,
strong, allied to E. hard. See Theism and Hard; and see
Democracy. Der. theocrat-ic, {heocrat-ic-al.
THEODOLITS, an instrument used in surveying for observing
angles and distances. (Gk.) In Blount, ed. 1674. Certainly of
Gk. origin. The original theodolite was not quite like the present
one. Hopton, in his Topographicall Glasse (1611) defines it as
‘an instrument consisting of a planisphere and an albidades ise.
a revolving rule with sights, and spells it Theodelitus; N. and Q.
3S. iv. 51. In Pantometria, by T. Digges, 1571, ch. 27 of book i
is headed ‘ The composition of, the instrument called Theodelitus,’
and begins: ‘It is buta circle divided into 360 grades or degrees,’ Kc.
Prof. Adams informs me that the method of subdividing the degrees
of the circle was known to the Greeks, and is well explained in
Rathbone’s Surveying, ed. 1616. Also spelt ‘¢heodolet, theodelet,
theodolit; the last occurs in 1784; N. and Q. 9. 5. vii. 412.
It seems to be taken (we know not why) from the OF. Theodolet,
Theodelet, the name of a treatise, lit. ‘a work by Theodulus.’
Godefroy quotes ‘Cathonnet, Theodele/, bien gloses,’ i.e. a work by
Cato, a work by Theodulus, well glossed (1408). It was usual to
add -et in this manner; thus Fsop-e¢ meant a work by /Esop, viz.
his ‘ Fables.’ One Theodolet, viz. the Ecloga Theoduli, is mentioned
by Rabelais (I. xiv) 5 when Gargantua was instructed in Latin
literature, he read ‘ Donat, le Facet, Theodolet,’ &c. This Ecloga
Theodult was a poem in Latin hexameters, containing a dispute
between Truth and Falsehood. But it is more likely “that the re-
ference in this instance is to a mathematician named Theodulus;
THERMOMETER
see N. and Q. 3S. vii. 337, 428, ἄς. The name Theodilus meant
“servant of God ;’ from θεο-, for θεός, God ; and δοῦλος, a servant.
For the suffix -e¢, cf. Pamphlet.
THEOGONY, the part of mythology which taught of the
origin of the gods. (L.— Gk.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. ‘The
theogony in Hesiod ;’ Selden, Illustrations to Drayton’s Polyolbion,
song τι (R.). Englished from 1. theogonia,= Gk, θεογονία, the
origin of the gods; the title of a poem by Hesiod. —Gk. θεο-, for
θεός, a god; and ~yovia, origin, from γον-, 2nd grade of the Gk.
base yev-, to beget, from 4/GEN, to beget. Cf. Gk. γένος, race,
ἔγενόμην, I became. See Theism and Genus. Der. theogon-ist,
a writer on theogony.
THEOLOGY, the science which treats of the relations
between God and man, (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. ¢heologie, Chaucer,
Persones Tale, 3rd pt. of Penitence (Group I, 1043). “- MF. theologie,
‘theology ;’ Cot.=<L. theologia.=— Gk. @eodcyia, a speaking about
God. = Gk. θεολόγος, adj., speaking about God.— Gk. θεο-, for θεύς,
ἃ god; and Aoy-, 2nd grade of λέγειν, to speak. See Theism and
Logic. Der. theologi-c, theologi-c-al, theologi-c-al-ly; theolog-ise,
ist; theologi-an,
THEORBO, a kind of lute. (Ital.) Formerly also theorba:
theorbo in Drayton, Polyolbion, song iv. 363.—Ital. tiorba; the th
being due to the occasional F. spelling ¢héorbe, for téorbe. Named
after its inventor (Zambaldi).
THEOREM, a proposition to be proved, (L.—Gk.) In Phillips,
ed. 1706. ‘More ¢heoremes ;’ Marston, What You Will, A. iv. sc. 1.
—L. thedréma. — Gk. θεώρημα, a spectacle; hence, a subject for con-
templation, principle, theorem. Formed with suffix -ya (-yar-) from
θεωρεῖν, to look at, behold, view. —Gk. θεωρός, a spectator, —Gk.
θεῶ-μαι, θεάο-μαι, 1 see; with suffix -pos (Idg.-ro-), See Theatre.
And see Theory.
THEORY, an exposition, speculation. (F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt
theorie in Minsheu. [The ME. word was theorike, as in Chaucer,
On the Astrolabe, prol. 59; Gower, C. A. iii. 86; bk. vii. 61. ‘his
is Ἐς ¢heorigue, sb. fem. =L. ¢hedrica, adj. fem., the sb. ars, art, being
understood, See Nares.]—MF. ¢heorie, ‘theory ;’ Cot.—L. thedria,
= Gk. θεωρία, a beholding, contemplation, speculation. — Gk. θεωρός,
aspectator; see Theorem. Der. theor-ise, ‘heor-ist ; also theor-et-ic,
Gk. θεωρητικός, adj.; theor-et-tc-al, -ly.
THERAPEUTIC, pertaining to the healing art. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Spelt ¢herapeutick, Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674; and see Sir T. Browne,
Vulg. Errors, b. iv. c. 13. ὃ 26. — MF. therapeutique, ‘ curing, healing ;’”
Cot. —L. therapeutica, fem. sing. of adj. therapeuticus, healing ; the
sb. ars, art, being understood.—Gk, θεραπευτικός, inclined to take
care of, tending. —Gk. θεραπευτής, one who waits on a great man,
one who attends to anything. Gk. θεραπεύειν, to wait on, attend,
serve. Gk. @epan-, stem of θέραψ, a rare sb., for which the more
usual form θεράπων, a servant, is used. The stem θερ-απ- means,
literally, one who supports or assists; from base 0ep-=Idg. DHER,
to support; cf. Skt. dhy, to bear, maintain, support, dhkaritri, a
supporter. Der. therapeutic-s, s. pl.
THERE (1), in that place. (E.) ME. ther, Chaucer, C. T. 43;
written ¢har in Barbour’s Bruce. AS. der, der, Grein, il. 564; better
written δῶν, dér, with long vowel. The base is Teut. THA=Idg.
TO, he, that; see That. March, A. S. Gram. § 252, explains the
suffix -r as the locative case of the comparative suffix -ro-; cf. Skt.
upa-ri, Gk, ὑπε-ρ, L. supe-r, Goth. ufa-r, AS. ofe-r, E. ove-r.4-Du.
daar.+Icel. far; Dan, and Swed. der; Goth. thar; G, da, OHG.
dar. Cf. Here and Where.
THERE- (2), as a prefix. (E.) In chere-fore, there-by, &c. It will
suffice to explain there-fore. This is ME. therforé, with final -e, asin
Ormulum, 2431, where we find : ‘ therforése33dé 3ho piss word.’ For
AS. d#r-,see above. For the prep. fore (allied to for), see Grein, ii. 320.
It thus appears that the final e in therefore is not wrong, but cherefore
and therefor are equivalent. B. Similar compounds are there-
about or (with added adverbial suffix -s) there-about-s, there-after,
there-at, there-by, there-from, there-in, there-of, there-on, there-through,
there-to, there-unto, there-upon, there-with. ‘The construction with d#r
before a preposition occurs even in AS. ‘ When a thing is referred
to, d#r is generally substituted for kit with a prep., the prep. being
joined on to the δῶσ; e. g. on hit becomes Veron ; Curfon hie Seet of
beorhtum stane, gesetton hie d#rox sigora Wealdend = they cut it
[the tomb] out "of the bright rock, they placed in it the Lord of
victories ;’ Sweet, A. 5. Grammar, and ed. p. xci.
THERMOMETER, an instrument for measuring the variations
of temperature. (Gk.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674; and in Evelyn’s
Diary, July 13, 1654. First invented aout 1597 (Haydn). Coined
from Gk. θερμο-, for θερμός, hot, warm; and μέτρον, a measure, a
measurer, for which see Metre. β. The Gk. θερμός is allied to
L. formus, warm, and to Skt. gharma-, heat. Der. thermometr-ic,
-iceal, -iceal-ly ; and see iso-therm-al.
THESAURUS
THESAURUS, a treasury of knowledge, esp. a dictionary.
(L.—Gk.) A doublet of Treasure, q. v.
THESE, pl. of This, q.v. ME. thise, these, a new pl. of this.
The old pl. (AS. Jas) has become the mod. E. those. See Those.
THESIS, a statement laid down to be argued about, an essay on
atheme. (L.—Gk.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627.—L. thesis.—Gk. θέσις,
a proposition, statement, thing laid down. For ἔθε-τι-5, allied to
θε-τός, placed, verbal adj. from the base θε-, weaker form of 67-, as
in τί-θη-μι, I put, place. See Theme. Der. anti-thesis, apo-thesis,
épen-thesis, hypo-thesis, meta-thesis, para-thesis, paren-thesis, prosthesis,
pro-thesis, syn-thesis. From the same root are apo-the-c-ar-y, ana-the-
ma, epi-the-t, the-me, the-s-au-rus, treasure.
THEURGY, supernatural agency. (L.—Gk.) Rare. A name
applied to a kind of magic said to be performed by the operation of
gods and demons. Rich. gives an example from Hallywell’s Melam-
pronvea (1682), p. 51. Englished from L, ¢heurgia, Latinised form
of Gk. Geoupyia, divine work, magic. = Gk. θεο-, for θεός, a god ; and
€py-ov, work, cognate with E. work. See Theism and Work,
Der. theurgi-c, theurgi-c-al.
THEWS, 2]. sb., sinews, strength, habits, manners. (E.) ‘ Thews
and limbs ;” Jul, Cs. i. 3. 81; cf. Haml. i. 3.12. ME. Jeweés, i.e.
habits, manners, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 9416 (E1542). ‘Alle gode Jeawes,’
all good virtues; Ancren Riwle, p. 240, 1. 16. The sing. Jeauwe
(dat. case) occurs in Layamon, 1. 6361, with the sense of sinew or
strength; on which Sir Εν Madden remarks: ‘This is the only
instance in the poem of the word being applied to bodily qualities.
Cf. Scotch thowles, feeble.’ In other passages it occurs in the pl.
peauwes, Pewes, 11. 2147, 6899, 7161, with the usual sense of mental
qualities. Of course, as in all metaphorical expressions, the sense
of ‘ bodily strength’ is the orig. one, and that of ‘ mental excellence’
is secondary. AS. Jéaw, habit, custom, behaviour; the pl. Jeawas
signifies manners; Grein, ii. 584.-tOSax. ¢hau, custom, habit.
OHG. dau, discipline. B. The Teut. base is thau-, allied to Skt.
tavas, strong; ¢u, to be strong. The sense of bulk, strength, sur-
vives in Scotch thowless, thetwless, thieveless, for which Jamieson gives
a wrong etymology (from AS. Jéow, a servant). The remarks in
Trench, Select Glossary, are due to a misapprehension of the facts.
From the Idg. 4/TEU, to be strong; see Thigh, Tumid.
THEY, used as pl. of he, she, it. (Scand.) The word ¢hey (in ME.)
is chiefly found in the Northern dialect ; Barbour uses nom. thai, gen.
thair, dat. and acc. thaim or tham, where Chaucer uses nom. they,
Ὁ. T. 18, gen. here, hire, hir, id. 588 (A 586), dat. and acc. hem, id.
18, The Ormulum has Je}, they, Je23re, their, of them, Jez}m, dat.
and acc., them. Of these forms, hem survives only in the mod.
prov. E, ’em, as in ‘I saw ’em go;’ whilst the gen. here is lost.
Again, here and hem (AS. hira or heora, heom or him) are the true
forms, properly used as the pl. of xe, from the same base; whilst
they, their, them are really cases of the pl. of the def. article. B. The
use is Scand., not E.; the AS. usage confines these forms to the def.
article, but Icelandic usage allows them to be used for the personal
pronoun.—Icel. Jeir, nom.; feirra, gen.; Jeim, dat.; used to mean
they, thetr, them, as the pl. otf hann, hon, he, she. The extension of
the use of dat. hem to its use as an accusative is precisely parallel to
that of him, properly a dat. form only. The Icel. acc. is Ja, but
Danish and Swedish confuse dat. and acc. together. Cf. Dan. and
Swed. de, they; dem (dat. and acc.), them. Also Dan. deres, their,
theirs; Swed. deras, their, theirs.4-AS. Aa, nom. ; Jara, fera, gen. ;
jam, Jem, dat. ; Grein, ii. 568. [The AS. acc. was Ja, like thenom.;
cf. prov. E. ‘I saw zhey horses,’ i.e. those horses.] These forms Ja,
para, Pim, are cases of the plural of the def. art.; from Teut. THA
=Idg. TO, pronom. base of the 3rd person. See That. This
explains they, their, them; their was orig. only the gen. pl., just like
our, your. Their-s occurs as Je}3ress, in the Ormulum, 2506, and
may be compared with Dan. deres, Swed. deras, theirs.
THICK, dense, compact, closely set. (E.) ME. Jikke, Chaucer,
C. T. 1058 (A 1056). AS. ficce, thick, Grein, il. 590.4-OSax.
thikki; Du. dik; Icel. Jykkr; Dan. tyk; Swed. tjok, tjock; G. dick,
OHG. dicchi. B. The Teut. type is *¢hikwuz (Kluge). Further
allied to Gael. and Irish tiugh, thick, fat, dense, W. ¢ew, thick,
plump; from Celtic type *tegus. Further connexions doubtful.
Der, thick-ly, thick-ness, AS, picnes, Mark, iv. 53 thick-ish, thick-en,
Macb. iii. 2. 50, properly intransitive, like Goth. verbs in -nan,
formed by analogy with other verbs in -en, or borrowed from Icel,
pykkna, to become thick (ef. AS. Jiccian, to make thick, A®lfric’s
Gram. ed. Zupitza, p. 220); thick-et, L. L. L. iv. 2. 60, AS. ficcet,
of which the pl. Jiccetu occurs in Ps. xxvili, (xxix.) 8 to translate L.
condensa ; thick-head-ed; thick-skin, sb., Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 2. 13.
THIEF, one who steals. (E.) Pl. thieves. ME. Jeef, Wyclif,
Matt. xxvi. 55; pl. Jeves, id. Mark, xv. 27. AS. feof, pl. péofas,
Grein, ii. 588.4Du. dief; Icel. Ajafr; Dan. tyv; Swed. tjuf; G.
dieb, OHG. diub; Goth. thiubs. β. All from Teut. type *theyfoz;
THINK 641
perhaps related to Lithuan. tu/éti, to squat or crouch down (i.e.
to hide oneself) ; see Kluge. Der. theft, q. v.3 thieve, AS. ge-péojian,
Laws of Ine, § 48, in Thorpe, Ancient Laws, i. 133; thiev-ish,
Romeo, iv. 1. 79; ¢hiev-er-y, Timon, iv. 3. 438, a coined word (with
ἘΝ suffix -erie).
THIGH, the thick upper part of the leg. (E.) ME. ik, Laya-
mon, 26071 ; ei}, Trevisa, iv. 185 ; but the guttural is often dropped,
and a common form is Ji or Jy, Prompt. Parv., or Je, Havelok, 1950.
AS, Jédh, or Jé6, Grein, ii. 588.4Dnu. dij; Icel. Aj, thigh, ramp;
OHG., deoh, dioh. B. The Teut. type is *thewhom, n. . The orig.
sense is ‘ the fat, thick, plump part ;’ cf. Icel. £j0,the rump. Closely
allied to Lithuan. /aukas, fat of animals, ζὰζέϊ, to become fat, /ickinti,
to fatten ; Russ. tuk’, fat of animals, tuchnit(e), to fatten. From an
Idg. base TEUK, extension of 4/TEU, to increase, be strong, swell ;
see Thews, Thumb, Tumid.
THILL, the shaft of a cart. (E.) ‘ Thill, the beam or draught-
tree of a cart or waggon, upon which the yoke hangs; Thiller or
Thill-horse, the horse that is put under the thill ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.
Hence fill-horse, for thill-horse, Merch. Ven. ii. 2. 100; jill for thill,
Troil. tii. 2. 48. ME. fille. ‘ Thylle, of a carte, Temo; Thylle-
horse, Veredus;” Prompt. Parv. AS, Jille, glassed by tabulamen,
Voc. 282. 2, where the sense seems to be ‘board’ or ‘ trencher;’
fille meant a thin slip of wood, whether used for a thill or for a
wooden platter. We also find: ‘ Tabulatorium, wah-fyling,’ id.
147. 31; also: ‘Area, breda filing, vel ΠΟΥ on ἰδ ferscenne,’
i.e. a thilling of boards, or floor to thrash on, id. 14.4-Icel. Ailja,
a plank, planking, esp. in a ship, a bench for rowers, deck;
Swed. tilja, a plank, floor; MHG. dille, OHG. dilla, thili, G. diele,
a board, plank; Du. dee/, a plank. Teut. types *theljon-, f.,
*thelom, n. Allied to Olrish talam, earth, L. tellus, earth, Lith.
tille, a little plank in the bottom of a boat, Skt. ¢ala-m, bottom,
floor, surface. See Deal (2). Der. thill-horse, as above.
THIMBLE, a metal cover for the finger, used in sewing. (E.)
Though now worn on the finger, similar protections were once worn
on the thumb, and the name was given accordingly. ME. Aimbil.
‘ Thymbyl, Theca;’ Prompt. Pary. Formed (with excrescent ὃ, as
in thumb itself) from AS. Aymel, a thumb-stall; A. 5. Leechdoms, ii.
150, 1.6. αι, type *¢zamiloz. Formed with suffix -(:)lo-, indica-
tive of the agent, or in this case of the protector, from AS. Jima, a
thumb; see Thumb. Thimble=thumb-er; formed by vowel-
change.
THIN, extended, slender, lean, fine. (E.) ME. Jinne, Chaucer,
C. T. 9556 (E 1682); Aunne, Ancren Riwle, p. 144, 1. 13. AS.
fynne, Grein, ii, 613.4Du. dun ; Icel. Junnr; Dan. tynd (for *tynn) ;
Swed. tunn; G. diinn; OHG. dunni.4-W. teneu; Gael. and Irish
tana; Russ. tonkii; L. tenuis; Gk. tavads, slim; Skt. ¢anu-, thin ;
Pers. ¢anak, slender (Horn, ὃ 397). B. All from the sense ‘ out-
stretched, as in Gk. ταναός. From 4/TEN, to stretch; cf. Skt.
tan, to stretch, Goth. uf-thanjun, AS. dpenian, to stretch out, L. ten-
d-ere. Der. thin-ly, thin-ness; thinn-ish; thin, verb. From same
root are ¢en-uity, at-ten-uate, ex-ten-uate; tena-ble, q.v.; tend (1), q.v.
THINE, THY, poss. pron. belonging to ‘thee. (E.) ME, thin,
with long z, and without final e; gen. ¢hines, dat. thine, nom. and
ace. pl. thine; by loss of x, we also have ME. ¢hi=mod. E, thy.
The x was commonly retained before a vowel; ‘ This was thin ooth,
and min also certeyn;’ Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1141 (A 1139). ‘To me,
that am ἐάν cosin and ἐὰν brother,’ id. 1133 (A 1131). AS. din, poss.
pron., declined like an adjective; derived from din, gen. case of du,
thou; see Thou.-+Icel. Jinn, pin, fitt, poss. pron. ; from fin, gen. of
pi; Dan. and Swed. din, poss. pron. ; G. dein, from deiner, gen. .of
du; Goth. theins, from theina, gen. of thu. Der. thy-self (=thine
self), lit. ‘ self of thee.’
THING, an inanimate object. (E.) ME, fing, Chaucer, C. T.
13865 (B 2127). AS. Jing, a thing; also, a cause, sake, office,
reason, council; also written Jincg, Jinc, Grein, 11, 592.4Du. ding ;
Icel. Jing, a thing; also, an assembly, meeting, council; Dan. and
Swed. ting, a thing; also, an assize; G. ding, OHG. dinc. Teute
type *thingom,n. Prob. allied to Goth. sheihs, season, time (hence,
time for meeting). And further, to AS. /éon, pt. t. Jak, to prosper,
succeed, thrive. See Thee (2). Der. axy-thing, ME. any ping ; no-,
thing, ME. no thing ; also hus-tings, q. Vv.
τ K, to exercise the mind, judge, consider, suppose, purpose,
opine. (E.) ME. fenken, to think, suppose, also fenchen, as in
Chaucer, C. T. 3253. Orig. distinct from the impers. verb. Ainken,
explained under Methinks; but confusion between the two was
easy andcommon. ‘Thus, in P. Plowman, A. vi. 90, we have 7 penke,
written 7 Jinke in the parallel passage, B. v. 609. [The pt. t. of both
verbs often appears as foughte, pp. fought. Strictly, the pt. t. of
think should have become thoght, and of me-thinks should have become
me-thught, but the spellings ogh and ugh are confused in modern
E. under the form ough.| AS. Jencan, Jencean, to think, pt. τ. Aohte ;
τὸ
642 THIRD
Grein, ii. 579. A weak verb, allied to janc, sb., (1) a thought,
(2) a thank ; see Thank.+Icel. Jekkja, old pt. t. Jatti, to perceive,
know; Dan. teanke; Swed. tanka; G. denken, pt. t. dachte.4-Goth.
thagkjan (=thankjan), pt. τ. thahta. Teut. type *thankjan; from
*thank, 2nd grade of the root *thenk, Idg. *teng; whence also OL.
tongére, to think (from the 2nd grade *foxg). See Thank. Der.
thought, sb., q.v. Also be-think, vb. Allied to thank.
THIRD, the ordinal of the number three. (E.) For thrid. ME.
pridde, Chaucer, C. T, 12770 (Ὁ 836) ; spelt Jirde, Seven Sages, ed.
Wright, 1. 49. AS. Aridda, third; Grein, ii. 499.—AS. fréo, Ari,
three; see Three.4+Du. derde; Icel. Aridi; Dan. tredje; Swed.
tredje; G. dritte; Goth. thridja.4-W. tryde, trydydd; Gael. and Irish
treas; Russ. fretii; Lithuan. tréczias; L. tertius; Gk. τρίτος ; Skt.
trtyja-. Der. third-ly; and see riding.
THIRL, to pierce. (E.) See Thrill.
THIRST, dryness, eager desire for drink, eager desire. (E.)
ME. furst, P. Plowman, B. xviii. 366; various readings fruste, frist,
prest. ΑΘ. urst, Grein, ii. 611; also Jyrst, Jirst, id. 613 ; whence
pyrstan, verb, id.614.4-Du. dorst, whence dorsten, verb; Icel. Jorsti,
whence Jyrsta, vb.; Dan. térst, whence forste, vb.; Swed. térst,
whence /érsta, vb.; G. durst, whence dirsten; Goth. faurstei, sb.
B. The Goth. thaurstei (=thorstei) is from the Goth. weak stem
thaurs-, as seen in -thaurs-ans, pp. of (ga)thairsan (pt. t. thars), to be
dry (with Goth. ai for Teut. e); the suffix -tei=-ti. The Tent.
*thers-an-, vb., is cognate with Gk. τέρσ-εσθαι, to become dry, τερσ-
aivew, to dry up, wipe up, L. forrére (for *forsére), to parch, terra
(for *tersa), dry ground; cf. Skt. tvsh, to thirst; tarsha-, thirst.
(TERS). Allied to Terrace and Torrid. Der. thirst, vb., as
above; thirst-y, AS. Jurstig, Grein, ii. 611; thirst-i-ly, thirst-i-ness.
And (from the same root) ¢err-ace, torr-id, test, toast, tur-een.
THIRTEEN, three and ten. (E.) ME. Jrettene, P. Plowman,
B. v. 214. AS. fréoténe, Jréotyne, Grein, ii. 599.—AS. fréo, three ;
and /én, ‘7x, ten; with pl. suffix -e. See Three and Ten.+Du.
dertien ; Icel. Jrettain; Dan. tretten; Swed. tretton; G. dreizehn. All
similar compounds. Der. ¢hirteen-th, AS. fréotéoda (Grein), Icel.
prettandi ; but the x, dropped in AS., has been restored.
THIRTY, three times ten. (E.) ME. Jritti, Wyclif, Luke, iii.
23; pretty, pirty, Prompt. Parv., p. 492. AS. fritig, Arittig, Grein,
ii. 601; the change of long i to short 7 caused the doubling of the ¢.
-AS. fri, variant of Aréo, three; and -tig, suffix denoting ‘ten;’
see further under Three and Ten.+Du. dertig ; Icel. Arjatiu; Dan.
tredive; Swed. trettio; G. dreiszig. All similar compounds. Der.
thirti-eth, AS, pritigoda.
THIS, demonst. pron. denoting a thing near at hand. (E.) 1. SIN-
GULAR FORM. ME. this, Chaucer, C. T. 1576 (Α 1374); older form
thes, Ancren Riwle, p. 170, 1]. 12. AS. des, masc.; ὄξος, fem.; dis,
neuter; see Grein, ii. 581.4Du. deze; Icel. Jessi, masc. and fem. ;
fetta, neuter; G. dieser; MHG. diser; OHG. deser. B. This is
most likely an emphatic form, due to suffixing an emphatic particle to
the pronominal base THA. 2. PLURAL FORMS. The mod. E.
pl. form is these; those being only used as the plural of that. This
distinction is unoriginal; both ¢kese and those are varying forms of
the plural of ¢his, as will at once appear by observing the numerous
examples supplied by Stratmann. B. The ME. word for ‘ those’
was tho or thoo, due to AS, da, nom. pl. of the def. article; in
accordance with this idiom, we still have the common prov. E. ‘ they
horses’=those horses; it will be easily seen that the restriction of
the form zhose (with 0) to its modern use was due to the influence of
this older word tho. For examples of tho=those, see Wyclif, Matt.
iii. I, xiii, 17. Ὑ. It remains to give examples of the ME. pl.
forms of this. Layamon has fas, Jes, pes, Jeos, us, ll. 476, 1038,
2219, 3816; alle Jos=all these, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. Io, l. 17; Jos
word=these words, Owl and Nightingale, 139; Jese wordes=these
words, P. Plowman, B. prol. 184; Ause wordes=these wordes, id. C.
1. 198. Cf. AS. das, δὲς, these, pl. of des, this, Grein, ii. 581. Of
these forms, das became those, while 2s assisted in forming these; we
also find ME. ¢his-e, i. e. this, with the pl. suffix -e.
THISTLE, a prickly plant. (E.) ME. Jistil, spelt thystylle in
Prompt. Parv.; where we also find sowthystylle=sow-thistle. AS.
fistel ; ‘Cardu[uls, Jistel,’ Voc. 11. 13.44Du. distel; Icel. Jistiil ;
Dan. tidsel ; Swed. tistel; G. distel ; OHG. distil, distula. B. The
i was once long, as in some E. and G. dialects; cf. Somersets.
daash-l, a thistle, EFries. dissel. Teut. types *Jistiloz, m. ; *Jistila, f.
Perhaps allied to Goth. at-thinsan, to pull towards one; from
its catching the clothes of the passer-by. Cf. Tonsil. Der.
thistl-y.
THITHER, to that place. (E.) ME. thider (cf. ME. fader,
moder for mod. E. father, mother) ; Chaucer, C. T. 1265 (A 1263).
AS. dider, dyder, thither; Grein, ii. 590. Cf. Icel. Jadra, there ;
Goth. thathro, thence. Skt. ¢atra, there, thither. Formed from
Teut. THA =Idg. TO, demonst. pronom. base, for which see That ;
THOSE
with a suffix like L. -¢ro in u/-tro. Compare Hither and Whither
Der. thither-ward, AS. piderweard, Grein, ii. 591.
THOLE (1), THO , a pin or peg in the side of a boat to
keep the oars in place. (E.) Commonly called a thole-pin, though
the addition of pix is needless. ME. hol, tol. ‘ Tholle, carte-pynne,
or tol-pyn, Cavilla;’ Prompt. Parv. ‘ Tholle, a cartpynne ;’ Pals-
grave. AS. ol; ‘Scalmus, thol,’ Corpus gloss., 1820 (Sth cent.)-
Du. dol, ‘a thowl;’ Sewel; Icel. Jol/r, a fir-tree, a young fir, also
a tree in general, as ask-Jollr, ash-tree, alm-follr, elm-tree; also a
wooden peg, the thole of a row-boat. Cf. Icel. Aall (gen. allar),
a young fir-tree; Dan. ‘ol, a stopple, stopper, thole, pin; Swed. tall,
a pine-tree ; Swed. dial. ¢dl/, the same (Rietz) ; Swed. tull, a thole.
And cf. Norweg. ¢all, oll, a fir-tree, esp. a young fir-tree; oll,
a thole (Aasen). B. Teut. base *¢hul-, weak grade allied to *Jal-,
as in Jal-lar, gen. of Icel. 261] (above) ; and perhaps to *thel-; see
Thill. Der. thole-pin.
THOLE (2), to endure, suffer. (E.) In Levins, Obsolete in
books, but a good word; it still occurs in prov. E. ‘ He that has a
good crop may ¢hole some thistles;” North-Country Proverb, in
Brockett. ME. Jolien, Jolen, Chaucer, C. T. 7128 (D 1546). AS.
folian, to suffer, endure, tolerate; Grein, ii. 594.4-Icel. Jola, the same;
Dan. taale; Swed. tala; MHG. dolen, doln; OHG. dolén, whence
MHG. duld, G. geduld, patience; Goth. thulan. B. All from a
Teut. base *Jul-, weak grade of Idg. 4/TEL, to bear; allied to Skt.
tul, to lift, Gk. τλῆναι, to suffer; L. follere, tolerare ; see further
under Tolerate.
THONG, a strip or strap of leather. (E.) Spelt thwangue in
Levins. For thwong; the w is now lost. ME. Jwong, Wyclif, John,
i. 27; we also find Juong, Jong, Rob. of Glouc. p. 116, 1. 2497. AS.
wang ; in sced-Jwang =shoe-thong, John, i. 27. The change from a
to o before x is common, as song<AS. sang; strong< AS. strang.
+Icel. Juengr, a thong, latchet ; esp. ofa shoe. From *thwang, 2nd
grade of Teut. *thwengan-, to constrain. The verb from which it is
derived will be found under T'winge, q. v.
THORAX, the chest of the body. (L.—Gk.) A medical term.
In Phillips, ed. 1706; Blount gives the adj. thorachique.—L. thorax
(gen. ¢hdracis), the breast, chest, a breast-plate.—Gk. θώραξ (gen.
@wpaxos), a breast-plate; also, the part of the body covered by the
breast-plate. β. The orig. sense is ‘ protector’ or ‘ defender ;’ the
Gk. @wpax- answers to Skt. dha@raka-, a trunk or box for keeping
clothes, lit. a protector or preserver; 4/DHER, to bear, hold; see
Firm. Der. ¢horaci-c, from the decl. stem thdraci-.
THORN, a spine, sharp woody spine on the stem of a plant, a
spiny plant. (E.) ME. Jorn, Wyclif, Matt. xxvii. 29. AS. Jorn,
Matt. xxvii. 29.4-Du. doorn; Icel. Jorn; Dan. torn; Swed. térne ;
G. dorn; Goth. thaurnus. And cf. Russ. térn’, the black-thorn,
térnie, thorns; Polish ¢arn,athorn. Also Skt. ‘yna-, a grass-blade.
Teut. type *thurnuz, m.; from the base THER=Idg. TER, to
bore, pierce, so that the sense is ‘ piercer.’ See further under Trite.
Der. thorn-y, cf. AS. Jorniht, thorny, Voc. 139.18; thorn-less. Also
thorn-back, the name of a fish which has spines on its back, ME.
pornebake, Havelok, 759.
THOROUGH, going through and through, complete, entire.
(E.) It is merely a later form of the prep. through, which was
spelt Jorw as early as in Havelok, 631, and Auruh in the Ancren
Riwle, p. 92, 1.17. Shak. has thorough as a prep., Merry Wives, iv.
5. 32, Mids. Nt. Dr. ii. 1. 3 (where the folios and 2nd quarto have
through) ; also as anadv., ‘it pierced me thorough,’ Pericles, iv. 3. 35 ;
and even as an adj., L. L.L. ii. 235. The use of it as an adj. pro-
bably arose from the use of throughly or thoroughly as an ady. in
place of the adverbial use of ¢hrough or thorough. Cf. ‘the feast was
throughly ended ;’ Spenser, F. Ὁ. iv. 12. 18. We find thorough as a
sb., in the sense of ‘ passage,’ J. Bradford’s Works, i. 303 (Parker
Society). The old sense of through is still preserved in thorough-fare,
i.e. through fare. See Through. Der. thorough-ly, thorough-ness ;
thorough-bred, thorough-going, thorough-paced. Also thorough-bass,
which prob. means ¢hrough-bass, the bass being marked throughout
by figures placed below the notes; and ¢horough-fare, 1. 6. through-
fare, Cymb. i. 2. 11, Milton, P. L. x. 393.
THORP, THORPE, a village. (E.) Best spelt ¢horp. In
Fairfax, tr. of Tasso, b. xii. st. 32. ME. Jorp, Chaucer, C. T. 8075
(E 199). AS. Jorp,asa place-name, A.S. Chron. an. 963. It means
a village.+Du. dorp, a village; Icel. orp; Dan. torp, a hamlet ;
Swed. torp, a little farm, cottage; G. dorf; Goth. Jaurp, a field,
Nehem. v.16. β. The Teut. type is *thurgo-. Allied to Lithuan.
troba, a building, house. Also to Irish ¢reabh, ‘a farmed village
(meaning, I suppose, a village round a farm], a tribe, family, clan ;’
Gael. treabhair, s, pl. (used collectively), houses ; W. ¢ref, a home-
stead, hamlet, town; Idg. type */rebo-. Brugmann, i. ὃ 553.
THOSE, now used as the pl. of ¢hat, but etymologically one of
the forms of the pl. of this. (E.) See This.
THOU
THOU, the second pers. pronoun. (E.) ME. thou. AS. di.+
Icel. Au; Goth. Ju; Dan., Swed., and G. du; (lost in Dutch) ; Irish
and Gael. tu; W. ti; Russ. tui; L. mu; Gk. ov, τύ; Pers. ti;
Palmer’s Pers. Dict. col. 152; Skt. tvam (nom. case). Brugmann,
il. § 440. Der. thine, q.v., often shortened to ἐᾷν.
THOUGH, on that condition, even if, notwithstanding. (Scand.)
It would be better to spell it ¢hogh, in closer accordance with the pro-
nunciation; but it seems to have become a fashion in E. always to
write ough for ogh, and not to suffer ogh to appear. ME. thogh,
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 727 (A 729); the Ellesmere MS. has ¢hogh, the
Camb. MS. has ¢how, and the Petworth MS. has Joo; the rest, though,
thoughe. [Older spellings, given by Stratmann, are Jah, faih, Peak,
eh, 26), paz, pauh, pau, pei, ῥεῖ}, Pei3zh, where some of the forms, as
peh, 26), pet, Peizh are from AS, déah, déh, Grein, ii. 582.] The
later ME. thogh answers to Icel. Jd.4Du. doch, yet, but; Dan. dog;
Swed. dock; G. doch, OHG. doh; Goth. thauh. B. All from the
Teut. type *thau-h, in which -ὰ is an enclitic, answering to L. -gue,
Idg. *que. *Thaw- is probably related to the Skt. ἐπ, ‘but.’ In the
D. and G. doch, the short o is due to loss of emphasis. Der.
al-though, q.v.
THOUGAT, the act or result of thinking, an idea, opinion,
notion, (E.) Better spelt shoght; the introduction of « is due to the
prevalence of forms with ough. ME. Joght, fou3t; the pl. jou3tis
is in Wyclif, 1 Cor. iii. 20. AS. Joht, also gefoht, as in Luke, ii. 35.
Lit. ‘a thing thought of, or thought upon ;’ cf. AS. gepoht or paki,
pp. of fencan, to think ; Grein, ii. 579. See Think.+Icel. Aarti,
fottr, thought; allied to fekkja, to know, pt. τ. Jatti, the pp. not
being used; G. ge-dacht, cf. gedacht, pp. of denken, to think; Goth.
thithtus, thought, allied to thugkjan, to seem, and thaghjan, to think;
where thugk- (=thunk-) is the weak grade of thagk- (=thank-).
Der. thoughtful, ME. pohtful, Ormulum, 3423; thought-ful-ly,
thought-ful-ness ; thought-less, -less-ly, -less-ness.
THOUSAND, ten hundred. (E.) ME. Jousand, Chaucer, C. T.
1956 (A 1954). AS. Jasend, Grein, ii. 611.44Du. duizend; Icel.
fusund ; also fiishund, pishundrad ; Dan. tusind; Swed. tusen (for
tusend) ; G. tausend; Goth. thiisundi. We also find Lithuan. tuk-
stantis, a thousand; Russ. tuistacha, a thousand. B. The word is
not yet explained ; in Icel. Ais-hund, the syllable hund=AS. hund,
a hundred, and is due to popular etymology ; which may, however,
prove to be correct. See the long discussion of Goth. ¢hiisundi in
Schade, OHG. Dictionary. It is suggested that the sense was
‘ great hundred ;’ the prefix fis- being allied to Skt. ¢avas, strong;
Streitberg, 8. 120 (5). Cf.also OPruss. tisimtons,a thousand. Der.
thousand-th, a late word, formed by analogy with four-th, &c.;
thousand-fold, ME. Jusendfald, St. Katherine, 2323.
THOWLL, the same as Thole (1), q.v.
THRALL, a slave. (Scand.) ME. Aral, Chaucer, C. T. 12123
(C 189). ONorthumb. dr#/, Mark, x. 44; not an AS. word, but
borrowed from Norse. =Icel. Jreil, a thrall, serf, slave; Dan. tral;
Swed. tral. Teut. type *thrihiloz, τὰ. (base *thrah-); and allied
to OHG. drigil, drégil, a slave, a thrall; lit. ‘a runner,’ i.e. one
who runs on messages. Formed from the Teut. base THREG, to
run, whence also Goth. thragjan, AS. Jrégan, to run. Cf. AS.
frag, frah, a running, course. Further connexions uncertain;
perhaps allied to L. trahere, to draw, or to Celto-L. vertraga,
a greyhound; see Feuterer. The Gk. τρέχ-ειν, to run, is of un-
certain origin. Der. thral-dom, ME. fraldom, Layamon, 29156;
from Icel. Jrelddmr, thraldom; the Icel. suffix -ddmr being the same
as the AS. suffix -dom.
THRASH, THRESH, to beat out grain from the straw. (E.)
The spelling with e is the older. ME. Areschen, Jreshen, Chaucer,
C, T. 538 (A 536). For Jerschen, by metathesis of r. AS. Jerscan,
firscan, Grein, ii. 581. A strong verb, pt. t. Jersc, pp. forscen.
The ME. pp. Jroschen occurs in the Ormulum, 1. 1530; and
idrosschen in the Ancren Riwle, p. 186, 1. 18.44-MDu. derschen
(Hexham); Du. dorschen; Icel. Jreskja; Dan. terske; Swed. troska;
G. dreschen; Goth. thriskan, pt. t. thrask, pp. thruskans. B. All
from ‘Teut. type *threskan-, pt. τ. *thrask, pp. *thruskanoz; to beat
noisily. Allied to Lithuan. ¢arszkéti, to rattle, clap ; traszkéti, to
rattle, make a cracking noise; Russ. treskat(e), to burst, crack,
crackle, tresk’, a crash. From an Idg. base *tresk-, to crack, burst,
crackle; then to strike, thrash. Fick cites OSlavonic ¢roska, Lat.
‘fulmen ;’ which suggests the rattling of thunder; whence, perhaps,
the noise of the flail. Der. thrash-er or thresh-er, ME. Areschare,
Prompt. Parv. ; thrash-ing or thresh-ing ; thrashing-floor or thresh-
ing-floor, Ruth, iii. 2. Also thresh-old, q.v.
THRASONICAL, vain-glorious. (L.—Gk.) In Shak. L. L. L.
v. 1.14; As You Like It, v. 2. 34. A coined word, as if with
suffix -al (L. -Glis) from a L, adj. *Thrasdnicus ; but the adj. really
in use was Thrasonianus, whence MF. Thrasonien, * boasting, Thraso-
like;’ Cot. Formed, with suffix -cws (or -dnus), from Thrasoni-,
THRESHOLD
decl. stem of Thraso, the name of a bragging soldier in Terence’s
Eunuchus. Evidently coined from Gk. θρασ-ύς, bold, spirited. =
7 DHERS, to be bold; cf. Skt. dharsha-, arrogance, dhysh, to be
bold ; see Dare (1).
THRAVE, a number of sheaves of wheaf. (Scand.) See Nares.
Generally 12 or 24 sheaves. The pl. ¢hreaves=clusters or handfuls
of rushes, is in Chapman, Gent. Usher, ii. 1 (Bassiolo). ME. rane,
preue, P. Plowman, B. xvi. 55. The late AS. pl. Jreuves occurs in
Birch, Cart. Saxon. iii. 367.—Icel. Jrefi, a thrave, number of
sheaves; Dan. ¢rave, a score of sheaves; Swed. trafve, a pile of
wood. Cf. Swed. dial. trave, a thrave; trafve, 24 or 30 sheaves in
a shock (F. Moller); NFries. trav.
THREAD, a thin twisted line or cord, filament. (E.) ME.
preed, pred, Chaucer, C. T. 14393 (B 3665). The e was once long;
the Ellesmere and Hengwrt MSS. have the spelling threed. AS.
pred, a thread; Alfred, tr. of Boethius, c. xxix. § 1 (b. iii. pr. 5).
Lit. ‘that which is twisted.’ AS, Arawan, to twist, also to throw ;
see Throw.+Du. draad, thread ; cf. draaijen, to twist, turn; Icel.
prior; Dan. traad; Swed. tradd; G. draht, drath, wire, thread;
OHG. drat, wire. Teut. type *Jr@-duz; cf. Gk. τρῆ-σις, a boring
through, a hole. Der. thread, verb, Rich. II, v. 5. 17; thread-y,
i.e, thread-like. Also ¢hread-bare, so bare that the component
threads of the garment can be traced, ME. Aredbar (Jreedbare in the
Hengwrt MS.), Chaucer, C. T. 262 (A 260). Doublet, thrid.
THREAT, a menace. (E.) ME. fret; the dat. Arete occurs in
The Owl and Nightingale, 1. 58; hence the verb Jreten, Chaucer,
Legend of Good Women, 754 ; also the verb Jretenen, Wyclif, Mark,
i. 25. [The latter is mod. E. ¢hreaten.] AS. Jréat, (1) a crowd,
crush, or throng of people, which is the usual meaning, Grein, ii.
598; also (2) a great pressure, calamity, trouble, and hence, a threat,
rebuke, Grein, ii. 598, 1.1. The orig. sense was a pushas of a crowd,
hence pressure put upon any one. Cf. AS. fréat, pt. τ. of the strong
verb Jréotan, appearing only in the impersonal comp. dJréotan, to
afflict, vex, lit. to press extremely, urge.+Icel. Jjota, pt.t. Jraut, pp.
protinn, to fail, lack, come short; used impersonally. (The orig.
sense was perhaps to urge, trouble, whence the sb. Jraut, a hard task,
struggle) ; Goth. ¢hriutan, only in the comp. usthriutan, to use de-
spitefully, trouble, vex greatly; OHG. driozan, in the comp.
ardriozan, MHG., erdriezen, impers. verb, to tire, vex; also appearing
in Ὁ. verdriessen (pt. t. verdross), to vex, trouble. B. Hence AS.
fréat,a crush, Teut. type *thrautoz, m., is from Teut. *thraut, 2nd
grade of *threutan-, to crowd. Allied to L. tradere, to push, shove,
crowd, urge, press upon (cf. frudis,a pole to push with) ; also to
Russ. trudit(e), to make a man work, to trouble, disturb, vex.
(o/TREUD, to push, urge.) Der. reat, verb, K. John, iii. 1. 347,
ME, Jreten (as above), AS. fréatian (weak verb), Grein, ii. 598;
also threat-ex, ME. Jretenen (as above), AS. Jréatnian ; threat-en-ing,
threat-en-ing-ly.. From the same base, abs-truse, de-trude, ex-trude,
in-trude, ob-trude, pro-trude. Cf. thrust.
THREE, two and one. (E.) ME. pre, Wyclif, Matt. xviii. 20.
AS. fréo, Matt. xviii. 20; other forms frio, pri, Ary, Grein, ii. 599.
Ἔα. drie; Icel. Jrir (fem. Arjar, neut. Jriv) ; Dan. tre ; Swed. tre ;
Goth. threis; G. drei.4-Irish, Gael., and W. tri; Russ. tri; L. trés,
neut. fria; Gk. τρεῖς, neut. τρία ; Lithuan. trys (stem ¢ri-); Skt.
masc. nom. pl. trayas. Idg. masc. nom. pl. *¢reyes. Brugmann,
ii. § 167. Der. three-fold, AS. frifeald, friefeald, Alfred, tr. of
Boethius, c. xxxiii. § 4 (b. iii. met. 9); ¢hree-score, Much Ado, i.
I. 201; also ¢hri-ce, q.v.; and see thir-d, thir-teen, thir-ty. From
the same source are tri-ad, tri-angle, tri-nity, tri-pos, &c. See Tri-.
Also tierce, terc-el, ter-t-ian, ter-t-i-ar-y.
THRENODY, a lament, song of lamentation. (Gk.) Shak.
even ventures upon threne, Phoenix,l.49. Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674,
has both ¢threne and threnody. Englished from Gk. θρηνφδία, a
lamenting. — Gk. θρῆντος, a wailing, lamenting, sound of wailing,
funeral dirge (cf. θρέτομαι, I cry aloud); and 57, an ode, from
ἀείδειν, to sing. See Drone (1) and Ode.
THRESH, the same as Thrash, q.v.
THRESHOLD, a piece of wood or stone under the door or-at.
the entrance of a house. (E.) The word is to be divided ¢hresh-old,
where -old was (by popular etymology) supposed to stand for wold
(wood). (Shak. has old =wold, K. Lear, iii. 4.125.) ME. preshwold,
preswold, Chaucer, C. T. 3482; Jresshewold, P. Plowman, B. v. 357;
Briswald, Voc. 667. 14. AS. Jerscold, Deut. vi. 9 (where the w does
not appear; later form ferscwald, as in ‘ Limen, Jerscwald ;’ Voc.
280. 15. Supposed to mean ‘the piece of wood which is beaten”
by the feet of those who enter the house, the ¢hrash-wood.— AS,
ersc-an, to thresh, thrash ; and wald, weald, a wood, hence a piece
of wood. B. But this was a popular etymology; King Alfred
has Jerscold simply ; tr. of Gregory's Pastoral Care, p. 77, 1. 22.
This form represents Teut. *Jresko-d/o- (Sievers) ; cf. OHG. drisc-
ii-fli, a threshold. Here *fresko- is from Teut. *Jreskan-, to thrash ;
Tt
643,
θ44 THRICE
but -d/o- represents the Idg. suffix -tro-. See my Principles of Eng.
Etymology, 1. § 228 (hk). The Icel. Areskjéldr, a threshold, is spelt
in various ways; cf. Swed. ¢roskel.
THRICE#, three times. (E.) The final -ce is for s; it is a mere
device for showing that the final sound is voiceless, i.e, sounded as
s and not as z. So also the pl. of mous(e) is written mice; &c.
Thrice stands for thris, contracted form of ME, Ariés or Jryés, a word
which was formerly dissyllabic: ‘And /ryés with hir sperés clater-
inge,’ Chaucer, C. T. 2956 (A 2954). B. Again, Arie-s was
formed (with adverbial suffix -s, orig. the suffix of the gen. case) from
an older form Jy ié, also dissyllabic ; the words on-ce, twi-ce originating
in a similar manner. The form frie is in Layamon, 17432, earlier
text; and fries in the same, 26066, later text.m AS. Ariwa, thrice,
Exod, xxiil. 14; Grein, ii, 601.—AS. Ari, three. See Three.
THRID, a thread. (E.) In Dryden, Hind and Panther, iii. 278.
The same as Thread, q.v. Der. thrid, verb, Dryden, Palamon and
Arcite, 1. 495.
THRIFT, frugality. (Scand.) ME. Jrift, Chaucer, C. T. 16893.
—Icel. Jrift, thrift, where the ¢ is added to the stem; we also find
Prif, thriving condition, prosperity. —Icel. Arif, weak grade, as seen
in Jrif-inn, pp. of Arifa, only used in the reflex. Jrifask, to thrive ;
see Thrive. Cf. Dan. triv-else, prosperity, with a different suffix.
The suffix -¢ is from the Idg. suffix -to-. | Cf. thef-t.
THRILL, THIRL, to pierce. (E.) Spenser uses ¢hrill in the
unmetaphorical sense, to pierce with an arrow; F. Q. ili. 5. 20, Iv. 7.
313; hence.the metaphorical use, as in F, Ὁ. iv. 1. 49. Thirl is an
older spelling of the same word. “ Thyrlyn, thryllyn, or peercyn,
Penetro, terebro,-perforo;’ Prompt. Parv. ME. Jirlen, Chaucer,
GC. ΤΊ, 2712 (A 2710}; ° frullen, Trevisa, tr. of Higden, i. 339;
purlen, Ancren Riwle, p. 392, 1. 24. AS. Ayrlian, to pierce through,
spelt Jirlian, Exod. xxi. 6, Levit. xxv. 10. Again, Ayrlian is a
shorter form for Ayrelian; we find-the sb. Ayrel-ung, a piercing, in
2Elfred, tr. of Gregory’s Past. Care, c. xxi, ed. Sweet, p. 153, last
line, and the verb durh-dyrelian, to pierce through (¢hrough-thirl),
two lines further on. The verb Ayrelian is a causal verb, from the
sb. Ayrel, a hole (caused by boring), A®lfred, tr. of Boethius, c. xxxiv.
§ 11 (Ὁ. iil. pr. 11). B. Lastly, Ayrel is also found as an adj.,
with the sense of bored or pierced. ‘Gif monnes péoh bid Ayrel’”
(various reading Ayrl) =if a man’s thigh be pierced ; Laws of Atlfred,
§ 62, in Thorpe, Ancient Laws, i. 96. This is equivalent to the
cognate MHG. durchel, pierced, an adj. derived trom durch, prep.,
through; similarly, AS. Ayrel stands for *Jyrhel (from *Jurh-il-),
derived (with the ustal vowel-change from τὸ to y) from AS, Jurh,
through. y. We thus see that AS. Ayrl meant ‘ going through,’
and hence, ‘a hole ;’ whence the verb was formed. See Through.
Cf. Irish tar, through. Q The Du. drillen is from dril (MDu.
drille), a hole; and drille must have been a derivative from the old
form of Du. door, through; cf. OSaxon ¢hurh, through. Der.
thrill, sb.,a late word ; thrill-ing, pres. part. as adj. Also xos-tril, q.v.
Doublet, drill (from Dutch).
THRIVE, to prosper, flourish, be successful. (Scand.) ME.
Priuen (with u=v), Chaucer, C. T. 3677 (A 3675); Havelok,. 280;
Ormulum, to868. A strong verb; pt. t. Jraf, Ormulum, 3182,
prof; Rob. of Glouc. p. 11, 1.240; pp. Ariven. —Icel. rifa, to clutch,
grasp, grip, seize ; hence Jrifask (with suffixed -sk =sik, self), lit. to
seize for oneself, to thrive. [It is suggested in the Icel. Dict. that
Prifask is not connected with Jrifa, but the transition from ‘seizing
to oneself’ to ‘thriving’ is easy, and, as both are strong verbs,
conjugated alike, it is hardly possible to separate them. Cf. Norw.
triva, to seize, trivast, to thrive; and Widegren has Swed. rifven,
thrifty, active, diligent, coinciding with the Icel. pp. Jrifinn, from
frifa; and even Icel. Jrifint also means ‘thritty.’] The pt. t. is
preif, and the pp. Arizinn; hence the sb. frif, prosperity, and E.
thrif-t.- Dan. trives, reflex. verb, to thrive ; whence ¢rivelse, pros-
perity ; Swed. érifvas, reflex. verb, to thrive ; cf. trefrad, prosperity.
Der. thriv-ing-ly ; thrif-t, q.v.; thrifty, ME. prifty, Chaucer, C. Ὁ.
12905 (B 1165); ¢hrift-i-ly, thrifi-i-ness; thrift-less, thrift-less-ly,
thrift-less, -ness.
THROAT, the forepart of the neck with the gullet and wind-
pipe, the gullet. (E.) ME. frote, Ancren Riwle, p. 216,1. 4. AS.
Arote, throat, Alfred, tr. of Boethius, ο. xxii, § 1 (bk. ili. pr. 1) ; also
protu, prota; ‘Guttur, Jrotu,’ Voc. 157. 41;. *Guttur, Jrota,’ id.
306. 13.4-OHG. drozza, MHG. drozze, the throat ; whence G. drossel,
throat, throttle. B. Referred in Ettmiiller to AS. Aréotan (pp.
froten), to press; a verb treated of s.v. Threat. But it is more
likely that an initial s has been lost, and that AS. Jrofe is allied to
Du. strot, the throat, MDnu. stroo?, strot, ‘the throat or the gullet,’
Hexham, stroote, ‘the wesen [weasand} or the wind-pipe,’ id. So
also OF ries. strotbolla=AS. rotbolla, the gullet or windpipe; and
ct. Ital. strozza, the gullet, a word of Teut. origin. We must there-
fore refer it to a Teut. base *s#rud-; anda connexion with ἘΝ, strié
THROUGH
is possible. The reference may be to the ‘prominence’ or swelling
in the throat below the chin. Cf. Icel. Jroti, a swelling ; Jritna, to
swell. See Thropple. Der. ¢hroti-le, the wind-pipe, dimin. of
throat; thrott-le, verb, to press on the windpipe, ME. /roélen,
Destruction of Troy, 12752. Also thropfle, q.v-
THROB, to beat forcibly, as the heart. (E.) ME. Jrobben, rare.
‘With Jrobbant herte’ =with throbbing heart; P. Plowman, A. xii.
48. The word must be either E. or Scand., as it begins with J; but
it appears neither in AS. nor in the Scand. languages. We must call
it Ε΄ B. Allied to Russ. trepet(e), palpitation, throbbing, trembling,
fear ; ¢repetat(e), to throb, palpitate with joy ; and prob. to ¢repat(e),
to beat hemp, also to knock softly. Also to L. trepidus; see
Trepidation. Der. throb, sb., Spenser, Shep. Kal. May, 208.
THROH, pang, pain, agony. (Scand.) ME. Jrowe. ‘ Throwe,
Erumpna;’ Prompt. Parv. And see Jrowes, pl., pangs, O. Eng.
Homilies, ed. Morris, ii. 181, 1. 2.—Icel. Ara, a throe, pang, long-
ing; Norw. ¢raa, longing, ‘raa, to long for; MSwed. ira, longing,
trd, to long for, to pine away (Swed. /réna). Cf. OHG., dréa, burden,
suffering, druoén, drdén, to suffer; AS. Ardwian, to suffer. Base
*thraw-, from Idg. root *treu; cf. L. trux, fierce. See Truculent.
Cf. also Icel. Areyja, endurance, freyja, to long for.
THRONE, a royal seat, chair of state. (F.—L.—Gk.) Now
conformed to the Gk. spelling. ME. drone, Wyclif, Matt. v. 34.—
OF. trove (13th cent.), spelt ¢hroxe in Cot.; mod. F. tréne.—L.
thronum, acc. of thronus, Matt. v. 34.—Gk. θρόνος, a seat, chair; lit.
a support. —4/DHER, to hold, support ; whence also Gk. @paves, a
bench, Ion. θρῆνυς, a stool.
THRONG, a great crowd of people. (E.) ΜΕ. frong, Allit.
Poems, ed. Morris, B. 135 ; Jrang, Pricke of Conscience, 4704. AS.
ge-frang, a throng, Grein, i. 473; where the common prefix ge-
makes no difference. - AS. Jrang, 2nd grade of the strong vb. Jringan,
to crowd, to press (pp. Arungen), Mark, v. 24.4-Du. drang, a crowd,
from dringen, to crowd; Icel. Aréng, a throng; G. drang, a throng,
from drang, and grade of dringen (pp. drungen), to crowd, press.
Cf. Dan. trang, Swed. trdng, adj., pressed close, tight, prov. E.
throng, adj., busy; Goth. threthan (pp. thraihans), to throng, press
round (for *¢hrinhan). B. All from the Teut. strong verb *‘hrenxan-,
to throng, from Idg. root *trerk; whence Lithuan. érenkti, to jolt, to
push, ¢ranxksmas, a tumult; and even L, ¢runcus, maimed, mutilated.
Brugmann, i. 8 144 (1). Der. throng, verb, ME. Jrongen, Morte
Arthure, ed. Brock, 3755.
THROPPLE, THRAPPLE, the wind-pipe. (E.) Spelt
thrapple by Johnson, who gives it as a Lowland Sc. word; better
thropple, see Halliwell and Jamieson. Halliwell gives also thropple,
to throttle; a derived sense. Thropple is usually said to be a
corruption of AS. Jrotbolla, the wind-pipe, also the gullet ; which
requires rather violent treatment to reduce it to the required form.
The AS. Jrotbolla survived for a long time; Palsgrave gives:
‘ Throtegole or throtebole, neu de la gorge, gosier.’ The usual sense
of AS. bolla is ‘bow];’ see Throat and Bow] (2), Bole.
THROSTLE, the song-thrush. (E.) ME. frustel, Chaucer,
C. T. 13703 (B 1963). ‘Mavis’ is glossed by ‘a throstel-kok’ in
Walter de Bibbesworth; Wright’s Voc. i. 164, 1.1. AS. frosile ;
‘Merula, Jrostle,’ Voc. 286. 20; spelt Arosle (by loss of ¢), id. 132. 25.
+MUHG. ¢rostel. Teut. type *thrustla, fem.; Idg. type *terzd-la, f.
Allied to L. turdus, a thrush ; also to Icel. Ardstr (gen. Jrastar), Swed.
and Norw. ¢rasz, a thrush (from *Jrast, 2nd grade of a Teut. root
*Brest); cf. OPruss, ¢resde, a thrush. Also, with initial's, Lith.
strazdas, m., strazda, f.,a thrush. See further under Thrush (1).
Throsile has a variant throshel, ME. thrusshil, Prompt. Parv. Brug-
mann, i. §§ 818 (2), 882.
THROTTLE, the wind-pipe. (E.) See Throat.
THROUGH, from beginning to end, from one side to the other,
from end to end. (E.) For the form thorough, see Thorough.
ME, Jura, Juruh, Ancren Riwle, p. 92, ll. 12,17. Other forms are
pur3, purw, purch, Jurgh, porw, poruh, foru, &c.; see Stratmann,
Also δυνά, Reliquiee Antique, i. 102, by metathesis of r; and hence
mod. E, through. AS. itr prep. and adv., through, Grein, ii. 607,
610; ONorthumb. Jerk, Matt. xxvii. 18 (Lindisfarne MS.).4+Du.
door; ἃ. durch, OHG. durh, duruh, Teut. type *Jurhk. Allied to
Goth. thairh (for *Jerh), through. β, The Goth. ¢hairkd, a hole,
is prob. connected with ¢hairh; and the AS. Ayrel, a hole, is a
derivative from Jurk, through; as shown under Thrill, The
fundamental notion is that of boring or piercing; and we may
refer through to the 4/TER, to bore, as in L. terere, to bore, Gk.
τείρειν (for *rép-ye). See Trite. Cf. through with Irish ¢ar,
beyond, over, through, ¢ri, through, ¢air, beyond; L. ¢r-ans, across;
Skt. ¢iras, through, over. Brugmann, i. ὃ 527. Der. through-ly,
thoroughly. (see Thorough); through-out, ME. Jurvhut, Ancren
Riwle, p. 212, 1. 23, with which cf, G. durchaus, a similar compound,
And see Throw.
THROW
THROW, to cast, tohul. (E.) One sense of the word was to
twist or wind silk or thread ; hence throwster, asilk-winder ; ‘ Throw-
star, devideresse de soye;’ Palsgrave. The orig. sense was to turn,
twist, whirl; hence a turner’s lathe is still called a throw (Halliwell).
ME. frowen, pt. t. γεν, P. Plowman, B. xx. 163 ; pp. Arowen, Wyclif,
Matt. xiv. 24 (earlier version), now contracted to thrown. AS. Jrawan,
to twist, whirl, hurl; pt. t. Aréow, pp. Arawen ; a verb which, strangely
enough, israre. ‘Contorqueo, ic samod Jrawe,’ i.e. I twist together,
occurs in /Elfric’s Grammar, ed. Zupitza, p. 155, 1. 16. The pt. t.
préow=tumed itself, occurs in ΖΕ] τος Homilies, ii. 510, 1. 8. Leo
quotes, from various glossaries: ‘ge-Arawan, torquere ; a-praiwan,
crispare ; ed-Jrdawan, to twist double ; Arawing-spinl, a throwing (or
winding) spindle.’ The orig. sense is still preserved in the derived
word thread=that which is twisted. B. Allied to G. dreken, OHG.
drajan, to turn, whirl, Du. draaijen, to turn, twist, whirl; all from
Teut. base *Jra-=Idg. base *tré-, as in Gk. τρη-τός, bored through,
τρῆ-μα, a hole, τρή-σω, fut. of τε-τραίνειν, to bore through. The
grade *ter occurs in L. ter-ere, Gk. retpew (for *rép-yew), to bore.
(/TER). Der. throw, sb., throw-er ; and see threa-d.
THRUM (1), the tufted end of a weaver’s thread; coarse yam.
(E.) See Tkrum in Nares. In Shak. Mids. Nt. Dr. v. 291. ME.
prum. ‘Thrumm, of a clothe, Filamen;’ Prompt. Parv. ‘Hoc
licium, a ¢hrom;’ Voc. 728.17. AS. Arum, found in tunge-prum, a
ligament of the tongue; A. 5. Leechdoms, i. p. lxxiv, 1. 9; p. Ixx.
1.9. Allied to Icel. Aromr (gen. Jramar), the edge, verge, brim of
a thing (hence the rough edge of a web); Norweg. trom, tram,
trumm, edge, brim (Aasen); Swed. dial. tromm, trumm, trim, a
stump, the end of a log (Rietz) ; MDnu. drom, or drom-garen [thrum-
yarn}, ‘thred on the shittle of a weaver ;’ Hexham; Du. dreum; G.
trumm, end, thrum, stump of a tree. B. Allied to Gk. rép-pa,
end, L. ter-minus, end, limit; see Term. Der. thrumm-ed, Merry
Wives, iv. 2. 80.
THRUM (2), to strum, play noisy music. (Scand.) ‘ This single
thrumming of a fiddle;’ Beaum. and Fletcher, Woman’s Prize, i. 1
(Jaques). =Icel. Aruma, to rattle, to thunder; cf. Jrymr, an alarm, a
noise; Dan. tromme, a drum; Swed. trumma, to beat, to drum. See
Trumpet and Drum.
THRUSH (1), a small singing-bird. (E.) ME. frusch. ‘ Bope
pe Arusche and ‘pe Arustele?=both the thrush and throstle, Will. of
Palerne, 820. ΑΘ. Arysce, spelt Jryssce in Voc. 286. 23; Jrisce, id.
260. 30.44OHG. drosca, a thrush; whence G. drossel. B. The
AS.. word answers to the Teut. type *thruskjon-, f. Allied to
Throstle, q. v.
THRUSH (2),a diseasemarked by small ulcerations in the mouth.
(Seand.) ‘ Thrush, a disease in the mouth, esp. of young children ;’
Phillips, ed. 1706. The form shows that the word is English or
Norse, as it begins with th. From ONorse *Jruskr, thrush ; whence
MDan, forsk, Dan. troske, the thrush on the tongue, Swed. forsk,
Swed. dial. ¢résk (Rietz) ;- Norw. trausk, trosk, trosk, thrush (Ross).
Prob. the same as Norw. ¢rausk, variant of frausk, frosk, a frog;
frosk, the thrush. In the same way, Gk. βάτραχος and L. rana
meant (1) a frog, (2) a disease of the tongue (Falk).
THRUST, to push forcibly. (Scand.) ME. Arusten, but more
commonly frister, as in Havelok, 2019, and sometimes fresten, as in
Chaucer, C. T. 2614 (A 2612). The form thrust is properly of
Scand. origin. —Icel. Arysta, to thrust, compress, press, force, com-
pel; Norw. ¢rysta, to thrust. The Teut. base is *Jrast, perhaps for
*rut-st; prob. allied to Icel.. Araut, a struggle, and to L. trid-ere,
to thrust, to push. See Threat. Der. thrust, sb., Oth. v. 1. 24.
THUD, a dullsound resulting from a blow. (E.) In Burns, Battle
of Sheriffmuir, 1. 8. Also used by G. Douglas and others (Jamie-
son); and see Notes and Queries, 4S. i. 34, 115, 163, 231, 275.
Allied to AS. Ayddan, to strike, thrust, push.
THUG, an assassin. (Hindustani.) Modern. Hind. thag, thug
(with cerebral 21), a cheat, knave, imposter, a robber who strangles
travellers; Marathi tak, ¢hag, the same; H. H. Wilson, Gloss. of
Indian Terms; p. 517. And see Yule.
THUMB, the short, thick finger of the hand. (E.) ME. Jombe,
Chaucer, C. T. 565 (A 563); formed with excrescent ὃ (after ‘2m)
from the earlier Aume, Ancren Riwle, p. 18, 1. 14. AS. Jima, the
thumb; ‘Pollex, Juma,’ Voc. 40. 22.44Du. duim; Swed. tumme;
OHG. diimo, G. daumen. Cf. Icel. Jumall, the thumb of a glove;
Dan, tommel-finger, thumb. β. Teut. type *thii-mon-, m., thumb,
lit. ‘the thick finger;’ Fick, iii, 135. From Teut. base THEU=
TEU, to swell, grow large; see Tumid. Cf. Tuber. Der.
thumb-kin, a dimin, of thumb, but used as equivalent to thumb-screw,
an instrument of torture for compressing the thumb (Webster) ; thumb-
ring, τ Hen. IV, ii. 4. 365; also thimb-le, q. v.
THUMMIM, perfection. (Heb.) | We have wrim and thummim,
Exod, xxviii. 30, Ezra, ii. 63, &c. The literal sense of these difficult
words is, probably, ‘fires (or lights) and .perfections,’ but the Heb.
THWART 645
pl. need not be exactly kept to in English; ‘light and perfection’
would probably be the best E. equivalent ; Smith, Dict. of the Bible.
— Heb. tummim, pl. of tom, perfection, truth (with initial saz), —Heb.
root tamam, to be perfect. See Urim.
THUMP, to beat heavily. (E.) In Rich. IIT, y. 3. 334; and in
Spenser, F. Ὁ. vi. 2. το. ‘Thomp! thomp!’ Bale, Kynge Johan,
Ρ- 53 (C.S.). An imitative word; from the sound of a blow. Cf.
IFries. dump, a thump; also Icel. dumpa, to thump, Swed. dial.
dompa, to thump, dumpa, to make a noise. Of imitative origin.
Der. thump, sb., thump-er.
THUNDER, the loud noise accompanying lightning. (E.) For
thuner; the d after x is excrescent. ME. Joner, Iwain and Gawain,
1. 370, in Ritson, Met. Romanees, i. 16; more commonly onder or
funder, Chaucer, C. T. 494, 6314 (A 492, D 732). AS. Junor,
thunder, Grein, ii. 606. Allied to AS. Junian, to rattle, thunder;
Grein, ii. 606. Cf. AS. ge-jux, a loud noise, in a gloss (Bosworth).
Ἔα, donder ; Icel. Jorr (for Jour), Thor, the god of thunder; with
which cf. Dan. -torden, Swed. tordén, thunder; G. donner, OHG,
thonar, thunder. β, All from Teut. base *#hun-, to thunder (Fick,
ili. 130)=Idg. *tun-. We have further allied words in L. tonare, to
thunder, onitrz, thunder, Skt. tax, to sound; from Idg. 4/TEN, to
sound, by-form of 4/STEN, to thunder, make a noise, appearing in
Skt. stan, to sound, sigh, thunder, stanita-, thunder, stanana-, sound,
groaning, Gk. στέν-ειν, to groah, Lithuan. stenéti, ‘to groan, Russ,
stenat(e), stonat(e), to groan, moan; see Stun and Stentor, Der.
thunder, verb, AS. Junrian, Grein; thunder-bolt, Temp. ii. 2. 38 (see
Bolt) ; thunder-stone, J. Coes. i. 3. 493 thunder-stroke, Temp. ii. 1.
204; thunder-struck, Milton, P. L. vi. 858; thunder-ous, id. P, L. x.
702; thunder-er, id. P. L. vi. 4901. Also Thurs-day, q.v. See
Brugmann, i. § 818(2). ;
THURIBLE, a censer for burning frankincense. (L.—Gk.) ‘A
pot of manna, or ¢hurible;’ Bp. Taylor, Rule of Conscience, b. ii.
c. 2.(R.). Phillips, ed. 1706, has only the L. form thiribulum,
Englished from L. thuribulum, also spelt ¢aribulum, a vessel for hold-
ing frankincense. = L, ¢hiri-, tauri-, decl. stem of thiis or tus, frankin-
cense; with suffix -bulum, as in fundi-bulum (from fundere). ‘This
sb. this is not a true L. word, but borrowed from Gk. 6v-és, incense.
—Gk. θύ-ειν, to offer part of a meal to the gods, by burning it, to
sacrifice. Cf. Skt. dhiima-, smoke; L. fimus, smoke, which is the
native L. word from the same root as Gk. θυός. = 4/ DHEU, to shake,
blow, fan a flame. See Fume. Der. (from L. thiri-), thuri-fer,
one who carries incense; where the suffix -fer = bearing, from ferre,
to bear. From the same root as ¢hyme and fume.
THURSDAY, the fifth day of the week. (Scand.) The day of
the god of thunder, the Scand. Thor. ME. Jurs-dei, Ancren Riwle,
Ρ. 40, l. 7; Jorsday, poresday, pursday, P. Plowman, B. xvi. 140, and
footnotes; (spelt Aunres-dei, Layamon, 13929).—AS. fires deg,
Thursday. - AS. fires, gen. of Jair, Thor; and deg, day. Borrowed
from Icel. Jars-dagr, Thursday; from Jars, gen. case of Jorr, Thor,
thunder; dagr, a day. So also are compounded Du. Donderdag,
Swed. and Dan. Torsdag, G. Donnerstag and the (native) AS. punres
deg. All are translations of L. diés Jouts, Jupiter’s day. See Sweet,
Hist. E. Sounds, § 578. And see Thunder. :
THUS, in this manner. (E.) ME. thus, Chaucer, C. T. 1880
(A 1878). AS. dus, thus, so, Grein, ii. 611.4-OFries. and OSax.
thus, thus; Du. dus. Of obscure origin; prob. allied to Thats; and
perhaps to This. :
THWACK, WHACK, to beat severely. (E.) In Levins, and
in Shak. Cor. iv. 5. 189. ‘If it be a thwack’ [blow]; Beaum. and
Fletcher, Nice Valour, iii. 2 (Lapet). Tusser has ¢hwack as a verb;
Husbandry, ὃ 18, st. 3 (E.D.S.). Prob. of imitative origin. Cf.
Icel. Jjékka, to thwack, thump; Ajaka, the same; prov. G. wackeln,
to cudgel. B. For the change from thwack to whack, see Whittle,
@ It does not agree, in form or sense, with ME. t¢hakken, to stroke,
asin: ‘When Nicholas had doon thus euery del, And thakked her
about the lendes wel;’ Chaucer, C. T. 3304; AS. Aaccian, to stroke,
said of stroking a horse; AZlfred, tr. of Gregory’s Past. Care, 6, 41,
ed. Sweet, p. 303, 1. Io.
THWAITES, a clearing. (Scand.) ‘Common in place-names, in
Cumberland, as in Esthwaite, Legberthwaite, &c.; see Taylor's.
Words and Places, c. 8; Gent. Maga. Nov. 1856, p. 530. In N.
and Q. 3S. x. 68,an example of thwayt is given, as occurring in the’
16th century. =Icel. Aveit, a paddock, &c., orig. a ‘cutting,’ i.e. a
clearing ina wood, As if from *Aveit, 2nd grade of a strong verb.
*Avita, to cut; not found, but the same word as AS. Awitan, to cut;’
for which see Whittle (1). | Cf. Norw. fveit, ἃ cut, also'a small
clear space (Aasen) ; prov. Sw. tveit, a chip, -fvefa, a suffix in place-
names (Rietz); Dan. dial. ¢ved. - And see Doit. ‘
THWART, transversely, transverse. (Scand.) Properly an adv.,
as used by Spenser: ‘ Yet whether ¢hwart or flatly it did lyte’ [light,
alight]; F. Q. vi. 6. 30. He also has it as a prep.: ‘thiwart her
THWITE
horse’ =across her horse, F. Q. iii. 7. 43. The ME. use shows
clearly that the word was used adverbially, esp. in certain phrases,
and then as an adj. ; the verbal use was the latest of all. ME. Awert,
wart. ‘Andelong, nouht ouer-Awert’ =endlong, not across; Have-
lok, 2822. ‘ Ouerthwart and endelong ’ = across and endlong, Chaucer,
C. T. 1993; Awertouer, Ancren Riwle, p. 82,1. 12; Awert ouer 8
ilond, Trevisa, vy. 225; ‘His herte So wurd dwert’=his heart then
became perverse, Genesis and Exodus, 3099. ‘The word is of Scand.
origin, as it is only thus that the final -¢ can be explained. The AS.
for ‘perverse’ is Aweorh, Grein, ii. 612, cognate with which is Icel.
fverr, masc., the neut. being Avert, The sense of Jverr is across,
transverse, whence wm Jvert=across, athwart ; taka Jvert, to take
athwart, to deny flatly; storm mikinn ok vedr Jvert=a great storm
and adverse winds.+4Dan. ‘ver, adj., transverse ; ‘vert, adv., across ;
Swed. tvar, adj., cross, unfriendly, ἐνᾶγέ, ady., rudely. Allied to Du.
dwars, adj. and adv., cross, crossly; AS. Aweorh, perverse, transverse
(as above); MHG. dwerch, twerch, G. zwerch, adv., across, awry,
askance, obliquely; Goth. thwairhs, cross, angry. β. All from
Teut. base *Jwerh, transverse, also cross, angry; answering to Idg.
base */werg. Allied to L. torquére, to twist; Skt. tarku-, a spindle.
Brugmann, i. § 593 (3). Allied to Twirl; and see Torsion.
Der. thwart, verb, ME. Jwerten, Genesis and Exodus, 1324; also
a-thwart, q.v. And see Queer.
THWITE, to cut. (E.) Obsolete.
Thwaite and Whittle.
THY, shorter form of Thine, 4. ν. (E.) Der. thy-self, AS. Jin
self, where both fin and se/f are declined, the gen. being fines selfes;
see Grein, ii. 427, 5. v. self.
THYME, a fragrant plant. (F.—L.—Gk.) The this pronounced
as ¢, because the word was borrowed from F. at an early period.
ME. tyme, Prompt. Parv., p. 494.— OF. tym, F.thym, ‘the herb time;’
Cot.—L. thymum, acc. of thymus, thyme. = Gk. θύμος, θύμον, thyme ;
from its sweet smell ; cf. Gk. θύος, incense, and L. fimus, smoke. See
Thurible. (4/DHEU). Der. thym-y, Gay, Fable 22,1. 11.
THYROID, a term in anatomy. (Gk.) Lit. ‘shield-shaped.’
For thyreoid.—Gk. θυρεοειδής, shield-shaped (Galen). — Gk. θυρεο-, for
θυρεός, a stone against a door; also, ashield, from θύρα, a door; and
εἶδος, form. See Door and Idyll.
THYRSUS, a long wand, an attribute or emblem of Dionysus or
Bacchus. (L.—Gk.) Herrick has ¢hyrse: ‘Shake the ¢hyrse,’ A
Lyrick to Mirth, 1. 8.—L. thyrsus, a stalk, stem.—Gk. θύρσος, the
same. See Torso.
646
AS. Jwitan, to cut. See
ἘΝ ΕΣ ΕΑ
TIARA, a round wreathed ornament for the head. (L.—Gk.—
Pers.?) In Dryden, tr. of Virgil, vii. 337; and used by Tyndale;
see Index to Parker Soc. publications. [The form tar in Milton,
P. L. iii. 625, is from F. ¢éare, given in Cotgrave.|—L. tiara, Virg.
in. vii. 247.—Gk. τιάρα, τιάρας, the Persian head-dress, esp. on
great occasions ; see Herodotus, i. 132, vii. 61, vili. 120 ; Xenophon,
Anab, ii. 5. 23. And see Smith’s Dict. of Antiquities. B. Clearly
not a Gk. word, and presumably of Persian origin. The modern
name is Pers. ζᾶ), ‘a crown, a diadem, a crest ;’ see Rich. Pers. Dict.
Ῥ- 351, where the tiara is described. Cf. ¢ajwar, ‘wearing a crown,
crowned ;’ id. p. 352.
TIBERT, a name for a cat. (F.—Teut.) Alluded to as Tybalt
in Shak. Romeo, iii. 1. 80. See Ναγεβ. ‘ Tybert the catte;’ Caxton,
tr. of Reynard the Fox, ch. iii. — Low G. Tibeert (Willem, author of
Reynard). This answers to AS. Théod-beorht, from théod, people,
and beorht, bright. B. But T'ybal¢ is rather from OF. Thibaut, a
form of Theobald, answering to AS. Théod-beald, from beald, bold.
See Teutonic; and Bright, Bold.
TIBIA, the large bone of the leg. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706. A
medical term. = L. ¢ibia, the shin-bone. Der. tibi-al.
TIC, a convulsive motion of certain muscles, esp. of the face, a
twitching. (F.—Teut.) Borrowed from Εἰ. ¢ic, a twitching; and
chiefly used of the zie doloureux, painful twitching, the name of a
nervous disease ; where doloureux=L. dolordsus, painful, from dolor,
pain. The F. tic was formerly esp. used with respect to a twitching
of the muscles of horses (see Littré), and is the same word as MF.
ticg, or tiguet, ‘a disease which, on a sudden stopping a horses
breath, makes him to stop and stand still;’ Cot. Cf. prés du tiquet
de la mort, ‘near his last gasp ;’ id. The F. tic also means a vicious
habit ; cf. Ital. ¢icchio, a ridiculous habit, whim, caprice. B. OF
Teutonic origin; guided by the etymology of caprice, Diez suggests
a prob. origin from OHG. zikin, a kid, dimin. of OHG. ziga, ἃ.
TIDINGS
ziege, a goat, cognate with AS. ficcen, a goat, Gen. xxxviii, 19.
y- But rather from MHG, ¢uc, a quick movement, or Low (ἃς dukken,
to twitch; perhaps allied to Low (ἃ. twikken, to twitch. And see
Tick (4).
TICK (1), a small insect infesting dogs, &c. (E.) ‘A tick in a
sheep ;’ Troil. iii. 3. 315. ME. tyke (dat. case), in Polit. Songs,
p- 238, 1. 4, ina poem of the time of Edw. 11. Spelt teke, Voc. 505.
47. AS. ticia, Erfurt Glossary, 1130. Hence the F. tique was
borrowed.-MDu. teke, ‘a tike, or a doggs-lowse ;’ Hexham ; Low
G, teke, titke; G. zacke, zecke, a tick (whence Ital. zecca). Allied to
Lith. dygus, sharp, dég-ti, to sting (Franck).
TICK (2), the cover into which feathers are put, to serve fora
bed. (L.—Gk.) ‘ Quilts, ‘icks, and mattrasses ;’ Holland. tr. of
Pliny, b. xix, c. 1. § 2.‘ And of federbeddes rypped the tekys & helde
theym in the wynde, that the fethers myght be blowyn away ;’
Fabyan’s Chron., an. 1305-6, fol. Ixxx; ed. Ellis, p. 414. Spelt
ticke in Palsgrave. The spelling teke used by Fabyan is Englished
from L. théca, a case, which became Late L. ¢écha, a linen case, a
tick (Ducange) ; also ¢éca, as in Prompt. Parv.,s.v. ¢eye. ‘ The teke
of a bed, Zeca culcitaria,’ Levins; the L.¢h being sounded as ἡ.
{From the same L. théca was derived the F. ¢aie, spelt taye in Cot-
grave, and explained as ‘any filme or thin skin,’ whence une taye
d’oreiller, ‘a pillowbeer,’ i.e. a pillow-case.]—Gk. θήκη, a case to
put anything into; derived from the base θη- as seen in τί-θη-μι,
I place, put.—4/DHE, to put; see Theme. q The Dn. th,
a tick, is likewise from L. theca. Der. tick-ing.
TICK (3), to make a slight recurring noise, to beat as a watch.
(E.) Todd cites from Ray, Remains, p. 324, ‘the leisurely and con-
stant dick of the death-watch.’? The word is prob. imitative, to ex-
press the clicking sound, cf. click; or it may have been suggested
by Tick (4),q.v. Cf. G. ticktack, pit-a-pat; Ἐς tictac, the ticking
of a clock.
TICK (4), to touch lightly. (E.) There isa game called #ig, in
which children endeavour to ¢ouch each other; see Halliwell. This
was formerly called tick. ‘At hood-wink, barley-break, at tick, or
prison-base ;” Drayton, Polyolbion, song 30, 1. 132. ME. tek, a light
touch. ‘Tek, or lytylle towche, Tactulus;’ Prompt. Parv. Not
found earlier, except in the frequentative form tikelen; see Tickle.
Du. #ik, a touch, pat, tick ; dkken, to pat, to tick; Norw. μάζα, to
touch lightly ; Low G. ἀκα, a light touch with the tip of the finger;
metaphorically, a moment of time. ‘Zk quam up den Tikk daar, I
came there just in the nick oftime;’ Bremen Worterbuch. β. Ap-
parently a lighter form of the Teut. base */ak-, to touch, just as tip
(in dip and run) is a weakened form of ¢ap, made by the substitution
of a lighter vowel. See Take. Der. tick-le, q.v.
TICK (5), credit; see Ticket.
TICKET, a bill stuck up, a marked card, a token. (F.—G.) In
Minsheu, ed. 1627, and in Cotgrave.—MF. etiquet, ‘a little note,
breviate, bill or ticket; especially such a one as is stuck up on the
gate of a court, &c., signifying the seizure, &c. of an inheritance by
order of justice ;’ Cot. This is the masc. form of étiquette (formerly
estiquete, Littré), a ticket.—G. stecken, to stick, put, set, fix; allied
to E, Stick, q.v. And see Etiquette. Der. tick-et, vb. Also
tick, credit, by contraction for ticket; ‘taking things to be put into a
bill, was taking them on ticket, since corrupted into ick,’ Nares ; he
gives examples, showing that fick occurs as early as 1668, and that
the phrases upon ticket and on ticket were in use.
TICKLE, to touch slightly so as to cause to laugh. (E.) ME.
tikelen, tiklen, Chaucer, C. T. 6053 (D 471). Not found earlier, but
the frequentative from the base #ik-, to touch lightly ; see Tick (4).
We also find ME. tikel, adj., unstable, ticklish, easily moved by a
touch, Chaucer, C. T. 3428; from the same source. Cf. Icel. kitla,
to tickle ; similarly formed froma base *hit-. Der. tickl-er ; tickl-ish,
Troil. iv. 5. 61, formed by adding -isk to ME. tikel above ; tickl-ish-
ly, -ness.
TIDE, season, time, hour; flux or reflux of the sea. (E.) ME.
tide, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 4930 (B 510); the usual sense is ‘season’ or
hour; hence the time between flux and reflux of the sea, and, finally,
the flux or reflux itself. AS. tid, time, hour, Mark, xiii. 33.4Du.
tijd ; Icel. tid ; Dan. and Swed. tid; Ὁ. zeit; OHG. zit. β. All
from Teut. type *ti-di-, time, division of time, portion of time.
Allied to Time, q.v. Der. tide, vb., to happen, Mids. Nt. Dr.
vy. 205, ME. siden, Chaucer, C. T. 4757 (B 337), AS. ge-tidan, to
happen, John, v. 14; hence be-tide, q. ν. Also morning-tide, morrow-
tide, even-tide, harvest-tide, &c.; tide-mill, tide-table ; tide-waiter, an
officer who waits for the arrival of vessels with the ¢ide, to secure pay-
ment of duties ; ¢ide-way ; tid-al, adj., tide-less ; tid-ings, tid-y.
TIDINGS, things that happen ; usually, information respecting
things that happen. (Scand.) Not an E. word, but adapted from
Norse. ΜΕ. tidinde, Layamon, 2052, altered in the later text to
tidinge; spelt tifennde (for tifende), Ormulum, dedication, 1. 158.
TIDY
TILL 647
AS. tidung, tidings; A. S. Chron. an. 995. —Icel. ¢idindi, neut. pl., | A.i. sc. 1. Lit. a dress for Twelfth Night,’ i.e. a holiday dress, gay
tidings, news; also spelt ‘idenda, The word may have originated
from a pres. part. *tidandi of a verb *fida, to happen, with the same
sense as AS, tidan; and this verb is from Icel. tid, sb., tide, time,
cognate with AS. tid; see Tide. The final s is an E. addition, to
show that the word is a pl. form; the ME. ¢idixg or tithing (without
5) is not uncommon; see Chaucer, C. T. 5146 (B 726). Cf. Dan.
tidende, tidings, news ; Du. tijding ; (ἃ. zeitung. Noreen, § 150 (2).
TIDY, seasonable, hence, appropriate, neat. (E.) ME. tidy.
‘Tidy men;’ P. Plowman, B. ix. 104; ‘fe tidy child;’ Will. of
Palerne, 160, Formed with suffix -y (<AS. -ig) from ME. tid (AS.
tid), time; see Tide.Du. ¢ijdig, timely, from tijd; Dan. and
Swed. tidig, timely, from tid; G. zeitig. Der. tidi-ness.
TIE, a fastening, band ; to fasten, bind. (E.) 1. ME. tijen, verb,
Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, A. 464; tyen, P. Plowman, B. i. 96; terzen,
teyen, id. A. 94. The ME. forms ¢i3en, tyen answer to AS. tiegan, to
tie, fasten, spelt ¢igan, Matt. xxi. 2. The forms ¢ei3en, teyen answer
to an Anglian form ¢égan, 2. The verb is an unoriginal form, due to
the sb. feje. ‘And teten heom to-gadere mid guldene ¢e3en ’=and tie
them together with golden ties; Layamon, 20997, 20998. The cor-
responding AS, word is ¢éag, or rather téah (stem ¢éag-), a rope; see
Grein, Again, weread : ‘habba® langne ¢ige to geléafan trimminge’
=they have a long-lasting ¢ie for the establishment of the faith;
fflfric, Of the New Test., ed. De L’Isle, p. 27, last line; here ‘ige
=tyge (with mutation), Cf. Icel. ¢aug, a tie, string; ¢ygill, a string.
B. The form /éak corresponds to ¢éah, pt. 5. of t2ohan, to tow, pull,
draw, drag; so that a fie means that which draws things together.
For the strong verb féohan or téon (pt. t. téah, pl. tugon, pp. togen),
see Grein, ii. 527. It is cognate with Goth. tiuhan (pt. t. tauh, pp.
tauhans), to tow, tug, pull, and to G.ziehen. See further under Tow
(1). y. Thus ¢ie, vb., is from éie, sb.; and the latter is ultimately
from Teut. *tauh, 2nd grade of the Teut. base TEUH = Idg. 4/DEUK,
asin L. diicere, to draw. Cf. Tether.
TIER, a rank, row. (F.—Teut.?) “ Tire (or teer of ordnance, as
the seamen pronounce it), a set of great guns on both sides of a ship,
lying in a rank,’ &c.; Phillips, ed. 1706. Spelt ¢ire, with the same
sense of ‘row of guns,’ in Milton, P. L. vi. 605. We find ‘¢yres of
batterie,’ i.e. rounds of shot, Life of Lord Grey (ab. 1575), p. 20
(Camden Soc.). Also‘ tyre of ordinance,’ Florio, s. ν. iro. OF. tire,
tiere,a rank, row, series (Godefroy) ; cf. Proy. dieira, mod. Prov. tiero,
tietro, a row, series. Perhaps of Teut. origin; see Korting, § 9464.
And cf. attire, q.v. δ Distinct from Late L. tirare, to draw, pull,
extend, hurl; whence also Ital. ¢rare, Span. Port. Prov. dirar.
TIERCE, TERCE, one of the canonical hours, a cask holding
a third of a pipe; a sequence of three cards of a colour; a thrust in
fencing. (F.—L.) In all its senses, it meant orig. ‘third ;’ as the
third hour, third of a pipe, third card, third sort of thrust. ME.
tierce; ‘At howre of tyerse,’ Myrour of Our Lady, ed. Blunt, p. 13,
1. 21; spelt fierce, Wyclif’s Works, ed. Matthew, p. 41.—F. diers,
masc., frerce, fem., ‘third ;’ tiers, m., ‘a tierce, third, third part ;’
Cot.—L. tertius, masc., tertia, fem., third; the ordinal corresponding
to trés, three, which is cognate with E. Three, q. v.
TIERCKL, the same as Tercel, q. v.
TIFF (1), to deck, dress out. (F.—O. LowG.) ME. tiffen; Will.
of Palerne, 1. 1725; «“ffung, finery, Ancren Riwle, p. 420, note a.
- OF, and MF. ¢iffer, tifer (more commonly atiffer, attiffer), ‘to deck,
prancke, trick, trim, adorn ;” Cot. Of Low G. origin; cf. Du. tippen,
to cut, clip (lit. to cut off the ἐΐ of the hair, to trim) ; Low G. tippen,
to touch lightly, as with the tips of the fingers. These verbs are
from Du. tip, Low G. tipp, sb. a tip. See Tip (1). Cf. prov. E.
tippy, smart, fine (Brockett, Halliwell). So also Swed. t/ppa, to
touch gently, from 7ipp, sb. See F. attiffer in Scheler.
TIFF (2), a pet, fit of ill-humour; also, liquor, drink. (Scand.)
‘My lord and I have had another little—zi7f, shall I call it? it came
not up to a quarrel ;’ Richardson, Grandison, iv. 291 (1754, ed.
1812). Spelt “ft in Jamieson and Brockett. ‘Small acid ziff;’
J. Phillips, The Splendid Shilling ; where it means ‘ drink.’ Spelt
tiffe in Brome, To his University Friend, 1661, where it means ‘ thin
small beer’ (Halliwell, Richardson). The orig. sense is ‘a sniff;’
hence (1) an expression of indignation ; (2) a sup or draught of beer
(see Halliwell), or the beer itself. Norweg. tev, a drawing in of the
breath, scent, smell, esp. a bad smell; eva, to puff, sniff, smell ;
Swed. dial. sav, smell, scent, taste ; Icel. Jefr, asmell, Jefa, to sniff.
Hence #iff really stands for ¢hiff, the old Scand. ¢h being turned into
t, as in tight. B. This etymology is at once verified by the
Norweg. derivatives ¢e/t, sb. a scent, and tefta, verb, to scent, which
explain the North E. “ft. Wedgwood well remarks: ‘a tiff or fit of
ill humour must be explained from snuffing or sniffing the air.’ Cf,
AS. Jefian, to pant. See Tiffin.
TIFFANY, a kind of thin silk, gauze. (F.—Late L.—Gk.)
* Velvets, tiffinies, jewels, pearls ;’ Fletcher, The Noble Gentleman,
dress. Tiffany was formerly a Christian name, esp. for a woman born
on ‘Twelfth Day; see Bardsley, Dict. of Surnames. —OF. Tiffanie
(and numerous other forms, as Theophante); see Godefroy, s. v.
Tifaigne, a name for Twelfth Day.—Late L. Theophania, lit. ‘mani-
festation of God;’ another name for Epiphany.—Gk. θεό-ς, God;
φάνεια, appearance, from φαίνειν, to show. See Epiphany.
TIFFIN, luncheon. (Scand.) An Anglo-Indian word, but origi-
nally provincial English. Wedgwood says it ‘is the North-country
tiffing (properly sipping), eating or drinking out of due season.’ This
is quoted from Grose, Lexicon Balatronicum (1785); see Tiffin in
Yule, and Tiff in Davies, Supplementary Glossary. The latter has ‘a
tiff (draught | of punch;’ Fielding, Amelia, bk. viii. ch. 10. Low-
land-Scotch has the verb #it, to quaff, from the sb, ¢ift, a drink ;
corresponding to which we have prov. E. tiff, to quaft; whence
the sb. tiffin’ =tiffing, a quaffing, a drinking; hence, a luncheon.
See Tiff (2).
TIGER, a fierce beast of prey. (F.—L.—Gk.—Pers.) ME. tigre,
Chaucer, C. T. 1657.—F. tigre, ‘a tiger;’ Cot.—L. tigrem, acc. of
tigris, — Gk. τίγρις. B. Said to be of Pers. origin; according to
Littré, named from its ‘swiftness,’ the tiger being compared to an
arrow. So also Mandeville (Trav. ch. xxx. p. 305) has: ‘ tigris,
that is, faste rennynge.’—Zend. tighri, an arrow; from tighra,
sharp, pointed ; words cited by Fick, i. 333. Hence mod. Pers.
tir, ‘an arrow, also the river Tigris, so named from its rapidity ;’
Rich. Dict. p. 473. Horn, § 406. Allied to Skt. tigma-, sharp,
tigmaga-, flying swiftly, from #ij, to be sharp. All these words have
lost initial s; ¢j being allied to Gk. στίζειν (=o7iy-yev), to
ptick.—4/STEIG, to stick, prick; see Stigma. Der. tigr-ess,
tiger-ish.
TIGHT, close, compact, not leaky. (Scand.) It should rather be
thight, as in the dialect of Orkney; the change from th to ¢ is
common in Scandinavian, since neither Danish nor Swedish admits
of initial #k, which is only preserved in Icelandic. The ¢h still
exists also in prov. E. thite, ‘ tight, close, compact, East;’ Halli-
well. ME. ¢i3¢; whence ἡγεῖ, closely, Will. of Palerne, 66; also
fiz, spelt thyht, in the Prompt. Pary., which has: ‘ Thyh¢, hool, not
brokyn, Integer, solidus;’ also: ‘ Thyhtyn, or make thyht, Integro,
consolido. Hence prov. E. theat, firm, close, staunch, spoken of
barrels when they do not run (Halliwell). So also: ‘as some tight
vessel that holds against wind and water;’ Bp. Hall, Contemplations,
Ruth ; bk. xi. cont. 3. § 11. It is spelt ¢i#h four times in Beaum.
and Fletcher; see Nares.—Icel. Jéttr (for *Jihir), tight, esp. not
leaking, water-tight, whence /étta, to make tight; Swed. tat, close,
tight, solid, thick, hard, compact, whence ¢a¢ta, to make tight, tana,
to become tight (E. ¢ighten used intransitively) ; Dan. tet, tight,
close, dense, compact, water-tight, used as a naut. term in tet dil
Vinden, close to the wind ; tette, to tighten; NFries. ¢acht (variant
ticht), tight. |B. The substitution of ME. 3 for Icel. ὃ is curious ;
the E. has preserved the old guttural, which in the Icelandic is no
longer apparent. Teut. type *fihtoz, for *inxtoz, *Penxtoz ; whence
also ἃ. dicht, tight, compact, Du. digt, tight, compact (where the
guttural is also preserved). Allied to Lith. terkw, I have enough,
tankus, close, tight ; Pers. tang, tight. See Thee (2). Der. tight-ly,
tight-ness; tight-en, properly intransitive like Swed. ‘a¢na, but used,
by analogy, in the sense ‘ to make tight.’ Brugmann, i. § 577.
IKE, a dog; contemptuously, a low fellow. (Scand.) ME.
tike, tyke; P. Plowman, B. xix. 37; Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 3642.
=—Icel.and Norw. tik, Swed. tik, a bitch ; Dan. dial. /i#g, a male dog.
TILE, a piece of baked clay for covering roofs, &c. (L.) ME.
tile, Chaucer, C. T. 7687 (D 2105). A contracted form of tigel,
the long i being due to loss of g. Spelt ἐρεῖ, Genesis and Exodus,
2552; tezele, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 167,1. 12. AS. tigele; pl.tygelan,
Gen. xi. 3; hence ¢igel-wyrhta, a tile-wright, a potter, Matt. xxvii. 7.
=L. ségula, a tile, lit. ‘that which covers;’ formed with suffix -ἰὰ
from ¢egere, to cover.—4/STEG, to cover; see Tegument. Der.
tile, verb, til-er, til-ing ; also til-er-y, imitated from F. ¢uilerie, which
is from F, tuile, L. tégula, a tile.
TILL (1), to cultivate. (E.) ME. tilien, Rob. of Glouc. p. 21,
1. 488. AS. Zilian, teolian, to labour, endeavour, strive after, to till
land ; Grein, ii. 533. The orig. sense is to strive after, or aim at ex-
cellence. = AS. ti, good, excellent, profitable ; Grein, ii. 532; οἵ. ti,
sb., goodness. Allied to ¢i//, preposition; see Till (2).--Du. éelen,
to breed, raise, till, cultivate; G. zielen, to aim at, from ziel, OHG.
zil, an aim, mark ; cf. Goth, ga-tils, fit, convenient. Further allied to
Olrish dil, pleasant. Der. till-er, till-age; also ¢il-th, Temp. ii.
1. 152, from AS. #i-d, cultivation, crop, A. S. Chron. an. 1098; cf.
Du. feet, a crop.
TILL (2), to the time of, to the time when. (Scand.) A Norse
word; orig. used as a preposition, then as a conjunction. ME.
til, prep., to, occurring (rarely) even in Chaucer, where it seems to
048 TILL
be put for to because it is accented and comes before a vowel.
‘ Hoom 1 Athénés whan the play is doon;’ C. T. 2964 (A 2966).
As a rule, it is a distinguishing mark of works in the Northumbrian
dialect, such as Barbour’s Bruce, where #2 occurs for zo throughout.
Somner cites ‘ cwed zi] him h&lend’ =the Saviour said to them, with-
out a reference; but he really found ‘ cued ¢i/ him Se h#lend,’ Matt.
xxvi. 31, in the ONorthumb. (not the AS.) version. —Icel. zi, till, to,
prep. governing the genitive; Dan. til; Swed. zl; in very common
use ; it even answers to E. ¢ooin phrases such as til ungr, too young ;
til gamall, too old. B. Quite distinct from ¢o, and orig. a case
of zii or 7zili, sb., in the sense of ‘aim’ or ‘bent,’ whence the
notion of ‘towards’ was easily developed. The Icel. zi frequently
expresses ‘ purpose,’ as in δ] hvars=for what purpose. The sb.
is rare in Icel., though it occurs in @-ti/i,a mischance; but OHG.
zil, G, ziel, aim, purpose, is a common word; so also is the closely
allied AS. adj. ¢i2, suitable, fit (cognate with Goth. ga-tils, fit,
convenient), as well as the AS. adv. ¢ela, ¢eala, excellently, Grein,
ii. 524. See Till (1). Der. un-til, q.v.
TILL (3), a money-box or drawer in a tradesman’s counter. (E.)
The proper sense is ‘ drawer,’ something that can be ‘ pulled ’ in and
out. Dryden uses ziler in this sense, tr. of Juvenal, Sat. vi. 384,
where #ill-er is just parallel to draw-er. Cotgrave explains F. layette
by ‘a dill or drawer ;’ also, ‘a box with δἰ ]ς or drawers.’ Palsgrave
has: ‘ Tyll of an almery, lyette’ [sic]; an almery being a kind of
cupboard or cabinet. Cf. also prov. ΕἸ. ¢rller, a till, a place for
money ; E. D. D. Thus the word is by no means modem; and,
just as drawer is from the verb 10 draw, so tiller is from ME. tillen, to
draw, pull, allure, now obsolete, but once not uncommon. ‘To the
scole him for to ¢i/Je’=to draw (or allure) him to school, Cursor
Mundi, 12175. ‘The world... tyl him drawes And Zilles’ =the
world draws and allures to itself, Pricke of Conscience, 1183; and
see Seven Sages, ed. Wright, 1563, and esp. Rob. of Glouc. p. 115,
1. 2492, where it occurs in a literal, not a metaphorical sense. Spelt
also tullen ; the pt. t. ἐμ] = drew, is in Ancren Riwle, p. 320, l. 13.
AS. tyllan, appearing only in the comp, for-tyllan, with the apparent
sense of draw aside, lead astray, Grein, i..332. AS. ¢yllan answers
to Teut. type */al-jan-; but the root does not appear. Allied to
Toll (2). See Tiller.
TILLER, the handle or lever for turning a rudder. (Ε.) Cf.
prov. E. tiller, the stalk of a cross-bow, the handle of any implement
(Halliwell). Phillips has it in the usual sense. ‘ Tiller, in a_ boat,
is the same as helme in a ship;’ Coles, ed. 1684. ‘The éiller of
their helme was burst ;’ Hakluyt, Voy. ili. 111. The word means
‘pull-er’ or handle; from ME, illex, to pull, draw; see further
under Till (3).
TILT (1), the canvas covering of a cart or waggon. (E.) ME.
teld, a covering, tent, Layamon, 31384; a later form was. ‘el?
‘ Telte or tente;’ Prompt. Parv.; hence our ¢i/t. AS. eld ; whence
geteld, a tent, Gen. xviii. 1; the prefix ge- making no difference.
MDn. telde, telte,a tent; Hexham; Icel. ¢jald; Low G. ¢elt (whence
Dan. felt; Swed. alt); G.zelt. β. It thus appears that the form
wilt (with final ¢ for d) may have been due to Dutch influence. From
the Teut. strong verb *teldan-, to cover, spread over (pt. t. *ald);
found in AS. be-deldan, ofer-teldan, both strong verbs. Ifthe reference
is to covering over with boards, connexion with Gk. δέλτ-ος, a writing-
tablet, is possible (Prellwitz).
TILT (2), toride in a tourney, thrust with a lance; to cause to heel
over. (E.) In1 Hen. IV, ii. 3. 95. But the verb was orig. intransi-
tive, meaning ‘ to totter, toss about unsteadily ;’ whence theactive use
of ‘ cause to totter, upset,’ was evolved. The intrans. sense occurs at
least as late as Milton, and is still in use when we say ‘ that table
will εὐ over.’ ‘The floating vessel . . Rode tilting o’er the waves ;’
Milton, P.L. xi. 747. ME. δέοι, to totter, fall; “ pis ilk toun schal
tylte to grounde,’ Allit. Poems, C. 361. B. The lit. sense is ‘to
be unsteady,’ formed from AS. ¢ealt, adj., unsteady, tottering, un-
stable ; see Sweet’s A.S. Reader, § xv. 74. Hence the verb *éiel¢an,
*tyltan, to totter, would be regularly formed, with the usual vowel-
change from ea to ie (y).--Icel. 21 α, to amble as a horse; cf.
Milton’s use of tilting above; Norw. ¢ylia, to walk on tiptoe ; Swed.
tulia, to waddle. Cf. Totter. Der. tilt, sh., tilt-ing ; tilt-hammer,
a hammer which, being tilted up, falls by its own weight. Also
tott-er, q.V.
TILTH, sb. (E.) See Till (1).
TIMBER, wood for building. (E.) The 4 is excrescent, as usual
after m, but occurs very early. ME. timber, Chaucer, C. T. 3666.
AS. timber, stuff or material to build with; Grein, ii. 534.--Du.
timmer, ‘timber or structure ;”? Hexham; Icel. ¢imbr; Dan. témmer ;
Swed. timmer; G. zimmer; a room; also timber. Cf. also Goth.
timrjan, to build, timrja, a builder. B. All from Teut. type *#im-
rom<*tem-rom, n., timber; formed with agential suffix -ro from
Teut. base TEM=4/DEM, to build, as seen in Gk, δέμ-ειν, to
TINGLE ἢ
build; see Dome. Brugmann, i. § 421(8).
dome, dom-icile, dom-estic, major-domo.
TIMBRE, a kind of tambourine. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Spenser,
F.Q.i. 12,7. Dimin., with suffix -2 (= -el), from ME. timber, used
in the same sense, Gower, C. A. iii. 63; bk, vi. 1844. “Ἐς timbre,
‘the bell of a little clock ;’ Cot.; OF. tymbre, a timbrel, as shown
by a quotation in Diez.—L. tympanum, a drum.—Gk. τύμπανον, a
kettle-drum; see Tympanum. Cf. ‘Hoc timpanum, a tymbre ;’
Voc. 616. 28.
TIME, season, period, duration of life, &c. (E.) ME. time,
Chaucer, C. T. 35, 44. AS. éima, time, Grein, ii. 534.4-Icel. timi;
Dan. time; Swed. timme, an hour. B. The Teut. type is
*“ti-man-, closely allied to *ti-di-, tide, time, from which it only
differs in the suffix, See Tide. Der. time, verb, cf. ME. timen, to
happen, AS. getimian ; time-ly, adj., Macb. iii. 3.73 time-ly, adv.,
Mach, ii. 3. 513 téme-li-ness; time-honoured, -keeper, -piece, -server,
-table, -worn.
TIMID, afraid, fearful. (F.—L.) ‘The timid friend;’ Pope,
Prol. to Satires, 343. [The sb. timidity is earlier, occurring in Cot-
grave.)=F, timide, ‘timorous;’ Cot.—L. ¢imidus, full of fear. =
L. timére, to fear; see Timorous. Der. timid-ly, -ness ; timid-i-ty,
from F. timidité, ‘ timidity,’ Cot., from L. acc. timiditatem.
TIMOROUS, full of fear. (L.) The Court of Love begins:
‘ With ¢imerous herte;’ but this is quite a late poem. Fabyan has
timerousnesse, Chron. cap. 175; Sir Τὶ Elyot has timerositie, The
Governour, b, i. c. xxi. § 4. [There is no F. ¢imoreux.] Coined, as
if from L, adj. *timordsus, fearful, a word not used. =L. timor, fear;
timére, to fear. B. Prob. allied to Skt. 4am, to become breathless,
to be distressed, to be exhausted. Der. timorous-ly, timorous-ness ;
(from same root) tim-id, in-tim-id-ate.
ΤΙΝ, a silvery-white metal. (E.) ME. tix, Chaucer, C. T. 16296
(G 828). AS. din; ‘stagnum, Zin,’ Aélfric’s Gram. (ed. Zupitza),
p- 15, 1. 11; whence ‘stagneus, tinen’ as an adj., ibid.-Du. sin;
Icel. tin; Dan. tin; Swed. tenn; G. zinn, B. All from Teut.
type *¢ino-, tin. Possibly connected with Teut. */aino-, a rod, for
which see Mistletoe; cf. G. zain, an ingot, a bar of metal.
y- Quite distinct from L. stagnum, stannum, tin, whence W. ystaen,
Corn. stean, Bret. stéan, Irish stan, F. étain, are all borrowed; see
Rhys, Lectures on Welsh, Appendix C. Der. tin-foil, spelt tynfoyle
in Levins, i.e. tin-leaf; see Foil (2).
TINCTURE, a shade of colour, a solution. (L.) In Shak. Two
Gent. iv. 4. 160. ΜΕ. tincture, Lanfrank, Cirnrgie, p. 180, 1. 6.
Englished from L. tinctiira, a dyeing; cf. tinctus, pp. of tingere, to
tinge; see Tinge. Der. tincture, verb. Shak. also has tinct, sb.,
a dye, Hamlet, iii. 4. 91, from pp. ductus.
TIND, to light or kindle. (E.) Also spelt tine. Now obsolete,
except in prov. E. Spelt inde in Minsheu, ed. 1627. ME. ¢enden,
Wyclif, Luke, xi, 33. AS. ¢exdan, to kindle; chiefly in comp,
on-tendan; Exod. xxii. 6.4-Dan. tende; Swed. tarda; Goth. andjan,
B. These are verbs of the weak kind, from the base of a Teut.
lost strong verb *fendan-, making */and in the pt. t., and *tundanoz
in the pp. y- From the weak grade of the same strong yerb was
formed Εἰ. tinder, q.v.
TINDER, anything used for kindling fires from a spark, (E.)
ME. tinder, Layamon, 29267; more often ‘under, tondre, P. Plow-
man, B. xvii, 245. AS. tyndre, Voc. 266, 393 tynder, id. 33. 41.
Cf. OHG, zuntira, tinder. Teut. type *tund-ir-dn-, f.; from *tund-,
weak grade of a lost strong verb *fendan-, to kindle, whence the weak
verb tendan, to kindle; see Tind.+Icel. tundr, tinder ; cf. dendra, to
light a fire, ¢andri, fire; Dan. ténder ; Swed. tunder; G. zunder; cf,
anzinden, to kindle.
TINE (1), the tooth or spike of a fork or harrow. (E.) Formerly
tind; οἵ. wood-bine for wood-bind. ME. tind, spelt tynde, Allit.
Poems, ed. Morris, A. 78; ‘ tyndis of harowis,’ Allit. Komance of
Alexander, 3907, 3925. AS. tind, pl. ¢indas, Salomon and Saturn,
ed. Kemble, p. 150, 1. 25.4Icel. zindr, a spike, tooth of a rake or
harrow ; Swed. dinzne, Dan. dial. ¢ind, the tooth of a rake; MHG.
zint. Teut. type *tendoz, m,; allied to L. dens (ace. dent-em),a
tooth; see Tooth. Cf. Skt. danta-, a tooth; hasti-danta-, a peg
to hang clothes on. Der. tin-ed.
TINE (2), to kindle; see Tind.
TINE (3), to lose. (Scand.) ‘ His blisse gan he ¢yne;’ P. Plow-
man, B. i. 112.—IJcel. tyna, to lose.eIcel. tjon, loss, damage ;
cognate with AS. zéona, harm, loss; see Teen.
TINGE, to colour, dye. (L.) “ Tinged with saffron ;’ Holinshed,
Desc. of Scotland,c.7. The pp. form /inc¢ is in Spenser, Shep. Kal,
November, 107.—L. tingere (pp. tinctus), to dye, stain.-Gk,
τέγγειν, to wet, moisten, dye, stain. Cf. OHG, thuncon, G. tunken,
to dip, steep; from the weak grade (tung-) of4/TENG. Der,
tinge, sb., tinct-ure, q.V.3 also taint, tent (3), tint, stain, mezzo-tinto,
TINGLE, to thrill, feel a thrilling sensation. (E.) Spelt ¢ingil
Der. (from same root)
TINKER
in Levins. ME. tinglen. In Wyeclif, 1 Cor. xiii. 1, we have: ‘a
cymbal tynkyage,’ where other readings are tynclynge and tinglinge.
Tingle is merely a weakened form of tinkle, being the frequentative
of ting, a weakened form of tink. ‘ Cupyde the kynge tynkyng a syluer
bel;’ Test. of Creseide, st. 21 (Thynne). ‘To ting, tinnire; to
tingil, tinnire ;* Levins. | Cf. ting-tang, the saint’s-bell (Halliwell) ;
‘Sonner, to sound, .. to ting, as a bell,’ Cot. To make one’s ears
tinkle or tingle is to make them seem to ting; hence, to tingle, to
vibrate, to feel a sense of vibration as when a bell is rung. Hence
‘bothe his eeris shulen ¢ynclen;’ Wyclif, 1 Sam. iii. 11. See
Tinkle, Tinker. B. But prob, affected by prov. E. ting, to
sting, a by-form of sting. Cf. proy. E. tingling, sharp ; MDn. tingel,
a nettle; tingelen, ‘to sting with nettles ;’ Hexham.
TINKER, a mender of kettles and pans. (E.) ME. tinkere,
P. Plowman, A. ν. 160; B. ν. 317. So called because he makes a
tinking sound; from ME, tinken, to ring or tinkle. ‘A cymbal
tynkynge;’ Wyclif, 1 Cor. xiii. 1. Of imitative origin ; cf. MDu.
tinge-tangen, to tingle (Hexham); also MDnu. fintelen, ‘ to ring,
tingle, or make a noise like brasse’ (id.), where mod. Du. has
tintelen only in the sense to tingle or sparkle. Cf. EFries. tinken,
tingen, tengen, to make a. bell ring; L. tinnire, to tinkle, ring,
tintinnum, a tinkling; F. ¢inter, ‘to ting, ring, tinkle,’ Cot., whence
les oreilles me tintent, ‘mine eares tingle or glow,’ id. ; F. tintin, tinton,
‘the ting of a bell,’ id. Cf. Tudor E, tinkler, a tinker (Levins).
@ Grimm’s law does not necessarily apply to words so directly
imitative as this.
TINKLE, to jingle. (E.) ME. finklen, whence ‘a cymbal
tynclynge,’ in some MSS. of Wyclif, 1 Cor. xiii. 1; frequentative of
ME. tinken, to ring. See further under Tinker and Tingle.
TINSEL, gaudy ornament, showy lustre. (F.—L.) “ Tinsill
clothe,’ Baret, ed. 1580; cf. Much Ado, iii. 4. 22. ‘Under a duke, no
man to wear cloth of gold tinsel ;’ Literary Remains of K. Edw. VI,
an. 1551-2; cited in Trench, Select Glossary, q.v. ‘A gowne of
silver tyncell;’ Excerpta Historica, p. 288 (ab. 1516). “ Tinsell
(dictum a Gall. estincelle, i. scintella,a sparke). It signifieth with vs,
a stuffe or cloth made partly of silke, and partly of gold or siluer, so
called because it glistereth or sparkleth like starres ;’ Minsheu, ed.
1627. [Minsheu’s etymology is correct; the OF. eséincelle, later
étincelle, lost its initial syllable just as did the F. estiquet or étiquet,
which became ticket in English.) — MF. estincelle, étincelle, ‘a sparke
or sparckle of fire, a twinkle, a flash;’ Cot.—L. scintilla, a spark;
which seems to have been mispronounced as *stincilla, Scintilla is
dimin. from a form *scinta, a spark, not used. Allied to AS.
scinan, to shine; see Shine. Der. /insel, adj., i.e. tinsel-like ;
tinsel-slippered, Milton, Comus, 877. And see stencil.
TINT, a slight tinge of colour. (L.) 1. For tinct, which was the
older form of the word; Hamlet, iii. 4. 91. ‘The first scent of
a vessel lasts, and the tinct the wool first receives;’ Ben Jonson,
Discoveries, Praecipiendi Modi. ‘ A rosy-tincted feature is heav'n’s
gold ;’ Drayton, K. John to Matilda, l. 57. Cf. tinct =dyed ; Spenser,
Shep. Kal. Noy. 107.—L. tinctus, pp. of tingere, to tinge; see
Tinge. 2. But the mod. tint, as a term in painting, was prob.
borrowed directly from Ital. ¢inta, a tint. —L. tincta, fem. of tinctus,
pp: (as before). Der. tint, verb.
TINTINNABULATION, the ringing of bells. (L.) See
E. A. Poe, The Bells. Formed from L. tintinnabulum, a bell. = L.
tintinnare, to clink, to ring; reduplicated form, from tinnire, to ring,
totinkle. Of imitative origin; cf. tink-le, ting-le.
TINY, very small. (F.—L.?) InShak. Tw. Nt. v. 398, 2 Hen. IV,
y. I. 29, v. 3. 60, Κ΄. Lear, iii. 2. 74, where it is always preceded by
little; the old editions have tine or tyne. He speaks of ‘a little
tine boy’ (twice), ‘ my little ¢yze thief,’ and ‘pretty little tine kick-
shaws. The word was formerly spelt tine or tyne ; we find ‘ littel
tyne child,’ in a Coventry pageant pr. by Sharp; see note to Cov.
Myst., ed. Halliwell, p.414. ‘ A litill tyze egg,’ Wars of Alexander,
507. It is almost always preceded by Jittle, and was once a sb.
‘He was constreynd. . . A lytyll tyne abak to make a bew retret,’
Lydgate, Assembly of Gods, 1063; ‘ A Jytyll tyne his ey castyng
hym besyde, id. 1283. ‘Sir, I pray you a /ytyll tyne stande backe ;’
Skelton, Garl. of Laurel, 505. And later, we find: ‘Thou hast
striken the Lord of Learne A Jitle tinye above the knee ;’ Percy
Folio MS., i. 192. The sense seems to be ‘a little bit ;” and the
form corresponds to OF, tinee, lit. ‘a tub-full,” from OF. tine, a
vat, tub, basin, bowl.=Late L. Ζῆνα, a wine-vessel (Lewis). See
Notes on E. Etym., p. 300. J
TIP (1), the extreme top, the end. (E.) ‘The tippe of a staffe 5”
Levins. ME. typ, Prompt. Parv. ‘Uort pe nede tippe’=until the
extremity of need, i.e. until [there be] extreme need, Ancren Riwle,
p- 338, 1. το. Prob. E., though not found in AS.4Du. ip, tip, end
point; Low G. tipp, tip, point ; up den Tipp van ter Tied, in the very
nick of time, Brem. Wort.; NFries. 2ipp, tippken, a tip; Dan. tip,
TIRE 649
tip; Swed. #7, end, point, extremity; G. zipfel, a dimin. form.
Allied to Du. and EFries, tepel, a teat, EFries. tippel, a point.
Cf. MDu. tip-ken, a teat. Der. tip, verb, to place on the tip of,
chiefly in the pp. ¢ipped, as in Chaucer, C. T. 14909 (B 4093) ; hence
the sb. ‘ipped-staf, i.e. spiked or piked staff, Chaucer, C, Τὶ 7319
(D 1737); and hence (just as piked-staff became pike-staff) tip-staff,
a term afterwards applied to ‘certain officers that wait on the judge
bearing a rod tipt with silver,’ Phillips; also to other officers who
took men into custody. Cf.‘ I ¢yppe a staffe with yron;’ Palsgrave,
Also. tip-toe; cf. on tiptoon=on tip-toes, Chaucer, C. T, 15313
(B 4491); tipp-le.
TIP (2), to tilt, cause to slant or lean over. (E.) Gen. in the phr.
to tip up=to tilt up, or tip over=to overturn. It 15 ἃ weakened form
of tap, as in Zip (i.e. tap) and run, a game, Thus /ip up is to tilt up
by giving a slight tap, or by the exercise of a slight force; cf. ¢ip for
tap (blow for blow), Bullinger’s Works, i, 283, now fit for tat,
From the sense of slight movement we can explain the phrase fo tip
the wink =to make a slight moyement of the eye-lid, sufficient to warn
a person; it occurs in Dryden, tr. of Juvenal, Sat. vi. 202. Johnson
gives: ‘tp, to strike lightly, to tap;’ with an illustration from
Swift : ‘he 1125. me by the elbow.’ Palsgrave has: “1 type ouer, I
ouerthrowe or ouerwhelme, He renuerse. ‘ Tip, a fall;’ Bradford’s
Works, ii. 104 (Parker Soc.). Not in AS. ME. tippen, tipen. ‘ Tipe
doun 3onder toun ;’ Allit. Poems, C. 506. Cf. EFries. tipper, to
tap lightly.-Swed. tippa, ‘to tap, to tip, to strike gently, to touch
lightly ; see Johnson’s E. Dict.;’ Widegren. Der. tip, sb., a slight
tap, wink, hint ; tip-cat.
TIPPHT, a cape, a cape of a cloak. (L.—Gk.) Also ¢epet, as
in Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, p. 301, 1. 92. ‘Teppet of velvet ;’
Paston Letters, iii. 325. ΜΕ, tipet, tepet, Chaucer, C. T. 233. AS.
teppet. ‘Sipla, an healf hruh teppet,’ i.e. a half rough tippet;
Voc. 152. 14; (Vestium nomina). | We also find AS. teppe, a fillet
or band; ‘Tenia, teeppan, vel. dol-smeltas,’? Voc. 107. 33; where
teppan is the nom. plural. Not E. words, but borrowed.]—L. /apéte,
cloth, hangings. Gk. ταπητ-, stem of τάπης, a carpet, woollen rug.
See Tape, Tapestry.
TIPPLE#, to drink in small quantities, and habitually. (Scand.)
Shak. has tippling, Antony, i. 4.19. ‘To tipple, potitare ;’ Levins,
ed. 1570. A Scand. word; still preserved in Norweg. tipla, to drink
little and often, to tipple (Aasen). It is the frequent. of Norw. tippa,
to drip from a point or tip; Swed. dial. tippa, to drip, from tipp,
a tip; cf. Du. tepel, a nipple, teat. See Tip (1). Der. tippi-er,
tippl-ing.
TIPSY, intoxicated, (Scand.) In Shak. Mid. Nt. Dr. y. 48.
The formation of the word is difficult to explain, but it is clearly
related to Tip (2), 4. v. It means ‘ likely to tip over,’ or ‘ unsteady ;’
ready to fall. Cf. ME. tipen, to upset. Cf. trick-sy, and other words
with suffix -sy, in F. Hall, Modern English, p. 272. β. Wedgwood
cites Swiss fips, a fuddling with drink, ¢ipseln, to fuddle oneself,
betipst, tipsy. These words present a remarkable likeness, especially
as the E. and Swiss words can only be cognate, and neither language
can easily have borrowed from the other; moreover, the Swiss words
seem to be allied rather to ¢/pple and to #rp (1), than to tip (2).
Cf. prov. E. tippy, tippity, easily upset. Der. sipsi-ly, -ness.
TIRADE, a strain of censure or reproof. (F.—Ital.) Modern.
=F, tirade, ‘a draught, pull, . . a shooting ;’ Cot. Hamilton ex-
plains F. tirade by ‘a passage, a tirade or long speech (ina play),’
The lit. sense is a drawing out, a lengthening out.— Ital. trata,
a drawing, a pulling.=Ital. t/rare, to pull, draw, pluck, snatch.
From Late L. tirdre, to pull, draw ; of unknown origin; whence also
F. tirer.
TIRE (1), to exhaust, weary, fatigue, become exhansted. (E.)
ME. tiren, teorian, not a very common word. Stratmann refers us
to the Towneley Mysteries, p. 126; and to p, 5 of a Fragment
printed by Sir Thos. Phillips, where occur the words him teorep his
miht=his might is exhausted. It occurs also in the compound
atieren, as: ‘gief mihte pe ne atiered’=if might (or power) fail thee
not, i. e. if thy power be not tired out ; O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris,
ii, 29,1. 25. AS. tyrigan; as in ‘Séah pil ge-tyrige,’ though thou
grow weary ; Alfred’s tr. of Boethius, ch. xl (bk. v. pr. 1). The y is
a mutation from Zo, as in ¢éorian, (1) to be tired, be weary, (2) to tire,
fatigue; Grein, ii. 529. B. It is remarkable that the dictionaries
frequently refer ¢ire (in the sense to be weary) to AS. ¢irigan, which
is not the same thing, but related rather to Tarre, q.v. That
téorian is the real equivalent of E. tire may be seen by examining the
uses of /éorian, getéorian, and dtéorian. One example may suffice.
‘Téorode hwepre . . strong . . wérig pees weorces’ =nevertheless
the strong one fired, being weary of the work; Exeter Book, ed.
Thorpe, p. 436, Riddle lv, 1. 16, “ Fatigatus, atered;’ Voc, 170, 30.
Further connexions doubtful; it can hardly be allied to E. tear, vb.,
or to G, zehren. Sweet marks the e long (téoran); cf, OLow G,
650 TIRE
tiurung, lassitude (Gallée). Der. tir-ed, tir-ed-ness, tire-some, tire-
Some-2ess,
TIRE (2), a head-dress ; as a verb, to adorn or dress the head.
(F.—Teut.?) ‘She . . ¢ired her head ;’ 2 Kings, ix. 30. The examples
show that this is an abbreviation for attire. See esp. Prompt. Parv.
p- 494: ‘ Tyre, or a-tyre of wemmene, Mundum muliebris.’ Again,
in Will. of Palerne, 1147, we have atir, but in 1. 1725 we have ἐγ;
cf. ‘in no gay tyr,’ Alexander and Dindimus, 883; ‘ tidi a-tir,’ id. 599.
B. We have also the verb fo tire, 2 Kings, ix. 30; ef. ‘ Attoure, tired,
dressed, attired, decked,’ Cot. The ME. verb was atiren, whence
atired, pp., Will. of Palerne, 1228. However, the sb. appears
earlier than the verb, being spelt atyr, with the sense ‘ apparel ;’
Layamon, 3275, latertext. See Attire.
TIRE (3), a hoop of iron that binds the fellies of wheels to-
gether. (F.—Teut.?) ‘ Tire, the ornament or dress of womens heads ;
also, the iron band of a cart-wheel;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. ‘The
mettall {a kind of iron] is brittle and short . . suchas will not serue
one whit for stroke and nail to bind cart-wheels withall, which tire
indeed would [should] be made of the other that is gentle and pliable;’
Holland, tr. of Pliny, Ὁ. xxxiv. ο. 14. [Here stroke =strake, rim of a
wheel; see Halliwell. | B. The history of the word is obscure; it
seems to me that the word is identical with Tire (2), the wheel-band
being likened to a woman’s tire. Tire meant to dress or arrange; ‘ I
tyer an egge, Ie accoustre; I tyer with garmentes,’ &c.; Palsgrave.
To attire once meant to equip, or to furnish (N.E.D.). @ I have
no belief in Richardson’s jest-like suggestion, that a tire is a ti-er,
because it dies the wheel together. The ME, ¢e3ere or tyere nowhere
occurs in connexion with a wheel.
TIRE (4), to tear a prey,'as is done by predatory birds. (F.—Late
L.) In Shak. Venus, 56; 1 Hen. VI,i. 1. 269. ME. ¢iren, to tear a
prey, only used of vultures, &c.; see Chaucer, Troilus, i. 787; tr. of
Boethius, b. iii. met. 12, 1. 30.—F. tirer, ‘to draw, drag, . . pull,
pluck, tug, twitch;’ Cot.—Late L. firare, to draw, extract ; Du-
cange. See Tirade.
‘TIRE (5), atrain. (F.—LateL.) Only in Spenser, F. Q. i. 4. 35-
“ἘΠ tire, ‘a draught, pull, .. stretch . . reach, gate, course, or
length and continuance of a course ;’ Cot.—F. ¢irer, to draw; see
Tirade.
TIRO, TYRO, a novice. (L.) Usually misspelt tyro. ‘ Tyro, a
new fresh-water soldier, a novice, apprentice;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.
‘That timorous zyro should dare ;’ Blennerhasset, Introd. in Mirror
for Magistrates (1578). In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, it appears as
tyrone, evidently from Ital. ¢irone, ‘a milkesop,’ Florio, answering to
L. acc. tirdnem,—L. tiro, a recruit, novice, tiro. Root uncertain.
Der. tiro-cinium, a first campaign, school, apprenticeship ; the title
of a poem by Cowper.
TISIC, phthisis. (F.—Gk.)
561. See Phthisis.
TISSUE, cloth interwoven with gold or silver. (F.—L.) ME.
tissew, a ribband, Chaucer, Troil. ii. 639.—F. tissu, ‘a bawdrick, rib-
bon, fillet, or head-band of woven stuffe;’ Cot. Also ¢issu, m.,
tissue, f., ‘ woven, plaited, interlaced ;’ id. Tiss was the old pp. of
tistre (mod. F, tisser), to weave. —L. texere, to weave; see Text.
TIT (1), a small horse or child. (Scand.) ‘The ¢#its are little
worth;” Dryden, tr. of Ovid, Metam. ix. 14; where ¢it means ‘a
little girl.’ ΧΑ little zit,’ a small horse ; Holinshed, Desc. of Ireland,
c. ii (R.). —Icel. ¢ittr, a tit, bird (now obsolete) ; the cimin. titlingr,
a sparrow, is still in use; Norweg. ¢ita, a little bird, small trout
(Aasen). The orig. sense is merely something small; cf. prov. E.
titty, small ; tiddy-wren, a wren (Halliwell). Der. tit-ling, a sparrow,
from Icel. titlingr, as above, with double dimin. suffix -l-ing. Also
tit-lark, ἡ. V., tit-mouse, q. V.
TIT (2), ateat. (E.) ME. ¢itte; pl. tittes, Ancren Riwle, p. 330,
1. 5. AS. wit, ditt, Voc. 88. 24; pl. tittas (Toller).-Low G. ‘titte,
MDnu. ti/te, G. zitze; cf. Welsh, did, didi, a teat. See Teat.
TIT FOR TAT, blow for blow. (E.) In Holinshed,
Chron., ed. 1808, vi. 298. Perhaps a corruption of zip for tap, where
tipis a slight tap; Bullinger’s Works, i. 283 (Parker Society). ‘ That
which requireth tip for tap;’ Gascoigne, Works, i. 463. See Tip
(2). B. Or it may be from the proverb—‘ To give one tint for tant,’
in Walker’s Proverbs (1672); see Hazlitt’s Proverbs. And tint for
tant seems to be an Εἰ. version of F. tant pour tant, lit. ‘ so much for so
much.’ Tit for tat isin Heywood’s Prov. (1546); repr. 1874, p. 109.
TITAN, the sun-god. (L.—Gk.) In Shak. Rom. ii. 3. 4; &c.
Spelt T'ytan, Lydgate, Compl. of Black Knight, 1. 28.—L. Titan,
Titanus; whence Titdni, descendants of Titan, giants. —Gk. Τιτάν,
the sun-god, brother of Helios.4Skt. ¢ithd, fire; in the dict. by
Bohtlingk and Roth, iii. 327. —4/TEITH, to burn. Der. zitan-ic, i.e.
gigantic. Also ¢itan-ium, a metal.
TITHE, « tenth part, the tenth of the produce as offered to the
clergy. (E.) ΜΕ. tithe, Chaucer, C. T. 541 (A 539). The proper
Spelt zysyke, Skelton, Magnificence,
TO-
sense is ‘tenth;’ hence tenth part. [Another spelling is ¢e¢he, as in
“the tethe hest ’=the tenth commandment, Will. of Shoreham, p. 101,
1.1; AS. ééoda, tenth.] B. The form ‘ithe answers to AS. suffix
-tigoda, as in twen-tigoda, twentieth. Also spelt -teogoda, OMerc.
-tegda; allied to Gk. δέκατος, tenth, from δέκα, ten, see Ten. We
also have fen-th, in which x» is retained; so that tenth and ¢ithe are
doublets. Cf. Icel. ¢iund, tenth, tithe; see Decimal. Der. tithe,
verb, ME. tithen, tethen, P. Plowman, C. xiv. 73, AS. ¢éodian, Matt.
xxiii. 23; tith-er, Chaucer, C. T. 6896; tith-ing, ME. tething, a
district containing ten families, Rob. of Glouc. p. 267, 1. 5402.
TITILLATION, a tickling. (F.—L.) [The verb /itillate is in
later use ; ef. ‘ ¢itillating dust,’ Pope, Rape of the Lock, v. 84.] The
sb. is in Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 766.—F. titillation, a tickling ; Cot.=—
L. titillationem, acc. of titillatio, a tickling. —L. titillare, to tickle.
TITLARK, a kind of lark. (Scand. and E.) Lit. ‘small lark ;’
see Tit and Lark.
TITLE, an inscription set over or at the beginning of a book, a
name of distinction, (F.—L.) ME. ¢itle, Chaucer, C. T. 14328
(B 3512); Wyclif, John, xix. 19. —OF. title; mod. Εἰ. titre, by change
from 1 to r.=L, titulum, acc. of titulus, a superscription on a tomb,
altar, &c.; an honourable designation. Der. title, verb; titl-ed,
All’s Well, iv. 2. 2; title-deed ; title-page, Per. ii. 3. 43 ¢itul-ar, from
Ἐς titulaire, ‘titular, having a title,’ Cot., as if from L. *t:twlaris,
from L. ¢itulare, verb, to give a title to. Hence titular-ly, titular-y.
See also Tittle.
TITLING, a small bird. (Scand.) See Tit.
TITMOUSE, a kind of small bird. (Scand. and E.) Not con-
nected with mouse; the true pl. should be ¢itmouses, yet titmice is
usual, owing to confusion with mouse. In Spenser, Shep. Kal.,
Nov. 26, it is spelt ¢itmose. ME. titmose; spelt tytemose, Prompt.
Parv. ; ¢itmase, Voc. 640. 28. Compounded of tit, small, or a small
bird, Icel. zit#r (see Tit); and AS. mdse, a name for several kinds of
small birds. B. The AS. mase occurs in: ‘Sigatula, frec-mase ;
Parra, col-mase; Parrula, spic-mase,’ all names of birds ; see Voc. 286.
13-15. Thea is long, as shown by the ME. -mose.4-Du. mees, a tit-
mouse; G. meise, a titmouse; OHG. meisa; Icel. metsingr (F.
mésange). Teut. type *maisdn-, f. The sense was prob. ‘ twitterer ;’
cf. L. maerére (for *maesére, cf. pp. maes-tus), to lament, mourn
(Franck). Cf. also L. merula (for *mis-ula), from the weak grade
*mis; see Merle.
TITTER, to giggle, laugh restrainedly. (E.) Cf. ¢witter. In
Pope, Dunciad, iv. 276. The same as ME. Ziteren, to chatter,
prattle, tell idle tales, whence titerere, a teller of tales, P. Plowman,
B. xx. 2907. A frequentative form from a base TIT, expressive of
repeating the sound fi, just as ¢attle expresses the repetition of ἔα,
See further under Tattle. Cf Twitter. Der. titter, sb.
TITTLE, a jot, small particle. (F.—L.) ME. diel, itil, used by
Wyclif to translate L. apex; Matt. v.18; Luke, xvi. 17. [Really a
doublet of Zitle.]—OF. title, a title; (F. ditre, a title); MF. 7iltre,
titre, ‘a tittle, a small line drawn over an abridged word, to supply
letters wanting; also a title,’ &c.; Cot.—L. titulum, acc. of titulus,
a title, used by Petronius in the sense of sign or token. B. In
Late L. ¢itulus must have meant a mark over a word in writing, as
this sense appears again in Span. tilde, Port. 211, a stroke over a
letter such as the mark over Span. ἢ ; also in the Catalan fitila,
Wallachian title, a mark of an accent, cited by Diez, 5. ν. tilde.
The latter forms are unmistakably Latin. See Title. 4 Not
allied to tit.
TITTLE-TATTLE, prattle. (E.) See Wint. Tale, iv. 4. 248.
A reduplicated form of fattle. Note the use of titelere, also spelt
titerere, a prattler, P. Plowman, B. xx. 297. See Tattle and
Twaddle; and see Titter.
TO, in the direction of, as faras. (E.) ME. to, Chaucer, C. T.
16; and, as sign of the gerund, 13, 17; now considered as the sign
of the infin. mood, the gerundial use being nearly lost. AS. /0, prep. ;
also a sign of the gerund as distinct from the infin. mood; Grein,
ii. 536-542.4Du. toe; G. zu; MHG. zwo, ze; OHG. za, ze, zi, zuo.
+Russ. do, to, up to. Supposed to be further related to Gk. -δε,
towards, as in οἰκόν-δε, homewards; see Curtius, i. 289. Perhaps
also to Olrish do, to; OWelsh di (mod. W. ὃ, to; W. dy- as a
prefix; see Rhys, Lectures on W. Philology. Doublet, /oo, 4. ν.
And see ¢o- (2), to-ward, to-day, to-night.
TO- (1), prefix, in twain, asunder, to pieces. (E.) Retained in
the phr. all to-brake=utterly broke asunder, Judges, ix. 53. With
regard to the dispute as to whether it should be printed all to-brake
or all-to brake, it is certain that only the former is etymologically
correct; but the phrase was already so ill understood in the Tudor
period that such a mistaken use as al/-to brake was possible, though
it is charitable to give our translators the benefit of the doubt. It is
purely a question of chronology. At first the prefix /o- was used
without αἰ; later, aJ/ was often added as well, not only before the
TO-
prefix ¢o-, but before the prefixes for- and bi- also; next, all was con-
sidered as in some way belonging to ἕο, as if all-to were short for
altogether (which it is not), and consequently all-to appeared as a
sort of adverb, and was considered as such, apparently, by Surrey
and Latimer. It would be difficult to find any clear example of this
latest use before A.D. 1530. It began with AS, 2ὅ-, prefix ; appear-
ing in 70-beran, to bear apart, remove ; /0-berstan, to burst asunder ;
t0-bliwan, to blow asunder, dissipate ; d-brecan, to break asunder;
and in nearly fifty other verbs, for which see Grein, ii. 542-549. We
may particularly note ‘hyra setlu he ¢0-brec’=he brake in pieces
their seats, Matt. xxi. 12. 2. ME. fo-, prefix ; appearing in fobeatan,
to beat in pieces, fobiten, to bite in pieces, tobreken, to break in
pieccs ; and in nearly a hundred other verbs; for which see Strat-
mann’s Dict., 3rd ed., pp. 565-568. We may particularly note ‘al
his bondes he ¢o-brak for ioye’=all his bonds he brake in twain for
joy; Will. of Palerne, 3237. B. It should also be observed that
most yerbal prefixes (such as for-, be-) were usually written apart
from the verb in old MSS.; ignorance of this fact has misled many.
Good examples of the addition of αἱ as an intensive, meaning
‘wholly,’ are the following. ‘[He} al to-tare his a-tir pat he to-tere
mi3t ;’ Will. of Palerne, 3884; ‘al for-waked’ = entirely worn out with
lying awake, id. 790; ‘al bi-weped for wo’ =all covered with tears
for wo, id. 661; ‘al is to-brosten thilke regioun,’ Chaucer, C. T.
2759 (A 2757); ‘he suld be soyne ¢o-fruschit al’ =he would soon be
dashed in pieces, Barbour, Bruce, x. 597. The last instance is par-
ticularly instructive, as al follows the pp. instead of preceding it.
3. All-to or al-to, when (perhaps) misunderstood. ‘To-day redy
tipe, to-morowe all-to-shaken ;” Surrey, Sonnet 9, last line. ‘ We be
fallen into the dirt, and be a/l-to-dirtied ;’ Latimer, Remains, P- 397
(Parker Soc.). ‘Smiling speakers . . love and all-to love him;’
Latimer, Sermons, p. 289. The last instance isa clearone. Spenser
has all to-torne, F. Ὁ. v. 9. 10, and all to-worne in the same stanza;
all to-rent, Ἐς Q. iv. 7. 8. Milton has all-to-ruffled, Comus, 380;
this is a very late example. B. Etymologically, the AS. ἐδ- is cog-
nate with OFries. to-, ¢e-; OHG. zar-, zer-, mod. (ἃ. zer-, as in
zerbrechen, to break in pieces, pt. t. zerbrach (=to-brake). The
sense of this prefix is ‘in twain,’ or ‘asunder;’ but it is difficult to
connect it with AS, ‘wa, two, or even with L. dis-.
TO- (2), prefix, to. (E.) Besides the prefix ¢o- (=in twain) dis-
cussed above, we also have the prep. ¢o in composition in some
verbs, &c. Of these compounds, we still use /o-ward, q.v. Others
are obsolete ; the chief are the sbs. focume, advent, toflight, a refuge,
tohope, hope, toname, anick-name ; and the verb tonejhen, to approach,
Wyclif, Judith, xiv. 14. See Stratmann. And see Today.
TOAD, an amphibious animal. (E.) ME. ¢ode ; spelt toode, Prompt.
Parv., p. 495 ; tade, Pricke of Conscience, 6900, AS. tadige ; ‘ Buffo,
tadige, Voc. 122. 11. Also tadie, id. 321. 23. Root unknown.
The Dan. tudse, Swed. ‘assa, a toad, must be from a different root.
Der. tad-pole, q.v.; also ¢oad-stool, spelt todestoole, Spenser, Shep.
Kal., Dec. 69, and in Palsgrave; toad-flax; toad-eater, formerly an
assistant to a mountebank (see Wedgwood, and N. and Ὁ. 3rd S. i.
128, 176, 236, 276, v. 142), now shortened to toady; toad-stone, Sir
T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. iii. c. 13, § 3.
TOAST (1), bread scorched before the fire. (F.—L.) ME. fost,
toost, whence the verb fosten, to toast ; see Prompt. Parv. p. 497.—
OF. foster, to toast (Godefroy) ; the usual OF. sb. was ‘ostée, ‘a toast
of bread;’ marked as a Picard word in Cotgrave.=L. tostus, pp. of
torrére, to parch; see Torrid. Cf. Span. ¢ostar, /orrar, to toast,
tostada, a toast, slice of toasted bread; Port. tostado, toasted, tostar,
torrar, to toast. Der. toast, verb; toast-er, toast-ing-iron, K. John,
iv. 3. 99.
TOAST (2), a person whose health is drunk. (F.—L.) It was
formerly usual to put toasted bread in liquor; see Shak. Merry
Wives, 111. 5. 3. The story of the origin of the present use of the
word is given in the Tatler, no. 24, June 4,1709. ‘ Many wits of the
last age will assert that the word, in its present sense, was known
among them in their youth, and had its rise from an accident at the
towr. of Bath, in the reign of king Charles theSecond. It happened
that, on a public day, a celebrated beauty of those times was in the
Cross Bath, and one of the crowd of her admirers took a glass of the
water in which the fair one stood, and drank her health to the com-
pany. There was inthe place a gay fellow half fuddled, who offered
to jump in, and swore, though he liked not the diguor, he would have
the toast. He was opposed in his resolution; yet this whim gave
foundation to the present honour which is done to the lady we men-
tion in our liquors, who has ever since been called a toast.’ Whether
the story be true or not, it may be seen that a /oast, i.e. a health,
easily took its name from being the usual accompaniment to liquor,
esp. in loving-cups, &c. As to this putting of toast into drinks, see
Brand’s Pop. Antiq. ii. 340. Der. toast, vb.; toast-master, the
announcer of toasts at a public dinner.
TO-DO 651
TOBACCO, a narcotic plant. (Span.—Hayti.) Formerly spelt
tabacco, Ben Jonson, Every Man, i. 4 (last speech). See remarks in
Wheatley’s Introduction to Ben Jonson, Every Man in his Humour.
Harrison fixes on 1573 as the date when the smoking of tobacco be-
came general in England, Spelt ¢abacco in Hakluyt, Voy. ii. 2. 158.
Cotgrave mentions tobacco, 5. ν. Nicotiane.—Span. tabaco, tobacco.
Las Casas (Hist. of the Indies) says that ¢abaco was the name ot the
tube or pipe in which the Indians or Caribs smoked the plant, trans-
ferred by the Spaniards to the herb itself. Oviedo (1535) says
tabaco is a Hayti word ; see Oviedo, ed. 1851, Madrid, iv. 96. So
also Clavigero, in his Conquest of Mexico (E. transl. i. 430), says:
‘tabaco is a word taken from the Haitine language, i.e. the language
spoken in the island of Hayti or St. Domingo. Der. tobacco-n-ist, a
coined word, orig. used, not of the seller (as now), but of the smoker
of tobacco; see examples in Trench, Select Glossary ; tobacco-pipe.
TOBOGGAN, a kind of snow-sledge. (Amer. Indian). Said to
be a Canadian perversion of an American Indian odabagan, a sledge.
S. T. Rand, in his Micmac Vocabulary, gives the Micmac form as
tobaakun (=tobakun), a sled. Micmac is a language belonging to
the Algonkin family.
TOCHER, a dowry. (Gaelic.) ‘Hey for a lass wi’ a ocher ;’
Burns (Song). = Gael. and Irish ¢ochar, a dowry, assigned portion. =
Olnish éochur, a putting, assigning ; tochurim, I put. —Olrish fo-, do-,
to, prep. and verbal prefix ; cir-im, I put, assign.
TOCSNON, an alarm-bell, or the sound of it. (F.—Teut. and Tes)
Added by Todd to Johnson. He quotes: ‘The priests went up into
the steeple, and rang the bells backward, which they call tocksaine,
whereupon the people . . flocked together;’ Fulke, Answer to P.
Frarine (1580), p. 52.—MF. toguesing, ‘an allarum bell, or the ring-
ing thereot;” Cot. Mod. F. tocsin (see Littré).—OF. toguer, ‘to
clap, knock, hit, Cot.; and OF. sing (Norm. dial. sin), ‘a sign,
mark, . . also a bell or the sound of a bell, whence ¢ocsing, an alarum
bell;’ id. Thus it means ‘a striking of the signal-bell.’ B. The
Norm, dial. soquer, Picard toker, are variants of F. toucher, to touch ;
see Touch, The OF, sing, mod. F. signe, is from L. signum, a
mark, hence a signal, signal-bell; see Sign. Cf. AF. sein, a bell;
Liber Albus, p. 119. Thus ¢oc-sin=touch-sign. See Tucket.
TOD, a bush; a certain measure of wool; a fox. (Scand.) ‘An
yuie ¢odde,’ an ivy-bush; Spenser, Shep. Kal., March, 67. ‘ Wulle
is bought by the sacke, by the fod, by the stone;’ Arnold’s Chron.
ed. 1811, p. 191. Palsgrave has ‘ Todde of woll’=tod of wool ; and
‘tode of chese’=tod of cheese. See Nares. Tod, a fox, occurs in
Ben Jonson, Pan’s Anniversary, hymn 4; and see Jamieson’s Sc.
Dict. The fox is supposed to be so named from his bushy tail. =
Icel. ¢oddi (nearly obsolete), a tod of wool; a bit, a piece.-Du.
todde,a rag; EFries. ¢odde,a bundle; G. zoéte, zote, a tuft of hair
hanging together, a rag, anything shaggy. Allied to KFries. todden,
to trail, to draw along, drag after one. Perhaps allied to Ted.
TODAY, this day. (E.) Compounded of ¢o, prep., and day. The
etymology is obscured by the disuse of the prep. ¢o in the old sense
of ‘for;’ thus 20 day=for the day; to night=for the night; &c.
Stratmann cites me ches him to kinge=people chose him for king,
Rob. of Glouc. p. 302; yeuen to wyue=to give to wife, Chaucer,
C. T. 1862 (A 1860). See particularly the article on AS. 76 in
Grein, p. 540: he gives examples of /0 dege, for the day, today ;
10 dege issum, for this day, today; 0 midre nihte, to or at midnight ;
10 morgene=for the morn, to-morrow. Hence our fo-day, to-
morrow, to-night, and prov. E. to-year, i.e. for the present year, this
year; ME. ¢oyere, Chaucer, C. T., 5750 (D 168).
TODDLE, to walk unsteadily, as a child. (E.) Given as a
Northern word by Todd, in his additions to Johnson. The same as
Lowl. Se. tottle, to walk with short steps; Jamieson. Further, toftle
is equivalent to totter, the frequentative suffixes -le and -er being
equivalent; see Totter.4Swed. tulta, to toddle; the spelling with
1 is duly explained s.v. totter. And cf. G. (Bavar.) zotteln, to
toddle, though probably formed in another way.
TODDY, a mixtwe of spirits. (Hindustani.—Pers.) ‘ The toddy-
tree is not unlike the date or palm ;’ Sir T. Herbert, Travels, p. 29
(K.).— Hindustani ¢a7i, adi, " vulgarly toddy, the juice or sap of the
palmyra-tree and of the cocoa-nut [which] when allowed to stand
εν becomes a fiery and highly intoxicating spirit;’ H. H. Wilson,
Glossary of Indian Terms, p. 510.—Hind. ¢ay, ‘a palm-tree, . .
most appropriate to the Palmyra, from the stem of which the juice
is extracted which becomes foddy;’ id.— Pers. tar, ‘a species of
palm-tree from which an intoxicating liquor, toddy, is extracted ;”
Rich. Dict. p. 353. The r in the Hind. word has a peculiar
(cerebral) sound, which has come to be represented by d in English.
Cf. Skt. tdla-, the palmyra tree.
TO-DO, stir, bustle. (E.) ‘What a to-do is here!’ Evelyn,
Diary, Mar. 22, 1675. Compounded of ¢o, prep., and do, verb, See
Ado.
652 TOE
TOE, one of the five small members at the end of the foot.
ΜΕ. ¢oo, pl. toon, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 14868 (B 4052). AS. Za, pl. cain
or ἔσαν, Laws of Afthelbirht, §§ 70, 71, 72,in Thorpe, Ancient Laws,
i, 20. This isa contracted form, standing for tahe; OMerc. tahae,
Corpus Gloss, 141.-4-Du. teen; Icel. ἐᾷ, pl. ter; Dan. taa, pl, taaer ;
Swed. ta; G. zehe; OHG. zéha, a toe, also a finger. We also find
OLow G. téwa, a toe (Gallée); with w(<gw)forh(<hw). B. All
from Teut. type *taihwon-, f. Possibly allied to L. digitus (<*dic-
itus), a finger (Walde). See Digitand Token. 4 Distinct from
toe in mistletoe. Der. to-ed, having toes.
TOFFEE, TOFFY, a coarse kind of candy, made of sugar or
molasses, &c. (F.—Malay.) In the United States, it is usually ¢affy.
—F, tafia, a spirit made from molasses; in use in 1722 (Hatzfeld).
= Malay ¢dfia, the same. See Ratafia.
TOFT, a green knoll, open ground, homestead. (Scand.) ME.
toft, a knoll, P. Plowm. B. prol. 14. Late AS. ¢oft (Toller). —Icel.
topt (pron. oft), also tupt (pron. tuft), toft, tomt (the oldest spelling),
a place to build on; Swed, tom#, the site of a building. Perhaps
for *tumft-<*tum-/(e)t-, cognate with Gk. δά-πεδον, soil, floor ; lit.
“site for building.” From the weak grade of *dem, to build (Gk.
δέμ-ειν); and *pedom, as in Gk. πέδον, ground, earth. See Dan.
tomt in Falk.
TOGA, the mantle of a Roman citizen. (L.) Whether foge = toga
really occurs in Shakespeare is doubtful. Phillips gives it in his
Dict.—L, toga, a kind of mantle, lit. a covering. = L. tog-, 2nd grade
of fegere, to cover; see Tegument.
TOGETHER, in the same place, at the same time. (E.) ME.
to-gedere, to-gedre, to-gidere, P. Plowman, B. prol. 46; togideres, id.
xy1, 80. We even find the compound altogedere as early as in the
Ancren Riwle, p. 320, 1.25. For the spelling with d, cf. ME. fader,
a father, moder,a mother. AS. 20-gedere, 10-ga@dre ; together, Grein,
11, 544.— AS. 40, to; and gador, together, Grein, i. 491; see further
under Gather. Der. al-together.
TOIL (1), labour, fatigue; as a verb, to labour. (F.—L.)
ME. toil; the dat. ¢oile, in Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 1802, means
a tussle or struggle. ‘And whan these com on ther was so grete
toile and romonr of noyse that wonder it was to heere, and therwith
aroos so grete a duste;’ Merlin, ed. Wheatley, p. 393, 1. 1. Lowl.
Sc. tuyll, disturbance; Bernardus, &c., ed. Lumby, p. 24, 1. 45
(E. E. T.S.); ¢uyll, vb., to trouble, id. p. 27, 1. 123. . Thus the old
sense was rather turmoil or disturbance than labour. Cf, AF. ¢oy/,
glossed ‘strif, Walter de Bibbesworth; in Wright, Vocab. 147, 1. 3.
Also AF, oiler, to strive; A Nominale, ed. Skeat, 1. 131. B. As
to the verb /ozlen, its meaning was also different from that of mod.
E. toil. We find: ‘reuliche zoyled to and fro’=ruefully pulled
or tugged to and fro, Debate between Body and Sonl, 1. 368, in
Matzner, Sprachproben, i. 100. Also: ‘tore and /oyled’=torn and
pulled about or spoilt, Legends of the Holy Rood, ed. Morris, p. 143,
1.372. We may also note Lowland Sc. ἐμ], toil (Jamieson); and
perhaps Sc. tuiljie, tuilyie, a quarrel, broil, struggle, is closely re-
lated, as well as ¢u/3e, 10 harass, occurring in Barbour’s Bruce, iv.
152, where the Edinb. MS, has the pp. ¢oiljit. υ. The origin seems
to be found in OF, ¢oillier, MF. toxitller, ‘ filthily to mix or mingle,
confound or shuffle together ; to intangle, trouble, or pester by scurvy
medling, also to bedirt, begrime, besmear, smeech, beray ;’ Cot.
The origin of this F, word is obscure; but Hatzfeld derives it from
L. tudicul@e, to stir up (correctly, as it seems). L. ¢udicula, a
machine for bruising olives, dimin. of zudes, a mallet. —L. ¢ud-, as in
tu-tud-i, pt. τ. of tuxdere, to beat. Sometimes derived from MDnu.
tuylen, ‘to till, or to manure lands,’ Hexham; cf. tuyl, sb., ‘tilling
or manuring of lands,’ id.; but it seems impossible to explain the
senses of ME, foilen from this source only. Der. ‘oil-some, Spenser,
Ἐς Q. li. 12. 295 toil-some-ness.
TOIL (2), a net or snare. (F.—L.) In Hamlet, iii. 2. 362. The
pl. ¢oyles is in Spenser, Astrophel, 97.—F. foie, ‘cloth, linen cloth,
also, a staulking-horse of cloth; ¢oile de araigne, a cob-web; pl.
toiles, toils, or a hay to inclose or intangle wild beasts in;’ Cot.=—
L. téla, a web, thing woven; for *tex-/a.—L. ‘exere, to weave; see
Text. Der. foil-et (below),
TOILET, TOILETTE, a small cloth on a dressing-table ;
hence, a dressing-table, or the operation of dressing. (F.—L.)
‘ Toilet, a kind of table-cloth,.. made of fine linnen, &c. spread upon
a table... where persons of quality dress themselves ; a dressing-
cloth;’ Phillips, ed, 1706. Spelt ¢oylet in Cotgrave. =F. toilette, ‘a
toylet, the stuff which drapers lap about their cloths, also a bag to
put nightcloths in;’ Cot. Dimin. of ¢azle, cloth; see Toil (2).
TOISE, a French measure of length. (F.—L.) It contains 6 feet,
and a little over 44 inches. =F. foise, ‘ a fadome, a measure contain-
ing six feet in length;’ Cot. Cf. Ital. tesa, a stretching. = L. tensa,
sc. brachia, the [length of the] outstretched arms, neut. pl. of pp. of
tendere, to stretch. See Tense (2).
(E.) |
TOM
TOKAY, «a white wine. (Hungary.) Mentioned in Townson’s
Travels in Hungary (1797) ; see quotation in Todd’s Johnson. Also
in Fielding, The Miser (1732), A. iii. Sc. 3. So named from Tokay,
a town in Hungary, at some distance E.N.E. from Pesth.
TOKEN, a mark, sign, memorial, coin. (E.) ME. token,
Chaucer, C. T, 13289 (B 1549). The o answers to AS. a, as usual.
AS. tdcen, tacn, a very common word ; Grein, ii. 520.-4-Du. teeken,
a sign, mark, token, miracle; Icel. ¢akn, teikn; Dan. tegn; Swed.
tecken ; G. zeichen; Goth. taikns. Teut. types *taiknom, n., *taikniz,
fem.; allied to Teach. The base *aik answers to Idg. *doig, 2nd
grade of *deig, which seems to be a variant of Idg. 4/DEIK, to
show, indicate; cf. L. dig-nus, worthy. Brugmann, i. § 762 (3).
Cf. Index, Diction. Cf. L. in-dic-are, to point out, AS. tikan,
Goth. gateihan, to show, G. zeigen, to show. Der. be-token.
TOLERATE, to bear, endure, put up with. (L.) ‘To éollerate
those thinges ;’ Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, b. iii. c. 14, § 2.—L.
tolerdtus, pp. of tolerare, to endure; allied to /ollere, to lift, bear. =
A TEL, to lift, bear; cf. Skt. δεῖ, to lift, Gk. τλῆναι, to suffer, AS.
folian, to endure, L. latus, pp. (for dlatus). See Thole (2). Der.
tolera-ble, from F. tolerable, ‘tollerable,’ Cot., from L. /olerabilis,
that can be endured ; foler-abl-y, toler-able-ness ; toler-at-ion, from
F. toleration, omitted by Cotgrave, but in use in the 16th cent.
(Littré), from L. acc. toleratidnem, endurance ; toler-ance, from MF.
tolerance, ‘tolleration, sufferance,’ Cot., from L. ¢olerantia, suff-
rance; foler-ant, from the stem of the pres. part. of tolerare. From
the same root are a-tlas, tal-ent, ex-tol; e-late, col-late, di-late,
ob-late, pre-late, pro-late, re-late, trans-late, legis-late, ab-lat-ive,
super-lat-ive.
TOLL (1), a tax for the privilege to use a road or sell goods in a
market. (L.—Gk.) ΜΕ. tol, tribute, Wyclif, Rom. xiii. 7. AS. toll,
Matt. xvii. 25.-4-Du. tol; Icel. tollr; Dan. told (for *toll) ; Swed.
tull ; Ὁ. zoll. B. All from Teut. type *¢wlloz, m.; which might
be explained as<*tzlnoz, from the weak grade */u/- (with suffix -z0z)
of Teut. *¢el-, the root of Tale. But the existence of by-forms, as
AS. toln, a toll (whence toln-ere, a toller), OSax. ¢olna, toll, OF ries.
tolne, OHG. zollan-tuom, as well as OHG, zolanxari, MDnu. tollenaer,
a toller, suggest that all these were borrowed from Late L. tollénium,
for L. telénium; from Gk. τελώνιον, a toll-house, Matt. ix.9. Cf.
also Ἐς tonliex, a toll; from Late L. tonleiwm, toleneum, for L, teld-
nium. γ- The Gk. τελώνιον is from τέλος, a tax, toll, allied
to L. follere, to take, and Gk. τάλαντον (see Talent) ; a distinct
word from τέλος, with the sense of ‘end.’ Der. soll, verb, ME.
tollen, Chaucer, C. T. 564 (A 562); ¢oll-er, ME. tollere, P. Plow-
man, B. prol. 220; tol-booth, ME. tolbothe, Wyclif, Matt. ix. 9 ;
toll-bar, -gate, -house.
TOLL (2), to pull a large bell ; to sound as a bell. (E.) We now
say ‘a bell folds,’ i.e. sounds, but the old usage was ‘to 201] a bell,’
i.e. to pull it, set it ringing, as in Minsheu, Skinner, and Phillips.
The latter explains ¢o ¢oll a bell by ‘to ring a bell after a particular
manner.’ It is remarkable that the sense of ‘sound’ occurs as early
as in Shakespeare, who has, ‘ the clocks do foll ;’ Hen. V, chorus to
act iv. 1.15. Yet we may be satisfied that the present word, which
has given some trouble to etymologists, is rightly explained by
Nares, Todd, and Wedgwood, who take #oll to be the ME. odlen,
to pull, entice, draw, and Wedgwood adds: ‘ To ¢ol/ the bells is
when they ring slowly to invite the people into church.” The double
sense of ¢oll is remarkably shown by two quotations given by
Richardson from Dryden, Duke of Guise, Act iv: ‘Some crowd the
spires, but most the hallow’d bells And softly zold for souls departing
knells:’ and again: ‘ When hollow murmurs of their evening-bells
Dismiss the sleepy swains, and oll them [invite them] to their cells.’
Minsheu has: ‘ To ¢oll a bell, and ‘to ¢o//e, draw on or entice.’ See
examples in Nares and Todd. β. ME, follen. “ Tollyn, or
mevyn, or steryn to doon, Incito, provoco, excito;’ Prompt. Parv.
‘Tollare, or styrare to do goode or badde, Excitator, instigator ;’ id.
[ΗΕ] ¢ollyd (drew] hys oune wyf away;’ Seven Sages, ed. Wright,
3052. ‘This ¢olleth him touward thee’=this draws him towards
you; Ancren Riwle, p. 290, 1. 5. There is a long note on this
curious word, with numerous examples, in St. Marharete, ed. Cock-
ayne, p. 110; the oldest sense seems to be to coax or fondle, entice,
draw towards one. y- All is clear so far; but the origin of ME.
tollen is obscure; we may suppose it to be nearly related to AS.
fortyllan, to allure, Grein, i. 332; cf. ME. tullen, to entice, lure,
Chaucer, C. T. 4132 (A 4134). See Till (3).
ΤΌΤ, a kind of resin. (S. America.) Also called Tolu balsam or
balsam of Tolu. ‘ Balme.. from .. Tollu, not farre from Cartha-
gene;’ E. G., tr. of Acosta, Hist. Indies (1604), bk. iv. ch. 28.
Named from Tolu, a place on the N.W. coast of New Granada, in
S. America.
TOM, a pet name for Thomas. (L.—Gk.—Heb.) Spelt Thomme,
P. Plowman, B, v. 28.—L. Thomas.—Gk. Θωμᾶς, Matt. x. 3. Lit.
TOMAHAWK
‘twin ;’ cf. Lleb. ddmim, pl., twins. This is why Thonias was also
called Didymus ; from Gk. δίδυμος, a twin. Der. tom-boy, tom-cat,
tom-tit,
TOMAHAWKE, a light war-hatchet of the N. American Indians.
(W. Indian.) Capt. J. Smith has: “ Tomahacks, axes;’ in his
Vocabulary of Indian words; Works, p. 44. From the Algonkin
tomehagen, Mohegan tumnahegan, Delaware tamothecan, a war-
hatchet (Webster); Micmac ¢umigun (S.T. Rand). ‘Explained by
Lacombe from the Cree dialect; otamahuk, knock him down;
otamahwaw, he is knocked down ;’ Cent. Dict.
TOMATO, a kind of fruit, a love-apple. (Span.— Mexican.)
‘ Tomates, which are . . very wholesome;’ E. G., tr. of Acosta,
Hist. Indies (1604); bk. iv. ch. 20. From Span. (and Port.)
tomate, a tomato; we probably used final o for e because o is so
common an ending in Spanish. Borrowed from Mexican /omail,
TOMAUN, a Persian gold coin. (Pers. —Mongol.) Worth about
7s. 6d. ‘A Toman is five markes sterlin;’ Sir T. Herbert, Trav.
(1638), p. 225 (Yule). = Pers. ‘aman, a gold coin worth about Ios.;’
Palmer. From a Mongol word meaning ‘ten thousand ;’ spelt
toman by Marco Polo, bk. i. ch. 54 (Yule).
TOMB, a grave, vault for the dead. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. toumbe,
tombe, Chaucer, C. T. 10832 (F 518) ; tumbe, Layamon, 6080, later
text. OF. tumbe; F. tombe, ‘a tombe;’ Cot.—L. éumba, a tomb
(White).—Gk. τύμβα, for the common form τύμβος, a tomb, sepul-
chre; properly a burial-mound.+Irish ¢omm, a little hill; Skt.
tumga-, prominent, a height. Brugmann, i. § 103. Prob. allied to
L. tumulus (Curtius, ii, 139); see Tumulus. Der. tomb-less,
Hen. V, i. 2. 229; tomb-stone; en-tomb.
TOMBAC, TOMBACK, a variety of brass. (F.—Port.—
Malay.—Skt.) F. ¢ombac (Hatzfeld).— Port. ¢ambaca, ‘tambac,’
Vieyra ; (and see Yule), — Malay ¢ambaga, copper. —Skt. /a@mraka-m,
copper (Benfey).
TOMBOY, a rude girl. (L.—Gk.—Ileb.; and E.) In Shak.
Cymb. i. 6. 122. From Tom and Boy. @ So also tom-cat,
tom-tit, tom-fool,
TOME, a volume of a book. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 16745; and in Cotgrave.—F.. tome, ‘a tome, or volume ;’ (Οἵ. -
L. tomum, acc. of tomus,a volume.—Gk. τόμος, a section; hence,
avolume. From τομ-, 2nd grade of τεμ-, as in τέμ-νειν, to cut.—
TEM, to cut, whence L. /ondére, to shear; see Tonsure. Der.
(from same root) ana-tom-y, a-tom, en-tom-o-logy, epi-tom-e, litho-
tom-y, phlebo-tom-y, zoo-tom-y.
TOMORROW, onthe morrow, on the mom succeeding this one.
(E.) ME. to morwe, P. Plowman. B.ii. 43. From Zo, prep., with the
sense of ‘for’ or ‘on;” and morwe, morrow. So also AS. ἐδ morgen ;
Luke xiii. 32 (MS. A.). See Today and Morrow.
TOMITIT, a small bird. (L.—Gk.—Heb.; and Scand.) In the
Tatler, no. 112; Dec. 27,1709. Krom Tom and Tit, q.v.
TOMTOM, a kind of drum. (Bengali.) From Bengali fantan,
vulgarly ¢om-tom, a small drum, esp. one beaten to bespeak notice
to a public proclamation; laxly applied to any kind of drum;
H. H. Wilson, Gloss. of Indian Terms, p. 509.
TON, TUN, a large barrel; 4 hogsheads ; 20 hundredweight.
(C.) We use ton for a weight; and ¢uz for a cask; but the word is
all one. Properly a large barrel, hence, the contents of a large
barrel; and hence, a heavy weight. ME. tonne, Chaucer, C. T.
3892. AS. tunne, a barrel; ‘Cupa, tunne,’ Voc. 123. Ὁ; ‘Cuba,
tunne, id. 16. 21 (8th cent.) ; the pl. ‘unzax is in the A. S. Chron.
an. 852. We find also Du. for, a tun; Icel. and Swed. tunna, Dan.
tonde, a tun, cask; G. ¢onne, a cask, also a heavy weight ; Low L.
tunna, tonna, whence F, tonneau, ‘a tun,’ Cot., Irish, and Gael.
tunna, Irish tonna, W. tynell, a tun, barrel. B. The Low L.
tunna, a cask, written fwnne, occurs in the Cassel Glossary of the
gth century; sce Bartsch, Chrest. Franc. col. 2, 1.15. It is sup-
posed to be of Celtic origin; from the Olrish town, a skin, a hide,
hence ‘a wine-skin ;’ cognate with OGael. tonn, W. tonn, skin, hide.
Celtic type *tunnd, f. (Macbain; Stokes-Fick, p. 135). 4 This
explains AS. tyzcen, a small wine-skin, used to support a swimmer ;
ΖΕ τε 5. Orosius, ii. 4; ed. Sweet, p. 72, 1. 30. Der. tonn-age,
a coined word; ¢unn-el,q.v. Doublet, tun, q.v.
TONE, the sound emitted by a stretched string, the character of
a sound, quality of voice. (F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt ¢oone in Levins.
In Bacon, Nat. Hist. ὃ 112. ME. tox, Reliquize Antiquee, i. 292
(timing with dx, noon),.—F. fon, ‘a tune or sound ;’ (οἱ. Το,
tonum, acc. of torus, a ΞΟ ΠΩ͂. —Gk. τόνος, a thing stretched, a rope,
sinew, tone, note; from the sound of a stretched string. —Gk. Tov-,
and grade of rev-, Idg. 4/ TEN, to stretch ; Skt. ¢an, to stretch, Gk.
τείνειν, to stretch; see Tend (1). Der. tone, vb.; ton-ed; ton-ic,
increasing the tone or giving vigour, a late word, from Gk. τονικός,
relating to stretching. Also a-ton-ic, bary-tone, mono-tone, oxy-tone,
semi-tone ; in-tone. Doublet, zune, q.v.
TOOT 653
TONGS, an instrument consisting of two jointed bars of metal,
used for holding and lifting. (E.) In Spenser, F. Q. iv. 5. 44. But
earlier, the singular form fonge or tange is usual. ME. tange, tonge.
‘Thu tuengst parmid so dop a ¢onge’=thou twingest therewith as
doth a tong; Owl and Nightingale, 156. AS. ¢ange; ‘Forceps,
tange,’ Voc. 336.25. Also spelt faxg, AElfric’s Grammar, ed.
Zupitza, p. 67, 1. 3.44Du. ang, a pair of tongs or pincers; Icel.
tong (pl. tangir); Dan. tang; Swed. tang; G. zange. β. All
from ‘Teut. type */anga, f., with the sense ‘a biter’ or ‘nipper;” cf.
E. nippers, pincers (Fick, ili. 116). From the base */ang-, nasalised
form of *tah- (Idg. *dak-), to bite. —4/DENK, to bite; cf. Gk.
δάκ-νειν, to bite (from the weak grade), Skt. dame, dag, to bite,
damga-, a bite, davigaka-, a crab (a pincher). Jn particular, cf. OHG.
zanga, a pair of tongs, with OHG. zanger, biting, pinching. See
Tang (1), Tough. Brugmann, i. § 420, 431 (3).
TONGUE, the fleshy organ in the month, used in tasting, swal-
lowing, and speech. (E.) ‘The spelling with final -we is of Norman
origin, to show that the xg was not palatalised; cf. Ἐς langue; a
better spelling is tong, as in Spenser, F. Q., introd. to Ὁ. i. st. 2.
ME. tunge, tonge, Chaucer, C. T. 267 (A 265). AS. tunge,a tongue,
Luke, i. 64.4-Du. ¢ong; Icel. and Swed. tunga; Dan. tunge ; G.
zunge, OHG. zunga; Goth. tuggd (= *tungo). B. All-from Teut.
type *tungon-, f. Further related to OL. dingua, L. lingua (whence
Εἰς langue), the tongue. Allied to Lingual. Brugmann, i. ὃ 441.
Der. tongue, vb., Cymb. v. 4. 148; dongu-ed; tongue-less, Rich. 11,
i. 1.105; tongue-tied, Mids, Nt. Dr. v. 104, From the same root.
are lingu-al, ling-o, langu-age.
TONIC, strengthening. (Gk.) See Tone.
TONIGHT, this night. (E.) See Today.
TONSIL, one of two glands at the root of the tongue. (F.—L.)
* Tonsils or almonds in the mouth ;’ Holland, tr, of Pliny, b. xxiv.
c. 7. §1.—F. tonsille; tonsilles, pl., ‘ certain kernels at the root of the
tongue ;’ Cot. L. ¢onslla, a sharp pointed pole stuck in the ground
to fasten vessels to the shore; pl. ¢onsille, the tonsils. ‘ There is
one [Latin] sb. in -li-, viz. L. ἐσ] ὅς, pl. m. ‘* wen on the neck ;” for
*/ons-li-, from tens-, ‘‘ to stretch,’ Goth. at-thins-an, to draw towards
one, Lith. ¢gs-¢i, to stretch by pulling ; ¢onsille, “ tonsils,” points to
an older form *tons-lo- or *tons-la;’ Brugmann, ii. ὃ 98. Cf
Thistle.
TONSURE, a clipping of the hair, esp. the corona of hair worn
by Romish priests. (F.—L.) ME. tonsure, Gower, C. A. ili. 291;
bk. viii. 482. —F. ¢onsure, ‘a sheering, clipping, the shaven crown
of a priest ;᾿ Cot.—L. fonsira, a clipping; cf. tonsus, pp. of tondére,
to shear, clip. Cf. Gk. révdew, to gnaw; for ἔτέμ-δ-ειν ; ultimately
allied to Gk. τέμνειν, to cut; see Tome.
TONTINE, a certain financial scheme, the gain of which falls to
the longest liver. (F.—Ital.) See Haydn's Dict. of Dates,.and
Littré. First started at Paris, about A.D. 1653.—F. tondine, a ton-
tine. Named from Lorenzo Tonéi, a Neapolitan, who originated
the scheme.
TOO, more than enough, likewise. (E.) :The emphatic form of
to, prep. ME. to; ‘to badde’=too bad; Will. of Palerne, 5024.—
AS. ἐδ, too; Grein, ii. 542, q.v. The same word as ἐδ, prep., but
differently used. See To.
TOOL, an instrument used by workmen. (E.) ME, tol, tool ; pl.
toles, tooles, P. Plowman, A. xi. 133; B.x.177. AS. idl, a tool;
fElfric’s Hom. ii. 162, 1. 123 spelt tool, Voc. 116. 353 Ζολὶ, id.
429. 15.-4FI cel. tal, neut. pl., tools. B. Teut. type *cdlom, n.; for
*tou-lom; where */du- is related to *¢au-, *taw-, as in AS. tawian,
to prepare, dress, get ready; so that fool is the instrument by
which this is done. Cf. Goth. faujax, to make, cause, and E. taw,
tew, to work hard, to dress leather; see Taw. The Teut. base
*tau- seems to be connected with a Skt. root du or di, to work.
y. ‘ This root is not recognized by Skt. grammarians, but it has to be»
admitted by comparative philologists. There is the verb duvasyatt
in the Veda, meaning to worship, a denominative verb derived from
divas. νας meant, originally, any opus operatum, and presupposes
a root du or di, in the sense of actively or sedulously working. It
exists in Zend as du, todo. With it we may connect Goth. taujan,
the G. zaven (Grimm, Gram. i. 1041), Goth. zawi, work, &c. See
my remarks on this root and its derivatives in the Veda in my
Translation of the Rig-Veda, i. 63, 191 ;” Max Miiller, letter to The
Academy, July, 1874. See duvas in Uhlenbeck, p. 128. As to the
connexion of fool with Goth. ¢aujan, see Streitberg, § 85.
TOOM, empty. (Scand.) Common in Lowland Scotch; ‘toom
dish’=empty dish; Burns, Hallowe’en, ]. 12 from end. ME. tom,
toom. ‘Toom, or voyde, Vacuus;’ Prompt. Parv. Not an AS,
word, though the ady. ¢dme occurs once (Grein).=Icel. 4amr, empty ;
Swed. and Dan. tom. Cf. OHG. zuomig, empty. The Teut. type is
*fOmoz, adj., empty. Der. teem (3), q. Vv.
TOOT (1), to peep about, spy. (I!.) A form of Tout, q. v.
654 TOOT
TOOT (2), to blow a horn, (Scand.) ‘To ¢we in a horn, cornu-
cinere ;’ Levins. Notan AS. form, which would have given theet or
thout; but borrowed from a dialect which sounded ἐλ as t.—MSwed.
and Norw. tuta, to blow a horn. Cf. EFries. and Low Ὁ. tuten, to
toot, MDu. zuyten, ‘to sound or winde a comet,’ Hexham ; Du. foe/-
horen, a bugle-horn; Swed, ¢juta, to howl; Dan, tude, to howl, blow
a horn; Icel. 2)σέα, strong verb, pt. t. aut, to whistle as wind, sough,
resound; also, to blow a horn; AS. Jéotan, to howl, make a noise;
Grein, ii. 589 ; also AS, Jitan (Toller) ; ΜΗ. diezen, OHG. diozan,
to make a loud noise; Goth, thut-haurn, a trumpet. B. All from
Teut. base *¢heut, to make a noise, resound; of imitative origin.
The Idg. form of the root agrees with that of L. tundere (<*teud), to
strike; but this may be accidental.
TOOTH, one of the small bones in the jaws, used in eating; a
prong. (E.) ME. foth, tooth ; pl. teth, teeth, spelt ed, Ancren Riwle,
p- 288, 1. 3 from bottom. AS. 700, pl. 2δὃ and tddas, Grein, ii. 543.
Here a short o has been lengthened, with ultimate loss of 1 before th
following; 0d stands for *tond, for *tand; cf. OSax. tand.4+-Du.
tand; Icel. tonn, gen. sing. tann-ar ; Dan. tand; Swed. tand; G.
zahn; MUG, zan, OHG. zand, B. All from Teut. type *Zanth-us,
m.; cf. (from the weak stem) Goth. tunthus, a tooth. Krom the Idg.
bases *dent-, *dont-, we have L. dens (stem dent-), W. dant, Gk.
ὑδούς (stem ὀδόντ-), Lithuan. dantis, Skt. danta-,a tooth. And ef,
Pers. dandan, a tooth. y. The Idg. *dont-, for *ed-dnt-, is a pres.
participial form from 4/ED, to eat; see Hat. Der. footh, verb,
spelt tothe, Fitzherbert, Husbandry, § 24, 1. 7; tooth-ed; tooth-ache,
Much Ado, iii. 2. 21 ; tooth-less, Prompt. Parv. ; tooth-drawer, Prompt.
Parv. ; tooth-pick, All's Well, i. 1. 1715 tooth-some, i. 6. dainty, nice,
not an early word. Brugmann, ii. § 126. See Tine (1).
TOP (3), the highest part of anything, the summit. (E.) ME.
top; top over tail=head over heels, Will. of Palerne, 2776. AS.
top; ‘ Apex, summitas gale, helmes top, Voc. 143. 26.4-Du. top ;
Icel. ¢oppr, a tuft, lock of hair, crest, top ; Dan. op, a tuft, crest, top ;
Swed. topp, a summit ; G. zopf, a tuft of hair, pigtail, top of a tree ;
OHG. zoph. B. All from Teut. type *tuppoz, m., a peak, top;
allied to E. tap, a spike fora cask. Cf. G. zapfen, a peg, tap, also
a fir-cone; Norweg. topp, a top, a bung (Aasen). Der. ‘op, verb,
Mach. iv. 3. 57; top-dressing; top-gallant-mast, for which Shak. has
top-gallant, Romeo, ii. 4. 202 ; top-full, K. John, iii. 4. 180; top-less,
Troil. i. 3. 1525 ¢op-mast, Temp. i. 1. 375; top-sail, Temp. 1. 1. 7;
top-m-ost, really a double superl. form, see Aftermost; fopp-le, to
tumble, be top-heavy, and so fall headlong, Macb. iv. 1.56. Also
top-sy-turvy, αν.
TOP (2), a child’s toy, (F.—G.) In Shak. Merry Wives, v. 1. 27.
ME. top, a child’s toy; King Alisaunder, 1727. Late AS. topp;
Anglia, i. 465. —AF. *top or *tope; only found in the OF. dimin. zopet,
tupet. ‘ Trocus, topet ;’ Glasgow MS., in Godefroy; he also gives
tupet, a top, and ¢opier, to spin like a top, like MF. toupier, Cot. ; cf.
F. toupie, a top, and MF. upin, a pipkin, Cot.—MHG. off, a top;
also, a pot, a scull (the humming-top being like a round pot).+--Low
G. dop, a shell; MDu..dop, doppe, a top (also ‘op, from HG.) ;
MDu. dop, a shell, doppe, a little pot, pipkin; E-Fries. dop, doppe, a
shell. Allied to ME. doppen, to dive, to dip (a water-pot), WF lem.
doppen, to dip, to plunge in (De Bo). Cf. Dip. q Or from
OLow G. top ; from the same MHG. ¢opf.
TOPAZ. a precious stone. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. topas, whence
Chaucer's Sir Topas; spelt tupace, O. Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris,
p- 98, 1.172.— OF. topase, ‘ topase, astone ;’ Cot. = L. topazus, topazon,
topazion, a topaz.—Gk. τόπαζος, τοπάζιον, the yellow or oriental
topaz. B. According to Pliny, b. xxxvii. c. 8, named from an
island in the Red Sea called Topazas, the position of which was
*conjectural;’ from Gk. τοπάζειν, to conjecture! But this is a
popular etymology. It is probable that the name is of Eastern
origin; cf. Skt. ἑαρας, fire, ap, to shine. See Schade, OHG. Dict.,
Ῥ. 1432.
TOPER, a great drinker. (F. or Ital.—Teut.) ‘ Tope, to drink
briskly or lustily ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. ‘The jolly members of a
toping club ;’ Butler, Epigram on a Club of Sots, 1. 1. ‘ Tope /
here pledge me! (drinks) ;’ Etheredge, The Comical Revenge, A. ii.
sc. 3. Certainly connected, as Wedgwood shows, with F. zéper, to
cover a stake, a term used in playing at dice; whence 266 ! interj.
(short for je /épe, lit. I accept your offer), used in the sense of good !
agreed! well done! It came to be used as a term in drinking,
though this only appears in Italian. ‘ According to Florio [i.e. in
ed. 1688] the same exclamation was used for the acceptance of a
pledge in drinking. [He gives] : topa, a word among dicers, as much
as to say, I hold it, done, throw! also by good fellows when they are
drinking; 111 pledge you;” Wedgwood. B. Of Teut. origin ;
from the striking together of hands or glasses; cf. Picard ¢opfer, to
strike hands in bargaining, Ital. in-toppare, to strike against an
obstacle. Originally from the act of placing together the /ops of the
TORMENTIL
thumbs, at the same time crying ¢opp/ See opp in Ihre, Outzen, and
the Bremen Worterbuch. Cf. Top (1).
TOPIARY, adj. (L.—Gk.) Topiary work is a term applied to
clipped trees and shrubs, in landscape gardening. —L. topiarius,
belonging to landscape gardening. —L. ‘opia, fancy gardening. = Gk.
τόπος, a place, a district.
TOPIC, a subject of discourse or argument. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Properly an adj. ; Milton has ‘a ἐοῤῖο folio’ =a common-place book ;
Areopagitica, ed. Hales, p. 40, 1. 27, on which see the note. Topicks
(topica), books that speak of places of invention, or that part of logick
which treats of the invention of arguments;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674. Spelt ¢opickes in Minsheu, ed. 1627.—F. ftopiques, ‘topicks,
books or places of logicall invention ;’ Cot. —L. ¢opica, s. pl., the
title of a work of Aristotle, of which a compendium is given by
Cicero (White).—Gk. τοπικός, adj., local; also concerning τόποι or
common-places. Aristotle wrote a treatise on the subject (τὰ τοπικά).
—Gk. τόπος, ἃ place. Der. topic-al (Blount), topic-al-ly; and see
topo-graphy.
OPOGRAPHY, the art of describing places. (F. —L. —Gk.)
Spelt zopographie in Minsheu, ed. 1627.—F. topographie, ‘ the de-
scription of a place;’ Cot.—L. topographia.—Gk. τοπογραφία, a
description of a place; Strabo. —Gk. tomo-, for τύπος, a place ; and
γράφειν, todescribe. See Topic andGraphic. Der. topograph-er,
formed with Ἐς suffix -er from Gk. τοπογράφ-ος, a topographer,
describer of places; topograph-ic, topograph-ic-al, -ly.
TOPPLE, to fall over. (I.) See Top (1).
TOPSYTURVY, upside down. (E.) Examples show that -sy
does not stand for side, as the word is sometimes written ; for topsytervy
is the older form. In Stanyhurst’s tr. of Virgil, ed. Arber, we have
top-turuye, p. 33, 1. 13; topsy-turuye, p. 63, 1. 25; and ¢op-syd-turuye,
p- 59, 1. 23. Topside-turvey occurs twice (at least) in the play of
Cornelia, printed in 1594, in Act i, and Act v; see Dodsley’s Old
Plays, ed. Hazlitt, vol. v. p. 186, 1. 1, p. 250, 1.15. Much earlier, we
find ‘ He tourneth all thynge fopsy ¢tervy;” Roy, Rede Me and Be
Not Wroth, ed. Arber, p. 51,1. 25 (printed in 1528), And Palsgrave
(1430) has ¢opsy tyrvy, p. 843, col. 1. B. In Trench, Eng. Past
and Present, we are told that ¢opsy furvy is a corruption from topside
the other way ; to which the author adds: ‘ There is no doubt of the
fact; see Stanihurst’s Ireland, p. 33, in Holinshed’s Chronicles.’
After searching in three editions of Holinshed, I find, in the reprint
of 1808, at p. 33, that Stanihurst has the equivalent expression topside
the other waie ; to which may be added that Richardson quotes topside
tother way from Search’s Light of Nature, vol. ii. pt. ii.c. 23. γ. But
this only proves that such was a current explanation of the phrase in
the time of Stanihurst and later. It can hardly be doubted that topsy
tervy stood for /op-so-tervy ; just as upside-down was originally up-so-
down, i.e. ‘up as (if) down.’ Hence the derivation is from 70), so,
and the old verb ¢erve, to overturn, orig. ‘to roll back;’ see Terve
in my Gloss. to Chaucer, and /opsy-turvy in my Notes on E. Etym.,
p- 303. Cf. Lowl. Sc. our-tyrve, to turn upside down (Jamieson) ;
ourtirvit, upset, turned over, Book of the Houlate, 837; ower-terue, to
overthrow ; Hoccleve, De Regim. Princ., st. 259, 1. 1811. Ὁ. Dou-
glas has ¢irvit, stripped, despoiled, to translate L. detraxerat, Ain,
ν. 260. Allied to AS. tearffian, to turn, roll over; Low G, tarven,
to roll or turn up a cuff; OHG. zerben, umbi-zerben, to turn oneself
round.
TORCH, a light formed of twisted tow dipped in pitch, a large
candle. (F.—L.) ME. ¢torche, Floriz and Blancheflur, 1, 238.—F
torche, ‘a link; also, the wreathed clowt, wisp, or wad of straw,
layed by wenches between their heads and the things which they
carry on them;’ Cot. ([Cf. Ital. ¢orcia, a torch, torciare, to twist ;
Span. entorchar, to twist, antorcha, a torch.]—Late L. fortica, a
torch; cf. also ¢fortisius, occurring A.D. 12873 also ¢ortius, &c. All
various derivatives from L. fort-us, pp. of torquére, to twist; see
Torture. A ‘orch is simply ‘a twist.’ Der. torch-light.
TOREADOR, a bull-fighter. (Span.—L.) In use in 1618 (Stan-
ford Dict.) —Span. foreador.=—Span. torear, to fight bulls. —Span.
toro, a bull.—L. taurus, a bull; see Taurus.
TORMENT, anguish, great pain. (F.—L.) ME. torment, Rob.
of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 148, 1. 6, where it means ‘ a tempest ;’
also tourment, K. Alisaunder, 5869.—OF. torment, " torment ;’ Cot.
Mod. F. tourment.—L. tormentum, an instrument for hurling stones,
an instrument of torture, torture. Formed with suffix -men-tum from
tor- (for torc-), base of torquére, to twist, hurl, throw; see Torture.
Der. torment, verb, ME. formenten, Rob. of Glouc. p. 240, 1. 14 (ed.
Wright, p. 349, 1. 36) ; torment-ing-ly ; torment-or, ME. tormentour,
Chaucer, C. T. 12995 (ἃ 527); also forment-er. And see tormentil.
TORMENTIL, the name of a herb. (F.—L.) In Levins.
Spelt furmentyll ; Palsgrave.—F. ‘ormentille, ‘tormentile ;” (οἵ. -
Late L. ¢ormentilla; Voc. 713.6. Cf. Ital. formentilla, ‘ tormentill,’
Florio, Said to be so called because it relieved tooth-ache, an
TORNADO
idea which is at least as old as the 16th century; see Littré.—OF.
torment, great pain, an ache; see Torment.
TORNADO, a violent hurricane. (Span.—L.) ᾿ Tornado (Span.
‘ornada, 1. 6. return, or turning about) is a sudden, violent, and
forcible storm . . . at sea, so termed by the marriners;’ Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674. But this is only a popular etymology; due to
misapprehension of the form of the word. ‘ T'ernados, that is, thun-
drings and lightnings;’ Hakluyt, Voy, iii. 719.—Span. tronada, a
thunder-storm,—Span. ¢ronar, to thunder.<L. tonare, to thunder.
See Thunder.
TORPEDO, the cramp-fish; a kind of eel that produces numb-
ness by communicating an electric shock. (L.) ‘Like one whom
a lor pedo stupefies ;’ Drummond, sonnet 53 ; and see Gosson, School
of Abuse, p. 56.—L. torpédo, numbness ; also, a torpedo, cramp-fish.
— L. torpére, to be numb; see Torpid.
TORPID, sluggish, lit. numb. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674.—L. torpidus, benumbed, torpid.=L. torpére, to be numb, to be
stiff. Cf. Lith. sirpzi, to grow stiff; Russ. terpnute, to grow numb.
Der. torpid-ly, torpid-ness, torpid-i-ty; torp-or, L. torpor, numbness,
inactivity ; also ¢orp-esc-ent, from the stem of pres. part. of torpescere,
to grow torpid, inceptive form of torpére; torp-esc-ence.
TORQUE, a twisted metal ornament, esp. for the neck. (L.)
Englished from L. torques, a torque.—L. torguére, to twist; see
orelons Or from OF. torque, the same (Supp. to Godefroy). See
ort.
TORRENT, a boiling, rushing stream. (F.—L.) In Shak.
J. Ces. i. 2. 107.—F. torrent, ‘a torrent, land-flood.” —L. torrentem,
acc. of torrens, hot, boiling, raging, impetuous ; and as a sb. a tor-
rent, taging stream. Orig. pres. part. of ¢orrére, to parch, dry up;
see Torrid. Der. (obs.) torrent-yne, a trout; Babees Book, p. 173,
note 4.
TORRID, parching, violently hot. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave.=
F. torride, ‘ torrid, scorched, parched ;’ Cot.—L. torridus, parched.
—L, torrére, to parch, dry up. B. Torrere stands for *torsére,
like terra for *tersa; from 4/TERS, to be dry; see Terrace and
Thirst. Cf. Gk. τέρσεσθαι, το become dry. Der. torr-ent, torre-fy,
to make dry, from F. torrefier, ‘to scorch,’ Cot. ; torre-fact-ion, from
L. torrefactus, pp. of torrefacere, to make dry, dry up.
TORSION, a violent twisting, twisting force. (F.—L.) A late
word, In Johnson. =F, forsion, ‘a winding, wrying, wresting ;’ Cot.
-L. torsionem, ace. of torsio,a wringing.—L. torquére (pt. τ. torst),
to twist; see Torture.
TORSK, a fish of the cod family. (Scand.) From Dan. and
Swed. torsk; Icel. Jorskr, a cod-fish; whence also G. dorsch. Per-
haps named from its being dried ; cf. Swed. torr, Dan. ἐδ, Icel. urr,
dry. Cf, Torrid.
TORSO, the trunk ofa statue. (Ital.—L.—Gk.) A late word; not
in Todd’s Johnson. Ital. ¢orso, a stump, stalk, core, trunk.=—L,
thyrsum, acc. of thyrsus, a stalk, stem of a plant; a thyrsus. —Gk.
θύρσος, a straight stem, stalk, rod. See Thyrsus.
TORT, a wrong. (F.—L.) ‘Fraud or ¢ort;’ Spenser, F. Q. iv.
8. 31.—F. tort, a wrong, harm; also pp. of F. ordre, to twist.—L.
tortus, pp. of L. torquére, to twist. Cf. Irish forc, W. torch, a wreath;
Russ. trok’, a girth ; Gk. ἄτρακτος, a spindle; Skt. tarku-, a spindle.
-/TERQ, to twist. See Torture.
TORTOISE, a reptile. (F.—L.) ME. ‘ortuce, Prompt. Parv. ;
tortoise, in Temp. i. 2. 316. Wealso find ME. tortu, Knight de la
Tour, ch.xi. 1.2. 1. The latter form isimmediately from MF. tortué,
a tortoise (now /ortue); with which cf. Span. tortuga, a tortoise ;
both from Late L. fortica, tartiica, a tortoise, for which Diez gives
a reference. So also MlItal. tariuga (Florio); now corrupted to
tartaruga. 2. The E. tortoise answers to an OF. form, not re-
corded, but cognate with Prov. tortesa, atortoise (Diez). Inall these
instances the animal is named from its crooked or twisted feet, which
are very remarkable; cf. OF. tortis (fem. tortisse), ‘crooked ; Cot.
Both Late L. tort-iica and Prov. tort-esa are formed as if from L.
tort-us, pp. of torquére, to twist; see Torture.
TORTUOUS, crooked. (F.—L.) ME. tortuos, Chaucer, On
the Astrolabe, pt. 11. c. 28, 1. 19.—F. tortuéux, ‘full of crookedness
or crookings ;᾿ Cot.—L. tortudsus, twisting about, crooked. = L. tort-
us, pp. of torquére, to twist ; see Torture. Der. tortuous-ly, -ness.
TORTORE, a wringing pain, torment, anguish. (F.—L.) In
Shak, All’s Well, ii. 1. 177, &c.—F. torture, ‘torture ;’ Cot.—L.
tortura, torture; allied to L. tortus, pp. of torquére, to twist, whirl.
See Tort. Der. (from L. torguére) torch, tor-ment, tor-s-ion, tort-
oise, tort-u-ous ; con-tort, de-tort, dis-tort, ex-tort, re-tort ; also tart (2),
tormentil.
TORY, a Conservative in English politics. (Irish.) ‘Tory, an
Trish robber, or bog-trotter; also a nick-name given to the stanch
Royalists, or High-flyers, in the times of King Charles II. and
James II.;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. As to the use of the name, see
TOUCH 655
/
Trench, Select Glossary, and Todd's Johnson. First used about
1680, Dryden even reduplicates the word into tory-rory. ‘ Before
George, I grew tory-rory, as they say,’ Kind Keeper, i. 1; ‘ Your
tory-rory jades,’ id. iv. 1. By this adj. he appears to mean ‘ wild.’
‘Tories was a name properly belonging to the Irish bogtrotters, who
during our Civil War robbed and plundered, professing to be in arms
for the royal cause ; and from them transferred, about 1680, to those
who sought to maintain the extreme prerogatives of the Crown ;’
Trench, Select Glossary. Trench cites ‘the increase of fories and
other lawless persons’ from the Irish State Papers, Jan. 24, 1656.
In Irish the word means ‘pursuer ;’ hence, I suppose, it was easily
transferred to bogtrotters and plunderers.—Irish foiridhe, also
toruighe, a pursuer; cf. torachd, pursuit, search, foir, a pursuit, dili-
gent search, also pursuers; toireacht, pursuit, search; foirighim, I
fancy, I think, I pursue, follow closely. Cf. Gael. toir, a pursuit,
diligent search, also pursuers; torachd, a pursuit with hostile in-
tention, strict search. From Olrish toracht (for *do-fo-racht), pur-
suit; where do (to) and fo (under) are prefixes; and racht is from
7 REG, as in L. reg-ere, to direct, Irish rig-im, I stretch out (Mac-
bain). Der. Tory-ism.
TOSE,, to pull, or pluck; see Tease, Touse.
TOSS, to jerk, throw violently, agitate, move up and down vio-
lently. (Scand.) “1 ¢osse a balle;’ Palsgrave.—Norw. fossa, to
sprinkle, strew, spread out; hence, ‘to 2055 hay.’ Allied to Dan.
dial. tusse, to stir, move, shake ; also to E. Touse, 4. ν. ; and to Low
G, teusen, to toss (hay). q W. tosio, to toss, is from E.; not a
Celtic word. Der. toss, sb.; toss-pot, Tw. Nt. v. 412.
TOTAL, complete, undivided. (F.—L.) ‘ Thei toteth [look] on
her summe ¢ofal/ ;’ Plowman's Tale, pt. i. st. 46. We still use swm
total for total sum, putting the adj. after the sb., according to the F.
idiom. = Ἐς, ¢otal, ‘the totall, or whole sum;’ Cot.—Late L. /6¢ilis,
extended from L. ἐδέμς, entire. Der. fotal-i-ty, from F. totalité, <a
totality;’ Cot. Also sur-tout.
TOTEM, a natural object, usually an animal, used as a badge or
token of a clan, among N. American Indians. (Amer. Indian.)
‘Each his own ancestral totem ;’ Longfellow, Hiawatha, xiv. Said
to be from the Algonquin ofem, with a prefixed poss. pron.; giving
nt’otem, ‘my totem ;’ Cent. Dict.
TOTTER, to be unsteady, stagger. (E.) For éolter, by assimila-
tion; it is related to tilt (ME. tulten, tilten) ; and means to be always
tilting over, to be ready to fall at any minute. ‘ Where home the
cart-horse folters with the wain;’ Clare, Village Minstrel, Rural
Evening, 1.20. ‘The ¢oltering [jolting) bustle of a blundering trot ;’
id., Rural Morning, 37. Cf. prov. E. folter, to struggle, flounder
about (Halliwell). Trevisa, ii. 387, has : ‘ men fotrede peron [swung
upon ropes] and meued hider and pider;” here the7isdropped. The
form folter occurs twice in the King’s Quhair, by James I of Scotland ;
but not asa verb, as Jamieson wrongly says. ‘On her ¢olter quhele’
=on her (Fortune’s] tottering wheel, st. 9; where fo/ter is an adj.
‘So ¢olter quhilum did sche it to wrye’=so totteringly (unsteadily)
did She (Fortune) cause it (her wheel) to go aside, st. 164; where
tolter is an adverb. ‘The suffix -er is here adjectival; tolter means
‘ready to tilt.’ Precisely the same loss of / occurs in tatter (also spelt
totter), arag; see Tatter. β. Again, fo‘ter is a frequent. related
to ME. ¢ulten, to totter or tilt over; ‘Feole temples per-inne tulten
to pe eorpe’=many temples therein tottered (fell) to the earth;
Joseph of Arithmathie, ed. Skeat, 100. Tulten is another form of
tilten; see Tilt (2). But it is important to remark that the word
totter itself is allied to AS. éealtrian, to totter, vaciilate, Grein, ii.
526; formed from the adj. ¢eal¢, tottery, unstable; id. Add, that
we have the cognate MDu. fouteren, ‘to tremble,’ Hexham; for
*tolteren, like Du. goud for gold. Hence Du. ‘outer, a swing; like
the Norfolk teeter-cum-tauter, a see-saw ; cf. tytter-tolter, a see-saw
(Palsgrave, p. 282). Further allied to Bavar. zelter-n, to hobble
along. Der. fotter-er. Note also to/t-y (i.e. tolty, tilty), unsteady,
Chaucer, C. T. 4251 (A 4253); Spenser, F. Q. vil. 7. 39. And
see toddle.
TOUCAN, a large-beaked tropical bird. ('.—Brazilian.) Littré
gives a quotation of the 16th century. ‘Il a veu aux terres neufves
un oiseau que les sauvages appellant en leur gergon [jargon] toucan,’
&c.; Paré, Monstr. app. 2. The form foucan is F., as above. =
Brazil. zucana, toucan, Hist. Nat. Brasilize (1648), p. 217. According
to Burton, Highlands of Brazil, i. 40, the bird is named from its cry.
The Guarani form is said to be ¢ucd@ (whence Port. tucano); Granada
gives the Guarani form as fied (with ἃ and ἃ both nasal).
TOUCH, to perceive by feeling, handle, move influence. (F.—
Teut.) ME. touchen, King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, 1195.—F. toucher,
to touch, (Cf. Ital. toccare, Span., Port., and Proy. tocar, to touch ;
also OF, toguer, ‘to clap, knock, or hit against ;? Cot. To touch a
lyre is to strike the strings, or rather to twitch them; so also Ital.
toccare il liuto, to twang the lute; Florio gives ‘to strike, to smite,
656 TOUCH-WOOD
to hit,’ as senses of toccare.|}=Teut. type */ukkon, represented by
Low G. tukken, and OHG., zucchen, mod. G. zucken, to draw with a
quick motion, to twitch; cf. MDu. tocken, tucken, to touch (Hex-
ham). ‘This is an intensive form, from the weak grade (*tuh-) of
Teut. *tewhan-, as seen in Goth. tiuhan, AS. téon (<<*téohan), to
pull, to draw, cognate with OHG. ziohan, G. ziehen, and therefore
with L. dicere, to draw; see Tuck (1), Tow (1), and Duke.
The Teut. base */vkk- arose from the Idg. *duk-n-; Brugmann, i.
§ 421 (7). Der. ouch, sb., As You Like It, iii, 4. 15 ; touch-ing, i.e.
relating to, orig. pres. part. of the verb fouchen, Chaucer, C. T. 7872
(Ὁ 2290), spelt touchende (which is a pres. part. form) in Gower
C, A. p. 249, 1. 2 of Macaulay’s edition, but spelt fouchinge in
Pauli’s edition, i. 307, bk. ili. 842; touch-ing, adj., touch-ing-ly,
touch-stone, a stone for testing gold, Palsgrave; ‘ouch-hole, Beaum.
and Fletcher, Custom of the Country, iii. 3. 8. Also foc-sin, q. v.,
tuck-et.
TOUCH-WOOD, wood used (like tinder) for taking fire
from a spark, (F.—Teut.; and E.) We find ‘Peace, Touchwood !’
in Beaum. and Fletcher, Little French Lawyer, Act ii (Cleremont).
Capt. Smith has: ‘smal peeces of ‘touchwood;’ Works, p. 74.
Apparently, wood that catches fire at the touch of a spark; cf. touch-
box, box for priming, touch-pan, pan of a flint-lock musket, souch-hole
ofa gun. Probably influenced by ME. ¢acke, in the sense of touch-
wood or tinder; Piers Plowman, C. xx. 211.
TOUCHY, apt to take offence. (F.—Low G.) ‘ You're touchy
without all cause;’ Beaum. and Fletcher, Maid’s Tragedy, iii. 2
(Melantius). Doubtless often used as if derived from ¢ouch ; but
really a corruption of Tetechy, q. v.
TOUGH, firm, not easily broken, stiff, tenacious. (E.) ME.
tough, Chaucer, Book of the Duchesse, 531. AS. ‘0h, tough; Voc.
29. 39.4 Du. taai, flexible, pliant, tough, viscous, clammy; Low G.
taa, tage, tau, tough; G. zdhe, zh, tough, tenacious, viscous, MHG.
zehe, OHG. zahi. B. Teut. type *tanyuz, later */ahuz; allied to
AS. ge-teng-e, close to, oppressive, OSax. bi-teng-i, oppressive. The
orig. sense is ‘holding tight’ or ‘tenacious;’ cf. Tongs. 4 The
Teut. type regularly becomes *fanh, *tonh, ‘0h in AS.: cf. Tooth.
Der. tough-ly, tough-ness, tough-ish ; also tough-en, formed like height-
en, ὅτε.
TOUR, a going round, circuit, ramble. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘ Tour,a
travel or journey about a country;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.—F. tour, ‘a
turn, round, compasse,..a bout or walk;’ Cot. Cf. Prov. ‘ors,
also ¢orns,a turn; Bartsch, Chrest. Provencale. Tour is a verbal
sb. from tourner, to turn; it isa short form of fourn (as the Proy.
form shows), in the sense of ‘a-turn;’ the final being lost. —L.
tornum, acc. of tornus.—Gk. τόρνος, a lathe. See Turn. Der.
tour-ist.
TOURMALINE, thename ofa certain mineral. (F.—Cingalese.)
First brought from Ceylon by the Dutch in 1703; see tr. of Beck-
mann, Hist. of Inventions, ed. 1846, vol. i. 89.—F. tourmaline ;
formed from the native name in Ceylon, where it was called téramalli.
This name is explained (vaguely) as ‘a general name for the
corelian ;” Clough, Singhalese Dict. (1830), ii. 246.
TOURNAMENT, TOURNEY, a mock fight. (F.—L.—Gk.)
So named from the swift turning of the horses in the combat. Cot-
grave has Εις, towrnay, ‘a tourney ;’ Chaucer has turneyinge, sb.,
C. T. 2559 (A 2557). ME. turnement, Ancren Riwle, p. 300, 1. 5
from bottom.=OF. ¢ornoiement, a tournament (Burguy). Formed
with suffix -ment (L. -mentum) from OF, tornoier, to joust.—OF.
tornoi, a tourney, joust; properly, a turning about.—OF. torner, to
turn; see Turn, 2. Towrney is from AF. forney=OF. tornoi, a
tourney (above) ; see forney in Stat. Realm, i. 230.
TOURNIQUET, a bandage which is tightened by turning a
stick round to check a flow of blood. (F.—L.—Gk.) Properly the
stick itself. “ Tourniquet, a turn-still (sic); also the gripe-stick us’d
by surgeons in cutting off an arm;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. —F. tourniquet,
“the pin of a kind of fiddle, that which the fiddler-turns with his
hand as he plays;’ Cot. He refers, apparently, to a sort of hurdy-
gurdy, of which the F. name was vielle. ‘ T'ourni-qu-et is formed, with
dimin. suffixes, from ¢ourner,to turn; see Turn. [N.B. turn-still=
turn-stile, a sense of F. tourniquet. |
TOUSE, to pull about, tear or rend. (E.) In Shak. Meas. v. 313.
Spenser has fouse in the sense to worry, to tease; If. Q. ii. τι. 33.
ME. tisen, in comp. ¢0-tuisen, to pull about (Stratmann). It answers
to EFries, ἐς, N Fries. zuse, to tear, pull, rend. Cf. Low G. tuseln,
G. zausen, to touse. Der. fous-er; spelt also Towzer, as a dog’s
name ; also /ows-le, tuss-le; and cf. /oss.
TOUT, to look about, solicit custom. (E.) ‘A touter is one who
looks out for custom;’ Wedgwood. We often shorten the sb. to
tout. But ‘out is properly a verb, the same as prov. E. toot, ME.
toten, to peep, look about, P. Plowman’s Crede, 142, 168, 339, 425.
* Totehylle, Specula;’ Prompt. Parv.; whence To¢hill, a look-out hill
TOWEL
W. Twthill, at Carnarvon). Also toot, to look, search, pry; Index
to Parker Soc. publications; Tusser’s Husbandry, § 94, st. 2; Peele,
Arraignment of Paris, i. 2. See Toot in E.D,D., and in Nares.
The latter has: ‘The tradesmen of Tunbridge Wells were used
formerly to hunt out customers on the road, at their arrival; and
hence they were called ¢ooters.’ AS. idtian, to project, stick out;
hence, to peep out; ‘ pa heafdu rd¢odun it’ =the heads projected out ;
fElfred, tr. of Gregory’s Past. Care, c. xvi, ed. Sweet, p. 104, 1. 5.
The orig. sense was ‘to project ;’ hence, to put out one’s head,
peep about, look all round; and finally, to ¢out for custom. Der.
tout-er, @ ‘ Tout and touter are found in no dictionaries but those
of very recent date; yet these words were in use before 1754. See
S. Richardson, Correspondence, &c., vol. iii. p. 316;’ Ἐς, Hall, Mod.
English, p. 134. Distinct from doo, verb, to blow a horn.
TOW (1), to tug or pull a vessel along. (E.) ME. ‘owen, tojen ;
Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, C. 100; Layamon, 7536 (later text). AS.
togian, to tug, draw (Toller); whence the sb. tohk-line, a tow-line,
tow-rope, Voc. 182. 32. Cf. OFries. /oga, to pull about.+Icel.
toga, to draw, pull; ‘og, a cord, a tow-rope; MHG. zogen, OHG.
zogon, to tear, pluck, pull. B. Derived from Teut. *tuh- (>*tug-),
weak grade of *tewhan-, to draw; as seen in AS, togen, pp. of the
strong verb ‘éohan, téon, to pull, draw, which is cognate with G.
ziehen, OHG. ziohan, Goth. éiuhan, todraw. All from the Teut. base
TEUH, to draw (Fick, iii. 122), answering to 4/DEUK, as seen in
L. diicere, to draw. F. touer, to tow, is of Teut. origin. Der.
tow-boat, -line, -rope; tow-age, Blount’s Nomolexicon, 1691. And
see tie, tug.
TOW (2), the coarse part of flax or hemp. (Ε.) ME. tow or towe,
P. Plowman, B. xvii. 245; Tyrwhitt prints ¢awe in Chaucer, C, T.
3772 (A 3774). AS. tow (tow ?) ; it occurs in tow-lic, tow-like, fit for
spinning. ‘Textrinum opus, fowl?c weore;’ Voc. 125. 20; the next
entries being ‘Colus, distef,” and ‘Fusus, spinl,’ i.e. distaff and
spindle. Again, we find: ‘tow-his of wulle’=a tow-house or
spinning-house for wool, id. 186. 29; see the footnote. And. sce
tow-creft, skill in spinning (Toller). Tow was, in fact, orig. the
working or spinning itself, the operation of spinning; whence it
came to be applied to the material wrought upon. Hence we find
getawa, implements (Grein); and the word is brought into close con-
nexion with Εν ¢aw and tew. See further under Tool, Taw.+
MDn. touw, or werck, ‘towe;’ Hexham; touwe, ‘ the instrument of a
weaver,’ /ouwen, ‘to tanne leather,’ i.e. to taw; id., Icel. 26, a tuft of
wool for spinning; vinna ἐδ, to dress wool. (Quite distinct from
Icel. tog, goat’s hair.) Cf. Low G. tou, toww, implements; also
Goth. ¢aui, a work, a thing made, ¢awjan, to make. Similarly G.
werg or werk, tow, is merely the same word as werk, a work.
TOWARD, TOWARDS, in the direction of. (E.) As in
other cases, fowards is a later form, due to adding the adverbial
suffix -es (orig. the mark of a gen. case) to the shorter /oward. In
Layamon, 566, we have ‘ ‘oward Brutun’ =toward Brutus; in]. 515,
we have ‘him ¢owardes com’=he came towards him. The AS.
‘Oweard is used as an adj. with the sense of ‘future,’ as in: ‘on
‘oweardre worulde’=in the future world, in the life to come ; Mark,
x. 30. Hence was formed ‘dweardes, towards, used as a prep. with
a dat. case, and commonly occurring after its case, as ‘é€ow
(Oweardes’ =towards you, AZlfred, tr. of Boethius, c, xxxix. § 1 (b. iv.
met. 4). B. Compounded of ἐδ, to (see To) ; and weard in the sense
of ‘becoming’ or ‘tending to.’ Weard only occurs as the latter
element of several adjectives, such as afweard (lit. off-ward), absent ;
efterweard, afterward; andweard, present; foreweard, forward, in
front; innanweard, inward; niderweard, netherward; wfanweard,
upweard, upward; titanweard, outward; widerweard, contrary; and
in the adverbs kiderweard, hitherward, jiderweard, thitherward; see
Ettmiiller’s Dict., p. 107. y. Cognate with Icel. -verdr, similarly
used in the adj. adanverdr, outward, and in other adjectives; also
with MHG., -wert, whence (ἃ. vorwarts, forwards, and the like; also
with Goth. -wairths, as in andwairths, present, I Cor. vii. 26;
also allied to L. wersus, towards, which is often used after its case.
δ, And just as L. wersus is from wertere, to turn, so AS. weard
is from the cognate verb weorJan (pt. t. weard), to become. See
further under Worth (2), verb. e. We may note that ward can
be separated from /o, as in ¢o you-ward=toward you, 2 Cor. xili. 3 ;
see Ward in The Bible Word-book, ed. Eastwood and Wright.
Also that foward is properly an adj. in AS., and commonly so used
‘in later E., as opposed to /roward; it is common in Shakespeare.
Der. /oward-ly, Timon, iii. 1. 37; toward-ness, toward-li-ness. And
(with the suffix -ward) after-ward, back-ward, east-ward, for-ward,
'fro-ward, home-ward, hither-ward, in-ward, nether-ward, north-ward,
out-ward, ‘south-ward, to-ward (as above), thither-ward, up-ward,
west-ward, whither-ward.
| TOWEL, a cloth for wiping the skin after washing. (¥.—-OHG.)
‘ME. /owaille, Floriz and Blancheflur, 563; towaille, Chaucer, C. ἃς
TOWER
14663 (Β 3935).—F. touaille, ‘a towel, Cot.; OF. foaille. [Cf
Low L. toacula; Span. toalla; Ital. tovaglia. All of Teut. origin.]
— OHG. twahila, dwahila, MAG. dwehele, G. zwehle,a towel. —OHG.
twahan, MHG, dwahen, to wash.+Icel. Ava (pp. Jveginn), to wash;
Dan. toe; AS. Awéan (contr. for *Awahan), to wash; Goth. thwahan,
to wash. And cf. AS. Jwéle, a towel (O. E. Texts); Awéal, a bath ;
Du. dwaal, a towel; dweil, a clout, whence prov. E. dwile, a clout,
coarse rag for rubbing. B. All from Teut. base THWAH, to
wash. N.B. The AF. form towayle occurs in A Nominale, ed. Skeat,
1. 498. Der. ‘owell-ing, stuff for making towels.
TOWER, a lofty building, fort, or part of a fort. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Spelt tur in the A. S. Chron. an. 1097.—OF. tur, later tour, ‘a
tower ;” Cot.=—L. turrem, acc. of durris, a tower.—Gk. τύρσις, τύρρις,
a tower, bastion. We also find Gael. forr, a hill or mountain of an
abrupt or conical form, a lofty hill, eminence, mound, tower, castle ;
Irish zor, a castle; cf. prov. E. (Devon.) tor, a conical hill, a word
of Celtic origin. ‘Scopulum, ¢orr;’ Voc. 147. 38. Cf. Skt. ¢drana-,
anarch. Der. tower, verb; tower-ed, tower-ing, tower-y.
TOWN, a large village. (E.) The old sense is simply ‘ enclo-
sure ;’ it was often applied (like Lowland Sc. toon) to a single farm-
house with its outbuildings, ὅς. ME. ¢oun, Wyclif, Matt. xxii. 5.
AS. tin, Matt. xxii. 5 ; where the L. text has uillam. The orig.
sense is ‘ fence ;’ whence the derived verb tynan, to enclose.-++ Du. tuin,
a fence, hedge; Icel. tan, an enclosure, a homestead, a dwelling-
house; G. zaun, OHG. ziin, a hedge. B. All from Teut. type
*tiinoz, m., a hedge, enclosure. Cognate words appear in Irish and
Gael. dun, a fortress, W. din, a hill-fort (whence dinas, a town) ; this
Celtic word is conspicuous in many old place-names, such as Augusto-
diinum, Camalo-diinum, &c. Lit.‘ fastness;’ allied to Irish dur, firm,
strong, L. darus, hard, lasting ; Gk. δύ-ναμις, strength. See Dure.
Brugmann, i. § 112; ii. § 66. Der. town-clerk, -crier, -hall, -house,
-ship, -talk ; also towns-man (= town’s man), towns-folk (= town’s-folk).
Also town-ish, Sir T. Wyat, Sat. i. 4.
TOXICOLOGY, the science which investigates poisons. (Gk.)
Modern; not in Johnson. Coined from Gk. τοξικό-ν, poison for
smearing arrows with ; and -Aoyia, from λόγος, a discourse, λέγειν, to
say (see Logic). Τοξικόν is neut. of τοξικός, adj., belonging to
arrows or archery; from τόξον, a bow, lit. a piece of shaped wood.
Perhaps from 4/TEKS, to cut, hew, shape; cf. Skt. ¢aksh, to cut.
See Technical. Or allied to L. ¢axus, a yew. Der. toxicologi-c-al,
toxicolog-ist.
TOXOPHILITE, a lover of archery. (Gk.) Coined from
Gk. τόξο-ν, a bow, and φιλ-εῖν, to love ; with suffix -ite, Gk. -ἰτης.
See above.
TOY, a plaything ; also, as a verb, to trifle, dally. (Du.) ‘ Any
silk, any thread, any foys for your head;’ Wint. Tale, iv. 4. 326.
‘On my head no ¢oy But was her pattern ;” Two Noble Kinsmen, i.
3. This is only a special sense. ‘ Any folysshe éoy;’ Barclay, Ship
of Fools, i. 176. Palsgrave has: ‘ Toy, a tryfell;’ also, ‘I oye, or
tryfell with one, I deale nat substancyally with hym; I soye, I playe
with one; He doth but ¢oye with you, 71 ne fait que se jouer auecques
vous. Not in ME.—Du. éuig,, tools, utensils, implements, stuff, re-
fuse, trash; which answers to Palsgrave’s definition as ‘a trifle.’
The sense of plaything occurs in the comp. speeltuig, playthings,
child’s toys ; lit. ‘stuff to play with.’ Sewel gives: ‘ Speeltuyg, play-
tools, toys;’ also: ‘Op de tuy houden, to amuse,’ lit. to hold in
trifling, toy with one; also: ‘ een ‘uyg op zy, silver chains with a
knife, cissars, pincushion, &c. as women wear,’ which explains the
Shakespearian usage.4Low G. tiig, used in all the senses of G. zeug ;
Icel. tygi, gear; Dan. ἠδὲ, stuff, things, gear ; dumt toi, stuff and non-
sense, trash ; whence Jegetoi, a plaything, a toy, from lege (= prov.
E. laik), to play; Swed. tyg, gear, stuff, trash.4-G. zeug, stuff, matter,
materials, lumber, trash ; whence spielzeug, toys; MHG. zive, stuff,
materials. B. Connected by some with the strong Teut. verb
*teuhan- (Goth. tiuhan, AS. téon, OHG. ziohan, (ἃ. ziehen), to draw,
cognate with L. dicere, to lead (4/DEUK); which may be cor-
rect. q The pronunciation of oy in ¢oy is an attempt at imitating
the pronunciation of Du. ¢wig, just as hoy, a sloop, answers to the
Flemish hui; see Hoy (1). Der. toy-ish.
TRACK (1), a track left by drawing anything along, a mark left,
a footprint. (F.—L.) ME. ¢race, King Alisaunder, ed. Weber,
77713 Pricke of Conscience, 4349.—F. érace, ‘a trace, footing, print
of the foot ; also, a path or tract ;’ Cot. (Cf. Ital. traccia, a trace,
track; Span. éraza, a first sketch, outline.]_ A verbal sb., from MF.
tracer, verb, ‘to trace, follow, pursue ;”’ of which another form was
MF. trasser, ‘to delineate, score, trace out ;’ Cot. Cf. Ital. trac-
ciare, to trace, devise; Span. ¢trazar, to plan, sketch. These verbs
are all formed (as if from a Late L. *tractiare) from tract-us, pp. of
trahere, to draw, orig. to drag with violence. See Trait, Der.
trace, verb, ME. tracen, Chaucer, Parl. of Foules, 54 (less common
TRADE 657
trace-able, irac-ing; trac-er-y, a coined word, in rather late use.
Also (from L. trahere) trace (2), tract (1), tract (2), tract-able, tract-
ile, tract-ion, tract-ate, trail, train, trait, treat, treat-ise, treat-y; also
abs-tract, at-tract, con-tract, de-tract, dis-tract, ex-tract, pro-tract, re-
tract, sub-tract ; en-treat, es-treat, mal-treat, por-trait, por-tray or pour-
tray, re-treat.
TRACE (2), one of the straps by which a vehicle is drawn.
(F.—L.) ‘ Trace, horse harnesse, trays;’ Palsgrave. MF. traice:
‘ Trayce, horsys harneys, Tenda, traxus, restis, trahale;’ Prompt.
Parv. Evidently from the OF. rays, cited by Palsgrave, which is
a pl. form equivalent to Ἐς traits, pl. of trait. In Walter de Bibbes-
worth, we find : ‘ Les ¢rays si unt braceroles,’ and braceroles is glossed
by ‘ henekes (?) of ¢rays;’ Wright, Vocab. i. 168. Golding has érace
as a plural; tr. of Ovid, Met. ii.; fol. 16 b (1603). Cf. ‘for v pair
trays,’ for the king’s car ; Privy Purse Exp. of Eliz. of York (1480),
Ρ. 123. Cotgrave gives as one sense of /rait (which he spells ¢raic?)
that of ‘a teame-trace or trait, the cord or chain that runs between
the horses, also the draught-tree ofa caroch.’ Thus trace=F, traits;
so that traces is a double plural. See Trait.
TRACHEA, the wind-pipe. (L.—Gk.) In Phillips, ed. 1607.—
L. trachéa ; also trachia. The latter form is given in White. —Gk.
τραχεῖα, lit. ‘ the rough,’ from the rings of gristle of which it is com-
posed ; τραχεῖα is the fem. of τραχύς, rough, rugged, harsh. Allied
to τέ-τρηχ-α, perf. tense of θράσσειν, ταράσσειν, to disturb. Der,
trache-al.
TRACK, a path, course. (F.—Teut.) Confused with tract in
old authors; also with ¢race both in old and modern authors. Min-
sheu has: ‘ A trace, or tracke ;’ Cotgrave explains F. trac by ‘a track,
tract, or trace.’ In Shak. Rich. 11, iii. 3. 66, Rich. III, v. 3. 20, the
folios have ¢ract for track ; and in Timon, i. 1. 50, the word ¢ract is
used in the sense of trace. ‘The drak of his hors;’ Malory, Morte
Arthure, bk. x. c. 14. These words require peculiar care, because
trace and tract are really connected, but ¢rack is not of L. origin, and
quite distinct from the other two words. =F. trac, ‘a track, tract, or
trace, a beaten way or path, a trade or course.’ Cf. Norm. dial.
trac, a track; Walloon ¢rak, a stage, or distance along a road. The
sense of ‘beaten track’ is the right one; we still use that very
phrase. Of Teut. origin. —MDu. treck, Du. trek, a draught; from
trekken, to draw, pull, tow, travel, march, &c., MDu. trecken, ‘to
drawe, pull, or hale,” Hexham; also MHG., frecken, to draw, a
secondary verb formed from the OHG. strong verb trehhan, to scrape,
shove, draw. As the last is a strong verb, we see that ¢rack is quite
independent of the L. ¢rahere. Note that NFries. has tracke for Du.
trekken. Der. track, verb; track-less, Cowley, The Muse, 1. 25.
TRACT (1), continued duration, a region. (L.) Often confused
both with ¢race and track; it is related to the former only; see
Trace (1). ‘This in ¢racte of tyme made hym welthy :’ Fabyan,
Chron. c. 56.—L. tractus, a drawing out; the course of a river, a
tract or region, L. dractus, pp. of érahere, to draw; see Trace (1).
And see Tractable.
TRACT (2), a short treatise. (L.) An abbreviation for ¢ractate,
which is now little used. ‘ Tractate, a treatise;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674.—L. tractatum, acc. of tracta/us, a handling, also a treatise,
tractate, or tract. See Tractable. Der. éract-ar-i-an, one who
holds opinions such as were propounded in ‘ Tracts for the Times,’ of
which go numbers were published, A. D. 1833-1841 ; see Haydn, Dict.
of Dates.
TRACTABHLE, easily managed, docile. (L.) InShak.1 Hen. IV,
iii. 3. 194.—L. tractabilis, manageable, easily wrought. L. tractare,
to handle, frequent. of ¢rahere (pp. tractus), to draw. See Trace
(1). Der. tractabl-y, tractable-ness, tractabili-ty. Also (like L. pp.
tractus) tract-ile, that may be drawn out; tract-ion, from Εἰ. traction,
‘a draught or extraction,’ Cot.; tract-ive, drawing or pulling ; ¢ract-
or (see Webster). Also tract-ate, for which see Tract (2).
TRADE, way of life, occupation, commerce. (E.) “ Properly
that path which we ¢read, and thus the ever recurring habit and
manner of our life;’? Trench, Select Glossary. It once meant, liter-
ally, a path; ‘ A common trade, to passe through Priams house ;”
Surrey, tr. of Virgil, Ain. ii. 593. Not common; the usual. ME.
words are ¢red and trod, both in the sense of footmark, Ancren Riwle,
p- 380, note g. But we find the exact form in the ME. trade, Sir
Guy (Caius MS.), 4731, the prov. E. trade (E.D.D.), and Low Ο.
trade, Swed. dial. trad, a beaten track ; from the 2nd grade of the vb.
All from AS. ¢redan, to tread; see Tread. Der. trades-man, i.e.
trade’s-man, one who follows a trade; trades-woman; trades-union
(=either trade’s union or trades’ union). Also trade, vb., trad-ed,
K. John, iv. 3. 109; trad-er, 1 Hen. 1V,i. 2. 141. Also trade-wind,
a wind blowing in a constant direction, formed from the phr. to blow
trade =to blow always in the same course; ‘the wind blowing trade,’
Hakluyt’s Voyages, iii. 849; the word trade-wind is in Dryden,
than the sb.), directly from F, tracer, to trace, as above: ¢rac-er. | Annus Mirabilis, last line but one.
uu
658 TRADITION
TRADITION, the handing down to posterity of unwritten
practices or opinions. (L.) ΜΕ. tradicioun, Wyclif, Col. ii. 8.
Formed directly from L. ¢rdditio, a surrender, delivery, tradition (Col.
ii. 8). (The Εἰ, form of the word gave us our word treason.] Cf. L.
tradit-us, pp. of iradere, to deliver; see Traitor. Der. ¢radition-al.
Doublet, treason,
TRADUCEH, to defame. (L.) In Shak. All’s Well, ii. 1. 175.
In the Prologue to the Golden Boke, ¢raduce occurs in the sense of
translate, and traduction is translation. —L. tradicere, to lead across,
transfer, derive ; also, to divulge, convict, prove guilty (whence our
use to defame). —L. ἐγᾶτ, for trans, across; and diicere, to lead; see
Trans- and Duke. Der. traduc-er.
TRAFFIC, to trade, exchange, barter. (F.—Ital.) In Shak.
Timon, i. 1. 158; Macb. iii. 5. 4; we have also the sb. traffic, spelt
trafficke in Spenser, F. Q. vi. 11. 9.—F. trafiquer, ‘ to traffick, trade ; ἢ
Cot. We find also F. trajique, sb. ‘ traffick ;’ id. Ital. ¢rafficare, to
traffic, manage (¢raficare in Florio). Cf. Span. ¢rajicare, trafagar ;
Port. trajicar, trafeguear, to traffic, to cheat. Also Ital. ¢raffico
(trajico in Florio), Span. trajico, trafago, traffic, careful management ;
Port. trafico, trafego, traffic. B. Origin unknown. It has been
proposed to derive it from Heb. /raffik,a late Heb. rendering of late
Gk. τροπαϊκός ; which again is a Gk. rendering of L. uictoriatus, the
name of a silver coin bearing the figure of Victory (Lewis). See
Athenzum, Apr. 7,1900. Der. traffic, sb. ; traffick-er, Merch. Ven.
oi EE
TRAGACANTH, a gum obtained from several shrubs of the
genus Astragalus, (F.—L.—Gk.) In Bailey, vol. ii (1731), who
explains it by ‘gum dragon ;’ where dragon is due to the old name
dragagant, from MF. dragagant in Cotgrave. =F. tragacanthe (Hatz-
feld), the name of a shrub.—L. ¢ragacantha, the tragacanth-shrub ;
cf. ¢ragacanthum, also dragantum, gum tragacanth. = Gk. τραγάκανθα,
astragalus, lit. ‘ goat-thorn.’—Gk. tpay-os, a goat; and ἄκανθα, a
thorn, from ἀκ-ίς, a sharp point.
TRAGEDY, a species of drama of a lofty and mournful cast.
(F.—L.—Gk.) ME. tragédie; see Chaucer’s definition of it, C. T.
13979 (B 3163).— MF. tragedie, ‘a tragedy;’ Cot. —L.tragedia. — Gk.
τραγῳδία, a tragedy. ‘ There is no question that tragedy is the song
of the goat; but wky the song of the goat, whether because a goat
was the prize for the best performance of that song in which the
germs of the future tragedy lay, or because the first actors were
dressed, like satyrs, in goat-skins, is a question which has stirred
abundant discussion, and will remain unsettled to the end;’ Trench,
Study of Words, lect. v. The latter theory now finds most favour.
A third theory is thata goat was sacrificed at the singing of the song ;
a goat, as being the spoiler of vines, was a fitting sacrifice at the
feasts of Dionysus. In any case, the etymology is certain. —Gk.
τραγῳδός, lit. ‘a goat-singer,’ a tragic poet and singer.=— Gk. rpay-os,
a he-goat ; and @dds, a singer, contracted from ἀοιδός ; seeOde. Der.
tragedi-an, All’s Well, iv. 3. 299, apparently a coined word, not bor-
rowed from French. Also trag-ic, 2 Hen. IV, i. 1.61, from F.
tragique, ‘ tragicall, tragick,’ Cot., L. tragicus, Gk. τραγικός, goatish,
tragic, from tpay-os,a goat. Hence ¢ragic-al, -al-ly, -al-ness.
TRAIL, to draw along the ground, to hunt by tracking. (F.—L.)
ME. ¢railen. In Wyclif, Esther, xv. 7, later version, we find: “ but
the tother of the seruauntessis suede the ladi, and bar yp the clothis
fletinge doun in-to the erthe;’ where, for fletinge, some MSS. have
trailinge, and the earlier version has flowende = flowing. Cf.
‘Braunches doo fraile ;’ Palladius, iii. 289, p. 71. ‘ Traylyn as clopys,
Segmento;’ Prompt. Parv. We have also ME. traile, sb. “ Trayle,
or trayne of a clothe;’ Prompt. Parv. So also: ‘ Trayle, sledde
[sledge], traha; to Trayle, trahere, Levins, ed. 1570. John de
Garlande, in the 13th cent., gives a list of ‘instrumenta mulieribus
convenientia;’ one of these is ¢rahale, of which he says: ‘ Trahale
dicitur a traho, Gallice ¢raail;’ Wright’s Voc. i. 134. Palsgrave
has: ‘I ¢rayle, lyke as a gowne dothe behynde on the grounde;”
also ‘I ¢rayle, as one ¢rayleth an other behynde or at a horse-tayle.’
“ΟἿΌΝ, trailler, to tow a boat (Supp. to Godetroy) ; MF. trailler, ‘to
wind a yarn; also, to traile a deer, or hunt him upon a cold sent ;’
Cot. OF. ¢raille, a tow-rope (Supp. to Godefroy) ; also, a ferry-boat
with a cord. =L. tragula, a drag-net, sledge; cf. ¢raha, a sledge. -
L. trahere, to draw ; see Trait. Andcf. Train. Cf. MDu. treylen,
“to drawe, or dragge a boate with a cord,’ Hexham; borrowed (like
MDu. ¢reyn, a train) from French,
TRAILBASTON, alaw-term. (F.—L.) See Blount’s Nomo-
lexicon, ed. 1691, and Spelman. ‘There were justices of traylbaston,
appointed by Edw. 1. [‘ The common people in those days called
them ¢ray-baston, quod sonat ¢rake baculum;’ Blount. Roquefort
divides the word as ¢ray-le-baston. It would seem that the word was
considered as a compound of OF. éray (=L. trahe), give up, and
baston, a wand of office, because many unjust officers were deprived of
their offices.} But this view is proved to be wrong by the passage
TRAM
from Langtoft’s Chronicle printed in Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 318;
on which see Wright’s note, p. 383. The Anglo-F. word was
traylbastoun, traylebastoun or trayllebastoun, meaning ‘ trail-stick’ or
‘ stick-carrier ;’ (id. pp. 231, 233, 319); and the name was given to
a particular set of lawless men, who carried sticks, and committed
acts of violence. Against these the articles of trailbaston were
directed ; and the justices of trailbaston tried them. The Outlaw’s
Song (Polit. Songs, p. 231) is explicit; he says that these articles
were unreasonable ; for if he merely gives his servant a buffet or two,
the servant will have him arrested, and he will be heavily fined.
Mr. Wright notes that some have supposed (quite wrongly) that the
name was given, not to the outlaws, but the judges. For the form
of the word, compare MDu. kolf-drager, a sergeant, lit. ‘ club-bearer.’
See Trail and Baton.
TRAIN, the hinder part of a trailing dress, a retinue, series,
line of gun-powder, line of carriages; as a verb, to trail, to allure,
educate, discipline. (F.—L.) ME. train, sb., spelt ¢rayn, with the
sense of plot, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 295, 1. 22; ¢rayne,
id. p. 263, 1. 23; ‘treson and ¢rayne,’ Morte Arthure, ed. Brock,
4192; ME. traynen, verb, to entice, id. 1683.—F. ¢rain, m., ‘a
great man’s retinue, the train or hinder part of a beast; .. work,
dealing, trade, practise ;’ Cot. Also ¢raine, f., ‘a sled, a drag or
dray without wheels, a drag-net,’ id. Also trainer, verb, ‘to traile,
drag, draw;’ id. OF. ¢rakin, train, a train of men; trahiner,
trainer, verb; cf. Late L. trahinare, to drag; occurring A.D. 1268.
-Late L. tragindre, to draw along (Schwan); evidently founded
upon L. trakere, to draw; see Trace, Trail. Cf. AF. treine, pp.
dragged along, Liber Custumarum, p. 284. Der. ¢rain-er; train-
band, i.e. train’d band, a band of trained men, Cowper, John Gilpin,
st. I, and used by Dryden and Clarendon (Todd) ; ¢rain-bear-er.
4 But not ¢rain-oil.
TRAIN-OIL, oil procured from the blubber or fat of whales by
boiling. (Hybrid; Du.; and F.—L.—Gk.) Spelt trane-oyle, Hak-
luyt’s Voyages, i. 477, last line; ‘rayne oyle, Arnold’s Chron. p. 236.
In Hexham’s Dn. Dict., ed. 1658, we find: ‘ Traen, trayne-oile made
of the fat of whales.’ Also: ‘¢raen, a tear; liquor pressed out by
the fire.’ Cf. mod. Du. ¢raan, a tear; ¢raan, train-oil. We thus see
that the lit. sense of ¢rain is ‘ tear,’ then, a drop of liquor forced out
by fire; and lastly, we have ¢rain-oil, or oil forced out by boiling.
Cf. Dan. and Swed. fran, train-oil, blubber, G. ¢hran, all borrowed
from Dutch; cf. G. thréane, a tear, also a drop exuding from a vine
when cut. Soalso Low (ἃ. ¢raan, train-oil ; ‘rane, a tear; very well
explained in the Bremen Worterbuch. Similarly, we use E. ¢ear in
the sense of ‘a drop’ of some balsams and resins, &c. B. The Du.
traan (equivalent to OHG. trahan below) is the only form for ‘ tear’
used in Dutch; the G. ¢hrane is really a pl. form, due to MHG.
trahene, pl. of traken, OHG. trahan, a tear. It has been thought
that the OHG. trahan is allied to E. tear; but the connexion is not
clear. @ It thus appears that train-oil is a tautological expression ;
accordingly, we find trane, train-oil, in Ash’s Dict., ed. 1775.
TRAIT, a feature. (F.—L.) Given in Johnson, with the remark
“scarcely English.’ =F. trait, ‘a draught, line, streak, stroak,’ Cot.
He also gives the MF. spelling ¢raict.—F. trait, formerly also traict,
pp. of ¢raire, to draw.=—L. tractus, pp. of trahere, to draw; see
Trace (1).
TRAITOR, one who betrays, a deceiver. (F.—L.) ME. traitour,
spelt ¢raitoure, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 61, 1. 125; treizur,
O. Eng. Homilies, i. 279, 1. 22.—OF. traitor, traiteur, a traitor. =L.
traditorem, acc. of traditor, one who betrays.—L. tradere, to hand
over, deliver, betray. —L. tra-, for trans, across, over ; and -dere, for
dare, to give; (hence ¢rda-didi, pt. t., is due to dedi, I gave). See
Trans- and Date. Der. traitor-ous, 1 Hen. VI, iv. 1. 173; trattor-
ous-ly ; traitr-ess, All’s Well, i. 1. 184. From the same source are
tradit-ion, treason, be-tray.
TRAJECTORY, the curve which a body describes when pro-
jected. (F.—L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706. Suggested by MF. trajec-
toire, ‘casting, thrusting, sending, transporting ;” Cot. Formed as
if from a L. *traiectorius, belonging to projection ; formed from ἐγᾶ-
iectus, pp. of trdicere (trajicere), to throw, cast, or fling over or
across. τὶ, trd-, for trans, across ; and iacere, to cast. See Trans-
and Jet. Der. ¢raject, which is perhaps the right reading for
tranect in Merch. of Ven. iii. 4. 53; from MF. ¢raject, ‘a ferry, a
passage over,’ Cot., which from L. traiectus,a passage over. Shake-
speare would have written ¢raiect, which was made into ¢ranect, a false
form,
TRAM, a coal-waggon, a carriage for passengers running on iron
rails. (Scand.) There have been frequent inquiries about this word ;
see Notes and Queries, 2 Ser. v. 128, xii. 229, 276, 358; 4 Ser. xii.
299, 420; 6 Ser. ii. 225, 356. A ¢ram is an old Northern word for
a coal-waggon, esp. such a one as ran upon rails. In N. and Q.,
2 Ser. xii. 276, J. N. quoted an Act of Parliament for the year 1794,
TRAMMEL
for the construction of ‘an iron dram-road, tram-road, or railway’
between Cardiff and Merthyr Tydvil; but the date 1794 should
have been 1820. In N. and Q.,6S. ii. 356, A. Wallis stated that
“tramways were in use in Derbyshire before 1790; one of planks
and log-sleepers was laid between Shipley coal-pit and the wharf
near Newmansleys, a distance of 15 miles, and was discontinued
in the above year.’ [About A.D. 1800, a Mr. Benjamin Outram
made certain improvements in connexion with railways for common
vehicles, which gave rise to the fiction (ever since industriously
circulated) that ¢ram-road is short for Outram road, in ignorance of
the fact that the accent alone is sufficient to show that Outram, if
shortened to one syllable, must become Oud rather than ram or tram.]}
Brockett’s Glossary (3rd ed. 1846) explains that a tram is the
Northern word for ‘a small carriage on four wheels, so distinguished
from a sledge. It is used in coal-mines to bring the coals from the
hewers to the crane.’ B. The word is clearly the same as Low-
land Scotch tram, ‘(1) the shaft of a cart or carriage of any kind,
(2) a beam or bar,’ Jamieson. Dunbar has barrow-tram ; Of the
same James Dog, 1. 19. Cf. prov. E. tram, a small milk-bench
(Halliwell) ; which was orig. a plank of wood. It was prob. used
first of the shaft of a small carriage, and then applied to the small
carriage itself, esp. such a one as was pushed or drawn by men or
boys in coal-pits. This notion is borne out by the cognate Low G.
traam, a word particularly used of the handles of a wheel-barrow or
the handles by which a kind of sledge was pushed ; Bremen Worter-
buch, ed. 1771. In N.and Q.,65S. ii. 498, J. H. Clark notes that
‘the amendinge of the higheway or tram from the Weste ende of
Bridgegait, in Barnard Castle’ occurs in a will dated 1555 ; see
Surtees Soc. Publications, vol. xxxviii. p. 37. Here a tram prob.
means a log-road. The word is Scandinavian. = Norw. tram, a door-
step (of wood) ; ¢raam, a frame ; Swed. dial. tromm, a log, stock of
a tree; also a summer-sledge (sommarslade) ; also tromm, trumm
(Rietz) ; MSwed. tram, trum, a piece of a large tree, cut up into
logs. The orig. sense is clearly a beam or bar of cut wood, hence
a shaft of a sledge or cart, or even the sledge itself. Cf. EFries.
trame, a step of a ladder, handle of a barrow; Low G. traam, a
balk, beam, esp. one of the handles of a wheel-barrow, as above ;
also MDu. drom, a beam (obsolete); Hexham. Also OHG. dram,
tram, a beam, once a common word; see Grimm’s Dict. ii. 1331,
1332. The last form may account for the variation dram-road, in
the Act of Parliament cited above; and it has been already observed
that a dramroad or tramroad might also be explained as a log-road.
y. The comparison of Swed. ¢romm with Du. drom shows that the
original Low G. initial letter must have been ἐλ; which is proved
by the Icel. Jram-valr, lit. ‘a beam-hawk,’ a poet. word for a ship.
δ. The Swed. dial. ¢rumm (above) further resembles G. ¢rumm, lump,
stump, end, thrum, fragment, and suggests a connexion with
Thrum (1), to which Icel. Jram- is related by gradation. Hence,
the orig. sense was ‘end;’ then fragment, bit, lump, log, plank,
shaft, &c. Der. tram-road, -way.
TRAMMEL, a net, shackle, anything that confines or restrains.
(F.—L.) ME. tramayle, ‘grete nette for fyschynge;’ Prompt.
Parv. Spenser has ¢ramels, nets for the hair, F. Ὁ. il. 2. 15.—MF.
tramail, ‘a tramell, or a net for partridges;’ Cot. Cf. F. trameau
(answering to an older form ἔχανε), ‘a kind of drag-net for fish, a
trammell net for fowle;’ this comes still nearer to Spenser's ¢ramel.
Cf. Ital. tramaglio, a drag-net, trammel ; Port. trasmalho, Span. tras-
mallo, a trammel or net; Gascon ¢ramail; mod. F. trémarl.— Late L.
tramacula, tramagula, a trammel, occurring in the Lex Salica, ed.
Hessels and Kern, xxvii. 20, col. 154; cf. coll. 158,161. The word
has numerous other forms, such as ¢remacle, tremale, trimacle, &c., in
other texts of the Lex Salica. Kern remarks: ‘ tremacle, &c. is a
diminutive, more or less Latinised. The Frankish word must have
differed but slightly, if at all, from the Drenthian (N. Saxon) treemke
(for tremike, tramuke), a trammel. Both the English and Drenthian
word point to a simplex ¢rami or tramia ;’ col. 501. β. This assumes
the word to be Teutonic, yet brings us back to no intelligible Teut.
base; nor does it account for the Ital. form. Diez takes it to be
Latin, and explains ¢remacula from L. tri-, thrice, three times, and
macula, a mesh or net, as if it meant treble-mesh or treble-net.
He remarks that a similar explanation applies to Trellis, q.v.
[This account is accepted, without question, by Scheler, Littré, and
Hatzfeld.] It is to be further noted that, according to Diez, the
Piedmontese ¢rimaj is explained by Zalli to mean a fish-net or bird-
net made of three layers of net of different-sized meshes; and that
Cherubini and Patriarchi make similar remarks concerning the
Milanese tremagg and Venetian ¢ramagio. y. As to L. “τίσ, see
Three; as to L. macula, see Mail (1). The Span. trasmaillo is an
altered form, as if from trans maculam, across the net, which is not
yery intelligible. See Korting, § 9739.
TRAMONTANE, foreign. (F.—Ital.—L.) The word is pro-
TRANSCEND 659
perly Italian, and only intelligible from an Italian point of view;
it was applied to men who lived beyond the mountains, i.e. in France,
Switzerland, Spain, &c. It came to us through the French, and was
at first spelt /ramountain. ‘The Italians account all tramountain
doctors but apothecaries in comparison of themselyes;’ Fnller,
Worthies, Hertfordshire (R.).— MF. é-amontain, ‘ northerly;’ Cot.
= Ital. ¢ramontano, pl. tramontani, ‘those folkes that dwell beyond
the mountaines ;’ Florio. = L. ‘ransmontanus, beyond the mountains,
“ΤΙ, trans, beyond; and mont-, stem of mons, a mountain; see
Trans- and Mountain. Cf. Ultramontane.
TRAMP, to tread, stamp. (E.) ME. trampen. ‘ Trampelyn,
trampyn, Tero;’ Prompt. Parv. ‘He ¢rampith with the foot;’
Wyclif, Prov. vi. 13. Not in AS., but prob. E.; it isfoundin G. and
Low G., whence the Scand. forms. Cf. Low G. and G. trampen, tram-
peln, to stamp; Dan. trampe, Swed. trampa, to tread, trample on.
From the Teut. base TRAMP, to tread, occurring as the 2nd grade
of the Goth. strong verb ana-trimpan. ‘Managei ana-tramp ina’=
the multitude pressed upon him, lit. trampled on him, Luke, v. 1.
B. This is a nasalised form of the Teut. base TRAP, to tread; see
Trap (1). Der. ¢ramp, sb., a journey on foot; tramp-er, a vagrant
(see Johnson); also tramp, a shortened familiar form of tramper,
both forms being given in Grose’s Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, 1790.
And see tramp-le.
TRAMPLE, to tread under foot. (E.) ME. trampelen;
Prompt. Pary. The frequentative of Tramp, q.v. The sense is,
accordingly, ‘to keep on treading upon.’ Ct. Low G. trampeln, G.
trampeln, to trample, stamp ; from Low (ἃ. and G. trampen, to tramp
or stamp.
TRAM-ROAD, TRAM-WAY ; see Tram.
TRANCE, catalepsy, ecstasy, loss of self-consciousness. (F.—L.)
ME. trance, Chaucer, C. T., A 1572. =F. transe, ‘extreme fear, dread,
...atrance or swoon;’ Cot. <A verbal sb. from the OF. transir,
of which Cot. gives the pp. transi, ‘fallen into a trance or sown,
astonied, amazed, half dead.’—L. transire, to go or pass over 3
whence Ital. ¢ransire, ‘to goe foorth, passe ouer; . . also to fall in a
swoune, to dye or gaspe the last ;’ Florio. [This shows that transire
came to have the sense of ‘die’ or ‘swoon;”’ similarly the OF.
trespasser (our trespass) commonly means ‘to die.’)—L. trans,
across ; and ire, to go; see Transit. Der. en-trance (2). Also
tranc-ed, K. Lear, v. 3. 218.
TRANQUIL, quiet, peaceful. (F.—L.) In Shak. Oth. iii. 3.
348. [The sb. tranguillity is in much earlier use; we find ME.
tranquillitee, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. ii. pr. 4, 1. 99.]—F. tran-
quille, ‘calm;’ Cot.—L. ¢ranguillus, calm, quiet, still. Prob.
associated with gui-és, rest; compare -guillus with E. while. Der.
tranguil-ly ; tranquill-i-ty, from F. tranquillité, ‘tranquillity,’ Cot.,
from L. ace. tranguillitatem. Also tranquill-ise, Thomson, Castle
of Indolence, c. ii. st. 19.
TRANS,, beyond, across, over. (L.) L. ¢rans-, prefix; also as
prep. trans, beyond. Trans is the pres. part. of a verb *trare, to
cross, go beyond, only occurring in i-trare, ex-trare, pene-trare.
Cf. Skt. fara-, a crossing over. Brugmann, ii. § 579. Allied to
Term. B. The comp. suffix -‘er (in Latin) is prob. from the
same root ; cf. pre-ter, sub-ter, in-ter-ior, &c. In composition, ¢rans-
becomes tran- in tran-quil, tran-scend, tran-scribe, tran-sept, tran-spire,
tran-substantiate ; and dra- in tra-ditton, tra-duce, tra-jectory, tra-
montane (though the last is only an Ital., not a Latin spelling) ; also
in tra-verse, tra-vesty.
TRANSACTION, the management of an affair. (F.—L.) In
Cotgrave.=F. transaction, ‘a transaction, accord, agreement ;’ Cot.
=L. transactidnem, acc. of transactio, a completion, an agreement ; cf.
L. transactus, pp. of transigere, to drive or thrust through, also to
settle a matter, complete a business. —L. ¢rans, across, through ;
and agere, to drive; see Trans- and Act. Der. transact-or, in Cot.,
to translate F. transacteur, but perhaps directly from L. transactor,
a manager. Hence was evolved the verb transact, Milton, P. L.
vi. 286.
TRANS-ALPINE, beyond the Alps. (F.—L.) ‘ Transalpine
garbs;’ Beaum. and Fletcher, The Coxcomb, i. 1. -- Ἐς transalpin,
“forraign ;’ Cot.<L. transalpinus, beyond the Alps.—L. trans,
beyond; and Alp-, stem of Alpés, the Alps; with suffix -inus. See
Trans- and Alp. So also trans-atlantic, a coined word, ‘used
by Sir W. Jones in 1782; see Memoirs, &c., p. 217 3’ F. Hall, Mod.
English, p. 275.
TRANSCEND, to surmount, surpass. (L.) In Gawain Douglas,
Palace of Honour, pt. ii. st. 18.—L. ¢ranscendere, to climb over,
surpass.—L,. trans, beyond; and scandere, to climb. See Trans-
and Scan. Der. ¢ranscend-ent, used by Cot. to translate F. ¢ran-
scendant ; transcend-ent-ly, transcendence, All’s Well, ii. 3. 40, from
L. sb. ¢ranscendentia ; transcend-ent-al, given as a mathematical term
in Phillips, ed. 1706; transcend-ent-al-ly, -ism, -ist.
Uu2
660 TRANSCRIBE
TRANSCRIBE, to copy out. (L.) In Minsheu, ed. 1627; and in
Cot., to translate F. ¢ranscrire.= L. transeribere (pp. transcriptus), to
transfer in writing, copy from one book into another.—L. trans,
across, over; and scribere, to write; ‘see Trans- and Scribe.
Der. transcrib-er, Tatler, no. 271, § 3; transcript, in Minsheu, from
L. pp: transcriptus; transcript-ion.
TRANSEPT, the part of a church at right angles to the nave. |
Not an old word; and coined. |
(L.) Lit. ‘a cross-enclosure.’
Oddly spelt transcept in Wood’s Fasti Oxonienses, vol. ii. (R.); of
which the first edition appeared in 1691-2.—L. tran-, for trans,
across; and septum, an enclosure. Septum is from septus, pp. of
sépire or s@pire, to enclose; from s@epés, a hedge.
TRANSFER, to transport, convey to another place. (L.) In
Shak. Sonnet 137. Cot. gives F. pp. transferé, ‘ transferred ;’ but the
E. word was prob. directly from L. transferre, to transport, transfer.
=—L. trans, across; and ferre, to carry, cognate with E. bear. See
Trans- and Bear (1). Der. transfer-able, also spelt transferr-ible
(quite needless) ; transfer-ence, transfer-ee.
TRANSFIGURE, to change the appearance of. (F.—L.) ME.
transfiguren, Chaucer, C. T. 1107 (A 1105).—F. transfigurer, ‘to
transfigure ;’ Cot.—L. transfigirare, to change the figure of.=—L.
trans, across (hence implying change); and figura, figure, outward
appearance. See Trans- and Figure. Der. ¢ransfigurat-ion,
from Ἐς zransfiguration, ‘a transfiguration,’ Cot., from L. acc. ¢rans-
Jigiirationem.
RAWNSFIX, to fix by piercing through. (L.) ‘Quite through
transfixed with a deadly dart ;’ Spenser, F. Ὁ, iii. 12. 21.—L. trans-
Jixus, pp. of transfigere, to thrust through. See Trans- and Fix.
TRANSFORM, to change the form of. (F.—L.) ME. ¢rans-
formen, Wyclif, 2 Cor. iii. 18.—F. transformer, ‘to transform ;”’ Cot.
=L. transformare, to change the form of. = L. ¢rans, across (imply-
ing change); and forma, form. See. Trans- and Form. Der,
transformat-ion, from F. transformation, ‘a transformation,’ Cot.,
from L. acc. transformdationem.
TRAWNSFUSEH, to cause to pass from one person or part into
another, to make to imbibe. (L.) In Milton, P. L. iii. 389, vi. 704.
=—L. transfisus, pp. of transfundere, to pour out of one vessel into
another, to decant, transfuse. = L. ¢rans, across; and fundere, to pour ;
see Trans- and Fuse. Der. transfus-ion.
TRANSGRESSION, violation of a law, sin. (F.—L.) ‘For
the rage of my transgression ;’ Lydgate, Storie of Thebes, pt. iii
(How the Child was slain by a serpent).—F. transgression, ‘a trans-
gression, trespasse ;᾿ Cot.—L. transgressidnem, acc. of transgressio,
a passing over, transposition, also a transgression of the law; cf.
transgressus, pp. of transgredi, to step over, pass over.—L. trans,
across; and gradi, to step, walk ; see Trans- and Grade. Der.
transgress-or, formerly transgressour, Fabyan, Chron. an. 1180, ed.
Ellis, p. 299, from F. ¢ransgresseur, ‘a transgressor,’ Cot., from L.
acc. transgressorem. Hence was made transgress, verb, used by Tyn-
dall, Works, p. 224, col. 1, 1. 3 from bottom. = Observe ¢res-
pass, a similar formation to trans-gress.
TRANSIENT, passing away, not lasting. (L.) In Milton, P. L.
xii. 554. Suggested by L. ¢ransiens, of which the oblique-case stem
is transeunt-, not transient-. [Cf. ambient, from ambire, which is
conjugated regularly.} T’ransiens is the pres. part. of ¢ransire, to go
across, to pass away.—L. ¢rans, across; and ire, to go, from /EI,
to go. See Trans- and Itinerant. Der. éransient-ly, -ness.
Also (like pp. ¢ransitus) transit, in Phillips, ed. 1706, shortened
from L. ¢ransitus,a passing over; transit-ion, Phillips, from L. acc.
transitidnem, a passing over, a transition; transit-ion-al ; transit-ive,
from L. transitiuus, a term applied to a transitive or active verb;
transit-ive-ly, -ness; transit-or-y, Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 128,
suggested by F. transitoire, ‘transitory,’ Cot., from L. transitorius,
liable to pass away, passing away; transit-or-i-ly, -wess. And see
trance.
TRANSLATE, to transfer, move to another place, to render into
another language. (F.—L.) ME. ¢ranslaten, to remove, Gower,
C. A. i. 261; bk. ii. 3044.—F. translater, ‘to translate, . . reduce,
or remove;”’ (οἵ. “Ταῖς L. é‘ranslitare, to translate, in use in the
12th century. —L. ¢ranslatus, transferred; used as the pp. of ¢rans-
Jerre, but really from a different root,.—L. ¢razs, across; and létus,
carried, borne, for *#latus, from 4/TEL, to lift, bear, whence L.
tollere, to lift. See Trans-and Tolerate. Der. translat-ion, ME.
translacioun, Chaucer, C. T. 15493 (ἃ 25), from F. translation, ‘a
translation,’ Cot., from L. translatidnem, acc. of translatio, a trans-
ference, transferring.
TRANSLUCENT, clear, allowing light to pass through. (L.)
In Milton, Comus, 861.—L. ¢ransliicent-, stem of pres. part. of
translacére, to shine through.—L. trans, through; and “ποῦν,
to shine; see Trans- and Lucid. Der. zranslucent-ly, trans-
lucence.
TRANSPORT
TRANSMARINE, beyond the sea. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674.—L. transmarinus, beyond sea.—L. trans, beyond; and
mar-e, sea; with suffix -izus. See Trans- and Marine. -
TRANSMIGRATION, the passing into another country or
state of existence. (F.—L.) Spelt ¢ransmygracioun, Trevisa, i. 33,
1. 20, —F. transmigration, ‘a transmigration, a flitting or shifting of
aboad ;’ Cot.—L. transmigratidnem, acc. of transmigritio, a remov-
ing from one country to another.—L. transmigrare, to migrate
across, from one place to another. See Trans- and Migrate.
| Der. (from L. pp. transmigratus) transmigrate, Antony, ii. 7. 51;
transmigrat-or, transmigrat-or-y,
TRANSMIT, to cause or suffer to pass through, to deliver. (L.)
In Holland, tr. of Plutarch, p. 576 (R.).—L. transmittere, to cause
to go across, send over, dispatch, transmit.—L. trans, across; and
mittere, to send; see Trans- and Mission. Der. transmitt-al,
transmitt-er ; transmiss-ion, Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 2, from L. ace. trans-
missiénem ; transmiss-ible, from Ἐς, transmissible, ‘ transmittable,’ Cot. ;
transmiss-ibil-i-ty.
TRANSMUTE, to change to another form or substance. (L.)
*(He} transmutyd the sentence of deth vnto perpetuyte of pryson ;’
Fabyan, Chron. c. 159. [The ME. form was transmuen, or trans-
mewen, Chaucer, C. T. 8261 (E 385), from F. ¢ransmuer, ‘to change
or alter cver,’ Cot., from L. transmutare.|—L. iransmiitare, to change
into another form. =L. zrans, across (implying change) ; and mitare,
to change; see Trans- and Mutable. Der. transmut-able;
transmut-at-ion, spelt transmutacioun, Chaucer, C. T. 2841 (A 2839),
from Ἐς, ¢rans-mutation, ‘a transmutation, alteration,’ Cot., from
L. acc. trans-mitationem.
TRANSOM, a thwart-piece across a double window; the lintel
over a door; in ships, a beam across the stern-post to strengthen the
after-part. (L.) ‘ Z'ransome, or lintell ouer a dore;’ Baret, ed. 1580.
‘The transome of a bed, trabula;’ Levins. ‘ Meneau de fenestre, the
transome, or cross-bar of a window;’ Cot. ‘ Beames, prickeposts,
groundsels, summers or dormants, ¢razsoms, and such principals;’
Harrison, Desc. of England, b. ii. c. 12, ed, Furnivall, p. 233.
Spelt rampsom, meaning the part cf the bedstead between the two
headposts, Bury Wills, p. 23 (1463); spelt #-auusom, Paston Letters,
lil. 407. (Halliwell. notes the spelling ¢ransumpt, but this is a
corrupt form; the real meaning of ¢ransumpt is a copy of a record ;
see Transumpt in Cot. Webster says it is sometimes spelt ¢ransummer,
but I can nowhere find it, and such a spelling is obviously due to
confusion with summer, a beam, as used in the above quotation from
Harrison. | B. It is a corruption of 1... ¢ranstrum, used as an
architectural and nautical term. It means precisely a transom, in
all its senses. ‘T'ranstra et tabule nauium dicuntur et tigna, quae
ex pariete in parietem porriguntur;’ Festus (White). ‘ T’ransoms
est vox Architectonica et transversas trabes notat, Vitruvio traustra ;’
Skinner, 1671 Cooper's Thesaurus (1565) explains L. transtrum
by ‘a ¢ransome going ouerthwarte an house.’ Florio explains MItal.
transtri as ‘crosse or overthwart beames, transtroms;’ and trasto as
‘a transome or beame going crosse a house.’ sy. The L. transtrum
is derived from L. trans, orig. ‘ going across’ (see Trans-) ; -rum
is a suffix, denoting the agent, as in ard-trum, that which ploughs.
Hence trans-trum=that which goes across; cf. in-trans, going in.
TRANSPARENT, clear, allowing objects to be seen through.
(F.—L.) In Shak. L. L. L. iv. 3. 31.—F. transparent, ‘transparent,
clear-shining ;’ Cot.—L. trans, through ; and’ parent-, stem. of pres.
part. of parére, to appear; see Trans- and Appear. Der. érans-
parent-ly, -ness ; transparenc-y.
TRANSPICUOUS, transparent, translucent. (L.) In Milton,
P. L. viii. 141. Coined, as if from L. *transpicuns, from L. tran-
spicere, to see or look through; see Conspicuous, Perspicuous.
“Τρ trans, through; and sfecere, to look; see Trans- and Spy.
TRANSPIERCE, to pierce through. (F.—L.) Used by Dray-
ton; Civil War, bk. vi. last stanza.—F. transpercer, ‘to pierce
through;” Cot. See Trans- and Pierce.
TRANSPIRB, to pass through the pores of the skin, to become
public, or ooze out. (L.) In Milton, P. L. v. 438.—L. tran-, for
trans, through; and spirare, to breathe, respire. See Trans- and
Spirit. Der. sranspir-at-ion, from F. transpiration, ‘a transpira-
tion, evaporation,’ Cot. This sb. prob. really suggested Milton’s
verb.
TRANSPLANT, to plant in a new place. (F.—L.) In Cot-
grave.=F, ¢ransplanter, ‘to transplant ;’ Cot.—L. ¢ransplantare.—
L. trans, across, implying change; and flantare, to plant. See
Trans-and Plant. Der. transplant-at-ion, from F. transplantation,
‘a transplantation,’ Cot.
TRANSPORT, to carry to another place, carry away by passion
or pleasure, to banish. (F.—L.) In Spenser, Hymn 4, Of Heavenly
Beauty, 1. 18.—F. ¢ransporter, ‘to transport, transter;’ Cot.—L.
‘ransportare, to carry across. = L. érans, across; and poriare, to carry.
TRANSPOSE
See Trans- and Port (1).
Forest, go;
port-at-ion.
TRANSPOSE, to change the position of, change the order of.
(F.—L. and Gk.) ME. transposen, Gower, C. A. ii. 90; bk. iv.
2056. —F, transposer, ‘to transpose, translate, remove;’ Cot. See
Trans- and Pose. Der. transpos-al.
TRANSPOSITION, a change in the order of words, &c.
(F.—L.) In Cotgrave.—F. transposition, ‘a transposition, removall
out of one place into another;’ Cot. See Trans- and Position.
G Not ultimately connected with ¢ranspose, which is from a different
source.
TRANSUBSTANTIATION, the doctrine that the bread and
wine in the Eucharist are changed into Christ’s body and blood.
(F,—L.) In Tyndall, Works, p. 447, col. 2; he also has ¢ransub-
stantiated, id. p. 445, col. 2.—F. transubstantiation; Cot.—Late L.
transubstantiationem, acc, of transubstantiatio; see Hildebert, Bp. of
Tours, Sermon 93. Hildebert died in 1134 (Trench, Study of Words).
Cf. Late L, transubstantiatus, pp. of transubstantiare, coined from trans,
Der. (friansport, sb., Pope, Windsor
transport-able; transport-ance, Troil, iii. 2. 125 trans-
“ιν
across (implying change}, and substantia, substance. See Trans-
and Substance.
TRANSVERSE, lying across or cross-wise. (L.) ‘But all
things tost and turned by ¢ransverse,’ Spenser, F. Q. vii. 7.56; where
by transverse=in a confused manner, or reversedly, = L. ¢ransuersus,
turned across; hence, athwart. Orig. pp, of ¢ransuertere, to turn
across. See Trans- and Verse. And see Traverse. Der.
transverse-ly,
TRAP (1), an instrument or deyice for ensnaring animals. (E.)
ME. trappe, Chaucer, C. T. 145. AS. treppe, a trap; /Elfric’s
Colloquy (Fowler); for *treppe; cf. be-treppan, to entrap; A. 8.
Chron. an. 992. But the pronunciation has perhaps been affected
by F. trappe, a trap, a word of Teut. origin.--MDu. trappe, ‘a trap
to catch mice in;’ Hexham; OHG. trapa, trappa, a snare, trap
[whence Low L. trappa, Ital. trappa, F. trappe, Span. trampa, a trap
(Diez) }. B. Orig. sense ‘step;’ the ¢rap is that on which an
animal steps, or puts its foot, and is so caught. Cf. Westphal.
trappe, a step; Du. trap, a stair, step, kick; G. treppe, a flight of
steps; Swed. trappa, a stair; allied to Du. ¢rappen, to tread on,
EFries. and Low G, trappen, Norw. trappa, to tread on, trample.
Allied to Tramp. The nasalised form ¢ramp appears in Span.
trampa, a trap. Der. trap, verb, spelt ¢rappe in Palsgrave; trap-
door, a door falling and shutting with a catch; also en-trap, q. ν.
Also trap-ball or trap-bat, a game played with a ball, bat, and a
trap which, when lightly tapped, throws the ball into the air. And
see trap (3).
TRAP (2), to adorn, or ornament with gay dress or clothing.
(F.—Teut.) The pp. rapped occurs in Chaucer: ‘Upon a stede
bay, trapped in stele,’ C. T. 2159 (A 2157); and see 1. 2892
(A 2890). This is formed from a sb, ¢rappe, meaning the trappings or
ornaments of a horse. ‘Mony ¢rappe, mony croper’ = many a
trapping, many a crupper; King Alisaunder, 3421. ‘Upon a stede
whyt so milke ; His trappys wer off tuely sylke;’ Rich,,Cuer de Lion,
1515; where ¢vely means ‘scarlet.’ Coined, with unusual change
from dr to ἐγ (by sound association with trap (1)), from F. drap,
cloth; as shown by Chaucer’s use of ¢rappure, trappings of a horse, ,
C. T., A 2499, from OF. drapure, trappings of a horse (Godefroy). |
We also find Late L. ¢rapus, cloth (usually drappus), Span. and Port.
trapo, cloth; Late L. trappatira, a horse’s trappings. See Drape. |
. Cf. F. draper, ‘to dress, or to full cloath; to beat, or thicken, as
cloath, in the fulling.’. Possibly for *traper; in which case it may
come from Low ὦ. and Du. ¢rappen, to tread upon, trample on
(hence, to full cloth). See Trap (1). Der. trapp-ings, 5: pl., orna-
ments for a horse, Shak. Venus, 286, hence, any ornaments, Hamlet, |
i. 2. 86. Also rattle-traps, q. v.
TRAP (3), a kind of igneous rock. (Swed.) Modern. So called
because such rocks often appear in large tabular masses, rising above '
each other like steps (Webster).—Swed. ¢rappa, a stair, or flight of |
stairs, ¢rapp, trap (rock) ; Dan. trappe, a stair, traf, trap. Du. trap, |
a stair, step; G. treppe, a stair. See Trap (1) and Tramp.
TRAPAN, the same as Trepan (2), q.v.
TRAPEZIUM, a plane four-sided figure with unequal sides.
(L.—Gk.) In Phillips, ed. 1706. Also. in M. Blundeyile’s Exer-
cises, 1594, fol. 36b (wrongly marked 39 b).—L. trapezium, =—Gk.
τραπέζιον, a small table or counter; a trapezium, because four-sided,
like suchatable. Dimin. of τράπεζα, atable, esp.adining-table. Cf. |
ἀργυρόπεζα, i.e. silver-footed, as an epithet of Thetis. —Gk. τρα-, allied |
to rerpa-, prefix signifying ‘ four,’ as in τετρά-γωνος, four-cornered, |
from τέτταρες, Attic for τέσσαρες, four; and πέζα, a foot, for *7é5-ya, |
an allied word to πούς (stem ποδ-), a foot, which is cognate with EK.
foot. See Tetragon and Foot. Der. trapezo-id, lit. ‘trapezium- |
like,’ from τράπεζο-, for τράπεζα, and εἶδ-ος, form; trapezo-id-al.
| Shakespeare (Schmidt).
| Every Man, ii. 5. 32.
(Ὁ.
TRAVERSE 661
Also trapeze, from F. trazéze, the name of a kind of swing for
athletic exercise, so called {rom being sometimes made in the shape
of a trapezium, as thus: 44. The F. trapeze is from L. trapezium.
TRAPPINGS, horse-ornaments; see Trap (2).
TRAPPIST, a member of a certain monastic body. (F.) ‘Named
from the village of Soligny-la-Trappe, in the department of Ore,
France, where the abbey of Ja Trappe was founded in 1140 ;’ Cent.
Dict.
TRASH, refuse, worthless stuff. (Scand.) In Shak. Temp. iv. 223;
Oth, iii. 3. 157; hence used of a worthless person, Oth. ii, 1. 312,
v. 1. 85. The orig, sense is clippings of trees, as stated by Wedg-
wood, or (yet more exactly) the bits of broken sticks found under
trees in a wood, and collected. for fire-wood. Wedgwood quotes
from Evelyn as follows, with a reference to Notes and Queries, Junert,
1853: ‘Faggots to be every stick of three foot in length—this to
prevent the abuse of filling the middle part and ends with trash and
short sticks.” Hence it came to mean refuse generally ; Cotgraye
explains meniiailles by ‘small ware, small ¢rask, small offals.” Of
Scand. origin. Cf. Icel. ¢ros, rubbish, leaves and twigs from a tree
picked up and used for fuel, whence ¢rosza, to become worn out, to
split up as a seam does; cf, trassi, a slovenly fellow, ¢rassa, to be
slovenly. Norweg. ¢rask, trash, scraps (Ross); éras, small pieces
(Ross) ; ἔλαβα, a rag, tatter (Ross); d¢rase, the same ; also ¢ros, fallen
twigs, half-rotten branches easily broken, allied to ¢rysja, to break
into small pieces, to crackle. Swed. ¢rasa, arag,a tatter; Swed. dial,
trase, a rag; tris, a heap of sticks, a worthless fellow (which is one
sense of Cleveland ¢rash), oid useless bits of fencing. B. Rietz
points out the true origin ; he adduces Swed. dial. s/é 7 tras; to break
in pieces, which is obyiously the same phrase as Swed. s/é i kras, to
break in pieces ; the substitution of t for kr being a Scan. peculiarity,
of which we have an undoubted example in Icel. érani, Swed. trana,
Dan. rane, all variants of the word which we spell crane ; see Crane.
Hence the etym. is from Swed. srasa, Dan. krase, to crash, as a
thing does when broken; see Crash. The Icel. form tros answers
to Swed. krossa, to bruise, crush, crash, a collateral form of krasa;
ef. Orkney ¢russ, refuse, also prov, E. ¢rous, the trimmings of a
hedge (Halliwell). γ. Thus ¢rash means ‘crashings,’ i.e. pieces
that break off short with a snap or crash, dry twigs; hence also
a bit of torn stuff, a rag, &c. Φ4{ This throws no light on ¢rash,
as in Shak, Temp. i. 2. 81; which has prob.. a different origin,
perhaps trace (2). Der. ¢rash-y. ,
TRAVAIL, toil, labour in child-birth.. (F.—L.) ME. trauail
(with « for v), Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 130, 1. 32.—F. ¢ravail, ‘travell,
toile, labour, business, pains-taking;’ Cot. [Cf. Ital. travaglio,
Span. trabajo, Port. trabalho, Prov, trabalhs (Bartsch), toil, labour ;
orig. an obstacle or impediment, which is still a sense of Span.
trabajo.) According to P. Meyer (Romania, xvii. 421) it answers to
Late L. trepalium, a kind of rack for torturing martyrs (Ducange) ;
perhaps made of three beams (¢res pali). Others equate it to Late
L. *trabaculum, which might have been formed from L, ¢trab-, base
of L. trabs, trabes, a beam. Cf. L. trabile, an axle-tree; and see
Trave. 4 The ΔΝ, ¢rafael, travail, is borrowed from English.
Der, travail, verb, ME, trauaillen, King Alisaunder, 1612, Old Eng.
Miscellany, p. 34,.1. 3, from F. ¢ravailler, ‘to travell, toile, also
to harry, weary, vex, infest ;’ Cot. Doublet, ¢ravel. :
TRAVE, a beam, a shackle. (F.—L.) ‘ 7'rave, a frame into which
farriers put unruly horses;” Halliwell, ‘ rave, Travise, a. place
enclosed with rails for shooing an unruly horse ;’ Bailey, vol, i. ed,
1735. . ‘ Trave, a trevise or little room made purposely to shoo un-
broken horses in;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. ‘Treuys, to shoe.a
wylde horse in, tranayl a cheual;’ Palsgrave. ME. ¢raue (with, u
for v) ; ‘And she sprong as a colt doth in the ¢raue;’ Chaucer, C. T.
3282.—OF. rave, a beam, Godefroy; traf, a beam,, given in the
Supp. to Roquefort; usually ¢ref, ‘the beam of a house;’ Cot.
(Cf. MItal. ¢rave, ‘any kinde of beame;’ Florio.]—L. trabem, acc.
of trabes or trabs,a beam, Der, archj-trave, q. y.
TRAVEL, to journey, walk. (F.—L.) Merely the same word
as travail; the two forms are used indiscriminately in old editions of
So also travail, to travel; in Ben Jonson,
The word forcibly recalls the toil of travel in
former days. See Travail. Der, travel, verb; travell-er, L.L, L.
iv. 3. 308. Doublet, travail, :
TRAVERSE, laid across; as sb.,.a cross, obstruction, a thing
built across ; as a verb, to cross, obstruct, deny an argument, also to
pass over a country. (F.—L.) ‘Trees . . hewen downe, and laid
trauers, one ouer another ;’ Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol. ii. c. 186
‘Smote his hors traverse;’ Malory, Morte Arthure, bk. x.
c. 65. Gower has fravers as a sb., meaning ‘ cross’ or impediments,
in the last line but 14 of his Conf. Amantis. - Ἐς travers, m., traverse,
f., crosse-wise, overthwart;? Cot. (Hence the sb. traverse, ‘a cross-
way, also , . a thwart, .. let, bar, hinderance ;’ id. ; also the verb
662 TRAVERTINE, TRAVERTIN
traverser, ‘to thwart or go overthwart, to crosse or passe over,’ id.)
=L. ¢ransuersus, turned across, laid athwart; pp. of ¢ransuertere, to
turn across; see Transverse. Der. traverse, verb, in Malory,
M.A. bk. x. c. 30, from Εἰ. traverser, as above; travers-er.
TRAVERTINE, TRAVERTIN, a kind of white lime-stone.
(Ital.—L.) Used for building. Spelt T'reuertino, R. Eden, Three
Books on America, ed. Arber,p. 367. — Ital. ¢ravertino, MItal. tivertino,
“a kind of stone to build withall’ (Florio). —L. Tibertinus, belonging
to Tibur, the modern Tivoli.
TRAVESTY, a parody. (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘ Scarronides, or Virgile
Travestie, being the first book of Virgils A®neis in English Burlesque ;
London, 1664; ’ by Charles Cotton. Probably ¢travestie is here used
in the lit. sense of ‘ disguised,’ or as we should now say, ¢ravestied.
It is properly a pp., being borrowed from Εἰ, travesti, pp. of se ἐγα-
vestir, ‘to disguise or shift his apparell, to play the counterfeit ;’
Cot. Ital. ¢ravestire, ‘to disguise or shift in apparel, to maske;”
Florio.—L. trans, prefix, lit. across, but implying change; and
uestire, to clothe. The verb uestire is from the sb, weséis, clothing.
See Trans- and Vest. Der. travesty, verb.
TRAWL, to fish with a drag-net. (F.—Teut.) ‘ Trawler-men, a
sort of fishermen that us’d unlawful arts and engines, to destroy the
fish upon the river Thames ; among whom some were styl’d hebber-
men, others tinckermen, Petermen, &c.;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. —OF.
trauler, to go hither and thither (Roquefort) ; Walloon /rauler, the
same (Sigart); mod. Prov. traula; also OF. troller, mod. F. tréler,
to drag about; Hamilton. See Troll. @ Quite distinct from
trail.
TRAY, a shallow vessel, a salver. (E.) ‘A ¢reie, or such hollowe
vessel . . that laborers carrie morter in to serue tilers or plasterers ;’
Baret, ed. 1580. ME. ¢reye; ‘ Bolles, ¢reyes, and platers,’ i. 6. bowls,
trays, and platters; Rich. Cuer de Lion, 1. 1490. AS. éryg, written
trig; A. 5. Leechdoms, ii. 340. Derived, by mutation, from AS. frog,
a trough; see Trough. Cf. Low G. triigge (Stratmann); deriv. of
trog, trough; Icel. ¢rygil7, a little trough, tray ; Swed. dial. trygel,
Norw. irygel. The alleged AS. treg is an error for frog; but
treg might be a Kentish form of ¢ryg, and would give ME. trey.
REACHERY, faithlessness, trickery of a gross kind. (F.—L.)
ME. trecherie, spelt treccherye, P. Plowman, B. i. 196; older spelling
tricherie, id. A. i. 172; Ancren Riwle, p. 202, ]. 18.—OF. ¢recherie,
tricherie, Godefroy ; MF. tricherie, ‘whence, as it seems, our trechery,
cousenage, deceit, a cheating, a beguiling ;’ Cot.—OF. trechier, tri-
chier, MF. tricher, ‘to cousen, cheat, beguile, deceive; "id. Cf. Ital.
treccare, to cheat; Prov. tricharia, treachery, ¢trichaire, a traitor. =
Late L. *triccare, for tricare, to dally (Ecclus. xxxii. 15), L. tricari,
to make difficulties. = L. srice, pl., difficulties, wiles ; see Intricate.
See Korting, § 9727. But prob. confused with Du. trek, a stroke;
see further under Trickery. Der. ¢reacher-ous, Spenser, F. Q.
i. 6. 41, spelt trecherous, Pricke of Conscience, 4232, coined by adding
the suffix -ous to the old word ¢recher, a traitor, spelt trichour in Rob.
of Glouc. p. 455, l. 9329, ¢recchour in Wyclif’s Works, ed. Matthew,
. 239, 1.6; treacherous-ly, -ness. Korting, § 9727.
TREACLE, the syrup drained from sugar in making it. (F.—L.
—Gk.) ΜΕ. itriacle, a medicament, a sovereign remedy (very
common), P. Plowman, C. ii. 147, B. i. 146; see my note on it, ex-
plaining the matter. It had some resemblance to the ¢reacle which
has inherited its name.— OF, triacle, ‘treacle,’ Cot. The / is unori-
ginal; ¢riacle is only another spelling of OF. ¢heriaque, ‘treacle ;’
Cot.=—L. thériaca, an antidote against the bite of serpents, or against
poison ; also spelt ¢hériacé. Gk. θηριακός, belonging to wild or
venomous beasts ; hence θηριακὰ φάρμακα, antidotes against the bite
of venomous animals; and (no doubt) *@npraxn, sb. sing. fem., in the
same sense, whence L. thériacé. Gk. θηρίον, a wild animal, poison-
ous animal ; dimin. of θήρ, a wild beast, AZolic pnp ; cf. Russ. zvier(e),
a wild beast ; Lith. éwéris,a wild beast ; L. ferus. Brugmann, i. § 319.
TREAD, to set down the foot, tramp, walk. (E.) ME. treden ;
pt. τ. ¢rad, Ormulum, 2561; pp. troden, treden, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 12646
(C 712). AS. tredan, pt. τ. tred, pp. treden, Grein, ii. 550.4-Du.
treden; G. treten, pt. t. trat, pp. getreten. We find also Icel.
troda, pt. t. 4rad, pp. trodinn ; which accounts for our pp. trodden ;
Dan. trede ; Swed. trada; Goth. trudan, to tread, pt.t. trath. Teut.
type */redan-, pt. τ. *trad, pp. *trudanoz. Der. tread-le or tredd-le,
the same as ME, ¢redyl, a step, AS. tredel ; ‘Bases, tredelas vel
stepas,’ i.e. steps; Voc. 117.6. Also tread-mill; trade, q.v.
TREASON, a betrayal of the government, or an attempt to over-
throw it. (F.—L.) ME. traison, treison; spelt trayson, Havelok,
444; treisun, Ancren Riwle, p. 56, 1. 17.—OF. ¢traison, mod. F.
trahison, treason, betrayal. L, acc. traditidnem, betrayal. = L. tradere,
to deliver, betray; see Traitor. Der. ‘reason-able, treason-abl-y.
Doublet, ¢radition.
TREASURE, wealth stored up, a hoard. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME.
tresor, occurring very early, in the A. S. Chron. an. 1137. —OF.
TREMBLE
tresor, mod. F. trésor, treasure. [Cf. Ital. ¢esoro, Span. tesoro, Port.
thesouro, spelt without r after 4.]—L. thésaurum, acc. of thésaurus, a
treasure. — Gk. θησαυρός, a treasure, a store, hoard; formed (it is not
very clear with what suffixes) from the base 67-, to lay up, as seen in
τίθημι, I place, lay up; or from θησ-, as in the future θήστω. See
Theme, Thesis. Der. treasure, verb, Shak. Sonnet 6; ¢reasur-er,
from F. ¢resorier, spelt thesorier in Cot., and explained by ‘a
threasurer ;’ treasur-y, ME. tresorie, tresorye, Rob. of Glouc. p. 274,
1. 5540, contracted from OF. ¢resorerie, spelt thresorerie in Cotgrave,
so that ¢reasury is short for ¢reasurery. Also treasure-trove, i.e.
treasure found; see Trover. Doublet, thesaurus.
TREAT, to handle in a particular manner, to entertain, manage
by applying remedies, discourse of. (F.—L.) ME, treten, Wyclif,
Mark, ix, 32; Chaucer, C. T. 12455 (C 521). —F. traiter, to treat. =
L. tractare, to handle; frequent. form of trakere (pp. tractus), to
draw; see Trace. Der. treat-ment, from F. traitement; treat-ise,
ME. ?retis, Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, prol. 1. 8, from OF. ¢retis,
treitis, traictis (see traictis in Roquefort), meaning (a thing) well
handled or nicely made, attractive, admirable, an adj. which was even
applied by Chaucer to the Prioress’s nose, C. T. 152, and answering
to a Late L. form *tractitius. Also treat-y, ME. tretee, Chaucer, C. T.
1290 (A 1288), from F. ¢raité (traicté in Cotgrave), ‘a treaty,’
properly the pp. of traiter, to treat, and therefore ‘a thing treated of.’
TREBLE, threefold; the highest part in music. (F.—L.) Why
the highest part in music is called ¢reble is not clear; it is usually
explained as being the third part, after the tenor and alto. In this
sense, it is the same word as when it means /riple. Indeed, we find
triple used by Fairfax in the musical sense of treble. ‘The human
yoices sung a ¢riple hie ;’ Fairfax, tr. of Tasso, b. xviii. st. 24. Pals-
grave has: ‘ Treble of a song, le dessus; Treble-stryng of an instru-
ment, chanterelle.’ Keginald atte Pette, in 1456, bequeathed 6s. 8d.
towards the making of a new bell called ¢rebyll ; Testamenta Vetusta,
ed. Nicholas, p. 286. ME. treble, threefold, Gower, C. A. iii. 159;
bk. vii. 2202. — OF. treble, triple (Burguy). = L. triplum, acc. of triplus,
triple. See Triple. For the change from > to 4, cf. E. double, due
to L. duplus. Der. treble, verb, Temp. iii. 1. 221; trebl-y, Doublet,
triple.
TREDDLBE, the same as Treadle ; see Tread.
TREE, a woody plant, of a large size. (E.) ME. tree, tre; also
used in the sense of timber. ‘ Not oneli vessels of gold and of siluer,
but also of tree and of erthe;’ Wyclif, 2 Tim. ii. 20. AS. ¢réo,
treow, a tree, also dead wood or timber; Grein, ii. 551.4Icel. tré ;
Dan. tre ; Swed. tra, timber; ¢rad, a tree, a corruption of ¢raet, lit.
‘the wood,’ with the post-positive article; Goth. ¢riu (gen. triwis), a
tree, piece of wood. B. All from Teut. type *¢rewom, n., a tree,
Fick, iii. 118; further allied to Russ. drevo, a tree, W. derw, an oak,
Trish. darag, darog, an oak, Gk. δρῦς, an oak, Skt. dru-, wood; cf.
Gk. δόρυ, a spear-shaft, Skt. daru, wood, a species of pine. y. Ben-
fey connects Skt. dru- and daru with the root 4/DER, to tear, rend,
whence E, tear ; see Tear (1); so also Fick, i. 615, 616. The ex-
planation is that it meant a piece of cleft wood; cf. Gk. δέρειν, to
flay, E. tear, to rend. But this is improbable. Brugmann, i. ὃ 486.
Der. tre-én, adj., made of wood, or belonging to a tree, Spenser,
F. Q.i. 7. 26, Cursor Mundi, 12392; with suffix -ex asin gold-en,
wood-en. Also tree-nail, a peg, a pin or nail made of wood, a nautical
term. And see rhodo-den-dron, dryad.
TREFOIL, a three-leaved plant such as the white and red clover.
(F.—L.} Given by Cot. as the tr. of F. trefffe.—AF. ¢rifoil; in a
Vocabulary pr. in Voc. 556. 33, we find AF. ¢rifoil answering to L.
trifolium and E. wite clouere {white clover].—L. trifolium, a three-
leaved plant, as above.—L. ¢ri-, prefix allied to ¢rés, three; and
folium, a leaf; see Tri- and Foil.
TRELLIS, a structure of lattice-work, (F.—L.) ME. trelis.
‘ Trelys, of a wyndow or other lyke, Cancellus ;” Prompt. Parv. =F.
treillis, ‘a trellis ;’ Cot. - Ἐς treiller, ‘to grate or lattice, to support
or underset by, or hold in with, crossed bars or latticed frames ;’ Cot. ;
F. ¢reille, ‘an arbor or walk set on both sides with vines, &c. twining
about a latticed frame;’ id.—Late L. ¢richila, tricla, a bower,
arbour, or summer-house. Origin doubtful. @ Quite distinct
from F. ¢reillis, sackcloth, OF. ¢reilis, treslis, adj., applied to armour
covered with a sort of lattice-work, Late L, ¢rislicium, a covering of
sackcloth. L. ¢rés, three ; Jicium, a thread. But the suffix -is in the
former OF. ¢reillis seems to have been due to association with this
latter word. Der. trellis-ed.
TREMBLE, to shiver, shake, quiver. (F.—L.) ME. tremblen,
P. Plowman, B. ii. 235.—F. trembler, ‘to tremble ;’ Cot. The ὃ is
excrescent, as is common after m. — Late L, ¢remulire, to hesitate, lit.
to tremble. —L. ¢remulus, trembling. —L. trem-ere, to tremble, with
adj. suffix -ud-us.4-Lithuan. ¢rim-ti, to tremble; Gk. τρέμ-ειν, to
tremble. —4/TREM, to tremble; Fick, i. 604; Brugmann, i. § 474.
Der. ¢rembl-er, trembl-ing-ly. From L. tremere are also ¢rem-or, in
TRENCH
Phillips, borrowed from L. tremor, a trembling ; /rem-end-ous, also in
Phillips, from L. tremendus, that ought to be feared, fut. pass. part.
of tremere ; trem-end-ous-ly ; trem-ul-ous, Englished from L. tremulus,
as above ; ¢rem-u/l-ous-ly, -ness.
TRENCH, a kind of ditch or furrow. (F.—L.?) ME. trenche,
Chaucer, C. T. 10706; (F 392). Shortened from Εἰ, trenchée, ‘a
trench,’ Cot., lit. a thing cut.—F. ¢rencher (now spelt trancher), ‘to
cut, carve, slice, hack, hew;’ Cot. Cf. Span. ¢rinchea, a trench,
trinchar, to carve, trincar, to chop; Port. ¢rinchar, to carve, frincar,
to crack asunder, break; Ital. ¢rizcea, a trench, frinciare, to cut,
carve. B. There is no satisfactory solution of this word; see
Littré, Scheler, and Diez. Prob. Latin; apparently from Late L.
trencare, to cut, substituted for L. ¢runcare, to lop, from ¢runcus, the
trunk of a tree. We may notice, in Florio, Ital. ¢rincare, ‘to trim or
smug up,’ /rinci, ‘gardings, fringings, lacings, iaggings, also cuts,
lags, or snips in garments.’ Der. trench, verb, Macb. iii. 4. 27, from
trencher, to cut; ¢rench-ant, cutting, Timon, iv. 3. 115, from F.
trenchant, pres. part. of trencher ; trench-er, a wooden plate for cutting
things on, ME. ¢érenchere, Voc. 610. 17, from F. trencheoir, ‘a
trencher,’ Cot., OF. trencheor. Cf. Trinket (1).
TREND, to turn or bend away, said of direction or course. (E.)
See Nares. ‘The shoare trended to the southwestward ;’ Hakluyt,
Voyages, i. 276, § 7. ‘By the trending of the land [you] come
backe ;’ id. i. 383. ΜΕ. trenden, to roll or turn about. ‘Lat hym
rollen and ¢renden,’ &c. ; Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. iii. met. τα. 1. 2.
The word is E., being formed from the same source as AS. trendel,
a circle, a ring, esp. a ring seen round the sun, A. S.Chron. an. 806 ;
cf. AS. ¢ryndel, a ring. Allied words are Dan. ¢rind, adj. round,
trindt, adv. around, trindes, to grow round; Swed. ¢rind, round,
cylindrical ; OFriesic trind, trund, round ; see Trundle. Cf. trendil,
a hoop, mill-wheel, trendle, to trundle, in Levins, ed. 1570 ; trindals,
rolls of wax, Cranmer’s Works, ii. 155, 503 (Parker Soc.). All from
the Teut. str. vb. *¢rend-an-, to roll; whence AS. ¢rendan, to roll
(Napier), and @-trend-lian, to roll.
TRENTAL, a set of thirty masses for the dead. (F.—L.) See
the poem of St. Gregory’s Trental, in Polit. Relig. and Love Poems,
ed. Furnivall, p. 83, and my note on P. Plowman, C. x. 320. See
Spenser, Mother Hubbard’s Tale, 453; and see Nares. —OF. trentel,
trental, a trental, set of thirty masses; Roquefort. Cf. Low L.
trentile, a trental.—F. trente, thirty. —L. triginta, thirty.—L. tri-,
thrice, allied to ¢rés, three; and -ginta, i.e. -cinta, short for *decinta
=*decenta, tenth, from decem, ten. See Three and Ten.
TREPAN (1), a small cylindrical saw used in removing a piece
of a fractured skull. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. trepane, Lanfrank, Cirur-
gie, p. 127. Spelt ‘repane in Cot.—MF. trepan, ‘a trepane, an
instrument having a round and indented edge,’ &c.; Cot. —Late L.
trepanum (for *trypanum). —Gk. tpvmavoy,acarpenter’s tool, a borer,
augur; also a surgical instrument, a trepan (Galen). — Gk. τρυπᾷν, to
bore. — Gk. τρῦπα, τρύπη, a hole. Ultimately from 4/TER, to pierce ;
as in L. terere, to bore, Gk. τείρειν (for *rép-yerv).
TREPAN (2), TRAPAN, to ensnare. (F.—Teut.) In Butler,
Hudibras, pt. ii. c. 3. 1.617. Usually spelt ¢repan, as in Phillips, by
aridiculous confusion with the word above. Rightly spelt ¢rapan in
South’s Sermons, vol, ν. ser. 3 (R.), and in Anson’s Voyages, b.i. c. 9
(R.). ‘ Forthwith alights the innocent ¢rapann’d ;’ Cotton, Wonders
of the Peak, 1681, p. 38 (Todd). ‘For fear his words they should
trapan;’ Tom Thumb (1630); in E. Eng. Pop. Poetry, ii. 247.
Not an old word. —OF. trappan, asnare or trap for animals (Roque-
fort) ; he also gives ¢rapant, a kind of trap-door ; OF. trapan, trapant,
a plank (Godefroy).—Late L. ¢rapentum, a plank for a trap-door. =
F. trappe, a trap. —OHG. trappa, a trap; see Trap (1). 4 The
E. word is now only used as a verb, but it must have come in as a
sb. in the first instance, as it is used by South: ‘It is indeed a real
trapan,’ i.e. stratagem, Serm. ii. 377; ‘ Nothing but gins, and snares,
and érapans for souls,’ Serm. iii. 166 (Todd). The last quotation
puts the matter in avery clearlight. Cotgrave has the verb attrapper,
and the 505. ‘rape, trapelle, attrapoire.
TREPANG;; see Tripang.
TREPHINE, an improved form of the trepan. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Ἐς tréphine; in Littré; not in Hatzfeld. An arbitrary variant of
trétan; see Trepan (1).
TREPIDATION, terror, trembling, fright. (F.—L.) In Milton,
P. L. iii. 483, where it is used in an astronomical sense. ‘ A continual
trepidation,’ i.e. trembling motion, Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 137.—F. ¢re-
pidation, ‘trembling, terrour;’ Cot.=—L. ¢repidationem, acc. of trepi-
datio, alarm, a trembling.=L. trepidare, to tremble.—L. trepidus,
agitated, disturbed, alarmed. Allied to OSlav. ‘repetu, to tremble,
Russ. frepetat(e), Skt. ¢arala-s, trembling. See Brugmann, ii. § 797
(note). Der. (from L. trepidus) in-trepid.
TRESPASS, a passing over a boundary, the act of entering
another man’s land unlawfully, a crime, sin, offence, injury. (F.—L.)
TRIAD 663
ME. trespas, Rob. of Glouc. p. 505, 1. 10403, where it means ‘sin.’
— OF. trespas, a crime (Burguy) ; also ‘a decease, departure out of
this world, also a passage;’ Cot. (The lit. sense is ‘a step beyond
or across,’ so that it has direct reference to the mod. use of trespass in
the sense of intrusion on another man’s land. Cf. Span. trespaso,
a conveyance across, also a trespass; Ital. ‘rapasso, a passage, di-
gression.) The sb. is from ¢respass, verb, ME. trespassen, Wyclif,
Acts, 1. 25.—OF. drespasser, ‘ to passe over,’ Cot., also to trespass
(Burguy).—L. trans, across; and Late L. passare, to pass, from
pass-us, a step; see Trans- and Pass. Der. ¢respass-er, ME.
trespassour, P. Plowman, Ὁ. ii. 92; also ¢respass-offering.
TRESS, a curl or lock of hair, a ringlet. (F.—Late L.—Gk.)
ME. tresse, Chaucer, C. T. 1051 (A 1049) ; the pp. ¢ressed, adorned
with tresses, is in King Alisaunder, ]. 5409.—F. tresse, ‘a tresse or
lock of haire ;’ Cot. He also gives ¢resser, ‘to plait, weave, or
make into tresses.’ (Cf. Ital. treccta, a braid, knot, curl; pl. treccie,
‘plaites, tresses, tramels, or roules of womens haires ;’ Span. trenza,
a braid of hair, plaited silk.) B. The orig. sense is ‘a plait.’ —
Late L. tricia, variant of ‘rica, a plait. Gk. τρίχα, in three parts,
threefold (Diez); from the usual method of plaiting the hair in three
folds. — Gk. τρι-, thrice ; allied to τρεῖς, three, cognate with E. Three,
q-v. y. This is borne out by the Ital. trina, a lace, loop, allied to
irino, threefold, from L. trinus, threefold. Der. tress-ed, as above.
Also tress-ure, q. V.
TRESSURE, a kind of border, in heraldry. (F.—Late L.—
Gk.) In Phillips, ed. 1706, and in works on heraldry. MF.
trescheur, ‘a tresseur, in blazon;’ Cot. =F. tresser, ‘to plait, weave ;’
Cot. =F. tresse, a tress or plait of hair; see Tress. I find ‘ Hoc
tricatorium, Anglice, tressure;’ and again, ‘ Hec ?rjcatura, Anglice,
tresewyr, Voc. 656. 17, 792. 18. Here ¢ricatura is merely a
Latinised form of the F. word, the F. tresser being Latinised as
tricare.
TRESTLE, TRESSEL, a movable support for a table, frame
for supporting. (F.—L.) ‘ Trestyll for a table, tresteau;’ Pals-
grave. ‘Hic tristellus, Anglice, treste;’ Voc. 656. 28. ‘ Hic tris-
tellus, a trestylle;’ id. 723. 33. The pl. trestelys, i.e. trestles, occurs
in Bury Wills, ed. Tymms, p. 23, 1. 6, in a will dated 1463; and
ME. pl. ¢resteles is in Rich. Coer de Lion, 102.—OF. ¢restel, spelt
tresteau, treteau in Cot., and explained ‘a tresle for a table, &c., also
a kind of rack, or stretching torture.’ Mod. F. tréteau (see Littré).
=—Late L. *transtellum, for L. transtillum, dimin. of transtrum, a
little cross-beam. See Transom. 41 This Late L. form should
rather have given OF. trastel; but we find F. tres- for L. ¢rans- in
our ¢res-pass. We must by no means neglect Lowland Sc. ¢raist,
trast, a trestle, ¢rast,a beam, North E. ¢ress, a trestle (Brockett),
Lance. trest, a strong large stool (Halliwell), and ME. ¢reste, a trestle,
above. These are from OF. tras¢e, a cross-beam (Roquefort), the
same word as Mltal. ¢rasto, ‘a bench of a gallie, a transome or
beame going cross a house,’ which is obviously from L. transtrum,
See Transom, Scheler takes the same view, proposing a Late L.
*transtellum, as a parallel form to ¢ranstillum, in order to give the
exact OF. form. Cotgrave’s explanation of the word as meaning a
rack is much to the point ; a rack requires two cross-beams (transtilla)
to work it, these beams being turned round with levers, thus pulling
the victim by means of ropes wound round the beams. And note
trestelli fortes, strong trestles, in John de Garlande; in Wright,
Vocab. i. 132.
TRET, an allowance to purchasers on consideration of waste.
(F.—L.) ‘Tret, an allowance made for the waste, . . which is
always 4 in every 104 pounds ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Also in Blount’s
Nomolexicon, ed. 1691. It.appears much earlier. ‘For the tret of
the same peper,’ i.e. pepper; Arnold’s Chron. (1502), repr. 1811,
Ρ- 128. —AF. *ére¢e, f., answering to F. ¢raite just as AF. tret (Gloss.
to Britton) answers to F, trait; cf. F. traite, ‘a draught, . . also, a
transportation, vent outward, shipping over, and an imposition upon
commodities ;’ Cot. This F. ¢raite answers to L, tracta, fem. of
tractus, pp. of trahere, to draw; see Trace. Cf, MItal. ¢raésa, ‘leaue
to transport merchandise, also a trade or trading;’ Florio. Also
Late L. ¢racta, a payment on exports (Ducange).
TREWS, an old form of Trousers, q. v.
TREY, three, at cards or dice. (F.—L.) ‘Two treys;’ L. L. L.
ν. 2, 232. And in Chaucer, C. T. 12587 (C 653).—AF. ἐγεὶς ;
OF. trei, treis (mod. F. trois), three. =L. trés, three; see Three.
TRI-, relating to three, threefold. (L. or Gk.; or F.—L. or Gk.)
F. and L. ἐγί-, three times, prefix related to L. ¢ri-a, neut. of trés,
three, cognate with E. Three, q.v. So also Gk. τρι-, allied to rpi-a,
neut., or τρεῖς, m., three.
TRIAD, the union of three. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘This is the
famous Platonical triad;’ More, Song of the Soul (1647), preface
(Todd). -- Εἰ triade, ‘three;’ Cot. =—L. triad-, stem of trias, a triad.
“ Gk. τριάς, a triad. = Gk. τρι-, from τρεῖς, three; see Tri-.
664 TRIAL
TRIAL, a test; see Try.
TRIANGLE, a plane, three-sided figure. (F.—L.) ME. triangle ;
Lanfrank, Cirurgie, p. 215. ‘Tryangle, triangle ;’ Palsgrave.—F.
triangle, ‘a triangle ;’ (οἱ. Τὸ. triangulum, a triangle; neut. of
triangulus, adj., having three angles.—L. ¢ri-, three; and angulus,
an angle; see Tri- and Angle. Der. triangl-ed; triangul-ar, used
by Spenser (Todd), from F. ¢riangulatre, ‘ triangular,’ Cot., from L.
trianguldaris ; triangul-ate, a coined word; triangul-at-ion,
TRIBE, a race, family, kindred. (F.—L.) .Gower, C. A. iii. 230
(bk. vii. 4118), has the pl. ¢ribes.—F. iribu, ‘a tribe,’ Cot.—L.
tribu-, decl. stem of ¢ribus, a tribe ; cf. Umbrian ¢rifo. B. A tribus
is supposed to have been, in the first instance, one of the three
families of people in Rome, their names being the Ramnes, Tities,
and Luceres. The etymology is thought to be from L. ¢ri- (akin to
trés, three), and -bus, family, from 4/BHEU, to be; cf. Gk. φυ-λή, a
tribe, family, from the same root. See Tri- and Be. But Brug-
mann thinks this unlikely; ii. § 104. Rather, allied to W. ¢ref, a
homestead; see Thorpe. Der. irib-une, q.v.; tri-bute, q. v.
TRIBRACH, a metrical foot consisting of three short syllables.
(L.—Gk.) Written ¢ribrachus or tribrachys in Phillips, ed. 1706;
and ¢tribrachus in Puttenham, Art of Poetry, b. ii. c. 3.—L. tribrachys.
—Gk. rpiBpaxus, a tribrach.—Gk. τρι-, akin to τρεῖς, three ; and
βραχύς, short. See Brief.
TRIBULATION, great affliction, distress). (F.-L.) ME.
tribulacioun, spelt tribulaciun, Ancren Riwle, p. 402, 1. 24.—F. tribu-
lation, ‘tribulation; Cot.—L. éribulitidnem, acc. of tribulatio,
tribulation, affliction ; lit. a rubbing out of corn by a sledge.=—L.
éribulaire, to rab out corn, to oppress, afflict.—L. ¢ribulum, a sledge
for rubbing out corn, consisting of a wooden platform studded
underneath with sharp flints or iron teeth.=<L. ¢ri-, base of ¢ri-ui,
tri-tum, pt. t. and pp. of ¢erere, to rub; with suffix -bulum denoting
the agent (as in werti-bulum, that which turns about, a joint). See
further under Trite.
TRIBUNE, a Roman magistrate elected by the plebeians. (F.—
L.) ΜΕ. tribun ; pl. tribunes, Wyclif, Mark, vi. 21.—F. tribun.=L.
tribinum, acc. of iribiinus, a tribune, properly the chief of (or elected
by) a ¢ribe; also a chieftain, Mark, vi. 21.—L. ¢ribu-, decl. stem of
tribus, a tribe; with suffix -xus (Idg. -no-). See Tribe. Der.
tribune-ship. Also tribun-al, Antony, iii. 6. 3, from L. tribiinal, a
raised platform on which the seats of ¢ribunes, or magistrates, were
laced.
TRIBUTE, homage, contribution paid to secure protection. (F.
—L.) ΜΕ. ¢tribut, Wyclif, Luke, xxiii. 2; Gower, C. A. ii. 74, 1. 7.
=F. dribut, ‘tribute;’ Cot.—L. zribadum, tribute ; lit. a thing con-
tributed or paid ; neut. of ‘ribatus, pp. of tribuere, to assign, impart,
allot, bestow, pay; orig. to allot or assign (toa tribe?). Perhaps
(says Bréal) from L. ¢ribu-, decl. stem of tribus, a tribe; see Tribe.
Der. ¢ribut-ar-y, ME. tributairie, Chaucer, C. T. 14594 (B 3866),
from AF, *¢tributarie, Ἐς tributaire, ‘tributary,’ Cot., from L. zribu-
tarius, paying tribute. Also at-tribute, con-tribute, dis-tribute, re-
tribut-ion.
TRICE (1), a short space of time. (Low G.) Inthe phrases in a
trice, Twelfth Nt. iv. 2. 133; on a irice, Temp. v. 238; in this trice
of time, K. Lear, i. 1. 219. ‘ And wasteth with a trice;’ Turbervile,
To his Friend, &c., st. 5. Now only in the phr. in a trice, ice.
suddenly. ‘Subitement, swiftly, quickly, speedily, in a trice, out of
hand ;’ Cot. ME. at a tryse, at a (single) pull. ‘The howndis
that were of gret prise Pluckid down dere all αὐ a tryse; Ipomydon
with his houndis thoo Drew downe bothe buk and doo ;’ Ipomydon
(ed. Weber), 392. Here tryce (¢ryce) is a verbal sb. from the verb
irysen, trycen, to pull, haul; Chaucer, C. T. 14443 (B 3715). See
further under Trice (2). @ The later phrase ix a trice bears a
remarkable resemblance to the Span, en un tris. We find Span. ¢ris,
noise made by the breaking of glass; also, a trice, a short time, an
instant ; vexir en un tris, to come in an instant ; estar en un tris, to be
on the verge of (Neuman). So also. Port. ¢riz, a word to express
the sound of glass when it cracks; es/ar por hum triz, to be within a
hair’s breadth, to have a narrow escape; ex hum triz, in a trice.
But it does not appear that we could have borrowed such a. phrase
from Spain. It occurs as early as in Skelton, Philip Sparowe, 1131.
TRICE (2), TRISH, to haul up or hoist. (Low G.) “ Trise
(sea-word), to hale up anything into the ship by hand with a dead
rope, or one that does not run in a block or pulley;’ Phillips, ed.
1706. ME. tricen, trisen, to pull, haul; Chaucer, C. T. 14443
(B 3715). ‘ They trisen vpe thaire saillez,’ Morte Arthure, ed. Brock,
832. A nautical term; of Low (ἃ. origin; and the sense noted by
Phillips is unoriginal, as it must once have meant to haul by help of
a pulley, and not only without it. Cf. ME. ¢ryys, (and, with a
final #) éryyste, ‘troclea,’ Prompt. Parv. = Low G. trissen, tritsen, to
trice up ; from ¢risse, tritse, a hauling-rope (which explains the sense
given by Phillips), also a pulley (Liibben). Cf. also (from Low G.)
TRICKLE
Swed. érissa, a sheave, pulley, truckle, ¢riss, a spritsail-brace; Dan,
tridse, a pulley, whence ¢ridse, verb, to haul by means of a pulley,
to trice; Norweg, triss, trissel, a pulley, or sheave in a block; Swed,
dial. ¢rissa, a roller, also a shoemaker’s implement,.a little round
wheel with teeth on it. Note also Low G. #risel, a whirling round,
giddiness, in the Bremen Worterbuch; where also are cited OG,
tryssen, to wind, and Hamburg drysen, up drysen, to wind up, dryse-
blok, the block of a pulley, like Dan. ¢ridseblok.
TRICENTENARY, a space of 300 years. (L.) Modern.
From Tri- and Centenary,
TRICK (1), ἃ stratagem, clever contrivance, fraud, parcel of cards
won at once. (F.—L.) Common in Shakespeare. ‘A trick,
facinus ;” Levins, ed. 1570, ‘It were but a schoole-trick,’ Spenser,
Mother Hubbard’s Tale, 512. ‘Suche unknyghtly irikkes ;’ Hoc-
cleve, De Reg. Princ, 2286.—ONorth ἘΝ trique (for OF. triche); οἵ.
Norm. dial. ¢rigue, a trick (Moisy, ed, 1895). Godefroy giyes the
vb. triguier, and Moisy has Norm, dial. ¢riquier, for OF. trichier, to
trick, deceive. Cf. ME. trichen, to deceive, cozen, trick, occurring
early in the 14th century, Polit. Songs, p. 69, 1. 7. This ME.
trichen is from OF. trichier, trechier, explained under Treachery.
B. Some of the senses are due to Du. trek. Thus Shakespeare has
trick in the sense of lineament, K. John. i. 85; this is precisely
the Du. trek. ‘De trekken van’t gelaat, the lineaments of the face ;’
Sewel. Cf. Du.‘ een slimmetrek, a cunning trick ; Iemand eenen trek
speelen, to play one a trick; de kap trekken, to play tricks, play the
fool;’ Sewel. γ. The Du. trek (¢reek), a trick (borrowed from, or
suggested by the ONorthF, ¢rique) is properly distinct from, but
was easily confused with Du. ¢rek, a pull, draught, tug; from the
verb trekken, to draw, pull. We find also OFries, trekka or tregga,
NFries. trecke, tracke (Outzen), Low G. irekken, Dan. trekke,
MHG. trecken, to draw, drag, pull. The MHG. ¢recken is a causal
form, from the strong verb found as MHG, trechen, OHG, trehhan,
to push, shove, also to pull. Der. trick-er, trick-ster; trick-er-y
(doublet of treachery, q.v-); trick-ish, trick-ish-ly, trick-ish-ness ; also
tricks-y, full of tricks (formed by adding -y to the pl. ¢ricks), Temp.
v. 226. And see trigger, trick (2), trick (3).
TRICK (2), to dress ont, adorn, (F.—L.) ‘ Which they érick up
with new-tuned oaths;’ Hen. Ν᾽, ili. 6. 80, ‘To ¢rick, or trim,
Concinnare ;’ Levins, ed. 1570. Minsheu also has the word, but it
is not a little strange that Blount, Phillips, Coles, and Kersey
ignore trick, in whatever sense. (It is remarkable that ¢rick appears
early as an adjective, synonymous with neat or trim, ‘The same
reason I finde true in two bowes that I haue, wherof the one is quicke
of caste, ¢ricke, and trimme both for pleasure and profyte ;’ Ascham,
Toxophilus, ed. Arber, p. 28. So also in Levins, But this is prob.
a different word; cf. Lowl. Se. rig, neat, trim.] The verb is a
derivative from the sb. trick, above, which obtained many meanings,
for which see Schmidt’s Shak, Lexicon. For example, a ¢rick meant
a knack, neat contrivance, custom, particular habit, peculiarity, a
trait of character or feature, a prank, also a toy or trifle, as in ‘a
knack, a toy, a trick, a baby’s cap,’ Tam, Shrew, iv. 3. 67. Cf. MF.
trique-nisques, ‘trifles;’ Cot. Hence to ¢rick, to use a neat con-
trivance, to exhibit a trait of character, to have a habit in dress.
Compare Trick (3), below. Der. trick-ing, ornament, Merry Wives,
iv. 4. 70.
TRICK (3), to delineate arms, to blazon; an heraldic term. (Du,)
This is the true sense in Hamlet, ii. 2.479. It is much clearer in the
following. ‘There they are ¢rick’d, they and their pedigrees; they
need no other heralds;’ Ben Jonson, The Poetaster, i, 1 (Tucca),—
Du. trekken, formerly trecken, ‘to delineate, to make a draught or
modell, to purtray;’ Hexham. Tricking is a kind of sketching.
This is only a particular use of Du. trekken, to pull or draw; cf. our
double use of draw. See Trick (1), § y.
TRICKLE, to flow in drops or in a small stream. (E.) ME.
triklen. In Chaucer, C. Τὶ 13604 (B 1864), two MSS. have értkled,
two have striked or stryked, and one has strikled; Tyrwhitt prints
trilled, ‘ With teris ¢rikland on hir chekes;’ Ywaine and Gawain,
1558; in Ritson, Met. Romances, i. 66, ‘ The teeris ¢rikilen dowun;’
Polit., Religious, and Love Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 207, 1. 47.
‘Teres trekyl downe be my face;’ Cov. Mysteries, p. 72. In all
these passages the word is preceded by the sb. teres, pronounced as
a dissyllable, and such must often have been the case; this caused a
corruption of strikelen by the loss of initial s; the phrases the teres
strikelen and the teres trikelen being confused by the hearer, Trickle
is clearly a corruption of sfrikelen, to flow frequently or to keep on
flowing, the frequent. of ME. striken, to flow. ‘Ase strem that
strike stille’ =as a stream that flows quietly; Specimens of English,
ed. Morris and Skeat, p. 48, ]. 21.—AS. strican, to move or sweep
along, to hold one’s course, Grein, ii. 489, This is the same word
as AS. strican, to strike; see Strike. Cf. mod.E. streak; to trickle
or strickle is to flow in a course, leaving a streak behind ; (Ὁ, streichen,
TRICOLOR
to move onward, rove, sweep on. ‘The loss of s was facilitated by
association with ¢rill (Dan. ¢rille), to roll.
TRICOLOR, the national flag of France, having three colours, red,
white,andblue. (F.—L,) The flag dates from 1789. =F. tricolore, short
for drapeau tricolore, the three-coloured flag.—F. tricolor, the three-
coloured amaranth (Hamilton). —L. éri-, prefix, three; and coldrem,
acc. of color, colour. See Tri- and Colour. Der. tri-colour-ed.
TRIDENT, a three-pronged spear. (F.—L.) In Temp. i. 2.
206. - Εἰ, trident, ‘ Neptune’s three-forked mace ;’ Cot. —L. éridentem,
ace. of éridens, an implement with three teeth, esp. the three-pronged
spear of Neptune. —L. éri-, three ; and dens, a tooth, prong. See
Tri- and Tooth.
TRIENNIAL, happening every third year, lasting for three
years. (L.) A coined word, made by adding -al (L, -alis) to L.
trienni-um, a period of three years. It supplanted the older word
ériennal, of F. origin, which occurs early, in P. Plowman, B. vii.
179; this is from F, triennal, “ triennal,’ Cot., formed by adding -al
to L. adj. ¢rienn-is, lasting for three years, B. Both ¢riennium and
triennis are from L., ¢ri-, three, and annus, a year; see Tri- and
Annual. Der. triennial-ly.
TRIFLE, anything of small value. (F.—L.) The spelling with
is remarkable, as the usual ME, spelling was truffle. Spelt tryfyl,
Rob. of Brunne, Handl. Synne, 5031; but érufle, Rob. of Glouc.
p- 417,1. 8613; trufle (one MS, has ¢refle), P. Plowman, B. xii. 140;
also id. B. xviii. 147 (other MSS. have ¢ryfule, truyfle); also id, C.
xv, 83 (other MSS. ¢refele, trifle). Spelt ¢roffe (also treffe), P. Plow-
man’s Crede, 352. There is the same variation of spelling in the
verb; the proper ME. form is ¢rujlen, spelt trufly, Ayenbite of Inwyt,
p- 214; trofle, Morte Arthure, ed. Brock, 2932, trifelyn, Prompt.
Parv. ‘Trufa,a trefele; Trufo, to trefele;’ Voc. 617. 42,43. The
sb. is the more orig. word; we find ‘ peos ant οὔτε trufles pet he
bitrufled) monie men mide’=these and other delusions that he be-
guiles many men with, Ancren Riwle, p. 106, 1.7. The old sense
was a delusion or trick, a sense still partly apparent in the phr. ‘ to
trifle with. —OF, trufle, iruffle, mockery, raillery (Godefroy ; who
quotes ‘ Nuga, éruffe’ from a glossary); variant of ¢ruffe, ‘a gibe,
mock, flout, jeast, gullery; also, a most dainty kind of round and
Tusset root, which grows in forrests or dry and sandy grounds,’ &c. ;
Cot. He refers to a truffle. That truffle and trifle are the same
word, or rather that both senses of F. ¢ruffe arose from one form, is
admitted by Burguy, Diez, and Littré. It is supposed that a truffle
became a name for a small or worthless object, or a subject for
jesting. Similarly, in English, the phrases not worth a straw, noi
worth a bean, not worth a cress (now tured into curse) were pro-
yerbial ; s@ also ‘ a fico for the phrase,’ or ‘a jig for it.’ See further
under Truffle. Cf. WFlem. éruffel, trijfel, false news (De Bo).
Note also: ‘ Mantiglia, a kinde of clouted creame called a foole or
a trifle,in English;’ Florio. Der. trifle, verb, ME. truflen, as above;
trifl-er, trifl-ing, trifl-ing-ly.
TRIFOLIATEH, three-leaved. (L.) Modern.—L. ¢ri-, three;
and foliatus, leaved, from folium, a leaf; see Trefoil.
TRIFORIUM, a gallery above the arches of the nave and
choir of a church. (L.) From L, tri-, for és, three ; and fori-s, a
door, an opening. 4 Now usually built with but ‘wo arches or
openings (within a third) ; but some early examples had three such.
See wood-cut in Cent. Dict.
TRIFORM, having a triple form. (L.) In Milton, P. L. iii.
730.—L. friformis; often applied to the moon or Diana. —L. ¢ri-,
three; and form-a, form; see Tri- and Form.
TRIGGER, a catch which, when pulled, lets fall the hammer or
cock of a gun. (Du.) A weakened or ‘ voiced’ form of tricker. In
Butler, Hudibras, pt. i.c. 3, 1.528, Bell’s edition, we find: ‘ The
trigger of his pistol draw.’ Here the editor, without any hint and
free from any conscience in the matter, has put ‘rigger in the place
of tricker ; see the quotation as it stands in Richardson and Todd’s
Johnson, Spelt tricker in Farquhar, Recruiting Officer, i. 1 (1706).
=Dnu. trekker, a trigger; formerly ¢recker, ‘a drawer, a haler, ora
puller,’ Hexham.—Du. érekken, to pull, draw; see Trick (3).
Der. trig, vb., to skid a wheel (Phillips).
TRIGLYPH, a three-grooved tablet. (L.—Gk.) A term in
Doric architecture. In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. triglyphus ;
Vitruvius, iv. 2 (White). —Gk. τρίγλυφος, thrice-cloven ; also, a tri-
glyph, three-grooved tablet. —Gk. rpi-, three ; and γλύφειν, to carve,
hollow out, groove, which is allied to E, cleave; see Cleave (1).
Der. triglyph-ic.
TRIGON, a combination of three zodiacal signs, so as to form an
equilateral triangle. (IL.—Gk.) ‘ The fiery trigon ;” Shak. 2 Hen. IV,
ii. 4. 288. The combination of Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius was the
‘fiery’ trigon.—L. érigdnum, a triangle, trigon.—Gk. τρίγωνον, a
triangle, neut. of tpiywvos, three-cornered. — Gk. τρι-, for τρεῖς, three ;
ἡων-ἴα, an angle, akin to γόνυ, a knee, Cf. Trine.
TRINITY 665
TRIGONOMETRY, the measurement of triangles. (Gk.)
Shak. has frigon, i.e. triangle, 2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 288. In Phillips,
ed. 1706. Coined from Gk. tpiywvo-, for τρίγωνον, a triangle; and
-peTpta, measurement (as in geo-metry, &c.), from μέτρον, a measure.
B. Τρίγωνον is properly neut. of τρίγωνος, three-cornered ; from zpt-,
three, and ywy-ia, an angle, akin to yévv,a knee. See Tri-, Knee,
and Metre. Der. trigonometri-c-al, -ly.
TRILATERAL, having three sides. (L.) In Phillips, ed.
1706. Coined with suffix -al (L. -alis) from L. trilater-us, three-
sided. —L. éri-, three ; and Jlater-, decl. stem of Jatus, a side; see
Tri- and Lateral.
TRILINGUAL, consisting of three languages. (L.) Coined
with suffix -al (L. -alis) from L. ¢rilingu-is, triple-tongued, speaking
three languages. L, ¢ri-, three ; and lingua, a tongue. See Tri-
and Lingual.
TRILITERAL, consisting of three letters, (L.) A term
applied to Hebrew roots. From Tri- and Literal.
TRILL (1), to shake, to quaver. (Ital.) ‘ The sober-suited song-
stress ¢rills her lay;’ Thomson, Summer, 746. ‘His ¢rills and
quayers ;’ Tatler, no. 222, Sept. 9, 1710. Phillips, ed. 1706, gives:
‘Trill, a quavering in musick,’ and rightly notes that it is an Ital.
word, like many other musical terms. = Ital. ¢rillare, to trill, shake,
quaver ; ¢rillo, sb., a trill, shake. A word of imitative origin,
meaning ‘to say tril.’ Cf. Span. frinar, to trill, Hence are derived
E. trill, Du. trillen, G. trillern, &c. Der. trill, sb.
TRILL (2), to turn round and round. (Scand.) Perhaps obsolete,
but once common. ‘ As fortune ¢rills the ball ;’ Gascoigne, Fruits of
War, st. 67. ‘ To ¢ril, circumuertere;’ Levins. ‘ I tryll a whitlygig
rounde aboute, Fe pirouette;’ Palsgrave. ME. trillen, Chaucer,
C. T. 10630 (F 316). —Swed. ¢rilla, to roll, whence ¢rilla, a roller ;
Dan. ¢rille, to roll, trundle, whence ¢rille, a disc, trillebor, a wheel-
barrow. Perhaps allied to E. drill; but this is by no means certain,
It may be allied to Low G. ¢riseln, to turn round; see Trice (2).
TRILL (3), to trickle, to roll. (Scand.) In Spenser, F. Q. ii. 12.
78; K. Lear, iv, 3.13. ‘With many a teere ¢rillyng on my cheeke ;’
Chaucer, C. T., 7246, D 1864 (Corpus MS.).— Dan. ¢rille, to roll, to
trickle (as tears), Larsen ; Swed. ¢rilla ned, to roll down. This is
merely a particular use of Trill (2).
TRILLION, a million raised to the third power. (F.—L.) A
coined word, said in Todd’s Johnson to have been invented by Locke,
Composed of ¢r-, for tri-, three ; and -illion, the latter part of the
word million. See Tri- and Million; and see Billion.
TRILOBITE, a kind of fossil. (Gk.) Named from its three
lobes. — Gk. τρι-, for τρεῖς, three ; AoB-ds, a lobe ; -er-s, suffix,
TRILOGY, a series of three tragedies or poems. (F.—Gk.) _F.
trilogie (1812); Hatzfeld. —Gk. τριλογία. -- Gk. τρι-, for τρεῖς, three ;
-λογία, from Ady-os, a tale, story ; see Logic.
TRIM, to put in due order, to adjust, to deck, dress, arrange,
(E.) 1 t¢rymme, as a man doth his heare [hair];’ Palsgrave. ME,
trumen, trimen,a rare word. ‘ Ich iseo godd seolf mid his eadi engles
bitrumen pe abuten’=I see God Himself with His blessed angels
be-trim [surround] thee about ; St. Marharete, p. 20,1. 3. ¢ Helle
hundes habbed bitrumet me’=hounds of hell have surrounded me;
id. p. 6,1. 4 from bottom. AS. trymian, trymman, to make firm,
strengthen (a common word), Grein, ii. 554; also, to set in order,
array, prepare, Blickling Homilies, p. 91, 1. 31; p. 201, 1.35. The
orig. sense is preserved in our phrase ‘to ¢rim a boat,’ i.e. to make
it. steady; hence to put in perfect order. Formed (by the regular
vowel-change from x to y) from the Teut. type of AS, trum, adj.,
firm, strong, Grein, ii. 553.4-Low G. trim; only in the derivative
betrimmed, betrimmd, decked, trimmed, adorned ; ¢rimmke, an affected
or over-dressed person. Root uncertain. Der. ¢rim, sb., Cor. i,
9. 62; trim, adj. (with the vowel 7 of the derived verb), Much Ado,
Iv. I. 323; trim-ly, trim-ness; trimm-er, trimm-ing ; also be-trim,
verb, Temp. iv. 65.
TRIMETER, a division of a verse consisting of three measures,
(L.—Gk.) In Ben Jonson, tr. of Horace, Art of Poetry, 1. 333. —L.
trimetrus, Horace, Art of Poetry, ll. 252, 259. —Gk. τρίμετρος, con-
sisting of three measures. —Gk. τρίς, three; and μέτρον, a measure,
metre. See Tri- and Metre.
TRINH, a certain aspect of the planets. (L.) In Milton, P. L.
x. 659. ‘Tryne in trone;’ Coy. Myst., p. 88. ‘Trine, belonging
to the number three; as, a trine aspect, which is when 2 plants are
distant from each other [by] a third part of the circle, i.e. 120
degrees. It is noted thus A, and accounted by astrologers an aspect
of amity and friendship ;” Phillips. —L. ¢rixus, more common in pl.
trini, three by three. For *tris-nus, allied to ¢rés, three. Brugmann,
ii. § 66. See Tri-andThree. Der. ¢rin-al, Spenser, F. Q.i. 12. 39.
Also trin-i-ty, q.v-
TRINITY, the union of Three in One Godhead. (F.—L.)
ME. frinitee, Chaucer, C. T. 7406 (D 1824); Ancren Riwle, p. 26,
666 TRINKET
1. 10.<OF. ¢rinite, later trinité.—L. trinitatem, acc. of trinitds, a
triad.—L. trinus, threefold; see Trine. Der. Trinity-Sunday ;
Trinit-ar-i-an, Trinit-ar-i-an-ism.
TRINKET (1), a small omament. (F.—L.?) We find ME.
‘trenket, sowtarys knyfe,’ i.e. a shoemaker’s knife, Prompt. Parv.
‘ Trenket, an instrument for a cordwayner, batton a torner [soulies];’
Palsgrave. Way, in his note to Prompt. Parv., says: ‘In a Nomi-
nale by Nich. de Minshull, Harl. MS. 1002, under pertinentia
allutarit, occur :—Anserium, a schavyng-knyfe; Galla, idem est,
irynket; also, under pertinentia rustico, occur :—Sarculum, a wede-
hoke ; Sarpa, idem est, ¢rynket.’ This shows that a trynket was a
general name for a sort of knife, whether for shoemaking or weed-
ing. Palsgrave gives the spelling trynket as well as trenket. We
may fairly assume that ¢rinket was also used to denote a toy-knife,
such as could be worn about the person, and that for three reasons.
These are: (1) the sense of something worn about the person still
clings to trinket at this day; (2) trinket, as used by old authors,
Means sometimes a tool or implement, sometimes a knife; and (3)
toy-knives were very commonly given as presents to ladies, and
were doubtless of an ornamental character, and worn on the person.
As early as Chaucer's time, the Friar had his tippet ‘ farsed [stuffed]
ful of knives And pinnes, for to given faire wiues.’ A few examples
of the use of the word may be added. ‘ The poorer sort of common
souldiers haue euery man his leather bag or sachell well sowen
together, wherin he packs up all his ¢rinkets;’ Hakluyt’s Voyages,
i, 62. ‘What husbandlie husbands, except they be fooles, But
handsome have storehouse for ¢rinkets and tooles?’ Tusser, Husb.
§ 53. 13. Todd cites from Arbuthnot: ‘She was not hung about
with toys and trinkets, tweezer-cases, pocket-glasses.’ More extracts
would probably make this matter clearer. B. The etymology of
trinket, formerly ¢renket, in the sense of ‘ knife,’ is from ONorth F.
trenquet, variant of OF. ¢ranchet, a small knife (see Supp. to
Godefroy). —ONorth F. ¢renguer, occurring in frenquefile, variant of
tranchefile (Godefroy), so that trenguer is a variant of OF. tranchier,
trenchier, to cut. Cf. Span. trinchete, a shoemaker’s paring-knife,
tranchete, a broad curvated knife, used for pruning, a shoemaker’s
heel-knife ; mod. F. tranchet, a shoemaker’s knife; OF. ¢trinchet,
supp. to Godefroy, s.v. tranchet. And cf. Span. trinchar, to cut.
See further under Trench, y. Perhaps we may also note MItal.
trincare, ‘to trim or smug up,’ whence /rincato, ‘fine, neat, trim,’
Florio. This seems allied to ¢rinci, ‘ fringings, lacings, cuts, or
snips in garments,’ id.; and to ¢rinciare, to cut, allied to Span.
trinchar, as above.
TRINKET (2), TRINQUET, the highest sail of a ship.
(F.—Ital.—L.) In Hakluyt, Voy. iii, 411. Spelt ¢rinkette in
Minsheu, ed. 1627. ‘ T'ringuet, is properly the top or top-gallant on
any mast, the highest sail of a ship ;” Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. —
F. trinquet, ‘the top or top-gallant,’ &c. (asin Blount) ; Cot.—Ital.
trinchetto, ‘a small saile in a ship called a trinket ;’ Florio. [Or
from Span. ringuete, a trinket.] Prob. from L. ¢riguetrum, acc. of
triquetrus, three-cornered (with reference to lateen sails), Prob.
from L, zri-, allied to trés, three; and *quatrus, quadrus, square,
hence ‘ cornered.’ Cf. L. quater, four times, guatuor, four. @] The
nmay have been due to association with Span. ‘rinca, a rope for
lashing fast ; ¢rincar, to keep close to the wind; poner Ja vela a la
trinca, ‘to put a ship that the edges of the sailes may be to the
wind;’ Minsheu.
TRINOMIAL, in mathematics, an expression consisting of
three terms. (L.) Not a good form; it should rather have been
trinominal. Coined, in imitation of binomial, from fri-, three; and
nomi-, for ndmini-, decl. stem of xndmen, a name. See Tri- and
Nominal; and Binomial.
TRIO, in music, a piece for three performers. (Ital.—L.)
Modern ; added by Todd to Johnson. «Ital. ¢rio, a trio, three parts
together.—L. ¢ri-, three, allied to ¢rés, three; see Tri- and
Three.
TRIP, to move with short, light steps, to stumble, err; also, to
cause to stumble. (F.—Teut.) ME. ¢rippen; ‘This hors anon gan
for to irippe and daunce ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 10626 (F 1312).—OF.
treper (Wace), triper, tripper, to dance; Norm. dial. ¢riper.—MDu.
trippen, ‘to tread under foot;’ ¢rippelen, ‘to trip or to daunce ;’
Hexham. Cf. LowG. trippeln, to trip ; Swed. ¢rippa, to trip; Dan.
trippe, to trip, ‘rip, a short step; Icel. ¢rippi, a young colt (from its
tripping gait). The base /rip-is a lighter form of¢rap-, as in MDu.
trappen, to tread under foot ; the nasalised form appears in Tramp,
-v. Der. trip, sb., Tw. Nt. v. 170; tripp-ing-ly, Hamlet, iii. 2. 2.
TRIPANG, TREPANG, an edible sea-slug. (Malay.) Malay
tripang.
TRIPARTITE, divided into three parts, having three cor-
responding parts, existing in three copies. (L.) In Shak. 1 Hen. IV,
ili. 1.80. ‘ Indentures ¢ryparty¢e indented ;’ Bury Wills, ed. Tymms,
TRITON
p- £7, in a will dated 1480.—L. ¢ri-, three ; and partit-us, pp. of
partiri, to part, divide, from parti-, decl. stem of pars, a part. See
Tri- and Part.
TRIPE, the stomach of ruminating animals, prepared for food.
(F.) ΜΕ. tripe, Prompt. Parv.; King Alisaunder, 1. 1578. =F.
tripe, tripe. Cf. Span. and Port. ¢ripa, Ital. trippa. Of unknown
origin. We also find Irish ¢riopas, s. pl., tripes, entrails ; W. ¢ripa,
the intestines ; Bret. s¢riper, tripe, more commonly used in the pl.
stripennou, stripou, the intestines.
TRIPHTHONG, three vowel characters representing a single
sound, (Gk.) Little used; coined in imitation of diphthong, with
prefix tri- (Gk. zp-), three, instead of di- (Gk. &-), double. See
Tri- and Diphthong. Der. triphthong-al.
TRIPLE, threefold, three times repeated. (F.—L.) In Shak.
Mid. Nt. Dr. ν. 391. (Rich. refers us to Chaucer, tr. of Boethius,
b. iv. met. 7, 1. 26, but the reading there is treble, a much older
form.]=—F. zriple, ‘triple, threefold :᾿ Cot.—L. ¢riplus, triple. = L.
iri-, three; and -flus, related to L. plénus, full. See Tri- and
Double. Der. zrifl-y; ¢ripl-et, formed in imitation of doubl-et.
Doublet, ¢reble.
TRIPLICATE, threefold. (L.) In mathematics, a ‘riplicate ratio
is not the ratio of 3 to 1, but the ratio of two cubical numbers, just
as the duplicate ratio is a ratio of squares. In Phillips, ed. 1706.—
L. iriplicatus, pp. of triplicare, to treble. —L. tri-, three; and flic-are,
to fold, weave. See Tri- and Ply. Der. triplicat-ion, from L. acc.
triplicationem. Also triplex, from L. triplex, threefold, Tw. Nt. v. 413
triplic-i-ty, Spenser, F. Q. i. 12. 39.
TRIPOD, anything supported on three feet, as a stool. (L.—Gk.;
or Gk.) In Chapman, tr. of Homer, Iliad, b. ix. 1.127; where it
was taken directly from Gk. Also in Holland, tr. of Plutarch, 1102,
where we find ‘trifode or three-footed table’ (R.). ME, tripod,
Trevisa, tr. of Higden, i. 179.—L. ¢ripod-, stem of ¢ripiis.—Gk.
τρίπους (stem tpimob-), three-footed; or, as sb., a tripod, a three-
footed brass kettle, a three-legged table.—Gk. τρι-, three; and πούς
(stem ποδ-}, a foot, cognate with E. foot; see Tri- and Foot.
Der. tripos (for L. nom, ¢ripiis, Gk. τρίπους), an honour examination
at Cambridge, so called at present because the successful candidates
are arranged in ¢hree classes; but we must not forget that a ¢ripos
sometimes meant an oracle (see Johnson), and that there was for-
merly a certain scholar who went by the name of ¢ripos, being other-
wise called prevaricator at Cambridge or terre filius at Oxford; he
was a master of arts chosen at a commencement to make an ingenious
satirical speech reflecting on the misdemeanours of members of the
university, a practice which gave rise to the so-called ¢ripos-verses,
i.e. facetious Latin verses printed on the back of the tripos-lists
(after 1798). The orig. reference was to the Tripus on which the
M.A. sat; and the lists were named from the verses which took
the place of his speech, See Phillips, ed. 1706, ‘ Wits, .. who
never . . were at all inspired from a Tripus’s, Terr@-jilius’s, or Pre-
varecator’s speech ;’ Eng. Garner, vii. 267 (1670). Doublet, ¢rivet.
TRIPTYCH, a picture in three compartments. (Gk.) Fre-
quently, the two side-pictures can be folded over the central one,
which is of double their breadth. — Gk. τρίπτυχον, neut. of τρίπτυχος,
threefold, or consisting of three layers. —Gk. τρι-, for τρεῖς, three;
πτυχή, a fold, from πτύσσειν (for ἔπτύχ-νειν), to fold.
TRIREME,, a galley with three ranks of oars. (L.) “ Thucydides
writeth that Aminocles the Corinthian built the first ¢rireme with thre
rowes of oars to a side;’ Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. vii. c. 56.—L.
trirémis, a trireme.—L. ¢rirémis, having three banks of oars. = L. ¢ri-,
three ; and rémus,anoar. β. The L. ¢rirémis corresponds to Gk.
τριήρης, a trireme; Thucydides, i. 13. y. The L. rémus=OL.
resmos, is allied to Gk. ἐρετμός, a rudder, orig. a paddle. The Gk.
ἐρ-ετμός, like -np-ns in τριήρης, is allied to E, rudder and row. See
Row (1).
TRISH, the same as Trice (2); q.v.
TRISECT, to divide into three equal parts. (L.) Coined (in
imitation of bi-sect) from L. ¢ri-, three ; and sect-um, supine of secare,
tocut. See Tri-, Section, Bisect. Der. trisect-ion,
TRIST, the same as Tryst, q. v.
TRISYLLABLE, a word of three syllables.
From Tri- and Syllable; see Dissyllable.
ἘΝ, trisyllabe, adj., of three syllables.
al, -ly.
TRITE, wom out by use, hackneyed. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674.—L. tritus, worn, pp. of ferere, to rub, to wear.+Russ.
teret(e), to rub; Lithuan. frit, to rub; Gk. τείρειν (for *rép-yev), =
TER, ἴο τὰ. Der. trite-ly, -ness. Also trit-ur-ate, tri-bul-at-ion,
q.v. And see ¢ry. From the same root, con-trite, de-tri-ment.
TRITON, a marine demi-god, (L.—Gk.) In Shak. Cor. iii. 1.
89.—L. Tritén.—Gk. Τρίτων, a Triton. Cf. Irish ¢riath, the sea;
Skt. trita-, the name of a deity.
(F.—L.—Gk.)
Cotgrave gives
Der. trisyllab-ic, trisyllab-ic-
TRITURATE
TRITURATE, to rub or grind to powder. (L.) Blount, ed.
1674, has ¢riturable and trituration. Perhaps the sb. trituration was
first introduced from the F. sb. trituration, ‘a crumming, crumbling,’
Cot.—L. tritiiratus, pp. of tritirare, to thrash, hence to grind. —L.
tritira, a rubbing, chafing; formed like the fut. part. of terere, to
rub; see Trite. Der. triturat-ion, tritur-able.
TRIUMPH, joy for success, rejoicing for victory. (F.—L.—Gk.)
ME. triumphe, Chaucer, C.T. 14369 (B3553). — OF. triumphe,triomphe,
‘atriumph;’ Cot.=—L. triumphum, acc. of triumphus, a triumph, or
public rejoicing for a victory.—Gk. θρίαμβος, a hymn to Bacchus,
sung in festal processions to his honour; also used as a name for
Bacchus. Der. triumph, verb, L. L. L. iv. 3. 35; triumph-er, Titus
Andron. i, 170; triumph-ant, Rich. III, iii. 2. 84, from the stem of
the pres. part. of L. triumphare, to triumph; triumph-ant-ly; also
triumph-al, from L, triumphalis, belonging to a triumph. Doublet,
trump (2). (Perhaps L. triumphus is a native word.)
TRIUMVIR, one of three men in the same office or government.
(L.) Shak. has triumvirate, Antony, iii. 6. 28; and even triumviry,
L.L.L. iv. 3. 53.—L. triumuir, one of three men associated in an
office. A curious form, evolved from the pl. trivmuiri, three men,
which again was evolved from the gen. pl. ¢rium uirdrum, so that
trium is the gen. pl. of ¢rés, three; whilst wir, a man, is a nom. sing.
See Three and Virile. Der. ¢riumvir-ate, from L. triumuiratus,
the office of a triumvir.
TRIUNE, the being Three in One. (L,) In Phillips, ed. 1706.
Coined from L, fri-, three ; and anus, one, cognate with E. one. See
Tri- and One.
TRIVET, TREVET, a three-legged support. (L.) ‘A triuette,
tripes;” Levins. In the Bury Wills, ed. Tymms, p. 82, we find
trevid under the date 1493, and the pl. ¢rewettis at p. 100, under
the date 1504. AS. trefet, Cart. Saxon., ed. Birch, iii. 367.—L.
tripedem, acc. of tripés, having three feet.—L. ¢ri-, three, and és,
a foot, cognate with E. foot. Doublet, tripod, which is a Greek
form.
TRIVIAL, common, slight, of small worth. (F.—L.) In Shak.
All’s Well, v. 3.61. It also meant trite or well-known ; see Trench,
Select Glossary.—F. ¢rivial, ‘triviall, common;’ Cot.=L. triuidlis,
that which belongs to the cross-roads, that which may be picked up
anywhere, ordinary, common-place.=—L. triuia, a place where three
roads meet. —L. ¢ri-, three; and μία, a way ; see Tri- and Voyage.
Der. trivial-ly, -ness.
TROCHEE, a metrical foot of two syllables, a long one followed
by a short one. (L.—Gk.) Spelt ¢rocheus in Puttenham, Art of
Poetry, b. ii. c. 3; now shortened to trochee.—L. trocheus.— Gk.
Tpoxacos, running; also a trochee, from its tripping measure. —Gk.
τροχός, a running. Gk. τρέχειν, to run. The form of the root
appears to be DHREGH. Der. trocha-ic, from Gk. τροχαϊκός.
And see truck (2).
TROGLODYTE, a dweller in a cave. (F.—L.—Gk.) ‘These
savages ... flew away at last into their caves, for they were ¢roglo-
dites;’ Howell, Foreign Travel, sect. x; ed. Arber, p. 51. And see
Trevisa, tr. of Higden, i. 159.—F. troglodyte, used by Montesquieu,
and doubtless somewhat older than his time. —L. tréglodyta.=—Gk.
τρωγλοδύτης, one who creeps into holes, a cave-dweller; Herod. iv.
183.—Gk. tpwyAo- for tpwyAn, a hole, a cave; and δύ-ειν, to enter,
creep into; with suffix -r7s, of the agent. B. Ὑρώγλη is from Gk.
Tpwy-ev, to gnaw, to bite, hence to gnaw a hole; whence also
Trout.
TROLL, to roll, to sing a catch, to fish for pike with a rod of
which the line runs on a reel. (F.—Teut.) ME. frollen, to roll;
Prompt. Pary. To ¢roll the bowl, to send it round, circulate it; see
Troul in Nares. To troll a catch is, probably, to sing it irregularly
(see below); to #roll, in fishing, is prob. rather to draw the line
hither and thither than to use a reel; see Trawl.—MF. troller,
which Cot. explains by ‘hounds to ¢rowle, raunge, or hunt out of
order;’ to which he subjoins the sb. ¢rollerie, ‘a trowling or dis-
ordered ranging, a hunting out of order ;’ this shows it was a term
of the chase. Roquefort gives OF. trawler, troller, to run hither and
thither; cf. mod. F. tréler, to lead, drag about, also to stroll about,
to ramble. —G. frollen, to roll, to troll; cognate with MDu. drollen,
‘to troole,’ Hexham; Low G. drulen, to roll, troll, Bremen Worter-
buch. Prob. allied to EFries. drallen, to turn, to roll; and to
Drill (1). f Distinct from trail. Der. troll-er; also troll-op,a
stroller, slattern, loitering person, where the suffix is obscure ; perhaps
suggested by gallop. Phillips gives troll about, ‘to ramble up and
down in a careless or sluttish dress;’ also frollop, ‘ an idle, nasty
slut” And see truli.
TROMBONE, a deep-toned bass instrument of music. (Ital. —
G.—Slav.) Not in Todd’s Johnson. Ital. ¢rombone, a trombone,
trumpet, sackbut; augmentative form of ‘romba, a trumpet; see
Trump (1).
TROUBADOUR 667
TRON, a weighing-machine. (F.—L.) See Riley, tr. of Liber
Albus, pp. 124, 199, 548; hence tronage, pp. 199, 215. ‘The tron
was gen. used for weighing wool. The 7 γον Church in Edinburgh
is so called from being situate near the site of the old weighing-
machine. We read of ‘Tronage and Poundage’ in Amold’s
Chronicle, ed. 1811, p. 100 ; where we also find: ‘ To ¢ronage per-
teinen thoos things that shal be weyen by the ¢rone of the kynge.’
— AF. trone,a weighing-machine, Liber Albus, p. 246 ; and Latinised
as Low L. trona (in Ducange) ; cf. OF, trosnel, a dimin. form in
Godefroy. =—L. ¢rutina, a pair of scales. Cf. Gk. τρυτάνη, a tongue
of a balance, a pair of scales. Der. tron-age; with Ἐς suffix -age<L.
-dticum,
TROOP, a company, especially of soldiers, a crew. (F.) In Shak,
Temp. i. 2. 220. - Ε΄. troupe, ‘a troop, crue;’ Cot. OF. trope, in
use in the 13th cent., Littré; cf. Span. tropa, MlItal. troppa, ‘a
troupe,’ Florio; mod. Ital. truppa; Late L. troppus. Ββ. Origin
doubtful; perhaps from Norw. ‘orp, a flock, a crowd, Icel. Jorp; οἵ.
Icel. Ayrpast, to throng. Kérting, § 9520. Der. troop, verb, Romeo,
i. 5. 50; hence troop-er, moss-troop-er.
TROPE, a figure of speech. (L.—Gk.) In Levins; and in Sir Τὶ
More, Works, p. 1340 a.—L. ¢ropus, a figure of speech, a trope. -- Gk.
Tpomos,aturning,a turn,a turn or figure of speech. = Gk. τροπ-, 2nd grade
of τρέπειν, to turn.-OL. trepere, to turn. Der. trop-ic, q.v. Also
trop-ic-al, i. e. figurative ; tropo-log-ic-al, expressed in tropes, Tyndall,
Works, p. 166, col. 1 (see Logic). Also helio-trope. And see
trophy, troubadour, trover.
TROPHY, a memorial of the defeat of an enemy, something
taken from an enemy. (F.—L.—Gk.) Formerly spelt ¢rophee, as
in Cotgrave, and in Spenser, F. Q. vii. 7. 56. - Ἐς trophée, ‘a trophee,
a sign or mark of victory ;” Cot.—L. ¢ropeum, a sign of victory. =
Gk. τρόπαιον, τροπαῖον, a trophy, a monument of an enemy’s defeat,
consisting of shields, &c., displayed on a frame. Neut. of τροπαῖος,
adj., belonging to a defeat.—Gk. τροπή, a return, a putting to flight
of an enemy by causing them to turn,—Gk. tpom-, 2nd grade of
τρέπειν, to tum; see Trope. Der. trophi-ed.
TROPIC, one of the two small circles on the celestial sphere,
where the sun appears to ¢urn, after reaching its greatest declination
north or south; also one of two corresponding circles on the terres-
trial sphere. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. tropik, Chaucer, On the Astro-
labe, pt. i. c. 17, 1. 8.—F. ¢ropique, ‘a tropick;’ Cot.—L. tropicum,
acc. of tropicus, tropical.—Gk. τροπικός, belonging to a turn;
ὁ τροπικός κύκλος, the tropic circle. Gk. τρόπος, a turn; see Trope.
Der. tropic, adj.; tropic-al, tropic-al-ly.
TROT, to move or walk fast, run as a horse when not going at
full pace. (F.—L.?) ME. trotten, Chaucer, C. T. 9412 (E 1538) ;
P. Plowman, Β. ii, 164.—F. trotter, ‘to trot;’ Cot. OF. troter,
13th cent.; Littré. We also find OF. trotier, a trotter, messenger,
Late L. trotarius; and this answers so nearly to L. tolutarius, going
at a trot, that it is usual to suppose OF. /rofer to result from a Late
L. *toliitare, to trot, by the common change of / into r, and loss of o.
B. Tolitdrius is derived from ftoliitim, adv., at a trot, used of horses.
The lit. sense is ‘with a lifting up of the feet.’—L. ¢ollere, to lift;
see Tolerate. y. This etymology is accepted by Diez, Scheler,
and Littré ; but some compare MHG. trotten, to run, perhapsallied to
G. treten, to tread; MDu. tratten, ‘to goe, to pace, or to trot;’
Hexham, G., frefen is cognate with E. tread. Der. trot, sb.,
trott-er.
TROTH, truth, fidelity. (E.) In Shak. Mids. Nt. Dr. ii. 2. 36.
ME. trowSJe, Ormulum, i. 44. Formed from the verb Trow, q. v.
Der. troth-ed, Much Ado, iii. 1. 38 ; troth-plight, a plighting of troth,
Wint. Tale, i. 2. 278 ; troth-plight =troth-plighted, Wint. ‘lale, v. 3.
151. Also be-troth, q. ν.
TROUBADOUR, a Provengal poet. (Prov.—L.—Gk.) See
Warton, Hist. of Eng. Poetry, sect. ili. And see Littré, Roquefort,
and Raynouard. Troubadour does not seem to be the right Prov.
word, but a F. modification of it. The Prov. word is trobador (Littré),
or (very commonly) trobaire; see Bartsch, Chrest. Provengale.
From a L, type */ropatorem, acc. of *tropator ; from a verb *tropare,
formed from L. tropus, which was used by Venantius Fortunatus
(about A.D. 600) with the sense of ‘a kind of singing, a song,’
White; and see Ducange. This is only a peculiar use of L. tropus,
which usually means a trope; see Trope. B. The Late L. *#ro-
pare would have the exact sense ‘ to make or write, or sing a song’
which is so conspicuous in OF, trover (F. trouver), Prov. trobar,
Port. and Span. trovar, Ital. trovare; for, though the mod. Ἐς, trouver
means ‘to find’ in a general sense, this is merely generalised from
the particular sense of ‘to find out” or ‘devise’ poetry; cf. Port.
trova, a rime, trovar, to make rimes, /rovador, a rimer; Span. trova,
verse, /rovar, to versify, also to find; trovador, a versifier, finder;
trovista, a poet; Ital. trovare, ‘to finde, to deuise, to inuent, to
imagine, get, obtain, procure, seeke out,’ Florio, It may be added
668 TROUBLE
that, even in Gk., τρόπος was used with reference to music, to signify
a particular mode, such as τρόπος Avétos, the Lydian mode, &c.
y. As regards the letter-changes, a L. 2) rightly gives Ital. v and Proy.
b, as in Ital. arrivare=Prov. arribar<L. adritare (see Arrive).
Cf. also Prov. trobaire, a troubadour; from L. nom. *tropator.
See Trover.
TROUBLE, to agitate, disturb, confuse, vex. (F.—L.) ME.
troublen, Wyclif, Mark, ix. 19; trublen, Ancren Riwle, p. 268, 1. 20.
=OF. trubler, trobler, later troubler, ‘to trouble, disturb ;’ Cot.
Formed as if from a Late L. */urbuldre,a verb made from L. /urbula,
a disorderly group, a little crowd of people (White), dimin. of éurba,
a crowd. In fact, we find OF. ¢orbleur, one who troubles. [From
the L. zurba we have also the verb turbare, to disturb, with much
the same sense as Εἰ, ¢roubler.|_ B. The L. turba, a crowd, confused
mass of people, is cognate with Gk. τύρβη, also written σύρβη, dis-
order, throng, bustle; whence τυρβάζειν, to disturb. See Turbid.
Der. trouble, sb., spelt ¢orble, turble in Prompt. Parv., from OF,
troble, truble, later trouble, ‘ trouble,’ Cot. ; trouble-some, Mer. Wives,
i. 1. 325; ¢roubl-ous, 2 Hen. VI,i. 2. 22. Also durb-id, turb-ul-ent,
-v. Also (from L. turbare) dis-turb, per-turb.
TROUGH, a long hollow vessel for water. (E.) ME. trogh,
trough, Chaucer, C. T. 3627. AS. trohk or trog (gen. troges), a
trough or hollow vessel ; used by Alfred in the sense of a little boat,
tr. of Orosius, b. 11. c. 5. § 7 (end). ‘Littoraria, ¢roh-scip, i.e. a
little boat, Voc. 166. 4; ‘Canthera, trog, id. 12. 12.4Du. frog;
Icel. trog ; Dan. trug; Swed. trég; G. trog, MHG. troc. We find
also G. truhe, OHG. truha, a chest or trunk. Teut. type */rugoz,
Idg. type *drukés, m.; from *Idg. dru-, as in Skt. dru, a tree; with
adj. suffix. Thus the sense is ‘wooden;’ see Tree. Der. ¢ray.
TROUNCEH, to beat, castigate. (F.—L.) ‘But the Lord
trounsed Sisara and all his charettes;’ Bible, 1551, Judges, iv. 15.
Lit. “το beat with a truncheon.’ =—OF. rons, m. a truncheon; ¢rouce,
f., variant of OF. tronche, ‘a great piece of timber,’ Cot., allied to
F. trove, a trunk; cf. also F. tronson, mod. Εἰ, droncon, ‘a truncheon
or little trunk, a thick slice,’ id. See Truncheon and Trunk.
Cf. also F. troncir, ‘to cut or break off in two,’ Cot. ; Span. tronzar,
to shatter.
TROUSERS, TROWSERS, a garment worn by males on
the lower limbs. (F.—L.—Gk.) The form ¢rousers does not seem
to be old; Richardson quotes ‘ by laced stockings and irowzers’
from Wiseman’s Surgery, b. i. c. 18; Wiseman died in 1676. In
older books the word appears without the latter r, in the forms
troozes, trouses, &c., and even ¢rooze; cf. Lowland Sc. trews. We
find, however, the curious and corrupt form sérossers in Shak. Hen. V,
iii. 7. 57, where most mod. editions have ¢rossers, though the same
form occurs also in Dekker and Middleton ; see Dyce’s Glossary to
Shakespeare. B. The word was particularly used of the nether
garments of the Irish; Nares cites, from Ware’s Antiquities of
Treland, ‘their little coats, and strait breeches called ¢rouses.’ ‘Their
breeches, like the Irish ¢rooze, have hose and stockings sewed to-
gether;’ Sir T. Herbert, Travels, p. 297 (Todd); or p. 313, ed.
1665. Hence Irish trius, triubhas, trousers; MIrish ¢ribus; Gael.
triubhas, Herbert also has the spelling ¢roozes, p. 325, ed. 1665.
‘The poor ¢rowz’d Irish there;” Drayton, Polyolbion, song 22.
Cf. also: ‘ And leaving me to stalk here in my ¢rowses,’ Ben Jonson,
Staple of News, i. 1 (Pennyboy junior). ‘Four wild Irish in
trowses ;? Ford, Perkin Warbeck, iii. 1; stage direction, =F.
trousses, s. pl., trunk-hose, breeches (Hamilton ; see also Littré).
Trousses is the pl. of trousse, a bundle, a ‘truss,’ formerly also a
case, such as ‘a quiver for arrows;’ Cot. Hence ¢rousses became
a jecular term, used esp. of the breeches of a page (Littré), and
was so applied by the English to the Irish garments. =F. trousser,
“to trusse, pack, tuck, bind or girt in, pluck or twitch up ;’ Cot.
These senses help to explain the sb. See further under Truss.
Der. trossean, q.v.
TROUSSEAU, a package; esp. the lighter articles of a bride’s
outfit, (F.—L.—Gk.) Modern; yet it is not a little remakable that
trusseaus, i.e. packages, occurs in the Ancren Riwle, p. 168, 1. 1.—
F. trousseau, ‘a little trusse or bundle ;’ Cot.; OF. ¢roussel, dimin.
of F. trousse, a truss, bundle; see Truss.
TROUT, a fresh-water fish. (L.—Gk.) ΜΕ. ¢route, spelt ¢rowte
in the Prompt. Parv. AS. trukt: ‘ Tructa, truht,’ Voc. 180. 37.
=L. tructa (whence also F. ¢ruite); also tructuss—Gk. τρώκτης, a
gnawer, lover of dainties; also a sea-fish with sharp teeth. Gk.
Tpwy-ev,to gnaw; with suffix -rys of the agent. As the sense is
‘onawer’ or ‘nibbler,’ it was easily applied to fish of various kinds.
Cf. Troglodyte.
TROVER, the gaining possession of goods, by finding or other-
wise. (.—L.—Gk,) ‘TZ'rover is the name of an action, which a
man hath against one who, having found any of his goods, refuseth
to deliver them upon demand ;’ Blount’s Nomolexicon, ed. 1691. In |
TRUCE
Butler, Hudibras, pt. iii. c.3, 1.648. An old law-term, in early use,
as shown by the spelling. OF. érover, later frowver, to find. It
answers in form to the Late L. *tropare, orig. used in the sense
to find out poetry, to invent, devise, which was a sense of OF.
trover, and prob. the orig. one. See further under Troubadour.
Hence dreasure-trove, treasure found, where trove is now bar-
barously pronounced as a monosyllable, though it stands for OF.
trove (trove), pp. of trover, to find; see Blackstone, Commentaries,
b.i,c. 8. Der. con-trive, re-trieve.
TROW, to believe, think, suppose to be true. (E.) In Luke, xvii.
ο (A. V.). ME. ¢rowen, Chaucer, C. T. 693 (A 691). OFries.
trouwa, EFries, trden, to believe. AS. triiwian, to trow, trust;
from Teut. base */ra-. We also find AS. ¢réowian, to belieye,
allied to tréow, sb., faith, and to ¢réowe, adj., true ; from the Teut. base
*trew(w). Cf. Icel. ¢riia, to trow, rir, true; Dan. zroe, to trow,
tro, true; Swed. tro, to trow; Low G. trouwen, to trow, trou, true;
Du. trouwen, to marry, troww, true; G. trauen, OHG. triiwén, to
trust; Goth. ¢ravan, to believe. See True.
TROWEL, a tool used in spreading mortar and in gardening.
(F.—L.) ME. truel ; ‘a truel of [4] masoun ;’ Wyclif, Amos, vii. 7,
earlier yersion ; the later version has ¢rudle. ‘ Hec trolla, a ¢rowylle;’
Voc. 728. 29. Spelt trowell in Palsgrave.—F. truelle, a trowel,
spelt ¢ruele in the 13th cent. (Littré).—Late L. ¢ruella, a trowel, in
use A.D. 1163 (Ducange); cf. L. ¢rulla, a small ladle, scoop, fire-
pan, trowel. A dimin. of L. trua, a stirring-spoon, skimmer, ladle.
See Twirl.
TROWSERS, the same as Trousers, q.v.
TROY-WEIGHT, the weight used by goldsmiths. (F.; and E.)
Spelt troie-weight in Minsheu, ed. 1627. Troy weyt; Paston Letters,
iii. 2907. ‘The received opinion is that it took its name from a
weight used at the fair of Troyes; this is likely enough ; we have
the pound of Cologne, of Toulouse, and perhaps also of Troyes.
That there was a very old English pound of 12 oz. is a well-
determined fact, and also that this pound existed long before the
name Troy was given to it, [is] another .. The ¢roy-pound was men-
tioned as a known weight in 2 Hen. V. cap. 4 (1414), and 2 Hen. VI.
cap. 13 (1423),’ &c.; Eng. Cyclopedia. And see Haydn, Dict. of
Dates. This explanation is verified by the expression ‘a Paris pece
of syluer weyng bee dhe weyght off troye viij. vuncis;’ Arnold’s
Chronicle, ed. 1811, p. 108; at p. 191, it appears simply as ‘ troy,
weyght.’ As early as 1392-3, we find ‘ponderis . . de T'roye;’
Earl of Derby’s Expeditions (C. S.), p. 100, 1. 28. T'royes is a town
in France, to the S.E. of Paris. Cotgrave, s.v. livre, mentions the
pounds of Spain, Florence, Lyons, and Milan; and explains Ja livre
des apothecaries as belonging to ‘ Troy weight.’
ΤΕ ΑΝ ΝΥ, an idler, a boy who absents himself from school with-
out leave. (F.—C.) ME. truant, Gower, C. A. ii. 13; bk. iv. 342.
The derived sb, ¢rewandise occurs as early as in the Ancren Riwle,
p- 330, 1. 2.—AF. ¢ruaunt, Boeve de Haumtone, ed. Stimming, 1. 281 ;
Vie de St. Auban; Ἐς trwand, ‘a common beggar, vagabond, a rogue,
a lazie rascall;’ Cot. He also gives the adj. ¢ruand, ‘ beggarly,
rascally, roguish.’ [We find also Span, truhan, Port. truhd@o, a
buffoon, jester.] Of Celtic origin. W. truan, wretched, ¢ruan,
a wretch; cf. ¢rwedd, wretchedness, ‘rueni, pity, ¢rugar, compas-
sionate, ¢ruenus, piteous. Corn. ¢ru, inter}. alas! woe ! ¢roc, wretched.
Breton ¢ruez, truhez, pity, trueza, to pity; truant, a vagabond,
beggar, of which Legonidec says that, though this particular form
is borrowed from French, it is none the less of Celtic origin, and
that, in the dialect of Vannes, a beggar is called ¢ruek. Irish trogha,
miserable, unhappy; ¢roighe, grief; ¢ru, lean, piteous; ¢ruadh, a
poor, miserable creature ; ¢ruagh, pity, also poor, lean, meagre; &c.
Gael. truaghan, a poor, distressed creature ; ¢rwaghanta, lamentable,
from éruagh, wretched; cf. truas, pity, ¢rocair, mercy. B. Thus
the F. ¢ruand is formed, with excrescent d, from the sb. which
appears as W. truan, Gael. truaghan, a wretched creature; which
sb. was orig. an adj. extended from the shorter form seen in W. tru,
Corn, troc, Irish trogha, Gael. truagh, wretched; Olrish traag ;
Celtic type *¢rougos, wretched (Stokes-Fick, p. 138). Allied to
Gk. στρεύγ-ομαι, 1 am wretched, I feel distress.
TRUCE, a temporary cessation of hostilities, temporary agree-
ment. (E.) The etymology is much obscured by the curious modern
spelling ; it is really a plural form, and might be spelt ¢rews, i.e.
pledges, pl. of trew, a pledge of truth, derived from the adj. true.
This comes out clearly in tracing the ME. forms. ΜΕ. driwes, Rob.
of Glouc. p. 488, 1. 10005 ; zreowes, K. Alisaunder, 2808 ; trewes,
Rich. Coer de Lion, 3207. ‘ Trwwys, trwys, or truce of pees;
Prompt. Pary. All these are pl. forms; the sing. ‘rewe,a truce,
pledge of reconciliation, occurs in P. Plowman, B. vi. 332, Morte
Arthure, ed. Brock, 879.—AS. ¢réow, a compact, promise, pledge,
faith (Grein); cf. AS. iréowa, by-form friiwa, used in the sense of
compact in Gen, xvii. 19; it also means faith, Mark, xi. 22. Allied
TRUCK
to AS. tréowe, true; see True. Cf. AF. trues, truce, Gaimar, 567;
triwes, id. 3046; trewe, sing., Stat. Realm, i. 300 (1344).
TRUCK (1), to barter, exchange. (F.—Teut.) ‘All goods,
wares, and merchandises so trucked, bought, or otherwise dis-
pended ;’ Hakluyt’s Voyages, i. 228.: Just above, on: the same
page, we have: ‘by way of marchandise, ¢rucke, or any other re-
spect.” ME. trukken, Prompt. Parv.; and even in Ancren Riwle,
p: 408, 1. 15.—AF. troguier, La Clef d’Amors, 1. 1067; Εἰ, troguer,
“to truck, chop, swab, scorce, barter;’ Cot. Cf. Span. (and Port.)
trocar, to barter; Ital. ¢ruccare,‘ to truck, barter ;’ Florio. β. From
OF. trogue, sb., barter (1537), Godefroy; MF. troc, trog, ‘a bar-
tering ;’ Cot. And-the Vocab. du Haut Maine has tric pour troc,
a-simple exchange; and we find Norm. dial. faire la troque, to
barter ; Walloon ‘rouk po trovk, a simple exchange (Rémacle). A
North Εἰ form; the Central F. ¢rocher occurs in 1434 (Ducange,
3. Vv. Trocare).—\WFlem, trok, truk, sale; used with regard to the
{good or bad) ‘sale’ of goods, trokken, to procure goods. The
WFElem. ¢rok and trokken are used in-all the senses of Du. trek,
trekken (De Bo). Cf. Du. trek, demand, quick sale ; ix trek zijn, to
be in vogue; from frekken, vb., to draw. See Trigger. Der.
truck, sb., as above, from F, ¢rog, ‘a truck, or trucking,’ Cot. ; cf.
Span. ¢rueca, truegue, barter, Port. troco, the change of a piece of
gold or silver, ¢roca, barter. Also truck-age. See Notes on
Ἐς Etym., p. 307.
TRUCK (2), a small wheel, a low-wheeled vehicle for heavy
articles. (L.—Gk.) ‘In gunnery, ¢rwcks are entire round pieces of
wood like wheels fixed on the axle-trees of the carriages, to move
the ordinaunce at sea ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. He also gives: ὁ trochus,
a wheel, a top for children to play with.’ J'ruck is an English
adaptation of L. trochus, now disused in its L. form. —Gk. τροχός,
a runner, a wheel, disc. —Gk. tpox-, 2nd grade of τρέχειν, to run;
see Trochee. Der. truck-le, a little wheel, answering to L. ¢rochlea;
Phillips gives : ‘¢rocklea, a truckle or pulley, . . which is one of the
six mechanical powers or principles;’ showing that the L. form
trochlea was once in use. Baret has: “ΡΝ δ, trochlea; a truckle,
or pullie.” Cotgrave explains F, jabot by ‘a truckle or pully;’ and
the word occurs rather early, as shown under Truckle, verb.
Hence truckle-bed, a bed that runs on small wheels and can be
pushed under another bed, Romeo, ii. 1. 39; see Nares. And see
truckle below.
TRUCKLE, to submit servilely to another. (L.—Gk.)
‘Truckle, to submit, to yield or buckle to;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.
Not an old word; Todd’s Johnson has: ‘Shall our nation be in
bondage thus Unto a nation that truckles under us?’ Cleaveland
(no reference). Also: ‘For which so many a legal cuckold Has
been run down in courts and ¢ruckled;”’ Butler’s Hudibras, Part iii.
c. 1. 1.613. To truckle under is a phrase having reference to the
old truckle-bed, which could be pushed under another larger one ;
and the force of the phrase is in the fact that a pupil or scholar
slept under his tutor on a truckle-bed. See Hall’s Satires, b. ii. sat. 6,
where he intentionally reverses the order of things, saying that a com-
plaisant tutor would submit ‘to lie upon the truckle-bed, Whiles his
young maister lieth o’er his head.’ Warton, in his Hist. of Eng.
Poetry, ed. 1840, iii. 419, has a note upon this passage in which he
proves that such was the usual practice both at Oxford and Cam-
bridge, citing : ‘ When I was in Cambridge, and lay in a ¢rundle-bed
under my tutor, Return from Parnassus (1606), Act ii. sc. 6
(Amoretto). He quotes from the statutes of Magdalen College,
Oxford, 1459, the statute: ‘Sint duo lecti principales, et duo lecti
rotales, ‘rookyll-beddys vulgariter nuncupati;” cap. xlv. He adds:
‘And in the statutes of Trinity College, Oxford, given [in] 1556,
troccle-bed, the old spelling, ascertains the etymology from ‘roclea,
a wheel.’ In fact, this shows how the words ¢truckle and truck (2)
came to be taken immediately from the Latin ; they originated at the
universities. 4 No connexion with AS. ¢rucian, to fail, which
does not in any way explain the word or its use.
TRUCULENT, fierce, barbarous, cruel. (F.—L.) In Cot-
grave. = MF. ¢ruculent, ‘truculent, cruell ;’ Cot. L. truculentwm, acc.
of truculentus, cruel; extended from trux (gen. truc-is), fierce, wild.
Perhaps the orig. sense was ‘threatening ;’ cf. G. drohen, MHG.
drouwen, ΟἿ. drauwen, to threaten, AS. fréagan, to threaten.
Der. truculent-ly, truculence.
TRUDGE, to travel on foot slowly, march heavily. (F.—
Teut.?) In Shak. it means to run heavily, trot along or away;
Merry Wives, i. 3. 91; iii. 3. 13; Romeo, i. 2. 34; 1. 3.34. ‘May
from the prison ¢rudge;’ Turbervile, That Lovers must not despair,
st. 6. ‘And let them trudge hence apace ;’ Bale, Apologie, fol.
6 (R.). ‘I trudgde about from gate to gate ;’ Mirror for Magistrates
(Alurede). Perhaps it meant to go about like a vagabond or idle
beggdr. =F. trucher, to beg idly (16th cent.), Littré ; Picard trucher,
to ber; Norm. dial. érucher, to sponge upon. Of Teut. origin; ef.
TRUMPERY 669
Low G. truggeln, to beg fawningly; Du. troggelen, to beg, to
wheedle; MDu. éruggelen, ‘to trugge up and downe a begging,’
Hexham; WFlem. ¢roggelen, to walk with difficulty, De Bo (who
notices that in Limburg it is pronounced ¢ruggelen or trukkelen) ;
EFries. ¢riiggeln, to press back, also to beg with importunity.
From Teut. base Jriig-, to press; as in Icel, Jriga, Swed. truga,
Dan. true, to press. δ] Florio has Ital. truecare, " to trudge, to skud,
or pack away.’ Cf. grudge<OF. groucher. (Doubtful.)
TRUE, firm, established, certain, honest, faithful. (E.). ME.
trewe (properly dissyllabic), P. Plowman, Β. i. 88. AS. ¢réowe, true,
also spelt ¢rywe, Grein, ii. 552. Cf. AS. dréow, iryw, truth, pre-
servation of a compact. Du. frouw, true, faithful; trouw, fidelity;
Icel. tryggr, trir, true; Dan. tro, true; tro, truth; Swed. trogen,
true; tro, fidelity; G. ¢reu, OHG. triuwi, true; treue, OHG.
triuwa, fidelity; Goth. triggws, true; triggwa, a covenant;. cf.
trauan, to trow, trust, be persuaded. B. The Teut. type appears
to be *trewwoz, adj., ‘ believed in, relied upon ;’ from Idg. 4/DREU,
to rely upon, trust in; whence also Lith. dri-tas, firm, OPrussian
druwis, druwi, belief, druwit, to believe. Der. tru-ly, tru-ism (a
coined word); also tru-ih, ME. trewthe, trouthe, Chaucer, C. T.
10877 (F 563), AS. tréowdu, Exod. xix. 5, cognate with Icel. tryg gd;
hence truth-ful, -ly, -ness. Also. troth (doublet of truth), trow,
tru-st.
TRUFFLE, a round underground edible fungus. (F.—L.) In
Phillips, ed. 1706. ‘A dish of ¢ruffes;’ Evelyn, Diary, Sept. 30,
1644.— MF. trvfle, another spelling of ¢ruffe, ‘a most dainty kind
of round and russet root;’ Cot. Cf. Span. trufa, a truffle; also a
cheat (see Trifle). We also find F. ¢artoufle in the same sense;
Ital. ¢artufo, a truffle; tartufi bianchi, white esculent roots, i.e.
potatoes. B. The F. truffe, Span. trufa, is supposed to be derived
from L. tiber, a tuber, esculent root, a truffle (Juv. v. 116); the neut.
pl. tibera would give a nom. fem. *¢ufre (whence érufe by shifting
of r) as in other instances; e.g. the L. fem. sing. antiphona=Gk.
neut. pl. ἀντίφωνα. y. That this is the right explanation (for
which see Diez and Scheler) is rendered almost certain by the Ital.
form tartufo (also tartufola), where tar- stands for L. terre (of the
earth), and ¢artufo is from terre tiber. Florio gives Ital. tartuffo,
tartuffola, ‘a kinde of meate, fruite, or roote of the nature of potatoes
called traffles (truffles?|; also, a kind of artichock.’ Brugmann de-
rives Ital. -¢ufo (in tar-tufo) from an Oscan-Umbrian dialect ; i. § 413
(8). δ. From the Ital. ¢artufola is derived (by dissimilation of
the double 2) the curious G. kartoffel, a potato ; of which. an earlier
form was tartuffel, See furtherunder Tuber, Doublet, trifle, q. v.
TRULL, a drab, worthless woman. (G.) In Shak. Antony, iii.
6. 95; and in Levins. ‘The Governour [of Brill, in Holland] was
all bedewed with drinke, His ¢ruds and he were all layde downe to
sleepe;’ Gascoigne, Voyage into Holland, a. Ὁ. 1572; Works, ed.
Hazlitt, i. 391. We should expect to find it a Du. word, but it is
German, imported, perhaps, by way of Holland, though not in Hex-
ham’s or Sewel’s dictionaries. —G. ¢rolle, trulle, a trull (whence
Walloon ¢rouille (Sigart), Picard ¢rowe,the same. It is a fem. form,
allied to MDu. drol, m., ‘ a pleasant or a merrie man, or a gester,’
Hexham, and to Dan. ¢rold, Swed. and Icel. troll, a merry elf ;
see Droll. The orig. sense was merelya merry or droll companion.
TRUMP (1), atrumpet, kind of wind instrument. (F.—G,—Slav.)
ME. trumpe, trompe, Chaucer, C. T. 676 (A 674); Rob. of Brunne,
tr. of Langtoft, p. 30, 1. 13. —F. ‘rompe, ‘a trump, or trumpet ;” Cot.
(Cf. Span., Port., and Prov. ¢rompa, Ital. tromba.]—OHG. trumpa,
trumba, a trumpet (Hatzfeld). Of Slavonic origin. —OSlav. type
*tromba (Miklosich); evidenced by OSlav. and Polish ¢ra(m)ba, with
the former a nasal, Slovenian ¢romba, tréba, a trumpet ; Russ. ¢ruba,
a pipe, a tube, a trumpet. Der. trump-et, ME. trompette, Gower,
C. A. iii. 217; bk. vii. 37443 from F. ¢rompette, ‘a trumpet,’ Cot.,
dimin. of F. trompe ; trump-et-er, from F. trompeteur, ‘a trumpeter,’
Cot. Also trumpet-fish; trumpet-tongued, Mach, i. 7.19. And see
trumpery.
TRUMP (2), one of the suit of cards that takes any other suit.
(F.—L.) Well known to be a corruption of triumph ; see Latimer’s
Sermons (Parker Society), i. 1, 8, 13, and Foxe’s remarks on them,
id. vol. ii. p. xi. Triumph in Shak. Antony, iv. 14. 20, prob. means
a trump-card ; see Nares.—}*. triomphe, ‘ the card-game called ruffe,
or trump; also the ruffe or trump at it;’ Cot. See Triumph.
Der. trump, verb; trump-card.
TRUMPERY, falsehood, idle talk, trash. (F.—L.) In Temp.
iv. 186 ; andin Levins. Caxton has ¢romperye, meaning ‘ deception ;’
Godfrey of Bulloigne, p. 238. The proper sense is deceit, or some-
thing deceptive, hence imposture, &c. =F. tromperie, ‘a craft, wile,
fraud ;’ Cot.—F. ¢romper, ‘to cousen, deceive,’ 1d. B. Littré says
that the orig. sense was to play on the trump or trumpet; thence
arose the phrase se tromper de quelqwun, to play with any one, to
amuse oneself at his expense ; hence the sense to beguile, cheat.
TRUMPET
This seems to be the right and simple solution ; and Littré also quotes,
s.v. trompette (1), the [15th cent.] phrase me joues tu de la trompete?
are you playing the trumpet with me, i.e. are you playing with me,
which confirms it. See further under Trump (1).
TRUMPET, the dimin. of Trump (1), 4. v.
TRUNCATE, to cut off short. (L.) Phillips has “ truncated
pyramid or cone.’ =L. truncatus, pp. of truncare, to cut off, reduce to
a trunk.=L. ¢runcus, a trunk, stock; see Trunk. Der. truncat-ion,
from Εἰ, ¢roncation, ‘a truncation, trunking, mutilation, cutting off,’
Cot.. from L. acc. truncdtidnem.
TRUNCHEON, a cudgel, short staff. (F.—L.) ME. tron-
choun, Chaucer, C. T. 2617 (A 2615), where it means the shaft of a
broken spear ; so also ¢ronchon, King Alisaunder, 3745.—ONorth F.
tronchon (Norm. dial.) ; see Moisy and Godefroy; OF. troncon;
MF. tronson, ‘a truncheon, or little trunk, a thick slice, luncheon, or
piece cut off;’ Cot. Mod. F. ¢rongon. Dimin. of F. tronc, ‘ trunck,
stock, stemme ;’ Cot.; see Trunk. Der. ¢runcheon-er, Hen. VIII,
670
νι: 4. 154.
TRUNDLE, a wheel, anything round; to roll. (F.—Low G.)
Now chiefly used only as a verb, to roll round ; the sb. occurs in
trundle-bed, a bed running on wheels, ¢rundle-tail, a round tail of a
dog; cf. AS. tryndyled, rounded; Voc. 152. 5. [We also find:
‘ Trendyll, sb., tournouer ;’ Palsgrave. ‘I ¢ryndell, as a boule ora
stone dothe, 76 roulle;’ id. ME. trendil, sb., trendelen, verb.
‘ Trendyl, troclea ;’ ‘ Trendelyn a rownd thynge, Trocleo, volvo,’
Prompt. Pary. ; from AS. trendel, a circle ; see further under Trend. }
B. The vowel is due to borrowing from MF. (Picard) érondeler, ‘ to
trundle,’ Cot.; Walloon ¢rondeler, to roll (Sigart). Of Low G.
origin ; cf. Low Ο. trondeln, Pomeran. triindeln, to trundle a hoop. =
Teut. *trund-, weak grade ofa lost str. vb. */rendan-, to roll (pt. t.
*trand) ; whence also AS. sin-tryndel, a large round shield ; OFries.
trund, round. Cf. NFries., Swed., Dan. ¢rind, round. The ME.
trenden, to turn, roll, is a secondary verb from *¢rand, 2nd grade of
*trendan-. See Trend. Der. trundle-bed, see quotation 5. v. truckle ;
trundle bedstead occurs in Bury Wills, ed. Tymms, p. 220, 1. 11, ina
will dated 1649; ¢rundle-tail, a cur, Beaum. and Fletcher, Love's
Cure, iii. 3.16, according to Richardson, but Darley’s ed. has ¢rindle-
tail; see, however, K. Lear, iii. 6. 73.
TRUNK (1), the stem ofa tree, proboscis of an elephant, shaft of
a column, chest for clothes. (F.—L.) ‘A cheste, or ¢runke of clene
syluer ;’ Fabyan, Chron. cap. 131, fol. Ixvii, ed. Ellis, p. 113. ME.
tronke, a body without limbs; Caxton, Golden Legend, Saul, § 3.
“Ἐπ tronc, ‘the truncke, stock, stemme, or body of a tree; also a
trunk, or headlesse body; also, the poor man’s box in churches’
[whence E. trunk =box]; Cot.—L. truncum, acc. of truncus, a trunk,
stem, trunk of the body, piece cut off. Spelt ¢roncus in Lucretius,
i. 3543 cf. ¢runcus, adj., maimed, mutilated. See Brugmann, i. § 144.
δ The elephant’s ¢runk owes its name to anerror (see below). The
AF. trunk, a trunk ofa tree, is in Wm.of Wadington’s Manuel, l. 11090.
Der. trunk-ed, having a trunk; trunk-line (of a railway); trunk-hose,
trunk-breeches (see Nares), short wide breeches, reaching a little above
or sometimes below the knee, and striped, meaning (I suppose)
trunked hose, i.e. cut short (cf. ¢runked=truncated, Spenser, F. Q.
ii. 5. 4). Also trunc-ate, q.v., trunch-eon, q.v., trunn-ion, q. V.,
trounce, ἢ...
TRUNK (2), the proboscis of an elephant. (F.—G.—Slay.) In
Holland, tr. of Pliny, bk. viii. c. 7. A mistaken form of trump;
which was confused with frank, because the latter was sometimes
used with the notion ofa (hollow) stem ora ‘tube,’ which was also a
sense of trump (Palsgrave). Cf. F. trompe, ‘a trump, or trumpet;
. . also, the snowt of an elephant,’ Cot. See Trump (1). For
trunk, a speaking-tube, see Ben Jonson, Epiccene,i. 1. Halliwell
gives both trunk and trump, as meaning ‘a pea-shooter;’ and notes
the corrupt use of ¢ruxk to mean a trumpat cards. See Trunk (1).
TRUNNION, one of the stumps or round projections on each
side of a cannon, on which it rests in the carriage. (F.—L.) In
Phillips, ed. 1706.—F. ¢rognon, ‘the stock, stump, or trunk of a
branchless tree ;’ Cot. Dimin. of éron, ‘a piece of anything, a
trunk, stem,’ &c.; Cot. This is a shortened form of tronc, due per-
haps (as Diez suggests) to misdividing the derived word ¢rongon as
tron-gon ; in any case tron and ¢ronc meant the same thing, as Cot-
grave tells us. Cf. Ital. troncone, from ¢tronco. See Trunk.
TRUSS, to pack, bind up, fasten as in a package or in bundles.
(F.—L.—Gk.) ME. trussen, P. Plowman, B. ii. 218; Ancren Riwle,
p- 322, 1.6. [The sb. ¢russe, a package, is in the Prompt. Parv.,
p- 504.) —OF, trusser, trosser (also tourser, torser), MF. trousser, ‘ to
trusse, pack, bind or girt in;’ Cot. The old spelling ¢orser (tourser,
torser in Godefroy) is supposed to be due to Late L. tursus, L. thyrsus,
a stalk.=—Gk. θύρσος, a stalk, stem; see Thyrsus. See Korting,
§ 9606. Hence OF. tourse, a bundle, toursel, trousel, a little bundle,
Ἐς trousseau. 4 The idea seems to be that of ‘ gathering stalks
TUBER
together,’ as in making up a bunch of flowers, &c.
“a stem or stalke of any herbe;’ Florio. Der. ¢russ, sb., ME. trusse,
as above. Also ¢rous-ers, q. v., trouss-eau, q. V-
TRUST, confidence, belief, credit, ground of confidence. (E.)
ΜΕ, ?¢rust, Ancren Riwle, p. 202,1.7. AS. *trast, not found; cf.
tréows-ian, to pledge oneself, ¢riiw-ian, to trust.-OFries. ‘rast; Icel.
traust, trust, protection, firmness; Dan. and Swed. frés¢, comfort, con-
solation.--G. ¢rost, consolation, help, protection; Goth. trausti, a
covenant; Eph.ii.12. β. The Teut. base of the Icel. form is *¢raus-
to-, formed with Idg. suffix -to- from *¢rau-s-, extended from *trau-, as
seen in Goth. trau-an, to believe, to trust ; see True, Trow. Der.
trust, verb, ME, trusten, O. Eng. Homilies, i. 213, 1. 7; ¢rust-er ;
trust-ee, one who is trusted, a coined word, with the suffix -ee =F. é
(L. -atus) ; trust-ful, 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 434, trust-ful-ly, trust-ful-ness ;
trust-less, Shak. Lucrece, 2 ; trust-y, ME. ¢rusti, Ancren Riwle, p. 334,
1. 213 ¢rust-i-ly, trust-i-ness ; trust-worthy (not in Todd’s Johnson),
trust-worthi-ly, trust-worthi-ness. Also mis-trust, q.v-, tryst, 4. ν.
TRUTH, sb.; see True. Doublet, ¢roth.
TRY, to test, sift, select, examine judicially, examine experi-
mentally ; also, to endeavour. (F.—L.) The old sense is usually
to sift, select, pick out. ME. ¢rien, tryen, P. Plowman, B. i. 205.
‘Tryin, tryyn, Eligo, preéligo, discerno;’ Prompt. Parv. =F. ¢rier,
“to pick, chuse, cull out from among others ;’ Cot. Cf. Prov. triar,
to choose, ¢ria, choice (Bartsch).—Late L. ¢ritare, to triturate; cf.
Ital. éritare, ‘ to bruze, to weare, .. . also to grinde or thresh corne,’
Florio. =L. tritus, pp. of terere, to rub, to thresh corn; see Trite.
B. Diez explains it thus: L. ¢erere granum is to thresh corn; the
Prov. triar lo gra dela palha is to separate the corn from the stalk ;
to which he adds other arguments. It would appear that the
meaning passed over from the threshing of corn to the separation of
the grain from the straw, and thence to the notion of selecting,
culling, purifying. Cf. Ital. ¢ritare, ‘to crumble, grind; to ponder,
consider, sift, scan, examine;’ Baretti. To ¢ry gold is to purify it;
cf. ‘tried gold, Merch. Ven. ii. 7. 533; ‘the fire seven times ¢ried
this ;’ id. ii. 9.63. Der. try, sb., Timon, v. 1.11. Also ¢ry-ing;
try-sail, a small sail tried when the wind is very high. Also ¢ri-al,
a coined word, spelt ¢riall in Frith’s Works, p. 81, col. 1.
TRYST, TRIST, an appointment to meet, an appointed meet-
ing. (F.—Scand.) See Jamieson’s Scottish Dictionary. A trist
(ME. trist, ¢rister) was an appointed station in hunting, a place where
aman was stationed to watch. ‘Lo, holde thee at thy triste cloos,
and I Shal wel the deer unto thy bowe dryve;’ Chaucer, Troil.
ii. 1534. “Τὸ ¢riste was he set, forto waite the chance;’ Rob. of
Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 94. Spelt ¢ryster, Gawain and Grene
Knight, 1712; ¢ristre, Ancren Riwle, p. 332. Hence the phr. 20
hold trist, to keep trist, to bide trist, to stay where placed, or to come
to an appointed place. ‘ Halden ?riste,, O. Eng. Met. Hom., ed.
Small, p. 82.—OF. ¢riste, tristre, station to watch (in hunting),
ambush (Godefroy) ; Low L. trista. Prob. of Scand. origin ; cf. Icel.
treysta(st), to trust to, rely upon ; Swed. ¢résta, Dan. ¢réste, to trust ;
see Trust. Hence ME. ¢rist, trust. ‘Lady, in yow is all my
tryste;’ ἘΠῚ of Tolous, 550, in Ritson, Met. Romances, vol. iii.
TSAR, a better spelling of Czar, q. y.
TUB, a kind of vessel, a small cask. (O. Low G.) ME. tubbe,
Chaucer, C. T. 3621. Not improbably a term introduced by Flemish
brewers. MDu. tobbe, dobbe,‘ a tubbe ;” Hexham; mod. Du. dobbe ;
EFries. tubbe; Low G. tubbe, a tub, esp. a tub in which orange-trees
are planted. @ The Ὁ. zuber, cognate with Low G. tover, means
a two-handled vessel, and is the same as OHG. zupar, zubar ; this
is derived from zi, later zwei, two, and the suffix -bar (as in frucht-
bar, fruit-bearing) from OHG., beran, peran, to bear. Thus G. zu-ber
= Low G. té-ver, (=two-bearing), i.e. a vessel borne or carried by
two handles. But this throws no light on tub, since ¢ubbe and /éver
are a long way apart. Der. ‘ubb-y, tub-like.
TUBE, a pipe, long hollow cylinder. (F.—L.) In Milton, P. L.
iii. 590.—F. tube, ‘a conduit-pipe;’ Cot.—L. tubum, acc. of tubus, a
pipe, tube; akin to ¢uba, a trumpet. Der. éub-ing, a length of tube;
tubul-ar, from L. tubul-us, dimin. of tubus; tubul-at-ed, from L.
tubulatus, formed like a pipe.
TUBER, a knob on a root, a rounded root. (L.) ‘ Tuber, a
truffle, a knot in a tree,’ &c.; Phillips, ed. 1617.—L. tiéber, a bump,
swelling, tumour, knob on plants, a truffle. To be divided as tu-b-er
(cf, L. plu-u-ia, rain, with plu-it, it rains) ; allied to tu-m-ére, to
swell ; so that ‘aber is lit. ‘a swelling.” See Tumid. Brugmann,
i. § 413 (8). Der. tuber-cle, from F. tubercle, ‘the small rising or
swelling of a pimple,’ Cot., from L. taber-cu-lum, double dimin. of
tiiber ; whence tubercul-ar, tubercul-ous<F. tuberculeux, ‘ swelling,’
Cot. Also tuber-ous (Phillips), from F.tubereux, ‘swelling, bunchy,’
Cot., from L. tiberdsus, full of swellings; also tuber-ose (Phillips),
directly from L. téberdsus. Also tuberosa (Phillips), fem. of L.
tuberdsus, as the name of a flower: now éuberose (often absurdly
Cf. Ital. ¢orso,
TUCK
pronounced as tube-rose!). Also truffle, 4. v. ; trifle, q. v.; pro-tuber-
ant.
TUCK (1), to draw close together, fold or gather in a dress.
(OLow G.) ΜΕ. tukken. ‘ Tukkyn vp, or stvkkyn vp, truakkyn vp
or stakkyn vp, Suffarcino;’ Prompt. Parv. Chaucer has tukked, i.e.
with the frock drawn up under the girdle, C. T. 623; also y-tukked,
7319 (Ὁ 1737). Not an E. word, but borrowed from abroad. - Low
G. tukken, tokken, to pull up, draw up, tuck up; also to entice; allied
to Low G, tuken, to ruck up, lie in folds, as a badly made garment.
The same word as MDu. éocken, ‘ to entise,’ Hexham ; MSwed. tocka,
to draw towards one.G, zucken, OHG. zucchen, to draw or twitch
up, toshrug. f. Teut. base *tukk-; intensive form from the weak
grade (*tuh) of *teuhan-, the strong verb appearing as Goth. tiukan,
AS. tedn, G. ziehen, to draw; see Touch. Allied to Tug. The
verb means ‘ to draw up with a ‘ug or twitch,’ to hitch up. Der.
tuck, sb., a fold; tuck-er, a piece of cloth tucked in over the bosom.
ὅτ ME. ¢trukken, in Prompt. Parv. as above, is a Scand. word;
Swed. trycka, Dan. trykke, to press, squeeze; cf. G. driicken.
TUCK (2), a rapier. (F.—Ital.—G.) ‘ Dismount thy tuck ;᾽ Tw.
Nt. iii. 4. 244. A fencing term, and, like other such terms, an Ital.
word, but borrowed through French. Just as E. ticket is from F.
estiquet or étiquet, so tuck is short for é¢oc, occasional form of MF.
estoc, “ the stock of a tree ; ... also a rapier, or tuck; also a thrust ;’
Cot. —Ital. s¢occo, ‘a truncheon, a tuck, a short sword ;’ Florio. —G.
stock, a stump, stock, stick, staff; cognate with E. Stock, q.v.
TUCK (3), beat of drum, blow, stroke. (F.—Teut.) ‘ Hercules
it smyttis with a mighty touk;’ G. Douglas, tr. of Virgil, Amn, viii;
ch. iv. 119.—Picard (or Walloon) toguer, toker, ONorth F. touquer,
to touch, strike; variant of F. toucher, to touch ; see below.
TUCKER, a fuller. (F.—Teut.) ME. fokker, lit. ‘ beater;’
though the cloth was worked up with the feet; P. Plowman, A. prol.
100, —ONorth Ἐς, éouguer (above). — Low G. tukken, to beat, to touch.
See Notes on E. Etym., p. 308.
TUCKET, a flourish on a trumpet. (F.—Teut.) In Hen. V,
ἦν. 2. 25. The form answers to ONorthF. */ouket, for OF.
touchet, a blow; given in Godefroy. The sense answers to that
of Ital. toccata, a prelude to a piece of music (Torriano); Florio
only gives toccafa, ‘a touch, a touching ;’ but he notes ¢occo di cam-
pana (lit. a touch of the bell), ‘a knock, a stroke, a knell or peale,
or toule upon the bells.’ Toccata is properly the fem. of the pp. of
toccare, to touch; of Teut. origin. See Touch. And compare
Tocsin.
TUESDAY, the third day of the week. (E.) ME. Tewesday;
spelt Tewisday in Wyclif’s Select Works, ed. Amold, ii. 75, 1. 14.
AS. Tiwes deg, Mark, xiv. 1, rubric. Lit. the day of Tiw, of which
Tiwes is the gen. case.4Icel. T'ys dagr, the day of Tyr; where T'ys
is the gen. of 7 Ὑγ, the god of war; Dan. Tirsdag; Swed. Tisdag ;
G. Dienstag, MHG. Zistag, OHG. Zies tac, the day of Ziu, god of
war. B. The AS. Tiw (Icel. Tyr, OHG. Ziv) answers to the L.
Mars as far as the sense goes; but the name itself answers to Skt.
déva-s, god; allied to L. deus, and to L. Iu- in Iu-piter, Gk. Zevs,
Skt. Dyaus, and means ‘the shining one.’ q A translation of L.
diés Martis.
TUFA, a soft stone, usually calcareous. (Ital.—L.) Not from Ital.
tufa, ‘ volcanic earth;’ Baretti. But an error for ¢ufo, ‘a kind of
porous stone ;’ id.—L. /dfus, tophus. Cf. Gk. τόφος, tufa. Φ Also
written tuff, from MF, tuf, tugfe (from Ital. tufo), ‘a kind of soft
and brittle stone :᾿ Cotgrave.
TUFT (1), a small cluster or knot, crest. (F.—Teut.) ‘Witha
knoppe, othir-wyse callyd a ἐμ; Bury Wills, ed. Tymms, p. 36,
in a will dated 1463. ‘A tuft (or 20.) of heres’=a tuft of hairs;
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 557 (A 555). The proper form should rather be
tuff, as in prov. E. tuff, a lock of hair (Halliwell), Lowland Se. tuff,
a tuft of feathers (Jamieson). Howell has tuffs, pl.; Famil. Letters,
i. let. 25. Cf. W. ¢uff(from E.). The final ¢ was due to confusion
with Tuft (2), q.v.; or it may have been excrescent.—F. touffe ;
‘touffe de cheveux, a tuft or lock of curled hair ;’ Cot. (He also gives
touffe de bois, ‘a hoult, a tuft of trees growing near a house ;” which
was easily altered to ἐμὲ (2) below.] Of Teut. origin; cf. Swed.
dial. tuppa, a tuft, fringe; Icel. toppr, a top, tuft or lock of hair,
horse’s crest; MDu. ¢op, ‘a tuft of haire, a top,’ Hexham ; G. zopf.
If so, tuft is a doublet of top (1). 2. Otherwise, F. touffe may be
from Late L. tifa, a kind of standard, perhaps a tuft; said to be
from AS. Jif, a tuft (see Toller). Cf. Swed. ¢ofva, a tuft, matted
hair; EFries. ‘w/e, a little tuft; Swed. ¢ofs, a tuft. Perhaps also
MDu. tuyf,a Turkish turban (Hexham); called in E. a ‘ugf (Nares).
Der. tuff-et, Norm. dial. touffette, a little tuft, a bow of ribbon
(Moisy) ; dimin. of ¢ougfe (above).
TUFT (2), a plantation, clump of trees. (F.—Teut.) ‘ The tuft
of olives ;’ Shak. As You Like It, iii.5. 75. Halliwell gives : ‘ ΤΊ,
a plantation.’ It seems to be the same as tuft (1); and is sufficiently
TUMP 671
explained by Cotgrave’s ‘ touffe de bois, a hoult or tuft of trees grow-
ing near a house ;’ see Tuft (1). Perhaps sometimes confused with
Toft, q. v.
TUG, to pull, drag along. (Scand.) ME. ¢oggen, Prompt. Pary.;
Ancren Riwle, p. 424, last line but one, where it means to sport or
dally. A-verb formed from Icel. tog, MSwed. tog, a rope to pull by;
or, as a secondary verb, from the weak grade (*tuh, *tug) of the
strong verb which appears as Icel. ¢juga (pp. tog-inn), AS. téon, G.
ziehen, Goth. tiuhan, to draw, whence a great number of derivatives
have arisen. One of these derivatives, to tow, comes very near to
tug in sense. See Tow (1). Allied to EFries. tokken, to pull, tug;
Low G. tukken, to pull up, draw up; cf. Low G. togg, a pull, a tug
(Danneil). Cf. also MDu. ‘oge, ‘a draught of beere, Hexham; ἃ.
zug, a pull, tug, draught; Icel. Τρία, to tug. Der. dug, sb.
Allied to tuck (1).
TUITION, care and instruction of the young. (F.—L.) ‘ Tuicyon
and gouernaunce ;’ Sir Τὶ Elyot, The Governour, b. i. c. 6; ME.
tuicion, Libell of Eng. Policy, 1. 1138.—F. tuition, ‘ tuition, protec-
tion ;’ Cot. —L. tuitidnem, acc. of tuitio, protection ; cf. éuit-us, pp.
of tuéri, to watch, protect. Der. in-tuition; and see tu-tel-age,
tu-tor.
TULIP, the name of a flower. (F.—Ital.—Turk.—Pers.) In Ben
Jonson, Pan’s Anniversary (Shepherd).—MF. tulippe, also tulipan,
‘the delicate flower called a tulipa, or tulipie, or Dalmatian Cap ;’
Cot. So called from its likeness to a turban. Ital. tulipa, tulipano,
a tulip.—Turk. ¢ulbend, vulgar pronunciation of dulbend, a turban;
Zenker’s Turk. Dict. p. 433.— Pers. dulband,a turban. (See Turban
in Yule.) See Turban. Doublet, turban.
TULLE, a kind of silk open-work or lace. (F.) Named from
Tulle, in the department of Corréze, France; where it was first
made (Littré).
TULWAR, an Indian sabre. (Hind.) From Hind. talwar, tar-
war, a sword (Forbes).
TULY, red or scarlet. (F.—L.) ‘ Off twely silk ;’ Rich. Coer de
Lion, 67, 1516; and see Halliwell. —OF. ¢ieulé, of the colour of
a tile; i.e. red (Godefroy). OF. tiewle, F. tuile, a tile. =—L. tégula,
atile. See Tile.
TUMBLE, to fall over, fall suddenly, roll over. (E.) ME.
tumblen, Wyclif, Matt. xiv. 6, in one MS. of the later version; tom-
blen, King Alisaunder, 2465. Frequentative form (with the usual -/-
for -el-) of tumben or tomben; in Trevisa, iv. 365, we have Je wenche
fat tombede (various reading tomblede) ; Stratmann.— AS. ‘umbian, to
tumble, turn heels over head, Matt. xiv. 6; in some old pictures of
this scene, Herodias’ daughter is represented as standing on her head.
+ Du. tuimelen, to tumble; MDu. tumelen (Hexham), also tommelen,
tummelen, id. ; (ας taumeln, tummeln, to reel, to stagger ; OHG. tumon,
to turn round and round, whence ¢imari, a tumbler, acrobat (an
OLow G. form, acc. to Gallée) ; Dan. twmle, Swed. tumla, to tumble,
toss about. The Εἰ, fomber is of Teut. origin. B. It will be ob-
served that, contrary to Grimm’s law, the word begins with ¢ both
in German and English; this points to borrowing, and suggests that
the G. word is of Low G. origin. Der. tumble, sb.; tumbl-er, an
acrobat, L. L. L. iii, 190, which took the place of AS. tumbere ;
‘Saltator, tumbere, Voc. 150. 20; cf. ‘Saltator, a tumbler, in a
Nominale of the 15th century, id. 696. 35; also tumbl-er, a kind of
drinking-glass, orig. without a foot, so that it could not be set down
except (inverted) when empty. Also ftumb-r-el (see Nares), spelt
tumrell-cart in Palsgrave (for which he gives tumbreau as the F.
equivalent), from OF. tumbrel, tumberel, later tumbereau, ‘a tumbrell,’
Cot., also spelt tomberel, tombereau (Cot.), lit. a tumble-cart, or two-
wheeled catt which could be tumbled over or upturned to deposit
the manure with which it was usually laden ; derived from F. tomber,
to fall, a word of Teut. origin, as above. Cf. AF. tumberel, a tum-
brel, Stat. Realm, i. 218.
TUMEFY, to cause to swell, also to swell. (F.—L.) Spelt
tumify in Phillips, who also has the sb. twmefaction. — Ἐς, tumefier, ‘ to
make to swelle, or puffe up ;’ Cot.— Late L. *tumeyicare, for L. tume-
facere, to tumefy, make to swell.—L. tume-, for tumére, to swell;
and facere, to make; see Tumid and Fact. Der. tumefaction,
as if from L. *tumefactio (not used), like tumefactus, pp. of tume-
acere.
i TUMID, inflated, bombastic. (L.) In Milton, P. L. vii. 288.
=L. tumidus, swelling. —L. tumére, to swell. —4/TEU, to swell, in-
crease; whence also Gk. τύ-λη, τύ-λος, a swelling. Cf. Skt. tu, to
be powerful, to increase. Brugmann, i. ὃ 413 (8). Der. tumid-ly,
-ness. Also (from tumére) tum-our, a swelling, Milton, Samson,
185, from Εἰ, tvmeur, a tumor, swelling,’ Cot., from L. acc. tumdrem.
And see /um-ult, tum-ul-us. From the same root are tu-ber, pro-
tuber-ant, truffle, trifle, thumb.
TUMP, a hillock. (C.) The W. ¢wmp,; a tump, may be from E.
But the word is prob, Celtic; from W. fom, Gael. and Irish fom,
672 TUMULT
ahillock; allied to Gk. τύμβος, L. tumulus, a mound. See Tumulus,
Tomb.
TUMULT, excitement, uproar, agitation. (F.—L.) In K. John,
ἵν. 2. 247; tumulte in Levins.—F. tumulte, ‘a tumult, uprore;’ Cot.
-L. tumultum, acc, of tumultus, a restless swelling or surging up, a
tumult. = L. tum-ére, to swell; cf. tumulus, of which zumultus seems
to be an extended form; cf. Skt. ¢umula-m, n., tumult ; tumula-,
adj., noisy, tumultuous. See Tumulus, Tumid. Der. tumult,
verb, Milton, tr. of Ps. ii. £3 ¢umult-u-ar-y, from Εἰ. tumultuaire,
‘tumultuary,’ Cot., from L. zumultuarius, hurried. Also tumult-u-
ous, Rich. II, iv. 140, from Εἰ, tumultueux, ‘tumultuous,’ Cot., from
L. tumultudsus, full of tumult, which from fumultu-, decl. stem of
tumultus, with suffix -dsus ; tumultuous-ly, -ness.
TUMULUS, a mound of earth over a grave. (L.) A late
word ; not in Todd's Johnson. =L. tumulus, a mound ; lit. a swelling.
= L. tum-ére, to swell; see Tumid. And see Tump.
TUN, a large cask; see Ton.
TUNE, tone, sound, melody, a melodious air. (F.—L.—Gk.)
‘With many a ἔνε and many a note;’ Gower, C. A. iii. 303;
bk. viii. 830.—AF. tun, Life of Edw. Conf. p.18; F. ton, ‘a tune, or
sound τ᾿ Cot.—L. ¢onwm, acc. of tonus, a sound. Gk. τόνος, a tone;
see Tone. @ The old word ¢unxe was afterwards re-introduced as
tone, which is a later form. Der. tune, verb, Two Gent. iv. 2. 25;
tune-able, Mids. Nt. Dr. i. 1. 1843 d¢un-er, Romeo, ii. 4. 30; tune-
ful, Spenser, Tears of the Muses, 27; tune-/ul-ly; tune-less, Spenser,
Sonnet 44.
TUNGSTEN, a very heavy metal. (Swedish.) Also called
wolfram, and scheelium (from the discoverer). ‘From tungstate of
lead, Scheele in 1781 obtained tungstic acid, whence the brothers
De Luyart in 1786 obtained the metal;’ Haydn, Dict. of Dates.
‘The name indicates heavy stone, in consequence of the high specific
gravity of its Swedish ore;’ Engl. Cycl. The word is Swedish. =
Swed. tungsten, compounded of tung, heavy; and stez, a stone.
Ferrall and Repp’s Dan. Dict. gives the very word tungsteen, tung-
sten, from similar Danish elements, viz. tung, heavy, and steen.
B. Swed. szen, Dan. steen, are cognate with E. Stone. Swed. and
Dan. ‘ung are the same as Icel. Jungr, heavy ; whence Jung, a load,
Aunga,to load. Cf. Lithuan. tanku, I become fat, infin. ζὰκζεὶ,
YUNIC, an under-garment, loose frock. (L.) Introduced directly
from the Latin, before the Norman conquest. AS. tunice, dunece.
‘Tunica, tunice;’ also ‘ Tonica, tunece;’ Voc. 151.8; 268. 1.—L.
tunica, an under-garment of the Romans, worn by both sexes ; whence
also F. tunigue (Cot.). Perhaps of Semitic origin; see Gk. χίτων in
Prellwitz. Der. tunic-le, P. Plowman, B. xv. 163, from OF. zunicle
(Roquefort) < L. ¢unicula, dimin. of tunica. Also tunic-at-ed, a
botanical term, from L, zunicatus, provided with a coating; from
tunica in the sense of coating, membrane, or husk.
TUNNEL, a hollow vessel for conveying liquors into bottles,
a funnel, a passage cut through a hill. (F.—C.) Formerly, when a
chimney meant a fireplace, a ¢wnnel often meant a chimney, or flue.
‘Tonnell to fyll wyne with, antonnoyr;’ Palsgrave. ‘ Tonnell of a
chymney, ¢zyau;’ id. Hence the sense of flue, shaft, railway-tunnel.
“- OF. zonnel (Burguy), later tonneau, ‘a tun, or (generally) any
great vessel, or piece of cask for wine, &c., as a tun, hogshead, &c.,
also a tunnell for partridges;’ Cot. The tunnel for partridges was
a long tunnel or covered passage made of light wire, strengthened
with hoops, into which partridges were decoyed, and could not
afterwards escape. Cf. prov. E. ¢unnel, a funnel, an arched drain;
OF. tonnelle, with like senses (Godefroy). The word evidently
once meant a sort of cask, then a hooped pipe or funnel, then a flue,
shaft, &c. In the Bury Wills, ed. Tymms, p. 20, we find (in 1463)
“my newe hous with the 11]. ¢nys of chemeneyis;’ Mr. Tymms re-
marks (p. 241): ‘The passage of the chimney was called a tunnel
till the beginning of the present century, and the chimney-shaft
is still called a tun.’ B. ἘΝ tonneau is the dimin. of F. tonne, ‘a tun;’
Cot. Ultimately of Celtic origin; see Ton. Cf. AF. tonel, a tun;
Stat. Realm, i. 156 (1309) ; ¢onel,a tunnel (for birds), Bozon, p. 173.
Der. tunnel, verb; modern.
TUNIY, the name ofa fish. (F.—Prov.—L.—Gk.) ‘A μιν
fish, thunnus;’ Levins. Palsgrave gives ‘ Tonny, fyshe’ without any
F. equivalent. The final -y is an E. addition. =F. ¢hon, ‘a tunny
fish,’ Cot. = Proy. /on (mod. Prov. foun); see Hatzfeld.—L. thunnum,
acc. of thunnus, a tunny; also spelt thynnus.— Gk. θύννος, a tunny ;
also spelt @dvos. Lit. ‘the darter,’ the fish that darts about (cf. E.
dart), Cf. Gk. θύνειν, allied to θύειν, to rush along. =4/DHEU, to
shake, blow, rush; see Dust.
TUP, a ram. (Scand.) ME. tuppe; Palladius on Husbandrie,
vili. 71; ‘ Vervex, a tuppe;’ Voc. 698. 29. Prob. a transferred
name; cf. Swed. and Norw. tupp, a cock, allied to Dan. ¢op, a cock’s
crest, Icel. toppr, a top, a crest. See Top.
TURKEY
Turkish.—Pers.) Spelt turbant, Fairfax, tr. of Tasso, b. xvii. st. 10;
turribant, Spenser, F, Q. iv. 11. 28; turband, Cymb. iii. 3. 6.
‘Nash, in his Lenten Stuffe (1598) has turbanto;’ F. Hall, Mod.
English, p. 112. [Todd remarks that it is spelt ¢uibant in Putten-
ham, Art of Poesie (1589), and ¢ulipant repeatedly in Sir Τὶ Herbert's
Travels. As a fact, Puttenham has /olibant, Art of Poesie, b. iii.
c. 24; ed. Arber, p. 291. These forms with / are really more correct,
as will be seen, and answer to the occasional F. form tolopan, given
in Cotgrave as equivalent to ¢urbant.]—MF. turbant (given by Cot-
grave, s.v. tolopan), but usually turban, ‘a turbant, a Turkish hat;’
Cot. Ital. turbante, ‘a turbant,’ &c.; Florio.<Turkish tulbend,
vulgar pronunciation of Turkish dulbend, a turban; a word borrowed
from Persian; Zenker’s Dict., p. 433, col. 3.— Pers. dulband, a tur-
ban; Rich. Dict., p. 681. Viillers, in his Etym. Pers. Dict. i. 893,
col. 2, says that dulband seems to be of Hindustani origin ; cf. Hind.
dulband, a turban; Shakespeare, Hind. Dict. p. 1059. But this
is doubtful. See Turban in Yule. See tulip.
TURBARY, a right of digging turf, or a place for digging it.
(F.—Teut.) ‘ Turbary (turbaria) is a right or interest to dig turves
on another man’s ground;’ Blount, Nomolexicon (1691).—OF.
torberie, Low L. turbaria, the same.—OHG. *¢urba, older form of
zurba, turf; see Turf. Cf. AF. turberie, Year-books, 1304-5, p. 485-
TURBDD, disordered, muddy. (L.) ‘Lees do make the liquor
turbide ;’ Bacon, Nat. Hist. ὃ 306.—L. turbidus, disturbed. —L. tur-
bare, to disturb.—L. turba, a crowd, confused mass of people; see
Trouble. Der. turbid-ly, -ness,
TURBINE, a hydraulic wheel, wheel driven by water. (F.—
L.) Used in various ways.—F. turbine, a hydraulic wheel; MF.
turbine, a whirlwind (Cot.)—L. turbinem, acc. of turbo, a wheel, a
top, a whirlwind ; cf. turbare, to disturb.
TURBOT, a flat, round fish. (F.—L.) ME. ¢urbut, Prompt.
Parv. ; Havelok, 754; spelt turbote, Wright’s Voc. i. 189. =F. turbot,
‘the turbot-fish;’ Cot. According to Diez, formed with suffix -ot
from L, ¢urb-o, a whipping-top, a spindle, a reel ; from its rhomboidal
shape. This is verified by two facts: (1) the L. rhombus, a circle,
a turbot, is merely borrowed from Gk. ῥόμβος, a top, wheel, spindle,
having, in fact, just the same senses as L. turbo: and (2) the Late L.
turbo was used to mean a turbot; thus we have: ‘ 7'urbut, turtur,
turbo, Prompt. Parv. We also find Irish ¢urbit, a turbot, a rhom-
boid, Gael. turbaid, W. torbwt; but it is a borrowed word in Celtic.
Cf. ‘The Lozange.. Rombus..the Turbot;’ Puttenham, Arte of
E. Poesie, bk. ii. c. 11 (12), Also AF. turbut, Liber Albus, p. 234.
TURBULENT, disorderly, restless as a crowd, producing
commotion, (F.—L.) In Hamlet, iii. 1. 4.—F. ¢urbulent, ‘turbulent,
blustering;” Cot. —L. turbulentus, full of commotion or disturbance.
—L. turb-are, to disturb.—L. zurba, a crowd of people; see
Trouble. Der. turbulent-ly; turbulence, Troil. v. 3. 11, from F.
turbulence (which Cotgrave omits, but see Littré), which from L.
turbulentia 3 also turbulenc-y, from L. turbulentia.
TUREEN, the same as Terreen, q. v.
TURP, the surface of land matted with roots of grass, &c., sward,
sod, peat. (E.) ME, turf, sometimes ¢orf; pl. turues (=turves),
Havelok, 939; Chaucer, C. T. τοῖος (E 2235). AS. turf (dat.
tyrf), turf, A. S. Chron. an. 189 (Laud MS.). So also: ‘Gleba,
turf,’ Voc. 146.13; pl. tyrf, id. 236. 18.4Du. turf, peat; Icel. torf,
a turf,sod, peat; Dan. ἐδγυ ; Swed. tof; OHG. zurba, turf (the mod.
G. torf being borrowed from Low German). B. All from Teut.
base *tard-; and allied to Skt. darbha-,a kind of grass, Benfey, p. 388 ;
so called from its being twined or matted together, from Skt. dybh,
to string, to bind. =4/DERBH, to wind, twine, knit together. Der.
turf-y, Temp. iv. 62.
TURGID, swollen, pompous, bombastic. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed, 1674.—L. turgidus, swollen, extended. —L. turgére, to swell out.
Der. turgid-ly, -ness, turgid-i-ty, Also turg-esc-ence, Sir T. Browne,
Vulg. Errors, b. ii. c. 7, part 5, formed as if from L. *turgescentia,
swelling up, from turgescere, inceptive form of turgére.
TURKEY, the name of a bird. (F.—Tatar.) “ Turky-cocke, or
cocke of India, auis ita dicta, quod ex Africa, et, ut nonnulli volunt
alii, ex India vel Arabia ad nos illata sit; Belg. Indische haen, Teut.
Indianisch hun, Calekutt:sch hun, i.e. Gallina Indica seu Calecuttensis,
Ital. gallo, o gallina d’India, Hispan. pauon de las Indias, Gall.
poulle d’'Inde, &c.; Minsheu, ed. 1627. ‘A turkie, or Ginnie henne,
Belg. Indisch hinne, Teut. Indianisch henn, Ital. gallina d’India,
Hispan. gallina Morisca, &c.; id. Turkey in Shak. means (1) the
bird, 1 Hen. IV, ii. 1. 20; (2) adj. Turkish, Tam. Shrew, ii. 355;
hence he also says ¢urkey-cock, Tw. Nt. ii. 5. 36. ‘ Meliagrides,
Birdes that we call hennes of Ginnie or Turkey hennes;’ Cooper's
Thesaurus, ed. 1565. Turkeys were ‘unknown in Europe until in-
troduced from the New World;’ see Trench, Study of Words. The
date of their introduction was about 1530(Beckmann). As they were
TURBAN, ἃ head-covering worn in the East. (F.—Ital.— | strange birds, they were hastily called Turkey-cocks and Turkey-hens,
TURMERIC
by which it was merely meant that they were foreign; it must be re-
membered that Turkey was at that time a vague term, and often
meant Tartary. ‘ Turkie, Tartaria;’ Levins. Similarly, the French
called the bird poule d’Inde, whence mod. F. dinde, a turkey; Cot-
grave gives: ‘ Dindar, Indar, a turkey-cock.’ Minsheu, in his Span.
Dict., gives ‘ gallina Morisca,a hen of Guynie, gallina de India, a
‘Turkie hen ;’ whilst in his Eng. Dict. (as quoted above) he calls
gallina Morisca, the turkey-hen ; showing that he was not particular.
The German Calecutische hahn, a turkey-cock, means ‘a cock of
Calicut’ not *Calcutta;* a name extremely wide of the mark.
B. The E. Turkey, though here used as an adj. (since ¢urkey is short
for turkey-cock or turkey-hen) was also used as a sb., to denote the
name of the country.=F, Turquie, ‘Turkie,’ Cot.—<F. Turc, m.,
Turque, f., ‘Vurkish” id.—Tatar turk, orig. meaning ‘brave.’
(The Turkish word for Turk is ‘osmanli.] Cf. Pers. Turk, ‘a Turk, |
comprehending likewise those numerous nations of Tartars ... who
claim descent from Turk, the son of Japhet.... Also a Scythian,
barbarian, robber, plunderer, villain, vagabond ;” Richardson’s Dict.,
p: 392. Hence Pers. Turki, ‘Turkish, Turk-like;’ id. p. 393. (See
Turkey in Yule.) So also maize was called Turkey wheat, F. bled
de Turquie; Wedgwood. Der. turq-uoise, q.v.
TURMERIC, the root of an E. Indian plant, used as a yellow
dye, and in curry-powder. (F.—L.—Arab.?) Spelt turmerick in
Phillips, ed. 1706; also in Ben Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, v. 2
(Perfumer). A gross corruption of the Ἐς, name.=—F. ¢erre-mérite,
turmeric; not given in Littré under ¢erre, but under Curcuma he says
that the root is called in commerce ‘safran des Indes, et curcuma,
dite terre-mérite, quand elle est réduite en poudre,’=L. ¢erra merita;
turmeric ‘is likewise called by the French ¢erra merita; Curcuma,
heec Gallis terra merita male dicitur,’ see Royle, Antiquity of Hindoo
Medicine, p. 87; (Eng. Cycl. Division Artsand Sciences). I suppose
it means ‘excellent earth;’ as if from L. terra, earth, and merita,
fem. of meritus, pp. of meréri, to deserve. But ¢erra merita is hardly
Latin, and is doubtless a barbarous corruption; perhaps of Arab.
karkam, kurkum, saffron or curcuma (whence Span. and Port. cur-
cuma, turmeric); Rich. Dict., p. 1181.
TURMOIL, excessive labour, tumult, bustle ; as a verb, to harass. |
(F.—L.?) ‘The turmoyle of his mind being refrained ;’ Udal, on St.
John,c.11 (R.). The pp. éurmdild occurs in Spenser, F. Q. iv. 9. 393
and turmdil-éd in Shak. 2 Hen. VI, iv. το. 18. ‘At seas ‘urmdylde
fiue days with raging winde;’ Mirror for Mag., Brennus, st.9. The
origin is somewhat doubtful; the form is prob. corrupt, the latter
part of the word being perhaps due to E. moi, q.v., and the former
part assimilated to turn. B. It has been suggested that it may have
something to do with MF. trameul, tremouille, ‘the hopper of a
mill,’ Cot., also called ¢remie, and prob. so called from being in con-
tinual movement, from L. tremere, to tremble, shake.
accent on the latter syllable suggests that fur- is a mere prefix, and
may represent the OF, intensive prefix ¢ra- or tres- (both from L.
trans); as in OF, tres-batre, tra-batre, to beat extremely (Godefroy).
If so, the sense is ‘to moil (or harass) greatly.’ See Moil.
TURN, to cause to revolve, transfer, convert, whirl round, change.
(L.—Gk.) ΜΕ. tournen, tornen, turnen; Ormulum, 169; cf. Ε΄
tourner, OF. torner, turner, to turn. But it occurs in late AS. as
turnian, tyrnan (Toller); so that it was taken directly from L.
tornare, to turn in a lathe, to turn.—L. ‘ornus, a lathe, turner’s
wheel. = Gk. τόρνος, a carpenter’s tool to draw circles with, com-
passes, whence τορνεύειν, to turn, work with a lathe. Allied to Gk.
Topos, adj. piercing, τείρειν, to pierce, L. ¢erere, to rub.—4/TER, to
rub, hence to bore a hole; see Trite. Der. ‘urn, sb., turn-er;
turn-er-y, from F. tournerie, ‘a turning, turner’s work ;’ turn-ing,
turn-ing-point ; turn-coat, Much Ado, i. 1. 125; turn-key, one who |
turns a prison-key, a warder; turn-pike, q.v.; turn-sol, a helio-
trope, ot flower that turns with the sun, OF. torne-sol (Supp. to
Godefroy), from L. sdél, the sun; turn-spit, one who turns a spit;
turn-stile, a stile that turns, Butler’s Hudibras, pt. i. c. 3, 1. 23;
turn-stone, a small bird that turns over stones to find food; éura-
table, a table that turns. Also (from forndre) tour, tour-na-ment,
tour-ni-quet.
TURNIP, TURNEP, a plant with a round root, used for food.
(F.—L.; and L.) The pl. turneps is in Holland, tr. of Pliny,
b. xviii. c. 133 spelt turnepes in Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, b. ii.
c.g. 1. The latter part of the word is πὲ} or nepe. We find * wild
nepe, Cucurbita, brionia’ in Prompt. Parv. p. 528. ‘ Hoc bacar,
nepe;’ Voc. 645.17. ‘As a nepe white’=as white as a turnip;
Destruction of Troy, 3076. This is from AS. r#€p, a turnip, bor-
rowed from L, napus, a kind of turnip. ‘Napus, n#p; Rapa, n&p;’
Voc. 135. 30, 237. Hence the etymological spelling should rather
be turnep than ¢urnip, and we know that the latter part of the word
is from Latin. Cf. Irish and Gael. neip, a turnip. 2. The former
part of the word is less obvious ; but it is most likely IF. ow in the
But the old |
| Chaucer, C.
TUSK 673
sense of ‘ wheel,’ to signify its round shape, as if it had been ‘turned.’
Cotgrave gives, among the senses of four, these: ‘also a spinning-
wheel, a turn, or turner’s wheel.’ Or it might be the E. ‘urn, used
in a like sense; Cotgrave also gives: ‘ Tournoir, a turn, tuming-
wheel, or turners wheel, called a lathe or lare.” It makes but little
difference, since F. tour is the verbal sb. of ¢ourner, to turn; see
Tour, Turn. Cf. Ital. orno, ‘a turne, a turners or spinners
wheele,’ Florio; W. ¢urn, a turn, also round (from E.); Irish
turnapa, a turnip, ¢urnoir, a turner (from E.).
TURNPIKE, a gate set across a road to stop those liable to
toll. (F.—L.) The name was given to the toll-gate, because it took
the place of the old-fashioned ¢urn-pike, which had three (or more)
horizontal bars or pikes (sharp at one end) revolving on a central
post. For the difference between a ¢urn-pike and a turn-stile, see
figs. 266, 267, in Boutell’s Heraldry. Jamieson cites turn-pyk from
Wyntoun, viii, 38. 74. The word occurs in Cotgrave, who trans-
lates F. tour by ‘a turn, ... also, a turn-pike or turning-stile.” So
also: ‘I move upon my axle like a turnpike ;’ Ben Jonson, Staple
of News, iii. 1 (Picklock) ; see Nares. The word ¢urn-pike was also
used in the sense of chevaux de Frise, as in Phillips, ed.1706, From
Turn and Pike. Der. turn-pike-gate, turn-pike-road,
TURPENTINE, the resinous juice of the terebinth tree, &c.
(F.—L.—Gk.) In Levins, ed. 1570. ME. durbentine, Mandeville’s
Tray, ch. v. p. 51.— ME. durbentine, ‘turpentine ;’ Cot.—L. terebin-
thus, a terebinth-tree ; whence the adj. éerebinthinus, made from the
terebinth-tree.— Gk. τερεβίνθινος, made from the tree called τερέ-
βινθος ; see Terebinth, Cf. Norm. dial. turbentine (Moisy).
TURPITUDKE, baseness, depravity. (F.—L.) In Shak. Troil.
Ve 2. 112,—F, turpitude, ‘turpitude;’ Cot.—L. turpitiido, baseness.
—L. turpi-, decl. stem of ¢urpis, base; with suffix -tido. B. The
L, turpis is ‘shameful ;’ cf. Skt. trap, to be embarrassed, be ashamed;
causal, ¢rapaya, to make ashamed ; ¢rapa, shame.
TURQUOISE, TURQUOIS, TURKOISE, TURKIS,
a precious stone, (F.— Low L.— Tatar.) In Cotgrave; also Palsgrave
has: * Tourgues, a precious stone, tourquois.” Turcas, a turquoise,
Bale’s Works, p. 607 (Parker Soc.).—F. ¢urquoise, ‘a turquois, or
Turkish stone ;’ Cot. Turquoise is the fem. of Turquois, ‘Vurkish,
id.; cf. MItal. Turchesa, ‘a blue precious stone called a Turkoise ;’
Florio. The sense is Turkish; the Late L. turchesius is found with
the sense of turquoise in A.D. 1347 (Ducange). The F. Turquois
is an adj. form, from Low L. Turcus, a Turk, which is from Tatar
turk, a Turk; see Turkey.
TURRET, asmall tower. (F.—L.) ME. touret, Chaucer, C. T.
1909 (A 1011}; ¢oret, Prompt. Pary.—F. tourette, ‘a turret or small
tower;’ Cot. Dimin. of F. tour (OF. tor, tur), a tower. = L. turrem,
acc. of turris,a tower 3 see Tower. Cf. AF. turette, French Chron.
of London, p. 49. Der, turret-ed.
TURTLE (1), a turtle-dove, kind of pigeon. (L.) ΜῈ, turtle,
T. 10013 (E 2139). AS. ¢urtle. ‘Turtur, turtle ;’
Voc, 132. I.—L. ¢urtur, a turtle; with the common change from
rtol, Hence also Ὁ. turtel-taube, a turtle-dove; Ital. tortora, tor-
tola, a turtle. B. The L. tur-tur is of imitative origin; due to
a repetition of ‘wr, imitative of the coo of a pigeon. Cf. Du. kirren,
to coo.
TURTLE (2), the sea-tortoise. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706.
This word is absolutely the same as the word above. It occurs,
according to Richardson, in Dampier’s Voyages, an. 1687 ; see ed.
1699, i. 395. The islands called Tortugas in Spanish were called
Tortles in English, because turtles bred there; Eng. Garner, ed.
Arber, v. 1213 vii. 355, 357-S. The English sailors having a difficulty
with the Portuguese ¢ar‘aruga, a tortoise or turtle, and the Span.
tortuga, tortoise, turtle, overcame that difficulty by substituting the
E. turtle, with a grand disregard of the difference between the two
creatures, The Span. and Port. names did not readily suggest the
E, tortoise; whereas ¢artaruga could easily become *fortaluga, and
then */ortal for short. See Tortoise.
TUSH, an exclamation of impatience. (E.) Common in Shak.
Much Ado, iii, 3. 130; &c. Holinshed (or Stanihurst) gives the
form dwish. ‘There is a.. disdainfull interiection vsed in Irish
called boagh, which is as much in English as ‘wish ;’ Holinshed,
Desc. of Ireland, c. 8 (R.). wish is expressive of disgust ; cf. pish;
also tut. Note also Low G. tuss, silence! Dan. tysse, to be silent ;
tys, hush! NFries. fiiss, hush! fiisse, ¢iische, to command silence.
See Tut.
TUSK, a long pointed tooth. (E.) Shak. uses the pl. form
tushes, Venus, 617,624. ME. tusk, tusch, tosch ; spelt tosche, Prompt.
Parv. ; we even find the pl. ¢wxes in K. Alisaunder, 6547. AS. tusc,
almost always spelt tux, esp. in the pl. fuxas, just as AS. fisc is
often spelt fix; here x=cs, by metathesis of sc. Spelt wx, translated
‘grinder’ by Thorpe, Ancient Laws, i. 95, 8 49. ‘Canini, vel
colomelli, mannes tuxas;’ Voc. 157. 31.-FOFries. tusk, tosch; Fries.
x x
874 TUSSLE
tisk 3 Icel. foskr,. Perhaps the AS. form was orig. tisk (with long
ahs Hardly allied to Tooth; see Brugmann, i. § 795. Der. tusk-ed,
TUSR-Y,
TUSSLE, to scuffle. (E.) Allied to zousle, to disorder, frequent.
of Touse, q.v. Cf. Westphal. éusselx, to pull about; Dan. dial.
tusse, to move about, to confuse. And cf. Toss.
TUSSOCK, a clump or tuft of growing grass. (Scand. ?) Latimer
has: *¢ussocks nor tufts;’ see Todd’s Johnson. The suffix -ock is
a diminutive, as in hill-ock, Cf. Swed, dial. tuss, a wisp of hay
(Rietz) ; and cf. E. zowse, Dryden has éuzzes, i.e. tufts or knots of
hair; tr. of Persius, iv. go.
TUT, an exclamation of impatience. (E.) Common in Shak.
Merry Wives, i, 1.1173 &c. ‘And that he said. . Tut, ¢ut, dud 5’
State Trials, Hen, VIII, an. 1536; Ὁ. Anne Boleyn (R.). Cf. F.
trut, ‘an interjection importing indignation, tush, tut, fy man;’ Cot.
‘ Ptrot, skornefulle word, or ¢ru¢;’ Prompt. Parv., p. 415. And cf.
sh.
TUTELAGE, guardianship, (L.3 with F. suffix.) ‘The tutelage
whereof,’ &c.; Drayton, Polyolbion, song 3; 1.218. Ccined with F.
suffix -age (<L,.-@ticum) from L. tidéla, protection; see Tutelar.
TUTELAR, protecting, having incharge. (L.) ‘ Tutelar god
of the place 5? Ben Jonson, Love’s Triumph through Callipolis, In-
troduction. L, ¢izélaris, tutelar.—L. ¢iéla, protection; allied to
tutor, a protector; see Tutor. Der. tutelar-y, from Εν tutelaire,
*tutelary, garding ;” Cot.
TUTOR, an instructor, teacher, guardian. (F.—L.) For éutour,
the older form. ME, ¢utour, P. Plowman, B. i. 56.—F. tudeur,
‘a tutor;’ Cot.=L,. Ziitdrem, acc. of titor, a guardian; allied to
L, ¢at-us (short for éuitus), pp. of διδγῖ, to look alter, guard; see
Tuition. Der, tutor, verb, L.L.L. ἦν, 2. 77; dulor-ship, tulor-age,
tutor-i-al.
TUTTY, a collyrium, (F.—Pers.) ‘ Tutie, a medicinable stone
or dust;’ Blount (1681). ME. ¢uéie, Lanfrank, Cirurgie, p. 95.
= MF. uthie, ‘a medicinable stone or dust, said to be the heavier
foile of brasse, cleaving to the upper sides and tops of brasse-melting
houses ;’ Cot. F. ¢utie,—Pers, ἐπέϊγα, tutty; Rich, Dict. p. 461.
Cf£. Skt. tuttha-m, blue vitriol (Benfey).
TWADDLE, to tattle, talk unmeaningly. (E.) Formerly wattle.
‘No gloasing fabil I ¢wattle;’ Stanyhurst, tr. of Virgil, Ain. ii; ed.
Arber, p. 46. _ Vaynelye toe twaitle,’ id, Ain. iv; Ρ. 101. A col-
lateral form of Tattle, q.v. So also ¢witéle-twatile, sb., used by
L’Estrange (Todd’s Johnson) as equivalent to ¢iééle-tatile. Cf. ‘such
fables ¢witled, such untrue reports /waéled ;’ Stanihurst, Desc. of
Treland, ed. 1808, p. 48. Cf. AS. ‘wedding, adulation (Napier).
Der. ‘waddle, sb., twaddl-er.
TWAIN, two; see under Two,
TWANG, to sound with a sharp noise. (E.) ‘Sharply twanged
off ;’ Tw. Nt. iii. 4. 198. “Τὸ Twangue, resonare ;’ Levins. ‘To
twang, as the string of an instrument ;’ Minsheu. A collateral form
of tang, used with the same sense; see Tang (2), Tingle. It
represents the ringing sound of a tense string. Der. ‘wang, sb.
TWEAK, to twitch, pull sharply, pinch. (E.) In Hamlet, ii. 2.
601. A better form is ¢wick; cf. prov. E. fwick, a, sudden jerk
(Halliwell). ME. ¢wikken, Prompt. Parv. p. 505. AS. twiccian
(pt. τ. dwicc-ode), The Shrine, ed. Cockayne, p. 41. Besides which,
we find AS. angel-twicca =a hook-twitcher, the name of a worm used
as bait for fishing; Voc. 320. 32. . Twitch is a _palatalised form of
it; see Twitch.4Low G. twikken, to tweak, nip; G. zwicken, to
pinch, nip ; whence zwick, a pinch, zwick bei der Nase, tweak by the
nose; also G. zwackex, to pinch, to twitch. Cf. Twinge, Der.
tweak, sb. i
TWEEZERS, nippers, small pincers for pulling out hairs. (F.—
Teut. ; with I. swffix.) ‘ Handkerchers, rosaries, dweezers ;’ Middle-
ton, Span. Gipsy, ii, 1. The history of this word.is remarkable ;
it exhibits an unusual development.. A /weez-er or twees-er is, pro-
perly, an instrument contained in a éweese, or small, case for instru-
ments. And as the ¢weese contained ‘weesers, it was also called a
tweeser-case ; hence it is that we find /weese and tweeser-case used as
synonymous terms. “ 7'weezers, nippers or pincers, to pull hair up by
the roots;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. ‘Then his ‘weezer-cases are incom-
parable ;. you shall have one not much bigger than your finger, with
seventeen several instruments in it, all necessary every hour of the day;’
Tatler, no. 142; March 7, 1709-10. ‘This shows that a ‘weezer-
case WaS a case containing a great number of small instruments, of
which what are now specifically called ¢weezers was but one. See
another quotation under Trinket (1). B. Next, we observe
that the proper name for such a case was a /weese, or a pair of
tweeses; probably a pair of tweeses means that the case was made
uouble, folding up like a book, as some instrument cases are made
still. ‘Drawing. a little penknife out of a pair of tweezes I then
chanced to have about me;’ Boyle, Works, ii. 419 (R.). ‘I lave
TWICE
sent you by Vacandary the post, the French bever [hat] and éweeses
you writ for;’ Howell, Familiar Letters, vol. 1. let. 17; May 1, 1620.
‘A Surgeon’stweese, or box of instruments, pannard de chirurgien ;’
Sherwood, index to Cotgrave. C. Lastly, the word /weese is a
new pl. formed from ¢wee, short for etwee, from MF, estuy (mod. F.
étui), ‘ Estuy, a sheath, case, or box to put things in, and more
particularly, a case of Jittle instruments, or sizzers, bodkin, penknife,
&c., now commonly tearmed an ettwee;’ Cot. And again: ‘ Pen-
narol de Chirurgien, a chirurgian’s case or e/tuy ; the box wherein he
carries his instruments;’ id. Hence ¢wee; ‘sure I have not dropt
my twee;’ Hoadly, The Suspicious Husband, A. ii. sc. 2 (1747). Here
we see that the F. estwy was pronounced ef-wee; then the initial e
(for es) was dropped, just as in the case of Ticket and Tuck (2) ;
then dwee became ‘wees or tweese, probably because the case was
double; then it was called a pair of tweeses, and a particular im-
plement in it was called a éweezer or tweezers, prob. from some con-
fusion with the obsolete ¢wich, tweezers; see additions to Nares, by
Halliwell and Wright. The most remarkable point is the double
addition of the pl. form, so that dwee-s-es is from twee; this can be
explained by the common use of the plural for certain implements,
such as shears, scissors, pliers, snuffers, tongs, scales, nippers, pincers, &c.
So far, the history of the word is quite clear, and fully known, D. The
etymology of OF. estuy or esiui is difficult; it is the same as Span.
estuche, a scissors-case, also scissors (note this change of sense), Port.
estojo, a case, a tweezer-case, Low Lat. estugium, a case, box, oc-
curring A.D. 1231 (Ducange). We also find MItal. stuccio, stucchio,
“a little pocket-cace with cisors, pen-knives, and such trifles in them,’
(sic) Florio; whence (with prefix a-<L. ad) Ital, astuccio, a small
box, case, sheath. The form stucchio does not seem to have been
observed before; perhaps it helps the etymology, proposed by Diez,
from MHG, stiche, OHG, sticha, a cuff, a muff (prov, G. stauche,
a short and narrow muff).+Icel. stiza, a sleeve. If so, the orig.
case for small instruments was a muff, or a cuff, or a part of the
sleeve. Korting, § 9128.
TWELVE, two and ten. (E.) ME. twe/f; whence also ‘welf-e,
twel-ue (=twel-ve),a pl. form and dissyllabic, It was not uncommon
to use numerals in the pl. form of adjectives; cf E. five (=/i-vé),
from AS. fif. ‘ Twelue winter’=twelve years, P. Plowman, B, v.
196, where two MSS. have twelf. We have, in the Ormulum, the
form tweilf, 11069; but also ¢wellf-e (dissyllabic), 537. AS. twel/,
also twelfe, Grein, ii. 556.4-OF ris. twelef, twilif, iwelf, tolef; Du.
twaalf ; Icel. i0lf; Dan. tolv; Swed. tolf; G. zwolf; OHG, zwelif;
Goth. twalif. B. All from the Teut. type /walif,as in Gothic.
Here dwa- is ‘wo; see Two. ‘The suffix -/if is the Teut. equivalent
(but from another root Jeip, to stick, remain, eave) to the Lithuan,
-lika occurring in dwy-lika, twelve. The Lithuan. -/ika is due to
the adj. Jékas, signifying ‘ what is over,’ or ‘remaining over;’ see
Nesselmann, p. 365. In fact, the phr. antras lékas, lit. ‘second one
over,’ is used as an ordinal, meaning ‘twelfth.’? Léka: is from Lith,
lik-ti, to leave, allied to L. linguere. See Eleven. Brugmann,
ii. 8 175. Der. twelf-th, used instead of twelft (ME. twelfle, AS.
twelfla, Grein, ii. 556) by analogy with seven-th, eigh-th, nin-th, δες. ;
hence /welfth-day, twelfth-night (often called dwel/day, twelfnight, as
in Shakespeare’s play of ‘ Twelfe Night’); iwelve-month, ME. twelf-
monthe, P. Plowman, C. vii. 80.
TWENTY, twice ten. (E.) ME. dwenty, Chaucer, C. Ty
17118 (Η 169). AS. twentig, Grein, ii. 557. Prob. for twén-tig =
twegen-tig; from AS. twegen, twain, and the suffix -/ig, cognate
with Goth, /igjus, Gk. δεκάς, a decade, a collection of ten things ;
allied to E. ten, Goth. ¢aihun, Gk. δέκα. See Two and Ten.4Du.
twintig ; Icel. tuttugu; Goth. /waitigjus, Luke, xiv. 31; G, zwanzig,
MHG, zweinzic, OHG. zueinzuc. All similarly formed. B. So
also L, ui-ginti, twenty ; from πὲς (for *dui, twice, related to duo,
two), and -gindi (for *-centi, short for decenti, tenth, from decem, ten) ;
whence F. vingt, twenty, &c. Der, ¢wenti-eth, AS. dwentigoda,
Exod. xii. 18.
TWIBILL, TWYBILL, a two-edged bill or mattock. (E.)
Still in use provincially ; see Halliwell. In Becon’s Works, ii. 449;
Parker Society. ME. twibil; spelt ‘wybyl, Prompt. Parv. AS,
twibille or twibill, ‘ Bipennis, dwibille, vel stan-@x (stone-axe]; Fal-
castrum, bill ;? Voc. 141. 27, 28. Also: ‘ Bipinnis, ‘wibill ;?
ig. 30h: 6.—AS. twi-, double; and bill, a bill. See Twice and
Bill.
TWICE, two times. (E.) For ME. éwiés or twyés, formerly
dissyllabic; the word has been reduced to a single syllable, and the
final -ce is a mere orthographical device for representing the fact that
the final s was voiceless, and not sounded as Ζ. ‘ He ¢wyés wan
Jerusalem the citee ;’ Chaucer, C. T. 14153 (B 3337). AS. twiges;
A.S. Chron. an. 1120 (Laud MS.). ‘This is a genitive form,
genitives being often used adverbially; the more common AS. word
is duwa, Luke, xviii. 12, older form éwiwa, twice, /Elfred, tr. of
TWIDDLE
Orosius, b. v. c. 2. § 7. Both éwi-ges and twi-wa are from the base
twi-, double, only used as a prefix, answering to Icel. ¢vi-, L. bi- (for
*duis), Gk. δι-, Skt. dvi-, and allied to awa, two; see Two. Cf.
prov. ΕΝ. ¢wi-bill, a mattock (above), ‘wi-fallow, to till ground a
second time; and see Twilight.
TWIDDLE, to twirl idly. (Scand.) As in the phr. ‘ to dwiddle
one’s thumbs.’ From Norw. dvidla, variant of ¢villa, to mix up by
stirring round; and ¢villa isa mere variant of ¢virla, with the same
sense ; see Aasen and Ross. See Twirl. (Prob. ¢vir-la>tvil-la>
*tvil-da or tvid-la.) Cf. mod. Icel. kalla, to call; pronounced
(kad-la).
TWIG (1), a thin branch, small shoot of a tree. (E.) ME. twig,
spelt ¢uwyg in Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 22,1. 5; pl. éwigges, Chaucer,
Persones Tale, De Superbia (I 390). AS, twig, pl. twigu, a twig;
Northumb, twigge, pl. twiggo, John, xv. 5.-- Westphalian ‘wich,
twick; Du. twijg; G. zweig. B. From the AS. base /wi-, double,
because orig. applied to the fork of a branch, or the place where a
small shoot branches off from a larger one. In fact twi-g is cognate
with Skt. dvi-ka-, ‘consisting of two,’ Gk. δισσός, double, twofold.
Brugmann, ii. § 166. A similar explanation applies to ME. twist,
often used in the sense of twig or spray, as in Chaucer, C. T. 10223
(E 2349). Cf. G. zwiesel, a forked branch; and see Twilight,
Twice, Twist, Two.
TWIG (2), to comprehend. (E.) Orig. to observe, mark, take
note of; as in ‘ Now twig him; now mind him;’ Foote, Mayor of
Garratt (1763), ii. 2. Cf. prov. E. twig, a glance; ¢wig, to pull
quickly ; twick, to twitch; ¢witch, to snatch, pinch, also to hold
tight, to nip. See E. Ὁ, Ὁ. B. Otherwise, twig may be from
the Irish ¢ig-im, I understand, discern; Stokes-Fick, p. 50.
TWILIGHT, the faint light after sunset or before sunrise. (E.)
ME, twilight, spelt twyelyghte in Prompt. Pary. The AS. dwi-, pre-
fix, means ‘ double,’ like Icel. ¢vi-, Du. éwee-, (ἃ. zwie-; but it is here
used rather in the sense of ¢ doubtful’ or ‘half’ The ideas of double
and half are liable to confusion; cf. AS. ¢wéo, doubt, from the
hovering between two opinions; see Doubt and Between. β. Pre-
cisely the same confusion appears in German; we there find zwiefach,
double, zwielicht, twilight, zwiesel, a branch dividing into two ends,
zwietracht, discord, all with the prefix zwie-= AS. twi-. The prefix
is related to Two; cf. Twice, Twig. Andsee Light. By way
of further illustration, [find MDu. ¢weelicht, twylicht, ‘twilight,’ Hex-
ham; cf. Du. twee, two, tweedubbel, twice double, &c. Also Low ἃ.
twe-lecht; AS. twéone-léoht, twilight, Voc. 175. 34. But this last
would only give a mod, E. form ¢weenlight, and does not account for
the form twilight,
TWILL, an appearance of diagonal lines in textile fabrics pro-
duced by causing the weft-threads to pass over one and under two
warp-threads, instead of over one and under one. (E.) Added by
Todd to Johnson; Lowland Sc. tweel, tweil, tweal (Jamieson). ‘De
1. mappa mensali de twill,’ York Wills, iii. 14 (1400) ; ‘ panno vocato
twylled,’ id. iii. 71 (1423). ‘The form is very old, and has reference
to a peculiar method of doubling the warp-threads, or taking two
of them together. From AS. ¢wilic (Toller), OLowG. twili, adj.,
woven with double thread, twill (Gallée), Cognate with G. zwillich,
‘ticking,’ MHG, zwilich, zwilch, OHG, zwi-lik, ‘two-threaded ;’ a
word suggested by L. bilix, two-threaded, from 4i-, double, and
lictum, a thread. . See EFries, twillen, to double, in Koolman.
Formed, like twig, twine, twist, from the Teut. base ¢wi-, double,
appearing in AS. twi-, Du. twee-, G. zwie-, all allied to Two, q.v.
We also find: ‘ Trilicis, prylen hreegel, 1.6. a garment woven with
three threads, corresponding to an E. form *thrill; Voc. 151. 34.
And see Twilight, Twice. Der. ‘will, verb. ἄξῳ" Twilled in
Temp. iv. 64, is yet unexplained. Ray tells us that North E. twill
means a spool, and is a corruption of gull (see 15, D.D.). Idoubt
it as regards this passage; the Swed. dial. ἐνὶ is to turn round
like a spindle, to become entangled, as thread (Rietz); Norweg.
ivilla is to stir milk round and round, also to twist into knots, as a
thread; zvilla, sb., is a twist or knot ina thread. And the Norw.
verb ¢villa is merely an assimilated form of Norw. ¢virla, to twirl,
to turn round; like prov. E. twedl, to turn a spadeful over (Εἰ. D. D.).
I explain pioned as ¢ dug out,’ and twilled as ‘turned over;’ said of
excavated trenches with sloping sides, on which the mud is laid.
See the context, Halliwell gives ¢willy, to turn reversedly.
TWIN, one of two born at a birth. (E.) ME. twin, adj.,
double. ‘Iosep gaf ile here twinne scrud’=Joseph gave each of
them double raiment, ‘ changes of raiment,’ cf. Gen. xlv. 22. ‘ Piss
twinne seollpe’=this double blessing, Ormulum, 8769. ΑΘ, ge-
twinn-as, pl., twins (Bosworth) ; ‘ bini, gefwinne ;’ Ailfric’s Grammar,
ed. Zupitza, p. 13, 1. 14; ‘gemellus, getwin ;’ Corpus Gloss., 12.
+lcel. tvinnr, tvennr, two and two, twin, in pairs; cf. tvinna, to
twine, twist two together. We also find Dan. fuilling, Swed. tvilling,
a twin, perhaps for */vinling, by assimilation; cf. ME. dwinling,
TWIRL 675
Bavar. zwin-ling, (ἃ. zwil-ling, a twin. -Due to AS. ‘wi-, double; see
Twibill. + Lithuan. dwyni, twins, sing. dwynys; from dwi, two,
The seems to give a collective force, as in Goth. sweihnai, two
apiece, Luke, ix. 3; L. bini, two ata time. Hence ¢win, by two at
a time, orig. an adj., as above. Der. win, verb, Wint. Tale, i, 2. 67,
TWINE, to double or twist together; as sb., a twisted thread.
(E.) ΜΕ. twinen, to twine; pp. éwyned, P. Plowman, B. xvii. 204.
In Layamon, 14220, the later text has ‘a dwined pred,’ where the
earlier text has ‘a wines preed’=a thread of twine. The supposed
AS. twinan is unauthorised, but the verb was early coined from the
sb. ‘win, a twisted thread, curiously used to translate L. bysso in
Luke, xvi. 19 (as if from L. bis, twice).4-Du. ¢wijx, twine, twist,
whence /wijnen, to twine; Icel. évinni, twine, whence ¢vinna, to twine;
Dan. tvinde (for *tvinne), to twine; Swed. ‘uinntrad, twine-thread,
tvinna, to twine; also Du. tweern, twine, G. zwirn, B. All from
Teut. type */ais-no->*twiz-no-, double; the iz becomes 7 in AS, ¢win,
Du. twijn; the zz becomes xx in Icel. and Swed. ; and the z becomes
rin Du. and G. The base *éwis- occurs in Goth. twis-, prefix, and
in E, ¢wis-t; cf. L. bis (for *dwis), Gk. δίς, Skt. duis, twice. Brug-
mann, i. § 903 (c, note 2),
INGE, to affect with asudden, sharp pain, tonip. (E.) ME.
twengen, weak vb. (ng =nj), to twinge, tweak; Owl and Night., 156.
Cf. * Whil pat fwinges me the foe’ = while the foe afflicts me; E. Eng.
Psalter, ed. Stevenson, Ps. xli. 10, Causal of ME. twingen, str. vb. ;
‘Tam meked and twungen smert,’ id. Ps. xxxvii. 9. AS. fwengan,
weak vb. (Toller) ; for earlier *Jwengan, causal of *Jwingan, whence
the derived word Thong. For change of thw- to tw-, cf. twirl
below, q.v. Itis preserved in OFriesic thwinga, also twinga, dwinga,
to constrain, pt. t. ‘wang, wong, pp. twongen.4-OSax. thwingan, in
the pp. bithwungan, oppressed ; Dan. ¢vinge, to force, compel, con-
strain ; Swed. ¢vinga, to force, bridle, restrain, compel; Icel. Auinga,
to oppress; Du. dwingen, to constrain, pt. t. dwong, pp. gedwongen ;
G, zwingen, pt. t. zwang, pp. gezwungen. B. All from the Teut.
type *Jwengan- (pt. t. wang), to. constrain, compel; whence also the
secondary verbs appearing in (ἃ, zwdngen, to press tightly, constrain,
and ME. ¢wengen, to press tightly, tweak, or twinge (as above), and
in the Life of St. Dunstan, 1. 81: ‘he tvengde and schok hir bi fe
nose’ =he twinged and shook her by the nose, Spec. of English, ed.
Morris and Skeat, p. 22. The mod. E. twinge answers rather to this
secondary or causal form than to the strong verb; just as in the case
of swinge, due to the strong verb swing. y. Cf. Lithuan. twenkti,
to be hot, to smart ; ¢wankas, sultry. (4/TWENK). Der. twinge,
sb. Also thong, 4. v.
TWINKLE, to shine with a quivering light. ME. twink@en,
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 269(A 267). AS. ¢winclian, to twinkle, shine faintly,
Alfred, tr. of Boethius, c. xxxv. §.3; b. iii. pr..12. Twinkle is a fre-
quentative from a form twink, appearing in ME. twinken, to blink,
wink ; Prompt. Parv., p. 505. And again, ¢wink is a nasalised form
of AS. twiccan, to twitch ; see Tweak, Twitch. The sense is to.
keep on twitching or quivering, hence to twinkle.-+-Bayar. zwinkern,
frequentative of zwinken, to blink. Der. twinkle, sb.; twinkl-er.
Also twinkl-ing, sb., a twitch or wink with the eye, ME. twinkeling ;
‘ And in the twinkeling of a loke’ (look, glance}, Gower, C. A. i. 144,
bk. i. 30333 this is from ME. ¢winkelen in the sense to wink, as:_ ‘he
twinclep with the e3en’ =he winks with the eyes, Wyclif, Prov. vi. 13
(earlier version) ; see ¢wink, sb., a twinkling, in Shak. Temp. iv. 43.
TWINTER, a beast two winters old. (I.) “Εἶνε ‘winteris
britnit he;’ G. Douglas, tr. of Virgil, bk. ν. ch. 11. 105. AS. dwi-
winire, adj., of two years. AS. twi-, double (see Twibill) ; and
winter, a winter, a year. ᾿
TWIRE, to peep out. (E.) In Shak. Son. 28. Recorded in the
cognate Bavarian zwiren, zwieren, to peep out (Schmeller) ; MHG.
zwieren, to peep out (Schade), Not in Chaucer, as Nares asserts,;
but known in prov. Εἰ. (E.D. D.).
TWIRL, to whirl, turn round rapidly. (Scand.). Twirl stands for
thuwirl, as twinge (q. v.) for thwinge. ‘ Leave twirling of your hat;’
Beaum. and Fletcher, Rule a Wife, Act ii. sc. 3 (Altea); dwyrle,
Fitzherbert, Husb., ὃ 53, 1. 1.—Norw. ¢virla, to twirl (Ross).
Twir-l is a frequentative form, from Teut. *Awer-an-, AS. Jwer-an,
to agitate, turn; it means ‘to keep on turning,’ and is used of rather
violent motion, The AS. Jweran only occurs in the dfweran, to, stir
round, to churn, and ge-Aweran, to churn (Toller), We have also
the derived sb. Jwiril, supposed to mean the handle of a churn,
which was steadily turnedround. We find: ‘Lac, meole [milk] ; Lac
coagolatum, molcen [curdled milk] ; Verberaturium, Jwirid ; Caseum,
cyse [cheese ],’ &c.; Voc. 280. 27-33. Slight as these traces are, they
are made quite certain by the cognate words ;_ it may be necessary to
observe that, in AS. Awir-il, the final -i/ denotes the implement, and
is an agential suffix, distinct from the frequentative -ἰ in twirl. Cf, Du.
| dwarlen, to whirl; whence dwarlwind, a whirlwind (the Du..d=AS.
That the 1 is frequentative, appears at once from the Low G.
XX 2
p)-
676 TWIST
dweerwind, a whirlwind, as well as from MHG. dwer(e)n, OHG.
dweran, tweran, strong verb, to turn round swiftly, to whirl, to mix
up. From the Teut. type *thweran-, to stir round (pt. t. *¢hwar) ;
whence also Icel. Avara, Norw. tvare, AS. Jwére, OHG., thwiril,
ΜΗ. twirl, G. quirl, a stirring-stick. Note also EFries. dwireln,
dwirlen, to twirl, dwarrel, a whirl, from dweren, to turn. From Idg.
a/ TWER, whence also Gk. rop-vvn, L. trua, a stirrer. See
Trowel.
TWIST, to twine together, wreathe, turn forcibly. (E.) ME.
twisten, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 10880 (F 566) ; O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris,
ii. 213. Not found in AS., but regularly formed from a sb. /wist, a
Tope, occurring in the comp. mast-fwist, a stay, a rope used to stay
a mast. ‘ Parastates, mest-twist,’ Voc. 182. 8; one sense of Gk.
παραστάτης is a stay. Again, ¢wis-t is formed, with suffix -/, from
AS. *twis-, double, explained under Twine. The suffix -¢ is the very
common Idg. suffix -to-. We should also notice ME. twist, a twig,
i.e. forked branch, branch dividing into two; see under Twig.4+Du.
twisten, to quarrel ; from ¢wist,a quarrel. This is the same form, but
used in quite a different sense, from the notion of ¢wo persons con-
tending ; cf. Du. ¢weespalt, discord, tweedragt, discord, iweestrijd, a
duel; Dan, ¢viste, to strive, from ¢vist, strife; the Dan. /vist also
means a twist ; Swed. ¢vista, to strive, from Zvist, strife; G. zwist, a
twist, also discord, whence zwistig, discordant. And cf. Icel. /vistr,
the two or ‘deuce’ in card-playing. Der. twist, sb. (really an older
word, as appears above) ; zwist-er. Cf. obsol. ¢wiss-el, a double
fruit (Nares), from AS. twisel, double.
TWIT, to remind ofa fault, reproach. (E.) For ¢wite ; the i was
certainly once long, which accounts for the extraordinary form ‘wight
(miswritten for ¢wite, like delight for delite) in Spenser, F. Ὁ.
y. 6.12, where it rimes with light and plight. Palsgrave has the
queer spelling ¢whyte, prob. a misprint for ¢wyte, as it occurs im-
mediately before ¢wyne and under the heading ‘T before W: I
twhyte one, I caste hym in the tethe or in the nose, Fe luy reproche ;
this terme is also northren.’ The orig. length of the vowel leaves no
doubt that /qwite is due to ME. atwiten, to twit, reproach, by loss of
initial a; this verb is used in much the same way as the mod. E.
word, and was once common; Stratmann gives more than 12 ex-
amples. ‘ Imputo, to a-twyte;’ Voc. 589. 17. Spelt attwyte, Ayen-
bite of Inwyt, p. 198, 1.16 ; whence atuytinges, twittings, reproaches,
id. p. 194, 1. 6. ‘Pat atwytede hym’=that twitted him, Rob. of
Glouc, p. 33, 1. 782. AS. etwitan, to twit, reproach; see Sweet,
AS. Reader, and Grein. [We also find AS, ed-witan with the same
sense, but the prefix differs.]—AS. et, at, prep. often used as a pre-
fix; and witan, to blame, the more orig. sense being to behold,
observe, hence to observe what is wrong, take notice of what is amiss ;
Grein, il. 724. For the prefix, see At. The AS. witan is cognate
with Goth. wettjan, occurring in tdweitjan, to reproach (= AS.edwitan),
and in fairweitjan, to observe intently. AS. witan, Goth, weitjan, are
allied to AS. and Goth. witan, to know, and to L. uid-ére, to see. =
a WEID, to see; see Witand Vision. Cf. Du. wijten, to reproach,
(ας ver-weisen,
TWITCH, to pluck, snatch, move suddenly. (E.) ΜΈ. twicchen,
a palatalised form of twikken, to tweak. ‘ Twikkyn, twychyn, or sum-
what drawyn, Tractulo;’ Prompt. Parv. We find also the comp.
verb to-twicchen, to pull to pieces, O. Eng. Homilies, i. 53, 1. 4; with
the pt. t. ¢o-¢wizte, spelt to-twi3t, Will. of Palerne, 2097. Similarly
the simple verb éwicchen makes the pt. t. /wizte, and pp. ¢wi3t, This
explains ‘wight=twitched, pulled, Chaucer, C. T. 7145 (Ὁ 1563).
For the form, cf. AS. angel-twicce, prov. E. angletwitch, an earth-worm
(for fishing). See Tweak. Der. twitch, sb.3 twitch-er.
TWITTER, to chirp as a bird, to feel a slight trembling of the
nerves. (E.), ME. twiteren ; whence ‘ pilke brid. . ¢witereth’ =that
bird twitters, Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. iii. met. 2,1. 21. Twitter
is a frequentative from a base éwit, and means ‘to keep on saying
twit;’ and twit is a lighter or weakened form of ‘wat, appearing in
the old word twatt-le, now twaddle; see Twaddle. Again, twaddle
is related to ¢attle; and as twitter : twattle :: titter τ tattle. All these
words are of imitative origin.-+G. zwitschern, to twitter; Bavar.
zwitzern, And cf. Du. kwetleren, to twitter, warble, chatter; Dan.
kvidre, Swed. quittra, to chirp, twitter. Der. twitter,sb. @37 The
sense of trembling may follow from that of tremulous sound ; but a
twitter of the nerves may be due to the influence of ME. twikken, to
tweak or twitch,
TWO, TWAIN, one and one. (E.) The difference between ‘wo
and ¢wain is one of gender only, as appears from the AS. forms.
Twain is masc., whilst ¢wo is fem. and neuter; but this distinction
was early disregarded. ME. tweien, /weije, twein, tweie, twei, twey,
&c.; also ‘wa, two, in which the τὸ was pronounced ; the pronuncia-
tion of ¢wo as too being of rather late date. ‘ Us ¢wveyne’=us twain,
us two, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 1136 (A 1134). ‘Sustren éwo’=sisters two,
id. ro2t (A 1019). Our poets seem to use ¢wain and wo indiffer-
TYRANT
ently. AS, ¢wegen, masc. nom. and ace. ; ‘wi, fem. nom. and acc. ;
twa, tu, neut. nom. and acc. ; twegra, gen. (all genders); twam, dat.
(all genders). The neut. ¢u already shows an occasional loss of τὸ;
and even in AS. ¢wa was used-instead of twegen when nouns of
different genders were conjoined ; see Grein, ii. 556.-4+Du. twee; Icel.
tveir, acc. tua, tvo; Dan. to; Norw. tvo; Swed. ¢vd, tu; Goth. twat,
masce., twos, fem., twa, neut.; gen. twaddje, dat. twaim ; acc. twans,
twos, twa; G. zwei; also zween, only in the masc. gender ; also zwo,
fem. (rare); OHG. zwéné, zwa, zwo, zwei.4Irish da; Gael. da, do;
W. dau, dwy; Russ. ἄνα; Lithuan. du,m., dwi, f.; L. duo (whence F.
deux, Ital. due, Span, dos, Port. dous, E. deuce); Gk. δύο ; Skt. dvau,
dua. B. All from the Idg. type *dwo-, *duwo-; Brugmann, ii.
§ 166. y: In composition, we find, as a prefix, AS, twi- (E. twi-
in twi-ce, twt-light), Icel. tvi-, Du. twee-, Dan. and Swed. tve-, G.
zwie-, L, bi- (for *dui-), Gk. δι- (for *5Fi-), Skt. dui-, dva-; also E.
twis- (L, bis), as in ¢twis-t; see Twine. Der. two-edged; two-fold, a
modern substitution for ME. twifold, Early Eng. Psalter, ed. Steven-
son, Ps. eviii. 29, AS, ‘wifeald, spelt twigfeald in Gen. xlili. 15, so
that two-fold should rather be twy-fold, Also a-two, ME, a two,
Chaucer, C. T. 3569, AS. on zu, Grein, ii. 556, so that the prefix a-=
on; see A- (2). Also twain (as above), twe-lve, twen-ty, iwi-bill, twi-
ce, twi-light, twill, twig, twin, twine, twist; bi-, prefix; bis-, prefix, in
bis-sextile; di-, prefix, dia-, prefix, dis-, prefix. Also deuce (1).
TYBALT, the ‘ prince of cats... (AF.—Low G.) See Shak.
Romeo, iii. 1.80.— AF. Tebalt, Tebaud. —OSax. Thiod-bald, Theobald.
=OSax. thiod, people, bald, bold. See Tibert.
TYMPANUM, the hollow part of the ear, &c. (L.—Gk.) In
Phillips, ed. 1706. [He also gives: ‘ Tympan, the drum of the ear,
a frame belonging to a printing-press covered with parchment. . . .
pannel of a door,’ &c.; this is from Εἰ, tympan, ‘a timpan, or tim-
brell, also a taber; . . also, a printer’s timpane, &c.; Cot.J=—L.
tympanum, adrum; area of a pediment (in architecture); panel of a
door, Gk. τύμπανον, a drum, roller, area of a pediment, panel of a
door. Formed with inserted » from the rarer τύπανον, a drum. =
Gk. tum-, base of τύπτειν, to strike, beat, beat a drum; see Type.
And see Timbrel. Der. ¢ympan-y, a flatulent distension of the
belly, Dryden, Mac-Flecknoe, 194, from Gk. τυμπανίας, a kind of
dropsy in which the belly is stretched tight like a drum; the F. form
tympanie is given in Sherwood’s index to Cotgrave; Palsgrave has E.
dympan.
TYPE, a mark or figure, emblem, model, a raised letter in
printing. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. Rich. III, iv. 4. 244; and in
Spenser, Ἐς Ὁ. Introd. to b.i. st. 4.—F. type, a type; in Sherwood’s
index to Cotgrave.—L. /ypum, acc. of typus, a figure, image, type.—
Gk. τύπος, a blow, the mark of a blow, stamp, impress, mark, mould,
outline, sketch, figure, type, character of a disease. — Gk. tu7-, base
of τύπτειν, to strike, beat. Allied to Skt. ¢up, tump, to hurt ; and tc
Gk. στυφ-ελίζειν, to strike. (4/STEU). B. We also find Skt. ἐμά,
L. tundere (pt. t. tu-tud-i), to strike. These are from a base *steud-,
to strike ; whence Goth. s¢autan, to strike. Cf. Brngmann, i. ὃ 818
(2). Der. typ-ic, from Gk. τυπικός, typical, figurative ; typ-ic-al,
typ-tc-al-ly ; typi-fy, a coined word, Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. ii.
c. &, § 1; type-founder, type-metal; also tyfo-graphy, orig. in the
sense of ‘figurative description,’ Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b.i.c. 8.
§ 15, where the suffix is from Gk. γράφειν, to write; typo-graph-ic,
typo-graph-ic-al, -ly; typo-graph-er. And see tympanum, thump.
TYPHOON, a violent whirlwind or hurricane. (Arab.—Gk.)
[The word has been claimed as Chinese, from the Chinese fa, ‘ great,’
and fang (Cantonese fung), ‘wind;’ as if ‘great wind” But this
seems to be a late mystification, and unhistorical.| In old authors,
the forms are tuffon, tuffoon, tiphon, &c. Spelt touffon, and explained
as ‘an extraordinary storme at sea;’ Hakluyt, Voy., ii. 1. 239;
tuffoons, pl., W. Dampier, New Voyage (1699), il. I. 35. (See
Typhoon in Yule).— Arab. ¢ifan, a hurricane, storm; Rich. Dict.,
p- 466.—Gk. τυφών, better tupws, a whirlwind. Allied to τῦφος,
smoke, cloud ; see Typhus.
TYPHUS, a kind of continued fever. (L.—Gk.) Added by
Todd to Johnson. ‘Todd says it is ‘one of the modern names given
to low fever.’ =L. ¢yphus; a Latinised form from the Gk.—Gk.
τῦφος, smoke, cloud, mist, stupor, esp. stupor arising from fever; so
that ‘ typhus fever’ = stupor-fever.— Gk. τύφειν, to raise a smoke, to
smoke. Allied to θυ-μός, vigour, courage, θύ-ειν, to rush along ; from
DHEJU, to blow, fana flame, shake; see Fume. Der. typhous,
adj.; ¢ypho-id, resembling typhus, from Gk. τῦφο-, for τῦφος, and
εἶδ-ος, resemblance, from εἴδομαι, I seem; see Idol.
TYRANT, a despotic ruler, oppressive master. (F.—L.—Gk.)
The word was not originally used ina bad sense; see Trench, Study
of Words. The spelling with y is modern, and due to our know-
ledge of Gk.; the word was really derived from French, and might
as well have 7. ME. tirant, but spelt tyrant in Rob. of Glouc. p.
374, 1. 7689 3 ἐϊγαπ in Chaucer, prol. to Legend of Good Women, ,
TYRO
1. 374. OF. tiran, also tiranz, whence an oblique case firant; also |
spelt ‘yran, tyrant; see Littré. Cotgrave gives: ‘ Tyran, a tirant. =
L. tyrannum, acc. of tyrannus.—=Gk. τύραννος, a lord, master, an
absolute sovereign; later, a tyrant, usurper. Prob. orig. an adj.
signifying kingly, lordly, in a good sense; as in the tragedians.
Der. tyrann-y, ME. tyrannie or tirannye, Chaucer, C. T. 943 (A 941),
from Ἐς tyrannie, “ tyranny,’ Cot., L. tyrannia, Gk. rupavvia, sovereign
sway; also tyrann-ic, F. tyrannique, L. tyrannicus, Gk. τυραννικὸς ;
tyrann-ic-al, Cor, iii. 3. 23 tyrann-ic-al-ly, tyrann-ous, Meas. for Meas.
iv, 2, 87, acoined word ; tyrann-ous-ly ; tyrann-ise, K. John, ν. 7. 475
from F. tyrannizer, ‘to tyrannize, to play the tirant,’ Cot., as if from
L. *tyrannizire= Gk. τυραννίζειν, to take the part of a tyrant (hence
to act as one),
TYRO, a gross misspelling of Tiro, q. v.
U
UBIQUITY, omnipresence. (F.—L.) In Becon’s Works, iii.
450, 524 (Parker Soc.); and in Cotgrave. =F. ubiquité, ‘an ubiquity ;’
Cot. It answers to L. *ubigquitatem, acc. of *ubiguitis, a coined
word, coined to signify ‘a being everywhere,’ i.e. omnipresence. = L.
ubique, wherever, also, everywhere. = L. ubi, where ; with suffix -que,
answering to Gk. τε, and allied to L. quis, Gk. τίς, and E. who.
B. Ubi is short for cubz, appearing in ali-cub?, anywhere, né-cubi,
nowhere ; and *cubi stands for *guu-bi, where -bi is a suffix as in i-bi,
there. Cf. Skt. ku-, as in ku-ha, where; also Oscan pu-f, Umbrian
pu-fe, where. Brugmann, i. 8 667. Der. ubiquit-ous, -ous-ly.
UDDER, the breast of a female mammal. (E.) ME. vddir
(=uddir) ; ‘Iddyr, ot vddyr of a beeste;’ Prompt. Parv. AS. πάρ,
in a Gloss. to Proy. vii. (Bosworth); cf. L. aberibus in Prov. vii. 18
(Vulgate) ; see Kentish Glosses, 203.-4+M Du. uder, uyder (Hexham) ;
Du. uijer ; Low G, tider (Danneil) ; Icel. jigr (an abnormal form;
for *jiudr); Swed. jufver, jur; Dan. yver (cf. North E. yure, a
Scand. form) ; (ἃ. euter, OHG. ἅμᾶγ, Teut. type *adro-; Idg. type
*udhro-. Further cognate with L. aber (for *udher), Gk. οὖθαρ (yen.
ovéaros), Skt. idhar, an udder. Der. (from L. iiber) ex-uber-ant,
UGLY, frightful, hateful. (Scand.) ME. ugly, Chaucer, C. T.
8549 (E 673); spelt uglike, Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 2805.
We also find ugsom, frightful, Destruction of Troy, 877.—Icel.
uggligr, fearful, dreadful, to be feared.—Icel. ugg-r, fear; with
suffix -ligr=AS, -lic=E, -like, -ly. Cf. Icel. ugga, to fear. Ap-
parently allied to Icel. agi, whence E. awe. Also to Goth. dgan, to
fear, dgjan, to terrify. See Awe. Der. ugli-ness, spelt uglynes,
Pricke of Conscience, 917, where it is used to translate L. horror.
UHLAN, ULAN, a lancer. (G.—Polish—Turkish.) Modern.
‘Each Hulan forward with his lance!’ Scott, Field of Waterloo,
x. 5.—G. uhlan, a lancer.—Pol. wlan, an uhlan; not of Polish
origin, B. According to Heyse, uhlans were a kind of light
cavalry of ‘Tataric origin, first introduced into European armies in
Poland; the Polish wlan, a lancer, having been borrowed from Turkish
oglan, also dlan, a youth, lad. Of Tataric origin. From Tatar
oglin, a son, child ; formerly also a Mogul title. See Zenker, Turk.
Dict., p. 124; Pavet de Courteille, Dict. Turk-Oriental, p. 68.
UKASE, an edict of the Czar, (F.—Russ.) Modcrn. =F. ukase.
— Russ. ykaz’, an ordinance, edict ; cf. ykazuivat(e), ykazat(e), to indi-
cate, show, order, prescribe. Russ. y-, prefix; kazat(e), to show.
The Russ. y-, Church Slav. u-, is allied to Skt. ava, away, off; and
kazat(e) is the Ch. Slav. kazati,to show. Brugmann,i. ὃ 163 (note),
§ 616.
ULCER, a dangerous sore. (F.—L.) In Hamlet, iv. 7. 124.—
ME. alcere (Cot.), mod. Εἰ ulcére, ‘an ulcer, a raw scab.’=L, ulcer-,
decl. stem of wlcus, a sore; cf.Span. and Ital. wlcera, an ulcer.4-Gk.
ἕλκος, a wound, sore, abscess; Skt. arcas, hemorrhoids. Der.
ulcerat-ion, from F, ulceration, ‘an ulceration,’ Cot., from L. acc.
ulceratidnem ; ulcer-ate, from L. ulceratus, pp. of ulcerare, to make
sore; ulcer-ous, Hamlet, iii. 4. 147, from L. adj. ulcerdsus, full of
sores.
ULLAGE, the unfilled part of a cask. (Prov.—L.) ‘ Ullage of a
Cask, is what a cask wants of being full;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. A
Proy. word ; due to the wine trade. = Proy. u/hage (given by Mistral
5. v. uiage), a filling up of a cask; OF, eullage (Roquefort) ;
ouillage (Godefroy).—Proy. ulha, OProy. wlhar (in Mistral, 8, v.
via). to fill up; OF. eullier, ouillier; MF. oeiller, to fill up wine
vessels, Cot. The Late L. type is *oculare, to fill up to the oculus,
the eye, or orifice. L. oculus, the eye; see Ocular. We also find
OF. aouillier, as if for *adoculare. Cf. MF. oeil/ade, an amorous
look, oeil, the eye (Cot.).
UMBER 677
ULTERIOR, further, more remote. (L.) A late word; added
by Todd to Johnson. L. ulterior, further ; comp. of udter, beyond,
on that side, an old adj. only occurring in the abl. wtra (=ultra
parte) and ultrd, which are used as adverbs with the sense of beyond;
ultra is also used asa preposition. β, Ul-ter is also a comparative
form (ul-ter-ior being a double comparative, like ex-ter-ior from ex) ;
cf. OL. us, beyond, allied to OL, ollus, that, yon, olle (=ille), he.
Hence ul-ter=more that way, more in that direction. y- OL.
ollus is for *olnus; cf. Skt. arana-s, foreign, far, yon. Brugmann,
i. § 163. Der. ultra-, prefix, q.v. ; ultim-ate, q.v. Also outrage,
utterance (2).
ULTIMATE, furthest, last. (L.) ‘The wltimate end of his
presence ;” Bp. Taylor, Of the Real Presence, 5. 1. (R.).—L. ulti-
matus, pp. οἵ ultimare, to come to an end, to be at the last.=mL.
ultimus, last. Ul-ti-mus is a superl. form (like op-ti-mus, in-ti-mus),
formed from the base w/- appearing in ul-ter, ul-ter-ior; see Ulterior.
Der. ultimate-ly ; also ultimat-um, from L. ultimatum, neut. of pp.
ultimatus. Der, pen-ultimate, ante-pen-ultimate.
ULTRA., beyond, (L.)_L. ultra-, prefix; ulira, beyond, adv.
and prep., orig. abl. fem. of OL, alter, adj.; see Ulterior. @ The
Ἐς, form is outre, Ital. oltra, Span, ultra.
ULTRAMARINE, beyond sea; as sb., sky-blue. (Ital. —L.)
‘ Ultramarine, that comes or is brought from beyond sea; also, the
finest sort of blew colour used in painting ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706; spelt
ultramarin in ed, 1658. And used by Dryden, On Painting, § 354
(R.), who talks of ‘ ultramarine or azure.’ ‘ Asure, .. such as the
paynters caule Azurro Oltramarino, that is, Asure of beyonde the
sea ;” Eden, Three E. Books on America, ed. Arber, p. 366 (1555).
The word is Ital. (the Ital. o/tra being altered to L. ultra). —Ital.
olira marino, of beyond the seas (Florio), Cf. Span. ultramarino,
beyond sea, foreign; also as sb. ‘ultramarine, the finest blue
colour, produced by calcination from lapis lazuli;’ Neuman.—L.
ultra, beyond; mar-e, sea; and suffix -inus. See Ultra- and Marine.
ἄτη" So called because Japis lazuli was a foreign production ; see
Azure.
ULTRAMONTANE, beyond the Alps. (F.—Ital.—L.)
‘ Ultramontanes, a name given by the Italians to all people living on
the hither side of the Alps, who, with respect to their country, are
beyond those mountains ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706, He is an ultramon-
tane ;’ Bacon, Observations on a Libel (R.).—F. ultramontain, ap-
plied by the French to the Italians themselves, as being beyond the
Alps from the French side, and in use as early as the 14th cent.
(Littré). This is also the E. view of the word, which is used with
reference to the Italians, esp. to those who hold extreme views as to
the Pope’s supremacy. Ital. ol/ramontano, beyond the mountains;
Late L. ultramontanus, coined in imitation of classical L. tramon-
tanus.—L. ultra, beyond; and mont-, stem of mons, a moun‘ain;
with suffix -auus. See Ultra- and Mountain; and see Tra-
montane. Der. ultramontan-ist, -ism (Εἰς ultramontanisme).
ULTRAMUNDANE, beyond the limits of our solar system,
beyond the world, (L.) “ Imaginary wltramundane spaces ;’ Boyle’s
Works, vol. v, p. 140 (R.). And in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. —L.
ultrdmundanus, beyond the world. =L. ultra, beyond; and mundanus,
worldly, from mundus, world. See Ultra- and Mundane.
UMBEL, a form of flower in which a number of stalks, each
bearing a flower, radiate from a centre. (L.) Phillips, ed. 1706,
gives it in the form umbella; it has since been shortened to umbel.
Florio gives Ital. umbella, ‘a little shadow, . . also the round tuft or
head of fenell or dill.’ So called from its likeness in form to an
umbrella.—L. wmbella, a parasol; Juvenal, ix. 50. Dimin. of
umbra, a shade. See Umbrella. Der. umbelli-fer-ous, bearing
umbels (Phillips), coined with suffix -fer-ous, as in cruci-ferous, from
L. suffix -fer, bearing, and E. τοῖς (i. -eux, L. -dsus), Doublet,
umbrella.
UMBER, a species of brown ochre. (F.—Ital.—L.) In Shak.
As You Like It, i. 3. 114. =F. ombre, used shortly for ¢erre d’ombre,
‘beyond-sea azur, an earth found in silver mines, and used by
painters for shadowings ;’ Cot. [As ‘ beyond-sea azur’ is properly
ultramarine, it must here be differently applied. ]—Ital. ombra, used
shortly for terra d@ombra, umber. ‘Torriano has ‘terra dombra,
a kind of earth found in silver-mines used by painters for shadowings.’
Lit. ‘earth of shadow,’ i.e. earth used for shadowing ; cf. Ital. om-
breggiare, to shadow. The Ital. ombra is from L. wmbra, shadow ;
see Umbrage. @ See Wedgwood (p. 746), who notes that
‘the fable of the pigment taking its name from Umbria [which is
only a guess by Malone] is completely disproved by the Span.
name sombra (shade); sombra di Venecia, Venetian umber ; sombra
de hueso, bone-umber.’ Some paintings of the Venetian school in the
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, are remarkable for their umbered
or sombre appearance. Cf, also F. ombré, ‘ umbered or shadowed,’
Cot. ; and see Sombre.
678 UMBILICAL
UMBILICAL, pertaining to the navel. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave.
= ΜΕ. wabilical, ‘ umbilicall, belonging to the navell;’ Cot.—MF.
umbilic, ‘the navell or middle of ;’ id. —L. umbilicum, acc. of uwmbi-
licus, the navel, middle, centre. Allied to Gk. ὀμφαλός, the navel ;
umbilicus being really an adjectival form, from a sb. *umbilus =6p-
adds. Cf. L.umbo,a boss. Allied to Skt. n@bki-, navel; and E.
Navel, q.v. All fromm a common root *enxebk (Uhlenbeck).
UMBLE-PIE,, pie containing the uwmbles or numbles (entrails) of
deer. (F.—L.) ‘The vmblis of venyson;’ Skelton, Garland of
Laurell, 1240 See further under Numbles, And see Umbles
in Nares.
UMBRAGE, a shade or screen of trees, suspicion of injury,
offence. (F.—L.) The proper sense is ‘shadow,’ as in Hamlet, v.
2. 125; thence it came to mean a shadow of suspicion cast upon a
person, suspicion of injury, &c. ‘It is also evident that St. Peter did
not carry himself so as to give the least overture or wmbrage to make
any one suspect he had any such preéminence;’ Bp. Taylor, A Dis-
suasive from Popery, p. i. § 8 (R.); and see Trench, Select Glos-
sary.=—F. ombrage (also umbrage), ‘an umbrage, shade, shadow;
also jealousie, suspition,an incling of ; whence donner ombrage a, to
discontent, make jealous of ;* Cot. —F. ombre, a shadow; with sufhx
-age (<L. -atieum) ; cf. L. umbraticus, belonging to shade, = L. umbra,
a shadow. Der. umbrage-ous, shadowy, from F.ombrageux, ‘ shady,
» » .umbragious,’ Cot. ; umbrageous-ly, -ness. And see umb-el, umber,
umbr-ella, sombre.
UMBRELLA, a screen carried in the hand to protect from
sunshine or rain, (Ital.—L.) Now used to protect from rain, in
contradistinction to a parasol; but formerly used to protect from
sunshine, and rather an old word. Cotgrave translates F. ombraire
by ‘an umbrello, or shadow,’ and F. ombrelle by ‘an umbrello.’
* Now you have got a shadow, an umbrella, To keep the scorching
world’s opinion From your fair credit ;’? Beaum. and Fletcher, Rule
a Wife, iii. 1. 2. - 14]. wmbrella (see below) ; better spelt ombrella,
‘a fan, a canopie, . . also.a kind of round fan or shadowing that they
vse to ride with in sommer in Italy, a little shade ;’ Florio. Dimin.
of Ital. ombra, a shade.—L. umbra, a shade; see Umbrage.
@ The true classical L. form is wmbella; umbrella is an Ital. di-
minutive, regularly formed from ombra; the spelling with « is found
even in Italian. Florio has umbella, umbrella, ‘a little shadow, a
little round thing that women bare in their hands to shadow them ;
also, a broad brimd hat to keepe off heateand rayne ; also, akind of
round thing like a round skreene that gentlemen vse in Italie in time
of sommer.’ This account of the word, in the edition of Florio of
1598, clearly implies that the word wmbrella was not, in that year,
much used in English; for he does not employ ihe word. Doublet,
umbel.
UMPIRE, a third person called in to decide a dispute between
two others. (F.—L.) This curious word has lost initial », and
stands for numpire, once a common form. See remarks under the
letter NN. Spelt wmpire in L. L. Li. τ 170. ME, nompere or
noumpere. ‘N(o)wmpere, or owmpere, Arbiter; Prompt. Parv, Spelt
noumpere, nounpere, nounpier, P. Plowman, B. v. 337; nompeyr,id. C.
yii. 388 ; xoumpere, id. A. v. 181. In Wyclif, Prologue to Romans,
ed. Forshall and Madden, p. 302, 1. 24, we have noumpere, where six
MSS. read vmpere. It also occurs, spelt nompere, in the Testament of
Love, bk. i. ch. 2. 1.. οὐ. Tyrwhitt shows (in his Glossary to
Chaucer) that the L. impar was sometimes used in the sense of
arbitrator, and rightly suggests a connexion with mod. F. nonpair,
odd.- β. The ME. xompere exactly represents the OF. form nomper,
peerless (Godefroy). Later, it occurs in Cotgrave as nompair,
‘peerless, also odde ;’ and an earlier spelling nonper is given by
Roquefort, with the sense of peerless. It is simply a compound of
F. non, not, and OF. fer, a peer, an equal; from L, non, not, and
par, equal; see Non-and Peer (1). γ. The OF. nonter became
nomper regularly, since x before p becomes m, as in hamper<hanaper ;
see Hamper (2). It may also be noted that it is not the only
ME, word in which the same F. prefix occurs, since we also have
ME. nonpower, i.e. lack of power, in P. Plowman, C, xx, 292, spelt
nounpower, noumpower, and even vnpower. ‘The last form suggests
that the loss of initial » was due to some confusion between the F.
non and E. un-, with much the same negative sense. Hence a num-
pire or an umpire was a non-peer or an un-peer, orig. the former.
δ. The sense is curious; but the use of L. impar, lit. edd, in the
sense of arbitrator or umpire sufficiently explains it; the umpire is
the odd man, the ¢hird man, called in to settle a dispute between
two others. It may also be noted that pair and peer are doublets.
UN- (1), negative prefix. (E.) Prefixed to substantives, ad-
jectives, and adverbs; distinct from the verbal prefix un- below.
ME. un-, AS. un-; very common as a neg. prefix.--Du. on-; Icel.
ἀπ or ὅ- (for un-) ; Dan. u-; Swed. o- ; Goth. wa-; G. τρί ες an- ;
Trish an-, in-; L. in-; Gk. ἀν-, a-; Zend. an-,.a-; Skt. an-, a-.
UNCIAL
B. All from Idg. *an, negative prefix; cf. Brugmann, i. ὃ 432.
Allied to Skt. xa, not; Goth. xi, not, Lith. πὸ; also to L. né, not,
Gk. vy-, neg. prefix.
B. It is unnecessary to give all the words in which this prefix
occurs; it is used before words of various origin, both English and
French. The following may be noted in particular. 1. It occurs
in words purely English, and appears in many of these in Anglo-
Saxon; Grein gives AS. words, for example, answering to un-clean,
un-even, un-fair, un-whole, un-smooth, un-soft, un-still, un-wise. Some
compounds are now disused, or nearly so; such as un-bold, un-blithe,
un-little, un-right, un-sad, un-slow (all in Grein). In the case of past
participles, the prefix is ambiguous; thus unx-bound may either mean
‘not bound,’ like AS. unbunden; or it may mean ‘ opened’ or ‘re-
leased,’ being taken as the pp. of wnbind, verb. 2. Un- is frequently
prefixed to words of Ἐς origin ; examples such as un-feyned (unfeigned)
and un-stable occur in Chaucer; we even find un-famous in House of
Fame, iii. 56, where we should now say γιοῦ famous. Palsgrave has
un-able, un-certayne, un-cortoyse (uncourteous), un-gentyll, un-gracy-
ous, un-honest, un-maryed, un-parfyte (imperfect), un-profytable, un-
raysonable (unreasonable). 8. In some cases, such as un-couth, the
simple word (without the prefix) is obsolete ; such cases are discussed
below.
UN- (2), verbal prefix, expressing the reversal of an action. (E.)
In the verb to un-lock, we have an example of this; it expresses the
reversal of the action expressed by Jock; i.e. it means to open again
that which was closed by locking. ‘This is quite distinct from the
mere negative prefix, with which many, no doubt, confound it. ME.
un-, AS. un-; only used as a prefix in verbs.4-Du. ont-; as in ont-
laden, to unload, from Jaden, to load; G. ent-, as in ent-laden, to un-
load; OHG. ant-, as in ant-lihhan, to unlock ; Goth. and-, as in and-
bindan, to unbind. Ββ, It is precisely the same prefix as that which
appears as an- in E. an-swer, and as and- in AS. and-swarian; and it
is cognate with Gk. ἀντι-, used only in the not very different sense
of ‘in opposition to;’ thus, whilst E. 2x-say is to reverse what is
said, to deny it, the Gk. ἀντι-λέγειν is to with-say or gain-say, to
deny what is said by others. See Answer and Anti-. B.. Its
unnecessary to give all the words with this prefix; I may note that
Grein gives the AS. verb corresponding to Ἐς un-do, viz. undon, with
which cf. EFries. und-don, unt-don, Du. ontdoen; also un-lynan, to
unfasten, open, now obsolete ; Bosworth gives uxbindan, to unbind,
unfealdan, to unfold, unliican, to unlock, and a few others, but verbs
with this prefix are not very numerous in AS. γ. However, it was
so freely employed before verbs of French origin, that we have now
many such words in use; Palsgrave has ux-arm, un-bend, un-bind, un-
boukell (unbuckle), un-bridle, un-clasp, &c., with others that are
obsolete, such as wn-custvme, to disuse a custom. ὃ. The most
common and remarkable of the mod. E. verbs with this prefix are:
un-bar, -bend, -bind, -bolt, -bosom, -brace, -buckle, -burden, -button, -case,
-chain, -clasp, -close, -clothe, -coil, -couple, -cover, -curl, -deceive, -do,
-dress, -earth, -fasten, -fetter, -fix, fold, -furl, -gird, -hand, -harness,
-hinge, -hook, -horse, -house, -kennel, -knit, -knot, -lace, -lade, -learn,
-limber, -load, -lock, -loose, -make, -man, -mask, -moor, -muffle, -muzzle,
-nerve, -pack, -people, -ravel, -rig, -robe, -roll; -roof, -root, -saddle, -say,
-screw, -seal, -seat, -scttle, -sex, -shackle, -ship, -stop, -string, -thread,
-tie, -tune, -twine, -twist, -warp, -weave, -wind, -wrap, -yoke. See
further under the simple words. 41 Note the ambiguity in the case
of past participles; for which see under Un- (1).
UN-} (3), prefix. (E.) See Unto, Until.
UNANELED, without having received extreme unction. (E.;
and L.—Gk.) In Hamlet, i. 5.77. Lit. ‘not on-oiled.’=— AS. z2-,
not; and ME. an-eled, pp. of anelien, anelen, to give extreme unction
to; Rob. of Brunne, Handling Synne, 11269 (1303). ‘The verb is
from ME. an (AS. on), on, upon; and elien, to oil, regularly formed
from AS. ele, sb., oil, The AS. ele is not a Teut. word, but
borrowed from L. olewm, oil, Gk. ἔλαιον. See Un- (1), On, and
Oil. Cf. also anoil, v., which see in N.E.D. ‘I aneele, . . 1
anoynt .. with holy oyle;’ Palsgrave.
UNANIMOUS, of one mind. (L.) ‘ The universall and wzani-
mous belief ;? Camden, Hist. of Q. Elizabeth, an. 1588 (R.). Eng-
lished (by change of -us to -ows, as in arduous, &c.), from L. inani-
mus, of one mind.=—L, ain-us, one; and animus, mind; see Unit and
Animosity. Der. uxanimous-ly ; also unanim-i-ty, spelt unanimitee
in The Libell of Englishe Policye (A.D. 1436), 1. 1068 (quoted in
Hakluyt’s Voyages, i. 206), from F. unanimité, omitted by Cotgrave,
but in use in the 14th century (Littré), from L. acc. inanimitatem,
due to the adj. παριεὶς, by-form of tinanimus,
UNCIAL,, pertaining to a certain style of writing. (L.) ‘ Uncial,
belonging to an ounce or inch;’ Blount, ed. 1674. Applied to a
particular form of letters in MSS. from the 4th to the 9th centuries.
The letters are of large size, and the word signifies ‘ of the size of an
inch.’ Phillips gives uxcial only in its other sense, viz. ‘belonging
UNCLE
to an ounce.’ Cotgrave gives F. oncial, ‘weighing as much as an
ounce; but he also gives letéres onciales, ‘huge letters, great letters.’
—L. uncidlis, belonging to an inch, or to an ounce.—L. uncia, an
inch, an ounce, See Inch and Ounce (1). @ ‘The term uncial
was orig. a misapplication of St. Jerome’s expression /itterae uncidles,
“inch-high,” i.e. large, handsome letters ;” Cent. Dict. See Jerome’s
Prologue to the book of Job (near the end).
UNCLE, the brother of one’s father or mother. (F.—L.) ME.
unele, uncle; Rob. of Glouc. p. 58, 1. 1337. —AF. uncle, Gaimar, 188;
PF. oncle, ‘an uncle ;" Cot. —L. auunculum, acc. of azaunculus, a mother’s
brother; auunculum was shortened to unculum, whence F. oncle.
The lit. sense is ‘little grandfather ;’ it is a double dimin. (with
suffixes -cw-lu-) from auus, a grandfather. Allied to Goth. awd,
a grandmother, Lith. avyzas, an uncle, W. ewythr, an uncle.
Brugmann, i. § 330. 64 The G. onkel is also from Latin. The E.
nuncle, K. Lear, i. 4. 117, is due to the phrase my nuncle, corrupted
from mine uncle.
UNCOMEATABLE, unapproachable. (E.; with F. suffix.)
In the Tatler, no. 12. A strange compound, with prefix τρὶς (1) and
suffix -able, from Come and At.
UNCOUTH, unfamiliar, odd, awkward, strange. (E.) The lit.
sense is simply ‘unknown;’ hence strange, &c. ME. uncouth,
strange, Chaucer, C. T. 10598 (F. 284). A common word; see
Stratmann. AS, unciid, unknown, strange (common) ; Grein, ii. 616.
-AS. un-, not; and cud, known, pp. of cunnan, to know, but used
as an adj.; Grein,i.172. See further under Can (1); and see Un-
(1). _@f The Lowland Se. unco’ is the same word ; and, again, the
prov. E. unked or unkid (spelt unxkard in Halliwell), strange, unusual,
odd, also lonely, solitary, corresponds to ME. unkid, ‘not made
known,’ where kid (= AS. c7ded) is the pp. of the causal verb cydan,
to make known, a derivative from cid by vowel-change from i to 7;
Grein, 1. 181.
UNCTION, an anointing, a salye; also, warmth of address,
sanctifying grace. (F.—L.) In Shak. Hamlet, iii. 4. 145, iv. 7. 142.
‘His inwarde vxccion wyl worke with our diligence ;’ Sir Τὶ More,
Works, p. 763. a. ΜΕ. vnciounz; spelt vaccioun, Trevisa, i. 113.—
F. onction, ‘unction, an anointing;’ Cot.—L. unctidnem, acc. of
unetio, an anointing; cf. unctus, pp. of ungere, to anoint; see
Unguent. Der. uzctu-ous, Holinshed, Desc. of Britain, c. 24 (R.),
Trevisa, i, 113, also spelt vnctious, Timon of Athens, iv. 3. 195 (first
folio), and even vzcteous, Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxxiv. c. 12,
p: 510, from F. onctueux, ‘ oily, fatty,’ Cot., from Late L. unctudsus
(Ducange); due to L. unctu-, decl. stem of unctus (gen. unctis),
an anointing. Hence wnctu-os-i-ty, from F. onctwosité, ‘ unctuositie ;’
Cot.
UNDER, beneath, below. (E.) ME. under, under, Chaucer,
C. T. 1697. AS. under; Grein, ii. 617.44Du. onder; Icel. undir ;
Swed. and Dan. wider; Goth. undar; (ἃ. unter; OHG. untar.
B. Further allied to Skt. adharas, lower ; and to adhas, prep. under,
adv. below; L. infra, beneath. Brugmann, i. ὃ 446; ii. § 75.
@ For the phrase under way, see Way.
UNDER., prefix, beneath. (E.) The same word as the above.
Very common; the chief words with this prefix are under-bred,
-current, -done, -gird (Acts, xxvil. 17), under-go (AS. undergin, Bos-
worth), uader-graduate, i.e. a student who is under a graduate, one
who has not taken his degree, under-ground, -growth, under-hand,
adv., secretly, Spenser, F. Q. iv. 11. 34, also as adj., As You Like It,
i. 1. 146, under-lay (AS. underlecgan, AZlfric’s Grammar, ed. Zupitza,
p- 190, 1]. 5), wnder-lie (AS. underlicgan, Bosworth), under-line. Also
under-ling, Gower, C. A. iii, 80 (bk. vi. 2350), Layamon, 19116,
with double dimin. suffix -/-ing. Also under-mine, Wyclif, Matt.
vi. 20, early version; xncer-m-ost, with double superl. suffix, as
explained under Aftermost; under-neath, ME. vndirnep, Chaucer,
tr. of Boethius, Ὁ. 111, pr. 5, 1. 15, compounded like Beneath,
q.v. Also under-plot, sb., -prop, vb., -rate, -sell; -set, Ancren Riwle,
Ῥ- 254, 1.55 under-sign; under-stand, q.v.; under-state; undertake,
g.v.; under-tone, -value, -wood (Ben Jonson), -write, -writer.
UNDERJN, a certain period of the day. (E.) The time denoted
by undern differed at different periods. In Chaucer, C. T. 15228
(B 4412), it denotes some hour of the fore-noon, perhaps about 11
o'clock. ‘At undren and at midday,’ O. Eng. Miscellany, p. 33;
with reference to the parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard.
‘Abuten wndern deies’=about the undern-tide of the day, Ancren
Riwle, p. 24; where perhaps an earlier hour is meant, about g A.M.
AS. undern; whence undern-tid, undern-tide, Matt. xx. 3; here it
means the third hour, i.e. 9 A.M.+4Icel. uxzdorn, mid-afternoon ; also
mid-forenoon; MHG. undern, OHG. untorn, a time of the day;
Goth. unxdaurni-; only in the compound undaurni-mats, a moming-
meal, Luke, xiv. 12. B. The true sense is merely ‘intervening
period,’ which accounts for its vagueness; this sense does not ap-
pear in under, prep., but suggests a connexion with L. inter, between,
UNION
Skt. antar, within. Cf. L, internus, inward. @€] The word is by no
means obsolete, but appears in various forms in proy. E., such as
aandorn, aunder, orndorns, doundrins, dondinner, all in Ray, aunder,
in Halliwell, &c. (Here Nares is wrong.)
UNDERSTAND, to comprehend. (E.) ME. vunderstanden,
understanden, a strong verb; the pp. appears as understanden, Pricke
of Conscience, 1. 1681. The weak pp. understanded occurs in the
Prayer-book. AS. understandan, lit. to stand under or among, hence
to comprehend (cf. L. in/el-ligere); /Elfred, tr. of Boethius, b. iv.
pr. 6, c. xxxiy. § 8.—AS. under, under; and standan, to stand; see
Under and Stand. So also MSwed. understé, from under and
std, to stand; see Ihre. Another AS. word, with the same prefix
and the same sense, is undergitan (lit. to underget), John, viii. 27,
xii. τό, Der. understand-ing, spelt onderstondinge, Ayenbite of
Inwyt, p. 24, 1. 8.
UNDERTAKE, to take upon oneself, attempt. (Hybrid; Τὶ.
and Scand.) ME. undertaken, strong verb; pt. t. vudertok, see Have-
lok, 377. It first appears in the Ormulum, 1. 10314. The latter
part of the word is of Scand. origin; see Under, and Take.
B. The word is a sort of translation of (and was suggested by) the AS.
underniman, to understand, receive, Matt. xix. 12,and AS. underfon,
to receive, Matt. x. 40, John, xviii. 3. Neither of these words have
precisely the same sense, but both ziman and fon have the sense of E.
take (Icel. taka). Der. undertak-ing, Haml. ii. 1. 104; undertak-er,
orig. one who takes a business in hand, Oth. iv. 1. 224, Tw. Nt.
iii. 4. 349.
UNDULATE, to wave, move in waves. (L.) In Thomson,
Summer, 982. Phillips, ed. 1706, has undulate only as a pp.
Blount, ed. 1674, gives undulated and undulation. L. undulatus, wn-
dulated, wavy.—L. *undula, a little wave; not used, but a regular
dimin. of unda, a wave, properly ‘water.’ B. Unda is a nasalised
form, like OPruss. unds, water, allied to Gk. ὕδωρ, water, and to E.
water, Cf. Skt. udan, water, und, to wet; Lithuan, wandz, water ;
Russ. voda, water.—4/WED, to wet; see Water. Brugmann,
i. §§ 102, 594. Der. undulat-ion (Phillips); «dulat-or-y, Also
(from wunda) ab-ound, ab-und-ant, in-und-ale, red-ound, red-und-ant,
super-ab-ound, surr-ound.
UNEATH, scarcely, with difficulty. (12.) Obsolete; in Spenser,
Ἐς Ὁ. i. 9, 38; misused, with the sense ‘almost,’ 14. 1.12.4. ME.
vnepe, Gawain and the Grene Knight, 134. AS, unéade, with diffi-
culty, Gen, xxvii. 30; adv. from adj. unéade, difficult, Grein, ii. 620.
—AS. wn-, not; and éade, easy, smooth, common also in the ady.
form éade, easily, Grein, i. 254; we also find éde, Ve, easy, id. i. 230,
ii. 767.4-OSax. d0i, easy. Some further compare it with the OHG.
odi, desert, empty, G. dde, deserted, desolate; Icel. audr, empty ;
Goth. auths, authis, desert, waste. .But it is probable that these
words, though similar in form, are of independent origin.
UNGAINLY, awkward. (Hybrid; E. and Scand.) ME. un-
geinliche, used as an adv., awkwardly, horribly, St. Marharete, ed.
Cockayne, p. 9, 1. 14. Formed by adding -liche (-ly) to the adj.
ungein, inconvenient, spelt wgayne in Le Bone Florence, ]. 1421, in
Ritson, Met. Romances, iii. 60.— AS. un-, not, see Un- (1); and
Icel. gegn, ready, serviceable, convenient, allied to gegna, to meet,
to suit, gegn, against, and E. again; see Again. Cf. Icel. geigniligr,
meet; Ogegn (ungain), ungainly, ungentle. Der. ungainli-ness.
@ We also find AS. gegne in a gloss: ‘Compendiose, breuiter,
gegne;’ Voc. 207. 17.. Perhaps the word is of native origin.
UNGUENT, ointment. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. —L.
unguentum, ointment.—L. waguent-, stem of pres. part. of unguere,
ungere, to anoint.+Skt. a7j, to anoint, smear, . Brugmann, i. § 398.
Der. (from ungere, pp. unctus), unct-ion, q.v.; also oint-ment,
an-oint.
UNICORN, a fabulous animal with one horn. (F.—L.) ME.
unicorne, Ancren Riwle, p. 120, 1. 9.—AF. unicorne, Psalm xxi, 22;
F. unicorne, ‘an unicomm;’ Cot.—L. iinicornem, acc. of tnicornis,
adj., one-horned.—L. ini-, for ixo-, decl. stem of dnus, one;
and cora-v, a horn, cognate with E. korx. See Unity and Horn.
UNIFORM, consistent, having throughout the same form or
character. (F.—L.) Spelt wniforme in Minsheu, ed. 1627; uniform
in Cotgrave. =F. uniforme, ‘uniform,’ Cot.—L. aniformem, acc, of
ainiformis, having one form.—L. ἀρεῖς, for ano-, decl. stem of dnus,
one; and form-a,a form; see Unity and Form. Der. uniform,
sb., a like dress for persons who belong to the same body; uniform-
ly; uniform-i-ty, from Ἐς uniformité, ‘uniformity,’ Cot., from L. ace.
tniformitatem.
UNILITERAL,, consisting of one letter. (L.) The only such
words in E, are a, 1, and QO, Coined from L..wni-, for ano-, decl.
stem of inus, one; and Jitter-a, a letter; with suffix -al; cf. bi-literal,
tri-literal.
UNION (1); concord, harmony, confederation in one: (F.—L.)
Spelt vxyor, Berners, tr, of Froissart, vol. ii. c. 233 (R.).—F. union,
679
080 UNION
“an union;’ (οἵ. «Τὸ. ainidnem, acc. of tinio, oneness. —L, iin-us, one,
cognate with E. One, q.v. And see Unity.
UNION (2), a large pearl. (F.—L.) In Hamlet, ν. 2.
AF. union; Bestiary, 1482. Really the same word as the above;
the L. aio means (1) oneness, (2) a single pearl of a large size.
Onion is also the same word. See above ; andsee Onion. Doublet,
oOnrion,
UNIQUE, single, without a like. (F.—L.) Modern; added
by Todd to Johnson. =F. unique, ‘single,’ Cot.—L. anicum, acc. of
dinicus, Single. — L. aini-, for uno-, decl. stem of wimus, one; with suffix
τοῖς (Idg. -ko-). See Unity.
UNISON, concord, harmony. (F.—L.) ‘In concordes, dis-
cordes, notes and cliffes in tunes of vnisonne ;’ Gascoigne, Grene
Knight’s Farewell to Fansie, st. 7; Works, i. 413. Spelt vnysoune,
York Plays, p. 209, 1. 262.—MF. unisson, ‘an unison;’ Cot. [The
spelling with ss is remarkable, as it is not etymological.] —L. inisonum,
acc. of iinisonus, having the same sound as something else. = L. iini-,
for ino-, decl. stem of tinus, one; and sonus, asound. See Unity
and Sound (3). Der. unson-ous 3 uni-son-ant (from sonant-, stem
of pres. part. of sond@re, to sound) ; uni-son-ance.
UNIT, a single thing, person, or number. (F.—L.) Not de-
rived from L. wnitum, which would mean ‘ united,’ but a purely E.
formation, made by dropping the final letter of wnit-y. ‘ Unit, Unite,
or Unity, in arithmetic, the first significant figure or number 1; in
Notation, if a namber consist of 4 or 5 places, that which is outer-
most towards the right hand is called the Place of Unites ;’ Phillips,
ed. 1706. The number 1 is still called unity. See Unity.
UNITE, to make one, join. (L.) ‘I vnyte, I bringe diverse
thynges togyther in one;’ Palsgrave.—L. dnit-us, pp. of inire, to
unite. “αὶ, an-us, one; see Unity.
UNITY, oneness, union in one, concord. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. vuitee,
unite, untte, Gower, C. A. iii. 181 (bk. vii. 2836); P. Plowman, C. vi.
10,—AF. unité, Stat. Realm, i. 186 (1322); F. unité, ‘an unity ;”
Cot.—L. dnitatem, acc. of ὥρης, oneness.—L. wui-, for ano-, decl.
stem of anus, one; with suffix -4as. The L. ἄρτι is cognate with 15.
One, q.v. Der. unit-ari-an, a coined word, added by Todd to
Johnson ; hence unit-ari-an-ism. Doublet, wnit,q.v. We also have
(from L,. wn-us) un-ite, un-ion, uni-que, uni-son, uni-vers-al, uni-corn,
uni-form, unt-literal, unt-vocal,; also un-animous, dis-un-ite, dis-un-ion,
re-un-ite, re-un-ion, tri-une, onion. Also null, q.v.; an-nul, q.v.
UNIVERSAL, comprehending the whole, extending to the
whole. (F.—L.) ME. uniuersal ; spelt universal, Gower, C. A. iii. 91 ;
(bk. vii. 215).—F. universel (sometimes universal in the 14th century),
“yniversall,’ Cot.<L. dniuersalis, belonging to the whole, =L.
tiniuersum, the whole; neut. of diniversus, turned into one, combined
into a whole. —L. ani-, for iino-, decl. stem of tinus, one; and wersus,
pp. of wertere, to turn; see Unity and Verse. Der. universal-ly,
universal-i-ty, universal-ism, Also (from F. univers<L. tiniuersum)
universe, Henry V, iv. chor. 3 ; also univers-i-ty, a school for universal
knowledge, ME. vniuersite, used in the sense of ‘ world’ in Wyclif,
James, iii. 6, AF. université, Yearbooks of Edw. I, 1304-5, p. 429,
from F. université, university, also an university,’ Cot., from L. acc.
uniuersitatem.
UNIVOCAL, having one voice, having but one meaning. (L.)
Now little used; it is the antithesis of egui-vocal, i.e. having a
variable meaning. In Bp. Taylor, Rule of Conscience, b. ii. c. 3 (R.).
Cf. F. univogue, ‘of one onely sence ;᾿ Cot. “Τοὺς diniuoc-us, univocal ;
with suffix -@/is.—L. dini-, for ὥριος. decl. stem of tizus, one ; and ποῦς,
allied to udx, voice, sound. See Unity and Voice.
UNKEMPT, not combed. (E.) In Spenser, F. Ὁ. iii. 10, 29;
and Shep. Kal. November, 51 ; in both places in the metaphorical
sense of rough or rude. A contracted form of unkembed. From un-,
not; and ME. kembed, kempt, combed, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 2145 (A 2143).
Kembed is the pp. of kemben, to comb, P. Plowman, B. x. 18.— AS.
cemban, to comb; Elfric’s Grammar, ed. Zupitza, p. 168, 1. 6;
formed (by vowel-change of a to e) from AS, camb, a comb; see
Comb.
UNLESS, if not, except. (E.) Formerly written onless, onlesse,
with o; Horne Tooke remarks: ‘I believe that William Tyndall...
was one of the first who wrote this word with a ~;’ and he cites:
‘The scripture was geven, that we may applye the medicine of the
scripture, every man to his own sores, uzlesse then we entend to be
idle disputers ;’ Tyndal, Prol. to the 5 books of Moses. Horne Tooke
gives 16 quotations with the spellings onles and onlesse; the earliest
appears to be: ‘ It was not possible for them to make whole Cristes
cote without seme, onlesse certeyn grete men were brought out of the
way ;’ Trial of Sir John Oldcastle, an. 1413. We may also note:
‘That, Jesse than synne the soner swage, God wyl be vengyd,’ &c. ;
Coventry Myst. p. 40. Also: ‘ Charitie is not perfect onles that it be
burninge,’ Τὶ Lupset, Treatise of Charitie, p. 8. ‘ Onles that ye tary
ouer longe ; Malory, Morte Arthur, bk. x. c. 20. [But Horne Tooke’s
283.—
| list of conjunctions, gives onlesse and onlesse that.
UPAS
own explanation of the phrase is utterly wrong.] Palsgrave, in his
B. Thus the
full phrase was on lesse that; but ‘hat was soon dropped. Here on is the
preposition ; and Jesse is mod. E. Jess ; see On and Less. The sense
is ‘in less than,’ or ‘on a less supposition.’ Thus, if charity be
(fully) burning, it is perfect ; in a less case, it is imperfect. The use
of on in the sense of ix is extremely common in ME., as in on line =
in life (see Alive), on sleep=in sleep (see Asleep) ; and see numer-
ous examples in Stratmann. Ox 1655 or in less is similar to at least, αἱ
most. @ Matzner, and Mahn (in Webster, 1864) wrongly explain un-
in unless as a negative prefix ; this is contrary to allthe evidence, and
makes nonsense of the phrase. Morris (Hist. Outlines of Eng.
Accidence, p. 332) rightly gives on Jesse as the orig. form, but does
not explain it.
UNRULY, disregarding restraint. (Hybrid; E. and F.—L, ; with
E. suffix.) In James, iii. 8 (A.V.), where Wyclif has unpesible ; here
the K. version translates the Gk. ἀκατάσχετον, i.e. that cannot be
ruled. Thus unruly is for unrule-ly ; it doesnot seem to be a very old
word, though going back to 1483; the Cathol. Anglicum has:
‘ Reuly, tranquillus ;’ and ‘ unrewely, inquietus ;’ also ‘ reule, regula;
reule, regulare. Cf. ‘Ye . . vnrulilye haue ruled ;’ Sir J. Cheke,
Hurt of Sedition (R.) Cotgrave translates F. moderé by ‘ moderate,
quiet, rudy, temperate, orderly.’ From Un- and Rule ; with suffix
-ly. q It is remarkable that the ME. unro, unrest, might have
produced a somewhat similar adj., viz. unroly, unrouly, restless.
[Βαϊ Stratmann gives no example of the word, and the vowel-sound
does not accord; so that any idea of such a connexion may be re-
jected. This ME. wuro is from AS, un-, not, and row, rest (Grein,
li. 384). cognate with Icel. rd, G. ruhe, rest.} We must also note
that τινα occurs as equivalent to unruly, as in ‘theyse varulyd
company,’ Fabyan, Chron. an. 1380-1. Der. unruli-ly, -ness.
UNTIL, till, to. (Εἰ and Scand.) ME. until, P. Plowman, B. prol.
227; Pricke of Conscience, 555; spelt ontil, Havelok, 761. A substi-
tuted form of unto, due to the use of the Northern E. til for to; the two
latter words being equivalent in sense. ME. εἰ (Εἰ. till) is of Scand.
origin, as distinguished from ¢o(=AS. 76). See Till (2), and see
further under Unto.
UNTO, even to, to. (E.) Not found in AS. ME. unto,
Chaucer, C. T. 490 (A 488) ; earlier in Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Lang-
toft, p. 1, 1.7. It stands for *uzd-to; where fo is the usual E. prep.
(AS. 26), and und is the OFries. und (also ont), unto, OSax. und, unto
(whence OSax. unt, shortened from und-te, unto, where ἠὲ τ AS. ἐδ, as
well as unid, unto, shortened from uzd-t0), “ Forun folk uxté=folk
went unto him; Heliand, 2814. So also Goth. und, unto, until, as
far as, up to; ‘uzd Bethlahaim’=unto Bethlehem, Luke, ii. 15 ;
whence unté (=und 26), until. {Itis remarkable that a closely related
word is common in AS, in a different form, viz. 60, for an older
*anth.} B. The Goth. wid is the weak-grade form answering to
the Goth. and-, prefix, cognate with Gk. ἀντί, so that the uz- in un-to
is allied to the verbal prefix wn-; see Un- (2). And see Until.
UP, towards a higher place, aloft. (E.) ME. vp, up; common.
AS. up, upp, up, adv. ; Grein, ii. 630.4-Du. op; Icel. upp; Dan. op;
Swed. upp; Goth. ἐμ; OHG. af. B. AS. upp<the Tent. type
*upp-, from Idg. *up-n- ; and thus allied to Teut. *w7/,as seen in Goth,
uf, under, uf-ar, over (comparative form), and in E. over; further
allied to Gk. ὑπό, under, Skt. wpa, near, on, under. See the account
under Over. Der. upj-er, ME. upper, King Alisaunder, 5691 ;
Chaucer uses over in the same sense, as in ower lippe = upper lip, C. T.
133. Hence upper-most (not an old form), as in ‘euen ypon the
uppermoste pinnacle of the temple,’ Udall, On St. Luke, iv. 9; this is
not a correct form, but made on the model of Aftermost, q. v.
Also up-most, Jul. Cees. ii. 1. 24, which appears to be simply a con-
traction for uppermost, though really a better form. And see Up-
below, and Upon; also Open.
UP, prefix. (E.) The same word as the above. The chief words
in which it occurs are: up-bear, up-bind, up-braid, q.v.; up-heave,
Shak. Venus, 4823 up-hill; up-hoard, Hamlet, i. 1. 136; up-hold, up-
holsterer, q.v.3 up-land, up-land-ish=ME. vplondysche in Prompt.
Ῥατν. ; up-lift, Temp. iii. 3. 68 5 up-right, AS. upriht, uppriht, Grein,
ii. 6325 up-ris-ing, L. Το L. iv. 1. 2, with which cf. ME. vuprysynge,
resurrection, Rob. of Gloue. p. 379, l. 77923 up-roar, q.v.; up-root,
Dryden, St. Cecilia’s Day, 49; up-se¢=set up, Gower, C. A. i. 53
(bk. i. 339), also to overset, id. iii. 283 (bk. viii. 244) ; up-shot, Ham-
let, ν. 2. 395 3 up-side; up-side-down, q.v.; up-start, q.v.; up-ward,
AS. upweard, Grein, ii. 632; up-ward-s, AS, upweardes, adv., ibid.
UPAS, the poison-tree of Java. (Malay.) Not in Todd’s John-
son; the deadly effects of the tree have been grossly exaggerated. =
Malay ἄρας, ‘a milky juice extracted from certain vegetables,
operating, when mixed with the blood, as a most deadly poison,
concerning the effects of which many exaggerated stories have been
related ; see Hist. of Sumatra, ed. 3, p. 110. Pihkn pas, the poison-
UPBRAID
tree, arbor toxicaria Macassariensis ;” Marsden, Malay Dict. p. 24.
The Malay pikun or pakn means ‘tree ;’ id. p- 239. Now com-
monly pronounced pohun ipoh, ‘upas tree.’
UPBRAID, to reproach. (E.) ME. upbreiden, to upbraid ; we
also find upbreid, sb., a reproach. ‘The deuyls ranne to me with
grete scornes and upbraydys;’ and again, ‘wykyd angelles of the
deuylle upbreydyn me;’ Monk of Evesham, c. 27; ed. Arber, p. 67.
Up-breiding, sb., a reproach, occurs in Layamon, 19117 ; also vpbreid,
upbreid, sb., id. 26036. ΑΘ, up-bregdan; found in the equivalent
form up-gebrédan, to upbraid, in Wulfstan’s Homilies, ed. Napier,
Pp. 249.— AS. upp, up; and bregdan, brédan, to braid, weave, also to
lay hold of, pull, draw, used (like Icel. bregda) in a variety of senses ;
so that up-braid is simply compounded of Up and Braid (1), q. v.
The orig. sense of upbraid was prob. to lay hands on, lay hold of,
hence to attack, lay to one’s charge. Cf. ‘ Bregded sona féond be 3am
feaxe’=he shall soon seize the fiend by the hair, Salomon and
Saturn, ed. Grein, 99; and see bregdan in Grein, i. 138. Cf. Dan.
bebreide, to upbraid, which only differs in the prefix (Dan, be- = E. be-).
Der. upbraid-ing, sb., as above.
UPHOLSTERER, one who supplies beds and furniture. (E.)
Formerly called an upholder, An equivalent form was upholdster,
used by Caxton (see Prompt. Parv., p. 512, note 2), with suffix -s¢ter
for -er; see -ster. ence, by a needless addition of -er (as in
poult-er-er), was made upholdster-er, whence the corrupt form up-
holsterer, by loss of d after 1. “ Upholdster or upholsterer, a trades-
man that deals in all sorts of chamber-furniture ;” Phillips, ed. 1706.
Already spelt upholstar in Palsgrave. ME. vpholder, a broker, a
tradesman, P. Plowman, B. v. 325; C. xiii. 278. At the latter refer-
ence we read: ‘ Vpholderes on the hul shullen haue hit to selle’ =
upholders on the hill [Cornhill] shall have it tosell. It is clear from
this and from my note to P, Plowman, C. vii. 377, that the upholder
was a broker or auctioneer ; so that the name may have arisen from
his holding up wares for inspection while trying to sell them. The
derivation is from Up and Hold. Cf. ‘ Vpholdere, pat sellythe smal
thyngys;’ Prompt. Pary. Der. upholster-y, a coined word, from the
form upholster.
UPON, on, on the top of. (E.) ME. upon, uton, prep., Chaucer,
C. T. 111. AS. uppon, upon, Gen. xxii. 2; also uppan, Matt, xxi.
44.—AS. upp, up, above, adv. ; and on, an, on, See Up and On.
+lIcel. up a, upp a, upon ; where upp=AS. upp, and ἃ (for an)= AS.
on; Swed. pa, upon, clearly a shortened form of upp d, where @=E.
on; Dan. paa, upon.
UPROAR, a tumult, clamour, disturbance. (Du.) In Acts, xvii.
5, XIX. 40, xx. I, xxi. 31, 38; in Shak. Lucrece, 427, we have: ‘his
eye . . . Unto a greater uproar tempts his veins ;’ where there is no
notion of noise, but only of excitement or disturbance. ‘To haue all
the worlde in an vprore, and vnquieted with warres;’ Udall, on
St. Mark, preface, fol. vi, 1. 9. Spelt uprore in Levins. It is a cor-
tupt form, due to confusion with E. roar, with which it has no real
connexion; it is not an E, word at all, but borrowed from Dutch.
= Du. oproer, ‘uprore, tumult, commotion, mutiny, or sedition; oproer
maken, to make an vprore; ofroerigh, seditious, or tumultuous;’
Hexham.—Du. of, up; and roeren, to stir, move, touch; so that
uproer =a stirring up, commotion, excitement, [Formerly also spelt
rueren (Hexham) ; the Du. oe is pronounced as E. 00; Du. boer =E.
boor. |4-Swed. uppror, revolt, sedition ; allied to upp, up, and réra, to
stir; Dan. opror, revolt ; oprére, to stir up, from of, up, and rére, to
stir; G. aufrukr, tumult; axufriikren, to stir up, from G. auf, up, and
riihren, to stir. B. The verbappearsas Du. roeren, Swed. réra, Dan.
rore, Icel. hrera, G. riihren, AS. hréran, OSax. hrorian, to stir; and is
the same word as rear- or rere-in E. rearmouse, reremouse, a bat; see
Reremouse. y. The AS. hréran, to stir, agitate, is from hror,
motion, allied to hror, adj., active (with the usual change from ὅ to
é); the Swed. uppror preserves the orig. unmodified 6. Perhaps
allied to Skt. gra, to boil. See Crater. Der. uproar-i-ous, an
ill-coined word; uproar-i-ous-ly, -ness.
UPSIDE-DOWN, topsyturvy. (E.) ‘Tum’d upside-down to
me ;’ Beaum. and Fletcher, Wit at Several Weapons, y. 1 (Gregory).
‘I torne upsyde downe;’ Palsgrave, p. 760. From up, side, and
down. But it is remarkable that this expression took the place of
ME. vp so doun, once a common phrase, as in Wyclif, Matt. xxi. 12,
Luke xv. 8; Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, Ὁ. ii. pr. 5.1. 91, Ὁ. v. pr. 3.
1. 60; this is composed of up, so, and down, where so has (as often)
the force of as, or as ἐξ were, 1.e. up as it were down.
UPSTART, one who has suddenly started up from low life to
wealth or honour. (E.) In Shak. 1 Hen. VI, v. 7. 87. A sb. coined
from the verb upstart, to start up; the pt. t. upstart is in Spenser,
F. Q. i. 1. 16. From Up and Start; see note to Start, § y.
UPWARD, UPWARDS; see Up and -ward, suffix.
URBANE, pertaining to a city, refined, courteous. (L.) Spelt
vrbane in Levins, ed. 1570.1. urbanus, belonging to a city.=—L.
USE 681
urb-s,a city. Der. urban, belonging toa city (which is only another
spelling of the same word); sub-urban, q.v. And see below.
URBANITY, courteousness. (F.—L.) Spelt urbanitie in
Levins, ed. 1570.—F. urbanité, ¢ urbanity, civility ;? Cot. = L. urbani-
tatem, acc. of urbdnitas, city-manners, refinement.—L. urbani-, from
urbdnus, urbane; with suffix -tas; see Urbane.
URCHIN, a hedgehog; a goblin, imp, a small child. (North F,
—L.) In Shak. it means (1) a hedgehog, Temp. i. 2. 326, Titus, ii.
3: 101; (2) a goblin, Merry Wives, iv. 4. 49. Spelt urchone in
Palsgrave. ME. urchon, urchone, Prompt. Parv., see the note; also
spelt érchon, Early E. Psalter, Ps. ciii, 18 (1. 42); see Specimens of
English, ed. Morris and Skeat (Glossary).—ONorth F. herichun,
Marie (Fable 62); cf. Picard irechon; Walloon urechon, irchon
(Sigart) ; Rouchi urchon (Hécart); Norm, dial. hérichon; also OF.
iregon, a hedgehog; also spelt herigon, erigon (Burguy); mod. F.
hérisson. Formed, with dimin. suffix -on (as if from a L. acc. *érici-
dnem), from L, éricius, a hedgehog. B. Ericius is a lengthened
form from ér (gen. éris), a hedgehog; for *hér, and cognate with
Gk. xnp, a hedgehog. The Gk. χήρ is allied to ydp-a¢, a pointed
stake, χαρ-άσσειν, to scratch (see Character) ; and further, to L.
horrére, to be bristly, hirsiitus, bristly, Skt. ksh, to bristle, Named
from its sharp prickles.
URE, practice, use. (F.—L.) Obsolete, except in the derivative
in-ure; and cf, man-ure. The real sense is work, practice; and, as
it often has the sense of use, Richardson and others confuse it with
use Or usage ; but it hasno connexion with those words. It was once
a common word; see examples in Nares. ‘To put in vre, in usum
trahere;’ Levins, 193.17. ‘Ivre one, I accustume hym to a thyng;’
Palsgrave. ME. ure; ‘ Moche like thyng I haue had in vre;* Reme-
die of Loue, st. 23, pr. in Chaucer’s Works, ed. 1561, fol. 323. [Dis-
tinct from ME. vre = good luck.) = OF. eure, uevre, ovre, work, action,
operation. —L. opera, work. See further under Inure, Manure,
and Operate. Doublet, opera.
URGE, to press earnestly, drive, provoke. (L.) Levins, ed. 1570,
has both urge and urgent.=—L. urgére, to urge, drive. B. For
*uurg-ére, where uurg- is the weak grade of *uerg-. Allied to
Gk. εἴργειν (for Ἐἐξέργειν), to repress, constrain, Lithuan. werz-iu,
I press tight, Goth. wrikan, to persecute. —4/W ERG, to compel; see
Wreak. Brugmann,i.§ 350. Der. urg-ent, from L. urgent-, stera
of pres. part. of urgére; urgent-ly, urgenc-y.
URIM, lit. lights. (Heb.) Only in the phr. wrim and thummim;
see Thummim. The lit. sense is ‘lights,’ though the word may
be used in the sing. sense ‘ light.’ Heb, arim, lights, pl. of ur, light.
— Heb. root ar, to shine.
URINE, the water separated by the kidneys from the blood.
(F.—L.) In Macb. ii. 3. 32; and in Chaucer, C. T. 5703 (Ὁ 121).
=F. urine, ‘urine ;’ Cot.—L. ἄγημα, urine ; where -ina is a suffix.
Gk. οὖρον, urine ; Skt. vari, water; var, water. Allied to Icel. ar,
drizzling rain; ver, the sea; AS. wer, the sea. B. Orig. sense
‘water.’ Der. wrin-al, ME. urinal, Chaucer, C. T. 12239 (C 305),
Layamon, 17724, from F. urinal (Cot.) ; urin-ar-y, from Ἐς urinaire
Cot.).
ὍΝ, a vase for ashes of the dead. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. urne, urne,
Chaucer, Troil. ν. 311.—F. urne, ‘a narrow necked pot, or pitcher
of earth;’ Cot.—L. urna, an urn. For *wrc-na; and allied to L.
urc-eus, a pitcher. Brugmann, i. § 756.
URSINE, of or belonging to a bear. (L.) Modern; not in
Todd’s Johnson.—L. ursinus, bear-like.—L. ursus, a bear. Allied
to Gk. ἄρκτος, a bear; W. arth, Skt. rksha-s, a bear; see Arctic.
Brugmann, i. § 598.
US, the objective case of we. (E.) ME. vs, ous, us; used both as
ace, and dat. AS. iis, dat. ; as, asic, ussic, acc. pl., us (Grein).4-Du.
ons; Icel. oss, dat. and acc. pl.; Swed. oss; Dan. os; G. uns; Goth.
uns, unsis, dat. and acc. pl. B. All from a Teut. base *uns-.
Cf, L. nds, Skt. nas; also Gk. ἡμᾶς, Skt. asman, us. Brugmann, i.
§ 437 (2); li. § 436.
USE (1), sb., employment, custom. (F.—L.) ME. vse, use ; pro-
perly us, as in Ancren Riwle, p. 16, 1. 7; the word being mono-
syllabic. — AF. us (Hayelok, 860), OF. (and F.) ws, use, usage
(Burguy); spelt uz in Cotgrave.—L. disum, acc. of iisus, use; cf.
iisus, pp. of ai, to use. Der. use, vb., ME. vsen, usen, Layamon,
24293, from Εἰ, user, to use, from Late L. asdre, to use, for *usari,
frequentative form of aii, to use. Also us-able, from the verb fo use ;
us-age, ME. usage, usage, King Alisaunder, 1. 1286, from AF. usage
(Stat. Realm, i. 100), F. usage, ‘usage,’ Cot. Also wse-ful, use-ful-ly,
use-ful-ness ; use-less, use-less-ly, use-less-ness; all from the sb. use.
Also us-u-al, Hamlet, ii. 1. 22, from L. aswdlis, from asu-, decl. stem
of tisus ; us-u-al-ly. And see usurp, usury, utensil, utility, Also ab-use,
dis-use, mis-use, ill-use, per-use.
USE (2), profit, benefit. (F.—L.) When use is employed, in
legal documents, in the special sense of ‘ benefit,’ it is a modernised
682 USHER
spelling of the Anglo-F. form of the L. opus, employment, need.
Cf. Anglo-F. oes, use, profit, Annals of Burton, pp. 474, 482, A.D.
1258; oeps, Liber Custumarum, p. 202; Statutes of the Realm,
i. 144, A.D. 1299 ; woes, service, Vie de St. Auban, 1554. A good
example is the following : ‘ Que il feist a sun oes guarder,’ which he
caused to be kept for his own use; Roman de Rou, 2336. See oes,
ues, eus, obs, in Bartsch.
USHER, a door-keeper, one who introduced strangers. (F.—L.)
ME. vschere ; ‘ Vschere, Hostiarius” [i.e. ostiarius]; Prompt. Parv.
‘That doré can non huissher schette’ [shut]; Gower, C. A. i. 231
(bk. ii. 2130).—AF. usser, Gaimar, 5995; OF. ussier, uisster
(Burguy) ; also huissier, ‘an usher, or door-keeper of a court, or of
a chamber in court ;’ Cot. —L. ostiarium, acc. of ostiarius, bélonging
to a door, or (as sb.) a door-keeper. — L. ostium, a door, an entrance ;
extended from ds, a mouth; see Oral. Cf. OPruss. azsto, a mouth.
Der. usher, verb, L. L. L. v. 2. 328 5 usher-ship.
USQUEBAUGH, whiskey. (Irish.) In Ben Jonson, The Irish
Masque ; Beaum. and Fletcher, Scornful Lady, ii. 3 (Savil) ; Ford,
Perkin Warbeck, iii. 3.—Irish wisge beatha, usquebaugh, whiskey,
lit. ‘water of life;’ cf. L. aqua uite@, F. eau-de-vie.— Irish uisge,
water, whiskey (see Whiskey); and beatha, life, Olrish bethu,
allied to Gk. Bios, L. wita, life, and E. quick (see Quick). Brugmann,
i. §§ 85, 368.
USURP, to seize to one’s own use, take possession of forcibly.
(F.—L.) Spelt usurpfe in Palsgrave; ME. usurpen, Chaucer,
Astrolabe, prol. 42.—F. usurper, ‘to usurpe,’ Cot.—L. asurpare, to
employ, acquire; and, in a bad sense, to assume, usurp. B. Bréal
suggests a formation from a sb. *iisu-rapus (*isu-ripus?), one who
seizes for his own use. Cf. L. surpere for surripere. Der. usurp-er;
usurp-at-ion, from F. xsurpaiton, ‘a usurpation,’ Cot.; from L. ace.
tisurtationem,
USURY, large interest for the use of money. (F.—L.) ‘Userer,
usurier; Usery, usure;’ Palsgrave. ME. vsure, of which usury was
another form. ‘Ocur, or vswre of gowle, Usura;’ Prompt. Pary.
Ρ. 362; vsurye, id. p. 513. Spelt vsurie, P. Plowman, B. v. 240;
userie, id. C. vii. 239. Here vsurie seems to be a by-form of vswre.
— F. usure, ‘the occupation of a thing, usury ;’ Cot. —L. astra, use,
enjoyment ; also, interest, usury.—L. as-wm, supine of afi, to use;
see Use. Der. usur-er, ME. vsurere, Prompt. Parv., F. usurier,
from L. dsiirarius.
UT, the first note of the musical scale. (L.) In Shak. L. L. L. iv.
2.102. Cf. F. and L. wt, the same. See Solfa.
UTAS, the octave of a feast. (F.—L.) Also utis, 2 Hen. IV, ii.
4. 22; where it means ‘ the time between a festival and the eighth
day after it, merriment ;’ Schmidt. ‘ Ufas of a feest, octaues ;’ Pals-
grave. ME. wtas, Trevisa, vii. 259. Utas is shortened from AF.
utaves, utavs, Yearbooks of Edw. I., 1302-3, Ὁ. 407; 1292-3, Ρ. 753
corresponding to OF. oitawves (Burguy), oztieves (Roquefort), the
pl. of oifauve, octave, or eighth (day). Uvas occurs in the statute
concerning General Days in the Bench, 51 Hen. III, i.e. A.D.
1266-7 (Minsheu). ‘ El dyemanche des oitieves de la Resurrection’ =
on the Sunday of the octaves of the resurrection; Miracles de S.
Louis, c. 39 (Roquefort). The OF. oitauve is from the L. octava
(diés), eighth day; cf. OF. ort, oy?, uit (mod. Ἐς huit), ftom L. octo,
eight. ‘Thus μίας is, as it were, a pl. of octave; see Octave.
UTENSIL, an instrument or vessel in common use. (F.—L.)
‘All myn hostilmentis, vtensiles,’ &c.; Bury Wills,ed. Tymms, p. 94;
in a will dated 1504. ‘Alle the vtensyl of myn hows;’ Early E.
Wills, ed. Furnivall, p. 18 (1411).—MF. wtensile, ‘an utensile;”
Cot.—L. itensilis, adj., fit for use; whence dfensilia, neut. pl.,
utensils. B. L. atensilis is for *itent-tilis, formed with suffix -tilis
(as in fer-tilis, fic-tilis) from iitent-, stem of pres. part. of afi, to use;
see Use. The mod. Ἐς is ustensile (corruptly).
UTERINE, born of the same mother by a different father. (F.—
L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. ME. uterynes, pl. Trevisa, v. 29.
= MF. uterin, ‘of the womb, born of one mother or damme;’ Cot.
=L. uterinus, born of the same mother.=—L. uterus, the womb. Cf.
Gk. ὑστέρα, the womb ; Skt. wdara-, belly. Brugmann, i. ἃ 706.
UTILISE, to put to good use. (F.—L.) Not in Todd’s Johnson;
quite modern,.—F. wtiliser, to utilise; a modern word (Littré).
Coined, with suffix -iser (<L. -iza@re=Gk. -ἰζειν), from L. azil-is,
useful; see Utility.
UTILITY, usefulness. (F.—L.) ME. vtilité, Chaucer, On
the Astrolabe, pt. ii. § 26. 1. 16.—F. wtilité, ‘utility;’ Cot. =—L.
wtilitatem, acc, of αὐ 5, usefulness.—L. iadili-, decl. stem of wtilis,
useful ; with suffix-/a@s.—L. ati, touse; see Use. Der. utilit-ar-i-an,
a modern coined word.
UTMOST, outmost, most distant, extreme. (E.) ME. utemest,
orig. trisyllabic; spelt wtemaste in Layamon, 11023; oxtemeste in
Rich. Coer de Lion, 2931; utmeste, Trevisa, vi. 359. From AS.
tite-m-est, double superl. from a, out, also found as ite, adv. out.
VACILLATION
[We also find the mutated forms ytemest, yimest, Grein, ii. 777.)
‘This word is therefore a doublet of outmost; see Out. On the
double suffix, see Aftermost; utmest became utmost by confusion
with most. We also find utt-er-most; see Utter (1).
UTOPIAN, imaginary, chimerical. (Gk.) An adj. due to Sir
T. More’s description of Utopia, an imaginary island situate nowhere,
as the name implies. Coined (by Sir T. More, A.D. 1516) from Gk.
od, not ; and τόπ-ος, a place; see Topic.
UTTER (1), outer, further out. (E.) ME. viter, utter ; whence
was formed a superlative véter-est, used in the def. form vttereste by
Chaucer, C. T. 8663 (Ε 787). AS. uttera (which occurs as well as
uitera), compar. adj. formed from at, adv., out; see Out. Thus
utter is a doublet of outer. Der. utter-ly; utter-most (see Utmost).
And see utter (2).
UTTER (2), to put forth, send out, circulate. (E.; perhaps con-
fused with F.—L.) ME. uxtiren, attributed to Chaucer, C. T.
16302, in Thynne’s edition (1532), but every one of the MSS. in the
Six-text edition has outen, Group G, |. 834; so also the Harl. MS.
Hence there is really no authority for supposing that Chaucer used
the word. The verb outen, which he really uses, is to put out, to
‘out with,’ as we say; answering. to AS. aitian, vb., to put out,
expel; from a, out; see Out. B. The verb outre, to utter,
speak, occurs frequently in the Romance of Partenay, ll. 1024,.1437,
1563, 2816, 3156, &c.. It is possible that the r was suggested by
OF. outrer, to go beyond, surpass, finish (Godefroy); cf. F.
outre, beyond; see Utterance (2). And this last partly owed
its form to Utter (1). Cf AS. atian, to put out, eject; Laws of
the Northumb. Priests, § 22, in Thorpe’s Ancient Laws, ii. 294.
Der. utier-able ; utter-ance, Hamlet, iii. 2. 378.
UTTERANCES (1), an uttering; see Utter (2); as above.
UTTERANCKEH (2), extremity. (F.—L.) Only in the phrases
to the utterance, Mach. 111. 1. 72; at utterance, Cymb. iii. I. 73.
ME. oultrance; in Lydgate, Siege of Troy, bk. i. ch. 2; fol. b 4,
back, col. 1: ‘Unto oultrance with these bulles to fyght =F.
outrance, MF. oultrance, ‘extremity ;’ Cot. ‘Combatre ἃ oultrance,
to fight it out, or to the uttermost ;’ id. — Ἐς outre (oultre in Cotgrave),
beyond ; with suffix -ance.—L, ulira, beyond; see Outrage.
UVULA, the fleshy conical body suspended from the soft palate.
(L.) In Cotgrave, to translate F.uuwle.— Late L. avula, dimin. of
ἅμα, ἃ cluster, grape, also the uvula.4Lith. “ga, a berry. Brugmann,
i. § 223(2).
UXORIOUBS, excessively fond of a wife. (L.) In Ben Jonson,
Silent Woman, iv. 1 (Otter).—L. wxdrius, belonging to a wife; also,
fond of a wife. L, uxdri-, decl. stem of uxor, a wife. Der. uxorious-
ly, -ness,
V. In Middle-English, v is commonly written x in the MSS., though
many editors needlessly falsify the spellings of the originals to suit a
supposed popular taste. Conversely, τὲ sometimes appears as v, most
often at the beginnings of words, especially in the words vs, vse, uf,
vn-to, vader, and vn- used as a prefix. The use of v for τὶ, and con-
versely, is also found in early printed books, and occurs occasionally
down to rather a late date. Cotgrave ranges all F. words beginning
with v and uz under the common symbol V. We may also note that
a very large proportion of the words which begin with V are of
French or Latin origin; only vane, vat, vinewed, vixen, are English.
VACATION, leisure, cessation from labour. (F.—L.) In Pals-
grave, spelt vacacion, ME. vacacioun, Chaucer, C. T., D 683.=—F.
vacation, ‘a vacation, vacancy, leisure ;’ Cot. = L. wacationem, acc. of
uacatio, leisure; cf. wacatus, pp. of uacare, to be empty, to be free
from, to be unoccupied. See Vacuum. Der. vacant, in early use,
in Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 110, 1. 15, from F. vacant,
‘vacant,’ Cot., from the stem of the pres. part. of L. uacdre ; hence
vacanc-y, Hamlet, iii. 4. 117; vacate, vb., a late word, from uacatus,
pp: of uacare. And see vac-uum.
VACCINATE, to inoculate with the cow-pox. (L.) ‘Of
modern formation, from the inoculation of human beings with the
variole vaccine, or cow-pox.... Dr. Jenner’s Znguiry was first pub-
lished in 1798 ;’ Richardson. Coined, as if from the pp. of *waccinare,
to inoculate, from L. waccinus, belonging to cows.—L. uacca, a cow.
Cf. Skt. vaca, a cow. It prob. means ‘ the lowing animal ;’ cf. Skt.
vag, to cry, to howl, to low. Der. vaccinat-ion ; also vaccine, from L.
uacculus.
VACILLATION, wavering, unsteadfastness. (F.—L.) ‘No
remainders of doubt, no vacilation;’ Bp. Hall, The Peace-maker,
§ 15 (R.). And in Blount.<F. vacillation, ‘a reeling, staggering,
VACUUM
wagging ;’ Cot.=L. wacillationem, acc. of uacillitio, a reeling,
wavering ; cf. uacillitus, pp. of uacillare, to sway to and fro, waver,
vacillate. Formed as if from an adj. *uactllus, from a base uac-. =
WV AQ, to bend, sway to one side ; cf. Skt. vmik, to go tortuously,
to be crooked, vakra-, bent; AS. wah, crooked. Der. vacillate, from
L. pp. wacillatus; alate word. Cf. woo.
VACUUM, an empty space. (L.) It was supposed that nature
abhorred a vacuum; see Cranmer’s Works, i. 250, 330 (Parker
Society).=—L. wacuwm, an empty space; neut. of uwacuus, empty.
Allied to L. wacare, to be empty; see Vacation.+W. gwag,
empty. Der. vacu-i-/y, in Cotgrave, from F. vacuité, ‘vacuity,’ Cot.,
from L. acc. uacuititem.
VADEH, to wither. (Du.—F.—L.) In Shak. Pass. Pilgrim, 131,
170, 174, 176; Spenser, F. Ὁ. v. 2. 40.—MDu. vadden, ‘to fade ;’
Hexham. =OF. fader, to fade; see Fade.
VAGABOND, adj., wandering ; as sb., a wandering, idle fellow.
(F.—L.) Spelt vacabonde in Palsgrave; he gives the MF. form as
uacabond ; so also ‘ Vacabonds, vagabonds,’ Cot. Rich. cites vaga-
bunde from the Bible (1534), Gen. iv. 12 ; spelt vacabund in the edit.
of 1551. Also vacabonde, Caxton, Siege of Troy, fol. 334, back. =
F. vagabond, ‘a vagabond,’ Cot. We also find OF. vacabond (Gode-
froy).—L, uagabundus, adj., strolling about. Formed, with suffix
-b-undus (a gerundive form), from uaga-ri, to wander.=—L, uagus,
wandering ; see Vague.
VAGARY, a wild freak, a whim. (L.) In The Two Noble
Kinsmen, iv. 3. 54 (82); figaries, pl., Ford, Fancies Chaste and
Noble, iii. 3. Also vagare, sing., a trisyllabic word, in Stanyhurst,
tr. of Virgil, Atn. Ὁ. ii, ed. Arber, p. 44,1. 10. Perhaps orig. a verb ;
see below. Apparently borrowed directly from L. uagari, to
wander; and, in any case, due to this verb. Cf. F. vaguer, ‘to
wander, vagary, gad, range, roam,’ Cot.; also Ital. vagare, ‘to
wander, to vagarie, or range,’ Florio. We have instances of F. in-
finitives used as sbs. in attainder, remainder, leisure, pleasure. See
above.
VAGRANT, wandering, unsettled. (F.—OHG.) ‘A vagarant and
wilde kinde of life;’ Hakluyt’s Voyages, i. 490; quoted by Richard-
son, who alters vagarant to vagrant ; but vagarant is, 1 think, quite
tight. . Cf. vagarantes, vagrants, Harman’s Caveat, p. 19. It corre-
sponds to Anglo-F. wakerant, a vagrant, vagabond ; see Liber Albus,
p- 275. Also found as AF. and OF. waucrant, pres. pt. of OF.
walcrer, to wander about. Spelt wacrant, ‘Tristan, il. 75, 80 ; Bozon,
p- 72; walcrant, Horn, fol. 8, back, col. 2, See walcrer, wacrer,
vacrer, in Godefroy. Of Germanic origin; cf. MLow G. welkern,
MHG. walgern, to walk about; allied to OHG. walkan, walchan,
to move oneself about, to full cloth; cognate with E. walk, AS.
wealcian. See Walk. Der. vagrant,sb., vagranc-y. Φ4{ Doubtless
confused with L. παραγ, to wander ; but not derived from it. Roque-
fort notes the use of OF. wakerant to translate L. waga in Prov.
vii. 10. See Notes on ΒΕ, Etym., p. 211.
VAGUE, unsettled, uncertain. (F.—L.) It seems to have been
first in use as a verb, parallel in use to vagary, q.v. ‘ Doth vague
and wander ;” Holland, tr. of Plutarch, p. 231 (R.); ‘To vague and
range abroad;’ id. p. 630 (R.). As an adj. it is later. ‘Vague and
insignificant forms of speech ;” Locke, Human Understanding, To
the Reader (R.). =F. vaguer, ‘to wander; vague, wandering ;’ Cot.
=-L. wagiri, to wander; from wagus, adj., wandering. B. Con-
nected by Fick, iii. 761, with AS, wancol, unsteady; from 4/WAG,
a by-form of 4/WAQ, to swerve, for which see Vacillate. Der.
vague-ly, -ness; and see vag-abond, vag-ar-y. From the same I.
uagari we have extra-vagant,
VAIL (1), the same as Veil, q. v.
VAIL (2), to lower. (F.—L.) In Merch. Ven. i. 1. 28, &c.; and
not uncommon. A headless form of avail or avale, in the same sense.
1 avale, as the water dothe whan it goeth downewardes or ebbeth,
Fauale;’ Palsgrave.—F. avaler (in Cot. avaller), ‘to let, put, lay,
cast, fell down,’ Cot. See further under Avalanche. Der. vail,
sb., Troil. v. 8. 7.
VAIL (3), a gift to a servant. (F.—L.) Dryden has the pl. vails;
tr. of Juvenal, Sat. iii. 1.311. “ Vails, profits that arise to. servants,
besides their salary or wages;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. A headless form
of avail, sb., in the sense of profit, help. ‘Avayle, sb., prouffit ;’
Palsgrave. ‘ Vaile my pre3eres’=let my prayers avail, Wyclif, Jer.
Xxxvil. 19, earlier version. See Avail.
VAIN, empty, fruitless, unreal, worthless ; also, conceited. (F.—
L.) ME. vain, vein, veyn, Chaucer, C. T. 15965 (ἃ 497).—F. vain,
‘vain;’ Cot.—L. uanum, acc. of uanus, empty, vain. Brugmann, i.
§ 414 (3). Der. vain-ly, -ness; also the phr. in vain, a translation
of Ε΄ en vain (Cot.). Also vain-glory, ME. veingloire, Gower, C. A.
i. 132, b. i. 2677 ; vain-glori-ous, -ly, -ness. Also van-i-ty, 4. ν. ; vaunt,
q.v.; van-tsh, q.v.
VAIR, a kind of fur. (F.—L.)
A common term in heraldry;
VALIANT 683
whence the adj, vairy or verry, given in Phillips, ed. 1706, and spelt
varry in Blount. ME, νεῖν, Reliquize Antiqua, i. 121; Rob. Man-
ning, ed. Furnivall, 1. 615.—F. vair, ‘a rich fur of ermines,’ &c. ;
Cot.=—L. varius, variegated. See Minever and Various. Cf.
Late L. varium, vair; Gloss. to Liber Custumarum. Der. vair-y,
adj., from F, vairé, ‘ verry, diversified with argent and azure;’ Cot.
Also mine-ver.
VALANCE, a fringe of drapery, now applied to a part of the
bed-hangings. (F.—L.) In Shak. Tam. Shrew, ii. 356; he also ha’
valanced={ringed, Haml. ii. 2. 442. | ‘Rich cloth of tissue, and
vallance of black silk;’ Strype, Eccles. Mem., Funeral Solemnities of
Henry VIII. Cf. ‘A subtil kerchef of Valence;’ Chaucer, Assembly
of Foules, 272. Florio (1598) has Ital. ‘ Valenzana, a kind of saye,
serge, or stuffe to make curteins for beds with; Valenzana del letto,
the valances of a bed.’ Torriano (1688) has Valenza as well as
Valenzana in the former sense, and Valenzane for Valenzana in the
latter one. Prob. named from Valence in France, not far to the S.
of Lyons, where silk is made even to this day; Lyons silks are well-
known. Sir Aymer de Valence, whose widow founded Pembroke
College, Cambridge, may have taken his name from the same place.
Valence=\.. Valentia, a name given to more towns than one, and
clearly a derivative of walére (pres. part. walent-), to be strong ; whence
also the names Valens and Valentinian; see Valiant. 4 See Todd;
Johnson derives Valence from Valencia in Spain, which was also
famous for silk. Mahn (in Webster) derives valance (without evi-
dence) from a supposed Norm. F. valaunt, answering to F. avalant,
pres. part. of avaler, to let fall; for which see Avalanche.
VALE, a valley. (F.—L.) ME. val, as a various reading for
ualeie (valley), in Legends of the Holy Rood, p. 22, 1. 47.—F. val,
‘a vale;’? Cot.—L. uallem, acc. of uallis, a vale. Der. vall-ey, q.v. ;
also a-val-anche, vail (2).
VALEDICTION, a farewell: (L.) ‘He alwayes took this
solemn valediction of the fellowes;’ Fuller, Worthies; Shropshire
(R.). Englished from a supposed. L. *xalédictio, coined like ualé-
dictus, pp. of ualédicere, to say farewell. L. ualé, farewell; and
dicere, to say. B. L. ualz, lit. ‘be strong, be of good health,’ is
the 2 pers. sing. imp. of walére, to be strong. See Valiant and
Diction, Der. valedict-or-y.
VALENTINE, a sweetheart ; also a love-letter sent on Feb. 14.
(F.—L.) In Nares and Brand. See Hamlet, iv. 5. 48,51. Named
from St. Valentine’s day, when birds were supposed to pair; see
Chaucer, Assembly of Foules, 309, 322, 683 Spenser, F. Q. vi. 7.
32.— Ἐς Valentin. —L. Valentinus.— L. ualent-, stem of pres. part. of
ualére, to be strong; see Valiant.
VALERIAN, the name of ἃ flower. (F.—L.) “ Valeryan, an
herbe;’ Palsgrave. And in Chaucer, C. T., ἃ 800.—F. valeriane,
‘garden valerian;’ Cot.—Late L. ualeridna, valerian. β. Orig.
unknown; zaleriana is the fem. of Valeridnus, which must mean
either ‘ belonging to Valerius’ or ‘belonging to Valeria,’ a province
of Pannonia. Both names are doubtless due to L. walére, to be strong,
whence many names were derived; see Valance, Valentine, and
Valiant.
VALET, a man-servant. (F.—C.) In Blount. ‘The king made
him his valett;’ Fuller, Worthies, Yorkshire. Valet-de-chambre
occurs in Vanbrugh, The Provoked Wife, Act v. 3:—F. valet, ‘a
groom, yeoman, &c.,’ Cot.; valet de chambre, ‘a chamberlain,’ id.
The same word as Varlet, q. v.
VALETUDINARY, sickly, in weak health. (F.—L.) In Sir
T. Brown, Vulg. Errors, b. iv. c. 13, § 26. - Εἰς valétudinaire, ‘sickly ;’
Cot.=L. ualétidinarius, sickly.—L. ualétiidin-, stem of ualétido,
health, whether good or bad, but esp. bad health, feebleness; with
suffix -drius.—L. ualé-re, to be in good health; with suffix -tido.
See Valiant, Der. valetudinari-an, adj. and sb.; as sb. in Spec-
tator, no. 25; valetudinari-an-ism.
VALHALLA, the hall of the slain. (Scand.) In Scand. mytho-
logy, the place of immortality for the souls of heroes slain in battle.
The spelling Valhalla is hardly correct; it is probably due to Bp.
Percy, who translated M. Mallet’s work on Northern Antiquities ;
see chap. v of the translation.—Icel. valhéll (gen. valhallar), lit. the
hall of the slain. = Icel. valr, the slain, slaughter; and héll or hall,
a hall, cognate with E. Hall, B. The Icel. valr is cognate with
AS. wal, slaughter, the slain, also a single corpse; prob. allied to
OHG. wuol, slaughter, AS. wal, disease. It was thought that the
dead were selected from the field of battle by the deities called in
Icelandic Valkyrjur and in AS, Welcyrigan, lit. ‘choosers of the
slain.’ See Valkyria.
VALIANT, brave. (F.—L.) ME. valiant, Rob. of Brunne, tr.
of Langtoft, p. 9,1. 4; p. 177, 1. 3.—F. vaillant, ‘valiant;’ Cot.
Also spelt valant in OF., and the pres. part. of the verb valoir, ‘to
profit, serve, be good for;’ id.—L. ualére, to be strong, to be worth.
Allied to E, Wield, q.v. “Der. valiant-ly, -ness; and see vale-
084 VALID
diction, Val-ent-ine, vale-tu-din-ar-y, val-id, val-our, val-ue ; also a-vail,
counter-vail, pre-vail, con-val-esce ; equi-val-ent, pre-val-ent, in-val-id.
VALID, having force, well-founded, conclusive. (F.—L.)
Cotgrave.—F. valide, ‘valid, strong, weighty;’ Cot.=L. xalidus,
strong.—L. ualére, to be strong; see Valiant. Der. valid-ly;
valid-i-ty, Hamlet, iii. 2. 199, from F. validité, ‘ validity,’ Cot., from
L. ace. ualiditatem.
VALISE#, a travelling-bag, small portmanteau. (F.—Late L.)
‘Seal’d up In the vallies of my trust, lock’d close for ever;’ Ben |
Jonson, Tale of a Tub, A. ii. sc. 1 (Metaphor). =F. valise,‘a male,
cloak-bag, budget, wallet;’ Cot. The same word as Span. balija,
Ital. valigia (Florio), with the same sense. Corrupted in G, into
felleisen (Diez). — Late L. valisia (1401), Ducange; also spelt
valixia (id.). B. Etym. unknown, Diez imagines a Late L. form
*uidul-itia, made from L. uidulus, a leathern travelling-trunk ; which
at any rate gives the right sense. Devic (Supp. to Littré) suggests
Pers. walichah, ‘a large sack,’ or Arab, waliha(t), ‘a corn-sack ;’
Rich, Dict. p. 1657.
VALKYRIA, one of the handmaidens of Odin. (Scand.) Icel.
ualkyrja, a goddess ; lit. ‘ chooser of the slain ;’ pl. valkyrjur.— Ice}.
val, acc. of valr, the slain (AS. wel) ; and -kyrja, f., a chooser, from
kur- (<*kuz-), weak grade of kjdsa, to choose, cognate with E.
choose. Cf. AS. walcyrge, Corpus gloss., 2017.
VALLEY, a vale, dale. (F.—L.) ME. valé, Assumption of
St. Mary, ed. Lumby, ]. 590; ualete, Legends of the Holy Rood, p. 22,
1. 47-—OF. valee (F. vallée), a valley; Burguy. This is parallel to
Ital. vallata, a valley, and appears to mean, literally, ‘formed like a
vale,’ or ‘ vale-like.’ Formed, with suffix -ee (<L. -ata), from F.
val, a vale; see Vale.
VALOUR, courage, bravery. (F.—L.) Spelt valoure, King
Alisaunder, 2530.—OF. valor, valur, F. valeur, ‘value, worth, worthi-
nesse;’ Cot.—L. waldrem, acc. of ualor, worth; hence, worthiness,
courage.—L. ualére, to be strong, to be worth; see Valiant.
Der. valor-ous, 2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 236, from F. valeureux, ‘ valorous,
valiant,’ Cot.; valor-ous-ly.
VALUE, worth. (F.—L.) ‘All is to him of o [one] value,’
Gower, C. A. iii. 346 (bk. viii. 2121).—F. valué, fem., ‘value ;’
Cot. Fem. of valu, pp. of valoir, to be worth.=L. ualére, to be
worth. Der. value, verb, in Palsgrave ; valu-able ; value-less, K. John,
lil. I. 101; valu-at-ion, a coined word.
VALVE, one of the leaves of a folding-door, a lid which opens
only one way, one of the pieces of a (bivalve) shell. (F.—L.)
‘ Valves, folding-doors or windows;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
Valves, pl., doors, Trevisa, iv. 499.—F. valve, ‘a foulding, or two-
leaved door, or window;’ Cot.—L. ualua, sing. of value, the leaves
of a folding-door. Allied to L. uoluere, to roll, turn round about;
from the revolving of the leaves on their hinges. See Voluble.
Der. valv-ed, valv-ul-ar ; bi-valve, uni-valve.
VAMBRACE, VANTBRACH, armour for the fore-arm.
(F.—L.) ‘Plate, cum vambrace et rerebrace;’ York Wills, i.
171 (1392). The word properly signifies ‘ fore-arm.’ It is short for
avant-brace.— MF. avant-bras, ‘a vambrace, armour for an arm;
also, the part of the arm which extends from the elbow to the wrist ;’
Cot.—F. avant, before; bras, the arm.—L. ab ante, from before, in
front; brachium, arm (of which the pl. brachia gave OF. brace, arm ;
see Scheler), See Van (1), Vamp, Vamplate. q The
armour for the upper arm was called a rere-brace, i.e. rear-brace.
VAMP, the fore-part or upper leather of a boot or shoe. (F.—L.)
ME. waumpe (dissyllabic). ‘ Hosen widuten wampez’=hose without
vamps; Ancren Riwle, p. 420, 1. 3. [Another copy has wamped;
Reliq. Antique, ii. 3.7 ‘ Vampe, or uaumpe of an hoose, Pedana ;’
Prompt. Parv. ‘Hoc antepedale, Anglice wampe’ [for vampe] ;
Wright’s Voc. i. 197, col. 1. ‘Hee pedana, Anglice wampay,’ id.
201, col. 2.—MF. avant-pied, ‘the part of the foot that’s next to the
toes, and consisteth of five bones;’ Cot. (Hence E. vampé, vamp ;
by loss of initial a, change of ntp to mp, and suppression of the un-
stressed termination.)=—F. avant, before; and pied, the foot. For
F. avant, see Advance or Van (1). The F. pied is from L.
pedem, acc. of pés,a foot; see Foot. ὅτ This etymology is
verified by the fact that the word also appears as vauntpe. ‘ Vauntpe
of a hose, uantpie ;’ Palsgrave (where the final d is dropped, as well
as the initial a, in the F, form). So also ME. vampay, above, and
later vampay (Phillips). Godefroy has OF. avantpied, a kind of
sandal. Der. vamp, verb, to mend with a new vamp, Beaum. and
Fletcher, Bonduca, Act i. sc. 2 (Petillius); hence vamp up=to
patch up, vamp, to improvise a musical accompaniment.
VAMPIRE, a ghost which sucks the blood of men, a blood-
sucker. (F.—G.—Servian.) In Todd’s Johnson. ‘ Of these beings
many imaginary stories are told in Hungary; Ricaut, in his State of
the Greek and Armenian Churches (1679), gives a curious account
of this superstitious persuasion, p. 278;’ Todd. Todd also cites:
In |
VANTAGE
‘ These are the vampires of the publick, and riflers of the kingdom ;’
Forman, Obs. on the Kevolution in 1688 (1741), p. 11.—F. vampire.
—-G. vampyr (Fliigel).—Servian vampir, a werwolf, blood-sucker,
Popovid, Servian Dict. ; cf. Polish upior, upir, a vampire. Prob. of
Turkish origia; from N. Turk. uber, a witch (Miklosich). Der.
vampire-bat ; so named by Linnzeus.
VAMPLATE, an iron plate protecting a lance. (F.—L.) ‘Pre
uno pare de schynbaldes, aliter vamplattes;’ York Wills, iii. 73
(1423). From F. avant, in front, fore; and plate. See Vam-
brace.
VAN (1), the front of an army. (F.—L.) In Shak. Antony, iv.
6. 9. An abbreviated form of van-guard, vant-guard, or avant-
garde, also spelt van-ward, vaunt-warde. ‘ And when our vauntgard
was passed the toune;’ Holinshed, Chron. Edw. III, an. 1346.
‘And her vantwarde was to-broke;’ Rob. of Glouc. p. 362, 1. 7478;
the pl. vantwardes occurs, id. p. 437,1. 9006. Spelt vaunt-warde,
vaun-warde, auaunt-warde, P. Plowman, C. xxiii. 94.—OF. avant-
warde, later avant-garde, ‘the vanguard of an army;’ Cot. Here
avant is from L. ab ante, ‘from in front;’ see Advance. And
see Guard, Ward.
VAN (2), a fan for winnowing, &c. (F.—L.) ‘His sail-broad
vans,’ i.e. wings; Milton, P. L. ii. 927.—F. van, ‘a vanne, or winnow-
ing sieve ;’ Cot.—L. xannum, acc. of wannus, a fan; see Fan. L.
uannus is for *cuannus; cf. OHG. hwennen (for *hwanjan), to swing,
vibrate. Brugmann, i. § 357. (Doubtful; it may be allied to L.
uentus, wind.) Der. vax, y.,to winnow, spelt vanze in Levins, from
F. vanner, ‘to vanne;’ Cot. Doublet, fan.
VAN (3), a caravan or large covered wagon for goods, (F,
—Pers.) A modern abbreviation for caravan, just as we now use
bus for omnibus, and wig for periwig. See Caravan. ‘The little
man will now walk three times round the cairawan ;’ Dickens, Going
into Society. ‘Carry me into the wan ;’ ibid.
VANDAL, a barbarian. (L.—Teut.) See Vandalick and Vandal-
ism in Todd’s Johnson. —L. Vandalus, a Vandal, one of the tribe of
the Vandali, whose name means, literally, ‘the wanderers;’ see
Pliny. Vandali answers to AS. pl. Wendlas (sing. Wendil-). Cf.
Icel. Vendill (also Vandill), a proper name. Cf. G. wandeln, to
wander ; a frequentative verb cognate with E. Wander, q.v. Der.
Vandal, adj.; Vandal-ic, Vandal-ism.
VANE, a weather-cock. (E.) Also spelt fane (cf. vat, vetch); it
formerly meant a small flag, pennon, or streamer ; hence applied to
the weather-cock, from its likeness to a small pennon. ‘ Fane of a
stepylle;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 148; and see Way’s note. ‘ Chaungynge
asa vane’ (other MSS, fane); Chaucer, C. T., Group E, 996; in
the Ellesmere and Hengwrt MSS. AS. fana, a small flag; Grein, i.
263.4 Du. vaan; Icel. fani; Dan. fane; Swed. and Goth. fana; G.
fahne, MHG, fano. B. Teut. type *fanon-,m. Orig. ‘a bit of
cloth;’ cognate with L. annus, a cloth, piece of cloth; see Pane.
Der. gon-fan-on or gon-fal-on, q.v. Doublet, pane.
VANGUARD; see under Van (1).
VANILLA, the name of a plant. (Span.—L.) In Todd’s John-
son; Johnson says: ‘the fruit of those plants is used to scent
chocolate.’ Misspelt for vainilla, by confusion with F. vaniile, which
is merely borrowed from Spanish, like the E. word. Span. vainilla,
a small pod, husk, or capsule; which is the true sense of the word.
Dimin. of vaina, a scabbard, case, pod, sheath.—L. uagina, a
scabbard, sheath, husk, pod.
VANISH, to disappear. (F.—L.) ME. vanissen, Chaucer, tr. of
Boethius, b. iii. pr. 4, 1. 53. The pt. t. appears as vanisshide,
vanysched, vansched, vanshede, in P. Plowman, C. xv. 217. Certainly
derived from OFrench, but the F. word is not recorded as com-
mencing with v. Prob. shortened from the pres. pt. stem (evaniss-)
of AF. evanir, OF. esvanir, to vanish away ; cf. Ital. svanire, to vanish
(where s is from 1. ex).— Late L. type *exvdnire, for L. éudnescere,
to vanish away.=—L. δ, ex, away; and udnescere, to vanish; lit. to
become empty, from winus, empty; see Vain. Der. e-van-esc-ent.
VANITY, empty pride, conceit, worthlessness. (F.—L.) ME.
uanité (=uanitee), Hali Meidenhad, p. 27, 1. 25. — Ἐς vanité, ‘ vanity ;’
Cot.—L. udnitatem, acc. of αἰ ας, emptiness, worthlessness. = L.
uanus, empty, vain; see Vain,
VANQUISH, to conquer, defeat. (F.—L.) ME, venkisen,
P. Plowman, C. xxi. 106; venkusen, Wyclif, 1 Kings, xiv. 47, earlier
version ; venguishen, Chaucer, C. T. 4711 (B 291). — AF. venquiss-,
OF, veinquiss-, stem of pres. pt. of AF. venquir, OF. veinguir, occur-
ring in the 14th century as a collateral form of OF. veincre (mod. F.
vaincre) ; cf. Ἐς, vainguis, still used as the pt. t. of vaincre, and the
form que je vainguisse.—L. uincere, to conquer; pt. t. wici, pp. uictus
(stem uic-), —4/WEIQ, to fight, strive ; whence also Goth. wethan,
weigan (pp. wig-ans), OHG. and AS. wigan, to strive, fight, contend.
Brugmann, i. §§ 85, 367. Der. vanguish-er; and see victor.
VANTAGE, advantage. (F.—L.) Common in Shak. ; in K.
VANWARD
John, ii. 550, &c.; spelt vantage in Palsgrave ; who also gives: 1
vauntage one, I profyte him, je vantaige; What dothe it vauntage
you, quest ce quil vous vantage, or aduantage.’ = AF. vantage, advantage ;
Year-books of Edw. I., 1302-3, p. 209; F. avantage, ‘an advantage ;
avantager, to advantage;’ Cot. See Advantage. Thus vantage
is a headless form of F. avantage ; and it is clear from Palsgrave (as
above) that the loss of initial a occurred in F.as well as in E.
VANWARD; see Vaward and Van (1).
VAPID, spiritless, flat, insipid. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674. Prob. directly from L. uapidus, vapid, spoiled, flat, rather
than from F. vapide, ‘ that sends up an ill fume,’ marked by Cotgrave
as a scarce or old word. Allied to L. uappa, wine that has emitted
its vapour, vapid or palled wine ; closely allied to L. xap-or, vapour.
B. The L. uap-or is allied to Gk. καπνός, smoke, καπύειν, to breathe
forth ; Lithuan, kwdpas, breath, fragrance, evaporation, kwépti, to
breathe, smell, Awépalas, perfume. Brugmann, i. § 193.—4/QwEP,
to reek, breathe out; cf. Fick, i. 542. Der. vapid-ly, -ness. And
see vapour,
VAPOUR, water in the atmosphere, steam, fume, fine mist,
gas. (F.—L.) ME. vapour, Chaucer, C. T. 10707 (Ε 393).—F.
vapeur, ‘a vapor, fume ;’ Cot.—L. uaporem, acc. of uafor, vapour ;
see Vapid. Der. vapour, verb ; vapor-ous, Mach. iii. 5. 24; vapour-
y¥ ;_vapor-ise, a coined word ; vapor-is-at-ion, e-vapor-ate.
VARICOSKH, permanently dilated, as a vein. (L.) A late word.
[Phillips, ed. 1706, has: ‘ Varix, a crooked vein.’]=L. uaricosus,
varicose. = L, waric-, stem of uvarix, a dilated vein, Perhaps allied to
L. uarus, a blotch, a pimple.
VARIEGATE, to diversify. (L.) “ Variegated tulips ;’ Pope,
Moral Essays, ii. 41.—L. uariegitus, pp. of uariegare, to make of
various colours. = τὸ. wari(o)-, for uarius, of divers colours ; and -igare,
due to agere, to drive, cause, make ; agere being used to form verbs ex-
pressive of an object (see Agent). See Various, Der. variegat-
ton, in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.
VARIETY, difference, diversification, change, diversity. (F.—
L.) In Shak., Antony, ii. 2. 241.—F. varieté, ‘ variety;’ Cot.—
L. uarietatem, acc. of uarietds, variety.—L. uarius, various; see
Various.
VARIOUS, different, several. (L.) ‘A man 50 various ;’
Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, 545. Englished from L. uarius,
variegated, diverse, manifold; with suffix -ous. Der. various-ly;
varie-gate, varie-ly ; also, vary, q.v.3 vair, αν.
VARLET, a groom, footman, low fellow, scoundrel. (F.—C.)
In Spenser, F. Ὁ. ii. 4. 40. ‘Not sparyng maisters nor varlettis ;’
Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol. i. c. 16 (R.).—OF. varlet, ‘a groom;
also, a yonker, stripling, youth; ’ Cot. He notes that ‘in old time
it was a more honourable title; for all young gentlemen, untill they
come to be 18 years of age, were tearmed so.’ B. An older spell-
ing was vaslet (Godefroy), which became varlet, vallet, valet. We
also find the AF. spelling vadlet in the Liber Albus, ed. Riley; p. 46,
where d stands for an older sd, as in medlar. medley; which again
proves that vaslet was the orig. form. ὀὙ. Vaslet is for *vasalet, the
regular diminutive of OF. vasal, vassal, a vassal; so that a varlet
was orig. a young vassal, a youth, stripling; hence, a servant, &c. ;
and finally a valet, and a varlet as a term of reproach. OF. vaslet
became *vasdlet, vadlet in AF.; also varlet, vallet, valet. See
Vassal. Doublet, valet.
VARNISH, a kind of size or glaze, a liquid employed to give a
glossy surface. (F.) ME. vernisch. ‘ Vernysche, Vernicium ;’ Prompt.
Pary. In P. Plowman, A. v. 70, the Vernon MS. wrongly reads
vernisch for vergeous (verjuice) ; still, this shows that the word was
already known before A. Ὁ. 1400. -- Εἰ, vernis, ‘ varnish, made of linseed
oyle and the gumme of the juniper-tree ;’ Cot. _ Hence the verb
vernisser, ‘to sleeke or glaze over with varnish ;’ Cot. Cf. Span.
berniz, barniz, varnish, lacquer ; barnizar, to varnish, lacquer; Ital.
vernice, varnish; vernicare, verniciare, to varnish. B. Of doubtful
origin; but compare the MGk. βερνίκη ; see Schade, O. H.G. Dict.,
p- 1439. Wedgwood says: ‘ It seems to me probable that it is from
Gk. Bepoviin, Bepvixn, amber, applied by Agapias to sandarach, a gum
rosin similar in appearance to amber, of which varnish was made ;
Gk. βερνικιάζειν, to varnish; Ducange, Greek Glossary. Cf. mod.
Gk. Bepvixi, varnish.’ But the MGk. Bepvixn seems to be merely
a Gk, form of Ital. vernice. Ducange gives a Late L. form vernicium
(A. D. 1243). Der. varnish, verb; Palsgrave has: ‘I vernysshe a
spurte, or any yron with vernysshe, je vernis ;’ which exemplifies the
MF. verb vernir, late by-form of vernisser.
VARSOVIENNE, a dance in imitation of a Polish dance. (F.
—Polish.) F. Varsovienne, a dance (about 1853); lit. ‘ belonging
to Warsaw.’ =F, Varsovie, Warsaw. = Pol. Warszawa, Warsaw.
VARY, to alter, change. (F.—L.) ME. variex, Prompt. Parv. ;
pres. part. variande, Pricke of Conscience, 1447.—F. varier, ‘to
vary ;᾽ Cot.—L. ariare, to diversify, vary. —L. varius, various ; see
VAULT 685
Various. Der. vari-able, spelt varyable in Palsgrave, from F, vari-
able, ‘variable,’ Cot., from L. uariabilis; variable-ness, vari-abil-i-ty ;
vari-at-ion, ME. vartactoun, Chaucer, C. T. 2590 (A 2588), from F.
variation, ‘a variation, from L.ace. uariationem ; vari-ance, Chaucer,
C. T. 8586 (E 710), as if from L. *uariantia. And see vair, mine-ver.
VASCULAR, consisting of vessels, as arteries, veins, &c. (L.)
In Todd’s Johnson. Formed, with suffix -ar (from L. -aris) from L.
uascul-um, a small vessel ; formed with the double dimin. suffix -cu-lu-,
from πᾶς, a vessel; see Vase. Der. vascular-i-ty.
VASE, a vessel, particularly an ornamented one. (F.—L.) In
Pope, Rape of the Lock, i. 122.—F. vase, ‘a vessel;’ Cot.—L.
uasum, a vase, vessel ; a collateral form of was (gen. uds-is), a vessel ;
the pl. wasa is common, though the sing. τισι is hardly used.
B. L. udsum resembles Skt. vasana-, a receptacle, box, basket, water-
jar; also, an envelope, cover, cloth; the orig. sense being perhaps
‘case’ or protecting cover. Perhaps allied to Vest. Der. vas-cu-
lar ; vessel.
VASELING, a semi-fluid greasy substance, used in ointments,
&c. A fanciful name; given by the maker. Said to have been
suggested by G. wass(er), water, and Gk. ἔλ(αιονν, oil; with F. suffix
-ine. (Cent. Dict.)
VASSAL, a dependent. (F.—C.) In Spenser, Daphnaida, 181.
Certainly in early use; the ME. vassal, however, is rare, though the
derivative vasselage (vassalage) is in Chaucer, C. T. 3056 (A 3054),
where it means ‘good service’ or prowess in arms; it has the same
sense in Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 86, 1. 21, and in Gower
(as cited in Richardson). [The word vassayl, cited by Richardson
from Rob. of Glouc., means wassail.]|—A¥F. vassal, Philip de
Thaun, Livre des Creatures, 1. 698; Εἰ. vassal, ‘a vassall, subject,
tenant;’ Cot. (Cotgrave well explains the word.) The orig. sense
is ‘servant;’ and the word is of Celtic origin, Latinised (in Low
Latin) as vassallus, in which form it is extremely common. We also
find the shorter form wassus or wasus, a servant ; which occurs in the
Lex Salica, ed. Hessels and Kern, coll. 55, 56.—OBret. uuvas=was,
Bret. gwaz, a servant, vassal; W. and Corn. gwas, a youth, servant.
Cf. Olrish foss, a servant. All from Celtic type *wassos, a servant ;
Stokes-Fick, p. 278. Cf. L. verna, a home-bom slave. See Ver-
nacular. Der. vassal-age; also varlet, valet.
VAST, great, of great extent. (F.—L.) We possess this word in
two forms, viz. vast and waste, both being from French ; the latter
being much the older. They are generally used with different senses,
but in the Owl and Nightingale, 1]. 17, we have: ‘in ore waste pikke
hegge’=in a vast thick hedge, ina great thick hedge. We may,
however, consider vast as belonging to the 16th century ; it does not
seem to be much older than the latter part of that century. ‘ That
mightie and vaste sea;’ Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. iii. p. 822.—F.
vaste, ‘vast;’ (οἵ. “Το uastum, acc. of uastus, vast, of large extent.
See further under Waste. Der. vast, sb., Temp. i. 2. 327, Wint.
Tale, i. 1. 33; vast-ly, vast-ness; also vast-y, adj., Merch. Ven. ii. 7. 41.
Also de-vast-ate.
VAT, a large vessel for liquors. (K.) ME. fat. ‘ Fate, vesselle ;’
Prompt. Parv. Palsgrave has fatte; and the A. V. of the Bible has
fats (Joel, ii. 24) and wine-fat (Mark, xii. 1). The difference between
the words fat and vat is one of dialect; vat is Southern English,
prob. Kentish. The use of v for f is common in Devonshire,
Somersetshire, and in Old Kentish ; the connexion of the word with
Kent may have been due to the brewing trade; cf. vane, vetch. AS.
fat (pl. fatu), a vessel, cask; Mark, iii. 27.4-Du. vat; Icel. fat ;
Dan. fad; Swed. fat; G. fass; MHG. vaz. β. All from the Tent.
type *fafom, n.,a vat, a barrel. From the Teut. base *fat-, to catch,
take, seize, comprehend, contain; cf. OFries. fatia, EF ries. faten,
Du. vatten, to catch, take, contain, G. fassen, to seize, also to con-
tain; so that the sense is ‘ that which contains.’ Der. wine-fat or
wine-vat,
VATICAN, the palace of the pope. (F.—L.) F. Vatican. =—L.
Vaticanus (mons), the Vatican hill in Rome.
VATICINATION, a prediction, prophecy. (F.—L.) ‘This so
clear vaticination ;’ Jeremy Taylor, Works (1835); ii. 333. ΜῈ.
vaticination, ‘a prophecying;’ Cot.—L,. acc. udticinationem.—L.
udticinari, to prophesy; udticinium, a prophecy.—L. wati-, decl.
stem. of wates, a prophet ; and -cin-, weak grade of can-ere, to sing.
Cf. Wood (2).
VAUDEVILLE, VAUDEVIL, a lively satirical song ; a kind
of drama. (F.) Spelt vaudevil in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—F.
vaudeville, ‘a country ballade, or song; so tearmed of Vaudevire, a
Norman town, wherein Olivier Bassel [or Basselin], the first inventor
of them, lived ;’ Cot. Olivier de Basselin was a Norman poet of the
15th century, and his songs were called after his native valley, the
Vau (or Val, i.e. valley) de Vire; see Vale. Vire is a town in
Normandy, to the S. of Bayeux,
VAULT (1), an arched roof, a chamber with an arched roof, esp.
686 VAULT
one underground, a cellar. (F.—L.) The spelling with 1 is com-
paratively “modern ; it has been inserted, precisely as in fault, from
pedantic and ignorant notions concerning ‘ etymological’ spelling.
The ME. form is voute, also vowle; in King Alisaunder, 7210, it 15
spelt vawte. “ Vout under the ground, woute;’ Palsgraye. ‘ Voute,
lacunar; Vowtyd, arculatus; Vowtyn, or make a vowte, arcuo;’
Prompt. Parv.=— MF. voute (also voulte, with inserted Jas in English),
‘a vault, or arch, also, a vaulted or enbowed roof ;’ Cot. OF.
volte, voute, vaute, a vault, cavern; Burguy (mod. F. voute) ; where
volte is a fem. form, from OF. volt, vaulted, lit. bent or bowed.
Volte is the same word as Ital. volta, ‘atime, a turn or course; 2
circuit, or a compasse; also, a vault, cellar, an arche, bow ;’ Florio.
B. The OF. volt answers to L. ol? tus, and the OF, volte, Ital.
volta, to L. uol’ta; these are abbreviated forms of woliiius (fem.
uoliita), pp. of wolvere, to roll, turn round; whence the later sense of
bend round, bow, or ae Similarly we have volute, in the sense
of a spiral scroll. . Thus a vault means an arch, an arched roof;
hence, a chamber arith an arched roof, and finally a cellar, because
it often has an arched roof, for the sake of strength. See Voluble.
Der. ee verb, to overarchy ME, vouten, as above; vanlt-ed,
Cymb. ΝΠ: 5,3.» vault-y, concave, Romeo, iii. 5. 22; vault-age, a
vaulted set Hen. V. ii. 4. 124.
VAULT (2), to bound, jeeps (F.—Ital.—L.) ‘ Vaulting am-
bition ;” Macb. i. 7. 27.—ME, volter, ‘to vault;’ Cot.—MF. volte,
‘a round or turn; and thence, the bounding turn which cunning
riders teach their horses ; alsoa tumbler’s gamboll ;’ id. = Ital, volda,
‘the turn that cunning riders teach their horses ;’ Florio, The same
word as Ital. volta, a vault; both from the orig. sense of ‘ turn ;’ see
further under Vault (1). Der. vault, sb. ; vault-er, vault-ing-horse,
VAUNT, to boast. (F.—L..) ‘I vaunte, 1 boste, or crake, Je me
vante;’ Palsgraye. [It is remarkable that the ME. form was
avaunten or auaunten, from OF, avanter, to boast (Godefroy), in
which the a- (from L. ad) was intensive, or may have been due to
confusion with F. avant, before, and avancer, to advance. This ME.
auaunten occurs in Chaucer, C. T 5985 (D 403), and at least twice
in Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. i. met. 1, 1. 21, b. 1, pr. 4, 1. 158; and
hence the sb. awaunt, avaunt, auant, in Chaucer, Ὁ: T. 227. .How-
ever, the prefix is to be neglected. Ch avauntour, a vaunter, Chaucer,
Troilus il, 724.|—F. vanter ; ‘ se vanter, to vaunt, brag, boast, glory,
crack ;’ Cot.—Late L. vdnitare, to speak vanity, flatter (Ducange) ;
so that se vanter=to speak vainly of oneself. (Diez remarks that
vanitare, to boast, occurs in S. Augustine, Opp. i. 437, 761.) This
verb is a frequentative formed from L. uanus, vain. See Vain; and
οἵ. L. udnitas, vanity. Der. vaunt, sb., ME. auaunte; vaunt-er,
formerly avauntour (as above), or pee Court of Love, 1219.
-VAVASSOR, a vassal not holding immediately from the
sovereign, but from a great lord, having inferior vassals under him.
(F.—Late L.—C.) ‘A worthy vavasour ;’ Chaucer, C. Τὶ, prol. 360.
=OF. vavassour.— Late L. vassus vassorum, lit. ‘ vassal of vassals.’
The Late L. vassws is of Celtic origin; see Vassal.
VAWARD, anotlier spelling ‘of vanward or vanguard. (F.—L.
and G.) In Benen: tr. of Froissart, vol. i. c. 209 ; and vanward, in
Drayton, Battle of Agincourt, st. 218, Spelt vaward, in Lydgate,
Assembly of Gods, 1. 602. See Wan (1).
VEAL, the flesh of a calf. (F.—L.) ME. veel, Chaucer, C. T.
9294 (Ε 1420).—OF. veél, later veau, ‘a calfe, or veale;’ Cot.—L.
uitellum, acc. of uitedlus, a little calf, allied to witulus, a calf.+- Gk,
ἐταλός, the same (little used). Allied to Skt. vatsa-, a calf, vatsafara-,
a steer, vatsala, a cow anxious for her calf. ν All from Idg.
*wetos, a year, as in Gk, ἔ ἔτος, naniyeat. See Wether, Hence the
sense of Skt. vatsa- was really ‘a yearling calf ;’ and the same sense
of ‘ yearling’ was the orig. one of L. uttulus. y. From the same
sense of ‘year,’ differently applied, we have 1. wetws, old in years,
aged, vetulus,a little oldman. See Veteran. Der. vell-um, q.v.
VEDA, knowledge; one of the ancient sacred books written in
Skt. (Skt.) Skt. véda-, ‘knowledge; the generic name for the
sacred writings of the Hindus, esp. the 4 collections called rig-véda,
yajur-véda, sama-véda, and atharva-véda;’ Benfey, p. 900. Formed
by gradation (Skt. €=Gk. o.=AS. Δ) from vid, to know, cognate
with E. Wit, q.v. The Skt. nom. case is védas.
VEDETTE, VIDETTE, a cavalry sentinel. (F.—Ital. —L.)
Modern; not in Todd’s Johnson.—MF. vedette, ‘a sentry; any
high place from which one may see afar off;’ Cot.— Ital. vedetta, a
horse-sentry ; also a sentry-box; formerly a watch-tower, a beacon,
a peeping-hole (Florio). An altered or dimin. form of Ital. veduta,
‘a high prospect’ (Florio); orig. fem. pp. of vedere, to see.—L.
uidére, to see; see Vision. See Karting, § 10156. 4 Diez
takes it to be an Ital. corruption of veletfa, a sentry-box; due to
confusion with vedere, to see (pp. veduto), from which vedetta cannot
(he thinks) be derived, Véeletfa is a dimin. of veglia, a watch,
watching, vigil; just as Span. veleta, a weather-cock (lit, a watcher),
VELOCIPEDE
is a dimin. of Span. vela, a watching, vigil (Diez).—L. wigilia; see
Vigil. But, as Korting notes, the dimin. of veglia would have been
veglietta, not veletta.
VEER, to turn round, change direction, swerve. (F.—L.) ‘ Vere
the main shete ;’ Spenser, F. Q.i.12. 1; ‘and vereth his main sheat,’
id. v.12, 18. ‘Vere the shete;’ Reliquiz Antique, i. 2 (15th
cent.). [The spelling with e or ee is hard to explain; but it
may have been due to the confusion between the sound of ee in
late ME. and that of F. i. Sir P. Sidney writes vuire; see
Nares. ] =F. virer, ‘to veer, turne round, wheele or whirle about; ’
Cot. B. The F. virer is the same word as Span. virar, birar, to
wind, twist, tack, or veer, Port. virar, to turn, change, Prov. virar,
to turn, to change (Bartsch). Allied words are Port. viravoléa, a cir-
cular motion, Ital. virolare, ‘ to scrue,’ i.e. twist round (Florio) ; &c.
The orig. sense is to turn round, and it appears as Late L. virdre,
which is rather an old word (Diez) ; it appears also in F. en-vir-on,
round about, in a circle (whence E. environs), in F. vir-ole (whence
E. ferrule), and in MF, vir-ol-et, ‘a boy’s windmill,’ Cot. y. The
key to this difficult word lies in the sense of ‘ring’ or ‘circle’ as
appearing in environ and ferrule; the Late L. virola, a ring to bind
anything, answers to L. wiriola, a bracelet, dimin. of wiria, an
armlet, large ring, gen. used inthe pl. form wrie, —4/WEI, to twist,
wind round; see Ferrule, Withy. @ The Du. vieren, to
yeer, is merely borrowed (like our own word) from Εἰ, virer, The
old derivation of virer from L. gyrare cannot possibly be sustained ;
even the above solution is doubtful. See Diez; and Karting,
§ 10135. The latter refers (but obscurely) Late L. wrdre to 4/WEI.
Der. (from L, wir-ia), en-vir-on, ferr-ule.
VEGETABLE, a plant for the table. (F.—L.) Properly an
adj., as used by Milton, P. L. iv. 220. The pl. vegetables is given
(both as E. and F.) in Supp. to Palsgrave, p. 1053. [Instead of
vegetables, Shak. has vegetives, Pericles, iii. 2. 30; and Ben Jonson
has vegetals, Alchemist, i. 1. 40.]—MF. vegetable, ‘vegetable, fit or
able to live;’ Cot.—L. uegetabilis, animating ; hence, full of life.
Formed, with suffix -bilis, from L. uegeta-re, to enliven, quicken. —L.
uegetus, lively. παν uegére, to excite, quicken, arouse ; allied to uig-il,
wakeful, and uig-ére, to flourish. See Vigil, Vigorous. Der. (rom
uegetare) veget-ale ; veget-at-ion, from I, vegetation, ‘a giving of life,’
Cot. ; veget-at-ive (Palsgrave), from F. vegetatif, ‘ vegetative, lively,’
Cot.; veget- al (as above), from MF. vegetal, ‘vegetall,’ Cot. ; veget-ar-
l-an, a poder coined word, to denctel a vegetable- arian, or one who
lives on vegetables (though it should rather mean ‘ vigorous’) ; veget-
ar-t-an-ism.
VEHEMENT, passionate, very eager. (F.—L.) In Palsgrave.
= MF. vehement, ‘vehement ;’ Cot. —L. uehementem, acc. of uehemens,
passionate, eager, vehement. Vehe- has been explained as equiva-
lent to ué-, © apart from,’ as in ué-cors, senseless; cf. Skt. vahis,
apart; cf. Ἐς de-ment-cd. For mens, the mind, see Mental. Der.
vehement-ly ; vehemence (Levins), from MF. vehemence, ‘vehemence,
from L, uehementia.
VEHICLE, a carriage, conveyance. (L.)
vehicles of prayer ;’ Dryden, Hind and Panther, 1. 1400... Englished
from L. wehiculum, a carriage. L. weh-ere, to carry ; with double
dimin. suffix -cu-lum. = ΓΝ ΒΟΉ, to carry; whence also Skt. vah, to
carry, Gk, ὄχ-ος, a chariot. Brugmann, 1. § 128. Der. vehicul-ar,
from L. wehiculdris, adj. And see veil, con-vex, in-veigh, vex, vein,
via-duct, voy-age.
VEIL, a curtain, covering, cover for the face, disguise. (F.—L.)
ME, veile, Ancren Riwle, p. 420.—OF, veile (Burguy), later voile,
‘Alms are but the
‘a vayle;’ Cot.eL. uélum, a sail; also, a cloth, covering. The
orig, sense was sail or ‘propeller’ of a ship; Curtius, 1. 237.—
Vélum is for *uexlum=*uec-slum; cf. uexillum, a standard. Brug-
mann, i, § 883.—L. ueh-ere (pt. t. wex-i), to carry, bear along; see
Vehicle. But Walde derives it from 4/ WEG, to weave; as seen in
Olrish fig-im, I weave; cf. W. gwe, a web of cloth. Der. veil, verb.
VEIN, a tube conveying blood to the heart, a small rib on a
leaf. (F.—L.) ME. veine, Gower, C. A. ill. 92 (bk. vii. 245);
Chaucer has veine-blood, C. T. 2749 (A 2747).-- F. veine, ‘a vein;’
Cot.—L. uéna, a vein. For *uecsna; perhaps (like ué-lum, see
Veil) from L. weh-ere, to carry; a vein being the ‘ conveyer’ of
blood. =4/WEGH, to carry; see Vehicle. “Der. vein-ed.
VELDT, an open grassy tract of country. (Du.) A term used in
S. Africa, SIMA veldt, ‘a field, or a campaine, Hexham; Du.
veld. The same word as AS. fe/d, a field; see Field.
VELLUM, prepared skin of calves, &c., for writing on. (F.—L.)
ME. velim, Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 204; spelt velyme in Prompt.
Parv., and velym in Palsgrave.—F. velin, ‘ vellam;’ Cot. Mod. F.
vélin.. (For the change of final x to m, compare venom.) =—L.
uitulinus, adj.. belonging to a calf.=L. uitulus,a calf; see Veal,
Cf. Late L. uitulinium, or pellis uitulina, vellum.
VELOCIPEDE,, a light carriage for one person, propelled by
VELOCITY
the feet. (L.) Modern; coined from L, wélici-, from xélox, swift ;
and ped-, stem of pés, the foot, cognate with E. Foot. Thus the
sense is ‘swift-foot,’ or ‘ swift-footed.” See Velocity.
VELOCITY, great speed. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave. = MF.
velocite, ‘velocity ;7 Cot.— L. acc. uéldcitatem, acc. of wuélacitas,
swiftness, speed. L. uéldci-, decl. stem of uélox, swift; with suffix
-tas. The lit. sense of wélox is ‘ flying;’ if it be allied to uol-are,
to fly ; see Volatile.
VELVET, a cloth made from silk, with a close, shaggy pile ;
also made from cotton. (F.—L.) ‘ Velvet, or velwet, Velvetus ;’
Prompt. Parv.. Chaucer has the pl. velvé/éés (four syllables), C. T.
10958, F 644; whilst Spenser has vellet, Shep. Kal., May, 185.
{ Again, the form vellure occurs in Holinshed, Descr. of England,
Ὁ. iii. ec. 1 (R.) ; which is borrowed from F, velours, ‘ velvet,’ (οι.
But velvet, velwet, velouet, vellet are from AF, velwet, veluet, Late L.
velluétum; from a Romanic type *villutettum. Allied to MlItal.
veluto, ‘veluet,’ Florio; mod. Ital. velluco. B. The Ital. velluto
answers to a Late L. type *willdtus, shaggy, allied to L. uillasus,
shaggy; whilst F. velours (OF. velous, the r being unoriginal)
answers to 1,. willdsus directly.—L. willus, shaggy hair, a tuft of
hair; so that velvet means ‘ woolly’ or shaggy stuff, from its nap.
Allied to wellus, a fleece; see Wool. Der. velvet-y, velvet-ing.
VENAL, that can be bought, mercenary. (F.—L.) In Pope,
Epistle to Jervas, 1. 2.—MF. venal, ‘ vendible, saleable ;’ Cot. —L.
uendlis, saleable, for sale.—L. uén-us, or uén-uwm, sale. Allied to
Gk. vos, price, ὠνή, a buying; Brugmann, i. ὃ 3296. Der.
venal-i-ty, from MF. venalité, ‘ venality,’ Cot.; from L. acc.
uénilitatem,
VEND, to sell. (F.—L.) ‘Twenty thousand pounds worth
of this coarse commodity is yearly ... vended in the vicinage;’
Fuller, Worthies, Yorkshire. — F. vendre, ‘to sell;’ Cot. —L.
uendere, to sell; contracted from wénundare, to sell, which again
stands for uénum dare, to offer for sale, a phrase which occurs in
Claudian, &c.—L. uénum, sale; and dare, to give, offer; see
Venal and Date (1). Der. vend-er or vend-or ; vend-ible, Merch.
Ven, i. 1. 112, from F, vendible, ‘ vendible,’ Cot., from L. uendibilis,
saleable; we also find vend-able, a spelling due to MF. vendable
(Cot.), formed from the F. verb vendre ; vend-ibl-y, vend-ible-ness.
VENDETTA, a blood-feud ; esp. in Corsica. (Ital.—L.) _ Ital.
vendetta, lit. ‘ vengeance, revenge.’= L. vindicta, revenge; see Vin-
dictive,
VENEER, to overlay or face with a thin slice of wood, (G.—F.
—OHG,) This curious word, after being borrowed by French from
Old German, was again borrowed back from French, as if it had been
foreign to the G. language. It is not old in E., andthe sense has
changed. It was orig. used with reference to marquetry-work.
‘Veneering, a kind of inlaid work ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. Johnson
(quoting from Bailey) describes ‘o veneer as signifying ‘to make a
kind of marquetry or inlaid work, whereby several thin slices of fine
wood of different sorts are fastened or glued on a ground of some
common wood.’ Also formerly spelt fanneer, as in Old Farming
Words (E. D.S.), Part I; and jineer, Smollett, France and Italy,
let. 28 (Davies). The E, verb (older than the sb.) is borrowed
from (Ὁ. furniren, to inlay, to veneer, lit. ‘to furnish’ or provide
small pieces of wood ; from the careful arrangement of the pieces. =
Ἐς fournir, ‘to furnish, supply, minister, find, provide of [1. 6. with],
accommodate with ; Cot. A word of OHG. origin; see Furnish.
Der, veneer, sb., veneer-ing. Doublet, furnish.
VENERABLE, worthy of reverence. (F.—L.) In Shak. As
You, Like It, ii. 7. 167.—MF. venerable, ‘venerable ;’ Cot.—L.
uenerdbilis, to be reverenced.—L. uenerari, to reverence, worship,
adore, = L. uener-, for *uenes-, stem of uenys, love ; allied to Skt. van,
to serve, to honour.—4/WEN, to love, to win; Fick, i. 768;
Benfey, p. 812. See Wenereal, and Win. Der. venerabl-y,
venerable-ness; also (from pp. uenerdtus) venerate, Geo. Herbert,
The Church Porch, st. 45; veneration, from MF. veneration, ‘ vener-
ation,’ Cot., from L. acc. uenerationem.
VENEREAL, pertaining to sexual intercourse. (L.) Spelt
veneriall in Levins. Coined, with suffix -al, from L. Venereus (also
Venerius), belonging to Venus. [The MF. word is venerien (Cot-
grave), whence venerean in Chaucer, C. T. 6191 (D 609).]—L.
Vener-, for *uenes-, stem of Venus, Venus, love. Allied to Skt. van,
to love, See Venerable and Win. Der. venery, sb., spelt venerie
in Levins, from L. Venerius.
VENERY, hunting, the sport of the chase. (F.—L.) ΜΕ.
venerie, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 166.—MF. venerie, ‘a hunt, or hunting ;’
Cot.—MF, vener, ‘to hunt ;’ id.=L. uéndri, to hunt; see Venison.
VENESECTION, blood-letting. (L.; and F.—L.) According
to Richardson, it is spelt ven@section. in Wiseman’s Surgery, Ὁ. i.
c. 3. L. uéne, uénae, gen. case of wéna, a vein; and F, section. See
Vein and Section.
VENT 687
VENEW, VENUE, VENEY, a thrust received at playing
with weapons; a turn or bout at fencing. (F.—L.) In Merry
Wives, i. 1. 296; L. L. L. v. 1. 62.—_MF. venué, ‘a coming, arrivall,
also a venny in fencing, a turn, trick;’ Cot. The sense is ‘an
arrival,’ hence a thrust that attains the person aimed at, one that
reaches home. Venue is the fem. of venu, pp. of venir, to come. =
L. uenire, to come, cognate with E. Come, q.v. Doublet,
venue, q.V.
VENGEANCE, retribution, vindictive punishment. (F.—L.)
ME. vengeance, vengeaunce ; but spelt vengaunce, King Alisaunder,
4194.—F. vengeance, ‘vengeance ;’ Cot.—F. venger, ‘to avenge,’
id.; with suffix -ance (<L. -antia). Cf. Span. vengar, Ital. ven-
giare. τὶς uindicadre, to lay claim to, also to avenge; οἵ, F. manger
<L. mandicare. See Vindicate. Der. a-venge, re-venge (from
Τὸ venger); also venge-ful, i.e. avenge-ful, Tit. Andron. y. 2. 51;
venge-ful-ly,
VENIAL, excusable, that may be pardoned. (F.—L.) ME.
uenial (=venial), Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 16, 1. 9; P. Plowman, B. xiv.
92.—OF. venial (Littré).—L. uenialis, pardonable. = L. wenia, grace,
favour, kindness ; also, pardon. Allied to Skt. vax, to love. —4/WEN,
to love, win; see Venerable and Win. Der. venial-ly, venial-ness
or venial-i-ty,
VENISON, the flesh of animals taken in hunting, esp. flesh of
deer, (F.—L.) ME. veneison; spelt wueneysun, Havelok, 1726,
veneson, Rob. of Glouc. p. 243, 1. 101.—OF. veneisun (Burguy),
later venaison, ‘ venison, the flesh of (edible) beasts of chase, as the
deer, wild boar,’ &c., Cot. —L. uéndtidnem, acc. of uénatio, the chase;
also, that which is hunted, game; cf. wéndtus, pp. of uénari, to hunt.
See Gain (2). Der. (from L. wéndrz) venery, q.v.
VENOM, poison. (F.—L.) ME. venim; spelt venyme, King
Alisaunder, 2860; venym, Rob. of Glouc. p. 43, 1. 1010.—OF.
venim, ‘venome,’ Cot. Wealso find OF. velin; mod. F. venin. = L.
uenénum, poison. (For change of » to m, cf. vellum.) Perhaps
uenénum is for *uenesmum, a love-potion; from *wenes-, *xenos-; cf.
uenus, love. Der. venom-ous, ME. venimous, Ayenbite of Inwyt,
Ῥ- 203, 1. 17, from F. venimeux, ‘ venomous,’ Cot., from L. venéndsus,
poisonous ; venomous-ly, -ness.
VENOUS, contained in a vein. (L.) Modern; not in Todd’s
Johnson. Englished from L. uéndsus, belonging to a vein. = L. uéna,
a vein; see Vein.
VENT (1), an opening for air or smoke, an air-hole, flue. (F.—
L.) ‘A vent, meatus, porus; 10 vent, aperire, euacuare ;’ Levins,
Halliwell gives Somerset vent-hole, a button-hole in a wristband. It
is most likely that the word has been connected in popular etymology
with ἘΝ, vent, the wind, as if it were a hole to let wind or air in;
but the senses of ‘ aperture’ and ‘ wind” are widely different. The
older spelling was fent or fente, used in the sense of slit in a garment,
whence the notion of ‘ button-hole.’ The Prompt. Parv. gives: ‘ Fente
of aclothe, fibulatorium,’ on which Way notes that ‘ the fen¢ oF vent,
in the 13th cent., appears at the collar of the robe, . . being a short
slit closed by a brooch, which served for greater convenience in put-
ting on a dress so fashioned as to fit closely round the throat ;’ see
the whole note. ‘The coller and the vexte;” Assemblee of Ladies,
526. ‘Fent of a gowne, fente;’ Palsgrave. The sense was easily
extended to slits and apertures of all kinds, esp. as the F. original
was unrestricted. =F. fen/e, ‘a cleft, rift, chinke, slit, cranny ;” Cot.
A participial sb. from the verb fendre, to cleave.—L. jindere, to
cleave; see Fissure. Der. vent, verb, to emit from an orifice, as
in ‘can he vent [emit] Trinculos ?’ Temp. ii. 2. 111; but it istolerably
certain that the use of this verb was influenced by F. vent, wind; see
Vent (3). And see Vent (2).
VENT (2), sale, utterance of commodities, and hence, generally,
utterance, outlet, publication. (F.—L.) ‘ The merchant-adventurers
likewise. . did hold out bravely; taking off the commodities. .
though they lay dead upon their hands for want of vent ;’ Bacon,
Life of Heury VII, ed. Lumby, p. 146, 1. 6. ‘ Vent of utterance of the
same,’ viz. of ‘spices, drugges, and other commodities ;’ Hakluyt's
Voyages, i. 347. “ Find the meanes to haue a vent to make sales ;’
id. i. 356.—F. vente, ‘a sale, or selling, an alienation, or passing
away for money,’ &c.; Cot. Vente is a participial sb. from the F.
vendre, ‘to sell,’ Cot. —L. uendere, to sell; see Vend. Der. vent,
to utter, as in; ‘when he found ill money had been put into his
hands, he would never suffer it to be verted again,’ Burnet, Life of
Hale (R.); but it is tolerably certain that the use of vent as a verb
has been largely influenced by confusion with Vent (1) and Vent (3),
and it is extremely difficult to determine its complete history without
very numerous examples of its use.
VENT (3), to snuff up air, breathe, or puff out, to expose to air.
(F.—L.) ‘See howe he (a bullock] venfeth into the wynd;’ Spenser,
Sheph. Kal. Feb. 75. Explained by ‘snuffeth in the wind’ in the
Glosse, but more likely it means to puff out or exhale. In Spenser,
688 VENTAIL
Ἐς Q. ili. 1. 42, we are told that Britomart ‘ vented up her umbriere,
And so did let her goodly visage to appear.’ Here the poet was
probably thinking of F. vent, the wind, and of the part of the helmet
called the ventail or aventail, which was the Jower half of the movable
front of a helmet as distinct from the upper half or visor, with which
it is often confused; see my note on auentaile in Chaucer, C. Τὶ
Group Εἰ, 1204. If we had a large collection of quotations illustra-
tive of the use of vent as a verb, I suspect it would appear that the
connexion with the F. vent, wind, was due solely to a misunder-
standing and misuse of the word, and that it is etymologically due
to Vent (1) or Vent (2), or to confusion of both; and, in par-
ticular, to inability to account for Vent (1), shown above to be
used in place of ME. fente. That writers used the word with
reference to air is certain; we have: ‘there’s none [air] abroad so
wholesome as that you vent;’ Cymb. i. 2. 5; also: ‘which have
poisoned the very air of our church wherein they were vented ;’ Bp.
Hall, Ser. Eccl. iii. 4 (R.); and hence the 5005. ventage, venting-hole
(see below). =F. verter, ‘ (the wind) to blow or puffe,’ Cot. =F. vent,
the wind. =L. wentum, ace. of uentus, wind, cognate with E. Wind,
q.v. Der. vent-age, the air-hole of a flute (app. a coined word),
Hamlet, ili. 2. 373; vent-ing-hole, an outlet for vapour, Holland,
tr. of Pliny, b. xxxi. c. 3. § last. And see vent-ail, vent-il-ate.
VENTAIL, the lower half of the movable part of the front
of a helmet. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q. iii. 2. 24, iv. 6. 19. ME.
ventaile, Early E. Wills, ed. Furnivall, p. 19, 1. 4 (1411); also
auentaile, Chaucer, C. Τὶ go80 (E 1204), which is the same word
with the addition of F. prefix a- (<L. ad-).— AF. ventaile, Lang-
τοῖς, ii. 428; MF. ventaille, ‘the breathing-part of a helmet.’ =F.
venter, ‘to blow or puffe,’ Cot.; with suffix -aile<L. -a-cu-lum.=F.
vent, wind.=L. uentum, acc. of uentus, wind; see Vent (3),
Ventilate, and Wind.
VENTILATE, to fan with wind, to open to air, expose to
air or to the public view. (L.) Spelt ventylate in Palsgrave. Venti-
late is used as a pp. by Sir Τὶ, Elyot, The Governour, b. i. c. 25, § 33
and in Trevisa, ii. 141, 299 (later text). —L. uentilatus, pp. of uentilire,
to blow, winnow, ventilate. From an adj. *wentilus (not used), from
uentus, wind, cognate with E. Wind. Der. ventilat-or, from L.
uentilitor, a winnower ; ventilat-ion, MF. ventilation, ‘a ventilation,
breathing,’ Cot., from L. acc. uentilationem,
VENTRAL, belonging to the belly. (L.) Added by Todd to
Johnson. - 1. wentralis, belonging to the belly. —L. uentr-, for uenter,
the belly. Der. ventri-cle, q. v.; ventri-loquist, q. v.
VENTRICLE, the stomach; a part of the heart. (F.—L.)
In Cotgrave; and in Lanfrank, Cirurgie, p. 113.—F. ventricule, ‘ the
ventricle, the place wherein the meat sent from the stomack is
digested, some call so the stomack itselfe;’ Cot.—L. uentriculum,
ace. of uentriculus, the stomach, also a ventricle of the heart. A
double dimin. (with suffix -cu-Iu-) from weniri-, decl. stem of uenter,
the belly; see Ventral. Der. ventricul-ar.
VENTRILOQUIST, one who speaks so that the voice seems
to come from a distance or from some one else. (L.) “ Ventriloguium,
a speaking in the belly ;? Ady, Discovery of Witches (1661), p. 77.
In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674 ; but Phillips has ventriloguus, ‘a person
that speaks inwardly ;’ this is the true L. word, whence ventrilogu-ist
has since been formed, by adding the suffix -ist (L. -ista, Gk. -tarns).
=L, wentriloguus, a ventriloquist, lit. one who speaks from (or in)
the belly. —L. wentri-, decl. stem of wenter, the belly 3 and Jogu-i, to
speak; see Ventral and Loquacious. Der. ventrilogu-ism.
ENTURE, chance, luck, hazard. (F.—L.) Common in Shak.
both as sb. and vb.; as sb., Merch. Ven. 1. 3. 923; asa verb, id. iii. 2.
10. It isa headless form of ME, aventure or auenture, which also
took the form Adventure, q.v. Der. ventur-ous, Mids. Nt. Dr. iv.
I. 39, short for ME. aventwrous, later adventurous; ventur-ous-ly,
eness. Also venture-some, in Strype, Eccles. Mem., Henry VIII, an.
1546 (R.), where the suffix -some is English.
VENUE, the same as Venew, q.v. (F.—L.) As a law-term,
it is the place where the jury are summoned to come; from Ἐς, venué,
‘a coming, arrival, approach, a passage, accesse,’ Cotgrave; which
is merely another sense of venew, as above. B. Blackstone has :
‘a change of the venue, or visne (that is, the vicinia or neighbourhood
in which the injury is declared to be done) ;’ Comment. b. iii. c. 20.
His interpretation of visne as having the same sense as L, wicinia is
tight; but that has nothing to do with the etymology of venue,
which is, of course, a different word. Der. a-venue.
VENUS, the goddess of love. (L.) In Chaucer, C. T. 1538
(A 1536).—L. Venus; see Venereal.
VERACIOUS, truthful. (L.) A late word; Phillips, ed. 1706,
has only the sb. veracity. Coined from L. uéraci-, decl. stem of
uérax, truthful; with suffix -ovs.—L, wér-us, true. B. The orig.
sense is ‘credible;’ see Very. Der. verac-i-ty, Englished from L.
uéracttas, truthfulness.
VERGE
VERANDA, VERANDAH, a kind of covered balcony.
(Port.—L.?) Modern; added by Todd to Johnson; it should be
spelt varanda. ‘The other gate leads to what in this country
[India] is called a veranda or feranda, which is a kind of piazza or
landing-place before you enter the hall or inner apartments ;’
Archzologia (1787), vill. 254.— Port. varanda,a balcony. Marsden,
in his Malay Dict., 1812, p. 30, has: ‘barandah (Portuguese), a
varanda, balcony, or open gallery toa house ;’ but the Malay word is,
as Marsden says, adapted from the Portuguese. Cf. OSpan. varanda,
in the sense of balustrade or stair-railing ; as early as A.D. 1505; see
the quotation in Yule. Perhaps from Port. and Span. vara, a
rod; from L. μᾶγα, a forked pole. Cf. Port. varal, the shaft of a
post-chaise. Dryden has vare,a rod; Absalom, i. 595. Hence
also mod. Skt. varanda, a portico; the Skt. (or Hind.) word being
quite modern. Minsheu’s Span. Dict. (1623) has ‘ Vara, a rod;’
and ‘ Varanda, railes to leane the brest on.’
VERB, the word; in grammar, the chief word of a sentence.
(F.—L.) ME. verbe (15th cent.), Reliq. Antiqua, ii. 14. Palsgrave
gives a ‘Table of Verbes. =F. verbe, ‘a verbe ;’ Cot. —L. uerbum,
aword,averb. . Here the L. ὃ represents an Idg. dh (>Teut. d) ;
and uerbum is cognate with E, Word, q.v.—4/WER, to speak ;
cf. Gk, εἴρ-ειν (<feép-yew), to speak; Fick, i. 772. Der. verb-al
(Palsgrave), from Εἰ, verbal, ‘ verball,’ Cot., from L. uerbalis, belong-
ing to a word; verbal-ly; verbal-ise, to turn into a verb, a coined
word ; verbal-ism ; verb-i-age, wordiness, not in Johnson’s Dict., but
used by him on April 9, 1778 (Boswell), from F. verbiage, a late F.
word, coined (according to Littré) from OF. verboier (*verbier), to
talk; verb-ose, wordy (Phillips), from L. uerbdsus ; verb-ose-ly, verb-
ose-ness, verb-os-i-ty. Also verbatim, 1 Hen. VI, ili. 1. 13, from L.
uerbatim, ady. word by word.
VERBENA, vervain. (L.) See Vervain.
VERDANT, green, flourishing. (F.—L.) In Spenser, F. Q. i.
9.13. Coined as if froma F. *verdant, substituted for F. verdissant,
pres. part. of verdir, ‘to flourish, to wax green;’ Cot.—F. verd,
green.—L, uiridem, acc. of uiridis, green. See Vert. Cf. also OF.
verdoyant, becoming green (Supp. to Godefroy). Der. verdant-ly,
verdanc-y ; also verd-ure, Temp. 1. 2. 87, from Εἰ. verdure, ‘ verdure,’
Cot.; also verdur-ous (Nares). And see farthingale, verdigris,
verjuice.
VERDERER, a wood-ward, forester. (F.—L.) ‘ Forresters,
verderers;’ Howell, Famil. Letters, vol. iv. let. 16. Formed by
adding -er (needlessly) to AF. verder, which is glossed by ‘ wode-
ward’ in W. de Bibbesworth; Wright’s Voc. i. 164.—Late L.
viridarius, a forester (Ducange).—L, uirid-is, green (above).
VERDICT, the decision of a jury, decision, (F.—L.) Lit. ‘a
true saying.’ The true word is verdit, pedantically altered to the
mongrel form verdict, to bring the latter half of it nearer to the L.
spelling. ME. verdit, Chaucer, C. T. 789 (A 787).—OF. verdit, a
verdict ; see verdict in Littré, the mod. Ἐς form being borrowed again
from English. =—L. uéré dictum, truly said, which passed into Late L.
vérédictum, with the sense of true saying or verdict, occurring
A.D. 1287 (Ducange). Formed similarly to bene-diction, male-diction.
ΤῸ uéré, truly, adv., from uérus, true; and dictum, a saying, orig.
neut. of pp. of dicere, to say ; see Very and Diction.
VERDIGRIS, the rust of bronze, copper, or brass. (F.—L.)
Spelt verdgrese in Arnold’s Chronicle (1502), repr. 1811, p. 743
verdegrees, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 16258 (G 790). Cf. MF. verd de gris,
‘ verdigrease, Spanish green,’ Cot.; spelt vere grez in the 13th cent.
(Littre). But the Prompt. Parv. has: ‘ Verte grece, viride grecum, flos
eris.” Soalso: ‘ Viride grecum, verdegrece;’ Wright's Voc. 619. 35.
Hence the sense is ‘Greek green,’ or ‘green of Greece’; and we
may explain ME. verte grece as from AF. vert de Grece, for which
see Vie de S. Gile, 853. See Verdant. See Academy, no, 1118,
Oct. 1893.
VERDITER, a green pigment. (F.—L.) Adapted from MF.
verd de terre, a green pigment; Cot.—L. acc. wiridem, green (see
Verdant); dé, of; terra, earth.
VERGE (1), a wand of office, extent of jurisdiction, edge, brink.
(F.—L.) In the sense of edge or brink it is quite a different word
from verge, to incline (see below), though some late writers may
have confused the words, as indeed is done in Johnson’s Dict. The
sense of ‘edge’ follows at once from the use of verge (as a law-
term) to mean a limit or circuit, hence a circle, Rich. II, ii. 1. 102;
cf. i. 1.93. In the sense of ‘ wand,’ it is best known by the deriva-
tive verger, a wand-bearer. ME. verge. ‘Verge, in a wrytys
(wright’s] werke, Virgata;’ Prompt. Parv. Here it must mean a
yard (in length); cf. verge Je roy, a standard length; Liber
Albus, p. 278.—F. verge, ‘a rod, wand, stick; also, a sergeant’s
verge or mace; also, a yard;..a plaine hoope, or gimmal, ring;
also, a rood of land;’ (οἱ. “Το. wirga, a twig, rod, wand. Der.
| verg-er, a wand-bearer, ‘that bereth a rodde in the churche’ (Pals-
VERGE
grave), from MF, verger, ‘ one that beares a verge before a magistrate,
a verger,’ Cot., from Late L. xirgdrius, an apparitor, occurring
A.D. 1370 (Ducange).
VERGE (2), to tend towards, tend, slope, border on. (L.)
‘Verging more and more westward ;’ Fuller, Worthies, Somerset-
shire (R.).—L. uergere, to bend, turn, incline, verge towards, incline.
Allied to Skt. vyjana-, crooked, vyj, to exclude (of which the orig.
sense seems to be to bend, Benfey).—4/WERG, to bend, turn,
Sorce; Fick, i. 772. Φ The phrase ‘to be on the verge of’ is per-
haps connected with this verb by many writers; but belongs to
Verge (1). Der. con-verge, di-verge.
VERIFY, to show to be true, confirm by evidence. (F.—L.)
‘I verifye, Je verifie;’ Palsgrave. — MF. verifier, ‘ to verifie;’ Cot.—
L. uérificare, to make true.—L. uéri-, for uérus, true; and -ficare,
for facere, tomake; see Very and Fact. Der. verifi-er, verifi-able,
verific-at-ion, from MF. verification, ‘a verification, verifying,’ Cot.
VERILY, adv. ; see Very.
VERISIMILITUDE, likelihood. (F.—L.) In Holland, tr.
of Plutarch, p. 845 (R.).—MF. verisimilitude, ‘likelihood ;’ Cot. =
L. uérisimilitido, likelihood. —L, uéri similis, likely, like the truth.
-L. uéri, gen. of uérum, the truth, orig. neut. of wérus, true; and
similis, like; see Very and Similar,
VERITY, truth, a true assertion. (F.—L.) Spelt verytie in
Levins. — MF. verité, ‘ verity;’ Cot.—L. uéritdtem, acc. of uéritas,
truth.—L. wérus, true; see Very. Der. verit-able, spelt verytable in
Palsgrave, from MF. veritable, ‘true,’ Cot., a coined word.
VERJUICE, a kind of vinegar. (F.—L.) ME. vergeous, verious,
P. Plowman, A. ν. 70 (footnote). F. verjus, ‘verjuice, esp. that
which is made of sowre, and unripe grapes ;’ Cot. Lit. ‘ green
juice.’ =F. vert (spelt verd in Cotgrave), green; and jus, juice; see
Verdant and Juice.
VERMEIL, vermilion. (F.—L.) ‘A vermeil-tinctured lip ;’
Milton, Comus, 752.—F. vermeil, vermilion; see Vermilion,
VERMICELLI, dough of wheat flour formed into thin worm-
like rolls. (Ital.—L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706. - Ital. vermicelli, lit.
‘little worms ;’ from the shape. It is the pl. of vermicello, a little
worm, which is the dimin. of verme, a worm.=—L. wermem, acc. of
uermis, a worm, cognate with E. Worm,
VERMICULAR, pertaining toa worm, (L.) Phillips, ed.
1705, has: ‘ Vermiculares, certain muscles, &c.; Vermicularis,
worm-grass, lesser house-leek; Vermiculated, inlaid, wrought with
checker-work ; Vermiculation, worm-eating ;’ &c. All are derivatives
from L. uermiculus, a little worm, double dimin. of wermis, a worm ;
see Worm, Der. So also vermi-form, worm-shaped; from
uermi-, decl. stem of wermis, and form; also vermi-fuge, a remedy
that expels a worm, from L. -fugus, putting to flight, from fugare,
to put to flight; see Fugitive. And see vermilion, vermin,
vermicelli,
VERMILION, a scarlet colouring substance obtained from
cochineal, &c. (F.—L.) ‘ Vermylyone, minium;’ Prompt. Parv. ;
spelt vermyloun, Wyclif, Exod. xxxix. 1 (later version), =F. vermillon,
‘vermillion; . . also,a little worm;’ Cot. =F. vermeil, ‘ vermillion ;’
id.—L,. uermiculus, a little worm; double dimin. of vermis, a worm ;
see Vermicular and Worm. {4 For the reason of the name,
see Crimson and Cochineal; but vermilion is now generally
made of red lead, or various mineral substances, and must have been
so made at an early date; it was perhaps named merely from its
resemblance to crimson.
VERMIN, any small obnoxious insect or animal. (F.—L.)
ME. vermine, Chaucer, C. T. 8971 (E 1005). -- Ἐς vermine, ‘ vermine ;
also little beasts ingendred of corruption and filth, as lice, fleas, ticks,
mice, rats;’ Cot. As if from a L. adj. *uerminus, formed from
uermi-, decl. stem of uermis, a worm; see Vermicular and
Worm.
VERNACULAR, native. (L.) ‘In the vernacular dialect ;΄
Fuller, Worthies, General (R.); and in Phillips, ed. 1706. Blount
has vernaculous. Formed with suffix -ar (L. -aris) from L. uerna-
cul-us, belonging to home-born slaves, domestic, native, indigenous ;
double dimin. of L. uerna, a home-born slave. B. Verna is for
*ues-ina, dwelling in one’s house, from 4/\WES, to dwell, live, be;
see Was. Brugmann, ii. § 66. Der. vernacular-ly.
VERNAL, belonging to spring. (L.) Spelt vernal in Minsheu,
ed. 1627. —L. uerndlis, vernal; extended from L. wernus, belonging
to spring. ταῦ, wer, the spring.4-Gk. ἔαρ (for *Féoap), the spring;
Russ. vesna, the spring; Lithuan. wasara, summer; -Icel. var; Dan.
vaar; Swed. var. B. All from 4/WES, to brighten, dawn; cf. Skt.
vasanta-, spring, ush, to bum, L. aurdra, dawn; Olrish fair, W.
gwawr, dawn. Fick, i. 780.
VERNTER, a short scale made to slide along a graduated instru-
ment for measuring intervals between its divisions. (F.) So named
from its inventor (1631). ‘Peter Vernier, of Franche Comté; in-
VERY
ventor of scale, born 1580, died Sept. 14, 1637; Hole, Brief Bio-
graphical Dictionary.
VERSATILE, turning easily from one thing to another. (F.—
L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706. =F, versatil, ‘ quickly turning ;’ Cot.=—L.
uersatilis, that turns round, movable, versatile.—L. uersare, to turn
often, frequentative of wertere, to turn (pp. versus); sec Verse.
Des. versatil-i-ty.
VERSE, a line of poetry, poetry, a stanza, short portion of the
Bible or of a hymn. (L.) In very early use, and borrowed from Latin
directly, not through the F. vers. ‘ Veerce, verse, Versus;’ Prompt.
Pary. Spelt fers in the Ormulum, 11943. AS. fers, a verse, a line
of poetry ; ‘hii man todald pa fers on radinge’=how one divides the
verse in reading ; A‘lfric’s Grammar, ed. Zupitza, p. 291, 1. 2.—
Late L. versus, a verse; L. versus, a turning, a line, row; so named
from the turning to begin a new line. [Vaniéek separates versus, a
furrow, which he connects with werrere, to sweep.]—L. uwersus, pp.
of uertere, to turn.—4/WERT, to turn; whence also E. worth, verb,
to become; see Worth (1). Der. vers-ed, Milton, P. R. iv. 327,
only in the phr, versed in=conversant with, and used (instead of
versate) as a translation of L. uersdtus, pp. of uersari, to keep turn-
ing oneself about, passive form of the frequentative of uertere ; and
see vers-i-fy, vers-ion, &c. Also (from uertere), ad-vert, ad-verse,
ad-vert-ise, anim-ad-vert, anni-vers-ary, a-vert, a-verse, contro-vert,
con-vert, con-verse, di-vert, di-vers, di-verse, di-vers-i-fy, di-vorce, e-verl,
in-ad-vert-ent, intro-vert, in-vert, in-verse, mal-vers-at-ion, ob-verse,
per-vert, per-verse, re-vert, re-verse, sub-vert, sub-vers-ion, tergi-vers-
at-ion, trans-verse, tra-verse, uni-verse, vers-at-ile, vert-ebra, vert-ex,
vert-ig-o, vort-ex ; and see verst.
VERSIFY, to make verses. (F.—L.) ME. versifien, P. Plow-
man, Β. xv. 367.—F. versifier, ‘to versifie,’ Cot. L. uersificare, to
versify. —L, wersi-, for versus, a verse ; and -ficdre, for facere, to make ;
see Verse and Fact. Der. versific-at-ion, in Holland, tr. of
Plutarch, p. 977 (R.), from F. versification (omitted by Cotgrave),
from L. acc. uersificationem; versifi-er, Sidney, Apology for Poetrie,
ed. Arber, p. 40.
VERSION, a translation, statement. (F.—L.) Formerly used
in the sense of turning or change ; Bacon’s Essays, Ess. 58 (Of Vicis-
situde). - Ἐς version, a version, a translation (not given in Cotgrave).
— Late L. uersionem, acc. of versio, regularly formed from wers-, as in
uers-us, pp. of uertere, to turn,
VERST, a Russian measure of length. (Russ.) In Hakluyt’s
Voyages, i. 388, 1. 30.— Russ. versta, a verst, 3,500 Eng. feet, a verst-
post; also,age. For *vert-ta; from 4/WERT, asin Russ. vertiet(e),
to turn. Brugmann, ii. § 79.
VERT, green, in heraldry. (F.—L.) In Blount, ed. 1674. From
F. vert, green ; formerly verd, Cot.—L. uiridem, acc. of uiridis, green.
Cf. L. uirére, to be green.-W. gwyrdd, green; Corn, guirt. Or (if
these Celtic words are borrowed from L.) perhaps allied to vivid ;
ef. Skt. ji-ra-, active, ji-va-, living. Brugmann, il. § 74.
VERTEBRA, one of the small bones of the spine. (L.) In
Phillips, ed. 1706.—L. uertebra, a joint, a vertebra. —L. wert-ere, to
turn; see Verse. Der. vertebr-al, a coined word; vertebr-ate,
vertebr-at-ed, from L, uertebratus, jointed.
VERTEX, the top, summit. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706; the
adj. vertical is in Cotgrave.—L. uertex, the top, properly the turning-
point, esp. the pole of the sky (which is the turning-point of the
stars), but afterwards applied to the zenith. —L. wertere, toturn; see
Verse. An older form of vertex was uortex. Brugmann, i. § 144.
Der. vertic-al, from F. vertical, ‘ verticall, Cot., from L. uertic-alis,
vertical, from wertic-, stem of vertex. Hence vertical-ly. Doublet,
vortex.
VERTIGO, giddiness. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706. —L. uertigo
(gen. uertigin-is), a turning or whirling round, giddiness. — L. uertere,
to turn ; see Verse.
VERVAIN, ἃ plant of the genus verbena. (F.—L.) ME. ver-
veyne, Gower, C. A. ii. 262 (bk. v. 4039). =F. verveine, ‘ verveine ;’
Cot. =—L. uerbéna, used in pl. verbena, sacred boughs, usually of olive,
laurel, or myrtle. Allied to werber, a rod, properly a twig, shoot.
VERVE, spirit, energy, enthusiasm. (F.—L.) ‘If he... is
resolved to follow his own verve, as the French call it ;’ Dryden,
Ded. of the AZneid. =F. verve, ‘a brawling, jangling, jarring ; also,
an odd humour in a man;’ Cot. Supposed to represent a Late L.
*verva, for L. uerba, lit. ‘ words,’ i.e. talk, a neut. pl. treated as a
fem. sing. ; pl. of L. uerbum, a word; see Verb. (So Hatzfeld).
VERY, true, real, actual. (F.—L.) ME. verrat, verre; ‘ verrey
charite’=true charity, P. Plowman, B. xvii. 289; ‘verrei man’=
true man, id. C. xxii. 153. It occurs as verray in An Old Eng,
Miscellany, p. 27, 1. 26, in the O. Kentish Sermons (about A. D. 1240).
“- ΟἿ. verai, later vrai (in Cotgrave vray), true. Cf. Prov. vera:,
true. It answers toa Late L. type *veracus, not found ; similarly,
Scheler compares F. Cambrai, Douai from L. Cameracum, Duacurn,
δὴ
689
690 VESICLE
Cf. Schwan, § 56. This *vérdcus is a by-form of L. uérax (stem
uérdc-), truthful, extended from zérus, true (represented in OF. by ver,
νεῖν, voir, true), B. The orig. sense of uérus is ‘ existing.’ For
*ues-ro-; from 4/WES, to be. W. guwir, Olrish fir, true; cf. Russ.
viera, faith; G. wakr, true; AS. wéér,-true. Brugmann, i. § 367;
§ 818 (note 3). Der. very, adv., as in ‘very wel,’ i.e. truly well,
Sir T. More, Works, p. 108 h; veri-ly, adv., ME. verraily, veraily,
Chaucer, C. T. 13590'(B 1850). Also (from L. uérus) veri-fy, veri-
similar, veri-ty, ver-ac-ious 5 ver-dict; a-ver.
VESICHLHE, a small tumour, bladder-like cell. (L.) Phillips, ed.
1706, has: “ Vesicula, a vesicle, or little bladder.’ Englished from
L. wéstcula, a little bladder; dimin. of uéstca, a bladder. Allied to
Skt. vasti-, the bladder. Der. vesicul-ar, adj. ; also vesic-at-ion, the
raising of blisters on the skin.
VESPER, the evening star; the evening; pl. vespers, even-song.
(L.) In the ecclesiastical sense, the word does not seem to be old,
as the E. name for the service was eve-song or even-song.. Vespers
occurs in ΒΡ. Taylor, vol. ii.ser. 7 (R.).; and see the Index to Parker
Soc. Publications. But we already find vesper, in the sense of evening-
star, in Gower, C. A. ii. 109 (bk. iv. 3209).—L. uwesper, the evening-
star, the evening; cf. wesfera, even-tide. Hence OF. vespre (F.
vépre), ‘the evening,’ Cot., and vespres, ‘ even-song,’ id.-Gk. ἕσπερος,
adj. and sb., evening, ἕσπερος ἀστήρ, the evening star; ἑσπέρα, even-
tide; Olrish fescor, W. ucher, evening. Brugmann, i. §§ 329,
565 (3); Stokes-Fick, p. 278.
VESSEL, a utensil for holding liquids, &c., a ship. (F.—L.)
ME. vessel, Chaucer, C. T. 5682 (D 100).— AF. vessel, a vessel, OF.
vaissel, veissel, a ship (Burguy) ; later vaisseau, ‘a vessel, of what kind
soever ;” Cot.=L. zascellum, a small vase or urn; dimin. of was, a
vase, whence also the dimin. wasculum ; see Vascular, Vase.
VEST, a garment, waistcoat. (L.) In Milton, P. L. xi. 241.—L.
uestis, a garment; orig. the act of putting on clothes (Bréal).
Formed (with Idg. suffix -ti-) from 4/WES, to clothe, protect ; cf.
Skt. vas, to put on (clothes), Gk. ἔν:νυμι (« βέσ-νυμι), I clothe,
ἐσ-θής, clothing, Goth. gawasjan, to clothe, was¢i, clothes ; Curtius,
i. 470. Der. ves‘, vb., formerly used in such phrases as ¢o vest one
with supreme power, and (less properly) to vest supreme power in one }
see Phillips, ed. 1706; hence vesé-ed, fully possessed. And see vest-
ment, vest-ry, vest-ure. Also di-vest, in-vest, tra-vest-y.
VESTAL, chaste, pure. (F.—L.) As adj. in Shak. Romeo, iii.
3. 383 as sb., a Vestal Virgin, priestess of Vesta, Antony, iii. 12. 31.
=F, vesial, a Vestal virgin; see Cotgrave.—L. Vestalis, belonging to
a Vestal, ‘also (for Vestalis uirgo), a priestess of Vesta.—L. Vesta, a
Roman goddess; goddess of the flocks and household.-+-Gk. Ἑστία,
daughter of Chronos and Rhea, goddess of the domestic hearth. =
oy WES, to dwell (Walde). See Was.
VESTIBULE, a porch. (L.) In Swinburne, Travels in Spain,
p. 216. Phillips has only the L. form vestibulum. Englished from
L. uestibulum, a fore-court, entrance-court, entrance. Lit. ‘ that
which forms a part of the abode.’ Perhaps from L. *wues-di-, a
dwelling; with suffix -bulwm, as in sessi-bulum, a seat. Cf. Skt.
vasta-, vastu-, ἃ house, OHG. wist, an abode; from 4/WES, to
dwell (Walde).
VESTIGE, a foot-print, a trace. (F.—L.) In Blount’s Gloss.,
ed. 1674.—F. vestige; ‘a step, foot-step, track, trace;’ Cot.—L.
uestigium, a foot-step, track. B. Of doubtful origin ; see Walde.
VESTMENT, a. garment, long robe. (F.—L.) ΜΕ. vestiment ;
pl. vestimenz, Ancren Riwle, p. 418, This form occurs as late as in
Spenser, F. Ὁ. iii 12. 29; whilst the Prompt. Pary. has both vest-
ment and vestymernte.—OF. vestement, a vestment,’ Cot. (Mod. F.
vétement). = L. uestimentum, a garment.—L. uesti-re, to clothe. =—L.
uesti-, decl. stem of westis ; see Vest.
VESTRY, a place for keeping vestments. (F.—L.) ME.
vestrye, Prompt. Parv. Slightly altered from OF. vestiairie, whence
MF. vestiaire, ‘the vestry in a church ;’ Cot.—L. uestiarium, a ward-
robe; orig. neut. of westi@rius, adj., belonging to a vest or robe. = L.
uesti-, decl, stem of westis, a garment; see Vest. ͵
VESTURE, dress, a robe. (F.—L.) In P. Plowman, B. i. 23.
=— OF. vesiéure, MF. vesture, ‘a clothing, arraying;’ Cot.—Late L.
uestitira, clothing. —L. vestit-rs, pp. of uestire, to clothe. L. uesti-,
decl. stem of westis; see Vest. Cf. E. in-vestiture.
VETCH, a genus of plants. (F.—L.) The same as fitch; pl.
Jitches, Isaiah xxviii. 25, Ezek. ἵν. ο (A.V.). In the earlier of Wyclif’s
versions of Isaiah xxviii. 25, the word is written ficche, and in the
later fetchis, Baret (Alvearie) gives: ‘ Fitches, Vicia . . Plin. βίκιον ;
A vinciendo, vt Varroni placet ;’ Bible Word-book, ed. Eastwood and
Wright. For the variation of the initial letter, ef. fane and vane, fat
and vat; the variation is dialectal, and in the present case the right
form is that with initial v. The correct ME. spelling would be
veche; we actually find ‘Orobus, veck’ in Voc. 599. 26; also ‘ Hec
uicia, Anglice fechke’ in Voc. 664. 24, in a vocabulary strongly marked
VICE
by Northern forms ; feche being the Northern form corresponding to
the Southern veche.—ONorth. F. veche (Walloon veche), OF. vece,
MF. vesce,a vetch. Palsgrave has: ‘ Fetche,a lytell pease, xesse,
ueche, lentille;’ whilst Cotgrave has: ‘ Vesce, the pulse called fitch
or vitch.’=L. wicia, a vetch; whence also G. wicke, Du. wikke.
B. As the vetch has tendrils, Varro’s derivation is perhaps to be
accepted ; viz. from the base WEIK, to bind, as appearing in wincire,
to bind, uinca, a plant (orig. a climbing one). Cf. 4/WELI, to wind,
whence L. wi-tis, a vine, uz-men, a pliant twig. See Withy.
VETERAN, experienced, long exercised in military life. (L.)
In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. ueteranus, old, veteran, experienced ;
as sb., a veteran. —L. weter-, for *uetes-, stem of uetus, old, aged ; lit.
“advanced in years.’ Cf. Gk. ἔτος (=fér-os), a year, Skt. vatsa-, a
year. See Veal. Der. veteran, sb. From the same base are veter-
in-ar-y, in-veter-ate, veal, wether.
VETERINARY, pertaining to the art of treating diseases of
domestic animals. (L.) “ Veterinarian, he that lets horses or mules
to hire, a hackney-man, also a horse-leech or farrier ;” Blount’s
Gloss., ed. 1674. Sir T. Browne has veterinarian as a sb., Vulg.
Errors, Ὁ. iii. c. 2, § 1.—L, weterinadrius, of or belonging to beasts of
burden ; as sb., a cattle-doctor. = L. weterinus, belonging to bzasts of
burden; pl. ueterine (sc. bestie@), beasts of burden. B. The L.
ueterina probably meant, originally, an old animal, one that was no
longer fit for anything but carrying burdens; from the same base as
that which occurs in uetus (gen. wefer-is), old; see Veteran and
Veal. And see Wether. Der. veterinari-an, as above.
VETO, a prohibition. (L.) Not in Todd’s Johnson.—L. xeto,
I forbid ; hence, the saying of ‘I forbid,’ i.e. a prohibition. OL.
uoto. Der. veto, verb.
VEX, to harass, torment, irritate. (F.—L.) ME. vexen, Prompt.
Parv. =F. vexer, ‘to vex;’ Cot.—L. uexdre, to vex, orig. to shake;
of doubtful origin. Der. vex-at-ion, from F. vexation, ‘ vexation,’
Cot., from L. acc. uexatidnem ; vex-at-i-ous, vex-at-i-ous-ly, vex-at-i-
ous-ness.
VIADUCT, a road or railway carried across a valley or river.
(L.) Notin Todd’s Johnson. Englished from L. μία ducta, a way
conducted across ; from L. μία, a way, and ducta, fem. of ductus, pp.
of dicere, to lead, conduct; see Duct, Duke. Prob. coined in
imitation of aqueduct. B. L. μία was formerly written uea, and
some connect it with E. way; which can hardly be right. Der.
uiaticum, a doublet of voyage, q. ν. ; also con-vey, con-voy, de-vi-ate,
de-vi-ous, en-voy, im-per-vi-ous, in-voice, ob-vi-ate, ob-vi-ous, per-vi-ous,
pre-vi-ous, tri-vi-al.
VIAL, PHIAL, a small glass vessel or bottle. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Phial is a pedantic spelling; the spelling vial is historically more
correct, as we took the word from French; another (French) spelling
was viol. ‘ Vyole, a glasse, fiolle, uiole;’ Palsgrave. ME. viole ;
pl. violis, Wyclif, Rev. v. 8, where the A. V. has vials. —OF. viole,
fiole, fiolle (for which forms see Palscrave above), later phiole,
‘a violl, a small glass bottle;’ Cot. Mod. F. fiole.—L. phiala, a
saucer, a shallow drinking-vessel (the form of which must have been
altered).— Gk. φιάλη, a shallow cup or bowl.
VIAND, food, provision. (F.—L.) Usually in pl. viands.. (F. —
L.) ‘Deintie viande;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 6 b= Ἐς vande,
‘meat, food, substance ;᾿ Cot. [The same as Ital. vivanda, victuals,
food, eatables.]—L. uixenda, neut. pl., things to live on, provisions ;
considered as a fem. sing., by a change common in Late L.=L.
uiuendus, fut. pass. of uiuvere, to live; see Victuals.
RATE, to swing, move backwards and forwards. (L.)
Phillips, ed. 1706, has vibration ; the verb is perhaps a little later. =
L. uibratus, pp. of uibrare, to shake, swing, brandish.— WEIB,
variant of 4/ WEIP, to shake, agitate; cf. Skt. vep, to tremble, Icel.
veifa, to vibrate, wave. Brugmann,i. § 701. See Sweep, Waive.
Der. vibrat-ion, vibrat-or-y.
VICAR, lit. a deputy; the incumbent of a benefice. (F.—L.)
ME. vicar, a deputy, Chaucer, Parl. of Foules, 379; also vicary, a
vicar, id. C. T. 17333 (1 22). —F. vicaire, ‘a vicar, or vice-gerent, also
the tenant or incumbent who, in the right of a corporation or church,
is to pay duties, or do services, unto the lord of the land ;’ Cot.—L.
uicarium, acc. of uicarius, a substitute, deputy ; orig. an adj., sub-
stituted, deputed, said of one who supplies the tu or place of
another.=L. wic-, stem of wicis (gen.), a turn, change, succession, =
WEIQ, to yield, give way; hence to succeed in another’s turn: cf.
Gk. εἴκ-ειν, to yield, G. wech-sel, a turn. Brugmann, i. § 701. Der.
vicar-age, spelt vycrage in Palsgrave (prob. a misprint for vycarage) ;
vicar-i-al ; vicar-i-ate, sb., from F. vicariat, ‘a vicarship,’ Cot. Also
vicar-i-ous, Englished from L. uicdrius, substituted, delegated, vicari-
ous (as above); vicar-i-ous-ly. And see vice-gerent, vic-iss-t-tude.
VICE (1), a blemish, fault, depravity. (F.—L.) ME. vice, vyce,
Rob. of Glouc., p. 195, 1. 4o25.—F. vice, ‘a vice, fault ;’ Cot.=—L.
uilium, a vice, fault. Der. vici-ous, from Εἰ, viciewx, ὁ vicious,’ Cot.,
VICE
from L. uitidsus, faulty ; vici-ous-ly, vici-ous-ness, spelt vyciousnesse in
Palsgrave ; viti-ate, spelt viciate in Cot. (to translate F. vicier), from
L, uitiaitus, pp. of uitidre, to injure; viti-at-ion.
VICK (2), an instrument, tightened by a screw, for holding any-
thing firmly. (F.—L.) ME. vice, vyce, in Wyclif, 3 Kings, vi. 8,
where it means ‘a winding-stair ’ (see the A. V.), the orig. sense being
“a screw.’ <A vice is so called because tightened by a screw. =F. vis,
‘the vice, or spindle of a presse, also a winding-staire ;’ Cot. OF.
viz; Burguy.—L. witis, a vine, bryony, the lit. sense being ‘that
which winds. or twines;’ hence the OF. viz (=vits), where the
suffixed s represents the termination -is of the L. nom. sing. or -és of
the L. nom, pl.=4/WEI, to wind, bind, or twine about; cf. E.
withe, withy, L. ui-men, a pliant twig, &c. Cf. Ital. vite, ‘the vine,
also a vice or a scrue,’ Florio.
VICE-GERENT, having delegated authority, acting in place of
another. (F.—L.) In Shak. L. L. L.i. τ. 222.—F. vicegerent, ‘a vice-
gerent, or deputy;’ Cot.—L. wice, in place of; and gerent-, stem of
pres. part. of gerere, to carry on, perform, conduct, act, rule. Here
uice is the abl. from the gen. uicis, a turn, change, stead (the nom. not
being used) ; see Vicar. For gerere, see Gesture. @ With the
same prefix wice- (Εἰ. vice, L. uice, in place of) we have vice-admiral,
vice-chancellor ; also vice-roy, Temp. iii. 2. 116, where roy=F. roi,
from L. régem, acc. of rex, a king; vice-regal ; and see vis-count.
VICINAGE, neighbourhood. (F.—L.) Vicinage is a pedantic
spelling of voisinage, due to an attempt to reduce the F. word to a
L. spelling ; both forms are given in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. Bp.
Taylor has the spelling voisinage more than once, in Episcopacy
Asserted, § 21 (R.),-and Rule of Conscience, b. i. c. 4 (R.). =F.
voisinage, “neighbourhood ;’ Cot.—F. voisin, ‘neighbouring,’ id. =
Το, uicinum, acc. of uicinus, neighbouring, near, lit. belonging to the
same street. — L. uic-us, a village, street (whence the AS. wic, E. wick,
a town, is borrowed).4-Gk. οἶκος, a house, dwelling-place ; Russ.
ves(e),a village; Skt. vega(s), a house, entrance. =4/WEIK, to come
to, enter, enter into; Skt. wig, to enter. Der. vicin-i-ty, from MF.
vicinite, ‘vicinity,’ Cot., from L. acc. uicinitatem, neighbourhood.
Der. (from Gk. οἶκος), par-ish, par-och-i-al.
VICISSITUDE, change. (L.) In Bacon, Essay On Vicissitude
of Things.—L. wicissitido, change. Allied to wicissi-m, by turns;
where the suffix -sim may be compared with pas-sim, reces-sim, &c.—
L. uicis (gen.), a change ; see Vicar.
VICTIM, a living being offered as a sacrifice, one who is perse-
cuted. (F.—L.) In Dryden, tr. of Virgil, Ain. xii. 1. 319.— Εἰς vic-
time (not in Cotgrave).—L. uictima, a victim. Allied to Goth.
weihan, to consecrate, weths, holy. Lrugmann, i. § 606. Der.
victim-ise, a coined word.
VICTOR, a conqueror. (L.) In K. John, ii. 324; and in
Trevisa, i. 239.—L. uictor, a conqueror ; see below.
VICTORY, success in a contest. (F.—L.) ME. victorie. In
King Alisaunder, 7663.— OF. victorie (Burguy), later victoire, ‘ vic-
tory, Cot.=—L. uictoria, conquest; L. wictor, a conqueror; cf.
uict-us, pp. of uincere, to conquer (pt. t. wic-i).—4/WEIQ, to fight;
whence also Goth. weigan, weihan (pp. wigans), to strive, contend ;
AS. wig, war. Brugmann, i. § 367. Der. victori-ous (Palsgrave),
from F. victorieux, L. uictoridsus, full of victory ; victori-ous-ly. Also
(from wincere) victor, as above; vanquish, vinc-ible ; con-vince, con-vict,
e-vince, e-vict, in-vinc-ible.
VICTUALS, provisions, meat. (F.—L.) The sing. victual is
little used now, but occurs in Exod. xii. 39 (A. V.), and in Much
Ado, i. 1. 50. The word is misspelt, by a pedantry which ignores
the F. origin; yet the true orthography wittle fairly represents
the pronunciation still commonly used by the best speakers.
ME. vitaille, Chaucer, C. T. 248.—OF. vitaille (Burguy), later
victuaille (with inserted c, due to pedantry); Cot. gives ‘victuailles,
victualls,’ but Palsgrave has ‘ Vytaile, uitaille, uiures; Vytaylles,
mete and drinke, toute maniere de uitailles.’=L. uictualia, neut. pl.,
provisions, victuals. —L. uéictualis, belonging to nourishment.=L.
uictu-, for uictus, food, nourishment; with suffix -dlis,—L. uict-us,
pp. of wiuere, to live; allied to wiuus, living. —4/GwEI, to live; cf.
Skt. jiv, to live, Gk. Bi-os, life, Russ. jit(e), to live ; and see Quick.
Brugmann, ii. § 488. Der. victual, verb, As You Like It, v. 4.198 ;
victuall-er, spelt vytailer in Palsgrave. Also (from the same root)
vi-and, vi-tal, viv-ac-i-ous, viv-id, viv-i-fy, vivi-par-ous, vivi-section ;
con-viv-i-al, re-vive, sur-vive ; also bio-graphy, bio-logy; quick; but
hardly viper, wyvern.
VICUNA, a quadruped of the camel tribe. (Span.—Peruv.)
‘Those beastes, which at Peru they call. . Vicunas;’ E. G., tr. of
Acosta’s Nat. Hist. (1604); bk. i. c. 21; p. 70.—Span. vicuzta ;
Minsheu (1623). Of Peruvian origin; Monlau gives the form as
vicunna; see Garcilasso de la Vega (bk. viii. c. 17).
VIDELICET, namely. (L.) In Mids. Nt. Dr. v. 330. In old
MSS. and books, the abbreviation for L. -e/ (final) closely resem-
VIKING 691
bled az. Hence the abbreviation wiz.=viet., short for videlicet. =
L. widélicet, for uidére licet (like scilicet=scire licet), it is easy to
see, it is manifest, hence plainly, to wit, namely. —L. widére, to see;
and licet, it is allowable, hence, it is easy. See Vision and
License.
VIDETTE, another spelling of Vedette, q.v.
VIE, to contend, strive for superiority. (F.—L.) ME. vien, a
contracted form of ME. enxvien, due to the loss of the initial syllable,
as in story for history, fence for defence, &c. In Chaucer, Death of
Blaunche, 1. 173, we have: ‘To vye who might slepe best,’ ed. Thynne
| (1532), and so also in the Tanner MS. 346; but MS. Fairfax 16 has:
‘To envye who myght slepe best,’ where To envye=Tenvye in pro-
nunciation, just as Chaucer has tabiden=to abiden, &c. B. ‘This
ME. envien is quite a different word from exvien, to envy ; it is really
a doublet of invite, and is a term formerly used in gambling. —OF.
‘envier (au ien), to vie;’ Cot.—L. inuitaire, to invite; see Invite.
y. This is proved by the Span. and Ital. forms; cf. Span. envidar,
“among gamesters, to invite or to open the game by.staking a certain
sum,’ Neuman ; Ital. tnwitare (al giuoco), ‘to vie or to reuie at any
game, to drop vie; inuito, a vie at play, a vie at any game ; also, an
inviting, proffer, or bidding;’ Florio.. See. plentiful examples of
vie, to wager, and vie, sb., a wager, in Nares; and remember that
the true sense of with is against, as in with-stand, fight with, &c., so
that to vie with=to stake against, wager against, which fully explains
the word. Much more might be added; Scheler’s excellent ex-
planation of Εἰ, ἃ l’envi is strictly to the point ; so also Wedgwood’s
remarks on E. vie. In particular, the latter shows that the OF.
envier also meant ‘to invite,’ and he adds: ‘ From the verb was
formed the adv. expression ἃ l’envi, E. a-vie, as if for a wager: ‘They
that write of these toads strive a-vie who shal write most wonders of
them,” Holland, tr. of Pliny ; [b. xxxii.c. 5]. Doublet, invite.
VIEW, a sight, reach of the sight, a scene, mental survey. (F.—
L.) Very common in Shak.; see Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 1. 144, iii. 2. 377,
&c. Levins has the verb to vewe.— AF. view, Liber Albus, p. 182;
vewe, Stat. Realm, i. I92 (1323); MF. veué, ‘the sense, act, or
instrument of seeing, the eyes, a glance, a view, look, sight,’ &c.;
Cot. Properly the fem, of vew, ‘ viewed, seen,’ pp. of veoir (mod. F.
voir), ‘to view, see;’ id= L. uidére, to see; see Vision. Der.
view, verb; view-er; re-view ; view-less, invisible, Meas. for: Meas.
iii. 1. 124.
VIGIL, the eve before a feast or fast-day. (F.—L.) Lit. ‘a
watching ;” so named because orig. kept by watching through the
night.. ME. uigile, Ancren Riwle, p. 412, 1. 23; Chaucer, C. T. 379
(A 3577). “ἘΠ. vigile, ‘a vigile, the eve of a holy or solemn day;’
Cot.=—L. wigilia, a watch, watching. —L. uigil, awake, lively, vigi-
lant, watchful. —L. uigére, to be lively or vigorous, flourish, thrive ;
allied to wegére, to arouse.+Irish feil, W. gwyl, a festival (lit. vigil).
—+/WEG, to be strong, to wake ; see Vegetable. Der. vigil-ant,
1 Hen. IV, iv. 2. 64, from F. vigilant, ‘vigilant,’ Cot., from L. xigi-
lant-, stem of pres. part. of uigilare, to watch; vigil-ance, Temp. 111:
3. 16, from F. vigilance, ‘ vigilancy,’ Cot., from L. wgilantia. From
the same root are veg-elable, vig-our, in-vig-or-ate, re-veillé, sur-veill-
ance; also wake, watch, wait.
VIGNETTE, a small engraving with ornamented. borders, (Ἐς
—L.) So called because orig. applied to ornamented borders in
which vine-leaves and tendrils were freely introduced.. In the edition
of Cotgrave’s Dict. published in 1660, the English Index (by Sher-
wood) has a title-page with such a border, in which two pillars are
represented on each side, wreathed with vines bearing leaves, tendrils,
and bunches of grapes. ME. vinettes, vine-branches; Lydgate, Siege
of Troy, fol. F 5, col. 2.—F. vignette, ‘a little vine; vignettes,
vignets, branches, or branchlike borders or flourishes, in painting or
ingravery ;’? Cot. Dimin. of F. wigne, a vine; see Vine.
VIGOUR, vital strength, force, energy. (F.—L.) ME. vigour ;
spelt. vigor, King Alisaunder, 1. 1431.—OF. vigur, vigor, later
vigueur, ‘vigor ;’ Cot.=—L. uigorem, acc. of uigor, liveliness, activity,
force.=L. uigére, to be lively or vigorous; see Vigil. Der. vigor-
ous, spelt vygorouse in Palsgrave, from F. vigoureux, ‘vigorous,’ Cot. ;
vigor-ous-ly, vigor-ous-ness,
VIKING, a Northern pirate. (Scand.) The form wicing occurs
in AS., but viking is borrowed from Scandinavian.—Icel, vikingr,
a freebooter, rover, pirate, used in the Icel. Sagas esp. of the bands
of Scand. warriors who, during the 9th and roth centuries, harried
the British Isles and Normandy. [Wrongly explained as ‘a creek-
dweller,’ one of the men who haunted the bays, creeks, and fjords. =
Icel. vik, a creek, inlet, bay; with suffix -ingr (AS. -img) in. the
sense of ‘son οἵ᾽ οἵ belonging to. Cf. also Swed.vik, Dan. vig, a
creek, cove.] Explained also as. ‘a warrior ;’ for *vigningr (where
ign >ik); allied to Icel. vig, war, Goth. weihan, to fight, L. uincere,
to conquer; see Victor. (So Noreen, § 252 ; Sweet, Hist. E. Sounds,
§ 319). AS. wicing, the same.
Yy2
692 VILE
VILE, abject, base, worthless, wicked. (F.—L.) ME. vil, Rob.
of Glouc. p. 488, 1. 10003.—F. vil (fem. vile), ‘ vile, abject, base,
low, meane, . . good cheape, of small price;’ Cot.—L. uilem, acc.
of uilis, of small price, cheap, worthless, base, vile.4-W. gwael, vile ;
Stokes-Fick, p. 259. Der. vile-ly, vile-ness ; vil-i-fy,a coined word,
to account vile, defame, properly to make vile, as in Milton, P. L.
xi. 516; vil-i-fi-er, vil-i-fic-at-ion, re-vile,
VILIPEND, to despise. (L.) Spelt vilepende in Skelton;
i, 202. “Το, wuilipendere, to hold cheap. = L. wilt-, for uilis, vile, cheap ;
and pendere, to weigh, esteem. See Poise.
VILLA, a country residence or seat,a house. (L.) In Dryden, tr.
of Lucretius, b. iii. 1. 283.—L. uilla, a farm-house; lit. ‘a house in
a village.’ Perhaps for *uic-sla, i.e. ‘dwelling ;’ from uic-us, a vil-
lage; see Vicinage. Der. vill-age, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 12621 (C 687),
from F. village, ‘a village,’ Cot., from L. adj. willaticus, belonging
to a villa; uillag-er, Jul. Cesar, i. 2.172; villag-er-y, a collection
of villages, Mids. Nt. Dr. ii. 1. 35. And see vill-ain.
VILLAIN, a clownish or depraved person, a scoundrel.
(F.—L.) ME. vilein, vileyn, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 18, 1.7. ‘ For
vilany makith vilein;’ Rom. of the Rose, 2181.—OF. vilein, ‘ser-
vile, base, vile;’ Cot. He also gives vilain, ‘a villaine, slave,
bondman, servile tenant.’—Late L. uilidnus, a farm-servant, serf;
the degradation by which it passed into a term of reproach is well
stated by Cotgrave, who further explains vilain as meaning ‘a
farmer, yeoman, churle, carle, boore, clown, knave, rascall, varlet,
filthie fellow.’—L. willa, a farm; see Villa. Der. villain-ous,
Merry Wives, ii. 2. 308; villain-ous-ly; also villain-y, ME. vileinie,
Chaucer, C. T. 70, Ancren Riwle, p. 216, from OF, vilenie (or
vilanie), ‘villainy,’ Cot.
VINCIBLE, that can be conquered. (L.) Rare. In Bp. Taylor,
Of Repentance, c. 3. § 3 (R.).=—L. uincibilis, easily overcome. —L,
uincere, to conquer; see Victor. Der. vincibil-i-ty ; in-vincible.
VINCULUM, a link. (L.) Modern; chiefly used as a mathe-
matical term.—L. uinculum, a bond, fetter, link.=—L. xincire, to
bind, fetter. Brugmann, ii. § 631. See Vetch.
VINDICATE, to lay claim to, defend, maintain by force. (L.)
In Milton, P. R. ii. 47.—L. uindicatus, pp. of uindicare, to lay legal
claim to, arrogate, avenge.—L. uindic-, decl. stem of windex, a
claimant, maintainer. Orig. ‘one who favours or protects a friend ;’
from wen- (as in wen-ta, favour, cf, AS, win-e,a friend), and dic-are, to
appoint, dicere, to say; cf. the suffixin ‘a-dex,a judge. See Walde.
Der. vindicat-or, vindic-able, vindic-at-ion ; vindic-at-ive, i.e. vindictive,
Troil. iv. 5. 107 ; vindic-at-or-y; and see vindic-tive, vengeance.
VINDICTIVE, revengeful. (F.—L.) Vindictive is merely a
shortened form of vindicative, obviously due to confusion with the
related L. uindicta, revenge. Bp. Taylor, in his Rule of Conscience,
b. iii. c. 3, speaks of " vindicative justice,’ but in the same work, b, ii.
c. 2, of “ vindictive justice ;’ if Richardson’s quotations be correct.
Shak. has vindicative=vindictive, Troil. iv. 5. 107.—F. vindicatif,
‘vindicative, revenging,’ Cot. Formed with sufhx -if (L. -iuus)
from uindicat-um, supine of uindicare, (1) to claim, (2) to avenge ; see
Vindicate. Der. vindictive-ly, -ness.
VINE, the plant from which wine is made. (F.—L.) ME. vine,
vyne; Wyclif, John, xv. 1.—F. vigne, ‘a vine;’ Cot.—L. uinea, a
vineyard, which in late L. (see Lewis) also had the sense of ‘ vine,’
for which the true L. word is uitis. Vinea is properly the fem. of
adj. uineus, of or belonging to wine.—L. uinum, wine.4+Gk. οἶνος,
wine ; allied to otvn, the vine, oivas, the vine, grape, wine. Cf. L.
uitis, the vine.—4/WEI, to twine; as seen in L. wiére, to twist
together, wi-men, a pliant twig, ui-tis, the vine, &c. Brugmann,
il. § 66. And see Curtius, i. 487, who notes that the Gk. words
were used ‘by no means exclusively of the drink, but just as much
of the vine. Pott very appropriately compares the Lithuan. ap-vy-
nys, a hop-tendril. ... The fact is therefore that the Indo-Germans
had indeed a common root for the idea of winding, twining, and
hence derived the names of various pliant twining plants, but that it
is only among the Greeco-Italians that we find a common name for
the grape and its juice. The Northern names (Goth. wein, &c.) are
undoubtedly to be regarded (with Jac. Grimm, Gramm. iii. 466) as
borrowed.’ See the whole passage. To which we may add that
the L. uinum also meant ‘a vine,’ and the E. vine-yard= AS, win-
geard=wine-yard, which identified wixe with the vine itself. Der.
vine-dress-er ; vin-er-y, occurring in ‘the vyxery of Ramer,’ in
Fabyan’s Chronicle, John of France, an. 8 (ed. Ellis, p. 513), a
word coined on the model of butt-er-y, pant-ry, brew-er-y ; vine-yard,
ME. vyneyerd, Trevisa, i. 337, AS. win-geard, Matt. xx. I ; vin-ous,
a late word, from L. uindsus, belonging to wine. Also vin-egar, vin-
t-age, vin-t-ner, which see below. From the same root are withe or
withy, wine; cf. vetch, vinculum.
GAR, an acid liquor made from fermented liquors.
(F.-L.) ΜΕ. u-negre, vynegre, Wyclif, Mark, xv. 36. Lit. ‘sour
VIOLET
wine.’ =F. vinaigre, ‘ vineger;’ (οί. -- Ἐς vin, wine; and AF, egre,
F. aigre, sharp, sour; see Vine or Wine, and Eager.
VINEWED, mouldy. (E.) In mod. edd. of Shak. Troil. ii. 1.
15, we generally find vinewed’st, where the folios have whinia’st.
Minshen, ed. 1627, has finewed, as equivalent to ‘ mustie ;’ and also
the sb. vinewedness ; and see vinewed, finewed, fenowed in Nares. Cf.
prov. E. vinewed (West), Halliwell. The form fizewed answers to the
pp- of AS. jinegian, fynegian, to become mouldy or musty, occurring
in the Canons of AElfric, § 36; in Thorpe, Ancient Laws, ii. 360, 1. 7.
It is a verb formed from an adj. finig or fynig, mouldy, occurring in
the same passage. We also find the pl. jinie (for finige) in Josh. ix. 5,
where it is used of mouldy loaves. The true form is fyxig (with y,
mutation of 7); the adj. is from the sb. fyze, mouldiness, Voc.
183.19. From a Teut. base */un-; allied to Du. vuns, rank, ME.
vunstigh, ‘ mustie (as hay);’ Hexham. Cf. Foul.
VINTAGE, the gathering or produce of grapes, time of grape-
gathering. (F.—L.) ‘Tyll they had inned [gathered in] all their
corne and vyntage;’ Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol. ii. c. 22 (R.).
Vintage is for ME. vindage, Wyclif, Levit. xxv. 5, or vendage,
P. Plowman, B. xviii. 367, which was also pronounced as ventage, as
shown by the various readings in P. Plowman, C. xxi. 414. And
again, ME. vendage is for vendange, the unfamiliar ending -ange
being turned into the common suffix -age; it is clear that the word
was confused with vint-ner, vint-ry; see Vintner.—AF. ven-
denge, Statutes of the Realm, i. 331 (1353); F. vendange (MF.
vendenge in Cotgraye), ‘a vintage;’ Cot.—L. uwindémia, a vintage.
-L. uin-um, (1) wine, (2) grapes; and dém-ere, to take away;
so that win-démia =a taking away of grapes, grape-gathering.
B. For L. winum, see Vine, Wine. The 1,. démere is for *dé-imere,
to take away ; from dé, prep., off, away, and emere, to take: see De-
and Redeem.
VINTNER, a wine-dealer, tavern-keeper. (F.—L.) ‘ Vynte-
nere, Vinarius;’ Prompt. Pary. Thus vintner is short for vintener ;
and again, vintener is an altered form of vineter or viniter, which is
the older form. It occurs, spelt viniter, in Rob. of Glouc., p. 542,
1, 11226, in a passage where we also find viniterie, now shortened to
vintry, and occurring as the name of a house in London (Stow,
Survey of London, ed. Thoms, p. 90).—AF. vineter, Bozon, p. 19 ;
MF. vinetier, ‘a vintner, taverner, wine-seller;’ Cot.—Late L.
vinétarius, a wine-seller (occurring A.D. 1226). Really derived
from L, uinétum, a vine-yard, but used with the sense of L. utnarius,
a wine-seller. —L. uinuwm, grapes, wine; see Vine and Wine.
VIOL, a kind of fiddle, a musical instrument. (F.—Prov.—Late L.)
In Shak. Rich. II, i. 3. 162.—MF. viole (also violle), a (musical)
violl, or violin 3’ Cot.— Prov. viula,a viol; see Bartsch. Cf. Ital.,
Span., and Port. viola (Diez). Diez takes the Prov. uiula (a tri-
syllabic word) to be the oldest form, derived from Late L. vitula,
vidula, a viol, which was first transposed into the form *viudla (cf.
Proy. veuza from L, uidua, teune from L. tenuis), and then became
*viulla, viula, viola, “ Vidulatores dicuntur a vidula, Gallice, viele ;’
John de Garlande, in Wright’s Voc. i. 137, 1. 4 from bottom. The
AS. fidel, OHG. jidula, ἘΝ. fiddle appear to be the same as Late L.
vitula, vidula; see Fiddle, which may be a doublet. [The i in
vitula was short (Ducange); connexion with L. wituldrz, to rejoice,
is doubtful.] Der. viol-in, Spenser, Shep. Kal. April, 1. 103, from
Ital. violino, dimin. of viola, a viol; vtol-in-ist, a player on the
violin ; viol-on-cell-o, a bass violin, from Ital. violoncello, dimin. of
violone, a bass-viol, augmentative form of viola, Also bass-viol,
Comedy of Errors, iv. 3. 22. Doublet, fiddle.
VIOLATE, to injure, abuse, profane, ravish. (L.) In Shak.
L.L.L.i. 1. 21.—L. uiolitus, pp. of uiolare, to violate. Orig. ‘to
treat with force;’ formed as if from an adj. *uiolus, due to xi-s,
force. B. Allied to Gk. is, strength, force; cf. Skt. vayas, youth.
See Brugmann,i. ὃ 91. Der. violat-or, from L. wiolator; viola-ble,
from L. wiolabilis; violat-ion, from Y’. violation, ‘a violation,’ Cot.,
from L. acc. uiolatidnem. Also viol-ent, q.v.; (from the same root)
per-vi-cac-i-ous.
VIOLENT, vehement, outrageous, very forcible. (F.—L.) In
Chaucer, C. T. 12801 (C 867).—F. violent, ‘violent, Cot.—L.
utolentus, violent, full of might. Formed with suffix -en‘ws from an
adjectival form *ziolus, due to xis, strength; see above. Der.
violent-ly; violence, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 16376 (G 908), from F. violence,
‘violence,’ Cot., from L. sb. wiolentia.
VIOLET, a flower; a light purple colour. (F.—L.) ME. violet,
vyolet, Prompt Parv.; Trevisa, i. 261. ‘Tunicam de vyolet;? York
Wills, i. 23 (1346). —MF. violet, m., also violette, fem., ‘a violet ;
also, violet-colour;’? Cot. Dimin. of MF. viole, ‘a gilliflower,’
Cot.; it must also have meant a violet.—L. wo/a, a violet. Formed
with dimin. suffix -Ja from a base wio-, cognate with Gk. ἴο-, base of
ἴον (for *Fiov), a violet. See Iodine. Der. violet, adj., violet-
coloured.
VIOLIN, VIOLONCELLO
VIOLIN, VIOLONCELLO; see under Viol.
VIPER, a poisonous snake. (.—L.) In Levins, ed. 1570.—F.
vipére, ‘the serpent called a viper;’ Cot.—L. uipera, a viper.
Usually explained as the serpent ‘that produces living young ;’
Buffon says that the viper differs from most other serpents in being
much slower, as also in excluding its young completely formed, and
bringing them forth alive. As if uipera were short for uiuipara, fem.
of wiutparus, producing live young ; see Viviparous. B. Walde
prefers a derivation from the 4/WEIP, to wind round, as in Goth.
biwaibjan, to wind round; from the viper’s coils. Der. viper-ous,
Cor. ili. 1. 287 ; viper-ine, Blount, from L. uiperinus, adj. Doublet,
wyvern.
VIRAGO, a bold, impudent, manlike woman. (L.) In Stany-
hurst, tr. of Virgil, Ain. b. i, ed. Arber, p. 34,1. 2. ‘ This [woman]
schal be clepid virago,’ Wyclif, Gen, il. 23.—L. uirago, a manlike
maiden, female warrior; extended from wir, a man. See Virile.
VIRELAY, an old French form of poem, running on two
times. (F.) Chaucer has: ‘roundels, virelayes;’ C. T., F 948
(Frank. Ta. 220).—OF. virelai, MF. virelay, ‘a virelay, round,
freemans song;’ Cot.—OF. virer, to turn, change the direction of
(see Veer); and OF. Jai, a lay, song (see Lay).
VIRGATE, an (old) measure of land. (L.) Also formerly
called a yardland ; see Blount, who says:—‘ This Yardland, Bracton
(ib, 2. cap. 10 and 27) calls virgatam terre; but expresseth no
certainty what it contains. It is called a verge of land, anno 28
Edw. 1. “Ταῖς L. virgata, a fem. pp. form, from L. uirga, a rod.
See Verge (1).
VIRGIN, a maiden. (F.—L.) In early use; the pl. virgines
occurs in St. Katharine, |. 2342. —OF. virgine (Burguy). = L. wirginem,
acc. of wirgo, a virgin. Root uncertain (not allied to wir, a man, or
uirére, to flourish, as the base is wirg-, not uir-), Der. virgin-i-ty,
ME. uirginitee, Chaucer, C. T. 5657 (Ὁ 75), from F. virginité,
‘virginity,’ Cot., from L. acc. virginititem. Also virgin-al, spelt
virginall in Levins, ed, 15370; an old musical instrument, also
named the virginals, or a pair [set] of virginals, and so called because
played upon by virgins (Blount, Nares); cf. ME. virginal, adj.,
Hoccleve, Reg. Princes, 3584; from F. virginal, " belonging to a
virgin,’ Cot., from L. adj. wirgindlis. Also Virgo (L. uirgo), the
Virgin, a zodiacal sign.
VIRIDITY, greenness. (L.) Little used; in Blount’s Gloss., ed.
1674, and added to Johnson’s Dict. by Todd, who gives an example
from Evelyn. Englished from L. wiriditas, greenness. —L. uiridis,
green. See Verdant.
VIRILE, male, masculine, manly. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave. =F.
viril, ‘virile, manly ;᾿ Cot.=—L. wirilis, manly.—L. wir, a man, a
hero. W. gwr, Olrish fer, Irish fear, a man; Goth. wair, a man;
AS. wer; Icel. verr; OHG. wer. See Werwolf. Further allied
to Skt. vira-s, sb., a hero; adj., strong, heroic; Zend vira, a hero
(Fick, i. 786). Der. viril-i-ty (Blount), from Εἰ, virilite, ‘ virility,’
Cot., from L. acc. wirilitatem, manhood. Also (from L. wir) vir-ago,
q.V., vir-tue, q.v.; decem-vir, trium-vir.
TUE, excellence, worth, efficacy. (F.—L.) ME, vertu,
Ancren Riwle, p. 340, 1. 9. -- Ἐς vertu, ‘vertue, goodnesse;’ Cot.—
L. uirtitem, acc. of uirtis, manly excellence. L. wir, a man; see
Virile. The spelling has been changed from vertu to virtue to
bring it nearer to Latin. Der. virtu-ous, ME, vertuous, Chaucer,
C. T. 251, from F. vertuéux, ‘ vertuous,’ Cot., from Late L. uirtudsus,
full of virtue (Ducange) ; virtu-ous-ly; virtu-al, having effect, in Bp.
Taylor, Dissuasive from Popery, § 3 (R.), from F. wrtuel (Littré),
as if from a L. form *uirtudlis; virtu-al-ly. Also virtu, a love of the
fine arts, a late word, borrowed from Ital. virtu (also vert), shortened
form of virtute, virtue, excellence, used in the particular sense of
learning or excellence in a love of the fine arts, from L, acc. uirti-
tem; whence virtu-os-o, Evelyn’s Diary, Feb. 27, 1644, from Ital.
virtuoso, lit. virtuous, learned, esp. a person skilled in the fine arts.
VIRULENT, very active in injuring, spiteful, bitter in animosity.
(F.—L.) Lit. poisonous. ‘ The seed of dragon is hot and biting,
and besides of a virulent and stinking smell;’ Holland, tr. of Pliny,
b. xxiv. c. 16. ME, virulent, Lanfrank, Cirurgie, p. 80.—F. virulent,
omitted by Cotgrave, but in use in the 16th century (Littré) ; and
prob. much earlier.—L. wirwentus, poisonous, virulent.—L. uiru-,
for uirus, slime, poison; with suffix -lentus.4+Gk. ids (for Fads),
poison; Skt. visha-m, poison, Allied to Irish 7, poison, W. gwy,
fluid; and to E. Wizen. Der. virulent-ly; virulence, from F.
virulence, ‘stench, ranknesse, poison,’ Cot., from L, wirulentia. The
sb. virus, borrowed immediately from Latin, is now also in use.
VISAGE, the face, mien, look. (F.—L.} ME. visage, King
Alisaunder, 7652.—F. visage, ‘the visage, face, look ;’ Cot. Formed
with suffix -age (<L. -aticum) from MF. vis, ‘ the visage, face,’ Cot.
=L. wisum, acc. of uisus, the vision, sight; whence the sense was
transferred to that of ‘look’ or mien, and finally to that of ‘face τ᾿
VISOR, VIZOR, VISARD, VIZARD 698
perhaps (as Scheler suggests) under the influence of G. gesicht, the
face, lit. the sight.=L. wisus, pp. of uidére, to see; see Vision,
Der. visag-ed, as in tripe-visaged, 2 Hen. IV, v. 4. 9.
VISARD, the same as Visor, q.v.
VIS-A-VIS, in a position (that is) face to face, (F.—L.) F.
vis ἃ vis, ‘face to face, directly opposite ;’ Cot. The F. vis repre-
sents the L. acc. uisum; see Visage. The F. ἃ is from L. ad, to,
towards.
VISCACHA, VIZCACHA, a South-American rodent mam-
mal, (Span.—Peruv.) Span. viscacha, vizcacha, ‘a creature like a
hare ;’ Pineda. = Peruy. viskacha, ‘ conejo de la tierra ;’ Peruy. Dict.
VISCERA, the entrails. (L.) A medical term.=L. wiscera, neut,
pl., the entrails; from nom, sing. wiscus. Perhaps allied to L. uiére,
to twist together. Der. viscer-al (Blount), e-viscer-ate.
VISCID, sticky, clammy. (F.—L.) ‘ Viscid, or Viscous, clammy,
fast as glue ;’ Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674. =F, viscide, ‘clammy,’ Cot.
“Το uiscidus, clammy, like birdlime. = L. uiscum, the mistletoe, also
birdlime.4-Gk. igds, ἰξία, mistletoe, the mistletoe-berry, from which
birdlime was made. Der. viscid-i-ty, from F. viscidité, ‘ visciditie,’
Cot. So also visc-ous, Lanfrank, Cirurgie, p. 178, from L. siscdsus,
clammy ; visc-os-i-ty, from F. viscosité, ‘ viscositie,’ Cot.
VISCOUNT, a title; an officer who formerly supplied the place
of a count or earl. (F.—L.) The s (in the E. word) is not pro-
nounced ; the usual E. spelling was formerly vicounte (pronounced
with 7 as in F., whence the mod. E, vicount, pronounced with i as in
modern E.); spelt vicounte in Fabyan, Chron. ο. 245. But we also
find AF, visconte, a sheriff, Stat. Realm, i. 28 (1275). - Εἰς, vicomte,
‘a vicount, was at the first the deputy or lieutenant of an earle,’ &c.,
Cot.; OF. viscomte (12th cent.).—L. uice, in place of; comitem, acc.
of comes, count. In the 12th century the word was spelt visconte
(Littré), a traditional spelling which we still retain, though the 5 was
early lost in F’., and ceased to be sounded in E. The prefix was also
written vice, as in MF, vice-admirall, ‘a viceadmirall,’ vice-conte, ‘a
vicount,’ Cot.; Roquefort notes the OF. vis-admiral, a vice-admiral.
See Vicegerent and Count (1). Der. viscount-ess, from OF, vis-,
prefix, ‘ vice-,’ and Countess.
VISKH, another spelling (chiefly American) of Vice (2), q. v.
VISE, an endorsement made upon a pass-port. (F.—L.) Modern.
-F. visé, i.e. ‘examined,’ pp. of viser, to view, inspect. Late L.
*visare, used for L. uisere, to behold; from uidére (pp. wisus), to see ;
see Visit. @ The true F. word is visa, sb.
VISIBLE, that can be seen. (F.—L.) Spelt vysyblein Palsgrave.
F, visible, ‘visible ;? Cot. —L. wisibilis, that may be seen. —L. uisus,
pp. of uidére, to see. See Vision,
VISIER, the same as Vizier, 4.
VISIGOTH, one of the West Mths, (Late L.—Teut.) The
Goths were divided into Ostro-Goths and Visi-Goths, i.e. Eastern
and Western Goths. See Gibbon, Roman Empire, cap. 36.— Late L.
Visigothi or Visigothe, pl., the Visigoths. Of Teut. origin; from
Teut. west, West; and Teut. *Gutds or *Gutans, pl.; only found in
Gothic in the comp. Gut-thiuda, the Gothic people.
VISION, sight, a sight, dream. (F,—L.) ME. visioun, visiun,
Cursor Mundi, 4454.—F. vision, ‘a vision, sight ;’ Cot. = L. uisionem,
acc. of uisio, sight; cf. uisus, pp. of uidére, to see.4-Gk. id-ety (for
fidetv), to see, infin. of εἶδον, I saw,a 2nd aorist form ; whence perf.
τ. οἶδα (I have seen), I know (=E. wot).+4Skt. vid, to know; Goth.
witan, to know; AS. witan. B. All from 4/WEID, to see, know;
see Wit, verb. Der. vision-ar-y, adj., Dryden, Tyrannick Love, Act
i.sc. I (R.), a coined word ; also vision-ar-y, sb., one who sees visions,
or forms impracticable schemes. Also (like L. wisus) vis-age, q. v.,
vis-ible, q. V., vis-or, q. V., vis-it, ας V-, vis-ta, q. V., vis-u-al, q. ¥.5 also
ad-vice, ad-vise, de-vice, de-vise, im-pro-vise, pre-vis-ion, pro-vis-ion, pro-
vis-0, pro-vis-or ,re-vise, super-vise, Also (from L. uidére), en-vy, e-vid-
ence, in-vid-i-ous, juris-pr-ud-ence, pro-vide, pro-vid-ent, pr-ud-ent, pur-
vey, re-view, sur-vey, vide-licet, view. And see veda,
VISIT, to go to see or inspect, call upon. (F.—L.) ME. visiten,
Ancren Riwle, p. 154, 1. 8.—F. visiter, ‘to visit, or go to see ;’ Cot.
=-L. uisitare, to go to see, visit; frequentative of uisere, to behold,
survey, intensive form of uidére (pp. uisus), to see; see Vision.
Der. visit, sb. ; visit-at-ion, from F, visitation, ‘a visitation, visiting.’
Cot., from L. acc. uisitationem; visit-ant, Milton, P. L. xi. 225, from
P. wisitant-, stem of pres. part. of uisitare; visit-or, Timon, 1. 1. 42
(for visitour), from F, vistteur, ‘a visitor, searcher, overseer,’ Cot.,
the true L. word being uisitator ;_ visit-or-i-al.
VISOR, VIZOR, VISARD, VIZARD, a mask, part of a
helmet. (F.—L.) In the forms visard, vizard, the final d is excre-
scent and unoriginal. It is variously spelt in Shak. Romeo, i. 4. 30,
L.L.L. v. 2. 242, Macb. iii. 2. 34, &c. ME. visere; ‘ Vysere, larva,’
Prompt. Parv. AF. visere (A. Neckam), in Wright, Vocab. i. 113;
MEF. visiere, ‘ the viser, or sight of a helmet;’ Cot. Formed from
F. vis, the face; and so called from its protecting the face. In the
694 VISTA
same way, the vizard was named from its covering the face ; cf. faux
visage, ‘a maske, or vizard,’ Cot.; lit. a false face. L. wisum, acc.
of uisus, the sight; see further under Vision. Der. visor-ed; spelt
vizard-ed, Merry Wives, iv. 6. 40.
VISTA, a view or prospect, seen as through an avenue of trees.
(Ital.—L.)- In Pope, Moral Essays, iv. 93. - Ital. vista, ‘the sence
of sight, seeing, a looke, a prospect, a view;’ Florio, =Ital. vista,
fem. of visto, seen, one of the forms of the pp. of vedere, to see; the
other form being veduto. = τ. uidére, to see; see Vision,
VISUAL, used in sight or for seeing. (F.—L.) ‘ Visual, belong-
ing to, or carried by the sight; extending as far as the eye can carry
it;’? Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—F. visual, ‘visuall,) Cot.—L.
uisualis, belonging to the sight.—L. wisu-, for uisus, the sight; with
suffix -Glis.—L. uisus, pp. of widére, to see; see Vision.
VITAL, containing life, essential. (f.—L.) ME. vital, Chaucer,
C. T..2804 (A 2802). —F. vital, ‘vitall;’ Cot.—L. uitdlis, belonging
to life.—=L. wita, life. Allied to uiuere, to live; cf. Bios, life.—
oy GwEI, to live; see Victuals. Der. vital-ly; vital-i-ty, in Blount,
Englished from L. uitalitas, vital force; vitalise, to give life to, a
coined word. Also vital-s, parts essential to life, coined in imitation
of L. uitalia, parts essential to life, neut. pl. of witalis, vital.
VITIATE, see under Vice.
VITREOUS, pertaining to glass, glasslike. (L.) In Ray, On the
Creation, pt. ii. § 11, where he speaks of ‘the vitreous humor’ of the
eye (R.).. Englished (by change of -us to -ous, as in arduous, &c.)
from L. witreus (also uitrius), glassy.—L. uitri-, for witrum, glass.
B. The i of uitrum is short in Horace (Odes, iii. 13. 1), but may
have been orig. long, as in Propertius, iv. 8.37 ; and ui-t-um may be
for *uid-trum, i.e. an instrument or material for seeing with. —L.
uidére, tosee; see Vision. (But thisis doubtful). Der. vitri-fy, from
Ἐς vitrifier, ‘to turn or make into glasse,’ formed as if from a L. verb
*uitrificare ; hence also vitrific-at-ed, Bacon, New Atlantis, ed. 1631,
P- 343 vitrific-at-ion, Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, b. ii, c. 5, pt. 2;
vitrifi-able ; also vitri-ol, q.v.
VITRIOL, the popular name of sulphuric acid. (F.—L.) ME.
uitriole, Chaucer, C. T. 16276 (ἃ 808).—F. vitriol, ‘vitriol,
copperose ;᾿ Cot. Cf. MItal. vitriolo, ‘ vitrioll or coperasse,’ Florio.
Said to be so called from its glassy look,—Late L. *uitriolus,
answering to L. uitreolus, glassy, made of glass.—L. witreus, glassy.
= L. uitrum, glass; see Vitreous. q It is not improbable that
vitriol was supposed to be made from glass; from the popular belief
that glass was poisonous ; see Sir T. Browne, Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. ii. c. 5.
Der. vitriol-ic.
VITUPERATION, blame, censure, abuse. (F.—L.) Spelt
vituperacyon in The Boke of ‘ulle of Old Age, c. 8 (Caxton) ; cited
in the Appendix to Richardson’s Dict. Also in Cotgrave.—F. vitu-
peration, ‘a vituperation, or dispraising ;’ Cot. Cf. L. uituperatus, pp.
of uituperare, to censure, abuse. ‘The orig. sense is ‘to get ready a
blemish,’ i.e. to find fault.—L. witu-, for witi-, base of uitium, a vice,
fault, blemish ; and pardre, to get ready, furnish, provide. See Vice
and Parade. Der. vituperaie (from L. pp. uituperatus), used by
Cot. to translate MF. vituperer ; vituperat-ive, -ly.
VIVACITY, liveliness. (F.—L.) In Cotgrave.. Also formerly
used to mean ‘ longevity; see Trench, Select Glossary.—F. vivacité,
‘vivacity, liveliness ;’ Cot.— L. uiudacititem, acc. of uiudcitds, natural
vigour.—L. uiudici-, decl. stem of wivax, tenacious of life, vigorous.
—L. uiuus, lively; see Vivid. Der. (from L. wiudei-), vivaci-ous,
-ly, -ness.
VIVANDIERE, a sutler, a woman attached to French and
other continental regiments, who sells provisions and liquor. (F.—
L.) F. vivandiére, fem. form of vivandier, ‘a victualler, sutler;” Cot.
=L. uiuenda, viands, provisions ; see Viands.
VIVID, life-like, having the appearance of life, very clear to
the imagination. (L.) In Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—L. uiuidus,
animated, true to life, lively. —L. wiuus, living; allied to uiuvere, to
live; see Victuals, and Quick. Cf. Skt. jiva-, living; Lith.
gywas, living; Russ. jivoi, Der. vivid-ly, -ness.
VIVIF'Y, to quicken, endue with life. (F.—L.) Bacon has
vivifie and vivification, Nat. Hist. § 696.—F. vivifier, ‘to quicken ;’
Cot.—L. uiuificare, to vivify, make alive.—L. uiui-, for uiuus, living ;
and -ficare, for facere, to. make; see Vivid and Fact. Der.
vivific-at-ion.
VIVIPAROUS, producing. young alive. (L.). In Sir T.
Browne, Vulg. Errors, Ὁ. iii. c. 21, part 2. Englished from L. uiui-
parus, producing living young. = L. wiui-, for wiuus, alive; and parere,
to produce, bring forth. See Vivid or Victuals, and Parent.
VIVISECTION, dissection of a living animal. (L.) Modern.
From vivi-, as seen in Viviparous ; and Section.
ἽΝ, a she-fox, an ill-tempered woman. (E.) Vixen is the
same as fixer, occurring’as a proper name (spelt Fixsen’) in the Clergy
List, 1873. Spelt vixen, Mids. Nt, Dr. iii, 2. 324. That. false
VOID
jixen;’ Gammer Gurton, A. iii. sc. 2. Halliwell quotes ME. jixene
fox, i.e. vixen-fox, from MS. Bodley 546. Cf. AS. jixenhyd, vixen
hide, AS. Leechdoms, i. 342 ; fyxan dic, Kemble, Cod. Dipl. ii. 20,
1. το It is the fem. form of fox ; and by the ordinary laws of vowel-
change, the AS. fem. form is/yx-en; cf. AS. gyd-en,a goddess, from god,
a god. From the Teut. type */uhs-in-ja, fem. ; ef. Teut. type *fuhs-,
a fox; see Fox. The Southern E. form vox for fox is common, as
in Ancren Riwle, p. 128, 1. 5 ; so also vane for fane, and vat for fat.
+. fichsin, fem. of fuchs, a fox; similarly formed. The fem. suffix
occurs again in G. kéniginn, a queen, &c. Cf. L.rég-ina, Faust-ina, &c.
VIZ., an abbreviation for Videlicet, q. v.
VIZARD, a mask; see Vizor.
VIZIER, VISIER, an oriental minister or councillor of state.
(Arab.) ‘The Gran Visiar ;? Howell, Foreign Travel, Appendix;
ed, Arber, p. 85. Arab. wazir, ‘a vazir, counsellor of state, minister,
a vicegerent, or lieutenant of a king; also, a porter;’ Rich. Dict.
p- 1642. The sense of ‘ porter’ is the orig. one ; hence it meant, the
bearer of the burden of state affairs. — Arab. root wazara, to bear a
burden, support, sustain; id. p. 1641. Doublet, al-guazil, q. v.
VOCABLE, a term, word. (¥.—L.) ‘This worde aungell is a
vocable or worde sygnifyinge a minyster ;’ Udall, on Hebrews, c. 1;
fol. 206, back.—F. vocable, ‘a word, a tearm ;” Cot.=—L. uocabulum,
an appellation, designation, name.—L, woci-re, to call; allied to
μῦν, voice; see Voice. Der. vocabul-ar-y, from Ἐς, vocabulaire, ‘a
vocabulary, dictionary, world of words,’ Cot., from Late L. wocabu-
larium,
VOCAL, belonging to the voice, uttering sound. (F.—L.)
‘ They'll sing like Memnon’s statue, and be vocal;’ Ben Jonson,
Staple of News, Act iii. sc. 1 (Lickfinger).—F. vocal, ‘ vocall;’ Cot.
= L. uécilis, sonorous, vocal. L. udc-, stem of udx, the voice; see
Voice. Der. vocal-ise, from F. vocaliser; Cotgrave has vocalizé,
“vowelled, made a yowel ;’ vocal-is-at-ion, vocal-ist ; vowel.
VOCATION, a calling, occupation. (F.—L.) In Levins, ed.
1570.— Εἰ vocation, ‘a vocation,’ Cot, L. wocationem, acc. of uocatio,
a bidding, invitation; cf. wocdtus, pp. of uocare, to call, bid ; see
Vocable. Der. vocat-ive, Merry Wives, iv. 1. 53, lit. the calling
case, from L. uocatiuus, the vocative case.
VOCIFERATION, a loud calling, noisy outcry. (F.—L.)
‘Of Vociferation;’ Sir T. Elyot, Castel of Helth, Ὁ. ii. c. 35 (mis-
printed 25 in ed. 1561). — MF. vociferation, “ vociferation ; ’ Cot.—L.
udciferationem, acc. of udciferitio, a loud outcry; cf. wdciferaitus, pp.
of udciferadre, commonly udciferar7, to lift up the voice ; lit. ‘to bear
the voice afar,’=L. uéci-, for xox, the voice ; and fer-re, to bear, cog-
nate with E. Bear. See Voice. Der. vociferate, from L. pp.
nociferatus ; vocifer-ous, -ly,
VODKA, a Russian strong liquor. (Russ.) Russ. vodka, brandy ;
a dimin. of voda, water, which is cognate with Ἐς water; see Water.
VOGUE, mode, fashion, practice. (F.—Ital.—Teut.) We now
say to be iz vogue, i.e. in fashion. Formerly vogue meant sway,
currency, prevalent use, power, or authority, ‘The predominant
constellations, which have the vogue ;’ Howell, Foreign Travel, sect.
6, ed. Arber, p. 34. ‘Considering these sermons bore so great a vogwe
among the papists ;’ Strype, Eccl. Mem., 1 Mary, an. 1553.—F. vogue,
‘vogue, sway, swindge, authority, power; a cleer passage, as of a
ship in a broad:sea 3’ Cot. B. The orig. sense is ‘ the swaying
motion of a ship,’ hence its sway, swing, drift, or course; or else the
sway or stroke ofan oar. It is the vetbal sb. of F. voguer, ‘ to saile
forth, set saile;’ Cot.—Ital. voga, ‘ the stroke of an oare in the water
when one roweth,’ Florio; verbal sb. of vogare, ‘to rowe in a gallie
or any bote,’id. (So also Span. boga, the act of rowing; estar en
boga, to be in vogue.) Of Teut. origin. —G. wogen, to fluctuate, be in
motion; MHG. wagen.—MHG. wag, OHG. wic, a wave (G. woge).
ἜΛΘ. weg, Goth. wegs,a wave; Teut. type *wagoz, m. ; from *wéeg,
3rd stem of Teut. *wegan, to move. See Weigh. q Thus the
idea of vogue goes back to that of ‘movement,’ as exhibited in the
‘wave’ or swaying of the sea,
VOICE, sound from the mouth, utterance, language. (F.—L.)
The spelling with ce (for s) is adopted to keep the hard sound of s.
ME, vois, voys, King Alisaunder, 3864.—OF. vois (Burguy), later
voix, £a voice, sound;’ Cot.—L. wdcem, acc. of udx, a voice.
ἍΜ WEQ, to resound, speak; cf. Skt. vakya-m, speech, also vacha-s,
speech, cognate with Gk, ἔπος, a word. Brugmann, i. § 678. Der.
voice, verb, Timon, iv. 3. 81; voice-less. From L. wox (stem wdc-)
or from L, uocare (stem woc-) we also have voc-al, voc-able, voc-at-ion,
voci-fer-at-ion, ad-voc-ate, a-voc-at-ion, ad-vow-son, a-vouch, con-voc-at~
ion, con-voke, equi-voc-al, e-voke, in-voc-ate, in-voke, ir-re-voc-able, prox
voke, re-voke, uni-voc-al, vouch, vouch-safe, vow-el. And see ep-ic.
VOID, empty, unoccupied, unsubstantial. (F.—L.) ME. voide,
Chaucer, tr. of Boethius, b. 11. pr. 5,1. 127.—OF. voide (Burguy),
ΜΈΝ vide, ‘ void, empty,’ Cot. Mod. F. wde. The OF. voide isa
fem, form; masc. void, vuit, Due to a supposed Romance *voc-i-tusy
VOLANT
related to L. wac-uus, empty, void. Korting, § 10280. Der. void,
verb, ME. voiden, to empty, King Alisaunder, 373, from OF. voider,
MF. vuider, ‘to void, Cot. Also void-able, void-ance (cf. MF. uutdange,
“a voidnesse,’ Cot.) ; void-ness 3 a-void.
VOLANT, flying, nimble. (F.—L.) Rare. ‘In manner of a
star volan¢ in the air ;’ Holland, tr. of Plutarch, p. 525 (R.).—F.
volant, pres. part. of voler, ‘ to flye,’ Cot.—L.uoldre, to fly. Formed
from the adj. *wolus, flying, occurring only in véli-nolus, flying on sails,
Allied to Skt. garut, a wing, garuga-, a mythical bird ; Brugmann,
i. § 663. Der. vol-at-ile, Ben Jonson, Alchemist, Act ii. sc. 1
(Subtle), from Εἰ. volatil, ‘flying,’ Cot., from L. woldtilis, flying,
from uoldtus, flight, which from uolatus, pp. of uolare. Hence
volatile-ness, volatil-t-ty, volatil-ise, volatil-is-at-ion, Also volley, q. v.
VOLAPUK, a kind of world-speech. (E.) An artificial lan-
guage for international speech, invented about 1879 by J. M.
Schleyer, of Constance, Baden. Properly written Volupiik. This
form was suggested by E. world (here turned into vola) and E. speak
or speech (here turned into pik),
VOLCANO, a burming monntain. (Ital.—L.)
volcano ;’ Skinner, ed. 1691. Spelt volcan, 7. Frampton, Joyfull
Newes, fol. 31 (1577). Borrowed from Italian, because the chief
burning mountain known to sailors was that of ἄπ πᾶ. Ital. volcano,
‘a hill that continually burneth ;’? Florio. =L. Volednum, Vulcanum,
acc. of Volcanus or Vulcanus, Vulcan, the god of fire, hence fire.
B. The true form is Volcanus (with 0). Allied to Skt. alka, a fire-
brand, fire falling from heaven, a meteor. Der. volcan-ic ; and see
vulcan-ise.
VOLE, a field-mouse. (Scand.) A word that reached us from the
Orkney Islands. A shortened form of vole-mouse ; see Jamieson, who
quotes from the Edin. Maga., July, 1819, p. 505 ; and from Barry’s
Orkney, p. 314 (ed. 1805), who says:—‘with us it has the name of
the vole-moyse.’ So also vole-mouse is given in Edmondston’s Shetland
and Orkney Words. Of Norse origin; from an unrecorded (prob.
colloquial) Norw. *vollmus, field-mouse; for the word is known in
Iceland in the colloquial form vallarmus (E.Magnusson). The former
element is the Norw. voll, Swed. vall, Icel. véllr,a plain, field ; which
is cognate with E. wold; see Wold. There are many compounds
with Norw. voll (and the like); cf. Norw. voll-gras, field-grass, voll-
héy, meadow-hay, Icel. vallar-gardr, a paddock-fence, vall-humall,
milfoil ; Swed. vall-hund, a shepherd’s dog; Swed. dial. vall-gés,
wild goose.
VOLITION, the exercise of the will. (F.—L.) ‘Consequent to
the mere internal volition ;’ Bp.. Taylor, Rule of Conscience, b. iv.
c. iim F. volition, found in the 16th century (Hatzfeld); we find
cognate terms in Span, volicion, Ital. volizione, volition. All these
answer to a Late L. volitidnem, acc. of *volitio, volition; a word
not recorded by Ducange, but prob. a term of the schools. It is a
pure coinage, from L. wol-o, I wish; of which the infinitive is welle ;
see Voluntary.
VOLLEY, a flight of shot, the discharge of many fire-arms at
once. (F.—L.) In Hamlet, y. 2. 363. See Nares.—F. volée, ‘a
flight, or flying, also a whole flight of birds;’ Cot. [Cf. Ital. volata,
a flight, volley.]}—L. wolata, orig. fem. of uolatus, pp. of uolare, to
fly; see Volant.
VOLT, a bound, a leap; the same as Vault (2), q. v.
VOLTAIC, originated by Volta. (Ital.) Applied to Voltaic
electricity, or galvanism ; the Voltaic pile or battery, first set up about
1800, was discovered by Alessandro Volta, of Como, an experimental
philosopher, born 1745, died March 6, 1826; see Haydn, Dict. of
Dates, and Hole, Brief Biograph. Dict. Der. (from Volta) volt, a
unit of electromotive force.
VOLUBLE, flowing smoothly, fluent in speech. (F.—L.) In
Shak. Comedy of Errors, ii. 1. 92. - F. voluble, ‘ voluble, easily rolled,
turned, or tumbled; hence, fickle, . . glib;’ Cot.—L. uolubilem,
acc. of wolaubilis, easily turned about ; formed with suffix -bilis from
uolu-, as seen in uoliitus, pp. of uoluere, to roll, turn about.-+-Goth.
walwjan, to roll; Gk. eiAvew, to roll; from a base *welu- (*woln-).
The shorter base WEL occurs in Lithuan. welti, to full, Russ.
valit(e), to roll, Skt. val, tomove to and fro; cf. AS. weallan, to boil,
Icel. valr, round, Gk. ἕλιξ, a spiral, ἐλ-ίσσειν, to turn round. See
Helix. Der. volubl-y, volubil-i-ty; also (from L. uoluere), vault (1),
vault (2), vol-ume, vol-ute, circum-volve, con-volv-ul-us, con-vol-ut-ion,
de-volve, e-volve, e-volu-t-ion, in-volve, in-volu-t-ion, in-vol-ute, re-volt,
re-volu-t-ion, re-volve. From the same root are valve, wale, helix.
VOLUME,\a roll, a book, tome. (F.—L.) ME. volume,
Chaucer, C. T. 6263 (Ὁ 681).—F. volume, ‘a volume, tome, book ;’
Cot.—L uoliimen, a roll, scroll; hence, a book written on a parch-
ment roll.—L. wolii-, a3-seen in uoli-tus, pp. of uoluere, to roll. See
Voluble. Der. volum-edsvolumin-ous, Milton, P. R, iv. 384, from
L. uoliiminédsus, full of rolls or-felds, from uolimin-, decl. stem of
uolumen ; volumin-ous-ly,
©A vulcano or
VOW 695
VOLUNTARY, willing, acting by choice. (F.—L,) Spelt
voluntarie in Levins, ed. 1570.+MF. voluntaire, also spelt volon-
taire, “voluntary, willing, free, of his,owne accorde;’ Cot.—L.
uoluntarius, voluntary.—L. uoluntds, free will. Formed, with suffix
-tas, from a present participial stem *solunt-,a variant of xolent-, from
uolens, willing, from wolo, I will; infin. welle.4-Lithuan. weliti, Goth.
wiljan; Skt. vy, to select, choose. Brugmann, ii. §§ 102, 493. See
Will. Der. yoluntari-ly, voluntari-ness ; also volunteer, Drayton,
Miseries of Qu. Margaret, st. 177, from I’. voluntaire (used as a sb.),
“a voluntary, one that serves without pay or compulsion,’ Cot.;
hence volunteer, verb. And see vol-up-tu-ous, vol-it-ion; bene-volent,
male-volent.
VOLUPTUOUS, sensual, given up to pleasure. (F.—L.)
ME. voluptuous, Chaucer, Troil. iv. 1573. [Gower has voluptuosite,
sb., C. A. iii. 280; bk. viii, 156.] =F. voluptuéux, ‘ voluptuous,’ Cot.
—L. uoluptudsus, full of pleasure.—L. uoluptu-, akin to uoluptas,
pleasure. = L. nolup, uolupe, adv., agreeably. L. wol-o, I wish; uelle,
to wish; see Voluntary. Cf. Gk. éAmis,hope. Der. voluptuous-ly,
-ness (Palsgrave) ; volup-tu-ar-y, from. L. uoluptuarius, uoluptarius,
devoted to pleasure. Hence prob. the vulgar goluptious.
VOLUTEH, a spiral scroll on a capital. (F.—L.) Spelt voluta in
Phillips, which is the L. form.—F. wolute, ‘the rolling shell of a
snail; also, the writhen circle that hangs over the chapter of a
pillar;” Cot.—L. zolita, a volute (Vitruvius). Orig. fem. of uoliilus,
pp. of uoluere, toroll; see Voluble. Der. volut-ed.
VOMIT, matter rejected by, and thrown up from the stomach.
(L.) ME. vomite, vomyte, sb.; Prompt. Pary. | Palsgrave has vomyt,
verb.=—L. uomitus, a vomiting, vomit; whence xomitare, to vomit
often. —L. womitus, pp. of uomere, to vomit.--Gk. ἐμεῖν, to vomit ;
Skt. vam, to vomit, spit out; Lithuan. wemti.—4/WEM,, to spit ont;
Fick, i. 769. Der. vomit, vb.; vomit-or-y, causing to vomit. And
see em-et-ic.
VORACITY, eagerness to devour. (.—L.) In Cotgrave. =F.
voracité, “voracity;’ Cot.—L. wordcititem, acc. of wordcitas, hungri-
ness. 1). uoraci-, decl. stem of worax, greedy to devour. = L. uor-dre,
to devour. — L. -vorus, adj., devouring; only in compounds, such as
carni-uorus, flesh-devouring. β, The L. -xorus stands for *guorus,
as shown by the allied Skt. -gara-, devouring, as seen in aja-gara-,
a boa constrictor, lit. ‘ goat-devouring,’ from aja-,a goat... Cf. also Gk.
Bopés; gluttonous, Bopa, meat, βιβρώσκειν, to devour.—4/GwER,
to swallow down. Brugmann, i. ὃ 653. Der. voraci-ous, from L.
uoraci-, decl. stem of worax, greedy to devour; voraci-ous-ly. From
the same root are gramint-vorous, carni-vorous, onini-vorous, &C., also
de-vour.
VORTEX, a whirlpool, whirlwind. (L.) In Phillips, ed. 1706.
=L. uortex (also uertex), a whirlpool, whirl, eddy. —L. wertere, to
turn, whirl; see Verse. The pl. is vortices, as in Latin.
VOTH, an ardent wish, the expression of a decided wish or
opinion, expressed decision. (L.) In Selden, Table-talk, Bishops in
the Parliament, § 4.—L. udtum,a wish; orig. a vow.=L. udtum,
neut. of udtus, pp. of uduere, to vow; see Vow. Der. vot-ive, from
L. udtinus, promised by a vow; votive-ly. Also vot-ar-y, a coined
word, L. L. L. ii. 37; vot-ar-ess, Pericles, iv. prol. 4; vot-ress, Mids.
Nt. Dr. ii. 1. 1233 vot-ar-ist, Timon, iv. 3. 27.
VOUCH, to warrant, attest, affirm strongly. (F.—L.) ME.
vouchen, Gower, C. A. ii. 243; bk. iv. 668.— ΜΈΝ voucher, ‘to vouch,
cite, pray in aid or call unto aid, inasuit,’ Cot. Marked by Cotgrave
as a Norman word; cf. Norm. dial. vocher, to call (Moisy).—L.
uocare, to call, call upon, summon. See Vocable. Der. vouch-er ;
vouch-safe, q. Vv.
VOUCHSAFE, to vouch or warrant safe, sanction or allow
without danger, condescend to grant. (F.—L.) Merely ἀπε το the
phr. vouch safe, i. e. vouch or warrant as safe, guarantee, grant. The
two words were run together into one. ME. vouwchen safe, or saue.
‘The kyng vouches it save; Rob. of Brunne, tt. of Langtoft, p. 260.
‘ Vowche sauf pat hissone hire wedde;’ Will. of Palerne, 1449; ‘ sauf
wol I fouche,’ id. 4152. See Vouch and Safe.
VOUSSOIR, a stone forming part of anarch, the key-stone being
the central one. (F.—L.):. Εἰ, voussoir, OF. volsoir, a stone for an
arch (Godefroy). — Late L. type *volsdrium ; from *volsum, equivalent
to L. uolitum, neut. pp. of woluere, to roll. See Volute.
VOW, a solemn promise. (F.—L.) ME. vow, vox; pl. vowes,
P. Plowman, B. prol. 71. [The ME. avow is commoner; it is a
compound word, with prefix a- (<L. ad), but is frequently mis-
printed a vow; Tyrwhitt rightly has ‘min avow,’ Chaucer, C. T.
2239 (A 2237); ‘this avow,’ id. 2416 (A 2414).]—OF. vow, vo, vex
(mod. F. vez), a vow. =L. udtum, a vow, lit. ‘a thing vowed ;’
neut. of udtus, pp. of uduere, to promise, to vow. (N.B. Another
avow answers to F. avouer, L. aduocare, and is a doublet of avauch.)
Der. vow, verb, ME. vowen, Prompt. Pary, Also (from L. wotum),
vole, αν.
696 VOWEL
VOWEL, a simple vocal sound ; the letter representing it. (F.—
L.) Spelt vowell in Levins, ed. 1570; and in Palsgrave, Ὁ. i. c. 2.—
OF. vowel, voiel; F. voyelle, ‘a vowell;’ Cot.—L. udcalem, acc. of
udcalis (sc. littera), a vowel. Fem. of wdcalis, adj. sounding, vocal.
—L. udc-, stem of udx, a voice; see Vocal, Voice.
VOYAGE, a journey, passage by water. (F.—L.) ME. viage,
Chaucer, C. T. 4679, 4720 (B 259, 300); veiage, Rob. of Glouc.
p- 200, 1. 4112. ‘The later form voyage (as in Caxton, Siege of Troy,
fol. 120) answers to the 15th cent. spelling of the Ἐς word.—AF.
veiage; OF. voiage, later voyage, ‘ voyage ;’ Cot.—L. uidticum, pro-
visions for a journey, money or other requisites for a journey ; whence
also Ital. viaggio, Span. viage, Prov. viatge; see Ducange.=—L.
uidticus, belonging to a journey.—L. μία, a way, journey. Der.
voyage, verb, from F. voyager, ‘to travell, goe a voyage,’ Cot. ;
voyag-er. Also (from L, μία), via-duct, and related words given
under Viaduct.
VULCANISE, to combine caoutchouc with sulphur, by heat.
(F.—L.) Modern ; F. vulcaniser (1878). Formed with suffix -ise (F.
-iser, from Gk. -ἰζειν) from L. Vulcdn-us, god of fire, hence fire ; see
Voleano. Der. vulcan-ite, vulcanised caoutchouc.
VULGAR, used by the common people, native, common, mean,
rude. (F.—L.) In Cor. i. 1. 219. —F. vulgaire, ‘vulgar, common ;’
Cot.<L. uulgaris, vulgar.—L. uulgus, the common people; also
spelt uolgus. The lit. sense is ‘a throng, a crowd ;’ allied to Skt.
varga-s, a troop; Olrish folc, abundance (Stokes); W. gwala, ful-
ness ; Bret. gwalch, repletion. Stokes-Fick, p, 286. Der. valgar,
sb., L. L.L. i. 2. 51, from F. vulgaire, sb., Cot. ; vulgar-ly, vulgar-ise,
vulgar-ism, vulgar-i-ty. Also vulg-ate, the E. name for the Latin
version of the Bible known as the Editio Vulgata (see publications of
the Parker Society, &c.); where ualgata is the fem. of uulgatus, pp.
of uulgare, to make public, to publish.
VULNERABLE, liable to injury. (L.) In Mach. ν. 8, 11.—
L. wulnerabilis, wounding, likely to injure ; but also (taken in the
pass. sense) vulnerable (in late Latin).—L. uulneraire, to wound. =
L. uulner-, stem of uulnus,a wound; OL. uolnus. Allied to uellere
(pt. τ. uzl-st), to pluck, pull, tear.4-Gk. οὐλή, ΝΥ. gweli, Corn. goly,
Skt. vrama-, a wound. Stokes-Fick, p. 285. Der. vulner-ar-y, from
Ἐς, vulneraire, ‘ yulnerary, healing wounds,’ Cot., from L. wzlnerarius,
suitable for wounds. And see vul-ture.
VULPINE, fox-like, cunning. (F.—L.) ‘The slyness of a
vulpine craft ;’ Feltham, pt. i. Res. 10. Blount, ed. 1674, has:
‘Vulpinate, to play the fox.’— MF. vulpin, ‘ fox-like.’ Cot. —L. uulp-
inus, fox-like.—L. uulp-, base of uulpes, a fox; with suffix -inus.
Allied to Wolf (see Darbishire, Reliquiz Philologice, p. 92).
VULTURE, a large bird of prey. (L.) In Mach. iv. 3. 74.
ME. vultur, Wyclif, Job, xxviii. 7, later version.—L. uultur, a
vulture ; OL. uolturus; lit. ‘a plucker’ or ‘tearer.’—L. wul- (uol-),
as seen in uul-si, pt. t. of uellere, to pluck ; with suffix -twr denoting
the agent. See Vulnerable. Der. vultur-ine, from L. uulturinus,
vulture-like.
Wana Vals.
WABBLE, WOBBLE, to reel, move unsteadily. (E.) ‘Wabble,
to vacillate, reel, waver;’ Brockett. A voiced form of *wapple,
equivalent to prov. E. wapper, ‘to move tremulously, Somerset ;’
Halliwell. Both wabble and wapper are frequentatives of wap in the
sense ‘to flutter, beat the wings’ (Halliwell), whence also wapping,
quaking, used by Batman, 1582 (id.). There are several verbs which
take the form wap, but the one now under consideration is properly
whap, a by-form of ME. guappen, to palpitate; see Quaver. Cf.
quabbe, a bog, quagmire (Halliwell). So also Low G. wabbeln or
quabbeln, to wabble ; EF ries. wabbeln, kwabbeln, to wabble ; Swed. dial.
vabbla, to move food to and fro in the mouth, which is given as
a sense of wobble inthe E.D.D. Cf. AS. wapol, foam. See Whap.
WACKE, a kind of soft rock, (G.) Modern; geological.—G.
wacke, ‘a sort of stone, consisting of quartz, sand, and mica ;’ Fliigel.
ΜΉ. wacke, OHG. waggo, a kind of flint.
WAD, a small bundle of stuff, a little mass of tow, &c. (Scand.)
Nares (ed. Halliwell) cites ‘a wadde of hay,’ a bundle of hay, from
the poet Taylor’s Works, 1630. ‘ Make it [lupines] into wads or
bottles ;” Holland, tr. of Pliny, Ὁ. xvii. c. 9; cf. the phrase ‘a bot¢le
of hay.’ —Swed. vadd, wadding ; MSwed. wad, clothing, cloth, stuff
(Ihre); Icel. vadr, stuff, only in the comp. vadmal, a plain woollen
stuff, wadmal; cf. MSwed. wadmal, Dan. vadmel. Cf. G. watte, wad-
ding, wad, a large fishing-net ; watten, to dress cloth, to wad; also wat,
cloth (Fliigel). Hence Dan, vat, F. ovate, wadding. β. The
WAFT
stuff called wadmal was formerly well known in England; in
Arnold’s Chronicle (repr. 1811), p. 236, we find, among imports,
notice of ‘ Rollys of wadmoll’ and ‘curse [coarse] wadmoll.’ ‘Pann’
grisei qui voca[n]tur wadmal ;’ (1326), Wardrobe Acc. 20 Edw. II.
26. 3. Q. R. Halliwell gives: ‘ Wadmal, a very thick coarse kind of
woollen cloth; coarse tow used by doctors for cattle is also so
called.’ It may be that our wad is nothing but a shortened form of
wadmal in the sense of coarse tow, or coarse stuff; it brings us, how-
ever, ultimately, to the same source. [The Icel, vadr properly means
‘a fishing-line,’ just as the G. watte means a fishing-net.] The Icel.
vadmal (from mal, a measure=E. meal (2)) is for vadmal; from
Icel. vad, 00, vod, a piece of stuff, cloth as it leaves the loom, which
is again allied to E. weed, a garment, as used in the phr. ‘a widow’s
weeds. Ὑ. From Teut. base *wéd, 3rd grade of Teut. root WED, asin
Goth. ga-widan, OHG. wetan, to bind together. This base accounts for
wad, stuff wound together<Icel. vad, stuff bound or woven together,
whilst the 2nd grade *wad accounts for G. waite, a fishing-net (because
twined together), and Icel.vadr,a fishing-line (becausetwisted together).
See further under Weed (2). δ. The Russ. vata, Ἐς ouate, wad-
ding, Span. huata, Ital. ovata, may be of Teut. origin, the last form
being due to an attempt to give it a sense from Ital. ovo, an egg.
It is quite unnecessary to suppose (as Diez, not very confidently,
suggests) that the whole set of words allied to wad are derived from
the L. duum, an egg. Der. wadd-ing ; wad-mal, as above. (The
prov. E. woadmel shows that the Olcel. form was vadmal.)
WADDLE, to walk with short steps and unwieldy gait. (E.) In
Shak. Romeo, i. 3. 37. The frequentative of Wade, q.v. Der.
waddl-er.
WADEKH, to walk slowly, esp. through water. (E.) ME. waden,
Chaucer, C. T. 9558 (E 1684). AS. wadan, pt. t. wid, to wade,
trudge, go; ‘wadan ofer wealdas,’ to trudge over the wolds, Genesis,
ed. Grein, 2886; see Grein, ii. 636.4-Du. waden, to wade, ford; Icel.
vada, strong verb, pt. t. vad, to wade, to rush through, whence vad,
sb., a ford; Dan. vade; Swed. vada; OHG. watan, pt. t. wuot ; the
mod, (ἃ. waten is only a weak verb. B. All from the Teut. base
WAD, to go, press through, make one’s way; Idg. 4/WADH, to
go; whence also L. uadere, to go, uadum,a ford. Der. wadd-le,
q.v- ; wad-er ; and compare (from L, uadere) e-vade, in-vade, per-vade.
WADI, WADY, ἃ water-course, river. (Arab.) From Arab,
wadi, a water-course, channel, river-bed; Rich. Dict., p. 1624.
WADMAL, WADMALL; see under Wad.
WAFER, a thin small cake, usually round, a thin leaf of paste.
(F.—OLow 6.) ME. wafre, pl. wafres, Chaucer, C. T. 3379;
P. Plowman, B. xiii. 271. We find Low L. gafras, glossed by
wafurs,in John de Garlande; Wright’s Voc. i, 126, 1. 14.—AF.
wafre, Liber Custum. p. 473; OF. waufre, mod. F. gaufre, a wafer.
The form waufre occurs in a quotation, dated 1433, given by Roque-
fort in his Supplement, 5. ν. Audier; cf. waufret in Godefroy. (The
more usual OF, form was gaufre, or goffre,in which g is substituted
for the orig. w.) In this quotation we have mention of un fer a
waufres, an iron on which to bake wafers. Cf. Walloon wafe,
wauffe, a wafer. B. The word is of Low G. origin; Hexham gives
MDu. waeffel, ‘a wafer ;᾿ waeffel-yser, ‘a wafer-yron to bake wafers
in, of which fer a waufres is a translation ; mod. Du. wafel, a wafer,
wafel-ijzer, a wafer-iron. So also Low G. wafeln, pl. wafers ; wafel-
isern, a wafer-iron. Webster's Dict. gives waffle and waffle-iron as
E. words; they are obviously borrowed from Dutch immediately,
and seem to be modern. Cf. also G. waffel, a wafer, waffel-eisen,
a wafer-iron; Dan. vaffel, Swed. vdffla; from Low G. wafel.
y- The wafer (dotted regularly with small indentations) was named
from its resemblance to a piece of honey-comb or cake of wax in a
bee-hive; from a Low G. form allied to G. wabe, a honey-comb,
cake of wax, a derivative from the Teut. base *weé (2nd grade *wabd),
to weave, Fick, iii. 289; the comb constructed by the bees being, as
it were, woven together. The Κ᾽ appears in Icel. vaf, a weft, Swed.
vif, a web, AS. wefan, to weave; see Weave. ‘The spelling with
ae (in Hexham) of the MDu. word suggests a derivation from *w#b,
the 3rd grade of the root. The form waeffel is a diminutive. Der.
wafer, verb; wafer-er, a wafer-seller, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 12413 (Ὁ 479);
ME. wafr-estre, a female wafer-seller, P. Plowman, B. v. 641.
WAFT, to bear along through air or water. (E.) ‘ Neither was
it thought that they should get any passage at all, till the ships at
Middleborough were returned, .. . by the force whereof they might be
the more strongly wafted ouer;’ Hakluyt’s Voyages, i. 175. Shak.
has it in several senses; (1) to beckon, as by a wave of the hand,
Merch. Ven. v. 11; Timon, i. 1. 70; (2) to turn quickly, Wint. Tale,
i. 2. 372; (3) to carry or send over the sea, K. John, ii. 73, 2 Hen.
VI, iv. 1. 114, 116; 3 Hen. VI, iii. 3. 253; v. 7.41. He also has
waftage, passage by water, Com. Errors, iv. I. 95 ; wafture (old edd.
wafter), the waving of the hand, a gesture, Jul. Cees. 11. 1.246. We
must also note, that Shak. has waft both for the pt. t. and pp.; see
WAG
Merch. Ven. v. 11; K. John, ii. 73. (Rich. cites waft as a pt. t.,
occurring in Gamelyn, 785, but the best MSS. have fast; so that this
is nothing to the point. | B. The word waft is not old, and does
not occur in ME.; it seems to be nothing but a variant of wave, used
as a verb, formed by taking the pp. and pt. t. waved (shortened to
waft by rapid pronunciation), as the infinitive mood of a new verb.
This is by no means an isolated case ; by precisely the same process
we have mod. E. hoist, due to hoised, pp. of Tudor Eng, horse, and
mod. E. graft, due to graffed, pp. of Tudor Eng. graff; while
Spenser actually writes waft and weft instead of Waif,q.v. By
way of proof, we should notice the exact equivalence of waved and
waft in the following passages. ‘Yet towardes night a great sort
{number of people] came doune to the water-side, and waxed us on
shoare [beckoned us ashore] with a white flag;’ Hakluyt’s Voyages,
vol. il. pt. ii. p. 34 (also on p. 33). ‘And waft [beckoned] her love
To come again to Carthage ;’ Merch. Ven. v.11. And again, we
must particularly note Lowland Sc. waff, to wave, shake, fluctuate,
and as a sb., a hasty motion, the act of waving, a signal made by
waving (Jamieson) ; this ismerely the Northern form of wave. ‘And
therfore schall y waffe it away ;’ York Plays, p. 301. In Gawain
Douglas’s translation of Virgil (Afneid, i. 319), we have, in the
edition of 1839, ‘With wynd waving hir haris lowsit of tres,’ where
another edition (cited by Wedgwood) has waffing. So also, in
Barbour’s Bruce, ix. 245, xi. 193, 513, we have the forms vafand,
vaffand, wawand, all meaning ‘ waving,’ with reference to banners
waving in the wind. y. We thus see that waft is due to waft or
waved, pp. and pt. t. of waff or wave; cf. AS. wafian, to wave with
the hand, and see further under Wave (1). Der. waft-age, waft-
ure, as above; waft, sb., waft-er.
WAG, to move from side to side, shake to and fro. (Scand.) ME.
waggen, introduced (probably) as a Northern word in Chaucer,
C. T. 4037 (A 4039); cf. P. Plowman, B. viii. 31, xvi. 41. Earlier,
in Havelok, 89.—MSwed. wagga, to wag, fluctuate; whence
wagga, a cradle, wagga, to rock a cradle (Ihre); Swed. vagga, a
cradle; or as verb, to rock a cradle; Norw. vagga, to wag.
Cf. Icel. vagga, a cradle; Dan. vugge, a cradle, also, to rock a
cradle; AS. wecgan, to wag, OHG. weggen, Goth. wagjan. Closely
allied to AS. wagian, to move, vacillate, rock (Grein, 11. 637), which
became ME. wawen, and could not have given the mod. form wag.
In Wyclif, Luke, vii. 25, the later version has ‘waggid with the
wynd,’ where the earlier version has wawid. B. The AS. wagian is
a secondary weak verb, from the strong verb wegan (pt. t. weg, pp.
wegen), to bear, move, carry (weigh), Grein, ii. 655; and similarly
the MSwed. wagga is from the 2nd grade *wag of Teut. *wegan-,
cognate with L. weh-ere, to carry, from ldg. 4/WEGH, to
carry; see Weigh, Waggon. Der. wag, sb., a droll fellow,
L.L.L. v. 2. 108, as to which Wedgwood plausibly suggests that it
is an abbreviation for wag-halter, once a common term for a rogue
or gallows-bird, one who is likely to wag in a halter (or rather, to
wag or sway a halter), see Nares ; and cf. ‘little young wags . . these
are lackies;’ Holinshed, Descr. of Ireland, ed. 1808, p. 68; also
‘Oh! thou crafty wag-string!’ Heywood, Eng. Traveller, Act iv
(near end); ‘a wag-halter page, Ford, The Fancies, A. i. sc. 2.
Hence wagg-ish, wagg-ish-ly, wagg-er-y (formed like knav-er-y). Also
wagg-le, q.v.; wag-tail, q.v.; wag-moire, a quagmire, Spenser,
Shep. Kal. Sept. 130. And see wedge.
WAGE, a gage, pledge, stake, pay for service; pl. Wages, pay
for service. (F.—Teut.) ME. wage, usually in the sense of pay,
Rob. of Brunne, p. 319, 1. 19; for which the pl. wages occurs only
two lines above. ‘ Wage, or hyre, Stipendium, salarium ;’ Prompt.
Parvy. We now usually employ the word in the plural. — AF. wage,
a prize, Langtoft, i. 222; wages, pl., Fr. Chron. of London, p. 83; OF.
wage, also gage,a gage, pledge, guarantee (Burguy) ; hence it came to
mean a stipulated payment. The change from initial w to gu (and
even, as here, to g) is not uncommon in OF. A verbal sb. from
OF, wager, gager, gagier, to pledge; cf. Walloon wager, to pledge.
-Low L. wadiare, to pledge.mLow L. uadium, a pledge. — Goth.
wadi, a pledge; whence gawadjén, to pledge. β. The Goth. wadi
is cognate with AS. wedd, a pledge; see Wed (1). Der. wage,
verb, ME. wagen, to engage or go bail, P. Plowman, B. iv. 97, from
OF. wager, verb, as above. Also wag-er, q.v.; en-gage, q.v.
Doublet, gage (1). @a- To wage war was formerly to declare war,
engage in it, not merely to carry it on, as now; cf. the phr. ‘wager
of battle ;’ see Wedgwood.
WAGER, a pledge, bet, something staked upon a chance.
(F.—Teut.) ME. wageour, Assembly of Ladies, st. 55, 1. 383; spelt
waiour, Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, p. 218, 1. 19, in a song dated 1308.
=OF. wageure, orig. form of OF. gageure, ‘a wager,’ Cot.—Low L.
wadiatara, sb. formed from the pp. of wadiare, to pledge, also to
wager (as shown in Ducange); see Wage. Der. wager, verb,
Haml., iv. 7. 135; wager-er.
WAINSCOT 697
WAGGLE, to wag frequently. (Scand.) Shak. has waggling,
Much Ado, ii. τ. 119. The frequentative of Wag, q.v. Another
frequentative form (with τοῖς instead of -el or -Je) appears in ME.
wageren, to tremble, in Wyclif, Eccles. xii. 3, early version ; the later
version has tremble. Cf. Swed. dial. vagla, to totter; also G.
wackeln (whence Swed. vackla) ; Pomeran, waggeln, to waggle ; Low G.
wigel-wageln, to wiggle-waggle; Du. waggelen, to totter.
WAGON, WAGGON, a wain, a vehicle for goods. (Du.) The
spelling with double g merely serves te show that the vowel a is
short. We find the spelling waggon in Romeo. i. 4. 59 (ed. 1623);
wagon, Spenser, F. Q.i. 5.28. ‘The word is not very old, and not E.,
being borrowed from Dutch. (The Εν, form is wain.) ‘They
trussed all their harnes in waganes;’ Berners, tr. of Froissart, vol. i.
c. 62 (R.); ‘charyotts or waggans;’ Cavendish, Life of Wolsey,
Ῥ. 88.—Du. wagen, ‘a wagon, or a waine,’ Hexham.-+AS, wegn,
a wain; see Wain. 42 The mod, F. wagon is borrowed from
English. Doublet, wain. Der. waggon-er, Romeo, i. 4. 64.
WAGTATH, the name of a bird. (Hybrid; Scand. and E.) In
King Lear, ii. 2. 73; and in Palsgrave. Formerly called a wag-start
(start meaning tail); ME. wagstyrt, Voc. 763. 2. From Wag and
Tail. Cf. Swed. vippstjert, a wagstart or wagtail; from vippa, to
wag.
WAIF, anything found astray without an owner. (F.—Scand.}
ME. waif, weif; the pl. is wayues or weyues (with u=v), P. Plowman,
B. prol. 94; C. i, 92, A Norman-French law-term.—AF. wayf,
Lib. Custumarum, 434, 7753; OF. waif, later gaif, pl. waives, gaives.
Godefroy gives gaif, a thing lost and not claimed; choses gaives,
things lost and not claimed; also wayve, a waif, which is a feminine
form, evolved from a pl. form wayves, of which the sing. would
be wayf or waif. Cotgrave has: ‘ Choses gayves, weifes, things for-
saken, miscarried, or lost,’ ἅς. Waif is an old Norman-French
term, and of Norse origin. —ONorse *weif, Icel. veif, anything
flapping about, applied, e. g. to the fin of a seal; veifan, a moving
about uncertainly, whence veifanar-ord, ‘a word of wafting,’ a
rumour; from veifa, to vibrate, move about, whence veifi-skati, a
spendthrift, lit. one who squanders coin. B. The ONorse v was
sounded as E. w, and thus *weifa (Icel. veifa) is the source of E.
waive, vb., whence waif seems to have been derived as a verbal sb.
Cf. Norw. veiva, to swing about. A waif isa thing tossed loosely
abroad, and then abandoned. See further under Waive. γ. We
may also note that Spenser writes waift, F. Q. iv. 12. 31; weft, id.
ν. 3. 27, where the ¢ is unoriginal (just as in waft), and due to the
pp. waived. @ The E. weft (from weave) is a different word. So
also is wave, though easily confused with waive, when used as a verb,
WAIL, to lament. (Scand.) ME. weilen, wailen, Chaucer, C. T.
1297 (A 1295); Wyclif, Matt. xxiv. 30. —Icel. vela (formerly *wela),
to wail; also spelt vala, mod. Icel. vola; Swed. dial. vila, to wail;
Dan. dial. velle, to wail, vel, a wail; Norw. vela, to bleat. Orig.
‘to ery woe;” from ve, vei, woe! used as an interjection; cf. the
curious ME, waymenten, to lament, Prompt. Parv., formed from the
same interjection with the F. suffix -ment, and apparently imitated
from 1, lamentare.4Ital. guajolare, to wail, cry woe; from gua,
woe! a word of Teut. origin; cf. Goth. wai, woe! whence Goth,
wajameérjan, to lament. See Wo. Der. wail-ing.
WAIN, a waggon, vehicle for goods. (E.) ME. wain; written
wayn, Rob. of Glouc. p. 416, 1. 8596. AS. wegn,a wain; also used
in the contracted form wen, Grein, ii. 644.44Du. wagen (whence E.
wagon was borrowed in the 15th or 16th century) ; OSax. wagan ;
Icel. vagn; Dan. vogn; Swed. vagn; G. wagen, OHG. wagan.
B. The AS. wegn soon passed into the form wn by the loss of σ΄
(sounded as y), just as AS. regu became rén, mod. E. rain; cf. hail,
nail, tail, in which g similarly disappears; so also E. day from AS,
deg, &c. Hence it is impossible to regard wagon as a true E. word.
y. All the above forms are from Teut. *wagnoz, m.,a wain, carriage ;
from the 2nd grade (*wag’) of Teut. *wegan-, to carry; from Idg.
/WEGH, to carry, whence E, vehicle, From the same root we
have L. ueh-iculum, Skt. vahana-, a vehicle, Skt. vah-ya-, Gk. ὄχ-ος,
a car, Olrish fén, a car, Russ. voz’, a load. See Wehicle.
Doublet, wagon or waggon. And see weigh.
WAINSCOT, panelled boards on the walls of rooms. (Du.) In
Shak. As You Like It, iii. 3. 88. Applied to any kind of panelled
work. I find: ‘a tabyll of waynskott with to [two] joynyd tres-
tellis;’ Bury Wills, ed. Tymms, p. 115, in a will dated 1522; also
“a rownde tabyll of waynskott with lok and key,’ id., p. 116; also ‘a
brode cheste of wayneskott, id. p. 117. Still earlier, I find waynskot
in what appears to be a list of imports; Amold’s Chron. (1502), ed.
1811, p. 236, 1.4. And much earlier ‘c du bord appelle weynscott,’
Liber Albus, p. 238. Hakluyt even retains something of the Du.
spelling, where he speaks of ‘ boords [boards] called waghenscot ;”
Voyages, i. 173.— Du. wagen-schot, ‘wainscot ;7 Hexham. Low ἃ.
wagenschot, the best kind of oak-wood, well-grained and without
698 WAIST
knots. Cf. Low G. bokenschot, the best kind of beech-wood, with-
out knots, in which the former part of the word is Low G. boken,
beechen, adj. formed from book, a beech. (We may here remark that
E, wainscot, in the building trade, is applied to the best, kind of oak-
timber only, used for panelling because it would not ‘cast’ or warp ;
see Wainscot in Trench, Select Glossary.) B. The Du. schot (like
E. shot) has numerons_ senses, of which one is ‘ a closure of boards,’
Hexham. It also meant ‘a shott, a cast, or a throwe, the flowre of
meale, revenue or rent, gaine or money, a shot or score to pay for any
things, id. Sewel also explains schot by ‘a wainscot, partition, a
stop put to anything, the pace (of a ship), a hogs-sty.’. See Shot.
y. The mod. Du. wagen-schot is an altered form, due to popular
etymology; as if the derivation were from Du, wagen, a wain or
waggon; see Wain, But the older form is MDu.: waeghe-schot
(without », Kilian); which some (see Ten Kate, Aenleiding, &c.
(1723), ii, 507) wrongly take to be connected with MDu. weech,
weegh, Du. weeg, a wall, cognate with AS, wah, OFries. wach, OSax.
weg, a wall, and allied to Icel. veggr, Goth. waddjus, a wall. See
the article by J. B. Vinckers, in Taalstudie, dated Oct. 7, 1882, from
which I quote: ‘ Dutch shipwrights still use a very remarkable term
wageren, meaning ‘‘to cover the inside of a ship with boards,” from
which is derived the pl. noun wageringen, the inside boards.’
δ. A better theory is that given in Kilian, which connects waeghe-
with MDu. waeghe (G. woge, AS. wég, Goth. wégs), a wave; with
reference to the waving grain appearing upon the cleft wood. This
suits the phonology better. ε. Hexham also has want-schot, wain-
scot, from want, a wall; and explains wantschotten by ‘to wainscott
walls.’ Der. wainscot, verb.’
WAIST, the middle part of the human body, or of a ship. (E,)
Spelt wast in Palsgrave. ΜΕ. wast, called waste of a mannys myddel
or wast of the medyl in Prompt. Parv, The dat. waste isin Gower,
C. A. ii. 373, 1. 132. The right sense is ‘ growth,’ hence the thick
part or middle of the body, where the size of a man is developed ;
we find the spelling wacste (dat, case) with the sense of ¢ strength,’ in
O. Eng. Homilies, i. 77, 1. 3.
fruit, produce, is a very common word; see Grein, ii. 650.
the AS. wesim became wastme, westme in later English, and it is by
no means improbable that the mod, E, waist was suggested by it,
In Genesis and Exodus, 1910, Joseph is described as being ‘ brictest
of waspene,’ certainly miswritten (in the MS.) for ‘ brictest of wasteme,’
i.e. fairest of form or shape, ‘ well-waisted.’ = AS. weaxan, to grow,
to wax ; from Teut. base *waks- (as in Goth. wahsjan, to wax) : whence
AS. *wehs-t, *west; cf, AS, westm, formed like b/d-stma (E. blossom)
from bldwan, to flourish. See Wax (1). So also Goth, ws-vaksts,
out-growth, wahsjan, to grow; OHG, wahkst, wast, growth, wahs-an,
to grow. Further allied to Goth. wahstus, growth; Icel. voxir,
stature, also shape, vaxa, to grow; Dan. vext, Swed. vaxt, growth,
size. Der. waist-band; waist-coat, spelt wast-coate in Browne,
Britannia’s Pastorals, Ὁ. i. s. 5, 1. 106 from the end; and see Nares.
WATT, to watch, stay in expectation, abide, lie in ambush, (F.—
Low L.—OHG.) ME. waiten, P. Plowman, B, ν. 202; Havelok,
512.—AF. wayter, to watch, Langtoft, i. 448; OF. waiter, waitier,
also gaiter, gaitier (Godefroy), later guetter,‘ to watch, warde, mark,
heed, note, dog, stalk after, lie in wait for;’ Cot. Cf. Walloon weitier,
tospy. A denominative verb. —AF. wayte, Liber Albus, p. 646 ; OF.
waite, gaite (Godefroy), a guard, sentinel, watchman, or spy ; later
guet, ‘watch, ward, heed, also the watch, or company appointed to
watch ;’ Cot.—Low L. wacta, a guard; whence wactare, to guard,
Ducange (ΟΕ. waiter).—OHG. wahta, MHG. wahie, G. wacht, a
guard, watch; whence was formed G. wachter, a watchman. (The
Icel. vakta, to watch, is merely borrowed from G., not a true Scand,
word. ) B. The sb. wah-a answers to a Teut. type *1ah-ton-, m.,
for *wak-ion-, a watcher, one whois awake; from Teut. *wak-an-, to
wake; see Wake (1). Der. wait-er, ME. waitere, a watchman,
Wyclif, 4 Kings ix. 17 (one MS. of later version). _Alsc wait, sb.,
chiefly in the phr. ‘to lie in wait,’ Acts, xxiii. 21. The ME, waite
properly signifies a watchman or spy, as in Cursor Mundi, 11541,
from OF, waite, as aboye, and is really an older word than the verb,
as above shown; it only remains to us in the phrase ‘ the Christmas
waits,’ where a wait is ‘one who is awake,’ for the purpose of playing
music at night; cf. ‘ Wayte, a spye; Wayte, waker, Vigil ;” Prompt.
Pary. ‘Assint etiam excubie vigiles [glossed by OF. veytes veliables],
cornibus suis strepitum et clangorem et sonitum facientes ;” Wright's
Voc. i. 106, 1. 1. Also wait-ing, wait-ing-woman, K. Lear, iv, 1. 65;
a-wait, vb., q.v.
WAIVE, to relinquish, abandon a claim. (F.—Scand.) Chiefly
in the phr. ‘to waive a claim, as in Cotgrave (see below), ME.
waiuen, weiuen (with w=v), a difficult and rather vague word, chiefly
in the sense ‘to set aside’ or'‘shun,’ also ‘to remove’ or ‘ push
aside;’ see P, Plowman, B, v. 611 (where the MS. may be read
It answers to an AS. form *wehst, |
*west, not found, though the nearly related westm, growth, also |
Indeed, |
WAKEN
wayne); id. B, xx. 1673; Chaucer, C. T. 4728, 9357, 10298, 17127,
17344 (B 308, E 1483, 2424, H 178, I 33), Troil. ii. 284; Gower,
C. A. 1. 276, bk. 11. 3469.—AF. weiver, to waive, Year-Books of
Edw. I (1292-3), pp. 39) 53) 55, 205; OF. gaiver (Godefroy), to
cede, abandon; later guesver, ‘to waive, refuse, abandon, give over,
surrender, resigne ;’ Cot. The AF, waif, sb., is in the Liber Custu-
marum, pp. 151, 434, 486; OF. gaif in Godefroy; see Waif.
Ducange gives Low L. waviare, to waive, abandon, wayvium, a waif,
or a beast without an owner, vayvus, adj., abandoned as a waif, which
are merely Latinised forms of the F. words; and he remarks that
these words are of common occurrence. B. The sb. seems to be
from the vb.—ONorse *weifa, Icel. veifa, to vibrate, swing about,
move to and fro in a loose way; Norw. veiva, to swing about, to
turn a grindstone, Swed, vefva, to wind ; cf, Low G. weifen, to swing
about, to toss (Schambach). . Hence the sense ‘to cast loose.’-+
OHG. weibin, MHG. weibex, waiben, to fluctuate, swing about;
cf. Goth. bi-weibjan, to wind about; Skt. vép, to shake. (4/ WEIP.)
ty Distinct from wave, despite some similarity in the sense; but
the words have been confused.
WAKE (1), to cease from sleep, be brisk. (E.) ME. waken,
strong verb, pt. t. wook, Chaucer, C. T. Group A, 1393 (Six-text) ;
where Tyrwhitt, 1. 1395, prints awook; also wakien, weak verb, to
keep awake, pp. waked, Havelok, 2999. Corresponding, to these
verbs, we should now say ‘ he woke,’ and ‘he was waked.’ [They are
both distinct from ME. waknen, to waken; which see under
Waken.] AS. wacan, to arise, come to life, be born, pt. t. wac,
pp. wacen ; also wacian, to wake, watch, pt, t. wacode, wacede ; Grein,
li. 635--4-Goth. wakan, pt. t. wok, pp. wakans, to wake, watch ;
whence wakjan, weak verb, only in comp. uswakjan, to wake from
sleep; Du. waken (weak verb); Icel. vaka (weak); Dan. vaage ;
Swed, vaka; G, wachen. B. All from Teut. base WAK, to be
brisk, be awake, allied to Idg. 4/WEGw, to be vigorous, whence
Vigil, Vegetable, q.v. Brugmann, ii. § 804. Der. wake (weak
verb), to rouse, answering to AS. wacian, as above; wake, sb., a
vigil, ME. wake, Ancren Riwle, p. 314,1. 2 from bottom, from AS.
wacu, occurring in the comp. niht-wacu, a night-wake, Grein, ii.
286, 1.5. Also wake-ful, Spenser, F. Q. iii. 9.7, substituted for AS.
wacol or wacul (allied to L. uigil), Voc. 315. 26; hence wake-ful-ly,
wake-ful-ness, Also wak-en, q. v., watch, ιν.
WAKE (2), the track of a ship. (Scand.) ‘In the wake of the
ship (as ’tis called), or the smoothness which the ship’s passing has
made on the sea; Dampier’s Voyages, an. 1699 (R.). ‘Wake, (among
seamen) is taken for that smooth water which a ship leaves astern
when under sail, and is also called the ship's way ;’ Phillips, ed. 1706.
‘Jn Norfolk, where the broads [large tarns] are mostly frozen over,
the spaces of open water are called wakes ;” Wedgwood. Like many
other E. Anglian words, wake is of Scand. origin. It was originally
applied to an open space in half-frozen water, and esp. to the passage
cut for a ship in a frozen lake or sea ; thence it was easily transferred
to denote the smooth watery track left behind a ship that had made
its way through ice, and at last (by a complete forgetfulness of its
true use) was applied to the smooth track left behind a vessel when
there is no ice at all. And even, in prov. E., rows of green damp
grass are called wakes (Halliwell). —Icel. vdk (stem vak-, gen. sing.
and nom. pl. vakar), a hole, opening in ice; draga δεῖν skipit milli
vakanna=to drag their ship between [or along] wakes (Vigfusson) ;
Swed. vak, an opening in ice; Norw. vok, the same, whence vekkja,
to cut a hole in ice, ‘ especially to hew out a passage for ships in
frozen water’? (Aasen); N¥ries. wak, Dan, vaage, the same, The
mod, Du. wak (like E. wake) is merely borrowed from Scandinavian.
The orig. sense is a ‘moist’ or wet place; and it is allied to Icel.
vokr, moist, vokva, to moisten, to water, vokva, moisture, juice, whence
Lowland Sc. wak, moist, watery; so also Du. wak, moist. Teut.
type *wakwoz, moist (Franck) ; Teut. base WEQ, to wet, answering
to Idg. root WEGw, to wet, whence Gk. ty-pés, L. i-midus, wet ;
see further under Humid. Brugmann, i. § 658 (b). B. The F.
ouaiche, formerly also ouage, now usually houache, the wake of a ship,
is clearly borrowed from English, as Littré says. | y. The connexion
between wake, a wet track through ice, and prov. E. wake, a row of
damp grass, is sufficiently clear, Cf. Homer’s ὑγρὰ κέλευθα, Od.
ili. 71. From the same root is qguaff, q.v.
WAKEN, to awake. (E.) This verb is of considerable gram-
matical importance, and should be carefully studied, being one of a
class not very common in mod. E., and peculiarly liable to be mis-
understood. The point is, that it. was orig, intransitive, whereas in
Shak. it is ¢ransitive only, 3 Hen. VI, iv. 3. 19, Romeo, iii. 1. 28,
iv. 4. 24, Oth. ii, τ. 188; &c.. In mod. English, verbs in -enx, by a
singular change, are mestly transitive, such as s/rengthen, embolden,
&c.; but this is just contrary to the older usage, not only in ΜΕ. and
AS, but in the Teut. languages generally. The subject is discussed
in Grimm’s Grammar, ed. 1837, iv. 23, where he shows that Goth.
WALE, WEAL
auk-a, 1 eke, or increase, answers to Gk, αὐξάνω, whereas aukna (=1
eke-n) answers to Gk. adgavopat, in the middle voice; and there was
even in Gothic a third form aukada=Gk. αὐξάνομαι in the passive
voice. B. The ME. form is waknen or wakenen, intransitive. ‘So
pat he bigan to wakne’=so that he began to waken (or be aroused
from sleep), Havelok, 2164. AS, wecenan, to arise, be aroused, be
born; Grein, ii. 642. The formative -n- in wac-n-an is due to the
pp. suffix -ex (Teut. -anoz) seen in AS. wacen, pp. of wac-an, to wake ;
so that wec-n-an orig. meant ‘to become awake.’ Allied to. AS.
wacan, to wake; see Wake.+Icel. vakna, to become awake; allied
to vaka, to wake; Swed. vakna, allied to vaka; Dan. vaagne, allied
to vaage; Goth. gawaknan, allied to wakan; whence pres. part. pl.
gawaknandans =becoming awake, Luke, ix. 32, Der. a-waken.
WALK (τὴ, WEAL, the mark of a stroke of a rod or whip upon
the flesh, a streak, a ridge, a plank along a ship’s side. (E.) Some-
times spelt wheal, but a wheal is properly a blister; see Wheal (1).
“The wales, marks, scars, and cicatrices;’ Holland, tr. of Plutarch,
Ῥ- 459 (R.). ‘ The wales or marks of stripes and lashes ;’ id. p. 547
(R.). ME. wale. ‘ Wale, or strype,’ Prompt. Parv. “ Wyghtly on
the wale [gunwale] thay wye vp thair ankers;’ Morte Arthure, 740.
AS, walu (pl. wala), a weal, mark of a blow, occurring 4 times in
glosses ; also, a ridge (Toller), Wealso find AS. wyrt-wala (-walu),
properly the shoot or stem of a root, as when the root of a tree pro-
jects from the ground, hence used for ‘root’ simply; cf. ‘di
plantudest wyrttruman hys’= thou plantedst his roots, Ps. 1xxix. 10,
ed, Spelman, where the Trinity MS. has ¢ δὰ wyrtwalodes (sic) wirt-
waloda,’ the last word being corruptly written for wyrtwala. The
orig. sense was ‘ rod,” hence the rounded half-buried side-shoot of a
root (as above), or the raised stripe or ridge caused by the blow of a
rod or whip. Hence also the sense of ridge or plank along the edge
of a ship, as in the comp. gun-wale, q. v.+OFries. walu, a rod,
wand ; only in the comp. walubera, walebera, arod-bearer, a pilgrim ;
EFries. wale, a weal; NFriesic waal, a staff, rod (Outzen); Icel.
vélr (gen. valar), a round stick, a staff; Swed. dial. val, a round stick,
cudgel, flail-handle (Rietz); Goth. walus, a staff; Luke, ix. 3.
B. All from the Teut. types *walon-, *walii, *waluz, a round stick, so
named from its roundness; the sense of ‘rounded ridge’ still lingers
in mod. EF. wale; cf. Icel. valr, round, EFries, walen, to turn round,
Russ. val’, a cylinder, valia¢(e), to roll; allied to L. woluere, to turn,
Gk. ἑλίσσειν, to turnround. (4/WEL). See Volute. Der. gun-wale.
WALE (2), choice; asa vb., tochoose. (Scand.) Obsolete ; except
in N. dialects. ME. walen, to choose, Wars of Alexander, 4655 ; from
wale, sb., choice, Allit. Troy-book, 11952.—Olcel. *wal, Icel. val,
choice; Swed. val; MDan. val.4--OHG. wala, choice; G. wahl.
Hence Icel. velja, to choose, Swed. vilja, Dan. velge; cf. Goth. waljan, to
choose, Skt. varaya, to choose, causal form of v7, to choose. From
Teut. *wal, Idg. *wol, 2nd grade of 4/ WEL, todesire. See Will (1).
WALK, to move along on foot without running. (E.) ME.
walken, formerly a strong verb, pt. t. welk, pp. walkenx. The pt, t.
welk occurs in the Pricke of Conscience, ll. 4248, 4390; the pp. is
spelt walke, King Horn, ed. Lumby, 953. AS. wealcan, pt. wéolc,
pp: wealcen, to roll, to toss oneself about, rove about, esp. used of
the movement or flow of water; Grein, ii. 669. Thus the orig.
sense was ‘to roll,’ much as in the proverb ‘a rolling [moving]
stone gathers no moss.’ Hence the ME. walker, Wyclif, Mark, ix. 2
(earlier version), lit. a roller, a term applied to a fuller of cloth (from
his stamping on or pressing it); AS. wealcere=L, fullo, Voc. 407.
29; Walker is still common as a proper name.4Du. walken, to
work or make a hat; MDu. walcken, ‘to presse, to squeeze, or to
straine ;’ walcker, ‘a fuller;? Hexham; Icel. valka, volka, to roll,
to stamp, to roll oneself, to wallow; valk, a tossing about; Swed.
valka, to roll, to full, to work; Dan. valke, to full, to mill; G.
walken, to full, OHG. walchan, to full, also to roll or turn oneself
round, to move about; hence G. walker, a fuller. B. All from
Teut. base WALK, to roll about, answering to Idg. WALG, whence
Skt. vale, to go by leaps. Der. walk, sb., Tw. Nt. i. 3. 1383 walk-
ing-staff, Rich. II, iii. 3. 151 ; walk-ing-stick. Also walk-er, a fuller,
P. Plowman, C.i. 222, And see wallow,
WALL, a stone fence, a fence of stone or brick, a rampart. (1,.)
ME. wal, appearing as walle, Chaucer, C. T. 8923 (E1047). AS.
weal, weall, a rampart of earth, a wall of stone; Grein, ii. 671.
Not a Teut. word, but borrowed from the famous L. wallum, a ram-
part, whence also W. gwal,a rampart, as well as Du. wal, Swed.
vall, G. wall, &c. B. The L. wallum is a collective sb., signifying
a row or line of stakes.—L. wallus, a stake, pale, palisade; lit. a
protection. Allied to Olrish fal, a hedge; Stokes-Fick, p. 276.
@ The true AS. word for ‘wall’ was wah, Grein, ii. 643 (where the
accent is wrongly omitted), whence ME. wowe, P. Plowman, B. ili.
61 (obsolete). Der. wall, verb, ME. wallen, Rob. of Glouc. p. 51,
1. 1169; wall-flower, wall-fruit; also wall-newt, K. Lear, iii, 4. 135.
¢@ No connexion with wall-eyed,
WALRUS 699
WALLA, WALLAH, short for Conpetition-walla. (Hind.—
Skt.) A competition-walla is an Anglo-Indian term, applied, after
1836, to.one who entered the Civil Service by the competitive system
then established. See. Yule, who explains that the Hind. -wala is
properly ἃ Hindi adjectival suffix, with a similar value to that of
Lat. -drius, or I. -er ; so that competstion-walla = competition-er, i. e.
competitor. Cf. Hind. gwald, a cow-herd; for *gd-wala; from 26,
a cow.=Skt. -vala-, suffix ; as in vid-vala-, clever, from vid, to know;
Brugmann, ii. § 76, note 1.
WALLABY, a smail kangaroo. (Australian). ‘ Wallaby, a
name used for the smaller kinds of kangaroos;’ Εν E. Morris,
Austral. Dict. ; q.v. From the native Austral. walla, to jump.
WALLET, a bag for carrying necessaries, a budget. (E.?) ME.
walet (with one 1), Chaucer, C. T.683 (A681) ; P. Plowman, C. xi. 269,
where for ‘ bag-full’ some MSS. have watel-ful and others have walet-
ful. Jn the latter passage we have the probable solution of the
word; the ME, walet being apparently a corruption of watel. In
the same way, wallets, used by Shakespeare for bags of flesh upon
the neck (Temp. iii. 3. 46), may be the same as waffles, ‘ teat-like
excrescences that hang from the cheeks of swine,’ Brockett. That
wattle should turn into wallet is not very surprising, for 7 is near akin
to r, and a similar shifting of γ is a common phenomenon in English,
as in AS, irnan=rinnan, to run, ME, brid=a bird, ME. burd=a
bride, &c.; so also neeld, a needle, mould = model ; wordle for worlde,
i, e. world, P. Plowm. C. i. 10, &c. We even find fadock for fagot,
Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, vi. 77; and maddock with the same sense as
maggot. At any rate, the very special use of wallets =watiles=
fleshy bags, is remarkable, as well as the equivalent use of walet and
watel in the MSS, of P. Plowman. B. The E. wattle commonly
means ‘ hurdle,’ but ME. watel appears to have also meant a basket,
and hence a bag. See further under Wattle. It is perhaps worth
while to add that we find, in Voc. 656. 9, the entry ‘ Hic pero,
wolyng, which Mr. Wright explains as ‘a leathern sack.’ This ME.
wolyng’, having no obvious etymology, is perhaps a contraction of
watling (the dimin. of watel), by loss of ἡ. (Doubtful ; some assume
an OF. *walet, bag; as if from OHG. wallén, to go on pilgrimage.)
WALL-EYED, with glaring eyes, diseased eyes. (Scand.) In
Shak. K. John, iv. 3. 49, Titus, v. 1. 44. Spenser has whally eyes,
F. Ὁ. i. 4. 24. “ Glauciolus, An horse with a waule eye ;’ Cooper’s
Thesaurus, ed. 1565. Nares writes it whally, and explains it from
whaule or whall, the disease of the eyes called glaucoma; and cites:
‘Glaucoma, a disease in the eye; some think it to be a whal eie;’
A. Fleming’s Nomenclator, p. 428. Cotgrave has: ‘ Oeil de chevre,
a whall, or over-white eye ; an eie full of white spots, or whose apple
seems divided by a streak of white.’ But the spelling with ἃ is
wrong. ME. wald-eyed, Wars of Alexander, 608; wolden-eighed,
King Alis. 5274. Also wawil-eyed, Wars of Alexander, 1706. = Icel.
vald-eygdr, a corrupted form of vagl-eygr, wall-eyed, said of a horse.
=—Icel. vagl, a beam, also a beam in the eye, a disease of the eye (as
in vagl ἃ auga, a wall in the eye); and eygr, eygdr, eyed, an adj.
formed from auga, the eye, which is cognate with E. Hye. β. The
Icel. vagl.is the same as Swed. vagel, a roost, a perch, also a sty in
the eye; vagel p& ogat, ‘a tumor on the eyelid, a stye on the eyelid,’
Widegren. Cf. Norweg. vagl,a hen-roost, Aasen. The lit. sense
is ‘a perch,’ or ‘a small support;’ closely allied to Icel. vagn, a
wain. —4/WEGH, to carry, asin Skt. vah, L. wehere (whence wec-tis,
a pole); see Wain. See Notes on E. Etym., p. 316.
WALLOP, to boil; see Potwalloper and Gallop.
W ALLOW, to roll oneself about, as in mire. (E.) ME. walwen,
Chaucer, C. T, 6684 (D 1102). AS. wealwian, to roll round, A‘lfred,
tr. of Boethius, c. 6 (b. i. met. 7).--Goth. walwjan, to roll, in
comp. atwalwjan, afwalwjan, faurwalwjan; L. uoluere, to roll. See
Volute.
WALNUT, lit. a foreign nut. (E.) ΜΕ. walnote, spelt walnot,
P. Plowman, B, xi. 251. OMerc. walh-hnutu, a walnut; Voc. 452.
34. Lit. ‘foreign (i.e. Gaulish) nut.’—OMerc. walk, AS. wealh,
foreign; and huutu,anut. The pl. Wealas means ‘strangers,’ i.e.
the Welsh; but in mod. Εἰ it has become Wales. Du. walnoot, MDu.
walnote (Hexham); Icel. valhknot; Dan. valnid; Swed. valnot; G.
wallnuss; also Wiillsche nuss, ice. foreignnut. β. For the latter
element, see Nut. The former element is AS. wealh, foreign,
OHG. walah, a foreigner, whence G. Walsch, Italian. The sense
‘foreign’ is inexact; the AS. Wealh meant a Celt, either of Wales
or Gaul. It answers in form to ‘one of the tribe of Volce,’ who
occupied Southern Gaul; Czesar, Bellum Gallicum, vii. 7.
WALRUS, a kind of large seal. (Du.—Scand.) In Ash’s Dict.,
ed. 1775. Du. walrus, ‘a kind of great fish with tusks ;” Sewel, ed.
1754. Hence also the modern Scand. forms; as Swed. vallross,
a morse, walrus; Dan. hvalros. The name is very old, since the
word ross (for horse) is no longer in use in Swedish and Danish,
which languages now employ dst, hest in its stead; but we find the
700 WALTZ
right word, in an inverted form, in Icel. kyoss-hvalr, a walrus, lit. a | he would flog them at the cart’s tail (a common expression), and
horse-whale ; the name being given (it is suggested) from the noise
made by the animal, somewhat resemblinga neigh. So also AS. hors-
hwel, a horse-whale or walrus. B. ‘The Swed. vall, Dan. hval,
Icel. hvalr, are cognate with E. Whale. The Swed. ross, Dan.
ros, Icel. hross or hors, are cognate with AS. hors (the r in which
has shifted); see Horse. 4 The name morse, q.v., is of Finnish
origin,
WALTZ, the name of a dance. (G.) Introduced in 1812; see
Byron’s poem on ‘The Waltz.’ A shortened form of (ἃ. walzer
(with z sounded as ¢s, whence the E. spelling), ‘a jig, a waltz;’
Fliigel. —G. walzen, ‘to roll, revolve, dance round about, waltz ;’
id.-AS. wealtan. to roll. twist; see further under Welter. Der.
waliz, verb.
WAMPUM, small beads, used as money. (N. American Indian.)
§ Wampum, small beads made of shells [sometimes white], used by
the N. American Indians as money, and also wrought into belts, &c.
as an ornament;’ Webster. Modern; not in Todd’s Johnson.
From the Narragansett wompi, white, and -ompeag, a suffix to denote
a string of money; whence the compound wampumpeag, or briefly,
wampum ; Notes and Queries, 9 S. x. 226. Cf. Algonkin wab, white
(Cuoq); Massachusetts wompi. Delaware wapi, white (Mahn). See
Wapiti.
WAN, colourless, languid, pale. (E.) ΜΕ. wan, Chaucer, C. T.
2458 (A 2456). AS. wann, wonn, dark, black, Grein, ii. 638. It
occurs as an epithet of a raven, and of night ; so that the sense of the
word appears to have suffered a remarkable change ; the sense, how-
ever, was probably ‘dead’ or ‘colourless,’ which is applicable to
black and pallid alike. Hence Ettmiiller derives it from AS. wann,
and grade of winnan, to strive, contend, toil (whence Εἰ. win); so
that the orig. sense would have been ‘ worn out with toil, tired out,’
from which we easily pass to the sense of ‘worn out’ or ‘ pallid
with sleeplessness’ in the mod. E. word. (Cf. Goth. qwunns,
affliction; from the weak grade wunn-.) So also in Stokes-Fick,
p- 259, who takes it to be cognate with Irish fann, W. gwan, feeble,
weak, faint. It seems to be distinct from Wane, confusion with
which has affected its sense. See further under Win. Der. wan-ly,
Wwan-ess,
WAND, a long slender rod. (Scand.) ME. wand, Pricke of Con-
science, 5880; Ormulum, 16178.—Icel. véndr (gen. vandar), a wand,
a switch, whence vandahiis, a wicker-house; MSwed. wand (Ihre) ;
Dan. vaand.4+Goth. wandus,a rod, 2 Cor. xi. 25. B. The Teut.
type is *wanduz,m. It was perhaps named from its pliancy and use
in wicker-work, the orig. sense being a lithe twig, that could be
wound into wicker-work. From Teut. *wand, 2nd grade of *windan-,
to wind; see Wind (2). But some give it the sense of ‘ weapon,’
and connect it with Wound,
WANDER, to ramble, rove. (E.) ΜΕ. wandrien, wandren,
P. Plowman, B. vi. 304. AS. wandrian, to wander, Aélifred, tr. of
Boethius, lib. iv. met. 1 (cap. xxxvi. § 2). The frequentative form
of wend, to go; hence it means ‘to keep going about.’ From wand-,
base of *wand-jan, the orig. form of wend. See Wend.+EFries.
wandern, wandeln; Swed. vandra, Dan. vandre (from Low G.); Du.
wandelen, ‘to walke,’ Hexham; (ἃ. wandeln, to wander, travel, walk.
Der. wander-er. Also Vandal, q. v.
WANDEROO, a large Cingalese and Malabar monkey.
(Cingalese.—Skt.) Spelt wanderow in 1681 (Yule).—Cing. wanderu;
ef. Hind. bandar, an ape.—Skt. vanara-, vanara-, a monkey. Lit.
‘ forest-dweller.’ —Skt. vana-, forest. Allied to Goth. winja, pasture ;
Icel. vin, meadow; orig. free space or ‘pleasure-ground ;’ and
allied to Winsome and Win. (4/WEN.)
WANE, to decrease (as the moon), to fail. (E.) ME. wanien,
wanen, Chaucer, C. T. 2080 (A 2078). AS. wanian, wonien, to
decrease, grow less; Grein, ii. 639.—AS. wan, won, deficient, id.
638.4Icel. vana, to diminish, from vanr, lacking, wanting; also
van-,in composition. Cf. OHG. and ΜΗ. wandn, wanén, to wane,
from wan, deficient, appearing in mod. G. compounds as wahn-. So
also Du. wan-, prefix, in wankoop, despair (lit. lacking hope). Also
Goth, wans, lacking. B. All from Teut. type *wa-noz, adj.,
deficient ; perhaps orig. a pp. Allied to the Gk. ets, bereaved,
Skt. dna-s, wanting, lessened, inferior. Der. want, wan-ton; and
prob. wan-i-on, q. v.
WANTON, in the phrase with a wanion. (E.) In Shak. Per. ii.
1.17; the phr. with a wanion means ‘ with a curse on you,’ or ‘ with
bad luck to you,’ or ‘to him,’ as the case may be. Explained by
Wedgwood, Phil. Soc. Trans. 1873-4, p. 328; the connexion with
the verb ¢o wane was pointed out by Nares. There is no doubt
(1) that it stands for waniand, and (2) that waniand was taken to be
a sb., instead cf a pres. part. Rich. quotes from Sir T. More: ‘He
would of likelyhod binde them to cartes and beate them, and make
theim wed in the waniand,’ Works, p. 306 h; which means, I suppose,
WAPENTAKE
make them marry in the waning moon, i.e. at an unlucky time. So
also: ‘in woo to wonne [dwell }, in the wanyand,’ York Plays, p. 124.
‘It was in the waniand’ [in an unlucky time]; Minot, ed. T. Wright,
i. 87. And even in AS, we have: ‘Ealle eordlice lichaman béod
fulran on weaxendum monan ponne on wanigendum ;’ i.e. all earthly
things are fuller in the waxing than in the waning moon; Pop.
Treatises on Science, ed. Τὶ Wright, p. 15. Halliwell gives ‘ wani-
and, the wane of the moon,’ without any authority ; bat compare the
following. ‘So myghte he wel sey, that ix the crook [crescent] of
the mone com he thiderward, and in the wylde wanyande [i.e,
waning] wente homward;’ A Chronicle of London, ed. Sir H.
Nicolas, 1827, p. 122; see note to Tale of Beryn, ed. Furniyall,
1. 398. So that the first and last quarters of the moon were both un-
propitious. β. Waniand is the Northern form of the pres. part. of
ME. wanien, to wane, also used actively in the sense to lessen, deprive
(see below). The confusion of the pres. part. with the sb, in -ing is
so common in English that many people cannot parse a word ending
in -ing. Thus in the waniand came to mean ‘in the waning, and
with a wanion means with a diminution, detriment, ill-luck. On
‘the fatal influence of the waning moon, .. general in Scotland,’
see Brand’s Popular Antiquities, chapter on Te Moon. The Icel.
vana, to wane, is commonly transitive, with the senses ‘to make to
wane, disable, spoil, destroy,’ which may have influenced the super-
stition in the North, though it is doubtless widely spread. Cf.
‘wurred uppe chirches, oder wanied hire rihtes, oder letted’ = war
upon churches, or /essex their rights, or hinder them; O. Eng.
Homilies, ed. Morris, ii. 177, 1. 6. See Wane.
WANT, lack, deficiency, indigence, need. (Scand.) ME. want,
first in the Ormulum, 14398, where it is spelt wannt, and has the adj.
sense of ‘deficient ;’ spelt wonte, and used as a sb., Ancren Riwle,
p- 284, 1. 2.—Icel. vant, neuter of vanr, adj., lacking, deficient.
This neuter form was used with a gen. case following; as, var Jeim
vettugis vant = there was lacking to them of nothing, i.e. they wanted
nothing. [The Icel. sb. for want is vansi,] β. Thus the final ¢
was orig. merely the termination of the neut. gender (as in E. ἐπέ,
tha-t, thwar-t); but the word vant was in common use, and even the
yerb vanta, to want, to lack, was formed from it, which is the origin
of E. want as a verb. y- The Icel. van, adj., is explained under
Wane, q.v. Der. want, verb, ME. wanten, spelt wonten in Ancren
Riwle, p. 344, 1. 14; from Icel. vanta, verb, as above. Also want-
ing, pres. part., sometimes used as adj.
WANTON, playful, sportive, unrestrained. (E.) The true
sense is unrestrained, uneducated, not taken in hand by a master ;
hence, licentious. ME. wantoun, contracted form of wantowen ; spelt
wantoun, Chaucer, C. T. 208; spelt wantowen, wantowne, wanton,
P. Plowman, C. iv. 143, where it isapplied to women. Compounded
of wan-, prefix, and fowen, pp. β. The prefix wan- signifies ‘lack-
ing, wanting,’ and is explained under Wane. Incomposition it has
sometimes the force of un- (to which it is zor related), but also gives
an ill sense, almost like Gk. dus-. y. The pp. owen stands for
AS. togen, pp. of téonx, to draw, to educate, bring up, Grein, ii. 527.
The change from AS. g to ME. w (after a, 0, or ~) is seen again in
AS. mugan= ME. mowen, to be able, and is regular. The AS. togen
is cognate with (ἃ, gezogen, so that Ἐς, wanton, ill-bred, corresponds
very nearly to (ὦ. ungezogen, ‘ ill-bred, unmannerly, rude, uncivil,’
Fliigel. For anaccount of AS. téon, see Tow (1), Mr. Wedgwood
well cites wel i-towune, well educated, modest, Ancren Riwle, p. 204,
1. 17; vntowune, licentious, id. p. 342, 1. 26. So also ful itowene,
foully (badly) educated; id. p. 140, 1. 26. Der. wanton-ly ; wanton-
ness, ME, wantounesse, Chaucer, C. T. 266 (A 264). Also wanton, sb.
WAPENTAKE, an old name for a hundred or district. (Scand.)
‘Fraunchises, hundredis, wapentakes;’ Arnold’s Chron. (1502), ed.
1811, p. 181. ‘ Candred . . isa contray pat conteynep an hundred
townes, and is also in Englische i-cleped wepentake ;’ Trevisa, ii. 87;
spelt wapentake, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 145, 1.16. The
word occurs in the AS. Laws, but was merely adapted from Norse ;
the AS. ##can does not mean ‘to touch,’ but ‘to teach,’ and is
altogether removed from the word under discussion, It is remark-
able that various explanations of this word have been given, seeing
that all the while the Laws of Edward the Confessor fully explain
the orig. sense. AS. w#pengetece, dat. case, a district, wapentake,
Secular Laws of Edgar, ὃ vi, in Thorpe, Ancient Laws, vol. i. p. 274;
we also find w#pentake, dat. case, id. p. 292. The nom. is wepen-
getac or wetpentac, Latinised as wapentac or wapentagium, Laws of
Edw. Conf. § xxx, in Thorpe, i. 455, where we also read: ‘ Quod
alii vocant hundredum, supradicti comitatus vocant wapentagium, et
hoc non sine causa; cum enim aliquis accipiebat prefecturam wapen-
tagii, die constituto, conveniebant omnes majores contra eum in loco
ubi soliti erant congregari, et, descendente eo de equo suo, omnes assur-
gebant contra eum, et ipse erigebat lanceam suam in altum, et omnes
WAPITI
de lanceis suis tangebant hastam ejus, et sic confirmabant se sibi.
Et de armis, quia arma vocant wappa, et taccare, quod est confirmare.’
To which another MS. adds: ‘ Anglice vero arma vocantur wafen, et
taccare confirmare, quasi armorum confirmacio, vel ut magis expresse,
secundum linguam Anglicam, dicamus wapentac, i.e. armorum tactus :
wapen enim arma sonat, tac tactus est. (Quamobrem potest cognosci
quod hac de causa totus ille conyentus dicitur wapentac, eo quod per
tactum armorum suorum ad invicem confcederate (sic) sunt.’ We
may then dismiss other explanations, and accept the one above, that
when a new chief of a wapentake was elected, he used to raise his
weapon (a spear), and his men touched it with theirs in token of fealty.
However the word (as above said) is Norse.—Icel. vapnatak, lit. a
weapon-taking or weapon-touching ; hence, a vote of consent so ex-
pressed, and lastly, a subdivision of a shire in the Danish part of
England, answering (somewhat) to the hundred in other parts; the
reason for this being as above given. —Icel. vapna, gen. pl. of vapn,
a weapon, cognate with E. weapon; and tak, a taking hold, a grasp,
esp. a grasp in wrestling (here used of the contact of weapons), from
taka, to take, seize, grasp, also to touch. See Weapon and Take.
q As the Icel. taka means ¢o touch as well as to take, it will be seen
that the explanation ‘ weapon-grasping ’ in the Icel. Dict. is insuffi-
cient ; it means more than that, viz. the clashing of one spear against
another. “ Si placuit [sententia], frameas concutiunt ; honoratissimum
assensus genus est armis laudare,’ Tacitus, Germania, chap. 11 ; &c.
Cf. Lowland Se. wapinschaw (weapon-show), an exhibition of arms
made at certain times in every district ; Jamieson.
WAPITI, the American elk. (Amer. Indian.) From the Cree
wapitik, ‘white deer;’ cf. Delaware wapi, white. See Wampum.
q The name is misapplied, as the wapiti is not white ; it was first
given to the Rocky Mountain goat (Haplocerus montanus) ; and then
transferred to the wapiti, which does not much resemble it. See
Century Dict.
WAR, hostility, a contest between states by force of arms. (F.—
Teut.) ME. werre (dissyllabic), Chaucer, C. T. 47. It occurs in the
A.S, Chron. an. 1119, where it is spelt wyrre, but a little further on,
an. 1140, it it spelt wuxerre (=werre). But we also find ‘armorum
oneribus, quod Angli war-scot dicunt” in the Laws of Cnut, De
Foresta, § 9; Thorpe, Anc. Laws, i. 427 (evidently from a MS. of
later date). The word is really French ; the usual AS. word is wig;
we also find hild, winn, gid, &c. The derivatives warrior and
warraye (to make war on, Spenser, F. Q. i. 5. 48), respecting which
see below, are also of F. origin. —OF. werre, war (Burguy, Roque-
fort), whence mod. F. guerre. Of Teut. origin. From the sb, seen
in MDu. werre, ‘warre,’ Hexham; OHG. werra, broil, confusion,
strife. —OSax. and OHG. werran, str. vb., to confuse, embroil ; cf.
mod. G, verwirren. The Teut. base is *werr-, for older *werz-, *wers-,
meaning ‘to confuse.’ Prob. allied to worse; see Worse. Der.
war, verb, late AS. werrien, A. S. Chron. an. 1135, formed from the
sb. werre. Also war-fare, properly ‘a warlike expedition ;’ ‘he was
nat iz good poynt to ride a warfare,’ i.e. on a warlike expedition,
Berners, tr. of Froissart’s Chron. vol. ii. c. 13 (R.); see Fare.
Also war-like, K. John, v. 1. 713 warr-i-or, ME. werreour, Rob. of
Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 166, 1. 5, from OF. *werreiur, not recorded,
old spelling of OF. guerreiur (Burguy), a warrior, one who makes
war, formed with suffix -wr from OF. werreier, guerreier (spelt werrier
in Supp. to Godefroy, 5. ν. guerreier), to make war, borrowed by E.
and appearing as ME. werreien or werreyen, Chaucer, C. T. 1546,
10324 (A 1544, F 10), and in Spenser as warray or warrey, F. Ὁ.
i. 5. 48, ii. 10. 21; so that warrior is really a familiar form of warrey-
our; cf. guerroyeur, ‘a martialist, or warrior,’ Cot., from guerroyer,
“to warre,’ id.
WARBLE, to sing as a bird, chirp, carol. (F.-MHG.) ME.
werblen, spelt werbelen, Gawain and the Grene Knight, 2004 ; the sb.
werble occurs in the same, 119.—OF. werbler, to quaver with the
voice, speak in a high tone (Burguy). — MHG. *wirbeln (not given),
or *werbelen, mod. G. wirbeln, to whirl, to run round, to warble, fre-
quentative form of MHG, werben, OHG. hwerban, to be busy, to set
in movement, urge on (whence mod. G. be-werben, to sue for, er-
werben, to acquire), the orig. sense being to twirl oneself about, to
twirl or whirl. See Whirl, which is, practically, a doublet. Der.
warble, sb., ME. werble, as above ; warbl-er.
WARD, a guard, a watch, means of guarding, one who is under
a guardian, &c. (E.) 1. ME. ward, dat. warde, P. Plowman, B.
xvili. 320; pl. wardes, guards, King Alisaunder, 1977. AS. weard, a
guard, watchman, Grein, ii. 673. This isa masc. sb. (gen. weardes) ;
we also find AS. weard, fem. (gen. wearde), a guarding, watching,
protection ; id. Both senses are still retained. Both sbs. are formed
from the Teut. base WER, to watch; see Wary. ‘Thus the orig.
sense of the masc. sb. is ‘a watchman,’ and of the fem. sb. is ‘a
watching.’+Icel, vérdr, gen. vardar, (1) a warder or watchman, (2) a
watch; G. wart, a warder; Goth. -wards, masc. sb., a keeper, only
WARISON 701
in the comp. daurawards, a door-keeper. All these are from the
same root, 2. From this sb. was formed the verb to ward, AS.
weardian, to keep, to watch, Grein, ii. 674; cognate with which are
Icel. varda, to warrant, (ἃ. warten, and OSax. wardén, to watch,
from the last of which were derived the OF. (and AF.) warder, to
guard, whence Ἐς ward-en, and (through the French) E. guard.
Der. ward-er, Spenser, F. Q. v. 2. 213 ward-room, ward-ship. Also
ward-en, q.v., ward-robe,q.v. Also bear-ward, door-ward, hay-ward
(=hedge-ward, from AS. hege, a hedge) ; ste-ward,q. vy. Doublet,
guard, sb. and verb.
-WARD, suffix. (E.) A common suffix, expressing the direction
towards which one tends. AS, -weard, as in t6-weard, toward ; see
Toward, where the suffix is fully explained. It occurs also as
Icel. -verdr, Goth. -wairths, OHG. -wert, -wart; and cf. L. uersus,
towards, from the same root. We also have -wards, AS. -weardes,
where -es is a genitival suffix giving an adverbial force. Der. after-
ward, back-ward, east-ward, for-ward, fro-ward, hind-ward, hither-ward,
home-ward, in-ward, nether-ward, north-ward, out-ward, south-ward,
thither-ward, to-ward, up-ward, west-ward. To most of these s can
be added, except to froward. See also way-ward, wool-ward, verse,
prose, suzerain.
WARDEN, a guardian, keeper, one who keeps guard. (F.—
OSax.) Though the verb ¢o ward is English, and so is its deriva-
tive warder, the sb. warden is F., as shown by the suffix. ΜΕ.
wardein, Ancren Riwle, p. 272, 1. 4.—AF. wardein, Liber Albus,
p-2473 OF. wardain (Godefroy), old spelling of OF. gardein, gardain,
a warden, guardian. Cf. Low L. gardidnus, a guardian ; showing
that OF. wardein was formed from OF. ward-er by help of the L.
suffix -i-dnus. See Ward.
WARDON, WARDEN, a pear. (E.) A wardon was ‘a
large coarse pear used for baking,’ Voc. 717, note 1, where we find
it spelt wardun, in a Nominale of the 15th century; it is spelt
warden in Voc. 629. 7, and in Shak. Wint. Tale, iv. 3. 48. By
popular etymology, a keeping pear (see Nares) ; Cotgraye has ‘ poire
de garde, a warden, or winter pear, a pear which may be kept very
long ;” but the adj. gardien, ‘ keeping, warding, guarding,’ answering
to Low L. gardianus (for *wardianus), had an active sense, and is
therefore inappropriate. The better spelling is wardon, as in Pals-
grave, the Prompt. Pary., and the Catholicon ; in Two Cookery
Books, ed. Austin, we find wardon, wardone, wardoun. In Lydgate,
Minor Poems, p. 15, the pl. wardouns rimes with two sbs. ending
with -ouns, showing that the form wardon (-own, -un) is right. Cf.
‘medlers and wardones;’ Excerpta Historica, p. 115 (1498). So
named from Wardon (<AS. Weard-diin) in Beds. The arms of
Wardon (or Warden) Abbey were argent, three wardon-pears, or;
see Privy Purse Expenses of Princess Mary, ed. Madden, p. 272.
WARDROBE, a place to keep clothes in. (F.—Teut.) ME.
warderobe ; ‘ Jupiter hath in his warderobe bothe garmentes of ioye
and of sorowe,’ Test. of Love, b. ii. ch. ix. 140. —OF. warderobe, old
spelling of garderobe; see Godefroy. ‘The spelling garderobe is in
Palsgrave, s.v. wardroppe. Cotgrave spells it garderobbe, ‘a ward-
tobe, also a house of office’ [see wardrope in Halliwell].—OF.
warder, to ward, keep, preserve; and robe, a robe; both words being
of G. origin. See Ward and Robe.
WARE (1), merchandise. (E.) ME. ware (dissyllabic), Chaucer,
C. T. 4560(B 140). AS. waru, ware ; ‘ Merx, waru ;’ Voc. 311. 35.
We also find AS, waru, protection, guard, care, custody, which is
tolerably common; Grein, ii. 641. These words are doubtless
related; the sense of wares appears to have been ‘ things kept in
store; cf. Icel. varnadr, (1) protection, (2) wares. Du. waar, a ware,
commodity; pl. waren, wares. Cf. MDu. waren, ‘to keepe or to
garde,’ Hexham; Low G. ware, Icel. vara, pl. vorur, wares; Dan.
vare, pl. varer; cf, vare, care ; Swed. vara, pl. varor ; cf. vara, care ;
G. waare, pl. waaren; cf. wahre, care, wahren, to guard. Teut. type
*ward, fem. ; from the Teut. base WER, to guard; as distinct from
the base WER, to watch. See Weir (1) and Worth. Den. ware-
house (Palsgrave).
WARE (2), aware. (E.) ‘ They were ware of it,’ Acts, xiv. 6; so
also in Romeo, i. 1. 131, il. 2. 103, &c. See further under Wary.
WARE (3), sea-weed. (E.) The Northern form; see Jamieson,
who quotes from G. Douglas, tr. of Virgil. Proy. E. wore, waur.
AS. war, sea-weed. ‘Alga, waar;’ Voc. 5. 1.4-MDu. wier, ‘sea-
grasse;’ Hexham. Perhaps from 4/WEI, to twine ; see Withy.
WARE (4), pt. t- of Wear, q. νυ.
WARFARE, WARLIKE;; see under War.
WARILY, WARINESS; see under Wary.
WARISON, protection, reward. (F.—Teut.) ME. warisoun,
protection, Rob. of Brunne, p. 198, 1. 1. This is the true sense ; but
it is much more common in the sense of help or ‘reward ;” see
Will. of Palerne, 2259, 2379, Barbour, Bruce, ii. 206, x. 526, xx. 544.
The usual sense of mod. F. guérison is ‘ recovery from illness,’ which
ῃ
702 WARLOCK
is yet a third sense of what is really the same word. Cf. ME.
warisshen, to cure, P, Plowman, B. xvi. 105.—OF. warison, garison
(Godefroy), surety, safety; provision, also healing. Cot. has guarison,
“health, curing, recovery.’ OF. warir, garir, to keep, secure, also
to heal (Godefroy); mod. F. guérir. B. Of Teut. origin; from
the verb appearing as Goth. warjan, to defend, forbid, keep off from,
whence the sense ‘secure ;’ and in OHG. werjan, to: keep off, AS.
werian, to defend; Teut. type *warjan-, to keep off. . Allied to Gk.
ἔρυσθαι, to keep off; see Weir. y. We may note that-the OF.
garison corresponds to the mod. E. garrison in form; but the sense of
garrison is such as to link it more closely with OF. garnison, another
sb.: from a different 4/\WER, for which see Ware (1). And see
Garrison. 4 Sir W. Scott, Lay of the Last Minstrel, iv. 24,
uses warrison in the sense of ‘ note of assault,’ as if it were a warry
(warlike) sound. This is a singular blunder.
WARLOCK, a wizard. (E.) In Jamieson’s Scot. Dict. ‘{A‘neas]
was no warluck, as the Scots commonly call such men, who they
say are iron-free or lead-free ;? Dryden, Dedication to tr. of Virgil’s
/Eneid; § 28. The final ck stands for an orig. guttural sound, just as
most Englishmen say dock for the Scottish /och ; the suffix was prob.
confused with that of hem-lock or wed-lock. ME. warloghe, a wicked
one, a name for the devil, Destruction of Troy, 4439. Spelt warlagh,
a warlock, devil, Cursor Mundi, 8915; warlau, id. 725; warlawe,
a deceiver, P. Plowman’s Crede, 1. 783. AS. wérloga, a traitor,
deceiver, liar, truce-breaker, Grein, ii, 650. Lit. ‘ one who lies
against the truth.”—AS. wé#r, truth (as in wérléas, false, lit.
‘truthless,’ Grein), cognate with L. uérum, truth; and loga, a liar,
from Jog- (Teut. *Zug-), weak grade of léogan (pp. log-en), to lie,
Grein, ii. 176,194. See Verity and Lie (2).
WARM, moderately hot. (E.) ME. warm, Chaucer, C. T. 7409
(Ὁ 1827). AS. wearm, Grein, ii. 675.44Du. warm; Icel. varmr;
Dan. and Swed. varm; G. warm. Cf. Goth. warmjan, to warm ; the
adj. warms does not occur. B. The Teut. is type *war-moz, warm,
Fick, iii. 2092. It is usual to connect this with L. formus, Gk. θερμός,
hot, Skt. gharma-s, heat, from the 4/GWHER, to glow; with labio-
velar gh. γ. But this is not very satisfactory. On this account,
Fick (ii. 465) connects warm with Russ. varite, to boil, brew, scorch,
burn, Lithuan. werdu, I cook, seethe, boil (infin. wirt:), and hence
infers a 4/ WER, to cook or boil, common to Teutonic and Slavonic.
So also Brugmann, i. § 680; cf. § 650. Der. warm-ly, warm-ness;
also warm, verb, AS. wearmian, Grein, ii. 675, whence warm-er,
warm-ing-pan; also warm-th, sb., ME. wermpe, O. Eng. Homilies, ed.
Morris, i. 37, 1. 33 (not found in AS., which has wearm-ness).
WARN, to caution against, put on one’s guard. (E.) ME.
warnien, warnen, Chaucer, C. T. 3535. AS. wearnian, warnian,
(1) to take heed, which is the usual sense, Luke, xi. 35 ; (2) to warn,
Gen. vi. 6; cf. warnung, a warning, Gen. xli, 32. Cognate with
OHG. warnén, to provide for oneself against, used reflexively,
whence G. warnen, to warn against, to caution against. Further
allied to beware and wary; see Wary. 4 Distinct from the AS. sb.
wearn, a refusal, denial (Grein), an obstacle, impediment (Bosworth) ;
the orig. sense being a guarding of oneself, a defence of a person on
trial, as in Icel. vorn, a defence; cf. Icel. varna, to warn off, refuse,
abstain from. Der. warn-ing. And see garn-ish, garr-i-son (for
garn-ison). Also fore-warn, pre-warn,
WARP, the thread stretched lengthwise in a loom, to be crossed
by the woof; a rope used in towing. (E.) Lit. ‘that which is thrown
across;’ see Nares. ME. warp; ‘ Warp, threde for webbynge ;’
Prompt. Parv. AS. wearp, a warp; ‘Stamen, wearp, Voc. 48. 33.
+ Low G. warp (Danneil) ; Icel. varp, a casting, throwing, also the
warping of anything; Dan. varp, only as a naut. term; Swed. varp,
a warp; OHG. warf, a warp. Teut. type *warpom, n. β. All
from the Teut. base *warp, 2nd grade of Teut. *werpan-, to throw,
as seen in AS, weorpan, G. werfen, Goth. wairpan, to throw. If the
Teut. *werp is for an older *werg, from Idg. 4/WWERGw, we may
compare Russ. verg-at(e), to throw. @f The ME. werpen, to throw,
pt. t. warp, pp. worpen, occurring in Havelok, 1061, &c., is obsolete.
Der. warp, verb, to pervert, twist out of shape (cf. cast in the sense
of to twist timber out of shape); Palsgrave has: ‘I warpe, as bordes
do.’ This isnot the ME. werpen (as above), but a derived weak
verb, and is of Scand. origin; ME. warpen, Prompt. Parv., from
Icel. varpa, to throw, cast; cf. varp, sb., a casting, also a warping.
Cf. Swed. varpa, Dan. varpe, to warp a ship, from Swed. varp, the
draught of a net, Dan. varp, a warp; Dan. varpanker, a warp-anchor
or kedge.
WARRANT, a voucher, guarantee, commission giving authority.
(F.—OHG.) ME. warant, Havelok, 2067, St. Marharete, ed.
Cockayne, p. 8, 1. 10.—OF. warant, guarant (Burguy, Supp. to
Godefroy), later garant, ‘a vouchee, warrant; also, a supporter,
defender, maintainer, protector;’ Cot. Cotgrave also gives the
spelling ραν εν, ‘a warrenter.’ In the Laws of Will. I,
WAS, WAST, WERE, WERT
Ancient Laws, i. 476, 477, the AF. spelling is guarant, and the Low
L. warantum and warrantum. The suffix -ant is clearly due to the
-ant- used as the suffix of a present participle; so that the orig.
sense of OF. war-ant was ‘certifying’ or ‘securing.’=OHG.
werént-, stem of pres. pt. of werén (G. gewahren), to certify, to
warrant. Allied to OFries. wera, to warrant. Of uncertain origin;
Schade suggests connexion with OHG. and AS. wer, a man; as if
‘to offer oneself as a surety.’ Der. warrant, verb, ME. waranten,
K. Alisaunder, 2132 (cf. Walloon waranti, to warrant); warrant-er,
warrant-or, warrant-able, warrant-abl-y, warrant-able-ness. Also
warrant-y, from OF. warantie, later garantie, ‘ garrantie, warrantie,
or warrantise,’ Cot., orig. fem. of pp. of warantir, later garantir,
to warrant, guarantee. Also guwarant-ee (error for guarant-ie), q. Vv.
WARREN, a preserved piece of ground, now only used of a
place where rabbits abound, not always a preserved place. (F.—
OHG.) ME. wareine, P. Plowman, B. prol. 163.—OF. warenne,
uarenne, varene (Roquefort) ; warenne, garenne, garene (Godefroy) ;
later garenne, ‘a warren of connies [conies], also a certain, or limited
fishing in a river;’ Cot. The orig. sense was ‘a preserve.’ Cf.
Low L. warenna, a preserve for rabbits, hares, or fish, occurring
A.D. 1186 (Ducange). Formed (with Low L. suffix -exna) from
OHG. warjaxn (>OF. warir), to protect, keep, preserve; see
Warison. Cf. Du. warande, a park; borrowed from OFrench.
Der, warren-er, contracted to warner, P. Plowman, B. v. 316; which
explains the name Warner.
WART, a small hard excrescence, on the skin, or on trees. (E.)
ME, werte (dissyllabic), Chaucer, C. T., A 555 (Six-text edition,
where one MS. has wrete); spelt wert in Tyrwhitt, 1. 557. AS.
wearte, pl. weartan, Cockayne’s A. S. Leechdoms, i. 130, 1. 20.
‘Papula, wearte;’ Voc. 37. 9.#+Du. wrat; MDu. warte, wratte
(Hexham) ; Pomeran. wratte; Icel. varta; Dan. vorte; Swed. varta;
Α΄. warze. B. All from Teut. type *wartn-, f. Perhaps the orig.
sense is ‘growth,’ hence out-growth or excrescence; and closely
allied to Wort (1), q-v. Some connect it with AS. wearr, a
callosity, L. werriica, a wart, from an allied root *wers, to rise.
Brugmann, i. § 380. Der. wart-y.
WARY, WARE, guarding against deception or danger, cautious.
(E.) The ME. form 15 war ; war-y is a comparatively late formation ;
perhaps the -y was subjoined as in murk-y from ME. mirke, merke,
and swarth-y from swart. In Meas. for Meas. iv. 1. 38. ME. war,
Chaucer, C. T., A 309 (Six-text ed.), misspelt ware in Tyrwhitt,
1. 311. AS. wer, cautious, Grein, ii. 649.4Icel. varr; Dan. and
Swed. var; Goth. wars; G. gewahr, aware. β. All from Teut. type
*waroz, cautious. From Teut. base *war, answering to Idg. *wor,
as in Gk. épaw, I perceive, look out for, observe, 2nd grade of Idg.
a WER, to watch, regard, as in L. weréri, to regard, respect, dread.
Der. wari-ly, wari-ness ; a-ware, be-ware. And see war-d, guar-d;
ware (1)} re-vere; pan-or-a-ma, di-or-a-ma.
WAS, WAST, WERE, WERT, used as parts of the verb do
be. (E.) ΜΕ. pt.t. sing. was, wast, was; pl. weren or were. AS.
wesan, infin. to be; whence pt. t. indic. sing. wes, wére, wes; pl.
waeran, wéron, or wérun; pt. t. subj. sing. wére (for all persons), pl.
wéren or wéron (for all persons). See Grein, ii. 664. B. As to
the use of was in the Ist and 3rd persons, there is no difficulty.
y. As to the 2nd person, the AS. form was wére, whence ME. were,
as in ‘thou were betraied,’ Chaucer, C. T. 14690 (B 3570). In
Wyclif, Mark, xiv. 67, where 7 MSS. read were, one MS. has was,
and another has wast; no doubt was-t was formed (by analogy with
hast) from the dialectal was, which was prob. Northern. When you
came to be used for thou, the phrase you was took the place of ‘hou
was, and is very common in writings of the 18th century. Cf. 7 has,
Barbour, Bruce, xiii. 652; 1 is, ye is (Northern dialect), Chaucer,
C. T. 4043 ; thou is, id. 4087 (A 4045, 4089). In the subj. mood, the
true form is were; hence wer-¢ (by analogy with wast), K. John, iii.
1. 43, ed. 1623. δ. In the first and third persons singular of the
subjunctive, and in the plural, the true form is were; but the use of
were in the singular is gradually becoming obsolete, except when
the conjunction if precedes. The forms if I were, if he were, if I be,
if he be, if he have, exhibit the clearest surviving traces of a (grammati-
cally marked) subj. mood in mod. English; and of these, if he have is
almost gone. Some careful writers employ if he do, if it make, and
the like; but it is not improbable that the subjunctive mood will
disappear from the language; the particular phrase if Z were will
probably linger the longest.4-Du. infin. wezen; indic. sing. was,
waart, was; pl. waren, waart, waren; subj. sing. ware, waret, ware;
pl. waren, waret, waren; Icel. infin. vera; indic. sing. var, vart, var,
pl. varum, varut, varu; subj. sing. vera, verir, veri; pl. verim,
verit, vert; Dan. infin, vere; indic. sing. and pl. var; subj. sing. and
pl. vere; Swed. infin. vara; indic, sing. var; pl. voro, voren, voro;
subj. sing. vore; pl. vore, voren, voro; Goth, wisan, to be, dwell, re-
in Thorpe’s | main;, pt. t. indic. sing. was, was/, was; dual, wisu, wésuts; pl
WASH
wésum, wéesuth, wésun; subj. sing. wésjau, weseis, west; dual, wéseiwa,
weseits; pl. wéseima, wéseith, weseina; G. pt. t. sing. war, warest or
warst, war; pl. waren, waret, waren ; subj. sing. wire, wirest or wiirst,
wire; pl. waren, wiret, wiren. B. All from 4/WES, to dwell; cf.
Skt. vas, to dwell, temain, live; Gk. ἐσ-τία, a hearth, do-rv, a
dwelling-place, city; L. uer-na (for *xes-na), a household slave;
Ves-ia, goddess of the household; Irish feis-im, I remain. Der.
wass-ail, q. vy. And see ver-na-c-ul-ar.
WASH, to cleanse with water, overflow. (E.) Formerly a strong
verb; hence wn-washen, Mark, vii. 2. ME. waschen, weschen, pt. t.
wesch, wosch, pp. waschen. The pt. t. is wessk in Chaucer, C. T.
2285 (A 2283), misprinted wesshe by Tyrwhitt. AS. wascan, Grein,
ii. 641. Just as we find dxian (=desian) as well as Gscian, so also
wascan appears as waxan ; the pt. t. is wose or wax; the pp. is wascen
or wescen. Hig hira réaf woxon’=they washed their robes, Exod.
xix. 14.4-Du. wasschen; Icel. and Swed. vaska; Dan. vaske; G.
waschen, pt. t. wusch, pp. gewaschen, β. The Teut. type is *waskan-,
to wash, prob. for *wasskan-, *wat-skan-, to rinse in wet or in water,
where *wat is allied to E, wat-er, wet. Brugmann, i. ὃ 942. Der.
wash, sb., as in The Wash (place-name) ; wash-er, wash-er-woman,
wash-y.
WASP, a stinging insect. (E.) ME. waspe, P. Plowman’s Crede,
1. 648. Cf. prov. E. waps, wops. AS. weps. ‘ Vespa, weps;’ Voc.
121.14. Ina very old AS. glossary of the Sth century, we find:
‘Fespa, waefs, Voc. 21. 42.--OHG. wefsa, wafsa; G. wespe;
Bavarian webes, a wasp; OLow G. uepsia (Gallée). Contracted
from a Teut. type *wadis-, answering to dg. *wobhes- (whence Russ.
osa, a wasp, Lith. wapsu, a gadfly); from *wobh, 2nd grade of
4/ WEBH, to weave (whence L. uespa, a wasp, for *uepsa, *uebsa),
from the nests which they construct. See Weave. Brugmann, i.
§ 918. Cf. Skt. adrzza-vabhi-, a spider, lit. ‘ wool-weaver,’ in Mac-
donell’s Dict. Der. wasp-ish, As You Like It, iv. 3. 9 ; wasp-ish-ly,
“ness,
WASSAITL, a festive occasion, a carouse.(AF.— Teut.) See Brand’s
Popular Antiquities, vol. i. p. 2, where also Verstegan’s ‘ etymology’
(from wax hale) and Selden’s (from wisk-hail) and other curiosities
may be found. In Macb.i. 7.64; Hamlet,i. 4.9,&c. ME. wasseyl,
washayl, Rob. of Glouc. p. 117, 118, ll. 2514, 2522; and see Hearne’s
Glossary, p. 731, and Layamon, The story is that Rowena pre-
sented a cup to Vortigern with the words was heil, and that Vortigern,
who knew no English, was told to reply by saying drinc heil. What-
ever truth there be in this, we at any rate learn that was heil and
drinc heil were phrases used at a drinking-bout. The former phrase
is a salutation, meaning ‘ be of good health,’ lit. be hale ;’ the latter
phrase is almost untranslateable, meaning literally ‘drink, hale!’
i.e. €drink, and good luck be with you.’ B. These forms are not
AS., but Norman; Wace, describing the night before the battle of
Hastings, gives the forms we/sseil and wesse heil (error for wes heil).
The latter represents the OSax. wes hél, Olcel. *wes heill (Icel. ver
heill). The corresponding AS, (Wessex) form of salutation was
wes pi hal, occurring in Beowulf, 407; or hal wes du, Luke, i. 28.
It occurs in the plural in Matt. xxviii. 9; ‘kale wese gé’ = whole be ye,
or peace be unto you; from AS. wes, wes, be thou, imperative sing., 2nd
person, of wesan, to be; and hal, whole. See Was and Whole.
y- In the Icel. Dict. we find similar phrases, such as kom heill,
welcome, hail! (lit. come, hale!) ; far heill, farewell! (lit. fare, hale !),
sit heill, sit hail! (lit. sit, hale!) ; the last of these fully explains drinc
heill. We may also notice Icel. heill, sb., good luck; and we even
find AS. hel (as a sb.), health, salvation, Luke, xix. 9. See
Hail (2). Explained by me in N. and Ὁ. 10S. iii. 455. Cf.
ONorthumbrian wes hal, whence mod. Yorks. wessal, a wassail.
WASTE, desert, desolate, unused. (F.—OHG.—L.) ME, wast,
Rob. of Gloue. p. 372, 1. 7667.—OF. wast, in the phr. faire wast, to
make waste (preserved in E. as Jay waste), Roquefort; later form
gast. He also gives waster, to waste; see also gast, gaster, in
Godefroy. We find AF. wast, adj., and wastee, pp. fem., in Stat.
Realm, i. 48 (1278).—MHG. waste, sb., a waste; wasten, to lay
waste; whence also Ital. guastare,to waste, Εἰ, giter, to spoil. Not
a Teut. word; but simply borrowed from L, zastus, waste, desolate,
also vast, whence the verb uastaire, to waste, lay waste. Allied to
Olrish fas, empty; Idg. types *wastos, wastios; Brugmann, i. § 317.
B. It is remarkable that we should have adopted this word from
French, since we had the word already in an AS. form as wéste; but
it is quite certain that we did so, since wéste would have been weest
in mod. E. ; besides which, there are ‘wo ME. forms, viz. wast (from
F.) and weste (from AS.), of which the latter soon died out, the
latest example noted by Stratmann being from the Owl and
Nightingale, 1. 15328. And the result is remarkably confirmed by
the ME. wastour for waster (see below). C. The history of the
word in G. is equally curious. There also the OHG. has wuosti,
adj., empty, wuost?, sb., a waste, and wuostan, to waste; yet, in
WAVE 703
addition to these, we also find waste, sb., wastenx, verb, borrowed
from Latin, as shown above. But in G, the native form prevailed,
as shown by mod. G. wiist, waste, wiiste, a waste, wiisten, to waste.
Cf. also OHG, wuosti, AS. wéste, OSax. wasti, Du. woest, adj. waste,
empty; Teut. type *wastjoz, Idg. type *wéistios (as above).
q Hatzfeld derives OF. waster from L. wastare, explaining the w as
due to OHG., influence. It comes to much the same thing. See
Vast. Der. waste, sb., ME. waste, Gawain and the Grene Knight,
2098; wasze, verb, ME. wasten, Layamon, 22575, from OF. waster
<OHG. wasten, from L. uastare; wast-er, ME. wastour, P. Plowman,
B, prol. 22, vi. 29, where the suffix -our is French. Also waste-fi,
Κι John, iv. 2. 16; waste-ful-ly, -ness; waste-ness, Zeph. i. 15.
(A. Ν.) Doublet, vasé,
WATCH, a keeping guard, observation. (E.) ME. wacche,
P. Plowman, B. ix. 17. AS. wecce, a watch, Grein, ii. 641.— AS,
wacian, to watch; Matt. xxvi. 40; AS. wacan, to wake; see Wake
(1). Der. watch, verb, ME. wacchen, Gower, C, A. i. 163; bk. ii.
110; watch-er; watch-ful, Two Gent. i. 1. 31, watch-ful-ly, -ness;
watch-case, a sentry-box, 2 Hen. IV, iii. 1. 17; watch-dog, Temp.
i, 2. 383; watch-man (Palsgrave); watch-word, 2 Hen. IV, iii.
2. 231.
WATCHET, light blue. (F.) Cotgrave has: ‘ers, watchet,
blunket, skie-coloured.’ Nares gives exx. of watchet from Browne,
Lily, Drayton, and Taylor; and Richardson from Beaum. and
Fletcher, Hakluyt, Spenser, Ben Jonson, and Chaucer. ‘ Watchet
eyes;’ tr. of Juvenal, Sat. xiii. (not by Dryden), ‘Al ina kertell
ofa liht wachett;’ Chaucer, C. T., A 3321; Lansdowne MS. The
Camb. MS. has vachet, the Harl. MS. has wachet; the rest waget,
wagelt.—OF, wachet, a sort of stuff (Godefroy); cf. wache, wasce,
the same. Perhaps from OHG. wat, clothing; see Wadmal, As
with blunket (see N.E.D.), the difficulty is to know whether the
stuff gave name to the colour or conversely.
WATER, the fluid in seas and rivers. (E.) ME. water, Chaucer,
C. T. 402 (A 400). AS. weter, Grein, ii. 651.4+-Du. water; OSax.
watar; G. wasser, OHG, wazar, wazzar. B. From the Teut.
type *watrom, n., water, There is also a Teut. type *waton-,
water, appearing in Icel. vatn, Dan. vand, Swed. vatten, Goth.
watd (pl. watna), water. Allied words are Russ. voda, Gk. ὕδωρ,
L. unda, Lithuan. wandz, Skt. udan, water; Olrish fand, a tear. All
from the 4/ WED, to wet; see Wet. Der. water, verb, AS. wetrian,
Gen, ii. 6, 10; water-ish, K, Lear, i, 1. 261 ; water-y, AS. weterig,
Voc. 147. 6. Also water-carriage, -clock, -closet ; -colour, 1 Hen. 1V,
v. 1. 80; -course; -cress, ME, water-kyrs, Voc. 643. 26 ; -fowl ; -gall,
a rainbow, Shak. Lucrece, 1588; -level; -lily, ME. water-lylle, Voc.
644. 13 -line, -logged, -man, -mark, -mill (Palsgrave), -pipe; -pot,
Chaucer, C. T. 8166 (E 290); -power, -proof, -shed (modern), -sfout,
-tight, -wheel, -work; &c., &c.
WATTLE, a twig, flexible rod, usually a hurdle; the fleshy part
under the throat ofa cock or turkey. (E.) In all senses, it is the same
word. The orig. sense is something twined together; hence it came
to mean a hurdle, woven with twigs, a basket; hence, a bag; also,
the baggy flesh on a bird’s neck. (It also appears in the corrupt
form wallet; see Wallet.) ME. watel, a bag, P. Plowman, C. xi.
269; see further under Wallet. Hence ME. watelen, verb, to
wattle, twist together or strengthen with hurdles, P. Plowman, B. xix.
323. AS. watel,a hurdle, covering; also watul. ‘Teges, watul ;’
élfric’s Grammar, ed. Zupitza, p. 52, 1.13. Watelas, pl., coverings
of a roof, tiles, Luke, v. 19; also in the sense of twigs or hurdles,
fElfred, tr. of Beda, b. iii. c. 16. Allied to AS. wetla, a bandage.
There appear to be no cognate words, and the root is unknown.
Der. wattle, verb, ME. watelen, as above. Doublet, wallet.
WAUL: see under Wawl.
WAVE (1), to fluctuate, to move or be moved about with an
undulating motion or up and down, (E.) ME. wauen, Lydgate,
Minor Poems, p. 256. The pres. part. is spelt vafand, vaffand,
Barbour, Bruce, ix. 245, xi. 193, 513; the scribe constantly writes v
forw. AS. wafian, to wave (with one’s hand), Leechdoms, ii. 318;
ZElfric’s Saints’ Lives, xxvii.151. ‘The sense also comes out in the de-
rived adj.we/fre, wavering, restless, Grein, ii.642; see Waver.+Olcel.
*vafa, cited by E. Miiller and Stratmann ; the Dict. gives the deriva-
tives vafra, vafla, to waver, vaff, hesitation (which presuppose an
orig. verb *vafa) ; also vifa, vofa, vofa, to swing, vibrate. Cf. also
MHG. waberen, wabelen, to move about, to stir; Bavarian wabern, to
sway to and fro; see Wabble. Der. wave, sb., a late word, occur-
ring in the Bible of 1551, James, i. 6; it is due to the verb, and took
the place of ΜΕ. wawe, a wave, Wyclif, James, i. 6, which is not
the same word, but allied to E, Wag, 4. v. (cf. Icel. vagr, Dan.
vove, G. woge, a wave). Also wave-less; wave-let, a coined word,
with double dimin. suffix ; wave-offering, Exod. xxix. 24; wave-worn,
Temp. ii. 1.120; wav-y, Also wav-er, q.v.; and waft. ta Dis-
tinct from waive, waif.
704 WAVE
WAVE (2), the same as Waive, q. v.
WAVER, to vacillate. (E.) ME. waueren (=waveren), Prompt.
Pary. p. 518. Barbour has waverand, wandering about ; Bruce, vii.
112, xiii. 517, cf. vii. 41. ‘ Wauerand wynd’=a changeable wind,
Wallace, iv. 340; waferyng, wavering, York Plays, p. 39, 1. 111.
{Apparently a Northern and E. Anglian word; and perhaps of
Scand. origin; cf. Icel. vafra, to waver, Norw. vavra.] If a native
word, it was suggested by AS. we/re, adj., wandering, restless, Grein,
li. 652.4Icel. vafra, to hover about; Norw. vavra, to flap about ;
OHG. wabar- (in compounds), wavering. β, It is the frequentative
form of Wave, q.v. Der. waver-er.
WAWL, WAUL, to cry as a cat, cry, squall. (E.) Cotgrave
has: ‘ houaller, to yawl, wawl, cry out aloud.’ It is the frequent.
form of waw, as in ME, waw-en ; see a-cater-wawed in Chaucer, C. T.,
D 354; and the note. A more usual old form is wrawl, frequent. of
wraw-en; cf. ‘he [a cat] began to wrawen,’ Caxton, Reynard the
Fox, ch. x; ed. Arber, p. 22. Of imitative origin; see Wail. Cf.
also Swed. υγᾶϊα, to bellow, Dan. vraale, vrelle, to squall; Norw.
raala, to cry as a cat; also Icel. vala, to wail.
WAX (1), to grow, increase, become. (E.) ME. waxen, wexen,
a strong verb, pt. t. wox, wex, pp. woxen, waxen, wexen; Wyclif, Matt.
xiii. 30 ; Luke, ii. 40, xxiii. 5, 23; Matt. xiii. 32. AS. weaxan, pt. t.
wéox, pp. geweaxen, Grein, ii. 676.4-Du. wassen, pt. t. wies, pp. ge-
wassen; Icel. vaxa, pt. t. 6x, pp. vaxinn; Dan. veaxe; Swed. vaxa ;
G. wachsen, pt. t. wuchs, pp. gewachsen ; Goth, wahsjan, pt. t. wohs, pp
wahsans. B. All from Teut. base *waks-, to grow; from Idg.
oa WEKS, to grow; whence Gk. defer, αὔξειν, αὔξανειν, to wax, Skt.
vaksh, to wax, grow. Extended from 4/WEG, to be strong, be lively
and vigorous; cf. Skt. vaj, to strengthen, L. augére, to increase,
uigére, to flourish, &c. When extended by the addition of s, the form
*wegs became *weks. Brugmann, i. § 6353 ii. § 657. See Eke (1),
Vigour, Vegetable, Augment, Auction. Der. waist, 4. v.
WAX (2), a substance made by bees ; other substances resembling
it. (E.) ΜΕ. wax, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 677 (A 675). AS. weax, Grein,
ii. 676.4-Du. was; Icel. and Swed. vax ; Dan, vox; G. wachs; Russ.
vosk’; Lithuan. waszkas. Root unknown. Some (wrongly) connect
it with L. uiscum, birdlime; see Viscid. Der. wax, verb; wax-
cloth, wax-work ; wax-en, Rich. II, i. 3. 753 wax-y.
WAY, a road, path, distance, direction, means, manner, will. (E.)
ME, wey, way, Chaucer, C. T. 34. AS. weg, Grein, ii. 655.4+Du.
weg; Icel. vegr; Dan. vei; Swed. vag; G. weg; OHG. wec; Goth.
wigs. B. All from Teut. type *wegoz. Further allied to Lithuan.
wea, the track of a cart, from wésztt, to drive, or draw, a waggon ;
Ι, πα (?), a way; Skt. vaha-, a road, way, from vah, to carry. All
from 4/WEGH, to carry; see Wain, Viaduct, Vehicle.
@ Under way is from the Du. onderweeg, on the way. Der.
al-way, al-ways, q. V.; length-ways, side-ways, &c.; also way-faring,
i.e. faring on the way, spelt wayvaring, Trevisa, v. 449; cf. AS.
weg-férend, Matt. xxvii. 39, where férend is the pres. part. of féran,
to fare, travel, Grein, i. 285, a derivative of the more primitive verb
faran, to go (see Fare); way-far-er ; way-lay, Tw. Night, iii. 4. 176;
way-mark, Jer. xxxi. 21 (A. V.)3 way-worn; way-ward, ἢ. ν.
WAYWARD, perverse. (E.) ME. weiward; ‘if thin ize be
weiward {L. nequam], al thi bodi shal be derk,’ Wyclif, Matt. vi. 23;
used as an adj., but orig. a headless form of awaiward, adv., Owl and
Nightingale, 376, Layamon, 8878, 21464; Relig. Antique, i. 292,
ii. 9; cf. aweiwardes, ina direction away from, Layamon, 22352,
Will. of Palerne, 2188. In Trevisa, ii. 215, we find: ‘man is euere
faillynge and aweyward, where Caxton prints wayward. Thus way-
ward is away-ward, i.e. turned away, perverse. A parallel formation
to fro-ward, q.v. It is now often made to mean bent on one’s way.
Cf. ¢ ouerthwartlie waiwarded’ = perversely turned away, Holinshed,
Descr. of Ireland, ed. 1808, p. 274. Der. wayward-ness, ME.
weiwardnesse, Wyclif, Rom. i. 29.
WH, pl. of the rst pers. pronoun. (E.) ME, we, Chaucer, C. T.
29. AS. we; Grein, ii. 652.4Du. wij; Icel. vér, ver; Dan. and
Swed. vi; Ὁ. wir; Goth. weis. Cf. Skt. vay-am, we.
WEAK, yielding, soft, feeble. (E.) LA. The verbal form has ousted
the AS. wac, which became ME. wook, spelt wooc in Genesis and
Exodus, ed. Morris, l. 1874; and would have given a mod. E. woak,
like oak from AS. dc. We also find ME. wetk, waik, whence the pl.
weike, for which Tyrwhitt prints weke, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 889; but see
Six-text ed., A 887; the pl. is spelt wayke, Havelok, 1. 1012. This
is a Scand. form ; from Icel. vetkr, veykr, weak, Swed. vek.4- AS. wiic,
pliant, weak, easily bent, Grein, ii. 635; Du. week, tender, weak ;
G. weich, pliant, soft. All from the Teut. type *waikoz, weak ;
from *waik, 2nd grade of Teut. *wetkan-, as in AS. and OSax. wican,
G. weichen, to yield, give way. From an Idg. base WEIGw, a by-
form of 4/WEIQ, as in Gk. εἴκειν, to yield, Brugmann, i. § 7or.]
B. But the mod. E. weak is a back-formation from the verb ἐο weaken,
Chaucer, Troil. iv. 1144 (in Thyune’s ed.), from AS, we&can ; for
WEAR
*wdcian, formed by mutation from AS. wac, weak, adj. (above).
Der. weak-ly, weak-ness, Also weak-en, in which the suffix is added
as in length-en, &c.; cf. ME. weken, Chaucer, Troil. iv. 1144, AS.
wecan, wacian, Grein, ii. 641, 636, Icel. veikja-sk, to grow ill; as
above. Also weak-ly, adj., used by Ralegh (Todd’s Johnson, no
reference) ; weak-l-ing, 3 Hen. VI,v. 1. 37, with double dimin. suffix,
as in gos-l-ing. And see wick (3), wicked, wick-er.
WEAL, prosperity, welfare. (E.) ME. wele, Chaucer, C. T.
3103, 4595 (A 3101, B175). AS. wela, weala, weola, weal, opulence,
prosperity ; Grein, ii. 656.4-OHG, wela, wolo, G, wohl, welfare ; cf.
Dan. vel, weal, welfare; Swed. val. β, The orig. sense is a ‘ well-
being,’ welfare, and (like the words well-being, wel-fare, wel-come,
fare-well) it is allied to AS. wel, well, ady., the notion of condition
being expressed by the nominal suffix -a. See Well (1). And see
Wealth.
WEALD, a wooded region, an open country. (E.) The peculiar
spelling of this word is not improbably due to Verstegan, who was
anxious to spell it so as to connect it at once with the AS, form, for-
getting that the diphthong ea was scarcely ever employed in the 13th
and 14th centuries. Minshen, in his Dict., ed. 1627, has: ‘ Weald of
Kent, is the woodie part of the countrey. Verstegan saith that wald,
weald, and wold signifie a wood or forrest; a Teut. Wald, i. sylua, a
wood.’ This fashion, once set, has prevailed. B. It also appears
that two words have been confused, viz. wald and wild, Wald (now
also wold) was sometimes spelt weld, as in Layamon, 21339; hence
it passed into weld or weeld, Caxton, in the preface to his Recuyell
of the Histories of Troye, tells us that he was born in Kent, " in the
weeld.’ In the reprint of this book by Copland, this phrase appears
as ‘in the wilde.’ Lyly, in his Euphues and his England, says: ‘I
was borne in the wylde of Kent ;’ ed. Arber, p. 268. Shak. has ‘ wilde
of Kent,’ 1 Hen. IV, ii. 1. 60, ed. 1623. Ὑ. For the further ex-
planation of ME, wald, see Wold. For the further explanation of
wild, see Wild. Both words are English. Der. weald-en, adj.,
belonging to the wealds of the S. of England ; a term in geology.
For the suffix -en, cf. gold-en.
WEALTH, prosperity, riches. (E.) ME. welthe (dissyllabic),
P. Plowman, B.i. 55. Spelt welde, Genesis and Exodus, 1. 796. Not
in AS. A longer by-form of weal (ME. wele), made with the suffix
-th, denoting condition or state; cf. heal-th and heal, dear-th and
dear, &c. See Weal.+Du. weelde, luxury ; from wel, adv., well;
OHG, welida, riches, Der. wealth-y, spelt welthyin Fabyan, Chron.
c. 563; wealth-i-ness, spelt welthines in Fabyan, in the same passage.
WEAN, to accustom a child to bread, &c., to reconcile to a new
custom. (E.) The proper sense is to ‘ accustom to;’ we also use it,
less properly, in the sense of to ‘disaccustom to,’ These opposite
senses are easily reconciled ; the child who is being accustomed to
bread, &c. is at the same time disaccustomed to, or weaned from,
the breast. Cf. (Ὁ. entwohnen, lit. to disaccustom, also ¢o wean ; where
ent- is equivalent to Ἐς un- as a verbal prefix; so that ent-wohnen=
un-wean. ME, wenen, “ Wene chylder fro sokynge [sucking], Ab-
lacto, elacto,’ Prompt. Parv. AS. wentan, to accustom, Grein.
ii. 660. Hence dwenian, answering to G. entwoéhnen; ‘Xr ponne
pat acennede bearn fram meolcum dwened si=before the child that
is born be weaned from milk; JA‘lfred, tr. of Beda, 1]. i. ο. 27, ed.
Wheloc, p. 88. * Ablacto, to awenye ;’ Voc. 560. 8.4-Du. wennen, to
accustom, inure 3 afwennen, to wean ; Icel. venja, to accustom ; Dan.
venne, to accustom; venne fra Brystet, to wean; Swed. vanja, to
accustom; viinjaaf,to wean; G.gewohnen, to accustom, OHG. wenjan,
wennan, MHG, wenen ; whence entwéhnen, to wean. B. All from
a Teut. weak verb *wanjan, to make accustomed, accustom ; from
the adj. *7anoz, wont, accustomed, used to, as in Icel. vanr, Swed.
van, accustomed, allied to Icel. vani,a usage. From Teut. *wan,
2nd grade of 4/WEN, to desire, earn ; see Win and Wont,
WEAPON, an instrument for offence or defence. (E.) ΜΕ,
wepen, Chaucer, C. T,, A591. AS. wépen, a weapon, shield, or sword;
Grein, ii. 648.-4-Du. wapen; Icel. vapn; Dan. vaaben; Swed. vapen ;
G. waffe, OHG, wifan (also wappen, borrowed from Dutch or Low
G.); Goth, wépna, neut. pl., John, xviii. 3. B. All from the Teut.
type *w&pnom, n.,a weapon. A by-form (with & for p) is found in
MSwed. wakn, a weapon (Ihre). Der. weapon-ed, Oth. v. 2. 226;
weaponeless, Also wapen-shaw, wapen-take.
WEAR (1), to carry on the body, as clothes; to consume by use,
tub away. (E.) The pt. t. wore, now in use, is due to analogy with
bore, pt. t. of bear ; the word is not really a strong one, the ME, pt. t.
being wered. We also find pt. t. ware, Luke, viii. 27. (A. V.) ΜΕ,
weren, pt. t. wered, Chaucer, C. T. 75. AS. werian (pt. t. werode),
Exod. xxix. 29. (Quite distinct from AS. werian, to defend; Grein.)
+Icel. verja, to wear (quite distinct from verja, to defend); OHG.
werian; Goth, wasjan, to clothe ; pp. wasids, Matt. xi. 8. B. From
the Teut. and Idg. 4/WES, to clothe ; the r standing for s (by Verner’s
law), as shown by the Gothic form. Hence also L. westis, clothing;
WEAR
Gk, ἐσ-θής, clothing ; Skt. vas, to put on clothes. See Vest. Der.
wear, sb., As You Like It, ii. 7. 34; wear-able; wear-er, Antony,
11: ΠΆΡΙΣ ἀξ All the senses of wear can be deduced from the
carrying of clothes on the body; it hence means to bear, to carry;
also to consume or use up by wear, destroy, tire, efface; also, to
become old by wearing, to be wasted, pass away (as time); to wear
well=to bear wear and tear, hence to last out, endure. There is no
connexion with the sense of AS. werian, to defend.
WEAR (2), the same as Weir, q. v.
WEAR (3), in phr. ‘to wear a ship ;’ the same as Veer, q. v.
WEARISH,, insipid, weakly. (E.) ‘A wretched wearish [weak]
elfe ;’ Spenser, F. Q. iv. 5. 34. ‘ Werysshe, as meate is that is nat
wel tastye;’ Palsgrave. Prov. E. wairsh, wairish, weerish, insipid,
squeamish, weak. See Wearish in Nares, whose explanation is con-
jectural. The orig. sense may have been ‘watery;’ from AS. wer,
the sea; cf. Icel. ver, the sea, orig. ‘ water.’ Cf. also Skt. var, vari,
water; Gk. οὖρον ; Swed. var, pus. See Urine.
WEARY, exhausted, tired, causing exhaustion. (E.) ΜΕ. weri,
wery, Chaucer, C. T. 4232 (A 4234). (The e is long, as in mod. E.)
AS. werig, tired; Grein, ii. 663 ; woerig, O. E. Texts.4-OSax. worig,
weary; in the comp. sid-worig, fatigued with a journey; Heliand,
660, 670, 678, 698, 2238; cf. OHG. wuorag, intoxicated. B. The
long é is (as usual) due to a mutation of long 6, as shown by the cog-
nate OSaxon form. It is, consequently, connected with AS. worian,
to wander, travel, Gen. iv. 14; Numb. xiv. 33; Grein, ii. 736.
y- This verb is a weak one, formed from the sb. wor, which probably
meant a moor or swampy place; so that worian was orig. ‘to tramp
over wet ground,’ the most likely thing to cause weariness. Hence
AS. wér-hana, a moor-cock, O. E. Texts, p. 465. Not allied to
Wear (1). δ. Prob. allied to Skt. var, water; the prime grade
appears in AS, wer, sea. Der. weari-ly, -ness; weary, verb, Temp.
iil. 1. 19; weari-some, Two Gent. ii. 7. 8; weari-some-ly, -ness.
WEASAND, WESAND, the wind-pipe. (E.) Spelt wesand
in Spenser, F. Ὁ. v. 2. 14; hé also has weasand-pipe, id. iv. 3. 12.
ME. wesand; spelt wesande, Voc. 676. 243 waysande, id. 635. 19.
AS. wasend, Voc. 157. 453 264.19; used to translate L. rumen, the
gullet. The mod. Εἰ. weasand answers rather to a by-form wésend ;
whilst the AS. wasenrd answers to proy. E. wosen, the wind-pipe
(Halliwell).4-OF ries. wasende, wasande. Cf. Bavar. watsel, the gullet
of animals that chew the cud; MHG. weisant, OHG. weisunt,
weasand, cited by E. Miiller. The form is like that of a pres. part.
WEASEL, a small slender-bodied quadruped. (E.) ME. wesele,
wesel, Chaucer, C. T. 3234. AS. wesle, Voc. 119. 6; oldest forms,
weosule, wesulae; O. E. Texts.4-Du. wezel ; Icel. visla (given in the
comp. hreysivisla); Dan. vaesel; MSwed. wisla; Swed. vessla; G.
wiesel; OHG. wisala, wisela, wisula. B. The Teut. type seems to
be *wisaldn- or *wisuldn-, f. (Franck); evidently a dimin. form.
Root uncertain; cf. Gk. aiéAoupos, αἴλουρος, a weasel ; perhaps allied
to aidAos (for *aFtadAos?), nimble.
WEATHER, the condition of the air, &c. as to sunshine or
rain. (E.) ME. weder, P. Plowman, B. vi. 326; Chaucer, C. T.
10366, where Tyrwhitt prints wether, but the MSS. mostly have
weder, asin all the six MSS. in the Six-text edition, Group F, 1. 52.
The mod. E. ἐᾷ for ME. d occurs again in ME. fader, moder, and
is prob. due to dialectal influence. AS. weder, Grein, ii. 654.--Du.
weder; Icel. vedr; Dan. veir (a contracted form) ; Swed. vader, wind,
air, weather; G. wetter; OHG. wetar; cf. G. gewitter, a storm.
B. All from the Teut. type *wedrom, n., weather, storm, wind; allied
words appear in G. gewitter, as above, and in Icel. Jand-vidri, a land-
wind, heid-vidri, bright weather. Further allied to Lithuan. wétra, a
storm, OPruss. wetro, wind; Russ. viefer’, vietr’, wind, breeze; Skt.
vatara-, adj. windy. γ. To be divided as *we-drom, where the
suffix (as in fa-ther, mo-ther) answers to Idg. -¢rd-, denoting the agent ;
and the base is *we, weak grade of 4/WE, to blow, which occurs in
Gothic waian, to blow, Skt. va, to blow; cf. Gk. ane (for ἀβη-μὼ),
I blow; whence also E. wi-nd; see Wind (1). δ. Thus weather
and wind mean much the same, viz. ‘ that which blows,’ and they are
constantly associated in the E. phrase ‘ wind and weather.’ ‘ Wind
liged, weder bid feeger ;’ Phoenix, ed. Grein, 1, 182. A weather-cock
means a wind-cock. Der. weather, verb, Spenser, F. Q. v. 4. 425
weather-board, cf. Icel. vedrbord, the windward side; weather-bound ;
weather-cock, ME. wedercoc, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 180, l. 27, and
in Wright, Voc. i. 115 (12th cent.), so called because formerly often
in the shape of a cock, as some are still made (cf. Du. weerhaan=
wederhaan, from haan, a cock) ; weather-fend, i.e. to defend from the
weather, Temp. v. 10, where fend is a clipped form of defend (see
Fence); weather-gage, weather-side; weather-wise, ME. wederwis,
P. Plowman, B. xv. 350. And see weather-beaten, wither.
WEATHER-BEATEN, WEATHER-BITTEN, haras-
sed by the weather. (E.or Scand.) | Weather-beaten, lit. beaten by the
weather, or beaten upon by the weather, makes such good sense that |
WEDNESDAY 705
I do not know that we can disallow it as being a genuine phrase ; it
occurs in 1 Hen. IV, iii. τ. 67, in Spenser, F. Q. il. 1. 2,and in Nich.
Breton, ed. Grosart (see the Index). Cf. also prov. E, weather-bet,
i.e. ‘weather-beaten;’ E.D.D. β. At the same time there can be
little doubt that, in some cases, the right word is weather-bitten, i. e.
bitten by the weather, as in Shak. Wint. Tale, v. 2. 60. The latter
is a true Scand. idiom. We find Swed. viiderbiten, lit. weather-bitten,
but explained in Widegren as ‘weather-beaten ;’ so also Norweg.
vederbiten, which Aasen explains by Dan. veirbidt, also as ‘ tanned in
the face by exposure to the weather,’ said of a man; he also gives
the expressive Norw. vederslitten, weather-worn (lit. weather-slit).
WEAVE, to twine threads together, work into a fabric. (E.)
ΜΕ. weuen (for weven) ; pt. t. waf, Gower, C. A.iie 320; bk. ν. 5770;
ῬΡ- wouen (=woven), spelt wouun, Wyclif, John, xix. 23. AS. wefan,
pt. τ. wef, pp. wefen ; Grein, ii. 654.44+Du. weven; Icel. vefa, pt. t.
vaf, pp. ofinn; Dan. veve; Swed. vefva; (ἃ. weben, to weave, pt. t.
wob, pp. gewoben; also as a weak verb. B. All from Teut. type
*weban-, to weave; from Idg. 4/WEBH, to weave, which further
appears in Gk. ὑφ-ή, ὕφ-ος, a web, ὑφ-αίν-ειν, to weave, and Skt.
urna-vabhis, a spider (lit. a wool-weaver), Brugmann, i. § 562. Der.
weav-er, weav-ing ; also web, q.v., wef-t, q.V., woof, q.V., waf-er,
wasp, weevil.
WEB, that which is woven; a film over the eye, the skin be-
tween the toes of water-birds. (E.) ME. web, Wyclif, Job, vii. 6 ;
also webbe, P. Plowman, B. vy. 111. AS. webb, gen. written web, Voc.
50. 28.4Du. web; Icel. vefr (gen. vefjar); Dan. vev; Swed. vaf;
G, ge-webe, OHG. weppi, wappi. B. All from the Teut. type *wad-
jom, n., a web; from *wad, 2nd grade of *weban-, from 4/ WEBH, to
weave; see Weave. Der. webb-ing, webb-ed, web-foot-ed. Also
ME, webbe, Chaucer, C. T. 364 (A 362), AS. webba, a weaver, Voc.
188, 10, where the suffix -a denotes the agent (obsolete, except in
the name Webb); ME. webster, Wyclif, Job, vii. 6, AS. webbestre,
a female weaver, used to translate L. textrix, Voc. 188. 11 (obsolete,
except in the name Webster) ; for the suffix -ster, see Spinster.
WED, to engage by a pledge, to marry. (E.) ME. wedden,
Chaucer, C. T. 870 (A 868). AS. weddian, lit. to pledge, engage,
Luke xxii. 5. AS. wed, sb., a pledge, Grein, ii. 653.4+Du. wedden, to
lay a wager, from MDu. wedde, ‘a pledge, a pawne,’ Hexham ; Icel.
vedja, to wager, from ved, a pledge; Dan. vedde, to wager; Swed.
vadja, to appeal, from vad, a bet, an appeal; G. wetten, to wager,
from wette, a wager; Goth. ga-wadjon, to pledge, betroth, from
wadi, a pledge. B. All from the Teut. type *wad-jom, n., a
pledge. Further allied to Lithuan. wadoti, to redeem a pledge; L.
μας (gen. uad-is), a pledge. —4/WEDH, to carry home, to marry,
Fick, 1. 767; cf. Lithuan. wésti, pres. tense wedi, to marry, take home
a bride, wadas, a conductor, guide, leader by the hand, Russ. veséi,
to lead, conduct; Olrish fed-im, I carry off, W. dy-weddio, to wed ;
Skt. vadhi-, a bride. Der. wedd-ed ; wedd-ing, AS. weddung, Gospel
of Nicodemus, c. 7; also wed-lock, q.v. Also see wage, wager, gage
(1), en-gage.
WEDGE, a piece of metal or wood, thick at one end and sloping
to athin edge at the other. (E.) Also used to denote simply a mass
of metal, as in Rich. II, i. 4. 26. ME. wegge, Chaucer, On the
Astrolabe, pt. i. § 14, 1. 3. AS. wecg, a mass of metal; Sweet,
A.S. Reader. ‘Cuneus, weeg;’ Voc. 216. 12.4Du. wig, wigge, a
wedge; Icel. veggr; Dan. vegge ; Swed. vigg; OHG. wekki, MHG,
wecke, a wedge; G. wecke, a kind of loaf, from its shape (cf. prov. E.
wig, a kind of cake). B. All from Teut. type *wag-joz, m., a
wedge; from Teut. base *wag-=Idg. *wogh, with velar gh, as shown
by the cognate Lithuan. wags, a bent wooden peg for hanging things
upon, also a spigot for a cask, also a wedge. See Brugmann, i.
§§ 367, 654. Der. wedge, verb.
WEDLOCK, marriage. (E.) ME. wedlok (with long o), written
wedloke, P. Plowman, B. ix. 113, 119 ; where some MSS. have wedlok.
AS. wedlac, in the sense of pledge; ‘ Arrabo, wedlac,’ Voc. 115. 42.
-AS. wed, a pledge; and Jac, a sport, also a gift, in token of
pleasure. Thus the sense is ‘a gift given as a pledge, and in token of
pleasure ;’ hence, the gift given to a bride. It was usual to make a
present to the bride on the morning after marriage ; cf. G. morgengabe,
a nuptial (lit. morning) gift. However, -ἰᾶς is also used as a mere
suffix, with but slight meaning. See Wed. And see Knowledge,
which has a like suffix.
WEDNESDAY, the fourth day of the week. (E.) ME. wednes-
day, P. Plowman, B. xiii. 154, where one MS, has wodnesday. AS.
Wodnes deg, rubric to Matt. v. 25. The change from 6 to δ is the
usual vowel-change, when the vowel follows ; this vowel appears
in the OFries. Wernisdei, for *Wédnisdei; cf. OFries. Weda,
Woden (Weigand, 5. v. Wotan), NFries. Weensdi, Outzen, p. 35; so
that the é for dis Friesian. ‘Wodnes deg’ means ‘day of Woden or
Woadin,’ after whom it was named; see Day. Cognate words are
Du. woensdag, Icel. ddinsdagr, Swed, Dan. onsdag (for odensdag). The
ZZ
706 WEE
G. name is simply mitwoch (mid-week). β, The AS. Woden is cog-
nate with Icel. Odinn, OHG. Wotan, Wuotan. The name signifies
‘the furious,’ or rather ‘the divinely inspired;’ being apparently
closely related to L. udfes (stem wati-),a prophet, a seer, and to
Olzish faith (Celtic stem *wati-),a singer, minstrel. Also, to AS.
wod, raging, mad (cognate with Icel. ddr, Goth. wads), whence ME.
wood, mad, a word which occurs as late as in Shakespeare, Mids. Nt.
Dr. ii. 1, 192; see Wood (2). @ It is remarkable that the
Romans, whilst looking upon Woden as the chief divinity of the
Teutonic races, nevertheless identified him with Mercury; hence dies
Mercurit was translated into AS, by Wodnesdeg. Cf. ‘k6lludu peir
Pal Odin, en Barnabas por’ =they called Paul Odinn, but Barnabas
Thor; Icel. Bible, Acts, xiv. 12.
WEE, small, tiny. (E.) ‘A little wee face;’ Merry Wives, i. 4.
22. ME. we, only as a sb.,a bit. ‘A little we,’ a little bit, fora
short space ; Barbour, Bruce, vii. 182, xiii. 217. ‘And behynd hir
a litill we It fell’=and it fell a little way behind her ; id. xvii. 677.
In all three passages it occurs in the same phrase, viz. ‘a little we;’
and in the last case we should now say ‘a little way.’ So also: ‘a
litill wee ;’? G. Douglas, tr. of Virgil, Ain. bk. x. ch. 6; ef. ‘in a litel
wei, ina short time, Cursor Mundi, 12531; ‘ He ne es yitt bot a littel
wei,’ he is yet but young; id.8419. Andas it isa sb., I believe it is
nothing but the Northern form of E.way. See Way. 4 That the
constant association of Jittle with we (=way) should lead to the
supposition that the words little and wee are synonymous, seems
natural enough ; and we have the evidence of Barbour that the word
is Northern. ‘The above solution is strongly corroborated by the fact
that way-bit is stillin use, in the North, in the sense of wee bit or little
bit; see Halliwell, and wee in E. D. D.; also Way-bit in Davies,
Supp. Glossary. ‘In the North parts, wherther is a wea-bit to every
mile ;᾿ Howell, Letters, bk. iv. let. 28.
WEED (1), any useless and troublesome plant. (E.) ME. weed,
Prompt. Parv. p. 519. AS. wéod, wiod; Grein, ii. 676.4-OSax.
wiod ; whence Du. wieden, vb., to weed. Teut. type *weudom, n.
Root unknown. Der. weed, verb, ME. weeden, Palladius on Hus-
bandry, ii. 289; οἵ. Du. wieden, Low (ἃ. wéden, to weed. Der.
weed-y, Hamlet, iv. 7. 175.
WEED (2), a garment. (E.) Chiefly in the phr. ‘a widow’s
weeds,’ ἴ. 6. a widow’s mourning apparel. Common in Shak. as a
sing. sb., in the sense of garment, Mids. Nt. Dr. ii. 1. 256, ὅς, ME.
wede (dissyllabic), Havelok, 1.94. AS. wéde, neut., also wéd, fem.,
a garment; Grein, ii, 642.4-OFriesic wéde, wed; OSax. widit; MDu.
wade,‘ a garment, a habit, or a vesture,’ Hexham; Icel. vad, a piece
of stuff, cloth ; also, a garment; OHG, wat, wat, clothing, armour ;
O. Low ἃ. wad, a coverlet (Gallée). B. All from the Teut. base
*wiéd-, a garment, perhaps ‘something woven ;’ cf. Skt. vé, to weave.
Others connect it with Goth. ga-widan, pt. t. gawath, Mark, x. 9,
OHG. wetan, to bind, yoke together. Cf. Skt. vi-vadha-, a yoke for
carrying a burden. See Wad.
WEEK, a period of seven days. (E.) The vowel, in ME., is
very variable; we find weke, wike, on the one hand, and wouke, woke,
wuke on the other. In Chaucer, Six-text, Group A, 1539, we have
weke, wike, as well as wouke; Tyrwhitt, C. T. 1541, prints weke.
1. The forms weke, wike (together with mod. E. week) answer to AS.
wice, wicu, of which the gen. wican occurs in Thorpe, Ancient Laws,
li. 438, 1. 23 (Eccl. Institutes, § 41). 2. The forms wouke, woke,
wuke, answer to AS, wuce, wucu, Grein, ii. 744. We find the same
change in AS. widu, later form wudu, wood.+Du. week; Icel.
vika ; Swed. vecka; OHG. wecha, wehha; but the MHG. form is
woche, which is also the mod. G. form. Cf. Dan. uge (=vuge), a
week, B. The prevalent Teut. type is *wikdn-, f. The Goth.
wikd occurs only once, in Luke, i. 8, where the Gk, ἐν τῇ τάξει τῆς
ἐφημερίας αὐτοῦ (L, in ordine uicis suze) appears in Gothic as in wikdn
kunjis seinis=in the order of his course. It is by no means clear
what is the precise force of this Goth. wikd (which exactly answers
in form to E. week), and some have (wrongly) supposed that it was
borrowed from L. uicis, which is, however, equivalent in this passage
to kunjis, not to wikd. y. It is usual to consider week as a true
Teut. word, and allied to AS. wice, an office, duty, function ; perhaps
it meant ‘ succession’ or ‘ change,’ being related to Icel. vzkja, to turn,
return ; from Teut. *wik-, weak grade of *wikan-, to yield, give way,
give place to. Cf. Icel. vixl, a change, vixling, a changeling, G.
wecksel, a change ; a week corresponds to a phase of the moon. Cf.
also Skt. vij, to tremble; and sce Weak. Der. week-day, Icel.
uikudagr ; week-ly.
WEEN, to suppose, imagine, think. (E.) ME. wenen, Chaucer,
C. Τὶ 1655. AS. wénan, to imagine, hope, expect; Grein, ii. 658. —
AS. wén, expectation, supposition, hope; id.4Du. waven, to fancy,
from waan, conjecture; Ieel. vana, to hope, from vax, expectation ;
G. wihnen, from wahn, OHG. wan, sb.; Goth. wenjan, to expect,
from wens, expectation. B. From the sb. of which the Teut. type
WEIRD
is *wéniz, f., expectation, hope. Perhaps it meant orig. ‘ a striving
after,’ and hence an expectation of obtaining. Some compare it with
Ι,. uénari, to hunt after; and with Teut. *wan, 3rd grade of Teut.
*wenan-, to crave, desire; cf. L. wen-us, desire, Skt. van, to crave.
See Win,
WEEP, to wail, lament, shed tears. (E.) ME. wepen, orig. a
strong verb, pt. t. weep, wep, Chaucer, C. T. Six-text ed., Group D,
1. 588, where only one MS. has wepte (dissyllabic), for which Tyrwhitt
erroneously prints wept, C.T. 6170. AS. wépan, pt. t. wéop; Grein,
ii. 661. The lit. sense is to cry aloud, raise an outcry, lament loudly;
wepan (for *wopian) is regularly formed, with the usual vowel-change,
from wap, a clamour, outcry, lament, Grein, ii. 732.4-OSax. wopian,
to raise an outcry; wop, sb.; Goth. wapjan, to cry out; OFIG.
wuofan, to lament, weep, str. vb.; also wuoffan, weak vb., wuof,
wuaf, an outcry; Icel. epa, to shout, cry; ὅῥ, a shout. β. All from
the Teut. base *wép-, appearing in *wdpoz, m. (AS. wop), an
outcry, loud lament. 4 This AS. wap is quite distinct from E.
whoop, in which the initial τὸ is unoriginal, but the essential. Der.
weep-er, Weep-ing’.
WEET, to know; the same as Wit (1), q.v.
WEEVIL, a small kind of beetle very destructive to grain. (E.)
ME. weuel, winel (with u=v), spelt wevyl, wyvyl in Prompt. Parv.,
ΒΡ. 523, 531. AS. wifel, to translate L. scarebius (sic), Voc. 261. 13;
spelt wibi/ in a very early gloss of the 8th century, where it translates
L. cantarus, i. 6. cantharis, a beetle; Voc. 11. 28. We even find the
older form wibba; ‘Scarabeus, scern-wibba,’ Voc. 319. 2; where
scern means dung.+Icel. -yill, in comp. tordyfill, a dung-beetle ;
MDu. wevel, ‘a little worme eating corne or beanes, or a wevill,’
Hexham ; OHG, wibil, ΜΗ. wibel; (ἃ. wiebel. B. The Teut. type
is *webiloz,m., a beetle; a dimin. form of Teut. *wedjon-, m., whence
AS, wibba. From the Teut. *web-an-, to weave ; from the filaments
spun for the larva-case. See Weave. y. Further allied to
Lithuan. weibalas, a chafer, winged insect.
WEFT, the threads woyen into and crossing the warp. (E.)
ME, weft, Wyclif, Exod. xxxix. 3, earlier version, where the later
version has warp. AS, weft, wefta; ‘Deponile, weft, vel wefta;’
Voc. 187. 32; and again ‘ Deponile, weffa’ in a gloss of the 8th
century, id. 17. 6.4-Icel. veftr; also vipta, vifta. Ββ. The Teut.
types are *weftoz, m., *weffon-, m., lit. ‘a thing woven ;’ formed
with participial suffix -to- from *wefi-an-, to weave, whence AS.
wef-an, to weave; see Weave and Woof.
WHIGH, to balance, ponder, to have weight, be heavy. (E.)
ME. weghen, wejen, weyen, weien, Chaucer, C. T. 456 (A 454). AS.
wegan, str. vb., pt. t. weg, to carry, bear; also, intrans., to move;
Grein, ii. 655. From the sense of ‘ carry’ we pass to that of ‘ raise’
or ‘lift,’ as when we say ‘to weigh anchor;’ so also Cowper says:
‘ Weigh the vessel up,’ Loss of the Royal George, st. 7. From the
sense of raising or lifting, we pass to that of weighing. Du. wegen,
to weigh; Icel. vega, to move, carry, lift, weigh ; Dan. veie,to weigh ;
Swed. vaga, to weigh; vaga upp, to weigh up, to lift; G. wegen, to
move, wiegen, to move gently, rock, wigen, to weigh; OHG.
wegan, to move, bear, weigh. Cf. Goth. gawigan, to shake about.
B. The AS. wegan is a strong verb; pt. t. weg, pp. wegen; so also
is the Icel. vega; pt. τ. νᾶ, pp. veginn. All from the Teut. type
“wegan-, pt. t. *wag, pp. *weganoz, to carry, move, weigh, answering
to Idg. 44 WEGH, to carry, as in Skt. vah, L. uehere; see Vehicle.
Der. weigh-t, ME. weght, P. Plowman, B. xiv. 292, also spelt wight,
Chaucer, Troilus, ii. 1385, AS. ge-wiht, Gen. xxiii, 16, cognate with
MDu. wicht, gewicht (Hexham), Du. gewigt, G. gewicht, Swed. vigt ;
cf. Icel. vett, Dan. vegt. Teut. type *weg-tom, n., which became
*weh-tom; and AS. *wehkt became wiht by palatal mutation (Sievers) ;
whence weight-y, spelt wayghty in Palsgrave ; weight-i-ly,-ness. Also
wag, q.V.; wagg-on, wain, wey, wight, whit.
WEIR, ,»adaminariver. (E.) ΜΕ. wer; dat. were,
Chaucer, Parlament of Foules, 138. AS. wer, a weir, dam, /Elfred,
tr. of Gregory’s Past. Care, c. 38, ed. Sweet, p. 278, 1. 16; the pp.
gewered, dammed up, occurs in the line above. The lit. sense is
‘defence,’ hence a fence, dam ; closely allied to AS. werian, to defend,
protect, also (as above) to dam up, Grein, ii. 662.4Icel. vorr, a
fenced in landing-place, ver, a fishing-station; G. wehr, a defence ;
cf. wehren, to defend, also to check, constrain, control; mihl-wehr,
a mill-dam; MDu. weer, ‘a palissado, or a rampard,’ Hexham. Cf.
also Goth. warjan, to defend, Icel. verja; allied to Skt. v7, to cover,
varaya, to stop, hinder, keep off, vartra-, a dam, embankment
(Macdonell); Gk. €p-va@a, to ward off. From the WER, to
rotect.
"WEIRD, fate, destiny. (E.) As an adj. in Shak. Macb. i. 3. 32;
i. 5. 85 ii. 1.20; ili, 4. 1333 iv. 1. 136, where it means ‘subservient
to destiny.’ But it is properly asb. ME. wirde, wyrde; * And out
of wo into wele joure wyrdes shul chaunge’ = and out of woe into weal
your destinies shall change; P. Plowman, C. xiii. 209. AS. wyrd,
WELCOME
also wird, fate, destiny, also one of the ‘Norns’ or Fates, an ex-
tremely common word in poetry, Grein, ii. 760. Teut. type *waurdvz, f.
Formed, by vowel-change from «to y, from Teut. *wurd- (with *ward-
«ἴοι, by Verner’s Law), weak grade of Teut. *werthan->AS.
weorpan, to be, become, take place, happen, come to pass; see
Worth (2). The lit. sense is ‘that which happens,’ or ‘that
which comes to pass;’ hence fate, destiny.4Icel. wrdr, fate, one of
the three Norns or Fates; cf. urd-, stem of pt.t. pl. of verda, to
become ; OSax. wurd, fate; OHG. wurt. (4/ WERT.)
WELCOME, received g'adly, causing gladness by coming.
(Scand.) Now used as an adj., and derived from well, adv., and
the pp. come of the verb ¢o come; and hence of Scand. origin. —Icel.
velkominn, welcome ; cf. Dan. velkommen, Swed. viilkommen. =—Icel.
vel, well; and kominn, pp. of koma, to come. Hence also the AF.
verb welcomer, to welcome (Godefroy). B. Substituted for AS.
wilcuma, masc. sb., one who comes so as to please another, Grein, ii.
795. -- AS. wil-, prefix, allied to willa, will, pleasure; and cuma, a
comer, one who comes, formed, with suffix -a of the agent, from
cuman, to come; Grein, ii, 706; i, 169. See Will and Come.
Hence AS, wilcumian, to welcome.
WELD (1), to beat metal together. (Scand.) The final d is
excrescent, like d after Z in alder, a tree, elder, a tree, and Shake-
speare's alder-liefest for aller-liefest, 2 Hen. VI, i. 1. 28. It is only
a particular use of the word well, verb, to spring up as a fountain,
lit. to boilup. It meant (1) to boil, (2) to heat to a high degree,
(3) to beat heated iron. We find this particular use in Wyelif,
Isaiah, ii. 4; where the earlier version has ‘thei shul bete togidere
their swerdes into shares,’ the later version has ‘thei schulen welle
togidere her swerdes in-to scharris.’ See further under Well (2).
The word is apparently Scand., not E.; for (1) the Swed. vélla (lit.
to well) is only used in the sense ‘ to weld,’ as in vdilla jiirn, to weld
iron (Widegren) ; the sense ‘ to well’ appearing in the comp. uppvdilla,
to boil up; (2) Sweden exports large quantities of iron and steel.
Cf. Dan. velde (with excrescent 4), to well up; Pomeran. wellen, to
weld iron; prov. Ἐν. well, to weld. In Icel. and Norw.., a distinction
is made between ve/Ja, intr., to well, pt.t. vall (str. vb.), and vella, tr.,
to cause to boil (wk. vb.); the Swed. véilla, to weld, answers to
the latter. f ‘The process of welding iron is named, in many
languages, from the word for boiling; cf. Illyrian variti, to boil,
weld iron, Lettish wdrit, to boil, sawdrit, to weld, &c.; Wedg-
wood.
WELD (2), dyer’s weed; Reseda luteola. (E.) ME. welde;
‘Madyr, welde, or wood’=madder, weld, or woad; Chaucer, A‘Qtas
Prima, 1. 17. ‘ Welde, or wolde;’ Prompt. Parv. pp. 520, 532.
According to Cockayne, A. S. Leechdoms, iii. 340, it is spelt wolde
in MS. Harl. 3388. In Lowland Scotch, it is wald; see Jamieson.
It appears to be an E. word. Cognate with Low G. wolde, weld
(Liibben), Du. wouw, MDu. wouwe (for *wolde) ; also (ἃ. wau, Swed.
Dan. vaz (from Du.). We also find Span. gualda, F. gaude (of
Teut. origin). Prob. allied to AS, weald, a wood, as if ‘ belonging
to the wood or wold;’ see Wold. Cf. OSax. sin-weldi, a great
wood. @ Quite distinct from Woad.
WELFARE, prosperity. (E.) Lit. a state of faring or going on
well. ME. welfare, Chaucer, C. T. 11150 (F 838); compounded of
wel, ady. well, and fare=AS. faru, sb., lit. a journey, from faran,
to fare, go. See Well (1) and Fare. Cf. Icel. velferd, a well-
doing.
WELKTIN, the sky, the region of clouds. (E.) In Shak. Merry
Wives, i. 3. 101, &. ME. welkin, as printed in Tyrwhitt’s edition
of Chaucer, C. Τὶ gooo, where the MSS. have welkne, welken, welkine,
walkyn, Six-text, Group E, 1124. In P. Plowman, B. xvii. 160, we
have welkne, wolkne, Je welkene, welken in the various MSS. It thus
appears that welkne is a mutated form of wolkne, which is an older
spelling ; in Layamon, 4574, 23947, we have wolkne, wolcne, weolcene,
prob. a pl. form, and signifying ‘the clouds.’ AS. wolcnu, clouds,
pl. of wolcen, a cloud, Grein, ii. 731.4-OSax. wolkan, a cloud. Du.
wolk, Low G. wulke; G. wolke, OHG. wolka, f., wolkan, n., a cloud.
Teut. base *wulk(e)no-. B. Some have connected it with AS.
gewealc, a rolling about, as in 70a gewealc, the rolling of the waves,
Grein, i. 477; from wealcan, to roll, walk; see Walk. There is no
proof of this; if it were true, wolcen would mean ‘that which rolls
about;’ cf. AS. wealca, a wave, billow. y. Or else connected
with OHG, welk, moist, damp ; Russ. v/aga, moisture ; Lith. wilg-yir,
to wet, moisten; from an Idg. 4/WELG.
WELL (1), in a good state, excellently. (E.) ME. we/, Chaucer,
C. T. 106; weel, 4728 (B 308). AS. wel, Grein, ii. 656; also spelt
well.4$-Du. wel; Icel. vel; Dan. vel; Swed. val; Goth. waila.4G.
wohl, wol; OIG, wela, wola. B. The Goth. waila answers to a
Teut. type *wela. The orig. sense is ‘ agreeably,’ or suitably to one’s
will or wish; from the Idg. 4/WEL, to wish; cf. L. wol-o, I wish,
uel-le, to wish, Russ, vol-ia, sb., will, W. gwell, better, Skt. vara-,
WELTER 707
better, vara-, a wish, prati varam, according to a wish; see Will.
Der. well-behaved, Merry Wives, ii. 1. 59; -beloved, Jul. Cas. iii. 2.
180 ; -born, -bred, -disposed ; -favoured, Two Gent. ii. 1. 54; -meaning,
Rich, I, il. 1. 1285 -meant, 3 Hen. VI, iii. 3.67; -nigh; -spoken,
Rich. 111,1. 1. 29; -won, Merch. Ven. i. 3. 51; and numerous other
compounds. And see wel-come, wel-fare; also weal, weal-th.
WELL (2), a spring, fountain of water. (E.) ME. welle (dis-
syllabic), Chaucer, C. T. 5689 (Ὁ 107). AS. wella, also well,
Grein, li, 657; also spelt wylla, wylle, wyll, id. 756. Teut. type
*walljon-, m.; allied to AS. weallan (strong verb, pt. t. wéoll, 7}.
weallen), to well up, boil, id. 672; the mod. E. verb ¢o well being
derived, not from this strong verb, but fromthe sb.; so that the pt. t.
in mod. E. is welled.4Icel, vell, ebullition ; from vella, to well, boil,
pt. t. vall, pp. ollinn (strong verb); whence also vella, weak verb, to
make to boil; Du. wel, a spring; Dan. veld (for vell), a spring; G.
welle, a wave, surge; cf. wallen, to undulate, boil, bubble up, of
which the OHG. pt. t. was wial. Ββ, All from the Teut. *wailan-,
str. vb., to boil up, undulate ; from the Idg. 4/WEL, to turn round,
roll, as in Skt. val, to move to and fro, Russ. valiate, to roll. See
further under Helix. From the weak grade we have Goth. wulan,
to boil; cf. also AS, wielm, wylm, a boiling, and Skt. armi-, a wave.
Der. well, verb, ME. wellen, verb, in P. Plowman, B. xix. 375, from
AS. wellan, wyllan ; we find ‘¥Ferueo, ic welle, A®Mric’s Grammar, ed.
Zupitza, p. 156, 1. 14,in the Royal MS. (see the footnote), though
most MSS. have ic wealle. Der. wellspring, ME. wellespring, Genesis
and Exodus, I. 1243. And see weld (1).
WELLAWAY, anexclamation of great sorrow. (E.) In Spenser,
F. Ὁ. ii. 8. 46. ME. weilawey, Chaucer, C. T. 13048 (B 1308) ; the
MSS. have weylawey, weilaweie, and (corruptly) well awaye, wele
away, showing that some scribes mistook it to mean ‘ weal [is] away,’
ie. prosperity is over! ‘ Weilawei, and wolowo’=-alas! and alas!
Ancren Riwle, p. 88, 1.7; weilawei, id. p. 274, 1. 2. ‘Wo is us pat
we weren born! Weilawei!’ Havelok, 462; cf. 1. 570. Written
weila wei, Layamon, 8031 ; wala wa, 7971; also wela, wo la (without
wei or wa following), 3456. It stands for wet la wei or wa la wa
(wo lo wo). AS, wa la wa, written wala wa, alas! lit. ‘woe! lo!
woe!’ /Elfred, tr. of Boethius, c. xxxix. § 1 (Ὁ. iv. met. 4); wei la
wet, id., c. xxxv. § 6 (b. iii. met. 12); we also find wala, Mark, xv.
29, and simply wa, Mark, xiv. 21.—AS. wa, woe; 1a, lo; wa, woe.
See Woe and Lo. 4 The expression was early misunderstood ;
and was even turned into wella-day, Merry Wives, iii. 3. 106; in
which unmeaning expression, though intended as an exclamation of
sorrow, we seem to have well in place of wo, and day introduced
without any sense; perhaps alas! the day also owed its existence
to this unmeaning corruption.
WELSH, pertaining to Wales. (E.) Welsh properly means
‘foreign.’ ME. walsh, P. Plowman, B. v. 324; Walsh is still in use
as a proper name. AS. walisc, welisc; ‘pa welisce menn’=the
foreigners, i.e. Normans, A. S. Chron. an. 1048 ; see Earle’s edition,
p- 178, 1. 15; ‘pa welisce men,’ ibid. 1. 24; and see the note.
Formed, with suffix -ise (>E. -isk) and vowel-change, from AS.
wealh, a foreigner; orig. a Celt. (From the pl. Wealas we have
mod. E. Wales, now the name of a country.) The Teut. form
*Walh- answers to L. Volc-, i.e. ‘one of the tribe of Volce,’ who
occupied Southern Gaul. See Walnut. Der. Welsh-rabbit, a
Welsh dainty, i.e. not a rabbit, but toasted cheese ; this is a mild joke,
just as a Norfolk-capon is not a capon at all, but a red-herring
(Halliwell). There is no authority for the assertion that rabbit is a
corruption of rare bit; which renders Welsh pointless.
WELT, a narrow strip of leather round a shoe. (E.) The old
sense seems to be hem or border. Cotgrave explains F. orlet by ‘a
little hemme, selvidge, wel, border;’ and the verb orler by ‘to
hemme, selvidge, border, welt the edges or sides of? ‘ Take care of
the skirts, fringes, and welts of their garments,’ Holland, tr. of Pliny,
b. vii.c. 51. ‘ Welt of a garment, ourelet [F. orlet]; Welte of a shoe,
oureleure;’ Palsgrave. ME. welte. ‘ Welte of a schoo, Incucium,
vel intercucium;’ Prompt. Parv. ‘Hee pedana, Anglice wampay
{a vamp]; Hoc intercucium, Anglice wedtte;’ Voc. 664. 34, 35.
Palsgrave also has the verb ; ‘ I welte, as a garment is, je ourle: This
kyrtell is well welted, ce corset icy est bien ourlé’ Lowl. Sc. waut,
ME. walte, a welt, walte, to welt; Cathol. Anglicum. The pl.
wallys occurs as a gloss to intercucia, in John de Garlande; Wright’s
Vocab. i. 125. Lit. ‘a hem,’ or ‘strip turned over;’ cf. Norw.
velt, a card turned up as atrump; allied to AS. wyltan, geweltan,
to roll, Icel. veléa, to roll over; see Welter and Wale. We
also find W. gwald, a hem, welt, gwaltes, the welt of a shoe; gwaldu,
to welt, hem; Gael. balt, a welt of a shoe, a border; Irish balt,
a welt, border ; all (apparently) borrowed from E. Der. welt, verb.
WELTER, to wallow, roll about. (Scand.) Surrey has ‘ wal-
tring tongs,’ i. 6. rolling or lolling tongues of snakes, tr. of Virgil's
Aeneid, bk. ii. 1. 266. ‘I walter, I tumble, je me voystre; Hye
LL 2
708 WEN
you, your horse is walteringe yonder, hastez vous, vostre cheual se
voystre la;’ Palsgrave. “1 welter, je verse; Thou welterest in the
myer, as thou were a sowe;’ Palsgrave. ME. weltren, to wallow ;
Cursor Mundi, 4503; prob. of Scand. origin; cf. Swed. valtra, to
roll, to wallow. Walter and welter are frequentative forms, with
the usual suffix -er, from ME. walten, to roll over, overturn, hence
to totter, fall, throw, rouse, rush, &c.; Destruction of Troy, 1956,
3810, 4627, 4633, 4801, pt. t. welt, id. 4418, 4891, &c. This ME.
walten is from the AS, *wealtan, weltan, a strong verb, of which
the pp. gewelten (for gewealten) occurs in the Lindisfame MS., in
the ONorthumb. translation of Matt. xvii. 14, where cnéum
gewelteno occurs as a gloss on genibus prouolutis; hence the
secondary verb wyltan, to roll round, Grein, ii. 757, also the adj.
unwealt, steady, lit. ‘not tottering,’ A. S. Chron. an. 897, ed. Earle,
p- 95, ]. 14, andthe note. Cf. Low Ὁ. weltern, waltern, to roll over;
Icel. veltask, to rotate, to roll over, as a horse does, from velia, pt. t-
valt, to roll; Dan. velte, to roll, overturn; Swed. valtra, to roll,
wallow, welter, frequentative of valta, to roll; G. walzen, to roll,
wallow, welter, from walzen, to roll; Goth. us-waltjan, to subvert.
See Waltz, Wallow. From Idg. base *wel-d-, extended from
o\VEL, to turn; see Well (2).
WEN, a fleshy tumour. (E.) ME. wenne; ‘Wenne, veruca,
gibbus,’ Prompt. Parv. AS. wenn; acc. pl. wennas, A. S. Leechdoms,
ili, 12, 1. 22; nom. pl. wennas, id. 46,1. 21.44Du. wen; Low G.
ween ; ween-bulen [wen-boils]; prov. G. wenne, wehne, wiakne, cited
by E. Miiller; Dan. dial. vax, a wen, wart. B. The orig. sense
was prob. ‘pain,’ or painful swelling; Teut. type *wanjoz, m.
Prob. from *wann, 2nd grade of the Teut. str. vb. seen in Goth.
winnan, to suffer, as in agléns winnan=to suffer afflictions, 1 Tim.
y. 103 cf. wunns, affliction, suffering, 2 Tim. iii. 11. So also Icel.
vinna, though cognate with E. win, means not only to work, labour,
toil, but also to suffer, and vinza ἃ is to do bodily harm to another.
See Win.
WENCH, a young girl, vulgar woman. (E.) Common in prov.
E. without any depreciatory intention; as, ‘a fine young wench.’
‘Temperance was a delicate wench,’ Temp. ii. 1. 43. ME. wenche,
Chaucer, C. T. 3254; P. Plowman, B. v. 364. We also find the
form wenchel, Ancren Riwle, p. 334, note k. B. It is to be par-
ticularly noted that wenchel is the earlier form; Stratmann gives no
teferences for wenche earlier than Will. of Palerne, 1. 1901, Wyclif,
Matt. ix. 24, and Poems and Lives of the Saints, ed. Furnivall,
xvi. 98, where, however, the form printed is wenclen. But wenchel
(spelt wennchel’) occurs in the Ormulum, 3356, where it is used of a
male infant, viz. in the account of the annunciation of Christ’s birth
to the shepherds. The orig. sense was simply ‘ infant,’ without
respect of sex, but, as the word also implies ‘ weak’ or ‘ tender,’ it was
naturally soon restricted to the weaker sex. The ME. wenche resulted
from wenchel by loss of 2, which was doubtless thought to be a dimin.
suffix; yet in this particular instance, it is not so. The sb, wenchel,
an infant, is closely allied to the ME. adj. wankel, tottery, unsteady,
Reliquiz Antique, i. 221, AS. wencel, a child, a daughter (Toller) ;
pl. winclo, children (of either sex), Exod. xxi. 4. Allied to wencel,
wencele, weak, Grein, ii. 659 ; wancol, woncol, unstable, /Elfred, tr. of
Boethius, c. vii. § 2 (b. ii. pr. 1). y- The lit. sense of wancol is
*tottery,’ whence the senses unstable, weak, infantine, easily followed.
Formed, with AS. suffix -ol, from Teut. base *wank-, to bend sideways,
nod, totter, as in G. wanken, to totter, reel, stagger, waddle, flinch,
shrink ; cf. MHG. wenken (causal form), to render unsteady.-MHG.
wankel, OHG. wanchal, unstable; mod. G. (provincial) wankel,
‘tottering, unsteady,’ Fliigel. The base *wank- is the 2nd grade of
Teut. *wenkan-; see further under Wink.
WEND, to go, take one’s way. (E.) Now little used, except in
the pt. t. went, which is used in place of the pt. t. of go. When used,
it is gen. in the phr. ‘to wend one’s way;’ but Shak. twice has
simply wend, Com. of Errors, i. 1. 158, Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 2. 372.
ME. wenden, Chaucer, C. T. 16. AS. wendan, (1) trans. to turn;
(2) intrans. to turn oneself, proceed, go; common in both senses,
Grein, ii. 659. The pt. t. was wende, which became wente in ME., and
isnow went. The lit. sense was orig. ‘to make to wind,’ and it is
the causal of wind; formed, by vowel-change of a to e, from Teut.
*wand, 2rd grade of *wendan-, windan-, to wind.4Du. wenden, to
tum, to tak, causal of winden; Icel. venda, to wend, turn, change,
causal of vinda; Dan. vende, caus. of vinde; Swed. vinda, caus. of
vinda; Goth. wandjan, caus. of windan; G. wenden, caus. of winden.
See Wind (2).
WERE, pl. of was; also as subj. sing. and pl. See Was.
WERGILD, in AS. law, a fine paid for manslaughter or crime
against the person. (E.) See Blount’s Nomolexicon. AS. wergild,
the price set upon a man according to his rank (Toller). —AS. wer,
a man; and gild, a payment, from gildan, gieldan, to pay. See
Werwolf and Yield.
WHALE
WERWOLF, a man-wolf. (E.) On the subject of werwolves,
i.e. men supposed to be metamorphosed into wolves, see pref. to
William of Palerne, otherwise called William and the Werwolf,
p. xxvi; where the etymology isdiscussed. Cf. Gk. λυκάνθρωπος, i. 6.
wolf-man. ME. werwolf, Will. of Palerne, 80, &c. AS. were-wulf,
a werwolf; as an epithet of the devil (meaning fierce despoiler).
Laws of Cnut, § 26, in Thorpe, Ancient Laws, i. 374. Usually
explained as from AS. wer, a man; and wulf,a wolf.4-G. wahrwolf,
a werwolf; MHG. werwolf; as if from ΜΉ. wer, a man, and wolf,
a wolf. This was Latinised as garulphus or gerulphus, whence OF.
garoul (Burguy), mod. F. loup-garou, i. e. wolf-man-wolf, the word
loup being prefixed because the sense of the final -ou had been lost.
For the latter syllable, see Wolf. For the AS. wer, see Virile.
B. Kluge thinks this is uncertain ; for the AS. prefix were- (answering
to OHG. weri- in Weri-wolf, a man’s name) suggests connexion with
AS. weri-an, to wear clothes; cf. Icel. alfhamr, lit. ‘ wolf-skin,’
applied to the skin of a werwolf. But it is easy to reply that the
AS. wergild (certainly derived from AS. wer, a man) is also spelt
weregild ; the OHG. forms being weragilt, werigelt. Hence the
usual explanation ‘man-wolf’? may certainly be accepted. See
Wergild. Cf. O. Low Ὁ. weregild (Galleée).
WEST, the quarter where the sun sets. (E.) ΜΕ. west, P. Plow-
man, B. xviii, 113. AS. west, Grein, ii. 667, where it occurs as an
ady., with the sense ‘ westward ;’ we also find westan, ady., from the
west, id. 668; west-d#l, the west part, west-ende, the west end, west-
mest, most in the west.4-Du. west, adj. and adv.; Icel. vestr, sb.,
the west; Dan. and Swed. vest, sb.; G. west (whence F. oves?)
B. All from Teut. base *wes-t-, west. Prob. allied to Gk. ἕσ-περος,
L. ues-per, evening. See Vesper. Der. west-ward, AS. weste-weard,
adj., Azlfred, tr. of Boethius, c. xvi. § 4 (Ὁ. ii. met. 6). west-ern ;
west-er-ly (short for west-ern-ly),
WET, very moist, rainy. (E.) ME. wé¢ (with long δ), spelt weet
in The Castle of Love, 1. 1433 (Stratmann); whence pl. wéte (dis-
syllabic), Chaucer, C. T, 1282 (A 1280), riming with gréte, pl. of
grét, great. AS. w#t, Grein, ii. 651.4Icel. vatr ; Dan. vaad; Swed.
vat; NFries. weet. β. All from Teut. type *wétoz, wet ; from the
same root as E, water. From Teut.*wat-, 3rd grade of *wet, Idg.
vy WED, to wet, or spring up (as water). See Water. Der. wet,
verb, AS, weétan (Grein); wet, sb., AS. wata (Grein); wett-ish,
wet-ness; wet-shod, P. Plowman, B. xiv. 161, From the same root
are olt-er, und-ul-ate, hyd-ra, hyd-raul-ic, hyd-ro-gen, &c.
WETHER, a castrated ram. (E.) ME. wether, Chaucer, C. T.
3249. AS. weder, Ps. xxviii, 1, ed. Spelman (marginal reading).
OSax. wethar, withar; Kleinere Altniederdeutsche Denkmialer, ed.
Heyne, p. 186; Icel. vedr; Dan. veder, vedder; Swed. vadur; G.
widder, OHG. widar; Goth. withrus, a lamb, John, i. 29. B. All
from Teut. type *wethruz, το. The orig. sense was doubtless ‘a
yearling,’ as the word corresponds very closely to L. uitulus, a calf,
Skt. vatsa-, a calf, allied to Skt. vafsara-, Gk. ἔτος, a year. See
Veterinary and Veal. 4 We may note the distinction between
weather and wether by observing that the former is wea-ther (with Idg.
suffix -fro-), whilst the latter is weth-er (with suffix -ro-), the ἐκ
answering to the ¢ in uit-ulus,
WEY, a heavy weight. (E.) The weight varies considerably,
from 2 cwt. to 3 cwt. ME. weye, P. Plowman, B. v.93. The lit.
sense is merely ‘weight.’ AS. wége; ‘Pondus, byrden οὐδε wéege,
i.e. burden or weight; /£lfric’s Grammar, ed. Zupitza, p. 58, 1. 17.
Allied to AS. wég-, stem of pl. of pt. t. of wegan, to bear, carry,
weigh ; so that the sb. is from Teut. *wég-, 3rd grade of *wegan-, to
carry. See Weigh.
WH
WH. This is distinct from w, just as ἐλ is from ¢, The mod E.
wh is represented by kw in AS., and by ἂν in Icelandic ; it answers
to L. gu, Gk. π, τ, «; Idg. kw.
WHACK, to beat. (K.) See Thwack, which is supposed to be
the same word. But it is rather a variant, i.e. a similarly sounding
imitative word. Cf. EFries. and Westphalian wack-eln, to beat, to
cudgel; prov. G. (Thiitingen) wackeln, walken, to beat (Hertel).
WHALE, the largest of sea-animals. (E.) ME. whal, Chaucer,
C. T. 7512 (Ὁ 1930); qual, Havelok, 753. AS. hwel, Voc. 94. 15.
Ἔα. walvisch, i.e. whale-fish; Icel. hvalr; Dan. and Swed. hval;
G. wal, wallfisch. B. The Teut. type is *kwaloz,m. The name
was orig. applied to any large fish, including the walrus, grampus,
porpoise, &c. Thus A‘lfric explains hwel by ‘ balena, vel cete, vel
pistrix.” Cf. G, wels, a catfish; OPruss, dalis, a cathsh. Perhaps
WHAP
it meant ‘roller,’ from the rolling of porpoises; cf. Icel. hvel, a
wheel, OPruss. kelan, a wheel ; Gk. πέλωρ, a monster, πόλος, a pivot ;
see Pole (2), and Wheel. 4 Whele and balena have nothing
in common but the letter 7, and cannot be compared. Der.
whale-bone, formerly whales bone, Spenser, F. Q. iii. 1. 15, where the
reference is to the ivory of the walrus’ tusk, ME. whales bon, Layamon,
2363; whal-ing, whal-er, Also wal-rus, q. v.
WHAP, to beat, flutter. (E.) Sometimes spelt whop; and wap.
Halliwell has wap, ‘to beat; to flutter, to beat the wings, to move
in any violent manner ;” also wappeng (for whapping), ‘ quaking, used
by Batman, 1582.’ ‘A whagp, a blow; York Plays, xxxii. 199.
“The waters wappe,’ i.e. lap; Malory, Morte Arthur, bk. xxi. c. 5.
A variant of quap ; animitative word, Cf. ME. quappen,to palpitate,
Chaucer, Troil. iii. 57, Legend of Good Women, 865 ; Wyclif, Tobit,
vi. 4, earlier version. From a base *kwap, to throb; see Quaver.
Allied to Low G. quabbeln, to palpitate, with which cf. E. waddle.
Note also W. chwap, a sudden stroke, chwapio, to strike, to slap ;
EFries. wappen, to swing, to rock; wip-wap, a swing. Der. wabb-le.
And see whip,
WHARF (1), a place on the shore for lading and unlading goods.
(E.) Spelt warf in Fabyan’s Chron. an. 1343, where we read that
‘the maior wente to the woode-warfes, and solde to the poore people
billet and faggot,’ because of the severe frost. Palsgrave has wharfe.
ME. Wharfe, in Liber Custumarum, p. 447 (1343); cf. pp. 62, 150.
Blount, ed. 1694, explains wharf as meaning, not only a landing-
place, but also ‘ a working-place for shipwrights ;’ see below. AS.
hwerf, a dam or bank to keep out water; ‘ pa gyrnde hé pet hé
moste macian foran gén Mildrype eker &nne hwerf wid pon wodan
to werianne,’ which Thorpe translates by ‘then desired he that he
might make a wharf over against Mildred’s field as a protection
against the ford, where ‘ ford’ is a conjectural translation of wodax ;
Diplomatarium v1 Anglo-Saxonici (A. 1). 1038), p. 384; and again,
“pat land and Sane wearf Sart’=the land and the wharf thereto;
id. (an. 1042), p. 361. The orig. sense seems to have been a bank
of earth, used at first as a dam against a flood; the present use is
prob. of Dutch or Scand. origin. The lit. sense is ‘a turning,’
whence it came to mean a dam, from its turning the course of water ;
the allied AS. kwearfnot only means ‘a returning,’ but also a change,’
and even ‘a space or distance,’ as in the ONorthumb. tr. of Luke, xxiv.
13; also ‘a crowd,’ Grein, ii. 118; cf. hwearfan, to turn about. A
good example is seen in the comp. mere-hwearf, the sea-shore, Grein,
li. 233. It corresponds, as to form, with AS. hwearf, pt. of hweorfan,
to turn, turn about, Grein, ii. 119.4-Du. werf, a wharf, yard; alsoa
turn, time; Hexham has werf, ‘a wharfe, or a working-place for
shipwrights or otherwise ;’ Icel. ἀναγ, a turning away, also, a
shelter; cf. hwarf, pt.t. of hverfa, to tum; Dan. verft, a wharf, a
dock-yard ; Swed. varf, a shipbuilder’s yard; MSwed. hwarf, skeps-
hwarf (ship's wharf), the same (Ihre). The MSwed. hwarf also
meant a turn or time, order, stratum, or layer; Ihre, i. 945; from
hwerfwa, to turn, return. B. It thus appears that, even in AS.,
this difficult word, with a great range of senses, meant not only a
turning, reversion, but also turning-place, dam, shore, space, dis-
tance. Cf. prov. E. wharfstead, a ford in a river (Halliwell). In
Swedish and Dutch it had a narrower sense, that of ‘ ship-builder’s
yard,’ so called from its being situate on a shore. And from this
sense to that of ‘landing-place’ the step is not a longone. CC. The
AS. strong verb hweorfan, answering to Goth. hwairban, to turn
oneself about (hence to walk), and to Icel. hverfa, answers to a Teut.
type *hwerfan-, pt. τ. *hwarf, to turn, turn about. Cf. Gk. καρπ-ύς,
the wrist (from its turning). 4 Not allied to G. werfen, to throw,
which is allied to E. warp. Der. wharf-age, Hakluyt’s Voyages,
i. 1353 wharf-ing-er, which occurs (according to Blount, ed. 1674)
anno 7 Edw. VI, cap. 7,4 corruption of wharfager, just as messenger
is of messager.
WHARE (2), the bank of a river. (E.) In Shak. Hamlet, i. 5.
33; Antony, ii. 2. 218. The occurrence of mere-hwearf, the sea-
shore (for which see Grein, ii. 233), justifies Shakespeare’s spelling,
and shows that the present word is only a peculiar sense of Wharf
(1), q. v.. Hence perhaps the river-name Wharfe.
WHAT, neuter of Who, q.v. (E.) We find the form whatsom-
euer in Dictes and Sayings, pr. by Caxton, fol. 18, back, 1.2. Der.
what-ever, what-so-ever; what-not, a piece of furniture for holding
anything, whence the name.
WHAUP, the curlew. (E.) Prov. E. whaup; Lowl. Sc., quhaip,
in 1551 (Jam.). Prob. the same as AS. huilpa (for hwilpa) in The
Sea-farer, 1. 21. Of imitative origin.
WHEAL (1), pimple. (E.) Not to be confused with weal,
another spelling of wale, the mark caused by a stripe; for which see
Wale. A wheal is a swelling, pimple, caused by ill-health. It
occurs frequently in Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxii. c. 25, where is
mention of ‘pushes, wheals, and blains,’ and of ‘ pushes and angry
WHELK 709
wheales,’ &c.; ἃ push being a pustule, still in use in Cambs. ME.
whele; ‘ Whele, whelle, wheel, or whelke, qwelke, soore, Pustula;’
Prompt. Parv. Cf. pl. whelkes, Chaucer, C. T. 634 (A 632). AS.
hwele, a wheal; an unauthorised word, due to Somner. [Ettmiiller
cites AS. hweal, with a reference to A‘lfric’s Glossary; but Wright
prints it Aweal; ‘Lotium, Aweal,’ Wright’s Voc. i. 46, 1. 7; and the
word is very doubtful.] There is also a verb hwelian, to turn to pus
or matter (Toller), also to pine away, as in sect. 15 of the Liber
Scintillarum : ‘ Unde bonus proficit, inde inuidus contabescit,’ glossed
by ‘ anon pe se goda framad, panon se andiga hwelad.” The pp. is
gehweled, inflamed. Cf. W. chwiler, amaggot, wheal, pimple. The
MES whelke, a pimple, is clearly a dimin. form; hence whelt, Hen. V,
iil, 6. 108.
WHEAL (2), ἃ mine. (C.) 5111 common in Cornwall. —Corn.
hwel, a work, a mine; also written wheal, whel, wheyl; Williams,
Corn. Dict. Williams compares it with W. chwy/, a turn, a course,
a while, chwylo, to turn, revolve, run a course, bustle; cf. also W.
chwel, a course, turn. Stokes-Fick, p. 324.
WHEAT, the name of a grain used for making bread. (E.) ME.
whete, Chaucer, C. T. 3986 (A 3988). AS. Awete; Grein, ii. 117.4
Du. weite, weit; Icel. hveiti; Dan. hvede; Swed. hvete; G. weizen;
Goth. hwattets. (The Lithuan. Awétys, wheat, is borrowed from
Teutonic.) β. Allfroma Teut. type *hwaitjo-, wheat ; from *hwait,
2nd grade of *hweit-; so named from the whiteness of the meal.
See White. Der. wheat-en, AS. hw#ten, John, xii. 24; wheat-fly;
buck-wheat.
WHEAT-EAR, the name of a small bird. (E.) In Phillips;
formerly wheatears (with final s), in T. Fuller, Worthies of England,
ii. 382 (see Palmer, Folk-Etymology); as to which Smollett says:
‘this is a pleasant corruption of white-a—e, the translation of their
French name cul blanc,.. for they are actually white towards the
tail;’ Travels, letter iii, Swainson, in his Bird-names (E. D.S.),
gives the name white ass [=white-arse] as in use in Cornwall, and
white-rump in Norfolk; while Cotgrave has: ‘Cul blanc, the bird
called a whittaile,’ i.e. white tail. Hence the etymology is from
white and arse. Cf. Du. wit-staart, ‘a white-tail, white-ear;’
Calisch ; MDan. hvid-stjert (Kalkar).
WHEEDLE, to cajole, flatter. (E.?) In Butler, Hudibras,
pt. ili. c. 1, 1. 760. In Dryden, Kind Keeper, Act i. sc. 1, we find:
‘I must wheedle her.’ Blount, ed. 1674, notes it as a new word,
saying ; ‘ Wheadle in the British tongue signifies a story, whence
probably our late word of fancy, and signifies to draw one in by fair
words or subtil insinuation,’ &c. He is referring to W. chwedl, a
saying, sentence, fable, story, tale, chwedla, to gossip, chwedlu, to
tell a fable; but this is not a satisfactory explanation, nor does it
account for the long 6. But we should note his spelling with ea
(from an open @), It seems more likely that the word should be
weadle, and that it was a prov. E. word, answering to AS. wédlian,
to beg. “Μξ sceamap pet ic wedlige,’ to beg I am ashamed, Luke,
xvi. 3. The orig. sense of w#dlian was ‘to be poor;’ from wedi,
poverty, indigence, w#dla, poor. Cf. ME. wedle, poor; Ormulum,
5638. Der. wheedl-er.
WHEEL, a circular frame turning on an axle. (E.) ME. wheel,
Wyclif, James, iii. 6. AS. hwéol, Grein, ii. 119. Hwéol is a short-
ened form of hweowol, Ps. 1xxxii. 12, ed. Spelman; it is also spelt
hweogul (Toller), and hweohl, Elfred, tr. of Boethius, c. xxxix. § 7
(Ὁ. iv. pr. 6).-Icel. hjol; Dan. hiul; Swed. hjul; MSwed. hinghl
(Ihre). Teut. type *hwegwldm, n., for *hwehwldm, Idg. type *geql6,
as in Skt. chakrd-, Gk. κύκλος, a wheel. The Idg. *ge-glo- is a
reduplicated form, from 4/QwEL, to drive; whence Gk, πόλος, an
axis, Russ. koleso, Icel. hvel, a wheel. See Cycle and Pole (2).
Brugmann, i. ὃ 658. Cf. Calash. Der. wheel, verb; wheel-er ;
wheel-barrow, spelt whelebarowe in Le Bone Florence, 1. 2031, pr. in
Ritson’s Met. Romances, iii. 86; wheel-wright (see Wright).
WHEEZE, to breathe audibly and with difficulty. (E.) ME.
whesen, Towneley Mysteries, 152 (Stratmann); rare. AS. hwésan,
to wheeze, A. S. Leechdoms, iii. 365 (glossary). [The 3rd pers. pres.
sing. hwést occurs in the same volume, p. 126, 1. 9, according to
Cockayne; but perhaps hwést is here for hwdsted, from hwodstan, to
cough, which is a related word, but not quite the same thing.] The
only sure trace of the verb is in AElfric’s Homilies, i. 86, where we
find the strong pt. τ. kwéos=wheezed (mistranslated by Thorpe, but
rightly explained by Cockayne). As ὃ is the mutation of δ, the
Teut. base is *4wds-, whence also AS. hwds-ta, a cough, prov. E.
hoast, acough, Du. hoest, G. husten. Teut. base *hwds- = Idg. *gas-, as
in Skt. 4@s, to cough; 2nd grade of Idg. 4/QAS, to cough, as in
Irish cas-achdach, W. pas, a cough; cf. Lith. kosti, to cough. See
Pose (3). Brugmann,i. § 675. Connexion with Icel. hvesa, to
hiss, is doubtful.
WHELEK (1), a mollusc with a spiral shell. (E.) The ἃ is
unoriginal, and due to confusion with the word below; the right
WHELK
(etymological) spelling is welk or wilk.
=shelly pearls, pearls in the shell; Virgil’s Gnat, 1. 105. ME.
wilk; spelt wylke, Prompt. Parv.; and in Voc. 642. 6. Pl. welkes,
Liber Albus, pp. 179, 244, &c. AS. wiloc (8th cent.), Voc. 13. 40;
also weoluc, weluc, id. 261. 22, 181. 10.4+Du. walk, also spelt welk,
wilk, willok, wullok (Franck). Cf. ‘inuolucus, wul/oc,’ Corpus Gloss.
1115; prov. E. wulk, wullok. Prob. named. from its convoluted
shell ; cf. Gk. ἕλιξ (for feA-1¢), a volute; see Helix. And cf. Walk.
Der. Hence prob. welk-ed, K. Lear, iv. 6. 71, spelt wealk’d, i.e.
convoluted, in the first folio; cf. ‘welked horns,’ in Golding’s Ovid,
pp. 60 b, 107 b, 122b.
WHELK (2), a small pimple. (E.) The dimin. of Wheal (1),
710
Spenser has whelky pearles’
Ve
WHELM, to overturn, cover over by something that is turned
over, overwhelm, submerge. (Scand.) ‘Ocean wheim them all;’
Merry Wives, ii. 2. 143. ΜΕ. whelmen, to turn over; Chaucer,
Troilus, i. 139. “ Whelmyn, a vessel, Suppino,’ Prompt. Parv.; on
which Way cites Palsgrave: ‘I whelme an holowe thyng over an
other thyng, 76 mets dessus; Whelme a platter upon it, to save it
from flyes.’” He adds: ‘in the E. Anglian dialect, to whelm signi-
fies to turn a tub or other vessel upside down, whether to cover any-
thing with it or not; see Forby.’ ‘Whelm, to turn upside down,
cover over,’ E.D. D.; whichsee. The Lowland Sc. form is guhemle,
whemmle, or whommel, to turn upside down; ovir gukemlit=did
overturn, occurs in Bellenden’s Chron., prol. st. 2 (Jamieson).
Jamieson gives Sibbald’s opinion (which i is correct) that the Lowl.
Se. whemmile is due to E. whelm, the letters being transposed to make
the word easier of utterance; but he afterwards assumes the Lowl.
Sc. word as the older form, jn order to deduce its etymology from
MSwed. Awimla, to swarm (=G. wimmeln), which he explains
wrongly. β. The word presents some difficulty ; but it is obvious that
whelm and overwhelm must be closely related to ME. wheluen (whelven)
and overwheluen (overwhelven), which are used in almost precisely
the same sense. Wheluen is also spelt hwelfen; ‘He hwelfde at pare
sepulchre-dure enne grete ston’=he rolled (or turned) over a great
stone at the door of the sepulchre; O. Eng. Miscellany, p. 51, 1. 513.
‘And perchaunce the overwhelve’ =and perchance overwhelm thee;
Palladius on Husbandry, b. i. 1. 161. Cf. AS. G@-hwylfan; as in:
‘a-hwylfte Pharaones cratu,’ (the sea) overwhelmed Pharaoh’s
chariots ; Exod. xiv. 27. sy. The only difficulty is to explain the final
-m; this is due to the fact that whelm, verb, is really formed from a
substantive whelm; and the sb. wkel-m stands for whelf-m, in which
the f was dropped; the suffix -m being substantival, as in doo-m,
bloo-m. This appears from MSwedish; Ihre gives the verb hwalma,
to cock hay, derived from kwalm, a hay-cock. + and he connects hwalm
with hwalfwa, to arch over, make into a rou-ded shape, and hwalf,
an arch, a vault. So also Rietz gives Swed. dial. Avalm, a hay-
stack, from Avdlva (pt. t. hvalv); cf. Swed. vdlma, to cock hay,
valm, a hay-cock (which have lost the hk); kvalfva, to arch, hvalf,
an arch. Cf. Dan. hvelve, to arch, vault over. Thus the orig. sense
of whelm was to arch over, vault, make of a convex form; hence, to
turn a hollow dish over, which would then present such a form;
hence, to upset, overturn, which is now the prevailing idea. δ. We
conclude that whkelm (for *whelf-m) is from the strong verb appear-
ing in Swed. dial. hvalva (for *hvelva), pt.t. hvalv, Norw. kvelva (for
*hvelva), pt.t. kvalv, ΜΉ. welben (pt. τ. walb), to distend oneself into
a convex form, swell out, become convex, answering to the Teut. base
HWELF., to become convex. Derivatives are seen in AS. hwealf, adj.
convex, sb. a vault (Grein, ii. 118); d-hwylfan, to overwhelm; be-
hwylfan, to vault over (Grein) ; Icel. kualf, holf, a vault, hvalfa, holfa,
to‘ whelve’ or turn upside down, overwhelm or capsize a ship, hvelfa,
to arch, vault, to turn upside down, &c.; mod. G. wolben, to arch
over. All from Idg. 4/QwELP; whence also OPruss. po-quelb-ton,
kneeling, Gk. κόλπος, bosom, a hollow. See Prellwitz. Der. over-
whelm.
WHELP, a puppy, young of the dog or lion. (E.) ME. whelp,
Chaucer, C. T. 10805 (F 491). AS. hwelp, Matt. xv. 27.-4-Du.
welp ; Icel. hvelpr; Dan. hvalp; Swed. valp; MSwed. hwalp (Ihre) ;
MHG. τοῦ β. The Tent. types are *hwelpoz, *hwalpoz, τὰ. Root
unknown. Der. whelp, vb., J. Caesar, ii. 2. 17.
WHEN, at what time, at which time. (E) ME. whan, Chaucer,
ΡΤ ἘΣ 169 ; whanne, Ormulum, 133. ΑΘ. hwenne, hwonhes Grein,
ii, 115.4+MDu. wan (Hexham) ; Goth. hwan; ἘΝ wann ; OHG.
hwanne. B. Evidently orig. acase of the interrogative pronoun; cf.
Goth. Awana, ace. masc. of hwas, who; see Who. So also L.
quan-do, when, quis, who; W. pan, when; Olrish can. Der. when-
ever, when-so-ever ; and see when-ce.
WHENCE, from what place. (E.) ME. whennes (dissyllabic),
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 12269 (C 335). This form whenn-es, in which the
suffix imitates the adverbial -es (as in ¢w#-es, twice, xed-es, of necessity),
was substituted for the older form whanene, written wonere in Laya-
WHIFFLE
mon, 1]. 16. The suffix -es was orig. a genitive case-ending, as in
deg-es, of a day. B. The form whanene is from AS. hwanan, also
hwanon, hwonan, whence, τοίη, ii. 114. This is closely connected
with AS. hwenne, when ; the suffix -az being used to express direction,
as in AS, siid-an, from the south. See When.+G. wannen, whence ;
allied to wann, when. @ Compare hen-ce, similarly formed from
ME. henn-es, AS. heon-an, hence; see Hence. Also Thence.
Der. whence-so-ever. y
WHERE, at which place. (E.) ME. wher, Chaucer, C. T.
4918 (B 498). AS. hwar, hwér, Grein, ii. 116.4-Du. waar; Icel.
hvar; Dan. hvor; Swed. hvar.4-OHG. hwar, whence MHG. war, wa,
G. wo; ef. G. war- in war-um, why, lit. about what; Goth. hwar.
Evidently allied to AS. kwa, who, and to when. Cf. Lithuan. kur,
where? Skt. kar-hi, at what time? Der. where-about, where-about-s,
where-as, where-at ; whereby, ME. whar-bi, Will. of Palerne, 2256;
where-fore, ME. hwarfore, Ancren Riwle, p. 158, note g; where-in ;
where-of, ME. hwarof, Ancren Riwle, p. 12, 1. 12; where-on, ME.
wher-on, Layamon, 155023; where-so-ever ; where-to, ME. hwerto, St.
Marharete, p. 16, 1. 293; where-unto, Cymb. iii. 4. 109; where-upon,
K. John, iv. 2. 65; wher-ever, As You er It, ii. 2. 15; where-
with, ME. hwerwid, Hali Meidenhad, p. 9, 1. 19; where-with-al,
Rich. I, v. 1.55. (ἘΣ These compounds were prob. suggested as
correlative to the formations from ¢here; see There.
WHERRY,a shallow, light boat. (E.) ‘ A whyrry, boate, ponto;”
Levins, ed. 1570. The pl. is wheries in Hakluyt, Voyages, iii. 645.
In use on the Thames in particular. Spelt whirry in Latimer,
Seven Sermons, ed. Arber, p. 170. ‘A whery, cymbe,’ Du Wez,
appendix to Palgrave, p. 916, col. 3. Cf. Lowl. Se. whirry, to whir,
to hurry; prov. E. whirry, dizzy; see Whir. Perhaps named from
its lightness. Cf. Icel. ἀνε), shifty, crank (said of a ship); Norw.
kverv, crank, also swift of motion. See Wharf.
WHET, to sharpen, make keen. (E.) ME. whetten, Prompt.
Pary. AS. hwettan, to sharpen, Grein, ii, 118. For *hwatjan;
from *hwat-, as in AS. hwe?, keen, bold, brave; ibid.-Du. wetten,
to sharpen; cf. OSax. hwat, sharp, keen; Icel. hvetja, to sharpen, to
encourage; cf. kvatr, bold, active, vigorous; Swed. vitija, to whet;
G. weizen, OHG. hwazan; cf. OHG. hwaz, sharp. B. All from
Tent. type *hwatoz, sharp, keen; allied to Skt. chdd-ana-m, an in-
citing. @ Not allied to L. cés, a whet-stone, which is related to
E. hone and cone. Der. whet, sb.; whett-er ; whet-stone, AS. hwetstan,
fElfred, tr. of Orosius, Ὁ. iv. c. 13. § 5.
WHETHER, which of two. (E.) Whether of the twain;’
Matt. xxvii. 21. ME. whether, Chaucer, C. T. 1858 (A 1856). AS.
hweder, which of two; Grein, ii. 114.4Icel. huvdrr (a contracted
form); MHG. weder, OHG. hwedar, adj., which of two; Goth.
hwathar, adj. Formed, with comparative suffix -ther (Idg. -tero-),
from the base of who; see Who. Cf. Lith. katras, Gk. πότερος,
xotepos, Skt. katara-, which of two. Der. whether, conj., AS.
hweder, Grein, ii. 115. Also neither, xor.
WHEY, the watery part of milk, separated from the curd. (E.)
Lowland Sc. whig, see Jamieson ; and see Nares. ME. whey, Prompt,
Parv. AS. hwire ; ‘Serum, hweg, Voc. 46. 28.44-MDu. wey; Du.
wei. Cf. W. chwig, ‘ whey "fermented with sour herbs 3° chwig, adj.
fermented, sour. Β. In the Bremen Worterbuch, ν. 161, we find
various Low G. words for whey, which are not all related ; the re-
lated forms are the Holstein waje and the Ditmarsch het, hen, which
(like Du. hu?) are from a weaker grade (*hujo-) of the base (*hwajo-)
of AS. hw®g. Der. whey-ey, whey-ish ; whey-face, Macb. v. 3. 1
WHICH, a relative and interrogative pronoun. (E.) ME. which,
formerly used with relation to persons, as in Chaucer, C. T. 16482
(ἃ 1014); spelt guhi7k in Barbour, Bruce, i. 77. AS. hwile, hwelc,
hwylc, Grein, ii. 121. A contracted form of AS, hwi-lic, of what
form.—AS. hwi-, allied to hwa, who; and Jic, like. See Who and
Like.+OSax. Awilik; OF riesic Awelik, hwelk, hwek ; Du. welk ; Icel.
kvilikr, of what kind; Dan. kuilk-en, masc., hvilk-et, neut.; Swed.
hvilk-en, hvilk-et; G. welcher; ΟὟ. hwelih; Goth. hwileiks. Also
Goth, hwéletks; from hwé, instrumental case of hwas, who, and Jeiks,
like. Allied to L. gua-lis, of what sort, lit. ‘what-like;’ Gk.
πηλίκος. Brugmann, ii. § 88. Der. which-ever, which-so-ever; also
(from L. qualis) quali-ty, q.v-
(E.)
WHIFF, a puff of wind or smoke. In Hamlet, ii. 2. 495.
MI. weffe, vapour; Prompt. Pary. An imitative word; cf. puff,
pipe, fife. Cf. ΝΥ. chwiff, a whiff, puff; chwiffio, to puff; chwazf,
a gust; Dan. vift, a puff, gust; Lowl. Sc. wheef, a fife. Cf G. pif
paff, to denote a sudden explosive sound; also Icel. hwida, a putt;
AS. hwida, a breeze; Voc. 175. 21. Der. whiff, verb, whiff-le,
ove
ἡ WHIFFLE, to blow in gusts, veer about as the wind does.
(E.) ‘But if the winds whiffle about to the south;’ Dampier,
Discourse of Winds, c. 6 (ἈΝ... Whiffle is the frequentative of whiff,
to puff, and was specially used of puffing in various directions ; hence
WHIG
it came to mean to trifle, to trick (Phillips). See Whiff. Der.
whiffi-er, Henry V, v. chor. 12, orig. a piper or fifer, as explained by
Phillips. who says that ‘it is also taken for a piper that plays on
a fife in a company of foot-soldiers;’ hence it meant one who
goes first in a procession; see Whiffle in E. 1). D., and Whiffler in
Nares, whose account is sufficient.
WHIG, one of a political party. (North E.) First about 1678
(Haydn). ‘Wit and fool are consequents of Whig and Tory;’
Dryden, Pref. to Absalom and Achitophel (1681). See the full
account in Todd’s Johnson and Nares. The standard passage on
the word is in b. i. of Burnet’s Own Times, fully cited by Johnson;
it is to the effect that whig is a shortened form of wkiggamor, ap-
plied to certain Scotchmen who came from the west in the summer
to buy corn at Leith ; and that the term was given them from a word
whiggam, which was employed by those men in driving their horses.
A march to Edinburgh made by the Marquis of Argyle and 6,000
men (in 1648) was called ‘the whiggamor’s inroad,’ and afterwards
those who opposed the court came in contempt to be called whigs.
The term had been applied previonsly (in 1667) to the Scottish
Covenanters (Lingard). [There seems no reason to doubt this
account, nor does there seem to be any foundation for an assertion
made by Woodrow that Whigs were named from whig, sour whey,
which is obviously a mere guess.}|__B. The Glossary to Sir W. Scott’s
novels has whigamore, a great whig; also whigging, jogging rudely,
urging forward ; Jamieson has ‘ whig, to go quickly; whig awa’, to
move at an easy and steady pace, to jog (Liddesdale); to whig awa’
with a cart, remarks Sir W. Scott, signifies to drive it briskly on.’
I suspect that whig should be wig, and that these words are con-
nected with Lowland Sc. wiggle, to wriggle (or rather to keep
moving about) and with EFries. wiggen, Norw. vigga, to rock. Cf.
Lowl. Sc. wig, to wag, shake, move (E.D.D.); and E. Wag.
Der. whigg-ish, -ish-ly, -ism, -ery.
WHILE, a time, space of time. (E.) ME. whil, while, P. Plow-
man, B. xvii. 46. AS. Awil, sb. a time, Grein, ii. 120.4 cel. hvila,
only in the special sense of a place of rest, a bed; Dan. hvile, rest;
Swed. hvila, rest; G. weile, OHG. hwila; Goth. hweila, a time,
season. Β. The Teut. types are *hwild, f., *hwilon-, f., a time,
rest, pause, time of repose. Prob. allied to L. gui-es, rest; see
Quiet ; and to Skt. chi-ra-, long-lasting. Idg. 4QwEI. Brug-
mann, i. § 675. Der. while, adv., from some case of the sb., prob.
from the acc. or dat. hwile ; whil-es, Matt. v. 25, ME. whiles, Chaucer,
C. T. 35 (in the Harleian MS.), where whiles is the gen. case (m. or
n.) used adverbially, as in twi-es, twice, ned-es, needs, &c. [but note
that the AS. genitive was hwile, the sb. being feminine]; hence
whil-s-t, Spenser, F. Ὁ. ii. 2. 16, with added excrescent ¢ after s
(as in amongs-t, amids-t), Also whil-om, spelt whylome in Spenser,
F. Q. ii. 2. 13, from AS, Awilwm, instr. or dat. pl. of hwil, signifying
‘at times.’ Also mean-while, see Mean (3); while-ere, Temp. iil.
2. 127. Also whiling-time, the ‘waiting a little before dinner,’
Spectator, no. 448, Aug. 4, 1712; whence ‘to while away time;’
prob. with some thought of confusion with wile.
WHIM, a sudden fancy, a crotchet. (Scand.) ‘With a whym-
wham Knyt with a trym-tram Upon her brayne-pan;’ Skelton,
Elinour Rummyng, 75.—Icel. Avima, to wander with the eyes, as
a silly person; Norweg. Avima, to whisk or flutter about, to
trifle, play the fool (Aasen) ; cf. Swed. dial. hvimmer-kantig, dizzy,
giddy in the head; Icel. vim, Norw. kvim (Ross), giddiness, folly.
B. This etymology is verified by the derived word whimsey, a whim,
Ben Jonson, The Fox, iii. 1. 4, pl. whimsies, Beaum. and Fletcher,
Women Pleased, iii. 2, last line; from the allied Norweg. kvimsa,
Dan. vimse, to skip, whisk, bustle, Swed. dial. Avimsa, to be un-
steady, giddy, dizzy. y. All from a base *hwim, to move briskly.
Der. whim-wham, a reduplicated word, as above; whims-ey, as
above; whims-ic-al, whims-ic-al-ly; whim-ling (Nares). Also
wim-ble (2), αν.
WHIMBREL, a bird, a sort of curlew. (E.) Willughby says
the bird was described to him under this name by Mr. Johnson of
Brignal (N. Riding of Yorkshire). See also Swainson, Provincial
Bird-names, E.D.S., p. 199. It is easily analysed as standing for
whim-b-r-el ; where -b- is excrescent after m, -r- is frequentative, -el
is the suffix of the agent, and whim- (allied to whine) is imitative.
It means the bird that repeats the cry imitated by whim; cf. Lowl.
Sc. whimmer, E. whimper and whine, G. wimmern. See Whimper.
WHIMPER, to cry ina low, whining voice. (E.) ‘ Liue in
puling and whimpering and henines of hert;’ Sir T. More, p. go b.
And in Palsgrave. A frequentative form, from whimpe. ‘There
shall be intractabiles, that will whympe and whine ;’ Latimer, Seven
Sermons (March 22, 1549), ed. Arber, p. 77, last line. In both words,
the p is excrescent, as is so common after m; whimper and whimpe
stand for whimmer and whim; cf. Scotch whimmer,to whimper. And
further, whim is an imitative word allied to whine, so that Latimer
WHIPPLE-TREE 7
joins the words naturally enough. See Whine.+Low G. wemern,
to whimper; G. wimmern. Der. whimper-er.
WHIN (1), gorse, furze. (Scand.) ‘ Whynnes or hethe, bruiere ;’
Palsgrave. ‘ Whynne,Saliunca;’ Prompt. Parv. ‘With thornes, breres,
and moni a quynx;’ Ywain and Gawain, 159; in Ritson, Met.
Romances, i. 8. Prob. from Norw. hvin, hven, purple melic grass,
Avene, bent-grass, coarse grass (Larsen); cf. Norw. kvein, thin and
stalky, kveinutt, stunted (Ross); kveina, used of grass-stalks and
trees that are thin and stand alone (Ross); Swed. hven, bent-grass ;
Norw. kveinen, adj., said of birch-trees and branches with long
thin twigs. Hence also (probably) W. chwyn, weeds; cf. Bret.
chouenna (with guttural ch), to weed. Der. whin-bush.
WHIMN (2),a kind of hard rock. (E.) G. Douglas has ‘ane cald
hard quhyn,’ Lat. duris cautibus, Virgil’s Ain. iv. 366. ME. quin,
hard stone, Cursor Mundi, 7521. [AS. form not recorded. ]
WHINE, to utter a plaintive cry. (E.) ME. whinen, said of
a horse, Chaucer, C. T. 5968 (Ὁ 386). AS. hwinan, to whine,
Grein, ii. 122.4Icel. kvina, to whiz, whir; Dan. hvine, to whistle,
to whine; Swed. Avina, to whistle. B. All from the Teut. base
*hwein-, *hwin-, to make a discordant noise. Cf. Icel. éveina, to
wail; Goth. kwaindn, to mourn. And see Whimper. Der.
whine, sb., whin-er, whin-ing; also whinn-y, Drayton, The Moon-
calf, 1. 119 from end, which is a sort of frequentative. And see
whimp-er.
WHINYARD. a sword. (Scand. ; with F. suffix.) Nares,
following Minsheu, explains whinyard as a hanger, i.e. a kind of
sword. Minsheu, in 1627, spelis it whinneard; but it is usually
whinyard, as in the play of Edw. III, i. 2. 33; and in Ram Alley
(1611), pr. in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, x. 363. Cotgrave explains MF.
braquemar as ‘a wood knife, hanger, whineyard;’ but Skelton has
simply whynarde, Bowge of Court, 363. From Icel hvina, to whizz,
as an arrow or a gust of wind; Swed. Avina, Dan. kvine, to whistle,
shriek ; with a suffix which simulated E. yard, a rod. It really
arose from the suffix -ard (as in drunk-ard), which is of F. origin.
The sense is ‘a thing that whizzes through the air,’ or that cuts the
air with a whizzing sound. Also called a whinger, from an imi-
tative form whinge, which is a variant of whine; cf. whinger, a
whining person; E.D.D. See Whine.
WHIP, to move suddenly and quickly, to flog. (E.) “1 whipt
me behind the arras,’ Much Ado, i. 3. 63; ‘ Whips out his rapier,’
Hamlet, iv. 1. 10. This seems to be the orig. sense, whence the
notion of flogging (with a quick sudden stroke) seems to have been
evolved. [The AS. hweop, a whip, and hweopian, to whip, scourge,
are given by Somner, but are unauthorised; the AS. word for
‘scourge’ being swipe, John, ii. 15.] Another sense of whip is to
overlay a cord by rapidly binding thin twine or silk thread round it,
and this is the only sense of ME, whippen noticed in the Prompt.
Pary., which has: ‘ Whyppyn, or closyn threde in sylke, as sylke-
womene [do], Obvolvo.’ But G. Douglas has ‘ wyppit with bendis,’
to translate L. witté comptos in Virgil, A‘n. viii. 128. The sb. whippe,
a scourge, occurs in Chaucer, 5757, 9545 (D175, E 1671); it is
spelt guippe in Voc. 811. 36; wyppe, Voc. 665.16 ; wippe, Nominale,
ed. Skeat, 194, 886. All from the notion of rapid movement. The
word is presumably English, and is preserved in the nearest cognate
languages. Cf. Du. wippen, to skip, to hasten, also to give the strap-
pado, formerly ‘to shake, to wagge,’ Hexham; Du. wip, a moment,
a swipe, the strappado, MDu. wippe, ‘a whipe or a scourge,’
Hexham; Low G. wippen, wuppen, to go up and down, as on a
see-saw ; wips/ quickly; Mid. Dan. huip, a jump, hvippe, to jump,
to whip (Kalkar); Dan. vippe, to see-saw, rock, bob, vips/ pop!
vipstiert, a wag-tail, lit. ‘ whip-start,’ where sfart=tail; Swed.
vippa, to wag, to jerk or give the strappado; vippgalge, a gibbet,
lit. ‘ whip-gallows,’ vips/ quick! G. wippen, to move up and down,
balance, see-saw, rock, to draw up a malefactor at a gibbet, and
drop him again, to give the strappado; wipp-galgen, a gibbet.
B. The Du. wippen, to skip, also to wag, is regarded as being a
secondary yerb allied to OHG, wifan, to turn round, to reel (G,
weifen), Goth. weipan, to crown, wipja, a crown; which may be
connected with L. zibrare, to vibrate, swing. Cf. also Goth. br-
waibjan, to wind round, which may be compared with Skt. vép, to
tremble, vibrate. Perhaps even the E. form ought to be wip (not
whip). @ The Gael. cuip, a whip, W. chwip, a quick turn,
chwipio, to move briskly or nimbly, are borrowed from English,
and haye taken up different senses of the E. word. Der. whip, sb.,
as above; whip-cord, -hand, -lash; whipper; whipp-er-in, one who
keeps the hounds from wandering, and whips them in to the line of
chase; whipp-ing, -ing-post ; also whip-ster, Oth. v. 2. 2445 whip-
stock, i.e. whip-handle, Tw. Nt. ii. 3. 28, and in Palsgrave; and see
whipp-le-tree. And see wisp, wipe. Cf. whisk, for wisk.
WHIPPLE-TREE, aswing-bar, to which traces are fastened
for drawing a carriage, &c. (E.) In Forby’s Norfolk Glossary
712 WHIR
(1830). Spelt whypple-irze in Palsgrave, where it is left unexplained.
As in the case of swingle-tree, the word means ‘ piece of swinging
wood,’ and is composed of ¢ee in the sense of timber (as in axle-
tree, &c.) and the verb whipple, frequentative of whip, to move about
quickly, to see-saw. See Whip and Tree; and see Swingletree.
@ ΜΕ. whippeltree, in Chaucer, C. T., A 2923, is the cornel-tree ;
cf. Mid. Low G, wipel-bom, the comel-tree, Low G. wepe (Liibben).
WHIR, to buzz, whirl round with a noise. (Scand.) In Shak.
Pericles, iv. 1.21. ME. (Northern), whirr, quirr, to rush out, hurl;
Wars of Alexander, 1556, 2226. Probably to some extent imi-
tative, like whiz.— Dan. hvirre, to whirl, twirl; Swed. dial. hwirra,
to whirl (Rietz). Cf. Icel. Averfa, to turn round ; the frequentative
is Whirl. And see Whiz.
WHIRL, to swing rap‘dly round, to cause to revolve rapidly, to
rotate quickly. (Scand.) ME. whirlen, Chaucer, Parl. of Foules,
1. 80. In Wyclif, Wisdom, v. 24, the earlier version has ‘ whirle-puff
of wind,’ and the later version ‘whirlyng of wind.’ This word is
not a mere extension of whir (which is not found till a later date),
but is a contraction for whirf-le, frequentative of the verb equivalent
to ME. wherfen, to tur (Stratmann); and it is of Scand. origin
rather than directly from AS. Aweorfan.—Icel. hvirfla, to whirl, fre-
quent. of hver-fa (pt. t. ἀναγ), to turn round; Mid. Dan. Avirle, the
same as Dan. hvirvle, to whirl; Swed. kvir,7a, to whirl; cf. huarf,
atum; MDu. wervelen, ‘to while? Hexhan + Ὁ. wir bein to whirl;
also, to warble. B. But the verb is really a Renominatice one,
from the sb. ἴοι πᾷ as ME, whirl, as in tue compounds whirl-
bone (Prompt. Pu.urv.), whirl-wind (below) ; cf. Icel. hvirfill,a ring,
Dan. hvirvel, Mid. Dan. hvirlen, a whirl, a whirlpool, Swed.
hvirfvel (the same), Du. wervel, a hasp, wervel-wind, whirlwind, G.
wirbel, a turning round, OHG, wirbil; Teut. type *hwirfiloz, m.;
with 7-mutation of e to 7. From Teut. base *hwerf, as ia AS.
hweorfan, Goth. hwairban, to turn; see Wharf. Der. whirl-wind,
spelt whyrle-wynde, Prompt. Parv., from Icel. hvirfilvindr, a whirl-
wind, Dan. hvirvelvind, Swed. hvirfuelvind, Mid. Dan. hvirrelvind ;
whirl-pool, spelt whirl-pole in Palsgrave, and applied to a large fish,
from the commotion which it makes. Also whirl-i-gig, spelt whirly-
διε (toy to play with) in Palsgrave; see Gig. Doublet, warble.
WHISK, to sweep round rapidly, to brush, sweep quickly, move
quickly. (Scand.) ‘The proper sense is merely “to brush or sweep,’
esp. with a quick motion, then to flourish about as when using a
light brush; then (as in our phrases ¢o brush along, to sweep along) to
whisk is to move quickly, esp. with a kind of flourish. The ἃ is in-
trusive, and probably due to confusion with whiz, whirl, &c. It
should rather be wisk. ‘ He winched [winced] still alwayes, and
whisked with his taile;’ Gascoigne, Complaint of the Grene Knight,
Works, ed. Hazlitt, i. 403. ‘ The whyskynge rod;’ Skelton, W hy
Come Ye Nat to Courte, 1. 1161. « Whisking his riding- “rod 3
Beaum. and Fletcher, Noble Gentleman, Act ii (Gentleman). ‘ Bs
she whisked it’ [her tail]; Butler, Hudibras, pt. ii. c. 3. 1.897. Cf.
prov. E. whisk, to switch, beat, wisk, to switch, move rapidly
(Halliwell). G. Douglas translates Virgil’s bacchatur (Ain. iv. 301)
by ‘She wiskis wild.” The verb is from ME, wisk, sb., a swift
stroke, Barbour, Bruce, v. 641. The sk (as in many words) indi-
cates a Scand. origin. — Dan. viske, to wipe, rub, sponge, from visk,
sb., a wisp, a rubber; Swed. viska, to wipe, to sponge, also to wag
(the tail), from viska, a whisk. Widegren’s Swed. Dict. gives viska,
“a small broom, whisk ;’ and the example hunden viskar med swansen,
‘the dog wags his tail,’ which precisely shows the sense of the E.
word in old authors. The sb. appears further in Icel. isk, a wisp
of hay or the like, jit. something to wipe with.G. wischen, ‘to
wipe, wisk (sie), rub,? Fliigel; from the sb. wisch, ‘a whisk, clout, wisp,
malkin,’ id. B. The sb. which thus appears as Icel. and Dan,
visk, Swed. viska, G. wisch, meant orig. ‘a wisp;’ and perhaps wis-k
is a related form to wis-p. See Wisp. Cf. also AS. weoxian (for
*wiscian), to wipe. Der. whisk, sb. (as above, really a more orig.
word). Hence whisk-er, sb., from its likeness to a small brush ; ‘ old
Nestor put aside his gray beard and brush’d her with his whiskers,’
Dryden, Troilus and Cressida, Act iv. sc. 2 (R.); whisker-ed. Also
whisk-y, a kind of light gig, from its being easily whisked along; it
occurs in Crabbe, Tales of the Hall, b. viii (R.). @ Note MDan.
hviske, for Dan. viske.
WHISKEY, WHISKY, a spirit distilled from grain, &c.
(Gaelic.) In Johnson’s Dict. Spelt whisquy-beath in Sinclair's
Statistical Acct. of Scotland (1791-9), iii. 525; Brand, Pop. Antiq.
li. 285.—Gael. uisge-beatha, water of life, whisky; the equivalent
of F. eau de vie. We have dropped the latter element, retaining
only uisge, water. See Usquebaugh.
WHISPER, to speak very softly, or under the breath. (E.)
ME. whisperen; ‘ Whysperyn, mussito;’ Prompt. Pary. In Wyclif,
Ecclus. xii. 19, ‘ whispering’ is expressed by whistrende or whistringe.
ONorthumbrian hwisprian; the L. murmurabant is glossed by
WHITE
hwispredon in the Rushworth MS., and by Auu#stredon in the Lin-
disfarne MS.; Luke, xix. 7. Again, the L. murmur is glossed by
hwisprunge in the Rushworth MS., and by Au#®strung in the Lind.
MS.; John, vii. 12. We see, then, that Awisprian and hwé&strian
were parallel forms, and hwéstrian is evidently closely allied to AS.
hwistlian, to whistle. Whisper and whistle are allied words, both of
an imitative character; further, they are frequentatives, from the
bases whisp- and whist- respectively ; and these are extended from an
imitative Teut. root *hweis- (weak grade *hwis-), Cf. wheeze,
which is likewise imitative; also whiz.4-MDu. wisperen, wispelen,
to whisper, Hexham; G. wispeln. So also (from the base whisk or
hwisk) we have Icel. hviskra, Swed. hviska, Dan. hviske, to whisper.
Der. whisper, sb., whisper-er.
WHIST, hush, silence; a game at cards. (1. Scand.; 2. E.)
The game was at first called whisk by Taylor the Water-poet in
1630, who is said to be the earliest writer to mention it; see Nares.
It was so named from the sweeping up or whisking off the cards
from the table; see Whisk. B. But about 1709, whisk was cor-
rupted into whist (Compleat Gamester, p. 86); and a new etymo-
logy was found for it, viz. that it was so named from the silence
requisite to play it attentively. The old verb whist, to keep silence,
also to silence, had whisted for its past tense, but whist for its pp.
‘So was the Titanesse put down and whist,’ i.e. silenced ; Spencer,
F.Q. vii. 7. 59. ‘All the companie must be whist,’ i.e. silent ;
Holinshed, Descr. of Ireland, ed. 1808, p. 67. ‘ They whisted all’
=they all kept silence, Surrey, tr. of Virgil, Ain. 11. 1. ME. whist,
interj., be silent! Wyclif, Judges, xviii. 19 (earlier version), where
the later version has Be thou stille, and the Vulgate has tace. It is
thus seen to have been orig. an interjection, commanding silence.
See Hist and Hush. Cf. L. st/ hist! G. s¢/ bse! pst! hist, hush,
stop! ‘The orig. intention of the utterance is to represent a slight
sound, such as that of something stirring, or the breathing or
whispering of some one approaching. Something stirs ; listen ; be
still;’ Wedgwood. By way of further illustration may be quoted:
‘I. .made a contenaunce [gesture] with my hande in maner to
been Auisht, i.e. to enjoin silence ; Test. of Love, b. ii. ch. vii. 122.
@ Whisk occurs in Pope, 2nd Epist. to Mrs. Blount (1715), 1. 24, and
in Thomson’s Autumn (1730), 1. 524; modern editions have whist,
WHISTLE, to make a shrill sound by forcing the breath through
the contracted lips. (E.) ME. whistlen, P. Plowman, B. xv. 467.
AS. hwistlian, to make a hissing noise (Toller); also found in
derivatives; as Awistlere, a whistler, piper, Matt. ix. 23; ‘ Sibilatio,
hwistlung, Voc. 162. 44; ‘ Fistula, wistle,’ id. 406. 23. A frequen-
tative verb, from a base hwist-, meant to imitate the hissing sound
of whistling, and extended from the Teut, base *hwis-, weak grade
of *hweis-; see Whisper.+lIcel. Avisla, to whisper ; hviss, whew !
to imitate the sound of whistling; Dan. kvisle, to whistle, also to
hiss; Swed. hAvissla, to whistle. Der. whistle, sb.; whistl-er, AS.
hwistlere, as above.
WHIT, a thing, a particle, a bit. (E.) The ἃ is in the wrong
place ; whit stands for wikt = wight, and is the same word as wight,
a person. We find ‘neuer a whyt? in Palsgrave, p. 881, col. 1.
ME. wight, a person ; also a thing, a bit. ‘ For she was falle aslepe
a little wight’ = for she had fallen asleep a little whit; Chaucer,
C. T. 4281 (A 4283). ‘A lutewiht’=a little bit, for a short time,
Ancren Riwle, p. 72, 1. 24. AS. wiht, (1) a wight, person, (2)
a whit, bit; see abundant examples in ’Grein, li. 704. The latter
sense is particularly conspicuous in a@wikt=anght, i.e. ‘one whit,’
and naiwiht =naught, i.e. ‘no whit.’ See further under Wight (1).
Der. aught, q.v.; naught, q.v-; not.
WHITE, of the colour of snow, very pale. (E.) ME. whit (with
long ὃ), whyt; pl. white, Chaucer, C. T. go. AS. hwit; Grein, ii.
122.4Du. wit; Icel. hvitr; Dan. hvid; Swed. hvit; Goth. hweits;
G. weiss; OHG. hwiz. Ββ. All from Teut. type *hweitoz, *hwitoz,
white, shining; further allied to Skt. gvéta-, white, guit, guvind, to be
white, to shine. The Skt. ρυδέα is from 4/KWEIT, to shine, whence
also Kuss. svietluti, light, bright, svtetit(e), to shine, give light, OLithuan.
szweitu, later form szweicziu, 1 make white, I cleanse. Brugmann,
i. § 319; as to the final dental, cf. § 701, note 2. Der. white-ly;
white-ness, spelt whytnesse in Prompt. Pary. Also white, verb, ME.
hwiten, used intransitively, to become white, Ancren Riwle, p. 150,
1. 73 whit-en, ME. whitenen, to make white, Early Eng. Psalter,
Ps. 1. 9, but properly intransitive, from Icel. hvitna, to become white
(see note on Waken). Also whit-ing,, a fish with delicate white
flesh, spelt whytynge in ‘Prompt. Parv.; it also means ground chalk.
Also whiteish, whit-ish-ness; white-bait, a fish; white-faced, K. John,
ii. 23; white-heat; white-lead, spelt whyte led in Prompt. Parvy. ; white-
limed, spelt whitlymed, P: Plowman, Bigxvoe linia: white-livered, i.e.
cowardly, Hen, V, iii. 2. 343 white-wask. Also whit ἐξαιπετ; leather
dressed with alum; Beaum. and Fletcher, Scornful Lady, v. 1; white
ster, a bleacher, Prompt. Pary.; whit-tawer, a worker in white
WHITHER
leather. And see wheat, wheat-ear, Whit-sunday, whitt-le (3).
tr But not whit-low.
WHITHER, to what place. (E.) ME. whider; spelt whidir,
Wyclif, Mark, xiv. 12, whidur, id. xiv.14. (Cf. ME. fader for father,
moder for mother.) AS. hwider, hwyder, Grein, ii. 120.+4-Goth.
hwadré, whither, John, vii. 35. Closely allied to Whether, and
formed from the Teut. base *hwa-, who, with a compar. suffix allied
to Idg. *ter-; see Whether. Cf. hither, thither. Der. whither-
ward, ME, whiderward, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 11814 (F 1510); whither-so-
ever.
WHITLOW, a painful swelling on the fingers. (Scand.) Nothing
but a careful tracing of the history of the word will explain it; it
seems to be an alteration of quick-flaw, i.e. a flaw or flaking off of
the skin in the neighbourhood of the quick, or sensitive part of the
finger round the nail. The word is properly Northern, and of Scand.
origin, It is still preserved in the North E. whickflaw, a whitlow
(Halliwell). Here whick is the well-known (and very common)
Northern form of quick, in the sense of ‘alive’ and ‘quick’ part of
the finger. Thisis why the sore wascalled paronychia. ‘ Paronychia,
a preternatural swelling or sore, under the root of the nail, in one’s
finger, a felon or whitlow;’ Phillips, ed. 1706. [Der. from Gk.
map-, for παρά, beside, and ὄνυχι-, from ὄνυξ, the nail.] And this is
also why horses were subject to whitlows ; in farriery, it is a disease
of the feet, of an inflammatory kind, occurring round the hoof, where
an acrid matter is collected (Webster) ; the hoof of the horse answer-
ing to the nail of aman. Cf. ‘ Quick-scab, a distemper in horses,’
Bailey, vol. i. (1735). B. If so, quick was replaced by whit-, under-
stood as white; ‘some doth say it is a white fiawe under the nayle;’
A. Boorde, Breviary of Health, c. 265 (Palmer). Cotgrave explains
poil de chat by ‘whitlow;’ but Palsgrave has: ‘Whitflowe in ones
fyngre, poil de chat.’ The spelling whitflaw occurs repeatedly in
Holland’s tr. of Pliny (see the index), and is once spelt white-flaw,
showing that the former syllable was already confused with the adj.
white. ‘ Whitflawes about the root of the nails,’ Holland, tr. of Pliny,
b. xxiii. c. 4. § 1; &c., &c. ‘Paronychia .. by the vulgar people
amongst us it is generally called a whitflaw ;’ Wiseman, Surgery,
b. i. c. 11 (R.). Both parts of the word are properly Scandinavian.
—Icel. kuika, ‘the quick under the nail or under a horse’s hoof;’
otherwise kuikva, ‘ the flesh under the nails, and in animals under the
hoofs ;᾿ and Swed. flaga, a flaw, crack, breach, also a flake, Icel.
flagna, ‘to flake off, as skin or slough.’ See Quick and Flaw;
and see White. @ = Whick easily turned to whit, which was
naturally interpreted as white (from the words whit-tawer, whitster),
the more so as the swelling is often of a white colour; the true sense
of the word was thus lost, and a whitlow was applied to any similar
sore on the finger, whether near the quick or not. Low may have
been suggested by prov. E. low, ‘fire;’ with the idea of ‘inflamma-
Ω ’
tion.
WHITSUNDAY, the seventh Sunday after Easter, commemo-
rating the day of Pentecost. (E.) Lit. white Sunday, as will appear.
The word is old. In the Ancren Riwle, p. 412, 1. 13, we have
mention of hwitesunedei immediately after a mention of holi Jursdei.
Again, we find: ‘pe holi goste, pet pu on Awite sune dei sendest’=
the Holy Ghost, whom thou didst send on Whit-sunday; Ὁ. Eng.
Homilies, i. 209, 1. 16. In Layamon, 1]. 31524, we already have
mention of white sune tide (=whit-e sun-e tid-e, in six syllables), i. e.
Whitsun-tide, which in the later version appears in the form Witson-
time, showing that even at that early period the word White was be-
ginning to be confused with wit; hence the spelling witsondai in
Wycliffe’s Works, ed. Arnold, ii. 158, 159, &c., is not at all sur-
prising. In the same, p. 161, we already find witson-weke, i.e.
Whitsun week. In the Cursor Mundi, the word ‘ white’ is written
wijt (where the ij=7); and, accordingly, we there find the form wt
sundat, 18914. Cf. Wit-sonentid, S. Legendary, p. 115, 1.297. AS.
hwita Sunnan-deg ; only in the dat. case hwitan sunnan deg, A.S.
Chron. an. 1067. However, the AS. name is certified, beyond all
question, by the fact that it was early transplanted into the Icelandic
language, and appears there as hvitasunnu-dagr. In Icelandic we
also find hwi/a-daga, lit. ‘ white days,’ as a name for Whitsun week,
which was also called hvitadaga-vika =whitedays week, and hvita-
sunnudags-vika = Whitsunday’s week. B. All these names are
unmistakeable, and it is also tolerably certain that the E. name
White Sunday is not older than the Norman conquest; for, before
that time, the name was always Pentecoste (see Pentecost). We
are therefore quite sure that, for some reason or other, the name
Pentecost was then exchanged for that of White Sunday, which came
into common use, and was early corrupted into Wit-Sunday, proving
that white was soon misunderstood, and was wrongly supposed to
refer to the wit or wisdom conferred by the Holy Ghost on the day
of Pentecost, on which theme it was easy for the preacher (to whom
etymology was no object) to expatiate. Nevertheless. the truer
WHO 713
spelling has been preserved to this day, not only in English and in
modern Icelandic, but in the very plainly marked modern Norwegian
dialects, wherein it is called Kvitsunndag, whilst Whitsun-week is
called Kvitsunn-vika, obviously from kvit, white (Aasen). See, there-
fore, White and Sunday. B. But when we come to consider
why this name was given to the day, room is at last opened for con-
jecture. Perhaps the best explanation is Mr. Vigfusson’s, in the Icel.
Dict., who very pertinently remarks that even Bingham gives no
reference whatever to Icelandic writers, though, from the nature of
the case, they know most about it, the word having been borrowed
by Icelandic whilst it was still but new to English. He says: ‘The
great festivals, Yule, Easter, and Pentecost, but esp. the two latter,
were the great seasons for christening : in the Roman Catholic church
especially Easter, whence in Roman usage the Sunday after Easter
was called Dominica in Albis ; but in the Northern churches, perhaps
owing to the cold weather at Easter-time, Pentecost, as the birth-day
of the church, seems to have been esp. appointed for christening and
for ordination ; hence the following week was called the Holy Week
(Helga Vika). Hence, Pentecost derived its name from the white
garments,’ &c. See the whole passage, and the authorities cited.
The W. su/gwyn, Whitsuntide, is translated from English ; cf. W. sul,
sun, and gwyn, white. Hexham’s MDnu. Dict. has: ‘ Witten Donder-
dagh, Holy Thursday ; Witten Sondagh, Palme Sunday ; Witte-brodt,
white bread ;’ ed. 1658. Kalkar’s Mid. Dan. Dict. has: ‘ Hvideson-
dag, (1) the first Sunday after Easter; (2) the first Sunday in Lent;
from hvid, white, and sondag, Sunday. It is clear that white Sunday
was a name not confined to the day of Pentecost. @ It deserves to
be recorded, as a specimen of English popular etymology, that many
still prefer to consider AS. hwita sunnan (occurring in the A. S.
Chronicle) as a corruption of the mod. G. pfingsten (which is acknow-
ledged to be from the Gk. πεντηκοστή). Seeing that pfingster is a
modern form, and is an old dative case turned into a nominative, the
ΜΗ. word being pfingeste, we are asked to believe that pfingeste
became hwita su, and that xnan was afterwards luckily added!
Comment is needless. Der. Whitsun-week, a shortened form for
Whitsunday's week (as shown by Icel. hvitasunnudags-vika) ; and
similarly, Whitsun-tide. Also Whit-Monday, Whit-Tuesday, names
coined to match Whit-Sunday; formerly called Monday in Whitsun-
week, &c.; Wycliffe, Works, ii. 161. 4 Cf. Palmson, Lowson, as
contractions of Palmsunday, Lowsunday. See Oxford Dict.
WHITTLE (1), to pare or cut with a knife. (E.) In Johnson’s
Dict. A mere derivative from the sb. whittle, a knife, Timon, v. 1.
183. And whittle is the same as ME. Awitel, thwitel, a knife,
Chaucer, C. T. 3931 (A 3933). Lit. ‘a cutter;’ formed, with suffix
τοὶ of the agent, from Awit-, weak grade of AS. Awitan, to thwite,
to cut, to pare; whence the verb which is spelt by Palsgrave both
thwyte and whyte. See Rom. of the Rose, 1. 933. 4 The alleged
AS. hwitel, a knife, is a mere myth; sce Whittle (3).
WHITTLE (2), to sharpen. (E.) Used as a slang term; ‘ well
whittled and thoroughly drunk ;’ Holland, tr. of Plutarch, p. 387 (R.).
‘Throughly whitled’=thoroughly drunk; Holland, tr. of Pliny,
b. xiv. c. 22. The lit. sense is, sharpened like a whittle or knife;
see Whittle (1). It may have been confused with whet, the fre-
quentative of which, however, could only have been whettle, and does
not occur.
WHITTLE (3), a blanket. (E.) ME. whitel, P. Plowman,
Ὁ. xvii. 76. AS. hwitel, a blanket, Gen. ix. 23. Lit. ‘a small white
thing.” AS. hwit, white. See White.4Icel. Avitill, a whittle,
from hvitr, white; Norweg. kvitel, from kvit, white (Aasen). -Cf. E.
blank-et, from F. blanc, white. @ Somner gave ‘ knife’ as one sense
of AS. Awitel; he was clearly thinking of whittle (1), which happens
to be a corruption of ¢hwitel; see Whittle (1). His mistake has
been carefully preserved in many dictionaries.
WHIZ, to make a hissing sound. (E.) ‘The woods do whiz ;’
Surrey, tr. of Aineid, b. ii, 1. 534. An imitative word, allied to
Whistle, q.v. Cf. Icel. Avissa, to hiss, to run with a hissing sound,
said, e.g., of a stream; and cf. E. whis-per, hiss, whir.
WHO, an interrogative and relative pronoun. (E.) ‘ Formerly
who, what, which, were not relative, but interrogative pronouns;
which, whose, whom occur as relatives [misprinted interrogatives] as
early as the end of the twelfth century, but who not until the 14th
century, and was not in common use before the 16th century ;’ Morris,
Hist. Outlines of E. Accidence, ὃ 188. AS. hwa, who (interrogatively),
masc. and fem. ; hwet, neuter; gen. hwes, for all genders; dat. hwam,
hwxm, for all genders; acc. masc. hwone, fem. hwone, neut. hwet;
instrumental hwi, hwy (mod. E. why); Grein, ii. 113; Sweet, A. S.
Reader. We now have who= AS. hwi; what =hwet; whose=hwes,
with a lengthening of the vowel, to agree with the vowel of other
cases (seldom used in the neuter, though there is nothing against it) ;
whom=dat. kwam, but also used for the accusative, the old acc.
hwone being lost ; wxy=inst. hwi; see Why.+4+Du. wie, who; wat,
714 WHOLE
what; wiens, whose; wien, whom (dat. and acc.)3 Icel. Averr, kver,
who ; kvat, what ; hvers, whose ; hverjum (masc.), whom; pl. Averir,
&c.; Dan. hvo, who; hvad, what; kvis, whose; hvem, whom (dat.
and acc.); Swed. Avem, who, whom (nom. dat. and acc.); hvad,
what ; kvems, hvars, whose; G. wer, who; was, what; wessen, wess,
whose; wem, to whom; wen, whom (acc.); Goth. nom. hwas, hwo,
hwa (or hwata); gen. hwis, hwizds, hwis; dat. hwamma, hwizai,
hwamma ; acc. hwana, hwo, hwa (or hwata) ; instr. hwé; pl. hwai, &c. ;
Trish and Gael. co; W. pwy; L. quis, que, quid; Russ. kto, chto, who,
what; Lithuan. kas, who; Skt. kas, who (masc.), kim, what; kam,
whom (ace.). Ββ. All from the Idg. interrogative base QO (Teut.
HWA), who? The neuter has the characteristic neut. suffix -d
(L. qui-d), Teut. -t (E. wha-t, Goth. Awa-ta), as in the words i-t,
tha-t. Brugmann, ii. § 411. Der. who-ever, who-so, who-so-ever.
Also whe-n, whe-re, whe-ther, whi-ch, whi-ther, why. Also quidd-i-ty,
qua-li-ty, qua-nti-ty, quitlet.
WHOLE, hale, sound, entire, complete. (E.) The orig. sense is
‘hale,’ or in sound health; hence the senses entire, complete, &c.,
have been deduced. The spelling with initial w is curious, and
points back to a period when a w-sound was initially prefixed in some
dialect and afterwards became general; this pronunciation is now
again lost. We have other examples in whot=hot, Spenser, F. Ὁ.
ii. τ. 58, ii. 9. 29, &c.3 in whore=hore; in whoop=ME. houpen,
where the w is still sounded; and in mod. E. wun as the pronuncia-
tion of one, where the w is not now written. I believe the spelling
with w is hardly older than about A.D. 1500; Palsgrave, in 1530,
still writes hole. 6A wholle man;’ Golden Booke, c. 29; first
printed in 1534. ‘The whole neade not the visicion;’ Tyndale, tr.
of Matt. ix. 12 (1526). Richardson cites the adv. wholly from
Gower; but Pauli’s edition (vol. ii. p. 4, 1. 21) has holy (for holly) ;
so also in Macaulay’s edition, i. 303, 1.91. ME. hol, hool, Wyclif,
John, v. 6. AS. hal, whole; whence ME. hool by the usual change
from AS. ἃ to ME. long o, as in AS. stan >ME. stoon, a stone;
Grein, ii. 6.4+Du. heel; Icel. hetld; Dan. heel; Swed. hel; G. heil;
Goth. hails. B. Allfrom Teut. type *hailoz, Idg. type *koilos, hale,
whole; allied to W. coef, an omen; OSlav. célu, wholly, Russ. ¢sie/-
it(e), toheal. See Stokes-Fick, p. 88. Der. whol-ly, ME. holly, holy,
in Gower, as above, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 601 (A 599) ; whole-ness (modern).
Also whole-some, ME. holsum, holsom, Chaucer, Troilus, i. 947, spelt
halsumm in the Ormulum, 2915, not in AS., but suggested by Icel.
heilsamr, salutary, formed from he:ll, whole, with suffix -samr corre-
sponding to ΕἸ. -some; hence whole-somely, whole-some-ness. Also
whole-sale, used by Addison (Toda), from the phrase by whole sale, for
which see Hakluyt, Voy. i. 471 (1. 6 from bottom), as opposed to
retail. Also heal, q.v.; hol-y, q.v. Doublet, hale. 7 If we
write whole for hole, we ought to write wholy for holy: ‘For their
wholy conyersacion;” Roy, Rede Me and be not Wroth, ed. Arber,
DewAslecz4s
WHOOP, to shout clearly and loudly. (F.—Teut.) Here, as in
the case of whole, whot for hot (Spenser), and a few other words, the
initial w is unoriginal, and the spelling should rather be hoop. The
spelling with w dates from about A.D. 1500. Palsgrave, in 1530,
has: ‘I-whoope, I call, je huppe;’ yet Shakespeare (ed. 1623) has
hooping, As You Like It, iii. 2. 203. {The derivative whoobub is,
conversely, now spelt hubbub; see Hubbub.] ME. hoxpen, to call,
shout, P. Plowman, b. vi. 174; Chaucer, C. T. 15406 (B 4590).
—F. houper, ‘to hoop unto, or call afar off;” Cot. From F. houp!/
an exclamatory interjection. Of Teut. origin; cf. EFries. kup / up!
Pomeran. hup-hei! a cry of joy (Schambach); G. hopsa, heyday!
(Fliigel). Der. whoop, sb.; whoop-ing-cough or hoop-ing-cough ;
hubb-xb. Doublet, hoop (2), which is a mere variation of spelling,
and exactly the same word.
WHORE, a harlot. (Scand.) As in the case of whole, q. v., the
initial w is not older than about A.D. 1500. Palsgrave, in 1530, still
has hore. ‘ The whoores beleved hym;’ Tyndale, tr. of Matt. xxi. 32
(1526). In Bale’s Kynge Johan, ed. Collier, p. 26, 1. 21, we find
horson, but on p. 76, 1. 12, it is whoreson. [It is remarkable that the
word hoar, white, as applied to hair, also occurs with initial w at
perhaps an earlier period. ‘The heere of his hedd was whore’ =
the hair of his head was hoar; Monk of Evesham, c. 12; ed. Arber,
p- 33. Spelt also whore in Lydgate, Assembly of Gods, 400.] ME.
hore, King Alisaunder, 1. 1000; P. Plowman, Β. iv. 166. The word
is not AS., but Scandinavian. {The AS. word was multestre, Matt.
xxi. 3i.! In the Laws of Canute (Secular), § 4, we find hér-cwene, an
adulteress, where the Danish word has the AS. cwene (a quean) added
to it; Thorpe, Ancient Laws, i. 378.—Icel. héra, an adulteress, fem.
of horr, an adulterer (we also find hdr, neut. sb., adultery); Dan.
hore; Swed. hora.-Du. hoer, G. hure, OHG. huora; Goth. hors,
masc., an adulterer, Luke, xviii. 11. β. The Teut. types are *hdroz,
m., and *héra, f.; Idg. types *garos, m., and gara, & {The Church-
Slavonic kurwva, an adulteress, Polish %aurwa, are from Teutonic. ]
WICK
Cf. L, carus, dear, orig. ‘loving ;’ Irish caraim, I love, Skt. charn-}
agreeable, beautiful, &c. sy. Ifthis be right, the word prob. meant
at first no more than ‘lover,’ and afterwards descended in the
scale, as so often happens. Brugmann, i. ὃ 637. @ Not allied
to the verb fo hire. Der. whore-dom, ME. hordom, Ancren Riwle,
p- 204, 1. 20, from Icel. hdrddmr, Swed. hordom; whor-ish, Troil.
ly. I. 63, whor-ish-ly, -ness; -master, K. Lear, i. 2. 137, spelt hore-
maister in Palsgrave; -monger, Meas. for Meas. iii. 2. 37; -son, in
Bale, Kynge Johan (as above).
WHORL, a number of leaves disposed in a circle round the stem
ofa plant. (E.) It is closely allied to wharl, which is the name for
a piece of wood or bone placed on a spindle to twist it by. The
latter is also called a wharrow, a picture of which will be found in
Guillim, Display of Heraldry, 1664, p. 289: ‘The round ball [disc]
at the lower end serveth to the fast twisting of the thread, and is
called a wharrow.’ The likeness between a wharl on a spindle and a
whorl of leaves is sufficiently close. Palsgrave has: ‘ Wharle for
a spyndell, peson.’ Wharl, whorl are contracted forms for wharvel,
whorvel. “ Whorlwyl, whorwhil, whorle of a spyndyl, Vertebrum,’
Prompt. Parv.; where whorlwyl is clearly an error for whorwyl
(=whorvil). The AS. name for a wharrow was hweorfa; we find
‘Vertellum [sic], hweorfa’ in a list of spinning-implements, Voc.
294.6; this is clearly an allied word, but without the suffix -el, and
the etymology is from the strong verb hweorfan, to turn ; see Whirl
and Wharf. B. The particular form whorl may have been bor-
rowed from MDu., and introduced by the Flemish weavers ; cf. MDu.
worvel, ‘a spinning-whirle,) Hexham; also worvelen, ‘to tume, to
reele, to twine,’ id.; these words are from the weak grade of the
same root, and help to account for the vowel. o. Cf. AS. hworf-en,
pp- of hweorfan.
WHORTLE-BERRY, a bilberry. (E.) ‘Airelles, whurtle-
berries;’ Cot. But the w seems to be unoriginal, as in whole, whoop,
whore (above). Older form hurtilberye, J. Russell, Book of Nurture,
1, 82 (ab. 1460). Again, hurtil-berye is an extension of hurt-berye,
also (simply) hurt. ‘Strawberyes or hurtes;’ Boorde, Dyetary, xiii.
(1542, ed. 1870) 267(N.E. D.).. The last form answers to AS. horta,
a whortle-berry, pl. hortan ; see Napier’s Glosses, 2. 433 (note), and
cf. ‘ Facinia {i.e. vaccinia], hortan, Voc. 234. 37. 4 In Dorsetsh.,
bilberries are called hart-berries, which answers to AS. heorot-bergan,
pl. of heorot-berge ; cf. ‘ Mora, heorotberge,’ Corpus Gloss. 1333; but
this isan unrelated name. The AS. form of ME, hurtil must. have
been *hyrtel. In America, hurtleberry has become huckleberry.
WHY, on what account. (E.) Why is properly the instrumental
case of who, and was, accordingly, frequently preceded by the prep.
for, which (in AS.) sometimes governed that case. ME. whi, why,
Wyclif, Matt. xxi. 26 ; for whi= on which account, because, id. viii. 9.
AS. hwi, hwy, hwig, instr. case of hwa, who; for hwig, why; Grein,
ii. 113. See Who.+Icel. hvi, why; allied to Averr, who, hvat,
what; Dan. λυὶ; Swed. hui; Goth. hvé, instr. case of hvas, who.
B. The word how is closely related. See How.
WoT Wey
WICK (1), the cluster of threads of cotton in a lamp or candle.
(E.) Spelt weeke, in Spenser, F. Q. ii. 10. 30. ΜΕ, wicke, P.
Plowman, C. xx. 205 ; weyke, id. B. xvii. 239; wueke, O. Eng. Homi-
lies, ii. 47, 1.30. There seem to be at least two distinct forms. E.
wick=ME, wicke; and ME. weke, Voc. 592. 30, whence Spenser's
weeke. The ME. wicke answers to AS, wice (Sweet), and weke to AS.
weoce, Voc. 126. 29, 439. 363 cf. ‘ Funalia, vel funes, candel-weoca ;’
Voc. 154. 143 pl. candel-weocan, id. 404. 22.4-MDu. wiecke, ‘a
weeke of a lampe, a tent to put into a wounde;’ Hexham; Low G.
weke, lint, to put toa wound; whence Dan. vege, a wick; Norw.
veik ; Swed. veke, a wick, Widegren.4Bayarian wichengarn, wick-
yarn, Schmeller, 835; he also gives various G. forms, viz. OHG.
wieche, weche, with a reference to Graff, i. 7283 Schade gives OHG.
wioh and wike. The orig. sense was prob, ‘ twist,’ or ‘thing woven ;’
cf. Irish jig-im, 1 weave (base *weg-); Stokes-Fick, p. 268; and
Skt. vag-ura, a net.
WICK (2),atown. (L.) AS. wic, a village, town ; Grein, ii. 688.
Not E., but borrowed.—L. wicus, a village; see Vicinity.
WICK (3), WICH, a creek, bay. (Scand.) In some place-
names, as in Green-wich, &c.—Icel. vik, a small creek, inlet, bay;
Olcel. *wik. From vik-ja, to recede; see Weak. It is not
easy, in all cases, to distinguish between this and the word above.
Ray, in his Account of Salt-making (E. D. S., Gloss. B. 15, p. 20),.
WICKED
mentions Nant-wich, North-wich, Middle-wich, Droit-wich ; here wich
= brine-pit, apparently a peculiar use of Icel. vik above. See Wych,
a salt-work, in Nares.
WICKED, evil, bad, sinful. (E.) The word wicked was orig.
a past participle, with the sense ‘ rendered evil,’ formed as if from a
verb *wikken, to make evil, from the obsolete adj. wikke (dissyllabic),
evil, once common, Again, the adj. wrkke is allied to AS. wicca,
masc., a wizard [wicce, fem.,a witch]. Hence the adj. wikke is allied
to Weak, q.v. From the weak grade *wic-, of AS. wican (Icel.
vikja, G, weichen), to yield, give way. And see Witch. We also
find ME. wikked, as in the ady. wikked-ly, Chaucer, C. T. 8599 (E723);
spelt wickede, def. form of wicked, Layamon, later text, 14983, where
it takes the place of swicfulle (deceitful) in the earlier text. This is
prob. the earliest instance of the word. β. The shorter form wikke
is common; it occurs in Havelok, 688; P. Plowman, B. v. 229;
Chaucer, C. T. 1089, 5448, 15429 (A 1087, B 1028, 4613); cf.
‘wicci reed,’ i.e. wicked counsel, A. 5. Chron. an. 1140; as if for
*wicc-ig, an adj. from wicca, a wizard. It became obsolete in the
15th century as an adj., but the fem. sb. is still in use in the form
witch. Der. wicked-ly ; wicked-ness, ME, wikkednesse, P. Plowm. B.
y. 290.
WICKER, made of twigs. (Scand.) ‘ A wicker bottle,’ Oth. ii. 3.
152 (folios, ‘wiggen bottle). Wicker is properly a sb., meaning a
pliant twig. ME. wiker, wikir ; ‘ Wykyr, to make wythe baskettys, or
to bynde wythe thyngys [i. e. to make baskets with, or bind things
with], Vimen, vituligo;’ Prompt. Parv. ‘ Wycker, osier;’ Palsgrave.
The AS. form does not appear; and perhaps E. wicker may have
been borrowed from Scandinavian. We find MSwed. wika, to bend,
whence weck, a fold, wickla, to fold, wrap round (Ihre) ; also Swed.
dial. vekare, vekker, vikker (which is our very word), various names
for the sweet bay-leaved willow, Salix pentandra, lit. ‘the bender,’
from veka, to bend, to soften, allied to Swed. vika, to fold, to double,
to plait (Widegren). Wéicker-work means, accordingly, ‘ plaited
work,’ esp. such as is made with pliant twigs, according to the
common usage of the word. The word is closely allied, in the same
way, to Dan. veg, pliant (with g for #, as usual in Danish), in con-
nexion with which Wedgwood cites, from various Danish dialects,
voge, vogger, vegre, a pliant rod, a withy (lit. a wicker), vigrekurv,
vegrekurv, a wicker-basket, veger, vegger, a willow (=Swed. dial.
vekare above); cf. Skt. vag-urd,a net. Cf. Weak, Wick (1),
Wick (3). And see Witch-elm.
WICKET, a small gate. (F.—Teut.) ME. wiket, P. Plowman,
B. v. 611; Rom. of the Rose, 528.—AF. wiket, Tristan, ed. Michel,
ii. Το ; cf. Supp. to Godefroy, 5. v. gutchet; he also has gutschet, and
Littré’s quotations give us the forms wisket and viquet; mod. F.
guichet, a wicket. Littré also cites the Walloon wichet, Norman
viquet, Prov. guisquet, all of them deduced from the common form
wisket. It is supposed that the s is radical; and it has been derived
from OHG. wisk-en, to wipe, to whisk; and intr., to move quickly,
to slip aside. Hence, perhaps, it meant a postern-door, to slip out
at. It was esp. used of a small door easily opened and shut. Cf.
MDn. wicket, a wicket, Hexham ; also wincket, ‘ a wicket,’ id.; prob.
from OF. Cf. EFries. wisken, to wipe, also to move quickly ; Norw.
viska (the same); Swed. dial. viska, to throw, to swing ; also Norw.
viskjen, light and quick (Ross). See Whisk. Korting, § 10171.
B. In the game of cricket, the wicket was at first (A. Ὁ. 1700) lit. Sa
small gate,’ being 2 feet wide by 1 foot high; but the shape has so
greatly altered that there is no longer any resemblance. See the
diagrams in the Eng. Cyclop. div. Arts and Sciences, Supplement ;
τιν. Cricket.
WIDE, broad, far extended. (E.) ME. wid (with long 7); pl.
wide (dissyllabic), Chaucer, C. Τὶ 28. AS. wid, wide ; Grein, ii. 690.
Ἔα. wijd; Icel. υἱὸν; Swed. and Dan. vid; G. weit, OHG. wit.
B. All from Teut. type *widoz, wide ; perhaps for *wi-doz, orig. a pp.
from 4/WEI; cf. Skt. vi-taram, farther (Macdonell). Der, wide-ly,
-ness; wid-en, verb, Cor. i. 4. 44, With which cf. ME. widen, Prompt.
Parv., imperative wide, Palladius on Husbandry, iii. 923, though the
mod. suffix -ew is not the same as the ending of the ME. infin. widen
(see this explained under Waken). Also wid-th, not an old word,
used in Drayton’s Battle of Agincourt, st. 142, as equivalent to the
older sb. wideness; formed by analogy with Jeng-th, bread-th, &c. ;
cf. Icel. vidd, width.
WIDGEON, the name of a kind of duck. (F.—L.) ‘A wigion,
bird, glaucea ;’ Levins, ed. 1570. Spelt wygeon, Sir T. Elyot, Castel
of Health, b. ii. ch. 13.. The suffix and form of the word show that
it is certainly French; and it is clear that the E. word has preserved
an older form (presumably *wigeon) than can be found in French.
Littré gives the three forms vigeon, vingeon, gingeon, as names of the
‘whistling duck’ (canard siffleur). Prob. from L. uipionem, acc. of
uipio, used by Pliny, bk. x. c. 49, to mean a kind of smallcrane. Cf.
Ital. vipione, a small crane (Torriano), There is a by-form 67bio ;
WIGHT
probably bibio, uipio are of imitative origin, like L. pipio.
letter-changes, cf. E. pigeon from L. acc. pipidnem.)
WIDOW, a woman whose husband is dead. (E.) ME. widewe,
widwe, Chaucer, C. T. 255, 1173 (A 253, 1171). AS. widwe, weoduwe;
also wudwe, wuduwe, wydewe, Grein, ti. 692.4-Du. weduwe; G. wittwe,
OHG, wituwa, witewa, witiwa; Goth. widuwo, widows, B. The
Teut. types are *widewa, *widowa, fem. sb., a widow; Idg. types
*widhewa, *widkowa, Further cognate with L. uidua, fem. of uiduns,
deprived of, bereft of (which gave rise to Ital. vedova, Span. viuda,
F. veuve, a widow) ; also with Irish feadhb, Olrish fedb, W. gweddw,
Russ. vdova, Skt. vidhava, a widow. y. Here the L. d, as in other
cases, answers to Skt. dh, and the root is 4/WIDH, to lack, want,
hence, to be bereft of. This root is preserved in the Skt. vindh, to
lack (not in Benfey), for which see the St. Petersburg Dict. vol. vi.
1070, Brugmann, ii. ὃ 64. Cf. also Gk. ἠΐθεος (for *7)-F/8-€-Fos), a
bachelor, one who is unmarried. Der. widow, verb, Cor. v. 6. 153;
widow-hood, ME. widewehad, Holi Meidenhad, p. 23, 1. 20 ; widow-er,
ME. widewer, widwer, P. Plowman, A. το. 194, B. 9. 174, formed by
adding -er; cf. (Ὁ. wittwer.
WIELD, to manage, to use. (E.) ME. welden, to govern, also
to have power over, to possess, Wyclif, Matt. v. 4, Luke, xi. 21,
xviii, 18. AS. geweldan, gewyldan, to have power over, Gen. iii. 16;
Mark, v. 4. This is a weak verb, answering to ME. welden, and
mod. E. wield, which are also weak verbs; all are derivatives from
the strong verb wealdan (pt. t. wéold, pp. wealden), to have power
over, govern, rule, possess.Icel. valda, to govern (pt. τ. oll’); G.
walten, OHG, waltan, to dispose, manage, tule; Goth. waldan, to
govem. B. The Icel. pt. t. oli is for *wolJi (Noreen, § 215), and
the Idg. base was *walt, whence Celtic *wlat-is, OIrish faith, dominion
(Stokes-Fick, 262). Hence it is supposed that Russ. vladiei(e). to reign,
rule, possess, make use of, Lithuan. waddyti, to rule, govern, possess,
are early loans from Teutonic. But W. gwlad,a region, is a cognate
word. Some connect it with the 4/WAL, to be strong; cf. L.
ualére, to be strong. See Valiant. Der. wield-er, un-wield-y.
WIFE, awoman, a married woman, (E.) ME. wif (with long 7),
wyf, Chaucer, C. T. 447, 1173 (A 445, 1171); pl. wyues (wyves), id.
234. AS. wif, a woman, wife, remarkable as being a nenter sb.,
with pl. wif like the singular. 4 Du. wif, woman, wife, fem. ; Icel. vif,
neut. a woman; only used in poetry; Dan. viv, fem.; (ἃ. weib, neut.
a woman; ΟΗΟ. wip. B. The Teut. type is *widom, n. The
form of the root is *weib=Idg. 4/WEIP; in accordance with which
we find OHG, weibdn, weipon, to waver, be irresolute, L. uibrare, to
quiver, Skt. vep, to tremble; but the real origin of the word remains
obscure. @ It cannot be allied to AS. wefan, to weave. Der.
wife-like, Cymb. iii. 2. 8, fish-wife, i.e. fish-woman ; mid-wife, q.v.;
house-wife (see House) ; wive, v., AS. wifian, Luke, xx. 34. Also
wo-man, q: ν.
WIG, a peruke. (Du.—F.—Ital.—L.) Wig occurs frequently in
Pope; Moral Essays, iii. 65, 295, &c.,and is merely a shortened form
of periwig, which is much older, and occurs in Shakespeare. Cf. bus
for omnibus, See further under Periwig and Peruke. Der. wigg-ed.
WIGHT (1), a person, creature. (E.) ΜΕ, wi3t, wight, Chaucer,
C. T. 848 (A 846). AS. wiht (very common), a creature, animal,
person, thing ; also spelt waht, wyht, and used both as fem. and neut.;
Grein, ii. 703.44Du. wicht, a child ; Westphalian wiche, a girl; Icel.
ναί», a wight; vetta,a whit; Dan, vette, an elf; G. wicht; Goth.
waihts, fem., waiht, neut., a whit, a thing. B. It is probable that
the fem. and neut. 505. were orig. distinct, but they were early con-
fused. The Teut. base *weh-i- may perhaps be connected with AS.
weg-an, to move; if so, it may have meant a moving object ; orig. ‘a
thing carried’ (L. wectum); or (in the imagination of the spectator),
an elf or demon. Cf. the Celtic type *wekta, f., a movement, a
course, a time; as in Irish feachd, Olrish fecht, a course, turn, time,
W.. gwaith (the same) ; Stokes-Fick, p. 266. Whit is nothing but
another spelling of wight. Doublet, whit.
WIGHT (2), nimble, active, strong. (Scand.) ‘He was so
wimble and so wight;’ Spenser, Shep. Kal. March, 91. ME. wight,
wijt, valiant, P. Plowman, B. ix. 21; Layamon, 20588. —Icel. vigr,
in fighting condition, serviceable for war; the final ¢ seems to have
been caught up from the neut. vigt, which was used in certain
phrases; ‘ peir drapu karla pa er vigt var at’=they smote the men
that might be slain, i.e. the men who were serviceable for war ; refer-
ring to the rule not to slay women, children, or helpless men. See
Icel. Dict. For similar instances of final ¢ from Icelandic, see
Want, Thwart. The same word as Swed. vig, nimble, agile,
active (whence vigt, nimbly), allied to AS. wiglic, warlike. B. From
the sb. which appears as Icel. vig, AS. wig, war. The Icel. vig, war,
is derived from Icel. vega, to fight, smite (quite distinct from vega,
to move, weigh), allied to Goth. weigan, weihan (pt. t. wath, pp.
wigans), to fight, strive, contend. —Teut. base WEIH, to fight ; Fick,
iii, 303. Allied to L. wincere, to fight, conquer; see Victor. Also
715
(For the
716 WIGWAM
to Olrish jich-1m, I fight, Lith. wik-rus, active, wight, wékd, strength,
OSlayv. véku, strength, Russ. viek’, life.
WIGWAM, an Indian hut or cabin. (N. American Indian.) In
books relating to N. America. ‘ They built a long wigwam ;’ I. Ma-
ther, Remarkable Providences (1684); repr. by Offor, p. 31. In
Eliot’s Indian Grammar, 1666, p. 11, Eliot gives the pronominal
forms of the Massachusetts word for ‘ house’ as follows: ‘ Week, his
house; Weekou, their house ; weekit, in his house, wekuwomut, in his
{read their] house. Against wekuwomut he has a note—hence we
corrupt this word wigwam.’—J. Platt (in N. and Q., 9 5. x. 446).
S. T. Rand, in his Dict. of Micmac (a language of the Algonkin
family) has: ‘ wigwom, a house.’ Cuoq gives Algonkin mikiwam,
also wikiwam, a house (pp. 221, 438).
WILD, self-willed, violent, untamed, uncivilised, savage, desert.
(E.) In Barbour’s Bruce, we find will of red = wild of rede or counsel,
at a loss what to do, i. 348, ili. 494, xiil. 4783 will of wane =wild of
weening or thought, at a loss, i. 323, ii. 471, vii. 225. The form will,
here used as an adj., is simply due to the fact that the Icel. form for
‘wild’ is vill, which stands for *vi/dr by the assimilation so common
in Icelandic. By themselves, these passages would not by any means
prove any connexion between wild and will; nevertheless, the con-
nexion is real, as appears from a consideration of the words cognate
with wild. (See further below.) ME. wilde, rarely wielde, though
we find ‘a wielde olyue-tre’ in Wyclif, Rom. xi. 17; spelt wylde,
Rob. of Glouc. p. 57, 1. 1322. AS. wilde (Toller). Grein gives
the examples: se wilda fugel=the wild bird; wilde déor =wild deer
or animals, -+Du. wild, proud, savage; Icel. villr (for *vilpr), wild ;
also astray, bewildered, confused; Dan. and Swed. vild; G. wild,
OHG., wild; Goth. wiltheis, wild, uncultivated, Mark, i.6; Rom.
xi. 17. B. All from Teut. type *welthjoz, astray, wild; the Goth.
form wil-theis is important, because the Goth. -/A- answers to L. -t-,
used as a suffix with pp. force (cf. L. rectus, right, orig. a pp. form).
The orig. sense is perhaps indicated by the Icel. vill and by the
common E. use of the word, viz. ‘actuated by will; to act wildly is
to act wilfully. Cf. the Celtic type *wel-tos, as in W. gwyllt, wild;
Stokes-Fick, p. 277. Perhaps from 4/WEL, to will, to wish. See
Will (1). Cf. W. gwyllys, the will. Others connect Goth. wiltheis
with Russ. vil-iat(e), to run hither and thither. Der. wild, sb.,
Merch. Ven. ii. 7. 41, ME. wilde, Rob. of Glouc. p. 553, 1. 11539;
wild-ly; wild-ness, spelt wyyldnesse in the Prompt. Parv. ; wild-jire,
ME. wylde fur, Kob. of Glouc. p. 410, 1. 8485; wild-ing, a wild
or crab-apple, Spenser, F. Ὁ. iii. 7.17. Also be-wild-er,q.v.; wild-
er-ness, ἢ. Vs
WILDERNESS, a wild or waste place. (E.) ME. wilder-
nesse, Ancren Riwle, p. 158, 1. 18. Wéldernesse first appears in
Layamon, 30335; and stands for wildern-nesse. It is formed by
adding the ME. suffix -nesse to the shorter word wwildern, which was
used in the same sense. Thus, in the Ancren Riwle, p. 160, 1. 7,
one MS. has wilderne in place of wildernesse. So also in Layamon,
1. 1238: ‘ par is wode, par is water, par is wilderne muchel’ =there is
wood, there is water, there is a great desert. This ME. wilderne, a
desert, is formed with the adj. suffix -7 (-ex) from the AS. sb. wilder,
wildor, a wild animal (Grein), a neuter sb. answering to Teut. type
*wilthos, allied to wild (Teut. *welthjoz). See Sievers, § 289.4
MDnu. wildernisse. And see be-wilder.
WILE, a trick, a sly artifice. (E.) ME. wile (dissyllabic), Chaucer,
3403. AS. wil, a wile, A. S. Chron. an. 1128, This AS. wil is
late; it prob. represents AF. *wile, answering to OF. guile, guile;
see Guile. Modern EF. wile is rather a shortened form of AS. wigl,
‘divination,’ in Napier (see the note on p. 159, 1. 165). Cf. His
(the devil’s] wizeles, deceits, Ancren Riwle, p. 300. The AS. wilung
(for *wiglung), divination, occurs in the Kentish Glosses, 554.
Divination was regarded as heathen, and a deceit of the devil. The
verb is AS, wiglian, to divine; cf. MDu. wijchelen (Hexham), Du.
wigchelen, wichelen, to divine, practise augury; whence OF. guiler.
A primary form occurs in AS, wig, a sanctuary, allied to Goth.
weihs, holy. Cf. L. uictima. Der. wil-y, ME. wili, wely, Cursor
Mundi, 11807; wil-i-ness. Doublet, guile; whence be-guile. 4 Note
the spelling wyhyl in the Play of Mary Magdalen, 1. 377 (15th c.).
WILFUL, obstinate, self-willed. (E.) ME. wilful, Life of Beket,
ed. Black, 1. 1309 (Stratmann). Formed with suffix -ful (=/full)
from AS. will, will; see Will (2). Der. wilfil-ly, ME. wilfulliche,
in the sense ‘willingly,’ O. Eng. Homilies, i. 279, 1. 8; wilful-ness,
ME. wilfulnesse, O. Eng. Homilies, ii. 73.
WILL (1), to desire, be willing. (E.) ME. willen, infin. ;
pres. t. wol, Chaucer, C. T. 42; pt. t. wolde (whence mod. Εἰ, would),
id. 257. AS. willan, wyllan, Grein, ii. 708. Pres. sing. 1 and 3 p.
wile, wyle (whence ME, wal, wol), wille, wylle; 2 p. wilt; pl. willad,
wyllad; pt. τ, wolde, 2 p. woldest, pl. woldan, woldon, or woldun.+
Du. willen ; Icel, vilja, pt.t. vilda; Dan, ville; Swed. vilja; G. wollen,
pr. t. will, pt. τι wollte; Goth. wiljan, pt. t. wilda, Teut. type
WIN
*weljan-. 4 Lithuan, weliti; L. uelle, pr. t. xolo, pt. τ. uolui; Skt. uy,
to choose, select, prefer. β. All from 4/\WEL, to choose; whence
also G. wahi, choice, E. well, adv., will, sb., &c. The Goth. waljan,
to choose, is a causal form, from *wol, 2nd grade of “WEL. Der.
will-ing, orig. a pres. part. ; will-ing-ly; will-ing-ness. Also will (2),
q-v. Also will-y-nill-y, answering either to will I, nill I, i.e. whether
I will or whether I nill (will not), or to will he, nill he, i.e. whether
he will or whether he nill (will not), as in Hamlet, v. 1. 18; we also
find will we, nill we, Udall, on τ St. John, cap. 2; will you, nill you,
Tam. Shrew, ii. 1. 273; cf. AS. nillan (short for ne willan), not to
wish, Grein, ii, 296, cognate with L. nolle (short for ne uwelle); and
see Hobnob. From the same root are well (1), wil-ful, weal, wild,
vol-unt-ar-y, vol-upt-u-ous.
WILL (2), sb., desire, wish. (E.) ME. wille, Wyclif, Luke, ii.
14. ΑΘ. willa, will, Grein, ii. 706.— AS. willan, verb, to wish; see
Will (1).4Du. wil; Icel. vili; Dan. vilje; Swed. vilja; G. wille;
Goth, wilja. Teut. type *weljon-, m.4Russ. volia. Cf. L. uoluntas.
Der. wil-ful, q. v.
WILLOW, a tree, with pliant branches. (E.) ME. wilow, wilwe,
Chaucer, C. T. 2924. AS. welig; ‘Salix, welig;’ Voc. 269. 36.4
Du. wilg; MDu. wilge (Hexham); Low G. wilge (another Low ἃ.
name is wichel); MHG. wilge; OLow G. wilgia. B. The LowG.
wichel is clearly allied to E. wicker and to AS. wican, to give way,
bend; the tree being named from the pliancy of its boughs. Perhaps
the name willow has a similar origin, as proy. E. willy not only
means a willow, but also a wicker-basket, like the weele or fish-
basket of which an illustration is given in Guillim, Display of
Heraldry (1664), p. 316. The AS, wel-ig may be from the 4/WEL,
to turn, wind, roll, appearing in G, welle, a wave (lit. that which
rolls), and in Gk. ἐλ-ίσσειν, as the willow-twigs can be wound to form
baskets; cf. Gk. ἐλ-ένη, a wicker-basket. It may therefore have
meant ‘pliant.’ See Helix. y- A much commoner name for
the tree in AS. is widig, mod. E, withy, with a like sense. See
Withy. And cf. Wicker.
WIMBERRY, the same as Winberry, q.v.
WIMBLE (1), a gimlet, an instrument for boring holes. (E.?)
ME, wimbil, spelt wymbyl in the Prompt. Parv., where we also find
the verb wymbelyn, or wymmelyn, to bore. ‘A Frenssh wymble,’
Palladius, xi. 85 ; spelt wymbul, Nominale, ed. Skeat, 517. Of E.
or Low G. origin; cf. MDu. wemelen, ‘to pearce with a wimble,’
from weme, ‘a wimble,’ Hexham; Low Ὁ. wemel, wemmel,a wimble,
whence wemelen, to bore (Liibben). Also Dan. vimmel, an augur,
tool for boring; borrowed from Low G. Apparently from a Teut.
base *wem-, to turn; see Wimble (2). Cf. Shropsh. wim-wam, a
turn-stile. Der. gimlet.
WIMBLE (2), active, nimble. (Scand.) ‘He was so wimble
and so wight;’ Spenser, Shep. Kal. March, 91. Cf. North E.
wheamow, nimble (Ray). ‘The true sense is full of motion, skipping
about. Spenser perhaps picked up the word in the North of Eng-
land. The ὁ (as often after 7) is excrescent, and due to stress. =
Swed. vimmel-, in comp. vimmelkantig, giddy, whimsical ; Swed. dial.
vimmla, to be giddy or skittish; cf. Swed. dial. vimmra, the same,
whence vimmrig, skittish, said of horses. The verbs vimmla, vimmra,
are frequentatives of Swed. dial. vima, to be giddy, allied to Icel.
vim, giddiness, from *wim, by-form of *whim; see Whim. So also
Dan. vimse, to skip about, vims, brisk, quick.4-Du. wemelen, to move
about, or ‘to remove often,’ Hexham; a frequentative verb from a
Teut. base *wem-, perhaps meaning toturn, See Wimble (1). Cf.
MG. wimmen, to stir oneself quickly (Schade).
WIMPLE, a covering for the neck. (E.) In Spenser, F. Q. i. 12.
22; hence wimpled, id. i. 1. 4; Shak. L. L. L, iii. 181. ME. wimpel,
Chaucer, C. T. 151; Rob. of Glouc. p. 338, 1.6941; hence ywimpled,
Chaucer, C. T. 472 (A 470). AS. winpel, the same. ‘ Ricinum,
winpel, vel orl,’ Voc. 107. 37; ‘Anabola, winpel, id. 125. 8.4+Dnu.
wimpel, a streamer, a pendant; Icel. wimpill; Dan. and Swed. vimpel,
a pennon, pendant, streamer ; G, wimpel, a pennon (whence F. guimpe,
E. gimp). B. The AS. win-pel was doubtless a compound ; prob. for
*wind-pel, where *wind- is from windan, to wind; and perhaps -fel
is for AS. pell, pell (Latin pallium),a covering. Cf. OHG. wim-pal,
a summer garment, head-dress, pennon. And see Gimp.
WIN, to gain by labour or contest, earn, obtain. (E.) The orig.
sense was to fight, struggle; hence to struggle for, gain by struggling.
ME. winnen, pt. t. wan, won, Chaucer, C. T. 444 (A 442); pp.
wonnen, id. 879 (A 877). AS. winnan, to fight, labour, endure,
suffer; pt.t. wann, pp. wunnen, Grein, ii. 715.4-Du. winnen, pt. τ.
won, pp. gewonnen ; Icel. vinna, pt. t. vann, pp. unninn, to work, toil,
win; Dan. vinde (for vinne); Swed. vinna; G. gewinnen, OHG.
winnan, to fight, strive, earn, suffer; Goth. winnan, pt. t. wann, pp.
wunnans, to suffer. β. All from Teut. type *wennan- (pt. τ. *wann),
to work, suffer, strive.—4/WEN, to desire, hence to strive for;
whence Skt. vax, to ask, beg for, also to honour, L. Ven-us, desire,
WINBERRY, WIMBERRY
love, uen-er-ari, to honour; W. gwén, asmile. Der. winn-er, winn-
ing ; also win-some, q.v. From the same root are wean, ween, won-t,
wi-sh; also ven-er-e-al, ven-er-ate.
WINBERRY, WIMBERRY, a whortleberry. (E.) Whortle-
berries are called, in some parts, wimberries or winberries. The latter
form, in Halliwell, is the more correct. ME. winberis, grapes,
Cursor Mundi, 4468. AS. win-berie, win-berige, a grape; lit. a wine-
berry, Matt. vii. 16; Luke, vi. 44. See Wine and Berry.
WINCE, WINCH, to shrink or start back. (F.—MHG.) ME.
wincen, winsen, winchen. ‘It is the wone of wil to wynse and to kyke’
=it is the wont of Will (wilfulness) to wince and to kick, P. Plow-
man, C. v. 22. ‘Wyncyn, Calcitro;’ Prompt. Pary. Spelt wynche,
Allit. Morte Arthure, 2104. —OF. *wencir, not found, but necessarily
the older form of OF. guincir (Godefroy) ; (note AF. guincer, Toynbee,
x. 96, to escape); North F. variant of OF. guenchir, to flinch, wince
(Godefroy), MF. guinchir, ‘to wrigle, writhe, winche a toe-side’
[i.e. on the one side, aside]; Cot. Roquefort gives guincher, guinchir,
to wince; also guencher, guenchir, guencir, the same; Burguy gives
ganchir, guenchir, guencir.—OSax. wenkian; cf. MHG. wenken,
wenchen, to wince, start aside; cf. also wanken, OHG. wankon, weak
verb, thesame. ‘Teut. type *wankjan-, a causal form. — Teut. *wank,
2nd grade of *wenkan-, as in ΜΉ. winken, to move aside, to nod,
the same as G. winken, to nod; cognate with E. Wink, q.v. Wince
is, in fact, merely the causal verb formed from wink. Cf. G. wanken,
to totter, waver, stir, budge, flinch, shrink back.
WINCH, the crank of a wheel or axle. (E.)
spelt wynche, Palladius on Husbandry, b. i. 1. 426. (Cf. prov. E.
wink, a periwinkle, also a winch; Halliwell. E. Cornwall wink,
‘the wheel by which straw-rope is made;* E.D.S.] AS. wince.
‘ Gigrillus, wince,’ Voc. 416.6; here Gigrillus is an error for girgillus,
a winch; see Ducange. The connexion with winkle is obvious (see
Winkle); and both winch and winkle are derivatives from Teut.
base WENK, to bend sideways, nod, totter, &c.; see further under
Wink. A winch was simply ‘a bend,’ hence a bent handle; cf. AS.
wincel, a corner (Somner); MHG. wenke, a bending or crooking ;
Lithuan. winge, a bend or turn of a river or road. And cf. Norman
dial. vinche, ‘ guindeau; ’ Le Héricher. Andsee Winkle, Wench.
WIND (1), air in motion, breath. (E.) ME. wind, wynd, Wyclif,
Matt. xiv. 24. AS. wind, Grein, ii. 712.4-Du. wind; Icel. vindr;
Dan. and Swed. vind; G. wind, OHG. wint; Goth. winds, winths.
B. All from the Teut. type *wendcz, m., wind. Cognate with L.
uentus, W. gwynt, Breton gwent, wind. Orig. a pres. part., Idg.
*wento-, signifying ‘blowing.’ From 4/AWE, to blow. Hence also
Skt. vd, to blow, vata-s, wind, Goth. wazan, to blow; Russ. vietat(e), to
blow, vieter’, wind, Lithuan, wéjas, wind; as well as 1, wentus and
E. wind. See Brugmann, i. § 420. And see Weather. Der.
wind, to blow a horn, pp. winded, Much Ado, i. t 243, oddly cor-
rupted to wound (by confusion with the strong verb ¢o wind), Scott,
Lady of the Lake, i. 17. 1; &c.; wind-age,a coined word; wind-
bound, Milton, Hist. of Britain, b. ii, ed. 1695, p. 44; wind-fall, that
which falls from trees, &c., being blown down by the wind, hence, a
piece of good fortune that costs nothing, Beaum. and Fletcher, The
Captain, ii. 1 (Fabritio), also used in a bad sense (like downfall),
Bacon, Essay 29, Of Kingdoms; wind-mill, ME. wind-mulle, Rob. of
Glouc. p. 547, 1. 11383; wind-pipe, spelt wyndpype in Palsgrave;
wind-row, a row of cut grass exposed to the wind, Holland, tr. of
Pliny, b. xviii. c. 28; wind-ward; wind-y, AS. windig, Grein, ii. 713;
wind-i-ness. And see wind-ow, winn-ow, vent-il-ate.
WIND (2), to turn round, coil, encircle, twist round. (E.) ME.
winden, pt. t. wand, wond, pl. wonden, P. Plowman, B. il. 220, pp.
wunden, spelt wnden, Havelok, 546. AS. windan, pt. t. wand, wond,
pp- wunden; Grein, ii. 713.4Du. winden; Icel. vinda, pt. t. vate (for
vand), pp. undinn; Dan. vinde, Swed. vinda, to squint; G. winden,
pt. t. wand, pp. gewunden; OHG,. wintan; Goth. -windan, only in
compounds such as biwindan, dugawindan, uswindan; pt. t. -wand ;
pp. -wundans. B. All from Teut. type *wendan- (pt. t. *wand, pp.
*wundanoz), to wind or bind round, hence to turn, Perhaps ulti-
mately allied to 4/ WEI, to twine; see Withy. Streitberg, §§ 68,
203, note 2. Der. wind-ing, sb.; also wind-lass, q.v. ; wend, q.V. 5
wand-er, q.v.; wond-er, q.V.; wand, α.ν.
WINDLASS (1), a machine with an axle, for raising heavy
weights. (Scand.) The spelling windlass is a by-form, encouraged
by popular etymology (as if the word were from wind, verb, and
lace), of the shorter word below. ME. windelas, windlas, Prompt.
Parv., p. 529.—Icel. vindil-ass, a windlass (still in use, see Notes on
E. Etym., p. 321).<Jcel. vindill, a winder; and dss, a beam.
B. But the commoner ME. form was windas, Chaucer, C. T. 10498
(F 184); Rich. Cuer de Lion, 1. 71; Allit. Poems, ed. Morris,
C. 103. ‘Wyndace for an engyn, guyndas;’ Palsgrave.—Icel.
vindass, a windlass; lit. a winding-pole, i.c. a rounded pole (like an
axis) which can be wound round. =Icel. vind-a, to wind; and as, a
ME. winche ;
WINK
pole, main rafter, yard of a sail, ὅσ. γ. Here vinda is cognate
with E. wind; see Wind (2). The Icel. dss is cognate with Goth.
ans, a beam, Luke, vi. 41 (the long @ showing a loss of πὴ. The
root of dss is not known; it has nothing to do with axis or axle, as
some suggest.-Du. windas, a windlass; MDu. windaes, ‘a wind-
lasse or an engine,’ Hexham; where aes (Icel. dss, a beam) is
distinct from MDnu. asse (mod. Du. as), an axis.
WINDLASS (2), a circuit, circuitous way. (F.—Teut.?) Shak.
has windlasses, Hamlet, ii. 1.65. “ Bidding them fetch a windlasse
a great way about;’ Golding, tr. of Cesar, fol. 206 (R.). ‘ And
fetched a windlasse round about ;’ Golding, tr. of Ovid (see Wright’s
note on Hamlet). ‘I now fetching a windlesse,’ Lyly, Euphues, ed.
Arber, p. 270. Apparently compounded of wind (verb) and lace ;
but it was prob. a popular alteration of ME, wanlace, a trick,
subtlety, artifice. Golding has the form winlas, for L. gyrum, Ovid,
Metam. vii. 784. Wanlace is used by Rob. of Brunne, Handlyng
Synne, 4378, 12010.—OF. wanelace, perfidy, deceit (Godefroy) ;
also spelt wenelat (id.). Hence the ME. wanelasour, wandlessour,
one who drives game (Stratmann). Prob. a hunting term, of Teut.
origin. See Gloss. to Toynbee’s Specimens of Old French. Per-
haps allied to ΜΉ. wandelat, change, alteration, OHG, wantalon,
G, ver-wandeln, to change, OHG. wanta,a turning, a small (green)
path; all connected with Wind, verb, and Wander,
WINDOW, an opening for light and air. (Scand.) The orig.
sense is ‘ wind-eye,’ i.e. eye or hole for the wind to enter at, an
opening for air and light. [The AS. word was égfyrl (=eye-thrill),
Joshua, ii. 15 ; also éagdura (=eye-door), according to Bosworth. ]
ME. windou, Cursor Mundi, 1683; windoge, Genesis and Exodus,
ed. Mortis, 1. 602; windohe, Ancren Riwle, p. 50, note a; windowe,
P. Plowman, B, iii, 48; Wyclif, Acts, xx. 9.—Icel. vindauga, a
window; lit. ‘wind-eye.’—Icel. vindr, wind; and auga, an eye,
cognate with AS. éage, an eye; Dan. vindue,a window; (cf. vind,
wind, and die, an eye) ; but Dan. vindueis from a Low G., *wind-ooge
(wind-eye). See Wind (1) and Bye. 4 Butler has windore,
Hudibras, pt. ic. 2. 1. 214, as if from wind and door; but this is
nothing but a corruption.
WING, the fermented juice of the vine. (L.) ME. win (with
long i), Chaucer, C. T. 637 (A 635). AS. win, Grein, il. 712.—L.
uinum, wine (whence also Goth, wein, G. wein, OHG, win, Du. wijn,
Tcel. vin, Swed. vin, Dan. viin).4-+Gk. οἶνος, wine, allied to οἴνη, the
vine. —4/WETI, to twine; see Withy. 8. ‘ The Northern names,
Goth. wein, G. win, &c. are undoubtedly to be regarded (with Jac.
Grimm, Gramm, iii. 466) as borrowed ; so also Olrish fin, wine, &c.
Pott very appropriately compares the Lith. apwynys, hop-tendril, pl.
apwynei, hops. The Skt. véni-, a braid of hair, also belongs here.
We cannot see why the fruit of the twining plant should not itself
have been called originally ‘twiner.’ The Lith. word offers the
most striking analogy. The fact is, therefore, that the Indo-
Germans had indeed a common root for the idea of winding, twining,
and hence derived the names of various twining plants, but that it is
only among the Greco-Italians that we find a common name for
the grape and its juice;’ Curtius, i. 487. See Brugmann, i. § 204,
ii. § 66. @ Not of Semitic origin ; rather, the Heb. yayin, wine,
Arab. waynat, black grape, are borrowed from the Idg. type *woino-.
The early L. winum meant ‘vine.’ Der. wine-bibber, Matt. xi. 19 ;
see Bib.
WING, the limb by which a bird flies, any side-piece, flank.
(Scand.) “ΜΕ. winge (dissyllabic), Chaucer, C. T. 1966 (A 1964) ;
the pl. appears as hwingen, Ancren Riwle, p. 130, last line, Layamon,
29263; we also find wenge, whenge (dat. case), P. Plowman, B.
xii. 263; ‘wenge of a fowle, Ala,’ Prompt. Parv.; pl. wenges,
Ormulum, 8024. It is clear that the form wenge is Scand.; and, as
there does not seem to be any authority for an alleged AS. winge, it
is simplest to suppose winge to result from wenge. [The AS. word
for ‘wing’ is feder.]—Norw. vengja (for ON. *wengja); Icel. vengr,
a wing; Dan. and Swed. vinge; North Fries. winge. Teut. type
waingi-, allied to Goth. waian, to blow (cf. Du. waarjer, a fan); Skt.
vai, to blow, vajin-, winged (Macdonell); from 4/WE, to blow.
Der. wing, verb, to fly, Cymb. iii. 3. 28; wing-ed, Chaucer, C. De
1387 (A 1385); wing-less.
WINK, to move the eyelids quickly. (E.) 1, ME. winken, pt. t.
winked, P. Plowman, B.iv.154. AS. wincian,to wink. ‘Conniveo,
ic wincige;’ Voc. 140.17. 2. But winken also occurs as a strong
verb, pt. t. wank, Ancient Met. Tales, ed. Hartshome, p. 79 (Strat-
mann) ; also wonk, Lancelot of the Laik, ed. Skeat, 1. 1058; and
we may certainly conclude that there was also a strong verb, viz.
AS. *wincan, with pt. t. *wanc, pp: *wuncen. This is verified by AS.
wancol, wavering, and E, wench, q.v.; as well as by the cognate
forms.-MDnu. wincken (Hexham) ; also wencken, ‘to winke, or to
give a signe or token with the eyes;’ id. Allied to MDu. wanck,
τὰ moment, an instant,’ id. (lit. the twinkling of an eye) ; wanckel,
717
718 WINKLE
unsteady; Icel. vanka, to wink, to rove; Dan. vinke, to beckon; cf.
vanke, to rove, stroll; Swed. vinka, to beckon, wink; cf. vanka, to
Tove, vankelmodig, fickle-minded ; G. winken, to nod, make a sign;
OHG., winkan, strong vb., to move aside, stir, waver (see Schade).
B. Teut. type *wenkan-, pt. t. *wank, pp. *wunkanoz. Further
allied to Lithuan. weng?i, to shirk work, to flinch, wingis, a bend of
a river, wangus, idle. Der. wink, sb., Temp, ii. 1. 285. Also
(from the same root) wench, wince, winch, winkle, peri-winkle (the sea-
snail). Cf. vacillate.
WINKLE, a kind of sea-snail. (E.) Holland, tr. of Pliny,
b. ix. c. 32, uses winkles to denote shell-fish and also snails. AS.
-wincla, occurring in wine-wincla, a winkle; see A. S. Leechdoms,
ii. 240; misprinted pinewinclan, as a gloss to forniculi in A®lfric’s
Colloquy ; Voc. 94. 14. Named from the convoluted shell; allied
to Winch, q.v., and to Wink, Der. periwinkle (2), q.v.
WINNOW, to fan grain, so as to separate the chaff from it. (E.)
Winnow stands for window, if we may so write it; nx being put for
nd (but without reference to the sb. window). ME. windewen,
Wyclif, Jer. xlix. 36, to translate L. xentilire; some MSS. have
wynewen, showing that the d was being lost just at this time. AS.
windwian, less correctly wyndwian, Ps. xliii. 7, ed. Spelman; to
translate L. uentilare. AS. wind, wind; with formative suffix -w-.
See Wind. Cf. Goth. winthi-skaurd, a winnowing-fan ; diswinthjan,
to disperse, grind to powder ; from *winths, collateral form of winds,
wind. So also OHG. wintdx, to winnow, from wint, wind; Icel.
vinza, to winnow, from vindr, wind; L. uentildre from uenius; see
Ventilate. Der. winnow-er, winnow-ing-fan.
WINSOME, pleasant, lovely. (E.) ME. winxsom, with the sense
‘propitious,’ Northumb. Psalter, Ps. Ixxviii. g; also ‘pleasant,’ id.
Ps. Ιχχχ. 3. AS. wynxsum, delightful, Grein, ii. 759; formed with
suffix -swm (E.-some) from wynn, joy, id. ii. 757. Wynn is formed
(by vowel-change from w to y), from wunn-, weak grade of winnan,
to desire, win; see Win. Cf. OSax. wunnia, G. woune, joy (from
winnen) ; Icel. unadr, joy, unadsamr, winsome ; Skt. vani-, desire.
WINTER, the cold season, fourth season of the year. (E.)
ME. winter, orig. unchanged in the plural; ‘a thousand winter’ =
a thousand winters, i.e. years ; Chaucer, C. T. 7233 (D 1651). AS.
winter, a winter, also a year; pl. winter, or wintru.4Du. winter ;
Icel. vetr; Olcel. vettr, vittr, assimilated form of vintr; Dan. and
Swed. vinter; (ἃ. winter, OHG. wintar; Goth. wintrus, β. All
from Teut. type *wintruz, for older *wentruz, winter, Fick, iii. 284;
where -rv- is evidently a suffix. Origin doubtful, but the suggestion
in Fick is a good one, viz. that it meant ‘ wet season,’ and is a
nasalised form allied to E. wet, This is made more probable by
the fact that we find nasalised forms of this root in L. unda, a wave,
Lithuan. wandiz, water, Skt. ud, to wet, moisten; whilst, on the
other hand, we find E. water with a similar suffix, but without the
nasal sound. See Wet, Water. Der. winter, verb, to pass the
winter; wintr-y (for winter-y) ; winter-ly, Cymb. iii. 4.133 winter-
quarters,
WIPE, verb, to cleanse by rubbing, to rub. (E.) ME. wipen,
Chaucer, C. T. 133. AS. wipian, to wipe; AElfric’s Homilies, i. 426,
1, 30; ‘ Tergo, ic wipige,’ AElfric's Gram. ed. Zupitza, p. 172, 1. 8.
This is a weak verb, meaning to rub over with a wisp, or to use
a wisp of straw ; formed, with the usual casual suffix -iax, from a sb.
*wip, a wisp of straw, which does not occur in AS. But it is pre-
served in EFries, wip, Pomeranian wiip, Hamburg wype, a twist or
wisp of straw, and in Low Ὁ. wiep, a wisp of straw, or a rag to
wipe anything with, Bremen Worterbuch, v. 269; and the common
E. wisp is related to it. Cf. Goth. waip-s, a wreath, from the strong
verb weipan, to crown (orig. to twine); cf. OHG. wifan, to wind
round. See Wisp. Der. wipe, sb., sometimes in the sense of
sarcasm or taunt, Shak. Lucrece, 537; wip-er.
WIRE, a thread of metal. (Ε.) ME. wir, wyr (with long 2) ;
dat. wyre, P. Plowman, B. ii. 11. AS. wir, a wire, Grein, ii. 717.4
Low G. (Hamburg) wyren, pl., wires; Icel. virr, wire; cf. Swed.
vira, to wind, twist. Cf. ONG. wiara, MUG, wiere, an omament of
refined gold. Orig. a thread of metal, properly a ‘twisted’ thread
or an ornament of twisted metal-wire; cf. Icel. viravirki, filagree-
work, lit. ‘ wire-work;’ L. μέγ, armlets of metal. Formed with
suffix -ro- from 4/WEI, to twist, twine; see Withy. Der. wire-
draw, verb, to draw into wire; wire-draw-ing; wire-work; wir-y.
And see ferrule.
WIS; for this fictitious verb, see Ywis.
WISE (1), having knowledge, discreet, learned. (E.) ME. wis
(with long 7), wys, Chaucer, C. T. 68. AS. wis, wise ; Grein, ii. 718.
Ἔα. wijs; Icel. viss; Dan. viis; Swed. vis; G. weise, OHG. wis;
Goth, -weis, in comp. unweis, unwise. B. All from Teut. type
*wisoz; for *witsoz; from Teut. base *wit-, answering to Idg.
oYWEID, to know; see Wit (1). Thus wise=‘knowing;’ cf.
cunning, adj.; Brugmann, i. §§ 759, 794.
4 Otherwise explained | Dict.).
WISTFUL
as for *wissoz<*wittoz; formed from *wit-, Idg. *wid-, weak grade
of 4/WEID (as above). Der. wise-ly; wis-dom, AS. wisdém, Grein,
il. 719 (where d6m=E. doom, i.e. judgement) ; wiseman (one word),
As You Like It, i. 2. 93, &c.; wése-ness, Hamlet, v. 1. 286. Also
wise (2). (But not wiseacre, q. v.)
WISE (2). way, manner, guise. (E.) ME. wise (dissyllabic),
Chaucer, C. T. 1448 (A 1446). AS. wise, Grein, ii. 719.-+Du. wijs ;
Icel. -vis, in the comp. ddruvis, otherwise; Dan. viis ; Swed. vis;
G, weise; OHG. wisa (whence, through French, E. guise). β, All
from Teut. type *1wisdn-, f. Allied to AS. wisian, to show the way,
direct, orig. ‘to make wise,’ to instruct; from wis, adj. wise. See
Wise (1). Cf. L. uisus, sb., appearance. Der. Jike-wise, other-
wise. Doublet, guise.
WISEACRE, a wise fellow (ironically), a fool. (Du.—G.) In
Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674.—MDu. wijs-segger, as if ‘a wise-sayer,’
whence wijs-seggen (Hexham), a verb wrongly used as if equivalent
to the more usual MDu. waerseggen, ‘to sooth-say,’ id., whence
waersegger, ‘a diviner, or a soothsayer,’ id. (from MDu. waer, true).
But the MDu. word is merely borrowed from G, weissager, a sooth-
sayer, as if it meant ‘a wise-sayer;’ cf. weissagen, to foretell,
prophesy, soothsay, B. Not only is the E. form a travesty of the
G. word, but the latter has itself suffered from the manipulation of
popular etymology, and is a corrupt form, having originally nothing
to do with the verb ¢o say, nor even precisely containing the word
wise. This appears from the older forms; the (ας, weissagen is the
MHG., wizagon, to prophesy, corrupted to wizsagen, wissagen, by
confusion with sagen, to say. This MHG. verb was unoriginal,
being formed from the 50. wizago, a prophet, which was itself
afterwards corrupted into weissager. y. Now wiz-ag-o is exactly
parallel to AS. wit-eg-a or wit-ig-a, a prophet (Grein, ii. 726) ;
both words are formed (with adj. suffix -ag (-ig) and sb. suffix -o (-a),
denoting the agent) from the verb which appears as OHG. wizan,
AS. witan, to see; from 4/WEID, to know; see Wit. δ. It
follows that the s is for ἃ. z, the equivalent of E. ὁ; whilst the un-
meaning suffix -acre is no worse than the corrupt G. suffix -sager.
Moreover, the sense ‘wise-sayer’ is merely an erroneous popular
interpretation ; the true sense is simply seer (= see-er).
WISH, to have a desire, be inclined. (E.) ME. wisshen, wischen ;
P. Plowman, B. v. 111. AS. wyscan, to wish; Grein, ii. 766; less
correctly wiscax, id. The long ¥ shows a loss of x, and wyscan re-
presents Teut. type *wunskjan-, to wish; a verb formed from the
Teut. sb. *wunsko-,a wish. Cf. Du. wenschen; Icel. eskja, with the
usual loss of initial v, and written for @skja; Dan. dnske ; Swed.
onska; G. wiinschen; OHG. wunscan. B. The AS. sb. is wiisc,
a wish, very rare, in /Elfred, tr. of Beda, b. v. c. 19, ed. Smith,
p- 638,1. 40, where it is misprinted wiisc ; whence wyscan, vb., with
the usual change from ἃ to 7. Cognate words to the sb. are found
in MDu. wunsch (Hexham); Icel. dsk; (ἃ. wunsch; ΟἿ Ὁ. wunsc ;
the Teut. types being *wunskoz, m., *wunskd, f. All from Teut.
*wunsk-, weak grade of *wen-sk-, formed with verbal suffix -sk-
(L. -scd) from 4/ WEN, to desire, strive after, appearing in Skt. van,
to ask, and in E. win; see Win. Cf. Skt. vdachh, to desire, wish,
from van, to ask. Der. wish, sb., merely from the verb, and not the
same as the more orig. ME. wusch, Prompt. Parv. p. 535, which
answers to AS. wiisc, as above. Also wish-er, well-wish-er ; well-
wish-ed, Meas. for Meas, ii. 4. 27; wish-ful, i.e. longing, 3 Hen. VI,
111. 1. 14; wish-ful-ly, wish-ful-ness, And see wist-ful.
WISP, a small bundle of straw or hay. (E.) ME. wisp, wips;
spelt wispe, wips, P, Plowman, b. v.351; wysp, wesp,wips, id. A.v.195;
the Vernon MS, has ‘Zwipet with a wesp’= wiped with a wisp. Asin
other cases where sp and gs are interchanged, the spelling with ps is
the older ; cf. hasp, clasp, &c. The AS. form would be *wips, but it
does not occur; and the final s is formative, wif-s being closely con-
nected with the verb to wi~e. We find also Low G. wiep, a wisp;
Norweg. vippa, a wisp to sprinkle or daub with (also a swape, or
machine for raising water); Swed. dial. wipp, an ear of rye, also
a little sheaf or bundle; Goth. waips, a crown, orig. a twisted
wreath (where -s is merely the suffix of the Goth. nom. case).
B. Thus the Teut. base is *wip-, weak grade of *weipan-, as seen in
Goth. weipan, to crown, to wreathe, OHG., wifan, to wind round
(hence, to twist). See Wipe. It has probably been confused with
whisk, as in Dan. visk, a wisp, a rubber; but the two words are from
different roots; see Whisk. Cf. MSwed.wisp, a wisp; mod. Swed.
visp, a whisk, a twirling-stick.
WIST, knew, or known; see Wit (1).
WISTFUL, eager, earnest, attentive, pensive. (E.) The word
appears to be not very old, and it has almost supplanted the word
wishful, which was once common, The orig. sense seems to have
been ‘silent’ or ‘hushed;’ as in ‘the sweet dale and the wistfull
hill,’ W. Browne, Britannia’s Pastorals, bk. ii. song 2. 544 (see Cent.
If so, it stands for whist-ful, from whist, silent, hushed; see
WIT
Whist. It would naturally be associated with the adv. wistly,
attentively, earnestly, used 4 times by Shakespeare, which may
likewise have arisen from whist, silent. The quartos read wishély
(whistly ?) for wistly in Rich. II, v. 4. 7; see also Venus and Adonis,
343, Lucrece, 1355, Pass. Pilgrim, 82. B. As regards wishful, &c.,
we find wishful in 3 Hen. VI, iii. τ΄ 14; ‘There be certain
Women that can kill with their eye-sight whom they look wish/ully
upon ;’ Ady, Discovery of Witches (1661), p. 97. “Ὁ. Hoard. Ilong
to have a smack at her lips. Hoard. And most wishfully, brother,
see where she comes ;’ Middleton, Trick to Catch the Old One,
A.v.sc.2. 61 sat looking wishfully at the clock,’ Idler, no. 67 (R.) ;
‘We looked at the fruit very wishfully,’ Cook, First Voyage, b. iii.
c. 73 ‘I was weary of this day, and began to think wiskfully of
being again in motion,’ Boswell, Tour to the Hebrides, p. 98 (Todd);
‘I looked at them wishfully, Boswell, Life of Johnson, Sept. 1, 1773.
y- Examples of wistful occur in: ‘ Lifting up one of my sashes, [1] cast
many a wistful melancholy look towards the sea,’ Swift, Gulliver,
bk. 11. ch. 8; ‘Why, Grubbinol, dost thou so wistful seem? There’s
sorrow in thy look,’ Gay, Pastorals, Friday, 1. 1. ὃ. Note that
wishly (=wishfully) occurs in the Mirror for Magistrates, p. 863
(Todd). Also, that Sir Τὶ More seems to use wishely nearly in the
sense of ME. wisly, certainly, which suggests a possibility that
wis(¢)ly arose from that form : ‘To putte on his spectacles, and pore
better and more wishely with his olde eyen vpon Saynt Iohns
ghospell ;’ Sir T. More, Workes, p. 1134 (R.). Der. wistful-ly.
WIT (1), to know. (E.) This verb is ill understood and has
suffered much at the hands of grammarians and compilers of dic-
tionaries. Wit is the infin. mood; fo wit (as in ‘we do you ¢o wit’)
is the gerund; wot is the Ist and 3 pers. of the present indicative, the
3rd person being often corruptly written wotteth; wost (later form
wottest) is the 2nd pers. sing. of the same tense; wisée, later wist, is
the pt. t.; and wist is the pp. [The adv. ywis or Iwis, certainly,
was often misunderstood, and a verb wis, to know, was evolved,
which is wholly unsanctioned by grammar; see Ywis.] ME. witen,
infin.; pres. t. wot, wost, wot, pl. witen; pt. t. wiste, pp. wist; see
Chaucer, C. T. 1142, 1158, 1165, 8690, 9614 (A 1140, 1156, 1163,
E 814, 1740), &c. [There was also ME. wien, to see (with long?) ;
see Stratmann, who puts wof under this latter verb, as if I have seen =
I know. It makes little difference, since AS. witan, to know, and
witan, to see, are closely connected; I follow the arrangement in
Grein.] AS. witan, to know; pres. t. ic wit, Ju wast, hé wat, pl.
witon ; subj. sing. wite, pl. witon; pt. t. wiste (sometimes wisse), 2 p.
wisses, pl. wiston; pp. wist; Grein, ii. 722. Allied to AS. witan,
to see; pl. t. wat, pl. witon; id. ii, 724. It is clear that ic wat is
really an old past tense (of witan) used as a present; causing the
necessity of creating a new past tense wisse or wiste, which is, how-
ever, of great antiquity. Similar anomalous verbs are found in E.,
viz. can, may, shall, &c. The gerund is ἐδ witanne, whence mod. E.
to wit. The form weet, in Spenser, F. Q. i. 3. 6, is nothing but a
corruption of wit.-Du. weten, pt. t. wist, pp. geweten; Icel. vita,
pr. t. vert, pt. t. vissa, pp. vitadr ; Dan. vide, pr. t. veed, pt. t. vidste,
pp- vidst ; Swed. veta, pr. t. vet, pt. t. visste, pp. veten; G. wissen,
pr. t. weiss, pt. t. wusste, pp. gewusst; Goth. witan, pr. t. wait, pt. t.
wissa. Ββ. All from Teut. type *witan-, to know, pr. t. *wait, the
base being *weit-, orig. ‘to see.’ Further allied to Lithuan.
weizdéti, to see, Russ. vidiet(e), to see, L. uidére, to see, Gk, ἰδεῖν,
to see, οἶδα, I know, Skt. véda, I know, orig. I have seen. (=E.
wot), Skt. vid, to perceive, know, orig. to see.—4/WEID, to see,
perceive, know. Der. wit (2), q.v., wit-ness, q.v., t-wit (for at-
wit); witt-ing-ly, knowingly, Haml. v. 1. 11. Also, from the
same root, wise, guise; vis-ion, vis-ible, δες. (see Vision) ; id-ea,
id-ol, and the suffix -id in rhombo-id, &c.; ved-a, And see wiseacre,
wizard,
WIT (2), understanding, knowledge, the power of combining
ideas with a happy or ludicrous effect. (E.) ME. wit, Chaucer,
C. T. 748 (A 746). AS, witt, knowledge, Grein, ii, 722.—AS.
witan, to know; see Wit (1).4Icel. vit; Dan. vid; Swed. vett ;
Goth. -wit?, in comp. un-witi, n., lack of wisdom; allied to G. witz.
Teut. type *witjom, n. Der. wit-less, wit-less-ly, wit-less-ness; wit-
l-ing, a pretender to wit, with double dimin. suffix -l-ing ; witt-ed, as
in blunt-witted, 2 Hen. VI, iii. 2. 2103 witt-y, AS. witig or wittig,
Grein, ii. 726 ; witt-i-ly, witt-i-ness. Also witt-i-c-ism, used by Dryden
in his pref. to the State of Innocence, with the remark that he
asks ‘pardon for a new word’ (R.); evidently put for witty-ism,
the ς being introduced to avoid the hiatus, and being suggested by
Galli-cism, &c.
WIT (3), a wise man, witty fellow. (E.) ME, wite; AS. wita,
lit. ‘one who knows.’ =AS. witan, to know. Der. witena gemdt,
a meeting of ‘wits,’ a parliament.
WITCH, a woman regarded as having magical power. (E.)
Formerly used also of a man, Comedy of Errors, iy. 4. 160, Antony,
WITHERS 719
i. 2. 40; but this is unusual. ME. wicche, applied to a man,
P. Plowman, B. xviii. 69; also to a woman, Sir Percival, 1. 826 (in
the Thornton Romances). AS. wicca, masc. a wizard; wicce, fem.
a witch. ‘Ariolus, wicca;’ Voc. 183. 31. ‘Phytonyssa, wycce,’
Voc. 313. 5. The pl. wiccan, occurring in the Laws of Edward and
Guthrum, § 11, and Laws of Cnut, Secular, § 4 (Thorpe, Anc. Laws,
i. 172, 378), may refer to either gender. B. Wicce is merely the
fem. of wicca; and wicca is a sb., denoting the agent, allied to
wiccian, to practise sorcery, EFries. wikken.4-MDu. wicker, ‘a sooth-
sayer,’ Hexham ; Low G. wikken, to predict (see wicken, to practise
sorcery, in Schade). Cf. Norw. vikja (1) to turn aside, (2) to con-
jure away, exorcise. This links it with Icel. vikja (pp. vik-inn),
to move, turn, push aside; Dan. vige, as in vige bort, Satan! ‘get
thee behind me, Satan!’ Cf. AS. wican, to give way ; whence E.
weak, Perhaps wiccian meant ‘to avert;’ and wicca, ‘an averter.’
B. Also explained as a variant of AS. witga, shortened form of
witega, a Wise man, a prophet, a soothsayer; cf. Icel. vitki, a wizard,
allied to vita,to know. For AS, witega, see Wiseacre. Der. witch-
craft, AS. wiccecreft, Levit. xx. 27, from wicce, a witch, and creft
craft, art. Also witch, verb, AS. wiccian, Thorpe, Ancient Laws,
ii, 274, sect. 39 ; hence witch-er-y, a coined word, Browne, Britannia’s
Pastorals, b. ii. s. 1, 1. 412. Also be-witch, 4:ν.
WITCH-ELM, WYCH-ELM, a kind of elm. (E.) Spelt
weech-elm, Bacon, Nat. Hist. § 475. There is also a witch-hasel.
ME, wyche, wiche ; ‘ Wyche, tre, Ulmus;’ Prompt. Parv. AS. wice,
occurring ina list of trees. ‘ Virecta, wice; Cariscus, wice;’ Voc.
269. 16,19. The sense is ‘drooping’ or ‘bending ;’ and it is de-
rived from AS. wic-, weak grade of wican, to bend; see Wicker.
The ¢ in the word is superfluous, and due to confusion with the word
witch above. ‘Some varieties of the wych-elm have the branches
quite pendulous, like the weeping-willow, thus producing a most
graceful effect ;? Our Woodlands, by W. S. Coleman.
WITH, by, near, among. (E.) ME. with, Chaucer, C. T. τ.
AS. wid, governing gen., dat., and acc.; Grein, ii. 692. It often
has the sense of ‘against,’ which is still preserved in ¢o fight with =to
fight against, and in with-say, with-stand.4Icel. vid, against, by, at,
with ; Dan, ved, by, at; Swed. vid, near, at, by. B. From Teut.
type*wi-th-, against, shortened from AS. wi-der,against; see Withers.
q We must observe that with has to a great extent taken the place
of AS. and ME. mid, with, which is now obsolete. Der. with-al,
with it, with, Temp. iii. 1. 93, ME. withalle, Chaucer, C. T. 14130
(B 3314), compounded of with, prep., and alle, dat. case of ai, all,
and used in place of AS. mid ealle, with all, wholly, Grein, i, 228,1. 12.
Also with-in, ME. with-inne, Wyclif, Matt. ii, 16, AS. widinnan, on
the inside, Matt. xxiii. 26; with-out, ME. with-uten, with-outen,
Chaucer, C. Τὶ 463 (A 461), AS. widatan, on the outside of, Matt.
xxill. 25; and note that AS. imnan and aan are properly adverbial
formations, extended from ix and wt respectively. And see with-
draw, with-hold, with-say, with-stand ; also with-ers.
WITHDRAW, to draw back or away, to recall. (E.) ME.
withdrawen, to draw back, take away, Ancren Riwle, p. 230, last line.
Not found in AS. From With and Draw; where with has the
old sense of ‘ towards,’ hence ‘owards oneself, and away from another.
Der. with-draw-al, with-draw-ment, late and coined words. Also
withdrawing-room, a retiring-room, esp. for ladies (see example in
Todd’s Johnson, and in Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. ix.), now un-
meaningly shortened to drawing-room !
WITHE, WITH, a flexible twig ; see Withy.
WITHER, to fade. (E.) Palsgrave has: “1 wydder, as a floure
dothe;” and “1 wydder, I drie up.’ ME. widren, not an old form.
‘ Now grene as leif, now widderit and ago ;’ Test. of Creseide, 1, 238.
This ME. widren is nothing but a variant of ME. wederen, to ex-
pose to the weather, so that widred =wedered, exposed to weather.
* Wederyn, or leyn or hangyn yn the weder, Auro ;’ Prompt. Parv.
And the verb wederen is from ME. weder, weather ; see Weather.
For the ὦ, cf. AS. ge-wider, weather, temperature; Icel. haf-vidri, a
sea-breeze. Cf. Ὁ. ver-wittern, to decay by exposure to the atmo-
sphere ; from wetter, weather, storm. @ It follows that wither
is properly transitive, as in ‘Age cannot wither her,’ Antony, ii.
2. 240; but the intrans. use is much more common.
WITHERS, the ridge between the shoulder-blades of a horse.
(E.) In Hamlet, iii, 2. 253. Skelton has: ‘ Ware gallyng in the
widders;’ i, 24. So called because it is the part which the
horse opposes to his load, or on which the stress of the collar
comes in drawing. Cf. Cleveland withers, the barbs of an arrow-
head, which oppose its being drawn backwards (Atkinson). The
lit. sense is ‘things which resist ;’ formed from ME. wider, re-
sistance. ‘ Wider com to-3enes’=resistance (or an adverse wind)
came against me; Layamon, 4678. Hence widerful, full of re-
sistance, hostile, O. Eng. Homilies, ii. 51, 1. 19; wideren, widerien,
to resist, id. ii, 123, last line; and see Stratmann.. Cf, AS. wider
720 WITHHOLD
(only in gen. widres), resistance; Beowulf, 2953.—AS. wider,
against, Grein, ii. 697; common in composition. Sometimes shortened
to wid, against, also used in the sense of ‘ with;’ see With. The
AS. wider, also widere, is cognate with Du. weder, Icel. υἱόν, Dan.
and Swed. veder, G. wieder, Goth. withra, signifying against, or again.
This very prefix is represented by guer- in Guerdon, q.v. B. The
Goth. withrais to be divided as wi-thra,a comparative form ; cf. Skt.
vi-taram, away, further, from vi, away, apart. Brugmann, ii. § 75.
The above etymology is verified by the similar word found in G.
widerrist, the withers of a horse, from wider, old spelling of wieder,
against, and rist, which not only means wrist or instep, but also an
elevated part, the withers of a horse.
WITHHOLD, to hold back, keep back. (E.) ME. withholden,
pp. withholdé, Chaucer, C. T. 513 (A 511); and see Ancren Riwle,
p- 348,1. 22. From With, in the sense of ‘ back,’ or ‘towards’
the agent, and Hold. Cf. with-draw.
WITHIN, WITHOUT;; see under With.
WITHSAY, to contradict. (E.) ME. withseien, Chaucer, C. T.
807 (A 805); withsiggen, Ancren Riwle, p. 86, 1. 7.— AS. wid, against ;
and secgan, to say; see With and Say.
WITHSTAND, to stand against, resist. (E.) ME. withstonden,
Wyclif, Rom. ix. 19. AS. widstandan, to resist, Grein, ii. 699.—
AS. wid, against ; and standan, to stand ; see With and Stand.
WITHY, WITHE, a flexible twig, esp. of willow. (E.) Spelt
withes or withs, pl., Judg. xvi. 7. ME. widi, widde, &c.; spelt
wythe, witthe, wythth, Prompt. Parv. p. 5313 withthe, K. Alisaunder,
4714; widi, Ancren Riwle, p. 86, 1.15. AS. widig, a willow, also
a twig of a willow. ‘Salix, widig;’ Voc. 139. 30. Also AS.
widde, a thong; Voc. 183. 16.4-MDu. wiede, ‘a twigge, a willowe,’
Hexham; Icel. vidja, a withy; vid, a with (showing the different
forms) ; vidir, a willow; Dan. vidje, a willow, osier; Swed. vide, a
willow, vidja, a willow-twig; G. weide, a willow; OHG. wida.
B. All from a Teut. base *with-, *weith-, Idg. base *weit-. We find
allied words in Lithuan. éi/-wittis, the gray willow (used for basket-
work), Gk. ἰτέα (for Firéa), a willow, a wicker-shield ; also in Russ.
vitsa, a withe, Lith. wytis,a withe, W. gwden, a withe, L. xit/is, a
vine. The application is to plants that twine or are very flexible;
and all these words are from the 4/WEI, to twine, plait, as in
Russ, vit(e), to twine, plait, L. ui-ére, L. ui-men, a twig, ui-tis, a
vine, ui-num, wine (orig. vine). Brugmann, ii. §§ 685, 789. From
the same root we have vetch, wire, ferrule (for virole), wine, vine.
WITNESS, testimony ; also, one who testifies. (E.) Properly
an abstract sb., like all other sbs. in -nxess. ME. witnesse, Ancren
Riwle, p. 68, 1. 3. AS. witnes, testimony, Luke, ix. 5; also ge-
witnes, Mark, i. 44. [The use of the word in the sense of ‘ wit-
nesser’ is unoriginal ; it occurs in Wyclif, Matt. xxvi. 60; so also
ONorthumb. gewitnes, Mark, xiv. 63; and in AS.]—AS. wit-, as in
wit-an, to know; with suffix -nes; see Wit (1); thus the orig.
sense was ‘knowledge’ or ‘consciousness.’ Cf. ME. witnen, to
testify, Ancren Riwle, p. 384; for *witen-en, from witen, pp. of witan,
to know; cf. Icel. vitua, Dan. vidne, to testify. Also Goth. weit-
wods, a witness. Der. witness, vb., ME. witnessen, P. Plowman,
B. prol. 191.
WITTOL, a cuckold. (E.) In Merry Wives, ii. 1.3. Νοῖ δὴ old
word in this sense. It occurs also in Ben Jonson, The Fox, Act v.
sc. 1 (Mosca); and in Beaum. and Fletcher, Knight of Malta, iii. 2
(Gomera). ‘Fannin, a wittall, one that knows and bears with, or
winks at, his wife’s dishonesty;’ Cotgrave. (It does not mean
‘know-all.’) It has been explained as equivalent to ME. witele, know-
ing, a rare word, occurring once in Layamon, 18547. And this again
has been supposed to represent the AS. witol, adj., wise, sapient ;
formed with suffix -οἱ (as in sprec-ol, talkative), from wit-an, to know.
In that case, the word would mean wise or knowing ; or, ironically,
a simpleton, a gull. B. But all this is due to popular etymology ;
the AS. witol is rare, occurring in the comp. un-wwittol, Liber Scintil-
larum, p. 80, 1. 12; fore-witol, A. 5. Chron. an. 1067 ; and is hardly
known in ME. Hence Wedgwood’s suggestion is worth notice ; viz.
that a witfol is the bird commonly called in olden times a witwall.
Indeed, Bp. Hall uses this very form: ‘ Fond wit-wal, that wouldst
load thy witless head With timely horns, before thy bridal bed ;’
Satires, i. 7.17. Florio explains Ital. godano by ‘the bird called
a witwal or woodwall;’ ed. 1598. In a later edition, according to
Wedgwood, this appears as: ‘ Godano, a wittal or woodwale ;’ and
Torriano has ‘Wittal, becco contento,’ i.e. acuckold. The corruption
from witwall to wittal is easy and natural. y- An older spelling is
wetewold; for which see Skelton, Garl. of Laurel, 187; Lydgate,
Assembly of Gods, 710. With this form compare MDu. weduqwael,
‘a kinde of a yellow bird,’ Hexham; OHG. witewal, a woodwale.
δ. Witwall itself is the same word as wodewale, an old name usually
given to the green woodpecker, but also to the oriole; in any case, it
appears that the witwall (like the cuckoo and the Late L. curruca) were
WOLF
the subjects of ribald jests. ‘Curruca est avis, vel ille qui, cum credat
nutrire filios suos, nutrit alienos ;’ Supp. to Ducange, by Diefenbach.
On which Wedgwood remarks: ‘ the origin of this name [wittol] is
undoubtedly from the fact that the bird known under the name of
curruca is one of those in the nest of which the cuckoo drops its
egg.’ See further under Woodwale. Cf. gull, (1) a bird, (2) one
who is deceived.
WIVERN; see Wyvern.
WIZARD, WISARD, one who practises magic, a magician.
(E.; with Ἐς suffix.) ME. wisard; spelt wysard, wysar, Prompt.
Parv. It was simply formed by adding the AF. suffix -ard, as in
cow-ard, lagg-ard, to the ME. wis, wise. Thus it merely meant
‘ wise-like.” The F. suffix -ard, due to OHG. suffix -hart, is merely
G. hart, i.e. strong, confirmed in (=E. hard).
WIZEN, to shrivel or dry up. (E.) Added by Todd to Johnson.
ME. wisenen, to become shrivelled ; see quotation in Halliwell, s. v.
wisened. AS. wisnian, to become dry, John, xv. 6 (in the Lindisfarne
and Rushworth MSS., both Northumbrian). We find also AS. /for-
wisnode, to translate L. emarcuit, Voc. 394. 5--4-Icel. visna, to wither.
B. This is an intransitive verb, with formative -n-, giving it the sense
“to become;’ so that the orig. sense was ‘to become dry ;’ see this
suffix explained under Waken. The Icel. vis-n-a is derived from
vis-inn, wisened, withered, palsied, dried up, which, by its form, is
the pp. of an old lost strong verb *visa (pt. t. *veis, pp. visinn); cf.
risa, to rise (pt. t. rets, pp. risinn). The Icel. visinn is cognate with
Dan. and Swed. vissen, withered ; cf. also Swed. vissna, to fade,
OHG. wésanén, to dry up. All from a lost Teut. strong verb
*weisan-, *wisan-, pt. τ. *wais, pp.* wisanoz; from Idg. 4/WEIS.
Hencealso L, uir-us (for *uis-us), poison, Gk. ids, Skt. vish-a-, poison ;
see Virulent. Cf. also AS. weornian, to pine away ; from the same
root; answering to a Teut. type *wizndn (see Learn). Der. wizen,
adj., dried up, orig. the pp. of the strong verb.
WO, WOK, grief, misery. (E.) ME. wo, Chaucer, C. T. 353,
1458 (A 351, 1456). AS. wa, wo, used as interj. and adv., some-
times with dat. case, Grein, ii. 635 ; wea, wo, sb., id. 668.4 Du. wee,
interj. and sb.; Icel. vei, interj., used with dat. case; Dan. vee, inter).
and sb. ; Swed. ve, interj.; G. weh, interj. and sb.; Goth. wat, inter).
B. Further allied to L. uae, wo! W. gwae, wo. Orig. an exclama-
tion; hence, a cry of pain, a pain, &c. Idg. types *wai, interj.,
*waiwa, sb. (whence AS, wéa, wawa,wo, OHG. wéwa, wo). Der. wo-
ful, ME. woful, Chaucer, C. T. 2058 (A 2056); wo-ful-ly, -ness.
Also wo-begone, spelt woe-begon, Spenser, F, Ὁ. ili. 7. 20, i.e. sur-
rounded with wo, from ME. wo begon, Chaucer, C. T. 5338 (B 918),
where begon is the pp. of ME. begon, to go about, surround, equivalent
to AS. began, compounded of be, prep. (E. by) and gan, to go; see
further in Stratmann, s.v. bigan. Also wo worth, wo be to; for
which phrase see Worth (1). Also wai-/, q. v.
WOAD, a plant used as a blue dye-stuff. (E.) ME. wod (with
long 0), Chaucer, AZtas Prima, 1. 17, pr. in Chaucer’s Works, ed.
Skeat, vol. i. AS. wad, waad; ‘Sandix, wad; Fucus, waad ;’ Voc.
136. 25, 26. The OF. name is spelt waisde in a Vocab. of the 13th
century; id. 556. 14; cf. F. guéde.4-Du. weede; (Dan. vaid, verd,
Swed. veide, from German]; G. waid, MHG. weit; whence OF.
waide, waisde, gaide, mod. F. guéde. Root unknown; allied to L.
uitrum, woad, Gk, ἰσάτις (<*fitoaris) woad. q Distinct from
weld (2).
WOLD, a down, plain open country. (E.) Spelt οἷά in Shak.
K. Lear, iii. 4. 125; wolde, woulde in Minsheu, ed.1627. ΜΕ. wold,
Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 938; the dat. case is spelt walde in
one text of Layamon, 20842, but wolde in the other; it is thus seen
to be the same word as ME. wald, a wood, which was, however,
more commonly used in the sense of waste ground, wide open
country (as in Norse) ; in Layamon, 21339, where one text has weld,
the other has feld, field, in the sense of open country. AS. weald,
wald, a wood, forest, Grein, ii. 669.44OSax. and OFries. wald, a
wood; NFries. wold; G. wald, OHG. walt; Icel. vollr, gen. vallar
(<valthar), a field, plain; Du. woud. B. All from Teut. type
*walthuz,m.,a wood. It has been compared with Skt. v@/a-s, an
enclosure ; and with E. wild. Neither connexion is at all certain.
Doublet, weald, q.v. Der. vole.
WOLF, a rapacious beast of prey. (E.) ME. wolf; pl. wolxes
(=wolves), Wyclif, Matt. x. 16. AS. wulf, pl. wulfas, Grein, ii. 750.
+Du. and G. wolf; Icel. alfr (for vulfr); Dan. ulv; Swed. ulf;
Goth. wulfs. B. All from Teut. type *wulfoz,m. Further allied
to Lith. wilkas, Russ. volk’, Gk. λύκος, L. lupus, Skt. vrka-, a wolf;
the common Idg. type being *walqos. y. The sense is ‘ tearer,’ or
‘render,’ from his ravenous nature.—4/WELQ, to tear; Lithuan.
wilkti, to pull, &c. 4 The suggested connexion with L. uulpés, a
fox, is doubtful. Brugmann, ii. § 60. Der. wolf-ish, wolf-ish-ly ;
wolf-dog. Also wolv-er-ene, or wolv-er-ine, a coined word ; appar-
ently suggested by MHG, wlfelin, a little wolf; spelt welverin in
WOMAN
Hakluyt, Voy. i. 477, and in Cotgrave, 5. v. Jouviere; a name given
to an American animal resembling the glut/on, a name sometimes
incorrectly given to the wolverene also.
WOMAN, a grown female. (E.) That woman is an altered form
of AS. wifman, lit. wife-man, is certain; and it must be remembered
that the AS. man (like L. komo) was used of both sexes. To show
this, it is best to trace the word downwards. The AS. form is
wifman, a woman, Grein, ii. 700. By assimilation, this form became
wimman inthe 1oth century. In Judges, iv. 17, we have the dat. sing.
wifmen, but in the very next verse (and in verse 22) Jael is called séo
wimman=the woman. [Similarly, the AS. h/afmesse (loaf-mass)
became /ammas; see Lammas.) By way of further illustration, see
Mark, x. 6, where the various MSS. have wyfman, wifmon, wimman.
B. The pl. of wifman was wifmen, which was similarly reduced to
wimmen, as in Gen. xx. 17, and this form has held its ground, in the
spoken language, to the present day. y- But the sing. form suffered
further alteration ; we still find wifmon (later text wimmon) in Laya-
mon, 1]. 1869, wimman, Havelok, 1. 1168, wyfman, Ayenbite of Inwyt,
p- 11,1. 1 [45 late as Α. Ὁ. 1340; the pl. being both wyfimen, p. 10,
last line but one, and wymmen, according to Morris]; but we also
find wummon, Ancren Riwle, p. 12,1. 11, wumman, Rich. Cuer de
Lion, 3863 ; wommon, Rob. of Glouc. p. 9,1. 211, P. Plowman, B.
i. 71, li. 8; so also in Chaucer, C. T. Group D, 66 []. 5648], where
5 MSS. have womman, and one has woman ; after which the spelling
woman is common, Thus the successive spellings are wifman (wifmon),
wimman (wimmon), wumman (wummon), womman ; and lastly woman,
asat present. In some dialects, the pronunciation wumman [glossic
wum‘un] is still heard. Some have thought that popular fancy con-
nected the word with womb, as if the word were womb-man; but the
change of vowel was due to the preceding w, just as in AS. widu,
later form wudu, a wood; see Wood. For further discussion, see
Wife and Man, @ Note also the word leman, which was suc-
cessively /éof man, lemman, leman ; here we have a similar assimila-
tion of fm to mm, and a considerable change in sense; see Leman.
Der. woman-hood, ME. womanhede, wommanhede, Chaucer, C. T.
1750 (A 1748), the corresponding AS. word being wifhid, Gen. i. 27 ;
woman-ish, K. John, iv. 1. 36; woman-ish-ly, -ness; woman-kind,
Tam. Shrew, iv. 2. 14 ; women-kind, Pericles, iv. 6. 159 ; woman-like,
woman-ly, ME. wummonlich, Ancren Riwle, p. 274, |. 9; woman-li-
ness.
WOMB, the belly, the place of conception. (E.) Lowl. Sc. wame,
the belly; Burns, Scotch Drink, st. 5. ME. wombe, Wyclif, Matt.
xv. 17; wambe, Pricke of Conscience, 4161. AS. wamb, womb, the
belly, Grein, ii. 637. ‘ Venter, wamb;’ Voc. 306. 34.4-Du. wam, the
belly of a fish; Icel. vémb, the belly, esp. of a beast ; Dan. vom ;
Swed. vamb, vamm ; G. wampe, wamme, OHG. wampa ; Goth. wamba.
B. The Teut. type is *wambon-, f., the belly, paunch. Root unknown.
4 Quite distinct from L. wenter.
WOMBAT, a marsupial mammal, found in Australia. (Austra-
lian.) In Webster. <A corruption of the native Australian name
womback or wombach, ‘The wombat, or, as it is called by the na-
tives of Port Jackson, the womback;’ Collins, New South Wales
(1802), quoted in the Penny Cyclopedia. ‘The mountain natives
call it wombech ;’ letter from Governor Hunter, dated Sydney, 1798 ;
in Bewick’s Quadrupeds. See E.E. Morris, Austral English,
WON, to dwell, remain. (E.) In Milton, P. L. vii. 457. Prac-
tically obsolete, though occurring in Sir Walter Scott, Lady of the
Lake, iv. 13. ME. wonen, Chaucer, C. T. 7745 (D 2163). AS.
wunian, to dwell.+Icel. una, to dwell ; see further under Wont.
WONDER, ἃ strange thing, a prodigy, portent, admiration. (E.)
ME. wonder; pl. wondris, Wyclif, Mark, xiii. 22. AS. wundor, a
portent, Grein, ii. 751.-4-Du. wonder ; Icel. undr (for *wundr) ; Dan.
and Swed. under; G. wunder, OHG, wuntar. B. The Teut. type
is *wundrom, n., a wonderful thing. Perhaps allied to AS. wandian,
lit. to turn aside from, but usually to turn from through a feeling of
fear or awe, to respect, to revere. ‘ Pi ne wandas¢ for nanum men’
=thou respectest, or dreadest, no man; Matt. xxii. 16; Luke, xx. 21.
Grein explains wandian by ‘ prae metu sive alicujus reverentia oiit-
tere, cunctari;’ ii. 638. Hence ME. wonden, to conceal through
fear, to falter, &c.; Will. of Palerne, 4071 ; Gower, C. A. i. 332, bk.
iii. 1569; Chaucer, Legend of Good Women, 1. 1187. Perhaps
further allied to Wend and Wind (2). Der. wonder, verb, AS.
wundrian, Grein, ii. 753; wonder-ful, ME. wonderfol, Layamon, 1. 280,
later text, used in place of AS. wunderlic, lit. wonder-like, Grein,
ii, 7533 wonder-ful-ly, -ness. Also wondr-ous, q. ν.
WONDROUS, wonderful. (E.) Spelt wonderouse in Palsgrave,
and prob, not found much earlier ; it is a corrupt form (like righteous
for rightwise), and took the place ofthe older word wonders, properly
an adv., but also used as an adj. ‘Ye be wonders men’=ye are
wondrous men; Skelton, Magnificence, 99. ‘ Where suche a solempne
yerely myracle is wrought so wondersly in the face of the worlde;’
WOOD 721
Sir T. More, Works, p. 133 ἢ. Earlier as an ady., as ‘ wonders
dere,’ i.e. wonderfully dear, Test. of Love, b. ii, ch. 3, 1. 45.
B. Wonders is formed by adding s (an adv. suffix, as in need-s) to
wonder used as an ady oradj.; Chaucer has ‘ wonder diligent,’ C. T.
485 (A 483); Gower has ‘such a wonder syhte,’ C. A. i. 121, bk.
i, 235. Wonder became an adj. through the use of the AS. wunderlic,
adj., wonderful, as an adverb; thus Chaucer has ‘ wonderly deliver,’
C. T. 84; so also ‘so wonderly sore,’ Tale of Gamelyn, 266 (late
editions, wondrously). y. Hence the history of the word is clear ;
the AS. wunderlic, adj., became ME. wonderly, adv., whence ME.
wonder, adj. and ady., lengthened to wonders, ady. and adj., and to
wondersly, ady.; the double use of -ly, both as an adjectival and
adverbial suffix, being a lasting cause of confusion. 4 The spuri-
ous poem called Chaucer’s Dream has the word wondrous, 1. 1898, but
the MSS. are of late date. Hence wondrous-ly, wondrous-ness.
WONT, used or accustomed. (E.) In Anglia, xi. 493, Hupe
suggests that the phr. wont to (accustomed to) arose from the ME.
phr. wone /o, where wone was properly an adj. (AS. gewun, adj.,
gewuna, adj.), with the sense of ‘accustomed.’ This ME. wone occurs
(without 20) in Genesis and Exodus, 1530, Havelok, 2297; but in
Cursor Mundi, 3646, where 3 MSS. have wont to, the Cotton MS. has
wonto (sic). At the same time, it is clear that ME. wone, adj., was
confused with ME. woned, the pp. of wonen, to dwell, to be used to.
We also find that wont came to be used as a sb.; and then, by way
of distinction, a new form wont-ed was evolved, to keep up the pp.
use. Hence won-t-ed (=won-ed-ed) has the suffix -ed twice over!
{For wont, sb., and wont-ed, see the end of the article.] ‘As they
were woont [accustomed] to dooe ;’ Sir T. More, Works, p. 1195 g.
‘She neuer was to swiche gestes woned’=she was never accustomed
to such guests, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 8215 (E 339). ‘ Thou were ay wont
eche lover reprehende ;’=thou wert ever wont to reprehend each
lover, Chaucer, Troilus, i. 510. Woned is the pp. of ME. wonen,
wonien, to dwell, be accustomed to ; in Chaucer, C. T. 7745 (Ὁ 2163),
it means simply ‘to dwell,’ but the sense ‘to be accustomed’ was
easily (in AS. times) introduced from the related adj. wone (above).
Cf. AS. wunod, pp. of wunian, to dwell, remain, continue in, Grein,
ii. 7533; also gewunian, to dwell, to be accustomed to. ‘Swa swa he
gewunade’ =as he was accustomed (lit. as he wont), Mark, x. 1; cf.
“whom we wont to fear,’ 1 Hen. VI, i. 2.14. A weak verb, allied to
the sb. wuna, custom, use, wont, commonly spelt gewuna, Luke, 1. 9.
ii. 27. Allied to AS. wunn-, weak grade of winnan, to strive after,
orig. to desire ; see Win. Wont, sb.,is ‘athing desired,’ a habit due
to acquiescence in what seems pleasant. B. Cf. Icel. vanr, adj.,
accustomed, used (to a thing), van’, a usage, whence vandt, a custom,
habit, venja, to accustom (pt. t. vandi, vandi, pp. vandr, vannin) = E.
wean; see Wean. So also (in connexion with MHG. gewinnen) we
find MHG. gewon, OHG. giwon, adj., accustomed to, MHG. gewon,
OHG. giwona, usage, MHG. gewonen, to be used to, gewonlich,
customary ; G. gewohnen, to be used to, pp. gewohnt, wont, wohnen,
to dwell. See Fick, iii. 287. Der. wont, sb., Hamlet, i. 4. 6, em-
ployed in place of ME. wone, sb., by confusion with wont above.
Also wont-ed, used as a pt. t. by Surrey instead of wont ; ‘ Of me, that
wonted to rejoice,’ Complaint of the Absence of her Louer, ]. 5, in
Tottell’s Misc., ed. Arber, p. 15; so also Palsgrave gives wont as a
verb, ‘I wonte or use ; it is no wysdome to wont a thing that is nat
honest ;’ and hence wonted as a pp. or adj., Mids. Nt. Dr. ii. 1. 113,
lii. 2. 369.
WOO, to sue, court, ask in order to marriage. (E.) Spelt wo in
Palsgrave ; but Spenser retains the old spelling wowe, F.Q. vi. 11. 4.
ME. wo3en, King Horn, ed. Lumby, 546; later wowen (by change of
3 to w), P. Plowman, B. iv. 74. AS. wogian, to woo, occurring in
the comp. dwégian, to woo, tlfric’s Saints’ Lives, vii. 14 (E.E.T.S.).
Hence the sb. wogere, a wooer ; ‘Procus, wogere,’ Voc. 171. 6. The
lit. sense is simply to bend, incline; hence to incline another to-
wards oneself.— AS. woh (declensional stem wog-, pl. woge), bent,
curved, crooked; Grein, ii. 731. Cf. woh, sb., a bending aside,
turning aside, iniquity; wdh-bogen, bowed in a curve, bent; id.
B. The AS. wah (Teut. type *wanxoz), bent, is cognate with Goth.
wahs, bent, only occurting in ux-wahs, straight, blameless, Luke,
i.6.—4/WANK, to go tortuously, be crooked; whence also Skt.
vaiik, to go tortuously, be crooked; cf. also vakra-, crooked, L.
uacillare, to vacillate, and perhaps OSax. wak, evil, W. gwaeth,
worse. See Wacillate. Der. woo-er, ME. wowere, P. Plowman,
B. xi. 71, AS. wagere, as above.
WOOD (1), a collection of growing trees, timber. (E.) ME. wode,
Chaucer, C. T. 1424 (A 1422). AS. wudu, Grein, ii. 745; but the
orig. form was widu; id. 692.4-Icel. vidr, a tree, wood; Dan. ved ;
Swed. ved; MHG. wite, OHG. witu. B. The Teut. type is
*widuz, wood. Cf. also Olrish μά, Irish fiodh, a wood, a tree;
fiodais, shrubs, underwood; Gael. jiodh, timber, wood, a wilderness,
fiodhach, shrubs, W. gwydd, trees, gwyddelz, bushes, brakes. See
3A
722, WOOD
Stokes-Fick, pp. 265, 280. Der. wood-bine or wood-bynd, spelt
wodbynde im Palsgrave, wodebynde in Chaucer, C. T. Six-text, 1508
(1510 in Tyrwhitt), AS, wudebinde, used to translate hedera nigra in
Voc. 137. 5; so called because it binds or winds round trees; cf.
AS. wuduwinde, lit. wood-wind, used to tr. vivorna, id. 270. 16.
Also wood-coal; wood-cock, AS. wuducoe, Voc. 258. 5 (note
Guernsey video, a woodcock) ; wood-craft, ME. wodecraft, Chaucer,
€. T. 180 5 wood-cut ; wood-dove, ME. wode-douue, Chaucer, C. T.
13700 (B 1960) ; wood-engraving; "wood- land, ME. wodelond, Layamon,
1699 ; wood-lark ; wood-man, ymb. iii. 6. 28, spelt wodman in Pals-
grave; wood-nymph ; wood-pecker, Palsgrave ; wood-pigeon ; wood-ruff,
q-v. Also wood-ed ; wood-en, i.e. made of wood, K. Lear, ii. 3. 16;
wood-y, Spenser, F. Q. i. 6. 18.
WOOD (2), mad, furious. (E.) In Mids. Nt. Dr. ii. τ. 192. ME.
wood, wed (with longo), Chaucer, C. T. 184. AS. wod, mad, raging,
Grein, ii. 730; whence wédanx (<wédian), to be mad, 653.4Icel.
ddr, raging, frantic; Goth. wads, mad. And cf. Du. woede, G. wuth,
ΜΗ. wuot, madness. B. The Teut. type is *wddoz, adj., wood,
frantic. Perhaps allied, as Fick suggests (iii. 308), to L. udtes, a
prophet, poet, one who is filled with divine frenzy, Olrish faith,
a prophet. Hence (perhaps) the name Woden, applied to the
highest of the Teutonic divinities. Der, Wed-nes-day, q. v.
WOODRUFF, the name of a plant, (E.) Spelt woodrofe in
Palsgrave. ME. wodruffe, Voc. 712. 28; woderofe, 566. 20. AS.
wuderdfe, id. 133. 30; also wudurdfe. See Cockayne’s Leech-
doms, ii. 412, where it is shown that it was not only applied to the
Asperula odorata (as at present), but also to Asfodelus ramosus; and
itis also called astula (hastula) regia in glosses. The former part
of the word is AS. wudu, a wood ; the sense of rdfe is uncertain, but
the 6 was long; compare the sound of blood from AS. blad, and note
the form woodroof in Britten’s Plant-names. As AS. 6 answers to
OHG. wo, the AS. réfe is equivalent to OHG, ruofe, adj. fragrant.
Hence the probable sense was ‘fragrant wood-plant;’ well
answering to the L. name Asperula odorata, which alludes to its
sweet scent. So does the F. name muguet.
WOODW ALE, the name of a bird. (E.) Also called witwall
and even wittal ; see ‘Wittol. Cotgrave explains Ἐς oriol or oriot
as ‘a heighaw or wetwall. [The form witwall was not borrowed
from ἃν, but stands for widwall; the old form of AS. wudu being
widu.} ME. wodewale, the same as wodehake (i.e. wood-hatch or
wood-hack, a woodpecker), Prompt. Parv.; Rom. of the Rose, 658 ;
used to translate OF. oriol, W. de Bibbesworth, in Wright, Voc.
i. 166 (13th century) ; Owl and Nightingale, 1657. Not found in
AS.#+MDu. weduwael, ‘a kinde of a yellow bird ;’ Hexham; G.
wittewal, a yellow thrush; MHG. wifewal, an oriole (Schade).
B. The ‘former element is certa inly AS. widu, wudu, ME. wode, a
wood; just as MHG. witewal is from ΜΉ Ὁ. wite, a wood. Cf. ME.
wodehake, above, and E. woodpecker. But the sense of the latter
element has not been explained; it may mean ‘stranger,’ from AS.
wealh. Schade suggests the same sense of ‘stranger in the wood
from the South’ for the OHG. name. The MDu. wedu-wael may
be compared with MDu. Wael, a Celt, the same word as AS.
Wealh, and therefore ‘ stranger.’ Doublet, wittol, αν.
WOOF, the weft, the threads crossing the warp in woven cloth.
(E.) In Shak. Troil. v. 2. 152.
a supposed connexion (which happens to be right, but not in the
way which popular etymology would suggest) with the vb, to weave
and the sb. weft. ‘Oof, threde for webbynge, ‘Trama, stamen,
subtegmen ;’ Prompt. Parvy. So also in Wyclif, Levit. xiii. 47, earlier
version (cited in Way’s note). AS. dwef,a woof. ‘Cladica, wef,
vel dwef ;*> Voc. 13. 23 (8th century). Cladica is the dimin. of Late
L. clada, a woven hurdle, and weff is clearly a variant of weft; so
that there can be no doubt as to the sense of dwef, Somewhat
commoner is the parallel form dweb or dweb, frequently contracted to
ab ; and this word has precisely the same sense. ‘Subtimen, aweb’
immediately follows ‘ Stamen, wearf,’ i.e. the warp, in Voc. 262. 20;
‘Trama, vel subtemen, dweb, vel db ;’ id, 188.12; ‘ Linostema, linen
wearp, vel wyllen [woollen] ab,’ id. 151. 18; where Mr. Wright adds
the note: ‘the yarn of a weaver’s warp is, I believe, still called an
abb.” [For warp we should doubtless. read woof.} B. The words
dwef, and dweb or Gweb are compounds, containing the prefix ἃ (as
in Gwefan, to weave, see A- (4) and Weave) or ὅ-, short form of
on, prep. Also wef and web are both sbs., meaning ‘ web,’ from
wefan, to weave. Thus the word woof, for oof, is short for d-wef or
on-wef, i.e. on-web, the web that is laid ox or thrown across the first
set of threads or warp. See On and Weave.
WOOL, the short thick hair of sheep and other animals. (E.)
ME. wolle, P. Plowman, B. vi. 13. AS. τοι, wul. ‘Lana, wal ;’
Voc. 294. 19; wull, id. 190. 25.4 Du. wol; Icel. wll (for vull) ; Dan.
uld (for ull or wull) ; Swed. xll; (ας wolle, OHG, wolla; Goth. wulla.
B. The Teut. type is *wolld, f., which is certainly an assimilated
A corruption of ME. oof, due to |
WORK
form for *wolna, with Idg. suffix -πῶ, as shown by the cognate words,
viz. Lithuan. wilna, Russ. volua, Skt. arua, wool; cf. also Olrish
olann, W. gwlan; and perhaps Gk. λῆνος (for FAjjvos), L. lana, wool.
Brugmann, i. §§ 317, 524 (2); Stokes-Fick, p. 276. The same
assimilation appears in L. uillus, shaggy hair, ‘uellus, a fleece. Der.
wooll-en, ME, wollen, P. Plowman, B. v. 215, AS. wyllex (with the
usual yowel-change from xz to y), Voc. 151. 17; wooll-y, Merch.
Ven. i. 3. 84; wool-monger, ME. wolmongere, Rob. of Glouc. p. 539,
l. 11173; woolpack, ME. wolpak, same page, 1. 18; wool-sack,
1 Hen. IV, ii. 4.148, ME. wollesak, Gower, C. A. i. 99; bk. i. 1692.
Also wool-gathering (Halliwell), idly roving (said of the thoughts),
asif gathering wool scattered on the hedges. Also woolward, q.v.
WOOLWARD, clothed in wool only. (E.) ‘I have no
shirt, I go woolward for penance;’ L. L. L. ν. 2. 717; on which Dr.
Schmidt says: ‘ Woalward, in wool only, without linen, a dress often
enjoined as a penance by the church of Rome.’ ME. wolward,
wolleward, P, Plowman, B. xviii. 1; Pricke of Conscience, 3514;
P. Plowman’s Crede, 788. See four more examples in Nares, and
his note upon the word. ‘To goo wulward and barfott;’ Arnold’s
Chron. ed. 1811, p. 150. Palsgrave has, in his list of adverbs :
‘Wolwarde, without any lynnen nexte ones body, sazs chemyse.’ I have
elsewhere explained this as ‘ with the wool next one’s skin;’ I should
rather have said ‘ with the skin against the wool,’ though the result
is practically much the same. This is Stratmann’s explanation ; he
gives: ‘wolwarde, cutis lanam uersus.’ Cf. home-ward, heaven-ward.
See Wool and Ward. A like phrase occurs in French. ‘ Assez
sovent lessa le linge Et si frotta Je dos au lange ;’ i.e. Very often she
left off her linen [chemise], and rubbed her back against her woollen
garment ; Rutebuef, ii. 157, cited by Littré, s.v. lange. q To
the above explanation, viz. that wool-ward=against the wool, with
reference to the skin, which agrees with all that has been said by
Nares and others, I adhere. In an edition of books iii and iv of
Beda’s Eccl. History, by Mayor and Lumby, Cambridge, 1878,
P- 347, isa long note on this phrase, with references to Bp. Fisher's
Works, ed. Mayor, pt. i. p. 181, 1. 13; Burton, Anatomy of Melan-
choly, pt. iii. sect. 4. memb. 1. subsect. 2, and subsect. 3; Christ’s
Own Complaint, ed. Furnivall (E. E.T.S.), 1. 502; Myrour of Our
Lady (FE. E.T.S.), p. lii, where we read of St. Bridget that ‘she
neuer vsed any lynen clothe though it weer in tyme of sykenes but
only vpon hir hed, and next hir skyn she weer euer rough and sharpe
wolen cloth.’ The note further corrects my explanation ‘ with the
wool towards the skin,’ because this ‘ would only suit with a clothing
made of the fleece as it came from the sheep’s back ;’ and I have
amended my explanation accordingly. It then goes on: ‘ward is
wered, the pp. of AS. werian, to wear, and waolward means ‘ wool-
clad,” just as in Beowulf, 606, sweglwered means “ οἶδά in bright-
ness ;”” scirwered and ealdawered may be cited as other examples of
this pp. in composition. It has fared with woolward, when it
became a solitary example of this compound, as it did with righéwise
under similar circumstances. ‘The love for uniform orthography
made this latter word into righteous, and woolwered into waolward to
conform to the shape of forward, &c. The use of go is the same as
in to go bare, naked, cold, &c. ‘This is ingenious, but by no means
proven, and I beg leave to reject it. The suffix -wered is extremely
rare; sweglwered and scirwered each occur only once, and only in
poetry, and even Grein can only guess at the sense of them; whilst
ealdawered has nothing to do with the matter, as it means ‘ worn out
by ald age,’ Ettmiiller, p. 4. There is no such word as wullwered
in AS., or wolwered in ME.; and it is a long jump of many
centuries from these doubtful compounds with -wered in AS. poetry
to the first appearance of wolwarde (always so spelt) in the r4th
century.
WOON, a governor, officer. (Burmese.) Burm. wun, a governor,
or officer of administration ; lit. ‘a burden,” hence presumably the
* bearer of the burden’ (Yule).
WORD, an oral utterance or written sign, expressing thought ;
talk, message, promise. (E.) ME. word, pl. wordes, Chaucer,
C. T. 315 (A 313). AS. word, neut. sb., pl. word, Grein, ti. 732.-+
Du. woord; Icel. ord (for *word); Dan. and Swed. ord: G. wort;
Goth. waurd. B. The Teut. type is *wordom, n. Cognate with
Lithuan. wardas, a name, L. uerbum (base uerdk), a word, a verb;
the Idg. type being *wardhom, n. From 4 WER, to speak ; whence
Gk. etpew, to speak ; so that the lit. sense is ‘a thing spoken.’ Cf.
Gk. ῥή-τωρ, a speaker, from the same root. Der. word, vb.,
speak, Cymb. iv. 2. 240, ME. worden, P. Plowman, B. iv. 46; word-
less, Lucrece,112 ; word-ing; word-y, ME. woord:, Wyclif, Job, xvi. 21
(earlier version); ward-i-ness. Also word-book, a dictionary, prob.
imitated from Du. woordenboek, (ἃ. worterbuchk. And. see rhetorte.
Brugmann, i. § 589. Doublet, "verb.
WORK, a labour, effort, thing done or written. (E.) ME, werk,
Wyclif, Mark, xiv. 6; Chancer, C. T. 481: (A 479). AS. weore,
WORLD
werc, Grein, ii. 677.4-Du. werk; Icel. verk; Dan. verk; Swed.
verk ; ΕΟ. werk, OHG. werch, werah. B. All from Teut. type
*werkom, n., work ; which from Teut. base WERK, Idg. oY WERG,
to work. Hence also Gk. é-opy-a, I have wrought, ῥέζειν (= fFpéy-
yew), to do, work, ἔργον, a work, ὄργανον, an instrument, organ,
ὄργια, orgies; Zend vareza, a working, varezana, a making (cited
by Fick}; cf Pers. warz, gain, profit, acquisition, habit, warzad,
he studies or labours, warz-kar, a ploughman (lit. work-doer),
warz-gaw, an ox for ploughing (lit. work-cow), warzah, agricul-
ture; Rich. Dict. p. 1638. Der. work, verb, ME. werchen, wirchen,
Chaucer, C. T. 2761 (A 2759), pt. t. wroughie, id. 499 (A497),
pp- wrought, id. 16800 (G 1332), from AS, wiercan, wyrcan (with
the usual vowel-change to te or y), pt. t. worhde, pp. geworht,
Grein, ii. 759; cognate with Goth. waurkjan, Teut. type *work-jan-,
from Idg. *worg, second grade of 4/WERG; cf. Organ. “Also
work-able (from the verb); and (from the sb.) work-day, ME. werk-
edei (trisyllabic), Ancren Riwle, p. 20, 1. 7, AS. weorc-deg, Wright's
Voe. i. 37; work-house, AS, weorc-hiis (L. officina), Voc. 185. 3;
work-man, ONorthumb. weremonn, Matt. x. 10 (Lindisfarne MS.);
work-man-like; work-man-ship, ME. werkemanship, P. Plowman,
B. x. 288 ; work-shop. Alsowright,q.v. Andsee en-erg-y, lit-urg-y,
metall-urg-y, chir-urg-eon, s-urg-eon, organ,
WORLD, the earth and its inhabitants, the system of things,
present state of existence, a planet, society. (E.) ME. werld,
Genesis and Exodus, 1. 42; world, worlde, P. Plowman, Β. prol. 19;
also spelt wordle, Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 7,1. 10; werd, Havelok,
1290; ward, Lancelot of the Laik, 3184. AS. weoruld, weorold,
woruld, worold, world, Grein, ii. 684.4-Du. wereld ; Icel. verild (gen.
veraldar) ; Dan. verden (for verld-en, where ex is really the post-
posed def. article); Swed. verld; G. welt, MHG. werlt, OHG.
weralt, B. The cognate forms show clearly that the word is a
composite one. It is composed of AS. wer, cognate with Icel. verr,
OHG. wer, Goth. wair, aman, L. wir, aman; and OMere. @ldu (AS.
ieldu), cognate with Icel. old, Goth. alds, an age ; see Virile and Eld.
Thus the sense is ‘ age of man’ or ‘course of man’s life,’ whence it
came to mean lifetime, course of life, experience of life, usages of
life, &c. ; its sense being largely extended. The sb. e/d is a deriva-
tive from the adj. old, as shown s.v. ; and is well exhibited also in
the curious Dan. hedenold, the heathen age, heathen times, from
heden, a heathen. y. We may compare AS. weoruld with wer
and aldu; Icel. veréld with verr and old; OHG. weralt with wer and
a 50. formed from alz, old; hence the word is a very old one,
formed in times previous to all record of any Teutonic speech ;
really from a Teut. type *wer-aldi-. Der. world-ly, AS. weoruld-
lic, Grein, ii. 687; world-li-ness; world-ly-mind-ed, world-ly-mind-
ed-ness ; world-l-ing, with double dimin. suffix, As You Like It,
ii, 1. 48.
WORM, a small creeping animal. (E.) Formerly applied to a
snake of the largest size ; cf. blind-worm, ME. worm; pl. wormes,
Chaucer, C. T. 1093t (F 617). AS. wyrm, a worm, snake, dragon ;
Grein, ii. 763.44Du. worm ; Icel. ormr (for *wormr) ; Dan. and Swed.
orm (for *worm); G. wurm: Goth. waurms. B. The Teut. type is
*wurmiz, Idg. type *warmis; cf. L. vermis, a worm, Brugmann, i,
§ 371; i. § 97. Prob. allied to Gk. ῥόμος (for *Fpdyos), an earth-
worm, Der. worm, verb; worm-y. Allied words are verm-ine, verm-
icular, verm-icelli. (But not wormwood.)
WORMWOOD, a very bitter plant. (E.) The suffix -wood is
corrupt, due to confusion with wood, in order to make it sound more
intelligible. We find the spelling wormwod as early as the 15th
century, ‘ Hoc absinthium, wormwod;’ Voc. 711. 24. But only a
little earlier (early 15th century), we find wermode, id. 645. 35. AS.
wermod, ‘Absinthium, wermod, in a glossary of the 8th century ;
Voc. 2. 15.4 Du. wermoet, ‘worm-wood ;’ Hexham; G. wermuth,
MHG. wermuote, OHG. werimuota, wermuota. Ββ. It is thus evident
that the word is doubly corrupt, and has no more to do with worm
than it has with wood; the G. forms show clearly that the division of
the AS. word is wer-mdd. [It is quite distinct from AS. wyrmwyrt,
worm-wort, Sedum album or villosum; Cockayne’s A. 5. Leechdoms,
ii. 411.] Mr. Cockayne, Leechdoms, i. 247, supposes AS. werméd to
mean ‘ ware-moth,’ i. e. that which keeps off moths; but méd is not
‘a moth,’ and words like ‘ ware-moth,’ in which the former part is
verbal, are not found in AS. y. The fullest forms are AS. were-mod,
Voc. 296. 24; OHG. weri-muota, weri-muot, as if the sense were
‘manly courage;” see Werwolf. But the orig. sense remains
unknown.
WORRY, to harass, tease. (E.) The old sense was to seize by
the throat, or strangle, as when a dog worries a rat or sheep. ME.
worowen, wirien; also wery, Rom, of the Rose, 6264; also wyrwyn
or worowen, and explained by ‘strangulo, suffoco, Prompt. Parv. ;
worow, used of lions and wolves that worry men, Pricke of Conscience,
1229 3 pp. werewed, wirwed, Havelok, 1915, 1921. The theoretical
WORT 723
ME. type is *wur3en (Stratmann), which passed, as usual, into
wurwen, worwen, Or wirwen, and other varieties; the second w is
usually due (in such a position) to an older 3, and answers to AS. g.
The various vowels point back to AS. y, so that the AS. form must
have been wyrgan. AS. wyrgan, found in the gloss: ‘ strangulat,
wyrged ;’ Corpus Gloss. Deepa worgen, to strangle, whence
| worg, quinsy ; OF ries, wergia, wirgia, to strangle; Low G, worgen;
G. wiirgen, OHG. wurgan, to strangle, suffocate, choke ; as in Wolfe
wirgen die Schafe, wolves worry the sheep, Fhigel. B. These
verbs are secondary forms, due to the Teut. str. verb *wergan-, found
in MHG, wergen, ir-wergan, to strangle. The Teut. base is *werg,
from Idg. 4 W ERGH,; asin Lithuan. wersz-ti, to strangle,to oppress ;
cf. Slav. base verz-, to bind fast, in Miklosich. Brugmann, i. § 624.
Cf. Wring.
WORSE, comp. adj. and adv., more bad; WORST, superl. adj.
and ady., most bad. (E.) 1. ME. wurs, wors, wers, adv.; wurse,
worse, werse (properly dissyllabic), adj. ‘ Now is my prison wersé
than before ;” Chaucer, Ὁ, T. 1226 (A 1224). [Hence perhaps the
| suggestion of the double comp, wors-er, Temp. iv. 27.] “Με is the
wrs’ =itis the worse for me; Owl and Nightingale, 1.34. We find
also ME. werre, worse, spelt also worre, Gawayr and the Grene
Knight, 1588; this is a Scand. form, due to assimilation. AS. wyrs,
adv. ; wyrsa, wirsa, adj.; Grein, ii. 765.4-OSax. wirs, adv. ; wirsa,
adj. ; OF ries. wirra, werra, adj. (for *wirsa, *wersa, by assimilation) ;
| Icel. verr, adv. ; verri, adj. (for *vers, *versi) ; Dan. verre, adj. ; Swed.
varre, adj.; MHG, wirs, adv.; wirser, adj.; Goth. wairs, adv.;
wairsiza, adj. B. In Gothic, -iza isa common suffix in compara-
tives, as in hard-iza, hard-er, from hard, hard ; and it answers to mod.
E. -er. The common Tent. type is *wersizon-, adj., where -izon- is
the comparative suffix. The base is *wers-, perhaps to twist, en-
tangle, confuse; whence also OHG. werran, G. wirren, to twist,
entangle. See War. γ- The same base *wers (assimilated to
*werr\ occurs perhaps in L. werrere, pt. t. uerri, pp. versus, to whirl,
toss about, drive, sweep along, sweep; cf. Lucretius, v.1226, 2. The
superl. form presents no difficulty. ME. worst, werst, adv. ; worste,
werste, adj., Gower, C. Α. 1. 25; prol. 641. AS. wyrst, adv., wyrsta,
adj. (Grein); this is a contracted form of wyrsesta, which appears as
wyrresta (by assimilation) in Matt. xii. 45.--OSax. wirsista, adj. ; Icel.
verst, adv., versir, adj.; Dan. verst; Swed. vdrst; OHG. wirsist,
wirse:t, contracted form wirst. The Teut. type is *wers-ist-oz.
q It is now seen that the s is part of the base or root; worse really
does duty for wors-er, which was in actual use in the 16th century;
and wors-t is short for wors-est. Der. worse, verb, Milton, P. L.
vi. 440, ME. wursien, Ancren Riwle, p. 326, AS. wyrsian, properly
intrans., to grow worse, A. S. Chron, an. 1085 3; wors-en, verb, to
make worse, Milton, Of Reformation in England, b. i (R.) 3 wors-en,
to grow worse (Craven dialect). Also worst, verb, to defeat, Butler,
Hudibras, pt. i. c 2. 1. 878; this answers to ME. wursien above
(AS, wyrsian), and is a form due to the usual excrescent ¢ after 5 (as
in among-st, whil-st, &c.) rather than formed from the superlative,
WORSHIP, honour, respect, adoration. (E.) Short for worth-
ship; the th was not lost till the 14th century. Spelt worschip,
P. Plowman, B. iii. 332; but worfssipe (=worfshipe), Ayenbite of
Inwyt, p. 8,1. 8 (A.D. 1340). AS. weordscipe, wyrdscipe, honour;
Grein, ii. 683. Formed with suffix -scipe (Is. -ship) from AS. weord,
wurd, adj., worthy, honourable; cf. L. dignitas from the adj. dignus.
See Worth (1). Der. worship, verb, ME. worthschipen, spelt
wurdchipen in St. Katharine, 1. 55 (so in the MS., but printed wurd-
schipen) ; not foundin AS, Also worship-/ul, spelt worJssipuol, Aven-
bite of Inwyt, p. 80, l. 22; worship-ful-ly.
WORST, adj. and verb; see under Worse.
WORSTED, twisted yarn spun out of long, combed wool. (E.)
ME. worsted, Chaucer, C. T. 264 (A 262). So named from the town
of Worsted, now Worstead, not far to the N. of Norwich, in Norfolk.
Probably not older than the time of Edward 111, who invited over
Flemish weavers to improve our woollen manufactures. It is men-
tioned as early as 13483 see Archwologia, xxxi. 78. Chaucer is
perhaps the earliest author who mentions it. ‘ Worsted: these first
took their name from Worsted, a village in this country ;’ Fuller,
Worthies; Norfolk (k.). β. Worstead stands for Worthstead ; this
we know from Charter no. 785 in Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus,
iv. 111, where the name appears as Wrdestede, and w= wu, as in other
instances. The AS. wurd, weord, worth, value, was also used in the
sense of ‘estate’ or ‘manor,’ and appears in place-names, such as
Sawbridge-worth, Rickmans-worth; however, in the sense of " estate,’
the usual form is weordig, and this may suit the AF. form Wréestede,
ifthe former erepresents an earlier -ig. The AS. sede = mod. E. stead,
or place. Hence Worstead means ‘the place of an estate; > see
Worth and Stead.
WORT (1), a plant. (E.) Orig. the general E. name for ‘ plant ;’
plant being a Latin word. ME, wort; pl. wortes, Chaucer, C. ἽΝ
2.4.2
WORT
15227 (B 4411). AS. wyrt, a wort; Grein, ii. 765.4-OSax. wurt;
Icel. urt (for *wurt); also spelt jurt, borrowed from Low G.; Dan.
urt; Swed. ort; G. wurz; Goth. waurts. B. All from Teut. type
*wurtiz, f.; _Idg. type *wardis. Allied to W. gwreiddyn, a root;
Olrish frem, a root; also to Icel. rat, a root, L. radix, Gk. ῥίζα, a
root; ῥάδ-αμνος, a young shrub. Brugmann, i. §§ 350, 529; a plant,
herb, Fick, iii. 294. See further under Root (1). Der. mug-wort,
and other plant-names in which wort is suffxed; also wort (2).
Allied to radix, liquorice, 8&c.
WORT (2), an infusion of malt, new beer unfermented or while
being fermented. (E.) ME. wort or worte, Chaucer, C. T. 16281
(G 813). ‘Hoc idromellum, Anglice wurte;’ Voc. 772.2. AS.
-wyrt, in the comp. max-wyrt, lit. mash-wort, an infusion of worts ;
A. 5. Leechdoms, ii. 216, 399. Here wyrt seems to be a peculiar use
of the wyrt given under Wort (1); but the G. wiirze (below) is
derived from wzrz, a wort. Cf. also MDu. wort, ‘wort, or new
beere before it be clarified,” Hexham; worte,‘a root or a wort,
id.; Low G. wort. Also Icel. virtr; Norweg. vyrt, vért, Aasen;
Swed. vort; G. bier-witrze, beer-wort, allied to wurz, a wort, herb,
whence wiirze, seasoning, spice, wiirzsuppe, spiced soup, ὅς. B. The
Icel. virtr, MHG. wirz, which differ in the vowel, are from a Teut.
base *werti-, which differs in gradation from *wurtiz, a wort, but is
closely related to it.
WORTH (1), equal in value to, deserving of; as sb., desert,
price. (E.) ME. wurd, worf, worth, adj., worthy, honourable, Will.
of Palerne, 2522, 2990; Rob. of Gloue. p. 364, 1.7547. Also wurf,
wor, ill-spelt worthe in P, Plowman, B. iv. 170; but wurf in Rob. of
Glouce. p. 373, 1.3674. AS. wyrdc, adj., a mutated by-form of weorJ,
adj., valuable ; wyrd, by-form of weor, sb., value. Du. waard, adj. ;
waarde, sb.; Icel. verdr, adj.; verd, sb.; Dan. verd, adj. and sb.;
Swed. vard, adj.;\ viarde, sb.; G. werth, MHG. wert, adj. and sb. ;
Goth. wairths, adj. and sb. B. All from Tent. type *werthoz, adj.,
valuable. This word is probably to be divided as *wer-thoz ; note
also Lith. wer-tas, worthy (probably borrowed from Teutonic).
Also cf. W. gwerth (type *wer-tos), value, price; allied to L. uer-
éri, to respect. Prob. from4/WER, to guard, keep; see Ware (1).
Der. worth-y, spelt wurrfi, Ormulum, 2705, wurrfi3, id. 4200,
AS. wyrdig, adj., Alfred, tr. of Orosius, vi. 2 (the AS. weordig or
wordig only occurs as a sb. meaning an estate); hence worthi-ly,
worthi-ness ; worth-less, worth-less-ly, -ness. Also wor-ship.
WORTH (2), to become, to be. (E.) Now only in the phr. wo
worth the day !=evil be totheday. ME. worfen, to become ; formerly
common. In P. Plowman’s Crede, a short poem of 850 (long) lines,
it occurs 8 times; as ‘schent mote I worfen’=I must be blamed,
1.0; ‘wo mote 50u worfen’ = may evil be (or happen) to you; and
see P. Plowman, B. prol. 187, i. 186, ii. 43, iii. 33, v. 160, vi. 165,
vii. 51. AS. weordan, to become, also spelt wurdan, wyrdan; pt. t.
weard, pl. wurdon ; Grein, ii. 678.4-Du. worden, pt. τ. werd, pp. ge-
worden ; Icel. verda, pt. t. vard, pp. ordinn, to become, happen, come
to pass; Dan. vorde; Swed. varda; G. werden, OHG. werdan ; Goth.
wairthan, pt. t. warth, pp. waurthans. B. All from Teut. type
*werthan- (pt. t. *warth, pp. *wurthanoz), to become, turn to; allied
to L. wertere, to turn, verti, to turn to.—4/WERT, to turn; see
Verse. Der. wierd, q. v.
WOT, I know, or he knows; sce Wit (1).
WOULD; see Will (1).
WOUND, a hurt, injury, cut, bruise. (E.) ME. wounde, Chau-
cer, C. ΤῸ tor2 (A roto). AS. wund, Grein, ii. 750.44+Du. wond, or
wonde ; Icel. und (for *wund); Dan. vunde; G. wunde ; ΟἿ. wunta.
B. All from Teut. type *wundd, f.,a wound. We find also an older
type in the Teut. adj. *wundoz, wounded, appearing in G. wund,
OHG, wunt, Goth. wunds, wounded. B. The type *wun-doz seems
to answer to an Idg. type *wan-tdés, formed with a pp. suffix from
*wun(n)-, weak grade of Teut. *winnan- (for *wennan-), a verb signi-
fying ‘to fight’ or ‘ suffer,’ represented in AS. by winnan, to strive,
fight, suffer, pp. wunnen. See Win. Der. wound, verb, AS.
wundian, Grein, 11. 751. Cf. wen.
WOURALI, OURALI, OORALI, OURARI, CURARI,
a resinous substance, extracted from the Strychnos toxifera, used for
poisoning arrows, &c. (Guiana). ‘ The hellish oorali;’ Tennyson,
In the Children’s Hospital, 1. 10. And see Waterton’s Wanderings.
From ‘ourali, written also wourali, urali, urari, curare, &c., according
to the pronunciation of the various tribes;’ W. H. Brett, Indian
Tribes of Guiana, 1868, p. 140. It is spelt wowrara in Stedman’s
Surinam (1796), i. 395; owrari in Hakluyt, Voy. iii. 689, last col.
WRACK, a kind of sea-weed; shipwreck, ruin. (E.) Wrack, as
a name for sea-weed, merely means ‘that which is cast ashore,’ like
things from a wrecked ship. This is well shown by mod. F. varech,
which has both senses, (1) sea-weed cast on shore, and (2) pieces of
a wrecked ship cast on shore; this F. word being merely borrowed
from English. Cotgrave has F. varech, ‘a sea-wrack or wreck,
724
Der. not (2).
WREATH
all that is cast aland by chance or tempest.’ Shak. has wrack,
shipwreck, destruction, ruin, Merch. Ven. iii. 1. 110; Macb. i. 3.
114, ὅς. ME. wrak, a wreck, Chaucer, C. T. (Six-text edition),
Group B, 1. 513; where Tyrwhitt prints wrecke, 1. 4933. AS. wrec,
‘what is driven,’ Lat. ‘actuarius;’ O. E. Texts, p. 37; cf. wrec,
banishment, exile, misery, Grein, ii. 738. From *wrak, 2nd grade
of Teut. *wrek-an-; the sense is immediately due to the orig. verb,
AS. wrecan (pt. t. wrec), to drive, expel, cast forth; so that wrec
is here to be taken in the sense of ‘that which is driven ashore.’
The AS. wrecan also means to wreak, punish; see Wreak. And
see Wreck.+ Du. wrak, sb., a wreck; adj., cracked, broken; cf.
wraken, to reject; cf. Icel. rek (for vrek), also reki, anything drifted
or driven ashore, from reka (for vreka), to drive. Cf. Dan. vrag,
wreck, vrage, to reject, Swed. vrak, wreck, refuse, trash ; all from
Dutch. Doublets, wreck, rack (4).
WRAITH, an apparition. (E.) ‘ Wraith, an apparition in the
likeness of a person, supposed to be seen soon before, or soon after
death. . . . The apparition called a wraith was supposed to be that
of one’s guardian angel ;’ Jamieson. He adds that the word is used
by King James I (Demonology; Works, p. 125). G. Douglas
translates figiiras (En. x. 641) by ‘wraithis of goistis;’ and umbra
(Ain. x. 593) by wrathis (also written wrethis). Note that the
wraith of Aineas was formed of a cloud (En. x. 636); and wraith or
wreth may be the same word as wreath; cf. prov. E. snow-wreath, a
mass of drifted snow. Cf. Milton, P. L. vi. 58. See Wreath.
B. The Ayrshire warth, an apparition, may be a different word, and
allied to the curious Norw. vardyvle [=ward-evil ?], a guardian or
attendant spirit, a fairy or sprite said to go before or follow a man,
also considered as an omen or a boding spirit (Aasen) ; which seems
to be allied to E. ward, to guard. But there is also a prov. E.
swarth, with the same sense.
WRANGLE, to dispute, argue noisily. (E.) ME. wranglen, a
various reading for wraxlen (to wrestle), in P. Plowman, Ὁ. xvii. 80.
The sb. wranglyng is in P. Plowman, B. iv. 34. A frequentative
formed from AS. wrang, 2nd grade of Teut. *wreng-, as seen in AS.
wringan, to press. Thus the orig. sense was to keep on pressing, to
urge ; hence to argue vehemently. Cf. Low G., vrangeln, to wrestle
(Schambach) ; G. ringen, to wrestle ; Dan. vringle, to twist, entangle ;
Norw. rangla, to begin to quarrel. See Wring. Der. wrangle,
sb. ; wrangl-er, a disputant in the schools (at Cambridge), now applied
(till 1909) toa first-class man in the mathematical tripos ; wrangl-ing.
WRAP, to fold, infold, cover by folding round. (E.) ME.
wrappen, Chaucer, C. T. 10950; Will. of Palerne, 745. [We also
find a form wlappen, Wyclif, Luke, ii. 7, John, xx. 7, now spelt Jap ;
see Lap (3).] Cf Prov. E. warp, to wrap up, Somersetshire
(Halliwell), also to weave ; also, to lace together the ends of a fishing-
net (E.D.D.); warple, to entangle, id. Not found in AS. Cf.
North Friesic wrappe, to press into, to stop up. B. The form of
the word suggests a connexion with Warp, q.v. G. Douglas has
warpit about (L. cingit) to translate Virgil, An. i. 112; warpit (L.
euinctus), Ain. v. 7743; warpit my head=wrapped up my head, Prol.
to Ain. vii. 95. Perhaps the sense was due to the folding together
of a fishing-net ; cf. Icel. varp, the cast of a net, varpa, a cast, also
the net itself; skdvarp, lit. ‘a shoe-warp,’ the binding of a shoe;
Swed. dial. varga, a fine herring-net (Rietz), Der. wrapp-er, sb.
WRATH, anger, indignation. (E.) ME. wrape, wratihe, P.
Plowman, B. iv. 34; wraththe, Wyclif, Eph. iv. 31. Properly dis-
syllabic. AS. and ONorthumbrian wr#do, wr#dd0, Mark, iii. 21 ;
Luke, xxi. 23; John, iii. 36 (both in the Lindisfarne and Rushworth
MSS.). Teut. type *wraithitha, f., from the adj. *wraithoz, AS.
wrad. The sb. is somewhat rare, but the adj. wrad, wroth, from
which it is formed, is common; see Wroth.+4Icel. reidi (for *wreidi),
wrath, from reidr, adj., wroth; Dan. and Swed. uvrede, from vred,.
adj. Der. wrath-ful, King John, ii. 87; wrath-ful-ly, -ness.
WREAK, to revenge, inflict (vengeance) on. (E.) ME. wreken,
Chaucer, C. T. 963 (A 961); formerly a strong verb; pt. t. wrak,
Tale of Gamelyn, 1. 303 ; pp. wroken, wroke, wreken, P. Plowman,
A. ii. 169, B. 11. 194. AS. wrecan, to wreak, revenge, punish, orig.
to drive, urge, impel, Grein, ii. 741; pt. t. wrec, pp. wrecen.4+-Du.
wreken, to avenge; Icel. reka (for *wreka), pt. t. rak, pp. rekinn, to
drive, thrust, repel, toss, also, to wreak vengeance; G. rachen, to
avenge; OHG. rechen; Goth. wrikan, to wreak anger on, to perse-
cute. B. All from Teut. type *wrekan-, pt. t. *wrak; orig. to
press, urge, drive; Fick, iii, 308. Further allied to Lithuan.
wargti, to suffer affliction, wargas, affliction; Russ. vrag’, an
enemy, foe (persecutor); L. urgére, to press, urge on, Gk. εἵργειν,
for *eFépyev, to shut in. All from 4/WERG, to press, urge;
Fick, 1.773. Der. wrack, q.v.; wreck, q.v., wretch, q.v.
WREATH, a garland. (E.) ME. wrethe, Chaucer, C. T. 2147
(A 2145). AS. wr#d, a twisted band, a bandage; gewriden mid
wrede= bound with a bandage, /Elfred, tr. of Gregory’s Pastoral
WRECK
Care, ed. Sweet, cap. xvii. p. 122, 1. 16. Formed (with vowel-
change from ὦ to #) from AS, wrad, 2nd grade of wridan, to writhe,
twist; see Writhe. Der. wreathe, verb; ‘ together wreathed sure,’
Surrey, Paraph. of Ecclesiastes, ς. iv. 1. 34.
WRECK, destruction, ruin, remains of what is wrecked. (E.)
Formerly wrack, as in Shak. Temp. i. 2. 26. ME. wrak, Chaucer,
C. T. 4933 (Group B, l. 513), where Tyrwhitt prints wrecke. In
a glossary of E. Law-terms, written in the 13th c., and pr. in Reliq.
Antique, i. 33, we find: ‘ Wrec, truvure de mer,’ i.e. what is cast
up by the sea ; also wrek, Stat. Realm, i. 28 (anno 1275); also ship-
wrek, Thorpe, Cod. Diplom, p. 382. AS. wrec, expulsion, banish-
ment, misery; Grein, ii. 738. The peculiar use may be due to Scand.
influence ; see Wrack,+Dnu. wrak, wreck ; cf. wrak, adj., broken ;
Icel. rek (for *wrek), also reki, anything drifted or driven ashore,
from reka, to drive; [Dan. vrag, wreck, Swed. vrak, refuse, trash,
wreck, from] Low G. (Hamburg) wrack, a broken bit, a battered ship
(Richey) ; Guernsey vrec. B. The lit. sense ‘ that which is drifted
or driven ashore;’ hence it properly meant pieces of ships drifted
ashore, also wrack cr sea-weed. Secondly, as the pieces thus driven
ashore were from ships broken up by tempests, it came to mean
fragments, refuse, also destruction, or ruin caused by any kind of
violence, as in Shakespeare and Milton. The orig. sense of AS.
wrecan was to impel, drive, persecute, expel, wreak ; hence wrec in
AS. poetry commonly means banishment or misery such as is en-
dured by an exile. Der. wreck, verb; also wrack, Temp. i. 2. 236;
wrack-ful, Shak. Sonnet 65; wreck-ful, Spenser, F. Q. vi. 8. 36;
wreck-er, one who plunders wrecks. And see wretch.
WRENN, a small bird. (E.) ME. wrenne, Gower, C. A. iii. 349;
bk. viii. 2227. AS. wrenna, wrenna; Voc. 131. 33; 286.16. Cf.
Icel. rincill, a wren; OLow G. wrendo, wrendil, a wren (Gallée).
WRENCH, a twist, sprain, side-pull, jerk. (E.) ‘I wrenche
my foote, | put it out of joynt;’ Palsyrave. He also spells it
wrinche. ME. wrench, sb., in the metaphorical sense of perversion,
guile, fraud, deceit. ‘ Withouten eny wrenche’=without any guile,
Rob. of Glouc. 1. 1264. Cf. wrenk, wrench, a trick, Cursor Mundi,
13336, 29307. AS. wrenc (dat. wrence), guile, fraud, deceit, Grein,
ii, 742. B. It is obvious that mod. E. has preserved the orig.
sense, and that the AS. and ME. uses are merely metaphorical.
So also G. rank (pl. ranke), a cognate form, means an intrigue,
trick, artifice, but provincially it means ‘crookedness,’ Fliigel ;
hence MIIG. renken, G. verrenken, to wrench. (On the other hand,
mod. E. only uses the allied word wrong in the metaphorical sense
of perverse, bad.] Teut. type *wrankiz, lit. ‘a twist.’ From
*wrank, 2nd grade of *wrenk-, for which see Wrinkle. Der.
wrench, verb, AS. wrencan, to deceive, Grein, ii. 742; so also AS.
bewrencan, to obtain by fraud, A. S. Apothegms, no. 34, pr. in
Salomon and Saturn, ed. Kemble, p. 262.
WREST, to twist fozcibly, distort. (E.) ME. wrestex, in the
sense to wrestle, struggle, Ancren Riwle, p. 374, 1. 7; Cursor
Mundi, 19353. AS. wrestan, to twist forcibly, Grein, il. 740; cf.
Salomon aid Saturn, ed. Kemble, p. 140, 1. 191. We also find
AS. wrest, adj., firm, strong (Grein); the orig. sense of which is
supposed to have been tightly twisted, or rather (as I should sup-
pose) tightly strung, with reference to the strings of a harp when
tightened by the instrument called a wrest; see Shak. Troil. iii. 3. 23;
and note that the word strong itself merely means strung.+Icel.
reista, to wrest; MDan. vreste, to wrest, Dan. vriste. B. The
form wrest is closely allied to wr#0, a wreath or twisted bandage,
and stands (probably) for Teut. *wraith-t-joz; from Teut. *wraith-,
as in AS. wrad, 2nd grade of wriddan, to writhe or twist; see
Writhe. Andsee Wrist. Der. wrest, sb. (asabove) ; wrest-le, q.v.
WRESTLE, to struggle, contend by grappling together. (E.)
ME, wrestlen, Gower, C. A. iii. 350, bk. viii. 2240; wrastlen,
Ancren Riwle, p. 80, 1. 7. The frequentative of Wrest, αν.
The AS. wr#stlian, to wrestle, is rare; the form more commonly
tound is wraxlian, Gen. xxxii. 24, whence ME. wraxlen, P. Plow-
man, C. xvii. 80, where we also find the various readings wrastle,
wrackle. Still, we find: ‘Luctatur [read Luctator], wréstlere;
Luctatorum, wréstliendra;’ Voc. 431. 25, 26.4-MDu. wrastelen,
worstelen, ‘to wrestle or to struggle,’ Hexham. Der. wrestl-er,
wrestl-ing.
WRETCH, a miserable creature. (E.) Orig. an outcast or
exile. ME. wrecche, Chaucer, C. T. 933 (A 931), where Tyrwhitt
prints wretched wight, and omits which. AS. wrecca, an outcast,
exile, lit. ‘one driven out,’ also spelt wrecca, wreca, Grein, ii. 739.
Cf. AS. wrec, exile. AS. wrecan, to drive out, also to persecute,
wreak, avenge ; see Wreak. Cf. Lithuan. wargas, affliction, misery.
Der. wretch-ed, ME. wrecched, Chaucer, C. T. 923 (A 921), lit.
‘made like a wretch;’ wretch-ed-ly, wretch-ed-ness,
WRETCHLESSNESS, a misspelling of recklessness, i.e. reck-
lessness; see Reck,
WRIST 725
WRIGGLE, to move along by twisting to and fro. (Ε.) With
their much winding and wrigling ;’ Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xxxii.
c.2.§1. The frequentative of wrig, to move about; ‘ The bore his
tayle wrygges, Skelton, Elinour Rumming, 1. 177. Allied to ME.
wrikken, to twist to and fro, Life of St. Dunstan, 1. 82; see Spec. of
Eng., ed. Morris and Skeat, p. 22. Not found in AS., but a Low G.
word as well as Scand., and preserved in mod. E. wrick, to twist.
B. We find the closely related AS. wrigian, to impel, move towards,
but this became ME. wriex (with loss of g), whence mod. E. wry,
adj.; see further under Wry and Wring. ME. wrikken and AS.
wrigian are closely related forms.+Du. wriggelen, to wriggle ; fre-
quentative of wrikken, ‘to move or stir to and fro,’ Sewel ; whence
onwrikbaar, immovable, steady; Low G. (Westphalian) vriggeln,
to wriggle, to loosen by moving to and fro; (Hamburg) wrickeln, to
wriggle ; Low G. wriggeln, to wriggle (Danneil); wrikken, to turn,
move to and fro, wriggle; Dan. urikke, to wriggle; Swed. vricka,
to turn to and fro, whence vrickning, distortion. y. The orig.
sense seems to have been ‘to bend’ or ‘turn ;’ and we may deduce
the orig. sense of 15. wriggle as having been ‘to keep on bending
or twisting about.’ See also Rig (2). Der. wriggl-er. Also
rick-ets, ἢν.
WRIGHT, a workman. (E.) ME. wrighte, Chaucer, C. T.
3145 (A 3143). AS. wyrhta, a worker, workman, maker, creator;
Grein, ii, 763; with the common shifting of r.—AS. wyrht, a deed,
work ; formed, with suffix -¢, from wyre-an, to work. (The AS.
wyrht occurs in ge-wyrht, a work, Grein, i. 489, where the prefix ge-
makes no appreciable difference; and it stands for *wyrc-¢, with the
usual substitution of At for ct).4-OSax. wurhtio, a wright, from
wurht, a deed; OHG. wurhto, a wright, from OHG, wuruht, wuraht,
a work, merit. β. The AS. gewyrht, OSax. wurht, OHG. wuruht,
are all from Teut. *wark-, weak grade of *werk- ; see Work. Der.
cart-wright, ship-wright, wheel-wright.
WRING, to twist, force by twisting, compress, pain, bend aside.
(E.) ME. wringen; pt. t. wrang, wrong, Chaucer, C. T. 5026
(B 606) ; pp. wrungen, wrongen. AS, wringan, to press, compress,
strain, pt. t. wrang, Gen. xl. 11, pp. wrungon.+Du. wringen ; Low G.
wringen, to twist together; G. ringen, to wring, wrest, turn, struggle,
wrestle ; a strong verb, pt. t. rang, pp. gerungen; OHG. hringan
(for *wringan), strong verb. B. All from Teut. type *wreng-an-,
pt. t. *wrang, pp. *wrunganoz; a nasalised form from a base *wreg =
*werg ; for which see Worry. And cf. Wriggle. Der. wrang-
le, wrong ; probably allied to wrench, wrink-le, wrigg-le, wry.
WRINKLE (1), a small ridge on a surface, unevenness. (E.)
ME, wrinkel or wrinkil. ‘ Wrynkyl, or rympyl, or wrympyl, Ruga;
Wrynkyl, or playte [pleat] in clothe, Plica;’ Prompt. Parv. [Here
the spelling wrympyl stands for *hrympyl ; wrinkle and rimple are from
different roots, as shown under ripple (2). Elsewhere, we find, in
Prompt. Parv. p. 434, the spelling rympy/, given under R.] The pl.
wrinclis occurs, in the various readings of the later version, in Wyclif,
Gen. xxxyill. 14. Somner gives AS. wrinclian, to wrinkle ; the pp.
ge-wrinclod occurs in Kemble, Cod. Dipl. iv. 34; 1.9. Froma sb.
*wrincel. B. Evidently a dimin. form from a base *wrenk, prob.
allied to Teut. *wreng-an-, to wring, to twist. See Wring; and
see Wrinkle (2).4MDu. wrinckel, ‘a wrinckle;’ wrinckelen, ‘to
wrinckle, or to crispe;’ prob. allied to wringen, ‘to wreath [i.e.
writhe, twist] or to wring;’ Hexham. Perhaps further allied to
Goth. wraiqs, crooked, Luke, iii. 5 ; L. uerg-ere, to bend ; Skt. v7j-
ina-, crooked; Gk. ῥαιβ-ός, crooked, ῥέμβ-ειν, torevolve. Brugmann,
i. §§ 371,677. See Rhomb. = J Dan. rynke, a wrinkle, pucker,
gather, fold, rynke, to wrinkle, Swed. rynka, both sb. and vb., and
Icel. hrukka (for *hrunka), a wrinkle, are all forms due to the weak
grade of an old str. vb. *krenkan-, and are related rather to Ruck (1).
Der. wrinkle, vb. ; wrinkl-y.
WRINKLE (2), 2 hint, small piece of advice. (E.) Prov. E.
wrinkle, a new idea (Halliwell). It means ‘a new idea’ imparted
by another, a hint; but the lit. sense is ‘a small trick,’ or ‘little
stratagem.’ ‘Havinglearned . . . euery wrinckle ;’ Lyly, Euphues,
p- 389 (ed. Arber). And see Polit. Poems, ed. Wright, ii. 45; 1. 7.
It is the dimin. of AS. wrenc, a trick; for which see Wrench.
Allied to Wrinkle (1).
WRIST, the joint which turns the hand. (E.) The pl. is spelt
wrestes in Spenser, F. Ὁ, i. 5.6. ΜΕ. wriste or wrist; also wirst, by
shifting of r, ‘Wryst, or wyrste of an hande;’ Prompt. Pary. AS.
wrist. We find ‘68 pawriste’ =up to the wrist ; Laws of Aithelstan,
pt. iv. § 7, in Thorpe, Ancient Laws, i. 226, 1.17. The full form was
hand-wrist, i.e. that which turns the hand about. We find “ betwux
elboga and handwyrste’=betwixt elbow and handwrist; Voc. 158.
το. Cf. ‘geniculi, cneow-wyrste,’ i.e. knee-joints, Voc. 160. 17.
Prob. for *wrid-t, and formed with suffix -¢ from wrid-, weak
grade of wridan, to writhe, to twist; see Writhe. Cf. Wrest,
from the same verb. OF nies. wriust, wrist, werst; whence hondwriust,
726 WRITE
hand-wrist, fotzriust, foot-wrist or instep; Low G, wrist; Icel. ris?,
the instep; cf. rid-inn, pp. of rida, to twist; Dan. and Swed. vris¢,
the instep; cf. vride, vrida, to twist ; G. rist, instep, wrist. Cf. also
Westphal. werste, the instep, vrist, the ankle; Low G. (Hamburg)
wristen, pl., wrists, ankles. Der. wrist-band, the band of the sleeve
at the wrist.
WRITE, to form letters with a pen or pencil, engrave, express in
writing, compose, communicate a letter. (E.) The orig. sense was
‘to score,’ i.e. to cut slightly, as when one scores letters or marks on
a piece of bark or soft wood with a knife; it also meant to engrave
runes on stone. ME. writen, pt. t. wroot, Chaucer, Ὁ. T. 5310
(B 890); pp. writen (with short 7). AS. writan, pt. t. wrat, pp.
writen, to write, inscribe (orig. to score, engrave), Grein, ii. 743.+
OSax. writan, to cut, injure, also to write; Du. rijten, to tear, split ;
Icel. rita, pt. t. reit, pp. ritinn, to scratch, cut, write; Swed. rita, to
draw, delineate ; G. reissen, pt. t. riss, pp. gerissen, OHG. rizan, to
cut, tear, split, draw or delineate. Cf. Goth. writs, a stroke made
with a pen. B. All from the Teut. type *wreit-an-, pt. t. *wrait,
ῬΡ- writ-anoz, to cut, scratch, hence to engrave, write. Der. writ, sb.,
AS. ge-writ, also writ, a writing, Grein, i. 486, ii. 743, from writ-,
weak grade of writan, to write. Also writ-er, AS. writere, Matt. ii. 4 ;
wril-er-shi», writ-ing.
WRITHE, to twist to and fro. (E.) Spelt wrethe in Palsgrave.
ME. writhen, spelt wryihen in Chaucer, tr. of Boethins, Ὁ. v. pr. 3,
1. 15; pt. t. wroth (with long 0), Gawain and the Grene Knight,
1. 1209 ; pp. writhen (with short 2), P. Plowman, B. xvii. 174. Cf.
writhing in Chaucer, C. T. 10441 (F 127). AS, wridan, to twist,
wind about, pt. t. wrad, pp. wriden, Grein, ii. 743.4Icel. rida (for
*wrida), pt. t. reid, pp. ridinn; Dan. vride; Swed. vrida, to wring,
twist, turn, wrest; OHG. ridan, MHG, riden, a strong verb, now
lost. B. All from Teut. type *wreith-an-, pt. t. *wraith, pp.
*writh-anoz, to twist. Der. wrath, wroth, wreath, wri-st, wre-st.
WRONG, perverted, unjust, bad; also as sb., that which is
wrong or unjust. (Scand.) ME, wrong, adj., Will. of Palerne, 706 ;
sb., P. Plowman, Bb. iii. 175. Late AS. wrang (a passing into ὁ
before 2), occurs as a sb. in the A. S. Chron, an. 1124. Properly
an adj. signifying ‘a wrong thing,’ a thing perverted or wrung aside ;
compare the use of wrong nose, tor “ crooked nose,’ in Wyclif, Levit.
xxi. 19 (later version), Not E., but Scand.—ONorse *wrangr ; as in
Icel. rangr, awry, metaphorically, wrong, unjust; Dan. vrang,
wrong, adj.; Swed. urdng, perverse. All from Teut. *wrang, 2nd
grade of *wrengan-, to wring, twist;see Wring. Der. wrong, verb,
to injure, as in ‘to wrong the wronger,’ Shak. Lucrece, 819 ; wrong-er
(as above); wrong-ly; wrong-ful, Wyclif, Luke, xii. 58 (earlier
version); wrong-ful-ly, -ness; wrong-head-ed, i.e. perverse. Also
wrong-wise, ME. wrongwis, O. Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, 1, 17.591. 256
(Swed. vrdngvis, iniquitous), now obsolete, but remarkable as being
the converse of E. rxghteous, formerly right-wise; Palsgrave actually
spells it wrongeous !
WROTH, full of wrath, angry. (E.) ΜΕ. wroth, Chaucer,
Parl. of Foules, 1. 504. AS. wrad, wroth, Grein, ii. 737.—AS.
wrad, 2nd grade of wridan, to writhe; so that the orig. sense was
twisted or perverted in one’s temper.-++ Du. wreed, cruel; Icel. reidr ;
Dan. vred; Swed. vred; OHG. reid, reidi, only in the sense of twisted
or curled. All from Teut. *wraith, and grade of *wreithan-. See
Writhe and Wrath.
WRY, twisted or turned to one side. (E.) ‘ With visage wry ;’
Court of Love, 1. 1162 (a late poem, perhaps 16th century). But the
verb wrien, to twist, bend, occurs in Chaucer, C. T. 17211 (H 262) ;
and answers to AS. wrigian, to drive, impel, also to tend or bend
towards. ‘Hlaford min... wrigad on wonge’= my lord [i.e.
master of a plough] puskes his way along the field ; Codex Exoni-
ensis, ed. Thorpe, p. 403 (Riddle xxii, 1. 9). Οἵα bough bent down,
and then let go, it is said: ‘wrigad wip his gecyndes’=it moves
towards its kind, i.e. as it is naturally inclined; Alfred, tr. of
Boethius, Ὁ. iii. met. 2 (cap. xxv). This AS. base wrig- is preserved
in the frequentative Wriggle, 4. v. See further under Awry. Der.
a-wry,q. V.; wry-neck, a small bird, allied to the woodpecker, so called
from ‘the writhing snake-like motion which it can impart to its neck
without moving the rest of its body ;” Engl. Cycl. Also wry-ness.
WYCH-ELM ; see under Witch-elm.
WYVERN, WIVERN, in heraldry, a kind of flying serpent or
two-legged dragon. (F.—L.) The final is excrescent after r, as
in bitter-n, q.v. ME. wivere, a serpent, Chaucer, Troilus, iii. 1010.
=AF. wyvre (also guivere) ; see Notes on E. Ktym. p. 470; OF.
wivre, a serpent, viper, esp. in blazon; see Roquetort and Burguy ;
mod. F. givre,a viper. Burguy says it was also formerly spelt vivre,
and that it is still spelt vorvre in some F. dialects. = L. utpera, a viper ;
see Viper. 4 The spelling with w in OF. was due to Germanic
inflnence; as if from an OHG. *wipera, borrowed from L. wipera.
Doublet, viper.
YANKEE
x
XEBEC, a small three-masted vessel used in the Mediterranean.
(Span.—Turk.) In Ash’s Dict. ed. 1775.—Span. xabeque, a xebec.
So also Port. zabeco, F. chebec.— Turk. sumbaki, written sunbaki,
‘a kind of Asiatic ship;’ Rich. Dict. p. 852. He also gives Pers.
sumbuk, a small ship; Arab, sumbik, a small boat, a pinnace. See
Devic, Supp. to Littré, 5. v. chebec, which is the F. form; he notes
also Port. xabeco, Ital. zambecco, the latter form retaining the nasal m,
which is lost in the other languages. He adds that the word sum-
beki is given in the first ed. of Meninski’s Thesaurus (1680) ; and that
the mod. Arab. word is shabbak ; see Dozy, Glossaire, p. 352.
XYLOBALSAM, the wood (or dried twigs) of the balm-of-
Gilead tree. (L.—Gk.) ‘The Indians doe call it XiJo, and we do
call the same Balsamo ;’ Frampton, tr. of Monardes, fol. 7, back.
Evidently an error, as the word occurs in Pliny. Spelt xylobalsamum
in Holland, tr. of Pliny.—L. xylobalsamum; Pliny, Nat. Hist. Ὁ. xii.
c. 25. — Gk. ξυλοβάλσαμον, the wood of the balsam tree. —Gk. ξυλο-,
for ξύλον, wood; and βάλσαμον, resin of the βάλσαμος, or balsam-
tree, a word of Semitic origin; see Balsam. From ξύλον we also
have xylo-graphy, engraving on wood.
oa
Y-, prefix. (E.) This prefix is nearly obsolete, being only retained
in the archaic words y-clept (called), y-wis (certainly). The ME.
forms are y-, ἐπ; the latter being frequently written 7 (as a capital).
= AS. ge-, an extremely common pretix, both of sbs. and verbs. {In
verbs it was prefixed, not only to the pp. (as in mod. G, and in
Middle-English), but also to the past tense, to the infinitive, or indeed
occasionally to any part of the verb, without appreciably affecting the
sense. In the word y-wis, certainly, many editors have ignorantly
mistaken it for the pronoun J; see Ywis. It appears as e- in the
word e-nough ; and as a- in the word a-ware.|4-Du. ge-, prefix; G.
ge-; OHG. ka-, ki-; Goth. ga-. As regards usage, it resembles L.
com-, con-, for cum, with; but the forms can hardly be reconciled.
YACHT, a swift pleasure-boat. (Du.) Pron. yor. ‘One of his
yachts ;’ Evelyn’s Diary, Oct. 1, 1661. In Phillips, ed. 1706; also
in Blount’s Gloss., ed. 1674, where itis badly spelt yatcht ; Bailey has
yatch, = Du. jagt, formerly spelt jacht ; ‘een Iacht, ofte [or] See-roovers
Schip, a pinace, or a pirate’s ship,’ Hexham. ‘ Fagt, a yacht;’
Sewel. Named from its speed; cf. Du. jagten (formerly jachten), to
speed, to hunt; jagt (formerly jackt), a hunting. Du. jagen, ‘to
hunt or to chase deere, hares, &c.;”’ Hexham.+4G. jagen, to hunt,
Der. vacht-er, yacht-ing.
YAK, the name of a bovine quadruped. (Thibet.) In a Thibetan
Dict., by H. A. Jaschke, p. 668, we are told that the Thibet. word
is yyag, a male yak, the female being called po-yyag. The symbol
7 is used to denote a peculiar Thibetan sound.
YAM, a large esculent tuber, resembling the potato. (Port.—W.
African.) Mentioned in Cook’s Voyages (Todd) ; ed. 1777, i. 146;
and by H. Pitman in 1689, in Arber’s Eng. Garner, vii. 367.
— Port. ixkame, a yam; not given in Vieyra, but noted in Webster
and in Littré. Littré gives the Εἰ, form as igname, which he says is
borrowed from the Port. ixhame ; and adds: ‘it was the Portuguese
who first found the yam used as an object of culture, first on the
coast of Africa, afterwards in India and Malacca, and gave it its name ;
but the language whence it was taken is unknown.’ It is really
W. African; see Hakluyt’s Voyages (1599), v. ii. pt. 2. p.129; where
the African name is given as zxamia, in Benin; under the date 1588.
Called #ames in Minsheu’s Span, Dict. (1623). See Noteson E. Etym.
p. 323. ‘ The country [Benin] abounds with yams ;’ Voyages, 1745 ;
1.707. The Malay name is ab? ; Marsden, Malay Dict. p. 21.
YANKEE, a citizen of New England, or (later) of the United
States. (Dutch?) The word occurs as early as 1765. Webster
cites: ‘From meanness first this Portsmouth Yankee rose, And still to
meanness all his conduct flows,’ Oppression, A Poem by an American,
Boston, 1765. We also find in the same: ‘Commonly considered to
be a corrupt pronunciation of the word English, or of the F. word
Anglais, by the native Indians of America. According to Thierry,
a corruption of Fankin, a dimin. of Fokn, a nickname given to the
English colonists of Connecticut by the Dutch settlers of New York,’
{which may be partly correct]. Note that a Captain Vanky, com-
manding a Dutch ship, is mentioned several times in Dampier’s
Voyages, ed. 1699, i. 38, 39. Again, a Dutch boat seems to have
YAP
been called a yanky by Smollett, Sir L. Greaves, ch. iii (Davies).
B. Dr. Wm. Gordon, in his Hist. of the American War. ed. 1789,
vol. i. pp. 324. 325, Says it was a favourite cant word in Cambridge,
Mass., as early as 1713, and that it meant ‘excellent ;’ as, a yankee
good horse, yankee good cider, &c. He supposes that it was adopted
by the students there as a by-word, and, being carried by them from |
the college, obtained currency in the other New England colonies,
until at length it was taken up in other parts of the country, and
applied to New Englanders generally as a term of slight reproach.
Cf. Lowland Sc. yankie, a sharp, clever, forward woman ; yanker, an
agile girl, an incessant speaker; yanker, a smart stroke, a great false-
hood, a bounce; yank, a sudden and severe blow, a sharp stroke;
yanking, active, pushing (Jamieson). Without the nasal, there is
also Lowland Sc. yack, to talk precipitately and indistinctly, yazke, a
stroke or blow. y. The reference in 1765 may well be to Ports-
mouth in New Hampshire, not far to the N. of Boston ; and Thierry
may be right in supposing it to be a Dutch nickname. I accept the
suggestion made by Dr. ἘΠ. Logeman, that Vankee was formed (like
Chinee from Chinese, &c.) from the Du. Fax Kees, a familiar form of
John Cornelius. Both fan and Kees are very common Du. names,
and both were familiarly used as terms of contempt ; see N. and Ὁ.
10 S. iv. 509, v. 15. Cf. EFries. Jan, John, and Kés, Cornelius
(Koolman). The EFries. és also meant ‘ cheese ;’ and it is remark-
able that Ascham uses John Cheese as a term of contempt; as in—
“Away, good Peek-goos! hens, Yokn Cheese!’ The Scholemaster,
ed. Arber, bk. i. p. 54.
YAP, to yelp, bark. (E.) ‘The yapping of a cur;’ L’Estrange,
tr. of Quevedo, p. 243 (Todd), Yap is imitative ; so also yaup, the
Lowland Sc. equivalent of yelp (Jamieson). The Lowland Sc. yaf*
also occurs, which is a variant of yap. The F. japper, ‘to bark, to
yawle,’ Cot., is of similar origin. Cf. EFries. and Low G. jappen,
to gasp; Norm. dial. japer, to yap (Dumeril).
YARD (1), an enclosed space. (E.) ME. yerd, Chaucer, Ὁ. T.
15181 (B 4365). AS. geard, an enclosure, court; Grein, i. 493.
Du. gaard, a yard, garden; Icel. gardr (whence prov. E. garth) ;
Dan. gaard; Swed. gard; Goth. gards, a house; allied to Goth.
garda, a field, OHG, gart, garto, whence G. garten.4+Russ. gorod’,
a town; L. hortus; Gk. χόρτος, a court-yard, enclosure; Olrish
gort, a field, B. From the Teut. type *gardoz, m.; Idg. type
*ghorios, a yard, court, enclosure. But the connexion with Gk.
χόρτος is uncertain. See Gird(1). Der. court-yard, orchard. From
the same root are garden, gird (1), gird-le; horti-culture; as well as
cohort, court, curt-ain, δε. Doublets, garden, proy. E. garth.
YARD (2), a rod, an E. measure of 36 inches, a cross-beam on a
mast for spreading square sails. (E.) ME. 3erde, yerde, a stick,
Chaucer, C. T. 149; also a yard in length, id. 1052 (A 1050). AS.
gyrd, gerd, a stick, rod; Grein, i. 536.-+-Du. garde, a twig, rod; G.
gerte, a rod, switch; OHG, gerta, kerta. Teut. type *gardja, f.
Allied to Ὁ. Bulgarian Zridi (Russ. jerde),arod. But not to Goth.
gazds,a goad. See Streitberg, § 125 (4). Der. yard-arm, the arm
(i.e. the half) of a ship’s yard, from the mast to the end of it.
YARKH, ready. (E.) As adj. in Temp. y. 224; as adv., readily,
quickly, Temp. i. 1. 7. ME. 3are, Will. of Palerne, 895, 1963,
3205; yare, Rob. of Glouc. p. 52, 1.1213. AS. gearu, gearo, ready,
quick, prompt; Grein, ii. 493.4+Du. gaar, done, dressed (as meat) ;
gaar, ady., wholly; Icel. gorr, adj., ready; gérva, gerva, gjorva,
adj., quite, wholly ; OHG. garo, karo, prepared, ready; G. gar, ady.,
wholly. 8. Teut. type *garwoz, adj., ready (Fick, ili. 102). Allied
to Gear. Der. yare-ly, adv., Temp. 1. 1. 43 also gear, garb (1),
gar (2). Also (perhaps) yarr-ow, ἢ. v.
YARN, spun thread, the thread of a rope. (E.) ME. yarn, 3arn;
‘Zarne, threde, Filwm;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 536. AS. gearn, yarn,
Voc. 238. 27.--Du. garen; Icel., Dan., and Swed. garn; G. garn.
B. All from the Teut. type *garnom, n., yarn, string, Fick, iii. ror.
Further allied to. Gk. χορδή, a string, orig. a string of gnt; cf. Icel.
gorn, or garnir, guts (i.e. strings or cords); Lith. Zarnos, guts; L.
haru-, in haru-spex, inspector of entrails. See Cord, Chord. Cf.
Brugmann, i. § 605.
YARROW, the plant milfoil. (E.) ME. 3arowe, 3arwe; Prompt.
Parv. Ὁ. 536. AS. g@ruwe, explained by ‘millefolium ;’ Voc. 133. 32;
spelt gearwe, id. 32. 36.4-Du. gerw; G. garbe; MHG. garbe, garwe,
OHG.garawa. B. Perhaps there is a reference to the old belief in the
curative properties of the yarrow, which was supposed to be a great
remedy for wounds; in Cockayne’s A. S. Leechdoms, i. 193, we are
told that Achilles was the first person who applied it to the cure of
sword-wounds ; hence, indeed, its botanical name of Achillea mille-
folium, Ifso, we might connect it with the verb gearwian, to make
ready, from the adj. gearo, ready, yare; see Yare. Thus yarrow=
that which makes yar-e, or restores. But this is uncertain.
YVATAGHAN, ATAGHAN, a dagger-like sabre, with doubly
curved blade. (Turk.) Spelt a¢aghan in Byron, Giaour ; see note 27.
YEAN, EAN 727
Spelt yataghan or ataghan in F. also. — Turk. yatighain, a yataghan ;
see Devic, and Pavet de Courteille, Dict. du Ture Oriental ; spelt
yataghan, yataghan, Zenker’s Dict. pp. 947, 958.
YAW, to go unsteadily, bend out of its course, said of a ship.
(Seand.—Du.) In Hamlet, y. 2. 120. The sense is to go aside,
swerve, bend out of the course; see Phillips.—Icel. jaga, properly,
to hunt; but used in the peculiarly specialised sense ‘to move to
and fro;’ see Vigfusson. For the sound aw, cf. the derivation of
mod. Ἐς, awe from Icel. agi. Cf. Dan. jage, Swed. jaga, to hunt.=
Du. jagen, to hunt, drive, chase. See further under Yacht.
YAWL (1), a small boat. (Du.) In Anson’s Voyages, b. ii..c. 3
(R.). ‘Barges or yauls of different kinds ;’ Drammond’s Travels
(Letter, dated 1744), p. 87 (Todd). ‘Like our Deal yalls;’ W.
Dampier, A New Voyage, i. 429. The word is common at Lowes-
toft.— Dn. jol, a yawl, skiff; Sewel explains jol as ‘a Jutland boat.’
Cf. Dan. jolle ; Swed. julle,a yawl. Hexham records MDu. iolleken,
‘a small barke or boate.’ The mod. Icel. form is jada. B. Prob.
of Low G, origin. The Low G. forms are jelle, jolle, 71.116 (Scham-
bach); also gelle, golle, jalle (Koolman, s.y. 7116); of which the
forms gelle, gélle seem older than the rest. A borrowing from L,
galea seems possible. See Galley.
YAWL (2), to howl. (E.) ‘There howling Scyllas, yawling
round about;’ Fairfax, tr. of Tasso, b. iv. st. 5. Also spelt yole,
yowl (Halliwell). ME. goulen, Havelok, 164; joulen, Chaucer, C. T.
Group A, 1278 (Six-text ed.) ; Wyclif, Micah, i. 8; j3aulen, Gawain
and the Grene Knight, 1453. Of imitative origin. Cf. EFries.
jaueln, Low G. jaueln, to yawl; Du. jolen, to groan.+Icel. gawa,
to low, bellow ; Norweg. gaula, to bellow, low, roar (Aasen) ; Swed.
dial. géla, gjola. Of imitative origin, like yell. See Yell,
YAWN, to gape. (E.) Spelt yaxe in Palsgrave. ME. geonien,
Ancren Riwle, p. 242; whence Εἰ. yawx, by lengthening of 0 to open
long 0; cf. E. frost, broth. [Cf. also ME. ganien, Chaucer, Six-text
ed., Group H, 1. 35; where Tyrwhitt (1. 16984) has galpeth.] AS.
geonian; tr. of Beda, Hist. iv. 19; variant of ginian, tr. of Orosius,
lii. 3. From gin-, weak grade of -ginax (pt. t. -gaz), in comp.
be-ginan, to yawn (Grein). Cf. AS. gdnian, to yawn; Grein, i. 370.
+OHG, ginen, to yawn. Cf. Icel. gina, to gape, pt. t. gein; MDu.
gienen, ‘to yawne,’ Hexham; Du. geeuwen, to yawn. From Idg.
WGHEI, whence also L. hi-are, to gape; Slav. root zi-, to gape,
in Miklosich. Der. yawn-ing. From the same root, hi-at-us,
YE, the nom. pl. of the 2nd personal pronoun, (E.) The nom. pl.
is properly ye, whilst the dat. and acc, pl. is you; the gen. pl. is
properly you, now only used as a possessive pronoun. But in mod.
E. ye is almost disused, and you is constantly used in the nominative,
not only in the plural, but in the singular, as a substitute for shou.
‘Ye in me, and 1 in you; John, xiv. 20; this shows the correct use.
ME. ye, 3e, nom. ; your, jour, gen. ; you, jou, yow, dat. and acc, AS.
gé, nom. ; eower, gen.; edw, dat. and acc. ; Grein, i. 263, 375.4-Du.
gij, ye; u, you; Icel. &, ier, ye; yar, your; yor, you; Dan, and
Swed. 2, ye (also you); G. thr; OHG. ir, ye, imwar, iuwer, your, iu,
you; Goth. jis, ye; izwara, your; izwis, you. We also have the
AS. dual form git, ye two. β. The common Idg. base is ya-,
whence also Lithuan. jis, ye, Gk. b-pets, ye, Skt. yu-yam, ye. See
Brugmann, ii. § 436.
YEA, an affirmative adverb ; verily. (E.) The distinction between
ME. 3e, 3a, yea, and 3is, 32s, 2115, yes, is commonly well marked; the
former is the simple affirmative, giving assent, whilst the latter is
a strong asseveration, often accompanied by an oath; see Will of
Palerne, &c. Spelt ye, Chaucer, C. T. 9219 (E1345). OFries. 72,
AS. géa, ged, yea; John, xxi. 15.4-Du., Dan., Swed., and ἃ. ja;
Icel. 78 ; Goth. ja, jai; W. ie; Gk. ἢ, truly. Der. ye-s, q.v.
YEAN, EAN, to bring forth lambs, (E.) ‘ The new-yean’d lamb ;”
Beaum. and Fletcher, Faithful Shepherdess, iii. 1. Spelt eaz in
Shak. Merch. Ven. i. 3. 88; ME. enen; ‘Enyn, or brynge forthe
kyndelyngys, Feto;’ Prompt. Parv. p. 140. The difference between
ean and yean is easily explained ; in the latter, the prefixed y repre-
sents the very common AS. prefix ge-, readily added to any verb
without affecting the sense; see Y-, prefix, above. AS. éanian, to
ean, Lambeth Psalter, Ps. lxvii. 70; ge-€anian, to yean, of which the
only clear trace appears to be in the expression ge-éane eowa=the
ewes great with young, Gen. xxxiii. 13. B. The AS. éa answers to
Germanic az, and the suffix -ian to Germ. -djan (Sievers, Gr. § 411);
so that the Germ. type is *aundjan; a type which also appears in
Dutch dial. coven, to ean; see Franck. This appears to be derived
from a form *au-no-, meaning ‘lamb ;’ which some censider as being
allied to Goth. aw-is, L. ou-is,a sheep, AS. eowu, aewe. See Ewe.
Scheller, in his Bavarian Dict. p. 1, cites the forms Gen, duen, dumwen,
to yean, produce lambs, which are immediately derived from di, au,
duw,aewe. Cf. Kluge, 5.0. Schaf. y. But Kluge and Lutz (Eng.
Etym.) consider Teut. *auvo- as equivalent to *agwno-, correspond-
ing to L. agnus, a lamb, and to Celtic type *ognos, a lamb, as seen
728 YEAR
in Olrish aan, W. oen, Bret. oan, a lamb. So also Swed. dial. dina,
ona, to yean; from on, a lamb (Rietz, p. 114). Also Manx eayney,
to yean, from eayn, a lamb. ‘Thus the sense is merely ‘to produce
lambs.’ Brugmann, i. §§ 671, 704. Der. yean-ling, a new-born
lamb; with double dimin. suffix -/-ing.
YEAR, the time of the earth’s revolution round the sun. (E.)
ME. jeer, yeer, jer, yer; Chaucer, C. Τὶ 601, where it appears as a
plural. This sb. was formerly unaltered in the plural, like sheep,
deer; hence the mod. phrase ‘a two-year old colt. The pl. year is
common in Shak. Temp. i. 2. 53, &c. AS. géar, gér, a year; pl.
géar; Grein, i. 496.4Du. jaar; Icel. Gr; Dan. aar, pl. aar; Swed.
ar; G. jakr; OHG. jar; Goth. jér. β. All from Teut. type *y#rom,
n., a year. Further allied to Gk. ὧρος, a season, a year; wpa, a
season, an hour.=—4/YE, to go, pass; an extension from 4/ ΕἸ, to go;
whence also Skt. ya¢u-, time. See Hour. Brugmann, i. § 308,
ii. § 587. Der. year-ly, adj. and ady.; year-ling, an animal a year
old, with double dimin. suffix -/-ing. Allied to hour.
YEARN (1), to desire strongly, be eager for. (E.) ME. 3ernen,
P. Plowman, B. i. 35. Cf. AS. giernan, to yearn, be desirous ;
later gyrnan, Grein, i. 537; formed (by the usual change of eo to ie)
from AS. georn, adj., desirous, eager, id. i. 500. Cf. also georndon,
desired; A. S, Chron, an. 1o11; which better agrees with the ME.
form.+lIcel. girna, to desire; from gjarn, eager; Goth. gairnjan, to
long for, from -gairns, desirous, only in the comp. fathu-gairns,
covetous, lit. desirous of money. B. The verb answers to a Teut.
type *gernjan-, from the adj. *ger-noz, desirous of. Again, the
adj. is formed (with Idg. suffix -xo) from the base GER, appear-
ing in OHG, geron, keron, mod. G. be-gehren, to long for.—4/GHER,
to desire; whence also Gk. χαίρειν, to rejoice, χαρά, joy, L. hor-tor,
T urge, Skt. dary, to desire. Der. yearn-ing,-ly. ts Not connected
with earnest (1), but with hor-tatory.
YEARN (2), to grieve. (E.) This verb, not often well explained,
occurs several times in Shak.; and it is remarkable that Shak. never
uses yearn in the sense ‘to long for,’ i.e. he never uses it in the sense
of the verb yearn (1) above. It is often spelt earn or ern in old
editions. The proper sense is intransitive, to grieve, mourn, Hen. V,
ii. 3. 3, il. 3.6; Jul. Cees. ii. 2. 129; it is also transitive, to grieve,
vex, Merry Wives, ili. 5. 45; Rich. II, v. 5. 76; Hen. V, iv. 3. 26.
Other authors use it besides Shakespeare; as in the following ex-
amples. ‘I must do that my heart-strings yearn [mourn] to do;’
Beaum. and Fletcher, Bonduca, ii. 4 (Judas); and see Richardson.
Nares gives yernful, grievous, melancholy; so also prov. E. ernful
(Halliwell, Pegge). B. In the form yern or yearn, it is prob. the
same as yearn (1) above; with a change of sense from ‘desire’ to
‘regret.’ y- In the form ern or earn it answers to AS. eorn- as
found in eorn-igende, murmuring, eornfullnes, anxiety, Matt. xiii. 22.
From a verb eornian, which seems to be a mere variant of geornian,
to yearn for, desire. If so, yearn (2) is merely yearn (1) with a
change of sense. Cf. ‘ His heart did earne (i.e. yearn) To proue his
puissance ;’ Spenser, Ἐς Q.i. 1. 3. @ Possibly influenced by ME,
ermen, to grieve; see Gloss. to Chaucer.
YEAST, the froth of malt liquors in fermentation, a preparation
which raises dough. (E.) ME. 3eest. ‘ Zeest, berme, Spuma;’
Prompt. Parv. p. 537. AS. gist; spelt gyst, A. S. Leechdoms, ed.
Cockayne, i. 118, 1]. 10.4-Du. gest; Icel. jast, jastr ; Swed. jast; [Dan.
gjer\; G. gascht, gischt, MHG. jest, gest, gist. B. The Teut. type
is *yes-/-, formed (with suffix -¢-) from the base YES, to ferment,
appearing in MSwed. gasa, OHG. jesan, MHG. jesen, gesen, gern,
whence mod. G, giihren (causal). —4/YES, to foam, ferment; whence
Skt. nir-yasa-, exudations of trees, Gk. ζέειν, to boil, ζεστός, fervent.
Der. yeast-y, spelt yesty in Shak. Macb. iy. 1. 53, Hamlet, v. 2. 199,
just as yeast is also written yes‘, Wint. Tale, iil. 3. 94; the sense is
‘frothy.’ [Not allied to AS. ys¢, a storm. ]
YEDE, went. (E.) Obsolete. Also spelt yode, Spenser, F. Q. ii.
7. 2. Spenser, unaware that yede and yode are varying forms of the
same past tense, and that the verb is only used in the past tense,
wrongly uses yede or yeed as an infinitive mood (!); F. Ὁ. i. 11. 5;
ii. 4.2. ME, 3ede, yede, Chaucer, C. T., G 1141, 1281; yode, Sir
Eglamour (Thornton Romances), 531; 3eode, jede, King Horn, ed.
Lumby, 381, 1025; eode, jeode, Rob. of Glouc. pp. 53, 793 ll. 1217,
1766. The proper form is eode (Stratmann) ; it is probable that the
forms yede, yode answer rather to AS. ge-éode, with prefixed ge-, as
in the case of yean and ean, see Yean. AS. Zode, went, only in the
past tense ; pl. éodon ; Grein, i. 256, B. The pl. éodon may be com-
pared with the Goth. pl. iddjédun, they went. The Goth. iddja,
sing., answers to Skt. ayat, he went ; from the base γᾷ, to go, allied
to 4/EI, to go, as in Gk, e@-ju, I shall go. See iddja in Uhlenbeck ;
Streitberg, § 190; Brugmann, i. § 309 (2); ii. § 478. Cf. Year.
YELK, the same as Yolk, q.v.
YELL, to utter a loud noise, to howl. (E.)
Chaucer, C. T. 2674, 15395 (A 2672, B 4579).
ME. 3ellen, yellen,
AS. gellan, giellan,
YES
gyllan, to yell, cry out, resound; Grein, i. 423.4-Du. gillen; Icel.
gella; also gjalla (pt. τ. gall) ; Dan, gjelle, gjalde (for gialle) ; Swed.
galla, to ring, resound; G. gellex, to resound. β. All from the
Teut. type *gel/an-, pt. t. *gall; allied to Teut. type *galan-, to sing,
as seen in Icel. gala, to sing (pt.t. gdl, pp. galinn), AS. galan (pt. t.
gol), OHG, galan, to sing; see Nightingale. Der. yell, sb., Oth.
1. 1. 75; also stan-iel, q.v.
YELLOW, of a bright golden colour. (E.) ME. yelow, Chaucer,
C. T. 2168, 2172 (A 2166, 2170). Also spelt 3elu, jeoluh, &c.;
Stratmann. AS. geolo, geolu (acc. fem. geolwe), Grein, 1. 497.4 Du.
geel; G. gelb, OHG. gelo. B. The Teut. type is *gelwoz; Idg. type
*rhelwos, Fick, iii. 103. Further allied to L. hkeluus, light yellow;
Russ. zelenuii, green, Gk. χλόη, young verdure of trees, χλωρός,
green, Skt. hari-, green, yellow. Further allied to Gall (1). Der.
yellow-ness; yellow fever, a malignant fever that often turns the skin
yellow; yellow-ish, spelt yelowysshe in Palsgrave; yellow-ish-ness.
Also yellow-hammer, q.v.; yel-k, yol-k.
YELLOW-HAMMER, YELLOW-AMMER, 2 song-
bird, named from its yellow colour. (E.) In Ash’s Dict., ed. 1775.
Spelt yellow-hamer, Harrison, Desc. of England, bk. 111, ch. 2 (end).
Beyond doubt, the ἃ is an ignorant insertion, due to substitution of
a known for an unknown word, irrespective of the sense. Yet the
name is E., and very old. The former part of the word (yellow) is
explained above; the latter part is the AS. amore. Ina list of birds,
we find: ‘Scorellus, amore,’ Voc. 260. 27. Much older forms are
AS. omer, Corpus gloss., 1810; emer, Epinal gloss., gog. Cognate
words occur both in Du. and G.+-MDu. emmerick, emmerlinck, ‘a
kind of merlin ora hawke,’ Hexham ; Low G. geel-emerken, a yellow-
ammer; G. gelb-ammer, gold-ammer, yellow-ammer, gold-ammer;
also emmerling, a yellow-ammer; OHG. amero, an ammer.
YELP, to bark, bark shrilly. (E.) ΜΕ. 3elpen, gelpen, only in
the sense to boast, boast noisily; but it is the same word. ‘I kepe
not of armes for to yelpe;’ Chaucer, C. T. 2240 (A 2238). AS.
gulpan, gielpan, gylpan, to boast, exult; orig. to talk noisily; Grein,
i. 509. A strong verb; pt. gealp, pp. golpen; whence gilp, gielp,
gelp, gylp, boasting, arrogance, id. Icel. gja/pa, to yelp; cf. gjalfra,
to roar as the sea; MHG. gelfen. B. From a base GELP, to make
a loud noise. allied to Yell. Andcf. Yap. Der. yelp, sb.
YEOMAN, a man of small estate, an officer of the royal house-
hold. (E.) ΜΕ. 3eman, yeman, 3oman ; in Chaucer, C. T. τοι, the
Lansdowne MS. has joman, whilst the rest have jeman or yeman. In
Sir Amadas (pr. in Weber’s Met. Rom. vol. iii), 1. 347, it is written
yomon ; but the usual spelling is jeman, as above, and as in Allit.
Poems, ed. Morris, A. 534 (or 535). In Will. of Palerne, 1. 3649,
however, we have jomen, pl.; and joman, yoman, sing., Cursor
Mundi, 3077, 7822. I know not where to find an example earlier
than the 13th century. B. The variation of the vowel in the ME.
forms is curious, but we find other examples almost as remarkable ;
thus we find ME. chésex, to choose, from AS. céosan, and mod. E.
choose, answering to AS. cedsan, with the stress on 4, instead of é.
So also AS. géar, E. year, as compared with AS. geara, E. yore.
And the AS. scéotan gives both ME, shéten and mod. E. shoot.
y. The word does not appear in AS.; but it would (judging by the
foregoing examples) take the form *géa-man, regularly corresponding
to OF riesic ga@-man, a villager; and, as the AS. δα (OFr. ἃ) answers
to G. au, the first syllable is cognate with G. gau, Goth. gawi. [The
alleged AS. g@ is incorrect. Kemble, Saxons in England, b. i. c. 3,
treats of the g@ or district, though he gives no reference to show
where the word occurs; Leo (A. S, Glossar) gives ga, a district,
as in Ohigaga, Noxgaga, but we cannot draw such an_ inference
from these examples.] It will be observed that the AS. assumed
form *géa would produce ME. yé-, whilst the form *gea would
produce yd-; as in year, yore. δ. And in fact, we find AS.
Sadri-géa, i.e. Southern district, in the A. S. Chron, an. 836, 855;
as well as other examples, for which see H. M. Chadwick’s Studies
in O. English, p. 147, in Trans. Camb. Phil. Soc. 1899, vol. iv. pt. 2.
Cf. OFriesic ga, gd (nom. pl. gae), a district, village; whence
gaman, a villager; gafolk, people of a village. Also Du. gouw,
gouwe, a province; MDu. gouwe, ‘a hamlet where houses stand
scattered, a countrie village, or a field ; goograve or gograe/, a field-
judge; goy-lieden or goy-mannen, arbitratours, or men appointed to
take up a businesse betwenee man and man;’ Hexham, Also
Low ἃ. goé, gohe, a tract of country, go-grdve, a judge in one of
the 4 districts of Bremen, Brem. Worterbuch; Bavarian gau,
whence gdumann, a peasant. Cf. also G. gau, a province, OHG.
gowi, gewi, Goth. gawi. Der. yeoman-ry, where -ry is used as a
collective suffix; spelt yomanry, Dictes of the Philosophers, pr. by
Caxton, fol. 42 b.
YERK, in Shak. Hen. V, iv. 7. 83 ; equivalent to Jerk, q.v.
YES, a word denoting affirmation. (E.) A much stronger form
than yea, and often accompanied, in old authors, by an oath. ME.
YESTERDAY
jus, is, P. Plowman, B. v. 125; ‘3s, be marie,’ Will. of Palerne,
1567 ; “ jis, bi crist,’ id. 5149. AS. gise, gese; ‘ gise, 1a gese’=yes,
O, yes; “Elfred, tr. of Boethius, b. il. met. 6; cap. xvi. § 4. Pro-
bably contracted from géa swa, yea, so; cf. AS. nese, a form of
denial, for ne swa, not so.
YESTERDAY, the day last past. (E.) ME. 3istirdai, Wyclif,
John, iv. 52. AS. geostra, giestra, gystra (yester-), Grein, i. 501;
and deg, a day; commonly in the acc. geostran deg, yesterday.
Du. gisteren, dag van gister; G. gestern; Goth. gistra-dagis, to-
morrow. . Cf. L. hester-nus, adj. belonging to yesterday,
where the syllable hes- is cognate with Icel. ger, Dan. gaar, Swed.
gar, L. heri, Gk. χθές, Skt. hyas, yesterday. The suffix -ter- is a
comparative form, as in in-ter-ior, ex-ter-ior, &c. Brugmann,
i. §§ 624, 923. Der. Similarly, yester-night.
YET, moreover, besides, hitherto, still, nevertheless. (E.) ME.
zit, jet, yet, Chaucer, C. T. 565 (A 563). AS. git, get, giet, gyt;
Grein, i. 511.4-OFries. ieta, efa, ita, yet; mod. Fries. jiette (Rich-
tofen) ; ΜΗ. sezuo, ieze; whence G. je/zt, now. Origin obscure.
YEW, an evergreen tree. (E.) Spelt yowe in Palsgrave. ME.
ew, Chaucer, C. T. 2925 (A 2923). AS. iw, to translate L. taxus,
Voc. 138. 143 spelt iuu, 49. 38.4Icel. yr; G. eibe ; OHG. iwa.
B. The Teut. type is *iwd, f., or iwoz, m. The Celtic type is *iwo-,
as in Olrish eo, W. yw, Corn. hiuin, Bret. ivin, yew (Stokes-Fick,
p- 46). Of unknown origin. Distinct from iy.
ὝΕΣ, to hiccough. (E.) Prov. E. yex (Halliwell) ; spelt yeske in
Palsgrave. ME. jexen, zesken, joxen, Chaucer, C. T. 4149 (A 4151).
“3yxyn, yexen, Singulcio, Singulto;’ Prompt. Parv., p. 539. AS.
giscian, to sob, sigh; AElfred, tr. of Boethius, b. i. met. 1. c. 2.
Cf. OLow Ὁ. geskon, to yawn (Gallée). Probably an extension from
the Teut. base *gi-, weak grade of *ger-, base of gi-nan, to gape; just
as 1. hiscere, to yawn, gape, is extended from L. hi-are. See Yawn,
Hiatus.
YIELD, to resign, grant, produce, submit, give way. (E.) The
orig. sense was ‘to pay.’ ME. gelden, 3elden, yelden; a strong verb;
pt. t. yald, pp. yolden, Chaucer has un-yolden, C. T. 2644 (A 2642).
In P. Plowman, Β. xii. 193, we have both yald (strong) and 3elte
(weak), as forms of the pt. t. AS. gieldan, geldan, gildan, to pay,
restore, give up; pt.t. geald, pl. guldon, pp. golden, Grein, i. 508.
Ἔα. gelden; Icel. gjalda, pt. t. galt, pp. goldinn; Dan. gjelde;
Swed. galla (for *galda), to be of consequence, be worth; G. geléen,
to be worth, pt. t. galt, pp. gegolten; Goth. -gildan, only in the
compounds fra-gildan, us-gildan, to pay back. B. All from
Teut. type *geld-an-, to be worth, to pay for, repay. Allied to
Olrish gell, a pledge; gell-aim, I promise, engage (Stokes-Fick,
p. 113). Der. yield, sb., yield-ing, -ly; also guild or gild; but
hardly guilt.
YOKE, the frame of wood joining oxen for drawing, a similar
frame for carrying pails, a mark of servitude, a pair. (E.) ME. 30k,
yok, Chaucer, C. T. 7989 (E113). AS. geoc, gioc, ioc, a yoke;
Grein, i. 497.4Du. juk; Icel. ok ; Dan, aag; Swed. ok ; Goth. juk ;
G. joch, OHG, jok, Teut. type *yokom, n.; Idg. type *yugom, n.+4
W. iau; L. iugum (whence Ital. giogo, Span. yogo, F. joug); Russ.
igo; Lithuan, jungas; Gk. ζυγόν ; Skt. yuga-, a yoke, pair, couple.
B. All from the Idg. type *yug-om, a yoke; lit. ‘that which joins.’
From *yug-, weak grade of 4/YEUG (Teut. YEUK), to join; see
Join. Der. yoke, verb, Two Gent. 1. 1. 40; yoke-fellow, companion,
K. Lear, iii. 6. 39.
YOKEL, a country bumpkin. (E.) ‘ This was not done by a
yokel ;” Dickens, Oliver Twist, ch. 31. Lowl. Sc. yochel, a stupid,
awkward person (E. D.D.); prov. E. yokel, the plough-boy who
does the day’s ploughing or yoking ; W. Yksh. (id.); from yoke, the
time during which a ploughman and his team work at a stretch (id.).
Cf. ME. 30k, to attach a team toa cart, Barbour’s Bruce, x. 215.
Note yokelet, an old name (in Kent) for a little farm or manor;
noticed by Somner in his A. 5. Dict., s. v. Zocle..
YOLK, YELK, the yellow part of an egg. (E.) Spelt yelke in
Palsgrave. ME. jolke, Morte Arthure, 3283; 3e/ke, Prompt. Parv.
p- 537. AS. geolca, gioleca, the yolk; Grein, i. 497. Lit. ‘the
yellow part.’—AS. geolu, yellow; see Yellow.
YON, at a distance. (E.) Properly an adj., as in prov. E., in
which such phrases as ‘yon house’ and ‘yon field’ are common.
Common in Shak., Mids. Nt. Dr. iii. 2. 188, &c. ME. jon, P. Plow-
man, C. xxi. 149 (also 3eon, and even jond, jeond, see the footnote).
AS. geon, yon; ‘to geonre byrg’ = to yon city; «ἘΠ τε, tr. of
Gregory’s Past. Care, ed. Sweet, p. 443, 1. 25 ; where geon-re is the
dat. fem.+4Icel. enn, the (orig. that), used as the def. art., and often
miswritten hinn ; see Vigfusson’s remarks on Ainn; Goth. jains, yon,
that; G. jener, MHG. gener, yon, that. B. The Teut. types
appear to be *yainoz, *yinoz; which render difficult a relation to
Skt. yas, who, that; cf. Brugmann, i. ὃ 308. Der. yond, adv.,
Temp. i. 2. 409 (also incorrectly used instead of you, Temp. ii. 2. 20),
YULE 729
from AS. geond, ady., but often used as a prep., Grein, i. 497; cf.
Goth. jaind, adv., there, John, xi. 8. Hence be-yond, q.v. Also
yond-er (not in AS.), ME. yonder, ady., Chaucer, C. T. 5438
(B 1018) ; cf. Goth. jaindré, ady., yonder, there, Luke, xi. aN
YORE, in old time, long ago. (E.) ME. 3ore, yore, Chaucer,
C. T. 4594 (B 174). AS. gedra, formerly (with the usual change
from ἃ to long ο, as in stan>stone); Grein, i. 496. Orig. géara,
gen. pl. of géar, a year, so that the sense was ‘ of years,’ i.e. in years
past; the gen. case being often used to express the time when, as in
deges=by day, &c. See Year.
YOU, pl. of second pers. pronoun; see Ye. Der. you-r, q.ve
YOUNG, not long born, new to life. (E.) ME. jong, yong,
yung. In Chaucer, C. T. 79, we have the indef. form yong (mis-
printed yonge in Tyrwhitt) ; whilst in 1. 7 we have the def. form yongé
(dissyllabic). AS, geong, giung, iung (and even geng, ging),
young; Grein, i, 499.4-Du. jong; Icel. ungr, jungr; Dan. and
Swed, ung ; G. jung; OHG, junc; Goth. juggs (written for jungs).
B. All from a Teut. type *yungoz, a contracted form of *yuwungoz,
answering to the cognate Olnsh δας, W. ieuanc, young, and to the
L. form iuwencus, an extension (with Idg. suffix -kos) from inuen-is,
young. y. The base *yawen-, young, occurs in L. inuenis, young,
Skt. yuvan, young, Russ, iunuit, young, Lithuan. jaunas, young.
[The lit. sense is perhaps ‘ protected,’ from 4/YEU, to guard; cf.
Skt. yu, to keep back, L. iuuare, to aid, help; Fick, i. 732.]
Brugmann, i. § 280. Der. young, sb.; young-ish; young-ling,
Spenser, Εἰ. Ὁ. i. 10. 57, ME. jonglyng, Wyclif, Mark, xvi. 5, with
double dimin. suffix -l-ing ; young-ster, as to which see Spinster.
Also younker, Spenser, ¥. Q. iv. 1. 11, and in G. Douglas, tr. of
Virgil, bk. viii, 1. 11; borrowed from Du. jonker, also written
jonkheer, compounded of jong, young, and heer, a lord, sir, gentle-
man; Hexham has MDu. jonck-heer or joncker, ‘a young gentleman
or ajoncker’ (sic), Also you-th, q.v.
OUR, possess. pron, of 2nd person. (E.) Properly the possess.
pron. of the 2nd person plural, but commonly used instead of thy,
which was considered too familiar, and has almost passed out of use
in speech. ME. jour, your, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 2251 (A 2249). Orig.
the gen. pl. of the 2nd pers. pronoun ; a use which occurs even in
ME., as: ‘ich am joure aller hefd’ =I am head of you all, P. Plow-
man, C. xxii. 473; where aller=AS. ealra, gen. pl. of eal, all.
AS. edwer, your; orig. gen. of gé, ye; see Ye. Der. your-s, ME.
youres, Chaucer, C. Τὶ 13204 (B 1464), from AS. edwres, gen. sing.
masc. and neut. of edwer, poss. pronoun; Grein, i. 263. Also your-
self (see Self ).
YOUTH, early life. (E.) ME. youthe, Chaucer, C. T. 463
(A 461); older forms 3xwede, Ancren Riwle, p. 156, 1. 22; 3u3ede,
Layamon, 6566; je03ede, id. 19837. AS. geogud, giogud, youth,
Grein, i. 502. [The middle g first turned to w or 3, and then
disappeared. |]4-OSax. jugud; Du. jeugd; G. jugend, OHG, jugund ;
we also find OHG., jungedi. Cf. Goth. junda, youth. B. The AS.
geogid stands for *geogid<*geogund, Teut. type *yugundiz, for
*yuwunpiz, f.; from Idg. base *yuwan-ti-, which is from *yuwen-,
young; see Young. Cf. L. inuenta, Skt. yuvala, youth. We also
find a later ME. form 3ungthe, youth, Prompt. Parv. p. 539,
jongthe, Wyclif, Mark, x. 20. Der. youth-ful, -ly, youth-ful-ness.
YOWL; a variant of Yawl (2); q.v.
YUCCA, a genus of American liliaceous plants. (Span. —
Caribbean). ‘ They have also another kynde of rootes, whiche they
call Iucca;’ R. Eden, First Three E. Books on America, ed. Arber,
p- 67; where ¢hey refers to the people of Hayti. Spelt yuca, tr. of
Acosta, bk. iv. c. 17.—Span. yuca, yucca. From the old (Carib-
bean) language as spoken in Hayti. See Notes on E. Etym.,
. 340.
SOLE, Christmas. (E.) ‘ ¥u-batch, Christmas batch ; yu-block
or yule-block, Christmas block; yu-gams or yule-gams, Christmas
games ;᾿ Kay’s Gloss. of N. Country Words. Here yu is short for
yule. ME, 3ole; ‘ the feste of jole,’ Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft,
p- 65, 1. 6; whence jole-stok, a yule-stock or yule-log, Voc. 657. 6.
AS, tula, gedla, Spelt iula, Grein, 1. 148. Spelt gedla in the
following: ‘Se m6dnad is nemned on Leden Decembris, and on
tire gedéode se #rra gedla, forsan δᾶ mondas twegen syndon nemde
anum naman, Oder se #rra gedla, Oder se aflera, forpan Se hyra oder
ganged beforan Sra [read S&re] sunnan &rpon pe héo cyrre hig to
dees deeges lenge, Oder zefter,’ i.e. This month is named Decembris
in Latin, and in our tongue the former Yule, because two months
are named with one name; one is ¢he former Yule, the other the
after Yule, because one of them comes before the sun, viz. before it
turns itself about [at the winter solstice] to the lengthening of day,
whilst the other [January] comes after; MS. Cotton, Tib. B. 1,
quoted in Hickes, Thesaurus, i. 212. Beda, De Temporum Ratione,
cap. 13, has the same account (but in Latin), and calls the Yule-
months Menses Giuli; i.e. he Latinises Vule as Giulus, Spelt geol,
730 YWIS
gehhol, gehhel, Laws of AElfred, § 5, and ὃ 43; in Thorpe, Ancient
Laws, i. 64, note 54; i. 92, note 4; geohol, tr. of Beda, bk. iv. c. 19.
The AS. form appears to represent a Teut. type *yeh-ol-oz, or |
*yehw-loz, m.+Icel. jol ; Dan. juul ; Swed. jul. We may also note
that, in a fragment of a Gothic calendar (pr. in Massmann’s Ulfilas,
p- 590), November appears to be called fruma Fiuleis, which seems
to mean ‘the first Yule;’ a name not necessarily inconsistent with
the AS. use, since November may once have also been reckoned as
a Yule-month. This Goth. form answers to Icel. $lir, December.
q Origin unknown; for guesses, see Uhlenbeck, Goth, Dict. The
usual attempt to connect this word with E. wheel, AS. hwéol, Icel.
hjol, with the far-fetched explanation that the sun turns at the winter
solstice, cannot be admitted, since an initial & or hw makes all the
difference, Besides Yde did not denote the shortest day, but a season.
Brugmann, i. § 681. Der. jolly.
YWIS, certainly. (E.) In Spenser, F. Q. ii. 1. 19. ME. ywis,
Chaucer, C. T. 3277; ¢wis, Ancren Riwle, p. 270, 1.11. AS. gewis,
adj., certain, gewislice, adv., certainly, Grein, i. 483. The adj. came
to be used adverbially.+Dn. gewis, adj. and adv., certain, certainly ;
Icel. viss, certain; Dan. vis, certain; vist, certainly; Swed. viss,
certain; visst, certainly ; G. gewiss, certainly. B. The ge- is a
mere prefix; see Y-. The adj. answers to a Teut. type *wissoz,
Idg. type *wid-tos, an old pp. signifying ‘known,’ hence ‘sure ;’
from *wid-, weak grade of 4/WEID, to know. See Wit, verb.
Cf. Goth, wissa, [knew. Brugmann, i. § 794e. 4 It is particu-
larly to be noted that the commonest form in MSS. is iis, in which
the prefix (like most other prefixes) is frequently written apart from
the rest of the word, and not unfrequently the 7 is represented by
a capital letter, so that it appears as Z wis. Hence, by an extra-
ordinary error, the 7 has often been mistaken for the Ist pers. pron.,
and the verb wis, to know, has been thus created, and is given in
many dictionaries! Butit is a pure fiction, and the more remarkable
because there actually exists a ME. causal verb wissien, or wissen,
but it means to teach, show, instruct. We should distinguish be-
tween the ME. words wit, wot, wisté, wist, J wissé, and i-wis.
vi
ZAMINDAR, ZEMINDAR, a land-holder, occupant of land.
(Hind.—Pers.) Spelt zeminder in 1778 (Yule). Hind. zamindar,
vernacularly jamindar, corruptly zemindar, an occupant of land, a
land-holder; Wilson, Ind. Terms, p. 562. — Pers. zamin, earth, land,
soil; dar, holding, possessing, Rich, Dict. pp. 782,646. Here Pers.
zamin is allied to L. humus, ground; and Pers. dar to Skt. dhy, to
hold; see Homage and Firm.
ZANANA, ZENANA, female apartments. (Hind.—Pers.)
Spelt zunana in 1761 (Yule). Hindustani zanana, vernacularly
janana, incorrectly zenana, the female apartments ; sometimes, the
females of a family.— Pers, Ζαπᾶνι, women; pl. of zax, a woman.
Allied to Gk. γυνή, a woman, and E. quean. H. H. Wilson, Gloss.
of Indian Terms, p. 564; Rich. Dict. p. 783; Horn, § 668.
ZANY, a buffoon, a mimic. (Ital. —Gk.—Heb.) In L.L.L.v. 2.
463; and in Beaum. and Fletcher, Cupid’s Revenge, ii. 6 (Bacha). =
MItal. Zane, ‘the name of Iohn, also a sillie Iohn, a gull, a noddie;
used also for a simple vice, clowne, foole, or simple fellowe in a
plaie;’ Florio. Mod. Ital. Zanni; cf. OF. zani (Godefroy). Zane
and Zanni are familiar forms of Giovanni, John. —Gk. Ἰωάννης ;
John, 1. 6.—Heb. Vokhanan, i.e. the Lord graciously gave. — Heb.
¥6, the Lord; and khanan, toshowmercy. Der. zany, verb, Beaum.
and Fletcher, Qu. of Corinth, i. 2 (Crates).
ZARIBA, ZAREEBA, ZEREBA, a temporary camp, fenced
round with bushes, &c. (Arab.) Chiefly used in the Soudan. = Arab.
zariba(t), ‘a fold, a pen; an enclosure for cattle; den, or haunt of
wild beasts ; lurking-place of a hunter;’ Rich. Dict. p. 775.
ZEAL, fervour, ardour. (F,—L.—Gk.) Spelt zele in Palsgrave ;
zeele in Caxton, Godfrey of Bologne, prol. p. 2, 1. 8.—MF. zele,
‘zeale,’ Cot. Mod. F. zéle.—L. zélum, acc. of zélus, zeal.—Gk.
ζῆλος, zeal, ardour. Doric ζᾶλος ; Idg. type *yalos; perhaps from ya,
to drive, as in Skt. yd-¢7, a driver (Prellwitz), Der. zeal-ous, L.L.L.
ν. 2.116; zeal-ous-ly. Also zeal-ot, Selden’s Table-Talk, s. v. Zealot,
from MF, zelote, ‘jealous, or zealous,’ Cot., from L. zélotés, Gk.
ζηλωτής. And see jealous.
ZEBRA, astriped animal of the horse kind. (Port.—W. African.)
Added by Todd to Johnson. Described in Purchas’s Pilgrimage
(1617), bk. vi. ch. 1. ξ 2.—Port. zebra. (Also Span. zebra, cebra.)
The animal is a native of S. Africa, and the name originated in Congo;
see N. and Q.9 S.v. 480. According to Littré, it is Ethiopian; he
ZIRCON
cites: ‘Pecora, congensibus zebra; dicta,’ Ludolph, Histor. Ethiop.
i. 40. But Littré is mistaken as to the true source.
ZEBU, the humped domestic ox of India. (F.—Thibet.) See
Zebu in Yule.—F. zébu, a name taken by Buffon from the exhibitors
of such a beast at a French fair. A perversion ofzobo, a name fora
male hybrid between a yak-bull and a hill-cow (Yule), — Thibet. mdzo-
po, the male of madzo, a mongrel bred of a yak-bull and a common
cow; the female mongrel is called mdzo-mo.
ZECCHINO, a gold coin of Venice. (Ital—Arab.) The pl.
zecchins occurs in Sandys, Travels (1632), p. 3.—Ital. zecchino, a se-
quin.=—Ital. secca, a mint (Florio),— Arab. sikka(t), pron. sikkah, a
die for coins. Doublet, sequin.
ZED, the name of the letter Z. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. K. Lear,
ii. 2. 69.—F. zéde.—L. zéta.—Gk. ζῆτα. Doublet, izzard, q. v.
ZEDOARY, an East-Indian root resembling ginger. (F.—Low
L.—Pers.) ‘Zedoary, a spicy root, very like ginger, but of a
sweeter scent, and nothing near so biting; it is a hot and dry plant,
growing in the woods of Malabar in the E. Indies;’ Phillips, ed.
1706. Spelt zedoari, Hakluyt, Voy. vol. it. pt. 1. 277; col. 1. [In
old F., the name was corrupted to ctfoal, citoual, citouart (Roquefort);
whence the ME. cetewale, Chaucer, Ὁ. T. 13691 (B 1951), on which
see my note.]— MF. zedoaire, ‘an East-Indian root which resembleth
ginger ;’ Cot.<Low L. zedodria.—Pers, zadwir, zidwar, zedoary;
Rich. Dict. p. 771; or jadwar, zedoary,id.p. 794. The initial letter
is sometimes the 13th, sometimes the 14th letter of the Pers. alphabet ;
see Palmer, Pers. Dict., col. 314.
ZEMSTVO, a local elective assembly. (Russ.) Russ. zemstvo,
collective sb., the county-courts (Reiff).
ZENITH, the point of the heavens directly overhead. (F.—
Span.—Arab.) ME. senith, Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, i. 18. 4.—
OF. cenith (Littré); mod. F, zénith.—Span, zenit, formerly written
zenith, as in Minsheu’s Span. Dict. Arab. samt, a way, road, path,
tract, quarter; whence samf-ur-ras, the zenith, vertical point of the
heavens, also as-sam¢, an azimuth; Rich. Dict. p. 848. Sam? was
pronounced sem?, of which Span. zenith or zentt is a corruption; in
the sense of zenith, it is an abbreviation for samt-ur-ras or semt-er-ras,
lit. the way overhead, from ras, the head, Rich. Dict. p. 715. The
word azimuth, q.v., is from the same source. See Devic, Supp. to
Littré.
ZEPHYR, a soft gentle breeze. (F.—L.—Gk.) In Shak. Cymb.
iy. 2. 172. Chaucer has the form ZepAirus, directly from the Latin,
C. T. 5.—MF. zephyre, ‘the west wind, Cot.; F. zéphyr.=L.
zephyrum, acc. of zephyrus, the west wind. = Gk. ζέφυρος, ΠΕ west wind.
ZERO, a cipher, nothing, denoted by o. (F.—Ital.—Low L.—
Arab.) A late word, added by Todd to Johnson. MF. zero, ‘ a cypher
in arithmetick, a thing that stands for nothing,’ Cot.; F. zéro. = Ital.
zero, ‘a figure ofnonght inarithmetike;’ Florio. A contracted form
of zefiro or *zifro, parallel form to zifra, ‘ a cifre,’ i.e. cipher; Florio.
— Low L. zephyrum (Devic). — Arab. sifr (with initial sad), a cipher;
Rich. Dict. p. 937. See Cipher. See Devic, Supp. to Littré; he
explains that the old Latin treatises on arithmetic wrote zephyrum for
Arab. sifr, which became, in Italian, zefiro, and (by contraction) zero.
Doublet, cipher.
ZEST, something that gives a relish or a flavour. (F.—L.—Gk.)
In Skinner’s Dict., ed. 1671. Phillips explains zest as a chip of
orange or lemon-peel, used for flavouring drinks. MF. zes/, ‘the
thick skinne or filme wherby the kernell of a wallnut is divided ;’
Cot. Mod. F. zeste, a piece of the skin of a citron or lemon,
whence zester, ‘to cut up lemon rind ;’ Hamilton. The E. sense is
due to the use of lemon or citron-peel for flavouring. = L. schistos
(schistus), cleft, divided, used by Pliny {bk. xix. c. 6]; according to
Diez, who notes that L. schedula became, similarly, F. cédule; there
must have been a transference of sense from ‘ divided’ to ‘ division.’
=-Gk. σχιστός, divided.—Gk. σχίζειν, to cleave. See Schism.
(Very doubtful ; but no other solution has been proposed.)
ZIGZAG, having short, sharp tums. (F.—G.) In Pope, Dun-
ciad, 1, 124.—F. zigzag.—G. zickzack, a zigzag ; whence zickzack
segeln, to tack, in sailing. (We also find Swed. sicksack, zigzag
(Widegren, 1788).] Reduplicated from zacke, a tooth, with reference
to zacken-werk, notched work ; so that zickzack means ‘ in an indented
manner.’ Cf. EFries. takken,to notch (whence tack, in sailing). See
Tack. Der. zigzagg-ery, Sterne, Tristram Shandy, bk. iii. ¢. 3.
ZINC, a whitish metal. (G.) In Locke, Elements of Nat. Phi-
losophy, c. 8 (R.).—G. zink, zinc; whence also F. zine, &c. Origin
uncertain; see Schade. The name der Zinck occurs in Paracelsns
(died 1541); see Weigand.
ZIRCON, the name ofa mineral. (Arab.—Pers.) The F. formis
jargon. Zircon represents the Arab. zargun, not a true Arab. word,
but from Pers. zargiin, of the colour of gold; Rich. Dict. p. 774.—
Pers. zar, gold (allied to Skt. kari-, yellow, and E. yellow) ; and.gun,
colour ; id. pp. 771, 1247. See Devic.
ZITHER
ZITHER, a cittern, kind of guitar. (G.—L.—Gk.) A modern
form ; from G. zither.—L. cithara.— Gk. κιθάρα, a kind of lyre. See
Cithern, Cittern, Guitar, Kit (2).
ZODIAC, an imaginary belt in the heavens, containing the twelve
constellations called signs. (F.—L.—Gk.) ME. zodiac, zodiak,
Chaucer, On the Astrolabe, prol. 70.—F. zodiaqgue, ‘the zodiack,’
Cot.—L. zddiacus.—Gk. ζωδιακός, adj., of or belonging to animals,
whence ὁ ζωδιακός, the zodiac circle; so called from containing the
twelve constellations represented by animals.—Gk. ζῶδεον, a small
animal ; dimin. of ζῶον, a living creature, an animal. β. Gk. ζῶον
is from ζωός, adj., living ; allied to ζωή, life, and (dew, ζῆν (Ionic
(we), to live. Allied to Zend ji, to live; from 4/GwEI, to live.
See Victuals. Brugmann, ii. § 488. Der. zodiac-al, adj.
ZONE, a belt, one of the great belts into which the earth is divided.
(F.—L.—Gk.) In Hamlet, v. 1. 305. ‘Their zone is milde ;’
Higgins, Mirror for Mag., Fulgentius, st. 4.—F. zone, ‘a girdle,
zone ;’ Cot.=L. zdna, a girdle, belt, zone.— Gk. ζώνη, a girdle. Put
for *(wovn.—Gk. ζώννυμι {-- ἔζωσ-νυμιν, 1 gird. —4/YOS, to gird;
whence also Lithnan. jdsta, a girdle, jasti, to gird (Nesselmann).
Brugmann, i. ὃ 167. Der. zon-ed.
ZOOLOGY, the natural history of animals. (Gk.) See Pennant’s
ZY MOTIC
British Zoology, London, 1766. Coined from Gk. (@o-, for ζῶον, a
living creature ; and -Aoyia, allied to λόγος, a discourse, from λέγειν,
to speak. See Zodiae and Logic. Der. zoologi-c-al, zoologist.
4 Pronounced zo-o-, the o’s being separate.
ZOOPHYTE, an animal plant, a term now applied to corals,
&e. (F.—Gk.) In Johnson’s Dict.—F. zoophyte, pl. zoophytes, ‘ such
things as be partly plants, and partly living creatures, as spunges,
&c.;”’ Cot.=Gk, ζωόφυτον, a living being; an animal-plant, the
lowest of the animal tribe, Aristotle, Hist. Anim. xviii. 1. 6.—Gk.
(wé-, for ζωός, living; and φυτόν, a plant, that which has grown,
from φύειν, to produce, also to grow, from 4/BHEU, to grow, exist,
be. See Zodiac and Be.
ZOUAVE, one of a body of soldiers in the French service, orig.
Arabs, but now Frenchmen in Arab. dress. (F.—N. African.)
Modern; since the conquest of Algeria by the French in 1830;
Haydn, Dict. of Dates.— F. Zouave.mN. African Zuawa,a tribe of
Kabyles living among the Jurjura mountains in Algeria (Mahn, Littré).
ZYMOTIC, a term applied to diseases, in which a poison works
through the body like a ferment. (Gk.) Moderm—Gk. ζυμωτικός,
causing to ferment.—Gk. ζυμόω, I leaven, cause to ferment. Gk.
ζύμη, leaven. Allied to L. dis, broth ; see Juice.
731
ΠΡ ΡΤ ΝΕ ς
Diet ἘΞ ΗΠ Oe
The following is a list of the principal Prefixes in English, showing
their origin. It is not quite exhaustive, but contains all of any
consequence. Fag further information, see the etymologies of adown,
&c., in the Dictionary.
A- (1); in a-down, a-kin, a-new, a-thirst. (E.) See Of- (below).
A- (2); in a-back, a-baft, a-bed, a-blaze, a-board, a-bout,
a-bove, a-broach, a-broad, a-cross, a-drift, a-far, a-float, a-foot,
a-fore, a-gape, a-ground, a-head, a-jar, a-kimbo, a-like, a-live, a-loof,
a-main, a-mid, a-miss, a-mong, a-round, a-skew, a-slant, a-sleep,
a-slope, a-stern, a-stir, a-thwart, a-way, a-work, now-a-days; &c.
(E.) See On- (below).
A- (3); ina-long. (E.) See An- (5).
A- (4); in a-bide (1), a-bide (2), a-ghast, a-go, a-light, a-maze,
a-rise, a-rouse, a-wake, a-waken. (E.) AS. ἄ-, intensive prefix to
verbs. Seenote on Arise. And see Ac- (3), Af- (3).
A- (5); in a-bandon, a-base, a-bate, a-bet, a-beyance, a-bridge,
a-but, a-chieve, a-mass, a-merce, a-mort, a-mount, a-vail, a-valanche,
a-venge, a-venue, a-ver, a-vouch, a-vow (1), a-vow (2), a-wait.
(F.-L.) F.&, a-; from L. ad. See Ad-. So also L. a- for ad
before gn, as in a-gnate; or before sc, sp, st; as in a-scend, a-spect,
a-stringent.
A- (6); in a-vert, a-vocation. (L.) See Ab- (1).
A- (7); in a-bash, a-mend, a-void. (F.—L.) See Ex- (1).
A- (8); in a-las, (F.—L.) OF. a, interj.; from L. ak! interj.
Cf. a-lack.
A- (9); in a-byss, a-catalectic, a-cephalous, a-chromatic, a-
damant, a-gnostic, a-maranth, a-methyst, a-mnesty, a-neroid, a-orist,
a-pathy, a-pepsia, a-pteryx, a-sbestos, a-sphyxia, a-sylum, a-symptote,
a-taxy, a-theism, a-tom, a-tomy, a-trophy, a-zote. (Gk.) See
An- (2).
A- (10); ina-do. (E.) For at do.
A- (11); in a-wate. (E.) ME. i-, y-, prefix; AS. ge. See
Af- (2), ¥-.
A- (12); in a-pace, a-piece. (E.) Fora pace, a piece; a for an,
indef. article. See An- (6).
A- (13); in a-vast. (Du. or Span.) Du. how vast, hold fast ; or
Span. a-basto. (Doubtful.)
A- (14); in a-pricot. (Arab.)
Ἀπ ἐν
A- (15); in a-colyte.
together with.
A- (16); in a-fraid.
Ex- (1).
Ab- (1); in ab-dicate, ab-duce, ab-erration, ab-hor, ab-ject, ab-
jure, ab-lative, ab-lution, ab-negate, ab-normal, ab-olish (?), ab-
ominate, ab-origines, ab-ortion, ab-ound, ab-rade, ab-rogate, ab-
rupt, ab-scind, ab-solute, ab-solve, ab-sorb, ab-surd, ab-undance,
ab-use. (L.; or F.—L.) 1, ab, from, orig. form ap, for which see
Aperient, p. 25; lengthened to abs- in abs-cond, &c. ; ef. Gk. ay.
E. of; Gk. ἀπό; Skt. apa, away from. This prefix also appears as
a- (6), adv-, av-, v-; as in a-vert, a-vocation, adv-ance, ay-aunt,
y-anguard.
Ab- (2); in ab-breviate. (L.) Used for L. ad; see Ad-.
Abs-; in abs-cess, abs-cond, abs-ent, abs-tain, abs-temious,
abs-tention, abs-tract, abs-truse. (L.; ον" F.—L.) 10. as- (Εἰ abs-),
extended form of ab-; see Ab- (1).
Ac- (1); in ac-cede, ac-celerate, &c. (L.; or F.—L.) The
form assumed by L. ad before the following c; see Ad-. So also
before gu- 3 as in ac-quaint, ac-quiesce, ac-quire, ac-quit.
Ac- (2); in ac-knowledge. (E.) ME. a-; from AS. on.
in place of A- (2).
Ac- (3); in ac-cursed.
place of A- (4).
Ad-; in ad-age, ad-agio, ad-apt, &c. (L.;
3; or F.—L.)) -L. ad,
to, at, for.+Goth. at; AS. et; E. at, This prefix appears also as
Arab, al, the; def. article. See
(Gk.) Gk. ἀ-, with; cf. Skt. sa-,
(F.—L.) For af-frayed; see Af- (4),
Used
(E.) For ME. a-; AS. a@-; used in
PREPRESS
a- (5), ab- (2), ac- (1), af- (1), ag-, al-(2), an- (1), ap- (1), ar- (1),
as- (1), at-(1); as in a-bandon, ab-breviate, ac-cede, af-fix, ag-gress,
al-lude, an-nex, ap-pend, ar-rogate, as-sign, at-tract.
Adv-; in ady-ance, ady-antage. For av-; F. av- from L. ab; see
Ab- (1).
Af- (1); in af-fable, af-fect, af-feer, af-fiance, &c. The form
taken by L. ad before 7; see Ad-. So also af- for ME, a- (F. a-
<L. ad) ; as in af-fair.
ΔΕ. (2); inaf-ford. (E.) ME. a-; for i-, y-, from AS. ge-, See
A- (11) and Y-.
Af- (3); in af-fright.
Af- (4); in af-fray.
Ex- (1).
Af- (5); inaf-fair. See Af- (1) above.
After- ; in after-math, after-most, after-ward.
AS. efter, See After, p. 9.
Ag-; in ag-glomerate, ag-glutinate, ag-grandise, &c.
F.—L.) The form taken by L. ad before g; see Ad-.
Al- (1); in al-mighty, al-most, al-one, &c. (E.) For all; see
ΑἹ], p. 14.
ΑἹ- (2); in al-lege, al-leviate, &c.
taken by L. ad before]; see Ad-.
<L. ad); as in al-legiance.
Al- (3); in al-ligator.
ille, he.
Al- (4); in al-batross, al-cayde, al-chemy, al-cohol, al-coran,
al-cove, al-embic, al-gebra, al-guazil, 41- Κα]. (Arab.) Arab. al,
def. art. This also appears as a-, ar-, as-, el-, /-. Ex.: a-pricot,
ar-tichoke, as-sagai, el-ixir, l-ute. See L- (2).
Al- (5); in al-legiance ; see Al- (2).
Am- (1); inam-bush. (F.—L.) ἘΝ em-.—L. im-, for in, prep. ;
see In- (2). Cf. am-buscade.
Am- (2); inam-brosia. (Gk.) See An- (2).
Amb-; in amb-assador. Of Celtic origin; see Ambassador,
p- 17. And see Ambi- below, and Emb-.
Ambi-, Amb- ; in ambi-dextrous, amb-ient, amb-iguous, amb-
(E.) ME. a-; from AS. a-; see A- (4).
(F.—L.) OF. ef-; from Τὰ ex; see
(E.) ME. after;
(L.; or
(L.; or F.—L.) The form
So also al- for ME. a- (F. a-
(Span.—L.) Span. εἰ, def. art.=—L.
ition. (L.; or F.—L.) L. ambi-, on both sides, around.+-Gk.
ἀμφί. See below.
Amphi-. (Gk.) Gk. ἀμφί, on both sides, around.L. ambi- ;
see Ambi-.
An- (1); for L. ad before τι; see Ad-.
An- (2), A- (9), negative prefix; in an-amia, an-zsthetic, an-
archy, &c. (Gk.) Gk. ἀν-, ἀ-, neg. prefix. Hence am- in am-
brosia; a- in a-byss.+L. in-, E. un-; see In- (3), Un- (1), A= (9).
An- (3); see Ana-.
An- (4); in an-oint. (F.—L.) For F. en-.—L, in, prep. ; see
It appears as ann- in ann-oy.
An- (5); in an-swer.
a-long; allied to un- in verbs.
An- (6); in an-other.
See A- (12).
An- (7); in an-ent, an-on, an-vil.
prep. See On-, A- (2), Ann-.
An- (8); inan-cestor. (F.—L.) See Ante-.
Ana-, An- (3); in ana-baptist, ana-chronism, &c.; an-eurysm.
(Gk.) Gk, ἀνά, upon, on, up. AS. on, Goth. ana. See On-.
Anci-; inanci-ent. (F.—L.) See Ante-.
Ann- (1); in ann-eal. (E.) See Anneal, p. 22.
Ann- (2); in ann-oy; OF. an-, F. en; see An- (4).
Ant- ; in ant-agonist, ant-arctic. (Gk.) See Anti-.
Ante-. (L.) L. ante, before. Also anti-, ant-, anci-, an-; as
in anti-cipate, ant-erior, ant-ler (cf. antique, antic); anci-ent,
an-cestor.
Anth-; in anth-em.
See A- (3), Anti-, Un- (2).
(E.) E.an; AS. an. The indef, article.
(E.) ME. an; for AS. on,
(Gk.) See below.
LIST OF PREFIXES
Anti- (1), Ant-. (Gk.) Gk. ἀντί, against, opposite to. Also
ant-, anthe-, as in ant-agonist, ant-arctic, anthe-m. See An- (5),
Un- (2).
Anti- (2); see Ante-.
Ap- (1); in ap-paratus, ap-pend, ap-petite, &c. (L.; or F.—L.)
The form taken by L. ad before p; see Ad-, and Ap- (2).
-Ap- (2); in ap-pall, ap-panage, ap-parel, &c. (F.—L.) Sub-
stituted for OF. a-, when derived from L. ad followed by 2.
Ap- (3); in ap-erient. (L.) L. ap, ab; see p. 25.
Aph-; in aph-eresis, aph-orism ; cf. aph-elion; see below.
Apo-. (Gk.) Hence aph- in aph-zresis. Gk. ἀπό, from, off.
L. ab; AS. of; see Ab- (1), Of- (1).
Ar- (1) ; in ar-rogate ; the form taken by L. ad- before r. Often
appearing as a- in OF., as in ar-raign (OF. a-rainier), &c.; see Ad-.
Ar- (2); in ar-tichoke; see Al- (4).
Arch-, Archi-, Arche- ; in arch-bishop, arch-angel, archi-tect,
arche-type. (Gk.) Gk. ἀρχί-, chief. — Gk. ἄρχειν, to be first.
As- (1); in as-severate, as-siduous, as-sign, &c. (L.; or F.—L.)
The form taken by L. ad- before s; see Ad-. Cf. as-certain.
As- (2); in as-sagai; see Al- (4).
As- (3); in as-tonish, (F.—L.) ME. as-, for OF. es-; from L.
ex; see Ex- (1). Cf. as-sart.
Αὔ- (1); in at-tempt, at-tend, &c. (L.; or F.—L.) The form
taken by L. ad- before ¢, Often appearing as a- in OF.; as in
at-tend (OF. a-tendre) ; see Ad-.
At- (2); inat-one. (E.) Ε. at, AS, et.
Auto-, Auth-, self. (Gk.) Gk. αὐτό-ς, self,
auth-entic ; eff- in eff-endi.
Av-; inav-aunt, (F.—L.) F.av-; from L. ab; see Ab- (1).
Hence auth- in
Ba-; in ba-lance; see Bi-.
Be-. (E.) AS. be-, bi-, the same as bi, by, prep.; E. by.
Bi- (1), double. (L.) L. i-, double, from an earlier form dui-,
related to duo, two.4Gk. δι-, double, allied to δύω, two; Skt. dui-,
allied to ἄνα, two; E. ¢wi- in twi-bill. Hence F. δὲ- in bi-as, Εἰ, ba-
in ba-lance; and see below.
Bi- (2); in bi-shop. (Gk.) AS. δί-, for Gk. ἐπί; see Epi-.
Bin-; in bin-ocular. (L.) L. bin-i, collective form allied to
bi- (1) above.
Bis-; in bis-cuit. (F.—L.) Ε΄ bis, L. bis, twice; extended from
bi- (1). See Dis-. Also L.; in bis-sextile.
By-; in by-path, by-way, by-word. (E.) AS, bi; see By, p. 83.
Cat-; in cat-echism ; see Cata-.
Cata-,down. (Gk.) Gk. «ara, down, downwards. Hence cat-,
cath-, in cat-echism, cath-olic.
Cath- 3 in cath-olic; see below.
Cireum.-, round. (L.) L. circum, around, prep. Hence ciren-
in circu-it.
Co-; see Com-.
Coi-; see Com-.
Col-; see Com-.
Com-. (L. or F.—L.) L.com-, together, used in composition
for cum, prep. together. It appears as co-, col-, com-, comb-, con-, cor-,
coun-3; ex.: co-agulate, col-lect, comb-ustion, com-mute, con-nect,
cor-rode, coun-cil. Also as co- in co-st, co-stive, co-venant, co-ver,
co-vin; as cou- in cou-ch, cou-sin ; as coi-incoi-l; as cu-in cu-rfew,
cu-stom; as cur- in curry (1); and even as ke- in ke-rchief.
Con-; in con-nect; see Com-.
Contra-, against. (L.) L. contra, against. It becomes contro-
in contro-versy; and loses final a in Ital. contr-alto. Hence F.
contre, against, as in contr-ol; but the F. form is usually written
counter in English. Hence also countr-y.
Cor- ; in cor-rode ; see Com-.
Cou-3 in cou-ch, cou-sin ; see Com-.
Coun-; in coun-cil, coun-sel, coun-t (1), coun-t (2), coun-tenance ;
see Com-.
Counter-. (F.—L.) See Contra-.
Cu-}; in cu-rfew, cu-stom ; see Com-.
Cur-; in cur-ry (1); see Com-.
Cf. co-gnate, co-gnisance, co-gnition.
D-; in d-affodil; see Daffodil, p. 152-
De- (1); in de-scend, de-bate. (L.; or F.—L.) L. dé, down,
downward. Used with an oppositive sense in de-cipher, de-merit, de-
form; with an intensive sense in de-clare, &c. Changed to di- in
di-stil. Distinct from the prefix below.
De- (2) ; in de-bar, de-bark, de-bauch, de-bouch, de-but, de-camp,
&c. (F.—L.) F. dé-, OF, des-, from L. dis-, apart; see Dis-.
Distinct from the prefix above. :
De- (3); in de-luge. (F.—L.) OF. de-; L. di-, for dis-; see
Dis-. And see above.
733
De- (4); in de-vil; see Dia-.
Dea- ; in dea-con; see Dia-.
aie half. (F.-L.) Ἐς, demi,—L. dimidius, half; see Demi-,
Ρ. 162.
Des-; in des-cant; see Dis-.
Di- (1), double. (Gk.) Gk. &-, double, allied to δίς, twice,
and δύο, two; see Bi-. Ex. di-lemma. And see Dia-.
Di- (2), apart, away; in di-lute. (L.) See Dis-.
Di- (3); in di-stil; see De- (1).
Dia-. (Gk.) Gk. διά, through, between, apart; allied to Di-
(1). Shortened to di- in di-eresis, di-ocese, di-optrics, di-orama, di-
uretic ; appearing as de-, dea-, in de-vil, dea-con.
Dif- ; see Dis-.
Dis-, apart, away. (L.; or F.—L.) L. dis-, apart, in two,
another form of bis-, double; dis- and bis- are variants from an
older form duis-, double, also used in the sense in two, apart; see
Bis-. Dis- becomes des- in OF rench, also dé- in later F.; but the
OF, des- is sometimes altered to dis-, as in dis-cover. The various
forms are di-, dif-, dis-, des-,de-, and even s-; as in di-gest, di-ligent,
di-lute, di-mension, di-minish, di-missory, di-varicate, di-verge, &c. ;
dif-fer, dif-ficulty, dif-fident, dif-fract, dif-fuse; dis-pel, &c.; des-
cant, des-habille, des-patch ; de-bar, de-bark, de-bauch, &c. ; s-pend,
s-tain. See De- (2), De- (3), S- (2).
Do- ; in do-zen; see Duo-.
Dou-; in dou-ble; see Duo-.
Duo-, Du-, two, double. (L.) L. duo, two; cognate with E.
‘wo, Only in duo-decimo, duo-denum; shortened to dz- in du-al,
du-el, du-et, du-plicate, &c. Appearing as dox- in dou-ble, dou-
bloon, dou-bt; and as do- in do-zen,
Dys-, badly. (Gk.) Gk. dvs, badly, with difficulty.
connect it with To- (2).
Some
E- (1); in e-ducate, e-lapse, e-normous, &c. ; see Ex- (1).
E- (2); in e-nough; see Y-.
E- (3); ine-lope. (AF.—L.)
See Elope, p. 191.
E- (4); in e-squire. (F.) This e- is a Ἐς addition, of purely
phonetic value, due to the difficulty which was experienced in pro-
nouncing initial sq-, sc-, sf-, sp-. So also in e-scalade, e-scarpment,
e-scritoire, e-scrow, e-scuage, e-scutcheon; e-spalier, e-special,
e-spouse, e-spy ; €-stablish, e-state, e-stop, e-stovers; cf. e-paulette ;
to which add e-schew.
Ee-; in ec-centric, ec-clesiastic, ec-lectic, ec-lipse, ec-logue,
ec-stasy, ec-zema. (Gk.) Gk. ἐκ, also ἐξ, out; see Bx- (2).4L. ex,
Lithuan. isz, Russ. iz’, out; see Ex- (1). Also. el-, ex-, as in
el-lipse, ex-odus.
Ef-; see Ex- (1).
Eff-; in eff-endi; see Auto-.
El- (1); in el-lipse; see Ee-.
El- (2); in el-ixir; see Al- (4).
Em- (1); in em-balm, em-bank, &c. (before 6; cf. em-bargo,
from Spanish) ; also in em-pale, em-panel, em-ploy, &c. (before p).
(F.-L.) F. em-; L. im-, for in; see In- (2).
Em- (2); in em-phasis (before pk); em-piric, em-porium, em-
pyreal (before 2}; see En- (2).
Emb- ; in emb-assy ; see Amb-.
En- (1); inen-able, &c. (#.—L.) ἘΝ en-; L. in- ; see In- (2).
En- (2); in en-ergy. (Gk.) Gk. ἐν, in.}L. in; AS. in. See
Em- (2), In- (1), In- (2).
En- (3); in en-emy. (F.—L.) Negative prefix ; see In- (3).
Endo-, within. (Gk.) Gk. ἔνδο-ν, within; extended from ἐν,
in; see En- (2), and Ind-. Ex.: endo-gen.
Enter-; in enter-tain. (F.—L.) ἘΝ entre. —L. inter, among ;
see Inter-. Shortened to ex/r- in entr-ails.
Ep-, Eph-; see below.
Epi-, upon. (Gk.) Gk. ἐπί, upon.Skt. api; allied to. L. ob-.
See Ob-. It appears as ep-, eph-, in ep-och, eph-emeral, &c.
ἘΠὀ- ; in es-cape, &c.; see Ex- (1).
Eso-, within. (Gk.) Gk. ἔσω, within; from és, εἰς, into. Ex. :
eso-teric.
Bu-, well. (Gk.) Gk. εὖ, well; neut. of és, good. Written ev-
in ev-angelist.
Ev-; in ev-angelist ; see above.
Ex- (1), out of, very. (L.; or F.—L.) L. ex, also @, out of;
also used intensively.+Gk. ἐξ, éx, out. See Ee-, and see below.
It appears as a-, e-, ef-, es-, ex-, iss-, s-, in a-mend, e-normous, ef-fect,
es-cape, ex-tend, iss-ue, s-ample, &c. Also as af (a-), in af-fray
(a-fraid) ; see Af- (4), A- (16), B- (1). And see As- (3).
Ex- (2), out of, away. (Gk.) Gk. ἐξ, out; as in ex-arch,
ex-egesis, ex-odus, ex-orcise; and (through F.) ex-ergue. See
above.
AF. a-, for OF. es-; see Es-.
734. LIST OF
Ex- (3); in ex-cise. (Du.—F.—L.) Du. ak-; for F. ac- ; from
L. ac-, for ad. See Ad-.
Exo-, without. (Gk.) Gk. ἔξω, outside, without; adv. from ἐξ,
out; see Ex- (2).
Extra-, beyond. (L.) A comparative abl. form, from L. ex,
out; see Ex- (1). Cf. exter- in exter-ior, exter-nal. It appears
also as stra- im stra-nge; cf. estra-nge.
For- (1), in place of. (E.) E. for, prep.; in for-as-much, for-
ever, which might just as well be written as separate words instead
of compounds, Allied to Para~ (1), Per-, Pro-.
For- (2); in for-give. (E.) AS. /for-, intensive prefix. + Icel.
for-, Dan. jor-, Swed. for-, Du. G. ver-, Goth. fra-, Skt. para. See
p- 221. See Fore- (2).
For- (3); in for-feit. (F.—L.) F. for-, prefix. = L. foris, outside,
out of doors. Also in for-close, sometimes spelt fore-close ; and see
fore-judge (2).
For- (4); in for-ward. AS. fore-weard ; see below.
Fore- (1), before. (E.) AS. fore, for, before, prep.; fore, adv.
Allied to For- (1).
Fore- (2); in fore-go. (E.) A bad spelling of for-go; see
Fore (2).
Forth-. (E.) Only in /orth-coming, forth-with. AS. ford,
forth.-Gk. πρός, Skt. prati, to-wards; L. por- ; see Por- (1).
Fro-; in fro-ward. (Scand.) Icel. fra, from. See p. 227
227.
Gain-, against. (Scand.) Icel. gegn, against. Ex.: gain-say.
Hemi-, half. (Gk.) Gk. ἡμι-, half. sémi-, half; see Semi-.
Shortened to me- in me-grim.
Hetero-, other. (Gk.) Gk. érepo-s, other.
Holo-, entire. (Gk.) Gk. 6Ao-s, entire.
Homo.-, same. (Gk.) Gk. ὁμό-5, same; cognate with E. same.
Lengthened to homeo-, Gk. dpo.o-s, like, in homeeo-pathy (homeo-
pathy).
Hyper-, above, beyond. (Gk.) Gk. ὑπέρ, above; see Super-.
Cf. Over-.
Hypo-, Hyph-, Hyp-. (Gk.) Gk. ὑπό, under. + L. sub,
under ; see Sub-. Hence hypi- in hyph-en ; kyp- in hyp-allage.
I-; in i-gnoble, i-gnominy, i-gnore.
see In- (3).
1|- (1); in il-lapse, il-lation, il-lision, il-lude, &c.; see In- (2).
Tl- (2) ; in il-legal ; see In- (3).
Im- (1); in im-brue, im-mure, im-pair, (F.—L.) Here im- is
for em-, the OF. form derived from L. im, in, See In- (2).
Im- (2); in im-bed. For E. in, as if for in-bed. But really due
to the influence of Im- (1).
Im- (3); in im-bue, im-merge, im-pel, &c. (L.) L, im-, for in,
in ; when 6, m, or p follows.
Im- (4), negative prefix.
prefix ; when m or p follows.
In- (1) ; in in-born.
In- (2); in in-clude. (L.; or F.—L.) L.in, in.+Gk. ἐν, in;
AS, in. See In- (1), En- (2), It appears as am-, an-, em-, en-, tl-,
im-, in-, ir-, in am-bush, an-oint, em-brace, en-close, il-lude, im-
mure, in-clude, ir-ritate, &c. Also as a= in ann-oy.
In- (3), negative prefix. (L.) L. in-, neg. prefix.-Gk. dv-, ἀ-,
neg. prefix; Εἰς, un-, before nouns. See An- (2), A- (g), Un- (1).
It appears as en-, i-, il-, im-, in-, ir-, in en-emy, i-gnoble, il-legal,
im-mortal, in-firm, ir-regular, &c.
Indi-, Ind-, as in indi-genous, ind-igent. (L.) OlLat. ind-u,
within. Gk. ἔνδον, within; see Endo-.
Inte!-; see below.
Inter-, between. (L.) L. inter, between. A comparative form,
allied to L. inéer-ror, within; cf. L. inter-nus, internal. It appears
as intel- in intel-lect, ex‘er- in enter-tain; and cf. entr-ails. Closely
allied are L. intrd-, within, intra@-, within.
Intra-, within; see Inter-.
Intro-, within; see Inter-.
Ir- (1); in ir-radiate, ir-rigate, ir-rision, ir-ritate, ir-ruption; for
L. in, prep. before r; see In- (2).
Ir- (2); in ir-rational, ir-reclaimable, &c.; for L. in-, negative
prefix, before r; see In- (3).
Iss-; in iss-ue. (F.—L.)
L. #, for in-, not, before gn;
(1 or F.—L.)
See In- (3).
(E.) AS. in, prep.
For L. in-, neg.
F, iss-, from L. ex; see Ex- (1).
Juxta-, near. (L.) 10. iuxta, near.
L- (1); in lone. (E.) Short for al7; l-one=al-one. See Al- (1).
L- (2); in tute. (Arab.) Short for Arab. αἱ, the, def. art. See
Al- (4).
PREFIXES
Male-, Mal-, Mau-, badly. (L.; a Ἐπ ΤΙ L. male, badly,
ill; whence F, mal, which becomes also mau-in mau-gre.
Me-; in me-grim; see Hemi-.
Meta-, Meth-, Met-, among, with, after; also used to imply
change. (Gk.) Gk. pera, among, with, after.4-AS,. mid, G. mit,
Goth. mith, with. It appears also as meth- in meth-od, mef- in
met-empsychosis, met-eor, met-onymy.
Min-; in min-ster; see Mono-.
Mis- (1); in mis-deed, mis-take, &c. (E. and Scand.) AS. mis-,
wrongly, amiss.4+Icel. Dan. Du. mis-; Swed. miss-; Goth. missa-,
wrongly. Allied to miss, vb.
Mis- (2), badly, ill. (F.-L.) OF. mes-, from L. minus, less;
used in a depreciatory sense. Appearing in mis-adventure, mis-
alliance, mis-chance, mis-chief, mis-count, mis-creant, mis-nomer,
mis-prise, mis-prision. Quite distinct from Mis- (1).
Mono-, Mon.-, single. (Gk.) Gk. μόνο-ς, single, sole, alone.
Hence mon-k, min-ster.
Multi-, Mult-, many. (L.; or F.—L.) From L. multus, much,
many.
N- (1); in n-ewt, n-ickname, n-once, n-uncle. (E,) A newt =an
ewt, where the prefixed x is due to the indef. article. A u-ickname=
an eke-name. My nuncle=mine uncle, where the n is due to the
possessive pronoun. In x-once, the prefixed x is due to the dat. case
of the def. article, as shown.
Ν- (2), negative prefix, (E. or L.) In n-aught, n-ay, n-either,
n-ever, n-0, n-one, n-or, n-ot (1), and in hob-n-ob, the prefixed a is
due to AS, xe, not. In x-ull, it is due to the cognate L. xe, not.
See Ne-.
Ne-, Neg-. (L.) L. ne, not; neg- as in neg-ligere, not.
ne-farious, neg-ation, neg-lect, neg-otiate, ne-scient, ne-uter.
N- (2).
Non-, not. (L.; or F.—L.) Τὰ non, not; OLat. noenum, for *ne
oinum, i.e. ne inum, not one; see above. It appears as um- in um-
pire, for numpire.
In
See
O-; in o-mit; see Ob-.
Ob-. (L.; or F.—L.) 1. οὐ, near; allied to Gk, ἐπί, upon, near;
Skt. api, moreover; Oscan of. See Epi-. The force of ob-
is very variable; it appears as ο-, ob-, oc-, of-, op-, also as extended
to os- (for ops); as in o-mit, ob-long, oc-cur, of-fer, op-press, os-
tensible.
Oc-; in oc-casion, oc-cident, oc-ciput, oc-cult, oc-eupy, oc-cur ;
see Ob-.
Of- (1) ; in of-fal. (E.) ΑΒ. of, of, off, away. This word is
invariably written off in composition, except in the case of offal,
where its use would have brought three 3,5 together.L. ab, Gk.
ἀπό; see Ab- (1), Apo-. It appears as a- in a-down, a-hin, a-new,
a-thirst ; see A- (1).
Of- (2); in of-fend, of-fer; see Ob-.
Off-; see Of- (1).
On-, on, upon. (E.) AS. on, on.4-Gk. ἀνά. From a pronominal
base. See Ana-. It often appears as a-, as in a-foot, a-sleep, &c.
See A- (2).
Op-; in op-pilation, op-ponent, op-portune, op-pose, op-posite,
op-press, op-probrious, op-pugn; see Ob-.
Or- (1); in or-deal, or-ts. (E.) AS. or-; cognate with Du.
oor-, OSax. and G. ur-, Goth, us, away, out of.
Or- (2); in or-lop. (Du.) Short for Du. over, cognate with E.
aver ; see Over-.
Os-; in os-tensible ; see Ob-.
Out-. (E.) AS. at, E. out, prep.4+Goth. ut, G. aus, Skt. ud,
out. Shortened to wéf- in utt-er ; and to μέ- in ut-most.
Outr-; in outr-age. (F.—L.) F. outre=L. ultra, beyond; see
Ultra-.
Over-. (E.) AS. ofer, E. over, prep.4+Goth. ufar, L. s-uper,
Gk. ὑπέρ, Skt. upari, above. A comparative form from Up, q.v.
See Hyper-, Super-, Or- (2).
Pa-; in pa-lsy ; see Para-.
Palin-, Palim-, again. (Gk.)
becomes palim- in palim-psest.
Pan-, Panto-, all. (Gk.) Gk. πᾶν, neut. of πᾶς, all; παντο-,
declensional form of the same, occurring in panto-mime.
Par- (1); in par-amount, par-amour, par-boil, par-don, par-son,
par-terre, par-venu; see Per-.
Par- (2); in par-agon, par-allel, par-egoric, &c.; see Para-.
Par- (3); in par-get. (F.—L.) OF. par-, por-; from L. pra;
see Pro- (1).
Para- (1), beside (Gk.) Gk. mapa, beside. Allied to E. for, L. per,
Gk. πάλιν, back, again. It
also to Gk. περί. See Per-, Peri-, and For- (1). It becomes pa-
LIST OF PREFIXES
ἴῃ pa-lsy; par- in par-ody, ὅς. @ Quite distinct from para- in
para-chute, para-pet, para-sol, from I. parer.
Para-~ (2); in para-dise. Zend pari =Gk. περί.
par- in par-vis-
Pel-; in pel-lucid ; see Per-.
Pen-; in pen-insula, pen-ultimate, pen-umbra. (L.) L. pen-e,
almost.
Per-, through. (L.; οὐ F.—L.) L. per, through, Allied to
Para- and For- (1). It appears also as par- in par-son, par-don,
&c.; as tel- in pel-lucid ; and as pil- in pil-grim. See Par- (1).
Peri-, around. (Gk.) Gk. περέ, around.4Skt. pari, round about.
Allied to Para-, &c.
Pil-; in pil-grim; see Per-.
Po-, in po-sition, po-sitive. (L.) L. pa-, short for *apo, allied to
L. *ap, original form of ab (Walde). See Ab- (1).
Pol-; in pol-lute; see Por- (1).
Poly-, many. (Gk.) Written for Gk. πολύ-, decl. form of modv-s,
much, many. Allied to E. full.
Por- (1); in por-tend. (L.) L. por-, allied to L. per, through
(Walde). It appears as pol- in pol-lute. The origin of pos- in pos-
sess is doubtful; but may be allied.
Por-.(2); in por-trait; see Pro- (1).
Pos-; in pos-sess; see Por- (1).
Post-, after. (L.) L. posé, after, behind.
ing as pu- im pu-ny.
Pour-; in pour-tray; see Pro- (1).
Pr- (1); in pr-ison, pr-ize (1); see Pre-.
Pr- (2); in pr-udent ; see Pro- (1).
Pre-, Pra-, before. (L.) L. pre-, for pre, prep., before; for
*prai, an old locative case. Allied to Pro-. This prefix occurs
also in pr-ison, pr-ize (1); and is curiously changed to pro- in
pro-vost.
Preter-, beyond. (L.) L. preter, beyond; comparative form of
pre, before. See above.
Pro- (1), before, instead of. (L.; or F.—L.) L. pré-, before, in
front, used as a prefix; also L. pré, for prod, abl. case used as
a preposition, which appears in prod-igal. Allied to Gk. mpd, before,
Skt. pra, before, away ; also to E. for. See below; and see For- (1).
It appears also as pour-, for-, pur-, pr-, in pour-tray, por-trait,
pur-vey, pr-offer, pr-udent; where pour-, por-, pur- are due to the
Ἐς, form pour,
Pro- (2), before. (Gk.) Gk. πρό, before; cognate with Pro- (1).
In pro-boscis, pre-blem, pro-em, pro-gnostic, pro-gramme, pro-
lepsis, pro-logue, pro-phet, pro-scenium, pro-thalamium, &c.
Pro- (3); in pro-vost ; see Pre-.
Prod-; in prod-igal; see Pro- (1).
Pros-, im addition, towards. (Gk.) Gk. πρός, towards. Allied to
Forth-.
Proto-, Prot-, first. (Gk.) From Gk. mp@ro-s, first; superl.
form of πρό, before ; see Pro- (2). Shortened to prof- in prot-oxide.
Pu-; in pu-ny ; see Post-.
Pur-;.in pur-chase, pur-loin, pur-port, pur-pose (1), pur-pose
(2), pur-sue, pur-vey, pur-view. (F.—L.) See Pro- (1).
Shortened to
Hence F. puis, appear-
R-; in r-ally; see Re-.
Re-, Red-, again. (L.) L. re-, red- (only in composition), again,
back. Red- occurs in red-eem, red-integrate, red-olent, red-ound,
red-undant, red-dition; and is changed to ren- in ren-der, ren-t.
In re-ly, re-mind, re-new, it is prefixed to purely E. words ; and in
re-call, re-cast, to words of Scand. origin. It appears as r- in r-ally
(1); and as rv- in ru-nagate. 2. Re- is frequently prefixed to other
prefixes, which sometimes coalesce with it, so that these words re-
quire care. For example, rampart =re-em-part; cf. also re-ad-apt,
re-col-lect, re-con-cile, re-sur-rection, &c. Also ransom, rascal.
Rear-; see Retro-.
Red-, Ren-3; see Re-.
Rere-; in rere-ward ; see Retro-.
Retro-, backwards, behind. (L.) L. retrd-, backwards, back
again; a comparative form from re-, back; see Re-. The prefixes
rear-, rere-, in rear-guard. rere-dos, rere-ward, are due to L. retrd,
and are of F, origin.
S- (1); ins-ure; see Se-.
S- (2); in s-pend, s-pite, s-play, s-tain; see Dis-.
S- (3); in s-ample; see Bx- (1).
S- (4); in s-ombre ; see Sub-.
Sans-, without. (F.—L.) F. sazs, without.—L. size, without ;
see Sine-.
Se-, Sed-, away, apart. (L.) L. sé-, apart; OLat. séd-, apart,
which is probably retained in sed-ition. The orig. sense was
probably ‘ by oneself.’ It appears as s- in s-ure; cf. sober.
735
Semi-, half. (L.) L. sémi-, half.--Gk. ἡμί-, half; see Hemi-.
It appears as sin- in sin-ciput.
Sin-; in sin-ciput ; see above.
Sine-, without. (L.) L. size, without; lit. if not.--L. sé, if; ne,
not. Hence F. sans, without.
So- (1); in so-journ; see Sub-.
So- (2); in so-ber. (L.) L. sd-, apart, allied to sé-, apart;
see Se-.
Sover-, Sopr-; see Super-.
Stra-; in stra-nge; see Extra-.
Su-; in su-dden, su-spect; see Sub-.
Sub-, under. (L.) L. sub, under, (sometimes) up. Allied to Gk.
ὑπό, under; Skt. zpa, near, under; also to E. up and of. See Hypo-,
Of-, Up-. Sub also appears as s-, so-, su-, suc-, suf-, sug-, Sum-, sup-,
sur-, in s-ombre (?), so-journ, su-dden, su-spect, suc-ceed, suf-fuse,
sug-gest, sum-mon, sup-press, sur-rogate. It is also extended to sus-
(for sups-) ; asin sus-pend, And cf, suzerain.
Subter-, beneath. (L.) L. swbter, beneath; comparative form
from sub, under. See Sub-.
Suc-, Suf-, Sug-, Sum-, Sup-; see Sub-.
Super-, above, over. (L.) L. suger, above; comparative form
of L. sub, under, also up.Gk. ὑπέρ, over, beyond; AS. ofer, E.
over. See Hyper-, Over-; alsoSub-. Hence supra, beyond, orig.
abl. feminine. Reduced to supr- in supr-eme. Note also sover- in
sover-eign, which isa F. form; and sofr- in sopr-ano, which is an
Ital. form. Also F. sur-<L. super; see Sur- (2).
Supra-, beyond; see above.
Sur- (1); in sur-reptitious, sur-rogate ; see Sub-.
Sur- (2); in sur-cease, sur-charge, sur-face, sur-feit, &c.; see
Super-.
Sus-: in sus-pend; see Sub-.
Sy-, Syl-, Sym-; see Syn-.
Syn-, with, together with. (Gk.) Gk. σύν, with. Allied to L.
cum, with; see Com-. It appears as sy-, syl-, sym-, and syn-, in
sy-stem, syl-logism, sym-metry, syn-tax, &c.
T- (1); t-wit. (E.) Twit is from AS. @t-witan, to twit, reproach ;
thus ἐ- is here put for E, at.
T- (2); t-awdry. (F.—L.) Tawdry is for Saint Awdry; thus ἐ- is
here the final letter of sain-t.
T- (3); t-autology. (Gk.) Here ἐ- represents Gk. τό, neuter of
the def. article.
Thorough., through. (E.) Merely another form of E. through.
To- (1), in to-day, to-morrow. (E.) AS. 70, to.
To- (2), intensive prefix. (E.) Obsolete, except in ¢o-brake.
AS. ἐδ, apart, asunder; prob. allied to L. dis-, apart. See Dis-.
@ Some connect it with Gk. δύς- ; see Dys-.
Tra-, Tran-3 see below,
Trans-, beyond. (L.) L. trans, beyond. Shortened to fran- in
tran-scend : and to ¢ra- in tra-duce, tra-verse, &c. Hence F. tres-,
occurring in tres-pass ; and ¢re- in tre-ason. And see tranc-e, trans-
om, tres-tle.
Tre- (1), Tres-. (F.—L.) See above.
Tre- (2); in tre-ble. (F.—L.) See below.
Tri- (1), thrice. (L.) L. éri-, thrice; allied to ¢rés, three.
Hence tri-ple, tre-ble, &c. ; also (perhaps) ἐγα- in tra-mmel.
Tri- (2), thrice. (Gk.) Gk. tp-, thrice; allied to τρία, neut. of
τρεῖς, three. Hence tri-gonometry, &c.
Twi-, double, doubtful. (E.) AS. ¢wi-, double; allied to twa,
two. Hence twi-bill, twi-light.
U-; in u-topian. (Gk.) Gk. οὐ, not; see p. 682.
Ultra-, beyond. (L.) L. ultra, beyond; allied to OLat. ulter,
adj., appearing in wlter-ior, which see in Dict. Hence F. outre,
beyond, appearing in outr-age; also in E. utter-ance (2), corruption
of F. oulr-ance.
Uim-; in umpire; see Non-.
Un- (1), negative prefix to nouns, &c. (E.) AS. τις, not; cog-
nate with L, in-, not, Gk. dv-, not. See An- (2), In- (3).
Un- (2), verbal prefix, signifying the reversal of an action. (E.)
AS. un-, verbal prefix; allied to Du. ont-, ent-, G. ent-, OHG.
ant-, Goth. and-, and E. an- in an-swer; see An- (5), Anti-.
Un- (3); in un-til, un-to. (E.) See ux-to in Dict., p. 680.
Un- (4), Uni-, one. (L.) L. ain-us, one; whence uni-vocal,
with one voice; un-animous, of one mind; &c. Cognate with
E. one.
Under-. (E.) AS. under, E. under, prep.
Up-. (E.) AS. up, E. up, prep. Allied to Of-, Sub-, Hypo-.
Ut, Utt-. (E.) See Out.
Utter-. (F.—L.) Only in utter-ance (2).
Ultra-.
F. outre, L. ultra ; see
786
V-; in v-an (1), v-anguard. (F.—L.) See Ab- (1).
Vice-, Vis-, in place of. (L.; or F.—L.) L. ice, in place of,
whence OF, vis, the same. The latter appears only in vis-count.
Wan., negative prefix; see wan-ton in Dict.
With-, against. (E.) A shortened form of AS. wider, against ;
see withers in Dict. The sense is preserved in with-stand. In with-
hold, with-draw, it signifies ‘ back.’
Y-3; in y-wis, y-clept. (E.) AS. ge-, prefix; ME. i-, y-. This
prefix appears as a- in a-ware; as ἐ- in i-wis (the same as y-wis) ;
and as e- in enough. See A- (11), E- (2).
A. Summary. A few of the Prefixes given above, such as al-
in al-mighty, are rather true words that can be used alone; for al- is
merely a spelling of all. Omitting these and some forms that are
mere variants, the list may be reduced to the following.
A- (with several values), ab-, abs- (see Abscond), ad-, al-
(Arabic), ambi- or amb- (see Ambidextrous), amphi-, an-, ana-,
ante-, anti- or ant-, aph- or apo-, be-, bi- or bis-, cata-, circum-,
co- (com-, con-), contra-, counter-, de-, di-, dia-, dis-, dys- (see
Dysentery), e-, em- (see Embark), en-, endo-, epi-, eso-, ex-, exo-,
extra-, for- (2), for- (3), fore-, forth, fro-.
Gain- (see Gainsay}, hemi-, hyper-, hypo-, i-, il- (1), il- (2), im-
(1), im- (2), im- (3), in- (1), in- (2), in- (3), indi-, inter-, intra-,
intro- (see Introduce), ir- (1), ir- (2), juxta- (see Joust).
Meta-, mis- (1), mis- (2), ne- (see No (1)), non-, ob-, on-, or- (see
Ordeal, Ort, Orlop), out-, over-, palin- (see Palindrome), pan-
(panto-), para-, per-, peri-, pol- or po- (see Pollute, Position), por-
(see Portend), post-, pre-, preter-, pro-, pros-, pur-, re-, red-,
Tetro-.
Se- (sed-), semi-, sine- (see Sinecure), sub-, sub-ter, super-, supra-,
sur- (1), sur- (2), sus-, syn-, to- (1), to- (2), trans-, ultra-, un-
(1), un- (2), un- (3), under-, up-, with-, y-.
B. Some of these prefixes assume various shapes in accordance
with phonetic laws. Of these, the most important are the follow-
ing :—
(a) The Lat. prep. ad appears as a-, ab-, ac-, ad-, af-, ag-, al-,
an-, ap-, ar-, as-, at-.
(6) The Lat. prep. cum appears as co-, col-, com-, comb-, con-, cor-.
Also (through F.) as co-, coi-, cou-, coun-, cu-, cur-.
(c) The Lat. prefix dis- appears as de-, des-, di-, dif-, dis-, and
even s-.
(4) The Lat. prep. ex appears as a-, as-, e-, ef-, es-, ex-, and even
iss- and s-,
(e) The Lat. prep. i appears as am-, an-, em-, en-, il- (1), im-
(1, 3), in- (2), ir- (1).
(f) The Lat. negative prefix in- appears as ene, i-, il- (2), im- (4),
in- (3), ir- (2).
(g) The Lat. prep. ob appears as ο-, ob-, oc-, of-, op-; Wwe even
find os-.
(kh) The Lat. prep. swb appears as s- (in s-ombre?), so- (in so-
journ), su-, sub-, suc-, suf-, sug-, sum-, sup-, sur-.
(2) The Greek prefix αρο- (ἀπό) also appears as aph- ; cata- (κατά),
also as cat-, cath- ; en- (€v), also as em-; epi- (ἐπί), also as ep-, eph- ;
hyto- (ὑπό), also as hyp-, hyph-; syn- (adv), also as sy-, syl-, sym-.
These very common variations should be observed and learnt For
this purpose. I suggest a study of the following words :—
LE
The number of suffixes in modern English is so great, and the
forms of several, especially in words derived through the French
from Latin, are so variable that an attempt to exhibit them all
would tend to confusion. The best account of their origin is to be
found in Brugmann, Grundriss der Vergleichenden Grammatik der
Indogermanischen Sprachen. An account of Anglo-Saxon suffixes
is given at p. 119 of March, Comparative Grammar of the Anglo-
Saxon Language. Lists of Anglo-Saxon words, arranged according
to their suffixes, are given in Loth, Etymologische Angelsachsisch-
englische Grammatik, Elberfeld, 1870. Simple accounts of English
suffixes in general are given in Morris, Historical Outlines of English
Accidence, pp. 212-221, 229-242; in Nesfield, Historical English and
Derivation, pp. 185-252; and in the two series of my Principles of
English Etymology; to which the reader is referred. See also
LIST OF PREFIXES
(a) A-chieve, ab-breviate, ac-cede, ad-mire, af-fix, ag-gress, al-lude,
an-nex, ap-pend, ar-rogate, as-sign, at-tract.
(6) Co-agulate, col-lect, com-mute, comb-ustion, con-nect, cor-
rode ; also co-st, coi-l, cou-ch, coun-cil, cu-ll, cur-ry (1).
(c) De-feat, des-cant, di-verge, dif-fuse, dis-pel, s-pend.
(d) A-mend, as-tonish, e-normous, ef-fect, es-cape, ex-tend, iss-ue,
s-ample.
(e) Am-bush, an-oint, em-bellish, en-close, il-lude, im-mure, im-
merge, in-clude, ir-ritate.
(f) En-emy, i-gnoble, il-legal, im-mortal, in-firm, ir-regular.
(g) O-mit, ob-long, oc-cur, of-fer, op-press, os-tensible.
(1) S-ombre, so-journ, su-dden, sub-mit, suc-ceed, suf-fuse, sug-
gest, sum-mon, sup-press, sur-rogate.
(1) Apo-logy, aph-zresis; cata-logue, cat-echism, cath-olic; en-
ergy, em-phasis ; epi-logue, ep-och, eph-emera; hypo-thesis, hyp-
allage, hyph-en ; syn-onymous, sy-stem, syl-logism, sym-metry.
It may be noted here that more than one prefix may be placed at
the beginning of a word, as in re-im-burse, ram-part (=re-em-patt),
in-ex-act, δες. 5
C. Some prefixes exhibit such unusual forms in certain words that
they can only be understood upon a perusal of the etymology of the
word as given in the Dictionary. I note here a few curious
examples.
A- replaces e- (Lat. e, for ex) in a-mend.
Al-, the Arabic definite article, appears at the beginning of al-cohol,
a-pricot, ar-tichoke, as-segai, el-ixir, l-ute. But the al- in al-ligator
is the Span. εἰ, Lat. ille.
The Latin ab has actually become adv- in the word adv-antage ;
whilst in v-an-guard it appears as v-. But, in ab-breviate, the prefix
is ad-. The Latin cum- appears in co-st, co-stive, coi-l, cou-ch, cou-sin,
cur-ry (1), cu-ll, cu-stom,
The dea- in dea-con represents the Greek διά; so also de- in
de-vil,
The e- in e-lope represents the AF. a-, OF. es-, L. ex.
The e- in e-squire, e-scutcheon, &c., is purely phonetic, as ex-
plained.
The ev- in ev-angelist is for Gk. eu-, as in eu-logy.
The or- in or-deal and or-t is a Teutonic prefix.
The outr- in outr-age represents the Latin ultra ; cf. utter-ance (2).
The s- in s-wre (Lat. sé-ciirus) represents the Latin sé-.
The /- in /-wit represents the AS. e; but in ¢-awdry it is the last
letter of saint.
D. Numerals are peculiarly liable to sink into apparent prefixes ;
such are Lat. ἅγια, duo (adverbially, bis), ¢rés, &c.; hence un-
animous, du-et, bin-ary, bi-sect, bis-cuit, ba-lance, dou-ble, 'tre-ble,
tri-ple, &c.
Other noteworthy Latin words are dimidium, male, pane, sémt-,
vice ; whence demi-, mal-treat, mau-gre, pen-insula, semi-circle, vice-
admiral, vis-count.
As in Latin, the Greek numerals are peculiarly liable to sink into
apparent prefixes ; hence di-cotyledon, from δίς, twice; tri-gonometry,
tetra-hedron, penta-gon, hex-agon, hepta-gon, octa-gon, nona-gon,
deca-gon, &c. Other noteworthy Greek words are dpxt-, chief
(archi-pelago, arche-type, arch-bishop); αὐτός, self (auto-graph,
auth-entic, eff-endi); ἡμι-, half (hemi-); ἕτερος, other (hetero-) ;
ὅλος, entire (holo-); duds, same (homo-); μόνος, single (mono-);
πᾶν, all (pan-, panto-); πολύς much, many (poly-); πρῶτος, first
(proto-).
ἘΠ Exes
Koch, Historische Grammatik der Englischen Sprache, vol. iii, pt. 1,
pp. 29-77. It is clearly established that the Indo-germanic languages
abound in suffixes, each of which was originally intended slightly to
modify the meaning of the root to which it was added, so as to
express the radical idea in a new relation. The force of many of
these must, even at an early period, have been slight, and in many
instances it is difficult to trace it; but in some instances it is still
clear, and the form of the suffix is then of great service. The
difference between Jov-er, Jov-ed, and lov-ing is well marked, and
readily understood. One of the most remarkable points is that
most of the Indo-germanic languages delighted in adding suffix
to suffix, so that words are not uncommon in which two or more
suffixes occur, each repeating, it may be, the sense of that which
preceded it. Double diminutives, such as parti-c-le, i.e. ‘a little
SUFFIXES
little part,’ are sufficiently common. The Lat. superl. suffix -is-si-
mus is an example of the use of a treble suffix, which really expresses
no more than is expressed by -rius alone in the word pri-mus. The
principal Indo-germanice suffixes, omitting feminine forms, are these :
το, τί, τὶ, -yo (written -jo), -wo, -mo, -mi, -men (-mon), -meno, -n0,
-in0, -ni, -nu, -en (-on), -ent (-ont), -lo, -li, -lu,-ro, -ri, -ru, -er (-or),
-es (-os), -to, -men-to, -ti, -ti-On, -td-ti, -lu, -tii-li, -ter (-tor, -tr),
-turo, -tro, -tlo, -id, -d, -d-en (-d-on), -ti-den, το, -go, -ko, -k, -sko,
-bho. But these can be readily compounded, so as to form new
suffixes; so that from -men-to was formed -mento (as in Ε΄ argu-
ment).
One common error with regard to suffixes should be guarded
against, viz. that of mis-dividing a word so as to give the suffix
a false shape. This is extremely common in such words as logi-c,
civi-c, belli-c-ose, where the suffix is commonly spoken of as being -ic
or -ic-ose. This error occurs, for instance, in the elaborate book on
English Affixes by S. S. Haldemann, published at Philadelphia in
1865 ; a work which is of considerable use as containing a very full
account, with numerous examples, of suffixes and prefixes. The
truth is that ctvi-c (Lat. ciwicus) is derived from Lat. ciui-, declensional
stem of ciwis, 2 citizen, with the suffix τοῖς (Idg. -ko); and logi-c
is from Gk. λογικός, from λογι-, for Aoyo-, declensional stem of
λόγος, a discourse, with the suffix -sos, as before. Compare Lat.
π| aL ΞΘ TO
Homonyms are words spelt alike, but differing in use. In a few
cases, I include different uses of what is either exactly, or nearly,
the same word, at the same time noting that the forms are allied ;
but in most cases, the words are of different origin.
Abide (1), to wait for. (E.)
Abide (2), to suffer for a thing. (E.)
Air (1), the atmosphere. (F. — L.—Gk.)
Air (2), demeanour; tune. (F.—L.—Gk.) From Air (1).
Allow (1), to assign, grant. (F.—L.)
Allow (2), to approve of. (F.—L.)
Along (1), lengthwise of. (E.)
Along (2), iz ‘along of. (E.) Allied to Along (1).
Amice (1), a piece of linen, (F.—L.)
Amice (2), a hood for pilgrims, (F.—Span.—Teut. ?)
An (1), the indef. article. (E.)
An (2), if. (E.) Shortened from and.
Ancient (1), old. (F,—L.) ᾿
Ancient (2), ἃ banner, standard-bearer. (F.—L.)
Angle (1), a bend, corner. (F.—L.)
Angle (2), a fishing-hook. (E.)
Arch (1), a construction of stone or wood, &c., in a curved form.
(F.—L.)
Arch (2), roguish, waggish, sly. (L.—Gk.) From Arch- below.
Arch-, chief; used as a prefix. (L.—Gk.)
Arm (1), s., the limb extending from the shoulder to the hand. (E.)
Arm (2), verb, to furnish with weapons. (F.—L.)
Art (1), 2 p. s. pres. of the verb substantive. (E.)
Art (2), skill, contrivance. (F.—L.)
Ay! interj. of surprise. (E.)
Ay, Aye, yea, yes. (E.)
Aye, adv., ever, always. (Scand.)
Baggage (1), travellers’ luggage. (F.—Scand.)
Baggage (2), a worthless woman. (F.—Scand.) From Baggage (1).
Bail (1), security, to secure. (F.—L.)
Bail (2), a bucket. See Bale (3).
Bale (1), a package. (F.—MHG.)
Bale (2), evil. (E.)
Bale (3), to empty water out of a ship, (F.—Late L.)
Balk (1), a beam; a ridge, a division of land. (E.)
Balk (2), to hinder. (E.) Allied to Balk (1).
Ball (1), a dance. (F.—Late L.)
Ball (2), a spherical body. (Scand.)
Band (1), also Bond, a fastening. (Scand.
Band (2), a company of men. (F.—G.)
Bang (1), to beat violently. (Scand.)
Bang (2), a narcotic drug. (Port.—Hind.—Skt.)
Bank (1), a mound of earth. (Scand.) __
)
Allied to Band (1).
737
ciui-tas, Gk. Aoyo-payia.. Of course, words,in τὸς are so numerons
that -ie has come to be regarded as a suffix at the present day, so
that we do not hesitate to form Volta-ic as an adjective of Volta;
but this is English misuse, not Latin etymology. Moreover,,since
both -i- and -ko are Indo-germanic suffixes, such a suffix as ~1-Kos,
-i-cus, is possible both in Greek and Latin; but in the particular
words above cited it is clearer to take the -i- as due to the de-
clensional stem.
One more word of warning may perhaps suffice. If we wish to
understand a suffix, we must employ comparative philology, and
not consider English as an absolutely isolated language, with laws
different from those of other languages of the Indo-germanic family.
Thus the -th in tru-th is the -d of AS. /réow-0, gen. case tréow-de,
fem. sb. This suffix answers to that seen, in Goth. gabaur-ths, birth,
gen. case gabaur-thais, fem. sb., belonging to the -i- stem declension
of Gothic strong substantives. The true suffix is therefore to, be
expressed as Teut. -thi, cognate with Idg. -/i, so extremely common
in Latin; cf. dd-ti-, dowry, men-ti-, mind, mor-ti-, death, mes-si-
(<met-ti-), harvest, that which is mown. Hence, when Horne
Tooke gave his famous etymology of truth as being “ that which
a man troweth,’ he did in reality suggest that the -/i- in Lat. mor-ti-
is identical with the -¢ in mori-t-ur or in ama-t; in other words, it
was a mere whim.
HOMONYMS
Bank (2), a place for depositing money. (F.—Ital.—G.)° Allied io
Bank (1).
Barb (1), the hook on the point of an arrow. (F.—L.)
Barb (2), a Barbary horse. (F.— Barbary.)
Bard (1), a poet. (C.)
3ard (2), armour for a horse. (F.—Scand.)
3ark (1), Barque, a sort of ship. (F.—Ita].—Late L.)
Bark (2), the rind of a tree. (Scand.)
Bark (3), to yelp as a dog. (E.)
Barm (1), yeast. (E.)
Barm (2), the lap. (E.)
Barnacle (1), a species of goose. (F.—Late L.) Hence Barnacle (2).
Barnacle (2), a sort of small shell-fish. (.—Late L.) ¢
Barrow (1), a burial-mound. (E.)
Barrow (2), a wheelbarrow. (E.)
Base (1), low, humble. (F.—L.)
Base (2), a foundation. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Basil (1), a kind of plant. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Basil (2), Bezel, a bevelled edge. (F.)
Basil (3), a tanned sheep-hide. (F.—Span, — Arab.)
Bass (1), the lowest part in a musical composition. (F.—L.)
Bass (2), Barse, Brasse, a fish. (E.)
Baste (1), vb., to beat, strike. (Scand.)
Baste (2), to pour fat over meat. (F.—Proy.—Late:L.)
Baste (3), to sew slightly. (F.—-OHG,)
Bat (1), a short cudgel. (E.)
Bat (2), a winged mammal. (Scand.)
Bate (1), to abate, diminish. (F.—L.)
Bate (2), strife. (F.—L.) Allied to Bate (1),
Batten (1), to grow fat; to fatten. (Scand.)
Batten (2), a wooden rod. (F.—Late L.)
Batter (1), to beat. (F.—L.) Whence Batter (2).
Batter (2), a,compound of eggs, flour, and milk. (F.—L.)
Bauble (1), a fool’s mace. (F.)
Bauble (2), a plaything. (F.) See Bauble (1).
Bay (1), a reddish brown. (F.—L.)
Bay (2), akind of laurel-tree. (F.—L.)
Bay (3), an inlet of the sea. (F.—L.)
Bay (4), a division in a barn. (F.—L.)
Bay (5), to bark asa dog. (F.—L.)
Bay (6), in phr. at bay. (F.—L.) Allied to Bay (5).
Beam (1), a piece of timber. (E.)
Beam (2), a ray of light. (E.) The same as Beam (1).
Bear (1), to carry. (E.)
Bear (2), an animal. (E.)
Beaver (1), an animal. (E.)
Beaver (2), the lower part of a helmet. (F.)
Beaver (3), Bever, a short repast. (1'.—L.)
Beck (1), a nod or sign. (E.)
Beck (2), a stream. (Scand.)
788
Beetle (1), an insect, (E.) Allied to Beetle (3).
Beetle (2), a heavy mallet. (E.)
Beetle (3), to jut out and hang over. (E.)
Bend (1), to bow, to curve. (E.) Hence Bend (2).
Bend (2), a slanting band; in heraldry. (F.—G.)
Bestead (1), to assist, avail. (E.)
Bestead (2), situated, beset. (Scand.) Allied to Bestead (1).
Bid (1), to pray. (E.)
Bid (2), to command. (E.)
Bile (1), secretion from the liver. (F.—L.)
Bile (2), a boil. (E.)
Bill (1), a chopper, battle-axe, sword. (E.)
Bill (2), a bird's beak. (E.)
Bill (3), a writing, account. (F.—L.)
Billet (1), a note, ticket. (F.—L.)
Billet (2), a log of wood. (F.)
Bit (1), a small piece, a mouthful. (E.)
Bit (2), a curb for a horse. (E.) Allied to Bit (1).
Blanch (1), v., to whiten. (F.—OHG.)
Blanch (2), ν., to blench. (E.)
Blaze (1), a flame; to flame. (E.)
Blaze (2), to proclaim, (Scand.)
Blazon (1), a proclamation; to proclaim. (Scand.) See Blazon (2).
Blazon (2), to pourtray armorial bearings. (F. —Teut.)
Bleak (1), pale, exposed. (Scand.)
Bleak (2), a kind of fish, (Scand.) The same as Bleak (1).
Blot (1), a spot, to spot. (F.—Teut.)
Blot (2), at backgammon. (Du.)
Blow (1), to puff. (E.)
Blow (2), to bloom, flourish as a flower. (E.)
Blow (3), a stroke, hit. (E.)
Bluff (1), downright, rude. (Dutch.)
Bluff (2), to cow by bragging. (Low G.)
Board (1), a table, a plank. (E.) Hence Board (2).
Board (2), to approach, to accost. (F.—Teut.)
Boil (1), to bubble up. (F.—L.)
Boil (2), a small tumour, (E.)
Boom (1), to hum, buzz. (E.)
Boom (2), a beam or pole. (Dutch. )
Boot (1), a covering for the leg and foot. (F.—Late L.)
Boot (2), advantage, profit. (E.)
Bore (1), to perforate. (E.)
Bore (2), to worry, vex. (E.) The same as Bore (1).
Bore (3), a tidal surge in a river. (Scand.)
Botch (1), to patch, a patch. (E.)
Botch (2), a swelling. (F.—G.)
Bottle (1), a hollow vessel. (I’.—Late L.)
Bottle (2), a bundle of hay. (F.—OHG.)
Bound (1), to leap. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Bound (2), a boundary, limit. (F.—C.)
Bound (3), ready to go, (Scand.)
Bourn (1), a boundary. (F.)
Bourn (2), Burn, a stream. (E.)
Bow (1), vb., to bend. (E.)
Bow (2), a bend. (E.) Allied to Bow (1).
Bow (3), a weapon to shoot with. (E.) Allied to Bow (1).
Bow (4), the bow of a ship. (Scand.)
Bowl (1), a round wooden ball. (F.—L.)
Bowl (2), a drinking-vessel. (E.)
Box (1), the name of a tree. (L.—Gk.)
Box (2), a case to put things in. (L.—Gk.) See Box (1).
Box (3), in ‘ to box the compass.’ (L.—Gk.) See Box (2).
Box (4), to fight with fists; a blow. (E.)
Brake (1), a machine for breaking hemp, &c. (OLow G.)
Brake (2), a bush, thicket, fem. (E.)
Brat (1), a cloak, rough mantle. (C.)
Brat (2), a child. (C.) From Brat (1).
Brawl (1), to quarrel, roar. (E.)
Brawl (2), a sort of dance. (F.)
Bray (1), to bruise, pound. (F.—Teut.)
Bray (2), to make a loud noise, as an ass. (F.—C.)
Braze (1), to harden. (F.—Scand.)
Braze (2), to ornament with brass. (E.) Allied to Braze (1).
Breeze (1), a gadfly. (E.)
Breeze (2), a strong wind. (F.)
Breeze (3), cinders. (F.—Scand.)
Brief (1), short. (F.—L.)
Brief (2), a letter, &c. (F.—L.) The same as Brief (1).
Broil (1), to fry, roast over hot coals. (F.—Teut.)
Broil (2), a disturbance, tumult. (F.)
Brook (1), to endure, put up with. (E.)
LIST OF HOMONYMS
Brook (2), a small stream. (E.)
Buck (1), a male deer or goat. (E.)
Buck (2), to steep clothes in lye. (E.)
Budge (1), to stir, move from one’s place. (F.—L.)
Budge (2), a kind of fur. (F.)
Buff (1), in ‘ blindman’s buff.” (F.—Teut.)
Buff (2), a pale yellow colour. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Buffer (1), a foolish fellow. (F.) Allied to Buffer (2).
Buffer (2), a cushion with springs used to deaden concussion, (F.)
Buffet (1), a blow; to strike. (F.)
Buffet (2), a side-board. (F.)
Bug (1), Bugbear, a terrifying spectre. (C.)
Bug (2), an insect. (E.)
Bugle (1), a wild ox; a horn. (F.—L.)
Bugle (2), a kind of ornament. (F.—L.) See Bugle (1).
Bugle (3), a plant. (F.— Late L.)
Bulk (1), magnitude, size. (Scand.)
Bulk (2), the trunk of the body. (Dutch.)
Bulk (3), a stall of a shop. (Scand.)
Bull (1), a male bovine quadruped. (E.)
Bull (2), a papal edict. (L.)
Bump (1), to thump, beat; a blow, knob. (E.)
Bump (2), to make a noise like a bittern. (E.)
Bunting (1), the name of a bird. (Scand. ?)
Bunting (2), athin woollen stuff, of which ship’s flags are made. (E. 2)
Burden (1), Burthen, a load carried. (E.)
Burden (2), the refrain of a song. (F.—Late L.)
Burn (1), to set on fire. (E.)
Burn (2), a brook. (E.) See Bourn (2).
Bury (1), to hide in the ground. (E.)
Bury (2), a town, as in Canterbury, (E.) Allied to Bury (1).
Bush (1), a thicket. (Late L.)
Bush BP the metal box in which an axle works. (Du.—L.—Gk.)
Busk (1), to get oneself ready. (Scand.)
Busk (2), a support for a woman’s stays. (F.)
Buss (1), a kiss, to kiss. (E.)
Buss (2), a herring-boat. (F.)
But (1), prep. and conj., except. (E.)
But (2), to strike; a but-end. See below.
Butt (1), an end; a thrust; to thrust. (F.—OLow 6.)
Butt (2), a large barrel. (F.—Late L.)
Butt (3), a thick end. (E.)
Butt (4), a kind of flat fish. (E.)
Cab (1), an abbreviation of cabriolet. (F.—Itai.—L.)
Cab (2), a Hebrew measure, 2 Kings vi. 25. (Heb.)
Cabbage (1), a vegetable with a large head. (F.—L.)
Cabbage (2), to steal. (F.— Prov. —Late L.—L.)
Calender (1), a machine for pressing cloth. (F.—Late L.—Gk.)
Calender (2), a kind of wandering monk. (F.— Pers.)
Calf (1), the young of the cow. (E.)
Calf (2), a part of the leg. (Scand.) See above.
Can (1), Iam able. (E.)
Can (2), a drinking vessel. (E.)
Cannon (1), a large gun. (F.—Ital.—L.—Gk.)
Cannon (2), a stroke at billiards, (F.—Span.)
Canon (1), a rule, ordinance. (L.—Gk.) Hence Canon (2).
Canon (2), a dignitary of the church. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Cant (1), to talk hypocritically. (L.)
Cant (2), an edge, corner. (Dutch—L.—Gk.)
Cape (1), a covering for the shoulders. (F.—Span. —Late L.)
Cape (2), a headland. (F. —Ital.—L.)
Caper (1), to dance about. (Ital.—L.)
Caper (2), the flower-bud of the caper-bush. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Capital (1), relating to the head; chief. (F.—L.) )
Capital (2), wealth, stock of money. (F.—L.)
Capital (3), the head of a pillar, (F.—L.)
Card (1), a piece of paste-board. (F.—Ital. —Gk.)
Card (2), an instrument for combing wool. (F.—L.)
Carousal (1), a drinking-bout. (F.—G.)
Carousal (2), a kind of pageant. (F.—Ital.)
Carp (1), a fresh water fish. (F.—Late L. —Teut.)
Carp (2), to cavil at. (Scand.)
Case (1), that which happens ; an event, &c. (F.—L.)
Case (2), a receptacle, cover. (I*.—L.)
Cash (1), coin or money. (F.—Ital.—L.)
Cash (2), an Indian coin. (Tami!—Skt.)
Celt (1), a name given to the Gauls, &c. (C.)
Celt (2), a primitive chisel. (1,.)
Chap (1), to cleave, crack ; Chop, to cut. (E.)
Chap (2), a fellow ; Chapman, a merchant. (E.)
Allied.
LIST OF HOMONYMS
Char (1), to turn to charcoal. (E.)
Char (2), a turn of work. (E.)
Char (3), a kind of fish. (C.)
Charm (1), a song, a spell. (F.—L.)
Charm (2), a blended noise of voices. (I.)
Chase (1), to hunt after, pursue. (F.—L.)
Chase (2), to enchase, emboss. (F.—L.) Allied to Chase (3).
Chase (3), a printer's frame for type. (F.—L.) See Case (2).
Chase (4), the cavity of a gun-barrel. (F.—L.) See Case (2).
Chink (1), a cleft, crevice. (E.)
Chink (2), to jingle. (E.)
Chit (1), a whelp, cub, brat. (E.)
Chit (2), a shoot, a sprout. (E.)
Chop (1), to cut suddenly, strike off. (E.)
Chop (2), to barter, exchange. (E.)
Chuck (1), to strike gently ; to toss. (F. -OLow G.)
Chuck (2), tocluck asa hen. (E.)
Chuck (3), a chicken. (E.) Allied to Chicken.
Clam (1), to adhere, as something viscid. (E.)
Clam (2), a kind of clamp or vice. (E.)
Cleave (1), strong verb, to split asunder. (E.)
Cleave (2), weak verb, to stick, adhere. (E.)
Clip (1), to cut off, to shear. (Scand.)
Clip (2), to embrace, to grip. (E.)
Close (1), to shut in, shut, make close. (F.—L.) Whence Close (a).
Close (2), adj., shut up, confined, narrow. (F.—L.)
Clove (1), a kind of spice. (F.—L.)
Clove (2), a bulb or tuber. (E.)
Clove (3), a denomination of weight. (F.—L.)
Club (1), a heavy stick, a cudgel. (Scand.)
Club (2), an association of persons. (Scand.)
Club (3), one of a suit at cards, (Scand.)
Clutter (1), to coagulate, clot. (E.) Hence Clutter (2).
Clutter (2), a confused heap; to heap up. (E.)
Clutter (3), a noise, great din. (E.)
Cob (1), a round lump, or knob, (E.)
Cob (2), to beat, strike. (E.) Allied to Cob (1).
Cobble (1), to patch up. (E.)
Cobble (2), a small round lump. (E.)
Cock (1), the male of the domestic fowl. (E.)
Cock (2), to stick up abruptly. (E.)
Cock (3), part of the lock of a gun. (E.)
Cock (4), a small pile of hay. (Scand.)
Cock (5), Cockboat, a small boat. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Cockle (1), a sort of bivalve. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Cockle (2), a weed among corm; darnel. (E.)
Cockle (3), to be uneven, pucker up. (Scand. )
Cocoa (1), the cocoa-nut palm-tree. (Port. )
Cocoa (2), corrupt form of Cacao, (Span. — Mexican.)
Cod (1), a kind of fish. (12.)
Cod (2), a husk, shell, bag, bolster. (E.)
Codling (1), a young cod. (E.)
Codling (2), Codlin, a kind of apple. (C.; with E. suffix.)
Cog (1), a tooth on the rim of a wheel. (Scand.)
Cog (2), to trick, delude. (Scand.)
Coil (1), to gather together. (F.—L.)
Coil (2), a noise, bustle, confusion. (F.—L.) From Coil (1).
Colleague (1), a coadjutor, partner. (F.—L.)
Colleague (2), to join in an alliance. (F.—L.)
Colon (1), a mark printed thus (:). (Gk.)
Colon (2), part of the intestines. (Gk.)
Compact (1), close, firm. (F.—L.) Allied to Compact (2).
Compact (2), a bargain, agreement. (L.)
Compound (1), to compose, mix. (L.)
Compound (2), an enclosure of a factory. ( Malay.)
Con (1), to enquire into, observe closely. (E.)
Con (2), used in the phrase pro and con. (L.)
Contract (1), to draw together, shorten. (L.) Allied to Contract (2).
Contract (2), a bargain, agreement. (F.—L.)
Cope (1), a cap, hood, cloak, cape. (Late L.)
Cope (2), to vie with, match. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Cope (3), to buy. (Dutch.)
Corn (1), grain. (E.)
Corn (2), an excrescence on the foot. (F.—L.)
Corporal (1), a subordinate officer. (F.—L.)
Corporal (2), belonging to the body. (F.—L.)
Cotton (1), a downy substance. (F.—Span.— Arabic.)
Cotton (2), to agree. (F.—Span.—Arab.) From Cotton (1).
Count (1), a title of rank. (F.—L.)
Count (2), to enumerate, compute. (I.—L.
Counterpane (1), a coverlet for a bed. (F.—L.)
Allied,
739
Counterpane (2), the counterpart of a deed. (F.—L.)
Court (1), a yard, enclosed space, tribunal, &c. (F.—L.
Court (2), to woo, seek favour. (F.—L.) From Court (1).
Cow (1), the female of the bull. (E.)
Cow (2), to subdue, dishearten. (Scand.)
Cowl (1), a monk’s hood, a cap, hood. (L.)
Cowl (2), a vessel carried on a pole. (F.—L.)
Coy (1), modest, bashful, retired. (F.—L.)
Coy (2), a decoy for wild duck. (Du.—L.)
Crab (1), a common shell-fish. (E.)
Crab (2), a kind of apple. (E.)
Crank (1), a bent arm, for turning an axis. (E.)
Crank (2), liable to be upset, said of a boat. (E.) Allied,
Crank (3), lively, brisk. (E.)
Crease (1), a wrinkle, small fold. (F.—L.)
Crease (2), Creese, a Malay dagger. (Malay.)
Cricket (1), a shrill-voiced insect. (F.:—Du.)
Cricket (2), a game with bat and ball. (F.—Du.)
Croup (1), an affection of the larynx. (E.)
Croup (2), the hinder parts of a horse. (F.—Teut.)
Crowd (1), to push, press, squeeze. (E.)
Crowd (2), a fiddle, violin. (W.)
Cue (1), a tail, a billiard-rod. (F.—L.)
Cue (2), a direction for an actor's appearance. (F.—L.)
Cuff (1), to strike with the open hand. (Scand.)
Cuff (2), part of the sleeve. (L. ?)
Culver (1), a dove. (E. or L.)
Culver (2), another form of Culverin. (F.—L.)
Cunning (1), skilful, knowing. (E.)
Cunning (2), knowledge, skill. (Scand.) See Cunning (1).
Curry (1), to dress leather, (F.—L. and Teut.)
Curry (2), a kind of seasoned dish. (Tamil.)
Cypress (1), a kind of tree. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Cypress (2), Cypress-lawn, crape. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Dab (1), to strike gently. (E.)
Dab (2), expert. (E.)
Dab (3), a fish. (E.)
Dam (1), an earth-bank for restraining water. (E.)
Dam (2), a mother, chiefly applied to animals. (F.—L.)
Dare (1), to be bold, to venture. (E.)
Dare (2), a dace. (F.—OLow G.)
Date (1), an epoch, given point of time. (F.—L.)
Date (2), the fruit of a palm. (F.—L.—Gk. —Semitic.)
Deal (1), a share, division ; a quantity. (E.)
Deal (2), to distribute, to traffic. (E.) Allied to Deal (1).
Deal (3), a thin plank of timber. (Du.)
Defer (1), to put off, delay. (F.—L.)
Defer (2), to submit, submit oneself. (F.—L.)
Defile (1), to make foul, pollute. (Hybrid; L. and E.)
Defile (2), to pass along in a file. (F.—L.)
Demean (1), to conduct; reff. to behave. (F.—L.)
Demean (2), to debase, lower. (Hybrid; L. and E.)
Desert (1), a waste, wilderness. (F.—L.)
Desert (2), merit. (F.—L.)
Deuce (1), a two, at cards or dice. (F.—L.)
Deuce (2), an evil spirit, devil. (F.—L.) From Deuce (1).
Die (1), to lose life, perish. (Scand.)
Die (2), a small cube, for gaming. (F.—L.)
Diet (1), a prescribed allowance of food. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Diet (2), an assembly, council. (F.—L.—Gk.) See Diet (1).
Distemper (1), to derange the temperament. (F.—L.)
Distemper (2), a kind of painting. (F.—L.) From Distemper (1).
Dock (1), to cut short, curtail. (E.)
Dock (2), a kind of plant. (E.)
Dock (3), a basin for ships. (Du.)
Don (1), to put on clothes. (E.)
Don (2), a Spanish title. (Span. —L.)
Down (1), sott plumage. (Scand. )
Down (2), a hill. (C.) Whence Down (3).
Down (3), adv. and prep., in a descending direction. (AS.; from C.)
Dowse (1), to strike in the face. (Scand. )
Dowse (2), to plunge into water. (Scand. }
Dowse (3), to extinguish. (E.)
Drab (1), a low, sluttish woman. (E.)
Drab (2), of a dull brown colour. (F.—Late L.)
Dredge (1), a drag-net. (E.)
Dredge (2), to sprinkle flour on meat, &c. (F.—Late L.—Gk.)
Drill (1), to pierce, to train soldiers. (Du.)
Drill (2), to sow corn in rows. (Low G.)
Drone (1), to make a murmuring sound. (E.)
382
740
Drone (2), a non-working bee. (E.). Allied to Drone (1).
Duck (1), a bird. (E.) From Duck (2).
Dnck (2), to dive, bob the head. (E.)
Duck (3), a pet, darling. (E.) From Duck (1).
Duck (4), light canvas. (Du,)
Dudgeon (1), resentment. (F.?)
Dudgeon (2), the haft of a dagger. (Unknown.)
Dun (1), of a dull brown colour. (C.)
Dun (2), to urge for payment. (Scand.)
Ear (1), the organ of hearing. (E.)
Ear (2), a spike, or head, of corn. (E.)
Ear (3), to plough. (E.)
Earnest (1), eagerness, seriousness. (I¢.)
Earnest (2), a pledge, security. (I’.— L.—Gk.— Heb.)
Egg (1), the oval body from which chickens are hatched. (Scand.)
Egg (2), to instigate. (Scand.)
Eke (1), to augment. (E.)
Eke (2), also. (E.) From Eke (1).
Elder (1), older. (E.)
Elder (2), the name of a tree. (E,)
Embattle (1), to furnish with battlements. (F.)
Embattle (2), to range in order of battle. (F.—L.)
Emboss (1), to adorn with raised work. (F.)
Emboss (2), to shelter in a wood. (F.)
Endue (1), to endow. (F.—L.)
Endue (2), to clothe. (L.) For Indue (1).
Entrance (1), ingress. (F.—L.)
Entrance (2), to put into a trance. (F,—L.)
Exact (1), precise, measured. (L.)
Exact (2), to demand, require. (F.—L.) | From Exact (1).
Excise (1), a duty or tax. (Du.—F.—L.)
Excise (2), to cut out. (L.)
Fair (1), pleasing, beautiful. (E.)
Fair (2), a festival, market. (F.—L.)
Fallow (1), untilled; said of land. (E.)
Fallow (2), pale brown; said of deer. (E.)
Fast (1), firm, fixed. (E.)
Fast (2), to abstain from food. (E.) ¢ Allied.
Fast (3), quick, speedy. (Scand.)
Fat (1), stout, gross. (E.)
Fat (2), a vat. (North.E.)
Fawn (1), to cringe to. (E.)
Fawn (2), a young deer. (F.—L.)
Fell (1), to cause to fall, cut down. (E.)
Fell (2), a skin. (E.)
Fell (3), cruel, fierce. (F.—Late L.—L.)
Fell (4), a hill. (Scand.)
Ferret (1), an animal of the weasel tribe. (F.—Late L.—L.)
Ferret (2), a kind of silk tape. (Ital.—L.)
Feud (1), perpetual hostility, hatred. (I.)
Feud (2), a fief. (Low L.—F.—OHG.)
File (1), a string, line, list. (F. —L.)
File (2), a steel rasp. (E.)
File (3), to defile; in Shakespeare. (E.)
Fine (1), exquisite, complete, thin. (F.—L.)
Fine (2), a tax, forced payment. (Law L.) Allied to Fine (1),
Firm (1), steadfast, fixed. (F.—L.)
\'irm (2), a partnership. (Span.—L,) From Firm (1).
Fit (1), to suit; as adj., suitable. (Scand.)
Fit (2), a part of a poem; a sudden attack of illness. (E.)
Flag (1), to droop, grow weary. (E.)
Fiag Be an ensign. (E.)
Flag (3), a water-plant, reed. (E.)
tlag (4), Flagstone, a paving-stone. (Scand.)
¥leet (1), a number of ships. (E.
Fleet (2), a creek, bay. (E.)
Fleet (3), swift. (E.)
Fleet (4), to move swiftly. (E.)
Flight (1), the act of flying. (E.)
Flight (2), the act of fleeing away. (E.)
Flip (1), to fillip, jerk lightly. (E.)
Flip (2), a mixture of beer with sugar, &c. (E.)
Fiock (1), a company of birds or sheep. (E.)
Flock (2), a lock of wool. (F.—L.)
Flounce (1), to plunge about. (Scand.)
Flounce (2), a plaited border on a dress. (F.—L.)
Flounder (1), to flounce about. (Scand.)
Flounder (2), the name of a fish. (F.—Scand.)
Flue (1), an air-passage, chimney-pipe. (F.—L.)
Allied,
)
l Allied to Fleet (4).
LIST OF HOMONYMS
Flue (2), light floating down. (Ε, 3). .-
Fluke (1), a flounder, kind of fish. (E.)
Fluke (2), part of an anchor. (E.)
Flush (1), to flow swiftly. (E.)
Flush (2), to blush, to redden. (E.)
Flush (3), level, even. (E.) Perhaps from I'lush (1).
Flush (4), a term in playing cards. (F.—L.)
Fly (1), to move or float in air. (E.)
Fly (2), a vehicle. (E.) From Fly (1).
Fob (1), a pocket for a watch. (OLow G.)
Fob (2), to cheat, deceive. (Low G.)
Foil (1), to disappoint, defeat. (F.—L.)
Foil (2), a set-off, in the setting of a gem. (I’.—L.)
Fold (1), to double together, wrap up. (E.)
| Fold (2), a sheep-pen. (E.)
Font (1), a basin for baptism. (L.) Allied to. Font (2),
Font (2), Fount, an assortment of types. (F.—L.)
Fool (1), a silly person, a jester. (F.—L.) Henze Fool (2).
Fool (2), a dish of crushed fruit, δες. (F.—L.)
For (1), in the place of. (E.)
For- (2), only in composition. (E.)
For- (3), only in composition. (F.—L.)
Forbear (1), to hold away or abstain from. (E.)
Forbear (2), an ancestor, lit. ‘ fore-be-ér.’ (E.)
Force (1), strength, power. (F.—L.)
Force (2), to stuff fowls, &c. (F.—L.)
Force (3), Foss, a waterfall. (Scand.)
Fore-arm (1), the fore part of the arm. (E.)
Fore-arm (2), to arm beforehand. (Hybrid; I. and F.)
Forego (1), to relinquish ; better Forgo. (E.)
lorego (2), to go before. (E.)
Forejudge (1), to judge beforehand. (Hybrid; E. aud F.)
Forejudge (2), to deprive by the judgement of a court, (F.—L,)
Foster (1), to nourish. (E.)
Foster (2), a forester. (F.—L.)
Found (1), to lay the foundation of. (F.—L.)
Found (2), to cast metals. (F.—L.)
Fount (1), a fountain. (F.—L.) Allied to Fount (2). , .
Fount (2), an assortment of types. (F.—L.) See Font-(2).
Fratricide (1), a murderer of a brother. (I*.—L.)
Fratricide (2), murder of a brother. (L.) Allied ¢o Fratricide (1).
Fray (1), an affray. (F.—L.)
Fray (2), to terrify. (F.—L. and OHG.)
Fray (3), to wear away by rubbing. (F.—L.)
Freak (1), a whim, caprice. (E.)
Freak (2), to streak, variegate. (E.?)
Fret (1), to eat away. (E.)
Fret (2), to ornament, variegate. (F.)
Fret (3), a kind of grating. (F.—L.?) See Fret (4).
Fret (4), a stop on a musical instrument. (F.—L.)
Frieze (1), a coarse, woollen cloth. (F.— Dn.)
Frieze (2), part of the entablature of a column. (F,—L.)
Frith (1), a forest, a wood. (E.)
Frith (2), Firth, an estuary. (Scand.)
Fritter (1), a kind of pancake. (F.—L.)
Fritter (2), a fragment. (F.—L.)
Frog (1), a small amphibious animal, (E.)
Frog (2), a substance in a horse’s foot. {E. ?)
Fry (1), to dress food over a fire. (F.—L.)
Fry (2), the spawn of fishes. (F.—L.)
Full (1), filled up, complete. (E.)
Full (2), to full cloth, to felt. (F.—L.)
Fuse (1), to melt by heat. (L.)
Fuse (2), a tube with combustible materials. (F.—L.)
Fusee (1), a fuse or match. (F.—L.) See Fuse (2).
Fusee (2), a spindle in a watch. (F.—L.) From Fusee.(1).
Fusil (1), a light musket. (F.—L.)
Fusil (2), a’spindle, in heraldry. (F.—L.)
Fusil (3), easily molten. (L.)
Fust (1), to become mouldy or rusty. (F.—L.)
Fust (2), the shaft of a column. (F.—L.)
From Fust-(2),
Gad (1), a wedge of steel, goad. (Scand.)
Gad (2), to ramble idly. (Scand.) From Gad (1) ὃ
Gage (1), a pledge. (F.—Teut.)
Gage (2), to gauge. (F.—Low 1.)
Gain (1), profit, advantage. (F.—Teut.)
Gain (2), to acquire, get, win. (F.—Teut.) From Gain (1).
Gale (1), a strong wind. (Scand.)
Gale (2), a plant; the bog-myrtle. (E.)
Gall (1), bile, bitterness. (E.)
LIST OF HOMONYMS 741
Gall (2), to rub a sore place, to vex. (F.—L.)
ee (3), Gall-nut, a vegetable excrescence produced by insects.
(F.—L.)
Galt (1), a series of beds of clay and marl. (Scand. )
Galt (2), a boar-pig. (Scand.)
Gammon (1), the pickled thigh of a hog. (F.—L.)
Gammon (2), nonsense, a jest. (E.)
Gang (1), a crew. (Scand.) From Gang (2).
Gang (2), to go. (Scand.)
Gantlet (1), the same as Gauntlet, a glove. (F.—Scand.)
Gantlet (2), also Gantlope, a military punishment. (Swed.)
Gar (1), Garfish, a kind of pike. (E.)
Gar (2), to cause. (Scand.)
Garb (1), dress, manner, fashion, (F,—Ital. -OHG.)
Garb (2), a sheaf. (F.—OHG.)
Gate (1), a door, opening, way. (E.)
Gate (2), a street. (Scand.)
Gauntlet (1), the same as Gantlet (1).
Gauntlet (2), the same as Gantlet (2).
Gender (1), kind, breed, sex. (F.—L.)
Gender (2), to engender, produce. (F.—L.) Allied to Gender (1).
Gill (1), an organ of respiration in fishes. (Scand.)
Gill (2), a ravine, yawning chasm, (Scand.)
Gill (3), with g as 7; a quarter of a pint. (F.—L.?)
Gill (4), with g as 7; a woman’s name; ground-ivy. (F.—L.)
Gin (1), to begin ; pronounced with g hard. (E.)
Gin (2), a trap, snare. (F.—L.)
Gin (3), a kind of spirit. (F.—L.)
Gird (1), to enclose, bind round, surround, clothe. (E.)
Gird (2), to jest at, jibe. (E.)
Glede (1), the bird called a kite. (E.)
Glede (2), a glowing coal; obsolete. (E.)
Gleek (1), a scoff, jest. (F.— Du. ?)
Gleek (2), a game at cards. (F.—Du.)
Glib (1), smooth, slippery, voluble. (E.)
Glib (2), a lock of hair. (C.)
Glib (3), to castrate ; obsolete. (I.)
Gloss (1), brightness, lustre. (Scand.)
Gloss (2), a commentary, explanation. (L. — Gk.)
Gore (1), clotted blood, blood. (E.)
Gore (2), to pierce, bore through. (E.)
Gore (3), a triangular piece let into a garment; a triangular slip of
land. (E.) Allied to Gore (2).
Gout (1), a drop, a disease. (F'.—L.)
Gout (2), taste. (F.—L.)
Grail (1), a gradual, or service-book. (F.—L.)
Grail (2), the Holy Dish at the Last Supper. (F.—L.)
Grail (3), fine sand. (F.)
Grate (1), a framework of iron bars. (Late L.—L.)
Grate (2), to rub, scrape, scratch, creak. (F.—Teut.)
Grave (1), to cut, engrave. (E.)
Grave (2), solemn, sad. (F.—L.)
Graze (1), to feed cattle. (E.)
Graze (2), to scrape slightly, rub lightly. (E.)
Greaves (1), Graves, the sediment of melted tallow. (E.)
Greaves (2), armour for the legs. (F.)
Greet (1), to salute. (E.)
Greet (2), to weep, cry, lament. (E.)
Grig (1), a small lively eel. (Scand.)
Grig (2), a cricket. (E.)
Grit (1), gravel, coarse sand. (E.)
Grit (2), coarse oatmeal. (E.) Allied to Grit (1).
Gull (1), α web-footed sea-bird. (C.)
Gull (2), a dupe. (Low G.)
Gum (1), the flesh of the jaws. (E.)
Gum (2), the hardened juice of certain trees. (F.—~L.—Gk. — Egypt.)
Gust (1), a sudden blast or gush of wind. (Scand.)
Gust (2), relish, taste. (L.)
Guy (1), a hideous creature, a fright. (F.—Ital.—Teut.})
Guy (2), a rope used to steady a weight. (F.—Teut.)
Hack (1), to cut, chop, mangle. (E.)
Hack (2), a hackney. See Hackney. (E.)
Hackle (1), Hatchel, an instrument for dressing flax. (E.)
rtackle (2), long shining feathers on a cock’s neck. (E.)
Haggard (1), wild, said of a hawk. (F.—G.)
Haggard (2), lean, hollow-eyed, meagre. (F.—G.) See above.
Haggle (1), to cut awkwardly, mangle. (Scand.)
Haggle (2), to be slow in making a bargain. (Scand.) See above.
Hail (1), frozen rain. (E.)
Hail (2), to greet, call to, address. (Scand.)
Hail! (3), an exclamation of greeting. (Scand.) See Hail (2).
Hale (1), whole, healthy, sound. (E.)
Hale (2), Haul, to drag, draw violently. (F.—OHG.)
Halt (1), lame. (E.)
Halt (2), a sudden stop. (F.—G.)
Hamper (1), to impede, hinder, harass. (E.)
Hamper (2), a kind of basket. (F.—G.)
Handy (1), dexterous, expert. (E.)
Handy (2), convenient, near. (Ε.) Allied to Handy (1).
Harrier (1), a hare-hound. (E.)
Harrier (2), a kind of falcon. (E.)
Hatch (1), a half-door, wicket. (I.)
Hatch (2), to produce a brood by incubation. (E.)
Hatch (3), to shade by minute lines. (F.—G.)
Hawk (1), a bird of prey. (E.)
Hawk (2), to carry about for sale. (OLow G.)
Hawk (3), to clear the throat. (E.)
Hay (1), grass cut and dried. (E.)
Hay (2), a hedge. (E.)
Heel (1), the part of the foot projecting behind. (E.)
Heel (2), to lean over, incline. (E.)
Helm (1), the instrument by which a ship is steered. (E.)
Helm (2), Helmet, armour for the head. (E.)
Hem (1), the border of a garment. (E.)
Hem (2), a slight cough to call attention. (E.)
Herd (1), a flock of beasts, group of animals. (E.)
Herd (2), one who tends a herd. (.) From Herd (1).
Heyday (1), interjection. (G. or Du.)
Heyday Bs frolicsome wildness. (E.)
Hide (1), to cover, conceal. (E.)
Hide (2), a skin, (E.)
Hide (3), to flog, castigate. (E.)
Hide (4), a measure of land. (E.)
Hind (1), the female of the stag. (E.)
Hind (2), a peasant. (E.)
Hind (3), adj., in the rear. (E.)
Hip (1), the haunch, upper part of the thigh, (E.)
Hip (2), also Hep, the fruit of the dog-rose. (E.)
Hob (1), Hub, the nave of a wheel, part of a grate. (E.)
Hob (2), a clown, a rustic, a fairy. (F.—OHG.)
Hobby (1), Hobby-horse, an ambling nag, a favourite pursuit
(F.—OHG.)
Hobby (2), a small species of falcon, (F.—Du.)
Hock, (1). Hough, back of the knee-joint. (E.)
Hock (2), the name of a wine. (G.)
Hold (1), to keep, retain, defend, restrain. (E.)
Hold (2), the ‘hold’ of a ship. (Du.) Allied to Hole.
Homicide (1), manslaughter. (F.—L.)
Homicide (2), a man-slayer. (F.—L.) Alited to Homicide (1).
Hoop (1), a pliant strip of wood or metal bent into a band. (E.)
Hoop (2), to call out, shout. (F.—Teut.)
Hop (1), to leap on one leg. (E.)
Hop (2), the name of a plant. (Du.)
Hope (1), expectation; as a verb, to expect. (E.)
Hope (2), a troop; in the phr. ‘ forlorn hope.’ (Du.)
Host (1), one who entertains guests. (F.—L.) From Host (2).
Host (2), an army. (F.—L.)
Host (3), the consecrated bread of the eucharist. (L.)
How (1), in what way. (E.)
How (2), a hill. (Scand.)
Hoy (1), a kind of sloop. (Du.)
Hoy (2), interj., stop! (E.)
Hue (1), show, appearance, colour, tint. (E.)
Hue (2), clamour, outcry. (F.—Teut.)
Hull (1), the husk or outer shell of grain or of nuts. (E.)
Hull (2), the body of a ship, (Du.) Cf. Hull (1), Hold (2).
Hum (1), to make a low buzzing or droning sound. (E.)
Hum (2), to trick, to cajole. (E.) From Hum (1).
Allied.
Il- (1), a form of the prefix in- = L. prep. in. (L.; or F.—L.)
Il- (2), a form of the prefix in- used negatively. (L.; or F.—L.)
Im- (1), prefix. (F.—L.) Hence Im- (2), prefix.
Im- (3), prefix. (L.)
Im- (4), negative prefix. (F.—L.; or L.)
In- (1), prefix, in. (E.)
In- (2), prefix, in. (L.; or F.—L.)
In- (3), prefix with negative force. (L.; or F.—L.)
Incense (1), to inflame. (L.) Hence Incense (2).
Incense (2), spices, odour of spices burned. (F.—L.)
Inch (1), the twelfth part of a foot. {L.)
Tnch (2), an island. (Gaelic.)
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Incontinent (1), unchaste. (F.—L.)
Incontinent (2), immediately. (F.—L.) Due ¢o the above.
Indent (1), to notch. (Law L.)
Indent (2), to make a dint in. (E.)
Indue (1), to invest or clothe with, supply with. (L.)
Indue (2), a corruption of Endue, q.v. (F.—L.)
Ingle (1), fire. (C.)
Ingle (2), a darling, paramour. (Du. —L.—Gk.)
Interest (1), profit, premium for use of money. (F.—L.)
Interest (2), to engage the attention. (F.—L.) Allied to Interest (1)
Intimate (1), to announce, hint. (L.)
Intimate (2), familiar, close. (L.) Allied ¢o Intimate (1).
Ir- (1), prefix; for ix before r. (L.; or F.—L.)
Ir- (2), negative prefix, (L.; or F.—L.)
Jack (1), a saucy fellow, sailor, (F.—L.—Gk.—Heb.)
Jack (2), a coat of mail, (F.—L.—Gk.—Heb.) From Jack (1).
Jade (1), a sorry nag, an old woman. (Scand. ?)
Jade (2), a hard dark green stone. (F.—Span.—L.)
Jam (1), to press, squeeze tight. (E.) Hence Jam (2).
Jam (2), a conserve of fruit boiled with sugar. (E.)
Jar (1), to make a discordant noise, creak, clash, quarrel. (1)
Jar (2), an earthen pot. (F.—Span.— Arab.)
Jet (1), to throw out, fling about, spout. (F.—L.)
Jet (2), a black mineral, used for ornaments, (F.—L.—Gk.)
Jib (1), the foremost sail of a ship. (Du.)
Jib (2), to shift a sail from side to side. (Du.)
Jib (3), to move restively, as a horse. ir. —Scand.)
Job (1), to peck with the beak, as a bird. (E.?)
Job (2), a small piece of work. (F.—C.)
Jump (1), to leap, spring, skip. (Scand. )
Jump (2), exactly, just, pat. (Scand.) From Jump (1).
Junk (1), a Chinese three-masted vessel. (Port.— Malay.)
Junk (2), pieces of old cordage. (Port. — ΤΆ )
Just (1), righteous, upright, true. (F.—L.)
Just (2), the same as Joust, to tilt. (F.—L,)
Allied.
Kedge (1), to warp a ship. (F.—L.)
Kedge (2), Kidge, cheerful, lively. (E.)
Keel (1), the bottom of a ship. (Scand.)
Keel (2), to cool. (E.)
Kennel (1), a house for dogs, pack of hounds. (F.—L.)
Kennel (2), a gutter. (F.—L.)
Kern (1), Kerne, an Irish soldier. (Irish.)
Kern (2), the same as Quern, a hand-mill. (E.)
Kind (1), sb., nature, sort, character. (E.)
Kind (2), adj. ᾿ natural, loving. (E.) #rom Kind (1).
Kindle (1), to set fire to, inflame. (Scand.)
Kindle (2), to bring forth young. (E.)
Kit (1), a vessel, milk-pail, tub ; hence, an outfit. (Du.)
Kit (2), a small violin. (F, —L.—Gk.)
Kit (3), a brood, family, quantity. (Du.) From Kit (1).
Knoll (1), the top of a hill, a hillock, mound. (E.)
Knoll (2), Knell, to toll a bell. (E.)
Lac (1), a resinous substance. (Hind.—Skt.)
Lac (2), a hundred thousand. (Hind.—Skt.) Allied to Lac (1).
Lack (1), want. (E.)
Lack (2), to want, be destitute of. (E.) From Lack (1).
Lade (1), to load, (E.)
Lade (2), to lade out water, drain. (E.) Same as Lade (1).
Lake (1), a pool. (F.—L.)
Lake (2), a colour, a kind of crimson. (F.—Pers. —Skt.)
Lama (1), a high priest. (Thibetan.)
Lama (2), the same as Llama, a quadruped. (Peruvian.)
Lap (1), to lick up with the tongue. (E.)
Lap (2), the loose part of a coat, an apron, part of the body covered
by an apron, a fold, flap. (E.)
Lap (3), to wrap, involve, fold. (E.) From Lap (2).
Lark (1), the name of a bird. (E.)
Lark (2), a game, sport, fun. (E.) From Lark (1).
Lash (1), to fasten firmly together. (F.—L.)
Lash (2), a thong, flexible part of a whip. (F.—L.) From Lash (1).
Last (1), latest, hindmost. (E.)
Last (2), a mould of the foot on which shoes are made, (E.)
Last (3), to endure, continue. (E.) From Last (2).
Last (4), a load, large weight, ship’s cargo. (E.)
Lathe (1), a machine for ‘ turning’ wood and metal. (Scand.)
Lathe (2), a division of a county. (E.)
Launch (1), to lances to send into the water. (F.—L.)
Launch (2), a kind of long-boat. (Span. — Port. — Malay.)
LIST OF HOMONYMS
Lawn (1), a smooth grassy space of ground. (F.—C.)
Lawn (2), a sort of fine linen. (F.—C.)
Lay (1), to cause to lie down, place, set. (E.)
Lay (2), a song, lyric poem. con —OHG.)
Lay (3), Laic, pertaining to the laity. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Lea (1), Ley, ‘Lay, a tract of open ground. (E. )
Lea (2), Ley, Lay, fallow land, pasture-land. (E.)
Lead (1), to bring, conduct, guide, precede, direct. (E.)
Lead (2), a well-known metal, (E.)
League (1), a bond, alliance, confederacy. (F.—Ital. —L.)
League (2), a distance of about three miles. (Prov.—L.—C.)
Lean (1), to incline, bend, stoop. (E.)
Lean (2), slender, not fat, frail, thin. (E.) From Lean (1),
Lease (1), to let tenements for a term of years. (F.—L.)
Lease (2), to glean. (E.)
Leave (1), to quit, abandon, forsake. (E.)
Leave (2), permission, farewell. (E.)
Leech (1), a physician. (E.)
Leech (2), a blood-sucking worm. (E.) Same as Leech (3).
Leech (3), Leach, the edge of a sail at the sides. (Scand.)
Let (1), to allow, permit, suffer, grant. (E.)
Let (2), to hinder, prevent, obstruct. (E.) Allied to Let (1).
Lie (1), to rest, lean, lay oneself down, be situate. (E.)
Lie (2), to tell a lie, "speak falsely. (E.)
Lift (1), to elevate, raise. (Scand.)
Lift (2), to steal. (E.) From Lift (1).
Light (1), illumination. (E.)
Light (2), active, not heavy, unimportant. (E.)
Light (3), to settle, alight, descend. (E.) From Light (2).
Lighten (1), to illuminate, flash. (E.)
Lighten (2), to make lighter, alleviate. (E.) See Light (2).
Lighten (3), to descend, settle, alight. (E.) See Light (3).
Like (1), similar, resembling. (E.)
Like (2), to approve, be pleased with. (E.) From Like (1).
Limb (1), a member of the body, branch. (E.)
Limb (2), the edge or border of a sextant, &c. (L.)
Limber (1), flexible, pliant. (E. )
Limber (2), part of a gun-carriage. (F.)
Lime (1), viscous substance, mortar, oxide of calcium. (E.)
Lime (2), the linden-tree. (E.)
Lime (3), a kind of citron. (F.—Span.— Arab. — Malay.)
Limp (1), flaccid, flexible, pliant, weak. (E.)
Limp (2), to walk lamely. (E.) Compare Limp (1).
Ling (1), a kind of fish. (E.)
Ling (2), heath. (Scand.)
Link (1), a ring of a chain, joint. (Scand.)
Link (2), a torch. (Scand.)
List (1), a stripe or border of cloth, selvage. (E.)
List (2), a catalogue. (F.—G.) Allied to List (1).
List (3), gen. in pl. Lists, space for a tournament. (E.)
List (1).
List (4), to choose, to desire, have pleasure in. (E.)
List (5), an inclination (of a ship) to one side. (E.) Cf. List (4).
List (6), to listen. (E.)
Litter (1), a portable bed. (F.—L.) Hence Litter (2), is
Litter (2), materials for a bed, a confused mass. (F.—
Litter (3), a brood, (F.—L.)
Live (1), to continue in life, exist, dwell. (E.)
Live (2), adj., alive, active, burning. (E.) Allied to Live (1).
Lock (1), an instrument to fasten doors, &c. (E.)
Lock (2), a tuft of hair, flock of wool. (E.)
Log (1), a block, piece of wood. (E.)
Log (2), a thin quadrant of wood, loaded, and fastened to a line,
for measuring the rate of a ship. (E.) The same as Log (1).
Log (3), a Hebrew liquid measure. (Heb.)
Long (1), extended, not short, tedious. (E.)
Long (2), to desire, yearn ; to belong. (E.)
Loom (1), a machine for weaving cloth. (E.)
Loom (2), to appear faintly, or at a distance. (Scand.)
Loon (1), Lown, a base fellow. (E.)
Loon (2), a water-bird, diver. (Scand.)
Low (1), inferior, deep, mean, humble. (Scand.)
Low (2), to bellow as a cow or ox. (ΒΕ)
Low (3), a hill. (E.)
Low (4), flame. (Scand.)
Lower (1), to let down, abase, sink. (E.)
Lower (2), to frown, look sour. (E.)
Lumber (1), cumbersome or useless furniture. (F.—G.)
Lumber (2), to make a great noise, as a heavy rolling object. (Scand.)
Lurch (1), to lurk, dodge, steal, pilfer. (Scand.)
Lurch (2), the name of a game. (F.—G.)
See
LIST OF HOMONYMS
Lurch (3), to Gevour ; obsolete. (F.?—G. ?)
Lurch (4), a sudden roll sideways. (Scand.) See Lurch (1).
Lustre (1), splendour, brightness. (I. —Ital.—L.)
Lustre (2), Lustrum, a period of five years. (F.—L.
Lute (1), a stringed instrument of music. (F.— Prov. —Span. — Arab.)
Lute (2), a composition like clay, loam, (F.—L.)
Mace (1), a kind of club. (F.—L.)
Mace (2), a kind of spice. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Mail (1), steel network forming body-armour. (F.—L.)
Mail (2), a bag for carrying letters. (Εἰς -OHG.)
Mail (3), Black, a forced tribute, (Scand.)
Main (1), sb., strength, might. (E.) Allied to Main (2).
Main (2), adj., strong, great. (Scand.)
Mall (1), a wooden hammer or beetle. (F.—L.) Hence Mall (2).
Mall (2), the name of a public walk. (F.—Ital.—OHG. and L.)
Mangle (1), to render maimed, tear, mutilate. (F.—G.
Mangle (2), a roller for smoothing linen. (Du.—Late L.—Gk.)
March (1), a border, frontier. (F.—OHG.)
March (2), to walk with regular steps. (’.—L.? or G.?)
March (3), the name of the third month. (F.—L.)
Mark (1), a stroke, outline, trace, line, sign. (E.)
Mark (2), a march, limit, boundary. (E.) Cf. Mark (1).
Mark (3), the name of a coin. (Scand.) From Mark (1).
Maroon (1), brownish crimson. (F.—Ital.)
Maroon (2), to put ashore on a desolate island. (F.—Span.—
L.—Gk.)
Marrow (1), soft matter within bones. (E.)
Marrow (2), a companion, partner. (Scand.)
Martlet (1), a kind of bird, a martin. (F.)
Martlet (2), a swift; in heraldry. (F.—L.)
Mass (1), a lump of matter, quantity, size. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Mass (2), the celebration of the Eucharist. (L.)
Mast (1), a pole to sustain the sails of a ship. (E.)
Mast (2), the fruit of beach and forest-trees. (E.)
Match (1), an equal, a contest, game, marriage. (E.)
Match (2), a prepared rope for firing a cannon. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Mate (1), a companion, comrade, equal. (Low G.)
Mate (2), to check-mate, confound. (F.—Pers.— Arab.)
Matricide (1), a slayer of his mother. (F.—L.) See below.
Matricide (2), a killing of one’s mother. (F.—L.)
Matter (1), the material part of a thing, substance. (F.—L.)
Matter (2), pus, a fluid in abscesses. (F.—L.) Same as Matter (1).
May (1), 1 am able, I am free to act, I am allowed to. (E.)
May (2), the fifth month. (F.—L.)
Mead (1), a drink made from honey. (E.)
Mead (2), Meadow, a grass-field, pasture-ground. (E.)
Meal (1), ground grain. (E.)
Meal (2), a repast, share or time of food. (E.)
Mean (1), to have in the mind, intend, signify. (E.)
Mean (2), common, vile, base, sordid. (E.)
Mean (3), coming between, intermediate, moderate. (F.—L.)
Meet (1), fitting, according to measure, suitable. (E.)
Meet (2), to encounter, find, assemble. (E.)
Mere (1), a lake, pool. (E.)
Mere (2), pure, simple, absolute. (L.)
Mere (3), a boundary. (E.)
Mess (1), a dish of meat, portion of food. (F.—L.)
Mess (2), ἃ mixture, disorder. (F.—L.) Same as Mess (1).
Mew (1), to cry asa cat. (E.)
Mew (2), a sea-fowl, gull. (E.)
Mew (3), a cage for hawks, &c. (F.—L.)
Might (1), power, strength. (E.)
Might (2), was able. (1.) Allied to Might (1)
Milt (1), the spleen. (E.)
Milt (2), soft roe of fishes. (MDu.)
Mine (1), belonging to me. (E.)
Mine (2), to excavate, dig for metals. (F.—C.)
Mint (1), a place where money is coined. (L.)
Mint (2), the name of an aromatic plant. (L.—Gk.)
Mis- (1), prefix. (E. and Scand.)
Mis- (2), prefix. (F.—L.)
Miss (1), to fail to hit, omit, feel the want of. (E.)
Miss (2), a young woman, a girl. (F.—L.)
Misty (1), nebulous, foggy. (E.)
Misty (2), used for Mystic. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Mite (1), a very small insect. (E.)
Mite (2), a very small portion. (F.—Du.) Allied to Mite (1).
Mob (1), a disorderly crowd. (L.)
Mob (2), a kind of cap. (Dutch.)
Mole (1), a spot or mark on the body. (E.)
743
Mole (2), a small animal that burrows. (E.)
Mole (3), a breakwater. (F.—Ital.—L.)
Mood (1), disposition of mind, temper. (I.)
Mood (2), manner, grammatical form. (F.—L.)
Moor (1), a heath, extensive waste ground. (E.)
Moor (2), to fasten a ship by cable and anchor. (E.)
Moor (3), a native of North Africa. (F.—L.)
Mop (1), a implement for washing floors, &c. (F.—L.)
Mop (2), a grimace; to grimace. (E.)
Mortar (1), Morter, a vessel in which substances are pounded. (L.)
Mortar (2), cement of lime, &c. (If. —L.) Allied to Mortar (1).
Mother (1), a female parent. (E.)
Mother (2), the hysterical passion. (E.) ¢ Allied.
Mother (3), lees, sediment. (E.)
Mould (1), earth, soil, crumbling ground. (E.)
Mould (2), a model, pattern, form, fashion. (F.—L.)
Mould (3), rust, spot. (E.) See Mole (1).
Mount (1), a hill, rising ground. (L.)
Mount (2), to ascend. (F.—L.) From Mount (1).
Mow (1), to cut down with a scythe. (E.)
Mow (2), a heap, pile of hay or corn. (E.)
Mow (3), a grimace; obsolete, (F.—MDu.)
Moff (1), a warm cover for the hands. (Walloon—F.—Late L.)
Muff (2), a silly fellow, simpleton. (E.)
Mullet (1), a kind of fish. (F.—L.)
Mullet (2), a five-pointed star. (F.—L.)
Mum (1), an interjection, imposing silence. (E.)
Mum (2), a kind of beer. (Low G.)
Muscle (1), the fleshy part of the body. (F.—L.)
Muscle (2), Mussel, a shell-fish. (L.) The same as Muscle (1).
Muse (1), to meditate, be pensive. (F.—L.)
Muse (2), one of nine fabled goddesses. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Must (1), part of a verb implying ‘ obligation.’ (E.)
Must (2), new wine. (L.)
Mute (1), dumb. (L.)
Mute (2), to dung; used of birds. (F.—MDu.)
Mystery (1), anything kept concealed, a secret rite. (L.—Gk.)
Mystery (2), Mistery, a traae, handicraft. (F.—L.)
Nag (1), a small horse. (MDu.)
Nag (2), to worry, tease. (Scand.)
Nap (1), a short sleep. (E.)
Nap (2), the roughish surface of cloth. (MDu.)
Nave (1), the central portion or hub of a wheel. (E.)
Nave (2), the middle or body of a church. (F.—L.)
Neat (1), black cattle, an ox, cow. (E.)
Neat (2), tidy, unadulterated. (F.—L.)
Negus (1), a beverage of wine, water, sugar, &c. (E.)
Negus (2), an Abyssinian title. (Abyssinian. )
Net (1), an implement for catching fish, &c. (E.)
Net (2), clear of all charges. (F.—L.)
Nick (1), a small notch, a cut. (E.)
Nick (2), the devil. (F.—L.—Gk.)
No (1), a word of refusal or denial. (E.)
No (2), none. (E.)
Not (1), a word expressing denial. (E.)
Not (2), I know not, or he knows not. (E.)
Not (3), to crop, to shear closely. (E.)
O (1), Oh, an interjection. (E.)
O (2), a circle. (E.)
One (1), single, undivided, sole, (E.) Hence One (2)
One (2), a person, spoken of indefinitely. (E.)
Or (1), conjunction, offering an alternative. (E.)
Or (2), ere. (E.)
Or (3), gold. (F.—L.)
Ought (1), past tense of Owe. (E.)
Ought (2), another spelling of Aught, anything. (E.)
Ounce (1), the twelfth part of a pound. (F.—L.)
Ounce (2), Once, a kind of lynx. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Own (1), possessed by any one, belonging to oneself. (E.)
Own (2), to possess. (E.) From Own (1).
Own (3), to grant, admit. (E.) From Own (2).
Pad (1), a soft cushion, &c. (E.)
Pad (2), a thief on the high road. (Du.)
Paddle (1), to finger; to dabble in water. (E.)
Paddle (2), a little spade, esp. for cleaning a plough. (E.)
Paddock (1), a toad. (Scand.)
Paddock (2), a small enclosure. (E.)
Page (1), a young male attendant. (F.—Low Lat.—Gk. ?)
744 LIST OF H
2
Page (2), one side of the leaf of a book. (F.—L.)
Pale (1), a stake, enclosure, limit, district. (F.—L.),
Pale (2), wan, dim. (F.—L.)
Pall (1), a cloak, mantle, archbishop’s scarf, shroud. (L.)
Pall (2), to become vapid, lose taste or spirit. (F.—L.)
Pallet (1), a kind of mattress or couch, (F.—L.)
Pallet (2), an instrument used by potters, &c. (F.—Ital.—L.)
Pap (1), food for infants. (E.)
Pap (2), a teat, breast. (E.) Allied to Pap (1).
Parricide (1), the murderer of a father. (F.—L.)
Parricide (2), the murder of a father. (F.—L.) See above.
Partisan (1), an adherent of a party. (F.—Ital.—L.)
Partisan (2), Partizan, a kind of halberd. (F.—Ital.—L.?)
Pat (1), to strike lightly, tap. (E.)
Pat (2), a small Jump of butter. (E.) Allied to Pat (1).
Pat (3), quite to the purpose. (E.) Allied to Pat (1).
Patch (1), a piece sewn on’a garment, a plot of ground, (E, ?)
Patch (2), a paltry fellow. (E.) From Patch (1).
Pawn (1), a pledge, security for repayment of money. (F.)
Pawn (2), one of the least yaluable pieces in chess. (F.—L.)
Pay (1), to discharge a debt. (F. —L.)
Pay (2), to pitch the seam of a ship. (F.—L.)
Peach (1), a delicious fruit. (F.—L.— Pers.)
Peach (2), to inform against. (F.—L.) For Impeach.
Peck (1), to strike with something pointed, snap up. (E. ?)
Peck (2), a dry measure, two gallons. (F.—Low G. ὃ)
Peel (1), to strip off the skin or bark. (F.—L.)
Peel (2), to pillage. (F.—L.)
Peel (3), a fire-shovel. (F.—L.)
Peel (4), a small castle. (F.—L.)
Peep (1), to cry like a chicken. (F.—L.)
Peep (2), to look through a narrow aperture, look slily. (F.—L.)
Peer (1), an equal, a nobleman. (F.—L.
Peer (2), to look narrowly, to pry. (E. 3)
Peer (3), to appear. (F.—L.)
Pellitory (1), Paritory, a wild flower. (F.—L.)
Pellitory (2), Pelleter, the plant pyrethrum. (Span.—L.—Gk.)
Pelt (1), to throw or cast, to strike by throwing. (L.)
Pelt (2), a skin, esp. of a sheep. (F.—L.)
Pen (1), to shut up, enclose. (L.)
Pen (2), an instrument used for writing. (F.—L.)
Perch (1), a rod for a bird to sit on; a measure. (F.~L.)
Perch (2), a fish. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Periwinkle (1), a genus of evergreen plants. (L.)
Periwinkle (2), a small univalve mollusc. (E.; with Gk. prefix.)
Pet (1), a tame and fondled animal or child. (F. ?)
Pet (2), a sudden fit of peevishness. (F.?) From Pet (1).
Pie (1), a magpie; mixed printer’s type. (F.—L.) Hence Pie (2).
Pie (2), a book which regulated divine service. (F.—L.)
Pie (3), a pasty. (F.—L.?)
Pile (1), a tumour ; in the pl. Piles. (L.)
Pile (2), a roundish mass, heap. (F.—L.)
Pile (3), a large stake to support foundations. (L.)
Pile (4), a hair, fibre of wool. (L.)
Pill (1), a little ball of medicine. (L.)
Pill (2), to rob, plunder. (F.—L.)
Pine (1), a cone-bearing, resinous tree. (L.)
Pine (2), to suffer pain, be consumed with sorrow. (L.)
Pink (1), to pierce, stab, prick. (E.)
Pink (2), halfshut, applied to the eyes. (Du.)
Pink (3), the name of a flower and of a colour, (E.)
Pink (4), a kind of boat. (Du.)
Pip (1), a disease of fowls. (Du.—L.)
Pip (2), the seed of fruit. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Pip (3), a spot on cards. (F.—L.?)
Pitch (1), a black, sticky substance. (L.)
Pitch (2), to throw, fall headlong, fix a camp, &c. (E.)
Plane (1), a level surface. (F.—L.) Hence Plane (2).
Plane (2), a tool; also to render a surface level. (F.—L.)
Plane (3), Plane-tree, the name of a tree. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Plantain (1), the name ofa plant. (F.—L.)
Plantain (2), a tree resembling the banana. (F.—Span.—L.)
Plash (1), a puddle, a shallow pool. (E.)
Plash (2), another form of Pleach, to intertwine. (F.—L.)
Plat (1), Plot, a patch of ground. (E.)
Plat (2), to plait. (F.—L.)
Plight (1), a condition, promise; as vb., to pledge. (E.)
Plight (2), to fold; as sb., a fold, condition, state. (F.—L.)
Plot (1), a conspiracy, stratagem. (F.—L.)
Plot (2), Plat, a small piece of ground. (E.)
Plump (1), full, round, fleshy. (E.)
See Pink (1).
OMONYMS
Plump (2), straight downwards. (F.—L.)
Plump (3), to fall heavily down. (E.)
Poach (1), to dress eggs. (F.—OLow 6.)
Poach (2), to intrude on another's preserves of game. (F.—OLow
G.) Allied to Poach (1).
Point (1), a dot, a prick. (F.—L.)
Point (2), a sharp end. (F.—L.) From Point (1).
Poke (1), a bag, pouch, (Scand.)
Poke (2), to thrust or push, esp. with something pointed. (E.)
Pole (1), a stake, long thick rod. (L.)
Pole (2), a pivot, end of the earth’s axis. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Pool (1), a pond, small body of water. (E.)
Pool (2), the receptacle for the stakes at cards. (F.—L.)
Pore (1), a minute hole in the skin. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Pore (2), to look steadily, gaze long. (E. ?)
| Port (1), demeanour, carriage of the body. (F.—L.)
Port (2), a harbour, haven, (L.)
Port (3), a gate, port-hole. (F.—L.)
Port (4), a dark purple wine. (Port.—L.)
Porter (1), a carrier. (F.—L.)
Porter (2), a gate-keeper. (F.—L.)
Porter (3), a dark kind of beer. (F.—L.)
Pose (1), a position, attitude. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Pose (2), to puzzle, perplex by questions. (F.—L. and Gk.)
Pose (3), a cold in the head, (C.)
Post (1), a stake set in the ground, a pillar. (L.) Allied to Post (2).
Post (2), a military station, a stage on a road, &c. (F.—L.)
Pounce (1), to seize with the claws, as a bird, to dart upon.
(F.—L.)
Pounce (2), fine powder. (F.—L.)
Pound (1), a weight, a sovereign. (L.)
Pound (2), an enclosure for strayed animals. (E.)
Pound (3), to beat, bruise in a mortar. (E.)
Pout (1), to look sulky or displeased. (E.)
Pout (2), a kind of fish. (E.) Cf. Pout (1).
Prank (1), to deck, adorn. (E.)
Prank (2), a trick, mischievous action. (E.) From Prank (1).
Pregnant (1), pressing, urgent, cogent. (F.—L.)
Pregnant (2), fruitful, with child. (F.—L.)
Present (1), near at hand, in view, at this time. (F.—L.)
Present (2), to give, offer, exhibit to view. (F.—L.)
Present (1).
Press (1), to crush strongly, squeeze, push. (F.—L.)
Press (2), to hire men for service. (F.—L.)
Prig (1), to steal. (E.)
Prig (2), a pert fellow. (E.) Allied to Prig (1).
Prime (1), first, chief, excellent. (F.—L.) Hence Prime (2).
Prime (2), to make a gun quite ready. (F,—L.)
Prior (1), former, coming before in time. (L.) Hence Prior (2).
Prior (2), the head of a priory or convent. (F.—L.)
Prize (1), a thing captured or won. (F.—L.)
Prize (2), to value highly. (F.—L.)
Prize (3), Prise, to open a box. (F.—L.) From Prize (1).
Prune (1), to trim trees, ὥς. (F.—L.)
Prune (2), a plum. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Puddle (1), a small pool of muddy water. (E.)
Puddle (2), to close with clay, to work iron. (E.) From Puddle (1).
Puke (1), to vomit. (E.?)
Puke (2), the name of a colour; obsolete. (MDu.)
Pulse (1), a throb, vibration. (F.—L.)
Pulse (2), grain or seed of beans, pease, &c. (L.)
Pump (1), a machine for raising water. (F.—Teut.)
Pump (2), a thin-soled shoe. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Punch (1), to pierce with a sharp instrument. (F.—L.)
Punch (2), to beat, bruise. (F.—L.)
Punch (3), a beverage. (Hindi—Skt.)
Punch (4), a hump-backed fellow in a puppet-show. (Ital. —L.)
Puncheon (1), a steel tool for stamping ; a punch. (F.—L.)
Puncheon (2), a cask, a measure of 84 gallons. (F.—L.)
Punt (1), a ferry-boat, a flat-bottomed boat. (L.—C.)
Punt (2), to play at basset. (F.—Span.—L.)
Pupil (1), a scholar, a ward. (F.—L.) Allied to Pupil (2).
Pupil (2), the central spot of the eye. (F.—L.)
Puppy (1), a whelp. (F.—L.)
Puppy (2), a dandy. (F.—L.) Allied to Puppy (1).
Purl (1), to flow with a murmuring sound. (Scand.)
Purl (2), spiced or medicated beer or ale. (F.—L. δὴ
Purl (3), to form an edging on lace. (F.—L.)
Purl (4), to upset. (E.) Allied to Purl (1).
Purpose (1), to intend. (F.—L.—Gk.; with F. prefix.)
Purpose (2), intention. (F.—L.)
Allied to Port (1).
Allied,
From
LIST OF HOMONYMS
Quack (1), to make a noise like a duck. (E.)
Quack (2), to cry up pretended nostrums. (Du.) From Quack (1).
Quail (1), to cower, shrink, fail in spirit. (F.—L.)
Quail (2), a migratory bird. (F.—Low L.—Low G.)
Quarrel (1), a dispute, brawl. (F.—L.)
Quarrel (2), a square-headed cross-bow bolt. (F.—L.)
Quarry (1), a place where stones are dug for building. (F.—L.)
Quarry (2), a heap of slaughtered game. (F.—L.)
Quill (1), a feather of a bird, a pen. (E.)
Quill (2), to pleat a ruff. (F.—L.; or E.)
Quire (1), a collection of so many sheets of paper. (F.—L.)
Quire (2), a choir, a band of singers. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Quiver (1), to tremble, shiver. (E.)
Quiver (2), a case for arrows. (F.—OHG.)
Race (1), a trial of speed, swift course, swift current. (E.)
Race (2), a lineage, family, breed. (F.)
Race (3), a root. (F.—L.)
Rack (1), a grating above a manger, instrument of torture. (MDu.)
Rack (2), to torture on the rack, (MDu.) From Rack (1).
Rack (3), light vapoury clouds, the clouds generally. (Scand.)
Rack (4), to pour off liquor from the lees. (Prov.)
Rack (5), a short form of Arrack. (Arab.)
Rack (6), ὅς. We find (6) prov. E. rack, a neck of mutton; from
AS. hracca, neck, according to Somner. Also (7) rack, for reck,
to care; see Reck. Also (8) rack, a pace of a horse (Palsgrave) ;
perhaps a rocking pace; see Rock (2). Also (9) rack, a track,
cart-rut ; cf. Icel. reka, to drive ; see Rack (3).
Racket (1), Raquet, a bat with a blade of net-work. (F.—Span,—
Arab.)
Racket (2), a noise. (E.)
Rail (1), a bar of timber, an iron bar for railways. (F.—L.)
Rail (2), to brawl, to use reviling language. (F.—L.)
Rail (3), a genus of wading birds. (F.)
Rail (4), a woman’s wrap or night-dress. (E.)
Rake (1), an instrument for scraping things together. (E.)
Rake (2), a wild, dissolute fellow. (E.) From Rake-hell.
Rake (3), the projection of the extremities of a ship beyond the keel;
the inclination of a mast from the perpendicular. (Scand.)
Rally (1), to gather together again, reassemble. (F.—L.)
Rally (2), to banter. (F.— Tent.)
Rank (1), a row or line of soldiers, class, grade. (F.-OHG.)
Rank (2), adj., coarse in growth, strong-scented. (E.)
Rap (1), to strike smartly, knock. (E. or Scand.)
Rap (2), to snatch, seize hastily. (Scand.)
Rape (1), a seizing by force, violation. (L.)
Rape (2), a plant nearly allied to the turnip. (L.)
Rape (3), a division of a county, in Sussex. (E.)
Rash (1), hasty, headstrong. (E.)
Rash (2), a slight eruption on the body. (F.—L.)
Rash (3), to pull, or tear violently. (F.—L.)
Rash (4), a kind of inferior silk. (F.—L.)
Rate (1), a proportion, allowance, price, tax. (F.—L.)
Rate (2), to scold, chide. (F.—L.)
Raven (1), a well-known bird. (E.)
Raven (2), to plunder with violence, devour. (F.—L.)
Ray (1), a beam of light or heat. (F.—L.)
Ray (2), a class of fishes, such as the skate. (F.—L.)
Ray (3), a dance. (MDu.)
Reach (1), to attain, extend to, arrive at, gain. (E.)
Reach (2), Retch, to try to vomit. (E.)
Real (1), actual, true, genuine. (L.)
Real (2), a small Spanish coin. (Span.—L.)
Rear (1), to raise. (E.)
Rear (2), the back part, last part, esp. of an army, (F.—L.)
Rear (3), insufficiently cooked. (E.)
Reef (1), a ridge of rocks. (Du™
Reef (2), portion of a sail. (Du.,
Reel (1), a small spindle for winding yarn. (E.)
Reel (2), a Highland dance. (Scand. ?)
Reeve (1), to pass a rope through a ring. (Du.)
Reeve (2), a steward, governor. (E.)
Reeve (3), the female of the ruff. (E.)
Refrain (1), to restrain, forbear. (F.—L.)
Refrain (2), the burden of a song. (F.—L.)
Relay (1), a fresh supply. (F.—L.)
Relay (2), to lay again. (Hybrid; L. and FE.)
Rennet (1), a substance for coagulating milk. (E.)
Rennet (2), a kind of apple. (F.—L.)
Rent (1), a tear. (E.)
Rent (2), annual payment. (F.—L.)
745
Repair (1), to restore, mend. (F.—L.)
Repair (2), to resort, go to. (F.—L.)
Rest (1), repose. (E.)
Rest (2), to remain; remainder. (F.—L.)
Rid (1), to free, to deliver. (E.)
Rid (2), to clear land. (Scand.)
Riddle (1), an enigma. (E.)
Riddle (2), a large sieve. (E.)
Rifle (1), to plunder, rob. (F.—Tent.)
Rifle (2), a kind of musket. (Low G.)
Rig (1), to fit up a ship. (Scand.—Low G.)
Rig (2), a frolic. (E. 3)
Rig (3), a ridge. (E.)
Rime (1), Rhyme, verse. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Rime (2), hoar-frost. (E.)
Ring (1), a circle. (E.)
Ring (2), to tinkle, resound. (E.)
Ripple (1), to pluck the seeds from flax. (E.)
Ripple (2), to show wrinkles. (E.)
Ripple (3), to scratch slightly. (Scand.) Allied to Rip.
Rob (1), to plunder, steal, spoil. (F.—OHG.)
Rob (2), a conserve of fruit. (F.—Span,— Arab.— Pers.)
Rock (1), a mass of stone. (F.)
Rock (2), to cause to totter, to totter. (E.)
Rock (3), a distaff. (Scand.)
Rocket (1), a kind of fire-work. (Ital. —G.)
Rocket (2), a plant. (F.—Ital.—L.)
Roe (1), a female deer. (E.)
Roe (2), spawn of fishes. (Scand.)
Rook (1), a kind of crow. (E.)
Rook (2), a castle, at chess. (F.— Pers.)
Root (1), part of a plant. (Scand.)
Root (2), Rout, to grub up. (E.) From Root (1).
Rote (1), routine. (F.—L.
Rote (2), an old musical instrument. (F.—G.—C.)
Rouse (1), to excite. (Scand.)
Rouse (2), a drinking-bout. (Scand.)
Row (1), a line, rank, series. (E.)
Row (2), to propel with oars. (E.)
Row (3), an uproar. (Scand.)
Ruck (1), a fold, crease. (Scand.)
Ruck (2), a heap. (Scand.)
Rue (1), to be sorry for. (E.)
Rue (2), a bitter plant. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Ruff (1), a kind of frill. (E.)
Ruff (2), a bird. (E.?)
Ruff (3), a fish. (E.)
Ruff (4), a game at cards. (F.)
Ruffle (1), to wrinkle, disorder a dress. (E.)
Ruffle (2), to be turbulent, to bluster. (MDu.)
Rum (1), a kind of spirit. (E.)
Rum (2), strange, queer. (Hindi.)
Rush (1), to move forward violently. (E.)
Rush (2), a plant. (E.)
Rut (1), a wheel-track. (F.—L.)
Rut (2), to copulate, as deer. (F.—L.)
Sack (1), a bag. (L.—Gk.—Heb.—Egypt.)
Sack (2), plunder; to plunder. (F.—L.—Gk.—Heb.—Egypt.)
From Sack (1).
Sack (3), an old Spanish wine. (F.—L.)
Sage (1), discerning, wise. (F.—L.)
Sage (2), a plant. (F.—L.)
Sallow (1), Sally, a willow. (E.)
Sallow (2), of a wan colour. (E.)
Sap (1), juice of plants. (E.)
Sap (2), to undermine. (F.—Late L.)
Sardine (1), asmall fish. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Sardine (2), a precious stone. (L.—Gk.)
Sash (1), a frame for glass. (F.—L.)
Sash (2), a scarf, band. (Pers.)
Saw (1), a cutting instrument. (E.)
Saw (2), a saying, maxim. (E.)
Say (1), to speak, tell. (E.)
Say (2), a kind of serge. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Say (3), to essay. (F.—L.)
Scald (1), to burn with hot liquid. (F.—L.)
Scald (2), scabby. (Scand.)
Scald (3), a poet. (Scand.)
Scale (1), a shell. (F.—OHG.)
Scale (2), a bowl of a balance. (F.—Teut.) Allied to Scale (1):
746 LIST OF
Scale (3), a ladder, gradation. (L.)
Scape (1), a leafless stalk. (L.)
Scape (2), short for Escape. (F.—L.)
Scar (1), mark of a wound. (F. —L.—Gk.)
Scar (2), Scaur, a rock. (Scand.)
Scarf (1), a light piece of dress. (Du.— Low G.)
Scarf (2), to join timbers together. (Scand.)
Scarf (3), a cormorant. (Icel.)
School (1), a place for instruction. (F.—L.—Gk.)
School (2), a shoal of fish. (Du.)
Sconce (1), a small fort. (F.—L.)
Sconce (2), a candle-stick. (F.—L.) Allied to Sconce (1).
Scour (1), to cleanse by hard rubbing. (L.)
Scour (2), to run hastily over. (F.—L.)
Scout (1), a spy. (F.—L.)
Scont (2), to ridicule an idea. (Scand.)
Scout (3), a projecting rock. (Scand.)
Screw (1), a mechanical contrivance. (F.—L. ?)
Screw (2), a vicious horse. (E.)
Scrip (1), a small wallet. (E.)
Scrip (2), a piece of writing. (F.—L.)
Serub (1), brushwood. (Scand.)
Scrub (2), to rub hard. (Scand.) From Scrub (1).
Scull (1), Skull, the eranium, (Scand.)
Scull (2), a small, light oar. (Scand.) Allied to Scull (1).
Scull (3), a shoal of fish. (Du.)
Scuttle (1), a shallow vessel. (L.)
Scuttle (2), an opening in a ship’s hatchway. (F.—Span.—Teut.)
Scuttle (3), to hurry along. (Scand.)
Seal (1), a stamp for impressing wax. (F.—L.)
Seal (2), a sea-calf. (E.)
Seam (1), a suture. (E.)
Seam (2), a horseload. (Late L.—Gk.)
See (1), to behold. (E.)
See (2), the seat of a bishop. (F.—L.)
Sell (1), to deliver for money. (E.)
Sell (2), a saddle. (F.—L.)
Sere (1), withered. (E.)
Sere (2), the catch of a gun-lock. (F.—L.)
Set (1), to place, fix, plant. (E.)
Set (2), a number of like things. (F.—L.)
Settle (1), a long bench. (E.)
Settle (2), to adjust a quarrel. (E.)
Sew (1), to fasten together with thread. (E.)
Sew (2), to follow. (.—L.)
Sewer (1), a large drain. (F.—L.)
Sewer (2), an officer who arranged dishes. (F.—L.)
Share (1), a portion. (E.)
Share (2), a plough-share. (E.) Allied to Share (1).
Shed (1), to part, scatter, spill. (E.)
Shed (2), a slight shelter. (E.)
Sheer (1), bright, clear, perpendicular. (E.)
Sheer (2), to deviate from a course. (Du.)
Shingle (1), a wooden tile. (L.)
Shingle (2), coarse round gravel. (E.)
Shiver (1), to tremble, to shudder. (E.)
Shiver (2), a splinter, small piece of wood. (E.)
Shoal (1), a troop, crowd, multitude of fishes. (E.)
Shoal (2), shallow; a sand-bank. (E.)
Shock (1), a violent concussion. (E.)
Shock (2), a pile of sheaves. (E.)
Shock (3), a shaggy-coated dog. (E.)
Shore (1), the strand. (E.)
Shore (2), Shoar, a prop. (E.)
Shore (3), Sewer, a sewer. (F.—L.)
Shrew (1), a scolding woman. (E.) The same as Shrew (2).
Shrew (2), Shrewmouse, a quadruped. (E.)
Shrub (1), a low dwarf tree. (E.)
Shrub (2), a beverage. (Arab.)
Size (1), a ration; magnitude. (F.—L.)
Size (2), weak glue. (Ital.—L.) Allied to Size (1).
Skate (1), a large flat fish. (Scand.)
Skate (2), a contrivance for sliding on ice. (Du.—F.—Low G.)
Skink (1), to serve out wine. (Scand.)
Skink (2), a kind of lizard. (Gk.)
Slab (1), a thin slip of timber, &c. (F.—Teut.)
Slab (2), viscous, slimy. (Scand.)
Slate (1), a stone easily split. (F.—Teut.)
Slate (2), to set on a dog, to damage, abuse. (E.)
Slay (1), to kill. (E.)
Slay (2), Sley, a weaver’s reed. (E.) From Slay (1).
HOMONYMS
Slop (1), a puddle. (1.)
Slop (2), a loose garment. (Scand.)
Slot (1), a broad, flat wooden bar. (Du.)
Slot (2), the track of a deer. (AF.—Scand.)
Slough (1), a muddy place, a mire. (E.)
Slough (2), the cast-off skin of a snake. (Scand.)
Smack (1), taste, savour. (E.)
Smack (2), a sounding blow. (Scand.)
Smack (3), a fishing-boat. (Du.)
Smelt (1), to fuse ore. (Scand.)
Smelt (2), a kind of fish. (E.)
Snite (1), to wipe the nose. (E.)
Snite (2), a snipe. (E.) Allied to Snipe.
Snuff (1), to sniff, draw in air. (Du.)
Snuff (2), to snip a candle-wick. (E.)
Soil (1), ground, mould, country. (F.—L.)
Soil (2), to defile. (F.—L.)
Soil (3), to feed cattle with green grass. (F.—L.)
Sole (1), the under side of the foot. (L.)
Sole (2), a flat fish. (F.—L.) Allied to Sole (1).
Sole (3), alone, only. (F.—L.)
Sorrel (1), a plant. (F.—MHG.)
Sorrel (2), of a reddish-brown colour. (F.—Teut.)
Sound (1), whole, perfect. (E.)
Sound (2), a strait of the sea. (E.)
Sound (3), a noise. (F.—L.)
Sound (4), to try the depth of. (F.—Scand.) From Sound (2).
Souse (1), pickle. (I. —L.)
Sonse (2), Sowse, to swoop down upon. (F.—L.)
Sow (1), to scatter seed. (E.)
Sow (2), a female pig. (E.)
Spade (1), an instrument to dig with, (E.)
Spade (2), a suit at cards, (Span. —L,—Gk.)
Spar (1), a beam, rafter. (E.)
Spar (2), a kind of mineral. (E.)
Spar (3), to box with the hands; to wrangle. (F.—Teut.)
Spark (1), a small particle of fire. (E.)
Spark (2), a gay young fellow. (Scand.) Allied to Spark (1).
Spat (1), a blow, ἃ βαρ. (E.)
Spat (2), the young of shellfish. (E.)
Spell (1), an incantation. (E.)
Spell (2), to tell the letters of a word. (F.—Teut.) From Spell (1).
Spell (3), a turn of work. (E.)
Spell (4), Spill, a splinter, slip. (E.)
Spike (1), a sharp point, a large nail. (Scand.)
Spike (2), an ear of corn. (L.)
Spill (1), Spell, a splinter, slip. (E.)
Spill (2), to destroy, shed. (Scand.)
Spire (1), a tapering sprout, a steeple. (E.)
Spire (2), a coil, wreath. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Spit (1), a pointed piece of wood or iron. (E.)
Spit (2), to eject from the mouth. (E.)
Spittle (1), saliva. (E.)
Spittle (2), a hospital. (F.—L.)
Spray (1), foam tossed by the wind. (Low G.)
Spray (2), a sprig ofa tree. (E.)
Spurt (1), Spirt, to spout, jet out as water. (E.)
Spurt (2), a violent exertion. (Scand.)
Squire (1), an esquire. (F.—L.)
Squire (2), a carpenter’s rule. (F.—L.)
Stable (1), a stall for horses. (F.—L.)
Stable (2), firm, steady. (F.—L.) Allied to Stable (1).
Stale (1), too long kept, vapid. (F.—Teut.)
Stale (2), a decoy, snare. (E.)
Stale (3), Steal, a handle. (E.)
Stalk (1), a stem. (E.)
Stalk (2), to stride along. (E.) «ἀπ θὰ to Stalk (1).
Staple (1), a loop of iron. (1..)
Staple (2), a chief commodity. (F.—Low G.) From Staple (1).
Stare (1), to gaze fixedly. (11.
Stare (2), to shine. (E.) The same as Stare (1).
Stay (1), to remain. (F.—MDu.)
Stay (2), a large rope to support a mast. (E.)
Steep (1), precipitous. (E.)
Steep (2), to soak in a liquid. (Scand.)
Steer (1), a young ox. (E.)
Steer (2), to direct, guide, govern. (E.)
Stem (1), a trunk of a tree. (E.)
Stem (2), prow of a vessel. (E.) From Stem (1).
Stem (3), to check, resist. (E.)
Stern (1), severe, harsh. (E.)
LIST OF HOMONYMS
Stern (2), the hinder part of a ship. (Scand.)
Stew (1), to boil slowly. (F.—Tent.)
Stew (2), a fishpond. (Dnu.)
Stick (1), to stab, pierce; to adhere. (E.)
Stick (2), a small staff. (E.) From Stick (1).
Stile (1), a set of steps for passing a hedge. (E.)
Stile (2), the correct spelling of Style (1). (L.)
Still (1), motionless, silent. (E.
Still (2), to distil; apparatus for distilling. (L.)
Stoop (1), to bend the body, condescend. (E.)
Stoop (2), a beaker, also Stoup. (Scand.)
Story (1), a history, narrative. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Story (2), the height of one floor in a building. (F.—L.)
Strain (1), to stretch tight. (F.—L.)
Strain (2), race, stock, breed. (E.)
Strand (1), the beach of a sea or lake. (E.)
Strand (2), part of a rope. (F.—OHG.)
Stroke (1), a blow. (E.)
Stroke (2), to rub gently. (E.) Allied to Stroke (1).
Strut (1), to walk about pompously. (Scand.)
Strut (2), a support for a rafter. (Scand.) Allied to Strut (1).
Stud (1), a collection of horses and mares. (E.)
Stud (2), a nail with a large head, rivet. (E.)
Sty (1), an enclosure for swine. (E.)
Sty (2), a small tumour on the eye-lid. (E.) Allied to Sty (1).
Style (1), a mode of writing. (F.—L.)
Style (2), the middle part of a flower's pistil. (Gk.)
Summer (1), a season of the year. (E.)
Summer (2), a cross-beam. (F.—Late L.—Gk.)
Sur- (1), prefix; for L. sub. (L.)
Sur- (2), prefix; for F. sur, L. super. (F.—L.)
Swallow (1), a migratory bird. (E.)
Swallow (2), to absorb, engulf, (E.)
Swim (1), to move about in water. (E.)
Swim (2), to be dizzy. (E.)
Tache (1), a fastening. (F.—Teut.)
Tache (2), a spot, blemish. (F.—‘Teut.) Allied to Tache (1).
Tail (1), a hairy appendage. (E.)
Tail (2), a law-term, applied to an estate. (F.—L.)
Tang (1), a strong taste. (Scand.)
Tang (2), part of a knife or fork. (Scand.) Allied to Tang (1).
Tang (3), to make a shrill sound. (E.)
Tang (4), sea-weed. (Scand.)
Tap (1), to knock gently. (F.—Teut.)
Tap (2), a plug to take liquor from a cask. (E.)
Taper (1), a small wax-candle. (E.)
Taper (2), long and slender. (E.) From Taper (1).
Tar (1), a resinous substance. (K.)
Tar (2), a sailor; short for Tarpauling. (E. and L.)
Tare (1), a vetch-like plant. (E.)
Tare (2), an allowance for loss. (F.—Span.— Arab.)
Tart (1), acrid, sour, sharp. (11.)
Tart (2), a small pie. (F.—L.)
Tartar (1), an acid salt; a concretion. (F.—Low L.—Arab.)
Tartar (2), a native of Tartary. (Tatar.)
Tartar (3), Tartarus, hell. (L.—Gk.)
Tassel (1), a hanging omament. (F.—L.)
Tassel (2), the male of the goshawk. (F.—L.)
Tattoo (1), the beat of a drum. (Du.)
Tattoo (2), to mark the skin with figures. (Tahiti.)
Taw (1), Tew, to curry skins. (E.)
Taw (2), a game at marbles. (Gk.)
Tear (1), to rend, lacerate. (E.)
Tear (2), a drop of fluid from the eyes. (E.)
Teem (1), to be fruitful. (E.)
Teem (2), to think fit. (OLow G.)
Teem (3), to empty, pour out. (Scand.)
Temple (1), a fane, divine edifice. (L.)
Temple (2), the flat part above the cheek-bone. (F.—L.)
Temporal (1), pertaining to time. (I*.—L.)
Temporal (2), belonging to the temples. (F.—L.)
Tend (1), to aim at, move towards, (I’.—L.)
Tend (2), to attend to. (F.—L.) Short for Attend.
Tender (1), soft, delicate. (F.—L.)
Tender (2), to proffer. (F.—L.) Allied io Tend (r).
Tender (3), an attendant vessel or carriage. (F.—L.) For Attender.
Tense (1), a part of a verb. (F.—L.)
Tense (2), tightly strained. (L.)
Tent (1), a pavilion. (F.—L.)
Tent (2), a roll of lint. (F.—L.)
747
Tent (3), a kind of wine. (Span.—L.)
Tent (4), care, heed. (F.—L.) Allied to Tend (2).
Terrier (1), a kind of dog. (F.—L.) Allied to Terrier (2).
Terrier (2), a register of landed property. (F.—L.)
The (1), def, article. (Ε.)
The (2), in what (or that) degree. (E.) From The (1),
Thee (1), personal pronoun. (E.)
Thee (2), to thrive, prosper; obsolete. (I°.)
There (1), in that place. (E.)
There- (2), as a prefix. (E.) Allied to There (1).
Thole (1), Thowl, an oar-pin, (E.)
Thole (2), to endure; provincial. (E.)
Thrum (1), the end of a weaver’s thread. (E.)
Thrum (2), to play noisy music. (Scand.)
Thrush (1), a small singing-bird. (E.)
Thrush (2), a disease in the mouth. (Scand.)
Tick (1), an insect infesting dogs. (Ié.)
Tick (2), part of a bed. (L.—Gk.)
Tick (3), to beat as a watch. (E.)
Tick (4), to touch lightly. (E.)
Tick (5), credit. (F.—G.)
‘Tiff (1), to deck, to dress out. (F.—OLow G.)
Tiff (2), a fit of ill humour. (Scand.)
Till (1), to cultivate. (E.)
Till (2), to the time when, (E.) Allied to Till (1).
Till (3), a drawer for money. (E.)
Tilt (1), the cover of a cart. (E.)
Tilt (2), to ride in a tourney, (E.)
Tine (1), the tooth of a fork or harrow. (E.)
Tine (2), to light or kindle. (E.)
Tine (3), to lose. (Scand.)
Tip (1), the extreme top. (E.)
Tip (2), to tilt over. (E.)
Tire (1), to exhaust, fatigue. (E.)
Tire (2), a head-dress. (I*.—Teut.) Same as Tire (3).
Tire (3), a hoop for a wheel. (F.—Teut.)
Tire (4), to tear a prey. (F.—Late L.)
Tire (5), a train. (F.—Late L.)
Tit (1), a small horse or child. (Scand.)
Tit (2), a teat. (E.)
To- (1), prefix, in twain. (E.)
To- (2), prefix, to. (E.)
Toast (1), roasted bread. (F.—L.) Hence Toast (2).
Toast (2), a person whose health is drunk. (F.—L.)
Toil (1), labour, fatigue. (F.—L.)
Toil (2), a net, a snare. (¥.—L.)
Toll (1), a tax. (L.—Gk.)
Toll (2), to sound a bell. (E.)
Toot (1), to peep about. (E.)
Toot (2), to blow a horn, (Scand.)
Top (1), a summit. (E.)
Top (2), a child’s toy. (F.—G.)
Tow (1), to pull a vessel along. (E.)
Tow (2), the coarse part of flax. (Ε.)
Trace (1), a mark left, footprint. (F.—L.) Allied to Trace (2).
Trace (2), a strap to draw a carriage. (F.—L.)
Tract (1),a region. (L.)
Tract (2), a short treatise. (L.) Allied to Tract (1).
Trap (1), a kind of snare. (E.)
Trap (2), to adorn, decorate. (F.—Teut.)
Trap (3), a kind of igneous rock. (Swed.) Allied to Trap (1).
Trepan (1), a small cylindrical saw. (F.—L.—Gk.)
Trepan (2), Trapan, to ensnare. (I’.—Teut.)
Trice (1), a short space of time. (Low G.) From Trice (2).
Trice (2), Trise, to haul up, hoist. (Low G.)
Trick (1), a stratagem. (F.—L.)
Trick (2), to dress out. (F.—L.)
Trick (3), to emblazon arms. (Du).
Trill (1), to shake, to quaver. (Ital.)
Trill (2), to turn round. (Scand.)
Trill (3), to trickle. (Scand.)
Trinket (1), a small ornament. (F.—L. ?)
Trinket (2), the highest sail ofa ship. (F.—Ital.—L.)
Truck (1), to barter. (F.— WFlem.— Du.)
Truck (2), a small wheel. (L. —Gk.)
Trump (1), a trumpet. (F.—G.—Slav.)
Trump (2), one of the highest suit at cards. (F.—L.)
Trunk (1), the stem of a tree, box for clothes. (F.—L.)
Trunk (2), the proboscis of an elephant ; error for Trump (1).
Tuck (1), to fold or gather in a dress. (OLow G.)
Tuck (2), a rapier. (F.—Ital.—G.)
Allied.
748 LIST OF HOMONYMS
Tuck (3), beat of a drum. (F.—Teut.)
Tuft (1), a small knot, crest. (F.—Teut.)
Tuft (2), Toft, a clump of trees. (F.—Teut.)
Turtle (1), a turtle-dove. (L.)
Turtle (2), a sea-tortoise. (L.) Confused with Turtle (1).
Twig (1), a sma!l branch of a tree. (E.)
Twig (2), to comprehend. (E.)
Un- (1), negative prefix. (E.)
Un- (2), verbal prefix. (E.)
Un- (3), prefix in un-to, (I.)
Union (1), concord, harmony. (F.—L.)
Union (2), a large pearl. (F.—L.) Allied to Union (1).
Use (1), employment, custom. (F.—L.)
Use (2), profit, benefit. (F.—L.)
Utter (1), outer. (E.)
Utter (2), to put forth, (E.) Allied to Utter (1).
Utterance (1), a putting forth. (E.)
Utterance (2), extremity. (I.—L.)
Vail (1), Veil, a slight covering. (F.—L.)
Vail (2), to lower. (F.—L.)
Vail (3), a gift to a servant. (F.—L.)
Van (1), the front of an army, (F.—L.)
Van (2), a fan for winnowing. (F.—L.)
Van (3), a caravan, (F.—L.—Pers.)
Vault (1), an arched roof. (F. —L.)
Vault (2), to leap or bound. (F.—Ital.—L.) Allied to Vault (1).
Vent (1), an opening for air. (F.—L,
Vent (2), sale, utterance, outlet. (F.—L.)
Vent (3), to snuff up air. (F.—L.)
Verge (1), a wand of office. (F.—L.)
Verge (2), to tend towards. (L.)
Vice (1), a blemish, fault. (F.—L.)
Vice (2), an instrument for holding fast. (°.—L.)
Wake (1), to cease from sleep. (E.)
Wake (2), the track of a ship. (Scand.)
Wale (1), Weal, the mark of a blow. (E.)
Wale (2), choice; to choose. (Scand.)
Ware (1), merchandise. (E.)
Ware (2), aware. (E.)
Ware (3), sea-weed ; provincial. (E.)
Wave (1), to fluctuate, undulate. (E.)
Wave (2), a form of Waive. (F.—Scand.)
Wax (1), to grow, increase. (E.)
Wax (2), a substance in a honeycomb. (E.)
Wear (1), to carry on the body, to consume by use. (E.)
Wear (2). A form of Weir.
Wear (3). A form of Veer.
Weed (1), a useless plant. (E.)
Weed (2), a garment. (E.)
Weld (1), to beat (metal) together. (Scand.)
Weld (2), a plant; dyer’s weed. (E.)
Well (1), in a good state. (E.)
Well (2), a spring of water. (E.)
Wharf (1), a place for lading and unlading vessels. (I..)
Wharf (2), the bank of a river; in Shakespeare. (E.)
Wharf (1).
Wheal (1), a swelling, a pimple. (E.)
Wheal (2), a mine. (C.)
Whelk (1), a mollusc with a spiral shell. (E.)
Whelk (2), a small pimple. (E.)
Whittle (1), to pare with a knife. (E.)
Whittle (2), to sharpen. (E.) The same as Whittle (1).
Whittle (3), a blanket. (E.)
Wick (1), the cotton of a lamp. (E.)
Wick (2), a town. (L.)
Wick (3), a bay. (Scand.)
Wight (1), a creature, person. (E.)
Wight (2), nimble. (Scand.)
Will (1), to desire, to be willing. (E.)
Will (2), desire, wish. (E.) From Will (1).
Wimble (1), a kind of auger. (E.)
Wimble (2), quick, active. (Scand.)
Wind (1), air in motion, breath. (E.)
Wind (2), to turn round, coil. (E.)
Windlass (1), a machine for raising weights. (Scand.)
Windlass (2), a circuitous way. (F.—Teut.)
Wise (1), having knowledge. (E.)
Wise (2), way, manner. (1.) From Wise (1).
Wit (1), to know. (E.)
Wit (2), insight, knowledge. (E.) From Wit (1).
Wit (3), a witty fellow. (E.) From Wit (1).
Wood (1), a collection of trees. (E.)
Wood (2), mad. (E.)
Wort (1), a plant, cabbage. (E.)
Wort (2), an infusion of malt. (E.) From Wort (1).
Worth (1), value. (E.)
Worth (2), to be, become. (E.)
Wrinkle (1), a slight ridge on a surface. (E.)
Wrinkle (2), a hint. (E.) Allied to Wrinkle (1).
The same as
Yard (1), an enclosed space. (E.)
Yard (2), a rod or stick. (E.)
Yawl (1), a small boat. (Du.)
Yawl (2), to howl, yell. (E.)
Yearn (1), to long for. (E.)
Yearn (2), to grieve. (E.) The same as Yearn (1).
Ἐν dishsds ἀν DOUBLES
Doublets are words which, though apparently differing in form, are nevertheless, from an etymological point of view, one and. the same,
or only differ in some unimportant suffix.
is nevertheless used as.a verb, precisely as aggrieve is used, though the senses of the words have been differentiated.
list, each pair of doublets is entered only once, to save space, except in a few remarkable cases, such as cipher, zero,
Thus aggrieve is from L. aggrauare; whilst aggravate, though really from the pp. aggraudatus,
In the following
When a pair of
doublets is mentioned a second time, it is enclosed within square brackets.
announce—annunciate.
ant—emmet,
anthem—antiphon.
antic—antique.
appal—pall (2).
appeal, sb.—peal.
appear—peer (3).
appraise—appreciate.
apprentice—prentice.
aptitude—attitude.
arc—arch (1).
army—armada.
arrack—rack (5), raki.
asphodel—daffodil.
abbreviate—abridge.
abet—bet.
acajou—cashew.
adamant—diamond.
adventure—venture.
advocate—avouch, avow (1).
aggrieve—aggrayate.
ait—eyot.
alarm—alarum.
allocate—allow (1).
ameer—emir (omrah).
amiable—amicable.
an—one.
ancient (2)—ensign.
baton—batten (2).
bawd—bold.
beadle—bedell.
beaker—pitcher.
beef—cow.
beldam—bellaconna.
bench—bank (1), bank (2).
benison—benediction.
blame—blaspheme.
boil (1)—bile (2).
boss—botch (2).
bough—bow (4).
bound (2)—bourn (1).
bower—byre.
assay—essay.
assemble—assimilate.
assess—assize, vb.
assoil—absolve.
attach—attack.
attire—tire (2), tire (3).
bale (1)—ball (2).
balm—balsam.
band (1)—bond.
banjo —mandoline.
barb (1)—beard.
base—basis.
bashaw—pasha.
bowl (1)—bull (2).
box (2)—pyx, bush (2).
brave—bravo.
breve—brief.
brother—friar.
brown—bruin.
buff (2), buffalo,
cadence—chance.
caitifi—captive.
caidron, cauldron—chaldron.
caliber—caliver.
calumny—challenge.
camera—chamber,
cancer—canker.
cannon (1)—canon,
caravan—van (3).
card (1)—chart, carte.
case (2)—chase (3), cash (1)
cask —casque.
castigate—chasten.
catch—chase (1).
cattle—chattels, capital (2).
cavalier—chevalier.
cavalry—chivalry.
cess—assess.
chaise—chair.
chalk—calx.
champaign—campaign.
{chance—cadence. |
channel—canal, kennel (2).
chant—cant (1).
chapiter—capital (3).
charge—cark, cargo.
chateau—castle.
cheat—escheat.
check, sb,.—shah.
chicory—succory.
chief—cape (2).
chieftain—captain.
chirurgeon—surgeon.
choir—chorus; quire (2).
choler—cholera.
chord—cord.
chuck (1)—shock (1), shog. _
church—kirk.
cipher—zero.
cist—chest.
cithern—guitar, gittern, kit (2).
cive—chive.
clause—close, sb.
climate —clime.
coffer—coffin,
coin—coign, quoin.
cole—kail.
collect—cull, coil, vb.
collocate—couch.
comfit—confect.
commend—command.
commodore—commander.
complacent—complaisant,
complete, vb.—comply.
compost—composite.
comprehend—comprise,
compute—count (2).
conduct, sb.— conduit.
confound—confuse.
construe—construct.
convey—convoy.
cool—gelid. :
{cord—chord.]}
corn (1)—grain.
corn (2)—horn.
coronation—carnation (2).
corral—kraal.
corsair—hussar.
costume—custom.
cot—cote.
{couch—collocate. ]
couple, vb.—copulate.
{cow (1)—beef. |
LIST
coy (1)—quiet, quit, quite.
coy (2)—cage.
crape—crisp.
cream—chrism.
crease (1)—crest.
crevice—crevasse.
crib—cratch,
crimson—carmine.
crop—croup (2).
crowd (2)—rote (2).
crypt—grot.
cud—quid.
cue (1)—queue.
{cull—collect, coil, vd.]
curari—wourali.
curricle—curriculum.
curtle-axe—cutlass.
cycle—wheel.
dace—dart, dare (2).
dainty—dignity.
dame—dam (2), donna, duenna.
dan—don (2), domino.
dauphin—dolphin.
deck—thatch.
defence—fence.
defend—fend.
delay—dilate.
dell—dale.
demesne—domain.
dent—dint.
deploy—display, splay.
depot—deposit, sb.
descry—describe.
desiderate—desire, vb.
despite—spite.
deuce (1)—two.
devilish—diabolic.
(diamond—adamant.]
die (2)—dado,
direct, vb.—dress.
dish—disc, desk, dais.
[display—deploy, splay. }
disport—sport.
distain—stain.
ditch—dike.
ditto—dictum.
diurnal—journal.
doge—duke.
doit—thwaite.
dole—deal, sb.
dominion—dungeon,
doom— -dom (suffix).
dragon—dragoon.
dropsy—hydropsy.
due—debt.
dune—down (2).
eatable—edible.
éclat—slate (1).
elf—oaf, ouphe.
élite—elect.
emerald—smaragdus.
emerods—hemorrhoids.
{emmet—ant. ]
employ—imply, implicate.
endow—endue (1), indue (2).
engine—gin (2).
{ensign—ancient (2).]
entire—integer.
enyious—invidious.
escape—scape.
eschew—shy, vb.
escutcheon—scutcheon
especial—special.
espy—spy-
esquire—squire (1).
{essay—assay. ]
establish—stablish.
estate—state, status.
estimate—esteem.
OF DOUBLETS
estop—stop.
estreat—extract.
etiquette—ticket.
example—ensample, sample.
exemplar—sampler.
extraneous—strange.
{eyot—ait.]
fabric—forge, sb.
fact—feat.
faculty—facility.
fan—van (2).
fancy—fantasy, phantasy.
fashion—faction.
fat (2)—vat.
fauteuil—faldstool.
fealty—fidelity.
feeble—foible.
fell (2)—pell.
| fence—defence. ]
| fend—defend.]
fester, sb.—fistula.
feud (2)—fief, fee.
feverfew—febrifuge.
fiddle—viol.
fife—pipe, peep (1).
finch—spink.
finite—fine (1).
fitch—vetch.
flag (4)—flake, flaw.
flower—flour. ~
flush (4)—flux.
foam—spume.
font (1)—fount.
force (2)—farce.
foremost—prime.
foster (2)—forester.
fragile—frail (1).
fray (1)—affray.
| friar—brother.]
fro—from.
frounce—flounce,
fungus—sponge.
furl—fardel.
gabble—jabber.
gad (1)—ged.
gaffer— grandfather.
gage (1)—wage.
gambado—gambol.
game—gammon (2).
gaol—jail.
garth—yard (1).
gear—garb (1).
{ gelid—cool.]
genteel—gentle, gentile.
genus—kin.
germ—germen,
gig—jig.
{gin (2)—engine. ]
gin (3)—juniper.
gird (2)—gride.
| girdle—girth.
glamour—gramarye.
[grain—corn (1).}
granary—garner,
erece, grise—grade.
{ grot—crypt. ]
guarantee, sb.— warranty.
guard—ward.
guardian—warden.
guest—host (2).
guile—wile,
cuise—wise (2).
{ guitar—cithern, gittern, kit (2).]
gullet—gully.
gust (2)—gusto.
cuy—guide, sb.
gypsy—Egyptian.
hackbut—arquebus.
749
hale (1)—whole.
hamper (2)—hanaper.
harangue—ring, rank (1), rink.
hash, vb.—hatch (3).
hatchment—achievement.
hautboy—oboe.
heap—hope (2).
heckle—hackle, hatchel.
hemi- —semi-.
| hemorrhoids—emerods. ]
hent—hint.
history—story (1).
hock (1)—hough.
hoop (2)—whoop.
{ horn—corn (2). |
hospital—hostel, hotel, spital,
spittle (2).
{host (2)—guest.]
hub—hob (1).
human—humane.
({hussar—corsair. ]
hyacinth—jacinth.
hydra—otter.
{hydropsy—dropsy. ]
hyper- —super-.
hypo- —sub-.
illumine—limn,.
{imply—implicate, employ. ]
inapt—inept.
inch (1)—ounce (1).
indite—indict.
influence— influenza,
innocuous—innoxious,
[integer—entire. ]
[invidious—envious. ]
invite—vie.
invoke—invocate.
iota—jot.
isolate—insulate.
[jabber—gabble. ]
_jacinth—hyacinth.]
Jaggery—sugar.
{jail—gaol. }
jealous—zealous.
(jig—gig.]
jinn—genie.
joint—junta, junto.
jointure—juncture,
jot—iota. ]
[ journal—diurnal. ]
jut—jet (1).
jutty—Jetty.
{kail—cole.]
{kennel (2)—channel, -canal.J
ketch—catch.
[ kin—genus. |
(kirk—church, |
{ kraal—corral. ]
abel—lapel, lappet.
lac (1)—lake (2).
ace—lasso.
lair—leaguer.
lake (1)—loch, lough.
lateen—Latin.
launch, lanch—lance, verb.
leal—loyal, legal.
lection—lesson.
lib—glib (3).
lieu—locus.
limb (2)—limbo.
limbeck—alembic.
{ limn—illumine.]}
lineal—linear.
liquor—liqueur.
list (5)—lust.
load—lode.
lobby—lodge.
750
locust—lobster.
lone—alone.
losel—lorel.
lurch (1)—lurk.
madam—madonna.
major—mayor.
male—masculine.
malediction—malison.
mandate—maundy.
{mandoline—banjo. ]
mangle (2)—mangonel.
manceuvre—manure.
march (1)—mark (2), marque.
margin—margent, marge.
marish—morass.
maul—mall (1).
mauve—mallow.
maxim—maximum.
mazer—mazzard.
mean (3)—mesne, mizen.
memory—memoir.
mentor—monitor.
metal—mettle.
milt (2)—milk.
minim—minimum.
minster—monastery.
mint (1)—money.
mister—master.
{mizen, mesne—mean (3). ]
mob (1)—mobile, movable.
mode—mood (2).
mohair—moire.
moment—momentum,movement,
monster—muster.
morrow—morn.
moslem—mussulman.
mould (2)—module.
munnion—mullion.
musket—mosquito.
naive—native.
naked—nude.
name—noun.
natron—nitre.
naught, nought—not.
nausea—noise.
neat (2)—net (2).
nias—eyas.
noyau—newel.
[oaf, ouphe—elf.]
obedience—obeisance.
[oboe—hantboy. }
octave—utas.
of—off,
[one—an.]
onion—union (2).
oration—orison.
ordinance—ordnance.
orpiment—orpine.
osprey—ossifrage.
[{otter—hydra. }
otto—attar.
ouch—nouch.
{ounce (1)—inch (1).]
outer—utter (1).
overplus—surplus.
paddle (2)—spatula.
paddock (2)—park.
pain, vb.—pine (2).
paladin—palatine.
pale (2)—pallid;
palette—pallet (2).
paper—papyrus.
parade—parry.
paradise—parvis.
paralysis—palsy.
parole—parable, parle, palaver.
parson—person.
cf. fallow (2).
LIST OF DOUBLETS
| [pasha—bashaw. ]
pass—pace.
pastel— pastille.
pasty—patty.
pate—plate.
patron—pattern.
pause—pose (1).
pawn (1)—pane, vane.
paynim—paganism.
{ peal—appeal, sb. ]
[peer (3)—appear. ]
peise—poise.
pelisse—pilch.
{pell—fell (2).]
pellitory (1)—paritory.
penance—penitence.
peregrine—pilgrim.
peruke—periwig, wig.
pewter—spelter.
phantasm—phantom.
{phantasy—fancy. ]
piazza—place.
pick—peck (1), pitch, verb.
picket—piquet.
piety—pity.
pigment—pimento.
pike—peak, pick, sb.,
sb., spike,
{pipe—fife, peep (1).]
pippin—pip (2)
pistil—pestle.
pistol—pistole.
[pitcher—beaker. ]
plaintiff—plaintive.
plait—pleat, plight (2).
plan—plain, plane (1),
plateau—platter.
plum—prune (2).
poignant—pungent.
point—punt (2).
poison—potion.
poke (1)—pouch.
pole (1)—pale (1), pawl.
pomade, pommade—pomatum.
pomp—pump (2).
poor—pauper.
pope—papa.
porch—portico.
posy—poesy.
potent—puissant.
poult—pullet.
pounce (1)—punch (1).
pounce (2)—pumice.
pound (2)—pond.
pound (3)—pun, vb.
power—posse.
praise—price.
preach—predicate.
premier—primero,
({prentice—apprentice. ]
priest—presbyter.
| prime—foremost. ]
private—privy.
probe, sb.—proof.
proctor—procurator.
prolong—purloin.
prosecute—pursue.
provide—purvey.
provident—prudent.
punch (2)—punish.
puny—puisne.
purl (3)—profile.
purpose (1)—propose.
purview—proviso.
{pyx—box (2), bush (2).]
pique,
llano,
quartern—quadroon,
queen—quean.
[queue—cue. ]
{quid—cud. ]
(quiet, quit, quite—coy.]
[quoin—coin, coign. ]
raceme—raisin.
rack (3)—wrack, wreck.
{rack (5)—arrack, raki.]
radix—radish, race (3), root (1),
wort (1).
raid—road.
rail (2)—rally (2).
raise—rear (1).
ramp—romp.
ransom—redemption.
rapine—ravine, raven (2).
rase—raze.
ratio—ration, reason.
ray (1)—radius.
rayah—ryot.
rear-ward—rear-guard.
reave—rob.
reconnaissance—recognisance.
regal—royal, real (2).
rclic—relique.
renegade—runagate.
renew—renovate.
reprieve—reprove.
residue—residuum.
respect—respite.
revenge—revindicate.
reward—regard.
thomb, rhombus—rumb.
ridge—rig (3).
(ring, rank (1), rink—harangue.]
{road—raid. }
rod—rood.
rondeau—roundel.
{root (1)—radix, radish, race (3),
wort (1).]
rote (1)—route, rout, rut (1).
{rote (2)—crowd (2).]
round—rotund.
rouse (2)—row (3).
rover—robber.
sack (1)—sac.
sacristan—sexton.
{sample—example, ensample. }
[sampler—exemplar. ]
saw (2)—saga.
saxifrage—sassafras.
scabby—shabby.
scale (1)—shale.
scandal—slander.
{scape—escape. ]
scar (2), scaur—share.
scarf (1)—scrip (1), scrap.
scatter—shatter.
school (2)—shoal (1), scull (3).
scot(free)—shot.
screech—shriek.
screed—shred.
screw (2)—shrew.
scur—scour (2).
{scutcheon—escutcheon. ]
scuttle (1)—skillet.
sect, sept, set (2)—suite, suit.
{semi- —hemi-. ]
sennet—signet.
separate—sever.
sequin—sicca,
sergeant, serjeant—servant.
settle (1)—sell (2), saddle.
{shah—check, sb.]
shammy—chamois.
shark—search.
shawm, shalm—haulm.
sheave—shive.
shed (2)—shade,
shirt—skirt.
(shock (1) —chuck (1), shog.]
|shot—scot.}
{shred—screed.]
[shrew—screw (2). ]
shrub (2)—sherbet, syrup.
shuffle—scuffle.
sicker, siker—secure, sure.
sine—sinus.
sir, sire—senior, seignior, sefior,
signor.
size (1), size (2)—assise (2).
skewer—shiver (2).
skiff—ship.
skirmish — scrimmage, — scara-
mouch.
slabber—slaver.
{slander—scandal. ]
{slate (1)—éclat.]
sleight—sloid.
sleuth—slot (2).
slobber—slubber.
sloop—shallop.
{smaragdus—emerald. ]
snivel—snuffle.
snub—snuff (2).
soil (1)—-sole (1), sole (2).
soprano—sovereign.
sough—surf.
soup—sup.
souse—sauce,
spade (1)—spade (2).
{spatula—paddle (2).]
({special—especial. ]
species—spice.
spell (4)—spill (1).
spend—dispend.
{spink—finch.]
spirit—sprite, spright.
[spite—despite. |
{spittle (2), spital — hospital,
hostel, hotel. }
[{splay—display, deploy. ]
|sponge—fungus. ]
spoor—spur.
({sport—disport.]
spray (2)—sprig (perhaps aspa-
ragus).
sprit—sprout, sb.
sprout, vb.—spout.
spry—spark (2).
[spume—foam. ]
[spy—espy.]
squall—squeal.
squinancy—quinsy.
[squire (1)—esquire.]
squire (2)—square.
{stablish—establish. ]
| stain—distain. ]
stank—tank.
[state—estate, status. ]
stave—staff.
steer (1)—Taurus.
still (2)—distil.
stock—tuck (2).
{story (1)—history. ]
stove—stew, sb.
strait—strict.
[strange—extraneous. |
strap—strop.
stress—distress.
sub-, prefix—hypo-, prezix.]
[succory—chicory. |
[suit, suite—sect, sept, set (2).]
[super-, prefix—hyper-, prefix. |
superficies—surface.
supersede—surcease.
suppliant—supplicant.
{surgeon—chirurgeon. |
sweep—swoop.
({syrup—shrub Ὁ), sherbet.]
tabor—tambour.
tache (1)—tack.
taint—attaint.
tamper—temper.
LIST OF DOUBLETS
|tank—stank.] town—down.
tarpauling—tar (2). track—trick (1).
task—tax. tract (1)—trait.
tradition—treason.
travail—travel.
treble—triple.
trifle—truffle.
tripod—trivet.
triumph—trump (2).
troth—truth.
tuck (1)—tug.
{tuck (2)—stock.]
tuck (3)—touch.
tulip—turban.
tweak—twitch.
[two—deuce (1).]
taunt—tempt, tent (2).
tawny—tenny.
tease—tose.
tee—taw (2).
teind—tithe, tenth.
tend (1)—tender (2).
tense (2)—toise.
tercel—tassel (2).
[thatch—deck.]
thread—thrid.
thrill, thirl—drill.
(ticket—etiquette. ]
tine (1)—tooth.
tippet—tape.
(tire (2), tire (3)—attire. ]
tit (2)—teat.
(tithe—tenth, teind.]
title—tittle.
umbel—umbrella.
{union (2)—onion.]
unity—unit.
ure—opera,
to—too. [utas—octave. |
ton—tun. [utter (1)—outer.]
tone—tune.
tour—turn. vade—fade.
tow (1)—tug,. vair—various.
valet—varlet.
{van (2)—fan.]
{vane—pane, pawn (1). ]
vantage—advantage.
vast—waste.
{vat—fat (2).]
vaward—vanguard.
veal—wether.
veldt—field.
veneer—furnish.
venew, veney—venue.
verb—word.
vermeil—vermilion.
vertex—vortex,
vervain—verbena.
{vetch—fitch. ]
viaticum—voyage.
wale (1)—weal.
{ward—guard. ]
[warden—guardian. ]
{warranty—guarantee. ]
[waste—vast. ]
wattle—wallet.
weet—wit (1).
[ wether—veal. ]
whirl—warble.
(whole—hale (1).]
{whoop—hoop (2). ]
[wig—peruke, periwig. ]
wight (1)—whit.
{wile—guile. ]
[wise (2)—guise.]
wold—weald.
[word—verb. }
751
{vie—invite. ]
[viol—fiddle. ]
viper—wyvern, wivern.
visor—vizard.
vizier, visier—alguazil.
vocal—vowel.
{wort—root (1), radix, radish,
race (3). ]
[wrack—wreck, rack (3). ]
yelp—yap.
[zealous—jealous. |
[zero—cipher. ]
[wage— gage (1).]
wain—wagon, waggon.
ΘΝ ©) Ga Rely Ae Nie @ ORS
THE following is a brief list of the principal Indogermanic roots
that have English derivatives. Those of which examples are either
scanty or doubtful are not noticed. Many of the roots here given
are of some importance and can be abundantly illustrated. I have
added, at the end of the brief account of each root, several miscel-
laneous examples of derivatives; but these lists are by no means
exhaustive, nor are they arranged in any particular order beyond
the separation into groups of the words of Greek, Latin, and
Teutonic origin.
Many of these roots (but given in forms which are no longer
generally accepted) may be found in ‘ Fick, Vergleichendes Worter-
buch der indogermanischen Sprachen,’ in Curtius, ‘ Greek Etymology,
English edition, translated by Wilkins and England,’ and in ‘ Vanicek,
Griechisch-Lateinisches Etymologisches Worterbuch, Leipzig, 1877.”
More correct forms are frequently cited by Brugmann and Uhlenbeck,
and are here adopted. ‘The chief modern improvements are the
substitution of e or o for a in many instances, of ei for i and of eu for
u likewise in many instances, and in the treatment of the gutturals.
The account of each root is, in each case, very brief, and mentions
only a few characteristic derivatives. Further information may be
obtained in the above-mentioned authorities. The English examples
are accounted for in the present work. Thus, under the word
Agitate, a cross-reference is given to Agent; and under Agent is
cited the 4/AG, to drive; with a reference to Brugmann, i. § 175.
Instead of giving Grimm's Law in the usual form, I omit the
Old High German modifications, and use the word ‘ Teutonic’ as
inclusive of all other Germanic forms, tbus reducing the number of
varying bases, as due to ‘sound-shifting’ of the consonants, from
three to two. This being premised, I give a short and easy method
for the conversion of ‘Indogermanic’ roots into the corresponding
‘Teutonic’ ones ; though it must be remembered that each language
has ways of its own for representing certain original sounds. Some
of these modifications are noticed below.
Let the student learn by heart the following scheme.
Dentals; viz. dh, ἃ, t, th.
Labials; viz. bh, b, p, f.
Gutturals; viz. gh, g, k, h.
This is all that need be remembered; it only remains to explain
what the scheme means.
It is to be read in the following manner. When a dental sound
occurs (especially at the beginning of a word, for in other positions
the rule is liable to exception), an Idg. dk becomes a Teut. ὦ [for
dh is followed in the scheme by 47; an Idg. d becomes a Teut. ¢
{for a like reason]; and an Idg. ¢ becomes a Teut. ¢h (as In
English).
In practice, inevitable modifications take place, some of the
principal ones being these (I do not give them all).
For dh, as above, Skt. has dh; Gk. has 6; Latin has f (or if the
dh be not initial, d or δ).
For bh, as above, Skt. has 6k; Gk. has p; and Latin has / (or if
the bh be not initial, 6).
For gh, as above, Skt. has gh or ἃ; Gk. has y; and Latin has f or
h (or if the gh be not initial, g, gu, x).
Note the threefold value of the Latin f, which may stand, initially,
for dh, bh, or gh. Also, that Latin uses ¢ for k, but the ς is always
hard, having the sound of & before all vowels.
A few selected examples are here noted.
Dentals. Lat. facere, to do, to put, is allied to Gk. τί-θη-μι,
I place, and to E, do. From +/dhé, to place, put; Sanskrit has
dha, to put. Skt. ἄνα, Gk. δύω, Lat. duo, are cognate with E, two.
Gk, τρεῖς, Lat. trés, are cognate with E. three.
Labials. From the bher, to bear, we have the Skt. bhar, to
bear; Gk. φέρειν, Lat. ferre, to bear; E, bear, Examples of the
change from the classical 2 to E. ὁ are very scarce; compare the
Lat. labium with the E. lip. Gk. πούς (stem ποδ-); Lat. pés (stem
ped-); E. foot.
Gutturals. From the ghel, to be yellow, we have the
Gk. χολή, gall; Lat. fel, gall, heluus, light yellow; E. gall. The
Gk. yévos, Lat. genus, race, is allied to the E. kin; and the Gk.
καρδία, Lat. cor, to the E. heart. It is now recognised, however,
that there are really ¢hree series of gutturals, sometimes named the
palatal gutturals, the middle gutturals, and the labialised velar
gutturals. Some further information on the more elementary points
of comparative philology will be found in my Primer of Classical
and English Philology.
I denote the palatal gutturals by GH, G, K; the middle gutturals
by G(w)H, G(w), Q; and the labialised velar gutturals by GwH, Gw,
and Qw. They cannot always be distinguished, and I am not sure
that I have always given them correctly.
The list of Roots given below is arranged in alphabetical order.
They may be regarded as elementary bases (usually monosyllabic)
which underlie all the various forms that are given by way of
example. Each of them may be regarded, to use Brugmann’s words,
as ‘the nucleus (so to speak) of a whole system of word-forms ;’
and are of much service in grouping words together. But they do
not afford any very sure indications of what the primitive Indo-
752 LIST OF
germanic was like; ‘it must not (says Brugmann) be supposed that
the roots, which we in ordinary practice abstract from words, are
at all to be relied upon as representing the word-forms of the root-
period.’
By way of further illustration, I give a fuller treatment of the first
root on the list.
The form AG (AK) means that the Indogermanic root AG takes
the form AK in Tentonic, by the ‘sound-shifting’ of g to # already
noticed above. The sense of the root seems to have been ‘ to drive,
urge, lead, conduct,’ and the like. The Skt. form (originally ag)
has been palatalised to aj, which is the base of the verb ajami,
‘I drive;’ the third person singular is ajati, ‘he drives;’ and the
form ajaté is taken in Uhlenbeck’s Etymological Dictionary of
Sanskrit to represent this verb, The Greek infinitive is ἄγειν, and
the Latin infinitive is ugere. (It is further represented by the Old
Trish agaim, ‘I drive.) The chief representative of this root in
Teutonic occurs in the Icel. aka, to drive (pt. τ. σῷ); the corre-
sponding AS. form acan (pt. t. éc) took up a new sense, viz. ‘ to give
pain,’ as in mine éagan acad, ‘my eyes give pain,’ or in modern
English, ache. I give, as characteristic examples, the words agony
and axiom, from Greek; agent, agile, and axis, from Latin; and
acre, acorn, and ache, from Anglo-Saxon. How each of these words
is connected with the root AG, is explained in the Dictionary.
But these are not the only English derivatives from this root. The
Latin agere had the pp. actus, whence the Εἰ, act, active, actor, actual,
actuate, actuary, counteract, enact, exact, transact; while from the
base ag- we have also agitate, cogttate, ambiguous, coagulate, cogent,
exigent, examine, prodigal. In connexion with the Gk. agony we
may further cite antagonist. And it is very likely that another
native English derivative is axle; for the addition of s to the base
ag would give a base ags, which would necessarily become aks,
accounting for the Gk. ἄξων and the Lat. axis (see Axis); and
this new base aks would become aks in Teutonic, by the usual
“sound-shifting ’ from Idg. k to E. hk, But the Teutonic hs becomes
x in Anglo-Saxon, so that there is no difficulty in connecting the
AS. eax, an axle, with the Latin axis ; see further under Axle.
Similarly, many other roots have often more derivatives than it
seemed to me at all necessary to indicate.
AG (AK), to drive, urge, conduct. Skt. aj, to drive; Gk. ἄγ-ειν,
L. ag-ere, to drive ; Icel, ak-a (pt. t. 0%), to drive. Ex. agony, axiom,
synagogue, hegemony; agent, agile, axis; acre, acorn, ache.
AGH (AG), to pull tight (?). Gk. ἄχτ-ομαι, I am vexed, ἄχ-ος,
anguish; Goth. ag-is, fright, awe. Ex. ail, awe. Cf, ANGH.
AIDH. (AID), to kindle. Skt. indhk, 10 kindle; é@dk-as, fuel;
Gk. αἴθ-ειν, to burn; alé-np, upper air; L. aed-és, orig. a hearth,
aestus, heat; AS. ad, a funeral pile, dst, a kiln. Ex. ether; edi/y,
estuary ; oast-house.
AK (AH), to be sharp, to pierce. Gk. d«-pos, pointed; ἀκ-όνη,
whetstone; ἀκ-μή, edge; L. ac-us, needle, ac-uere, to sharpen, ac-iés,
edge; AS. ecg, edge. Ex. acacia, acme, aconite, acrobat, acrostic;
acid, acumen, acute, acrid, ague, aglet, eager; ear (2), edge, awn,
egg (2); and cf. paragon.
AL, to nourish, raise. L. al-ere, to nourish ; ad-ol-escere, to grow
up; al-tus, raised; Goth. al-an, to nourish; al-ds, anage. Ex. ali-
ment, altitude, adolescent, adult, exalt ; old.
AN, to breathe. Skt. av, to breathe; Gk. ἄντεμος, wind; L. an-
imus, spirit; Goth. ws-anan, to breathe out, expire. Ex. anemone;
animal, animosity, animadvert.
ANGH (ANG), to choke, strangle. Gk. ἄγχ-ειν, to strangle;
L. ang-ere, to choke, anx-ius, anxious; Icel. angr, grief. Ex. quinsy
(for quin-anc-y) ; angina, anguish, anxious; anger.
ANQ (ANH, ANG), to bend. Skt. afch, to bend, curve; Gk. ἄγκ-
υρα, an anchor; Gk, ἀγκ-ών, a bend; L. unc-us, curved, ang-ulus,
an angle; AS. ang-el, a hook. Ex. anchor; angle (1); angle (2).
AR, to plough. Gk. dp-dev, L. ar-are, AS. er-ian, to plough.
Ex. arable; ear (3).
AR, to fit. Skt. ar-as, spoke of a wheel; Gk. dp-pevos, fitted,
ap-Opov, joint; ἁρ-μός, joint, shoulder; L. ar-mus, ar-us, a limb;
ar-ma, arms, ar-s, art; Goth. ar-ms, an arm. Ex. harmony; arms,
arl, article; arm (1).
ARG, to shine. Skt. arj-unas, white (cf. raj-atam, silver);
Gk. dpy-ds, white, dpy-upos, silver, L. arg-entum, silver, arg-illa,
white clay; arg-uere, to make clear. Ex. argent, argillaceous, argu-
ment. Also Argonaut.
ARQ, to protect, keep safe. Gk. ἀρκ-εῖν, to keep off; L. arc-
ére, to keep off, arc-a,a box. Ex. arcana, ark.
AUG(w) (AUK), toincrease. Apparently allied to AWEG(w),
‘WEG(w); see WEG(w). Skt. xg-ra(s), very strong, dj-as, strength
(cf. vaj, to strengthen); L. avg-ére, to increase; Goth. auk-an, to
‘eke. Hence AUG(w)-S, AUQ-S, as in Gk. αὐῤ-άνειν, to increase,
INDOGERMANIC
ROOTS
L. aux-ilium, help. Ex.
auxiliary; eke (1), eke (2).
AWES, to shine; see EUS, WES.
BHA [=bha], to speak, declare. Gk. φη-μί, Isay, φή-μηγ report,
φά-τις, a saying, φω-νή, clear voice; L. fa-ri, to speak, fa-ma, fame,
fa-bula, a narrative, fa-teor, I confess, Ex. antiphon, anthem, pro-
phet, euphemism, euphony, phonetic; fate, fable, fairy, fame, affable,
confess. See BHAN (below).
BHAN (BAN), to speak, declare. Skt. bhan, to speak,. de-
clare; AS. ban-nan, to proclaim, Ex. ban, banns.
BHA [=bha], to shine, to be clear. Skt. bha, to shine.
the extended forms BHAL, BHAN, BHAW.
BHAL, to shine. Skt. bhal-am, lustre, Lith. bal-ti, to be
white, Gk. φαλ-ιός, white. Breton bal, a white streak in an animal's
face, AS. bel, a blaze. Ex. bald, bald-faced; also bale-fire, beltane.
BHAN, to show, display clearly. Gk. φαίνειν (for *pav-yew),
to show, φαν-τάζειν, to display, φά-σις, appearance, phase; Irish
ban, white. Ex. fancy, hierophant, sycophant, phantom, phenomenon,
phase. Also pant, :
BHAW, to glow. Gk. φά-ος (for *paf-os), φῶς, light; ‘pa-
έθειν, to shine, glow. Ex. phaeton, phosphorus. ne
BHEID (BEIT), to cleave, bite. Skt. bhid, to cleave; L.
findere (pt. t. fid-i), to cleave; AS. bit-an, to bite; Icel. betta, to
make to bite, to bait. Ex. fissure; bite, bitter, bait, abet, bet. (Cf.
bill (1), which Walde refers to an Idg. type *bhid-/om.)
BHEIDH (BEID), to persuade, trust. Gk. πείθ-ω, I persuade ;
L. fid-ere, to trust, fid-es, faith, foed-us, a treaty. Ex. affiance,
confide, defy, faith, fealty, fidelity, infidel, perfidious, federal, con-
federate. Perhaps bid (1). Perhaps bide (disputed).
BHELGH (BELG), to bulge, swell out. Icel. bolg-inn,
swollen, from a lost strong verb; Irish bolg-aim, I swell, bolg,
a bag, budget, belly, pair of bellows; Goth. balg-s, a bag; AS.
belg-an, to swell with anger. Ex. bulge, bilge, budget; bag (?),
belly, bellows, billow, bolled. Cf. bulk (1).
BHELS (BELL), to resound. Lith. bals-as, voice, sound;
AS. bell-an, to make a loud noise. Cf. Skt. bhash (for *bhals), to
speak (Uhlenbeck). Ex. bell, bellow, bull (1). °
BHENDH (BEND), to bind. Skt. bandh (for *bhendh), to
bind; Pers. baud, a bond; Gk. πεῖσμα (for *révO-cpa), a cable; L.
of-fend-ix, a knot, band; Goth. bind-an, to bind. Ex. bind, bend,
bond, bundle.
BHER (BER), to bear, carry. Skt. bhy, to support, bhra-tar-,
a brother, friend; Gk. pép-w, L. fer-o, I bear; for-s, chance (which
brings things about) ; fir, a thief (cf. Gk. pup). Ex. fertile, fortune,
fortuitous, furtive; bear (1), burden, bier, barrow, bairn, barm (2),
birth, brother ; bore (3).
BHER (BER), to cut, bore. Zend bar, to cut, bore; Pers.
bur-enda, sharp, cutting ; Gk. pap-aw (for *pap-aw), I plough, pap-ayé,
augment, august, arction, author, also
}
Hence
a ravine, pdp-vyé, gullet; L. for-are, AS. bor-ian, to bore. Ex.
pharynx ; perforate; bore (1), bore (2).
BHERG, BHLEG (BERK, BLEK), to shine, burn. Skt.
bhraj, to shine; Gk. φλέγ-ειν, to burn, L. fulg-ére, to shine, ful-men
(*fulg-men), thunder-bolt, flag-rare, to burn, flam-ma (*jlag-ma),
flame; Goth. bairh-ts, bright. Ex. phlox; refulgent, fulminate, flag-
rant, flame ; bright. Also blink, blank,
BHERS (BERS), to be stiff or bristling. Skt. bhysh-ti-, a point;
Icel. brod-dr (*broz-dr), a spike; AS. byrs-t, a bristle, bears, bers,
a perch (fish). Ex. brad, bristle, bass (2).
BHEU (BEU), to dwell, become, be. Skt. bhi, to be; bhav-
ana(m), a dwelling, house; Gk. ἔτφυ, he was; L. fu-i, 1 was; AS.
béo-n, to be; bo-Jd, a house; Goth, bau-an, to dwell; Lith. bu-ti, to
be. Ex. physic, euphuism, imp; future ; be, boor, booth, busk (1), bower,
byre, by-law, burly, build.
BHEUDH (BEUD), to awake, inform, bid, command. Skt.
budh (*bhudh), to awake, understand, bddh-aya, to inform; Gk.
πεύθ-ομαι, I search, ask; AS. béod-an, to bid. . Ex. bid (2), beadle,
bode.
BHEUQw, BHEUGw, (BEUHw), to bow, bend, turn about.
Skt. bhuj, to bend, stoop; Gk. φεύγτ-ειν, to flee; L. fug-ere, to flee ;
AS. big-an, to bow, bend, bog-a, a bow. Ex. fugitive, fugue, refuge,
subterfuge; bow (1), bow (2), bow (3), bight, bout, buxom. . See
3rugmann, i. ὃ 658; who adds boil (2), ‘
BHLE (=bhilé), Teut. BLE (=blé), to blow. L. fld-re, AS.
bla-wan, to blow. Ex. flatulent; blow (1), blaze (2), blast, bladder.
BHLEG, to shine, burn; see BHERG.
BHLO (=bhl6), Teut. BLO (=bld), to blow as a flower, to
flourish. L. ff0-s, a flower, jf0-rére, to flourish; AS.. bl6-wan,.to
blow, 616-ma, bloom. Ex. floral, flourish; blow (2), bloom, blossom,
blood, bleed, bless.
BHOG, bhég (BAK, bok), to bake or roast. Gk. pwy-ev, to
roast, bake ; AS. bac-an (pt. t. bdc), to bake. Ex. bake.
LIST OF INDOGERMANIC
BHREG (BREK), to break (with a cracking noise). L. frang-
ere (pt. t. frég-i), to break; frag-ilis, fragile; Goth. brik-an, AS.
brec-an, to break. Ex. fragile, fragment, frail; break, brake (1),
brake (2). Perhaps brook (2).
_BHREQ, to crowd close, fence: round, shut in. Gk. φράσσειν
(*ppax-yev), to shut in, make fast, φράγ-μα, a fence; L. fregu-ens,
pao farc-ire, to stuff full. Ex. diaphragm; frequent, farce,
orce (2).
BHREU (BREU), to decoct. L,. dé-fru-tum, new wine boiled
down; Thracian βρῦ-τον, beer; OIrish bruith, cooking ; AS. bréo-
wan, to brew. Ex. brew, broth, brose, bread. Allied to the above
words are, further, Gk. φύρ-ειν, to mix up, mingle together, Skt.
bhurazya, to be active, L. fur-ere, to rage. Ex. fury; also purple.
Also L. feru-ére, to boil, to be fervent, fermentum, leaven; AS.
beorma, yeast. Ex. fervent, ferment; barm (1).
BHREUG (BREUK), to enjoy, use. L. fru-or (for *friig-uor),
pp- fruc-tus, I enjoy, frig-és, fruit, frii-mentum (*friig-mentum),
com; AS. briic-an, to use. Ex. fruit, frugal, furmity, Sructify ;
brook (1).
BUQ, to bellow, snort, puff; of imitative origin, Skt. bukk, to
sound; L. bucc-a, the puffed cheek. Ex. disembogue, debouch, em-
bouchure.
DAK (TAH), to bite, tear, hold fast. Skt. dag, to bite; Gk.
δάκ-νειν, to bite; Goth. tah-jan, to rend; AS. tang-e, a pair of tongs.
Ex. tang (1), tang (3), tongs.
DAM (TAM), to tame. Skt. dam, to tame; Gk. δαμ-άειν, to
tame; L. dom-are, to tame; Goth. ga-tam-jan, to tame. Ex. ada-
mant, diamond; daunt; tame.
DE ( -- 88), to bind. Gk. δέ-ω, I bind, διά-δη- μα, fillet. Ex. diadem.
DEIK (TEIH), to show, point out, Skt. dig, to show; Gk.
δείκ-νυμι, I show, bix-n, justice ; L, in-dic-dre, to point out, dic-ere,
to tell; Goth, ga-teih-an, to teach, tell; AS. “δορὶ (*tih-an), to accuse.
Ex. syndic ; indicate, dedicate, diction, &c.; dight, index, judge, judi-
cious, &c. 3 verdict, vindicate; teen, token, teach.
DEIW (TEIW), to shine. Skt. div, to shine; dév-a(s), God,
div-ya(s), brilliant, divine ; Gk. Ζεύς (stem AiF-), Zeus, d¢-os, heavenly,
L. de-us, God, din-us, divine, di-és, day; AS. Tig (gen. Tiwes), the
god of war. Ex. Zeus; Jupiter, deity, divine, dial, diary, meridian,
jovial; Tuesday.
DEK, to honour, think fit. Sk. dig, to honour, worship; Gk.
δοι-εῖ, it seems fit, 50¢-a, opinion; L. dec-et, it is fit, doc-ére, to
teach, discere (*di-de-scere), to learn, Ex. paradox, dogma, didactic ;
decent, decorum, docile, disciple,
DEM (TIM), to build. Gk. δεμ-εῖν, to build, δόμ-ος, a building ;
L. dom-us, a house; Goth. ¢im-rjan, to build. Ex. dome, major-
domo, domestic, domicile (also despot); timber, Perhaps L. dom-inus,
a master, with its derivatives, is from the same root.
DER (TER), to tear, rive. Skt. dy-nami, I burst open, tear
asunder; Gk. δέρ-ειν, to flay, δέρ-μα, skin; Goth. ga-‘airan, to break,
destroy, AS. ter-an, to rend. Ex. epidermis, pachydermatous ; tear (1),
tire (1), ttre (4); perhaps tree, dar, larch.
DERBH (TERB), to knit together. Skt. dvbh, to bind, darbh-
a(s), matted grass; AS. turf, turf. Ex. turf.
DEU (TEU), to work, prepare. Skt. di-ta(s), a messenger (?);
Goth. tau-jan, to do; AS. taw-ian, to prepare, to scourge; ἐδ-ὶ
(*tou-l), a tool. Ex. taw, tew, tow (2), tool. (Hence the final -f in
herio-t.)
DEUK (TEUH), to lead, conduct. L. diic-ere, to lead;
Goth. tiuk-an, AS. téo-n, to draw, pull. Ex. duke, ad-duce, &c.,
conduit, doge, douche, ducal, redoubt, educate ; tow (1), tug, tuck (1),
tuck (3), tie, touch, tocsin, team.
DHE (=dhé6), weak grade dho (Teut. *dé, *d0), to put, place,
set, do. Skt. dha, to place, put; Gk. τίςθη-μι, I place, set, θέ-μα,
a thing proposed, θέ-σις, a placing, 0€-pus, law, θη-σαυρός, treasure ;
L, fa-c-ere, to do, fa-c-ilis, easy to do; AS. d#-d, a deed, dd-m,
judgement, dé-man, to judge. Ex. anathema, hypothec, theme, thesis,
epithet, treasure, tick (2); fact, suffix -{y in magnify, δα. -ficent ;
do (1), deed, doom, deem. Also creed. See note to DO (above).
DHEGwH (DEG), to burn. Skt. dah (for *dhagh), to burn;
L. fau-illa, hot ashes; Lith. deg-u, I burn; Goth. dag-s, day. Ex.
day. Cf. foment, from L. fou-ére.
DHEI (=dhéi), to suck. Skt. dhé, to suck; Gk. θη-λή, the
breast; L. fé-lare, to suck, fé-mina, woman, fi-lius, son, Olrish
di-nim, I suck. Ex. female, feminine, filial.
DHEIGH (DEIG), to smear, knead, mould, form. Skt. dik
(*dhigh), to smear; Gk. rety-os, a wall (orig. of earth); L. jing-ere
(pp. jic-tus), to mould, form, feign, fig-ulus, a potter; Goth. deig-an,
dig-an, to knead, daig-s, a kneaded lump. Ex. paradise; fiction,
fictile, feign, figure; dough, dairy, lady.
DHER, to support, hold, keep. Skt. dhy, to bear, support,
maintain, keep, hold, retain; Gk. @pd-vos, a support, seat; @wp-aé,
ROOTS 753
a breast-plate (keeper); L. fré-tus, relying on, fir-mus, secure. Ex,
throne, thorax; firm, farm,
DHERS (DERS), to dare. Skt. dvsh, to dare; Gk. θαρσ-εῖν, to
be bold, @pac-vs, bold; Goth. dars, 1 dare, daurs-ta, I durst. Ix.
thrasonical; dare, durst.
DHEU (DEV), to run, to flow, Skt. dhav, dhiv, to run, to
flow; Gk. θέ-ειν, to run (fut. θεύ-σομαι) ; AS. déaw, dew. Ex. dew.
DHEU (DEU), to agitate, fan into flame. Skt. dhi, to agitate,
fan into flame ; dhii-ma(s), smoke; Gk. θύ-ειν, to rush, rage, sacrifice,
θύ-ος, incense; θύ-μος, θύ-μον, thyme; L, fi-mus, smoke; AS. di-st,
dust. Ex, tunny, thyme; thurible, fume; dust.
DHEUB (DEUP), to be deep, to be hollow. Lith. dub-is,
deep, dib-ti, to be hollow; Goth. diup-s, deep. Ex. deep, depth, dip.
Variant DHBEUP (DEUF). Russ. dup-lo, hollow, AS. dyf-an, to
dive into, AS. diife-doppa, a diving-bird. Ex. dive, dove.
DHEUBH (DEUB), to fill with smoke or mist. Skt, dhiip-a(s),
vapour; Gk. τῦφ-ος (*0p-0s), smoke, gloom, stupefaction ; Tup-Ads,
blinded, dark; Goth. daub-s, deaf, (perhaps) dumb-s, dumb, Ex.
typhoon, typhus; deaf, dumb? Allied to DH EU, to agitate.
DHREN (DREN), to make a droning noise. Skt. dhran, to
sound; Gk. θρῆν-ος, lamentation, Op@v-af, a drone-bee; Goth.
drun-jus, a sound; OSax. dran, a drone. Ex. threnody; drone (1),
drone (2).
DHWEL (DWEL), to be confused or troubled. Gk. θολ-ερός,
troubled, thick, muddy (as water), @0A-ds, mud; Goth. dwal-s, foolish;
Icel, dwel-ja, to hinder, delay, dwell; AS. dol, foolish, Ex. dull,
dwell, dwale, Perhaps allied to DH EU, to agitate.
DHWES (DWES), to breathe, inspire. Gk. θέστφατος, spoken
by God, inspired, θε-ός (*0Fec-ds), God; Lith. dwes-it, I breathe,
dwasé, breath, spirit, ghost, dus-éi, to breathe hard; Goth, dius,
a wild animal (cf. L. animal from anima); AS. déor, a deer. Ex,
theism, theology; deer.
DO (=d6),togive. Skt. da, to give; Gk. δίεδω-μι, I give, δό-σις,
a gift, dose; L. dé-num, a gift, do-s, dowry, da-re, to give. Ex.
dose; donation, dower, dowry, date (1), dado, die (2), render, rent (2),
traitor, treason. @ The verbs con-dere, cré-dere, and some others
ending in -dere are usually referred to the root *dhé.
DRE (=dré), weak grade der, to sleep. Skt. dra, to sleep.
Gk. δαρ-θάνειν, L. dor-mire, to sleep. Ex. dormitory, dormant,
dormer-window.
DREM, torun. Skt. dram, to run; Gk, €-dpap-ov, Lran, δρόμ-ος,
arunning, Ex. dromedary.
ED (ET), to eat. Skt. ad, to eat; Gk. ἔδ-ειν, L. ed-ere, AS. et-an,
to eat. Ex. edible, eat, fret, ort. Perhaps tooth, dental.
EI. to go; whence yé, to go, to pass. Skt. ἢ, to go; νᾶ, to go;
Gk. ef-y, I shall go, L. i-re, to go; AS. é-ode, I went. Ex. proem;
ambient, circuit, commence, count (1), exit, eyre, initial, issue, itinerant,
obit, perish, pretor, preterite, sedition, sudden, &c. Also yede.
EL, to drive. Gk. ἐλ-αύνειν, to drive; L. al-acer, brisk. Ex.
elastic ; alacrity, allegro.
ERE, eré (16), to row. Skt. ari-tra(s), a rudder, Gk. ἐρε-τμός,
an oar; Lith. ir-/i, torow; 1». ré-mus, an oar; AS. 7rd-wan, to row.
Ex, trireme ; row (2), rudder.
ES, to dwell, to be. Skt. as, to exist, be; Gk. ἐσ-μί, εἰ-μί, Tam;
L. es-se, to be, s-um, I am; ab-s-ens, being away; AS. is, is, s-0d,
true (orig. being). Ex. suttee; pal@ontology; absent, present, essence,
entity; am, art, is, are, sooth.
GEN (KEN), to generate, produce, Skt. janx, to beget; Gk.
yev-os, Tace, yi-yv-oua, I am born, L. gi-gn-ere (pt. t. gen-ui), to
beget, gen-itor, father, gr-ascor, 1 am born, gen-us, kin; Goth,
kun-i, kin, Ex. Genesis, endogen, cosmogony; genus, genius, gentile,
benign, cognate, indigenous, natal, native, nature; kin, kind (1), kind (2),
kindred, kith.
GEN (KEN), to know; also gna, gn6 (kna). Skt. μιᾷ, to know ;
Gk. γι-γνώ-σκειν, to know; Ὑνω-τός, known; L. gnd-scere, nd-scere,
to know, i-gnd-rare, not to know, gna-rus, knowing (whence zarrare,
to tell); Goth. sanz, 1 know; AS. cna-wan, to know. Ex. gnostic,
gnomon ; ignorant, narrate, noble; can (1), ken, know, cunning, keen,
uncouth,
GER (KER), to grind, to crumble with age. Skt. jir-za(s),
decayed, pp. of gri, to wear out; jar-as, decrepitude; Gk. γέρτων,
old man; L. gra-nwm, corn; AS. cor-n, corn. Ex. grain; corn,
kernel.
GERPH (KERF), to carve, write. Gk. ypdg-ev, to incise,
write; AS. ceorf-an, to carve. Ex. graphic, autograph, &c., diagram,
&c., grammar, programme ; carve.
GEUS (KEUS), to choose, taste. Skt. jush, to like, enjoy;
Gk. γεύτομαι, 1 taste, yevo-rds, to be tasted; L. gus-tare, to taste;
Goth. kius-an, to choose, kus-tus, taste. Ex, gust (2), disgust ;
choose; choice.
GLEU (KLEU), to draw together, conglomerate. Skt. ρίξε,
3.0
754
a lump (Macdonell) ; L. ρίμτεγο, to draw together, glo-mus, a clew,
glo-bus, a ball; AS. cléo-we, aclew. Ex. globe, conglomerate; clew
clue).
‘ GLEUBH (KLEUB), to cleave, to split asunder. Gk. γλύφ-ειν,
to hollow out; L. glib-ere, to peel, gli-ma (*glib-ma), a husk;
AS. cléof-an, to cleave, split. Ex. glyptic, hiero-glyphic; glume ;
cleave (1), cleft.
G(w)EL (KEL), to be cold. L. gel-u, frost; gel-idus, cold ;
Goth. kal-ds, cold; AS. cdl, cool, ceal-d, cold. Ex. gelid, jelly,
congeal; cool, cold, keel (2).
GwER, to assemble. Gk. d-yeipew (*d-yép-yev), to assemble,
a-yop-a, an assembly; L. grex (stem gre-g), a flock. Ex. category,
paregoric ; gregarious, egregious.
G(w)ER (KER), to cry out (perhaps imitative). Skt. gir,
voice; Gk. yép-avos, a crane, yjp-us, speech; L. gr-us, a crane,
gar-rire, to talk; Gael. gair, a shout, sluagh-ghairm, a battle-cry,
slogan; AS. cear-u, care, lament. Ex. geranium, garrulous ; pedigree ;
slogan; care, crane, jar (1), jargon.
G(w)LEI (KLEI), to stick to. Gk. γλοι-ός, sticky substance,
gum; L. glii-ten, glue; AS. cl#-g, clay, cli-fan, to stick to. Ex.
glue; clay, cleave (2).
GwEI (QE1), to live; also in the form GwEIW (QEIW). Skt.
jiv, to live, jiv-a(s), living, life; Gk. Bi-os, life, also (a-w (for
*g(w)yé-y0), I live, ζώτω, I live; L. wiu-ere, to live, wi-ta, life;
Goth. kwius, quick, living, active, AS. cwic, alive, quick. Ex.
biology, zoology ; vivid, vital, victuals; quick. Also usquebaugh, azole,
zodiac.
GwEM (QEM), to come, to go, walk. Skt. gam, to go; Gk.
βαίνειν (*Bav-yev), to go, βά-σις, a going; L. uen-ire, to come;
Goth. kwim-an, AS. cum-an, to come. Ex. base (2), basis; venture,
advent, avenue, convene, &C.; come,
GwER, to devour, swallow greedily. Skt. aja-gar-a(s), lit.
goat-swallower; Gk. Bop-a, food, Bop-és, gluttonous; L. uor-are,
to devour, Further allied to Skt. gal-a(s), throat; L. gula, gullet,
throat, gl-utire, to gulp down. It seems to be reduplicated in Skt.
gar-gar-a(s), a whirlpool (which may be partly imitative); Gk.
yap-yap-iCev, to gurgle; L. gur-gés, a whirlpool. Ex. voracious ;
also gullet, gully, glut, glutton; also gargle, gurgle, gorge, gorget,
gorgeous.
GHA (GA), to gape, yawn. Gk. ya-05, χά-σμα, abyss, χαίνει:ν
(for *xa-v-yerv), to yawn; χήν,α goose; L. anser,a goose; G. gans,
AS. gos, a goose. Ex. chasm, chaos; goose, gannet, gander. See
GHEI.
Base GH AID (GAIT), to sport, skip.
Lith. zaid-ziun, I play, sport; AS. gat, a goat.
GHEI (GEI), to yawn. L.
10-gin-an, str. vb., to gape open.
(2). See GHA.
Base GHEI-M- (GEI-M-), cold, winter. Skt. hi-m-a(s),
cold, hi-m-a(m), frost, snow; Gk. χει-μ-ών, winter; L. hi-em-s,
winter, hi-bernus, wintry. Ex. hibernal, hibernate; prov. E. gimmer,
a one-year-old (winter-old) ewe (Icel. gymbr).
GHHEIS (GEIS), to be hostile (?). Skt. héd, to disregard,
héd-a(s) (for *hézd-a(s), anger, wrath (of the gods); Lith. zefd-ziu,
I wound; Goth. us-gais-jan, to terrify, Icel. geis-a, to rage; AS.
gas-t, a spirit, ghost ; gé#s-tan, to terrify. Ex. ghost, aghast.
GHEL (GEL), to be green or yellow. Skt. har-it, green; Gk.
χόλ-ος, XoA-7, gall, yAd-n, verdure, χλω-ρός, greenish, yellowish;
L. hel-uus, light yellow; AS. geol-o, yellow, gol-d, gold. Cf. L.
fel, gall. Ex. chlorine, choler ; yellow, yolk, gold, gall.
GHEL (GEL), to yell, cry out, cry as a bird. Gk. χελ-ιδών,
a swallow; AS. gell-an, to yell, sing; stan-gella, a staniel; gal-an,
to sing. Ex. nightingale, staniel, yell.
Base GHEM- (GEM-), from GHZEM-, earth, the ground.
Skt. ksham-@, earth, Gk. yap-ai, on the ground; Russ. zem-lia,
earth, land; L. hum-i, on the ground, hum-us, earth, hom-o, man
(son of earth), Goth. gum-a, man. Ex. chameleon, chamomile ; hom-
age, humble, humane, exhume. Cf. bridegroom.
GHENG(w)H (GENG), to go, stride along. Skt. jangh-a,
the leg; Lith. Zeng-iu, I go, march; Icel. gang-a, to go. Ex.
L. haed-us, a kid;
Ex. goat.
hi-are, to gape, yawn; AS.
Ex. hiatus; yawn. Perhaps gill
gang.
GHER (GER), to desire, to yearn. Skt. har-y, to desire; Gk.
χαίρειν (*yap-yerv), to rejoice, χαρ-ά, joy, χάρ-ις, favour, grace; L.
hor-tari, to exhort; AS. geor-n, desirous. Ex. eucharist, chervil ;
hortatory, exhort; yearn,
GHER (GER), to seize, grasp, hold, gird. Skt. hy, to seize,
har-ana(s), the hand; Gk. χείρ (gen. χειρ-ός, xep-ds), hand; xop-ds,
a dance in a ring or enclosure, χόρ-τος, an enclosure, yard; L
hor-tus, yard, garden; AS. gear-d, yard. Further allied to χορ-δή,
a cord, a string of guts, Lith. Zar-nos, Icel. gar-nir, guts, AS. gear-n,
yarn. Ex. cheiromancy, surgeon, chorus, choir; horticulture, cohort,
LIST OF INDOGERMANIC ROOTS
court; yard (1), garth, gird (1), girth.
yarn.
GHERS (GERS), to bristle. Skt. jxsh, to bristle; L. horr-ére
(*hors-ére), to bristle ; cf. hirs-iitus, bristling. Cf. Gk. yp, L. ér,
a hedgehog; Gk. χαρ-άσσειν, to scratch. Ex. horrid, hirsute; per-
haps gorse. Cf. urchin, character.
GHEU (GEU), to pour. Whence also GHEUD (GEUT), to
pour. Gk. yé-ewv (fut. yev-cw), to pour, χυ-μύς, xu-Ads, juice ;
L. fa-tis, a water-vessel, re-fii-tare, to refute (pour back), fi-tilis,
easily emptied, futile; also fund-ere (pt. τ. fiid-i), to pour; AS.
géot-an, to pour; Icel. gjd-sa, gii-sa, to gush. Ex. chyme, chyle (cf.
alchemy) ; confute, refute, futile, refund, found (2), fuse (1), confuse,
diffuse; ingot, gut; gush, geysir.
GHREM (GRIM), to make an angry noise. Gk. χρεμτ-ίζειν,
χρεμ-ετίζειν, to neigh; AS. grim, fierce. Ex. grim, grumble.
G(w)HAIS, tostick,adhere. L. haer-ére (pt. t. haes-7), to stick ;
Lith. ga/sz-ti, to delay, tarry. Ex. adhere, cohere, hesitate.
G(w)HEND (GET), to seize, get. Gk. χανδ-άνειν (2 aor.
€-xab-ov) ; L. prae-hend-ere, to grasp, seize, hed-era, ivy, praeda (for
*prae-hed-a), booty, prey; Goth. bi-git-an, to find, AS. giet-an,
to get. Ex. prehensile, apprehend, prey, predatory; get, beget,
Sorget.
G(w)HES (meaning unknown). L. hos-tis, orig. a stranger,
a guest; also a stranger, an enemy; Goth. gas-ts, AS. g@s-t, gies-t,
a guest. Ex. host (1), host (2), ostler, hotel, hospice; guest.
G(w)HLEU (GLEU), to rejoice (?). Gk. χλεύτη, sport;
Tcel. glau-mr, glee; AS. gléo, glee. Ex. glee.
G(w)HRADH (GRAD), to step, walk, go. L. grad-i, to
step, go; grad-us, a step; Goth. grid-s, grif-s, a step. Ex. grade,
gradient, gradual, graduate.
GwHEN, to strike. Skt. kan, to strike, wound; Gk. θείνειν
(ἔθεν-γειν), to strike, slay (cf. pt. t. mé-pa-rar); L. of-fend-ere, to
strike against; cf. OHG. gund, Icel. gunnr, AS. gid, war. Ex.
defend, offend, infest, fence, fend. Also gonfalon, gonfanon, gun.
GwHER, to glow. Skt. gh, to shine; ghar-ma(s), heat, hot
season; Gk. θερ- μός. warm, θέρ-ος, summer heat; L. for-mus, warm,
for-nax, furnace. Ex. thermometer; furnace, fornicate, Perhaps
warm,
ἀπο For forms not found under K, see under Q.
KAM (HAM), to cover over. Gk. xap-apa, a vaulted place
(whence L. camera) ; κάμτ-ινος, an oven; Goth. ga-ham-dn, to cover
with clothes; Icel. ham-r, a covering. Ex. chamber, chimney; cf.
chemise.
KAN (HAN), to sing. Gk. καν-αχή, a ringing sound; L can-
ere, to sing; AS. han-a, a cock (singer). Ex. chant, canto, accent,
incentive, &c.; hen.
KEI, to lie down, repose. Skt. οἵ, to recline, rest; Gk. xet-pac,
Tlie down. Hence also Skt. ¢é-va(s), kind, friendly ; L. c2-uis, fellow-
citizen; OHG. hi-wo, husband; AS. hi-wan, household servants.
Ex. cemetery; civil, city; hind (2).
KEL (HEL), to hide. Olrish cel-im, I hide; L. cel-la, a hut;
AS. hel-an, to hide, hel-m, a covering; heal-l, a hall, hell-e, hell.
L. oc-cul-ere, to hide; Gk. καλ-ιά, a hut, καλ-ύπτειν, to cover; Goth.
hul-jan, to hide; AS. hol, a hole; L. cél-Gre, to hide. Ex. eucalyptus ;
cell, conceal; helm, hall, hell, hole, hollow. Or QU, q.v.
KENQ (HENH), to waver, to hang. Skt. gak, to hesitate ;
L. cunc-tart (for *conc-itari), to delay; Goth. hakan (*hanhan),
to hang, AS. hang-ian, to hang. Ex. hang, hank, hanker, hinge.
KER (HER), to project, stand up (?). Skt. gir-as, head; Pers.
sar, head; Gk. κάρ-α, head; xép-as, a hom; L. cer-ebrum, brain.
Closely allied to Skt. ¢7-nga(m), a horn (Gk. κόρ-υμβος, highest
point), L. cor-nu, horn, cer-uus, stag ; AS. hor-n, horn, heor-ut, hart.
Ex. ginger; sirdar; corymb; cerebral, corner, cornet, cervine, serval ;
hart, horn, hornet.
Base KERD (HERT), heart. Gk. xap5-ia, κῆρ, heart; L. cor
(gen. cord-is), heart; Lith. szird-is, Irish cridhe, W. craidd, Russ.
serdtse, AS. heort-e, heart. Ex. cardiac; cordial, accord, concord, dis-
cord, record, courage, quarry (2); heart.
KERS (HERS), to run. L. curr-ere (pp. curs-us), to run;
Olrish carr, a car; AS. hors, a horse; Icel. hross, a horse. Ex.
current, curricle, course, cursive, concur, &c.; car; horse.
KEU (HEU), to swell out; also, to be hollow. Skt. gi-na(s),
swollen, gi-nya(s), void, hollow ; Gk. κύταρ, a cavity, κυ-εῖν, to be
pregnant, «0-ya, a wave (swelling) ; L. cau-us, hollow. Ex. cave,
cavern, cage, gabion ; maroon (2).
KEUDH (HEUD), to hide.
Perhaps also chord, cord;
Gk. κεύθ-ειν, τὸ hide; W. euddio,
to hide; AS. hyd-an, to hide. Cf. L. cus-tds, a custodian, Goth.
huz-d, a hoard. Ex. custody; hide (1), hoard. Cf. house, husk.
KLEI (HLEID), to lean. Gk. «Ai-vew, to incline, lean, «ACpag,
a ladder, «At-pa, situation, climate (slope); L. in-clé-rare, to make
to lean; AS. Ahli-nian, to lean, hle-ne, frail, lean, h/a-w, a hill,
LIST OF INDOGERMANIC ROOTS
declivity. Ex. climax, climate, clinical; incline, decline, acclivity,
declivity ; lean (1), lean (2), low (3), ladder.
KLEU (HLEU), to hear, listen to. Skt. eru, to hear; Gk.
κλύτειν, Τι. clu-ere, to hear; AS. hlii-d, loud, hly-st, hearing, Ex.
loud, listen. (The derivation ot client from L. cluere is doubtful.)
KLEU(D), to wash, cleanse. Gk. κλύζειν (ἐκλύδ- νειν), to cleanse,
xAvo-rnp, a Clyster, syringe; cf. L. clu-ere, to cleanse. Ex. clyster.
KWEID (HWEIT), to gleam, to be white; allied to KWEIT,
with the same sense. Skt. guind, to be white; gui’, to be white;
gvel-a(s), white; Russ, sviet-ite, to shine; AS. hwit, white, hwel-e,
wheat. Ex. white, wheat.
KWERP (HWERF), to turn round. Gk. καρπ-ίς, the wrist
(that turns the hand); Goth. kwairb-an, to turn round. Ex. whirl,
wharf, warble.
KWES (HWES), to pant, sigh, wheeze. Skt. gvas, to pant,
snort, hiss; L. guer-or (pp. ques-tus), 1 complain; AS. hwésan (not
hwéesan), to wheeze. Ex. querulous ; wheeze, (See Brugmann, i. § 355.)
LAB (LAP), to lap with the tongue. L. lambere, to lap; AS.
eee to lap. (Root */@b; Brugmann, ii. § 632.) Ex. lambent,
ap (τ).
LAS, to desire. Skt. /@-las-a(s), ardent, desirous, /ash, to desire ;
Gk. λι-λαίομαι ("λι-λάσ-γομαι), I desire; L. das-c-iuus, lascivious ;
AS, lus-t, desire. Ex, lascivious; lust, lusty, list (4).
LAU (=1au), to acquire as spoil; see LEU.
LED (=16d), Teutonic lét, to let go, leave free. L. Jas-sus (for
*lad-tus), tired, Gk. ληδ-εῖν, to be tired (see Brugmann, i. § 478);
Goth. Jét-an, to let, let go; AS. let, slow, late. Ix. lassitude ;
Tet (1), late, lass.
LEG, to collect; hence, to put together, to read. Gk. λέγ-ειν,
to collect, read; L. leg-ere, to read, de-lec-tus, choice, lec-tus,
chosen. Ex. logic, eclogue, syllogism, and the suffix -logy; legend,
legion, elect, delight, &c.
LEGH (LEG), to lie down. Gk. λέχτος, a bed; L. lec-tus
(*leg-tus), a bed; Goth. lig-an, to lie down, lig-rs, a couch; Icel.
lag-r, lying low, Zag, a stratum, Jog, alaw. Ex. litter (1); lie (1),
lay (1), low (1), law, lair, log (1); ledger, beleaguer.
LET; sce REI.
LEIGH (LEIG), to lick. Skt. πᾷ, rik, to lick. Gk. Aety-ew,
to lick; L. ling-ere, to lick; Goth. bi-laig-dn, to lick; AS. licc-ian
(from *ligh-n-), to lick. Ex. lichen (?); electuary (?) ; lick.
LEIP (LEIF), to smear, cleave, remain. Skt. Jip, to smear,
anoint; Gk. ἀ-λείφ-ειν, to smear, λίπ-ος, fatness; L. lip-pus, blear-
eyed; Lith. lip-ti, to stick, cleave; Goth. bi-letb-an, to remain
behind, bi-iatb-jan, to leave behind, Ja:b-a, remnant; Icel. lif-a, to
remain, to live; AS. libb-an (for *lif-jan), to live. Ex. synalepha;
life, live, leave (1).
LEIQw (LEIHw), to leave, lend. Skt. rich, to leave; Gk.
λείπ-ειν, to leave; L. lingu-ere, to leave, re-ligu-us, remaining ;
Goth. lethw-an, AS. lik-an, to lend. Ex. relinguish, relic, relict ;
lend, loan.
LEIS, to trace, follow a trace. L. lir-a (for *liz-a), a trace,
furrow, de-lir-dre, to leave the furrow, become mad; Goth. Jais
(I have followed up the trace), I know, /ais-ts, a trace, track, AS.
l#r-an, to teach, leor-nian, to learn, lar, lore. Ex. delirious; last (2),
last (3), lore, learn.
LENGwH (LENG), to leap over (hence, to go lightly). Skt.
langh, to leap over, laghu(s), light; Gk. ἐ-λαχ-ύς, light, small;
Lith. Jengw-as, light; L. leu-is, light ; Russ. legk-it, light; legk-oe,
lung; AS. Jung-en, lung, lung-re, quickly. Ex. levity, alleviate ;
light (2), lights, lungs.
LEP, to peel. Gk. λέπ-ειν, to peel, λεπ-ίς, a scale, λέπ-ρα,
leprosy; L. Jib-er, bast of a tree (Brugmann, i. § 499), a book.
Ex. lepidoptera, leper ; library.
LEU, to cut off, separate, loosen. Skt. Ja, to cut off; Gk.
λύ-ειν, to loosen; L. so-lu-ere, pp. so-lii-tus, to loosen, solve ; Goth.
aus, Icel. lauss, AS. léas, loose, free from; AS. los-ian, to become
loose. Ex. solve, solution, dissolve, resolve ; loose, lose, leasing (false-
hood), and suffix -less.
LEU, to gain, acquire (as spoil). Prellwitz gives the form of
the root as law. Gk. λεία, booty, Ion. Anin (for *AGFta); ἀπο-λαύ-
ew, to enjoy; L. lii-crum, profit, lucre; Goth. Jau-n, OHG. 10-n,
pay, reward. Ix. /ucre; guerdon.
LEUBH (LEUB), to desire, love. Skt. Jubh, to covet, desire ;
L. lub-et, lib-et, it pleases, Iub-ido, lib-ido, lust ; Goth. liub-s, dear,
ga-laub-jan, to believe; AS. ἰδοῦ, dear, luf-u, love. Ex. libidinous;
lief, love, leave (2), furlough, believe, leman.
LEUQ (LEUH), to shine. Skt. ruch, to shine; Gk. λευκ-ός,
white; L. liic-ére, to shine, Iux (gen. /uc-'s), light; Ju-men (for
*leuc-men), light, lii-na (for *louc-sna), moon; Goth. linh-ath, light,
AS. léoh-t, light. Ex. lucid, luminous, lunar, lustre (1), tllustrate,
illustrious; light (1), lea. Also Iucubraticn.
755
LOW (LAW), to wash. Gk. Aov-eiv, to wash; L. ab-lu-ere, to
wash off, Jau-Gre, to wash, Ju-strum, a lustration ; Icel. Jau-g, a bath;
AS. léah, lye, léa-dor, lather. Ex. ablution, alluvial, deluge, dilute,
laundress, lave, lotion, lustre (2), lustration, lute (2); lye, lather.
MAGH (=magh), Teut. (MAG), to be strong ; also in the form
MAG (MAK). 1. Skt. mah-ant-, great, large; Gk. μῆχ-ος, means,
expedient, μηχ-ανή, a machine; Goth. mag, I may, mah-ts, might,
AS. meg-en, might, main. 2. Skt. majman, strength; Gk. péy-as,
L. mag-nus, great ; AS. mic-el, great. Ex. Magi, magic; machine;
maxim, May, major, mayor, main (2), master ; may (1), maid, main (1),
might, mickle, much.
ME (=mé6), to measure; also MED (MET). Skt. ma, to
measure, Gk. μῆ-τις, counsel ; L. mé-tior, Imeasure. Also L. med-ilari,
to consider about, mod-us, a measure ; AS. mef-an, to mete. Ex. metre;
meditate, mode, moderate, modern, modest, measure, mensuration ; mete,
meal (2), moon, month; also firman.
MEI, to diminish. Skt. mi, to hurt, diminish; Gk. μι-νύειν, to
diminish, μείτων, less; L. mi-nuere, to diminish ; mi-n-or, less; Goth.
mi-n-s, less. Ex. minor, minute, minim, diminish, minister, minnow,
mis- (2), prefix. See below.
METI, to change, exchange; also as MEI-T (MEITH), to ex-
change, to change for the worse, deprave. L. com-mii-nis (Old L.
com-moi-nis),common, mutual, AS. ma-n, wickedness ; Lith. mai-nas,
barter; MHG. mei-n, false. Hence Gk. potr-os, thanks (good
return), L. miit-Gre (Old L. moit-are), to exchange ; Goth. mard-jan,
to alter, deprave, ge-maith-s, maimed; AS. ge-méd, troubled in
mind, mad. Also Skt. mith-as, mutually, mith-yd, falsely (hardly
L. mit-tere, to send away, OHG. mid-an, to avoid); Goth, missa-
(prefix), mis-, wrongly. Ex. common, mutable, mutual, community,
moult; mean (2), mis- (1), miss(1), mad. See above.
MEIGH (MEIG), to wet. Skt. mth, to sprinkle, méh-a(s), urine;
Gk, ὀ-μιχ-έω, L. ming-o, AS. mig-a, 1 make water; Goth. math-stus,
dung, AS. meox, dung. Ex. mistle-toe, missel-thrush, mixen.
MEIK (MEIH); also MEIG, to mix. Skt. m’g-ra(s), mixed,
mik-sh, to mix; Gk. μίγ-νυμι, L mix, μίσγειν (Ἐμίγ-σκ-εἰν), to mix;
L. misc-ére (*mic-sc-ére), to mix; AS. mi-sc-an, to mix. Ex. mis-
cellaneous, mix, mixture; mash.
MEIT; see MEI (2) above. MEIT (Teutonic); see mite (1).
MEL (MEL), to stain. Skt. mal-a-, dirty; Gk. pod-vvew, to
sully, μέλ-ας, black; L. mud-lus, red mullet. Ex. melancholy ;
mullet. (But not mole (1).)
MEL, to grind; whence MEL-D (MEL-T). Skt. mia, to be
worn down, myd-u(s), soft; Gk. μαλ-ακός, soft, μαλ-άχη, mallow ;
Gk. d-pad-és, soft, d-yadd-vvew, to soften; L. mol-ere, to grind,
moll-is (for *mold-uis), soft; Olrish med-im, 1 grind; AS. mel-n,
meal, melt-an, to melt. Also MEL-DH (MEL-D). Gk. μαλθ-ακός,
soft, tender, mild; AS. mild-e, mild; Goth. muld-a, mould; AS.
mold-e, mould. Ex. malachite; molar, mill, mollify, mauve ; meal (1),
mellow ; mallow ; melt, malt ; mild, mould (1). Cf. mole (2), s-melt (1).
MELG (MELK), to milk. Skt. m7, to rub, wipe, stroke ; Gk.
ἀ-μέλγ-ειν, to milk; L. mulg-ére, to milk, AS. melc-an, to milk.
Der. milk ; cf. milt (2).
MEN, to remember, to think. Skt. maz, to think, mind, under-
stand, man-as, mind, mna@, to remember ; Gk. pév-os, spirit, courage,
μέ-μον-α, I wish, pav-ia, madness, pée-pvn-par, I remember, μνή-μων,
mindful; L. me-min-i, 1 remember, men-s, mind, mon-ére, to remind ;
Goth. mun-an, to think, AS. ge-myn-d, memory. Ex. automaton,
amnesty, mania, mnemonic, mental, monition, monster, monument, com-
ment, reminiscence ; man, mind; cf. mean (1).
MEN, toremain. Gk. pév-ew, to remain ; L. man-ére, to remain.
Ex. mansion, manor, manse, mental, menagerie, messuage, permanent,
remain, remnant.
MEN, to project. L. é-min-ére, to jut out, L. men-tum, the chin,
mon-s, mountain, min-@, things ready to fall, threats; (perhaps)
Goth. mun-th-s, AS. mid, mouth. Ex. eminent, prominent, mountain,
mount (1), mount (2), amount, promontory, menace, commination,
amenable, demeanour, mound, Perhaps mouth.
MER, to die. Skt. my-ta(s), dead ; Gk. ἄμ-βρο-τος (for d-ppo-ros),
immortal; L. mor-s, death, mor-i, to die, mor-bus, disease; AS.
mor-), death, mord-or, murder. Ex. amaranth, ambrosia, mortal,
morbid; murder.
MER, to remember ; see SMER.
MEUK, to wipe away. Skt. much, to loosen, free, shed ; Gk.
ἀπο-μύσσειν (*-pvKyew), to wipe away, μυκ-τήρ, nose, snout, μύξα
(*pux-oa), nozzle of a lamp; L. miic-us, mucus, é-mung-ere, to wipe
away. IEx. match (2); mucus.
MU, to make a suppressed noise (imitative). Skt. mu-kas,
dumb; Gk. pu, μῦ, a sound of muttering, μύτειν, to close lips or
eyes; L. mu-ttum, mii-tum, a slight sound, mu-ttire, mi-tire, to
mutter, mia-tus, dumb; E. moo, to low; cf. mum, a slight sound.
Similarly, Gk. μύ-σ-της, one who is initiated, μυ-σ-τήριον, a mystery,
302
756
secret (thing muttered). Cf. L. mur-mur-are, to murmur. Ex. myth,
myslic, mystery ; mute, mutter, motto. Cf. mumble, murmur.
S, or mis, to steal. Skt. mush, to steal; mish-as, a stealer,
rat, mouse; Gk. μῦς, a mouse, L. and AS. miis. Ex. mouse, muscle,
niche. And see musk.
NE, to bind together, to spin; see SNE.
(E)NEBH (eNEB), toswell out, to burst (?) Skt. nabh, to burst,
taken as the root of nabh-i-, the hub, nave of a wheel, nabh-il-a(m),
navel; Gk. ὀμφ-αλός, navel, boss of a shield; L. umb-o, boss of
a shield, umb-il-icus, navel; AS. naf-u, nab-u, nave, naf-el-a, nab-ul-a,
navel. Ex, umbilical; nave (1), navel; auger (for nauger).
(E)NEBH, to burst forth (?), to spread(?). Perhaps the same
as the above. Skt. xabh-as, cloud, mist, vapour; Gk. ved-os, cloud ;
L. neb-ula, cloud; G. neb-el, cloud. Ex. nebula, nimbus.
NEDH,to bind, tie. Skt. nah (for *nadh), to bind, pp. naddha-s,
bound, tied; L. xdd-us, a knot. Ex. node, nodule.
WEEK, to perish, die. Skt. xaz, to perish; Gk. véx-vs, a corpse,
vex-pos, dead ; L. nec-are, to kill, noc-ére, to hurt. Ex. necromancy ;
internecine, pernicious, noxious, nuisance,
\E)NEK, (E)NENK, to attain to. Skt. zag, to attain to; Gk.
é-veyk-ely, to bear, put up with; L. nanc-isci (pp. nac-tus), to ac-
guire; Goth. ga-nah, it suffices, ga-ndh-s, enough. Ex. enough.
NEM, to allot, share, take. Gk. νέμτειν, to portion out, vép-os,
pasture, νόμ-ος, custom, law; L. nem-us, grove, num-erus, number ;
Goth. nim-an, to take. And perhaps L. em-ere, to buy (orig. to
take). Ex. Nemesis, nomad, numismatic; number; nimble numb.
Perhaps exempt, example, redeem, assume, &c.
NEV, to nod. Gk. vev-ew, to nod; L. nu-ere, to nod, ni-tare,
to nod. Ex. nutation.
NEUD (NEUT), to enjoy, profit by, use.
AS. néot-an, to enjoy, use, employ, xéat, domestic cattle.
neat (1).
oNOG(w)H (NAG); base of the sb. ‘nail.’ Skt. nakh-a-, nail,
claw (an abnormal form); Gk. ὄνυξ (stem dévvx-), nail, claw; L.
ung-uis, nail; Lith. nag-as, nail; AS. n@g-el, nail. Ex. onyx; nail.
OGw (NAKW); base of the adj. ‘naked.’ Skt. nag-na(s),
naked ; L. nu-dus (*nog(w)edos), nude; Russ. xag-oi, naked ; Goth.
nakw-aths, AS, nac-od, naked. Ex. nude; naked.
OD (6d, 0d), to smell. Gk. ὄζειν (for *65-yerv), to smell, pt. t.
65-w5-a ; L. od-or, smell, ol-ere (*od-ere), to smell. Ex. ozone;
odour, olfactory, redolent.
OID (AIT), to swell.
oats. Ex. oats.
OQw (AH), to see. Gk. ὄσ-σε (for ὄκ- γε), the two eyes; ὄψομαι
(*6m-copa), fut. tense, I shall see, ὄπ-ωπ-α, pt. t., I have seen ;
ὀφ-θαλμός, eye, ὄψεις, sight ; L. oc-ulus, eye ; Russ. ok-o, eye. Perhaps
Goth. aug-d, AS. éag-e, eye (it is suggested that the diphthong is due
to association with Goth. aus-d, AS. éar-e, ear). See Brugmann, i.
§ 681(c). Ex. optics, ophthalmist, canopy; ocular, oculist, antler ;
perhaps eye.
PA (pa), Teut. FA (f6), to feed, nourish. Gk. πα-τέομαι, I feed
upon; L, pa-scere (pt. t. pa-ui), to feed, pa-nis, bread ; Goth. /d-d-
jan, to feed, AS. fd-da, food, fo-dor, fodder. Ex. pastor, pastern,
pester, pannier, pantry, pabulum, company; food, fodder, feed, foster.
Perhaps father,
PAK, PAG (=pak, pag) (FAH), to fasten, fix, hold, secure.
Skt. pag, to bind; Gk. πάσσαλος (*1ax-yados), a peg; L. pac-isct, to
stipulate, agree, pax (*pac-s), peace; Goth. fag-rs, AS. feg-er, fair.
Also Gk. πήγ-νυμι, I secure, fasten, L. pang-ere, pp. pac-tus, to fasten,
pag-ina, a page (perhaps pro-pag-are, to peg down, propagate by
layers); Gk. πηγ-ός, firm, strong (and perhaps L. pag-us, a village).
Ex. pact, propagate (?), page (2), compact, pale (1), impinge, peace,
pay (1), &c. 3 fair, fain, fang.
PAU (FAU), to cease, leave off. Gk. mav-opar, I cease, παύ-ειν,
to make to cease, παῦ-σις, a pause, παῦ-ρος, small, L. pau-cus, small,
pau-per (providing little), poor; Goth. faw-ai, pl., few. Ex. pause,
pose (with re-pose, com-pose, &c.) ; pauper, poor ; few.
PED (FET), to go, fetch. Skt. pad, to fall, go to, obtain, pad-a(m),
a step, trace, place, abode; pad-a(s), a foot; Gk. πέδ-ον, ground,
πέδ-η, a fetter, πούς (gen. ποδ-ός), a foot; L. pés (gen. ped-is), foot,
ped-ica, a fetter; AS. fot, foot, fet-ian, to fetch, fet-or, fetter. Ex.
tripod, parallelopiped ; pedal, pedestal, pedestrian, pawn (2), pioneer,
oppidan, impede, expedient ; foot, fetter, fetch, fetlock.
PEI (FEI), to hate. Skt. piy, to revile, scoff ; Goth. fi-jands,
hating, fai-an, to blame. Ex. frend, foe, feud (1).
PEI (FEI), to swell, to be fat. Skt. pi-van, swelling, full, fat ;
Gk, wi-wv, fat; Icel. fei-tr, fat, AS. f@-tt, fat. Ex. fat.
PEIK, PEIG, to scratch, cut, adorn, paint. Skt. pie, pimg, to
cut, prepare, adorn; Gk. ποικ-ίλος, variegated, parti-coloured. Also
L. ping-ere (pp. pic-tus), to paint. Ex. picture, pigment, paint, or pi-
ment, or pine ; depict, pimento, pint,
Lith. naud-a, use ;
Ex.
Gk. oi8-dvew, to swell; AS. Gt-an, pl.
LIST OF INDOGERMANIC ROOTS
PHIS, to pound, stamp. Skt. pish, to pound, bruise; Gk. πίσ-ος,
a pea (cf. πτίσ-μα, peeled grain) ; L. pims-ere, to pound, grind (pp.
pis-tus), pi-lum (for *pins-lum), a pestle ; pis-tillum, a small pestle.
Ex. pea, pestle, piston, pistil.
PEK (FEH), to comb. Gk. πέκ-ειν, to card wool; πόκ-ος,
wool; L. pec-tere, to comb; OHG, fah-s (AS. fex, feax), hair.
Ex. pectinal ; and cf. pax-wax.
PEL (FEL), to flay, skin (?). Gk. -πελας, skin, in ἐρυσί-πελ-ας,
inflammation of the skin; L. pel-lis, AS. fel-l, skin. Ex. erystpelas;
pell, pellicle, pelisse, pilch, surplice, peel (1); pillion; fell (2), film.
PEL, to fill; see PLE.
PELT (FELTH), to fold. Gk. πλάσ-σειν (for ἔπλάτ-γειν), to
form, mould, shape; δι-πλάσ-ιος, two-fold; Goth. falth-an, AS.
feald-an, to fold. Ex, plastic, cataplasm ; fold.
PEQw, to cook, to ripen. Skt. pach, to cook; Gk, πέσσειν,
to cook, πέπ-τος, cooked, πέπτων, ripe; L. cogu-ere (for *pequ-
ere), to cook; Russ. pech(e), tobake. Ex. pepsine, dyspeptic, pip (2),
Pippin, pumpkin ; cook, kitchen, precocious, apricot.
PER (FER), to go through, experience, fare, travel. Skt. p7,
to bring across, causal par-aya, to conduct across; par-as, beyond,
further, par-a@, away; Gk. mep-aw, I press through, pass through,
πόρ-ος, ἃ Way, πορ-θμός, ferry, mop-evw, | convey, πορ-εύομαι, I travel,
πεῖρα (*rép-ya), an attempt; also πρό, before, mp&-7os, first, πέρ-αν,
beyond, map-a, beside, πέρ-ι, around, over; L. per-itus, experienced,
ex-per-iri, to try, per-i-culum, danger ; for-ta, gate, por-tus, harbour ;
also prd, before, per, through; AS. far-an, to go, fare, f#r, panic,
fear; also for, for, for-e, before, fyr-st, first. x. pirate, pore (1) ;
peril, experience, port (1), port (2), port (3), port (4); fare, far, fear,
ford, frith (2). Also peri-, prefix, para-, prefix ; pro-, prefix, pra-,
prefix, prime ; for, fore, first, for- (1), for- (2), from.
PER, to produce, afford, allot. Gk. ἔ-πορ-ον, I brought, gave;
L. par-ere, to produce, bring forth, re-per-ire, to find ; (probably)
par-s, a part, por-tio, a portion. Ex. parent, parturient, repertory,
part, portion.
PET (FETH), to fall, to fly, to hasten towards, seek, find.
Skt. pat, to fly, fall upon, pat-ra(m), a wing, feather, leaf; Gk.
πέτ-ομαι, I fly, πί-πτ-ειν, to fall; πτ-έρυξ, a wing ; L. pet-ere, to
seek, im-pet-us, attack (falling upon, flying at), penna (*pet-sna),
awing; AS. fed-er,afeather. Ex. peri; asymptote, symptom, diptera,
coleoptera, lepidoptera ; compete, impetus, perpetual, appetite, petition,
propitious, pen (2); feather.
PET (FETH), to spread out, lie flat. Gk. πετ-άννυμι, I spread
out, πέτ-αλον, flat plate, leaf, πατ-άνη, flat dish ; L. pat-ére, to lie.
open, pat-ulus, spreading, pat-ina, dish; AS. f#d-m, fathom, Ex.
petal, paten ; patent. Prob. also expand, pass, pace, &c., from L.
pand-ere, to spread, which seems to be allied to patére.
PEU, to beget. Skt. pu-tra(s), son; Gk. παῖς (*naf-is), son ;
L. pu-er, boy. Ex. pedagogue ; puerile. (Perhaps L. pi-pus, boy,
belongs here ; cf. pupa, pupil, puppet.)
PEU (FEU), to cleanse, purify. Skt. pu, to cleanse, purify,
pi-ta(s), pure, pav-aka(s), purifying, (also) fire; Gk. πῦρ, fire;
L. pi-rus, pure, pu-tus, cleansed, pu-idre, to prune, clear up, reckon;
AS. fy-r, fire. Ex. pyre, pyrites ; pure, purge, compute, &c. 5 fire.
PI, pi (fi), imitative; to chirp, pipe. Gk. m-mi-Cew, to chirp,
L, pi-p-ire, pi-p-are. Ex. pipe, pibroch, pigeon. Cf. fife.
PLAQ, PLAG(w) (FLOH, FLOK), to strike, strike down,
strike flat. Lith. plak-i, I strike ; Gk. πλάξ (gen. 7Aak-és), a flat sur-
face, πλακ-οῦς, a flat cake; also mAny-7, a stroke, πλήσσειν (WANK-yev),
to strike; L. plac-enta, a flat cake, planc-a, a plank (cf. Gk. πλάκ"
w-os, made of boards) ; also plag-a, a stroke, flang-ere, to strike, to
lament ; Goth. fék-an, to lament ; G. flach, flat; AS. flac, a fluke,
flat fish. Ex, placenta, plank; plague, plaint, complaint; fluke (1),
perhaps fluke (2). Cf. flay.
PLAT (=plat), to spread out. Skt. prath, to spread out;
prthu-, broad; Gk. πλατ-ύς, broad, flat, πλάτ-ος, breadth, πλάτ-η,
blade of an oar, plate, πλάτ-ανος, a plane-tree ; L. plat-essa, a plaice,
plant-a, sole of the foot, spreading shoot, plant. Ex. plate, place ;
plaice, plant, plantain, tlane (3). Cf. field. Allied to flat.
PLE (=plé), lengthened form of PEL (FEL), to fill. Skt. py,
to fill, parza(s), filled, pur-u-, much ; Gk. wip-mAn-pe, I fill, πλή-ρης,
full, πλή-θω, Iam full, πολ-ὕς, much; L. plé-re, to fill, plé-nus, full,
plé-bes, throng, people, fla-s, more, po-pul-us, people, mani-pul-us,
a handful; AS. fud-l, full, fyl-lan, to fill. Ex. glethora, polygon ;
plenary, plebeian, plural, popular, maniple, implement, complete, replete ;
full, fill, fulfil.
PLEK (FLEH), to plait, weave, fold together. Gk. πλέκ-ειν,
to plait, πλοκ:ῆ, a plait; L. flec-tere, to plait, plic-are, to fold;
Goth. flah-ta, a plaiting of hair; OHG. flak-s, AS. fleax, flax. Ex.
plait, pleach, plash, ply (1), with compounds, complex, simple, duplex,
triplicate, explicate, supplicate, suppliant, supple ; flax.
PLEU (FLEU), to swim, float, flow. Skt. plu, to swim, fly,
LIST OF INDOGERMANIC ROOTS
jump, plav-aya, to inundate ; Gk. πλέ-ειν (fut. πλεύ-σομαι), to sail,
float, πλύ-νειν, to wash; L. plw-it, it rains, plu-nia, rain; AS.
jié-wan, to flow, fld-d,a flood. Also AS. fléo-t-an, to float, flzo-t,
a fleet, flo-t-ian, to float. Ex. pluvial, plover ; flow, float, fleet
(in all senses), flit, flutter, flotsam.
PNEU (FNEU-S), to blow, breathe. Gk. mvev-pa, breath ;
AS. fnéos-an, to breathe hard, fnor-a, a sneezing. Ex. pneumatic,
neeze, s-neeze ; cf. s-nore.
PREI (FREI), to love. Skt. pri-ya(s), dear, beloved ; Russ.
priiatele, a friend ; Goth. fri-jén, AS. fré-on, to love, whence the
pres. part. fri-jonds, fré-ond, loving, a friend ; AS. fréo, free, fri-0,
security ; Fri-g, the wife of Woden. Ex. friend, free, frith (1),
Friday.
PREK (FREH), to pray, ask, demand. Skt. prachh, to ask ;
L. prec-dri, to pray, proc-us, a wooer; poscere (*porc-scere), to
demand, postulare (irom poscere), to demand ; Goth. fraih-nan, to
ask. Ex. pray, precarious, imprecate, postulate.
PREUS (FREUS), to burn ; also, to freeze. Skt. prush, to
burn; L. pruina (for *pruzwina), hoar-frost, priir-ire (*prisire>
sane to itch; AS. fréos-an, to freeze. Ex. prurient ; freeze,
rost.
PU, pu (FU, fi), to be foul or putrid. Skt. pu-r-, pi-ti-ka-,
foul, pity, to stink, puy-as, pus; Gk. πῦτον, pus; L. pi-s, matter,
pi-rulentus, purulent, pu-tidus, stinking, pu-tridus, putrid ; AS. fa-l,
foul. Ex. pus, purulent, putrid ; foul, file (3), filth.
QAL (HAL), to cry out. Skt. zal-a-s, low sounding ; Gk.
xad-éw, 1 summon; L. cal-are, to proclaim, cla-mare, to cry out;
OHG. hal:én, to call, G. hell, clear-sounding; AS. hlo-wan, to low.
Ex. calends, clamour, claim, clear, council; haul, hale (2), low (2).
QAP (HAF), to seize, hold. Gk. κώπ-η, a handle ; L. cap-ere,
to seize ; Goth. hafjan, AS. hebban, to lift, heave ; AS. haf-oc, hawk,
lit. « seizer” (cf. Late L, cap-us,a hawk). Ex. capacious, capable, &c.;
heave, hawk, haft; pethaps behoof. Also captive, capsule, case (2),
cater ; and numerous derivatives of L. capere. (For the initial g in
*gap, see Brugmann, i. § 635.)
QAR, to sing, cryaloud. Skt. kar-u-,a singer ; Gk. καρ-καίρειν,
to resound, κήρ-υξ, a herald; L.-car-men, a song. Ex. charm.
QAR (HAR), to love. Irish car-aim, I love; L. car-us, dear ;
Goth. kar-s, anadulterer. The initial g is suggested by Lettish kars,
desirous; Brugmann, i. § 637.
QAS, to cough. Skt. Aas, to cough ; Lith. kos-ti, to cough ;
AS. hwos-ta, 2 cough; Irish cas-achdas, a cough; W. pas, a cough
(whence AS. ge-fos, a pose, a cough). Ex. pose (3).
QEI, to be lucky (3). W. coel, an omen ; Hesychius quotes
Gk. κοῖλυ: τὸ καλόν; Olrish cél, an omen; Goth. hail-s, AS. hal,
“whole. Ex. whole, hale, holy, heal, health. (For initial q see
Brugmann, i. § 639.)
QEL (HEL), to raise up. Lith. Aél-ir, to lift; Gk. κολ-ωνός,
κολ-ὦνη, a hill; L. ex-cel-lere, to surpass, cel-sus, high, cul-men,
a summit, col-lis, a hill; AS. hyl-l, a hill, hol-m, billow. - Ex.
colophon ; culminate, column, excel; hill, holm. (For initial q see
Brugmann, i. § 633-)
QEL (HEL), to drive on. Skt. kal-aya, to drive, kal-aya, to
drive on; Gk. κέλελειν, to drive, κέλ-ης, a runner; βου-κόλ-ος,
a herdsman (oxdriver) ; L. ced-er, swift. Ex. bucolic ; celerity.
QEL (qél), Teut. HEL, to hide, cover. Gk. «ad-ia, a shelter,
hut, war-vg, calyx; L. oc-cul-ere, cél-are, to-hide, cal-ix, a cup,
cel-la, a cell, cl-am, secretly ; AS, hel-an, to cover, hide. Ex. calyx ;
‘conceal, occult, cell, «clandestine ; (perhaps supercilious) ; hell, hole,
hull (1), hall, helmet, holster. (On the initial 4. see Brugmann, i.
641.)
ὃ QEND, to shine; L. cand-ére ; see SQEND.
QER, to make. Skt, to make ; kar-man, work, deed; Gk.
xpé-av, ruler; L. cre-are, to make, create, cre-sc-ere, to grow, OLat.
“cer-us, creator, Cer-es, goddess of the growth of corn. Ex. create,
‘cereal, crescent, increase, concrete, accretion, accrue, crew, δὲς.
QERP (HERP), to cut. (Probably for SQERP ; see SQER, to
shear.) Skt. kr-pana(s), sword ; Lith. kerp-a, I cut, shear ; Gk.
καρπ-ός, fruit, κρώπ-ιον, sickle; L. carp-ere, to pluck fruit; AS.
heerf-est, harvest. Ex. harvest. Cf. carp (2).
QERT, to bind together. Skt. kat-a(s), for (*kar-tas), a mat ;
‘chrt, to fasten together; Gk. κάρτεαλος, a (woven) basket; L.
αι ας, a hurdle; AS. hyrd-el, a hurdle. Cf. Skt. krt, to spin.
Ex. hurdle. (For the initial g see Brugmann, i. § 633.)
QEUQ (HEUH), to bow out, to hunch up. Skt. kuch-as, the
female breast; Lith. kawk-ard, a hill; Goth, hauh-s, high; Icel.
hang-r,a hilt, “Ex: high, how (2). Cf. huge. (ays
: Qou (HAU), to strike, to hew. L. ci-dere, to strike, in-cu-s,
an anvil; Russ. kov-ate, to hammer; G. kau-en, AS. hea-wan, to
hew. Ex. hew, hoe, kay.
QREU (HREUV), to wound. Skt. &rav-i-, raw flesh, krii-ra(s),
757
wounded, raw; Gk. κρέας (*xpéF-as), raw flesh; L. crii-dus, raw,
cru-or, blood; Lith. Araw-jas, blood; AS. hréa-w, raw. Ex. crude,
cruel; raw. Perhaps. rue (1).
QwEI (ΗΝ ΕΠ), to rest. Skt. chi-ra(s), long-lasting, long ;
OChurch Slav. po-éi-fi, to rest ; L. gui-és, rest, tran-quillus, tranquil ;
AS. hwi-l, a while (quiet time), Goth. hwei-la, rest. Ex. quiet,
tranquil, coy, quit; while, whilom, whilst.
QwkEI, to expiate, pay for. Skt. apa-chi-ti-, expiation ; Gk.
ἀπό-τι-σις ; also ποι-νή (L. poe-na), a penalty, té-vw, I pay a penalty.
Ex. penalty, pain, pine (2), penance. (See Brugmann, i. § 652.)
QwEL (HWEL), to move, go round, turn, drive. Skt. char,
chal, to move; Gk. πέλ-ειν, to. be in motion, πόλ-ος, pole, axis
of revolution; L. col-us, a distaff, col-ere, to till, én-col-a, inhabitant,
dweller in; OSlav. sol-o, a wheel; AS. hwéol, a wheel (which sec).
Ex. pole (2); colony; calash; wheel. Cf. L. collum (for *col-sum),
neck (from its turning) ; whence E. collar.
QwEP (=q(w)ép), to breathe, toreek. Lith. Awép-ti, to breathe,
reek, kwap-as, breath, vapour; L. uap-or, vapour; Gk. καπ-νύς,
smoke. Ex. vapid, vapour. (See Brugmann, i. § 193.)
RAD (RAT), to gnaw. Skt. rad, to scratch, gnaw; L, rad-ere,
to scrape; rdd-cre, to gnaw; AS. rett, a rat. Ex. rase, rash (2),
rasorial, razor, abrade, erase, rodent; rat. :
RE (= ré), to thinkupon; whence REDH (rédh), Teut. RED
(= réd), to provide, accomplish. _ L. ré-ri, to consider (pp. ra-tus) ;
Skt. radh, to achieve, accomplish, prepare; Goth. ga-réd-an, to
provide; AS. r@d-ax, to counsel, interpret, read. Ex, rate (1), ratify,
ratio, ration, reason, arraign , read, riddle (1).
REBH (REB), to cover. Gk. é-pép-ev, to cover, 6-pop-os, a
roof; OHG. raf-o, rav-o,a beam, Icel. raf, a roof, rap-tr (=raf-t-r),
arafter. Ex. raft, rafter. (Not roof.)
REG (REK), to stretch, stretch out, reach, straighten, tule. Skt.
rj, to stretch; Gk. ὀ-ρέγ-ειν, to stretch; L. reg-ere, to rule, é-rig-ere,
to erect, set upright, rectus (*reg-ius), right, rex (gen. rég-is), king,
ruler ; Goth. uf-rak-jan, to stretch out, rath-ts, right, AS, rih-t, right.
Ex. rajah; regent, regal, regulate, reign, rule, &c.; right, rack (1),
ratch, rake (3). Also rich. Perhaps rogatton.
REI, to distil, flow. Skt. ri, to distil, drop ; L. ri-uus, a stream,
ri-tus, a custom, rite (cf. Skt. ri/i-, a going, way, usage), (Some
connect Goth. rinzan, to run.) Ex. rivulet, rival, rite. Perhaps run.
A parallel form is LEI, to melt, to besmear. Skt. li, to melt, dis-
solve; L. li-nere, to besmear, li-mus, mud ; AS. li-m, lime, /a-m,
loam. Ex. lime (1), loam.
REIDH (REID), to ride, be conveyed, Olrish riad-aim, I drive,
ride ; AS. rid-an, to ride. © Ex. ride, road, raid, ready.
REIP (REIB), to tear down, tear. Gk. ἐ-ρείπ-εσθαι, to be torn
down, to fall in ruins; L. rip-a, bank (with steep edge); Icel. rz/-a,
to rive, to tear. Ex. river; rive, rift, riven.
RET, to run along, rotate. Olrish reth-im, I run; Lith. rit-t,
Troll; Skt. rath-a(s), a chariot, car ; L. rof-a, a wheel. Ex. rotate,
rotary, round, roll, rouleau, rotund, &c. Also barouche, roué.
REU, to hum, bray, roar; imitative. Skt. ru, to hum, bray,
roar; Gk. ὠ-ρύτομαι, I howl; L. rié-mor, a noise, report; cf, also
ru-gire, to bellow, ri-men, the throat. Ex. rumour, ruminate ;
rumble. Cf. raucous.
REUD (REUT),
weep, bewail, rdd-ana(n), weeping, tears ;
AS. réol-an, to weep, Icel. *rjot-a, to wet, only in the pp. rosina,
rotten, orig. ‘ soaked Ex. rot, rotten, ret. Extended from REU,
REUDH (REUD),tobered. Skt. rudh-ira(s), red, rudh-ina(m),
blood; Gk. ἐ-ρεύθ-ειν, to redden, é-pud-pés, blood, 1... rub-er, red;
AS. réad, red. Ex. erysipelas; rubric, rubescent, rubicund, _rissole,
rouge, russet ; red, ruddy, rust.
REUP (REUF), to break, seize, pluck, rob. Skt. rup, to feel
spasms, lup, to break, injure, spoil, seize, rob; lop-tra(m), booty,
loot; L. rump-ere (pp. rup-tus), to break ; Goth. bi-raub-6x, to rob,
AS. réof-an, to break, réaf, spoil. Ex. loot; rupture, eruption, δία. ;
route, rout (1), rut (1), rob, robe; reave, bereave.
SA (-- 88), to satiate. Gk. ἄ-μεναι (*od-peva), to satisfy ; a-5-nv,
enough ; L. sa-t, sa-t-ts, enough, sa-f-ur, full; Lith, sa-¢-as, sated,
full; Goth. sa-th-s, full; AS. s@-d, sated. Ex. sated, satiate, satisfy,
satire, assets; sad.
SAG (=sag), Teut. 80K, to perceive. Gk. ἡγ-έομαι, I guide,
I suppose ; L. sag-ire, to perceive by the senses ; Goth, sdk-jan, AS.
séc-an, to seek. Ex. sagacious, sagacity ; seek, Probably allied to
sake and soke. ;
SAL, to leap. Gk. ἄλελομαι (ἔσάλ-νομαι), I leap,, spring; L.
sal-io, I leap, sal-to, 1 dance. Ex. salient, salmon, assail, saltation,
desultory, exult, insult, result, resilient, sally, saltire.
SAUS, to become dry, to wither. Skt. gush (for *sush), to be-
come dry ; Gk. αὔ-ειν (*cado-ev), to becoine dry, wither ; αὐσ-τηρύς,
harsh; AS. séar, sere, withered. Ex. austere; sear, sere.
to weep, bewail, wet with tears. Skt. rud, to
L. rud-ere, to cry out ;
758
SE (=s8), to cast abroad, sow, scatter. Gk. ἵτησμε (for ἔσί-ση-μι),
I cast, send forth; L. se-rere (pt. t. sé-u2), to sow, sé-men, seed ;
Goth. sai-an, AS. sa-wan, to sow, s@-d, seed. Ix. season, secular,
Saturnine, seminal ; sow (1), seed.
SED (SET), to sit. Skt. sad, to sit; Gk. ἕζομαι (for *r€5-yopar),
I sit; L. sed-ere, to sit; AS. sit-tan, to sit, pt. t. se¢; Russ. sied-lo,
Polish siod-lo, a saddle. Ex. cathedral, chair, chaise, polyhedron;
sedentary, see (2), sell (2), size (1), size (2), also assiduous, assess, &c. ;
sit, set, seat, settle (1), settle (2). Also nest, saddle, soot.
SEGH (SEG), to bear, endure, hold in. Skt. sak, to bear, endure,
overcome, restrain; sak-as, power, victory; Gk. ἔχ-ειν (*c€y-«v),
to hold, have (fut. σχ-ήσω), σχ-ῆμα, form, σχ-ολή, stoppage, leisure ;
Goth. sig-is, victory. Ex. epoch, hectic, scheme, school ; perhaps sail.
SELQ (SELH), to draw along. Gk. ἕλκ-ειν ("σέλκ-ειν), to
draw, dAx-as, a heavy ship, hulk, 6A«-ds, a furrow; L. sulc-us,
furrow; AS. sulh, plough. Ex. hulk; sulcated.
SEQ (SEG), to cut, cleave. L. sec-are, to cut; Russ. séek-ira, an
ax; OHG. seg-ense (G. sense), a scythe; AS. sag-a, a saw, sig-de,
si-Ue, a scythe; secg, sedge. Ex. section, segment, secant, saxifrage,
sickle; saw (1), scythe, sedge.
SEQw, to follow, accompany. Skt. sack, to follow; Gk. ἕπ-ομαι,
I follow; L. segu-i, to follow, sec-undus, following, soc-/ws,a com-
panion. Ex. seguence, &c.; sect, second, sue, suit, suite, social,
associate.
SER, to string, put ina row. Gk. εἴρ-ειν (for ἔσέρ-γειν) to string
(as beads); L. ser-ere, to join together (pp. ser-tus) ; Icel. sor-vt,
a necklace. Ex. series, assert, concert, desert (1), dissertation, exert,
insert,
SERP, to slip along, glide, creep. Skt. sp, to creep, sarp-a(s),
a snake; Gk. ἕρπ-ειν (ἔσέρπ-ειν), to creep; L. serp-ere,tocreep. But
hardly rép-ere (*srép-ere 1), to creep. Ex. serpent. Probably not reptile.
SEU, to beget, produce. Skt. sz, to generate, sii-nu(s), a son,
su-kara(s), a hog; Gk. σῦ-ς, ὕ-ς, a sow, v-ids, a son; L. si-s, pig,
su-inus, belonging to pigs; AS. su-gu, sow, sw-in, swine, su-nu,
ason; cf. Olrish su-th, birth, fruit. Ex, sow (2), swine, son.
SEUG, SEUQ, tosuck. (Both forms occur; the former answers
to Teut. SEUK.) 1.1,. sig-ere, to suck; Olrish sig-im, I suck ;
AS, siic-an, to suck. 2. L. siic-us, juice; AS. siig-an,to suck. Ex,
suction ; suck, soak; also sowans. Also succulent.
SIKU, to sew, stitch together. Skt. οἷν, to sew, syt-ti-, sewing ;
Gk. κασ-σύ-ειν, to stitch together, ὑ-μήν, hymen; L. su-ere, to sew;
Goth. siu-jan, AS. séow-an, siw-ian, to sew. Ex. hymen; suture ;
sew, seam. Perhaps hymn.
SKAG (SKAK), to shake. Skt. khaj (for *skaj, *skag’)); to
nove to and fro; AS. scac-an, sceac-an, to shake. Ex. shake, shock (1),
shog; pethaps jog.
5 I, to shine. Skt. εὐλλᾶ-νᾶ, shade, image, reflected light,
splendour ; Gk. om-a, shade; Goth. skei-nan, AS. sci-nan, to shine.
Ex. shine, shimmer, sheer (1).
SKEUBH (SKEUB), to agitate, to shake. Skt. kshubh, to be
agitated; kshdbh-aya, to shake; Goth. af-skiub-an, to push away;
AS. sciif-an, to shove, push. Ex. shove, sheaf.
SKEUD (SKEUT), to shoot. Lith. szaud-yti, to shoot; AS.
scéot-an, to shoot. Ex. shoot, sheet, shot, shut, shuttle; scot-free,
shittish, skittles,
SKHED (SKET), to cleave, to scatter. Skt. skhad, to cut,
kshad, to carve ; Gk. σκεδ-άννυμι, I scatter, disperse, σχέδ-η, a tablet
(slice); L. scand-ula, a shingle; AS. scat-erian, to scatter, shatter.
Ex, schedule; shingle (1); scatter, shatler.
SKHEI, whence SKHEID, SKHEIT, to cleave, part, shed.
1. Skt. chhid, to cut, divide; Gk. oxifew (*oxid-yew), to split;
L. scind-ere, to cleave. 2. Goth. skaid-an, AS. scead-an, to shed,
separate, part, scid, a thin slip of wood. Ex. schism, schist, zest;
shed (1), shide, skid; sheath,
SKLAUD (sklaud), to shut. L. claud-ere, to shut; OFries.
sklat-a, sliit-a, to shut; G. schliess-en, to shut, Du. sluit-en. We also
find SKLEU; as in Gk. κλείς, Doric κλᾶτ-ίς, a key; L. cliu-is, a
key; L. clau-us,a nail. Ex. close (1), close (2), enclose, clause, in-
clude, &c.: slot. Also clavicle, clove (1), cloy.
SLEB (-- 8180), Teut. SLEP (=slep), to be relaxed ; hence, to
sleep. L. lab-i, to glide, /ap-sire, to slip, lapse, Jab-are, to totter ;
Russ. slab-uii, slack, weak ; AS, sl#p-an, to sleep, LowG. slapp, lax,
relaxed. Ex. apse, elapse, collapse, illapse, relapse; sleep.
SLEG (=slég), tobe slack. Gk. Ajy-ev, to leave off, Aay-apés,
slack; L. laxus (*lag-sus), lax, lang-uére, to be weak; AS. slec,
slack, loose. Ex. lax, relax, leash, lease (1), lessee, relay (1), release,
relish; slack. And see lag, languish.
SMETI, to smile, laugh. Skt. smi, to smile, smé-ra(s), smiling;
Gk, μει-δάω, I smile; L. mi-rus, wonderful, mi-rari, to wonder at ;
Swed. smi-la, to smile. Ex. admire, marvel, miracle, mirage, mirror ;
smile.
LIST OF INDOGERMANIC ROOTS
SMELD (SMELT), to melt.
smalt-a, to smelt. Ex. smelt, smalt. See MEL.
SMER, to remember. Skt. smy, to remember, record, declare ;
Gk. μέρ-ιμνα, sorrow, regret; μάρ-τυς, a witness; L. me-mor-ia,
memory, remembrance, me-mor, mindful; AS. mur-nan, to mourn.
Ex. martyr ; memory, remembrance, commemorate, memoir; mourn,
Cf. demur.
SMER, to rub over, smear. Gk. σμύρ-ις, emery for polishing,
μύρ-ον, ointment; Icel. smjor, grease, butter; AS. smer-u, fat, grease,
smir-ian, to smear. Ex. smear, besmear, smirch.
SMERD (SMERT), to pain, cause to smart. Skt. mrd, to rub,
grind, crush; Gk. opep5-adéos, terrible; L. mord-ére, to bite; AS.
smeort-an, to smart. Ex. mordacity, morsel, remorse; smart, Cf.
muzzle,
SNA (=snéa, snau), to bathe, swim. Skt. snd, to bathe; Gk.
νή-χειν, to swim, να-ρός, liquid, νη-ρός, wet, νά-ειν, ναύ-ειν, to flow,
va-is, να-ιάς a naiad, ναῦ-ς, ἃ ship; L. na-re, na-tare, to swim, nau-ta,
sailor, nau-igare, to navigate, sail, n@u-is,a ship. Ex. aneroid, naiad ;
nave (2), naval, navigate, navy, nausea, nautical, nautilus, navvry,
natation,
SNE (= sn6), to bind together, fasten (with thread), Skt. sna-
yu-, tendon, muscle, string, snd-va-, sinew, tendon; Gk. vé-w, I spin,
νῆ-μα, thread; L. né-re, to spin; Olrish sna-th, thread, sna-that,
a needle; Goth. né-thla, a needle; AS. snd-d, a fillet. Cf. also Gk.
vev-pov (from *snéx), nerve, sinew, cord. Also, from a base SNER,
Gk. vap-«n, cramp, numbness; L. ner-uus, nerve, sinew; perhaps
AS, near-u, narrow (closely drawn), snear-e, a noose, snare. Ex.
neuralgia, narcotic, narcissus; nerve; snare, snood, narrow, And see
sinew,
SNEIGwH (SNEIW), to snow. Gk. veip-a, it snows, νίφ-α,
accus., snow; L. ningu-it, it snows, niu-em, accus., snow; Irish
sneach-d, snow; Goth. sxaiw-s, AS. snaw, snow. Ex, snow.
SNER, SNEU (snéu); see under SNE.
SPE (= spé), to increase, have room, prosper. Skt. sphay, to
swell, increase, spha-ti-, increase ; L. spa-tium, room, space, pro-sper,
prosperous, spé-s, hope; AS. spd-wan, to succeed. Ex. space,
prosperous, despair, desperate; speed.
SPEK (SPEH), to spy, observe, see. Skt. spag-a(s), a spy;
Gk. σκέπ-τομαι (for *omex-ropat), I see, σκοπούς, a spy, an aim;
L. spec-ere, to see, spec-iés, appearance, spec-tare, to behold; OHG,.
speh-on, to watch. Ex. scope, sceptic, bishop; spectes, special, spectre,
speculate, spectator, suspicion, espy, Spy, δὲς.
SPER, SPHER, to struggle, kick, jerk. Skt. sphur, to throb,
struggle; Gk. σπαίρ-ειν, ἀ-σπαίρ-ειν, ἀ-σπαρ-ίζειν, to struggle con-
vulsively, opatp-a, a ball (to be tossed); L. sper-nere, to spurn,
despise ; AS. spor-nan, to spurn, kick against; perhaps G. sich sper-
ren, to struggle, fight. Ex. sphere; spurn, spur, spoor ; perhaps
spar (3). Cf. sparrow,
SPER, to scatter, sow. Gk. σπείρειν (*orep-yev), to scatter,
sow. Ex. sperm, sporadic. See below.
SPHERG, Teut. SPERK, SPREK, to burst noisily, crackle,
scatter abroad. Skt. sphiirj, to crash, burst forth, be displayed ;
Gk. opapay-os, a cracking, crackling, d-omapay-os, asparagus, shoot
of a plant; (perhaps) L. sparg-ere, to scatter ; AS. spearc-a, a spark
of fire, Icel. sprak-a, to crackle (cf. AS. sprec-an, to speak), AS.
sprec, a shoot, a spray. Ex. asparagus; speak, spark (1), sparkle,
spark (2), spray (2). Perhaps sparse (and derivatives). Cf. spray
(1). See above.
SPIW, SPIEU, to spit out, vomit. Skt. shthiv, to spit; Gk.
πτύ-ειν (from *omyu-yev), to spit; L. spu-ere, AS. spiw-an, Goth.
speiw-an. Ex. spue, spew. (Of imitative origin ; so that the form of
the root is indeterminate. )
SQAP (SKAF), to dig, scrape, shave; SQAB(SKAP), to cut,
scrape, shape. 1. Gk. σκάπ-τειν, to dig, σκαπ-άνη, a spade; Goth.
skab-an, AS. scaf-an, to shave. 2. L. scab-ere, to scrape; Lith.
skab-iis, cutting, sharp; Goth. ga-skap-jan, to shape. Ex. shave,
scab, scabious, scabby, shabby, shaft. Also shape, capon.
SQEL, to cleave, split, divide. Gk. σκάλ-λειν, to hoe; Lith.
skel-itt, I split; ONorse skil-ja, to sever, separate; Goth. skal-ja,
atile; AS. scell, shell. Ex. scale (1), scale (2), scall, scald (2), skill,
shell, See shelf, shield.
SQEND, to spring up, climb. Skt. skand, to jump up, ascend;
Gk. σκάνδ-αλον, the spring of a trap; L. scand-ere, to climb, sca-la
(for *scand-sla), aladder. Ex. scandal, slander ; scan, ascend, descend,
scale (3), escalade.
SQEND, to shine, glow. Skt. chand, gchand, to shine,
chand-ra(s), moon, chand-ana(s), sandal-wood tree; L. cand-ére, to
shine, cand-idus, white. Ex. candle, candid, incense, candour, chandelier,
chandler, incendiary, &c. Also sandal-wood.
SQER (SKER), to shear, cut, cleave. Gk. κείρειν (xép-yew), to
shear, cut; Lith. ker-wis, an ax; AS. scer-an (pt. t. scer, pp. scor-en),
Gk. μέλδ-ειν, to melt; Swed.
LIST OF INDOGERMANIC ROOTS
to shear. Ex. shear, share, sheer (2), shard, scar (2), scare, shore.
Cf. scorpion, sharp, scarp, scrape. And see QERP, SEQ.
SQEU (SKEU), to perceive, observe, beware of. Skt. kav-i-,
wise, a seer, prophet, poet; Gk. xoéw, I mark, θυο-σκό-ος, an in-
spector of an offering ; L. cau-ére, to beware, cau-tio, caution; AS.
ioe tolook, behold. Ex. caution, caveat ; shew, show, scavenger,
Sheen,
SQEU (SKEU), to cover, shelter. Skt. sku, to cover; Gk.
σκῦ-τος, κύ-τος, skin; L. cu-tis, skin, sci-tum, a shield, ob-scii-rus,
covered over, dark; OHG, skix-ra, a shed, stable; Icel. shjd-l,
a shelter, cover; AS. Ay-d, hide, skin; Icel. sky, a cloud. Ex.
cuticle, obscure, escutcheon, esquire, squire, equerry; hide (2), scum,
skim, sky, sheal, shieling, scowl.
SREBH, to sup up, absorb. Gk. fop-éew, to sup up; L. sorb-
ére, to sup up; Lith. sréb-t7, to sup up. Ex. absorb.
SREU ‘STREU), to flow. (Observe the insertion of T in
Teutonic.) Skt. sru, to flow, srd-ta(s), a stream; Gk. ῥέειν (fut.
ῥεύ-σομαι), to flow, ῥεῦ-μα, flood, ῥυ-θμός, rhythm (musical flow) ;
Irish sru-aim, stream; AS. stréa-m, stream, Ex. rheum, rhythm,
catarrh, diarrhea, emerods ; stream, streamer.
STA (= sta); see STHA.
STAQ (STAH), to be firm. Skt. stak, to resist, Zend. s/ay-ra-,
strong, firm; OPruss. panu-stac-la-, steel for kindling fire; OHG.
stah-al, OMere. stél-i, steel. Ex. steel.
STEBH; see STEMBH.
STEG(w), also TEG(w) (TEK), to cover, thatch. Skt. sthag,
to cover ; Gk. oréy-ev, to cover, στέγτος, τέγτος, roof; L. teg-ere,
to cover, teg-ula, tile, fog-a, garment ; Irish tigh, a house; AS. Jac,
thatch; Du. dak, thatch, dek-ken, to cover. Ex. protect, tegument,
toga, tile; thatch, deck ; also shanty (old house).
STEIG(w) (STEIK), to prick, pierce, stick, sting. Skt. tij, to be
sharp, Zend. tigh-ra-, sharp, tigh-ri-, an arrow; Gk. στίζειν (*orly-
yew), to prick, στίγ-μα, a prick; L. in-stig-are, to instigate ; Goth.
stik-s, a point; AS. stic-e, stitch (in the side). Ex. stigma; instigate ;
allied to instinct, distinguish, stimulate, style (1); cf. tiger, stick (1),
stitch, sting.
STEIG(w)H (STEIG), to stride, to climb. Skt. stigk, to
ascend; Gk. στείχ-ειν, to go, march, orix-os, a row, στοῖχ-ος,
a row; Lith. staig-tis, hasty; AS. stig-an, to climb. Ex. acrostic,
distich, hemistich ; sty (1), sty (2), stile (1), stair, stirrup.
STEMBH, STEBH (STEMB,STEB), to make firm, set fast ;
STEMB (STEMP), to stamp, step firmly. Skt. stambh, to make
firm or hard, stop, block up ; stambh-a(s), a post, pillar, stem, stabh,
to fix, prop; Gk. ἀ-στεμφ-ής, fixed, fast, στέμβ-ειν, to stamp; AS.
stef, a staff, prop, stef-n, stem-n, a stem of a tree; AS. stemp-an, to
stamp, sfap-u/, a post, pillar, step-pan, to step. Ex. staff, stave,
stem (1), stem (2); also stamp, step, staple (1), staple (2); perhaps
stump,
STEN, TEN (THEN), to groan, to stun, to thunder. Skt. stan,
to sound, sigh, thunder; Gk. στέν-ειν, to groan; Στέν-τωρ, Stentor
(loud-voiced) ; Lith, sten-ét7, to groan, AS. stun-ian, to make a din.
Also Skt. tan, to sound; L. ton-are, tothunder; AS. Aun-or, thunder.
Ex. detonate ; stun, thunder ; astonish, astound.
STER, whence STREU, to strew, scatter, lay down, Skt.
star-a-, a layer, bed; stv, to scatter, spread; tar-as, pl. stars; Gk.
στόρ-νυμι, I spread out; L. ster-nere, to scatter, spread out (pp.
stra-tus), stru-ere, to lay in order, heap up, build; Goth. strau-jan,
to strew; AS. streow-ian, to strew, scatter, sfreaw, straw. Ex.
asterisk, asteroid ; street, structure, instrument, consternation, stellar,
stratum; strew, straw, star.
STER, to be firm or rigid. Skt. sthira(s), firm, fixed; Gk.
στερ-εός, solid, stiff, στεῖρα (*o7ep-ya), a barren cow; Goth. stair-d,
a barren woman; L. ster-ilis, sterile, barren. Ex. stereoscope,
stereotype, sterile; and cf. stark, starch.
STEU, probably for STH BU, to fix firmly. Skt. sthav-ira(s),
fixed, firm; Gk. o7d-Aos, a pillar, στο-ά, a porch, σταυ-ρός, an
upright pole or stake; L. in-stau-r-ire, to construct, build, restore ;
Goth. stiu-r-jan, to establish, OHG. stiu-r-a, a prop, staff, paddle,
rudder; AS. stéo-r, a paddle or rudder. Ex. stoic; star-board,
steer (2); store, restore. Cf. steer (1). Allied toSTHA.
STEUD (STEUT),to strike. Skt. ἐμ, to push ; L. tund-ere (pt. t.
tu-tud-i), to strike, beat; Goth. stawf-an, to strike. Ex. contuse,
obtuse; stutter; perhaps stot, stoat. And see foil (1).
STHA, STA (= βίη, sta), to stand, stand fast. Skt. s¢ha,
to stand; Gk. éorn-v, I stood, t-orn-u, I set, place; L. sta-re,
to stand, si-sf-ere, to set ; (ἃ. steh-en, to stand. Further allied to
Goth, standan, AS. stondan (pt. t. std-2), to stand, AS. sted-e, a place,
stead; from a Teut. base STA-D. Alsoto AS. std-w, a place. Ex.
statics, apostasy, &c.; stage, stamen, stamina, station, statute, &c.;
stand, stead, stow, stall, And cf. stammer, stem (3), stool, stud (1),
stud (2).
759
SWAD (SWAT), to please the taste. Skt. suad, to taste well,
to season ; sudd-u-, savoury, sweet; Gk. 95-vs, sweet; L. sud-uis (for
*suad-uis), sweet; O,Sax. swot-i, sweet; AS. swét-e, sweet. Ex.
suave, suasion, persuade, assuage; sweet.
SWEID (SWEIT), to sweat. Skt. svéd, to sweat; svéd-a(s),
sweat; Gk. i5-pws, sweat; L. sid-are, to sweat, siid-or, sweat;
AS. swat, sweat. Ex. sudorific ; sweat.
SWEN, to resound, sound. Skt. svan, to sound; svan-a(s),
sound; L. son-Gre, to sound, son-us, sound; AS, swin-sian, to
resound, Ex. sound (3), sonata, sonnet, person, parson, sonorous, unison,
&c. Cf. swan.
SWEP (SWEF), to sleep. Skt. svap, to sleep; Gk. ὕπενος,
sleep ; L. sop-or, sleep, somnus (for *swep-nos), sleep; AS. swef-n,
adream., Ex. hypnotise ; soporific, somnolence.
SWER, to murmur, hum, speak. Skt. sv, to sound, svar-a(s),
sound, voice, tone; L. su-sur-rus, murmur, whisper; AS. swer-ian,
pt. t. swor, to affirm, swear; swear-m, a swarm of bees. Ex. swear,
answer, swarm,
TAK, to be silent. L.
Ex. tacit; taciturn, reticent.
TAU (= tau), Teut. (thaw), to melt, thaw.
Gk. τή-κειν, to melt; L. ¢a-bés, decay; AS. Jd-wian, to thaw.
tabid, thaw.
TEG(w), to cover; see STEG(w).
TEK (THEH), to beget. Gk. rex-etv, 2 aor. inf. of τίκτειν,.
to beget; AS. Jeg-en, a thane; orig. boy, servant. Ex. thane,
TEKTH (tekp), to fit, prepare, hew out, weave. Skt. faksh, to
form, prepare, cut, hew; Gk. 7éx-vy, art, TéxT-wv, carpenter;
L. tex-ere, to weave ; OChurch Slay. ¢es-ati, tohew. Ex. technical,
architect; text, subtle, toil (2). (For the form of the root, see
Uhlenbeck, Skt. Dict.)
TEL (THEL), to bear, tolerate, lift. Skt. ¢ul, to lift, tul-a,
a balance, weight; Gk. τελ-αμών, belt for shield or sword, τάλ-αντον,
balance, talent, τλῆ-ναι, to endure; L, fol-lere, to bear, /a-tus (for
(tlatus -- τλη-τός), borne ; ¢ol-erdre, to endure ; AS. Jol-ian, to endure.
Ex. talent, atlas, tantalise ; extol, tolerate, trot, elate, prelate, relate,
oblate, trolate, dilate, delay, collation, legislator, translate; thole (2).
TEM, to be dark. Skt. ¢am-as, gloom; L. tem-ere, in the dark,
blindly, rashly ; ten-ebre, darkness. Ex. tenebrious, temerity.
TEM, to cut. Gk. τέμ-νειν, to cut, τομ-ή, a cutting, τόμτος,
part of a book (section), τέμ-ενος, sacred enclosure, τέν-δ-ειν, to
gnaw; L. ¢em-plum, sacred enclosure, ton-d-ére, to shear. Ex,
anatomy, tome ; tonsure, temple.
TEN (THEN), to stretch. Skt. an, to stretch, ¢an-u-, thin
(stretched out), ¢az-tu-, a thread; Gk. τείνειν (ἔτέν-γειν), to stretch,
τόν-ος, tension, tone; L. ¢en-d-ere, to stretch, ten-ére, to hold tight,
ten-uis, thin; Goth. ¢han-jan, to stretch out; AS. Jyn-ne, thin, Ex.
hypotenuse, tone ; tenacious, tender, tenuity, tend, tense (2), tent (1),
tendon, tendril, tenor, tempt, tentative, toise, &c.; thin; dance.
TENG, to dip, steep. Gk. réyy-ew, L. ting-ere, to dip; OHG,
thunch-on, G. tunk-en, to dip. Ex. tinge, tincture, tint, stain.
TENG (THENK), to consider, ponder on. L. tong-ére, to
think ; Goth. thaghjan (=*thank-jan), to think. Ex, think, methinks,
thanks, thought.
TENQ (THENH), to be strong, grow thickly. Skt. ‘arch, to
contract ; Pers. fang, tight; Lith. ¢enk-i, I have sufficient, fank-us,
close, tight; Goth. theih-an, AS. ge-féon (pp. gefung-en), to
thrive; ONorse Jét-tr, tight. Ex. thee (2), tight.
TEP, to be hot. Skt. fap, to be warm; Russ. ¢op-ite, to heat ;
L. tep-ére, to be warm. Ex. tepid.
TER (THER), to pass through, reach; go through, rub, turn.
(Two roots of the form TER, ‘to go through,’ and ‘to rub, turn,’ have
probably coalesced.) 1. Skt. tar-a(s), a passage, ferry, ta@r-a(s), pene-
trating ; ¢ar-aya, to take across, tir-as, prep., across, through, over ;
Gk. τέρ-μα, goal, end; in-ira-re, to pass into, ¢ra-ns, going through,
across ; Goth. thair-h, through ; AS. Ayr-el, ahole. Ex. avatar; enter,
term, transom, trestle, through, thrill, thirl, thrum. 2. Gk. τρῆ-σις,
a boring through, 7ép-erpoy, a borer; L. ser-ere, to bore, rub; tor-
nare, to turn. Ex. turn; trite, tribulation, detriment, ;
TERQ (THERN), to twist, turnround, Skt. ¢ark-u-, a spindle ;
Gk. d-rpax-ros, a spindle; L. torgu-ére, to twist. Compare also
(from Teut, THWERH) AS. Jweork, perverse, transverse, Icel.
jpverr, perverse. Ex. torment, torture, torch, nasturtium, torsion, tort,
tortoise. Cf. thwart, athwart, queer.
TERS (THERS), to be dry, to thirst. Skt. ‘rsh, to thirst; Gk.
τέρσ-ομαι, | become dry; L. torr-ére (for *tors-ére), to parch, pp.
tos-tus, terr-a (for *ters-a), dry ground; Goth. thaurs-jan, to thirst,
thaurs-tei, thirst. Ex. torrid, torrent, terrace, tureen, toast, terrier,
inter, fumitory ; thirst, Perhaps test. i
TEU (THEU), to be thick or fat. Skt. fw, to increase, be
powerful, ¢av-a(s), strong; Gk. τύτλος, τύ-λη, a hard swelling;
tac-ére, Goth. thah-an, to be silent.
Skt. t0-ya-, water ;
Ex.
760.
L. tu-m-ére, to swell up, ‘a-ber, a round root, fwm-ulus, a mound,
tum-ultus, uproar; Lith. tau-kas, fat of animals, it-k-ti, to be fat;
AS. Aéo-h, thigh, Ai-ma, thumb, Jéa-w, muscle. Ex. tumid, tumult,
tumulus, protuberance ; thigh, thumb, thews.
TEUD (THEUT), to strike; see STHUD.
TRE = tré (THRE, thré), to twist ; from TER, to turn.
pri-wan, to twist, throw; Jr&-d, thread. Ex. throw, thread.
TREM, also TRES, to tremble. Skt. tras, to tremble; Gk.
τρέ-ειν, (for *rpéa-ev), to tremble; L. terr-dre (for *ters-ére), to
scare, cause to tremble. Also Gk. τρέμ-ειν, L. trem-ere, Lith. srim-ti,
to tremble. Ex. terror; also ¢remble, tremulous, tremendous.
TREUD (THREUT), to push, crowd, urge. L. (rid-ere, to
push, urge; Goth. us-thriut-an, to vex greatly, G. ver-driess-en ; AS.
préot-an, to afflict, vex, urge. Ex. abstruse, extrude, intrude, obtrude,
protrude; threat, threaten. Cf. thrust.
UL, to howl (imitative). Skt. w-ika-, an owl; Gk. ὑλ-άω,
T howl, 6A-oA-v¢w, I shriek; L. xd-wl-a, an owl; AS. ail-e, an owl.
Ex. owl, howl.
WADH (WAD), to walk slowly, to wade. 1,. uad-ere, to go;
uad-um, a ford; AS. wad-an, to wade. Ex. evade; wade.
WAQ (WAH), to swerve, go crookedly, totter; also WAG
(WAK), to bend, totter. Skt. vak-ra(s), crooked, bent, vazzch, to go
crookedly, totter, waver; L. wac-illire, to waver, reel; AS. woh,
crooked, bent. Also L. wag-us, wandering, going aside; Lith.
wing-is, a bend of a river, weng-t7, to flinch, to shirk work, OHG.
wink-an, to move aside, to waver; AS. wanc-ol, wavering, weak.
Ex. vacillate, vague; wench, woo. Cf. wink, winch.
WAN (= wa-n), to fail, lack, be wanting; from the root WA
(wa), with the same sense. Skt. a-n-a(s), inferior, wanting; Gk.
ev-v-s, bereft; L. wa-n-us, vain; Goth. wa-n-s, deficient. Ex. vain ;
wane, wanion, want, wanton. Cf. vacant.
WE (= we), to blow. Skt. va, to blow; va-ta(s), wind; Gk.
ἄ-η-μι (ἄ- [η-μι), I blow; L. we-ntus, wind; Goth. wai-an, to blow,
wi-nds, wind; Lith. wé-jas, wind; Russ. vie-iat(e), to blow, vie-ter’,
wind ; AS. wi-nd, wind, we-der, weather. Ex. ventilate, fan; wind (1),
weather.
WEBH (WEB), to weave. Skt. arza-vibh-i-, a spider, lit.
‘wool-weaver’ ; Gk. ὑφ-αίνειν, to weave; G. web-en, AS. wef-an, to
weave. Ex. weave, web, weft, woof, weevil. Cf. wafer, wasp.
WED (WET), to wet, moisten. Skt. ud-an-, water, und, to
moisten; Gk. ὕδωρ, water; L. und-a, wave; Russ, vod-a, water;
Goth. wat-0, water, AS. wet-er, water, wét, wet. Ex. hydrogen,
hydra; undulate, abound, redundant, surround; wet, water, otter ; vodka.
WEDH (WED), to redeem a pledge, to pledge. L. was (gen.
uad-is), a pledge; Goth. wad-i, AS. wed-d, a pledge; Lith. wad-oti,
to redeem a pledge. Ex. wed; wage, wager, gage (1), engage.
WEG (WEK), to be vigorous or watchful, to wake; hence the
extended form WEKS (WEHS), to increase; hardly allied to
AUG(w). Skt. vaj-ra(s), thunder-bolt (from its strength) ; v@j-a(s),
vigour ; L. ueg-ére, to excite, arouse, uig-ére, to be vigorous, uig-il,
watchful; AS. wac-an, to come to life, wac-ian, to watch. Also
Skt. vaksh, to grow, Goth. wahs-jan, to wax, AS. weax-an, to wax,
Ex. vegelable, vigour, vigilant; wake (1), watch, Also wax (1).
WHEG(w) (WEK), to be moist or wet. Gk. iy-pés, moist ;
(perhaps) L. a-dus, moist, a-mor, moisture; Icel. vok-r, moist. Ex.
hygrometer; wake (1), Perhaps humid, humour ; and see ox.
‘WEGH (WEG), to carry, convey, remove. Skt. vah (for
*vagh), to carry, vah-a(s), a vehicle; Gk. ὄχ-ος (*F6x-0s), a chariot ;
L, ueh-ere,to carry, convey; wé-na, a vein (duct); AS. weg-an, pt.t.
weg, to bear, carry, weg, a way, wecg, a wedge (mover), weg-n,
a wain. Ex. vehicle, vein; weigh, way, wain, waggon, wey, wag.
Perhaps vehement.
WEI, to bind, wind, plait. Skt. va, vay-a, to weave, vi-ta(s),
wound, vé-tasa(s), a kind of reed; Gk. t-réa, a willow; L. ui-tis,
a vine, ui-men, a twig, ui-ére, to bind; AS. wi-r, a wire, wi-dig,
a willow, withy. Ex, vine, ferrule, vice (2); wire, withe, withy, wine,
And see wind (2).
WEHEID.(\WEIT), to know, to wit; orig. to see. Skt. vid, to
know, véd-a(s), knowledge; Gk. εἶδ-ον (for *fet5-ov), 1 saw, of8-a
(for *fot6-a), 1 know; L. uid-ére, to see, ui-sere, to go to see, visit ;
Goth. wit-an, to know, wait, Iknow. Ex. Veda; history, idol, idea;
vision, visit, 8c. ; wit (1), wit (2), witness, wiseacre; ywis, wise,
Also advice, &c.
WEID, to sing.
AS.
Gk. ἀ-εἰδ- εἰν (for a-Feld-ev), to sing ; ἀοιδ-ή,
ᾧδ-ή, a song; cf. Olrish faed, W. gwaedd, an outcry, shout. Ex.
ode, epode, palinode.
WEIG (WEIK), and WEIQ (WEIK), to give way. (1) Skt.
vij, to fear, veg-a-s, speed, haste; Goth. wik-0, succession; AS.
wic-an, to give way, wac, weak, wec-an, to weaken ; wie-7, a week
(change of phase of the moon) ; wic-e, a wich-elm. (2) Gk. εἴκειν
(for *Feix-ew), to give way; L. uic-is (gen. case), change;-OHG.
LIST OF INDOGERMANIC ROOTS
weh-sal, G. wech-sel, change.
vicar.
WEIK (WEIH), to come to, to enter. Skt. vig, to enter,
vég-a(s), a settler, a neighbour, vec-man, a house; Gk. oik-os (for
*Fotk-os), a house; L. uic-us, a village, wic-inus, neighbouring ; Goth.
weth-s, a village. Ex. economy, diocese; vicinage, wick (2), bailiwick.
WHIP (WEIF), to tremble, shake, vibrate. Skt. vép, to tremble;
cf. L. wib-rare, to tremble; ONorse veif-a, to vibrate, flap, flutter.
Ex. waif, waive; cf. vibrate.
WHIQ (WEIH), to fight, conquer. L. winc-ere, pt. t. nic-i,
to conquer; Goth. weth-an, to contend; AS. wig, war. Ex. van-
quish, victory, convict, evince, convince, &c.
WEIQ (WEIN), to give way; see WEIG.
WEL, to will, to choose, like. Skt. vx, to choose, select,
prefer, var-a(s), a wish; L. wel-le, to wish; Goth. wil-jan, to wish,
will, wil-ja, will, wal-jan, to choose, wail-a, well. Ex, voluntary,
voluptuous; will (1), will (2), well (1), weal, wealth, welcome, welfare.
WEL, to wind, tum, roll; well up (as a spring). Skt. val,
to turn here and there, turn round, val-ana(m), a turning, agitation ;
Gk. ἕλ-ιξ, a spiral, ἑλ-ίσσειν, to turn round; OHG. wel-la, a billow,
AS. wel-la, a well or spring. Also in the form WEL-W ; ef. Gk.
εἰλύ-ειν, to enfold, L. uolw-ere, to roll, Goth. af-walw-jan, to roll
away. Ex. helix; voluble, volute, revolve, &c.; valve; well (2),
wallow, waltz, welter. Also wale; cf. walk.
WEM, to vomit. Skt. vam, Gk. ἐμ-εῖν, L. vom-ere, to vomit.
Ex. emetic; vomit.
WEN, to honour, love, strive for, seek to get. Skt. van, to
serve, honour, ask, beg; L. uen-us, love, uen-erari, to honour, uen-ia,
favour; AS. win-nan (pt. t. wann), to fight for, labour, endure
(whence ΕἸ. win). Hence also Skt. vaiichh, to wish, AS. wiisc,
a wish. Ex. venerable, venereal, venial; win, also winsome, wish.
Allied to wean, ween, wont; and to won (to dwell).
WEQw, to cry out, to speak. Skt. vack, to speak, vach-as,
speech ; Gk. ἔπ-ος, a saying, a word; L. ποὺς (gen. udc-is), voice,
uoc-are, to call. Ex, epic; voice, vocal, avouch, advocate, invoke, δες.
WER, to cover, surround, defend. Skt. vv, to screen, cover,
surround, wy-/i-, an enclosure, var-aya, to keep off; Gk. &p-va@a, to
protect; Goth. war-jan, AS. wer-ian, to protect. Ex. warren,
warison, garret; weir. Cf. aperient, cover.
WER, to be wary, observe, see. Gk. 6p-aw (*Fop-dw), I observe,
see; L. wer-éri, to guard against, to fear; AS. wer, wary. Ex. revere,
reverend ; beware, wary.. Also,ward, guard. Perhaps also ware (1),
worth (1).
WER, to speak, say. Gk. εἴρ-ειν (for βέρ-νειν), to say; ῥή-τωρ
(*Fpy-Twp), a speaker, orator. Hence WERDH, tosay. O. Irish
ford-at, they say (Stokes-Fick, p. 274); L. uerb-um, a word; AS.
word, a word. Ex. verb, word; also rhetoric.
WERG (WERK), to work. Gk. épy-ov (*fépy-ov), work ;
épy-avoy, an instrument; Goth, waurk-jan, to work; AS. weorc,
work, Ex. organ, orgy, chirurgeon, surgeon ; work, wrought, wright.
WERGH (WERG), to strangle, choke. Lith. wersz-ti, to
strangle; MHG., ir-werg-an, to strangle: AS. wyrg-an, to strangle,
worry. Ex. worry.
WERT (WERTH), to turn, become. Skt. vt, to turn, turn
oneself, exist, be; L. uert-ere, to turn; Goth. wairth-an (pt. t.
warth), to become; AS. weord-an, to become. Ex. verse, vertex,
vortex, prose, avert, averse, convert, &c.; worth (2), weird, -ward
(suffix). Also verst.
WHS, to clothe, put on clothes. Skt. vas, to put on clothes;
Gk. ἔσ-θος (*Feéa-O0s), clothing, ἕννυμι (*Féo-vyje), 1 clothe; L.
ues-tis, clothing, garment; Goth. was-jan, to clothe; AS. wer-ian, to
wear clothes. Ex. vest, invest, divest, vestment ; wear (1); gaiter.
WHS, to dwell, live, be. Skt. vas, to dwell, to pass the night,
to live, vis-tu, a house, vas-ati-, a dwelling-place; Gk. ἑσ-τία,
a hearth, dor-v, a city; L. Ves-ta, goddess of the household, uwer-na,
a home-born slave; Goth. wis-an, AS, wes-an, to be. Ex. vernacular,
Vesta, vestal ; was, wast, were, wert. Cf. wa:sail.
WES, to shine; also as AWES, AUS (awes, aus), to
shine. Skt. vas, uchchh, to shine; ush, to burn; vas-antas, spring ;
Gk. é-ws, 7-as, Holic av-ws, dawn, é-ap (for *féo-ap), spring; L.
aur-dr-a (for *aus-ds-a), dawn, uér (for *ues-r), spring, aus-ter, south
wind; AS. éas-t, adv., in the east. Ex. vernal; east, Easter.
WIDH, to lack. Skt. vidh, vindh, to lack, be in want of
(Macdonell) ; Gk. 7-i0-eos, unmarried; Skt. vidh-ava, bereft of,
a widow; L. wid-wa, a widow; AS. wid-uwe, a widow. Cf. L.
di-uid-ere, to divide (pp. di-ui-sus), Ex, widow; also divide, division.
YAG (yag, yag), to worship, reverence. Skt. yaj, to sacrifice,
worship, yaj-yu(s), worshipping, pious; Gk. @y-tos, holy. Ex.
hagiographa.
YES, to ferment. Skt. yas, to exert oneself, yésk, to bubble,
seethe; Gk. (é-ew (perf. mid. €-Cea-par), to seethe, ζέσ-μα, a decoc-
Ex. weak, week, wich-elm3 vicissttude,
DISTRIBUTION OF
tion, (eo-res, sodden; éx-(e-ya, a pustule; AS. gis-/, yeast. Ex.
eczema; yeast.
YEU, to drive away, preserve from. Skt. yx, to drive away,
preserve from, keep aloof, yav-aya, to drive away ; L. in-uéare (pp.
tu-tus), to assist. Ex. adjutant, aid, coadjutor.
YEU, to bind, to mix. Skt. yu, to bind, to fasten, join, mix;
yu-sha-, pease soup ; L. it-s, broth; Gk. ζύ- μη, leaven. Ex, zymotic;
juice. See YEUG, YOS.
WORDS (ENGLISH) 761
YEUG, to join, to yoke together. Skt. νη], to join, connect
yug-a(m), a yoke; Gk. (evy-vupu, L yoke, (vy-dv, yoke; L. iung-ere,
to join, iug-um,a yoke, con-iux, a spouse, inx-tt, near; AS, geoc,
a yoke. Ex. syzygy; jugular, conjugal, join, junction, joust, jostle ;
yoke. See YEU. i Ἶ
ΟΎΟΒ (= yos), to gird. Zend yas-ta-, girt; Gk. ζώννυμι (for
*(wo-vupne), I gird, ζώ-νη, ἃ girdle, (wo-rnp, a girdle; Lith. jos-ta,
a girdle. Ex, zone. See YHU (2).
VI.. DISTRIBUTION OF WORDS
The following is an attempt to distribute the words in the English
language so as to show the sources to which they originally be-
longed. The words selected for the purpose are chiefly those given
in large type in the dictionary, to the exclusion of mere derivatives
of secondary importance. The English list appears short in pro-
portion, chiefly because it containsa large number of these secondary
words, such as happiness, hearty, helpful, and the like.
I have no doubt that, in some cases, the sources have been wrongly
assigned, through ignorance. Some indulgence is requested, on
account of the difficulty of making the attempt on a scale so com-
prehensive. The account of some words has been altered, by way
of correction. Some words, not given in the ordinary lists, will be
found among the Hybrid Words at the end.
ENGLISH. With the exception of some words of imitative
origin, most of the following words (or their origins) can be found
in Anglo-Saxon or in Middle English of the earliest period.
a, aback, abalt, abed, abide (1), abide (2), ablaze, abcard, abode,
about, above, abreast, abroad, accursed, ache, acknowledge, acorn,
acre, adder, addled, ado, adown, adrift, adze, afar, afford, affright,
afloat, afoot, afore, afresh, aft, after, aftermath, aftermost, after-
ward, afterwards, again, against, agape, aghast, agnail, ago, agone,
aground, ahead, ahoy, ail, ait, ajar, akin, alack, albeit, alder, alder-,
alderman, ale, alight (1), alight (2), alike, alive, all, allay, al-
mighty, almost, alone, along (1), along (2), aloud, already, also,
although, altogether, alway, always, am, amain, amaze, amid,
amidst, among, amongst, an (a), an (if), and, anent, anew, angle (2),
an-hungered, ankle, anneal (1), anon, another, answer, ant, anvil,
any, ape, apple, are, aright, arise, arm (1), aroint thee, arrow,
arrow-root, arse, art (1), as (1), ash, ashamed, ashes, ashore, aside,
ask, asleep, aslope, aspen (asp), astern, astir, astride, asunder, at,
athirst, atone, auger, aught, awake, awaken, aware, away, awl,
awork, awry, axe (ax), ay!, ay (aye).
baa, babble, babe, back, backgammon, bad, bairn, bake, bale (2),
bale-fire, balk (1), balk (2), ban, bane, banns, banter, bare, bark (3),
barley, barm (1), barm (2), barn, barrow (1), barrow (2), barton,
bass (2) (barse), bast, bat (1), batch, bath, bathe, be- (prefix), be,
beach, beacon, bead, beam (1), beam (2), bean, bear (1), bear (2),
beard, beat, beaver (1), beck (1), beckon, become, bed, bedabble, be-
dew, bedight, bedim, bedizen, bedridden, bedstead, bee, beech, beer,
beetle (1), beetle (2), beetle (3), befall, before, beforehand, beget,
begin, begone, behalf, behave, behaviour (with F. suffix), behead, be-
hest, behind, behold, behoof, behove, belch, belie, believe, bell, bellow,
belly, belong, beloved, below, bemoan, bench, bend (1), beneath,
benighted, bent-grass, benumb, bequeath, bequest, bereave, berry,
berth, beseech, beseem, beset, beshrew, beside, besides, besom, besot,
bespeak, best, bestead (1), bestow, bestrew, bestride, beteem, be-
think, betide, betimes, betoken, betroth, better, between, betwixt,
beware, bewilder, bewitch, bewray, beyond, bicker?, bid (1), bid (2),
bide, bier, biestings (beestings), bight, bile (2), bill (1), bill (2),
bind, birch, bird, birth, bisson, bit (1), bit (2), bitch, bite, bitter,
blab, black, bladder, blade, blain, blanch (2), blare, blast, blatant,
blay, blaze (1), bleach, blear, blear-eyed, bleat, bleb, bleed, blench,
bless, blight, blind, blindfold, blindman’s buff, bliss, blithe, blood,
blossom, blow (1), blow (2), blow (3), blubber, blunt, blurt, blush,
bluster, boar, board (1), boat, bob, bode, bodice, body, boil (2),
bold, bolster, bolt, bone, bonfire, book, boom (1), boot (2), bore (1),
bore (2), borough, borrow, bosom, botch (1), bother, bots ?, bottom,
bough, bounce, bounden, bourn=burn (2), bow (1), bow (2),
bow (3), bower, bowl (2), bowline, bow-window, box (4), boy,
boycott, brabble, bracken, braid (1), braid (2), brain, brake (2),
bramble, brand, branks, bran new, brass, brawl (1), braze (2), breach,
bread, breadth, break, breast, breath, breech, breeches (breeks),
breed, breeze (1), brew, briar (brier), bridal, bride, bridegroom,
bridge, bridle, bright, brill, brim, brimstone, brine, bring, bristle,
brittle, broad, brood, brook (1), brook (2), brooklime, broom,
broth, brothel, brother, brow, brown, bruise, bubble, buck (1),
buck (2), bucket, buckwheat, bud, bug (2), build, bull (1), bulrush,
bum, bumble-bee, bumboat, bump (1), bump (2), bumper, bunch,
bundle, bunting (2)?, burden (1) (burthen), burial, burke, burly,
burn (1), burn (2), burr (bur), burrow, burst, bury (1), bury (2),
buss (1), busy, but (1), butt (3), butt (4), buttock, buxom, buy,
buzz, by, byre.
cackle, calf, calve, can (1), can (2), care, carve, cat, caterwaul,
catgut, cave in, caw, chafer (cock-chafer), chaff, chaffer, chaffinch,
champ, chap (1) (chop), chap (2) (chapman), chaps (chops),
char (1), char (2), charcoal, charlock, charm (2), chary, chat,
chatter, chaws, cheap, cheek, cheep, chert, chew (chaw), chicken,
chide, chilblain, child, chill, chin, chincongh, chink (1), chink (2),
chip, chirp, chit (1), chit (2), chitterlings, choke, choose, chop (1),
chop (2), chough, chub, chubby, chuck (2), chuck (3), chuckle,
chump, churl, churn, cinder, clack, clam (1), clam (2), clammy,
clank, clap, clash, clasp, clatter, claw, clay, clean, cleat, cleave (1),
cleave (2), cleek, clench, clever, clew (clue), click, cliff, climb,
clinch, cling, clink, clinker-built, clip (2), clod, clot, cloth, clothe,
cloud, clough, clout, clove (2), clover, cluck, clump, cluster, clutch,
clutter (1), clutter (2), clutter (3), coal, coax, cob (1), cob (2),
cobble (1), cobble (2), cobweb, cock (1), cock (2), cock (3),
cock-eyed, cockle (2), cockney, cockshut time, cod (1), cod (2);
codling (1), cold, collie, collier, collop, colly (1), colly (2), colt,
comb, comb (coomb), come, comely, con (1), coo, cool, coomb,
coot, corn (1), cosset, cot (cote), couch-grass, cough, could, cove,
cow (1), cowslip, coxcomb, crab (1), crab (2), crabbed, crack,
cradle, craft, crake (corn-crake), cram, crane, crank (1), crank (2),
crank (3), crave, craw, creak, creep, cress, crib, crick, crimp, cringe,
crinkle, cripple, croak, croft, crop, croup (1), crow, crowd (1),
crumb, crumpet, crumple, crunch, crutch, cud, cudbear, cuddle,
cudgel, cudweed, culver (1), cunning (1), cur, curd, curse ?, cushat,
cuttle, cuttle-fish.
dab (1), dab (2), dab (3), dabble, dad, daft, daisy, dale, dam (1),
damp, dare (1), dark, darkliny, darksome, darling, darn, daughter,
daw, dawn, day, dead, deaf, deal (1), deal (2), dear, dearth, death,
deed, deem, deep, deer, deft, dell, delve, den, dent, depth, derring
do, dew, dib, dibber, dibble, did, didapper, diddle, dike, dill, dim,
dimple, din, ding, ding-dong, dingle, dingy, dint, dip, distaff, dit,
ditch, dive, dizen, dizzy, do (did, done), dock (1), dock (2), docket,
dodder, dodge, doff, dog, dog-cheap, dogger, doggerel, dole, dolt,
don (1), donkey, doom, doomsday-book, door, dor, dot, dotage
(with F. suffix), dotard (with F. suffix), dote, dough, doughty, dout,
dove, dovetail, dowse (3), drab (1), draff, draft, draggle, drain,
drake, draught (draft), draw, drawl, dray, dread, dream (1),
dream (2), drear, dreary, dredge (1), drench, dribble, drift, drink,
drive, drivel, drizzle, drone (1), drone (2), drop, dross, drought,
drove, drowse (drowze), drudge, drunkard (with F. suffix), drunken
(drunk), dry, dub, duck (1), duck (2), duck (3), dug, dull, dumb,
dump (1), dumpling, dung, dunlin, dup, dust, dwarf, dwindle, dye,
dyke.
eee ear (1), ear (2), ear (3), earl, early, earn, earnest (1), earth,
earwig, east, Easter, eat, eaves, ebb, eddy, edge, eel, eery, eft, eh,
eight, either, eke (1), eke (2), elbow, eld, elder (1), elder (2),
eldest, eleven, elf, elk, ell, elm, else, ember-days, embers, emmet,
empty, end, English, enough, ere, errand, erst, eve (even), even,
evening, ever, every, everywhere, evil, ewe, eye, eyot.
fag, fag-end, fain, fair (1), fall, fallow (1), fallow (2), falter, fang,
far, fare, farrow, farther, farthest, farthing, fast (1), fast (2), fasten,
fastness, fat (1), fat (2), father, fathom, fawn (1), fear, feather, eed,
feel, feeze (pheeze), fell (1), fell (2), felly (felloe), felt, fen, fern,
ferry, fetch, fetter, few, fey, fickle, fiddle?, field, field-fare, fiend,
fight, file (2), file (3), fill, fillip, film, filth, fin, finch, find, finger,
fire, firk, first, fish, fist, fit (2), five, flabbergast, flabby, flag (1),
flag (2), flag (3), flap, flash, flax, flay, flea, fledge, flee,’ fleece,
fleet (1), fleet (2), fleet (3), fleet (4), flesh, flicker, flight (1),
762 DISTRIBUTION OF
flight (2), flint, flip (2), flirt, flitch, float, flock (1), flood, floor, |
flop, flow, flue (2), fluke (1), fluke (2), flurry, flush (1), flush (2),
flush (3), flutter, fly (1), fly (2), foal, foam, fodder, foe, fold (1),
fold (2), folk, follow, fond, food, foot, footy, fop, for (1), for- (2),
forbear (1), forbear (2), forbid, ford, fore, fore-arm (1), forebode,
fore-father, fore-finger, fore-foot, forego (1), forego (2), foreground,
forehand, forehead, foreknow, foreland, forelock, foreman, foremost,
forerun, foresee, foreship, foreshorten, foreshow (foreshew), fore-
sight, forestall, foretell, forethought, foretoken, foretooth, foretop,
forewarn, forget, forgive, forgo (forego), forlorn, former, forsake,
forsooth, forswear, forth, fortnight, forty, forward, foster (1),
fother, foul, foumart, foundling, four, fowl, fox, fractious, frame,
fraught (Friesic), freak (1), freak (2), free, freeze, fresh, fret (1),
Friday, friend, fright, frith (1), frog (1), frog (2)?, from, frore,
frost, froward, fulfil, full (1), fulsome, furlong, furrow, further,
furthest, furze, fuss, futtocks, fuzz-ball, fylfot.
gabble, gag, gaggle, gale (2), gall (1), gallow, gallows, gamble,
game, gammon (2), gander, gannet, gar (1), garfish, garlic, gate
(1), gather, gavelkind, ghastly, ghost, gibberish, gibe, giddy, gift,
giggle, gild, gin (1), gird (1), gird (2), girdle, girl, give, glad,
gladsome, glare, glass, glaze, gleam, glede (1), glede (2), glee,
glib (1), glib (3), glide, glimmer, glimpse, glisten, glister, gloaming,
gloom, glove, glow, glower, glum, gnarl, gnarled, gnat, gnaw, go,
goad, goal, goat, god, goddess (with F. suffix), godfather, godhead,
godmother, godwit, goggle-eyed, gold, good, goodbye, goodman,
goose, gooseberry, gorbellied, gorcrow, gore (1), gore (2), gore (3),
gorse, goshawk, gosling, gospel, gossamer, gossip, grab, grasp,
grass, grave (1), gray, graze (1), graze (2), great, greaves (1), greedy,
green, greet (1), greet (2), greyhound, gride, grig (2), grim, grin,
grind, grip, gripe, grisly, grist, gristle, grit (1), grit (2), groan, groats,
groin, grope, ground, groundling, grounds, groundsel, groundsill,
grout, grove, grow, grub, grunt, guest, guild (gild), guilt, gulp,
gum (1), gush, gut, gyves ?
ha, hack (1), hack (2), hackle (1), hackle (2), hackney, had-
dock?, haft, hag, hail (1), hair, hairif, hale (1), half, halibut,
halidom, halimote, hall, hallow, halt (1), halter, halve, halyard
(halliard), ham, hame, hammer, hamper (1), hand, handcuff,
handicap, handicraft, handiwork (handywork), handle, handsome,
handy (1), handy (2), hang, hanker, hansom, hard, hardock, hards,
hare, harebell, hark, harm, harp, harrier (1), harrier (2), harrow,
harry, hart, harvest, hasp, hassock, hat, hatch (1), hatch (2), hatchel,
hatches, hate, hatred, haugh, haulm (halm, haum), have, haven,
haw, hawk (1), hawk (3), hay (1), hay (2), hazel, he, head,
headlong, heal, health, heap, hear, hearken, hearsay, heart, hearth,
heart’s-ease, hearty, heat, heath, heathen, heather, heave, heaven,
heavy, heckle, hedge, heed, heel (1), heel (2), heft, heifer, heigh-ho,
height, hell, helm (1), helm (2), helmet, help, helve, hem (1),
hem (2), hemlock, hen, hence, henchman, hent, her, herd (1),
herd (2), here, heriot, herring, hest, hew, hey, heyday (2), hiccough
(hiccup, hicket), hide (1), hide (2), hide (3), hide (4), hie, higgle,
high, highland, hight, hilding, hill, hilt, him, hind (1), hind (2),
hind (3), hinder, hindmost, hinge, hint, hip (1), hip (2) (hep), hire,
his, hiss, hist (or Scand.), hitch, hithe (hythe), hither, hive, ho (hoa),
hoar, hoard, hoarhound (horehound), hoarse, hoary, hob (1), hobble,
hobbledehoy ὃ, hobnail, hobnob (habnab), hock (1), hockey, hog,
hogshead, hold (1), hole, holibut, holiday, holiness, hollow, holly,
hollyhock, holm-oak, holt, holy, home, homestead, hone, honey,
honeycomb, honeymoon, honeysuckle, hood, -hood (-head), hoof,
hook, hoop (1), hop (1), hope (1), hopple, horn, hornet, horse, hose,
hot, hough (hock), hound, house, housel, hover, how (1), howl,
hox, hoy (2), hub, huckle-berry, huckle-bone, huddle, hue (1), huff,
hull (1), hull (2), hum (1), hum (2), humble-bee, humbug, hum-
drum, hummock (hommock), hump, hunch, hundred, hunger, hunt,
hurdle, hurdy-gurdy, hurst, hurtleberry, hush, husk, husky, hussif,
hussy, huzzah.
I, ice, icicle, idle, if, ilk, im- (2), imbed, imbitter, imbody, im-
bosom, imbower, imbrown, impound, in, in- (1), inasmuch, inborn,
inbreathed, inbred, income, incony, indeed, indent (2), indwelling,
infold, ingathering, ingot, inland, inlay, inlet, inly, inmate, inn,
innermost (inmost), inning, inroad, inside, insight, insnare, inso-
much, instead, instep, inthral, into, intwine, inward, inweave,
inwrap, inwreathe, inwrought, irk, iron, ironmonger, is, island, it,
itch, ivy, iwis.
jam (1), jam (2), jar (x), jerk, jingle, job (1), jog, jole, jolt, jowl
(jole), jumble.
kedge (2) (kidge), keel (2), keen, keep, kelp, kemb, kern (2),
kernel, kersey, key, kidney, kill, kin, kind (1), kind (2), kindle (2),
kindred, kine, king, kingdom, kipper, kiss, kite, kith, knack,
knacker, knag, knap, knar, knave, knead, knee, kneel, knell (knoll),
knick-knack, knife, knight, knit, knob, knock, knoll (1), knoll (2),
knop, knot, know, knowledge, knuckle, knurr, kythe.
WORDS (ENGLISH)
lack (1), lack (2), lad, ladder, lade (1), lade (2), ladle, lady,
lag, lair, lamb, lame, Lammas, land, lane, lank, lap (1), lap (2), lap
(3), lapwing, larboard ?, lark (1), lark (2), last (1), last (2), last (3),
last (4), latch (1, 2), late, lath, lathe (2), lather, latter, laugh, lawyer,
lay (1), layer, lea (1), lea (2) (ley, lay), lead (1), lead (2), leaf,
lean (1), lean (2), leap, learn, lease (2), lease (3), leasing, least,
leat, leather, leave (1), leave (2), ledge, ledger, ledger-, leech (1),
leech (2), leek, leer, leet, left, leman (lemman), lend, length,
lent, less, -less, lest, let (1), let (2), letch, lew, lewd, ley, lib, lich-
gate, lick, lid, lie (1), lie (2), lief, life, lifelong, lift (2), light (1),
light (2), light (3), lighten (1), lighten (2), lighten (3), lightning,
lights, like (1), like (2), lilliputian, limb (1), limber (1), lime (1),
lime (2), limp (1), limp (2), linch-(pin), lind, linden, ling (1),
linger, linsey-woolsey, lip, lisp, lissom, list (1), list (4), list (5), list
(6), listen, listless, lists, lithe, lither, little, live (1), live (2), livelihood,
livelong, lively, liver, lo, load, loaf, loam, loan, loath, lock (1),
lock (2), lode, lodestar (loadstar), lodestone (loadstone), log (1),
log (2), loggerhead, loll, lone, long (1), long (2), looby, look,
loom (1), loon (1) (lown), loose, vb., loosen, lop, lord, lore, lorn,
lose, losel (lorel), loss, lot, loud, louse, lout, love, low (2), low (3),
lower (1), lower (2), lubber, luff, lukewarm, lull, lung, lust, -ly,
lyddite, lye, lynch.
mad, madder, maggot, maid, maiden, main (1), make, malm,
malt, mamma, man, mandrill, mane, manifold, mankind, many,
maple, mar, mare, mark (1), mark (2), marrow (1), marsh, mash,
mast (1), mast (2), match (1), mattock, maw, may (1), may-weed,
maze, me, mead (1), mead (2), meadow, meal (1), meal (2),
mean (1), mean (2), mean (4), measles, meat, meed, meet (1),
meet (2), mellow, melt, mere (1), mere (3), mermaid, merry, mesh,
mete, methinks, mew (1), mew (2), mich, mickle, mid, middle,
midge, midriff, midst, midwife, might (1), might (2), milch, mild,
mildew, milk, milksop, milt (1), mind, mine (1), mingle, minnow,
mirth, mis- (1) (also Scand.), misbecome, misbehave, misbelieve,
misdeed, misdeem, misdo, misgive, mislay, mislead, mislike, mis-
name, miss (1), misselthrush (mistlethrush), misshape, mist, mis-
time, mistletoe, misty (1), misunderstand, mite (1), mixen, mizzle,
moan, mole (1), mole (2), molten, Monday, mongrel, month,
mood (1), moon, moor (1), moor (2), moot, mop (2), mope,
more, Mormonite, morn, morning, morrow, moss, most, mote, moth,
mother (1), mother (2), mother (3), mould (1), mould (3), mourn,
mouse, mouth, mow (1), mow (2), much, mud, muddle, muff (2),
mugwort, mum (1), mumble, munch, murder (murther), must (1),
mutter, my.
nail, nailbourn, naked, namby-pamby, name, nap (1), nape,
narrow, naught (nought), nave (1), navel, neap, near, neat (1),
neb, neck, need, needle, neese (neeze), negus (1), neigh, neighbour,
neither, nesh, ness, nest, net (1), nether, nettle, never, new, new-
fangled, news, newt, next, nib, nibble, nick (1), nickname, nigh,
night, nightingale, nightmare, nightshade, nimble, nine, ninny, nip,
nipple, nit, no (1), no (2), nobody, nod, noddle, nonce, none, nook,
nor, north, nose, nostril, not (1), not (2), not (3), nothing, not-
withstanding, noule (nowl, nole), now, noway, noways, nowhere,
nowise, nozzle, nugget, numb, nut, nuzzle.
O (1), (oh), O (2), oak, oakum, oar, oast-house, oath, oats,
of, off, offal, offing, offscouring, offset, offshoot, offspring, oft, often,
old, on, once, one (1), one (2), only, onset, onslaught, onward,
onwards, ooze, ope, open, or (1), or (2), ordeal, ore, ort, other,
otter, oubit, ought (1), ought (2), ouphe, our, ousel, out, outbid,
outbreak, outburst, outcome, outdo, outdoor, outer, outgo, outgrow,
outhouse, outlandish, outlast, outlay, outlet, outlive, outlook, out-
lying, outreach, outride, outright, outroad, outrun, outset, outshine,
outside, outstretch, outstrip, outward, outweigh, outwent, outwit,
outworks, oven, over, overalls, overbear, overboard, overburden,
overcloud, overcome, overdo, overdraw, overdrive, overflow, over-
grow, overhang, overhead, overhear, overlade, overland, overlap,
overlay, overleap, overlie, overlive, overload, overlook, overmatch,
overmuch, overreach, override, overrun, oversee, overset, over-
shadow, overshoot, oversight, overspread, overstep, overstock, over-
throw, overtop, overweening, overweigh, overwhelm, overwise, over-
work, overworn, overwrought, owe, owl, own (1), own (2), own (3),
ox, oxlip.
pad (1), paddle (1), paddle (2), paddock (2), padlock, pan,
pang, pap (1), pap (2), park, pat (1), pat (2), pat (3), patch (1) ?,
patch (2)?, path, patter, paxwax, pebble, peck (1), peddle, peddler
(pedlar), peer (2)?, peevish, peg, periwinkle (2) ?, pewet (pewit,
peewit), pick, pickle ?, pig, piggin, pike, pilchard, pinder (pinner),
pinfold, pink (1), pink (3), pish, pitapat, pitch (2), pith, plash (1),
plat (1), play, plight (1), plod, plot (2), plough, pluck, plump (1),
plump (3), pock, pod, poke (2), pollock, pond, pool (1), pop, pore
(2), pot, pother, potter, pound (2), pound (3), pout (1), pout (2),
pox, prance, prank (1), prank (2), prick, pride?, prig (1), prig (2),
DISTRIBUTION OF WORDS (LOW GERMAN) 763
prong, prop, proud ?, pshaw, puck, pudding, puddle (1), puddle (2),
puff, puffin, pug, puke (1)?, pull, pun, purl (4), purr, puss, put,
puttock.
quack (1), quaff, quagmire, quake, quaker, qualm, quaver, quean,
queen, quell, quench, quern, quick, quicken, quid, quill (1), quill (2) ?,
quiver (1), quiz, quoth.
race (1), rack (7), rack (8), racket (2), raddle, rafter, raid,
rail (4), rain, rake (1), rake (2), rakehell, ram, ramble, ramsons,
rank (2), rape (3), rash (1), rasher, rat, rath, rather, rattle, raught,
raven (1), raw, reach (1), reach (2), read, ready, reap, rear (1),
rear (3), rearmouse, reave, reck, reckon, red, redgum, reechy,
reed, reek, reel (1), reest, reeve (2), reeve (3), reft, rend, rennet
(1), rent (1), reremouse, rest (1), retch (reach), rib, rich, rick,
rickets, rid, riddle (1), riddle (2), ride, ridge, rig (2)?, rig (3),
right, rim, time (2), rimer, rimple, rind, ring (1), ring (2),
rink, ripe, ripple (1), ripple (2), rise, rivel, road, roar, robbins,
rock (2), rod, roe (1), rood, roof, rook (1), room, roost, root
(2) (rout), rope, rot, rother, rough, roun (rown, round), row (1),
row (2), rowlock (rullock), rub, rudd, rudder, ruddock, ruddy, rue
(1), ruff (1), ruff (2), ruff (3), ruffle (1), rum (1), rumble, rummage
(with F. suffix), rumple, run, rune, rung, runnel, rush (1), rush (2),
Tust, rye.
sad, saddle, sail, sake, sale, sallow (1) (sally), sallow (2), salt,
salve, same, sand, sand-blind, sandwich, sap (1), Saturday, saw
(1), saw (2), say (1), scatter, scold, scoundrel, scramble, scrawl,
screed, screw (2), scrip (1), scythe, sea, seal (2), seam (1), sear
(sere), sedge, see (1), seed, seek, seem, seer, seesaw, seethe,
seldom, self, sell (1), send, sennight, set (1), settee, settle (1),
settle (2), seven, sew (1), shabby, shackle, shad, shaddock, shade,
shadow, shaft, shag, shake, shall, shallow, sham, shamble, shame,
shamefaced, shank, shape, shard, share (1), share (2), sharp,
shatter, shave, shaw, she, sheaf, shear, sheath, sheave, shed (1),
shed (2), sheen, sheep, sheet, sheldrake, shelf, shell, shelter, shelve,
shepherd, sherd (shard), sheriff, shide, shield, shift, shilling, shilly-
shally, shimmer, shin, shine, shingle (2), ship, shire, hirt, shive,
shiver (1), shiver (2), shoal (1), shoal (2), shock (1), shock (2),
shock (3), shoddy, shoe, shog, shoot, shop, shore (1), shore (2),
shot, shoulder, shout, shove, shovel, show (shew), shower, shrapnel,
shred, shrew, shrewd, shriek, shrift, shrike, shrill, shrimp, shrink,
shrive, shrivel, shroud, shrub (1), shun, shunt, shut, shuttle, shuttle-
cock, sib, sick, side, sieve, sift, sigh, sight, sill, sillabub, silly, silver,
simmer, sin, since, sinew, sing, singe, sink, sip, sippet, sister, sit, sith,
six, slabber, slack, slade, slake, slap ?, slate (2), slay (1), slay (2)
(sley), sledge-hammer, sleep, sleeper, sleet, sleeve, slide, slime, slink,
slip, slit, sliver, slobber, sloe, slop (1), slope, sloth (1), sloth (2),
slough (1), slow, slow-worm, sludge, slumber, slump, slums,
smack (1), small, smart, smash, smear, smell, smelt (2), smew,
smirch, smirk, smite, smith, smock, smoke, smolt, smooth, smother,
smoulder, smut, snail, snake, snare, snarl, snatch, sneak, sneeze,
snite (1), snite (2), snood, snore, snot, snout, snow, snuff (2), so,
soak, soap, sob, soc, sod, soft, soke, some, -some, son, song, soon,
soot, sooth, soothe, soothsay, sop, sore, sorrow, sorry, sot, soul,
sound (1), sound (2), sounder, sour, south, sow (1), sow (2), spade,
span, spancel, spangle, spank, spar (1), spar (2), sparable, spare,
spark (1), sparrow, spat (1), spat (2), spats, spatter, spawl, speak,
spear, speck, speech, speed, speir, spell (1), spell (3), spell (4),
spew, spider, spile, spill (1), spin, spindle, spinster, spire (1),
spit (1), spit (2), spittle (1), splutter, spoke, spokesman, spoon,
spot, spout, sprat, sprawl, spray (2), spread, sprig, spring, springal,
sprit, sprout, spry, spur, spurn, spurt (1) (spirt), sputter, squeeze,
squint, squirt, staff, stair, staithe, stake, stale (2), stale (3), stalk (1),
stalk (2), stall, stalwart, stammer, stamp, stand, staple (1), star,
starboard, starch, stare (1), stare (2), stare (3), stark, stark-naked,
starling, start, starve, stave, stay (2), stead, steadfast (stedfast),
steady, steal, steam, steed, steel, steelyard, steep (1), steeple, steer
(1), steer (2), stem (1), stem (2), stem (3), stench, step, stepchild,
sterling, stern (1), steward, stick (1), stick (2), stickleback, stickler,
stiff, stile (1), still (1), sting, stingy, stink, stint, stir, stirrup, stitch,
stoat, stock, stocking, stone, stool, stoop (1), stork, storm, stove,
stow, straddle, straight, strain (2), strand (1), straw, stream, strength,
stretch, strew (straw), stride, strike, string, strip, stripling, stroke (1),
stroke (2), strong, stub, stubborn, stud (1), stud (2), stun, stutter,
sty (1), sty (2), such, suck, suds, sulky, sultry (sweltry), summer (1),
sun, sunder, sup, surf, surly, swaddle, swallow (1), swallow (2),
swamp, swan, swan-hopping, swap, sward, swarm, swart, swarthy,
swash, swath, swathe, sway, sweal, swear, sweat, sweep, sweet,
sweetheart, swell, swelter, swerve, swift, swill, swim (1), swim (2),
swine, swing, swinge, swingle-tree, swink, swipe, swivel, swoon,
swoop, sword.
tab, tadpole, tail (1), tale, talk, tall?, tallow, tame, tang (3),
tap (2), taper (1), taper (2), tar, tare (1), tarre, tarry, tart (1),
tattle, taut, taw (tew), tawdry, teach, teal, team, tear (1), tear (2),
tease, teasel, tee, teem (1), teen, tell, ten, tether, tetter, tew.
than, thane, thank, that, thatch, thaw, the (1), the (2), thee (1),
thee (2), theft, then, thence, there (1), there- (2), these, thews,
thick, thief, thigh, thill, thimble, thin, thine, thing, think, third,
thirl, thirst, thirteen, thirty, this, thistle, thither, thole (1) (thowl),
thole (2), thong, thorn, thorough, thorp (thorpe), those, thou,
though, thought, thousand, thrash (thresh), thread, threat, three,
threshold, thrice, thrid, thrill (thirl), throat, throb, throng, thropple
(thrapple), throstle, throttle, through, throw, thrum (1), thrush (1),
thud, thumb, thump, thunder, thus, thwack, thwite, thy.
tick (1), tick (3), tick (4), tickle, tide, tidy, tie, till (1), till (3),
tiller, tilt (1), tilt (2), tilth, timber, time, tin, tind, tinder, tine (1),
tine (2), tingle, tinker, tinkle, tip (1), tip (2), tire (1), tit (2), tit for
tat, tithe, titter, tittle-tatile, to, to- (1), to- (2), toad, today, toddle,
to-do, toe, together, token, toll (1), toll (2), tomorrow, tongs,
tongue, tonight, too, tool, toot (1), tooth, top (1), topple, topsy-
turvy, totter, tough, touse, tout, tow (1), tow (2), toward, towards,
town, trade, tramp, trample, trap (1), tray, tread, tree, trend, trickle,
trim, troth, trough, trow, truce, true, trust, Tuesday, tumble, turf,
tush, tusk, tussle, tut, twaddle, twain, twang, tweak, twelve, twenty,
twibill (twybill), twice, twig (1), twig (2), twilight, twill, twin,
twine, twinge, twinkle, twinter, twire, twist, twit, twitch, twitter, two.
udder, un- (1), un- (2), un- (3), uncomeatable (with F. suffix),
uncouth, under, under-, undern, understand, uneath, unkempt, unless,
unto, up, up-, upbraid, upholsterer, upon, upside-down, upstart,
upward, upwards, us, utmost, utter (1), utter (2).
vane, vat, vinewed, vixen, Volapiik.
wabble (wobble), waddle, wade, waft, wain, waist, wake (1),
waken, wale (weal), walk, wallet, wallow, walnut, wan, wander,
wane, wanion, wanton, ward, -ward, wardon, ware (1), ware (2),
ware (3), warlock, warm, warn, warp, wart, wary (ware), was, wast,
wash, wasp, watch, water, wattle, wave (1), waver, wawl, wax (1),
wax (2), way, wayward, we, weak, weal, weald, wealth, wean,
weapon, wear (1), wearish, weary, weasand (wesand), weasel,
weather, weather-beaten, weather-bitten ?, weave, web, wed, wedge,
wedlock, Wednesday, wee, weed (1), weed (2), week, ween, weep,
weet, weevil, weft, weigh, weir (wear), weird, weld (2), welfare,
welkin, well (1), well (2), wellaway, Welsh, welt, wen, wench,
wend, were, wert, wergild, werwolf, west, wet, wether, wey.
whack, whale, whap, wharf (1), wharf (2), what, whaup, wheal
(1), wheat, wheatear, wheedle ?, wheel, wheeze, whelk (1), whelk (2),
whelm, whelp, when, whence, where, wherry, whet, whether, whey,
which, whiff, whiffle, whig, while, whimbrel, whimper, whin (2),
whine, whip, whipple-tree, whisper, whist, whistle, whit, white,
whither, Whitsunday, whittle (1), whittle (2), whittle (3), whiz,
who, whole, whorl, whortleberry, why.
wick (1), wicked, wide, widow, wield, wife, wight (1), wild,
wilderness, wile, wilful, will (1), will (2), willow, wimble (1),
wimple, win, winberry (wimberry), winch, wind (1), wind (2), wink,
winkle, winnow, winsome, winter, wipe, wire, wise (1), wise (2),
wish, wisp, wist, wistful, wit (1), wit (2), wit (3), witch, witch-elm
(wych-elm), with, withdraw, wither, withers, withhold, within,
without, withsay, withstand, withy (withe), witness, wittol, wizard
(with Ἐς suffix), wizen, wo (woe), woad, wold, wolf, woman, womb,
won, wonder, wondrous, wont, woo, wood (1), wood (2), woodruff,
woodwale, woof, wool, woolward, word, work, world, worm, worm-
wood, worry, worse, worship, worst, worsted, wort (1), wort (2),
worth (1), worth (2), wot, would, wound, wrack, wraith, wrangle,
wrap, wrath, wreak, wreath, wreck, wren, wrench, wrest, wrestle,
wretch, wriggle, wright, wring, wrinkle (1), wrinkle (2), wrist,
write, writhe, wrong, wroth, wry.
y-, yap, yard (1), yard (2), yare, yarn, yarrow, yawl (2), yawn, ye,
yea, yean (ean), year, yearn (1), yearn (2), yeast, yede, yell, yellow,
yellow-hammer (yellow-ammer), yelp, yeoman, yerk, yes, yesterday,
yet, yew, yex, yield, yoke, yokel, yolk (yelk), yon, yore, you, young,
your, youth, yowl, Yule, ywis.
From place-names: canter, carronade, dunce, galloway, jasey,
jersey, kersey, lyddite, wardon, worsted (and others). From personal
names: bowie-knife, boycott, brougham, burke, congreve, doily,
kit-cat, lobelia, lynch, negus, orrery, pinchbeck, sandwich, shad-
dock, shrapnel, spencer (and others).
To the above may be added some words that appear in a foreign
form, yet seem to have been originally of English origin. Examples:
brogues, burglar, dodo, gyves, pewter, poteen, shebeen.
LOW GERMAN. Some of the words in the following list
may be of native origin, but their history is often obscure. They
appear to be Low German in form, and to have been introduced from
the Netherlands or Friesland or Hanover at various dates.
askew, bluff (2), bout, cranberry, cringle, dandle, dowel, drill (2),
764
doxy, dude, fib, fob (1), fob (2), frampold, frill, fuddle, grime,
groat, gull (2), haze, hawk (2), hawker, huckaback, huckster,
jerkin, kails, lazy, mate (1), mink, minx, mug, mum (2), pack,
package (with F. swffix), packet (with AF. suffix), paigle?, peak,
poll, prate, prowl, punk, queer, rantipole, rifle (2), rill, rustle (per-
haps E.), shudder, slight, smug, smuggle, spelter, spray (1), tackle,
teem (2), trice (1, 2), tub, tuck.
French from Low German: award, booty, brick, butt (1), button,
buttress, butty, chuck (1), dace, dart, fudge, fur, goffer, grape,
grapnel, grapple, gruel, hackbut, hamlet, heinous, lampoon, massa-
cre, maund (1), peck (2), pledge, poach (1), poach (2), posnet, putty,
Togue, scatches, slender, staple (2), stout, tampion, teat, tetchy
(techy), tiff (1), touchy, trundle, tybalt, wafer.
Dutch from French from Low German: skate (2).
French from Low Latin from Low German: callet, filter, quail (2).
Dutch from Low German : scarf (1), sloop.
Scandinavian from Low German: rig (1), scone (scon).
> See also under Dutch and Teutonic.
DUTCH. aardvark, avast ?, belay, beleaguer, blot (2), bluff
(1), boom (2), boor, bouse (boose), brack, brackish, brandy,
bruin, bulk (2), bully, bumpkin, burgher, burgomaster, caboose,
cam, catkin, clamp, clinker, clipper, cope (3), dapper, deal (3),
delf, derrick, dirk ?, dock (3), doit, drill (1), drum, duck (4), duffel,
easel, freebooter, frolic, fumble, furlough, gas, geck, golf, groove,
gruff, guilder, heyday (1), hoarding, hold (2), holland, hop (2),
hope (2), hottentot, hoy (1), hustle, inkle?, isinglass, jib (1),
jib (2), keelhaul, kink, kit (1), knapsack, knickerbockers, kopje,
laager, land-grave, landscape, laveer, leaguer, lighter, linstock
(lintstock), litmus, loiter, margrave, marline, maulstick, minikin,
mob (2), mump, mumps, mutchkin, ogle, orlop, pad (2), pink (2),
pink (4), placket, plug, pompelmoose, quack (2), quacksalver,
rant, reef (1), reef (2), reeve (1), roster, rover, runt, schiedam, school
(2), scull (3), selvage (selvedge), serif, sheer (2), skipper, sled,
sledge, sleigh, slim, slot (1), sloven, smack (3), snaffle, snap, snip,
snuff (1), spelicans, splice, split, spoor, sprinkle, steenbok, stew (2),
stipple, stiver, stoker, stripe, sutler, swab, tattoo (1), toy, trick (3),
trigger, uproar, veldt, wagon (waggon), wainscot, yacht, Yankee ?,
yawl (1).
From Dutch or Flemish place-names ; cambric, dornick, spa.
Middle Dutch. brake (1), crate, creek, croon, deck (1), deck
(2), doxy, firkin, foist, frump, hod, hoiden (hoyden), hoist, lollard,
luck, milt (2), nag (1), nap (2), nock, puke (2), rabble, rack (1),
rack (2), ravel, ray (3), ret, ruffle (2), skew ?, slur, spool, swingle.
French from Dutch (or Middle Dutch) : arquebus, bodkin ?, clin-
quant, clique, cracknel, cricket (1), cricket (2), dig, droll, drug-
get, fitchet, frieze (1), friz ({fizz), gleek (1), gleek (2), hoarding ?,
hobby (2), hotchpot (hodge-podge), manikin, mite (2), mitrailleuse,
mow (3), mummer, mute (2), placard, plack, plaque, shallop,
socket ?, staid, stay (1).
Spanish from French from Dutch : filibuster.
Walloon from Middle Dutch: rabbit.
Flemish from Dutch: fribble, rammer.
German from Dutch: schnapps.
Scandinavian from Dutch: yaw.
Flemish τ pamper.
SCANDINAVIAN. akimbo?, aloft, amiss, anger, angry,
aslant, auk, awe, awn, axle, aye.
bag, bait, balderdash, ball (2), band (1) (bond), bang (1), bank
(1), bark (2), bask, baste (1), bat (2), batten (1), hawl, beck (2),
bellows, bestead (2), big, billow, bing, bitts, blaze (2), blazon
(1), bleak (1), bleak (2), blend, blink, bloat, bloater, bloom,
blunder, blur, bole, bolled, bond, boon, booth, bore (3), both,
boulder, bound (3), bow (4), brad, brae, brag, brand- (brant-),
brinded, brindled, brink, brunt, bulk (1), bulk (3), bulwark, bungle,
bunk, bunting (1), busk (1), bustle (1), bustle .(2), by-law.
cake, call, carp (2), cart, cast, clamber, cleft, clift, clip (2), clog,
clown, club (1), club (2), club (3), clumsy, cock (4), cocker, cockle
(3), cog (1), cog (2), coke?, cosy, cow (2), cower, crash, crawl,
craze, crook, cruse, cub, cuff (1), cunning (2), curl, cut, cutter
daggle, dairy (with F. suffix), dandriff?, dangle, dank, dapple,
dash, dastard (with F. suffix), dawdle, daze, dazzle (with E. suffix),
die (1), dirt, douse, dowdy, down (1), dowse (1), doze, drag, dregs,
drip, droop, drown, drumble, duds, duffer, dump (2), dumps, dun
(2), dusk, dwale, dwell.
egg (1), egg (2), eiderduck.
fadge, fast (3), fell (4), fellow, fetlock, fidget, filch, filly, fir, firth,
fit (1), fizz, flag (4), flagstone, flake, flare, flat, flaunt, flaw, fleck,
fleer, flimsy, fling, flip (1), flippant, flit, flounce (1), flounder (1),
DISTRIBUTION OF WORDS (DUTCH, SCANDINAVIAN, GERMAN)
fluster, fog, force (3), foss, freckle, frith (2) (firth), fro, froth,
fulmar, fun ?. i
gaby, gad (1), gad (2), gainly, gait, gale (1), galt (1), galt (2),
gang (1), gang (2), gape, gar (2), garish (gairish), garth, gasp, gate
(2), gault, gaunt, gaze, gear, ged, geld, get, gewgaw?, gig, giglet
(with F. suffix), gill (1), gill (2), girth, glade, glint, glitter, gloat,
gloss (1), gnash, goosander, gowan, gowk, grig (1), griskin, grovel,
gruesome, guess, gun, gust (1).
haggle (1), haggle (2), hail (2), hail (3), hake, handsel (hansel),
hank, hap, happen, harbour, harsh, hawse, hit, holm, hoot, how (2),
hug, hurl, hurry, husband, hustings.
ill, inkling, intake, intrust (with E. prefix).
jade (1), jersey, jolly (boat), jump (1), jump (2).
keel (1), keelson (kelson), keg, ken, kick, kid, kidnap, kilt,
kindle (1), kitling.
lass, lathe (1), law, leak, lee, leech (3) (leach), leg, levin, lift (1),
liken, lilt, ling (2), link (1), link (2), loft, loom (2), loon (2), loose,
adj., low (1), low (4), lug, lumber (2), lump, lunch, luncheon,
lurch (1), lurch (4) ?, lurk.
mail (black), main (2), mark (3), marrow (2), mawkish (with E.
suffix), meek, midden, mire, mis- (1) (amd E.), mistake, mistrust,
mouldy, muck, muggy, murky (mirky).
nab, nag (2), narwhal, nasty, nay, neif (neaf), niggard, niggle,
noggin ?, Norse, nudge.
oaf, odd, outlaw.
paddock (1), palter, paltry, pash, piddle, pimple, pixy, poke (1),
prawn ?, prod, pucker, purl (1). queasy.
rack (3), raft, rag, raise, rake (3), ransack, rap (1), rap (2), recall
(with L. prefix), recast (with L. prefix), reel (2) ὃ, rid (2), riding, rife,
rift, rip, ripple (3), rive, roan-tree (rowan-tree), rock (3), roe (2),
root (1), rotten, rouse (1), rouse (2), row (3), rubble, ruck (1), ruck
(2), rug, rugged, rump, ruth.
sag, saga, scab, scald (2), scald (3), scall, scalp, scant, scar (2)
(scaur), scare, scarf (2), scathe, schooner, scoff, score, scotch, scout
(2), scout (3), scowl, scrabble, scraggy, scrannel, scrap, scrape,
scratch, scream, screech, screes, scrub (1), scrub (2), scruff, scud,
scuffle, seuft (scruff), sculk (skulk), scull (1), scull (2), scum, scurl,
scurvy, scuttle (3), seat, seemly, sheal, sheer (1), shrug, shuffle, shy,
silt, simper, skate (1), skerry, skewer, skid, skill, skim, skimp, skin,
skink (1), skip, skirt, skittish, skittles, skua, skull (scull), sky, slab
(2), slam, slang, slant, slattern, slaughter, slaver, sleek, sleight, slick,
sling, slop (2), slouch, slough (2), slubber, slug, slush, slut, sly,
smack (2), smattering, smelt (1), smile, smudge, snag, sneap, sneer,
sniff, snipe, snivel, snob, snooze, snort, snub, snug, sough, span-new,
spark (2), spick and span-new, spike (1), spill (2), spink, splint
(splent), sprack (sprag), spree, spud, spurt (2), squab (1 and 2),
squabble, squall, squander, squeak, squeal, squib, squid, stab, stack,
stag, stagger, stang, steak, steep (2), stern (2), stifle, stilt, stith,
stook, stoup (stoop), straggle, streak, struggle, strum, strut (1),
strut (2), stumble, stump, stunted, swagger, swain, swirl.
tag, take, tang (1), tang (2), tangle, tarn, tat, tatter, ted, teem (3),
teg, teind, tern, their, them, they, thrall, thrave, thrift, thrive, throe,
thrum (2), thrush (2), thrust, Thursday, thwaite, thwart, tidings,
uff (2), tiffin, tight, tike, till (2), tine (3), tipple, tipsy, tit (1),
titling, tod, toft, toom, torsk, toss, tram, trash, trill (2), trill (3),
ing, tup, tussock, twiddle, twirl.
ugly. Valhalla, Valkyria, Viking, vole.
wad, wadmal, wag, waggle, wail, wake (2), wale (2), wall-eyed,
wand, want, wapentake, welcome, weld (1), welter, whim, whin (1),
whinyard (with F. suffix), whir, whirl, whisk, whitlow, whore, wick
(3)=wich, wicker, wight (2), wimble (2), windlass (1), window,
wing. =
Icelandic: geysir, scarf (3).
Swedish : dahlia, gauntlet (2) (gantlope), kink, slag, sloid, trap (3),
tungsten,
Norwegian: fiord, lemming. Danish: floe, siskin.
French from Scandinavian: abet, baggage (1), baggage (2),
barbed, bet, blemish, boast, boisterous, bondage, braise, brandish,
brasier, brawl (2), braze (1), breeze (3), brisket, bun, elope, equip,
faggot, flatter, flounder (2), frown, gable, gauntlet (1), gawk,
gormandize, gourmand, grudge, haggis, jangle, jape, jib (3), jolly,
lagan, locket, Norman, pouch, rivet, rorqual, rubbish, scoop, scup-
per, scutch, slot (2), sound (4), strife, strive, target, tryst, waif,
waive.
Dutch from Scandinavian; ballast, doit, walrus.
Russian from Scandinavian: knout.
Late Latin from Scandinavian: scorbutic.
GERMAN. (The number of words borrowed directly from
German is but small.)
aurochs, bantling, bismuth, cobalt, dachshund, Dutch, fahrenheit,
DISTRIBUTION OF WORDS (TEUTONIC, CELTIC, ROMANCE LANGUAGES) 763
feldspar, fugleman, gneiss, hamster, heyday (1), hock (2), hurrah,
lager-bier, lammergeyer, landau, mangel-wurzel, meerschaum, mes-
merise (with Ἐς, suffix), minnesinger, plunder, poodle, quartz, ratch,
shale, sleazy, spitchcock, swindler, thaler, trull, wacke, waltz, zinc.
From personal names: camellia, fuchsia,
Dutch (or Low German) from, German: crants, dollar, etch,
gemsbok, holster, rix-dollar, skellum, switch, wiseacre.
Scandinavian from German ; nickel, quirk, sleave (silk),
Polish from German: hetman.
French from German: abut, band (2), bandy, bawd,
bawdy, belfry, bend (2), bistre?, bivouac, block, botch (2), brach,
brunette, carouse, carousal (1), chamois, coat, etiquette, franc,
grumble, haggard (1), haggard (2), halt (2), hamper (2), hanaper,
hash, hatch (3), hatchet, haversack, hoe, Huguenot, lansquenet,
latten, lattice, lecher, lickerish (qith E. suffix), list (2), lumber (1),
lurch (2), lurch (3) ?, lure, mangle (1), marquee, mignonette, motley,
popinjay, raffle, roast, schorl, shammy (shamoy), spruce, tan, ticket,
top (2), zigzag. ἢ
French from Provengal from German: marque (letters of).
Italian from German ; rigol, rocket (1).
French from Italian from German: bank (2), banquet, burin,
group, tuck (2),
Low Latin from German: lobby, morganatic.
French from Low Latin from German: carline, fauteuil, goblin,
lodge, marchioness, marquis, mason ?.
Scandinavian from Middle High German: bunt.
&a See also under Teutonic.
French from Middle High German: baffle, bale (1),
brewis (brose), browze, burgess, demarcation, gonfanon (gonfalon),
grisette, grizzly, grizzled (with E. suffix), halberd (halbert), jig,
marquetry, rebut (with L. prefix), sorrel (1), warble, wince.
French from Old High German: agraffe, allegiance,
arrange, await, bacon, balloon, banish, baste (3), blanch (1),
blank, blanket, blue, boss, bottle (2), brawn, bream, burnet,
burnish, butcher, carcanet, chine, cratch, crayfish (craw-fish),
dance, egret, ermine, eschew, espy, fee, feoff, feud (1),
fief, filbert, flange, flank, flawn, flinch, flunkey, franchise, frank,
franklin, freight, frisk, furbish, furnish, gaiety, gallant, galloon,
garb (2), garbage, garret, gay, giron (gyron), grilse, guarantee
(guaranty), guise, habergeon, hale (2) (haul), hanseatic, harangue,
harass, harbinger, hardy, hauberk, haul, haunch, herald, hernshaw
(1), heron, hob (2), hobby (1), hobgoblin, hut, jay, lay (2), liege,
mail (2), maim, malkin, march (1), marshal, mazer, mazzard, minion,
morel, mushroom, orgulous, ouch (nouch), perform (with L. prefix),
quiver (2), range, rank (1), rappee, rasp, rasp(-berry), riches, rob,
robe, robin, rochet, Salic (Salique), saloon, scale (1), scorn, seize,
skirmish, slice, spy, stallion, strand (2), tarnish, towel, vagrant,
wait, warrant, warren.
German from French from Old High German: veneer.
French from Low Latin from Old High German: abandon, equerry,
faldstool, install, sturgeon.
Spanish from Old High German: guerilla (guerrilla).
French from Spanish from Old High German : rapier.
Italian from Old High German; ballot, fresco, smalt, stucco.
French from Italian from Old High German: gala, garb (1), skiff.
French from Austrian: cravat.
TEUTONIC. This is here used as a general term, to show
that the following words (derived through French, Spanish, &c.)
cannot quite certainly be referred to a definite Teutonic dialect,
though clearly belonging to the Teutonic family.
French from Teutonic: attach, banner, banneret, bartisan,
beadle, bedell, blazon (2), blister, blot (1), blotch, board (2),
boulevard, brattice, bray (1), broider, broil (1), brush, buff (1),
burgeon, choice, coterie, cotillion, cramp, crewel, croup (2), cruet,
crupper, crush, dally, epergne, escrow, feuter, gaff, gage (1), gain
(1), gain (2), gaiter, gallop, gambeson, gardant, garden, garland,
garment, garnish, garrison, gimlet, gimp, glissade, grate (2), grimace,
growl, guard, guide, guidon, guile, guillemot, guipure, guy (2), harlot,
haste, hasten, havoc, hoop (2), hovel, hue (2) huge ?, label, louver
(loover), merlin, moat, moraine, parquetry, patrol, patten, paw,
pheon, pickax, picket, picnic, picotee, pique, piquet, pocket,
porridge, porringer, pottage, pottle, rally (2), ramp, random, reynard
(renard), ribald, riffraff, rifle (1), roach, romp, scabbard, scale (2),
scallop (scollop), scavenger, screen, scroll, seneschal, slab (1), slash,
slat, slate (1), sorrel (2), soup, spar (3), spavin, spell (2), stale (1),
stew (1), stroll, sturdy, supper, tache (1), tack, tankard, tap (1),
tawny, tenny, Tibert, tic, tier, tire (2), tire (3), toper, touch, track,
trap (2), trawl, trepan (2) (trapan), trip, troll, truck (1), trudge ?,
tuck (3), tucker, tucket, tuft
1), tuft (2), turbary, tweezers (with |
E. suffix), wage, wager, war, warden, wardrobe, watison, ‘wassail,
whoop, wicket, windlass (2). i
Late Latin from French from Teutonic : corrody, feud (2), feudal.
Dutch from French from Teutonic τ morass.
Spanish from Teutonic: flotilla, gabardine, picador, ranch, stam-
pede.
French from Spanish from Teutonic: amice (2), bandolee~, pic-
cadill, scuttle (2).
Italian from Teutonic: arpeggio, balcony, bandit, bunion, loto
(lotto), lottery, scherzo, stoccaco (stoccata), strappado.
French from Italian from Teutonic: attack, bagatelle, escarpment
(with L. suffix), guy (1), ruffian, scaramouch, scarp, tirade, yogue.
Late Latin from Teutonic: allodial, Goth, saponaceous, Saxon,
Teutonic, Vandal, Visigoth.
French from Low Latin from Teutonic: border, carp (1), forage,
marten, pandour, tatten.
Latin from Greek from Teutonic: bison.
CELTIC. This is a general term for the languages now repre-
sented by Irish, Gaelic, Welsh, Breton, Manx, and (till very recently)
Cornish. Some of the words are from o/d Celtic forms, which it is
not always possible to trace clearly.
bald, bard, beltane, bin, bog, boggart, boggle, brat, brock,
brogues (from English?), bug (1), bug (2) ?, bugaboo, bug(bear),
cairn, Celt (1), char (3), coble, combe, crag, crock, Culdee,
doe?, down (2), down (3), dulse, dun (1), duniwassal, galore, gillic,
glen, glib (2), gull (1), hubbub, ingle (1), kelpie, kex, kibe, linn,
loop, peat, penguin?, pose (3), shamrock, strath, tall?, ton (tun),
tump, twig (2) ?, wheal (2).
Welsh: bragget, coracle, cromlech, crowd (2), eisteddfod, flannel,
flummery, metheglin.
Gaelic; airt, capercailzie, cateran, clachan, clan, claymore, coro-
nach, corrie, duan, fillibeg, inch (2), loch, mackintosh, ptarmigan,
slogan, sowans, spleuchan, tocher, whiskey.
Irish: banshee, colleen, cosher, Fenian, gallowglass, kern (1):
(kerne), lough, mavourneen, ogham, omadaun, orrery, rapparee,
shanty, shillelagh, skain (skene), spalpeen, tanist, Tory, usque-
baugh.
Breton: dowlas, menhir, poldavy.
French from Cel.ic (or Breton): barter, beak, bijou, bilge,
bound (2), bourn (1), brail, bran, bray (2), budget, bulge, car,
cloak, clock, dolmen, galliard, garter, gobbet, gobble (with E.
suffix), gravel, grummet (2), harness, javelin, job (2), lawn (1),
lockram, mavis, mien, mine (2), mineral, musit, mutton, petty ?,
piece, quay, skein, truant, tunnel, valet, varlet, vassal.
Spanish from Celtic: garrote (garrotte).
French from Spanish from Celtic: bracket.
French from Dutch from Celtic: dune.
Latin from Celtic : carucate,
French from Late Latin from Celtic: arras, artesian, career, cark,
carpenter, carrack, carry, charge, chariot, druid, embassy, feuterer,
gouge, pontoon, vavasour,
Provencal from Late Latin from Celtic: league (2).
Spanish from Late Latin from Celtic; cargo.
Italian from Late Latin from Celtic : caricature.
French from Italian from Late Latin from Celtic: ambassador,
caroche, carriole.
French from German from Celtic: rote (2).
ROMANCE LANGUAGES. These languages, which
include French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, are, strictly
speaking, unoriginal, but we cannot always trace them back to
the source. A large number of the words belonging to these
languages will be found under the headings Celtic, Latin, Greek,
&c., which should be consulted. Those here enumerated are words
of which the origin is imitative, local, or obscure.
French. abash,aery,agog, andiron, attire, avens, average, baboon,
badge, badger, bar, bargain, barrator, barrel, barren, barrier, basket,
battlement, bauble (1), bauble (2), bavin, bayonet, beaver (2), beg,
begonia, beguine,, bevel, bice, biggin, bigot, billet, billiards, blond,
blouse, bludgeon, bobbin, boudoir, bourd, bourn (1), breeze (2),
bribe, broil (2), buckram, budge (2), buffer (1), buffer (2), buffet (1),
buffet (2), buffoon, busk (2), buss (2), eachalot, caddis, cadger, cajole,
cantilever, carbine, caul, Chablis, chagrin, cheval-de-frise, chicanery,
chiffonier, cockade, crare, cretonne, curlew, debar, demijohn, disease,
disembarras, doily, dolomite, drug, drugget, dupe, eagre, ease, em-
battle (1), embay, emblazon, emboss (1), emboss (2), embrasure, em-
broider, embroil, ergot, eyry, flout, flute, fret (2), furbelow, gallimaufry,
gallon, gasconade, gibbet, giblets, gill (3), glean, gobelin, grail (3),
greaves (2), grebe, groom, grouse, grummet (1), guillotine, gusset,
guzzle, haberdasher, haha, halloo, haricot (1), haricot (2), harridan,
766
haunt, hurt, hurtle, izard, jabber?, jag?, jaunt, lanner, lanyard,
lawn (2), lees, lias, limber (2), loach, loo, lorgnette, magnolia,
maraud, martin, martinet, martlet, Médoc, mitten, mortise, muffin,
mullein, mullion, Nicotian, ogre, paduasoy, partlet, pawn (1), pelf,
pet (1), pet (2), pilfer, pillory, pinch, pirouette, piss, pittance, pooh,
poplin, race (2), racy, rail (3), rampion, rascal, ratlines, riband
(ribbon), riot, rock (1), rococo, ronyon, roquelaure, ruff (4), sabot,
Sauterne, savoy, sedan-chair, shalloon, silhouette, soho, sparver,
tarlatan, Trappist, tripe, troop, Troy (weight), Tulle, valise, varnish,
vaudeville, vernier, virelay, watchet.
Anglo-French: kiddle.
Provengal: rack (4).
French from Provencal: charade, flageolet, gavotte, martingale.
Italian. adagio, agio, andante, bergomask, bravo, cameo,
galvanism, imbroglio, mantua, marsala, milliner, polony, rebuff,
regatta, sienna, tarantella, trill (1), voltaic.
French from Italian: avocet, bamboozle?, barracks, bergamot (2),
bezonian, brave, brigade, brigand, brigandine, brigantine (brig),
brisk, brusque, bust, carcase, carousal (2), casemate, catafalque,
caviare, charlatan, faience, frigate, garboil, gazette, harlequin, jean
(jane), maroon (1), pasquin, pasquinade, pavise, pistol, pistole,
ravelin, regale, rodomontade, theorbo, tirade, tontine, traffic.
Spanish. adobe, anchovy, bilbo, bilboes, bravado, cachucha,
cigar, cinchona (chinchona), cockroach, curagao, curassow, fandango,
galleon, picaninny, quixotic, rusk, sarsaparilla.
French from Spanish: barricade, bizarre, calipash, calipee?,
cannon (2), caracole, carapace, chimer (chimere), cordwainer,
fanfare, morion (murrion).
Portuguese. dodo, emu, sargasso.
LATIN. ab-, abbreviate, abdicate, abdomen, abduce, aber-
ration, abhor, abject, abjure, abnegate, abominate, aborigines, abor-
tion, abrade, abrogate, abrupt, abs-, abscess, abscind, abscond,
absolute, absolve, absorb, abstemious, abstract, abstruse, absurd,
accede, accelerate, access, acclaim, acclivity, accommodate, accre-
tion, accumulate, accurate, acid, acquiesce, acquire, acrid, acumen,
acute, adapt, add, addict, adduce, adept, adequate, adhere, adipose,
adit, adjacent, adject, adjudicate, adjunct, adjure, adjutant, admit,
adolescent, adopt, adore, adorn, adult, adulterate, adumbrate, ad-
vent, advert, advocate, zdile, cernginous, affidavit, afflict, agent,
agglomerate, agglutinate, aggravate, aggregate, agitate, agnate,
agrarian, agriculture, alacrity, album, albumen, alias, alibi, alleviate,
alligation, alliteration, allocate, allocution, allude, alluvial, alp,
altar, alter, alternate, alveolar, amanuensis, amatory, ambi- (amb-),
ambidextrous, ambient, ambiguous, ambulation, amicable, amputate,
ancillary, angina, anile, animadvert, animal, animate, annihilate,
anniversary, annotate, annular, annunciate, anserine, ante-, ante-
cedent, antedate, antediluvian, antenn, antepenultima, anterior,
anticipate, anus, anxious, aperient, apex, apiary, apparatus, ap-
parent, applaud, apposite, appreciate, apprehend, appropriate,
approximate, apt, aquatic, arbiter, arbitrary, arbitrate, arboreous,
arduous, area, arefaction, arena, argillaceous, arid, ark, armament,
arrogate, articulate, ascend, ascititious, ascribe, aspect, asperse,
assert, asseverate, assibilation, assiduous, assimilate, associate, as-
suasive, assume, astriction, astringe, astute, atrabilious, attenuate,
attest, attract, attribute, auction, augur, august, aureate, auricular,
aurora, auscultation, auxiliary, ave, avert, aviary, avocation, avul-
sion, axil, axis.
bacillus, basalt, beet, belligerent, belt, benefactor, bi-, bib, bien-
nial, bifurcated, bilateral, binary, binocular, binomial, bipartite,
biped, bisect, bissextile, bitumen, bland, boa, bract, bull (2), bus.
cachinnation, cack, cadaverous, caducous, czsura, calcareous,
calceolaria, calculate, calefaction, calendar, calends, callow, calo-
rific, calx, campestral, cancer, candelabrum, candidate, candle,
canine, canorous, cant (1), canticle, capacious, capillary, capitol,
capitular, capitulate, Capricorn, capsicum, carbolic, carbuncle,
carburet, cardinal, caries, carnal, carnivorous, castigate, castle,
castrate, catenary, caudal, caveat, cede, celebrate, celibate, cell,
censor, cent, centenary, centennial, centesimal, centigrade, cento,
centrifugal, centripetal, centurion, cere, cereal, cerulean, cervine,
chalk, cheese, ciliary, cincture, cinerary, circum-, circumambient,
circumambulate, circumcise, circumference, circumflex, circum-
fluent, circumfuse, circumjacent, circumlocution, circumnavigate,
circumscribe, circumspect, circumvallation, circumvent, circum-
volve, circus, cirrus, civic, civil, clang, coadjutor, coagulate,
coalesce, coction, coefficient, coerce, coeval, cogent, cogitate, cog-
nate, cognition, cognomen, cohabit, cohere, coincide, coition, cole,
collaborator, collapse, collateral, collide, collimate, collocate, collo-
quy, collude, column, com-, combine, comity, commemorate, com-
mend, commensurate, comminution, commissary, commit, commix,
commute, compact (2), compensate, compete, competitor, compla-
DISTRIBUTION OF WORDS (LATIN)
cent, complement, complete, complex, complicate, component, com..
pound (1), comprehend, compute, con (2), con-, concatenate, concede,
conciliate, concinnity, conclude, concoct, concomitant, concrete,
concur, condole, condone, conduce, conduct, confabulate, confect,
confederate, confer, confide, confiscate, conflation, conflict, confluent,
congener, congenial, congenital, congeries, conglobe, conglomerate,
conglutinate, congratulate, congregate, congress, congrue, conjuga-
tion, conjunction, connate, connatural, connect, connote, connubial,
consanguineous, conscionable, conscious, conscript, consecrate, conse-
quent, consolidate, consort, conspicuous, constipate, constitute, con-
strue, consuetude, consul, consume, consummate, contact, contami-
nate, contemplate, contemporaneous, context, contiguous, contingent,
continuous, contort, contra, contract (1), contradict, contribute,
contuse, convalesce, convenient, convent, converge, convex, con-
vince, convivial, convoke, convolve, convulse, cook, coop, co-operate,
co-ordinate, copulate, cornea, cornucopia, corolla, corollary, coro-
nation, corpuscle, correct, correlate, corroborate, corrugate, corrupt,
cortex, coruscate, costal, coulter, cowl (1), crass, create, creed,
cremation, crenate, crepitate, crepuscular, crescent, cretaceous,
crinite, crisp, cristate, crude, crural, cubit, cucumber, cuff (2), culi-
nary, culm, culminate, cultivate, cumulate, cuneate, cup, cupel,
cupid, cupreous, curate, curricle, cursive, cursory, curt, curule,
curve, cusp, custody, cuticle.
de-, debenture, debilitate, decapitate, December, decemvir, de-
cennial, deciduous, decimate, declaim, decoct, decorate, decorum,
decrement, decrepit, decretal, decurrent, decussate, dedicate, deduce,
deduct, defalcate, defecate, defect, deflagration, deflect, defluxion,
defunct, degenerate, dehiscent, deject, delate, delegate, delete, de-
liberate, delicate, delineate, delinquent, deliquesce, delirious, delude,
demented, demonstrate, demulcent, denary, denominate, dense,
dental, dentated, denticle, dentist, dentition, denude, denunciation,
depict, depilatory, depletion, deponent, depopulate, deprecate, de-
preciate, depredate, depress, dereliction, deride, derogate, describe,
desecrate, desiccate, desiderate, desk, desolate, despond, desqua-
mation, destitute, desuetude, desultory, detect, deter, deterge, dete-
riorate, detonate, detraction, detrude, devastate, deviate, devious,
devolve, devote, dexter, di- (1), dial, diary, dicker, dictate, diffident,
diffract, diffuse, digest, dight, digit, digress, dijudicate, dilacerate,
dilapidate, dilute, climissory, dire, direct, dirge, dis-, disafforest, dis-
connect, disconsolate, discriminate, discursive, discuss, disincline,
disinfect, disingenuous, disjunction, dislocate, dismiss, dispassionate,
dispel, disperse, dispirit, disquiet, disquisition, disruption, dissect,
disseminate, dissent, dissertation, dissident, dissipate, dissociate,
dissolute, dissolve, distend, distort, distract, distribute, disunite,
diumal, divaricate, diverge, divest, divide, divulsion, dominate,
dormitory, dual, dubious, duct, duodecimo, duodenum, duplicate,
duration.
edict, educate, educe, effeminate, effervesce, effete, efficacy, effigy,
effluence, effulgent, effuse, egotist, egregious, egress, ejaculate, eject,
elaborate, elapse, elate, elect, element, elevate, elicit, elide, eliminate,
elision, elocution, elude, emaciate, emanate, emancipate, émasculate,
emendation, emerge, emigrate, eminent, emit, emotion, emulate, en-
due (2), enervate, entity, enucleate, enumerate, enunciate, equal,
equation, equestrian, equi-, equilibrium, equine, equivocal, era,
eradicate, erase, erect, erratum, erroneous, erubescent, eructate, eru-
dite, eruption, esculent, estimate, estuary, esurient, evacuate, evanes-
cent, evaporate, event, evict, evince, eviscerate, evoke, evolve,
evulsion, ex-, exacerbate, exact (1), exaggerate, exasperate, excerpt,
excise (2), exclude, excogitate, excommunicate, excoriate, excrement,
excruciate, exculpate, excursion, exeat, execrate, exert, exfoliate,
exhaust, exhibit, exhume, exigent, exiguous, exist, exit, exonerate,
exordium, expand, expatiate, expatriate, expect, expectorate, ex-
pedite, expel, expend, expiate, expletive, explicate, explicit, exponent,
export, expostulate, expunge, expurgate, exquisite, extant, extempore,
extend, extenuate, exterminate, external, extinguish, extirpate, extol,
extort, extra, extract, extramundane, extraneous, extraordinary,
extravasate, extricate, extrude, exude, exult, exuviae.
fabricate, fac-simile, fact, factitious, factotum, feces, fallible,
family, fan, fane, farina, farrago, fascinate, fastidious, fatuous, fauces,
faun, February, feculent, feline, femoral, fennel, feracious, feral (1),
feral (2), ferment, ferreous, ferruginous, ferule, festive, fetus, fever,
fiat, fibula, fiducial, figment, filial, fimbriated, fine (2), finial, finite,
fistula, flagellate, flagitious, flamen, flog, floral, florid, floscule, fluc-
tuate, fluent, fluor, focus, font (1), foraminated, forceps, forensic,
fork, formic, formula, formulate, fornicate, fortuitous, forum, fran-
gible, fratricide (2), frigid, fritillary, frivolous, frond, frustrate, frus-
tum, fulcrum, fulgent, fuliginous, fuller, fulminate, fulvid, fulvous,
fumigate, funambulist, fungus, funicle, furcate, furfuraceous, fuscous,
fuse (1), fusil (3), fustigate.
galeated, gallinaceous, garrulous, gelid, Gemini, generate, generic,
geniculate, genius, genuine, genus, gerund, gesticulate, gesture, gib-
DISTRIBUTION OF WORDS (LATIN)
bose glabrous, gladen (gladden), gladiator, glomerate, glume,
glutinous, gradient, gradual, graduate, grallatory, gramineous,
granary, grandiloquent, granule, gratis, gratuitous, gratulate, gre-
garious, gust (2).
habitat, hallucination, hastate, hebetude, hereditary, hernia,
hesitate, hiatus, hirsute, histrionical, hoopoe, horrid, horrify, hor-
tatory, horticulture, host (3), humane, humeral, humiliate.
i-, ibex, identical, il- (1), il- (2), illapse, illegal, illegitimate,
illimitable, illision, illiterate, illogical, illude, illuminate, illustrate,
im- (3), imbricated, imbue, imitate, immaculate, immanent, im-
Mature, immerge, immigrate, imminent, immit, immoderate, im-
molate, impact, impeccable, impecunious, impede, impel, impend,
impersonate, imperturbable, impervious, impetrate, impetus, im-
pinge, implicate, impolite, imponderable, imprecate, impregnate, im-
press, impropriate, improvident, in-(2), in- (3), inaccurate, inadequate,
inadvertent, inane, inanimate, inapplicable, inappreciable, inappro-
priate, inarticulate, inartificial, inaudible, inaugurate, inauspicious,
incalculable, incandescent, incantation, incarcerate, incautious, in-
cendiary, incense (1), incentive, inceptive, incessant, inch (1), in-
choate, incipient, include, incoherent, incombustible, incommen-
surate, incomplete, incompressible, inconclusive, incondite, incon-
gruous, inconsequent, inconsistent, inconsumable, incontrovertible,
inconvertible, inconvincible, incorporate, incorrupt, incrassate, in-
crement, incubate, incubus, inculcate, inculpable, inculpate, incum-
bent, incur, incurvate, indeclinable, indecorum, indefensible, inde-
finable, indefinite, indemonstrable, independent, indescribable, in-
destructible, indeterminate, index, indicate, indigenous, indigested,
indiscernible, indiscriminate, indispensable, individual, indoctrinate,
indolence, indomitable, indorse, induce, induct, indue (1), indurate,
inebriate, inedited, ineffective, inelegant, inert, inexact, inexhausted,
inexpressible, infant, infatuate, infinite, infirm, infix, inflate, inflect,
inflict, influx, informal, infrequent, infringe, infuriate, ingenuous,
ingratiate, ingress, inguinal, inhale, inherent, inhibit, inimical, initial,
initiate, inject, injunction, innate, innocuous, innovate, innoxious,
innuendo (inuendo), innutritious, inobservant, inoculate, inodorous,
inordinate, inquire (enquire), insane, inscribe, insecure, insensate,
insert, insessorial, insignia, insignificant, insinuate, insolvent, in-
somnia, inspect, inspissate, instigate, institute, instruct, insubordinate,
insufficient, insular, insuppressible, insurgent, intact, intangible, in-
teger, integument, intense, inter-, intercalate, intercommunicate,
interdict, interfuse, interim, interior, interjacent, interline, interlude,
interlunar, interminable, intermit, intermix, internal, internecine,
interpolate, interregnum, interrogate, interrupt, intersect, intersperse,
interstellar, intestate, intimate (1), intimate (2), intra-, intramural,
intransitive, intrepid, intricate, intro-, introduce, intromission, in-
trospection, intrude, inundation, invecked, inyeigh, invert, inverte-
brate, investigate, inveterate, invidious, invigorate, inviolate,
invocate, involuntary, involute, ir- (1), ir- (2), irradiate, irrational,
irreducible, irresolute, irresponsible, irrigate, irritate, italics, item,
iterate, itinerant.
January, jejune, jilt, jocose, jocular, joke, jubilation, jugular,
junction, juncture, June, junior, juniper, juridical.
kail, kiln, kirtle (with E. suffix), kitchen.
labellum, labial, labiate, laboratory, laburnum, lacerate, lachry-
mal (lacrimal), lacteal, lacuna, lacustrine, lambent, lamina, lanceo-
late, languid, laniferous, lanuginous, lapidary, lapse, larva, lascivious,
latent, lateral, laud, laureate, laurustinus, lavatory, lax, legislator,
legitimate, lemur, lenient, lens, leporine, levigate, liberate, liber-
tine, librate, libration, licentiate, lictor, ligneous, ligule, limb (2),
limbo, limbus, limpet, line, lineal, linear, linen, lingual, linguist,
lining, lint, liquescent, liquidate, litigation, littoral, lobster, locate,
locomotion, locus, locust, longevity, loquacious, lotion, lubricate,
lucid, lucubration, ludicrous, lugubrious, lumbago, lumbar, lunar,
lurid, lustration, lustram, lymph.
macerate, maculate, magisterial, magnanimous, magnate, magni-
ficent, magniloquence, magnitude, major, majuscule, malefactor,
malevolent, malic, mallow, mamillary, mammalia, mandible, mani-
pulate, manse, manumit, manuscript, marcescent, margin, mass (2),
mat, matriculate, matrix, mature, matutinal, maxillar (maxillary),
maximum, mediate, medical, medicate, medieval, meditate, mediter-
ranean, medium, medullar (medullary), meliorate, mellifluous,
meniento, mendacity, mendicant, menses, menstruous, mensuration,
mephitis, mere (2), meretricious, merganser, merge, mica, migrate,
mile, militate, militia, mill, millennium, minor, mint (1), minus,
minuscule, minute, miscellaneous, miser, missal, missile, mission,
mitigate, mittimus, mix, mob (1), moderate, modicum, modulate,
molar, molecule, mollusc, monetary, monger, morose, mortar (1)
(morter), moult, mount (1), mucus, mulct, multangular, multifarious,
multiple, muriatic, muricated, muscle (2) (mussel), must (2), mutable,
mute (1), mutilate.
nascent, nasturtium, natation, nebula, nefarious, neglect, negotiate,
767
nemoral, nescient, neuter, nigrescent, nihilist, nimbus, nincompoop,
node, nomenclator, nominal, nominate, non-, nondescript, nonentity,
nones, nonplus, noon, normal, nostrum, notation, notorious,
November, noxious, nucleus, nude, nugatory, numeral, nun, nutation,
nutriment, nutritious.
ob-, obdurate, obese, obfuscate, object, oblate, obliterate, obloquy,
obnoxious, obscene, obsecrate, obsequious, obsidian, obsolescent,
obsolete, obstetric, obstinate, obstreperous, obstriction, obstruct,
obtrude, obverse, obviate, obvious, occiput, occult, octangular,
octant, October, octogenarian, octoroon, ocular, odium, offer,
officinal, olfactory, omen, omentum, omit, omnibus, omniscient,
omnivorous, operate, oppidan, opponent, opprobrious, optimism
(with Gk. suffix), oral, orc, ordinal, ordinate, oscillate, osculate,
osseous, ossifrage, ostensible, otiose, oviform.
pabulum, pact, pagan, pageant, pall (1), palliate, pallid, pallor,
palm (2), palpitate, palustral, panicle, papilionaceous, papillary,
par, parietal, parse, participate, parturient, passerine, pastor, patera,
patrician, pauper, pax, pea, pear, peccable, pectinal, peculate,
pedal, pedestrian, pediment, peduncle, pejorative, pelt (1), pelvis,
pen (1), penates, pendulous, pendulum, penetrate, peninsula, penny
(with E. suffix), pent, penultimate, penumbra, per-, perambulate,
percolate, percussion, perennial, perfidious, perfoliate, perforate,
perfunctory, periwinkle (1), permeate, permit, per; etrate, perquisite,
perspicuous, pervade, pervicacious, pervious, pessimist, petulant, pia-
cular, pica, picture, pigment, pilch, pile (1), pile (3), pile (4), piles,
pillow, pin, pine (1), pine (2), pinnate, pipe, pipkin (with E. suffix),
Pisces, pistil, pit, pitch (1), placable, placenta, plangent, plant, plan-
tigrade, plaudit, plausible, plenary, plenipotentiary, plumbago, plu-
perfect, plurisy (misformed), pole (1), pollen, pollute, ponder, pope,
poppy, populate, porcine, port (2), portend, posse, possess, post (1),
post-, post-date, posterior, posthumous (postumous), post-meridian
(pomeridian), post-mortem, post-obit, postpone, postscript, postulate,
potation. potent, pound (1), pour, Praetor (Pretor), pre, pre-
carious, precentor, precession, precinct, preclude, precociow, pre-
cursor, predatory, predecessor, predicate, predict, predominate,
pre-emption, pre-exist, prehensile, premature, premeditate, pre-
mium, preponderate, prepossess, preposterous, prescribe, preter-,
pretermit, preternatural, prevaricate, prevent, previous, primeval,
prior (1), private, pro-, probe, proclivity, proconsul, procrastinate,
procreate, proctor, procumbent, produce, proficient, profligate,
profuse, prog?, prohibit, prolate, proletarian, prolocutor, pro-
miscuous, promontory, promote, promulgate, propagate, propel,
propensity, propitious, propound, propulsion, proscribe, prosecute,
prospect, prosperous, prostitute, prostrate, protect, protract, pro-
trude, protuberant, prove, provide, proviso, provost, prurient,
publican, pugilism, pugnacious, pulmonary, pulsate, pulse (2),
punctate (punctated), punctuate, puncture, pungent, punt (1), pupa,
puritan, pus, pusillanimous.
quadragesima, quadrant, quadrate, quadrennial, quadrilateral,
quadrillion, quadruped, quandary, quarto, quaternary, quaternion,
querimonious, querulous, query, quibble, quiddity, quidnunc, quies-
cent, quiet, quillet, quinary, quincunx, quinquagesima, quinquan-
gular, quinquennial, quintillion, quip, quorum, quota, quotient (or
ἘΞ
rabid, radial, radiant, radius, radix, rancid, ranunculus, rapacious,
tape (1), rape (2), rapid (or I'.—L.), rapt, raptorial, rapture,
rasorial, ratio, raucous, re-, red- (or F.—L.), real (1 ), rebus, recant,
recede, recess, recession, recipe, reciprocal, recline, recondite, re-
criminate, recrudescence, rectilineal (rectilinear), recumbent, re-
cuperative, recur, redact, redintegration, reduce, redundant, redupli-
cate, refel, reflect, refluent, refract, refragable, refrigerate, refulgent,
refund, regalia, regenerate, regimen, regnant, Tegress, regular, re-
Juvenate, relapse, relax, relegate, reluctant, remit, remonstrate,
Temora, remote, remunerat, renovate, repel, repine, reprehend,
reprobate, reproduce, repudiate, repulse, requiem, requiescence,
resilient, resolve, resonant, resplendent, resuscitate, retaliate, reticent,
retina, retro- (or Ἐς from L.), retrocession, retrograde, retrospect,
reverberate, revolve, ridiculous, rigid, rite, rivulet, rodent, rostrum,
rotary, rugose, ruminate.
sacrament, sagacious, Sagittarius, salient, saliva, saltation, salu-
brious, salute, sanatory, sanctity, sane, sapid, satiate, saturate, savin
(savine, sabine), scale (3), scalpel, scan, scape (1), scapular, sciolist,
scour (1), scribe, scrofula, scrutiny, scurrile, scutage, scuttle (1),
se-, sebaceous, secant, secede, seclude, secure, sedate, seduce,
sedulous, segment, segregate, select, semi-, seminary, senary, senile,
senior, sensual, separate, September, septenary, septennial, septua-
genary, serene, series, serrated, serum, service (tree), sexagenary,
Sexagesima, sexennial, sextant, sextuple, shambles, shingle (1),
short, shrine, sibilant, sicker (siker), sickle, sidereal, silex, silvan
(sylvan), simile, simious, simulate, simultaneous, sinciput, sine, sine-
cure, single, sinister, sinus, sir-reverence, situate, sock, solar, sole (1),
768
sol-fa, solicitous, soliloquy, solve, somnambulist (with Gk. suffix),
somniferous, sonorous, soporiferous, soporific, sparse, species,
specimen, spectator (or F. from L.), specular, spelt, spend, spike (2),
splendor (splendour, or F. from L.), sponsor, spontaneous, spoom,
spume, spurious, squalid, stagnate, stamen, stannary, status, stellar,
sternutation, stertorous, still (2) (or F.—L.), stimulate, stipend,
stolid, stop, strap, stratum, street, strenuous, striated, strict, strident,
strigil, stringent, strop, student, stultify, stupendous, sub- (or
F.—L.), subacid, subaqueous, subdivide, subjacent, subjugate,
subjunctive, sublunar, submit, subordinate, subpoena, subscribe,
subsequent, subserve, subside, substratum, subtend, subter-, sub-
terranean, subterraneous, subtract, succinct, succuba, succumb,
sudatory, suffix, suffocate, suffuse, suggest, sulcated, sulphur, sump-
tuary, super-, superadd, superannuate, supercilious, supereminent,
supererogation, superficies, superfluous, superstructure, supervene,
supervise, supine, supplicate, suppress, suppurate, supra-, supra-
mundane, sur- (1), surd, surreptitious, surrogate, sus-.
tabid, tacit, tact, tamarisk, tandem, tangent, Taurus, tedious, teeto-
tum (totum), tegument, telluric, temple (1), temper, temulent, tena-
cious, tenet, tense (2), tentacle, tentative, tepid, ternary, terrene, ter-
restrial, terrific, terse, tertiary, tesselate, testaceous, testimony, textile,
tibia, tile, timorous, tincture, tinge, tint, tintinnabulation, tiro (tyro),
toga, tolerate, torpedo, torpid, torque, tract (1), tract (2), tractable,
tradition, traduce, trans-, transcend, transcribe, transept. transfer,
transfix, transfuse, transient, translucent, transmarine, transmit,
transmute, transom, transpicuous, transpire, transverse, tri- (or
Gk.; or F. from L. or Gk.), tricentenary, triennial, trifoliate,
triforium, triform, trilateral, trilingual, triliteral, trine, trinomial,
tripartite, triplicate, trireme, trisect, trite, triturate, triumvir, Triune,
trivet, truncate, tuber, tumid, tumulus, tunic, turbid, turgid, turtle
(1), turtle (2), tutelage (with F. suffix), tutelar.
ulterior, ultimate, ultra-, ultramundane, umbel, unanimous, uncial,
undulate, unguent, uniliteral, unite, univocal, urbane, urge, ursine,
ut, uvula, uxorious.
vaccinate, vacuum, vagary, valediction, vapid, varicose, varie-
gate, various, vascular, vehicle, velocipede, venereal, venous, ven-
tilate, ventral, ventriloquist, Venus, veracious, verbena, verge (2),
vermicular, vernacular, vernal, verse, vertebra, vertex, vertigo,
vesicle, vesper, vest, vestibule, veteran, veterinary, veto, viaduct,
vibrate, vicissitude, victor, videlicet, vilipend, villa, vincible, vin-
culum, vindicate, violate, virago, virgate, viridity, viscera, vitreous,
vivid, viviparous, vivisection, vomit, vortex, vote, vulnerable,
vulture.
wall, wick (2), wine.
French from Latin. abase, abate, abatis, abeyance, ability,
ablative, able, ablution, abolish, abound, abridge, absent, abstain,
abstention, abundance, abuse, accent, accept, accident, accompany,
accomplice, accomplish, accord, accost, account, accoutre, accredit,
accrue, accuse, accustom, acerbity, acetous, achieve, acquaint,
acquit, act, adage, address, adieu, adjoin, adjourn, adjudge, adjust,
administer, admire, admonish, adroit, adulation, advance, advan-
tage, adventure, adverb, adverse, advertise, advice, advise, advow-
son, affable, affair, affect, affeer, affiance, affiliation, affinity,
affirm, affix, affluence, affront, affy, age, aggrandise, aggress, ag-
grieve, agile, agistment, aglet, agree, ague, ah, aid, aim, aisle, alas,
alb, alien, align (aline), aliment, aliquot, allege, alley, allow (1),
allow (2), alloy, ally, altercation, altitude, alum, ambition, amble,
ambry (aumbry), ameliorate, amenable, amend, amends, amenity,
amerce, amiable, amice (1), amity, ammunition, amorous, amort,
amount, ample, amulet, amuse, ancestor, ancient (1), ancient (2),
andiron ?, angle (1), anguish, animosity, annals, annates, anneal (2),
annex, announce, annoy, annual, annul, anoint, antique, antler,
apart, appal, appanage, apparel, appeal, appear, appease, append,
appertain, appetite, apply, appoint, apportion, appraise, apprentice,
apprize, approach, approbation, approve, appurtenance, April,
apron, apropos, aquiline, arable, arbour, arc, arch (1), archer,
ardent, aréte, argent, argue, arm (2), armature, armistice, armour,
arms, army, arraign, arrant, arrears, arrest, arris, arrive, arson,
art (2), article, artifice, artillery, ascertain, ashlar (ashler), asperity,
aspire, assail, assart, assault, assay, assemble, assent, assess, assets,
assign, assist, assize (1), assize (2), assoil, assort, assuage, assure,
astonish, astound, atrocity, attain, attaint, attemper, attempt,
attend, attrition, auburn, audacious, audience, augment, aunt,
auspice, austral, author, autumn, avail, avalanche, avarice, avaunt,
avenge, avenue, aver, avidity, avoid, avoirdupois, avouch, avow (1),
avow (2).
bail (1), bailiff, bails?, baize, balance, barb (1), barbel, barber,
barberry, barnacles, baron, base (1), bass (1), bassoon, bate (1),
bate (2), batter (1), batter (2), battery, battle, bay (1), bay (2),
bay (3), bay (4), bay (5), bay (6), bayard, beagle?, beast, beatify,
beatitude, beau, beauty, beaver (3) (bever), beef. beldam, belle,
DISTRIBUTION OF WORDS (LATIN, FRENCH FROM LATIN)
benediction, benefice, benefit, benevolence, benign, benison, bestial,
beverage, bevy, bezel ?, bias, bile (1), bill (3), billet (1), billion,
biscuit, bivalve, blandish, boil (1), bonny, bounty, bowel, bowl (1),
breve, brief (1), brief (2), broach, brochure, brocket, broker, brooch,
bruit, brute, buckle, buckler, budge (1), bugle (1), bugle (2), bul-
lace, bullet, bullion, bustard, buzzard.
cabbage (1), cable, cage, caitiff, calamity, calcine, caldron
(cauldron), calk (caulk), calkin, callous, caloric, calumny, camp,
campagnol, campion, canal, cancel, candid, candour, canker,
capable, capital (1), capital (2), capital (3), capitation, capsule,
captain, captious, captive, carbon, card (2), careen, Carfax, caril-
lon, carminative, carnage, carnation (1), carnation (2), carpet,
carrion, cartilage, case (1), case (2), casement, casket, cassation,
catch, catchpole, cater, cater-cousin, caterpillar, cates, cattle,
caudle, cauliflower, cause, causeway, caution, cave, cavil, cease,
ceil (ciel), celerity, celestial, cement, censer, centipede (centiped),
centuple, century, cerebral, ceremony, certain, certify, cervical, cess,
cessation, cession, chafe, chain, chaldron, chalet, chalice, challenge,
chamfer, champagne, champaign, champion, chance, chancel, chan-
cellor, chancery, chandelier, chandler, change, channel, chant,
chapel, chaperon, chapiter, chaplain, chaplet, chapter, charity,
charm (1), charnel, chase (1), chase (2), chase (3), chase (4),
chaste, chasten, chastise, chasuble, chateau, chatelaine, chattels,
chawdron, cheat, cherish, chevalier, cheveril, chevin, chevron,
chief, chieftain, chignon, chisel, chivalry, chive, chum, cicatrice,
cinque, circle, circuit, circumstance, cit, cite, citizen, city, cive,
claim, clamour, clandestine, claret, clarify, clarion, class, clause,
clavicle, clear, clef, clement, clerestory, client, cloister, close (1),
close (2), closet, clove (1), clove (3), cloy, coarse, coast, coddle, code,
codicil, cognisance, cohort, coign, coil (1), coil (2), coin, coistrel,
collar, collation, colleague (1), colleague (2), collect, college,
collet, colony, colour, colporteur, columbine, combat, combus-
tion, comfit, comfort, comfrey, command, commence, comment,
commerce, commination, commiseration, commission, commodious,
common, commotion, commune, compact (1), company, compare,
compass, compassion, compatible, compatriot, compeer, compel,
compendious, competent, compile, complain, complaisant, com-
plexion, complicity, compline, comport, composition, compost,
compress, comprise, compromise, compunction, concave, conceal,
conceit, conceive, concentre, conception, concern, concise, conclave,
concord, concordant, concordat, concourse, concubine, concupiscence,”
concussion, condemn, condense, condescend, condign, condiment,
condition, conduit, confess, configuration, confine, confirm, con-
flagration, conform, confound, confraternity, confront, confuse, con-
fute, congé (congee), congeal, congestion, conjecture, conjoin, con-
jugal, conjure, connive, connoisseur, conquer, conscience, consecutive,
consent, conserve, consider, consign, consist, console (1), console (2),
consonant, conspire, constable, constant, constellation, consternation,
constrain, consult, contagion, contain, contemn, contend, content,
contest, continent, continue, contract (2), contrary, contrast, contravene,
contretemps, contrite, control, controversy, contumacy, contumely,
convene, convention, converse, convert, convey, convoy, cony (coney),
copious, copperas, copy, corbel, corby, cordial, corduroy, core,
cormorant, corn (2), cornelian, corner, cornet, coronal, coroner,
coronet, corporal (1), corporal (2), corps, corpse (corse), corpulent,
correspond, corrode, corset, corslet (corselet), corvée, costive, couch,
council, counsel, count (1), count (2), countenance, counter, counter-
balance, counterfeit, countermand, counterpane (1), counterpane (2),
counterpart, counterpoint, counterpoise, countersign, countervail,
country, country-dance, county, couple, courage, course, court (1),
court (2), courteous, courtesy, courtier, cousin, covenant, cover,
coverlet, covert, covet, covey, covin, coward, cowl (2), coy (1),
cozen, cranny, crape, craven, crayon, crease (1), creel, cresset, crest,
crevice, crew, crime, crinoline, crone, crucial, crucify, cruel, crust,
ery, cuckold, cuckoo, cue (1), cue (2), cuisses, cull, cullion, cullis
(1), cullis (2), culpable, culprit, culture, culverin, cupidity, curb,
cure, curfew, curious, current, curtail, curtain, curtilage, cushion,
custard, custom, cutlass, cutler, cutlet.
dainty, dam (2), damage, dame, damn, damsel, dan, dandelion,
danger, date (1), daub, daunt, dean, debate, debonair, debouch,
debt, decadence, decamp, decay, decease, deceive, decent, deception,
decide, decimal, decision, declare, declension, decline, declivity,
decollation, decomposition, decrease, decree, decry, decuple, de-
face, defame, default, defeasance, defeat, defence, defend, defer (1),
defer (2), defile (2), define, deflour (deflower), deforce, deform,
defraud, defy, deglutition, degrade, degree, deify, deign, deity,
delay, delectable, delicious, delight, deliver, deluge, demand,
demean (1), demeanour, demerit, demesne, demi-, demise, demolish,
demoralise, demur, demure, demy, denier, denizen, denote, denoue-
ment, denounce, dentifrice, deny, deodand, depart, depend, deplore,
deploy, deport, deposit, deposition, depot, deprave, deprive, depute,
DISTRIBUTION OF WORDS (FRENCH FROM LATIN)
derive, descant, descend, descry, desert (1), desert (2), deserve, desha-
bille, design, desire, desist, despair, despise, despite, despoil, dessert,
destine, destroy, detail, detain, detention, determine, detest, detri-
ment, deuce (1), deuce (2), devest, device, devise, devoid, devoir,
devour, devout, diction, die (2), differ, difficulty, dignify, dignity,
dilate, diligent, dime, dimension, diminish, dine, dinner, disadvantage,
disagree, disallow, disappoint, disarm, disaster, disavow, discern,
disciple, disclaim, disclose, discolour, discomfit, discomfort, dis-
concert, discontinue, discord, discount, discountenance, discourage,
discourse, discourteous, discover, discreet, discrepant, disdain, dis-
enchant, disfigure, disgorge, disgrace, disgust, dishevel, dishonest,
dishonour, disinterested, disjoin, disjoint, disloyal, dismal, dismantle,
dismember, dismount, disobey, disoblige, disorder, disparage, dis-
parity, dispense, dispeople, displace, displant, display, displease, dis-
port, disposition, dispossess, dispraise, disproportion, disprove, dispute,
disqualify, dissemble, disservice, dissever, dissimilar, dissimulation,
dissonant, dissuade, distain, distant, distemper (1), distemper (2),
distil, distinct, distinguish, distrain, distress, district, disturb, ditty,
diverse (divers), divert, divine, divorce, divulge, docile, doctor,
doctrine, document, dolour, domain, domestic, domicile, dominical,
dominion, donation, dormant, dorsal, double, doublet, doubt,
douceur, dowager, dower, dowle?, dozen, dress, ducal, duchess,
duchy, ductile, due, duke, dulcet, dungeon, duplicity, durance,
duration, dure, duress, duty.
eager, eagle, ebriety, ebullition, echelon, eclaircissement, edify,
edition, efface, effect, efficient, efflorescence, effort, effrontery,
eglantine, eisel, elecampane, elegant, eligible, élite, eloign, elo-
quent, em-, embattle (2), embellish, embezzle?, emblements,
embonpoint, embouchure, embowel, embrace, emmew, emol-
lient, emolument, empale, empanel, emperor, empire, employ,
empower, empress, emprise, emulsion, en-, enable, enact, enamour,
encamp, encase, enceinte, enchain, enchant, enchase, encircle, en-
cline, enclose, encompass, encore, encounter, encourage, encumber ?,
endanger, endeavour, endorse, endow, endue (1), endure, enemy,
enew, enfeeble, enfilade, enforce, engender, engine, engrain, engross,
enhance, enjoin, enjoy, enlace, enlarge, enmity, ennoble, ennui,
enormous, enounce, enquire, enrage, enrich, enrol, ensample, en-
sconce, ensign, ensue, ensure, entablature, entail, enter, enterprise,
entertain, entice, entire, entitle, entrails, entrance (1), entrance (2),
entreat, entrench ?, envenom, environ, envoy, envy, equanimity, equi-
nox, equipoise, equipollent, equity, equivalent, eroce, err, errant,
error, escape, escheat, escritoire, escuage, escutcheon, especial,
espouse, esquire, essay, essence, establish, estate, esteem, estovers,
estrange, estreat, eternal, etiolate, evade, evasion, evident, ewer, exact
(2), exalt, examine, example, excavation, exceed, excel, except, ex-
cess, exchange, excite, exclaim, excrescence, excretion, excuse, execute,
exemplar, exemplify, exempt, exequies, exercise, exhale, exhort,
exile, exorbitant, experience, expert, expire, explain, explode, ex-
ploit, explore, exposition, expound, express, exterior, extradition,
extravagant, extreme, extrinsic, exuberant, eyas, eyre.
fable, fabric, face, facetious, facile, faction, faculty, fade, fail,
faint, fair (2), fairy, faith, falcon, fallacy, false, fame, famine,
fanatic, fantigue, farce, farcy, farm, farrier, fascine, fash, fashion,
fate, fatigue, faucet, fault, favour, fawn (2), fay, fealty, feasible,
feast, feat, feature, febrile, fecundity, federal, feeble, feign, felicity,
female, feminine, fence, fend, fenugreek, ferocity, ferrule, fertile,
fervent, fescue, fess, festal, fester, festival, féte, fetid, fibre, fiction,
fidelity, fie, fierce, figure, filament, file (1), fillet, final, finance,
fine (1), finish, firm (1), firmament, fiscal, fissure, fitz, fix, flaccid,
flagrant, flail, flambeau, flame, flatulent, flavour, fleur-de-lis,
flexible, flock (2), floss, flounce (2), flour, flourish, flower, flue (1),
fluid, flush (4), fluviatile, flux, foible, foil (1), foil (2), foin, foison,
foliage, follicle, folly, foment, font (2), fool, for- (3), force (1), force
(2), foreclose, foreign, forest, forfeit, forge, forjudge, form, formidable,
fort, fortify, fortitude, fortress, fortune, fosse, fossil, foster (2), found
(1), found (2), founder, fount, fraction, fracture, fragile, fragment,
fragrant, frail (1), frail (2), franion, fraternal, fraternity, fratricide (1),
fraud, fray (1), fray (3), frequent, fret (3), fret (4), friable, friar,
fricassee, friction, frieze (2), fringe, frippery, fritter (1), fritter (2),
front, frontal, frontier, frontispiece, frontlet, frounce, fructify, frugal,
fruit, fruition, frumenty (furmenty, furmety), frush, fry (1), fry (2),
fuel, fugitive, full (2), fume, fumitory, function, fund, fundament,
funeral, furious, furnace, furtive, fury, fuse (2), fusee (1), fusee (2),
fusil (1), fusil (2), fust (1), fust (2), fusty, futile, future.
gall (2), gall (3), gammon (1), gaol (jail), garner, garnet, gaud,
gem, gender (1), gender (2), general, generous, genial, genital,
genitive, genre, genteel, gentian, gentile, gentle, gentry, genuflection
(genuflexion), germ, german (germane), gestation, gibbous, gill (4),
gimbals, gin (2), gin (3), gingerly, gist, gizzard, glacial, glacier,
glacis, glair, glaive, glance, gland, glebe, globe, glory, glue, glut,
glutton, goblet, gorge, gorgeous, gourd, gout (1), gout (2), grace,
769
gradation, grade, grail (1), grail (2), grain, gramercy, grampus,
grand, grandeur, grange, grant, gratify, gratitude, gratuity, grave (2),
gravy, grease, grece, griddle (gridiron), grief, grieve, grill, grocer,
grog, grogram, gromwell, gross, grume, gules, gullet, gully, gutter,
guttural.
habiliment, habit, habitable, habitant, habitation, habitude,
haslets, hatchment, haughty, haut-gotit, hawser, hearse, heir, herb,
heritage, hibernal, hideous, homage, homicide, honest, honour,
horrible, horror, hospice, hospitable, hospital, host (1), host (2),
hostage, hostel, hostler (ostler), hotel, human, humble, humid,
humility, humour.
ides, ignition, ignoble, ignominy, ignore, iliac, illation, illegible,
illiberal, illicit, illusion, illustrious, im- (1), im- (4), image, imagine,
imbecile, imbibe, imbrue (embrew), immaterial, immeasurable,
immediate, immemorial, immense, immobility, immodest, immoral,
immortal, immovable, immunity, immure, immutable, impair, im-
pale, impalpable, imparity, impart, impartial, impassable, impas-
sible, impassioned, impassive, impatient, impeach, impearl?, im-
penetrable, impenitent, imperative, imperceptible, imperfect, imperial,
imperil, imperishable, impersonal, impertinent, impiety, impious,
implacable, implant, implead, implore, imply, import, importable,
importune, imposition, impossible, impotent, impoverish, impreg-
nable, imprint, imprison, improbable, impromptu, improper,
improve, imprudent, impudent, impugn, impure, impute, in- (2),
in- (3), inability, inaccessible, inaction, inadmissible, inalienable,
inanition, inapproachable, inapt, inattention, incage, incapable,
incapacity, incarnation, incase, incense (2), incertitude, incest, inci-
dent, incircle, incise, incite, incivil, inclement, incline, inclose,
incommensurable, incommode, incommunicable, incommutable, in-
comparable, incompatible, incompetent, incomprehensible, incon-
ceivable, inconsiderable, inconsolable, inconstant, incontestable,
incontinent (1), incontinent (2), incontrollable, inconvenient, in-
correct, increase, incredible, incrust, incumber, incurable, incursion,
indebted, indecent, indecision, indefatigable, indefeasible (AF.),
indelible, indelicate, indemnify, indemnity, indict, indiction, indif-
ferent, indigent, indignation, indirect, indiscreet, indisputable, in-
dissoluble, indistinct, indite, indivisible, indocile, indubitable, indue
(2), indulgence, industry, ineffable, ineffaceable, inefficacious, in-
eligible, ineloquent, inept, inequality, inestimable, inevitable, inex-
cusable, inexorable, inexpedient, inexperience, inexpert, inexpiable,
inexplicable, inextinguishable, inextricable, infallible, infamy, infect,
infelicity, infer, inferior, infernal, infest, infidel, infirmary, infirmity,
inflame, inflexible, inflorescence, influence, inform, infraction,
infrangible, infuse, infusible, ingender, ingenious, inglorious, in-
grain, ingratitude, ingredient, inhabit, inherit, inhospitable, inhuman,
inhume, inimitable, iniquity, injudicious, injure, injustice, innavigable,
innocent, innumerable, inoffensive, inofficial, inoperative, inop-
portune, inquest, inquietude, insatiable, inscrutable, insect, insen-
sible, inseparable, insidious, insincere, insipid, insist, insobriety,
insolent, insolidity, insoluble, inspire, instability, instance, instate,
instil, instinct, instrument, insubjection, insufferable, insult, insuper-
able, insupportable, insure, insurmountable, insurrection, intellect,
intelligence, intemperance, intend, intent, inter, intercede, intercept,
interchange, intercostal, intercourse, interest (1), interest (2), inter-
fere, interjection, interlace, interlard, interlocution, intermeddle,
intermediate, intern, interpellation, interposition, interpret, interstice,
interval, intervene, interview, intestine, intituled, intolerable, intract-
able, intreat (with E. prefix), intrench (with E. prefix), intrinsic,
introit, intuition, intumescence, inure, inurn, inutility, invade,
invalid, invaluable, invariable, invasion, inveigle (AF.), invent,
inverse, invest, invincible, inviolable, invisible, invite, invoice,
invoke, involve, invulnerable, ir- (1), ir- (2), ire, irreclaimable,
irreconcilable, irrecoverable, irrecuperable, irredeemable, irrefrag-
able, irrefutable, irregular, irrelevant, irreligious, irremediable, irre-
missible, irremovable, irreparable, irreprehensible, irrepressible,
irreproachable, irreprovable, irresistible, irrespective, irretrievable,
irreverent, irrevocable, irrision, irruption, isle, issue, ivory.
jail, jamb, jargon, jaundice, jaunty, jaw, jeer ?, jelly, jeopardy,
jesses, jest, jet (1), jetsam, jetty, jewel, jocund, (john) dory, join, joint,
joist, jostle, journal, journey, joust (just), jovial, joy, judge, judicature,
judicial, judicious, juggler, juice, July, jurisdiction, jurisprudence,
jurist, juror, jury, jury(mast)?, just (1), just (2), justice, justify,
justle, jut, juvenile, juxtaposition. ‘
kedge (1), kennel (1), kennel (2), kerchief, kestrel, ketch, kick-
shaws, kitten.
laborious, labour, lace, lacrosse, lake (1), lament, lamprey, lance,
lancet, language, languish, languor, larceny, lard, large, largess,
lash (1), lash (2), lassitude, latchet, lateen, Latin, latitude, launch (1)
(lanch), laundress, laurel, lave, lavish, laxative, leal, lease (1), leash,
leaven, lectern, lection, lecture, legacy, legal, legate, legend, leger-
demain, legible, legion, legist, legume, leisure, lenity, lentil, lentisk,
3D
770
lesion, lesson, lethal, letter, lettuce, levee, level, lever, leveret, levity,
levy, liable, liaison, liane, libation, libel, liberal, liberty, libidinous,
library, licence, license, licentious, lien, lieu, lieutenant, ligament,
ligature, limit, limn, limpid, line, lineage, lineament, liniment,
linnet, lintel, liquefy, liqueur, liquid, liquor, literal, literature,
litigious, litter (1), litter (2), livery, livid, lizard, local, loin,
longitude, lorimer, loriot, lounge, lovage, loyal, Juce, lucre, luminary,
luminous, lunatic, lune, lunge, iupine, luscious?, lush, lustre (2),
lute (2), luxation, luxury, lym,
mace (1), madam, mademoiselle, magistrate, magnanimity,
magnify, mail (1), mainour, maintain, majesty, maladministration,
maladroit, malady, malapert, malcontent (malecontent), male,
malediction, malformation, malice, malign, malison, mall (1),
mallard, malleable, mallet, maltreat, malversation, manacle, man-
chet ?, manciple, mandate, mandrel, mange, manger, manifest,
maniple, manner, manceuyre, manor, mansion, mantel, mantle,
manual, manufacture, manure, map, marble, march (2)? (or G.?),
March (3), marine, marish, marital, maritime, market, marl, mar-
moset, marry, mart, martial, martlet (2), marvel, mascle, masculine,
master, mastery, material, maternal, matins (mattins), matricide,
matrimony, matron, matter (1), matter (2), maugre, maul, maundy,
mauye, maxim, may (2), mayor, meagre, mean (3), measure, meddle,
mediation, mediator, medicine, mediocre, medley, melée, member,
membrane, memoir, memory, menace, mend, meniver (minever,
miniver), -ment, mental, mention, menu, mercenary, mercer, mer-
chandise, merchant, mercury, mercy, meridian, merit, merle, mesne,
mess (I), mess (2), message, messenger, messuage, mew (3), milfoil,
millet, million, mince, minim, minish, minister, minstrel, minuet,
miracle, mirage, mirror, mis- (2), misadventure, misalliance, mis-
chance, mischief, miscount, miscreant, miserable, misgovern, mis-
judge, misnomer, misprise (misprize), misprision, miss (2), missive,
Mister (Mr.), mistress, misuse, mobile, mock, mode, modern,
modest, modify, moiety, moil, moist, molest, mollify, moment,
money, monition, monster, monument, mood (2), Moor (3), mop (1),
moral, morbid, mordacity, Morian, morsel, mortal, mortar (2),
mortgage, mortify, mortmain, mortuary, motet, motion, motive,
mould (2), mound, mount (2), mountain, move, mucilage, mule,
mulled, mullet (1), mullet (2), multiply, multitude, multure,
mundane, municipal, munificence, muniment, munition, mural,
murmur, murrain, muscle (1), muse (1), mustard (with Teut, suffix),
muster, mutiny, mutual, muzzle, mystery (2) (mistery).
naive, napery, napkin (with E, suffix), narration, nasal, natal,
nation, native, natty, nature, naval, nave (2), navew, navigable, navi-
gation, navy, neat (2), necessary, negation, negligence, nephew,
nerve, net (2), newel, nias, nice, niece, noble, nocturn, noisome
(with E, suffix), nonage, nonchalant, nonpareil, notable, notary,
notch, note, notice, notify, notion, notoriety, noun, nourish, novel,
novice, noyau, nuance, nuisance, null, number, numbles, numeration,
numerous, nuncupative, nuptial, nurse, nurture, nutritive.
obedient, obeisance, obey, obit, objurgation, oblation, oblige,
oblique, oblivion, oblong, obscure, obsequies, observe, obstacle,
obtain, obtest, obtuse, occasion, occident, occupy, occur, octave,
octroi, odour, offend, office, ointment, omelet, omnipotent, omni-
present, onerous, onion, opacity, opaque, opinion, oppilation,
opportune, opposite, oppress, oppugn, optative, option, opulent,
or (3), oracle, oration, orator, orb, ordain, order, ordinance,
ordinary, ordination, ordnance, ordure, oriel, orient, orifice, Ori-
flamme, origin, oriole, orison, orle, ormolu, ornament, orpiment,
orpine (orpin), osprey, ostentation, ostler, ounce (1), oust, outrage,
oval, ovation, oyert, overture, oyer, oyes (oyez).
pace, pacify, page (2), pail, paint, painter, pair, palace, palate,
palatine, pale (1), pale (2), palette, palisade, pall (2), pallet
(1), palliasse, palm (1), palpable, pane, panel (pannel), pan-
nage, pannier, pansy, pantler, pantry, papa, papal, papiermaché,
parachute, paraffine, paramount, paramour, parboil, parcel, par-
cener, pardon, pare, parent, parget, parity, parlous, parricide,
parry, parsimony, parsnep (parsnip), parson, part, parterre, partial,
participle, particle, partition, partner, party, parvenu, pass, pas-
sage, passion, passive, passport, pastern, pastille, pate, patent,
paternal, patient, patois, patrimony, patron, pattern, paucity,
paunch, pave, pavilion, pawl, pawn (2), pay (1), pay (2), paynim
(painim), peace, peach (2); peal, pearl, peasant, peccant, pectoral,
peculiar, pecuniary, pedicel (pedicle), pedigree, peel (1), peel (2),
peel (3), peel (4), peep (1), peep (2), peer (1), peer (3), peise
(peize), peitrel, pelerine, pelisse, pell, pellet, pellicle, pellitory (1)
(paritory), pell-mell, pellncid, pelt (2), pen (2), penchant, pencil,
pendant, penitent, pennon (pennant), penny-royal, pensile, pension,
pensive, penthonse, penury, people, peradventure, perceive, perch (1),
perchance, perdition, perdurable, peregrination, peremptory, perfect,
perforce, perfume, peril, perish, perjure, perk, permanent, permu-
lation, pernicious, peroration, perpendicular, perpetual, perplex,
DISTRIBUTION OF WORDS (FRENCH FROM LATIN)
perry, persecute, persevere, persiflage, persist, person, perspective,
perspicacity, perspiration, persuade, pert, pertain, pertinacity,
pertinent, perturb, pervert, pest, pester, pestilent, pestle, petard,
petiole, petition, petronel, pie (1), pie (2), pie (3), Piepowder
Court, pierce?, piety, pigeon, pile (2), pill (1), pill (2), pillage,
pillar, pimp, pimpernel, pinion, pinnacle, pioneer, pious, pip (3),
pity, placid, plagiary, plague, plaice, plain, plaint, plaintiff, plain-
tive, plait, plan, plane (1), plane (2), plank, plantain (1), plat (2),
plate, plateau, platform, platitude, platoon, platter, plea, pleach
(plash), plead, please, pleasure, plebeian, plenitude, plenty, pliable,
pliant, pliers, plight (2), plot (1), plover, plumage, plumb, plume,
plummet, plump (2), plunge, plural, plush, pluvial, ply, poignant,
point, poise, poison, poitrel (peitrel), polish, pomegranate, pommel,
ponent, poniard, pontiff, pony, pool (2), poor, poplar, popular,
porch, porcupine, pork, porpoise (porpess), port (1), port (3),
porteullis, Porte, porter (1), porter (2), porter (3), portesse (portos,
portous), portion, portrait, portray, position, positive, possible,
post (2), posterity, postern, postil, posture, potable, potch, potion,
poult, poultice, pounce (1), pounce (2), pourpoint, pourtray,
poverty, powder, power, prairie, praise, pray, pre- (or L.), preach,
preamble, prebend, precaution, precede, precept, precious, precipice,
precise, preconceive, predestine, predetermine, predilection, pre-
eminence, pre-engage, preface, prefect, prefer, prefigure, prefix,
pregnant (1), pregnant (2), prejudge, prejudice, prelate, preliminary,
prelude, premier, premise (premiss), premonish, prentice, pre-
occupy, preordain, prepare, prepay, prepense, preposition, pre-
Togative, presage, prescience, presence, present (1), present (2),
presentiment, preserve, preside, press (1), press (2), prestige, presume,
pretend, preter- (or L.), preterit (preterite), pretext, prevail, prey,
prial, price, pride ?, prim, prime (1), prime (2), primitive, primo-
geniture, primordial, primrose, prince, principal, principle, print,
prior (2), prise (prize), prison, pristine, privet ?, privilege, privy,
prize (1), prize (2), prize (3), pro- (or L., or Gk.), probable, pro-
bation, probity, proceed, proclaim, procure, prodigal, prodigy,
profane, profess, proffer, profit, profound, progenitor, progeny,
progress, project, prolific, prolix, prolong, promenade, prominent,
promise, prompt, prone, pronoun, pronounce, proof, proper, pro-
pinquity, proportion, proposition, propriety, prorogue, prose, protest,
provender, proverb, province, provision, provoke, prowess, prox-
imity, proxy, prude, prudent, prune (1), pry, puberty, public,
publication, publish, puce, puerile, puisne, puissant, pule, pullet,
pulp, pulpit, pulse (1), pulverise, pumice, pummel, punch (1),
punch (2), puncheon (1), puncheon (2), punctual, punish, puny,
pupil (1), pupil (2), puppet, puppy, pur-, purchase, pure, purfle,
purge, purify, purity, purl (2), purl (3), purlieu, purloin, purport,
urpose (2), purslain (purslane), pursue, pursy, purtenance, puru-
ent, purvey, purview, push, pustule, putative, putrefy, putrid,
quadrangle, quadruple, quail (1), quaint, qualify, quality,
quantity, quarrel (1), quarrel (2), quarry (1), quarry (2), quart,
quartan, quarter, quartern, quash, quatrain, quatrefoil, quest, ques-
tion, queue, quilt, quintain, quintessence, quintuple, quire (1), quit,
quite, quoin, quoit (coit) ἢ, quote, quotidian, quotient (or L.).
rabbet, race (3), raceme, radical, radish, rage, ragout, rail (1),
rail (2), raisin, rally (1), ramify, rampart, rancour, ransom, rapid
(or L.), rapine, rare, rase, rash (2), rash (3), rash (4), rate (1),
rate (2), ratify, ration, ravage, rave, raven (2), ravine, ravish,
ray (1), ray (2), raze, razor, re-, red- (or L.), realm, rear (2),
reason, reasty, rebate, rebel, rebound, rebuke, receive, recent, re-
ceptacle, recheat, recite, reclaim, recluse, recognise, recoil, recollect,
recommend, recompense, reconcile, reconnoitre, record, recount,
recourse, recover, recreant, recreation, recruit, rectangle, rectify,
rectitude, recusant, reddition, redeem, redolent, redouble, redoubt-
able, redound, redress, refection, refer, refine, reform, refrain (1),
refrain (2), refuge, refuse, refute, regal, regent, regicide, regiment,
region, register, reglet, rehearse, reign, rein, reins, reject, rejoice,
rejoin, relate, relay (1), release, relent, relevant, relic, relict, relieve,
religion, relinquish, reliquary, relique, relish, rely, remain, remand,
remedy, remember, reminiscence, remnant, remorse, remount, remove,
renal, rencounter (rencontre), render, rendezvous, rennet (2), re-
nounce, renown, rent (2), renunciation, repair (1), repair (2),
repartee, repast, repay, repeal, repeat, repent, repercussion, reper-
tory, repetition, replace, replenish, replete, reply, report, repository,
repoussé, represent, repress, reprieve, reprimand, reprint, reproach,
reprove, reptile, republic, repugnant, repute, request, require, re-
quite, reredos, rescind, rescript, rescue, research, resemble, resent,
reserve, reside, residue, resign, resist, resort, resound, resource, re-
spect, respire, respite, respond, rest (2), restaurant, restitution, restive,
restore, restrain, result, resume, resurrection, retail, retain, retard,
retention, reticule, retinue, retort, retract, retreat, retrench, retri-
bution, return, reveal, reveillé, revel, revenge, revenue, revere,
reverie (revery), reverse, revert, review, revile, revise, revisit, revive,
DISTRIBUTION OF WORDS (FRENCH FROM LATIN)
revoke, revulsion, rinse ?, risible, rissole, rival, river, roam, robust,
rogation, roil (rile) ?, roistering, roll, romance, romaunt, rondeau,
rosemary, rote (1), rotundity, roué, rouge, rouleau, roulette, round,
roundel, rout (1 axd 2), route, routine, rowel, royal, rubasse, rubric,
ruby, rude, ruin, rule, rumour, runagate, rundlet (runlet), rupture,
tural, ruse, russet, rustic, rut (1), rut (2).
sacerdotal, sack (3), sacred, sacrifice, sacrilege, sacristan (sexton),
safe, sage (1), sage (2), sainfoin, saint, salary, saline, sally, salmon,
saltier, salutary, salvage, salvation, sample, sanctify, sanctimony,
sanction, sanctuary, sanguine, sanicle, sans, sapience, sash (1),
satellite, satin, satire, satisfy, saturnine, sauce, saunter, sausage,
Savage, save, Savory, savour, saxifrage, say (3), scabious, scald (1),
scamper, scape (2), scarab, scarce, scent, science, scintillation, scion ?,
scissors, sconce (I), sconce (2), scorch, scour (2), scourge, scout (1),
screw (1), scrip (2), script, scripture, scrivener, scroyles, scruple,
scullery, scullion, sculpture, scur, scutcheon, scutiform, seal, séance,
search, season, second, secret, secretary, sect, section, secular,
sedentary, sediment, sedition, see (2), seel, seignior, sejant, sell (2),
semblance, seminal, sempiternal, senate, sennet, sense, sentence,
sentiment, sentry, sepal, sept, sepulchre, sequel, sequence, sequester,
sere (2), serf, sergeant (serjeant), serious, sermon, serpent, serried,
serve, session, set (2), seton, sever, severe, sewer (1), sewer (2),
sex, shark, shingles, shirk, siege, sign, signal, signet, signify, silence,
similar, similitude, simnel, simple, simpleton, sincere, singular, sir,
sire, site, sizar, size (1), skillet, sluice, soar, sober, sociable, soil (1),
soil (2), soil (3), soirée, sojourn, solace, solder, soldier, sole (2),
sole (3), solemn, solicit, solicitude, solid, soliped, solitary, solitude,
solstice, soluble, solution, sombre, somnolence, sorb, sorcery, sordid,
sort, sortie, sou, sound (3), source, souse (1), souse (2), souvenir,
sovereign, space, spandrel, spawn, special, specify, specious, spectacle,
spectre, spencer, spice, spine, pinney, spiracle, spirit, spite, spittle
(2), splay, spoil, spoliation, sport, spouse, sprain, sprite (spright),
spurge, square, squash, squat, squire (1 and 2), stable (1), stable (2),
stage, stain, stamin (tamine, taminy, tamis, tammy), stanch (staunch),
stanchion, standard, stank, state, station, statue, stature, statute,
stencil, sterile, stipulation, store, story (2), stover?, strain (1),
strait, strange, stray, stress, structure, strumpet ?, stubble, study,
stuff, stupefy, stupid, style (1), suasion, suave, subaltern, subdue,
subject, subjoin, sublime, submerge, suborn, subsidy, subsist, sub-
stance, substitute, subterfuge, subtle, suburb, subvention, subvert,
succeed, succour, succulent, suction, sudden, sudorific, sue, suet,
suffer, suffice, suffrage, suicide, suit, suite, sullen, sully, sam, summit,
summon, sumptuous, superabound, superb, superexcellent, super-
intendent, superior, superlative, supernal, supernatural, super-
numerary, superscription, supersede, superstition, supplant, supple,
supplement, suppliant, supply, support, supposition, supreme, sur-
(2), surcease, surcingle, sure, surface, surfeit, surge, surloin, surmise,
surmount, surpass, surplice, surplus, surprise, surrejoinder, surrender,
surround, surtout, surveillance, survey, survive, susceptible, suspect,
suspend, sustain, suture, suzerain.
tabard ἢ, tabernacle, table, tail (2), tailor, taint, tally, talon,
tamper, tangible, tantamount, tardy, tart (2), task, tassel (1),
taste, taunt, tavern, tax, teil, temerity, tempest, temple (2), tem-
poral, tempt, tenable, tenacity, tenant, tench, tend (1), tend (2),
tender (1), tender (2), tender (3), tendon, tendril, tenebrous (tene-
brious), tenement, tennis, tenon, tenor, tense (1), tent (1), tent (2),
tent (4), tenter, tenuity, tenure, tercel, tergiversation, term, termi-
nation, termite, terreen (tureen), terrible, terrier, territory, terror,
tertian, test, testament, tester, testicle, testify, testy, text, texture,
tierce (terce), timid, tinsel, tiny?, tissue, titillation, title, tittle,
toast (1), toast (2), toil (1), toil (2), toilet (toilette), toise, tonsil,
tonsure, torch, torment, tormentil, torrent, torrid, torsion, tort,
tortoise, tortuous, torture, total, trace (1), trace (2), trail, trail-
baston, train, trait, traitor, trajectory, trammel, trance, tranquil,
transaction, trans-alpine, transfigure, transform, transgression, trans-
late, transmigration, transparent, transpierce, transplant, transport,
transposition, transubstantiation, travail, trave, travel, traverse,
travesty, treachery, treason, treat, treble, trefoil, trellis, tremble,
trench ἢ, trental, trepidation, trespass, trestle (tressel), tret, trey,
triangle, tribe, tribulation, tribune, tribute, trick (1), trick (2),
tricolor, trident, trifle, trillion, Trinity, trinket (1) ὃ, triple, triumph ?,
trivial, tron, trot ?, trouble, trounce, trowel, truculent, truffle, trump
(2), trumpery, truncheon, trunk (1), trunnion, try, tube, tuition,
tuly, tumefy, tumult, turbine, turbot, turbulent, turmoil ?, turnpike ?,
turpitude, turret, tutor.
ubiquity, ulcer, umbilical, amble-pie, umbrage, umpire, uncle,
unction, unicorn, uniform, union (1), union (2), unique, unison,
unit, unity, universal, urbanity, urchin, ure, urine, urn, use (1),
use (2), usher, usurp, usury, utas, utensil, uterine, utilise, utility,
utterance (2).
vacation, vacillation, vagabond, vague, vail (1), vail (2), vail (3),
ΧΙ
vain, vair, yalance, vale, valentine, valerian, valetudinary, valiant,
valid, valley, valour, value, valve, vambrace, vamp, vamplate, van
(1), van (2), vanish, vanity, vanquish, vantage, vapour, variety,
vary, vase, vast, Vatican, vaticination, vault (1), vaunt, veal,
veer, vegetable, vehement, veil, vein, vellum, velocity, velvet,
venal, vend, venerable, venery, venew (venue, veney), vengeance,
venial, venison, venom, vent (1), vent (2), vent (3), ventail, ventricle,
venture, venue, verb, verdant, verderer, verdict, verdigris, verditer,
yerge (1), verify, verisimilitude, verity, verjuice, vermeil, vermilion, ver-
min, versatile, versify, version, vert, vervain, verve, very, vessel, vestal,
yestige, vestment, vestry, vesture, vetch, vex, viand, vicar, vice (1),
vice (2), vice-gerent, vicinage, victim, victory, victuals, vie, view;
vigil, vignette, vigour, vile, villain, vindictive, vine, vinegar, vintage,
vintner, violent, violet, viper, virgin, virile, virtue, virulent, visage,
vis-a-vis, viscid, viscount, visé, visible, vision, visit, visor (vizor,
vizard, visard), visual, vital, vitriol, vituperation, vivacity, vivandieére,
vivify, vocable, vocal, vocation, vociferation, voice, void, volant,
volition, volley, voluble, volume, voluntary, voluptuous, volute,
voracity, vouch, vouchsafe, voussoir, vow, vowel, voyage, vulcanise,
vulgar, vulpine.
widgeon, wyvern (wivern).
Late Latin from French from Latin: crenellate.
Provengal from French from Latin: sirrah.
Ttalian from French from Latin: oboe.
Spanish from French from Latin: platina.
Dutch from French from Latin: abele, cashier, commodore, cost,
domineer, excise (1), foy, vade.
Provencal from Latin: battledoor, capstan, colander, funnel,
lingo, muckinder, musty, noose, spigot, ullage.
French from Provengal from Latin: amadou, badinage, caisson,
cardoon, casern, fad, fig, goitre, gurnard, lozenge, ricochet, somer-
sault, soubrette.
Spanish from Provengal from Latin: flamingo.
Italian from Latin: allegro, alto, antic, askance ?, attitude,
belladonna, broccoli, canto, canzonet, caper (1), casino, cicerone,
contralto, contrapuntal, cupola, curvet, dado, dilettante, ditto, doge,
duel, duet, ferret (2), granite, gurgle, incognito, influenza, infuriate,
intaglio, isolate, Jerusalem (artichoke), lagoon (lagune), lava, lira,
macaroni (maccaroni), madonna, manifesto, maraschino, mezzotinto,
miniature, motto, nuncio, opera, petto, piano, pianoforte, piazza,
pilgrim, portico, presto, profile, punch (4), punchinello, quartet
(quartette), rallentando, salvo, semibreve, semolina, seraglio, sfor-
zando, signor (signior), size (2), soda, solo, sonata, soprano, stanza,
stiletto, terra-cotta, travertine, trio, tufa, ultramarine, umbrella,
vendetta, vermicelli, vista, volcano.
French from Italian from Latin: accolade, alarm (alarum), alert,
apartment, arcade, artisan, basement, belvedere, bronze, bulletin,
burlesque, cab (1), cabriolet, cadence, campaign, cape (2), caprice,
capriole, caress, carnival, cascade, cash (1), cassock, cavalcade, cava-
lier, cavalry, citadel, colonel, colonnade, compartment, concert, cor-
nice, corridor, corsair, cortege, costume, countertenor, courier, cour-
tesan, couvade, cuirass, dome, douche, ducat, escort, esplanade, facade,
festoon, filigree, florin, fracas, fugue, gabion, galligaskins, gambado,
gambit, gambol, gelatine, imprese, improvise, incarnadine, infantry,
intrigue, junket, league (1), levant, lustre (1), lutestring, macaroon,
mall (2), manage, manege, mercantile, mizen (mizzen), model, mole
(3), musket, niche, ortolan, paladin, pallet (2), parapet, parasol,
partisan (1), partisan (2), pastel, periwig, peruke, pilaster, pinnace,
piston, poltroon, pomade (pommade), poop, populace, porcelain,
postillion, preconcert, quarantine, redoubt, reprisal, revolt, risk, rocket
(2), salad, sallet, salmagundi, saveloy (cervelas), sentinel?, soffit,
sonnet, spinet, spontoon, squad, squadron, termagant, terrace, tra-
montane, trinket (2), ultramontane, umber, vault (2), vedette (vidette).
Low German (or Dutch) from French from Italian from Latin : mon-
key, wig.
Spanish from Italian from Latin; contraband.
German from Italian from Latin: barouche.
Spanish from Latin: albino, alligator, armada, armadillo,
assonant, binnacle, bolero ?, bonito, booby, brocade, canary, capsize,
carbonado, cask, chinchilla, contango, cork, corral, cortes, despatch,
disembogne, domino, don (2), duenna, firm (2), funambulist, grandee,
hacienda, hidalgo, junta, junto, lariat, lasso, llano, mallecho, matador,
merino, morris, mosquito, mulatto, mustang, negro, olio, peccadillo,
peseta, primero, punctilio, quadroon, real (2), reata, renegade, salver,
seguidilla, sherry, sierra, siesta, sombrero, stevedore, tent (3),
toreador, tornado, vanilla.
French from Spanish from Latin: calenture, casque, chopine,
comrade, creole, crusade, doubloon, escalade, farthingale, grenade,
jade (2), jonquil, manchineel, nigger, ombre, parade, pint, plantain
(2), punt (2), quadrille, roan, sassafras, spaniel.
Italian from Spanish from Latin; comply, majolica.
3D2
772
French from Italian from Spanish from Latin: compliment.
Portuguese from Latin: auto-da-fe, ayah, caste, cobra de
capello, joss, junk (2), madeira, milreis, moidore, molasses, peon,
pimento, port (4), tank, verandah ?
French from Portuguese from Latin: chamade, corvette, fetich
(fetish), serval.
Dutch from Portuguese from Latin: kraal.
French from Romaunsch from Latin: marmot.
German from Hungarian from Servian from Late Greek from Latin :
hussar.
Dutch from Latin: anker, bung, buoy, cornel, coy (2), cruise,
pip (1), tafferel (taffrail),
Scandinavian from Latin: kettle.
German from Latin: drilling, larch,
French from Old High German from Latin; pitcher, waste.
French from Middle High German from Latin: baldric, coif, fife,
quoif,
Russian from Teutonic from Latin: czar.
Celtic from Latin: bannock, caber, cross, pillion, plaid, quaich.
Gaelic from English from Latin : pibroch.
French from Portuguese from Arabic from Greek from Latin:
apricot.
French from Italian from Arabic from Latin: garble.
French from Spanish from Arabic from Latin : quintal.
Italian from Spanish from Arabic from Latin: mandilion.
Dutch from French frcm Stanish from Arabic from Latin : kilderkin.
Late Latin: barrister, bosky, bush (1), calamanco, campani-
form, cap, capital (3), celt (2), clary, cope (1), crucible, edible,
elongate, elucidate, fine (2), flask, fortalice, grate (1), hoax, hocus-
pocus, implement, indent (1), intimidate, machicolation, pageant,
plenary.
French from Late Latin: almanack, ambush, bachelor, bail (2),
bale (3), ball (1), barge, barnacle (1), barnacle (2), basin, basnet,
bastard, baste (2), baton, batten (2), betony, bittern, boot (1),
bottle (1) bouquet, branch, bugle (3), burden (2), burganet, burl,
butler, butt (2), buttery, chape, chemise, crochet, crocket, croquet,
crosier, crotchet, crouch, cumber, drab (2), drape, fell (3), felon,
ferret (1), flagon, frock, gallery, galley, gauge (gage), gown, hutch,
identity, lavender, mackerel, marjoram, mastiff, menagerie, menial,
muffle, oleander, osier, tire (4), tire (5).
Walloon from French from Late Latin: muff (1).
French from Provengal from Late Latin: ballad, bastile. cabbage
(2), cabin, viol.
French from Gascon from Late Latin: cad, cadet.
French from Italian from Provencal from Late Latin: bastion.
Italian from Late Latin: fiasco.
French from Italian from Late Latin: ballet, barcarolle, bark (1),
battalion, capuchin, catacomb, falchion, gallias, pivot.
S/ansh from Late Latin; ambuscade, bastinado, embargo, galleon.
French from Spanish from Late Latin: caparison, cape (1).
French from Portuguese from Late Latin: bayadere.
French from German from Late Latin: spurry.
GREEK. a-, acacia, acatalectic, acephalous, achromatic,
acme, acotyledon, acoustic, acropolis, acrostic, actinic, zsthetic,
agnostic, allopathy, amazon, ambrosia, amorphous, amphi-, amphi-
bious, amphibrach, amphitheatre, an- (a-), ana-, anabaptist, ana-
chronism, anesthetic, anapest (anapeest), anemone, aneroid, aneurism,
anhydrous, anomaly, anonymous, anthology, anthracite, anthropology,
anli-, anticlimax, antinomian, antiseptic, antithesis, antitype, aorist,
apepsia, aphelion, aphis, apo-, apocrypha, apophthegm (apothegm),
apteryx, archeology, archaic, archaism, areopagus, aristocracy,
arsis, arthritis, asbestos, ascetic, ascidian, asphodel, asphyxia,
asterism, asteroid, asthma, asymptote, ataxy, atheism, athlete, atlas,
atmosphere, autobiography, autocracy, automaton, autonomy,
autopsy, azalea.
barometer, barytes, bathos, belemnite, bibliography, bibliolatry,
bibliomania, biography, biology, bromine, bronchial.
cacophony, caligraphy (calligraphy), calisthenics (callisthenics),
calomel, carotid, caryatides, cata-, cataclysm, catalepsy, catarrh,
catastrophe, category, cathartic, catoptric, ceramic, chiliad, chiro-
graphy, chlorine, chromatic, chrome, chromium, chronology,
chronometer, chrysalis, church, cissoid, clematis, climax, clime,
coleoptera, collodion, colocynth, coloquintida, colon (1), colon (2),
colophon, colophony, coma, coprolite, coracoid, cosmetic, cosmic,
cosmogony, cosmography, cosmology, cosmopolite, cotyledon, crasis,
creosote, cricoid, crisis, crony ?, croton, cryptogamia, cyanogen.
dandy ?, decagon, decahedron, decasyllabic, deleterious, demotic,
dendroid, derm, di- (2), dia-, diabetes, diacritic, diagnosis, dia-
phanous, diaphoretic, diastole, diatonic, dicotyledon, didactic,
digamma, digraph, dimorphous, dicecious, dioptrics, diorama,
DISTRIBUTION OF WORDS (GREEK)
diphtheria, dipsomania, diptera, dodecagon, dodecahedron, dogma,
doll, drastic, dynamic.
eclectic, eczema, elastic, empyreal (empyrean), encrinite, endemic,
enema, enteric, enthusiasm, entozoon, eocene, ephemera, epi-,
epiglottis, episode, eponymous, erotic, esoteric, eu-, eucalyptus,
euphemism, euphony, euphrasy, euphuism, Euroclydon, euthanasia,
exegesis, exogen, exoteric.
glossographer, glottis, glyptic, gnostic, Gordian, gynarchy.
Hades, hagiographa, hector, hegemony, heliocentric, helminthology,
hemi-, hendecagon, hendecasyllabic, heptagon, heptahedron, hept-
archy, hermeneutic, hermetic, hesperian, heterodox, heterogeneous,
hierophant, hippish, hippocampus, histology, homeopathy (homceo-
pathy), homogeneous, homologous, hoplite, hyades, hydatid, hy-
drangea, hydrodynamics, hydrogen, hydropathy, hydrostatics, hyp-
notism.
ichor, ichthyography, iconoclast, icosahedron, idiosyncrasy, iodine,
iota, isochronous, isothermal.
kaleidoscope, kerosene, kinematic, kinetic, kirk, kleptomania.
lepidoptera, leucoma, lexicon, lithography, logarithm, lycan-
thropy.
macrocosm, mznad, malachite, mastodon, megalosaurus, mega-
therium, melanite, meningitis, meniscus, mentor, meso-, meta-, meta-
phrase (metaphrasis), metastasis, metempsychosis, methylated,
miasma, microscope, miocene, misanthrope, misogamy, mnemonics,
mono-, monocotyledon, monody, monomania, monotony, morphia,
morphine, myopia, myriad, myth.
necrology, neology, nepenthe (nepenthes), neuralgia, nomad,
nosology.
octagon, octahedron, omega, onomatopeia, ontology, ophidian,
ophthalmia, opodeldoc (partly), ornithology, ornithorhyncus, or-
thoepy, orthopterous, osmium, osteology, ostracise, oxide, oxygen,
oxytone, ozone.
pachydermatous, pzdobaptism, paleography, paleology, pale-
ontology, palimpsest, palindrome, pan-, pandemonium, panic,
panoply, panorama, pantheism, para-, parallax, parenthesis, Parian,
paronymous, parthenogenesis, pathos, pedobaptism, pelargonium,
peri-, perianth, pericarp, perihelion, peritoneum, petal, philander,
philharmonic, phlox, pholas, phonetic, photography, phrenology,
phyllophorous, phytoid, picric, pleiocene, pleistocene, plesiosaurus,
pneumonia, polemical, polyglot, polyhedron, polysyllable, polythe-
ism, pro- (or L.; or F. from L.), pros-, prosthetic, pterodactyl,
pytetic, pyrotechnic.
saurian, schist, septic, skeleton, skink (2), sporadic, spore, statics,
stenography, stentorian, stereoscope, stereotype, stethoscope, strophe,
strychnine, style (2), synchronism, systole, syzygy.
tactics, tantalise, taw (2), taxidermy, technical (with L. suffix),
telegraph, telescope, tetrahedron, thaumaturgy, theism, theocracy,
theodolite, thermometer, threnody, thyroid, tonic, toxicology, toxo-
philite, trigonometry, trilobite, triphthong, triptych.
Utopian. zoology, zymotic.
Latin (or Late Latin) from Greek: abacus, abyss, acan-
thus, egis, aerial, allegory, alms, aloe, amaranth, amethyst, am-
phisbeena, amphora, anzemia, anathema, anchor, anodyne, antagonist,
anthem, anthropophagi, antichrist, antipathy, antiphon, antiphrasis,
antipodes, antistrophe, aorta, apheresis, apocalypse, apocope,
apology, apostle, apostrophe, apotheosis, apse, arch (2), arch-,
archi-, archimandrite, argonaut, arnica?, aroma, artery, arum,
asphalt, aster, asterisk, astral, asylum, atomy (1), axiom.
bacchanal, bacterium, barbarous, basilica, basilisk, basis, bishop,
blaspheme, bolus, Boreas, box (1), box (2), box (3), bronchitis,
bryony, bucolic, bursar, butter.
cacoethes, cactus, cadmium, caduceus, calyx, camera, canister,
canon (1), capon, cardamom, carpus cartulary, castor, catapult,
cataract, catechise, cathedral, caustic, cedar, cemetery, cenobite
(ceenobite), centaur, cetaceous, chalcedony, chalybeate, chameleon,
chaos, character, chart, chasm, chervil, chest, chimera (chimera),
chord, chorus, Christ, chrysanthemum, chrysoprase, chyme, cist,
cistus, cithern (cittern), clepsydra, clyster, colchicum, colophony,
colossus, colure, comma, conch, copper, crambo, cranium, crapulous,
crater, critic, crocus, crypt, cyclamen, cyclops, cynic, cynosure, cyst.
dactyl, deacon, deuteronomy, devil, diabolic, diabolical, dizeresis,
diagram, diapason, diarrhoea, diatribe, dilemma, diploma, diptych,
disc (disk), dish, distich, dithyramb, doxology, drama, dryad,
dysentery, dyspepsy.
ecclesiastic, echinus, echo, eclogue, ecumenic (ecumenical), elec-
tric, electuary, eleemosynary, ellipse, elysium, emetic, emphasis,
emporium, enclitic, encomium, encyclical, encyclopedia, enigma,
enthusiasm,epic, epicene, epicure, epidemic, epidermis, epithalamium,
epithet, epitome, epoch, erysipelas, esophagus, ether, ethic, ethnic,
etymon, eucharist, eulogy, eunuch, euphorbia, eustachian, exarch,
exodus, exorcise, exotic.
DISTRIBUTION OF WORDS (LATIN FROM GREEK)
ganglion, gastric, genesis, Georgic, geranium, gigantic, glaucous,
gloss (2), glossary, gnomon, goby, Gorgon, graphic, gymnasium,
gyre.
halcyon, hamadryad, hebdomadal, heliacal, helix, helot, hemi-
stich, hemp, hermaphrodite, heteroclite, hexagon, hexameter, hiero-
glyphic, hippopotamus, history (story), holocaust, holothurian,
homonymous, hulk, hyaline, hybrid, hydra, hydrophobia, hyena,
hymen, hypallage, hyper-, hyperbole, hyphen, hypo-, hypochondria,
hypostasis, hypothesis.
iambic, ichneumon, idea, idyl (idyll), iliad, imp, impolitic (with
L. prefix), impracticable (with L. prefix), intoxicate (with L. prefix),
iris, isosceles, isthmus.
laconic, laic, laical, larynx, lemma, lemniscate, lethe, lichen,
ligure, lily, lithotomy, lotus, lynx.
magnesia, mania, marsupial, martyr, masticate, mausoleum,
meander, medic, mesentery, metamorphosis, metaphysics, metathesis,
metonymy, metropolis, mimic, minotaur, minster, mint (2), moly,
monad, monastery, monk, monogamy, monogram, monopoly, mu-
seum, myrmidon, mystery (1).
naiad, narcissus, nauseous, nautical, nautilus, nectar, nemesis,
neophyte, neoteric, Nereid, numismatic.
obolus, octopus, octosyllabic, oesophagus, oleaginous, oleaster,
Olympian, onyx, opium, opoponax, orchestra, orchis, oread, orphan,
orthodox (or F. from L. from Gk.), oxalis, oxymel.
Pean, palestra, palladium, panacea, pancreas, pander (pandar),
panegyric, pantheon, paraclete, paragoge, parallelopiped, paralysis,
paraphernalia, pard, paregoric, parergon, parhelion, parochial,
parody, Pean, peltate, pentameter, pentateuch, Pentecost, peony,
pericardium, pericranium, perimeter, peripatetic, periphery, peri-
phrasis, petroleum, phalanx, phallus, pharynx, phase (phasis),
phenix (pheenix), phenomenon, philanthropy, philippic, philology,
philomel, phocine, phosphorus, phthisis, plaster, plastic, plectrum,
pleiad, pleonasm, plethora, plinth, plum, pneumatic, poly-, poly-
anthus, polygon, polypus, presbyter, pretty ?, priest, prism, pro-
boscis, prolepsis, propine, proscenium, prosopopceia, Protean, pro-
thalamium, psalm, psychical, purse, pygarg, pylorus, pyramid,
pyre, pyrethrum, pyrites, python, pyx.
thinoceros, rhododendron, rhombus.
sapphic, sarcophagus, sardine (2), sardius, sardonyx, scalene,
scene, scheme, scirrhous, scoria, seam (2), sepia, sibyl, siren, soam,
spatula, sphinx, spleen, spondee, stoic, stole, storax, strangury,
sybarite, sycophant, symposium, syn-, synceresis, synalcepha, synco-
pate, synecdoche, synopsis, syntax, synthesis, system.
tenia, tape, tartar (3), tautology, terebinth, teredo, tetanus,
tetrarch, theogony, theorem, thesaurus, thesis, theurgy, thorax,
thrasonical, thurible, thyrsus, tick (2), tippet, Titan, topiary,
trachea, trapezium, tribrach, triglyph, trigon, trimeter, tripod (or
Gk.), triton, trochee, trope, trout, truck (2), truckle, turn, tym-
panum, typhus.
xylobalsam,
French from Latin (or Late Latin) from Greek:
abnormal, academy, acclimatize, ace, acolyte, aconite, adamant,
agaric, agate, agony, agrimony, air, alabaster, almond, almoner,
amass, amnesty, anagram, analogy, anarchy, anatomy, anchoret,
anecdote, angel, anise, antarctic, antelope, anther, antidote, apathy,
apogee, apologue, apoplexy, apostasy, apostate, apothecary, arche-
type, architect, archives, arctic, arithmetic, asp, aspic, astrology,
astronomy, atom, atomy (2), atrophy, attic, austere, authentic,
autograph,
baptize, base (2), basil (1), besant, blame, bolt (boult), bombard,
bombardier, bombast, bombazine, bound (1), brace, bracelet, bras-
sart, buff (2), bugloss, bulb, burbot, bureau, bushel.
calamint, calender (1), calm, calumet, cane, canon (2), cantle,
canvas, canvass, caper (2), cardiac, carol, carrot, carte, catalogue,
cataplasm, catholic, cauterise, celandine, cenotaph, centaury, centre,
cephalic, ceruse, chair, chaise, chamber, chamomile, charter, cheer,
chemist, cherry, chestnut (chesnut), chicory, chime, chimney, chi-
rurgeon, choir, choler, chrism, chronicle, chrysolite, chyle, cis-
tern, citron, clergy, clerk, clinical, cock (5), cockatrice, cockboat,
cockle (1), cocoon, coffer, coffin, colic, comedy, comet, cone, con-
ger, cope (2), coppice, coppy, copse, coquette, coral, cord, coriander,
corymb, costmary, coupon, cream, crétin, crocodile, crown, crystal,
cube, currant, cycle, cygnet, cylinder, cymbal, cyme, cypress (1),
cypress (2).
daffodil, dais, dauphin, decade, decalogue, democracy, demon,
despot, diachylon, diaconal, diadem, diagonal, dialect, dialogue,
diameter, diamond, diaper, diaphragm, diet (1), diet (2), dimity,
diocese, diphthong, dissyllabic, dittany, diuretic, dolphin, dragon,
dragoon, dram (drachm), dredge (2), dromedary, dropsy, drupe,
dynasty.
eccentric, eclipse, economy, ecstasy, elegy, emblem, embrocation,
773
emerods, empiric, encaustic, energy, entomology, cpaulet, epicycle,
epigram, epilepsy, epilogue, epiphany, episcopal, epistle, epitaph,
epode, evangelist.
fancy, fleam, frantic, frenzy.
galaxy, galoche (golosh), gangrene, gargle, gargoyle, gash,
genealogy, geography, geometry, germander, giant, gillyflower,
gittern, glamour, gloze, govern, graft (graff), gramarye, grammar,
grammatical, griffin (griffon), gudgeon, guitar.
halo, harmony, harpoon, harpy, hecatomb, hectic, heliotrope,
hellebore, hematite, hemisphere, hemorrhage, hemorrhoids (emerods),
hepatic, heresy, heretic, hermit, hero, heroine, hilarity, homily,
horizon, horologe, horoscope, hour, hyacinth, hydraulic, hydropsy,
hymn, hypocrisy, hypogastric, hypotenuse, hypothec, hysteric.
idiom, idiot, idol, imposthume, ingraft (engraft), inharmonious,
ink, irony.
jacinth, jalousie, jealous, jet (2). kit (2).
labyrinth, laity, lamp, lantern, lay (3), leopard, leper, leprosy,
lethargy, licorice (liquorice), litany, litharge, litre, liturgy, lobe,
logic, lyre.
mace (2), machine, magnet, mandrake, mangonel, mass (1),
mastic (mastich), match (2), mathematic, mechanic, medlar, me-
grim, melancholy, melilot, meiody, melon, metal, metallurgy,
metaphor, method, mctre (meter), mettle, microcosm, misty (2),
mitre, monarchy, monochord, monosyllable, mosaic, murrey, muse
(2), music, myrobalan (mirobalan), mystic, mythology.
necromancy, Nick (2), noise ?, nymph.
obelisk, ocean, ochre, ode, oil, oligarchy, olive, orach (orache),
organ, orgies, origan (origanum), orthodox (or L.-Gk.}, ortho-
graphy, ounce (2), oyster.
page (1), pain, palinode, palsy, pamphlet, pandect, pant, pan-
ther, pantomime, parable, paradigm, paradox, paragraph, parallel,
parallelogram, paralogism, paralyse, paraphrase, parasite, parch ?,
parchment, parish, parley, parliament (with F. suffix), parlour (with
F. suffix), parole, paroxysm, parrot, parsley, partridge, paste, pasty,
paten, patriarch, perigee, patriot, patronymic, patty, pause, peda-
gogue, pelican, penal, penance, pentagon, perch (2), perigee, period,
pew, phaeton, phantasm, phantom, pharmacy, pheasant, phial,
philosophy, philtre, phiz, phlebotomy, phlegm, phrase, phylactery,
physic, physiognomy, physiology, pier, pilcrow, pip (2), pippin?,
pirate, place, plane (3) (plane-tree), planet, pleurisy, poem, poesy,
poet, pole (2), police, policy, polygamy, pomp, pore (1), porphyry,
pose (I), posy, practice, pragmatic, problem, proem, prognostic,
programme (program), prologue, prophecy, prophet, propose, prose-
lyte, prosody, protocol, protomartyr, prototype, prow, prune (2),
psaltery, pulley?, pump (2), pumpion (pumpkin), purple, purpose
(1) (with F. prefix), pygmy (pigmy).
quince, quire (2).
rankle, recoup (with L. prefix), resin (rosin), rhapsody, rhetoric,
rheum, rhomb, rhubarb, rhythm, rime (1), rue.
salamander, samite, sap (2)?, sarcasm, sardine (1), sardonic,
satyr, say (2), scammony, scandal, scantling (with L. prefix), scar
(1), scarify, sceptic, sceptre, schedule, schism, school (1), sciatic,
scorpion, seine, shawm (shalm), sinople, siphon, slander, solecism,
sophist, spasm, spay, sperm, sphere, spire (2), sponge, squill,
squirrel, stavesacre, stomach, story (1), strangle, stratagem, styptic,
succory, summer (2), sumpter, surgeon, surgery, syllable, syllogism,
symbol, symmetry, sympathy, symphony, symptom, synagogue,
syndic, synod, synonym, syringe.
talent, tansy, tapestry, tetragon, tetrasyllable, theatre, theme,
theology, theory, therapeutic, throne, thyme, tiffany, timbrel, tomb,
tome, tone, topaz, topic, topography, tour, tournament, tourniquet,
tower, tragacanth, tragedy, treacle, treasure, trepan (1), trephine,
tress, tressure, triad, trisyllable, triumph ?, troglodyte, trophy, tropic,
trousers, trousseau, trover, truss, tune, turpentine, type, tyrant.
vial. zeal, zed, zephyr, zest, zodiac, zone.
Low Latin from Latin from Greek : intone.
French from Provencal from Latin from Greek; tunny.
Italian from Latin from Greek: biretta, buffalo, eryngo, grotto,
madrigal, orris, piazza ?, sbirro, torso.
Spanish from Italian from Latin from Greek : melocoton.
French from Italian from Latin from Greek : baluster, balustrade,
banisters, buskin, cannon (1), canopy, canteen, canton, cartridge,
celery, espalier, grot, grotesque, manganese, medal, piastre.
Dutch from Italian from Latin from Greek : sketch.
Spanish from Latin from Greek: chigo, paraquito, pellitory (2)
(pelleter), sambo, silo, spade (2).
French from Spanish from Latin from Greek: bomb, castanets,
cochineal, ensilage, maroon (2), rumb (rhumb).
Portuguese from Latin from Greek: palaver.
French from Portuguese from Latin from Greek: marmalade.
Provencal from Latin from Greek : troubadour,
774
Dutch from Latin from Greek: bush (2), cant (2), ingle (2),
mangle (2).
German from Latin from Greek : zither.
French from German from Latin from Greek; petrel (peterel).
Scandinavian from Latin from Greek: beaker,
Celtic from Latin from Greek: sporran, spunk.
French from Greek: acrobat, amalgam, analyse, aphorism,
azote, botany, carpel, climacter, climate, demagogue, dose, embol-
ism, embryo, endogen, epact, exergue, glycerine, gnome, hierarchy,
hygiene, izzard, kilogramme, kilometre, malmsey, melodrama,
meteor, microbe, monologue, narcotic, oolite, ophicleide, optic,
oxygen, patristic, pentacle, pepsine, periapt, polytechnic, prophylac-
tic, pseudonym, quinsy, rhizome, semaphore, stalaciite, stalagmite,
stearine, steatite, stigmatise, sylph, trilogy, zoophyte.
Spanish from French from Greek : platina.
Italian from Greek: archipelago, banjo, barytone, gondola, scope.
French from Italian from Greek: caloyer, caravel, card (1),
emery, gulf, mandolin, moustache (mustache), pantaloon (1), panta-
loons, paragon, pedant ?, pilot.
Spanish from Italian from Greek: cedilla.
French from German from Greek: sabre.
Arabic from Greek: elixir, typhoon.
French from Arabic from Greek: alchemy.
Spanish from Arabic from Greek: talisman, tarragon.
Portuguese from Spanish from Arabic from Greek: albatross.
French from Spanish from Arabic from Greek; alembic, limbeck.
French from Italian from Arabic from Greck: carat.
Hebrew from Greek : sanhedrim.
Turkish from Greek: effendi.
SLAVONIC. This general term includes Russian, Polish,
Bohemian, Servian, &c.
French from Slavonic: sable.
French from German from Slavonic: calash, trump (1), trumpet,
trunk (2).
Italian from German from Slavonic : trombone,
French from Dutch from Slavonic : pram.
Scandinavian from Slavonic : sark.
Dutch from Low German from Slavonic : siskin.
French from Latin from Greek from Slavonic: slave.
French from Hungarian from Slavonic: shako,
Dalmatian: argosy.
French from Dalmatian: dalmatic.
German from Bohemian : howitzer.
French from German from Servian: vampire.
Russian: copeck, drosky, mammoth, permian, rouble (ruble),
samovar, steppe, verst, vodka, zemstvo.
French from Russian: ukase.
Polish: britska, mazurka, polack, polka.
French from Polish: varsovienne,
LITHUANIAN. Of Aryan origin, like Slavonic.
Dutch from German from Lithuanian: eland.
ASIATIC ARYAN LANGUAGES.
Persian : bakshish, bashaw, bazaar, bulbul, caravansary, car-
boy, dervish, divan, durbar, firman, mohur, nargileh, nylghau,
Parsee, pasha, peri, pillau, sepoy, serai, shah, shawl.
Latin from Greek from Persian : asparagus, cinnabar (cinoper),
laudanum, Magi, naphtha, parasang, rose, tiara ?.
French from Latin from Greek from Persian: jujube, magic,
margarine, musk, myrtle, nard, paradise, parvis, sandal, satrap,
tiger.
Italian from Latin from Greek from Persian: martello.
French from Italian from Latin from Greek from Persian: mus-
cadel (muscatel), musk, rice.
Spanish from Latin from Greek from Persian: pistachio (pistacho).
Dutch from Slavonic from Latin from Greek from Persian: gherkin.
French from Latin from Persian: peach (1), zedoary.
Italian from Persian: giaour, scimetar ὃ,
French from Italian from Persian: mummy, orange, taffeta (taffety).
French from Spanish from Persian : saraband.
Portuguese from Persian: lascar, pagoda.
French from Persian: bezique?, calender (2), caravan, jasmine,
khedive, roc, rook (2), scarlet, tutty, van (3).
Arabic from Persian: tarboosh, zircon.
Greek from Arabic from Persian: arsenic.
Low Latin from Arabic from Persian: borax.
French from Low Latin from Arabic from Persian: balas (ruby).
Italian from Arabic from Persian : tazza.
French from Italian from Arabic from Persian τ jargonelle.
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DISTRIBUTION OF WORDS (SLAVONIC, PERSIAN, SANSKRIT, HEBREW)
French from Spanish from Arabic from Persian : calabash, julep,
lilac, rob (2), spinach, tabour (tabor) ?, tambour?, tambourine ?.
French from Portuguese from Arabic from Persian: bezoar.
French from Arabic from Persian: azure, check, checker, checkers,
chess, exchequer.
Turkish from Persian : jackal, padishah.
French from Turkish from Persian: kiosk.
French from Italian from Turkish from Persian: tulip, turban.
Cape Dutch from Malay from Persian: sjambok.
Hindustani from Persian: cummerbund, pajamas (pyjamas),
sirdar, zamindar, zanana (zenana).
Sanskrit, avatar, brahmin (brahman), maharajah, pundit,
rajah, Sanskrit, suttee, Veda.
Latin from Greek from Sanskrit : bdellium, beryl, pepper.
French from Latin from Greek from Sanskrit : brilliant, saccharine.
French from Spanish from Latin from Greek from Persian from
Sanskrit : indigo.
French from Latin from Sanskrit :
Persian from Sanskrit: nuphar.
French from Persian from Sanskrit : lake (2), nenuphar.
French from Latin from Greek from Persian from Sanskrit:
sandal (wood).
French from Spanish from Arabic from Persian from Sanskrit :
aniline, sugar.
Portuguese from Sanskrit; banyan.
Arabic from Sanskrit: kermes.
French from Arabic from Sanskrit: crimson.
Spanish from Arabic from Sanskrit: carmine.
French from Italian from Arabic from Sanskrit: candy.
Hebrew from Sanskrit: algum.
French from Latin from Greek from Hebrew from Sanskrit : sap-
hire.
᾿ Hindi from Sanskrit: hackery, juggernaut, loot, punch (3).
Hindustani from Sanskrit: bandanna, champak, cheetah, chintz,
cowry, crore, deodar, ghee, gunny, jaconet, jungle, lac (1), lac (2),
opal, sendal (cendal).
| pawnee, punkah, rajpoot, ranee, rupee, wallah.
Portuguese from Hindustani from Sanskrit : bang (2), palanquin.
French from Portuguese from Hindustani from Sanskrit: lacquer
(lacker).
Hindustani from Prakrit from Sanskrit ; nautch.
Bengali from Sanskrit τ jute.
Tamil from Sanskrit: cash (2), corundum.
Portuguese from Canarese from Sanskrit : jaggery.
Portuguese from Malay from Sanskrit : mandarin.
French from Portuguese from Malay from Sanskrit; tombac.
Cingalese from Sanskrit : wanderoo.
EUROPEAN NON-ARYAN LANGUAGES.
French from Finnish; morse.
Hungarian : tokay.
French from Hungarian: coach.
Turkish; aga (agha), bey, bosh, caftan, yataghan,
French from Turkish: caique, caracal, chibouque, dey, odalisque,
shagreen,
Italian from Turkish: chouse.
French from Italian from Turkish; bergamot (1), janizary.
Spanish from Turkish; xebec,
German from Polish from Turkish: ublan.
French from German from Hungarian from Turkish Ὁ dolman.
SEMITIC LANGUAGES.
The principal Semitic languages are Arabic, Hebrew, and Ara-
maic, which includes Chaldee and Syriac.
Hebrew: abigail, behemoth, cab (2), cherub, cor, corban,
davit, ephod, gopher, hallelujah, hin, homer, Jehovah, jug, log (3),
Messiah, mishnah, Nazarite (with Gk. sfx), purim, Sabaoth,
Satan, selah, seraph, shekel, Shekinah, shibboleth, teraphim, thum-
mim, urim.
Greek from Hebrew: delta, hosanna, iota.
Latin from Greek from Hebrew: alphabet, alleluia, amen, cade,
cassia, cinnamon, cumin (cummin), gehenna, Jacobite, Jesus, jordan,
jot, Levite, manna, Pasch, rabbi (rabbin), sabbath, Sadducee, syca-
mine, sycamore, Tom.
French from Latin from Greek from Hebrew: camel, cider, earnest
(2), ebony, elephant ?, Hebrew, hyssop, jack (1), jack (2), jacket,
Jacobin, jenneting, Jew, jockey, lazar, marionette, maudlin, nitre,
shallot, simony, sodomy. Also date (2): of Semitic origin.
French from Spanish from Latin from Greek from Hebrew: Jesuit.
French from Spanish from Arabic from Greek from Hebrew:
natron,
DISTRIBUTION OF WORDS (ASIATIC, AFRICAN AND AMERICAN LANGUAGES) 775
Italian from Greek from Hebrew: zany.
Latin from Hebrew : leviathan.
French from Latin from Hebrew : cabal, jubilee.
Celtic from Latin from Semitic: ass.
Latin from Greek from Sanskrit from Hebrew: smaragdus.
French from Latin from Greek from Sanskrit from Hebrew: emerald.
Syriac: Maranatha.
Latin from Greek from Syriac : abbot, mammon.
French from Latin from Greek from Syriac : abbess, abbey, damson.
Italian from Latin from Greek from Syriac; damask.
French from Italian from Syriac : muslin,
Chaldee: raca, talmud, targum.
French from Latin from Greek from Aramaic: pharisee.
French from places in Palestine: bedlam, gauze.
French from Latin from Greek from Chaldee : sackbut.
French from Latin from Greek from Phenician ; scallion.
Arabic. afreect, alcoran, alkali, attar (of roses), azimuth,
cadi, dahabeeyah, drub, emir, ghazal, hadji, hakim, harem,
hashish, hegira, henna, hookah, imam (imaum), islam, jerboa,
jereed, jinn, jubbah (jibbah), khalif, koran, mahdi, Mahometan
(Mohammedan), maund (2), mohair, moslem, muezzin, mutfti,
mullah, nadir, otto, rack (5), ramadan, rayah, salaam, sash (2),
shadoof, sheik, sherbet, shrub (2), simoom, sofa, taraxacum, visier
(vizier), wadi, zariba.
Latin from Greek from Arabic: balsam, gypsum, saracen.
French from Latin from Greek from Arabic: balm, endive ?, jasper,
myrrh.
French from Greek from Arabic: civet.
French from Italian from Greek from Arabic: dragoman.
French from Latin from Arabic : sarcenet, turmeric ?.
Low Latin from Arabic : alcohol, algebra, antimony.
French from Low Latin from Arabic : tartar (1).
Italian from Arabic: botargo, felucca, senna, sirocco, zecchino.
French from Italian from Arabic: arabesque, baldachin, caliber,
calipers, caliver, magazine, sequin, zero.
French from Spanish from Italian from Arabic: benzoin.
Spanish from Arabic: alcayde, alguazil, atabal, caraway (carra-
way), maravedi, minaret.
French from Spanish from Arabic: alcove, amber, basil (3), car-
afe, cassolet, cid, cipher, cotton (1), cotton (2), cubeb, fardel, fives,
farl, gazelle, genet, giraffe, hazard, jennet (gennet), jar (2), lackey
(lacquey), marcasite, mask (masque), masquerade, matrass, mosque,
nacre, ogee (ogive), racket (1) (raquet), realgar, ream, saker, skirret,
sumach, syrup (sirup), tabby, talc, tare (2), tariff, zenith.
Italian from Spanish from Arabic: arsenal.
French from Provencal from Spanish from Arabic : lute (1).
French from Portuguese from Spanish from Arabic: marabou
(marabout).
Portuguese from Arabic: albacore.
Dutch from Portuguese from Arabic : monsoon.
French from Arabic: admiral, arrack, assassin, bedouin, borage,
burnouse, calif (caliph), camlet, carob (tree), faquir (fakir), housings,
jupon, Mamaluke (Mameluke), mattress, naker, ottoman, razzia,
rebeck, saffron, sultan.
French from English from Arabic: moire.
Persian from Arabic: ghoul, havildar, mussulman, sophy.
Hindustani from Persian from Arabic: khidmutgar (kitmutgar),
nizam, sicca,
Turkish from Persian from Arabic: kismet.
French from Persian from Arabic: houri, mate (2).
Turkish from Arabic: coffee, kavass, raki.
Hindustani from Arabic: houdah (howdah), moonsnee. nabob,
omrah, ryot, sahib.
Portuguese from Moorish : assagai.
French from North African: zouave.
ASTIATIC NON-ARYAN LANGUAGES (not SEMI-
TIC). (N.b. Some of the Indian words may be of Aryan origin.)
Hindustani: anna (ana), bangle, chutny, coolie, cutcherry, dacoit,
dawk, ghaut, mahout, nullah, puggery, shampoo, thug, tulwar.
Ε΄. Indian place-names: avadavat, bungalow, calico, cashmere
(kerseymere, cassimere).
French from Low Latin from Hindustani: bonnet.
Balti: polo. Gipsy : pal. Hindi: rum (2).
Bengali: dinghey (dingey), tomtom.
Marathi : pice.
Malayalam: : coir, teak.
Portuguese from Malayalam : betel.
Frenoh from Latin from Greek from Sanskrit from Malayalam: ginger.
Tamil: catamaran, cheroot, curry (2), mulligatawny, pariah.
Latin from Greek from Persian from Tamil: pea- (ὧι peacock).
French from Spanish from Latin from Persian from Tamil: pavin
(pavan).
Spanish from Portuguese from Malay from Tamil; mango.
Telugu : bandicoot, mungoose (mongoose).
Portuguese from Canarese: areca.
French from Dravidian : patchouli.
Cingalese : anaconda.
French from Cingalese; tourmaline.
Malay: amuck, babirusa, bamboo, caddy, cajuput (cajepnt),
cassowary, catechu, cockatoo, compound (2), crease (2) or creese,
dugong, durian, gecko, gong, gutta-percha, ketchup, lory (lury),
mango, mangosteen, muck (amuck), orang-outang, paddy, pangolin,
pikul, proa, rattan, rusa, sago, sarong, sumpitan, tael, tripang, upas.
Also lorikeet (with Span. suffix).
French from Malay: gingham, ratafia, toffy.
Portuguese from Malay : junk (1).
Spanish from Portuguese from Malay : launch (2).
French from Late Latin from Persian from Malay: lemon.
French from Spanish from Persian from Malay : lime (3).
French from Malagasy : aye-aye.
French from Late Latin from Arabic from Malay: camphor.
Chinese: bohea, china, Chinese, congou, hyson, nankeen,
pekoe, souchong, tea.
Latin from Greek from Arabic from Persian from Chinese : galingale,
Latin from Greek from Chinese: silk.
French from Latin from Greek from Chinese: serge.
Malay from Chinese: sampan.
Portuguese from Fapanese from Chinese : bonze.
Japanese: harakiri, japan, jinriksha, mikado, soy.
Annamese: gamboge. Burmese : woon.
Java : bantam.
Tatar: tartar (2).
French from Turkish from Tatar: horde.
Persian from Tatar: khan.
Russian from Tatar: cossack.
French from Russian from Tatar : koumiss.
French from Latin from Tatar : tartan, turquoise.
French from Tatar: turkey.
Mongolian: mogul.
Persian from Mongolian: tomaun.
Thibetan: lama (1), yak.
French from Thibetan: zebu.
Australian: boomerang, kangaroo, wallaby, wombat.
New South Wales: dingo, parramatta.
Maori: kiwi, pah.
Tahitian: tattoo (2).
Polynesian : taboo.
Maldive Islands: atoll.
AFRICAN LANGUAGES.
Hebrew from Egyptian: ephah, shittah (tree), shittim (wood).
Latin from Greek from Hebrew from Egyptien: sack (1).
French from Latin from Greek from Hebrew from Egyptian: sack (2),
satchel.
Greek from Egyptian: ammonite. .
Latin from Greek from Egyptian: ammonia, ibis, Leo, oasis,
papyrus.
French from Latin from Greek from Egyptian: bible ὃ, gum (2),
gypsy, lion, paper.
French from Italian from Egyptian: fustian.
Morocco: morocco. French from Barbary: barb (2).
French from Morocco: fez.
Abyssinian : negus (2).
West African: baobab, chimpanzee, guinea; also gorilla (Old
African).
Portuguese from West African: banana, yam, zebra.
Kaffir: gnu, quagga. ;
From a negro name: quassia.
AMERICAN LANGUAGES. ἶ
North American Indian: caucus, hickory, hominy, manito,
moccasin (mocassin), moose, musquash, opossum, pemmican, per~
simmon, racoon (raccoon), sagamore, skunk, squaw, toboggan.
tomahawk, totem, wampum, wapiti, wigwam.
French from North American Indian: carcajou, caribou.
Eskimo: kayak.
Mexican: axolotl, jalap, ocelot, teocalli.
Spanish from Mexican: cacao, chilli, chocolate, copal, coyote,
tomato,
Cuban: maguey.
Caribbean (or West Indian): cassava, cayman, hammock,
776 DISTRIBUTION OF
Spanish from West Indian: cacique, cannibal, canoe, guava,
iguana, hurricane, papaw, savannah; from Hayti: barbecue, guiacum,
maize, manatee, potato, tobacco, yucca.
French from West Indian: buccaneer, caoutchouc, cavy, colibri,
pirogue.
Peruvian: charqui, inca, jerked (beef), llama, puma.
Spanish from Peruvian : alpaca, coca, condor, guano, oca, pampas,
vicuna, viscacha.
French from Spanish from Peruvian:
Guiana : wourali (curari).
Brazilian: ai, capibara, cayenne, coaita, coati-mondi, jabiru,
jacana, jaguar, macaw, tamandua, tapir.
French from Spanish from Brazilian ; agouti.
Portuguese from Brazilian: ananas, copaiba, ipecacuanha, manioc,
tapioca.
French from Portuguese from Brazilian: petunia.
French from Brazilian : acajou, cashew (nut), couguar, jacamar,
sapajou, toucan.
South American : araucaria, mahogany, tolu.
Spanish from Araucan: poncho.
French from Caribbean : peccary.
quinine,
HYBRID WORDS. English abounds in hybrid words,
i.e. in words made up from two different languages; and the two
languages compounding the word are often brought into strange
conjunction, as in the case of interloper, which is half Latin and half
Dutch, The complexity thus caused is such as almost to defy
classification, and, as the words are accounted for in the body of the
work, each in its due place, I content myself with giving a list of
them, in alphabetical order.
abroach, across, affray, affreightment, aitch-bone, allot, allure,
aloof, altruism, ampersand, apace, apiece, appoggiatura, arblast,
architrave, around, arouse, array, asafcetida, astray, athwart, attorney,
attune, avadavat (amadavat), awkward.
bailiwick, bandog, bandylegged, bankrupt, barbican, bashful,
bay-window, becalm, because, bechance, beefeater, befool, beguile,
begum, belabour, besiege, betake, betray, bewail, bicycle, biffin,
bigamy, bilberry, blackguard, blaeberry, blunderbuss, boatswain,
bressomer, briar-root, brickbat, bulk-head, bum-bailiff, butterfly.
calthrop, camelopard, candytuft, cannel-coal, castor-oil, cesspool,
chamberlain, Christmas, cockloft, codling (2), colza oil, commingle,
compose, contour, contradistinguish, contrive, co-parcener, coster-
monger, counteract, counterscarp, country-dance, court-cards, cox-
swain, cupboard, curmudgeon, curry (1).
Daguerrotype, darnel, dastard, daywoman, debar, debark, debase,
debauch, debris, debut, decant, decipher, decompose, decoy, defile
(1), demarcation, demean (2), depose, derange, detach, dethrone,
detour, develop, disable, disabuse, disaffect, disannul, disappear,
disapprove, disarrange, disarray, disband, disbelieve, disburden,
disburse, discard, discharge, discommend, discommon, discompose,
discontent, discredit, disembark, disembroil, disencumber , disengage,
disenthrall, disentrance, ἀπ τ δῆς disguise, dishearten, disinherit,
disinter, dislike, dislodge, dismask, dismay, disown, dispark, dispose,
disregard, disrelish, disrepute, disrespect, disrobe, dissatisfy, dissimi-
litude, distaste, distrust, disuse, doleful, dormer-window, dormouse,
dulcimer.
eclat, embalm, embank, embark, ember-goose, embody, em-
bolden, embosom, emboss (1), emboss (2), embower, enamel,
encroach, endear, enfeoff, enfold, enfranchise, engage, engrailed,
engrave, engulf, enkindle, enlighten, enlist, enliven, enrapture, en-
shrine enslave, ensnare, entangle, enthral, enthrone, entomb, entrap,
WORDS (HYBRID)
entrust, entwine, entwist, envelop ?,
exhilarate, expose, eyelet-hole.
feckless, flotsam, fore-arm (2), forecast, forecastle, foredate, fore-
front, forejudge (1), forenoon, fore-ordain, forepart, forerank, fore-
taste, forfend (forefend), frankalmoign, frankincense, fray (2).
gaffer, gainsay, gallipot, gammer, gamut, gier-eagle, grateful,
greengage, grimalkin, guelder-rose, guerdon, gunwale, gyr-falcon.
Hallowmass, hammercloth, harpsichord, hautboy, heirloom,
hobbyhorse, horse-courser, huggermugger, hurly-burly.
imbank, imbark, imbitter, imbody, imbosom, imbower, imbrown,
impark, impose, impunity, Indiaman, Indian rubber, indisposed,
ingulf, inorganic, inshrine, instal (install), interaction, interleave,
interlink, interloper, intermarry, intermingle, interpose, intertwine,
interweave, intomb, intone.
jackanapes, jemadar, jolly-boat, jury-mast. kerbstone.
lancegay, lapis lazuli, lay figure, ledger-line, life-guard, lign-
aloes, lime-hound, linseed, lugsail.
macadamise, madrepore, magpie, malaria, malinger, mangrove,
marigold, Martinmas, Michaelmas, misapply, misapprehend, mis-
appropriate, misarrange, miscalculate, miscall, miscarry, misconceive,
misconduct, misconstrue, misdate, misdemeanour, misdirect, misem-
ploy, misfortune, misguide, mishap, misinform, misinterpret, mis-
place, misprint, mispronounce, misquote, misrepresent, misrule,
misspend, misterm, monocular, mountebank, mulberry, muscoid,
mystify.
natterjack, nonconforming, nonjuror, nonsense, nonsuit, notpated,
nunchion, nutmeg.
oppose, orchard, ostrich, outbalance, outcast, outcry, outfit, out-
line, outpost, outpour, outrigger, outskirt, outvie, outvote, overact,
overarch, overawe, overbalance, overcast, overcharge, overcoat,
overdose, overdress, overhaul, overjoyed, overpass, overpay, overplus,
overpower, overrate, overrule, overstrain, overtake, overtask, over-
turn, overvalue.
paletot, palfrey, Pail-mall, partake, pastime, peacock, peajacket,
pearl-barley, pedestal, pentroof, perhaps, peruse, petrify, pettitoes,
piebald, piecemeal, pink-eyed, pismire, planisphere, pole-axe, pole-
cat, polynomial, pomander, portly, pose (2), posset, potwalloper,
predispose, prehistoric, press-gang, presuppose, prewarn, propose,
purblind, puzzle.
raiment, rearward, re-echo, refresh, regain, regard, regret, reim-
burse, reindeer (raindeer), relay (2), remark, remind, renew, replevy,
repose, rest-harrow, retire, retrieve, retroussé, reward, rigmarole,
rinderpest, rummage.
saltcellar, saltpetre, samphire, sax-horn, scaffold, scapegoat,
scaup-duck, scotiree, scribble, seamstress (sempstress), seraskier.
Shrovetide, Shrove-Tuesday, skewbald, smallage, snubnosed, sobri-
quet, solan-goose, somnambulist, spikenard, spindrift, sprightly,
sprucebeer, squeamish, statist, sublease, sublet, submarine, sub-
section, subsoil, supercargo, superexcellent, superfine, superhuman,
suppose, surcharge, surcoat, surname.
tamarind, tarpaulin, tea-poy, tee-totaller, teil-tree, titlark,
mouse, tocsin, tomboy, tomtit, touchwood, train-oil,
Troy-weight, turnip.
unaneled, undertake, ungainly, unruly, until.
vaward, venesection. wagtail.
enwrap, escarpment, essoin,
tit-
transpose,
ETYMOLOGY UNKNOWN. awning, bamboozle, beagle,
coke, conundrum, culvert, dhow, dudgeon (1), dudgeon (2), jade (1),
kelp, prawn, privet, Yankee.
Of many other words the ultimate origin is very obscure, and the
solutions offered must be admitted to be doubtful.
ΞΕΓΡΡΙΕΕΜΕΝΈ
I here subjoin a few corrections and additions.
*ADMIX, to mingle with something else. (L.) The vb.
admix is no older than 1533 (N.I.D.), and is really a back-forma-
tion from the form admixt, which was used as a pp. much earlier,
as it occurs in Palladius on Husbandry, bk. i. st. 9, 1. 60 (ab. 1420).
—L. admixt-us, pp. of admiscére, to mix with.—L. ad, to, with;
and miscére, to mix. See Mix; and Commix (below).
ANON; line 7. For Grien read Grein.
ATTAINT. The N.E.D. explains the word fully, and notes
how it was falsely Latinised as attinctus, as in Blackstone. I here
make the note that an early example of the mistake occurs in the
attainder of George, Duke of Clarence, in 1477. In the 17th
Edw. IV, the order for his execution was made out, because he had
been ‘convictus et aétinctus.’ But the true pp. of L. attingere was
attactus. Hence Εἰ, taint; see Taint (below).
BAMBOO, Of Malay origin; not from Canarese, as suggested
at p. 45; the Canarese form is merely from the later Portuguese
form bambu. But the quotations in Yule and in the N.E.D., s.v.
mambu, show that the older form was mambu, both in Portuguese
and English, the E. form being borrowed from the Port. mambu,
which occurs in Garcia (1563); see Yule. There can be no doubt
that this mambu is merely a clipped form of the Malay sdmambi,
sémambi, or s’mdmbi, in which the first syllable is unstressed and
was easily lost. This samambi is really a kind of rattan (not the
grass Bambusa), but its superficial likeness to the ordinary bamboo
is such that the difference would only be apparent to those familiar
with the Malay region and its products. In fact, Yule notices the
use of bamboo-cane, and Stedman, in 1796, speaks of a bamboo-rattan
(N.E.D.).
BAWD. Prof. Weekley (Phil. Soc. Trans., 1909) shows that
the ME. baud is, probably, merely a shortened form of ME. ribaud,
and therefore a doublet of ribald.
BEAVER (2). Cf. ‘ the helme, the visere, the two bauiers,’ &c. ;
Hall’s Chron. (1548) ; King Henry IV, first year; § 9
BOOTY. In the N.E.D. the earliest quotations for botye and
butin are from Caxton. But in some Ordinances for the use of the
English army made in 1419, printed in Excerpta Historica, p. 43,
there is an ordinance ‘for theim that Sault [assault] ..to make
theim boty.’ It begins :—‘ Also that all men make them bo/y, vij or
v to-gader, that alway iij of the vij, or ij of the v, be assigned to
wayte, and not to departe from the standers’ [standards], &c. Cf.
‘il aura sa part du butdin (v.r. butin) ;? Black Book of the Admiralty,
1. 437-
BRANKS. Prof. Weekley (Phil. Soc. Trans., 1909) shows
that branxk answers to the OF. brangue, the equivalent, in the Norman
dialect, of OF. branche, whence E. Branch. See branch (iv. 11) in
N.E.D.
CABRIOLET. Not (F.—L.), but (F.—Ital.—L.); as the
etymology shows.
CHEEK. The N.E.D. duly gives cheek, ‘insolence, jaw;’ the
earliest example being in 1840; at which date is also recorded the
phrase to give cheek, ‘ to be insolent.’
The origin of this phrase is not quite obvious. Perhaps it be-
comes a little clearer if we note that the Bremen Worterbuch, in
the Supplement, p. 405, gives the equivalent keek, cheek, as a
Liibeck word, in the phrase holt de keek, lit. hold your cheek, in the
sense ‘hold your mouth,’ hold your jaw, shut up! The date is
1771; nearly 70 years earlier than the date above.
Thus the original idea was that of too much use of the cheek or
mouth in talking ; hence, chatter, prattle, unasked advice, and the
like; exactly as in the case of ‘jaw.’
COCKNEY. It is suggested by Prof. Weekley that there
were ¢wo words of this form, which have coalesced. 1. It represents
coken-ey, ‘ egg of cocks,’ as explained at p. 118 (above), in P. Plow-
man, and in the Tournament of Tottenham ; but this usage appears
to be obsolete. 2. In the sense of ‘an effeminate person,’ it does
not represent an OF. *coguiné (as I proposed in the First Edition of
the present work (viz. in the Supplement, at p. 785), but is to be
taken as representing (with loss of initial a-, which is quite common)
an OF. acoguiné, which actually occurs, and meant ‘spoiled,’ or
‘self-indulgent.’ Cotgrave has :—‘ Accoguiné, made tame, inward,
familiar ; also, grown as lazy, sloathfull, idle, asa beggar.’ Also:—
The words marked with an asterisk do not appear at all in the preceding pages.
‘ Accoquiner, to make tame, inward, familiar ;’ and ‘ S’accoguiner, to
wax as lazie, become as idle, grow as sloathfull, as a beggar.’
The OF. acoguiné, with loss of initial a, is closely represented by the
ME. cokeney or cokenay. ‘The original sense of this OF. word would
be ‘addicted to frequenting a kitchen,’ or ‘frequenter of a kitchen.’
Allied to L. coguindre, to cook, coguinus, pertaining to a kitchen,
and coguina, a kitchen (Lewis). All from L. coguere, to cook ; see
Cook. As to the ME. suffix -ey (-ay), we may compare attorney,
from OF, atorné. As to the various senses of the word, see the
exhaustive discussion by Prof. Weekley (Phil. Soc. Trans., 1909).
Hence the word is to be marked as (F.—L.).
COMMIX. For (Hybrid; L. and E.) read (L.), The N.E.D.
shows that commix was a back-formation from the earlier word
commixt, Commix is not found before 1519 ; and commixt was taken
immediately from L. commixtus, pp. of commiscére, to mix together;
from com-, together, and miscére, to mix. See further under Mix
(p. 380). And see Admix (above).
CONVEX. It is now held that L. conwexus has nothing to do
with the verb conwehere; but rather answers to a compound of con-
with *uacsus, from the root uac- which also appears in uac-illare, to
stagger. The sense would be ‘bent;’ cf. Skt. vak-ra-s, bent,
crooked, vavich, to waver, totter, go crookedly. Closely allied to
AS, woh, bent, crooked, from a Teut. base *wanhk answering to Idg.
*wank, nasalised form of *wak, to bend. See Woo, and Wench.
COSSACK. The earliest quotation for Cossack (spelt Cassack)
given in the N.E.D. is dated 1598. The pl. Cassacks occurs three
times in the Antiquarian Repertory (1808), vol. ii, 399, which
quotes at length A Letter sent from the Great Turck to the Queenes
Maiestee in anno 1590. The Letter speaks of ‘the Theeues called
Cassacks, and other like facinerous persons.’
DANDLE. Cf. also Low G. dendeln, to sport; used as F.
dandiner. It occurs in the Supp. to the Bremen Worterbuch, with
the note that it means, in particular, to dandle a child in one’s
arms. Berghaus gives the Low G. dandelken, dandeln, dannken, the
same as G, tandeln.
DAWDLE. Cf. also Low G. (Hamburg) daudeln, to waste
one’s time (Richey). Quoted in the Bremen Worterbuch (Supple-
ment). According to C. Schmidt, the Strassburg dialect has dadle,
to dawdle, to lounge.
DODGE. Ross has the Norw. dogga, to maintain one’s place in
an open sea against wind or waves by small movements of sail or
oar. This may very well be a related word. The E.D.D. gives
dadge and dodge, to walk slowly and clumsily ; and here again we
may compare (from Ross) Norw. dagga, to go very slowly and easily.
DOG, a fire-dog, andiron. (E.) The form jire-dog is modern
(1840). ‘ One paire of dogges in the chymly ;’ Unton Inventories,
p- 5 (1596). Dogge is the ME. form of dog, an E. word. But the
idea was suggested by MF. chenets, ‘andirons;’ Cot. The OF.
chenet occurs in 1317, and is a dimin. of OF. chen, a dog (from L.
canis). Hatzteld says that the heads of andirons often represented
the heads of dogs.
DUB. So also Low G, dubben, to knock at a door; Supp. to
Bremen Worterbuch. Berghaus has Low G. dubben, to beat ; dubber,
a knocker; dubbern, to strike repeatedly, to hammer.
FABRIC; 1. 5. For DHAB read DHABH.
FERRULE. Spelt virole about 1410. ‘La virole le mambre
garde, The virole the haft kepeth ;’ i.e. holds fast the haft of a
knife; Femina, ed. W. Aldis Wright, 48. 20.
FINIAL. It is remarked in the N.E.D. that finial is a variant
of final, and, apparently, of English origin. The earliest quotation,
from the Chester plays, is of uncertain date, but of about A.D. 1400.
Whether it was, at the first, ‘king’s English’ or not, we are at
any rate sure that it was king’s French. For in 1404 we find
Henry IV using the expression ‘a jiniale destruccioun de son povre
estat,’ ie. to the final destruction of his poor estate. See Royal
Letters of Henry IV (Rolls Series), ed. Hingeston, i. 310.
FLANK. For (F.—G.) read (F.—OHG,).
FOLD (2). The orig. sense of AS. falod, falud, was a cowshed
or ox-stall, or a shelter ‘made with boards;’ from the AS. fala, a
board, plank, bar. This AS. fala is not explained in the Dictionaries,
but it may be found in the Epinal Glossary. See the facsimile,
778
p- 27, col. 1,1. 11, which has: ‘ abula, fala.’ This is the source of
the glosses in which ‘ tabula’ is misspelt ‘tubolo;’ as in ‘ tubolo,
fala,’ Voc. 52. 11; Corpus Glossary, ed. Hessels, p. 117, 1. 321;
Leiden Glossary, ed. Hessels, note on p. 208, 5. v. tubolo, The AS.
falaed is explained as ‘ bobellum’ or ‘ stabulum,’
FOREHEAD. The oldest AS. form is foran-héafod; see
Sweet, Ὁ. E. Texts, p. 611.
FRAIG (2). AF. frael, W. de Bibbesworth, in Wright, Voc. i.
172; spelt fraze/ in AF., and frayel in ME., in Femina, ed. W. Aldis
Wright, 79. 4-6.
FRIEZE (1). We find ‘des draps appellez Friseware’ in
1376-7; Statutes of the Realm, i. 398.
IN (2). The derivation of the OF. word from OHG. is well
illustrated by the occurrence of the AF. weiner, to gain. Cf.
‘chevaux et armes, or et argent weine ;’ i.e. they had gained horses
and arms, silver and gold; Excerpta Historica, p. 71, 1. 60,
GIBBON, a name for the long-armed ape. (E.) ‘ The Gibbon,
or long-armed ape . . . is a native of the East Indies ;’ tr. of Buffon
(1792), i. 327. The name was conferred on this ape by Buffon,
who, according to Hatzfeld, had it from Dupleix. It was alleged to
be an Indian word, but has not been found in any Indian language,
Dupleix was in India from 1720 to 1754; and it is probable enough
that he imagined gibbon to be the Indian name for the creature.
I suggest that the ‘ Indian language’ in which the name arose was
certainly English, with whom the French at that time were in
frequent contact and conflict. How the name came into existence
we cannot tell, but that it was suggested by an Englishman (perhaps
as a jest referring to a comrade) can hardly be doubted. The
Prompt. Pary. has:—‘ Gybonn or Gylberde (Gybbon or Gylbert),
propyrname, Gilbertus.’ Hence Gibbon is merely an extension of Gib,
the usual pet name for Gilbert. Gib was also a familiar name for a
cat ; cf. “ Gibbe our cat,’ Romaunt of the Rose, 6204. And to this day
Gib (with hard g,as in Gilbert) is a familiar name for a tom-cat
in many E. dialects (E.D.D.). Any Englishman who knew this might
easily suggest that, if Gib meant ‘ cat,’ Gibbon would do for ‘ape.’
GRAZE (2), to touch lightly, &c. The N.E.D. suggests that
the right reading [in my 1. 4] is ‘like to the bullets grazing,’ where
bullets is plural ; the sense being :—‘ like the bullets that graze the
ground.’ There can be no doubt that the original sense was ‘ to
cut the grass,’ or ‘ to score the grass.” Schambach gives, as a sense
of Low G. grasen, ‘to cut grass.’ The quotations in N.E.D, show
that the special sense arose from the ricocheting of cannon-balls
along grass. There is a passage in Chapman, Revenge of Bussy
D’Ambois, A. iv. sc. 1, that is. particularly helpful :—‘ And as a
great shot from a town besieged At foes before it flies forth black
and roaring—But they too far, and that with weight oppress’d—As
if disdaining earth, doth only graze, Strike earth, and up again into
the air, Again sinks to it, and again doth rise,’ &c.
HACKNEY. ME. hakeney is certainly from ME. Hakeney,
i.e. Hackney, in Middlesex. The OF. haguenée and MF, hacquenée
(Cotgrave) and all the foreign forms are simply borrowed from
English, which had the word first. See Fitzstephen’s description of
London, temp. Henry II, in Stowe’s Survey of London, ed. Thoms,
pp. 211, 212. The great horsemart was in Smithfield, which is
still connected with Hackney by Hackney Road and Mare Street;
and the pastures for horses were to the North of London (p. 209),
of which Hackney Downs and London Fields are still remnants.
The ME. Hakeney represents AS, Hacan ieg, ‘ Haca’s settlement
beside a stream.’ Cf. Hacan pundfald, ‘Haca’s pound,’ in a
charter dated 961.
*HOGMANAY, an old name for New Year’s Eve. (L.) The
N.E.D. says: ‘ Hogmanay corresponds exactly in sense and use to
the OF. aguillanneuf, the last day of the year, new year’s gift, the
festival at which new year’s gifts were given and asked with the shout
of aguillanneuf. Of this Godefroy gives many variants.’ See also
the E.D.D. From the OF. hoguinané, hoguinono (Godefroy); also
aguilan, guillanneu, aguillonen, haguilennef, aguillanneuf, &c.—L.
hoc in anno, lit. ‘in this year;’ which was the original burden or
chorus sung upon the occasion, In the Norman Glossary by
Edélestand and Duméril (Caen, 1849), we find hoguinétes, new year’s
presents, or rather, presents given on new year’s eve; called hogui-
Janno at Caen, and hoguilanne at Saint-Lo. De Brieux has pre-
served for us a sort of song, without rime, which was still sung, in
his time, when Jes hoguinétes were asked for, hoc in anno.
Si vous veniés ἃ la depense ...
On vous serviroit du rost—
Hoquinano !
Donnez-moi mes haguignétes . . .
Mais il est encore ἃ payer
Haguinelo !
Here, in the very song itself, we first find hoc in anno spelt hoguinano,
SUPPLEMENT
and then repeated in the corrupt form haguinelo; as it was sung by
children ignorant of Latin. Thus hoc in became aguin-, and further
corruption was easy ; axxo was supposed to mean an neuf (new year).
Hoguinané is for hoc in année; and so on. ‘The Spanish form (bor-
rowed from F.) is aguilando, otherwise aguinaldo. ‘The form hog-
manay may be due to the F. form hoguinané, shortened to hog’naneé,
with a stress on the last syllable. Jamieson quotes the Scotch form
as being so pronounced ; as in— The cottar weanies, glad and gay,
Wi’ pocks out owre their shouther, Sing at the doors for hégmaniy.’
HOGSHEAD. I find an early spelling not noted in the
N.E.D. ‘In duobus hogsheveds vini albi,’ occurring in 1437; see
Brand, Pop. Antiquities (1849), ii. 75, note. The spelling heved
aflords a clear proof that the latter element is really the mod. E.
head.
HUZZA! The earliest quotation in the N.E.D. is dated 1573.
There is an instance twelve years earlier in the second edition (1807)
of Grose’s Antiquarian Repository, vol. i, p. 236. We there find
a speech made at a dinner given at Norwich in 1561. It is said that
on that occasion one Johnny Martin, of Norwich, proposed the
health of the mayor whilst he could still ‘ speak plain English,’ and
before the beer, which ‘is pleasant and potent . . . catch us by the
caput, and stop our manners. And so huzza for the Queen’s Majesty’s
grace, and all her bonny-browe’d dames of honour! Huzza for
Master Mayor, and our good dame Mayoress "ἢ
ISING-GLASS. The earliest quotation in the N.E.D, is dated
1545. Itoccurs in 1528in some accounts printed in Excerpta Antiqua,
by J. Croft, p. 84; and againin 1530, in the same, p.g!. The same
substance is mentioned by the name of husblass (which is nearer to
the original) as early as 1371 (N. and Q. 10S, x. 411).
KERSEY. Thestatement in the N.E.D. that there is nothing to
connect cloth-making with Kersey, in Suffolk,is due to oversight.
The fact is, rather, that there was once a large cloth-trade carried on
in the south of Suffolk. In A Breviary of Suffolk, by Robert Reyce,
written in 1618, and edited by Lord F, Harvey, stress is laid upon
‘the excellent commoditie of clothing, which of long ¢ime hath here
flourished . . . hee who maketh ordinaryly twenty broad clothes
every weeke, cannot sett so few a-worke as 500 persons.’ In Hall’s
Chronicle (Henry VIII, year 17, § 8) we read how an attempt to
raise a heavy subsidy failed, owing to the opposition of the ‘ riche
Clothiers’ of Suffolk, who told ‘their Spinners, Carders, Fullers,
Weuers, and other artificers’ that they would be unable to pay them
wages if the subsidy was granted; so that the men of ‘Lanam
[Lavenham], Sudbury, Hadley, and other tounes aboute’ (which would
include Lindsey and Kersey) rebelled to the number of “ foure
thousand men.’ In Skelton’s Why Come Ye Nat to Courte, 1. 128,
he refers to ‘a webbe of lylse-wulse’ (see note on Linsie- Woolsey
below) ; and at 1. 930, he speaks of ‘ Good Sprynge of Lanam,’ i. e.
Lavenham, who ‘must counte what became Of his clothe makynge.’
Dyce’s note on the latter line refers to Stowe’s Annales, ed. 1615,
p- 525, where we read that ‘the rich clothiers, Spring of Lanam and
other, had given over occupying,’ i.e. had ceased to employ men,
when the disturbances arose in 1525 (as above).
LASCAR, Not directly from Persian; but Portuguese from
Persian. ‘Che Port. form is Jascar or Jascarim (Vieyra).
LECHER, The OF. lecheor (Godefroy) was Latinised as lecca-
tor, lit. ‘a licker of dishes,’ hence a ‘ribald’ or ruffian, one of the
unscrupulous hangers-on who attached themselves to medieval
households and were of ill repute. Cotgrave hasJlescheur, ‘a licker,
a licorous companion.’ Cf. MDnu. leckaert, ‘a licker of dishes ;’
lecker, ‘a liquorish or a daintie-mouthed man;’ Hexham. See
leccator in Ducange.
LINSIE-WOOLSEY. Probably named after the stuff called
Linsey, spelt lyxesey as early as 1435-6, In any case, linsie-woolsey
(and probably also Jinsey) was really named from the place now
called Lindsey, in Suffolk, which is but two miles from Kersey, whence
Kersey cloth took itsname. This is proved by the fact that Skelton,
in Why Come ye Nat to Conrte, 1, 128, has the form Lylse-wulse ;
and Dr. Copinger, in his Collections for Suffolk, gives Lynsey, Lylsey,
and Lelesey as old forms of Lindsey. The form Lelesey occurs in
Inquis. post Mortem, anno 1314-15. See note just above, on Kersey.
MAKE, verb. The AS. macian, a weak verb, seems to be a de-
rivative from an adj. of which the Teut. type is *makoz, ‘ suitable,
fitting,’ or ‘joined together,’ as seen in AS. gemeac, Icel. makr, suit-
able; whence also AS. maca, a companion, and E, match, See
Match (1).
MALL (2). For (F.—L.) read (F.—Ital.—L.).
MANCHET. Also spelt mainchet ; Caxton, in his Reynard the
Fox, ed. Arber, p. 68, has ‘a copel of maynchettis.’ I accept the
etymology proposed in N.E.D., viz. from maine, an epithet of bread
of the finest quality, and chet, an epithet of bread of second or
ordinary quality ; see Cheat, sb. (2) in N.E,D. Perhaps both forms
SUPPLEMENT
are docked. Maine is short for demaine, as in pain demaine, Tepre-
senting L. panis dominicus, ‘lord’s bread ;’ see my note on Chaucer,
C. Τ᾿, B 1915. Chet occurs in ‘Manchet and chet bred;’ Babees
Book, p. 315, 1. 501, and perhaps means ‘bought bread,’ as dis-
tinguished from home-made bread; from OF. achet, ‘a bargain or
purchase, or thing bought or purchased;’ Cot. Thus ‘ manchet
bread’ may be the best quality of bought bread. See further under
Demesne and Cates,
MARMALADE. The oldest quotation for marmalade in the
N,E.D. is dated 1533; but there is a note to say that it is referred
to in 1524. But we have a clear example of its occurrence in 1514.
In the Rutland Papers (Camden Soc,, 1842), at p. 27, we find,
among the provisions made for the marriage of Princess Mary,
daughter of Henry VII:—‘Item, a boxe of Codignac chare de
qwynce marmelade.’
MAT, See mazia in Walde’s Lat. Etym. Dict., where it is sug-
gested that the Semitic form is exemplified by the Heb. matiah
[where the ¢ is #eth], a portable bed, lit. ‘a thing spread out ;’ from
the verb natah, to spreadout. The form of the root may account for
the by-form natta.
*MOUCH, to play truant, to loiter. (F.—Teut.) The N.E.D.
quotes from Mabbe's tr. of Aleman’s Guzman de Alfarache (1622),
ii. 289 :—‘ Wee . . ς runne a-mouching eyther to our Aunts house,
or to our grandfathers.’—ONorth F. muchier, mucher; MF. mucer,
musser, ‘to hide, keep close, lurke, skowke, or squat in a corner,
Cot. ; mod. F. musser.—OHG. mihhén, to hide, to lie in wait for
and steal ; cf, prov. G. maucheln, to conceal, cheat, G. meuchel-mirder,
a secret murderer. Idg. root *meug, to hide ; as in Olrish for-muig-
the, hidden. See Mich.
MUMMER. The statement, in 1. 6, that mommerye and mom-
mynge occur in Trevisa, is mistaken. They occur in Caxton’s trans-
lation of Higden, which is later than Trevisa’s, yiz.ab. 1482. How-
ever, mummynge occurs in the Prompt. Parv. (1440).
NESS, a promontory, The AS. xess or x@ss answers to a Tent.
type *nxas-joz. The long grade occurs in L. nas-us, nose; the weak
grade occurs in the Teut, type *nas-a, AS. xosu, nose. See Streit-
berg, Urgerm. Gr., p. 69. See Nose.
NOTE, The etymology of L. xo/a is doubtful. Walde rejects
all connexion with L. noscere, and, seeing that no/a sometimes has an
ill sense, as meaning ‘a mark of infamy,’ proposes to connect it (as
Prellwitz does) with the Gk. ὀνοτός, ὀνοστύς, blameworthy, and
ὀνοτάζω, ὄνομαι, 1 blame,
OBLITERATE. The earliest example in N.E.D. is dated
1600. But it occurs in Hall’s Chronicle (half a century earlier),
according to Ellis’s reprint. ‘Neither fyre, rust, nor frettyng tynne
[error for tyme] shal amongst Englishmen ether appall his honoure
or obliterate his glorye.’—king Henry V, roth year, last paragraph.
OBSCENE. Walde gives a simple derivation of the Latin
obscaenus from obs-, prefix, ‘near,’ and caenum, ‘mud;’ so that it
meant ‘ muddy,’ or ‘ covered with mud.’ The prefix obs- occurs in
os-tendere, where os- stands for ops, the original form of obs.
OFFICE. Walde explains L. officium as from opi-ficium (for
*opi-faciom) ; from opi- (for opus), work, and fac-ere, to do. In fact,
the spelling opifictum occurs (Lewis and Short); as well as opificina
(for officina) ; cf. opi-fex, a worker. See Operate.
ORIEL, a recess (with a window) ina room. (F.—L.—Gk.)
From OF. oriol, a porch, gallery, corridor (Godefroy). Prof. Weekley
(in Phil. Soc. Trans., 1909) makes the excellent suggestion that the
OF. form represents the Late L. auleolum, which Ducange gives as a
derivative from L. aula, a court of a house, and (in Late L.) a hall.
Ducange explains auleolum as ‘sacellum,’ a small chapel. We
might well suppose that auleolum could mean ‘a recess in a hall ;’
and it would pass into OF. as oriol, by natural dissimilation from
*oliol or *oleol, If this be right, orie/ is ultimately from L, aula,
which is not a true L. word, but borrowed from Gk. αὐλή, a court
yard, hence a court, a hall.
OSTRICH. The very form ostriche occurs in Old French ; see
Poems of W, Mapes, ed. Wright, Camden Soc., p. 319, col. 1,
st. 2.
PAINTER (see p. 423). It seems certain, from the examples
in the N.E.D., that painter is a mispronunciation, due to association
with the ordinary word signifying ‘one who paints.’ The right form
is penter, asin 1671, It is from the OF. pentoir, also spelt pentour ;
the latter form is given by Ducange under the L. form pentorium,
which is short for Late L. penditorium, orig. a perch to hang clothes
upon to dry (Ducange) ; from L. pendére, to hang, Godetroy gives
OF. pendoir, pendoer, pentoir, a perch to hang clothes on, a sus-
pender for keys, a suspender of a sword from ἃ sword-belt, a pot-
hook, a strong rope, Moisy gives Norm. dial. pentoir, one of two
poles placed at the two sides of a window to hang clothes on that
have just been dyed, That penter is the right E. form is corroborated
779
by the fact that it is accurately represented (as a borrowed word) by
the Norw. penta, a sprit with which a sail is spread out, a rope or
a cord to fasten a sail with. This has the double sense, viz. of the
Norm, dial. pentoir, and of the OF. pentoir, a strong rope; see
Aasen. Ross explains Norw. penta as a rope attached to the side of
a sail for keeping the sail close-hanled. Godefroy further gives, in
his Supplement, under the heading pendeur (though both of his ex-
amples have pextoir), the explanation—a marine term, ropes sup-
porting a pulley, tackle. Thus we see that the sense was transferred
from that of ‘ clothes-perch’ to ‘ clothes-line,’ and thence to a cord
for various uses. It is now the E. painter, commonly restricted in
sense to the cord that hangs down from the bow of a boat, and is
used for securing it. It has nothing to do with the ME, panter, as
suggested at p. 423.
PATE. It has been suggested to me that the substitution of
pate for plate may have been due to Walloon influence, since (near
Lille) they say patel for platel ; note that De Bo gives the W. Flemish
form pateel for Du. plateel, a dish; and Remacle gives the Walloon
form pu for F. plus. Hexham, on the contrary, gives MDnu. plattijnen
as a by-form of pattijnen, inthe sense of ‘ wodden shees or pattens.’
PIER. The AS. per, pere (nom. per, acc. peran), is in a late MS.,
and merely used to represent a Late L. pera (ab. 1150). The latter
is merely the AF. pere, a stone, done into Latin. The statement in
the N.E.D. that the derivation of pera from OF, piere does not satisfy
the phonetics is beside the mark; for the AF. form is really pere,
a stone, from L. petra. La pere means stones from a quarry ; see
Chardry, La Vie des Set Dormans, 1018. Cf. ‘les murs de haut pere
taile;’ and again—‘ Et des gros peres qe urent assez plente;’ Ex-
cerpta Historica, p. 73, ll, 121, 125. And the pl. peres, stones,
occurs thrice on one page; see Langtoft, i. 124. See six more
examples in the Vie de S. Auban,
POLONY. The derivation from Bologna is made quite certain
by a passage in the old play entitled Lord Cromwell, A. iii. sc. 2;
pr. in 1602. The scene is laid at Bononia, i.e. Bologna; and in the
course of the scene Hodge reads out a letter :—‘ ] am at this present
writing among the Polonian sasiges.’? Chapman refers to ‘ Bologna
sausages’ in A. iii. of his play called The Ball.
PONY. Well illustrated by comparing the MF. poulener, ‘to
fole as a mare ;’ Supplement to Palsgrave, p. 952, col. 3.
POUR. For (F.—L.) read (L.). The OF. purer would only
give pure, not pour. ‘The difficulty as to the vowel-sound is solved
at once by the supposition that pour was not borrowed from OF.,
but taken immediately from the Late L. purare; i.e. that it was
a word of direct monkish origin. The monks were skilled in simple
culinary arts, The development is precisely like that of E. dour from
L. dirus, hard (N.E.D.); or of E. sour from AS. sur. Hence the
old pronunciatior. of powr was really power, as in Pope and Gay
(p. 469). So also scour, from L. exctirare ; see Scour (1).
PRIMROSE. Cf. ‘Ou de quyler la primerole, other to gadere
the primerose ;’ Femina, ed. W. Aldis Wright, 47. 19.
PRIVET. The statement (in ll. 10-13) that the form primet
occurs in the Grete Herball, turns out to be due to a mistake; for
no such form occurs there. This leaves the etymology very uncertain ;
the word cannot be said to be satisfactorily accounted for.
PRUNES (1), to trim trees. The last section (§ y) of the article
is wrong. No doubt prune is derived (as said) from the OF. proignier
(Godefroy), to prune, Norman dial. progner (Moisy); but there we
must stop. Godefroy is wrong in identifying these with F. provigner,
as that is quite another word, with the very different sense of ‘ to ex-
tend by layers, to propagate;’ from the F. sb. provin, as said at
p- 487. Sir James Murray has pointed this out to me, and gives the
probable origin of the OF. proignier in the N.E.D. Most, likely, it
represents a Late L. form *prévinedre, to tend a vineyard; from the
prefix pro- and Late L. vineare, to plant a vineyard (Ducange), from
vinea, a vine-yard, a vine. See Vine.
QUILL (2). The note on in the quill is illustrated by the
occurrence of the AF. gillir (written for quillir) as a variant of OF.
cuillir, to collect. It occurs in the Assault of Massoura, ]. 346; see
Excerpta Historica, p. 80.
*RATHE, a cart-rail; see N.E.D. (E.) Also rade; and even
rave (with v for voiced th). Cf. AS. wéu-gehrado, translating
‘tabula plaustri;” Voc. 267. 33. Probably allied to Hurdle and
Crate.
RIME (1). The N.E.D. gives the earliest spelling with rk from
Cooper’s Thesaurns (1565), which has: ‘ Rhythmus, . . . meeter,
rhime? The earliest example of the spelling rhyme is dated 1610;
the spelling rythme occurs earlier, ab.1557- All later than 1550.
As late as 1660, an edition of Cotgrave translates F. rithme by
‘ Rime, or meeter ;’ and Sherwood’s Index to the same has—‘ A rime
or meeter, Rime, rithme, ryme;’” and again— To rime, rimer, rith-
mer, rymer, rimonner, rimoyer.
780
RUSH (2). The common word rush, as the name of a water-
plant, is of doubtful origin. I cannot accept the usual explanation,
which quotes the AS. form as rysc, and tells us that it is no native
word, but a mere adaptation of the Latin ruscwm, which means
‘butcher’s broom.’
It is difficult to see why we should resort to Latin for the name of
a plant so extremely common; nor is it at all easy to see why the
butcher’s broom should have been selected as a type of it.
But the fact is, that the AS. rysc, though it accounts for the modern
rush, is by no means the only orthe commonest form. The forms in
the dialects are very variable; besides rush, we find also rash, resh,
and risk, and the Southern forms rax and rex. There is no possi-
bility of extracting rash, resh, and risk out of a single form such as
ruscum. The very variableness of the forms suggests a Teutonic
gradation, such as we find in the AS. brecan, to break, with its pt. t.
brec, pp. brocen, and the derivative which appears in ME. as brukel
and brokel. I would propose to connect it with the adjective rash,
and to explain it as ‘the plant which quickly springs up and is of
slender growth.’ For it is very remarkable that this adjective
likewise shows similar changes of form. The Ger. rasch appears in
OHG. not only as rasc, but varies in MHG. to resch and risch, and
even to rosch. The oldest form of ‘rush’ in AS. is actually rise (as
in OE. Texts) ; and this I would set beside the E. Friesic adj. risk,
which Koolman explains by ‘ risch, aufrecht, gerade, schlank, frisch,’
i.e. quick, upright, straight, slender, fresh ; the very qualities of the
common rush. Cf. Hannover risch,a rush, Liibben actually gives
the Low G. rusch, explained by ‘ rasch, schnell;’ also rusch, a rush.
RUSTLE. Probably a native word; cf. OMercian ruxlende (or
riixlende), ‘ making a noise ;’ Matt. ix. 23 (Rushworth gloss). For
*hruxlende ; allied to AS. kryscan (or hryscan), to roar; see under
Rush (1). Cf. AS. gehruxl (or gehrixl), a tumult (Bosworth) ;
also Goth. hrukjan, to crow; Gk. κραυγή, clamor. See L. cornix in
Walde. See the long note by Max Forster on AS. gehriixl, tumult;
in Englische Studien, xxxix. 344.
SASH (2). But according to the N.E.D., the word is not of
Persian, but of Arabic origin; viz. from Arab. shash, muslin, turban-
sash (Dozy). Gesenius gives Heb. shesh, fine linen (Gen. xli. 42);
which he supposes to be of Egyptian origin.
SCURF. The corresponding native E. word appears in ME.
shorf, occurring as a gloss to AF. royne, F, rogne; Femina, ed.
W. Aldis Wright, 50. 5.
SHARK. A good example of the North F. cherguier or cherquer
occurs in the future tense chergueray, in the Vows of the Heron, pr.
in Political Poems, ed. Wright, i. 16.
SKILLET (1), a small pot. (Scand.; with F. suffix.) The
derivation of this word, as given at p. 566, is probably wrong,
though it has been frequently given. Prof. Weekley points out that
it was rightly explained by the editor of the Catholicon Anglicum
(dated 1483). At p. 341 of that work we find :—‘ Skele, [ἢ }emica-
dium ; and the note says that skele is the same as the prov. E. skeel,
a milk-pail, a dairy-vessel (see E.D.D.). ‘ From this word we have
the dimin. skillet, a little pot or pan, also still in use.’ At p. 240
of the Catholicon we find:—‘ A milke-skele, mulgarium, multrale,
multrarium.’ The mod. E. ee (ME. δ) answers to AS. éo and Icel.
j@; hence the derivation is from Icel. skjola, a pail, bucket, of which
Vigfusson notes that it is the same as ‘the North E. and Scot. skeel or
skeil, a milk-pan.’ Skillet (also skellet) is a diminutive; the F.
dimin. suffix -et may easily have been suggested (as Prof. Weekley
says) by association with the word posnet, also a dialectal word with
the sense of ‘iron pot’ or ‘saucepan.’ The Icel. skjala appears in
the Swed. dialects as skjula and skyla (Rietz). The form of the root
is SKEU; so that skeel cannot be in any way allied to scale and
shell.
SKILLET (2), SKELLAT, a little bell, a hand-bell, an iron
rattle. (F.—Teut.) See E.D.D. and Jamieson. = OF. esquilette (cited
by Prof. Weekley), variant of eschelette, ‘a little hand-bell, such as
cryers use,’ Cotgrave. Dimin. of OF. esquille, esquelle, eschele, a bell
(Godefroy). Of Teut. origin; from OHG. scella, MHG. schelle,
a bell, which is from the strong verb scellan, skellan, to resound; cf.
MDnu. schelle, ‘a small bell’ (Hexham), schellen, toring a bell; Icel.
skella, a rattle to scare horses, skella, to clash; allied to the Icel.
strong verb skjalla, AS. scellan, to resound, clash. All from Teut.
SKEL, to resound.
SQUASH. It is satisfactory to find that the AF. esguasser
had the sense of crush or squash, and suffices to account for the
modern form. In ‘ The Assault of Massoura,’ 1. 128, we read how
the Saracens attacked some English knights, ‘et des marteaux
pesaunz les noz esquasserent,’ i.e. and beat our men down with heavy
hammers. See the Excerpta Historica, p. 73.
SQUIRT. The quotation from de Bibbesworth, viz. bilaggid
wit swirting, means, literally, dirtied with splashing. In the No-
SUPPLEMENT
minale, 1. 408, the corresponding passage has besquireid, a scribal
error for besquirted ; for there is also a corresponding passage in
Femina, ed. W. Aldis Wright, 78. 13, which reads αἱ by-squyrt, and
(four lines below) he hath many of squyrtis, i.e. of splashes.
*STALEMATE, a position (in chess) in which a player, whose
king is not in check, is unable to move any piece. (F.—OHG.)
First explained by me in Phil. Soc. Trans., 1906. ‘They stand at
a stay; like a stale at Chesse, where it is no mate, but yet the game
cannot stirre ;” Bacon, Essay 12. ‘For under cure I gat sik chek
Quhilk I micht nocht remuif nor nek [prevent] Bot [without] eythir
stail or mait ;’ Montgomery, Cherrie and the Slae, 216 (1597). Cf.
ME. sal, a fixed position; Layamon’s Brut, 1. 1671. From OF.
estal, a fixed position, as in prendre estal, to take up a fixed position
against attack; cf. en estal, ἃ estal, in the same place, in a firn
position, estre ἃ estal, to stand firm. See Chanson de Roland, 1108.
2139.—OHG. stal, a stall, fixed place; cognate with E. stall; see
Stall and Mate (2).
*STANTEL, a kestrel, a kind of hawk. (E.) It occurs in Lady
Alimony, sign. B 1 (Nares) ; and has been proposed as a reading in
Twelfth Night, ii. 5.124. Prov. E. stannel, stanyel, stanchel, stone-
gall (E.D.D.). Corruptly, stand-gale, from its hovering in the wind;
for which reason it is also called wind-hover. AS. stan-gella, lit.
‘yeller from the rock.’ It frequents rocks, and has a resonant voice.
See Stone and Yell.
STRAND (2), part of a rope. Add, that the spelling strand
also occurs in Hakluyt, Voyages, iii. 847.
SULLEN. Prof. Weekley regards sullen asa doublet of solemn ;
for reasons which do not convince me. I can find no connexion of
form between the ME. solein, soulein, solitary (as in ‘ In sovilein place,
be miselve,’ Gower, C. A., vi. 135) and the ME. solémpne, sollémpne
(as in ‘ With a sollémpne sacrifise’ in the same, vii. 4703). Nor do
1 regard the OF. solemne, solenne, ‘solemn,’ as a ‘learned’ form ; cf.
Ital. solenne, solemn, which could not have a doublet of the form
solano, More light is, no doubt, desired; but I adhere (for the
present) to a connexion between sul/en and the L. sdlus, ‘sole.’ For
examples of AF. soulein, solein, soulain (four times), meaning ‘ alone,’
and soule, ‘alone,’ see Gower’s French Works, ed. Macaulay.
π' T, ἃ stain; to stain, infect. (F.—L.) The various senses
are best understood by observing the note upon A ¢faint in the N.E.D.,
in place of which ¢aint was frequently used. ‘A/taint, pp., ME.
ateynt, ataynt, adapted from OF. ateint, ataint, pp. of OF. ateindre,
to attain; formed like teindre, pp. teint, joindre, pp. joint, and not
from L. attactus. Hence, erroneously Latinised in med. L. as
attinctus, and referred (in England at least) to L. tinctus, ‘ dyed,
stained,” an etymological fancy which warped the meaning of the
word and its derivatives.” We may say that ¢aint may almost always
be ultimately referred to this Late L. aftinctus, and is therefore from
the verb to attain, i.e. from L. attingere, compounded of ad and tan-
gere. But we cannot leave L. tinctus out of the account, because there
is no instance in which the original verb aéfain has the sense ‘to
infect.’ See the note on Attaint (p. 777).
TARN. Properly a ‘separate’ pool, without inlet or outlet.
Cf. W. darn, a fragment, piece torn off, from the 4/DER, to tear.
*TARRIER, TERRIBR, a kind of auger, (F.—C.) Halli-
well gives ‘ Terrier, an auger.’ In London, a farrier (in the oil
trade) is a kind of triple auger, resembling three tapering corkscrews
united at the tops and arranged so that each is at an angle of 120
degrees from the other; used for extracting shives (or wooden bungs)
from barrels of turpentine. MF. fariere, ‘an augar ;’ Cot.; /erriere,
“a terrier, or augar;’ id. Cf. OF. taredre, later tarere ; tarere is in
the Supplement to Godefroy ; ¢aredre is in ‘ Les Gloses Frangaises
de Gerschom de Metz,’ par L. Brandin, Paris, 1902; no. Io1, at
p- 70. From Low L. taratrum (Ducange). = Olrish tarathar, ‘ tere-
bra,’ Windisch ; cf. W. ¢aradr, an augur. A genuine Celtic word,
cognate with L. terebra, Gk. τέρετρον, a borer, from L. terere, to
bore, Gk. τείρειν, to mb away.
TESTAMENT. The L. ¢estis, a witness, has lost an r, and
stands for */restis ; as shown by the Oscan ¢ristaamentud, ‘testamento.’
Allied to *ristos, parallel to Olrish tress, " third,’ ordinal of tri, three.
The orig. sense was therefore ‘third man’ or ‘odd man;’ see Um-
pire. (So Brugmann, Walde).
TOMAHAWK. ‘From Renfpe of Virginia tdmahax, an apo-
copated form of tamahakan, (what is) used for cutting, a cutting
utensil ; from /dmdhakeu, he uses for cutting, from tamaham, he cuts.
A name applied by the Renape Indians, among whom the English
settled in 1607, to a stone ax or hatchet employed as a weapon and
as an implement for chopping wood.’—W. R. Gerard, in The
American Anthropologist, Vol. 10, no. 2; 1908.
WORSTED. Mentioned as early as 1293. In the Camden
Miscellany, vol. ii. p. 13, we find ‘Pro xj. ulnis de wrstede,’ under
the date Friday, May 1, 1293.
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